Friday, October 24, 2025
■ Today's Top News
The survey suggests that "people want a culture that brings back grace, forgiveness, and growth," said one journalist.
By Julia Conley
A second poll that was conducted in the midst of the recent onslaught of media reports about US Senate candidate Graham Platner’s deleted Reddit posts and tattoo confirmed that voters in Maine have been undeterred by the attacks on the Democrat’s character.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) polled 647 likely Democratic voters from October 22-23, amid considerable national attention focusing on a tattoo that Platner got while he was in the Marines—one that some said resembled a Nazi symbol and that Platner got covered up after learning of the resemblance.
The survey found that 46% of respondents supported Platner despite the controversies, while 25% were backing Maine Gov. Janet Mills.
Mills announced her campaign earlier this month; US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) had called on her to join the Democratic primary race.
Next year’s primary winner will face longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who has persistently claimed to hold moderate views, particularly on abortion rights, but has voted for numerous anti-choice federal judges including Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Seventy-one percent of voters said they viewed Platner favorably, and 73% said he stands up for their values.
Since launching his campaign in August, Platner has been outspoken in his criticism of the United States‘ “oligarchy,” Democratic leaders who have capitulated to President Donald Trump, and US support for Israel’s assault on Gaza. His platform includes support for Medicare for All, a billionaire minimum tax, and federal LGBTQ+ anti-discrimination legislation.
This week, in addition to promoting policy proposals to help working families afford childcare, groceries, and other essentials, Platner has spoken about how many of his views have evolved since he wrote comments in online forums about sexual assault, people who live in rural areas, and other topics.
At a town hall in Ogunquit on Wednesday night, Platner said he did not want to “minimize what has come out,” but emphasized that he “used to hold different opinions.”
“I also grew,” he said. “I met new people. I learned of other people’s experiences.”
In the NRSC poll, 45% of respondents said Platner’s statements about his past remarks made them more likely to support him.
The findings, said journalist Ryan Grim of Drop Site News, suggested that the scandal is “helping Platner rather than hurting him—not because people love Nazi tats but because people want a culture that brings back grace, forgiveness, and growth.”
Drop Site News interviewed attendees at the town hall, and found similar sentiments.
“I’ve lived long enough to know people make mistakes, and I’ve never been someone to throw a person by the wayside because they misstep,” said Christian Millian, 39, of Wells. “Otherwise, I’d be on the wayside.”
At another event in Waterville recently, Sharon McCarthy, 50, told Drop Site News that “anyone our age and younger is going to have a past on the internet.”
“I liked that he addressed the Reddit comment issue straight out,” she said. “A lot of us said things we aren’t proud of in our younger years and have learned and grown since then. Since he addressed it straight out, didn’t deny or deflect, and said he had changed, I’m willing to give him that grace.”
At the town hall Wednesday, Platner also spoke about the need for voters to connect with one another over politics instead of seeing it as the realm of “congressman and senators.”
“For us to get young people to believe again, we have to show young people that... politics is about building power with your neighbors,” he said. “Politics is about protecting your community... We are not going to just convince people by telling them that they need to read a different news source.”
"Working families are being pummeled by higher prices, and the Trump administration has no intention of fixing it."
By Jake Johnson
Prices rose last month at a pace not seen since the beginning of the year and consumer sentiment fell to a five-month low in October as the Trump administration’s tariff policies and the GOP’s inflationary budget law take hold.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) said Friday that the consumer price index (CPI) rose at a 3% annual rate in September, up from 2.9% in August. Gas prices rose 4.1% last month and were “the largest factor” in the monthly inflation increase, the agency said. Food prices rose 0.2% in September.
“Indexes that increased over the month include shelter, airline fares, recreation, household furnishings and operations, and apparel,” BLS noted.
Alex Jacquez, chief of policy and advocacy at the Groundwork Collaborative, said in response to the new data that “prices continue to rise, and families can feel it every time they check out at the grocery store or fill up at the gas pump.”
“Trump’s chaotic economic policies continue to drive up costs for everyday essentials as the job market weakens,” said Jacquez. “Working families are being pummeled by higher prices, and the Trump administration has no intention of fixing it.”
Indivar Dutta-Gupta, an advisor with the advocacy group Community Change, said that “today’s inflation report confirms the continued strain on American families under this administration’s radical ‘survival of the elitist’ agenda, where the president’s wealthy and well-connected friends thrive and the rest of us suffer.”
“This administration and the Congress it controls have prioritized showering their billionaire friends with massive tax cuts while making it harder for regular people to afford basic necessities,” Dutta-Gupta added. “Even this week, the administration has said that it will effectively break the law by refusing to fund vital food assistance, which tens of millions of struggling families rely on to manage the increasing cost of living imposed by the Trump administration.”
The inflation data’s release was delayed by the ongoing government shutdown, and the White House said Friday that the Labor Department likely won’t publish CPI figures next month for the first time in more than 70 years.
The September inflation report came as the University of Michigan’s closely watched Surveys of Consumers found that consumer sentiment this month dropped to its lowest level since May as Americans remain anxious over elevated and still-rising prices.
“Inflation and high prices remain at the forefront of consumers’ minds,” said Joanne Hsu, the director of Surveys of Consumers.
Heather Boushey, senior research fellow at the Reimagining the Economy Project at the Harvard Kennedy School, said the Trump administration has brought the country to “an unnerving economic moment.”
“Between high tariffs and the ways that ICE is rounding up employees at workplaces across the country, there are ongoing forces pushing prices upwards,” said Boushey, “while the lack of a coherent economic agenda from the Trump administration threatens to push the economy into reverse.”
An aide to Brazil's president warned that a US regime change operation in Venezuela "could inflame South America and lead to radicalization of politics on the whole continent."
By Stephen Prager
The Trump administration said Friday that it has ordered the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group, which contains the largest warship in the world, to waters off the coast of Venezuela, marking another major military escalation after a new surge of extrajudicial boat bombings in the region this week.
“In support of the president’s directive to dismantle transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) and counter narco-terrorism in defense of the homeland, [Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth] has directed the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group and embarked carrier air wing to the US Southern Command.”
The announcement came shortly after the administration announced its 10th strike on what Hegseth claimed to be a drug-running boat, killing six people and bringing the death toll from the operations up to 43. As usual, the claim came with scant evidence.
The narrative that these boats have been transporting drugs to the US has been critically undermined in recent days after two of the alleged “narco-traffickers” who survived one of the Trump administration’s strikes were released back to their home countries: One of the survivors, an Ecuadoran man, was set free shortly after returning to his country as officials stated there was no evidence to charge him.
In several other cases, the relatives or home governments of those killed in these bombings have contested that they were not drug smugglers but fishermen.
The strikes have been met with increasing criticism in recent days, not just from Democrats, but from Republican lawmakers—including Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska)—who co-introduced a war powers resolution last week to require congressional input before carrying out acts of war against Venezuela.
A group of former national security officials—including Rear Adm. Bill Baumgartner of the Coast Guard and Retired Navy Rear Adm. Michael Smith—meanwhile issued a statement on Thursday condemning the strikes as “illegal” and “ineffective.”
The International Crisis Group, a nongovernmental organization dedicated to preventing armed conflict, warned Thursday that “what began purportedly as a campaign to stop illicit drugs from getting to US shores looks increasingly like an attempt to force Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his allies from power.”
According to several reports, Caracas has allegedly floated proposals that would allow the US to take a dominant stake in Venezuela’s oil and mineral wealth.
President Donald Trump’s deployment of the Ford strike group, which is currently en route from the Mediterranean Sea, notably comes shortly after the president threatened to begin carrying out strikes on the Venezuelan mainland without seeking authorization from Congress, which led dozens of elected officials throughout Latin America to issue a letter denouncing military aggression in the region.
“The Trump administration is planning to lead a new ‘War on Drugs,’” the leaders warned. “That war may start with regime change in Venezuela, but we know that it will not end there. Already, the US is threatening illegal drone strikes on Mexican soil in the name of its ‘national security.’ If we do not stand for peace now, we risk a new wave of armed interventions across the region, unleashing a humanitarian crisis of unimaginable scale in all of our home countries.”
Celso Amorim, an aide to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, said on Friday, following the announcement of the ship’s deployment, that “we cannot accept an outside intervention because it will trigger immense resentment,” adding that it “could inflame South America and lead to radicalization of politics on the whole continent.”
"I am disappointed in those who think keeping quiet will save them," said said one Trump critic. "It will not."
By Brad Reed
Even as they acknowledged that only the public opposition of people in power would rein in President Donald Trump’s attacks on democracy and the rule of law, a number of political, military, business, and academic elites made clear Friday that they “are scared of crossing” the president.
In a column published on Friday in the Financial Times, Edmundv Luce revealed that he has been talking with “dozens of figures, including lawmakers, private sector executives, retired senior military figures and intelligence chiefs, current and former Trump officials, Washington lawyers, and foreign government officials,” and he found that the vast majority asked to remain anonymous for fear of attacks from the president and his administration.
“Such is the fear of jail, bankruptcy, or professional reprisal, that most of these people insisted on anonymity,” Luce explained. “This was in spite of the fact that many of the same people also wanted to emphasize that Trump would only be restrained by powerful voices opposing him publicly.”
Trump’s revenge campaign against his foes has taken many forms, Luce found. The most high-profile examples have been instances in which the president has personally pushed for officials at the US Department of Justice to criminally indict many longtime adversaries, including New York Attorney General Letitia James, former FBI Director James Comey, and John Bolton, Trump’s own former national security adviser.
Luce also learned that the administration has been waging pressure campaigns on private employers to blacklist former Biden administration officials and other opponents from being offered jobs.
“Every employer says something along the lines of ‘We’d love to hire you but it’s not worth the risk,’” one former Biden White House staffer told Luce. “All they offer me is apologies.”
Former Biden national security adviser Jake Sullivan, who is now a professor at Harvard University, told Luce that he spends much of his time “trying to help former colleagues find jobs” because so few employers are willing to chance angering the president.
Military officials who spoke with Luce expressed fears that the US armed forces will not resist Trump, as they did in his first term, were he to give them illegal orders. One retired four-star general said he worried that Dan Caine, the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, would not refuse to carry out requests to have the military interfere with elections, as many officials did in 2020 when Trump tried to get the US Army to seize voting machines in swing states that he had lost to former President Joe Biden.
“Caine has the thinnest background to run the military at its most difficult stress test in modern history,” the general said.
Many Trump critics who read Luce’s reporting found it appalling that so many wealthy and powerful Americans were afraid to publicly criticize the president.
“When all this is over, we need to have a pretty serious conversation about the utter moral failure of the elite of this country,” remarked Leah Greenberg, co-founder and co-executive director of Indivisible, on Bluesky.
Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist at Dartmouth, said that Luce’s reporting shows “how much opposition we never see or hear because people fear reprisal” from the president.
Bradley Moss, a national security attorney who was one of Luce’s few sources willing to speak on the record, wrote on Bluesky that more elites needed to start speaking out against the president and his authoritarian ambitions.
“I am disappointed in those who think keeping quiet will save them,” he said. “It will not.”
Ryan Enos, a political scientist at Harvard University, acknowledged the dangers outlined in Luce’s column but also pointed out reasons for hope.
“This wannabe dictator is also extremely unpopular and those of us with the courage to stand up have the American people on our side,” he argued. “It’ll take courage and focus, but democracy can win.”
The elites interviewed by Luce expressed their reticence to publicly speak out against Trump days after more than 7 million people gathered at thousands of “No Kings” protests condemning the president’s authoritarian agenda—despite the administration’s threats against protest movements. Residents in cities including Portland, Oregon and Chicago have also resisted federal agents carrying out Trump’s mass detention and deportation campaign.
"Seniors on fixed incomes are rightly concerned that the Social Security COLA is not keeping pace with the true impact of inflation on their living costs," said one advocate.
By Jake Johnson
The Social Security Administration on Friday announced a 2.8% cost-of-living adjustment for beneficiaries, a small increase that advocates said would be mostly or entirely offset by surging healthcare premiums and other price hikes fueled by President Donald Trump’s erratic tariff policies and Republican legislation passed earlier this year.
The 2.8% raise—the second-smallest since 2021—will amount to just over $50 extra per month for the average Social Security recipient. The projected 11.6% increase in Medicare Part B premiums next year would wipe out around 40% of the COLA increase for seniors.
Nancy Altman, president of the progressive advocacy group Social Security Works, noted in a statement Friday that “the situation is even worse” for Social Security recipients who buy health insurance on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace because they are not yet eligible for Medicare. The federal government is currently shut down because congressional Republicans are refusing to extend ACA subsidies that are set to expire at the end of 2025, sending premiums soaring.
“ACA premiums are projected to skyrocket next year, with those over 50 hit hardest,” Altman said. “For many of these beneficiaries, the COLA increase won’t come close to covering their increased healthcare premiums.”
Another factor that could eat into the Social Security COLA is the impact of Trump’s tariffs on prescription drug prices, which are already far higher in the US than in other wealthy nations. Overall, as KFF Health News reported last month, “Medicare enrollees who buy the optional Part D drug benefit may see substantial premium price hikes—potentially up to $50 a month—when they shop for next year’s coverage.”
“Seniors on fixed incomes are rightly concerned that the Social Security COLA is not keeping pace with the true impact of inflation on their living costs—especially in areas where prices are soaring,” said Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. “Medical, housing, and grocery costs are outstripping the COLA.”
“If billionaires and the wealthiest 1% pay their fair share, we can boost benefits for everyone and guarantee the program’s solvency for future generations.”
Social Security lifts more people out of poverty than any other US government program, but experts and advocates have long argued that its benefits should be expanded and the COLA formula reformed to combat the growing financial struggles of older Americans. The senior poverty rate in the US rose to 15% last year, according to US Census Bureau data.
Richard Fiesta, executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, said Friday that “strengthening and expanding Social Security must be a national priority.”
“If billionaires and the wealthiest 1% pay their fair share, we can boost benefits for everyone and guarantee the program’s solvency for future generations,” said Fiesta. “Instead of working to protect Social Security, too many members of Congress and Trump administration officials are pushing to raise the retirement age, cut benefits, and even privatize the program. Older Americans have earned these benefits through a lifetime of work; they should not have to fight to keep them.”
"Demolishing the East Wing is bad enough, but carving the names of corporations and billionaires into the White House walls would mark a permanent scar on the People's House."
By Jake Johnson
Amazon, Apple, Lockheed Martin, Google, Altria, and Union Pacific Railroad are among the dozens of corporations bankrolling US President Donald Trump’s ongoing effort to replace the East Wing of the White House—which is now reduced to rubble—with a gaudy, 90,000-square-foot ballroom.
The White House released the list of donors on Thursday as the expected price tag of the project grew to $300 million.
Watchdogs said the ballroom represents yet another way in which Trump is inviting corporate influence peddling. Earlier reporting from CBS News indicated that some donors could have their names etched on the walls of the gold-encrusted ballroom.
“Demolishing the East Wing is bad enough, but carving the names of corporations and billionaires into the White House walls would mark a permanent scar on the People’s House,” said Jon Golinger, a democracy advocate with Public Citizen, said in a statement Thursday.
“Money buys access and influence and, in this case, a long-term presence on the White House wall,” Golinger added. “This is easily understood and blatantly disgusting.”
Below is the full list of names, including individuals and corporations, provided by the White House:
- Altria Group
- Amazon
- Apple
- Booz Allen Hamilton
- Caterpillar
- Coinbase
- Comcast
- José and Emilia Fanjul
- Hard Rock International
- Google
- HP
- Lockheed Martin
- Meta
- Micron Technology
- Microsoft
- NextEra Energy
- Palantir Technologies
- Ripple
- Reynolds American
- T-Mobile
- Tether America
- Union Pacific Railroad
- Adelson Family Foundation
- Stefan E. Brodie
- Betty Wold Johnson Foundation
- Charles and Marissa Cascarilla
- Edward and Shari Glazer
- Harold Hamm
- Benjamin Leon Jr.
- The Lutnick family
- The Laura & Isaac Perlmutter Foundation
- Stephen A. Schwarzman
- Konstantin Sokolov
- Kelly Loeffler and Jeff Sprecher
- Paolo Tiramani
- Cameron Winklevoss
- Tyler Winklevoss
Economist Paul Krugman wrote Friday that “it may seem like a trivial story, but it’s a highly visual metaphor for the way MAGA is tearing down almost everything good about our country.”
“In true Trumpian style, this act of vandalism is being paid for by large corporate donors—mostly tech and crypto companies—seeking to buy Trump’s favor,” wrote Krugman. “I am sure there will be a Trump meme-coin dispenser installed on every table.”
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