Super keyed-in, total insider scoop factory Axios on Thursday published a really illuminating if you’re a douchebag piece examining how Senator Joe Manchin’s retirement is a terrible sign for Democrats’ hopes of hanging on to the majority in the chamber in 2025. “A Democratic fairy tale is coming to an end in West Virginia, where Joe Manchin’s decision not to seek re-election threatens to blow up the party’s chances of holding the Senate – and potentially the White House – in 2024,” they write.

They’re fucking serious, lol. Here in the real world we knew that Manchin was all but certainly doomed in 2024 with popular Republican incumbent Governor Jim Justice polling significantly ahead of him in the matchup. Only if dickhead MAGA Congressman Alex Mooney had edged out Justice in the GOP primary would Manchin have had a realistic shot, an extremely tall order as disgraced former President Trump showered his golden endorsement upon Justice last month. Long before then Sabato’s Crystal Ball had rated West Virginia as “lean Republican” while Ohio and Montana were toss-ups. Anyone wanting to see Dems hold the Senate had already long made peace with the idea that Manchin would be spending more time with his yacht in 2025 one way or the other.

And still Axios writes “Without Manchin – widely viewed as the only Democrat who could run competitively in deep-red West Virginia – Republicans likely will need to flip just one or two Senate seats to take control of Congress’ upper chamber, depending on the outcome of the presidential race,” like they’re rubbing it in. It was one of their top articles this morning. At least they have something else to cover after their Youngkin 2024 circlejerk imploded spectacularly on Tuesday, something they barely addressed afterward. We would be embarrassed too if we were Axios.

Conservatives don’t want to watch NBC. @VivekGRamaswamy is right — why would Ronna have leftist activists moderate a GOP debate???

— Jenna Ellis (@JennaEllisEsq) November 10, 2023

Shitty MAGA federal Judge Aileen Cannon on Friday ruled she is sticking to her May 20, 2024 start date for disgraced former President Trump’s trial on charges he stole classified documents from the White House and hoarded them at Mar-a-Lago in defiance of a lawful subpoena for their return.

Some might see this as a “win” in the fight to convict the fat fuck for his many crimes against American democracy and the rule of law but we’re inclined to view it as Cannon actually doing her best to help Trump: If the Florida trial really ends up starting on May 20th it will be a long one that’ll almost certainly box out any chance of the Georgia trial getting started before the 2020 election.

We already know Cannon is going to rig it against Jack Smith’s team in any and every way she can, picking hardcore Trump yokels to sit on the jury, overruling prosecutors, just fucking everything up to ensure that the final courtroom decision before the 2024 election is something Trump can call “complete and total exoneration” even when it’s going to be a mistrial or outright jury nullification.

The case against Trump is extremely strong. So was the case against OJ Simpson. Americans who want to see the Orange Defendant lose next year and get locked up for life would have been better served if Cannon had punted to 2025. We would like to be wrong here and maybe we will be both about the start date being set in stone and/or that a fair enough jury will be picked and render the proper verdict. But we can’t help but feel like this decision is actually a setback for justice.

Fugitive Capitol rioter Greg Yetman, whose flight from justice sparked a multi-day manhunt in the woods near Helmetta, New Jersey with local cops and even a SWAT team joining the FBI’s efforts to cuff him, turned himself in to police in nearby Monroe Township on Friday morning, WNBC reports.

Yetman, 47, who served as a sergeant in the New Jersey National Guard until March of last year, was wanted for Assaulting, Resisting, or Impeding Certain Officers, Obstruction of Law Enforcement During Civil Disorder, Entering and Remaining in a Restricted Building or Grounds, Engaging in Physical Violence in a Restricted Building or Grounds, and Act of Physical Violence in the Capitol Grounds or Buildings, per an FBI arrest warrant unsealed Thursday. Per WNBC, he was in a home in Helmetta on Wednesday when he saw FBI agents approaching and fled, sparking the response in which SWAT teams set off flash grenades in spaces where they thought he might’ve been hiding.

It’s possible the overkill might’ve been simply precautionary because of Yetman’s military background, though much more likely it was bored suburban cops tired of beating the shit out of drunken townies in the parking lots of local Irish-themed pubs for their “action.” Easy to imagine the FBI agents were happy to sit back and let the locals play Cowboys and Indians with a suspect the feds didn’t think was armed and dangerous. And then fail at that too, which they did. In fact the cops probably scared Yetman even more than FBI and the only real motive he had for escaping them was so that he could safely turn himself in to cops in another town instead of getting shot.

“Fake News CNN just did a story, leaked by Deranged Prosecutor Jack Smith and his massive team of Radical Left Lunatics, that various people saw papers and boxes at Mar-a-Lago. Of course they did! They may have been the boxes etc that were openly and plainly brought from the White House, as is my right under the Presidential Records Act. I even supplied, upon request, Security Tapes to these Election Interfering Thugs. Is this really ‘Breaking News?’ No, it’s ‘Breaking Fake News,'” writes disgraced former President Trump on Truth Social, screaming about a Thursday CNN story we at National Zero – and apparently plenty of other downstream outlets – had skipped because it wasn’t really adding much to our understanding of his guilt in stealing classified documents from the White House and hoarding them at Mar-a-Lago in defiance of lawful subpoenas for their return.

Actually maybe we should’ve picked it up if only for the detail that Trump “went ‘ballistic'” when he found out that the FBI wanted to question a maid at Mar-a-Lago about the hoarding in the lead-up to the August 2022 raid. Anytime the orange asshole is scared and angry is enjoyable.

The fat bastard’s Truth Social post kept going, whatabouting with Biden for a change with “But what about all of the papers, boxes, and documents found at NUMEROUS Crooked Joe Biden places, like his garage floor by his cherished Corvette, or CHINATOWN where it was just learned that boxes moved freely in and out. He doesn’t come under the Presidential Records Act because he wasn’t President at the time. Deranged Jack Smith has spent over $100,000,000 investigating me on this phony Russia, Russia, Russia, type Scam. How much $’s have they spent investigating Crooked Joe on his much bigger boxes deal?” with the only part of that stupid bullshit being new the “Jack Smith has spent over $100,000,000 investigating me” part. We haven’t heard that one before, and it would appear to be an extreme exaggeration given that the last numbers we got from Smith’s office were $5,428,579 spent between November 2022 and April 2023 on two parallel Trump investigations.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has been telling members of his conference that “we’re not there yet” as far as damning enough evidence to impeach President Joe Biden goes, “moderate” Nebraska Congressman Don Bacon tells the Washington Post, adding that Johnson agreed there aren’t any “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Johnson naturally isn’t pulling the plug, but appears to prefer the inquiry run by morons James Comer, Jim Jordan, and Jason Smith to die on the vine.

Oh, where to start:  the accusations that Marjorie Taylor herself was frequently biblically familiar with members of her Crossfit while she still could justifiably use the “Greene” surname?  Or the fact that the Republican caucus is quickly becoming an off-brand remake of “Mean Girls” in the reality genre?

According to the Daily Beast, Marge frequently refers to her “little bitch” Lauren Boebert, a.k.a. LB², as a “whore” to her colleagues on the floor of the House, and according to at least one, “Calling her a whore, that’s not new.  She’s been doing that for a while.” Of course, Boebert sausaged herself into a revealing dress for an infamous night at the theater, since which she’s been trying to “adult” in public.  When asked about the accusations, Marge didn’t deny them and instead accused the reporter of being “drawn to the gossip and the drama.”  Gossip and drama, it should be noted, caused by Marge.

David DePape, the man charged with breaking into Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco home and assaulting her husband with a hammer, believed he was justified in his actions because of right-wing and QAnon-inspired conspiracy theories, his lawyer said during her opening statements in his federal criminal trial, CBS News reports.

It’s pretty obvious the guy was a Republican Trump supporter who believed the various nutty theories, but the extent his lawyer laid out was widespread, involving the Pelosis, Congressman Adam Schiff, NatZero patron saint George Soros, beleaguered POTUS son Hunter Biden, high-paid Everyman Tom Hanks, presumptive substitute Democratic presidential nominee California Governor Gavin Newsom.

“Members of the jury, many of us do not believe any of that. But the evidence in this trial will show that Mr. DePape believes all these things … with every ounce of his being,” defense attorney Jodi Linke said in her opening in which she noted the defense will not challenge the video evidence or the facts of DePape’s actions inside the Pelosi home.  DePape faces charges of attempted kidnapping of a federal official and assault on an immediate family member of a federal official.

Appearing on Newsmax to keep talking about his tedious bullshit investigation of James Biden paying back his brother Joe for a personal loan with some not very clean money, House Oversight hick James Comer tried to sort of mount a defense of his own strikingly similar situation involving his asshole brother Chad before host Eric Bolling simply talked over him, prompting Comer to drop it.

Besides the widely-known loses in state elections on Tuesday, conservatives who pushed the culture war agenda favored by Republicans like Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis also fell short in school board elections across the country, NBC News reports.

In the sixteen states where local school board elections were held Tuesday, candidates such as those backed by the inappropriately named Moms for Liberty censorship group came up short.  In the districts outside Des Moines, Iowa, for example, current liberal and moderate board members were able to hold off challenges from the group’s candidates and other religious groups.

The liberal run also extended to the all-important Philadelphia suburbs that can swing the state:  in Central Bucks and Pennridge districts, Democratic candidates won seats against conservative candidates who vowed to ban books on gender and LGBTQ issues.

Dipshit Republican Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn on Thursday said she’ll subpoena dead pimp Jeffrey Epstein’s flight records more than four years after he committed suicide in jail.

If true,I’m not surprised.

@GOPChairwoman your opinion is irrelevant as a party boss. The people chose the candidates not you and the establishment.

We need to remove this interference from our politics so that we can go back to winning elections. https://t.co/4K625EQAnu

— George Santos (@MrSantosNY) November 9, 2023

A lengthy puff piece in Vogue–because it’s Vogue, not Foreign Policy after all–and in a follow-up summary in The Daily Beast, rapper Nicki Minaj touches briefly on her foray into medical research during the height of the coronavirus pandemic and ensuing furor based on baseless conspiracy theories, but it misses the opportunity to dig deeper into issue most Americans want addressed.

“I’m one of those people who doesn’t go with a crowd.  I like to make my own assessment of everything without help from everyone,” she says without addressing the one question everyone has: How are her Trinidadian cousin’s friend’s testicles these days?  And the fact that the reporter did not ask that is journalistic malpractice.

Leaving no stone with nothing under it unturned in his relentless quest to find something, anything, he can use as the thinnest of pretexts to impeach Hunter Biden Joe Biden, House Oversight Chairbilly James Comer on Thursday subpoenaed George Bergès, the art dealer who sold Hunter Biden’s paintings, Elizabeth Naftali, the Dem donor who bought at least one of the pieces, as well as Eric Schwerin and Mervyn Yan, whom Comer describes as Hunter’s “business associates.”

“In addition, Chairman Comer requested a transcribed interview with a former Americore Holdings, LLC representative regarding ‘loans’ the Bidens received,” Comer added in his announcement. It takes a halfway decent Hunterghazi aficionado to appreciate that one as Americore was the health care company James Biden scammed out of a few hundred thousand dollars by telling them he could use his name to scrounge up some capital for the then-desperate Americore in the Middle East, some of the money he then immediately used to pay his brother Joe back on a personal loan.

To the West Virginians who have put their trust in me and fought side by side to make our state better – it has been an honor of my life to serve you. Thank you. My statement on my political future: pic.twitter.com/dz8JuXAyTL

— Senator Joe Manchin (@Sen_JoeManchin) November 9, 2023

In a leaked transcript of his interview with Latino news outlet Univision obtained by Semafor, disgraced former President Trump said he’ll be happy to use federal law enforcement against his political opponents, saying “Yeah. If they do this, and they’ve already done it, but if they follow through on this, yeah, it could certainly happen in reverse. It could certainly happen in reverse. What they’ve done is they’ve released the genie out of the box.” It’s “bottle,” you fucking idiot.

Donald then made it sound like he will be running again for a third term in 2028 if he wins next year, (which would be unconstitutional under the 22nd Amendment but when did that old rag ever stop him from doing whatever he wants?) saying, “They have done something that allows the next party – I mean, if somebody, if I happen to be president and I see somebody who’s doing well and beating me very badly, I say ‘Go down and indict them.’ They’d be out of business, out of the election.”

Trump also admitted he separated migrant children from their parents in 2018, which we were to understand that it was Obama who actually was the one doing it not him back then, telling the Univision interviewer “When you hear that you’re going to be separated from your family you don’t come. When you think you’re going to come into the United States with your family, you come… We did family separation. A lot of people didn’t come. It stopped people from coming by their hundreds of thousands because when they hear family separation, they say ‘Well, we better not go.'”

Per the Washington Post’s Tyler Pager, a member of the media “just fell on the press riser” causing the loud thump that interrupted President Biden’s speech to a crowd of UAW members in Illinois, with Joe drawing laughs with “I want the press to know that wasn’t me” who tripped. Biden continued joking about his age, saying “I know I only look like I’m 30 but I’ve been around a long time,” before turning his fire on his obese orange predecessor’s apocalyptic ravings.

Some asshole, almost certainly a MAGA terrorist, sent a letter laced with fentanyl to the Fulton County, Georgia elections office, WSBTV reports. It’s not clear if the letter was actually received because WSBTV’s article says, verbatim “Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger confirmed that there were reports of suspicious letters sent to election offices in multiple states and confirmed Fulton County was targeted. Officials told Channel 2′s Justin Gray that the letter was laced with fentanyl and that officials are trying to intercept it before it arrives,” which is sort of confusing.

“We’re working with our state and federal partners to determine if any additional Georgia officials are being targeted. Domestic terrorists will not trample on our right to free and fair elections. Election officials should be free from fear and intimidation, which is why I’ve called on the General Assembly to increase penalties for election interference. We will work tirelessly to ensure that Georgia elections remain free, fair, and secure,” Raffensperger said in a statement on the matter.

ABC News also reports Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs announced that envelopes containing “unknown powdery substances” were discovered Wednesday by election workers in several counties in that state, so we could be looking at another “MAGA bomber“-like situation, minus the terrorist being too incompetent to build a functional bomb. Fentanyl is legitimately deadly.

There’s actually too much to unpack here, between Kev crying about the showboaters who kicked him out of the Speakership, not disagreeing with Raju suggesting Matt Gaetz should be expelled from the conference, saying Nancy Mace doesn’t “deserve” to win reelection, and Raju rattling off the reactions from the members McCarthy bitched to him about. It’s actually beautiful, in a way.

Russian asset Jill Stein on Thursday filed the paperwork to run for president on the Green Party ticket in the 2024 election after similarly astroturfed spoiler Cornel West fucked off a few months ago.