Pro-Trump scumbag Rita Palma confirmed to CNN on Wednesday she had been fired from her post as Robert F Kennedy Jr’s New York State campaign manager after video of her hyping up the effort’s ability to elect Trump surfaced this week. “I dealt with the campaign honestly. I have nothing to defend. Truth defends itself. My time with Team Kennedy has been one of the best political adventures of my life filled with some of the best people I’ve encountered, and I have encountered many. I look forward to the next seven months of watching Bobby shine,” said Palma.

A two-term Republican New Hampshire state legislator who is also the Sullivan County chair for Donald Trump’s reelection campaign was once fired from his job–as a police officer–after he threatened to murder his chief, rape the chief’s wife, and slaughter his colleagues after being suspended for having a romantic relationship with a 16-year-old girl attending a local high school, New Hampshire Public Radio reports.  And even with that resume, he opened a gun store after losing his job.

A member of the legislature’s Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee, Jonathan Stone has been in the state legislature since 2022 even though an internal Claremont police report of the incident concluded, “The seriousness of threatening to kill command staff officers, raping the Chief’s wife, tying people up and going postal are violations at the most serious level.” Stone was never charged for the terroristic threats.

Stone was fired on the grounds that he “lacked moral character” but his union rep negotiated the reference to be removed from Stone’s file and the records of his outburst sealed in exchange for his resignation.  He filed an unsuccessful suit to block a reporter’s state FOIA request for his records.  Stone became a favorite of Trump after presenting Trump with a custom AR-15 Stone built for Trump during the 2016 campaign season.

South Dakota’s version of Billy Mays, Republican Governor and mercenary business endorser Kristi Noem was banned from the lands of a third tribal nation in the state, the Bismark Tribune reports, raising to ten percent the amount of the state’s land its governor cannot enter.

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe voted to “banish” Noem from its reservation for unsubstantiated accusations Noem made linking unnamed leaders of unnamed tribes are cooperating with Mexican drug cartels to sell drugs on tribal lands.  The Oglala Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes previously banned Noem from their reservations.

“Governor Kristi Noem’s wild and irresponsible attempt to connect tribal leaders and parents with Mexican drug cartels is a sad reflection of her fear-based politics that do nothing to bring people together to solve problems,” Tribal Chairwoman Janet Alkire said in a statement. “Rather than make uninformed and unsubstantiated claims, Noem should work with tribal leaders to increase funding and resources for tribal law enforcement and education.”

With the National Park Service announcing it will be forced to cut down 300 trees including 158 Japanese cherry trees for a sea wall repair project on the Tidal Basin in Washington, DC, the prime minister of Japan announced his government will gift the United States a fresh set of 250 new cherry trees to celebrate the upcoming semiquincentennial of the nation in 2026, the Washington Post reports.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is currently visiting Washington and made the surprise announcement during a White House visit, saying he learned the trees would be removed and wanted to provide the trees as a show of friendship.  Two thousand of the original cherry trees planted were gifts from the Japanese government during the Taft Administration.  The trees to be removed include one lovingly known as Stumpy, the Charlie Brown Christmas tree of Tidal Basin cherry trees.

Noting the lack of accountability and remorse, the state bar investigators from John Eastman’s disbarment probe urged the California bar court to not delay the sanctions recommended by the judge who heard the case, as Eastman has requested, saying Eastman “has not demonstrated that he no longer poses a substantial threat of harm to the public.”

Eastman requested the court indefinitely stay his disbarment so he can continue to work as a lawyer to earn money to fight his disbarment.  Eastman, the investigators say, continues to downplay the insurrection and the damage it did to the nation, and he still asserts he did nothing wrong.

“By misidentifying the type of harm that his conduct poses, and by continuing to show a lack of insight into his misconduct, respondent’s motion further demonstrates that inactive enrollment is required to protect he public,” the filing reads.  “An attorney’s lack of insight into their misconduct and lack of remorse are highly relevant when evaluating risks to the public and should be given significant weight.”

“Trump opposes the law, and the ruling,” a clearly desperate Trump aide, television propagandist Sean Hannity, stammers, “or you can believe Joe’s make pretend Donald Trump that doesn’t exist.  And you know what?  Arizona’s governor is a Democrat.  The state’s attorney general is a Democrat.  The state legislature is almost evenly divided.  If Democrats want to get rid of the law, well, you have a chance right now to get rid of it, and I would advise you, get rid of it.  They would rather use it as a political tool ahead of November

Well, no, Sean, the Democrats will get rid of the law in Arizona–a law that a state Supreme Court comprised 100% of Republican appointees resurrected outside the power of the Democrats you listed.  And Trump has not only stated support for similar draconian laws, but he also stated his support for punishing women who seek abortions.

South of the border in Texas, Senator Ted Cruz (R-Quintana Roo) has taken a remarkable new tack as he faces a tough re-election race against popular Houston Democratic, according to the Texas Tribune:  he’s casting himself as a better bipartisan option.

“I actually have very good relationships with many of my colleagues across the aisle,” Cruz told The Texas Tribune, citing his work with Democratic Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (NY), Cory Booker (NJ) and Amy Klobuchar (MN). “I’ve worked with all three of them and all three are friends.”  None of their offices confirmed that the Senators were, in fact, friends.

“Here’s the thing you have to understand about Ted Cruz,” former Minnesota Democratic Senator Al Franken wrote. “I like Ted Cruz more than most of my other colleagues like Ted Cruz. And I hate Ted Cruz.”

“I’ll tell you when it did work under the Trump economy,” demonstrated liar and Republican Florida Congressman whose name will arise again in the next Speaker fight Byron Donalds boasts. [We’re taking editorial control to fill in what Donalds doesn’t say.]  “… ’cause under the Trump economy, whether you were Black, Hispanic, white, everyone was getting ahead [thanks to increasing deficits and debt, and only if you were really wealthy already, and only until 2020].  You were actually able to increase your net worth [see previous note].”

“Remember those days?” Fox Hausfrau Laura Ingraham chirps in.  “I mean, 2019 was just awesome!”  [Editor’s note:  Donald Trump was president until 2020, when things weren’t so good.]

After upholding Special Counsel Jack Smith’s motion to protect the names and personal information of witnesses identified in Trump co-defendant Walt Nauta’s FBI interview, Florida federal Judge Aileen Cannon ordered a redacted version of Nauta’s interview transcript.  Concerning the grand jury testimony, the judge says that “presumably” the transcript is protected under existing law–something the judge herself should state affirmatively, not “presume.”

With respect to the substantive statements contained in Defendant Nauta’s FBI interview, the Court reaches a different conclusion. For similar but even stronger reasons than those articulated in the Court’s recent Order applying Rule 16 438 –and after balancing the parties’ asserted interests in this case of significant public concern–the Court finds the Special Counsel’s sweeping request and generalized rationales inadequate to overcome the public’s common-law interest in access to these materials. [Citations removed.] Accordingly, Defendant Nauta may attach his FBI interview transcript but shall (for the reasons stated previously) redact the names of any potential government witnesses and ancillary names where referenced therein. The final item of redaction implicated in the Motions is the transcript of Defendant Nauta’s grand jury testimony taken on June 21, 2022. For now, Defendant Nauta shall file that transcript under seal in its entirety because presumably it remains subject to protection under Fed. R. Crim. P. 6(e). The parties shall be prepared, however, to present argument at the hearing on the need for continued sealing of that transcript given the Special Counsel’s partial use of that transcript in a public motion 381, and any other factors related to the need for continued secrecy under the circumstances.

In a separate order, Cannon set a May 9th date for the submission of lists of experts each side may use or call as witnesses, as well as the classified documents Trump may want to use as evidence.

Breaking the lesson into bite-sized morsels appropriate for the pupil, UK Foreign Minister and former Prime Minister David Cameron told former president and current multi-score indictee Donald Trump that he should be pushing for aid to Ukraine because a successful outcome is something he could take credit for if he retakes the Oval Office, the Washington Post reports.

Cameron explained the advantages to aiding Ukraine to Trump in a way Trump understood:  how it would benefit Trump.  Cameron said that the President in 2025 will be in a stronger position to mediate a peace deal if the Ukrainians are in a stronger position.  A strong Ukraine means a strong 2025 President (and we all know who he thinks that’ll be).

“[I]t’s in everybody’s interest that Ukraine is in a strong position and Putin is in a weak position at the end of this year,” Cameron said he told Trump. “Whoever is president wants to be able to push forward in a way that is backing success and not trying to overturn failure.”

Separate efforts by Democrats to advance bills legalizing abortion were blocked by Republicans in both chambers of Arizona’s state legislature on Wednesday, with state Senate Republican leaders removing a bill from the daily agenda and the state House’s GOP leadership adjourning for the day after a panicked Republican member reversed and made a motion to bring up a Democrat’s bill repealing the 1864 ban that had been idling for months, the Arizona Republic reports.

We’d been considering doing a piece comparing the situation in Arizona to fat former President Trump whipping Congressional Republicans into killing the bipartisan border security package negotiated in the US Senate because he didn’t want to give Joe Biden a “win” and he wanted to continue campaigning on the “invasion”. The electoral parallels are obvious enough and the incentives for the side that has the perceived advantage on the issue to avoid handling it are high.

Except where Republicans have made it very clear they value being able to scream on Fox News about white girls getting murdered by crazed third world savages than they do preventing white girls from getting murdered by crazed third world savages, Arizona Dems actually want to fix this and prevent pregnant women from suffering and dying needlessly, even though it is very much in their interest to avoid doing Kari Lake, Donald Trump, and the rest of the MAGA Nazis a favor by keeping this ban on the books until November when a measure repealing it will likely be on the ballot.

Rush Limbaugh replacement Clay Travis gushed Wednesday to Fox News about how generous fat former President Trump is by telling anchor Martha McCallum that the last time he interviewed Donald at Mar-a-Lago that he wasn’t allowed to leave until he was given a famous Mar-a-Lago milkshake. And then Travis said he didn’t think Hitler would be that nice to “journalists” like himself.

Putting aside that Travis is definitely more of a Leni Riefenstahl than a Gareth Jones, is saying Trump gave him a milkshake when Hitler would not have really the flex he thinks it is?

New York federal prosecutors on Wednesday agreed to delay Gold Bars Bob Menendez’s bribery trial to July or possibly August over health issues facing co-defendant/wife Nadine, Reuters reports.

The nature of the health issues was not disclosed by the pair’s attorneys, but if the feds bought it then it must be real enough. They still oppose the Menendezes’ efforts to be tried separately. The delay keeps the scumbag DINO in the Senate at least two months longer than it would’ve taken, but then again who the hell knows if the Dems would have the balls to expel him even after a conviction, so don’t be terribly surprised if he hangs on until January 2025 while still out on appeal. It’d be nice if he’d just take a fucking hint and resign already so Phil Murphy can appoint his wife or whoever to the rest of the term and keep it warm for presumptive Dem nominee Congressman Andy Kim.

Liddle Ron DeSanctimonius, the one-time White House aspirant done in by a pair of white boots and no personality, will now help raise funds for the presumptive GOP presidential nominee he had previously called “juvenile,” someone who “lost his fastball,” and an election-losing crybaby.  And now, the man Donald Trump implied was a gay cross-dressing pedophile will assist Trump’s fundraising team.

At a retreat to thank workers, donors and volunteers to his ruinous campaign held at the Hard Rock Cafe, CNN reports DeSantis told the crowd he’s “committed to helping Trump in any and every way,” Roy Bailey, a DeSantis supporter from Texas said. “We are going to follow his lead, and we’re excited to do everything we can to get Trump elected,” adding, “If we can unlock and motivate our donors for Trump and put more fuel in his tank, that’s what we want to do, and that’s what we need to do to make sure Biden is not reelected.”

“This is not going to be a state that’s competitive in November, and that’s just the reality. So I don’t anticipate there being much campaign here for the top of the ticket,” DeSantis said told the assembled faithful, knowing that it wasn’t true given that abortion and marijuana legalization will be on the ballot. “How I can help nationally, I want to be able to do that, I don’t know exactly.”

A new Quinnipiac survey in North Carolina finds Dem Attorney General Josh Stein leading insane far right Lt Gov Mark Robinson 52 to 44 percent ahead of November’s gubernatorial election, and 48 to 41 percent when the Libertarian and Green Party scrub candidates are added to the mix.

In a sign of potential reverse coattails from Robinson’s batshittery, President Biden trails fat former President Trump within the margin of error at 48 to 46 percent in a head-to-head and at 41 to 38 percent when Russian assets Robert F Kennedy Jr, Jill Stein, and Cornel West are included.

North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein is not to be confused with former Pennsylvania Attorney General and now Governor Josh Shapiro, especially if Stein wins, as just because they’d both be Jewish Democrats named “Josh S” who served as Attorney General before being elected to lead large purple-ish states on the East Coast doesn’t mean they’re the same guy or make it okay that we definitely called Stein “Shapiro” in at least one previously published article here on National Zero.

Nineteen national security-minded Republicans joined Democrats to end an effort by far-right members of the GOP to review and alter the regulations governing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which conspiratorial-minded rightwingers say is being used to spy on everyday Americans.  Preacher of the House Mike Johnson says a “clean” renewal will be voted on next week.

Typically supported by conservatives, FISA has come under fire recently because it was used to monitor Carter Page, a former advisor to Donald Trump’s campaign who was fired in September 2016 after the campaign learned he had unauthorized contacts with Russian officials.  Based on concurring information, the FBI received a FISA warrant to monitor Page’s communications with foreign nationals in October, a month later.  Trump and his cronies claim this was the Deep State spying on Trump and his campaign.

The loss marks the seventh rules vote failure of this House session, the most since Gerald Ford was President.  Immediately after the failure of the rule, the Republican Conference called a meeting for 4 p.m., its second meeting of the day, allegedly to discuss why the FISA reform bill failed for a third time, not at all to discuss Preacher Mike Johnson’s leadership.

Russian officials on Tuesday announced they were opening an investigation into Ukrainian energy company Burisma on suspicion of funding the ISIS terrorist attack that killed more than 140 people in Moscow’s Crocus City Hall concert venue last month, the Kyiv Independent reports.

Yeah this is real. White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan even addressed a reporter’s question about it during the daily press conference on Tuesday, somehow this flew under the radar of a lot of outlets. Like we get that Russians like to troll a lot, and not just in the regular internet propaganda sense, but at the highest echelons of power in their dysfunctional shitshow of a country. Like Putin himself was trolling when he said in February he preferred Biden be reelected.

This is kind of jumping the shark and borders on bad self-parody. It’s a joke National Zero would’ve rejected for being too on the nose with trying to tie Hunter Biden to ISIS. It’s just too uninspired, even if we’d mockingly urge Jim Jordan to subpoena Burisma. However if we could have printed this headline without the Crocus attack context that would be a pretty goddamned funny throwback to the fall of 2019: That Trump couldn’t get Zelensky to announce an investigation into Burisma then we so the Russians were taking the initiative five years later. Would’ve been great, but instead we’re stuck deconstructing something this overcooked Burisma-ISIS absurdity. Fucking dicks.

Apparently this desperate to save himself from QAnon scumbag Marjorie Taylor Greene‘s motion to vacate, Speaker Mike Johnson will head to Mar-a-Lago on Friday to appear at a joint press conference on “election integrity” with fat former President Trump, CNN’s Melanie Zanona reports.

It’s not clear yet if it’s just going to be a bunch of vague, horseshit platitudes about the need for election integrity or if Johnson will be cowed into introducing national legislation to “secure the vote” that will be DOA. Either way, the “plans still fluid, but comes as Johnson is facing a threat to his speakership from” Greene, per Zanona, emphasizing that it’s a move to cuddle up to Donald’s ample orange bosom for protection amid such turmoil. Zanona’s colleague Manu Raju tweeted that Greene and Johnson have been meeting privately for 70 minutes as of 12:39 PM EDT on Wednesday.

UPDATE 4/10/2024 12:53 PM EDT: CBS’s Scott MacFarlane reports the QAdulteress stepped out of her lengthy meeting with Johnson, alone and plainly not happy, saying she heard a “lot of excuses” and had demanded the speaker refuse to fund Ukraine, though she did not give a timeline on when she would move on her motion to vacate. So yeah, Johnson should probably head to Mar-a-Lago.

“LOOK WHAT WAS JUST FOUND! WILL THE FAKE NEWS REPORT IT?” posted fat former President Trump on Wednesday, along with this pic of a January 30, 2018 statement by Stormy Daniels.

Trump did not make clear what his purpose was in posting the pic, as in whether he was denying completely that he had a sexual relationship with Stormy Daniels, or to call in to question her credibility overall based on a statement she wrote when she apparently still believed she was bound by the terms of the hush money agreement at the time, which was just weeks after the Wall Street Journal had first broke the story of the payments. Daniels has obviously since publicly reversed this denial and shared at length embarrassing details about Donald’s anatomy and sexual skills, as well as intimated that the statement was coerced in an interview with Anderson Cooper.

Anyway, it wasn’t “JUST FOUND” because fanboys were circulating it last year in the lead-up to the grand jury in Manhattan hitting the fat fuck with 34 felony charges. Daniels tweeted as much at the time, writing on March 24, 2023 “It is old news from early 2018 before I came forward. I think it’s HYSTERICAL that tiny [meaning Trump] is trying to spin this as some kind of new information.”

Pro-Ukraine Republican Pennsylvania Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick tells Bloomberg’s Erik Wasson that the House will vote on an aid package to Ukraine next week – probably getting House Speaker Mike Johnson vacated by white nationalist psychopath Marjorie Taylor Greene. California Dem Pete Aguilar tells Punchbowl’s Max Cohen that Dems will step up to save his ass if needed after that. “You’ve heard Leader Jeffries say – it was an observation not a declaration – that we feel that if the speaker does the right thing [on Ukraine aid], that he is in a good position,” said Aguilar.