Justice Department sues California, claiming it's mailing ballots to more than 20,000 noncitizens

By Sarah N. Lynch

October 15, 2026 /CBS News

Washington — The Justice Department sued California on Thursday, alleging that the federal government has identified more than 20,000 noncitizens who are unlawfully registered to vote.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, came after Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter sent letters to counties earlier this week, including Los Angeles, ordering them to review a list of names of suspected noncitizens who he alleged received mail-in ballots for the upcoming midterm elections.

"State-facilitated voter fraud is unacceptable in the United States of America," Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement announcing the lawsuit.

"If found responsible in a court of law, the State of California will have seriously undermined confidence in our electoral system and violated laws that protect our nation's representative system of government."

In the letter that McCotter sent to the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, he enclosed a password-protected thumb drive that he said contained names compiled by the Department of Homeland Security, and imposed a 48-hour deadline for the clerk's office to review the list.

Dean Logan, the registrar-recorder and clerk, said in a statement responding to McCotter's demands that the county would not be reviewing the materials on the thumb drive because doing so would conflict with "established data privacy and information security protocols." He said the device was not considered a "secure medium."

Secretary of State Shirley Weber, meanwhile, said the Justice Department had not provided the list of names and blasted the Trump administration for what it said were "unsubstantiated claims" that California had 190,000 noncitizens on its voter rolls.

In Thursday's lawsuit, the Justice Department accused the state of failing to work with the federal government to correct the alleged problems with its voter rolls.

"The Federal Government asked California to work collaboratively to identify any noncitizens registered to vote in the State.California made no serious effort to do so," the lawsuit said.

"The United States thus seeks commonplace election relief when a ballot is called into question. This Court should enjoin California from presently tabulating vote-by-mail ballots from likely noncitizens in the upcoming federal election until the voter's citizenship status can be determined," it added.

CBS News has reached out to the secretary of state and the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk for comment.

The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division has filed 31 lawsuits in an effort to force states to hand over unredacted copies of their voter rolls. The division has said it wants to ensure states are keeping clean voter lists, but it has since acknowledged that it also intends to share the data with the Department of Homeland Security so that the lists can be screened for noncitizens.

Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division, sent letters to all 50 states in July threatening to take criminal action if they knowingly allowed noncitizens to remain on their voter rolls.

So far, the Justice Department has lost 26 of those cases, and has not achieved one legal victory to date.

It has resorted to using publicly available voter lists and other investigative means to try to identify noncitizens who may be registered in those states.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/justice-department-california-lawsuit-mail-ballots-noncitizens/

CoreWeave credit default swaps hit distress levels as investors sour on AI debt

THU, OCT 15 2026

KEY POINTS

• Signs of distressed deepened in CoreWeave on Thursday.

• Yields on its 2031 bonds topped 15%.

• Spreads in credit default swaps, which is insurance against defaults, widened to levels generally viewed as distressed.

CoreWeave’s credit stress continued to spiral on Thursday amid a broader sell-off in AI-related names.

CoreWeave —a so-called neocloud company— has taken on more than $51 billion of debt and obligations to finance its AI infrastructure build-out.

It’s now facing a rebellion from stock and bond investors as concerns mount about AI overspending and debt levels.

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/15/coreweave-credit-default-swaps-hit-distress-levels-as-investors-sour-on-ai-debt.html

A lesson in greed!

JUST IN: Trump Donor Files Defamation Suit Against Kimberly Guilfoyle, Vows to Reveal Evidence That May ‘Bring Down the Entire Trump Administration’

Tom Durante

Oct 15th, 2026, 2:19 pm

Trump donor Eric Deters announced on Thursday that he has filed a defamation lawsuit against former U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle,while threatening to play a damning phone recording.

In a scathing video shared to Facebookon Thursday, Deters held up a copy of the lawsuit, threatening that it “might bring down the entire Trump administration” and may “end the JD Vance/Marco Rubio ticket.”

Deters was thrust into the spotlight last week when The Wall Street Journal reported that Guilfoyle begged him to pay her $100,000 American Express bill in exchange for influence in the Trump administration.

Calling Guilfoyle Apate, the Greek goddess of deceit, Deters pledged to play a 16-minute phone recording by the end of Fridaythat may prove especially damaging to the former ambassador, who resigned on Tuesday after Trump requested that she step down.

“By the end of tomorrow, I am going to play for you a phone recording that is the most explosive, most devastating information about Kimberly Guilfoyle to date,” he said.

He added: “=This might just bring down the entire Trump administration, an administration which I have supported from Day 1, whose policies I still support. It also may end the JD Vance/Marco Rubio ticket after you hear the phone call that I’m going to play tomorrow. It’s pretty freakin’ amazing.”

https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/just-in-trump-donor-files-defamation-suit-against-kimberly-guilfoyle-vows-to-reveal-evidence-that-may-bring-down-the-entire-trump-administration/

“Jane Doe Strikes Again!” – Matt Gaetz Responds to New Sex Trafficking Lawsuit From Anonymous Accusers

By Jordan Conradson Oct. 15, 2026 3:20 pm144

Former Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz is being accused again of sex traffickingby two anonymous women who filed a lawsuit against him and two others in federal court on Thursday.

This follows past accusations of sex trafficking, which were weaponized by RINOs in the House of Representatives, despite the Department of Justice declining to prosecute.

It can be recalled that a House Ethics Committee investigation was reopened back in 2023 as Gaetz ramped up challenges to former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who was later ousted by Gaetz’s Motion to Vacate the chair.When Gaetz threatened to bring the Motion to Vacate against McCarthy in October 2023, McCarthy’s RINO allies began threatening to expel Gaetz based on the committee’s investigation.

The committee’s revival of the junk allegations against Gaetz notably came after the Biden DOJ exonerated Gaetz of criminal wrongdoingand dropped all charges in February 2023.

Gaetz resigned from Congress in November 2024 after Trump announced his nomination for Attorney General of the United States. In an attempt to thwart his Senate confirmation and despite no longer having jurisdiction over Gaetz as a private citizen,the committee later released a report alleging that Gaetz made tens of thousands of dollars in payments to women for sex while he was a member of Congress.

Now, a couple of anonymous accusers under the alias “Jane Doe 1” and “Jane Doe 2” are using the Ethics Committee’s report to dredge up new claims of exploitation in a civil lawsuit nearly two years later.

The complaint also relies heavily on discredited Ethics Committee star witness Joel Greenberg, who previously admitted to working with Democrat prosecutors to take down Republican politicians and that he fabricated allegations of sex trafficking against Gaetz.

Per MS Now:

The women, identified as Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2, are accusing Gaetz, former Florida state Rep. Chris Dorworth and Joel Greenberg, a former tax collector in Florida’s Seminole County, of “recruitment and sexual exploitation” from 2017 through January 2019 — while Gaetz was a sitting member of Congress. The lawsuit relies in part on a House Ethics Committee report that concluded Gaetz paid roughly a dozen women for sex between 2017 and 2020.

The plaintiffs’ complaint also draws from Greenberg’s plea agreement, in which he acknowledged engaging in commercial sex acts with the minor described in the complaint as “Victim A” and “introduc[ing] the Minor to other adult men, who engaged in commercial sex acts with the Minor in the Middle District of Florida.” Greenberg is serving an 11-year federal prison sentence in Florida on sex trafficking and fraud convictions.

The accusers allege Gaetz and Greenberg “coordinated the recruitment, payments, drugs, and travel to obtain commercial sexual acts from young women,” and accuse Dorworth of “knowingly” participating.

The 38-page complaint, filed in the Middle District Court of Florida, describes the defendants as “men of power, wealth, and privilege who used their positions not to protect the vulnerable but to prey upon them.” The complaint states that one of the women was 20 years old when she met Gaetz, now 44, and that the other was 22 when she first met Greenberg, now 42.

“I look forward to taking the plaintiffs’ depositions because much of the conduct alleged against me is false,”Gaetz said in response to the lawsuit, according to the Miami Herald.

“The lawsuit relies almost exclusively on a Congressional Committee report that didn’t allow me to confront my accusers. Now I will finally have that chance.”

Gaetz later responded in an X post, writing, “Jane Doe Strikes Again!”

“Two adult women sued me today alleging they were sex trafficked to the Bahamas. I’m shocked nobody responded to their repeated cries for help, posted to instagram,” he said, sharing a screenshot of one of the alleged victims’ Instagram posts from the Bahamas back in September 2018.

“#Bahamas #beers and #babes are all you need,” the woman wrote in her post.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/10/jane-doe-strikes-again-matt-gaetz-responds-after/

(Why are these women and people so afraid of Matt Gaetz to be put in a position defending the law and truth. What are these people trying to hide what they did to make up lies and trying to block him? What does he know?)

OSZ

@OpenSourceZone

2026 Michigan Senate

🔴 Mike Rogers: 46% (+3)

🔵 Abdul El-Sayed: 44% (-)

(+/- vs last poll)

Tyson Group poll | 10/6-10/8

David Santa Carla 🦇

@TheOnlyDSC50m

It’s so funny when pollsters finally have to start reporting real results.😭😭😭

@1980Khoa

Khoa

@1980Khoa 1h

This is probably the likely outcome too. Many Jewish democrats will cross party line to support Rogers over the crazy socialist Muslim candidate El-Sayed.

@MistyInNewYork

Gabrielle Fetterman 🇺🇸

@MistyInNewYork

Calling it. This seat is red. 🟥

https://x.com/OpenSourceZone/status/2110830319289172415

Zelensky says Ukraine will resume strikes on Russian refineries as frustration with Trump mounts1/2. (The arrogant little mafia guy just stepped into something he won’t know how to deal with. Remember Trump knew a lot of Mafia types and knows how to handle them.)

By Sana Noor Haq, Jim Sciutto, Kathleen Magramo, CNN: 2:15 PM EDT, Thu October 15, 2026

Ukraine will resume strikes on Russia’s oil refineries President Volodymyr Zelensky has said, also criticizingwhat he called a “dangerous” withdrawal of US intelligence sharing and restrictions to the Starlink satellite internet service.

The Ukrainian leader said he had halted attacks on Russian oil infrastructure for three days after the US announced a surprise “energy ceasefire” initiative. But given that Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy facilities continued, Zelensky told the Financial Times:“We’re done.”

On Thursday, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said Ukraine had attempted a large-scale attack on a Russian oil refinery in Ryazan overnight. Ukraine has not yet commented.

Zelensky’s comments to the FT lay bare his growing frustration with President Donald Trump, who last week announced a controversial deal to buy Russian diesel. Trump has heaped pressure on Ukraine to stop striking Moscow’s refineries as he works to bring down energy costs ahead of the midterm elections.

Zelensky has condemned Trump’s willingness to strike business deals with Moscow as well as the US president’s apparent admiration for Russia’s Vladimir Putin. He also told the FT that Ukrainian military officials were told by their US counterparts that “if you will not stop [the energy strikes], we will block intelligence.”

Then on Wednesday, Ukraine said Starlink had restricted some military internet services, disrupting key operations, deepening alarm in both Kyiv and among European allies.

Last week, Trump wrote on social media that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin agreed to supply markets with his country’s diesel fuel as the US president works to bring down energy costs. That move drew bipartisan criticism and sparked anger among European allies.

On Monday, Russian forces launched fresh attacks on Ukraine just hours after the US president stated an “energy ceasefire” had come into effect – a measure that neither Moscow nor Kyiv had publicly confirmed.

Both Russian and Ukrainian troops intensified aerial attacks on each other’s energy infrastructure in the weeks leading up to that as movements on the battlefield remain relatively stagnant.

On Thursday Russian President Vladimir Putin warned there would be “consequences” if Ukraine continued to strike Russian energy, industrial and commercial infrastructure. “Yesterday, they tried to strike some oil refineries. They hit a few places, nothing too significant, but they’re continuing nonetheless,” Putin told delegates at the Delovaya Rossiya business forum via video link.

“Before taking that step, they should have thought carefully about the consequences.”

The Trump administration had warned Ukraine and allies in Europe that the US could suspend intelligence sharing and European purchases of US weapons for Kyiv if it did not halt deep strikes on Russian energy facilities.

https://lite.cnn.com/2026/10/14/europe/zelensky-trump-russia-fuel-deal-latam-intl

>>25145133

2/2

(Keep it up Zelensky, your lies and condemnation of Truth are not helping you on the U.S. side! Idiot!)

Information sharing is invaluable to Ukrainian defense efforts against Russian ballistic missile attacks by giving the locations of missile launchers along with data on where the strikes are being directed, and when.

In the days that followed, Trump administration officials, including the president, insisted such intelligence sharing continued. But what explained the lack of missile warnings?

When asked by Kyiv for an explanation, US officials blamed the weather. But Ukrainian officials suspected it was deliberate. “America says it was a failure,” a European official told CNN. “But it can’t be the truth.”

“This will give Russians a real leverage on a frontline at the time when we effectively stopped their advances, and de-occupy the territories,” a Ukrainian official told CNN.

Defensive capabilities ‘artificially restricted’

That information deficit has been compounded by Elon Musk’s Starlink curbing some internet services in Ukraine, according to local officials. Ukrainian authorities said they were caught off-guard by restrictions on the military-grade version of Elon Musk’s Starlink, called Starshield.

A Ukrainian Defense Ministry Source told CNN on Thursday that “as of now, Starshield’s operations have resumed and are continuing.” The source added that the ministry is talking with all parties involved “to determine all the causes and circumstances of yesterday’s restrictions.”

But Zelensky has indicated that some restrictions are still in place. On Thursday morning, the Ukrainian president said Russia had launched more than 850 attack drones since midnight “at a time when the speed of our defensive capabilities is being artificially restricted.”

Zelensky said earlier that Ukrainian forces use the satellite system to defend against Moscow’s jet-powered Shahed drones, and that Russia was trying to capitalize on the disruptions.

Ukraine’s top diplomat in Washington, Denys Sienik, also told CNN that Starshield speeds have improved but are not fully restored, adding, “We hope all will be resumed to the previous level.”

Kyiv has received no response from SpaceX or the Pentagon, a Ukrainian official told CNN.

Musk on Wednesday said Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government and that any limits on its speed or usage are up to the US military and president. He added that Starlink is a commercial service owned and controlled by SpaceX and is limited to civilian or defensive activities.

Musk said Starlink “cannot be used for offensive military action, as doing so would be inappropriate for a commercial company.”

CNN has reached out to the White House and the Pentagon for comment.

Zelensky has spent the past week trying to shore up support among European leaders. On Wednesday, he met Britain’s Prime Minister Andy Burnham and King Charles in London.(KEK)!

https://lite.cnn.com/2026/10/14/europe/zelensky-trump-russia-fuel-deal-latam-intl

I listened to the whole interview, his arrogance is nauseating!

Zelenskyy Restarts Attacks Against Russian Oil Refineries 1/2

October 15, 2026 | Sundance |

The AP is reporting that Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has restarted drone attacks against Russian oil refineries despite the request by President Trump to halt targeting energy infrastructure.There are a lot of aspects within this dynamic.

♦ First, keep in mind that any attacks against Russian infrastructure should always beevaluated against the capability of Russia to effectively mitigate such attacks. Russia is an analog infrastructure in a digital world, and one of the benefits to their system is the rapid repair capability in the old-school systems.

This may seem like a small detail, however, as noted in the prior attacks against almost all Russian infrastructure, Russia continued energy operations and exports of diesel fuel despite Ukraine targeting. Russia is remarkably resilient and they build out their capabilities with redundancies no longer used in most of the western industrial systems.

Due to their analog systems Russia may be less efficient in maximizing productivity; but what they lose in industrial productivity becomes an actual asset when shifting between internal systems becomes a matter of physically opening and closing valves to shift from damaged to operational stations.Russia’s slow adaption of technologicalinnovation factually becomes a strategic advantage in this type of kinetic war.

♦ Second, it is worth remembering that oil refining capacity has been curtailed by the “climate change advocates” who now assemble to support Zelenskyy.The nations now alignedagainst the interests of Russiaare yet dependent on the dirty industrial carbon energyresources provided by Russia and other oil exporting countries.

Think about it.

Because oil was considered a polluting industry, Canada, the U.K, almost all of Europe and even in the USA the refineries were devalued and capacity was eliminated.

For decades coal, oil and gas were industries without investment. However,clean energy systems can generate electricity but not much else. Canada, the U.K, most of Europe and the majority of the world are still dependent on coal, oil and gas.

The irony of the dependencies plays out when you look at two-faced Europe purchasing oil/gas from Russia yet decrying Russian oil/gas sales to the global market.

France is the biggest LNG purchaser from Russia, while NATO General Secretary Mark Rutte’s home country of The Netherlands is also a big buyer of Russian energy.

These dynamics become remarkable hypocrisieswhen we look at how the ‘Clean Energy West’ is fighting President Trump on the issues of Russia. In fact, it is not difficult to see how these same aligned nations are positioning their politics to attack President Trump and the alignment of domestic American opposition seeks to take advantage of this.

♦ The Wall Street Journal published an article earlier today that was transparently trying to set up a post-midterm impeachment narrative using the issue of Ukraine’s claim of Starlink no longer being a defense tool, because Donald Trump turned off the satellite system {SEE HERE}. It’s all nonsense, but with three weeks until the election, it doesn’t matter if the manipulated reporting is accurate or not –they are throwing everything at Trump in order to nudge the election.

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2026/10/15/zelenskyy-restarts-attacks-against-russian-oil-refineries/#more-287944

>>25145382

2/2

MeanwhileUkraine continues to represent a serious national security threat to the United States, especially when we see reports that Mexican and Central American drug cartels are sending their foot soldiers to Ukraine to learn how to use drones in preparation for combat against U.S. law enforcement {SEE HERE}. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has launched investigations into the matter.

It has becomeincreasingly clearthat Volodymyr Zelenskyy is not only a puppet to U.K/EU interests, but he’s also an unstable person. Zelenskyy is the precarious front man of a very corrupt system that operates throughout Ukraine, and it isincreasingly obviousthat Zelenskyy himself has little to no impact on the military operations inside Ukraine.

Ukraine military leadership seems to be running asimultaneous campaign of violence and self-enrichment. This was happening in eastern Ukraine for a long time, since approximately 2014, long before Russian President Putin crossed the border with Russian troops to confront what he called Nazi extremists and terrorists. The war machine is exceptionally lucrative for most of the Ukrainian leadership and unfortunately for Zelenskyy the world is very aware of it.

• KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine attacked a Russian oil refinery Thursday, abandoning a brief truce involving energy-related targets that it said Moscow did not heed, as Ukrainian President VolodymyrZelenskyy said he felt betrayed by U.S. President Donald Trump.

• The drone strike started a fire at the refinery about 300 kilometers (180 miles) southeast of Moscow in Russia’s Ryazan region, according to the Russian Defense Ministry and Ryazan Gov. Pavel Malkov. Russia’s Astra online news outlet posted what it said was a photograph of the blaze.

• The strike could further complicate Kyiv’s relations with Trump, which have soured again in recent days amid deepening tensions between Ukraine and Washington.

• Zelenskyy said he was outraged by Russia’s continuing aerial bombardment of energy infrastructure in apparent defiance of Trump’s demand on Sunday for both sides to halt those attacks. (more)

With all of that being said, there’s also something else becoming clear – and that is making several EU leaders very nervous.

There’s a general awakening throughout the citizenry of the nations that form the foundation of Zelenskyy’s support. Despite the extreme propaganda being promoted by the European Union, the populations of Germany, France, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria and several other nations are now looking at the conflict andnoticing how Zelenskyy is behavingwith the politicians who support him.

Things don’t look right and people can sense what they arewitnessing isn’t the whole truth. As a consequence, Zelenskyy is being told to dial back his direct confrontational stance toward President Trump, andit looks like some EU leaders have some form of an intervention planned for Friday.

• European leaders plan to urge Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to soften his public criticism of US leader Donald Trump, according to The Financial Times.

• According to the FT, a summit of EU leaders is scheduled to take place in Brussels on Friday, October 16.

• According to officials familiar with the meeting plans, European politicians intend to discuss the situation with Zelenskyy during closed-door negotiations. (more)

(Mhttps://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2026/10/15/zelenskyy-restarts-attacks-against-russian-oil-refineries/#more-287944