Republicans are starting to freak out, again, as for yet another election cycle the Trump legal shitshow threatens to consume all attention from the (largely exaggerated) economic issues and other shit down-ballot GOP candidates want to run on, the Washington Post reports.

“There’s not a person who is running for any office who is not worried about the oxygen suck and the drama that could be next year,” said a GOP donor and candidate recruiter, anonymously for fear of reprisal from the Orange Warlord. “Instead of talking about jobs, inflation and the debt, candidates are going to be drawn in and forced to be in that vortex that is Donald Trump.”

Deputy Senate GOP Leader John Thune not-anonymously told reporters this week that “As you try and recruit candidates, they’re going to be looking at that political environment and saying, ‘Am I going to be running, you know, against the tide or with the tide, and there’s a big difference based on who you nominate [at the top of the ticket].” You almost want to feel sorry for them. Almost.

But not really. You might also want to more reasonably say this is a repeat of the 2022 midterms, however you’d be wrong about that too, because (A) Trump himself wasn’t actually on the ballot, even though he definitely tried by backing complete assholes fanatically loyal to him costing Republicans likely dozens of winnable races and (B) he was under criminal investigation and Mar-a-Lago had been raided by the FBI but had not been indicted yet. So it’s actually worse for the GOP.

President Joe Biden is expected to announce on Thursday the concert cartel Ticketmaster/Live Nation and other companies have caved to pressure and will be forced to tell consumers upfront the cost of event tickets after years of scamming them with additional fees at checkout, CNN reports.

“President Biden has been working to lower costs for hardworking families by bringing down inflation, capping insulin prices for seniors, and eliminating hidden junk fees. More companies are heeding the President’s call so that Americans know what they’re paying for up front and can save money as a result,” said National Economic Council Director Lael Brainard in a statement.

That the cave by the companies, which include SeatGeek, xBk, Airbnb, TickPick, and DICE, comes before the Junk Fee Prevention Act, proposed by Biden in February and introduced by Arizona Dem Congressman Ruben Gallego in April, could even come to a vote is a mixed, if mostly good, bag. Obviously it’s awesome Biden can strong-arm some of the evilest sons of bitches into complying without any legislation – Ticketmaster/Live Nation is a very big get in particular given the recent outrage over the Taylor Swift tour shitshow. The downside is – surprise! – Republicans in the House don’t give a shit and would rather jerk off over gas stoves than wrangle in the companies and industries that are not voluntarily complying with the letter or spirit of the bill’s proscriptions.

As many as 100 Russian Army soldiers were killed Thursday when a Ukrainian HIMARS missile struck the mustering ground in the occupied Luhansk region where they had been waiting for their commander speak – for two hours, the Kyiv Post reports citing pro-Kremlin military bloggers furious at the “stupidity and sloppiness” with which the soldiers had been left out in the open.

“If by the middle of the second year of the war there are commanders that carry columns to the front and build personnel in one big pile, and then wait for the enemy artillery to strike, then such commanders must be shot before the formation, even if they are colonels or even generals,” wrote pro-Kremlin military blogger Vysokygovorit. Another propagandist, Dva Majors, wrote “We are at war with our own stupidity and bullshit, smeared from above with beautiful reports.”

After one of their fathers passed away and his brother transitioned out of the home they co-owned, the cousins inheriting the house discovered a hidden stash of more than 800,000 pennies in the basement of the Los Angeles property, the Washington Post reports.

Turned down by one local bank branch because they didn’t have the space to store them–the haul took two pickup trucks to move to a safe location, with the weight so great one of the cousins said it turned the vehicles into lowriders–they went penny-less to a different bank, where a helpful teller noted they could get more than (Abraham Lincoln’s) face value for them from the collector market if they found collectible and rare mintings.  They’ve arranged to sell the supply to a gambler hoping to sort through the lot and find a rare coin.  The cost for the $8,000 in currency:  $25,000.  The buyer is arranging for shipping on his dime.

Alina Habba may have to listen to herself pontificating on everyone who doesn’t understand the Presidential Records Act or the Espionage Act and maybe educate her client… ’cause it doesn’t say what he thinks it says:

Because they’re spinning.  Everyone’s spinning.  And the truth is, nobody, and I mean nobody but possibly three or four attorneys and the people involved know what actually happened, know what took place, know the actual laws.  Most people go on TV and don’t even know what the Presidential Records Act is and they most certainly don’t know what the Espionage Act is.  The truth of the matter is, this is insane politics in the courtroom and it has to stop.  It’s garbage.  It’s nonsense, and until they hear our side, which is now, our turn, which I’m looking forward to, we will not understand the truth.

Adding to the mythos of Penn State sex scandals, a chemical engineering professor who is suspected of running half-naked–we’ll let you figure out which half–through the woods as captured in trailcam pics going back to at least 2014 is now under arrest for engaging in a sexual act with a dog in a public park.  Unlike Jerry Sandusky, chemical engineering professor Themis Matsoukas has been put on leave by Penn State after the complaint, the Centre Daily Times reports.

The 63-year-old Matsoukas got busy with the dog on April 13th near restrooms at Rothrock State Forest, an encounter caught on tape by security cams.  Park rangers were able to identify Matsoukas thanks to the backpack he was carrying.  When booking the suspect, police noticed his shoes and socks matched those of a man caught on multiple trail cameras since 2014 running naked from the waist down… except for unique shoes and socks.

Matsoukas had won a number of recognitions for his work in chemical engineering thermodynamics, published several books and dozens of journal articles, and has received a number of teaching awards.  When detailed by rangers, he reported muttered, “I’m done, I’m dead, you don’t understand, I do it to blow off steam.”  He’s facing a number of charges and a whole lot of therapy.

South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham once said that if the Party nominated Trump “we will get destroyed and we will deserve it.”  Today, Graham is Trump’s most reliable Southern bellwether, always swinging toward Trump to the point that this clip shows at least the second time tonight he speaks directly to Trump and declares the cult’s fealty.

President Trump has been treated unlike anybody I’ve known in this business and I’ve been around since 1995. What they hate about him the most, he’s broken through to working people.  He’s a threat to the left unlike anybody since Ronald Reagan and ah, miste- Mr. President, President Trump.  Talk about the future, pal; we got your back.

Not that I would dare speak for all Trump opponents, but I don’t hate the fact that Trump “broke through to working people.”  I hate the fact that he broke out the racists and the bigots and the homophobes, and he endorsed their use of violence in an attempt to undermine the Constitution of the United States.  Oh, that, and that it’s impossible for him to admit a mistake, which caused him to be charged with 37 felonies (to date), forcing him to be treated unlike any previous president, none of whom has been charged with a single felony, let alone one involving national security.

Without admitting any wrongdoing, the University of Delaware will pay $6.3 million to settle a class action suit brought by students over the school’s shutdown during the first year of the coronavirus pandemic, ABC News reports.  The lawsuit contended the university improperly enriched itself by retaining tuition payments from students even though it shut down in-person classes in the Spring of 2020; the university countered that it provided consistent education through virtual classes and remote learning while the campus was closed.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs will take home $2.1 million; the five lead plaintiffs will receive $5,000 each.  The remainder of the money will be split among 21,000 students who enrolled in classes during the shutdown who did not opt out of the class action, so if you were a Blue Hen in 2020, keep your eye out for a check from the settlement fund, even if you didn’t sign on to the suit.

President Biden has been pre-impeached for the second time this week as white trash Congresswoman Lauren Boebert announced that she’ll be bringing her own articles of imeachment against Dark Brandon for some fucking reason, probably not much if it all different from those introduced by her asshole colleague Andy Ogles on Monday. President Biden has been pre-impeached a total of 13 times since his January 2021 inauguration. His all-time single-day record is three pre-impeachments on August 23, 2021 while Republicans were pretending to care about the 13 US Marines tragically killed in a massive suicide bombing in Afghanistan.

In all seriousness, this simply shows how not-actually-serious-at-all Republicans are. Introducing the dead end articles while they were in the minority from 2021-2022 was fair enough, Dems did it against Trump too in 2017-2018. But once Nancy took over in 2019 she enforced discipline and held her caucus back until the moment was right. It was right twice. Last month two Republicans separately introduced articles against Biden twice in one day. Are they really this fucking stupid where they think more is somehow better than coordinating these efforts? Don’t answer.

In its ongoing effort to repair the damage of the now-indicted ex-president, the Biden Administration has been negotiating indirectly with Iran to reinstitute some of the safeguards of the 2015 nuclear deal the Trump Administration violated, the New York Times reports.  The talks–confirmed by officials of Iran, Israel and the US–have also included discussions about returning Americans being held by Iran.

After Trump violated the multinational agreement, Iran returned to increasing its stockpile of high-grade uranium.  It’s also supplying Russia with drones the Kremlin is using in its Ukraine invasion, as well as supplying and funding terrorist groups operating in places like Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.  Biden’s delegates started talking with Iran as a way to quell increased tensions growing since the Trump-ordered assassination by drone of an Iranian general on a trip to Iraq, an incident that led to missile attacks on US bases in Iraq that injured scores of military personnel and contractors.  (Trump referred to the traumatic brain injuries impacting some of the wounded as “headaches” after initially claiming no Americans at all were injured.)

Disgraced former President Trump basically wanted to get indicted for stealing classified documents from the White House after his defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 election, even rejecting a peace proposal with the Justice Department by his $3 million dollar man Chris Kise, and favoring advice from non-lawyer Judicial Watch douchebag Tom Fitton, the Washington Post reports.

Last October Kise, the former Florida solicitor general asked Trump if he could approach federal prosecutors with some way to “take the temperature down” which, we don’t know how well it would’ve worked, but the real point is Donald didn’t even want to try. “It was a totally unforced error,” a source told the Post, adding “We didn’t have to be here,” to describe the shitty legal advice from Fitton who, again, does not have a Juris Doctor and never even went to law school.

Federal officials arrested an active-duty Marine stationed at Camp Pendleton for the 2022 bombing of a California Planned Parenthood clinic in Costa Mesa, California about 50 miles away, CBS News reports.  Twenty-three-year-old Chance Brannon was taken into custody at Camp Pendleton.

Brannon’s partner in the bombing, Tibet Ergul, a 21-year-old from Orange County was also taken into custody.  A LinkedIn profile for a Tibet Ergul from Huntingdon Beach shows him as an Amazon driver and a student at Arizona State University.

“Since deranged Jack Smith took the unprecedented step of weaponizing the justice system to attack his political opponent, Donald J Trump for President 2024 has raised more than $6.6 million in just a few short days. In a clear sign of the steadfast support President Donald J Trump enjoys from grassroots Patriots across the nation, over $4.5 million has been raised from digital fundraising, with an additional $2.1 million raised at President Trump’s event at Bedminster last night,” says an unholy statement written by an acolyte of the corpulent Orange Prince of Darkness.

EDITOR’S NOTE: National Zero rounded up the $6.6 million in the original text of the statement to $6.66 million to make it sound more Satan-y in the headline. Still likely technically accurate.

Republican Miami Mayor Francis Suarez announced he would seek the GOP nomination for president, making the 2024 campaign a very Florida affair given the state’s Governor Ron DeSantis and its most famous criminal defendant Donald Trump are also in the race, Politico reports.

In his second term in office, Suarez might also be running to avoid a potential self-dealing scandal of his own:  Suarez also works as a real estate attorney while serving as mayor, and he reported has served as counsel for a company in negotiations with the city regarding an upcoming development which Suarez’s administration would also approve via permitting.  Suarez has met with employees in his administration and advocated for the Location Ventures development in Coconut Grove, receiving $170,000 in billables.  According to the city’s code of ethics–Miami is infamous for corruption in its city government–Suarez had to reveal if any business dealing with the city is his client.

House Republicans on Wednesday failed to pass a resolution censuring and levying a fine of $16 million on former House Intelligence Committee Chair Congressman Adam Schiff for aggressively pursuing disgraced former President Trump over his collusion with Russia before, during, and after the 2016 election, with 20 Republicans joining with Dems to table the resolution, likely killing the effort to preserve the integrity of the United States House of Representatives.

Congressman George Santos on the Adam Schiff Sham:
"We must preserve the integrity of the U.S House of Reps. and censure Adam Schiff today." pic.twitter.com/cXzDMIYE9N

— Rep. George Santos (@RepSantosNY03) June 14, 2023

Well if we’re going to go by the way a MAGA website would’ve covered this, then we guess the failure to punish Schiff means he didn’t lie and the “allegation that President Donald Trump colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 Presidential election” deemed as false in the resolution by batshit idiot Florida Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna was actually true. Sucks for them.

After a lengthy shitposting binge Monday into Tuesday, fat former President Trump remained uncharacteristically silent on Truth Social on Wednesday afternoon, his last post just a link to some bullshit RSBN article from just after midnight. It’s not like Trump has ever gone about a day or so without posting anything on his failing personal social network before, there’s been plenty of stretches like this when for whatever reason he wasn’t trolling on the internet.

However given what actually happened on Tuesday and the extremely high volume before he showed up to court, we’re curious as to what might be going on, if somehow his lawyers or even the court warned him not to keep carrying on about the case against him.

On one angle there’s the comical weirdness of Lindsey implying he’s not already majorly outraged over his Orange Allah being charged with dozens of federal felonies. On another, far more malevolent level he’s saying Trump shouldn’t be charged for January 6th at all since where the fuck else are they going to bring it if not in DC where it actually happened? It’s not just that he seems to be implying that it’s only “fair” to Trump if 12 MAGA Cuban-Americans are on the jury in a case overseen by an unhinged Nazi like Aileen Cannon but that DC’s circa 40 percent white and 90 percent Democrat jury pool mean he should not face justice for what was objectively a far more grievous crime than stealing classified documents from the White House and obstructing justice.

In his first comments on the matter since fat former President Trump was indicted, Attorney General Merrick Garland on Wednesday told an ABC reporter nothing at all like we described in the headline but we decided this is a good opportunity for a reading comprehension test for right wing trolls.

“As I said when I appointed Mr Smith, I did so because it underscores the Justice Department’s commitment to both independence and accountability. Mr Smith is a veteran career prosecutor. He has assembled a group of experienced and talented prosecutors and agents who share his commitment to integrity. Any questions about this matter will have to be answered by their filings in court,” is what Garland actually said, adding he wouldn’t get into the specifics of the case.

Embattled Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton lost a motion in state court to keep his felony securities fraud trial in the deep-red county for which his wife serves as a state senator, with the highest criminal court in the state ruling the trial be moved to Democratic-stronghold Houston, the Associated Press reports.

A timetable for the start of the trial regarding allegations that Paxton defrauded investors in a tech startup, for which he was charged in 2015, is undetermined.  After being elected as the state’s Attorney General in 2014, Paxton has successfully thwarted attempts to start the trial.  He wanted his trial to be held in Collins County, which his wife Angela Allen represents as the Republican state senator for Texas District 8.

Facing a sentence of up to 99 years in prison, Paxton is also facing multiple impeachment charges for other financial malfeasance while in office.  These felony charges are part of the 20-count impeachment articles passed by the state house last month.

After experiencing Straight White Male Panic because of a social media outreach to a trans influencer, the America First crowd has outsourced the title of America’s Favorite Beer:  for the first time, a Mexican brewery has the top selling beer brand in the United States, with Modelo Especial overtaking Bud Light as the nation’s favorite, Yahoo Finance reports.

Sales of Modelo, owned by the same conglomerate that owns Bud Light, jumped about 15% to an 8.4% share of US beer sales, up from 7.3% in the four-week period that ended June 3rd.  Bud Light sales share slid from 10.3% in early May to 7.3%.  Miller Lite’s remained flat at 5.3% while Coors Light rose just 0.1 percentage points to 6.2% of the market.