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A Sandwich Hero

Published by digby on November 8, 2025

A real American through and through:

“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.  

Mark Elias is a national hero (sandwich) too.

The Projection Party

Published by digby on November 8, 2025

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.

So you must love the women of “The View.” Yes! I love Whoopi.

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:

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.

But sure, they’re just fun-loving jokesters.

Won’t You Please Come To Chicago…

Published by digby on November 8, 2025

The protest movement is getting it done:

Chicago setting an example for the world.

— Kim Masters (@kimmasters.bsky.social) 2025-11-08T16:59:22.753Z

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/…

— digby (@digby56.bsky.social) 2025-11-08T17:02:45.375Z

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.

Leaving This Right Here

Published by Tom Sullivan on November 8, 2025

As ICE preys on and attacks the vulnerable

And ICYMI (Wired):

Criminals posing as US immigration officers have carried out robberies, kidnappings, and sexual assaults in several states, warns a law enforcement bulletin issued last month by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The bureau urges agencies to ensure officers clearly identify themselves and to cooperate when civilians ask to verify an officer’s identity—including by allowing calls to a local police precinct. “Ensure law enforcement personnel adequality [sic] identify themselves during operations and cooperate with individuals who request further verification,” it says.

Fat chance. One commenter wryly observes, “It’s so confusing … ICE agents are acting like criminals, and criminals are posing as ICE agents.”

Robert Held Witnesses Chilling Testimony in Chicago Lawsuit Against ICEICE is terrorizing and traumatizing Chicago

— Raider (@iwillnotbesilenced.bsky.social) 2025-11-05T20:13:59.458Z

* * * * *

Is this a private fight, or can anyone join?

No King’s One Million Rising movement 
50501 
May Day Strong
Freedom Over Fascism Toolkit
The Resistance Lab
Choose Democracy
Indivisible: A Guide to Democracy on the Brink 
You Have Power
Chop Wood, Carry Water
Thirty lonely but beautiful actions
Attending a Protest Surveillance Self-Defense

Americans Go Hungry

Published by Tom Sullivan on November 8, 2025

Donald Trump wants them to

The Trump administration made good on its threat to appeal a federal judge’s order to release SNAP emergency funds to 42 million Americans facing hunger during the government shutdown. Late Friday, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who oversees that judicial district, granted a stay on the order:

The justice did not rule on the legality of the White House’s actions. Instead, she imposed a pause meant to give an appeals court more time to weigh legal arguments in the case, as the government forged ahead in its bid to withhold funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program during the federal shutdown.

The order, known as an administrative stay, came as a growing number of states, including New York, Kansas, Pennsylvania and Oregon, had started to release full benefits to their residents anyway. Many announced their plans on a day when even the Agriculture Department had suggested in guidance that it could soon make the money available for food stamps, after initially refusing to do so.

But it remained unclear late Friday how the new, temporary hold imposed by the Supreme Court might now affect some of those payments, or whether SNAP benefits might once again face delays, cuts or other restrictions.

The appeal came hours after the USDA announced it had set about funding the program to comply with the court order.

View on Threads

You can’t make me! You can’t make me!

Look beyond the legal wrangling. Let’s be clear. Trump’s effort to stop the flow of food aid to American families is not something he had to do. It is something he chose to do. Once the court ruled that distributing SNAP funds from the emergency reserve was legal and appropriate, the Trump administration might simply have released the emergency funding and saved food-insecure Americans additional anxiety, scrounging, and growling bellies. It/he just doesn’t want to. Because it’s more important to Trump that everyone know that he is above the law. No Obama-appointed judge can tell him what to do.

“JoJo From Jerz” (Joanne Carducci) wants to make sure you don’t miss that:

 

 
View on Threads

 

* * * * *

Is this a private fight, or can anyone join?

No King’s One Million Rising movement 
50501 
May Day Strong
Freedom Over Fascism Toolkit
The Resistance Lab
Choose Democracy
Indivisible: A Guide to Democracy on the Brink 
You Have Power
Chop Wood, Carry Water
Thirty lonely but beautiful actions
Attending a Protest Surveillance Self-Defense

Friday Night Soother

Published by digby on November 7, 2025

Polar Bears!

A big pumpkin for a big bear:

A northern Ontario polar habitat benefited from an award-winning pumpkin donated by Jeff Warner of Aidie Creek Gardens, who gave the habitat a 1,400-pound pumpkin. The donation was to the delight of Henry, the habitat’s 1,200-pound polar bear, who more than had his fill of the massive pumpkin. “

Jeff was driving it up the highway.” The staff member saw the Aidie Creek Gardens info on the side of the van, so she gave them a call. “And pretty quickly they got back to me and said, if we don’t take it, it’s just going in the compost,” Baxendell-Young said. “They brought it right to us. So that was great.” She said pumpkins are a popular seasonal treat for bears, and the habit normally receives a bunch of them as donations after Halloween. So she already knew that Henry loves pumpkins.

Although he was a little hesitant when it first arrived. “Henry actually came out and didn’t know what it was — and got actually quite defensive … because I think he was just quite shocked at this new thing in his enclosure,” she said.

But, as the habit’s live video feed showed, it didn’t take long for him to chow down. While Henry loves the taste, Baxendell-Young said the pumpkin is “an empty food for them.” They can eat as much as they want without gaining weight, unlike brown bears, who store the food for hibernation. “It tastes really good, but it does just go directly through their digestive systems,” she said. “There’s going to be a lot of pumpkin poop for us to pick up in the coming days.”

“It’s to bring light to polar bears and to celebrate them as they’re coming to congregate on the coast up near Churchill, Man., and all along the Hudson Bay in the James Bay Coast as they’re waiting for the sea ice to reform so they can head back out to start hunting again,” Baxendell-Young said.

It’s also an opportunity to remind people of the challenges polar bears are facing. Ice is forming later and later because of climate change, and polar bears need the sea ice to hunt seals. That means the bears are struggling to get enough to eat and are more prone to disease.

“The winters are warming, the ice-free period is getting longer,” Baxendell-Young said.

The Cochrane Polar Bear Habitat is a home for polar bears that can’t live in the wild. It’s currently caring for two bears: Henry and Ganuk.

Here’s Henry taking a snooze:

More Henry:

Henry and his buddy Ganuk:

Update On Trump’s Murders On The High Seas

Published by digby on November 7, 2025

The AP went down to Venezuela to find out who Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth are murdering with impunity:

One was a fisherman struggling to eke out a living on $100 a month. Another was a career criminal. A third was a former military cadet. And a fourth was a down-on-his-luck bus driver.

The men had little in common beyond their Venezuelan seaside hometowns and the fact all four were among the more than 60 people killed since early September when the U.S. military began attacking boats that the Trump administration alleges were smuggling drugs. President Donald Trump and top U.S. officials have alleged the craft were being operated by narco-terrorists and cartel members bound with deadly drugs for American communities.

One mother describes the “confusion and anguish” of losing her son, who is believed to have been killed in one of the boats targeted by the U.S. military.

The Associated Press learned the identities of four of the men – and pieced together details about at least five others – who were slain, providing the first detailed account of those who died in the strikes.

[…]

The Trump administration has justified the strikes by declaring drug cartels to be “ unlawful combatants ” and said the U.S. is now in an “armed conflict” with them. Trump has said each sunken boat has saved 25,000 American lives, presumably from overdoses. The boats, however, appear to have been transporting cocaine, not the far more deadly synthetic opioids that kill tens of thousands of Americans each year.

There is no epidemic of cocaine deaths in America, fergawdsakes. It’s the opioids. But I guess since they know it doesn’t matter what they say, they could claim they’re all carrying nuclear weapons and get away with it.

They are murdering these poverty stricken men who are scraping together a few bucks by taking some cocaine to the islands where it will be sent to Europe. (America doesn’t obtain cocaine this way — it comes over the U.S.- Mexican border.) It goes against American law and International law but they don’t care. And if you buy the logic they are using they can claim that anyone who sells or uses drugs in another country or inside the United States is a narco-terrorist subject to summary execution any time the president orders it.

Reminder: Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is sitting in the Hague awaiting trial for enacting this policy.

Sleepy, Addled Don

Published by digby on November 7, 2025

This needs much more circulation than it’s gotten:

photos of Trump sleeping through yesterday's Oval Office event via Andrew Harnik of Getty

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-11-07T16:37:57.318Z

He’s got three years to go, folks.

Here he is today, doubling down on saying that the economy is terrific.

He sounds crazy. And I expect that even some Republicans see it.

The Shutdown Goes On

Published by digby on November 7, 2025

I thought this rundown of the current situation by Punchbowl was pretty good:

Bipartisan negotiations are expected to continue, but there’s not much hope for an immediate solution. Democrats will keep the shutdown going as they push for new concessions from Republicans on health care, federal layoffs and more.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune may send senators home for the weekend following the CR vote, but no decision on the schedule has been made yet. Either way, it’s pretty much guaranteed that the shutdown will drag into next week at the least. And the fallout from the impasse will continue to worsen.

There’s enormous confusion — and consternation — over the Trump administration’s handling of the SNAP program, which helps feed more than 40 million Americans. A federal judge ordered the administration to fully fund the program on Thursday, but the Justice Department said it would appeal the ruling.

In the meantime, a 4% reduction in flight capacity at major U.S. airports takes effect today and will increase by 1% each day until it reaches 10%. That means thousands of flight cancellations per day, impacting millions of Americans, as well as those visitors flying in and out of the country.

A bipartisan deal to end the shutdown seemed within reach earlier this week. But Senate Democrats spent a two-hour caucus meeting Thursday taking stock of where things stand and came to this conclusion: Why on earth would we fold now?

[…]

Here are just a few reasons why Senate Democrats feel comfortable continuing to block floor action on reopening the government:

Negotiators haven’t decided on an end date for the CR. The three-bill minibus still isn’t finalized, even among Republicans. There isn’t an agreement on the structure or exact timing for an Obamacare subsidies vote, including whether there will be a side-by-side vote on a GOP alternative, as Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) called for during a closed-door meeting Tuesday. Even though Democrats have multiple chances to filibuster any such agreement, they don’t think they should help advance what would become the vehicle for a deal that’s not even done.

After Tuesday’s election victories, Democrats believe voters gave them a mandate to keep up the shutdown fight. Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), among others, implored their colleagues to “keep fighting” during Thursday’s closed-door session.

Republicans have told Democrats they’d be willing to discuss language reversing President Donald Trump’s mass layoffs of federal workers. Democrats want to push hard on this, as well as overturning OMB’s blue-state funding cuts.

 Trump is at his most volatile and vulnerable right now, and Democrats think they can take advantage. Trump is picking fights with Senate Republicans over the filibuster. The president privately told GOP’s senators that the election results show that the shutdown has been “worse for us than for [Democrats].” So Democrats will try to stoke Trump’s anger and see what happens.

It’s very interesting that Republicans are so spooked that they’re willing to talk about reversing the federal layoffs. That cuts the heart out of DOGE and Russ Vought. I doubt it will go anywhere but it’s a tell that they at least realize how politically toxic all that is.

So, it doesn’t appear that we’re going to see a breakthrough this weekend but the GOP is starting to go wobbly. Good.

Update — By the way, Mike Johnson and the House wingnuts are throwing sand in the gears too:

House Speaker Mike Johnson on Thursday sharply diverged from the direction that Senate negotiations were headed in to end the government shutdown.

Johnson told reporters Thursday that he would not commit to holding a vote on extending COVID-19 pandemic-era enhanced Obamacare subsidies, which are set to expire at the end of this year without congressional action…. “The House did its job on Sept. 19. I’m not promising anybody anything. I’m going to let this process play out,” Johnson said.

[…]

The issue of enhanced Obamacare subsidies has been a matter of debate within the GOP, with some Republicans in more moderate districts calling for at least a year-long extension to give lawmakers time to create a new healthcare deal in its place.

But House conservatives are rejecting any such extension out of hand. Fox News Digital first reported that leaders of the 189-member Republican Study Committee issued an official position earlier Thursday demanding the credits not be extended.

Trump is the only one who can fix that and he’s busy snoozing and schmoozing.

Update: It appears that there might, might be a deal to extend the ACA subsidies for another year — at least Chuck Schumer has offered that. No idea yet if the Senate GOP is willing and who knows what the weirdos in the House will do. But that’s the latest.

The Scared Little ICE Men

Published by digby on November 7, 2025

Lisa Needham at Public Notice makes an important observation about the masked marauders terrorizing the streets of America — for all their cos-playing swagger, they’re the most fearful, delicate li’l fellas in the country. She writes:

The Trump administration only wants the most formidable warriors, real stone-cold-killer types, to join his war on immigrants.

They should be white, of course, and ideally ‘roided up. These guys are the sort that can take a punch and not even blink, the hardest MFers you’re ever going to see. Just look at all the sizzle reels DHS is putting out, and you can feel the toughness through the screen, right? And you just know that if those dudes want to take you down, you’re going down.

Now, it’s not at all unusual for authoritarians to treat even the smallest pushback on law enforcement officers as an attack on their authority and an excuse to be rabidly violent. But that’s not quite what the administration is doing. In public, they want everyone to know that these thugs they’ve deployed to terrorize cities are battle-hardened and impervious to pain. But on the other hand, they are also such delicate flowers that if they are, say, lightly grazed by a sandwich, they are entitled to justice because of the horrific assault they have suffered.

Call it tough guy in the streets and widdle guy in the sheets (of paper for court filings).

This piece was spurred by the testimony of the officer who claimed to have felt threatened by a Subway sandwich. The man who threw the sandwich was acquitted of charges yesterday for obvious reasons. The case was a joke. But it does highlight what Needham points out above and which I’ve gotten thought to myself as I watch the footage of a group of ICE and CPB agents decked out in full kit military gear swarm one lone day laborer or a woman driving her car to wrestle them to the ground, grind their faces into the pavement and otherwise brutalize them. The masks and the violence are obviously overkill.

But when anyone files a complaint about all this they are met with denials that any of this is happening or the excuse that the agents are in great danger and fearful for their lives requiring them to use excessive force to protect themselves. Even the masks are ostensibly needed to protect them from reprisals from the antifa terrorist commie vermin against whom they are apparently helpless.

Cops in this country have never worn masks. They haven’t felt the need to be decked out like they are invading Falluja. But these big, macho tough ICE and CPB men are so terrified of the people they are terrorizing that they must act like animals under color of law and can’t show their identities. They’re cowards.