Good News: AIPAC Support Has Become Toxic to US Candidates for Office

AIPAC is the Zionist American arm of the Zionist colony in Palestine, a.k.a. Israel. AIPAC buys candidates for American elections on both sides of the political divide. That is not a sign of principled posture or of lack of bias. It is more an effort to keep American politics entangled with the genocidal foreign colonial Jewish supremacist colony in occupied Palestine currently engaged in the ethnic cleansing and mass murder of the indigenous people of Palestine. 

With a massive reversal of fortunes for Israel in American public opinion - on account of the genocide and the rape of Palestine by foreign radical terrorist settlers - it has become toxic for US candidates for office to be associated with the accomplice in the genocide, namely AIPAC.

Over the past two decades, young Americans have discovered the long occulted barbarity of the creation of the Zionist colony in Palestine. Zionist propaganda and monopoly over the information during most of the 20th century created a false narrative to justify the atrocities, massacres and terrorism perpetrated by Zionist terrorist groups (Stern-Lehi, Irgun, Haganah, etc.) in their first ethnic cleansing campaigns of the 1930s and 1940s. Virtually all Zionists who descended as illegal migrants onto Palestine during the British control of Palestine came from Europe as colonial settlers who brought with them and implemented the barbarity of their Fascist and Nazi homelands. Some 600 Palestinian villages were erased from the map and millions of indiogenous Palestinians were evicted from their ancestral land into refugee camps. Any resistance by the victims of Zionist genocide and ethnic cleansing was drilled into the public discourse as "terrorism", when the facts are that it was the Zionists who practiced terrorism against a largely innocent Palestinian population to drive them off the land.

Instead of the facts, Zionist propaganda drilled two false claims into the international debate: one, that the land belongs to them by virtue of the biblical Bronze Age garbage of the Torah some 3,000 years ago (when in fact modern Jews are unrelated to the biblical Semitic Hebrews and are modern-day Indo-European converts), and two, that being victims of barbarian Europeans somehow entitled them to mass murder and displace the indigenous Palestinians who never did them any harm.

In the US, the propaganda lobby arm of the Zionist colony in Palestine has lost its monopoly and stanglehold on US public opinion. Any candidate who receives money from AIPAC (America-Israel Political Action Committee) is now seen as complicit in subverting American democracy to serve the barbaric colonial European settlement in Palestine.

Several Zionist organizations in the US (AIPAC, the Anti-Defamation League ADL, etc.) have in recent years been branded "biased" and "unreliable" in their assessments of US politics because of their blind support for genocide, apartheid and ethnic cleansing in Palestine.

After several American politicians became the target by a large swath of American public opinion of harsh criticism following their endorsement by AIPAC, the Zionist lobby group  announced yesterday that it will no longer officially endorse candidates in US elections or send direct donations through its political action committee. That is a major victory for justice in Palestine and for the truth in the American public debate over the dirty financing of US politics. 

The Truth About the Inbred Hillbilly Moron JD Vance

He changed his name three times. He changed his religion three times, including an atheist phase. He's a dumb white supremacist racist chameleon who married a dark-skinned Hindu so he can pretend to be "tolerant", all the while urging her to convert to his evangelical crap. JD Vance is a Yale graduate but he was admitted under a DEI program aiming at helping morons from Appalachia like him become civilized. But alas, Yale didn't stick. His insult-laden language has not only revealed his racist DNA, but it also demonstrates his despair at foreseeing his inevitable kick out of American politics, at which time he can go back to his shed in Appalachia and hump a few sows.

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JD Vance is America’s worst insult comedian
Amanda Marcotte
Wed, October 21, 2026 


Vice President JD Vance speaks during a campaign rally on Oct. 13, 2026 in Tyler, Texas. Saul Loeb-Pool/Getty Images

Theories abound as to why JD Vance, once a promising Yale Law graduate with a best-selling memoir, went MAGA. Some argue that it was always a mistake to confuse the vice president's cosmopolitanism for intellectual sophistication, pointing out that "Hillbilly Elegy" is a bad book that panders to ugly right-wing stereotypes about his working class family of origin. Others suggest he is an empty shell who will become whatever it takes to gain money and power, as evidenced by his constantly shifting attitudes about race and religion. The truth likely falls in the "why not both?" arena. After all, empty and insecure people have often been drawn to far-right ideologies.

But there is one under-appreciated possibility for the MAGA turn of a man who once called Donald Trump "America's Hitler": that he finally found an audience willing to laugh at his unfunny jokes.

Vance is clearly embroiled in a lifelong struggle with a common ailment of self-serious men who consider themselves profound geniuses. He longs to be the funniest guy in the room, but he is unable to understand how humor works. But the vice president has discovered what second-rate talents that end up as the "comic" relief on Fox News learned long ago: The right-wing crowd doesn't care if you're not funny just as long as you're cruel.

Vance is taking full advantage of MAGA's lack of discernment in the last weeks of the midterm campaign. During a stop in Texas supporting the Republican Senate candidate, state Attorney General Ken Paxton, Vance responded to a fan by saying, "I love you, too, sir. And in a totally platonic way, to be clear. I'm the vice president, not James Talarico." The audience roared with laughter, apparently unable to realize that calling Paxton's Democratic opponent "gay" is less witty than if Vance had made fart noises with his armpit.

The vice president can't stop with tedious jokes about Talarico, who is leading in statewide polls. On his way to Texas, Vance falsely accused Talarico of having "a weird focus on transgender kids and drag queens," topics that he and Trump bring up every chance they get. Vance added, "typically people who say stuff like that tend to have some pretty unusual search histories."

But Vance isn't content to simply dabble in homophobia and transphobia. Racism is also his forte. During a North Carolina rally on Monday, he called non-white congresswomen "crazies" and mispronounced the name of Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. When a protester jumped up to demand that the Trump administration release the Epstein files, Vance suggested, apparently taking note of the young man's darker skin, that the protester was in the U.S. because of "illegal border crossings."

At another event, Vance called Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan's Democratic candidate for Senate, a "little weasel" who should "shut his mouth and show a little gratitude." This was not out of character; the vice president often demands that people of color bow and scrape before white people for graciously allowing them to exist. But this time he got rebuked by the far funnier El-Sayed, who responded that Vance "had a cute little rally" with the "five people who like him."

But the vice president's lack of wit was perhaps best illustrated at an Ohio rally in support of GOP gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, when he suggested that Dr. Amy Acton, the Democratic nominee, has a substance abuse problem. "I did promise Amy that I would meet her at a bar later. I understand she's into that sort of thing," Vance said, pausing for laughter that even the MAGA audience could barely muster.

Vance's implication can be traced to a Republican ad that paints Acton as an alcoholic after a 2019 incident in which the police were called during a loud fight with her husband. The call was reported not violent by officers, and her campaign claims the situation is being blown out of proportion. (Acton has also been hit with ads featuring insults from her mother, Donna Arthur, with whom she has been estranged since 1978 after Arthur refused to support her when she accused her stepfather of molesting and raping her between the ages of nine and 12. According to the New York Times, Acton's stepfather entered a not-guilty plea and was indicted by a grand jury, then went on the run from Ohio before standing trial.)

Vance's stream of insults ring particularly noxious when considering that he spent the summer portraying himself as a heartfelt Catholic convert whose salvation has imbued him with a newfound sense of Christian grace. In an obvious effort to soft-launch a 2028 presidential campaign, the vice president published "Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith" in June, and strived mightily to convince interviewers they were beholding a humble servant of Jesus Christ.

Vance told USA Today that "my faith tells me to fight against" the blind pursuit of ambition and instead "focus on the good" and "make wise decisions and moral decisions." In an excerpt published in the Wall Street Journal, he wrote that he's learned "to love all parts of our Christian communion," including those "who voted for me and those who didn't." He went on "The View" with this gentle Christian message, claiming regret over "boneheaded" insults in the past, such as when he described childless women as being "miserable," "sociopathic" and "cat ladies. The hosts weren't having it, though, pointing out that there is nothing of Christian communion in the administration's attacks on Black people and immigrants, and leaving a visibly uncomfortable vice president to pretend not to know what they were talking about.

Want more sharp takes on politics? Sign up for our free newsletter, Standing Room Only, written by Amanda Marcotte, now also a weekly show on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

Vance may be able to wriggle around his very un-Christian insults and falsehoods about Democratic politicians by calling politics a "dirty business," as he did in the Wall Street Journal. But it's impossible to square his claims of grace and salvation with the utter nastiness he unleashes on immigrants, most of whom are Christians themselves. He has yet to apologize for falsely accusing Haitian immigrants — most of whom are Catholic, like himself — of stealing people's dogs and cats to eat them. Shortly after publishing "Communion," Vance accused immigrants of making America "dirtier and poorer and less safe and less prosperous." (This is also flat-out false, as immigration has been proven to boost the economy, and the country is objectively cleaner than it was decades ago, when a thick cloud of smog hung over many American cities.) 

[Those who dirty up America and make it the third-world of the first-world are his own filthy inbred white trash morons from the backwoods and the boonies of America. The constant inflow of educated immigrants is what made America great throughout the 20th century, while his own white trash kind were moonshining, getting drunk and bedding their sisters and mothers].

Through it all, Vance seems to be hoping that the crowd that sees his "Christian charity" face isn't the same one showing up to hoot at his lame "no homo" jokes about the devout Talarico. This behavior was on display during his recent CBS town hall event, where he tucked away the bad insult comedy and put on his choir boy mask. The dishonesty and hypocrisy reached stratospheric levels when audience members, including a Catholic nun, challenged Vance on his support for mass deportations and his racist lies about immigrants.

"To the extent that my rhetoric has been imperfect here," Vance said, "that's on me." Then he framed the administration's widespread abuses as reasonable, even compassionate, restrictions on immigration.

His comments came mere hours after he falsely blamed the riots in France on immigrants, posing on X that "liberals imported the third world into France and other countries" while "ignor[ing] fundamental questions of assimilation and compatibility." No doubt Vance would deflect and deny if he were confronted on it, but there's no way to interpret his words except as a claim that people of different backgrounds cannot live together without violence — a frequent insinuation of his that is never slowed by the fact that his own wife and children are Indian-American.

This is ultimately why — despite the undeniable ugliness of Vance's insults of Democrats, immigrants, queer people and single women — his humor rarely generates the outrage he's clearly trolling for. Vance tends to come across as more of a pathetic striver than an effective bully. Verbal jabs work a lot better if the would-be roaster has a sense of self- confidence, or at least the ability to fake it. Whether he's speaking of love or hate, Vance never really seems to be talking with any conviction at all, beyond the hope that whatever he's saying will win him more power.

The post JD Vance is America's worst insult comedian appeared first on Salon.com.

Mainers: Get Rid of Susan Collins, the Old Obsolete Fence-sitter Who Caved to Trump

MAINE: You need young leaders. Time to shelf Susan Collins with her wavering cowardice and sycophancy to Trump. Times have changed. Trump's right-wing racist conservative radicals have shown America the filth they're made of, and they need to get out of your lives. Susan Collins kept caving in to them, preferring party loyalty over country and the State of Maine. DUMP THE OLD BAG! HER BACON HAS TURNED STALE.

Has Susan Collins’s political luck finally run out?
Dustin DeSoto, Sean Rameswaram
Wed, October 21, 2026 

If Sen. Susan Collins loses reelection, "a lot of it will be put at the feet of President Trump," Washington Post reporter Dan Merica told Vox's Today, Explained. | Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images

With two weeks until the midterm elections, Democrats are comfortably favored to take the House. Their path to Senate control, though, is harder — and it could run through Maine, where longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins is in a tight race against former state Senate president Troy Jackson, a Democrat.

When Collins first ran for Senate in 1996, she pledged to serve only two terms in the Senate. But 30 years later, she's still in office despite the odds, as Maine has grown more blue around her.

One secret to her political durability is her success in "bringing in the bacon" for Mainers: Her official Senate website features a map of projects that she says she helped fund as chair of the Senate Appropriations committee, including hospitals, bridges, affordable housing, public transportation, and water systems.

This year, though, all of that money might not be enough for Mainers to look past their frustration with another Republican: President Donald Trump.

To learn more about what Maine voters are thinking as they prepare to head to the polls, Today, Explained co-host Sean Rameswaram spoke with Washington Post reporter Dan Merica, who's on the ground reporting from Maine, about why some Mainers who backed Collins before are now reconsidering their support.

Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There's much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.

Tell me how this race got to be so fascinating.

Maine this cycle was going to be interesting no matter what. Susan Collins is the only Republican senator who is running for reelection in a state that Kamala Harris won in 2024 this cycle.

But since the outset, it has really defined, I think, these midterm elections. The rise of Graham Platner, the oysterman turned politician, really hinted at the populist anti-establishment fervor that was in the Democratic base. That fervor was so strong that it prevented the sitting incumbent Democratic governor from winning the primary here in Maine to challenge Susan Collins. I think that said a lot about the Democratic Party.

Obviously Graham Platner's campaign then flamed out and he ended his campaign because of the allegations of sexual assault against him.

But then you have the Collins angle of it, and she is really the poster candidate for a Republican who, in this election where Donald Trump's approval rating is so low, is having to basically suspend political gravity in a state that really does not approve of the job that he's done as president.

I want to ground this conversation in how voters in Maine feel about him right now because I know you've been talking to voters. What is the vibe out there? Are people mad?

There's a lot of anger for the president here. Maine is in a unique position where it's been on the receiving end of a lot of what those people who are mad at Trump would say is harm that he has caused.

It's a border state. It borders Canada. There's a ton of cross-border relationships. And so his attacks on Canada, his suggestion that it's going to be the 51st state, has really hurt the state of Maine because it's hurt tourism in the state. Many Canadians come down south to vacation in Maine. And there's been a sharp drop in tourism because of that fight with Canada.

The tariffs have hurt Maine because so much of the wood and the lumber that is grown and cut here in Maine is actually shipped up north to Canada to be processed, and then what it is processed as is shipped back across the United States. The tariffs have been incredibly harmful for the state.

And then you have ICE. I'm in Biddeford. There was a shooting of an individual here in Biddeford. That has been an issue in this race as well.

So there's a lot of anger at the president, and it's very easy to feel that when you're talking to voters. I actually just spoke with a voter who voted for Troy Jackson, dropped his ballot in an early voting box. And I just asked him, "What did you vote for? Who'd you vote for? Why did you vote?" And he got visibly emotional when he started talking about the Trump administration and how scared he was for the future of democracy and that was why he was voting for Troy Jackson.

I've also talked to voters who supported Susan Collins just six years ago at the end of the first Trump administration. They voted for her back then and they feel like the last six years have made it impossible for them to vote for her again. And then on the other side, you have people who are hardcore die-hard Trump supporters and they actually think that Susan Collins has been too hard on the president.

She's in a really tough spot politically where on her left, there are a lot of voters, including some who have voted for her recently, who are furious with her, who don't think she stands up to the president enough. And then on her right, there are voters who think that she stands up to the president too much.

It's funny to think about these two figures representing the same political party because while they might agree on a few issues here and there, they couldn't represent more different brands of Republicanism. What's the truth of how much Susan Collins sides with Donald Trump?

She has sided with the president at times. She has voted against the president at times. I was struck that, in the debate on Thursday, she said, "I have been a senator under five different presidents." I don't exactly remember what her number was, but she noted that she had only endorsed one Republican president and that was George W. Bush.

I was just in Kennebunk, which is right next to Kennebunkport, which is a historical location for the Bush family. They have a large home at Walker Point. There is some relationship between the Bush family and Maine, [and it] makes sense that Susan Collins really does kind of line up more with the Bush-style Republican Party than she does the Trump-style Republican Party.

What's her actual relationship with the president like? And surely he's well aware that she was one of the few Republicans who voted to impeach him over the January 6 insurrection. Does that get in the way of their relationship?

I think he's very well aware when somebody breaks with him. I would have to imagine he's aware of that.

"It was a fascinating comment that there are rules for Republicans who are running across the country, but that maybe Susan Collins doesn't exactly have to adhere to those rules."

I was actually told by a Republican early in the campaign that President Trump demands loyalty from people that he supports, but this person actually said that there are rules for Republicans and that there are rules for Susan Collins and that Republicans were willing to kind of give her some leeway, which is actually an acknowledgement that they know the bind that she is in.

They know that she's running for reelection in a blue state, in a state that the president lost, in a state that is very hostile right now to the president. It was a fascinating comment that there are rules for Republicans who are running across the country, but that maybe Susan Collins doesn't exactly have to adhere to those rules.

Affordability is a huge issue in Maine, right? And Donald Trump hasn't exactly helped…

That has really heightened the competitiveness of this race. The same race is always going to be competitive, but the fact that gas prices are where it's at, the fact that we're going into winter, it's starting to get cold up here. Home heating oil prices are above $6 a gallon.

I think about 80 percent of homes that are heated by home heating oil are in the Northeast, a large portion of them probably in Maine and New Hampshire, two states with Senate races in November. It's been a huge issue up here.

The Trump administration has actually tried to get rid of a low-income program to help with home heating oil that helps a lot of folks in Maine. You've seen Republicans, from the gubernatorial candidate to congressional candidates, break with the president on that because they know it's a huge issue.

So when you talk about affordability, yes, we're talking about the price of beef, the price of groceries, the price of gas, but there's also these localized issues in a state like Maine, in particular. And I think home heating oil actually could be a really fascinating, underappreciated issue in this race. If you grew up or live in Arizona or Nevada or California, you're not thinking about the oil that you need to heat your home. That could be a real issue here in a state like Maine.

Collins is a political survivor. For all of it to come crashing down because of, essentially, who the president was — is that a bit of a sad ending to this political story for her? Do you think she'd maybe have regrets about how she approached Donald Trump?

It's certainly possible. And you've seen other senators who have bucked the president and have then retired and not run for reelection. I'm thinking of Thom Tillis, for example, in North Carolina. There is this fascinating case study in how the Republican Party has changed when you look at Susan Collins and you look at Donald Trump.

Someone like Susan Collins in an earlier iteration of the Republican Party would've had a lot of success and would've probably stayed onside the Republican Party in a way that she just hasn't done under Trump. She represents a different kind of era of the Republican Party.

I think there was a time when bringing home the bacon to a small state really worked politically. I'm thinking about Harry Reid, for example — he represented Nevada. In 2010, he faced a really difficult reelection campaign and his entire campaign was bringing home the bacon to Nevada, a similarly small state, and he won reelection in 2010.

I think if Susan Collins wins reelection in 2026, it'll prove that there's still a lot of goodwill for politicians who can deliver funding projects for states like Maine, states like Nevada, smaller states that maybe don't get the kind of national attention that others do.

If she does lose, a lot of it will be put at the feet of President Trump. I'll be fascinated to talk to her if she does lose, because I do think she will have a lot to say that she probably hasn't said yet, but I think that's an if, and I think we have two more weeks to find that out.

Putin Pays Trump Back for Backstabbing Ukraine by Liberating an Illegally-held US Citizen

Per AI:

Donald Trump’s denials are widely interpreted by critics, journalists, and his own family as confessions of guilt or reflection of his own behavior, a dynamic often described as "every accusation is a confession."

Psychological Projection: His niece, Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist, argues that Donald Trump uses projection to attribute traits he cannot accept in himself—such as corruption, criminality, or weakness—to his opponents, making his insults and denials essentially confessions of his own flaws.

Preemptive Justification: Media analyses suggest that Trump’s wild accusations serve to telegraph his own misdeeds, allowing him to pre-emptively justify breaking laws or norms by casting himself as the victim of the very actions he intends to commit.

Pattern of Denial: Critics note that his refusal to admit mistakes or acknowledge facts often results in increasingly implausible denials that highlight his own delusional framework or rampant criminality, with his lies frequently contradicting documented evidence.
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Check: https://truthout.org/articles/every-trump-lie-is-a-confession/

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The Greatest American Moron the country has ever had for president is always making confessions by issuing denials or lying or making accusations. He is stupid to think he can fool Americans, although his asinine dumb MAGA followers will not understand that he lies when he needs to deflect attention to his own crimes, i.e. his denials and lies are confessions.

Now he is saying there was no prisoner swap with his war criminal friend Vladimir Putin. True, there was no prisoner exchange. But the Great Moron lifted sanctions on the Russian dictator in exchange for cheap diesel oil and an innocent US citizen back from Russian jails. Which means that Trump got the cheap diesel (with which to fool Americans with claims he is lowering energy costs) and the innocent US citizen whom Putin held illegally to trade him for lifting sanctions. By saying there was no quid pro quo, Trump is admitting there was one. The idiot.

His butt-kissing to Putin is part of his deal with the Russian war criminal to dismantle the European Union first, then buddy up together against China.
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Trump praises Putin for freeing US citizen without prisoner swap
DPA
Wed, October 21, 2026 


Russian President Vladimir Putin greets US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff at the Constantine Palace, a day after Witkoff held talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and European leaders in Oslo as part of US efforts to end the war in Ukraine. (is associated with: «Trump praises Putin for freeing US citizen without prisoner swap») -/kremlin/dpa

President Donald Trump has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin for releasing a US citizen imprisoned for allegedly fighting alongside Ukrainian forces, stressing that Washington had not been required to give anything in return.

"There was no 'swap' necessary for this release," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday, describing the move as "an unprecedented situation for Russia."

Trump said he had personally requested the release of Stephen Hubbard during a telephone conversation with Putin last week.

"Stephen is on his way back home and will soon be with his family," Trump wrote, criticizing the administration of his predecessor Joe Biden for failing to secure Hubbard's release.

Putin announced the release during talks with US envoy Steve Witkoff in St Petersburg on Wednesday, saying Hubbard was already at the city's airport.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Hubbard had been released on humanitarian grounds.

Hubbard was sentenced to a lengthy prison term in 2024 for allegedly serving as a mercenary alongside Ukrainian forces against Russian troops.

Witkoff thanked Putin for the release, saying Hubbard's family and the American people were pleased by the development.

Putin in August released another US prisoner - former soldier Robert Gilman - without demanding the release of a Russian national in return, breaking with the usual practice of prisoner exchanges.

Zionist Real Estate Fraud Ring Wreak Havoc in Baltimore

Eluzer Gold and Benjamin Eidlisz are venerable members of the untouchable Orthodox Jewish community of New York. Their companies are named with Hebrew and Yiddish names signifying money, gold, etc. (Zahav, Kesef, Gelt, etc.). Like their fundamentalist Muslim counterparts such as the Iranian terrorist Hezbollah, whose ventures across the globe serve to fund the organization's activities, I would not be surprised if Gold, Edilisz and their Zionist consorts might set up their fraudulent schemes in Baltimore's poor Black neighborhoods to provide funding for terrorist Zionist settler organizations perpetrating ethnic cleansing in occupied Palestine.

Benjamin Eidlisz

Eluzer Gold 
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Baltimore Mortgage Fraud Ring Drove Hundreds of Homes Into Foreclosure, Lawsuits Claim
Julie Gerstein
Tue, October 20, 2026


Baltimore Mortgage Fraud Ring Drove Hundreds of Homes Into Foreclosure, Lawsuits Claim

Drive through Baltimore's city center and you'll see street after street of historic row homes, many of which are more than 100 years old.

Roughly half of the city's 300,000 or so housing units are decades-old historic row houses, though condition and quality of the homes varies greatly. Baltimore is a city of contradictions, full of history and East Coast charm, but struggling with affordability. Around 20% of the city's 577,000 residents live below the poverty line, making it one of the poorest urban centers in the country.

Those factors may be what make it particularly susceptible to bad actors in the real estate market. For decades, the city has struggled with an epidemic of slumlords who have let thousands of properties remain vacant and in disrepair. The cost of these vacancies is estimated to be around $200 million annually in combined lost tax revenue and public service expenditures.

Baltimore has also dealt with its fair share of real estate fraudsters, who see the fragile Baltimore market—where much of the population is ill-resourced to defend itself against financial crimes—as fertile ground to make fast cash.

In 2025, the Baltimore Banner launched an investigation into Eluzer Gold and Benjamin Eidlisz, two New York real estate investors who purchased ore than 700 homes in the Baltimore area. The outlet published evidence suggesting the pair had perpetrated an elaborate scheme to profit off of distressed real estate in the city, particularly in Black neighborhoods.

Now, two lawsuits filed in federal court last month have ratcheted up pressure on officials to investigate. The lawsuits claim that Gold, Eidlisz, and a raft of coconspirators violated federal racketeering and corrupt organizations (RICO) statutes, costing lenders more than $24 million.

The lawsuits claim they did so by selling homes between entities they controlled and defaulting on the mortgages, making off with millions in profits and triggering foreclosures on dozens of properties throughout the city.

The Banner reported that there is an ongoing FBI investigation into Gold, Eidlisz, and their alleged co-conspirators, though the FBI told Realtor.com that per policy, "it could not confirm or deny the existence of an investigation."

How the alleged fraud worked

On September 9, Ameritrust Mortgage Corporation filed a 60-page lawsuit in Maryland District Court alleging Gold, Eidlisz, and a third man, Shraga Chaim Lerner, perpetuated an extensive real estate
fraud ring to secure 90 loans worth more than $14 million, with the aim of defaulting on those loans and pocketing the cash.

A week later, RCN Capital, LLC and Commercial Lender, LLC filed a 175-page lawsuit making similar claims. It accuses Gold, Eidlisz, and their co-conspirators of defrauding them out of an additional $10 million on a total of 59 properties purchased and defaulted upon between 2023 and 2024.

To perpetrate the fraud, the suits allege, Eidlisz used a variety of shell companies to purchase low-cost and distressed Baltimore properties — most of which were priced between $40,000 and $60,000. The lenders say he then sold the properties to more than a dozen LLCs operated by Gold for three and four times the original price, often flipping them within days or weeks of his original purchase.

To justify the new inflated price, the lawsuit alleges, Eidlisz employed a group of co-conspirators to submit artificially inflated fraudulent appraisals that featured doctored and fake photographs and descriptions. He also omitted the prior-sale history of the property in his applications.

As the Ameritrust Mortgage lawsuit explains, the flips occurred so quickly that the seller "could not have (and did not) renovate the property as represented and, in fact, often never took physical possession of the property or possessed it only briefly."

The RCN lawsuit names a raft of appraisers as co-defendants that it says contributed to the group's ability to continually take out loans for triple and quadruple what a property had just been sold for.

"The Lenders would not have made any of the loans...had they received an industry compliant appraisal valuing the real property because each such appraisal materially overvalued the property and caused the Lenders' loan to value underwriting standard to be breached," the lawsuit says.

In some cases, the lawsuits allege, Gold applied for loans using Eidlisz' email address and at one time, Eidlisz signed Gold's name on a credit application.

While the group reportedly purchased around 700 properties across the city, often in low-income neighborhoods, the two lawsuits specifically address around 150 properties, the vast majority of which were foreclosed upon.

As an example of how the scheme worked, according to lenders, Eidlisz purchased 1829 N. Bond Street in May 2022 for $43,000. In July 2023 he sold it to Levy Ventures, an LLC registered to Gold, for $310,000. But the pair let the property fall into disrepair and it was eventually foreclosed upon. When it returned to the market in August of 2026, clearly showing no sign of renovation, it was listed for $35,000, the lawsuits say.

Debt service ratio loans fund the alleged fraud

The two lawsuits represent a fraction of the $100 million in debt service coverage ratio loans—a type of hard money loan—the pair are believed to have taken out.

Debt service coverage ratio loans allow institutional investors to borrow money based on projected rental income, rather than personal income.

"It's leverage at scale," explains Josh Jankelow, president and founder of Olympus Financial, a mortgage broker and lender that deals in DSCR loans.

"Most DSCR loans close in an LLC and don't report to personal credit," he explains. "When that borrower applies for the next loan, the lender typically looks only at what they own personally, like a primary residence. Properties held in LLCs often never come up. That's how one borrower can stack hundreds of loans across lenders who each see only their own file."

DSCRs can be "lifesavers" says Jankelow, for a solid investor. But they're also rife with opportunity for "nefarious" operators.

With a traditional loan, "standards are set by the federal government when it comes to who you can select in as an appraiser, and the amount of contact that the loan officer or buyer or anyone that works with the loan officer can have with the appraiser."

"If people had nefarious plans to do some sort of loan scheme, on the conventional end, there'd be a million safeguards in place. Anytime values increase like that in the short term, there's heavy, heavy, heavy investigation," he continues. "The odds of a value inflating three, four, 500% in a few months are slim to none. Any reasonable appraiser is gonna say, 'Hold on, this thing sold three months ago for $40k. How are we getting $250k right now? The market doesn't support it.'"

Permits were never pulled on the vast majority of properties the pair purchased, signaling that rehab work that might have justified an increased purchase price was never done.

"With DSCR loans, if there is a bad guy appraiser and some bad actors, it becomes a lot easier for them all to work together" he says. "Conventional lenders will say even if this is an investment, how many other properties does this this guy owe? How leveraged is he? The nature of DSCR for businesses is that they don't look at that."

Still, says Jankelow, "The great, great, great majority of people who are using these loans are just trying to build a real estate portfolio. At it's best it's a really cool tool, though it brewed a perfect storm of a scam."

Baltimore's market bears the brunt

A year after the scheme was first revealed, it continues to have an impact on Baltimore's housing market and its residents.

While many of the homes Gold, Eidlisz and Lerner purchased were vacant at the time, renters living at some of the addresses expressed shock and dismay at discovering foreclosure notices at their addresses.

Per Maryland law, tenants are able to remain in foreclosed properties until the terms of their lease end. But for people on fixed incomes, it can be difficult to come up with the deposit necessary to move houses.

In 2025, when Banner's reporting first dropped, Baltimore saw a 26% increase in foreclosures year over year. A year later, foreclosure levels remain elevated. According to August 2026 data from real estate analytics firm ATTOM, Baltimore's greater metro area ranked 18 in terms of per capita foreclosures. But Baltimore City ranks 5th in per capita foreclosures, with one in every 677 homes foreclosed upon.

Will Rapuano of Pruitt Title, handles closing transactions across Maryland, Virginia, and DC. He says that though these types of foreclosures are often concentrated in specific neighborhoods, "the damage there is real. Foreclosures pull values down on the surrounding blocks, tenants face displacement, and the private lenders who got burned have pulled back. That makes it harder for honest investors to finance the rehabs those same neighborhoods need."

While both of these lawsuits were filed in civil court, criminal charges may be on the horizon soon. The FBI investigation into Gold and Eidlisz is ongoing.

An additional complaint filed by Pigtown Portfolio LLC and East Baltimore Investments II, LLC, earlier this year alleges that the pair also engaged in deed fraud. The suit alleges that Eidlisz falsely represented himself as a managing member in the properties and sold them to Gelt Ventures LLC, an entity owned by Eidlisz and Gold, using $1.7 in financing to make the purchase. That case is currently making its way through federal court.

It appears that the courts have begun to take action, at least with similar cases. Earlier this year, a U.S. District judge sentenced Alexander Schultz and his attorney Jacob Rappaport to two months and 15 months respectively for their involvement in a similar scheme.

In December 2021, Schultz purchased 42 homes across Baltimore for $87,500 each. He then worked with a group of co-conspirators to artificially inflate the price of the homes and sold the properties on the same day for $6.9 million, netting a one day profit of more than $3 million.

The homes were sold again in 2023 for $9.9 million to Zahav Ventures, LLC, one of the dozen or so LLCs backed by Gold and Eidlisz, according to prosecutors.

Today, those properties are in foreclosure.

Lawyers for Eidlisz and Gold have not yet appeared in the court record. Realtor.com has reached out to Benjamin Eidlisz for comment.

In Backward Missippippi: It's OK for Racist Cops to Kill Your 1-Year Old Child if You Steal Diapers

In Missippippi, they still can't shed their racist slavery past. 

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Mississippi attorney general says cop’s killing of 1-year-old was ‘justified’ after mother was accused of stealing diapers
Robyn Miraflor
Tue, October 20, 2026 


Missippippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch (left), Kohen Wiley (right). Image by Ben Crump/Facebook

Public outrage erupted following the death of a one-year-old after officers opened fire at a car while responding to a report that accused the baby's mother of stealing diapers at a Walmart in Senatobia, Mississippi. Months after the tragedy, the state's attorney general has doubled down, stating that the officer's shooting was justified.

In June, Senatobia Police Department and Tate County Sheriff's Office officers arrived to find Latoya Ferrell and Vellesiya Wiley, along with Wiley's one-year-old child, Kohen, leaving Walmart in a car. Authorities alleged that the driver drove in the officers' direction, nearly hitting one of them, prompting officers to fire.

Kohen was fatally shot, while Ferrell, who was driving, was critically injured. Only Senatobia officer Hunter Foster faced the fallout of the incident and was placed on leave. However, he wasn't directly named as the officer responsible for Kohen's death, per Mississippi Today.

Mississippi attorney general clears officer of wrongdoing

Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch announced on Monday in a short statement that they "found the use of force was justified." Fitch didn't share any more details about the incident, but she maintained that "one officer" was involved in the shooting.

Martin Zummach, who represents Foster, described the attorney general's findings clearing his client of any criminal wrongdoing as "expected" and "overdue." He claimed Foster was worried for his safety after Ferrell "tried to kill" him and the other officers, leaving Foster with "no choice but to fire his weapon," Zummach told The Associated Press.

Fitch's statement, however, only heightened the need for transparency surrounding the incident, as many details and questions were left unanswered. It remains unclear what evidence was used during the investigation, as Wiley and witnesses claimed they weren't contacted by investigators or officials.

Wiley's side demands body camera footage

The Wiley family's lawyer, Ben Crump, slammed the attorney general's decision to clear the officer of any wrongdoing and called for the release of body camera footage of the incident on Monday. Crump added that preliminary independent autopsy results indicated that Kohen was shot from the side of the car, contradicting the officers' claims that the car was driving towards them.

"How can anyone accept that conclusion when Kohen's family and the public still have not been allowed to see the body camera footage?" Crump said. "If the footage supports the state's decision, release it. We will not stop fighting until this family gets the truth."

Meanwhile, Foster was promoted to sergeant just six months after joining the Senatobia Police in March 2025. However, his tenure at the department has been marred by issues.

Over the past year, Foster was reportedly accused twice of using racially offensive language toward co-workers, including calling a Black officer a "Black motherf*****," the Mississippi Today reported.

[Updated] The Nazi Stephen Miller's White Trash Lebensraum Effect: Latinos Desert MAGA-GOP

Stephen Miller wants America to be a white Christian supremacist country seconded by a Jewish supremacist Zionist minority. Everyone else should be canceled, eliminated, and terrorized into self-deportation. The American Lebensraum should exclude inferior humans (Hispanics, Africans, Arabs, Asians, etc.)

German Nazi Joseph Goebbels (left) and White Supremacist Zionist Nazi Stephen Miller
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'Anyone but Trump': Republicans face Latino backlash over immigration raids
Yussel GONZALEZ
Wed, October 21, 2026


In southern Florida's Doral, a mostly Latino community near Miami that is also home to one of Donald Trump's golf clubs, residents told AFP that worries about potential immigration raids have left businesses without staff and classrooms with fewer pupils (CHANDAN KHANNA)


For nearly two years, US President Donald Trump's heavy-handed deportation drive has sowed fear in immigrant communities and created a flood of grim headlines and social media videos.

Now, with midterm elections looming, many Latino voters who helped propel Trump and his Republican Party to power in 2024 say they are fed up.

In southern Florida's Doral, a mostly Latino community near Miami that is also home to one of Trump's golf clubs, residents told AFP that worries about potential raids have left businesses without staff and classrooms with fewer pupils.

Known as "Doralzuela," the area is home to a large Venezuelan population and could be a bellwether for whiplashing Latino sentiment nationwide.

"I feel sad and disappointed," restaurant-owner Maria Fernanda Perez told AFP.

"My thinking was that the economy would improve," the 32-year-old said of her vote for Trump.

Three of her employees stopped showing up over fears of being deported, she said, with sales falling 40 percent as people in the community pull back from going out.

"My whole family, all my friends are going through immigration proceedings, and they're no longer working, they're no longer going about their daily lives."

Trump campaigned on promises of a historic deportation drive, but emphasized the targeting of hardened criminals.

With over a thousand people being taken into immigration custody every day, many Latino voters feel misled.

Like other communities around the country, residents in Doral have begun exchanging messages to alert one another to the presence of immigration agents or to someone being detained.

A New York Times and Siena College poll conducted last month showed 66 percent of Hispanic respondents disapproved of Trump's performance, and 78 percent said they would prefer Democrats take control of Congress from Republicans.

Perez declined to say how she would vote in the upcoming election, but said emphatically: "Anyone but Trump."

- Psychological pressure -

Carlos Bermudez, a lawyer also of Venezuelan origin, receives constant calls from desperate people going through immigration proceedings.

"They don't go out, they can't go to work... It's constant psychological pressure, and it affects the whole community," the 47-year-old told AFP.

Bermudez, who describes himself as a Republican, expressed concerns about the party's increasingly "extreme" positions.

"I'm a Republican because I come from a country where communism, socialism took hold, and I don't want to continue with that ideology, but I don't agree with what the extreme wing of the party is doing now," he said.

Doral Councilman Rafael Pineyro said he sees the crackdown's impact not only in his city but across southern Florida.

"There's uncertainty, there's fear... It's not just Doral, it's the whole Latino community in South Florida that's affected," he said from his office at city hall.

Pineyro, a Republican, also questioned the Trump administration's immigration strategy.

"This isn't right, because this isn't what was promised in 2024 when we were talking about (deporting) criminals," he said.

Trump's policies could hamper gains made by Republicans in recent years among Florida's Cuban, Venezuelan and other Latino voters, he warned.

"That opportunity has been slipping away more and more in recent months because of bad decisions, in my view, specifically when it comes to the economy and immigration."

yug/pnb/des

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Miller spews his hateful racist venom in the White Outhouse as he indirectly urges more ethnic cleansing and genocide in Palestine

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Stephen Miller's Oval Office Rant Sounds Like Trump Suck-Up As Possible Promotion Looms
Ron Dicker
Updated Wed, October 21, 2026 

Stephen Miller delivered a racist, fearmongering, butt-kissing tirade as President Donald Trump watched in the Oval Office on Tuesday.

It just so happens that Miller, the barking White House deputy chief of staff, has emerged as a possible replacement for White House chief of staff Susie Wiles if reports about her possibly being forced to exit are true.

At an event in which Trump introduced a plan to reward citizens who report suspected fraud in government programs, Miller got on his hate-spewing soapbox. He painted a scenario of Somali immigrants in Minnesota "living the high life" off fraud while working Americans who "did it the right way" fund their lifestyle.

"That's what the Democrat Party did to you," he said. "And their plan is they want to bring in another 10, 20, 30 million more people to loot you, rob you, and take everything you have."

Politics: Stephen Miller Levels Eyebrow-Raising Claim At CNN

"President Trump is the one leader in American history who stood up and said this isn't gonna happen anymore. We're going to protect our taxpayers. We're going to protect our citizens. The looting will stop. The pillaging will stop. The robbing will stop," Miller continued. "And I, as a citizen — not just as a staffer but as a citizen — am endlessly grateful to this president for having the courage to do what no American president has ever done before. Thank you, sir!"

Sarah Matthews, a deputy press secretary in Trump's first term, said Sunday that Wiles "is kind of on the outs" with the blame-seeking president and that Miller's name has surfaced as a potential successor. She called it a "terrifying prospect."

Miller's hyperbole followed Trump's incendiary Truth Social post earlier this month. "The once Great State of Minnesota is being taken over by Somali Immigrants. There is Violence, Murder, and Mayhem all over the State. The people of Minnesota must fight back," Trump wrote.

A conservative YouTuber who launched disputed allegations against Somali daycares was awarded with a check during Tuesday's ceremony. He stood by as Miller ranted.

Trump and allies have previously attempted to tie the dozens of Somalis involved in a COVID-era fraud case to all of the approximately 100,000 living in Minnesota. Just recently, the administration launched an attempt to ultimately deport Somali American Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.).

Nothing-to-Lose Trump Endorses War Criminal Netanyahu. Coward Hopeful JD Dunce Declines

Hillbilly imbecile JD Vance has declined to back war criminal Netanyahu of the Zionist Colony in Palestine in the coming Israeli elections. The hillbilly moron apparently knows (and fears) the overwhelming majority of Americans now abhor Israel's apartheid ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population of Palestine, and is preparing himself for 2028.

But the asinine moron elderly creep who runs the country now knows he has nothing to lose (in 2028, he will head straight from his White Outhouse to the asylum for demented geezers), so he continues his slippery slide into the trashbin of history by endorsing war criminal Netanyahu who has already dragged him like a poodle on a leash into an absurd war with Iran and into a more unstable Middle East and world than ever existed. 

To appease an American electorate that is angry at paying the price for a failed venture on behalf of Fascist Zionists, JD Vance declined Monday to endorse right-wing Jewish fundamentalist religious extremist and war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu for reelection, while his own Mafia boss Donald Trump backed the criminal Israeli leader ahead of Israel's Oct. 27 election.

The weasel hillbilly moron JD Vance emphatically and cowardly declared, "I endorse American candidates ... so I'm not getting involved in Israeli elections." Vance knows he will suffer immensely with the American voters if he were to support a war criminal, so he, the vice-president of a country that lives at the beck and call of Zionist Israel, doesn't want to get involved in Israeli elections! Believe the hypocrite if you wish.

Meanwhile, the dumb American butler of the Zionists, one Donald Trump, declared that Netanyahu was a "Great Warrior Prime Minister". But just like Trump whose approval ratings are crumbling by the day ahead of the US midterms, Netanyahu's own political fortunes appear dismal as he seeks yet another term amid sinking ratings for his shaky governing coalition of racist Fascists and right-wing ultra-religious Jewish barbarians. 

Vance's cowardly distancing himself from war criminal Netanyahu stands in contrast with his campaigning last April in Hungary for the right-wing extremist, then-Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, who lost his reelection bid. Perhaps, by not endorsing Netanyahu, Vance is trying to keep his own hillbilly stench and toxicity away from the Zionist war criminal.

Trump: Nobody Likes Me, Everybody Hates Me. I Think I'll Go Eat Big Macs

Trump Whines About Americans Not Appreciating Him: ‘I Feel Very Sad’
Lydia O'Connor
Tue, October 20, 2026 

President Donald Trump, whose approval rating remains at a record low just two weeks out from the midterms, spent a good chunk of time during his Kansas rally on Monday night lamenting that no one's grateful for him.

After complaining that Democrats left him to clean up a "dark, dirty period," Trump said he often finds himself sitting in the Oval Office thinking: "Nobody appreciates what I've done!"

"We're in the golden age of America. We were in the dark ages," he continued. "But I say oftentimes, 'Nobody appreciates what I did.' I feel very sad."

As the crowd tried to cheer him up, Trump continued to mope.

"Sadly, as I sit in the most magnificent office in the world ... I'd say, 'Nobody appreciates how great a president I am!'" he said.

Trump also listed a few of his presidential actions that he believes deserve more praise: "That I rebuilt our military, that I started Space Force, that I did all these things. Nobody appreciates that we have the best job numbers in history. Nobody appreciates that nobody ever comes to our border anymore."

After several minutes of this, Trump griped that his complaints would make the news.

"If they do that, they are just absolute scum," he said. "They will do that. They will say, 'The president was in a very down mood.'"

This article originally appeared on HuffPost. Support fearless, unflinching journalism that holds power accountable and relentlessly pursues the truth. Become a HuffPost member today.

Outlaw Trump Approval Sinks as his DOJ Illegally Ignores Court Orders

The Trump Administration has become an outlaw administration that deliberately and wantonly violates the laws of this country on matters of grave importance, while deflecting blame onto individuals and communities for minor offenses. The US is now governed by an oligarchy of lawless right-wing extremist white trash billionaires whose sole objective is to amass more and more wealth while the rest of us struggle to survive. Is this what the beacon on a hill has become?

If someone who violates the law by overstaying a visa for example deserves to be cruelly persecuted, shouldn't a lawless Trump administration that ignores court orders and violates laws on more serious matters be held accountable? 

Trump has essentially eliminated the third pillar of US democracy, the Judicial Power, and abrogated the separation of powers. He is a dictator.
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Trump Hits 31%, Lowest Across Both Terms, as Democrats Widen Lead Over Republicans: Poll
Aniket Verma
Tue, October 20, 2026

President Donald Trump's approval rating has fallen to its lowest point across both presidential terms, while Democrats gain ground ahead of midterm elections, according to a report published on Monday.
Trump's Popularity Fades

The Reuters/Ipsos poll revealed that 31% of Americans approved of Trump's performance, down one percentage point from two weeks earlier.

Trump's ratings have fallen steadily from the 47% recorded the day after he was sworn in.

The survey showed Democratic congressional candidates leading Republicans 47% to 35% among registered voters. The 12-point margin represents Democrats' largest advantage in the current election cycle.

Economic concerns took center stage, with voters pointing to elevated gasoline prices. Democrats led Republicans 40% to 33% on managing the economy.

Women supported Democratic candidates by a 50% to 32% margin, making the group a significant contributor to the party's overall lead before the Nov. 3 elections.

Dems Expected to Sweep Midterms

The polling arrives as economic pressures, particularly inflation and energy costs, increasingly shape the political debate surrounding the midterms.

California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) urged Democrats to pursue decisive victories on Election Day, describing the effort as a "BLUE TSUNAMI." He said the Iran war had cost Americans an additional $120 billion in fuel expenses and called the policy a "massive wealth transfer" from consumers to oil companies.

Gasoline jumped 9.1% in September, accounting for more than half of the monthly increase. Consumer prices rose 3.7% year over year in September

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the jump in September inflation is an energy shock, not a sign of broader price pressure, and that prices will fall once the Iran conflict is over.

Polygon (CRYPTO: POL)-based Polymarket currently prices a 63% chance that the Dems take control of both the Senate and the House.
Source: Polymarket

Read Also:Bernie Sanders Tells Democrats 'Guess Again' if They Plan to 'Tinker Around the Edges' Ahead of 2026 Midterms

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The Trump team’s disdain for judicial orders is blowing up in court. Accountability has been slow in coming
Analysis by Aaron Blake, CNN
Tue, October 20, 2026 


President Donald Trump speaks to the press before boarding Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House, on Monday. - Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

A federal judge raked President Donald Trump's administration over the coals on Monday in a case involving his plans to renovate a public golf course in Washington, DC.

After the administration cut down more than 430 trees without properly notifying US District Judge Ana Reyes, she said last week she was "furious" and issued a court order to stop it.

Then, after Trump on Sunday said construction would begin "immediately" despite the judge's order, she forced officials to testify on Monday and sought to highlight the apparent unwillingness of Justice Department lawyers to vouch for the administration's claims in court.

All of this comes as the administration accuses the judge of "egregious" behavior and seeks to remove her from the case.

It's been quite the scene. But it's also been a long time coming.

Reyes' exasperated displays come after a series of similar examples of the administration flouting and even violating court orders.

District judges like Reyes ruled that the administration had violated court orders in at least 31 lawsuits over 15 months, according to an Associated Press investigation in May. That's in addition to more than 250 other examples of noncompliance that judges have found related to immigration cases.

And the judges finding these violations are often Republican-nominated ones.

Any one of these examples could be understood as a mistake or a mishap. But the growing volume of them — along with Trump and those around him often speaking openly about violating court orders, as Trump did Sunday — suggest there's something more going on. (A whistleblower last year also claimed that a top DOJ official explicitly spoke about the possible need to ignore court orders.)

At the same time, there's been no accountability that is seeming to make the administration change its approach. Because this just keeps happening.

Let's recap some of the high-profile examples of the administration flouting or violating court orders, and what became of them.

The government funding freeze

Mere weeks into Trump's second term, a federal judge in Rhode Island found the administration had violated a court order by failing to un-freeze many of the federal grants it blocked after he ordered it to do so.

The conclusion: The judge opted not to hold the administration in contempt of court, but he did issue a warning. He quoted from a 1975 Supreme Court ruling that said: "Persons who make private determinations of the law and refuse to obey an order generally risk criminal contempt even if the order is ultimately ruled incorrect."

The Alien Enemies Act flights

US District Judge James Boasberg ordered the administration to turn around planes that were deporting migrants to a notorious prison in El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act. But the flights continued.

The conclusion: Boasberg initiated contempt hearings, saying that "probable cause exists to find the Government in criminal contempt." But after a lengthy process that included plenty of stops and starts, two Trump-nominated judges on a divided appeals court ended the inquiry and called it a "clear abuse of discretion."

Kilmar Abrego Garcia

US District Judge Paula Xinis found the administration had engaged in "willful and intentional noncompliance" with her orders related to the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whom the administration wrongfully deported to El Salvador, later charged criminally and tried to deport again.

The conclusion: Xinis also repeatedly floated possible contempt. But eventually, in June 2025, Abrego Garcia was returned, despite the administration having previously claimed it didn't have the power to make that happen.

Third-country deportations

Around the same time, US District Judge Brian Murphy of Massachusetts said that the administration's rapid third-country deportations of migrants despite his injunction were "unquestionably violative of this court's order." He also accused the administration of manufacturing chaos and trying to evade court orders.

The conclusion: Murphy said he would leave the contempt question "for another day," but he didn't proceed with such an inquiry.

The many immigration orders

Other judges have found hundreds of instances of immigration authorities failing to comply with immigration-related court orders. Patrick Schiltz, the GOP-nominated chief US district judge in Minnesota, said he found more than 200 such instances.

The conclusion: Schiltz at one point took the extraordinary step of summoning Todd Lyons, then the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and threatening him with contempt. But Schiltz canceled the contempt hearing after ICE complied with an order to release a wrongly detained man from Ecuador.

The media ban

Despite a court order blocking Trump from barring media outlets whose coverage he didn't like, including CNN, from the White House grounds, those journalists were initially unable to access the grounds. And Trump has since then barred CNN from traveling with him on Air Force One.

The conclusion: The access to the grounds was soon restored as the case proceeds. The access on Air Force One wasn't explicitly mentioned in the court order, and the White House has continued to block CNN from boarding on its assigned pool days.

The political ads

Despite another federal judge ruling that the administration had to cancel all future airings of Trump's controversial taxpayer-funded political ads, the administration was again slow to comply. The ads aired hundreds more times, CNN reported last week.

The conclusion: A Justice Department lawyer apologized "to the court and the plaintiffs," and no further legal action has been taken.

The young deportees

Trump-appointed US District Judge Stephanie Gallagher of Maryland has found that ICE wrongfully deported more than 50 unaccompanied minors who had blanket court orders barring their removal. And in a separate case, she found it twice wrongfully deported an asylum-seeker to El Salvador, in violation of three court orders.

The conclusion: These two examples appear to be the only ones in which a judge has found the administration in contempt. Gallagher held the administration in contempt for the first one in August, according to Law360, and for the second one a few weeks ago.

Despite those two rulings, the administration has flouted or delayed complying with court orders in three other cases — the media ban, the political ads and now the golf course — since then.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com

Abdul El Sayyed is Exposing the Democrats' Failures of the past Several Decades

In his style as well as in his substance, Abdul El Sayyed is doing exactly what the Democrats have failed to do in decades. Always worried about saying the right thing or doing the right thing, Democrats have fallen into what macho Americans see as neutered tasteless odorless choir boys and girls waiting to grow up one day. Democrats have the substance but they lack the style.

Who has shown the correct style that works with a dumb violence-prone machismo-imbibed American people? Sadly, Trump himself. He has seduced a large swath of independents, and maybe even Democrats, purely on style - the man says what he thinks - as if saying rotten racist crap in a brash manner is golden. That is the problem with an American electorate whose votes can be purchased with expensive but stupid commercials. Americans do not vote on the substance, on the character, on the integrity of the candidate.... they are only charmed by a silly combative style, something that harkens back to the American past of pioneers, cowboys, wild west, bad-boys, athletes and criminals as heroes and the like. 

El Sayyed has adopted Trump's pushy style while being ten thousand times smarter and subtle than the Moron-in-Chief, and that is a winning formula as we face the midterms. In an ironic way, Trump has shown Democrats, whose message is by far more substantive than the neanderthal conservatives, what to do to win on style too. El-Sayyed has captured that formula.

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Abdul El-Sayed’s fighting style terrifies MAGA
Amanda Marcotte
Mon, October 19, 2026


TRAVERSE CITY, MICHIGAN - OCTOBER 10: Democratic Senate Candidate Abdul El-Sayed speaks from the stage during a campaign event at the State Theater on October 10, 2026 in Traverse City, Michigan. A former public health director and firebrand progressive, El-Sayed has been polling ahead of his Republican opponent and former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, but the lead remains within the margin of error. Al-Sayed could become the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Senate from a state that has not elected a GOP senator in 32 years. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images


Jesse Watters can't seem to stop admiring Dr. Abdul El-Sayed. The Fox News host loves to talk about how Michigan's Democratic nominee for the Senate is "in great shape" and how "Abdul . . . beat the machine" — meaning the party establishment's candidate, Rep. Haley Stevens — in a hard-fought primary. During an interview in August, Watters clearly enjoyed El-Sayed's jokes and blunt speech, which included calling his opponent, former Rep. Mike Rogers, a "beta," and asking the host if he was circumcised when Watters tried to corner him on gender-affirming surgery for minors. The next day, Watters made no bones about El-Sayed's appeal. "I like him," he said. "I don't want to like him. I like him for some stupid reason."

But the reason was obvious. The doctor-turned-politician has an aggressive bro style that appeals to someone like Watters. Quick-witted with bulldog energy, El-Sayed never backs down from a fight. But despite Watters' admiration, Fox News has become obsessed with taking El-Sayed down. It's not because he's Muslim, though Republicans are ratcheting up the racism in their efforts to derail his campaign. It's because he is a model for how Democrats can escape their reputations for being weak and feckless.

El-Sayed has a lot going for him. He spent years running public health services in the Detroit area and speaks eloquently and with authority about people's struggles to afford healthcare, even writing a book about Medicare for All. Most importantly, he's an excellent communicator who can boil down complex policy ideas into easily digestible concepts without dumbing them down. A video of him explaining to Trump voters why universal healthcare is cheaper than the insurance system went viral for good reason. One can see that, for these voters, it's likely the first time someone plainly explained how removing executive salaries and profit incentives from healthcare makes it cheaper.

Other politicians, like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., or Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., are good at explaining progressive policy. But what really seems to scare Republicans about El-Sayed is his political persona as a brawler — and for good reason. Vice President JD Vance learned this last week when he lobbed a strange insult at El-Sayed during a rally in Michigan for Rogers. The Democrat, Vance said, is "a little weasel who should shut his mouth and show a little gratitude."

This is a common and deeply racist attack from Vance, who portrays non-white progressives as undeserving recipients of white people's largesse — a caricature that has no relation to reality. El-Sayed left a position as an assistant professor at Columbia University to work in public health, where he won awards for his success in protecting children's health from environmental pollution. During this same period, Vance worked as a venture capitalist who was close with tech billionaire Peter Thiel.

El-Sayed resisted the temptation to "well, actually" Vance, and instead hit back by calling the vice president and those around him "carnival barkers" who "are small and want to make us small like them." His response was smooth. "JD Vance called me a little weasel today," El-Sayed said. "I'm like, 'No, no, no. What you're talking about is a Wolverine,'" a reference to the mascot for the University of Michigan, where the Democrat got his undergraduate degree.

As Salon's Sophia Tesfaye recently wrote, El-Sayed has been courting Fox News viewers by appearing on the channel and running endless ads on it, all without softening his left-leaning message. He clearly hopes his bravado will woo some of the network's audience, just as it won over Watters.

For his part, President Donald Trump is worried that El-Sayed is right. He's been openly complaining at rallies and on Truth Social about how charming the candidate is in his Fox appearances. In early October, Axios reported that the White House contacted the network to complain about El-Sayed's coverage. Trump was especially miffed at the Democrat's interview with Martha McCallum, during which the host's efforts to bait him into saying something that could be spun as "radical" failed. Instead, MacCallum embarrassed herself by defending billionaires hoarding wealth, to which El-Sayed said that he'd rather pay for schools than be so "focused on allowing a billionaire to make another billion."

Since then, it seems that Fox producers got the White House's message that they have to do something to dirty up El-Sayed. But they've learned the hard way that it won't work to come at him directly, because he ends up dominating interviews and beguiling those who, like Watters, love his commanding and clever style. MacCallum later tried to redeem herself by interviewing progressive activist Corbin Trent and pretending he was a stand-in for El-Sayed.

At first glance, Trent performed as Fox producers no doubt hoped he might. He took MacCallum's bait by defending the Muslim Brotherhood, something that the host could not get El-Sayed to do. The problem, though, is that Trent has no discernible relationship to the candidate. While he has worked for other progressives, including Sanders, I found no evidence that he has even met El-Sayed, much less is qualified to speak for him.

This attempt to hobble El-Sayed was revealing; it's clearly all Fox News has. If the network tries to bring El-Sayed on again to ask him the same questions, they know from experience that he'll probably just win over even more of their viewers. This isn't idle speculation. MS NOW recently conducted a focus group with regretful Trump voters in Michigan and found that five out of the six are voting for El-Sayed. Republicans should be worried about the young male demographic in particular. Trump won male voters under 30 by a narrow margin in 2024, but they are jumping ship and now strongly favor Democrats.

El-Sayed is a compelling model for a new kind of Democrat. Polling by Strength In Numbers/Verasight shows that even Democratic voters take a negative view of the party, but not because they think their leaders are too progressive. "[T]he single most common complaint about their own party is that it is too weak, too cautious, or not fighting hard enough," writes G. Elliott Morris in an analysis of the poll.

The Democratic base wants the party to take a more aggressive stance toward their GOP opponents, which will be key to building a more lasting coalition — especially one that includes younger and more male voters. El-Sayed is doing just that, and it has the right scared.

The post Abdul El-Sayed's fighting style terrifies MAGA appeared first on Salon.com.