Free the People | Week in Review

The good...

No Kings rallies urge voters to cast votes early [Link]

No Kings protest in Washington, D.C., October 17, 2026. Image by Donald C Peattie from Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

Last Saturday, millions of Americans took to the streets yet again to protest the Trump regime. But this time, the movement was about more than just showing dissatisfaction with the current regime: The organizers sought to get people to vote early in the midterms.

The 2026 midterm elections are officially scheduled for November 3, 2026, but 47 states and Washington, D.C., allow voters to vote early by mail or ballot box without requiring any justification. Some states also offer early in-person voting, but this varies by state and district, so please check your local county government's website for details about how and when you can vote.

With the push by the No Kings coalition to get people to vote early, states are seeing voter turnout soaring compared to previous midterm elections. Early voting in Kansas has doubled, and it's up 74% in Texas. Other states are seeing boosts in early voting as well compared with the last mid-term election in 2022.

The bad...

Trump adds insult to injury, literally, after last week's sabotage of Ukraine's war efforts [Link]

Image by General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

Last year, Donny 2-Dolls disgraced himself and the United States when his interview with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy turned into a verbal attack on the foreign leader by Trump and his lackeys. Last week, the United States throttled Ukraine's use of the StarShield satellite network, leaving Ukraine unable to defend themselves from Russian attacks. Trump has denied that he's made the call, but no one in his administration seems to agree on who should be blamed, which means that Trump is the one behind the action and they're all trying unsuccessfully to cover for him, but can't get their stories straight.

Since that betrayal last week, Trump has been publicly insulting President Zelenskyy, and is planning on a meeting with Russian President Putin and Chinese President Xi to discuss the fate of Ukraine without any representatives from Ukraine.

Trump has always been a supporter of Putin, and has long been suspected of being a Russian operative. But now Trump is moving beyond praise for the Russian dictator and directing U.S. policy to directly benefit Putin and the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian military. He's buying Russian oil, even though Russia uses money from its oil sales to directly fund the Ukraine war. It was just a few months ago that Congress passed a law to impose heavy sanctions on Russia—a bill the late Senator Lindsey Graham worked hard to promote that passed shortly after his death. Every action Trump takes supports Russian interests over the interests of the United States or Ukraine.

The ugly...

Trump regime painting false picture of election fraud (again) [Link]

Republicans try to scare citizens into believing voter fraud is widespread. Image by Azmi Talib from Pixabay.

Anticipating a stunning loss in the midterm elections this November, the Trump regime is in full panic mode, trying to control the narrative by painting a misleading picture of voter fraud. The aim is to cast doubt on the election results before the election takes place. Once the Republicans lose, they can say they lost because of election fraud, just like they did (unsuccessfully) in 2020.

The regime put on a show of arresting 28 people for suspected voter fraud. They brought news crews with them while they performed the arrests so they could make it look like there was some sort of widespread crime spree that they were bringing to a close. But the entire operation is a sham. It is being conducted just before the elections take place and the arrests are being broadcast, but the trials won't be. Several of those arrested are believed to be U.S. citizens, some were registered to vote unknowingly and never voted. Even if some of them did vote illegally, the tiny number of illegal votes is simply irrelevant to the election process.

The story that noncitizen voting in federal elections is happening on a large scale is simply untrue. The Trump regime is desperately trying to paint it as a significant problem so they can change the voting rules to disenfranchise as many voters as possible under the guise of election security. But even though they are desperate to find illegal voting, they've only brought charges against 231 people nationwide. With over 227 million registered voters, that represents a whopping 0.0001% of the voting population...far too low to make any meaningful difference to the outcome. If someone is guilty of voting illegally, they should be tried and, if found guilty, they should be punished appropriately. The current punishment is a fine or up to 1 year in federal prison and possible deportation. But the government shouldn't be lying to the people about the scope of the problem.