A new CBS News/YouGov post-debate survey finds 40 percent of registered voter respondents said President Joe Biden told the truth during his otherwise shitty performance at Thursday night’s CNN debate versus 32 percent who said the same of convicted felon former President Trump.

It’s an important metric no doubt but it was about the only good one for Biden in the survey, which did not in this release include a horserace number, as CBS found a significant drop from 35 to 27 percent between June 9th and this weekend on whether Biden has the mental and cognitive health to continue serving as president. Trump saw a 1 point drop from 50 to 49 percent on this question.

“The beltway class is counting Joe Biden out. The data in the battleground states, though, tells a different story. On every metric that matters, data shows it did nothing to change the American people’s perception, our supporters are more fired up than ever, and Donald Trump only reminded voters of why they fired him four years ago and failed to expand his appeal beyond his MAGA base”

“Team Biden-Harris has raised over $33M since Thursday, of which $26M is from grassroots donations. Nearly half of our grassroots donations were from first-time donors to the campaign this cycle. Thursday was our best grassroots fundraising day ever,” says a memo from the Biden Harris campaign via CBS News’s Scott MacFarlane, about the “freakout” from democratic donors.

Cyclopian Republican Texas Congressman Dan Crenshaw might’ve found a loophole in Congressional ethics regulations that allows him to benefit from running a for-profit company to finance his campaign.  On Instagram, Crenshaw was pitching a gun holster by a company called Endex Fitness, which is run by Crenshaw’s campaign.  In fact, in the Instagram video, Crenshaw calls the business “our Endex Fitness.”

“No, I don’t make a dime off of this,” Crenshaw says in a comment to the post. “This is campaign merchandise, just not the cheesy kind. In fact, my campaign barely gets anything. The profits for this clothing line go almost entirely to funding US House races around the country and growing the Republican majority.”

As the nation enters the Fourth of July weekend celebrating our nation’s independence from tyranny, a 74-year-old white man in Crete, Nebraska decided that his Hispanic neighbors weren’t ‘Murican enough for him, so he opened fire on them Friday afternoon when 15 people were at the residence, NBC News reports.  Seven people, including four children, were injured.

Officials say the shooter, Billy Booth, lived up the street and fired as people gathered in the backyard.  At least one of the victims, however, was shot inside the home.  After police determined the source of the gunfire, SWAT officers raided Booth’s home where they found him dead of an apparent self-inflicted wound.

Police said they received numerous complaints from the neighborhood regarding Booth, primarily about reckless driving and parking issues, but the victims’ family once reported him telling them to “go home,” “back to where they came from,” and to “Speak English.”

Echoing stories from his time in the White House about aides having to edit briefings to bullet-point and mention his names repeatedly to keep his interest, Donald Trump’s campaign staff has implored the Republican National Committee to simplify the Party’s “textbook-long platforms” to short snippets, presumably so Trump can understand them, the Washington Post reports.

Trump campaign advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles apparently never actually read a textbook because the last policy platform released by the RNC in 2016 was just 60 pages long. “Publishing an unnecessarily verbose treatise will provide more fuel for our opponent’s fire of misinformation and misrepresentation to voters,” they wrote.

You may remember that in 2020, the Republicans had no policy platforms; instead, it released a statement saying every from 2016 still applied plus whatever Trump says, and then they literally attached it to the 2016 printout, without changing the date on the document.

“I love you. You love me. We’re one happy MAGA family! With a Great Big Movement… And Patriotism shared from me to you… Won’t you say you’ll NEVER SURRENDER TOO?” says a Trump campaign fundraising email sent on Saturday to those of us masochistic enough to subscribe to this shit.

Fucking Barney?!? BARNEY?!? Are his campaign marketing team on shrooms or something? Who the hell thought this was a good idea? Like at least after that it says “This is my message to Americans all across the country! You can’t let Joe Biden DESTROY OUR COUNTRY. He’s Sleepy, and he’s Creepy! Believe me, his hands are FILTHY. You can’t let Joe Biden LAUNCH NEVER ENDING WITCH HUNTS AGAINST ME!” after that which is on brand in its usual impotent and disarrayed outrage, especially since “Biden” already launched those “never ending witch hunts” a while ago.

That’s very on-brand, but also extremely dissonant from the adapted Barney song lyrics… Which in a way is on-brand too considering he’s a fat, soft reptile with an extremely annoying voice that should’ve died in the early 1990s and has no business being around children. And so is Barney.

This blatantly antisemitic meme really does say it all about MAGA Congressman Scott Perry. Jewish Insider reports that Perry, a credibly suspected traitor under federal criminal investigation for his role in convicted felon former President Trump’s post-2020 election coup attempt, had his campaign spokesman tell them “After receiving your inquiry, learning the history of the image, and contacting several members of the Jewish community (some who were familiar with it and some who were not) out of grave concern that it is considered antisemitic – we removed it immediately.”

“Immediately” meaning at least four days after they posted it, as evidenced by the relative timestamp in the screenshot. The mural was painted in London in 2012 by some far left American street artist named “Mear One” who said it depicted “Jewish and white Anglos” as the bankers sitting around the Monopoly game board. It too was removed shortly after that, painted over due to the pretty blatant antisemitism. But digital images are forever, as Perry and his campaign are aware.

President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign tells the New York Times’s Shane Goldmacher they raised $27 million since Thursday night’s shitshow in Atlanta. Part of that was at a donor event in Manhattan on Friday night with Elton John, but either way it was a pretty solid haul, rivaling the $34 million convicted felon former President Trump raised the day after he was found guilty last month.

The fat bastard’s campaign pulled in $8 million as of Friday afternoon on his “debate bump.”

Not really so sure this is a “silver lining” to Biden’s crash and burn as opposed to an actual legitimately good development in the story of this campaign. That for all the fucking weasels at the New York Times and the other corners of Bedwetter World saying he needs to step aside that regular folks – as well as some not so regular rich liberals – are simply stepping up to the challenge and focusing themselves on making sure Trump loses and dies in prison come hell or high water.

Convicted felon former President Trump has repeatedly and rightfully described the stakes in this November’s presidential election as nothing less than a titanic struggle for whether or not he dies in a federal prison. He has proved himself to be a significant jeopardy to democracy – an erratic and self-interested cunt unworthy of the public trust. He systematically attempted to undermine the integrity of elections. His white nationalist supporters have described, publicly, a 2025 agenda that would give him the power to carry out the most extreme of his promises and threats.

If he is returned to office, he has vowed to be a different kind of president, unrestrained by the checks on power built into the American political system. At Thursday’s debate, the former president needed to convince the American public that he was equal to the formidable demands of the office he is seeking to hold for another term. Voters, however, cannot be expected to ignore what was instead plain to see: Mr Trump is not the man he was four years ago – he’s considerably worse.

Ending his candidacy would be against all of Mr Trump’s personal and political instincts. He has picked himself up from two impeachments and 88 felony charges in four different jurisdictions – 34 of which he’s already been convicted of and faces sentencing on in 12 days – among other setbacks in the past and clearly believes he can do so again. Supporters of the fat fuck are in a brainwashed messianic cult and think his deranged ramblings are somehow normal. But the former president’s repeatedly unhinged performances on the trail cannot be written off as a bad stretch or blamed on “context” because they affirm concerns that have been mounting for months or even years.

It is the best chance to protect the soul of the nation from the malign warping of Mr Trump. And it is the best service that Mr Trump can provide to a country that he has no business running again.

• Biggest takeaway from the debate:  Joe Biden reportedly had a bad cold and still gave his best effort to meet the American people’s needs as the nation’s president and nominee for office.  Donald Trump wouldn’t go out in the rain to honor American war veterans and those who died defending the country.  Biden works for Americans; Trump is all about himself.  Biden will recover from his cold.  Trump will never shake off his narcissism.
• As you read this, Steve Bannon has less than 70 hours remaining as a free man.  Let that put a smile on your face.  
• Ralph Lauren should be banned from designing Olympic ensembles.  Yes, it’s a luxurious brand, but it’s not even close to the style of 97% of Americans.  JFC, the designs make every American athlete look like a snobbish sonnovabitch from the Yacht Club.
• Should the Supreme Court incredibly rule on Monday that a concept called “absolute presidential immunity” exists, I hope Joe Biden is sitting in the back of the courtroom as the decision is read and lets out a low, ominous laugh as he points at Samuel Alito.  

On his last appearance on his podcast before reporting for jail on Monday for a four-month sentence, shirt fetishist and Trump loyalist Steve Bannon colors himself another victim in a long line of failed conservative media voices.  Let the schadenfreude shine as Bannon lists the collapsing conservative media infrastructure targeting the Republican Base.

We at the National Zero editorial desk anxiously await the expected invitation to the upcoming White House conference for online content creators scheduled for August, as the Washington Post reports, although some on the expected guest list said they would turn down the invite to protest various Biden Administration policies.

Christian Tom, the Biden administration’s director of digital strategy, announced the summit while speaking at VidCon, a major conference for content creators being held in Anaheim, saying Friday, “This is an opportunity for the thousands of creators and industry professionals who think about the creator economy every day to really have a seat at the table,”

You don’t have to like his political views, but you have to respect former Republican House member Adam Kinzinger’s straightforwardness and integrity.  Asked by CNN host Anderson Cooper if he regrets endorsing Biden the day before the President’s unnerving debate performance on Thursday, Kinzinger addressed the chucklefuck who heckled from off-camera and re-upped on his support and said he’d rather stand with Biden than support a “habitual liar.”

Following up on his Christian Nationalist command that schools indoctrinate students on the Bible during lessons, Oklahoma’s Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters told NBC News that he would revoke teachers’ licenses if they failed to obey.

“Any teacher that would knowingly, willfully disobey the law and disobey our standards — there are repercussions for that,” Walters said. “So we deal with that on a case-by-case basis, but yes, teachers have to teach Oklahoma Academic Standards and this is absolutely going to be part of them.”

Oklahoma’s Attorney General, however, noted that while teachers are already permitted to use the Bible as an educational reference in the state, Walters’ order has no legitimacy.  “There is no legal authority for a memo from the Superintendent to require content,” a spokesperson said.

Saying that President Joe Biden is “not the man he was four years ago” following his disappointing debate performance Thursday night, the New York Times editorial board wrote that Biden should step aside to protect the nation.

Headlined “To Serve His Country, President Biden Should Leave the Race,” the editorial notes how aged Biden appeared in his slow and mumbled responses before saying, “As it stands, the president is engaged in a reckless gamble. There are Democratic leaders better equipped to present clear, compelling and energetic alternatives to a second Trump presidency. There is no reason for the party to risk the stability and security of the country by forcing voters to choose between Mr. Trump’s deficiencies and those of Mr. Biden. It’s too big a bet to simply hope Americans will overlook or discount Mr. Biden’s age and infirmity that they see with their own eyes.”

More than 51 million people watched the first rematch of the Joe Biden-Donald Trump debate, far less than the 73 million who saw the first debate of 2020 via television networks, according to the Hollywood Reporter, which may give some solace to Democratic hand wringers.  Held five months before the election, the debate didn’t attract viewers who have still largely tuned out of the political drama of the election year.

Employees at the famed Red Rocks Amphitheater in Morrison, Colorado reported seeing a weird, possibly experimental aircraft in the sky early at around 1 am on June 5th following a concert headlined by mid-2000s punk act All Time Low, describing the craft as “large” and “disc-shaped craft” which appeared to “three levels of windows,” USA Today reports citing a NUFORC submission.

It’s not clear if the aircraft, described as the size of a three-story office building but capable of hovering silently without any visible means of propulsion, was built by the US, Chinese, Russian, or Australian governments or possibly a private concern like Boeing or Airbus. Whichever entity developed the craft seems to have mastered invisibility technology as the witness said “it didn’t shoot off into the distance. It simply dissolved into the ether. We all watched it vanish.”

The witnesses unfortunately did not record any images of the definitely manmade aircraft during the brief sighting, depriving independent experts of the opportunity to scrutinize it and determine that it was simply a lighted, disc-shaped three story office building lifted off its foundation and being moved on a flatbed truck up a steep mountain road at 1:00 AM on a Wednesday, the “invisibility” caused when the truck drove behind smoke emanating from a nearby brush fire no one reported.

Banned from the Nathan’s Coney Island July 4th Hot Dog eating contest for bullshit reasons, world eating champ Joey Chestnut will instead spend Independence Day at Fort Bliss in Texas, facing off against no fewer than four US Army soldiers in a five minute hot dog battle, the Army Times reports.

If not for that the time is half that of the Nathan’s contest’s 10 minutes, we would go ahead and declare Chestnut the de facto winner by proxy kind of like how convicted felon former President Trump declares himself the winner of golf tournaments he didn’t play in because of some bullshit he made up in his head about shooting better than the tourney’s winner at the same course. Maybe he’ll still even beat this year’s Nathan’s winner with half the time anyway. As for the four soldiers we hope a military doctor more qualified than Ronny Jackson is present to monitor their health.

Chestnut’s next big showdown is against rival worldwide champ Takeru Kobayashi on Labor Day.

The US Supreme Court on Friday rejected white nationalist alcoholic Steve Bannon’s final last ditch effort to stay out of prison for the next four months, denying his petition for a stay.