A Texas-based LGBTQ+ advocacy organization says someone is impersonating the group through texts and mailers distributed across the state in what it describes as a political attack, just as early voting begins in Texas.

Texans across the state, including in the Panhandle and the Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio metro areas, reported receiving text messages and physical brochures purporting to offer support and resources to transgender students and pointing them to information on how to seek legal emancipation from parents.

The brochure prominently identifies the Transgender Education Network of Texas, or TENT, as “an organization trusted by students,” and includes links to the trans advocacy group.

Parents and conservative activists posted images of the texts and brochures online, expressing outrage at what they characterized as divisive messaging.

TENT, however, says it did not send the materials. In a statement, the group described the messages and materials as an impersonation attempt.

I got the rage bait mail! pic.twitter.com/htqc9wUmRa

— Kaylee Ashlynn (@kaylee_ashlynn) October 19, 2026

“TENT did not author, authorize, approve, or distribute these materials. Any and all materials are not affiliated with our organization and are impersonations,” the advocacy group said in a statement to MS NOW on Tuesday, adding that “these instances will not shake our commitment to the dignity and humanity of trans youth, trans Texans, their families, and their loved ones. Trans Texans belong here in Texas, this is our home and we’re not going anywhere.”

The first text message was sent on on Oct. 11 and included a link to a “Back to School” guide with a general resource page. TENT said the information at that link was “falsely promoted as guidance to find gender affirming care,” adding that the information had never existed on its own website. On Oct. 17, TENT became aware that physical brochures with its branding had been sent to households across the state after people began sharing images of them on social media.

TENT says it does not know who is behind the alleged impersonation, but the return label on the brochures features the name of a different group, called the Texas Transgender Student Union, a Wyoming-based entity. Data reported to Wyoming’s state secretary website shows that a business entity named “Texas Transgender Student Union LLC” was established in September.

The address associated with the Texas Transgender Student Union is linked to Northwest Registered Agent, a privately held company that helps form and and register businesses and receives official correspondence on their behalf.

A spokesperson for Northwest Registered Agent would not confirm whether the Texas Transgender Student Union is its client, but said in an email that it has “no way of knowing” its clients’ intent when they form a new company using its services.

“One of our main jobs is receiving state and legal notices for our clients and forwarding them promptly,” the spokesperson said, adding that its service is limited to allowing agencies to contact its clients’ businesses, even if they do not have a physical office location. “That’s where our involvement ends, though.”

“Northwest Registered Agent has no knowledge of, or involvement in, any of our clients’ business operations,” the spokesperson said.

Legal representatives for TENT have identified a company they believe owns the phone numbers from which the impersonating mass text messages were sent — Peerless Network Inc., operating as a part of Infobip Inc. — and have sent a cease-and-desist letter, obtained by MS NOW. The letter demands the organizations identify who is responsible for the messages, suspend the numbers associated with the messages and to refuse to transmit any further messages that reference TENT or its materials.

“Because the Messages reference nothing but TENT’s domain, a reasonable recipient will conclude that TENT sent them, and that TENT is texting strangers about sensitive subjects without their consent. That impression is false, and it is already causing irreparable damage to our client’s reputation,” the letter reads.

Representatives for Peerless Network Inc. and Infobip Inc. did not respond to MS NOW’s request for comment. TENT did not note in its letter how it identified these companies as potential impersonators.

As a result of the mass text messages and brochures, TENT said its staff’s addresses and information have been circulated to people across the state.

“Our address was doxxed, and photos of our staff were included in the malicious mailing materials. Online, a graphic is being circulated with images of two of our senior staff along with our board chair,” the group said.

TENT said the mailers sent to Texas families also included dates for the group’s upcoming “Trans Texas Takeover” tour, which the organization has since suspended “due to increased safety threats and risks.”

Texas state Rep. Jeff Leach has also sent a formal request to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is also the Republican Senate nominee, asking his office to investigate the alleged impersonation. Paxton did not immediately respond to MS NOW’s request for comment on the request.

The texts and mailers surfaced just as early voting has kicked off in the state. Republican candidates, including Paxton, have made transgender issues a central line of attack against Democrats. Republican-aligned TV ads have targeted Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico over his position on gender-affirming care for minors.

A University of Houston Hobby School of Public Affairs poll released Monday found Talarico leading over Paxton by 2 points. Early voting in Texas began Oct. 19.

The post Texas trans advocacy group says it is being impersonated in texts and mailers appeared first on MS NOW.

UPDATE (October 20, 9:14 p.m. ET) The NFLPA released a statement Tuesday night calling for a “full investigation into what occurred” with Jalen Hurts. The Athletic reports that the NFL’s chief medical officer is defending the Eagles’ medical team.

After nearly two weeks of vague and contradictory statements about Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts’ health and a last-minute reversal on his injury status, the team announced Monday that its Super Bowl-winning captain has been diagnosed with deep vein thrombosis and blood clots in his lungs.

Hurts is now out indefinitely — at least for the rest of this football season. As dangerous as blood clots in the lungs are, his are considered treatable with blood thinners. But Hurts can’t participate in any football activities while receiving such medication, so it’s unclear when he might take the field again.

For a franchise that has won two championships in the past decade and has a front office with a reputation for doing things “the right way,” the lack of transparency surrounding Hurts has been jarring. While the team has long been cagey about what it says about players’ injuries, in this case, its lack of clarity has created a problem of public trust.

While the team has long been cagey about what it says about players’ injuries, in this case, its lack of clarity has created a problem of public trust.

Head coach Nick Sirianni took questions from the media on Monday and said a whole lot of nothing, except that he has “full trust and full faith” in the team’s “medical experts.” We don’t know who that group of “medical experts” includes. The medical staff typically answers to the front office, but Eagles general manager Howie Roseman has been noticeably silent.

Hurts played a game in London against the Jacksonville Jaguars on Oct. 11 after it was determined he had a superficial blood clot in his left calf. Depending on the specifics, an athlete playing a contact sport with a blood clot can be deadly, but even though the sequence of events — and some apparent rumors — have provoked questions, there’s no evidence that the Eagles’ medical team did anything wrong. Certainly, teams must respect their players’ privacy. But the failure to clarify the decision-making process around Hurts’ health has left the public with more questions than answers. Everybody, including the players themselves and fans, should be able to count on teams doing right by their athletes, and the Eagles have yet to give the public that confidence.

Here’s the timeline as far as we know it: Hurts was cleated in the calf on Oct. 4 in the Eagles’ Week 4 loss to the Rams. Four days later, after being a full participant in practice, he sought treatment for that lingering calf pain. He then flew to London with the team ahead of its Week 5 matchup against Jacksonville.

The report that he was diagnosed with a superficial blood clot in his left calf on Oct. 10 is per a joint statement from the team and Hurts’ agent, Nicole Lynn. According to initial reports from both NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport and Netflix’s Tom Pelissero, Hurts was advised by doctors not to sleep that night and remained at a London hospital until early morning on game day. Those initial reports that he had been awake 36 hours at kickoff have since been contradicted by his agent, who says he slept at Wembley Stadium before taking the field and throwing for 220 yards and a touchdown. He never appeared on the injury report with a game designation, which indicates whether an athlete is probable, questionable, doubtful or out.

Despite having already been diagnosed with a blood clot, Hurts took the transatlantic flight home and fully participated in practice for the Eagles’ upcoming home game against the Carolina Panthers. On Oct. 14, a follow-up ultrasound revealed that the clot had moved, and the next day, the Eagles ruled him out for the Panthers game. On Saturday morning before that game, ESPN reported that the team had “not even discussed the possibility of injured reserve” for Hurts, but the Eagles placed him on IR just a few hours later. Then came Monday’s announcement that Hurts had blood clots in his lungs.

A blood clot traveling to the lungs is a potentially fatal condition, and how a team handles the medical evaluation and clearance process can reflect and inform the actions of teams at every level of the sport.

That’s a bizarre timeline, and what we don’t know is striking. Who were the doctors who treated him in London and cleared him to play? Were they employed by the team? Were they independent specialists, or were they doctors from both camps? Who signed off on a transatlantic flight for a player with a blood clot, then only known to be in his calf? And why didn’t the team’s injury report reflect the diagnosis of his clot?

This is obviously bigger than football. A blood clot traveling to the lungs is a potentially fatal condition, and how a team handles the medical evaluation and clearance process can reflect and inform the actions of teams at every level of the sport, down to high school and youth leagues, where grind culture starts. Some commentators actually framed Hurts’ playing against Jacksonville as a sign of his “commitment to football” instead of questioning what information he had and what medical advice he received when the decision was made.

There’s also business at stake here, though I can’t emphasize enough how irrelevant that is relative to Hurts’ health. The NFL partners with sportsbooks that rely on accurate team injury reports as market information. The league should care most about its players’ health, but one might also expect it to care about the implications of the Eagles’ secrecy on people betting on games. Even so, The Athletic’s Jonathan Jones reports that “the NFL will not issue any punishment to the Eagles for its handling of the medical process, or for Hurts not being given an injury designation ahead of the game.”

In other words, the league has already looked into this and decided behind closed doors that everything’s just fine. We don’t know who the league spoke to, what information it reviewed or how it concluded that a player diagnosed with a blood clot could play without any designation and be allowed on a plane. We also have yet to hear from the NFL Players Association. If there were ever a moment for the union to be demanding answers, this would be it.

There’s precedent for a threat to a player’s health provoking change. In 2022, Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa was seen stumbling after taking a hit and was still allowed to play. He suffered an even more frightening concussion four days later. Within two weeks, the NFLPA had dismissed the independent consultant who cleared him, and the league and union jointly changed the concussion protocol so that no one displaying Tagovailoa’s symptoms would be let onto the field. Notably, the review didn’t find that anyone had broken the rules, only that the outcome “was not what was intended” by the policy. And that’s the point: Nobody was found to be doing anything intentionally wrong, but the process ostensibly got better.

The next player in Hurts’ position deserves to know the system is working for him and not around him.

A similar investigation in warranted here. The next player in Hurts’ position deserves to know the system is working for him and not around him.

For more than a decade, I’ve argued that team doctors serve the team, not the player, and that every serious injury decision should involve physicians with no stake in the outcome of that week’s game. It may be, that in Hurts’ case, disinterested doctors made a reasonable call with the information they had. But we have no way of knowing. A player’s life may have been at risk, and the only answer anyone has offered is, essentially, “trust us.” That’s not good enough from the team, from the league or from the players’ union.

The Eagles have built a reputation on doing things “the right way.” When it comes to their quarterback’s health, the right way isn’t just about making the right calls. They also need to show their work.

The post Jalen Hurts’ health scare leads to some uncomfortable questions for the Eagles appeared first on MS NOW.

Happy Tuesday! Here’s your Tuesday Tech Drop, some of the past week’s top stories from the intersection of politics and technology.

Democrats decry push for AI robocalls

Democrats are fighting Republican-led efforts to get the Federal Communications Commission to approve the use of artificial intelligence-generated robocalls ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections. The conservative Club for Growth is behind a proposal currently under consideration by the FCC and its pro-Trump chair that would authorize robocalls like the Joe Biden deepfake in 2024, which was intended to suppress voter participation in New Hampshire’s Democratic presidential primary.

The FCC could issue a ruling by month’s end, The Associated Press reported. If approved, the move could allow conservatives to bombard the public with AI-enabled misinformation in the lead-up to Election Day — and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is warning the public about what’s at stake.

“The FCC MUST reject the request made by a Republican group that would allow political groups to make robocalls to cell phones without people’s permission,” he wrote on X, adding: “Putting Americans in a position where they can be fed misinformation through AI-generated deception ahead of a crucial election is yet another attempt by Republicans to mislead voters.”

The FCC MUST reject the request made by a Republican group that would allow political groups to make robocalls to cell phones without people’s permission.

Putting Americans in a position where they can be fed misinformation through AI-generated deception ahead of a crucial…

— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) October 19, 2026

States sue OpenAI

Several states have filed lawsuits accusing OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, of violating consumer protection laws and putting users at risk with its chatbot — which has been used to plan school shootings. I wrote about the lawsuits and the increasing scrutiny toward OpenAI. (A spokesperson said the company has “built industry-leading age-specific protections into our product that many other AI products lack.”)

Read more at MS NOW.

FBI arrests OpenAI employee

The FBI arrested a Saudi national who was working for OpenAI and accused him of illegally planting a recording device in one of the company’s executive conference rooms.

Read more at Tech Crunch.

CBS News’ election coverage

Some staffers at CBS News reportedly have complained that Bari Weiss, their Trump-friendly editor-in-chief, has urged employees to pursue stories about progressive candidates that have been ginned up by conservatives on social media, such as the recent disinformation that MAGA world promoted about James Talarico, the Democratic Senate nominee in Texas.

Read more at Semafor.

Meta’s machinations

Meta’s temporary suspension of the primary Instagram account for last weekend’s No Kings demonstrations is fueling concerns about the company helping enable authoritarian movements. I explained why the controversy involving the anti-Trump protests, combined with accusations about the company’s role in Brazil’s elections, proves that Meta hasn’t earned the benefit of the doubt.

Read more at MS NOW.

Musk and the midterms

MS NOW’s Soorin Kim wrote about how Elon Musk is unleashing a deluge of money to boost Republicans in Texas and elsewhere as the midterms threaten to put the GOP’s control of Congress — and the spigot that Republicans have used to shower Musk with federal benefits — at risk.

Read more at MS NOW.

Trump administration’s Ukraine policy

As President Donald Trump continues to bow to Russian strongman Vladimir Putin in disturbing ways, members of his administration — chiefly, Secretary of State Marco Rubio — are trying to downplay allegations that Team Trump has sought to hinder Ukraine’s efforts to fend off Russia’s invasion, such as by not sharing information and by delaying the delivery of crucial weapons systems.

Read more at Politico.

‘Digital blackface’

A MAGA-linked super PAC is has been accused of “digital blackface” for ads in Ohio’s Senate race promoting a Black socialist candidate whose campaign could draw votes from the Democratic nominee, Sherrod Brown.

Read more at Axios.

Election disinformation in Arizona

MAGA conspiracy theorists promoted a video lobbing baseless accusations of potential election misconduct at the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors. There was no reason to believe the claims were true, but that didn’t stop Maricopa election official Justin Heap from trying to get the FBI involved. The fiasco spotlights the MAGA movement’s conspiracy theory-fueled push to establish a pretext for federal intervention in the midterms.

Read more at MS NOW.

The post Republicans look to unleash AI robocalls on voters before the midterms appeared first on MS NOW.

Trump administration officials and advisers have made a string of overseas campaign trips for vulnerable leaders to Europe, the Middle East and even the little-known enclave Republika Srpska.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was the latest member of Trump’s team to make what could be viewed as a campaign stop favoring a foreign ally, meeting Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a base in southern Israel that hosts American refueling planes and fighter jets. Israel’s elections are next Tuesday.

Vice President JD Vance visited Hungary earlier this year to support Viktor Orbán’s ultimately unsuccessful campaign. Two of Trump’s political advisers leading his midterm advertising effort, James Blair and Chris LaCivita, last month went to Republika Srpska, a self-governing territory in Bosnia and Herzegovina, to support a pro-Russia party that won in the Oct. 4 elections.

American administrations usually make special effort to avoid any perception of favoring candidates in overseas elections, even if they have favorites behind the scenes.

But Trump’s team has brought its preferences out in the open, going so far as to appear at campaign rallies or, in Hegseth’s case, traveling to Israel a day after Trump endorsed Netanyahu.

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said Trump “will speak or work with anyone, and he makes no secret about those he likes or supports.”

Trump is the first U.S. president to explicitly and publicly endorse a candidate in an Israeli election, which is scheduled for Oct. 27. U.S. military officials, including defense secretaries, have generally avoided appearing to engage in political activities in the U.S. and overseas.

Doron Spielman, a spokesperson for Netanyahu, said the pair discussed regional threats and Trump’s endorsement for the Israeli premier. Trump and his national security team have weighed restarting military action against Tehran, but Trump has said the U.S. would not act before the midterm elections.

In April, JD Vance attended an election rally in Budapest alongside Hungary’s then-Prime Minister Orbán just five days before the country went to the polls. “We have got to get Viktor Orbán re-elected as prime minister of Hungary, don’t we?” Vance said to 1,000 Orbán supporters. Orbán, part of a group of political conservatives the Trump administration has expressed affinity for, ultimately lost the race.

Blair and LaCivita, former White House aides who are leading Republicans’ midterm election strategy, earlier this month took a break from the U.S. campaign trail to visit Republika Srpska to work on behalf of the country’s ruling party that faced an Oct. 4 election.

Trump’s allies have praised the ruling party, the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, for its embrace of Christian conservatism and opposition to joining the European Union.

Trump responded to criticism of LaCivita and Blair’s trip on Truth Social, saying they are “outside consultants” who “are allowed to do work for others.” He said he would “terminate them immediately” if the pair presented a conflict of interest. Blair flew with Trump on Air Force One to Kansas on Monday. 

While Trump and his team have been the most overt with their foreign political preferences, the phenomenon is not totally without precedent.

President Barack Obama took the unusual step of calling on the United Kingdom to remain in the EU while he was visiting London in April 2016. He wrote an op-ed against Brexit in the British newspaper The Telegraph timed to his visit and also made his case during a press conference.

“The U.K. is at its best when it’s helping to lead a strong European Union,” he said at the time.

He and his administration also faced criticism for what some perceived to be a Democratic intervention in the 2015 Israeli elections. A Senate probe found that a group known as V15, aimed at ousting Netanyahu, received nearly $350,000 in grant money from the State Department. The U.S. had initially given the money to a group aimed to foster support for peace between Israel and the Palestinian territories but the organization later morphed to help set up political infrastructure for the V15 campaign against Netanyahu.

Jeremy Bird, a former national field director for the Obama campaign, worked with the V15 group, with his participation adding to the controversy.

David Rohde contributed reporting.

The post From Budapest to Banja Luka, Trump’s aides campaign for foreign politicians appeared first on MS NOW.

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* Russia kills more Ukrainian civilians: “Russia unleashed another missile and drone blitz of civilian areas in Ukraine, killing at least four people, officials said Tuesday, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy scrambled to ensure more American and European help during a visit to Norway.”

* In related news: “U.S. envoys met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Norway on Tuesday, as Kyiv scrambled to respond to an American pressure campaign that has been allied with moves aimed at courting the Kremlin. President Donald Trump’s negotiators, son-in-law Jared Kushner and special envoy Steve Witkoff, have so far had little success finding a diplomatic solution to the war.”

* This Wall Street Journal report hasn’t been independently confirmed, but it points to a possible answer to one of the biggest unanswered questions in the world: “Elon Musk ordered the slowdown of a military-grade version of Starlink relied on by Ukraine, a decision that sparked panic in Kyiv and confusion inside the Trump administration, U.S. officials and people familiar with the matter said.”

* The results weren’t at all close: “Residents of Alberta voted overwhelmingly on Monday to remain part of Canada, rejecting a campaign to try to separate the oil-rich western province from the rest of the country and further bolstering Prime Minister Mark Carney’s efforts to advance a united Canada.”

* Conditions in France: “Several French cities extended curfews through Tuesday night after the measures helped quell days of riots and looting, as the government sought to reassure a rattled country ahead of fresh protests expected later in the week. … In an attempt to address some of the cost-of-living concerns, the office of President Emmanuel Macron of France said on Tuesday that he had secured the delivery of an additional 200,000 tons of diesel per month from the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain while in the Gulf region.”

* It’s not yet clear what this meeting was about: “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel on Monday, two sources with knowledge told Axios. … The unannounced visit comes eight days before Israel’s election and amid U.S.-Israeli discussions about potentially resuming major combat operations against Iran.”

* On a related note, Donald Trump spoke to the CBS affiliate in Wichita, Kansas, and when asked about the war with Iran, the president said, “Look, we’re going to be winning a war very soon. We could win it tomorrow. Frankly, we could leave today.” He keeps making comments like these — which necessarily raise questions about why he doesn’t want to end the war.

See you tomorrow.

The post Tuesday’s Mini-Report, 10.20.26 appeared first on MS NOW.

Recent polling suggests that concerns about government corruption are top of mind for voters heading into the midterm elections — and that the Republican Party’s standard-bearer, Donald Trump, has effectively become the face of repulsive self-enrichment to many Americans.

It’s in that environment that Florida Republicans are threatening criminal prosecution over a campaign advertisement spotlighting damning corruption allegations involving top state officials.

We’ve seen various Republicans using the Trumpian tactic of threatening to arrest people who are merely exercising their First Amendment rights. Trump, a chief enemy of those constitutional rights, has called for journalists to be arrested for accurately reporting on crowd sizes at his rallies. And Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., faced mockery and condemnation last week for threatening to have a journalist prosecuted after she asked a question about his support for Trump’s deadly war with Iran.

Now Florida Republicans are threatening to prosecute television stations that air a Democratic ad spotlighting the Hope Florida charity scandal, which involves public money being directed to political allies by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ GOP administration.

As the Miami Herald reported:

The Republican Party of Florida is threatening television stations with criminal prosecution if they run or report on a scathing campaign ad addressing the Hope Florida scandal and a grand jury’s finding. The GOP is seeking a temporary injunction to prohibit the airing of the ads.

The Republicans had some daylight when Judge Lance E. Neff of the Florida First District Court of Appeal wrote an opinion ordering the expungement of a grand jury report, saying the panel exceeded its authority. The lawsuit once again brings it front and center during the stretch run to the Nov. 3 election.

Basically, a Florida grand jury concluded that the DeSantis administration — including Attorney General James Uthmeier and his predecessor, Sen. Ashley Moody — “misappropriated” taxpayer money as part of a “sophisticated scheme to fund political activities” with money from a Medicaid settlement. DeSantis, Uthmeier and Moody have all denied accusations of wrongdoing.

The leaked grand jury report said indictments weren’t feasible because nobody would “take responsibility for deciding the $10 million of taxpayer money would go to Hope Florida,” adding: “This decision was the original misappropriation, and no witness would take responsibility for making the decision or had any memory of who made it.”

A couple of weeks back, Florida’s 1st District Court of Appeals ordered the report to be expunged, with one DeSantis-appointed judge arguing that it wrongfully “impugned” private individuals. But the issue remains under review by at least one state attorney and has continued to dog Moody’s Senate campaign. Moody has stumbled while answering questions about it, and the topic has become a major talking point for her Democratic opponent, Angie Nixon.

Republicans more or less have two pathways to address their PR problems: become more likable as a party, or seek to silence people who expose its warts. And it seems clear which route the party is taking.

The post Florida Republicans want to kill this campaign ad, so they’re threatening to prosecute TV stations appeared first on MS NOW.

Massachusetts Republican gubernatorial nominee Mike Minogue said that if he is elected in November, he will serve without a lieutenant governor after his running mate was arrested on suspicion of driving drunk.

Shawn Oliver suspended his campaign for lieutenant governor after he was involved in a car crash on Saturday and charged with operating under the influence of liquor, negligent operation of a motor vehicle, marked lanes violation and speeding. He pleaded not guilty on Monday.

“Several states, including Maine and New Hampshire, operate without a lieutenant governor,” Minogue’s campaign said in a statement Monday. “Massachusetts law already sets the order of succession if the governor is out of office.” He added that “leaving the position unfilled will save taxpayers well over $300,000 in salary and security costs.”

In announcing the suspension of his campaign, Oliver, a New Bedford city councilor, said the upcoming election was “too important to be overshadowed by personal matters.”

“I want to sincerely thank everyone who has supported me throughout this journey and ask that my family’s privacy be respected during this difficult time,” he wrote in a statement.

Despite suspending his campaign, Oliver will still have his name appear on the ballot. He has not yet commented on whether he plans to turn down the position if elected.

Mingoue’s campaign encouraged voters to still plan to select the Minogue-Oliver ticket “because the ballots have already been printed and cannot be changed. Any marks or deletions will invalidate the vote for Minogue,” clarifying that Oliver would not serve as Minogue’s lieutenant governor if elected.

Hours after Oliver’s arrest, Minogue said that he was “extremely disappointed” and that there is “no excuse for driving under the influence.”

“Shawn is lucky to be alive and lucky that no one innocent was hurt,” Minogue said in a statement Sunday, adding that he asked Oliver to suspend his campaign immediately and that he would formally ask for his resignation if he is elected.

“Shawn is a father and grandfather, and he needs to put his family first,” Minogue said. “He needs to do the work to ensure this never happens again. If he needs help with that, I will help him.”

Minogue faces off against Democratic Gov. Maura Healey in the Nov. 3 general election. A recent Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll showed Healey leading the race by 25 percentage points.

The post After running mate’s arrest, Mass. GOP gubernatorial nominee says he will govern alone if elected appeared first on MS NOW.

This is an adapted excerpt from the Oct. 19 episode of “All In with Chris Hayes.”

There are now only two weeks until Election Day, and it is pretty clear that all of President Donald Trump’s schemes up to this point have not worked out the way he wanted. The president has run through a laundry list of plots to tilt the election in his party’s favor, and Plans A through D have not gone well.

First, there was the gerrymandering plot, which began well over a year ago, when Trump pressured Republican statehouses to undergo unprecedented midcycle redistricting to draw maps that heavily favored their party.

The folks who actually run elections are being forced to batten down the hatches

But here is the thing about gerrymanders: They’re meant to shore up a party during a strong-to-neutral environment. They are not designed to survive wave elections. And if the polling is correct, this may be a wave election.

In Texas, for example, it looks like Tejano music star Bobby Pulido has a real shot at flipping the newly redrawn 15th Congressional District away from Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz. This was supposed to be the crown jewel of the new Texas map, but Pulido has real star power, which he demonstrated at a huge rally over the weekend, and he has been running a strong campaign.

In fact, Republican House Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota conceded earlier this month that his party has already given up hope on winning every redrawn district.

“We’re not gonna win all 13 of those redistricted seats,” he told Axios.

Things have gotten increasingly desperate since that plan backfired. Republicans have boasted a massive funding advantage, thanks to billionaires like Elon Musk pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into races to support the party.

However, over the last few weeks, several polls have shown Republicans now face some much more competitive races in places they least expected. So they are having to spend all over, including in places like deep-red Kansas, Nebraska and even Wyoming. But ad spending can only go so far before voters just tune it out.

The next plan was basically just to try to bribe the voters directly. Remember Trump’s big flop of a midterm convention, where he promised to give every single American adult $5,000 each, but only if Republicans kept Congress? (Republicans, of course, currently control Congress.) But polling showed the idea is incredibly unpopular, and now Trump only half-heartedly brings it up on occasion.

I’m not sure he is convincing anyone, nor am I sure that Trump’s rallies in deep-red states are going to rescue his party — which was the final plan, before he resorted to election interference.

First was his executive order to seize mail-in ballots and use the United States Postal Service to decide whose vote counts and whose does not. Thankfully, that was effectively put on hold by the courts.

So, two weeks out, it is all legal recriminations and voter intimidation.

Last week, the Trump administration raided the home of Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. On the one hand, Trump obviously hates to see a Black Muslim woman from Africa in a position of authority. But I think his attempts to denaturalize and deport the congresswoman go further than just racism. He wants to frighten voters. He wants people of color — and especially naturalized citizens who might vote blue — to stay home on Nov. 3.

Trump’s Department of Justice is also suing California over utterly noncredible claims of widespread noncitizen voting, because officials refused to put a shady thumb drive into government computers to “confirm” the citizenship of voters. On Monday, the administration ramped up that bogus fraud investigation. It’s now threatening jail time and doing predawn raids across the state.

Meanwhile, the folks who actually run elections are being forced to batten down the hatches. The Trump administration recently threatened Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, a Republican, with a DOJ investigation for not going along with its ridiculous claims of noncitizen voting.

But Henderson has shown she will not be intimidated.

“In the past two elections that I oversaw as lieutenant governor, the threats were all external,” she told “60 Minutes” on Sunday. “Non-state actors, cybersecurity threats and other things. But now we also have threats coming from within our own government.”

The threat is coming from the federal government. Principled folks of both parties held the line in 2020, the last time Trump tried to steal an election. Now, they are being put to the test again.

Allison Detzel contributed.

The post Trump turns to intimidation as his midterms plans fall apart appeared first on MS NOW.

UPDATE (Tuesday Oct. 20, 2026 10:10 p.m. ET): On Tuesday night the Ramaswamy campaign confirmed it was behind the attack ad targeting Amy Acton.

Two weeks before Election Day, Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is facing fresh criticism for yet another controversial attack ad against his opponent, Democrat Amy Acton. The Ramaswamy campaign did not initially say if it was responsible for the unaired ad that features Acton’s estranged mother, who defended her husband after he was accused of sexually abusing Acton when she was a child. It put out a statement saying the candidate’s mother “is clearly warning Ohioans not to vote for her.” (Ramaswamy previously faced backlash for an earlier ad that showed a man later identified as a sex offender; the man was later removed from some versions of the ad.) Later on Tuesday, however, the campaign confirmed it had in fact produced the spot and, despite bipartisan backlash, would be spending millions of dollars pushing it to voters throughout the state.

Incredibly, Ramaswamy’s campaign may still be facing bigger problems; a Marist poll published on Tuesday showed Acton leading him by 7 points. MS NOW’s polling data with partner FiftyPlusOne shows Acton with a 5-point edge. And a major source of his campaign woes centers not on questionable attack ads, but on Ramaswamy’s pedigree as a billionaire entrepreneur — and the corporate interests that seem to be alienating more and more everyday Ohio voters.

For the Republicans who ran for office in 2024, cozying up to America’s most powerful corporations was one of the best ways to ensure victory at the polls.

For the Republicans who ran for office in 2024, cozying up to America’s most powerful corporations was one of the best ways to ensure victory at the polls. It wasn’t just that large companies showered the GOP with more than $270 million in contributions that year. Big-business cash also proved prescient: According to data compiled by the Federal Election Commission and The Associated Press, a whopping 77% of the candidates who received hefty corporate donations went on to win their elections.

But in 2026, the mood is very different. Voters facing sky-high prices at the pump and the grocery store have focused their anger on the corporations reaping record profits and a government they perceive as serving the interests of the nation’s executives over everyday people. A survey conducted over the summer found that a quarter of Americans wanted CEOs to “stop being greedy,” while a record 89% of Americans viewed their government as hopelessly corrupt.

The numbers get even worse when voters think about the Republicans who run that government. Over half of Americans — and a 62% supermajority of independent voters — view President Donald Trump as “corrupt,” while also describing the broader Republican Party as “working for big corporations instead of the people” by a nearly 2-to-1 margin. GOP candidates in Alaska, Ohio, Iowa and elsewhere in the country are suddenly realizing that the corporate connections that once bolstered their campaigns have become their biggest political liabilities.

In Ohio, Ramaswamy has been one of the state’s loudest voices for corporate interests, especially in encouraging the building of more artificial intelligence data centers. At an April 2025 Lincoln Day dinner in Geauga County, he declared himself “strongly in favor” of the “AI data center boom in the state of Ohio.” Two weeks later, he urged Ohio lawmakers to weaken the regulatory “red tape” slowing construction of new data centers.

Ramaswamy failed to mention his own multimillion-dollar investments in data center companies, or the campaign donations he accepted from a super PAC connected to Vistra Corp., an energy company powering one of Meta’s Ohio-based data center projects. Those revelations didn’t sit well with the 78% of Ohioans who support a temporary ban on new data center construction, and Ramaswamy abruptly switched to a more skeptical posture over the summer.

Ramaswamy’s close ties to big business have worked against him in an election cycle where most voters view excessive corporate power as a major problem. Despite recent efforts to pivot his campaign to a message of quick tax cuts, Ramaswamy stumbled into a new headache last month when it was revealed that a group of out-of-state billionaires, including data center investors Ross Stevens and Ratmir Timashev, transferred $37 million to a super PAC backing his candidacy.

In a headache for Republicans who expected the state’s conservative slant to carry Ramaswamy to victory, he in fact spent most of September trailing his Democratic opponent, Acton. Ramaswamy’s consistently bad numbers were enough to trigger alarm bells in Washington, with both Vice President JD Vance and Trump racing to Ohio earlier this month in an effort to avert the GOP’s looming political wipeout.

Ramaswamy isn’t the only candidate getting hurt by corporate ties. In Alaska, Sen. Dan Sullivan’s close relationship to wealthy industrial fisheries has made him a public enemy among Alaska’s struggling small fishermen in a state where commercial fishing generates just over 7% of the state’s wealth. Local fishermen warn that Sullivan’s recent bill to reduce bycatch — the accidental capture of unwanted fish — is actually packed with government handouts that only apply to the corporate fisheries that contributed nearly $400,000 in contributions to his campaigns throughout his career.

Backed by a flurry of powerful TV ads featuring fishermen threatened by Sullivan’s bill, his Democratic opponent, Mary Peltola, now boasts a 7-point lead in the latest New York Times polling. Here, Trump proved unable to control his temper, blasting the Alaska GOP as “stupid” and adding a campaign visit to boost Sullivan. Democrats were quick to frame Trump’s emergency stop as validation of Peltola’s strength.

Embattled Republicans like Ramaswamy, Sullivan and Hinson may be hoping for a last-minute campaign reset, but polls suggest that their constituents aren’t buying the rebrand.

“It doesn’t matter who flies in to try and save Dan Sullivan from his abhorrent record, Alaskans will still hold him accountable for his price hiking agenda this November,” a spokesperson for Peltola’s campaign told Newsweek.

Back in the Lower 48, Iowa GOP Senate candidate Ashley Hinson is facing accusations of corruption following allegations that her husband, Matt Arenholz, quietly brokered meetings between insurance industry lobbyists and the state’s Republican congressional delegation. Rep. Hinson, who has framed herself as a warrior against special interests, never publicly disclosed her husband’s position as a government affairs employee for the lobbying group Independent Insurance Agents of Iowa, despite attending meetings he arranged.

And despite Hinson’s launch of her senate campaign with an ad in which she defiantly declares that “health insurance companies are ripping you off,” her financial disclosures reveal a politician with deep financial interests in insurance companies. Hinson reported that she and Arenholz hold an interest of up to $5 million in High Street Insurance Partners, while The Washington Sun reported that in 2021 Arenholz sold stock in a private insurance company for more than $1 million. When health insurance companies “rip off Iowans,” Hinson reaps the benefits — and voters are noticing.

Hinson’s attempt to line her pockets while selling herself as a fighter against insurance company abuses has fallen flat with the Iowans facing an increase of up to 16% in the cost of their health carecoverage. So far, Hinson hasn’t been able to change a narrative that is moving in Democrats’ direction: A Suffolk University poll published Oct. 4 found Hinson trailing her Democratic opponent, Josh Turek, by 4 points. A month ago, she led Turek by 1.

Embattled Republicans like Ramaswamy, Sullivan and Hinson may be hoping for a last-minute campaign reset, but polls suggest that their constituents aren’t buying the rebrand. With just two weeks left until voters flock to the polls, Republicans are discovering that they aren’t so quick to forget the candidates’ legacy of putting big business first. If the polls are any indication, even the most salacious attack ads are unlikely to change that.

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The idea behind a federal anti-fraud task force is not inherently absurd. Independent estimates show billions of dollars are lost every year to fraud and abuse, and if officials have a credible idea about how to combat the problem, more power to them.

Seven months after the launch of the White House’s anti-fraud task force, however, the list of problems is not short.

From the outset, there was ample reason for skepticism. The effort, Donald Trump said, would be led by JD Vance, who was an unfortunate choice. Not only was the vice president unqualified for such a task, but the administration also made little effort to hide its partisan political motivations, which meant it was eager to target blue states.

What’s more, this is a delicate issue for the president, given his unfortunate record on committing fraud, benefiting from fraud and issuing pardons to those who have been convicted of fraud.

Making matters worse is the task force’s actual performance. Vance insists he and his team have uncovered more than $260 billion in fraud, but those claims have largely unraveled under scrutiny.

With this in mind, the White House is apparently trying a new tack: crowdsourcing.

Trump announces "fraud whistleblower incentive program" — "Americans will now be able to go to fraud dot gov and report cases of corruption and theft of taxpayer dollars in their communities … if you turn somebody in and you find $1 billion, we're giving a commission of 1%. That's a lot of money"

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-10-20T18:18:02.278Z

On Tuesday afternoon, Trump and Vance announced a $25 million whistleblower program, to be administered by the Department of Justice, which is designed to offer cash rewards to those who uncover and report cases of fraud.

I suppose it’s possible that this will be an amazing success, and Americans will succeed in identifying the kind of systemic problems that the Republican administration has struggled to identify. (Trump specifically said at the Oval Office announcement, “People will make millions of dollars by turning others in.”)

But it’s probably best to keep expectations low.

First, the mechanism is a mess. People are supposed to submit tips to fraud.gov, with the promise of up to $30,000 to those who uncover cases that lead to criminal convictions or “significant federal enforcement” actions. What’s to stop scores of people from submitting baseless allegations, each of which investigators would be expected to review? Nothing. (I’ll be especially interested in seeing how many Americans report instances of alleged fraud involving Trump and his team.)

Second, the first recipient of a taxpayer-funded check is Nick Shirley, a right-wing YouTube influencer, who’s undeserving of such a reward, and whose payout reinforces concerns that this endeavor is little more than a political gambit.

Third, the White House staff doesn’t appear to have done its homework. The president said, under his plan, tipsters will be eligible for 1% of the cost of the disclosed fraud, prompting a reporter to remind him that under the False Claims Act, which has been on the books for more than 150 years, Americans are eligible to collect between 10% and 25%.

Fourth, given the way this administration has mistreated whistleblowers, it’s rather ironic to see the White House launch a whistleblower program like this one.

Finally, there’s Trump’s vision of his hands-on role in the program.

Trump lies his ass off about the economy: "We have more growth than this country has ever had. And we have more growth than any country in the world is having right now."

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-10-20T18:40:15.035Z

“When you do these things, sometimes there’s a dispute about who turned them in, who didn’t turn them in and who is supposed to get what and when,” the president said. “So I am going to do something which I think people will like: I will be the arbitrator of all of these decisions. In other words, I’ll determine whether or not the person is deserving.”

In other words, the Justice Department is administering the program, but Trump expects to personally intervene, taking time from the day job he’s supposed to be doing, to adjudicate certain cases and approve payouts.

What could possibly go wrong?

The post White House’s new fraud whistleblower program suffers from some glaring flaws appeared first on MS NOW.

When Iran started launching retaliatory attacks against American troops on bases across the Middle East earlier this year, the U.S. military evacuated more than 1,250 people from a major U.S. naval base in Bahrain, according to U.S. Navy officials.

MS NOW spoke to four active-duty spouses and one civilian employee who were part of the Navy’s evacuation of military families from Bahrain in March and said the process was disorganized and chaotic. The spouses and the civilian employee were granted anonymity for fear of retaliation.

They described living with their children through traumatic days under fire in Bahrain, jolting during constant alerts on their phones warning of incoming missiles, seeing smoke clouds from bombs that hit buildings of the base and hearing the booms of interceptor missiles blowing up incoming Iranian drones and rockets.

“I was terrified. I laid really close to my kids because I was like at least if we die, we’ll die and one person won’t be left,” one spouse said.

For two families, their service member spouses were relocated out of Bahrain before the U.S. bombing of Iran began on Feb. 28, leaving them alone in the country. They felt the military had transferred their spouses away and left their families behind and in harm’s way.

“Our spouses who weren’t there. They’re sitting there like ‘my family’s in a war zone and I can’t help them because I’m not there.’ Why weren’t we out? They knew something was going on and they literally left us there as sitting ducks,” said one spouse, whose husband evacuated before the war.

In the opening days of the war, Iranian missiles hit Naval Support Activity Bahrain, the headquarters for the Navy’s Fifth Fleet, which serves as an important logistics, supply and maintenance hub for American warships in the region.

The military reduced staff on the base to “mission critical status,” and the Navy had to rely more heavily on a small logistics base on the remote island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, 2,200 miles away from the Gulf of Oman, for resupplying the carrier strike groups they had deployed to fight the war.

The move slowed down supplies to the ships and the thousands of service members who were living and working on them, causing food and supplies to be rationed for periods of time.

According to a September report to Congress, Bahrain has been the fourth most targeted country by Iranian missile and drone attacks in the region since the war began. In the opening days of the conflict, Iranian attacks damaged the command headquarters, two satellite communications terminals, warehouses and a dozen other buildings, with estimates of the damage nearing $400 million.

Prior to the war, the Navy base in Bahrain served 8,300 military personnel, civilian contractors and dependents, according to the Navy. After the evacuations, that number reportedly dwindled to a fraction of that.

In a recent interview, acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao said that Iran “blew the hell out of Bahrain” and that he has assigned a task force to look into whether or not the base should be repaired.

‘Living in a nightmare’

The families interviewed by MS NOW said they have been living in limbo ever since their hasty departure from Bahrain.

Many left with only one suitcase per person, leaving behind household furniture and personal items with no clear idea when they may see those things again.

They described moving between multiple continents, draining their financial savings and soothing children who were traumatized by the nearby explosions they heard during the Iranian attacks.

Some said they temporarily moved to Germany so their children could be in U.S. military-run schools with some of the same children they had known on the base in Bahrain. The Navy told the families they had to relocate to the United States by June, according to the families, which many scrambled to do, even though they didn’t have the things left behind in Bahrain.

Most of them moved into either short-term furnished rentals or hotels. They said the financial costs of the past year have been devastating.

“My savings is gone, my savings is zero,” one spouse said. She said she has spent tens of thousands of dollars on basic necessities, including an inexpensive car to get her kids around.

Additional funds from the military to cover evacuation costs are scheduled to run out at the end of November. But the families MS NOW spoke to still don’t feel settled, and many said they feel traumatized by the experience and let down by the Navy.

“I feel like I’m living in a nightmare, it’s awful,” another spouse said.

MS NOW reached out to U.S. Central Command for more information and clarification about the evacuation process and what the next steps are for the evacuees. CENTCOM officials did not return requests for comment.

‘Constant alarms’

The families of service members are still grappling with fresh memories of those frightening days in March in Bahrain

The spouse of another service member said she didn’t leave her house in Bahrain for days, shutting all the blinds and curtains and hunkering down with her kids and pets. She said she made a bathroom area inside her house for her pets because she was terrified of leaving.

“My priority was making sure my kids are alive,” she said.

Another spouse said a family friend who also serves in the Navy came to check on her and her sons because they had heard it was going to be a night of heavy attack. She said she hid in a parking garage with the sailor and her sons for seven hours.

“It was surreal thinking about how scared my children were. It is something I will never forget for the rest of my life,” she said.

Even the civilian employee, who spent more than 20 years in the Navy, said the days following Feb. 28 were shocking.

“To just sit there in your house and listen to the war over top of you in the sirens and the constant alarms,” the civilian employee said. “It’s rough to put yourself in that situation, it’s even rougher when the whole time you’re thinking well I put my family in the situation. They’re sitting on the couch next to me.”

Some of the spouses ended up not being able to leave Bahrain for almost two weeks after Feb. 28. The ones whose husbands left before them said they are infuriated that the Navy decided to leave their families in a war zone.

“He can’t talk about it still to this day even to his friends that come over without literally crying every time he says it out loud,” one wife said.

‘I was very ashamed’

Almost all of the evacuees MS NOW spoke to had lived in Bahrain for years and said they loved living in the country that felt like home to them. They described their kids thriving in the schools there in a community of close-knit international families.

Some said they had grown close to many expats who had come to Bahrain for a better life from other countries to work in the hospitality and service industry. They said since they have left Bahrain, many of those people, whom they have stayed in touch with on social media, have lost their jobs because of the mass exodus of Americans from the region.

“We should have done more to protect our regional allies. There’s so many people who don’t have the resources to just leave like we did,” one spouse said. “I have a weird mix of stress, guilt and invalidation about my experience.”

She said she felt enormous guilt about leaving Bahrain.

“I was very ashamed to be American and panicking and like ‘we have to get out of here’ because of this huge mess that we [the United States] made,” she said when she had to grapple with the fact that she was leaving behind a local community in Bahrain that would still be subjected to the danger she was able to escape from.

‘It was utter chaos’

Each member of the group of evacuees MS NOW spoke to are married to someone who spent more than 15 years in the military or had served themselves. They all said they had never experienced something like the evacuation this spring, and most of them had previously been evacuated during the 12-day war in the summer of 2025. During that evacuation, they said they were taken back to the U.S. for 90 days prior to the military operations beginning.

The spouses interviewed by MS NOW said there was very little communication from official channels or their husbands’ commands, leaving them to rely primarily on the U.S. Embassy’s social media pages for information and WhatsApp group chats with other family members trying to figure out how to evacuate.

“It was utter chaos. I had no one to talk to, no access to information, nothing,” one spouse said.

With the airport shut down in Bahrain after Iranian threats, many of the families had to be evacuated overland through Saudi Arabia.

One spouse said that when she finally made it to the bus meeting point to go to Riyadh in Saudi Arabia from Bahrain, she learned that there were some families where both parents were in the military and had to stay behind in Bahrain because they were considered “essential personnel.” Those families were trying to find adults who would evacuate their minor children out of the region.

“I was on a bus with a lady who had two other kids from two different families on top of her own kids and her pet and someone else’s pet and I was like ‘God bless you’,” one spouse said. “Some of these weren’t even teenagers, these were like 10 year old kids.”

‘Not telling the truth’

Most of the military spouses said their husbands are already eligible for retirement, which means they have served at least 20 years on active duty. All of the spouses said that because of this experience, their husbands are considering getting out of the military, with one already having submitted his retirement paperwork.

“It has been a challenge, let me tell you, for somebody who has over two decades of government service in active duty and now almost five as a civilian … this last year has made me realize that the call of service is starting to wane,” the civilian employee said.

“No one’s ever spoken a word to us besides, like ‘we’re proud of your resilience’. That’s not enough,” one spouse said. “I’m angry because no one will acknowledge any of it, and they just keep tiptoeing around it … I’m pissed at the Navy.”

“They’re not telling the truth. They’re not telling the full story. They’re not telling how much damage there really was,” another said.

One spouse said she thinks this entire experience has weighed heavily on her husband and other service members who were put in a position of having to fight in a war while being concerned about their families’ safety.

“I don’t know how they can be performing their best when their families are under so much stress,” she said.

That spouse has written letters to members of her congressional delegation and the newly formed Military Spouse Commission run by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s wife, Jennifer Hegseth. The spouse said she received responses of acknowledgement of her letter from her lawmakers but nothing from the commission yet.

“The government has an obligation to keep me safe and that includes having a plan for my protection and my safety for myself and my children,” she said.

Rep. John Garamendi, D-Calif., a member of the House Armed Services Committee said to MS NOW in a statement: “The rushed evacuation of the military base in Bahrain is emblematic of President Trump and Secretary Hegseth’s war in Iran: chaos, confusion, and completely avoidable. The servicemembers and their families should receive transparency on this process and the military needs to treat their concerns expeditiously and with respect.”

The post ‘I was terrified’: Military families describe their harrowing evacuation from a Navy base in Bahrain appeared first on MS NOW.

In a new, unaired attack ad against Amy Acton, the Democrat running for governor of Ohio, her estranged mother speaks directly to the camera to accuse her of lying about her past. It was not clear who is responsible for the ad, which has drawn widespread condemnation, including from Acton’s brother.

“Don’t vote for people who lie,” says Donna Arthur — who married a man whom Acton accused of sexually abusing her as a child — in the video. “Don’t let her become your governor.”

The video began circulating online after a version without a “paid for” disclosure was posted Monday by Ohio political blog The Rooster.

On Tuesday, Philip Stearns, Acton’s brother, condemned the video in a statement released by her campaign, accusing Acton’s Republican rival, Vivek Ramaswamy, of a “desperate, disgusting attack.”

“It’s not surprising that Vivek Ramaswamy has stooped to such a despicable low as to attempt to turn the sexual abuse Amy endured at twelve years old from our birth mother’s husband into a political talking point,” Stearns said.

“After he was arrested and Amy and I were removed from their custody, our birth mother stayed married to Amy’s rapist until he died,” he added. “This desperate, disgusting attack reveals exactly who Vivek Ramaswamy is at his core — a pathetic excuse for a man who is willing to hurt anyone as long as it gets him what he wants.”

When asked if the Ramaswamy campaign had a hand in creating the video, spokesperson Connie Luck did not explicitly deny the campaign’s involvement.

“We don’t know what happened between Amy and her mother, who first spoke out about Amy in 2020, but we know that Amy Acton is a serial fabulist who has some serious problems with the truth that the public needs to be aware of before deciding who to entrust as governor,” Luck said, in part, in a statement to MS NOW.

Acton’s campaign spokesperson, Addie Bullock, also attributed the ad to her Republican rival.

“The choice to use, and then stand by, Dr. Acton’s estranged and abusive mother who stayed married to her rapist stepfather until the day he died shows Ohioans exactly who Vivek Ramaswamy is,” Bullock said.

The video does not have any reservations, according to AdImpact, which means no money has been put into airing it.

Acton has talked openly about her and her brother’s difficult upbringing. The siblings were homeless for a time growing up, and Acton said they lived in a tent during one winter. She also accused her stepfather of sexual abuse and testified about it to a grand jury, according to Politico.

In 2019, Acton told The Vindicator, a now-shuttered local news outlet, that the last time she saw her mother was after her stepfather’s arrest on criminal charges.

“In the courthouse after they were charged, I went to give her a kiss, and she just turned her cheek away. That was the last time I ever saw her,” Acton said.

Arthur disputed Acton’s allegations against her husband in a 2020 interview with a conservative website, saying she went to court that day to support her husband. She also disputed her daughter’s account of their last interaction.

The National Review, citing court records, reported Tuesday that:

While Donna Arthur was married to Cledith Arthur in 1978 when Acton was 12 years old, Cledith Arthur was charged with having sexual contact with her, documents show. Evidence against him included a sworn statement from Acton’s biological father, and Acton herself was called to testify as a witness. Following his indictment by a grand jury, Cledith Arthur skipped town.

The Review did not report whether the case went to trial or its outcome.

Acton and Ramaswamy are locked in a tight race for governor that has resulted in extremely personal attack ads on both sides. Polls have shown Acton with a narrow lead.

Stearns, too, has talked about his and his sister’s childhood and has credited Acton with saving his life.

“We had all sorts of forms of abuse, neglect, hunger,” he said in a video for her campaign released last week. “I received a lot of abuse, but Amy always got the worst of it. She continued to receive that abuse because she knew she had to protect me from that.”

Hannah Marr contributed reporting.

The post Brother of Democrat in Ohio governor’s race condemns attack ad featuring their estranged mother appeared first on MS NOW.

Sen. Roger Marshall’s re-election campaign is struggling for a lot of reasons, but one of the biggest problems for the Kansas Republican is the recent reporting on how he treated patients who couldn’t afford their bills during his time in private practice.

That Donald Trump is trying to defend his loyal congressional ally is not surprising. What’s notable, however, is how the president is rallying to the senator’s defense.

At a campaign rally in Kansas, Trump acknowledged the controversy but said news organizations had been unfair to the senator, since Marshall was “mandated by law” to “go after those people.” That wasn’t even close to being true — there was no legal requirement for Marshall to garnish paychecks, seek arrest warrants or charge punitive interest rates — although the president didn’t stop there.

Trump says the press smeared Roger Marshall as "a shylock type guy"

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-10-20T00:36:34.374Z

“They made it like, oh, he was some kind of a Shylock-type guy,” the president said.

As NBC News reported, the word is widely recognized as “an antisemitic slur.”

In fairness, one might note that, in 2014, then-Vice Presiden Joe Biden used the same word, though the Delaware Democrat apologized shortly after.

Trump, in contrast, has publicly used the word more than once, and he has never apologized.

Making matters worse is the broader pattern, which makes it impossible to give Trump the benefit of the doubt. Last year, for example, the Republican president declared that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish lawmaker in the history of the U.S. Congress, is “not Jewish anymore” because the New York Democrat opposed the White House’s foreign policy agenda.

The inherent antisemitism was unavoidable. It’s not up to Trump to declare himself the arbiter of who the “real” Jews are based on his personal whims or any officials’ willingness to go along with his policies.

A year earlier, as the 2024 race neared its end, Trump publicly suggested that he intended to blame Jews, at least in part, if he lost. A month earlier, after seeing Gov. Josh Shapiro’s remarks at the Democratic National Convention, the former president decided to take a rhetorical shot at his critic. The Pennsylvania Democrat, Trump wrote online, is a “highly overrated Jewish Governor.” In context, there was no reason for the Republican to reference Shapiro’s faith. Trump did it anyway.

Months earlier, he similarly invoked the familiar “dual loyalty” trope by claiming that Jewish voters who support Democrats hate Israel.

All of this was offensive but familiar. During his 2016 campaign, the future president spoke to the Republican Jewish Coalition and said, “You’re not going to support me because I don’t want your money. You want to control your politicians.” He added, “I’m a negotiator — like you folks.”

Several months later, in the run-up to Election Day 2016, the Republican promoted antisemitic imagery on social media. In the closing days of the campaign, Trump again faced accusations of antisemitism, claiming Hillary Clinton met “in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty in order to enrich these global financial powers.”

During his first term, Trump continued to use highly provocative rhetoric about Jews and what he expected of their “loyalties.” In 2019, he spoke at the Israeli American Council’s national summit, where he suggested Jewish people are primarily focused on wealth, which is why he expected them to support his re-election campaign.

After his 2020 defeat, Trump kept this going, whining that Jewish voters “don’t love Israel enough,” dining with prominent antisemites at Mar-a-Lago, and arguing that Jews need to “get their act together” and “appreciate” Israel “before it is too late.”

In late 2022, he went so far as to declare that Jewish leaders “should be ashamed of themselves” over their “lack of loyalty.”

Trump occasionally expresses bewilderment over his lack of support among Jewish voters. Why he finds this confusing is a mystery.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

The post Trump’s latest example of antisemitic rhetoric was hardly his first appeared first on MS NOW.

MS NOW’s Rachel Maddow described what she called the “presidential snowflake factor” that’s weighing down Republicans ahead of the midterms, as President Donald Trump continues to campaign for GOP candidates in red states while his party fights to hold onto Congress.

Maddow said Trump has spent his second term “pursuing things that make him feel good about himself” instead of focusing on policies that could give Republicans issues to tout to voters.

“You get all the vanity projects and him naming everything, and all the gold gewgaws everywhere that make him feel wealthy, all the pointless and feckless revenge investigations and attempted prosecutions of his perceived enemies,” she said. “It’s all stuff that’s designed to make him feel powerful and to feel good about himself.”

The “Rachel Maddow Show” host said Trump’s approval rating is “deep, deep, deep down in the political toilet” and argued that his preoccupation with praise has left little room for a strategy focused on actually helping Republicans in November.

“I think it’s obvious that he’s not going to pursue a midterm strategy that is based on propping up vulnerable Republican candidates other than himself,” she said.

Maddow said Trump had become such a “wuss” and a “snowflake” that he could only “bear hearing happy stories about himself.” She added, “He can only go to places where he gets adulation, and he only can stand ever hearing ‘Yes.’”

“He’s only going to go to places that still like him, and there are vanishingly few of those left,” she said.

View this post on Instagram

You can watch Maddow’s full comments in the clip above.

The post Rachel Maddow: Trump’s ‘presidential snowflake factor’ could leave GOP in the cold appeared first on MS NOW.

A bipartisan group of state attorneys general apparently isn’t buying OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s insistence that “the world should accept some bad things happening” in order to reap the benefits of artificial intelligence technology.

Amid allegations that OpenAI’s chatbot, ChatGPT, has helped fuel school shootings and teen suicides, at least eight states are suing the company, accusing it of violating consumer protection laws and putting young users in danger.

The AGs are clearly paying no mind to President Donald Trump’s assertion that AI companies should be allowed to “self-police” as they rapidly develop their AI tools.

As The Guardian reported:

Eight US states sued OpenAI Wednesday, alleging the ChatGPT maker is harming children en masse.

Kansas, Arizona, Montana, Iowa and four others allege the company’s products carried out “willful, dangerous, reckless and unlawful conduct” by coaxing children into harming themselves.

“OpenAI is hurting kids and they are lying to Iowans,” Brenna Bird, the attorney general for Iowa, said in a statement. “OpenAI claims ChatGPT is safe while it’s giving dangerous medical advice, encouraging people to hurt others, and coaching people to commit suicide – all while pretending to be their fake friend.”

The lawsuits, which seek monetary damages and restrictions and court-imposed changes to how OpenAI builds its AI models, were also filed in Arkansas, Idaho, Nebraska and West Virginia. An OpenAI spokesperson told The Guardian that the company has “built industry-leading age-specific protections into our product that many other AI products lack.”

The lawsuits underscore states’ interests in placing guardrails on AI companies as the Trump administration — led by someone who has invested heavily in the AI industry — seeks to prevent states from passing their own regulations. They also come amid widespread public concern about AI tools destroying humanity.

To be clear, such efforts by states have run into roadblocks. For example, Elon Musk recently won a partial victory when his AI company secured a preliminary injunction temporarily blocking a Minnesota law from going into effect that would ban AI tools that generate nonconsensual sexual imagery, including of children.

Nonetheless, the OpenAI lawsuit shows that several states are being rather relentless in pursuing AI regulations — no matter the obstacles.

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MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Police on Tuesday charged a driver with intentionally causing serious injury to an Australian federal lawmaker who is in critical condition after being struck by a car in an apparent escalation in political violence that has shocked the nation.

Helen Haines, a 65-year-old independent politician, was in hospital in critical but stable condition after being struck by a car outside her office in the city of Wangaratta, in Victoria state, on Monday in what police alleged was a “targeted” incident.

Brendan Nugent, from nearby Tarrawingee, was charged with intentionally causing serious injury, dangerous driving causing serious injury and causing harm to a federal official, police said in a statement on Tuesday.

Suspect to face court on Wednesday

Nugent has been in police custody since shortly after Haines was injured and a crowd of bystanders subdued him. He will appear in a Wangaratta court on Wednesday, when he could potentially be released on bail.

His father, Rod Nugent, released a statement Tuesday describing Haines as a “deeply respected, valued and much-loved member of our local community.”

“Helen has been our friend for more than 20 years and what happened to her yesterday is devastating and unfathomable,” the father said, adding that he would cooperate with police.

The incident shocked Australians as political violence is rare here and politicians have always been accessible to the public. Most lawmakers are not accompanied by security officers and go about their work and personal lives on their own.

The prime minister thanks a bystander for intervening

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he phoned local barber Ricky Jefferies, who had run from his store to help members of the public detain the suspect, to thank him on Tuesday for intervening.

“It’s a reminder that at the worst of times, we see the best of the Australian character,” Albanese said in Melbourne.

Jefferies earlier told reporters he searched the driver’s pockets and removed a knife. Police confirmed a knife had been found. Jefferies also said he did not consider himself a hero.

“It was crazy,” he said. “A lot of people got involved immediately and they didn’t even check for danger. They just ran to help.”

The lawmaker’s family says it’s grateful for the ‘swift assistance of bystanders’

Haines’s family released a statement expressing thanks for the “swift assistance of bystanders” as well as health workers and police.

Haines, who was first elected to Parliament in 2019 and had been reelected twice since, was initially taken to a hospital in Wangaratta, a city of 30,000 people. She was airlifted later on Monday to a hospital in the state capital, Melbourne, 147 miles away.

The Alfred Hospital didn’t respond Tuesday to a request for comment on media reports that Haines had had a leg amputated.

Albanese announced on Monday that the national counterterrorism team was investigating, incorporating police and intelligence agencies. Police have since said the incident appears to be isolated.

“This wasn’t an accident. There was a deliberate act, it would appear. We don’t know what the motivation is,” he said.

Recent data has shown that threats of political violence have grown in Australia. The head of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation spy agency, Mike Burgess, on Tuesday reiterated an earlier warning that politically motivated violence was a top security concern, along with espionage and foreign interference.

Police reported in 2025 that threats against parliamentarians had doubled over the past three years. Official data showed more than 1,000 such threats against politicians in the 2025-2026 fiscal year.

Albanese and lawmakers from across the political spectrum spoke to media outlets Tuesday, urging their colleagues, reporters and the public to turn down the heat in increasingly fractious political debates. Many also said they hoped Australia’s easygoing culture of approachable politicians wouldn’t change.

The injured lawmaker was not considered controversial or polarizing

Haines was not known for polarizing views. The daughter of dairy farmers and mother of three was a nurse, midwife and academic before entering politics, and advocated for rural health matters. She was initially elected in 2019 with a campaign focused on health equity, rural prosperity and climate action.

Albanese said eyewitnesses had reported the suspect passed Haines in his SUV as she stood by the trunk of her parked car. The SUV then turned and came back before the driver allegedly drove into the politician, the prime minister said.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke told Australian Broadcasting Corp. that the driver allegedly reversed and struck Haines a second time, pinning her against her car, after initially hitting her.

One of the bystanders who came to Haines’ assistance, Cody Lepoidevin, told reporters he thought he was witnessing a hit-and-run when the SUV backed away after she was first struck.

But instead of fleeing the scene, Lepoidevin said the driver “then reversed and drove back into her.”

Australia has a low rate of political violence

Elsewhere in the world, authorities have warned of growing threats to lawmakers. The United States has seen a rise in political violence over the past decade.

That includes the 2022 hammer assault on the husband of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, in California; the 2024 assassination attempt on Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally during his presidential campaign, as well as another on the president at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in April; and the assassinations in 2025 of a Democratic Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband, and of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk in Utah.

In Britain, killings of politicians have also prompted bolstered security. Labour lawmaker Jo Cox was shot and stabbed in 2016 by a far-right extremist, while Conservative David Amess was stabbed in 2021 by an attacker inspired by the militant Islamic State group.

In July, the former British politician and reality TV contestant Ann Widdecombe was found beaten to death with a hammer at her home. A man has been charged with murder and terrorism-related offenses.

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MS NOW’s Joe Scarborough blasted President Donald Trump for making false and misleading claims about Kansas Democratic Senate nominee Adam Hamilton at a rally for Republican Sen. Roger Marshall on Monday, asking how “stupid” the president thinks his supporters are.

Trump attacked Hamilton, the senior pastor of the Church of the Resurrection, the nation’s largest United Methodist congregation. He said Hamilton supports “flooding Kansas with unvetted refugees,” said the pastor “openly mocks Jesus” and accused him of using church money to fund “anti-religious transgender activities.”

“Everything you said there was a lie,” Scarborough said Tuesday on “Morning Joe,” after playing a clip of Trump’s remarks. A fact check by The Kansas City Star found that Hamilton does not support open borders and has said “dangerous criminals don’t belong here.” Hamilton also told ABC News earlier this month that he believes there are two genders while criticizing Trump for turning transgender people into a political target: “The president has taken a group of people that represent a very tiny minority of people who are bullied and picked on and harassed, and he’s tried to make them a campaign issue.”

Scarborough called it “deeply offensive” for Trump to attack “the pastor of the largest Methodist church in America, who preaches the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

“If you listen to his sermons, that’s what he does, which is the antithesis of what Donald Trump does every day when he lies about people, when he’s angry, when he attacks other people — not for political differences, but just attacks them personally and spreads lies,” he added.

Trump also defended Marshall over a controversy involving his former OB-GYN practice. A review of Kansas court records by The New York Times found that the practice sued more than 700 former patients over unpaid bills, some as small as $101, and routinely were charged 18% annual interest. In 81 cases, patients were arrested after missing court dates.

The president said Marshall “was given a bum rap because he was mandated by law to request, strongly, money owed from patients.” But no law required doctors to sue patients over unpaid bills.

“Marshall wasn’t mandated to go after single mothers and have them thrown in jail,” Scarborough said, adding, “It’s just like, how stupid do you think your supporters are?”

Watch Scarborough’s full comments in the clip at the top of the page.

The post ‘Everything you said there was a lie’: Joe Scarborough rips Trump’s Kansas rally appeared first on MS NOW.

This is the Oct. 20, 2026, edition of “The Tea, Spilled by Morning Joe” newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered straight to your inbox Monday through Friday.

Hello, “Morning Joe” family!

We love hearing from you. Here’s what was on your mind this week. As always, you can write to us anytime.

MAILBAG

Joe — it’s so frustrating to see good friends of mine and family be so dismissive of the incompetence and corruption in both Trump administrations. Their rationale is “it’s nothing new and all politicians are corrupt.” As a result they don’t pay attention to the daily goings-on in D.C. Whatever happened to the concept of an informed electorate?

— Kevin H., Wilmington, N.C.

Kevin, I share your frustration. So many friends I have known ignore inconvenient facts while chasing conspiracy theories that make them feel better about supporting Donald Trump.

The facts are not on their side.

When I ask where they get their information, they tell me that they don’t follow the news because media outlets can’t be trusted. But when I push harder, I often learn they are fed a steady stream of lies daily from false posts on Facebook, from websites like Epoch Times run by Chinese religious cults, and from other conspiracy-fueled outlets that have no editors, ethical guidelines, or journalistic standards.

The latest Fox News poll brings welcome news: Corruption is listed by voters as the most important issue in the 2026 election. With costs exploding for groceries, gas, diesel, healthcare, and rent, Americans are paying closer attention to politicians who use their position in government to enrich themselves and their families.

That is bad news for Donald Trump.

Considering Trump’s reckless behavior towards EVERYTHING, if the Democrats manage to flip the House and Senate, what can they do to thaw Trump’s efforts to undermine our democracy, the Ukrainian war, etc.?

— Doug B.

Depending on their margin of victory, Democrats should look for opportunities to work with Republicans to address corruption, the cost of living crisis, and Trump‘s continued support for Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

They should start with the most unifying issue: Ukraine.

Republicans and Democrats should pass bipartisan bills regarding Ukraine with veto-proof margins. Such legislation could aggressively support the freedom fighters’ efforts to push back against the Russian invasion.

Many Republican senators are horrified that their president is eagerly working with a former KGB spy to undermine Western democracy. If Democrats win big next month, expect GOP lawmakers to line up in support of Ukrainian funding measures that could have a powerful impact on the war’s outcome.

Republicans and Democrats can also drive down prices by retaking control of their tariff authority and Congress’s power to declare war.

For two years, Republican majorities have shamefully abdicated those duties to Donald Trump, who has started wars and levied tariffs on countries for the most reckless of reasons. Those wars and tariffs end up working as taxes on middle-class Americans and others who can’t afford higher costs at the grocery store or gas pump.

I would also expect Republicans to work with Democratic majorities on anti-corruption measures aimed at stopping the Trump family from continuing to cash in on public service. Right now, corruption is an issue that unites members of both parties who have been horrified or ashamed by the practices of the president and his family over the past 20 months.

Also expect much activity from the oversight committees in both the House and Senate, as they work to uncover any pay-to-play schemes hatched from the start of Trump’s second administration.

Trump has been talking to Putin a lot lately and giving him relief from sanctions and buying diesel fuel from Russia. With only two weeks for the election, what do you think about the possibility that Trump is having Putin disrupt the midterm elections in return for favors?

— Pat M., Pittsburgh

Despite the lies spread by Donald Trump and his supporters, Vladimir Putin worked aggressively to influence American elections in 2016, 2020, and 2024. I have no doubt that he is using his state authority to spread disinformation across the United States today and every day up until the 2026 election.

Putin’s war on democracy has not just been fought on the front lines in Ukraine. It has also been waged through cyberwarfare and misinformation to twist policy debates and shape political outcomes across Europe and the Americas. Unfortunately, these efforts have worked all too well, as a confederacy of dunces has willingly lined up to play useful idiots for Russia.

Here’s hoping that all of that will be exposed by Democrats if they can take control of Congress.

Joe, leaders fall into two categories: those who appeal to our basest instincts and those who inspire us to become better versions of ourselves. Who has inspired you to become better than you would have been without their influence?

— Gary B., Greensboro, N.C.

Thank you so much for your great question, Gary.

Yesterday, “Morning Joe” ran a package on the life and times of Ethel Kennedy as told by her daughter Kerry. Watching her story and those images flash across the screen reminded me how much Bobby Kennedy influenced my decision to get into politics.

After reading Arthur Schlesinger Jr.’s biography of the senator, I found myself inspired by a man who dared to make a difference — even if his worldview was different than mine.

I was most moved by what Bobby Kennedy did the night Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968. Kennedy was campaigning for the presidency in Indianapolis that day, but wanted to take a detour into the inner city to tell Black voters the terrible news.

The Indianapolis Police Department urged him to stay away, fearing there would be riots and bloodshed downtown. Kennedy persisted, and later that evening, a police escort guided him and his driver to the edge of the neighborhood before stopping and turning around.

Kennedy’s car made its way to his destination, and he got out to address his audience:

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I’m only going to talk to you just for a minute or so this evening, because I have some very sad news for all of you and people who love peace all over the world; and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee.

Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. He died in the cause of that effort. In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it’s perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in.

For those of you who are black and are tempted to fill with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act against all white people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed by a white man.

But we have to make an effort to go beyond these difficult times.

My favorite poet was Aeschylus. And he once wrote:

Even in our sleep,

pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart,

until in our own despair,

against our will,

comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.

What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love, and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.

So I ask you tonight to return home to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King, but more importantly, to say a prayer for our own country.

We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times.

But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings that abide in our land.

And let’s dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world. Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.

Thank you very much.

Remembering that night in a 2007 essay for Washington Monthly, Evan Thomas wrote, “As news of King’s death spread through poor neighborhoods across the country, riots broke out in 110 cities, killing 39 people and injuring 2,500. But in the city of Indianapolis, where Kennedy had spoken, it was quiet.”

The post “If Democrats win, they should focus on the most unifying issue: Ukraine”: Joe Scarborough answers reader questions appeared first on MS NOW.

Donald Trump’s first bailout for farmers came in 2018, at which point the president approved payments totaling $12 billion. A year later, the Republican administration kept going, announcing a bailout for farmers worth $16 billion.

Late last year, the president launched another $12 billion bailout for farmers, many of whom were harmed by the White House’s misguided and ill-fated trade tariffs policy, though the money proved insufficient. As my MS NOW colleague Hayes Brown summarized, the policy was little more than “duct tape on a broken pipe,” which did “little to fix the underlying problem.”

In June, Trump made it clear that he was eyeing a possible fourth bailout for the industry. And this week he followed through, announcing an $8 billion bailout during a campaign rally in Kansas, specifically aimed at helping farmers address higher diesel costs. The New York Times reported:

Under the plan, known as the Harvest Fuel Relief Program, the Agriculture Department will use a formula based on how many acres and which crops farmers planted to reimburse them for a “portion” of their losses. The money will come from the Commodity Credit Corporation, a financing institution that the Agriculture Department uses to fund crop insurance and natural disaster payment programs.

Payment rates will be announced next month, and farmers will receive money at a later date.

There’s ample reason to believe the $8 billion will be insufficient. But just as notably, at no point during Trump’s event did he mention that farmers were struggling with higher diesel costs because of the war with Iran that the president launched eight months ago.

Indeed, the one thing that all four of the bailouts have in common is that they’re effectively admissions of guilt: Trump’s agenda continues to hurt his own country’s agriculture industry, which in turn has necessitated a series of payouts.

As for the timing of the president’s latest announcement, it comes just two weeks before Election Day, with early voting underway in many states. It’s a safe bet that the bailout was intended to address intensifying discontent among voters in farming communities, who have long backed Republicans but don’t appear to have much to show for it. As MS NOW reported this week:

After two decades of defeats in rural America, Democrats are suddenly putting up a fight in farm country. The party is running competitive Senate races in Iowa, Kansas and other farm states, as well as House races in heavily rural districts that could help it regain control of Congress in January.

Credit (or blame, depending on your party) for this reversal of fortune lies with President Donald Trump’s tariffs and his war with Iran, which have battered farmers and pushed the rural economy into crisis. The Department of Agriculture’s analysts expect farmers’ net incomes to decline by 5.5% this year, as costs rise and receipts fall. The National Agricultural Law Center’s tally of farm bankruptcies jumped 45% last year, and is on pace to rise another 11% in 2026.

Will Trump’s latest bailout affect voters’ attitudes, enough to stem the tide? We’ll find out in two weeks.

The post White House approves yet another bailout for farmers hurt by Trump’s agenda appeared first on MS NOW.

It’s in his personal capacity that Donald Trump is asking the Supreme Court to revive his conspiracy lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and others. Still, he says in a court filing, the high court must intervene on his behalf “to protect the Presidency.”

The suit stems from his complaint that, ahead of the 2016 election, Clinton conspired to “weave a false narrative” that his campaign colluded with Russia. Trump argues that he put off bringing the civil case during his first term due to his presidential responsibilities at the time.

In a petition to the Supreme Court this month, his lawyers ask the justices to take his appeal to decide whether that’s a good enough reason to excuse “a President” from missing a filing deadline. They also want the justices to say that courts can’t impose monetary sanctions on “the President” and his lawyers for pressing such a delay claim.

The lower courts have rejected Trump’s arguments. A conservative appeals court upheld a district judge’s ruling that dismissed his suit and imposed nearly $1 million in sanctions against him, Alina Habba and her law firm. The appellate panel noted that many of his and Habba’s legal claims “were indeed frivolous.”

The panel also cited the Supreme Court’s 1997 ruling in Clinton v. Jones that said Bill Clinton couldn’t avoid judicial process in civil litigation while he was in office. “If a president can be haled into court, he cannot be excused from suing to enforce his rights,” the panel reasoned.

In his Supreme Court petition, Trump’s lawyers maintain that there is an important distinction between suing and being sued. They said the Clinton v. Jones precedent “permitted another citizen’s suit against the President while requiring respect for the Presidency; it did not require him to pursue his own claims while in office or lose them.”

They also cited the Supreme Court’s 2024 criminal immunity ruling in Trump’s favor to argue that courts can’t make presidents decide whether to initiate personal litigation while in office. His lawyers are pressing that position as the president pursues an array of personal litigation, including multiple defamation claims.

Hillary Clinton and her civil co-defendants waived their right to respond to Trump’s petition. The court can request a response if one or more justices think it is warranted. If no response is requested, then that all but guarantees the court will decline to review the petition. Whether the court requests a response or not, it takes four justices to grant review.

The Clinton case is not Trump’s only pending bid to persuade the justices to revive personal litigation that he has lost in lower courts, nor is it the only one to invoke the presidency in doing so.

Although the court has already rejected one of his two petitions seeking to reverse his defamation losses against the writer E. Jean Carroll, his second petition is awaiting a response from Carroll before the justices decide whether to grant or likewise deny that one. There, too, his lawyers cite the criminal immunity ruling in seeking to overturn the $83.3 million judgment that Carroll won for statements Trump made during his first term.

The president is also pressing a defamation appeal against CNN over the network’s use of the phrase “big lie” regarding his 2020 election claims. That petition is awaiting a response from CNN, which the court requested after the network waived its right to respond.

We could learn later this year whether the court is interested in reviewing any or all of these cases. The court adds cases to its docket on a rolling basis and is not on a deadline to grant or deny review.

The post Trump wants justices to take his 2016 Clinton conspiracy appeal ‘to protect the Presidency’ appeared first on MS NOW.