Alternet America: Saturday Wrapup

Republicans Are Hiding Their Agenda Until After You Vote

AlterNet America — Sat, 03 Oct 2026 14:21:13 GMT

Good morning, AlterNet America family.

Welcome to the Saturday Wrapup, where I give you my thoughts on the week’s biggest news as I consume my caffeine with you.

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Trump Claims the Secret Service Wanted to Demolish the Oval Office

If the Secret Service actually wanted to tear it down, they would have told him not to.

In a 75-minute interview with TIME magazine published this week, Trump said Secret Service officials approached him with a proposal to tear down the Oval Office and build a replacement. In a reversal of other recent events, Trump claimed he was the one who refused.

Trump said he caught agents inspecting the room and asked what they were doing. One of them reportedly told him, “Sir, we think the Oval Office should be taken down, and we’ll build a new one, sir.” Trump said he rejected the plan and called the Oval Office “a beautiful room that nobody should be allowed to rip down.”

Four former Secret Service officials said the agency has suggested to past administrations ways to improve security around the Oval Office, but has never recommended knocking it down. The Secret Service did not respond to questions about Trump’s recent remarks.

Trump has already made sweeping changes to the White House in his second term. He swapped the Rose Garden for a Mar-a-Lago-like patio, the East Wing for a 90,000-square-foot ballroom, and decked the Oval Office in gold.

A recent Washington Post/Ipsos poll found that 65 percent of Americans have a negative view of his renovation projects, suggesting Trump’s comments could be an effort to save face before the midterms. Speaking of…

White House Told DOJ to Delay Action on Abortion Until After the Midterms

The Comstock Act has waited 152 years. It can wait until November 4.

A senior administration official told the Washington Sun that Trump Chief of Staff Susan Wiles directly ordered Attorney General Todd Blanche to refrain from any legal action related to abortion before the November elections. Wiles reportedly warned that acting on abortion before the midterms would cost the party votes.

Since then, Blanche has urged federal judges to pause lawsuits seeking to block access to the abortion pill mifepristone as the FDA reviews its safety. When a 5th Circuit judge asked DOJ lawyers what the administration’s real position on the drug is, they would not say.

Leaders of the anti-abortion movement said they heard the same message from the administration. Tom McClusky of CatholicVote said he has heard “the same thing from every agency I talk to and from members of Congress,” adding that nothing is going to happen until after November.

One source with White House connections said the administration plans to enforce the Comstock Act, a set of 1873 laws that would ban mailing abortion pills nationwide, after the midterms. Another source said DOJ officials are “actively working on it.”

Politico reported that Blanche told faith leaders during a private call in August that the administration was working to make abortion illegal “in every single state.” The last time he said the word “abortion” on the record was during his confirmation hearings.

USPS Is Testing Cameras on Mail Trucks That Record Every Street

Neither rain nor snow nor your reasonable expectation of privacy.

The United States Postal Service is testing a pilot program that places cameras in roughly 100 delivery vehicles in the Washington, D.C. area, according to a labor-relations letter obtained by 404 Media. The cameras, made by Nextbase, scan roads, signage and sidewalks along delivery routes constantly.

Some USPS vehicles are already equipped with 360-degree exterior cameras for limited, incident-based recording. This pilot is different, because the cameras are recording from the moment the truck shifts into drive until it gets back to the facility.

The USPS said the cameras are used to gather data on road conditions and what it calls “community safety.” The agency responded to privacy concerns in a letter to the postal workers’ union, saying its trucks already drive down every street in every community.

Nextbase cameras can film up to 4K resolution and capture license plate details. The pilot doesn’t employ automatic license plate reader software, but the agency hasn’t disclosed how long footage is stored or who has access to it.

Three Billionaires Fund Over 90% of the GOP Campaign for Wisconsin Governor

Tom Tiffany has more billionaire backers than original policy positions.

Republican Rep. Tom Tiffany has raised more than $26 million in his bid to become Wisconsin’s next governor, and more than 90 percent of that money came from just three donors.

Between August and September, Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein, the billionaires behind the Uline packaging and shipping company, each gave $11 million to the Republican Party of Wisconsin. Diane Hendricks, the co-founder of ABC Supply Co. and the state’s largest conservative political donor, gave a large sum of her own. The state party then funneled more than $24 million of that money into Tiffany’s campaign.

The transfers gave Tiffany an enormous cash advantage in the final weeks of the race. His Democratic opponent, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, raised just $10 million in the same period.

Wisconsin eliminated limits on individual donations to political parties in 2015, but no candidate had ever been bankrolled by so few people until now. Before the change, individuals were limited to $10,000 a year to a state party committee.

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REVEALED: Trump Wants to Start Another War This Year

AlterNet America — Sat, 26 Sep 2026 14:21:40 GMT

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Leaked Army Documents Suggest Trump Is Preparing to Invade Cuba

America is eight months into a war with Iran, so naturally it’s time to open a second location.

CBS News has obtained an internal Army message that indicates the U.S. military is quietly building the capability to conduct a new ground operation. The message does not name Cuba, but several U.S. officials told the network the island is the target.

The message asks Army Reserve commands to report the availability of six types of units to U.S. Southern Command, including military police, medical teams and logistics support. With a deadline of 90 to 120 days, the earliest action possible could come in late December.

Earlier this year, CBS reported that U.S. forces conducted surveys of sea approaches and the seafloor around Cuba. Planners at the Pentagon had also considered an air assault involving thousands of soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division, but officials stressed that no decision had been made at the time.

Trump said in March he expected to have “the honor of taking Cuba,” adding, “Whether I free it, take it, I think I could do anything I want with it, if you want to know the truth.” At the United Nations this week, he claimed Cuba’s communist government “will fall” and said Marco Rubio was “deep into negotiations” with Havana.

The Cuban delegation walked out during his speech.

Republicans Are Panicking About a Historic Blue Wave in the Midterms

The rats are not leaving the ship so much as pretending they were never on it.

The panic is beginning to set in for Republicans facing a historic blue wave in the midterms. TIME reports that the party’s own internal polling shows them losing ground in states Trump easily won two years ago with less than six weeks to go until Election Day.

Tim Scott, who runs the NRSC, told the caucus in a closed-door briefing Wednesday that the strategy for the midterms is now all defensive. The party is fighting to hang on to seats in Texas, Iowa, Maine and Alaska. And now North Carolina and Georgia are completely out of the picture.

In Iowa, where Trump won by 13 points in 2024, Republican state lawmakers were told by their own pollsters that anyone in a 15-point district is now in the margin of error, conservative radio host Steve Deace reported. If you’re within 10 points of the leader, you’re in the hole.

Iowa Rep. Zach Nunn voted last week to rein in the president’s war with Iran, one month after campaigning with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Instead of bragging about her Trump endorsement, the GOP nominee for the state’s open Senate seat, Rep. Ashley Hinson, is running ads about working with Democrats.

House Republicans and their allies have bought $485 million in ad time from Aug. 1 through Election Day. That’s only for districts Trump already won.

DHS Lied About Finding 16,000 Noncitizen Voters in Nevada

Even a ouija board would have produced more accurate results.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin announced in July that the department had found 15,903 noncitizens on Nevada’s voter rolls. Now, after months of scrutiny by Nevada election officials, that number is zero.

At an August meeting between DHS officials and Nevada election officers, Nevada Secretary of State Chief Deputy C. Murphy Hebert asked if that number had been vetted. DHS official Kimberley Vogt said the department had “done something with it” to arrive at 15,000, but it had not performed a full manual review of every name.

DHS later revised the number down to 185 people it said were definitively noncitizens on the voter rolls. Those 185 names were reviewed by Greg Ott, a Nevada deputy attorney general, who wrote to DHS this week that all of them were citizens. “You have provided nothing of substance to suggest otherwise,” he wrote.

DHS has since lowered its claim to 6,218, but even that number is meaningless. Ott said DHS is comparing immigration case numbers to voter records, which do not indicate whether someone is a citizen. A match only tells you the number exists in both systems, not that the person attached to it is ineligible to vote.

The Ellisons Are Using Paramount to Build a Surveillance Empire

Most Bond villains would look at Larry Ellison’s portfolio and ask him to tone it down.

A settlement this week between state attorneys general and Paramount Skydance could pave the way for David Ellison’s $111 billion merger with Warner Bros. Discovery. A federal judge on Tuesday questioned the “factual and legal underpinnings” of the pact, but approval is still expected.

Last year, David’s Skydance Media bought Paramount, which owns CBS, Paramount Pictures and Paramount+. The deal was backed by his father Larry Ellison, the billionaire founder of Oracle.

The Trump administration is enabling the Ellisons’ media monopoly at every step. Trump helped broker Oracle’s co-ownership of TikTok earlier this year, and his FCC approved the Paramount deal after David Ellison made editorial concessions. Larry Ellison reportedly promised Trump he would “clean up CNN” if the Warner Bros. deal went through.

Oracle holds a nearly $7 billion contract to manage data for the Pentagon. Larry Ellison bragged more than a decade ago about its ability to track how long a person lingers in a particular aisle of a specific store, and said 5 billion people were already in the company’s “ID Graph.” He made a joke that there were only 2 billion to go.

Larry Ellison told investors in 2024 that “citizens will be on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that’s going on.” At the World Governments Summit in Dubai in February 2025, he said countries should “unify” all of their national data into a single database that AI could study.

The agreement would allow the Ellisons to use their media platforms to amplify fears about crime and terrorism, and then profit when the government buys Oracle’s surveillance technology in response.

At AlterNet America, we put the facts first. And right now, the fact is the only truly independent media is the kind entirely funded by the people who read it.

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First Trump Sold the Land, Then He Sold the News

AlterNet America — Sat, 19 Sep 2026 14:21:49 GMT

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Trump Wants to Pave Over 17,600 Acres of Public Land to Build Data Centers

If there’s one thing the American West has too much of, it’s beautiful scenery.

The Bureau of Land Management is reviewing proposals to build 12 new data centers on federal public land in a half-dozen western states, according to a Friday report from the Washington Sun. The sites are located in Arizona, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming.

The BLM claims its review process will “protect natural resources while enabling responsible infrastructure development” that delivers benefits like “expanded broadband capacity, improved electrical reliability, and support for growing technology-driven economies.”

Interior Department leadership had given state BLM directors just three days to compile lists of land suitable for the projects. Local leaders said they had no idea the proposals even existed before the story broke.

Mary Jo Rugwell, president of the Public Lands Foundation and a former BLM state director, said that the administration was “bending knee to the tech oligarchs and letting them do whatever they need to do.”

FBI Warns Women Are Pretending to Be Tradwives to Catfish ICE

The same agency that caught the Unabomber now needs help with Tinder.

Earlier this year, the FBI’s Chicago field office sent a memo to ICE warning that a “small group of women” were creating fake dating profiles specifically designed to attract immigration enforcement officers. The women were employing “traditional wife” images and listing interests calculated to appeal to law enforcement types, according to the memo.

The goal was to lure ICE agents on dates and then post their identities online. The memo described this as a tactic “intended to generate public embarrassment and deter immigration enforcement activity.”

The FBI’s only source was a post from Chaya Raichik, the conservative influencer behind LibsofTikTok, who warned that TikTokers were organizing to catfish federal agents. Her post didn’t actually mention tradwives, and it’s not clear whether her claims were actually true.

“Tradwife” is a conservative social media trend where women depict themselves as homemakers who don’t believe in feminism and prefer to cook, clean, and submit to their husbands.

Ryan Shapiro, executive director of Property of the People, called the whole thing absurd. “It’s equally ludicrous the FBI is spending taxpayer dollars to protect ICE agents from possible ‘embarrassment’ at the hands of a supposed ‘small group of women’ who might name and ridicule them online,” he said.

UnitedHealth Used an AI With 90% Error Rate to Kick Patients Out of Nursing Homes

Even a coin flip would have been kinder to these patients.

UnitedHealth Group allegedly used an artificial intelligence model to systematically deny the rehabilitative care elderly patients’ doctors said they needed, according to a class action lawsuit filed in Minnesota. The suit names UnitedHealthCare and its subsidiary, NaviHealth, which developed the algorithm.

The AI model had a 90 percent error rate, meaning more than 90 percent of patients who appealed their denied claims had the decision reversed. The company knew this and continued using the algorithm anyway.

The lawsuit also claims UnitedHealth intentionally limited its employees’ ability to override decisions made by the AI. Staff who failed to follow the recommendations of nH Predict were disciplined or terminated.

The plaintiffs assert UnitedHealth was counting on the fact that most of the elderly patients, many of them seriously ill, would never appeal. Some patients said they had to drain their life savings to continue treatment that should have been covered under their Medicare Advantage Plans.

Medicare Advantage patients who spend over three days in the hospital are entitled to up to 100 days in a nursing home. nH Predict was sending most patients denial notices after fewer than 14 days.

The FCC Is More Worried About The View Than Foreign Governments Owning Paramount

Finally, CBS will have owners who hate journalists even more than Bari Weiss does.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr approved a petition from Paramount that would allow foreign investors to own at least 49.5 percent of its equity as part of its bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery. Three sovereign wealth funds linked to the governments of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates are backing the deal.

The 20-page decision by the FCC acknowledged national security concerns, but said the investors would not have voting stock and would therefore be unable to influence decisions. The commission then added that it would be “in the public interest” to permit up to 100% of indirect foreign equity interest in Paramount.

When the permitted equity stakes are added up, investors from the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia could together own up to 87.5% of the combined company.

If the merger goes through, it would combine two massive film studios, two streaming services, and two news organizations under David Ellison, son of billionaire Larry Ellison and close friend of Trump. A federal judge blocked the agreement temporarily in July over antitrust concerns, but the FCC just made the path forward a lot smoother.

Saudi Arabia, which ranks 166th out of 180 countries on the Reporters Without Borders press freedom index, murdered Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 for writing critically about its government. Qatar and the UAE rank 84th and 133rd.

In all three countries, journalists who challenge the government face prison, exile, or worse. Carr just gave them control of the journalists Bari Weiss hasn’t fired yet.

The same administration selling off public lands to tech companies is also selling off media to foreign governments, and they don’t need you to not notice if there’s nobody left who’s allowed to tell you about it.

At AlterNet America, we put the facts first. And right now, the fact is the only truly independent media is the kind entirely funded by the people who read it.

If you’ve been reading for free, please consider upgrading your subscription to paid. If you’re already a paid subscriber, forward this to someone who needs to see it, or a conservative relative you’d like to ruin dinner for.

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We’ll be here, writing the news that Paramount’s new owners don’t want you to read.

—Ryan Rose, Co-Founder & Managing Editor, AlterNet America

Republicans Chose Football Over Their Own Convention

Ryan Rose — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 14:21:41 GMT

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Every Time an Epstein Vote Gets Close, Congress Goes on Vacation

AlterNet America — Sat, 05 Sep 2026 14:21:09 GMT

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Five Dead and 20,000 Sick on RFK Jr's Watch

AlterNet America — Sat, 29 Aug 2026 14:21:36 GMT

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Pro-Birth Party Melts Down Over Woman Trying to Have Baby

AlterNet America — Sat, 15 Aug 2026 14:21:01 GMT

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Welcome to the Saturday Wrapup, where I give you my thoughts on the week’s biggest news as I consume my caffeine with you. I don’t actually drink coffee, so special shoutout to you energy drink and tea-lovers out there.

I’d like to take a moment to say thank you again to our paying subscribers. Your support has allow…

Congress Has Contempt for Fauci But Not Epstein's Clients

AlterNet America — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 14:21:29 GMT

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Thank you again to our paying subscribers. Your support has allowed us to expand our social media coverage to reach a wider audience and combat the conservative disinformation running wild. We’ll have more on th…

The Fauci Hearing Was Three Hours of Content for Campaign Ads

Ryan Rose — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 14:22:04 GMT

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MAHA: Making America Have Awful Diarrhea

Ryan Rose — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 14:21:11 GMT

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ICE Killed Two Men in Eight Days and Isn't Stopping

Ryan Rose — Sat, 18 Jul 2026 14:22:08 GMT

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Thank you again for helping us reach 1,000 paid subscribers. Your support has allowed us to remain at #2 in Rising News on Substack for our first three months. It’s also allowed us to hold Substack Lives with ot…

Trump Needs This War More Than He Wants Peace

Ryan Rose — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 14:21:09 GMT

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What Reasons Do We Have to Be Patriotic Today?

AlterNet America — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 14:21:17 GMT

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Thank you again for helping us reach 1,000 paid subscribers. Your support has allowed us to remain at #2 in Rising News on Substack for our first three months. It’s also allowed us to…

Even MAGA Can't Stomach Trump's Iran Deal

Ryan Rose — Sat, 20 Jun 2026 14:21:53 GMT

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Welcome to the Saturday Wrapup, where I get you the week’s news as I consume my morning caffeine with you.

Thank you again for helping us reach 1,000 paid subscribers last week. Your support has allowed us to remain at #2 in Rising News on Substack for our first two months. It’s also allowed us to hold our first Subs…

Desperate Donald Wants You to Forget His Impeachments

Ryan Rose — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 14:22:28 GMT

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Welcome to the Saturday Wrapup, where I get you the week’s news as I consume my morning caffeine with you.

We hit a milestone this week and reached over 1,000 paid subscribers. To those of you in that group: thank you. Your support has allowed us to remain at #2 in Rising News on Substack for our first two months. It…

Trump Is Giving His Buddies Billions in Taxpayer Dollars

Ryan Rose — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 14:21:54 GMT

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Welcome to the Saturday Wrapup, where I get you the week’s news as I consume my morning caffeine with you.

To our paying subscribers: thank you. Your support has allowed us to remain at #2 in Rising News on Substack for our first two months. It’s also allowed us to hold our first Substack Lives with independent journ…

The Most Corrupt Presidential Act in U.S. History

Ryan Rose — Sat, 23 May 2026 14:21:51 GMT

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Trump Is Making America’s 250th Birthday Party Unhinged

Ryan Rose — Sat, 16 May 2026 14:21:48 GMT

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To our paying subscribers: thank you. Your support has allowed us to remain at #2 in Rising News on Substack for our first month. It’s also allowed us to hold our first Substack Live with independent journalist …

This Is What Jim Crow Looks Like in 2026

Ryan Rose — Sat, 09 May 2026 14:21:24 GMT

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Even the Supreme Court Can’t Stop the Midterm Blue Wave

Ryan Rose — Sat, 02 May 2026 13:40:50 GMT

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Welcome to the Saturday Wrapup, where I get you the week’s news as I consume my morning coffee with you.

To our paying subscribers: thank you. Your support has allowed us to remain at #2 in Rising News on Substack for our first few weeks. It’s also allowed us to begin lining up exciting, exclusive live interviews in …