Hunter Biden will plead “not guilty” to the three weapons charges filed against him by Special Counsel David Weiss in Delaware, with Biden’s lawyer saying in a letter Biden would like to enter his plea via videoconference instead of an in-court appearance, ABC News reports.

Having the plea hearing via teleconference, Biden’s lawyer Abbe Lowell argued, would limit “the financial impact on government resources and the logistical burden on the downtown area of Wilmington. … No matter whether in person or virtual … Mr. Biden also will enter a plea of not guilty, and there is no reason why he cannot utter those two words by video conference.”

Kevin McCarthy’s time as Speaker pro tem will be marked by a number of votes to get the title and a clean cut to dethrone him after his disastrous handling of key bills that have been pulled–again–because of deep crevices in the caucus.  Per NBC News, a defense funding bill failed to get a simple majority on a motion to open debate as five far-right Republicans joined Democrats to block the move.  The bill needs to be passed by the end of the month to continue funding key Pentagon programs.

Later, GOP House leadership pulled a procedural vote on a continuing resolution to fund the government through October 31st that was supposedly a compromise between the far-right Freedom Caucus after a number of Republicans announced they would not support the CR.

South Carolina’s Ralph Norman, one of the five Republicans who voted against the defense bill, did not offer hope for an agreement to fund the government before the September 30th deadline, saying that a shutdown appeared inevitable.

Let’s be clear: Donald Trump is responsible for ending Roe v. Wade.

And if you vote for him, he’ll go even further. pic.twitter.com/24Xq6s33wv

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) September 19, 2023

A small independent Miami restaurant that became the target of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for regularly hosting drag shows settled the case brought by the state without the investigators finding the restaurant did anything wrong, the Miami Herald reports.

The owners of R House restaurant in Miami became a target of DeSantis in January after a video circulated online showing a drag performer at the restaurant walking a toddler around the stage at the parents’ request to celebrate the child’s birthday.  DeSantis used the video–which again, was simply a costumed performer walking a child around a makeshift stage at a restaurant with the child’s parents’ encouragement–as an example of transgender people grooming children, and threatened to use his power to punish the establishment, saying he would pull its liquor license, a move he acknowledged would “basically” put the independent locally-owned restaurant out of business.

The restaurant owners will pay a $10,000 fine for administrative issues, but the state agency that investigated the incident failed to find the restaurant did anything against the law.  “We are very happy that the settlement contains no admission or finding of guilt for R House,” the restaurant’s owners said in the statement. “Furthermore, we are also pleased to confirm that the State’s extensive undercover investigation of R House found no unlawful sexually explicit content at R House shows.”

White Nationalist Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene tells the Washington Examiner she’s writing a “tell-all” about DC and “setting the record straight” about her “story.”

The book is literally called “MTG” and will drop November 21st from fat former President Trump’s “Winning Team” publishing house. “I’m always controversial, but I think this book might be a little controversial with some of the stories,” Greene said, claiming “MTG” will “introduce myself to America as me, not the character that the mainstream media created and has sold to America over the past few years,” as if CNN simply made up the “Jewish space lasers” story.

Justice Department officials are looking at filing criminal charges against LSD-brained edgelord Elon Musk over personal perks he gave to himself at Tesla, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Spandex-wearing grapple freak Jim Jordan has requested Delaware US Attorney and Hunterghazi special counsel David Weiss to testify at a hearing on October 18th, CNN’s Annie Grayer reports.

Separately CNN.com reports that multiple witnesses have already testified to the committee that “whistleblower” Gary Shapley is full of shit when he says Weiss told him earlier this year he didn’t have authority to charge Hunter Biden with any crimes… which he eventually did, obviously.

Continuing with their takedown of the “anti” sex trafficking activists who brought QAnon fan favorite film Sound of Freedom to scores of sold-out empty theaters last summer, Vice News now report that executive producer Paul Hutchinson was caught on tape fondling the bare breasts of a 16 year old trafficking victim during a 2016 Operation Underground Railroad sting in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

Vice were able to obtain a written description of the footage from a public records request to the Davis County, Utah District Attorney’s office after an investigation into the incident was closed with no charges filed against Hutchinson, a leader of OUR and close ally of also a fucking scumbag founder Tim Ballard, played by adrenochrome freak Jim Caviezel in the heavily fictionalized drama.

Not actual CIA Agent Ray Epps, the center of a shit ton of MAGA conspiracy theories and the plaintiff in a massive defamation lawsuit against Fox News for having propagated that bullshit, was charged in DC Tuesday with a single count of disorderly conduct for his actions in the lead up to the January 6th MAGA insurrection in a development that the fanboys will still say is some kind of “op.”

Weird how Joe didn’t talk about the great relationship he has with Russian dictator Putin or say he would end the war in 24 hours if reelected. Or get laughed at like the former guy did.

A spokesperson for House Oversight Chairbilly James Comer tells the Messenger that the first committee hearing in the Biden impeachment inquiry will be held next Thursday, September 28th.

“The hearing will focus on constitutional and legal questions surrounding the President’s involvement in corruption and abuse of public office… The Committee also intends to subpoena Hunter and James Biden’s personal and business bank records as early as this week. The Oversight Committee will continue to follow the evidence and money trail to provide the transparency and accountability that Americans demand from their government,” says the Oversight Committee spokesworm.

The die is cast, as a popular autocrat once said. Let the chyrons on every channel carrying it live read “BIDEN IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY HEARING” at the bottom so the American people pay attention to the case Republicans are trying to make with all of the evidence that they have.

We don’t at all enjoy making our readers sad and depressed but sometimes the really pitiful stuff is unavoidable, like this report from Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman on how things are going in the House GOP conference’s Tuesday pep rally while titular Speaker Kevin McCarthy tries to right his ship as it’s on fire and riven by mutiny – when they’re supposed to be trying to pass a spending bill.

Sherman writes that McCarthy began by telling the story of meeting a downhill skier and asking the guy how he avoided the trees. “I never see the trees,” McCarthy said the skier told him and holy fucking shit. Ughhh. It gets worse. “McCarthy’s point was if you look at the trees, you’ll run into them instead of looking forward,” Sherman wrote. FUCK! “Biden, McCarthy said, has a lot of problems.”

“‘Let’s not hit a tree.’ McCarthy said the news media is counting on Republicans to fail,” Sherman wrote and no, we’re sorry, but we have to keep going with this. “We can win this argument… Let’s amaze America one more time. When they underestimate us and we get it done,” said McCarthy.

Fuck that is just… Where to even start? How many of them in the room were in Congress when their fellow Republican Sonny Bono got himself fucking killed while skiing downhill BECAUSE HE LITERALLY IGNORED THE TREES? Has to be at least a dozen. And even without that it still just sucked so badly. Again, we apologize for this deeply sad tale. We hope we didn’t ruin any National Zero readers’ morning. We promise to try our best to lighten everyone’s spirits in the next story.

“Every fiber of our union is being poured into fighting the billionaire class and an economy that enriches people like Donald Trump at the expense of workers. We can’t keep electing billionaires and millionaires that don’t have any understanding what it is like to live paycheck to paycheck and struggle to get by and expecting them to solve the problems of the working class” says United Auto Workers President Sean Fain in a statement responding to disgraced former President Trump’s plan to hold a rally with union workers in Detroit to “counter-program” the second GOP debate.

Maine state House Minority Leader Billy Bob Faulkingham says “GOD. IS. REAL. I can tell you this is absolutey [sic], 100% true,” in a lengthy, single block of text Facebook post detailing how his lobster boat “51” capsized and sank off the coast on Friday as Hurricane Lee approached, with his crewman suffering a broken arm, a broken wrist on the other arm, and Faulkingham a black eye and facial fracture, both nearly killed while out on the goddamned boat with the massive massive approaching.

You can read a more concise version of the story at the Portland Press-Herald, which mentions that the US Coast Guard and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had warned mariners to immediately turn back to shore right before the “rogue wave” tossed Faulkingham’s boat.

Shitty right wing pollster Rasmussen Reports finds President Joe Biden leading fat former President Trump 43 to 42 percent in a survey of 979 likely voters they probably shouldn’t have published because it runs contra to the MAGA narrative of the Orange Warlord crushing Brandon in 2024.

Much has been made lately of mainstream pollsters finding either a statistically tied race or Trump even slightly ahead of Biden. On one hand it is true that Joe’s approval ratings suck and a lot of Americans are fucking suicidally stupid enough to want to restore the MAGA Reich because inflation, gas prices, Biden old, and other shit the media can’t help but hype excitedly.

On the other hand, take the recent CBS News poll finding Trump at 50 and Biden at 49 percent, which also says Trump gets 17 percent Black support and 47 percent Hispanic support which is…

Well it’s fucking stupid and something’s wrong here. That would be more than doubling the 8 percent he got of the Black vote and a signifiant improvement over his 38 percent from the Hispanic vote in 2020. Say what you will about Trump’s increasing minority support. We don’t doubt it’s a thing given the modest increases in the Black vote from 6 percent in 2016 to 8 percent in 2020 and the more impressive 28 to 38 percent with Hispanics, we just doubt this is a valid window into the way voters are actually going to act next November. What precisely the problem is we don’t know but that the numbers are this skewed should tell you not to take the polls too seriously.

Dem Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro tells the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent that on Tuesday he’ll launch automatic voter registration via the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles, making all licensed drivers in the Commonwealth registered voters either when they obtain a new license or upon renewal – unless they specifically opt-out for whatever stupid reason one would want to do so.

“I see voter participation as key to strengthening democracy,” Shapiro told Sargent, adding he’s “committed to ensuring free and fair elections, and to making sure every eligible voter can make their voice heard.” We’re looking forward to seeing how Republicans respond to the move and will follow up with the civil complaint if (more likely when) they file one to get a judge to block it.

Indian dictator Narendra Modi’s regime on Tuesday escalated the brewing conflict with Canada over the assassination of Vancouver-area Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar by expelling a senior Maple diplomat in response to the Canadians expelling a senior Indian diplomat, CNN reports.

For once in her career, Republican Maine Senator and noted equivocator Susan Collins finally found something to stand her ground for–besides, of course, her claim that Brett Kavanaugh didn’t lie when he said he would never overturn Roe.

With the Senate loosening its dress code to allow casual clothes on the Senate floor, Republicans expressed outrage, according to NBC News, with some of the old white men saying they “[weren’t] a big fan” and that it’s “terrible.”  Old Man Grassley said, “It stinks.”  But Maine’s Senator took it to a new level, threatening to “wear a bikini” on the floor of the Senate.

Pennsylvania Democrat John Fetterman, though, reveled in it, taking a tweet from Republican Georgia cryptocreature Marjorie Taylor Greene claiming the Senate was lowering the bar on etiquette to appease Fetterman, who favors casual attire:  “Thankfully, the nation’s lower chamber lives by a higher code of conduct: displaying ding-a-ling pics in public hearings.”  After GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis said the relaxed dress code meant the Senate was “dumbing down,” Fetterman responded, “I dress like he campaigns.”

Norfolk Southern, the railroad that ran the train that derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, announced it will open a fund to compensate homeowners for the value their real estate has lost since the February accident that sent a cloud of toxic chemicals into the air, ABC News reports.

While the amount of the fund is yet to be determined because it’s part of a larger compensation package Norfolk Southern will pay as part of the clean-up and recovery.  Currently, the company has pledged more than $800 million for the clean-up and recovery, including $74 million for the town of East Palestine.  This fund, however, will help compensate homeowners who sold at reduce prices since the accident.