We need to get Americans off the sidelines.

— House Republicans (@HouseGOP) May 13, 2025

Can’t be 100 percent certain that this tweet came after the first time a protestor interrupted Tuesday’s House Appropriations Committee markup for the “Big Beautiful Bill,” transferring wealth to the richest Americans and cutting Medicaid for the poor among other shit, but in any case whichever social media intern who wrote this had to know that dozens, maybe hundreds, were waiting in the hallway to get in before the hearing started, with 25 arrested over the course of the day.

With what prompted it plain enough given that timing, the source of the angst displayed here is pretty much unmistakable as well: They were pining for MAGA people to show up and cheer for Republicans at the hearing, shout down the Dems, probably the QAnon Shaman to throw his spear at the ranking member, Proud Boys to kick the shit out of the disabled people opposed to cuts to Medicare. You know, “Americans” were needed there and the GOP didn’t get the moral support they were hoping for from “Americans” who were content to remain on “the sidelines” of the big game.

Former Mauritania President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz challenged a trial court’s five year prison sentence against him for corruption, arguing it wasn’t appropriate for an ex-leader of the large West Saharan nation to end up behind bars, even if he did embezzle $70 million from public coffers and God knows what the hell else after two coups to remain in power. The AP reports the appellate court agreed and instead sentenced him to 15 years in the joint, plus a $3 million fine.

So yeah, that kind of backfired. You’d think a guy worth $70+ million would be able to afford better representation, ones who would at least tell him that he was rolling the dice and that the country’s appellate system has the discretion to un-reduce sentences too, so maybe just suck it up and do the five years before dying rich in exile somewhere with nicer beaches. Wonder what it was like in the courtroom, and if the judge said the sentence was overturned and then a “however…” lol.

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is too chickenshit to attend a face-to-face chat with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as the Netherlands-based exile outlet the Moscow Times reports that Putin will instead send some of his goons instead. Zelensky had challenged Putin to show up, saying it would be a demonstration that Moscow was negotiatiing in good faith. So here’s his answer.

Asked earlier on Wednesday what happens if Putin didn’t show up in Turkey, convicted felon President Trump told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins “I don’t know that he would be there if I’m not there,” like Donald is Putin’s emotional support animal. Makes sense since Trump lets Putin dogwalk him.

Remember that “Trump Watches” scam where fanboys could spend $640 to get an ultra-limited edition wristpiece, one of only 250? Rhode Island Trump fanboy Tim Petit tells WJAR a tale of the kind of quality control you’d expect from the convicted felon president’s brand: It’s missing the “T.”

“I thought it was really nice. It was beautiful, and I knew it would be something that” his wife Melanie (lol) would like, having bought the pink version of the orange man’s watch after hearing an ad with Donald on some bullshit AM talk radio station. “With the president’s voice… I was curious, so I went on the website,” he said. Petit opened up gettrumpwatches.com and promptly plunked down $640 for the “Pink Inauguration First Lady” model, which Melanie likes. Except for the missing “T.”

“I noticed it right away. The T is missing. It just says R-U-M-P,” she said. Now the Petits are questioning why a watch with such a glaring error was allowed to be shipped out, as if the fact that they were buying a fucking $640 Trump watch didn’t already make that self-evident. “How could they process this and go through something without checking their work?” Melanie said, answering her own goddamned question like every other idiot you see on that “LeopardsAteMyFace” subreddit.

“Very disappointed. I want it to be a special thing for her. And we had expected that it would have the integrity of the president of the United States,” Tim said, not realizing that it does in fact have ALL the integrity THIS president of the United States – and the respect he has for his fans.

Normally MAGA-friendly-ish shitty British tabloid the Daily Mail’s got some very unfortunate news for one of the Deplorable-est states in the country: Florida’s housing market is headed for a major crash, with the situation particularly bad in convicted felon President Trump’s adopted political homeland of South Florida as inventory of new housing units in Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties have quadrupled since 2022 as “panic selling is setting in” for homeowners.

Other regions of the country are seeing warning signs as well, but it’s a unique confluence of problems in Florida – high mortgage rates, HOA fees hiked up for new safety measures after the Surfside Condo collapse, insurance costs four times the national average due to hurricane threats, and stagflationary prices – that are fucking things up. “It’s kind of like this perfect storm now,” said some real estate hustler quoted in the piece. “People are being priced out, newcomers are drying up, and more homeowners are choosing to sell.” A report in Redfin finds that out of the top five areas where investor purchases have dropped the most, three are located in Florida.

Remember the part in The Big Short with the Sunshine State stripper who said she owned five houses plus a condo all thanks to subprime mortgages? That was funny. Very Florida, that scene.

Jay Bratt, the former top Justice Department national security division prosecutor who worked the case against convicted felon President Trump for having stolen classified documents from the White House and kept them in a bathroom among other places in his chintzy Florida mansion/whorehouse after defying a lawful subpoena for their return, pleaded the Fifth in a Wednesday deposition with spandex-wearing grapple-freak Jim Jordan’s House Judiciary Committee, CNN reports.

“This administration and its proxies have made no effort to hide their willingness to weaponize the government against those they perceive as political enemies” Bratt’s spokesman Peter Carr told CNN. “That should alarm every American who believes in the rule of law. In light of these undeniable, deeply troubling circumstances, Mr Bratt has no choice but to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights.”

Still not the greatest look but Bratt surely had his reasons when being peppered with what were no doubt the most insane fucking questions that only a terminally pilled, desiccated brain like Gym’s could spittle out. Then there’s also that pleading the Fifth was bad, then in 2022 it wasn’t, making it hard for the MAGA cult to make it bad again. Not like they won’t try. It’ll just look more stupid than it did had Trump not changed his tune on the constitutional amendment at his convenience.

“I once asked, ‘If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?’ Now I know the answer to that question. When your family, your company, and all the people in your orbit have become the targets of an unfounded, politically motivated Witch Hunt supported by lawyers, prosecutors, and the Fake News Media, you have no choice,” said the fat fuck after doing so no fewer than 440 times in an August 2022 deposition with New York State Attorney General Letitia James’s office.

“We write regarding the potential misuse of certain politically oriented fundraising ventures for fraudulent, corrupt, or other illegal purposes. The fundraising activities of the Republican online fundraising platform WinRed; several political action committees (PACs), including Elon Musk’s super PAC, America PAC; and the Trump family’s recently launched cryptocurrency (crypto) venture World Liberty Financial (WLF) and Trump-branded meme coins have raised myriad concerns about potential bribery, influence-peddling, threats to national security, market manipulation, and/or predatory and deceptive practices targeting vulnerable Americans. Chairman James Comer and Chairman Bryan Steil recently wrote to you concerning ‘potentially fraudulent and illicit financial activity related to contributions to campaigns of candidates for federal offices facilitated by online fundraising platforms,'” write Dem Congressmen Gerry Connolly, Jamie Raskin, and Joe Morelle to Treasury Suckretary Scott Bessent hinting at what’s in store if/when Dems retake the House.

“Moreover, on April 2, 2025, Republican Members of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Committee on the Judiciary, and Committee on House Administration released an ‘Interim Staff Report’ focused solely on the fundraising platform ActBlue, in which they claim: ‘The Committees are deeply committed to protecting the integrity of elections, and will continue investigating to inform potential legislative reforms to improve and strengthen our democracy.”

Holy shit, he actually said this, lol. He couldn’t come up with some “patriotic,” free-market something-something line of “principled” bullshit rather than just outright saying members should be allowed to make money (and insider trade) on the side because Congress’s pay rate isn’t enough?

Christ. At least he didn’t say he wasn’t necessarily opposed but was concerned that a ban on trading a slippery slope into other, more rigorous constraints on members and their family members too, which was probably what he’s thinking. Way to Pelosify your speakership, Mike.

But to his point about pay: National Zero’s official editorial position remains that members of Congress should in fact be paid substantially more, that even a tenfold increase of the current $174,000/year would be reasonable so long as it’s paired with the most draconian, colonoscopy-level scrutiny of their finances on par with that of CIA officers or sequestered jurors, bans on holding a stake in so much as a fucking tractor dealership in rural Indiana, prohibiting having extramarital affairs or any other sorts of potentially compromising personal conduct susceptible to blackmail, and that pay be subject to docking if they fail to collectively meet certain productivity benchmarks like letting the government shut down or failing to take up a bill that passed the other chamber.

Wonder what Johnson’s excuse for opposing that sort of radical overhaul of Congress would be.

CORRECTION 5/14/2025 1:13 PM EDT: Johnson actually is in favor of the ban but did not commit to bringing any bills banning it to a vote. This clip was late and taken out of context. Headline updated to reflect this though the text of the article remains otherwise intact for posterity.

A Virginia federal judge on Wednesday ordered the the immediate release of Indian-born Georgetown fellow and green card holder Dr Badar Khan Suri from ICE detention after finding that the Trump Regime was full of shit about he and his citizen wife’s ties to Hamas, CBS’s Jake Rosen reports, adding the judge placed no conditions on Suri’s release nor imposed a bond.

“President Trump’s approval rating has increased to 44 percent, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll. While it is a small tick up from the 42 percent approval rating he measured in the prior survey by Reuters/Ipsos last month, it does run in time with some good news for the president,” The Hill reports in a Wednesday article celebrating a margin-of-error shift in their god’s standing.

And yeah, it’s been a while since the last time National Zero checked in with them. There you stood, everybody watched you play, I just turned and walked away, I had nothing left to say ’cause you’re still the same. Baby, baby, you’re still the same. You’re still the same, still the same. Baby, baby, you’re still the same. Moving game to game, still the same. Baby, baby, you’re still the same.

Drug overdose deaths in the United States dropped to pre-pandemic levels last year, Axios reports citing CDC estimates putting the number at 80,391 down 26.9 percent from the 110,037 estimated in 2023 and among those, opioid deaths dropped even more: 34 percent at 54,743 from 83,140.

So yeah, any minute now some Republican member of Congress or Fox News head or some other MAGA chode’s going to do the same thing they do with 2020 but in reverse: Claim Trump was president during the year this pretty impressive decrease in deaths from drugs was notched.

In reality Axios doesn’t mention Joe Biden’s policies but credits Narcan being made available over-the-counter in 2023 and being added to standard issue first aid kits for paramedics and other first responders, as well as the wide availability of test strips that allow users to check if fentanyl has been laced in with the cocaine they think they’re snorting. The article does however mention that the progress is endangered by convicted felon President Trump and minions’ spending plans, sur-fucking-prise. “A group of medical doctors and academic experts on addiction warned lawmakers in a letter this week that ‘drastic’ cuts to federal health agencies and their grant recipients could set back efforts to address overdoses, substance use disorder and mental health,” Axios writes.

“To everyone complaining about this gift: How about the Resolute Desk aka Hayes Desk that was gifted to President Hayes from Queen Victoria in 1880? What about the Statue of Liberty which was gifted from France in 1886? Be truthful, it is ONLY because it is President Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump that you are spewing your idiocy! The plane is NOT President Trumps!!! It is a gift to AMERICA and the DOD 🇺🇸 Get over it!” writes Truth Social user Roberta Abbey Wallace, aka @FLPatriot2627, in a reply to convicted felon former President Trump’s Tuesday night post in which he claimed that Qatar Force One is a gift to the United States and not him personally.

The reply would’ve otherwise gone un-“reported” here, if not for the fact that it was among several user responses to his post that Trump “retruthed,” with the fat fuck again contradicting a condition of the gift, as reported by ABC News, in which the luxury 747 would not after January 2029 remain in the possession of the people of the United States of America, but Trump’s presidential library.

Americans would not be able to take a ferry to the island in New York Harbor where the plane sits and future President Stephen A Smith would not be flying on Qatar Force One to go accept a bribe from the Sultan of Brunei. It would remain in the possession of Trump’s family and free for their use, long after he’s hopefully partially paralyzed by a stroke and confined to a wheelchair for a few years before expiring from a bedsore or painful infection caused by a flawed catheter insertion.

Another reply Trump “retruthed” depicts a sign reading “Gift from a foreign nation” photoshopped as being hung around the neck of the Statue of Liberty. The final one in his string of blessing an elite few of his worshippers precious clout on his shitty social media network was a meme of a sign that says “WARNING! TRUMP HATERS ARE IN A PANIC EVERYWHERE! STAY CALM. SIT BACK.”

There are quite a few Congressional hearings this Wednesday morning, yet this Homeland Security Committee matinee on ICE just might be the one to watch after all the shit going on lately.

In an inside account of convicted felon President Trump’s partial capitulation to China in the stupid fucking trade war that he started, the Washington Post reports that his minions were able to talk him down when truckers, longshoremen, and others whom he counts on for support – whom he also claimed would easily handle some “temporary pain” and “the price that must be paid” among other canned bullshit lines – could not in fact withstand it economically, thus neither could he politically.

“The key argument was that this was beginning to hurt Trump’s supporters – Trump’s people,” one anonymous minion told the Post, adding that gave Chief of Staff Susan Wiles “a key window” to get the fat bastard to wave the white flag and largely give up on his quest to get children to do with fewer toys, onshore terrible low-paying jobs manufacturing them, collect “trillions and trillions of dollars to reduce our taxes and pay down our national debt,” get the ChiComs to buy more American products to reduce the trade deficit from which Trump claimed they stole “$1 trillion” from the US during the Biden Administration, and some shit about fentanyl. Yeah, all that’s mostly gone now that Trump reduced the tariff on imports down to 30 percent from 158 percent or whatever it was.

Trump bitched out of most of the “pain,” got pretty much nothing out of it, and for the foreseeable future, Americans will pay a regressive 30 percent tax on all Chinese-manufactured imports, and the egg-price voters have themselves to blame for that, even as all of us shoulder that cost.

“In a paper published in Physical Review Journals, the ALICE collaboration reports measurements that quantify the transmutation of lead into gold in CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. Transforming the base metal lead into the precious metal gold was a dream of medieval alchemists. This long-standing quest, known as chrysopoeia, may have been motivated by the observation that dull grey, relatively abundant lead is of a similar density to gold, which has long been coveted for its beautiful colour and rarity. It was only much later that it became clear that lead and gold are distinct chemical elements and that chemical methods are powerless to transmute one into the other.”

“With the dawn of nuclear physics in the 20th century, it was discovered that heavy elements could transform into others, either naturally, by radioactive decay, or in the laboratory, under a bombardment of neutrons or protons. Though gold has been artificially produced in this way before, the ALICE collaboration has now measured the transmutation of lead into gold by a new mechanism involving near-miss collisions between lead nuclei at the LHC,” says a press release from the maniacs at CERN in Switzerland, lording their hubristic defiance of God and nature.

Supposedly the fat bastard is arriving at this luxury hotel in Doha within the next 10 minutes, per Roll Call’s schedule, but who knows when he’ll show up since he’s always running late.

Republicans in both Texas and DC are increasingly dismayed as they stare down primary fight between Picasso-faced corrupt shitbag Attorney General Ken Paxton and incumbent “RINO” Senator John Cornhole Cornyn that Politico speculates could end up being “the GOP trainwreck of the 2026 election cycle, a cash-burning demolition derby that threatens to fracture the party, force the White House to intervene and perhaps even put an otherwise safe seat at risk in November.”

“I hate to see that kind of internecine warfare in my party,” said Texas Republican Congressman Mike McCaul, adding “It’ll be an ugly one,” summing up the discomfit in the Lone Star State GOP after a McConnell-Thune establishment PAC’s internal poll found Pax crushing Cornyn in a primary.

“You’re going to replace a guy who votes with Trump all the time for another guy who will vote with Trump all the time,” said one anonymous Republican consultant operating under the assumption that Paxton will win the primary and the general. The problem for the national GOP, per Politico and really anyone with a cursory understanding of how elections work these days, is that Pax is a deeply flawed general election candidate who, if he doesn’t jeopardize the seat, will require far more money that could be spent elsewhere – like Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina, etc – that Cornyn would not.

And yet, for the very same reasons that he’s a general election liability, he might run away with this primary as Politico writes Paxton “has the ultimate credential of MAGA authenticity. Like Trump, Paxton has been subject to his own FBI raid and his own impeachment trial.” They don’t elaborate much further on that point and why should they? It says pretty much everything you need to know about the Trump cult’s mindset in this stupid era of corruption and unaccountability in the GOP.

Convicted felon President Trump on Wednesday told reporters on Air Force One that his meeting with Syrian warlord-turned-President Ahmed al-Sharaa aka Abu Mohammad al-Julani went “great,” adding he’s a “young, attractive guy. Tough guy. Strong past. Very strong past. Fighter… I think he’s got the potential to do – he’s a real leader. He led a charge and he’s pretty amazing.”

It’s not clear if Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard agrees with Trump’s assessment of the questionable figure who nonetheless led the rebellion that finally ousted her patron, Bashar Al-Assad last December. Probably depends on if Sharaa is paying her a similar amount for lobbying.

The parents of a Tennessee three year-old tell People Magazine that their daughter has become unhealthily fixated on and fearful of John Wilkes Booth ever since a November trip to Washington, DC where the family’s stops included the museum at Ford’s Theater and the Lincoln Memorial.

Cassie Litton tells the lifestyle publication – which bills the article as an “exclusive” – that while daughter Lainey’s mentions of Booth are not “an everyday occurrence,” it does “tend to find its way into just our day-to-day conversations,” adding that on a recent Sunday the family were attending church services “and the preacher was talking about how Jesus loves us. She looked at me and she said ‘Mommy, I love Jesus.’ I said ‘That’s awesome. I’m glad you do.’ She said, ‘Jesus loves us.’ I said, ‘That’s right.’ She said, ‘You know who we don’t love? I said, ‘Who?’ She said, ‘John Wilkes Booth.’”

The small girl’s obsession with Booth has found its way into her bedtime as Cassie says occasionally she has to reassure Lainey that the pro-Confederate actor is not “in her room” or “under her bed” at night. “She was afraid to lie in her bed one night. I said, ‘It’s okay. You’re safe. You’re in your room, nobody can bother you in your own house.’ She said, ‘Yeah, but what if John Wilkes Booth is under my bed? Like, what if he’s hiding?’ She said, ‘What if he comes to take my stuffed animals away?’”

The Democratic National Committee plans to fly plane dragging a banner reading “Qatar-a-Lago” over convicted felon President Trump’s southern Florida redoubt on Wednesday, chair Ken Martin tells ABC News. “Donald Trump is using the presidency to personally enrich himself while he bankrupts working families. His corruption is a slap in the face to the millions of Americans who are struggling to get by and put food on the table,” said Martin in a statement to the network.

Can’t say it isn’t catchy and clever but, you know. He isn’t at Mar-a-Lago currently. There’s probably a better and more effective way to propagate the meme than a goddamned airplane banner.