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News for the public, not the powerful.
Is Trump’s Justice Department Flooding the Polls While Locking Out the World’s Election Watchdogs?
Trump’s Justice Department is getting ready to send about 1,000 of its own monitors into polling places this November. In 2024 it covered just 86 jurisdictions. At the same time, the administration won’t invite observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. That’s the first time they’ve been shut out since they started watching our elections in 2002. Just two years ago, Washington was scolding Russia for stonewalling those same observers. Civil rights chief Harmeet Dhillon says her monitors will go wherever she thinks there’s voter fraud. Even Wyoming’s Republican governor complained about aggressive federal monitors during the primaries. Then on Monday, former Trump official Ed Martin said convicted election denier Tina Peters was in the Oval Office, where “they were talking about the plans.” When a government throws out the neutral referees and sends in its own, that’s not election security. That’s intimidation.
Trump Laughs as Bessent’s Rage Drives Treasury’s Top Officials Out the Door
And look who’s minding the nation’s money. More than 30 current and former officials told the Wall Street Journal that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent screams and curses at aides at every level. In January he reportedly tore into his top terrorism finance official, John Hurley, loud enough for the whole hallway to hear. Hurley left, and his job went to a former employee of Bessent’s investment firm. Bessent allegedly hurled a briefing binder into a wall, which he denies. He had to be pulled apart from Elon Musk and allegedly threatened housing chief Bill Pulte. By the end of August, 7 Senate-confirmed officials had quit. The last four administrations each lost two at most. Trump’s reaction? “I created a monster,” he joked. Trump only hires the best tyrants, and working people pay when competent public servants run for the exits.
Why Were Trump’s Top Political Advisers Cashing Checks From Putin’s Friend in the Balkans?
The tyrant problem doesn’t stop at the water’s edge. The New York Times reports that while Trump was out campaigning last week, James Blair and Chris LaCivita, who run his super PAC, spent days in Republika Srpska, the Serb half of Bosnia. The Times says they were helping a pro-Russian government “looking to tighten its grip on power” before Sunday’s election. Each was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars through a Washington law firm. Strongman Milorad Dodik’s party won, and he thanked Vladimir Putin in his victory speech. Dodik was convicted and barred from office for defying the envoy who enforces Bosnia’s peace accords. His government has paid Trump-connected lobbyists more than $4 million, and Trump lifted the sanctions on him. American influence is for sale, and Putin’s friends are buying.
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Could Democrats Really Take Back Both the House and the Senate in 27 Days?
Here at home, the voters may be about to send a bill of their own. The nonpartisan forecasters at VoteHub now give Democrats a 61% chance of controlling the Senate and an 86% chance of winning the House. That’s a big swing. Earlier this year the same model had Republicans favored to hold the Senate. And it comes after Republicans redrew congressional maps to make the House redder. VoteHub’s verdict was that “Democrats are still favored.” But a forecast isn’t a result. A 61% chance means Republicans keep the Senate roughly four times out of 10. It also explains why this White House is so interested in who’s watching the polls. Election Day is Tuesday, November 3. So check your registration today, and bring a neighbor with you. Forecasts don’t vote. You do.
Can Protesters Branded as Terrorists Beat Trump by Forming a Union?
Some of the people Trump is targeting aren’t waiting for November. The Guardian reports activists have launched the NSPM-7 Defendants Union, named for Trump’s 2025 memo that lumps his opponents together as “antifa” and tells federal agents to investigate and prosecute them. The union plans legal clinics, media training and shared defense strategy. A Texas jury has already convicted nine protesters, and 15 more people were indicted in Minneapolis. Darío Sánchez, a 33-year-old Texas middle school teacher, faces state charges tied to a protest he didn’t even attend. He’s been arrested 3 times, most recently after searching online for how to replace a Game Boy battery. Police claimed he was researching explosives. “As long as you disagree with the government, you’re a target,” he says. Prosecutors want every defendant alone and afraid. A union says nobody stands alone.
Crazy Alert. Naked Golden Trump Statue Storms the European Parliament
And finally, Europe has a gift for the man who gold-plates everything. Lawmakers in Strasbourg, France are walking past an 8-foot statue of Donald Trump, stark naked, coated in 23-karat gold, clutching a golf club and riding on the shoulders of a much smaller man. It’s called The Orange Plague, by Danish artist Jens Galschiøt, and it sits in one of the parliament’s busiest corridors through Thursday. Then it heads to the UN climate summit in Turkey. Danish lawmaker Per Clausen invited it and said anyone too thin-skinned to handle it has “no business on the world stage.” So far, Trump hasn’t said a word. The emperor has no clothes, and now a whole continent can see it.
And that’s the way it is, Today is Wednesday, October 7, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann
