Titular Republican National Committee Chair Ronna Not-Romney McDaniel on Sunday expressed frustration to CNN’s Dana Bash that the Democrats aren’t coming to a “common sense limitation” agreement with her party’s lawmakers and thus ending the issue’s salience to the Dems’ electoral advantage. As fucking stupid and simplistic as all that sounds that’s basically what Ronna said.

Icelandic officials have ordered the evacuation of Grindavik, a fishing town of 3,400 on the southwestern coast, due to the risk of a volcanic eruption, an event caused, in Nordic lore, by the god Loki attempting to escape his bonds, an origin story that has somehow escaped the Marvel Universe rewrite of mythology.

Officials were not low-key about the risk, per CBS News:  seismic activity had moved south along the Reykjanes Peninsula toward the town, located about 31 miles from Reykjavik, Iceland’s capital, and authorities were worried the town would be either in the path of or cut of by a flow of magma that scientists believe is forming under the town, with a non-zero possibility that the town itself could be the point where the magma would surface.

The Icelandic Meteorological Services issued a warning for the area that for a “[s]ignificant likelihood of a volcanic eruption in the coming days” which for an Icelander is almost a full-blown panic.

Pope Francis has removed the bishop in Tyler, Texas, a conservative who used social media to frequently criticize the pontiff’s m0re liberal stances on bringing LGBTQ members back to the church, the Associated Press reports.  Francis essentially fired Joseph Strickland, the head of the Diocese of Tyler, made up of 33 counties in east Texas with about 55,000 Roman Catholics, officially saying he was “relieved” of his pastoral governance of the diocese.

Strickland was investigated by the Vatican earlier this year after members of the diocesan administration called some of Strickland’s public comments into question.  The Vatican has not publicly released the findings, but Strickland has asserted he would never resign his post because he was given a mandate by Francis’s predecessor, Pope Benedict, who appointed Strickland to be bishop in 2012.   Strickland also flouted Francis’s restrictions on the old Latin Mass, a liturgy traditionalists rallied around to stand up to the liberal tide they believe Francis personifies.

Already declaring himself blame-free by asserting, “I wasn’t the architect of the mess we are in,” neophyte Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said during a call with the Republican conference in which he laid out a two-step plan to fund the government before a potential government shutdown at the end of the month, CNN reports.

Instead of simply passing one bill, Johnson will use a more, needlessly complicated two-bill process in which the first bill will fund agencies for things like military construction, Veterans Affairs, transportation and housing and the Energy Department (which oversees the national supply of nuclear material) through mid-January and the separate bill funding the rest of government through the end of January.  Why the staggered deadline is anyone’s guess, but it will make future funding more contentious in the future.

Johnson did not include significant funding cuts demanded by the far-right fiscal conservatives of his Party.  Nor does the plan include funding for either Israel or Ukraine.  The strategy of breaking up funding and appropriations bills will only add to the chaos cited by ratings companies to justify lowering the long-term credit outlook of the United States.

At least the codger got his fellow dictator Viktor Orban’s country right this time. Last month he said it was Turkey. Would’ve landed this one perfectly if not for that tricky Obama-Biden thing. It is tough because they’re both Democrats and look so much alike. Plus their names are similar-ish too.

Early in my career, I had the great honor of working with the Department of Pennsylvania Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), doing a number of tasks from composing position statements, to crafting media releases, to writing and editing its statewide newsletter that went to tens of thousands of vets around the state.  Much of the information was typical stuff–photos of Post fundraisers, profiles of the organization’s officers, announcements of VFW programs, etc.–but headline stories at the time dealt with one primary thing.

That was healthcare–specifically, mental health care.  In the 1980s, the VFW and the American Legion were the two primary veterans advocacy groups.  The organizations were dominated by members of The Greatest Generation, World War II and some Korean War vets who largely dealt with their trauma and stress alone. (In my own family, my mother told me stories about one of her brothers who would go on long meandering car rides by himself, after he returned from his service in Europe, to cope.  After one of these car rides, he found himself in Ohio, she said, having driven through the night without a specific destination.)

Veterans healthcare was one of the issues the American Legion and the VFW frequently cooperated on their lobbying efforts, but those efforts regularly left out the needs of the newest veterans, from the Vietnam War.  During my stint working with the VFW, the long-term injuries of Vietnam started to come into public consciousness, with people learning about the high suicide and drug abuse rates among these vets. The lack of advocacy for this group of vets had led to the formation of the Vietnam Veterans Association of America. 

Not long ago we had a Speaker that believed in impeachment so much that he launched an inquiry without a floor vote, but you were told he was bad.

After 8 R’s and all D’s ousted him, we found checks to Joe Biden and evidence of a massive money laundering scheme and now the new… pic.twitter.com/87a5JnY6S0

— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) November 11, 2023

“In honor of our great Veterans on Veteran’s Day, we pledge to you that we will root out the Communists, Marxists, Fascists, and Radical Left Thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our Country, lie, steal, and cheat on Elections, and will do anything possible, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America, and the American Dream. The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave, than the threat from within,” writes disgraced former President Trump in a Truth Social post dedicated in honor of America’s brave and selfless veterans.

Not really an exaggeration to call that a pledge for “genocide,” right? Like he said simply he’s going to “root out” people without any further specificity like he’ll fire federal government employees who are registered Democrats or prosecute locally elected Democrats simply for not being Republicans. Both those would be horrible abuses of power but at least there’s a mere administrative action one could affix to it. If he’s just saying “root out” the “vermin” it would imply that literally he’s going to order people shot dead in the streets or otherwise systematically slaughtered for opposing his rule.

Then there’s also that the last national leader who said things like “we must root out the taint of Marxism” and “This vermin must be destroyed” actually did commit a pretty big genocide.

Holy shit! You guys gotta read this column by Sports Illustrated writer Michael Rosenberg about University of Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh getting suspended by the Big 10 Conference for the rest of the season after a member of his staff was allegedly caught spying on other colleges’ teams to gain an unfair advantage against them, just a day before Michigan was going to face Penn State. Rosenberg says “The process that led to Harbaugh’s three-game suspension was a clumsy execution of mob justice, and it is by no means over,” and “Michigan should be angry. [Big 10 Conference Commissioner Tony] Petitti… got suckered into thinking he is standing up for the integrity of the game, when he is really just revealing how little he knows about college football.”

Rosenberg goes on and on with a whole host of convincing-sounding reasons about why Harbaugh shouldn’t have been suspended, like “There is no public evidence that the Wolverines benefited more from the scheme than they would have from stealing signs legally. Maybe it exists, but where is it?” and “Within the Big Ten, there is a widespread perception that two of the programs that have expressed the most outrage are Ohio State and Penn State. In related news, the two coaches who have to explain to their fan bases why they have been losing to Michigan lately are Ohio State’s Ryan Day and Penn State’s James Franklin.” That is pretty freaking damning isn’t it?

Like even if you don’t know shit about college football that’s an absolute outrage, right? Nobody who believes in common virtues of decency or fairness likes to see interested parties weaponize the rules against their opponents to gain an advantage against them and Rosenberg’s piece does a spectacular job of bringing that home to those unfamiliar with the politics of NCAA football.

This was going to happen sooner or later so we probably should’ve just written a draft article saying something like “Jacob ‘QAnon Shaman’ Chansley, the iconic face of the January 6th, 2021 Capitol insurrection, on [day of week] filed the paperwork to run for Congress in Arizona’s XXX District next year, continuing the political mainstreaming of the far right terrorists who sought to destroy American democracy by disrupting the certification of Donald Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election.”

Actually that would’ve sounded too Politico-ish. Anyway 12 News reports that Chansley did indeed submit the paperwork to run for Arizona’s 8th District in 2024, a seat opening up with the retirement of Republican doomsday cult grandma Debbie Lesko. What’s actually a little surprising about the news is that, rather than enter an already crowded Republican primary field where he’d have to compete with Reptilian humanoid 2022 US Senate loser Blake Masters, Kari Lake-endorsed 2022 Arizona Attorney General loser Abe Hamadeh, Lesko-endorsed state House Speaker Ben Toma, and probably at least two or three other MAGA assholes, Chansley is running as a Libertarian.

Arizona’s 8th is so red that Dems didn’t even field candidates in the last two cycles and Lesko crushed her last general election challenger by 19 points in the 2018 Blue Wave year (definitely a big reason the GOP primary field is so packed). Which is to say maybe it could be a worthwhile investment for the DCCC provided Chansley doesn’t fatally overdose on peyote or some shit before election day. Might as well at least start thinking about recruiting a candidate and running some polls to see how many votes he could end up splitting off. There is one Shaman ballot that Dems won’t be able to count on however: Chansley himself, who is barred from voting due to his federal felony conviction for carrying a fucking spear with him into the Capitol on January 6th, 2021.

A Pennsylvania teenager is no doubt heartbroken and upset after a family member of his girlfriend recently caught them kissing at her home and angrily chased him out, screaming at him they could never see each other again. The 14 year-old Pennridge South Middle School student even had to run a few blocks and hide behind a car for a while until the coast was clear enough to call his parents to come pick him up. As if that wasn’t bad enough, his mom then called the cops and filed a complaint.

Now he really can’t ever see his girlfriend, 35 year-old Pennridge South guidance counselor Kelly Ann Schutte, again because she’s been charged with institutional sexual assault, corruption of minors, and indecent assault of a person less than 16 years of age, NBC 10 Philadelphia reports.

“President Trump absolutely agrees, and in fact demands, that these proceedings should be fully televised so that the American public can see firsthand that this case, just like others, is nothing more than a dreamt-up unconstitutional charade that should never be allowed to happen again. Furthermore, President Trump is entitled to present his positions in this case to the American public, including his sacred obligation as President to investigate and address fraud and other irregularities in the 2020 Presidential Election. Therefore, the Court should grant the Motions and allow the movants to broadcast the proceedings of this matter in order to ensure that the American public can see the bare truth of this case, witness the Biden Administration’s wrongful acts, and hear all the evidence regarding an election that President Trump believes was rigged and stolen,” write fat former President Trump’s lawyers in a response to NBC’s application to televise the trial.

Note the part about “all the evidence regarding an election that President Trump believes was rigged and stolen,” emphasis ours. Funny how Team Orange aren’t themselves on board with the 2020 conspiracy theory bullshit. If they were, they wouldn’t be afraid to say it in a legal document.

• My favorite part of Tuesday’s election outcome was the reckoning Fox hosts and pundits had as the results came in, right before they started to ignore it.
• Vivek Ramaswamy is the Herman Cain of Marianne Williamsons.  
• Republicans have won the popular vote in the presidential race just once in the last three decades and it took post 9/11 war-fueled nationalism to do that.  Since Trump left office, Americans have voted like 1/6 was another attack on our democracy… because it was.
• The new Google phone feature that lets you trade out faces from other pics so you create the “perfect” image, without people blinking or looking away from the camera, creepily fabricates memories of things that never happened.
  Read More ▶ “Random thoughts Friday, Volume CXLVI”

Democratic New Jersey Congressman Andy Kim launched his campaign for the US Senate Friday, taking on indicted incumbent Democrat Bob Menendez, who is facing a second trial on corruption charges, Politico reports.  From a South Jersey district on the outskirts of Philadelphia, Kim is a third-term Congressman and the first Democratic Congressman of Korean heritage.  Kim already has a significant lead in primary polling taken before his formal announcement.

Stephen Lee, a conservative Lutheran pastor from Illinois who was indicted as part of Donald Trump’s racketeering scheme to hold on to power after losing the 2020 election in Georgia, claims to his supporters that he was just ministering to people when, prosecutors allege, he was threatening them to change their statements to support his conspiracy theories.

Per the gift-linked New York Times story, Lee is traveling the country talking to evangelical congregations to get funds for his legal defense against the five charges in the Fulton County case.  A former police officer who has helped to counsel officers after traumatic events like mass shootings, Lee (through his attorney) claims that he was doing what he’s trained to do:  help those in need.

Prosecutors claim Lee stalked the home of Fulton County election worker Ruby Freeman, repeatedly knocking on her door and then surveilling her house from his car.  After Freeman called police, an officer spoke to Lee, who is captured on body cam footage saying he was there to provide pastoral care to Freeman but she was afraid to talk to him because he’s a white man.

Citing dysfunction in the federal government and no long-term plan to deal with increasing debt, the credit agency Moody’s lowered its rating for US sovereign debt to negative, a move that may make it more difficult and expensive for the government to borrow money, the Washington Post reports.

Maintaining America’s credit rating at its highest AAA rating, Moody’s is the only one of the three major rating agencies to do so:  both Fitch and Standard & Poor’s downgraded the US long-term credit rating after the Republicans pushed the government close to shutdown by refusing to raise the debt ceiling this summer.

“Continued political polarization within US Congress raises the risk that successive governments will not be able to reach consensus on a fiscal plan to slow the decline in debt affordability,” Moody’s said in a statement.  Should Republicans push for another shutdown at the end of the month as the last deal expires, Moody’s will most likely follow the others and complete the trifecta.

The Establishment in both parties is corrupt to the core and is alive more than ever.

It’s time to fight: now is the moment for freedom-loving American patriots everywhere to stand up and take back the country we love from a corrupt group of politicians who are marching us… pic.twitter.com/2J2UtBB1qO

— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) November 10, 2023

These are dark times for our Nation, as New York City Mayor Eric Adams’s cell phone and tablets have been seized by FBI agents, the New York Times reports. Nothing like this has ever happened to a Mayor of New York City before. After working and cooperating with the relevant Government agencies, this unannounced raid on his devices was not necessary or appropriate. It is prosecutorial misconduct, the weaponization of the Justice System, and an attack by Radical Left Democrats who desperately don’t want Adams to run for Mayor in 2025, especially based on recent polls, and who will likewise do anything to stop him from peacefully and patriotically leading the city.

Such an assault could only take place in broken, Third-World Countries. Sadly, America has now become one of those Countries, corrupt at a level not seen before. What is the difference between this and Watergate, where operatives broke into the Democrat National Committee? Here, in reverse, Democrat FBI agents illegally seized the devices of the 110th Mayor of New York City.

The political persecution of Mayor Eric Adams has been going on for years, with this now fully debunked Turkey, Turkey, Turkey Scam, the ghosts haunting Gracie Mansion, and so much more, it just never ends. It is political targeting at the highest level! Hillary was allowed to delete and acid wash 33,000 E-mails AFTER they were subpoenaed by Congress. Absolutely nothing has happened to hold her accountable. She even took antique furniture, and other items from the White House!

National Zero will resume our regular coverage after mad-libbing this August 8, 2022 Trump statement to use to report the very real news about the FBI investigation into Eric Adams.

Republican Ohio state lawmakers on Thursday decided they were just going to ignore the will of the voters after the Tuesday ballot measure enshrining the right to abortion in the state constitution passed by a 56.6 to 43.4 margin, announcing their intent to formulate some plan to circumvent it in an official public statement with the headline “DECEPTIVE OHIO ISSUE 1 MISLED THE PUBLIC BUT DOESN’T REPEAL OUR LAWS – Foreign Billionaires Don’t Get to Make Ohio Laws.”

“Ohio Legislators will be introducing several bills to address this issue in the coming weeks. ‘Foreign billionaires don’t get to make Ohio laws,’ said Jennifer Gross (R-West Chester), pointing to millions from billionaires outside America that helped fund Issue 1. Gross added, ‘This is foreign election interference, and it will not stand,'” the statement reads, which we guess means “Soros did this!”

“‘Issue 1 doesn’t repeal a single Ohio law, in fact, it doesn’t even mention one,’ said Representative Bill Dean (R-Xenia). ‘The amendment’s language is dangerously vague and unconstrained, and can be weaponized to attack parental rights or defend rapists, pedophiles, and human traffickers.’ Melanie Miller (R-Ashland) said, ‘We will continue to be a voice for every child in their mother’s womb who cannot speak for themselves.’ Representative Beth Lear (R-Galena) stated, ‘No amendment can overturn the God given rights with which we were born,'” they continued.

The came the kicker: “To prevent mischief by pro-abortion courts with Issue 1, Ohio legislators will consider removing jurisdiction from the judiciary over this ambiguous ballot initiative. The Ohio legislature alone will consider what, if any, modifications to make to existing laws based on public hearings and input from legal experts on both sides.” So, like we wrote in the headline, Ohio Republicans are simply not going to abide by the will of the voters in their state.

The Anna C Verna Playground in Philadelphia’s FDR Park is now home to North America’s largest swing set, said to be the size of the infield at the Phillies’s Citizen’s Bank Park, ABC News Local-ish reports without mentioning how many swings the set has or how it stacks up against its competitors in South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, or Antarctica. Well, maybe not Antarctica.

It’s a fair question to raise given how “North America’s largest swing set” automatically carries with it the implication that nations in other continents possess larger swing sets. Not that a circular array of continuous metallic pylons with five different types of swings on it the size of a Major League Baseball diamond isn’t impressive billing, it’s just that we needed something to get obnoxiously granular about to produce filler content for National Zero readers and rambling about some poorly written TV affiliate news website article was the best we have right now on limited time.