Republican Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, MD used the Heimlich maneuver to quickly save Iowa colleague Joni Ernst from choking to death during a caucus lunch, Politico’s Burgess Everett reports.

It’s not clear if Paul needed to stand on a chair to get in the proper position or if Ted Cruz was sitting at the same table and laughed “Hahahaha! Look everyone, Joni’s pretending to choke! Okay Joni, that’s not funny anymore. You can stop now,” before Paul pushed the chair up to aid Ernst.

Dr Anthony Fauci did not comment either, but probably would have said “Oh wow, that fucking asshole finally used something from his four years of med school on the job? Color me impressed.”

The Capitol cops beat the hell out of innocent J6 protesters, and the videos are finally coming out

The cops should be charged and the protesters should be freed

This is why the uniparty didn’t want the videos released pic.twitter.com/3LlRsOiZxB

— Hodgetwins (@hodgetwins) November 28, 2023

This tweet by some douchebags on MAGA influencer Stephen Crowder’s B-team is just the usual shock value bullshit, like everyone on the right’s been calling the Capitol rioters “political prisoners” for nearly three years now so let’s take it further by accusing the cops of police brutality for defending themselves blah blah blah. It becomes similar but maybe a little more salient when fat former President Trump himself literally posts a screenshot of and link to it on Truth Social.

That’s an escalation, something that should definitely be brought to the attention of people with the platform to amplify that Trump doesn’t think cops should be allowed to defend themselves, contradicting effectively anything and everything he’s ever said publicly about law enforcement and civil unrest over the last seven years. Like do we even need to cite specific examples here?

Dumbass Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville on Thursday told reporters he’ll stop blocking the promotion of military officers in protest of abortion policy that doesn’t exist. “This started out as, obviously, abortion overreach and those things. Now, since we’ve had all this time, we’ve had different groups across Washington DC and the country that have evaluated all these military appointees. I think that we need to make sure that people that are our generals and admirals should be vetted to some degree, but also understand that we need to get these people promoted, and it’s been a long time for some of them,” Tuberville said adding he’ll only block the “woke” ones.

CNN’s Manu Raju put it flatly that “The reality is that the Senate was likely to change procedures to confirm the nominees if Tuberville didn’t back down.” So this pointless bullshit will finally end.

Senate Judiciary Committee Dems on Thursday finally subpoenaed Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s boss Harlan Crow and far right judicial scumbag Leonard Leo to answer questions and provide documents about their undue influence over American law, Dem activist Victor Shi reports.

Florida state Republican Party Chairman Christian Ziegler, husband to Bridget, a co-founder of the extremist Karen group Moms for Liberty, is under criminal investigation after a woman who said she was in “a longstanding consensual three-way sexual relationship” with the Zieglers filed a complaint accusing Christian sexual battery, the Florida Center for Government Accountability reports.

A search warrant was executed on Ziegler’s phone by Sarasota Police Department detectives. No further details about the “longstanding” three-way were available but already lol at these sick assholes for imposing their “Don’t Say Gay” bullshit while being all “non-traditional.”

We don’t hate Punchbowl News. Their guy Jake Sherman is a freaking bloodhound and his reporting has been an invaluable source for National Zero through the great many dramas on Capitol Hill during the last year or so, while their daily morning newsletter more often than not has something useful even if it’s usually buried under dry jargon about appropriations negotiations and what not.

However now for the second time this autumn we’re going to have to call them out for leading with a section about the House GOP’s inept effort to impeach President Joe Biden that reads like it was dictated word-for-word by malevolent razorback Elise Stefanik or some other MAGA asshole, writing that “swing-district Republicans look ready to green-light the Biden probe. And the political reality is that if this investigation is authorized, it may prove impossible to stop the momentum for Biden’s impeachment by the House,” before firing off a bunch of quotes from such members.

It’s only a little ways down that they acknowledge the reality that “there are still a number of Republicans cool on the idea, and impeaching Biden is still no sure bet,” before mentioning that Congressmen Ken Buck and Tom McClintock are still opposed. There are 222 Republicans in the House and they need 218 votes to pass an impeachment inquiry. George Santos will more likely than not be gone within the next 36 hours. Who did the math on the “impossible to stop the momentum”?

Now it’s only fair that if Punchbowl included such caveats that we do ours: Of course the holdouts could end up caving and the inquiry gets authorized. They are Republicans after all. A formal inquiry would certainly create “momentum” in that the expectation from the MAGA base is for them to follow through with it and actually impeach Biden – even though the entire time it will remain glaringly obvious that they’re just trying to find a way to work backward from that predetermined outcome.

A New York State appeals court on Thursday found in favor of Manhattan Superior Court Judge Arthur Engoron and reimposed his gag order on fat former President Trump prohibiting Donald and his lawyers from saying anything about Engoron’s clerk or any other member of the staff.

For a guy who bitches constantly about Disney and other major Hollywood studios for being “woke” and what not, Jim Jordan sure seems intent on mimicking a different part of their model, one subject to wider, apolitical criticism of their product: their reliance on sequels, prequels, spinoffs, reboots, remakes, adaptations of existing properties, etc at the expense of resources that could be devoted to developing fresh new material and exciting content that stands on its own.

Actually not sure if that’s a fair comparison. The worst Spider-man movie still has Spider-man in it, people still want to watch it. This hearing is fucking Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger rehashing the same Twitter Files circlejerk they did nine months ago. Nobody in their right mind cared about this back then and what the fuck else has changed other than an IRS agent supposedly showing up at Taibbi’s home because “muh weaponization Biden Deep State revenge” and blah blah blah?

Of course we’re running it for our readers to watch these assholes embarrass themselves, but National Zero is not the intended audience. That audience, the fanboys for whom this is being staged and would take it seriously… Are they excited for Jim Jordan’s big comeback hearing?

A Greenwich, Connecticut woman has sued the national salad chain Chopt over an order staff at the Mount Kisco, New York location got wrong back in April, the Associated Press reports.

She specifically ordered an arugula salad with no meat and the overworked and underpaid staff screwed up and put a piece of the manager’s finger in it. So what. Stuff happens sometimes, especially at a place called “Chopt.” Doesn’t mean this Karen has to make a big lawsuit out of it.

In a very frank admission of the incentive structure for Republicans in deep red districts, MAGA Tennessee Congressman Tim Burchett on Wednesday told Business Insider a vote to expel George Santos would be a political winner with his constituents because “people don’t like the fact he’s gay.”

Burchett did not say definitively which way he’ll actually vote, only saying he’s a “libertarian” when it comes to sexuality. “Politically, it’d be the greatest vote in the world for me back home,” he said about the lying piece of shit Long Islander’s status. “Everybody’s saying ‘kick him out!’ I mean, people don’t like the fact he’s gay,” said Burchett. “And then you go down the list, then you get to all the criminal stuff. But he hasn’t been convicted, and I can’t get past that,” said Burchett, apparently hinting at something resembling principle may override the homophobia from his constituents.

Lying piece of shit Long Island Congressman George Santos will deliver his hotly-anticipated press conference from the steps of the Capitol on Thursday morning as he faces a reportedly certain expulsion from the House in a vote likely coming to the floor on Friday. Santos’s lack of credibility on really anything of substance or otherwise does not mean his questionable accusations of gross personal misbehavior and professional misconduct on the part of his GOP colleagues will not be entertaining. Otherwise we wouldn’t bother with running this shitshow on our website.

Two gunmen reportedly associated with Hamas opened fire on a bus stop in Jerusalem on Thursday killing at least two Israelis before getting shot dead by IDF soldiers themselves, and a third Israeli civilian was killed during the crossfire, Fox News reports citing an IDF spokesperson.

“The initial investigation indicates that the terrorists arrived to the scene by car in the morning, armed with an M-16 rifle and a handgun,” a Jerusalem Police spokesperson said. “At a certain point, the terrorists began shooting at civilians before subsequently being killed at the scene. A police search of the terrorists’ car revealed ammunition and weaponry.”

Can’t get over this guy’s inability to get over the fact that Joe Biden never charged his brother interest on personal loans. It’s understandable too, considering that Smith and his buddy James Comer have actually pretty much established a record showing that James Biden did use money he scammed from a failing health insurance company and some Chinese energy concern to make loan repayments to his brother and any interest Joe could have charged would thus have been a personal benefit from the “Biden Crime Family” hustles. Like we get why Smith is so frustrated here (and why he’s frustrated in other ways). If only Joe Biden were the kind of asshole who would charge a family member interest Smith would have the pretext for impeachment they so desperately pine for.

Cowardly former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy claimed to two people that, following his ouster at the hands of eight mostly far-right rebels early last month, he told fat former President Trump “fuck you” in a phone conversation for not having had McCarthy’s back and intervening to get the anti-McCarthy members to stop the steal of the Speakership, the Washington Post reports.

In what lines up with previous reporting from the Post and other sources both before and after the ouster, as well as public claims by palace coup leader Matt Gaetz hinting that he had Orange God Emperor’s support for the removal before Gaetz had introduced the motion to vacate, sources told the Post that McCarthy said Trump had “lambasted” his feckless underling for failing to endorse his 2024 presidential campaign and – hilariously, but not unexpectedly – not moving forward with evil House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik and ornery now-Senator Markwayne Mullin’s plan to “expunge” the fat former president’s two impeachments, leading to the “fuck you” from McCarthy.

What isn’t in the Post’s report is any mention of Trump disagreeing with McCarthy on actual policy or legislation, despite the Orange Slob having claimed after the fact in an interview with propagandist John Solomon last month that Kev had it coming after he “played right into the Democrats’ hands” by ignoring Trump’s commands to shut down the government and reaching a spending deal. That was all bullshit retconning as you don’t see anything about Donald – or Matt Gaetz and his pals for that matter – exerting any similar pressure on McCarthy’s far-right successor Mike Johnson.

Qatari officials on Thursday announced the ceasefire between terrorist group Hamas and the Israeli Defense Forces was extended by a day just minutes before it was to expire, the AP reports.

The former federal judge responsible for overseeing the Trump Organization’s finances sent a letter to the judge overseeing the New York State civil fraud lawsuit after she flagged three transactions this year that violated court reporting requirements, Newsweek reports.

Former U.S. District Court Judge Barbara Jones told Judge Arthur Engoron that three transfers from the company to Donald Trump were made over the $5 million level that required reporting to the court to ensure the Trump family isn’t trying to hide assets.  One of the payments, for $5.5 million, was made to an insurance company for the initial losses declared in the E. Jean Carroll defamation suit.  Carroll was initially awarded $5 million in damages, but she is pursuing more damages based on Trump’s continuing to slander her.  Another payment went to additional insurance policies.

The largest payment of the three was $27 million, which Jones noted was for taxes.  In other news, Donald Trump apparently paid millions in taxes in 2023.

A Texas man was sentenced to two years in federal prison for threatening the lives of three Georgia election officials in the months after the 2020 election and just before the January 6th Republican-led domestic terrorist attack on Congress.  Chad Christopher Stark, of Leander, Texas posted a listing on Craigslist on January 5th, 2021 entitled “Georgia Patriots it’s time to kill [one target] the Chinese agent – $10,000.”

The post, most of which is available at the link above, is worth a read if you want to delve into the delusions of an election denier as The Big Lie was going on contemporaneously.   Stark’s text includes: “It’s our duty as American Patriots to put an end to the lives of these traitors and take back our country by force we can no longer wait on the corrupt law enforcement in the corrupt courts. If we want our country back we have to exterminate these people.”

While Stark’s targets are not named in the Justice Department announcement, a good bet would be the ones a MAGAt in Central Texas would hear of:  Gabriel Sterling, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, the people being splashed all over conservative and conspiracy media as the center of the so-not-stolen election.

While it’s probably true that anyone who paid attention to politics since before the turn of the millennium probably does their own version, having Fox host and secret Trump advisor Sean Hannity and his TeeVee bud Bret Baier do their impersonations of Henry Kissinger–with Baier’s sounding more like Arnold Schwarzenegger doing a Kissinger imitation–within an hour of the announcement of Kissinger’s death seems a bit tasteless.  But then, that’s Fox.  And Hannity.

Sebastian Stan, perhaps best known to film fans for portraying The Winter Solder–the nom de guerre of Captain America’s best friend Bucky Barnes in the Marvel Universe–will portray Donald Trump in an upcoming film biography by Iranian filmmaker Ali Abbasi, the Guardian reports.

With filming starting this week, the movie, titled The Apprentice, will cover Trump’s life in the 1970s and -80s, when he suffered numerous financial losses and developed a friendship with his mentor, Roy Cohn, before abandoning his businesses and centering on building his brand empire.  Succession’s Jeremy Strong has been cast as Cohn and Oscar nominee Maria Bakalova, known for being the victim of Rudy Giuliani’s pants diddling in a Sasha Baron Cohen movie, will play Trump’s first wife and future golf course fertilizer, Ivana.

After 100 years of mumbling stuff about destabilizing Third World countries to people who would go and destabilize them, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has joined other prominent Nixon Administration officials in a warm spot somewhere in the hereafter, the Washington Post reports.