Trove of Documents Exposes Secret Palantir Role in Medicare’s AI Pilot Program

Source: Common Dreams

“The software firm Palantir has drawn scrutiny and recent public ire over its role in President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign, the illegal US war in Iran, and Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza. But a trove of documents obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) reveals that the notorious tech company’s tentacles have reached into the American healthcare system—including a widely criticized Medicare pilot program that uses AI models to review requests for medical services. The documents include an application from Zyter, a healthcare technology company that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) chose to participate in the Medicare pilot program, formally known as the Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction (WISeR) Model. Zyter’s application mentions that Palantir ‘provides mission critical software infrastructure for CMS’ and other government agencies, as well as ‘multiple’ insurance companies. Zyter uses Palantir’s software infrastructure, EFF noted.” (10/28/26)

https://www.commondreams.org/news/palantir-medicare-ai-experiment

The Limits of Trump’s Midterm Trickery

Source: The Atlantic
by Quinta Jurecic

“If, once most of the results are in, Democrats seem set to eke out a House majority by just a few seats, perhaps committed Trump allies in positions of power could make trouble in a handful of the closest districts. … This could create chaos on January 3, when the new House gathers for the first time: What happens if the contested seats are enough to deny the should-be-majority party the votes it needs to select a new speaker and take control of the chamber? Although this isn’t a foolproof trick for stealing control of the House, such a play could make things very precarious very quickly. But the bigger the majority secured by Democrats, the more difficult it would be for Trump to shave that majority down—the more clerks to convince, warrants to secure, and court rulings to dodge, all over the country.” (10/28/26)

https://archive.is/SlYYS

How the CDC Lied about Shot Injury

Source: Brownstone Institute
by Jeffrey A Tucker

“The month was January 2021, only a few weeks into the mass rollout of the injection called a vaccine. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had outsourced its collection of data from the VAERS system – designed to monitor vaccine safety – to General Dynamics Information Technology. GDIT wrote the CDC a memo dated January 15. ‘The number of incoming COVID-19 reports has significantly exceeded the estimated maximum of 1,000 reports per day,’ the memo to the CDC said. ‘As a result, GDIT is unable to meet processing and other timeframes (data processing, telephone inquiries, clinical inquiries, etc.).’ … The five-alarm fire should have been obvious. At that very instant, if not long before, the shots should have been pulled.” (10/28/26)

https://brownstone.org/articles/how-the-cdc-lied-about-shot-injury/

Neil Young sues for the second time over Trump’s use of “Rockin’ in the Free World”

Source: NBC News

“Rock star Neil Young filed a $10 million lawsuit Monday over President Donald Trump’s use of his song ‘Rockin’ in the Free World’ at campaign events — the second time he has sued over Trump’s use of his music. In the five-page filing, Young’s lawyers say he ‘has suffered damage to his reputation and brand as a result of the implication that he supports Donald J. Trump in any way.’ The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Virginia against the Trump 47 Committee, a joint fundraising committee, alleging copyright infringement over Trump’s repeated use of his hit song, specifically mentioning an October rally in Ohio.” (10/27/26)

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/neil-young-sues-trump-10-million-rockin-free-world-rcna605912

Is the Korean Peninsula moving closer to war?

Source: Asia Times
by Lakhvinder Singh

“Recently, Kim Yo-jong, the younger sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, warned that Pyongyang could take strong retaliatory measures if Seoul continues activities it considers provocative. To casual observers, this may appear to be just another routine exchange of verbal threats between the two Koreas. However, a closer examination of the current situation suggests that something unusually significant may be unfolding on the Korean Peninsula.” (10/28/26)

https://asiatimes.com/2026/10/is-the-korean-peninsula-moving-closer-to-war/

The Politics of Equality, the Politics of Autonomy

Source: Liberal Currents
by Silvaria Lysandra Zemaitis

“There is no shortage of agreement that liberalism, in the face of fascist authoritarianism and reactionary backslide, is in crisis. And there has been no end of rationalizations, responses, and reactions to this crisis, both from within and from without. These range from the reactionaries themselves, who (at least the more articulate ones) claim that liberalism has produced atomization, social decay, and national disintegration, to the farther left, who claim that liberalism has been a destabilizing economic force that has placed economic efficiency over human flourishing, and to those within liberalism itself, where some argue that liberalism has prioritized identity or self-expression over promoting a unified vision of the good life. While the quality and veracity of those critiques vary, I do believe that liberalism, as a political program, has not been good enough at answering them.” (10/28/26)

https://www.liberalcurrents.com/the-politics-of-equality-the-politics-of-autonomy/

No, CNN Did Not “Defame” Cenk Uygur by Trashing his Anti-Israel Ad

Source: Jonathan Turley
by Jonathan Turley

“A new ad running to support Democrat senatorial candidate Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan has been widely denounced as anti-Semitic for suggesting that Jews are taking food from Americans. The ad is the work of Rebellion PAC, a political action committee co-founded by The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur. Uygur has now struck out at CNN over a panel discussion that trashed the segment and called it clearly defamatory. For a torts teacher, the claim popped this story to the top of my pile, and I thought it was worthy of addressing. The CNN segment is manifestly not defamatory. Whatever grievance that he may have with the network, it is not a legal one.” (10/28/26)

https://jonathanturley.org/2026/10/28/no-cnn-did-not-defame-cenk-uygur-by-trashing-his-anti-israel-ad-supporting-abdul-el-sayed/