Politico: “Former President Donald Trump ripped into Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell before a Republican National Committee donor retreat Saturday evening, deriding him as a ‘dumb son of a bitch.’ Trump veered off his prepared during a roughly 50-minute speech before several hundred well-heeled GOP donors at his Mar-a-Lago resort in South Florida, saying that he was ‘disappointed’ in former Vice President Mike Pence, calling last year’s presidential election election a ‘fraud’ and mocking Dr. Anthony Fauci. The former president spent several minutes tearing into McConnell, saying that he didn’t do enough to defend him during the February impeachment trial. At one point, three people familiar with the remarks said, Trump called the Senate GOP leader a ‘dumb son of a bitch.’ Trump also went after McConnell’s wife, former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, for resigning her cabinet post after the Jan. 6 insurrection.”

“A spokesperson for McConnell, the Kentucky Republican who was just reelected to a seventh six-year term last year, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The latest verbal broadside against McConnell, the most powerful Republican still in elected office, comes as Trump reemerges as a dominant force in GOP politics. The former president has, in recent days, sought to rev up his small-dollar fundraising apparatus, and he is issuing a steady stream of endorsements for the 2022 midterm elections, in addition to battles over state party chairmanships. Though many of Trump’s 2022 endorsements align with McConnell’s preferences, including backing a number of incumbent GOP senators for reelection, he has occasionally gotten crosswise with the Senate leader. Trump has pledged to oppose GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski in next year’s Alaska elections after Murkowski voted for his conviction in the Senate trial, though McConnell and his top allies say they will support Murkowski’s reelection. It isn’t the first time Trump has gone after McConnell since leaving office. In February, Trump released an extensive statement bashing McConnell for being ‘a dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack.’ The statement came just days after McConnell took to the Senate floor to flay Trump for his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.”

https://youtu.be/Olm8hYA0Vfk

Likely after downing a full box of wine, Jeanine Pirro lists questions no one on Fox News will ask to Matt Gaetz.

A 53-year-old Florida woman who intentionally coughed on a woman at a Duval County Pier 1 Imports store last June to show that the coronavirus wasn’t a threat she took seriously will spend 30 days in jail for second degree assault, the Washington Post reports.

Debra Hunter will also have to complete six months probation and an anger management course as part of her sentence for coughing on the victim, Heather Sprague, a woman who was undergoing treatment following the removal of a brain tumor.

At the Pier 1 store, Hunter was having a heated exchange that Sprague was recording on her phone.  “Do you really need this? What do you want to do, post it for you?” Hunter yelled at Sprague before flipping the “double bird” to her.

“I think I’ll get real close to you and cough on you. How about that?” Hunter yelled before walking up to Sprague and coughing in her face.

https://youtu.be/3Dhbr_02CJY

An Army lieutenant who was pulled over by two Windsor (Virginia) police officers, pepper sprayed, held at gunpoint and threatened with execution is suing the officers for violations of his civil rights, the New York Times reports. 

I may be a canceled man in some corners. I may even be a wanted man by the Deep State.

But I hear the millions of Americans who feel forgotten, canceled, ignored, marginalized and targeted.

I draw confidence knowing that the silent majority is growing louder every day.

— Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) April 10, 2021

In a sign of his growing desperation, nationally known raging douchebag and child sex trafficking suspect Matt Gaetz is going all out in his appeal to the MAGA base.  This tweet has all the elements of agitative propaganda used by the GOP to draw in the faithful.  You have the use of the currently popular “canceled” buzzword, the “Deep State” reference, and an appeal to the working class, as if somehow Matt Gaetz was actually capable of concern for anyone besides himself.  This message is a perfect example of how propagandists use “bait and switch” style messaging: throw out a couple of buzzwords to get the attention of the base, then portray yourself as the hero who is under attack by a vicious and relentless enemy. That’s followed by a vague promise that if the socially and economically frustrated just stick by their MAGA leaders, that they will be delivered to a new station in life where they will have overwhelming strength, and be able to vanquish the liberal enemy. The country will be rid of all those extra Amendments that no conservative really cares about and all those environmental regulations, so that a white man with no more than a high-school education will be able to make $70,000 a year without ever having to learn new skills; all of your doctors will be white and won’t have accents; and you’ll be able to afford that brand new 4 wheel drive, crew-cab pickup truck with tractor-trailer style exhausts that you’ve always wanted.  Of course, this is all garbage.  The GOP has no intention of ever doing anything for the working class, and is just using them because they’re poorly educated and extremely gullible, but good luck convincing the average Breitbart or Gateway Pundit reader of that fact.

Nearly 40% of the members of the US Marines Corps have refused to take one of the available versions of the coronavirus vaccine, a phenomenon occurring with people who have questioned the validity of the effectiveness of the vaccine–or even whether the coronavirus is a public health threat.

According to CNN, 78,000 Marines who have been offered the vaccine have gotten at least one dose of a vaccine, accounting for 61.1% of the military branch.  Another 40,000 Marines have refused to take the vaccine.  More than 100,000 Marines–including those in the reserve and Individual Mobilization Augmentee Marines–have not been offered the vaccine through the service as of yet.

At Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, one of the largest Marine bases in the country, 57.7% of eligible Marines have refused to take the vaccine. 

Search crews found the wreckage of USS Johnson, a World War II destroyer that was sunk during the Battle of Leyte Gulf with 186 sailors on board, in water deeper than the area where the Titanic was found, making it the deepest wreckage ever identified.

The Johnson was one of seven ships lost in the battle, in which 200,000 sailors from the US, Australian and Japanese forces fought.  The Japanese lost 22 ships, including a fleet carrier and 12,500 sailors, verus allied losses of 3,000 men.

The Johnson became dead in the water and then became the target of three Japanese destroyers who fired on the ship until it sank.  The Johnson’s commander, Ernest Evans, is reportedly the first Native American in the US Navy to have received the Medal of Honor.

The wreckage will be catalogued and charted, but it will be left undisturbed because naval wreckage are considered sacred, similar to military cemeteries.

Maryland’s legislature overrode vetoes by Republican Governor Larry Hogan to enact three police accountability laws, including one that repealed the state’s Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights, a series of regulations that protect police officers from the enforcement of many laws that would apply to them if they weren’t carrying a badge.

As the Washington Post reports, the Democratic majorities in the state legislature and senate passed legislation that would have civilian input into the discipline of police officers, who were typically only under the supervision of superiors within the law enforcement community.

The legislation passed also repealed provisions that allowed police a five-day waiting period before speaking to investigators following up on complaints and the purging of complaints against officers after a specified period of time. 

Axios: “During this weekend’s highly anticipated donor retreat hosted by the Republican National Committee in Palm Beach, Ohio Senate candidate Josh Mandel was escorted off the premises while his primary opponent, Jane Timken, was allowed to stay, two sources with direct knowledge of the situation tell Axios. The invitation-only event is taking place at the Four Seasons Resort, and the RNC reserved the entire hotel. While Timken, former Ohio GOP chair, was invited to the event ‘because she is a major donor’ – Mandel was not, so he was asked to leave, according to one of the sources. Despite not having his name on the list, Mandel seized on the opportunity to get some face time with top Republican donors while they all were in one place, one source familiar with his plans told Axios. But when the first event formally kicked off at the hotel Friday night, Mandel and others who did not have credentials were asked to leave.”

“A spokesperson for the RNC declined to comment. Mandel’s team did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Between the lines: Those attending the retreat not only have access to big donors, but also key party players, including former President Trump. Saturday evening, the group will travel to Mar-a-Lago, where Trump is expected to delver remarks and mingle with attendees. The incident gives Timken more visibility and access to Trump, which is crucial as he continues to be the party’s rainmaker and most influential player. It also underscores how Trump’s efforts to continue leading the GOP have made all interactions with donors high-stakes. Trump previously showed interest in endorsing Timken, but was ultimately talked out of it by his son, Donald Trump Jr., and other top advisers. Mandel and Timken have long been extremely pro-Trump and both are vying to get the former president’s endorsement – which could be the deciding factor in who wins the race to replace Sen. Rob Portman, who recently announced he will not run for reelection.”

Republican Texas Congressman Dan Crenshaw will be “effectively blind” for a month after emergency surgery to reattach the retina in his eye, NBC News reports.

Crenshaw lost his right eye in 2012 IED attack while serving as a Navy SEAL in Afghanistan.  Crenshaw got an examination from a ophthalmologist, apparently not Rand Paul, when he began to have “dark, blurry spots” in his field of vision.  The ophthalmologist diagnosed with a detaching retina and repaired it through surgery.

“This is a terrifying prognosis for someone with one eye,” he wrote. “The prognosis I received on Thursday is obviously very bad.”

“The surgery went well, but I will be effectively blind for about a month,” Crenshaw wrote.  “This is why you’re not going to hear from me for a while. I likely will not be conducting interviews and likely will not be posting on social media, except to give updates on my health and recovery.”

After an automated early termination during a pre-flight test of its rotor system, the NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter on Mars will delay its first flight until at least Wednesday, according to a report on Space.com.

During Friday’s system test, the helicopter was checking systems to ensure a safe initial flight.  It sped its rotors to near flight speeds and when it was switching its onboard computer from “pre-flight” to “flight” mode, a fail-safe “watchdog” system shut down the system.

“The watchdog timer oversees the command sequence and alerts the system to any potential issues,” NASA officials wrote in the statement. “It helps the system stay safe by not proceeding if an issue is observed and worked as planned.”

This new court-packing commission is not some serious pivot away from Democrats’ political attacks on the Court. It’s just an attempt to clothe those attacks in fake legitimacy.

My full statement: pic.twitter.com/qX639r68M3

— Leader McConnell (@LeaderMcConnell) April 9, 2021

In a ridiculous display of conservative petulance and gas-lighting, Mitch McConnell tweeted that “This new court-packing commission is not some serious pivot away from Democrats’ political attacks on the Court. It’s just an attempt to clothe those attacks in fake legitimacy.” McConnell said Friday. McConnell goes on to insist that Democrats have no respect for “Judicial Independence”, conveniently ignoring the fact that every single judge he appointed while the former guy was in office was vetted by the Federalist Society, an organization that, much like the NRA, has gone from being a bunch of nominally rational far-right extremists with a penchant for dirty tricks and pearl-clutching to a cluster of full on right-wing nut-job mental patients. Read more here.

Biden can’t just put the Constitution through a cross-cut shredder, but by packing the court he can essentially ensure the same outcome.

We will lose our republic if this is allowed to happen.

— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) April 10, 2021

“Djibouti’s President Ismail Omar Guelleh won a fifth five-year term on Saturday after an election boycotted by most of the opposition, securing over 97% of the votes cast, official data from the Interior Ministry on Saturday showed. Friday’s vote pitted only one challenger against the incumbent – relative newcomer Zakaria Ismail Farah. The Interior Ministry data showed that he came second with 2.48% of the 177,391 votes cast. Some 5,447 ballots were declared invalid.”

“Farah said the results were ‘far from reality’. ‘This outcome is undoubtedly the result of ballot-box stuffing, (which) occurred in the absence of my delegates,’ he told Reuters, adding they were barred from accessing polling stations to monitor the process. Alexis Mohamed, the president’s chief advisor, denied the allegations of fraud and said Farah had abstained from casting his vote. ‘Allegations of ballot-box stuffing are absolutely false, the gentleman who raises them didn’t even vote and in doing so attacked our democracy,’ Mohamed told Reuters over the phone. Farah did not respond to a request for comment on whether he voted” – Reuters.

In what can only be described as corporate America throwing down the gauntlet to state fair food carnies everywhere and shouting “bring it bitches!”, White Castle is celebrating the legalization of marijuana all across the country with the announcement of their new birthday cake on a stick. The new item, sure to be a delight for those who are still sober enough at 3am to remember it was their birthday when they packed the first bowl six or seven hours ago is an addition to White Castle’s current “dessert on a stick menu” including items like fudge dipped cheesecake on a stick, fudge dipped brownie on a stick and gooey buttercake on a stick.

Brand Eating reports “The new dessert features vanilla cake with white frosting on a stick, topped with blue, white, and orange sprinkles. it joins a line-up of “On-A-Stick” desserts that include Fudge Dipped Cheesecake On-A-Stick, Fudge Dipped Brownie On-A-Stick, and Gooey Buttercake On-A-Stick.” White Castle will also be offering a “raging munchies discount” of 10 Original White Castle Sliders for only $5.99 ($6.99 in NY, NJ, and Chicago). There’s no word yet on whether White Castle will decide to challenge other food vendors by introducing items like a 1/2 lb bacon wrapped double cheeseburgers on a stick, or a buttermilk crispy chicken sandwich on a stick.

“Britney Spears has left fans confused after sharing a throwback photo in which she is seen partying with her ex-boyfriend Justin Timberlake, sister Jamie-Lynn and actor Natalie Portman” reads the lede to a 398 word article in the Independent, a British newspaper often clipped here on National Zero for its solid coverage of American political and national news.

“In the image, taken at an album launch in 2001, Spears can be seen laughing alongside Timberlake and Portman, who appear to be sharing a joke with the young Jamie-Lynn. Spears’s sister would have been around nine or 10 years old at the time. Spears published the image to her Instagram, while dedicating it to her little sister, who turned 30 on 4 April” which again is somehow considered newsworthy by the editorial staff of the Independent for some reason.

“‘Happy belated birthday to this beautiful soul,’ Spears wrote in a caption. ‘I love you so much and damn it I wish I was as smart as you at 30!!!! It’s weird to say that I was basically your momma when you were younger and yes I’m still older but your soul is and always has been wise!!!!'” continues the article, its reason for being as elusive as a solution to the Navier–Stokes existence and smoothness problem to model transitions from laminar to turbulent flow in fluid dynamics – a mystery which has vexed generations of physicists and mathematicians.

National Zero’s next article on Saturday is a report on a piece of frosted birthday cake on a popsicle stick being added to White Castle’s menu, written by our own Contentious Otter.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has announced a new initiative to weed extremists out of the United States Military. The new initiative includes a review of Department of Defense guidelines to update guidance regarding “prohibited extremist activity” among uniform military personnel. New recruits to the military will face enhanced screening to address the problem of extremist groups trying to get their members into the military so they can receive weapons and tactical training. The memo also mentions expansion of “Insider Threat” monitoring, to identify individuals sympathetic to MAGA terrorist ideology.

There will also be the creation of a “Countering Extremism Working Group” which will spearhead an effort to expand the military’s off-boarding efforts, to try to educate former soldiers about how criminal and extremist organizations may try to recruit them. For decades now veterans have been viewed as high-value recruits by extremist and criminal organizations such as the Oathkeepers, outlaw motorcycle gangs, and the Republican Party. The working group will also be charged with creating an “extremism study”, to map the threat landscape of extremist organizations as they relate to veterans.

AP: “From a secure room in the Capitol on Jan. 6, as rioters pummeled police and vandalized the building, Vice President Mike Pence tried to assert control. In an urgent phone call to the acting defense secretary, he issued a startling demand. ‘Clear the Capitol,’ Pence said. Elsewhere in the building, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi were making a similarly dire appeal to military leaders, asking the Army to deploy the National Guard. ‘We need help,’ Schumer, D-N.Y., said in desperation, more than an hour after the Senate chamber had been breached. At the Pentagon, officials were discussing media reports that the mayhem was not confined to Washington and that other state capitals were facing similar violence in what had the makings of a national insurrection.”

“‘We must establish order,’ said Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a call with Pentagon leaders. But order would not be restored for hours. These new details about the deadly riot are contained in a previously undisclosed document prepared by the Pentagon for internal use that was obtained by The Associated Press and vetted by current and former government officials. The timeline adds another layer of understanding about the state of fear and panic while the insurrection played out, and lays bare the inaction by then-President Donald Trump and how that void contributed to a slowed response by the military and law enforcement. It shows that the intelligence missteps, tactical errors and bureaucratic delays were eclipsed by the government’s failure to comprehend the scale and intensity of a violent uprising by its own citizens. With Trump not engaged, it fell to Pentagon officials, a handful of senior White House aides, the leaders of Congress and the vice president holed up in a secure bunker to manage the chaos.”

Pic of Jovian atmosphere by the NASA Juno orbiter via Konstructivizm on Twitter.

Harry Enten, CNN: “One of the biggest obstacles in America’s race to vaccinate against the coronavirus has been that substantial proportions of certain groups choose not to vaccinate. The polling has suggested all along that Republicans would be less likely to get vaccinations than Democrats – and this is now being seen in the real world. Blue states are starting to outpace red states when it comes to vaccinations, and the instances where that isn’t the case are often explained by other expected demographic patterns. There are a few different ways to look at vaccination rates by state, but they are showing the same picture as of Thursday. Let’s first look at the percentage of those 18 and older with at least one vaccine dose. The top 10 states on this metric are New Hampshire, New Mexico, South Dakota, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Maine, Vermont, Alaska, and Minnesota and Rhode Island tied. Nearly all of these are states won by President Joe Biden last November, with Alaska and South Dakota as the exceptions.”

“Now look at the bottom 10 states on this metric: Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, Louisiana, Indiana, Wyoming, Missouri, Arkansas and Idaho. Former President Donald Trump won all of these states last year, except for Georgia. Right now, 46% of those 18 and older in the average state Biden won have had at least one dose of the vaccine. That drops to 41% in the average state Trump won. You could also look at the number of vaccines each state has administered for every 100,000 people 18 and older by the amount they have received for every 100,000 people 18 years and older. The story is pretty much the same. Nine of the top 10 states on this metric are states Biden won last year. Eight of the bottom 10 states for vaccination are ones Trump won in 2020.”