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This Week on Polltober: Are We Seeing the Midterms Clearly?

by Jackie Wilhelm
by Jackie Wilhelm

On this week’s episode of The Polltober Show, Kate and Josh discuss whether the story of the midterms can be trusted in this week’s grab bag episode.

If you want your question answered next week, drop it in the YouTube comments on the latest episode of the TPM Show or the Polltober Show itself. And don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube page for all of our Polltober episodes, livestreams, and other original TPM content!

Psst, you’re a TPM member, right? You asked, and we answered: we’re launching a members-only podcast feed where you can listen to episodes of Polltober! Head to your account settings page to find the special RSS feed that you can add to your preferred podcast player and enjoy!

It’s the AI Economy … We’re Just Living In It 

by Josh Marshall
It’s the AI Economy … We’re Just Living In It
by Josh Marshall · The Backchannel

I corresponded with a TPM Reader from the tech world recently who marveled at the political salience of data centers when data centers have been around since the late 90s. Many data centers today are orders of magnitude larger than their pre-AI relatives, gobbling up much more energy, making more noise and physical pollution. But he noted that the bulk of them aren’t nearly that large. These points each have some truth to them, though I think it understates the real-world impact of hyperscaler data centers. And, as I’ve noted, a lot of our collective social angst about data centers and AI is really focused on oligarchy — the way that it appears to be the tech oligarchs’ world and we’re just living in it. The ability for town and county councils to say no to data centers is irresistible precisely because it’s the one case where democratic self-government is in a position to say “NO!” and that’s so contrary to all our other experience these days. But there’s an entirely different vantage point on this question I want to focus on.

The impact of particular data centers in particular places is one issue. But the macro-story is even bigger and more jarring. Axios has a piece this morning about how the housing sector is getting hammered by the hyperscaler AI boom, both buildings and buyers. And as you may have heard the lack of affordable housing is a rather pressing issue in American society today. This applies to everything from inflation/scarcity of the physical building blocks that are used for building housing to the scarcity of capital to fund it. If that sounds overstated look at this chart from a study we discussed late last month and which got written up in various publications.

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‘Let Them Fight!’—Maybe It’s Grenell’s Turn In the Barrel Edition 

by Josh Marshall
‘Let Them Fight!’—Maybe It’s Grenell’s Turn In the Barrel Edition
by Josh Marshall · The Backchannel

In my earlier posts on the Habba-Grenell mutual self-immolation spectacle, I’d told you that while Ric Grenell is as nasty as they come, I was skeptical that he was quite dumb or reckless enough to be involved in what Alina Habba and her new husband were alleging.

But I may heve been wrong!

There’s a new report out in Axios that adds a bunch more detail to the story. But before getting to that report, there’s some important context and caveats. I wouldn’t see this new Axios report as quite a “report” in the sense of new reporting that advances the story. It’s better to see this as three players (the White House, Grenell and Habba/Mildon) each of whom are trading a very hot potato back and forth between the three of them and hoping not to be the one left holding it when the music stops. But instead of a literal potato, that lashing out is taking place through new batches of leaks. We need to be clear that each batch of new leaks is from an interested party, with its own goals and agenda. And it may include some false details or more likely ones that are misleading. But on balance each batch of leaks is probably mostly true, helps fill out the emerging picture and sinks both adversary parties (Grenell and Habba/Mildon) deeper into the quicksand.

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Powers Jostle Over Oil Prices and US Midterms

by Josh Marshall
by Josh Marshall

Today’s world would be a fascinating object of study if one weren’t also living in it. The price of energy isn’t the cause of Donald Trump’s deep unpopularity. But for months it’s been driving it to new depths. The price of oil plateaued in early October, which seemed to blunt some of Democrats’ electoral momentum. On Friday though it jumped up again, with the Brent Crude price hitting $110 a barrel, the highest since May. That was the worst of all possible worlds for Trump and that clearly played a key role in his decision to waive sanctions against Russia. Reuters reports that the prospect of greater supply from Russia knocked oil off those highs in early Monday trading in Asia. That was clearly the main goal of that waiver. But just in the last hour, reports have come out that Ukraine launched a massive volley of 1,000 drones targeting Russian energy infrastructure.

Alina Habba May Have Made a Costly Mistake

by Josh Marshall
Alina Habba May Have Made a Costly Mistake
by Josh Marshall

Last week, as part of the emerging “‘Layla’ Coda” moment around President Trump, I flagged this story about a nasty feud between Alina Habba and her erstwhile pal and Trump fixer Ric Grenell. Habba went to the White House with the explosive charge that her now-husband, a Turkish nepo-oligarch named Turhan Mildon, had given $6 million to Grenell for the Kennedy Center, then Trump’s top vanity/legacy project. But Grenell, she claimed, had siphoned the money off, presumably for himself. At the time Grenell was running the Kennedy Center. Mildon first came into the Trump orbit because he had major ties to the Maduro regime and major holdings in Venezuela. So he needed to get juice in Trump world so he didn’t lose his toys when MAGA started dividing up the spoils after the U.S. invasion. But now it seems Habba, now Alina Mildon after her marriage last month, may have bitten off way more than she and Turhan can chew.

After making the initial accusation, the Turhans have been talking much less than Grenell. Her story had also shifted around a bit, according to the initial Times report. The $6 million, or possibly $5.6 million, was to be carved out of a $17.6 million check for some other unspecified business deal. But when Habba, or rather her husband’s, lawyers presented the White House with the evidence for this transaction, the source of cash was redacted.

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Feud In Dolly Parton’s Inner Circle Reveals Arms Deal with Haitian Police

by Josh Marshall
Feud In Dolly Parton’s Inner Circle Reveals Arms Deal with Haitian Police
by Josh Marshall

I’m thinking this nephew guy has turned out to be a problematic figure … The story here is about a deal to sell arms to the police in Haiti and the company in question, Fencebridge, was founded by “Daniel Nozell, Parton’s longtime manager, and Bryan Seaver, one of Parton’s nephews who was also her head of security.”

From the Miami Herald (gift link) …

A private security firm founded by two people close to late country music legend Dolly Parton is at the center of an unusually complex arms deal in Haiti that several sources with knowledge of the matter say was worked out with little due diligence.

The security firm, Fencebridge Strategic Risk, entered into a multimillion-dollar agreement about a year ago to supply the Haiti National Police with semi-automatic rifles and thousands of rounds of ammunition, as the agency struggles to combat violent gangs that have claimed the lives of more than 25,000 Haitians since 2021.

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