Democratic Party runs more than 60 military-intelligence candidates for Congress. If, as appears likely based on pre-election polling, the Democratic Party makes significant gains in November, the military-intelligence "caucus" inside the Democratic delegation could double or triple in size. They will vastly outnumber the relative handful of self-proclaimed "democratic socialists" to whom the corporate media has given so much attention, and whom pseudo-left groups cite as evidence that the Democratic Party can be pushed to the left.

As we have argued in previous such studies, the large number of military-intelligence operatives entering politics as Democratic Party candidates is the result of a two-way process. The Democratic Party leadership is openly encouraging the recruitment of such candidates, as it seeks ever-closer ties to the Pentagon and CIA. And large sections of the military-intelligence apparatus view the Democratic Party as their preferred political vehicle, in opposition to the erratic policies of Donald Trump and particularly his pullback from direct involvement in the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine. Hat-tip to jeffburges in this thread. Why, besides NATO and Ukraine, would former military intelligence officers run for office as Democrats? Apropos of nothing, here are some other recent headlines: Report: Trump Used Grok to Help Talk Him Into Illegal Invasion of Venezuela. President Donald Trump was reportedly encouraged by Elon Musk's AI chatbot, Grok, to carry out his illegal invasion of Venezuela during an hourslong session with the chatbot just weeks before the attack this January. In December 2025, Trump asked Grok questions for hours during a secret visit to the White House by Musk, per new reporting by Time Magazine. How Jared Kushner's firm's investment in an Israeli company could be a major conflict of interest. At the same time Jared Kushner has acted as a key negotiator in the war in Gaza, his private equity company, Affinity Partners, has held the largest stake in an Israeli firm backing businesses involved in Israel's military campaigns, a CNN investigation has found. Jared Kushner is at the center of Trump's corruption. On Monday, Paramount Skydance — run by David Ellison, a billionaire Trump has openly urged to reshape the news industry in his favor — launched an unprecedented bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery by initiating a hostile takeover after losing an earlier bidding contest to Netflix. Paramount's offer draws heavily from Kushner's investment firm, Affinity Partners, and from the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar... Not even Rupert Murdoch's right-wing media empire was capitalized by foreign monarchies seeking political leverage.

CBS: Dennis Hastert, disgraced former House speaker, dies at 84 Newsweek: Dennis Hastert Dies at 84: Full Timeline of Scandals, Criminal Conviction CNN: Dennis Hastert, longtime Republican House speaker who went to prison after molestation allegations, dies at age 84 Wonkette: Dennis Hastert Dies, Was Somehow Not Dead This Whole Time

Previously: I Am Not Sorry Lindsey Graham is Dead

On Wednesday night, Tennessee attempted to execute 50-year-old Christa Pike, set to be the state's first female execution in over 200 years for a murder she committed at age 18. However, after executioners administered two full doses of lethal injection drugs, Pike remained alive, thrashed her feet, complained of pain, and made loud snoring sounds behind closed curtains until the execution window expired and she was rushed to an off-site hospital. The victim's mother described the scene simply as "a mess." Pike's defense team had filed petitions before the execution requesting an alternative method: execution by an all-female firing squad. The botched attempt is the latest in a growing series of failed lethal injections across the US, raising renewed questions about state protocols, medical competency, and Eighth Amendment limits.

Lethal injections are increasingly prone to failure across the United States over the last decade, driven largely by pharmaceutical companies blocking the use of their products in executions and states relying on poorly trained staff or untested drug cocktails:

• Thomas Creech (Idaho, 2024): Executioners called off Creech's execution after attempting to establish an IV line in his arms and legs eight separate times over nearly an hour without success.
• Joe Nathan James Jr. (Alabama, 2022): Took over three hours to execute after correctional staff struggled continuously to establish IV access, marking the longest known completed execution in modern U.S. history.
• Kenneth Eugene Smith (Alabama, 2022): Survived an aborted four-hour lethal injection attempt in November 2022 due to collapsed veins; Alabama subsequently executed him in January 2024 using nitrogen gas.
• Alan Eugene Miller (Alabama, 2022): Had his lethal injection called off after executioners poked him for hours attempting to find a vein before his warrant expired; Alabama later executed him via nitrogen gas in September 2024.
• John Marion Grant (Oklahoma, 2021): Suffered severe convulsions and repeated vomiting during his execution after receiving midazolam—with autopsies indicating he suffered flash pulmonary edema while conscious—before ultimately dying on the gurney.
• Clayton Lockett (Oklahoma, 2014): Suffered a failed groin IV insertion that caused execution drugs to leak into surrounding tissue, causing him to regain consciousness and writhe before dying of a heart attack 45 minutes later.

Right now, America.gov functions as an AI chatbot that bases its answers on official government sources. It was developed with the assistance of Google's Gemini and SpaceXAI's Grok, according to Joe Gebbia, the Airbnb co-founder who led development of the site for the Trump administration. In 2027, the site will move "from answers to actions," Gebbia said. Nevertheless, Trump encouraged Americans to start using America.gov right away. "This took a while to bring it to a point where it's so good," Trump said. "America.gov is a declaration to the world that every citizen of our nation will be treated with respect and dignity." The functionality of America.gov at launch, however, was awkward for Trump. By providing summaries of official government data and reports, it easily and comprehensively debunks many of the falsehoods that Trump frequently promotes.

Will this chatbot continue to contradict the things Trump says? Only time (and probably the results of the next few elections) will tell. This government has already made moves to: *Undermine government data collection and research and reporting *Remove information on climate change, minority issues, and public health from public-facing government websites *Delay or skew reports government reports hat contradict Trump's claims But 75 years of data-driven governance is probably a bit hard to erase overnight. In other government services news, via the Washington Sun: White House Drove Users to Official App Fraught With Trackers. he White House app shot to the top of the Apple App Store's news category last week after its new 24/7 broadcast channel, Trump TV, was swiftly positioned as a legitimate source for news while networks halted their pool coverage. After the Trump administration mandated that federal agencies force-install the app onto all government-issued mobile devices, cybersecurity researchers noted that no public security authorization or privacy assessments required under federal law had been completed. Pushback over the app's security apparatus forced White House developers to delegate tracking software to third-party services. But the app still includes scripts to monitor a user's location several times per minute, according to Gera, and it's unclear how that data is used by the White House or third-party services. The app also contains a latent keylogger script sourced online from an amateur developer based in India, according to Gera and confirmed by The Sun's analysis. Keyloggers most commonly appear in surveillance malware to store written text from a device, but they also can be used as a benign tool to analyze inputs like typing frequency. While it's unlikely to work on mobile devices, Fields said, it's still concerning that the White House is using a keylogger web-sourced from an foreign coder. App marketplaces require developers to disclose what data app developers collect from their users, which platforms like the Apple App Store enforce through a "privacy manifest." In the app's latest version, the White House left that manifest completely blank, implying it collects no data from users despite contradicting findings from cybersecurity experts. An unpublished feature within the White House browser extension allowed app administrators to create a political profile on a user, and included an "investigate" button to refer individuals to the Secret Service. Loge contends that rather than using user data for political strategy, the White House is more likely to leverage the information to steer supporters driven to the app toward one of Trump's merchandise or cryptocurrency ventures. "What we've seen is that Donald Trump is a businessman who's monetizing politics. Therefore, this app is a way to make money," Loge said. "The other people who could find this information either directly or through several layers of resale are, of course, hostile governments — foreign actors whose interests are the demise of American democracy." *** Federal government forces all federal employees to install malware on their federal government phones, should be the headline here. Anyway, don't install any software promoted by the Trump administration. And know that whatever you ask this America.gov chatbot will definitely be collected and recorded.

Gone in 90 seconds: an 'invisibilized' ICE is arresting more people than ever - "In order to sustain those numbers, they have to create more categories of people who can be subject to detention."

A Quiet ICE Surge That Unfolded 'Everywhere All at Once' This Summer [ungated] - "Federal agents appeared as people carried out their everyday routines. People were detained en route to a soccer match. Leaving Sunday Mass. Having a drink at a nightclub. At national forests and outside polling locations."

Arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement this summer soared to record highs since the start of this Trump administration — with 43,000 in June, more than 49,000 in July and nearly 51,000 in August — as officials cut or narrowed the pathways to legal residency in the United States and expanded the pool of people eligible for deportation. Federal agents appeared in nearly every corner of daily life, carrying out operations at hospitals and airports, outside suburban schools and along rural construction sites and truck stops. They fanned out from coastal cities in Maine to desert towns in Arizona, across the open plains of Wyoming and down through the southern borderlands. In Republican-led states like Texas and Florida, where the swell was strongest, they amplified their reach through partnerships with sheriffs and state highway patrol officers. In Democratic strongholds, they intensified their activities despite laws meant to restrict them.

ICE hides locations of thousands of detainees with final removal orders - "U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has stopped publicly revealing where it is holding thousands of detainees who are subject to final deportation orders, an unannounced move that has made it far more difficult for lawyers and relatives to find them, according to current and former officials familiar with the practice."

As a result of the change, lawyers and relatives lost track of their clients and loved ones without explanation, which is especially concerning because detainees are frequently moved to new facilities before deportation, said Greg Chen, senior director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association. "Families are freaking out because they think the person has been deported and they don't know where the person might be," he said... ICE detention facilities held more than 65,000 people as of early July, the most recent available data. Around 30% of them likely have final removal orders, said Michelle Mendez, legal director at the National Immigration Project. More people have been issued final removal orders after failing to show up for hearings in recent months because the administration's immigration courts have taken steps to make it harder to participate and to reopen such cases, she said. "To me, it's just another iteration of disappearing people," she said. "Why would we do that in the United States of America? It's something we'd hear about in another country and be concerned about individual rights and due process." Some with final removal orders also have legal protections against deportation to their countries of origin based on the likelihood they would be tortured or persecuted. Many of them are facing removal to third-party countries where they have no ties and their disappearance in ICE's system will make legal challenges harder, lawyers said.

Supreme Court green-lights Trump's third-country deportations - "The Supreme Court will allow the Trump administration to resume rapidly deporting immigrants to 'third countries' and will consider the legal questions at a later date... The court stayed a February 2026 order that immigrants should have 'the right to meaningful notice' and should be able to raise concerns before being deported to a third country." (Trump's shadow docket blitz hits a new milestone)

• Michigan nurse charged with helping immigrant flee ICE custody - "Trinity ​Health said ⁠Freeman no longer works for the hospital."
• Venezuelan man shot and wounded by ICE agent in Texas is charged with assaulting an officer - "The charges came a day before he was set to appear in court to challenge the legality of his immigration detention... Garcés Pérez was transferred out of a facility in San Antonio, where he had been in immigration custody for nine days, and placed in federal criminal custody in a facility near Austin, according to Garza. 'It has created a web of detention for him,' she said of having Garcés Pérez be transferred from custody."

Mahmoud Khalil on his detention by ICE (transcript) - "What is happening behind ICE detention gates is horrendous. And I believe that it is a stain on the U.S. consciousness... Most of them, at least the ones that were around me, were picked up from their ICE check-ins, from their court hearings or from their work sites. Once you enter these detention centers, you see a very different reality about this country that supposedly champions human rights and liberty and justice. But once you cross into these prisons, literally that door, you see the opposite side of what's actually happening in this country."

A tidy little drama unfolded during today's US Senate hearings (C-Span, via YouTube).

Missouri Senator Eric Schmitt, who is being floated as a possible VP candidate for a Vance presidential run (Axios, sigh), lined up dutifully for his sound bite attacking former special counsel Jack Smith. Then things took a turn. The whole seven minutes or so are worth taking in. As a dessert, you can watch Alabama Senator Katie Britt at the moment of unraveling (YouTube).

Democrats capitulate to MAGA media mogul. California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) and 11 other states drop their lawsuit to block David Ellison's Paramount from acquiring Warner Bros. — and get little in return.

Extremely depressing news, so I've tried to include some pieces that emphasize the positive and re-commit to the fight. First, here's more coverage: The Ellisons Have Made This Movie Before In exchange for the plaintiffs (all Democratic attorneys general, sigh) removing one of the last remaining roadblocks to Paramount's $111 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount signed on to commitments with no real enforcement behind them. Even modest concessions — like $5 million a year for independent film — sunset within five years. There are no divestitures. And some terms are just laughable, like granting the conglomerate's owners oversight of the editorial independence of CNN and CBS News (which is probably why two of the attorneys general openly objected to this term). But with Paramount, you don't need a catalog of failed consent decrees to understand what is to come. You only need the record of the family making the promises: David Ellison, CEO of Paramount, and his father, tech billionaire and Trump ally Larry Ellison. And here's Matt Stoller looking for positives in this bleak situation: Happy Oligarch Day as Trump-Aligned Billionaires Take Over Hollywood So what does this whole collapse mean? Well, I'm in a strangely good mood. This acquisition, while certain to damage Hollywood and the media, required immense amounts of political capital to get through. Consider what it took: An aggressive President, a right-wing Congress, a deeply morose California Democratic establishment, California Governor Gavin Newsom and NJ Governor Mikie Sherrill, LA Mayor Karen Bass, stars like Tom Cruise and James Cameron, major movie theater chains like AMC, Regal, and Cinemark, unions like IATSE and the Director's Guild, JP Morgan's CEO Jamie Dimon, much of Wall Street, every global antitrust enforcer, plus a highly dishonest and corrupt press all had to put their thumb on the scale to beat what was essentially a group of frustrated artists led by Mark Ruffalo, the Writer's Guild, some outraged antitrust lawyers, and a surly public. They had to lie, cheat, and steal. And they did. That is not strength, it is weakness. It is very different than earlier mergers, like Disney-Fox, that went through without any meaningful opposition. In this case, everyone saw the deal could have been blocked, a judge had already ruled multiple times that the case was reasonable, and Bonta just flip-flopped. When the Paramount-Warner deal turns out badly, and it probably will, everyone will know who to blame. Monopoly Round-Up: Paramount-WB Isn't Just a Loss, It's a Prelude We learned two important things in this battle. The first is what happens when an elected leader tries to say no to an oligarch after 45 years of unfettered rule by capital. That is, they get extremely angry and vicious. As G.K. Chesterton once said, "The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all." Ellison threatened the entire state of California with moving Paramount out of the state, his legal team said they'd destroy antitrust law by appealing to a Supreme Court whose members they know personally, his allies controlled most of the media narrative about the case, and he engaged in an extreme version of corruption vis-a-vis the President.... The second level is about the Democrats, which is a political party few people really understand. The most important thing to get about the older generation of Democrats is they are fundamentally uninterested in the real world. They have a form of politics, but it is unrelated to governing.... Now, I've been careful to say that it's an older generation of Democrats who cosplay as substantive. This cycle is going to see a bunch of new people elected. Last year is when New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani won, and he definitely is perceived to have a different approach. How different is an important question. Abdul El-Sayed, who is probably the most important figure, is quite smart. We interviewed him for Organized Money. Melat Kiros and Angie Nixon both prevailed on campaigns that promised to break up big medicine and take on corporate concentration. So did Aisha Wahab in California. In Arkansas, Hallie Shoffner is campaigning against corporate concentration of farming. There will be more of this. They may show a different form of politics, taking the side of the anti-Ellison coalition, as it were. The point, though, is that what we just saw is not just a battle we lost. It is a prelude of the kind of tactics and coalitions to come. Right now, it's clear that billionaires don't have to follow the law. It's also clear there is now a serious challenge to that framework. It wasn't quite powerful enough to block the merger. But now we know how they are going to play the game.

Supreme Court restores Trump's mass voter verification system - "The Department of Homeland Security last year redesigned a federal database known as the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, ​or SAVE, used to verify a person's citizenship and immigration status. The revamp allowed users to search many records at a time and to conduct searches using individuals' Social Security numbers. Since then, several Republican-led states have compared their voter lists to the database, and some voters flagged as potential noncitizens have had their registrations canceled." (previously)

Advocacy groups that sued to block the revised SAVE system said that the new approach ‌has ⁠resulted in people who were wrongfully identified as noncitizens being kicked off voter rolls. They have argued that SAVE can be outdated, meaning immigrants who have become naturalized US citizens and are thus eligible to vote are sometimes labeled as noncitizens. The modified system's overall error rate is not publicly known. The Department of Homeland Security and Justice Department did not provide that information when asked.

Government can use Social Security data to identify noncitizen voters, Supreme Court rules - "The government acknowledged internally that the database could misidentify eligible voters as noncitizens and has an error rate of as high as 81 percent in some localities, the plaintiffs wrote in a filing with the Supreme Court." US Supreme Court lets Trump deploy voter database ahead of midterms - "Lawyers for the voting rights groups said the Trump administration had bypassed Congress and violated federal laws protecting Americans from government over-reach to build the master database. 'Disregarding these laws, the government has recklessly created an error-laden master citizenship database that endangers millions of Americans' privacy and voting rights,' they said." also btw...

• Republican Panic Sets In Over Prospects of a Massive Blue Wave - "The warning signs are coming in quickly from across the map—much on it from red states where President Trump won comfortably just two years ago. Outside groups backing the GOP are now spending in the millions on Senate races in once-safe territories like Nebraska and Kansas; South Carolina, Mississippi, South Dakota, and Arkansas are all drawing renewed attention amid fears of a historically massive blue wave."
• Cook nudges three Senate races toward Democrats - "In the latest Cook ratings, Kansas moved from 'Likely Republican' to 'Lean Republican.' South Carolina shifted from 'Solid Republican' to 'Likely Republican.' Georgia and the seat held by Sen. Jon Ossoff (D) changed from 'Lean Democrat' to 'Likely Democrat.' There are six Republican-held Senate seats rated by Cook as a 'Toss Up' or better for Democrats. The Georgia shift makes a Republican pickup there less likely, while the Kansas move expands the map of competitive seats for Democrats."
• Republicans may have gerrymandered their way into a Texas-sized Latino problem - "A September poll of 1,000 Latinos in Texas conducted for Cook Political and TelevisaUnivision found that 18% of Latinos who voted for Trump no longer support him, and almost two-thirds of Latino voters would be less likely to vote for candidates who support Trump's immigration policies... The risk that redistricting backfires is particularly clear in the 15th District, which in its ⁠reconfigured form would have given Trump an 18-point win in 2024, compared with a two-point margin in 2020 and a 14-point loss in his first election in 2016."
• Texas Republicans Splinter as MAGA Candidates Test Party Limits - "Paxton is trailing Talarico in polls with less than six weeks until Election Day, and has been dogged by allegations of bribery, misuse of power, and adultery, as well as criticism from other senior Texas Republicans."
• 2026 Congressional Forecast - "FiftyPlusOne's election forecast model has Democrats at a 98% chance of winning the house & a 69% chance of winning the senate."
• 3 big questions as GOP nears moment of truth - "GOP groups had spent more than $450 million through Sept. 23, more than twice what Democrats had spent, according to campaign finance expert Rob Pyers. But Republican strategists say they aren't sure yet whether the barrage is working amid voter anger over high prices, data centers and Trump's war in Iran."
• Why are workers feeling so stressed? Maybe because labor's share of the economy is at a record low - "There was a brief moment at the tail end of the pandemic, already forgotten, at which it seemed that American workers had finally grasped the reins of power, with wage gains rising and organizing strength entering a new era. The moment is forgotten today because whatever leverage labor thought it had acquired evaporated rapidly. And recently it has been scraping along the bottom." (To Rule in Hell)
• Democrats running for office turn sharply against their own party - "This surge in political friendly fire reflects the extraordinary level of anger candidates are seeing from their voters toward the Democratic Party and the national political establishment."
• The New American Dream Is Enjoying Life - "About 72% across generations say they're willing to make slower progress on financial goals to spend time with family, take vacations and prioritize meaningful experiences. Seven in 10 Americans have privately opted out of something in the past year because of financial constraints, with 41% of Gen Zers saying they had claimed to be busy to avoid a get-together that they couldn't afford." (In the Land of Billionaire Barbarians, The rising price tag of romance)
• Americans' embrace of socialism reaches record high - "The share of Americans who feel positively about socialism jumped from 39% to 43% in the past year. That shift came entirely from independents: positive views of socialism rose 8 percentage points among that group since last year, to 45%. Since 2010, favorability has climbed among Democrats from 50% to 65%. Views toward socialism are lowest among Republicans (14%), but even that has ticked up since 2019 (9%)."
• YouGov poll: "likely voters prefer Democratic socialists over MAGA Republicans by an 18-point margin."

Via Dropsite News: During his speech before the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, President Donald Trump threatened to "annihilate the Islamic republic" of Iran if the two countries fail to reach a deal. Responding in a statement carried by Mehr, Iran's General Staff of the Armed Forces and the Khatam Al-Anbiya Central Command accused Trump of using the UN podium to justify U.S. "aggression" and described his threats as evidence of Washington's "strategic desperation," warning that Iranian forces were prepared to strike the U.S. and Israel with attacks more severe than those carried out earlier in the war.

Via Zeteo: In Iran, the Revolutionary Guard said it had information that a new attack was coming, and added that if so, "all U.S. bases and interests in the region will become targets of continuous, effective and painful attacks without any limitations or considerations." Furthermore, amid stark reporting on the "cascade of preventable failures" that led U.S. forces to annihilate at least 123 children at a school in Iran on day one of the war – the Trump administration hasn't owned up, but the evidence is overwhelming – multiple outlets reported regional preparations for renewed U.S. bombing. [Finally], as the Wall Street Journal depicted 'Veep' levels of mania in the White House – the president off the leash and alarming aides in the absence of departed press secretary Karoline Leavitt and chief of staff Susie Wiles, who has been addressing health concerns – the State Department issued a security alert to citizens across the Middle East, a common move ahead of military action. For Zeteo, Swin hit the phones, working his Washington sources, testing the strength of reports that Trump is looking for "foreign policy victories" ahead of the midterm elections. (Paywalled content I recommend throwing into archive.is or another paywall bypasser).

According to Liberal Current's poll conducted together with the Center for Strategic Politics the question "Should the next Democratic administration pursue criminal prosecution of [M]embers of the Trump and Biden administrations for actions taken related to Israel's genocide in Gaza" has a 57% support among Democrats. (data source) That's good news, as we have some new stuff in the accountability department.

The Officials:

Drop the Genocide 20

These are the top 20 officials most responsible for promoting, lying about, and covering up the Gaza genocide in the Biden White House. The purpose of the #DroptheGenocide20 pledge is to demand these officials be removed from future Democratic administrations, think tanks, and academic and liberal spaces.

Statement on Genocidal Incitement by Israel's Minister of National Security (Lemkin Institute)

The Lemkin Institute strongly condemns the recent inhumane statements of Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, in which he called for the deliberate killing of "30 to 40" Palestinians every night in Gaza, even if they pose no immediate danger, because, according to him, "[t]here are people there who are not worthy of life. They shouldn't live. They're not even people." We will be very clear: This statement, which has garnered some outrage in Europe, is an unambiguous declaration of genocidal intent and incitement to genocide.

Israel will 'finish the job' in Gaza and seek Palestinians' migration — defense minister (Jerusalem Post)

Defense Minister Israel Katz says it is only a matter of time before the country resumes full-scale war in Gaza and moves to encourage the emigration of its two million Palestinians.

UK Lawyers for Israel calls to proscribe Doctors Without Borders as terror group

UKLFI appears 128 times in the European Legal Support Centre's Britain Index of Repression database, which documents what it describes as the systematic repression of Palestine solidarity activism across Britain. The centre argued that UKLFI has helped to create a "chilling environment" in which individuals and organisations withdraw or modify lawful Palestine-related activity due to fears of legal escalation.

The Media

Adam H. Johnson: How to Sell a Genocide - The Media's Complicity in the Destruction of Gaza (Pluto Press)

How to Sell a Genocide is a thorough indictment of US corporate media's role in enabling—and, at times, directly inciting—one of the most devastating campaigns of mass killing in modern memory. Johnson unpacks how major news outlets like The New York Times, CNN, and MSNBC systematically sanitized Israel's war crimes, hid the US's central role, and dehumanized the Palestinian people.

Radio War Nerd EP 621 — US Media Complicity in the Gaza Genocide, feat. Adam Johnson + Guest co-host Aamer

The passage of another death penalty law shows the one issue Israelis can unite behind: death for Palestinians

After passing two death penalty laws in six weeks, Israel is investing hundreds of millions of dollars to try to execute Palestinians on live TV. Unanimous support for the laws shows that Israeli society can unite around "death to Palestinians."

The Sources

Gaza is Too Graphic For Community Standards

On January 30, 2025, I uploaded a video to Instagram I filmed in Gaza showing a mother sitting beside the bodies of her children after an airstrike. She was not screaming. She was silent in a way that felt heavier than any sound. Within minutes, the post disappeared from both Instagram and Facebook. The notification read: "This content violates Community Standards on graphic violence." There was no context in the message, no acknowledgment of where the video came from, and no distinction between documentation and harm. Only erasure. And then, silence.

Archive Genocide — War Crimes Archive

We archive what others erase. Permanently. We are a group of researchers dedicated to archiving war crimes footage from Gaza and the West Bank. Our team submits all evidence to the International Criminal Court (ICC), the Hind Rajab Foundation, and the South African legal team at the ICJ. If you'd like to contribute or join the effort, connect with us on Twitter or Telegram. (Warning - Graphic footage! - the same data is available as a graph for exploring connections.)

There is a unit inside the Justice Department whose only job is to prosecute corrupt public officials. It is called the Public Integrity Section. In January 2025 it had about thirty-six lawyers, and today it has two. When people ask why there are no indictments, no convictions and no special counsel, that is the answer. The people who would bring those cases were removed in the first year of the term. The referees left the field, and the game kept going.

Not exactly sure what the story is with The Leah Files on substack, though I would guess that this is the work of a team with resources, presented as the work of one person which raises questions like who's paying for this and why. Nevertheless I am sharing it because there's interesting information here. This section is, imo, the most important part of the summary, and I've saved it for arguing with strangers online: 3. Disabling the detectors Score at month twenty: 8.0 of 10 (8 on proven evidence). Weight: 15 points. This part of the record has the strongest evidence and the least public attention, and it is the part that determines the score. On January 24, 2025, seventeen inspectors general were dismissed in a single night without the thirty days' notice the statute requires. On September 24, 2025, Judge Ana Reyes held the dismissals unlawful, describing the violation as obvious, and declined to order any remedy, on the reasoning that the president could dismiss them again with proper notice. In February 2025 the director of the Office of Government Ethics, confirmed two months earlier to a five-year term, was removed, and the Secretary of Veterans Affairs was installed as acting head of both that office and the Office of Special Counsel, the sole enforcer of the Hatch Act. The Justice Department's Public Integrity Section, which brings pardon-for-pay and foreign bribery cases, was reduced from about thirty-six attorneys to two, and its open cases fell from roughly 190 to about twenty. The FBI's internal audit office and its public corruption squad were dissolved. Enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act was paused by executive order. The beneficial-ownership registry that would have identified the owners of anonymous shell companies was narrowed so that 99 percent of covered entities no longer report, and this August the database itself was ordered deleted. The Government Accountability Office found six violations of the Impoundment Control Act in 2025, and in September of that year the budget office cut off funding to the council of inspectors general, taking fifteen oversight websites and their whistleblower hotlines offline. This is why the bribery criterion is scored five on proven evidence when the reported pattern would support an eight. The people whose job it is to prove bribery have been removed. When the detectors are off, the absence of convictions carries almost no information, and the question "where are the indictments" describes the mechanism rather than refuting it. This is the Abacha model of governance. The most important figure in this article is not a dollar amount. It is the reduction of the Public Integrity Section from thirty-six lawyers to two.

Have you heard of mega master hearings? They are spreading.

My name is Alan and I work as part of Never Again Action's Content Team. I witness these hearings as an accompanier with the Boston Immigration Justice Accompaniment Network (BIJAN). There I volunteer as one of many citizens who abhor what is being done in our names. We are silent observers on behalf of people and communities targeted by this war our government is waging on immigrants. People normally have two immigration hearings - a master and an individual. A master hearing is a session in which many peoples' cases are heard one after another. Often these hearings are for detained people trying to get bond. Past interactions with law enforcement frequently provide the government with justification to keep people locked up even when the incident was minor or the charge has been dismissed. An individual hearing comes next. The respondent and their lawyer (if any) are present and may bring witnesses to testify to the person's good character, community and family status, and so on. Circumstances like having US citizen relatives, being a sole provider for children, and similar are considered. These hearings take time and even though the denial rate is very high that's not enough for this regime. They have quotas, you see, and they continue to invent new and terrible ways to meet them. Enter the "mega master." A mega master is a mass session at which dozens of people are ordered to appear in person and rushed through. Often the people called in for mega masters are folks who had appointments for court dates in the future. They have asylum applications in progress and some have already waited years for their applications to be heard because the system is so broken and overloaded. Many receive the notice to appear in a language they don't speak and the date for them to show up is short notice. Many appear with children clinging to them because they have no childcare available. Then they're crammed into a courtroom and - if they're lucky - get a rote recitation in their language of what is going on and when they are next expected to appear. There is no chance to answer any charges or present any evidence. If people don't show up to these mega masters for any reason they are immediately ordered removed. All their pending cases are terminated, again with no opportunity to speak for themselves, or to have a lawyer challenge what is being done to them. Along with the mega masters, the regime has fired dozens of experienced immigration judges and replaced them with compliant political appointees who are expected to cut the corners necessary to hit arbitrary deportation quotas. Some of those fired judges are now - quietly - starting to spread the word about the true agenda. They tell us clearly that the purpose of mega masters is to deport as many community members as possible. People without legal representation are the most vulnerable and most easily expelled. Even those with lawyers face steep barriers in the mega master process. People should receive translations of critical documents, but advocates tell us that is not always happening. The most common excuse made by the regime for dismissing asylum claims is that people didn't file their applications soon enough. Many of the targeted people are children, often separated from their parents, who are expected to understand what is happening to them and follow rules that were never explained. Overall, the denial rate for asylum has reached 93 percent. Advocates and community organizers, using the regular court system, are continuing to push back, exposing how ICE is violating its own rules in pursuit of these unprecedented levels of cruelty. Mega masters are one new piece of a vast system of injustice. I close with a poem. The author is unknown - it is being passed around accompanier circles. I have not personally been present for these child proceedings. The adult ones I witness are heartbreaking enough. But this has finally made the public news so everyone can know that every word of this poem is true. The respondent is two years old. She appears in immigration court without counsel. Without parent. Without language. She is placed at the table alone. The clerk types anyway. I am here to observe procedure. I am here because someone decided my presence satisfies the law. The room smells of disinfectant and paper. The flag watches from the wall, flawless, unmoving. An interpreter is sworn in, then excused. The child responds to no language offered. She speaks only need, only gesture. The judge softens his voice, as if volume were the problem. "Do you understand why you're here?" She touches the microphone. It echoes her breath. She laughs once— surprised by the sound of herself made large. For the record, this is noted as nonresponsive. I write: She believes this is a room where adults will return her to what she knows. A government attorney clears his throat. Time presses onward. Stacks of cases wait. So does lunch. They ask her to point. To choose her future with a finger still soft from sleep. _ Her feet do not reach the floor. They swing— a small metronome of waiting. The judge asks her name. She answers with a sound that could mean thirst or home. She chooses a red crayon. She chooses the microphone's echo. She chooses nothing that can be kept. No one explains removal. No one explains asylum. No one explains mother in a language she understands. I am trained not to intervene. I am not permitted to hold her. I am not permitted to say that this is what abandonment looks like when it is procedural. She cries— the astonished cry of someone who has fallen through expectation. The bailiff looks away. The judge sighs. For the record, the respondent is found removable. She is escorted from the room holding nothing. Later I will sign my name beneath these observations. The transcript will appear clean. Complete. But I will remember her shoes— how they lit up when she moved, small blue flashes across the floor, trying, briefly, to testify. (Via Never Again Action)

The Lindsey Graham Sanctioning Russia Act, which the House will likely vote on this week [note: has voted on and passed], looks like a no-brainer for supporters of Ukraine who have been calling for President Trump to get tougher on Russia.... But the bill is not what it seems. The legislation would impose no significant new sanctions on Russia, and it would allow Trump to waive any of its measures simply by claiming that doing so is in the national interest. In other words, a law that appears to handcuff Trump would offer him a key to free himself. What's more, its most important provisions are about not sanctions per se, but tariffs. The bill could provide Trump with the same kind of sweeping authority to impose tariffs that the Supreme Court took away from him in February, allowing him to intensify his trade war with many of America's allies and partners.

Posted this because I saw an absolutely shameful number of articles about the Lindsay Graham Sanctions Bill that focused on the fact that two Democratic members of the House crossed the aisle to vote for it, while not reporting anything at all about the actual content of the bill. Total journalistic negligence to frame this as "both sides" obstructionism without mentioning that the entire bill is a sham. I hope Democratic messengers are taking note of this and making a plan to get out ahead of the propaganda messaging before this bill gets to the Senate. PS Another headline bill that's not as advertised (voted down in the Senate, thankfully): Crypto legislation would greenlight Trump corruption.

The world reconsiders America - "America is shedding its status as the default choice for foreign governments to park money, buy weapons and send students... Hungary and Poland were the only two of 10 countries polled where majorities still view the U.S. as a reliable partner. Majorities in all 10, including two with right-wing populist leaders, say they lack confidence in Trump to do the right thing in world affairs."

Poll shows rising trust in global institutions, less comfort with US as global leader - "The poll showed that the people surveyed were not comfortable with the United ​States or China as a global leader, and 61% supported countries working together without the participation of either of the world's two largest economies."

Canada received the highest ​level of comfort for taking a leading role in world affairs at 60%, followed by Japan (58%) and Australia (55%). The European Union and Britain were closely behind, with 55% and 54%, while ‌the United ⁠Nations stood at 52%. By contrast, just 39% were comfortable with the United States taking a leading role and 37% with China. Russia was viewed even more negatively, with just 26% comfortable.

• 'Hostile act': Trump threatens EU with tariffs over Canada associate-membership proposal - "Canada is already the only non-European country in the EU's SAFE instrument — an initiative that provides Canadian firms with preferential access to defense procurement — and has a free-trade agreement with the bloc, eliminating tariffs on roughly 99% of goods, though that deal still requires ratification by 10 EU states." (Canada to seek EU Associate Membership)
• EU single market needs 'fifth freedom' to reverse loss of economic dynamism - "Encompassing research, knowledge and talent, as well as an 'approve once, sell everywhere' regime, to help close the widening gap with US and Chinese innovation led growth... The proposed 'fifth freedom' is a nod to the EU single market's foundations' 'four freedoms': movement of goods, services, people and capital."

How Trump's war on EVs derailed America's auto-factory revival - "A wave of manufacturing investment promised to revive struggling heartland towns and build a U.S. supply chain for electric vehicles and batteries. But policy changes since Trump's return to office have upended the boom, costing thousands of jobs." Trump Has Made More Trades Than All of Congress Combined - "Most Americans support a ban on lawmaker stock trading. Trump is in favor of a prohibition that doesn't apply to him." Trump considered dangerous, corrupt by majority in new poll - "A slight majority of registered voters describe President Trump as corrupt and dangerous, a recent poll found, while just 14% say he isn't divisive."

"Corrupt" (53%) and "dangerous" (51%) led the list of descriptors voters applied to Trump in the Sept. 11-14 The Economist-YouGov poll of 1,461 U.S. registered voters.

• Those words were followed by "out-of-touch" (47%), "cruel" (46%) and "bold" (45%).
• Just 18% said they'd use the word "steady" to describe the president.

Democrats are testing an anti-corruption midterm message as Americans' perceptions of government corruption hit a 20-year high, per Gallup's trend, and polls show Americans believe the president has inappropriately profited from cryptocurrency while in office.

• The results broke sharply by party — 91% of Democrats and 62% of independents said Trump was corrupt, compared with 10% of Republicans.
• Republicans weren't universally positive: Less than half (49%) said they'd use the word "honest" to describe the president. Just 10% said it didn't describe him, while 41% had no opinion.
• Similarly, 38% of Republicans said he was steady, while 53% said they had no opinion.

also btw...

• Baal out: Top diplomat's worry about pagan god elicits eye rolls - "The second-most powerful man at the State Department put the brakes on a U.S. international exhibit featuring a bull statue because he worried it might look like Baal, a pagan god some associate with Satanic child sacrifice."
• FBI's Patel defends change in 'bestiality' hiring practice as lawmakers seek answers - "Why would you even get ​into bestiality?"

• Texas nominees' racist, vulgar remarks receive mixed GOP reaction - "Are other Republican elected officials going to condemn the intolerance and racism, or look the other way while it becomes normalized."
• Texas Republican's post on Asian Americans at UT Austin sparks accusations of racism - "Hate is one of the easiest means of organizing."

• US billionaires line up to bankroll Republicans' election push - "Ultra-wealthy overwhelmingly back Donald Trump's party over Democrats as money floods into midterms race."
• U.S. Senate Race in Michigan: Full Debate - "While Rogers declined the invite for the debate, El-Sayed showed up."

What's the first thing you do when you get into office should you become a senator? El-Sayed: Work to get money out of politics to end Citizens United. Corporations are not people. Their money is not speech. They should not be able to buy politicians. We need to end that. And then it's working to pass the PRO Act to make sure that we can organize unions in every sector of American life. And finally getting Medicare for All done. So we free people from medical risk.

• Russian businessman financed Donald Trump Jr.'s wedding celebrations - "Umar Kremlev paid for two nights of celebration after the wedding, Donald Trump Jr. and his wife confirm."
• What we know about the Putin ally who allegedly funded Donald Trump Jr.'s wedding - "According to a ProPublica investigation, Umar Kremlev's deep ties to Vladimir Putin allegedly created a personal financial link between President Trump's oldest child and prominent Russians while the U.S. attempts to broker peace with Ukraine."

• Somaliland's president puts everything on the table for Trump - "The breakaway territory is offering Washington access to its port, minerals and potentially military facilities in exchange for recognition."

• The public wants a say in AI development - "Democratic and Republican voters agree that the American public should decide the future of AI development, not billionaires in Silicon Valley, according to new polling shared first with Semafor." (Behind the curtain: It's not too late)
• Scoop: Trump pollster gives GOP a data center survival guide - "This converts the candidate from a defender of technology companies into the person imposing rules on them."
• First, "validate" voters' concerns about higher utility bills, the power grid and water use.
• Second, "draw the line" by vowing not to support projects that force families to subsidize them or allow tech companies to harm surrounding communities.
• Finally, argue that projects should move forward only if companies provide their own power, protect ratepayers and safeguard local water.

• US admission of orbital weapons seen as landmark moment in race with China, Russia - "The U.S. acknowledgment this week that the Pentagon is operating weapons in Earth's orbit marks a landmark moment in space militarization aimed at ​deterring what U.S. officials describe as aggressive orbital activities from China and Russia, officials and analysts said."
• China warns US space weapons could fuel arms race - "China urged the United States to halt its military build-up in outer space after Washington acknowledged it ​has weapons deployed in orbit, while Chinese state media ‌warned the move could fuel a global arms race."

• China imposes new restrictions on overseas travel - "To stop cutting-edge technology and top-flight researchers from leaving, taking a step closer to a regime that had characterized a more closed-off China of decades past."
• Why Seeing China as a Normal Rising Power Misses the Point - "China isn't authoritarian but totalitarian. In an ordinary authoritarian state, however brutal, some independent institutions survive—be they a church, a temple, a nongovernmental organization—so long as they stay out of politics. A totalitarian party allows none of it. Every organization must be controlled by the party."

--- *EK-FF: Why I Can't Stop Thinking About 'The End of History'