What About Authoritarian? -- President Trump’s ‘Love Me’ TV "government" ad clearly aimed at midterm election voters cost taxpayers an estimated $443,000, according to The Associated Press. A second commercial based on a 2024 Trump campaign ad has since been added to the taxpayers’ bill.
Five British Nationals Arrested at US Air Force Base in England – Five men in their 20s arrested early Sunday for suspicion of terrorism offenses at US-operated RAF Fairford air base in England are UK nationals from London, according to counter-terrorism police, The Guardian reports.
Police were called when an area resident witnessed three vans being driven toward the airbase, according to the BBC, though President Trump said on Sunday that US intelligence had been watching the men involved.
The US Air Force has used RAF Fairford to launch attacks on Iran during the war.
The five men were detained under suspicion of offense under the Explosives Act and for preparation of a terrorist act, contrary to Section 5 of the UK’s Terrorism Act, The Guardian reports. Police evacuated 85 households from the nearby village of Whelford, Sunday.
Iran’s embassy Monday denied any involvement with the incident, the AP reports.
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Meanwhile, at the Pump -- National average for a gallon of unleaded regular eased over the weekend, and settled at $4.4768 per gallon Monday, AAA reports. That's 1.5 cents cheaper than Friday and $1.4968 more expensive than February 27. Diesel is $6.4531 per gallon, 4.88 cents lower than Friday. Do not expect more relief Tuesday, as the apparent breakdown of negotiations between the US and Iran was pushing global oil prices up on Monday.
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Senate Runs Out of Time – The House of Representatives already is on its midterm elections break and the Senate has just this week remaining for its final votes, with a college sports bill coming up Monday evening the only sure bipartisan thing, according to Roll Call. That gives the Senate precious little time to respond to President Trump’s pocket recission cancelling $810 million in health and education funds already approved by Congress.
“I will work with my colleagues to address these illegal actions,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), arguably the most endangered Republican senator for November 3, said in a statement in response to Trump’s pocket recission.
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Once More, With Feeling – President Trump expects his negotiators to resume talks with Iran this week, he told Axios in a phone interview Sunday. This came one day after Trump rejected a proposal by Iran to end the seven-month-long war.
Iran and the US are reportedly far apart on key issues, while Qatar and other mediators from the region have tried to revive the negotiations.
The Iranian proposal Trump rejected on Saturday centered on the Strait of Hormuz and the US naval blockade, while the Trump administration remains more focused on nuclear concessions. US envoy Steve Witkoff and White House son-in-law Jared Kushner had held their latest round of negotiations with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on the sidelines of the United Nations’ 81st General Assembly last week.
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Election Fraud Alert – The Trump administration could use the hours and days after the November 3 midterm to disrupt results – now looking kinda real good for Democrats in the House, if not the Senate -- after struggles to enforce voting crackdowns, election experts speaking in a briefing by the Brennan Center for Justice and reported by The Guardian, said last week.
“I think because the administration has lost so many of their attempts to disrupt the normal process in courts, that they are going to use the claims of foreign interference at the end of voting days to either seize equipment or seize ballots, whether they are legally justified to do so or not,” Caitlin Durkovich, former deputy Homeland Security advisor for resilience and response on the national security council said.
The non-partisan Brennan Center conveniently has documented the chronology of President Trump’s pre-emptive attempts to influence the 2026 midterms. Trump’s worry is that if Democrats take control of the House, it can impeach him for a third time, but it will take a highly unlikely 60-Democrat majority in the Senate (or several Republicans willing to defy MAGA and join Democrats) to assure conviction.
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Netanyahu Asks for Cover? – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked United Arab Emirates President Mohamed bin Zayed to deny Haaretz’s Sunday report the Emerati leader warned Netanyahu of the Hamas attack that sparked Israel’s war on Gaza, shortly before the October 7, 2023 attack, according to a report Monday in Haaretz. UAE sources told the newspaper that Netanyahu asked bin Zayed to deny details of their pre-October 7 phone conversation, as well as other details of events leading up to the Hamas attack that could embarrass the Israeli PM and asked for “moral support” in a one-hour meeting at the Tel Aviv airport Sunday.
The revelations come just ahead of the October 27 Israeli election of all 120 members of Israel’s Knesset, which will determine the coalition to succeed the 37th government led by Netanyahu. His serious challenger is the National Unity Party’s Benny Gantz, who is pushing for a broad, moderate Zionist government, according to The Jerusalem Post. –Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa