DAY 2 OF WEEK 34: THE DECLINE CONTINUES
Today is Day 2 of Week 34. There are 12 months and 29 days to the mot decisive mid term vote in the country’s history. Hiring just hit the lowest level since 2009. Only 204,939 hires so far in 2025. That’s a 58% collapse year on year. Worse than anything since the 2008 financial crisis.
Fortunately, El Gordo del Mar A Lardo has been busy inflicting his fat ass on the rest of the world, so there is less news today despite his return.
In arguments tomorrow before the Supreme Court, lawyers for Louisiana and Maladministration II will try to persuade the justices to wipe away the state’s second majority Black congressional district and make it much harder, if not impossible, to take account of race in redistricting. “Race-based redistricting is fundamentally contrary to our Constitution,” Louisiana Attorney General Elizabeth Murrill wrote in the state’s Supreme Court filing.
I’m proud to present this news: The Guardian reports that US military veterans increasingly face arrest and injury amid protests over Donald Trump’s deportation campaign and his push to deploy national guard members to an ever-widening number of American cities, citing eight instances where military veterans have been prosecuted or sought damages after being detained by federal agents. The latest incident occurred in Broadview, Illinois, where 70-year old air force veteran Dana Briggs was charged with felony assault on a federal officer on 29 September. A widely shared video shows a masked ICE thug advance on and knock over the elderly veteran during a protest outside the detention center. Federal prosecutors claim Briggs committed assault when he “made physical contact with an agent’s arm while the agent attempted to extend the safety perimeter.” (What the Actual Fuck??!!!) Another veteran, John Cerrone, was arrested while protesting outside the Broadviewcenter the day before Briggs. A social media video shows masked thugs tackle the 35-year-old Marine veteran, who served as a combat infantryman in Afghanistan. Cerrone was held for nine hours at the Broadview facility, alone in a cell with walls covered by blood, hair and mucus. While he was behind bars he was visited by an ICE goon who boasted he had shot Cerrone in the head with rubber bullets and exclaimed: “Where is that pussy?” Cerrone was released after receiving a citation for “exhibiting disorderly conduct on federal property”, a misdemeanor, which he plans to contest. Common Defense executive director former Sgt Jose Vasquez said: “What drives so many veterans into action is not only the injustice faced by immigrants and protesters, but also the larger threat to democracy rooted in government brutality and militarization. The disturbing escalation in arrests and violence signals that the basic freedoms we once swore to protect are under attack.”
There hasn’t been a lot of news lately about the government’s decision to go after the “terrorism financiers” - the nonprofits and foundations that support political activity by Democratic and progressive groups and organizations. However, Reuters has been digging, and this is what they have come up with: Stephen Miller is heading up the attack on democracy, and is receiving regular updates from the joint terrorism task force - a coalition of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies tasked with investigating terrorism. The FBI’s role includes analyzing financial networks for funding of activities involving violent crime. Potential tools to defund or shut down these groups include IRS investigations to strip them of tax-exempt status; criminal probes by the Justice Department and FBI; surveillance by federal law enforcement agencies; the use of RICO statutes typically used for organized crime and financial investigations under anti-terror laws to identify donors and funders, according to people familiar with investigations and public statements by officials. Unlike with international terror groups, there is no legal mechanism to designate a U.S. group with no foreign ties a terrorist organization. Timothy Naftali, a presidential historian and former director of the Nixon library, said Trump and Nixon were similar in their desire to punish political enemies and silence critics, but a pliant Republican-controlled Congress and a cabinet packed with loyalists are enabling Trump to go further. “That’s why this particular moment is more dangerous for the rule of law in the United States than the 1970s were.” The targets are not extremists or lawbreakers, but entire categories of civil-society groups: climate activists, labor organizations, media watchdogs, voting-rights nonprofits; all to be recast as enemies of the state. “Antifa” now covers anyone who opposes Trump: Democrats, journalists, donors, unions, churches that preach social justice. In their propaganda Antifa means us. Me. You. Us. Let me just say that those times in the late 60s-early 70s were pretty scary. Remember the rule we followed: “Don’t say anything on this phone you wouldn’t say to J. Edgar Hoover.” Clean up your phones of anything they’d find “interesting.” Ditto email. And adopt the Sgt Schultz Rule if anybody comes knocking at your door: “I know nothing. Nothing!”
Sean Duffy, the guy so fucking stupid the height of his career was being the bozon nobody liked on the MTV reality TV series “Real World, back when he was just a20-nothing fuckwit, is stepping up to defend A’murrkkker from the Dread Antifa: Monday he went on Maria Bartiromo’s “Mornings with Maria.” show on Fux Bid’nezz to say that the upcoming “No Kings Day” protests are “part of” the antifascist movement known as antifa. “The ‘No Kings’ protest, Maria, really frustrating. I mean, this is part of antifa, paid protesters. It begs the question, who’s funding it? But, yeah, Democrats want to wait for a big rally of a ‘No Kings’ protest when the bottom line is, who’s running the show in the Senate? Chuck Schumer is not running the show, the No Kings protesters or organizers are running the show. Is AOC threatening a primary against Chuck Schumer? Is she running the show?” According to The Hill: “Under a list of partners for No Kings on its website, there appears to be no group listed specifically as antifa.”
Remembering Roscoe
Co-anchor of CNBC’s “Squawk Box” and New York Times financial columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin predicts that the stock market could see a major crash, mimicking the infamous 1929 Wall Street crash that was an instrumental trigger for the Great Depression. “I’m anxious that we are at prices that may not feel sustainable. And what I don’t know is we are either living through some kind of remarkable boom and part of that’s artificial intelligence and technology and all of that, or everything’s overpriced,” Sorkin said in a Sunday interview. “That’s what concerns me. There’s speculation in the market today, there’s an increasing amount of debt in the market today, and all of that’s happening against the backdrop of the guardrails coming off.”
Deployment of National Guard troops within Illinois remained blocked Saturday after the federal appeals court in Chicago met the Trump administration halfway. Last Friday, Maladministration II asked the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to delay the effect of the ruling by U.S. District Judge April Perry the blocked Maladministration II from “ordering the federalization and deployment of the National Guard of the United States within Illinois.” In a one-page order, the appeals court halted Perry’s ruling only when it came to the federalization of the National Guard. However, it left untouched the portion of Perry’s ruling blocking deployment of the National Guard. The order is temporary, while it considers whether Perry’s ruling should be halted throughout the Trump administration’s appeal. DOJ lawyers told the court that Perry “impermissibly second-guessed the Commander in Chief’s military judgments - something district courts lack the authority and competence to do.” After the appeals court issued its order, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul said in a written statement that it “keeps the troops off the streets of Chicago, Broadview or any other community in Illinois. This is a victory for our state. This is a victory for state and local law enforcement, who know their communities and who protect the right of their communities to speak truth to power.”
Pistol Pete Kegstand The Pushup King derided media outlets that said their reporters would not sign the Pentagon’s restrictive new press policy, using a goodbye handwave emoji in responding to social media posts announcing their decisions. The Associated Press, Reuters, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, CNN and NPR have all said their journalists would not sign the new paperwork that says they will abide by or acknowledge they understand the new rules around Pentagon access. Many posted their statements on social media. Hegseth responded to several such posts with the goodbye emoji. He used the same emoji above a post from The New York Times, which asserted the Pentagon’s rules threaten to punish journalists for “ordinary news gathering protected by the First Amendment.” Even several right-leaning news organizations have balked at the policy, including the Washington Times and Newsmax, the latter of which has said it believes the requirements “are unnecessary and onerous,” and that its reporters won’t sign.
The Gang That Can’t Do Anything Straight is bringing back hundreds of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention employees who were mistakenly fired on Friday as part of a government-wide purge intended to punish Democrats during a government shutdown. Among the people who were initially fired and then brought back were leaders in the Global Health Center, including all six of the CDC’s regional offices around the world; the team that produces the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report; and some of the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS), known as “disease detectives.” The EIS are typically the first responders in an outbreak. The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 2883, which represents workers at the CDC’s Atlanta headquarters, said HHS fired more than 1,300 CDC federal employees during the government shutdown, citing retaliatory reasons for their removal. Within 24 hours of receipt of the original RIF notices, the union said around 700 employees received emails rescinding their terminations. The administration claimed these employees were “mistakenly” placed on notice because of a coding error. The notices were emailed shortly after 9 p.m. on a holiday weekend. The notices were sent even as the human resources division had been furloughed as part of the shutdown.
The Southern Peckerwood White Trash Goons strike again: A 13-year-old boy was arrested by ICE goons and transported to a juvenile detention center over 500 miles from his family. Josiele Berto, the boy’s mother, told The Boston Globe she was called to the Everett Police Department after her son was arrested following an interaction with the police on Thursday. After waiting for more than an hour, she was informed that her son had been taken into ICE custody, He was taken to the ICE’s holding facility in Burlington, MA, where he spent the night before being transported Friday morning to the Northwestern Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Winchester, VA. She told The Globe that her son called crying from and said to her that he’s sleeping on concrete with an aluminum sheet as a blanket in the Virginia facility. In an email to the boy’s lawyer, Andrew Lattarulo, and reviewed by MassLive, the U.S. Attorney’s Office confirmed that the teenager was transferred at 9:30 a.m. on Friday. Lattarulo told the outlet that the boy is still in custody. District Judge Richard G. Stearns ordered ICE to show cause for the boy’s detention by Tuesday, Oct. 14, or he must be granted a bond hearing no later than Friday, Oct. 17, before an Immigration Judge. Stearns also noted that the teenage detainee was “presumably in the company of unrelated adult detainees.” “I’ve never done a bond or a habeas for a kid this young, ever. This is the youngest,” Lattarulo told The Globe.
And they did it again: ICE goons have detained the parents of a Marine serving his country as they tried to visit their pregnant daughter on the Camp Pendleton base. Steve Rios said his parents, Esteban Rios and Luisa Rodriguez, were detained by ICE thugs as they all went to visit his pregnant sister, Ashley, and her Marine husband from the California military base. The parents were detained an hour then released with ankle monitors and ordered a follow-up appointment, where ICE took them back into custody. When they returned after the visit with their daughter, the thugs took both into custody; they were held downtown and told they would be moved to the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego County. By last Friday, Esteban had been deported. It is unclear what has happened to his mother. The family told NBC 7 San Diego that the couple has no criminal history and they are awaiting green-card applications sponsored by their Marine son, alongside valid work authorization. Rios said his parents left Mexico more than 30 years ago and, for as long as he can remember, have worked dawn to dusk washing cars and cleaning houses. “It was just making them proud, right? I’ve seen all the struggles they’ve gone through,” Steve told the station. “The least I could do, right, and serve this country and try to, you know, put some time in. I don’t think it amounts to what they’ve done.” Ashley said it’s agonizing not being able to hear her parents’ voices, reassuring her that things will be OK. The brother and sister said no one has explained why their parents were detained or what comes next.
This morning, the Supreme Court turned down conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’s appeal of a roughly $1.4 billion defamation judgment he owes for falsely claiming the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax. The brief order ends Jones’s bid to stave off the staggering sum, which has plunged him into bankruptcy and could force him to give up airing his Infowars show. (Ohhhh - I’m sooooo sad) Jones’s petition called it “financial death penalty by fiat.” He said his statements were “lifted out of context” and the judge didn’t give enough weight to his First Amendment arguments. “Alex Jones is a media defendant entitled to all First Amendment freedom of the press protections,” the petition reads. The justices did not appear to give it much consideration, as they did not request the families respond to Jones’s petition. Chris Mattei, an attorney representing the families, said: “The Supreme Court properly rejected Jones’s latest desperate attempt to avoid accountability for the harm he has caused. We look forward to enforcing the jury’s historic verdict and making Jones and Infowars pay for what they have done.”
After his triumphant return from the public blowjobs offered by the dictators and tyrants of the Mideast this past weekend, Dear Leader ripped ABC News over the contentious interview with Vice President Vance over the weekend, when George Stephanopoulos abruptly ended an interview with Vance after everybody’s favorite couchfucker did not directly answer a question about bribery allegations against border czar Tom Homan. While talking with reporters during a meeting with the president of Argentina this morning Dilbert refused to take a question from ABC, citing the interview. “After what you did with Stephanopoulos to the vice president of the United States, I don’t take questions from ABC Fake News,” he said.
Dear Leader has committed his fifth extra-judicial illegal killing/crime against humanity against Venezuelans. Her announced this morning that a strike earlier this morning killed six “narco-terrorists,” though he and his fellow war criminals in Maladministration II have yet to present any evidence whatsoever that the small boats he has ordered destroyed - none of them capable or carrying the “drug loads” claimed or making the Carribean crossing to the US - are part of any criminal enterprise. Also, international law does not impose the death penalty on drug transportation if they were doing such. The U.S. government has no power - under US or International law - to commit these crimes. Dilbert wrote the following lies on Lies Anti-Social: “Intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking narcotics, was associated with illicit narcoterrorist networks, and was transiting along a known DTO route. The strike was conducted in International Waters, and six male narcoterrorists aboard the vessel were killed in the strike.”
The world’s thinnest-skinned, most petty-minded moron experienced his 254th consecutive Adderall overdose last night. After crawling to the Golden Shitter, he proceeded to complain about the photograph Time Magazine used on its cover of the issue where they blew him in public over his Major Win For Peace In This Millenium, said photo taken from an angle that did not favor the bird’s nest atop his bald head. He complained that the photo “may be the worst of all time.” He said he liked the story but wanted to know why Time ran such a bad photo of his hair. “They ‘disappeared’ my hair, and then had something floating on top of my head that looked like a floating crown, but an extremely small one. I never liked taking pictures from underneath angles, but this is a super bad picture, and deserves to be called out. What are they doing, and why?” The low-angle shot and beatific lighting were apparently meant to make Trump heroic, but instead highlighted his jowls and revealed just how much work must go into making his hair seem so voluminous. Kari Lake, a leading presidential blowjobber, accused Time of using “the most unflattering photos of President Trump at a moment when they should be honoring him.”
Do it again this Saturday
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TC, for all those military veterans being taken into custody by ICE goons for the crime of getting the way of brutality, I have four numbers: 1983. Or, more particularly, 42 U.S.C Sec. 1983. That's the statute that allows the victims of government infringement of civil rights to sue. And they get to sue the individual who attacked them, not the big bad agency. It's very difficult to recover in a Sec. 1983 lawsuit, but hundreds of them against ICE goons might make them start to think twice.
No Kings coordinators in our area have been recruiting pro bono lawyers to deal with any particpant's arrests this Saturday. They know ICE will be on the lookout for collars to meet their Stephen Miller ordered quota. It's time for everyone to dress as nuns.
Saw Sorkin on "60 Minutes," and noted his anxiety level. And it was preceded by a Gen. Haugh who was dumped from his position heading an important military cyber defense unit apparently because he was not sufficiently drooly at the sight of all things maga. CBS seems to be getting its last punches in before Bari Weiss starts giving Fox a run for its money.
May comedy never die, no matter how hard the humorless, soulless, and joyless radical right tries to kill it. The late night comedians are this era's Gabriel Heaters and Walter Winchells who reported on fascist threats and war activity in the 40s.They should all get Peabody Awards just to send Trump into vascular event territory.