Good morning, AlterNet America family.
Welcome to the Saturday Wrapup, where I give you my thoughts on the week’s biggest news as I consume my caffeine with you.
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Russia is making fake videos about Democrats, which is a little redundant when Fox News already exists.
Russian operatives are flooding social media with AI videos attacking Democratic candidates ahead of the November midterms, according to Bloomberg. The outlet found at least 130 fake clips and altered newspaper front pages created by a state-backed operation called Matryoshka between September 10 and October 9.
The videos include AI-generated clips that feature logos of real news organizations to tell stories about Democratic candidates. One clip with an ABC News logo falsely claimed that Texas Senate candidate James Talarico paid OnlyFans models, while another with a CBS News logo falsely claimed that the IRS found Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff owns eight undeclared properties.
Many of the accounts sharing the videos have few followers, and had been inactive for years before suddenly being revived. The views on the posts typically shoot up to 200,000 in the first hour and then suddenly plateau, a sign of bot manipulation as opposed to organic engagement.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has cautioned Congress that Russia is the most active foreign adversary employing AI to undermine election integrity. Unlike previous cycles when Russia focused on presidential races, Matryoshka is targeting Democrats in 29 of 36 gubernatorial contests and 20 of 35 Senate races.
California’s billionaires are spending a million dollars a day to convince voters that billionaires don’t have enough money.
Billionaires in the state have raised at least $340 million to defeat Proposition 40, a ballot measure that would impose a one-time 5 percent tax on the net worth of billionaires who were state residents on Jan. 1, 2026. The opposition campaign is spending more than $1 million a day against the measure, according to state financial filings.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin has invested at least $102 million to oppose the tax, and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has contributed over $42 million. Other top donors include Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel, DoorDash CEO Tony Xu, Stripe CEO Patrick Collison, and Ripple founder Chris Larsen.
The billionaires have also succeeded in getting two separate countermeasures on the November ballot, Propositions 41 and 42. If either of those measures gets more yes votes than Prop 40, they will stop the tax from taking effect even if it passes.
Prop 40 still is favored to pass, but its lead has narrowed as spending against it has grown. A poll from the University of California found 45 percent of likely voters in support of the tax and 42 percent opposed, down from a 7-point lead just a month earlier.
RFK Jr. will question every vaccine on the market but not a single rape charge against his friend.
Leaders of the Make America Healthy Again movement are supporting actor Russell Brand as he faces trial in London on charges he raped or sexually assaulted six women. Just two weeks before the trial began, Brand was on stage at an MAHA Summit in Washington with CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz and posing for photos with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Brand, 51, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault, and one count of indecent assault, with the alleged offenses occurring between 1999 and 2009. Prosecutors told jurors at Southwark Crown Court that Brand was a “ruthless” sexual predator who assaulted his victims in hotel rooms, workplaces, a bar restroom, and his home.
Tony Lyons, the MAHA PAC’s head and publisher at Skyhorse Publishing, flew to London to sit in the courtroom for Brand’s trial. Brand then appeared on Lyons’ regular Wednesday conference call for MAHA activists, where Lyons introduced him as “falsely accused” and “persecuted.”
Lyons also used the call to promote Brand’s new book, which was released this year by Skyhorse Publishing, the same house that publishes Kennedy’s books. Kennedy himself posted a photo with Brand on X just days after being sworn in as Health Secretary.
Support the troops, deport their wives.
ICE agents appeared to be waiting for the wife of an Army soldier when she went to a Texas naval base to pick up military ID cards for her family. Her lawyer suspects the government is using a benefit intended to protect military families as a way to target them for deportation.
Giovanna Perez went to Naval Air Station Corpus Christi on September 21 to pick up the ID cards while her husband, Pedro Gutierrez, was away at basic training at Fort Benning in Georgia. At the base gates, guards told Perez there was no record of her appointment.
They sent her to a nearby office, where two men in khaki pants with ICE patches on their shirts were waiting. The agents told Perez to show up at the ICE office in Harlingen, Texas in three days, where she was booked and given an order to appear in immigration court.
ICE confirmed to The Atlantic that Navy personnel reported Perez to immigration officers when the family arrived at the base. The case suggests that the government is using Parole in Place, a program created to protect military families, as a tool for identifying and arresting immigrants.
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.
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