From Calif. Chamber of Commerce v. Bonta, decided today by Judge Richard Tallman, joined by Judges Richard Paez and Mark Bennett:

California Senate Bill (SB) 399 prohibits an employer from subjecting, or threatening to subject, an employee to adverse action if the employee chooses not to attend an employer-sponsored meeting or receive communications from the employer, "the purpose of which is to communicate the employer's opinion about religious or political matters."

The court concluded that the law restricts speech and not just employers' disciplining employees:

It is true that SB 399 facially forbids only the act of "subject[ing], or threaten[ing] to subject, an employee" to discipline for declining to attend certain meetings. But the law only applies to employers who engage in expressive activity at those meetings: namely, "communicat[ing their] opinion. It does not, for example, prohibit taking adverse action against employees who decline to attend a meeting, the sole purpose of which was for employees to fill out their annual tax paperwork. It prohibits adverse action only when the meeting's purpose was for the employer to engage in expressive activity. Thus, the First Amendment applies.

Our conclusion accords with the Eleventh Circuit's recent decision in Honeyfund.com, Inc. v. Governor (11th Cir. 2024). In Honeyfund.com, employers challenged Florida's Individual Freedom Act [part of the Florida Stop W.O.K.E. Act -EV], which forbade subjecting "any individual, as a condition of employment," to "training, instruction, or any other required activity" endorsing certain ideas [related to race, sex, or national origin -EV]. As California does here, Florida defended the law as "a ban on conduct because only the meetings are being restricted," not the underlying speech.

Our sister circuit rejected Florida's conduct-not-speech defense because the only way to know if the law had been violated was to examine the message conveyed at the meeting. Because "the conduct regulated depend[ed] on—and [could not] be separated from—the ideas communicated," Florida's law was "functionally a regulation of speech" implicating the First Amendment.

So too here. If an employer disciplines an employee for failing to attend an employer-sponsored meeting, the only way to know if SB 399 was violated is to "examine the content of the message that is conveyed" at the meeting. We must ask: did the employer express an opinion on political or religious matters?

So "the disfavored 'conduct'"—subjecting absentee employees to disciplinary action—"cannot be identified apart from the disfavored speech"—the employer's opinion on political or religious matters. Further, that California's law (unlike Florida's law) is viewpoint-neutral does not make it content-neutral. Because employers are forbidden from taking adverse action only if they communicate certain messages at the underlying meeting, the law inevitably singles out employers based on their expressive activity….

The court then concluded the law was content-based ("because it applies only when the employer has discussed certain topics: politics and religion") and speaker-based (limited to speech by employers), and was therefore unconstitutional unless it was narrowly to a compelling interest. And it held that the law likely couldn't be justified by an interest in protecting a "captive audience":

In tension here are "the First Amendment rights of speakers" and "the privacy rights of those who may be unwilling … auditors." The State may protect the unwilling auditor's privacy "by enacting reasonable time, place, and manner regulations applicable to all speech irrespective of content." As discussed above, that is not what California did here: SB 399 singles out political and religious speech for regulation. Thus, California, "acting as censor, undert[ook] selectively to shield the public from some kinds of speech on the ground that they are more offensive than others." The Supreme Court has said that "[s]uch selective restrictions have been upheld only when the speaker intrudes on the privacy of the home, or the degree of captivity makes it impractical for the unwilling … auditor to avoid exposure." In such circumstances, California's ability to limit "discourse solely to protect others from hearing it is … dependent upon a showing that substantial privacy interests are being invaded in an essentially intolerable manner."

California fails to identify a single case where a content-based restriction has been upheld because employees were deemed a captive audience or had their substantial privacy interests invaded in an essentially intolerable manner. Instead, the State points to cases upholding speech limitations on public transit, at healthcare facilities, and on school premises, which referred to commuters, patients, and students as captive audiences. California contends that employees are equally captive because they are economically dependent on their employer and risk losing their job, with its pay and benefits, should they refuse to listen to their employer's speech. Thus, California argues that employees need as much protection from unwanted speech at work as commuters on public transit, patients at healthcare facilities, and students at public schools.

California's argument goes too far. Both the Supreme Court and our Court have referred to "captive audiences" only when the government acts as a proprietor or in the context of content-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions. Neither court has relied on a "captive audience" theory to identify a compelling interest sufficient to uphold content-based restrictions on nongovernmental speech in a nongovernmental setting. Nor, as far as we can tell, have any of our sister circuits, with the Eleventh Circuit directly rejecting such a theory. Honeyfund.com. A brief review of the key cases on which California relies demonstrates the point.

The first is Lehman v. City of Shaker Heights (1974), in which the City of Shaker Heights sold advertising space on its public transit vehicles but refused to accept paid political advertising…. A four-Justice plurality … conclud[ed] that the city, operating "in a proprietary capacity," had decided to limit the kinds of advertisements displayed based on several prudential factors. One of those factors was "the risk of imposing upon a captive audience"—commuters. To the plurality, the commuters' "captivity" was merely a prudential consideration in the city's decision to not allow certain advertising on its property.

In his solo concurrence in the judgment, Justice Douglas also described commuters as a "captive audience." That was relevant to his analysis because he believed that the commuters' right "to be free from forced intrusion on their privacy preclude[d] the city from transforming its vehicles of public transportation into forums for the dissemination of ideas upon this captive audience." To Justice Douglas, the commuters' "captivity" limited the city's ability to turn its transit vehicles into a First Amendment forum.

The Supreme Court has since characterized Lehman as recognizing the government's ability to "bar from its facilities certain speech that would disrupt the legitimate governmental purpose for which the property has been dedicated." Our precedents consider an audience's "captivity" in the same manner as Lehman: as a prudential factor for a government, acting as proprietor, to consider when deciding what speech to allow in a nonpublic forum.

The Supreme Court has also considered an audience's degree of captivity when deciding if content-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions on speech in traditionally public forums are reasonable. The two examples California cites involved such restrictions imposed on public ways near healthcare facilities, in which patients are "held 'captive' by medical circumstance."

In short, these cases reveal that an audience's degree of "captivity" is relevant when the government, acting as a proprietor, excludes certain kinds of speech from nonpublic forums or when evaluating the reasonableness of content-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions imposed by the government acting as a regulator. No federal appellate court, including the Supreme Court, has relied on a "captive audience" theory to identify a compelling interest sufficient to support a content-based restriction on nongovernmental speech in a nongovernmental forum.

Considering the dearth of support for California's position and that the "captive audience" theory has been applied to support content-based speech restrictions only in nonpublic government forums, we conclude that the industry groups are likely to succeed on the merits of their First Amendment claim.

The plain, if at times disquieting, truth is that in our pluralistic society, … we are inescapably captive audiences for many purposes. Much that we encounter offends our esthetic, if not our political and moral, sensibilities. Nevertheless, the Constitution does not permit government to decide which types of otherwise protected speech are sufficiently offensive to require protection for the unwilling listener or viewer.

The logic of the decision would also apply to similar laws in Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, and the Virgin Islands, many of which were enacted within the last several years. (Of course, the Ninth Circuit decision binding precedent is only binding in, of these states, Oregon and Washington; in others it is only potentially persuasive precedent.)

I expect the decision to be quite controversial, and there will probably be an en banc rehearing petition. Note, though, that the panel consisted of two Clinton-appointed Senior Judges and a Trump-appointed judge; this makes it hard to predict how the en banc court (currently split 16-13 between Democrat and Republican appointees) would vote.

Lonnie D. Giamela (Fisher & Phillips LLP) and Todd A. Lyon (Fisher & Phillips LLP) represent plaintiffs.

The post Law Banning Employer Requirements That Employees Listen to Employer's Religious or Political Speech Likely Violates Employer's First Amendment Rights appeared first on Reason Magazine.

Presented by Alliance for Aging Research {beacon} Health Care Health Care The Big Story  HHS begins recruiting new vaccine advisors Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is looking to revive a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) vaccine advisory panel that’s been dormant since last year, after a federal judge blocked his efforts to…

Presented by Alliance for Aging Research {beacon} Health Care Health Care The Big Story  HHS begins recruiting new vaccine advisors Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is looking to revive a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) vaccine advisory panel that’s been dormant since last year, after a federal judge blocked his efforts to…

WESTBROOK, Maine – Maine Gov. Janet Mills on Thursday finally endorsed fellow Democrat Troy Jackson in his race against Republican Sen. Susan Collins, her first public show of support for the former Maine Senate president, with whom she clashed when Jackson led the chamber.

“I encourage Maine people to vote for Democrats up and down the ballot who will stand up for our values and stand up to Trump,” Mills wrote on X, indicating that she had voted for Jackson at her early voting site on Thursday.

Mills, who ran for Senate herself before dropping out this spring, had been notably silent since Jackson earned the Democratic nomination following the collapse of Graham Platner’s campaign.

Last month, Mills spokesperson Ben Goodman told MS NOW that Jackson had not contacted the governor about an endorsement but that she “would welcome a conversation” with him.

On Thursday, though, it was revealed that behind the scenes there had been a last-ditch effort between the two camps to unite Jackson and Mills.

Jackson told MS NOW at a press briefing in Westbrook Thursday morning that he had recently left a voice message for Mills but hadn’t heard back.

A person close to the governor, who was not authorized to speak publicly, confirmed that Jackson left the message seeking Mills’ endorsement shortly after his final, testy debate with Collins on Oct. 15. But Mills was about to depart on a trade mission to Ireland, which took her out of the country for several days. The day of the voicemail, aides for Mills and Jackson connected about getting them together to discuss an endorsement after Mills returned, the person close to Mills said.

But that meeting never happened.

When Mills’ team followed up this week, Jackson’s campaign “indicated an endorsement from her didn’t fit into their schedule for the final stretch,” the person said.

A Jackson spokesperson did not respond to an inquiry about that version of events.

On Thursday, before Mills posted her support, Jackson argued the lack of an endorsement from the governor was not an essential factor in his race, which polls suggest is razor-thin just five days out.

“Look, this race is not about me and Janet or anything like that,” he told MS NOW. “This race is about people that don’t have health care, people that don’t know how to fill their oil tanks, people that don’t know how to get their prescription drugs.”

“I’m not really sure, like, with the governor — I don’t take it personally or anything like that. I mean, Angus King didn’t endorse me either,” Jackson added, referring to Maine’s independent senator, who has historically not endorsed Collins’ opponents.

Jackson has not been shy about his rocky relationship with Mills.

“We obviously disagreed a lot — it’s no secret,” he said in April. “I mean, the governor vetoed more than 40 of my bills.”

CORRECTION (Oct. 29, 2026, 9:15 p.m. ET): A previous version of this article inaccurately depicted a piece of the timeline of the communication between aides for Jackson and Mills. Originally, the person close to the governor said an aide for Mills attempted to make contact after the governor returned from a trade mission and got no response. The person now says aides for both Jackson and Mills spoke on the day Jackson left the message in an attempt to setup a meeting between the two.

The post Maine Gov. Janet Mills issues muted endorsement of Troy Jackson — after last-minute effort to lock arms fell through appeared first on MS NOW.

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.

President Trump and first lady Melania Trump will welcome trick-or-treaters to the White House Thursday evening for the annual Halloween celebration. The event comes just hours after Trump returned from South Carolina, where he rallied support for Republicans ahead of next week’s midterm elections. The first couple is expected to hand out candy to children…

President Trump and first lady Melania Trump will welcome trick-or-treaters to the White House Thursday evening for the annual Halloween celebration. The event comes just hours after Trump returned from South Carolina, where he rallied support for Republicans ahead of next week’s midterm elections. The first couple is expected to hand out candy to children…

Democrats have narrow leads in two key Senate contests with just a few days until the election, new polls show. New surveys conducted by CNN/SSRS released Thursday found Democrats ahead in the Kansas and Maine Senate races, though both leads are in the margin of error. Both parties are spending millions on the two contests…

Democrats have narrow leads in two key Senate contests with just a few days until the election, new polls show. New surveys conducted by CNN/SSRS released Thursday found Democrats ahead in the Kansas and Maine Senate races, though both leads are in the margin of error. Both parties are spending millions on the two contests…

Republicans are out for blood following a report that former Rep. Mary Peltola’s (D-Alaska) campaign recruited “spoiler” candidates to run on the ballot and siphon votes away from incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska).   Democratic lawmakers, so far, have not come rushing to Peltola’s defense.  Many in the GOP have called for legal consequences since…

Republicans are out for blood following a report that former Rep. Mary Peltola’s (D-Alaska) campaign recruited “spoiler” candidates to run on the ballot and siphon votes away from incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska).   Democratic lawmakers, so far, have not come rushing to Peltola’s defense.  Many in the GOP have called for legal consequences since…

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* Good news on growth, bad news on inflation: “The pace of price increases stepped up in September, keeping inflation well above the Federal Reserve’s target, while the economy grew faster than expected in the third quarter, according to Commerce Department reports Thursday.”

* That we knew this was coming doesn’t make it any easier to swallow (or inhale): “President Donald Trump said Tuesday that his administration is ‘terminating’ a Biden-era rule that aimed to cut planet-warming emissions of methane from oil and gas drilling. Trump said during a campaign rally in Texas that the change would save companies and consumers billions of dollars and unlock 210 million barrels of oil. That’s equivalent to about 10 days of U.S. petroleum consumption.”

* The obvious call: “A federal judge has denied the Trump administration’s request for an emergency order that would have forced California to set aside mail ballots from more than 20,000 registered voters whom the Department of Homeland Security has identified as ‘likely’ noncitizens.”

* Another heartening ruling: “Chronically ill people on Medicaid won’t be bound by new work requirement rules that the latest Trump administration guidance requires in order to qualify for ‘medically frail’ exemptions, a federal judge ruled Thursday.”

* The White House’s pal in Pyongyang wants attention again: “North Korea launched a barrage of ballistic missiles toward its eastern waters Thursday, South Korea’s military said, days after the North threatened to resume front-line propaganda loudspeaker broadcasts and deploy new weapons along the rivals’ tense border. The launches also followed leader Kim Jong Un’s surprise weekend visit to China, the North’s main ally and economic pipeline, to push for greater cooperation.”

* Putting the government back together again is going to be a dramatic undertaking: “President Donald Trump has overseen the departure of about 1 in every 5 government workers since the start of his second term, a faster and deeper overhaul than under any recent predecessor, a Washington Post analysis found. By some metrics, Black people — who have historically made up a larger portion of government employees compared with their share of the population — were hit hardest, The Post found.”

* Trump doesn’t often surprise me, but I’ll confess I didn’t see this latest rhetorical trend coming: “Trump has long had a penchant for complimenting — or disparaging — the physical appearances of his allies and enemies alike. But a new analysis by The Washington Sun shows that Trump has referenced physical appearance almost three times as much in the past year as he did during the same period in the 2016 campaign.”

See you tomorrow.

The post Thursday’s Mini-Report, 10.29.26 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.

This is an adapted excerpt from the Oct. 28 episode of “The 11th Hour with Ali Velshi.”

On Wednesday evening, just days before the midterms, we saw a split screen of the politics of the past and the politics of the present.

In Ohio, President Donald Trump once again gave an ugly and rambling speech, repeating racist remarks about Muslim politicians and calling for the prosecution of others, while stumping for and defending a candidate who refuses to apologize for an attack ad that exploited his opponent’s experience as a child rape victim.

Meanwhile, in Georgia, former President Barack Obama returned to the campaign trail to deliver one of his trademark speeches, designed to energize voters and to reinforce their beliefs in small-d democratic values.

Obama’s remarks also served as a scathing rebuke of the current president and his politics of grievance, making the case that the country needs to “rediscover our North Star:”

We also need to rediscover what’s best in us, because if we don’t return to some of those mighty precious values Dr. King was talking about, we will continue to fester in anger and division. And I don’t know about you, but I am tired of being angry, and I’m tired of being divided. I want friendship and neighborliness and joy and generosity. I want everybody rolling up their sleeves in the common enterprise of rebuilding America. I want everybody handing our country and our world off to our kids a little better than they are right now. That’s what I want. That’s what you want.

Obama’s re-emergence might stir up bittersweet feelings for some of us who preferred a time when the nation was not led by an administration that had practiced deliberate cruelty and exploited Americans’ differences for personal and political gain.

For many of us, the former president is still a reminder of a more decent time in America: when the people running the federal government believed that it should serve the people; when America’s standing in the world was unrivaled; when our allies could trust us and we did not bow down to autocratic regimes or cozy up to war criminals.

Obama’s return to the campaign trail and his continued ability to galvanize voters by reminding them of the values that truly make this country great does not have to be bittersweet. It can be a reminder of who we are. It can be an incentive to fight to reset the moral compass of our nation, to rebuild the institutions that Trump and his band of billionaire oligarchs have been dismantling, and to repair the alliances that keep America safe, secure and prosperous.

The Obama era was not a century ago. Believe it or not, it ended less than 10 years ago. Obama’s still here. You’re still here.

In this moment, I’m reminded of a conversation I had a few days after the 2024 presidential election with Timothy Snyder, a distinguished history professor. At that point, the presidential race had been called for Trump, and half of the country was reckoning with the idea of his vengeful return to the White House.

But back then, Snyder had this advice for anyone who was feeling hopeless: While the circumstances around you might change, you don’t have to change with it. More than that, you have the choice to resist the changes this administration tries to impose on you, your country and your values.

“Freedom means you decide who you are,” he said. “And when things change around you, you continue to be that person.” Snyder’s words continue to resonate, and two years later, in the run-up to these crucial midterms, he has another reminder for us.

In a new piece on his Substack, “Thinking About,” the historian identified myriad things that could cause Americans to be disheartened right now but, in typical Tim Snyder fashion, he lands on six words that encapsulate all that needs to happen in the next six days: “All of this can be solved.”

We still have agency. We still have the vote. More than 42 million people have already cast a ballot in this year’s elections, surpassing the early-voter turnout for the 2018 midterms. At this rate, there’s a good chance that it will surpass the early-voter turnout for the 2022 midterms.

And that, according to Snyder, is how all of this can be solved.

“Only a government can act to resolve this problem, but it has to be a government animated by people who care about freedom,” he wrote. “Government animated by liberty can break up monopolies, government can tax centibillionaires, government can regulate media and social media platforms. All of this can be solved.”

Snyder argues that a better future is still possible, even as powerful figures attempt to push the country toward a darker one: “A better future, a far better future, can replace the dystopias for which our oligarchs now so openly long. To get there, we will have to exercise the very rights that they now so openly hate.”

Allison Detzel contributed.

The post America can find its way back to its values. The midterms are the first step. appeared first on MS NOW.

A federal judge Thursday ruled that the Trump administration’s definition of “medically frail” used for Medicaid is unlawful, issuing a temporary injunction on states having to determine medical frailty. U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns found in his ruling Thursday that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s definition of “medically frail” was “contrary to law” and…

A federal judge Thursday ruled that the Trump administration’s definition of “medically frail” used for Medicaid is unlawful, issuing a temporary injunction on states having to determine medical frailty. U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns found in his ruling Thursday that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s definition of “medically frail” was “contrary to law” and…

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.

The post U.S. attorney’s eugenics comments spotlight extremism within the DOJ appeared first on MS NOW.

Arizona reported its first case of New World screwworm on Wednesday, making it the third state to be impacted by the parasite. The confirmed case was found in a domestic dog in Cochise County, Ariz., which shares a border with Mexico, according to a press release from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The state’s Department…

Arizona reported its first case of New World screwworm on Wednesday, making it the third state to be impacted by the parasite. The confirmed case was found in a domestic dog in Cochise County, Ariz., which shares a border with Mexico, according to a press release from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The state’s Department…