It's an unlocked gift article.

More: If Democrats make big gains in the midterm elections in four weeks, it may not only be because their most loyal voters come out in force, or because their candidates have converted Republican voters to their cause.

Instead, the Democrats' dream blue wave could come from Republicans who sour on President Trump and stay home. It already has a name: the red undertow.

Across the country, signs are emerging of an enthusiasm gap between Democrats and Republicans, even among those who consider themselves likely to vote. A stretch of rural southwest Michigan " long a Republican stronghold " illustrates the point, with more signs for blueberries and eggs than for political candidates. Volunteers are not showing up to door-knock. And many voters say they are tuning this election out.

More: The Department of Transportation is aiming to water down longstanding passenger protections, pushing, for example, to change how prominently airlines display prices in advertising and to clamp down on compensation for disrupted flights.

These recent steps have alarmed consumer groups and elected officials, with some saying that the proposals tilt the scales in favor of the airline industry. In addition, they say, the department is steadily taking a more hands-off approach to policing airlines, and that could end up hurting passengers.

More: In late March, at the height of the Iran war, Israel quietly approved more settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank than it ever had at one time.

Staff members at the United States Embassy in Jerusalem saw the move as potentially flouting one of President Trump's explicit red lines for Israel " no annexation of the West Bank " and drafted an urgent report intended for policy makers in Washington.

That memo never reached Washington. It was quashed by David Milstein, a top aide to Ambassador Mike Huckabee, according to three U.S. officials briefed on the process.

This was no isolated incident.

Since taking up his post in April 2025, Mr. Milstein, 36, has repeatedly suppressed or significantly revised embassy reporting on Israeli activities to present the Netanyahu government in a favorable light, according to a dozen people who work with or interact with Mr. Milstein in both Jerusalem and Washington:

As settler violence in the West Bank surged in the spring, for instance, he stymied embassy reporting suggesting that the Israeli government was failing to take action, according to the three officials. Instead the embassy sent a cable to Washington, viewed by The New York Times, praising Israel for "cracking down" on the attacks.

When members of Congress pushed for accountability over the killings of nine Palestinian Americans by Israeli settlers and security forces, he suppressed a detailed report that the embassy staff had written, effectively stonewalling lawmakers' efforts to gain information, according to multiple officials briefed on the matter.

Soon after arriving in Jerusalem, Mr. Milstein began insisting on approving communications from the embassy section that handles Palestinian affairs, multiple officials with direct knowledge of the process said. The flow of cables plummeted from several a week to a few a month, as some staffers refrained from writing reports for fear that Mr. Milstein would block or rewrite them, these officials said.

Mr. Milstein's interventions go far beyond those of any recent predecessor, several officials said. They and others said they were speaking out of concern that officials in Washington were getting a distorted view of Israeli actions through core diplomatic channels.

Mr. Milstein's efforts have helped insulate Israel's right-wing government against potential blowback from a Trump Administration that has been its closest ally.

More: A former prosecutor forced off a high-profile murder case for peeking at the defense team's strategy documents.

A onetime gambling executive who promoted conspiracy theories about the Las Vegas massacre in 2017.

A Florida activist who once served 20 days in jail for hacking a local elections system.

They are among the 130 lawyers who have recently joined the Justice Department's short-staffed civil rights division as the Trump administration has struggled to fill the depleted ranks of a unit that was once a magnet for legal talent. Since early 2025, upward of 300 nonpolitical career employees, representing decades of experience, have left the division after its leader, Harmeet Dhillon, repurposed it to pursue President Trump's agenda.

As a consequence, the division has opened its doors to recruits, many of them conservatives, some with education and work histories that might have disqualified them from being hired in the past, former officials said. Some have left a trail of hyperpartisan, conspiratorial and, in some instances, bizarre statements, according to an examination of about a dozen recent hires based on court records, social media posts and interviews.

Jim Bakker, too. Hell's getting crowded

I grew up in Charlotte, very near the epicenter of the PTL cult. Jim and Tammy Faye were unavoidable. Their downfall was a gift to us punk rock kids. Now he's dead, even better.

Why should anyone believe a word Florida cops say?

Attorneys representing Tennessee death row inmates previously alleged that the state appeared to have obtained pentobarbital through the "gray market," citing manufacturer restrictions that they said prohibited the drug from being sold for use in executions.

The allegation was detailed in an April 10, 2025 request to Gov. Bill Lee seeking a reprieve for death row inmates Oscar Smith and Byron Black while a legal challenge to Tennessee's then-new execution protocol proceeded.

"If the chemicals are manufactured, then it appears nearly certain that TDOC has procured the chemicals from the gray market," Kelley Henry and Amy Harwell of the Federal Public Defender's Capital Habeas Unit wrote in the request.

The attorneys wrote that every manufacturer of pentobarbital had placed distribution controls prohibiting sales of its products to corrections departments for executions. If Tennessee had obtained commercially manufactured pentobarbital, they argued, the drug would therefore have been acquired "outside the approved and tightly controlled commercial stream."

Tennessee officials subsequently claimed that the pentobarbital used in the state's executions was commercially manufactured, Nashville Public Radio reported in December 2025.

The Tennessee Department of Correction has, however, declined to publicly identify its pentobarbital supplier, according to the outlet. State law protects identifying information about people and entities involved in procuring drugs and other supplies used in executions.

The allegations have resurfaced following Tennessee's unsuccessful attempt to execute Pike, 50, on Wednesday, Sept. 30.

Why Good's Family Is Invoking the KKK Act

At the heart of the lawsuit is the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, a federal law enacted during Reconstruction to combat organized campaigns of violence and intimidation against newly freed Blacks and their allies.

The act allows civil litigation against conspiracies that deprive people of equal protection under the law, with one provision specifically referencing people who go "in disguise on the highway" to deprive others of equal protection.

The plaintiffs argue the law applies in 2026 because masked federal agents allegedly carried out discriminatory enforcement actions and because Good's killing furthered an effort to intimidate observers and targeted communities.

"Congress enacted [the law] to address precisely this scenario: the acts of individuals who ride the public roads with their faces covered, to strip a despised group of the equal protection of the laws, and conspiracies to accomplish the same," the complaint, filed in the U.S. District of Minnesota, read.

Hard to decide which is more pleasing to read about hunting accident deaths or anti-vaxers getting exactly what they deserve.

Said it before and I'll say it again, capital punishment is barbaric. We're made less as a society/nation/people because we allow it to happen.

What decision?

You really should ready things before you comment on them.

"The justices, with the court's three liberals dissenting, granted an emergency request filed by the government seeking to block an appeals court ruling that said the current process is unlawful because the affected people are not given a proper chance to raise concerns about safety risks in violation of federal immigration law.

In the brief unsigned order, the court also said it would hear oral arguments in December and issue a definitive ruling on the legal questions raised in the litigation."

We're not sure if this is legal or not but you can keep sending people to third world hell holes where they will be in extreme personal danger until we get around to making a decision is a ridiculous position for any court to take.

More: Until March 2010, Umar Kremlev did not exist.

Before then, the man who would go on to pay for Donald Trump Jr's post-wedding party in the Bahamas was called Umar Lutfulloev.

At 28 years old, with reported convictions for extortion and battery under his belt, and his hope of building a boxing career extinguished by ill discipline, Lutfulloev wanted to turn over a new leaf and climb the rungs of Russian society.

There was no better surname than Kremlev " "The Kremlin's man".

Without the (racist) whites, Trump had no one.

He'll always have boaz.

Must have hit a bit too close to home for the "far-right commentators." Must be afraid they'll have to get off their asses and work.

Odd that this didn't seem to make the news anywhere.

Yeah if Janet Jackson's ----- was international news this would have been all anyone was talking about if it was true.

Horde.

It's too early for historical accuracy.

This caravan will slowly march north like the mongol hoard devastating the countryside and eating nothing but white babies the whole way and then miraculously evaporate in early November.

More: Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, said the White House budget office "intentionally withheld these funds for months to execute this unlawful cancellation of appropriations that were approved on a bipartisan basis and signed into law."

"I will work with my colleagues to address these illegal actions," she added in a statement.

And Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the House Appropriations Committee's ranking Democrat, echoed that view.

"Not only is freezing the money in this proposal illegal, but the administration has also clearly been unlawfully impounding funds all year just to get to this point," DeLauro said in a statement.

Why buy them when Hegseth's DOD is shipping highly classified F-35 components to them for free?

More: Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in July that he found 15,903 noncitizen voters on Nevada's voter rolls. The New York Times on Thursday reported that a follow-up meeting between DHS officials and Nevada election officers revealed that the number was wildly incorrect.

"So what you're saying is the 15,000 number has not been vetted?" Nevada Secretary of State Chief Deputy C. Murphy Hebert asked in the August meeting.

"I probably wouldn't use the sentence, It hasn't been vetted,'" Homeland Security Secretary Kimberley Vogt said. "Because definitely we've done something with it to get down to 15,000. So I wouldn't say that. But it hasn't had a full manual review of each one." She also stated that they were not saying that only 185 people on the voter roll were noncitizens, but that those 185 definitely were. But that was wrong too.

"As for the 185 individuals, our records indicate that they were citizens," Nevada Deputy Attorney General Greg Ott wrote in a letter to DHS this week. "You have provided nothing of substance to suggest otherwise."

More: The 747 slowly wheeled to a stop last night on the tarmac of Joint Base Andrews, just outside Washington. Portable stairs were put in position, while a red carpet was unfurled and lined by both American and Chinese soldiers in dress uniforms. After a few minutes, Chinese President Xi Jinping appeared at the aircraft door. He paused and waved. Waiting below, staring up expectantly, was President Trump.

It was a remarkable act of deference. By tradition, American presidents don't make the 12-mile trip to the base to greet a foreign leader. They instead wait at the White House, backed by the grandeur and power of the executive mansion. But not this time.

Xi did not display the same level of hospitality when Trump visited Beijing in May, and the U.S. president's gesture suggested that he will take a conciliatory role during the closely watched summit between the leaders of the world's foremost superpowers. Trump is not expected to push Xi on core issues, including the pace of artificial-intelligence development, Taiwan's defense, and China's support for Iran in its war with the United States.

It was not that long ago when Trump, a self-styled international bully, could credibly claim to "run the country and the world." But he seems far smaller on the global stage now.

Will these stay longer than the first batch he brought?

It's the exact same deal we already had from back in the 1950s. Nothing changed.