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US Taxpayer Coalition Urges ICC to Issue Arrest Warrants for Trump, Rubio Over Gaza Genocide
"Let us be clear: The genocide of the Palestinian people would not have been possible without the unwavering support of the United States."
Nov 11, 2026
A coalition of American taxpayers, including human rights lawyers and activists, formally submitted video footage, firsthand eyewitness accounts, and other evidence to the International Criminal Court on Wednesday, making the case that the tribunal should issue arrest warrants for US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio for aiding Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza.
The evidence submission was organized by the Taxpayer Alliance Against Genocide (TAAG), which recently secured a preliminary court decision that blocked a Trump executive order sanctioning human rights groups and others who work with the ICC—an institution that the Trump administration is actively working to dismantle.
The 28-page document includes detailed accounts of Trump and Rubio's actions in support of the Israeli government's devastating and ongoing attacks on Gaza and the illegally occupied West Bank.
Trump, the submission states, "personally authorized and facilitated the release of approximately 1,800 previously withheld 2,000-pound MK-84 bombs" to the Israeli military and "rescinded West Bank sanctions on individuals and entities the United States had formally determined were involved in violence and dispossession."
"These acts of material assistance had a substantial effect on Israel’s ability to carry out military operations in Gaza and on the ability of sanctioned actors to continue violence in the West Bank," the document argues.
As for Rubio, "the evidence records State Department and [Defense Security Cooperation Agency] approvals of major arms sales to Israel after February 2025, including Hellfire missiles, munitions, guidance kits, fuses, munitions support, and large quantities of 2,000-pound bomb bodies and penetrator warheads."
"The [ICC] prosecutor should investigate whether Secretary Rubio approved or expedited the same categories of munitions whose prior use had generated known civilian harm and concerns about violations of international humanitarian law," the document states.
Seth Donnelly, a cofounder of TAAG, said at a press conference in The Hague on Wednesday, "We urge the office of the prosecutor to act quickly on this evidence."
"The evidence includes sworn affidavits from doctors who worked in Gaza, firsthand eyewitness accounts, whistleblower testimony, videos, and extensive documentation concerning US political, military, diplomatic, and financial support for Israel," said Donnelly.
Joining the delegation behind the ICC submission were human rights attorney Huwaida Arraf, Palestinian American author Susan Abulhawa, and Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, a trauma surgeon who has served in Gaza.
"American airplanes burning American jet fuel are dropping American bombs, which are guided by American guidance systems on targets that were picked largely by software developed in the United States," said Sidhwa. "I hope these attempts at reestablishing—or maybe establishing—the rule of law in the international system, these attempts to hold the powerful accountable, something that we unfortunately have failed to do in our own society, can be an effective resistance to the fascist forces that are spreading throughout the world now."
Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, applauded the delegation's submission, saying at Wednesday's press conference that "international law remains the last peaceful instrument we possess to confront injustice and pave the way forward."
"The legal tools are there. They are not the only ones, but they are peaceful tools," said Albanese. "What is missing is the political courage to use them. That political courage is [what] the Taxpayer Alliance Against Genocide is showing. And this is why today's gathering matters."
"The United States continues to arm Israel, protect those responsible for its crimes, and enable individuals and companies to profit from their commission," she added. "So let us be clear: The genocide of the Palestinian people would not have been possible without the unwavering support of the United States."
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Hegseth Impeachment Debacle Latest Example of Jeffries' Awful Leadership
Coach Hakeem Jeffries did not have enough players on the field and Team Trump scored a touchdown. It is as simple as that.
Nov 11, 2026
The US House of Representatives on Tuesday night, with a 211 to 204 margin, voted to refer the impeachment charges against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to a committee, allowing Republicans to slow the process so that the current Congress would not be able to take them up. There are procedural options that would allow impeachment to be brought up again, but these are very unlikely.
The political reality is that Hegseth will continue as Defense Secretary for the near future. Indeed, the House’s failure to impeach Hegseth only builds his political capital with President Donald Trump.
As expected, House Republicans closed ranks behind Hegseth. What was not expected was that 11 House Democrats failed to show up to vote. If you do the simple arithmetic, it is clear that had the Democrats showed up the House would have been able to consider the impeachment charges against Hegseth. As the New York Times reported on November 10:
The action spared Republicans a vote on whether to impeach Mr. Hegseth on eight separate charges, including violating the Constitution to wage war in Iran and elsewhere without congressional authorization, flouting laws to mitigate civilian casualties and abusing his power by retaliating against a senator for public statements.
If the impeachment process continued, it would not have ended Trump’s ability to wage war against without congressional approval. However, combined with last week's weeks Democratic midterm elections it would have sent a powerful signal to both Trump and to the world at large.
A large part of life is showing up to do our jobs. As Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) pointed out soon after the impeachment, when she was working in a restaurant, she had to clock in every day. While I certainly hold the 11 missing Democrats responsible for their actions, the bigger question is about Congressman Hakeem Jeffries’ leadership role while in the minority, and next year when he hopes to become Speaker of the House.
You do not have to be a historian or political scientist to understand that as the Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries’ prime responsibility is to make sure that his Democratic members show up to vote. It is like a football coach making sure that he has 11 players on the field. Well, Coach Jeffries did not have enough players on the field and Team Trump scored a touchdown. It is as simple as that.
Understandably, House Democrats are feeling euphoric about last week’s Blue Tsunami. However, they do need to be clear-eyed about the task ahead of them. The Democrats in Congress will need all their political skills, to push back against Trump’s war with Iran and prevent other foreign and domestic disasters. Reversing the Medicaid cuts from the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” will be a major issue on the domestic front along with addressing the affordability crisis. In under two years, the Trump administration has done untold damage to America’s domestic and international needs.
The conventional wisdom is that Jeffries will not be seriously challenged for leader when the Democratic caucus votes for a nominee for House Speaker at a party meeting on November 18. Up until the Hegseth impeachment debacle, I would agree that there would not be a serious challenge. Things have changed. Fundamental questions must be asked and answered before the House Democrats choose their leader. The stakes are too high for America for the Democrats to not have their best leader in charge.
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'Heartless and Cruel': New Trump Rule Would Take Food Aid From More Than 6 Million People
"The Trump administration is doubling down on making it harder for people to feed their families, after already enacting the deepest cuts to SNAP in history."
Nov 11, 2026
The Trump administration on Tuesday rolled out a proposed rule that would further restrict access to the United States' largest and most effective anti-hunger program, taking benefits from more than 6 million people—including many children—as grocery prices continue to rise and food bank demand surges nationwide.
The US Department of Agriculture's proposal, published in the Federal Register on Tuesday, targets a policy known as broad-based categorical eligibility (BBCE), which allows states to deem recipients of other federal benefits eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Experts say the policy reduces administrative burdens for states and individuals by streamlining the SNAP application process.
Under the new rule, households with annual gross incomes above 130 percent of the poverty line—roughly $35,500 per year for a family of three—would lose SNAP benefits, according to an analysis released Tuesday by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), a liberal think tank.
"In the midterm elections, the public indicated they want their elected officials to focus on making life affordable. Yet the Trump administration is doubling down on making it harder for people to feed their families, after already enacting the deepest cuts to SNAP in history," said Ty Jones Cox, vice president for food assistance at CBPP. "These attacks are part of the administration’s broader policy agenda that has raised costs and made it harder for working families to afford their basic needs, all to partially pay for trillions of dollars in tax cuts heavily weighted to the wealthy and fund its extreme and aggressive immigration detention apparatus."
According to the Trump administration's own analysis, the proposed rule would strip SNAP benefits from 3.2 million households—or around 6.3 million individuals—in fiscal year 2029, the first year the rule would take full effect. The USDA's proposal is open to public comment for just 30 days.
The Food Research & Action Center (FRAC) warned in a statement Tuesday that the impact of the rule "could be far worse" than the administration's projection, pointing to the disastrous and ongoing effects of SNAP cuts enacted under the 2025 Trump-GOP budget law. An estimated 5.5 million people—including roughly 1.5 million children—have lost SNAP benefits since the budget law's enactment, an outcome that Trump administration officials have celebrated.
Condemning the new proposal as "unconscionable," FRAC warned the rule's impacts would extend beyond the SNAP program, including by reducing access to free school meals, "making children hungry at home and at school."
"Children who lose SNAP are no longer automatically eligible for free school meals. Some would no longer be eligible for free school meals; others would be at risk of falling through the cracks when they go through the school meal application process," the group said. "The proposed rule would also negatively affect babies and toddlers, and pregnant, postpartum, and breastfeeding parents who are automatically income eligible for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), because they participate in SNAP. This rule would make it more difficult for households that lose SNAP to apply for WIC. Losing both SNAP and WIC would harm hundreds of thousands of infants and young children during their initial stages of development."
BBCE has long been a target of right-wing policy architects and Republican lawmakers. Project 2025, the policy blueprint released by the conservative Heritage Foundation, called for reforming the policy.
Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.), the top Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, condemned the USDA's proposal as "heartless and cruel," warning it would make it harder for families "to meet basic needs" and undercut states' efforts to "streamline federal programs."
"SNAP is a highly effective and efficient program when it is allowed to work as designed," said Craig. "Unfortunately, the Trump administration and the outgoing Republican majority in Congress have undermined the program’s integrity at every turn, harming millions of vulnerable Americans in the process."
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‘Big Jump in Grocery Prices’ Highlights How Trump’s Iran War Kept Hammering Consumers in October
"The average real wage—what your paycheck buys—is falling," said one economist.
Nov 10, 2026
The impact of President Donald Trump's illegal war with Iran continued to hit US consumers hard in October, with the price of groceries experiencing a particularly notable spike.
The latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) report from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released on Tuesday shows that overall prices increased by 0.4% in October, higher than economists' expectations of a 0.3% increase.
Core inflation, which excludes food and energy prices, showed a monthly increase of 0.3%, which was also higher than economists' expectations of a 0.2% increase.
The CPI report doesn't include estimates of yearly price increases, as the BLS last October didn't collect any price data during a government shutdown.
Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, estimated in a social media post that the data released by BLS "implies about a ~4% inflation rate for the past year."
Long highlighted a "a big jump in grocery prices" in the report, while also noting that "eating out, electricity, transportation (especially airfares), rent, and medical services (especially hospitals)" all saw "sizable monthly price increases." Analysts have noted that Trump’s Iran war is increasing costs across the economy, including food prices, by jacking up fuel and fertilizer expenses.
Ben Zipperer, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, posted a chart showing that real wage growth has been in decline in the seven months since Trump launched his illegal war without congressional authorization in February.
Zipperer also mused that the decline in workers' earning power may have "something to do with the recent election results," in which Democrats ousted Trump's Republicans as the majority party in both the US House of Representatives and the US Senate starting in January.
Maybe something to do with the recent election results:
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— Ben Zipperer (@benzipperer.org) November 10, 2026 at 9:56 AM
University of Michigan economist Justin Wolfers observed that real wage growth is now flat throughout Trump's second term, with prices really picking up steam at the start of the Iran War.
"The average real wage—what your paycheck buys—is falling," Wolfers wrote. "That's the sense in which it might feel like you're falling behind. It's not meant to work this way."
The latest inflation report was so ugly that even National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, who has been widely criticized for spinning bad data into an implausibly sunny narrative, couldn't paint a rosy picture during a Tuesday interview with Fox Business.
"It's a disappointing report," Hassett acknowledged. "Energy prices in the CPI are up 20% year-over-year, and gasoline prices are up 37% year-over-year... right now, the trickle down from the higher energy prices is definitely very palpable in the data."
🤯 even Hassett can't spin hotter than expected inflation data: "It's a disappointing report ... things have accelerated over the last three months ... the trickle down from higher energy prices is definitely very palpable in the data" https://t.co/yiIylq1mT5
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 10, 2026
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who is facing calls to step aside as Senate Democratic leader before his party takes over as the majority next year, said the latest CPI report showed "why Americans chose Democrats to be in charge."
"From his costly tariffs to his reckless war, Trump has only made inflation worse," said Schumer. "And he openly admits he doesn’t care. Our Senate Democratic majority will work relentlessly to bring down costs for all Americans."
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Stephen Miller's Ascendancy Ushers in a New and Dangerous Moment for the US
The next two years will either be the last, desperate gasp of fascism in America or the pivot to the point of no return. And that outcome is going to be dependent on what we do now—together—as moral, patriotic, and clear-eyed Americans.
Nov 10, 2026
Well that was an awesome 48 hours of joy and relief.
While no surprise, the ascent of Stephen Miller to chief of staff, sitting sidesaddle with Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, ushers in a new and dangerous moment for America. At this point, President Donald Trump is simply their useful idiot.
My take: Miller saw the numbers—the writing on the wall for the midterms. The margins were too wide, too significant to try to overturn or fight.
The American public must see strength and “fight” from the leaders they elected to put down this fascist threat once and for all.
So time to shift strategy—and just ignore the outcome altogether.
A smart person once told me that power in America is not given, it’s taken.
If I were Stephen Miller, this would be my plan:
- Hope that that fear, laziness, and incompetence from both the Democrats and the defeated, beaten-down Republicans (who hate him!) could pave the way for a great escalation of fascism in America.
- Make a deal with the tech oligarchs and corporate media that they can’t refuse—from a money and assured pardon point of view. In doing so, shore up the surveillance state and control information flow to the public.
- Bet the rest of the business community and most institutions would go along to protect themselves, even if they are holding their noses. Essentially a continuation of the capitulation of powerful institutions across the board that we have witnessed over the last two years.
- Finally, double down on stamping out dissent. Erase the elation and replace it with FEAR. Create real costs for those leading dissent.
While I realize this doesn’t paint a rosy picture and we have barely recovered from our champagne-induced hangovers—to be honest, what other play does Mr. Miller have?
So how do we fight back?
- Time to stop celebrating. Sorry. Celebration is complacency. Miller is counting on us to lie in our feather beds of self-satisfaction while he doubles down. Remember: evil, not stupid.
- The newly elected Congress needs to demonstrate its absolute strength—zero appeasement. The American public must see strength and “fight” from the leaders they elected to put down this fascist threat once and for all. If they don’t, Americans will get scared, and they will fall silent.
- The legislative branch can and must *create cost for capitulation*. Only when the cost of working with Trump outweighs the benefit will business and institutional behavior change.
- Fear is Miller’s sharpest weapon. Leaders of the opposition must double down on visual, public, fearless opposition to whatever comes next. We must continue to be brave to spread courage.
The next two years will either be the last, desperate gasp of fascism in America or the pivot to the point of no return. And that outcome is going to be dependent on what we do now—together—as moral, patriotic, and clear-eyed Americans.
Put down the champagne and buckle up.
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‘Illegal and Senseless’: 71% of Americans Want Swift End to Trump’s Iran War
"Lawmakers can act on that right now by passing legislation to prohibit more funding for the war, and by not passing any bills that continue to fund it," said one policy expert.
Nov 10, 2026
As Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who is expected to face an impeachment vote in the US House in part for his role in launching the illegal war with Iran, declared Tuesday that the US had "achieved a historic MILITARY VICTORY" in the Middle Eastern country, the latest polling on the broadly unpopular conflict suggests few Americans would be convinced by such claims.
Seventy-one percent of people surveyed by Reuters/Ipsos said they wanted the US Congress to urgently pass legislation to end the war in Iran, in which more than 3,400 Iranians, 13 US service members, and thousands of people across the Middle East have been killed as the conflict has wreaked havoc on economies around the world.
Those who were demanding a swift end to the war included 93% of Democrats, 70% of independents, and 51% of Republican voters who expressed their disapproval in the days after the Democratic Party's victory in the midterm elections.
Sixty-three percent of respondents said that Congress should focus "a great deal" or "quite a bit" on ending the war in the first 100 days of the new legislative session, starting January 3, and 54% said the negative impact of the conflict, such as higher gas prices, have not been worth any benefit even as Hegseth and President Donald Trump have claimed, without offering any evidence, that the US waged the war to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
"Their navy sunk. Their air force grounded. Their defense industrial base—gone. More than 80% of their nuclear industrial base—gone. Their military in ruin. The ironclad blockade, UNBROKEN," said Hegseth Tuesday, without mentioning that the Trump administration had declared months before waging the war that it had already weakened Iran's nuclear infrastructure. "We control the Strait of Hormuz."
Tehran has disputed Hegseth's repeated claims of victory, and the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Mohsen Rezaei, on Monday evening called on the Trump administration to "SURRENDER to the seven conditions Iran has repeatedly set out," including an end to the US blockade of Iranian ports and vessels, an end to fighting on all fronts, the lifting of sanctions on Iranian oil and gas sales, and other measures and reparations.
Meanwhile, Trump, who faced a 32% approval rating in the Reuters/Ipsos poll, attempted to deflect questions about ending the conflict, telling reporters Monday: "Iran, militarily, is effectively over. We're just keeping it the status quo."
He added that the US military is "fully locked and loaded with the best equipment ever made" but said, "We don't think there's going to be any reason to use it however."
Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute of Responsible Statecraft, wrote at Substack Tuesday that Trump may ultimately reject "both war and peace" and choose a "Swiss cheese status quo" that leaves the conflict simmering without any major resolution.
In that scenario, he wrote, Trump "walks away and claims to retain the blockade and sanctions infrastructure, but in reality imperceptibly begins to let it wither away."
"Given Trump’s aversion to admitting defeat, his fear of coming across as a loser, his impatience with complicated diplomacy, his obsession with outdoing Obama’s [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action], and Iran’s disinterest in giving him an ego-soothing exit ramp, he may end up choosing the Swiss cheese walk-away option," wrote Parsi.
While Hegseth continued to deny the reality of the deeply unpopular war, the anti-war group Just Foreign Policy urged Democratic leaders in the US House and Senate to listen to the vast majority of Americans and take action immediately, without waiting for the new session to begin, to cut off funding for the war.
The group reminded Democrats ahead of the election that they could block more funding for the Iran War on December 11, when current government spending expires, and force a government shutdown if Trump insists on continuing the conflict after that date.
As Common Dreams reported Tuesday, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who is considering a possible run to serve as Senate Majority Leader, threw his support behind blocking the funding.
Dylan Williams, vice president for government affairs at the Center for International Policy, said the results of the Reuters/Ipsos poll provide Democrats with clear marching orders.
"A 71% supermajority of Americans, including most Republicans, want Congress to end the Iran war," he said. "Lawmakers can act on that right now by passing legislation to prohibit more funding for the war, and by not passing any bills that continue to fund it."
Seeing the poll numbers, political scientist Yousef Munayyer said that many Americans were "enraged" by Trump's decision to join Israel in attacking Iran not just because "it was a stupid decision, [but] it was a stupid decision that was taken with no public debate at all."
"There was not effort at all on the part of the White House to present a rationale for this or convince the public ahead of time," said Muayyer. "They didn't feel they had to because they felt empowered to do whatever the hell they wanted and had a Republican-controlled Congress who would allow it. Voters saw that not only as stupidity, but out-of-control stupidity that needed to be checked before it further wrecked the country."
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‘I Would Do It Again’: Facing Impeachment Vote, Hegseth Celebrates Alleged War Crimes
"No... secretary of defense has ever been impeached for carrying out lawful military operations," said Hegseth, who is facing impeachment for allegedly carrying out unlawful military operations.
Nov 10, 2026
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday defended his record, including an unconstitutional war on Iran and a murderous boat-bombing campaign in international waters, during a defiant press conference held one day before an expected impeachment vote in the US House of Representatives.
Hours after Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) advanced articles of impeachment against Hegseth that accuse him of waging an illegal war and committing war crimes, the former Fox News host accused his critics of waging a partisan "show trial" with no historical precedent.
"In the 250 years of our American republic," Hegseth said, "no secretary of war or secretary of defense has ever been impeached for carrying out lawful military operations—and in our case, successful ones at that."
my "no treason" T-shirt has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my shirt https://t.co/Z0qSUb5ACN
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 10, 2026
Hegseth is not facing impeachment for carrying out lawful military operations, but for carrying out unlawful military operations.
Among other things, the impeachment articles filed against him allege he systematically dismantled rules of engagement intended to minimize civilian casualties, while also carrying out an unlawful campaign of extrajudicial killings by bombing suspected drug trafficking vessels in international waters.
Hegseth expressed no regret for any of these operations, including the deadly US attack on the Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in the city of Minab, Iran, which killed more than 150 people, including more than 100 children.
"I stand behind every one of these operations," Hegseth said. "I was proud to execute them, and I would do it again tomorrow."
Hegseth linked the current impeachment effort against him to the past two impeachments of his boss, President Donald Trump.
"We've seen this show before: They impeached President Trump over a perfect phone call," said Hegseth, in reference to Trump's efforts in 2019 to shake down the Ukrainian government to open a criminal investigation into political rivals. "They impeached him again in his final week in office. Both times, they failed."
Hegseth denounces "show trials" and says, "we've seen this show before. They impeached President Trump over a perfect phone call." https://t.co/htAsMLolsJ
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 10, 2026
Trump's second impeachment came after he tried to unlawfully stay in power after losing the 2020 election to former President Joe Biden, an effort that culminated in a deadly riot carried out by the president's supporters at the US Capitol that sent lawmakers fleeing for their lives.
Later in the press conference, Hegseth predicted that US servicemembers who carried out his orders would also face legal consequences, claiming that Democrats plan to "put the secretary on trial today, and the men and women who carried out those orders tomorrow."
"If they want to come for the warriors," Hegseth added, "they're going to have to come through me."
Hegseth: "Put the secretary on trial today, and the men and women who carried out those orders tomorrow. If they want to come for the warriors, they're going to have to come through me." https://t.co/XplGs8CTQq
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 10, 2026
Hegseth's performance earned a rave review from Trump in a Thursday social media post.
"Pete Hegseth gets an 'A' PLUS, PLUS, PLUS for his defense against a disgruntled, angry, defeated, former Congressman, Thomas Massie, a TOTAL LOSER!" the president wrote.
Jan-Albert Hootsen, Mexico representative for the Committee to Protect Journalists' Americas program, said that the charges against Hegseth outlined in Massie's impeachment articles are extremely serious and likely warrant prosecution.
"Pete Hegseth ordered the extrajudicial execution of over 100 Latin Americans," said Hootsen. "No trial, no evidence. Instead of even a weak attempt to justify the killings, he gloated. Merely firing him is not accountability—it should be the beginning of criminal investigations."
The House is scheduled to take up a procedural vote on the impeachment articles on Tuesday. If a majority votes to advance it, a full debate and final vote on impeaching Hegseth will likely occur on Wednesday.
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Todd Blanche Makes the Case for His Own Impeachment
Blanche’s malfeasance should transcend partisan politics: He has abandoned his responsibilities under the Constitution; he has forsaken his country and his oath as an attorney; and he has earned impeachment, conviction, and removal from office.
Nov 10, 2026
President Donald Trump is running scared. And he has Attorney General Todd Blanche running with him.
For years, Democrats have campaigned on the promise to root out the Trump administration’s corruption and incompetence. He must have thought they were kidding.
Trump’s Baseless Threat
On November 7, the same day that he named Stephen Miller his new chief of staff, Trump issued a long social media screed. He complained that the incoming Democratic Congress was going to utilize its power under the Constitution to investigate his administration. Trump wrote:
The Democrats are going around threatening a lot of people, including the Attorney General of the United States, and others, with Impeachment and many other forms of punishment… This is extortion at the highest level, and they should be held accountable for this.
It is not extortion to investigate executive branch malfeasance or to call for the impeachment of the worst attorney general in US history. But Blanche is Trump’s enforcer, so Trump knew how to handle his unpleasant new situation. He concluded his diatribe with a direction to Blanche:
Threatening letters have been sent to many people, all innocent, from Democrat Political Leaders. By copy of this statement, I am ordering the Department of Justice to look into this criminal act, immediately!
Blanche Bows to the Aspiring King
Like Trump, Blanche knows that sometimes the best defense is a good offense. It took him less than 24 hours to follow Trump’s lead.
During an interview on CNN’s "State of the Union" on November 8, he singled out incoming House Oversight Committee Chair Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), who had posted a two-word message on election night (“LAWYER UP”).
“I would be very worried if I were a member on that committee,” Blanche said. He also asserted that the Justice Department would defend all executive branch members against impeachment, although it has no constitutional obligation to do so. (E.g., The department did not defend Trump in his impeachment trials.)
Blanche is the one who should be worried. Repeating Trump’s threat is more evidence that he is unfit to serve as the nation’s top law enforcement officer. The record against him was already overwhelming. During his brief tenure as deputy, acting, and now permanent attorney general, many of his accomplishments for Trump were already the subject of a New York Bar Association complaint signed by a bipartisan group of more than 100 former federal and state judges.
His worst actions have been his abuse of the nation’s law enforcement apparatus to target Trump’s political opponents—as he did again in his CNN interview. It’s a classic move in a would-be dictator’s playbook and antithetical to democracy. It aims to punish and deter.
The litany of Blanche’s other impeachable offenses include:
- Signing an agreement purporting to give Trump and his family immunity from Internal Revenue Service audits;
- Pursuing Trump’s bogus voter-fraud claims, including the filing of frivolous lawsuits against states for their voter rolls;
- Hollowing out career Justice Department staff;
- Stripping the Justice Department of its institutional independence; and
- Destroying the department’s credibility, including the “presumption of regularity” whereby federal judges were able to believe that the DOJ attorneys appearing before them were telling the truth.
It will take years for the department to recover from his carnage. And Congress should make Blanche’s impeachment a warning for future generations.
Will Republicans Desert Him?
Blanche’s confirmation as attorney general was by the thinnest of margins in the Senate: 50-to-49. That put him in the same company as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (50-to-50 vote with JD Vance supplying the tie-breaking 51st vote.)
If the Democratic House starts the process in January, Blanche will be impeached by the requisite simple majority (218). That’s what it means to have 255 Democrats (and counting) in the House of Representatives.
The Senate is a more interesting story. A two-thirds supermajority is necessary to convict him. Even if Democrats get to 56 members with the two outstanding races in Alaska and Mississippi, at least 11 Republicans would have to join them.
At that point, Senate Republicans would face a dilemma: If they vote to acquit, they will give Democrats another issue for the 2028 campaign; if they vote to convict, they’ll risk the ire of Trump. Although wildly unpopular, Trump still has millions of supporters.
Blanche’s malfeasance should transcend partisan politics. He has abandoned his responsibilities under the Constitution. He has forsaken his country and his oath as an attorney. He has earned impeachment, conviction, and removal from office.
And every day—with his own words and deeds—Blanche proves the case against himself over and over again.
He should lawyer up.
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'Beaten and Disinterested' Trump Makes 'Flaccid' Claim That Midterms Were Rigged
"Trump can’t admit his policies fucked the midterms," said one critic. "Nothing is ever his fault. So now the accusation is that red states cheated against themselves."
Nov 09, 2026
As Republicans reel from last week's "blue tsunami" midterm wipeout, President Donald Trump—who previously congratulated Democrats on their historic takeback of both houses of Congress—on Monday reverted to the kind of election denial that sparked the 2021 Capitol insurrection, making a baseless claim of voting machine fraud.
“Does anybody really believe that this ‘Election’ was honest,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “How could the Polls be so wrong??? Some early voting ‘dumps’ were so large that it was impossible to win, no matter how many people went to vote. It’s all about the machines, which are far more important than the voter!”
The polls, which widely forecast Democrats reclaiming one or both chambers of Congress, were largely accurate. And despite a handful of localized issues with voting machines, there is no evidence of any widespread problems.
I was just thinking how weird it was that Trump didn’t call the midterms rigged.Well…
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— Matt Novak (@paleofuture.bsky.social) November 9, 2026 at 7:16 AM
On Election Night, Trump said during a phone call to Fox News: "Congratulations to the Democrats. I think the Democrats did a good job. I really do. I think they did a good job. They fought hard. They were, you know, they've been fighting for a long time. They've been fighting me for a long time. This fight's been going on for ages."
However, as unfounded claims of fraud proliferated on social media—and amid posts promoting a January 3 "Million Crusader Cross March" on the Capitol headlined by racist provocateur Jake Lang—the president changed his tune.
"Trump now claims the midterms were rigged," noted the political action group Blue Georgia. "It was just a matter of time."
Conspiracy theory journalist Mike Rothschild said on Bluesky: "After a week of meekly accepting the midterm results, Trump has veered into 'the machines are rigged' denial." But this is a pale shadow of 2020 denialism. He sounds beaten and disinterested."
Former Chicago Tribune metro editor Mark Jacobs also took to Bluesky, touting his prediction that the president would cry fraud and writing, "I knew Trump could never resist the impulse to declare that the election was rigged if he lost."
"The View" co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin said on X, "Lather, rinse, repeat."
Former Obama and Biden administration appointee Andrew Weinstein said: "Losing isn't proof of fraud. It's proof you lost."
Tangle News founder Isaac Saul also took to X, opining that Trump's denial "feels pretty flaccid."
"Nobody *actually* thinks these results are nefarious, and it seems like there's a lot of impatience on the right with anyone suggesting these losses were due to fraud and not policy," he added. "Even Trump seems to be offering this as an afterthought."
That right-wing impatience was evident in just two words from commentator Megyn Kelly, who posted, "Just stop."
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Stay Alert! A Weakened Trump May Be the Most Dangerous Trump of All
When confronted with popular rebuke, an oligarchic ruler faces a stark binary choice: Either come down with an iron fist or back off and go back to running their businesses. In choosing Miller to be his alter-ego and essentially run the executive branch, Trump’s clearly chosen the iron fist strategy.
Nov 09, 2026
Then-Senator John F. Kennedy gave a speech in 1959 in which he said:
“When written in Chinese, the word ‘crisis’ is composed of two characters—one represents danger and one represents opportunity.”
While Kennedy’s generalization about Chinese calligraphy was slightly off, his description of “crisis” perfectly represents where we are right now:
- Dr. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who’s studied strongmen her entire career and wrote a brilliant book about them, calls this “late-stage radicalization,” the dangerous phase when a weakened autocrat purges wafflers from his regime, strengthens his loyalists, and lashes out at anybody who may oppose him.
- Obama adviser Robert Pape, who runs the University of Chicago’s project on political violence, just said that the next eight weeks until Democrats are sworn will be the most dangerous weeks of our entire lives.
- Dr. Bandy Lee, a forensic psychiatrist who’s a regular guest on my program, made a similar warning based on President Donald Trump’s twisted psychology, telling The Independent newspaper about Trump’s affection for talking about using nuclear weapons:
[Trump] is extremely attracted to them without understanding their ramifications: for him, they are just bigger bombs. However, there is no scenario in which the use of nuclear weapons would not lead to a catastrophic end to life as we know it. Unless he is contained, he could be driven to use them now, rageful as he is about his defeat against Iran, and desperate as he will be to salvage his image from being a "loser".
She added:
We have a truly narrow window between his defenses being low and his "recovering" himself to attack even more vehemently.
She said that just before Trump had appointed Stephen Miller to be his chief of staff, the guy who essentially runs the presidency, indicating that Trump is now in the “recovery” mode of moving toward full-on tyranny.
I’m familiar with Dr. Lee’s “window”—when Louise and I started and ran a community and school for severely abused children in the late 1970s, we worked with numerous abusive families. The most deadly moment in the relationship is when the abused spouse (typically the wife) finally decides to leave; that’s when most spousal and even whole-family murders happen, and is why shelters go to such lengths to remain anonymous.
Perhaps most ominously, this weekend Trump posted on his Nazi-infested social media site that Democratic members of Congress “are extortionists and they should be imprisoned” and ordered the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate them. When CNN’s Dana Bash asked Attorney General Todd Blanche flat out if he’d go after members of Congress, he said, “It depends on what’s said, so yes, there could be [pursuit of criminal investigations].”
When Bash asked him about Trump and him throwing Democratic members of Congress in prison, he replied, “It depends on what the crime is and what they’ve done.”
The “crimes” they were discussing were Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) telling college students they might want to think twice before going to work for this regime, and Congressman Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) telling Trump’s people to “lawyer up.”
That’s it. Our acting attorney general is saying—like with former FBI Director James Comey’s picture of seashells spelling out 8647—that speech that offends the president is now a potential felony that can lead to years in brutal federal prisons or, at the least, “investigations” that can break an average person financially and destroy their retirement savings in legal fees.
I wrote about this moment at length in The Hidden History of American Oligarchy, noting that oligarchy—when the morbidly rich take control of government and turn its power toward enriching themselves and their buddies—is always a transitional form of governance that typically lasts less than a generation.
The reason why is simple, and we’re seeing it played out in this past election and the No Kings marches. When people realize that the government has been taken over by criminals and grifters, they rebel and demand a return to honesty and transparency.
At that point the ruler faces a stark binary choice: Either come down with an iron fist, as the Chinese did at Tienanmen Square and Russian President Vladimir Putin did in the early 2000s, or back off and go back to running their businesses and let the people have their government back, as happened here in the US after FDR came to power and called out the “economic royalists” who “hate me, and I welcome their hatred.”
Trump initially, Tuesday night, told Fox “News” that he’d work with Democrats, but since then he’s brought in Stephen Miller and started talking about imprisoning the Democrats who’ll be investigating his family’s criminal syndicate and his and Miller’s violent abuses of our Constitution and law.
In choosing Miller to be his alter-ego and essentially run the executive branch, Trump’s clearly chosen the iron fist strategy.
As The New York Times reported Saturday, Miller:
- Pushed the murderous war crimes of striking civilian boats in the Caribbean;
- Helped turn the prosecutorial power of the federal government against political opponents and universities;
- Oversaw the federal military occupation of Washington, DC;
- Circulated Trump’s draft executive order to restrict mail-in voting; and
- Openly discussed invoking the Insurrection Act when the people of Minneapolis came into the streets to protest the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) murder of two of their citizens.
Miller called Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse at the local VA hospital, a “domestic terrorist” and “would-be assassin”: Pretti had been holding a phone.
If Trump decides to go full Putin, the machinery for such a crackdown was put into place late last year with his National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7), which directs the FBI, Treasury, and Internal Revenue Service to treat “anti-capitalism,” “anti-Christianity,” and “extremism on migration, race, and gender” as “indicators of domestic terrorism.”
It’s already been used; in June eight people who supported a 4th of July demonstration outside the Prarieland ICE facility in Texas were sentenced to a combined 450 years in federal prison.
The one guy who shot and wounded a police officer got 100 years in prison, but under the terrorism conspiracy rubric the other seven got 30 to 70 years in prison each; Daniel Estrada, who wasn’t even at the protest, got 30 years in prison for moving a box of zines.
This is Putin’s “iron fist” now carved into American law and already executed at least once, probably as a test case; Trump and Miller appear ready to push it as far as they can, meaning anybody who opposes this regime is at risk. Miller was reportedly pushing this weekend for journalists to be thrown in jail, just like in Russia.
The New Republic recently reported that Trump is pressing for the still-Republican-controlled House and Senate to jam through an appropriation of $166.1 million for 328 new positions, including 130 special agents, to more fully implement NSPM-7 through a new Joint Mission Center drawing in 10 federal agencies.
And Attorney General and Trump’s former personal criminal defense lawyer Blanche said that Trump himself has a “right” and a “duty” to order federal investigations—including into politicians and writers who oppose him—and boasted on NewsNation that he’s installing “roadblocks” inside the DOJ so Trump himself can never be prosecuted after he leaves office.
That’s the “danger” aspect of Kennedy’s quote. The “opportunity” side is the power that House and Senate Democrats will have in another two months. A handful of Republicans may join them, as several called Miller’s appointment a “horrible decision” and one called him a “megalomaniac” on the record.
The margins in this election bring to mind the vote in April in Hungary, where Trump’s closest European ally and fellow Putin-suck-up Viktor Orbán lost so badly that he had no choice but to step down and allow a democratic transition in that nation. As Ruth Ben-Ghiat notes, the strongman’s playbook has no chapter on how to lose.
So, here we are, presented with both great danger—Trump could do just about anything, including provoking a world war and declaring a national emergency to prevent Democrats from being seated in January—and great opportunity for a cleansing and democratic renewal like we last saw in the 1932-1981 New Deal era.
“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty” is a probably apocryphal quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson, but it perfectly describes this moment and the next two years. And that vigilance is our job.
Stay updated, reach out to your elected officials (202-224-3121),and let them know you support accountability and the rule of law, and help keep friends and family awake. Share this message and others that promote the ideals of our democracy rather than Trump’s and Miller’s thuggish worldview.
Tag, we’re it.
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