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Inevitable: You Show Up
Apologies for invoking the awful noise that never stops. But a month before mid-terms, a fascist feckless clown show run by the dumbest people ever churns on with lies, bribes, cruelty, crude racism; their flailing leader grows daily more perilous; and fiery patriots remind us we cannot grow weary. Oddly, we find solace in Lindsey Graham's 2016 prophesy to the GOP: "If we (choose) Trump, we will get destroyed, and we will deserve it." God: "And in the fullness of time...."
Because we are well and truly beyond the looking glass, an actual, NYTPitchbot-likeTimes headline just posited that "some conservatives are having second thoughts" about Trump even as he continues obliterating every institution of democratic governance, bars press outlets, ignores court rulings, betrays allies, courts autocrats, spews profanities online and at rallies, turns the election into a reality show and the Oval Office into a bordello, and shovels over $1.8 billion into junk vanity projects as his approval plunges to 26% on the economy and his brain dissolves into mashed potatoes. "Second thoughts?"
Decades ago, Robert Reich warned an American economy moving increasingly overseas through the 1970s was creating a two-tired society of a few rich winners and too many left-behind Americans whose anger, resentment and historic racism could be easily manipulated by a savvy carnival barker hungry for power - especially with a right-wing SCOTUS willing to give him almost total immunity for his boundless crimes. The grim result: What Timothy Snyder calls unprecedented "superpower suicide," wherein a major country quickly crashes and burns due to incompetence at all the "basic instruments of state power."
Now, facing "the mid-term music," the GOP flounders through "a five-alarm fire," pulling out lies, bribes, denial. They "must WIN" by using "every tool" - vote early, absentee, in person, by mail (or ICE thugs). Rick Wilson: "Oh, NOW mail-in ballots AREN'T a scam? Sweaty Don is nervous." They hype a duplicitous White House App: "365 Days of Wins." Trump offers a stream of paltry bribes: $90 to 20 million seniors to offset higher Medicare costs he caused, $500 to a million "excess" Obamacare fees, $5,000 to every American adult if Republicans win, conjuring a shameless Oprah-like spectacle: "You get a car, and you get a car..."
The alleged master of the Art of the Deal grows cringey and desperate, as do his boasts. At a recent rally: "I know more about inflation, I know more about everything than anyone in this room, anybody anywhere in the world." Of his two-day "emotional support" debacle of a Texas convention, he claimed 107 million views compared to the NFL's 25 million; the reality was his 3.3 million vs. their 25 million views, with even Ken Paxton secretly complaining, "It dropped our numbers." One viral meme tells the tale: A sign with sky-high gas prices, an angry MAGA voter, and the text, "Turns out my truck doesn't run on liberal tears."
In 2015, Trump packed a rally in Mobile ALA with over 30,000 fans; last week, at its high school gym with mostly empty upper sections, people began streaming out as Trump bragged the economy is "booming," with new plants and factories "everywhere." "Just close your eyes and pretend I’m on the ballot," he pleaded, evidently unaware of the losing message amidst cratering jobs and wages numbers. Seeking safe harbor, his campaign itinerary in "a red-state October blitz" is playing out almost entirely in deep-red states he once won by double digits: Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Ohio, Nebraska, Kansas.
In Ohio this weekend, he raved Democrats' "transgender for everybody" policies would “mutilize your children," he has "record-winning numbers," "Talafreako" (in Texas, not Ohio) is a "vaygan" who "eats a piece of lettuce all day long" but he's now "gone full on eating meat" to get elected so he goes to barbecues where he's "throwing up all the time." He rambled, ranted, cursed, flaunted "the utter disdain for the office he holds and the people hes supoosed to serve." NYTPitchbot: "Whether it’s Obama saying 'Yes We Can” or Donald Trump saying 'We're gonna shove it up their ass,' both presidents adopted divisive slogans."
Beyond the rallies, the carnage persists. Millions have lost SNAP benefits. Many thousands, caught in our immigration atrocities, endure "quiet reckonings with what the country has become.” The Atlantic profiled the Ohio truck driver who hit and killed Haitian student Pierre Damas Bel in an apparent suicide; he is haunted by a young man who “would have been a model citizen,” who had to charge his own ankle monitor, who "was hurting - we did not do right by him.” War agit-prop still spews. So does cultural appropriation: Park rangers blast regime theft of Smokey the Bear, a forest fire refugee: "Only you can prevent fascist liars." "Zoologically-deficient hacks" have also dropped AI slop of USA-themed penguins in Greenland, where they don't live; some suggest they "shouldn’t have dismantled the Department of Education so quickly."
Surreal dissonance flourishes. Because they are "committed to leading the world in Gold Standard Science," other regime goons are bravely charging ahead to "MAKE AMERICA HEALTHY, SAFE, AND BEAUTIFUL" with an executive order to "ELIMINATE FOREIGN, INVASIVE TICKS AND MOSQUITOES" to "restore enjoyment of the great outdoors" through "safe and effective technology-enabled methods," thus rebuilding "public trust in science." Too little, too late? Regardless, their effort aligns nicely with Press Barbie's move to Fox News, per The Borowitz Report, "as a stepping-stone" to acquiring the requisite “warrior ethos" to become Secretary of Defense.
That profound disconnect is, of course, alive and festering in the increasingly, disastrously incoherent child king somehow still babbling about "the golden age of America” and "the hottest country anywhere in the world." As a public service, Aaron Rupar, who has borne witness to years of Trump insanity, urges we read the transcript of his recent Time interview to grasp "the grave cognitive impairment" of "random brain firings" like, "I just got a tariff from Lindsey Graham" and "100 million people watched the midterm convention." The consensus of those who did: "He’s like a criminally inclined rutabaga with some language skills" and "He looks like an attendant just asked him if he wants pudding or Jello and he’s mad 'cause he has no idea what those are."
Sunday night, Indivisible hosted a "Hands Off Our Vote" event in New York to prep for Oct. 17's No Kings and the election. Despite our fatigue - from lying, thieving, genocidal rants, fucking ballrooms - a fiery Mark Ruffalo vowed to "Hulk-out" to convey his rage. "We are so tired, but we can't give up now," he said. "They want to keep us afraid. Their only weapon is our fear. But we're inevitable." He recalled meeting with activist Harry Belafonte a few years ago and asking, "How are we going to know what to do? When are we going to know when it's our calling? And he said, 'Brother, you’ll know. And then you go. You show up.’“
Robert De Niro, furious, tireless, out of fucks to give, raged at policies that are crazy, cruel an, increasingly unpopular with voters. "Power...to...the...people," he intoned. "It isn't just a slogan. It's the founding principle of our nation." So what do those now unduly empowered do? he asked. "They try to take our votes away. Are you kidding me?" (Ghost of Travis Bickle) "Hands Off Our Vote. Lemme put it another way - keep your fucking hands off our vote." He led the crowd in an explosive call-and-response to "spineless officials, the Supreme Court, masked ICE thugs," finally "that coward, that fucking piece of shit Donald Trump when he tries to take our voice and power away, what do we tell him?" To each, he seethed, "Keep your fucking hands off our vote!" Take back the House, the Senate, our country, he urged.. Show up.
- YouTube www.youtube.com
Trump's middle-school level AI images feature headless penguins in Greenland, where they don't live. Truth Social post
Oct 06, 2026
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'Consumers Will Pay the Price': Fury as Trump Pushes Through Rule Change to Make Vehicles Less Efficient, More Polluting
Scientists and environmental advocates are warning that the Trump administration's rollback of fuel economy standards for cars and trucks will not only lead to more pollution but also hurt cash-strapped consumers already reeling from gas price spikes.
The administration announced on Monday that it was weakening the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, which require automakers to increase the fuel efficiency of their vehicles each year.
Biden administration rules required a 2% annual increase in fuel-efficiency standards, with the goal of bringing most vehicles to an average of 50.4 miles per gallon by 2031. Under President Donald Trump, the annual target has been reduced to just a 1% improvement each year, meaning five years from now the average car would be required to get just under 34.9 mpg.
The Department of Transportation, which finalized the rule, has argued that efficiency standards put an unnecessary burden on carmakers and has projected that lowering them will “reduce the average cost of a new vehicle by $1,300 for American families" and "save the American people $138 billion over the next five years."
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy described the Biden-era increase as one that "forced automakers to produce more expensive electric vehicles that American families didn’t want."
But Dave Cooke, senior vehicles analyst for the Union of Concerned Scientists’ (UCS) Clean Transportation Program, argues that rather than being a benefit to consumers, “the federal government’s decision to gut fuel economy standards is a handout to automakers and oil companies that will strap American consumers already struggling with an affordability crisis.”
His group has estimated that since CAFE standards were first introduced in 2010, they have saved auto owners about $321 billion at the gas pump. And over just the past seven months, during which Trump's war with Iran has caused gas prices to soar around the country, UCS estimates that consumers have saved $32 billion.
"Any small reduction in upfront vehicle costs will be outweighed by higher fuel expenses," Cooke said.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) itself estimated in an impact analysis for the rule days ago that, as a result of the rule change, Americans will consume roughly 122 billion more gallons of gas than they would under the 2024 standards, resulting in average lifetime fuel costs of more than $1,600 more per vehicle—more than the administration estimates consumers will save by buying cheaper cars.
Transportation already accounted for about 17% of average US household spending in 2024, the latest year for which the Bureau of Labor Statistics has published data. Meanwhile, as the war with Iran has driven up costs, oil companies are reporting record profits. The top eight brought in nearly $93 billion in earnings in the second quarter of this year alone, according to an analysis by The Guardian.
"Oil companies will get a windfall from gutting the fuel economy standards, but the rest of us are going to be handing over more of our hard-earned paychecks to fill up the tank," said Atid Kimelman, an attorney at the NRDC.
Americans won't just spend more money; they'll also produce way more planet-heating greenhouse gases. The standards being rolled back were projected by NHTSA to prevent about 659 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, 825,000 metric tons of methane, and roughly 24,000 metric tons of nitrous oxide emissions through 2050.
The Center for Biological Diversity pointed out that the US is already the world's largest oil guzzler, accounting for 20% of global use, and that transportation is the No. 1 consumer of that oil.
"This move spells short- and long-term disaster for people’s health, the planet, and even US automakers who’ll sit on the sidelines while clean cars advance around the world," said Dan Becker, the director of the group's Safe Climate Transport Campaign. "This standard was the biggest single step any nation has taken to save gas, money at the pump, and auto pollution.”
Matthew Davis, vice president of federal policy for the League of Conservation Voters, emphasized that fuel efficiency standards are popular with the American public. A nationwide survey last month by the Global Strategy Group found that 73% of voters nationwide said they'd support "reestablishing fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks."
"It is no secret that Trump promised handouts to Big Oil in exchange for campaign spending," Davis said, "and he is delivering for those billionaire CEOs and polluters while he hurts working families, American manufacturing competitiveness, public health, and the environment at every turn.”
Sep 28, 2026
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Citing 'Civilizational Extinction Risk,' Khanna to Intro Bill to Ban Recursive AI
US Rep. Ro Khanna announced plans on Monday to introduce what he described as "the most comprehensive... legislation to date" regulating the artificial intelligence industry.
In an interview with CNBC, Khanna (D-Calif.) said that he wanted to enact at least a temporary ban on recursive AI that is capable of improving itself and modifying its objectives without human input.
Such a ban would be in effect until the federal government had created proper guardrails on the technology, CNBC reported.
“There’s actually a civilizational extinction risk,” Khanna told CNBC, referring to the dangers of recursive AI. "There's a safety risk of loss of control, and then there’s a misuse risk, and we need to take both seriously."
Khanna's bill would also create a new federal agency tasked with crafting and enforcing safety measures on AI models, with independent auditors embedded in every frontier lab that would report directly to the agency.
The legislation wouldn't just create regulations for the AI industry, but also criminal penalties for AI developers who "disable safeguards, kill switches, logging or containment systems, or who knowingly deploy an unauthorized system," CNBC reported.
Promoting the coming bill in a Tuesday social media post, Khanna argued that Big Tech could not be trusted to regulate itself.
"The tech lords use jargon to confuse," Khanna wrote. "They count on the tech illiteracy of the elected class. They hope we won’t look under the hood. They know they can’t gaslight me."
While multiple polls have shown that putting guardrails on the AI industry is politically popular, Republican Party leaders have said that no regulations for the industry are coming so long as they control the White House and the US Congress.
In a Tuesday interview with CNBC, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said he hoped that any guardrails put on AI are "voluntary" on the part of Big Tech companies.
Two weeks ago, Johnson said in an interview on CNN that federal regulations of the industry made little sense because "Congress is obviously less qualified than the people who are pushing this frontier to know the ins and outs of it."
President Donald Trump on Tuesday expressed a similar sentiment, telling reporters outside the White House that Big Tech could be trusted to be responsible with the powerful technology it is creating.
"They're outstanding people," Trump said of the tech executives. "They don't want anything to go wrong. I mean, their companies are at stake, if something goes wrong, their companies are at stake. They're not going to let that happen. This is going to be all for the good... they're really going to be policing each other."
Trump on big tech: "They don't want anything to go wrong. Their companies are at stake. They're not gonna let that happen. They're really gonna be policing each other." pic.twitter.com/wP6vfPcavz
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 29, 2026
Earlier this month, Trump suggested in a social media post that his own intellect was singlehandedly capable of regulating AI, a technology so complicated that even its own creators have acknowledged difficulties in understanding it.
"The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT,” Trump wrote, “and the USA has that, in spades!"
Trump's hands-off approach to regulating AI isn't just being challenged by Democrats such as Khanna.
According to a Monday report from The Associated Press, Pope Leo XIV reiterated his call for placing safeguards on AI to ensure that it benefits humanity.
Specifically, the US-born pope pointed to recent "concerns raised by many of the experts, specialists in AI," which he said "should be taken seriously."
Pope Leo said warnings that AI could threaten humanity should be taken seriously, rejecting the claims that concerns are 'fake news' and urging leaders to work together on safeguards https://t.co/7qVpNAXYKM pic.twitter.com/Cds6gf5vef
— Reuters (@Reuters) September 29, 2026
"I don’t think that that is ‘fake news’ as some have said," the pope added, in a veiled reference to Trump, "to try and cause whether financial or other some other kind of benefit."
Sep 29, 2026
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Trump to Send $90 Medicare Checks, Says Americans Can ‘Rest Assured’ $5,000 Will Follow After Midterms
With the midterm elections just weeks away, President Donald Trump announced on Friday that more than 20 million Medicare Part B beneficiaries will receive a one-time $90 payment this month.
Trump, who declared on Truth Social that his administration would send out "checks," said the money will come from the $2 billion Medicare Improvement Fund and is expected to appear in seniors' bank accounts around October 8.
The $90 payment is not even enough to cover half of the standard monthly Medicare Part B premium payment, which is about $202. But Trump described the comparatively small payment as proof that Americans could trust his promise of a much heftier windfall if Republicans prevail in next month's elections.
"Because I delivered on this very important issue for the American people, they can also rest assured the highly popular $5,000 Trump Dividend will be distributed to every U.S. Citizen if, and when, the Republicans win the Midterm Elections!" Trump said.
Americans have reason to be skeptical that they will ever see such a payout. Although roughly 1 million unsubsidized Affordable Care Act enrollees are currently receiving $500 payments, Trump has on several other occasions floated or promised Americans larger sums of free money that never materialized.
In February 2025, he proposed $5,000 "DOGE dividend" checks for Americans, purportedly funded by savings generated by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, but the payments were never authorized by the GOP-controlled Congress.
That November, he promised that most Americans would receive tariff payments of "at least $2,000 a person," but Congress has still not authorized them nearly a year later.
Sending all 240 million adult citizens a $5,000 check, as Trump has promised to do if the GOP wins the midterms, would cost an estimated $1.2 trillion.
"At this point Trump’s economic policy is starting to look less like governing and more like Publishers Clearing House with a campaign logo," remarked the Indiana-based political commentator Mike Young.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) described the payments as "Trump's latest attempt to bribe the American public," arguing that $90 amounts to a pittance compared with the higher costs seniors are facing under Trump's policies.
"This year, Trump handed seniors a $200 monthly Medicare premium for the first time ever, and he also shoveled $20 billion in extra payments to insurance companies selling private Medicare plans,” Wyden said. “This is another desperate attempt by a failed president to escape Americans’ revulsion with his failed agenda, amounting to one tank of Trump-inflated gas.”
Oct 03, 2026
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Tens of Thousands of Voters at ‘Risk of Disenfranchisement’ Thanks to Trump’s Postal Service: Analysis
An analysis published Friday by Democracy Docket warned that "tens of thousands" of voters across the US face "risk of disenfranchisement" thanks to actions being taken by the United States Postal Service.
The analysis, written by veteran election reporter Jim Saksa, points to a new USPS policy known as Regional Transportation Optimization (RTO) that "will eliminate evening mail pickups from post offices more than 50 miles away from a regional processing facility, most of which are located in major urban areas."
For people who live in these areas, ballots sent on Election Day will be postmarked and delivered at least a day later than in previous election years, thus making it ineligible to be included in final election tallies.
"In every state, a day’s delay in delivery means that if mail voters wait until the last day or two before the election to mail their ballot," Saksa explained, "they could be disenfranchised."
Saksa reported that this policy is currently active in "about 42.5% of all ZIP codes" in the continental US, and is scheduled to eventually take effect in around 70% of all ZIP codes. No additional ZIP codes are expected to be added between now and election day.
Saksa also said that voters concerned about their ballots not being counted should deliver them in person to their local post office, where they can ask an employee to postmark it.
President Donald Trump has tried for the last several months to use USPS to meddle with states' mail-in voting systems.
In March, the president signed an executive order that instructed the United States Postal Service to not deliver ballots in any states that have not given the federal government access to their voter lists.
The US Supreme Court last month rejected Trump's efforts to interfere with mail-in voting, allowing states to continue sending ballots to voters as they've done in past elections.
Even with the Supreme Court loss, however, the president's repeated attacks on voting by mail has had a major impact on the 2026 midterm elections.
An NBC News poll released in September showed that just 23% of Democratic voters said they planned to vote by mail this year, a double-digit drop from 2024 when 34% of Democrats said they were voting by mail.
In an interview with Politico published Thursday, Quentin James, founder and president of The Collective Political Action Committee, said Black voters have been expressing concerns about sending in their ballots for fear that Trump will order USPS to not deliver them.
“I think there’s confusion,” James said. “We know that the president has spent six months talking about changing the rules regarding mail-in voting, and a lot of folks are concerned about their ballot being secure."
Indivisible co-founder Leah Greenberg also told Politico that her group is "absolutely hearing concern" about the mail voting process this year.
"But more importantly," Greenberg added, "what we’re hearing is people trying to figure out what they can do and how they can organize locally in order to protect elections."
Oct 02, 2026
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1 in 5 Children in Lebanon Facing Daily Hunger Due to Israeli Assault: UNICEF
Israel's latest assault on Lebanon is inflicting widespread hunger, death, and injury on children across the country, according to a report out Wednesday from the United Nations Children's Fund.
Children go to bed hungry in at least one in five households, according to a survey conducted by UNICEF in July, while nearly a third are going without needed healthcare because their families are unable to afford it. Four in five households, the report says, have found it harder to afford basic necessities.
Nearly 17,000 people have been killed or injured since March. Among them are 261 children who've been killed and 1,056 who've been injured—and 12% of those injured now live with a disability.
Around 100,000 children are at risk of losing access to education. At least 436 schools have been damaged across the country, including 37 that were completely destroyed.
“Children and young people in Lebanon are being asked to bear a burden no child should have to carry,” said UNICEF Lebanon Representative Marcoluigi Corsi, who noted the report's finding that 770,000 children have suffered psychological distress over the past six months due to repeated exposure to violence, loss, and displacement.
Lebanon was already in the midst of an economic crisis that left many families poor. But the situation has grown markedly more severe since March, when Israel launched an ongoing occupation of southern Lebanon that has displaced more than 1.1 million people and unleashed punishing airstrikes across the country, including in densely populated civilian areas.
More than 329,000 of those displaced have yet to go home, and around one-third are children. Despite a ceasefire announced in April, Israeli officials have said that those ordered to leave their homes will not be allowed to return until they deem northern Israel "safe" from attacks by the militant group Hezbollah.
Israeli forces have systematically razed dozens of villages and farms in southern Lebanon, destroying tens of thousands of homes. As Al Jazeera reported earlier this week, Israel has predominantly demolished Shia villages while telling Christian villages they'll be spared so long as they stay neutral.
According to a June report by Amnesty International, about 6% of Lebanese territory is effectively under a "don't come back" order from Israel with residents barred indefinitely from returning home. Amnesty said the forced displacement and prevention of return in parts of southern Lebanon constitute unlawful transfer, a war crime.
Some Israeli leaders have discussed annexing the occupied portion of Lebanon and moving in Israeli settlers.
Earlier this week, Bezalel Smotrich—the Israeli finance minister who has overseen a historic surge of violent settlement expansion in the West Bank—said that he would "very much like to annex at least… up to the Litani [River] in Lebanon," extending the country's border into southern Lebanon.
Sep 30, 2026
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Whistleblower Says Trump White House Pushed FBI to Violate ICE Protesters’ Constitutional Rights
“How many more of these investigations have been opened up because of political pressure coming from the White House, despite the questions and concerns about legality and constitutionality?” said US Sen. Alex Padilla.
Oct 06, 2026
A whistleblower report filed by a former FBI intelligence analyst alleges that the Trump administration pushed the law enforcement agency to violate the constitutional rights of US citizens demonstrating against federal immigration enforcement operations.
According to a Tuesday report from NBC News, Jill Fields, a former supervisory intelligence analyst in the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office, has filed a formal complaint with leaders on the Senate Judiciary Committee alleging violations of Americans' rights to free speech and peaceful assembly.
The complaint alleges that Emil Bove, a loyalist to President Donald Trump who served as acting deputy attorney general before being confirmed to the federal judiciary, told the head of the field office to open an investigation into protesters holding events outside federal buildings, even though such demonstrations are explicitly protected by the US Constitution's First Amendment.
The administration also ordered FBI Director Kash Patel to investigate demonstrators who were using megaphones to warn their immigrant neighbors about the presence of US Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) operations in the area.
Additionally, the complaint claims that Fields was removed from supervising three programs at the office after she raised internal concerns about violating civil liberties, which "created a chilling effect within the workforce" and "signaled to other employees that raising constitutional or legal concerns could carry professional consequences."
Fields would subsequently resign from her position.
Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on immigration, citizenship, and border safety, told NBC that whistleblower complaints will be crucial to investigating administration activities given how the president has gutted inspectors general within the federal bureaucracy.
“That’s going to be a significant challenge," Padilla said of gathering information on the administration, "but it begins with good, honorable professionals being willing to come forward and tell us what’s going on and what’s wrong with what’s going on. We're hoping others may be inspired, as well."
Padilla also speculated that Fields' whistleblower complaint was just the tip of the iceberg.
"How many more of these investigations have been opened up," he wondered, "because of political pressure coming from the White House, despite the questions and concerns about legality and constitutionality?"
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Indian Supreme Court Demands 'Transparent' Answers From Modi's Government on Voter Purge
Hundreds of people have been arrested in recent days at youth-led protests over the removal of more than 130 million names from voter rolls.
Oct 05, 2026
As one advocate warned India's Supreme Court on Monday that "this country will burn" unless action is taken to stop what thousands of protesters have denounced as an illegal purge of voters by the head of the country's Election Commission, the court demanded accountability from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government.
Chief Justice Surya Kant said in a hearing that the court had not approved changes to a new form used by the Election Commission of India for registering new voters, contradicting a statement from the ECI last month which said the document had been upheld by the court.
"Modified Form 6 has not been approved by us, let us be very clear," said Kant.
The court called on Modi's government, the ECI, and the head of the commission, Gyanesh Kumar, to answer "in a clear, transparent manner” for the massive upheaval of the national voter rolls, from which more than 130 million names have been removed in recent months.
The changes to the voter list have sparked calls for Kumar's resignation, particularly at protests that have erupted across the country, led by student groups and the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), a political movement led by young people whom Kant compared to cockroaches earlier this year.
The group's website declares, "Gyanesh, it's done, bro," and thousands of people have joined protests like those that forced the resignation of India's education minister over the summer.
Last week, hundreds of protesters were detained, with journalists reportedly among those who were arrested—prompting outcry from Amnesty International over the government's "blatant attack on the rights to liberty and freedom of peaceful assembly."
In New Delhi in particular, police have been denounced for their aggressive response to the uprising, forcing hundreds of people into police vehicles. Authorities said they were investigating reports that officers had sexually assaulted three journalists at the protests over the weekend.
The Supreme Court took up two petitions Monday, questioning the credibility of the ECI's efforts to "purify" the voter rolls, as the commission has said, and calling for an independent inquiry into Kumar's management of the "special intensive revision" (SIR) process.
Another hearing will be held later this week.
Kant said the court wanted a response from Kumar and the commission about allegations that decisions about the SIR were made unilaterally by Kumar. Media reports last month said the two other ECI commissioners had objected to the revision of voter rolls, which the government has claimed is aimed at eliminating duplicates and the names of dead and ineligible voters, as well as "illegal infiltrators."
People across Delhi and states including Bihar and West Bengal have said they were wrongly removed from voter rolls, and protesters have said the revision appeared to target Muslim voters, who have opposed Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party.
Protesters on Monday symbolically posed as dead people to show that voters have been wrongly eliminated from voter rolls, despite still being alive and eligible to participate in elections.
“Deletions of voters have been made in the largest democracy,” Menaka Guruswamy, a lawyer for one of the petitioners who brought the cases to the Supreme Court, told The Guardian. “We have grown up with free and fair elections, that is not the case now.”
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Led by Florida and Texas, US Book Bans Surge to Record 12,000
"In several cases, AI recommended banning books that were banned elsewhere, creating a snowball effect for frequently banned books while the expertise of librarians and the communities they serve are ignored."
Oct 05, 2026
PEN America released a report on Monday documenting nearly 12,000 book bans involving more than 7,300 individual titles in US schools during the 2025-2026 school year, which the organization said were the largest censorship case numbers it had ever recorded.
The state of Texas accounted for more than 8,100 book bans—roughly three-fourths of the nationwide total and more than double that of Florida, which was the second-most censorious state with over 3,200 book bans.
PEN America said that the surge in Texas book bans came from SB 13, a state law passed in 2025 that banned a broad array of books that censorship proponents view as "profane" or "indecent."
According to PEN America, the Texas book bans carried out over the last year have been particularly broad because officials in the state used artificial intelligence to make a recommended list of banned books.
"In several cases, AI recommended banning books that were banned elsewhere," the report notes, "creating a snowball effect for frequently banned books while the expertise of librarians and the communities they serve are ignored."
Sold, a 2006 young adult novel by journalist Patricia McCormick about a teenage girl in Nepal who gets sold into sexual slavery, was the most frequently banned book in the US.
Popular horror writer Stephen King was the most banned individual author, according to the report.
Kasey Meehan, director of PEN America’s Freedom to Read program, said that banning popular young adult titles was a particularly harmful policy given the broad decline in reading throughout the US.
"Schools should be doing everything possible to connect kids with reading by introducing them to engaging stories and formats," Meehan said. "Instead, many are doing the opposite, banning books that help kids see themselves in literature, deepen their understanding and empathy of others, and develop their imaginations."
Philomena Polefrone, senior manager of the Freedom to Read program, said the broad books bans documented by the PEN America report are due to "chilling directives from state politicians" that "have created chaos and fear."
"Unsure how to comply, districts are removing books en masse, sometimes with the ‘help’ of crude AI tools that only make the problem worse," Polefrone said. "Increasingly, these bans are invisible. Thousands of these cases are only recorded because of public information requests by Florida Freedom to Read and Texas Freedom to Read. Books paid for by taxpayers are being removed from shelves and the local community may not even know about it."
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Japan Anger Hits 'Boiling Point' as US Marine Accused of Murdering Okinawa Woman
"As long as there are US military bases in Okinawa, such incidents will occur," said one former Japanese senator.
Oct 05, 2026
Anger over the US military presence in Okinawa is growing anew this week after Japanese police arrested a Marine Corps lance corporal accused of robbing and murdering a local woman, prompting protests and renewed calls for a revision of the US-Japan Status of Forces Agreement and even the removal of American bases.
Lance Cpl. Devin Jacob Ballard, 20, who is stationed at Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, was arrested Sunday on suspicion of killing 39-year-old Anna Yagi at the Naminoue Crustal Hotel in Naha early Saturday and stealing her wallet and backpack. Yagi died from asphyxiation caused by pressure to her neck, according to Okinawa police. Ballard has denied the allegations.
The Japan Times reported that area surveillance cameras captured footage of a man with "distinctive features," including tattoos on both arms and a shaved head, leaving the hotel carrying the woman’s backpack, which was later found nearby.
The killing sparked protests in Okinawa and Tokyo.
"How much longer do we have to bear this?" one protester asked outside the Okinawa prefectural government headquarters in Naha, according to Jiji Press.
A woman in her 40s from Nago said, "I feel it's a contradiction that a serviceman stationed at a US military base in Okinawa to protect Japan has killed a civilian."
Another woman at the protest said, "I don't want to see any more people hurt."
The advocacy group Femibridge Okinawa said on social media: "Anger has reached its boiling point. We don't want to hear words like 'refrain from commenting.'"
On Monday, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi—who leads the right-wing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and supports US troops in Japan as a strategic deterrent to China—condemned the "heinous crime" in a speech to the Kokkai, or Parliament.
“The Japanese government has lodged a strong protest with the US side and has strongly demanded full cooperation with the investigation," she added, "as well as strict disciplinary action against US military personnel and thorough measures to prevent a recurrence of such incidents."
Okinawa Gov. Genta Koja, who has no party affiliation but was elected last month with LDP support, issued a statement Sunday calling Yagi's killing "absolutely unforgivable."
"I feel deeply outraged," he continued. "It has come as a great shock to residents of the prefecture, who are forced to live in close proximity to bases, and has sparked fresh anxiety."
“Although the prefecture has consistently demanded that the US military take measures to prevent recurrence whenever such incidents have occurred in the past, the fact that this type of incident has happened again compels us to conclude that the US military’s efforts to maintain discipline and educate its personnel are completely ineffective," Koja added.
US Ambassador to Japan George Glass—who on Sunday was summoned by Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi over Yagi's killing—on Monday expressed his condolences and pledged "full cooperation" with investigators.
“I am speaking with US military commanders this week about how we continue to hold our American service members to the very highest levels of discipline and integrity,” he said, according to The Japan Times.
The Third Marine Expeditionary Force also said it was “actively cooperating" with Japanese officials in regard to the case, and that the US Marine Corps "takes these allegations very seriously and expects every Marine to adhere to the highest standards of behavior."
In Naha, Okinawa's prefectural capital, residents expressed their anxiety over the continued US military presence.
One 53-year-old woman said she has been "afraid to walk at night" in Naha.
"If we do not change the Japan-US Status of Forces Agreement, the crime of US soldiers will not decrease," she asserted.
Hidekiyo Shinkawa, 89, expressed outrage over the number of people killed by US troops in Okinawa over the past eight decades.
"When I was a junior high school student, a classmate of mine died after being hit by a US military vehicle," Shinkawa told Kumamoto Nichinichi Shimbun.
Okinawa was under US occupation from 1945-72. Today, the southern archipelago hosts 70% of US military bases in Japan and most of the 50,000 troops stationed in the country.
While many Okinawans appreciate the economic and security benefits of having US bases in their backyards, distrust of American troops in Okinawa—which was conquered during the closing months of World War II at the cost of over 100,000 civilian lives—runs deep.
Okinawans have been trying in vain to get the Americans to leave since the beginning of the occupation, when property was seized at gunpoint, residents were expelled, and homes and farms were bulldozed or burned. The Americans promised Okinawans good farmland and financial aid if they resettled in Bolivia. Thousands accepted the offer only to find themselves shipped off to an inhospitable wilderness where many died from disease. Much of the promised assistance was never delivered.
In Okinawa, the US military built more than 100 military facilities—over 30 of which are still in operation—on a series of islands roughly the size of Los Angeles. Washington forced the Japanese government to accept status of forces agreements that gave the US jurisdiction over all American personnel on Japanese soil.
US troops stationed in or visiting Okinawa have committed thousands of crimes, including at least dozens of murders and over 100 alleged rapes. In one six-month period in 1949, US troops killed 29 Okinawans and raped 18 more, including a 9-month-old infant.
The US military has also fired and lost nuclear weapons in local waters, leaked the deadly nerve agent sarin, and exposed residents to chlorine gas, to name but a handful of the most egregious environmental incidents over the decades.
Although the 1995 gang-rape of a 12-year-old girl by two Marines and a sailor led to a revision of the US-Japan SOFA so that Japanese authorities could convict and imprison Americans who commit the most heinous offenses—a development that led to scores of convictions—crimes against Okinawans and the local environment continue to this day.
On Monday, Koja argued in the wake of Yagi's killing that “to ensure that such an incident never happens again, I strongly urge the Japanese and US governments to take responsibility and implement effective, fundamental measures—including a review of the Japan-US Status of Forces Agreement.”
Some Japanese went even further, demanding an end to US bases in Okinawa.
"As long as there are US military bases in Okinawa, such incidents will occur, and the fear that such incidents will occur and that they may happen in the future will continue," wrote Keiko Itokazu, a former leftist lawmaker in the House of Councillors, the Kokkai's upper chamber.
"How long will this pain and sorrow be felt by the people, especially women?" she added. "Such incidents have been repeated in the past, and each time the government and the US military have said that they will provide proper education to US soldiers... But is this the result of education?"
Former Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said on social media: "Once again, an incident that should never have happened has occurred. A woman was murdered in a hotel in Naha City, and a Marine was arrested."
"Far from protecting Japan's peace, the safety of women in Okinawa is being threatened," he added. "As the nature of warfare changes, the Marines are no longer necessary for Japan's peace. Voices calling for the Marines to leave will likely grow louder in Okinawa."
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‘Almost All of Those Efforts Are Illegal’: Watchdogs Raise Alarm About Trump Election Threats
"Trump is once again in power, and he is again telling us his plan. He has weaponized the entire federal government—including the Department of Justice and the US Postal Service—to make voting more difficult."
Oct 05, 2026
With just four weeks to go until the 2026 midterm elections, democracy watchdogs are warning that President Donald Trump is breaking the law in a desperate bid to retain Republican control of the US Congress.
A Monday report in USA Today highlighted the unprecedented steps that Trump is taking to rig the midterms for the GOP, ranging from his promises to pay every American $5,000 if Republicans retain Congress, to his efforts to get the US Postal Service to not deliver ballots to voters, to his push to have Republican-led states redraw their electoral maps in the middle of the decade.
Adav Noti, executive director of the Campaign Legal Center, told USA Today that the president has shown he is willing to behave lawlessly to keep power.
"I think the president is trying to use all of the powers at his disposal to control the election results, and almost all of those efforts are illegal," Noti said, "but that has not deterred the administration."
Noti added that Trump has gone well above and beyond what any past president has done to meddle in elections.
"We've never seen anything like this before," he said. "The issue of the president of the United States using the powers of the presidency to try to control the election. That is a new development with this election."
In an analysis published by Democracy Docket on Monday, election attorney Marc Elias warned that Trump in the coming weeks could take even more extreme steps, many of which he has already mused about publicly.
"Trump is once again in power, and he is again telling us his plan," Elias explained. "He has weaponized the entire federal government—including the Department of Justice and the US Postal Service—to make voting more difficult."
The "most dangerous" threat Trump has made, Elias continued, has related to the counting, tabulation, and certification of votes.
"Despite what the US Constitution says, he has repeatedly claimed the power to direct this process," Elias warned. "This is not a new idea. It has been his plan all along."
Elias also slammed the US media for continuing to downplay Trump's authoritarian attacks on democracy, arguing that the press has learned nothing since the president incited a violent attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Elias isn't alone in his concern about another January 6-style event.
In an interview that aired on CBS News Sunday, retiring US Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) was asked about the potential for Trump to try to overturn Democratic victories in this year's elections, and he expressed real concern.
"I think there's a risk," Tillis said. "I really do. It would be another political unforced error if we do that."
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'More Performative Killing at Sea': Another Trump Boat Strike Leaves 4 Dead
Condemning the "illegal campaign of extrajudicial killings" as "murder at sea," Amnesty International USA asked, "Where is Congress to stop the horror?"
Oct 05, 2026
US President Donald Trump's boat-bombing spree continued on Sunday despite condemnation from around the world, claiming four more lives and bringing the death toll from the 13-month campaign to at least 238.
Sharing a video of the strike, US Southern Command said on social media late Sunday that "under the direction of SOUTHCOM, Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere executed a lethal, kinetic strike on a go-fast vessel operating along established narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean."
"Confirmed intelligence revealed the vessel's active involvement in narco-trafficking," SOUTHCOM continued, without offering any evidence, as with at least 70 previous strikes since September 2025. "The operation killed four narco-terrorists."
Citing a federal memo that it aims to keep concealed from the public, the Trump administration claims to be at war with drug cartels and that the killings in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean are justified. Legal experts and human rights advocates argue the bombings are at least war crimes, if not outright murder.
Sunday's strike was the administration's first confirmed boat bombing since Ben Saul, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism, said last month that even if the targeted vessels were engaged in drug trafficking, there are no "international legal rights to unilaterally use military force" to counter cartels.
After SOUTHCOM's announcement, Gizmodo reporter Matt Novak declared, "We murdered four more people in a boat today."
Brian Finucane, a former State Department legal adviser who now advises the US Program at the International Crisis Group, called it "more performative killing at sea."
Highlighting the rising death toll from Trump's "illegal campaign of extrajudicial killings, ie, murder at sea" initiative, Amnesty International USA asked, "Where is Congress to stop the horror?"
The Republican-controlled Congress has declined to pass war powers resolutions intended to stop the strikes—though the odds of passage could change if Democrats reclaim one or both chambers in next month's midterm elections.
Trump's bombing spree has apparently been not only illegal but ineffective. The Washington Post reported in July that a Drug Enforcement Administration analysis concluded that the boat-bombing campaign has not "reduced the amount of cocaine entering" the United States.
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MSF Says Israel Is 'Asphyxiating' Gaza, With Palestinians Pushed Into 'Smaller and Smaller Area'
"The yellow line cannot be treated simply as a line on a map. It has become a mechanism of encirclement and ethnic cleansing."
Oct 05, 2026
A year after a so-called "ceasefire" deal established the Israel Defense Forces' "yellow line" in Gaza, separating the IDF-controlled eastern part of Gaza from about 47% of the strip that was originally set aside for Palestinians, the Israeli military has crept westward, block by block—effectively "asphyxiating" Gaza's population of 2.1 million people, as one aid group said Monday.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), also known by its English name, Doctors Without Borders, said that the US-backed IDF now occupies about 65% of the Gaza Strip, "squeezing people into a smaller and smaller area" and leaving Palestinians uncertain about where the yellow line begins and ends as they are forced to repeatedly move.
"People risk being shot by Israeli forces when they approach it, and MSF teams continue to treat people with gunshot wounds sustained nearby," said the organization.
MSF released its statement on the shifting yellow line and the organization's struggles to provide medical aid for Palestinians days after the Danish Refugee Council reported on refugee camps near the boundary, where 80% of Palestinians interviewed by the DRC said they've faced water shortage and people reported rat and rodent infestations, continued food scarcity despite a ceasefire deal that required a ramp-up of humanitarian aid, and rapid spread of illnesses.
DRC accused Israel of "a policy of protracted displacement," which was supported by MSF's reporting Monday.
"The October 2025 ceasefire in Gaza was supposed to end civilians' suffering," said DRC. "Nearly a year on, it exists largely in name only. Displacement in Gaza has not ended; it has changed shape."
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) also warned last month about the IDF's gradual push westward through demolitions and the movement of military forces, noting that residents have continued living in neighborhoods adjacent to the yellow line, such as Al-Tuffah and Al Zaytoun in Gaza City, "because they have nowhere else to go."
"Where do we go? This is a question we’ve been asking ourselves for three years,” Safaa Mushtaha of Al-Tuffah told OCHA. “We accepted living near the yellow line, but it’s become unbearable.”
Ibtisam Malika, who also lives near the line, added that "every two to three months, we are forced to move and leave our belongings behind."
MSF described how families are being "pushed into overcrowded and unlivable conditions" and how the group's ability to deliver clean water has been impeded when there are attacks near the yellow line.
"The yellow line cannot be treated simply as a line on a map,” says Amande Bazerolle, head of emergency response for MSF in Gaza. “It has become a mechanism of encirclement and ethnic cleansing, while cutting communities off from the infrastructure, healthcare, water, and other essentials they need to survive.”
The medical aid group treated more than 1,500 cases of chickenpox in June and July, and has treated more that 11,000 cases of skin disorders including scabies this year.
One official said a majority of Palestinians in Gaza have less than six liters of water per day for drinking, bathing, and other domestic uses, and Israeli restrictions on the delivery of many items—ones that authorities claim are "dual-use" and could be used by Hamas for military purposes—have left families and medical providers without essentials.
“We are treating gastroenteritis, acute respiratory infections, a lot of skin conditions, hepatitis, bacterial skin infections, scabies, and lice," said Dr. Murad Asaliyya, medical activities manager for MSF in Gaza. “At the same time, we are facing severe shortages in terms of medical supplies. Even the cream we need to treat scabies has been restricted by the Israeli authorities.”
Other crucial items that have been restricted by Israel include engine oil and spare parts, "crippling the infrastructure needed to keep hospitals, ambulances and water systems running," said MSF.
MSF emphasized that the area near the yellow line is hardly the only part of Gaza where Palestinians face continued Israeli attacks. In June and July, the group's medical teams treated more than 1,200 cases of "violent trauma" across the strip, "including blast injuries, burns, gunshot wounds, and injuries resulting from physical assault."
Since Israel began relentlessly attacking Gaza in October 2023 in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack, the military offensive has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians, including more than 20,000 children, with experts warning that the true death toll is likely far higher. About 80% of all structures across Gaza have been damaged, said MSF.
The group released its findings as Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich boasted in an interview about the IDF's encroachment on the territory that had been ostensibly set aside for Palestinians last year, saying the moving of the yellow line and the destruction of Gaza and its infrastructure "encourages migration" and that "a world will not be built there."
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich:The Gaza Strip should never be rebuilt — a memorial to sin. That is also what will encourage migration from there the most. https://t.co/EnZCIPrs9x
— Clash Report (@clashreport) October 5, 2026
“Destruction, displacement, and deprivation have become normalized—practices Israel is carrying out with impunity,” said Bazerolle. “Governments must act now to ensure Israel stops the destruction and killing, prevents ethnic cleansing, and stops denying Palestinians the means of survival.”
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'A Devastating Gut Punch': New Trump-GOP Cuts to Food Aid Take Effect Amid High Grocery Prices
"This is a plan to wreck state SNAP programs and push millions off of SNAP and into hunger."
Oct 05, 2026
The Republican budget package that President Donald Trump signed into law last summer included a change requiring states to fund a larger portion of the costs of administering the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which provides food aid to tens of millions of Americans.
That change, which advocates and experts warned would impose unsustainable burdens on some states and potentially result in more cuts to food aid, took effect late last week, amid a nationwide affordability crisis that has forced many Americans to turn to food banks and other sources of support to meet their families' needs.
Katie Bergh, a food policy expert at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), explained that—under the Trump-GOP budget law—"every state now gets half as many federal dollars to ensure SNAP gets to eligible families on time and in the right amount."
"Some states didn't increase state funding to make up for this federal funding cut, which could lead to staff shortages, backlogs, and low-income families waiting months for help," Bergh warned. "Other states and counties are weighing property tax increases or cuts to other services to fill the gap."
CBPP has estimated that more than 5 million people, including more than a million children, have lost SNAP since Trump signed the Republican budget measure into law last year.
Rep. Shontel Brown (D-Ohio) condemned the newly implemented SNAP changes in a statement, noting that Trump and the Republican Party have created new work requirements—and thus new bureaucratic burdens for states and aid recipients—while also slashing administrative funding, a potentially disastrous combination.
"It’s a devastating gut punch and it’s intentional," said Brown. "This is a plan to wreck state SNAP programs and push millions off of SNAP and into hunger."
The Food Research & Action Center estimated in a recent analysis that the new cost burden for states "ranges from $3 million in Wyoming to $168 million in New York."
"States are being asked to administer a more complicated program with fewer federal resources. That is not an efficiency strategy. It is a fiscal transfer," the group said. "Ultimately, this policy does not simply affect state agencies. It affects every family waiting for an application to be processed, every community experiencing rising food insecurity, and every state budget attempting to balance growing needs with fewer available resources."
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'Freaking Insane': Sam Altman Sparks Horror by Saying We Should 'Accept Some Bad Things Happening' for Sake of AI
"We have to crush these sociopaths," said one critic.
Oct 05, 2026
Critics of the artificial intelligence industry expressed horror after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the world needs to "accept some bad things happening" as the price to pay for technological advancement.
In a Sunday interview with Politico, Altman was asked where his company differs from rival Anthropic, whose CEO, Dario Amodei, has called for guardrails that will slow the pace of AI development.
"We have always been a big believer that this technology has to be democratized and put into people's hands," said Altman. "One of the biggest differences between us and some of the stricter... AI safety people is that we believe the world should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of this technology."
“We believe the world should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of this technology.”In a conversation for the first edition of Decoded, a new daily newsletter and podcast, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman talked with POLITICO’s @BrendanBordelon about trade-offs, AI safety, and how his company is different from Anthropic.Subscribe to Decoded for the full conversation with Sam Altman: https://t.co/YHJJsDOQVh
— POLITICO (@politico) October 4, 2026
Altman went on to say that one reason he's called for "lighter touch" regulation "comes with an accepting of the fact that some bad things are going to happen as society figures out the resilience."
Critics reacted furiously to Altman's blithe dismissal of "bad things" his own company's technology could cause, especially because many AI developers have warned that it could potentially wipe out human life.
Patrick Gaspard, distinguished senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, called Altman's statement "freaking insane" and said politicians cannot let the AI industry continue without any regulations.
"Our elected leaders need to move past the polling safe territory of data center resistance to the real work of regulating these narcissistic freaks," Gaspard wrote in a Sunday social media post, "who gleefully tell us that we 'need to accept some bad things' from AI for their massive profits. And they don’t even know the limits of what they’re unleashing."
Joshua Topolsky, co-founder of tech news website The Verge, completely rejected the premise of Altman's argument.
"No, I don't think this is a reasonable answer or position," Topolsky wrote, "and no one should accept it or acquiesce to it."
Commentator Wajahat Ali said Altman's statement showed the need for a political movement against the AI industry.
"We have to crush these sociopaths," Ali wrote. "The problem is that many Democrats take money from them, which means they will get bailed out at our expense in the next two to four years."
Ali's comments were echoed by Talking Points Memo founder Josh Marshall.
"A whole political movement should be stood up against this arrogant and sociopathic bullshit," Marshall wrote.
Adam Carlson, founder of Zenith Polls, said Altman's remarks were symbolic of how completely out of touch Silicon Valley executives are with ordinary people.
"To any normal, rational person who doesn’t stand to materially benefit from AI acceleration or buy their whole schtick hook line and sinker," wrote Carlson, "you genuinely just sound insane talking about 'accepting bad things' without specifying exactly what you mean."
The social media account for The Tennessee Holler offered up a satirical summary of Atlman's argument.
"Sociopath elitist tech fascists who think they’re creating God and believe democracy is the enemy," The Tennessee Holler wrote, "want us to finance our own demise to let them take over the world."
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Lula Heads to Presidential Runoff Against Bolsonaro's Son as Trump Accused of Election Meddling
Ahead of Sunday's contest, Brazil's government and Lula's presidential campaign called for investigations into alleged Trump administration efforts to interfere in the Latin American country's politics.
Oct 05, 2026
Brazil's presidential election headed to a runoff on Sunday after neither incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva nor challenger Flávio Bolsonaro—the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro and ally of US President Donald Trump—received enough votes to win outright.
The younger Bolsonaro, whose father is serving a 27-year prison sentence under house arrest for orchestrating a coup attempt in 2022, led Lula by two percentage points in the first round, with the final tally standing at 47% to 45%. The runoff will take place on October 25.
Sunday's results—which included major conservative wins in down-ballot contests—heightened fears of another far-right victory in Latin America, where candidates backed by Trump have swept to power in recent elections, including in Colombia, Peru, and Chile. Ahead of Sunday's contest, Lula's campaign, Brazil's intelligence agency, and outside observers accused the Trump administration of meddling in the high-stakes election in an effort to oust Lula and return an ally to the nation's presidency.
Just days before the election, Lula's team called for an investigation after the Trump administration halted US consular services in Brazil, citing "security concerns."
Additionally, Lula's government is calling for a probe of "alleged efforts by the United States to interfere in the country’s domestic politics through the diversion of funds to far-right causes," Al Jazeera reported last week.
"Attorney General Jorge Messias called for the probe on Thursday, one day after the British newspaper The Guardian published a story suggesting that the administration of United States President Donald Trump planned to award $1 million to right-wing civil groups opposing the Brazilian Supreme Court," the outlet noted. "Messias stated in a social media post that foreign meddling 'cannot be tolerated' and that the report represented 'an important alert for Brazilian sovereignty.'"
Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the US-based Center for Economic and Policy Research, called the Trump administration's interference "another US regime change operation," pointing to the aggressive tariffs Trump imposed on Brazilian goods last year and the US State Department's attempt to send two top officials to "cast doubt on the fairness and integrity of the country’s electoral system," as The Washington Post reported earlier this year.
Trump, who hosted Flávio Bolsonaro at the White House in May, said last week that he was following the Brazilian election "very closely" and described the contest as "very important." A key Trump ally in the region, Argentine President Javier Milei—whose austerity agenda has fueled an increase in poverty in his country—traveled to Brazil in July to support Bolsonaro's campaign against Lula.
Flávio Bolsonaro, a sitting senator, wasn't the only member of the Bolsonaro family seeking greater political power in Sunday's elections. Jair Bolsonaro's wife, Michelle, and his second son, Carlos, both won seats in Brazil's Senate.
The Guardian reported that "of the 54 senators elected, 34 were from the right or far-right."
Following the results, Lula told supporters in Sāo Paulo on Sunday that "we have just had a lesson in Brazilian democracy."
"The result is often unexpected. We can never get everything we wanted. I confess to you that I was convinced I was going to win the election in the first round," said Lula. "But we have a second round."
"From tomorrow we will launch a new campaign," Lula added, "a campaign with only two candidates [where] we will be able to show the difference between our proposals for Brazil."
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