“… should the government insist on holding us captive unconstitutionally as pre-trial detainees to be transferred and reside at Guantanamo Bay, a detention facility that actual provides nutritional meals, daytime sunlight exposure, top notch medical care, is respectful of religious requirements, has centers for exercise/entertainment for its detainees despite the fact that those residents are malicus [sic] terrorists, proud member of Taliban, and few are central (?) United States citizens.  Instead of remaining trapped within the wretched confines of cruel and unusual punishment of the D.C. jail.”

So writes a wannabe Patrick Henry in a letter signed by 36 defendants accused of crimes relating to the January 6th Republican-led domestic terrorist attack on Congress, Ron Filipkowski reports.  They’re being held without bail because they are threats to themselves or others, or they are at risk of not showing up for their trials, given that they’re from out of the District and don’t have any connection to the community.  But hey, that’s just the Constitution and the law.  So if these guys want a trip to Gitmo, so be it.

“Tonight, M&M’s–you know, the candy we all grew up eating–well, they released their brand new character in over a decade, and their brand new character is Purple M&M, which is supposed to represent inclusivity and acceptance,” some unnamed host on a conservative network that has essentially no household penetration.  “I think it’s a female character, but I’m pretty sure they haven’t said.  Maybe it’s transgender.”

What kind of a sick fuck sexualizes M&Ms?  Oh, right:  conservative sick fucks.

https://twitter.com/glasskitchen/status/1576662226945343488

With 91.6% of the votes counted in the Brazilian presidential election, former Brazilian President Luis Lula da Silva leads Trump-endorsed far right asshole Jair Bolsonaro 47.3% to 44.2%, making an October 30th runoff all but inevitable, the Associated Press reports.

Although Republican Florida Governor and human trafficker Ron DeSantis kept the plans secret for shipping asylum seekers to Massachusetts from Texas via a stopover in Florida–not publically releasing information required by law and not even telling Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott–one item has leaked out:  the name of the coyote he used to recruit the uninformed victims of his scheme.

According to the New York Times, the woman known as “Perla” is Perla Huerta, a former Army medic and counterintelligence agent who had been discharged in August.  Apparently working as a contractor for the State of Florida, Huerta was identified by people she recruited to work for her in Texas as well as the migrants who were flown to Martha’s Vineyard after being promised benefits from Massachusetts for refugees–benefits which the asylum seekers didn’t qualify for.

A Venezuelan man who worked with Huerta to recruit fellow migrants to make the trip to Massachusetts says he, too, was scammed by her:  she allegedly told him they were working for a group that would help people get assistance in Massachusetts.  He felt betrayed when told she worked for Florida’s governor.  “I was also lied to,” he said. “If I had known, I would not have gotten involved.” All he was told, he said, was that “she wanted to help people head up north.”

Speaking to a bunch of people scared to display even the slightest sign of disagreement for fear of being polonium’ed, Russian President Vladimir Putin reaches out to his base using the same talking points about fighting “the other” that you’ll hear from the GOP over the next two-plus years.  It’s almost like Republicans and their mouthpieces like Tucker Carlson are taking their talking points word-for-word from an authoritarian they admire.

Along with the conspiracy-laden Nord Stream II pipeline leaks touted by conservative media to be foreshadowing a nuclear war because obviously Biden did it, its partner pipeline Nord Stream I also suffered leaks this past week.

One day after the Nord Stream II pipeline leaks stopped, Danish authorities state the little-reported leaks in the Nord Stream I pipeline have stopped as well, according to the Associated Press.  The pipelines started leaking earlier this week after investigators say explosions requiring hundreds of pounds of explosives damaged the lines.

Thousands of tons of methane have escaped through the various leaks.  The leak stoppage is likely due to no more to all the gas in the pipeline being expelled.  Russia has called for a UN Security Council meeting to discuss the incident, which it declared sabotage.  Norway has calculated that a massive methane cloud created by the leaks will hang over most of the Nordic area.

The background vocalists on "Monster Mash" are singing about shoes, and no one remembers why https://t.co/Bf7GJTMWdR pic.twitter.com/z7DdrhTibe

— The Hill (@thehill) October 2, 2022

At least 67 people have been confirmed dead in Florida after Hurricane Ian slammed into the state’s southwest coast, CNN reports. Another 4 people were killed in North Carolina after the storm reentered the Atlantic and strengthened back into Category 1 hurricane strength. The death toll is awful, but as of now still well below an estimate of “hundreds” by an area county sheriff. President Joe and First Lady Dr Jill Biden will visit the region on Wednesday.

“I’ve got a present for all of ya,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy says on Sunday as he reaches into his jacket pocket to pull out a three-panel brochure that constitutes the entirety of the GOP policy pamphlet–which actually has no policy, just platitudes.  “Your own commitment to America.  And in here, we talk about a government that’s held accountable.  Wouldn’t we want to know where Covid originated?”

“We know though, Ke–!  We know!”  Birthing factory and former reality TeeVee star Rachel Campos-Duffy exclaims, promoting the disproven conspiracy that the virus was engineered.  “We know where it came from.”

The NFL Players Association exercised its option to fire the independent neurotrauma specialist who approved Miami Dolphin’s quarterback Tua Tagovailoa reentering the game last Sunday against the Buffalo Bills after his head slammed the turf, CBS News reports.

After regaining his feet, Tagovailoa was clearly unsteady and ultimately fell to the ground again.  He was taken off the field, but returned three plays later.  Tagovailoa took another hard hit to the head during Thursday night’s game against the Cincinnati Bengals, causing him to have an apparent seizure.  He was taken to the hospital where he was observed overnight.

Three independent neurotrauma specialists are hired for each game by the league and the NFLPA.  They are not affiliated with either team, and they are responsible for evaluating players with suspected head injuries to determine if they’re healthy enough to reenter games.  According to their agreement with the league, the NFLPA can independently fire any of the specialists hired if it feels the doctor is not acting in the interest of player health.

More than 125 people and two police officers were killed during riots at the end of a soccer match in Indonesia, ESPN reports, with most of the victims being trampled to death as they tried to flee the stadium.

Police attempted to use teargas to break up large fights going on in the stands and in the concourse, but that just drove more of the crowds to the few available exits to the stadium, causing more casualties.

More than 300 people had been taken to local hospitals, with some of them dying on the way.  The Indonesian Premier League game ended with Persebaya Surabaya beating Arema Malang 3-2.

President Joe Biden announced the release of seven American civilians, some of whom had been held in Venezuela since as far back as 2017, in exchange for two drug dealers who are related to Venezuela’s first lady, CNN reports.

Jorge Toledo, Tomeu Vadell, Alirio Zambrano, Jose Luis Zambrano, and Jose Pereira were executives for oil company Citgo when they were detained reportedly for signing an agreement “unfavorable” to the Venezuelan government, which controls the company.  The last member of the so-called “Citgo 6” was released in March.  Matthew Heath was detained in September 2020; Osman Khan was arrested in January of this year.

In exchange, the United States released two Venezuelans known as the “Narco nephews” because of their relationship to Cilia Flores, the wife of Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro and the First Lady of the nation.  The two men, Efraín Antonio Campo Flores and Francisco Flores de Freitas, were convicted in 2016 of conspiring to smuggle more than 800 kilograms of cocaine into the United States.

“I’m not going to mice, mince words with you all.  Democrats want Republicans dead and they’ve already started the killings,” newly single and ready to mingle Neanderthal-American Marjorie Taylor Greene announced at the Trump rally in a community college gym in Warren, Michigan.  “An 18-year-old boy was run down by a Democrat driver who confessed…”

Hi, Marge!  Just want you to know that your conservative brethren have been murdering people far more frequently.  We can look at Orlando, Buffalo, and the whole January 6th thing if you want to talk about conservative violence.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a lawsuit against rightwing media company Sinclar Broadcasting on behalf of a Black female former employee who discovered she was getting paid significantly less than white peers in similar positions, the Baltimore Sun reports.

The former employee said she notified human resources about the issue and instead of resolving the matter, forced the woman from her job.  “The EEOC is committed to eradicating discriminatory pay, including pay practices that disadvantage Black women,” said Debra Lawrence, EEOC’s regional attorney handling the case.

With a stable of 193 local television stations, Sinclair requires those stations to run conservative propaganda created at the home office in Hunt Valley, Maryland.  That propaganda takes the form of video packages formatted like a news feature pushing the same political agenda or scripted “ad lib” dialogue pushing the same political agenda or scripted editorials from the local station manager pushing the same political agenda.  Many times, it’s all three.

“We do know that we do not have custody of everything we should,” the acting US Archivist Debra Steidel Wall said in a letter to Democratic Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, the chair of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, ABC News reported Saturday.

The letter noted that the Archives knows they are missing records due to public reporting of communications sent or received by Administration officials.  Many of these communications were done through personal accounts using third-party messaging apps, some of which erase messages after a set period of time, meaning those records may not be recoverable.  Steidel said the Archives “would consult with the Department of Justice” on whether “to initiate an action for the recovery of records unlawfully removed.”

“Former President Trump and his senior staff have shown an utter disregard for the rule of law and our national security by failing to return presidential records as the law requires,” Maloney said. “I will continue to do everything in my power to ensure that all presidential records from the Trump White House are returned to the custody of the government and to make sure these abuses never happen again.”

(WARNING:   Video includes graphic content.) Russian President Vladimir Putin celebrated the capture of the Lyman, a city of 20,000 people that’s a railroad hub, back in May 2021.  Now, however, the 5,000 Russian troops occupying the city are encircled and desperately trying to flee.

As the video–taken from three different sources–shows, the Russians are literally lining up to escape the Ukrainian siege:  Russian vehicles line one of the few remaining open roadways to get out of the city, but as the second segment shows, the success of the retreat is spotty:  a number of vehicles were destroyed by Ukrainian forces, leaving corpses and a freshly ransacked minivan  in the road.

The final segment shows Ukrainian ground forces–obviously with high morale–doing a kind of conga dance as they approach the city.  It appears Russia’s annexation of four eastern Ukrainian provinces isn’t going as smoothly or with the support of the people as Putin would have everyone believe.

Ah, the sideshow that precedes a Trump rally.  In his typical fashion, Trump coup supporter and shredded foam pitchman Mike Lindell claims–of course without evidence–that the FBI illegally tracked him in order to serve him with a warrant to seize his cell phone while he was waiting for his Frisco Angus Burger or whatever stroke-inducing concoction he ordered from Hardee’s in mid-September:

“It was like one-o’cl– no, it was like 11:30 in the morning,” Lindell starts before the interviewer asks how the FBI knew were he was or if they were following him.  “No, we have no idea.  No, we pulled into a Hardee’s– Well, how did they know?  They tracked me illegally, with a tracking device or my phone.  We don’t know yet.  We’re trying to fi– get to the bottom of that.”

Federal officials indicted a former Baltimore city prosecutor for using his office to arrange for subpoenas and to get confidential information on five former lovers to stalk and harass them, the Baltimore Sun reports.

Prosecutors allege former Baltimore City homicide prosecutor Adam Lane Chaudry, 43, used false pretenses and lies to convince fellow investigators grand juries working on different cases to issue more than 60 subpoenas allowing Chaudry to get communications and credit card records for five unnamed women with whom Chaudry had been romantically involved.

Chaudry used the information in sustained harassment campaigns against the women.  For one victim, Chaudry reportedly kept a spreadsheet listing her family, friends and associates, tracking with whom she talked or texted, where she used her credit cards and even when she went to doctors’ appointments, including her OB/GYN.  He also obtained 33 subpoenas over a little more than two years to repeatedly obtain her phone records.  He also requested an investigator in the Baltimore state’s attorney’s office to pull her driving record and to surveil her on several occasions under the guise of a non-existent state probe.

The “RightStuff” dating app went live on iOS on Friday – or maybe earlier, we don’t know or really care – and National Zero spent an inordinate amount of time getting a profile set up to make a completely insincere foray into the MAGA dating scene in NYC. This reporter didn’t even get far enough to find hookup prospects exist among foul-tempered Staten Island housewives, as he has not yet and never will receive an invite to join before the network – if it ever does – opens up to new users who aren’t already connected to existing users. All of the better part of an hour spent finding an AI-generated face and photoshopping the background, answering the icebreaker prompts and coming up with mostly fake profile info just to show our readers three screenshots.

Oh and we had to upgrade to iOS 15.7 before we were allowed to download it. That was a pain in the ass. We guess the feature that allows you to pick from one of about 30 songs to play in your profile is innovative-ish. But the off-the-shelf selection is mostly absolute shit. Of course a MAGA dating app would have “All Summer Long” by Kid Rock, “Viva La Vida” by Coldplay, “God Bless the USA” by that asshole, some lame R&B song featuring that racist guy Morgan Wallen, and the absolute fucking douchiest song ever by the absolute fucking douchiest artist ever: “Uptown Girl.”