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News for the public, not the powerful.
Is Todd Blanche’s “Doomsday” Plan the Blueprint for Overturning the Midterms?
When Attorney General Todd Blanche said last week that the Justice Department might try to block states from certifying elections in a doomsday scenario, he wasn’t speaking hypothetically. Three administration officials have told reporter Ken Klippenstein the DOJ has drawn up contingency plans for federal intervention in next week’s vote. The triggers include a foreign cyberattack, but also things the administration already claims are happening, like voter confusion and irregularities with the count. And they’ve already moved in three states. The DOJ demanded Alaska hold off certifying its Senate race if Dan Sullivan loses. It sued California to toss 20,000 ballots flagged by an error-prone federal database, a list that included US-born citizens. On Monday it demanded Washington state set aside more than 400 ballots. Trump himself has floated canceling the midterms and nationalizing elections. Blanche snapped at CNN’s Dana Bash when she asked about laying groundwork, then reminded everyone he works for President Trump. One government lawyer told Klippenstein that DOJ and White House attorneys are studying what they can do “if the law is no guide.” That’s the whole story right there. A Justice Department that plans for what to do when the law runs out isn’t enforcing the law. It’s replacing it.
Washington Post Exposes the MAGA Doubt Machine, 7,000 Lies and Counting
The Washington Post published an analysis this morning that reads like a confession. Nearly 600 high-profile right-wing accounts, podcasts and online outlets have pushed more than 7,000 statements this year questioning the integrity of the midterms. The two favorite themes, noncitizens on the voter rolls and mail-in ballot fraud, are showing up at twice the rate they did in 2024. Trump himself has made nearly 300 statements questioning elections since taking office again, and on Monday he put a million-dollar bounty on fraud tips that lead to a conviction. Ryan Fournier of Students for Trump posted that 20,000 noncitizens flagged in California were “just one batch.” Steve Bannon told his War Room audience Democrats want illegal migrants voting en masse. Bill Mitchell has posted about election fraud nearly 150 times in a year. A Post-ABC-Ipsos survey found only 28% of Americans believe Trump will accept a Republican loss. Former CIA Director John Brennan says Trump will do whatever he can get away with. Here’s why this matters. You don’t spend a year telling your supporters to expect cheating unless you plan to call the election stolen. The lie is being manufactured before a single vote is counted.
Can Trump’s War Survive Iran Shutting Down the Strait of Hormuz?
Iran’s attacks on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz hit a record in October. That’s not a talking point, that’s Reuters. At least 28 attacks this month, more than 110 since Trump’s war began on February 28. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy says October is the worst month since it started tracking maritime incidents in 2017. More than 30 supertankers have been damaged, 11 of them this month, roughly 3.5% of the world’s fleet of ships that each carry two million barrels of oil. On October 13 a Singapore-flagged container ship, the GFS Pride, caught fire and sank after being hit. All 21 crew got out alive. Traffic through the strait had recovered to 477 ships in September. Now it’s collapsing again. Kpler tracking data shows just five commodity vessels crossed on Saturday and none on Sunday, down from 31 the weekend before, a drop of over 80%. Trump is reportedly holding off on new strikes until after the midterms so the war doesn’t hurt his party any more than it already has. So here’s where we are. The strait is closing, and the commander in chief is timing his war around an election.
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Why Is Newsmax’s Own Judge Calling Trump’s Comey Case Dead on Arrival?
When Newsmax turns on you, you’ve got a problem. Judge Andrew Napolitano, the network’s legal analyst, went on air and shredded the Justice Department’s latest case against James Comey. The filing landed October 5 in federal court in Washington. It accuses Comey of passing national defense information to someone not cleared to receive it, an Espionage Act charge, plus a conspiracy count. Comey denies it. Napolitano’s verdict? Too little, too late. The underlying event happened October 5, 2016, and the statute of limitations, by his math, ran out one day before the filing. Even if prosecutors squeak in, he said, there’s no intent to harm the United States. What leaked was information about Yahoo surveilling its own customers, which the New York Times needed to correct another outlet’s story. Hardly sedition, hardly espionage. And the DOJ tried to freeze the clock with what Napolitano called “a piece of paper signed by a federal prosecutor,” no evidence, no grand jury. He says there’s no precedent for that in Washington. Former prosecutor Doug Burns backed him up, noting the Constitution requires a grand jury indictment for a felony. When even Trump’s friendliest network says the case is bogus, it isn’t law enforcement. It’s revenge with a docket number.
Miles Taylor Drops “Corruptionland,” 100 Trump Abuses and $377 Billion on the Table
Miles Taylor used to be chief of staff at Trump’s Department of Homeland Security. Now he’s made a movie. It’s called Corruptionland, 35 minutes, free online from DEFIANCE dot org, with a public ledger of more than 100 alleged episodes of corruption and abuse of power in Trump’s second term. The producers put the money involved at more than $377 billion. That’s the scale of what’s alleged, not a proven loss, and Taylor is careful about that. He opens the film at East Potomac Golf Course, with the trees chopped down and the mounds of dirt, because he wanted something people could see with their own eyes. From there the film follows the collapse of the guardrails. White House counsel, the Justice Department, inspectors general eliminated, judges threatened, law firms that caved, and a Congress that stopped doing oversight. Colorado Congressman Jason Crow frames corruption as money taken straight out of ordinary Americans’ pockets. Taylor says people now see prices and affordability as a corruption issue too, and he wants the next Congress to claw the money back. Watergate produced a generation that never trusted government again. The question is whether this one produces a generation that rebuilds it.
Is the Epstein Cover-Up Finally Cracking as a Fifth Woman Accuses Trump of Rape?
A former Miss Switzerland says Donald Trump raped her. Beatrice Keul, then 24, told House Judiciary Committee Democratic staff that in November 1993 she met Trump at a luncheon for his American Dream Pageant at the Plaza Hotel, which he owned. He promised her a visa and admission to NYU and said his friend Paolo Zampolli would take care of it. Jeffrey Epstein then introduced himself as Don’s best friend and promised flights and accommodations. Later that day a Trump representative brought her to a suite upstairs, where she says Trump grabbed her from behind and raped her, tearing her dress and leaving her bleeding and bruised. Afterward, she says, he told her “the show must go on.” The allegation leads a 50-page report Jamie Raskin’s Judiciary Democrats released Monday, examining 11 women’s accounts, five of whom directly accuse Trump of rape or sexual assault in Epstein’s orbit. It calls Trump an active participant in Epstein’s abuse of young women and demands an independent special counsel. The White House calls it crazed Democrats and says Trump was fully exonerated. Remember, a jury already found him liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll. Eight days before an election, the question isn’t whether the files exist. It’s who’s hiding them.
And that’s the way it is, Today Tuesday, October 27, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.
