Independent News Drop

KELI From Inkwell, this is the Independent News Drop. I'm Keli, with Hast.

HAST Heavy load on military entanglement and oil. Let's start with the Rest of the Story from our Ground News desk.

KELI Section 224 of the National Defense Authorization Act — the annual defense bill Congress votes on — contains language that would establish what the law calls an executive agent responsible for synchronising cooperative efforts between the United States and Israel. That's not aid. That's co-production, data fusion, and a permanent institutional merger written into U.S. authorisation law. Representatives Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna are on record opposing it. Massie said we are a sovereign country. Khanna posted he'd offer an amendment to strip it out in committee, and that Trump can't kill the Massie-Khanna partnership no matter how much he posts on Truth Social.

HAST The institutional read you'll hear most places is deepening ties. Tighter partnership. The structural read is different. Language like this doesn't move fast. Rogers and Smith — House Armed Services Committee chairs — placed it quietly in the authorization bill the same week the president called a Netanyahu call very well, and Israel's own ministers were on camera fighting over zip-tied detainees and abuse allegations. The institutional story — merger language in law — and the human-rights story — documented abuse — ran on separate channels. Both were on the record. Watch whether the amendment strips Section 224 or whether the language survives the markup.

KELI Staying on oil and war economics. From Mother Jones: the U.S. oil industry has earned almost 130 billion dollars in profits since the U.S. and Israel began bombing Iran in February. Over the same span last year, when oil was cheap, those same companies earned less than 47 billion. ExxonMobil and Chevron, the nation's two largest fossil fuel corporations, saw profits surge. Shipping and insurance costs spiked because of the war. That margin went straight to the pump and straight to earnings reports. The mechanism is public. The profit is documented.

HAST Texas piece now. Early voting in the 2026 election brought 7.4 million Texans to the polls — that's 39 percent of the state's voters during the early period. The Texas Tribune reports that number nearly matches the modern-day record set in 2018. Election Day is tomorrow. Turnout pressure is real in both parties.

KELI Different scale, but Poland's Constitutional Tribunal just saw its head judge suspended. Al Jazeera reports police were deployed to the top court. This suspension is part of a years-long dispute over whether the court itself has been politicized under the previous government. Courts as political tools — that fight is alive in multiple democracies at once.

HAST On the domestic side, Cook Political released its final House forecast before voting starts. CNN's Brianna Keilar spoke with Dave Wasserman, Cook's senior editor for elections. Wasserman's analysis projects Democrats could gain 12 to 25 House seats — more than enough to retake the majority. Forecast. Outcome is tomorrow night.

KELI Before we close, a history note.

HAST October 31st, 2000: Singapore Airlines Flight 006 crashed on takeoff from Taipei. Eighty-three people were killed.

KELI That's the Independent News Drop. For race night tools, head to racer.wiki. Lawz bodycam explainers on the channel. Full scripts, cards, and shirts at inkwell.wiki slash cards, slash bible-shirts, slash art-shirts. From Inkwell.

KELI Before we close, a word from Inkwell. There's an essay at Gil's Intelligent Version on what actually happened in 1914 — and how a real historical instinct curdled into false certainty the moment someone tried to measure it to the inch.

HAST It's called The Witness and the Ruler. At inkwell dot wiki, slash giv.