On Nov. 3, voters must restore checks and balances to United States government with a blue wave that restores Democratic leadership in Congress. Republicans who have been the majority in the House and Senate in the past two years have been unwilling or unable to hold President Donald Trump accountable for his corrupt, authoritarian and increasingly erratic administration.
With the collusion of Republican members of Congress, Trump, a convicted felon, has made the GOP a racketeering organization, and installed hacks who purged the Department of Justice of lawyers and FBI agents whose whose loyalty to Trump was suspect. Then DOJ was weaponized to go after critics of Trump.
Three weeks before the midterm election, with polls showing Democrats in position to win majorities in the House and Senate, federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security were dispatched to search the D.C. home of Democratic U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., in violation of federal policy not to pursue political investigations within 60 days of an election. The search came four days after Trump called on Omar to be jailed or deported back to Somalia.
Omar was a child when her family fled Somalia, after the African nation was shattered by a civil war in 1991. After years in a refugee camp in Kenya, she immigrated to the U.S. in 1995 and became a citizen in 2000, when she was 17. She was elected to Congress in 2018 and has been known as a member of The Squad of female lawmakers known for their progressive views and pointed opposition to Trump.
Omar said in a post on X, “make no mistake: this is an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement. For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns. This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation. I will not be silenced.”
Among the weaponized DOJ’s targets have been Federal Reserve Board member Lisa Cook, former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, while the Federal Communications Commission has gone after late night TV hosts Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel for jokes about Trump.
As Trump’s popularity has dropped below 30% with the cost of fuel rising due to his illegal war on Iran, and midterm elections approaching with Democrats having high hopes of regaining the majority in the Senate as well as the House of Representatives, Trump has stepped up his revenge agenda and his contempt of laws.
Despite the Constitution making states responsible for running federal elections, Trump has tried to restrict access to mail-in ballots, in the belief that Democrats are more likely to use them, and he has threatened state election officials if they didn’t surrender lists of registered voters for federal investigators to check out.
At the midterm “convention” Trump convened in Dallas Sept. 9, he may have committed another felony when he offered to pay every adult in the U.S. $5,000 if Republicans keep their majorities in Congress. That comes close to a bribe — even if few people actually believe they’d ever see the money, after Trump reneged on promises he made in 2025, such as a $2,000 “dividend” check from tariff revenues and $5,000 “stimulus” checks based on savings from the since-dismantled Department of Government Efficiency.
Then, on Oct. 9, Trump announced he reached a deal to import diesel fuel from Russia, a reversal of four years of pressure on Moscow after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine that included sanctions against Russian oil exports.
Trump said on social media he struck the deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a phone call in which Trump was expected to discuss a suspected case of plague in Russia. Instead, Trump said Russia will immediately supply more than 300,000 tons of diesel, followed by an additional 500,000 tons in November and 1 million tons “immediately thereafter.” Russia will deliver an additional 3 million tons “within a short period of time” after that.
The announcement came just three weeks after Trump signed into law a sweeping sanctions bill targeting Russian officials and its economy to punish and pressure Moscow for its ongoing war against Ukraine. The bipartisan bill, which had been in the works for more than a year, was a final legacy for the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a close ally and friend of Trump who had just returned from Ukraine when he unexpectedly died in July.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called Trump’s capitulation to Putin “a weak decision, unfortunately, a weak decision by strong partners,” as the deal was announced while Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner were meeting with Ukrainian officials in Miami to discuss a proposal to end the Russia-Ukraine war.
“I believe our team is simply being used as a smokescreen. And that is certainly not fair. It is certainly not how partners should treat each other,” Zelenskyy said.
Putin’s response: The next morning, Russian guided bombs killed at least 20 people, three of them children, in a residential neighborhood in Zaporizhzhia.
Trump’s response was to blame our high diesel prices on Zelenskyy for hitting Russian refineries, and Trump declared: “I think it’s time for Ukraine to get a new president.”
In fact, there is no shortage of diesel or gasoline in the U.S. or Canada,, and the impact of Russian imports on prices in the U.S. will be negligible. The U.S. Energy Information Administration said the initial transfer of 300,000 metric tons equals roughly 2.25 million barrels of diesel, therefore, it equals roughly 0.6 days of domestic distillate consumption. And it helps Russia finance its war against Ukraine, and also increases Putin’s ability to assist in arming Iran against the U.S, putting American armed forces at more risk.
Prices are high here because our domestic oil companies are using scarcity-driven pricing on international markets to gouge American drivers. As Thom Hartmann noted, “The industry that Trump said he’d do anything for if they gave him a billion dollars is now making tens of billions in windfall profits every week.”
Gallup found in September that 89% of Americans think government corruption is widespread, the highest in 20 years, and Democratic pollster Navigator found 81% of voters blame corruption in government for raising their own costs..
If Democrats gain congressional majority, they should put up their first bill to ban stock ownership for the president, his Cabinet, every member of Congress and the Supreme Court, and cut off federal contracts to their kids’ companies. Democrats also should impeach Trump for any number of high crimes and misdemeanors. Dems won’t have the votes to remove him, but it will demonstrate which Republican senators are still his accomplices.
Get out and vote early for Democrats. Accept no substitutes. Don’t risk Trump sending federal stormtroopers to shut down the polls on Nov. 3. It’s illegal, but he might try it. — JMC
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