The Department of State has asked civil servants up for promotions who they voted for in the 2016, 2020, and 2024 presidential elections. Top State Department officials have indicated that the only candidates eligible for mid-to-upper level foreign service roles were people who had supported President Donald Trump, and that political donations to any Democrat would be disqualifying, _The Washington Sun_ reported Thursday. The publication spoke to six current and former State Department officials with knowledge of these conversations, including three sources who spoke directly to employees who were asked about their politics. Federal law prohibits federal officials from making personnel decisions based on political affiliation, but it has seemingly become a regular practice during the second Trump administration. This latest move comes as the State Department has attempted to push out its most senior career officials, in order to ensure the top ranks are all politically loyal to the current president. In a statement to the _Sun_ , a spokesperson for the State Department declined to comment on the outlet’s reporting about voting history questions, but expounded on the importance of employees’ “fidelity.” “Fidelity means upholding the Constitution and the law and executing policy with loyalty to the American people and their interests,” the spokesperson said. “It emphasizes the critical importance of service, integrity, and policy alignment across the Foreign Service. It is not about partisan behavior but rather about executing the president’s vision for foreign policy.” In July 2025, the State Department added a “fidelity” section to the foreign service’s performance-evaluation process, requiring managers to assess whether their employees had succeeded at “completely aligning oneself and one’s team to the most current [U.S. government] goals.” Apparently, the agency has taken that to mean high-ranking diplomats are required to have personally supported all of Trump’s bids for presidency over the last decade.

As the world burns from climate change, a monster gas plant/data center in Pennsylvania is backed by Kushner’s petrodollars.

Nasdaq fell 2.6% as concerns mount that costly debt for data centres and AI chips threatens the sector's boom.

The threat actor behind the GhostAction supply chain attack has expanded beyond injecting malicious GitHub Actions workflows into compromised projects to phish open-source developers and deliver a stealer malware disguised within a fake font file. The latest evolution, detailed by OpenSourceMalware, signals that the attackers are actively refining their modus operandi in response to steps

In a statement posted to Instagram, Marsha’s — Philadelphia’s first queer-owned women’s sports bar — announced on Oct. 15 that it will close after its final shift on Sunday, Oct. 18. “It is with heavy hearts that we have decided to close Marsha’s doors for good,” reads a post from Marsha’s. “We have loved serving this community, and still believe that more than ever this city needs more women/queer/BIPOC- owned businesses. We sincerely hope that someone is able to step up and fill this void.” Owner Chivonn Anderson — a Black, queer woman — did not offer an explanation for the closure in the announcement and her team did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Although women’s sports and local games were a big part of the establishment’s identity, Anderson described her vision for Marsha’s as extending beyond fandom. Anderson envisioned the bar, named in honor of Black, trans activist Marsha P. Johnson, as a place where women and LGBTQ+ people would feel safe and supported. Anderson wanted the establishment, located at 430 South St., to become a community anchor where people could gather, celebrate and feel represented. Marsha’s opened in September 2025, generating considerable excitement among LGBTQ+ Philadelphians — particularly queer women seeking dedicated nightlife spaces following the closure of Toasted Walnut during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hundreds of people spent hours waiting in line and roaming the area on opening night. The bar has faced numerous challenges during its year of operation. In February, approximately a dozen Philadelphia and Pennsylvania State Police officers entered Marsha’s during a late-night compliance inspection. Anderson questioned the scale of the police presence, which came alongside allegations of underage drinking and licensing violations. A separate January inspection had identified licensing and fire-code issues that were subsequently addressed, but no citations resulted from the February inspection — including for any underage drinking, which was not substantiated. The incident raised concerns about the way LGBTQ+ establishments are policed, particularly given Philadelphia’s history of police raids targeting queer gathering places. Just a few months later, Marsha’s was in headlines again due to a very public workplace dispute which included allegations of racism, transphobia, misogyny and discrimination. Former manager and bartender Olivia Rhodes — a Black, trans woman — accused the bar’s leaders of fostering a hostile work environment. Rhodes alleged that management made disparaging comments about women and employees of color and that she was terminated after raising concerns about workplace practices. Other former employees also raised allegations about management and workplace conditions. The controversy had tangible consequences. Philly Black Pride and other organizations planning to partner with Marsha’s canceled or relocated scheduled events following the allegations, and some community members publicly questioned whether they would continue supporting the establishment. General manager Rylan Murphy, who was accused of perpetrating many of the most egregious offenses, subsequently left his position. Conversations emerged about accountability, representation and the expectations placed on LGBTQ+ centered businesses. In a virtual community listening session in August, Anderson issued an emotional apology, said the team at Marsha’s was starting a review process to change practices, and sought outside guidance regarding restorative justice. A spokesperson for Marsha’s told PGN at the time that a second listening session would be held both in person and virtually for community members, but that session never came to fruition. Rhodes posted a video on Instagram which showed screenshots of email invitations for her to participate in a restorative justice process, to which Rhodes replied that she and her lawyer would be willing to discuss the harm that was caused and possible compensation. In the video, she claimed that she was invited to a restorative justice session hours after the first session occurred. Rhodes reacted to the news of Marsha’s closing with another Instagram post, highlighting what she believed were some missteps Marsha’s had taken since the incident and calling Anderson and Marsha’s leadership “evil.” She stated that the situation is bittersweet — underlining that she appreciates those who helped to pursue accountability while noting that she’s still enduring challenges, including housing insecurity, which resulted from the loss of her position. “This isn’t a win for me,” Rhodes said. “This isn’t what I wanted when I first signed up to be a part of Marsha’s — but unfortunately, this is just the road that it had to be.” _This story has been updated to include remarks from Olivia Rhodes._

The attorney general’s comments come in the middle of a broader campaign by the Trump administration to zero in on what elections experts say is a relatively rare phenomenon of voting by noncitizens.

The gubernatorial candidate has associated himself with the vilest, most inhumane advertisement in the history of American politics.

The Office of Personnel Management violated federal law by granting the now-defunct Department of Government Efficiency access to data, but it’s unclear whether any relief is needed because of changed circumstances, a federal judge held.

The Department of Justice’s purported list of noncitizen voters contains quite a few people who say they were born in the United States. In court documents filed Tuesday, Los Angeles County election officials wrote that a list that the DOJ provided to them with 20,000 supposed noncitizens voting in California was inaccurate, _The Guardian_ reports. The department sent the list to the local officials last week and gave California 48 hours to hold the voting ballots of everyone on the list until their citizenship could be proven. After the election officials refused, the DOJ sued the state on Thursday. Aman Bhullar, who works in the Los Angeles County clerk and recorder’s office, said in a court declaration that “among the records for which birthplace information was meaningfully reported, 38.9 percent indicated that they were born in the United States.” County officials made observations of the list based on a sample of 200 people. Bhullar said in his declaration that 43 percent of the people on the list had a voter registration that was cancelled, 71 percent of people in the sample had never voted, and 86 out of the 200—less than half of the people in the sample—had been mailed a ballot this year. The DOJ’s list contained other errors as well. The court filing asserts that only 7,000 of the people on the list had addresses in the county. The list was put together by the Department of Homeland Security, which has not shared with California (or any other states) how it matches people’s voter data with citizenship records, despite demands from state governments looking for more information before complying with the Trump administration’s orders to hand over their voter rolls. Los Angeles is not even the first locality to find errors from the DHS. The department accused the state of Nevada of having up to 16,000 noncitizens registered to vote, but not a single name was right. The Trump administration, despite its mistakes, remains defiant and insistent that states must comply with its orders. “Just because an alien says on a form that they are a citizen doesn’t make them eligible to vote,” DOJ spokesperson Kiersten Pels told _The Guardian_. “California cannot facilitate the violation of federal law. We notified California that noncitizens are likely registered to vote, and we asked the state to independently verify the citizenship of any ballots cast by people on a list that we provided. It refused to do so. Federal law doesn’t permit this willful blindness.” Meanwhile, a select group of federal officials are actually working secretly with state governments who are alarmed at the possibility that President Trump will interfere with November’s midterm election results.

Armed and in uniform, agents from the Department of Homeland Security have been knocking on doors to ask residents about their immigration status whether they're registered to vote.

The Trump administration is waging a multi-pronged war on Somali people, painting them as criminals, murderers, and terrorists and using multiple federal agencies to target them at home and abroad. The campaign includes military attacks in Somalia, as well as arrests, deportations, and the weaponization of federal law enforcement agencies against immigrants and the Somali American community in the United States, including the recent use of Homeland Security agents as a goon squad to target Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar. In his second term, President Donald Trump has routinely cast Somalia as lawless and Somalis as violent. Meanwhile, his administration has, largely without public knowledge, killed hundreds of people in Somalia, claiming they belong to terror groups. Trump personally ordered the death of a Somali man within days of regaining the White House, according to his counterterrorism czar Sebastian Gorka. The administration claimed, without offering any evidence, that the man was connected with the Islamic State terror group. Trump has sought to do the same with Omar. Homeland Security agents raided Omar’s Washington, D.C., home last Monday, three weeks before the midterms, in which she is seeking reelection. The Trump administration reportedly launched the investigation to build a case to strip Omar of her U.S. citizenship and ultimately deport her. (Omar fled war in Somalia with her family when she was 8 years old, later immigrated to the U.S. as a refugee, and became a citizen in 2000.) The administration has also issued more than a dozen subpoenas, including to some of Omar’s relatives. On Monday, conservative media outlets reported that federal prosecutors obtained Omar’s DNA as part of their investigation. “This is what happens in a dictatorship. The leader identifies his political, ethnic and religious enemies, and his agents scramble to do his bidding and make him happy,” Zaynab Mohamed, a Somali immigrant who represents Minneapolis in Minnesota’s state Senate, told The Intercept. “Representative Omar is the latest subject where Trump identifies the target and his minions go looking for a crime. The cases always fall apart, and this one will, too.” ## Related ### DHS Was Designed as a Weapon Trump claimed not to have ordered the raid, but throughout his second term, his Justice Department has repeatedly targeted his political enemies — from New York’s attorney general, to the former head of the FBI, to members of the Federal Reserve. “I think she’s a terrible person, but that’s really up to the DOJ,” Trump said to reporters. “I have nothing to do with it.” Omar called it “an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement.” She added: “For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns. This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation.” Omar’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Intercept. With the Somali community, Trump found a target that he could attack with Islamophobic, racist, and xenophobic rhetoric, without incurring much mainstream backlash, said Jaylani Hussein, the executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “As immigrants, Muslims, and — most importantly — Black people, it’s the trifecta,” he told The Intercept. “None of us expected the scale and level of the vitriol. But despite this, it’s at the point that the traditional media almost ignore the attacks on the Somali-American community because it’s not a large constituency. Trump says these things, and people just move on.” ## Most Read Inside ICE, Officials Question String of Trump Admin “Midterm Panic Moves” Karl Loftus Lockheed Martin Showered Susan Collins With Cash as F-35 Program Hit Turbulence Noah Hurowitz President Apocalypse Tom Engelhardt ## **Trump’s War on Somalia** Over the last decade, Trump has overseen the killing of as many as 1,500 Somalis in more than 400 attacks, according to a count by New America, a D.C.-based think tank. During his second term alone, the Trump administration has conducted more than 200 airstrikes in Somalia, including close to 90 this year, claiming to target terrorists. The U.S. military has been at war in Somalia for almost a quarter-century, conducting air attacks and commando raids aimed at the terrorist group al-Shabab as well as the Islamic State group, while the CIA and special operators created local proxy forces to conduct low-profile operations on behalf of America. At the same time, the U.S. has provided Somalia with billions of dollars in counterterrorism assistance. ## Related ### U.S. Conducts “Largest Airstrike in the History of the World” (Sort Of) U.S. attacks in Somalia have skyrocketed during Trump’s terms in office. From 2007 to 2017, under the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the U.S. military carried out 59 declared airstrikes in Somalia. The Biden administration conducted 51 declared strikes over four years. During Trump’s six years in office, the U.S. has launched more than 400 attacks against purported militants. The U.S. rarely offers any evidence that those killed are members of terrorist groups, much less leaders. A New America analysis found militant leaders comprised just 1.7 percent of those killed. Africa Command refused to provide requested evidence that any of those killed in airstrikes in Somalia this year were militants. “All U.S. strikes in Somalia are conducted in close coordination partners [sic] against designated terror groups,” an AFRICOM spokesperson told The Intercept by email. “Trump has conducted more drone strikes in Somalia than Bush, Obama, and Biden combined. And so many civilians have died,” historian Elizabeth Schmidt, the author of “Foreign Intervention in Africa After the Cold War: Sovereignty, Responsibility, and the War on Terror,” told The Intercept. “They were often just young men living in an area where it was easy to label them jihadis. And it turns out they had nothing to do with terrorism.” The U.S. claims that it has only killed six civilians over almost two decades of war in Somalia. A count by the airstrike monitoring group Airwars put the number at as much as 2,600 percent higher. A 2023 investigation by The Intercept determined, for example, that a drone attack in Somalia during Trump’s first term killed at least three, and possibly five, civilians, including 22-year-old Luul Dahir Mohamed and her 4-year-old daughter Mariam Shilow Muse. At the time of the attack, the U.S. announced it had killed “five terrorists” and that “no civilians were killed in this airstrike.” Trump calls Somalia a “third-world” or “fourth-world nation,” says that it “stinks,” and disparaged Somalis who come to the U.S., saying “we’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country.” His most xenophobic consigliere also claims Somalia is responsible for violence that has caused people to flee the country. “The entire Somali refugee program is predicated on a lie,” wrote Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser, Stephen Miller, late last year. “Destroying your own country does not give you the right to become a citizen in ours.” But this faux history disregards America’s decadeslong role in fomenting violence in Somalia and destabilizing the country. > “The presence of Somalis in the U.S. has a lot to do with U.S. wars in Somalia.” A casualty of the Cold War geopolitics that led to widespread conflict, political repression, and millions of deaths across the developing world, Somalia has experienced persistent political instability and strife since the late 1960s. In recent decades, the country has suffered civil war, famine, droughts, a longtime al-Shabab insurgency, and persistent humanitarian crises. ## Related ### Who Could Have Predicted the U.S. War in Somalia Would Fail? The Pentagon. Over the last quarter century, the U.S. has intensified conflict in Somalia through direct attacks; training, funding, and running proxy forces; and funneling in weapons and other military assistance to one side of a civil war. As early as 2007, the Pentagon was aware that there were fundamental flaws with U.S. military operations in the Horn of Africa, and Somalia devolved into another forever war stalemate. This has continued, despite the record number of airstrikes in Somalia under Trump. Before Trump took office, in 2016, Islamist militants in Somalia killed 4,281 people, according to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, a Pentagon research institution. By August, this year’s total hit 6,731 deaths, a 57 percent increase. An analysis by the Costs of War project at Brown University found that instead of eliminating militant groups, the U.S. counterterrorism campaign in Somalia was “ensuring that the conflict continues in perpetuity.” An AFRICOM spokesperson said the command’s “operational focus remains on working with partners to degrade terrorist organizations to create the space required for Somali-led governance and stability.” But Trump claims Somalia has no government, no military, and is “not even a country.” > “ They weren’t coming because they wanted a better job. It’s because they feared for their lives and their children’s lives.” The Intercept interviewed people displaced by the forever war in a camp on the outskirts of Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, in 2023. “We had to leave because of the drought and the conflict,” a mother of seven told this reporter. She was one of more than a dozen women from the Lower Shabelle region of southwest Somalia who spoke to The Intercept after fleeing the front lines of an offensive by the U.S.-backed Somali government against al-Shabab. Since Trump first took office, the number of Somalis forced from their homes has almost doubled from 2.4 million to 4.4 million. “I don’t think most Americans realize that the presence of Somalis in the U.S. has a lot to do with U.S. wars in Somalia. U.S. military intervention made a bad situation worse. This led to a surge of refugees and asylum-seekers to the U.S.,” said Schmidt. “They weren’t coming because they wanted a better job. It’s because they feared for their lives and their children’s lives.” During Trump’s first term, his administration acknowledged “the ongoing armed conflict” as a reason to extend temporary protected status — which grants legal status, work authorization, and protection from deportation — to Somalis in the U.S., noting the security situation was “fragile and volatile, with ongoing armed conflict among government forces, clan militias, African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) troops, and al-Shabaab.” ## We’re independent of corporate interests — and powered by members. Join us. Become a member ## Join Our Newsletter Thank You For Joining! Original reporting. Fearless journalism. Delivered to you. Will you take the next step to support our independent journalism by becoming a member of The Intercept? I'm in Become a member By signing up, I agree to receive emails from The Intercept and to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use. ## Join Our Newsletter ## Original reporting. Fearless journalism. Delivered to you. I'm in ## Bringing the War Home Despite the increase in violence, according to Pentagon statistics, the administration terminated Somalia’s TPS designation earlier this year. More than 1,000 Somali asylum-seekers have been ordered deported since February; more than half the deportation orders involve Somalis living in Minnesota, a nearly tenfold increase from 2025, according to a Minnesota Star Tribune investigation. About 84,000 of the 260,000 people of Somali descent in the U.S. live in the Minneapolis–St. Paul area, according to the Census Bureau’s annual American Community Survey. The overwhelming majority are American citizens. Almost 58 percent were born in the U.S. and 87 percent of foreign-born Somalis are naturalized citizens. ## Related ### Unnamed Source in Viral Minnesota Somali Fraud Video Is Right-Wing Lobbyist Who Called Muslims “Demons” The administration targeted that Somali community during a violent immigration crackdown in and around Minneapolis known as “Operation Metro Surge” during late 2025 and early 2026. “I don’t want them in our country,” Trump said in December 2025. The next month, he said: “Every one of them should be forced to leave this country, including Ilhan Omar.” During Metro Surge, federal agents shot and killed protesters Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti. They, like Omar and hundreds of drone strike victims in Somalia, were labeled as terrorists by the administration without providing evidence. > “If the president can threaten to denaturalize and deport a member of Congress, no one is safe.” During Trump’s second term, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have also arrested hundreds of Somali people, with reports of assault and mistreatment at the hands of federal agents. Trump recently seemed to call for vigilante violence and threatened to back it with federal force. “The once Great State of Minnesota is being taken over by Somali Immigrants,” Trump posted on Truth Social earlier this month. “The Somalians should not be allowed to get away with what they are doing. They view you as weak and stupid people. Fight back Minnesota, fight back! If you need, the Federal Government will come to your rescue.” The White House did not respond to a request for comment. Hussein, of CAIR-MN, said Trump’s rhetoric was endangering the Somali community. “Every few weeks, he’s literally going on a tirade. And I don’t think he’s ever spoken about other people the same way. He literally put out the message saying, ‘go fight them. I’ll come and help’ on social media,” he told The Intercept. “We’ve seen bullying. We’ve dealt with harassment. We’ve have some assaults.” ## Related ### Trump Is Targeting Ilhan Omar. Where’s the Elite Media Outrage? Trump has routinely demonized Somalis by tying the broader community to a high-profile fraud case: the alleged theft of $250 million from a pandemic-era program that provided food for children. The former leader of Feeding Our Future, the nonprofit at the center of the case, is white, although most of the defendants in the related cases are of Somali descent. “The Somalians, they’re crooked as hell,” Trump ranted at a Cabinet meeting in May, with the administration offering escalating and unverified claims, including reference to a “$19 billion Somali fraud scandal.” The Trump administration’s effort to denaturalize and deport Omar is part of a broader push to strip naturalized Americans of their citizenship, with those of Somali descent specifically singled out. “I would do it in a heartbeat if they were dishonest,” Trump said in an Oval Office interview earlier this year. “I think that many of the people that came in from Somalia, they hate our country.” Trump’s border czar Tom Homan said on Saturday that he had been “told they have a strong case” against Omar. “Of course, if you lie during the naturalization process, there is a process to denaturalize somebody. We’ve done it before,” he told Fox News. The rarely used denaturalization statute has been most famously employed to strip citizenship from Nazi war criminals, like John Demjanjuk, a former death camp guard and retired U.S. autoworker convicted on 28,060 counts of being an accessory to murder. Mohamed, who in 2022 became the first Somali woman elected to the Minnesota Senate, called out Trump’s push to expel Omar as a grave threat to the country. “If the president can threaten to denaturalize and deport a member of Congress, no one is safe,” she told The Intercept. “This is a test of our democracy, and even Republicans should be speaking out about it. If we don’t defend the rights of Ilhan Omar, Somali-Americans, immigrants, and Trump’s political targets, we lose everything.” Share * Copy link * Share on Facebook * Share on Bluesky * Share on X * Share on LinkedIn * Share on WhatsApp _IT’S EVEN WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT._ What we’re seeing right now from Donald Trump is a full-on authoritarian takeover of the U.S. government. This is not hyperbole. Court orders are being ignored. MAGA loyalists have been put in charge of the military and federal law enforcement agencies. The Department of Government Efficiency has stripped Congress of its power of the purse. News outlets that challenge Trump have been banished or put under investigation. Yet far too many are still covering Trump’s assault on democracy like politics as usual, with flattering headlines describing Trump as “unconventional,” “testing the boundaries,” and “aggressively flexing power.” The Intercept has long covered authoritarian governments, billionaire oligarchs, and backsliding democracies around the world. We understand the challenge we face in Trump and the vital importance of press freedom in defending democracy. ## We’re independent of corporate interests. Will you help us? $15 $25 $50 $100 $5 $8 $10 $15 One Time Monthly Donate **_IT’S BEEN A DEVASTATING_** year for journalism — the worst in modern U.S. history. We have a president with utter contempt for truth aggressively using the government’s full powers to dismantle the free press. Corporate news outlets have cowered, becoming accessories in Trump’s project to create a post-truth America. Right-wing billionaires have pounced, buying up media organizations and rebuilding the information environment to their liking. In this most perilous moment for democracy, The Intercept is fighting back. But to do so effectively, we need to grow. **That’s where you come in. Will you help us expand our reporting capacity in time to hit the ground running in 2026?** ## We’re independent of corporate interests. Will you help us? $15 $25 $50 $100 $5 $8 $10 $15 One Time Monthly Donate **_I’M BEN MUESSIG,_** The Intercept’s editor-in-chief. It’s been a devastating year for journalism — the worst in modern U.S. history. We have a president with utter contempt for truth aggressively using the government’s full powers to dismantle the free press. Corporate news outlets have cowered, becoming accessories in Trump’s project to create a post-truth America. Right-wing billionaires have pounced, buying up media organizations and rebuilding the information environment to their liking. In this most perilous moment for democracy, The Intercept is fighting back. But to do so effectively, we need to grow. **That’s where you come in. Will you help us expand our reporting capacity in time to hit the ground running in 2026?** ## We’re independent of corporate interests. Will you help us? $15 $25 $50 $100 $5 $8 $10 $15 One Time Monthly Donate ## Contact the author: Nick Turse nick.turse@theintercept.com @nickturse on X ## Related ### ICE Raid on Ilhan Omar Shows How Dangerous Two Years of Flailing Trump Could Get ### Inside the Somali-Led Resistance to Trump’s Assault on Minneapolis ### Trump Is Rewriting History to Justify His Sketchy Pardon of a Crypto King ### U.S. Counterterrorism Efforts Destabilizing African Nations ## Latest Stories ### Kohen Wiley’s Family Says Investigators Didn’t Contact Them Before Concluding Cops Did No Wrong Liliana Segura - Oct. 20 Mississippi has yet to release any support for its claim that a “thorough and impartial” review showed the shooting was “justified.” Targeting Iran ### Yemenis Unable to Reach Hospital Are Part of the Iran War Death Toll Rachid Mohsen - Oct. 20 At least 10 patients with kidney failure near Taiz, a city under a Houthi siege, died because they were unable to get to their dialysis treatments. Midterms 2026 ### Mike Rogers Spent $100K on Private Jets and Luxury Travel Last Quarter Jonah Valdez - Oct. 19 The Republican running for Senate in Michigan is directing campaign funds toward chartered flights, a Miami car service, and BMW repairs. Join The Conversation

Attorney General Todd Blanche set off a firestorm with a candid admission about whom he really answers to inside the Justice Department.Appearing Wednesday on "Pod Force One," Blanche waved away the idea that federal prosecutors are supposed to keep the president at arm's length. "There was this mis...

In his attempt to hold onto his congressional seat, Republican Scott Perry released an ad through his campaign that misleadingly accuses Stelson of public nudity. The ad presents the claim without evidence, WITF found, including what looks like a real legal document but is not.

Armed federal law enforcement, immigration agents, or prosecutors are sent to polling places or election offices. Federal law bars armed federal personnel from polls except to repel armed enemies of…

State Rep. Gina Hinojosa alleged in her lawsuit that Gov. Greg Abbott is “unlawfully withholding communications” between his office and tech CEO Elon Musk.

Pete Hegseth and his “High-T Department of War” are having a rough go of it lately. Despite being hyper-focused on making sure U.S. troops “look like killers” and that none of them are “soft”, “fat,” or “mushy,” Hegseth’s Pentagon is burning through precision munitions stockpiles in its conflict with Iran, which despite his best efforts effectively controls traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. On top of that failure, DOD has lost Army Secretary Dan Driscoll over Hegseth’s disruption of the personnel pipeline and general mismanagement. And the cherry atop Hegseth’s failure sundae has come in the form of an impeachment effort from a Republican member of Congress over the conduct of the Iran war itself. And yet Hegseth’s latest announcements suggest that he has learned remarkably little from his experiences. At a recent address at Quantico, he declared that the “warrior ethos has been revived” and “American deterrence is back,” even as he announced plans to eliminate 20 percent of general and admiral positions. He also briefly championed a plan to livestream the firing squad execution of Nidal Hasan, turning military violence into a public spectacle supposedly meant to demonstrate U.S. resolve, before a public backlash—strong enough to push Trump away from the planned display of public cruelty—put the kibosh on those plans. Still, the dissonance is jarring: The defense secretary is so thoroughly preoccupied with projecting toughness and glorifying lethality, all while presiding over a war that has exposed the limits of U.S. power potentially even more than its debacles in Vietnam and Iraq. There is an older American story about what could happen when a nation selects military leaders based on their bravado and popularity among white supremacists. The Mexican-American War was one of the clearest early examples of the difference between U.S. military belligerence and effectiveness. The professional Regular Army, though small, was a highly military force whose officers understood logistics, discipline, command, and the unglamorous mechanics that allow a military to keep functioning when a war inevitably proves more difficult than the politicians who started it imagined. However, alongside the regulars marched tens of thousands of volunteers, largely from the Southern states that would make up the Confederacy only fifteen years later. Unlike the Regular Army, whose officers held federal commissions and whose junior ranks were increasingly dominated by West Point graduates selected for their demonstrated military effectiveness, volunteer officers were often elected by the men they commanded or appointed through state-level political patronage. These mechanisms rewarded political prominence, personal popularity, and the performance of masculine authority rather than professional military experience. Compounding their lack of experience, the white supremacist attitudes of many of the volunteer officers convinced them without evidence that white Americans were naturally superior soldiers and that “yellow bellied Mexicans” were naturally inferior and would be easily defeated. Some Southern volunteers were so confident of an easy victory that they worried the war would be over before they even arrived on the battlefield. As one commander put the pervasive attitude of many volunteers, each U.S. victory demonstrated “the order of providence that the Anglo-Saxon race was not only to take possession of the whole North American continent, but to influence and modify the character of the world.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, these soldiers’ confidence in their own whiteness alone did not equate to effectiveness on the battlefield, and selecting commanders based on their popularity and manly image proved disastrous in many cases. For example, Colonel Archibald Yell of the Arkansas Mounted Rifles, a magnetic Jacksonian politician who had built his reputation through personal combativeness and political connections, easily obtained a command based on his experience as a former governor and congressman. He had served in earlier wars as a sergeant and later a lieutenant, but he had no significant command experience. This would prove to be his undoing. When the Mexican-American War began, Yell enlisted as a private in a volunteer company and was elected colonel when the regiment organized. He was still trying to preserve his congressional seat and position himself for further political advancement even as he took command. Once the regiment reached Texas, the problems started almost immediately. Most of its companies rarely drilled, its camp was so disorderly that regular Army commander John Wool struggled to impose basic discipline and sanitation, and Wool eventually dubbed the regiment the “Arkansas Mounted Devils.” He complained that the troops were “wholly without instruction and Colonel Yell is determined to leave them in that condition.” Rather than address the poor training of the troops under his command, Yell instead cultivated rapport with them by positioning himself as their champion against their regular Army commander and providing lavish food and drink. At the Battle of Buena Vista in February 1847, Yell’s regiment came under Mexican attack and fled in confusion despite Yell’s order to charge, exposing the rear of the rest of the U.S. column. Many of his men were captured or killed, and the regiment fell apart in the fighting and was distributed among different units. Yell charged alone and was killed. Yell embodied a recurring problem of volunteer command, where leaders’ ability to perform the role of a warrior and maintain esteem among their troops sometimes came at the expense of the less glamorous work of making them effective soldiers. It is from this tattered cloth that Pete Hegseth is cut. While he spends plenty of time in front of the cameras, glad-handing troops and showing how many pull-ups he can do, he is fixated on projecting strength, whether real or imagined. This image that treats aggression, physical appearance, and ideological conformity as evidence of effectiveness, even going so far as to adopt absurd manosphere concepts as guides to military doctrine (see #lethalitymaxxing, language borrowed from incel subcultures obsessed with masculine appearance and status). Hegseth’s bizarre testosterone screening proposal, later rescinded after questions about its medical basis, took the idea further by treating a biological marker of masculinity as a potential proxy for military readiness. Donald Trump selected Hegseth for much the same reason that Arkansas volunteers elevated Yell. Hegseth had spent years on Fox News performing the role of the warrior who would liberate the military from timid professionals and ideological enemies. Trump wanted someone who looked and sounded like the defense secretary he imagined—a living cartoon warrior, as opposed to a military professional with a demonstrated record of managing a vast institution. Trump has said that Hegseth as straight from “central casting” and “obsessed with war.” Now Hegseth is using his authority to remake the military around the qualities that made him attractive to the president, pushing out senior commanders and disrupting promotion pathways while elevating a narrow vision of masculinity, race, religion, and ideological loyalty. There is one crucial difference between Hegseth and the volunteer commanders of the Mexican-American War. Yell operated within a military structure led by professional officers who could challenge him, impose discipline, and help compensate for his shortcomings. Hegseth sits atop the entire military hierarchy, with the authority to remove the professionals who question his judgment and reshape the institution in his own image. The regulars once helped turn swaggering volunteers into an effective fighting force, but now the man with the volunteer’s mindset—the sort of person who armed forces lifers refer to derisively as a “rear echelon motherfucker”—is deciding which of the professionals get to stay and who has to go. This would all be dangerous enough if Trump were pursuing a cautious foreign policy, or the non-interventionist approach that he was somehow credited with by an ignorant pundit class, who were all too willing to be snowed by his dovish rhetoric. Instead, he is reviving the expansionist logic of the Monroe Doctrine, threatening other countries with military force and territorial demands while assuming American superiority will compel submission, even while the war with Iran has exposed the obvious weakness in that assumption. The United States can inflict enormous damage, but Trump and Hegseth’s belligerence has exposed a military far more confident in its capability to impose success than it is able to execute. Military effectiveness depends on professional judgment, institutional knowledge, technological adaptation, logistics, and an understanding of what force can and cannot accomplish, and these are all components of the job in which Hegseth has shown zero interest or competence. The Mexican-American War showed that U.S. power was real, but its success depended on a professional military capable of exploiting that power. Hegseth seems to be trying to turn the entire military into a volunteer regiment for his warrior cosplay, purging the professionals who might remind him that wars are won through judgment, discipline, and logistics rather than pull-ups and testosterone. He has mistaken looking like a killer for knowing how to win, and the entire world is paying for his insecurity.

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CBS News editor in chief and anti-woke crusader Bari Weiss urged her newsroom to cover right-wing conspiracy theories regarding Democratic Senate candidates James Talarico and Abdul El-Sayed. Semafor reported that Weiss was particularly focused on El-Sayed’s (nonexistent) ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and 9/11, and Talarico’s (also nonexistent) trip to a mental health facility. El-Sayed, an Egyptian American Muslim, has denounced the Muslim Brotherhood numerous times amid Islamophobic attacks from both the right wing and the Democratic establishment. Weiss “personally advocated” for a deeper dive into El-Sayed’s personal history, and she even faced internal pushback for her insistence that the newsroom inaccurately tie El-Sayed to the 9/11 terror attacks, as she published an August headline reading “Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed’s deleted tweets on Sept. 11 attacks invite scrutiny of past remarks.” “Anyone discussing this race needs to be very careful about putting the name of a man who would be America’s first Muslim senator next to ‘9/11’ on very thin grounds. It reads like a dog whistle,” _Atlantic_ journalist Helen Lewis wrote at the time. As for Talarico, his whole “mental health” episode was thoroughly disproven as a smear campaign, even though Weiss thought it was worth spending time on. It’s notable that both Talarico and El-Sayed are progressive candidates who have been critical of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, something that Weiss, her pro-Israel The Free Press blog, and CBS have covered with extreme bias. This is not the first time Weiss has experienced internal pushback for inserting herself into stories. She initially pulled the plug on former _60 Minutes_ correspondent Cecilia Vega’s CECOT megaprison story in El Salvador, and was “very, very hands-on” with a story covering Israeli settler violence in the West Bank.

AI-generated photos falsely claiming to show an elderly couple being “stripped and robbed” during unrest in France have racked up millions of views. Amplified by far-right accounts, the images fuelled…

Chants of “USA!” rang out at the president’s Ohio rally after a MAGA goon punched a protester in the face. Bet you can’t guess who got high-fived and who got escorted out of the venue.

Longtime CNN chief international anchor Christiane Amanpour will be leaving the network next June. “After many months of thought and a few sleepless nights, I have decided to separate from CNN, my partner of 43 fantastic years!” Amanpour said in a statement Monday. “[I look] forward to interesting new projects down the line, and will always be rooting for CNN and maintaining its history of independent journalism. Remember: always be truthful, not neutral.” Amanpour’s resignation announcement comes just two weeks after pro-Trump billionaire David Ellison bought the media outlet in Paramount’s massive acquisition of Warner Brothers Discovery. This includes ownership of HBO and HBO Max, Warner Bros. movie and TV studios, DC, CNN, TBS, TNT, HGTV and Discovery+. David Ellison is the son of Larry Ellison, a Trump supporter, staunch Zionist, and billionaire founder of Oracle. The father-son duo have been vocal about their desire to regulate media narratives via TikTok, CBS, and now, CNN. Amanpour’s announcement did not mention Ellison. “Christiane has thought carefully about this decision, and she and I have been discussing it for some months,” CNN head Mark Thompson wrote in a statement. “Like so many CNNers who will hear the news today, I’m very sorry to see her go, but I’ve come to accept that this is the right time for her, both personally and professionally.” _This story has been updated. _

New maps reveal plans to restore and reinstall the controversial Confederate memorial at Arlington National Cemetery, expected to return in 2027.

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For months, Democrats have forced Republicans to take vote after vote on President Donald Trump’s unpopular war on Iran. Now those votes could help Democrats retake Congress — and they will immediately have opportunities to follow through on their anti-war rhetoric. Democratic leaders like House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York have been cagey about their strategy on Iran for the lame-duck period before the next Congress is sworn in on January 3. So far, months of Capitol Hill maneuvering have produced few concrete results. And one path to potential progress for ending the war is laden with risk: threatening a government shutdown. Opponents of the war say that, with Democrats pushing for support based on their efforts to end to the war, they owe it to voters to put government spending on the line. “It will certainly demonstrate whether Democrats are willing to stretch themselves and put up a fight and get uncomfortable,” said Hannah Morris, the vice president of government affairs for the liberal, pro-Israel group J Street, which opposes the conflict. “So much of the rhetoric has been about the Iran war.” ## Related ### Congress Failed Again to Stop Trump’s Iran War. This Group Is Trying Through the Courts. In the months since the conflict began on February 28, Democrats and the handful of Republicans opposed to the war have poured most of their energy into votes based on the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which limits the president’s power to wage war without congressional approval. In June, they succeeded in securing House and Senate passage of a war powers resolution, but the Trump administration has ignored the vote, arguing the law is unconstitutional. ## Most Read ICE Raid on Ilhan Omar Shows How Dangerous Two Years of Flailing Trump Could Get Natasha Lennard Trump Is Targeting Ilhan Omar. Where’s the Elite Media Outrage? Adam Johnson An Arkansas Mom Obtained Public Records About a New Data Center. Then She Got Sued. Seth Stern Advocates still believe the Trump administration should be bound by the June resolution, but they concede that other paths may have more teeth. If they really want to stop the war, Democrats will have to confront questions of timing, divisions within their own caucus, and the risk of a government shutdown. One prime opportunity could be the December 11 expiration of a spending bill called the continuing resolution that has been funding the government since the last shutdown. Democrats could attempt to attach a rider to the bill prohibiting the use of any of its funds for the Iran war. If that bill does not pass both chambers, the government shuts down. The process will provide Democrats with rare leverage before the next Congress is sworn in. Read Our Complete Coverage ## Targeting Iran Congressional Democratic leaders have not said whether they are willing to risk a shutdown, however. Jeffries did not tip his hand when he was asked during a recent interview with CNN. “Listen, we’ll deal with the appropriations process when we deal with the appropriations process,” he said. “Right now, the mechanism that is in front of us will be to aggressively move war powers resolutions until we end this war in the best interest of the American people.” Some Democratic candidates in hotly contested races have gone much further than Jeffries, zeroing in on the appropriations issue. Rep. Tom Barrett, of Michigan’s 7th Congressional District, was one of the few Republicans to vote for an Iran war powers resolution. But environmental activist Will Lawrence still attacked him at a recent debate on the issue of war funding. Morris, who is part of a coalition of groups that have called on Congress to cut off funding for the war, said she is not sure how aggressively Democrats will be willing to pursue the issue during the lame-duck period. “Will they be willing to shut down the government over this? I don’t have real answers. I think there are a lot of variables here,” she said. ## Related ### The Pentagon’s Secret Budget Another option supported by many advocates is the pending debate over the National Defense Authorization Act, the annual Pentagon budget and policy bill. Critics of the war argue that Congress could attempt to insert a provision into the law cutting off authorization for the conflict. Democrats should be willing to block the bill if it does not include “meaningful restrictions” on the administration’s ability to wage the war, said Hassan El-Tayyab, legislative director for Middle East Policy at the Friends Committee on National Legislation. “That’s the mandate we’re seeing from the American people,” he said. “They shouldn’t pass a massive defense bill while leaving the administration free to pursue yet another open-ended war in the Middle East.” The defense bill is generally considered “must-pass” legislation on Capitol Hill, providing leverage for Senate Democrats who could block it with a filibuster. The office of Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., who plays a key role in the process as the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, did not respond to a request for comment. Falling short of either of those paths, Democrats could continue to try to pass more war powers resolutions. With their party poised for a dramatic shift in its favor in the midterm elections, Democrats could even try to exert pressure on Republican legislators to vote in favor of the resolutions, some opponents of the war believe. ## We’re independent of corporate interests — and powered by members. Join us. Become a member ## Join Our Newsletter Thank You For Joining! Original reporting. Fearless journalism. Delivered to you. Will you take the next step to support our independent journalism by becoming a member of The Intercept? I'm in Become a member By signing up, I agree to receive emails from The Intercept and to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use. ## Join Our Newsletter ## Original reporting. Fearless journalism. Delivered to you. I'm in Democrats could also wait until January, when they are widely predicted to retake control of one or both chambers of Congress. Holding the gavel in the House or Senate will give them vastly expanded powers to set military spending and launch investigations into the conduct of the war. One key Democrat, Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, told The Intercept in a statement he was willing to pursue multiple paths to stopping the war, but all of them face obstacles until the next Congress. ## Related ### GOP Rep. Called Israeli–U.S. Defense Tech Integration “Dangerous.” The House Passed It Anyway. “I am open to exploring options for using the NDAA or appropriations bills as a way to end the war,” said Smith, the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee. “That effort would most likely require bipartisan support. Unfortunately, I am not confident that there is sufficient Republican will or support for such legislative efforts or to override an inevitable veto.” Whether in this Congress or the next, cutting off spending for the war appears to be the best way for Democrats to force the Trump administration to negotiate with Iran, according to Brian Finucane, a former State Department official who serves as a senior adviser at the nonprofit International Crisis Group. “If they are serious,” he said, “they should be willing to play hardball, and that would require using the power of the purse.” Share * Copy link * Share on Facebook * Share on Bluesky * Share on X * Share on LinkedIn * Share on WhatsApp _IT’S EVEN WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT._ What we’re seeing right now from Donald Trump is a full-on authoritarian takeover of the U.S. government. This is not hyperbole. Court orders are being ignored. MAGA loyalists have been put in charge of the military and federal law enforcement agencies. The Department of Government Efficiency has stripped Congress of its power of the purse. News outlets that challenge Trump have been banished or put under investigation. Yet far too many are still covering Trump’s assault on democracy like politics as usual, with flattering headlines describing Trump as “unconventional,” “testing the boundaries,” and “aggressively flexing power.” The Intercept has long covered authoritarian governments, billionaire oligarchs, and backsliding democracies around the world. We understand the challenge we face in Trump and the vital importance of press freedom in defending democracy. ## We’re independent of corporate interests. Will you help us? $15 $25 $50 $100 $5 $8 $10 $15 One Time Monthly Donate **_IT’S BEEN A DEVASTATING_** year for journalism — the worst in modern U.S. history. We have a president with utter contempt for truth aggressively using the government’s full powers to dismantle the free press. Corporate news outlets have cowered, becoming accessories in Trump’s project to create a post-truth America. Right-wing billionaires have pounced, buying up media organizations and rebuilding the information environment to their liking. In this most perilous moment for democracy, The Intercept is fighting back. But to do so effectively, we need to grow. **That’s where you come in. Will you help us expand our reporting capacity in time to hit the ground running in 2026?** ## We’re independent of corporate interests. Will you help us? $15 $25 $50 $100 $5 $8 $10 $15 One Time Monthly Donate **_I’M BEN MUESSIG,_** The Intercept’s editor-in-chief. It’s been a devastating year for journalism — the worst in modern U.S. history. We have a president with utter contempt for truth aggressively using the government’s full powers to dismantle the free press. Corporate news outlets have cowered, becoming accessories in Trump’s project to create a post-truth America. Right-wing billionaires have pounced, buying up media organizations and rebuilding the information environment to their liking. In this most perilous moment for democracy, The Intercept is fighting back. But to do so effectively, we need to grow. **That’s where you come in. Will you help us expand our reporting capacity in time to hit the ground running in 2026?** ## We’re independent of corporate interests. Will you help us? $15 $25 $50 $100 $5 $8 $10 $15 One Time Monthly Donate ## Contact the author: Matt Sledge sledge@theintercept.com @sledge.41 on Signal ## Related ### Where Are the Iran War Protests? ### The U.S. Military Struggles to Protect Its Bases Amid Failing Iran War ### Hegseth Asks for More Money as Iran War Costs Skyrocket ### Putting Fuel on a Ceasefire: Israel Tries to Kill U.S.–Iran Talks ## Latest Stories ### DHS Was Designed as a Weapon The Intercept Briefing - Oct. 16 Rep. Delia Ramirez and writers Rozina Ali and Will Sommer discuss the ICE raid on Ilhan Omar and the years of “counterterror” surveillance that paved the way for the Trump administration’s abuses. ### Long After the Maui Fires, Toxic Metals Linger in Residents’ Bodies Joseph Lee - Oct. 16 The toxic exposures didn’t begin with the flames. Researchers are examining how fires affected a community already harmed by plantation agriculture, development, and colonialism. Midterms 2026 ### Lockheed Martin Showered Susan Collins With Cash as F-35 Program Hit Turbulence Noah Hurowitz - Oct. 15 Collins received tens of thousands from Lockheed during a two-month period surrounding a critical 2023 watchdog report. Join The Conversation

Federal National Defence Minister David McGuinty says there are fatalities and injuries as a result of an “incident” at Canadian Forces Base Wainwright east of Edmonton.

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