This is an adapted excerpt from the Oct. 14 episode of “The 11th Hour with Ali Velshi.”

There is a famous saying attributed to Plato about the price society pays for treating politics with indifference: “One of the penalties of refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”

Here we are — way past the “being governed by our inferiors” stage of things. We are being governed by a would-be autocrat, his ruthless Cabinet of sycophants and a cabal of oligarchs. Donald Trump has sent masked ICE forces into American neighborhoods, where they snatch our neighbors off the streets and fire at protesters and into vehicles. He’s targeting his most vocal critics for investigation, indictment, arrest and harassment.

But Trump and his accomplices aren’t stronger than you are, and participating now means more than simply voting — it means resisting.

On Tuesday, a judge indefinitely blocked the president’s press ban. For the last month, Trump has tried to block three news networks — MS NOW, CNN and Politico — from the White House simply because he does not like the stories they publish. Expectedly, a White House spokesperson has already said they will appeal the judge’s ruling.

Trump is following an established roadmap: an allegedly anti-establishment outsider takes advantage of a right-wing populist movement and is elected president in 2016. Yes, that’s how Trump came to power, but it’s also how Rodrigo Duterte was elected in the Philippines.

Duterte was a brutal leader who presided over what he called a “war on drugs.” But in reality, it was a justification for government-linked vigilantes to openly carry out savage murders in the streets of the Philippines. Those murders became known as “extrajudicial killings.” And to this day, nobody knows exactly how many “extrajudicial killings” took place under his leadership. Some estimate the death toll to be as high as 30,000.

Regardless, Filipino journalists with spines of steel pursued the story relentlessly, and the Duterte administration punished them for it. Many reporters and outlets were targeted, but few felt Duterte’s wrath worse than Maria Ressa, the founder of the digital news site Rappler.

Rappler was a fearless critic of the government. Its journalists wrote many stories laying out the truth about Duterte’s so-called war on drugs and the widespread corruption that happened during his administration.

In response, the government retaliated against Rappler — many times. In 2018, one of its reporters was once barred, without warning, from entering the grounds of the presidential palace, the Philippines’ equivalent to the White House.

During a nationally televised State of the Nation address in 2017, Duterte accused Rappler of being foreign-owned. In a follow-up statement, he added, “Not only is Rappler’s news fake, it being Filipino is also fake.”

A government task force accused it of being associated with communists as part of an effort to shut it down, and the outlet even had its license revoked at one point.

Ressa herself was targeted. In November 2018, she was charged with a series of tax-related crimes, including tax evasion. A few months later, she was arrested and charged under an anti-cybercrimes law that the Duterte administration widely used to go after journalists and other critics. A court found her guilty, but the case remains under appeal.

Despite all of those attacks, Ressa showed the world how to stand up to a dictator. She endured years of being treated as a criminal and never wavered from defending her rights and those of the free press.

All of the tax-related charges against her have since been dropped. Rappler’s license was also restored by the court, and it remains a top news site in the country.

In 2021, Ressa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her work. Meanwhile, Duterte is awaiting trial at The Hague after he was arrested and charged by the International Criminal Court with crimes against humanity last year.

In Ressa’s new book, “The Fight Back: A Citizen’s Guide to Standing Up to Dictators,” she offers Americans a blueprint for confronting an autocratic leader — and defending democracy before it’s too late.

“Courage isn’t the absence of fear; it’s the decision that something matters more,” she wrote. “It’s the first step in the fight back.”

Allison Detzel contributed.

The post Journalists who stood up to an autocrat have a blueprint for fighting Trump appeared first on MS NOW.

This is an adapted excerpt from the Oct. 14 episode of “The Briefing with Jen Psaki.”

On Wednesday, Donald Trump delivered his most unhinged performance at a political rally that I have seen to date. I understand how easy it is to dismiss whatever nonsense falls out of the president’s mouth on a given day — after all, the nonsense is part of the strategy; he wants to distract us with it — but his speech in Bullhead City, Arizona, should not be ignored.

At nearly every one of his rallies this election season, Trump has told voters to pretend he’s on the ballot this November. And so, less than 20 days out from this hugely consequential election, I happen to think that every single Republican in every single race in the country should have to answer for the things he says. Every single Republican candidate for office who is telling voters they support this guy should have to explain to those voters where they stand on this madness.

Trump is unraveling at a pace we haven’t really seen before and he is making less and less sense.

That includes his comments from Wednesday’s rally about government workers who speak to the press. In an apparent reference to the first strikes Trump ordered on Iran in the summer of 2025 and the subsequent reporting that came out of the Pentagon, the president told the crowd that “leakers” are the “scum of the earth,” adding, “They ought to go to jail and be shot for the rest of their life.”

The question every Republican candidate should have to answer between now and November is: Do you agree with Trump that leakers should be shot? Do you agree with Trump that the U.S. government should shoot anyone who leaks information to the media? The leader of your party thinks leakers should be shot — do you agree? A simple yes or no answer would suffice.

Perhaps we might get a clearer answer on something a little less violent. During his rally on Wednesday, Trump also defended his decision to accept a jet as a gift from Qatar to use as the new Air Force One. “When you’re given gifts, you take ’em, right?” he said. “When they give you a 747, you say two words: ‘Thank you.’”

Again, any Republican candidate, if they support Trump, should be asked: Are you okay with the president of the United States accepting a $400 million gift from a foreign country that may want something in return? A gift that, I should add, reportedly raised several national security and counterintelligence concerns, is in open violation of the Constitution and cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars to retrofit, according to estimates.

Do you think that should be allowed? Do you think that’s a good idea? Do you think the only acceptable answer to a gift like that from a foreign country is “thank you”? Are you worried about what Qatar or any other country may want in return?

Or at the bare minimum, do you think it is appropriate when so many Americans are struggling to put food on the table or to fill their gas tanks because everything is so expensive — thanks to Trump’s war with Iran — that the president is on stage in Arizona bragging about the cost of oil? Trump told the crowd the U.S. is “making more money than it’s ever made because of the fact that oil is so high.”

“Now, they’re going to say, ‘Isn’t it terrible? He talked about the fact that he doesn’t care about the little person,’” he continued. “I care about the little person like crazy. But the fact is, because of the price of oil, Texas and Oklahoma and North Dakota and all these places, we’re making a fortune.”

Who, exactly, is making a fortune? Republican candidates should have to answer that question. And they should have to tell voters whether they think the high price of oil is a good thing, as Trump does.

Trump has said versions of all of this before. But what’s notable now is that he is unraveling at a pace we haven’t really seen before and he is making less and less sense.

For example, when, for some reason, he went on a bizarre tangent about the doctors he travels with. He told the crowd that doctors on the White House medical unit would refuse to treat sick rallygoers, considering them “collateral damage.” He also called himself a “freaking genius” for being able to complete a basic cognitive test.

President Trump on three cognitive tests he took: "I'm a freakin' genius" pic.twitter.com/oQPXTh4TAy

— CSPAN (@cspan) October 14, 2026

Trump-supporting Republicans, do you think Trump is a genius? Do you think the person who took that stage on Wednesday in Arizona is fit for office? Are you comfortable with him having control of the nuclear codes?

We know what they’ll say. But they should still be asked.

Allison Detzel contributed.

The post Trump’s unraveling should put every Republican candidate on the spot appeared first on MS NOW.

The World Zionist Organization was founded in 1897. It has an elaborate structure, including a World Zionist Congress, a Zionist General Council, a Zionist Executive, and a Zionist Supreme Court. And this is just one of the many such entities…

“Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.”

— Jeremiah 6:16

What is happiness, and how can we get some?

Twenty years ago, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt turned to ancient wisdom and modern science for answers in his bestselling book “The Happiness Hypothesis.” Now, in a newly updated anniversary edition, he revisits that timeless question in a world transformed by smartphones, social media, and AI.

Haidt joined “Morning Joe” today to explore the sources of happiness, why children need room to struggle and fail, and how technology is crowding out the experiences that make us human.

JS: This book came out in 2006, before the smartphone era. What struck you most when you revisited it 20 years later?

JH: Two things. First, the ancient wisdom that has been passed down for literally 100 generations has held up remarkably well. And second, a year after the book came out, Steve Jobs stood on a stage and said, “Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything.” We had no idea how profoundly smartphones would reshape our relationships and even the nature of our consciousness.

WG: So what is the happiness hypothesis? What actually makes us happy?

JH: Almost every ancient tradition says happiness comes from within. But when you combine wisdom from the East and West with modern psychology, the best way to understand it is that happiness comes from between: We need to be embedded in relationships, in productive work that matters, and in something larger than ourselves.

JS: So many of the 10 great ideas in your book parallel biblical teachings: Paul writing about doing the very thing he doesn’t want to do, Jesus saying, “Judge not that ye be not judged.” Why do we keep falling short?

JH: The ancients were incredibly insightful about consciousness, the tricks our minds play, the quickness to judge, human relationships, adversity, and suffering. My early work on moral judgment was all about how our inner lawyer is always building the case against others and the defense case for ourselves. We are evolved, engineered to be hypocrites.

Mike Barnicle: One casualty of smartphones that we rarely discuss is eye contact. What happens when we lose that human connection?

JH: The guys who created all this technology are generally not known for being very good at social relationships. They don’t understand that just interacting isn’t the same as making eye contact with another human being. And especially our boys: Because they spend so much time on video games and porn, and now gambling, they’re losing social skills.

JS: Young parents especially need to hear this: Hovering isn’t doing your children any favors. Why does backing off matter so much?

JH: One of my mother’s parenting dictums — which she learned from a therapist long ago in the ’60s — was “Don’t just do something. Stand there.” Don’t rush in to help, because it’s the struggle that causes the growth. Your child’s emerging social sense needs conflicts, exclusion, and setbacks, within limits. This is why we have childhood, to have those experiences.

WG: How do we reverse the damage from smartphones and technology and reclaim our attention?

JH: It starts with a recognition that we are Team Humanity. We often think if an alien invasion comes, maybe we’ll recognize we’re all in this together. Well, guess what? The alien invasion is here: AI is, in a sense, an alien entity. We’ve got to reclaim our attention first. That’s the prerequisite to everything else.

JS: When the next president takes on education reform, what part should screens play in classrooms?

JH: They were pushed in without any research to show benefits, and there still isn’t any. They’re so damn distracting that they seem to be causing the decline in test scores and reading. The tech barons themselves tend to choose schools that have no technology. So, for the most part, rip it all out of elementary and middle schools until it is proven to be useful.

JS: Many kids today can’t write a sentence or get through a book. What’s at stake?

JH: This technology is hurting their education in exactly the ways you describe. Basic skills matter, and books most of all. Once you give a child a smartphone, they crave the quick dopamine, and it becomes very difficult to read a book. If we lose books, if we lose the accumulated wisdom of humanity because all the next generation can do is consume little snippets on TikTok, then we’re done as a civilization.

This conversation has been condensed and edited for brevity and clarity.

MORNING JOE FAMILY MEETING

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If you are interested in asking Joe a question directly over video, please let us know. These questions can be about politics, news of the day, or anything else that’s on your mind!

Participants will need to complete a short pre-interview and be available from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. ET on Tuesday, Oct. 20, to take part.

If you’re interested, please fill out this form by Friday, Oct. 16. Participants will be notified via email if selected.

CHARTS OF THE DAY

Source: Fox News poll of 1,202 registered voters conducted Oct. 9-12, 2026. Margin of error: ± 2.5 percentage points

WHAT THEY SAID

Willie Geist on Trump’s one-man show

“This is how Donald Trump views the presidency: You just do what you want. Congress is irrelevant. You don’t have to go to them for tariffs — or to start a war. Inside his own West Wing, Trump’s saying he didn’t really need to talk to his chief of staff or the FBI. It all comes from him and only him.”

David Drucker on the Trump Cabinet

“In the first term, there’s a learning curve for the president and everybody who works for him. Now, in the second term, everybody knows what they’re doing, but there’s a level of exhaustion, and the talent isn’t as good. Over the last few months, things have begun to unravel, with everybody looking over their shoulder and the president in a bubble of his own making. This is all going to show itself after the election — when everybody will have to deal with the fallout.”

Elise Jordan on James Talarico

“Talarico comes across as humble and willing to admit his missteps. He is not angry, and that’s such a big part of what voters are responding to. When someone shows a modicum of ‘Hey, I’m willing to work with the other side, and I’m not a crazy extremist,’ that goes a long way winning these crossover voters.”

The post “Don’t just do something. Stand there”: Jonathan Haidt and Joe Scarborough on raising children in the age of AI appeared first on MS NOW.

Federal contracts are supposed to be competitive. When agencies invite companies to bid, they can compare prices and qualifications — and the public can see who gets the work.

There’s an exception for unusual and compelling urgency. If waiting would seriously harm the government, an agency can limit competition to a few potential contractors, or sometimes just one, but that’s meant for problems that can’t wait.

At the Department of Homeland Security, that exception has become a much bigger part of the way business gets done. In 2024, it covered less than 1% of the department’s contract spending. Through August of this year, it has covered nearly two-thirds, according to a New York Times analysis.

In the first half of fiscal 2026, DHS accounted for 92% of the $18.4 billion federal agencies obligated under the emergency exception, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Some of the contracts went to companies with little or no federal contracting experience: a startup was paid up to $915 million to help run the administration’s “self-deportation” effort, another was paid $464 million for a fleet of used planes and a newly formed company was hired to make ads starring then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

The question is how those deals could be awarded with so little competition.

The question is how those deals could be awarded with so little competition and what Congress can do to make sure “emergency” means something again.

Several of those companies were new to federal work. Salus Worldwide Solutions, founded in 2023, had never held a federal contract before winning a $915 million deal to help run the administration’s “self-deportation” campaign. Lawmakers are investigating allegations that Corey Lewandowski, then a top adviser to Noem, asked contractors — including Salus — for payments. Salus and Lewandowski have denied any wrongdoing.

Salus’ founder, William Walters, also runs Daedalus Aviation. That company, which also had no federal contracting history, received $464 million to buy 10 used planes for DHS, including three luxury jets. Walters had donated $10,000 to a political group supporting Noem. Most of the planes have since sat parked, the Times reported.

The pattern extends beyond those two companies. Safe America Media was created just days before it won part of a $200 million DHS deal to produce ads featuring Noem. The agency said that Trump’s declaration of a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border constituted “an unusual and compelling urgency” to bypass the usual bidding process.

Other agencies have used different routes to award contracts without competition. At the Department of Health and Human Services, a deal to provide lawyers for migrant children went to Our Rescue, a group founded by Tim Ballard, whose story inspired the controversial movie “Sound of Freedom.” Reporters have not found any prior experience at Our Rescue providing legal representation to migrant children on this scale. At the Pentagon, a memo directed officials to spend up to $244 million on Palantir, with few details about why the company was selected. Trump’s ballroom, with a contract worth up to $500 million, is being built under a separate arrangement.

These exceptions and loopholes leave little room for outside scrutiny. Agencies can declare an emergency themselves, keep the justification secret and face limited chances of a legal challenge. DHS, for example, declined to explain why it needed the planes, citing national security. When a competitor challenged the Salus award, a judge ruled it had no right to sue. The ballroom took a different route: the office overseeing the White House mansion is not required to seek competing bids, though a White House official said it “consistently executes contracts following the law.”

Officials argued that urgent deportation goals justified bypassing the normal process.

The administration has said speed is the point. DHS officials have argued that urgent deportation goals justified bypassing the normal process, and the department has credited its ad campaign with persuading millions of people to leave the country. But the emergency exception was designed for situations where waiting could cause serious harm — not as a shortcut around scrutiny whenever an agency has an ambitious goal.

Congress has several ways to tighten the rules. It could require an agency inspector general to approve large emergency contracts before the money is spent, instead of reviewing them after the fact. It could also require agencies to seek fresh approval when a contract’s price rises sharply, a problem government auditors flagged at DHS years ago.

To make the process visible, lawmakers could require agencies to publish their explanations within days. If a justification includes classified information, the agency could send it privately to congressional committees rather than withholding it from everyone.

Congress could also require an automatic review when a contract goes to a company formed shortly before it won the work. And it could give watchdog groups a way to challenge questionable awards in court, since rival companies may not always have standing to sue. A separate change could close the White House construction loophole by requiring major projects there to follow the same competition rules as other federal work.

The obstacle is political. Even if Democrats win one or both chambers in November, Trump could veto a new law, and they are unlikely to have the votes to override him. But Congress must pass spending bills to keep the government open. Attaching procurement changes to those bills could give the reforms a better chance of becoming law.

There are Republicans who have raised concerns, too. Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana pressed Noem over the advertising contracts shortly before Trump fired her in March. Still, questions about individual deals have not yet changed the system that lets agencies declare their own emergencies.

The emergency rule was built for things like a burst water main at a national park. Now it’s paying for luxury jets and a ballroom. Whether that changes depends on whether Congress decides an emergency should have to be proved, not just declared.

This is a preview of MS NOW’s Project 47 Newsletter. As President Trump continues implementing his ambitious agenda, get expert analysis on the administration’s latest actions and how others are pushing back sent straight to your inbox every Tuesday. Sign up now.

The post A loophole is letting Trump hand billions to inexperienced contractors appeared first on MS NOW.

Netanyahu thwarts Board of Peace paltry effort to move forward in Gaza ■ Israeli settlers stoop to new low ■ Palestinian kids detained by the thousands ■ Kamala Harris said what now? ■ More.