All posts tagged "democrats"

The one thing vital to countering a GOP bent on vast cruelty has been shunned by Dems

The past year has completely discredited any claim that choosing between the Democratic and Republican parties would be merely a matter of “pick your poison” with the same end result. In countless terrible ways, the last 12 months have shown that Donald Trump’s party is bent on methodically inflicting vast cruelty and injustice while aiming to crush what’s left of democracy and the rule of law.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party’s leadership persists with the kind of elitist political approach that helped Trump win in 2024. Hidebound and unimaginative, Senate leader Chuck Schumer and House leader Hakeem Jeffries have been incapable of inspiring the people whose high-turnout votes will be essential to ending Republican control of Congress and the White House.

The Democratic establishment shuns the progressive populism that’s vital to effectively counter bogus right-wing populism. And so, the fight to defeat the fascistic GOP and the fight to overcome the power of corporate Democrats are largely the same fight.

Advocates for progressive change will remain on the defensive as long as the Trump party is in power. With the entire future at stake, social movements on the left should have a focus on organizing to oust Republicans from control of Congress in this year’s midterm elections.

The point isn’t that Democrats deserve to win — it’s that people certainly don’t deserve to live under Republican rule, and ending it is the first electoral step toward a federal government that serves the broad public instead of powerfully destructive and violent elites. Like it or not, in almost every case the only candidates in a position to defeat Republicans for the House and Senate this year will have a “D” after their name.

Democratic leaders have dodged coming to terms with reasons why their party lost the White House in 2024, preferring to make a protracted show of scratching their chins and puzzling over the steep falloff of support from working-class voters of all colors. The Democratic National Committee’s refusal to release its autopsy report, assessing what went wrong in the election, underscores the party’s aversion to serious introspection.

Cogent answers are readily available, but top Democrats like Schumer and Jeffries refuse to heed them. If the party wants to regain and expand support from working-class voters, it must fight for programs that they clearly want.

Extensive polling shows strong public support for major progressive reforms, such as raising taxes on big corporations and the wealthy, lifting the Social Security tax cap, boosting the federal minimum wage, and greatly expanding Medicare to include dental, vision and hearing coverage.

The multifaceted tyranny that Trump and his toady lieutenants want to impose is both abrupt and gradual. Relying on “big lie” techniques, they strive to turn this month’s shocks into next month’s old hat.

Yet counting on denunciations of Trump to win elections is a very bad strategy. It didn’t work in 2016, it barely worked in 2020, and it failed miserably in 2024.

Democrats on ballots this fall will need to be offering plausible relief to voters in economic distress. But it’s hard for Democratic leaders to come across as aligned with the working class when evidence is profuse that they aren’t.

In essence, Schumer and Jeffries — and the majority of Democratic officeholders who keep those two in the party’s top positions — represent the Biden-era status quo that was unpopular enough to return Trump to the White House. A key reason is a reality that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) described soon after Trump’s 2016 win: “Certainly there are some people in the Democratic Party who want to maintain the status quo. They would rather go down with the Titanic so long as they have first-class seats.”

Democratic leaders should be removed from seats of party power or bypassed as relics of bygone eras. Their ongoing refusals to distance from corporate power, rich elites and militarism have alienated much of the party’s base.

As I wrote in my free new book The Blue Road to Trump Hell, “The Democratic Party enabled Donald Trump to become president twice because of repetition compulsions that still plague the top echelons of the party.” To eject Republicans from power – and to advance a strong progressive agenda – true leadership must come from grassroots mobilization.

Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. The paperback edition of his book War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine includes an afterword about the Gaza war.

This Trump nightmare becomes more realistic with each passing day

I have a recurring nightmare, a nightmare that becomes more realistic with each passing day. It goes like this:

It is November 2026. Here in Georgia and elsewhere, the midterm polls have been looking bad for Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans, but the ballots have finally been cast and are being counted. Tensions are high.

That’s when President Trump sends the National Guard or ICE agents to Fulton County, DeKalb County and other blue-trending areas, claiming massive fraud, seizing voting machines and voiding the election.

If it sounds too crazy to be plausible, I’d like to think so too.

But let me ask:

Is that scenario more crazy than what happened five years ago, when Trump summoned thousands of supporters to charge the Capitol, also in an effort to overturn an election? Is it more crazy than trying to seize Greenland by force? Is it more crazy than what is happening in Minnesota? Are we moving away from chaos, or hurtling at it?

And it’s clearly on Trump’s mind as well.

Last month, in a meeting with House Republicans, he expressed disbelief that Democrats might triumph in the midterms, suggesting it’s only because of fraud.

“How do we have to even run against these people?” he said. “I won’t say ‘cancel the election, they should cancel the election,’ because the fake news would say, ‘He wants the elections canceled. He’s a dictator.’ They always call me a dictator.”

And in a recent interview with the New York Times, Trump was reminded that in 2020 he had explored using the National Guard to seize ballot boxes in states where he had alleged fraud.

“Well, I should have,” Trump said.

Trump went on to tell the Times that he balked at using the National Guard in 2020 not because he lacked the authority, but because he didn’t think the Guard was “sophisticated enough” to pull it off. He had already tried to pressure the Department of Justice to seize state voting machines, but Attorney General William Barr had refused. Through Rudy Giuliani, Trump then reached out to the Department of Homeland Security to seize machines, but DHS officials also told him that they had no authority to do so.

Somehow, I think Trump’s request would get a very different response this time from the likes of Pete Hegseth, Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem.

Indeed, when asked by Times reporters whether he would consider such a step in 2026, Trump changed the subject.

In those previous requests to seize election equipment, Trump had reportedly focused his attention on a specific but unknown state, a state “that had used machines built by Dominion Voting Systems, where his lawyers believed there had been fraud.”

Georgia uses Dominion voting machines. Dominion was acquired by Missouri-based Liberty Vote in 2025.

In recent social media posts, Trump has continued to rail against voting machines, voting by mail, counting votes beyond midnight of Election Day and the use of QR codes, all of which are standard features of Georgia elections. He has even issued executive orders that claim to abolish such standard features of election operation. In his mind, apparently, that makes it illegal.

According to the Constitution, of course, states are empowered to run their own elections, but the Constitution as it is written on paper is often not the Constitution as recognized by Trump.

“Remember, the States are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes,” Trump wrote recently on his social media platform. “They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do.”

And what does the president of the United States tell them, “for the good of our country?”

He tells them:

“THE MAIL-IN BALLOT HOAX, USING VOTING MACHINES THAT ARE A COMPLETE AND TOTAL DISASTER, MUST END, NOW!!! REMEMBER, WITHOUT FAIR AND HONEST ELECTIONS, AND STRONG AND POWERFUL BORDERS, YOU DON’T HAVE EVEN A SEMBLANCE OF A COUNTRY. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!!!”

So no, while I do not think it likely, I also do not believe it unthinkable that Trump might claim fraud and dispatch heavily armed, armored, masked federal agents to interrupt vote-counting here in Georgia, and in other swing states as well. Unthinkable things are happening every day.

Jay Bookman covered Georgia and national politics for nearly 30 years for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, earning numerous national, regional and state journalism awards. He has been awarded the National Headliner Award and the Walker Stone Award for outstanding editorial writing, and is the only two-time winner of the Pulliam Fellowship granted by the Society of Professional Journalists. He is also the author of "Caught in the Current," published by St. Martin's Press.
Georgia Recorder is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

Forget Trump vs Powell — Ted Cruz wants to abolish the Fed as we know it

WASHINGTON — This week’s dust-up over the Justice Department investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell isn’t just unprecedented, it’s also unwarranted — at least according to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and other leading right-wing voices.

To Cruz and co, Powell should have gotten the boot on day one of President Donald Trump’s second term.

“The notion of independent agencies is inconsistent with the Constitution,” Cruz told Raw Story at the U.S. Capitol this week.

Cruz and others have Trump’s ear and they seem to have a sympathetic Supreme Court, even as more moderate Republicans and Democrats watch aghast at what they fear is the death of an independent central bank.

“This is a horrendous precedent,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) told Raw Story. “It's going to be something the country’s going to regret deeply. Terrible precedent.”

‘All executive power’

Powell is only the 16th chair since the Fed was established in 1914. He’s the first to be criminally investigated by the DOJ.

“No one — certainly not the chair of the Federal Reserve — is above the law,” Powell said Sunday.

“But this unprecedented action should be seen in the broader context of the administration’s threats and ongoing pressure.”

Trump has tried and failed to get Powell to rapidly lower interest rates.

Republicans have attacked Powell for overseeing renovations on its historic property that have ballooned from $1.9 billion to $2.5 billion.

On Friday, DOJ subpoenaed the Fed, as it investigates whether Powell lied about the renovations before the Senate Banking Committee last year.

The Fed chair says it’s all politics.

"The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the President," Powell said.

More moderate Republicans have defended the Fed and criticized the DOJ.

Trump denies pressuring the DOJ to investigate. Asked about Republicans’ criticisms of a weaponized DOJ, Cruz defended the probe.

“Under Article II of the Constitution, all executive power is vested in the president,” Cruz told Raw Story.

Cruz and others on the far right view Powell as they do any other cabinet member: merely serving at the pleasure of the president.

Cruz, a Princeton grad who attended Harvard Law School and clerked for former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, is a champion of “unitary executive” theory.

He is closely watching Trump v. Slaughter, the Supreme Court case concerning Trump’s removal of FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter.

If Trump wins, it would overturn the unanimous 1935 case Humphrey's Executor, which has protected commissioners and chairs of independent agencies from being fired without cause.

“I think Humphrey's Executor was wrongly decided,” Cruz said. “And I think it's likely the Supreme Court will overturn it this term.”

Cruz is joined by Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO), the libertarian CATO Institute, conservative Claremont Institute and the increasingly far-right Chamber of Commerce, among others who have urged the Court to give the president more power over independent agencies.

“If you stop and think about it, all the members are appointed by the president, and we have elections for a reason,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) told Raw Story.

“So I think that they ought to take the data and use their best judgment and do the right things, but remember, they're appointed by political leaders.”

Other Republicans say Powell’s imagining the DOJ threat.

"I think that was all made up, to be honest with you," Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) told Raw Story. "I think Powell brought that up. I don't think there was anybody in DOJ that said, ‘We're going to prosecute, go after the Fed.’”

Like many Republicans, Tuberville says Powell’s “been political,” especially when the Fed cut interest rates by half a point seven weeks from the 2024 election.

“When he dropped interest rates during the election … he lost me,” Tuberville said.

‘Independence is important’

On the other side, 207 Democrats — from House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) to Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) — have urged the Supreme Court to maintain the independence of agencies from the Federal Trade Commission to the Fed.

Moderate Republicans, like retiring Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) and House Financial Committee Services Chair French Hill, are also up in arms over what they fear is interference with the Fed.

“Do you fear for Fed independence and even DOJ independence?” Raw Story asked the chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee.

“Independence is important,” Sen. John Boozman (R-AR) replied.

“Do we have Fed independence?” Raw Story pressed.

“We have, yeah,” Boozman said. “We have had it. I think it's important to protect it.”

Other Republicans say this is much ado about nothing.

“Are you worried at all about Fed independence like some of your colleagues are?” Raw Story asked.

“No,” Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) said. “The Fed is independent and they’re going to continue to remain that way. That's in their DNA.”

“What do you think of Tillis who's charging that now there's no DOJ independence either, because they're going after Powell?” Raw Story pressed. “Are you worried about that at all or is this much ado about nothing?”

“I don't know, I can't tell yet,” Lankford said. “There are a lot of drug runners, illegal immigrants and other folks that DOJ needs to really make sure they're prioritizing.”

‘An offer he can't refuse’

The DOJ is prioritizing Powell, though officials say they can’t discuss an ongoing investigation. To critics, the unprecedented attack is testing the Fed and the Constitution itself.

“This is a Godfather Part I,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) told Raw Story. “Trump is giving Powell an offer he can't refuse.

“It’s either succumb to the pressure for him to resign, or be indicted. To Powell's credit, he has refused that.”

Bill and Hillary Clinton should testify over Epstein, top Dem says

WASHINGTON — Former President Bill Clinton and former First Lady and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton should testify before a congressional committee about their links with Jeffrey Epstein, a senior Democratic senator told Raw Story.

“People get subpoenaed, they should show up,” Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) told Raw Story at the Capitol Wednesday.

The Clintons have rejected Republican attempts to force them to testify about links to Epstein, the late financier and sex offender, setting up a clash with Rep. James Comer (R-KY), chair of the powerful House Oversight Committee.

Earlier this week, lawyers for the Clintons released a lengthy letter rejecting the legal premise of Comer’s subpoena.

In their own blistering letter to Comer, the Clintons pointed out that the Department of Justice had not fully complied with a law mandating that it release all files related to investigations of Epstein.

“Comer should subpoena [the] DOJ,” Luján said, laughing.

Under Attorney General Pam Bondi, a close ally of President Donald Trump, the DOJ is widely seen to be dragging its feet on the Epstein matter.

Trump’s once-close friendship with Epstein, a convicted sex trafficker who killed himself in prison in New York in 2019, is an enduring subject of fascination, reporting, gossip, and festering scandal.

“Look,” Luján said. “What Comer does, if he's gonna subpoena people, he should subpoena everyone that needs to be subpoenaed, and pull them in.

“And if he wants to make this look political, Comer is doing a pretty good job of that.

“But anyone involved in all of this Epstein bulls—, they should come in and they should fess up and the truth should be shared with the American people, right? No matter who they are, because everybody, because this was so bipartisan, everybody should do it. I mean, that's how I would describe it.”

The Epstein affair has indeed ensnared a number of prominent public figures. Bill Clinton has prominently featured in DOJ releases since Congress passed a law mandating such transparency. Trump’s name has also been shown to be in such Epstein files.

Trump has named the Clintons among liberal figures he says should be investigated in relation to Epstein.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, after theatrically displaying an empty chair during a supposed deposition of Bill Clinton, Comer said: “Jeffrey Epstein visited the White House 17 times while Bill Clinton was president.

“No one’s accusing Bill Clinton of anything, any wrongdoing. We just have questions.”

Comer also said he would charge the Clintons with contempt of Congress.

Speaking to the right-wing Real America’s Voice TV network, Comer said: "We expect the Clintons to come in, or I expect the Clintons to be met with the same fate that [Steve] Bannon and [Peter] Navarro were met with when the Democrats were in control.”

Bannon and Navarro, close Trump aides and advisers, both served prison time after refusing to answer subpoenas for testimony as part of investigations of the deadly January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump’s supporters.

Democrats rejected Comer’s threats as political posturing.

On Wednesday, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA), a target of Trump’s demands that his political enemies be prosecuted, told Raw Story Comer was not the only Republican in Congress working to Trump’s benefit in matters relating to Epstein.

“I think this is a political exercise by Jim Jordan,” Schiff said, referring to the Ohio Republican who chairs the House Judiciary Committee.

“I think they will lose in court if it's litigated. But I think this is designed to deflect attention from the president's withholding of all the Epstein files.”

'Are you a Trump Democrat, sir?' Fetterman stumbles at CNN anchor's direct question

A CNN anchor on Tuesday had a pointed question for Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), who has often broken ranks with Democrats and faced criticism over it.

CNN anchor Kasie Hunt dropped the question during a live interview, asking the sweatshirt-wearing lawmaker about his views on remaining in the Democratic party — despite lingering comments over where his loyalties lie and whether he'd back President Donald Trump's party.

"Sir, I do want to ask you about your own political party, as, of course, Democrats did win on Election Day in November, but of course, had a tough time in the presidential election. And I think I have a big picture question for you, given some of the things that you've said in recent months do you plan on staying a member of the Democratic party for the duration of your political career?" Hunt asked.

"Absolutely," Fetterman responded.

"I mean — I'm not sure why I keep — I have the question. I've been consistently — I would never going to change my party," he added, as the interview cut in and out.

"Are you a Trump Democrat, sir?" Hunt asked.

Fetterman appeared stumped for a moment after the question, then responded.

"I know there's no such thing as a Trump Democrat," he said.

"Well, you know, I just, I ran, you know, I asked a person to run my — my record," Fetterman added. "I have a 94% overall, 94% voting. The Dem line, 94%. I mean, that's, you know, so that's — it's it's a strange place. So, for me, I am going to be very honest. And there's some things I might agree or sometimes I'll disagree. I'm going to follow what I believe happens to be the truth in a situation, but I'm not sure now. So when as a Democrat, I'm not changing my party and my voting record is is exactly, you know, in."

These four men could drive Trump out of office — and their silence is deafening

The staggering cowardliness by four ex-presidents vis-à-vis Tyrant Trump’s wrecking of America cannot escape history’s verdict. However, there is still an opportunity for vigorous redemption by George W. Bush — whose life-saving AIDS Medicine Program in Africa was shut down by President Donald Trump — Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden, if they have any self-respect for their patriotic duty.

As of now, these former presidents are living lives of luxury and personal pursuits. They are at the apex of the “contented classes” who have chosen to be bystanders to Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthy, deregulation, and the doling out of Trump’s corporatist welfare giveaways.

Imagine, if you will, what would happen if these four wealthy politicians, who still have most of their voters liking them, decided to band together and take on Trump full throttle. Privately, they believe and want Trump to be impeached (for the third time in the House) and convicted in the Senate (after two acquittals). This time, on many impeachable actions that Trump himself boasts about, claiming, “With Article II, I can do whatever I want as President.”

Right off, they can upend the public discourse that Trump dominates daily with phony personal accusations, stunningly un-rebutted by the feeble Democratic Party leaders. This counterattack with vivid, accurate words will further increase the majority of people who want Trump “fired.” Just from their own observations of Trump’s vicious, cruel destruction of large parts of our government and civil service, which benefits and protects the populace, should jolt the former presidents into action.

Next, the bipartisan Band of Four can raise tens of millions of dollars instantly to form “Save Our Republic” advocacy groups in every congressional district. The heat on both parties in Congress would immediately rise to make them start the Impeachment Drive. Congressional Republicans’ fear of losing big in the 2026 elections, as their polls are plummeting, will motivate some to support impeachment. Congressional Republicans abandoned President Richard Nixon in 1974, forcing his resignation with Impeachment on his political horizon.

Events can move very fast. First, Trump is the most powerful contributor to his own Impeachment. Day after day, this illegal closer of long-established social safety nets and services is alienating tens of millions of frightened and angry Americans.

Daily, Trump is breaking his many campaign promises. His exaggerated predictions are wrong. Remember his frequent promise to stop “these endless wars;” his assurance that he would not impair government health insurance programs (tell that to the millions soon to lose, due to Trump, their Medicaid coverage); his promise of lifting people into prosperity — he opposes any increase in the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour and he has signed GOP legislation to strip tens of millions of Americans from the SNAP food support and take away the Obama subsidies for Obamacare.

Many Trump voters are among the vast number of people experiencing his treachery, where they live and raise their families, will lose out here. The catalytic opportunities of these four ex-presidents and their skilled operating teams are endless.

Further, this Band of Presidents, discovering their patriotic duty, will recharge the Democratic Party leaders or lead to the immediate replacement of those who simply do not want or know how to throw back the English language against this Bully-in-Chief, this abuser of women, this stunning racist, this chronic liar about serious matters, this inciter of violence including violence against members of Congress, this invader of cities with increasingly violent, law breaking storm-troopers turning a former Border Patrol force into a vast recruitment program for police state operators.

Trump uses the word “impeachment” frequently against judges who rule against him, and even mentions it in relation to it being applied to him. Tragically, Democratic Party leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries have made talk of Impeachment a taboo, arguing the time is not yet ripe. How many more abuses of power do they need to galvanize the Democrats in the House and Senate against the most blatantly impeachable president by far in American history? He keeps adding to his list — recently, he has become a pirate and killer on the high seas, an unconstitutional war maker on Iran and Venezuela, openly threatening to illegally seize the Panama Canal, Greenland, and overthrow the Cuban government.

Constitutional scholar Obama can ask dozens of constitutional law professors the question: “Would any of the 56 delegates who signed our US Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the 39 drafters who signed our US Constitution in 1787, being told about Monarch King Donald Trump, oppose his immediate impeachment and removal — the only tool left he doesn’t control?”

Not one, would be their studied response.

Trump, a serial draft dodger, pushes through another $150 billion to the Pentagon above what the generals requested while starving well-being programs of nutrition for our children and elderly, and cutting services, by staff reductions, for American veterans, and strip-mining our preparedness for climate violence and likely pandemics.

He promised law and order during the election and then betrayed it right after his inauguration, pardoning 1,500 convicted, imprisoned criminals, 600 of them violent, emptying their prison cells and calling them “patriots” for what they did to Congress on Jan. 6, 2021.

MR. EX-PRESIDENTS, JUST WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? WHAT ARE YOUR ESCAPIST EXCUSES?

Call your friends who are ranking members of the GOP-controlled Committees of Congress and tell them to hold prompt SHADOW HEARINGS to educate the public through witnesses about the TRUMP DUMP, impeachable, illegal, and unconstitutional government. The media would welcome the opportunity to cover such hearings. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) thought this was “a good idea” before being admonished by his frightened Democratic leaders to bide his time and remain silent.

As more of Trump’s iron boots drop on people’s livelihoods, their freedoms, their worry for their children and grandchildren, their antipathy to more aggressive wars against non-threatening countries, and their demands at town meetings and mass marches for action against Trump’s self-enriching despotism, the disgraceful, craven cowardliness of our former presidential leaders will intensify. Unless they wake up to the challenge. With the mainstream media attacked regularly and being sued by Trump’s coercive, illegal extortion, the action by the Band of Four will bolster press freedom, press coverage, and their own redemption.

Send these four politicians, who are friendly with one another, petitions, letters, emails, satiric cartoons, or whatever communications that might redeem them from the further condemnation of history.

Rest assured, with Trump in the disgraced White House, THINGS ARE ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE, MUCH WORSE! For that is the predictable behavior from the past year and from his dangerously unstable, arrogant, vengeful, and egomaniacal personality.

Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate and the author of "The Seventeen Solutions: Bold Ideas for Our American Future" (2012). His latest book is, "Wrecking America: How Trump's Lies and Lawbreaking Betray All" (2020, co-authored with Mark Green).

This chilling Trump confession means he must be impeached

Democrats should be loudly calling for the impeachment of Donald Trump now, run on it in November, and then, when they take the House, actually do it.

Because what he’s is doing right now is not “norm-breaking,” or “provocative rhetoric,” or even the oft-quoted “Trump being Trump.” It’s an open assertion of unchecked power, limited — in his own words — only by his own “personal morality.”

His shocking interview in the New York Times was decisive. That isn’t how a president speaks in a constitutional republic. Instead, it’s a classic example of how a strongman, a wannabe Mussolini or Putin, speaks as he tries to reinvent the nation so the law becomes optional when it comes to him, his flunkies, and his billionaire buddies.

When asked if there were any limits on his power, he told the Times’ reporters, “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.” He added, “I don’t need international law.”

And he’s acting it out in real time, creating his own private, unaccountable, masked army (or death squad) that’s actively terrorizing American citizens and being used to punish the cities and states of any politicians who dare stand up to him or call him out.

Not to mention his petty revenges: last week, he cut off billions in childcare and other low-income funding to California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York in direct violation of the law and the Constitution because those states’ leaders had the temerity to defy him.

The Founders saw this coming. They obsessed over it, and relentlessly warned us future generations about it. And they built a solution for it into the Constitution they drafted in the summer and fall of 1787: impeachment.

James Madison, in Federalist 47, cautioned that the greatest danger to liberty wouldn’t come from a foreign invasion, but, instead, from a president who turned the powers of government into instruments of personal will:

“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”

Alexander Hamilton, no radical by any stretch, wrote that impeachable offenses are those which “proceed from the misconduct of public men” and injure society itself. He hoped, in Federalist 68, that no man with “[t]alents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity” would ever reach the White House, but that’s exactly what we’re now watching in real time.

And, no, impeachment is not some “unprecedented Democratic overreach.” Republicans have demanded impeachment of Democratic presidents for nearly a century, and tried multiple times, most recently just two years ago.

Republican legislators screamed about impeaching Franklin D. Roosevelt over his threat to pack the Supreme Court if they didn’t stop knocking down his New Deal programs.
They floated impeachment of Harry Truman for going into Korea without a formal declaration of war.
They threatened both John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson with impeachment over the Bay of Pigs in Cuba and the War in Vietnam.
They introduced impeachment resolutions against Jimmy Carter over the Panama Canal treaty.
They campaigned openly to impeach Barack Obama over his “dictatorial” executive orders and the “communist” Affordable Care Act.

The idea that impeachment is too “divisive” to even discuss now is a naked lie, and a very convenient one for authoritarian Republicans. What’s different today isn’t the tool of impeachment; it’s the target.

Trump has now made explicit what Richard Nixon tried to pull off but failed: that his presidency exists above the law and he can freely ignore both domestic and international law. Nixon at least had the decency to mutter it privately, once even telling David Frost that, “Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” Trump has put it into public policy.

When a president claims the law doesn’t restrain him, as Trump has done — when he treats Congress’ approval as if it were optional, federal judges as if they were political enemies, treaties as inconveniences that can be gotten around or even ignored, and war powers as personal prerogatives — impeachment stops being political theater and becomes a constitutional necessity.

While I vehemently disagree with Trump’s tax cuts for billionaires, gutting USAID and other agencies, and inflammatory rhetoric (among dozens of other things), this is not about policy disagreements.

It’s explicitly about his unilaterally making war without congressional authorization, weaponizing the Justice Department against his political enemies, dangling pardons and financial opportunities for his allies but the law as vengeance for his critics, and the obscenity of his mass pardons for the criminals who attacked our Capitol on January 6th.

It’s about, in other words, a president who’s told us all, bluntly, that legality and government power — including the power to execute a woman who was just driving home after dropping off her child at school — flows from his own definition of “morality,” his “own mind,” and no other source, the American Constitution be damned.

He’s asserting the “morality” of a man convicted of fraud, adjudicated a rapist, repeatedly accused of sexual assault, who gleefully takes bribes of gold, Trump hotels, and jet planes and rewards the bribers with tariff reductions, American weapons, and other benefits.

This is how Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orbán transformed Russia and Hungary from democracies into strongman single-party autocracies, and Trump is eagerly following their examples (and apparently taking their regular advice).

Here’s an example of what articles of impeachment could read like, a version that could be read into the Congressional Record tomorrow:

Articles of Impeachment Against Donald J. Trump, President of the United States

Article I — Abuse of Power and Usurpation of Congressional War Authority

In his conduct as President of the United States, Donald J. Trump has abused the powers of his office by initiating and directing acts of war without authorization from Congress, in violation of Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution and the War Powers Resolution of 1973.

President Trump ordered and executed military actions against the sovereign nation of Venezuela, including strikes within its capital and the seizure of its head of state, without a declaration of war or statutory authorization from Congress. In doing so, he substituted his personal judgment and the desires of his donors in the fossil fuel industry for the constitutional role of the legislative branch, nullifying Congress’s exclusive authority to decide when the nation enters hostilities.

Such conduct is not a policy disagreement but a direct assault on the separation of powers. The Framers vested the war-making power in Congress precisely to prevent unilateral, impulsive, or self-interested uses of military force by a single individual.

Wherefore, President Trump has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with self-government and has committed an abuse of power warranting impeachment and removal from office.

Article II — Contempt for the Rule of Law and Constitutional Limits on Executive Power

Donald J. Trump has asserted that his authority as President is constrained only by his “own morality,” explicitly rejecting the binding force of domestic law, treaty obligations, and international legal norms ratified by the United States.

By publicly declaring that neither Congress, the courts, nor the law meaningfully constrain his actions, President Trump has advanced a theory of executive power fundamentally incompatible with the Constitution. Treaties ratified by the Senate are, under Article VI, the supreme Law of the Land.

A President who claims legality flows from personal judgment rather than law announces an intent to govern as a sovereign, not as a constitutional officer.

This conduct constitutes a profound breach of the President’s oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution.

Article III — Corrupt Use of the Justice System for Political Retaliation

Donald J. Trump has abused the powers of the presidency by directing or encouraging the use of federal law enforcement and prosecutorial authority to target political opponents for retaliation and intimidation.

The President has publicly demanded investigations and prosecutions of political adversaries while signaling protection for allies. Such conduct weaponizes the justice system and undermines equal justice under law.

This pattern of conduct constitutes an abuse of power and a violation of the public trust.

Article IV — Subversion of Democratic Institutions and Checks and Balances

Donald J. Trump has engaged in a sustained campaign to undermine the independence of the judiciary, the authority of Congress, and the legitimacy of constitutional constraints on executive power.

By encouraging attacks on judges, disregarding statutory limits imposed by Congress, and treating oversight as illegitimate, the President has sought to weaken the institutions designed to restrain executive excess.

Such conduct represents a betrayal of constitutional responsibility.

Article V — Abuse of the Pardon Power to Undermine Accountability for an Attack on the Constitution

Donald J. Trump has abused the pardon power by issuing broad clemency to individuals who participated in or supported the January 6, 2001 attack on the United States Capitol.

While the pardon power is substantial, it was never intended to erase accountability for a violent assault on Congress itself. This use of the pardon power undermines deterrence, encourages future political violence, and weakens constitutional governance.

Conclusion

In all of this, Donald J. Trump has demonstrated that he will place personal authority above constitutional duty, power above law, and loyalty to himself above loyalty to the Republic.

Wherefore, Donald J. Trump warrants impeachment, trial, removal from office, and disqualification from holding any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States.

Then comes the part Democrats keep flinching from: begin a loud and public campaign for impeachment. After all, just this week he told Republicans that his biggest fear if the GOP loses control of the House is that he’ll be impeached for a third time.

On Thursday afternoon, I got one of Trump’s daily fundraising emails. This one didn’t ask if I’d yet made a donation to get my name on the list for my “tariff rebate check” like others this week and last but, instead, said (and the bold type is also bold in his email):

“Dems plan for 2026 is simple but disturbing to EVERY MAGA Republican:
1. Flip the House
2. Flip the Senate
3. IMPEACH PRESIDENT TRUMP
4. Kill the MAGA agenda permanently”

He’s not just talking about impeachment; he’s fundraising on it! Democrats, frankly, should do the same.

I realize that a conviction will never pass the current Senate (although we may be surprised if he keeps doing and saying truly crazy and offensive things), but it’s important to get this into the public dialogue and prepare the ground for next year.

That’s why Democrats must tell voters now exactly what they intend to do with power if they win it this coming November (or before, if the GOP loses any more House members).

And they need to stop pretending that through some weird magic our democracy can be preserved by silence, caution, or simply hoping that this convicted felon will suddenly discover restraint or cave to a judge’s demand.

There is a real possibility, by the way, that today a handful of Republicans in the House could decide that preserving Congress’ war powers, the power and independence of the judiciary, and the rule of law matters more than protecting one aging politician. After all, yesterday five Republicans in the Senate voted against Trump on his Venezuela oil-stealing campaign and nine in the House voted against him on healthcare. It happened with Nixon, and it can happen again.

But it won’t happen if Democrats continue to treat impeachment like a dirty word instead of a constitutional obligation.

Yes, it’ll piss off Trump’s base and rightwing media will go nuts. But his base is already filled with rage and rightwing media will do what they do no matter what, impeachment or not. Democrats need to stop cowering.

So let’s say what needs to be said without euphemism or apology:

Democrats should introduce articles of impeachment now, run on them this November, and then actually do it.

Thom Hartmann is a New York Times best-selling author and SiriusXM talk show host. His Substack can be found here.

'Depth of cruelty': Report warns Trump has new weapon in 'red hot war' against Blue states

Donald Trump has been accused of acting out "revenge" on Blue states, with decisions affecting "vulnerable people".

Democratic Rep. Brad Schneider (Il) claims the president is overseeing ICE raids in Democratic states and "putting communities at risk" as a result. Speaking to Politico, Schneider said, "He’s attacking blue states out of revenge. If that’s in the form of sending in ICE, he sends in ICE."

"If it’s denying food and education to their children, which, to be clear, are America’s children, he’s gonna do that. What he is doing is seeking revenge at the cost of America’s most vulnerable people, putting those communities at risk."

Manhattan Democrat Liz Krueger says she is hardly surprised by the president's actions in Blue states as he made it clear he was going to "punish" the Democratic Party.

She said, "I’ll say one thing about our president: He told us he was going to do this. He told us he was going to punish blue states. We have to brace for impact, we have to use our legal skills, our amazing attorney general, and endless lawsuits to at least hold them back."

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has suggested Trump is using children as "political pawns" and that it shows the "depth of cruelty" his administration is capable of overseeing.

She said, "It’s this depth of cruelty. They think they’re going to get to me, but the kids are the political pawns in this process, and they’re not doing that calculation."

Analysis from Politico staffers Blake Jones, Jeremy B. White, and Nick Reisman suggested the "ammunition" Trump had at his disposal against Blue states could take down his political opponents.

They wrote, "The spending-focused line of attack from Trump marks an escalation in Trump’s already red-hot war on blue states."

"While hostilities between Trump and Democratic-led states on immigration intensify following shootings in Minnesota and Oregon, he is now moving more aggressively on a separate track to cut off states’ funding. And if “waste, fraud and abuse” is a familiar rallying cry for Republicans, it is now serving as fresh ammunition for Trump’s targeting of his political adversaries."

Why Trump's assault on blue states is blatantly illegal

What does Donald Trump have against Minnesota? Not only is ICE causing mayhem in Minneapolis, but Trump is halting hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding for social services programs there, according to a Tuesday announcement from the Department of Health and Human Services.

It’s not just Minnesota. Trump is also stopping billions in funding for social services in Colorado, Illinois, New York, and California.

Why? Could it be because all of them are led by Democrats and inhabited by voters who overwhelmingly rejected Trump in 2024?

It’s not the first time Trump has openly penalized “blue” states. What’s new is how blatant his vindictiveness toward blue states has become.

Angry at Colorado’s votes against him in three successive elections and at its refusal to free Tina Peters — the former clerk of Mesa County, who was convicted in 2024 of tampering with voting machines under her control in a failed plot to prove they had been used to rig the 2020 election against Trump — Trump has cut off transportation money to Colorado, relocated the military’s Space Command, vowed to dismantle a major climate and weather research center located there, and rejected disaster relief for rural counties hammered by floods and wildfires.

Two weeks ago Trump used the first veto of his second term to kill a pipeline project that had achieved bipartisan congressional support, to provide clean drinking water to Colorado’s parched eastern plains. (Trump’s action enraged Republican congresswoman and formerly dedicated Trumper Lauren Boebert, who stated: “Nothing says America First like denying clean drinking water to 50,000 people in southeast Colorado, many of whom voted for him in all three elections.”)

If there were any doubts about Trump’s sentiments toward Colorado, he posted a New Year’s Eve message telling Colorado Governor Jared Polis, a Democrat, and Daniel P. Rubinstein, the Republican district attorney in Mesa County who prosecuted Ms. Peters, to “rot in Hell,” adding “I wish them only the worst.”

Is it even legal for Trump to reward red states and penalize blue ones? In a word: No.

In early December, Justice Department lawyers openly admitted that Trump withheld Department of Energy grants to Minnesota and other states according to “whether a grantee’s address was located in a State that tends to elect and/or has recently elected Democratic candidates in state and national elections.”

It’s the first time the Trump regime clearly acknowledged in court that which states get what depends on whether most people in a state voted for or against him.

What’s the legal argument? Trump’s Justice Department lawyers claim that such overt political vindictiveness “is constitutionally permissible, including because it can serve as a proxy for legitimate policy considerations.”

This, my friends, is utter rubbish.

Punishing states based on whom their residents voted for directly violates the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, which requires that the government treat citizens equally under the law: No “State [shall] deprive … to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Penalizing a state for how its citizens vote also violates the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech. Voting is one of the most basic forms of speech in a democracy; it cannot be abridged or punished depending on for whom one votes.

And it violates a president’s duty under the Constitution to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” At the least, this requires that a president apply the law in a nonpartisan way. Congress may award grants or benefits to certain states and not others, but this power is reserved for Congress, not the president.

The issue will almost certainly end up in the Supreme Court. Although my expectations for our highest court could not be much lower, I’d be surprised if the justices sided with Trump here.

Any other result would effectively allow Trump to pit red states against blue and wreak havoc on the very idea of a national government.

Trump has made it clear he regards himself as president only of the people who voted for him. But that’s not how the Constitution works. Nor is it how American democracy works.

Robert Reich is a emeritus professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.
Robert Reich's new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org

Ted Cruz slammed over GOP ‘effort to demonize’ federal judges in time of rising threats

Government watchdogs and legal experts warned that Republicans’ call for the impeachment of two federal judges at a Senate judiciary committee hearing this week upends historical norms and sets a dangerous tone of intimidation.

Led by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Wednesday’s hearing, Impeachment: Holding Rogue Judges Accountable, was a nearly three-hour partisan battle on the merits of impeaching James “Jeb” Boasberg, chief judge of the U.S. Court for the District of Columbia, and Deborah Boardman, district judge for the U.S. Court of the District of Maryland.

Only 15 federal judges have ever been impeached by the House of Representatives, and only eight removed by the Senate.

Nonetheless, Republicans claim Boasberg is biased against President Donald Trump and his administration and accused Boardman of letting a defendant’s gender identity factor influence what they say is a lenient sentencing of an attempted assassin of conservative Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

“The whole idea that we have a bunch of rogue judges out there just strikes me as not worthy of credence,” said Jonathan L. Entin, a professor emeritus of law at Case Western Reserve University.

“It's a slogan. It's something you put on social media for your 15 minutes or 15 seconds of fame.”

Jay Young, senior policy director for civil rights and civil liberties at Common Cause, a nonpartisan government reform group, said Cruz’s hearing was “an effort to demonize” the judges and “prove a political point.”

“This effort to mischaracterize opinions that you don't believe, you don't agree with, it just feels so dangerous right now,” Young said.

In a June 2024 National Judicial College survey, more than half of judges reported threats to their safety.

“The whole reason why impeaching judges for their rulings, specifically, hasn't been done is to prevent intimidation,” said David Janovsky, acting director of The Constitution Project at the Project On Government Oversight, an independent watchdog.

“This is certainly a moment where there are plenty of threats to judicial independence and integrity, and so crossing a line that hasn't been crossed to go after judges in this moment seems misguided.”

Some judges who have ruled against Trump reported intimidation and doxxing.

“The idea that supposedly responsible federal officials are talking about impeaching judges, for which there's no justification and no real prospect, can't improve the situation,” Entin said.

“If you're a federal judge, and you see something like this, your hair is going to stand on end. This is not appropriate behavior. It's not responsible behavior.”

‘Railing against judges’

Going back to Marbury v. Madison, the 1803 landmark U.S. Supreme Court case which instituted the principle of judicial review, there has been a “well-established tradition in the United States that you don't impeach judges because they make rulings with which you disagree,” Entin said.

“You don't run them off the bench.”

Even the attorney for Anthony Burns, a fugitive slave whose 1854 trial led to outrage when a judge sent him back to slavery, was “the strongest opponent of removing the judge,” Entin said.

“There is a history of people railing against judges saying that ‘They're wrong. They're either tools of the establishment making rulings that oppress workers and consumers, or maybe they’re wild-eyed radicals who are trying to subvert the rule of law,’” Entin said.

“The standard can't be, ‘I'm mad because I lost, therefore this judge is corrupt or incompetent and should be removed from office.’”

‘Wrong-headed’

The Trump administration has railed against Boasberg for decisions including his order in early 2025 to halt deportation flights headed to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act — an order that was defied, presenting probable grounds to hold officials in criminal contempt.

“All of this looks very much like a MAGA-coordinated strategy to bring pressure and threats to bear on a federal judge,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) during Wednesday’s hearing.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) at Wednesday's hearing. Picture: Screengrab

Whitehouse described “an environment in which violent threats are prevalent and in which MAGA DOJ repeatedly refuses to assure us that proper investigative practices are being followed with regard to such threats.

“Presumably, the purpose is to scare Judge Boasberg off or block him from examining contempt of court by MAGA’s Department of Justice.”

Boasberg also presided over several cases related to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, when rioters attempted to block certification of President Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump in 2020.

During Wednesday’s hearing, Republicans repeatedly pointed to Boasberg’s authorization of non-disclosure requests for telephone toll records related to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation of Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election.

Cruz said: “He knew that Jack Smith was a partisan Democrat engaged in an effort to go after Donald Trump, that he was subpoenaing over 400 Republicans, so the one thing he knew is all of these targets were Republicans.

“The only conceivable basis for Judge Boasberg signing these orders one after the other, is an animus that says every Republican on Planet Earth, every American who voted for Donald Trump, there is reasonable basis to believe they are criminals.”

Whitehouse pushed back on Cruz’s comparison of Boasberg to “a partisan hack” as grounds for impeachment.

“MAGA faults Chief Judge Boasberg because it was Republican senators whose records came up, but that's investigation 101,” Whitehouse said during the hearing.

“People under investigation had called senators. That's why senators’ toll records came up in the investigation. As Jack Smith testified, he did not choose those members. President Trump did.”

When Whitehouse suggested Boasberg approved the telephone subpoenas due to “foreseeable misconduct by Donald Trump and his co-conspirators,” Cruz chalked up the argument to “a longer version of ‘orange man bad.’”

Entin said: “The whole rationale behind this, that you have to impeach judges who make controversial rules, is just wrong-headed. It fundamentally undermines the rule of law.

“Some judges are good, some judges are bad, but we have never, that I know of, impeached federal judges for their rulings.”

‘Quixotic quest’

In the case of Boardman, the Maryland district judge, the DOJ is appealing her eight-year prison sentence for Sophie Roske, charged as Nicholas John Roske, for attempting to assassinate Kavanaugh.

The DOJ sought a sentence of 30 years to life. Throughout the hearing, Cruz emphasized that Roske is transgender and called Boardman’s sentencing “a gross dereliction of duty.”

“It's pretty rich for conservatives to be complaining that the person who stalked Justice Kavanaugh got only eight years for that when President Trump has pardoned 1,500 people who tried to subvert the 2020 presidential election,” Entin said.

Entin said Cruz “should know better” than to push for impeachment of judges on such grounds, given his background as a Harvard Law graduate, Supreme Court clerk and former Solicitor General of Texas

Even in an election year, “it’s wrong for him to pull in stunts like this,” Entin said.

“He knows better than to go off on this kind of quixotic quest.

“Especially he knows better because he knows that it's not just Justice Kavanaugh, by the way, who has faced threats. Some judges have been murdered. Some judges have had family members murdered by people who couldn't get to the judge but could get to the family member.”

Cruz wrote a Jan. 7 letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) encouraging him to advance articles of impeachment against Boasberg and Boardman, but either being removed with a two-thirds Senate vote remains unlikely, Entin said.

“Given a closely divided and highly polarized Senate, it is virtually inconceivable that a judge would actually be removed from the bench because of a controversial ruling,” Entin said.

“It has never happened in our history.”