You may not have heard of Gabrielle Hanson, a GOP candidate for the mayor of Franklin, Tennessee, and frankly, why should you?  It’s Franklin freakin’ Tennessee.  Nothing against the 85,000 residents of the fair city–Except you, Scott.  You know what you did–but no one really cares about its municipal politics.

Well, Hanson has been openly courting white nationalist, far-right elements which are apparently not as scarce in Franklin as one might think.  Hanson has been seen with a bodyguard bedecked with a Proud Boys face tattoo.

Well, now the GOP candidate who wants to be seen as a tougher, more racist version of Donald Trump, has posed for a series of photos posted to Telegram with white supremacist Sean Kauffmann, leader of the Tennesee Active Club, a far-right group of intimidation agents responsible for attempted intimidation at drag shows and LGBTQ events throughout the state. 

The Biden Administration will lift some sanctions on Venezuela’s oil and gas industry after the left-wing government of Nicolas Maduro came to an agreement with opposition leaders to hold elections in 2024, helping to further democracies around the world, Reuters reports.

The Treasury Department, the agent of the sanctions, will issue six-month licenses for the oil, gas and state-owned gold sectors in Venezuela, and it will allow some bond and equity trading involving state-owned companies.  A Treasury spokesperson stated that it would maintain the ability to reinstate the sanctions if the situation reverses in the future.

The goal is a savvy one for Dark Brandon:  it supports a struggling democracy and it opens up another source of oil into the United States, easing some market pressures and hopefully lowering prices… as the US enters an election year.

“Yesterday, I voted to support Jim Jordan’s candidacy for Speaker of the House. I voted for Jim Jordan for the greater good of the House Republican party, based on our Conference meeting and the test Speaker ballot that was cast earlier this week. However, after one round of votes, with my support, he was not able to secure enough votes for the Speaker nomination and my initial concerns about threatening tactics of Jim Jordan’s supporters, including from members of Congress, increased despite assurances. Today, it became abundantly clear early in the roll call vote, that Jim Jordan still did not have the votes necessary to become Speaker. Given the concerns I had before any vote and the ability of the speaker designee to unify the conference, I voted in support of Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Kay Granger to serve as Speaker of the House.”

“I voted for Chairwoman Granger because she has demonstrated great leadership this year by bringing forth, and passing, fiscally responsible, single-subject appropriations bills and is a staunch conservative. However, since my vote in support of Chairwoman Granger, I have received credible death threats and a barrage of threatening calls. The proper authorities have been notified and my office is cooperating fully” says Iowa GOP Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks in a statement.

Weird how she didn’t claim it was some kind of Antifa false flag or whatever. Almost like she was too shocked to come up with an alternate explanation for her own party’s voters turning on her.

“We’ve had two rounds of floor votes, and the vote against Rep. Jim Jordan has only gotten stronger.  The hardball tactics haven’t worked. If we move to a third round, we already know the opposition is on track to grow,” Florida Republican MAGA Congressman John Rutherford said in a statement. “It’s time for Rep. Jordan to understand this race is over. Tonight, I suggest we either go to conference to show him in private or back to the floor to show him in public. Rep. Jordan is fiddling while the world is on fire. It’s time to get down to business and select a consensus candidate who can bring the Republican Conference together.”

Isn’t it about time for Republicans to understand Trump’s hand-picked candidates fail more often than they succeed?  Trump lost the 2016 popular vote.  He lost Congress for the GOP in 2018.  He lost the 2020 election.  His 2022 endorsements largely failed in 2022, costing the Republicans a shot at taking back the House.  And now this public humiliation, which will only grow worse, according to reports:  CNN’s Melanie Zanona reports Republican members of the House plan to increase the number of “no” votes to Jordan to illustrate the growing frustration with the leadership option.

Returning from a trip to Israel to show US support after a horrific attack by Hamas, President Joe Biden announced that the president of Egypt agreed to open up a key crossing into Gaza to allow 20 trucks of humanitarian aid into the zone, ABC News reports.  The White House also announced President Biden will make an address to the nation from the Oval Office about the Israel-Hamas war on Thursday night.  National Zero will cover the address live.

GOLBAL INTIFADA!!!

It’s an Arabic rebellion and uprising!!!

Photo of one of the insurrectionist phones!!!

These people are NOT for peace! pic.twitter.com/CH6j2LggEb

— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) October 18, 2023

Angered that anyone should voice an opinion opposing her own, Georgia Republican Congresswoman and missing link candidate Marjorie Taylor Greene took to Twitter to stir fear and panic.  Going live, Marge claimed, “There’s an insurrection happening now on Capitol Hill[!]” before turning her phone to show a group of anti-war protestors doing an organized performance demonstration in the lobby of the building.  Later, she posted a photo of a group chat, titled “Global intifada” taken over the shoulder of a purported “insurrectionist.”  The conversation between a few friends seems to be centered on helping the members meet up during the protest.  Marge apparently doesn’t understand the self-mocking humor of college students.

Far right Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s travel buddy/boss/mom’s landlord Harlan Crow gave $3,300 – the maximum personal amount – to the campaign of far left activist/third party presidential candidate Cornel West in August, NBC News reports based on FEC filings.

Weird how a Texas MAGA billionaire would support a crazy liberal extremist like West.

After his campaign for the third choice of Republicans to be the Speaker of the House came up embarrassingly short, again, Ohio Congressman and sexual assault misprisioner Jim Jordan told Mica Soellner, a reporter for Punchbowl News, that he doesn’t expect another vote Wednesday, probably a certainty given that he lost support between the first and second votes.  Jordan also commented that he was in the race “for now.”  (I’ll note the quote comes from Soellner’s post, which she does not represent as a direct quote from Jordan, though it sure sounds like something Jordan would say.)

This whole “Democrats got us into this mess” line is getting better by the day. Doesn’t this jackass get that he’s on CNN and they’re not going to just nod their heads like the morons on Fox?

“Earlier today at the People of the State of NY vs Trump civil trial taking place at 60 Centre Street, an individual disrupted the proceedings by standing up and walking towards the front of the courtroom and yelling out to Mr Trump indicating she wanted to assist him. This individual was stopped by court officers before she got near Mr Trump or any of the attorneys or other litigants.”

“None of the parties were ever in any danger. The individual was safely escorted out of the courtroom and the courthouse by uniformed court officers and has been charged with Contempt of Court in the 2nd degree, ie disrupting a court proceeding. Upon investigation, it has been determined that this individual is a court employee. The employee has been placed on immediate administrative leave pending investigation of the incident and prohibited from entering any UCS facility until further notice. At this time we cannot offer any additional information about the employee” says a press release from the New York Court system about some MAGA douchebag.

“NBCUniversal Media, LLC, doing business as NBCUniversal News Group (‘NBCU News Group’), respectfully submits this application under Local Criminal Rule 57.6 to request that this Court allow video and audio of the March 2024 trial of former President Donald J Trump, either by a pool camera shared by NBCU News Group and other news organizations, or through the Court’s own equipment.”

“Powerful First Amendment values and the extraordinary importance of these proceedings counsel strongly for this Court to exercise its discretion to authorize the public dissemination of the audiovisual record of these proceedings either in real time or at most with the limited delay necessary for the Court to assess whether significant public interests require the extraordinary relief of withholding any portion of these proceedings from the public. NBCU News Group respectfully requests an oral hearing on this application,” write lawyers for NBC News in the motion.

It’s long and filled with a shit-ton of citations. Probably cost a lot of billable hours. We have no idea if it’s going to work or not but evidently NBC thinks it’s worth a shot.

I know this will seem unbelievable, but Donald Trump is completely wrong about ocean-based windmills are causing massive whale die-offs.  (It’s okay.  Take a deep breath.  Regain your composure.  We’ll get through learning Donald Trump was wrong about something.) And the reason for the mass losses stems from the issue the windmills are meant to address.

According to the journal Science, gray whales have had three massive die-offs in the past three decades causing losses of 15-25% of the species’ population each time. Scientists discovered the deaths were due to the whales migrating to find new food sources because of climate change:  a major source of food for the whales, an algae growing on the bottom of ice sheets, is disappearing because the ice sheets are melting.  In the latest wave since 2017, nearly 700 have washed up in North America.

National Zero’s special live coverage of the House GOP’s inability to elect a speaker continues Wednesday as spandex-wearing grapple-freak Jim Jordan faces an increasingly unlikely path to wrestling the gavel from the hands on Speaker pro-tempore Patrick McHenry. Pennsylvania Republican Mike Kelly has a privileged resolution to do just that and has been talking to the parliamentarian to make it happen, while whip Tom Emmer tells CNN’s Manu Raju it’s a “non-starter.”

Keeping one eye on her political future and the other on a yummy bowl of grits, the GOP’s poster child for nepotism Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders has given up trying to justify a $19,000 expenditure for a wooden podium she took on a brief European tour, refusing to use the piece in press conferences because, she claims, it would distract from the culture war issues she’s addressing while standing behind it.

KTHV CBS-11 in Little Rock reports that an indignant Sanders chided reporters for pursuing a news story about excessive waste in her Administration after being asked why she wasn’t using the podium during press conferences.  “While we are focused on things that actually impact our state and impact Arkansas, the media wants to spend all of their time focused on things that frankly don’t,” Sanders said.  The important issue she was addressing at that specific press briefing was Chinese ownership of land in Arkansas, a major issue for citizens of a state that ranks 43rd in education, 47th in health care and 40th in domestic violence.

While the cost of the podium–which Sanders claims was needed for a short European “trade mission” she and a number of allies took to Europe, with some watchdogs concerned the cost was cover to pay travel expenses for Sanders’ allies–was reimbursed by the state Republican Party after the excessive cost of the piece was disclosed, critics have slammed Sanders for the excessive cost for a podium which has nearly identical models on Amazon available for under $900.

“Just so there’s no surprises: Jordan will likely have FEWER votes today than yesterday – as I expected. This is the fight – which Jim Jordan represents – to end the status quo, and it ain’t easy… Stay strong and keep praying,” tweeted Freedom Caucasians leader Scott Perry on Wednesday just ahead of the second vote for the wrestling freak’s almost certainly doomed speakership.

Meanwhile Florida Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart, a Steve Scalise ally whose name we’ve definitely seen misspelled as “Diaz-Blart,” told Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman that he’s working on empowering current Speaker pro-tempore Patrick McHenry to have the full powers of the office, saying “there’s a consensus that we need to, in the meantime, have a process where we can move legislation forward to get the conservative agenda back on track that has been derailed.”

A spokesman for Gaza terrorist group Hamas on Wednesday freaked out over President Joe Biden’s assessment that the hospital blast which killed hundreds on Tuesday was the result of a misfired rocket attack by jihadists and not an Israeli bombing, calling Biden “blindly biased,” CNBC reports.

“I am deeply saddened and outraged by the explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday,” Biden said to reporters while sitting with Israeli dictator Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv. “Based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you. But there’s a lot of people out there who are not sure, so we have to overcome a lot of things,” Biden added.

The explosion prompted a wave of angry, violent protests across the Arab world and led to the cancelation of a planned summit between Biden, Jordanian leadership, and Palestinian leadership in Amman on Wednesday, a worrying sign in an already deeply tumultuous clusterfuck of a situation.

On impulse on Tuesday we had sourced from the New York Times the claim that the Israelis were responsible for the horror. Some smart people we follow on Twitter – as well as Biden himself, citing US intel – are now saying that a preponderance of evidence does indicate that a Palestinian militant group had in fact fucked up and accidentally destroyed the hospital (or maybe did on purpose to blame Israel). This does not mean that the IDF are being careful overall with their retaliatory campaign (they aren’t really) but that particular barbarity may indeed not have been their doing.

Minnesota Dem Congressman Dean Phillips, who reportedly is “mulling” a primary challenge to President Joe Biden, missed the Monday deadline to register for the Nevada primary to actually mount a challenge President Joe Biden, Fox News reports with plain unhappiness over the failure.

William Knight, one of the members of the Ohio State wrestling team impacted by the sexual abuse Jim Jordan reportedly ignored, took down Jordan’s lack of leadership:  “The funny thing is that when people always call Jim Jordan a fighter, and I always wonder who he’s fighting for because he had a real opportunity to fight to us and the people that he coached and the people he recruited at The Ohio State and he’s, all he’s done is turn his back on us, so I don’t know what the ‘fighter’ thing is. I know he used to be a fighter.  I know he used to be a good wrestler, but he’s not a good fighter for anyone else that I know of.”