The Department of Homeland Security launched a massive operation targeting voter registration groups and ordered immigration agents nationwide to increase enforcement actions to 3,000 per day in the weeks before the midterm elections. CNN reported the details. Democracy Now included them in its Thursday headlines.

The operation has drawn on tens of millions of records. It has scrutinized dozens of nonprofit groups that help people register to vote. Officials considered deploying undercover agents to investigate organizations they suspect of helping noncitizens register. A Reuters review found just 129 federal prosecutions under the noncitizen voting statute since it was created in 1996.

The same government that approved a voter database with personal identification numbers, sent agents to polling sites, and told a convention crowd to “cheat like hell” is now sending 3,000 agents a day into communities in the final weeks before the election.

One hundred and twenty-nine prosecutions in 30 years. That is the scale of the problem the government says justifies tens of millions of records, undercover agents, and 3,000 daily enforcement actions.

The machine is not protecting the election. It is patrolling it. Three thousand actions a day, 26 days before the vote.

BREAKING

A Republican Senate Candidate Was Caught on Tape Telling Donors the Conflict Is Destroying His Poll Numbers

Axios published secretly recorded audio in which Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton of Texas told donors that the conflict with Iran and the resulting high fuel costs are to blame for his poor poll numbers. Democracy Now reported the recording in its Thursday headlines.

Paxton is trailing his Democratic opponent in nearly every poll despite the fact that no Democrat has won statewide in Texas since 1994. The president traveled to San Antonio on Wednesday to campaign for him. The Texas governor declined to attend the rally.

The candidate said the quiet part out loud. The conflict is unpopular. The cost of fuel is hurting voters. And the party knows it. The difference is that Paxton said it to donors in a room he thought was private. The tape says otherwise.

The machine tells the public the conflict is necessary. Behind closed doors, its own candidates say the conflict is costing them the election.

EXPOSED

The First Hurricane of the Season Is Heading for Hundreds of Oil and Gas Platforms While Fuel Costs Hit a Record

Hurricane Isaias formed in the warm waters off Mexico’s east coast and is tracking toward eastern Louisiana and the western Florida Panhandle. Hundreds of offshore oil and gas platforms sit directly in its potential path. Democracy Now reported the storm in its Thursday headlines.

Diesel just hit $6 a gallon for the first time in history. The government is so short on fuel that it temporarily allowed truckers to fill up on dyed diesel… a tax-exempt off-road fuel normally reserved for farm equipment. And now a hurricane is heading for the platforms that produce what little domestic supply remains.

The same government that gutted the disaster agency by half, repealed carbon pollution standards, slashed fuel economy rules, and called climate regulation a hoax is now watching a storm head straight for the fuel supply it already broke.

The machine broke the fuel supply with the conflict. The climate is sending the hurricane. And the platforms are in the path.

DEVELOPING

The World Health Organization Demanded Answers After a Russian Lab Worker Handling Plague Samples Perished — and 200 People Were Quarantined

A lab worker at Russia’s Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute in Siberia fell ill and perished on October 2 after reportedly breaking a vial containing live plague bacteria. Russia ordered roughly 200 people to quarantine. The World Health Organization said many questions remain unanswered and demanded further information. Democracy Now reported the developments Thursday.

Russia’s public health agency denied reports of a second case of plague. Several Central Asian countries issued travel advisories and border restrictions. The president said he does not believe the incident was related to a bioweapon but planned to discuss it with Russia’s president. The Kremlin said no such call has been scheduled.

The lab was built to study some of the most dangerous pathogens on the planet. A worker broke a vial. She fell ill. She perished. Two hundred people were quarantined. And the world’s health authority says it does not have enough information.

The machine does not just run inside one country. When a vial breaks in Siberia and the answers do not come, the whole world waits. That is the system.

They rely on the shadows.
It’s time to turn on the lights.