I want to flag your attention to what is happening tonight at Evin Prison in Tehran. Evin is a notorious prison complex known for housing many of the clerical regime’s political prisoners, including dual citizens. The complex is the scene of a fire tonight along with gunfire and explosions. I hesitate to say much more about it since it is a topic in which I have no expertise; even for those who do it is very difficult to understand just what is going on. Who started the fire or how did it start? Who is shooting who? There are reports security forces creating a cordon around the prison, preventing civilians from approaching it. But the mix of events – a fire at a prison complex heavily associated with regime repression, gunshots and explosions, ancillary protests on the periphery of the complex – have a strong regime crisis feel to them. It seems to mark a qualitative escalation from the continuing protests that roiled the country over recent weeks.

This is just a tiny morsel of data. So it may simply be noise. But it caught my eye. Recent polls in two key senate races show big spreads between registered and likely voters. Traditionally likely voter screens tend to favor Republicans, who are more regular voters. In recent years though that has been less consistent. A CNN/SSRS poll conducted 9/26 to 10/2 in Nevada gave Catherine Cortez Masto a +3 advantage among registered voters and -2 among likely voters. A Marquette Law School poll of Wisconsin conducted from 10/3-10/9 showed an even race among registered voters and Ron Johnson up 6 points over Mandela Barnes among likely voters.

For some impossible to understand reason this actually made it as a headline about the big supermarket merger.

New documents released under Florida’s sunshine law have revealed more details of the Perla-DeSantis hoodwink operation in San Antonio. DeSantis Public Safety Czar Larry Keefe, the former lawyer for the contractor Florida has already paid $1.5 million for the Vineyard migrant flight, was closely involved in the operation. He directed the “Perla” crew’s operation from Florida. Critically, Keefe made at least one trip to San Antonio to oversee the operation.

From TPM Reader AG …

I very much agree with your strategic focus on abortion in the upcoming elections, and while I certainly don’t see it as an either/or choice, I find myself alternately baffled and furious that national Democrats haven’t made this a centerpiece of their fall campaigns.

This is the 2023 D.C. disaster no one is talking about but should be.

I’ve been reading various commentary in recent weeks about the rightward turn by big elements of the Silicon Valley tech community. It’s a complex story with various roots. But at a macro level a significant part of it comes down to something like political physics. Tech became extremely wealthy and extremely powerful, and when government started looking at Big Tech with a more critical eye a lot of the tech people … well, they didn’t like it. That’s not terribly surprising. When you’re used to being a master of the universe and then suddenly a bureaucrat who makes less than $200,000 a year comes asking questions or says you can’t do something, that can seem a little weird and annoying. And your political outlook, if you had one, can start to change. This reminded me of a decade-old episode in the history of American political economy which I watched unfold at the time and is relevant to this discussion.

Do you remember SOPA and the activism against it?

Our document for the day is this email released under the Freedom of Information Act. It is an email dated January 13th, 2021 in which the writer informs the then associate deputy director of the FBI, Paul Abbate, how a substantial portion of FBI personnel were in sympathy with the January 6th insurrectionists.

TPM Reader TK responds to the debate we’re carrying on below …

There are many striking parts to this short video. The one that sticks with me is the part where Pelosi says what amounts to, or I interpret as, “let’s pretend this was the White House or the Pentagon or some other building you gave a crap about.”

Here’s more extended video which is very worth watching in full.