Thanks to a victory in a Rhode Island special election Tuesday, the Democratic Conference in the House is back at full strength with its 213th seat filled after retaining the seat opened up by Democrat David Cicilline’s resignation earlier this year, election guru Dave Wasserman reports.  Gabe Amo becomes Rhode Island’s first Black candidate elected to Congress.

“Sir, I submit to you this letter in support of Ryan Taylor Nichols. He is a man of good character, faith, and core principles. Today, Mr Nichols will plead guilty after months of negotiation with the Department of Justice. I humbly ask that he receive fair consideration of the whole of circumstances regarding his case, condition, and background. He has already served nearly two years in the District of Columbia jail in pretrial confinement, which has been destructive to his physical (liver issues) and mental health (PTSD). Mr Nichols has been out of incarceration since November 22, 2022. Since this release into house arrest, he has not sought to flee nor shown any indication of dangerous activity. He has instead used this time to reconnect with his wife Bonnie and two sons, Ryan Jr and Blake, as well as recover from the stark conditions he was subjected to in prison.”

“As previously mentioned, Mr Nichols suffers from conditions that have been exacerbated by his time in incarceration. Several of Mr Nichols’ vital measures dropped to dangerous levels as a result of his time in solitary confinement. In particular, he has severe liver issues that require treatment. In his current in-home arrangement, he has been able to receive a regimen that has largely restored his health,” and blah blah blah writes MAGA Louisiana Congressman Clay Higgins to DC Circuit Judge Royce Lamberth pleading the jurist to have mercy on the soul of Capitol rioter Ryan Nichols.

What Higgins, who plainly himself threatened violence each time his Orange God Emperor was indicted this year, leaves out is that Nichols assaulted Capitol police officers during the insurrection. Higgins himself is a former cop (who resigned while under investigation for an excessive force complaint), so it shows how much he “Backs the Blue.” Also is Nichols’s liver problem like a normal, natural liver problem or is it like a Steve Bannon/Rudy Giuliani-type liver problem?

Democrat Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear defeated Trump-endorsed Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron to win a second term on Tuesday, Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman projects.

Republican Oregon state senators, banished from running for reelection after voters fed up with their constant walkouts and bullshit over the last few years to block legislation approved a measure kicking them off the ballot if they have 10 or more unexcused absences, the AP reports.

Senators Dennis Linthicum, Brian Boquist and Cedric Hayden – all three of them facing the axe for fucking off for over 10 days – argued that their quorum games were an expression of free speech that they can’t be punished for, even though in the real world if you skip work for 10 days with the express intent of not doing your job you get fired for it. And that’s totally constitutional.

In the greatest case of autumn-themed mass market processed food false advertising since Pumpkin Spice Oreos didn’t contain any actual pumpkin, national ice cream chain Baskin Robbins revealed in a statement last week that their upcoming new “Turkey Day Fixins” flavor doesn’t contain any actual turkey meat, but “sweet potato, spice, cornbread pieces and swirls of cranberry sauce.”

“We continue to push the boundaries of flavor innovation at Baskin-Robbins and wanted to bring a unique scoop to the table that deliciously encapsulates all the sweet and savory flavors from your favorite Thanksgiving sides,” said some Baskin Robbins suit, Hannah Suits, Director of Brand Marketing in the statement. “Along with the return of our iconic Turkey Cake [which also does not contain any turkey meat], these offerings are a delicious and innovative take on holiday favorites.”

Sure, turkey meat in ice cream would be pretty fucking gross and stupid. And it’s “Turkey Day” flavor like “pumpkin spice” is supposed to be the nutmeg and shit that they mix in with pumpkin guts to make the pie filling. That’s still no excuse for such gross misrepresentations in the food industry.

Kentucky! There is still time to get to the polls and vote for @DanielCameronAG for governor! Polls close at 6 PM local time.

— Ronna McDaniel (@RonnaMcDaniel) November 7, 2023

HORRIFYING NEWS! Granbury, Texas city council candidate Brad Benson was ARRESTED on Monday morning, a the day before election day, for purposes of ELECTION INTERFERENCE, the New Republic reports. THEY WAITED UNTIL RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF BENSON’S CAMPAIGN!

Crooked BIASED RINO Hood County Sheriff Roger Deeds, who we call DIRTY DEEDS, confirmed this Unfair and Unconstitutional act of LAWFARE against the leading candidate in the Granbury City Council District 4 election. “I can confirm he was arrested by the District Attorney’s Office yesterday and charged with two felony child pornography charges,” Dirty Deeds said. This has never happened before in the history of Granbury, Texas. It’s disgraceful. The establishment losers in the Hood County Republican Party (Frauds!) even said “These heinous acts are antithetical to what Republicans stand for,” like the losers they are. It is a Very sad and dark period for Granbury!

Brad Benson is a fighter and a patriot. So what if he’s turned on by pictures of naked children? That’s nothing compared to what Hillary Clinton has been accused of. She literally murders children and the Uniparty is going after a guy who allegedly just downloaded some porn. How do they even know there were children in the photos and videos? They could have been midgets. Or crisis actors.

OH and why does it seem like every time there’s a new revelation in the massive Hunter Biden scandal that a Republican gets arrested? SURELY it’s just a coincidence this was on the same day that David Weiss testified to the House Judiciary Committee about his investigation into Hunter!

National Zero will resume our regular coverage after showing our MAGA readers what it looks like every time they defend crimes marginally more defensible than possession of child pornography.

President Joe Biden on Monday asked Israeli dictator Benjamin Netanyahu to dial back on the explosions killing scores of innocent Palestinians caught in the crossfire between the IDF and Hamas for three days to allow for negotiations to secure the release of hostages, Axios reports.

At least 230 Israelis and 12 foreign nationals with remain in the terrorist group and its affiliates’ captivity. Hamas on Tuesday claimed they were getting to ready to release the foreign nationals but said they were unable to make it happen amid the constant bombing.

And just now Reuters reports the IDF have begun storming Gaza City. Good job listening, “Bibi.”

We were going to make a joke about NASA’s new free, no-ad streaming service being called NASA+ but they kind of beat us to it by naming it literally NASA+ and not “NASA Now” or just “NASA TV.”

Maybe there should be a poem about the changing of the seasons and the constancy of something amid the changes or whatever. Probably would’ve came out pretty lame, so enjoy this clip of that seminal moment in the history of American politics hung here, by mellowing autumn perfected.

At least two Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee walked out of the closed-door interview with Hunterghazi special counsel David Weiss, telling Punchbowl’s Max Cohen it was stupid bullshit.

“What [Weiss] very clearly said, which was obvious in his letters, is that if he ever needed any additional authority than what he had as the US Attorney in Delaware, he was assured from the Department of Justice that he would have that authority,” said New York Congressman Dan Goldman, adding that Weiss is “being asked essentially misleading questions about the letters that he wrote and what his authority was. I think that the best case scenario is the Republicans just don’t understand how the Department of Justice works.” Very charitable of Goldman.

Pennsylvania Congresswoman Mary Gay Scanlon was even less nice about it, saying it was a “farce” and “an absolute waste of time, which is why I’m gonna go back and do some constituent call time.”

Tuesday is a big election day in the key states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, and Mizoram where the Congress and Bharatiya Janata parties are set to face off in legislative contests seen as a referendum on BJP Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s second term and could give a lot of hints about how he’ll do as he seeks a third one next May, Reuters reports.

“State elections’ results before the 2024 polls will showcase the overall public mood and it will tremendously help our opposition bloc to perfect its messaging, coordination and leadership. The aim is to ensure all five states are won by the Congress,” said Congress Party official Sachin Pilot.

Some media outlets are reporting that there could be some elections also being held in countries other than India on Tuesday. However since Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, and Mizoram are where the real action is right now National Zero is determined to follow it.

Disgraced former President Trump’s lawyers tried to turn around their attempts to stall the proceedings ahead of the March 4th trial in DC over his failed attempt to destroy democracy, complaining in a filing it’s Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith rushing things and they’re doing this at a completely normal pace of “motion practice” as the clock ticks to perdition.

“The prosecution’s consistent refusal to recognize President Trump’s rights to due process and counsel reveals its transparent goal – defeating the Biden Administration’s main, leading political rival, President Donald J Trump, through a show trial, knowing full well that they cannot do so at the ballot box. It is clear that a political show trial by a successor regime bent on vengeance instead of justice will not advance the rule of law,” wrote shitty Trump lawyer John Lauro in the motion.

“The primary consideration here is the one the prosecution ignores, whether the accused’s rights are vindicated or oppressed by the pretrial schedule. President Trump did not create this truncated schedule and should not have to forgo his rights to motion practice because the prosecution feels rushed by the upcoming election,” Lauro concluded, as if there isn’t any pressure on his end to slow things down and get his demented orange client out of this self-inflicted nightmare.

Wow.

On the eve of Election Day in Virginia, Glenn Youngkin just promised he will “deliver” an abortion ban if Republicans take full control: “I just wanted to make sure people understand what we would deliver. All [Republicans] have agreed” to “progress” an abortion ban pic.twitter.com/Wk7GN87NkX

— DNC War Room (@DNCWarRoom) November 7, 2023

A new University of North Florida survey of the Republican electorate in the Sunshine and bath salts state finds good news and bad news for “Walmart Melania” Florida First Lady Casey DeSantis. The bad news is it’s now even less likely she’ll be the real First Lady anytime soon as the Orange God Emperor leads her heels-wearing husband Ron 60 to 21 percent in the state’s 2024 GOP presidential primary in the full field. Even in a Don vs Ron head-to-head it’s Trump 59 – DeSantis 29.

The good, if way too early, news is that she commands the field of potential 2026 Republican gubernatorial nominees at 22 percent of support, more than twice that of two high profile MAGA Congressmen, credibly suspected statutory rapist Matt Gaetz and convicted felon Byron Donalds, who tied for second at 9 percent. Dipshit Attorney General Ashley Moody came in third at 6 percent.

The survey also found 16 percent of respondents saying Trump “went so far that he threatened American democracy” to 71 percent saying the fat fuck “was just exercising his right to contest the election” on the question of “What comes closer to your view about Donald Trump’s actions after the 2020 election?” That’s not nothing, even if most of those respondents will probably ultimately end up voting for Trump in the general election anyway because muh economy or whatever.

Super exciting property management company WeWork, which is the future of work because if your startup is a tenant you get all these perks like ping pong tables and video game tournaments and an espresso machine in the coffee station where you’re encouraged to synergize with other Series A unicorns in the blockchain space, filed for bankruptcy late Monday night, CNN reports.

WeWork, said to be a holistic ecosystem of a vertical encouraging data-driven engagement and thought amplification within the ideation hack sectors, had a really shitty IPO back in 2019, gave way too much to douchebag founder Adam Neumann when they fired him, and was obviously the kind of business that was going to suffer immensely during the COVID-19 pandemic and afterward.

“Now is the time for us to pull the future forward by aggressively addressing our legacy leases and dramatically improving our balance sheet. We remain committed to investing in our products, services, and world-class team of employees to support our community.” said WeWork CEO David Tolley in a press release, making it clear they intend to limp along to the bitter end.

Exiting a court hearing on Monday which saw another setback in his quest to block a ballot measure enshrining the right to abortion in the Missouri state constitution, Secretary of State and declared GOP gubernatorial candidate Jay Ashcroft on Monday told reporters he wasn’t sure if he would actually serve in the office if he were required to defend such an amendment, KMOV reports

“Anytime a statewide official is sworn in, we swear an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States and of the state of Missouri. If I cannot do that, then I would have to leave my position. I cannot swear an oath and then refuse to do what I’d said I would do. We’re getting into real hypotheticals. What I’ve told you is that I would do what I said I would do. When I take an oath, I will follow it, and if it is incompatible with my moral beliefs, then I would have to quit,” Ashcroft said.

Flashback: Rapper Macklemore was accused of antisemitism years before speaking at ‘Free Palestine’ rally https://t.co/1Fmdl5sQWF

— Fox News (@FoxNews) November 7, 2023

Tomorrow’s not just another Tuesday:  it’s an Election Day for a lot of Americans, and there’s enough on the ballot to push higher participation than normal in many states.  Of course, we here at National Zero will do our darnedest to keep you up-to-date on the results.

In Ohio, a ballot measure for a Constitutional amendment enshrining a patient’s right to an abortion is on the ballot, something Republicans feared so much they tried to sneak a special election in to change the percentage needed to pass an amendment.  Voters will also vote on legalizing recreational use of marijuana.  Both measures were drawing support in the high 50s in recent polling, but the marijuana measure could still be in doubt because of voter couchlock.

In what many consider a bellwether for the GOP’s chances in 2024–and possibly a presidential run for the state’s Republican Governor Glen Youngkin to challenge Donald Trump–the entire purple-ish Virginia Legislature is up for grabs.  Democrats control the Senate while Republicans hold the House.  Should Republicans gain control of both chambers, pundits expect Youngkin to push through a far-right agenda on the state. 

Never have so few people been on edge to figure out who will finish second, but on Wednesday, five presidential candidates–none of whom are leading the field–will face off in Miami while the frontrunner tends to the potential dissolution of his family business.

Per the Washington Post, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, Florida Governor and real heel Ron DeSantis, former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, tech bro Vivek Ramaswamy and South Carolina Senator Tim Scott will address, well, nothing really because none of them will want to take on the question of what happens when an indicted felon facing hundreds of millions of dollars in court fines is nominated by their Party to the country’s highest elected office.

After failing to qualify for this debate, former Vice President Mike Pence hung it up.  Eugene Levy lookalike North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson are still campaigning despite not making polling and fundraising goals to qualify.