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Make It Shitty, Vengeful, Inept and Untrue
The devastation goes on apace at the teeny toxic hands of the clowns and hacks in power (maybe not much longer?). Topping the abuses: An assault by Homeland Security (sic) thugs on the home of a duly elected (albeit female, brown, Muslim) member of Congress for imaginary crimes as a child. Also: racist rallies, fake rumors, defying of court orders, calamitous fails on all sides. Their witless leader: "If Republicans get in power, you're going to (have) a depression. These people are incompetent."
In 2022, Cory Doctorow helpfully wrote Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What To Do About It. At the time, it was an analysis of how the Internet went wrong, a sort of "Big Tech disassembly manual" aimed at curbing powerful people from making transactional, short-term, self-serving policy choices ultimately bad for everyone but themselves. Alas, since the return of Trump 2, many argue the same dismal process of enshittification has oozed and expanded outwards to become "the organizing principle of US statecraft" itself, rendering pretty much everything in the public sphere....shitty.
Trump and his cabal of low-lifes daily ensure we get ample evidence of that dark reality. Their latest target: Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), the first Somali-American lawmaker, one of the first two Muslim women in Congress, the most visible refugee in American politics and Trump's worst nightmare who has long endured the most venomous of his abuses, which is going some. After four childhood years spent in a Kenya refugee camp, she came to the U.S. at 12, was reportedly 17 when her late father filed their immigration paperwork, was sworn into Congress at 36, and will now likely see easy re-election in the mid-terms.
For those crimes, she's been relentlessly bullied, threatened and assailed by a racist buffoon who has sneered she's "garbage," "totally crooked" and a "terrible person" who married her brother, came from "a non-country - all they have is crime and squalor," and should be sent back there, a notion his audience of bigots and cretins embraced this weekend at another Nazi rally where they mindlessly screamed, "Deport!" This, after Trump intoned "they are looking at her very carefully" after a judge signed a piece of paper allowing DHS goons to raid her home in the dubious name of unclear charges of vague unproven offenses.
The raid, which defies longtime DOJ policy banning major actions just before an election - "Another hard norm out the window" - was foreshadowed by racist story creator J.D. burbling it "seems like something's fishy there“ as he and Goebbels worked to decide, "How do you go after her (to) get some justice for the American people?” What a crock. A steely Omar responded to their clumsy "fascism in the extreme" by calling it "just the latest escalation" in ten years of Trump's "baseless lies and smear campaigns." “I will not be silenced,” she concluded, which reportedly "translates from Congressional-speak as 'Fuck You.'"
Trump, meanwhile, lumbers on, learning nothing. At a rally in Ohio that drew a paltry few thousand - with empty seats hidden by tarps and flags - he fittingly marked Columbus Day with more racist crap. He celebrated Haitians losing their legal status, insisted "I was right" about Springfield residents eating pets, called Somalis in Minnesota "low-IQ people," attacked Omar, from "the worst country," for claiming constitutional rights. (More "Deport!" chants. Jesus.) He also admired Jon Husted's ass - "I don't do this with men very often" - and urged on fans beating up a protester he called "fat," "paid," and "scum." (Pot/kettle.)
And he still keeps losing in court. Hungry to turn a public, affordable D.C. golf course where he dumped East Wing debris into a private fat cat resort, he tried to pull a fast one - filing a Friday 5 p.m. request, then razing 430 trees the next morning - on a judge who furiously blasted the “inexcusable," "preposterous" action, ripped him a new one - "In what universe did anyone in your office think this was acceptable?" - slapped him with a restraining order, and warned if they violated the order "by two seconds" they'd face contempt charges. "We did our best,” whined regime lawyers. "No," she snapped. "You did your absolute worst.”
So it goes. Another judge again blocked - past Election Day - the ludicrous, $20-million, taxpayer-funded, "educational and unapologetically patriotic" propaganda ads she banned once; in another end run, regime weasels moved them to YouTube. One ad portrays the desperate fragile snowflake as a lion who has to "show the jackals who he is." Another declares, "God made Trump...somebody with arms strong enough to wrestle the deep state and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild...who goes into the den of vipers, cares for the flock (and) won't ever forsake them," especially if they accept his $5,000 bribe.
Implausibly, his lackeys are just as lame and awful. Despite facing a scarcity of agents and funds, FBI head (sic) Kash Patel has been boasting of his supposed crackdown on violent crime, claiming the arrest of over 54,000 violent criminals, or 90% more than in the Biden era. Less than shockingly, his numbers turn out to be wildly inflated by including arrests by state and local police and other federal agencies where an FBI agent may have happened to be present. In fact, actual numbers show FBI arrests are down at least 15% from previous years, though at least they're busy harassing Trump's personal enemies.
There's more macho bullshit from aspiring warrior Pete Kegsbreath, fresh from his Arsenal of Freedom Tour (really). Speaking at an annual Army meeting on a panel of warmongers eager to expand the use of unmanned drones to make death-dealing even easier, Pete was repeatedly interrupted by protesters calling him a "coward" and "Nazi.” "The world fucking hates you. You're a fucking war criminal," yelled one. "We’ll see you at the goddamn Hague." Pete grew increasingly irritated; maybe he'd read reports that, despite their brave boat strikes, record supplies of cocaine still arrive here, "cheaper and purer than they've been in decades."
Other MAGA flops abound. When James Talarico took a week off the campaign with the flu, conspiracy crackpots decided it was a cover for a mental health crisis. Spencer Platt's crude take: “This isn’t a case of the ‘flu’, it's 'one flew over the cuckoo’s nest.” The "silly season" claim fell apart so fast even right-wingers were embarrassed. "This is such shit work, bro," wrote one, wondering if Talarico would sue. There was also the cringey fall of Kimberley 'The best is yet to come!' Guilfoyle, and Trump's brazen distancing - "She, I guess, dated my son a long time ago” - despite the surfacing of damning partying video on Jan. 6.
And the rise of new Press Barbie Katie Zacharia, former Pizzagate and QAnon fan, whose debut - so bad "a Zacharia may replace a Scaramucci as a time measurement" - was summed up by The Atlantic : "Hi, I'm Your New Press Secretary, and It's My First Time Reading Words Out Loud...I swear I have seen a sentence before, and I know where one stops and. Starts. And whether? To speak. With a rising inflection?" Now there are reports the self-described lawyer isn't one; a complaint has been filed with the California Bar for “the Unauthorized Practice of Law," and one account says she took the bar but failed it.
Fail fail fail: Thy name is MAGA. Perhaps we should be grateful; unimaginably, the current clusterfuck could be worse with competence. Take the Defending Main Street Super PAC, "the most effective independent expenditure organization for the GOP," which just spent tens of thousands of dollars to run a million 30-second ads arguing, “Maine can’t afford Troy Jackson and all his taxes" in the wrong Portland - Oregon, not Maine, over 3,000 miles off-base. One Maine operative: "At least now Portland, Oregon, can enjoy some of the crap we’ve been seeing every day.” MAGA's mantra: Make it shitty. Ours: Make it stop.
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Oct 15, 2026
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Green Groups Fume as Trump Gives Big Oil 'Another Free Pass to Exploit' the Arctic
Just over a week after a leading US Senate Democrat described President Donald Trump's relationship with fossil fuel giants as "old-fashioned corruption, by a thuggish government and a desperate industry," his administration on Thursday announced yet another giveaway to climate polluters who want to exploit the Arctic.
The US Department of the Interior is moving forward with a plan to allow oil and gas companies to conduct certain wintertime activities at the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska without reviews generally required by the National Environmental Policy Act—a landmark law long targeted by Trump's Republican Party.
"In issuing this categorical exclusion, this administration is seeking to fast-track large-scale oil drilling and seismic exploration without any further environmental analysis or public input," warned Earthjustice attorney Janet Bering. "It is cutting the public out of this decision and future decisions."
"The administration finalized this new approach with zero public input," Bering noted. "Combined with a similar proposal that rubber-stamps new oil production, this is a one-two punch. It's bad policy, and it is unlawful."
The 60-day public comment period is ongoing for the earlier proposal she cited, which is designed to streamline decision-making for construction and operation of oil and gas production sites in the same 23-million-acre Alaska reserve.
When the Interior Department unveiled that policy in early September, Earthjustice Attorney Erik Grafe declared that "what we're seeing here is a concerted attack by the Trump administration to greenlight oil and gas drilling in the Western Arctic while ignoring the harm it will cause to these irreplaceable public lands and also the government's obligation to protect these lands for wildlife and future generations."
"These are large-scale, industrial activities that cause permanent damage to sensitive Arctic ecosystems, nearby communities, and the climate," Grafe stressed. "The administration's proposal flaunts basic environmental laws meant to protect land, wildlife, and people and allow for fully informed decision-making."
Earthjustice is far from alone in blasting Trump's recent attacks on the Arctic. Dan Ritzman, director of Sierra Club's conservation campaign, condemned last month's proposal as "another piece of the administration’s relentless effort to expand drilling across Alaska's public lands."
"The Western Arctic is home to caribou, migratory birds, and countless other wildlife, and decisions about its future deserve careful scrutiny—not a permitting process designed around the demands of the oil and gas industry," Ritzman said at the time.
His colleague Mike Scott, Sierra Club's national oil and gas campaign manager, was similarly critical of Thursday's announcement.
"The Trump administration is handing Big Oil another free pass to exploit America’s public lands, this time by gutting environmental oversight in one of the most fragile ecosystems on the planet," said Scott. "Oil companies have already shown the risks they pose to the Western Arctic, and now this administration wants to make it even easier for them to drill without scrutiny."
"This isn't about lowering energy costs or helping Alaskans," he continued—as the president drives up fuel costs with an illegal war on Iran. "It's about doing the fossil fuel industry's bidding at the expense of wildlife, Alaska Native communities, and our public lands. The Trump administration is putting corporate profits ahead of people and the planet, and the Western Arctic will pay the price."
Trump campaigned for a second term on a pledge to serve fossil fuel interests—even telling industry executives that he'd roll back climate policies if they poured $1 billion into his campaign. Last week, US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Committee on Environment and Public Works Ranking Member Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) released a report detailing how the president has delivered on that promise since returning to power last year.
"The fossil fuel industry and their allies bought their way into the Trump White House with hundreds of millions of dollars in political donations, after Trump promised fossil fuel bigwigs at a Mar-a-Lago fundraiser that he'd do anything and everything they wanted, for the right price," Whitehouse said. "Now, their minions run the government from the inside, driving up energy bills to deliver payouts to the donors that put Trump back in office."
Oct 08, 2026
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From Healthcare and Fuel Costs to Tariffs, Trump GOP's Policies 'Crushing' Small Businesses
Arizona-based Gabe Hagen said Tuesday that "to keep my business afloat, I invested my 401(k) savings and leveraged my home equity as collateral for additional capital, putting my family's financial security on the line to sustain my business and employees."
"I raised my prices, but sales have just flattened out because customers are ordering less," explained Hagen, who founded the Tempe coffee roasting company Brick Road Community Corporation. He's among over 1,000 US small business owners polled by the national coalition Small Business for America's Future from mid-August to early October.
Among those surveyed, 77% have seen customers spend less, delay purchases, or trade down recently, with 46% saying that shoppers are spending "significantly less." Meanwhile, owners like Hagen are increasingly enduring more financial stress, with many cutting their own pay or pulling money from personal savings to keep their companies operating.
The survey exposes how "a combination of factors is crushing small business," the coalition said in a statement announcing its resulting report—which highlights soaring costs for everything from fuel to healthcare, and was released just weeks away from the US midterm elections that will determine control of Congress for the latter half of Trump's second term.
"Costs are hitting Main Street from every direction at once and Washington doesn't seem to care about the needs of small business owners," said Walt Rowen, the coalition's co-chair and president of Susquehanna Glass Co., a family-owned glass manufacturer in Columbia, Pennsylvania that's been around for over a century.
Rowen—whose company is located in a key swing state—noted that "my business is a good example of what is happening. We've been navigating erratic tariff policies that have disrupted our supply chains, and now my heating oil costs $4,000 to $6,000 a month."
"We've lived through the Depression, wars, and recessions," he said. "Heating my factory in this current economy is some of the hardest math I've ever had to do, and I'm expecting the bill to jump 30% to 40% this winter. This survey shows us that I am far from alone. Small business owners everywhere are comparing this economy to some of the worst moments we've had this century."
The survey shows that 83% of small business owners are concerned about their company's financial health over the next year, including 44% who are very concerned. Three-quarters called this one of the hardest economies of their careers, with over half drawing comparisons to the Covid-19 pandemic, and nearly a third pointing to the Great Recession.
A similar share (78%) accused decision-makers in Washington, DC of putting large corporations first, and 72% said running their business is harder than it was a year ago—with 85% citing inflation and rising prices as the source of strain. Majorities saw increases for utilities (72%); fuel (68%); transportation, shipping, or supplies (64%); business services (64%); healthcare and health insurance (54%); and employee wages and benefits (53%).
Those soaring costs have had consequences. Two-thirds of surveyed owners said they canceled, delayed, or scaled back investments in equipment, facilities, or technology. Over half did the same for hiring and expansion to new markets. Nearly two-thirds skipped or reduced their own pay, and 52% said their personal debt has increased in the past year.
Rising costs can be clearly connected to decisions by Trump and congressional Republicans—many of whom are up for reelection next month, as the GOP tries to hang on to its slim majorities in both chambers.
The president returned to power early last year having campaigned on a mass detention and deportation agenda, despite arguments from economists and elected Democrats that his approach was not only inhumane but economically risky. A clear majority of surveyed owners (61%) said that immigration enforcement has hurt the small business economy.
Trump and Republican lawmakers also enacted a 2025 budget package that cut federal healthcare spending and did not extend Affordable Care Act enhanced premium tax credits. Among surveyed business owners who buy their own insurance coverage through an ACA marketplace, 90% saw their premiums rise after the subsidies expired. Nearly three-quarters also said they fear rising health insurance costs will make it harder to hire and keep needed employees.
The administration's shifting tariff policy and refund process have caused further stress: 59% of owners said trade-related cost increases have made it harder to run their business, and only 3% have filed refund claims since the US Supreme Court's February ruling against many of Trump's tariffs.
Trump's illegal war on Iran continues to drive up fuel prices. The construction of artificial intelligence data centers—which the president has encouraged—is also increasing energy costs. Nearly three-quarters of those surveyed are worried about the impact of electricity demand from new AI facilities. Around the same share is concerned about the consequences of the new armed conflict in the Middle East, which the GOP-controlled Congress never authorized, but has refused to end.
In a social media post about all the findings, Small Business for America's Future urged, "Lawmakers, make your next decision with Main Street in mind."
Oct 13, 2026
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'Blatant Corruption': Donors Pouring $330 Million Into Trump Ballroom—and Reaping Benefits—Exposed
A newly revealed list of companies and billionaire CEOs who donated millions of dollars to President Donald Trump's ballroom construction project shows that Big Tech, according to one government watchdog, "bankrolled it fully expecting a return on their investment."
The list, first reported by The Washington Post, doesn't just show the $25 million donations from tech giant Apple, the pro-Israel Adelson Family Foundation, and microchip firm Nvidia—the latter of which requested anonymity.
It also reveals previously undisclosed donors who have benefited from a presidential pardon as well as government contracts and at least one closed federal investigation.
The 57 donors whose names were published by the Post had committed to contributing at least $100,000 to the ballroom construction project, which is proceeding for now following a Supreme Court ruling in August.
The list shows a total of $333 million contributed from private donors, but does not include Trump's name, though the president has said the demolition of the White House's East Wing and the construction of the ballroom would be "paid for a hundred percent by me and some friends of mine."
It also falls short of the $600 million projected price tag; according to the Post, taxpayer funds have been used to partially fund the project, along with donations from companies with business before the government.
Nvidia's $25 million donation came three months after the company reached a deal with the Trump administration to sell advanced microchips to China.
A $25 million donation from Charles Ergen, co-founder and chairman of the telecommunications company Dish Network, came shortly after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) dropped an investigation into the failure of EchoStar, which owns Dish Network, to upgrade its cellphone network.
FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr had threatened last May to revoke government licenses from EchoStar, and a month later, Ergen met with Carr and Trump in a closed-door meeting where his political donations were discussed, Bloomberg reported.
Ergen then negotiated a deal to sell some of the licenses to AT&T. Carr dropped the investigation the following month, and months later, with the sale pending, the executive donated $12.5 million to Trump's ballroom construction. A second $12.5 million contribution came soon after, according to the list published by the Post.
“Big Tech giants didn’t just chip in for Trump’s ballroom," said Sacha Haworth of the Tech Oversight Project, a watchdog group. "The same companies funding Trump’s vanity project lined up for tax breaks, chip deals, federal contracts, and a blind eye to lawbreaking. Under Donald Trump, there’s a two-tiered justice system. Big Tech plays by a different set of rules because they bought their way in."
The Post also detailed a $2.5 million contribution from Isabela Herrera, the daughter of international banker Julio Herrera Velutini, whom the US Department of Justice indicted on bribery charges in 2022.
Herrera Velutini's charges were reduced to a misdemeanor months after his daughter donated millions of dollars to Trump's MAGA Inc. political action committee, and a month later, she committed to a $2.5 million donation for the ballroom. Soon after, Herrera Velutini was pardoned.
The transactions detailed by the Post amount to "blatant corruption," said progressive news outlet The Tennessee Holler.
Companies with massive stakes in decisions before President Trump and his administration gave many millions to the White House ballroom project, which the President has made clear is important to him. So are you confident he'll make those decisions based only on what's good for the American people?
[image or embed]
— Noah Bookbinder (@noahbookbinder.bsky.social) October 15, 2026 at 10:43 AM
Cryptocurrency investors Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss donated more than $5 million in bitcoin—a portion of the more than $18 million the industry contributed to the ballroom. Trump has pushed for loose regulations for the industry.
Other top donors include Google, Lockheed Martin, Amazon, and Palantir.
Government watchdog Public Citizen said a new tax filing from the Trust for the National Mall, a nonprofit charity that manages the donations for the ballroom, shows that $169.7 million came from just 10 big donors.
“One year after the people’s house was abruptly bulldozed for a gold-plated ballroom that most Americans will never be allowed inside, we are uncovering who paid the most to fund it," said Jon Golinger, democracy advocate for Public Citizen. "The question these ballroom megadonors all now need to answer is—why?”
Haworth said that "when Democrats take back gavels in January, they need to investigate Google, Apple, Meta, Amazon, OpenAI, and others for potentially breaking the law to buy get-out-of-jail-free passes and sweetheart deals in exchange for their donation."
Oct 15, 2026
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Ilhan Omar’s Office Slams Trump Deportation Plot as ‘Authoritarian Move to Silence an Opponent’
The office of Rep. Ilhan Omar slammed the Trump administration on Thursday over its reported plot to have the Minnesota Democrat stripped of her US citizenship.
On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that the raid on Omar's home carried out earlier this week by Department of Homeland Security agents was part of and effort to build "a case to strip her of her US citizenship and ultimately deport her."
"The multipronged effort is focused at least in part on how Omar obtained her citizenship after she arrived in the US from Somalia decades ago," the Journal explained. "Investigators are focused both on the congresswoman and actions of her deceased father."
Omar spokesperson Jackie Rogers responded to the report by accusing President Donald Trump of engaging in "desperate attempt to justify his extraordinary abuse of power."
"This is politically motivated and an escalation of Trump’s personal vendetta against her lasting over a decade," Rogers told HuffPost. "He has lied about her family, about her immigration history, and about her love of this country."
Rogers also accused Trump of acting like a dictator by singling out a member of the opposition party for punishment.
"This isn’t a legitimate law enforcement action," said Rogers, "it is an authoritarian move to silence an opponent right before an election where he and his party will be rejected by Americans in historic proportions... To Trump, no American value or principle is too important to be shredded for his own personal gain."
Author John Ganz on Thursday published an analysis of the reported Omar deportation plot, which he said is "undoubtedly driven by racial and religious animus" and also "a serious assault on the constitutional order being carried out through the executive branch’s legal and bureaucratic machinery."
Ganz argued that a serious attempt to strip Omar of her citizenship and remove her from the country would be a major escalation from the Trump administration toward establishing an outright totalitarian state.
"Authoritarian governments suppress political opposition and deprive their subjects of particular rights," Ganz explained. "Totalitarian movements aspire to something much more radical: the destruction of the independent political and juridical personhood. They attack not merely the liberties of particular citizens they seek to repress, but the concept of citizenship itself—and then, ultimately, the concept of shared humanity."
Oct 15, 2026
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70+ House Democrats Demand Pentagon Answer for Iran Wedding Massacre
More than 70 House Democrats on Tuesday sought answers and accountability from the Pentagon regarding a likely US strike on a September wedding gathering in southern Iran that killed five civilians—all women and children—and wounded over 70 others.
In a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Reps. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.), Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.), and Jason Crow (D-Colo.) led 74 lawmakers in demanding an explanation for the September 1 bombing in Kuhestak and details of what the Trump administration is doing to protect Iranian civilians.
“We demand urgent answers regarding the United States’ role in this strike, why the strike proceeded given the clear risk of significant civilian harm, and what steps the [US Department of Defense] is taking to prevent further civilian casualties in Iran,” the lawmakers wrote.
The strike occurred at approximately 9:30 pm local time while preparations were underway for the wedding of the daughter of a local fisher.
According to witnesses interviewed by The Associated Press, around 150 women and children were gathered at the Mallahi family compound. The celebration was following a regional tradition in which women and men gather separately. The bride and groom had not yet arrived, and the main celebration had not begun. A bomb struck the room where dinner would have been served.
Four initial fatalities—two women and two children—were identified by Iranian authorities and human rights groups: 50-year-old Zarkhatoun Taheri, 43-year-old Kolsoum Malahi Najandnia, 16-year-old Mohammad Mallahi, and 4-year-old Amir Mohammad Karimi. A fifth victim, 22-year-old woman Asiyeh Molainejad, died in a hospital on September 3.
Weapons experts concluded the blast was likely caused by a direct hit from a US munition. The Pentagon has not publicly accepted responsibility for the strike, which remains under investigation.
"This incident is regrettably among the latest in a string of civilian casualty incidents arising from the US-led war in Iran," the lawmakers wrote in their letter. "This includes a strike at the Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in Minab, Iran, on the first day of the war that killed a reported 175 civilians, including 120 children."
The United Nations' Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran said it found “reasonable grounds" to believe that the Minab school strike constituted a war crime.
"While it has been reported that a preliminary investigation by the department found that the US military was responsible for the strike, over six months later the department has still not publicly acknowledged responsibility for the strike nor released the findings of its investigation," the lawmakers' letter notes.
"Similarly, reporting and independent analysis indicate that US forces were responsible for a strike at a youth sports hall in Lamerd, Iran, that killed 21 civilians, including 7 children, on February 28. While the department has denied responsibility, analysis by weapons experts found that the damage pattern is consistent with that of an American Precision Strike Missile," the lawmakers continued, referring to Lockheed Martin's next-generation surface-to-surface ballistic missile.
Hegseth, who advocates “maximum lethality” for US forces, has expressed disdain for what he called “stupid rules of engagement” designed to minimize civilian harm. He has overseen the dismantling of efforts meant to mitigate wartime harm to civilians—hundreds of thousands of whom have been killed in US-led wars during this century, according to experts.
“Maximum lethality," combined with AI-powered systems allowing for exponentially faster and more numerous target selection, has raised concerns that have been underscored by actions including US-backed Israeli massacres in Gaza and Lebanon, and US airstrikes in Iran, where tens of thousands of people have been killed or wounded during more than seven months of President Donald Trump's illegal war of choice, according to Iranian government figures.
The Washington, DC-based National Iranian American Council (NIAC) welcomed the lawmakers’ intervention, arguing that Iranian civilians must not be treated as expendable casualties of war.
“The lives of Iranian civilians cannot be treated as an acceptable cost of war,” NIAC president Jamal Abdi said in a statement. “These are families, children, and entire communities whose lives have been irreversibly altered by a military campaign that Congress never authorized."
“Credible allegations of unlawful attacks on civilians demand independent investigations, full public disclosure of the findings, and accountability for any violations of international humanitarian law,” Abdi added. “The Trump administration cannot be permitted to wage an unauthorized war in defiance of US and international law while evading responsibility for its devastating human consequences.”
Oct 14, 2026
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As Rubio Heads to India, US Progressives Sound Alarm About Repression and Surveillance of Protests
"The US and India have an obligation to promote and defend the rights to freedom of assembly and expression," six Democrats in Congress reminded the top US diplomat.
Oct 16, 2026
On the eve of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio's trip to India, six progressives in the House of Representatives on Friday sounded the alarm over the Indian government's response to recent protests, including its alleged spying on American soil.
"We write with concern regarding a pattern of repression, wrongful detention, and excessive use of force by security forces during student protests in Delhi and other localities across India," Democratic Reps. Jesús "Chuy" García (Ill.), Pramila Jayapal (Wash.), Jim McGovern (Mass.), Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC), Ilhan Omar (Minn.), and Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) said in a letter to President Donald Trump's top diplomat.
"The United States-India relationship has historically been rooted in democratic values, constitutional governance, and strong people-to-people ties," they wrote. "As the world's largest democracies and state parties to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the US and India have an obligation to promote and defend the rights to freedom of assembly and expression. It is in this spirit of shared values and obligations that we raise the following concerns."
As the letter lays out, protests began in June after the leak and subsequent cancellation of India's medical college entrance examination. While the demonstrators initially demanded reforms to the education system, including the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, the Cockroach Janta Party's (CJP) movement ultimately "grew to give voice to a broader set of grievances, including high levels of youth unemployment, government corruption, and barriers to democratic participation."
In recent weeks, "tens of thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets of major cities across India to protest... the Election Commission's Special Intensive Revision (SIR), which has purged more than 130 million people from voter rolls since 2025," the letter details, noting that protesters have called for the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar.
At least "hundreds of people have been detained by police across India since October 10, including CJP movement leaders, protesters, and journalists," the lawmakers highlighted. The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party has also closed some public spaces, used unwarranted force against unarmed demonstrators, and ordered telecommunications companies to shut down mobile internet services in a bid to thwart protests.
However, the Democrats aren't just alarmed by actions across India; they also pointed to "reports that Indian diplomatic missions in the United States hired photographers to surveil protesters on American soil," with members of US human rights groups and the Indian diaspora disclosing that they were recorded at protests in Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington, DC.
"These incidents raise particular alarm in light of India's documented pattern of engaging in transnational repression, including through the weaponization of consular services, harassment, intimidation, and physical violence," the members of Congress wrote. "It is unacceptable that individuals on United States soil may not exercise their rights to freedom of expression and assembly, guaranteed to them by the US Constitution and international law for fear of retribution by a foreign government."
The lawmakers asked Rubio's department to:
- Press the Indian government to initiate thorough, transparent, and independent investigations of alleged human rights violations connected to the law enforcement response to protests;
- Encourage the release of any individuals detained in contravention to Indian and international law for peacefully exercising the rights to freedom of expression and assembly;
- Thoroughly investigate reports that Indian diplomatic missions engaged in the surveillance and intimidation of protesters within the United States; and
- Pursuant to Section 6 of the Arms Export Control Act, assess whether India has engaged in a consistent pattern of acts of intimidation or harassment directed against individuals in the United States and is thus ineligible for arms sales.
Rubio is expected to meet with Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar in Mumbai on October 20. However, Rubio—a former US senator expected to run for president in 2028—and the second Trump administration more broadly have also been widely criticized for authoritarian behavior and their records on human rights.
After Rubio attacked Amnesty International, the globally renowned group argued earlier this week that "as secretary of state, he has launched a wholesale attack on the concept of human rights." Specifically, he has:
- Eviscerated the US government's human rights infrastructure;
- Vowed to wreck international human rights institutions;
- Championed the US administration's extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific; and
- Continued to arm Israel as it commits genocide in Gaza.
Further, "as the head of the National Security Council, he has not ensured the release of investigations into mass killings of civilians in US airstrikes in Yemen and Iran," Amnesty noted. "He's leading US attempts to destroy the international justice system. That includes a campaign to, in his words, 'dismantle' the International Criminal Court."
More broadly, the second Trump administration has repeatedly generated fears of interference in next month's midterm elections, weaponized the federal government against the president's political "enemies," spent taxpayer dollars on far-right propaganda, punished journalists and outlets deemed unfriendly to the GOP agenda, pursued a deadly mass detention and deportation effort, slaughtered hundreds of people by bombing alleged drug-trafficking boats on the high seas, and much more.
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'Monstrous': Netanyahu Casts Doubt on Filmed Israeli Settler Attack of American Journalist
"You mean the footage of the Israeli terrorists beating her up isn't clear enough?" one critic sardonically asked.
Oct 16, 2026
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced blistering criticism Friday after his office published a statement casting doubt on the circumstances surrounding a brutal attack earlier in the day by settlers in the illegally occupied West Bank that left an American journalist hospitalized.
"The facts surrounding the confrontation near Abu Falah, during which Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine was allegedly assaulted, remain unclear and are under investigation," Netanyahu's office said on social media.
As Common Dreams reported, Levine—a 63-year-old Jewish American by birth who has reported from war zones including Afghanistan, Kosovo, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, and Syria—was covering Palestinian farmers desperately trying to harvest their olives when around 80 masked settler colonists descended upon them.
Armed with rocks, clubs, sticks, assault rifles, and the self-assured belief that their deity figure promised them all the land that was once ruled by Jewish kings millennia ago, the settlers set fire to the olive trees that are the backbone of Palestine's rural economy and a literal symbol of Palestinians' rootedness in their homeland.
The assailants fired guns and threw rocks at the olive harvesters, reportedly wounding at least two Palestinians. While documenting the attack, Levine—who, like other journalists killed or wounded by Israel, was clad in a helmet and a blue vest clearly marked "PRESS"—was set upon by settlers, knocked to the ground, and kicked dozens of times while her equipment was stolen.
"Israel unequivocally condemns violence against anyone—Jews, Arabs, Christians, or journalists," Netanyahu's office claimed. "Those responsible will be held accountable."
"But serious questions remain," the statement continued. "Reports indicate some 200 Arabs and far-left activists confronted approximately 40 Israeli youths. Footage shows masked individuals on both sides hurling objects, amid reports of fireworks fired at Jewish youths. Other footage appears to show Levine knocked down and immediately helped to her feet by the same unidentified individual."
"The investigation must establish the facts, including who initiated the violence," the office added. "We will not allow disputed incidents to be exploited to demonize the hundreds of thousands of law-abiding Jewish residents."
The colonization of the occupied Palestinian territories by Jewish settlers—many of them non-Israelis who are availing themselves of the ethnosupremacist and apartheid policy of allowing any Jew to live in a land whose Palestinian inhabitants have been ethnically cleansed from it for nearly 80 years—is inherently illegal under international law.
Washington Post executive editor Matt Murray pushed back on Netanyahu's statement on social media, saying: "To be clear: Some facts are neither in dispute nor unclear. Our photographer was clearly marked as press. She was clearly beaten. These are not partisan or risible statements, but indisputable. We urge a thorough investigation and accountability."
International observers also criticized Netanyahu's statement.
"They are actually trying to justify an American WaPo journalist being severely beaten by a mob of settler terrorists," US commentator Krystal Ball said on social media, using the syllabic abbreviation for the Post.
Irish journalist Barry Malone responded to Netanyahu's post on X, saying: "Hi. There's video. It's clear."
US physician Amira Dalton said, "Israel lies and then calls you an antisemite for calling out their lies."
The X account Israel Exposed, which has more than 400,000 followers, sardonically asked, "You mean the footage of the Israeli terrorists beating her up isn't clear enough?"
The Israeli veterans' group Breaking the Silence said that "you can see the settlers who attacked Heidi Levine, a journalist for The Washington Post. But what you can’t see is the state behind them: a state that funds them, arms them, and, above all, grants them near-total impunity for their actions. This violence does not happen in a vacuum. Israel enables it."
While Lt. Col. Ariella Mazor, chief international spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces, claimed the military had sent battalions to the West Bank to contain the outbreak of violence, eyewitnesses said the IDF was involved in the attack on Abu Falah.
“The army did nothing to stop the settlers," Israeli journalist Oren Ziv, who was present during the attack, told The Washington Post.
That's because Israel's far-right government is unapologetically seeking to "finish the job of 1948," as Netanyahu once put it—a reference to the ethnic cleansing of more than 750,000 Palestinians during the creation of the modern Israeli state—and take all of Palestine.
"The entire land is ours," Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said earlier this month, in the lead-up to Israel's October 27 elections."This is our country."
Last month, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich vowed to do in the West Bank "what we did in Gaza," where three years of genocidal annihilation have left more than 250,000 Palestinians dead or wounded, nearly 2 million people forcibly displaced, and an estimated 70% of the territory under Israeli control.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, at least 1,138 Palestinians—at least 250 of them children—have been killed by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank since October 2023.
At least nine Americans have been killed by Israeli settlers and security forces in the West Bank since January 2022, including journalists, human rights activists, and Palestinian Americans visiting relatives.
Despite claims by Israel that perpetrators of such attacks will be held accountable, impunity is the general rule.
“Sadly, none of them will be prosecuted,” Levine said of her attackers. “I am sure of it.”
Multiple US senators demanded that Israel bring Levin's assailants to justice.
"The continued lack of accountability for settler violence in the West Bank has allowed attacks on innocent people, including multiple Americans, to go unanswered, and it is eroding what should be a strong alliance between the US and Israel," Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) said on social media. "Prime Minister Netanyahu isn't doing nearly enough to stop the violence."
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) also took to social media after Friday's attack, writing, "Today, another American citizen and journalist was brutalized by Israeli settlers attacking Palestinians in the West Bank."
"This repeated violence and brazen impunity for attacks against Americans and Palestinians alike are unacceptable," he added. "When will [President Donald] Trump and [Secretary of State Marco] Rubio DO SOMETHING?"
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Trump 'Picked an Incompetent Individual to Do the Job': Katie Zacharia Out After Less Than a Week
"Katie Zacharia wasn't fired because she lied," one Democratic strategist said. "It was because she was a bad liar. It's a key distinction.”
Oct 16, 2026
The tumultuous tenure of White House press secretary Katie Zacharia has already come to an end just three days after her first press briefing.
After his new hire shambled her way through yet another Fox News appearance the night before, President Donald Trump said on Friday that he'd suggested Zacharia "reconsider" her role as the top White House spokesperson.
"Maybe it's not for her," Trump said, suggesting Zacharia may continue working for him “in some form, but maybe a more pleasant form.”
Zacharia, who stepped into the role formerly held by Karoline Leavitt, lasted a total of five days in the job. That's less than half the tenure of Anthony Scaramucci—who departed his role as White House communications director after just 11 days during Trump's first term.
Her qualifications were in doubt from the moment Trump plucked her from an obscure role as a Fox News commentator for the highly visible job. Journalists dug up old posts in which she promoted the QAnon and Pizzagate conspiracies, as well as Trump's false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.
From the start of Zacharia's disastrous briefing on Tuesday, many observers predicted it could also be her last.
She was relentlessly panned after struggling to read through her fully scripted remarks (and at one point accidentally referring to her husband as "my president"). She cut the briefing short after just 14 minutes, taking only three questions, all from right-wing outlets.
It also became clear that, despite Trump's introduction of her as "an attorney," she'd never actually passed the bar exam and had misrepresented her credentials for years.
Asked by reporters earlier this week in which state she had passed the bar exam, she said, “When I moved to China" before later claiming not to have heard the question.
Even Fox News host Sean Hannity—a longtime Trump loyalist—challenged her explanation, confronting her Thursday with a report documenting “15 social media posts where you identify yourself as an attorney.”
“I think they were retweets,” Zacharia replied, arguing to a flummoxed Hannity that sharing the posts did not constitute endorsing the title.
While Zacharia's inability to do damage control appeared to do her in, Democratic strategist Mike Nellis emphasized that the problem was not her dishonesty—a trait that is practically a prerequisite to serve in the Trump administration.
"Katie Zacharia wasn't fired because she lied," Nellis wrote on social media. "It was because she was a bad liar. It's a key distinction.”
To some, Zacharia's tenure represented a disastrous culmination of Trump's willingness to eschew competence and experience for personal flattery and undying loyalty when appointing officials during his second term.
Zacharia said she got on Trump's radar by scheduling her TV appearances when she knew he'd be watching.
While other advisers questioned the pick, Zacharia's appointment was reportedly championed by Natalie Harp, Trump’s ever-present personal assistant and a fellow blonde conservative television personality.
White House press secretary Katie Zacharia speaks during a news briefing in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House on October 13, 2026, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
"She looks nice for him," said former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele on MS NOW. "She fits his idea of the blonde white female standing at that podium publicly pronouncing his noise in a way that makes him, when he's watching it, feel good."
Steele emphasized that with just weeks left before a midterm election widely viewed as a referendum on Trump, "the White House is voiceless."
"They do not have a press secretary in place," he said, "because the president picked an incompetent individual to do the job."
Though very few seemed to think Zacharia could turn things around, she did have one person in her corner—perhaps the only other person who could possibly understand her experience: Scaramucci.
While others bet she would not even last "one Scaramucci," The Mooch himself predicted—even after her disastrous Hannity appearance on Thursday—that "she will make it. I have the over."
Following news on Friday that she did not, in fact, make it, Scaramucci wrote: "Records are made to be broken. But I take no pleasure in other people's pain."
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Just Defeating Trump 'Ain't Good Enough,' Says Sanders, 'We Have to Go Further'
"We have to take Trump on, but we have to do more... You have to implement an agenda that works for the working class of this country."
Oct 16, 2026
While polls show Democrats are well positioned to make big gains in next month's midterm elections thanks to President Donald Trump's historic unpopularity, Sen. Bernie Sanders is warning the party that opposition to the president alone isn't enough to guarantee long-term political success.
MS NOW on Friday showed a preview clip of a longer interview with Sanders (I-Vt.) that is scheduled to air on Saturday where he outlines what he'd like to see the party do if it retakes Congress next month.
Sanders—who caucuses with Democrats and twice sought the party's presidential nomination—said it was essential for Democrats to win both the US House of Representatives and the Senate to put a check on Trump, whom he described as "the most dangerous president in the history of the United States."
But Sanders said merely denouncing Trump, however correct, "ain't good enough."
"We have to take Trump on," Sanders said. "But we have to do more... You have to implement an agenda that works for the working class of this country."
The interview with Sanders, conducted by MS NOW senior contributing editor Michele Norris, is part of an hourlong special scheduled to air on the cable news network at 8:00 pm Eastern time on Saturday.
The focus of the special will be on the 85-year-old Sanders' political career and his influence on a younger generation of politicians, two of whom—Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani—will also be interviewed.
Previewing the special, Norris argued that the focus on Sanders is timely because he is "at the heart" of the upcoming 2026 midterm elections.
"He has inspired, endorsed, and supported a roster of progressive, left-leaning candidates who surprised the Democratic establishment in the primary and now face the biggest test yet this November," said Norris. "The stakes are enormous for him, for the Democratic Party, and for the country."
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‘Deadly Serious’: Half of World’s Reef-Building Coral Face Extinction Threat as Oceans Warm, Study Warns
"Every tenth of a degree of warming we avoid gives corals a better chance," said one of the researchers. "So action now really does count.”
Oct 16, 2026
Nearly half the world's reef-building coral species are at risk of extinction according to a global assessment released Thursday. Researchers warn that the accelerating climate crisis is making the danger even worse than the most recent data shows.
Coral reefs are among the most important ecosystems on Earth, providing food and shelter for around a quarter of all marine species. Their destruction jeopardizes not only entire marine food webs, but also the millions of people who rely on those species for food.
The study, published in the journal Nature, found that as of 2020, about 44% of coral species were threatened, compared with about one-third in 2008.
David Obura, a marine biologist and lead author of the study, said the new assessment "provides the most comprehensive evaluation to date of global extinction risk among reef-building corals, and a stark warning of the accelerating increase in global threats to coral reefs."
But he said it also "highlights the challenges we face in addressing major data and knowledge gaps on the status of species at global scales, at the same time as having to take urgent decisions to reduce the drivers of global declines in critical species and ecosystems.”
The researchers stressed that the data they analyzed understates the danger. The assessment does not take into account the damage from the devastating bleaching event that began in 2023 and lasted until mid-2025. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), it was the largest such event ever recorded, exposing about 84% of the world's coral reef area to bleaching-level heat stress and causing widespread coral deaths.
It also doesn't take into account what meteorologists have projected could be the strongest El Niño ever, which could break ocean temperature records in the coming months, likely leading to another massive die-off of corals.
"It is entirely possible that reassessing the status of corals just after this coming El Niño may show them to have crossed the 50% mark of the proportion of species at elevated risk of extinction," Obura told AFP.
He noted that a previous "super" El Niño, in 1997-98, also caused tremendous damage to reefs.
"That this coming event is worse than that, after three intervening global bleaching events, is a terrifying reality," he said.
Researchers extract a fossil coral core sample from a massive coral colony in the Galápagos Islands to reconstruct historical climate and El Niño cycles as part of a study published in Science on August 27, 2026. (Photo by Julia Cole/Science)
In the new assessment, researchers found that human-caused climate change is the primary threat to reef-building coral, determining the fate of about 90% of the species at greatest risk.
They emphasized that coral reef health is more complex than simply "survival" versus "disappearance," and that every reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions matters.
“Coral reefs can feel a world away..." said Françoise Cabada-Blanco, a marine ecologist at the University of Portsmouth and co-author of the study. "But they cover a tiny fraction of the ocean floor, while supporting an enormous share of marine life and the food, coastal protection and livelihoods of millions of people."
"What happens to them affects all of us," she said. "The message from this assessment is that every tenth of a degree of warming we avoid gives corals a better chance—so action now really does count.”
A report published last year concluded that the globe had already passed the 1.2°C warming threshold for widespread coral reef dieback and found that unless global temperatures drop substantially, reefs could largely disappear.
“The crisis facing corals is deadly serious,” said Miyoko Sakashita, oceans director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “If we don’t take swift action to curb climate pollution, we could lose half of them forever.”
“We’ve already seen a lot of disruptions to sea life from the much warmer waters El Niño has brought this year, and I’m really worried about what that will do to threatened coral species," she added. "Coral reefs are the backbone of the ocean, and we can’t have a healthy marine ecosystem without them.”
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Amid GOP Midterm Woes, Trump Allies—Including Convicted Election Denier—Push for Martial Law
The president hasn't exactly assuaged the worries of those who fear he could go to extreme measures to maintain his party's grip on power.
Oct 16, 2026
As President Donald Trump's broken promises to end the affordability crisis and not wage new wars drag Republicans down in the polls ahead of next month's midterm elections, people close to the president are reportedly urging him to declare martial law in the name of preventing voter fraud, an issue that's exceedingly rare and statistically negligible.
Axios' Brittany Gibson reported Friday that Republican activists with Trump's ear are advocating extraordinary measures to prevent what they insist, without evidence, could be a rigged midterm election.
Among them is attorney Peter Ticktin, who has been Trump's friend since high school and who said during a September 30 video call for MAGA election activists that "there would have to be martial law" in the event of "another rigged election."
Ticktin was referring to the 2020 contest, which the Trump administration's own Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) called "the most secure in American history."
Trump's "Big Lie" that Democrats stole the election fueled the deadly January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection.
Pressed on the matter by Axios, Ticktin doubled down on endorsing extreme measures, saying there will "probably need to be commandeering of ballots and election equipment to make sure that we can get to the bottom of it before anything further occurs."
Ticktin represented former Mesa County, Colorado Clerk Tina Peters, who was convicted in 2024 of seven felony and misdemeanor counts arising from a plot to illegally access her county's election system in an effort to investigate unsubstantiated claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
Peters—whose 9-year prison sentence was commuted in May by Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis—was also on the September 30 call. She has been pushing for the replacement of electronic voting systems with hand-marked paper ballots tallied by manual recounts.
This, despite the Trump-era CISA saying after the 2020 election that "there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised."
Trump fired CISA Director Christopher Krebs after he repeatedly defended the integrity of the election in the face of mounting MAGA misinformation in the weeks before the Capitol attack.
According to a report published Tuesday by Votebeat, Peters has said she traveled to Washington seven times and met with senior officials at the Justice and Commerce departments. She and Ticktin also visited Trump at the White House in June, and Peters met with the president again this month.
Also on the September 20 video call was Cleta Mitchell, who participated in Trump's infamous January 2021 phone call in which the president pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" enough votes to reverse his narrow loss in the state. Mitchell now heads the right-wing Election Integrity Network and is pushing the administration to use federal authority to force changes to election procedures.
“I can call the president anytime I want to—and I have,” said Mitchell, who declined to say when she last spoke to Trump. “I told the president this: I wish that the people in your administration knew or cared as much about election integrity as you do.”
Other election deniers, including former Trump adviser Steve Bannon and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, have called on Trump to issue a national emergency declaration to ban voting machines or even suspend the election—something most legal experts say he cannot do.
"Emergency powers are not just a blank check for the president to go do whatever they want," Derek Tisler, counsel for the Brennan Center for Justice's elections and government program, told Axios. "The president still has to act within the Constitution and within statutes set by Congress."
Election fraud is an exceptionally rare occurrence. A Brennan Center study of voter fraud research found that studies put the incidence of voter impersonation fraud at between 0.0003% and 0.0025%, while a Washington Post analysis cited by the center found just 31 credible instances of voter impersonation fraud out of more than 1 billion ballots cast between 2000 and 2014.
While isolated instances of election fraud do occur, researchers have repeatedly found that they are nowhere near the scale required to alter the outcome of a national election. Many allegations turn out to be administrative errors, mistaken records, or unsubstantiated claims.
There is also no credible evidence that foreign-manufactured voting machine components have been used to orchestrate the sort of nationwide electoral conspiracy described by Ticktin and other MAGA allies.
Calls for extraordinary election interventions come as Trump and Republicans face deep voter dissatisfaction. A Financial Times–Focaldata poll published earlier this week found Trump's overall approval rating at 34%, with only 25% of registered voters approving of his handling of the economy and roughly 20% approving of his management of inflation.
The president's economic woes have been compounded by the illegal US-Israeli war of choice against Iran, which has driven up consumer costs—especially for fuel—amid an ongoing cost-of-living crisis.
According to Reuters, consumer prices rose 3.7% this year through September, while gasoline prices jumped 9.1% in a single month. A Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 78% of Americans blamed Trump's policies for inflation.
All of this has Republicans increasingly concerned about losing control of Congress.
Citing its own polling, Fox News reported Wednesday that "if the election were today, 54% of voters say they would back the Democratic candidate in their House district and 45% would support the Republican. That is outside the margin of error and is a wider lead than last month, when Democrats were ahead by 51%-44%."
All of this has left numerous election experts worried that the president could resort to extreme measures. He hasn't exactly assuaged their concerns.
In an August interview, conservative broadcaster Wayne Allyn Root on Real America's Voice asked Trump about declaring a national security emergency ahead of the midterms.
"Let me just say that stranger things have happened, OK?" Trump replied. "I'll leave it at that."
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'What Meta's Money Is Buying': DOJ Halts Probe of Facebook Owner That Has Given Trump Millions
Billionaire Mark Zuckerberg's company was facing a criminal investigation for allegedly enabling and profiting from the sale of illegal drugs on its platforms.
Oct 16, 2026
Top officials at the US Department of Justice have reportedly halted a years-long criminal investigation into Facebook parent company Meta for allegedly facilitating—and profiting from—the illegal sale of drugs on its platforms, including to children.
Bloomberg Law reported Thursday that "senior leaders" at the Justice Department "ordered career prosecutors in the Western District of Virginia to cease the criminal investigation following advocacy from Meta‘s legal team." Meta is headed by Mark Zuckerberg, a billionaire who has worked to ingratiate himself with President Donald Trump by helping to bankroll his inauguration and ballroom project.
"This is what Meta's money is buying," Kyle Jacobs-Morse, deputy executive director of the Tech Oversight Project, wrote in response to reports of the halted probe.
The existence of the Meta investigation was first revealed in March 2024 by The Wall Street Journal, which reported at the time that US prosecutors were "sending subpoenas and asking questions as part of a criminal grand jury probe looking into whether the company’s social-media platforms are facilitating and profiting from the illegal sale of drugs."
According to Bloomberg Law, DOJ leaders' decision to sideline the probe came "just after company executives were subpoenaed to testify."
Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter and Associate Deputy Attorney General Aakash Singh "are considering a civil resolution with a fine or a non-prosecution agreement," Bloomberg Law reported.
"Such a deal would allow the social media giant to avoid charges for its role in creating a market for youth to purchase deadly fentanyl pills and other addictive drugs," the outlet added.
A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment on the investigation but boasted in a statement to Bloomberg Law that the Trump DOJ has "ended the Biden-era days of aggressively and indiscriminately targeting corporations and businesses."
"Instead, we are focused on following the facts and the law to surgically address corporate wrongdoing," the spokesperson said.
Shelby Knox, tech campaign director with the advocacy group ParentsTogether Action, said in a statement Friday that "when the Justice Department says it wants to ‘surgically address corporate wrongdoing,’ a grand jury investigation into potential drug sales to children should be exactly the kind of case it pursues."
"A criminal investigation does not automatically establish guilt, but prosecutors must be allowed to follow the evidence without political interference," Knox added. "Meta is worth more than a trillion dollars; a fine alone is not meaningful accountability. If the evidence supports charges, file them. If it doesn’t, explain why. Children and families deserve more than apologies or a financial settlement. They deserve the truth, meaningful protections, and accountability under the law."
The Justice Department's reported decision to halt the Meta probe fits a broader pattern of lax corporate enforcement during Trump's second White House term.
The consumer advocacy group Public Citizen released a report earlier this month showing that the administration has cancelled hundreds of enforcement actions involving more than 200 corporations—many of which have donated to Trump's projects.
Rick Claypool, a research director at Public Citizen, wrote on Friday that Meta is "just one of the 200+ corporations benefiting from Trump's enforcement retreat."
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Ahead of Biodiversity Summit, UN Chief Warns Countries Are 'Subsidizing Suicide' by Backing Fossil Fuels
"I urge governments everywhere to end these handouts once and for all, and to use the savings for people and planet instead," said António Guterres.
Oct 16, 2026
"The food we eat, the water we drink, the very air we breathe—all are the gifts of biodiversity. Yet every day, humankind saws another branch off the tree of life," outgoing United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres declared Friday, before a key global summit in Armenia.
"Climate chaos. Invasive species. Overgrazing and overfishing. Excessive fertilizers, pesticides, plastics, and heavy metals. All these and more are driving the triple planetary crisis of pollution, biodiversity loss, and climate chaos," he warned. "Over 1 million species now face the risk of extinction, edging us ever closer towards an uninhabitable world."
Guterres advocated for both government and financial leadership, calling out funding for "agribusiness that strips the land" as well as the leading driver of the worsening climate emergency: fossil fuels. According to him, "Subsidizing fossil fuels is subsidizing suicide."
"They are boiling our planet, and are the scourge of biodiversity," said the secretary-general—who has often argued for not only phasing out fossil fuels but also making polluters pay for their damage. "I urge governments everywhere to end these handouts once and for all, and to use the savings for people and planet instead."
Four years ago, at the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, world leaders agreed to the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework—which critics called "weak" and "an open invitation to greenwash." With COP17 kicking off in the Armenian capital on Monday, the UN chief said that "Yerevan is our moment of accountability."
The "good news" is that the framework "has inspired action across the globe," with nearly 90% of parties to the convention establishing national biodiversity targets, Guterres said. The "bad news" is that "progress is uneven, and far too slow. Even if current national commitments are met, only 26% of terrestrial, and 12% of marine ecosystems would be protected by 2030."
"That is well short of the promise made in Montreal to protect 30% of land and sea by 2030. Major gaps also remain in targets linked to economic systems, including those focused on reducing harmful incentives," he noted. "And many of the critical elements of progress—including finance, capacity, cooperation and data—are still largely missing in action."
The figures come from the United Nations Environment Program's "State of Biodiversity Action" report, released in preparation for next week's conference. That followed the September publication of the UNEP's "Limiting Overshoot" report, which warns that the world will at least temporarily surpass the Paris Agreement's temperature target for this century: 1.5°C beyond preindustrial levels.
In response to the overshoot report, Stephanie Roe, global climate and energy lead scientist at the international nonprofit WWF, said last month that "overshooting 1.5°C is not a cliff edge, but neither is it harmless. Every fraction of a degree of warming increases risks for people and nature, while every fraction avoided reduces harm."
"What matters now is how far temperatures rise above 1.5°C and how long they stay there," Roe continued. "The science shows that lower and shorter overshoot means fewer impacts on ecosystems, communities, and economies. Limiting peak warming and returning temperatures to safer levels as quickly as possible can help reduce risks, avoid irreversible losses, and improve resilience for the future."
Roe's organization has also released a series of relevant reports in the weeks before the summit, including a Wednesday analysis it commissioned from the Global Cooperation Institute that lays out "major barriers countries face in delivering the Global Biodiversity Framework and what could help unblock it," and urges "decisive action in Yerevan."
WWF International director general Kirsten Schuijt said that that "COP17 must move countries towards action and implementation. The benefits of collective action for nature are clear: stronger ecological resilience, more secure food and water systems, and reduced economic vulnerability. WWF's latest 'Living Planet Report' shows that nature can recover when the right actions are taken."
Released last month, that report found a 73% decline in the average size of monitored wildlife populations over a 52-year period—with an 85% decline in freshwater ecosystems, followed by 69% in terrestrial, and 59% in marine.
"Lasting progress," said Schuijt, "depends on transforming the systems driving nature loss and shifting decision-making from short-term fixes to long-term solutions. For COP17, this requires governments, businesses, Indigenous peoples, local communities, women, youth, and wider society to all participate actively in decision-making that moves agreements into urgent implementation, to shape and deliver nature-positive solutions."
The political declaration released Friday by heads of state in Yerevan for a leaders' summit preceding the conference already has some advocates, like WWF International president Adil Najam, issuing warnings. Najam explained from the Armenian capital that "leaders came together to discuss the promise made in Montreal in 2022 to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. The declaration acknowledges that progress is insufficient and that implementation must accelerate. It also recognizes that our economies, communities, and peace depend on nature. But recognition alone will not fulfill that promise."
"The declaration lacks explicit commitments to align economic and financial decisions with nature goals, including reforming subsidies that harm nature," he said. "Governments must make these choices if they are serious about delivering on their commitments. At COP17, they must turn the global review into clear implementation pathways backed by finance on the scale needed. The declaration signals a commitment to action across government; the real test is whether it changes decisions back home."
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Trump Rule Change Allows for ‘Unintentional’ Killing of Polar Bears by Fossil Fuel Companies
The US Fish and Wildlife Service finalized the polar bear-killing rule despite a near universal negative reception from more than 85,000 public comments.
Oct 16, 2026
Oil and gas companies will now be permitted to kill polar bears and Pacific walruses off the northern coast of Alaska so long as such killings are "unintentional," according to a new Trump administration rule.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) on Friday finalized a rule change that would shield fossil fuel companies from legal liability if they engage in the "incidental, unintentional" killing of the animals "during year-round oil and gas industry activities in the Beaufort Sea... and adjacent northern coast of Alaska."
Under the rule change, which is scheduled to last through 2031, the FWS "will issue letters of authorization" that sign off on the incidental killing of wildlife upon request by oil and gas companies.
As noted by a report in Bloomberg Law, the proposed rule change "drew more than 85,500 public comments, nearly all in opposition," before the FWS ultimately signed off on it.
The rule change was a major priority for the Alaska Oil and Gas Association, which represents fossil fuel giants and requested the revision in September 2025.
Allowing for the incidental killing of polar bears isn't the only controversial rollback of environmental regulations made by the Trump administration in recent weeks.
In September, The New York Times reported that FWS had gutted a key provision in the Endangered Species Act by arguing that only the intentional killing or wounding of protected species counts as illegal "harm."
Last week, it was revealed that the US Department of the Interior is moving ahead with a plan to let fossil fuel companies conduct specific wintertime operations at the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska without undergoing reviews mandated by the National Environmental Policy Act.
Even though the Trump administration has prioritized the development of domestic fossil fuel production by gutting environmental standards, these policies have not translated into the promised cheaper oil and gas prices, which have spiked over the last half year thanks to the president's illegal war with Iran.
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Brewers Playoff Hero Jake Bauers Makes Accidental Case for Medicare for All
"If even a professional athlete is saying this, maybe healthcare should just be universal and free."
Oct 16, 2026
First baseman Jake Bauers of the Milwaukee Brewers helped his team end a 44-year drought Thursday night as they won the National League Championship Series to place them in the World Series, but in the process he kicked off a discussion—whether intentionally or not—about the role of employer-based health insurance that undergirds the for-profit system in the US.
While generating headlines throughout the pennant race due to his outstanding hitting and field play, Bauers journey to the top of Major League Baseball has Cinderella elements. Just two years ago, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Bauers was ready to retire from the sport's highest level.
"He had been playing professional baseball since he was just 17, spending more than a decade bouncing across seven different organizations with little success," the paper reported. "After batting .199 for the Milwaukee Brewers in 2024, he was frustrated, burned out, and ready to move on.”
Life outside baseball intervened, but in a way familiar to millions of American families, not just pro athletes who can earn millions in lucrative contracts and endorsement deals.
“Bauers’ wife, Lauren, learned she was pregnant with the couple’s second child," the WSJ explained. "Suddenly, Jake’s plan to become a stay-at-home dad while Lauren returned to her teaching job no longer seemed viable. They needed health insurance—so Bauers begrudgingly decided to give his floundering athletic career one last chance."
After beating the Los Angeles Dodgers on Wednesday and taking a 3-0 series lead that his team would ultimately clean-sweep the following night, Bauers brought up that decision about his second child and his family's healthcare needs in a post-game interview.
Hahaha! What an awesome country! https://t.co/IYJmu5ZP0y
— Darkwoke Duck (@DylanTweetin) October 15, 2026
While the group of sportscasters conducting the interview laughed at the explanation, others who witnessed it recognized something more profound in what he described.
"If even a professional athlete is saying this, maybe healthcare should just be universal and free," said Luke Savage, a columnist for the left-wing magazine Jacobin.
In a subsequent Substack post published Thursday, Savage expanded on his thoughts about Bauer's situation, writing:
This obviously doesn’t rank anywhere near the top when it comes to horror stories about America’s healthcare system, but I still can’t get over how completely insane it is to hear. This is an elite professional athlete talking! And it’s the guaranteed outcome of a system that links health insurance so tightly to employment. In this case, that meant that a young couple’s desire to start a family was conditional on [squints] the ability of one partner to secure a contract with a professional baseball team (and, to a lesser extent, be good enough at the sport to work his way back up from the minors).
There are only so many ways to repeat the obvious here, but tying health insurance to employment is a Dickensian horror show. It gives employers tremendous power over their workers and forces people to stay in jobs they hate or want to leave. The same is true of private health care in general. It devastates families, burdens them with crippling medical debt, and limits their ability to have children. It stops them from seeking treatment when they’re sick and makes going to the hospital an economic decision. Even among those who can afford insurance, it creates different tiers of care and inevitably means that rich people get it faster and at higher quality — which is just another way of saying the American healthcare system ascribes your life greater or lesser moral weight depending on your bank balance.
Wendell Potter, a former health insurance executive turned whistleblower who now leads the nonprofit Center for Health & Democracy, agreed that Bauers, though his status as a professional athlete makes his situation seem exceptional, is incredibly normal within the nation's broken healthcare system.
"Sometimes it takes a high-profile sports figure or celebrity to help Americans understand how absurd and unfair our healthcare system is," Potter explained to Common Dreams. "If Jake Bauers did everything he could to stay in baseball primarily because he and his wife were terrified of losing health insurance that was tied to his job, imagine how many other Americans stay in jobs they would leave if it weren’t for their employer-sponsored coverage."
While Bauers may have been lucky to stay in the major leagues, said Potter, and even luckier to help his team make it to the World Series, the reality is that he—like millions of American workers—could have potentially been cut at any time, losing his job and his access to the health coverage he received through his employer.
"Millions of Americans are not so lucky. Many get laid off or have their jobs eliminated," Potter continued. "They lose not only their jobs but their family’s health insurance. No other developed country has a system that locks citizens into a job they’d like to leave or are scared to lose. I wish more prominent people in sports and entertainment would speak up as Bauer did about how vulnerable so many of us are to losing both our jobs and our health insurance."
"The reality," said Potter on Friday, "is that almost all Americans who are not covered by traditional Medicare are in danger of losing our health benefits and access to care because of a layoff or cuts to Medicaid that force millions into the ranks of the uninsured."
In 2019, a Business Insider poll showed that most Americans with employer-sponsored health coverage support switching to Medicare for All, undermining the often-repeated right-wing narrative that US workers are wedded to the for-profit insurance plans they receive.
As Common Dreams reported at the time, the survey found that 59% of respondents with employer-provided insurance “said they would support switching their employer-based health insurance to a government plan under Medicare for All” as long as coverage quality was maintained or improved.
In a post on his Health Care Un-Covered blog last month, Potter detailed how nearly 40% of Americans admit they’ve stayed in a job longer than they wanted because they or a family member needed the health coverage that came with it. The term for this dynamic is called "job lock," he notes. And nothing about this "is new to anyone who’s been paying attention," he writes. "What’s changed is how much sharper and more current the evidence has gotten" in recent years.
While Bauer's story about healthcare isn't political or partisan, the scale of the employer-based system in the US is deeply tied to the anxieties individuals and families experience. With Republicans actively undermining and attacking the floundering system that already exists, Savage in his column bemoans leaders from both parties who fail to embrace what has long been recognized by experts and progressives as the only viable solution to the crises: a universal, single-payer model best expressed by the Medicare for All legislation put forth by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the US Senate and Rep. Pramila Jayapal and others in the US House.
Exasperated by a political system that has denied US workers and families better healthcare, Savage asks, "What does one even say at this point?"
He said the so-called "debate" over the healthcare system in the US "is nothing of the kind."
"The leadership of both major parties oppose healthcare that’s free, universal, and public because they’re as addicted to dead market dogmas as they are to donations from a powerful industry," he writes. "The dumbest people alive will tell you that healthcare is best delivered by the marketplace and that the ability to purchase it as a commodity like any other is, in fact, the essence of freedom. Nothing could be further from the truth."
In his column from last month, Potter notes that critics of the employer-based system have long existed on the ideological right and left and argues that as long as health coverage remains "tethered to a single employer, job lock isn’t a glitch in the system," but rather "the system working as designed."
"The fact that people across the political spectrum have recognized that for decades," he concludes, "is exactly why it’s worth pressing the case again now."
Go Brewers!
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