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News for the public, not the powerful.
Can $1 Billion Buy Republicans a Midterm Win, or Did They Waste It?
Republicans are heading into the final month of the midterms sitting on $1 billion, and the Associated Press reports they’re scared it won’t be enough. Democratic groups have about $579 million. Most of the GOP edge comes from Trump’s super PAC, MAGA Inc., which had nearly $416 million at the end of August and didn’t start spending big until September. Four Republican Senate campaign officials say groups that booked ads last spring paid far less. Trump’s groups are sometimes paying more than five times as much. Look at Texas, which hasn’t elected a Democratic senator since 1988. MAGA Inc. has spent over $22 million there in a month to prop up Ken Paxton, and a PAC tied to John Thune has spent more than $83 million. During one football game in Austin, that PAC paid $450,000 for a single ad. Democrat James Talarico paid $50,000 in the same game. Republican pollster Neil Newhouse says the ads that work run before Labor Day. Chuck Schumer asked whether money can beat better candidates, then answered, “I bet it can’t.” This is the first national election since the Supreme Court erased limits on what parties can spend in coordination with candidates. If $1 billion can’t buy this one, maybe there’s hope after all.
Who’s Watching the Money After Trump Fired the Election Referee?
And nobody’s policing that money. CBS News reports the Federal Election Commission can’t open investigations, issue fines, write rules or give candidates formal legal guidance, because it doesn’t have enough commissioners. It’s been that way since May 2025. Those actions take 4 votes. The FEC has two commissioners left, both Democrats. In the year before it went dark, the agency closed 180 cases and imposed about $1 million in penalties. Since then, zero. The backlog has doubled from 154 cases to 307. Republican Sean Cooksey quit in January 2025 to work for JD Vance. Weeks later Trump removed Democratic chair Ellen Weintraub, who’d served since 2002 and called her firing illegal. Republicans Allen Dickerson and Trey Trainor resigned after that. Trump nominated two Republicans in February, and nearly 8 months later the Senate hasn’t held a hearing. Former FEC lawyer Adav Noti of the Campaign Legal Center says there’s “blanket impunity for lawbreaking.” His group filed a complaint alleging Trump illegally controls MAGA Inc. It’s stuck, and so is a conservative group’s complaint against a Democrat. Congress created the FEC in 1974 after Watergate, when secret money corrupted a presidency. Now there’s $1 billion on the table and no cop on the beat.
Trump Merch Seller Admits Sales Have Collapsed as MAGA Shoppers Walk Away
Even the folks selling the hats can feel it. CNN’s Elle Reeve went back to Trump Town USA, a MAGA merchandise store in Boones Mill, Virginia. Owner Whitey Taylor told her his best days used to bring in $12,000 to $15,000. Now it’s $1,500 to $2,000, sometimes $3,000. Taylor insists they’ll come back in droves once Trump’s out of office. His customers tell it differently. Stevie Lovell says he’s seen a lot of Trump supporters turn their stickers upside down and stop flying their flags. He told CNN, “Very few people still support Trump.” Lovell still plans to vote straight Republican, but he’s bothered by ICE raids and by a report that Trump has made more money in office than any other president. Shopper Jamie Varela says groceries run $800 to $1,000 a month and a pineapple costs five bucks. Does Trump share the blame? Yes, Varela said, because of the war. A September CNN poll found two-thirds of Americans say Trump has made the economy worse, and his approval is the lowest it’s ever been. You can sell people a red hat. You can’t sell them a grocery bill they can’t pay.
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Did a White House Oil Adviser Cash In With the Company She Helped?
Some people are doing fine, though. Three California Democrats want answers from Brittany Kelm. Senators Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla and Congressman Salud Carbajal sent her a letter today, Politico reports. Kelm was a senior adviser on Trump’s National Energy Dominance Council, where part of her job was helping Sable Offshore restart its oil platforms off Santa Barbara. In August she left the White House to become a vice president at Sable. The lawmakers wrote that her new role “raises serious questions about your compliance with federal ethics laws.” They point out that a Sable executive publicly credited Kelm’s help, and they’ve told her to preserve every record. White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers says Kelm followed all the ethics rules. California blocked Sable from restarting a pipeline idled by a major oil leak. So in March Trump’s Energy Department invoked the Defense Production Act to order it back on. Governor Newsom calls that illegal, and the state’s fighting it in court. Politico calls the letter a warning shot, a preview of the investigations coming if Democrats win Congress. Public servants are supposed to serve the public, not audition for their next employer.
Why Are Companies Backed by Trump’s Sons Landing Billions in Government Contracts?
And it’s not just the staff. ABC News dug through federal contracting records and found that defense companies backed by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump have landed more than $6 billion in active or promised government business since the brothers’ investments were made. The latest came yesterday, when Trump announced a $6.6 billion investment involving Anduril Industries. Don Jr. is a partner at 1789 Capital, which took a major stake in Anduril in June 2025. Since then, Anduril has won 135 other government contracts worth $1.8 billion. Then there’s Powerus, a drone maker that lists the brothers as notable investors. It got its first Air Force order one month after announcing their investment, then a contract worth up to $90 million. Hadrian, another 1789 Capital company, got a $39.2 million Army agreement and a $900 million Navy deal months after the firm invested $391 million. A spokesperson says the brothers “do not seek to influence” any government decision. Senior Democrats asked the Pentagon’s inspector general to investigate in May. The Founders wrote the emoluments clauses because they’d watched kings get rich off their thrones. When the president’s family profits from the president’s budget, that isn’t business. It’s a conflict of interest with a flag on it.
Is OpenAI Flooding Mathematics With Proofs Nobody Has Checked?
A different kind of power grab, and this one’s happening in mathematics. On Tuesday OpenAI released more than 370 mathematical results it says came from an AI model the public can’t use. That follows the company’s claim that it solved the Navier-Stokes problem, one of math’s great unsolved puzzles, with a $1 million prize attached. The Guardian reports that leaders in the field aren’t celebrating. They’re worried OpenAI isn’t doing the due diligence to vet these results, and that most mathematicians can’t get access to the model to test them. An independent advisory board hosted by the Institute for Advanced Study says it doesn’t endorse testing proprietary AI on advanced math problems at all, and it wants OpenAI to fully share its prompts and the model’s step-by-step reasoning. OpenAI told Scientific American that its own mathematicians don’t yet understand many of the results. MIT’s Andrew Sutherland put it simply. “We should ask for receipts.” OpenAI says it needs hard problems to show its AI is getting smarter. But a proof nobody can check isn’t knowledge. It’s marketing. Science belongs to all of us, and it only works when everyone can see the work.
And that’s the way it is, Today Wednesday, October 7, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.
