Rob Costello

HWA folks! Have you recommended others' work to the Recommended Reading list for the Bram Stoker Awards? Horror writers, have you submitted your own work to the juries? Here's how! You can even click through to the full rules if you're intrepid! www.thebramstokerawards.com/submissions/

Tweet from Alex Tabarrok reads: “Sergio Garcia, celebrated Chef who came to the US before ICE even existed. Deported after 36 years. The picture tells you a lot about the decline of the Republican party.” Attached photo shows Sergio Garcia standing with Laura and George W. Bush outdoors. The photo is signed: “To Sergio Garcia, With best wishes – George & Laura Bush.”

This was never about deporting criminals. It’s about Stephen Miller’s campaign of ethnic cleansing.

Gov. JB Pritzker says President Trump deploying troops to Chicago due to ‘dementia’ and obsessive fixations Democratic governor’s comments came as he continues to oppose President Donald Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to Chicago area for deportation efforts.

Pritzker goes there on Trump: “This is a man who’s suffering dementia…It’s just something in the recesses of his brain that is effectuating to have him call out these cities.” Via Chicago Tribune

Margaret Wise Brown's nihilistic classic is a howling renunciation of God, here depicted as a "quiet old lady whispering 'hush'." There is no afterlife here, no reward, no release from the crushing mundanity of life. There is only the bowl of pathetic mush, the forlorn mittens, the abandoned balloon, the telephone that never rings. We live our lives in a "great green room", but at the end we accumulate nothing but the discarded trappings of our childhoods. Even love cannot offer solace: where are our families when the end comes? "Goodnight nobody," we call into the blackness. There is no hope in the world without us. We know what will happen, when we close our eyes, to the young mouse left alone with two kittens. They will toy with him; they will torture him and leave his decapitated body on our pillow. But we will never awake to see its guts splayed out near our heads. "Goodnight air," the poem ends. "Goodnight noises everywhere." We fall, silently, into the void. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/900911702

This review for Goodnight Moon is a fucking masterpiece.

If you’re a Wells Fargo customer, maybe you shouldn’t be.

What’s a true shithole country? One that zip-ties children’s hands and puts them in cages. One that sends people to a mega prison in El Salvador without due process. One where Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents wear face masks to conceal their identities. And so on...

Look man, sometimes you have to break some eggs and burn down your house and drive a bulldozer through your entire neighborhood to make an omelette.

Abolish this shit from top to bottom.

More on @agounardes.bsky.social's New York for All act that would prohibit local and state agencies across NY from coordinating with ICE. Tell your state reps and @governor.ny.gov to support this bill!

www.nyic.org/our-work/cam...

Oh no. Hyacinth Bucket (sorry, Bouquet) has died.
Patricia Routledge RIP.

Jimmy Kimmel:

“Trump is an old-fashioned ’80s-movie-style bully, taking your lunch money ― and if you give it to him once, he’ll take it again. Two things he loves, lunch and money.

"Rooting for this bully... I don't care what side you're on. It's like rooting for Biff in 'Back to the Future.'"

“Listening to Donald Trump was deeply troubling and it is clear he is unfit for the role of commander in chief,” one of the defense officials told The Intercept, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “Trump lectured our military leaders on his victimization and inability to let go of perceived past slights.” “This is truly disturbing. He is clearly unwell even for Trump,” said a second defense official, who later referenced the 25th Amendment, which permits a president’s powers to be transferred to the vice president when the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet conclude that the commander-in-chief is incapable of performing their duties. “This is incredibly embarrassing for the United States.” He added: “Imagine sitting through this in person.”

Via @nickturse.bsky.social

theintercept.com/2025/09/30/t...

Secretary Hegseth’s misogynistic lethality screed was disqualifying. His continued railing against women in combat roles shows his deep personal inadequacies,” said the first defense official. “It shocks the conscience to hear the Secretary of Defense — he is no warrior — endorse bullying and hazing of service members. How dare this former National Guard major lecture our military leaders on lethality when he’s focused solely on his own cult of personality.”

theintercept.com/2025/09/30/t...

Republicans are shutting down the government because they don’t want to fix the health care crisis they created.

They’re holding the entire government hostage so they can raise health care premiums by 75% for 20 million Americans and throw millions off their health care.

NO.

here's one of my favorite parts

"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them..."

U.S. Constitution, Article III, Section III

I fear President Trump believes the American people are so divided that today they will not stand up, fight for, and defend our most precious constitutional values so long as they are lulled into thinking their own personal interests are not affected. Is he correct?

And here's the kicker:

I'm skimming, but this paragraph stood out:

Can you imagine a masked marine? It is a matter of honor -- and honor still matters. To us, masks are associated with cowardly desperados and the despised Ku Klux Klan. In all our history we have never tolerated an armed masked secret police. Carrying on in this fashion, ICE brings indelible obloquy to this administration and everyone who works in it. “We can not escape history,” Lincoln righty said. “[It] will light us down in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.” Abraham Lincoln, Second Annual Message to Congress (Dec. 1, 1862).

Judge Young is (rightly) horrified by masked ICE agents - but he also finds them cowardly:

if i were a would-be dictator whose only civilian check on power had been consumed by total-complete partisan loyalty, something i would definitely do is call an unprecedented in-person meeting of the only people who could stop me and then proceed to illustrate why they should stop me

I continue to think that one of the reasons this country is falling apart is the wholesale abandonment of public virtue as a broadly shared aspiration. Or even something people should be embarrassed about if they don’t have it.

I feel like it's much less likely they're going to get that support after this pathetic display. Hard to see how it generated anything other than utter contempt in this particular audience of serious adults. These are not the kind of leaders you a lift a finger to fight for.

the president of the united states wants to use the american military to kill american citizens on american soil. that's the whole story!

Your Wallet Is Taking A Hit This Year. Blame Mass Deportation The rapid growth in daily expenses for working Americans has been fueled in part by the administration’s cruel and chaotic mass detention and deportation agenda.

Your groceries are getting more and more expensive. Blame mass deportation: “Immigration raids have hurt major growing areas, leaving crops unharvested at California farms and scared off workers at dairy farms in New York and other states.” americasvoicecnn.substack.com/p/your-walle...

Aaaaand there we go. Tariff drugs to jack up prices, then offer them at a discount through yourself. Grifters gonna grift.

Now might be a good time for Democrats to remind people that when they return to power they will not hesitate to prosecute people who murder civilians.

AI Data Centers Are Sending Power Bills Soaring Wholesale electricity costs as much as 267% more than it did five years ago in areas near data centers. That’s being passed on to customers.

Electricity now costs up to 267% more than it did five years ago in areas near data centers.

www.bloomberg.com/graphics/202...

If you're wondering why they don't go to court with their high paid lawyers for an easy win, it's because this allows Google to bribe Trump.

All the big players are way over their skis on AI investment and are sure they will need a bailout at some point. It's 2009 but for tech instead of housing

Well… the whole world can now see that the emperor is naked.

How embarrassing.

To me the big speech of Hegseth and Trump with American flags everywhere is revealing that they are facing a huge principal-agent problem with the military and they do not know how to resolve it so they're going overboard on showmenship because its the last card they really have.