Because Christmas Eve is all about him.

I saved at least 8 Republican Senators, including Mitch, from losing in the last Rigged (for President) Election. Now they (almost all) sit back and watch me fight against a crooked and vicious foe, the Radical Left Democrats. I will NEVER FORGET!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 24, 2020

David Frum, The Atlantic: “The effort to exonerate Russia for helping Trump in 2016 will continue, and possibly accelerate with Trump out of office. With Trump and the pro-Trump media, it’s never enough to prove the truth once. The truth needs to be as persistent as the lie. Even now, Trump defenders continue to describe the proven fact of Russian assistance as a ‘hoax,’ and the guilty pleas of Trump associates as them being ‘framed.’ The imperative to defend reality against Trumpism will not cease with the Trump presidency. And so it will be with all the other mythological elements of the Trump dreamworld. They will continue to propagate in ways that poison the American mindscape. The massive corruption of the Trump family will be obscured by false accusations against everybody else – a job of obfuscation that Trump allies may find easier once the Trump family is no longer subject to any kind of official disclosure requirements.”

“Trump attempted to pervert the 2020 election by sabotaging mail-in voting – so essential amid a pandemic. When that failed, Trump tried to overturn the outcome of the election in courts he had staffed for that very purpose. When the courts balked, Trump demanded that Republican state legislators discard the wishes of their voters. When the legislators refused, he turned to plots for a military coup to seize voting records. The pardons are the next phase – and one more reminder that simply turning the page on Trumpism will not be possible. The challenge to democratic values and institutions from Trump and his supporters is a page that will not turn. It will have to be read and reread in detail until it is fully understood, so as to be fully defeated.”

The US District Court for the Southern District of Wisconsin ruled against the Trump Campaign in a lawsuit it brought against the Wisconsin Election Commission, declaring that the state corrected appointed its members to the Electoral College, abiding by state law.

The three-judge panel from the federal court upheld earlier decisions by a district court judge, ruling not only that Trump’s case lacked merit, but it was also filed too late.

“The district court concluded that the President’s challenges lacked merit, as he objected only to the administration of the election, yet the Electors Clause, by its terms, addresses the authority of the State’s Legislature to prescribe the manner of appointing its presidential electors,” the ruling states.  “So, too, did the district court conclude that the President’s claims would fail even under a broader, alternative reading of the Electors Clause that extended to a state’s conduct of the presidential election.”

“BREAKING: Another GOP election suit fails as Fulton County judge dismisses GA GOP/RNC suit seeking new guidance on dropboxes and pollwatchers for Jan. 5 Senate runoffs. Judge Kimberly Esmond Adams: ‘This court does not have jurisdiction to hear it because of sovereign immunity.’… BURN: Top election lawyer for state of Georgia just mocked RNC and Georgia GOP for having out-of-state counsel for state-court challenge to GA dropboxes & pollwatcher rules. Russ Willard Sr Asst AG: ‘I understand she’s from Florida and she has a little unfamiliarity with the law’.” — Josh Gerstein of Politico

Thursday marks half a year since National Zero first opened up for business as a seedy truck stop on the information superhighway, with that shittier original logo above. It’s been a hell of a ride since then and Jack and I would like to thank our readers for sticking with us through it all, laughs and outrages alike. Here are the factoids and figures:

7,463 articles published, averaging 40.77 per day
1,962,311 pageviews
424,611 comments
1,456,948 upvotes
59 banned Disqus users
3 articles about Pumpkin Spice

Next year is going to be big for us – Late January is my target for the opening of our official merchandise shop. It’ll be mostly logo gear, though I am considering supplements, online course packages, and possibly even a ball gag. Looking forward to it all with you guys and we cannot thank you enough for your support.

One week after attending a number of holiday gatherings at the White House and the State Department where people were largely unmasked and failed to follow social distancing guidelines, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s wife announced that she had tested positive for the coronavirus before December 16th, Bloomberg News reports.

Bloomberg reports that Susan Pompeo tested positive prior to Secretary Pompeo announcing that he was going to isolate after coming in contact with an unspecified person who had tested positive.

Susan Pompeo accompanied her husband to a White House holiday gathering last week.

The lawsuit Republican California Congressman Devin Nunes filed against the Washington Post regarding a report that Nunes had told the White House about a statement made in closed committee hearings about the Russian election interference investigation relating to now-outgoing president Donald Trump has been dismissed by the DC Federal District Court.

The Court cited as justification for dismissing the suit Nunes’s failure to notify one of the parties he attempted to sue, Post writer Shane Harris, and Nunes’s lawyers inability to cite what action taken by the Post or Harris amounted to a defamation or conspiracy.

“In moving to dismiss, the Post argued that the Complaint failed to sufficiently allege a false and defamatory statement and actual malice, and that the civil conspiracy claim failed for the same reasons,” the ruling states.

“In a strange, innuendo-filled rant published Monday, the administrator of the far-right social networking platform Voat called it quits, spreading shockwaves across far-right image boards and social networks. Adding to President Trump’s failure to secure an election victory or overturn his stinging defeat, the loss of Voat spells another setback for QAnon, the pro-Trump conspiracy theory movement whose supporters found a home in the soon-to-be defunct web forum. This isn’t the first time Voat has neared the precipice of annihilation, but it may be the last. A site that aspired to become the Reddit of the far right at its founding in 2014, Voat immediately gained notoriety as a hub for racists and ableists after the banning of racist and fatphobic subreddits. Priding itself on a lack of moderation, Voat faced a shutdown the following year by its German web host for providing a platform for illegal right-wing extremism.”

“Like other ‘dark web’ sites peopled by white supremacists, Voat users also traded in images that sexualize children, leading PayPal to halt services later in 2015. While the site circumvented the bans by accepting Bitcoin and venture capital, in 2017, the admins announced an imminent collapse. Yet according to its admin, Justin Chastain, an ‘Angel’ donor stepped in to keep the network afloat. That ‘Angel’ has abandoned the project. ‘The short of it is that the ‘Angel’ defaulted on the contract in March 2020,’ Chastain announced. ‘This is when Voat lost all of it’s funding. I personally decided to keep Voat up until after the U.S. election of 2020. I’ve been paying the costs out of pocket but now I’m out of money'” – Daily Beast.

Washington Post: “House Republicans are in a fury with President Trump, now that he is threatening to blow up the carefully negotiated settlement that led to passage of the $900 billion economic rescue package. They are raging that he abandoned them after the White House asked them to support the deal. Oh, dear. Specifically, let it not be forgotten that more than 125 of the very same House Republicans now raging at Trump for betrayal just got through betraying our country on his behalf, by joining a lawsuit designed to further his aim of subverting millions of votes in four states to keep him in power illegitimately.”

“Trump’s demand for $2,000 stimulus checks, rather than the $600 ones in the current deal, is imperiling the prospects for getting help to Americans in time, even as new signs are emerging that economic misery is worsening. It’s not clear whether Trump will veto the bill, but the delay could kick it into the next Congress and makes a government shutdown more likely. This is spreading panic among Republicans and has put them on the defensive in the Georgia runoffs, where Senate control will be decided. ‘Frustration’ with Trump ‘boiled over’ on a conference call among House Republicans, the New York Times reports. On the call, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy acknowledged that the deal is now ‘tainted.'”

USA Today: “President Donald Trump leaves the White House next month with the country more sharply divided than when he moved in and amid caustic assessments of his record in office, a new USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll finds. Fifty percent of Americans now predict history will judge him as a ‘failed’ president. The survey, taken in the waning weeks of his administration, shows the risks of actions he is contemplating on his way out the door.”

“Americans overwhelmingly say issuing a preemptive pardon for himself would be an abuse of presidential power, and an even bigger majority, including most Republicans, say he should attend President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration to demonstrate the peaceful transfer of power. Asked how history would judge Trump’s presidency, 16% predict he will be seen as a great president, 13% as a good president, 16% as a fair president, and 50% as a failed president. 5% are undecided.”

BIDEN LOST. BIDEN LOST. BIDEN LOST. BIDEN LOST. BIDEN LOST. BIDEN LOST. BIDEN LOST.

— Greg Kelly (@gregkellyusa) December 24, 2020

Slate: “Control of the Senate hinges on two Jan. 5 runoff elections in Georgia. Democrats are doing well there in early voting, so Republicans need a big win among Georgians who cast their ballots on voting day. That shouldn’t be a problem for the GOP, because the party that loses a presidential election tends to do well in elections immediately afterward. One reason is that some voters in the middle prefer to limit the power of the incoming president by electing politicians from the opposition. Polls in Georgia fit this pattern: Up to now, they’ve shown that slight pluralities are inclined to reelect the two Republican senators, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, to ‘check’ Joe Biden. All Trump had to do was get out of the way. He could have conceded on Nov. 7, when the media called the election, or in the days and weeks afterward, as states certified their results. If he had conceded on Dec. 14, when the Electoral College confirmed Biden’s victory, that would have given the GOP three weeks to acknowledge defeat, mourn the loss, and rally voters against Biden.”

“Instead, Trump made himself a bigger threat. He met with martial-law proponents at the White House, demanded that the election be overturned, and approved a plan to challenge the results in Congress in early January. The timing couldn’t be worse. As Georgians prepare to vote, many of them won’t be thinking about checking Biden. They’ll be thinking about checking Trump.”

Hundreds of thousands of American families will spend their Christmas in fear as friends and family members have become infected with the coronavirus.  Thousands more will mourn the deaths of loved ones this holiday season.

The United States recorded more than 220,000 new confirmed cases of the coronavirus and an additional 3,379 fatalities on Wednesday according to the COVID Tracking Project.  The daily death toll is the third-highest since the pandemic began.

Worldometers reports California’s outbreak continues uncontrolled, with more than 44,000 new cases and 350 fatalities.  Texas and Pennsylvania had more than 200 fatalities; eight other states had more than 100 deaths.

Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy rejected out-of-hand supporting a call for unanimous consent by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to increase the amount of direct payments to Americans from $600 to $2,000, as lame duck president Donald Trump, a Republican, demanded Tuesday, Politico reports.

The delay in passing a coronavirus relief bill also means additional funds will not be available for distribution of coronavirus vaccines and other assistance to medical centers treating patients.  It also will stop federal unemployment supplements and aid to small businesses.

In a “Dear Colleague” letter written by Pelosi and circulated to members of the House, the Speaker puts the ball squarely in McCarthy’s court:  “Just when you think you have seen it all, last night, the President said that he would possibly veto the bicameral agreement negotiated between Republicans and Democrats.  If the President truly wants to join us in $2,000 payments, he should call upon [House Minority Leader Kevin] McCarthy to agree to our Unanimous Consent request.”

Fox won’t have me on either!

— Mike Lindell realMikeLindell Wednesday, December 23, 2020

Bloomberg: “Next year E. Jean Carroll hopes to sit where Special Counsel Robert Mueller never did: across a table from Donald Trump as he swears to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Her defamation suit against him is one of several legal cases Trump faces in 2021 as his time as president ends, along with the protections that came with the office. Carroll, who sued Trump last year after he said she was lying about being raped by him in a Manhattan department store dressing room two decades ago, said she wants to be ‘face to face’ with him when he gives his sworn deposition in the case. ‘He was in the dressing room, he was there,’ Carroll, a New York advice columnist, said in an interview. ‘He knows it happened.'”

“Trump famously declined to be interviewed by the Mueller team investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, with his lawyers fretting that his instinct to lie would lead him to fall into a ‘perjury trap.’ Such traps are likely to be a concern again, as several previously delayed lawsuits against Trump move forward. ‘All these suits fall into a category of cases that he was likely able to delay because he’s been president, and too busy,’ said former federal prosecutor Jennifer Rodgers, who isn’t involved in the cases. ‘All of that now comes to a screeching halt.’ Though much attention has been focused on possible criminal prosecution of Trump, either by the new administration’s Justice Department or Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance, charges are still uncertain. Several lawsuits are more advanced; Trump could face depositions in all of them next year. And the tough questions are likely to be posed by women, something which often appears to rattle or irritate Trump.”

The Trump Administration has been signing contractors to build the border fence on sections of land along the Mexico border that the government doesn’t own, a move that the contractors can charge the government $15,000 per day–or possibly $100,000–in construction delays, the Texas Tribune and ProPublica report.

Through November 24th, according to an affidavit by the land acquisition manager for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the government has paid out more than $1.5 million in fees to those contractors.

With less than a month remaining in his term, Trump has failed to make the necessary land purchases or seizures of privately-owned property along the border to build his fencing, and he will not be able to clear these hurdles in court.

Remember those bullshit spambots that were terrorizing the site earlier today? Well now they’re stuck and the stupid asshole who coded them is still unaware his plan to sell National Zero readers on generic Viagra or whatever the hell it is has failed.

All it took was a simple addition to the profanity filter. Sorry Baidu, but you commies won’t be getting any referral traffic from us here. And sorry to the poor sap who coded those spam bots. Looks like you’re working overtime in your irradiated Eastern European dungeon for Christmas.

The White House announced the schedule of activities for lame duck president Donald Trump, who took off for an extended vacation at Mar-a-Lago Wednesday afternoon.

The schedule, as stated by the White House, does not state the typical “The President has no public events scheduled.”

Instead, the statement reads:  “As the Holiday season approaches, President Trump will continue to work tirelessly for the American People. His schedule includes many meetings and calls.”

Bu… bu… but… I thought we were s’posed to call it “Christmas.”