I don't have the bandwidth to make this case explicit. But today, Todd Bessent put Frank Bisignano in charge of IRS, in addition to Social Security. Bisignano, at Social Security, gave Big Balls access to all our Social Security data. Now he's in charge of IRS.

RE: https://mastodon.social/@cafechatnoir/115328822841608026 Early for #caturday, but the story made me awwwww. #catsofmastodon

"Let me say this clearly: nobody in this country is safe." "Federal agents detained American citizens without individualized probable cause this week. They handcuffed children. They sorted people by race. They treated an American city like occupied territory." "This happened. In Chicago. In […]

“People over Papers, a crowdsourcing project that maps sightings of US immigration agents, was taken offline yesterday by Padlet, the collaborative bulletin board platform on which it was built. It’s just the latest ICE-tracking initiative to be pulled by tech platforms in the past few days.”

This really makes it sound like a Border Patrol agent tried to kill an anti-ICE activist in Chicago and DHS lied to cover for him

"Parente said the video shows an agent turn a federal vehicle left into Martinez’s vehicle, after which an agent says, 'Do something b----.' The agent then exits the vehicle and shoots at Martinez."

ok I didn't mention this in my piece on friday but one of the things the judge asked about was whether the guardsmen were going to get paid during the shutdown the doj was like "idk" the state of oregon was like "we looked into it and the answer is no"

For my newsletter, I wrote about how wantonly illegal and unconstitutional ICE is, how it must come to a stop now, how it's up to all of us to stop it, and how we will need to develop a way so the federal government can never do this to us again. burns-notice.ghost.io/we-cant-live...

The Supreme Court will hear a case seeking to legalize torture... er... conversion therapy under free speech protections. That and not just one but TWO feel good stories to start the week in trans news in our Leading Off column.

HAPPENING NOW: Judge Karin Immergut hears emergency arguments as California and Oregon seek to block President Trump's deployment of federalized California National Guard troops to Portland. 🧵

a few days ago the #MAGA harpie running the federal civil rights division at #DOJ (Harmeet Dhillon) called out a so-called "liberal judge" for ruling against the trump administration, after which that judge received all kinds of threats from MAGA chuds […] [Original post on universeodon.com]

Abbott egged on the Jade Helm conspiracists, who claimed that a military training operation was actually Obama invading the state of Texas. Now a U.S. president is deploying Texas troops to other states to dominate and intimidate those states, and Abbott is complicit.

Notice how much space is given to a Black visa overstayer, and how little to Elon Musk, who worked on a student visa, allegedly, which is against the law. Ian Roberts, Des Moines Superintendent, Had a Story Too Good to Be True - The New York Times […]

$400,000: The "Free" Medical Care Kristi Noem's Goons Made Taxpayers Pay www.emptywheel.net/2025/10/05/4...

DHS describes detaining people w/o knowing who they are and then, unironically, claims they won't stand by and watch [or commit] crime. edition.cnn.com/2025/10/03/u...

In light of Judge Immergut's ruling, there's a lot of noise today coming from the President's advisers and supporters about courts not having the power to provide prospective relief against domestic uses of the military. Via "One First," me on the rather significant early precedent to the contrary:

ICE has been paying private security for 24/7 guards to watch a guy with no record whose leg they fucked up so badly he has been in a hospital for over a month, and we wonder why people were handing Tom Homan bags of cash. Via @kyledcheney.bsky.social storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Indigenous Nations Plan Tariff-Free Trade Corridor Across US-Canada border – Mother Jones https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/10/indigenous-nations-plan-tariff-free-trade-corridor-across-us-canada-border/

Defying court order

ICE admits that up to 50% of arrests in its Chicago raids are "collateral.” These aren't statistics. They are parents taken from their children, neighbors taken from our communities. When does a "collateral" U.S. citizen child's trauma matter? This isn't law enforcement; it's a campaign of terror.

Pertissue Fisher came out to the hallway of her apartment in her nightgown to find armed agents yelling “police.” She had a gun pointed in her face. She was handcuffed. She was held until 3 AM before being released. Fisher isn’t suspected of any crime. She lives in the building. Alicia Brooks […]

@sundogplanets Maybe you already saw this article in Earth and Sky about Starlink space junk reentries every day. It quoted your Mastodon posts. https://earthsky.org/human-world/1-to-2-starlink-satellites-falling-back-to-earth-each-day/

Finished reading "The Lilac People" by Milo Todd today. It's a good story, but I did find myself crying quite a few times. It's compelling historical fiction that should be more widely known, but it's not the emotional place I want to be right now. I want more hope, more empowerment. The US is […]

An Israeli prison guard deliberately slammed a metal door on the already broken leg of a 70-year-old Scottish woman who was abducted from the flotilla. Torture.

Judge Blocks Trump’s Deployment of National Guard in Portland, Ore. - The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/04/us/politics/judge-blocks-national-guard-portland.html In her ruling, Judge Immergut, who was appointed by Mr. Trump during his first term, wrote that she expected a trial […]

When someone grabs a person by the neck and throws them headfirst onto the ground, they’re trying to kill them. This goes beyond assault.

Stephen Miller accused of 'incitement to violence against judges' with new 'purge' comment https://www.rawstory.com/stephen-miller-violence-purge-judges/

Some related reporting here today from my good friend Alfred Ng on ICE hiring an AI leader: subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2025...

Can confirm, #utahns. I just got my COVID vaccine without an Rx. Time to get yours before they change the rules again. https://www.sltrib.com/news/2025/09/30/covid-19-boosters-how-utahns-can/

Four stories reveal just some the discrimination trans people deal with every single day of our lives transnews.network/p/... #transgender #trans #LGBTQ #LGBTQIA

it was a good second week of my new newsletter. here's what i did there this week. on monday, i wrote about why conservatives have already overrun the possible compromise positions on trans rights. burns-notice.ghost.io/what-would-t...

Each weekend, EITM publishes the Lavender Ledger, your drop on the important LGBTQ+ news that someone else covered before us. This week features trans immigrants treatment under ICE, FBI firing a worker over a Pride flag, and new Trump attacks on universities. Subscribe to support our journalism.

Wired - Documents show that ICE plans to hire dozens of contractors to scan X, Facebook, TikTok and other platforms to target people for deportation. https://www.wired.com/story/ice-social-media-surveillance-24-7-contract/

“‘I’m leaving,’ Trump said. ‘There’s no reason to be here any more’: inside the meeting that brought Nato to the brink Former secretary general Jens Stoltenberg recalls the rollercoaster ride of dealing with Donald Trump – and how close the US president brought the alliance to the point of […]

(Atlanta News First) - Mario Guevara, the Atlanta Spanish-language journalist who spent months in ICE custody, has been deported. https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2025/10/03/atlanta-spanish-language-journalist-deported/

Rohingya Muslims plead for help at the UN to stop the killings in Myanmar https://english.kyodonews.net/articles/-/62129

"There's been a dramatic increase in patients I've seen who are experiencing suicidality or engaging in self-harm behaviors," even if their own care isn't currently threatened, a physician who treats adult #transgender patients in an urban setting, and spoke on condition of anonymity, told […]

Google continues to bend the knee to Trump. https://www.404media.co/google-calls-ice-agents-a-vulnerable-group-removes-ice-spotting-app-red-dot/

This is the obvious absurdity of pulling ICEBlock. It is obviously legal, protected speech for anyone to say, in any forum, “I just witnessed some police activity at location X”. Indeed, people have been doing this regularly on social media since its inception.

RE: https://theatl.social/@upstreamism/115312125311689822 In other words, BlueSky has shown it desires to be another Nazi bar. It's up to its users now to decide if they want to stay in the Nazi bar.

Anyone who thinks the #unitedstates is still a #democracy that adheres to the founders’ #constitution needs to check their head. “Attack on #FreeSpeech”: #journalist #marioguevara Deported After Covering #antitrump #protest Mario Guevara was deported from the #us early on Oct 3, according to […]

Mario Guevara is being punished for speech by deportation to a country he fled decades ago: El Salvador, a dictatorship that operates horrific gulags the US has previously made use of. You can read Guevara's letter from detention in English here […] [Original post on social.coop]

We're at the "secret police disappearing elected officials representing the opposition" stage of fascist gallop, fyi

I have previously written that Trump Rx is just a referral site to existing corporate workarounds that do nothing of value for the vast majority of patients. prospect.org/health/2025-...

Israel killed another staff member of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Gaza, bringing the total number of MSF deaths to 14 with many more injured. www.msf.org/msf-denounce...

In Mississippi, an infant is the state's first Whooping Cough death in 13 years. "We do believe that declining vaccination rates are impacting this,” the state's chief health officer said. “Mississippi, as you know, scores very high with our rate of vaccination for our infants and school-aged […]

Trump’s decision to keep national parks open during the shutdown may seem like an attempt to accommodate U.S. travelers. But it just makes parks dangerous for remaining staff, visitors, & ecosystems, & is a pretext to further crush a debilitated workforce. @whitneycwimbish.bsky.social reports:

Peter Thiel's Armageddon speaking tour has—like the world—not ended yet. For a full two years now, the billionaire has been on the circuit, spreading his biblically inflected ideas about doomsday through a set of variably and sometimes visibly perplexed interviewers. He has chatted onstage […]