Democrat Wins Virginia Governor Race in Huge Blow to Trump

Former Democratic Representative Abigail Spanberger defeated Republican Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears Tuesday by a margin of nine percentage points to become the next governor of Virginia. Spanberger will be the first ever female governor of the Commonwealth.

Spanberger ran a more centrist campaign centered around protecting reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, affordability, and education, while Earle-Sears’s campaign was marked by an unhinged, hard-right conservatism that doubled down on many of the culture-war issues that former Virginia Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin and President Donald Trump have pushed.

Trump had also pushed hard against voting for Spanberger in the days leading up to the election. He regularly took to Truth Social to warn without evidence that voting for her would result in things such as “transgender for everybody,” increased crime rates, and increased energy costs.

Exit polls showed Spanberger winning 45 percent of men and 61 percent of women in Virginia. Along ethnic lines, she won 45 percent of white people, 64 percent of Latinos, and a whopping 90 percent of Virginia’s Black voters.

Spanberger’s historic victory in Virginia may very well serve as a bellwether for some kind of blue wave in the upcoming midterm elections.

“My fellow Virginians, tonight we sent a message,” Spanberger told the crowd at her victory rally. “That in 2025, Virginia chose pragmatism over partisanship. We chose our Commonwealth over chaos.”

This story has been updated.

The FBI is telling federal agents enforcing the Trump administration’s draconian immigration policies to start identifying themselves.

Last month, the bureau issued a bulletin to law enforcement agencies warning that criminals are pretending to be Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and engaging in crimes ranging from sexual assault to robbery, reports Wired. The bulletin said that officers need to start identifying themselves and cooperate when civilians ask them to verify who they are and what agency they work for. This includes being able to contact local police.

“Ensure law enforcement personnel [adequately] identify themselves during operations and cooperate with individuals who request further verification,” the bulletin states.

The document pointed out five different instances in which people pretending to be immigration officers committed crimes and targeted members of vulnerable communities. The criminals were able to take advantage of the fact that many federal immigration agents, including ICE, cover their faces and refuse to identify themselves while conducting raids and detaining suspected undocumented immigrants.

Criminals in one case allegedly pretended to be ICE agents in order to rob the ATM at a New York restaurant, and in another case, a woman wearing an ICE T-shirt tried to kidnap her ex-boyfriend’s wife. One man allegedly attempted to sexually assault a woman in a Brooklyn stairwell and stole her phone.

Federal rules in theory require immigration officers to identify themselves and state the reason for an arrest “as soon as it is practical and safe to do so.” But ICE’s practices on the ground have made it easy for criminals to impersonate agents, while also increasing public distrust in federal law enforcement.

If the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts, which are problematic enough, at least required agents to follow federal rules and laws, this wouldn’t be a growing trend among criminals. Instead, anyone dressed in combat fatigues, covering their faces, and/or openly carrying firearms can pretend to work for the government and commit crimes because actual federal agents act almost the exact same.

MAGA world is having a full-blown racist meltdown as New Yorkers are set to elect Zohran Mamdani as their next mayor.

Many of Mamdani’s loudest detractors invoked the September 11 attacks in the hours leading up to the election. “When you vote tomorrow, remember 9/11,” said one user, in a post that racked up 64,000 likes.

It’s a nonsensical comparison held together by sheer force of racism. Are they suggesting that 9-year-old Mamdani was in cahoots with Al Qaeda? Do they think he, somehow, would welcome this type of attack on the city he’s worked so hard to get a chance to govern?

Laura Loomer, the self-described “proud Islamophobe” who has the ear of the president, blamed Mamdani for bomb threats called in to polling places, saying they were “probably called in by Mamdani’s own Muslim jihadi voters.” Ah yes, the very normal “bomb my polling place in support of my currently winning candidate” strategy!

After posting a video of 9/11 with the caption, “WAKE UP NEW YORK!,” on Monday night, Tennessee Representative Andy Ogles on Tuesday afternoon posted a picture of Uganda, where Mamdani was born, managing to be racist toward the entire African country as well as Mamdani himself.

Meanwhile over on Instagram, Zionist actress Debra Messing, in what appears to be some sort of mania, has posted dozens of anti-Mamdani Instagram stories in the last 24 hours—including one that calls all Muslims scheming liars. “In Judaism and Christianity, we are commanded to speak the truth. In Islam, they are commanded to lie if it means spreading Islam.… Take a look at Mamdani. Apply that basic rule.… These two opposing civilizations cannot coexist.”

Just imagine if someone with 1.4 million Instagram followers said something like that about all Jews.

New Yorkers, understandably, have taken this racist fearmongering personally.

“As someone who grew up in New York during 9/11—who had family working in the city, and classmates pulled out of class because one of their parents had been killed in the attacks—let me just say this: a big, heartfelt FUCK YOU to anyone who dares exploit that trauma for cheap political attacks in a mayoral race,” progressive reporter Brett Meiselas posted.

Donald Trump boasts that his White House ballroom is being funded by private donors and not taxpayers. But it turns out that the donors to the $300 million monstrosity have a lot of business with the government, ranging from federal contracts to investigations into their companies.

The Washington Post reports that over half of the companies spending money on the project are dealing with federal law enforcement on actions including unfair labor practices, environmental infractions, and deceiving consumers. These companies, which include Nvidia, Google, Comcast, and Lockheed Martin, have received over $279 billion in government contracts over the past five years.

The Post cited a report from consumer advocacy group Public Citizen for its story, which focused on the more than three dozen corporate and individual donors disclosed by the Trump administration, as well as three more discovered by CBS News. Many of the companies and individuals also donated to Trump’s inauguration or other Republican projects.

None of the companies have said how much they have donated exactly, although Trump bragged at a White House dinner that some forked up as much as $25 million. The White House’s claims of transparency are further contradicted by the fact that fundraisers for Trump have told prospective donors that they have the option to remain anonymous.

The whole thing smacks of bribery and corruption, but that has never been a problem for Trump, and he isn’t likely to face any investigations or accountability over the donations. The public doesn’t even know how exactly the money is being spent on the ballroom, but is just receiving general figures. We only learn about what is happening based on the destruction we can see on the White House lawn.

President Donald Trump went rogue on Truth Social on Tuesday, contradicting his own administration’s decision a day earlier to fund SNAP benefits during the shutdown—and potentially violating a court order in the process.

“SNAP BENEFITS, which increased by Billions and Billions of Dollars (MANY FOLD!) during Crooked Joe Biden’s disastrous term in office … will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government, which they can easily do, and not before!” Trump wrote.

The Trump administration announced Monday that it would use an emergency fund to pay out SNAP benefits for November, with two major caveats: that the benefits would only be about 50 percent funded and that it may take multiple months to disperse the funds.

But Trump doesn’t seem happy with even that meager offering to hungry Americans. Instead, he brayed on Truth Social that no food stamps would be given out until the shutdown ends, playing with working people’s lives in an attempt to own the libs.

Trump’s announcement caught members of his own team off guard, with four people with knowledge of the matter telling Politico they aren’t clear whether his post means that USDA now won’t abide by the court order.

If Trump follows through on his threat, it would likely be in violation of a federal court order demanding that the government fund the program. But will the Trump administration follow the whims of the president or the USDA’s previously announced plan? USDA had no further comment for Politico, and the White House simply directed reporters to the president’s post.

From tariffs to funding cuts, contradictory policies and often-empty threats have been a hallmark of the second Trump term since day one. We all know that the president has no regard for the rule of law, but apparently he can’t even be bothered to extend any courtesy to his own appointees.

As New Yorkers go to the polls on Tuesday, Republicans in Congress pulled out every bigoted message they could think of to insult the city’s Democratic nominee and mayoral front-runner, Zohran Mamdani. 

Representative Andy Ogles posted a video on X of the 9/11 attacks in New York, calling on the city to “WAKE UP,” in a blatant attack on Mamdani’s Muslim faith.  

Representative Randy Fine, who already has a history of Islamophobia in his short congressional career, called for Mamdani’s deportation, in a speech to the Republican Jewish Committee’s Las Vegas summit over the weekend.

“The only thing I want to see him running for is his gate at JFK on the deportation flight back to Uganda,” Fine said, in a video posted on Monday. Both Fine and Ogles have called for the Department of Justice to investigate Mamdani’s citizenship. 

Also at the RJC summit, Senator Dave McCormick claimed antisemitism is “running wild on the progressive left” and that “the leaders of the Democratic Party are not confronting it, with their new star, Mamdani.”

Senator Ted Cruz called Mamdani a communist and a “Karl Marx-quoting, America-hating jihadist.”

The fact that a democratic socialist Muslim who campaigned on making New York City affordable is on the verge of being elected the city’s next mayor is too much for many on the right. Maybe these Republicans ought to worry about the government shutdown instead of the choices of voters in a city they normally denigrate.

The trial of Sean Dunn, the D.C. man charged with throwing a Subway sandwich at a federal agent this summer, is officially underway—and off to a hilarious start.

After federal prosecutors failed to charge Dunn with a felony, they’re now attempting to get him on misdemeanor assault. And the testimony the “assaulted” officer is sharing of his traumatic sandwich encounter is harrowing indeed.

According to court records and video footage of the foot-long fight, Dunn yelled at Border Patrol agent Gregory Lairmore and other federal agents, calling them “fucking fascists” and saying, “I don’t want you in my city!” before hurling the hoagie at Lairmore, who was wearing a bulletproof vest.

Lairmore testified in court Monday that he was not injured by the sandwich, according to HuffPost reporter Dave Jamieson. However, he said it “kind of exploded” on his chest.

“I could smell the onions and mustard,” Lairmore said.

However, the defense pressed Lairmore on whether the sandwich really exploded by referring to a photo of the sandwich, still wrapped, on the ground.

“The sandwich hasn’t exploded at all, has it?” the defense asked.

“It looks like a little bit is coming out towards the bottom,” Lairmore replied.

Lairmore also testified that he received gag gifts from fellow officers after the ordeal: a sandwich plushie toy and a patch that said “Felony Footlong.”

It’s a dark day in America when a man tasked with disappearing people without due process is forced to endure the horror of condiments.

Donald Trump took to Truth Social Tuesday morning to post about New York City’s mayoral election with his characteristic nuance and eloquence.

“Any Jewish person that votes for Zohran Mamdani, a proven and self professed JEW HATER, is a stupid person!!!” the president of the United States wrote about a historically oppressed minority group.

It goes without saying that Mamdani is not, in fact, a “Jew hater,” but a Muslim candidate who supports the equal application of human rights law across the globe. He has pledged to increase funding to prevent hate crimes by 800 percent. He was the preferred candidate of many Jewish New Yorkers in the primary, and was recently endorsed by one of the city’s Orthodox communities, the Satmar in Brooklyn.

One could argue that it’s more antisemitic to assume that there is no difference of opinion among Jewish voters, or that every Jewish New Yorker has a deeper allegiance to Israel than to their own city—an accusation of “dual loyalty” that is leveraged against Jews (and other religious minorities) to otherize and scapegoat them.

Mamdani’s opponents have helped fuel a surge in Islamophobia, pretending their racism is an acceptable strategy or a mere policy critique. From the fixation on the way the Democratic nominee eats to the disrespectful invocation of the September 11 tragedy as a “gotcha,” the relentless questions about Israel in a race that should be about rent prices in New York City, and even to credible threats on Mamdani’s life, attacks on the candidate simply due to his religion and his skin color have become shockingly normalized.

Voters in New Jersey awoke to worrying developments Tuesday: bomb threats at polling places across the state.

New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin issued a statement warning of emailed threats at polls in Bergen, Essex, Mercer, Middlesex, Monmouth, Ocean, and Passaic counties, and said law enforcement had worked to “secure these polling locations and ensure the safety of each voter.”

NJ.com reports that some polling locations have been closed while police investigate, with voters sent to alternative locations. In Newark, multiple phishing emails were sent with fake claims of bomb threats. And in Passaic County, there is a heavy police presence outside a Paterson voting location.

State officials are trying to reassure the public that everything is safe for voters Tuesday.

“Law enforcement has determined that there are no credible threats at this time. We are doing everything in our power to protect voters and poll workers and coordinate closely with state, local, and federal partners to ensure a smooth and safe election,” said Lieutenant Governor Tahesha Way, who also serves as New Jersey secretary of state.

Don’t expect any kind of help from the White House, though. Trump’s Department of Justice said it would “monitor” polls in New Jersey and California weeks ago, but has yet to say anything about Tuesday’s threats. That’s perhaps because Trump thinks fear will boost his party’s chances at the polls, and the GOP has gutted federal programs to safeguard elections. New Jersey’s elections were already predicted to be close, and there’s no telling how voters will respond to these threats as the voting day continues.

Non–New Yorker Elon Musk peddled the stupidest conspiracy about the New York City mayoral election Tuesday morning.

“The New York City ballot form is a scam!” Musk posted on X. “No ID is required. Other mayoral candidates appear twice. Cuomo’s name is last in bottom right.”

Musk’s tweet seemingly implies the ballot is somehow rigged against Andrew Cuomo, who lost the Democratic nomination to Zohran Mamdani in June.

All of Musk’s ramblings have easy explanations, which, if he or his rabid retweeters lived in New York City, they’d probably already know.

First, city election law doesn’t require voters to bring an ID to the polls—instead, you have to include a driver’s license or Social Security number when you register, so when you show up to actually vote, all you need is your name and address.

Second, you can run with multiple parties in NYC. Mamdani, and other progressive candidates, are running on the Working Families Party line in addition to the Democratic line. Candidates can also run on a ballot line detached from an organized party: Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate, is listed a second time as well on the “Protect Animals” line.

Cuomo, an independent, chose to run on the “Fight and Deliver” line. If he wanted to be listed more than once, perhaps he should’ve considered winning a major party nomination.

And lastly, the ballot order is determined by how many votes a party received in the last gubernatorial election, with unaffiliated candidates (like Cuomo) appearing after the partisan ones.* Elon, you’re reaching.

This explanation is simple and clear—but that doesn’t matter, because Musk, like Donald Trump, couldn’t care less about whether his fearmongering is based in fact. As one X user in response put it, “When you’re a moron everything looks like a conspiracy.”

* This story has been updated to clarify the order in which New York candidates appear on the general ballot.