“At 800 AM EDT (1200 UTC), the eye of Hurricane Milton was located near latitude 25.0 North, longitude 84.8 West. Milton is moving toward the northeast near 16 mph (26 km/h). A northeastward motion is expected through tonight. A turn toward the east-northeast and east is expected on Thursday and Friday. On the forecast track, the center of Milton will move across the eastern Gulf of Mexico today, make landfall along the west-central coast of Florida late tonight or early Thursday morning, and move off the east coast of Florida over the western Atlantic Ocean Thursday afternoon. Maximum sustained winds are near 155 mph (250 km/h) with higher gusts.”

“Milton is a category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. Milton is expected to remain an extremely dangerous major hurricane when it reaches the west-central coast of Florida tonight. Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 30 miles (45 km) from the center and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 125 miles (205 km). The minimum central pressure based on NOAA and Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter data is 915 mb (27.02 inches),” says an advisory bulletin from the National Hurricane Center warning that the storm surge-high tide combo could push in waves reaching up to 15 feet between Anna Maria Island at the southern end of Tampa Bay to Boca Grande, just north of Fort Myers, with the 12 ft max range extending north to Anclote River and southward to Bonita Springs, which sits between Fort Myers and Naples.

🚨NEW FLASH —> Humans cannot create or control hurricanes.

Anyone who thinks they can, needs to have their head examined. https://t.co/ILZsbXPi0K

— Rep. Carlos A. Gimenez (@RepCarlos) October 9, 2024

Apparently realizing that there are actually at least some limits to the kind of horseshit people will tolerate, Oklahoma Superintendent of Education Ryan Walters on Monday announced that he was loosening the specifications for the 55,000 Bibles he’s using taxpayer funds to purchase and put in classrooms after his attempt to pretty blatantly make sure that either one of two “patriotic”-themed editions endorsed by convicted felon former President Trump when at least one, probably both, of the publishers are paying fatass a royalty percentage from every sale, the Associated Press reports.

“The left-wing media hates Donald Trump so much, and they hate the Bible so much, they will lie and go to any means necessary to stop this initiative from happening,” Walters said in a video announcing he was capitulating to the woke mob. Walters’ spokesman Dan Issett confirmed the RFP had been updated and that the bid period would be amended after a state budget office told them it was illegal to rig the bidding process. “Unfortunately, there have been false reports that have been repeated by numerous, supposedly credible, news organizations that the state’s RFP was catered to one specific organization,” said Issett. He is correct because even though the AP’s report says it was solely the $60 Lee Greenwood “God Bless the USA” Bible that qualified, according to the Oklahoman there was another edition, the also-Trump-endorsed $90 “We The People Bible,” that qualified.

Walters’ new specs don’t require that the Constitution and Declaration of Independence be in the Bible. Why the fuck they even need to put a Bible in every public school classrooms is another can of worms, but at least the son of a bitch got cowed out of his Trump grift attempt. Baby steps.

“Legitimate” Governor of Arizona Kari Lake tells Politico Playbook she’s going to be voting early for herself and her Orange Jesus after having spent the last two years railing against it and vowing one day-only voting if elected governor, specifically telling ABC News that the Constitution “doesn’t say election season” or “election month,” and that “the longer you drag that out, the more fraught with problems there are,” trying to toss voters’ absentee ballots after she lost, and so on.

So yeah, that’s all out this year. “I’m voting early because it gives us the upper hand,” said Lake in a statement to Playbook. “The earlier we bank our votes, the more time we have to chase down and turn in every last ballot. This is how we win – by being smart, staying ahead, and making sure every vote counts. We’re going to deliver a huge win for Arizona and secure victories for President Trump, myself, and Republicans across the state!” A spokesworm for Lake’s senate campaign said the crazy asshole and her team “are determined to ensure that every ballot mailed out is properly filled in, returned, and counted, working tirelessly to guarantee that every voters’ voice is heard.”

🤬 pic.twitter.com/bGEhBFHqeE

— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) October 9, 2024

Large-headed Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung and his rapey-mustached Kremlin counterpart Dimitry Peskov aren’t on the same page with regard to whether Bob Woodward made up the story about convicted felon former President Trump having “secretly sent Putin a bunch of Abbott Point of Care Covid test machines for his personal use” during the height of the pandemic in 2020, as NBC News reports that Peskov on Wednesday confirmed it and added that “we also sent equipment at the beginning of the pandemic,” whatever that means.

Peskov did however deny that his boss, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, and Cheung’s boss had spoken over the phone since 2021. At least they got their stories lined up on that one.

Normally, National Zero doesn’t delve into the muck and mud of local politics, but a borough election deserves some attention when that borough is close to the size of New Jersey, the home of nearly 100,000 people, sits in the middle of Alaska, went to Trump by 15 percentage points in the last election, but flipped to a Democratic mayor after the final tally of last week’s election, according to Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.

Grier Hopkins, the son of a one-time mayor of Fairbanks North Star Borough, beat his Republican opponent by 154 votes out of 19,487 cast.  A third-party candidate promising to find “endgame solutions” to make the isolated region home to the city of Fairbanks both energy- and food-independent during his three-year term took 705 votes.

Home to nearly 1 in 7 Alaskans, Fairbanks North Star Borough electing a Democrat who campaigned on encouraging development and raising taxes to fund public education and build new parks is notable less than a month before a national election, when every tea leaf is being examined with a microscope.

“Fox has obtained a fact sheet assembled by the majority side of House Appropriations Committee about disaster aid,” the network’s Senior Congressional Correspondent Chad Pergram posts, careful not to use the word “Republican” because No True Republican would dare say the rest of the post:

“It says that FEMA ‘has enough funding in the short-term to address immediate needs for both Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton.’ It also declares there is ‘no funding connection between’ the migrant shelter program and the Disaster Relief Fund. It adds there is ‘no intermingling of funding between these two programs.’ It adds that ‘the only connection is that both programs are administered by FEMA.’”

So House Republicans say Trump’s claims about FEMA money for hurricane response being diverted to migrant care are complete bullshit.  Now if they’ll only state the “only $750 per victim” claim is a lie, too, FEMA might be able to actually help people.

Caving to a Brazilian court’s order to ban certain accounts known to have spread election misinformation during the nation’s 2022 presidential election and paying a $5 million fine, Elon Musk secured dead-named Twitters return to the world’s seventh most-populous nation, the BBC reports.

Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered Musk’s company to cease operations in Brazil at the end of August because Musk refused to silence the accounts which were found to be at the root of misinformation claiming Donald Trump’s buddy and fellow sore loser Jair Bolsonaro was cheated out of his election, leading to an all-too-familiar scene on January 8th, 2023 when thousands of Bolsonaro supporters took over government buildings in Brasília.

The platform formerly known as Twitter “is proud to return to Brazil.  Giving tens of millions of Brazilians access to our indispensable platform was paramount throughout this entire process,” Musk’s PR team posted without admitting their concessions. “We will continue to defend freedom of speech, within the boundaries of the law, everywhere we operate.”  Note the “…within the boundaries of the law…” caveat, meaning if a second Trump administra–(gag) admini–(blurf) if the unthinkable happens, Musk would follow the instructions given to him to shut down dissenters.

“Today the Trump-Vance Campaign is asking Governor Roy Cooper and the North Carolina General Assembly to swiftly enact an expansion of voter access for North Carolinians who live in the areas of the state suffering from the impact of Hurricane Helene. ‘These 10 improvements in voting access in North Carolina will ensure the people who have already suffered from the storm don’t lose their right to participate in this important election. Swift action from the North Carolina General Assembly and the Governor will ensure the people of their state have their voices heard on November 5th,’ said Trump-Vance Campaign Campaign Managers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita.”

“(1) Ensure Election Day Voting Locations provide the ability for any voter in the impacted county to vote from that location, instead of just their local precinct. (2) Expanding bipartisan election official teams (known as MAT or Multipartisan Assistance Teams) to have the ability to assist displaced voters in requesting and delivering absentee ballots to the county boards. (3) Allow voters who have been displaced to another North Carolina county to have the ability to deliver their absentee ballot in the new county or to the State Board,” and so on, the campaign wrote in a press release.

We were to understand that changing the rules to expand voter access before an election, even if there’s a huge disaster that prevents people from voting in person, was a big no-no in 2020. And, even better, this press release came hours before another saying “RNC SUES TO STOP ILLEGAL VOTING FROM OVERSEAS.” Earlier on Tuesday: “RNC DEFENDS ELECTION INTEGRITY IN OHIO. Last month was “RNC FIGHTS ILLEGAL MAIL BALLOT POLICIES IN PENNSYLVANIA,” and so on.

Speaking at a fundraiser in California on Tuesday afternoon, Democratic Vice Presidential nominee and anchor on the bowling team Tim Walz said he favored abolishing the Electoral College that determines the winner of the US Presidential race, Politico reports.

“I think all of us know the Electoral College needs to go,” Walz said according to pool reporters in the room at the private fundraiser with California Governor and man Ron DeSantis aspires to be Gavin Newsom. “We need a national popular vote that is something. But that’s not the world we live in.”

“No one buys that Kamala Harris has the capability to do that job,” the MAGA’s dime store Taylor Swift wannabe Lara Trump, who happens to lead the RNC, declares, “and, and polls like that I think are absolutely ridiculous.  I get slipped beverage napkins everytime I get on an airplane saying ‘We can’t wait to vote for Trump,’ ‘Go Trump,’ ‘Trump 2024,’ or people just comin’ up ta me these days, Laura, everywhere I go, saying everywhere I go about how excited they are to vote and vote early when you go vote for Donald Trump.”

It should be noted that Lara Trump flies on private planes paid for by her father-in-law or her employer.  The political employer, not the Spotify producer.

With Disney World and other area attractions shutting down as Hurricane Milton–now a Category 5 storm with a four-mile-wide eye–helps Mother Nature reclaim Florida as swampland, American Airlines announced it’s added enough flights to carry 2,000 more frantic passengers out of the region, ABC News reports.  There’s no word if the ghost of Barbara Bush thinks the evacuees have it much better in their evacuation locations than they had it at home in Florida.

Demonstrating that Republican racism has deep roots, the former First Lady and then First Mother of the Shrub, Barb is best remembered for looking at the predominantly Black evacuees from Hurricane Katrina in 2006 who filled a Houston sports arena saying,  “What I’m hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality.  And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway,” Barb said, “so this is working very well for them.”

A very non-exhaustive list of people and things House and Senate Republicans have sued, subpoenaed, investigated, threatened to investigate, or threatened to hold in contempt/impeach President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Chris Wray, and Homeland Security Secretary Alex Mayorkas over so far during the 118th Congress:

Getting a series of checks in repayment for a pickup truck, having a brother who ripped off some healthcare company, the transcript of Biden’s interview with documents fuckup special counsel Robert Hur, the FBI communications with Twitter and Facebook before the 2020 election when they throttled the story about Hunter Biden’s laptop for a day, a fake report about Biden taking bribes from Romania written by a Russian intel agent, gas stoves, that one of the Israeli hostages released from Gaza is related to a woman who bought one of Hunter Biden’s paintings, the cocaine some asshole left in a White House coat check, why Volodymyr Zelensky was allowed to visit a weapons factory in Pennsylvania with Governor Josh Shapiro before the 2024 election, whether ABC News colluded with Kamala Harris before the debate last month, that guy who left the DOJ to take a job with the Manhattan DA’s office because that meant Garland was secretly directing a local case against Trump, why a bunch of intel professionals signed a letter calling Hunter’s laptop Russian disinformation, the “Ministry of Information” they lost their shit over last year, Hillary Clinton, Judge Tanya Chutkan, why it took so long for the Air Force to shoot down the Chinese spy balloon after it floated across the entire country, the House January 6th Select Committee’s investigation, the US Navy for supposedly withholding for four days that they knew that the Titan sub had imploded to distract the media from Hunter Biden, the guy who started “White Dudes for Harris,” Judge Juan Merchan, Judge Merchan’s daughter, Joe Biden’s ghostwriter, “censorship,” Dr Anthony Fauci…

Triumphant after a weeks-long hunt to track and kill a murderous hippopotamus, villagers in the Nigerian town of Yauri recently paraded the remains of the beast down before it was butchered and its flesh distributed to locals who were hungry hungry for some hippo, the BBC reports.

“We are a town of fishermen and farmers and this hippo has made many to stop going out due to fear of an attack,” resident Sani Yauri – yeah he’s got the same name as the town – told the BBC, adding that the state’s Emir had ordered the hunt after one of his staff was thrashed to death by the hippo. “It also seriously injured another person – not also forgetting the damage it regularly does to our farmlands. We are happy it has been killed and people came out in jubilation – and also got their share of the meat.” Another guy, Isa Jamilu, said he was relieved to finally be able to return home to his rice farm weeks after the hippo had chased him away. Locals had to kill the bastard with homemade spears, which by the sound of it seems to have taken a pretty freaking long time.

American frylord Thomas Werner, CEO of McDonald’s fry supplier Lamb Weston, sounded an ominous warning to his underlings during a recent earnings call, CNN reports.

“Many of these promotional meal deals have consumers trading down from a medium fry to a small fry,” the frylord proclaimed, sending a chill down the spines of the vassals within his fry kingdom.

The frylord announced 400 of his wage slaves would be released from their duties and were available to be sold to the barons of chips or other potato products.

Apologies if we’re overdoing the shitposts from convicted felon former President Trump, but the fat bastard lost his shit Tuesday afternoon at ‘Lyin’ Kamala, who is being exposed as a ‘dummy’ every time she does a show, just stated to the degenerates on The View that she would have done nothing different than Crooked Joe Biden, the WORST PRESIDENT IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. The Lamestream Media doesn’t want to pick up the story, the dumb women on the show wish they never asked her the question that led to that Election Defying answer,” and blah blah blah.

Yeah this one might kind of stick. He was supposed to stop calling Harris “dumb,” lol.

Republican North Carolina Congressman Chuck Edwards was forced Tuesday to post on his website a number of fact-checks of the conspiracy theories being spread by his party. Some lowlights:

“Hurricane Helene was NOT geoengineered by the government to seize and access lithium deposits in Chimney Rock. Nobody can control the weather. Charles Konrad, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Southeast Regional Climate Center, has confirmed that no one has the technology or ability to geoengineer a hurricane. Current geoengineering technology can serve as a large-scale intervention to mitigate the negative consequences of naturally occurring weather phenomena, but it cannot be used to create or manipulate hurricanes.” Give them an inch, lol.

“FEMA is NOT stopping trucks or vehicles with donations, confiscating or seizing supplies, or otherwise turning away donations. FEMA does not conduct vehicle stops or handle road closures with armed guards – all road closures are managed by local law enforcement who are prioritizing getting resources to their fellow community members.” What if it feels true though?

“FEMA cannot seize your property or land. Applying for disaster assistance does not grant FEMA or the federal government authority or ownership of your property or land.” Don’t mess with a classic bro. If UFO conspiracy theories are the Beatles and the JFK assassination ones are the Rolling Stones then FEMA takeovers are The Remains. Like deep vinyl collection fandom, not the pop stuff.

“The problem with FoxNews is that every time they put on someone who is positive and touting all of the good things I have done for the Country, they always feel it necessary to follow up with a really negative voice, often people who are storytellers and willing to outright lie. The daytime anchors are no match for these lunatics, and they get away with absolute murder. The net result is NOTHINGNESS, so what’s the purpose in watching?“ posted convicted felon former President Trump on Tuesday, apparently very busy while running to be the leader of the Free World.

In a speech delivered Tuesday, British domestic intelligence agency MI5’s Director General Ken McCallum warned that “Russian state actors turning to proxies for their dirty work, including private intelligence operatives and criminals from both the UK and third countries. Once again, the internet provides the crucial platform connecting these malign actors. While altering MI5’s detection challenge, Russia’s use of proxies further reduces the professionalism of their operations and, absent diplomatic immunity, increases our disruptive options. Alongside pending criminal prosecutions, the UK has taken robust action to constrain Russian aggression. Earlier this year the last remaining Russian military intelligence officer was expelled from the UK, and diplomatic accreditation removed from a number of sites. We’ll keep bearing down.”

The UK’s leading role in supporting Ukraine means we loom large in the fevered imagination of Putin’s regime, and we should expect to see continued acts of aggression here at home. The GRU in particular is on a sustained mission to generate mayhem on British and European streets: we’ve seen arson, sabotage and more. Dangerous actions conducted with increasing recklessness.”

“And having precisely the opposite effect to what the Russian state intends, in driving increased operational coordination with partners across Europe and beyond. This concerted campaign requires a strong and sustained response. We’re working with the police to use the new National Security Act to its fullest extent. And the National Protective Security Authority, part of MI5, already works to strengthen our critical national infrastructure. We want to help others who may be at risk of attack. So I urge businesses and public authorities to think about the risks you face. Seek out the NPSA guidance, which is informed by intelligence, to help you protect your people.”