House Oversight Committee investigators have reached out to convicted sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell’s lawyers about scheduling her deposition with staff, CBS’s Scott MacFarlane reports.

Liberty Vote, a poll book software firm founded by Republican former St Louis elections director Scott Leiendecker, has bought up Dominion Voting Systems for an undisclosed sum, Axios reports.

Which, per Axios, is the reason why the company reached a string of settlements recently with all the MAGA propagandists it had sued following the 2020 election, including Newsmax, Rudy Giuliani, the Kraken, and OANN. If that strikes you as ominous there is a flipside as Dem Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar vouched for Leiendecker, calling him “open, honest and transparent.”

A new Quinnipiac University survey of New York City voters finds socialist Dem nominee Zohran Mamdani leading disgraced former state Governor Andrew Cuomo 46 to 33 percent with assclown vigilante right wing radio host Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa in third at 15 percent.

It’s the first major poll conducted after idiot Mayor Eric Adams dropped his reelection bid, something that Team Cuomo were counting on to turn things around, their mantra being “The first step is that Eric Adams has to get the fuck out of this race” and all good things would follow, they said.

Aaaaaaand here we are with the esteemed jackass out of the race and Zohran’s up 13 percent.

Oklahoma Gov Kevin Stitt on Thursday told the New York Times he doesn’t agree with neighbor Gov Low Energy Greg Abbott’s call to send hundreds to Texas National Guard troops to pretend to do shit in Chicago, saying “Oklahomans would lose their mind if Pritzker in Illinois sent troops down to Oklahoma during the Biden administration,” adding “I was surprised that Governor Abbott sent troops from Texas to Illinois. Abbott and I sued the Biden administration when the shoe was on the other foot and trying to force us to vaccinate all of our soldiers and force masks across the country.”

“As a federalist believer, one governor against another governor, I don’t think that’s the right way to approach this,” Stitt continued in his woke RINO-ish hateful rhetoric interview.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune on Thursday told Semafor that he and his lieutenants are considering offering Democrats a future vote to extend the Obamacare subsidies if they vote to end the shutdown. “Republicans, however, remain adamant that any action on, and the details of, reviving the subsidies would have to wait until the government reopens,” Semafor writes.

Well there you have it. Dems have not won this shutdown yet but that this offer’s even being floated as what Thune minion John Barrasso said was “an off-ramp” should tell you more than enough about how desperate Republicans are for one. Freaking Marjorie Taylor Greene of all people, lol.

Oh and Thune can fuck off with that future promise bullshit. There’s no reason, none whatsoever, that an ACA subsidy extension cannot be whipped up and voted on BEFORE Dems agree to end the shutdown. Throw in the full release of all the Epstein Files and some other smaller stuff AND demand that enough Republicans in both chambers vote yes to make it veto-proof. Then it’s a win.

“TGI Fridays®, where the world goes to celebrate, announced today that it will offer complimentary meals to Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and air traffic control workers at TGI Fridays® locations across the country during the government shutdown. Available from October 9 until October 23*, TSA and air traffic control workers can receive one free meal per day from a specially curated menu featuring TGI Fridays® favorites, including the brand’s signature Cheeseburger with fries, Chicken Fingers with fries, Crispy or Grilled Chicken Sandwich with fries, or Chicken Caesar Salad. Eligible workers must present valid employee identification to redeem the offer at any of the brand’s 80+ US locations, including traditional restaurant settings and non-traditional venues such as airports, with the exception of Atlanta airport locations that are running an independent offer for TSA employees,” says TGI Friday’s in a press release, doing more for the workers than Trump.

And the asterisk is simply to note that if the shutdown ends before the 23rd then the giveaway will too. No other catch except for “At traditional TGI Fridays® locations, meals are available to enjoy inside restaurants with valid ID. At airport locations, meals will be available for to-go orders only.”

“To all the FBI Agents who were forced by Christopher Wray to go to the Capitol on the afternoon of January 6th, and then risked their careers to blow the whistle about the Political Bias and Abuses they witnessed, I want to thank you for your Courage, and assure you that you now work for a Director, Kash Patel, and an Attorney General, Pam Bondi, who are stamping out Political Bias from the Bureau and DOJ, and making sure Agents pursue criminals without regard to their political stripe, just the evidence. Keep up the good work!” posted convicted felon President Trump on Thursday in a display of kindness and mercy toward federal law enforcement professionals who someone talked Donald into thinking they had been “forced” against their will to respond to a serious civil unrest incident so the Bureau wouldn’t have to fire nearly 300 agents on top of God knows how many others have been cashiered for petty shit like kneeling during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.

Then again it’s a virtual certainty that at least some of those 274 have already been fired for revenge for having been assigned to work on all the many investigations into Trump and his minions.

Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York assigned to get UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s assassin Luigi Mangione convicted and subsequently executed argued to the court on Wednesday that it’s not that big of a deal for convicted felon President Trump and top Justice Department officials like fascist shitbag Attorney General Pam Bondi to publicly make prejudicial statements about the case because Trump doesn’t know you’re not supposed to do that and DOJ leaders do know but they’re not the ones actually prosecuting it, so it’s fine, NBC reports.

“They operate entirely outside the scope of the prosecution team, possess no operational role in the investigative or prosecutorial functions of the Mangione matter, and are not ‘associated’ with this litigation,” said the prosecution team’s filing in response to SDNY Judge Margaret Garnett’s order for them to answer for the propaganda put out by DOJ leadership. Last month the fat bastard told Fox News that Mangione had “shot someone in the back as clear as you’re looking at me… He shot him right in the middle of the back – instantly dead… This is a sickness. This really has to be studied and investigated,” which was then posted by one of the eight or so MAGA White House Twitter accounts manned by taxpayer-funded federal government employees. That video was then reposted by reposted by Chad Gilmartin, deputy director of the Justice Department’s public affairs division, who wrote that Trump “is absolutely right,” prompting prosecutors call him to take it down, which he did.

One of the eight (?) wars convicted felon President Trump claims to have ended with his sheer singular charm and wit seems like it could flare up again as Pakistan Defense Minister Khawaja Asif on Thursday warned that the “chances of war with India are real” after 11 soldiers were killed in an attack by terrorists who Islamabad claims are bankrolled by New Delhi, the Telegraph reports.

Thing is that the attack on a convoy in the country’s northwestern Orakzai District happened closer to the border with Afghanistan than India. And it was 19 fighters from the Tehreek-e-Taliban militia who were found dead after the raging gun battle. And that it was the Pakistani government who created the Afghan Taliban, Tehreek-e-Taliban, Lakshar-e-Taiba, and a whole shit ton of militant Islamist organizations to fight as proxies against India in the disputed Kashmir region.

But go ahead and blame the neighbor for all the mice that escaped from your cage and bred.

This definitely could have gone worse for the Speaker of the House. Like really, really bad, like significantly way worse than it did. People don’t see it from the other side when they say “well, that could have gone better,” to remark after something went badly. Giving equal consideration to how a certain media appearance of whatever other situation could have actually gone worse is important because it both puts things in perspective and allows one to retain a sense of optimism even if it’s one that exists only relative to a hypothetically more catastrophically bad outcome.

“Earlier this week, the Supreme Court declined to consider Ghislaine Maxwell’s appeal of her federal conviction for her role in recruiting and grooming minor girls for sexual abuse by Jeffrey Epstein and others. Pursuant to the subpoena previously issued to Maxwell by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and in an effort to expeditiously continue the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein and his co-conspirators, I urge you to immediately schedule Maxwell’s deposition with the Committee,” writes top House Oversight Dem Robert Garcia in a letter to Chairbilly James Comer.

Before you trot out all the (often very fair) quips about “strongly-worded letters” keep in mind that it was Garcia who quarterbacked the effort to obtain and then immediately publicize convicted felon President Trump’s “enigma” birthday card to his now-dead best buddy. Whatever Garcia did to get around Comer or whether he even really had to get around him on that specific win getting that letter should be a hint not to underestimate the California Dem’s tenacity and vigor.

“Norway is bracing for the aftermath of the Nobel Peace Prize announcement on Friday as the Nordic nation has faced increasing pressure from Donald Trump and his administration to award it to the US leader,” is an actual fucking sentence in the lede of Bloomberg’s Thursday morning story headlined “Norway on Edge Over Trump Ahead of Nobel Peace Prize Verdict,” as though it were 1940 and Vidkun Quisling was teasing a “special announcement” about the country’s defense.

They were definitely “on edge” back then. And this is not to mock Bloomberg’s reporting, just the fact that such language is an apparently necessary and accurate description of the situation there as, per their article, there are worries of an “economic and diplomatic fallout” coming in less than 24 hours when the Peace Prize laureate – who is in almost no conceivable scenario is named Donald Trump – is announced. “Even so, there is growing indication that pressure has been, if anything, counterproductive,” Bloomberg writes, adding that the foreign minister at least twice went out of his way to say that the Norwegian government has no say in the Nobel committee’s decisions.

Not that such piddling details will matter to the MAGA Reich and its Fuhrer. Oslo obviously recognizes this and are trying to figure out how Trump losing would factor into ongoing trade negotiations with the US to lower the 15 percent tariff and the 40 percent of Norway’s $2 trillion sovereign wealth fund tied up in American assets, all of them potential targets of the toddler’s wrath.

Hahahahaha! Get it? Turning point? Anyway, rustic chic lumbersexual fascist Matt Walsh on Wednesday confessed he was surprised to find out that far more deranged extremist influencer Candace Owens was not just making shit up when she claimed that, just days before his death, Saint Charles the Martyred had written in a group text some very Ilhan Omar-ish things about Israel and Jewish-Americans. In fact one of Kirk’s top lieutenants Andrew Kolvet on Tuesday – with a lot of self-serving qualifiers – literally confirmed the texts were genuine during a livestream.

“Just lost another huge Jewish donor. $2 million a year because we won’t cancel Tucker, I’m thinking of inviting Candace [Owens],” Kirk wrote, referring to some upcoming event in which Tucker was on the billing. Hilariously the part about inviting Owens was what Walsh said had seemed too “on the nose” for him initially. Can’t really fault him for it when she was the one propagating the texts.

“Ugghhh,” someone wrote in response before Kirk continued with “Jewish donors play into all the be bullied like this. stereotypes. I cannot and will not [trails off]” and then finally “Leaving me no choice but to leave the pro Israel cause,” like he didn’t already see the way the wind has been blowing.

Adding to the mess is the fact that the texts made their way to Owens not from a source in TPUSA but either directly or intermediately from someone in federal law enforcement. Kolvet explained that, in the hours after Kirk was fatally shot and Keystone K$H was fucking up the investigation, the top people in TPUSA were handing anything and everything over to the FBI as potential leads to follow.

Republicans in Missouri are worried that Democrats are on track to collect the petition signatures required to get a referendum on the ballot that would kill their gerrymandering effort to erase Congressman Emanuel Cleaver’s Kansas City district, Punchbowl News reports.

Even just submitting 110,000 valid signatures by mid-December – like in every state, the canvassers need to exceed the quota by a sizable margin because thousands are going to get rejected, so in Missouri the Dems will want to get closer to 200,000 – will automatically freeze the redraw for 2026 and Cleaver will be reelected. The ballot measure won’t be voted on until August or November.

Outlining some friction the MAGA Reich is facing in the Indiana state Senate in the effort to kill off one or both of the state’s blue districts and the likely doomed campaign against California’s retaliatory proposition, Punchbowl writes “The roadblocks in Indiana and Missouri are compounded by mounting fears that Republicans will not be able to block Democrats’ redistricting ballot measure in California,” naturally without commenting on the fact that none of this would be necessary if Republicans believed they could defend their majority on the strength of their policies alone.

Or at least a “caravan” coming up through Mexico and ads about how Zohran Mamdani will bring socialist Sharia Law to rural Arklatucky if you don’t reelect Congressman Jefferson Davis McPervert.

“TRUMP’S TOWERING ACHIEVEMENT: President Trump is in a celebratory mood this morning after brokering a landmark peace deal in Gaza. It’s early days, but expectations are sky high after Israel and Hamas agreed to the first part of a deal that will see all remaining Israeli hostages released from Gaza in return for a pullback of Israeli troops. It looks like a historic moment for the Middle East – and yes, a personal triumph for the US president. After months of touting himself as the world’s greatest peace broker, Trump is on the verge of something remarkable,” writes Politico Playbook in Thursday morning’s edition under that manages to be excessively slobbersome even by their standards, under the headline of “The art of the (peace) deal.” Bet they stayed up all night coming up with that one.

The sickening slurping sounds grow even louder and the tempo higher toward the bottom of the very lengthy section “And with perfect timing … It’s Nobel Peace Prize day tomorrow. Unfortunately for Trump, the five-strong panel of Norwegian judges likely made up their minds some weeks back.”

“But next year’s award? Honestly, who knows,” Playbook continues and hang on, it gets even better.

Ukrainian sumo wrestler Danilo Yavhushyshyn has been kicking serious ass against the top talent in Japan’s national sport, recently defeating Mongolian-born Hoshoryu, one of the circuit’s two Yokozuna – which loosely translates to “grand master” – and is gunning for the other, the AP reports.

Citing higher labor costs and ongoing upgrades, Disney on Wednesday announced a price hike on entrance fees to its two US theme parks, Disney World in Florida and Disneyland in California, Fox Business News reports on something that would’ve been blamed Joe Biden if he were still president.

“Disney Parks offer a full day of experiences each day, with ticket, hotel, and dining options designed to suit a wide range of budgets for all who visit. Our commitment to creating magical experiences for everyone remains at the heart of what we do – and that will never change,” Disney suits told Fox in an email confirming that Disneyland’s Tier 6 one-day ticket, used on the busiest, highest-demand days, rose $18 to $224 per adult – up 126 percent over the past decade. A top-tier Disney World ticket jumped from $199 to $209 while parking fees went up $5 at both parks.

The megacorporation did however throw fans a bone in the form of expanding the number of low-priority days when the cheapest tickets are available, from 15 to 38. Those tickets are still $104 each for adults and still this would have been blamed on “Bidenflation” if he were still president.