With time running out in the election cycle, JD Vance participated in a prime-time town hall on Fox News, which was largely unremarkable except for one unexpected exchange.

A local college student told the vice president that the right routinely tells young people to get married and have children but that conservatives have failed to acknowledge how financially difficult this is for many. She asked, “So my question is, how does the right, and yourself, expect us to start families young when the average price of a home in America now costs more than $415,000, which just feels out of reach for us?”

It’s worth emphasizing for context that the question came from a young woman who identified herself as the vice president of her university’s Turning Point USA chapter. That is, Vance wasn’t confronting a political opponent; the question came from someone inclined to agree with the Trump White House.

Almost immediately, the Ohio Republican demonstrated the kind of political instincts that have made him famous.

Q: How do you expect us to start families young when the average price of a home feels out of reach?JD VANCE: I want to point out that I've only gotten one question about Jon Husted's ass

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-10-30T01:28:44.964Z

“I want to point out that I think that I have been asked four or maybe five questions by my count,” the vice president began. “I have only been asked one question about [Republican Sen.] Jon Husted’s ass — and it was by [Fox News’] Jesse Watters.”

So, during a nationally televised event, a young conservative voter asked a sincere question about one of the most pressing issues facing her generation, and Vance’s first thought was to make a joke about a senator’s backside.

It’s impossible to say just how many young voters watching at home were amused by this clumsy attempt at humor, but it seems likely the number was small.

It only got worse when Vance actually tried to answer the question with some substance.

“I think we have to take stock of the fact that the reason why housing exploded in the United States of America is in part because we allowed 20 million illegal aliens into our country to buy homes that ought, by right, go to American citizens,” the vice president argued.

Except that’s absurd. Vance’s statistic is wildly inflated and totally at odds with actual data — the idea that 20 million undocumented immigrants have the resources to buy up American real estate is nonsensical. (Last fall, he similarly complained to Fox News about importing “more and more low-wage servants” from other countries. How “low-wage servants” can afford to purchase homes has never been clear.)

The vice president went on to say, “Another reason why housing got too expensive in this country is because we allowed homes to be bought up by Wall Street and foreign investors.”

Unlike the rest of his response, this actually made some sense, although it touched on a problem Vance neglected to mention: Congress approved a bipartisan housing bill earlier this year that was designed to address the very problem he referenced. President Donald Trump, however, refused to sign it as part of a tantrum over a voter suppression proposal that he wanted but couldn’t have. (The housing bill, thankfully, became law anyway.)

This exchange didn’t have to be so politically messy for the vice president, but his unerring political instincts won out in the end anyway.

The post Pressed on affordability at town hall, JD Vance says all the wrong things appeared first on MS NOW.

The Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan election handicapper, on Friday shifted a dozen more House races toward Democrats in the final stretch of the midterm cycle. The handicapper has shifted dozens of House races toward Democrats in recent weeks, and with the latest moves, it now forecasts more than 218 seats to “lean Democrat” or…

The Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan election handicapper, on Friday shifted a dozen more House races toward Democrats in the final stretch of the midterm cycle. The handicapper has shifted dozens of House races toward Democrats in recent weeks, and with the latest moves, it now forecasts more than 218 seats to “lean Democrat” or…

Democrats have a 10-point lead over Republicans on a generic congressional ballot, as the parties face off for control of Congress in next week’s midterm election.  An Emerson College Polling survey released Friday found Democrats broadly leading with 52 percent support over 42 percent support for the GOP. This is only slightly tighter than Democrats’…

Democrats have a 10-point lead over Republicans on a generic congressional ballot, as the parties face off for control of Congress in next week’s midterm election.  An Emerson College Polling survey released Friday found Democrats broadly leading with 52 percent support over 42 percent support for the GOP. This is only slightly tighter than Democrats’…

“Liberals are the new racists,” according to an unintentionally comical political ad that aired during the World Series this week.

The ad plays out of context clips of three women of color (Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.; Rep. Ilhan Omar D-Minn.; and “The View” co-host Sunny Hostin) speaking about race, cut together with a horror movie aesthetic. Then comes the ad’s real message: “Today’s liberals are full of hate. They hate America. They’re obsessed with skin color,” says an unnamed female narrator obscured by shadow. “I can’t even show my face, because my skin is white and they’ll spew hate at me,” she laments.

Days before the midterm elections that will serve as a referendum on the job performance of America’s most abjectly racist president in a century, I couldn’t help but wonder who ponied up the reported $550,000 it costs to air a 30-second spot during this year’s Fall Classic.

If “liberals are the new racists,” according to America Next, who are the old racists? Maybe it’s the people at the highest positions of power and influence in the Grand Old Party and the MAGA movement?

New York Times reporter Ken Bensinger posted to X that the ad was paid for by America Next, a PAC created by former Republican Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. According to its website, America Next is “not focused on elections” but rather “winning the war of ideas.” Bensinger also cited Federal Elections Commission data showing America Next paid $250,000 to a firm called Breakthrough LLC for the specific purpose of “opposition” to the Democratic candidate for Senate in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed. The Guardian reported that Breakthrough was founded by former Jindal aide Timmy Teepell, whose son Tommy went viral after asking El-Sayed if he’d denounce the Muslim Brotherhood at a campaign event earlier in October. (Neither of the Teepells, nor America Next responded to The Guardian’s request for comment.)

It’s particularly ironic for Jindal, the son of immigrants from India, to bankroll an ad accusing the left of being “racist” and “obsessed with skin color.” It has, after all, only been a month since MAGA’s recent heated debate over whether Indian Americans can ever be “real Americans,” which was sparked by a Republican candidate’s outrage at a photo of nonwhite University of Texas football fans.

And the irony is further enhanced by the fact that among the defining features of the second Trump administration — which also include unprecedented levels of corruption, illegal foreign incursions and killings without due process, repeated violations of Americans’ constitutional rights and a vast censorship industrial complex — is the complete normalization of the kind of gutter racism that, prior to President Donald Trump’s political rise, had been pushed toward the fringes of society.

On Wednesday, the Trump War Room X account (the Trump White House’s more overtly political account) quote-posted an official White House account post warning, “The chaos, looting, and destruction we’re watching [in France] is exactly the future radical Democrats are pushing for America.” To drive home its point, the War Room account posted a photo of Trump with the caption, “Which way Western Man?”

For the uninitiated, “Which Way, Western Man?” is the title of a book published in 1978 that has become a foundational text for the neo-Nazi movement. It praises Adolf Hitler, advocates for violence against Jews and Blacks; quotes liberally from the antisemitic forgery, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion;” and likens birth control to “the knife by which [the] civilized White man is cutting his own throat.” (That line, in particular, is evocative of a post Charlie Kirk wrote the day before his assassination: “Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America.”)

It must be said that this is hardly the first time the Trump administration has embraced Nazi sloganeering in its political outreach. The Department of Homeland Security has already put many “Which way Western Man” posts on the internet. It even used the white supremacist marching song “By God We’ll Have Our Home Again” on its social media accounts back in January.

But if “liberals are the new racists,” according to America Next, who are the old racists? Maybe it’s the people at the highest positions of power and influence in the Grand Old Party and the MAGA movement?

For the uninitiated, “Which Way, Western Man?” is the title of a book published in 1978 that has become a foundational text for the neo-Nazi movement. It praises Adolf Hitler, advocates for violence against Jews and Blacks and quotes liberally from the antisemitic forgery, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

At a GOP get-out-the-vote rally in Michigan on Monday, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. — noted anti-vax maniac and serial fabulist — went on a fact-bereft and racist rant seemingly directed at El-Sayed, saying, “There are five hundred million Arabs in the world. And yet they don’t produce science … They don’t win the Nobel Prize. They don’t win the Fields Medal. They don’t win the Wolf Prize.”

Two days later the Libs of TikTok X account — which is so influential on the White House that Reuters noted its “symbiosis” with the administration has “has triggered harassment and threats” — posted a photo of four Black high school students with the caption: “St. Cloud Area Schools in MN announces students chosen for an award. What do you notice?” As vile as it is for Libs of TikTok to draw children into its culture war obsessions, the obvious implication is that the Black students are undeserving. There’s a word for that.

And, of course, Trump in recent weeks has filled his campaign rallies with rank racism. Whether it’s repeatedly calling Somalis “low IQ” or referring to El-Sayed as “Abduladadalalalala” or using an antisemitic slur to defend Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall — Trump is very comfortable in his own skin as an old-school bigot.

While trying to frame anyone but themselves as racist, Trump and his MAGA allies dig ever deeper into the swamps of prejudice, then laugh about it. On Thursday, the White House posted an image of a pumpkin with a sombrero carved into it, and a caption reading, “Spooky szn is here.”

It’s an obvious troll meant to signal that Mexicans are scary, with the added goofy internet meme lingo deployed to soften the delivery. But fear and hatred of the other is the message — and normalizing racism is the point.

The post A right-wing ad says ‘liberals are the new racists.’ What does that make the GOP? appeared first on MS NOW.

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — A promise not to start foreign wars was a central plank of Donald Trump’s 2024 platform. In North Carolina, home to the nation’s most populous military base, Fort Bragg, people have taken that broken promise personally.

Elizabeth Boahn, 48, from Stedman, voted for Trump in 2016, 2020 and 2024. But in 2026, with her 18-year-old son, Colby, on the verge of joining the Navy after graduation, she’s regretting her support.

“It’s heartbreaking. I just, I pray that he doesn’t have to go over there,” said Boahn, referring to the Middle East.

When you shake a man’s hand, you look him in the eye. If they can’t, you don’t trust them … be a man of your word.”

—Elizabeth Boahn

“My granddaddy taught me this, and he was a Marine. When you shake a man’s hand, you look him in the eye. If they can’t, you don’t trust them … be a man of your word,” Boahn said. Asked if she considered Trump a man of his word, she said, “Nope.”

Asked how the war with Iran had affected her life, Boahn said, “it’s on the verge of taking my son away … 18 years old, hasn’t even really begun to live a life.”

She had choice words for the president. “He’s going over there and starting wars, that is destroying our economy. It’s causing my struggle of living,” she said.

Boahn’s frustration with the president’s broken promise stood in contrast to how some veterans who spoke to MS NOW reflected on Trump’s failure to stay out of foreign military conflicts.

Chad McKeown, who voted for Trump in 2024, served in the Army for 20 years and deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq. After returning home, he started Kraken Customs, an auto body shop that emphasizes hiring veterans.

McKeown acknowledged the costs of the war with Iran. “This whole thing is an economic nightmare,” said the 45-year-old entrepreneur, who said his business is still doing well despite the headwinds.

But asked about his thoughts on the war itself, McKeown said it’s part of the military’s culture not to question orders from the commander in chief.

“When you put your life on the line for your country in the service — whether it’s Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, now Space Force — you learn how to humble yourself amongst those that are appointed above you,” he said.

The moment you get on the side of naysaying them or becoming a shadow governor, you are discrediting what we’re all supposed to be standing for.”

—Chad McKeown

“The moment you get on the side of naysaying them or becoming a shadow governor, you are discrediting what we’re all supposed to be standing for,” he said.

Mary Hampton, an Army veteran from Vander who voted for Trump three times, echoed that deference. “Do I want our troops home? Yes, I do, absolutely. But I’ve got to leave those decisions to other leaders that are in charge right now,” she said.

Reagan Juan, an Army veteran, has service in her blood. Her grandfather, Don Feeney, is one of the original members of Delta Force, the prestigious elite U.S. Army special operations unit. Juan, who was named after President Ronald Reagan, said she voted for Trump in 2024 solely because of his promise not to start any foreign wars.

“That’s such a big promise. We’re not just promising, you know, more funding for education, or we’re not promising tax cuts. This is people’s lives, our real lives,” said Juan, whose husband also served in the military.

“There needs to be way more checks and balances. There needs to be more oversight. There needs to be more transparency in what is actually going on,” Juan said. “There needs to be a clear end state. There needs to be a clear exit strategy. If we aren’t doing that, I don’t know what we’re doing out there,” she said.

Juan said she feels “shame” for voting for Trump and repeatedly described the war in Iran as “reckless.”

An Elon University poll from March 2026, shortly after the war began, found that 51% of North Carolina voters opposed military involvement in Iran. A more recent poll from Elon University in September found that number virtually unchanged, with 52% of registered voters disapproving of the war. That is lower than national polling averages on the issue: An October Pew poll found 65% of Americans disapproving of the president’s handling of the conflict.

My delivery expense has nearly doubled. My prices have been inflated, but my margins have remained the same, or less.”

—Jason Bruton

The longer this war has gone on, the less patient Jason Bruton has become. Bruton, an auto body shop franchisee, voted for Trump three times.

“The war in Iran is dragging on too long. I was supportive of it in the beginning when I thought it would be like a monthlong war,” he said. The Pentagon estimated that the war has cost more than $47 billion dollars, an investment Bruton doesn’t think will pay dividends.

“My delivery expense has nearly doubled. My prices have been inflated, but my margins have remained the same, or less, because I’m absorbing some of the cost of doing business and to help keep my customers,” Bruton said.

The post Trump’s broken promise not to start new wars is personal to N.C. voters appeared first on MS NOW.

Immaginate la scena: un inviato televisivo con il microfono in mano, immerso nel fango e nell’acqua alta di una strada allagata, sta documentando in diretta nazionale le conseguenze devastanti di un’alluvione. All’improvviso, l’attenzione della telecamera si sposta: un cane sta per essere inghiottito dalla furia della corrente, ormai incapace di nuotare e di mettersi in salvo. A quel punto la cronaca si ferma, il microfono viene messo da parte e l’inviato si lancia letteralmente in acqua, finendo completamente sommerso pur di afferrare l’animale e tirarlo a riva.

È esattamente ciò che è accaduto a Puerto Vilelas, nella provincia argentina del Chaco, dove le recenti e violente inondazioni hanno costretto all’evacuazione oltre mille persone. Il giornalista Alejandro Pueblas, inviato dell’emittente A24 per il programma América Noticias, ha scelto di sospendere il proprio lavoro di reporter per compiere un salvataggio disperato insieme al suo operatore di ripresa, Valentín Correa.

L'articolo “L’unica cosa importante era salvargli la vita”: giornalista interrompe la diretta per salvare un cane travolto dall’alluvione, la storia di Alejandro e Bartolito proviene da Il Fatto Quotidiano.

Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R-Pa.) and Democrat Paige Cognetti clashed on the debate stage Thursday night over the ongoing war in Iran, the growing presence of data centers in their district and other hot-button issues.  Cognetti, who has served as the mayor of Scranton, Pa., since 2020, and Bresnahan are vying to represent Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional…

Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R-Pa.) and Democrat Paige Cognetti clashed on the debate stage Thursday night over the ongoing war in Iran, the growing presence of data centers in their district and other hot-button issues.  Cognetti, who has served as the mayor of Scranton, Pa., since 2020, and Bresnahan are vying to represent Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional…

Federal prosecutors in California have issued grand jury subpoenas to state and local election officials Thursday, according to a person with knowledge of the effort and a spokesperson for the Los Angeles County registrar-recorder’s office, which administers elections in the county. The person was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive investigative steps.

MS NOW has obtained three subpoenas issued last week to employees of the Los Angeles County registrar’s office. Each subpoena demands the recipient testify on Nov. 4, the morning after Election Day, and produce documents, including any records or communications reflecting the county’s efforts to screen for noncitizen voters or prevent the counting of any noncitizens’ votes.

The move expands the Department of Justice’s controversial probe into suspected noncitizens who are registered to vote in California. Earlier this month, the Department of Justice sued California to demand officials there set aside mail ballots cast by any of the roughly 20,000 registered voters it identified as “likely noncitizens,” according to a database compiled by the Department of Homeland Security.

A district court denied the Justice Department’s request for a temporary restraining order that would have forced California to segregate any mail ballots cast by alleged noncitizens and refrain from counting or tabulating them unless and until California can verify their citizenship. The DOJ has already appealed that order, and Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, has said that he expects the case will ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta described the DOJ’s grand jury subpoenas as an attack.

“The Trump Administration’s escalating attacks on our hardworking elections officials in California are unacceptable,” Bonta said in a statement shared on X. Referring to District Judge David Carter, he continued, “As Judge Carter said in his opinion yesterday,‘these threats must stop.’”

California and L.A. County officials have criticized the DOJ for claiming, without evidence, that thousands of noncitizens are registered to vote, especially after the county said it reviewed a sample of registered voters on DHS’ list and found information indicating that many were born in the U.S.

The subpoenas, which were first reported by Bloomberg, are signed by Assistant U.S. Attorney General Michael Wheat, a veteran federal prosecutor who first joined the Justice Department in the 1980s. Wheat has brought criminal charges in recent weeks against alleged noncitizens for election-related crimes.

Wheat has also been tied to the investigation of Rep. Ilhan Omar, who, according to a search warrant issued earlier this month, is being scrutinized for potential immigration fraud.

The post DOJ issues new grand jury subpoenas to California election officials appeared first on MS NOW.

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump handed out candy to hundreds of costumed kids outside the White House residence at Thursday's annual Halloween celebration.

Editor’s Note — This article was updated to more accurately reflect Garcia’s comments from his CNN interview. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif) reaffirmed his support Thursday for Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola after the House Oversight Committee announced a probe into ballot stacking allegations against her, though he acknowledged the state “should investigate any time there…

Editor’s Note — This article was updated to more accurately reflect Garcia’s comments from his CNN interview. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif) reaffirmed his support Thursday for Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola after the House Oversight Committee announced a probe into ballot stacking allegations against her, though he acknowledged the state “should investigate any time there…

Under the leadership of Mehmet Oz, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, or CMS, is seeking to heavily restrict traditional Medicare enrollees’ use of remote monitoring devices for their health conditions. A proposed rule would eliminate coverage for these services unless the service is provided at a physician’s office. This rule would particularly hurt enrollees who have difficulty traveling to in-person appointments, such as rural seniors. And it would undercut a key Republican effort to alleviate the harms of last year’s “big, beautiful bill.”

Remote monitoring programs allow patients to collect their health data themselves (such as taking their own blood pressure, oxygen levels or blood sugar) and transmit the data to healthcare providers, who can use the information to help manage the patient’s health. These programs aren’t just convenient; they make it easier to proactively manage chronic diseases before there is an emergency. Patients and providers don’t have to rely on a single data point at a scheduled appointment or waiting until the condition worsens.

Where the HHS inspector general suggested a scalpel, CMS would use a hammer.

Consequently, reliance on remote monitoring has expanded in recent years. Almost 1 million Medicare enrollees received it in 2024 alone. Remote monitoring has proved particularly valuable to those who have chronic medical conditions but face obstacles to in-person appointments. For instance, residents in rural communities and areas with shortages of health professionals don’t need to travel long distances for appointments as frequently. Transportation is a critical social determinant of health, and if one has poor vision or limited mobility, in-person appointments are especially challenging.

To justify the new restrictions, the CMS cites a 2025 report by the Department of Health and Human Services’ inspector general. Those findings raised concerns about suspicious billing practices and patients not receiving treatment. But the report called for a measured approach: closer monitoring of billing while preserving Medicare enrollees’ ability to benefit from this program. CMS would go much further: Because most medical practices lack the bandwidth to launch and oversee their own remote monitoring programs, requiring the service to be provided by someone at a physician’s office practically eliminates the benefit. In short, where the HHS inspector general suggested a scalpel, CMS would use a hammer.

Already, a bipartisan group of House members is calling on Oz to reconsider the rule, but it fits within a broader context of the Trump administration’s quiet campaign to curtail Medicare’s effectiveness.

Much of the attention on H.R. 1 — what Trump called the “big, beautiful bill” — focused on its draconian cuts to Medicaid, but the law also triggered an automatic $500 billion cut from Medicare between 2026 and 2034. The law also delayed until late 2034 the implementation of finalized rules that would help very low-income Medicare enrollees access programs to help cover premiums and cost-sharing of benefits.

The new CMS proposal, however, is particularly curious in light of how the “big, beautiful bill” came to be.

Since then, CMS has allowed a subsidy program for Medicare Part D prescription-drug costs to expire. And it introduced a pilot program in six states that uses artificial intelligence to review the medical necessity of prescribed care. The practice, also known as prior authorization, previously was rarely used in traditional Medicare. The pilot program has already resulted in significant delays in care.

The new CMS proposal, however, is particularly curious in light of how the “big, beautiful bill” came to be. To stanch the proverbial bleeding that rural communities are projected to face from the bill’s cuts, Republicans created a $50 billion fund for rural healthcare. Technological innovation was a central pillar of this effort, known as the Rural Health Transformation Program.

Restricting remote monitoring does anything but foster innovative technologies. And the effects will be felt increasingly in the years to come. The RHTP is a relative pittance compared to H.R. 1’s Medicaid cuts and will do little to prevent closures of rural hospitals or key hospital services. And when a rural hospital closes, the driving time to the next hospital increases by 20 to 40 miles on average, regardless of whether one is on Medicaid or Medicare — which makes the ability to monitor one’s health at home all the more important.

While remote monitoring programs are imperfect and deserve oversight, they help provide healthcare in typically underserved areas. What’s more, by facilitating earlier detection, these programs can result in better patient outcomes, which are less costly to treat. In other words, remote monitoring is good for patients and for the healthcare system itself.

Along with Social Security, Medicare is considered the “third rail” of American politics. Not only is the program popular, but seniors (roughly 90% of its enrollees) vote at high rates, and younger voters prefer to protect the program for when they age into it. The politics of Medicare retrenchment may ultimately prove to be less visible than the consequences of slashing health programs. Elected officials understand the political costs of reducing Medicare spending. Yet under Oz’s leadership, CMS is demonstrating how to weaken Medicare through a series of administrative decisions that preserve the appearance of coverage while weakening access to care. Medicare’s greatest vulnerability may not be outright cuts, but rather the quiet erosion of the benefits on which seniors have been counting.

The post Dr. Oz’s new Medicare proposal would be bad news for rural seniors appeared first on MS NOW.

Alaska’s Republican governor ordered an investigation into Democrat Mary Peltola’s Senate campaign Wednesday after The New York Times reported her campaign was involved with another person named Dan Sullivan ending up on the ballot alongside Sen. Dan S. Sullivan, the Republican incumbent. That report that Peltola’s campaign attempted to put a finger on the scale provoked a fresh round of outrage from President Donald Trump, and, at first glance, it may have seemed to support an unprecedented lawsuit by the Department of Justice lawsuit to pre-emptively discredit a Peltola victory. But not even Wednesday’s political bombshell justifies the DOJ’s involvement.

There’s a lot to find concerning about the Peltola campaign’s shenanigans, but the federal government has no power to force Alaska to alter its election procedures.

The Peltola campaign denies it did anything untoward, but there’s plenty to be concerned about in the Times’ reporting. According to Peltola’s former campaign manager, who spoke extensively with the Times but retracted her comments before publication, the campaign worked with Senate Democrats’ campaign arm to recruit the second Dan Sullivan to run. The DOJ’s lawsuit to intervene in Alaska’s election in case the incumbent Republican senator loses also leans heavily on the Peltola campaign’s supposedly nefarious moves to confound voters.

But even if there were attempts to confound voters, that doesn’t mean voters will be confounded. The ballot makes exceedingly clear which Dan Sullivan is which. The incumbent Dan S. Sullivan has the word “Incumbent” next to his name and the label “Registered Republican,” and Daniel J. Sullivan Jr.’s name is left unadorned.

And Edward Foley, a law professor and former Ohio solicitor general, explained in an MS NOW essay why concerns of voters accidentally denying the incumbent senator re-election are “significantly mitigated” by the state’s ranked choice voting system.

That doesn’t mean we should entirely disregard the reported shady tactics and condescension from people working to get Peltola elected. At one point, some Democratic strategists seemed to delight in the idea of confusing the public:

In one exchange of text messages obtained by The Times, Peltola advisers seemed to make fun of voters while watching a focus group, surmising the participants would be susceptible to being tricked into voting for a ballot spoiler.

“Do we have a scheme for you,” wrote a consultant for the Peltola campaign. A pollster on the chat wrote that one voter seemed like the perfect audience “for our ballot strategy plan :)”

Despite Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s call for an investigation, and the DOJ’s lawsuit, the Times report makes clear that “ballot-stacking tactics are common in politics and generally considered legal — and have been employed by both parties in Alaska.” But the department’s lawsuit says it has an “obligation to protect the integrity of its election” and, if Peltola wins, wants to block certification “pending an investigation to determine whether votes cast for Daniel J. Sullivan were meant to be cast for Senator Sullivan,” according to their lawsuit.

The DOJ’s suit quotes an initial claim from Carol Beecher, Alaska’s director of the division of elections, that Daniel J. Sullivan wanted to be on the ballot “for the purpose of confusing or misleading voters and compromising the fairness of the ballot.” But now Beecher is firmly against the DOJ’s suit. State lawyers in a motion to dismiss filed Monday argued that the federal government “lacks authority to intervene in state elections at all, much less in support of a favored candidate.”

If anything, in its own efforts to affect the race’s outcome, the DOJ may have jumped the gun.

Nothing in the Times’ report changes that. There may be consequences for Peltola and her campaign staff at the state level. As election law expert Rick Hasen noted, if anyone lied under oath about cooperation between Democrats and Dan J. Sullivan, then there could be cause for a perjury prosecution, but no allegations on that front had arisen as of Thursday afternoon.

Any such testimony would have come from Dan J. Sullivan’s lawsuit to remain on the ballot earlier this year. The Alaska Supreme Court ruled in his favor, allowing him to remain an option for voters. Again, there’s a lot to find concerning about the Peltola campaign’s shenanigans, but the federal government has no power to force Alaska to alter its election procedures.

If anything, in its own efforts to affect the race’s outcome, the DOJ may have jumped the gun. I imagine there would be a lot more willingness to criticize Peltola outright, and a potentially less mixed bag reaction from Alaskans, without the federal intervention. As it stands, the case will still fall flat, and Alaska’s voters will still have their say in who represents them in the U.S. Senate — even if they have to take a few seconds longer to read their ballot.

The post Alaska Senate race shenanigans still don’t justify the DOJ’s lawsuit appeared first on MS NOW.

Some influencers in MAGA world are at one another’s throats over the arrest and possible deportation of one of the movement’s loudest anti-immigration cheerleaders.

Samuel Sey, a Christian blogger and Ghanaian immigrant, has gained popularity for his vocal defenses of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents waging Donald Trump’s racist anti-immigrant crackdown. But as I explained in this week’s Tuesday Tech Drop, he was arrested last week after reportedly overstaying his visa.

The Department of Homeland Security told The Christian Post that Sey is “an illegal alien from Ghana” who has accepted “voluntary departure” from the country.

The MAGA movement, it seems, is torn over the ordeal.

On one hand, a Black immigrant who overstayed his visa would seem like a prime target for a movement like MAGA. On the other hand, a Black immigrant willing to celebrate Trump’s brutality toward immigrants is useful to the movement for propaganda purposes — and that seems like a big reason why some conservatives are expressing sympathy for him.

Christian nationalist influencer Joel Webbon faced some backlash over a prayer in which he thanked God for Sey’s arrest and for “shutting his mouth from spewing out more lies and slander against your servants.” Webbon, who also prayed for Sey’s deportation, is someone known for promoting bigotry and arguing that the U.S. could use even more racism.

Webbon’s remarks drew criticism from various conservative commentators and influencers who apparently have a soft spot for Sey despite MAGA’s mass deportation push. But that’s clearly not a universal stance among conservatives — even Sey’s podcast co-host, who has praised Trump’s immigration policy as “loving,” said his views were “unchanged” after Sey’s arrest.

So much for the Trump administration’s claims of only targeting the “worst of the worst” immigrants. And while some conservatives are bristling over that fact, others are still sticking to the script.

The post Pro-ICE influencer’s possible deportation sparks infighting in MAGA world appeared first on MS NOW.

The stench of eugenics continues to waft through Donald Trump’s administration.

A new report from The Bulwark sounds the alarm on disturbing remarks made by Ellis Boyle, a North Carolina-based U.S. attorney, during a discussion about crime with conservative influencer Cassie Clark. The outlet reported on Boyle’s comments about removing people with “bad” gene pools from society:

“What I’ve observed is, you know — it occurs to me, and this is not a new thought; I heard someone else say it. And I started looking — and if you look, you see it: 5% of the population cause 90% of the crime.”

And Boyle kept going:

“I think there’s a big component — if you took out [the] 5% of the population that’s bad and removed them from society, so they don’t create mayhem and create, you know, babies with the gene pool of more bad, then I think, in two, maybe three generations, think of how great this population would be. But that’s something that takes willpower.”

In response to the backlash against Boyle, Clark attempted to defend him from criticism, writing on X: “Removing the people who keep hurting everybody else from free society is called incarceration. … What it is not is eugenics.”

Yet Boyle advocated for removing people from society to limit their supposedly bad “gene pool” — which is absolutely a key tenet of eugenics.

Boyle’s office didn’t immediately respond to MS NOW’s request for comment.

Trump’s bigoted and baseless remarks about some immigrants having “bad genes” that make them prone to criminality have echoed textbook eugenicists by suggesting that America’s woes could be addressed by altering the nation’s genetic makeup.

The president and Elon Musk, the Republican Party’s biggest donor, have made a habit of trafficking in this kind of racist pseudoscience — and so have others in their orbit.

Late last year, I wrote about about people with ties to Musk and a bunch of other Silicon Valley tech bros appearing in the Epstein files, with emails showing that they discussed eugenics. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., another prominent voice of racist pseudoscience, has been accused by critics of using the nation’s top health agency to support eugenics ideology as well. Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, a top infectious disease expert, said in his resignation letter from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that eugenics “plays prominently in the rhetoric being generated” at Kennedy’s agency.

Members of the MAGA movement routinely take umbrage at people making historically accurate comparisons between them and groups like the Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan. Aside from the movement’s numerous Nazi scandals, ceasing to promote eugenics would certainly make those comparisons seem less apt.

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Democrats are favored to take the House in November, but the size of their potential majority could hinge on a handful of competitive races. Four are in Pennsylvania, where President Trump and Republicans made significant gains in 2024. Now, Democrats are betting that the president's low approval ratings and frustration over high prices will shift the political landscape. Lisa Desjardins reports.

If you spend enough time paying attention to political messaging, you’ll inevitably hear about “dog whistle” politics. The idea is straightforward: Just as actual dog whistles can only be heard by canines, officials and candidates often use coded language to deliver subtle messages to targeted audiences in ways that are not immediately obvious to everyone else.

Donald Trump and his allies have been using these rhetorical tactics quite a bit lately.

On Wednesday afternoon, for example, the official “war room” account for the president’s political operation published an item to social media that read, “Which way Western Man?” The typical person might not have given this much thought, but it’s quite likely that fascists recognized the phrasing immediately.

Last year a Newsweek report supplied the relevant context after Trump’s Department of Homeland Security pushed a similar message:

The Trump administration has been accused of quoting a white supremacist who was backed by a Neo-Nazi group, as part of its social media campaign to recruit immigration enforcement agents.

In a post shared to X on Monday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said “Which way, American man?”, a quote appearing to reference Which Way, Western Man, a 1978 book by the avowed white supremacist William Gayley Simpson, who argued Hitler was right and Jews must be killed.

The post from the president’s official “war room” account came three weeks after Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin published an item of his own via social media that accused the left of trying to “vandalize the demographics of America.”

For some generous observers, it might be tempting to give the Republican administration the benefit of the doubt, but there’s also a track record to consider. The New York Times reported earlier this year:

The posts have referred to neo-Nazi literature, ethnic cleansing and QAnon conspiracies, mused about deporting nearly a third of the U.S. population, and promoted lyrics from an anthem bellowed by the far-right militants of the Proud Boys.

Their authors are not on society’s fringe. They are in the offices of the White House and the departments of Homeland Security and Labor, using official government accounts.

The article highlighted several messages, including one from January in which the White House and DHS jointly posted a recruitment ad for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The message began, “WE’LL HAVE OUR HOME AGAIN.”

It wasn’t long before observers noted this same phrase is the name of a song, which, as the Times noted, was written by members of a self-described “pro-White fraternal order” and has been embraced by white nationalist groups.

To be sure, administration officials have repeatedly denied that they’re trying to send signals to right-wing extremists and have insisted that the rhetorical similarities are coincidental.

That said, William Braniff, director of the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab at American University, told the Times that one or two posts might be easy to overlook. But “when you add it all together,” Braniff said, “it’s much harder to dismiss.”

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