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The Duffel Brief · the free edition, Monday, Wednesday and Friday

Vol. 15 · No. 130 · Sunday, 1 November 2026

Veterans

Spirit Halloween store to become pop-up ICE detention center

DHS praises seasonal retailer's expertise in occupying abandoned buildings and disappearing overnight

Army FRG unveils haunted house featuring spouses saying ‘I’m fine’

Hasan execution venue double-booked with Comic-Con

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Vol. 15 · No. 130

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Vol. 15 · No. 130 · Deployed worldwide

Sunday

1 November 2026

2129 Zulu

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· Page 2

Government shutdown furloughs all 700 non-essential employees

Filed · 1531

WASHINGTON — Seven hundred non-essential federal civil servants were furloughed and sent home when the government failed to pass a spending bill Friday night, sources confirmed today.

The other one million nine hundred ninety-nine thousand and three hundred feds remained on the job, having been previously designated as “essential.” That means their work is deemed critical to the continuity of government operations. They will work through the furlough and be paid for it.

The 2013 government shutdown shocked many agencies when they realized they were unable to perform their core functions of maintaining the Deep State, resisting Republican agendas, and ensuring that the administration’s red line in Syria was crossed as easily as is the U.S. southwest border. Since then, nearly all agencies have designated their employees as “essential.”

“There’s another core function many aren't talking talked about — that is maintaining or increasing budgets in consecutive fiscal years," A.Z. Kizzer, a congressional staffer who has served in seventeen consecutive administrations, said. "That is the core competency by which most agencies rate themselves and also the tool used to hand out end-of-year bonuses, which everyone who isn’t furloughed is going to get. Screw those non-essential low-lifes.”

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