Kash And Bongo ON THE CASE! Tabs, Fri., Sept. 12, 2025

Morning news roundup and things to read!

Tabs gif by your friend Martini Glambassador!

Good morning, good morning. FYI, Evan is on vacation except for Mondays for the next couple weeks, so nobody freak out and ask WHAR EVAN WHAR EVAN. He’ll be back! Now saddle up for TABS!

Well. Get ready to spend the next half hour reading Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein’s illiterate emails to each other, and their spreadsheet of gifts for Clinton aide Doug Band, Alan Dershowitz (who, as always, denies it), and the girls they were pimping. (Bloomberg refers to the girls as “women.” Women don’t usually take SAT prep classes.) Even seems like Maxwell might not have been wholly forthcoming with Trump’s personal criminal defense attorney, now deputy AG, Todd Blanche! (Gift link Bloomberg)

From the comments, the New Yorker reviews the Birthday Book!

Sometimes it’s like you’re leafing through the visitors’ book at the Museum of Carcosa. Sometimes it reads like a catalogue raisonné of outsider art by registered sex offenders. Sometimes it’s like you’ve stumbled into the masked ball in “Eyes Wide Shut” and everyone is wearing Shein, and smells like Burger King, and there’s that tacky gold shit that Trump likes all over the walls. Sometimes it’s like you’ve discovered a rich man’s contract with the devil, and, next to his signature, he’s drawn a little penis cartoon.

Well. (New Yorker)

Putting this toward the top, because I’m pretty sure they think nobody will notice with all this Reichstag fire smoke, but the Republican Senate just changed the rules to allow them to confirm all the nominees at once. (NBC News)

Hey, is everything good at the FBI? Probably yeah? Kash Patel fired the “legendary” head of the Salt Lake City FBI office last month, presumably because she’s a lady. (MSNBC) Good thing nothing important has happened that has the eyes of the nation on the clusterfuck they’re currently perpetrating out there. (HuffPost)

I can’t believe I hadn’t seen this (sadly, newly relevant) The Blaze interview with Vance Boelter, the assassin of Melissa Hortman, her husband, and their dog, as linked in Robyn’s post yestertoday. You see, Boelter didn’t mean to shoot the Hoffmans (who survived; the Hortmans did not), but when he went there to arrest them for COVID vaccine crimes in the middle of the night dressed as a cop and in a weird plastic mask, they tried to stop him from shooting them. It’s almost as if the Holy Second Amendment includes the right to shoot people in their homes if they try to stop you from shooting them in your home! (The Blaze) Then there’s this “related story” headline from The Blaze: “Accused Minnesota assassin: ‘If you want to save the country you have to get your hands dirty’.” That’s some headline, The Blaze! Why, it’s almost as if you are encouraging your readers to get “their hands dirty” to “save the country”!

Whom are we firing for being insensitive to the murder of free speech hero Charlie Kirk today? This college dean, who probably shouldn’t have posted that online, dummy. (WSMV) This Florida reporter, suspended for asking a congressperson if they still support laws mandating freedom to carry guns on campuses. (Mediaite) And Matthew Dowd, the former George W. Bush strategist who turned lib (like an actual Christian type of lib) who correctly pointed out that Charlie Kirk unfortunately espoused a lot of hate, from MSNBC. (Variety) Oh and apparently all these random people, randomly. (Wired)

Oh hey look, Matt Van Epps, running for Congress in Tennessee, is promising to fight the terrorists who are Washington wokelibs, with murder I guess! (XCancel)

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox is probably the least loathsome Republican I can think of. Also, notably, he’s the only one who saw fit to mention all the attacks on Democrats. (Politico)

And this is when we all learned witches are real. (Jezebel)

Christ almighty. The “walking school bus” of DC parents picking up Latino and other children-of-immigrants kids to escort them safely to school. God bless parents, and what the fuck are we doing to our children. (Gift link Washington Post)

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker seems to have scared Trump off invading Chicago! Yippee-kai-yay, motherfucker! (Everything Is Horrible)

DHS says videotaping ICE raids is “violence.” Words, what do they mean? (The American Prospect)

Jair Bolsonaro, loser ex-president of Brazil, you are GUILTY of COUP and also MURDER PLOT CONSPIRACY. Stay in jail, you dick. :D (CNN)

YAY! The female (obviously) scientists using menstrual blood to study endometriosis, since obviously research is chronically underfunded because it attacks uteruses. This is cool. (Science)

What shall you be watching for Movie Night with your friend Ziggy Wiggy tomorrow (Saturday) night? How about Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, free with ads on Tubi. Free on the Internet Archive. $3.99 in the usual places.

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Come to My Mallory McMorrow fundraiser, or I will have so many uneaten foods and a bartender serving SIX PEOPLE drinks! McMorrow is Cool, and we Like her, and we desperately need Democrats in the Senate who get that HELLO, EMERGENCY. Join us at my Detroit home, Sun., Sept. 21, even if you’re not in Michigan (you can hang out with us on Zoom!); here’s where you can buy tickets! Hooray!

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