Donald Trump rolled out the red carpet for a lavish party at Mar-a-Lago on Friday—swapping a government shutdown for opera and truffled gratin dauphinois.
He partied over filet, scallops and a dessert trio with a Fox News star, a foreign politician and a country singer at the same time as his administration was asking the Supreme Court to stop it from being forced to pay food stamps to millions.
The event was the second big Friday in a row for Trump at his Florida club. Last Friday, which was Halloween, he threw a Great Gatsby-themed Halloween party featuring skimpily dressed dancers in giant martini glasses. That earned him mockery for his apparent failure to know the plot of Gatsby, while California governor Gavin Newsom compared Trump to Marie Antoinette.
It’s not like Trump doesn’t know what people are saying:
Video that was posted Friday night also shows him seated at a banquet table next to one of his occasional golf buddies, Fox News anchor Bret Baier.
Baier is described as being from the “straight news” side of Fox and had an exclusive interview with the president on Wednesday. During the interview, he challenged Trump about the cost of living crisis, reading out loud a message from a lifelong Republican who voted for Trump three times but is “not happy” about costs: “I don’t see the best economy right now—Wall Street numbers do not reflect my Main Street money. Please do something, President Trump.“
Baier asked Trump his response, prompting Trump to say, “Beef we have to get down. I think of groceries—you know, it’s an old fashioned word but it’s a beautiful word. Beef we have to get down, but we’ve got prices way down and think of this: energy. She drives a car, probably, and her energy prices are way down. And energy is so all-encompassing. It’s so big that when energy goes down everything comes down. Everything follows it. And I have energy down to five or six-year lows now.”
Baier then sat down right beside Trump on Friday over a meal centered on the beef which the president had said was unaffordable.
I’m sure it was delicious. But it was the CPAC seafood spread that was super impressive:
Seafood spread and ice sculpture at Mar-a-Lago as Trump continues to starve poor children pic.twitter.com/07wYdGW1os
President Donald Trump wants the Washington Commanders to name their planned $3.7 billion stadium after him, multiple sources with knowledge of the situation told ESPN.
A senior White House source said there have been back-channel communications with a member of the Commanders’ ownership group, led by Josh Harris, to express Trump’s desire to have the domed stadium in the nation’s capital bear his name. The new stadium is being built on the old RFK Stadium site that served as the team’s home from 1961 to 1996.
“That would be a beautiful name, as it was President Trump who made the rebuilding of the new stadium possible,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told ESPN on Friday night via email.
They’ll do it I’m sure. It’s exactly the tribute he loves the most and it costs them nothing. Well, except the ongoing degradation of our democracy but who cares about that? We love a crazy, dementia riddled King. It’s part of our heritage.
I see the Donald J. Trump Viagra Stadium in D.C.’s future.
As Saturday’s session got under way, Republican senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Rick Scott of Florida and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana welcomed a proposal made on social media early Saturday by Donald Trump, from his golf course in West Palm Beach, for subsidies to be replaced by health savings accounts.
[…]
Graham welcomed the proposal, which is similar to a replacement for Obamacare he put forward in 2017, writing on social media that Trump’s “recommendation that we stop sending tens of billions of dollars under Obamacare to money-sucking insurance companies and instead send that money directly to the people so they can buy better healthcare is simply brilliant”.
“We’re going to replace this broken system with something that is actually better for the consumer,” Graham said later.
Cassidy, who was a co-author of Graham’s similar plan in 2017, also praised Trump’s proposal on social media, and stood next to a giant blow-up of Trump’s post as he spoke on the Senate floor.
“I’m writing the bill right now,” Scott posted in a response to Trump’s suggestion. “We must stop taxpayer money from going to insurance companies and instead give it directly to Americans in HSA-style accounts and let them buy the health care they want. This will increase competition & drive down costs.”
None of the Republican senators seemed to grapple with the fact that consumers would still need to buy plans from the same insurance companies, or that Republican lawmakers need the support of eight Democrats to reopen the government, and the idea of repealing and replacing Obamacare with savings accounts is unlikely to earn a single Democratic vote.
This is why Trump wants them to nuke the filibuster. Then he can get all the Republicans to help him destroy health care in America and put their names on it. Huzzah!
President Trump is 100% right: We should send health care dollars directly to patients, not insurance companies. My proposal does exactly this. This is a real solution that empowers American families. pic.twitter.com/N1umD4wzjf
— U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (@SenBillCassidy) November 8, 2025
We’re sending $150 billion of ACA subsidies straight to insurance companies.
It’s time to put patients back in charge, bring real transparency to prices, and make health care affordable again. pic.twitter.com/5XI9FjWcaI
This is a recipe for disaster — the disaster we had before Obamacare. If they ditch the regulations that came with the program, vast numbers of sick people will be ineligible for insurance and if they aren’t, premiums will be sky high and you can bet that the Trump checks won’t cover them. The insurance market will be in chaos as people can’t navigate the marketplace (because it’s already confusing) and many will just go without. Hospitals and providers will see even more strain as uncompensated care rises.
We have been here before. We know what this does to people. But the Republicans have never given up on their hatred for anything that helps people, especially health care, even though their own voters are affected.
I don’t know if Americans really need to touch the stove in order to see what a fucking nightmare this administration and GOP is in this second term. It seems obvious to me but what do I know? If they didn’t care about 1.2 million deaths during COVID, even among members of their own families, why would they care about this? But maybe, with all the rest of the country going straight to hell, this might have an impact. We live in hope.
The one thing that worries me is that Trump is now leaning heavily on sending checks to Americans. He’s not only saying he wants to send checks for health care, he’s talking about this as well:
I recall that many people were very excited about Trump when he signed the so-called “stimmie checks” in his first term. People can be very stupid and he knows it.
The repudiation voters handed Donald Trump last week was larger than New York City and more sweeping than Democrats’ wins in Virginia and New Jersey. NPR ran down some less high-profile wins:
In Georgia, Peter Hubbard and Alicia Johnson will be the newest members of the state’s five-person public utility regulator after earning roughly 60% of the vote. It’s the first time Democrats have won a nonfederal statewide office there since 2006 and one where soaring energy costs and displeasure with incumbents dominated the race.
Pennsylvania voters chose to retain three state Supreme Court judges that were first elected as Democrats after millions of dollars in outside spending driven by conservative billionaire Jeff Yass‘ efforts to reshape the state court’s politics. Democrats also won special elections for a seat on Pennsylvania’s Superior Court and a seat on its Commonwealth Court.
Also in Pennsylvania, Democrats swept the top “row offices” in the purple-hued Bucks County, electing the county’s first-ever Democratic district attorney and defeating an incumbent Republican sheriff a year after Trump narrowly won there. Democrats similarly notched commanding victories in county executive races in Erie, Lehigh and Northampton counties, all bellwether counties in recent presidential elections.
At the state legislative level, Mississippi Democrats have broken a GOP supermajority in the state Senate after flipping two seats in that chamber plus another pickup in the state House. A federal court ordered lawmakers to redraw 14 total House and Senate districts after finding the maps drawn in 2022 discriminated against Black voters.
Democrats have also vastly expanded their control of the Virginia House of Delegates and in New Jersey’s General Assembly, the party gained a supermajority.
But the wins were deeper still. Democrats across North Carolina, for example, swept municipal races from Wilmington to Raleigh to Charlotte to Asheville. State chair Anderson Clayton told an interviewer that Democrats flipped over 150 seats on Tuesday. Those are not simply wins for 2025 but build Democrats’ bench of the future.
Further evidence that the resistance to Trumpism is growing comes from a retired senior United States district judge in Massachusetts. Reagan-appointed Mark Wolf explains he is leaving “that lifetime appointment and giving up the opportunity for public service that I have loved” (The Atlantic, gift link):
My reason is simple: I no longer can bear to be restrained by what judges can say publicly or do outside the courtroom. President Donald Trump is using the law for partisan purposes, targeting his adversaries while sparing his friends and donors from investigation, prosecution, and possible punishment. This is contrary to everything that I have stood for in my more than 50 years in the Department of Justice and on the bench. The White House’s assault on the rule of law is so deeply disturbing to me that I feel compelled to speak out. Silence, for me, is now intolerable.
Wolf lays out some personal history in the job as well as Trumpish sins against the rule of law that will be familiar to Hullabaloo readers. He then summarizes his plans for the near future:
Others who have held positions of authority, including former federal judges and ambassadors, have been opposing this government’s efforts to undermine the principled, impartial administration of justice and distort the free and fair functioning of American democracy. They have urged me to work with them. As much as I have treasured being a judge, I can now think of nothing more important than joining them, and doing everything in my power to combat today’s existential threat to democracy and the rule of law.
Will he make a difference? He’s unsure, but has to try:
I cannot be confident that I will make a difference. I am reminded, however, of what Senator Robert F. Kennedy said in 1966 about ending apartheid in South Africa: “Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.” Enough of these ripples can become a tidal wave.
A typical representation of the comedy and tragedy masks. Image by Tim Green via Wilkipedia (CC BY 2.0).
Hardly a wonder, isn’t it, that so many of its columnists left the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post in 2025 after he announced its change of editorial focus to “personal liberties and free markets“? A quick search includes among them Jonathan Capehart, David von Drehle, Perry Bacon Jr., Molly Roberts and David Hoffman (both on the editorial board), Philip Bump, Jennifer Rubin, and Eugene Robinson. Some accepted buyouts. Others just left.
The Bulwark last week announced that Catherine Rampell has joined their team. She left the Post in July after 11 years.
The Post’s remaining editorial board has relocated to Cloud Cuckoo Land, or else to a billionaire prepper bunker.
A clueless editorial the WaPo board published last week ahead of the election of Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral win in New York City exhibited a humiliating lack of self-awareness.
Donald Trump won the Oval Office in 2016 with no prior elective office experience. Yet the Post expressed alarm that Zohran Mamdani, “a socialist with almost no governing experience” who was “born into a life of wealth and privilege” might win the New York City’s mayoral race. While Trump shakes the world’s economic system with his tariff fetish, the Post warned that Mamdani might bring to the office “a worldview centered around destroying the economic system that made his adopted country thrive.”
A new era of class warfare has begun in New York, and no one is more excited than Generalissimo Zohran Mamdani. Witness the mayor-elect’s change of character since his Tuesday election victory.
Mamdani ran an upbeat campaign, with a nice-guy demeanor and perpetual smile papering over a long history of divisive and demagogic statements. New Yorkers periodically checking in on politics could understandably believe that he simply wanted to bring the city together and make it more affordable. That interpretation became much harder after his victory speech.
Across 23 angry minutes laced with identity politics and seething with resentment, Mamdani abandoned his cool disposition and made clear that his view of politics isn’t about unity. It isn’t about letting people build better lives for themselves. It is about identifying class enemies — from landlords who take advantage of tenants to “the bosses” who exploit workers — and then crushing them. His goal is not to increase wealth but to dole it out to favored groups. The word “growth” didn’t appear in the speech, but President Donald Trump garnered eight mentions.
Now a note to the President, and the Government, and the Judges of this place We’re still waiting for you to bring our troops home, clean up that mess you made Cuz it smells of blood and money and oil across the Iraqi land But it seems so easy here to blind us with your “United We Stand”
And it ain’t hard to see that this Country ain’t free
As Veterans Day approaches on November 11, more than 1 million US veterans could lose access to food assistance under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), as the federal government shutdown drags into its 35th day, tying the record for the longest shutdown in American history.
According to House committee of veteran affairs, 1.2 million veterans and 22,000 active-duty military families currently rely on SNAP. Studies have shown that veterans are also more likely than non-veterans to experience food insecurity. SNAP, which provides food-purchasing assistance to Americans in low-income or no-income households, currently supports 42 million people across the country.
The situation intensified Tuesday morning when President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social that SNAP benefits will not be distributed until the shutdown ends.
“SNAP BENEFITS … will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government, which they can easily do, and not before!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social, that was also reposted on X by the White House.
Check official messages from your state SNAP office and local area agency on aging. State agencies may post the latest guidance on delays, emergency plans, and whether the state will cover benefits. Keep contact information current so agencies can reach you.
Contact your local Veterans Administration (VA) and veterans service organizations. The Veterans Administration and groups like the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), or county veterans’ services may be able to point veterans to veteran-specific emergency food resources or help with applications for other benefits.
Reach out to local meal-delivery programs. Meal-delivery programs, such as Meals on Wheels, can often expand emergency deliveries or connect you to local pantry and transportation help.
Locate nearby food banks and pantry delivery options. Many food banks have increased delivery or drive-through distributions during emergencies, and some may prioritize seniors and those with mobility issues. Check United Way or local nonprofit portals. Keep documentation ready for SNAP appeals or retroactive claims. If benefits are later restored or issued retroactively, having records of communications and missed purchases may help resolve individual issues.
As Mr. Rogers said, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”
And to those who actually have served…thank you for your service.
I am re-posting the following piece in observance of Veteran’s Day. -DH
(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on November 11, 2021)
Dress me up for battle When all I want is peace Those of us who pay the price Come home with the least
–from “Harvest for the World”, by the Isley Brothers
Earlier today, my brother posted this on Facebook:
While going through my father’s stuff after his passing we found a large stack of envelopes. They turned out to be letters from junior high students thanking him for the talk he gave the students on Veteran’s Day. It turned out there were over 14 packed envelopes. One for every Veteran’s Day he spoke with the students. My brothers and I were very close to throwing these out with many of the other miscellaneous papers in my Dad’s cabinets but, without even looking at the contents I decided to keep them. I finally opened them up today and started going through them.
I used to kid my late father about being a pack rat but I am grateful that he was. I recall him telling me about giving classroom talks as part of his work with a local Vietnam Veteran’s group, but today was the first time I have ever seen one of those letters. I remember listening to those cassettes he sent us during his tour of duty in Vietnam.
That mention of the Secret Service refers to the 1968 Presidential campaign. Our family was stationed near Dayton, Ohio that year. For the first 17 years of his military service, my dad was an E.O.D. (Explosive Ordinance Detachment) specialist. Whenever presidential candidates came through the area, members of his unit would work with the Secret Service to help sweep venues for explosive devices in preparation for rallies and speeches.
I remember that he helped prepare for appearances by Hubert Humphrey and George Wallace. I remember him showing me a special pin that he had to wear, which would indicate to Secret Service agents that he had security clearance (I’m sure they are still stashed away in one of those boxes).
Today happens to be Veteran’s Day, but every day is Veteran’s Day for those who have been there and back. In honor of the holiday, here are my top 10 picks for films that deal with the aftermath of war.
Americana – David Carradine and Barabara Hershey star in this unique, no-budget 1973 character study (released in 1981). Carradine, who also directed and co-produced, plays a Vietnam vet who drifts into a small Kansas town, and for his own enigmatic reasons, decides to restore an abandoned merry-go-round. The reaction from the clannish townsfolk ranges from bemused to spiteful.
It’s part Rambo, part Billy Jack (although nowhere near as violent), and a genre curio in the sense that none of the violence depicted is perpetrated by its war-damaged protagonist. Carradine also composed and performed the song that plays in the closing credits. It’s worth noting that Americana predates Deer Hunter and Coming Home, which are generally credited as the “first” narrative films to deal with Vietnam vets.
The Best Years of Our Lives – William Wyler’s 1946 drama set the standard for the “coming home” genre. Robert E. Sherwood adapted the screenplay from a novella by former war correspondent MacKinlay Kantor.
The story centers on three WW2 vets (Fredric March, Dana Andrews, and Harold Russell), each from a different branch of military service who meet while returning home to the same small Midwestern town. While they all came from different social stratum in civilian life, the film demonstrates how war is the great equalizer, as we observe how the three men face similar difficulties in returning to normalcy.
Well-written and directed, and wonderfully acted. Real-life WW 2 vet Russell (the only non-actor in the cast) picked up a Best Supporting Actor Oscar; one of 7 the film earned that year. Also starring Myrna Loy, Teresa Wright, and Virginia Mayo.
11/08/25 NOTE: “The Best Years of Our Lives” airs on TCM this upcoming Tuesday, November 11th at 2pm (PST).
Coming Home – Hal Ashby’s 1978 drama was one of the first major studio films to tackle the plight of Vietnam vets. Jane Fonda stars as a Marine wife whose husband (Bruce Dern) has deployed to Vietnam. She volunteers at a VA hospital, where she is surprised to recognize a former high-school acquaintance (Jon Voight) who is now an embittered, paraplegic war vet.
While they have opposing political views on the war, Fonda and Voight form a friendship, which blossoms into a romantic relationship once the wheelchair-bound vet is released from assisted care and begins the laborious transition to becoming self-reliant.
The film’s penultimate scene, involving a confrontation between Dern (who has returned from his tour of duty with severe PTSD), Fonda and Voight is one of the most affecting and emotionally shattering pieces of ensemble acting I have seen in any film; Voight’s moving monologue in the denouement is on an equal par.
Voight and Fonda each won an Oscar (Dern was nominated in the Best Supporting Actor category), as did co-writers Waldo Salt, Robert C. Jones and Nancy Dowd for their screenplay.
The Deer Hunter – “If anything happens…don’t leave me over there. You gotta promise me that, Mike.” 1978 was a pivotal year for American films dealing head on with the country’s deep scars (social, political and emotional) from the nightmare of the war in Vietnam; that one year alone saw the release of The Boys in Company C, Go Tell the Spartans, Coming Home, and writer-director Michael Cimino’s shattering drama.
Cimino’s sprawling 3 hour film is a character study about three blue collar buddies (Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken and Jon Savage) hailing from a Pennsylvania steel town who enlist in the military, share a harrowing POW experience in Vietnam, and suffer through PTSD (each in their own fashion).
Uniformly excellent performances from the entire cast, which includes Meryl Streep, John Cazale, Chuck Aspegren and George Dzundza.
I remember the first time I saw this film in a theater. I sat through the end credits, and continued sitting for at least five minutes, absolutely stunned. I literally had to “collect myself” before I could leave the theater. No film has ever affected me quite like that.
The Manchurian Candidate (1962) – John Frankenheimer’s 1962 Cold War thriller (with a screenplay adapted from Richard Condon’s novel by George Axelrod) stars Frank Sinatra as Korean War veteran and former POW Major Bennett Marco. Marco and his platoon were captured by the Soviets and transported to Manchuria for a period, then released. Consequently, Marco suffers PTSD, in the form of recurring nightmares.
Marco’s memories of the captivity are hazy; but he suspects his dreams hold the key. His suspicions are confirmed when he hears from several fellow POWs, who all share very specific and disconcerting details in their dreams involving the platoon’s sergeant, Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey, in a great performance). As the mystery unfolds, a byzantine conspiracy is uncovered, involving brainwashing, subterfuge and assassination.
I’ve watched this film maybe 15 or 20 times over the years, and it has held up remarkably well, despite a few dated trappings. It works on a number of levels; as a conspiracy thriller, political satire, and a perverse family melodrama. Over time I’ve come to view it more as a black comedy; largely attributable to its prescience regarding our current political climate.…which now makes it a closer cousin to Dr. Strangelove and Network). (Full review)
Sir! No Sir! – Most people who have seen Oliver Stone’s Born On The Fourth Of July were likely left with the impression that paralyzed Vietnam vet and activist Ron Kovic was the main impetus and focus of the G.I. veterans and active-duty anti-war movement, but Kovic’s story was in fact only one of thousands. Director David Zeigler combines present-day interviews with archival footage to good effect in this well-paced documentary about members of the armed forces who openly opposed the Vietnam war.
While the aforementioned Kovic received a certain amount of media attention at the time, the full extent and history of the involvement by military personnel has been suppressed from public knowledge for a number of years, and that is the focus of Zeigler’s2006 film.
All the present-day interviewees (military vets) have interesting (and at times emotionally wrenching) stories to share. Jane Fonda speaks candidly about her infamous “FTA” (“Fuck the Army”) shows that she organized for troops as an alternative to the more traditionally gung-ho Bob Hope U.S.O. tours. Eye-opening and well worth your time.
Slaughterhouse-Five – Film adaptations of Kurt Vonnegut stories have a checkered history; from downright awful (Slapstick of Another Kind) or campy misfires (Breakfast of Champions) to passable time killers (Happy Birthday, Wanda June and Mother Night). For my money, your best bets are Jonathan Demme’s 1982 PBS American Playhouse short Who Am I This Time? and this 1974 feature film by director George Roy Hill.
Michael Sacks stars as milquetoast daydreamer Billy Pilgrim, a WW2 vet who weathers the devastating Allied firebombing of Dresden as a POW. After the war, he marries his sweetheart, fathers a son and daughter and settles into a comfortable middle-class life, making a living as an optometrist.
A standard all-American postwar scenario…except for the part where a UFO lands on his nice manicured lawn and spirits him off to the planet Tralfamadore, after which he becomes permanently “unstuck” in time; i.e., begins living (and re-living) his life in random order. Great performances from Valerie Perrine and Ron Leibman. Stephen Geller adapted the script.
Stop-Loss – This powerful and heartfelt 2008 drama is from Boys Don’t Cry director Kimberly Peirce. Co-written by the director along with Mark Richard, it was one of the first substantive films to address the plight of Iraq war vets.
As the film opens, we meet Sgt. Brandon King (Ryan Phillippe), an infantry squad leader leading his men in hot pursuit of a carload of heavily armed insurgents through the streets of Tikrit. The chase ends in a harrowing ambush, with the squad suffering heavy casualties.
Brandon is wounded in the skirmish, as are two of his lifelong buddies, Steve (Channing Tatum) and Tommy (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). They return to their small Texas hometown to receive Purple Hearts and a hero’s welcome, infusing the battle-weary vets with a brief euphoria that inevitably gives way to varying degrees of PTSD for the trio. A road trip that drives the film’s third act becomes a metaphorical journey through the zeitgeist of the modern-day American veteran.
Peirce and her co-writer (largely) avoid clichés and remain low-key on political subtext; this is ultimately a soldier’s story. Regardless of your political stance on the Iraq War(s), anyone with an ounce of compassion will find this film both heart wrenching and moving. (Full review)
Waltz With Bashir – In this animated film, writer-director Ari Forman mixes the hallucinatory expressionism of Apocalypse Now with personal sense memories of his own experiences as an Israeli soldier serving in the 1982 conflict in Lebanon to paint a searing portrait of the horrors of war and its devastating psychic aftermath. A true visual wonder, the film is comprised of equal parts documentary, war diary and bad acid trip.
The director generally steers clear of polemics; this is more of a “soldier’s story”, a grunt’s-eye view of the confusion and madness of war, in which none are really to blame, yet all remain complicit. This dichotomy, I think, lies at the heart of the matter when attempting to understand what snaps inside the mind of those who carry their war experiences home.
The film begs a question or two that knows no borders: How do we help them? How do we help them help themselves? I think these questions are more important than ever, for a whole new generation of psychically damaged men and women all over the world. (Full review)
A War – This powerful 2015 Oscar-nominated drama is from writer-director Tobias Lindholm. Pilou Aesbaek stars as a Danish military company commander serving in Afghanistan . After one of his units is demoralized by the loss of a man to a Taliban sniper, the commander bolsters morale by personally leading a patrol, which gets pinned down during an intense firefight. Faced with a split-second decision, the commander requests air support, resulting in a “fog of war” misstep. He is ordered home to face charges of murdering civilians.
For the first two-thirds of the film Lindholm intersperses the commander’s front line travails with those of his family back home, as his wife (Yuva Novotny) struggles to keep heart and soul together while maintaining as much “normalcy” she can muster for the sake their three kids. The home front and the war front are both played “for real” (aside from the obvious fact that it’s a Danish production, this is a refreshingly “un-Hollywoodized” war movie).
Some may be dismayed by the moral and ethical ambivalence of the denouement. Then again, there are few tidy endings in life…particularly in war, which (to quote Bertrand Russell) never determines who is “right”, but who is left. Is that a tired trope? Perhaps; but it’s one that bears repeating…until that very last bullet on Earth gets fired in anger. (Full review)
Unclear if he means Medicare, Medicaid and the VA, but there’s no logical reason why they shouldn’t be included. It’s fantastic! Just give the money to the people so they can give it to the big bad insurance companies instead of the government giving it to the big bad insurance companies. That will lower the costs hugely and the people will have a lot more money to spend and everything will be perfect!
“That night I believed that I was protecting the rights of immigrants…And let us not forget that the great seal of the United States says ‘E pluribus unum.’ That means ‘from many, one.’ Every life matters no matter where you came from. No matter how you got here, no matter how you identify, you have the right to live a life that is free.” — the sandwich guy
I’m going to leave this piece by the great voting rights lawyer Mark Elias because it’s not just funny, it’s also inspiring. The sandwich guy is not actually a joke:
In moments of darkness, an unlikely hero must step forward — or in this case, a hero was thrown forward.
More specifically, a hero was thrown at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer. I like to focus my Saturday pieces on important news that may have gotten buried beneath the ever-crazy headlines. From redistricting to political prosecutions to election nights, there’s a lot going on.
So, when news of Sean Dunn’s trial — or as you may know him, Sandwich Guy — hit my Bluesky feed, I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night unless I shared it with all of you. Let’s start at the beginning: It was a warm summer night in August. On Donald Trump’s orders, National Guard troops had descended upon Washington, D.C. Spirits were low, tariffs were high. But not high enough to prevent Sandwich Guy from buying a hoagie from Subway. The National Guard troops patrolling the streets were an ominous warning for our country, and an unsettling presence in the District. Trump’s claim that the agents were cracking down on crime — in a city where crime was at a low point — was a half-baked excuse to execute his authoritarian agenda.
[…]
So, as agents patrolled 14th and U, Dunn took matters into his own hands. He flung the offending sub at Gregory Lairmore, a CBP agent, apparently shouting, “You fucking fascists! Why are you here? I don’t want you in my city,” and took off running.
For Dunn, his mission was simple: “I was trying to draw them away from where they were. I succeeded.”
However, for the judge trying his case, this is the meat of the matter. Was Sandwich Guy’s act of resistance a violent crime, or was it a harmless outburst? Pressing questions in a pressing case. And, for all of the judge’s talk that this would be “the simplest case in the history of the world,” it turns out it actually was a pressing case that extended into a four-day trial.
A jury was selected. Reenactments of the Sandwich Assault were performed. A witness was called to stand. Lairmore was asked to identify the sandwich (he couldn’t).
Because this was never just about a sandwich — this was about the future of America. This was about acts of resistance, freedom of expression, and our right to fling processed meats in the face of authority. Sandwich Guy wasn’t just Sandwich Guy — he was a symbol of the opposition movement. And both sides of this trial knew that.
The Trump administration tried to make an example of Dunn. They had him arrested and circulated the video. They tried to indict him on felony charges, but failed. At each stage, Dunn’s legend grew.
Eventually, Dunn was charged with misdemeanor assault, and over the course of four days, the government tried to prove the extent of the violent nature of this fierce footlong. The prosecutor insisted that we don’t have the right “to strike another person, even with a sandwich.”
And apparently, this was no ordinary sandwich. “I could feel it through my ballistic vest,” Lairmore, Sandwich Target, testified. One onion string hung lifelessly from his police radio. Mustard stained his shirt. One would assume he’ll have to get it dry cleaned. In this economy? A tragedy on its own.
Now, if Lairmore felt the Sandwich through his vest, this raises a lot of questions: Just how fast is Sandwich Guy’s fastball? Should we get him on the Nationals? Should these explosive, titanium footlongs be banned by TSA?
Dunn’s defense didn’t let the government go down an erroneous path. There seemed to be a conspiracy afoot (long). Dunn’s attorney presented an Instagram video from the infamous night. Beneath the caption “this sandwich is going down in history,” the offending sub — GASP — is still nicely in its paper wrapping, contents concealed. If the sandwich still fits you must acquit!!
The defense also points out that Lairmore and his CBP colleagues seem to find humor in this situation. Lairmore’s coworkers bought him a sandwich plushie (which lives on his shelf) and he proudly dons a “felony footlong” sticker on his lunchbox. Would someone so traumatized from this situation be surrounded by constant reminders of it?
[…]
After four days of trial, the jury — on the verge of laughter themselves — is sent away to deliberate. They must determine whether Sandwich Guy acted “forcibly.” Seven hours later, we finally had our verdict: not guilty.
After many victories on Tuesday, it was another win for the opposition movement. Because, remember: this was never just about a sandwich. Republicans wanted to make an example of Sandwich Guy — to prove that Washington, D.C., was a city riddled with crime in need of law and order. But Sandwich Guy isn’t a criminal — he is a man who was standing up for the people against tyranny — sandwiches be damned.
President Trump on Rep. Nancy Pelosi's retirement: "I think she was an evil woman. I'm glad she's retiring. I think she did the country a great service by retiring. I think she was a tremendous liability for the country." pic.twitter.com/y4zI9GY0Tl
The New York Times interviewed Fox News’ resident jerk Greg Gutfeld whose late night show is apparently getting higher ratings than any of the other late night hosts. This is seen as a great triumph except for the fact that the others combined are far bigger. He gets all the wingnuts, just as Fox does.
In this excerpt he’s talking about them and why they are allegedly miserable failures compared to him:
You described their shows as being therapy sessions for people who are mad at the world. Is there not a way in which your show functions similarly? Oh, no. Our show is fun.
You can be fun and mad at the same time. You can. But generally, I like to be part of the punching bag, and I encourage that among the guests. The teasing makes it fun. And also I genuinely like people that I tease. In fact, if you want to know the people I don’t like, it’s the people that I don’t tease.
You must be a big fan of Rosie O’Donnell? I put the people I don’t know in a different kind of room, but I make fun of everybody that I love, and relentlessly. … I say that “Trump derangement syndrome” is now an addiction. It’s creating a filter in which everything you look at, the people that you know, your relationships are all seen through this. “If you don’t see this my way, we’re gonna have a problem.” My reflex, no matter what the story is, is to always put it back in its box so it doesn’t become something that changes the way I view people.
You don’t think there’s a way in which your show also sits behind the Trump filter? It’s as if you’re saying it only works one way. Yeah, but there’s a key difference here. I may think you’re wrong; you might think I’m evil. The teasing and the ridicule is not “You’re Hitler” or “You’re a fascist.” If I insult you over the top, it’s obviously a joke. I don’t put a target on your back.
I think you’re being a little disingenuous. Am I really?
I read all your books. The most blatant counterexample to what you’re talking about is, you literally use the phrase: “The left are dumb fascist mothereffers.” What book was that?
Your most recent one, “The King of Late Night.” I’ll have to look back at that. What was the context?
The left. Who was I talking about?
The left. It was a blanket statement. I don’t remember the specific context. Was it part of some kind of amplifying narrative — where it’s like, “These people are a threat to democracy,” “It’s gonna lead to World War III”? This is the most damaging thing that has happened in the United States, I believe, because if you look at everything from the Palisades fire to Charlie Kirk getting shot, these are all the product of amplified narratives. The repetition, the brainwash, the persuasion of being told over and over again. I’d have to look at that and see what I said. I imagine that it was in some kind of paragraph of hyperbole where I was having fun, if it was in all caps especially. Or I could have been mocking the actual language. I don’t know, I’d have to trust you on that. You seem like a nice guy — for now, anyway.
He’s clearly an idiot who doesn’t even know what’s in his own book. And the “we’re just having fun joking around and you people are a bunch of dry sticks” is a very boring old trope. But this whining about how the cruel left is name-calling is just too much:
Speaker Mike Johnson just confirmed something I have been warning about for over a decade: Anarchists, Islamists, communists, and socialists are working together to overthrow the West. I was called crazy for predicting this coalition, which we now know as the Democratic Party. pic.twitter.com/kXteb7vQaK
Mike Johnson calls No Kings the "Hate America Rally" and claims "it was funded by George Soros and co-sponsored by the Communist Party and many other nefarious groups" pic.twitter.com/NLdQNo7Y2S
I could go on but why bother? They are convinced that they are decent, God-fearing people who never have an unkind thing to say about anyone and yet are being called fascists and their feelings are very, very hurt.
Donald Trump:
“We will root out the…radical left thugs that live like vermin.”
“We’ve got a lot of bad genes in our country right now.”
“They’re destroying the blood of our country…I never read Mein Kampf. They said, ‘Hitler said that.’” pic.twitter.com/titECk298p
Rick Perlstein sent me this from a protester who was throttled and abducted by ICE agents. I can’t believe this is America:
This is happening, people. They are brutalizing, abducting and detaining peaceful protesters. And they are doing it anonymously with no accountability. This could happen to anyone. Daniel Biss talks with detained ICE protestor Jennifer Moriarty substack.com/@danielbiss/…
One of the upsides about all this is that even though these agents are masked and unidentifiable, and thus unaccountable, their leadership is not. They can be the ones held responsible for every single act of brutality their henchmen carry out.
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