The Morning Sixpack - October 14, 2025
Just another day in Trumplandia: America detains Afghan ally (threatens to send him back), satellites leak military secrets, measles spreads, and the Supreme Court eyes gutting voting rights.
Homecoming Horror: Mississippi Towns Reel After Weekend of Deadly Gunfire
Six people are dead and more than a dozen wounded after a weekend of homecoming celebrations turned into a bloodbath across small-town Mississippi.
Federal agents confirmed the arrests of four people following the deadliest shooting, which erupted Friday night in downtown Leland during the town’s homecoming festivities. Teviyon L. Powell, 29, William Bryant, 29, and Morgan Lattimore, 25, face capital murder charges, while 44-year-old Latoya A. Powell was charged with attempted murder, according to the FBI’s Jackson field office.
The gunfire—reportedly sparked by a “disagreement among several individuals”—left blood on the streets and shoes scattered where four victims died on the scene. “It was the most horrific scene I’d ever seen,” witness Camish Hopkins told the Associated Press. The FBI says more arrests are expected as the investigation continues.
Elsewhere across Mississippi, the carnage continued. In Heidelberg, police found two bodies—including a pregnant woman—on a high school campus during homecoming night. An 18-year-old man was arrested on murder and weapons charges. Hours later, another shooting at Alcorn State University left one person dead and two injured after its homecoming game.
And in Jackson, a juvenile was shot near the Veterans Memorial Stadium tailgating area during Jackson State University’s homecoming. Police have released few details, and no arrests have been made.
The string of shootings marks at least the 14th mass killing in the U.S. this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Despite recurring calls for reform, Congress continues to treat gun control like a third rail—untouched and untouchable.
Source: The Guardian
Editor: Mississippi doesn’t have homecoming weekends anymore—it has war zones with marching bands. You can’t call it “the land of hospitality” when people can’t even make it through a football game without catching bullets.
Homecoming used to mean school pride and small-town reunions. Now it means another round of “thoughts and prayers” on repeat. #GunCulture
Bathtubs, Biohackers, and Dr. Oz: Inside RFK Jr.’s Bizarre “Make America Healthy Again” Circus
It’s like a wellness podcast on bath salts—where Dr. Oz lectures from his car and Russell Brand shows up shirtless from a tub. #MAHA
A new exposé reveals that Make America Healthy Again (MAHA)—Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s latest wellness-political mashup—has evolved into a surreal weekly conference call featuring administration officials, celebrities, and fringe health crusaders. The nonprofit behind it, MAHA Action, run by Skyhorse Publishing chief Tony Lyons, hosts the “MAHA Action Media Hub” every Wednesday, offering what one reporter called “a dizzying kaleidoscope” of chaos masquerading as policy discussion.
Participants range from Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services head Dr. Mehmet Oz (yes, that Dr. Oz) to actress Cheryl Hines, to—you guessed it—a shirtless Russell Brand calling in from a bathtub. One week, a former Pussycat Doll claimed the COVID vaccine “destroyed her ability to dance.” Another, a caller named “Peter & Melissa BioHacking Stem Cells” declared that “fluoride disconnects one from God.” If this is the new public health apparatus, the CDC might want to start drinking again.
“The calls offer a fleeting glimpse into Kennedy’s world,” wrote Margaret Manto of NOTUS, “where alternative health practitioners appear alongside the governor of West Virginia.” Even senior White House adviser Calley Means chimed in: “This administration is actually practicing science, which is messy, which is asking taboo questions.”
Translation: they’re spitballing pseudoscience with a press badge.
The whole thing, as Manto observed, shows “the growing pains of a fringe movement” now awkwardly trying to act legitimate inside the Trump administration. Professionalized nonsense is still nonsense—it just comes with a government email signature now.
Source: Raw Story
Editor: So RFK Jr. turned public health into an open mic night for wellness grifters and midlife-crisis gurus. When your policy call includes a shirtless philosopher in a bathtub, maybe you’re not curing the nation—you’re auditioning for a Netflix docuseries called Unwell 2: The Conspiracy Continues.
At this point, “Make America Healthy Again” sounds less like a movement and more like a multi-level marketing scheme for essential oils and chaos. #Ponzi
“Don’t Look Up”: How $800 Worth of Gear Exposed the World’s Secrets Beaming from Space
A team of researchers just proved that half the world’s satellite communications—yes, including your calls, texts, and military ops—are flying through space completely unencrypted.
For three years, researchers at UC San Diego and the University of Maryland pointed an $800 off-the-shelf satellite dish toward the heavens and pulled down a global buffet of private data. They intercepted unprotected transmissions from telecoms, airlines, power grids, oil rigs, and even the U.S. and Mexican militaries. “It just completely shocked us,” said UCSD professor Aaron Schulman. “Every time we found something new, it wasn’t encrypted.”
Among their findings: snippets of Americans’ phone calls and texts on T-Mobile’s network, in-flight Wi-Fi browsing data, and raw communications from military ships and helicopters. They even stumbled upon Mexican intelligence chatter about narcotics operations, power grid work orders listing customers’ names and addresses, and unprotected ATM data from banks like Santander Mexico. One researcher joked that the global satellite security strategy seems to be: Don’t look up.
What’s worse—this wasn’t a state-level cyberattack. It was done with consumer hardware anyone could buy online. Georgetown professor Matt Blaze summed it up: “This was not NSA-level resources. This was DirecTV-user-level resources.” The researchers are presenting their paper, aptly titled “Don’t Look Up,” at a computing conference in Taiwan—and releasing open-source software so others can replicate their work (cue the global scramble).
While some companies like T-Mobile quickly patched their systems, others, including U.S. critical infrastructure operators, are still dragging their feet. Meanwhile, experts warn that intelligence agencies everywhere have probably been doing this for years. As cryptographer Nadia Heninger quipped, “If they aren’t already doing this—where are my tax dollars going?”
Source: WIRED
Editor: Half the planet’s data floating around in the clear—beamed through space like it’s 1997—and all it took to uncover it was $800 and a ladder. We encrypt our Wi-Fi routers but not our warships? Maybe the real aliens aren’t “out there.” They’re the ones running our telecom security.
Next time you text from a plane, just know there’s probably a grad student in San Diego listening in—taking notes for their next paper titled “Oops, We Found the Pentagon.”
The Supreme Court’s Next Big Move Could Kill What’s Left of the Voting Rights Act
The Supreme Court is about to decide whether protecting Black voters from discrimination is itself discrimination—and the stakes couldn’t be higher.
This Wednesday, the justices will hear Louisiana v. Callais, a case that could effectively erase Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act—the last surviving pillar of the landmark civil rights law. The case stems from Louisiana’s 2024 congressional map, which finally added a second majority-Black district after a federal court ruled that having only one out of six violated the Act. But now, a group of “non-African American” voters is suing, claiming that the new map discriminates against them under the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.
In other words, they’re arguing that fixing racial discrimination in voting is racial discrimination. And the state of Louisiana, backed by the Trump administration, wants the Supreme Court to agree. If the Court strikes down the new map, it could gut Section 2 entirely—freeing states to draw districts however they want, regardless of racial fairness. One report from Fair Fight Action and the Black Voters Matter Fund warns this could flip up to 19 congressional seats from blue to red and cut the Congressional Black Caucus by 30%.
Civil rights advocates are sounding alarms. As groups representing Louisiana’s Black voters put it, “Removing Section 2’s protections in Louisiana will not end discrimination there or lead to a race-blind society, but it may well lead to a severe decrease in minority representation at all levels of government.” Since the 2013 Shelby v. Holder decision gutted federal oversight of voting rights, Section 2 has been the last line of defense against gerrymandering and voter suppression. If this case takes it down, it’s open season.
This isn’t just about Louisiana—it’s about whether the Supreme Court believes that protecting equal access to democracy is still worth doing. Once Section 2 falls, so does the idea that your vote should count the same no matter your race or zip code.
Source: My Daily Grind News
Editor: Only in modern America could we twist civil rights law so hard it snaps. The people crying “reverse racism” aren’t fighting for fairness—they’re fighting for the freedom to rig democracy in plain sight. The Court already took the hammer to voting rights in Shelby v. Holder. Now they’re coming back for the nails.
The Voting Rights Act used to be the firewall against discrimination. Now it’s starting to look like the next thing on fire.
America Promised Not to Leave Allies Behind—Now It’s Shoving One Back to the Taliban
An Afghan ally who fled Kabul with U.S. help is sitting in ICE detention, facing deportation to the very regime he risked his life opposing.
He’s called “H” for safety, but his story is heartbreakingly clear: vetted multiple times, granted humanitarian parole, working, raising U.S.-born kids—then yanked off the street in Virginia and locked up as Trump’s second-term crackdown guts the very programs meant to protect Afghan partners. “I’m so scared from Taliban,” he told his lawyer. “Right now, my body is shaking. My hands are shaking, if I am thinking about them.”
This is the same America that flew him out after the airport bombing, screened him in Qatar and Dulles, housed him at Fort Pickett, and told him our creed: we don’t abandon allies. Now DHS calls him “illegal” only because it revoked his parole after arresting him. No charges. No due-process dignity. Just a family shattered and a man staring down a death sentence he earned by trusting us.
The legal backdrop is brutal: asylum approvals have cratered, immigration judges are being purged, and the administration is openly dismantling Afghan protections while insisting Afghanistan is “safe” for returns—tell that to women banned from school and the dissidents who “disappear.” Letters from doctors, bosses, neighbors, even a Marine-linked nonprofit attest to H’s character. The government’s best argument? Paperwork semantics and wish-casting about Taliban mercy.
Let’s be real: deporting an English-speaking, U.S.-vetted ally whose brother served our troops is not “security”—it’s a recruitment ad for the next time we ask locals to stand with us. If H goes back, we all know who meets him at the airport. And we all know what happens next.
Source: The Washington Post
Editor: You don’t “support the troops” by betraying the people who bled with them. If we can’t protect one bookkeeper dad we vetted half a dozen times, spare me the flag decals and tough-guy speeches—this is cowardice dressed up as policy.
Measles just benched 153 South Carolina students for three weeks—all because they weren’t vaccinated.
At two Spartanburg County schools—Global Academy and Fairforest Elementary—state health officials ordered 21-day quarantines after confirmed exposure, as South Carolina logged its 11th measles case (the eighth since Sept. 25).
Unvaccinated and non-immune students are excluded from campus until the transmission window closes.
Health authorities say the pattern is unmistakable: “there is active, unrecognized community transmission of measles occurring in the Upstate,” making vaccination urgent. Measles spreads fast—nine out of ten unvaccinated people exposed will get it—and the virus can hang in the air for up to two hours after an infected person leaves.
Translation: you can catch this in a hallway you never saw the sick kid in. People are contagious four days before the rash and four days after it appears; symptoms typically begin 7–14 days post-exposure with fever, cough, red eyes, and runny nose, then a head-to-toe rash.
Here’s the part that should make us angrier than the virus: the MMR vaccine is ~97% effective, yet kindergarten coverage has slid to 92.5%. Unsurprisingly, the U.S. is seeing its highest measles totals in 30 years—clusters from West Texas to New Mexico proving that when coverage drops, outbreaks pop.
This isn’t complicated math; it’s Public Health 101. Vaccinate on schedule, keep kids in school, and stop treating a 1968 problem like it’s up for debate in 2025.
Source: UPI
Editor: Quarantine isn’t “punishment”—it’s the bill that comes due when we skip a two-shot fix. If you’re mad your kid’s home for 21 days, aim that anger at bad info and missed appointments, not the school nurse.
Measles doesn’t read Facebook posts—it just looks for gaps in immunity and walks right in.