The incredible self-annihilating creationist argument » « Almost October!

Infinite Thread XXXXI

Behold, the Ugly Palace (il Palazzaccio, aka The Palace of Justice in Rome).

It’s nice to know we aren’t the only country that throws away money on hideous, grandiose buildings with terrible cost overruns and rumors of corruption. Of course, if it were built here, it would be excessively gilded, and would be a deathtrap.

Talk among yourselves about construction projects. Or whatever.

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  1. says

    Links back to the previous set of 500 comments on The Infinite Thread

    https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/09/29/infinite-thread-xxxxi/comment-page-2/#comment-2315521
    Trump said $4 billion in U.S. military aid to Israel would be cut off at the end of the year

    https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/09/29/infinite-thread-xxxxi/comment-page-2/#comment-2315519
    Russian glide bomb attack on Ukrainian school

    https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/09/29/infinite-thread-xxxxi/comment-page-2/#comment-2315510
    Court seems poised to side with Catholic preschools in religious discrimination dispute

  2. says

    New York Times:

    Google announced Tuesday that early next year it would turn off artificial intelligence tools in its popular software for K-12 students, unless school administrators explicitly choose to make such tools available. … But there is a catch: Schools that choose to restrict A.I. entirely will also lose access to Google search.

    Link

  3. says

    Notification from Steve Benen:

    MS NOW’s election night coverage begins at 6 p.m. ET, and we might very well see some notable results in that first hour.

  4. Ogvorbis says

    So, polls around here close at 8:00. Across the river, the voting at the Hoyt library in Kingston, PA has been extended until 9:00 because someone pulled the fire alarm. I hope they catch the asshole. Will it be a Rethuglican Trumpservative trying to derail urban voters?

  6. Tethys says

    Roy Cooper is projected to have won his senate race in NC. They haven’t elected a Democrat senator for 18 years.

    Congrats NC and Georgia! 2 Senate races down and polls just closed for the Central time zone, so we should get results in a few hours.

  7. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Lynna @496 in the previous 500:

    Reginald @495: So; they want that government money, in the form of vouchers, but don’t want to meet the rules required for them to qualify.

    Yes. And that seems to be standard operating procedure for religion-based private schools.

    Wikipedia – Paul Weyrich

    He co-founded The Heritage Foundation […] and coined the term “moral majority,” co-founding an organization of the same name in 1979
    […]
    In the early 1970s, Weyrich was first able to politically mobilize conservative Protestants after federal courts ruled segregation academies ineligible for tax exemption, and the Internal Revenue Service began revoking tax exemptions of these schools. Most of these private schools were church sponsored and had been founded to serve white students who abandoned public schools after they were integrated. At this time, conservative Protestants were not an organized voting bloc […] Weyrich sought to frame the IRS crackdown on segregation academics as an issue of government intrusion and attacks on religious freedom
    […]
    [In 1978] the IRS proposed a new rule that would have revoked the tax exemption of private schools based on their racial demographic composition relative to that of their respective communities. Weyrich later cited this as the beginnings of the religious right […] The unexpected success of predominantly Catholic anti-abortion activists in the 1978 midterms convinced Weyrich that opposition to abortion might work as a wedge issue to keep evangelicals politically mobilized. […] Prior to this time, the Catholic Church was the only Christian denomination that was staunchly anti-abortion, with many Protestant and evangelical denominations, including the Southern Baptist Convention, either supporting legalization of the procedure, or not taking a stance

  8. JM says

    @1 Lynna, OM: The bit about reducing military aid to Israel isn’t as big a deal as it sounds. There is a plan afoot to combine several parts of the US military and Israel’s.
    Responsible Statecraft: Congress quietly moves to integrate US and Israeli militaries

    Buried in the House’s version of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) released on Tuesday, is section 224, entitled “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative.” The provision would arguably do more to intertwine the U.S. military with the Israeli military than the more than $200 billion (inflation adjusted) in military assistance Israel has received from the U.S. since its founding in 1948.
    Section 224 lays the groundwork for bilateral research and development, co-production of weapons, joint ventures, licensing agreements, and seemingly every manner of U.S.-Israeli military-industrial complex cooperation.

  10. Reginald Selkirk says

    Juliana Stratton makes history with Black women in the Senate

    Democrat Juliana Stratton won election Tuesday to the U.S. Senate representing Illinois, defeating Republican Don Tracy.
    …
    Stratton’s election marks the first time in history three Black women will be in office at the same time in the U.S. Senate. She’ll join two other Black Democratic women — Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware and Sen. Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland, who were not up this election cycle…

    ‘I voted’ stickers left at memorials for Renee Good, Alex Pretti in Minneapolis

  11. StevoR says

    Phew! Looking good so far..

    Live results from Aussie ABC here :

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-11-04/us-midterm-election-results-2026/107235570

    Plus their live blog here :

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-11-04/us-midterm-elections-2026-live-updates/107335560

    As well as :

    Democrats have firmed up as narrow favourites to win control of both houses of the US Congress in today’s midterm elections, according to the US’s top political forecasters.

    The result would open new pathways for the party to frustrate US President Donald Trump’s agenda in his final two years in office.

    Voting is underway across the US, with polls finding many Americans intend to punish Mr Trump’s Republican Party over cost-of-living pressures, including higher fuel costs linked to the Iran war.

    “I think the results are going to be better than you think,” the president told national breakfast television show Fox and Friends in a phone interview shortly after polls opened.

    Many polls say otherwise, with predictions some states that have not elected Democratic senators for decades could flip.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-11-04/us-midterms-voting-underway-as-polls-bad-for-donald-trump/107339316

    Its looking very much that way at the moment and here’s hoping that blue Tsunami trend continues..

  12. Tethys says

    Talarico wins Texas senate seat!
    Annie Andrews beats Darline Graham in SC!
    Ha, how delightful that SC doesn’t want Lindsey’s sister as its Senator.

    Two more Democrat Senators. Woohoo!

  13. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    StevoR @468 in the previous 500.

    SasanianShah (Iranian historian):

    CNN: US military carried out limited strikes on Iran’s Qeshm Island […] characterizing the action as defensive […] to protect US assets

    US provoking a war by conducting “defensive” operations 5,800 miles from its closest border: Guam!

    This reminds me of a funny anecdote. During the Constitutional Revolution (CR) in Iran (1906-1911) there was a troublesome pro-CR Majlis MP (also a Mulla) called Modarress who was a bit of a pest. He used to give fiery speeches at the Parliament against the anti-CR faction, particularly the nobility at the court. One of his fav targets was Prince Farmanfarma (the patriarch of the eponymous family), who finally got fed up & passed a message to Modarress, saying “if you please, stop stepping on my tail (Persian equiv of “stepping on toes”), I would be most grateful!”

    Modarress answered: “well, your highness should consider declaring the length of your tail. Wherever I step, your noble tail seems to be there too!”

  15. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Al Jazeera – Arab parties back Eisenkot: What’s the latest in Israel’s coalition talks?

    The main Jewish opposition bloc, which includes four parties, fell short of the 61 seats needed to form a majority in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, but joining forces with the two main groups that represent Palestinian citizens of Israel could help avoid a political deadlock and another election.
    […]
    But taking support from the Arab parties—whether as part of the ruling coalition or as outside support—also poses a challenge for Eisenkot from the right, at a time when leaders and parties, including Netanyahu, have been openly deploying anti-Arab racism to woo Jewish voters.
    […]
    Netanyahu’s Likud won 53 seats in a Knesset of 120 seats […] The opposition bloc, led by former military chief Gadi Eisenkot of the Yashar party, won 48 seats—even further away from a majority.

    Meanwhile, the Arab-led Joint List and Ra’am won more seats than ever [19 total] […] Arabs make up a fifth of the population of Israel. […] Joint List and Ra’am said they’ll collaborate with the opposition bloc to push Netanyahu out but not necessarily […] joining an Eisenkot government […] That would allow Eisenkot to form a “minority government” with fewer than 61 seats.
    […]
    President Isaac Herzog will begin meeting with leaders of the 11 parties […] to know who they want as the next prime minister. […] He will then choose the candidate he thinks is most likely to form a coalition government. […] Eisenkot or Netanyahu will be given 28 days to form a coalition. If that fails, the negotiation period can be extended by 14 days, after which Herzog might ask another candidate to try again.

    Although chances are slim, […] Netanyahu could attempt to pull at least eight members of the opposition bloc. Already, Yashar claimed […] several of its members had gotten calls from Likud, which it said was in a state of “hysteria”.

    Ken Fairfax (Former US ambassador): “it appears that the cruel corruption of Bibi Netanyahu is at an end. […] Is Eisenkot perfect? No. Is he far, far better than Netanyahu? Yes. Yes. Yes.”

    Al Jazeera – Who Israel elects matters

    The government that might emerge from the opposition parties, while far from my ideal, […] would be unlikely to hesitate to halt and reverse the so-called judicial overhaul, which amounted to an assault on the separation of powers […] Another Netanyahu-Ben-Gvir government would risk leaving Israel a democracy in name only
    […]
    It is not unrealistic to assume that a new government might adopt an approach that relies less exclusively on military force in Lebanon and Syria and possibly in relation to Iran while remaining open to exploring diplomatic avenues. It would also be less likely to engage in the constant political theatre designed to appease a far-right, ultranationalist base—as the current government has done […] You might think that this is an exceptionally low benchmark. Indeed, Eisenkot himself opposes Palestinian statehood and favours continued Israeli security control over Palestinian territory
    […]
    At times like these, recognising that politics is the art of the possible and holding a new government accountable for the direction and pace of its promised changes, with a clear sense of urgency, could yield positive results.

  16. Tethys says

    Amy Acton wins Ohio governor, beating the excreable GOP token Vivek Ramaswamy.

    Democrats regain control of the House of Representatives, and on track to take the senate too. Mike Johnson is probably shitting bricks and looking to retain a really good personal lawyer.

  17. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    TheNewRepublic – Pete Hegseth makes over half the military want to quit early
     
    Rando 1: “I can’t believe firing all the generals, mandatory testosterone testing, and starting (and losing) a major land war in Asia made all the professionals want to quit. Sailors were jumping overboard due to poor conditions on an aircraft carrier, and Pete wants the Army to invest in dildozers and truck nutz.”

    Nicholas Slayton (Task&Purpose): “You forgot constant changes to [Physical Training] tests.”

    Rando 2: “I won’t believe them till they actually leave.”

  18. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Assigned Media:

    the Virginia initiative has been called. Voters have struck down a same-sex marriage ban, a vestige of the pre-Obergefell US. […] the wedge issue Republicans used to drive turnout among reactionaries and the religious right […]

    Greg Abbot and Ken Paxton—two of the most consistently anti-trans politicians in the US—are BOTH OUT in Texas. Talarico will represent Texas in the Senate, and the governor will be Gina Hinojosa. […]

    Evan Urquhart (AssignedMedia): Families of trans youth in Texas experiencing new hope. They’ve been demonized, hunted like criminals. Families who have been living in fear, with go bags and details plans for what happens next if mom and dad are arrested for affirming their kid.

    Missouri voters have defeated the abortion ban/constitutional trans youth care ban! While the abortion question was more central to most of the no on 3 campaign, and trans care remains banned in state law, this is a victory for […] canvassers who are working to establish a durable pro-trans majority in MO.

    NBC has called the Vermont initiative enshrining equal protection for a list of characteristics including gender identity as a yes. Trans people will be guaranteed equal protection under Vermont law!

    This is a huge win for trans rights at the ballot box in a blue state (and a bright light in the initiative races that otherwise, frankly, are not looking great).

    Nebraska Initiative Measure 442 has called as yes by the Associated Press. This makes it unconstitutional for trans girls to play sports with other girls, something that is already illegal under NE law.

  19. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Daniel Nichanian (BoltsMag):

    Georgia Democrats sweep statewide races.
    They win Senate. They win governor.
    They win secretary of state. They win attorney general.
    They win labor commissioner. They win school superintendent.
    They win the public service commission.

    They also win state House.
    All flips, except U.S. Senate race.
    It does not appear that they will flip the Georgia Senate. That they couldn’t make it despite the unbelievable night they had speaks to the extraordinary gerrymandering of the legislature.

  20. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee: “Democrats just BROKE the GOP’s supermajority in the Indiana House!”

    Stephen Wolf (The Downballot): Indiana Democrats can now block bills (at least temporarily) by denying Republicans the 2/3 majority needed for a quorum.

    Rando: “And there goes the ability to redistrict Indiana.”

    In 2026, seven out of the nine Republicans who voted against redistricting retired or lost renomination.

  22. birgerjohansson says

    Non-political stuff.
    I have noticed that in Japanese comedy, it is much ‘cringe’/ embarrassment jokes while in America (judging from Family Guy and South Park) it is a lot of gross-out comedy.
    Like the South American steaks [with American flags] that cause explosive diarrhea: They make people transform into diarrhea and then explode.

  23. birgerjohansson says

    Gross humor in South Park (the latest episode)

    -Since the suspicious steaks have American flags on them, people have to eat them despite seeing that “explosive diarrhea” has a new meaning.
    “South Park has BEEF with Performative Patriotism”
    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=JsdGDELF_U4
    .
    A sample of cringe humor from a parody of anime high-school romcoms.

    Ume is recommended for the student council by the lazy, chain smoking homeroom teacher. 
    Mirakomo is the small, accident-prone kid. Otori-Tan is the tech-savvy genius femboy, unfortunately he gets off on pranks. 
    The treasurer has a quite violent side (and has a dad that apparently makes dinner in only an apron).

    Every episode the tech kids zoom by with some new crazy gadget.
    The tea club complains about noise from the music club. A locked-room disaster, at 18 minutes in an ED with upcoming imagery. Planning the student council retreat  (spoiler: it will be a disaster).
    “Even The Student Council Has Its Holes”
    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=WslYgTIMVPs

  24. birgerjohansson says

    Pete Hegseth can be impeached.
    RFK Jr. can be impeached.
    Stephen Miller can be impeached.
    Markwayne Mullin can be impeached.
    (purrs like an evil cat, looking forward to finally nailing Jerry)

  26. johnson catman says

    re Reginald Selkirk@25: The Orange Turd is too stupid to realize that he WAS on the ballot, but is too narcissistic to take the blame for it.

  27. Reginald Selkirk says

    Early Results Suggest 473 Million Dollars’ Worth of Buyer’s Remorse for Elon Musk

    … And that makes it a good time to remember that Elon Musk paid an estimated $474 million for these results. He is the largest single donor in these midterms (whose activities are known to the public)…

    If Musk Were Mad About the Election, Would He Be Posting These Hilarious Jokes?

    … His pinned post at the time was a diatribe about what he thought would happen if the Democrats won (the end of Democracy), and his most recent political post was one from early on Election Day simply saying “Vote red today!” But for hours his silence was deafening.

    Then he posted some (I guess) jokes:

    Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now

    About a minute after that, he posted this:

    Guess my election-interfering space lasers didn’t work this time

    …

  28. Reginald Selkirk says

    Speaker Mike Johnson says GOP will keep working ‘to make America great again’

    “While the outcome of this midterm is not what we’d hoped and fought for, a new battle is just beginning,” the Republican speaker said overnight on social media.

    Johnson is expected to face a challenge from Republican rivals if he tries to stay on as GOP leader in the new Congress, which Democrats will control after the midterm rout. He did not immediately address his plans.

    He said, “come 2028, we WILL take back the House and we will finish the job.”

    Chortle. I plan to do a lot of chortling today.

  31. Reginald Selkirk says

    Jared Diamond: What if Darwin had died at birth?

    recently listened to Jared Diamond interviewed on an episode of The Michael Shermer Show: How Much Can One Person Change History? Diamond is probably best known for his book Guns, Germs, and Steel, which I had read when it came out. His newest book, published this fall, is Profits, Prophets, Coaches, and Kings: (When) Do Leaders Matter? The content of the book is well summarized in the Shermer Show and also reflected accurately in the titles. That said, when someone as bright as Diamond wonders about Darwin, I have to take notice, so I picked up the book and read it, followed by three reviews, in the Times, the Guardian, and the Globe and Mail. The Globe and Mail article was favorable, the Guardian article mixed, and the Times article properly critical but sometimes perhaps a bit catty.

    Before we get to Darwin, let us back up a little bit and discuss what Diamond calls the Hamlet test…

    Thus, Diamond asks, if you remove a person from history, would history be different?
    …
    That conclusion seems fairly weak. Without Darwin, we would not have been deprived of a theory of natural selection; Wallace would have provided it (if not Patrick Matthew, though that is a longshot). Would scientific progress in and public acceptance of evolution have slowed and by how much, if Darwin had died of smallpox at age 6? What would evolutionary biology be like today? What other scientists actually changed the history of science? …

  32. says

    DEMS FLIP CONTROL OF HOUSE AND SENATE

    A blue tsunami drowned the GOP Congress. Here’s what comes next.

    Related video hosted by Rachel Maddow is available at the link.

    […] Amid a surge in Hispanic, Black and young voter turnout, Democrats flipped the House and the Senate and won seats they haven’t won in decades. But whether the victory is short-lived or long-lasting depends on what comes next.

    From the beginning of this election cycle, history leaned toward Republicans losing their narrow House majority. But the size of the Democratic victory was far from preordained. “This is shaping up to be the biggest House popular vote victory for any party since 1974,” MS NOW contributor G. Elliott Morris wrote. MS NOW projects Democrats will have at least 245 House seats come January.

    The bigger question entering Tuesday was control of the Senate. After Trump’s inauguration, the Senate GOP’s campaign arm set a goal of 55 seats, and at that time, Democrats, who have 47 seats, likely would have been happy with merely adding one or two seats more. But as of early Wednesday morning, Senate Democrats had already won at least 54 seats, including Texas, Kansas and South Carolina.

    For the first time in either Trump presidency, then, Democrats hold both chambers of Congress. They have the power not only to pass laws but also to investigate and hold to account those inside and outside the White House who have aided and abetted the corruption of the past two years. […]

    First, though, Democrats must fight efforts to corrupt the results — efforts that are already underway. […]

    Once the new Congress is sworn in, voters will expect Democrats to address affordability: by reversing the tariffs and the cuts to SNAP and Medicaid, raising the minimum wage and restoring the Biden-era child tax credit. [I snipped more details related to health care.]

    […] These bills are unlikely to become law; Trump has already said he will “become Mr. Veto” should Democrats control the next Congress, and his inclination toward compromise, to the extent it ever existed, has declined precipitously since his first term. But simply passing these bills can help Democratic lawmakers establish trust with voters […]

    And the president’s foes are not without leverage, thanks to the “power of the purse.” The House’s power over spending means Democrats can demand a say in everything from ending the Iran war to halting Trump’s many vanity projects.

    “Because Trump is so lawless,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., told The New Republic’s Greg Sargent, “We have got to use the appropriations power as carefully as we can to prevent violations of people’s constitutional rights.” Democrats can use this power to limit the administration’s politically motivated prosecutions, levy new restrictions on Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other parts of Stephen Miller’s white nationalist project, and end the National Guard deployments to Washington, D.C.; Memphis; and elsewhere. [!]

    And with House and Senate majorities come new investigative and oversight powers. The White House will no doubt resist, but Democrats can investigate the Trump family’s business dealings, the administration’s stonewalling on the Epstein files, corporate corruption and profiteering, and the conduct of the Iran war. Congressional hearings could also buttress the case for impeachment, whether of the president or Cabinet members, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, though the odds of conviction and removal remain low, if not nil.

    The hearings can also rebut Trump’s attempts to shield his underlings and allies from accountability. The president has long warned of issuing pre-emptive pardons to members of his staff, before Democrats even launch any investigations. This week he suggested he would look at pardoning GOP megadonor Elon Musk as well — another likely target of Democratic probes.

    […]Establishing not only that criminal behavior took place but that pardons were issued to stop prosecutions will help Democrats make the case that these pardons should be treated as null and void.

    The last item is Senate-specific and simple: no more judges. Tuesday’s results do not change the fact that the judicial branch, led by the conservative Supreme Court, has enabled Trump, opened the floodgates for billionaire donors and gutted the Voting Rights Act. Whether the vacancies are on the Supreme Court or lower courts, Democrats must hold the line on these lifetime appointments (while demanding a new and binding ethics code for the Supreme Court).

    […] Above all, Democrats must remember. Remember who came out Tuesday, and who came out every day the last two years: to vote, to protest and to do the hard work of democracy. Remember the millions of everyday Americans who stood up and spoke out while the wealthy and powerful bowed and cowered. Remember Kilmar Abrego Garcia and Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero. Remember Renée Good and Alex Pretti.

    And then remember: The damage done by this president will not be undone overnight. How Democrats act will determine whether Tuesday was but a flicker of light, or the dawn of a new era.

  33. says

    From text quoted by Sky Captain @18:

    Greg Abbot and Ken Paxton—two of the most consistently anti-trans politicians in the US—are BOTH OUT in Texas. Talarico will represent Texas in the Senate, and the governor will be Gina Hinojosa.

    Talarico was outspent by Republicans two to one. Gina Hinojosa was outspent by Abbott’s campaign five to one. And that’s just the money spent on advertising that we can track. There’s probably more dark money we can’t track. Democrats won despite the inequality in funding. It is encouraging to see that.

  34. says

    After sweeping GOP defeats, what becomes of Trump’s transactional promises?

    “The president told the electorate he was prepared to deliver goodies if Americans voted the way he wanted them to. That didn’t turn out well.”

    […] Donald Trump headlined a campaign rally in Ohio and dangled an offer to the state’s voters: If Republican Sen. Jon Husted won, the president said, he would agree to put the U.S. Space Academy in the Buckeye State.

    Trump added, however, that if voters disappointed him, he would deliver the benefit to some other state.

    The president, in other words, envisioned a straightforward transaction: He was prepared to deliver a treat to Ohio, but it was conditioned on his satisfaction with a specific election that had nothing to do with the Space Force or its academy.

    Husted lost by roughly 5 points. I guess that means Ohio will go without.

    But the related list was much longer. Trump told a North Carolina audience he wouldn’t approve federal disaster relief funds for the state unless they elected former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley to the Senate. (Whatley lost by 20 points.) He later told a Kansas audience he was prepared to approve a yearlong waiver for selling fuel blended with 15% ethanol (the E15 policy), but if Kansans elected a Democratic senator, “I’m not doing it.” (The Rev. Adam Hamilton soon after became the first Democratic Senate candidate to win in Kansas since 1932.)

    In any normal American election, candidates tell voters about the priorities they’ll advance if elected. That’s not controversial in the slightest. What Trump said was qualitatively different — and vastly worse. The incumbent Republican president effectively told voters, in state after state, that he could deliver for them, but if he wasn’t satisfied with the election results, he simply wouldn’t bother.

    Will the president now betray these states for ignoring his wishes? Time will tell, but let’s also not overlook his vows to send $5,000 checks to every American adult — but only if the election results made him happy.

    As a practical matter, the campaign promise was foolish from the outset, and it probably won’t surprise anyone to learn that these payments were never actually going to materialize.

    […] If the White House was prepared to spend nearly $1.3 trillion on these $5,000 checks, can we initiate a new conversation about how best to spend those resources, now that the checks aren’t going to happen?

  35. says

    […] In the early evening, Trump published an item to his social media platform in which he accused Fox News of conducting “hit job” polls with “BULLS—!” responses. Soon after, Trump published a follow-up post, condemning Fox News for “spending too much time covering the Trump Deranged Dumocrats!”

    Shortly before midnight, Trump abandoned all subtlety, writing online that Fox News “bears responsibility for these losses by constantly and consistently putting on the Dumocrat opposition, and worse.”

    It’s not surprising that the president who never accepts responsibility for anything wants to pass the buck, but if he seriously expects anyone to blame the midterms on the cable news outlet aligned with Republican politics, he’s going to need a Plan B. [True]

    As the GOP’s blame game begins, Trump points the finger at … Fox News?

  36. says

    New York Times:

    Elon Musk has given more money during the midterm elections than any donor has ever spent in a single election cycle, apart from wealthy candidates who have funded their own runs for office.

    He has contributed a stunning amount: $474 million, or nearly half a billion dollars.

    Commentary:

    […] The world’s wealthiest person, however, wasn’t alone. Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein spent $150 million in support of Republicans this year; Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, the founders of the Silicon Valley firm Andreessen Horowitz, invested $116 million in support of Republicans; and Jeff Yass spent $110.4 million in support of Republicans and conservative causes.

    Some may very well argue that the midterms would have been even more catastrophic for Republicans were it not for the money that billionaire GOP megadonors threw at the elections. There’s probably some truth to that.

    But this doesn’t change the fact that these breathtakingly wealthy contributors were powerless to stop the Democratic tsunami, which has left Republican megadonors with little to show for their efforts except disappointment and regret.

    In the fight between voters and billionaires’ campaign contributions, voters won in a landslide.

    Link

  37. says

    Milestones:

    […] For the first time ever, at least 100 Democratic women are expected to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives simultaneously.

    […] Republican gains among Latino men were completely wiped out. At 58%, Latino men voted for Democrats by the largest margin since 2020.

    […] College educated voters across races also helped drive the blue wave, supporting Democrats at a rate not seen since 2018.

    […] Before Last Night, Only Three Black Governors Had Ever Been Elected…
    …now five will serve at the same time. That’s David Crowley in Wisconsin, Keisha Lance Bottoms in Georgia, Aaron Ford in Nevada, Wes Moore in Maryland and Byron Donalds in Florida (all Democrats but the last).

    […] Quinnie Pérez (Orange County Soil and Water Conservation District Seat 1) is the first openly transgender person elected to public office in Florida.

    Allison Montgomery (state House) is the first openly transgender person elected to public office in Alabama

    […] in 33 of the 34 measures fully in, voters chose to restrict data centers. We obviously saw this at the candidate level too, with Sherrod Brown hanging them around Jon Husted’s neck.

    […] Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, [pulled off] a win in the Michigan Senate race. […] He will be the first Muslim American elected to the upper chamber. Refreshing to hear him and the crowd embracing it so much as he gives his speech. The joy and excitement in the room is palpable. [video]

    Link

  38. says

    More historic firsts, and/or milestones:

    Chris Pappas won an open New Hampshire Senate seat, becoming the first out gay man elected to the upper chamber. […]

    Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan became the first Native American woman elected to the U.S. Senate after securing a Minnesota Senate seat. […]

    29-year-old democratic socialist Melat Kiros won the race to represent Colorado’s 1st Congressional District, becoming the first Gen Z woman to serve in Congress. […]

    Also noteworthy, Illinois will be the first state to be represented by two women of color in the upper chamber — Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and Sen-elect Juliane Stratton (D-IL) […]

    […] Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms defeated billionaire healthcare executive Rick Jackson (R) in Georgia, becoming the first Black female governor in U.S. history. The former mayor of Atlanta is also the first Democrat elected governor in the Peach State in more than 25 years.

    New Mexico’s Deb Haaland will be the first Native American woman governor. […]

    Democrat Xavier Becerra — a former Biden administration official — became California’s first elected Latino governor. He will succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom after defeating Republican Steve Hilton.

    Meanwhile Gina Hinojosa came out on top for the Texas governorship, becoming the first Latina governor of Texas. […] Hinojosa will be Texas’ first Democratic governor in more than 30 years.

    Democrat Amy Acton took down Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, securing herself the distinction of being Ohio’s first female governor and first Jewish governor. Acton will be the first Democrat to serve in the role in two decades.

    Similarly, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D- MN) will become the first woman to be governor of Minnesota […]

    Democrat Stacey Plaskett also became the first woman elected to be the governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands. Her historic win also makes her the first Black woman elected to be the governor of any U.S. territory.

    Democratic candidate David Crowley will be Wisconsin’s first Black governor. […]

    Democrat Aaron Ford will be Nevada’s first Black governor […]

    Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) defeated Democrat David Jolly to become the first Black governor of the Sunshine State.

    Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) became the first woman to win a gubernatorial race in Tennessee.

    Link

  39. Reginald Selkirk says

    Japanese Bank to Stop Allowing ATM Cards, PCs For Account Access

    Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group plans to launch Emut Bank in early 2027 as the first digital bank affiliated with a major Japanese financial institution to eliminate ATM cards, “instead having customers confirm identities using the bank’s smartphone app for additional security amid a rising tide of cyberattacks,” reports Nikkei Asia Review. The smartphone app will also be the only way to manage deposits, with no PC-based banking. From the report: …

  40. Reginald Selkirk says

    @28

    House Speaker Mike Johnson will not stay on as Republican leader after GOP losses

    A day after Democrats captured the House majority, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told his staff Wednesday morning he will not stay on as Republican leader in the new Congress, according to four sources on the phone call.

    His announcement follows massive losses for his party in House races Tuesday.

    Johnson’s departure will leave open the position of House minority leader. Republicans are scheduled to hold an internal election to select their candidate for the position Nov. 10.

    Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who is the No. 2 GOP leader, a close Johnson ally and a fellow Louisiana Republican, announced his bid for minority leader in a letter to GOP colleagues on Wednesday.
    …
    Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, a conservative leader in the House and staunch defender of President Donald Trump, is also running for GOP leader, he told colleagues in a letter Wednesday.
    …
    And in a surprise, Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas, the chairman of the Republican Study Committee, the largest caucus of conservatives on Capitol Hill, said he would challenge Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., for the GOP whip spot, the No. 2 leadership job in the minority.
    …

    The GOP leadership job will be much easier now that they are no longer in the majority and are not expected to actually accomplish anything.

  41. says

    There are now many responsible, decent people in a position to halt the murder and destruction. However, we need leadership that will work hard for the people and who aren’t owned by the fossil fuel and zionist billionaires. We spent a huge amount of our resources to help accomplish this a little.

    Everyone must realize, the work to improve things has not yet begun. And, there has been so much injury, murder and destruction it will take a very long time and sustained herculean effort to remediate most of it. While we must admit, some of the destruction cannot be undone.

    PZ has also written about this: https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/11/04/oh-yeah-alsoblue-wave/

  42. Reginald Selkirk says

    Is faith feminine? Why US churches have men in pulpits, women in pews

    Working as a Christian minister years ago, Landon Schnabel noticed a paradox common to many U.S. churches: Men filled leadership roles, implying that religion is masculine and patriarchal, but many more women participated in services, Bible study and other activities.

    Now an associate professor of sociology in the College of Arts and Sciences, Schnabel learned that researchers have long interpreted this disparity as evidence that women are inherently more religious than men, and have treated that idea as a universal fact.

    But not all religions demonstrate gender gaps in religiosity, Schnabel argues in a new book, “Is Faith Feminine? What Americans Really Think About Gender and Religion” (Oxford University Press 2026), and gender gaps are shaped by external forces rather than internal natures, he writes.

    Drawing upon gender theory, social psychology and new national surveys that oversample Jewish, Muslim and secular Americans, along with international data, Schnabel introduces a new theory that distinguishes between organized and individual faith and reveals differences across faith traditions. The analysis connects gendered religion to political polarization and the rise of individualized spirituality.

    “The same gendered forces that created the original ‘men in the pulpit, women in the pews’ paradox are, in the 2020s, driving a historic transformation,” Schnabel writes. “The paradox is resolving itself through a sorting that separates those who find meaning in managed religious environments from those who seek dynamic and expressive encounters with the sacred.”
    …
    Q: How did you determine that this assumption that women are universally more religious was flawed?

    A: By looking beyond Christianity. For decades, researchers called the gender gap in religion “universal,” but most of the research had studied Christians, and when exceptions turned up, some studies set them aside. One, in a footnote, dropped Turkey, Albania and Bulgaria as “deviant cases.”
    …
    A difference rooted in biology, such as the hormone explanation some scholars proposed without measuring hormones, should look much the same everywhere, and this one does not.
    …
    Q: Is America becoming more secular and less religious?

    A: Less attached to religious institutions, yes. In the General Social Survey, which has tracked Americans since 1972, the share with no religion has risen sharply, while weekly attendance and calling oneself “very religious” has fallen or held flat. But belief in an afterlife has held steady, and more Americans call themselves “very spiritual.” To me, that looks more like migration than just secularization, with faith moving out of institutions.
    …

  43. Reginald Selkirk says

    Most sources are stating that Democrats will have at least 54 Senate seats (51 needed for majority) and 239 House seats (218 for majority).
    link
    This is great, because it insulates against the likelihood of another Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema. You know that John Fetterman isn’t going to stand up for core Democratic ideas.

  44. Reginald Selkirk says

    Pennsylvania reports 6th measles-associated death amid outbreak: Health officials

    A sixth person in Pennsylvania has died of measles, state health officials said Wednesday.

    The person was unvaccinated and a resident of Jefferson County, according to the officials.

    This brings the nation’s total to seven measles-associated deaths this year, which includes six in Pennsylvania and one in New York.

    Pennsylvania has reported 1,467 cases so far this year, becoming the largest outbreak in U.S. recent memory…

  45. says

    The number of Democratic pastors on Capitol Hill is poised to grow (by a lot)

    “For now, Sen. Raphael Warnock is the only Democratic Christian pastor on Capitol Hill, but he’ll soon have quite a bit of company.”

    Related video is available at the link.

    Donald Trump has spent years attacking the Democratic Party’s religiosity, repeatedly insisting that the party’s officials and candidates “hate God,” “oppose God,” and deserve to be seen as “godless.” As recently as last year, the president, who has never demonstrated any real interest in matters of faith, went so far as to insist that Democrats were “evil” and members of “the party of Satan.”

    The rhetoric was ridiculous, but the president was hardly alone. Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, who was just elected governor, has repeatedly and publicly declared that the Democratic Party is “a Satanic cult,” adding, “There’s not one Democrat that can tell you they stand up for God.”

    This nonsense was likely news to Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia, who is an accomplished Christian pastor who “stands up for God” during his weekly sermons. But as the dust settles on the midterm elections, I’m struck by just how much company Warnock will soon have on Capitol Hill:

    Democratic Sen.-elect Adam Hamilton of Kansas, the first Democrat to win a U.S. Senate race in his home state since 1932, is the senior pastor of Kansas’ largest church.

    Democratic Sen.-elect James Talarico of Texas is a Presbyterian seminarian.

    Democratic Rep.-elect Sarah Trone Garriott of Iowa is a Lutheran minister.

    Democratic Rep.-elect Lindsay James of Iowa is a Presbyterian minister.

    Democratic Rep.-elect Frederick Haynes III of Texas is the senior pastor of a Baptist church in Dallas.

    Highlighting the pattern, a Vox analysis noted that these incoming lawmakers “belong to a rising tide in American politics: the emergence of a religious left that marries moderate or liberal strains of Christianity with Democratic policy and political priorities. Their wins are the first major victories of this movement in the 2026 cycle.”

    In all likelihood, Trump and other Republicans are likely to keep pretending that deeply religious voters must reject Democrats, and it’s likely to take time to change public perceptions.

    But there’s no denying the fact that Americans are electing Democratic pastors to Congress in ways without modern precedent.

    I tend to think that those ministers, pastors, etc. are more of a coincidence than a trend. As Adam Hamilton demonstrates in the video, those candidates focus more on affordability and related policies than they do on religion — at least that is true in their campaigns. Pete Hegseth, on the other hand is a prime example of bringing the worst of religion to public service.

    The media pundits (like those on Morning Joe), are more likely to try to get religious leaders to talk about God and religion.

  46. Reginald Selkirk says

    NASA space telescope plunges to Earth after two decades studying cosmic explosions

    One of NASA’s premier space telescopes plunged to Earth on Wednesday, ending its 22-year investigation of the universe’s biggest explosions.

    The Swift Observatory’s demise came less than three months after a long-shot rescue mission failed.

    The U.S. Space Force confirmed Swift’s reentry near Indonesia after tracking its sinking orbit, the result of intense solar activity the past few years…

  47. Reginald Selkirk says

    Missouri voters reject anti-abortion rights amendment, reaffirming ‘reproductive freedom’

    Voters in Missouri rejected an anti-abortion rights measure on the ballot that would have prohibited abortions, with some exceptions, and undone the “right to reproductive freedom” that voters had previously enshrined two years ago.

    The failed amendment, led by anti-abortion rights PAC Her Health and Her Future*, would have allowed state lawmakers to enact legislation to regulate abortions and access to care, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
    …

    * Fits the mold of ironic right wing nomenclature.

  48. JM says

    Times of Israel: Trump says he won’t fire Defense Secretary Hegseth following midterms blowout

    US President Donald Trump rules out firing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth despite Republicans suffering bruising midterm election losses that Trump has attributed to fallout from the war against Iran. US Vice President JD Vance has blamed the election result on the war.
    “No, I think he’s doing a very good job,” Trump says when asked if he is considering replacing Hegseth, a staunch proponent of military action against the Islamic Republic.

    Hegseth would be an obvious target right now and I still think there is a good chance it happens. Particularly if Trump decides to withdraw from fighting Iran without any real resolution and leave the problem for the next president. Hegseth then becomes an obvious target for blame. If he does want to do it he will have to move quickly. If he waits too long the replacement will have to get past a Democratic Senate, which will make the selection much harder for Trump.

  49. Reginald Selkirk says

    The Iron Age King Who Lured Rome Into Britain Was Actually a Woman, Archaeologists Say

    … Archaeologists at Bournemouth University in the UK have been studying the late Iron Age in Britain. In an article out today, research leader Miles Russell makes the case that a tribal ruler named “Verica,” who is typically described as male, was almost certainly a woman. The team’s work is the latest to indicate that British society in these times was largely governed by women leaders.

    “Verica was a major player in the story of how Britain became a Roman province and has been discussed in many books, papers and articles, but has always been misgendered,” Russell, the director of archaeological fieldwork at Bournemouth, told Gizmodo…

  51. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    TheNewRepublic – Democrats win enough seats nationwide to end Electoral College

    If passed by enough states, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact would effectively nullify the Electoral College […] 19 states have passed it, agreeing to assign their electoral votes to whichever candidate wins the national popular vote. That amounts to 222 of the 270 electoral votes that a candidate needs to win the presidential election.

    On Tuesday, Democrats took control of state legislatures and governorships in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Nevada, all states that haven’t agreed to the compact. If all five vote to join, then the total number of electoral votes apportioned based on the national popular vote jumps to 283.

    Depending on how the constitution is interpreted, the interstate compact might need congress’ approval, and Dems don’t currently have a filibuster-proof Senate majority.

  52. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Texas Democrat won Fort Worth House seat after dropping out

    A news release from Lomick’s campaign announcing the suspension of her campaign cited “questions” raised about her ability to serve […] in mid-September, a political action committee alleged that Lomick has a felony record. […] Lomick’s name still appeared on the ballot after she suspended her campaign. […] Ericka Lomick was convicted in 2011 of mortgage fraud, bank fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering as part of a plea deal. Court records show she was sentenced to 63 months in prison.

    According to the Texas Secretary of State’s Office, a person convicted of a felony is not eligible to run for state office after finishing a sentence. According to the Texas Election Code, if a candidate who is “deceased, withdrawn, or ineligible” wins a race, the resulting vacancy will be filled in the “regular manner.” […] the party has been in contact with Lomick’s campaign as well as lawyers to determine whether she is eligible to serve in the seat.

    Rando 1: “the President was allowed to serve”

    Iowa Republican gets walloped by Democrat who dropped out of race

    In early September, [Eric Armstrong] the former railroad executive announced that he was stepping back from the race, citing “personal health issues.” […] In a Wednesday morning phone interview, Armstrong [said] he planned to “do my best to represent” Iowa’s 20th district.

    Rando 2: “Mitch is dead and still a Senator.”

  53. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    TexasTribune – Attorney General-elect Nathan Johnson says he won’t sue out-of-state doctors who mail abortion pills to Texas

    [“]I’m not a legislator, and I can’t change abortion law […] What I can do is cease using Texas abortion laws as an instrument of persecution and intimidation, harassment and political showboating.[“]

    It is illegal for Texas doctors to mail abortion medication within the state and Paxton has sued doctors in other states who prescribe the medication […] Those lawsuits have run up against blue states’ so-called shield laws that protect physicians who send abortion medications. Johnson said he won’t be suing those out-of-state doctors anymore. “I will not pursue the judicially absurd position that Texas law has extra territorial effect.[“]

  55. Reginald Selkirk says

    Bluesky Gets a Midterms Bump, Ships Pronouns-in-Bios Feature

    … Last night, before the polls even closed, Bluesky posted that it was experiencing a massive increase in traffic. Bluesky was claiming “200% of our usual data traffic—and climbing!” And this would have been in anticipation of a political bloodbath, not after the bloodbath had commenced in earnest. “Thanks to all of you for making this a night to remember,” Bluesky’s post said.
    …
    On Wednesday, however a feature suddenly shipped directly to users that literally adds pronouns to bios. A user could, of course, already put their pronouns anywhere they wanted in the text of their bio, but there had never been a field specifically for inputting pronouns. The timing felt meaningful to users…

  56. Reginald Selkirk says

    Boffins use machine-learning tricks to create a starlight dimmer switch

    Scientists have developed a way to remove starlight from telescope images that improved sensitivity to faint exoplanets by up to 15 times in tests on James Webb Space Telescope data.

    A team led by Northwestern University’s Rodrigo Ferrer-Chavez combined a physics-based telescope model with optimization techniques used in machine learning to subtract unwanted starlight.

    Directly imaging exoplanets remains difficult because their host stars’ glare can overwhelm their faint light. Existing techniques subtract modeled or reference starlight, but tiny changes in telescope optics can leave residual glare that hides planets.

    The team’s Physics-based Learning for Imaging Planets (FLIP) framework models how light passes through the telescope, adjusts for optical imperfections, and simulates the glare to be subtracted.

    Applied to observations from Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), FLIP produced the first image of the known giant planet 51 Eridani b at an infrared wavelength of 4.3 micrometers, where conventional processing had failed. Tests showed sensitivity improvements of two to 15 times over conventional techniques, according to the Nature paper.
    …

  57. Reginald Selkirk says

    NASA Announces X-70 Experimental Aircraft to Advance Flight Research

    NASA has unveiled the X-70 Fractal, a new crewed experimental aircraft “designed to accelerate the development and testing of advanced aviation technologies.” From a press release:

    The crewed X-70 features advanced, rapidly reconfigurable flight-control technology that will allow NASA to explore aircraft maneuverability in ways never before demonstrated in crewed flight. The aircraft can also accommodate up to 2,000 pounds of experimental payloads in internal and external locations, enabling a wide range of research and flight-testing opportunities.

    The X-70 Fractal has a takeoff weight of 10,000 pounds and is designed to cruise at Mach .75, reach altitudes of up to 45,000 feet, and provide an operational range exceeding about 1,726 miles (1,500 nautical miles). These capabilities will enable NASA to conduct demanding flight research across a broad range of operating conditions…

    Seems a bit out of step with the times. An uncrewed craft would allow for testing of more varied flight research without putting pilot lives at risk.

  59. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Anna Bower (Lawfare): “Blue Georgia, blue Texas, blue South Carolina… WHAT???? KANSAS????”
    “At this point it feels like anything could happen. Like we could find out who is the administrator of DOGE.”

    NPR – Elon Musk will face scrutiny from Democrats after midterms
    Anna Bower: “#WITAOD??? [Jack Nicholson nodding grin]
    Okay but for real, I can’t believe I’ve been doing this bit for more than a year and somehow it’s still relevant. [laughing tears emoji]”

  60. Ogvorbis says

    Wife and I were discussing Trump’s odd tour of the future ballroom the day after an electoral drubbing. Wife suggested they just blow up a really bog inflatable bouncy castle, spray plaint it glittery gold, and tell him it is done.

  62. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    EmptyWheel – On Congress (Nov 5)

    In my opinion, Hakeem Jeffries—who I concede many of you likely hate as a person—has been maximally effective. In the last 20 months, House Dems were repeatedly unified on votes (especially funding and the war) which, in the past, some Democrats would have voted with Republicans. Dem unity made splits in the GOP caucus really disastrous for Mike Johnson, leading to real schisms in the GOP caucus. Mike Johnson’s fecklessness didn’t just happen; Dems did everything they could to force it to happen and maximize the impact.
    […]
    Jeffries was a key part of orchestrating the push to release the Epstein files. […] Jeffries and his leadership team effectively took away one of the biggest tools Trump has to sow authoritarianism, a House majority, for about 15 months. […] Republicans did nothing substantive after passing the Big Ugly Bill […]

    Jeffries had a key role in the response to GOP redistricting. He has, unsurprisingly for Nancy Pelosi’s protégé, been a fundraising powerhouse. And his team recruited people deep into the map, meaning when the blue wave came, there were competitive candidates there to ride the wave. […]

    Whatever else you think about the race for Speaker, you will not replace the man poised to become the first Black Speaker after he helped win seats in the Deep South in the year SCOTUS overturned voting rights. Nor should you want to. […] he looks pretty good at his job.
    […]
    Generally speaking, members of Congress self-sort onto the committees […] If they expect to face tough reelection chances, they’ll get put on committees where they’ll have something to show they have delivered for their constituents, especially the spending committees. But if they won’t face a tough reelect, they have the luxury of serving on an oversight committee, which service rarely results in tangible outcomes for their constituents but does result in heated confrontations that get lots of clicks on social media and may be the heart of the fight for democracy.

    Because of this dynamic and with some obvious exceptions, the people on oversight committees tend to attract people in gerrymandered districts. Safe seats, where defending democracy is enough to get reelected.
    […]
    Which is to say, the caucus is more conservative than many, probably most, of the people who read this site. It is also more conservative than Hakeem Jeffries. It just got more conservative. It includes a bunch of people who flipped Republican seats, some of them in very deep red districts.
    […]
    When Hakeem Jeffries speaks as Leader, he is not speaking as Hakeem Jeffries who represents Brooklyn. He is speaking as the guy who represents not only those progressives, but also the New Dems who just got elected in deep red districts. He is very cautious—this is what people hate about him!—not to say something that oversteps what his caucus, as a whole, can generally agree on. That’s how you keep a caucus unified. That, plus a shit-ton of fundraising.

    With all that in mind, I invite you to read two things: Jeffries’ bid for reelection and this AP story on Dems’ 100 day plan.
    […]
    There’s a great deal of division of labor. The people you want to pursue oversight, like Jamie Raskin? They’re already working on doing that. The people you want to lead a fight for M4A? AOC is already in place.
    […]
    You don’t really have to like what comes out of Jeffries’ mouth. You’re actually not the primary audience. The primary audience is Dem members of Congress. […] The idea is to talk about short term issues: ending the war, voting to restore Medicaid and ACA subsidies, while talking about how to move forward once the group comes together and develops consensus on everything else.

    Hakeem Jeffries is leading the Dem caucus, he’s not leading the resistance. There actually are great leaders of the resistance, who don’t have to keep 160 moderate Dems on the same page as the progressives you like far more.

    Rando 1: “He just told Haley [Stevens] he would welcome her back.”
    Rando 2: “Jeffries has to keep her onside for a couple of months and then never deal with her again.”

    Marcy Wheeler (EmptyWheel): “I think [who Jeffries gets money from], ESPECIALLY AIPAC, is a big issue. But I’d also like to see the amounts in context. The fact of the matter is, we would not have survived Musk’s onslaught w/o Jeffries and Schumer’s fundraising, but until we get $$ out of politics we need to keep raising $$.”

  63. says

    Blue wave sets up possible IMPEACHMENT of Trump’s attorney general, Todd Blanche

    Trump’s personal criminal defense attorney-turned-personal attorney general, Todd Blanche, has distinguished himself for his shameless abuse of office in service of Donald Trump’s personal vendettas and political agenda. Rep. Jamie Raskin, upcoming chair of the House Judiciary Committee talks with Rachel Maddow about the possibility that Congress will remove Blanche from office.

    Videois 7:56 minutes

  64. JM says

    Fox News: Harmeet Dhillon

    Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon is resigning as head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, telling Fox News Digital exclusively that she made the decision weeks before Republicans’ midterm losses and was asked by White House chief of staff Susie Wiles to delay her departure until after the election.

    She keeps her head down more then many other Trump administration figures but she has a terrible legacy. She has gutted the department and made a few Republican issues it’s primary focus. Her story about when and why she is resigning is too paper thin to take entirely seriously, she has good reason to get out before the Democrats can begin oversight.

  65. says

    Sky Captain @62, you quoted this text:

    [… Jeffries had a key role in the response to GOP redistricting. He has, unsurprisingly for Nancy Pelosi’s protégé, been a fundraising powerhouse. And his team recruited people deep into the map, meaning when the blue wave came, there were competitive candidates there to ride the wave […]

    I bolded the part that really stuck with me. Even in Idaho (Idaho!) Democrats gained six legislative seats. Idaho is still a red state, dominated by Republicans, but the fact that Democrats flipped some seats in the Idaho Legislature feels like a miracle.

    Also, Democrat Steve Berch held his seat, winning 58.3 percent of the vote. He beat his Republican challenger by 12,000 votes, which is a lot in Idaho.

    Here is another example, as reported by the Idaho State Journal:

    In a House race in Bannock County, incumbent Republican Rep. Dustin Manwaring lost his re-election bid to Democratic challenger Mary Shea. Shea led with nearly 56.4 percent of the vote, […] That’s based on results at 10:20 a.m. Wednesday with all 31 precincts fully reporting.

    Yes, Republicans still hold a supermajority in the state legislature, but Democrats succeeded in making unexpected gains, largely thanks to high-quality candidates and to a political climate that is improving even in the state of Idaho.

  67. says

    Pardons? Trump has proven that he lacks the judgement necessary to decide who should be pardoned by the President of the United States, and who should not.

    It’s been nearly 22 months since Donald Trump pardoned every convicted and accused Jan. 6 rioter. In that time, quite a few of those who received presidential clemency have run into fresh trouble with the law. In fact, Lawfare, a nonprofit publication covering the legal world, published a study over the summer that found at least 97 people charged with crimes in connection with the assault on the Capitol have since been accused of new crimes.

    Since that tally was released, the list has continued to grow. Take this week, for example. Politico reported:

    A North Carolina man was pardoned by President Donald Trump for threatening to “put a bullet” in then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s head after arriving in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, with a car full of guns and ammo.

    Now Cleveland Meredith is facing new federal charges for allegedly threatening to murder the federal judges who presided over his — and thousands of other — criminal cases stemming from the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

    According to prosecutors, Meredith published a series of menacing messages via social media, including a Facebook post in which he allegedly wrote that all federal judges who oversaw Jan. 6 cases “will be EXECUTED.” He was taken into custody earlier this week. […]

    The nature of the case is striking, but as Politico’s report noted, it’s also of interest that Meredith was charged by Trump’s Justice Department — the same DOJ led by Attorney General Todd Blanche, who oversaw a failed effort to create a $1.776 billion compensation fund, widely panned as a “slush fund,” for former Jan. 6 criminals.

    Even after Team Trump abandoned that initiative, Blanche told reporters that he and the president are still determined to reward those charged by the Biden-era Justice Department.

    As for the broader pattern, and the remarkable number of Jan. 6 rioters who have faced charges after receiving clemency from Trump, the editorial board of The New York Times published an opinion piece earlier this year that argued, “The American public deserves to understand the mayhem that the Jan. 6 pardons have unleashed.”

    Given the circumstances, that appeal was hardly unreasonable, and it’s likely to be taken seriously by the incoming Democratic majority in Congress.

    Link

  68. says

    Thursday’s Campaign Round-Up, 11.5.26: Democrats retake majority in Texas state House

    “Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.”

    Related video, hosted by Rachel Maddow, is available at the link.

    * After several years in which Democratic officials in Texas said the Lone Star State was poised to turn blue, there’s finally evidence to bolster their arguments: MS NOW confirmed Wednesday that Democrats have won an unexpected majority in Texas’ state House.

    This coincides with Texans also backing Democratic nominees in races for U.S. Senate, governor, lieutenant governor, state attorney general, agriculture commissioner and railroad commissioner.

    * Mississippi’s U.S. Senate race has not yet been called, but according to MS NOW’s latest reporting, Democratic nominee Scott Colom’s advantage over incumbent Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith grew to roughly 1,000 votes the day after Election Day. [!]

    It’s worth emphasizing, however, that Mississippi is the only state in the nation with no legal provision that allows for a recount in a statewide election, suggesting some court fights are possible.

    * As for the cycle’s other uncalled U.S. Senate race, it might be a while before we have a sense of the winner in Alaska. According to MS NOW’s latest reporting, with more than 70% of votes counted, former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola leads incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan by just 626 votes.

    * In one of the nation’s most closely watched U.S. House races, The Associated Press has called the contest in Montana’s 1st Congressional District: Democrat Sam Forstag, a labor union leader and Forest Service smokejumper, prevailed over Republican Aaron Flint, a conservative talk radio host. [Yay!]

    * On Capitol Hill, where House Speaker Mike Johnson is giving up his Republican leadership post, there’s already a brewing fight to succeed him and serve as House minority leader in the next Congress. Donald Trump said Wednesday that the White House will “stay out” of the intraparty dispute, though it’s unclear whether that’s by choice or the result of GOP lawmakers telling the president to steer clear.

    * In Pennsylvania, Rep. Brendan Boyle conceded this week that he had been eyeing a possible Democratic primary against Sen. John Fetterman, but Boyle has instead decided to focus his energies on serving as the incoming chair of the House Budget Committee.

    * Remember in March, when then-Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley of California tried to salvage his career by becoming an independent? It didn’t work. MS NOW has called his race, and based on the latest tallies — a little over 50% of the expected votes — Democrat Richard Pan, a physician and former state senator, leads Kiley by nearly 15 percentage points in a district reshaped by California’s redistricting, thus ending the congressman’s two terms in the House.

  69. says

    Has The Political Press Still Learned Nothing After a Decade of Trump?

    Call It What It Was

    It’s been a jangly 36 hours watching America rise up against a wannabe authoritarian while the political press resorts to the same old tired tropes as if it were hungry to go back to the pre-Trump days or pretend they never happened.

    The U.S. press does a fine job covering democratic uprisings in foreign countries, but struggles mightily to cover them here at home.

    While the midterm elections here fit neatly into a pattern of right-wing defeats in the past few weeks in Serbia and Brazil, the mainstream media here — even after a decade — is still grasping to employ suitable language for the current authoritarian moment in the United States.

    The failures of the post-election news coverage mostly revolve around the embrace of worn-out horse-race campaign coverage and quickie post-election analysis in which losers lose because they’re idiots, and winners win because they’re geniuses.

    The blue wave, we’re told, wasn’t a historic shrugging off of tyranny and a re-embrace of democratic values. It was the result of “Republican missteps,” “miscalculations,” “missteps,” “Republican missteps,” and “Trump’s miscalculations.” Embedded links to sources are available at the main link.]

    The inability to grapple open and honestly with the Christian nationalist neo-fascism of the Trump II presidency continues to bedevil domestic political coverage. In one of its post-election analyses, the NYT allowed that it was “a decisive rebuke to President Trump and his aggressive, often chaotic second-term agenda.”

    “Aggressive and often chaotic” are doing an awful lot of work there […]

    Contrast that with the NYT’s description of Viktor Orban’s election defeat in April, which it credited with “breaking the momentum of a global nationalist revival promoted by President Trump.” The Hungarian election, it reported, was a “showdown between friends and foes of liberal democracy.” [True]

    The coverage of an anodyne tweet by Vice President JD Vance yesterday captured the hunger of the political press to return to the coverage of old. Vance repeated what President Trump had already said — and what he would reaffirm after being asked about Vance’s tweet: that the Iran War cost them the election.

    Yet that somehow that become evidence of a dramatic break between Vance and Trump — even though Vance conceded little, took blame for nothing, and whitewashed the entire rest of the “aggressive, often chaotic second-term agenda,” to borrow a phrase. Perhaps the Vance team self-servingly nudged reporters toward that interpretation, as the publication of a “tick-tock” of the tweet by Politico might suggest.

    Blaming the Iran War is poised to become this cycle’s overly simplistic post-election narrative device. It offends almost no one, absolves the rest of the Trump II depredations, and misses its own anti-democratic origins.

    We’re at risk of having the blue wave chalked up merely to the pocketbook impacts of the Iran War and the Trump tariffs without connecting either of them to the underlying authoritarianism involved.

    The Iran War and the Trump tariffs, many of which (though not all) were struck down by the Supreme Court, were unilateral and illegal acts by the executive branch.

    Trump sidelined Congress in violation of the constitutional order. These weren’t merely bad or poorly executed policies. The founders knew from experience that this is the folly you get from giving too much power to one man.

    The notion that Republicans were victimized by Trump’s political “missteps” and “miscalculations” necessarily supposes that his rogue anti-democratic presidency is somehow disconnected from the horrible outcomes it produces. It also unwittingly implies that if the outcomes had been good, the means would have been fine. [Too true]

    It’s the Economy AND Corruption, Stupid [Social media post: National exit (sample: 79,668) — Importance of issues to your vote:

    GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION
    Crucial/Major – 90%
    Minor/No factor – 10%

    COST OF LIVING
    Crucial/Major – 89%
    Minor/No factor – 11%

    IRAN WAR
    Crucial/Major – 74%
    Minor/No factor – 26%

    IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT
    Crucial/Major – 73%
    Minor/No factor – 27%

    AI & DATA CENTERS
    Crucial/Major – 56%
    Minor/No factor – 44%

    Quote of the Day: Texas Edition

    “Calling it a dummymander is generous. This was more like moron-mandering. We went for five seats, won none, killed an incumbent, and handed Democrats a reason to turn out. […]?”

  70. says

    Talking Points Memo:

    Democrats swept every demographic and geographic subgroup, according to the Times Voter Trends, except these (with the margin for Republicans):

    White +4
    White non-college +19
    White Midwest +4
    White South +25
    White men +13
    White 45-64 +14
    White 65+ +9

    White people problem.

  71. johnson catman says

    re Lynna@70: I am a member of that last, most senior group, and I can guarantee you I am not part of the problem. I wouldn’t vote for a republican if they were the only one on the ballot. Not even for an imaginary $5000 payout. Fortunately, I live in an area that is pretty liberal. In some of the local races, there wasn’t even a republican running because they knew they had NO chance of winning.

  72. says

    Talking Points Memo:

    False Choice Alert

    This WaPo headline is a false dichotomy often used to manufacture storylines in political coverage: “Democrats face a choice on Trump come January: Confrontation or compromise.”

    Confrontation v. compromise is as flat, reductive, and imprecise as most of the dreary analysis of the moderate v. progressive fault line within the Democratic Party. There is understandable hunger for the prototypical Democratic officeholder to be more robust, combative, and decisive; but this kind of thin analysis sets up an easy gotcha for subsequent coverage that doesn’t reflect the strength of Democrats’ new majorities on the Hill.

    The reality is Democrats do not face a stark choice between confrontation and compromise. The can do both or either or neither. [!] They get to pick when and where to fight their battles. They get to decide which hills to die on. They are in the driver’s seat.

  73. says

    johnson catman @71, interesting. I live in an area where Democratic candidates used to be scarce because they thought they had no chance of winning. That is slowly changing. I used to withhold my vote in state of Idaho races where only a Republican candidate was available. That is no longer the case in most political contests.

    Raphael Warnock mentioned that the Democratic Party should pay more attention to southern states. Democrats are winning there now. Also, that is obviously true in Texas.

  74. says

    Another race to watch, as reported by Talking Points Memo:

    CO-04: Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert, 48%, is trailing Democrat Eileen Laubacher, 48.7%, with 93% of the votes counted. Boebert, first elected to Congress in 2020, has been the archetypical MAGA-era GOP House member: a transgressive, attention-seeking wild child with a messy personal life.

  75. says

    GOP fallout and Democrat celebrations continue

    Trump wants to declare Oval Office a “National Monument” so people don’t get rid of his garbage [video]

    More calls for blood from infighting GOP [Post from The Hill: “Caroline Sunshine, a former staffer to President Trump, on Wednesday called for White House chief of staff Susie Wiles to resign over the massive losses Republicans saw in the midterm elections. Sunshine told Fox News’s Jesse Watters on “Jesse Watters Primetime” that she was going to say “what a lot of people are saying privately.” “Susie Wiles needs to resign,” she told Watters, causing the host to raise his eyebrows. “She needs to offer her resignation to the president before he has to ask for it. Her campaign skills have not translated into governing. Susie was behind the historic win in 2024, and she deserved credit for it and got the top job for it.””

    White House tweets self-soothing reminder that GOP is still racist: “FYI: DEI is still dead.”

    AHAHAHAHAHAHA [social media post: “Here’s a fun one. Based on the count so far, Democratic candidates for Senate did nearly 5 points better (in margin) relative to 2024 in counties where Trump held a rally in Oct/Nov, compared to directly adjacent counties in the same state.”]

    Remarkable statistic: come January, 13 of the 15 most populous states in the country, where 66% of the country lives, will have Democratic governors. From my research, the last time either party enjoyed that level of dominance was the early *1960s*

    Democrats won Cheesecake Factory counties
    In the waning days of the midterms, Republicans were desperate for any news story to reverse the downward spiral the party was seeing in their own data. They settled on trying to turn a comment former President Barack Obama made about Trump’s White House renovations looking like “Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory” to spur right-wing outrage. Obama making fun of the Cheesecake Factory was an affront to everyday Americans who view the Cheesecake Factory as a fancy restaurant.

    Well, the data speaks for itself. Democrats won counties that have Cheesecake Factories within them by nearly 29 points.

    […] A Senate loss of 8 and a House loss of 35 or more on the same night has happened twice since the WWII, in 1946 and 1958.

    The president’s party has not been beaten like this in both chambers at once in 68 years. […]

  76. JM says

    Salon: Goodbye from Salon

    Today, after 31 years, we are saddened to announce that Salon is ceasing publication.

    They have always operated in a changing world, had trouble settling on a character and never found a good way to make enough money to finance themselves. I am surprised they lasted as long as they did.

    When Salon launched in November 1995, the web was a very different place. A small group of journalists set out to create something original: a publication with a strong voice, a curiosity about the world and a belief that the internet could bring journalism and readers together in new ways. They helped pioneer a form of journalism that would come to define an entirely new era of publishing.

    That inflates their importance but it is loosely true in that Salon tried to do a full spectrum of headline news, investigative journalism, opinion and other types of news content. Most online news focus on one type and try to maximize that.

  77. says

    […] New Los Angeles Mayor!

    It’s official! Nithya Raman is going to be the next mayor of Los Angeles!

    Raman, who came in to challenge beleaguered Los Angeles Mayor and onetime political ally Karen Bass from the left, is projected to win the race, making the Democratic Socialists very happy. They are already chattering like busy little bees about Raman’s Democratic Socialist priorities, which appear to be things like fixing streets, and reviving Hollywood and making LA more amenable to small businesses, and protecting people from the random street violence of ICE.

    LA Law Enforcement Melting Down!

    Well, Los Angeles cops just won’t have that!

    The LAPD’s union, the Los Angeles Police Protective League, is having a full-on shit-fit about Raman being mayor, just like they always do when they don’t get their way. This time around, they’re throwing around terms like “Armageddon,” which is exactly the sort of measured language I want from my peace officers, don’t you? […]

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/lapd-has-crybully-meltdown-over-nithya

  79. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/shtbird-losers-who-lost-lol

    Schadenfreude moments;

    […] Here’s a smattering of some of the more satisfying losses I’ve clocked so far, but I will definitely be updating this with the most satisfying meltdowns I come across over the next few days.

    Brandon Herrera (lost Texas 23rd Congressional; far right gun nut, hangs out with Kyle Rittenhouse, Mein Kampf fan who loves to make “ironic” Nazi jokes, loser.)

    Max Miller (lost Ohio 7th; former Trump adviser and current alleged domestic abuser who then went on the campaign trail to say his ex-wife “isn’t all there,” loser.)

    Scott DesJarlais (lost Tennessee CD 4; […] completely against abortions unless he’s pressuring his mistress to have one, racist Trump bootlicker, loser.)

    Andy Biggs (lost Arizona governorship; mean and racist and dumber than dogshit, has no business having any sort of power, loser.)

    Bree Moeggenberg (Michigan Board of Education; batshit insane far-right anti-trans freak who is obsessed with thinking about the genitals of little kids, Moms for Liberty shill, loser.)

    Kris Kobach (lost Kansas attorney generalship; a horrible person, piece of racist shit, the legal architect of so many miseries that have been inflicted on all of us but especially immigrants of color, because he’s the asshole behind all the “non-citizen voting” nonsense we have had to endure for years and years, a filthy Tanton network shill […])

    Runners-up: Election deniers, Libs of TikTok, Laura Loomer lol. […]

  80. Reginald Selkirk says

    WHO approves trials for two new Ebola vaccines

    The World Health Organization (WHO) has approved clinical trials for two new Ebola vaccines, as doctors fight to control the largest outbreak in the history of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

    On Monday, WHO expert groups recommended adding two vaccine trials designed to fight the Bundibugyo strain, which has killed more than 5,300 people, most in the DRC, since May.
    …
    WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said a trial that began last month used the Ervebo vaccine, which was approved for the Zaire strain of the Ebola virus but is not designed for Bundibugyo.

    Tedros said the new vaccines undergoing trials are designed specifically for the Bundibugyo virus. Results from the vaccine trial are expected in early 2027, the WHO reported.

    The DRC’s National Institute for Biomedical Research is leading the trial, backed by the WHO and other partners, said Tedros. The vaccine was developed by the University of Oxford with the Serum Institute of India and Moderna…

  82. Reginald Selkirk says

    Anthrax outbreak in Africa’s oldest national park kills dozens of hippos, officials say

    An anthrax outbreak in Africa’s oldest national park has killed dozens of hippopotamuses, officials told ABC News on Thursday.

    Since the outbreak was first identified in September, at least 30 hippos have died from anthrax at Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with laboratory analyses confirming the cause of deaths, according to Laura Parker, head of Virunga’s conservation programs.

    Parker said there have been no new cases identified in the past two weeks but that “the situation continues to be closely monitored.” …

  84. Reginald Selkirk says

    Origin of Stonehenge’s altar remains enigma as north-east Scotland theory ruled out

    Geologists say they are getting closer to solving mystery as tests suggest stone may have come from elsewhere in Scotland, northern England or even Ireland
    Steven Morris
    Thu 5 Nov 2026 09.26 EST

    They spent countless hours on weather-battered Scottish hills, a hardy band of geologists searching for the origin of one of Stonehenge’s most intriguing features.

    But the prehistoric monument tends to yield its secrets reluctantly, and a new scientific report reveals that the origin of Stonehenge’s altar stone remains elusive – and the wind-whipped geologists may very well have been looking in the wrong spot anyway.

    One described the altar stone’s beginnings as an “enigma”, another a geological detective story with no neat ending so far.

    It all felt different in 2024 when specialists from universities in London, Wales and Australia examined grains of sandstone from the altar and hypothesised it came from north-east Scotland, more than 400 miles from Stonehenge.

    A member of the team described the find as “jaw-dropping” and it led to speculation about how the six-tonne stone had been transported – by sledge or ship? – and about the long-distance relationships that neolithic people must have had.

    More experts were brought in, from Canada, Italy, Sweden and Scotland, and work was done on the precise composition of the slab, including non-invasive examinations of the stone in situ, and examinations of eight fragments held in museums.

    Armed with this profile, members of the team headed to north-east Scotland to try to make an exact match with outcrops there, thus pinpointing the altar stone’s origins.
    …
    The testing has suggested it is unlikely the altar stone came from north-east Scotland…

  85. johnson catman says

    re Lynna@79: But let us not forget that Tommy fucking Tuberville got elected governor in Alabama. One of the dumbest mother-fuckers in all of politics, and the citizens of Alabama chose him over, well it doesn’t matter who. They chose him. I am SO glad I don’t live in or have relatives in Alabama.

  86. Reginald Selkirk says

    FAA Plans to Retire Floppy Disks by 2028

    It’s hard to believe it’s almost 2027 and the FAA is still using floppy disks in its air traffic control operations. But it appears that’s finally about to change.

    The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced Thursday that it has begun phasing out floppy disks used in air traffic control operations.

    The agency is replacing four outdated systems dating back to the 1980s with what it’s calling the “Enterprise – Information Display System” (E-IDS). The new system is essentially a digital display board that puts important information about equipment issues, air traffic conditions, weather, and other advisories in one convenient place…

  87. Reginald Selkirk says

    Archaeologists Excavated a 2,800-Year-Old Siberian Burial Mound. It Was Packed With Cannabis

    It is perhaps the ultimate bong-rip question: Who was like the first human to ever smoke weed? “Despite great interest in ancient cannabis use,” according to archaeologists at Germany’s Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology and their colleagues, almost everything about the earliest psychoactive uses of this plant remains “poorly understood.”

    But some of the best and oldest evidence of ancient humans using cannabis for its mind-expanding properties is now emerging from an 8th-century BCE burial mound in Eastern Scythia, in what’s sometimes called “the Siberian Valley of the Kings.” Excavations of this 2,800-year-old burial mound, named Tunnug 1, have uncovered chemical traces in ancient human hair, as well as seeds, suggesting that cannabis was likely used in funerary rites among the region’s ancient equestrian nomads…

  88. Reginald Selkirk says

    Meet *sshole, the vulnerability that lets hackers SSH into Linux devices

    Devices running some configurations of Alpine Linux, and possibly other distributions, are affected by a decade-old vulnerability that allows attackers to log into devices with no password.

    The vulnerability exists in the interaction between OpenSSH, the code library implementing SSH connections, and musl, a lightweight alternative to the libc library that, unlike most other Linux distributions, is used in Alpine. Further, OpenSSH using musl (pronounced muscle) must not use PAM (pluggable authentication modules), a framework that handles user authentication and account-access checks. Alpine is a lightweight, widely used Linux distribution. Other platforms may be affected if they use the same configurations.

    There are two other conditions necessary for successful exploitation. First, a system must have at least one user account that’s accessible using a password that is hashed using the SHA256 or SHA512 functions. Second, the target system account must be configured to be passwordless, by way of specifying a “*” in the password field in /etc/shadow, the Linux file where password hashes are stored. Passwordless accounts are commonly used for accounts that use certificate-based authentication. This setting is common for certain types of accounts.

    When all the conditions are met, the consequences are high…

  89. JM says

    ABC News: LIV Golf confirms plan to end operations

    LIV Golf, which launched in 2022 as a buzzed-about rival to the PGA Tour, plans to end its operations, the league announced Thursday.

    “In light of the current circumstances, we believe shifting toward an orderly wind-down is the most responsible path forward for the League at this time,” LIV Golf board members Gene Davis and Jon Zinman said in a statement Thursday.

    Saudi Arabia pulled their money and LIV doesn’t have nearly enough other money. There is no word from Trump yet but even if he wanted he couldn’t afford the billions it would take to support LIV for any length of time. This is sure to annoy Trump as it will cost him money and reputation as the events on his courses stop. The PGA are a mean group and they won’t pick up any Trump courses any time soon. One of the reasons Trump got involved in LIV is that he didn’t have a good relation with the PGA to begin with.

  90. JM says

    DOW is back down to 51,523.06, for a total change of -860.84 past 5 days. There was a sharp spike up when it became clear the Democrats would get a big wave. It didn’t last because the AI companies are dropping and it’s dragging all software and hardware companies down with them.

  91. JM says

    Huffpost via Yahoo: Jamie Raskin: Subpoenas Coming For Law Firms Who Capitulated To Trump

    Law firms that struck deals with President Donald Trump in early 2025 can expect to be subpoenaed by the House Judiciary Committee next year, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said on MSNOW on Wednesday night.

    In the early days of Trump’s second term, he issued executive orders punishing law firms that he deemed opponents. The president also pressured them and other firms to agree to deals that gutted their pro bono work supporting immigrants, ended all company DEI programs and required them to provide free legal work for his administration.

    Good early target. Not a huge issue compared to some things Trump did but obviously bad, not as complicated as some of his schemes to untangle. The details of the deals are not public and could easily push into the illegal.

  92. Reginald Selkirk says

    Election Day was extra credit: Talarico’s early votes alone topped Paxton’s entire haul

    If James Talarico had not received a single vote on Election Day, he still would have defeated Ken Paxton.

    Talarico, an Austin state representative, received nearly 4.4 million votes during early voting and another million on Election Day, powering his victory in the Senate race.

    Paxton, his Republican opponent and attorney general, finished with about 4.2 million votes overall…

  93. Ogvorbis says

    Lynn @75: regarding Trump wanting the oval office to be a national monument so no one can throw away his garbage. Wife’s response, “How many BigMac wrappers can you archive?”

  94. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Reginald Selkirk @83: If Rubio leaves, half the government will disappear. His replacements will have big shoes to fill.

  95. Pierce R. Butler says

    Accidentally x-posted at “Blue Wave” comments:

    Hail and farewell: Salon is shutting down (due to $ problems) after 31 years.

  96. JM says

    Forbes: Musk Says Tesla Will Wind Down Cybertruck Production Next Year

    Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced the electric car maker will wind down production of the Cybertruck at its Texas Gigafactory next year to allow for expanded production of the Cybercab robotaxi, signaling a major shift after the company’s electric pickup struggled with poor sales and quality issues.

    If sales were good they would find a way to keep at least some production. The Cybertruck has been a big failure, interesting only to talk about how bad it is.

  99. birgerjohansson says

    A general question; A few years ago, someone illegally had immigrants flown away(I think it was De Sanris), I don’t recall the details but there was a Texas connection.
    It would be nice if the Dems in Texas start digging and find more proof of illegal stuff. Especially as Marco Rubio is rumoured to be quitting, and De Santis may be his replacement.

  100. Reginald Selkirk says

    Kenyan cult leader sentenced to 200 years in prison for mass starvation murders of children

    A ​Kenyan court sentenced cult leader Paul Mackenzie on Friday to 200 years in prison for the murders of 190 children starved to death on his orders and buried ‌in a forest, among 500 suspected victims of one of the deadliest cult-related mass killings of modern times.
    The sentence comprised 100 years for murder by starvation and 100 years for direct homicide, Justice Diana Kavedza said, reading out the judgement…

  101. says

    ‘Be bold’: Bernie Sanders calls for Democrats to pass Medicare for All

    Bernie Sanders joins Chris Hayes to discuss the historic Democratic wins across the nation—and what Democrats will do with their new power.

    Chris Hayes also discusses Sam Forstag, a 32-year-old former smokejumper (firefighter and union leader) who won in a house seat in Montana … and Hayes discusses other Democratic Party candidates.
    Video is 7:54 minutes

    ‘We’ve got a mandate’: Hinojosa on historic Texas win, ending 32 years of GOP rule

    “People showed up in historic numbers and voted for change, and so we’ve got a mandate to deliver change. And that’s what this is about,” says Texas Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa.

    Video is 8:53 minutes

  102. says

    johnson catman @85, “But let us not forget that Tommy fucking Tuberville got elected governor in Alabama.”

    All too true. Astoundingly bad.

    Also mind-bogglingly bad: those 4 million votes for Abbott in the governor’s race in Texas. Yes, he lost thank goodness, but 4 million votes is still a lot.

    In good news, the blue tsunami was so big that even the NRCC chair lost. Link

    * The National Republican Congressional Committee exists to help elect as many House GOP candidates as possible, and leading the NRCC is not an easy task. Not only does the chair have to oversee recruiting and training, but he or she also has to direct resources and monitor polling, all while doing the job of a full-time member of Congress.

    In this year’s midterm elections, it was Republican Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina who took on the challenge, knowing that previous NRCC chairs who did well used the gig as a springboard to bigger and better things.

    The trouble is, Hudson, while focusing on several dozen key races nationwide, ended up facing a tougher-than-expected challenge in his own conservative district.

    On Thursday, The Associated Press called the race: In an outcome that proved surprisingly emblematic of the entire election cycle, the sitting chair of the NRCC narrowly lost his own re-election bid in a district that Donald Trump won by 16 points in 2024.

  103. says

    After politicizing disaster aid, Team Trump starts keeping relevant data under wraps

    When it comes to federal disaster aid requests, Donald Trump has politicized the process in genuinely scandalous ways, abandoning all subtlety in explicitly connecting relief funds to campaign endorsements. In fact, in the run-up to the midterm elections, the president was surprisingly candid about his abuses.

    With less than a week remaining before Election Day, after approving aid in ways that appeared designed to help struggling Republican officials, Trump headlined a rally in Florida in which he boasted about approving relief funds he considered unnecessary — because he liked the conservative part of the state that made the request.

    But to fully appreciate the scope of the underlying controversy, it’s also important to consider the data. The Associated Press reported in July, for example, on a data analysis that showed the White House consistently denied aid to Democratic-led states in disproportionate ways, which dovetailed with a Politico report from March that pointed to the administration’s own statistics and concluded that Trump had “rejected disaster aid for Democratic-run states at the highest rate in the 47-year history of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.”

    This week, in the aftermath of the midterms, Team Trump announced that it’s time for a change. Will the administration finally start handling federal disaster aid in an apolitical way? No, but it will instead address the problem by obscuring some of the data that made the president look bad in the first place. Politico reported:

    The Trump administration has stopped disclosing natural disaster data that has shown President Donald Trump favoring Republican states in awarding federal aid.

    The Federal Emergency Management Agency last week removed from its daily operations briefing an official list of pending disaster requests that it has published since at least 2012.

    The change happened one day after Politico published a related report on Trump fast-tracking aid to Florida just ahead of the midterms, while ignoring related requests from other states that had been pending longer. (Remember, the president himself publicly said last week that he didn’t think the money for Florida were necessary, though he approved it anyway and rushed it to the Sunshine State.)

    Kenny Stancil, deputy research director at the Revolving Door Project, which monitors Trump’s handling of disaster aid, told Politico, “This is a very troubling development that’s consistent with the Trump Administration’s broader war on data.” Stancil added that concealing disaster requests “could make it easier for the Trump Administration to get away with unequal treatment of disaster victims based on the state they live in.”

    By all appearances, that is almost certainly the point.

  104. says

    The New York Times reported:

    [Democratic Rep.-elect Daniel Biss of Illinois] is one of several scientists and physicians who was elected to Congress on Tuesday. Like him, most are Democrats and most were elected to the House. They plan, they say, to use their knowledge to combat what they see as the anti-science policies promoted by the Trump administration.

    The incoming scientists represent “a real repudiation of what has been two terrible years for science and public health,” said Shaughnessy Naughton, president of 314 Action, a group that recruits Democratic doctors and scientists to run for office.

    Commentary:

    […] Along with Biss, a mathematician at the University of Chicago, the incoming contingent includes Democratic Rep.-elect Jasmine Clark of Georgia, who will soon become Congress’ only microbiologist.

    What’s more, the number of Democrats with medical training who won key contests in the midterms is also striking, and the list includes Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed of Michigan (a former public health director), Sen.-elect Annie Andrews of South Carolina (a pediatrician) and Gov.-elect Amy Acton of Ohio (a doctor who served as the director of the state department of health).

    In Arizona, Democratic Rep.-elect Amish Shah, another medical doctor, successfully flipped the state’s 1st District, while in Wisconsin, Democratic Rep.-elect Mitchell Berman, an emergency room nurse, flipped his state’s own 1st District.

    The Washington Post labeled it a “STEM wave,” adding that “a record number of Democratic doctors, nurses, scientists and engineers” were elected this year, and when they arrive on Capitol Hill, they’re “expected to help shape a new health care agenda for the party and scrutinize Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s tenure.”

    Undoing the staggering damage done over the past two years won’t be easy, but having these scientific and medical professionals in policymaking positions will likely serve as a big step in the right direction.

    Link

  105. Reginald Selkirk says

    Top DOJ official resigns amid questions surrounding “grand conspiracy” probe

    The top federal prosecutor in South Florida who was overseeing the so-called “grand conspiracy” investigation into Obama- and Biden-era intelligence officials abruptly resigned on Friday, marking another high-profile departure from a Justice Department inquiry plagued by internal disputes and doubts about its viability.

    Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the resignation of Jason Reding Quiñones, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and praised him for his work tackling violent crime, trafficking and transnational criminal organizations.

    The statement offered no explanation for his departure…

  106. Reginald Selkirk says

    Schumer vows Senate Democrats would block any ‘right-winger’ Trump Supreme Court nominee

    Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) says Democrats would block any “right-winger” President Trump attempts to appoint to the Supreme Court after they take control of the Senate, which could ramp up pressure on conservative Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas to retire this year.

    “The bottom line is we’re not going to allow a right-winger on the court,” Schumer told The Associated Press in an interview.

    Schumer’s vow to oppose any Trump nominee to the Supreme Court in the mold of Alito, Thomas or the late Justice Antonin Scalia raises the prospect that there could be a vacancy on the court for many months if a justice retires or dies before Trump leaves office in January of 2029…

  107. says

    The Remaining Senate Races Edge Blue

    Mississippi: Scott Colom (D) has widened his lead over Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R). The latest AP tally has him up by 1,936 votes, as the legal fight over the super-close election begins to take shape.

    Alaska: The NYT projects that former Rep. Mary Peltola (D) is likely to sustain her narrow lead over Sen. Dan Sullivan (R) even if she falls short of an outright majority and the election is decided on ranked choice. Meanwhile, President Trump wildly claimed that Sullivan should declare the winner.

    Sher-ROD! I Will Never Unhear This …
    Video at the link.

  108. Reginald Selkirk says

    Montana votes to ban corporate political money. Next stop? Probably the Supreme Court

    Imagine a corporation wants to spend $10 million to defeat a political candidate. Under the Supreme Court’s landmark 2010 Citizens United ruling, it can spend as much as it wants provided it doesn’t coordinate with the candidate’s campaign.

    On Tuesday, Montana voted to change that.

    In a state President Donald Trump won by nearly 20 points in 2024, roughly 65% of Montanans voted to approve Initiative 194 — the “Montana Plan” — embracing a novel legal strategy to curb corporate political spending. If states cannot restrict political speech under Citizens United, can they instead strip corporations of the power to spend money on elections?
    …

  109. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    birgerjohansson @99: Good memory. I think that’s still in the courts. But they couldn’t tie it to DeSantis.

    Wikipedia – Martha’s Vineyard migrant airlift

    On September 14, 2022, Florida governor Ron DeSantis sent some 50 primarily Venezuelan asylum seekers by air from San Antonio, Texas, to the island of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts […] [Texas] Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar, a Democrat, launched an investigation […] On October 13, 2022 Salazar signed certifications that the immigrants were victims of a crime, which qualified them for U visas.

    On September 20, 2022, the 50 migrants filed a class action lawsuit against DeSantis and Florida’s secretary of transportation in a Massachusetts federal trial court […] The allegations were initially dismissed in April 2024 on the ground that only the company for the airlift was liable. The lawsuit against Florida was revamped in July 2024.

     
    Aside from a paywalled Bloomberg article about the fate of the revamped lawsuit, the story hasn’t been picked up again by the media. Here’s what the judge said.

    Massachusetts District Court – Alianza Americas v. DeSantis, Ruling (pdf, 2025-03-31)

    Under Massachusetts law, “agency ‘results from the manifestation of consent by one person to another that the other shall act on his behalf and subject to his control.'” […] Plaintiffs contend that Vertol’s contacts with Massachusetts are attributable to DeSantis […] Plaintiffs’ argument is ultimately not borne out by the allegations in their Second Amended Complaint. Other than a series of largely conclusory “agency allegations” that purport to establish that all defendants were principals, agents, or sub-agents of one another, ], the Second Amended Complaint is sparse on facts linking the Individual State Defendants to Vertol.
    […]
    These allegations certainly establish that [FL Public Safety Czar Larry Keefe] and [FL AG James Uthmeier] were involved in the plan to transport migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, providing advice throughout the contact negotiations and assisting with logistics and recruitment efforts on the ground. They fall short, however, of establishing that either Keefe or Uthmeier exercised sufficient control over Vertol such that an agency relationship was formed. […] If anything, the Second Amended Complaint pleads that [Florida Dept of Transportation], not Keefe or Uthmeier, exercised ultimate control over Vertol.
    […]
    Although a close call given the Individual State Defendants’ collective victory lap in the wake of the Flights, the Second Amended Complaint is ultimately devoid of any allegation that Vertol, the key defendant for imputation purposes, flew migrants to Massachusetts on behalf of any Individual State Defendant. Rather, the allegations establish that Vertol’s relationship with the enterprise was, in essence, a business transaction with FDOT—Vertol submitted a bid to the agency, drafted proposals, was awarded the contract, performed under the contract, and was paid. While distasteful, in this case, the fact that a handful of individual political figures used an FDOT-managed program to elevate DeSantis’s status does not transform their relationship with the underlying FDOT contractor into one of agency, particularly where “critical elements of the agency relationship, such as control, were missing.”
    […]
    While the Court understands that Plaintiffs are pleading the existence of complex sub-agency relationships, as a practical matter, in the absence of a colorable claim as to the two defendants with Massachusetts-based contacts, the Court declines to endorse a fishing expedition up the chain, particularly where Plaintiffs have “given no clear indication of what [they] expect[…], or even hope[…], to uncover through this process that would shed further light” on this theory. […] Plaintiffs provide the Court with no information regarding what type of discovery they seek or from whom they seek it.

    The company lawsuit is ongoing.

    Massachusetts District Court – Alianza Americas v. Vertol Systems Company, Inc., Docket
    Paywalled filings have continued through October 2026.

  110. says

    Stephen Miller, Trump’s top bigot, gets a big promotion

    In a sign that he learned absolutely nothing from the GOP’s midterms drubbing, President Donald Trump announced Friday that he’s elevating racist ghoul Stephen Miller to be his new chief of staff.

    “I am pleased to announce that Mr. Stephen Miller, the current Deputy Chief of Staff of the Trump Administration, and one of my most trusted advisors, will become the Chief of Staff starting Monday, November 9, 2026. Susie Wiles, who has done an outstanding job, will be moving over to the Trump Political Operation. I want to thank her for her service as Chief of Staff — She has done a great job!” he wrote on Truth Social.

    Miller is the architect behind Trump’s cruel, violent, deadly, and unpopular immigration enforcement agenda, which includes hiring a bunch of unqualified maniacs as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and sending them out to round up anyone who looks Hispanic.

    The strategy led to massive blowback in the midterms, with Hispanic voters who had supported Trump and the GOP in 2024 swinging back hard to Democrats.

    The realignment caused Republicans to lose multiple House seats in the southwest, as well as a Senate seat in Texas.
    In fact, ICE was so racist and violent that it turned immigration from an issue that benefitted Republicans electorally to one that is now a liability for the party.

    For that reason alone, it’s shocking that Trump would elevate Miller after the election, rather than rid him from the administration to help the GOP curry goodwill with Hispanic voters in the hope of winning them back in 2028.

    Indeed, having Miller in the most powerful advisory role will likely reignite the horrific scenes we saw in Minnesota, Maine, and California, among others, where ICE agents terrorized communities and killed innocent people—including U.S. citizens—who dared to fight back against their cruelty.

    Meanwhile, putting soon-to-be-former chief of staff Susie Wiles at the head of Trump’s political operation is also a head-scratching move.

    According to a report from the Daily Mail, Wiles had been assuring Trump that the midterms would turn out fine for the GOP:

    As recently as September, the source said, Wiles was telling people directly that Republicans were going to take the midterms.

    The source also described weekly Thursday briefings at which veteran GOP political consultant Chris LaCivita, a key Wiles ally, would promise the President that the win was his.

    On Tuesday morning, staffers in the West Wing were still talking about picking up seats in both chambers.

    “Delusional,” the source said. “They were delusional right until the very end.”

    Ultimately, if this is Trump’s attempt at a reset after the GOP’s midterms bloodbath, then 2028 is almost guaranteed to be another blue tsunami.

  111. says

    Followup to comment 110.

    Stephen Miller commented:

    “I think the most important point is that this administration, on the asylum point, has implemented international agreements all over the world to take in our asylum seekers. So America’s doors are closed fully to asylum seekers. We’ve set up agreements where, if you want asylum, we will find a country elsewhere in the world to take you. It’s a very simple, very elegant, very complete solution.”

  112. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/this-election-was-also-mostly-a-victory

    Election Was Also (Mostly) A Victory For Abortion Rights!

    [I snipped details related to Texas, Missouri, Nevada and Virginia.]

    […] Texas’s newly minted Democratic Attorney General Nathan Johnson [announced that he will not]f spend his time and effort trying to sue doctors in other states that prescribed abortion pills for Texans —

    […] In Missouri, voters dashed the dreams of the anti-choice weirdos who had spent the last two years dreaming of upending voters’ previous decision to approve an amendment to the state constitution protecting the right to an abortion. […] in 2024, voters overwhelmingly approved the initiative to legalize abortion again. Rather than try to convince them to change their minds, Republican lawmakers insisted that they were all very stupid people who didn’t even know what they were voting for!

    […] This year, the anti-choicers in the Lege got their own referendum on the ballot, assuming that their very stupid voters would just vote “yes” on anything put in front of them … but it did not work out that way. […]

    Missourians voted the initiative down 55 to 44, which was an even larger percentage than voted in favor of the one that established the right to abortion in the first place […] Oh! And not only did they vote to keep abortion legal, they also voted to make it more difficult for lawmakers to overturn citizen-led initiatives.

    […] In both Nevada and Virginia, where abortion was already legal, voters chose to enshrine the right in their constitutions

    […] The one big dark spot is Idaho, which despite the many, many issues caused by it, decided to continue its draconian complete and total ban on abortion.

    It’s really a very fucked situation there. They’re down to about 170 ob-gyns for the whole state, people are relying on family doctors and midwives to deliver babies, they’re sending pregnant women facing severe emergencies to nearby states to have procedures that are illegal to perform in Idaho (which will probably bankrupt them for life, as insurance covers that only in extremely rare situations), it’s impossible to get an emergency hysterectomy, and everyone involved is getting burnt the fuck out.

    Truly, it is a horrible and cruel situation and one wonders how many doctors they’re going to have to lose before they give this shit up.

    See also the New York Times report: When Idaho Banned Abortion, OB-GYNs Fled. The Doctors Who Stayed Are Cracking.

    Dr. Robin Sautter raced the eight minutes down the quiet streets of Moscow, Idaho, to the small brick hospital. Inside, in one of the postpartum recovery rooms, a new mother was bleeding out.

    Postpartum hemorrhaging, Sautter knew, is one of the most common causes of severe complications after childbirth. In the most serious cases, a patient can bleed to death in under 10 minutes. Sautter’s colleague, Dr. Emily Barnes, had swept the uterus for blood clots and remaining pieces of placenta with her hand, a first effort to stop the heavy bleeding. She had also initiated the hospital protocol for a major blood transfusion. Both doctors understood that the key to avoiding a catastrophic outcome was to move quickly through a gantlet of medications and escalating clinical interventions.

    Barnes had called in Sautter, just an hour back from vacation, for backup. There was no one else to call. Two other partners in their small family-medicine practice were occupied with a difficult [birth].

    Sautter ran into the hospital room, feeling the familiar surge of adrenaline that sharpened her focus when she faced emergencies. If their efforts failed to stanch the bleeding, Sautter knew, the patient would need a surgical procedure to remove her uterus — a hysterectomy. That operation is the second most common surgery for women in the United States, with hundreds of thousands performed each year.

    Sautter, a 36-year-old family-medicine doctor with a specialty in high-risk obstetrics, could deliver babies, including by cesarean section; implant IUDs; conduct gynecological examinations; and perform minor operations, including dilation and curettage to remove remaining fetal tissue after a miscarriage to avoid dangerous infection. But she did not have the specialized training required for hysterectomies. Neither did Barnes nor the two partners in the other room. If their patient needed a hysterectomy, the operation would require an obstetrician-gynecologist. And in Idaho, as Sautter and her colleagues were acutely aware, that had become a serious problem.

    In the four years since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, triggering a near-total ban on abortion in Idaho, with the potential for criminal prosecution of any doctor who performed the procedure, OB-GYNs have been fleeing the state in extraordinary numbers. More than a third of Idaho’s OB-GYNs have stopped practicing obstetrics, left the state, closed their practices or retired since the ban took effect in August 2022, according to a study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association last year. By December 2025, there were just 170 obstetricians for the state’s roughly one million women — fewer than two doctors per 10,000. About five full-time maternal-fetal-medicine specialists, who serve the riskiest pregnancies, remained, according to a separate report released in 2024. One half of Idaho’s 44 counties no longer have a practicing obstetrician. […]

    Much more at the New York Times link.

  113. Reginald Selkirk says

    Dozens of Democrats eyeing 2028 presidential run, says former Obama aide

    More than two dozen Democrats are eyeing runs for the White House in 2028, following their party’s success in the US midterm elections this week, according to the man behind Barack Obama’s successful re-election bid.

    Jim Messina, who led Obama’s 2012 campaign, said that since Democrats saw major victories in congressional races as well as state elections, he’s spoken to “over two dozen campaigns” that are actively considering running in 2028 and have begun the financing process and hiring staff.

    “I think you’re going to start having Democrats announce exploratory committees next week or the next couple of weeks, probably after Thanksgiving”, Messina told the BBC’s Americast podcast…

  114. Reginald Selkirk says

    Wisconsin state trooper detained by ICE

    A Wisconsin state trooper has been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and is facing deportation to South Africa, according to his lawyer.

    Aaron Van Der Merwe, 21, was detained Thursday as he was waiting to board a domestic flight, according to a statement issued by law firm Christopher & De León.

    Van Der Merwe told ICE officers he had a work permit and a pending asylum application.

    “According to Van Der Merwe, the officers said they did not care, placed him in handcuffs and shackles, and transported him to immigration detention in Dodge County,” the law firm said…

  115. Reginald Selkirk says

    Desert icons collapse as southwestern US gets pummeled with rain and flooding

    There are stretches of high desert in northwestern New Mexico where Mother Nature has sculpted otherworldly forms using wind, rain and the passage of time.

    Hefty planks of rock defy gravity as they balance atop spindly pedestals of clay, while some columns of sandstone take on the appearance of lace, elaborately eroded by the seasons.

    Tour guide Kialo Winters shares this piece of his homeland on the edge of the Ah-Shi-Sle-Pah Wilderness with visitors regularly. On a recent Friday afternoon, the founder of Navajo Tours USA rounded a bend and found one of the area’s most famous features had collapsed.

    The Alien Throne — or Tsé Bináká Níyol as it’s known in his language — was no more. His heart dropped.

    “It was surreal,” he told The Associated Press. “I had to sort of just pause. A lot of things ran through my head.”

    The Alien Throne and the nearby King of Wings formation collapsed within weeks of each other, toppled by the very forces of nature that created them…

  116. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Kate Starbird:

    I don’t know quite how to explain this, but my team has been studying election denialism for six years, and I can only describe the atmosphere in our lab right now as “giddy”—absorbing the possibility that the “rigged election” nonsense might be done, at least for the time being.

    We haven’t had time to fully unpack the data, but even going into election day “rigged election” rumors just weren’t getting the traction they had in prior cycles. We went into the midterms aiming to show these rumors to be old, played out, predictable & boring. Seems their audiences felt, that too.

    If I had one word to describe the mood among the PhD students in my lab, especially ones who have been with us tracking “rigged election” rumors for multiple election cycles, it’s LIBERATED. I’ve never see some of these young people smile quite the way they are smiling today (and yesterday).
    […]
    I want to be clear here that I think Ukraine taking out Russian data centers had no significant impact on US election denialism. There is no mechanism thru which that would have had lasting impact on “troll” activity, & I doubt it even had much of temporary impact. (Responding to several comments.)

    Lindsay Beyerstein (Journalist):

    If election denial is falling out of favor, it could be one of the most powerful harbingers of the end of MAGA itself. Their ideology boils down to the Deep State, the Big Lie, and the Great Replacement. The Big Lie is load-bearing for Trump. It’s not just about the 2020 election being “stolen” and the J6ers being heroes. The grand narrative is that the Deep State is importing illegal aliens to rig elections.

    I thought GOP election denial was going to go on forever, but if it’s finally going out of style, maybe there’s a limit to how long you can milk insinuations without providing any evidence. Or maybe it’s not even about the evidence for election fraud. Maybe people just don’t like Trump enough to suspend disbelief anymore. Maybe the spell is broken.

    Lindsay Beyerstein: “I’m sure it didn’t help that the leading lights of election denial kept revealing themselves to be losers and grifters. Mike Lindell is a case in point. Sidney Powell is another cautionary tale. MAGA hates losers. You can only grift if you win.”

  117. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Shower Cat:

    PSA: The Dems are coming in with HUGE majorities in both the House and the Senate. During the next two years, you’re going to see some of them (especially those who represent a typically red area) “defy” the majority and vote in ways you don’t like, especially on controversial things.

    You’re going to be mad, but as long as their vote didn’t affect the outcome, they are doing the same thing Susan Collins did. The Speaker/Majority leader will “release” them to vote opposite the majority. You saw through it when Collins was doing it. Our people will be doing the same thing.

    The large majority means that there will be more room to release unneeded votes. […] If your representative is wavering on something important to you, by all means call their office and tell them to do the right thing. Constituent pressure can show that it’s safe to vote the “right” way and a release isn’t needed. But it’s not automatically a betrayal when they don’t.

    BTW, this is THE most important job of leadership: count the votes and decide what the margin will be. (The second is raise as much money as possible.) It’s not media appearances or speeches.

  118. whheydt says

    Re: Lynna, OM @ #111…
    One might almost think he meant to say “…a final solution.”

  119. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    WaPo – Judge blocks Trump’s arch after federal panel approves it

    Dan Diamond (WaPo):

    – At 1 pm Thursday, a federal commission packed by Trump began final hearing on the triumphal arch.
    – At 10:30 pm, the commission approved the arch.
    – Around 11:40 pm, Trump admin officials signaled they were ready to build arch.
    – Around 11:45 pm, Judge Chutkan blocked it.

    Dan Diamond: “Judge Chutkan granted a temporary restraining order for 14 days”

    Shower Cat: “Thank god she learned the lesson from the golf course.”

    Rando: “The way she constructed her notice orders felt like she was basically at: this is getting a TRO, but SCOTUS wants me to wait for final agency determination, so you have a court order to notify me the second a final agency determination happens. Good for her.”

  120. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    JM @96: After the election, I saw a Tesla car with paper tags, and I wondered what fool would buy a Tesla now? Perhaps it was a fire sale.

  121. birgerjohansson says

    A question: Do chiefs of staff get the same lifetime protection by Secret Service as congress-approved cabinet members?
    If not, Stephen Miller had better do what Assad did and settle down in Russia.

  123. JM says

    @110 Lynna, OM: I will be curious to see of Stephen Miller can even do the job of Chief of Staff. He is already doing a lot of the policy work, particularly on immigration issues but he will probably have to give some of that up just to free up time. There is also a lot of dealing with congress that will be hard when the Republicans are minority parties in both houses and a lot of setting meetings and controlling the flow of people around the president. Both of those depend on getting along with people to a certain extent and take a lot of time.
    @121 birgerjohansson: Chief of staff doesn’t need congressional approval, it is the top job that is not approved. As a former White House chief of staff he would be eligible for Secret Service protection but it would be up to the sitting president if he gets it. Only the president, VP and their families get lifetime protection. Everybody else at the top level gets 6 months to a year to give them time to settle outside Washington and hire their own security. After that it can be extended if there are credible threats. Several National Security Advisors have gotten protection for years.

  124. says

    whheydt @118, “One might almost think he meant to say ‘…a final solution.’ ”

    Yep. I think a lot of people heard it that way. Stephen Miller does not bother to hide his nazi-wannabe inclinations.

    Sky Captain @119, It feels like a win even if the construction of Trump’s Big Dumb Arch is only temporarily blocked. Judge Chutkan saw the Trump administration’s shenanigans coming. She was a step ahead of them.

  125. Reginald Selkirk says

    @44

    Wisconsin reports measles death of a baby, first death in over 35 years

    An infant in Wisconsin has died of measles, the first measles death in the state since 1990, officials reported Thursday. The death comes amid an outbreak in the Badger State that has stricken over 430 people across 13 counties this year.
    …
    The baby’s death is the third measles fatality nationally just this week, following the death of a New York child reported on Monday and another death in Pennsylvania reported on Wednesday. ..

  126. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    birgerjohansson @121: “Do chiefs of staff get the same lifetime protection by Secret Service as congress-approved cabinet members?”

    ABC – Protecting US government leaders: Who gets security and why (2019)

    While the Secret Service does protect a large array of individuals, the scope of that protection can be dwarfed by other federal agencies. […] By law, 18 USC 3056, under the direction of the secretary of Homeland Security, the United States Secret Service is authorized to protect: [*snip*]

    Additionally, the Secret Service has been directed to protect certain Cabinet-level officials—including the secretary of Homeland Security and secretary of treasury—and senior White House staff often considered critical to national security, including the White House chief of staff and national security adviser.

    FedLaws.org – Who gets Secret Service protection and for how long? (2026)

    Cabinet members, senior White House staff, and other high-ranking federal officials do not appear in the statute’s core protection categories. They are not entirely shut out. Starting in fiscal year 2008, the Director of the Secret Service has had the authority to enter agreements providing protection to federal officials not covered by § 3056(a), as long as the […] requesting agency pays the Secret Service for the detail rather than having the cost come out of the Secret Service’s own budget.

    ^ A weirdly anonymous blog, but it jives with ABC and the statute, and cites sources.

    Only former presidents get lifetime protection—and their spouses if they don’t remarry. The rest are temporary.

  127. Reginald Selkirk says

    These House and Senate midterm races don’t have winners yet

    … The exact margins of Congress are not yet clear, as winners have not yet been projected in two Senate races and more than two dozen House races. They include GOP-held districts with razor-thin margins, a few Democratic seats that could flip to Republicans and several races in California and other Western states that still need to count ballots.

    Here’s a look at the congressional races that CBS News has not yet projected, including where the results stand:…

  128. says

    Bits and pieces of news, as summarized by Steve Benen:

    * That Trump chose not to speak to the Ukrainian representative who was already in the White House says a great deal: “President Trump said he met with a senior Russian official in Washington on Thursday and promised a Ukraine peace deal that ‘might involve all of Europe,’ a sign that the president remains involved in talks to end the war […]”[Summarized from The New York Times]
    [Or, it might be a sign that Trump is just combining obedience to Putin with some public bullshitting aimed at the media.]

    * Arch on ice, for now: “A federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration late Thursday from beginning construction on President Donald Trump’s 250-foot arch, which a planning commission had approved hours earlier after a contentious online meeting.” [Summarized from MS NOW]

    * All eyes on Mississippi: “An unlikely battle in Mississippi’s Senate race remained tight on Friday, after the latest tranche of votes reported showed Scott Colom, a Democratic prosecutor, leading Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, the Republican incumbent, by just over 2,000 votes. Mr. Colom netted an additional 100 votes over Ms. Hyde Smith from a report at 3:59 p.m. Eastern from Pike County, bringing his statewide lead to 2,129 votes, according to The Associated Press.” [Summarized from The New York Times]

    * Elections continue to have consequences in Texas: “Mayor John Whitmire of Houston said he was directing city police officers on Friday to limit their cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement during traffic stops, bucking a policy imposed on Texas’s largest city by Gov. Greg Abbott. Under an executive order from the mayor, Houston police officers will no longer alert ICE agents when they encounter an unauthorized migrant during routine traffic stops or in connection with other low-level infractions.” [Summarized from The New York Times]

    * I wonder why an administration would pay more than $1 million for something that’s free? “Last year, when Starlink, the satellite internet provider operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, appeared at the White House, officials said the company had donated the service. But contracting records reveal that the Trump administration has been spending taxpayers’ dollars since last year to install and service Starlink equipment at the White House.” [Summarized from The Washington Post]

    * So many conflicts of interests, so few explanations: “Four of the eight people appointed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to an influential health panel in September own stock in companies that make drugs and other products affected by the group’s decisions, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times.”

    […] * Good news on the senator’s recovery: “Sen. Chris Murphy was discharged from Johns Hopkins Hospital after suffering a stroke and is expected to make a full recovery, he announced Friday. Murphy, 53, will spend several weeks at a rehabilitation center and miss several weeks of Senate votes.” [Summarized from MS NOW] [I wish Senator Murphy a very successful rehabilitation.]

  129. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Rando 1:

    Last year, Hegseth abruptly removed Nancy Lacore from command. No public explanation was provided. [Photo]

    Afterwards, she ran for office and has flipped a seat in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District. She will now have the constitutional authority to investigate and oversee his department.

    Rando 2: “And she will be replacing psychotic troll Nancy Mace in Congress!”

    Rando 3: “Save a chunk of him for Eileen Laubacher to gnaw on.”

    Former navy admiral who fled GOP projected to flip Republican house seat in Colorado

    Eileen Laubacher [who retired from the Navy in 2024 after 34 years] is on track to oust GOP incumbent Lauren Boebert […] She registered as a Democrat in 2025 […] she said the GOP had become “nearly unrecognizable.” “I changed my party because my view of what the parties represented changed,” […] Amid concerns about conditions for sailors on the USS Abraham Lincoln that emerged this summer, Laubacher also criticized Hegseth

  130. Reginald Selkirk says

    Hard Mountain Dew offers $1M bounty to anyone who can prove Bigfoot is real

    Published September 21, 2026

    Hard Mountain Dew is offering a $1 million prize to anyone who can provide proof that Bigfoot exists, as the alcoholic beverage brand launches a fall marketing campaign built around the legendary creature.

    The “Bigfoot Bounty” promotion opened Wednesday and runs through Nov. 30, giving adults 21 and older the chance to submit what the company describes as “verified evidence” of Bigfoot’s existence…

    3 weeks to go, and no winners net…

  131. Reginald Selkirk says

    These Guys Are Searching the Pacific Northwest for Bigfoot. I Tagged Along.

    …
    The four men don’t seem like typical Bigfoot hunters. For starters, half of them don’t think Bigfoot is real. Palagi calls himself the greatest skeptic of the group, saying, “I’ll drill holes in their theories all day long.” And Stolp is quick to clarify that he “doesn’t believe in that shit.” As for that camping trip in 2020, Palagi has an explanation: “A deer pouncing with both legs.”

    And the loud, guttural howl: “A territorial bullfrog on the deer’s back.”
    …
    In 2021, a family reached out to Hoskins because their loved one, Glenn Austin Oldfield II, had gone missing in 2015 while camping alone in the Gifford Pinchot. When they saw the group was spending so much time in the same area, they asked if the Bigfoot hunters could keep an eye out for any sign of him.

    Inspired by the request, Hoskins reached out to the Washington State Patrol, and they sent him a list of 34 people who’d been reported missing in the Gifford Pinchot since 1979.

    It was then that the group launched the Pacific Northwest Missing Persons Project to look for evidence of missing persons and bring closure to cold cases. They realized that the same skills they use to look for abnormal footprints and disturbed soil could help them find scraps of clothing or human bones. They search in the Gifford Pinchot and beyond—wherever their hunt for Bigfoot takes them—or wherever there’s a family in need. Hoskins compiled the names of 500 people missing across Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, and California. Every time they go out, they’re armed with lists of clothing and belongings.
    …
    Last fall, they found human bones during one of their searches. They’re still waiting on law enforcement to identify them.
    …

  132. Ogvorbis says

    Reginald Selkirk @125, re Wisconsin measles death.

    I really have to wonder about the US. Lots of people wounded and killed by firearms? We.l, obviously, we need more firearms, deadlier firearms, greater availability of firearms, easier purchase of firearms, and fewer restrictions on who can buy firearms. But, preventable deaths from a disease that had basically been wiped out in the US? Let’s discourage people from getting vaccines, make it easier to avoid vaccines, launch a full scale assault on people’s trust in vaccines, and, basi ally, do everything we can to stop people being vaccinated. Does anyone else see this as totally tucked up?

  133. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Lynna @128 quoting Steve Benen / NYT:

    Scott Colom, a Democratic prosecutor, leading Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, the Republican incumbent

    Rando 1: “Wtf takes Mississipi so gahdamn long to count votes??”
    Rando 2: “We have to say “Mississippi” after each number.”
     
    Backstory
    [2023] Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith blocks Biden Judge pick Scott Colom for Mississippi over trans rights, Soros PAC

    PunchbowlNews – Black Democrats demand Mississippi Senate investment (2026)

    Schumer recruited Colom into the race, held a fundraiser for Colom in D.C. this summer and has long talked up Mississippi’s potential as a sleeper swing state.

     
    Kel McClanahan: “This is the most compelling revenge story I’ve ever read. This is some Count of Monte Cristo shit.”

    Marcy Wheeler:

    A small part of my dissertation argued that Monte Cristo (and another roman-feuilleton [serial novel] published just before it) were part of the Cult of Napoleon and were attempts to work out what justice would be in France’s experiments with democracy.
    […]
    But then I looked at how Napoleonic figures showed up in Czech and Argentine roman-feuilletons. Like [The Absolute at Large] the guy who served in the Foreign Legion in Russia who came back to Czechoslovakia and tried to conquer his town, but no one cared. It was fun!

    ^ Alas, the full dissertation is not accessible, just a summary.

    From Wheeler’s description here, I would not have expected a satirical sci-fi about unlimited energy reactors. Possibly of interest to birgerjohansson?
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Absolute_at_Large
    https://archive.org/details/absoluteatlarge0000unse
    ^ The full 1927 English novel. Originally a sily-large 482MB pdf, but the 350K “Full Text” OCR txt file looks tolerable.

  134. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Erin Reed (Journalist):

    [Victoria Broderick] A queer woman who was openly free Palestine and openly against restrictions on trans people won a Trump +24 district after raising only $45,000 with no help from the DNC and had to call out of work the next day because she now has to serve in congress.

    The republican in her district literally didn’t show up to the debates because he thought nobody would ever elect someone like her in his safe district.

    Meet Victoria Broderick, Nashville and Tennessee’s Unexpected New Democratic Representative in Congress

    Tennessee Republicans’ mid-decade redistricting, aimed at splitting Memphis’ Democratic congressional districts, had the downstream effect of moving the southeastern corner of Nashville and Davidson County to the 4th District. Broderick won the Davidson County portion of the district by more than 25,000 votes while holding serve in purple Rutherford County, allowing her to win the district by just a couple hundred votes

  135. says

    […] Trump proclaimed this week to be Anti-Communism Week. If only he had declared that before the American people voted, maybe we wouldn’t all be sliding into this Marxist hellhole where Medicaid cuts get restored and members of his administration get held accountable for all the crimes they have spent two years gleefully committing. […]

    On Thursday Trump outdid himself. He made a show of summoning reporters to watch him sign an executive order making the Oval Office a national monument. This involves ordering the Secretary of the Interior to develop a “management plan” that “prioritizes the preservation of the Oval Office,” and

    to document, review, and consider alternatives before substantially altering or demolishing the Oval Office, and to ensure that any proposed changes to its historic character are consistent with the Oval Office’s national significance.

    First, never mind that the entire White House is already a National Historic Landmark — which did not stop him from doing the aliens in Independence Day to the East Wing. Apparently the Oval Office “merits more recognition” that it already has. Or else Trump had to do something to make himself feel important this week. We’re guessing the latter. […]

    Trump signed this executive order just a few hours after First Lady Melon Trump hosted Ukrainian and Russian officials to cement the one-city ceasefire she claims she negotiated with a slight assist from the pope. Was anyone else jarred by the sight of the first lady conducting foreign policy while the president spent his week leading tours of his ballroom and yammering on about the Oval Office’s beauty and his historic White House renovations like a PR rep pitching a story to Home & Garden? It’s like watching a bargain basement John and Jackie Kennedy get trapped in a Freaky Friday situation. But at least Melon probably got some good footage for the docuseries about her life, which — coincidentally, we’re sure — dropped a trailer on Friday morning. […]

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/some-asshle-gonna-use-the-law-to

  136. StevoR says

    Incoming Democratic senators want someone other than Chuck Schumer to become the next majority leader in the US Senate, although Schumer likely still has enough votes in his caucus to remain the top Democrat.

    Annie Andrews, the Democratic senator-elect from South Carolina, told Fox News’s Bret Baier on Thursday that the Democratic party needs new leadership. When asked whether she would support Schumer’s leadership bid, she replied: “I still very much believe it’s time for generational change on both sides of the aisle.”

    … (Snip)..

    ..Abdul El-Sayed, the senator-elect from Michigan, again declined to support Schumer as the majority leader on CNN on Thursday and said he wanted to consider other options.

    Other incoming Democrats have also declined to support Schumer, including James Talarico, the senator-elect from Texas; Juliana Stratton, the senator-elect of Illinois; Chris Pappas, the senator-elect of New Hampshire; Peggy Flanagan, the senator-elect of Minnesota; and Troy Jackson, the senator-elect of Maine

    Democratic voters have indicated they want newer and younger leadership in the party. Over the last two years, progressive Democrats have scored major victories in local and state elections.

    It’s led some lawmakers to push for similar changes in decade-old leadership. Schumer, 75, has served as the Democrats’ leader in the Senate since 2017.

    Source : https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/nov/06/chuck-schumer-majority-leader-incoming-democratic-senators

  137. Silentbob says

    @ 136 StevoR

    Hallelujah!

    Imagine if Democrats actually fielded a progressive candidate? They’d not only win resoundingly, but you wouldn’t have to spend all your time trying to bully people into voting for genocide.

  138. Silentbob says

    (Sorry, I forgot you think the idea of a politician not supporting genocide is a “magical unicorn“.

  140. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Public Citizen (Think tank):

    A government lawyer confirmed the U.S. is removing people to Iran while engaged in a war against the country. The U.S. is planning to send individuals back to Iran where they may likely face torture or execution.

    Judge: We are going to remove people in our custody to a country with which we are at war?
    Gov’t Lawyer: That is my understanding, Your Honor

    Judge: What you’re telling me is that the United States of America is going to send individuals back to that region facing what you and I and everyone who would ever look at this would know would be at a minimum a serious threat of certain death?
    Gov’t Lawyer: Yes, Your Honor.

    Judge: We are talking about sending individuals in our care and custody to a country that we have bombed and we may continue bombing, and is a declared enemy of this country.
    Judge: It is like saying we have individuals in 1942 in this country that we are going to send back to Nazi Germany. That is the equivalent of what you are telling me.

    ABC – Judge blasts admin for planning to deport Iranian immigrants back to Iran

    Judge Reyes ordered the government to provide at least five days’ advance notice before any individual is “placed on a transport vehicle or plane bound for removal,” and 24 hours’ notice of any finalized removal plan. “If anything happens that violates either of those two orders, I will hold every single person associated with violating it. I will start contempt proceedings,”

     
    * Wikipedia – MS St. Louis

    In May 1939, St. Louis carried more than 900 Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany […] The refugees first tried to disembark in Cuba but were denied […] After Cuba, the captain, Gustav Schröder, went to the United States and Canada, trying to find a nation to take the Jews in, but both nations refused. He finally returned the ship to Europe, where various countries […] accepted some refugees. […] He refused to return the ship to Germany until all the passengers had been given entry to some other country. […] The ship returned to Hamburg without any passengers. The following year, after the Battle of France, and the Nazi occupations of Belgium, France, and the Netherlands in May 1940, all the Jews in those countries were subject to high risk […] research tracing each passenger has determined that 255 (41.1%) of those who returned to continental Europe were murdered during the Holocaust.

  141. StevoR says

    BTW Kamala Harris WAS a progressive candidate and you lied about her and undermined her.

    She was relatively left wing and progressive – especially compared to Trump the ONLY alternative.

  148. Reginald Selkirk says

    @135

    Trump proclaimed this week to be Anti-Communism Week….

    A reminder that creeping Communism is a real hazard. Let’s spend the next week contemplating it.
    Government Ownership Stakes in Companies Becoming Routine Under Trump
    From those noted pinkos, the Cato Institute.

    We already have a way to control what corporations can do. It’s called “regulation.” We already have a way to share in the financial success of corporations. It’s called “taxation.” Republicans oppose both regulation and taxation. They have also at times blathered on about the dangers of ‘choosing winners.’

  151. StevoR says

    ndigenous people “very rarely” sit on a jury in South Australia despite being over-represented in the criminal justice system, a report has found.

    Research led by the South Australian Law Reform Institute (SALRI) considered the “complex” and “multi-faceted” reasons behind an “acute lack” of indigenous jurors.

    In the report, published by the Australian Institute of Judicial Administration Limited, SALRI made 34 recommendations to improve participation for the state’s Attorney-General to consider.

    The report found the key issues included electoral enrolment, criminal history disqualifications and cultural safety.

    “Indigenous people in South Australia [and indeed nationally] are not being offered the same opportunity to serve on a jury, whether they in fact do so or not,” the report found.

    “Even potential Indigenous jurors are ‘very rare’ in Port Augusta, despite the fact that about a quarter of the local community are Indigenous.”

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-11-07/indigneous-people-underrepresented-in-juries-in-sa/107256812

  153. StevoR says

    The polling booths have barely been packed down after the US midterm elections, but Washington is already looking ahead. In less than two years, Americans will vote in the next president, and speculation is rife over who each party will choose for their ticket.

    Discussions playing out in the public sphere suggest the Republican contest will come down to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice-President JD Vance.

    The story from the Democratic camp is amorphous, with party insiders suggesting more than two dozen Democrats are considering runs for the White House. But more and more, one name is rising to the top: Georgia senator Jon Ossoff.

    Meet the half-Australian young gun, known for getting under US President Donald Trump’s skin. A surprise contender

    Days before the election day, an AtlasIntel opinion poll asked Democratic voters who they would support in the party primaries for the 2028 election.The answers showed Senator Ossoff holding a tight lead of less than one percentage point over representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-11-07/us-senator-jon-ossoff-democrats-presidential-campaign/107359376

    Of course a week is along time in politics let alone a couple of years..

  154. Reginald Selkirk says

    Venezuelan man who said voices told him to kill Trump is arrested near White House, DHS says

    A Venezuelan man who had guns in his vehicle and told officers that voices in his head urged him to kill President Donald Trump was arrested Thursday near the White House, the federal government said.

    The Department of Homeland Security said Friday that Ronny Yordrix Guanipa Chrinos was approached by Secret Service officers who alleged he was acting suspiciously while parked on Constitution Avenue…

  156. Reginald Selkirk says

    This man refused life-saving treatment because of his religion – days later the rules changed

    In August this year, 26-year-old Isaac Valdez had an epileptic seizure while browsing in his local library, causing him to convulse and strike his head against the ground.

    He lost consciousness. Later, in hospital, it transpired Isaac had hit his head with such force it had led to a brain haemorrhage.

    Treatment was seriously complicated by the fact that, as a Jehovah’s Witness, Isaac carried a “No Blood” card, an indication that he would not accept treatment involving any form of blood transfusion because of his religious beliefs.
    …

  158. StevoR says

    @156. Reginald Selkirk :Some religions / cults (same diff?) really should be charged with murder. Or at least manslaughter and culpable homicides.

  159. StevoR says

    Owen Jones YT short here – Netanyahu admits: you’re beating him Israel has lost the PR war. It has totally isolated itself and becoem an intrnational pariah.

    Hard to deny tha.

    Hole dug so very deep metaphorically speaking. Will they now stop digging? Hoping so.

    carn Eisenkot & the Arab parties. (Now there’s a band name for yáll..)

  161. says

    Atlanta Journal Constitution:

    In 1860, an enslaved man named Sheppard Peek was listed among the possessions of William Peek, a white man in Crawfordville.

    His value was placed at $1,400…

    On another surviving document, Sheppard signed his name with an X.

    More than a century and a half later, Sheppard’s great-great-granddaughter, Keisha Lance Bottoms, was elected governor of Georgia.

  162. says

    […] We got Jim Crow in this country after the accountability inherent to Reconstruction was abandoned. We got the fascism of Trump 2.0 after the DOJ dragged its feet on holding him accountable for the January 6 insurrection, among other crimes.

    Without aggressively pursuing accountability this time, Democrats risk squandering the historic, joyful victory the party won on Tuesday […]

    Accountability Does Not Equal Revenge

  164. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    NPR – Jeffries lays out Democrats’ plans for Congress, questions remain about accountability (Nov 6)

    we’ve got to relentlessly make life more affordable for the American people, while at the same period of time, visit accountability on those who have been engaged in law breaking, norm breaking, and unleashing unprecedented corruption on the American people. And so, it’s my expectation, and we’re working closely, of course, with Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee and Democrats on the Oversight Committee, who will lead our accountability efforts, along with all of the relevant committees across the Congress, because the levels of corruption have been unprecedented, […] we’re going to hold the crooks accountable. […] we got to follow the facts. We got to apply the law.

    He had said similar stuff on Nov 4.

  165. says

    WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In the aftermath of the Republicans’ catastrophic rout in the midterm elections, on Wednesday morning House Speaker Mike Johnson begged God to “rapture him up” immediately.

    “I don’t want to be in the minority,” he prayed, choking back tears. “I’m a Republican. We hate minorities.”

    In another post-election development, an embittered Elon Musk angrily put Ken Paxton on eBay.

    The billionaire was hoping to recoup some of his $190 million purchase of Paxton, but in the Texan’s first hours on eBay the bidding for him stalled at six dollars.

    Musk refused to answer reporters’ questions about the eBay fiasco as he boarded a rocket for Mars.

    Meanwhile, in South Carolina, losing Senate candidate Darline Graham took her 47% of the vote in stride, telling reporters, “Forty-seven is a lot higher than I can count to.”

    https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/mike-johnson-begs-god-to-rapture-66d

  166. Reginald Selkirk says

    A ‘reverse-Ginsberg’ scenario could flip the Supreme Court without packing

    For many conservatives, the decisive loss of both houses of Congress has created a true nightmare scenario in which two conservatives (Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito) could hand Democrats the opportunity to take control of the Supreme Court without having to carry out their court-packing schemes. Control of the court could now be lost by sheer attrition.
    …
    Now, conservatives worry they may face a double tap. For two years, there has been speculation that Thomas (78) and Alito (76) might retire to allow a Republican president and Republican Senate to select their successors. Both declined to do so.

    If they were hoping for a two-year cushion, that window just closed with a resounding bang. Even if they were to resign in the next two years, it is unlikely that Trump could replace either with a conservative nominee.

    With at least 54 Senate seats (and perhaps as many as 56), the Democrats do not fear defections from independent-minded senators like Sen. John Fetterman (D., N.J.). They will also cite the denial of a vote for Merrick Garland during the Obama administration as a justification for denying a vote to Trump nominees….

    Why wait for them to retire or die? Impeach the bastards! I believe sufficient evidence of corruption exists.

  170. says

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/the-three-weirdest-sisters-fascisms

    […] Virginia Foxx (North Carolina Congressional District-5)

    […] In 2005, during her first term — and as people in New Orleans were still pouring buckets full of water out of their bedrooms, trying to find missing people swept away by massive flooding brought on by a broken levee system […] Foxx was one of 11 members of Congress to vote against a $51 billion aid package for Hurricane Katrina, and as a reporter who covered that whole mess from Houston, I can tell you that every vote against aid for Louisiana that year was done for racist reasons.

    There is absolutely no lens through which you can look back at the rhetoric around Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath and conclude that aid to the state was denied for cool and awesome reasons. […]

    […] and of course she’s a border conspiracist and an anti-queer marriage weirdo who actually had the fucking audacity to claim that Matthew Shepard’s horrifying, violent murder was not a hate crime! […]

    In fact, she has a very appropriate “88%” approval rating for this session from the creeps at the Heritage Foundation, the architects of the now-failed Project 2025, ha ha ha!

    So that’s how she started. Here’s how Foxx is going (suddenly very interested in “election integrity,” as though this massive blue tsunami would skip right over her after her Democratic opponent, Chuck Hubbard, declared victory):

    County elections boards still must review provisional ballots, count mail-in ballots with corrected paperwork and consider military and overseas ballots arriving before the deadline.

    County elections boards will meet on Tuesday to decide which provisional ballots will qualify. Provisional ballots allow people to vote when there is question about eligibility, identification or eligibility. It’s dealt with separately while election workers research the issue.

    Here’s the statement she released, in part:

    At my request, nonpartisan election observers under the guidance of the Committee on House Administration will be present across the 5th District as the count continues, and will serve as important, watchful eyes to ensure that this sacred process is not impeded and that all legal votes are counted in a consistent, thorough manner.

    I suppose she might have a slim chance of pulling out of this and gaining a seat, but even if she does, she is now — like the rest of the handful of right-winger MAGA creeps who managed to hang on to power — fully outnumbered in the American government. […]

    Lauren Boebert (Colorado CD-4)

    Conspiracist creep Lauren Boebert (Q-Colorado) has done a lot of gross stuff over the years, from vaping and giving handies in the theater in front of an aghast audience to spreading lies about students using litterboxes in classrooms, a hateful, disgusting lie that set the stage for attacking transgender kids and furries, which I am still not over! And let’s not forget the way she encouraged the Capitol insurrectionists. […]

    And now she’s about to lose (hopefully) to Democrat Eileen Laubacher in an unexpectedly tight race in Colorado, where people have endured her for far too long.

    Lest we forget what she is:

    U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado was involved in the “beginning stages” of talks with senior White House officials that ultimately led to efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to decertify the 2020 election results, a former top aide told congressional investigators.

    Cassidy Hutchinson, a former assistant to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, identified Boebert as one of a small group of Republican lawmakers who met with Meadows as early as the last week of November 2020 to “raise the idea” of former Vice President Mike Pence intervening to prevent the certification of election results by Congress on Jan. 6, 2021. The ensuing assault on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters that day led to the deaths of five people and Trump’s eventual second impeachment trial.

    […] Naturally, now that she’s losing she’s suddenly become extremely interested in the mechanics of democracy! Per her campaign’s attorney, which is how you know this is going great for her:

    We are investigating some very unusual voting patterns and expect this election to head to a recount, one way or another. […]

    Every legal vote must be counted accurately, fully, and transparently. We will continue to investigate throughout the process to protect the integrity of this election and ensure Coloradans can have complete confidence in the results.

    Unfortunately for ol’ Boebert, the margin of votes against her is currently so high that if it holds, she will have to pay for the recount out of pocket. I love this for her!

    Cindy Hyde-Smith, United States Senate (Mississippi)

    Our final contender for my Three Weird (extremely derogatory) Sisters list here is the literal worst: Cindy Hyde-Smith, who is currently losing to Democratic challenger Scott Colom.

    She made one of the more disgusting public debuts I have seen in a minute back in 2018, when she made “jokes” about “public hangings” and “making it harder for liberals to vote,” which she said was “proof” that “people” had no “sense” of “humor” any more, but we didn’t laugh at the time because it wasn’t funny, and eight years on is even less so.

    Then a photo that she had posted to Facebook in 2014 emerged, showing her in a Confederate hat and holding a rifle. And she added commentary! Per Politico, from 2018:

    “I enjoyed my tour of Beauvoir. The Jefferson Davis Home and Presidential Library located in Biloxi,” Hyde-Smith wrote. “This is a must see. Currently on display are artifacts connected to the daily life of the Confederate Soldier including weapons. Mississippi history at its best!”

    The photo comes as Hyde-Smith is under fire after saying during a campaign stop earlier this month that she would gladly attend a “public hanging” if one of her supporters invited her.

    She got into power anyway, very depressingly, and now seems to be on her way out of it. And in a tremendous display of the best sort of pettiness and also solidarity, Scott Colom, her Democratic opponent, was someone whose appointment she blocked in 2023, after he was nominated for a judgeship by then-President Joe Biden.

    And guess why she did it!

    In 2023, President Joe Biden nominated Colom, who was a district attorney at the time, to serve as a U.S. District Court Judge for the Northern District of Mississippi. However, Hyde-Smith blocked Biden’s nomination, by not submitting a “blue slip” to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. In her refusal, the Republican senator cited issues with Colom’s support of transgender rights. Submitting a “blue slip” is the process by which the Senate Judiciary Committee advances a nominee for possible confirmation to a U.S. circuit or district judgeship.

    So yet anothe r[…] bigot is under political siege after voters finally decided they have had enough, and she’s currently operating off the exact same playbook as Boebert and Foxx, by suddenly caring a whooooooole bunch about election integrity. But the joke might be entirely on her in this case, because guess what Mississippi does not have? A recount law!

    The silver lining here is that even if they manage to stay in power somehow, we can all take some joy in knowing that the country has smacked these anti-science, anti-democracy shitbirds down so hard they will never return to their previous levels of influence and power no matter how long they live, but I would prefer to see them completely out of politics for all time […]

  173. says

    President Donald Trump on Saturday said he had ordered the Justice Department to look into “threats” by Democrats against Republicans in the wake of the GOP’s midterm electoral defeat, adding that those responsible should be imprisoned.

    Across two Truth Social posts, Trump accused Democrats of threatening Republican donors with imprisonment and Attorney General Todd Blanche and other administration officials with impeachment. He also said Democrats were targeting people “just because they happen to be Republicans, or Republican supporters.”

    “The imprisonment should be against these EXTORTIONISTS, and Republicans should get smart, fast! Threatening letters have been sent to many people, all innocent, from Democrat Political Leaders,” the president wrote on Truth Social. “By copy of this statement, I am ordering the Department of Justice to look into this criminal act, immediately!”

    In a subsequent post, Trump called on Republicans to report the “threats” to him personally as well as to the DOJ.

    Trump’s characterization of the Democrats’ actions and statements as “extortion” misrepresents what lawmakers have actually said. In the run-up to the next Congress, Democrats have stated that they are preparing to use their congressional oversight powers — including issuing subpoenas and holding hearings — to investigate what they have characterized as misconduct by administration officials.

    Recent letters from Sen. Richard Blumenthal’s (D-Conn.) to White House ballroom donors, for example, sought records about their contributions and warned of possible subpoenas if they failed to comply, not imprisonment.

    And while Democratic leaders have not ruled out impeachment, they have emphasized investigations over immediately pursuing impeachment proceedings.

    Trump singled out Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin in his first social media post, accusing her of “saying that she is going to go after all young people that believe in Republican Values” — an apparent reference to Slotkin telling an audience at the University of Chicago in October that she wanted to deter young people from working in the administration.

    “I want them to be like, lord, that might be buying myself a ton of problems that I don’t want,” Slotkin said at an Oct. 13 event at the university. A student at the university filed a Senate ethics complaint over the remarks.

    […] It’s not the first time he’s gone after the first-term senator. Trump accused Slotkin and several other congressional Democrats of sedition last year after they filmed a video imploring federal troops to disobey orders they felt were illegal.

    “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” he charged on Truth Social.

    The Justice Department, meanwhile, has been roiled by a spate of high-profile defections from its ranks in the wake of the midterm losses. DOJ officials Harmeet Dhillon, John Eisenberg and Jason Reding Quiñones all resigned in recent days, as Blanche has looked to change the makeup of the agency’s upper crust amid frustration over its struggles to deliver victories for the department.

    Link

  174. says

    Jonathan Blitzer, writing for The New Yorker:

    After a historic midterm rout of the President and his party, earlier this week, journalists and pundits finally felt safe positing that the country was entering the beginning of the end of the Trump era. This wasn’t wrong. But Donald Trump now has nothing left to lose. On Friday afternoon, Stephen Miller, his most loyal and aggressive ideologue, was named the White House chief of staff. Just last year, Miller said that the Democratic Party “is not a political party. It is a domestic extremist organization.”

    Miller has long been one of Trump’s most influential advisers. Chiefly, he is the architect of the Administration’s immigration policies, which include violent ICE operations, an executive order to end birthright citizenship, the gutting of the legal-immigration system, the mass detention of tens of thousands of non-criminals, and an open disregard for judicial orders. “We need a moratorium on immigration from third-world countries until we can heal ourselves as a nation,” he said last December. Healing, for Miller, has largely consisted of making the country look and sound more like him. He appears to view immigrants and political opponents as outright enemies.

    Many observers have likened Miller to a kind of prime minister in the current Administration. Miller, who has been serving as both the President’s homeland-security adviser and policy chief, has directed many of the government’s most radical acts. This goes well beyond immigration policy. The military’s bombing of alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific can be traced back to Miller. The midterm results were an overwhelming show of the public’s opposition to Trump and his policies, and Democrats will now control both chambers of Congress by significant margins. But the President still has vast power, especially on immigration and foreign policy. His new chief of staff may well show us how ugly and painful the last stage of Trumpism can be.

  175. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    DW – Paraguay President Santiago Pena under house arrest over bank crisis (Nov 6)

    Senators voted overwhelmingly to remove Pena for misconduct in office. […] Pena had already resigned on Thursday, but by impeaching and convicting him instead of accepting his resignation, senators stripped him of the lifetime Senate seat and immunity granted to former presidents, leaving him vulnerable to prosecution. Following the Senate vote, prosecutors ordered the arrest of the ousted president alongside former central bank chief Carlos Carvallo as part of a criminal investigation.
    […]
    Pena’s rapid downfall came amid mounting pressure over the collapse of digital lender Ueno, one of the country’s biggest banks, with which he had ties. The bank’s accounts—also used to process pension payments—are frozen, leaving millions of customers unable to access their money. […] Ueno served about 2.94 million customers, roughly 60% of Paraguay’s adult population. As of last month, the bank said it held roughly $800 million in public-sector deposits
    […]
    Paraguay’s central bank ordered a resolution or closure process Tuesday after finding that Ueno’s solvency ratio had fallen below half the required minimum.

    Ueno’s app, card payments and transfers stopped working, while branches closed, leaving customers queuing outside unable to withdraw their savings. Hundreds of employees of Ueno and other companies in its parent conglomerate protested outside the Labor Ministry Thursday, demanding unpaid wages and severance. Retirees, depositors, students and workers had marched through Asuncion a day earlier, demanding Pena’s impeachment
    […]
    Authorities detained eight senior executives, including founder Miguel Vazquez and bank president Juan Manuel Gustale. Prosecutors also charged 27 bank officials and business associates with offenses including breach of trust and attempted fraud.

    NPR – Paraguay’s president is impeached minutes after resigning following a bank collapse (NOV 5)

    Soon after winning its banking license in 2023, Ueno seemed to be everywhere in Paraguay. The digital lender, a rebranded version of a decades-old finance company, lured customers with generous cash-back offers on groceries, grew to more than 70 locations, sponsored Paraguay’s national soccer team and plastered its name on the country’s main stadium.

    Government money poured into Ueno’s coffers under Peña. He also appointed Carlos Carvallo, president of Financiera Ueno, the predecessor to Ueno Bank, to run the central bank, the agency charged with supervising the digital lender.
    […]
    worries were escalating inside the central bank. In June, its inspectors found a pattern of risky lending to insiders […] Ueno had extended large sums to companies tied to its owners, beyond what the law allows and without enough collateral to cover the debts if they went bad. […] on Monday, it all came crashing down. Regulators investigating Ueno’s loans to companies linked to its owners found poorly documented lending, […] as well as expenses the bank had wrongly counted as assets. […] The central bank announced the lender’s seizure Tuesday, beginning a process to transfer deposits and recoverable assets to other banks before liquidating what remained.
    […]
    Under a law rushed through Congress on Wednesday, a state guarantee fund must repay stranded depositors within five business days, starting Thursday with small accounts of up to about $1,600 held by customers with no debts to Ueno. The fund insures up to about $36,000 per customer, which the central bank says will cover the full balances of an estimated 97% of clients.

    Reuters (Nov 5): “Authorities say the crisis is limited to ueno and does not reflect broader weaknesses in Paraguay’s banking system. […] Paraguay has […] built a reputation as one of South America’s more stable and reform-friendly economies. It is unclear if the crisis will ​affect the country’s reputation in the longer term.”

    In 2024, it was the “first digital bank in Paraguay,” which seems to mean online banking and particularly loans. Wikipedia says, “It operated primarily through digital payment platforms”. I couldn’t find cryptocurrency anywhere. Forbes mentioned in passing that they’d collaborated with OpenAI for a personalized phone app interface.

  176. Owlmirror says

    https://www.trumpstruth.org/statuses/43508 [Linked to archive rather than original in case original gets deleted]

    Trump seems to want to give the job of press secretary to Dana White, a MMA fighter.

    Someone suggested that this Dana White had been suggested as a possibility, and Trump was reminded of the MMA fighter, and went with that.

    (Given that the competent Dana W White is a Black woman, Trump wouldn’t have even accepted her as a possibility anyway)

    Someone else remembered that today, November 7, is the anniversary of the Four Seasons Landscaping press conference, for a different amusing name-mixup.

    ============================

    Of course, it cannot be ruled out that Trump’s dementia is just particularly bad today. People have been bringing up Caligula as a comparison.

  177. Reginald Selkirk says

    House GOP erupts at Stephen Miller as Trump elevates him after midterm massacre: ‘Megalomaniac’

    Several Republican lawmakers are fuming over President Donald Trump’s elevation of Stephen Miller to be his chief of staff.

    “Horrible decision,” Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind., told Fox News Digital Friday after Trump announced his decision.

    A Republican lawmaker who was granted anonymity to speak candidly described being in “utter disbelief.”

    Tensions were rising against Miller in the wake of Republicans’ terrible performance in Tuesday’s midterm elections. Multiple House Republicans who spoke with Fox News Digital just moments before his promotion said Miller, who spearheads Trump’s immigration policy, should be fired…

    The one group of people who have done the most to defend and enable Trump don’t like this?

  180. Reginald Selkirk says

    What Happens When You Shine Three Lights on Sunflowers? The Plants Surprisingly Grow Toward the Dimmest One

    Young sunflowers famously track the Sun across the sky. But when researchers surrounded seedlings with three artificial lights, the plants did something unexpected—they bent toward the dim one.

    Apparently, the plants weren’t confused, at least not in any human sense. They were following a set of biological rules that scientists are only beginning to understand.

    In a new study, researchers showed how sunflower seedlings combine conflicting light signals to steer their growth. It’s a remarkable kind of computation, one that does not require a nervous system…

  181. Reginald Selkirk says

    Laura Loomer Goes on “Hiatus” After Bombshell Revelation on Paid Posts

    Right-wing influencer Laura Loomer announced she is taking a “brief hiatus” from her Loomer Unleashed podcast just hours after a Trump administration adviser exposed her for being paid to post some of her manic, hateful content.

    It all started on Thursday, when Alex Bruesewitz, who is behind much of Trump’s digital media strategy, took aim at conservative social media influencers following the GOP’s massive midterm election loss.

    “Believe it or not attacking Democrats over their relationships with a streamer (Hasan Piker) wasn’t an effective hit,” Bruesewitz posted, not mentioning Loomer by name. “GOP candidates probably shouldn’t take messaging advice from fringe right-wing ‘influencers’ moving forward.”

    Loomer took the bait.

    “But they should take their advice and meetings with @TuckerCarlson instead?… It’s completely reasonable for people to be appalled with Democrat candidates campaigning with a guy who said America deserved 9/11. Hasan Piker regularly makes comments in support of jihadi groups,” she wrote. “What wasn’t helpful was your friend Tucker Carlson essentially endorsing Abdul El-Sayed over Mike Rogers and using his show to tell people to not support Rogers just a few weeks out from an election. But we all know you will never condemn your buddy Tucker.”

    “Laura, you are basically the Republican version of Hasan Piker. Democrats over the years have attacked Republicans for affiliating with you. Those weren’t effective hits either,” Bruesewitz replied. “Voters simply don’t care enough about ‘influencers’ or streamers. lol”

    Loomer took offense to that, claiming that she was not an influencer and criticizing Bruesewitz for his association with Omeed Malik, a conservative venture capitalist and major Republican donor.

    “I’m a journalist and an opposition researcher Alex. What are you? What is it that you do for Omeed Malik exactly? He’s a Muslim right? Half Iranian and half Pakistani if I’m not mistaken,” Loomer fired back. “Is that why you have such an issue with the things I say about Islam?”

    “Okay lol. But is it common for journalists to get paid for their opinions and tweets?”

    “You say ‘Okay lol.’ Not sure why you are laughing. I recall last year your company X strategies reached out to me asking me for help. Do you deny that? What is so funny? I guess I don’t get the joke,” Loomer said, admitting that she was indeed paid to tweet. “You loved sharing my journalistic reports during the 2023/2024 DeSantis-Trump primary too. What changed?”

    “No I don’t deny that. I’ve paid you for tweets before. I haven’t for at least a year though,” Bruesewitz wrote back. “I also know you still get paid by others for tweets so I do think it’s fair to refer to you as an ‘influencer.’ What percentage of your tweets are paid for?”
    …

  183. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Poland drive-by mass shooting started with familicide.

    CNBC

    A Polish man with far-right views drove into a busy central square in Krakow on Saturday and opened fire, killing six people and injuring 15 others before police shot and wounded him [He was taken to a hospital for surgery.] […] The 25-year-old attacker drove to multiple spots in the square and opened fire at each stop […] Hours after the attack, […] authorities found the bodies of three of the suspect’s close family members—two women and a man—inside his home
    […]
    The attacker wore military-style fatigues and a bulletproof vest and used [an AR-15] in the attack. Police found many other weapons, as well as ammunition, in his car.
    […]
    [A police spokesman] added that the gunman acted alone and that the public is safe. […] Around 411,000 people hold gun permits in Poland, which has a population of 37 million […] Mass shootings are uncommon in Poland. However, in mid-October, three attacks at schools in the central province of Mazovia took place within four days

    * Guardian: Poland’s defence minister said he was “not a soldier in the Polish Armed Forces”.

  185. Owlmirror says

    Owlmirror @176: “Given that the competent Dana W White is a Black woman, Trump wouldn’t have even accepted her as a possibility anyway”

    Newsweek – Trump floats Nicki Minaj for press secretary (Oct 31)

    Welp, that’s me told.

    Trump is racist, but sometimes less so than others?

  186. says

    Followup to comment 185. Trump consistently comes up with racist policies, backs the racist policies of his cult followers, and frequently insults black people (especially black women). And yet, yes, he does choose a few black people to like, and one of them is Nicki Minaj.

    I don’t think he was serious about offering Minaj the job of press secretary. I saw the video and I think Trump was joking.

  187. says

    Paul Krugman:

    The American people have just delivered a stunning rebuke to Donald Trump. If we had a parliamentary system, the moving trucks would already be at the White House. As it is, however, an increasingly deranged and debilitated Trump will remain in control of foreign policy, national security, and many of the federal government’s domestic operations for two more years. He will also, as he made a point of emphasizing on Truth Social as the returns came in, retain the ability to veto legislation. And Democrats, despite their huge margins in both houses of Congress, won’t have enough votes to override his vetoes.

    So what can Democrats do with their new majorities?

    One important answer is that they will now hold committee gavels, hence the ability to conduct investigations and hearings backed by subpoena power. This matters more for the Trump gang than it would for a normal administration.

    Everyone paying attention knows that Trump and his cronies have been stealing billions, but many Americans probably don’t grasp the full extent of the corruption. Gaining the ability to bring this corruption into the sunlight is critical to rebuild Americans’ faith in the integrity of government, as well as to hold Trump and his vandals accountable. Moreover, knowing that his days are numbered, the Trump gang have every incentive to engage in a wholesale smash-and-grab spree.

    […] On the eve of the midterms, when election modelers anticipated a blue wave but not this awesome tsunami, I thought that control of those gavels would be the main payoffs. However, the gargantuan size of the win showed that Americans want fundamental change, a decisive break with Trumpism. Yet, with Trump still wielding the veto pen, what should they do in the remaining two years of his term?

    I think I know the answer to that question: Pass highly popular legislation that would clearly benefit ordinary Americans and not the oligarchs, knowing full well that Trump will veto the legislation. Emphatically, the Democrats should not try to make deals with Trump, a man who never agreed to a deal that he didn’t subsequently try to break.

    Democrats should craft an expansive menu of legislation to address the issues plaguing ordinary Americans. When Trump vetoes a bill, they should attempt to override that veto, forcing each and every Republican to either to uphold Trump’s obstruction — making it clear that they are as culpable as he is — or to develop a spine and supply the additional votes required for such overrides.

    And given how toxic Trump has become with the American public, it’s even possible that some Republicans will break with him to pass a few good laws.

    What kind of laws do I have in mind? They shouldn’t shy away from really ambitious plans, like Medicare-for-All, even though they have no chance of becoming law for now: Democrats need to be clear that they stand for real change. But they should also offer more modest initiatives, like a buy-in to Medicare for Americans under 65. And they should offer legislation immediately restoring the Affordable Care Act subsidies that Trump and his allies killed, leading to soaring premiums for health insurance and plunging enrollment.

    On foreign policy, they should pass legislation strengthening sanctions on Russia and restoring aid to Ukraine. A significant number of Republicans might even join them in overriding Trump’s veto. Bear in mind that only 3 percent of the U.S. public sympathizes with Russia more than with Ukraine; only 4 percent of Republicans sympathize with Russia. And I believe that many Republicans in Congress are privately ashamed to see Trump so obviously siding with Vladimir Putin.

    Other obvious examples are:

    · Refusal to spend more billions of dollars on a failed war with Iran

    · Ending the Trump tariffs

    · Policies to safeguard Americans against the dangers of AI and data center hegemony

    · Reforming tax policy so that it no longer benefits the wealthy and enables corporate tax evasion

    · Ending ICE abuses

    · Ending self-harming immigration policies

    · Reconstituting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and giving it enforcement powers

    · Levying a windfall profits tax on oil companies

    · Policies that benefit cost-effective green energy, like solar and wind farms

    · Legislation that eliminates the ability of politicians and their family members to benefit financially from their offices

    On all these issues and more, the Democrats should force Trump to use his veto power, making it clear to the country that he is the reason Americans are suffering under destructive policies that benefit the oligarchs, Trump and his cronies.

    All of this Democratic legislation should be well crafted and objectively good. Furthermore, it can serve as the basis of the arsenal of policies upon which Democrats fight the 2028 election for both president and congress.

    Yes, Democrats today are overjoyed about Tuesday’s results. But we should also be clear that they will still have to fight Republican obstruction over the next two years, as well as a hostile Supreme Court majority. […]

    https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/what-democrats-can-do?r=4bv4c&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

  188. JM says

    The Hill: Jeffries calls Miller a ‘dangerous xenophobe’ after promotion: ‘Fire him today’

    House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) is sounding off on Stephen Miller, President Trump’s pick to replace outgoing White House chief of staff Susie Wiles.

    “Stephen Miller is a dangerous xenophobe and reckless extremist who has American blood on his hands,” Jeffries said in a post to the social platform X. “His presence in government should be eradicated like a malignant tumor. Fire him today.”

    They should work together well.
    I’m sure Miller will be investigated by the Democrats at some point, probably multiple times, but finding something he could be charged with might be hard. He can’t be impeached and a lot of what he does is organize proposals for other people to implement. Of course he could be sitting on some bribery scandal or something else obvious, most people in this White House seem to be.
    Politically he will be a great target to drag in front of an investigation. His history is filled with blatant racism and other biases. He isn’t a good public speaker and is a target likely to say something bad in front of a public committee. His position will also complicate things, Trump will be watching also. He has to support Trump’s policy positions and can’t just sit there and take the 5th on every question.

  189. birgerjohansson says

    Taking a brief pause from politics.

    Plugging for a brilliant comedy anime that might have been done by the team behind “Fawlty Towers” if they had been 50 years younger. (There is a femboy but he is not depicted as more unhinged than anyone else)

    ‘Massive Second-Hand Embarrassment!’ – “Even the Student Council Has Its Holes”. Episode 6 Reaction

    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=zxTVJZ6ZE18
    [Believe it or not, this was one of the least embarassing episodes. And it has a heart. I will look for some Brit comedy next]

  190. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Lenna @186: “And yet, yes, he does choose a few black people to like”

    That got me checking on another one.

    Reuters – Trump appears at Texas rally with Dennis Rodman (Oct 1)

    Trump has talked a lot about wanting to meet Kim Jong Un again but so far his entreaties to the North Korean leader have gone unanswered. […] No reason was given for Rodman’s presence, but he has a local connection through his days playing college basketball in Durant. […] The inclusion of Rodman in Trump’s ​traveling party comes as the president tries to arrange a face-to-face meeting with [Kim Jong Un], and Rodman ​is known to be friendly with the head of the nuclear-armed nation.
    […]
    As Rodman subsequently hopped into the presidential motorcade for the ride north to Oklahoma, he told Reuters that he hoped to speak with Trump about “life.” Asked if he was going to North Korea any time soon, the basketball legend responded: “If you buy ​the ticket.”

    Rodman had been to North Korea four times in 2013-2014 and said he bonded with Un over basketball.

    Parade – A wild claim from Dennis Rodman’s North Korea travels is resurfacing

    In February 2014, The Korea Times cited an anonymous source linked to Free North Korea Radio who claimed Rodman had been heavily intoxicated during his stay at Pyongyang’s Koryo Hotel, alleging that Rodman became sick and relieved himself in the hotel hallway, prompting North Korean authorities to reportedly tell him he wouldn’t be welcomed back without undergoing alcohol treatment.

    Workers and managers of the Koryo Hotel who witnessed the scene and had to clean the mess were reportedly at a loss for words at such barbaric and uncivilized behavior.
    […]
    North Korean authorities […] tried to contain the story from spreading like a wild fire. The obvious reason being shame: that taints the reputation of their Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un’s ability and discretion to screen people. “The stench was just horrible and people are criticizing not only Rodman, but also Kim Jong-un saying that ‘No one in a right mind would be a friend with Rodman. An animal that he is,'” the source said.

    Rodman has since undergone such treatment, and even returned to North Korea in 2017, though he never met with the nation’s leader during the trip.

    Another article pointed out this claim had never been verified, and there had been no public announcement from Un. The rehab was already public knowledge and included when Korea Times published.

    Vanity Fair (2017)

    [Rodman] flew to North Korea Tuesday afternoon for the first time since 2014. […] the State Department emphasized that Rodman was not in the country in any official capacity.
    […]
    Rodman’s relationship with North Korea started strangely: Back in 2013, he was a bartering chip for Vice to gain access to the country, which largely barred Americans and especially American media […] Playing on Kim Jong-un’s rumored love of the Chicago Bulls, Vice editors offered a Rodman-helmed exhibition game in exchange for access to the country.
    […]
    The basketball player’s relationship with Trump goes back a little further. Rodman appeared on Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice twice.

  194. Reginald Selkirk says

    Missing memory card temporarily changed apparent outcome in state House race

    A previously missing election machine memory card in Seminole County (Georgia, USA) has reversed the apparent outcome of a legislative race where early results showed a Republican incumbent losing his seat.

    After election night, the state’s unofficial tally showed Rep. Gerald Greene, R-Cuthbert, trailing Democrat Harry James by fewer than 100 votes.

    That changed on Friday, after the missing memory card was found and its contents uploaded.

    Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office said in a statement that Greene was now leading by 262 votes.

    (On Friday night, the secretary of state’s website showed Greene with 10,193 votes to Democrat Harry James’ 9,932, a difference of 261 votes.)

    Democrats appear to have flipped 13 other Republican seats. They appear to have lost two of their own but still appear on track to win 92 seats without Greene’s, enough for them to control the House for the first time in two decades. But the apparent reversal in Greene’s race means Democrats could have only a 1-vote cushion…

  195. Reginald Selkirk says

    Ukraine builds combat robots to hunt Russian troops in underground gas pipelines — UGVs adapted following 15-kilometer subterranean assault

    Ukraine is developing a new class of combat robots designed to operate inside underground gas pipelines, where Russian troops have repeatedly attempted to bypass frontline defenses, United24Media reports. The project, disclosed by Ukraine’s 2nd National Guard Corps, Khartiia, involves modifying unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) to perform reconnaissance and combat missions in spaces too narrow for conventional military machinery…

  196. says

    With Democrats’ decisive midterm election wins, incoming committee chairs are promising a blitz of investigations. […]

    But these investigations can be only as good as the records that agencies and the White House have preserved, and the effectiveness and independence of the system charged with releasing them. Lawmakers will be stymied if the records they demand have been destroyed or have vanished into encrypted, auto-deleting apps, or if agencies continue to weaponize their classification authority.

    This anti-accountability obfuscation is poised to play out on two fronts.

    […] We are likely to see agencies refuse to respond to committee requests for information, ignore Freedom of Information Act requests on investigative topics and continue to scrub government websites of public information. All this is compounded by the administration’s systematic purging of career inspectors general and replacement of those independent professionals with political loyalists […]

    […] White House, secrecy tactics could grow even more brazen. To ensure that critical records — from President Donald Trump’s working papers to the communications of high-level appointees, such as Stephen Miller — never see the light of day, the Justice Department is doubling down on its (baseless) theory that the Presidential Records Act is unconstitutional and the president can withhold, destroy or sell our public history to the highest bidder. Many such records document how private interests and government policy have collided, so are at the core of how Trump and his family have enriched themselves while in office. My organization, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, is challenging this effort in court alongside Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. But if the DOJ succeeds, Trump will be allowed to once again take presidential papers with him to Mar-a-Lago at the end of his term without consequence, rather than surrendering them to the National Archives and Records Administration for eventual public inspection, as the law currently requires. [Yikes.]

    Simply put, investigating individual scandals will be an exercise in futility unless transparency infrastructure as a whole is strengthened. That’s why in the wake of former President Richard Nixon’s abuses, Congress did much more than hold hearings and issue subpoenas: Lawmakers built the statutory framework that laid the groundwork for modern oversight. They codified the Presidential Records Act, strengthened the Freedom of Information Act, created the inspector general framework and more.

    The next Congress should follow those precedents and reinforce transparency laws so they are strong enough to withstand today’s threats. Skeptics will argue that sweeping transparency reforms are a lost cause against a White House poised to exercise its veto power, but history proves the opposite is true. Transparency is one of the few areas with a consistent record of veto-proof bipartisan support. The 1974 FOIA amendments became law only after Congress overrode former President Gerald Ford’s veto. More recently, the Epstein Files Transparency Act passed the House 427-1.

    Transparency mandates command supermajorities — and lawmakers don’t need the president to get it done.

    […] the Trump administration’s drastic restructuring of the federal government, with many FOIA offices shrunk or dismantled. The result is that even as the public is filing more requests every year, people are waiting longer, only to receive inadequate information on critical issues such as ICE’s use of force and military action against Iran. Congress must provide guaranteed funding for FOIA.It should also mandate more proactive public disclosures, impose penalties for officials who willfully obstruct releases and extend FOIA to private prison and detention facilities.

    […] Congress must also address the murky relationship between private presidential foundations and government-run presidential libraries, which Trump exploited to accept a $400 million luxury jet from Qatar, among other questionable donations. To this end, passage of Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s Presidential Library Anti-Corruption Act would ensure donations to these foundations don’t function as a personal and untraceable slush fund.

    Empowering our nation’s archives is also paramount. NARA cannot enforce preservation while surviving on a budget that has stagnated for decades, leaving public records exposed to unlawful destruction and unchecked overclassification. […]

    For decades, overclassification has kept important information hidden — from legal interpretations to high-profile disclosures such as the Epstein files. […] Congress currently lacks the power to directly compel agencies to declassify records, even when they are improperly classified. Instead, lawmakers usually direct agencies to review records for release, which does not come close to guaranteeing declassification.

    Some congressionally mandated releases stall for decades. Lawmakers could begin closing this transparency gap by mandating the proactive disclosure of Office of Legal Counsel opinions, forcing agencies to establish strict classification standards, and codifying penalties for willful abuse to begin reining in overclassification. Build on these fixes by passing Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s Daniel Ellsberg Press Freedom and Whistleblower Protection Act, guaranteeing protection for those who expose information the public has a right to see that their agencies refuse to declassify.

    Midterm voters put the brakes on the country’s slide toward autocracy and kleptocracy, but the battle is far from over. If the new Congress pursues individual investigations while our transparency infrastructure disintegrates, the door will remain wide open for the next would-be authoritarian to walk through.

    Link

  197. says

    Democrats plan new aid package for Ukraine

    Democrats in Congress might not wait until January to approve new aid for Ukraine. Sen. Richard Blumenthal is talking about a $15 billion package that also includes a call for the Dumb and Dumber of international diplomacy to be replaced with someone who knows what he/she is actually doing. […]

    Lawmakers are considering including additional assistance in the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which is expected to be passed before the current congressional term ends.

    The discussions also cover the continued supply of air defense interceptor missiles, intelligence-sharing arrangements, and support for Ukraine’s access to Starlink satellite communications. Beyond military assistance, Democrats intend to pursue changes to US sanctions legislation targeting Russia.

    According to the Financial Times, lawmakers are seeking to revise legislation associated with the late Republican Senator Lindsey Graham after the Trump administration used exemptions to ease certain restrictions on Russia amid arrangements concerning Russian diesel supplies to global markets. […]

  198. says

    […] a bipartisan group of members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is already looking into the Wall Street Journal’s October report (gift link) that Musk himself ordered the slowdown of data transmission over the military version of Starlink used by Ukraine’s military. The committee has sent letters to Musk, the Trump administration, and private businesses advising them to preserve documents that will be requested once the new session of Congress is sworn in.

    […] Beyond Elon’s Starlink fuckery, there are plenty of avenues for congressional investigation. Some are particular to Musk and his DOGE brownshirts, but we wouldn’t want him to feel singled out. Other creepy tech bros who may have helped Trump do crimes should also think twice before destroying any evidence.

    Happily, in 2025, Sen. Elizabeth Warren compiled a brief overview of Musk’s DOGE misrule, which would be a great starting point for investigating the creepy little fucker. We need a clearer understanding of the many likely conflicts of interest resulting from his efforts to slash government agencies while also holding government contracts that added to his wealth. Before Trump was returned to power, the report notes, “Musk’s companies faced at least $2.37 billion in potential liability from pending agency enforcement actions,” most of which quietly went away. How exactly did that come about?

    And hey, while Congress is looking at that, maybe one or more of the committees that oversee the Defense Department should look into why the Pentagon’s inspector general’s office decided not to investigate the Starlink slowdown, either.

    The Warren Report (oh, is that name taken?) points out that Musk and his army of creepy interns simply ignored longstanding norms and procedures as they axed federal agency staff and operations. Beyond that, Musk also very likely

    engaged in action that may have violated the statutory prohibition regarding federal employees’ participation in particular matters in which a government official has a financial interest, laws against bribery and gratuities, or the regulations prohibiting use of one’s government position for private gain.

    In the 130 days Musk was a “special government employee,” his net worth grew by over $100 billion, which seems like rather a lot. Warren’s report breaks down the muskfuckery into several categories, including the slashing of agencies with regulatory and investigatory power over Musk businesses; policy changes like NASA shifting business to SpaceX and incorporating Musk’s xAI into government computer systems; and the use of federal resources to promote his businesses, like Trump’s one-day conversion of the White House into a Tesla sales lot.

    […] We also need Congress to investigate exactly what happened when DOGE went hoovering up Americans’ personal data from federal agencies. Draining and copying all the data was often the first thing the DOGEsters did as soon as they got through the door. Musk’s data attacks on the IRS and Social Security need to be the subject of targeted investigation, because how the hell was any of it even the least bit legal? (It wasn’t!)

    Here’s Rachel Maddow’s detective story, from Monday before the election, laying out that the datasuck was part of Trump’s effort to fuck over the midterm elections with an illegal federal list of voters, never mind that elections are a state responsibility.

    […] And hell, while we’re at it, how about a Homeland Security Committee investigation into Elon’s fishy pursuit of US citizenship? There’s almost certainly more there there than in Ilhan Omar’s rumpus room.

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/deport-or-jail-elon-musk-that-is

  199. says

    New York Times link

    “On ‘S.N.L.,’ James Talarico Gets to Interrupt Trump”

    “The Democratic senator-elect from Texas popped up to turn the tables on the show’s Trump impersonator, James Austin Johnson, in an episode hosted by the comedian Druski.”

    See also: YouTube link to the post-midterm cold open.

  200. Reginald Selkirk says

    Over 200 democracy scholars call on Congress to end single-member Congressional districts and adopt proportional representation

    September 2022
    Today, more than 200 political scientists, legal scholars, and historians from academic institutions across the United States released an open letter calling on Congress to reject the United States’ winner-take-all system of elections in the wake of a failed 2020 redistricting process and adopt multi-member districts with proportional representation for the U.S. House of Representatives.

    The letter’s 200+ signatories include experts in fields ranging from comparative electoral politics to constitutional law. They include nine Johan Skytte Prize winners, often considered the ‘Nobel Prize of political science’: Robert Axelrod, Francis Fukuyama, Peter Katzenstein, Robert Keohane, David Laitin, Margaret Levi, Arend Lijphart, Philippe Schmitter, and Rein Taagepera. Other prominent signatories include leading voices on the perilous state of American democracy like Steven Levitsky, Jennifer McCoy, and Brendan Nyhan, as well as experts on America’s current electoral system like Larry Sabato, and Matthew Shugart, among many others…

  201. Reginald Selkirk says

    The Arbogast Fallacy

    I’ve identified a certain fallacy endemic among journalists covering Donald Trump that I’m calling the Arbogast Fallacy, after a character in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.
    …
    None of them can begin to imagine what’s actually happening, because they have no way of knowing that they’re not in a noir at all; they’re in the first modern horror film, whose villain kills for no rational reason at all.
    …
    If you’re writing an op-ed or political analysis, or appearing as a guest on a cable show, podcast, or panel, you feel a professional obligation to try to come up with some novel insight, a “hot take”—ideally, something smarter than whatever all the other smartypants writers and speakers are saying that day. Something other than the obvious. The problem is, the object of so much of that labored ideation, Donald Trump, is obvious. He is not a complex figure of Nixonian contradictions. He is not a tragic antihero undone by his hamartia. There are no depths to plumb; his biographers are going to have to pad out their books with a lot of background information and photo sections. He does not engage in subtle Machiavellian maneuvering; the only moves he knows are the rudiments of the playground: brag. Deny. Bully. Bribe. There’s nothing there for a smart person to figure out; they’re writing think pieces about a guy who doesn’t. His operating principles, the only rules you need to remember to understand absolutely everything he does, are simple:

    He is a very stupid person who has never read or learned or ever been really interested in anything that didn’t directly benefit him, and (not unrelated)

    he genuinely doesn’t give a shit about anything other than himself—not his voters or his party or his allies in congress or his “friends”/business associates or his own family. I have no doubt he would sell his daughter to a Saudi prince if he could negotiate a good price.

    He also does not have what you could call a hidden agenda. His goals are as crude and basic as a flatworm’s. He wants:
    …

  202. Reginald Selkirk says

    Buc-Ee’s CEO Said He Didn’t Want To Operate In Blue States, And Now There’s Stores In At Least Five More

    It’ll be interesting to see if the midterm election results affect those expansion plans, as Buc-ee’s president and co-founder Arch “Beaver” Aplin III has expressed a desire to avoid blue states, according to Fox Business.

    At the grand opening of a new location in Benton, Arkansas, Aplin said:

    “I’m starting to realize life’s too short to try to build in places that people don’t appreciate what you’re bringing, versus a place like this where people do appreciate what you are building,” he said.

    Conservative states typically promote business-friendly and family-oriented policies that align with Buc-ee’s values, Aplin said.

    “That leadership, that concept, that idea of conservative, business-friendly, family-oriented concept works so much better if it trickles down from the very leadership from the top at the governor’s office, at the congressman, at senator, at the mayor, the representatives,” he said.

    The thing is, Aplin no longer has that choice. The blue tsunami of the midterm election has turned several states formerly controlled by Republicans over to the Democrats at many of those levels, and in some cases all of them…

  203. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Buc-ee’s president: “conservative, business-friendly, family-oriented concept”

    regressive, exploitative, bigoted

  204. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    NYT – Rubio Warned officials about Nvidia chief

    Secretary of State Marco Rubio oversaw the drafting of the highly classified memo this spring warning top Trump administration officials that Nvidia’s chief executive, Jensen Huang, was in a close relationship with a Chinese spy

    Don Moynihan (Policy prof):

    The Huang scandal, in brief:
    * Had an affair with someone suspected of being a Chinese spy.
    * Trump was warned in May.
    * Trump insisted on keeping Huang as a trusted AI advisor.
    * Huang persuaded Trump to let him sell his chips to China after $25M ballroom donation.

    Some of the firms that the Nvidia chips went to appear to be front companies, and obvious national security risks. [NYT article]

    Pretty much everything was public knowledge here—the $25 million gift, Trump’s faith in Huang, the sales to China—except for the affair. And it is possible the affair had no effect on what happened. Still, looks bad. Trump insisted on bringing Huang to China after [Huang] was left off a delegation [possibly because of the memo].

    Cheryl Rofer: “I keep wondering how Huang could be so stupid. The answer is that he thought he’d get away with it. We are going to have many more opportunities to wonder why a high-placed person could be so stupid over the next few years.”

    Rando 1: “I keep thinking of that quote about how being a billionaire is cognitively like being kicked in the head every day by a horse.”

    Rando 2: “Love how Rubio drafted a classified memo about the spy and then did jack shit about any of it.”

    Rando 3: “Don’t forget about the inside trading. [Article: Trump Bought Up to $5 million of Nvidia stock—then ok’d AI export deals that sent shares soaring]”

    Marcy Wheeler: “When Senator Blumenthal sent out letters asking for more info about ballroom donations, Trump ordered Todd Blanche to criminalize doing so.”

    Rando 4: “The thing I always find funny is how cheap this ends up being. How did they get access to chips? One (1) pretty lady and 25M, which they didn’t even have to front.”

    Rando 5: “As messed up as all of this is. ‘Tech CEO has affair with normal looking middle aged woman’ is bordering on wholesome for the world we live in.”

    Rando 6: “I can forgive the cheating and the treason, but heterosexual sex has no place here.”

    Professa Murray (Law prof):

    you have tear down the ballroom. A: Congress has not appropriated it. B: It is an organized bribe fund. C: Because Congress has not appropriated it, he is taking money from the Secret Service to fund it.

    Congress is underestimating its powers here. […] Literally, tomorrow, some random member can show up to investigate the site, get turned away and sue to stop the ballroom.

    I mean, what is crazy is that apparently he is refusing to spend the money raised for the ballroom and is so crazed that he just stealing money from the government instead. What is he doing with money he raised?

    Rando 7: “Feels important to contrast this to the ongoing crackdown on scientists collaborating with Chinese researchers.”
    Military Times – Academic institutions sever foreign research ties to comply with Pentagon order (Oct 19)

  205. JM says

    Professor Gerdes Explains: Russia’s OWN OFFICIAL RECORDS LEAKED—Death Toll Is Staggering

    I examine a reported leak of Rosstat death-certificate records listing roughly 440,000 Russian military deaths through August 28, 2026, while the leak site puts the total above 450,000

    Leak of death information from Rosstat, which gives a pretty good view of what the Russian government considers the death toll. There are also some important caveats on that, this doesn’t count a lot of just missing and the tracking of the toll has gotten worse every year. The Russians are now months beyond on counting deaths. The totals are still staggering.

  206. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    ProPublica – Tribal leaders warned border wall construction would disturb Native American Remains. They were right.

    remains were unearthed in Organ Pipe amid soil overturned by border wall contractors. […] The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act governs the steps agencies must take following an inadvertent discovery of Native American remains on federal land. Those steps include halting any activity that contributed to the discovery until tribal communities are consulted.
    […]
    [DHS] awarded a $1.3 billion contract for construction of a 62-mile border wall across the entirety of the Tohono O’odham Nation. The tribe is fighting the project in federal court and has erected “no trespassing” signs to keep border wall contractors off its land. […] DHS has responded by deploying masked federal agents as escorts for its work crews and conducting aerial surveillance of tribal members.
    […]
    Following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Congress passed the Real ID Act, which included a provision empowering the secretary of DHS to waive any law that might slow border wall construction. In the two decades since, DHS has invoked its powers 66 times, with 60 of those instances occurring under President Donald Trump’s two administrations.

    When DHS uses this authority, it typically waives dozens of laws at a time. That was the case in 2019 when the department set its sights on Organ Pipe. A waiver issued by then-acting Secretary Kevin K. McAleenan set aside more than 40 of the nation’s most stringent environmental and cultural resource protection laws
    […]
    “Unfortunately, there is no end date to the effectiveness of the waivers,” said Dinah Bear, a Tucson-based lawyer who served for 25 years as a senior attorney in the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality […] What’s more, she added, “there’s nothing in the statutory language that ties the waivers to a particular project.”

  211. Reginald Selkirk says

    Olympic judo champion Teddy Riner announces run for French presidency

    Judo star Teddy Riner wants to be the next French president.

    The 37-year-old multiple Olympic champion, who is consistently ranked among France’s favorite public figures, announced his bid on social media on Monday. Riner, who has liberal economic views, said in an interview with Le Parisien newspaper that he is positioning himself as “neither right-wing nor left-wing” and hopes to become a “president who brings people together.”
    …

  212. KG says

    Riner, who has liberal economic views, said in an interview with Le Parisien newspaper that he is positioning himself as “neither right-wing nor left-wing”

    Uh-huh. A right-winger, then.

  213. KG says

    Reginald Selkirk@201,

    That analysis leaves it completely inexplicable that Trump has been able to dominate American politics for over a decade. One explanation could be that many millions of Americans are even more stupid than Trump, but I don’t think that will do. It’s true that Trump is extremely ignorant and incurious, but in past decades he was capable of speaking coherently and of playing a succssful businessman on TV; and he does (or did – he’s losing it as his dementia advances), an uncanny ability to diagnose and appeal to the worst instincts of his supporters/marks, reminding me of what the dissident Nazi Otto Strasser said of Hitler:

    Adolf Hitler enters a hall. He sniffs the air. For a minute he gropes, feels his way, senses the atmosphere. Suddenly he bursts forth. His words go like an arrow to their target, he touches each private wound on the raw, liberating the mass unconscious, expressing its innermost aspirations, telling it what it most wants to hear….

    Hitler responds to the vibrations of the human heart with the delicacy of a seismograph, or perhaps of a wireless receiving set, enabling him, with a certainty with which no conscious gift could endow him, to act as a loud-speaker proclaiming the most secret desires, the least admissible instincts, the sufferings and personal revolts of a whole nation…

    Fortunately, none of his potential successors seem to have anythnig like the same ability.

  214. KG says

    Lynna, OM@196,

    I’m sure the regime will do its best to destroy the records of its crimes if it thinks it is actually going to be toppled (I don’t think that point is near yet), but in the digital age, it is very difficult to be sure you’ve erased every copy of anything!

  215. KG says

    CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain@190,

    Minor point: Kim Jong Un’s family name is Kim (like that of a startling proportion of Koreans – 21.5% of South Koreans in the 2015 census). “Un” is part of his personal name, “Jong Un”, which is often hyphenated. Korean names, like Chinese and Japanese ones, put the family name first. I’ve read somewhere that Koreans cannot marry someone with the same family name, but I don’t know if that still applies. It probably doesn’t if you’re semi-divine, in any case.

  216. Reginald Selkirk says

    Melania Trump’s Latest Announcement Has Critics Reaching For The Mute Button

    Melania Trump’s announcement of the release date for her new two-part docuseries had critics reaching for the off button.

    The first lady shared a trailer for “Melania, The Series” on social media ahead of its Nov. 20 debut on Amazon Prime Video…

    While the film followed Trump in the days leading up to her husband’s second inauguration, the new series promises “never-before-told stories, offering unprecedented insight into Melania Trump’s life, including the extraordinary days immediately following the 47th Presidential Inauguration,” according to an Amazon press release.

    The first episode, “Family & Trust,” follows Trump as she sets “priorities as she prepares to become America’s First Lady … but inside the White House, trust is tested, and the incoming First Lady must protect those closest to her while navigating the demands of power.”

    The second, “Pride & Honor,” explores how “the honor of serving as First Lady comes with an immediate call to action. Moments after the inauguration, First Lady Melania Trump sets her mission in motion for the American people.” …

  217. KG says

    Reginald Selkirk@182,
    And Eisenkot, rather than talk to the Palestinian Israelis elected, is trying to seduce the theocratic fascist minister* Bezalel Smotrich from his alliance with Netanyahu.

    *The current government of Israel also includes secular fascists.

  218. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    KG @215: Thanks. I did feel weird writing “Un”. And if I’d thought of his dad, it would’ve been obvious. I knew about Japanese. Confusingly those sometimes get switched around in anglicizing: Star Trek Voyager comes to mind.

  219. JM says

    USA Today: Republican moves to force Pete Hegseth impeachment vote this week

    Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Kentucky, will force a vote this week on impeaching Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth, one of President Donald Trump’s most controversial Cabinet secretaries and the public face of an increasingly unpopular war.

    The impeachment effort comes just days after Republicans suffered historic losses in the midterm elections, which Trump and Vice President JD Vance have attributed to the conflict with Iran, which has spiked gas prices. Some Republicans have urged the White House to fire Hegseth and install a new leader at the helm of the Pentagon before Democrats reclaim control of Congress in January and likely grind most confirmations to a halt.

    Massie, an anti-war Republican and one of Trump’s top political opponents, will seek to oust Hegseth for waging war in Iran without congressional approval, launching lethal military strikes against alleged drug traffickers into the Caribbean Sea and allegedly ignoring laws mandated by Congress to minimize civilian casualties during military conflict.

    Massie is probably just playing out his anti-war and anti-Trump beliefs here but it’s actually convenient for Republicans. A vote to impeach might happen in the House but there is little chance of getting enough votes in the Senate. If (when) the Democrats then impeach him again it will look much more partisan.
    Having the process under Republican control will also let them minimize the ugly topics they don’t want to talk about.

  220. says

    Todd Blanche keeps making things easier for those who want to impeach him

    “Over the course of a few days, the attorney general offered ample new evidence to suggest he deserves to be impeached. Democrats clearly noticed.”

    Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia, who is expected to soon lead the House Oversight Committee, has made no effort to hide his ambitious investigative agenda in the upcoming Congress. On the contrary, the Californian spent much of last week encouraging leading Trump administration officials, including new White House chief of staff Stephen Miller, to “lawyer up.”

    Attorney General Todd Blanche apparently heard about Garcia’s comments, and he was not pleased.

    “Well, I’ll tell you what, Stephen Miller has a lawyer,” he said on Fox News during a Friday night appearance. “It’s me.”

    Blanche, who ostensibly leads the Justice Department, echoed the point two days later in another Fox News appearance, questioning whether the United States “can survive” the congressional oversight efforts that have not happened yet.

    The attorney general added, “If you work in this administration, you have a lawyer. It’s me, and we will defend you. We will work hard.”

    The same morning, CNN’s Dana Bash also interviewed Blanche and asked whether he believes it’s his job to represent officials facing congressional investigations.

    “Wait, do I see it as my job?” he replied. “The Constitution sees it as my job.”

    The attorney general quickly added that he would also intend to defend Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in the event of his impeachment.

    None of this made any sense. The Constitution, which Blanche has sworn to protect and defend, does not reference the office of the attorney general, so the idea that it requires him to defend administration officials facing congressional investigations is foolish. What’s more, every executive branch official who has ever been impeached has relied on defense attorneys, not federal prosecutors.

    Blanche, in other words, sounded very much like a partisan who doesn’t understand what his job is — because, by appearances, he doesn’t.

    His rhetoric came as the attorney general brushed off corruption allegations raised by Calley Means, a former official at the Department of Homeland Security, and lending credence to the idea that Democratic congressional leaders who conduct oversight investigations could be criminally prosecuted.

    As Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney for Michigan who is now an MS NOW legal analyst, summarized via Bluesky, “The Attorney General represents the United States of America. Not individual cabinet officials. Not the president. This refusal to do his job is grounds for his own impeachment.”

    McQuade’s reference to possibly impeaching Blanche was of particular interest, because this has become the subject of growing discussion of late. MS NOW reported last week:

    Rep. Jamie Raskin, who is poised to become chair of the House Judiciary Committee, told MS NOW that President Donald Trump’s attorney general, Todd Blanche, could face impeachment hearings when Democrats take back the gavel in January. The Maryland Democrat said that under Blanche’s leadership, the Department of Justice has become a “Department of Injustice.” […]

    With Democrats set to take control of the House, Raskin vowed to investigate Blanche, who previously served as one of the president’s personal attorneys […] The House Judiciary Committee is typically the panel responsible for investigating and drafting formal articles of impeachment.

    On Thursday, two other House Democrats — Reps. Hank Johnson of Georgia and Deborah Ross of North Carolina — also voiced their support for impeaching Blanche.

    “I can’t imagine we won’t have one,” Ross said, referring to a possible impeachment resolution against the attorney general.

    A couple of days before Election Day, The New York Times’ David French wrote a compelling column calling for Blanche’s impeachment, arguing, “His [Blanche’s] ‘high crime’ is corrupting the Department of Justice, and only a decisive act of political hygiene can cleanse the D.O.J. of MAGA’s terrible stain.”

    No one should be surprised if the column is circulated widely on Capitol Hill in the coming months.

  221. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Steve Shives as the pessimist: “The president’s party usually does badly in the midterms.”

    Finally! I hadn’t heard that mentioned lately. Pendulum Democracy I think it’s called. No Wikipedia page for it.

  222. says

    Monday’s Campaign Round-Up, 11.9.26: Scott Colom’s lead in Mississippi grows a little more

    “Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.”

    * Mississippi’s U.S. Senate race has not yet been called, but MS NOW reported over the weekend that Democratic nominee Scott Colom now leads Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith by 2,574 ballots.

    As for the trailing GOP incumbent, Hyde-Smith has maintained a surprisingly low profile in recent days, and she has not been in public since leaving an election night watch party on Tuesday.

    * As for the other uncalled U.S. Senate race, Donald Trump declared over the weekend that incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan is “leading substantially” in Alaska, adding by way of his social media platform, “The Alaska Race is OVER. Dan Sullivan WON, BY A LOT!” In reality, Sullivan is trailing former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola, and the contest is not over at all. [!]

    * The Justice Department sued California, hoping to block state officials from counting roughly 20,000 ballots the administration considered suspect, but late Friday, federal prosecutors abandoned the case altogether.

    * Most state attorney general races were largely overlooked by national audiences this year, but Kansas was a special case: Incumbent Republican Kris Kobach, a prominent anti-immigration figure and proponent of voting restrictions, lost his re-election bid to Democratic nominee Chris Mann, an attorney and former police officer. [Good news.]

    * In Arizona, The Associated Press confirmed that Democrats will control both state legislative chambers and the governor’s office next year, the first trifecta in the Grand Canyon State since 1966. [Good news.]

    * In Virginia last week, voters approved a measure called Amendment 3, ending a Jim Crow-era policy that prevented former felons from voting after having served their sentences. [Good news.]

    * How bad have things become for Rhode Island Republicans? In the new year, the number of GOP lawmakers in the 38-member state Senate will shrink to just two, down from the current four. [Wow. Good news.]

    * In Ohio’s gubernatorial race, Democratic Gov.-elect Amy Acton confirmed last week that she has no intention of speaking to failed Republican nominee Vivek Ramaswamy. […] “I do believe that leaders’ words matter, and we need to hold folks accountable,” Acton said, reflecting on Ramaswamy’s unusually despicable campaign tactics.

    * Amid speculation about who will lead the Republican National Committee in the wake of the party’s brutal losses in the midterm elections, the president announced Friday afternoon that he expects the incumbent chair, Joe Gruters, to remain in the position despite his failures.

    * Last year, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired three-star Vice Adm. Nancy Lacore, who led the Navy Reserve. This year, Lacore got the last laugh winning a Democratic congressional campaign in a red district in South Carolina. A couple of days after her Republican rival conceded defeat, the AP called the race in Lacore’s favor. [Good news.]

  223. Reginald Selkirk says

    @222

    the president announced Friday afternoon that he expects the incumbent chair, Joe Gruters, to remain in the position despite his failures.

    That’s a surprise. I expected him to ask Roman Reigns to fill the job.

  224. Reginald Selkirk says

    A 55-Year-Old Film That Offended Everyone Is Back—and This Time It’s a Hit

    The most unlikely cinematic success story of the year is a 55-year-old movie about 17th-century France that features a sexually promiscuous priest and a scene with naked nuns.

    “The Devils,” directed by Ken Russell, was pilloried, censured and quickly forgotten after its release in 1971. But seemingly out of nowhere, the movie reappeared this fall in theaters in New York. The release was such a hit the distributor scrapped its original plan to keep it in theaters for a week and instead extended its theatrical run…

  225. says

    Pressed on his expanding wealth and alleged corruption, Trump says all the wrong things

    A few months ago, Forbes magazine published a striking report on the extraordinary riches Donald Trump has accumulated while profiting off his presidency, having added roughly $3 billion to his net worth since returning to the White House In the previous 12 months, the report added, was “the most lucrative year” of the Republican’s life.

    The president has generally said very little about the development, which made it all the more notable when Ross Douthat, a conservative former columnist at The New York Times, pressed Trump on this during an interview on CBS News’ “60 Minutes” that aired on Sunday night. [social media post from Aaron Rupar, with video]

    When Douthat noted the reporting and reminded the president about his net worth climbing by $3 billion, Trump replied, “Well, so did everyone.” When the interviewer noted that his net worth did not go up $3 billion, the Republican said, “Well, you should’ve had stock.”

    It was a bizarre response, suggesting those Americans who have struggled financially during his tenure have no one to blame but themselves. If only you had invested as well as your president, you too could be climbing the ranks on the Forbes 400.

    The line from “Let them eat cake” to “Well, you should’ve had stock” couldn’t be straighter. (Dan Alexander, who wrote the article that Douthat referenced, published a lengthy Bluesky thread, explaining in detail why the president’s response deserves to be seen as “nonsense.”)

    To his credit, Douthat kept pulling on that thread, reminding Trump about his and his family’s holdings in the cryptocurrency firm World Liberty Financial, which has attracted foreign investors: “I think if I told you that story and it was about the Biden family, if I said, ‘Joe Biden is the part owner of a company and it has all of these investments from the Middle East,’ you would say, ‘That sounds corrupt.’” [social media post from Aaron Rupar, with video]

    Trump, who didn’t appear to have talking points at the ready, said, “I devote almost no time to my net worth. I don’t care. I make — I have a lotta money, and far more than I ever thought I’d have. And I guess it’s gone up. I don’t even know.”

    But this wasn’t much of an answer. The underlying controversy is about the president profiting off his office to a staggering degree. Whether he’s spending a lot of time thinking about it or not is beside the point.

    Trump ultimately added, “Look, every president has a problem.”

    Except, they don’t. Other presidents, especially those who have served since Watergate, have exercised far greater discretion. Jimmy Carter, for example, was a farmer, but after reaching the White House, the Georgia Democrat put his peanut farm in a blind trust, before ultimately selling it.

    To hear Trump tell it, the corruption allegations he’s faced — which, as Douthat reminded him more than once, he could erase through divestment — should be seen as normal and routine. Reality tells a very different story: No other president in American history has ever seen such financial gains while in office.

    As a recent analysis from the Times explained, “Mr. Trump’s profits are a haul once unimaginable for any leader of a liberal democracy, particularly a sitting American president. No modern Western leader has ever publicly disclosed such big windfalls while in office. The Trump family’s earnings, experts said, have moved him into an echelon of enrichment more associated with strongmen in Russia and Turkey.”

    That Trump struggled to answer questions about this in a coherent and accurate way was unsurprising, although his difficulties were a reminder about just how serious the underlying problem has become.

  226. says

    Trump pushes new election conspiracy theories, shifting quickly from acceptance to denial

    “Is the president’s bizarre statement the first step or the last step? Is he self-soothing or preparing for a radical challenge to voters’ verdict?”

    Related video at the link.

    On Tuesday night, as it became clear that Republicans were suffering a historic smackdown, Donald Trump told The New York Times he was “absolutely willing” to accept the results of the midterm elections — and even said he was prepared to work with the incoming Democratic majority.

    “We’ll, you know, look forward to working with them,” he said in a phone interview. “We’ll probably work something out.”

    Around the same time, the president spoke to CBS News and added, “My message is, congratulations to the Democrats, and I look forward to working with you for the good of our country.”

    Soon after, on his HBO program, comedian Bill Maher went so far as to say the president had been “amazingly humble” in the wake of devastating defeats. [Nope. Bill Maher is gullible?]

    But those who assumed that Trump would inevitably start sounding more like Trump were soon proven right. On Monday morning, Trump published a new message to his social media platform that read, in its entirety:

    Does anybody really believe that this “Election” was honest. How could the Polls be so wrong??? Some early voting “dumps” were so large that it was impossible to win, no matter how many people went to vote.

    It’s all about the machines, which are far more important than the voter!

    It should surprise no one to learn that Trump did not (and will not) bolster any of this with anything resembling evidence. It was also rather amusing to see him complain about early voting numbers when he’s spent years complaining about ballots counted later in the process. [yep, all true]

    As for whether the polls were wrong, they were actually pretty good — if anything, they undercounted Democratic support — and all of the data thoroughly discredited Trump’s pre-election conspiracy theories about the polling industry. [yep]

    […] Trump, like many authoritarian figures for generations, simply does not accept election results. This was true from the very beginning of his career in GOP politics: When he came in second to Sen. Ted Cruz in the Iowa caucuses in 2016, Trump insisted that the Texas Republican “stole” the race “illegally,” adding, “Based on the fraud committed by Senator Ted Cruz during the Iowa caucus, either a new election should take place or Cruz results nullified.”

    The nonsense was largely ignored, but it was an early indication that Trump simply doesn’t believe disputes are settled at the ballot box — even in races he wins — and it is quite likely that he will never accept the legitimacy of election results.

    But I’m also interested in knowing whether the president’s bizarre statement represents the first step or the last step in a larger push. Maybe Trump, still licking his wounds after suffering a historic humiliation, is self-soothing through his tried-and-true method of online conspiratorial misinformation, which will soon be a footnote in any number of books about his failed presidency.

    Or maybe this is an opening salvo in a larger effort to contest the same Democratic victories he vowed to accept six days ago. Watch this space.

  227. says

    https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:4llrhdclvdlmmynkwsmg5tdc/post/3mzsmisfmx22c

    [from Aaron Rupar] here is full footage of the crashout Attorney General Todd Blanche just had on CNN, including him confirming he’ll investigate Democrats on Trump’s demand and leaving the door open to trying to imprison them

    Video at the link.

    Comments from people who viewed the video:

    SCOTUS did qualify it for official acts. Problem is Trump considers everything he does an official act even insulting reporters and doing 4000+ stock trades. Courts will litigate it.
    ————————–
    Right. For example I want clarity on the taking of bribes for pardons. Yes POTUS has the constitutional right to pardon but he doesn’t have a constitutional right to extort cash.
    —————————-
    Trump blatantly pardoned anyone in trump1 and trump2 that would pay at least $2M. Rudy G sold pardons in trump1!
    ——————————
    Let’s not forget about the monies paid to him to be in this country with those expensive visas
    —————————–
    He looks haggard. [yes Blanche looks like a sleepless guy who is also sick]
    ————————-
    Executive branch agencies, like FBI & DHS, legally must have probable cause about an actual crime to start an investigation (but that is easily gamed). It may be politically unwise for Congress to pursue investigations without clear probable cause but it is 100% legal & Constitutional
    —————————-
    This Attorney General will likely end up getting impeached as well. His willingness to do anything requested by his Mad King is remarkable . . .
    —————————–
    I see disbarment here
    ——————————–
    “In total, the collective Trump family has become between $5.5 billion and $6 billion richer since Donald Trump secured and entered his second presidential term.”
    ———————————-
    • Rudy Giuliani: Disbarred in NY and D.C..
    • John Eastman: Disbarred in CA, suspended in Washington, D.C. (poss disbarment ).
    • Kenneth Chesebro: Disbarred in NY.
    • Michael Cohen: Disbarred in NY.
    • Jenna Ellis: Law license suspended in CO for 3 years.
    • Roy Cohn: Historically disbarred (deceased)
    ———————————–
    Listening to Blanche talk about violent rhetoric is rich.
    Telling someone that you will pardon them after they assault someone is violent rhetoric, not telling them that they will be prosecuted for aiding in crimes.
    ———————————-
    It’s comforting to see that these sycophants are so rattled by the election results that they’ve been reduced to babbling idiots who can’t even lie effectively anymore.
    ———————————-
    Couldn’t someone in Dana Bash’s earpiece just have told her “The attorney general is not mentioned in the Constitution”

  228. Reginald Selkirk says

    @225

    Trump ultimately added, “Look, every president has a problem.”
    Except, they don’t.

    Sure, every president has a problem. For some, the problem is off-the-charts corruption, incompetence, lack of respect for laws and norms, starting wars he has no idea how to finish.
    For others, the problem is that he wore a tan suit once.

  229. Reginald Selkirk says

    @213 KG

    That analysis leaves it completely inexplicable that Trump has been able to dominate American politics for over a decade…

    Trump’s appeal has never been universal; I have never found him appealing. He has never won a majority in a popular vote. Mostly he appeals to the racists and bigots. A decade ago, he knew how to say just enough out loud that racists knew he was one of them. Now, through creeping dementia and unchecked narcissism, he has lost any subtlety and deniability he had.

  230. JM says

    @229 Reginald Selkirk:
    Trump has also benefited from a political system that has made general hatred of Congress and politicians, for a variety of good and bad reasons, normal. Republicans telling people to hate the government in general. A large number of votes in both parties that don’t think about their party policy and are voting to get the other side. Journalists willing to let Trump cast himself as a populist outsider even though he was a NY Land developer.
    He also was helped in 2016 by Hillary Clinton running, one of the few people with unpopularity figures in Trump’s range. And she still won the popular vote, Trump won because the electoral college favors voters from low population Republican states.

  231. JM says

    UPI: Israeli opposition leader Eisenkot may include Netanyahu in coalition

    Israeli opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot said he is open to including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the coalition he is working to build.
    Eisenkot, who has been tasked with forming the country’s next government by President Isaac Herzog, also suggested far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich would be welcomed to join.
    “If members of Likud and the Religious Zionist Party truly believe this is a time for unity, as they told the president, I cannot conceive of any reason why they would not support a government under my leadership and the principles I have presented,” Eisenkot said.

    Eisenkot has said he won’t ally with the Arab parties, which would be the easy way to form a majority group. Instead he is trying to recruit 1 or more minor figures out of Neyanyahu’s far right coalition.
    It’s also possible that he doesn’t need to hit the 61 members required for a majority. He only needs to win confidence votes and it’s possible the Arab parties will back him even if not part of the government.

  232. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Some trivia that came up in a podcast I just listened to about phosphorus.

    WaPo – Bones of 1800s battlefield dead may have been dug up for fertilizer (2024)

    Since 2012, only two skeletons have been found at the famous [Waterloo] battlefield in Belgium. An estimated 20,000 soldiers died that day
    […]
    Historians Bernard Wilkin of Belgium and Robin Schäfer of Germany contend the bones of the dead at Waterloo—and those of many other battles across Europe, Africa and even the United States—were ground up to produce fertilizer for agriculture and bone char for filtering sugar. It’s a practice that can best be described as industrial-scale grave robbing.
    […]
    It wasn’t just human bones: An estimated 500,000 to 1 million horses died at Waterloo and in other battles of the Napoleonic Wars, and their remains were plundered, too. […] For decades, there have been rumors […] Wilkin and Schäfer wrote that they “discovered a trend […] that went far beyond the Napoleonic Wars. There were cases of exhumed skeletons of mediaeval plague victims and deceased parishioners in Britain, soldiers from the American Civil War and victims of the First World War.”
    […]
    who was taking all these human skeletons? Wilkin and Schäfer believe it was mostly poor people just trying to survive. They were likely encouraged to do so by industrialists who turned a blind eye to the source of their supplies.
    […]
    The use of bones in industrial production ebbed in the 20th century, when modern chemical alternatives were introduced.

  234. Reginald Selkirk says

    Attackers Claim to Have Stolen Data on Over 1 Million Vanderbilt Students and Staff

    Vanderbilt University (VU) officials urged students and faculty to disconnect their devices from school Wi-Fi after a likely ransomware attack hit the institution on Monday, according to both local news stations and the student paper. Attackers claim to have stolen data on over a million individuals associated with the university.

    “Everyone is following VU protocols and waiting for further instruction,” Dean of the Blair School of Music Melissa Rose told students in a statement shortly after 10:00 a.m. local time, according to The Vanderbilt Hustler (no relation to the other Hustler). “VUIT is working on it. For now, we are simply asking everyone to stay off the network entirely until we know more.” …

  235. Reginald Selkirk says

    Physicists Gave Up on This Fusion Technique in the 1980s. Now It’s Working

    Fusion energy feels like a perpetually elusive goal, but with new ideas and better equipment, scientists have been inching closer to harnessing the power of the stars. But some physicists are testing a different combination: better equipment for an old idea.

    Physicists recently reported the successful experimental demonstration of helicon current drive at the DIII-D National Fusion Facility. First proposed in the 1980s, helicon current drive uses a specific type of high-frequency radio wave to drive the hot plasma of a fusion reactor, producing an internal electric current to stabilize the reaction. However, the equipment at the time simply wasn’t able to deliver on the theory, which was why the idea was shelved until now. But thanks to major strides in reactor equipment, scientists tested and successfully demonstrated helicon current drive for the first time.

    Physicists Bob Pinsker, Jeff Lestz, and Bart Van Compernolle of General Atomics were co-lead authors of the paper describing the results, published recently in Physical Review Letters…

  236. Reginald Selkirk says

    Statue on National Mall mocks Trump for Vietnam draft deferment

    A towering gold statue of President Donald Trump appeared on the National Mall Monday morning, a satirical installation poking at his Vietnam-era draft deferments.

    Trump received a total of five draft deferments during the Vietnam War era, including four education deferments while attending Fordham University and the University of Pennsylvania and one medical deferment due to a diagnosis of bone spurs in his heels after graduation.

    The statue of Trump, installed two days before Veterans Day, stands opposite to the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden. Titled “The Foot Soldier,” it shows a larger-than-life Trump seated on a granite pedestal, looking at the bottom of his right foot.

    “We honor the service and sacrifice of our Commander in Chief, Donald J. Trump. He’s a soldier in spirit, who marched to the front lines of dodging the draft, armed with a perfect diagnosis of bone spurs,” said the plaque on the pedestal Trump sits on. “We salute a leader who knows you can’t spell sacrifice without ‘I,’ and a warrior who reminds us that sometimes when you’re called to stand up, it’s best to just sit down and rest your feet.”

    The plaque also includes a 2013 quote from President Trump himself: “I can be very military.”
    …

  237. JM says

    Kyiv Indepndent: Moscow police detain over 200 people, reportedly forcing some to sign military contracts

    Moscow police detained over 200 people on the evening of Nov. 7, many of whom were minors, during what is being described as a raid near the Kitay-Gorod metro station, according to multiple local Telegram channels.

    Detainees told the Russian Telegram channel “Ostorozhno, Novosti” that those over the age of 18 were “persistently” urged to sign a contract with Russia’s Defense Ministry. Reports of police beating the detainees, smashing their phones, and prohibiting them from using the toilet later emerged.

    Others claimed that they were served with draft notices at the Tagansky police station. Female students reportedly also received draft notices despite having deferment from military service.

    Other reports indicate this has been going on since at least the 7th into the 9th. Raids in Moscow grabbing lots of people and pressure applied to sign military contracts. Doing this in Moscow rather then outer regions of Russia is a bad sign for Putin also. Sounds like they reaching a new level of desperate.

  239. Reginald Selkirk says

    Philadelphia-raised Ahmed Moor from Gaza becomes John Fetterman’s first challenger

    Senator John Fetterman is now facing the first challenger for his seat.

    Video above: Top stories, weather from WGAL News 8.

    Ahmed Moor was born in Gaza, Palestine, but grew up in Philadelphia. He announced on Monday he is running for the United States Senate to unseat John Fetterman.

    Moor’s campaign is focused on stopping funding for foreign wars and starting funding for Pennsylvania.

    Moor lives in West Philadelphia with his wife and three kids and has a background in journalism and public policy, according to his campaign page.

    Unlike Fetterman, who has shown support for Israel, Moor is critical of the war in Gaza.

    “A few years ago, my birthplace was turned to rubble in a genocide funded by our tax dollars, with the support of politicians on both sides of the aisle who can’t find money for transit or removing asbestos from our schools,” says Moor on his campaign page…

  240. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Reginald Selkirk @233: “You don’t pardon innocent people.”

    Jeffrey Gutman (Law prof) – Pardons and compensation (pdf via the link, p4, 2023)

    Previously, a number of states, including Maryland, required a pardon in order to compensate an exoneree. Obtaining such pardons is often quite difficult; as a result, most of those states have removed that requirement. However, it remains in Maine and Tennessee.

  241. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Extending the excerpt from 240 (p5):

    In contrast to the two states that require a pardon to obtain compensation, other states have taken two different approaches […] There are 14 state compensation statutes (including D.C.) that are entirely silent on pardons. […] Generally, the plaintiff or applicant must show that they received [a judicial] order vacating or reversing the conviction […] and they were innocent
    […]
    In a number of other states, a pardon on the express grounds of innocence entitles the exoneree to seek compensation. In this sense, the pardon is a door-opener and dispenses with the need for court sanctioned post-conviction relief. The pardon itself may not ensure that compensation is awarded because other statutory requirements must be satisfied, but so long as the entity considering compensation defers to the governor’s determination of innocence, it would certainly resolve the essential question of innocence

    States are listed in the footnotes.

  242. JM says

    @233 Reginald Selkirk:
    Biden pardoned Dr. Anthony Fauci, retired Gen. Mark Milley, members and staff of the January 6th Select Committee, and Capitol and D.C. Metropolitan Police officers who testified before the committee. This was purely preemtive, as Trump and other Republicans were threading to drag them into court just for being on the other side of the Covid, January 6th or such (I don’t know what Milley was being harassed over).
    He also pardoned a circle of his family members so they couldn’t be charge with any federal crimes for some long span of dates. It looks like this was done to make sure they couldn’t be dragged into the Hunter Biden mess.
    Biden also pardoned Hunter Biden but we know he was guilty of a few things.

  244. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    APNews – Democrats flip Georgia state House, giving them new control of at least 12 legislative chambers

    It’s the biggest gain for either party in a single election since the Republicans took the majority in 20 chambers in 2010 amid the Great Recession and the rise of the conservative tea party movement.

    […] Democrats will have trifectas […] in at least six states where they’re currently sharing power with Republicans. […] The news organization has not yet determined who will control the state Senate in North Carolina or either chamber in Alaska.

    * Tea Party astroturf campaign.

  245. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    KrebsOnSecurity – Want to rent an internet address at the White House? (Nov 4)

    Several staffers at the White House are using computers or mobile devices equipped with residential proxy services that render their internet address available for others to rent, security experts warned today. One of the proxy services is a Russian company whose founder’s web hosting business was ground zero for [Putin’s] cyberattacks against election systems in Arizona and Illinois in 2016. […] residential proxy providers […] make it simple for customers to […] anonymize their web traffic or spoof their true location.
    […]
    Incredibly, […] Layer3 Intel said it found 28 separate residential proxy services were able to exit through this network. “This is public access,” the Layer3 Intel team wrote. “Anybody can obtain it by signing up to a public residential proxy service, paying a few dollars and sending requests through it. We did not selectively target this network or try to make our probes exit from it. We caught this by chance, simply by requesting global rotating access through these services.”
    […]
    residential proxy services are a major source of unwanted and often malicious traffic […] They can also introduce serious security risks. In late 2025, it was discovered that cybercriminals were mass exploiting a widespread vulnerability in these services that allowed them to probe each proxy endpoint’s local network for vulnerable systems to infect with malware.
    […]
    App developers can embed software development kits (SDKs) provided by the residential proxy networks to monetize their software, allowing them to receive a small amount of money on each installation. […] they are all too commonly found on government and corporate networks. In a webinar in January 2026, the proxy tracking service Spur found residential proxies in nearly 300 government owned and operated networks, 318 utility companies, 166 healthcare companies or hospitals, and 141 companies in banking and finance. In a blog post earlier this year, the security firm Infoblox said it discovered that fully 65% of its customer base was querying one or more residential proxy related domains.

    PCMag – White House network possibly exposed to hackers via proxy services

    “Most of the activity happens in the evening, Eastern time: about half of it falls between 5 p.m. and midnight, and almost none happens in the early morning,” Layer 3 Intel wrote in its report. “That pattern suggests a person rather than a public guest Wi-Fi network: someone regularly on the White House network late into the evening, whose device is infected with a proxy.”

    Commentary

    We are currently clean on OPSEC.

    What struck me is how mundane the mechanism is: a staffer installs a free app, and suddenly a government IP becomes rentable inventory.

    Why the fuck were their personal machines even connected to the network? For seven years, I couldn’t bring my personal cell phone into a gov’t work area because of the POTENTIAL (albeit exceedingly low) that my device could compromise IT security.

    What ever happened to all that non-secured Starlink hardware that Musk installed without any authorization in the WH compound and on the OEOB roof, back when he had an office there during his DOGE days? [Lynna @128]

    It’s funny that the world has embedded spies all over the US government at the same time that we have a president who will tell you all of our state secrets if you just ask him.

    BUT HER EMAILS

  246. Reginald Selkirk says

    All net-connected vehicles from two major automakers allowed hackers to remotely unlock doors and start the engine — now-patched hard-coded credentials and bypassed MFA security showcase a lack of 101-level best practices

    … Two security researchers joined forces and, during early 2026, managed to hack the vehicle connectivity backend infrastructure of two automakers, managing to remotely open the doors on any of their net-connected cars and start their engines across multiple world regions.

    The vulnerabilities were quickly fixed, and they pertained to a handful of belief-begging security issues with multiple server APIs that their respective mobile applications use. Furthermore, although remotely opening the cars and starting them were the most concerning bits, the vulnerabilities also exposed the vehicles’ location, mileage, fuel, range, door states, and the customers’ personal information.

    The white-hat hacking duo isn’t disclosing the name of the impacted automakers, but they managed to get access to Automaker #1’s U.S. vehicles, while vehicles from Automaker #2 were susceptible to unplanned lock disengagement in Australia, the U.S., and Canada. As far as we can tell by visual inspection alone, the second firm may be Toyota, as the hack demonstration video appears to depict a RAV4 SUV…

  249. says

    I support thoughtful, responsible technology. But, there are a lot of idiots that want to connect everything to the internet just because it’s cool and they are lazy. There is no sane reason to connect your refrigeration unit (or vehicle, or vacuum, etc.) to the internet.
    There are multiple hacks happening across europe
    https://www.yahoo.com/news/world/articles/france-says-iran-behind-costly-171529344.html
    and here:
    @246 Reginald Selkirk reported: All net-connected vehicles from two major automakers allowed hackers to remotely unlock doors and start the engine — now-patched

  250. says

    Why a ‘doable’ bipartisan deal on immigration could happen, but won’t

    “In 2018, Stephen Miller derailed a bipartisan breakthrough on immigration. Nearly nine years later, he again stands in the way of progress.”

    Related video at the link.

    There was an unexpected exchange during Donald Trump’s latest “60 Minutes” interview, in which the president reflected on the unpopularity of his administration’s mass deportation agenda. His comments sparked a conversation of sorts — including criticism from the White House’s allies on the right.

    When CBS News’ Ross Douthat asked specifically whether he thought his deportation policy went too far, Trump responded, “I think it might be too tough. … That hurt me.”

    As the discussion moved forward, Trump went further, suggesting that the White House might “work something out” with the incoming Democratic majority, reaching a bipartisan compromise on immigration policy. “I think that’s something that’s actually doable.”

    The reaction from several Republican officials, conservative think tanks and MAGA activists was swift and predictable: They don’t want a bipartisan deal; they want more deportations.

    […] In January 2018, as policymakers worked on an immigration deal ahead of a government shutdown deadline, Trump urged Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill to work on a solution, which he vowed to support, explicitly telling them that he didn’t care what was in it. [lies]

    Soon after, the president spoke to Sen. Dick Durbin, and the Illinois Democrat explained that a bipartisan deal was in place. Trump asked if then-Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham was on board, and Durbin said he was. The president then invited Durbin and Graham to the White House.

    Graham and Durbin thought the discussion would be with Trump. It was not: The bipartisan duo were surprised to arrive at the White House and find several anti-immigration hard-liners, whom they didn’t invite to the conversation. It was at that point that the president told Durbin and Graham that the White House wouldn’t support a bipartisan solution after all. [!]

    What happened? The Washington Post reported that Stephen Miller intervened [!], fearing that Graham and Durbin “would try to trick Trump into signing a bill.”

    Nearly nine years later, Miller […] was promoted to White House chief of staff.

    […] the idea that Miller will steer Trump toward a deal on immigration policy with congressional Democrats is utterly preposterous.

    At a Monday afternoon press conference, a reporter asked House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries whether he believes Miller could be a credible partner for Democrats. “No,” the New York Democrat replied. The likely next House speaker added, “Stephen Miller is a stone-cold racist. His track record speaks for itself, and I’ve got zero interest in working with that kind of individual.”

    In the abstract, one can imagine a possible bipartisan deal on immigration policy. In fact, during George W. Bush’s and Barack Obama’s tenures, lawmakers very nearly succeeded on passing a package, only to be derailed by far-right opposition. [!] […]

  251. says

    Update regarding inflation:

    As Election Day got underway last week, Donald Trump conducted a phone interview with Fox News, apparently hoping to make one last pitch to voters who might make up their mind at the last minute. As part of the president’s message, he boasted, “The inflation is solved.”

    The rhetoric wasn’t true, but it was familiar. In fact, Trump spent the months leading up to the midterm elections repeatedly telling Americans, “Prices are coming down,” even as prices went up.

    According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ inflation report released Tuesday, the consumer price index showed consumer prices climbing 0.4% in October, which was slightly worse than expected. […] What’s more, core prices, which strip out volatile food and energy items, increased 0.3%, which was also worse than expected.

    Prices, in other words, are most certainly not “coming down,” and inflation does not appear to have been “solved.” […]

    Link

  252. says

    Wall Street Journal:

    Russia entered the fifth year of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine with a clear objective: Seize the cities in the eastern Donetsk region that remained under Kyiv’s control. But 2026 hasn’t gone according to plan for Moscow. Through the end of October, its forces have gained just 46 square miles of territory in Ukraine, compared with 1,874 square miles in 2025, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a think tank in Washington. And for the past two months, Russian forces have lost more land than they gained, ISW says.

  253. says

    As the 21st century got underway, Americans had reason to celebrate a public health breakthrough: Measles had been eradicated in the United States. There were still some isolated cases, but the number had dwindled to a point that the country met the standards for measles elimination status.

    The good news, however, did not last. There were multiple measles outbreaks in U.S. communities in 2025, putting our distinction at risk, and conditions have been significantly worse in 2026, with more than 5,000 cases reported this year, including several fatalities. (As recently as 2024, the total number of domestic cases was 283 — suggesting the totals from 2026 have grown roughly 18 times in two years.)

    With this in mind, there’s a very real chance that the U.S. will lose the measles elimination status it achieved 25 years ago when the Pan American Health Organization meets next week. […]

    Link

  255. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    shermanj @249: “no sane reason to connect your refrigeration unit […] to the internet.”

    EuroNews – Supermarket hacks: why are fridges connected to the internet?
    They definitely shouldn’t be directly accessible by the entire internet. Embedded devices are terrible at security and are doomed to proprietary obsolescence. They should be contained behind a perimeter/DMZ with opensource services—firewall forwarding/VPN/remote desktop—that CAN be updated, with allowlists to restrict access.

  257. Reginald Selkirk says

    House Republicans elect Jim Jordan as minority leader for the next Congress

    House Republicans on Tuesday elected Jim Jordan as minority leader for the next Congress, beating House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, according to multiple sources.
    …
    Jordan has led Republicans at the Oversight and Judiciary committees, where his hardline approach and reputation as an ardent defender of President Donald Trump have made him a popular cable TV news guest…

    A bold new direction – they choose “an ardent defender of President Donald Trump” after Trump tanked the party in the midterms.

  259. says

    […] Previously, Ukrainian drones were sent toward predetermined targets. If the first drones successfully hit a refinery unit, the rest continued toward the same target.

    Now, according to the Russian channel [The Russian Telegram channel *Дневник Разведчика* (Intelligence Officer’s Diary, 147,800 subscribers)] Ukrainian operators can monitor strikes in real time and redirect incoming drones while they are still in flight.

    Once a primary distillation unit is hit, subsequent drones can be redirected toward storage tanks, cracking units, electrical substations or other critical equipment.

    Instead of concentrating an entire wave on one target, Ukraine can distribute the damage across multiple parts of the refinery.

    […]
    Link

  260. Reginald Selkirk says

    Royal Navy stands up first autonomous boat squadron

    Britain’s Royal Navy has formally commissioned its first uncrewed boat squadron, operating seaborne drones on front-line operations as part of its “Hybrid Navy” strategy.

    The force says the 1st Autonomous Squadron officially entered active service on November 5 at a ceremony in Portsmouth Naval Base. It comprises around 180 personnel, about the same as a Type 23 frigate, split into two watches to enable operations around the clock…

    That’s CAPTAIN McBoatface to you.

  261. says

    Rightwing superlawyer Larry Klayman, who once failed spectacularly at suing Yr Wonkette for libelslander and whom we have judicial permission to describe with “vigorous epithets” such as “batshit,” a “grifter,” and a “bigot,” got his ass disbarred by the US Supreme Court Monday. […]

    The Court also didn’t specify what particular offense might have earned Klayman his disbarment, just that he had previously been suspended from practicing law or (whatever it is he does) before the Court in June. He was required to “show cause why he should not be disbarred” and submitted a response. Wouldn’t you love to see that document? Here’s the entire two-paragraph order: [screengrab]

    We were amused that the two-paragraph ruling on Klayman was tacked on at the end of a 14-page laundry list of procedural rulings by the Court — mostly refusals to grant certiorari in scores of cases. Poor Larry didn’t even get his very own document. We are not a lawyer, but isn’t this kind of like having your disbarment sandwiched between a shoplifting case and a possession of drug paraphernalia case in night court?

    The disbarment means Klayman can’t do law-talking stuff before the Supreme Court but apparently doesn’t outright revoke his law license everywhere. Other jurisdictions make their own determinations, and as we understand it, if you fuck up badly enough for the Supremes to kick you out, said fuckup may lead to additional disbarments.

    […] Just about a year ago, the batshit crazy conspiracymonger had his law license suspended by the Florida Supreme Court for two years. That decision cited his earlier 18-month suspension in 2022 by the DC Court of Appeals for his conflict of interest in representing a woman for whom he had the hots but who didn’t love him back. The Florida SCOTUS wrote that the record in that case “includes writings from Klayman in which he expressed to Sataki that his emotions had rendered him nonfunctional as a lawyer.”

    Which was one of the things he unsuccessfully sued yr Wonkette for — Wonkette cheated by reading all 185 pages including the footnotes of his harrowing DC Bar disciplinary report, and then writing about what it said, like that he told his poor client that he loved her too much and couldn’t stand to see her with anyone else and then chased her into a hotel lobby women’s room — […] we won!

    Then again, we aren’t sure how his [purported relationship with] his client rendered him more nonfunctional as a lawyer than any of the other times he was terrible at lawyering. (This statement is constitutionally protected rhetorical hyperbole, we must point out.)

    A few months before the Florida suspension, in August 2025 Klayman was slapped with a separate 18-month suspension by the DC Court of Appeals for his attempt to represent high plains grifter Cliven Bundy in a criminal case related to Bundy’s 2014 armed standoff with federal officers. That time, he was dinged, or dung, for not being entirely candid with a federal court about his prior disciplinary history, but he had a good reason for that, because those findings were totally biased against him, just like nearly every other judge or court official who has ruled against him.

    Which reminds me that the first time I ever heard of Larry Klayman was in 2013, when I was still a bright-eyed freelancer at Wonkette and Klayman objected in a libel lawsuit that several outlets had acted maliciously against him by failing to point out that the judge in his divorce case was Jewish, and therefore biased against Klayman for being Jewish but also believing in the divinity of Jebus.

    We wonder if Klayman will be mad that several of the US Supremes are Catholics […]

    Klayman made the virtual pages of Wonkette more times than we can count, for legal misadventures […] trying to sue Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, George Soros, Al Sharpton, the Black Panthers, and others for starting a “race war”; to calling for all the “evil forces of the left” to be “thrown in prison” for opposing Donald Trump; and even putting together a “citizens’ jury” that indicted Barack Obama for not really being president, because birth certificate. (Obama didn’t surrender himself to be arrested.)

    [I snipped details concerning Klayman’s lawsuit against Wonkette. Excerpt from the Court’s judgement: “To call a person a bigot or other appropriate name descriptive of his political, racial, religious, economic, or sociological philosophies gives no rise to an action for libel”]

    https://www.wonkette.com/p/supreme-court-disbars-superlawyerwonkette

  263. birgerjohansson says

    Some comedy reactions (I just want to provide you with a pause to the unhinged political tumult in case you find something you want to watch)
    .
    South Park is back! Reaction video.

    “South Park’s Looksmaxxing Episode was Genuinely INCREDIBLE”
    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=rqywPVIYGb8
    Summary; Looksmaxxing for children… An ominous warning. -Sephora is really The Backrooms! Saying “do you like that on your face?” to kids! Cartman gets genuinely helpful with an aura battle and Randy shrinks both physically and mentally.
    .
    Romantic comedy with cringy, second hand embarrassment humor:
    ‘Even the Student Council Has Its Holes Reaction Video Episode 6’
    “ANIME ALMOST MADE ME CRY”

    .https://youtube.com/watch?v=kn3Hgl3pjqk
    Start at the 1.30 mark. Tea ceremony club outing goes sideways. Council president obsesses over incident, reconstructs just how bad it was. Robot revolts. Attacking bee nest with unfounded confidence. Unhinged dinner. Touching post-credit scenes.

  265. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    birgerjohansson @256: The judge who gagged an accuser is still at large.

    Dan Neidle (Tax policy/SLAPP) – The injunction that permanently silenced Russell Brand’s accuser

    In 2014, a massage therapist called Sylvie Berki accused Russell Brand of assaulting her. The police took no further action. Mr Brand and his then girlfriend, Jemima Goldsmith, sued her. Ms Berki had no lawyer, and there was no trial. But the High Court issued an extraordinary injunction […] It was supposed to prevent harassment, but it went well beyond that.

    It prohibits Ms Berki from telling anyone what she says happened to her—not journalists, not friends, not family, and not even the police. The court also orderd Ms Berki to pay £50,000 in legal costs within two weeks (which she couldn’t afford) and authorised her bankruptcy. […] nobody established that Ms Berki was lying […] This September, a Court of Appeal judge acknowledged concerns about the extraordinary breadth of the injunction, but it remains in place. […] The Court of Appeal’s order this year records that the [exempted GP and therapist] no longer treat Ms Berki. Those exceptions are now useless. Short of an emergency, she cannot mention the incident to any doctor or therapist.
    […]
    this wasn’t a harassment injunction at all. It was a libel injunction in disguise. That’s an attractive strategy for a claimant because libel defendants can raise the defence of truth; harassment defendants cannot (and libels injunction are hardly ever issued). The courts have, therefore, been rightly sceptical about attempts to dress up libel as harassment. Mr Justice Jay was not.
    […]
    Then there’s a bigger question. Was this a one-off? Or have other injunctions been granted

    Rando: “Has anyone reached out to Sylvie Berki?”
    Dan Neidle: “That would potentially be a contempt of court, for Ms Berki and the person contacting her.”

    The Guardian – Jemima Goldsmith says ex-partner Russell Brand physically assaulted her

  266. says

    Gotta be kidding me’: Pentagon official reveals Hegseth’s criteria for senior promotions

    “A senior official exclusively told MS NOW how decorated military officers with decades of experience were withheld from promotion after Pentagon staff printed out internet searches showing they had attended official events like promoting Covid-19 vaccinations or marking International Women’s Day.”

    Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth short-circuited a merit-based process for promoting senior officers and instead relied on newly invented criteria that disproportionately removed from advancement women and people of color who had already been approved for promotion, according to three military officials.

    MS NOW spoke exclusively to a senior official with in-depth knowledge of flag and general officer selection and assignment who described in detail for the first time how, he said, the results of internet searches were used by Hegseth’s office to withhold promotions from women and people of color. He was granted anonymity for fear of retaliation.

    The senior official also described how Hegseth intentionally scuttled the promotions of senior officers who were perceived to support diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives; played a role in implementing the Pentagon’s Covid-19 vaccine mandate; were involved in the evacuation from Afghanistan; or had a connection to former chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Mark A. Milley, who served as President Donald Trump’s senior military officer but after retirement publicly criticized Trump’s leadership.

    […] The senior official’s account of the application of new criteria was confirmed by two of the officers who were selected for promotion by a rigorous merit-based process to a flag or general officer rank, but then withheld by Hegseth’s office. Those officers were told by Pentagon officials over the phone their promotions were being withheld, but they were not given a chance to respond, they said. For most, not getting promoted will end their military careers. If these officers do not promote to the rank they were selected for within 18 months, most will be forced to retire. The result has been a precipitous loss of experience and talent at the top ranks, the official said. [!]

    The senior official described to MS NOW how Hegseth’s executive office led a planned and deliberate process that involved creating paper-only files filled with printouts from internet searches that were inaccessible to the officers under consideration. Hegseth’s office gave instructions about the new criteria over the phone instead of in writing.

    That meant brushing aside highly decorated officers with decades of experience leading carrier strike groups, thousands of flight hours on dozens of different aircraft, multiple joint assignments inside the Pentagon and shore and sea duty locations around the world. Some had multiple advanced degrees from schools like MIT and Johns Hopkins, and others had deployed in support of several conflicts like the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and Operation Inherent Resolve against ISIS.

    […] The senior official described to MS NOW what was in the paper files for more than a dozen of the senior officers whose promotions were withheld. Some of the findings put into the paper-only files included officers who allowed a celebration that included rainbow flags, a Pride Month event and stood up a diversity committee and task force on the USS Kearsarge to combat discrimination.

    Other examples among the officers included [I snipped the additional details.]

    […] Cody Harnish, military defense attorney and former Army judge advocate general, said the way that officers were pulled from the promotion list after being selected “is illegal.”

    By law, Harnish said, the defense secretary can only remove names from promotion lists below the one-star level. A defense secretary can only delay or withhold a promotion for specific reasons, such as being professionally unqualified, failing “exemplary conduct” standards, pending charges or substantiated adverse information. According to the Defense Officer Personnel Management Act governing military promotions, the officer facing a delayed promotion gets written notice and a chance to respond. […]

  268. Reginald Selkirk says

    Senior U.S. Army soldier arrested in U.K. on suspicion of assisting Russian intelligence

    A senior U.S. Army soldier was arrested in the U.K. on suspicion of assisting Russian intelligence, British police said Tuesday.

    The 41-year-old man was arrested “as part of an investigation by Counter Terrorism Policing” near the ⁠city of Gloucester, ​in the west ⁠of England, London’s Metropolitan Police said in a statement, adding that he remained in custody at a police station in the British capital.

    He was ​arrested ⁠on suspicion of ‌offences under sections 1 and 3 of the National Security Act, ‌the statement said. These relate to obtaining ‌or disclosing protected information and assisting a foreign intelligence service.

    “The country to which the allegations relate is Russia,” the statement added.

    Three people familiar with the matter told NBC News that the soldier was based at NATO’s Allied Rapid Reaction Corps headquarters at Imjin Barracks on the outskirts of Gloucester…

  270. says

    Republican-led House rejects Hegseth impeachment effort

    “The defense secretary has survived an attempt to remove him from office that was led by Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican Trump critic.”

    The Republican-led House on Tuesday narrowly rejected a push to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over how he has carried out the war in Iran and other military hostilities in Yemen, Venezuela and the Caribbean.

    The vote was 211-204 to send the impeachment resolution to committee, effectively killing the effort. Even vocal GOP critics of Hegseth said they didn’t think that the secretary’s action rose to the level of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

    The impeachment resolution was authored by Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., a fierce critic of Hegseth and President Donald Trump; both helped oust Massie in his GOP primary race earlier this year. Because Massie had filed the motion as “privileged,” Republican leaders were forced to call a vote within two legislative days.

    Hegseth “has violated the norms of war, and it’s to the disadvantage and the dishonor of our country, and to the danger of our soldiers in future conflicts,” said Massie, the lone Republican who supported moving to an impeachment vote.

    “Somebody’s got to put their foot down and say, are we going to follow the laws that are on the books? Are we going to follow the Constitution?” he continued. “And the best way to do that is to have an impeachment against Pete Hegseth.”

    House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., who is on track to be elected speaker in January, has said Democrats will “run Pete Hegseth out of town” when they take over Congress next year.

    But Hegseth is safe for now, and Trump said he is standing by his Defense secretary, who has clashed with not only Democrats but a handful of Republicans in the Senate and the House.

    The vote came at the end of a dramatic day in Washington that Hegseth kicked off with a morning news conference at the Pentagon, where he slammed the impeachment as a “political spectacle.”

    “It’s a farce, and it’s a stunt and everybody knows it,” Hegseth said.

    He argued that all of the military actions cited by Massie were “lawful” and called the impeachment a direct affront to the men and women carrying out those missions. Hegseth also equated Tuesday’s impeachment vote to the two Democratic-led votes to impeach Trump during his first term — first over a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the second over the Jan. 6 attack at the Capitol.

    “If standing with President Trump puts me in that company, I’ll take that company every day of the week,” Hegseth said.

    Shortly after Hegseth’s appearance, Trump posted his support for the Defense secretary on Truth Social, saying he “gets an “A” PLUS, PLUS, PLUS for his defense against a disgruntled, angry, defeated, former Congressman, Thomas Massie, a TOTAL LOSER!”

    However, one GOP critic, outgoing Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., said he has had plenty of disagreements with Hegseth but didn’t like how the impeachment resolution was led by Massie.

    “I don’t really align with the impeachment itself,” Bacon, an Air Force veteran, told reporters before the vote. “But I surely, if you would have put in [a line] about firing 80 generals, if we talk about firing 80 generals and not spending appropriated money, I’d feel a little differently about it.”

    Another Republican leaving Congress this year, Rep. Darrell Issa of California, suggested Massie was pushing impeachment because he was upset about his primary defeat. And he added that even if it did pass the House, there are not 67 senators who would vote to convict him in a Senate trial.

    “It’s going to die in the Senate; it’s just that simple. It doesn’t really matter what happens in the House. The Secretary has committed no high crimes or misdemeanors,” Issa said. “The Senate often has to protect against the rashness of the House.”

    Massie’s resolution included eight articles of impeachment against Hegseth.

    The first article charges Hegseth “with waging the Iran war despite no declaration of war, statutory authorization, attack on the United States, or imminent threat,” according to Massie.

    Three others that are related to Iran fault Hegseth with continuing the war after both the House and Senate directed the removal of U.S. forces; continuing hostilities after the War Powers Resolution’s 60-day termination period had expired; and ignoring laws that minimize civilian casualties.

    Another article charges Hegseth with directing “extrajudicial killings” of suspected drug traffickers in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific Ocean, secondary strikes on survivors, and overseeing orders to U.S. personnel not to rescue shipwrecked persons.

    The others say Hegseth illegally seized and deposed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro “to assert U.S. control over Venezuela’s oil reserves”; used the Defense Department to retaliate against and demote Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., for telling service members they should not follow unlawful orders; and carried out an unlawful war in Yemen.

    Hegseth on Tuesday morning defended his record and said every operation was a lawful one. “We destroyed terror regimes’ capabilities. We sank the boats carrying poison into our communities. We put a narco dictator in handcuffs. These are not high crimes. This is the job, and it’s the job well done,” he said.

  271. says

    Politico EXCLUSIVE

    “Wall Street regulator poised to bring charges against prediction market giant Kalshi

    “The probe underscores the shifting winds around the prediction markets in Washington, where Democrats and regulators are dialing up scrutiny.”

    A top federal financial regulator has warned Kalshi of potentially imminent charges tied to the launch of certain wagers by the prediction market giant, a person with direct knowledge of the probe said.

    The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is investigating whether Kalshi failed to properly notify the agency about dozens of new products that were in the works, said the person, who was granted anonymity to discuss the unannounced enforcement activity. The agency’s private notification to Kalshi suggests the charges could land soon, though they could also result in a settlement. […]

    Prediction markets have been on a blistering rise since President Donald Trump’s election two years ago. Kalshi and Polymarket, the leading names in the industry, now boast valuations of $40 billion and $21 billion, respectively. And much of their ability to grow — in size, in new products and in areas like U.S. politics and sports — has come thanks to the CFTC’s friendlier approach to the markets.

    Yet the Kalshi probe underscores the shifting winds around the markets in Washington.

    Democrats, fresh off their midterm sweep, are already gearing up to aggressively oversee the industry in the next Congress. And Kalshi isn’t the only platform coming under new pressure from the Michael Selig-led CFTC: Polymarket is also the subject of a sweeping investigation by the agency, POLITICO and other media outlets have previously reported. The CFTC is looking into, among other things, whether Polymarket violated the terms of a 2022 settlement deal requiring it to close off its platform to U.S. users. […]

    More at the link.

  274. JM says

    Breaking Defense: Pentagon can’t track thousands of F-35 parts: GAO

    The F-35 Joint Program Office cannot reliably track thousands of spare parts undergoing maintenance or repair, leaving officials without a clear picture on the location of as much as $2.5 billion worth of components across the aircraft’s global supply chain, according to a new government watchdog report.

    As of March 2026, when the GAO conducted its research, more than 17,000 F-35 Lightning II parts, worth an estimated $1.3 billion, were missing from the program’s inventory system. The value could be as high as $2.5 billion when accounting for missing cost information and other acquisition expenses, officials told GAO.

    This is general F-35 incompetence, not Trump/Hegseth specific.

    While the ELMS is able to capture real-time inventory changes, the platform cannot interface with property management systems run by Lockheed Martin and Pratt & Whitney — an issue first reported by GAO in 2022, which has persisted as of August 2026, according to the watchdog.

    Instead, the JPO relies on periodic contractor data submissions and information from other Pentagon systems to update its records. Those submissions occur quarterly for the joint spare parts pool, meaning some inventory records can be more than three months old, GAO found.

    The DOD has a real-time inventory system but they get updates from contractors quarterly? That is contracting fraud level incompetence.

  276. says

    COLORADO (The Borowitz Report)—Having been declared a loser in her reelection bid, Rep. Lauren Boebert on Tuesday called for a manual recount of the votes, telling reporters, “I favor a hand job.”

    “This recount should not be conducted in secrecy,” Boebert said. “What is needed is a hand job, with plenty of people around to watch.”

    Asserting that the voters “deserve to be satisfied,” she declared, “A hand job is the surest way to guarantee a happy ending.”

    https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/boebert-demands-votes-be-recounted

  278. StevoR says

    An animal rights group that planted cameras around a Victorian goat abattoir has won a High Court challenge over who owns the rights to the covertly captured video footage, but the court has ordered it to destroy the recordings.

    Farm Transparency International (FTI) said it was extremely disappointed by the outcome, which it said would stifle the public’s right to know what happens inside slaughterhouses.

    The case involved a director and an employee from FTI who secretly installed cameras at a halal abattoir in Eurobin, in north-east Victoria. They admitted to trespassing onto the property, owned by Game Meats Company of Australia (GMC), seven times between January and April 2024. With the footage, FTI put together a 14-minute video of what they described as “extreme animal cruelty”.But when they sent it to the federal regulator, a local television news station, and posted it online, the abattoir headed to the Federal Court.

    The activists were ordered to pay $130,000 in damages. GMC also won an injunction which ordered the online footage to be taken down.

    Questions about who should own the footage were only taken up on appeal, when the court determined that ownership was allocated to the abattoir, not the activists who collected it.

    The court used a mechanism called a “constructive trust” to assign ownership to GMC. It is a remedy imposed by a court when property arises from wrongdoing, but it has never been applied to such a copyright case before.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-11-11/animal-rights-high-court-appeal-video-footage-copyright/107369644

  279. StevoR says

    The Republican-controlled US Congress has killed off a move to impeach Pete Hegseth — for now.

    A resolution to impeach the defense secretary, which had been introduced by outgoing rebel Republican congressman Thomas Massie, failed to win the necessary support in the House of Representatives. House members narrowly voted to refer the impeachment resolution to a committee, effectively shelving it for the duration of the current Congress.

    The vote fell almost completely along party lines. No Democrats in attendance voted in favour of sending the resolution to committee, and the party has signalled it will revive the impeachment effort when it takes control of Congress next year.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-11-11/us-defense-secretary-pete-hegseth-fights-impeachment/107367736

  280. JM says

    @279 StevoR:

    No Democrats in attendance voted in favour of sending the resolution to committee

    Notice the attendance part, several Democrats happened to be absent during the vote. I wonder if the Democratic leadership decided it was better this fail in a way that leaves no fingerprint. There is no chance that Hegseth gets removed in the Senate until the new Democrats take office and it will look less partisan if there is only one impeachment.

  281. StevoR says

    @ ^ JM : That sounds a bit Conspiracist to me. Alternatively, being human beings those not in attendance could simply be sick or have important family or other committemnts as, y’know people, even congresscritters do. That seems a lot more likely explanation to me and Occam’s razor and the law of the least dramatic, least conspiracist answer usually being the right one applies doesn’t it?

  282. StevoR says

    Gaza’s first major winter storm of the season tore through displacement camps across the territory on Saturday, November 7, inundating at least 70,000 makeshift tents and leaving hundreds of thousands of Palestinians scrambling to protect their families from rising floodwaters with virtually no outside help.

    Heavy rain and powerful winds began lashing the Gaza Strip late Friday evening and intensified through Saturday, flooding shelters across every governorate in the enclave, Al Jazeera reported. The Hamas-controlled Government Media Office said roughly 70,000 tents had been submerged within the first 12 hours of the storm, with an estimated 350,000 displaced residents affected — people who had already lost their homes to more than three years of conflict and had no alternative shelter to turn to.

    Gaza’s civil defense service received more than 1,500 distress calls from residents whose tents had flooded or whose walls were on the verge of collapse, according to The National. Municipal and civil defense officials were frank about their limitations: the operational capacity to manage a flooding event of this scale no longer exists. Equipment that would normally be deployed — excavators, water pumps, emergency vehicles — had been destroyed and what little remained was grounded by a persistent lack of fuel.

    Source : https://www.latintimes.com/gaza-winter-storm-floods-displacement-tents-601032

  283. StevoR says

    Plus see also :

    Heavy rain and strong winds hit the Gaza Strip from 6 November through the weekend, causing floods affecting thousands of people. It damaged displacement sites, shelters and humanitarian facilities, and disrupted services across all five governorates. Most Palestinians in Gaza remain displaced, and an estimated 65 per cent live in tents or makeshift shelters – that is 1.4 million people. Following the start of the storm, humanitarian partners reported being overwhelmed by the high number of appeals for support.

    According to the Site Management Cluster (SMC), since the beginning of the heavy rain until midnight 7 November, about 268 weather-related alerts had been recorded affecting over 26,000 households. An estimated 600 households are thought to have been displaced once again due to the storm. According to SMC, over 6,000 family shelters have reportedly been destroyed and 17,400 otherwise damaged. Additionally, 66 latrines have reportedly been destroyed and 618 damaged. SMC reported that over 3,900 households are reported to have no shelters currently. Site Management partners report that more than 20,000 households across 222 sites, severely affected by the heavy rain, need shelter and non-food items support (tarpaulins, shelter repair materials, bedding, tents and clothing). Beyond that, 26 sites need latrine rehabilitation, 32 need drainage and engineering support, 37 need lighting support and 156 need sandbagging support, and more than 10,000 households report needing cash assistance. These figures are preliminary and are subject to assessments and verification.

    Mine Action partners highlighted the potential risks associated with flooding, as explosive ordnance may become exposed, buried under surface or debris, or displaced to previously unaffected areas. This creates additional dangers for civilians and humanitarian personnel, including those involved in debris removal.

    The floods exacerbated existing structural and environmental risks, including unsafe buildings and unstable sandy areas with at least 4,000 high-risk buildings identified by partners so far. Three partial or full building collapses were reported, with no casualties. An infant reportedly drowned at a displacement site. At Al Berka Reservoir, west of Deir Al Balah, a sandy hill collapsed onto tents, killing five displaced people, including three children and two women, and injuring one, according to Civil Defense who responded to the incidents.

    Source : https://www.ochaopt.org/content/humanitarian-situation-report-heavy-rains-gaza-strip-8-november-2026

    Too short notice, Iguess, soryy but the Women in Black’s Vigil for Palestine is on in Adelaide from 5 pm tonight so in abit over an hours time. parlt house steps..

  284. StevoR says

    In 2031, Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft will arrive at the near-Earth asteroid 1998 KY26: a tiny body that is accelerating in a way that astronomers have struggled to explain. Some studies have suggested that the asteroid is pushed along by water escaping from it as gas, making it an as-yet theoretical “dark comet.”

    But through new simulations, Korbin Hansen and Masatoshi Hirabayashi at the Georgia Institute of Technology show that the asteroid is far too warm to hold on to ice, pouring cold water on the idea that comet-like accelerations could occur without a visible cloud.

    Their findings have been published in Icarus.

    At just 11 m (36 feet) across, 1998 KY26 is one of the fastest-spinning asteroids ever discovered, completing a full rotation in just under five and a half minutes. As it orbits the sun, it also experiences a small but unexpected push out of the plane of its orbit.

    This unusual motion has led some astronomers to propose that it is a dark comet: an object propelled by escaping gas, without forming the glowing cloud and tail of an ordinary comet. However, it has remained unclear whether the asteroid’s interior could stay cold enough to keep ice frozen for long enough for this to happen.

    Source : https://phys.org/news/2026-11-simulations-unusual-asteroid-dark-comet.html#google_vignette

  285. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    StevoR @281: “least conspiracist answer usually being the right one applies doesn’t it?”

    In Congress?
    CGPGrey – Only one Supreme Court justice has ever been impeached (12:00)

    the rule in the Constitution is that if the Senate wishes to take a 3 day break, it can do so any time it likes. But a 4 day break requires approval from the House of Representatives. But there’s no rule against taking a 3 day break every 4 days, as long as something happens on the fourth day. And the minimum possible something is the pro-forma session that calls for another 3 day break. By the way, the senator in charge is the only senator in the room. All the others are on vacation. How is this remotely legit when a quorum of 51 senators is required before the senate can do anything? Well the senate itself has decided the rule is to presume that a quorum is present unless someone asks for a roll call to show otherwise. So if the one senator who is present does not ask for a roll call, who knows how many senators are in the room? […] So the Senate […] is never officially at recess, so if a [Supreme Court] justice unexpectedly resigns or dies, the president is blocked from making a recess appointment.

  287. Reginald Selkirk says

    3,500 laser-armed AI submarine robots patrol Norwegian salmon farms, killing sea lice and protecting 112 million fish — parasites get zapped by high-tech alternative to harsh chemical baths

    Submarine AI laser robots have been a surefire success for Norwegian salmon farmers, according to the most recent annual report from the aptly named Stingray Marine Solutions. The Oslo, Norway-based firm now has over 3,500 units deployed around salmon pens along the Norwegian coast, protecting over 112 million fish. Stingray deployments are up by about 1,000 over the last year. This operation has grown to become one of the largest commercial AI deployments in Scandinavia.

    These high-tech AI-enhanced submarines protect 20-25% of farmed salmon in the country, according to the latest figures. Using this high-tech AI laser solution to ‘optically delouse’ the salmon means fish don’t have to be passed through harsh chemical baths to prevent infestations of these tiny parasitic crustaceans. The result is improved salmon growth and welfare, and consistently cleaner fish exhibit reduced mortality…

  288. Reginald Selkirk says

    Trump welcomes ‘huge victory’ in $10 billion lawsuit against BBC

    Donald Trump’s US$10 billion (£7.5 billion) defamation lawsuit against the BBC can proceed, a judge has ruled, while throwing out the US president’s unfair trade practices claim against the broadcaster.
    …
    In a decision made on Tuesday (local time), US District Judge Jeffrey Kuntz in Florida declined to throw out Mr Trump’s defamation claim against the BBC.

    He said that Mr Trump had plausibly alleged that the broadcaster damaged his reputation and knew, or should have known, that the clip was misleading.

    The judge’s ruling did not decide whether Mr Trump has proven those claims.

    The president called the ruling a “huge victory” in a social media post…

  289. Reginald Selkirk says

    The Ancient Maya Used Mercury for Paint—and Poisoned Entire Lakes for Centuries

    During the height of the Maya civilization, two lakes in Mexico had staggeringly high mercury levels.

    In a study published earlier this month in the journal Science Advances, researchers extracted sediment cores from Cenote Xcach and Lago Coba, two lakes in the Mexican part of the Yucatan. What they found was so surprising that at first they thought they’d made a mistake—for centuries during the Maya Classic period (250 CE to 900 CE), the mercury levels in both lakes were significantly higher than modern mercury toxicity thresholds. The team, which is mostly made up of non-archaeologists, hopes their results will provide new insight into Ancient Maya archaeology.
    …
    The fact that they used mercury is nothing new, study co-author Matthew Waters, a paleolimnologist at Auburn University who studies ancient toxic algal blooms, told Gizmodo. But it hadn’t been documented as much in the Yucatan Peninsula.
    …
    The ancient Maya used mercury in their paint and were certainly behind this ancient pollution, according to Waters. Interestingly, he and his colleagues also found that there is no mercury in the geology of the Yucatan Peninsula, which means there must have been a trade system for it. Ultimately, the ancient Maya in the area during the Classic period would have witnessed an aquatic ecosystem collapse and presumably been exposed to mercury contamination by drinking the lake water and eating its fish and shellfish. These communities may have endured chronic toxic mercury exposure for up to centuries…

  291. JM says

    @280 JM & @281 StevoR: Empty Wheel: Impeachment math
    A short breakdown of the events and totals of the Hegseth impeachment vote. It is unlikely that the Democrats intentionally threw the vote but how much they cared to fight for it is unclear.
    There was some gaming of the system going on here but how much is unclear. Mike Johnson calling for the vote at 5:30 on Veterans day with little notice was intentionally making it inconvenient. Most of the Democrats that missed the vote were at a public event. Johnson may or may not have known about this. If the Democrats really considered it important they wouldn’t have gone to an event, however they may not have known how close the vote would be or that it would matter.
    Massie is too experienced not to know that filing for the impeachment over Veterans day would reduce the chance of success. He probably didn’t care, he was just doing this to annoy Trump and Hegseth. He can do enough math to know Hegseth would never be removed from office.

  294. JM says

    LA Times: White House warns of criminal inquiries into House Democrats who investigate Trump

    The White House’s top lawyer is raising the possibility of criminal investigations into House Democrats, arguing that the inquiries they plan to open into President Trump and administration officials could themselves break the law.

    “We are monitoring the abusive and capricious threats that are now proliferating from Democrat legislators who seek to abuse the legislative process to intimidate and to interfere with the lawful functioning of government,” Scharf wrote.

    This is largely DOJ abuse. Congress’s oversight authority and other investigative authority is nearly unlimited. The primary limit is that excessively abusive or stupid investigations may be politically unpopular and get people voted out.
    Most likely the lawyers behind this know that any DOJ investigation will go nowhere. The plan is probably the usual Blanche stall everything plan. If they can stall Congress by forcing the matter into court before any witnesses and information have even been requested they can add months or years to the process.

  296. says

    Jeffries DID NOTHING TO GET THE DEMS IN LINE TO ENSURE THE IMPEACHMENT WOULD PASS!!! jeffries SCREWED IT UP AND HE MUST GO!! BESIDES HE IS OWNED BY AIPAC!

    Eleven dem cowards knew how important this was; they FUCKED IT!!! (the crude language; this irresponsible, unnecessary disaster warrants it!)
    House impeachment of Hegseth lost by a 211–204 vote.
    The Hegseth impeachment resolution failed after 11 Democrats didn’t show up to vote. Here’s where they say they were instead.
    While Republicans were initially concerned they lacked the party votes to block the resolution, it was 11 absent Democratic lawmakers who handed them a victory.

    Their names are:
    Melanie Stansbury (New Mexico)
    Marilyn Strickland (Washington)
    Julia Brownley (California)
    Lou Correa (California)
    Laura Gillen (New York)
    Steven Horsford (Nevada)
    Jonathan Jackson (Illinois)
    Nancy Pelosi (California)
    Brittany Pettersen (Colorado)
    Haley Stevens (Michigan)
    Frederica Wilson (Florida)

    Some of those truant Democratic lawmakers said they were stuck in “bumper-to-bumper” traffic on their way back from a new member reception held by the Elect Democratic Women PAC, according to Axios’s Andrew Solender.
    https://newrepublic.com/post/217861/full-list-11-democrats-missed-hegseth-impeachment-vote-where-they-were-instead
    » just one of many reports of these imbeciles.
    If this is how the corporate dems are going to act, this country is SCREWED.

  299. StevoR says

    @ shermanj :Maybe wait and see and don’t jump to conclusions before passing judgement?

    Isn’t it possible, plausible & even probable that they have genuinely legitimate reasons for missing that vote?

    Evidence of this being deliberate or somehow orchestrated by the Democratic party leadership would be ____???

    Sagan”s Standard (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_claims_require_extraordinary_evidence), Occam’s Razor, Conspiracism is pretty much always wrong principle?

  300. kippudarkwater says

    I mean, dems have a long history of being lapdogs.

    But “blue no matter who” amirite? No room for nuance here.

  301. StevoR says

    @ shermanj : Just wait until all the new Democratic party Congress reps have been sworn in and are in a position to actually do stuff maybe?

    Repugs still rule Congress till then..Unfortunately.

    Another massive flaw inthe USA’s governance system. They shou;lda been sworn in yesterday or days before even.

    Why not? Wait the delay? makes nosense to me. Still shitty system doesn’t swear them in till Jan next year.

    Then we’ll see.

  302. StevoR says

    @300 kippudarkwater : Whaty is your alternative please?

    Serious question. Would love you to answer it.

  303. StevoR says

    Why the delay? Why the wait?

    Intended to type.

    Its far to late / earlyand no, canot sleep as tooflippinóften for me sadly here. .

  304. kippudarkwater says

    How about actually going off on milquetoast liberals like yourself that got us here in the first place instead of lecturing the people who get screwed by both blue and red Your blue no matter who got a lot of anti-trans (for example) rhetoric and legislation voted for.

  307. Reginald Selkirk says

    Palantir’s MAGA CEO After the Midterms: ‘I’ve Been a Democrat My Whole Life’

    Palantir has donated millions to Donald Trump since 2024, with the company’s CEO personally donating roughly $1.9 million to the president’s super PAC and inaugural fund. But now that the Democrats have won the House and Senate in a landslide, Karp wants to let you in on a little secret. He’s supposedly been a Democrat this whole time.

    “I’ve been a Democrat my whole life. I grew up in a far left environment. I know more about being a progressive than almost anybody on the planet, and I absolutely believe Palantir—all of our products are essentially progressive,” Karp said in a new interview published Wednesday.

    Karp also addressed Trump’s recent comments to 60 Minutes that perhaps he had “gone too far” on the ICE crackdowns, claiming he was “really happy to hear the president” say that. “I’m glad he’s saying in public now what I’ve been saying in private,” Karp told Politico.

    Karp also suggested he’s open to voting for a Democrat in 2028 as long as the nominee isn’t a socialist…

  308. kippudarkwater says

    I told you exactly who you can go off on. You like easy targets that can’t really fight back. you ARE the moderate that MLK, Jr spoke of.

  309. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    StevoR #301: “They shoulda been sworn in yesterday or days before even. […] Why the delay? Why the wait?”
    ^ (A week after election day.)

    Campaign Legal Center – What happens after election day?

    The canvass is the centralized process where local election officials tally all the votes cast in their jurisdiction. […] Certification is the final sign off on election results by a state or local official once the canvass is complete.
    […]
    For congressional elections, certification establishes who has won races for the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. Each state then sends its list of election winners, formally known as certificates of election, to the House and Senate. In the House, these certificates are specifically sent to the clerk, a nonpartisan official who compiles the state lists into the full roll of members-elect of the next Congress. The winning candidates then begin preparing to take office.

    The outgoing Congress leaves office on January 3 of odd-numbered years, as required by the Constitution. The new Congress is typically convened on the same day, but the exact date is sometimes changed by statute, especially when January 3 falls on a weekend. […] states’ postelection procedures and the court system almost always resolve election disputes before the new Congress even convenes.
    […]
    The period between Election Day and a candidate taking office is a critical part of the democratic process. Through canvassing, certification and the orderly seating of elected officials, election administrators, state officials, courts and Congress each play defined roles in ensuring every vote is counted

  310. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    kippudarkwater @304: “blue no matter who got a lot of anti-trans (for example) rhetoric and legislation voted for.”
    When primaries are concluded, and the colors finally become a choice in the general election, what is the better alternative to choosing red or allowing red to win?

  311. KG says

    Notice the attendance part, several Democrats happened to be absent during the vote. I wonder if the Democratic leadership decided it was better this fail in a way that leaves no fingerprint. There is no chance that Hegseth gets removed in the Senate until the new Democrats take office and it will look less partisan if there is only one impeachment. – JM@280

    If this failure to pass the impeachment vote was intentional (so the Democrats could craft their own resolution when they control the House), the way to do it would surely have been a mass abstention. Now, they look like they bungled it.

  312. kippudarkwater says

    Spare me. I held my nose and voted against the republicans like a good little tranny.
    Fat lot of good it did me. most of the “blue” wave were purple. But people like StevoR aren’t willing to have THAT conversation. Got plenty of time to lecture us tho.

  313. says

    New Yorker link

    “Donald Trump’s Repudiation, America’s Revenge,” by Susan B. Glasser

    “Even J. D. Vance admits that the righteous blue wave in the midterms wasn’t a result of Republicans failing to show up—it’s that they showed up for the Democrats.”

    It wasn’t even 11 p.m. on Election Night—the worst Election Night for an incumbent President’s party pretty much ever—when Donald Trump weighed in for the first time. For weeks he had travelled the country, insisting that voters act as though he were on the ballot and that the campaign should be a referendum on him and his policies. But Trump’s first response was to disclaim all responsibility. “I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!” he posted defiantly. A few minutes later, he blamed the governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, for losing his own race, claiming that one of the most conservative politicians in the country had been defeated because Abbott had become “a RINO”—a Republican in name only. A few minutes after that, Trump posted an image of a red baseball cap with the word “veto” emblazoned on it. By just before midnight, he was saying it was all because of his formerly favorite TV network. “Fox News,” he complained, “bears responsibility for these losses by constantly and consistently putting on the Dumocrat opposition, and worse.”

    Yes, we get it. He’s not going to go quietly. He’s not going to accept blame. Trump in defeat is still Trump. […]

    But the scale of Tuesday night’s reckoning defies even his ability to lie, dissemble, and generally squirm his way out of it. It is really hard to steal an election when voters all across America reject you. These were the President’s own voters, in states where he won by huge margins just a couple of years ago. By Wednesday morning, J. D. Vance admitted it wasn’t that Republicans failed to show up but that they did. “The main problem is that many people who voted for Trump/Vance in 2024 voted for Democrats in 2026,” he wrote on social media. […]

    For now and for forever, the midterm election of 2026 will be known as one of the most decisive rejections of an American President since long before Richard Nixon got on that helicopter in 1974. Republicans losing both the House by thirty-five or more seats and the Senate by as many as eight seats—which now seems like a very real possibility—has happened only once since the Second World War: in 1958. And that campaign wasn’t anything close to the 2026 referendum on the dangerous words, disruptive actions, and bizarre personal preferences of the man in the White House.

    Trump’s insistence on making the election so singularly about himself was not a surprise, but it was an error right out of a Greek tragedy—an epic self-own by the Narcissus of the National Mall that could be read only as a direct disavowal of the President. Republicans in Washington these past two years failed spectacularly when it came to defending the nation from the depredations of their party’s leader, but Republican voters around the country—enough of them, at least—admitted their mistake and did something big to rectify it. As the maga pundits on Fox News struggled for words to explain the calamity that they had not wanted to admit was coming, there was much clarity to be found in the viral clips of regular Republican voters interviewed at the polls, clarity and the clearest possible sense of moral revulsion: they did not want Trump, his policies, or his party anymore.

    […] The scale of this is so large because the scale of Trump’s offenses has been so vast. Tariffs and trade wars, Canada-bashing, Europe-bashing, the betrayal of Ukraine and embrace of Vladimir Putin, the grotesque self-enrichment of himself and his circle, the unleashing of an armed militia of ice goons on our streets. People voted for Alex Pretti and Lorenzo Salgado Araujo. They voted against data centers and Elon Musk buying elections. They voted against the cost of everything being too damn high. They voted because so much of what is happening in Trump’s America seems so very un-American.

    Trump’s own role in this cannot be discounted. I know that structural factors are often considered the most important ones by political scientists. […] But, still, I hope they study the President’s last month of campaigning, too, an orgy of foolishness and mean-spirited lies that included twenty-one rallies in twenty-one days, where he talked about Jon Husted’s ass, the glories of his golden ballroom, and the algae in the Reflecting Pool while dismissing and demeaning voters’ concerns about practically everything. He said that affordability was a Democratic hoax and that the war he started and has failed to win wasn’t really a war at all and that the other guys were so awful that they would allow men to play in women’s sports. It speaks to the utter debasement of those around the President that they allowed him to keep saying these things—and to the terrifying emptiness of Trump’s soul that he thought these were winning sentiments at all.

    […] I started to keep track of all the different words being used to describe it: blue wave, blue tsunami, blue-nami, bloodbath, extinction-level event, flood, landslide, obliteration, once in a generation, once in a lifetime, rebuke, rejection, repudiation. As early as 9:58 p.m., John King announced on CNN, clearly, unequivocally, “This is the collapse of the President’s party, on live television.” […]

    By Wednesday morning, the White House was reduced to sending out pictures of their guy behind the Resolute desk, under the caption, “PSA: TRUMP IS STILL YOUR PRESIDENT.” He was glaring. If it seemed like a threat, I’m sure that was the intent. But so what? That’s a tomorrow problem. As Senator Jon Ossoff, of Georgia, said in a victory speech that might have been the opening lines of the 2028 Presidential campaign, “The first light of dawn is on the horizon.”

    Whatever happens next, the American people have finally and definitively told Donald Trump that enough is enough.

  314. Reginald Selkirk says

    Jensen Huang Was a Busy, Horny Little Bee: Report

    Former Megaspeed senior leader and accused Chinese spy Alice Huang apparently wasn’t Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s only extramarital side piece. The New York Times reported on Wednesday that the AI titan had a second affair with one of his subordinates, citing five sources.

    That person is Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of health care, sources told The Times. Such relationships are verboten under Nvidia corporate policy (as they generally are at any company with a functional HR department). Two of the sources told The Times that Jensen Huang and Powell were videotaped “being affectionate at a San Jose, Calif., hotel during a Nvidia conference in March,” though the paper didn’t obtain the video…

  316. says

    MS NOW:

    Russia and Ukraine agreed to a large exchange of prisoners of war, envoys said Wednesday as two days of U.S. mediated talks concluded, but they announced no major breakthrough on ending the conflict that began after Moscow’s full-scale invasion nearly five years ago.

    Wall Street Journal:

    President Trump’s efforts to supply the U.S. with Russian diesel have yet to result in any new imports into the country, as several fuel tankers bound for America shifted course following difficulties finding buyers willing to accept the controversial cargoes.

    Politico:

    U.S. officials will head to Moscow in person Thursday to ask Russian President Vladimir Putin to give his ‘blessing’ to allow European representatives to join future peace talks for Ukraine.

  317. says

    MS NOW:

    A federal appeals court barred the Trump administration Tuesday from accessing extensive LinkedIn chat records between multiple journalists and scores of their confidential sources as part of a national security leak investigation, arguing the government’s request would ‘deal a damaging blow’ to First Amendment freedoms.

  318. says

    New York Times:

    David Brouillette, the rookie Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who fatally shot a Colombian migrant in Maine this summer, has a troubling work history, past complaints of domestic violence and abuse, as well as mental health issues. He also has a record of deep-seated anti-immigrant hostility, especially against Colombians.

    New Republic:

    A Minneapolis woman who was violently pulled out of her car and arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents while she was on her way to a doctor’s appointment in January is suing the federal government. Aliya Rahman, a Minneapolis resident, filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Minnesota Tuesday claiming that she was the victim of false arrest and imprisonment, negligent supervision, negligence, assault, and battery.

  323. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Unlikely political newcomer unseats North Carolina powerhouse

    LaKesha Womack […] had never run for office before, had very little funding or outside support, and had even been unhoused at one point. She also has an outstanding felony charge that could theoretically leave her unable to vote in the U.S. House.

    None of that stopped her from riding a blue wave on Election Day to unseat one of the state’s most powerful politicians, Republican U.S. Rep. Tim Moore, who, before being elected to Congress nearly two years ago, served five terms as speaker of the N.C. House. Moore was one of the architects of the state’s 2023 redistricting process, which redrew many districts to favor Republicans. His district was designed to be a safe seat […] The redistricting maneuver backfired.
    […]
    Womack is a consultant who helps design loan products for underserved small businesses. She’s a native of Alabama and a graduate of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.
    […]
    Wesley Harris, former state lawmaker and chairman of the Mecklenburg County Democratic Party, said Womack’s win was a welcome surprise. “When you look at the map, it shouldn’t be competitive […] LaKesha ran a great campaign. She didn’t have a bunch of money, but she went everywhere, and she talked to everybody.” Across North Carolina, Harris said Democrats won in places they shouldn’t have won. “We ran some great people, but that only comes from just a backlash of voters who were sick and tired of those in power,”
    […]
    Womack was served with a felony warrant at a campaign event last month. The warrant stated that she rented a 2019 Toyota Corolla from Budget Car Rental in October 2019 and did not return it by the agreed-upon date. […] Members of Congress convicted of an offense that could result in two or more years’ imprisonment cannot vote or participate in committee activities […] Those privileges can be restored if the member is reelected to Congress.
    […]
    she became unhoused with her young son after moving to North Carolina in 2016, when a medical emergency related to her Type 1 diabetes left her hospitalized in intensive care. “I know firsthand what it’s like to experience some of these challenges,” Womack said. “A lot of these situations, from food insecurity to housing insecurity, are things that I’ve had to deal with myself.”

    Womack served summons in felony case

    Womack is scheduled to appear in court on Nov. 10 […] she acknowledged missing the return deadline, said she did not know a criminal case existed, and said she previously believed the issue was resolved. The charge remains pending and is not a conviction. […] The original summons was returned unserved Feb. 13, 2020
    […]
    “And I did not know that they had filed a case against me for this because again, I was homeless,” Womack said. “So I had nowhere to receive mail.” […] she said she was living at a hotel during that time.

  324. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    Meet LaKesha Womack

    This is Womack’s first run for political office, but she has been elected to a leadership position before. In 2012, she became the national chairperson of the [African Methodist Episcopal] Zion denomination’s young adult ministry. The experience gave her her first taste of politics, and she later managed Tennessee Rep. Harold Love’s campaign, then worked on Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2016. She says her faith heavily influences her political beliefs […] “I can’t preach about the hungry if I’m not willing to advocate for policies that will eradicate poverty.[“]

  325. Pierce R. Butler says

    Lynna @ # 313, quoting The New Yorker: … the worst Election Night for an incumbent President’s party pretty much ever …

    Possibly tied with William Howard Taft’s 1912 election night, when he became the only US President running for re-election to come in third (though he probably didn’t find out that part that night).

  326. Pierce R. Butler says

    shermanj @ # 296: … it was 11 absent Democratic lawmakers who handed them a victory.

    The point of the emptywheel.net item quoted at # 291 by JM is that, in a procedural vote just 18 minutes later, the Repubs came up with another 5 votes: apparently Mike Johnson let those members pass on Massie’s motion, but could/would have called on them if actually needed.

    If Massie had intended to really make something more than theater to happen at this point, he would not have timed it for Armistice/Veterans’ Day.

  327. StevoR says

    @ ^ Pierce R. Butler & shermanj : According to PBS newshour heard on telly the other day some of the absent Democrats were held up in traffic – and they wouldn’t have actually made a difference had they been there anyhow.

  328. KG says

    U.S. officials will head to Moscow in person Thursday to ask Russian President Vladimir Putin to give his ‘blessing’ to allow European representatives to join future peace talks for Ukraineget updated orders for Agent Krasnov. – Politico quoted by Lynna, OM@316

  329. KG says

    Maybe Nvidia should be boasting that Jensen Huang’s affairs were fully consensual and with capable adult women!

  330. KG says

    StevoR aren’t willing to have THAT conversation. Got plenty of time to lecture us tho. – kippudarkwateer@312

    True. And so do you, beholder, Silentbob, etc. Practically all of us here know very well that there are huge blemishes on the views and records of many – I’d say most – Democratic candidates and voters – notably the number who are pro-Gaza-genocide. Maybe both he and you could give it a rest?

  331. StevoR says

    Via PBS Newshour

    Joe Biden says he did not know he had cancer while he was president and would not have sought a second term if he already had been diagnosed.

    The former Democratic president’s comments came in an interview with People magazine before the release of his White House memoir on Tuesday.

    “If I had known that I was feeling lousy because I had cancer,” said Biden, who turns 84 on Nov. 20, “I would’ve not gone forward” with a 2024 reelection bid that ended after a disastrous debate performance against Republican Donald Trump.

    … (Snip)..

    “I don’t think an 80-year-old man with cancer should be running” for president, Biden said in the interview.

    Source : https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/biden-says-he-wouldnt-have-run-for-a-second-term-in-2024-if-he-knew-he-had-cancer

    I don’t think Trump’s helath was ever actually better doctor’s lies aside. Trump is clearly far more demneted, sick and in worse physicaland mental health than Biden ever was.

    Do wish Biden had stepped aside in favour of Kamala halfway through his term tho’.

    Also I think its time the USA had a maximum age limit for POTUS, SCOTUS and Congress alike of say 80 years old.

  333. StevoR says

    @312. kippudarkwater : “Spare me. I held my nose and voted against the republicans..”

    Good. Thankyou.

    Fat lot of good it did me. most of the “blue” wave were purple. But people like StevoR aren’t willing to have THAT conversation.

    I’m willing to have that conversation if you want. Not quite sure what convo you are menaing but if If you have something to say I’m willing to hear it.

    Are you willing to answer my question please as asked already earlier in #302 :

    What is your alternative?

  334. StevoR says

    @330. KG : “Democratic candidates and voters – notably the number who are pro-Gaza-genocide.”

    I don’t believe any Democratic politician certainly very few indeed actually support the genocide in Gaza. They support isarel, sure but that doesn’t extend to supporting genocide in my view.

    Quite a few of the Repugs OTOH eg Randy Fine, Trump and others actually do support outright genocide.

  335. StevoR says

    Good news locally in the fight againsta p[lanend data centre :

    A developer says it has paused its plans to build a 1200-megawatt AI data centre in the Adelaide Hills, saying it “misread” community feeling about the proposal.

    Quantum DC chief executive Alby Tomassi said the company would not seek development approval this year and would instead undertake a “longer-term and more comprehensive engagement programme” to address community concerns.

    ..(Snip)..

    Tungkillo resident Magdalene Lippett opposed the data centre and welcomed the pause.

    “I think that Quantum DC need to get the hint that no means no,” she told 891 ABC Adelaide.

    “Our community have done the research, we’ve spoken to the experts, we’ve had a look at the issues … and this just isn’t the right place, the hills is not the right place for their data centre.”

    Quantum DC said it would now convene a panel of independent experts to review specialist studies and make their findings public.

    Mr Tomassi emphasised the development application would not proceed until “we set up these groups to scrutinise this project appropriately”, but has not ruled out progressing the Tungkillo data centre in the future.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-11-12/quantum-dc-pauses-tungkillo-ai-data-centre/107376052

    Only “paused” it at the moment but still.

  336. Reginald Selkirk says

    SpaceX Loses Appeal to Force Sexual Harassment Lawsuit Into Private Arbitration

    A federal appeals court panel has shot down an attempt by Elon Musk’s SpaceX to force a sexual harassment lawsuit by eight former employees into private arbitration, The New York Times reported on Wednesday. The judges cited a 2022 law allowing plaintiffs to bypass arbitration agreements in such cases.

    The court found that plaintiffs are not required to prove their sexual harassment claims would survive a motion to dismiss to avoid their case being shuffled off into arbitration, which is notoriously employer-friendly. Basically, judges found the claims qualify, which prevents SpaceX from enforcing arbitration clauses in the plaintiffs’ contracts…

  337. kippudarkwater says

    I’ve been lurking here for years and it’s clear that you, StevoR, have plenty of time to shout “BLUE NO MATTER WHO” at us but didn’t really see you show up beforehand. But that’s right, you’re sitting pretty in Australia.

    Your comment trying to divorce Israel from genocide says volumes about where you stand. Your histrionics when PZ pointed out the purple in the “blue wave” was infantilizing. Comparing the democratic gains to the tidal wave from Interstellar again speaks volumes about your priorities and diminishes the very real nastiness that made it through.

    My alternative? Show up before the primaries. Show up for the real protests, not the psyop honeypots like No Kings. Don’t go back to brunch.

    I’m happy to go back to lurking. I appreciate what Lynna et all post here. But I’m tired of StevoR’s infantilizing people like me. If they give it up I’ll go peacefully back to lurking.

  341. says

    White House Insists Congressional Oversight is a Crime

    White House counsel on Wednesday blasted a letter out declaring that the investigations Democrats are gearing up to carry out may be unlawful and, further, might be criminal.

    “The Supreme Court has held that ‘investigations conducted solely for the personal aggrandizement of the investigators or to “punish” those investigated are indefensible,’” White House Counsel Will Scharf wrote, apparently with no sense of irony. “[T]hreats to executive branch officials designed to deter them from public service, or process designed merely to abuse or instill fear in the recipient may cross the line into blatant criminality,” he later intoned, warning that this “may warrant further investigation.”

    Todd Blanche has also been in heavy cable news rotation, making similar threats. A Trumpy U.S. Attorney in Texas, Aaron Reitz, took things a step further, posting a letter to X demanding Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) preserve documents related to an effort he has previewed to investigate the way in which the White House ballroom was funded. Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter chimed in on X to cheer him on. […]

    Blumenthal responded to Reitz’s letter calling it “baseless” and “the latest in a series of unlawful actions on the part of the Trump Administration attempting to intimidate Members of Congress for engaging in constitutionally protected activity.”

    What the exchange does signal is the extent to which the administration is prepared to go further than even the first Trump administration to resist congressional oversight. Trump I broke new ground in making expansive claims of executive privilege, but the Department of Justice has laid the groundwork for it to expand even on those; the Office of Legal Counsel provided the White House with an opinion earlier this year stating that “anyone the President consults outside the Executive Branch” may be covered by executive privilege if they play a role in “official presidential decisionmaking.” Think about how many people in D.C., and beyond, play a role in “official presidential decisionmaking.”

    This will all get litigated in court, but it does threaten to send Democrats’ efforts at accountability down a labyrinth of legal wrangling, with fewer revelations or consequences than might be expected. It’s the Trump administration’s latest attack on Congress’ constitutional prerogatives.

  342. beholder says

    I don’t believe any Democratic politician certainly very few indeed actually support the genocide in Gaza. They support isarel, sure but that doesn’t extend to supporting genocide in my view. — @334 StevoR

    They allegedly don’t support genocide, but they’re fine with financing and arming it. A distinction without a difference.

    Once again, StevoR defends all the worst people in his party, and saves all his vitriol for critics who accurately describe what is happening.

  343. says

    We’ve seen enough! The braindead old-guard democratic party leaders already have screwed-up three votes in just this past week. Schumer and Jeffries must go! This caps years of their screwups.

    » The final vote count for the impeachment of Pete Hegseth was 211 in favor and 204 against, with 11 Democrats missing the vote. That means that the 11 partying imbeciles COULD HAVE PREVENTED IT! if they had just taken this seriously.*
    https://www.usatoday.com/story/graphics/2026/11/11/house-hegseth-impeachment-vote/92724776007/
    » A voice vote . . . the parliamentarian asks for the “yays” and the group yells then they ask for the “nays” and they yell. In this case, House Republicans declared the bill passed. A Democrat could have asked for a recorded vote, meaning the parliamentarian must call each name and record their vote. But, the braindead corporate dem leader DID NOTHING
    http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/sarah-k-burris/118618/another-black-eye-for-dems-as-house-floor-chaos-unfolds-not-a-good-start
    » Days After Midterm Blowout, 22 Democrats Join GOP to Advance ‘Massive Giveaway’ to Big Oil
    https://www.commondreams.org/news/senate-advances-permitting-reform

    *The math proves @327 StevoR’s assertion completely wrong. Dems 204+11=214 vs. repugs 211
    NOTE: There are still countless almost insurmountable obstacles facing the decent dem. winners in January.
    And, so, we’re pushed down the death spiral even further.

  344. says

    @333 StevoR to kippudarkwater: Are you willing to answer my question please as asked already earlier in #302 . . What is your alternative?
    I reply: There are more items, but, it is obvious that if the sheople weren’t so ignorant and complacent and there weren’t ‘citizens united’ billions poured into elections; strong, decent, alternate parties, ranked choice voting and the abolition of the electoral college would DRAMATICALLY IMPROVE THE CHANCES OF BETTER ELECTIONS!

  345. Reginald Selkirk says

    Trump Wants Tim Apple to Replace Jensen Huang as Nvidia CEO

    It’s anyone’s guess who might permanently replace Jensen Huang after the Nvidia CEO resigned Thursday following sex scandals involving two women: a suspected spy for China and one of his own employees. Nvidia CFO Colette Kress will take the role in an interim capacity, but President Donald Trump chimed in with his two cents in a post to Truth Social on Thursday.

    “NOW THAT Nvidia CEO JENSEN HUANG, who has done a fantastic job, has resigned, there is only one man to take his place – TIM COOK of Apple. A Legend replaces a Legend!” wrote Trump in his typical style with bizarre capitalization.

    It’s unclear if Trump spoke with Cook before making the suggestion for all the world to see. The president often chimes in on the subject of the day as he watches TV…

    And really, who knows more about the technology field than Donald Trump?

  346. says

    TPM link
    The link leads to a compendium of various news reports. The text quoted below is an excerpt. Embedded links are available at the main link.

    The New York Times reports on the effort by federal prosecutors to turn a former body guard for Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) into an informant. When he didn’t have the information they wanted, the administration charged him with a crime, deported him, then dropped the charges. Prosecutors repeatedly told the bodyguard’s lawyer the investigation was “100 percent being run by 1600 Pennsylvania Ave,” the lawyer told the Times.

    Alina Habba Mildon, the sometimes-lawyer for Trump, was fired from a $50 million job securing a pardon for a Venezuelan billionaire. The billionaire got his pardon, but, after the news of the contract broke, Trump became enraged and wanted a cut. She’ll get to keep $14.5 million.

    In case you missed it: Ahead of Scott Colom’s win in Mississippi last night, we published two pieces I’m proud of. First, Layla A. Jones writes about the last Democratic senator to represent the state, John C. Stennis, a dixiecrat who was himself deeply involved in the state’s history of white supremacy. Mississippi hasn’t elected a Black senator since the 19th century.

    Second, Josh Kovensky speaks with Dennis Dahmer, whose father, Vernon Dahmer, a Black activist in Forrest County, was murdered by the KKK for his efforts to help his community vote. Dennis describes what a Scott Colom victory, secured by Black voters in the state and the backlash to the Supreme Court’s Callais decision, would mean for him.

  347. beholder says

    @343 shermanj

    Oof. My representative and one of my senators are implicated in both of those votes you linked. Very Blue, to be sure. But (to paraphrase a mural on the Berlin Wall): My god, help me to survive this deadly Blue No Matter Who!

  348. Reginald Selkirk says

    Microsoft Outlook Goes Down In 365 Outage, Paralyzing Business Communication

    Microsoft says it is investigating reports of widespread outages affecting Outlook email and other services that offered through its 365 platform.

    The tech giant issued a string of social media posts Thursday acknowledging that users had reported issues with access, throwing a major wrench into business communications across sectors…

    My work email is unavailable at present.

  349. says

    Top Republican goes full racist at Ilhan Omar and Somali immigrants
    Republican Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota on Benny Johnson’s right-wing !@#$-show.

    “The Somali civil war that’s come to the state of Minnesota. There are shootings almost every night somewhere. And I mean, they’re moving out into the suburbs. You might have seen the story about a month ago where they—shooting started in, or broke out in, the second half of a homecoming high school football game in an affluent suburb of Minneapolis. I mean, this has gotten out of hand, and if people aren’t willing to talk about it because they’re gonna be called a racist, they’re gonna be called a xenophobe, they’re gonna be called some name, well, then it’s going to continue to happen. So you have to call out—you have to call out the truth where you see it. And Ilhan Omar—that, that gal is—she needs to, she needs to be out of Congress.”

    Note: Minnesota has the 8th lowest gun death rate in the U.S. [video]

    Link

    More from the same link:

    ICE continues to tread all over civil rights
    SF Gate:

    A Northern California nurse and professor remains in a federal immigration detention center nearly two months after her arrest.

    For 19 years, Ann Lawani, 39, built a life in the U.S. as a nurse, professor and caregiver. Then, earlier this year, federal immigration agents arrested her outside her Northern California home and sent her thousands of miles away to Louisiana, leaving her attorney struggling to find her in a federal detention system gone dark. […]

    Lawani’s attorney learned she was being detained in Louisiana after the federal government filed a motion on Sept. 23 to transfer her habeas corpus case there.

  350. says

    Trump spirals online, unleashing string of bizarre rants

    All of Trumps recent rants are available at that link, including this bit:

    […] Rather than end on what might have been an optimistic note, Trump released a fifth diatribe about how he was sending Vice President JD Vance “to focus his complete and total attention on the Massive Corruption and Crime taking place in Democrat run Cities and States throughout the U.S.”

    Read more at the link.

  351. says

    […] Trump fired off a tariff threat on Wednesday, saying in a batshit-crazy Truth Social post that Mexico is sending migrant caravans again and that if they don’t stop, he will issue a new round of punitive import taxes on Mexican goods.

    “Here we go again! With the perceived loss by the Republicans in the Midterms – I WAS NOT ON THE BALLOT- the INVASION of our Country is taking place again,” Trump wrote. “Huge CARAVANS are forming and beginning their illegal march through Mexico. Many of the people in these Caravans are those that various countries don’t want – ‘Send them to America,’ they say – But they will not be accepted! MEXICO MUST STOP THEM, NOW, and if they do not do so, the Tariffs on Mexico will be IMMEDIATELY DOUBLED. MEXICO, THE GOVERNOR OF TEXAS, THE VERY LIBERAL NEW GOVERNOR OF TEXAS, OUR GREAT BORDER PATROL, & ICE, HAVE BEEN SO INFORMED. There will be no leniency!”

    This drivel is exactly what voters rebelled against in last week’s midterms. […]

    Link

  352. CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain says

    KyivIndependent – Starshield speed restrictions return

    Restrictions limit Starshield’s operating speed to 161 kilometers per hour (100 miles per hour), Zelensky wrote on X […] The systematic speed restrictions affect the military’s operation across the front line and in Russian-occupied territories.
    […]
    In mid-October, SpaceX implemented a speed cap […] At the end of October, Zelensky confirmed that Starlink and its military version, Starshield, had returned to normal operating speeds. Ukraine’s Defense Ministry reported stable connectivity at speeds exceeding 400 kilometers per hour. […] The latest restrictions come amid renewed peace negotiations between Ukraine, Russia, and the U.S. in Abu Dhabi.

  354. says

    Starshield speed restrictions return, hampering efforts to intercept Russian drones, Zelensky says

    Ukraine’s military is once again experiencing significant disruptions to the Starshield satellite communications system, the militarized version of Starlink, for several days, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Nov. 12.

    Restrictions limit Starshield’s operating speed to 161 kilometers per hour (100 miles per hour), Zelensky wrote on X following briefings by Defense Minister Yevhenii Khmara and Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Mykhailo Drapatyi.

    “Unfortunately, this is helping the Russians kill more Ukrainians and carry out more accurate strikes against Ukraine,” Zelensky said.

    The systematic speed restrictions affect the military’s operation across the front line and in Russian-occupied territories.

    The limitations are making it significantly harder for Ukrainian forces to intercept Russian jet-powered drones, Zelensky said, adding that some Russian strikes had already succeeded because Ukrainian interceptor systems could not reach the necessary speed to catch the targets in time.

    A Ukrainian commander at corps level fighting in Donetsk Oblast told the Kyiv Independent on condition of anonymity that the 160-kilometer-per-hour limit was still in place, making middle-strike drones easier for Russia to intercept or evade. A senior member of a Ukrainian military unit in the Unmanned Systems Forces also confirmed the development.

    Zelensky stressed that the disruptions are not “random errors” but systematic restrictions. Ukraine is currently trying to establish the circumstances behind the restrictions with the United States, the president added.

    Ukraine widely uses both commercial Starlink terminals and their militarized version, Starshield. This year’s mid-range strike campaign has allowed Ukraine to strangle Russian logistics, hampering Russia’s ability to fight on the front lines.

    […] Tom Renier, the European Commission’s spokesperson for defense and space affairs, called reports of Starshield disruptions concerning and, if confirmed, unacceptable, according to the Guardian.

    […] In the U.S., the Congressional Ukraine Caucus, a bipartisan support group for Ukraine in Congress, demanded a full explanation from the Trump administration and SpaceX, and called for the immediate restoration of full Starshield access for Ukraine.

    […] Presidential adviser Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov, confirming on Nov. 12 that Starlink’s speed has been restricted, said that problems have arisen with communication with the helicopters tracking the Shahed-type drones and with the jet interceptors shooting down the jet-powered drones.

    […] In mid-October, SpaceX implemented a speed cap on Ukraine’s Starshield service without warning.

    Zelensky repeatedly said the restrictions remained in place during Oct. 17-23, making it harder to intercept Russian jet-powered drones. Ukrainian officials also disputed U.S. President Donald Trump’s claims that access had been restored. […]

  355. says

    Apologies to Sky Captain @352. I didn’t see your post before I commented @354.

    Rick Wilson noted:

    So @elon has cut off Starlink/Starshield again. It seems like no coincidence that Witkoff and Slenderman are in Moscow, bearing gifts to their Russian master.

    I noticed that several commenters on X pointed out that Elon Musk does not control Starshield. For example:

    Starshield is controlled by the US Govt, not @elonmusk you numbnuts. His company just builds and launches them. The Govt controls all other aspects of operation.

  356. says

    https://x.com/markito0171/status/2120851083203670187

    this was dropped by 🇷🇺 on mainroad in 🇺🇦#Kyiv city
    Steel balls to kill as many as possible, not destruction of infrastructure

    Video at the link.

    https://x.com/nexta_tv/status/2120506242908954811

    The Russians have completely lost their f**king minds

    Medinsky had barely left the negotiating room when he declared that every inch of Russian land would be reclaimed — “one way or another”.

    The masks are off. The occupiers didn’t even bother to put on a vaguely respectable face. They turned up in Abu Dhabi with their hatred, their vile behaviour and their fear of the Kremlin maniac.

    Video at the link.

    Comment from viewer of the video:

    In 5 years they couldn’t even take the whole Donbass

  357. Reginald Selkirk says

    Former Nvidia CEO Huang had a relationship with a second employee, sources say

    Ousted Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang ​had an intimate relationship with a second employee, according to two people ‌familiar with the matter, Reuters has learned.
    The revelation follows two other extramarital affairs that led to his resignation Thursday. The two women are Alice Huang, who US intelligence suspects of being ​a Chinese spy, and Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of health ​care.

    Reuters is not naming the second employee. Attempts to reach the ⁠woman were not successful.
    Nvidia declined to comment. Powell, Jensen Huang, and a representative ​for Nvidia’s board did not reply to requests for comment. Alice Huang could ​not be reached for comment…

  358. says

    Trump says no deal needed with Iran, closes down Vance negotiations

    “The president said the vice president should instead focus on combating domestic corruption.”

    President Donald Trump suggested Thursday that he was dialing back diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict with Iran and ending a dealmaking effort by Vice President JD Vance in favor of leaving a naval blockade in place and continuing to pressure the Iranian economy.

    Vance in recent days had started outreach to hard-liners in Tehran to explore the possibility of a negotiated end to the conflict that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz and impose limits on Iran’s nuclear program after more than eight months of war.

    The war — and the jump in gas and food prices that has come with it — is deeply unpopular among U.S. voters, who delivered a historic defeat to Republicans in the midterm elections last week. The day after the election, Vance made an unusual public break with the president, writing that the war had been one of the causes of the election loss.

    Vance’s outreach effort to Iran was one of the ways in which he was trying to resolve the war — and potentially rescue his chances of a successful 2028 presidential run.

    “We don’t need a deal with Iran. Those days have long since passed. We’ve got their money, Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, and we’ve got their Strait!” Trump posted on Truth Social on Thursday.

    He said he was asking Vance to focus his attention elsewhere.

    “I have asked Vice President Vance to focus his complete and total attention on the Massive Corruption and Crime taking place in Democrat run Cities and States throughout the U.S.,” Trump wrote.

    The latest missive from Trump added to confusion among U.S. allies in Persian Gulf nations, which had braced themselves for renewed strikes on Iran that the Trump administration had signaled were likely.

    […] Trump also met Monday in the White House with Qatar’s prime minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani. After that meeting, Trump said military operations against Iran were “effectively over.”

    It was not clear from Trump’s Thursday statement whether he is fully abandoning diplomatic efforts. But if Trump leaves the situation as is, global energy prices will remain high, said Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, and the Gulf and rest of the world “will have to come to terms with Iran on their own.” […]

  359. JM says

    @355 Lynna, OM:

    I noticed that several commenters on X pointed out that Elon Musk does not control Starshield. For example:

    Starshield is controlled by the US Govt, not @elonmusk you numbnuts. His company just builds and launches them. The Govt controls all other aspects of operation.

    Ukraine seems to be using Starlink more then Starshield and Starlink is a commercial service under SpaceX’s control. That is the theory anyway. This whole mess has raised some questions about how isolated the two services are..
    @356 Lynna, OM:

    Steel balls to kill as many as possible, not destruction of infrastructure

    That is just an oversized pipe bomb, straight up terrorist attack. The question becomes are they taking this up as policy to kill as many Ukrainians as possible or are they just running out of more sophisticated bombs?

    The Russians have completely lost their f**king minds
    Medinsky had barely left the negotiating room when he declared that every inch of Russian land would be reclaimed — “one way or another”.

    This isn’t a change for the Russian negotiators. The Russians take whatever position they consider best at the moment and maintain this has always been their position and you just didn’t understand what they meant before.

  360. Reginald Selkirk says

    Russian warship hit by Ukrainian drone in Gulf of Finland

    Finnish officials have confirmed that a Russian warship was attacked in the Gulf of Finland on Wednesday, although little is known about the strike.

    Ukraine’s SBU security service said it targeted the ship Naro-Fominsk as part of a broader drone operation against Russia’s Ust-Luga oil export depot on the Baltic coast.

    The attack, thought to be the first time Ukrainian drones have attacked a Russian ship in an area of the Baltic Sea open to civilian maritime traffic, has raised questions about whether Ukraine could expand its strikes…

  361. Reginald Selkirk says

    Trump-pardoned activist crashes cat owners’ convention in mistaken hunt for furries

    Pardoned January 6 Capitol rioter Jake Lang found himself humiliated in the second stunt of the weekend, when he crashed a convention in Seattle he thought was a gathering of “furries” — but was actually just a gathering of cat owners.

    The viral video, posted to Facebook and X, showed Lang accosting confused staff and attendees at the Sea-Meow Convention, accusing them of trying to abuse children…

  362. Reginald Selkirk says

    Mike the Mad Biologist

    While I realize “the party that gets its voters out to vote the most wins” seems obvious, you really wouldn’t know that sometimes based on certain punditry. Adam Bonica lays it out starkly:
    (graph)
    When the percentage of registered Democratic voters who show up and vote is equal to or higher than the percentage of registered Republican voters who do so, we win. There might be a lesson in that about appealing to supposed swing voters, as well as unlikely registered Democratic voters.

    Caveat: this is based on an early analysis of 2026 voter data.

  363. Reginald Selkirk says

    Kalshi Dumps Donald Trump Jr. as Political Winds Change

    Kalshi, the world’s largest prediction market, has dropped Donald Trump Jr. as an advisor. The president’s son joined Kalshi as a strategic adviser in January 2025, shortly before his father’s return to the White House. He joined rival Polymarket’s advisory board that August, when his venture capital firm, 1789 Capital, invested in the company.

    Relations between Kalshi and the junior Trump reportedly cooled after his Florida-based venture capital firm 1789 Capital led a new round of funding for Polymarket in late August…

  364. lumipuna says

    Re 360 (Ukrainian drone attack on a Russian warship in Baltic Sea):

    Finnish news outlets are reporting that this took place somewhere near Gogland, a small island located in the middle of Gulf of Finland, some 40 km from nearest Finnish coast and 110 km from Helsinki. This area is the westernmost extent of Russian territorial waters, bordering on international and Finnish waters within 10 km of the island. Gogland has a small Russian military base, and major oil shipping routes pass very close.

    In Finnish the island is known as Suursaari, meaning “grand island”, since it’s very hilly. Historically, the Swedish name Högland or “highland” was also used, from which the Russian name Gogland was adapted. I might note that one of my grandparents was a refugee from Suursaari, as the island was part of Finland’s territorial concessions to the Soviet Union during WWII. After the fall of USSR some Finns were able to visit the island, but this was always difficult, and eventually impossible, due to Russia’s continuing paranoid approach to security in its border areas. Suursaari can be easily seen from the Finnish waters in clear weather – I have seen it on a boat trip myself. My grandfather, who resettled in that coastal area for the last several decades of his life, must have seen it occasionally, while he could never return there.

    Slava Ukraini.

  365. says

    lumipuna @364, thanks for that additional information.

    Your family history is fascinating.

    JM @359, “Ukraine seems to be using Starlink more then Starshield and Starlink is a commercial service under SpaceX’s control. That is the theory anyway. This whole mess has raised some questions about how isolated the two services are.”

    I have wondered the same thing myself. It is confusing.

  366. says

    MS NOW:

    An Israeli airstrike targeting the Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza killed six people and wounded at least a dozen more, Gaza’s Health Ministry said. The strike was carried out early Thursday, according to the Israeli military, which said it struck ‘a senior Hamas terrorist’ and other militants, without providing evidence.

  367. says

    Followup to JM @359:

    Ukraine said restrictions on its military-grade Starlink satellite-internet service are once again hindering its drone operations, renewing disruptions to defenses against Russian attacks that hit the country last month. Ukrainian drones that rely on Starshield, a military version of SpaceX’s Starlink service, are losing connectivity if they fly faster than 100 miles an hour, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Telegram. [As reported by The Wall Street Journal.]

  368. says

    Good news, as reported by New York Times:

    Kenya began a countdown on Wednesday to declare the end of its Ebola outbreak. The final patient who had tested positive for the virus was discharged from the hospital on Wednesday. And the Kenyan cabinet secretary for health, Aden Duale, said at a news conference that the last 11 people being monitored for Ebola symptoms had also been discharged after completing a 21-day quarantine period.

  369. says

    MS NOW:

    At a combative town hall of 500 family members of the USS George H.W. Bush Carrier Strike Group, Navy leaders said Iranian attacks continue to ‘pepper’ U.S. ships enforcing the blockade of Iran. They also informed families that their deployed loved ones would not be returning home for the holidays, according to exclusive audio of the Nov. 9 meeting at Naval Station Norfolk, provided by an attendee and reviewed by MS NOW.

  370. says

    New York Times:

    Existing-home sales have fallen to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.75 million, their slowest since August 2010, the NAR [National Association of Realtors] report said. A healthy annual sales pace is typically about five million existing homes

  372. Reginald Selkirk says

    Cindy Holscher wins in Kansas, holding governor’s office for Democrats

    Democratic state Sen. Cindy Holscher will hold onto the Kansas governor’s office for her party after defeating Republican Ty Masterson, according to a race call by the Associated Press.

    Masterson, the president of the state Senate, was endorsed by President Trump. Of the 36 elections for governor across the country, Kansas was seen as the most likely to flip from Democratic to Republican control…

  373. StevoR says

    Lewis Hamilton – yes the F1 champion on his fb page after visiting the Gaza border :

    The past three years of Israel’s genocide in Gaza is appalling. It’s an injustice for people to being denied their freedom, their safety and their dignity. No human being should be treated as though their life matters less.

    I saw walls stretching for miles, built to keep them in. Standing there, outside what felt like an open-air prison, all I could think about was getting in to help.

    At Rafah border, I saw food trucks lined up ready to go, but they’re regularly not allowed in or face major delays. The first driver in line that I spoke to had already been waiting over 12 hours. At the nearby logistics centre, I saw the hard work of the aid workers, but I also saw what gets rejected for crazy reasons. Sleeping bags, first aid kits, medical equipment, wheelchairs, even footballs for kids.

    Israel needs to fulfil its obligations under the ceasefire and let the aid trucks in. No excuse.

    I know so many people feel that same helplessness. That same need to do something rather than just watch. I don’t want us to get used to their suffering. I don’t want us to look away.

    Source : https://www.facebook.com/LewisHamilton/posts/pfbid02jL9Yc4vJH2R7PaUQRwVo1QueJYSycTSzWFcHGHGADYRN2PtCudvpSLCY7CczHz59l

  374. StevoR says

    Another end of the world day survived – wellalmost.

    (Still a few hour sto go..)

    According to a prediction three scientists made in 1960, the world was due to end today.

    This “doomsday” was supposed to come not with a bang or a whimper, but from too many people.

    The scientists had calculated that on Friday, November 13, 2026, the world’s population would grow so quickly as to be near infinite.

    “Our great-great-grandchildren will not starve to death,” they wrote in a paper published in the journal Science at the time.

    “They will be squeezed to death.”

    Luckily, this prophecy has not come to pass.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2026-11-13/world-has-avoided-a-predicted-population-doomsday/107320748

  376. StevoR says

    @ ^Note that doomsday prediction wasn’t entuirely serious and also ist the 13th her e for me and most of the world timezones~wise. .

    University of California Santa Barbara economist Javier Birchenall said there was an element of humour to the study.

    The calculated end of the world happened to be the birthday of the paper’s lead author, Heinz von Foerster, a researcher at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s department of electrical engineering.

    “I don’t think they were completely serious. They were trying to make a point that this is exceptional,” Dr Birchenall said.

    Ibid.

    Also a few hours, most of the the day, same diff! ;-)

  378. Militant Agnostic says

    Stevor @374 and 376

    Only Idiots and Economists extrapolate an exponential growth curve a large distance past the data.

  379. Reginald Selkirk says

    Indonesia’s VP resigns as his eligibility and academic credentials are questioned

    Indonesia’s vice president resigned on Thursday as questions grew over his eligibility for the office after recent court rulings disputed his educational credentials.

    Gibran Rakabuming Raka, the 39-year-old son of former President Joko Widodo, submitted his resignation to the leadership of the People’s Consultative Assembly, the country’s highest legislative body, at the parliament building in the capital, Jakarta.
    …
    The academic credentials investigation was apparently not related to investigations into allegations that top police officials had been involved in wiretapping targeting the president.
    …
    The Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court ruled last month that the documents that Raka submitted regarding his overseas education didn’t meet election requirements.

    A subsequent petition, submitted Wednesday to the House leadership by 120 lawmakers from eight political parties, began a parliamentary process that could have led to his impeachment.

    The push for his impeachment was driven largely by long-running allegations that Raka’s candidacy was enabled by a Constitutional Court ruling that critics see as a conflict of interest and evidence of weak political accountability and dynastic privilege.

    Before Prabowo chose him as his running mate for the 2024 election, Raka didn’t meet the age requirement of 40 for vice presidential candidates. But the court’s contentious ruling in October 2023 carved an exception allowing those who served or had been elected as regional leaders to run at a younger age.

    Under Indonesian election law, a presidential or vice-presidential candidate must have completed senior high school or an equivalent level of education. Because Raka completed his secondary education overseas, he was required to provide documents showing that his qualifications were equivalent to an Indonesian high school diploma…

  380. Militant Agnostic says

    Lynna @346

    First, Layla A. Jones writes about the last Democratic senator to represent the state, John C. Stennis, a dixiecrat who was himself deeply involved in the state’s history of white supremacy

    It gets worse Stennis has the dubious distinction of being the prosecutor in the case that resulted in the SCOTUS ruling that confessions obtained under torture are inadmissible. He black sharecroppers sentenced to death based on confessions they made after being tortured by the police. Fortunately they were acquitted at the supreme court. Thomas and Lydia Smith covered this on the Where There’s Woke podcast a few years ago.

    MA’s law of history – It is always worse than you thought.

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