Good morning. I’m Corinne Straight, and this is AlterNet America. Please take a moment to click the ❤️ and restack this post. The oligarchs’ platforms are trying to keep stories like the ones below from hitting your feeds, and this helps us break through.
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Our stories this morning: The United States struck Iran’s Qeshm Island on the eve of the midterm elections. Trump said he would consider “redoing” Alaska’s Senate race if the Republican incumbent loses. His administration is preparing to strip workplace protections for women seeking abortions and fertility treatments. And Elon Musk has personally poured $445 million into super PACs to keep Republicans in power.
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Nothing buries a bad news cycle like an airstrike.
The U.S. military struck Iran’s Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity. The strikes came less than 24 hours before Americans vote in the midterm elections.
The strikes were defensive actions taken after Iranian forces fired surface-to-air missiles at a U.S. aircraft, the official said. The Pentagon declined to comment, referring questions to U.S. Central Command, which had no immediate response.
Iranian officials said the U.S. strikes did extensive damage on the island. A couple and their two-year-old child were killed in an attack on a residential building, while two other children were injured.
Trump has spent months promising to bomb Iran after the midterms. He rejected Iran’s most recent ceasefire offer in September and told aides he would resume strikes after the vote is complete, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Wait until he finds out how many John Smiths there are.
If Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan loses to Democrat Mary Peltola, Trump told the New York Post that he would consult his lawyers about redoing the Alaska Senate election. He blamed Democrats for putting a third-party candidate with a nearly identical name on the ballot and said it amounted to election fraud.
Trump called the spoiler candidate “a criminal act” and accused Democrats of plotting “election fraud at the highest level.” He attacked Peltola, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, blaming the three for orchestrating the campaign.
Alaska uses ranked-choice voting, which would reduce the chances of Republican voters accidentally choosing the wrong candidate, because they could rank both Sullivans. Spoiler candidates with similar names are nothing new in American elections, and Daniel J. Sullivan Jr.’s candidacy has already survived several court challenges.
Republican Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy seemed to endorse Trump’s plan last week, declining to say he would certify the state’s election results if Peltola wins. The Justice Department also has subpoenaed Alaska election officials for documents and communications about the ballot.
Every Republican in Congress has a speech about the birthrate crisis and not one of them has a problem with this.
The Trump administration is preparing to reverse workplace accommodations for women, according to seven people familiar with the plans. The changes would narrow protections under the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, a 2022 law that guarantees accommodations like bathroom breaks and time off for prenatal appointments.
EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas plans to propose a narrowing of the conditions that qualify for accommodations as soon as this month. She is expected to remove protections for women who are not pregnant, which would end coverage for abortion, fertility treatments, endometriosis, menstruation, and the use of contraception.
The administration is also considering religious exemptions that would allow employers to deny accommodations that conflict with their beliefs. A federal court in Louisiana has already ruled for Catholic organizations that didn’t want to accommodate workers seeking abortions, and the proposed changes would make it easier for other employers to follow suit.
The rollback would have the biggest impact in the 23 states where abortion is now banned or restricted. In those states, women often have to travel across state lines for the procedure, and current regulations require their employers to give them the time off.
Your vote counts, but Elon Musk’s counts $445 million times.
Just 515 wealthy donors have given $4.2 billion to super PACs ahead of today’s midterm elections, accounting for 73% of all super PAC funding from individuals, corporations, and nonprofits. Elon Musk alone has contributed $445 million, about 10% of all super PAC donations, according to a new analysis from the government watchdog Public Citizen.
Since the 2010 Supreme Court ruling on Citizens United, which determined that the government could not restrict the political spending of corporations, there has been no limit on how much money super PACs can collect. More than 85% of the money they raised leading up to these midterms came from donors who contributed at least $20,000.
Musk’s contributions come two years after he spent nearly $300 million in the 2024 elections, outspending the next closest donor by nearly $120 million. Behind Musk, the second-largest contributors were GOP megadonors Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein, followed by Jeffrey Yass and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen.
Dark money groups, which are not required to reveal the source of their contributions, have poured more than $392 million into the four congressional leadership PACs so far this year. Of those four PACs, MAGA Inc. has raised $405 million from 102 donors, and the Senate Majority PAC has taken in $244 million from 44 donors.
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Texas GOP Leader Quits Post Over Senate Nominee Ken Paxton. Hillary Shepheard, who headed the Tarrant County Young Republicans, resigned her position after telling The Atlantic that Ken Paxton, the party’s nominee for Senate, must lose for the good of the GOP’s future. Paxton, the three-term attorney general of Texas, has been impeached on corruption charges, accused of cheating on his now ex-wife, and charged with securities fraud. In her resignation letter, Shepheard wrote that she could not set aside her principles for the election, stating that limited government and the belief that character matters are why she joined the party. Polls now give Democrat James Talarico a 49-43 percent lead in the race over Paxton.
** Supreme Court Rejects Trump’s Attempt to Throw Out 20,000 California Ballots.** The Supreme Court rejected the Justice Department’s emergency request to compel California to segregate ballots from 20,000 registered voters the administration alleges are noncitizens. No justice publicly dissented. U.S. District Judge David Carter already rejected the administration’s request, ruling that the administration did not provide enough evidence that it used a reliable process to create its list. He said if the executive branch can throw votes out and threaten an election in progress because of unproven allegations, then American democracy is in danger. California has maintained that it already has adequate safeguards to protect election integrity, and that the administration’s list was based on shoddy data.
** FDA Approves Twice-a-Year HIV Prevention Shot That Is Nearly 100 Percent Effective.** The FDA has approved Gilead Sciences’ lenacapavir, brand name Yeztugo, the first and only injection for HIV prevention given twice a year. In clinical trials involving over 2,000 women, the drug was 100 percent effective in preventing transmission of HIV. The approval comes as the Trump administration dismantles the country’s ability to use it, with its 2026 budget calling for the elimination of more than $1.5 billion in HIV-related research, prevention, and surveillance programs. BioSpace reports that the administration has already canceled almost 30 percent of 770 NIH grants for HIV treatment or cures.
** Activist Group Plans to Publish Home Addresses of Elon Musk and Other Billionaires.** An underground activist group calling itself the Capytistas told Wired they plan to out the home addresses of hundreds of billionaires and their top executives, beginning with Elon Musk and Tesla’s board. The group says it spent the past year compiling dossiers using court rulings, labor board decisions, securities filings, and surveillance and data from advertising platforms. The copy of the Musk dossier reviewed by Wired includes 32 home addresses tied to Musk and his executives. The Capytistas, who say they have more than $1.2 million in backing, say they hope the publicity will convince their targets to back down before they destroy the world.