LOTS OF POSTS IGNORED BY BLOGGER.....
OR REMOVED ON THEIR WHIM!
ALL POSTS ARE AVAILABLE ON
MIDDLEBORO REVIEW AND SO ON
BLOGGER DOESN'T LIKE TRUTH OR FACTS!
BLOGGER DOESN'T LIKE FUND RAISERS AND DELETES
POSTS THAT INCLUDE FUNDRAISING THAT 'VIOLATES THEIR
UNDEFINED COMMUNITY STANDARDS SO ALL 'FUND RAISING'
IS DELETED - CONTRIBUTE AS YOU ARE INCLINED TO SUPPORT
IMPORTANT ISSUES! THESE ARE NOT SOLICITATIONS
 |
Good morning, everyone. I hope you’re all doing well and that you’ve got something nice planned for the weekend.
Before anything else, my heart goes out to the families in Bend, Oregon. Three young children and a teacher were killed at their elementary school yesterday, and I’m thinking about that community this morning.
It’s been another chaotic news day. Trump reportedly blew up yesterday after one of his aides printed out a Politico story about him looking to replace his chief of staff, and the White House is now “in a state of panic.” Sean Hannity also turned on Trump’s new press secretary on live TV, which tells you a lot about where things stand inside that building. On Ukraine, Trump said Zelensky is “more difficult to deal with than Putin,” and Reuters is reporting that the order to slow down Ukraine’s military Starlink came from inside the White House. As you all know, that one hits close to home for me.
And then there’s Elon Musk. The New York Times found that most of the money behind Ken Paxton’s Senate campaign in Texas traces back to him, $158 million and counting. I heard Musk fans are mad at me, so I’m interviewing Alex Gibney, the director of the new Musk documentary he wants you to never see. Musk can spend hundreds of millions trying to buy elections and drown out the truth, but he can’t buy this newsletter, and he can’t buy you.
I don’t have a billionaire backing me. I have you. If you want to make sure this work keeps going no matter who gets angry about it, please subscribe today. Every single subscription keeps me independent and helps me keep holding the most powerful people in the world accountable.
Here’s everything you need to know today.
Trump “Blew Up” Over Wiles Report as White House Panics and Hannity Turns on Zacharia
Trump “blew up” after aide Natalie Harp printed out Politico’s Playbook report about Susie Wiles’ future and handed it to him, according to Politico. Two people with knowledge of what happened told Politico that Harp, 35, printed the newsletter for the president to read Thursday morning. Three people described what followed as a “freakout,” as Trump reacted to more bad headlines about his chief of staff. The report described Trump privately calling allies to ask who should replace Wiles, whom he has nicknamed his “Ice Maiden.” Harp is known inside the White House as the “human printer” because she prints articles and online comments for Trump, and she reportedly has had tension with Wiles for months. After reading the story, Trump made more calls to allies about Wiles, according to a person with direct knowledge.
 |
The White House is “in a state of panic” as Wiles scrambles to save her job, according to a person close to the president. Wiles and her allies have been “burn[ing] up phones around town” to calm things down, people familiar with the situation told Politico. “Susie is looking over her shoulder, trying to solicit people to go out and say good things about her and her team and make it seem like everything is fine. It’s not,” the person close to Trump said. New reporting from the New York Times is unlikely to help. The Times detailed more of the work Wiles’ daughter, Katie Wiles, has done for Republika Srpska, the pro-Russian Serb territory in Bosnia and Herzegovina, including visits to a gas pipeline there with a Texas energy executive. Two Wiles allies, former White House aide James Blair and former Trump campaign adviser Chris LaCivita, have also been tied to work for the territory, and one adviser accused “Susie’s cadre” of “monetizing [Trump’s] ecosystem pretty dramatically.”
Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton is now being floated as a possible replacement for Wiles, adding to a growing list of contenders. Politico reported that Trump is weighing several names, including Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, special envoy Steve Witkoff, housing chief Bill Pulte, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and New York Yankees president Randy Levine. The Washington Post reports that rumors of Wiles’ exit have set off a fierce fight among rivals, with Miller, Pulte and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin reportedly positioning themselves for the job. Some of the allies Trump has called have been happy to criticize Wiles, with one Republican strategist telling Politico, “She’s burned a lot of people.” Many in the West Wing saw Trump’s decision to hire Katie Zacharia as press secretary without consulting Wiles as a direct shot at his chief of staff. Wiles has said she has no plans to leave anytime soon.
The White House and Trump are flatly denying the reports, even as the stories keep coming. White House spokesperson Danielle Alvarez called Politico’s latest report “an unbelievably stupid and false claim from yet another anonymous ‘source.’” “Nobody read the story and freaked out because, frankly, nobody reads Politico in the first place,” Alvarez said, ending her statement with “FAKE NEWS POLITICO!” Trump himself denied that any of the reported calls happened, calling the report “TOTAL FAKE NEWS.” “Susie Wiles is my loyal and longest serving Chief of Staff,” Trump said, adding that she has his “COMPLETE confidence.” The turmoil comes less than three weeks before the Nov. 3 midterms, with Democrats holding a 9-point lead on the generic ballot.
Sean Hannity, one of Trump’s closest media allies, grilled Zacharia on Fox News Thursday night, and critics across the spectrum said she’s “cooked.” Hannity had first defended her 14-minute debut briefing, where she took only three questions, as “perfectly normal,” but this time he called it “widely panned” and asked whether she was blaming staff for not preparing her. He also pressed her on describing herself as a lawyer even though she failed the bar exam, and she admitted she never took it again. When Hannity cited a report of 15 social media posts in which she called herself an attorney, Zacharia dismissed them as retweets and said she had consulted legal professionals about using the term “lawyer.” Journalists like Yashar Ali and Semafor’s Max Tani noted that Hannity knows Trump watches his show, and Ali said it was hard to imagine Hannity taking that tone unless he knew Trump was fine with it or wanted it. Even MAGA commentator Ian Miles Cheong said, “Sean Hannity just ended Katie Zacharia’s entire career.”
Trump Says Zelensky Is “More Difficult to Deal With Than Putin” as Reuters Reports Starlink Order Came From Inside the White House
Trump called Ukraine’s renewed strikes on Russian oil refineries a “disgrace” and said Zelensky is harder to deal with than Vladimir Putin. “If you tell me that Zelenskyy is again shooting at refineries, all he’s doing is making the world oil price higher,” Trump told Newsmax on Thursday night. “I think that’s a disgrace. There’s plenty of other targets; they don’t have to hit.” Trump also said he is “not a big fan of Zelensky” and that the Ukrainian leader is “not a good guy for us to deal with.” “He says he wants to settle, but he doesn’t,” Trump said, adding, “I find Zelenskyy to be more difficult to deal with than Putin.” The Kremlin quickly sided with Trump, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying it was clear that “Zelenskyy doesn’t want to take responsibility and move toward a peaceful resolution.”
Trump’s anger is tied to his diesel deal with Russia and the gas prices threatening Republicans ahead of the midterms. Zelensky had paused strikes on Russian refineries for three days at Trump’s request for an “energy ceasefire,” but resumed them Thursday because Russia never stopped hitting Ukraine’s power grid. Moscow has said it never agreed to the ceasefire in the first place. Last week, Trump struck a deal to import Russian diesel, reversing years of U.S. policy, and Ukraine’s refinery strikes threaten Russia’s ability to deliver it. Trump blames the strikes for high fuel prices, but experts say the spike is mainly the result of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, which has largely shut the Strait of Hormuz. Zelensky called the diesel deal a gift to Putin and “weak,” and Trump has since called for Zelensky’s ouster and new elections in Ukraine.
The order to slow Ukraine’s military satellite service came from inside the White House, according to an exclusive Reuters report. Two U.S. officials and a Western official told Reuters that Pentagon leaders received a message from the White House saying the SpaceX Starshield service for Ukraine’s military needed to be slowed. The officials did not say who in the White House made the decision. Ukrainian officials said the restrictions disrupted strike missions and slowed interceptor drones used to shoot down Russian Shahed drones, and several deadly Russian strikes hit Ukraine Tuesday night with no advance warning. A senior U.S. official said “no such request was ever made by the president,” and the White House didn’t answer whether anyone else in the administration made it. Elon Musk has said decisions on Starshield limits are up to the U.S. military or the president, and a senior Ukrainian official said Kyiv was told directly that it was a White House decision.
 |
Zelensky was in Brussels on Friday rallying European support and thanking “real leaders” as his relationship with Trump falls apart. He arrived at an EU summit alongside European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa. “Of course we supported President Trump’s energy ceasefire but we’ve seen that Russia did not respect it, not a single minute,” von der Leyen said, adding that sanctions on Russia “have to increase.” Costa said “this is no time to withdraw support” from Ukraine and “no time to relieve Russian sanctions,” a clear contrast to Trump’s diesel deal. The summit is focused on funding Ukraine and helping it survive a fifth winter of full-scale war, as Russian attacks continue to target its energy and water infrastructure. Overnight, a Russian drone strike killed several people in Kharkiv, and about 270,000 households in the Volyn region lost power, while Zelensky said Starlink speeds still haven’t fully returned.
Musk Documentary Paints a Damning Portrait as His Money Props Up Ken Paxton in Texas
Alex Gibney’s new documentary “Musk” paints Elon Musk as a man who sees other people as characters in his own video game, according to a review in The New Republic. The film, from the director of “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room” and “Going Clear,” runs nearly four hours with an intermission. Musk refused to be interviewed and instead called Gibney a “douche” on X, so Gibney built a database of Musk’s recorded interviews and created a computer-generated Musk avatar that “answers” questions using things Musk has actually said. The device plays on Musk’s long-held belief that life is probably a simulation, and the film portrays him as the main character in a digital world where everyone else is a “non-player character.” Reviewer David Klion describes the portrait that emerges as one of “an empty, hateful, emotionally stunted man” whose two superpowers are shameless self-promotion and an ability to exploit weaknesses in government regulation. The central question of the film, Klion writes, is how someone like Musk gained such immense power and “what does it say about the rest of us that we allowed it to happen?”
The documentary traces the damage Musk has done, from Tesla’s self-driving crashes to the dismantling of USAID, and includes his power over Ukraine’s battlefield through Starlink. Gibney interviews more than a dozen people, including Tesla co-founder Martin Eberhard, Musk’s ex-wife Justine, Ashley St. Clair, former USAID chief Samantha Power and members of Musk’s own family. The film highlights a Florida lawyer suing Tesla over its self-driving cars, which have been involved in at least 60 deaths. It also covers Musk’s gutting of the federal government through DOGE, and Power chokes up on camera describing the suffering caused to the world’s poorest people when USAID was dismantled. Gibney shows how Musk built ties with Trump, Argentina’s Javier Milei, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan to expand businesses like Starlink, which lets him “sway the battlefields of Ukraine by denying or granting access.” St. Clair, the mother of one of his 14 known children, says on camera that she refused to sign a nondisclosure agreement she claims Musk has offered other women and details the harassment she has faced since speaking out.
Most of the money behind Ken Paxton’s Texas Senate campaign can be traced to Musk, who gave $158 million to a super PAC that immediately sent the same amount to a pro-Paxton group, according to the New York Times. Campaign finance filings show Musk gave the Senate Leadership Fund $75 million on Sept. 9 and $83 million on Sept. 23. Each time, the very next day, the super PAC sent a check for the exact same amount to Texas PAC, a group it set up to support Paxton. Musk also gave $10 million to a separate pro-Paxton super PAC that started running TV ads in late August, and his midterm donations now total at least $276 million, making him the biggest known donor this cycle. Musk, who lives in Austin, has long been allied with Paxton, who as Texas attorney general regulates Musk’s businesses in the state. The money has kept Paxton competitive even though he has been vastly outraised by Democrat James Talarico, who has criticized billionaires like Musk on the campaign trail and has been the target of several recent attacks from Musk on X.
Musk settled the last two lawsuits over his $1 million voter giveaways from the 2024 election, ending a two-year legal fight, according to CNN. In the final stretch of the 2024 race, Musk’s America PAC gave away $1 million a day to registered voters in battleground states while Musk urged people to vote for Trump. Voters later filed proposed class-action fraud lawsuits claiming Musk tricked them into thinking they had a fair shot at the money, which required handing over their personal data to his political group. Musk had said the winners would be picked “randomly,” but his lawyers later admitted in court that winners were “not chosen by chance” and were instead picked based on whether they would make good spokespeople for the pro-Trump super PAC. The terms of the settlements were not disclosed, and Musk and America PAC deny wrongdoing. The Justice Department warned Musk in 2024 that the giveaways could violate federal vote-buying laws, and Wisconsin’s bipartisan election commission concluded this year that he likely broke state law with similar giveaways in a 2025 judicial race, though prosecutors declined to bring charges.
Settlers Attack Olive Harvesters and a Washington Post Journalist in the West Bank as Iran Warns of the War’s Lasting Damage
Masked Israeli settlers armed with clubs attacked Palestinian olive harvesters in the occupied West Bank village of Abu Falah, and a Washington Post journalist was beaten, according to a reporter who was there. Journalist Jasper Nathaniel told Al Jazeera that settlers gathered on a hilltop near an outpost, put on masks and then charged down at the farmers, throwing stones and using slingshots. As the clash escalated and tear gas filled the area, a pickup truck carrying at least two settlers with machine guns sped down the hill, and the settlers opened fire. In the chaos, Washington Post reporter Heidi Levine fell, and Nathaniel said he saw people “beating her, clubbing her, robbing her, pulling her up, beating her again and kicking her.” When the Israeli army arrived, soldiers fired and used tear gas, and a canister struck a Palestinian man in the leg, and he and Levine were both taken to a hospital in Ramallah. Nathaniel, who has reported from the West Bank for three years, said settler violence is likely “at or near an all-time high right now.”
 |
Qatar’s prime minister visited Lebanon and said Israeli violations and the escalating conflict there dominated his talks. Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani said the discussions covered “the assault on the peacekeeping forces as well as the Israeli violations within the Lebanese territories.” He called for full implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, the 2006 agreement that ended the war between Israel and Hezbollah. That resolution called for Israel to fully withdraw from Lebanon, Hezbollah to disarm and only Lebanon’s army and U.N. peacekeepers to operate in southern Lebanon. He also announced that Qatar Energy plans to build a “massive” solar plant in Lebanon, which has struggled through severe energy crises. Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam thanked Qatar for standing by Lebanon “in some of our darkest hours,” including after the 2006 war.
Iran’s president warned that the war’s environmental damage will be paid for by future generations, as tensions continue at sea. Speaking in Armenia at an environment conference, President Masoud Pezeshkian urged the international community “to pay more serious attention to the environmental impacts of military conflicts.” Iran’s navy also said a “violating tanker” caught fire in the Sea of Oman, though it gave few details. Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Iran is concerned about growing U.S. influence in the region, pointing to the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, a U.S.-backed trade corridor through southern Armenia. Araghchi said Tehran has been assured that “Armenia will not take any action against the security of Iran.” He added that Iran will keep consulting with Armenian officials.
Other news:
Three children, ages 5, 8 and 11, and a teacher were killed in Thursday’s shooting at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon, and police say a community member killed the 16-year-old suspect. The shooter fired through the school’s locked doors to get inside around 1 p.m. local time, after first firing at a person in a car with a long gun, according to Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz. A community member who saw the suspect enter the school followed him inside and shot him, and officers arrived about three minutes after the first call. A 7-year-old and a 54-year-old teacher were taken to St. Charles Medical Center in critical condition. Police haven’t released the suspect’s name or a motive, and they haven’t said how he got the gun, since Oregon law bars selling firearms to minors. Gov. Tina Kotek praised the community member who “heroically intervened to stop further loss of life,” and all Bend-La Pine schools are closed Friday.
Trump is blaming Sen. John Cornyn and Karl Rove for Ken Paxton’s struggles in the Texas Senate race, which polls show the Republican could lose. In a Truth Social post, Trump accused his fellow Republicans of “doing everything possible to make it hard” for Paxton and said they were working against him “sadly, and very stupidly” out of personal jealousy. “If Ken Paxton loses, it will be because of WEAK and INEFFECTIVE Political Hacks like John Cornyn and Karl Rove, who have ineffectively opposed me for my entire political career,” Trump wrote. He also said the pair were “hurting Texas and, more importantly, hurting the United States of America!” Many Republicans consider Texas a safe seat, but polls show Democratic nominee James Talarico with a slight lead over Paxton, who has been the state’s attorney general since 2015. A Paxton loss would be a major blow to Trump and the GOP, since Democrats haven’t won a Senate race in Texas since 1988.
 |
Pope Leo XIV is showing “continued improvement” after lung cancer surgery and will make his first public appearance Sunday, the Vatican says. Doctors removed the lower lobe of the 71-year-old pope’s right lung on Oct. 13 after finding a suspected cancerous nodule, and the surgery confirmed adenocarcinoma, the most common type of lung cancer. His doctors said his recovery now lets him “carry out his normal daily activities completely on his own,” and he presided over Mass in a hospital chapel on Friday. The Vatican also published the list of journalists flying with him on his Nov. 6-17 trip to Uruguay, Argentina and Peru, a sign the trip is still planned. Still, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin raised eyebrows by suggesting the pope may need to “adjust his pontificate.” Doctors are still waiting on tests to learn whether the cancer has spread and whether more treatment is needed.
Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan broke with Trump on his Russian diesel deal during a heated debate against Democrat Mary Peltola in one of the country’s most closely watched Senate races. “I just led the effort on a Russia sanctions act that passed the Congress, so I’m opposed to that,” Sullivan said, joining other Republicans in tight races who have been distancing themselves from the administration. He also criticized the Pentagon’s now-scrapped plan to livestream Nidal Hasan’s execution, saying it would “create more terrorists.” Peltola tied the Iran war to rising prices at home and hit Sullivan for getting “richer every single one of” his 12 years in Washington. Sullivan attacked Peltola over her lobbying work and a New York Times report on turmoil in her congressional office, which she called “mass exaggerations of the truth.” NBC News rates the race a toss-up, and Peltola led Sullivan 49.5% to 41.4% in August’s all-party primary, even though Trump won Alaska by double digits in 2024.
A Norwegian teenager was sentenced to 20 years in prison for traveling to the U.K. to carry out a contract killing for a crime gang linked to Iran. Johannes Kongsnes Natland, now 19, was convicted in July of conspiracy to murder after agreeing to shoot an unknown target for 25,000 euros. He was arrested at a hotel in Huddersfield, England, with two guns and ammunition two days after arriving in the country. He was recruited while playing an online game by the Foxtrot Network, a Swedish organized crime group that London police say has ties to the Iranian government. Natland claimed he didn’t want to go through with it, but the judge said he “pursued it, despite numerous opportunities to extricate yourself.” The U.K. sanctioned the Foxtrot Network last year over violence against Jewish and Israeli targets in Europe carried out on behalf of the Iranian regime.
Istanbul has been hit by its worst floods in more than 80 years, and at least four people have died. Turkey’s largest city, home to 16 million people, got more rain in 48 hours than it usually gets in September and October combined, according to the state-run Anadolu Agency. “We are experiencing the biggest flood disaster since 1942,” Interior Minister Mustafa Ciftci said. The body of a 66-year-old man was found under a bridge Friday, and a teenager was among the earlier victims after being electrocuted during the storm. Homes and businesses flooded, cars were swept away and piled up at the bottom of hills, and officials have received nearly 10,000 damage reports. Turkey’s environment minister, who will chair the U.N.’s COP31 climate conference next month, linked the floods to climate change and said fighting it “is not a choice, but a necessity.”
A fast-moving brush fire in western Malibu has burned 200 acres and forced evacuations amid hot, windy conditions. The Bryson Fire started just before 5 p.m. Thursday in the Santa Monica Mountains near the Ventura County line and was 0% contained as of Thursday night. Evacuation orders were issued for the Encinal Canyon area, and nearby areas including Zuma Beach are under evacuation warnings. “It’s really windy, and it’s really scary to see this happening again,” said one evacuee who lost her home in the 2018 Woolsey Fire. No structures have been lost and no injuries have been reported, and more than 300 firefighters are on the fire, backed by aircraft that can fly at night. A red flag warning remains in effect for much of Los Angeles and Ventura counties until 8 p.m. Saturday, and the cause of the fire is still unknown.
See you soon.
— Aaron
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.