All Saint's Day 2026

All Saint's Day (Nov. 1) is a day to honor the saints, mainly those who don't otherwise have a feast day. All Soul's Day (Nov. 2) remembers all who have died in Christ who are not considered saints.  (In Mexico, these 2 days are the Dias de Los Muertos; the first day for returning spirits of children; the second for returning spirits of adults.) Protestants don't necessarily observe the day, but for those who do the "saints" mean the clouds of witness who we believe surround us in time and across time, as well as across space.  According to most accounts the Irish holy day Samhain was one of the "thin places" on the calendar, when the dearly departed were yet close at hand, not as ghouls and ghost and goblins, but as family. That’s the supposed connection between All Hallows Even and Samhain, anyway.  Nowadays the idea is to honor the saints, in the Roman Catholic tradition; or to honor the clouds of witness, in many Protestant traditions.

The German Protestant church observed the Tötenfest, the remembrance of the dead, the faithful who had died in Christ in the past year.  They marked that occassion not on a calendar date, but on the last Sunday of Pentecost, the liturgical season that begins roughly 50 days after Easter Sunday, and runs until the Sunday before Advent.  Don't get your calendars out, the last Sunday is easy to calculate.  Advent begins four Sundays before December 25th, so the last Sunday of Pentecost is a week before the first Sunday of Advent.  Because days on the Gregorian calendar move about, while Christmas has a settled date, and Hallowe'en, too, the last Sunday of Pentecost and first Sunday of Advent change their dates every year.  This year the last Sunday of Pentecost is November 22nd.  I'll mark the Totenfest that day again this year.  

It's all about death and resurrection.  Although those terms might not mean what you think they mean. You're thinking it's about death, so it's gloomy.  But it's about hope and a redeemed creation.  It's one of the few times a year on the church lectionary you can be guaranteed a reading from the Revelation (Apocalypse, or "revealing") to John.  Which despite it's reputation and use by some to predict eternal punishment for others, is actually bout both of those topics (hope and redemption for all of creation).

The following prayer is from the (German) Evangelical Book of Worship.  I'm not certain precisely when they used it in the church year, but I find it useful for Tötenfest, or, in this case, for All Saint's Day.

Almighty and everlasting God, before whom stand the spirits of the living and the dead; Light of lights, Fountain of wisdom and goodness, who livest in all pure and humble and gracious souls.

For all who witnessed a good confession for thy glory and the welfare of the world; for patriarchs, prophets, and apostles; for the wise of every land and nation, and all teachers of mankind,

WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD, AND BLESS THY NAME.

For the martyrs of our holy faith, the faithful witnesses of Christ of whome the world was not worthy, and for all who have resisted falsehood and wrong unto suffering or death,

WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD, AND BLESS THY NAME.

For all who have labored and suffered for freedom, good government, just laws, and they sanctity of the home; and for all who have given their lives for their country,

WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD, AND BLESS THY NAME.

For all who have sought to bless men by their service and life, and to lighten the dark places of the earth,

WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD, AND BLESS THY NAME.
For those who have been tender and true and brave in all times and places, and for all who have been one with thee in the communion of Christ's spirit and in the strength of his love,

WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD, AND BLESS THY NAME.

For the dear friends and kindred, ministering in the spiritual world, whose faces we see no more, but whose love is with us for ever,

WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD, AND BLESS THY NAME.

For the teachers and companions of our childhood and yough, and for the members of our household of faith who worship thee in heaven,

WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD, AND BLESS THY NAME.

For the grace which was given to all these, and for the trust and hope in which they lived and died,

WE PRAISE THEE, O GOD, AND BLESS THY NAME.

And that we may hold them in continual remembrance, that the sanctity of their wisdom and goodness may rest upon our earthly days, and that we may prepare ourselves to follow them in their upward way,

WE BESEECH THEE TO HEAR US, O GOD.

That we may ever think of them as with thee, and be sure that where they are, there we may be also,

WE BESEECH THEE TO HEAR US, O GOD.

That we mave haev a hope beyond this world for all they children, even for wanderers who must be sought and brought home; that we may be comforted and sustained by the promise of a time when none shall be a stranger and an exile from thy kingdom and household;

WE BESEECH THEE TO HEAR US, O GOD.

In the communion of the Holy Spirit, with the faithful and the saints in heaven, with the redeemed in all ages, with our beloved who dwell in thy presence and peace, we, who still serve and suffer on earth, unite in ascribing:

THANKSGIVING, GLORY, HONOR, AND POWER UNTO THEE, O LORD OUR GOD.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,

AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING, IS NOW, AND EVER SHALL BE, WORLD WITHOUT END. AMEN.

The Revised Common Lectionary provides these scripture readings for All Saints 2024.

Isaiah 25:6-9

25:6

On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.

25:7

And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the covering that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever.

25:8

Then the Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken.

25:9

It will be said on that day, "See, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us. This is the LORD for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation."

Psalm 24

24:1

The earth is the Lord's and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it,

24:2

for he has founded it on the seas and established it on the rivers.

24:3

Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place?

24:4

Those who have clean hands and pure hearts, who do not lift up their souls to what is false and do not swear deceitfully.

24:5

They will receive blessing from the LORD and vindication from the God of their salvation.

24:6

Such is the company of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob. Selah

24:7

Lift up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in!

24:8

Who is the King of glory? The LORD, strong and mighty, the LORD, mighty in battle.

24:9

Lift up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in!

24:10

Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory. Selah

Revelation 21:1-6a

21:1

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.

21:2

And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

21:3

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and be their God;

21:4

he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away."

21:5

And the one who was seated on the throne said, "See, I am making all things new." Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true."

21:6

Then he said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End..

John 11:32-44

11:32

When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."

11:33

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.

11:34

He said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to him, "Lord, come and see."

11:35

Jesus began to weep

11:36

So the Jews said, "See how he loved him!"

11:37

But some of them said, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?"

11:38

Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it.

11:39

Jesus said, "Take away the stone." Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, "Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days."

11:40

Jesus said to her, "Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?"

11:41

So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, "Father, I thank you for having heard me.

11:42

I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me."

11:43

When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus come out!"

11:44

The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, "Unbind him and let him go."

If you skipped all those readings, I don't blame you. I won't belabor them here.  I just want to point out the thematic reason for them, the thread that runs through them:  death and resurrection, and how even the dead are alive to God.

None of which are simple concepts, although we oversimplify them constantly, imagining either a painless passage from death to "after life," or maybe we complicate it with a Final Judgement and the separation of the sheep and the goats.  But these verses are not abstract speculations on unknown things.  They are far more concrete than that.

I said I wouldn’t belabor them, but let me run through them quickly.

Isaiah promises a vision of renewal and redemption that will follow the Babylonian Exile.  It will be a time when Israel is so faithful to God (which doesn't mean observing the "right" rituals in worship or daily life, but following the "law of God," in Micah’s famous tripartite version:  do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with your God.  There's a whole set of lessons in that verse alone, but that's for another day).  It's an apocalyptic vision, by which I mean not death and destruction and the end of all things, but the final revelation showing the truth of all things.  And what is this apocalypse? It is when death is swallowed up forever, and every tear is dried. The true end, as in purpose but also conclusion, of history.

Doesn't seem very solidly concrete; but the Psalm is a song of the saints, of "Those who have clean hands and pure hearts, who do not lift up their souls to what is false and do not swear deceitfully/They will receive blessing from the LORD and vindication from the God of their salvation./Such is the company of those who seek him.” Not so very different from Isaiah’s vision.

And the revelation to John, in the original Greek the "apocalypse" of John, where it is declared that 'Death will be no more," and because of that "mourning and crying will be no more."  It's one of the passages I've used most often at a graveside service, to try to comfort the mourning.  Notice it's not a Platonic statement about an immortal soul slipping off its mortal coil.  It's about resurrection, a return to life, a reversal at the end of history.

Finally, the story of Lazarus., which is also a story of reversal. This is an interesting story in John, because it's one of the semeia, the signs, Jesus performs.  In the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke), the "miracles" are "dunamis," or acts of power.  In John, they are signs; and any modern semiologist (if they're still around) will tell you the distinctive character of a sign is that it points to something beyond itself, like a stop sign points to the power of government to punish you if you don't obey the sign.  So the resurrection of Lazarus is a sign; but it's also one of the most concrete passages in John, where Jesus literally talks for three chapters in the upper room on the night before his crucifixion. Jesus talks a lot in John. So much so the person often disappears behind the abstractions. Except for washing his disciples feet, there's no time in the narrative of his last night to eat or drink or to give the cryptic message about the meal.  But in the story of Lazarus Jesus doesn't talk, he merely acts.  And he overcomes death, he reverses death in favor of life, a real death of a truly dead person (Nikos Kazantzakis uses this story in his novel The Last Temptation of Christ, and notes that Lazarus sits in his sisters' house still stinking of the grave. Verisismilitude, indeed.)

Death and resurrection; concrete and visionary; real and metaphorical.

For all the saints.  From all the saints.

The semeia here is rather remarkable in John, because John's is not an inclusive gospel; it is almost a gnostic gospel. Those who know, know; those who do not, are Nicodemus; imagining that they know, but understanding nothing. Never mind; they are saved in the end. In the end, Nicodemus is one of those who recovers the body after the crucifixion. Or maybe that is John's joke again, since the body was never Jesus in the first place; since it only appeared to be Jesus.  But John is brutally direct here:  like God speaks Creation into existence, Jesus speaks Lazarus back into life.  We are meant to see this clearly, not through a glass darkly.  Lazarus was dead.  Lazarus is alive.  Wiping the tears from the eyes, at least, of his sisters; and, I suppose, from the eyes of Jesus, too.  Jesus is so abstract and talkative in John's gospel he practically disappears behind the verbiage.  Here, he cries; like a real person; like a caring human being.

God wept.

Rather like the saints, a few centuries later.  Saints are people, flesh and blood, body and bone.  They are no ideals and plaster and just metaphors.  Metaphors are powerful, ideas are powerful, but they are not real, and plaster especially is just a man-made product.  Saints are human. Saints are real.  Saints are made by their faith; and by God.  And the blessings of God announced in these four passages, are real; and concrete.

So say the saints:  The blessings are here. The blessings are now, and they are real. The blessings are pronounced, right now, and being pronnced, they become real. They take affect here; for you. Now.

The language of this day all sounds like language of what will come, will happen, will be seen one day; but not now.  We hear those words, or read those words,  and we think: "Yes. Yes!" And we want them to be true now; but we know they are not true. We know they cannot yet be true.

But the saints admonish us. The saints tell us, remind us, wave their hands before our blind eyes, shout into our deaf ears: "The time is now! The blessing is now! The great ordeal is over and the throne of the Lamb is in front of you right now! The shepherd guides you now! The springs of water wash your feet right now! God is wiping your tears away now, now, even now! Oh, won't you open your eyes and see?! Won't you open your ears and listen?!" And then they weep for us, the saints; the clouds of witness who surround us and know what we know and know what we refuse to know. They surround us and weep and try once again to get our attention, to make us listen, to make us see, to get us just to notice.

Lift up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in!

Who is the King of glory? The LORD, strong and mighty, the LORD, mighty in battle.

Lift up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in!

Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory. Selah

Lift up your heads, and open the gates of your mind and soul; then you would see, then hear, then you would know! Those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. The lives of the servants of the Lord are redeemed! And they are redeemed right now! That is what the saints tell us, and they know! They know, because they are human. They know because they are just like us. They know, because they are saints. And they surround us; and they are here, now.

Samhain is what the Irish once called this time. It was their new year, and the ancestors came back to see them for a celebration. It was when time itself was a "thin place," and the spirits could communicate with the living, and the veil between the two worlds was thin enough to allow communication. For them, the spirits were as real as flesh and blood family members, and their return was a blessing.  As I get older and lose more family members to time, I see more and more what a blessing that would be. For us, perhaps even the saints don't seem quite real. The saints seem like the blessed ones, and their blessings seem to have come long after they could enjoy them in this life. But they know what we forget: that the blessings are for life, not for death. Blessings that only come as rewards in the end, are no blessings at all. Blessings that are not for this life, are only cruel promises. The saints know that God is the God of the living, not the dead; and that in God’s sight, all are alive. Which is why this time of year is still a time of celebration, not of mourning. Which is why the great ordeal has passed, and the lamb is with us now. And why the ones who seem so little, and have so little, and struggle to be merciful and make peace and keep pure hearts, are blessed right now, and not later, not as a reward for being stubborn or persistent or for simply hanging on. The struggle has passed. Blessed are we; right now. That is what the saints know.

The saints are flesh and blood and bone, as Jesus was; and they know what our struggles are, as Jesus did, and they know what our hope is; and that is what sets them apart from us. But not for long; never for long; and they don’t want to be set apart, they want to be with us, they want us to be with them. They are here, now, in this “thin time” they are as near as our next breath, and they know: the blessings on the merciful, and the mourning, and the pure in heart; on the peacemakers and the meek and the ones who are so hungry and thirsty for righteousness they are sure they can just taste, and if only they could be satisfied! They know, the saints, the wise and humble and loving saints, that we are with them, right now; and that we are blessed. Right now. And they want us to know it, too. For all the saints. God willing, we’ll see that we’re ones, too.

Because that’s what it means, to be children of God. The saints look just like you. Have hands, and hearts, and eyes, and ears, and mouths, shaped just like yours. And that is your blessing, now, and evermore. Because you are merciful. Because you are meek. Because, whether you know it or not, your heart is pure. Because you will never stop being hungry and thirsty for righteousness. Because you know it is there, that it will come, that it will be done. Because you know, the great ordeal is no ordeal at all. Because you know, that you want everyone else to know this; and to know they are blessed.

For all the saints. And you are one, too.

Amen.

Looking Forward To Wednesday

🚨 JAMIE RASKIN SENDS A MESSAGE ahead of the midterms: “There's no power to shut down the election.” “There is no power just to come in and seize ballots. There's no statute that permits that.” Raskin explains why state election officials are preparing to defend the vote against potential federal interference.

— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) October 31, 2026

JAMIE RASKIN SENDS A MESSAGE ahead of the midterms:

“There's no power to shut down the election.”

“There is no power just to come in and seize ballots. There's no statute that permits that.”

Raskin explains why state election officials are preparing to defend the vote against potential federal interference.

🚨 Rep. Jim Himes reveals lawmakers have WAR-GAMED a scenario in which Trump claims Russia or Iran hacked the midterms, then orders federal agents to seize voting machines. Himes says they've prepared for exactly this kind of potential Election Day interference. https://t.co/5zfM3VglUD

— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) October 31, 2026

There is no road to the seizure of election rolls, ballots, machines, what have you, that doesn’t run through the courts. 

Declaring “national security” is not a declaration of martial law, mainly because you can’t do that under the constitution (and thereby suspend both Congress and the courts). So it’s not a “King’s ‘X’ that lets the POTUS do as he pleases. Trump may tell federal agents to seize machines, but the actual act will violate state laws in every state, and those crimes can’t be pardoned by the POTUS. And his claimed authority will be challenged in almost 50 states at once. So, again, a non-starter.

All roads after Tuesday lead to the courts. That’s how we resolve these issues. Period. Lawyers and law makers should run table top simulations to prepare strategies, but Trump sending in ICE agents on his own authority will just provoke conflict with state police authorities. The President has no role in Congressional elections. He can’t challenge them en masse; he certainly can’t seize voting records en masse. The very demand of the DOJ of states to preserve those records (already required by law), cuts against any claim of emergency. The records aren’t going anywhere. And without evidence of actual falsification of results in specific races (not just a hand waving “We know Iran did something!”), Trump won’t get any further than he did in 2020.

And all of that had to go through the courts, too.

Besides, Trump already did this in Fulton, Georgia. (And no, he won’t be able to get hundreds of search warrants nationwide. Those would be challenged, too.) If they found anything, they never revealed it. And the Cyber Ninjas in Arizona went looking for more votes for Trump, and just ended up finding more votes for Biden.

Trump can’t do shit to prevent the election of a new Congress.

New Hallowe’en Costume: Secretary of Racism

I had no idea Secretary of Racism was a cabinet position

— George Conway ⚖️🇺🇸 (@gtconway3d) October 31, 2026

Some costumes come with a price tag. This one comes with a failed Presidency. To the Trump Administration officials stealing from American taxpayers: The tricks are over. The treats are running out. Happy Halloween! 🎃 https://t.co/BVHE0HsyzT

— Rep. James Walkinshaw (@Rep_Walkinshaw) October 31, 2026

🎶Seems Like Old Times

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) Centre has received a report of a vessel being boarded by unauthorized personnel off the coast of Somalia, in what is likely a piracy incident. https://t.co/nTAfpdOY27

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) October 31, 2026

Good thing Trump is gonna rename the Strait, huh?

Chattering Tongues

Talarico: They are spending more than $300 million to try to stop us. That is the most of any senate race in American history. And more is on the way. They are scared. They are terrified. They see what we see -- that we are about to win this election. https://t.co/brztXjVlMh

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 31, 2026

And they know it.

Paxton surrogate delivers confident closing remarks message: "We need God's intervention in this race" https://t.co/JjtuS21j08

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 31, 2026

Be careful what you ask for. It is a frightful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Especially when your guy is Ken Paxton.

PAXTON: Tell your friends the difference between me and James Talarico AUDIENCE MEMBER: Paxton, you take bribes! https://t.co/0EfC35Z8Sd

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 31, 2026

At that same rally.

Ken Paxton is speaking to DOZENS of supporters in Fort Worth 🔥 https://t.co/2x8EPCGX2V

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 31, 2026

In Michigan:

El-Sayed: I want an America where everybody, no matter who they are, feels safe. Whether you're a Jewish American or Christian American or Muslim American—that we feel safe and the kind of division that we've seen in our politics right now is really quite ugly https://t.co/LCREK6Bcmwe

of — Acyn (@Acyn) October 31, 2026

But Haley Stevens is upset that El Sayed won’t denounce an ad he had nothing to do with, an ad that doesn’t say Israel is the bestest ever!, and therefor is anti/semitic (BTW, if I read aloud the condemnations of Israel by God through the prophets, is that anti-Semitic?), so we must hear about it!

Dingell: You don't want to talk about health care. You don't want to talk about prescription drugs. CNN: I’d love to talk about it, but this is what the candidate is talking about https://t.co/H2BI369Y6M

— Acyn (@Acyn) November 1, 2026

Which candidate?

Q: Do you believe Haley Stevens is hurting the ticket? El-Sayed: I have much respect to the congresswoman. We had a hard fought primary. That primary ended in August. I'm focused now on beating Mike Rogers. I hope that every Democrat, frankly, I hope that everybody who's worried about the state of our democracy, worried about the ability to afford gas and groceries, worried about ending illegal wars or ending tariff wars is with me in that fight.

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 31, 2026

Q: Do you believe Haley Stevens is hurting the ticket?

El-Sayed: I have much respect to the congresswoman. We had a hard fought primary. That primary ended in August. I'm focused now on beating Mike Rogers. I hope that every Democrat, frankly, I hope that everybody who's worried about the state of our democracy, worried about the ability to afford gas and groceries, worried about ending illegal wars or ending tariff wars is with me in that fight.

Q: Is Haley Stevens trying to rat fuck your campaign? El-Sayed: That is not a question for me https://t.co/wK5tYoigVk

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 31, 2026

It’s really just gossip. That’s what the political press thrives on.

Former Haley Stevens campaign spokesperson/consultant 👇🏽 https://t.co/gwARj3lB7F

— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) October 31, 2026

I mean, if we’re gonna talk about gossip….

Yes can we get back to this please

— George Conway ⚖️🇺🇸 (@gtconway3d) October 31, 2026

DST 2026

And there is no beauty in it 

When I do count the clock that tells the time,

And see the brave day sunk in hideous night; 

When I behold the violet past prime, 

And sable curls all silver’d o’er with white; 

When lofty trees I see barren of leaves 

Which erst from heat did canopy the herd, 

And summer’s green all girded up in sheaves 

Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard, 

Then of thy beauty do I question make, 

That thou among the wastes of time must go, 

Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake 

And die as fast as they see others grow; 

And nothing ‘gainst Time’s scythe can make defence

Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence. 

And daylight savings time still sucks. I lived too many years (the whine of the old; but it will be you one day🫵)  on God’s time, and I don’t like what DST does to it. I always want to just suspend time on the first day DST ends.

And there are people who want to make the damned thing permanent. Why? Why not just eliminate it permanently? Then again, I’m more aware than ever that time is going to take me hence. Sooner now than later was then. 

I just hope it’s on DST. 😈

SMH 🤦‍♂️

ALASKA — “Did it impact who you’re gonna vote for?” “Not a bit.” “Can you tell who is who?” “Oh, absolutely.” https://t.co/d9xXIevOmC

— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) October 30, 2026

CNN: Did it impact your vote at all? Alaska Voter: Not a bit. CNN: Can you tell who's who here? AV: Absolutely. You've got Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. and then you have Sullivan Dan, who's a registered Republican and incumbent. And I don't even have my glasses on. It's pretty clear it's in black and white. It's very clear.

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 30, 2026

CNN: Did it impact your vote at all?

Alaska Voter: Not a bit.

CNN: Can you tell who's who here?

AV: Absolutely. You've got Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. and then you have Sullivan Dan, who's a registered Republican and incumbent. And I don't even have my glasses on. It's pretty clear it's in black and white. It's very clear.

Okay, now did this have an impact?

DOLL: Well, the legal reality is Alaska's supreme court already looked at this ballot issue because it was raised within Alaska. And as a result, they made the ballot clear that Dan Sullivan was the incumbent and the Republican. So the DOJ doesn't have jurisdiction around this. https://t.co/5bkUP5XiGL

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 30, 2026

The federal judge has given the DOJ until noon Friday .(Alaska time) to respond to Alaska’s motion to dismiss, and Alaska until noon tomorrow to respond to the DOJ’s filing. Alaska is asking for the case to be dismissed before Election Day. That may happen.

In the meantime, DOJ is pursuing a criminal investigation.

Separately, the Justice Department — as part of a lawsuit it filed last week — asked a judge to order that state elections officials isolate ballots ranking Dan J. Sullivan to investigate potential voter "confusion" with the senator. The owner of a boat dealership in the candidate's hometown of Petersburg who had donated to his campaign told The Associated Press that an FBI agent visited the business and wanted to know whether he had been misled by Dan J. Sullivan's candidacy. He said he had not and that "Everybody knows who the incumbent is."

Evidence of “confused” voters will be a factor in criminal, or civil, cases. And about that civil suit:

Justice Department attorneys in the Alaska case said there is a "substantial risk" that Dan J. Sullivan's candidacy "will mislead voters and ultimately result in an electoral process that lacks integrity."

"To guard against this danger, the United States seeks an order directing Defendants to preserve and segregate all ballots ranking Daniel J. Sullivan for the purposes of investigating whether such ranking was the product of voter confusion, should such an investigation become necessary," the filing states. It requests a decision by Monday.

Attorneys for the state in response questioned how segregation would be possible, writing that voters' ballots are commingled in the ballot box on Election Day and that election workers couldn't segregate ballots ranking Dan J. Sullivan without violating ballot secrecy protections. Ballots segregated or not wouldn't reveal any voter's reason for voting for Dan J. Sullivan, they said.

They have asked a judge to dismiss the case and said Alaska elections officials already took steps to distinguish the two Sullivans on the ballot. The senator is listed as Dan S. Sullivan, Republican and incumbent, while the challenger is listed as Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., with no party affiliation. That's also how they appeared on the August open primary ballot.

Attorneys for the state also have argued that Alaska's ranked voting system further addresses concerns about potential confusion by allowing voters to rank both Sullivans.

Especially because of the ranked voting system, I don’t think DOJ ever gets what it’s asking for.

He Has A Very High IQ

Trump on Iran: It's a war but it's... not a typical war. We've been there for 7 months. We're spending very little money, relatively speaking https://t.co/9YexRiNuvl

— FactPost (@factpostnews) October 30, 2026

Trump gets distracted mid-sentence: Is that a helicopter? Ooh! You want to see a nice helicopter? How about the helipad? https://t.co/JK8LvuGuxm

— FactPost (@factpostnews) October 30, 2026

"Where was I? Oh, yeah…”

Trump: We can't take care of daycare. We're fighting wars. It's not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these things. https://t.co/0XLvOqnphM

— FactPost (@factpostnews) October 30, 2026

Trump is interrupted by a protester minutes into his Florida rally https://t.co/9TqFvrCW17

— FactPost (@factpostnews) October 31, 2026

Fitting.

 

Trump: Nobody knows DUMB has a B. I can’t believe it took me 9 years to figure it out. https://t.co/sKnvc9JgCH

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 31, 2026

He has a very high IQ.

@jaketapper

— HuskerTJ 🇺🇸🦅 (@Huskertj49) October 31, 2026

You can tell the hecklers are legit in his head. This has been the most consistently outstanding stream of daily heckling over the course of several weeks in American political history. Quality work from all involved.

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) October 31, 2026

Closing Arguments

Ken Paxton’s former top cop on why he’s voting for James Talarico: I spent 2 hours with James Talarico. Number one, I saw no deception. He answered all my difficult questions. He didn’t dodge anything. He hit it head on. I have been around politicians my entire life. I served 5 governors, I’ve met 4 presidents… And James Talarico is so different than other people I’ve encountered. I think he’s the man who needs to go to Washington DC, and Ken Paxton needs to go home.

— Team Talarico (@TeamTalaricoHQ) October 29, 2026

Ken Paxton’s former top cop on why he’s voting for James Talarico:

I spent 2 hours with James Talarico. Number one, I saw no deception. He answered all my difficult questions. He didn’t dodge anything. He hit it head on.

I have been around politicians my entire life. I served 5 governors, I’ve met 4 presidents… And James Talarico is so different than other people I’ve encountered.

I think he’s the man who needs to go to Washington DC, and Ken Paxton needs to go home.

Retired Republican County Judge Glen Whitley endorses James Talarico for US Senate: “I’m ashamed that Ken Paxton is even on the ballot. He’s the most corrupt politician Texas has ever seen.” https://t.co/ZpXoNmENJY

— Team Talarico (@TeamTalaricoHQ) October 30, 2026

James Talarico meets with Texans at Buc-ee’s: “I’m a recovering Republican and this is the first time I voted a straight ticket for the Democrats in my life.” https://t.co/u7kAWGVFor

— Team Talarico (@TeamTalaricoHQ) October 30, 2026

You know for someone who supposedly spent all last month in a mental hospital, James Talarico sure is running one hell of a campaign down the stretch.

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) October 31, 2026

Sure looks like it.

Another demented hoax from a desperate, corrupt congenital liar. https://t.co/EEZkyZldFf

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) October 31, 2026

And how much did Elmo pay a political consultant to come up with that one and post it on the last day of early voting? Does he imagine this is outreach?

That’s a lot of Talafreakos in one room. https://t.co/GGO4DEvRl3

— James Talarico (@jamestalarico) October 29, 2026

How many people has Paxton ever gathered at one time?

Ted Cruz: Democrats are showing up and they're energized. If the election were over today, Republicans would lose massively. It would be a bloodbath. https://t.co/DYeTHPJjbD

— FactPost (@factpostnews) October 30, 2026

A tweet three days before Election Day is not likely to change the course of the election.

Ted Cruz: We could lose every single statewide race in Texas https://t.co/XvVez2axzb

— FactPost (@factpostnews) October 30, 2026

😈

Is He Talking About Trump?

Projection. Pure projection.

— George Conway ⚖️🇺🇸 (@gtconway3d) October 30, 2026

Miller, I mean.

🎃🐈‍⬛🌾🥮👻 🎄?

 Well, yeah, kinda:

No social plans tonight but I might head out onto the balcony in a bit and start screaming "DID YOU KNOW HALLOWEEN IS IRISH ORIGINALLY?" as loud as I can

The connection between Samhain and All Hallow’s Even is a tenuous one, at best. 

AND I WARNED YOU THIS WOULD TAKE MANY WORDS TO EXPLAIN! 👻

I’ve already quoted the history of All Saints Day. The idea was floated as early as the late 4th century.  But Gregory III finally did something about it in the 8th century.Well, again, I’ll just quote the pertinent language:

Gregory III (731-741) consecrated a chapel in the Basilica of St. Peter to all the saints and fixed the anniversary for 1 November. A basilica of the Apostles already existed in Rome, and its dedication was annually remembered on 1 May. Gregory IV (827-844) extended the celebration on 1 November to the entire Church. The vigil seems to have been held as early as the feast itself

Alright, three things there. 1 May in Ireland was Beltane, about 6 months prior to (or after; either way) Samhain, on 1 November.  These were the two most important holy days on the Irish Celtic calendar. And yet no one ever argues the Roman Catholic dedication anniversary was connected to Ireland. Mostly because no one remembers it anymore, but the connection is as solid as the connection to All Saints. Which is to say, not solid at all. Besides, All Saints displaced Samhain to the vigil, or eve. And Gregory III set the date on November 1, but Gregory IV made it a date for the entire church almost 100 years later. At which point is it clear when the Church acted in response to the Irish holy day? Which was important in Ireland, but not really in Europe? 

The best information I can find indicates observance of Samhain was connected to stories of gods and heroes not dissimilar from the tales in the Elder Edda. But we don’t associate those stories with ghoulies and ghosties and things that go bump in the night, so, again, the connection to contemporary Hallowe’en (“contemporary” as of Robert Burns) is suspect. Well, except for the date.

Stick with me, I do have a point, and it’s not to rehash the Hallowe’en/Samhain confusion a third time. I’m actually interested in the connection between All Hallow’s Even and Christmas Eve, and what it tells us about our celebrations. For that, we need to dig down to the roots.

I’d read this book before*, so I must have forgotten this reference from the late 16th century. The reference is to the “Lord of Misrule” being chosen on All Hallow’s Eve, for a celebration that extended to Candlemas (February 2nd, observance of the presentation of the Christchild to Simeon at the Temple). This connects more with the reason the Puritans banned Christmas in the New World than with Ireland per se. The “Lord of Misrule” indicates a raucous Christmas celebration probably like the “Feast of Fools” on the Continent. You may have noticed this makes Hallowe’en the gateway to Advent and Christmas, as well as nearly a month of Epiphany. (Candlemas was not a small thing. The tradition in England persisted for centuries that the Yuletide greenery could not be removed until Candlemas, lest demons beset you. Come back on Candlemas. I have poems about it.) The gateway because raucous celebrations were a common feature of British Xmastide (the famous “12 Days of “). With idle time on their hands and most of the food going up to the lords, singing assaults on fine houses expecting a treat in recompense became a social pacifier. The Lord of Misrule was part of that. If it started around All Saints, and continued until Candlemas, All Hallows Eve opened door in October that didn’t close until February. At least not in the British Isles. 

Raucous celebrations may have Irish roots, too, but especially at year’s end, they’ve been popular in many European cultures that long ago abandoned the Feast of Fools. My father was old enough to remember when the emphasis in “Trick or Treat” was on the trick, not the treat. Hallowe’en was a sanctioned day for tricks, not unlike Christmas Day (come back in Advent and you’ll see what I mean). I heard stories of tricks and treats in my childhood, but by then Hallowe’en was entirely domesticated. This is just a reminder it wasn’t always so.

Is Hallowe’en still Samhain? Except for the dates, it’s hard to say so. Some think Gregory III set the date to take over Samhain. But it was almost 100 years later before Gregory IV made the date “universal.” Was the church indifferent to Ireland and its holy days before then? Well, maybe; but there’s no record of it. Gregory III was probably looking at the Church Calendar, not the Irish one. Gregory IV was just as likely thinking of the Church, not Ireland alone. So the date is as likely to be coincidental as intentional. Besides, Samhain didn’t disappear; it just changed dates (unlike Brigid, who was utterly transformed into a saint of the Church; as a Celtic goddess she disappeared until the recovery of Irish folklore in the 20th century). And looking at the church calendar in Gregory III’s day, is it really so hard to see the connection to the Christ Mass, which eventually gave us Xmas Eve?

Samhain became more associated with the Lord of Misrule than ghosts or Celtic heroes, before it became a holiday for children seeking candy. The Feast of Fools was finally banned in England (and on the Continent) in the 1600’s (the Puritans hated its remnant: raucous Xmas celebrations, which involved a lot of drinking.). Hallowe’en persisted as the Eve of All Saints, though Henry VIII and Elizabeth I both tried to suppress it because it was a “papal holiday” (they had their own, non-Puritanical, reasons). But it was a witch trial under James I (the same fervor that jumped the pond to Salem), linked to an alleged incident on Hallowe’en night, that connected the day to witches thereafter. And then the Victorians using the Romantics interest in folklore (as the Industrial Revolution swept that world away) to take new interest in ghost stories, well…

So, is that Irish? It’s more a series of accidents of history, but it didn’t wipe out the celebration, as the Burns poem shows (the Scots have more in common with the Irish than the English). It just added witches to it; and other thing later on (via James I, albeit accidentally). The celebration of the holiday, mostly along the lines Burns memorialized, continued in the British Isles, mostly excluding England; but the festivities in England and Europe shifted to Michaelmas (12 November) and the slaughter of livestock as part of the festival, for the winter. No candy, though. The Scots and the Irish did bring Hallowe’en to America in the second half of the 19th century, with the diaspora brought by the potato famines. (How the Irish saved civilization. Again.) But it was received as a celebration for children, which probably explains how we ended up with the holiday we have today.

The interesting contemporary part is that, again, it’s an eve celebrating a Christian holiday. Granted, these days more of us think of Dias de Los Muertos than think of All Saints Day. But we have three holiday eves on our civic calendar, and Hallowe’en is the first of them. It is the beginning of the revelry that once carried from this celebration through to at least Candlemas in England, and Ash Wednesday in Roman Catholic Europe. It’s our dour Puritan heritage that makes us denounce it as demonic, or relegate it to children; and then lament more recently that the celebrations of our childhood are gone, and adults have turned it (back, historically) into drunken revelry.

Or is everything old just new again? And rather than complain about Xmas overtaking Hallowe’en, maybe we could recognize the 10 weeks or so of holidays that are trying to return, if only because in order to rejoice, we need to construct something upon which to rejoice; and that something doesn’t need to be too much of an abstraction.

Hallowe’en does have an Irish root, if only in the keeping of it to the 19th century. But the celebration we observe today (and, ironically, sent back to Europe), wouldn’t be recognizable in pre-Christian, or even Christian, Ireland. Which is not to discount the Celtic connection; but it’s hardly an observance that’s come down to us unchanged through the ages, only lately bastardized by candy merchants. Though I am intrigued by that reference in New Advent to the vigil being attached to the feast day almost from the beginning. Was Ireland that influential in Europe in the 8th century? And for the centuries between the 8th century and the 12th (when the Feast of Fools began to appear), what was that vigil like? 👻 What is it about these multiple eves, anyway?

Maybe we’re trying to find out. We’ve certainly been keeping them long enough, even long after Protestantism removed the Roman Catholic connections. Maybe we should look at the reasons for that more carefully, and perhaps construct new reasons to rejoice, if we need them. Or find a few good old ones, for all of that.

After all, Christmas and Hallowe’en are our two holidays when we especially want to do things as they’ve always been done. And they’re both meant to be for fun.

*Aside from the link, I relied on Trick or Treat; A History of Hallowe’en, Reaktion Books, 2019, by Lisa Morton, for much of this post.

Do They Think They’re “G-Men” In A ‘40’s Mobster Movie?

Bessent on Fraud: Anyone who submits information that leads to a conviction or enforcement action may be eligible for its $30,000 reward. Speaking up has long carried a cost, Under President Trump, it can offer a reward. https://t.co/GWmigT2hGw

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 30, 2026

Bessent on Fraud: Under this president's leadership, wherever the money leads, the full weight of government will follow. https://t.co/R1vZrxAWzS

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 30, 2026

OZ: Should we be using federal tax dollars to pay people as they hang out in club houses for crooks? https://t.co/10AA4z5pmm

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 30, 2026

You mean a place where a hamburger costs $5000? Or do you mean the White House?

A new filing from President Donald Trump’s Truth Social company shows it expects payment from Freedom 250, a National Park Service-backed group responsible for staging America’s 250th birthday events.

The filing lists the ad deal among the company’s related-party transactions involving company insiders. It notes that Trump Media board member Meredith O’Rourke also sits on the board of the National Park Foundation, which created and runs Freedom 250.

OZ: Think of The Godfather. You've got all these street operators doing all kinds of illicit activities. But Don Corleone is taking the money at the top of the pyramid. https://t.co/tQWFAkJbJL

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 30, 2026

The White House, then.

Wait, when the story broke Habba said it was fake news. I guess maybe it was legit. https://t.co/V43qHYQcH6

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) October 29, 2026

Trump just wants “a taste.”

Q: Trump has mentioned that there was billions and billions of dollars are fraud here, but the fraud that has been uncovered so far is well under that figure. Bessent: Whether it is $500,000 or several million, it will continue to add up. The real tragedy is these programs are being shut down. I heard from two parents, who the program for autistic children needed had been shut down.

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 30, 2026

Q: Trump has mentioned that there was billions and billions of dollars are fraud here, but the fraud that has been uncovered so far is well under that figure.

Bessent: Whether it is $500,000 or several million, it will continue to add up.

The real tragedy is these programs are being shut down. I heard from two parents, who the program for autistic children needed had been shut down.

Did DOGE do that? Or did Russell Vought?

Q: If the administration has declared war on waste and fraud, can you explain the $420 million overpayment for a prison in Appleton, Minnesota, when the company offered it to the state of Minnesota for $75 million? BESSENT: That question is a waste of time. https://t.co/R7u5BrKD3r

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 30, 2026

So is Bessent.  Even Don Corleonr knew that reality got a vote.

What The Meaning Of “Is,” Is

Judge Reyes wastes no time She begins hearing reading rules that prevent lawyers from misrepresenting facts and positions to the court (For days, Justice Dept said there was no plan to close East Potomac Park on Nov 15... Then this week, they changed their story)

— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) October 30, 2026

Or, how to destroy the DOJ in less than 2 years.

Justice Dept lawyer is employing a tactic we've seen quite a bit during Trump 2.0. (The "I'm new here" argument) Lawyer says he's new to the case and hasn't read everything about the case. "We have lots of binders"

— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) October 30, 2026

"Me no Alamo."

Judge asks Dept of Interior official if Secretary of Interior Doug Burgum is involved in the East Potomac Park project Dept of Interior official: "What do you mean by 'involved?" Judge is literally getting a dictionary to read out the defintion of the word "involved"!!

— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) October 30, 2026

DOI official to Judge: "Make me!"

Judge: "When did you become aware of a plan to close the golf course in November 15th? Dept of Interior official: "A plan?" Judge: Do I need to get the dictionary again.. to read out the definition of "plan"?

— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) October 30, 2026

DOI official: "English is my second or third language."

Whoa Assistant Atty General Stanley Woodward tries to intervene and halt the questioning of Dept of Interior official about East Potomac Park Judge pushes back... and says no Judge to Woodward: "It sounds like you don't want him to answer a very straightforward question"

— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) October 30, 2026

When you’re trying to save your client from the judge….

Woodward says Trump's Oct 18 social media post said the park "should be" closed on November 15 Judge interjects: NO, he didn't say "should be". He said it WILL be closed Judge: "We shouldn't put words in the President's mouth"

— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) October 30, 2026

It doesn’t matter, because the President’s social media posts are covered by executive privilege (wait for it…)

Asst Attorney General Stanley Woodward argues Trump's social media posts on Oct 18 and Oct 25 about the closure of the golf course on Nov 15 wasn't actually a "plan" to close the course Judge: "You're telling me, that even now, that there was no plan.. . You're the 3rd ranking official at DOJ.. you're saying 'Do not believe the President!"

— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) October 30, 2026

Asst Attorney General Stanley Woodward argues Trump's social media posts on Oct 18 and Oct 25 about the closure of the golf course on Nov 15 wasn't actually a "plan" to close the course

Judge: "You're telling me, that even now, that there was no plan.. . You're the 3rd ranking official at DOJ.. you're saying 'Do not believe the President!"

This is going well.

Judge asks Stanley Woodward again about how Woodward interpreted the Trump social media post announcing golf course will close Nov 15. Woodward: That falls under executive privilege Judge: He posted it!!!!!

— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) October 30, 2026

Told ya! Hang on, it gets worse.

After brief huddle, the Asst. Atty General regathers and tells judge: "The course is not currently scheduled to close on Nov. 15" There's "a notice of an intent to close." "We would never violate the court's order"

— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) October 30, 2026

So they abandoned that blind alley and went for conciliation.

Judge asks specifically: When was the first act to close the golf course taken? Woodward doesn't know. Probably not until (October) 26th. Woodward said he'll check

— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) October 30, 2026

Woodward finally gets his head out of his ass.

Trump Admin officials are arguing they need to replace a seawall at East Potomac Park Judge: "What's the safety issue?" Asst Atty General won't answer. He questions why judge is engaging in this line of inquiry Court filings indicate erosion issues. But judge wants to know if people are unsafe because of it Trump Admin attorneys won't answer

— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) October 30, 2026

Trump Admin officials are arguing they need to replace a seawall at East Potomac Park

Judge: "What's the safety issue?"

Asst Atty General won't answer. He questions why judge is engaging in this line of inquiry

Court filings indicate erosion issues. But judge wants to know if people are unsafe because of it

Trump Admin attorneys won't answer

And then regrets it.

Justice Dept says there are pockets of money that can be used for such projects (including the seawall) Judge notes how Admin has cut funds to Dept of Interior

— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) October 30, 2026

Judge Reyes asks Justice Dept for an estimate of entire price of golf course renovation Trump Admin attorney: There is no estimate. "Why would you assume that?" Reyes: If we're going to use taxpayer money, I assumed we'd have some idea of what it'd cost

— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) October 30, 2026

"Why would you assume that?” Head has retreated firmly back up ass.

Judge orders another breather This has been a mess. Judge is still getting the run-around Politically: The Admin is clearly poised to spend an undetermined amount of money (hundreds of millions of $$'s) to renovate this public golf course in DC to suit the President's wants

— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) October 30, 2026

ALERT: Judge Reyes says she'll launch inquiry into Trump Admin attorneys "conduct" in the East Potomac Park case

— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) October 30, 2026

They done pissed off a federal judge. And saying “We would never defy a court order” is not pacification.

ALERT (more): Judge Reyes is appointing a special master to probe Trump Administration's statements to court about East Potomac Park golf course Investigation will be launched in days

— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) October 30, 2026

Now there are two issues, and one is: who’s going to be held responsible for fucking the court around? Trump doesn’t have the authority to do what he’s doing, and the DOJ can’t even come with a prelude to a statute to give him just the ghost of some legal authority.

Unless Roberts can invent one. But by then I think Congress will have shut this farce down.

Scheduling For Change

Talarico: "Ken Paxton is canceling rallies because nobody is showing up. He can't recruit volunteers, so he uses AI bots. He doesn't have any grassroots donors, so he's relying on the richest man in the world to fund his campaign." https://t.co/PkHK4VXlVE

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 30, 2026

speaker at Paxton rally confuses attendees during worst game of Simon Says ever https://t.co/c1iG8jE9AA

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 30, 2026

Meanwhile, back in Alaska:

Why is the Senate Republican PAC spending money to boost a Democrat and a Green Party candidate in Alaska? This needs to be investigated. https://t.co/IhIV5L82KT

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) October 30, 2026

Clearly these people need to be thrown off the ballot, and everyone involved put in prison!

Ted Cruz: Democrats are showing up and they're energized. If the election were over today, Republicans would lose massively. It would be a bloodbath. https://t.co/DYeTHPJjbD

— FactPost (@factpostnews) October 30, 2026

Ted Cruz: We could lose every single statewide race in Texas https://t.co/XvVez2axzb

— FactPost (@factpostnews) October 30, 2026

From Ted’s lips to God’s ear.  (The GOP internals must be fucking brutal!)

Oh, yeah! The big news today!

"A source tells Fox News that President Trump's rallies [this weekend] are back on" 😆 (He really didn't like the optics of canceling them) https://t.co/31DqNAbNTX

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 30, 2026

SCHEDULING CHANGE: Trump rallies in Kansas, Iowa back on, per source familiar "Rallies are BACK ON! President Trump loves his supporters, and in addition to nearly 20 tele-rallies, he will hold back-to-back rallies in Kansas and Iowa on Sunday. No one works harder, fights harder, or loves the American people more than President Donald J. Trump! The rallies were rearranged for scheduling purposes to accommodate dozens of additional tele-rallies that were recently added to the President’s schedule."

— Jacqui Heinrich (@JacquiHeinrich) October 30, 2026

SCHEDULING CHANGE: Trump rallies in Kansas, Iowa back on, per source familiar "Rallies are BACK ON! President Trump loves his supporters, and in addition to nearly 20 tele-rallies, he will hold back-to-back rallies in Kansas and Iowa on Sunday. No one works harder, fights harder, or loves the American people more than President Donald J. Trump!

The rallies were rearranged for scheduling purposes to accommodate dozens of additional tele-rallies that were recently added to the President’s schedule."

this question is why Trump is un-canceling his weekend rallies. his crashout here was very telling.

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 30, 2026

Democratic candidates learning that Trump's rallies are back on this weekend https://t.co/QqFKE7S9qh

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 30, 2026

The US government should not own companies. https://t.co/XkKtijCcKK

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) October 30, 2026

Our long national nightmare is over. https://t.co/iZ73wDDs09

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) October 30, 2026

But that Alaska story really hurts Dems!

Well, They Weaponized Their Camera!🎥

New footage shows masked ICE agent slashing the tires of a couple filming them and driving away. https://t.co/kyJcGeMvdv

— FactPost (@factpostnews) October 30, 2026

ABOLISH ICE!

Connect The Dots

Fox: Why are you here this morning? Trump rally attendee: Well, in the late 70s, I was a little too young to go to South America for the Jonestown Massacre. But this is as close as I'll ever get, so that's why I'm here. There's nothing like seeing a cult right up front. https://t.co/wGMf2GTV4E

— FactPost (@factpostnews) October 29, 2026

This guy 👆was escorted out of the venue shortly after that incident aired, by the Secret Service. He was there by invitation, he registered under his name, he got through the private security screening at the door.

He’s also hated Trump since the Central Park Five.

I really want to buy this guy a beer 🍻 

But now Trump has cancelled his rallies, and Vance has cancelled one in Minnesota. True, Trump doesn’t seem to be moving the needle (Quelle surprise!). And Vance is a disaster:

The woman asks how she is supposed to afford to live and Vance responds, “let me point out that I've only been asked about Jon Husted's ass once tonight.” He is really, really bad at this.

— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) October 30, 2026

They threw this guy out because he wasn’t MAGA. Maybe that’s SOP for political rallies. But it strikes me as reactionary and paranoid.

Tell me again why the NYT story about Peltola (which seems poorly sourced and supported, and irrelevant given the ranked voting system there) is bad for Democrats, but this… 🦗🦗🦗

I’m Pretty Sure Our Long National Nightmare Is Over

 The DOJ sued California because…well, I guess because Trump carried the state in 2024, but California couldn’t admit it.

The DOJ sued California on Oct. 15, minutes after a 48-hour deadline it had given the state to review a list of more than 20,000 voters it called “likely noncitizens.” The list arrived on a thumb drive sent to the Los Angeles County registrar after roughly 5.9 million mail ballots had already gone out. The registrar concluded that the DOJ’s instructions were “legally prohibited” because the government provided no evidence for its claims.

Carter picked apart how the list was built. Homeland Security Investigations bought a California voter file, and it was run through federal immigration data and a third-party analytics platform. The government didn’t reveal until the night before the hearing that the platform was LexisNexis. Carter said the government never disclosed its matching rules, its confidence thresholds, what its “enrichment process” involved, or any error rates.

Because Trump never admits errors!

“The Court cannot conclude that Plaintiff’s process is credible,” Carter wrote. “Given that Plaintiff’s entire claim for relief rests on the sincerity of this allegation, Plaintiff’s lack of credibility weighs against a finding in their favor.”

He also pointed to the DOJ’s track record. The department “has filed at least thirty-one lawsuits in federal district courts across the country seeking complete voter rolls from the States. Out of the twenty-six decided cases, the DOJ has prevailed in precisely zero.”

I'm old enough to remember when the idea that the DOJ could mislead the courts, or not be trusted, was a hurdle the courts could not get over. Trump and Blanche have finally obliterated that obstacle.

The judge found the government likely lacks standing, and that its request would likely violate the National Voter Registration Act’s ban on systematic voter purges within 90 days of an election. He also said any emergency was of the government’s own making. It bought California’s voter rolls in May but waited until mid-October to sue.

“Plaintiff’s theoretical risk of imminent harm is solely due to its own neglect,” Carter wrote.

He warned that naturalized citizens were most at risk of losing their votes. He cited evidence that federal employees were given “only twelve minutes to determine if a subject is a U.S. citizen.”

“It is no surprise that citizens are wrongly identified as noncitizens,” he wrote.

Carter closed with a blunt warning.

“If the Executive can discount votes and threaten an ongoing election due to unproven allegations, then our democracy is in danger,” the judge wrote. “This Court declines to be a party to such process.”

Early voting in Texas ends today. I mention that because all windows to effect this election are closing. Tuesday is the last day. Any challenges to outcomes will require extraordinary evidence, and I would remind you that even the Roberts Court refused to get involved in Trump’s fantasies in 2020. This is the end, my beautiful friend, the end. Trump could drag the DOJ into another challenge in 2028, but it won’t involve him, so why should he?

As the court said in the California case:

“In bringing this lawsuit, the Executive would have this Court believe that it reigns as a sole sovereign,” he added. “But California and its people are sovereign, too.”

We’re all about to learn that lesson, again.

I’ll Retire To Bedlam

 My window on this is admittedly small, but Stephanie Ruhle yesterday morning went on and on about how “2 Dan Sullivans” hurt the Democrats (meaning the national party) because…reasons. 

Everyone ran for their fainting couch, ignoring the fact this issue had been adjudicated by the Alaska courts up to the state Supreme Court, which ruled it didn’t matter how many “Dan Sullivans” were on the ballot.

All that matters is the gossip.

The Republican Party has done this kind of thing hundreds of times for many years using dark money PACs. It’s part of their standard playbook going back decades. Their largest donor has also given out $1 million bonuses to voters. But two Dan Sullivans in AK is the crime of the century because Dems are held to a much different standard.

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) October 30, 2026

The Republican Party has done this kind of thing hundreds of times for many years using dark money PACs. It’s part of their standard playbook going back decades. Their largest donor has also given out $1 million bonuses to voters. But two Dan Sullivans in AK is the crime of the century because Dems are held to a much different standard.

Republicans constantly do dirty and deceptive tricks like this to deceive and mislead voters. But we’re supposed to be super outraged about 2 Dan Sullivans on the ballot.

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) October 30, 2026

https://t.co/vCXVkNBhAb

— Christopher Hooks (@cd_hooks) October 30, 2026

Following an order from a Travis County judge, the Republican Women’s Caucus (RWC) Fund and a man named John Braun have been identified as the names behind controversial text messages sent to Texans earlier this month purporting to offer resources to transgender students, seemingly confirming widespread speculation that the effort was a Republican political ploy. Some three million mailers containing similar information were also sent.

The revelation, first reported here, comes in the final days of a tight Senate race between Democrat James Talarico and Republican Ken Paxton, whose former impeachment lawyer, Chris Hilton, appeared in court on behalf of the Texas Transgender Student Union (TTSU), a Wyoming-based LLC that was anonymously registered in September and was reportedly behind the mailers that directed readers to the website of the Transgender Education Network of Texas (TENT), a real LGBTQ+ advocacy group that swiftly denied sending the messages or mailers. TTSU said through its attorney in a court filing that the entity “is not going to engage in any further text or mail communications.”

On Tuesday, Travis County District Judge Jan Soifer ordered from the bench oral deposition of a representative of TTSU and denied the organization’s motion to dismiss. Soifer also ordered Infobip, a mass text-messaging company that sent the text messages on behalf of a client, to respond to written questions. Hilton, who represents both TTSU and Infobip’s client, argued that the push to reveal his clients’ identity before the election is politically motivated and would cause harm.

Meanwhile:

Well that was one hell of a closing argument tour by Trump on behalf of candidates. He salivated over men’s body parts, said high gas prices are good because oil companies are making billions, bragged about his ballroom, and said if he gave people $5k they still couldn’t afford to buy dinner at his club.

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) October 30, 2026

Well that was one hell of a closing argument tour by Trump on behalf of candidates. He salivated over men’s body parts, said high gas prices are good because oil companies are making billions, bragged about his ballroom, and said if he gave people $5k they still couldn’t afford to buy dinner at his club.

All Hallow’s Even

Some of my best childhood memories revolve around Hallowe'en.  My mother's youngest sister, the "crazy" aunt who came to our church Halloween party (this was when I was just barely too old to wander the streets at night with the "children"), put on makeup to look like a corpse in a coffin, and then joined us to bob for apples (probably the first time I'd done that, and I found out what hard, wet work it is.  And what absolutely foolish fun.).  Or just the freedom of wandering the streets at night without my parents in tow, joining all the neighborhood kids of the Baby Boom as we walked from house to house in clumps that gathered and broke again, passing stories of where to get the best candy, or the homemade stuff like popcorn balls and caramel apples, stuff always gone by the time you got there, or always from a house several streets over of undetermined location or ill-defined description.  And the story always included that house being "out" by the time you heard of it.  It prepared us for Christmases when we'd have to find the "IT" toy for our kids in an unforeseeable future.  A future that included my wife dressing up in black tights and leotard she wore in high school, to costume herself as a "cat" for our daughter's first Hallowe'en....oh, wait.  You don't need to hear about that one.

That aunt is gone this year, leaving me with the Peanuts Hallowe’en card I can’t send. For some reason I started sending her one in high school, and I kept it up as best I could year after year.  Now last year was the last year. Oddly, this year, I remember that Hallowe’en falls exactly three weeks after my brother’s birthday: October 10.  He’s been gone…5 years now? I should remember, you’d think…and for the over 6 decades I knew him, I never seem to have made the connection between the holiday and his birthday. I remember going out on Hallowe’en evening when we were both young enough, but old enough to escape parental supervision. But his birthday, in my mind, was connected to Columbus Day. I remember childhood Hallowe’ens with him, now more than ever. But I never made that 3-week connection before. Maybe this year it will be the return of my loved ones, as the days shorten and the nights deepen.

All the internet bluster about Hallowe'en and Samhain from years back seems to have faded now, as well as the business of Hallowe'en being "stolen" from "ancient practices."  Most of that is echoing remnants of the early 19th century, Romanticism turning into Victorianism.  It was the Romantic movement that began to preserve "folklore," as it came to be called.  "Came to be" not because it was illegitimate, but because it was ignored and despised before the Romantics, who saved it but didn't revive it.  The Victorians then supercharged it, along with fuzzy memories of medieval Europe.  Most of the ghost stories and "monsters" we know now (vampires, werewolves, ghosts, goblins, even witches) are products of the Victorian imagination, not remnants of stories told around campfires 3 millenia ago.  The Victorians tried to link them to an imagined past in order to make them "authentic" in a risingly scientific age, but the connections are horseshit.  Most of those stories are distinctly "modern." Frankenstein was a product of the Romantic beginning of the 19th century; Dracula came out of the late Victorian era, and is a novel at great pains to place itself in its contemporary setting by including what was then cutting edge technology to tell the story. But it’s told in the epistolary style of the novels of the…late 18th century. The 19th and early 20th centuries are the great era of our most prized ghost stories including, of course, the stories by Edgar Allan Poe (a man under-appreciated for his narrative gifts, and over-appreciated for his few poetic ones).

Poe's stories were “modern,” most of them conveniently set in a Europe of an indeterminate age when people dressed in what is now costume and ran around in castles and buildings that look more like something from a Disney theme park than reality.  (We hadn’t yet come to Twain’s Realism.) And Poe was writing those in the mid-19th century, in America. Again, the connection to an imagined past gave the stories the verisimilitude they required.

So most of our Hallowe'en is a matter of memory and conjecture, and the stories we tell ourselves.  But it isn't rooted in some "truth" we destroyed with our "enlightenment" or our "progress."  That Romantic nostalgia prompted by the Industrial Revolution which drove us to protect “folklore” became the “truth” we imbued those stories with, the “wisdom” our “modern” era lost. As with most things, our "truth" about these matters is what we say it is.

Hallowe’en began as the vigil for All Saints Day, making it the most well-known vigil for a feast day outside of Christmas Eve. Holy Saturday is the vigil for Easter, still the proper day of the Great Vigil, which can be the most powerful liturgy in Christianity. Literally speaking, Holy Saturday is Easter Eve. But popularly, we know only two vigils, and the only service widely known now is the Candlelight Christmas Eve Service, itself moved back from midnight to evening, the better to get us home early and away from church on Christmas Day, even on Sunday. 

Don’t get me started.

So Hallowe’en is actually the vigil for All Saint’s. But we’ve forgotten that.

All Saint's Day, per New Advent, started in...well, here, let me just give you the whole magilla:

In the early days the Christians were accustomed to solemnize the anniversary of a martyr's death for Christ at the place of martyrdom. In the fourth century, neighbouring dioceses began to interchange feasts, to transfer relics, to divide them, and to join in a common feast; as is shown by the invitation of St. Basil of Caesarea (379) to the bishops of the province of Pontus. Frequently groups of martyrs suffered on the same day, which naturally led to a joint commemoration. In the persecution of Diocletian the number of martyrs became so great that a separate day could not be assigned to each. But the Church, feeling that every martyr should be venerated, appointed a common day for all. The first trace of this we find in Antioch on the Sunday after Pentecost. We also find mention of a common day in a sermon of St. Ephrem the Syrian (373), and in the 74th homily of St. John Chrysostom (407). At first only martyrs and St. John the Baptist were honoured by a special day. Other saints were added gradually, and increased in number when a regular process of canonization was established; still, as early as 411 there is in the Chaldean Calendar a "Commemoratio Confessorum" for the Friday after Easter. In the West Boniface IV, 13 May, 609, or 610, consecrated the Pantheon in Rome to the Blessed Virgin and all the martyrs, ordering an anniversary. Gregory III (731-741) consecrated a chapel in the Basilica of St. Peter to all the saints and fixed the anniversary for 1 November. A basilica of the Apostles already existed in Rome, and its dedication was annually remembered on 1 May. Gregory IV (827-844) extended the celebration on 1 November to the entire Church. The vigil seems to have been held as early as the feast itself. The octave was added by Sixtus IV (1471-84).

So, mid-9th century, it got set as a date on the Church's calendar.  That led, later, to All Soul's on November 2.  The connections to Ireland, especially jack o' lanterns (turnips in Ireland, only after a long period exclusively pumpkins, which are as American as corn and tobacco) didn't really come until the 19th century.  Attempted connections between the Irish Samhain and All Saint's are all pretty much retrojection, especially as an attempt to connect Hallowe'en to Irish practices it supposedly overtook. Gregory was a long way from Ireland in the 9th century and Christianity only reached the island in that century.  It's a pretty small tail wagging a pretty large dog to imagine Gregory picked the date for the entire church just to appeal to an Irish pagan festival. I think Patrick was the better evangelist to the island.

The vigil that became Hallowe’en appears in the literature as early as Shakespeare, where the practices of the Roman church were slowly being turned Anglican; but that's another story.  Curiously, most of the literature on Hallowe'en begins in the late 18th century with Robert Burns in Scotland (call it Pre-Romanticism. Burns was just writing about what he knew, but accepting it and recognizing it, was down to the Romantics). Hallowe’en literature continues in the early 19th century with Walter Scott.  It jumps the pond to Washington Irving's story of Ichabod Crane, where Disney (?; or someone before them) transforms the pumpkin into a jack o' lantern, which made the tale into a Hallowe'en story.  It’s a grand irony that the persecution of single women and elderly widows in 16th century Puritan Salem became inextricably connected to Hallowe’en by Disney, too (“Hocus Pocus”). Thus do we domesticate our worst history and invent our monsters. 👹 

And then we get Poe.  The iconic black cat 🐈‍⬛ of Hallowe'en decorations arguably stems from Poe's story of the same name.  By Poe's time, of course, especially in Puritan tinctured America, the holiday has nothing to do with the Roman Catholic vigil. Poe never set any story at Hallowe’en, and as late as 1937 Edith Wharton sets her last ghost story (she wrote several) on the eve of All Saint’s without ever mentioning the word “Hallowe’en.” But we’ve found great value ($) in doing it in the past half-century, so that now it rivals Xmas Eve and whets our consumer appetite for the year’s end.

Interestingly, the Aztecs and Mayans (and even less remembered groups in Mexico) had festivals honoring the return of the dead.  I can't say for sure the dates of the observances didn't shift after Christians changed the culture, but George Frazer found the Irish expecting the return of the dead around the end of October, which makes sense as people left the fields (farmers first, herdsman as it got too cold finally for the herds) and went indoors to survive the winter.  Thinking of those lost is a likelier custom as winter sets in, especially in Europe.  It seems to be have been as true in tropical Mexico, where the current Dias de los Muertos has very distinct roots in the culture of Mexico.  Many of the practices of the days extend into pre-colombian times, including the idea that the children who have departed return on November 1, the adults on November 2.  Did they adopt the Catholic dates?  Maybe.  It is certainly a festival that is far more "pagan" than it is "Christian."  Not that there's anything wrong with that!

I noted one year long ago now, that there's still no concerted "War on Hallowe'en," even as Hallowe’en has become more and more an adult celebration. (I’ve also had reason to notice that Hobby Lobby starts selling Xmas and (less so) Thxgiving merchandise in September; but ignores Hallowe’en altogether. It’s an interesting lacunae for a store that sells Marvel superhero merchandise, and jigsaw puzzles with scenes from “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.” Their tolerance for Xmas merchandise makes up for the dearth of Hallowe’en merchandise. I suspect the owners refuse to truck with demons and devilry. Even if it only means selling Spider-Man costumes for little kids.) The idea that the vigil marks the “thin place” where the dead and the living can meet and walk together is, in this post-Victorian world, sadly turned into a time of terror, not comfort. Dias de Los Muertos is a time of celebration because the dead, the loved ones we have lost, are again close to us. Hallowe’en is a time of terror, because the dead are again close to us. We used to visit graveyards and put them near the churches we’d visit at least once a week. Now we avoid cemeteries because they remind us our death is inevitable. 

I doubt the vigil of All Saint’s started as a night of deepest darkness to be dispelled by the light of day, as in Fantasia’s “Night on Bald Mountain.” (The roots of modern Hallowe’en show in that depiction of Walpurgisnacht. The “thin time” from Irish culture that brought back the beloved ancestors, now brings back the demons. And corresponds to the Ancient Greek idea of the balance of opposing forces: chaos and logos. It’s truly superstition, and ironic because the Puritans denounced such ideas, and now their religious descendants are terrified by them all over again. Such, as Carroll observed, is human perversity.) I’m sure like Christmas Eve, the vigil was looking forward to the feast day, anticipating one of the joyous feast days of the year. There’s a reason it’s one of two popular vigils, even as both are now almost wholly divorced from their religious roots. The popular explanation today is that we like to be scared at least once a year. But scared of what? The dead? The reminder of our mortality? Of the evil people (and only people) do?  Of the memories of our loved ones? Or the example of the saints?

I have lamented the changing face of Hallowe'en. (Pro tip:  when you can link to posts that are over 15 years old, you've been at this too long.)  I have layered Hallowe'en into the more important rituals/holy days of our modern American calendar.   I still think some reasonable connections can be made there.  But I’m more inclined to see Hallowe’en as the gateway to Advent, making it the first of the many “eves” that line up as gateways to the days after, from October to February. Our dreary months, that we learned long ago to find reasons to lighten. I've commented on the "razor blades in apples" stories, though I think the reference there (to a Salon article, of all things) is less reliable than other information I have which provides a more specific date to the origin of all those stories.

As I said, one of the earliest full mentions of Hallowe'en and its attendant celebrations is the poem by Robert Burns that I've posted before on October 31.  I'll continue that tradition this year.  Consider this just prelude, as Hallowe'en itself is prelude to All Saint's which, I would argue, is prelude to the end of Pentecost (the season of, I mean), and in that way preparation, itself, for Advent.  And then Christmas and Epiphany, the preparation for Lent; which is the preparation for…

But there I go, getting ahead of myself again.

Mostly, Hallowe'en is for fun.