June, 29 2020, 12:00am EDT
Trump's "White Power" Video Yet Another Open Display of White Nationalism
WASHINGTON
Bend the Arc: Jewish Action released the following statement on Monday in response to President Trump retweeting a video of his supporters yelling "white power," calling the people in the video "great people":
"From posting Facebook ads with Nazi symbols to tweeting videos of Trump supporters yelling 'white power,' it's clear the Trump campaign is no longer concerned with hiding their white nationalism," said Stosh Cotler, CEO of Bend the Arc: Jewish Action. "Trump has moved past racist dog whistles, and picked up a bullhorn to send much more explicit signals to right-wing extremists who are trying to make this a country only for people who look like them."
"Just like when Trump called the neo-Nazis and KKK members in Charlottesville 'very fine people,' the president once again simply cannot bring himself to criticize open displays of racism by his supporters," added Cotler. "If the Trump administration's words didn't make their white nationalist motives clear enough, their actions certainly do as they continue to scapegoat and harm immigrants and communities of color, and vilify Black protesters."
Earlier this month, Facebook removed Trump campaign ads featuring the Nazi symbol used to identify political prisoners. In the days since Bend the Arc: Jewish Action helped expose Trump's Nazi ads, nearly 4,000 people have signed a Bend the Arc petition calling on Facebook to take further steps--including firing the company's Vice President of Global Public Policy Joel Kaplan.
For more examples of white nationalist rhetoric spread by Trump and his GOP enablers, visit HowToFightAntisemitism.com--a new resource from Bend the Arc: Jewish Action for organizers, the media, and the public, that tracks the spread of deadly antisemitism and conspiracies from far-right extremists and politicians.
Bend the Arc is where progressive American Jews join together to fight for justice and equality for all. We are the only national Jewish organization focused exclusively on progressive social change in the United States.
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Not Just Food and Fuel—Inflation Numbers Show 'Worrying Trends' as Midterms Loom
With inflation climbing to 3.6%, "instead of focusing on delivering lower prices, Trump is touting Big Oil's Iran War windfall."
Oct 29, 2026
Less than a week before the US midterm elections in which voters may end Republican control of Congress, the Bureau of Economic Analysis on Thursday released inflation data highlighting the nation's persistent affordability crisis under GOP leaders, including President Donald Trump.
In September, the Personal Consumption Expenditures index rose 3.6% from a year ago, up from 3.4% in August, according to the BEA. Core PCE strips out food and energy prices, the latter of which has soared as Trump has waged an illegal war on Iran. That increased 3.1%, up from 3% the previous month.
The "bottom line," said Navy Federal Credit Union chief economist Heather Long, is that "inflation is back near a three-year high."
"It's largely due to war in Iran, but there's legitimate concern that inflation is spreading beyond energy," the economist explained. Referencing the "core" figure, she noted some "worrying trends."
Long pointed to a "big rise in goods prices" that "is largely driven by Trump's tariffs (big move up since 2025) and now war."
The expert also noted that "service sector inflation is picking up again."
She further observed that "rent prices are no longer improving" and housing inflation is "moving sideways."
The inflation update comes just days after the University of Michigan's Surveys of Consumers announced last week that its Consumer Sentiment Index dropped to 48 this month, nearing the record low of 44.8 from this past May, and Trump celebrated fossil fuel industry profits from his war during a weekend campaign rally in Georgia.
Trump told the crowd he was advised against highlighting how the industry—which helped him get elected two years ago and in which he is significantly invested—is "making hundreds of billions of dollars," given that "people are paying a little higher" for gasoline and diesel.
"I can just see the fake headlines," he said. "President Trump is talking about all the money they're making while people are suffering at the pump. That will be the headline. But I said, I don't give a damn, I'm going to say it: We're making a freaking fortune."
As of Thursday, the national average for a gallon of gasoline was $4.23 and $6.33 for diesel. The Costs of War Project at Brown University estimates US residents have paid at least $81.1 billion more for gas and $65.9 billion for diesel, or a total of $147 billion. That's over $619 per household, for just gas.
Some estimates are even higher. A Monday report from Democrats on the congressional Joint Economic Committee states that US households "have now spent an additional $101 billion on gasoline since the start of the Iran War, or an average of $856 in gas costs per family."
Meanwhile, oil giants Shell and TotalEnergies announced their sizable third-quarter profits on Thursday, and companies such as BP, Chevron, and ExxonMobil are expected to follow suit on Friday.
"Inflation remains high, working families are paying $4.23 at the pump, and meager pay raises aren’t keeping up with rising prices," Alex Jacquez, a former Obama administration official who is now senior vice president of policy, advocacy, and research at Groundwork Collaborative, said in a statement.
"Instead of focusing on delivering lower prices, Trump is touting Big Oil's Iran War windfall," Jacquez stressed. "Skyrocketing prices and economic growth largely driven by AI spending do not add up to an economy that works for working families."
Democrats in Congress have seized on cost-of-living concerns ahead of the midterms, including Sen. Ed Markey, who is up for reelection in Massachusetts. He said Thursday that "inflation is up. Margins are tighter."
"Prices are skyrocketing—and small business owners are on the frontlines of Trump's war on Main Street," Markey added. "Small businesses and workers should not have to bear the costs of Trump's reckless economic policies."
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'Who Will Bomb Me Next?': As Israel Awaits Election Results, Palestinians Brace for the Worst—No Matter Who Wins
"Israeli policy will stay the same," said one woman in a Gaza refugee camp. "It's the policy that the Israeli state was founded on."
Oct 29, 2026
As Israelis await the results of this week's elections with a sense of uncertainty, Palestinians are certain of one thing—that their suffering will continue regardless of who emerges victorious.
"We don't care about their elections in any way. Gaza is in the same state. Their elections change nothing here," one elderly Palestinian woman told The Specter on Wednesday from a refugee camp in the obliterated strip, where three years of US-backed Israeli genocide have left 250,000 people dead or wounded, nearly 2 million inhabitants displaced, and the territory in ruins.
A younger woman in the camp told the outlet that "things in Gaza won't change, and they will get worse" if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reelected.
"The first thing he'll do is pick up where he left off, displacing Palestinians from the occupied West Bank... and from the Gaza Strip," she continued.
If former lawmaker and ex-Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot wins, "things may unfold a little differently," she predicted, but Israeli policy will stay the same. It's the policy the Israeli state was founded on."
Like Netanyahu, Eisenkot emphatically rejects Palestinian statehood, calling the two-state solution “a mistake" and "delusional," given the October 2023 attack led by the militant resistance group Hamas—whose animus was fueled by over a century of Zionist usurpation.
With around 90% of ballots counted as of Thursday, Israeli media projected that Netanyahu’s right-wing and ultra-Orthodox allies would capture 53 seats in the 120-member Knesset, compared with 48 for the opposition led by Eisenkot.
The Knesset has 120 seats, so 61 are needed for a parliamentary majority. The candidates' shortfall means either side would likely need support from Arab parties to emerge victorious—a prospect rejected by many Jewish political leaders.
Netanyahu would remain caretaker prime minister throughout any negotiations to form a new coalition.
Palestinian American fashion designer Alana Hadid—the half-sister of models Gigi and Bella Hadid—said in a video posted to social media that "it's important for people to understand that the intention of an election in Israel to make you think that there will be change. And of course, there will be some change in that there will be a different brand of Zionism."
"Zionism is universal across Israelis," she added, "so whoever wins this election, the change will be in name only."
Haaretz, Israel's oldest daily newspaper, on Thursday published an article in which Gazans mostly shrugged off the Israeli elections.
"Honestly, I don't feel anything about the results. As someone from Gaza, I'm just waiting to see who will bomb me next—the right or the left," a young man named Mahmoud said. "In the end, the bad will go, and the worse will come. They're two sides of the same coin, and both support your killing as a Gazan."
"I think people in Gaza will be happy to see Netanyahu fall, not because of Eisenkot, of course, but because they experienced Netanyahu and saw what he did," he added. "They hope Eisenkot will deal with Gaza differently, or that there will be some relief. But, as I said, even though the two are against each other, both want you killed."
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Oil Giants Post Record Profits as Trump Brags 'We're Making a Freaking Fortune'—And Americans Suffer at Pump
"Your pain is his paycheck," said one congressman of the president, who holds tens of millions of dollars in oil and gas stocks.
Oct 29, 2026
As oil giant Shell posted its third-quarter profits Thursday, the "freaking fortune" President Donald Trump mentioned last weekend at a campaign rally in Georgia became clear.
The president had noted that oil prices are "temporarily high," eight months after he joined Israel in launching an illegal, unprovoked war against Iran, setting off a conflict in which Iran swiftly closed the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation and sent energy prices soaring in the US and around the world.
"The United States oil and gas business is making hundreds of billions of dollars," Trump said at the rally ahead of the midterm elections, in which the cost of living tops the list of priorities for voters. "I don't give a damn, I'm going to say it—we're making a freaking fortune."
The "we" he was talking about didn't appear to include the vast majority of Americans, who are paying an average of $4.23 per gallon for gas—up from $2.87 before the Iran War started.
But it did include Shell, which said Thursday it had doubled its profits in the last quarter from July-September, raking in $10.8 billion. In the third quarter of 2025, the company made $5.4 billion.
Shell's investors were also among those making a "freaking fortune," with the company planning to return $5 billion through its share buyback program over the next three months—up from $3 billion last quarter.
UK company BP and other US oil majors, including ExxonMobil and Chevron, are expected to post their third-quarter profits on Friday, but in France, TotalEnergies reported similarly skyrocketing income.
The company reported a record-breaking net profit of $8.3 billion from July-September, while the Spanish oil giant Repsol quadrupled its profits over the first nine months of 2026, raking in $5.6 billion.
French government spokesperson Maud Bregeon told the TV network BFM that officials had asked TotalEnergies to "set an example" by passing on its savings to consumers, from the government's release of 10 million barrels of diesel from strategic reserves to distributors.
"We are asking Total to pass on the benefits of these released barrels—by lowering prices—and to continue capping prices for as long as necessary," said Bregeon. The government called on Total to reduce gas prices by 12-18 cents per liter, but CEO Patrick Pouyanne said Thursday the price reduction would likely amount to just 8-12 cents per liter.
In the US, households have paid an average of $856 more on gas since the war began—but the president has joined fossil fuel giants in reaping profits from the war that has killed more than 3,400 Iranians and more than 3,600 Lebanese people as the conflict has widened, as well as at least 21 US soldiers. Well over 100 people have been killed across other Middle Eastern countries.
With Trump continuing to trade stocks and bonds thousands of times this year, his personal holdings in the oil and gas industry have shot up to at least $22.5 million, and as much as $81.6 million. At the end of 2025 he held between $12.6 million and $46 million in the industry.
Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee in Congress said this week that Trump bought between $4.7 million and $17.5 million in oil and gas stocks from March-August, while also selling up to $5.4 million in stocks.
The White House has insisted that Trump's stock portfolio is "independently managed by third-party financial institutions," but Democratic lawmakers emphasized that the Iran War has allowed the president's personal wealth to balloon by as much as $35.8 million since February from oil and gas stocks.
With gas prices putting pressure on household budgets, said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), "your pain is his paycheck."
Philip Evans, a senior climate campaigner for Greenpeace, told Agence France-Presse that the soaring profits for oil giants and the president are being reported "against a backdrop of near-constant climate disaster both in the UK and worldwide," and called on the UK government to "tax these companies for the untold damage they're inflicting."
"These profits go beyond mere greed," said Evans. "They are openly villainous."
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Trump FTC Urged to Prevent 'Two of the Biggest Ripoff Machines in America' From Merging
"Instacart and DoorDash have spent the better part of a decade bullying main street businesses and denying fair pay and benefits to their combined 9 million workers."
Oct 29, 2026
The US Federal Trade Commission on Thursday faced immediate calls to block DoorDash's proposed $17 billion acquisition of rival Instacart, with opponents of the merger arguing it would create a "food delivery monopoly" with disastrous consequences for workers, consumers, and small businesses.
“This is a brazen merger given the amount of heat on both companies for ongoing harms to restaurants, grocers, delivery drivers, and consumers,” Lee Hepner, senior legal counsel at the American Economic Liberties Project, said in a statement, alluding to investigations that DoorDash and Instacart are facing at the state and federal levels. On Wednesday, the FTC ordered DoorDash, Instacart, and other companies to provide the agency with detailed information about their "use of personal data to set prices and compensation."
"Instacart and DoorDash have spent the better part of a decade bullying main street businesses and denying fair pay and benefits to their combined 9 million workers," said Hepner. "This merger represents the next frontier of data-driven abuse, exploiting massive asymmetries of power to squeeze worker compensation on the way in and drain consumer wallets on the way out."
Last year, the Groundwork Collaborative and other groups released a report accusing Instacart of deploying "increasingly opaque pricing practices" that are "blowing a hole in families’ wallets."
Lindsay Owens, Groundwork's president and CEO, said in response to DoorDash's proposed acquisition of Instacart that "a grocery company that made its fortune running experiments on shoppers to determine how much they can overcharge them is now merging with a delivery company that built tech to track its customers’ every click and scroll to charge them as much as it can."
"The FTC knows these two companies are at the forefront of unfair and deceptive pricing technology, which is why it ordered them to open up their pricing labs just yesterday," said Owens. "Two of the biggest ripoff machines in America should not be allowed to become one. The FTC must block this merger."
News of the proposed merger comes a month after DoorDash agreed to a historic $131.5 million settlement with New York City for shortchanging delivery drivers.
In a social media post on Thursday, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani wrote that "just last month, DoorDash couldn’t seem to find the money to pay their deliveristas—until our administration forced them to give back $131M+ in stolen wages and penalties."
"This week, they’ve managed to find $17 billion to acquire one of their main competitors," wrote Mamdani. "Corporate consolidation means higher prices, harsher exploitation, and greater economic inequality for New Yorkers. We’ve stood up to these giants before. That doesn’t stop now."
The Trump administration's antitrust record during his second White House term doesn't inspire confidence that the Republican-controlled FTC will intervene to block DoorDash's acquisition of Instacart. States could choose to sue over the merger in the absence of federal action.
“There’s no useful mitigation short of blocking this outright, which the FTC or any state attorney general must now do," said Hepner of the American Economic Liberties Project.
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Democrats Ask Trump: Did You Use Elon Musk's Grok AI Chatbot to Help Plan Maduro Kidnapping?
“If the American President is relying on the policy advice of a Musk-designed, Hitler-friendly chatbot with a predilection for child pornography in order to carry out his official duties, Americans have a right to know."
Oct 29, 2026
A pair of top Democrats in the US House of Representatives on Thursday are asking new questions about the influence that artificial intelligence chatbots may have had in the deliberations or planning of President Donald Trump's unlawful military operations against Venezuela earlier this year that resulted in the kidnapping of the country's president, Nicolas Maduro.
In a letter sent directly to Trump, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, called on the president to preserve any and all of his conversations with artificial intelligence chatbots and asked for confirmation on whether or not he had specifically engaged with Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot concerning the US military assault on Venezuela.
The committee Democrats pointed to public reporting about a meeting between Trump and Musk that took place prior to the US military operation in Venezuela that raises serious questions about the role the president's interaction may have played in shaping his understanding of the situation in the country and fallout from such an audacious—and "100% illegal"—plan.
As TechCrunch summarized earlier this month:
In December 2025, about a month before the US invaded Venezuela and captured its president, Nicolás Maduro, President Trump had a secret meeting with Elon Musk, Time magazine reports. This was roughly seven months after Musk left his role in the Trump administration at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
During this meeting, Trump “spent hours” talking to Musk’s Grok chatbot, including asking how Venezuelans would respond to the capture of their president, a source told Time. Just a few months earlier, in September, Trump began ordering U.S. military strikes against Venezuelan boats that Trump alleged were involved in drug trafficking.
People had apparently been turning to Grok asking about the boat strikes and political climate in Venezuela, as The Atlantic reported at the time. So Grok told Trump that Maduro was a “deeply unpopular dictator and that many Venezuelans would likely celebrate his downfall,” Time reported.
If such reporting is accurate, Raskin and Garcia said in their letter to Trump that the "episode is deeply troubling," and offered three key reasons.
"First, you consulted Grok—but not Congress—on your military deployment to Venezuela, circumventing Congress’s constitutional power to declare war and introducing instead into American foreign policy decision making a technology that is highly manipulable and demonstrably error-prone," the pair wrote.
"Second," the letter continues, "the unsecured use of AI chatbots by you and your closest advisors exposes the United States to acute national security risks. Your Administration’s disdain for operational security is well-documented. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth famously used unsecured channels to relay information about impending U.S. military strikes to his wife, brother, and personal lawyer."
The third reason, they said, is that Trump and his advisors’ "use of AI exposes the country to malign influence from unknown and unaccountable third parties."
The letter details a series of specific controversies with the Grok chatbot model, including its ability to create sexualized images of people—including children—without their permission and creating pro-Nazi content and advocating for a "second Holocaust" based, unsurprisingly, on what the model itself attributed to public comments by Musk.
"These disturbing examples illustrate why the White House’s AI prompts and outputs must be preserved," said Raskin and Garcia in the letter.
"If the American President is relying on the policy advice of a Musk-designed, Hitler-friendly chatbot with a predilection for child pornography in order to carry out his official duties, Americans have a right to know," they wrote. "If the United States military killed dozens of innocent schoolchildren based on the faulty advice of an AI chatbot, we have a right to know that too. And if an unelected oligarch is influencing U.S. policy through his AI-generated alter ego, Americans have a right to know how governmental decisions are being reached."
In service of that message, the lawmakers told Trump that any and all "AI prompts submitted by you and your staff, as well as the outputs you received, plainly fall within the definition of presidential records," and should be properly preserved in accordance with existing statute.
In addition, "to ensure that the American public’s rights to presidential records are being adequately protected," the pair requested a closed-door briefing regarding the use of AI chatbot technologies by the president, his staff, and other relevant personnel. They also asked a series of detailed questions on the subject for which they requested answers, in writing, by November 11.
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US Journalist and Activist Detained After Israeli Settler Attack in West Bank
Jasper Nathaniel and Andrey Khrzhanovskiy recently came to the aid of Washington Post reporter Heidi Levine after she was beaten by Israeli settlers, and spoke out about the attack.
Oct 29, 2026
An American journalist and an activist who reportedly suffered a concussion from being beaten by armed Israeli settlers remained in detention Wednesday night, hours after Israeli police arrested them following the attack.
Adele Shoko, a Russian activist, reported that settlers had attacked her, Israeli-Russian activist Andrey Khrzhanovskiy, and US journalist Jasper Nathaniel late Wednesday in the Palestinian village of Umm al-Khair, in the Masafer Yatta area of the occupied West Bank.
"They beat us, threatened to shoot us, stole Andrey's phone and my glasses, and pepper-sprayed Jasper," Shoko said on the social media platform X.
According to Shoko, Khrzhanovskiy was denied medical treatment after losing consciousness "several times in front of police." He and Nathaniel were taken to a police station, where they remained hours later.
Nathaniel was heard yelling, "I just got beat up!" while being led away by police.
"Andrey was severely beaten and lost consciousness several times in front of police," said Shoko. "Despite this, he was denied hospital treatment. He was put in an ambulance—but instead of being taken to hospital, he was taken to a police station. He is still there, arrested and being denied medical care."
One video appeared to show Khrzhanovskiy losing consciousness.
Drop Site News cited Shoko as she reported that Nathaniel and Khrzhanovskiy eventually were able to speak with a lawyer, but remained at a police station. They were reportedly "physically okay."
"Israeli state terrorism knows no boundaries," said historian Zachary Foster of the footage of the attack.
The assault came less than two weeks after both Nathaniel and Khrzhanovskiy came to the aid of Heidi Levine, a Washington Post journalist, after she was brutally beaten and robbed by Israeli settlers while she was covering an attack by dozens of masked men on Palestinian olive groves in the West Bank.
State-backed settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank have ramped up significantly since October 2023, when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) also began a military campaign against Gaza in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel. More than 74,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in what leading human rights groups have called a genocide, and a United Nations commission said this week that at least 1,080 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank in the last three years.
Top officials in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government have pushed to further annex the West Bank as the IDF has backed settler raids on villages and attacks on Palestinian communities as well as recent assaults on journalists, US lawmakers, and a group of European diplomats.
Nathaniel, who has spent years covering the Israeli occupation of the West Bank for outlets including Drop Site and Zeteo News, spoke recently to The New Yorker about the attack on Levine, emphasizing that Palestinians had thrown stones at her attackers to allow her colleagues to reach her.
"The IDF soldiers who have been there, who’ve been tear-gassing the Palestinians and providing cover for the settlers, stormed the village," Nathaniel said of the assault on Levine. "Rather than go after the settlers who have just nearly killed a woman, they stormed the village and started firing their weapons, and they shot a Palestinian man in the leg."
On Substack this week, Khrzhanovskiy wrote that "all the Palestinian villages in the West Bank are under siege," and that Netanyahu's government aimed to use a recent strike against Israeli soldiers "to start a war in the West Bank."
"The only way to stop this is pressure from all directions. We know it works," said Khrzhanovskiy. "Call your representative, hold a demonstration, organize direct action against the occupation’s assets abroad. Keep attention on the West Bank."
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Billionaire Trump Cabinet Secretary Spends $43,000 on New Furniture While Gutting Education Department
"It is unjustifiable to buy new furniture while students lose access to education services you are illegally dismantling and suffer from painful funding cuts."
Oct 29, 2026
Linda McMahon, President Donald Trump's billionaire education secretary, faced backlash on Wednesday over her plans to spend more than $43,000 of taxpayer money on new furniture for her government office as she works to illegally dismantle the department she leads, harming students across the country.
Democratic Sens. Patty Murray (Wash.) and Tammy Baldwin (Wis.) wrote in a letter to McMahon that "it is unjustifiable to buy new furniture while students lose access to education services you are illegally dismantling and suffer from painful funding cuts that were not authorized by Congress."
A senior official at the Education Department, whose staff has been gutted during Trump's second term, told The New York Times that the roughly $43,000 in costs "included a new desk, conference table, chairs and other items." The department informed lawmakers that existing furniture can't be "aesthetically integrated into the agency’s new office space"—a privately owned building that housed the US Agency for International Development before the Trump administration shut it down.
Murray and Baldwin wrote in their letter to McMahon, a former professional wrestling executive whose net worth is estimated to be around $3 billion, that "you have asked students, families, and teachers across the country to endure extraordinarily painful cuts in the name of 'fiscal responsibility,' and you have pushed out nearly half of the staff at the department in a chaotic, illegal campaign to fire employees tasked with protecting students with disabilities in the classroom and going after predatory student lenders."
"This year, you have asked Congress to slash funding for important K-12 programs and to cut funding for higher education programs by nearly $5 billion—including by destroying programs like TRIO and Federal Work Study," the senators added. "But it is clear that you do not think that you should have to abide by the same rules you want to apply to others."
The senators noted that as McMahon moves to spend taxpayer dollars on new furniture for her office, other department employees are working in spaces that have been deemed "unsafe and in disrepair, with water leaking from ceilings, mold in kitchens, extreme temperatures from a failing HVAC system, insect traps filled with dead bugs, and live insects in lactation rooms and work areas."
"The American people are sick of the corruption, sick of the waste, and sick of the hypocrisy coming out of all corners of this administration," Murray and Baldwin wrote. "They deserve a full accounting of how and why their tax dollars are being used to buy new office furniture for a secretary whose stated mission is to put themselves out of a job."
McMahon's office makeover plans were revealed days after reports indicated that she planned to remove the Federal Student Aid office from the Department of Education—without congressional approval—and create a new independent agency to manage roughly $1.6 trillion in debt owed by more than 40 million borrowers. The planned move marks the latest step in McMahon's push to effectively abolish the Education Department, fulfilling a Trump campaign promise.
Mike Pierce, executive director of the advocacy group Protect Borrowers, said in response that "changing the name on the agency letterhead will do nothing to lower costs for working-class families squeezed by rising student loan bills and surging college tuition."
"More than 3 million student loan borrowers defaulted on a loan last year, and more than 3 million more are on track to do the same this year," said Pierce. "Due to the Trump administration’s reckless actions, millions have seen their credit scores ruined. As a result, a generation of Americans will be locked out of the mortgage market, denied a typical car loan, and pay far more for a credit card because Linda McMahon cannot be bothered to fix the broken student loan system."
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MAGA 'Ratfucker' James O'Keefe Charged After Trying to Prove Voter Fraud by Allegedly Committing It
"By going undercover to prove how easy it is to commit voter fraud," said one observer, O'Keefe "ends up proving how hard it is to commit voter fraud, and then catches charges for unlawful voting."
Oct 28, 2026
In a right-wing political stunt gone ironically awry, MAGA provocateur James O’Keefe and an associate were criminally charged Wednesday in Minneapolis with unlawful voting and identity theft after allegedly impersonating registered voters in a Minnesota election while attempting to demonstrate how "easy" it is to commit voter fraud.
The Hennepin County Attorney's Office (HCAO) announced that O'Keefe, 42, and Cam Higby, 26—both with the Citizen Justice League—are facing felony charges "for their conduct during the Minnesota primary election on August 11."
According to HCAO, O'Keefe and Higby "filmed themselves and posted the videos to social media to try to sow doubt about Minnesota’s secure voting systems."
The pair "visited multiple precincts in Hennepin County and misrepresented their identities by giving election judges names of registered voters in the precinct without those voters’ knowledge or permission," according to the prosecutor's statement.
Under Minnesota law, "no individual shall intentionally misrepresent the individual’s identity in applying for a ballot, depositing a ballot in a ballot box, or attempting to vote by means of a voting machine or electronic voting system."
Neither man is accused of actually casting a ballot—their alleged offense, according to prosecutors, was misrepresenting their identities while applying for ballots.
Announcing the charges in Minneapolis, Democratic Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said: "Elections are the bedrock of democracy and their protection is one of our highest priorities. Individuals engaging in unlawful conduct related to our elections will be held accountable."
Minnesota Public Radio reported:
Videos posted by O'Keefe’s operation show them wearing burkas outside precincts during the primary. Moriarty said the voter names they used included some residents who were dead and at least one who voted.
In the videos, O’Keefe, using an accent, asks workers at polling places if he can vouch for other voters. The election workers explain the law around vouching as one of his team members films, and then his team walks out.
“Polling places are the heart of our democracy and should be places of safety and peace," Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, also a Democrat, said on Wednesday. "Any attempt to disrupt or deceive our election workers will not be tolerated."
While the story practically writes its own punchline, plenty of observers weighed in with their own takes on the pair's predicament.
so priceless that prolific ratfucker James O'Keefe, by going undercover to prove how easy it is to commit voter fraud....ends up proving how hard it is to commit voter fraud, and then catches charges for unlawful votingchef's kiss, stellar work all around www.startribune.com/conservative...
[image or embed]
— Christopher Mathias (@letsgomathias.bsky.social) October 28, 2026 at 10:27 AM
"James O'Keefe is a generational dumbass," Marisa Kabas, who publishes the progressive newsletter The Handbasket, said on Bluesky.
The irony is particularly rich given the years that conservative activists—with O'Keefe featuring prominently among them—have spent stridently claiming US elections are plagued by fraud, almost always without producing evidence to support their assertions.
Higby denied any wrongdoing and accused prosecutors of waging "lawfare" against him. O'Keefe had not yet commented on the charges as of Wednesday evening.
O'Keefe first rose to national prominence in 2009 with undercover videos targeting ACORN, a community organizing network serving low-income people. Posing as a pimp alongside collaborator Hannah Giles, who played a prostitute, O’Keefe published dubiously edited video footage of ACORN employees discussing what he claimed was illegal activity. O'Keefe later agreed to pay former ACORN employee Juan Carlos Vera $100,000 to settle a lawsuit over the recording.
Later, O'Keefe founded Project Veritas, which targeted Planned Parenthood, labor unions, journalists, Democrats, and other groups and people he opposed through hidden camera stings riddled with selective editing, deceptive tactics, and misleading narratives—all under the guise of investigative journalism.
Project Veritas was also involved in the "Stop the Steal" movement, which claimed Democrats stole the 2020 presidential election from President Donald Trump, while attempting to subvert the contest's results. Movement leaders, and Trump, were leading inciters of the deadly January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection.
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'We Cannot Let History Repeat Itself': Progressive US Lawmakers Oppose AI Bailouts
"The House Progressive Caucus is ready for the collapse of the AI bubble. The rest of us should be also," said one economist.
Oct 28, 2026
As a progressive US senator warned Wednesday that Anthropic going public could leave "Americans holding the bag" if the artificial intelligence bubble bursts, The American Prospect revealed that key Democrats in the House of Representatives have crafted a resolution opposing federal bailouts for AI giants like the ones "too-big-to-fail banks" got nearly two decades ago.
The seven-page resolution obtained by Prospect executive editor David Dayen frames the 2008 global financial crisis as a result of "profit-driven financial risk-taking, fueled by Wall Street's speculative fervor and unleashed by years of zealous deregulation," as well as an example of what not to do when it comes to the booming AI sector.
"The economic harm of a multitrillion-dollar housing bubble caused by predatory lending, reckless financialization and securitization, and off-balance-sheet lending led to a massive surge in layoffs, with the unemployment rate hitting almost 10% at the trough of the Great Recession in 2009," the seven-page measure recalls. "The weak labor market persisted for nearly a decade."
Now, AI firms "hold trillions of dollars in debt, much of which is raised in opaque and unregulated private credit markets," the resolution continues. Financing terms of many "data centers as well as the costs and revenues of major artificial intelligence firms are not publicly available and... corporate borrowing to fund data center investments are multiples higher than projected revenues."
AI-related stock prices "have inflated even more than the tech giants of the 1990s," the measure notes, warning that "a collapse of an artificial intelligence bubble could have serious consequences for the economy, similar if not more significant than the end of the 1990s tech bubble or the 2008 global financial crisis."
Thus, it argues, "Congress must refuse to provide any additional funds or exceptional regulatory support to companies or financial institutions facing insolvency or financial collapse due to exposures to acute stress within the artificial intelligence market and must provide support to all harmed Americans instead."
While politicians from both parties have been ripped for their ties to Big Tech and AI specifically, the resolution explicitly calls out related failures under Republican President Donald Trump, who recently gathered industry leaders at the White House to sign a "self-policing" accord that critics said was "as dangerous as it is absurd."
House progressives' measure points out that "federal regulators have avoided applying robust scrutiny and oversight regarding enormously complicated debt and equity schemes used by artificial intelligence firms or the circular financing mechanisms involved" in the AI data center build-out.
Additionally, "the White House's artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency czar was personally invested in at least 449
companies" tied to AI "while pushing to eliminate government obstacles," the resolution says, "reflecting the administration's broad deregulatory focus and conflicts of interest" when it comes to this industry.
The House Progressive Caucus is ready for the collapse of the AI bubble. The rest of us should be also. No bailouts for the AI billionaires prospect.org/2026/10/28/h...
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— Dean Baker (@deanbaker13.bsky.social) October 28, 2026 at 7:53 AM
Though the resolution has not yet been introduced, Dayen reported on it less than a week before the midterm elections that will determine control of Congress for the remainder of Trump's second term. It's spearheaded by Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas) and House Financial Services Committee Ranking Member Maxine Waters (D-Calif.).
"Big Tech and Wall Street are taking enormous risks with billions in borrowed money to fuel the AI boom, despite growing warning signs of a dangerous bubble," Waters told him. "We cannot let history repeat itself. The American people should never again be forced to foot the bill for billionaires' reckless bets."
Casar, a 37-year-old former labor organizer, highlighted that "many of us, myself included, came into political life watching as many people who caused the crisis in 2008 or cheered it on weren't held accountable."
"We know that the American people were appalled at these Wall Street executives nearly two decades ago, and they're even more pissed off at these tech oligarchs today. We shouldn't be trying to make them whole," said the congressman, who also leads the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
Polling released this past summer by Data for Progress found that among the "bad actors" Americans blame for the country’s concerning conditions, billionaires rank No. 1, but AI companies and social media giants are in the top 10.
The progressives' proposal "is a nonbinding 'sense of the House' measure," Dayen explained. "But it sets a marker that no bailout funds should be made available to AI companies. Casar wants the measure to be voted on early in the next Congress if Democrats take power, if not sooner, to get everyone on the record about an AI bailout."
Welcoming the resolution on social media, economist Leslie Ehrlich called it "both correct and good politics," adding, "Let the Republicans vote against it and be pro-bailouts."
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'Simply Disgusting': Netanyahu's Likud Baselessly Claims Arab Parties Stole Israeli Election
"If they don't want to let us vote, they should say so," said the mayor of one Bedouin town.
Oct 28, 2026
With Israel’s governing coalition projected to lose its majority in the Knesset following Tuesday’s vote, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party made the unsubstantiated claim Wednesday that Arab parties “stole” the election.
“The elections in the state of Israel were stolen by Arab parties that support terrorism and the elimination of the Jewish state through serious criminal offenses of bribery, threats, violence, forgeries, and the use of prohibited software to mobilize voters,” the party said in a statement that was shared by Netanyahu on social media.
Without going into detail, the party said it was handing “hundreds of testimonies and pieces of evidence regarding election theft in many Arab polling stations" to investigators, including what it claimed were “thousands of envelopes” containing cash and ballot slips for Ra’am, one of two Arab factions that saw surging support Tuesday.
Three Ra’am activists were arrested before polls opened Tuesday in connection with an alleged vote-buying scheme; around 24,000 shekels were recovered in envelopes containing ballot papers. Netanyahu has claimed without evidence that the men were “senior officials” in the party. It remains unclear whether investigators have found any evidence that votes were changed as a result.
Likud also said Wednesday that it had provided the police and Shin Bet with evidence of “threats and violence against polling station members” in predominantly Arab communities, as well as “multiple voting behind the curtain, voting with double identities, discrepancies between the number of envelopes and the number of voters, the use of prohibited mobilization software, and more.” The post did not include specific evidence of the claims.
"Law enforcement agencies must act with an iron fist and in an immediate manner," the party said.
Israel’s Central Elections Committee said Tuesday that it had seen no indications of systematic tampering with ballot papers and was addressing individual complaints as they arose.
Talal al-Krenawi, the mayor of the Bedouin town of Rahat, rejected Likud’s fraud allegations Wednesday, calling them “disgusting… lies and falsehoods” and accusing Netanyahu of “incitement against the Bedouins.”
"We voted properly, with the ballot papers and identity cards," he said. "I have never seen elections as clean as these. It is a disgrace and a shame."
Voters wait to cast their ballots at a polling station in the predominantly Arab city of Tayibe during Israel’s legislative election on October 27, 2026. (Photo by Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images)
Alongside the far-right Jewish Power party led by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, Likud tried to ban the two main Arab factions from participating in the elections, but the Supreme Court ultimately reversed that move earlier this month.
"Now that we have exercised our democratic right, we have stolen the elections? If they don't want to let us vote, they should say so," al-Krenawi said. "What they are doing is ugly. They are portraying us as thieves and cheats. It is simply disgusting."
Before voting even began, Israeli outlets reported that Likud had planned to declare the result fraudulent if Netanyahu did not emerge victorious. Likud dispatched thousands of right-wing activists to monitor polling places and undertook a program to surveil Arab voters. Haaretz reported that the party "may use the footage as false evidence for a conspiracy theory that the election was rigged."
The Yashar party, led by Gadi Eisenkot, warned Tuesday that Netanyahu was “panicking and has begun making up stories and claiming that the election is being stolen.”
Arab voters turned out in unprecedented numbers Tuesday despite reports of delays and intimidation at polling sites. Ra’am Leader Mansour Abbas accused Netanyahu of “lying and inciting against” his voters, using strong Arab turnout as a “scare tactic” to mobilize his own anti-Arab voters.
The two Arab-majority factions, Ra’am and the Joint List, were projected to win 19 seats in the 120-seat Knesset on Tuesday, potentially giving them leverage in determining whether the Jewish anti-Netanyahu opposition can form a coalition government to oust him from power.
Netanyahu’s allegations bear an eerie resemblance to US President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election and to right-wing Brazilian candidate Flávio Bolsonaro’s attempt earlier this week to claim that the reelection of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was the result of fraud.
“What a disgusting terrorist and war criminal this close Trump family friend is,” remarked author and political analyst Seth Abramson, who has noted how other right-wing populists have copied the US president’s election denial strategy.
"You have to know nothing about complex government investigations to think... the Netanyahu regime—which hates all Arabs and wants them erased—was magically able to get credible evidence of a historic nationwide criminal conspiracy in hours," he wrote on social media.
"I hear those who say Netanyahu's replacements aren't much better," he said, "but at least—unlike Netanyahu—they're not facing years in prison on corruption charges... in most cases haven't (yet) ordered genocidal attacks, and aren't (yet) proven sociopaths."
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