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.
The Trump administration filed a legal brief in European court to help Elon Musk dodge a $137 million fine for violating online safety rules. Eight sailors tried to kill themselves during the USS Lincoln’s deployment in the Iran war. The Justice Department dismissed more than 50 school desegregation cases that had been in effect since the Civil Rights era. And Virginia just told nearly 235,000 people that the state never should have taken away their right to vote.
**Before we get to the news, a brief ask: **AlterNet America was launched as a direct response to MAGA billionaires buying up networks like CBS and newspapers like the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. We’re going all-in on the bet that reader-supported journalism can compete directly with the billionaires by being the one thing they can’t buy.
We’re incredibly grateful to all the free subscribers who have signed up to receive our newsletters in recent weeks. But if you’ve been thinking about making the leap to become a paying subscriber, this is the time when it matters the most. Please upgrade today.
Your tax dollars are now paying for Elon Musk’s lawyers.
The Department of Justice on Thursday filed an application to join Musk’s legal challenge to a €120 million fine imposed on X last December by the European Commission. It was the first fine issued under the EU’s Digital Services Act, which requires big online platforms to tackle illegal and harmful content.
European regulators said X’s paid blue checkmark system was deceptive, the company failed to meet transparency requirements, and it blocked researchers from accessing public data. Under Musk’s ownership, the platform has become one of the largest sources of disinformation and hate speech in Europe.
The DOJ contends that the European Commission went too far by reaching past X to target Musk personally and other American companies he owns. The Commission said that calculating fines based on the full economic unit Musk controls is precisely how the law is meant to work.
The U.S. government has never before intervened in a foreign regulatory proceeding on behalf of a private citizen’s company. The next time you get a speeding ticket, try calling the White House.
Eight sailors attempted suicide during the deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Iran war, according to a letter from acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao. Two of the attempts involved sailors attempting to jump overboard, one in March and one in August. Both were stopped before they went over the side.
Earlier this month, the Lincoln strike group completed the longest deployment of an aircraft carrier in modern military history, spending more than 300 days at sea. Many of the 5,000 sailors on board described it as the worst experience of their lives.
For months, families of sailors and Marines aboard the Lincoln have been reporting that the crew was running short of food, soap, toothpaste, and deodorant. One mother said there was a time when her son ate a half cup of rice and two tortillas per meal.
Sailors described moldy showers, broken toilets, laundry facilities that didn’t work, and shifts of 12 to 16 hours with little time off. The ship had gone 208 straight days without pulling into port before stopping briefly in Oman in July.
Both Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have lied about the conditions on the ship. A few weeks ago, Trump called the reports a “CNN fake report,” saying that he had spoken to a retired admiral who told him the ship was “beautifully maintained and beautifully taken care of.”
If you or someone you know is struggling, the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, by phone or text at 988. Veterans and active-duty service members can press 1 after dialing to reach the Veterans Crisis Line.
Sixty years of ‘F’s, and the government gave them a diploma anyway.
The Justice Department said Thursday it is dropping more than 50 school desegregation cases that have been in place since the 1960s and 1970s. The decrees span from Waterbury, Connecticut, to Flagler County, Florida, and were first filed to dismantle the dual school systems that states built under Jim Crow.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon described the consent decrees as “onerous and outdated” and said that federal oversight of the districts no longer represents the reality of what’s happening in their classrooms. But the reason many of these decrees have lasted 60 years is that the districts keep failing to meet the requirements.
American schools are more segregated today than they were in the 1980s. In the South, which experienced the most sweeping integration efforts during the civil rights era, 43 percent of Black students were in majority-white schools at the height of desegregation. That figure is now 16 percent.
Since Dhillon’s confirmation in April 2025, more than 75 percent of the division’s staff have resigned or taken early retirement. She’s stopped pursuing the kind of race discrimination cases the division was created to handle, and instead has opened investigations into university admissions and DEI programs.
Somewhere in Virginia, a mailman is delivering a quarter of a million of the worst apologies ever written.
Virginia’s Department of Elections sent mailers this week to 234,852 people telling them that their convictions should never have kept them from voting. The notices come after a federal court ruling earlier this year by U.S. District Court Judge John Gibney, who struck down the state’s practice of automatically disenfranchising anyone convicted of a felony.
The state was supposed to implement the ruling by June 1, but Attorney General Jay Jones initially interpreted the order to cover 284 modern-day crimes. In an August opinion, Judge Gibney rejected that interpretation, saying that only the original 11 felonies applied.
On September 15, Virginia formally reduced the number of disqualifying convictions to murder, voluntary manslaughter, and involuntary manslaughter.
The Sentencing Project reported that in 2024, approximately 260,000 Virginians were barred from voting due to felony convictions, affecting one in ten eligible Black voters in the state. There are 6.45 million registered voters in Virginia as of September 1, and the re-enfranchisement could have big implications for the November 3 midterms.
Right-wing billionaires are quietly gobbling up more media outlets, while smaller outlets unable to keep up shut down on a nearly daily basis. If left unchecked, the rich and well-connected get to do their dirt in the dark and escape all accountability. But AlterNet America doesn’t answer to them. We only answer to you, and that means we can cover these stories the way they need to be covered. But our editorial independence is only possible with the support of our paying subscribers.
If you’re still reading, that means you found this newsletter valuable. Now we need you to make your support official by upgrading your free subscription to a paying one.** It only costs 22 cents a day, and ensures AlterNet America will be able to continue working exclusively for you instead of a billionaire or corporate owner. Please subscribe or upgrade now.**
Thank you again for reading and for supporting independent media. And if you haven’t yet, click the ❤️ and restack this post so we can break through to more feeds.
** Rep. Steve Cohen Introduces 26 Articles of Impeachment Against Trump.** Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee, a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee, introduced 26 articles of impeachment against Trump Thursday. The articles detail abuses of power, violations of his oath of office, corrupt use of the pardon power, emoluments clause violations, unauthorized military force in Iran and Venezuela, attacks on the free press, the deployment of the National Guard into American cities, the birthright citizenship executive order, tariffs imposed under emergency powers, and the move to dismantle the Department of Education. The 26 articles are the most ever filed against a sitting president, more than double the 11 articles the House adopted against Andrew Johnson in 1868.
** California Supreme Court Orders GOP Sheriff to Return 650,000 Seized Ballots.** The California Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Thursday that Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco must return more than 650,000 ballots he seized from a November 2025 special election on congressional redistricting. The court called the seizure “unlawful” and said California law requires voted ballots to remain in the custody of election officials even during a criminal investigation. Bianco, a Republican and also a candidate for governor, seized the ballots in February, acting on claims from a citizens group that there was a discrepancy of about 45,000 votes. The redistricting measure passed statewide and won in Bianco’s own county by about 80,000 votes.
** CEO Who Posted “Lake America” Sweatshirts While Visiting Canada Loses Her Job.** Jane Smith, the former CEO of Family First Credit Union in Saginaw, Michigan, is no longer with the company after a Facebook photo of her and three family members wearing sweatshirts that said “Lake America” during a trip to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Smith said the photo was generated using AI and posted to her private Facebook page with a disclosure label, but her sister reposted the photo publicly without the label. The image quickly went viral on social media across Canada, and Smith cut her trip short after receiving threats. The backlash came weeks after Trump signed an executive order in August to rename Lake Ontario, with Prime Minister Mark Carney responding Canadians will call it Lake Ontario “now and always.”
** New Jersey Fines Data Center $1.1 Million Over 62 Unpermitted Gas Generators.** New Jersey fined DataOne $1.07 million this week for installing and operating 62 natural gas generators at its Vineland data center without the air permits required by state law, the largest enforcement action ever taken against a data center in the state. The generators were operating at capacities of 1,982 kilowatts, more than 50 times the threshold for the state’s permitting requirement. The equipment was spotted by a farmer using satellite imagery, and later investigations from The Guardian and Floodlight News confirmed that 45 of the generators were running using thermal drone footage.