The midterms were a thumping rebuke of the U.S.-Israel relationship

The midterms were a thumping rebuke of the U.S.-Israel relationship

Alice Speri writes: On the eve of a midterm election that ended in an unequivocal rejection of his brand of politics, even Donald Trump seemed to recognize that the US-Israel relationship had become a political liability. Trump’s 11th-hour suggestion, on election morning, that he would cut military aid to Israel at the end of the year because, as he put it, “they don’t need it”, was condemned across the board – with pro-Palestinian advocates dismissing it as “desperate” and pro-Israel…

Read More Read More

Large majority of Jewish Americans think Israel and AIPAC drive antisemitism, poll finds

Large majority of Jewish Americans think Israel and AIPAC drive antisemitism, poll finds

Middle East Eye reports: A supermajority of Jewish Americans think Israel and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (Aipac) actions are increasing antisemitism in the US, according to a new poll. The poll commissioned by J Street, a US-based pro-Israel think tank, shows a deep gap between how Jewish American voters view organisations like Aipac and Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, compared to how the state of Israel and its allies in the US portray antisemitism….

Read More Read More

Talarico urges Democrats to compete in Texas in 2028

Talarico urges Democrats to compete in Texas in 2028

Politico reports: James Talarico launched his Senate campaign in September 2025 just one day before the killing of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk — a coincidence that he now believes set the tone for his whole campaign. Talarico weighed cancelling the campaign event he had scheduled for that evening; local officials suggested that holding it could pose a security risk. But Talarico went ahead, speaking for just five minutes and using that time not to promote his own candidacy…

Read More Read More

The right’s election meltdown is only just getting started

The right’s election meltdown is only just getting started

Will Sommer writes: The polls had been predicting doom for his party for weeks, if not months. But as the first election results began rolling in on Tuesday afternoon, pro-Trump pundit Benny Johnson couldn’t help feeling good. Republicans had captured the governorship of Guam by 1,020 votes. Johnson, the right’s most prominent memester, told his fellow kids that control of the island—far closer to Papua New Guinea than to the continental United States—was a massively good omen for Republicans’ midterm…

Read More Read More

A rebuke of Silicon Valley by voters who refuse to let the future be stolen

A rebuke of Silicon Valley by voters who refuse to let the future be stolen

Michelle Goldberg writes: Will Lawrence, one of the founders of the Sunrise Movement, a progressive environmentalist group, was supposed to be unelectable in the purple House district in Michigan held by a Republican, Tom Barrett. When he pulled ahead in his primary, a headline on the influential political site Punchbowl said, “Democrats’ Nightmare in Michigan.” Representative Hillary Scholten, a centrist Michigan Democrat, told Axios, “He can’t win.” During the general election, Republicans gloated when Lawrence’s old social media posts emerged,…

Read More Read More

Anti-oligarchy activists plan to dox Elon Musk and hundreds of billionaire-linked homes

Anti-oligarchy activists plan to dox Elon Musk and hundreds of billionaire-linked homes

Wired reports: An underground activist group says it plans to start openly doxing billionaires as part of a phased campaign against what it calls the American oligarchy—beginning this month with a release that maps the homes of Elon Musk, his brother Kimbal, and Tesla’s board, alongside investors and suppliers that keep the corporation afloat. Two of its members, interviewed by WIRED on the condition of anonymity, say they spent the past year constructing dossiers on billionaires—and one trillionaire—and the people…

Read More Read More

The polar vortex is about to go haywire

The polar vortex is about to go haywire

Scientific American reports: Something “unprecedented” is happening in the atmosphere: the Arctic polar vortex, a spinning mass of air high above the North Pole, is collapsing. This disruption isn’t unusual, but it is happening at what may be the earliest point in the year on record, climate experts say. Every winter the polar vortex strengthens in the stratosphere, a layer of the atmosphere that stretches from about 10 to 30 miles above Earth’s surface, explains Andrea Lopez Lang, an associate…

Read More Read More

‘Box office poison’: Trump told voters more than 40 times, ‘Pretend I’m on the ballot.’ They did

‘Box office poison’: Trump told voters more than 40 times, ‘Pretend I’m on the ballot.’ They did

The Washington Post reports: President Donald Trump spent two months urging Americans to pretend he was on the ballot. On Tuesday, they did just that. Voters delivered a stunning rebuke to Trump’s party that rivaled anything Republicans had suffered in 50 years, defeats on ruby-red turf that Trump won handily just two years ago, where he has dominated politics for nearly a decade and against candidates he had in some cases handpicked. Not only did Democrats flip Senate and governor…

Read More Read More

The race to find anyone but Trump to blame for the Republicans’ catastrophic losses

The race to find anyone but Trump to blame for the Republicans’ catastrophic losses

Wired reports: President Donald Trump’s aides were reeling from the scale of Republican losses on Tuesday night, but they almost immediately began figuring out who to blame. The ultimate responsibility, officials acknowledged only in private, lay with Trump for taking the country into an unpopular war with Iran that drove up prices, which became the number one issue for voters. But in the absence of being able to blame Trump publicly, there has been growing pressure to find scapegoats in…

Read More Read More

Trump concedes Iran war angered voters — but said he would do it again

Trump concedes Iran war angered voters — but said he would do it again

The Washington Post reports: President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday blamed Republicans’ stunning midterm losses on his unpopular war with Iran, though Trump said he had no choice but to launch the conflict and would do it again. “It’s largely true because it drove the gasoline [prices] up a little bit,” the president said Wednesday afternoon on the site of his half-finished White House ballroom, his first public appearance since the election. “At the same time,…

Read More Read More

Oil prices fall after Vance (supported by Donald Trump Jr) blames Iran war for election losses

Oil prices fall after Vance (supported by Donald Trump Jr) blames Iran war for election losses

Politico reports: Oil prices extended their sharp selloff on Wednesday as fears that President Donald Trump would launch fresh military strikes on Iran eased a day after Republicans were dealt a sharp defeat in the midterm elections. Trump has previewed for weeks that he may try to “finish the job” with another round of strikes on Iran. But the scale of the GOP losses has turned even Vice President JD Vance against the idea as voters delivered a sharp repudiation…

Read More Read More

Growing calls for Iran to pursue nuclear weapons

Growing calls for Iran to pursue nuclear weapons

The New York Times reports: From pulpits at Friday Prayers to street rallies, Iranian clerics and officials are increasingly urging the country’s leaders to reverse their longtime pledge not to pursue nuclear weapons. This demand, once seen as a fringe position held by hard-liners, is moving into mainstream public debate, and the shift could have dramatic consequences for Iran, whose government has for decades argued that its nuclear program was solely for peaceful purposes. “We must be equipped with nuclear…

Read More Read More

Democratic women surge past 100 House seats as Republican women lose ground

Democratic women surge past 100 House seats as Republican women lose ground

The Washington Post reports: Women will lead more states as governors and represent more congressional districts than at any time in American history come January. The blue wave putting Democrats back in control of Congress is also creating a House Democratic caucus that looks much more like the nation, in terms of gender, than ever before. Democratic women’s gains also widen a significant gap between the number of Democratic women and Republican women in power. For the first time, next…

Read More Read More

Tech industry in denial as U.S. overwhelmingly votes to restrict AI, data centers

Tech industry in denial as U.S. overwhelmingly votes to restrict AI, data centers

Ars Technica reports: Donald Trump’s big, rapid American AI buildout now faces a major slowdown as voters in yesterday’s elections overwhelmingly supported candidates and measures that favored increasing restrictions on AI and data centers nationwide. One resource from a polling firm, called Redbud Consulting, tracked data center initiatives on the ballot and reported that out of 44 measures across 10 states seeking to restrict data centers, 38 passed so far. Those measures included dozens of moratoriums and bans. Analysts suggested…

Read More Read More