https://www.cbsnews.com/news/erez-reuveni-justice-department-whistleblower-kilmar-abrego-garcia-60-minutes/

Erez Reuveni, a fired Department of Justice lawyer who's now blowing the whistle, says he witnessed a disregard of due process and for the rule of law at the DOJ.

Reuveni previously won commendations for his work and was so effective defending President Trump's first-term immigration policy that he was promoted quickly in Mr. Trump's second term. But he says he was put on leave and then fired after refusing to sign a brief in the mistaken deportation case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Reuveni's whistleblower disclosure helped highlight a growing concern in many courts across the country that the Justice Department is allegedly abusing the limits of the law.

"I took an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. And my view of that oath is that I need to speak up and draw attention to what has happened to the department, what is happening to the rule of law," Reuveni said. "I would not be faithfully abiding by my oath if I stayed silent right now."
From devoted DOJ lawyer to shock over orders

Reuveni says he knew he wanted to be involved in public service before he started law school. He started at the Department of Justice in 2010 and was there for 15 years defending the policies of several presidents, regardless of political party. Reuveni specialized in immigration law and, during Mr. Trump's first term, he defended the controversial ban on travelers from predominantly Muslim countries, among many other cases.

"I defended everything they put on my plate. That was my job," he said.

Democrats are afraid to fund the government. They worry that they will get “hammered” by their liberal base if they vote to fund the government.
One Democrat lawmaker actually said they have enough votes to open the government but they were worried that if they did, they would be decapitated by liberals using 18th century machines designed for executing political enemies: “We would have enough votes” to reopen the government “if people were not terrified of getting the guillotine,”
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5561362-liberal-base-backlash-democrats/
Democratic senators fear getting ‘hammered’ after ‘No Kings’ for ending shutdown

Some Democrats skeptical about their leadership’s hard-line stance against reopening the federal government privately acknowledge that they fear getting “hammered” by their liberal base if they vote for a Republican funding bill.

Grassroots Democrats frustrated with the Trump administration have been demanding a fight, and on Saturday millions showed up at “No Kings” demonstrations across the country to protest the president’s government.

In that context, Democrats know they will get hit hard by a number of voices on the left if they do not get something for opening the government.

“People are going to get hammered” if they vote for the House-passed bill to reopen the government and keep it funded through Nov. 21, said one Democratic senator who requested anonymity to talk candidly about their party.

In that context, Democrats know they will get hit hard by a number of voices on the left if they do not get something for opening the government.

“People are going to get hammered” if they vote for the House-passed bill to reopen the government and keep it funded through Nov. 21, said one Democratic senator who requested anonymity to talk candidly about their party.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/hamas-aims-keep-grip-gaza-security-cant-commit-disarm-senior-official-says-2025-10-17/
DOHA, Oct 17 (Reuters) - Hamas intends to maintain security control in Gaza during an interim period, a senior Hamas official told Reuters, adding he could not commit to the group disarming - positions that reflect the difficulties facing U.S. plans to secure an end to the war.
Hamas politburo member Mohammed Nazzal also said the group was ready for a ceasefire of up to five years to rebuild devastated Gaza, with guarantees for what happens afterwards depending on Palestinians being given "horizons and hope" for statehood.
Speaking to Reuters in an interview from Doha, where Hamas politicians have long resided, Nazzal defended the group's crackdown in Gaza, where it carried out public executions on Monday. There were always "exceptional measures" during war and those executed were criminals guilty of killing, he said.
While Hamas has broadly expressed these views before, the timing of Nazzal's comments demonstrates the major obstacles obstructing efforts to cement a full end to the war in Gaza, days after the first phase of the ceasefire was agreed.
They point to big gaps between Hamas' positions and U.S. President Donald Trump's plan for Gaza, ahead of negotiations expected to address Hamas' weapons and how Gaza is governed.
Asked for comment on Nazzal's remarks, the Israeli prime minister's office said Israel was committed to the ceasefire agreement and continued to uphold and fulfil its side of the plan.
"Hamas is supposed to release all hostages in stage 1. It has not. Hamas knows where the bodies of our hostages are. Hamas are to be disarmed under this agreement. No ifs, no buts. They have not. Hamas need to adhere to the 20-point plan. They are running out of time," it said in a statement to Reuters.

White British Welsh paedophile musician Ian Watkins who raped children, animals and tried to rape a 1 year old baby killed in prison. he raped both girls and boys

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15188603/Ian-Watkins-prison-paedophile-goth-groupies-inundated-letters-obsessed-women-abused-daily-TOM-RAWSTORNE-brutal-killing.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Watkins_(Lostprophets_singer)

Ian David Karslake Watkins (30 July 1977 – 11 October 2025) was a Welsh singer, songwriter, and convicted child sex offender. He was the lead singer and frontman of the rock band Lostprophets from 1997 to 2012. Watkins founded Lostprophets with Lee Gaze in 1997, having previously been with Gaze in a band called Fleshbind. Lostprophets released five studio albums, four of which made the top 10 of the UK Albums Chart, including Liberation Transmission which went to number 1 in 2006.[1]

Watkins was sentenced to 29 years' imprisonment in 2013 for multiple sexual offences. He pleaded guilty to sexual assault of children, including those as young as infants, and the possession of child and animal sexual abuse material. His bandmates disbanded Lostprophets shortly before his trial.

Watkins died after being attacked while imprisoned at HM Prison Wakefield on 11 October 2025. West Yorkshire Police have charged two men with Watkins's murder.

https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-hamas-war-news-10-19-2025-f3d95cf76018541ff824853d1bcd3356

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel on Sunday struck targets in the southern Gaza Strip after it said its troops came under fire from Hamas militants, in the first major test of a U.S.-brokered ceasefire meant to halt more than two years of war.

Members of the Palestinian group used an RPG and Israel responded with airstrikes and artillery, the military said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held consultations with Israel’s security heads and directed the military to take “strong action” against any ceasefire violations, but did not threaten to return to war.

Hamas said that it was not connected to any clashes in Rafah in southern Gaza.

The strikes came as Israel identified the remains of two hostages released by Hamas overnight, and the Palestinian group said talks to launch the second phase of ceasefire negotiations have begun.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the bodies belonged to Ronen Engel, a father of three from Kibbutz Nir Oz, and Sonthaya Oakkharasri, a Thai agricultural worker killed at Kibbutz Be’eri.

Both were believed to have been killed during the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and their bodies were taken to Gaza. Engel’s wife, Karina, and two of his three children were kidnapped and released in a ceasefire in November 2023.

19th sequential daily thread covering The 2025 Democrat Shutdown of the United States Government

Day 19 Updates:
- Senate Democrats block spending bill for 10th time https://www.aol.com/articles/senate-democrats-block-gop-plan-154659077.html
- GOP has aligned on the Democrat Shutdown and are "discussing ways to minimize the pain on the American people that has been caused by the Democrats" https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/19/nearly-three-weeks-in-white-house-and-gop-remain-aligned-on-shutdown-00614384
- Senator Paul is in favor of paying Troops and Federal Employees during the Democrat Shutdown, but democrats have already blocked the attempt to pay troops https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/rand-paul-favor-paying-troops-federal-workers-government-shutdown-bill-rcna238429
The issue is caused by Democrats. What did they do? They passed COVID emergency corporate subsidies to health insurance companies during COVID, and set them to expire on Jan 1, 2026. Now that these subsidies are expiring as planned, they are angry and shutting down the government.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-investment-boom-is-sustainable-bessent-says-2025-10-15/
Washington, Oct 15 (Reuters) - The two-week-old federal government shutdown may cost the U.S. economy as much as $15 billion a week in lost output, a Treasury official said late on Wednesday, correcting an earlier statement from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that put the cost at up to $15 billion per day.
Bessent used the incorrect estimate in two separate appearances earlier on Wednesday, while urging Democrats to "be heroes" and side with Republicans to end it.

A Treasury official said the cost estimate was based on a report by the White House Council of Economic Advisers
, opens new tab.
Bessent told a news conference that the shutdown was starting to "cut into muscle" of the U.S. economy.
The wave of investment into the U.S. economy, including into artificial intelligence, is sustainable and is only getting started, but the federal government shutdown is increasingly an impediment, Bessent said.
"There is pent-up demand, but then President (Donald) Trump has unleashed this boom with his policies," Bessent said at a CNBC event held on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank annual meetings in Washington.
"The only thing slowing us down here is this government shutdown," Bessent said.
He said that incentives in the Republican tax law and Trump's tariffs would keep the investment boom going and fuel continued growth.

"I think we can be in a period like the late 1800s when railroads came in, like the 1990s when we got the internet and office tech boom," Bessent said.

> Thread theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rAOyh7YmEc

https://nypost.com/2025/10/18/us-news/nyc-teen-who-allegedly-beheaded-moms-boyfriend-put-brains-in-blender-police-sources/

> Staten Island teen who allegedly beheaded mom’s boyfriend put brains in blender: police sources

The twisted teenager who allegedly beheaded his mom’s boyfriend in Staten Island scooped the victim’s brains out with a spoon and put them in a blender, police sources said.

It wasn’t clear what Damien Hurstel intended to do with the gray matter, which was found in the kitchen appliance at the scene, the sources said.

Cops said the 19-year-old confessed to stabbing his mother’s live-in boyfriend, Anthony Casalaspro and sawing off his head inside the family’s Cary Avenue home in West Brighton on Oct. 6.

The 45-year-old victim’s remains were found with a plastic soup ladle on the torso, and his head beside him with a spoon sticking out, a photo obtained by The Post showed.

Hurstel, who is facing second-degree murder, manslaughter and weapons charges, was transferred from a hospital to solitary confinement in Rikers Island jail earlier this week, said his lawyer Mark Fonte, who met his client in a room Friday before a hearing in Richmond County Supreme Court.

“He was having a real difficult time separating fantasy from reality,” said Fonte, who entered a not guilty by reason of insanity plea. “He wasn’t sure what really happened.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/17/alex-acosta-cleared-trump-of-wrongdoing-in-the-epstein-case-gop-says-00614541

Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee took a victory lap Friday after releasing a transcript of their recent interview with former U.S. attorney Alex Acosta regarding Jeffrey Epstein, saying it provides evidence President Donald Trump was not involved in the case against the late convicted sex offender.

“Acosta NEVER talked to Trump about Epstein,” the Republican majority of the Oversight Committee said in a post on X, attaching a screenshot of Acosta’s interview from September. “Not in person. Not on the phone. Not over email.”

At one point in the exchange between lawmakers and Acosta — who appeared before the committee as part of its ongoing investigation into the Epstein case — Oversight committee ranking member Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) asked, “So you never — the entire time you were U.S. attorney, you never once spoke to Donald Trump?”

Acosta replied, according to the interview transcript, “The entire time — let me be more clear. I did not speak with President Trump, with Donald Trump before I was considered for Secretary of Labor.”

Asked by another Democrat whether Trump was named in any document in the Epstein case, Acosta said he did not recall any such instance.

Oversight Democrats, however, had a starkly different takeaway from Acosta’s interview, with Sara Guerrero, a Democratic spokesperson, arguing his remarks suggested a lack of contrition for his part in the case.

Oops, the most corrupt admin in US history, did it again.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-commutes-sentence-george-santos-rcna238293

President Donald Trump said Friday that he had signed a commutation that would immediately release former Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., from prison.

“George has been in solitary confinement for long stretches of time and, by all accounts, has been horribly mistreated,” Trump posted on Truth Social Friday evening. “Therefore, I just signed a Commutation, releasing George Santos from prison, IMMEDIATELY. Good luck George, have a great life!”

In April, Santos was sentenced to more than seven years in prison.

Last year, he pleaded guilty to charges of committing wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, conduct that prosecutors said was part of a yearslong scheme that preyed upon the campaign finance system and his own political party, donors and family members to line his own pockets.

A senior White House official said Trump made the decision to help Santos this week. The official added that “many people wrote to him about it.”

“The reach-outs on this that President Trump got were overwhelming," another White House official said. "He heard from so many people, and in recent days he decided it was the right decision. It’s his call, and he made it.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., has publicly campaigned for a Santos pardon. In an interview with NBC News this week, she said she had been in contact with the Department of Justice in recent weeks regarding the possibility.