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Apologies for invoking again 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 - this, 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 a high school gym with mostly empty upper tiers, people began streaming out as he bragged the economy is "booming," with new plants "everywhere." Later, he stubbornly insisted, "There are no empty seats" and his rallies are "HOTTER than ever," so nothing to see here except mashed potatoes. "Just pretend I’m on the ballot," he pleaded, a loser's losing message amidst the debacles he's forged. In need of safe harbor, his itinerary in "a red-state October blitz" is almost entirely in deep-red states he once won by double digits: Texas, Oklahoma, 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? Still, 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. And that profound disconnect is alive and festering in the incoherent child king somehow still babbling about "the golden age of America.”
Declaiming, “Watch for the ‘Midterm Surprise!’,” he just boasted his sparse rally crowds are "unbelievable!" He even added for the 8,726th time his now parody-level, "Nobody has ever seen anything like it"and raved the GOP is “flipping races all over the place.” As a public service, Aaron Rupar, who's borne witness to years of this 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." Observers: "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 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, out of furious fucks to give, raged at policies crazy, cruel and increasingly unpopular. "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 seethed. Then 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 bade,"Keep your fucking hands off our vote!" and take back the House, the Senate, our country. In brief, show up.
- YouTube www.youtube.com

The 10th annual Copernicus Ocean State Report, released Wednesday by a team of more than 100 international scientists, provided the latest reminder that, as one United Nations official said, "the ocean is one of the clearest indicators of the profound shifts" that the climate crisis is causing.
Data gathered by Mercator Ocean International, the nonprofit that produced the report, revealed "an ocean warming at an alarming pace, with far-reaching consequences for marine life, coastlines, and communities worldwide," said the group.
The study delivers ocean scientists' "starkest warning yet of the profound changes sweeping across the ocean, as a likely unprecedented El Niño takes shape in the Pacific," said Mercator, referring to the natural warming trend that is expected to be made more intense this year by planetary heating.
Drawing on four decades of data from satellites, buoys, sensors, and modeling, the scientists found that 2024 was marked by record-breaking marine heatwaves as well as an unprecedented extreme low sea level event, causing levels in the Bothnian Bay between Sweden and Finland to plunge 60 inches, bringing ferries to a halt for 18 hours.
Heatwaves in the Mediterranean and Black seas lasted more than 30 days and raised water temperatures by more than 8.3°F (4.6°C) above average.
“These are not isolated hot spells; they are occurring against a backdrop of sustained ocean warming that is changing the conditions marine ecosystems experience,” Blanca Fernández-Álvarez, a report author and a conresearcher at the Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies, told CNN.
But along with extreme events documented in the report, the scientists found unmistakable trends showing no sign of letting up, including persistent damage to marine life due to ocean heating fueled by continued oil and gas extraction.
Small island states—some of the countries least responsible for carbon emissions that are leading to record heat absorption by the oceans—face worsening, "overlapping pressures" including sea-level rise that could wipe out coastal and island communities and the growing threat of more intense tropical cyclones.
Over the last three decades, reads the report, "ongoing reorganization of marine ecosystems around the world" hasr been made clear by persistent changes in growth patterns of phytoplankton, which support food webs and carbon flows, in nearly 5% of the ocean.
Heat stress also contributed to coral bleaching in 84% of the world's reefs, threatening marine ecosystems as well as coastal communities that rely on reefs for protection and tourism.
"The ocean is transforming before our eyes: Warming, rising seas, and ecosystem degradation are interconnected signs of significant and long-term change," said Pierre Bahurel, director general of Mercator Ocean International.
As humans have continued to emit carbon and other greenhouse gases despite warnings from energy experts and scientists, the rate of ocean heating has doubled over the past two decades, causing sea surface temperatures to skyrocket to record highs in 2023, 2024, and this year.
In 2025, the report says, the ocean absorbed an additional 23 zettajoules—about 40 times the energy consumed by the entire world last year. The energy absorption is equivalent to 12 atomic bombs going off every second for one year.
The global mean sea level rose by 3.8 ± 0.3 millimeters each year between 1999-2025, and the ocean has become about 17% more acidic over the last four decades, wreaking havoc on crucial underwater ecosystems.
Peter Thomson, the UN secretary-general's special envoy for the ocean, emphasized that the dangers posed to the world's oceans by continued fossil fuel extraction have been made clear over 10 years of reports by Mercator, as well as other warnings from scientists.
"What it tells us is unmistakable: The ocean is changing, and those changes are reaching into the lives, livelihoods, and security of people everywhere," said Thomson. "We have the knowledge. We have the evidence. Now we need the political will to act."
An analysis released Wednesday documents some of the major economic gains that Brazil has made over the past four years during the third term of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is currently in a close battle for reelection against rival Flávio Bolsonaro.
The analysis, published by the US-based Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), finds that, between 2022 and 2025, the Brazilian economy grew by a cumulative 8.9%, easily outpacing the average rate of growth in other South American countries.
This growth has been coupled with a drop in the unemployment rate, which has fallen from more than 9% in the second quarter of 2022 to just 5.4% in the second quarter of 2026.
Both poverty and food insecurity fell dramatically in the first two year's of Lula's term, the analysis finds, and in 2025, "Brazil was removed from the Food and Agriculture Organization’s Hunger Map after chronic undernourishment fell below 2.5%."
CEPR's report also gives credit to Lula's policies for improved economic conditions, including a new minimum wage law, an expanded maternity leave program, and increased average payments to low-income families given through the Bolsa Família program.
The economy during Lula's term is far from perfect, however, and the report flags high interest rates set by Brazil's central bank as a key factor in raising consumers' borrowing costs and increasing the rate of household delinquency.
CEPR also noted the negative impact of online betting apps, which Lula has pledged to ban starting next month, on Brazilian workers.
"Brazilian households lost an estimated R$62.5 billion (US$11.2 billion) to online betting in 2025," the report says, "while some 802,000 Bolsa Família households spent more than 2% of their income on betting in January 2025."
Jake Johnston, CEPR's director of international research, said that "the past almost four years have seen Brazil accomplish a great deal in terms of bringing people out of poverty, creating jobs, curbing hunger, and raising standards of living."
"This was done," Johnston added, "despite the lingering impact of the Covid pandemic, external economic shocks that affected the global economy, and excessively high interest rates."
The first round of Brazil's presidential election is set to take place on Sunday, and recent polls show Lula with a narrow lead over Bolsonaro, son of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who is still serving a criminal sentence for efforts to instigate a coup after his loss in the 2022 election.
The Democratic National Committee sued President Donald Trump and parts of his administration on Wednesday over a series of recent taxpayer-funded video advertisements that the complaint calls "a blatant violation of the statutory ban on the use of appropriations for 'publicity or propaganda purposes.'"
"President Trump personally directed this illegal activity," notes the DNC complaint, which was filed in federal court in Washington, DC and also names the White House Office, Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as defendants.
"The White House Office crafted the partisan campaign. The Office of Management and Budget shifted $20 million to pay for it. And US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has carried it out," the complaint continues. DHS is the parent agency of CBP.
"These unlawful actions are ultra vires and violate the Administrative Procedure Act," the DNC asserted.
The lawsuit comes after the watchdog group Public Citizen last week filed a pair of complaints urging regulators and broadcasters to pull the taxpayer-funded ads off the air and demanding a federal investigation, arguing that they "appear to violate the federal law against using taxpayer funds to finance propaganda (5 USC §3107) and related provisions of the appropriations laws as well as the Hatch Act (5 USC §7324)."
Wednesday's filing highlights that the ads—which have aired on a range of channels in the lead-up to next month's congressional election—tout Trump "and his midterm messaging, including one that is virtually identical to a 2024 campaign ad."
The DNC "is working to defeat President Trump's allies at the polls in all 50 states, up and down the ballot, and shares a unity of interests with Democratic candidates," the complaint says. "The Trump administration's illegal use of taxpayer dollars for campaign-style advertisements deprives the DNC of a fair electoral process by adding public funds to the resources available to support Republican candidates."
"The use of public funds also places the DNC and Democratic candidates at an electoral disadvantage, even though the publicly funded propaganda advertisements are deeply unpopular with American voters, by preserving funds held by campaign committees and PACs—including MAGA Inc.—for other political expenditures," the filing says, referring to political action committees.
In the face of "intense bipartisan backlash," Trump announced Monday that he was planning to have his super PAC MAGA Inc. pay for ads "moving forward," the document points out—"and yet for the next two days, the ads have continued to air, still labeled 'Paid for by the US Government.'"
As The Associated Press reported: "On Tuesday, the fifth ad in the campaign began airing with the notice, 'Paid for by the US Government,' promoting Trump's military actions in Venezuela earlier this year. The same day, Trump made it clear he hasn't committed to reimbursing any money that has already been spent, telling reporters, 'We'll decide.'"
The complaint says that "with less than 30 days remaining before the midterm election and millions of public dollars apportioned to pay for propaganda ads still unspent, the DNC has no choice but to take action in defense of free and fair elections."
While the defendants haven't yet commented on the suit, DNC Chair Ken Martin said that "Donald Trump is misusing millions of taxpayer dollars to fund pure propaganda ads in a last-ditch attempt to save Republicans in November—so we're suing him."
"As gas and grocery costs rise and his approval numbers continue to crater, this president has stooped to taking money from a fund intended for memorials for Americans killed in the line of duty to promote his failed policies," he continued—as other Democrats also made moves to call out the GOP's "failed economic agenda" and fears mounted about how the president may try to interfere with the November midterms.
According to Martin, "Americans deserve better than to have their hard-earned tax dollars used for Trump's illegal schemes."
Young people across France suffered horrifying injuries this week as riot police attacked high school and university students, faculty, and parents who were joined by striking workers in the latest nationwide mobilization over the country's underfunded education system.
Hundreds of thousands of students, workers, and their supporters rallied at more than 170 demonstrations across France Tuesday, with the arrest total topping 6,000 people—including roughly 4,400 minors—since the current wave of demonstrations began on September 28, according to the country's Interior Ministry.
The school blockades and other protests began in blue-collar Parisian suburbs and rapidly spread across the country as students and their supporters demanded more teachers and staff, smaller classes, improved school buildings, an end to socially discriminatory university admissions, and an education system that does not force working-class youth to bear the cost of government austerity.
The Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT), one of France's largest unions, urged its members to join Tuesday's mobilization alongside students and educators. The union said it would stand with high school and university students "including through strikes," while demanding major investment in public education.
"Beyond the issue of resources, students are demanding greater equality and social justice, aware that the policies of [President] Emmanuel Macron and his successive governments have deliberately damaged the principles of the French public education system," a coalition of unions including CGT said in a statement of solidarity.
Such solidarity was visible on the streets Tuesday as students from Épinay-sur-Seine marched alongside SUD-Rail railway employees, while education workers formed human chains to protect young protesters from police. Workers also joined students blockading a high school in Montpellier.
Protesters in some cities were met with police violence.

"The repression is the same as that employed against the Yellow Vests except that now it's our kids who are in the streets," said Julien, a CGT Total refinery worker and union activist, referring to the 2018 economic protests that swept the nation. "The high school and university students have opened the way, and we have to follow them."
Coline, a high school student in Le Havre, said that workers physically placed themselves between young protesters and police.
"Union members formed a human chain between us and the CRS," she said. "All workers should do it because our demands are theirs. They portray us as rioters when we just want a future."
Alarming scenes of police terror shocked many observers.
In Lens, a 15-year-old student suffered a devastating hand injury during clashes near his high school Monday. According to La Voix du Nord, the teenager lost his hand after a police grenade exploded. The precise circumstances remain under investigation, chiefly by the Inspection Générale de la Police Nationale (IGPN).
A fellow student, Chloé, rejected the authorities' claims that the teenager was injured when he picked up the grenade.
"The police started coming toward us," she told La Voix du Nord. "So we all started running in the opposite direction. They threw smoke grenades at us... We were running. We couldn't see. And my high schoolmate got it in his hand."
She said the injured student began shouting, "My hand! My hand!"
"I turn around and see that he doesn't have a hand anymore," she recounted. "We all gathered around him."
"We're students, we're young," Chloé added. "There's no need to do that. It was useless; we were already leaving."
A 14-year-old in Saint-Ouen-l'Aumône reportedly suffered a double jaw fracture after being struck by a tear gas grenade fired at close range. Le Monde said the incident is among several cases being investigated by the IGPN.
Another 14-year-old reportedly lost most of his teeth after a police officer apparently fired a grenade at his face at close range during a protest northwest of Paris.
“His jaw is sealed shut, he can no longer speak, and he eats through a straw,” his mother told reporters.
In Tours, a 16-year-old reportedly suffered a severe eye injury when police fired "less-lethal" projectiles, including rubber-coated steel bullets, into a crowd of protesters during a high school blockade.
Another student, 16-year-old Isabella, connected the police crackdown to the class inequalities underlying the movement.
"Everybody told us that school was the great leveler, but today that is not the case at all," she told The Guardian. "A teenager in the suburbs of Paris is never going to have the same opportunities as a student from the city center."
The protests have also become a political flashpoint, with Jean-Luc Mélenchon and his left-wing La France Insoumise party openly backing the students while rejecting government accusations that they are responsible for the unrest. LFI lawmakers have appeared alongside protesters, while Mélenchon has condemned the police response and called on his supporters to nonviolently resist what he called police “savagery.”
On Tuesday, French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez refused to apologize for the police violence, drawing calls from the left for his resignation.
Amnesty International accused French authorities of answering protests with "disproportionate" force.
“Footage and testimonies widely reported over the last week raise alarming concerns about the dangerous use of tear gas, batons, and restraint techniques by police," Amnesty International France president Anne Savinel-Barras said Monday. "Tear gas grenades have been discharged recklessly, and rubber bullets have been fired, causing serious injuries."
“Authorities must ensure that any response to demonstrations is necessary and proportionate, and that children and young people peacefully demanding their right to education are protected rather than being beaten, tear-gassed, or arbitrarily detained," she added. "The priority should be the de-escalation of tensions, and authorities must take all available precautionary measures to avoid the need to use force.”
At least dozens of protesting educators, parents, and labor unionists have also been injured by police during the demonstrations.
Some police also reportedly refused to attack protesters.
Workers interviewed during the protests appeared undaunted and focused on their own demands, as well as those of the students.
“We’re sick of wage freezes; 60% of low-wage public sector workers are paid less than the minimum wage for a full workweek,” CGT Poitiers official Vincent Bohan told World Socialist Web Site during a march in Paris last week. “More and more people rely on us, but there are not enough of us to meet the population’s needs.”
“When you hear Macron’s speeches, each one more provocative than the last, with billions of euros spent on killing, while people in France are starving, one feels like telling him: Stop... help people struggling here rather than killing people elsewhere," Bohan said, referring to rising tensions with Russia and France's testing of a new generation of nuclear missiles. "Frankly, we are very worried.”
The Pentagon is preparing to dramatically expand the American military presence in the Middle East as President Donald Trump weighs renewed attacks on Iran, with thousands of additional troops and a third aircraft carrier being readied for deployment, even as the conflict he has repeatedly declared "over" or "won" threatens to erupt into a new and potentially broader phase.
The Washington Post reported Thursday that the Pentagon is preparing options that could put as many as three US aircraft carriers and their accompanying warships in the Middle East.
According to The Associated Press, around 9,000 additional sailors and Marines are being dispatched aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group and the USS Makin Island amphibious readiness group. The buildup could push the number of US personnel in the region above 20,000 by late October.
The Roosevelt is being sent to relieve the USS George Washington, while a third carrier, the USS George HW Bush, is also already in the region.
The new deployment plans come as diplomacy between Washington and Tehran remains stalled, and as Trump has repeatedly threatened to resume large-scale military action—including the total annihilation of the nation of over 90 million people—after the November midterm elections.
"Either they'll do something very proper and smart, or they won't be around very long," Trump said of the Iranian government Thursday in Denton, Texas. "Frankly, I hate to see that, but they won't be around very long."
Iran, meanwhile, has reportedly begun preparing for a more expansive retaliation should the United States launch another major attack in the illegal US-Israeli war of choice against the Middle East nation.
Hamidreza Azizi, a senior Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group, told Reuters Thursday that the Iranian government seems "determined not to respond symbolically to a symbolic move and instead to escalate in the hope of reestablishing deterrence."
Republican National Committee Co-Chair Lara Trump—the president's daughter-in-law—warned during a Wednesday interview with British journalist Harry Cole that the increasingly protracted Iran War could not only tarnish Trump's legacy, but could also cost Republicans next month's midterm elections.
"Well, it's possible," Trump—who campaigned as the "peace president" on a promise of no new wars—said of the midterm risks Thursday on his way to Texas, before adding that “it should help because Iran will not have a nuclear weapon."
The intelligence consensus of every US administration since former President George W. Bush—including during both of Trump's terms—has been that Iran has not been trying to develop nuclear weapons.
“This is a sick man who thinks it’s a joke to push over a million Texans into poverty by stealing their hard-earned benefits."
Ken Paxton, the Republican Party’s nominee for the US Senate in Texas, expressed a willingness to cut programs such as Social Security in a leaked recording published by The Texas Tribune on Thursday.
In the recording, which was made during a private meeting with donors and lobbyists last month, Paxton said he'd target "mandatory spending" programs—which include Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—when asked about addressing the US fiscal deficit.
“Making some reasonable cuts to mandatory spending—you’re gonna have to do it," Paxton said. "Or there is no solution. That’s just the reality. We have to suck it up."
BREAKING: Even more leaked audio of a secret Ken Paxton meeting just revealed him advocating for cutting Social Security and Medicare — while laughing with lobbyists about cutting their taxes. This guy is genuinely evil. https://t.co/tvl829v5CD
— Democratic Wins Media (@DemocraticWins) October 8, 2026
The Texas attorney general, who is currently locked in a tight electoral battle against Democrat James Talarico, ruled out tax increases to close the fiscal gap and said he'd back cutting taxes even further.
When lobbyist Jeanne Haggerty told Paxton that she'd "really like to pay my fair share of taxes, which is less than I’m paying right now," Paxton replied, "I'm with you on that," adding that "I think tax cuts will actually generate more revenue."
Paxton's claim flies in the face of decades' worth of evidence showing showing tax cuts result in less revenue for the federal government.
In a statement given to The Texas Tribune, Paxton denied that he planned to support cuts to Social Security or Medicare, even though those two programs make up the bulk of mandatory spending.
“We have to solve the national debt while keeping the promises we made to everyone who paid into these programs,” Paxton said. “The fake news keeps spinning the same cherry-picked audio to mislead Texans and take my words out of context. I have never said I would take away entitlements from those who deserve or earned them.”
The social media account of the Texas Democratic Party pounced on Paxton's leaked remarks.
"Paxton is literally laughing with lobbyists while talking about cutting Social Security and healthcare for Texans," the Texas Democrats wrote. "This guy is just plain evil."
Alex Lawson, executive director of Social Security Works, delivered a similarly scathing assessment of the Texas Republican.
"This is a sick man who thinks it’s a joke to push over a million Texans into poverty by stealing their hard-earned benefits," Lawson said. "This is a man who should not be allowed anywhere near the levers of power, since clearly he thinks working people are a joke to be laughed at with the billionaire donors he works for."
This is now the fourth leaked recording of Paxton to emerge in recent weeks. Prior recordings have featured the Texas Republican complaining about President Donald Trump's Dallas midterm convention and his illegal war with Iran hurting his campaign, as well as griping about a lack of control over his own campaign's messaging.
"He thinks he can use my name and my faith to distract us from the suffering his policies are inflicting on us at the pump, at the grocery store, and at the doctor's office."
After President Donald Trump launched yet another hateful attack on Abdul El-Sayed's name and Muslim faith, the Democratic Michigan US Senate nominee on Thursday accused the Republican of trying to distract voters from the cost-of-living crisis caused by GOP policies.
"He knows my name is Abdul. He says it every day," El-Sayed said in a social media post. "But he's not just attacking me. He's attacking all of us. He thinks so low of us."
"He thinks he can use my name and my faith to distract us from the suffering his policies are inflicting on us at the pump, at the grocery store, and at the doctor's office," the 41-year-old physician added. "He thinks we don't know any better. It's time for change."
Trump's latest bigoted broadside against El-Sayed came Wednesday on the president's Truth Social network, where he called the Democrat a "RADICAL Extremist, Terrorist Sympathizer" and repeatedly referred to him as "Mohammed." Trump also claimed that El-Sayed "goes back to the days of the Jihad."
The president also affirmed his "COMPLETE AND TOTAL ENDORSEMENT" of El-Sayed's Republican opponent, former Congressman Mike Rogers.
El-Sayed, a former Wayne County health director, won the Democratic nomination in August and, if elected next in next month's midterms, would be the first Muslim to serve in the US Senate.
Trump's latest comments are part of an escalating campaign against El-Sayed that is often more focused on his Muslim faith rather than his policy proposals.
Last month, the president posted side-by-side photographs of himself and First Lady Melania Trump and El-Sayed and his wife, Dr. Sarah Jukaku, under the misspelled caption "Two VERY DIFFERENT America's." The post was condemned by the Council on American-Islamic Relations as "racist and bigoted."
Trump has also falsely accused El-Sayed of hating Jewish people.
The attacks echo Trump's long record of anti-Muslim rhetoric and are, critics allege, partly meant to deflect attention from the failure of Republicans to deliver results for working people and the betrayal of the president's promises of no new wars and lower consumer costs.
"I invite the president to focus on what I'm saying," El-Sayed previously said. "I want to get money out of politics, put money in your pocket, and pass Medicare for All."
Since being deported, Ahmed Soliman "has been confined under armed guard, assaulted, held at gunpoint, and, most recently, arrested, hooded, beaten, and held incommunicado," said the judge.
A lawyer for Ahmed Soliman, a 31-year-old Phoenix man who has been arbitrarily detained in Equatorial Guinea since April, when US immigration agents forced him onto a plane under the Trump administration's third-country deportation policy, expressed cautious optimism and relief on Wednesday after a federal judge ruled that the Department of Homeland Security must return Soliman to the United States.
"We all frankly broke into tears of relief, and hope" when the ruling in the US District Court of Arizona was handed down, Dana Camilleri, a senior attorney at Green Evans-Schroeder, told the Arizona Daily Star.
District Judge John C. Hinderaker, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, ordered DHS to "take all reasonable steps within their control" to facilitate Soliman's return to the US.
Soliman's removal to Equatorial Guinea violated his due process rights under the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution, said Hinderaker, who said the man has faced "irreparable harm" after being "unlawfully" deported.
As Common Dreams reported last month, human rights advocates have warned that Soliman has been placed at risk of being tortured in Equatorial Guinea, where he and dozens of other people deported by the Trump administration have been held at a decommissioned hotel in Malabo.
None of the prisoners have any ties to Equatorial Guinea, which Trump paid $7.5 million in one of several secretive deals, in exchange for taking deportees whom the US is barred from sending to their home countries due to their credible fear of persecution.
Last month, Soliman was targeted for arrest in Equatorial Guinea after he spoke out about the abuse that he and others have faced at the hotel.
He has since been held "incommunicado" at a jail, despite the fact that he has not been charged with a crime.
Soliman's family in Arizona "have been left waiting, without any assurance that he is safe—or even still alive," Jesse Evans-Schroeder, another lawyer representing him, told the Star.
A video that was shared with the press last month showed armed guards pointing a gun at Soliman and another man in the hotel lobby. According to Amnesty International, after the video was shared, Soliman was taken to an overcrowded jail where he has been denied food and access to counsel.
"The unrebutted record shows that, since his removal, [Soliman] has been confined under armed guard, assaulted, held at gunpoint, and, most recently, arrested, hooded, beaten, and held incommunicado, reportedly without food or water," Hinderaker wrote in his order.
Since Amnesty, United Nations rights experts, and US Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) have raised alarm about Soliman's case, DHS has been dismissive of his ordeal, sneering in one social media post that a New York Times article on the case was a "poor excuse for a sob story" and that he and another detainee, Samson Birhane, "are CRIMINAL ILLEGAL ALIENS with rap sheets a mile long."
Soliman arrived in the US when he was 4, after his family fled Egypt, where they had faced persecution due to their political activities.
He lost his immigration status after being convicted of driving under the influence in 2021. Soliman has said in media interviews that he developed substance abuse problems as he came to terms with his identity as a gay man, having grown up in a conservative household.
He served two-and-a-half years in prison after the car accident that led to his conviction. While serving his sentence, Soliman "rehabilitated himself, confronting the 'self-hatred' he said led to his addiction," the Star reported.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement ordered his deportation in October 2025. His attorneys had won protections against his deportation to Egypt, based on his LGBTQ+ identity and his family's history there.
But under the Trump administration's third-country deportation policy and deals with dozens of governments that the White House has spent $40 million brokering, about 25,000 people have been sent to countries where they have no ties. From there, many have been sent on to their home countries, while others have been detained and faced ill treatment.
When Soliman was forced onto a deportation flight in April, he was given no opportunity to contest the decision to send him to Equatorial Guinea, where homosexuality is effectively criminalized and where authorities are known to perpetrate arbitrary detentions and torture.
A federal court ruled last month that DHS must provide deportees with meaningful notice and an opportunity to be screened for a credible fear of being sent to the third country. The US Supreme Court stayed that ruling, clearing the way for the Trump administration to continue abruptly removing people from the country, as it did with Soliman. The court is set to hear arguments in DVD v. DHS, a case challenging the third-country deportations, in December.
On Wednesday, Hinderaker gave the Trump administration's lawyers three days to provide the court with an update on its progress in returning Soliman to the US. DHS has 30 days to appeal his ruling. Soliman could still be removed to another country later, but Hinderaker ordered DHS to give him a "meaningful opportunity" for a credible fear screening.
Camilleri told The American Prospect that the legal team was "still thinking of everyone who’s confined at the hotel there and wanting to get them home."
The judge's ruling was "a great step forward, but I’m a little cautious, honestly," she said.
"Trump is misusing millions of taxpayer dollars to fund pure propaganda ads in a last-ditch attempt to save Republicans in November—so we're suing him," said the DNC chair.
The Democratic National Committee sued President Donald Trump and parts of his administration on Wednesday over a series of recent taxpayer-funded video advertisements that the complaint calls "a blatant violation of the statutory ban on the use of appropriations for 'publicity or propaganda purposes.'"
"President Trump personally directed this illegal activity," notes the DNC complaint, which was filed in federal court in Washington, DC and also names the White House Office, Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as defendants.
"The White House Office crafted the partisan campaign. The Office of Management and Budget shifted $20 million to pay for it. And US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has carried it out," the complaint continues. DHS is the parent agency of CBP.
"These unlawful actions are ultra vires and violate the Administrative Procedure Act," the DNC asserted.
The lawsuit comes after the watchdog group Public Citizen last week filed a pair of complaints urging regulators and broadcasters to pull the taxpayer-funded ads off the air and demanding a federal investigation, arguing that they "appear to violate the federal law against using taxpayer funds to finance propaganda (5 USC §3107) and related provisions of the appropriations laws as well as the Hatch Act (5 USC §7324)."
Wednesday's filing highlights that the ads—which have aired on a range of channels in the lead-up to next month's congressional election—tout Trump "and his midterm messaging, including one that is virtually identical to a 2024 campaign ad."
The DNC "is working to defeat President Trump's allies at the polls in all 50 states, up and down the ballot, and shares a unity of interests with Democratic candidates," the complaint says. "The Trump administration's illegal use of taxpayer dollars for campaign-style advertisements deprives the DNC of a fair electoral process by adding public funds to the resources available to support Republican candidates."
"The use of public funds also places the DNC and Democratic candidates at an electoral disadvantage, even though the publicly funded propaganda advertisements are deeply unpopular with American voters, by preserving funds held by campaign committees and PACs—including MAGA Inc.—for other political expenditures," the filing says, referring to political action committees.
In the face of "intense bipartisan backlash," Trump announced Monday that he was planning to have his super PAC MAGA Inc. pay for ads "moving forward," the document points out—"and yet for the next two days, the ads have continued to air, still labeled 'Paid for by the US Government.'"
As The Associated Press reported: "On Tuesday, the fifth ad in the campaign began airing with the notice, 'Paid for by the US Government,' promoting Trump's military actions in Venezuela earlier this year. The same day, Trump made it clear he hasn't committed to reimbursing any money that has already been spent, telling reporters, 'We'll decide.'"
The complaint says that "with less than 30 days remaining before the midterm election and millions of public dollars apportioned to pay for propaganda ads still unspent, the DNC has no choice but to take action in defense of free and fair elections."
While the defendants haven't yet commented on the suit, DNC Chair Ken Martin said that "Donald Trump is misusing millions of taxpayer dollars to fund pure propaganda ads in a last-ditch attempt to save Republicans in November—so we're suing him."
"As gas and grocery costs rise and his approval numbers continue to crater, this president has stooped to taking money from a fund intended for memorials for Americans killed in the line of duty to promote his failed policies," he continued—as other Democrats also made moves to call out the GOP's "failed economic agenda" and fears mounted about how the president may try to interfere with the November midterms.
According to Martin, "Americans deserve better than to have their hard-earned tax dollars used for Trump's illegal schemes."
"This giveaway to fossil fuel executives is foolish and shortshsighted, and reveals who the Trump administration really works for—its political donors," said one campaigner.
The US Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday announced plans to further weaken federal protections against methane pollution from oil and gas operations, prompting environmental advocates to accuse the Trump administration of once again putting fossil fuel interests ahead of public health and the climate.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin made the announcement during the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association’s annual meeting in Santa Fe. The EPA said it will propose changes to the Biden administration's 2024 oil and gas rules in the coming days, claiming the proposed rollback will save $45 billion in regulatory costs.
The proposal's changes include rescinding the Biden-era Super Emitter Program, which allows third parties to identify major methane leaks and require companies to address them.
“The Trump EPA is days, not weeks, away from announcing our proposal for the second part of the oil and gas reconsideration," Zeldin said in a statement. "Americans must be able to afford to heat their homes in the winter and fill up their car and drive to work. They can’t do that when the people producing the energy are weighed down by unnecessary burdens."
The biggest factor driving high US gasoline prices right now is the global oil supply shock caused by President Donald Trump's illegal war of choice on Iran.
Environmental and climate groups disputed Zeldin's framing.
"Trump’s Environmental Destruction Agency continues its rampage by torching limits on superheating methane, some of the last remaining protections against climate-heating pollution,” said Maggie Coulter, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity's Climate Law Institute.
“This move will compound the climate chaos we see mounting all around us in deadly heatwaves, floods, and storms," she added. "Vulnerable communities will be exposed to worse smog and intensified respiratory pollution, increasing kids’ asthma and other health harms. We’ll fight this disastrous rollback with everything we’ve got.”
Today, EPA Admin. Zeldin announced a rollback of federal rules that ensure oil and gas operators don't pollute our air. This decision clearly shows that Trump is putting polluters first over the wellbeing of the American people. #Methane
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— Conservation Voters New Mexico (@protectnm.bsky.social) October 7, 2026 at 10:01 AM
Dr. Rev. Jessica Moerman, president and CEO of the Evangelical Environmental Network, said that “families in oil and gas country should not have to wonder what is leaking from the wells and equipment near their homes, churches, and schools."
"The plan to weaken methane pollution protections means this worry remains a reality," she added. "Leaking methane is not only a wasted product. The same leaks can carry benzene and other harmful pollutants linked to cancer and birth defects into the air that children and seniors breathe."
Methane—which has more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide during its first two decades in the atmosphere—is emitted during the production and transportation of oil, gas, and coal, as well as from municipal landfills and livestock.
"Any proposed rollback to the federal methane rule is a slap in the face to families who are exposed to oil and gas pollution where they live, work, and play,” Celerah Hewes, senior manager for state field campaigns at Moms Clean Air Force, said in a statement.
Hewes continued:
For over a decade, Moms Clean Air Force has been fighting for methane protections for our families—and we were making progress. Today’s announcement from EPA is a massive blow to the efforts to safeguard our children’s health and our climate. Over 900,000 comments were submitted to the Federal Register in support of the commonsense methane pollution protections that EPA finalized in 2024, including many from the moms, dads, and caregivers with Moms Clean Air Force.
"Now communities across the country will once again have to show up and demand EPA provide strong federal methane pollution standards that protect families from this known public health threat and climate super pollutant," she added. "It is outrageous that we have to fight so hard just for our children's right to breathe clean air."
Lauren Pagel, senior policy director at Earthworks, alleged that "by rolling back commonsense methane standards, the Trump administration has once again chosen polluters over people, sacrificing the health of communities living next to extraction and our climate to make even more money for fossil fuel billionaires."
“While families struggle with the high cost of living, everything Trump and his oil and gas company cronies do makes life harder for everyday people—including making the air we breathe dirtier," she continued.
“The Trump administration is delivering dirtier air, more pollution, and greater risks for communities in order to boost Big Oil’s profits," Pagel added. "It’s time for states to step up and do what the White House won’t: Put people first, hold polluters accountable, and cut methane pollution to protect health and climate.”
While running for reelection on a “drill, baby, drill” energy platform, Trump reportedly promised Big Oil executives that he would eviscerate climate regulations enacted by the Biden administration if they gave $1 billion to his campaign. Fossil fuel interests spent nearly $450 million during the 2024 election cycle on campaign contributions, lobbying, and efforts supporting Republican causes and candidates, including Trump.
EPA signaled it is going to propose weakened #methane regulations for oil and gas, including for low-producing wells, which are responsible for almost half of the sector’s methane emissions despite producing less than 5% of the country’s oil and gas.www.catf.us/2026/10/epa-...
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— Clean Air Task Force (@cleanaircatf.bsky.social) October 7, 2026 at 1:59 PM
Environmental Defense Fund associate vice president of energy transition Jon Goldstein said: "At a time when Americans are facing high energy costs, EPA should not give oil and gas companies more room to waste a domestic resource... Rolling back these safeguards would mean more wasted energy, more methane pollution, and greater health risks for communities living near oil and gas operations.”
Natural Resources Defense Council senior strategist David Doniger accused the EPA of "trying to give a free pass to the worst actors in the oil and gas industry."
"Many companies had already complied with these rules, but a few rogue actors refuse to check for leaks or monitor their equipment adequately," he explained. "Those deadbeats would get bailed out by this action."
“Methane leaks are the dumbest kind of pollution because the industry is losing the very product it is selling," Doniger continued. "That’s what made the standards so cost-effective: Checking for leaks means the industry has more gas to sell."
“These leaks are not just bad for the climate, they result in more smog and cancer-causing pollution for nearby communities," he added. "But with his announcement today, Lee Zeldin made clear that oil companies come first, while protecting families from toxic pollution and the ravages of extreme weather is not on this administration’s agenda.”
Mahyar Sorour, who heads Sierra Club's Beyond Fossil Fuels Policy program, noted that “it took many years and carefully considered input from health experts, community advocates, and even the oil and gas industry itself to craft the achievable, commonsense methane standards."
"Yet, the Trump administration, with pockets lined by the biggest polluters, has unceremoniously worked to roll back this and other standards meant to protect our health and safety," Sorour added. "This giveaway to fossil fuel executives is foolish and shortsighted, and reveals who the Trump administration really works for—its political donors.”
"Big Oil is doing everything in its power to turn this beautiful, miraculous world into a wasteland."
The population of the world's largest penguin colony has collapsed, according to a new study. The researchers say the climate crisis is to blame.
Zavodovski Island, a speck of land in the remote subantarctic South Sandwich archipelago, was once home to about 1.09 million breeding chinstrap penguins. By 2025, there were just over 400,000 of them left, according to research published Wednesday in the journal Current Biology—a 63% population decline.
For years, Zavodovski had been considered an exception to the penguin declines seen elsewhere around Antarctica. But the sudden drop over the past 15 years is the fastest ever for the chinstrap species, which is marked by the thin black line beneath its beak.
Norman Ratcliffe, a penguin ecologist with the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), said that after an "enormous population crash," Zavodovski Island—which he said once resembled a "Penguin Mordor"—can no longer even claim the title of the world's largest colony. That distinction now belongs to Cape Adare in Antarctica's Ross Sea, which is dominated by Adélie penguins.
The decline is so severe that the BAS says chinstraps may now be eligible for the "endangered" category on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's list of threatened species.
Ratcliffe said the most likely explanation is a climate-driven upheaval in the penguins' food supply. Chinstrap penguins feed exclusively on Antarctic krill, which reside in the colder waters near Zavodovski.
"Chinstrap penguins are krill specialists," Ratcliffe explained in a video posted by the BAS. "That's pretty much all they eat throughout their entire range."
But the Antarctic has warmed faster than almost anywhere else on Earth—reaching 5°C above temperatures from half a century ago in some places.
"What we found is that the krill distribution is contracting southwards with warming," Ratcliffe said. "Chinstraps... like cool waters, but they're really averse to sea ice.
"One of the problems chinstraps are facing: they like cool waters, but they're really averse to sea ice. So there's a limit to how far they can go south," he continued. "Chinstraps are therefore left with less food to eat. That affects their survival and breeding success, and hence their numbers tend to decline."
Researchers at the BAS have raised concerns that rapid fluctuations in penguin populations could disrupt the wider southern marine ecosystem. But they said the problem is much bigger than just the Antarctic.
"Our study is another example of a warming climate impacting even the most remote parts of our planet," said BAS penguin researcher Peter Fretwell. "The South Sandwich Islands are far from any humans, home to almost a third of the world’s chinstrap penguins—but not even they can escape the impacts of climate change.”
Despite the accelerating consequences of global heating, international consumption of oil, gas, and coal rose again last year, according to the International Energy Agency. Energy-related carbon dioxide emissions reached nearly 38.4 billion metric tons in 2025, 5% higher than in 2019.
Responding to news of the dramatic decline of penguins in the Antarctic, Aaron Regunberg, the director of Public Citizen’s Climate Accountability Project, remarked, "Big Oil is doing everything in its power to turn this beautiful, miraculous world into a wasteland."
Demonstrators marched after President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva accused the Trump administration of meddling in the election in favor of Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro.
Days after elections in which right-wing Brazilian candidates won a significant number of seats and as President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva headed to a runoff with Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, students on Wednesday marched through Rio de Janeiro in support of the progressive Lula—and expressed fear over the growing influence of the far right in Brazil.
Thousands of Brazilians joined the student-led demonstrations, where some carried pictures of Bolsonaro made to look like Adolf Hitler and signs that read, "No to the father, no to the son" and "Never again Bolsonaro."
Bolsonaro, a senator who represents the right-wing Liberal Party, is the son of convicted former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is serving a 27-year sentence under house arrest for orchestrating a coup attempt after his election loss in 2022. Bolsonaro's supporters stormed government buildings on January 8, 2023, and the former president—a close ally of President Donald Trump—was found guilty of spreading misinformation about the country's voting system and encouraging his supporters to attack the Capitol.
At Wednesday's protest, one supporter of Lula expressed concern for the safety of her transgender wife and remembered the fear many lived with during the coronavirus pandemic, when the elder Bolsonaro refused to take part in basic public health precautions like social distancing and mask-wearing, sent unproven drugs to communities, and spread misinformation about vaccines. Nearly 600,000 people died of Covid-19 across Brazil—the second-highest death toll in the world after the United States.
"I remember my family's lives being at risk during the pandemic," Alice Carneiro told Agence France-Presse in Rio.
Bolsonaro won 47% of the vote on Sunday, while Lula, of the Worker's Party, had 45%. According to an analysis by the Center for Economic and Policy Research in the US, the Brazilian economy saw growth of 8.9% from 2022-25. Lula took office in 2023. His government has passed a new minimum wage law, expanded maternity leave, and increased benefits for low-income families.
The report also notes that high interest rates have raised borrowing costs for households and have increased the rate of delinquency.
Voters will go to the polls for the runoff election on October 25.
Ahead of the first round of voting this week, Lula's campaign accused the Trump administration of interfering in the country's elections.
The US abruptly shut down consular services in Brazil last Friday, citing unspecified "security concerns," and projecting a sense of "instability over the electoral environment,” according to Lula's campaign.
Attorney General Jorge Messias also called for a probe ahead of the election into reports that Trump planned to award $1 million to right-wing groups in Brazil, and Brazilian intelligence officials also briefed French and German diplomats on alleged election interference by the US.
Last year, Trump slapped the country with 40% tariffs, accusing Lula's government of "persecuting" Jair Bolsonaro. The former president's son has pledged to give amnesty to his father and the supporters who took part in the 2023 coup, should he win the election—like Trump, who pardoned January 6, 2021 insurrectionists when he returned to power.
The potential victory of Bolsonaro comes amid a wave of right-wing victories across Latin America, where candidates backed by Trump have won recent elections in Colombia, Chile, and Peru, and the Trump administration has partnered with several governments in joint military operations that officials say are aimed at cracking down on drug trafficking.
The march through Rio de Janeiro also coincided with mass student-led protests across France over cuts to education funding; demonstrations in India against the purging of voter rolls; marches by tens of thousands of people in Spain over housing affordability, sparked by public anger over the eviction of an 87-year-old woman; and protests against proposed budget cuts in Chile.
"Trump promised to protect Social Security, but he continues to turn his back on everyday Americans and go after lifelines that millions of people rely on," said a spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday opened up a new line of attack for Democrats when he talked about his desire to privatize Social Security.
Even though Trump repeatedly said during his three runs for the White House that he wouldn't touch Social Security, the president on Wednesday told reporters in the Oval Office that he "wanted to ride with Social Security being fully invested in the stock market in the first month of my first year."
"Had we done that," Trump continued, "Social Security right now would be the richest entity anywhere in the world. But that was met with tremendous criticism by the Democrats and some Republicans because, you know, they felt it was risky... I wanted to do it so badly."
Trump: I wanted to ride with Social Security being fully invested in the stock market in the first month of my first year, so 2016. I was met with tremendous criticism by the Democrats and some Republicans. I wanted to do it so badly. https://t.co/bylHyMBqJM
— Acyn (@Acyn) October 7, 2026
The Bulwark reporter Sam Stein wrote in a Wednesday social media post that Trump's remarks were "peculiar," as he "ran explicitly on not touching social security and now invites attacks that he may try to."
Kendall Witmer, deputy communications director at the Democratic National Committee, seized on Trump's statement about privatizing Social Security, which he linked to the economic struggles Americans are facing thanks to the president's illegal war with Iran.
“As working families struggle to make ends meet in Donald Trump's economy," Witmer said, "Trump is openly admitting that he wants to privatize Social Security and take away the hard-earned benefits seniors have worked towards their whole lives. Trump promised to protect Social Security, but he continues to turn his back on everyday Americans and go after lifelines that millions of people rely on."
Former President George W. Bush in 2005 made a major push to allow Social Security money to be invested in the stock market. Bush's plan quickly became politically toxic, however, and never even came up for a vote in the US Congress.
After Bush's Social Security plan fell apart, Republicans would go on to lose control of both the US House of Representatives and the US Senate amid voter disapproval of the Iraq War.
Current polling suggests the Trump-led GOP could face a similar fate in next month's midterms. According to polling averages calculated by elections analyst Nate Silver, Democrats currently hold a nine-point lead in the generic congressional ballot.
“The situation on the ground is catastrophic," said Francesca Albanese. "It’s really beyond what words can say."
The top United Nations expert on Palestine said Wednesday—the third anniversary of the Hamas-led attack on Israel—that Israel's US-backed genocidal annihilation of Gaza continues, with daily airstrikes adding to a toll of 250,000 Palestinians killed or wounded as Israeli forces seize most of the coastal strip and raze as much of it as they can.
In an interview with the Turkish news agency Anadolu, Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, said that "the situation on the ground is catastrophic."
"It's really beyond what words can say, and it gives the sense that the destruction of Gaza is not over," the 49-year-old Italian jurist continued. "Seventy percent of the strip is under the control of the [Israeli] army, which is leveling as much as it can. There is an environmental catastrophe, a humanitarian catastrophe."
Israel's assault on Gaza began in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023, in which more than 1,100 Israelis and others were killed—at least some by so-called “friendly fire” and under the fratricidal Hannibal Directive—and over 240 people were abducted.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials soon began calling for the genocidal destruction of Gaza and its 2.2 million people. Netanyahu declared it a "holy mission" for Israel to fulfill a divine command to the Israelites to exterminate every man, woman, child, and animal in Amalek, the fictional archenemy of the ancient Jews.
Over the past three years, Israeli forces have killed at least 74,237 Palestinians and wounded at least 175,206 others in Gaza, according to Gaza Health Ministry figures—which not only have been affirmed by senior Israeli military and intelligence officials, but are believed by the authors of multiple peer-reviewed scientific studies to be a significant undercount.
Tens of thousands of those injuries are classified as "life-altering," including thousands of amputations performed on adults and children, sometimes without anesthesia.
The Gaza Health Ministry says more than 10,000 of those killed were women, over 5,100 were elderly, and upward of 21,000 were children—figures supported by classified Israel Defense Forces intelligence data suggesting that 5 in 6 Palestinians killed by the IDF through the first 19 months of the onslaught were civilians.

Tens of thousands of children have also been left without one or both parents, with more than 2,700 families suffering so many deaths that they were erased from the civil registry in Gaza. The UN Children's Fund called the strip the "world's most dangerous place to be a child."
In the wake of the October 7 attack, the IDF dramatically loosened rules of engagement, effectively allowing an unlimited number of civilians to be killed when targeting a single Hamas member, no matter how low-ranking. The IDF’s use of massive ordnance, including US-supplied 1,000- and 2,000-pound “bunker buster” bombs, and the utilization of artificial intelligence to select targets, have resulted in staggering numbers of civilian deaths, including numerous instances of dozens or more people being massacred in single strikes.
At closer range, current and former IDF troops have accused their own of deliberately shooting Palestinian civilians, including children, sometimes out of sheer boredom. Palestinian medical professionals—who, like journalists and aid workers, have suffered hundreds of their ranks killed by Israeli bombs and bullets—have also described what they say is the deliberate shooting of Gazans, including children.
On October 8, 2023, then-Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant ordered the "complete siege" of Gaza, explaining that "we are fighting human animals, and we are acting accordingly." The siege, which is actually a tightening of a decadeslong blockade of Gaza, fueled famine and disease that killed many of the most vulnerable people in the strip. Nothing was spared, including hospitals and other medical facilities, whose staff members were sometimes abducted and tortured—allegedly to death in at least one case—by their Israeli captors.
Around 90% of Gaza's population—around 1.9 million people—has been forcibly displaced, most of them multiple times. With the vast bulk of Gaza's buildings damaged or destroyed, nearly two-thirds of Gazans continue to live in tents or makeshift shelters as the war's fourth winter, and with it the prospect of more infants and newborns dying of hypothermia, approaches.
Despite a purported year-old ceasefire, Israeli forces continue to kill, wound, and displace Palestinians in Gaza to this day. Gaza officials say that at least 1,460 people have been killed and more than 5,100 others have been wounded since the ceasefire took effect. Israel is still blocking or delaying desperately needed humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, although there have been some improvements in delivery during the ceasefire period.
Meanwhile, Israeli calls for more ethnic cleansing, occupation, and possibly even the Jewish recolonization of Gaza continue. And while President Donald Trump no longer openly discusses a US takeover and redevelopment of the Mediterranean strip into the "Riviera of the Middle East," his administration is still trying to determine Gaza's future through vehicles like his widely derided "Board of Peace."
In November 2024, the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including murder and forced starvation. The ICC simultaneously ordered the arrest of three senior Hamas officials, but Israel has since assassinated them.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ), also in The Hague, is currently in the written stage of a genocide case against Israel brought by South Africa and formally supported by more than 15 nations. While a ruling in the case isn't expected until at least the end of the decade, a UN commission of inquiry, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, and other experts—including many Israeli and international Jewish academics, jurists, human rights campaigners, and others—have already concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
Yet genocide denial persists in Israel, the United States, and among supporters of Israel's destruction of Gaza around the world. And while numerous nations have severed diplomatic ties with Israel or imposed sanctions—sometimes both—the United States under both the Biden and Trump administrations has lavished the key Middle East ally with tens of billions of dollars in armed aid, as well as diplomatic cover including a string of vetoes of UN Security Council ceasefire resolutions.
Furthermore, the Trump administration has moved to punish members of the ICC, ICJ, and UN, including Albanese—who has been relentlessly critical of both Israel's genocide and Western complicity, especially by the United States.
On the other hand, increasing diplomatic recognition of Palestine by even Israel's allies and a worldwide wave of protests against the Gaza genocide—including numerous demonstrations organized and led by Jewish groups—has shown Palestinians that much of the world stands in solidarity with them.
"There are really these two forces... symbolically, fighting against each other," Albanese told Anadolu during Wednesday's interview. "Those who want to continue the genocide, the exploitation, and the erasure of Palestine, and those who want to stop it."
“No one outside the administration knows what a ‘Midterm Surprise’ means, but nothing this administration has done so far has come out of nowhere," one expert told Common Dreams.
With the 2026 midterm elections less than a month away, President Donald Trump keeps teasing that his administration has a "surprise" in store, a message that led many to fear a new attempt to subvert what are projected to be heavy losses by Republicans.
In a Truth Social post on Tuesday, bragging about his rally crowd sizes, Trump cryptically urged readers to "Watch for the ‘Midterm Surprise'!"
Hours later, during a rally in Maryland, he shouted out Russell Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Vought, a key architect of Project 2025, has been instrumental in Trump's second-term restructuring of the federal government and in weaponizing federal funding to exert leverage over states.
"We have some big surprises coming up in another few weeks, right, Russ?" Trump said. "He's going to be one of the very important people in the history of our country, in my opinion. He's got some great things happening.”
In light of Trump's suggestions that he could "nationalize" elections or outright "cancel" them, send immigration agents to polling places, seize voting machines, or use federal agencies to seek out "ineligible" voters, his unexplained intonations about a coming "surprise" immediately became the subject of rampant speculation.
"The time to prepare for him to try to steal an election is now," wrote Fox News anchor Jessica Tarlov. Former US Attorney Joyce Vance wrote that it signaled “election interference is in the offing.” Conservative Trump critic Pedro Gonzalez warned that it could signal a "repeat of 2020," when Trump attempted to overturn his loss to former President Joe Biden by pushing false claims of widespread voter fraud.
"Nothing this administration has done so far has come out of nowhere."
Common Dreams spoke with several voting rights and election security experts about what sorts of "surprises" Trump may have in store and what powers he may actually attempt to wield. They made one thing abundantly clear: Whatever he tries to do—legal or otherwise—they're ready.
"No one outside the administration knows what a 'Midterm Surprise' means, but nothing this administration has done so far has come out of nowhere," said Cerin Lindgrensavage, who serves as counsel for Protect Democracy. "They have been signaling their plans for months."
Lindgrensavage told Common Dreams that "one clue" was the administration's use of federal payouts to voters—which some critics have characterized as "bribes"—including Trump's promise to send each American adult a $5,000 check if Republicans emerge victorious. Last week, Trump announced that around 20 million Medicare recipients would receive $90 checks from a fund meant to improve the program.
"We've been paying attention to the accelerating pace at which federal money is being shipped out the door and heralded in big announcements, in ways that look more like popularity plays than what Congress intended the use of those funds for," Lindgrensavage said.
Michael McNulty, the senior policy director at Issue One, agreed that while we "can't know exactly" what Trump has in mind, "we can look at the pattern," which his organization has described as the "election takeover playbook."
"It starts with tired, recycled false election fraud narratives such as claims of foreign interference, noncitizen voting, mail-in voting problems—despite himself voting by mail in previous elections—or ‘corrupt’ election officials, even when the evidence contradicts them," McNulty explained. "He then uses that to justify trying to take control of election processes, whether through an emergency declaration, demands for state voter data and election materials, or federal agents near polling places."
"It ends," he said, "with efforts to undermine certification if the results aren't what the administration wants."
OMB has no formal authority over elections. But McNulty stressed that Vought could still use his office's powers to exert "indirect" influence over the states that run them.
"Withholding funds, imposing grant conditions, and coordination with other agencies," he said, "could be used to pressure states and localities."

However, he said to "keep in mind those levers are limited by what Congress has authorized, and courts have repeatedly pushed back on funding conditions that go beyond the law."
McNulty told Common Dreams he is unaware of any specific effort directly tying OMB to election administration, but said there was a risk of possible coordination among OMB and the departments of Homeland Security and Justice "on voter data, security funding, and Election Day activity."
“We have strong protections in place, and we intend to use them."
Other experts suggested it was less useful to speculate on what Trump might do than to look at how he is already trying to exceed his legal authority.
Trump has repeatedly suggested that he should have had federal authorities seize voting machines in 2020. Democracy Docket reported on Tuesday that election denialist activists urged him to declare a "national emergency" to do just that while meeting with him in the White House recently.
Pamela Smith, the president and CEO of Verified Voting, said her organization was prepared in case Trump attempts to seize voting machines or other election materials.
“The states run elections, and the president has no authority to affect those processes, as courts have repeatedly shown," Smith told Common Dreams.
By preparing officials for what to do if chains of custody on ballots are broken, she said, "we are helping election offices prepare for any threats to ballots throughout the November 3 election and in the weeks that follow, so that every ballot can be tracked, secured, and accounted for."
John Cusick, assistant counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF), told Common Dreams his group is preparing for threats ranging from federal interference in election administration to voter intimidation and mass voter challenges.
“We have strong protections in place, and we intend to use them,” Cusick said, pointing in particular to Section 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits voter intimidation.

He noted that LDF has already sued over the prospect of federal law enforcement at polling places.
“Let me be plain," he said, "a polling place is not a checkpoint.”
Cusick said LDF is also working with national, state, and local partners to identify problems ahead of election day and train volunteers to observe and report suppression efforts.
"We will protect this election," he said. "But it should not take such a herculean effort from the civil rights community to secure and protect voting rights. Congress must meet its constitutional responsibility to ensure every eligible voter can participate free from discrimination, no matter where they live."
He called on Congress to strengthen voting rights protections, establish national election administration standards, and provide more funding directly to local election officials.
Celina Stewart, the CEO of the League of Women Voters, told Common Dreams she would not speculate on what surprise attacks Trump may have in store or attempt to "assign meaning where no evidence exists."
"What we do know is that election administration in the United States is governed by law, distributed across states and local jurisdictions, and constrained by constitutional checks and balances," she said. "No president has unilateral authority to control election administration, determine election outcomes, or override the lawful counting and certification of ballots."
"Any attempt by any federal official to exceed constitutional or statutory authority would be subject to legal challenge and public scrutiny," she said. "Our focus is not on political rhetoric but on ensuring that voters can cast ballots freely, that election officials can do their jobs without interference, and that the 2026 elections are administered according to law."