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jb pritzker
What the Pearl Clutchers of Congress Can Learn From Pritzker’s List
Why are members of Congress, with so few exceptions, so short on ideas for fighting back against Trump's manifold abuses of power?
Nov 18, 2025
On October 23, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker filed an executive order establishing a state commission charged with recording abuses inflicted by federal agents sent to tyrannize the streets of Chicago during President Donald Trump’s tellingly named “Operation Midway Blitz.” The point of the new commission was to give the abused somewhere to go with their bruises, smashed windows, and shattered lives, and to compile evidence that could be brought to bear in checking the abuse, and perhaps even (at some point) punishing it.
It is this last point, not made explicit in the executive order, that I find so encouraging about Pritzker’s executive order. It puts the Trump administration on notice that their days of reckless self-indulgence are numbered and that a case against them is being compiled.
Not only does Pritzker’s List send a message. It gives people something, if only a very little thing, to do. It reminds the abused citizens of Chicago that they, not the camouflaged out-of-state goons patrolling their streets, are in charge, and that they have a personal role to play in taking those streets back.
All of which causes me to wonder: Where are the JB Pritzkers of Washington DC? Why are members of Congress, with so few exceptions, so short on ideas—good at “pearl clutching” in response to the president’s manifold abuses of power (here, for once, Donald Trump isn’t lying), but so clueless about fighting back? Where, for example, is the commission that Senate democrats have set up to compile evidence of criminal abuses of power in Pete Hegseth’s extrajudicial killings off the coasts of Columbia and Venezuela? How have they not gotten around to founding it?
Had someone with a backbone and big ideas taken the lead in DC, they might have come up with a plan that would both hit back at the Republicans for their cruelty and bring some real benefit to those affected by it.
In fact, dozens of such commissions are needed to collect evidence of criminal malfeasance, and to create a public record of the dates, times, and details of the crimes, from those working in the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Health and Human Services, and so on. All have been dragooned into abusing rights, flouting the Constitution, and telling Trump’s lies. If nothing else, the very existence of such de facto grand juries, organized by elected officials and helped by the efforts and evidence of affected citizens, will put the Trump administration on notice that a case against it is being compiled.
But Democrats don’t operate this way. They tell us that the midterms are looming, that something good is bound to happen in a year’s time, so “Donate Now”—as if we had that kind of time to waste, and as if there were nothing that they should be doing for us, and with us, right now.
Evidence of the DC Democrats’ well-meaning incompetence was on full display in their recent handling of the government shutdown. To their credit, they did manage to make Donald Trump look mean-spirited (as if that needed emphasizing), but the final cave-in made them look weak and, yet again, satisfied with just getting by, without a plan. The whole initiative ended up imploding because it depended on saner heads prevailing among the Republicans, and that was never going to happen.
With no Pritzker in sight, the dearth of ideas really showed. Had someone with a backbone and big ideas taken the lead in DC, they might have come up with a plan that would both hit back at the Republicans for their cruelty and bring some real benefit to those affected by it. The federal healthcare subsidies were scheduled to expire. Given the Republicans’ determination to see them dead, they were beyond rescue. So why not let Republicans bake that poisoned cake, then force them to eat it!
Here's how it might have worked. Subsidies expire and healthcare costs soar. That’s entirely on them. As a counter move, and to actually help those in need, Democrats could have undertaken to set up funds (via a consortium of state-sponsored and charitable efforts) to help those affected deal with, and cover at least some of, their soaring costs. But, in doing so, they could also make clear up front that this aid is temporary, merely a stop-gap measure, and that the charitable subsidies will expire, say, six weeks before the midterm elections next fall. They would then assure those depending on these subsidies that further help is both wanted and can be expected after the elections, but only if those in the House and Senate who supported Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” are voted out of office—“Oh, and here, by the way,” they would add, “are the names of those who voted for it.”
Now that would be hardball! But DC Democrats have nothing like this up their sleeve. They are quicker to tell you why any such plan could never work than to come up with one that can. But there are some out there, such as Pritzker with his list, who are writing a new playbook, one to “get going on” right now, based on fighting back, getting things done, and giving Trump and his conspiracy of fools far more to worry about than they can handle.
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JB Pritzker Warns Trump Would ‘Take Us to War With Venezuela’ to Distract From Epstein
"He’s going to do everything in his power to distract,” said the Illinois governor.
Nov 13, 2025
As President Donald Trump escalated tensions in the Caribbean with its deployment of an aircraft carrier and warships, one of his top critics in the Democratic Party warned that Trump could follow through on earlier threats to strike Venezuela as newly released documents shed light on a topic the White House has sought to keep secret: the details of the president's friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“My great fear, of course, is that with the release of that information, which I think will be devastating for Trump, he’s going to do everything in his power to distract,” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker told the Associated Press on Wednesday. “What does that mean? I mean, he might take us to war with Venezuela just to get a distraction in the news and take it out of the headlines.”
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released a series of emails in which Epstein, who died in prison in 2019, told a friend he spent Thanksgiving 2017 with Trump, informed a former New York Times journalist he had a "photo of donald and girls in bikinis," and suggested he had briefed Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, on Trump in 2018.
Trump has long claimed he cut ties with Epstein in the mid-2000s after Epstein recruited girls at the president's Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago.
After the Democrats released the emails, the Republican-controlled committee disclosed 20,000 pages of messages from the financier, who was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges in 2019. Those messages, which were obtained from the Epstein estate in response to a subpoena, included a comment from Epstein that he was “the one able to take [Trump] down" and suggestions that he had knowledge of the president's real estate and business dealings.
Epstein also told journalist Michael Wolff of Trump, "Of course he knew about the girls." He told his longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who was also convicted of helping Epstein with his sex trafficking operation, that the president was "the dog that hasn't barked" in a 2011 email and said Trump had spent "hours at my house" with one of Epstein's well-known victims, Virginia Giuffre.
Pritzker on Wednesday demanded the full release of the Epstein files, saying Trump was "silent because he knows what's inside."
The release of the documents came after months of demands from Democrats that the US Department of Justice fully disclose files related to the Epstein case, which they believe would implicate Trump.
On Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said he plans to hold a vote next week on releasing the files. Johnson finally swore in Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) on Wednesday after a weekslong delay he tried to blame on the government shutdown and Grijalva promptly became the 218th lawmaker to sign a discharge petition forcing the vote.
The president said late Wednesday that "the Democrats are using the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax to try and deflect from their massive failures."
But as Pritzker pointed out, the new developments in the Epstein saga follow the Trump administration's threats against Venezuela and his bombings of boats in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific Ocean—strikes that have killed at least 76 people and have been denounced by legal experts and Democratic lawmakers as extrajudicial killings.
The bombings have been part of what the administration claims is a campaign to stop drug trafficking out of Venezuela—a country that, according to the United States' own intelligence and law enforcement agencies, plays virtually no role in the trafficking of fentanyl, the leading cause of overdoses in the US.
Venezuela is a transit hub for—but not a significant producer of—cocaine, which is sometimes transported via the Caribbean to the US.
But while Trump has claimed to Congress that the US is in "armed conflict" with drug cartels, drug trafficking has long been treated as a law enforcement issue—not one to be confronted through military strikes—with those suspected of transporting illicit substances arrested and their products confiscated by the Coast Guard and other agencies.
Trump has also signaled that the US could attack Venezuela directly and has authorized Central Intelligence Agency operations there, prompting Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to ready the country's entire military arsenal for a potential response on Tuesday. Maduro has accused Trump of seeking "regime change"—which Secretary of State Marco Rubio has long advocated for—and Trump explicitly said in 2023 that he would seek to take control of Venezuela's vast oil reserves if he won the presidency again.
On Wednesday, top military officials reportedly presented Trump options for potential military operations within Venezuela.
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'Evil, Fascist, Wannabe Authoritarian' Stephen Miller Threatens IL Gov. Pritzker With Arrest
"Remember, these fascist freaks pardoned the actual people convicted of 'seditious conspiracy' while falsely accusing their opponents of this serious crime," said one journalist.
Oct 25, 2025
Just over nine months after President Donald Trump returned to office and pardoned his supporters who stormed the US Capitol, one of the Republican's top aides suggested that federal law enforcement may arrest Democrats standing up to the White House's anti-migrant agenda, including Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker.
Asked about the administration's willingness and federal authority to arrest the Illinois leader on Fox News Friday, Stephen Miller, Trump's deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser, responded: "Well, the answer I'm about to give doesn't only apply to Gov. Pritzker, it applies to any state official, any local official, anybody who's operating in an official capacity who conspires or engages in activity that unlawfully impedes federal law enforcement conducting their duties."
"So if you engage in a criminal conspiracy to obstruct the enforcement of federal immigration laws or to unlawfully order your own police officers or your own officials to try to interfere with ICE officers, or even to arrest ICE officers, you're engaged in criminal activity," he said, referring to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "Different types of crimes would apply. There is obstruction of justice. There is harboring illegal aliens. There is impeding the enforcement of our immigration laws."
"And then, as you get up the scale of behavior, you obviously get into seditious conspiracy charges, depending on the conduct, and many other offenses. So again, it depends on the action. It depends on the conduct. It depends on what is taking place," Miller continued. He went on to tell ICE officers that "you have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties."
Both Miller's threat toward Pritzker and other officials, and his immunity claim, were met with swift backlash, including from Zeteo's Mehdi Hasan, who highlighted Trump's pardons for the January 6, 2021 insurrectionists.
"Remember, these fascist freaks pardoned the actual people convicted of 'seditious conspiracy' while falsely accusing their opponents of this serious crime," the journalist wrote on social media. "(On a side note, arresting Pritzker would make him the most popular politician in America overnight.)"
Trump himself has called for jailing Pritzker and Democratic Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson "for failing to protect" ICE officers. Priztker, a billionaire and potential 2028 presidential candidate, has suggested Trump should be removed from office via the 25th Amendment to the US Constitution.
Miles Taylor, who served as Department of Homeland Security chief of staff during the first Trump administration and authored an infamous, anonymous 2018 New York Times editorial, said Friday, "Feels like we're going down the rabbit hole pretty fast here, folks."
California state Sen. Scott Weiner (D-11), one of the Democrats running for former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's seat in the next cycle, said: "They're now explicitly taking the position that state and local elected officials are committing crimes when they attempt to protect their communities from the ICE secret police."
Weiner's state Senate district includes San Francisco, one of the cities targeted by Trump with immigration agents, and a potential National Guard deployment. The president said he backed off the threat to send troops to the city, for now, after calls from billionaire friends.
However, Trump's administration is still fighting in federal court to deploy the National Guard in the Chicagoland area, where ICE's Operation Midway Blitz is underway. The people of Illinois have responded with persistent protests, including at an ICE facility in suburban Broadview, where agents have met demonstrations with violence.
"No, ICE officers do not have immunity to assault and arrest unarmed Americans without a warrant," former Obama administration official and Pod Save America co-host Jon Favreau stressed on social media Friday.
Tufts University international politics professor Daniel Drezner similarly said, "This seems very disturbing and also wrong."
Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.) concluded: "Stephen Miller is the most evil, fascist, wannabe authoritarian in the Trump regime. And that’s saying something."
Miller's comments came just two days after Pritzker appeared on Fox News and discussed Trump's attacks on him, immigration agents' actions in Illinois, and the risk that Trump may try to use US troops to steal future elections.
The governor's deputy chief of staff for communications, Matt Hill, responded to Miller's remarks by pointing to that appearance.
"Holy crap. Gov. Pritzker did ONE interview on Fox, and Stephen Miller is freaking out," Hill said on social media with a snowflake emoji. "All the Gov. did was appoint experts to collect videos and testimony of what's happening in Chicago. Now, Miller is threatening to silence Illinoisans and arrest their governor."
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