Having watched the embedded YouTube clip of monologue "highlights," I can't in good conscience post this in Entertainment.

Like, there are funny conservative comedians; why not pick one of them?

A group of conservative donors spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop a rightwing version of late-night talkshows like the Tonight Show and the Late Show, leaked documents reveal, in a further indication of the right’s ongoing efforts to overhaul American culture.

News of the effort to pump conservative viewpoints into the mainstream comes as entertainment shows and the media at large are under severe threat in the US. In September, Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show was taken off the air, under pressure from the Trump administration, after Kimmel’s comments after the killing of Charlie Kirk, while Donald Trump has launched multiple lawsuits against TV networks and news organizations.

Four pilot episodes, each of which has been watched by the Guardian, were made of the rightwing chatshow. It was promoted by the Ziklag group, a secretive Christian nationalist organization, which aims to reshape culture to match its version of Christianity. In an email in 2022, Ziklag – which ProPublica reported spent $12m to elect Trump last year – urged its members to stump up money for the project, called the Talk Show With Eric Metaxas.

The Vermont-based contractors would work out of ICE’s National Criminal Analysis and Targeting Center, which is located in a wooded Williston business park, not far from Burlington International Airport and Interstate 89.

The center is in an unmarked suite with tinted windows and surveillance cameras and is surrounded by a physical therapy practice, a café, and a field office for the state’s Department for Children and Families. The only clues to its purpose are a pair of American and Vermont flags outside and dedicated DHS parking spaces.

The center, which provides leads to ICE field offices around the country, is one of three branches of the agency’s Targeting Operations Division. A second branch, the Law Enforcement Support Center, is 1.5 miles away, in a secure, 75,000-square-foot building.

That two-story brick building blends into one of the state’s most popular shopping districts. It also houses ICE’s National Bulk Cash Smuggling Center, which targets transnational criminal enterprises.

Across the street is yet another DHS building, this one for US Citizenship and Immigration Services. North of Burlington, in the small city of St. Albans, is an ICE field office, where those being monitored by the agency must occasionally report.

Archived at archive.is/pfPGo

You have got to be fucking kidding me.

The White House’s office of management and budget (OMB) is arguing that federal workers who are furloughed amid the ongoing government shutdown are not entitled to back pay.

In a draft memo first obtained by Axios, OMB argued that an amendment to the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act (GEFTA) of 2019 would not guarantee furloughed workers back pay and that said funds must be set aside by Congress.

“The legislation that ends the current lapse in appropriations must include express language appropriating funds for back pay for furloughed employees, or such payments cannot be made,” said Mark Paoletta, OMB’s general counsel, in a draft addressed to White House budget director Russell Vought, the Washington Post reported.

The OMB previously revised a shutdown guidance document on Friday to remove reference to the GEFTA Act, reported Government Executive, a media site reporting on the US executive branch.

Donald Trump previously signed GEFTA into law after the 2019 government shutdown, which lasted for 35 days. While many understood the law to automatically guarantee pay for federal workers, the White House’s OMB is arguing against that interpretation, suggesting that the law only created the conditions for back pay.

cross-posted from: lemmy.ml/post/37209900

Panicked Curtis Yarvin—JD Vance's guru—plans to flee USA

The arsehole was quoted:

The second Trump revolution, like the first, is failing. It is failing because it deserves to fail. It is failing because it spends all its time patting itself on the back. It is failing because its true mission, which neither it nor (still less) its supporters understand, is still as far beyond its reach as algebra is beyond a cat. Because the vengeance meted out after its failure will dwarf the vengeance after 2020—because the successes of the second revolution are so much greater than the first—I feel that I personally have to start thinking realistically about how to flee the country. Everyone else in a similar position should have a 2029 plan as well. And it is not even clear that it will wait until 2029: losing the Congress will instantly put the administration on the defensive.

Me:

So apparently not all is good in broligarchy land. Still it’s more likely he might be suffering some breakdown instead. Relatively poverty stricken people buy expensive convertibles when they have a midlife crises. People like him poop on the internet. Most likely he will be around, for sometime, causing grief

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) sent a letter to the nonprofit operator of Wikipedia alleging a pattern of liberal bias in articles on the collaborative encyclopedia.

"I write to request information about ideological bias on the Wikipedia platform and at the Wikimedia Foundation," Cruz wrote to Wikimedia Foundation CEO Maryana Iskander in a letter dated October 3. "Wikipedia began with a noble concept: crowdsource human knowledge using verifiable sources and make it free to the public. That's what makes reports of Wikipedia's systemic bias especially troubling."

Citing research from the conservative Manhattan Institute, Cruz wrote that "researchers have found that articles on the site often reflect a left-wing bias." Cruz alleged that "bias is particularly evident in Wikipedia's reliable sources/perennial sources list" because it describes "MSNBC and CNN as 'generally reliable' sources, while listing Fox News as a 'generally unreliable' source for politics and science. The left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center gets a top rating, but the Heritage Foundation, a prominent conservative think tank, is a 'blacklisted' and 'deprecated' source that Wikipedia's editors have determined 'promotes disinformation.'"

Surya McEwen is an Australian volunteer among the almost five hundred humanitarians kidnapped by Israel as they tried to break Israel’s criminal starvation blockade on Gaza with baby food and other essentials. While the world’s attention has been on Israel’s violence and ritual humiliation toward Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, McEwen and Muslim volunteers were treated even more viciously.

In a video update, friends of McEwan, who is locked up in Israel’s notorious Ketziot prison’s friends have reported that during his abduction and illegal detention:

• Israeli soldiers tore up McEwen’s passport in front of him while on his vessel
• soldiers beat him on his arrival at the port of Ashdod – so badly that his arm was dislocated and his head slammed into the ground
• McEwen is being held in isolation away from other prisoners
• His captors are subjecting him to “degrading and humiliating treatment” and using sleep-deprivation techniques on him for days at a time
• his abductors are continuing to beat and intimidate him and are depriving him of drinkable water

thecanary.co/wp-content/upload…

Similar violence and both psychological and physical torture are being inflicted on Muslim volunteers abducted in the terror state’s attack on the flotilla.

Featured image via youtube.com/watch?v=jo4vhrfruT…

By Skwawkbox

The First Nation plans to formalize its partnership with the Fort Peck Sioux Tribes, in Montana, next week by signing a memorandum of understanding to advance the trade corridor and its infrastructure development.

The corridor intends to use traditional routes traversing Dakota territories in Saskatchewan, Alberta, Manitoba and into the United States, reviving the historic Oceti Sakowin trade network, a historic alliance of seven Dakota, Lakota and Nakota Indigenous groups united by kinship, language and spiritual beliefs. The shared trade routes historically facilitated economic and military ties across their territories. “We have a lot of history, and even to this day, ties linking us to our relatives,” said Rodger Redman, chief of the nation.

Redman said this corridor is not symbolic, but rather an economic engine for the countries. Standing Buffalo is located in a region rich with critical minerals vital to global industries including renewable energy and technology. By owning the corridor, Indigenous nations can control the movement of these resources and expand economic opportunities for their communities.

The Practical Value of Diversity Exceeds Its Symbolic Meaning

In this essay, “diversity” refers to tolerance toward matters of little consequence. Diversity is undoubtedly beneficial: it promotes intellectual progress and technological development. Its fundamental role lies in enabling different ideas to complement one another, thereby fostering innovation. Yet diversity on its own brings no real benefit; rather, it can plunge a community into chaos. The proper place of diversity should be as a margin of flexibility under an inclusive standard. Only through the guidance of standards, combined with the vitality of diversity, can a community move toward a better future.

Since humanity cannot unify its thoughts, diversity necessarily exists. But its true value lies in maintaining the balance of the entire system. Simply put, systemic balance is like ecological balance: each ecological niche interacts with others to ensure smooth functioning. Likewise, the balance of nations and even the world resembles an ecosystem — requiring careful adjustment and avoiding drastic changes. For example, in 1859, twenty-four rabbits introduced from England to Australia multiplied uncontrollably, causing severe ecological invasion and devastating agriculture and land. Applied to nations, the lesson is the same: never, for the sake of temporary impulses, shake the foundations or destroy the entire system.

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Russia’s war against Ukraine

A kneeling woman reacts at a makeshift memorial for fallen Ukrainian and foreign soldiers on Independence Square in Kyiv on Oct. 4, 2025, amid Russia’s war against Ukraine. (Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images)

Ukraine brings back 22 children from Russian-occupied territories. “Today, all the rescued children are safe in Ukraine-controlled territory,” Andriy Yermak, head of Ukraine’s Presidential Office, said.

‘Get serious’ — Russia is already at war with Europe, Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister says. Sergiy Kyslytsia warned that Europe needs to “get serious” about the existential threat posed by Russia.

Ukraine confirms drone strike on one of Russia’s biggest, most modern oil refineries near St. Petersburg. Drones struck the Kirishi oil refinery in Russia’s Leningrad oblast overnight on Oct. 4, sparking a fire that was later extinguished, officials and local media reported.

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Ukraine accuses China of providing Russia with satellite data for missile strike targeting. China officially claims neutrality in Russia’s war against Ukraine, but has indirectly supported Moscow in several ways.

Ukraine hits Russian cruise missile ship on Lake Onega, military says. The Russian missile ship was struck on Lake Onega in the Republic of Karelia at 04:31 a.m. local time on Oct. 4, according to the Special Operations Forces.

Ukraine slaps new sanctions on Russian oil industry, drone production. One of the sanctioned companies is Hardberry-Rusfactor, which produces drones and counter-UAV systems as well as neural network systems for automatic equipment recognition and target designation.

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As mysterious drone sightings increase, this is what Russia has to gain from them

A series of drone sightings across NATO countries is beginning to look like a broader, coordinated campaign with suspicion increasingly falling on Russia. “All these drones are flying over strategic or military sites which clearly suggests this is not just random hooliganism, but deliberate and coordinated actions,” Ivan Stupak, a military expert and former officer with Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU), told the Kyiv Independent. Over the last few weeks, drones have violated the airspace of at least eight European countries. The wave began with 19 drones crossing into Polish territory in early September.

Photo: Michaela Stache/AFP via Getty Images

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2 powerful Ukrainian agencies are fighting in the open. Both say only Russia is to win

Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) and the country’s top anti-corruption agency are entangled in an escalating confrontation involving raids and arrests. The conflict is seen as part of a broader struggle between the President’s Office and the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), which says the authorities are trying to eliminate its independence. The SBU, which is seen as loyal to the President’s Office, has arrested NABU employees, accusing them of having ties to Russia, and portrayed the crackdown as an attempt to counteract Moscow’s alleged influence on the bureau.

Photo: Viacheslav Ratynskyi/Anadolu via Getty Images

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Human cost of Russia’s war

‘Savage’ Russian double-tap strike on railway station in Sumy Oblast kills 1, injures at least 30. A Russian drone struck the station in the city of Shostka, Sumy Oblast. Passengers and Ukrzaliznytsia workers were on the site at the moment of the attack, according to Zelensky.

Russian attacks kill 1, injure 33 in Ukraine over past day, target gas infrastructure. Russia launched 109 Shahed-type attack drones and decoy drones against Ukraine overnight, as well as three Iskander-M or KN-23 ballistic missiles, the Air Force reported.

General Staff: Russia has lost 1,114,380 troops in Ukraine since Feb. 24, 2022. The number includes 950 casualties that Russian forces suffered over the past day.

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International response

Czechia’s populist Ano party wins parliamentary elections, threatening future aid to Ukraine. Ano party leader and billionaire Andrej Babis said on Oct. 4 that Ukraine is “not ready” to join the EU and that the Czech ammunition initiative should be taken over by NATO.

G7+ group holds emergency meeting in response to Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. “The Russians have not abandoned their intentions to plunge Ukraine into darkness on the eve of the new heating season,” Deputy Energy Minister Roman Andarak said.

Inside Ukraine’s fight to stop Russia near Kupiansk as war evolves

In other news

Georgian police crack down on protesters as thousands march on presidential palace. Some protesters attempted to break through the palace fences, prompting Georgia’s Interior Ministry to declare the demonstration illegal and order the crowd dispersed.

Oleksa Shalayskyi, renowned Ukrainian investigative journalist, dies aged 58. Over the decades, Oleksa Shalayskyi became one of Ukraine’s leading investigative journalists and is described by his colleagues as a pioneer of anti-corruption investigations.

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