“Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming signed on to one lawsuit, which was filed in a federal district court in Missouri. Another group of states including Georgia, Alabama, Idaho, Kansas, South Carolina, Utah and West Virginia filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Georgia. Texas also sued individually on Friday,” reports the Associated Press.

“The states asked a federal judge to block Biden’s requirement that all employees of federal contractors be vaccinated against the coronavirus by Dec. 8, arguing that the mandate violates federal procurement law and is an overreach of federal power.”

There’s no legal basis for any of the suits, and the only way they are likely to succeed is if they end up in the court of a Trump appointed Federalist Society stooge, or Republican appointed Conservatives on the Supreme Court wants to completely delegitimize themselves for the purpose of “owning the libs”. Federal Contracts are matters of Interstate Commerce, and the Federal Government has primary authority over matters of interstate commerce. Additionally, because the Covid19 vaccine has already been approved by the FDA, attempting to protest against it is no different than trying to argue against existing vaccine mandates for illnesses such as Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR), Diptheria-Tetanus (DipTet), and Polio.

“Two separate fatal shootings in Birmingham Friday night marked the city’s 99th and 100 homicides this year. The first happened about 10:30 p.m. on the city’s west side. The second happened just before 11 p.m. on the north side,” reports AL.com. Birmingham hit 100 homicides a day earlier in 2020, on Oct. 28. In all of Jefferson County there have been 161 homicides, including the 100 in Birmingham. At this time last year, there had been 144 homicides countywide.”

The spike in violent crime occurred after Alabama lawmakers passed “Constitutional Carry” legislation earlier this year that made it easier for individuals to purchase and carry firearms.

On December 10, 2020, Disney announced the casting of liberal actor Chris Evans as the character Buzz Lightyear in the 2022 animated film Lightyear, replacing the longtime voice actor and rare Hollywood Conservative Tim Allen in the role he originated in 1995’s Toy Story.

National Zero reported this change and speculated over the reasons with “We have the MAGA kids constantly complaining about some conspiracy in Hollywood against them and this sure as hell won’t do anything to calm them down. So let’s just operate under assumption that this casting change had something to do with politics and have a good laugh about it” though the original announcement didn’t cause the kind of blowback we had anticipated back then (though Trump fanboys had some other, more pressing matters on their hands at the time).

“House Democratic leaders are eyeing votes on both infrastructure bill and larger $1.75T economic plan as soon as Tuesday, per sources familiar with the matter. A new version of the bigger bill with some revisions might be proposed as soon as tomorrow, and Rules Committee could take up the rule as soon as Monday. Then both bills could be on the floor Tuesday” – Manu Raju, CNN.

Ron DeSantis recently barred professors from University of Florida campuses from testifying in a lawsuit against the state of Florida’s recent passage of new laws that restrict the right to vote. “University officials told the three that because the school was a state institution, participating in a lawsuit against the state ‘is adverse to U.F.’s interests’ and could not be permitted. In their filing, the lawyers sought to question Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, on whether he was involved in the decision.”

18 U.S. Code § 1512(b) declares that:

“(b)Whoever knowingly uses intimidation, threatens, or corruptly persuades another person, or attempts to do so, or engages in misleading conduct toward another person, with intent to—
(1)influence, delay, or prevent the testimony of any person in an official proceeding;
(2)cause or induce any person to—
(A)withhold testimony, or withhold a record, document, or other object, from an official proceeding…shall be fined under this
title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.”

“More than 30 instances of violence and threats of violence against Afghan journalists were recorded in the last two months, with nearly 90 percent committed by the Taliban, says a media watchdog. More than 40 percent of the cases recorded by the Afghanistan National Journalists Union (ANJU) were physical beatings and another 40 percent were verbal threats of violence, Masorro Lutfi, the group’s head, said on Wednesday,” reports Al Jazeera.

This turn of events means that the Taliban are apparently less violent, and the country of Afghanistan is more transparent about attacks on journalists than the united States. There were numerous threats and physical attacks on journalists during the January 6th riots, including scrawling the phrase “Murder the Media” on a Capitol building door. Threats against journalists in the US have been occurring on an on-going basis.

“As supporters of then-President Donald Trump surrounded and harassed a Joe Biden campaign bus on a Central Texas highway last year, San Marcos police officials and 911 dispatchers fielded multiple requests for assistance from Democratic campaigners and bus passengers who said they feared for their safety from a pack of motorists, known as a ‘Trump Train,’ allegedly driving in dangerously aggressive ways. ‘San Marcos refused to help,’ an amended federal lawsuit over the 2020 freeway skirmish claims. Transcribed 911 audio recordings and documents that reveal behind-the-scenes communications among law enforcement and dispatchers were included in the amended lawsuit, filed late Friday. The transcribed recordings were filed in an attempt to show that San Marcos law enforcement leaders chose not to provide the bus with a police escort multiple times, even though police departments in other nearby cities did.”

“In one transcribed recording, Matthew Daenzer, a San Marcos police corporal on duty the day of the incident, refused to provide an escort when recommended by another jurisdiction. ‘No, we’re not going to do it,’ Daenzer told a 911 dispatcher, according to the amended filing. ‘We will ‘close patrol’ that, but we’re not going to escort a bus.’ The amended filing also states that in those audio recordings, law enforcement officers ‘privately laughed’ and ‘joked about the victims and their distress.’ Former state Sen. Wendy Davis, who was running for Congress at the time, is among the four plaintiffs in the lawsuit. The new complaint also expands the number of people and entities being sued to include Daenzer, San Marcos assistant police chief Brandon Winkenwerder and the city itself. A spokesperson for the city did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Friday. Daenzer and Winkenwerder could not immediately be reached” – Texas Tribune.

New York Times: “Former President Donald J. Trump is seeking to block from release a wide range of documents related to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the National Archives said Saturday in an early-morning federal court filing detailing what Trump is fighting to keep secret. In the filing John Laster, the director of the National Archives’ presidential materials division, laid out for the first time exactly which documents Trump was asserting executive privilege over. The former president is hoping to prevent the documents from being reviewed by the House committee empowered to investigate the mob violence at the Capitol.”

“According to the filing, Trump has asserted executive privilege specifically over 770 pages of documents, including 46 pages of records from the files of Mark Meadows, his former chief of staff; Stephen Miller, his former senior adviser; and Patrick Philbin, his former deputy counsel. Trump is also objecting to the release of the White House Daily Diary – a record of the president’s movements, phone calls, trips, briefings, meetings and activities – as well as logs showing phone calls to the president and to Vice President Mike Pence concerning Jan. 6, Laster wrote. Trump has also asserted executive privilege over 656 pages that include proposed talking points for Kayleigh McEnany, his former press secretary; a handwritten note concerning Jan. 6; a draft text of a presidential speech for the ‘Save America’ rally that preceded the mob attack; and a draft executive order on the topic of election integrity, the filing states.”

“As Vice President Mike Pence hid from a marauding mob during the Jan. 6 invasion of the Capitol, an attorney for President Donald Trump emailed a top Pence aide to say that Pence had caused the violence by refusing to block certification of Trump’s election loss. The attorney, John C. Eastman, also continued to press for Pence to act even after Trump’s supporters had trampled through the Capitol – an attack the Pence aide, Greg Jacob, had described as a ‘siege’ in their email exchange.”

“‘The ‘siege’ is because YOU and your boss did not do what was necessary to allow this to be aired in a public way so that the American people can see for themselves what happened,’ Eastman wrote to Jacob, referring to Trump’s claims of voter fraud. Eastman sent the email as Pence, who had been presiding in the Senate, was under guard with Jacob and other advisers in a secure area. Rioters were tearing through the Capitol complex, some of them calling for Pence to be executed.”

“Jacob, Pence’s chief counsel, included Eastman’s emailed remarks in a draft opinion article about Trump’s outside legal team that he wrote later in January but ultimately chose not to publish. The Washington Post obtained a copy of the draft. Jacob wrote that by sending the email at that moment, Eastman ‘displayed a shocking lack of awareness of how those practical implications were playing out in real time’. Eastman confirmed the emails in interviews with The Post but denied that he was blaming Pence for the violence” – Washington Post.

AP: “A large spider native to East Asia has spun its thick, golden web on power lines, porches and vegetable patches all over north Georgia this year – a proliferation that has driven some unnerved homeowners indoors and prompted a flood of anxious social media posts. In metro Atlanta, Jennifer Turpin – a self-described arachnophobe – stopped blowing leaves in her yard after inadvertently walking into a web created by the Joro spider. Stephen Carter has avoided a walking trail along the Chattahoochee River where he encountered Joro webs every dozen steps.”

“Farther east in Winterville, Georgia, Will Hudson’s front porch became unusable amid an abundance of Joro webs 10 feet (3 meters) deep. Hudson estimates he’s killed more than 300 of the spiders on his property. ‘The webs are a real mess,” said Hudson, an entomologist at the University of Georgia. “Nobody wants to come out of the door in the morning, walk down the steps and get a face full of spider web.’ The Joro – Trichonephila clavata – is part of a group of spiders known as orb weavers for their highly organized, wheel-shaped webs. Common in Japan, China, Korea and Taiwan, Joro females have colorful yellow, blue and red markings on their bodies. They can measure three inches (8 cm) across when their legs are fully extended. It’s not clear exactly how and when the first Joro spider arrived in the U.S. In Georgia, a researcher identified one about 80 miles (128 km) northeast of Atlanta in 2014. They have also been found in South Carolina, and Hudson is convinced they will spread across the South.”

• I’ve never been impressed with store-bought costumes for kids.  I’m far more impressed with the mother who used an old sheet, duct tape and a houseplant to make their kid look like a Minion.  
• With Halloween parties this weekend, tens of thousands of college students will wear costumes that will later disqualify them from holding public office.
• Where were all these conservatives jeering Alec Baldwin for a fatal accident on a movie set when the 5-year-old in Sayre, Oklahoma killed himself with a gun found in his daddy’s car?  Or when the 2-year-old shot and killed a one-year-old in Canton, Ohio after finding an unattended loaded gun?  Where’s Junior’s t-shirt declaring, “My baby was killed by a toddler with a gun, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt?”  Will Junior go Full Ghoul and profit off these children’s deaths?
• Mitch McConnell joining Donald Trump to endorse Herschel Walker and hand him the Georgia Senate nomination shows that the GOP is really a smoky backroom, cabal-run organization.  It also shows that a Black man can’t move ahead in the Party without the approval of the old white guys running it.  
  Read More ▶ “Random thoughts Friday, Volume XLII”

Fox News host (and flesh covered soul sucker) Tucker Carlson claims the breakdown of the traditional American family was the plan of Big American Corporations.  “By ‘single-parent’ we mean households run by the mom; the dad’s are gone,” Tucker starts off, incorrectly.  “The men are gone.  It’s a disaster.  It affects every part of our society.  Everyone knows it; no one will say it under orders of the feminist lobby–‘Shut up!’  But the question is, why is it happening.  And it’s happening because broken families meet the needs of Big American Corporations, which kinda run everything; let’s be totally honest about it.  And that’s one of the reasons some many of these Big American Corporations gave so much money to BLM, which has taken an active and aggressive position against the nuclear family, get the dads out of the house.  They’re easier to control when the dad’s gone.”

New York Times: “Three University of Florida professors said in a federal court filing on Friday that they had been barred from assisting plaintiffs in a lawsuit to overturn the state’s new law restricting voting rights, an extraordinary limit on speech that raises questions of academic freedom and First Amendment rights. University officials told the three that because the school was a state institution, participating in a lawsuit against the state ‘is adverse to U.F.’s interests’ and could not be permitted. In their filing, the professors sought to question Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, on whether he was involved in the decision. DeSantis has resisted questioning, arguing that all of his communications about the law are protected from disclosure because discussions about legislation are privileged. In their filing, lawyers for the plaintiffs said the federal questions in the case – including whether the law discriminates against minority groups – override any state protections.”

“Spokespeople for Mr. DeSantis and the university could not be immediately reached for comment. The university’s refusal to allow the professors to testify was a marked turnabout for the University of Florida. Like schools nationwide, the university has routinely allowed academic experts to offer expert testimony in lawsuits, even when they oppose the interests of the political party in power. Leading experts on academic freedom said they knew of no similar restrictions on professors’ speech and testimony and said the action was probably unconstitutional.”

Just 3% of all workers for the San Francisco municipal government have not complied with the city’s mandate that municipal workers be vaccinated or seek an exception by November 1st, the Associated Press reports.

Out of the entire 35,000 workforce, around 1,000 have not gotten their shots or have not reported their vaccine status.  Of those, 135 are part of the vital services provided by the city:  police officers, transit operators, firefighters and sheriff deputies.

When the vaccine mandate was first proposed, the union representing San Francisco’s 700 sheriff’s deputies said the city should expect mass resignations if a mandate was put in place.  Currently, twelve deputies are at risk of being terminated for not complying with the order. 

When 97-year-old billionaire Charles Munger pledged $200 million to the University of California at Santa Barbara to build a dormitory to ease the student housing shortage, he had one condition:  the university must construct a building he designed exactly as he drew it up.

But according to the Santa Barbara Independent, the building Munger designed is a functional disaster.  Munger Hall would be an 11-story structure for 4,500 students living in single rooms–only 6% of which would have windows to let in air and sunlight.  The building was so bad, an architect who had served on the school’s Design Review Committee for 15 years resigned instead of approving the building.

Munger believes himself to be combination amateur architect and amateur social scientist.  He designed the building with the idea that the residents would find their living quarters so dreary, they would be forced into common areas to socialize and collaborate.  He likely didn’t account for the need for tranquil personal space.

NBC News:  “The Supreme Court declined Friday to block Maine’s requirement for health care workers to receive a Covid-19 vaccination, even though it doesn’t contain a religious exemption. The vote was 6-3, with Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch dissenting.  Two of the court’s other conservatives, Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh, said they agreed the court should not take the case, because it came on an emergency appeal without benefit of a full briefing.

“The Maine order applies to health care workers in hospitals, nursing homes and doctor’s offices takes effect Friday. State officials say most of those covered by the order have complied.  Maine allowed religious exemptions in the past for health care workers, daycare employees, school children and college students. But the state eliminated all non-medical vaccination exemptions in 2019. It said falling inoculation rates were causing communicable diseases to spread more rapidly.

“A group of health care workers sued when the Covid vaccine was required, saying they objected because the vaccine was developed with the aid of ‘fetal cell lines that originated in elective abortions.’ The rule forced them to decide ‘what is more important to them — their deeply held religious beliefs or their ability to work anywhere in their state so that they can feed their families.'”

Colorado high school dropout and devoted Christian housewife Lauren Boebert filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission saying she was campaigning in Utah on Thursday, Forbes reports, an error that was amended and re-uploaded almost immediately after campaign financial disclosure data guru Zach Everson pointed the dumbassery out to them.

Did you take too much Adderall today? Who the hell thinks this actually makes any sense?

— National Zero (@NationalZeroUSA) October 29, 2021

National Zero’s inquiry to Boebert on a different matter meanwhile has yet to be addressed.

“An attempt by Austin, Texas, officials to serve a search warrant and provide lawn care resulted in shots fired, an hourslong standoff, a house fire and a death, police said Wednesday. Police officers and code enforcement officers arrived at a home at 9:16 a.m. to serve a nuisance search warrant, but could not make contact with the resident, Austin Police Chief Joseph Chacon said at an evening news conference. The warrant was left at the door and contractors for the city’s code enforcement began working on the lawn. About an hour later, the resident started shooting from inside the house, Chacon said. ‘And they immediately backed off. They got all of the staff that was working on the house to safety and and a SWAT call was initiated for a barricaded subject,’ he said.”

“SWAT, mental health officers and a crisis negotiator arrived on scene, but could not get the man out of the home, leading to the lockdown of a nearby elementary school and the closure of several streets. ‘SWAT spent the next several hours trying to negotiate with the individual to just simply come out of the house,’ Chacon said. At about 3 p.m., the resident started shooting at officers again. ‘And because of that immediate threat … they made entry using a robot,’ Chacon said. The robot helped officers determine that a fire had been started in the home, and was quickly spreading, he said. Officers still couldn’t get the man to come out as the house was engulfed in flames. But then the man exited through the garage with weapons in his hand. ‘At that time, a SWAT officer shot and struck the resident who went down with a gunshot wound'” – NBC News.

WCBS Radio 880 AM:  “Republican New York City mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa is being evaluated at Lenox Hill Hospital on the Upper East Side after he was struck by a yellow cab on Friday.  Sliwa was struck around noon while rushing to a live radio show at WABC, a spokesperson for the Guardian Angels founder said in a statement.

“Sliwa’s advisor, Rob Cole, told WCBS 880 that the mayoral candidate was getting out of a van near Rockefeller Center when he was struck by the cab.  Sliwa admits it was his fault and didn’t see the cabbie coming, Cole said.  The mayoral candidate made it into the studio and was able to complete his hour-long show.

“He addressed the incident during the broadcast, explaining what had happened and issuing an apology to the cab driver for the scare.  ‘There is a cab driver out there, I want to apologize to him. As I was running here to fulfill the hour that I had purchased for this exposé on Eric Adams, I was hit by the cab driver, thrust about six feet in the air right outside of 50 Rockefeller Center, where the Rockettes perform, and I have a feeling this cab driver and others thought that I was dead,’ Sliwa said.  ‘I flew in the air about six feet, scurried up, started running in order to get here in time,’ Sliwa added. ‘I just want to relieve that cab driver cause I’m sure he probably thought that he had killed me. And it was my fault. He had nothing to do with this at all as I was trying to beat the light and get to the other side before the changeover.'”