Citing an unspecified security concern, the office of the late California Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein stated the previously announced public funeral had been changed to an invite-only event requiring a manned security perimeter, the San Jose Mercury-News reports.

Only people on the invite list will be allowed the perimeter police will establish about San Francisco’s City Hall, where the funeral will take place.  Because of the distance, the public will not be able to see or hear the service on-site.  Security has always been a heightened issue given Feinstein rose quickly in city politics after the tragic assassination of the city’s mayor and a city supervisor.

Go ahead, Donald.  Get the headlines with your courtroom shenanigans.  Dark Brandon will just continue to get shit done.  President Joe Biden signed an order forgiving about $9 billion of student loans for 125,000 borrowers, bringing to more than $125 billion in student debt forgiven so far in the Administration, the White House said in a statement.

The loans forgiven cover borrowers in three categories:  those covered under “public service” forgiveness programs; those whose economic situation allowed for an adjustment; and those who qualified for due to a disability as qualified by the Social Security Administration.  So far, more than 3.6 million borrowers have had all or part of their student loans forgiven in the last 30 months.

“This is the kind of treatment that I think conservatives are used to,” self-declared martyr Lara Trump states in a really transparent effort to make her autotuned unauthorized cover of Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down,” a song her indicted father-in-law used at his rally until the singer’s estate demanded it stop and pulled the rights.  “We’re used to being censured [sic].  We’re used to being shadow-banned which dirtly (???) I already know my song was shadow-banned, uh, so many people told me on Apple Music, on Spotify, on Amazon Music.  They wouldn’t put my song on the radio because it was too ‘political’.”  (The photo of Lara on a horse shown in the split screen was being displayed on an 80-foot screen in Times Square, so… what was she saying about being “censured”?)

The air quotes are a pretentious touch.  And maybe the song isn’t getting airplay because it’s ‘political’ and more because it’s an autotuned mess that would embarrass a regular at a karaoke night.  Our evidence:  a few seconds of Lara’s assault on a rock classic clipped to the end.

The Sinaloa Drug Cartel, the alma mater of current federal prisoner el Chapo, has banned the “sale, manufacture, transport or any other business” relating to fentanyl, according to signs seen around the region in which the cartel operates, ABC News reports.

The cartel operates as a narco-state, enforcing its laws on the population, that works for its drug manufacturing operation, so the cartel may be trying to keep their workers alive.  Or it could be a warning to thieves and smugglers.  If the signs are authentic, as locals believe, it does not mean that the cartel, now led by el Chapo’s sons known as Los Chapitos, will cease making the synthetic opioid, which is a real killer in the marketplace.

MAGA Congressman Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma rakes the Republican Fredo of the House, Matt Gaetz over nails, detailing how Gaetz was despised by his colleagues as a scum who would show photos of naked sexual conquests to coworkers and brag that he would snort ground up Viagra to “go for four hours.”  (I had to listen to it to report it to you, but it’s really worth hearing.)

The word “unserious” has been used with increasing frequency in proximity to the name Matt Gaetz, particularly when talking to Republican politicians. But nay, nay, I say:  Matt Gaetz is extremely serious, just not about being a Congressman.

Arizona wants to be the inverse Iowa.  It’s setting itself up to be the Georgia of 2020 or Florida of 2000:  the location where the television cameras will be focusing on election monitors checking ballots as the nation waits on the edge of its collective seats to find out the winner of the 2024 election.  Or control of the Senate.  Or something.

According to the Washington Post, Arizona election officials are cautioning the media and the public that new recount laws could delay the final determination of various elections until weeks after Election Day in 2024.  And worse:  the new laws, if followed as enacted now, would most certainly mean the final counts of the president election could not be certified before mandated dates.

It’s a lesson in unintended consequences:  with bipartisan support for most of the laws, the package of election laws lowered the gap needed to trigger an automatic recount.  When the laws were considered in the wake of the 2020 debacle in the state, county election officials noted that the manpower needed to conduct all those recounts–including many that must, by law, be done by hand–would interfere with the announcement of winners in virtually all primary and general elections in statewide races.

The flashy Mercedes-Benz C-300 convertible Democratic New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez’s wife reportedly received as part of a bribery scheme alleged in a federal indictment was gifted to her by donors after her previous vehicle was totaled in a 2018 fatal pedestrian accident, the Washington Post reports.

Text messages show that in the weeks after the accident, Nadine Arslanian, Menendez’s then-girlfriend, texted about how inconvenient her life had become without a car of her own to co-defendant Wael Hana, an Egyptian-born New Jersey businessman–presumably a non-organized crime “businessman” but a corrupt New Jersey businessman nonetheless.  A few weeks later, a different co-defendant named Jose Aribe gave Arslanian $15,000 in cash, which she used to make a downpayment on the car.  Aribe then took over the monthly payment on the loan for the balance of the $60,000 cost.

Leonard Leo is the personification of IOKIYAR.  Many of us remember when “activist judges” was sneered at by conservatives; now those same people assert the wholesale dismissal of legal precedents by conservative jurists is the virtuous way to right the wrongs decided by, y’know, voters.  The Deep State is dangerous, but the Unitary Executive (cough, cough… autocrat) is cool with them.  Oh, and we can dictate what laws you follow, but they don’t apply to me.

Politico reports Leo, the man behind many a conservative Supreme Court nominee and the people who fund them, is refusing to cooperating with a tax probe into his myriad organizations by the DC Attorney General, who suspects Leo has used the network of non-profits, political action groups, and for-profit firms to manipulate tax law to filter donations to his personal accounts at a lower tax rate.  Leo’s groups have also been known to filter money through other organizations and into the pockets of people like Ginni Thomas and Kellianne Conway.

Washington D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb alleges Leo uses his for-profit consulting firms, Arabella Advisors and CRC Advisors, to fund his tax-free non-profit “advocacy groups” through tax-deductible donations, which would then be used to pay Leo’s salary at the non-profit.  Other groups, including one that was affiliated with Arabella, claim Leo is using the funds to finance an extravagant lifestyle—a lifestyle, they assert, that got extremely more extravagant after Leo gained a modicum of renown when Trump made him an unpaid advisor to his campaign to craft a list of potential Supreme Court nominees.

“I wanted to send you an important update regarding the 2023 NRCC Fall Gala in Dallas, TX. I want you to be the first to know – in consultation with our Leadership team and many of you – we have decided to postpone this dinner. Our focus next week needs to be the election of our next Speaker and the legislative work before us. This Gala is a high priority for the NRCC and all funds raised directly support efforts to grow our House Republican majority. That mission is as important as ever, and I need your continued support to make it a reality. I know I can count on you. We are working diligently to have a new date for you in the near future,” writes Republican Spirit Committee Chair Congressman Rich Hudson after that no-good dope smoking punk Matt Gaetz and his misfit crew ruined the team’s unity right when they’re getting ready for the big game against the Democrats.

Hudson did not say whether Gaetz would still be allowed to bring his 17 year-old date to the prom.

A Florida Trump fan hit with a felony voting fraud charge for forging his father’s mail-in ballot four days after he died in October 2020 tells the AP that it’s all a scam being perpetrated by local officials loyal to Donald’s all-but-defeated 2024 GOP primary rival, Governor Ron DeSantis.

“There is a lot of politics that goes on here in Sumter County and they don’t like the fact that I don’t follow their system,” said The Villages-area fanboy Robert Rivernider, who was and still is barred from voting under the DeSantis regime as he’s still paying restitution for a decade-old $20 million real estate fraud conviction in Connecticut. Rivernider is pissed county election officials – who may or may not actually be pro-DeSantis, but who cares – waited three years to file a criminal complaint.

The best part is that the ballot didn’t end up getting counted when it was flagged by tabulators as failing signature matching, per the complaint brought by Sumter elections supervisor William Keen.

REMINDER: Your smartphone will blare an alert tone in t-minus five minutes as a test of the national emergency alert system. If QAnon freaks’ predictions are accurate, the loud tone will also activate secret nanites hidden in COVID-19 vaccines that will quickly render the flesh and bones of the inoculated into metal and glowing silicon, mutating them into mindless violent robozombies.

National Zero will then cease updating as we have no unvaccinated staff members. We would suggest you tune in to Joe Rogan’s podcast for updates on the ensuing chaos. “So like the robot zombies were shrieking these like crazy super-sonic sound waves at me as I climbed over the dumpsters behind the In-and-Out Burger to escape them. Really hurt my eardrums. I was reading this one dude who actually says mercury is good for hearing damage, I think I’ll try to go find some. I mean a lot of scientists said that mercury was bad for you and like poisonous and shit but now they all got turned into robo monsters because of the vax, so I’ll totally try mercury ear drops now.”

House Majority Leader Steve “David Duke with the baggage” Scalise on Wednesday announced he’ll be challenging Jim “Reacharound” Jordan in a no-holds barred royal rumble for the Speakership belt.

We had to look up who this assclown is, and of course he’s Ted Cruz’s podcast co-host. They couldn’t even get the real Ted Cruz on to complain about this so they go with his fucking sidekick.

“On Oct 2, 2023, the US government transferred approximately 1.1 million 7.62mm rounds to the Ukrainian armed forces. The government obtained ownership of these munitions on July 20, 2023, through the Department of Justice’s civil forfeiture claims against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). These munitions were originally seized by US Central Command naval forces from the transiting stateless dhow MARWAN 1, Dec 9, 2022. The munitions were being transferred from the IRGC to the Houthis in Yemen in violation of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2216.”

“The US is committed to working with our allies and partners to counter the flow of Iranian lethal aid in the region by all lawful means including US and UN sanctions and through interdictions. Iran’s support for armed groups threatens international and regional security, our forces, diplomatic personnel, and citizens in the region, as well as those of our partners,” says CENTCOM in a Tuesday press release, which CNN expands on with a report on far more Iranian hardware bound for Ukraine.

I'm suing Joe Biden. https://t.co/wtZnlx9Hgt

— Rudy W. Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) October 4, 2023

The tweet links to a “livestream from New Hampshire” where, and this is no exaggeration, it sounds like Rudy is suicidal. We can’t even tell what the hell his complaint is supposed to be about he just keeps rambling about losing his business and social media following because of Biden. We guess it’s defamation or something. Not clear is what lawyer is filing the complaint because on Wednesday morning his Georgia defense counsel motioned to withdraw from the case, the second one in as many weeks. Another lawyer, Rob Costello, sued last month over $1.36 million in unpaid fees.

In their post-mortem on California Congressman Kevin McCarthy’s failed speakership, the Washington Post reports that “One person close to Trump, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to comment candidly, suggested that the outcome might have been different if McCarthy had endorsed Trump early on in the former president’s quest for the 2024 nomination.”

No further details from inside the Orange God Emperor’s court of jesters were included in the Post’s report, but beyond that it was obvious that Trump wasn’t really inclined to get in the middle of it for a number of reasons: That the next Speaker will almost certainly be a fanatically loyal cultist and McCarthy had fairly recently already been in deep shit with for failing to “expunge” his two impeachments and had foolishly questioned whether Donald was the “best candidate” for 2024.

Then of course there’s Trump’s other problems this week in New York, where the Daily Beast’s Jose Pagliery just now reported that Donald “is starting to grumble in court, groaning in front of the judge while making winces and exasperated shrugs” as testimony in the $250 million business fraud lawsuit brought by Attorney General Leticia James continues. Fingers crossed for a major outburst.

In a development accelerating the abasement of the US House of Representatives, spandex-wearing grapple-freak Jim Jordan on Wednesday said he’s running for Speaker, NBC’s Scott Wong reports.

Italian government officials have started redrafting evacuation plans after the city of Naples was hit with a swarm of mostly small earthquakes centered on the undersea caldera of Campi Flagrei, a freaking monster volcano that would cause untold destruction were it to erupt, ABC News reports.

Experts downplayed the action, saying the quakes don’t necessarily mean the volcano – which last erupted in 1538 – would awaken again. “The seismic activity has been intensifying for months. We have observed over 3,000 tremors since the start of 2023,” said Italian government geologist Gianfilippo De Astis. “Only 65, however, were above a 2.0 magnitude,” he continued, saying it may just be a cyclical movement of magma rather than a precursor. De Astis still warned authorities have to get their shit together and start working on preparing. “No doubt that the plans need to be updated, but that’s a complex issue,” De Astis said “For sure, escape routes have to be enlarged to allow a quicker exodus. The government should definitely act on the infrastructure side.”