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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Clifton Chenier

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features The King of Zydeco Clifton Chenier. Enjoy!

^{Clifton Chenier ~ Zydeco sant pas sale}

"Was the earth made to preserve a few covetous, proud men to live at ease, and for them to bag and barn up the treasures of the Earth from others, that these may beg or starve in a fruitful land; or was it made to preserve all her children?"

-- Gerrard Winstanley

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News and Opinion

On Google Killing 400,000 Trees To Build Data Centers In Finland

That story about Google killing hundreds of thousands of trees in Finland for its data center project is such a perfect microcosm of what capitalism is doing to our world.

Recent mass media headlines are saying the tech giant “illegally” cut down “250,000” trees, but both claims paint an inaccurate picture of what actually happened. Google killed 400,000 trees (250,000 near a town called Muhos and another 150,000 near the village of Otanmäki), and unless the company’s executives actually wind up going to prison for this, their actions cannot properly be described as “illegal”.

I don’t know who first coined the saying “If the penalty is a fine, then it’s legal for rich people,” but it certainly applies here. The Finnish Licensing and Supervision Authority has reportedly ordered Google to suspend all “measures that significantly change the environment,” saying it will “consider enforcement proceedings and fines” if the megacorporation does not comply. Google’s parent company Alphabet has a net worth of around four trillion dollars; whatever paltry penalties Finland might impose for these ecocidal actions, it won’t have any meaningful effect on Google.

Google illegally cleared an estimated 250,000 trees across 330 hectares of forest in Muhos, northern Finland, to prepare for a new AI data center before completing mandatory environmental impact assessments
And another 150,000 trees felled at Otanmäki
https://t.co/smpJX9hPR2 https://t.co/6AEa914xv4

— GO GREEN (@ECOWARRIORSS) October 23, 2026

Giant corporations do this shit all the time. They calculate that the fines incurred by their abusive actions will be dwarfed by the massive profits they generate, issue fake apologies as needed, and leave it to their armies of lawyers to minimize the damage. That’s why the Sackler family is still worth billions despite all the fines Purdue Pharma was slapped with while creating the US opiate epidemic.

A 2017 Harvard study titled “The Opioid Epidemic: Fixing a Broken Pharmaceutical Market” contains the following paragraph:

“Although civil claims and criminal charges were brought against Purdue and its executives, the resulting penalties paled in comparison to extended-release oxycodone profits. In May 2007, the company and its president, chief counsel, and former chief medical officer pled guilty to falsely marketing extended-release oxycodone as ‘less addictive, less subject to abuse and diversion, and less likely to cause tolerance and withdrawal than other pain medications.’ As part of the plea bargain, Purdue agreed to pay the federal government $600 million and 27 states $20 million. The three executives agreed to $34.5 million in fines but avoided jailtime. By contrast, Purdue has earned an estimated $31 billion in total revenues from extended-release oxycodone since its launch. Rather than deterring fraudulent marketing, the penalties simply became a cost of doing business.”

A cost of doing business.

That’s how things work under capitalism. The law primarily exists not to protect people or the environment, but to protect the interests of capital. If you destroyed a Google data center you’d probably be charged as a terrorist and spend decades in prison, but Google can destroy the natural world around you and get off with a finger wag and a symbolic fine. If you stole millions of dollars from your employer you’d go to prison for grand larceny, but if your employer steals millions from its employees you need to win a class action lawsuit to get back what they stole from you.

Under capitalism if you steal from your employer you go to jail but if your employer steals from you then you need to win a class action lawsuit to get back what they stole, and they suffer zero consequences. Capitalism is all about using state power to protect capital by force.

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) September 22, 2026

Proponents of capitalism often pretend they support minimal government intervention in civilian affairs, but their entire model is at all times propped up by state power using force to protect the haves from the have-nots at every level of our society. Corporations are free to destroy the environment, destroy your health, rob you, exploit you, and manipulate your government to their advantage, and if you ever take action to stand up to this world-devouring onslaught, the state will lock you in a cage.

In school we are taught that that the law exists to protect ordinary people from bad people, but that’s not true at all. Under capitalism, the law exists to protect the very worst among us from everyone else. That’s why we are seeing our planet being turned into dust and ashes for no reason other than shareholder profit.

It’s an insane system, and it needs to end. These freaks are feeding our entire biosphere into the woodchipper.

ISRAEL ELECTIONS: RACISM WINS, BIBI SURVIVES? WAR With Iran LOOMS

Israel election too close to call as exit polls give Netanyahu bloc slightly fewer seats

Israel’s election appeared to have delivered no clear winner on Tuesday night after a historic turnout by voters for an election described by some as the most consequential in the country’s history, and marked by a record participation by Israeli Arab voters. Exit polls published on Tuesday evening suggested that the opposition bloc of parties led by the former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, Gadi Eisenkot, would win most seats in the Knesset by a slight margin, edging out Benjamin Netanyahu’s right and far-right coalition despite the prime minister’s Likud emerging as the largest party.

The result is likely to set off weeks of jockeying over who can form a coalition government before a prime minister is declared or another round of elections is called, but represents a sharp electoral rebuke to Netanyahu. After a day in which Israelis streamed to polling stations across the country, exit polls suggested Netanyahu’s ability to command the loyalty of a large core of Likud party voters remained undimmed despite his rejection by large numbers of Israelis.

The predicted haul of up to 18 Knesset seats for Israeli Arab parties is likely to make them the kingmakers in what seem certain to be protracted talks to form a new government, with Netanyahu likely to fall short of the support required to form a new coalition. While Eisenkot could theoretically assemble a majority by forming a government with the Arab parties, he ruled that out before the election.

The exit polls – if they prove accurate – suggest a struggle for either Likud or Eisenkot’s Yashar to find a road to a majority in the 120-seat Knesset. Likud’s projected showing, not for the first time, appears to have defied predictions in the run-up to the vote. However, the ​stalemate could yet work in Netanyahu’s favour, allowing the prime minister to remain in power in a caretaker capacity. What is clear, however, is that Netanayhu no longer has a claim to a mandate with his political fate hanging in the balance.

Opposition figures were quick to cast the exit polls as a defeat for Netanyahu, with former prime minister Yair Lapid saying: “Netanyahu’s bloc has suffered a crushing defeat. This is a total collapse. The public has told them to get out.” For his part Eisenkot called the exit polls a vote of “no-confidence in Netanyahu. If these are the final results, it’s a complete victory for Israel’s mainstream majority. I’ll work immediately to enact the will of the nation, to change Netanyahu’s government … as soon as possible.” Despite tonight’s results, the complexity of Israel’s fragmented political system, with many parties jostling and horse trading, means that it will probably be some time before the shape of any future government – and who will lead it – is clear.

U.S. Troops Pulled Out of Iran's Missile Range /Col Doug Macgregor

After Saudis’ Mass Killings in Yemen, UK Boosts Support

Britain is expanding its aerial refuelling of Saudi fighter jets to include bombing raids on Yemen, despite a major spike in civilians being killed in these airstrikes. Wes Streeting initially said the U.K. would only provide air-to-air refuelling for Saudi jets patrolling the kingdom’s skies to ward off drone and missile attacks on airports and oil infrastructure by Yemen’s Houthi movement. The defence secretary is now letting British fighter jets join those patrols, as well as providing refuelling for Saudi airstrikes on “Houthi military targets in Yemen.”

It comes as last month saw more civilian casualties resulting from Saudi airstrikes on Yemen than any other since 2022, according to the Yemen Data Project. At least 66 civilians were killed and a further 90 injured, with eight children among the dead.

Since September, the Saudi war in Yemen has displaced at least 130,000 people from their homes. A staggering 17 million people face hunger.

Britain's support for this catastrophic war - and its complicity in horrendous suffering - must end. Where is the strategy for peace?

— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) October 20, 2026

One of the deadliest strikes came on Sept. 22, when six civilians including a woman and two children were killed in the bombing of a residential home in the city of Mokha. That same day, Britain agreed to provide air-to-air refuelling support to the Saudi air force, supplementing the deployment of air defence equipment and U.K. personnel already in the region.

Despite the mounting civilian death toll, Britain announced last week that it will deploy Typhoon fighter jets and military advisers to help protect Saudi Arabia, and expand the scope of aerial refuelling. The U.K. government says this is “defensive” support while largely ignoring that the reignition of the conflict in July was triggered when Saudi-led forces bombed Sana’a airport. That attack on a civilian target in the capital of Yemen caused the breakdown of a U.N.-brokered ceasefire which had held for four years.

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs : The Future of Netanyahu !?!

Israeli Media: Saudi Arabia Offered Ansar Allah $1 Billion for Yemen Ceasefire

The Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom reported on Monday that Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman’s visit to Tehran was meant to secure a ceasefire with Yemen’s Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthis, as part of a deal that would involve Riyadh transferring $1 billion to the Yemeni group to fulfill a 2023 roadmap for peace that was never implemented.

Under the 2023 deal, the first phase would have involved salary payments to civil workers living in Ansar Allah-controlled Yemen, where most Yemenis live. But US sanctions imposed on Ansar Allah in 2024, specifically the re-designation of the group as “Specially Designated Global Terrorists,” blocked the payments as part of punishment from the Biden administration over Yemeni attacks on Israeli-linked shipping, a response to Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza.

For their part, now that they have significant momentum on the ground, Ansar Allah is demanding an immediate lifting of the Saudi blockade for a ceasefire. Hamid Asim, a member of Sanaa’s negotiating delegation, told The Cradle earlier this month that Ansar Allah wants “an end to the aggression, the lifting of the blockade, payment of compensation, the release of prisoners, and the withdrawal of forces occupying parts of the country.” Asim said the 2023 understanding could form the basis for a settlement, as long as it accounts for the new realities on the ground.

Houthis Target Saudi's Biggest Refinery /Chas Freeman

UAE SECRETLY Helping Houthis WAR On Saudis

The UAE Is Secretly Helping Ansarallah Fight Saudi Arabia in Yemen

The United Arab Emirates, a key American and Israeli ally in the Gulf, has been quietly assisting Ansarallah in its conflict against Saudi-backed forces inside Yemen, four sources with knowledge of the situation told Drop Site News. Specifically, various UAE-aligned Yemeni forces have been providing targeting assistance to Ansarallah in their battle against Saudi-backed government forces in Yemen while Abu Dhabi has looked the other way, the sources said.

According to two sources with knowledge of the covert arrangement, the UAE’s assistance has also included direct sharing of intelligence by the UAE itself to Ansarallah for the purpose of targeting Saudi-backed forces.

A Yemeni source familiar with the Ansarallah backchannel confirmed that “the UAE has passed a significant amount of intelligence to the Sana’a-based government; the line of communication between the two sides remains open.” The Yemeni source told Drop Site that Ansarallah “established their own channels of communication internally with military commanders” who remain loyal to the UAE. The sources required anonymity as they are not authorized to speak publicly about the arrangement.

That the UAE is directly aiding one of its chief regional opponents is extraordinary. The UAE and Ansarallah are fierce ideological enemies with geopolitical goals that are in direct opposition to one another. The UAE is a close ally of Israel and the United States while Ansarallah is a close ally of Iran. However, when it comes to Yemen, their interests have come to overlap to some extent, producing a classic enemy-of-my enemy situation. The UAE was sidelined in Yemen earlier this year by Saudi Arabia, and stands to regain a strategic foothold in Yemen in the current conflict.

Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a senior Ansarallah official, denied that the UAE was assisting Ansarallah but insisted the Emirates were committed to neutrality. “The UAE has not provided any form of support to Yemen—neither against Saudi Arabia nor against its proxies within Yemen,” he told Drop Site. “According to our information, the UAE remains committed to neutrality and has refused to become re-involved in the aggression against Yemen alongside Saudi Arabia, despite persistent efforts by [Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed] bin Salman to persuade it to join.”

Matthew Hoh: BREAKING: Iran Says Plan to Leave Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Is Ready

Lebanese Druze Figure Defiant After Denunciation by US State Dept

Influential Druze leader and longtime Lebanese political figure Walid Jumblatt may be retired, officially, but that didn’t stop him from opining of the ongoing Israeli invasion and occupation of his country, and it quickly because an issue for the US State Department.

In recent interviews, Jumblatt warned of Israel’s expansionist ambitions toward the country and called for a national dialogue instead of unilateral demands for Hezbollah’s disarmament. He also suggested that disarmament of Hezbollah should be done in cooperation with both Iran and Israel, noting Iran retains decisive influence over the group’s armed forces.

The State Department wasn’t happy, declaring that the US would only accept the existing stance on disarmament, which they claimed was reciprocal despite Israel never actually committing to either withdrawing or stopping its attacks on Lebanon if Hezbollah is disarmed.

Jumblatt responded today, noting that no one within Lebanon was consulted before the government accepted this framework, and that he has every right to express his opinion on the matter. The “tripartite framework” has long proven controversial in Lebanon for the lack of meaningful concessions from the other sides, and Jumblatt, while offering a plausible alternative solution, is otherwise only echoing the growing consensus that the deal was a de facto surrender of sovereignty by the negotiators.

Honest Government Ad | The Great F*ckOffening

Brazil just shattered the Trump wave - Yanis Varoufakis & Wolfgang Munchau

Flávio Bolsonaro flees Brazil after presidential election loss, reports say

The far-right senator Flávio Bolsonaro has reportedly fled Brazil and is on his way to the United States after losing Sunday’s presidential election to the leftwing incumbent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who called the act “shameful”. A report by the news website Metrópoles, citing people close to the politician’s family, said he was en route to the US. “The plane is in flight,” Metrópoles reported, without making clear where it had departed from.

Bolsonaro allies told Metrópoles that he would land in Florida on Tuesday afternoon and planned to request political asylum. “The Donald Trump administration has been informed,” the website added.

Lula condemned Bolsonaro’s apparent decision to flee. “This is what the family Bolsonaro are like. Brazil is their second homeland. Their first homeland is licking the boots of the US, as he’s become accustomed to doing,” he said at an event celebrating his 81st birthday in Brasília. “I keep imagining what’s on the conscience of a citizen who just lost the elections and flees his country … He who owes nothing, fears nothing. A citizen who sneaks out of his country owes something. The act of leaving Brazil is shameful.”

Lawmakers from Lula’s Workers’ party asked the supreme court to order Bolsonaro’s arrest and requested that his name be put on Interpol’s Red Notice list. Bolsonaro had not been seen since Monday and missed a Tuesday-morning deadline to hand his passport to the federal police, fuelling rumours that he may have fled Brazil after losing on Sunday. A report in the Brazilian newspaper O Globo said that during a meeting with friends and lawyers on Monday, the defeated candidate had appeared “possessed and made it clear he was afraid of being arrested”.

Trump shows off tanker with ‘1m barrels of oil’ and floats Venezuela as 51st state

Donald Trump suggested Venezuela would become the 51st state of the United States on Tuesday as the president showed off a tanker he claimed had “one million barrels of oil on it” from the country, nine months after deposing its president. At a campaign rally in Corpus Christ, Texas, Trump touted a US oil deal with Venezuela, which the US attacked in January, capturing its long-serving leader Nicolás Maduro.

Trump claims the agreement – struck with the South American country’s interim government, which is backed by Trump’s administration – will cover “billions” of barrels of oil. Venezuela “will become a prosperous country, and who knows? Maybe some day soon it’ll become a prosperous 51st state,” Trump said at the podium on Tuesday. “That’s possible.” Venezuela is on a growing list of countries and territories Trump has spoken of acquiring, including Greenland, Canada and Mexico.

With tens of millions of Americans set to vote in next week’s midterm elections, Trump’s aggressive foreign policy – including his controversial war on Iran, and tariffs on goods from much of the world – have challenged his popularity, according to opinion polls, with his approval ratings falling to record lows. But on Tuesday, the president sought to point to the Venezuela operation as an example of his success. US fuel prices, which surged after the start of the Iran war, piling pressure on Americans’ cost of living, “will soon come plummeting down”, he claimed in a social media post.

US military says strike on alleged drug vessel in eastern Pacific kills five people

The US ⁠military ⁠said on ​Tuesday ⁠it killed ⁠five ​people ‌after ‌an airstrike on a ‌suspected drug-trafficking vessel in ​the ⁠eastern Pacific.

Tuesday’s strike was among more than 70 such attacks since the beginning of Donald Trump’s second presidency, according to media tallies. Collectively, they have killed more than 240 people.

Dollar’s Biggest Threat Gets Massive as US Blasts Allies Dumping its Financial System

Grand jury declines to indict ex-White House staffer who testified about January 6

The justice department on Tuesday failed to secure a grand jury indictment against a former White House staffer who provided dramatic but disputed testimony against Donald Trump before a House committee investigating the 6 January 2021 US Capitol insurrection, according to two people familiar with the matter.

A grand jury in Washington rejected prosecutors’ request to return an indictment charging Cassidy Hutchinson, said the people, who spoke to the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the case. It’s the latest setback in the justice department’s efforts to charge perceived adversaries of the Republican president.

Details of prosecutors’ allegations against Hutchinson were not immediately clear, but Republican lawmakers had accused her of lying under oath in her explosive testimony in 2022 about Trump’s behavior on January 6, when a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol to halt the congressional certification of his election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

The account, at a surprise hearing announced just 24 hours earlier, was seen at the time as particularly powerful given Hutchinson’s proximity to power as special assistant to Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff. Hutchinson described an angry, defiant president who was trying to let armed protesters avoid security screenings at a rally that morning to protest his 2020 election defeat and who later grabbed at the steering wheel of the presidential SUV when the Secret Service refused to let him go to the Capitol. And when the events at the Capitol spiraled toward violence, with the crowd chanting “Hang Mike Pence”, she testified, Trump declined to intervene.

Hutchinson has alleged that members of Trump’s inner circle dangled job opportunities and financial assistance while she was cooperating with the committee. She also testified that her own lawyer – a former ethics counsel in the Trump White House – told her: “The less you remember, the better.”

Alex Pretti’s parents accuse Trump officials of shielding son’s killers

The parents of Alex Pretti, the 37-year-old nurse killed by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis earlier this year, accused federal officials of stonewalling them and shielding their son’s killers. During a press conference on Tuesday, Michael and Susan Pretti made their first public remarks since their son’s death in January, calling for the Department of Justice to hold those involved in their son’s death accountable. The federal government has not provided them with meaningful information about the case, they said.

“At every turn, they have ignored us, misled us and shielded Alex’s killers,” said Michael Pretti. “We are a family who love this country. We trust in the institutions of this country. We believe in the rule of law – and that people should be held accountable through that law.”

Pretti, who worked at a veterans hospital, died on 24 January after being fatally shot by federal immigration agents. The Trump administration quickly painted Pretti as a domestic terrorist who was armed, and baselessly accused him of wanting to harm agents during Donald Trump’s immigration operations in Minnesota. They defended the agents and said Pretti had violently resisted. Video footage of the incident contradicted the government account, and showed Pretti had a cellphone in his hand and did not brandish a weapon or attack agents before they shot him in the back as he lay in the street. Pretti had no criminal record and had a license to carry the handgun he had holstered before agents removed the weapon and opened fire.

“The federal government went on TV and lied about Alex,” said Susan Pretti. “They tried to slander his memory to cover up their crime. Not only was it wrong, it was shameful.”

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DOJ Considering Scenarios In Which It Would Intervene in Midterms

When US Attorney General Todd Blanche said last week that the Department of Justice may seek to block states from certifying elections if a “doomsday” scenario occurred, he wasn’t simply speaking hypothetically.

Three administration officials have told investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein that the DOJ has several “contingency plans” that may result in unprecedented efforts at federal interference, many of which President Donald Trump and other administration officials have hinted at in the press.

The plans include extreme scenarios like a foreign cyberattack, according to a report from Klippenstein on Monday. They also include scenarios that the administration has claimed are already underway, such as “questions about qualified voters” and “voter confusion.”

The Justice Department is drawing up contingency plans to potentially intervene in next week’s midterm elections, three national security officials tell me: https://t.co/KoqysEzBQ0

— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) October 27, 2026

The DOJ has already acted on such claims in three states.

At Trump’s direction, the DOJ has demanded that Alaska suspend the certification of its Senate election if Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan loses, arguing that the presence of another person with the same name on the ballot was part of a ploy to “confuse” voters.

Earlier this month, the department sued California to keep officials from tallying ballots cast by people it flagged as potentially ineligible using an error-prone federal database. Its list contained around 20,000 names.

Two judges expressed concerns that the list could disenfranchise lawful voters. When Los Angeles County officials reviewed a sample of 200 records, they found that the list included US-born people, people with inactive or canceled registrations, and people with no voting history.

On Monday, the DOJ demanded that Washington state set aside ballots from over 400 people on similar grounds.

Officials told Klippenstein that other potential “doomsday” scenarios are being discussed as possible catalysts for federal intervention, including “disruptions at the polls” and “irregularities with the count.”

After suggesting the midterms should be outright “canceled,” Trump has suggested that Republicans should “nationalize” elections despite the plain language of the US Constitution, which makes them the domain of states, subject to congressional regulation.

During a TV interview in February, he suggested that plans were in the works to “put in federal controls as opposed to state controls” if states could not conduct elections “honestly.”

Following that interview, officials said that then-Attorney General Pam Bondi met with Trump and several governors in the White House State Dining Room to discuss potential election doomsday scenarios. Bondi then reportedly spoke with senior department officials about what situations might justify action.

While the president and DOJ cannot unilaterally block states from certifying elections, the department can bring lawsuits and seek emergency court orders under the Voting Rights Act if the attorney general has “reasonable grounds” to conclude that there has been intimidation, threats, or coercion against voters or that someone has knowingly provided false registration information or conspired to encourage false registration.

Trump has still not accepted his 2020 presidential election defeat and continues to sow doubts about it six years later. In 2020, he attempted to overturn the outcome by spreading claims that the election was marred by systemic “irregularities” and fraud, which his own advisers informed him were baseless.

Unlike previous attorneys general who declined to lend legitimacy to Trump’s claims, Blanche has repeatedly said he agrees with Trump’s sentiment that the 2020 election was “rigged.” When asked to provide specific evidence last month that mail-in voting produces large amounts of fraud, he said it was simply “common sense.”

Trump has voted by mail numerous times, and mail-in ballots have been used for elections in several states for years, including the conservative state of Utah.

Asked by CNN anchor Dana Bash on Sunday whether Trump was “laying the groundwork” to try to overturn the election again, as he did in 2020, Blanche was defiant.

“Oh stop it!” he scoffed. “You’ve got to stop it with that! You’re not being a real person... We’re not laying any groundwork for the president to do that. So the premise of your question is not true.”

BASH: The worry is that we end up in a situation where President Trump tries to overturn the election and the result of that could be like what we saw after January 6--

BLANCHE: Stop it! You gotta stop it with that! That's crazy

BASH: This is a president who has a history https://t.co/LjwI6S58kY

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 25, 2026

Breaking with previous norms of DOJ independence from the White House, Blanche declared last week, “I work for President Trump,” suggesting that he will dutifully assist any attempts by the president to undermine the results.

The question is how far he may be willing to go: “Nobody knows what the president might do if the midterms don’t go his way, what Trump might say or what he might provoke,” one senior intelligence official who served in the first Trump White House told Klippenstein.

One government lawyer told Klippenstein that while there is no law allowing the federal government to suspend elections simply by alleging fraud, that doesn’t mean the administration won’t seek to find a legal justification:

“Could Trump sign a classified emergency order raising the specter of national security to justify intervention?” the intelligence official asks. “Could Doomsday involve some continuity of government argument? You just never know with Donald Trump.”

“If all else fails,” he says, the president could put “pressure on officials, undertake unsupported litigation, or even issue unlawful executive orders.” This, he says, could cause enough disruption to provoke a January 6-style riot.

Meanwhile, the government lawyer says the lack of clear legal authority hasn’t stopped the planning.

“Justice Department and White House lawyers are grappling with these very scenarios… [including] what it can do if the law is no guide,” he says.

With the midterms just a week away and Republicans projected to do poorly, Trump has a veritable army of influencers online prepared to sow doubt about the election result.

A Washington Post analysis on Tuesday found nearly 600 high-profile right-wing social media accounts, podcasts, and other media sources that have published content questioning the integrity of the election and telling Trump supporters to expect cheating. Many of their claims echo those made by the administration about the prevalence of noncitizen voting, which is exceedingly rare.

Democrats on the congressional intelligence committees have said they are prepared for Trump to claim that classified intelligence shows that foreign powers tampered with vote totals or otherwise intervened to help his rivals.

“This administration has a record of using weaponized intelligence to make the case for election interference, and now its officials are grasping at straws to satisfy the president’s desire to interfere with the elections,” Alexandra Chandler, the director of impact programs at Free and Fair Elections, told Common Dreams. “None of this is new.”

If Trump makes such a claim, Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said that Trump’s CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton have agreed to review any of the underlying intelligence with him and Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Himes told reporters, “We’re making the presumption that the president will not accept the results,” adding that they expect him to “pull out all the stops.”

Voting rights groups have also said they are ready for whatever Trump throws their way.

“States and local election officials run our elections, not the federal government,” Tianna Mays, legal director at the Democracy Defenders Fund, told Common Dreams. “Trump administration officials cannot claim powers they do not have under the Constitution, and we will fight them in court if they try.”

“The pro-democracy coalition is prepared for whatever scenario comes,” Chandler said. “We will defend the integrity of this election.”

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Trump’s cuts have exposed US to ‘cascade’ of El Niño dangers, experts warn

Sweeping cuts to the premier US climate agency under Donald Trump have severely hampered the country’s capacity to forecast, research and respond to extreme weather events, former government officials and scientists have warned, as the US faces a cascade of hazards fueled by a potentially historic El Niño this winter. From the start of his second term, the president has taken aim at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), slashing staff levels, canceling contracts and grants, and shutting down databases and research laboratories. The agency that has long been considered a global crown jewel in climate science and forecasting has lost roughly 20% of its staff since January 2025.

The National Weather Service, which is housed within Noaa, has also taken a hit. Weather stations have had to delay data collection and cut operating hours, with hundreds of meteorological and other technical positions still vacant across its 122 forecast offices. The effects have already been felt at Noaa, where a chaotic and volatile environment has sent morale plummeting, increased burnout and hampered vital work. While capacity has quietly unravelled, a large-scale disaster will quickly expose the most dangerous gaps.

This year’s super El Niño, a climate phenomenon characterized by warmer than average equatorial sea surface temperatures, has the ability to fuel extreme weather events around the world. It’s already climbing off the charts and is expected to strengthen through the northern hemisphere’s autumn and winter. Along with dangerous spikes in temperature, El Niño will supercharge storms in parts of the American west, raise sea levels in California by up to a foot, and set the stage for debris flows, landslides and flash floods. “Whether we as a country can handle the kind of coast-to-coast extremes that could potentially happen this winter is a big question,” Tom Di Liberto, a former Noaa climate scientist who now works as the media director of Climate Central, said.

Noaa plays a pivotal role in public safety and provides key insights and forecasts relied upon by a vast array of communities and industries, from weather shifts that could affect crop schedules, to emergency response preparations when hurricanes are brewing or fire conditions are aligning. The agency operates early warning systems for tsunamis, monitors seafood supply chains and provides ocean data needed for safe shipping and port operators. While the losses are expected to have a profound effect on the American public, they will be felt globally, too. Scientists and forecasters around the world depend on Noaa satellites, studies and intelligence, including data-sharing arrangements that track severe weather across Europe, coordination for disaster response in the Caribbean, and deforestation monitoring and the effects of the climate crisis in the Amazon rainforest.

Super-rich get ‘double dividend’ from causes and costs of climate crisis

The world’s wealthiest people are not just profiting from the polluting causes of climate breakdown, they are also increasingly cashing in on the catastrophic consequences, according to a study by Oxfam. The global equality organisation has found that the richest 0.1% of the world’s population are heavily invested in disaster preparedness, recovery and reconstruction – a market that is projected to grow from $70bn to $92bn a year by 2029. This gives the planet’s wealthiest and most powerful people a “double dividend” from the climate crisis and, more alarmingly, an incentive to delay or disrupt action to solve the problem, the NGO says.

It also worsens global inequality as those least responsible for global heating end up having to pay those most responsible in terms of higher food prices, repairing homes damaged by extreme weather or relocating to other areas. Jean McLean, Oxfam’s chief influencing officer, accused billionaires of turning chaos into profit. “The super-rich benefit at both ends of the crisis: first, through continued investment in polluting industries, and second, through investment in the booming ‘adaptation economy’ – recovery and rebuilding services are sold back to a warming world,” she said. “The populations who contributed least to the climate crisis are absorbing its worst consequences, while those who caused it are best equipped to protect themselves.”

The richest 0.1% on the planet, a group of 8 million people, are responsible for more carbon emissions than the poorest 3.5 billion combined, the report says. As a result, this group have reportedly contributed by 125 times more than the average person to extreme heat events. This is partly due to lifestyles. The world’s private jets, for example, release more CO₂ in two seconds than most of the world’s people emit in an entire year. But the biggest impact of this group comes from their investments. Oxfam’s new destroy and rebuild index identifies 217 corporations that either fuel climate breakdown or do business in adapting to it through provision of cooling devices, flood barriers, firefighting equipment, transportation, food, insurance and loans.

Last year, these companies made an average of US$1.8bn and paid out $1bn in dividends to shareholders. Six major asset managing firms, which advise wealthy investors, are on this list in their own right and are heavily invested in other members. Two of the biggest, BlackRock and Vanguard, have shares in 92% of the companies in the index, worth a total of more than $1tn, Oxfam says. Similarly, it notes that crises – caused by extreme weather or war – have tended to boost the profits of major food trading companies that are dominated by billionaires, whose wealth has increased by $120bn since 2020. When drought, floods or storms hit crops, any subsequent increase in food prices tends to disproportionately benefit big corporations and their investors at the cost of small producers and regular consumers, Oxfam says. The group cites the case of a 231% surge in cocoa prices after extreme weather in west Africa in 2024, when it says local farmers saw none of the gains.

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Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some of which defied fair-use abstraction.

New Evidence Tying Trump to Epstein-Style Sex Assaults

Iran War: Western Media Ignores Mecca-Alliance-Sought Regional Security Meeting in Tehran; Would Republican Midterm Wipeout Force Trump into Iran and Ukraine Retreats?

U.S. Midterm Consequence Preview

The World Rises Up Against the U.S. Neoliberal Order

Elon Musk says he has ‘cyber psychosis’.

Hawaii Just Made Citizens United Irrelevant.

Kushner THREATENS LAWSUIT Over EXPLOSIVE Bribery Allegations

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A Little Night Music

Clifton Chenier – Sa M'Appel Fou

Clifton Chenier – Things Ain't What They Used To Be

Clifton Chenier – Ain't No Need Of Cryin' (Every Day is the Same)

Clifton Chenier – Jole Blonde

Clifton Chenier Band – Jambalaya

Clifton Chenier – Done Got Over

Clifton Chenier – Wrap It Up

Clifton Chenier - Keep on Knocking

Clifton Chenier - I'm A Hog For You

Clifton Chenier - The King of the Zydeco Live

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