In the final televised debate for Michigan’s Senate race, GOP candidate Mike Rogers used his closing remarks to claim that Jewish Democrats were supporting him because they view his Democratic opponent, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, as “too extreme” on the subject of Israel. “Jewish Democrats who are afraid for their children when their daughters can’t wear their Star of David walking across Michigan’s…
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A court in Cairo has ordered the closure of the independent Egyptian news site Mada Masr. The court also ordered the site’s editor-in-chief, Lina Attalah, to be detained until she pays a fine of over $50,000. She was convicted on charges of managing an unlicensed website. Mada Masr is “the flagship independent media outlet in Egypt and a pillar of independent media in the region…
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Donald Trump spent the last month or so insisting that there were no empty seats at his recent midterm convention in Dallas. As recently as last week, long after most political observers had completely lost interest in the meaningless Republican gathering, the president continued to claim the event had extraordinary attendance — despite the fact that those who were actually in the arena saw, and in many instances documented, all kinds of empty seats.
The rhetoric was pitiful, but there’s little this guy cares more about than crowd size.
Now, as Trump has held campaign rallies in red states in recent days, turnout for the unpopular president can be charitably described as underwhelming. In fact, The New York Times reported after an event in Alabama, “These days, Mr. Trump is in political trouble, even with members of his famously loyal base. The indoor arena that he spoke at on Friday was a fraction of the size of the football stadium he once spoke in — security concerns are such that he rarely speaks in outdoor venues anymore — and still the place was not full. Some upper sections were almost completely empty.”
It wasn’t just Alabama. Plenty of empty seats were visible at Republican gatherings in Ohio and Oklahoma, as plenty of reporters in attendance for the event were able to document.
Trump didn’t take it well. He published this rant to his social media platform on Monday afternoon:
The Ohio Arena was already full to the brim — And yet these people were still trying to get in. The New York Times said, “There were empty seats” when, in fact, there were none, and
“CNN, MSNOW and Politico back at the White House, hours after judge ordered Trump to lift ban,” read a September 24, 2026 Associated Press headline, published just one week after the administration had barred the three outlets from press briefings. In response to the ban, the White House press pool — a rotating group of journalists, photographers, and broadcast technicians organized by the White…
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With five weeks remaining in the midterm election cycle, Donald Trump and his White House team have unveiled three propagandistic campaign ads, which are being financed entirely by American taxpayers and which appear to ignore federal law that prohibits the use of public funds for “propaganda purposes.”
The most recent installment in the series is the most brazen: It simply recycles one of the president’s 2024 campaign ads and includes the phrase “Paid for by the U.S. government” at the end.
To date, the price tag for these campaign ads is nearing at least $2.5 million, which is coming from money the Republicans’ domestic policy megabill had directed to Customs and Border Protection.
Any chance the Federal Communications Commission might take an interest in such a brazen abuse? Apparently not. Deadline reported:
The chairman of the FCC on Wednesday dismissed concerns about the White House use of taxpayer money to pay for a series of ads promoting President Donald Trump.
Noting that the administration has defended the spots as public service announcements “that you see all the time,” Carr told reporters, “I don’t think there’s anything unique or different about it, other than being a normal PSA, the types of PSAs that the government naturally and normally runs.”
The suggestion that these campaign ads are public service announcements is ridiculous to the point of being insulting. Most Americans have seen public service announcements, which, by definition, are designed to advance the public’s interests, usually by promoting causes related to safety and health. Ads encouraging people to wear seat belts, steer clear of illicit drugs, curtail pollution and avoid drunk driving, for example, are classic examples. Some
With a couple of weeks remaining before his second presidential inaugural, Donald Trump made an unexpected announcement. “[W]e’ll be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the ‘Gulf of America,’ which has a beautiful ring,” the Republican said, adding that the change would be “appropriate” because the body of water is “ours.”
Although the declaration sounded like satire, Trump was quite serious, and the newly sworn-in president talked up the idea again in his inaugural address, as if it were a meaningful part of his governing vision. The Republican signed an executive order hours later, as if the president had the unilateral authority to rename international bodies of water that have existed for centuries.
In the weeks and months that followed, assorted lobbying campaigns pushed public and private entities to play along with the White House’s wishes, but as a practical matter, most sensible observers realized that “Gulf of America” was destined to become one of those tiresome phrases used only by rabid partisans, such as “Department of War,” “death tax” and “Democrat Party.”
In some areas, however, it seems people who want to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of Mexico are legally prohibited from doing so. AL.com reported:
A station official for WBHM in Birmingham wrote a letter to “friends and listeners” warning that the public radio station is being coerced into using “Gulf of America” instead of “Gulf of Mexico,” and that it threatens the station’s independence.
The mandated change in language that WBHM will be expected to follow under state law takes effect on Oct. 1, after Gov. Kay Ivey signed a law requiring that “all state and