Molly Pitcher

Scoop: Fox News will finish October with its worst ratings in years, an ominous sign for Republicans ahead of the midterms. Compared to last October, Fox News is DOWN 27% in total viewers and 32% in the 25-54 demo. MS NOW and CNN are up. Details in @status.news: www.status.news/p/fox-news-r...

The Trump-endorsed Senate candidate could use a history lesson.

Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski backs Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins for Alaska governor. Kreiss-Tomkins would be the state's first Democratic leader in 24 years.

The Secret Service is and has been broken for quite some time. It needs oversight disconnected from the President and the Federal branch. Congressional requirements seem an obvious option in a functioning Congress.

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter of Los Angeles warned the Trump DOJ: "This court believe that it would be wise that any threats to state and county election employees cease immediately."

Brazilian judge orders investigation into JD Vance illegally financing Bolsonaro's campaign in Brasil www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/1...

Israeli election exit polls just took a significant turn www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...

🎁🔗: Exit Polls Suggest No Clear Winner in Pivotal Israeli Election h/t @nfariousactivities.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/live/2026/10...

A few comments on Israel's exit polls. 1. The current government has been defeated, falling from 68 seats to 50. They lost about a quarter of their seats. They have no route to form a similar government. 2. The anti-Netanyahu opposition has 70 seats out of 120 - its highest ever result.

U.S. COST OF IRAN WAR OPERATIONS HAS CLIMBED ABOVE $47 BLN - PENTAGON ESTIMATE SEEN BY SOURCE

“.. Woodward laments that Mr. Bezos has not publicly defended independent journalism .. .. ‘It pains me that Jeff Bezos has remained silent,’ he writes. ‘It is not too late for media owners to prioritize moral courage over financial gain.’” @nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2026/10/26/u...

Gadi Eisenkot now faces a simple binary choice: Does he want to be the next Prime Minister of Israel, or does he want to prioritize being racist against Palestinians?

27 October 1978. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat (left) and Israeli Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, were named as the joint winners of the Nobel Peace Prize. The announcement came shortly after the conclusion of the Camp David talks which led to 1979 Egypt-Israeli Peace Treaty.

Putin is destroying Russia, first and foremost.

Trump’s “only real, authentic pleasure is in cruelty…It is that cruelty, and the delight it brings them, that binds his most ardent supporters to him, in shared scorn for those they hate and fear: immigrants, black voters, feminists and treasonous white men…” www.nytimes.com/2026/10/25/o...

This was a notable meeting in Tehran yesterday underscoring regional states trying to find their own path toward de-escalation with Iran

The US and Iran have had a hostile relationship since 1979 but were not engaged in direct conventional military conflict until the 2nd Trump administration, when for the first time the US launched a military strike on Iranian territory in June 2025, and again starting on Feb. 28, 2026.

"Netanyahu has changed the baseline of how Israelis think about their country’s security and turned his own uncompromising positions into an institutionalized reality." My latest in @foreignaffairs.com on Netanyahu's legacy. Gift link here 👇

Greenblatt has systematically destroyed the credibility of the ADL

So every Democrat voting for Mike Rogers and supporting, Mike Rogers is shielding Elon Musk. Great work!

Racist, of course. But he's also saying this in Michigan, a state that has towns and cities named Dowagiac, Charlevoix, Epoufette, Hamtramck and Ocqueoc.

How is it that another credible rape allegation and multiple assertions of further wrongdoing emerge about the president the week before an election and no one were to care? New concessions to the Russians? More revelations about his family Russia ties? About Kushner Trump corruption? How? How? How?

Jared Kushner was allegedly paid $50 million by a foreign government to get former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson fired. trib.al/gANTbMx

Just some remarkable moves in Crystal Ball but holy hell it'll be tremendous if Figures can keep that seat. centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/...

Both Jack Goldsmith and Andy McCarthy have condemned the latest ploy against Jim Comey. That's actually pretty important: Trevor McFadden is the Trumpiest DC District Judge, and tho the law is clear I have seen him respond to Trump grievances before. Goldsmith www.execfunctions.org/p/dojs-third...

Justin Pearson's response: "Men of faith––let alone men who are married, in their fifties, and in public office––have no business sending unsolicited nude photos to women."

His ‘Lifetime Mantra’ is ‘Standing up to Bullies.’ Now, He’s Running Against an Islamophobe Who Wants to Deport 100 Million People. talkingpointsmemo.com/news/his-lif...

And now he's leaving. www.axios.com/2026/10/27/r...

Kirill Dmitriev once threatened to sue me bc I said he, rather than RDIF, was sanctioned, in part bc my humble little blog noted that the ENTIRE POINT, since Dmitriev has been cultivating Trump in 2017, was to force him to raise sanctions to pay him off. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/27/u...

Trump might be about to do Putin yet another favor. Via NYT

At medical school, the writer & novelist who inspired me the most was Dr Nawal El-Saadawi, physician & psychiatrist. She founded the Arab Women's Solidarity Association & the Arab Association for Human Rights. She won the North-South Prize, Inana International Prize, & Seán MacBride Peace Prize.

Notable that even in his supposed paean to Israeli democracy, Ambassador Huckabee is defining "Israeli" in such a way so as to exclude Arab citizens of Israel.

I'll never forget how, in the aftermath of the worst antisemitic attack in US history, the Israeli government rushed to absolve Trump of any blame for it - even while they rush to blame Mayor Mamdani for antisemitic violence in NYC, on much more tangential grounds. forward.com/opinion/8409...

In 1936, Marc Chagall wrote, “Although the world views me as an ‘international’ [artist] and the French consider me to be one of their own, I think of myself as a Russian artist and take pleasure in doing so.” Was Marc Chagall being antisemitic against himself when he wrote this?

Tech bro supersessionism - the bad version of ChatGPT has been completed by the better version.

Update, In a surprising upset, Likud will remain the largest party, ahead of Eisenkot. However, the current coalition is far from a majority, with 40% of Knesset seats. The opposition has about 60% of the Knesset. Will they be able to translate this majority to a coalition government?

"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country." ~Fmr. President Theodore Roosevelt, 1918. Roosevelt was born OTD in 1858. Image: NPS/Sagamore Hill collection.

Oh, FFS, he's a Yale Law School graduate, he's visited the region multiple times, and he's met with dignitaries from there. Spare me the faux populism.

‘Even successful and highly profitable technology companies are struggling to afford the enormous costs of AI... How to summarize the sentiment among AI firms right now? “Take it when you can. Everyone is going to need more.“‘ www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

These accusations are wild. If true, yeah, major felony. If false, hoo boy, potentially major defamation claim.

691 words about Cheesecake. 434 words about rape.

Echoes of what I told @atrupar.com last year

Young ‘uns: this stuff happened once a week during Obama’s presidency. Dijon mustard. Moving a bust of Churchill. Inviting a rapper to the White House. Putting his feet up on his desk. They’d scream and cry for days about how effete and snobby and Black he was and how misinderstood they were.

Ding ding fucking ding.