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  • Finally Friday Reads: Mixed Bag of Changes

    Finally Friday Reads: Mixed Bag of Changes

    dakinikat

    “Of course.” John Buss, @repeat1968

    Good Day, Sky Dancers!

    The election results are clearly bringing a type of musical chairs to the District.  What we don’t know is whether this means real policy change or the kind of kick-some-ass moves we need. I’m not making any predictions given that Hegseth escaped his duly earned boot out the door. I’m hoping we get more than a change of faces. The real change may come at the state level. That’s worth investigating, as it may signal how things progress at the national level.

    This is an interesting look at the drastic changes in some states. Michael Grunwald has this Guest Opinion piece in The New York Times. “The Swingiest State Has Gone Very Red.”

    Democrats around the country are now asking the question weird-crime aficionados and real estate analysts have been asking for years: What is happening in Florida?

    The anti-Trump stampede that trampled Republicans in blood-red bastions like Kansas, South Carolina and Texas on Nov. 3 somehow missed President Trump’s adopted state, where Republicans held on to a U.S. Senate seat, the governor’s mansion and every other statewide office. The Democratic candidate for governor, David Jolly, came just over one heartbreaking percentage point of breaking the G.O.P.’s 27-yearlock on Tallahassee.

    Now the finger-pointing has begun, with Florida Democrats blaming suboptimal candidates, dubious strategies and especially the national donors who in recent years stopped investing in this former super-swing state. Florida was once the ultimate expression of America’s 50-50 politics, with eight races for governor, Senate and the presidency decided by roughly a point or less from 2000 to 2018, and frustrated Democrats believe their latest razor-thin losses prove that it can be again.

    But that deep-purple Florida is gone, and it isn’t coming back anytime soon. The simple reason Democrats lost here last week is that an awful lot of Republicans have moved to Florida since the Covid pandemic, and those newcomers really like the way Republicans are running it. Gov. Ron DeSantis has remained quite popular, despite Mr. Trump’s struggles, and his vision of a “Free State of Florida” — where taxes are low, vaccines should be optional and masks are for woke losers — has become a magnet for some of the nation’s most reliable G.O.P. voters.

    Does this imply there will be a flight of Republicans or Democrats in to once what were traditionally swing states but now seem to be firmly rooted in one party or the other? Will there be new states, once reliably one party or the other, that now become the new swing states?  It seems like we’ve entered a timeline where old predictions and assumptions may have changed. I think it might be interesting to figure out why. The idea that Republicans are now flooding Florida is an interest one. I’d like to see similar analysis of Georgia. Will it become reliably blue?  I know that many of the Hurricane Katrina Diaspora wound up in Texas and Georgia and stayed put.  Are there other diasporas that may be changing those states or is it just an overall evolution? Will all this settle down or will it represent another example of “It’s the economy stupid.”  Oh well, too early to tell but I’m going to keep my ears and eyes open as the patterns of the Blue Tsunami become more statistically significant.

    Well, let’s catch up with what’s been happening with the musical chairs game. It definitely will be a catch-up for me as I’ve had a rough few days. First, I get this double whammy of my hands burning and my feet itching for several days and all day yesterday I had to fight off a weird attack on my computer and phone which really crippled my ability to communicate on line and otherwise. I spent the morning cleaning things out since I was having to do work arounds to get student time functional.

    I still believe that AI is about the worst thing that could ever happen to us. But, my question is what will the decision-makers do as Hal continues to rewrite algorithms and reality?  Jensen Huang has resigned as Nvidia CEO despite Orange Caligula’s fulsome begging for him to ride it out.  This crystal ball peering is from CNN’s John Towfighi. “The AI boom was built around Jensen Huang. Now what?” Oh, and the stock market is down today. Let’s see if Trump’s stock goes down too.

    Jensen Huang’s resignation from Nvidia in scandal leaves the company without its visionary leader. It also leaves a major void for the AI industry, where Huang was kingmaker in inking deals to support the tech boom.

    Under Huang’s leadership, Nvidia became more than a chipmaker: It guaranteed deals for data centers, invested heavily in AI startups and even backed the companies that bought its products.

    Huang put Nvidia at the core of AI financing, and the CEO himself championed some of the industry’s biggest deals. His departure puts a spotlight on whether the ecosystem he crafted could fracture — and whether that would spell trouble for the AI boom that has helped prop up the US stock market and become a driving force of economic growth.

    “It’s hard to overstate his personal role in all of this,” said Neil Wilson, a strategist at investment bank Saxo.

    “Huang was key in Nvidia being the backer of last resort across the AI ecosystem, really underpinning a lot of the financing and infrastructure guarantees,” he said.

    Nvidia backstopped deals, like committing $105 billion in August for an OpenAI data center. The company has a major equity stake in the neocloud CoreWeave, emerging as an important financial backer and confidence booster. Nvidia is expected to take a $10 billion stake in Anthropic’s initial public offering.

    Nvidia makes the graphics processing units that power AI models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude. But the company has also been “the central bank of AI,” Jay Goldberg, senior analyst at Seaport Research Partners, told CNN.

    The company also functions like a venture capitalist, Goldberg noted, investing in companies to fuel their growth and help them get ahead in an industry that requires massive amounts of capital.

    “Circular financing” has emerged as a term to describe Nvidia’s financial agreements, because the company is backing the companies that, in turn, buy its products. Goldberg said a more accurate term would be “very aggressive vendor financing.”

    I have to say I see research possibilities in that last bit. Guess it’s time to search out the data and boot up my statistics programs. This might be another “Greed is Good” moment in the making accompanied by a sizable market correction. Most of us always called this another bubble. I guess we will all see that and if the entire industry can actually prove it has merits other than financing tricks.

    Sally Jenkins, writing for The New Republic, shows just what a grifter Little Marco has been. It’s nothing knew in the Orange One’s administration but this one may sink any future dreams of greatness for him. “The Shamelessness of Marco Rubio. The secretary of state has spent more than $1.2 million in taxpayer funds on personal flights—including taking military jets to football games.”  We have a lot of reconstruction to do on oversight in the Executive Branch.

    Next to all of the take-Americans-for-nitwits scams perpetrated by the Trump administration, the news that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been using taxpayer-funded military jets to fly to college-football games doesn’t amount to that much. Still, as evidence of degraded ethics and an emperor-like feed-me-another-grape sensibility, it holds its own. Rubio has defended his flights by saying that the events are important to his family—his son is a senior running back for the Gators. But he’s really Saturday joyriding to big-ticket events, and the message he’s sending is This administration doesn’t serve you. You serve it.

    Rubio’s son Anthony may be a very nice young man. What he isn’t, arguably, is a college-football player worth flying in to watch—because he barely ever plays. He is a walk-on, a scout-teamer, which means that his primary role is not to play in games but to be a body for his teammates to scrimmage against during practice. It’s a valuable job, from which he’s no doubt learned a lot. But he has made it onto the field for exactly three rushing attempts this season. Yet Rubio, a Florida alum, has flown to at least 10 Gators games. The cost of his personal flights since he became secretary of state, according to reporting by The Washington Post, has been more than $1.2 million.

    When asked about the trips, Rubio said, “I have and will continue to try and make it to as many events that are important to me personally and to my family as possible,” implying that he just wants to encourage his kid. Now, Anthony’s last appearance was for one carry in a 52–3 hammering of the Campbell University Fighting Camels, back in mid-September. He has not set foot on a game-day field since. And still, Rubio flew in for the October 31 marquee matchup with top-ranked Georgia, and for a game on November 7 against Oklahoma. Both were broadcast live on national TV. Apparently, it is personally important to Rubio to use Americans’ tax dollars to wave school colors while watching his kid’s back as he wears a numeral on the sideline.

    “Flying by pricey military jet, Rubio rarely misses a Florida football game.” Noah White and Rick Maese share the lede.

    Rubio’s personal travel, through nearly two years on the job, appears to significantly outpace that of his predecessors, former State Department officials said. And it’s adding up: The flights have cost the government more than $1.2 million, The Post found, using rates published by the Defense Department.

    Like the defense secretary and the directors of the FBI and CIA, Rubio is barred from flying commercially for security reasons and is required, when traveling for personal reasons, to reimburse the government the equivalent of an economy-fare ticket. Officials’ reimbursements are rarely made

    Rubio and the State Department declined to say how much he has reimbursed the government, but they defended the trips.

    “I have and will continue to try and make it to as many events that are important to me personally and to my family as possible,” Rubio said in a statement, in response to questions from The Post.

    Assistant Secretary of State Dylan Johnson said Rubio uses military aircraft to “ensure continuity of operations, continuity of government and access to secure communications at all times. And he will continue to do so.”

    Government ethics experts said that while Rubio’s travel complies with federal rules, it raises a question about stewardship of public money. The handful of government officials who aren’t allowed to fly commercially have little choice in how they travel, they said, but they retain control over how frequently they take personal trips.

    Let’s see if this influence his little Marco wet dream of being President. I can’t help but think that the Taxpayers have had it with corruption and he’ll be retired to Florida where he can watch as many football games that hey can still afford the tickets for.  Meanwhile, Aaron Rupar has this tasty interview with Tim Snyder published at Public Notice on the Grifter-in-Chief. ‘In conversation with Tim Snyder. “It’s important to think not about what he’s going to do to us, but what we’re going to do to him”.’  This interview came before the elections so it’s excellent insight on both prediction and results level.

    Aaron Rupar

    One of the reasons the midterms that are coming up are so important is because it gives Americans an opportunity to register their dissatisfaction with things like the trade war with Canada. I sometimes think about this election as being possibly our last chance to pull the emergency brake on the GOP’s drive toward authoritarianism. Do you agree with that characterization, and how are you thinking about the stakes?

    Tim Snyder

    My general view about this is the opposition party, the Democrats, has a once in a lifetime chance to claim both houses of Congress and to begin transformative systemic change. If they lose — which they won’t — but if they do, this opportunity won’t come around again.

    Right now we’re in this unusual situation where corruption is very salient and also people think Trump is more corrupt than other presidents. And that’s really important because we’re in a country where basically everybody thinks the system is broken, but now people think, “Yeah, it’s broken, but Trump is worse.” That means the Democrats, when they win, have an opportunity to get on the right side of that issue.

    They have to make the most of that opportunity because if they don’t come out in November and January and do serious things — have ostentatious investigations, pass laws to get money out of politics — then by next spring, we’ll be back in a country where people say, “Everybody is corrupt.” In that environment, Trump can survive. His whole thing is, “Yeah, everybody lies, everybody’s corrupt, but look at me — I’m better at it. I’m more charming about it.”

    As far as an emergency brake, I agree with you. I would just say you pull the emergency brake and then you jump out of the car and you get another one because the task is not fixing what we have at this point. The task is building something different.

    I’m thinking a lot on this statement. ” If they lose — which they won’t — but if they do, this opportunity won’t come around again.”  I do wonder if this is a one in a lifetime opportunity to just clean up a lot of things.  Of course, there’s talk of eliminating the Electoral College again and other drastic changes. But, what if, we could actually do it? But more importantly, what if we don’t?

    People don't want data centers polluting their cities.They don't want masked thugs terrorizing their neighbors.They don't want more forever wars.They want a living wage. They want healthcare. They want to be able to afford a home. They want their basic needs met.Dems must seize this moment.

    — Robert Reich (@rbreich.bsky.social) 2026-11-13T18:45:04.051996Z

    What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today? 

  • Thursday Cartoons: R-E-S-P-E-C-T

    jjlo1970

    The latest exhibition from Hegseth and his buddies is just yet another example of the level of dickhead these assholes fuckwads will stoop to…

    wow — CNN broadcast footage of an Arlington guard yelling at a group with Pete Hegseth to "MAINTAIN SILENCE … PAY RESPECT!" after someone in his entourage started laughing at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

    — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-11-11T19:55:34.539Z

    That makes me so mad. If anyone has been to this part of Arlington, the area is so solemn. You can’t help but feel sadness. For these idiots to begin laughing like they do in the video is beyond disgusting and so disrespectful.

    It is like a cherry turd on a huge sundae of shit that is the Trump administration.

    In yet another attempt at intimidation:

    The warning is rich, considering how the Trump administration has pushed sham prosecutions against members of Congress who told military and intelligence personnel not to follow illegal orders or who protested against ICE. https://mrf.lu/27Rbv

    — The New Republic (@newrepublic.com) 2026-11-12T01:11:24.031Z

    The White House is threatening Democrats in Congress, warning them that investigating President Donald Trump could cross the line into criminal action.

    Punchbowl News reports that White House counsel Will Scharf sent a letter on Monday to Democratic Representative Robert Garcia, the incoming chair of the House Oversight Committee, saying that congressional investigations “must further a legitimate executive task; Congress cannot employ them to exercise powers of criminal prosecution assigned to the Executive and the Judiciary.”

    Garcia and his fellow Democrats have made “it abundantly clear that any forthcoming investigative processes will be deployed to harass and aggrandize, rather than to advance any legitimate legislative end,” Scharf claims, citing statements by incoming Democrats calling for the prosecution of ICE agents, trials for tech executives, and hearings for Cabinet secretaries like embattled Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

    The letter is an extreme attempt to intimidate House Democrats into backing off Trump and his legally questionable actions, and it makes a mockery of the constitutional separation of powers, as well as checks and balances between the three branches of government. Scharf is taking a questionable Republican position that effectively says that Congress has no critical oversight over the executive branch.

    They have finally called it:

    It’s incredible. Black representation in the Senate (7) and in governor’s houses (5) today exceeds all of Reconstruction and the 20th century.

    — Theodore R. Johnson (@drtedj.bsky.social) 2026-11-11T22:36:01.514Z

    Colom: "For months and months, I've been telling everybody everywhere I go, that we're going to win this election. But every time I said it, I pointed out that people were going to give me too much credit for it. Because it's not something that I did, y'all. It's something that we did."

    — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-11-12T03:22:08.761Z

    And one last thing:

    Decades of immunization progress is backsliding, a continuing NBC News data investigation reveals, threatening the safety of children in America, burdening schools and hindering public health.Read more: nbcnews.to/4BMNObY

    — NBC News (@nbcnews.com) 2026-11-11T00:20:05.680Z

    Cartoons via Cagle:

    What a mess…this is an open thread.

  • Wild Wednesday Reads: “Huang Huang Bang Bang” (NY Post)

    bostonboomer

    Good Afternoon!!

    We have to survive two more years of Trump’s presidency (unless he’s impeached or or otherwise removed.) Meanwhile, he has blithely been allowing China to steal America’s chip secrets to China. It’s the oldest trick in the book–an egotistical man fell for a honey trap. Trump himself was warned about this and ignored all the warnings.

    At The Bulwark, William Kristol has an excellent summary of what happened. He summarizes the latest articles, so you don’t have to read them individually: The Chips Are Falling Into China’s Lap.

    Let’s take a quick look at what we’ve learned, or what’s been confirmed, in just the past couple of days. (And I’ll note that all of this is before any congressional investigations have begun, before there’s been sworn testimony from administration officials and others, before further other investigations into Nvidia and other actors, before lawsuits, before the deluge of leaks we’re likely to get from people within the Trump administration.)

    Donald Trump Knew. The New York Times reported yesterday that President Trump was told directly by Marco Rubio aboard Air Force One en route to China in May that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was in a relationship with a Chinese spy. “It marked at least the second time in seven months that the president had been told of intelligence about Mr. Huang’s involvement with the woman.”

    So for the last six months at least, Trump has been palling around with Huang, praising Huang, presumably sharing information and thoughts with Huang, and taking counsel and advice from Huang, all the while knowing it was very possible that everything he said was being passed on to the government of China and much of what he was hearing had been shaped by the government China.

    Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang with girlfriend Alice Huang

    Jensen Huang lied. The Times report also reminds us that in response to earlier reports that Alice Huang was a Chinese intelligence asset and in a relationship with Jensen Huang,

    Nvidia executives and Mr. Huang both insisted that the relationship was a routine engagement with a customer. On Sunday, Mr. Huang admitted to a romantic relationship with Ms. Huang. Soon after, Nvidia announced that the company would conduct an independent investigation.

    So Huang lied to others in the company, and the company dutifully lied to the rest of us. And there are some indications we’ll discover much more lying about various business matters and corporate relationships, not just personal ones.

    Howard Lutnick Obstructed. Politico reports that officials in the Bureau of Industry and Security, the office that oversees tech exports, had warned in dozens of reports of the risk of Nvidia’s advanced chips being diverted to China. But the higher-ups in the Commerce Department, run by Trump’s buddy and business partner Howard Lutnick, chose not to impose meaningful new restrictions on the company.

    And the Financial Times reported yesterday that several U.S. government agencies pushed for Alice Huang’s company, Megaspeed, to be included on the so-called entity list of groups connected to China that posed national security risks. But again, the Commerce Department refused to act. The FT quotes Chris McGuire, a former senior U.S. government export controls official: “It is mind-boggling that [Commerce] knew months ago that Megaspeed is being run by a Chinese spy but did nothing to stop them from buying $4.8 billion worth of Nvidia chips.”

    Read the rest at The Bulwark.

    David Ignatius at The Washington Post (gift link): The Nvidia spy scandal was hiding in plain sight.

    Keith Riggin, a former CIA station chief in Beijing who later advised U.S. companies on the Chinese intelligence threat, says he gave American executives a simple warning about beautiful women who might approach them in Beijing: “You don’t get any better-looking when you go to a place like China.”

    But top American executives and government officials are often arrogant, says Riggin. They overlook warnings, and they sometimes think security rules don’t apply to them. That can make them easy marks for the increasingly sophisticated tradecraft of China’s spy service, the Ministry of State Security.

    Jensen Huang with wife Lori

    Jensen Huang, co-founder of the multitrillion-dollar chipmaker Nvidia, appears to be the most prominent American yet to fall into an MSS honey trap. At least two years ago, he was drawn into what became a sexual relationship with an alleged MSS contact named Alice Huang. But he’s hardly the first. Riggin told me that he knows of at least 20 others who were victims of similar operations.

    The Nvidia case has rocked the intelligence world for several reasons. U.S. officials have been investigating Chinese dealings with the company for at least two years, according to an official who has been briefed on the case. President Donald Trump was personally advised about Jensen Huang’s vulnerability about a year ago, according to the New York Times. And Secretary of State Marco Rubio helped circulate an interagency warning about the case this past spring.

    Why the slow roll? That’s the haunting question. Why wasn’t more done sooner to check what intelligence veterans tell me appears to have been a double-barreled Chinese intelligence exploitation of Alice Huang’s involvement with Jensen Huang? The evidence suggests the MSS was running both a supply-chain operation to obtain precious Nvidia chips and an influence operation to shape administration tech policy.

    The closer you examine the case, the more puzzling the riddles become. Why did Trump continue his close relationship with Huang even after he was warned? Why wasn’t Huang given an FBI “defensive briefing” about his girlfriend’s intelligence ties if, as published reports say, he didn’t know about her MSS connection? Was Kash Patel’s FBI so busy with Trump’s political agenda that it failed to pursue Chinese spy operations aggressively?

    Here’s the question that vexes CIA and FBI China hands: An intelligence investigation gathered information that a powerful friend of Trump was having an affair with a suspected Chinese agent, but the probe stalled. Why?

    Trump is backing Jensen Huang in the spy scandal

    Has it occurred to any of these “investigators” that the reason could be that Trump doesn’t want to stand up to China or Russia? Ignatius alludes to that fact:

    Huang seemed to imagine that he was untouchable. More than a year ago, the New York Times published a photo of him with Alice Huang in a Taipei, Taiwan, bar in June 2024 and another of them together the following May at a Taipei trade show. Both photos had been posted on the internet. Nvidia was then selling advanced chips to a Singapore-based company named Megaspeed, where Alice Huang worked and which had been spun off from a Chinese gaming firm. But the alarm bells apparently didn’t ring in the Nvidia executive suite.

    The public loves a good spy scandal, especially when it’s linked with sex. “Huang Huang Bang Bang” headlined the New York Post on Monday, after the Nvidia chief issued a public apology to his wife, family and company. But this one goes much deeper, because it involves artificial intelligence technology that is among America’s most precious national-security secrets, and a president who has pushed for closer ties with Chinese President Xi Jinping, whom he habitually describes as “my friend,” at a time when China poses a growing military and intelligence threat.

    Trump also claims he doesn’t recall being warned a year ago. There’s more at the WaPo link. You can use the gift link to read the rest.

    Jeff Stein at Spy Talk: Where is Alice Huang?

    Exactly how Nvidia’s powerful chief, Jensen Huang, a married man and father of three, fell into the clutches of Alice Huang (no relation), a tech executive that U.S. intelligence identified last year as an agent of China’s MSS intelligence agency, has yet to be revealed. Nor has a coherent explanation from President Trump of why he continued to embrace the Nvidia boss long after U.S. intelligence came to suspect that Megaspeed, Alice Huang’s Singapore-based firm, was diverting restricted advanced AI chips to China. But if the affair goes to prove anything, it’s that—as Lawler said–even the most brilliant mind of a generation can lose its senses when targeted by a highly trained and sexy intelligence agent….

    Imagine Alice Huang being left alone in Jensen’s bedroom with access to his phone and laptop, former China resident and expert Bill Bishop commented in his Sinocism Substack. “On the Jensen Huang-Alice Huang affair, you have to give the MSS credit for running another successful op. They are good and getting better…”

    The Nvidia CEO “is (was?) text and phone buddies with President Trump,” Bishop added, “so if he divulged anything about his conversations with Trump to her, or his thoughts about Trump or chatter about China policy or frankly anything from Trump, that would be valuable to any foreign intelligence service, and especially to the MSS…”

    “Alice was supposedly a media executive at Hunan TV and CCTV, but initial media checks reveal no such evidence,” Kenneth Decleva, a former State Department psychiatrist and intelligence analyst,” says. “And her social media including WeChat has been scrubbed. She has vanished. She will now be promoted by the MSS and further, honored by Xi.”

    “Jensen and any company strategy/secrets have to be considered compromised until proven otherwise,” he added. “The FBI should seize his passport(s). He’s a huge flight risk.”

    Please go read the whole thing. Trump is giving away our most valuable secrets.

    Yesterday, KY Rep. Thomas Massie presented articles of impeachment against Pete Hegseth on the House floor. Unfortunately the effort failed, thanks to 11 Democrats who didn’t make it to work on time.

    Jason Breslow at NPR: House votes to effectively end the impeachment effort against Pete Hegseth.

    The House has voted 211 to 204 to refer the articles of impeachment filed against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to committee, effectively killing the impeachment effort spearheaded by Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky.

    Tuesday’s vote short-circuits any potential floor vote on the articles of impeachment, and virtually guarantees the measure will not be taken up before the current session of Congress expires.

    Rep. Thomas Massie

    The vote provided a surprise reprieve for President Trump’s embattled Defense Secretary, who was facing an impeachment vote by the full House as early as Wednesday.

    Massie reintroduced the articles of impeachment on Monday, accusing Hegseth of high crimes and misdemeanors in connection to the war with Iran and U.S. strikes against Iran and on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific Ocean.

    Massie’s impeachment resolution sought to oust Hegseth over the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro without congressional authorization, and the effort to punish Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., for a video telling service members they can refuse illegal orders.

    The impeachment measure was Massie’s second attempt against Hegseth. He first sought to bring the impeachment resolution to the floor before the midterm elections, prompting Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to call an early recess to avoid the vote. That caused the resolution to expire, which is why Massie reintroduced the resolution again this week.

    While the impeachment push may be quelled for now, Hegseth’s troubles on Capitol Hill are not over. Democrats have promised vigorous investigations into Hegseth’s Pentagon once they assume the majority in January.

    The Hill: 11 Democrats miss Hegseth impeachment vote.

    House Republicans came together Tuesday to shelve a measure to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, thanks largely to almost a dozen Democrats failing to show up for the early evening vote.

    Pete Hegseth

    Some of the Democrats who did cast a vote did not even try to hide their frustration.

    “The people send us here to do a job. I don’t know if anyone had any real health issues or anything significant. So I want to leave room for that,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-N.Y.) told CNN’s Manu Raju. “But that being said, at the end of the day, we’re here to do a job. And the same way I had to clock in when I worked at a restaurant, we got to clock in and do our work here.”

    Some of the members missed the vote, which ended around 6 p.m. EST, due to gridlock on Pennsylvania Ave., caused by a traffic accident.

    “Like other Members of Congress, Rep. Stansbury was blocked from entering the Capitol to vote due a traffic incident and a police escort of a bus during the vote,” Rep. Melanie Stansbury‘s (D-N.M.) office said in a statement on the social platform X. “When she reached the chamber, the vote had just gaveled out.”

    “The Congresswoman was stuck behind a motorcade and missed the vote by 1 minute. She would have voted against the motion to refer,” Rep. Marilyn Strickland‘s (D-Wash.) chief of staff said….

    The 11 Democrats who missed the vote were Stansbury, Strickland and Reps. Julia Brownley (Calif.) Lou Correa (Calif.), Laura Gillen (N.Y.), Steven Horsford (Nev.), Jonathan Jackson (Ill.), Nancy Pelosi, (Calif.), Brittany Pettersen (Colo.), Haley Stevens (Mich.) and Frederica Wilson (Fla.).

    You can get a deeper dive into the Hegseth impeachment story from Joyce Vance and NY Rep.Daniel Goldman at Civil Discourse: A Failed Impeachment, for Now. Congressman Dan Goldman explains what happened.

    I don’t normally tell you to drop what you’re doing and watch a video. But tonight, I’m insisting.

    My plan for the evening had been to write about the articles of impeachment against self-styled “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth and analyze the process we could expect going forward. Then, despite the absolute shellacking they took Tuesday night, Republicans voted to send the resolution brought by Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie to committee, a parliamentary device for burying it. “At least for now,” says my guest tonight, Representative Dan Goldman. Dan knows a thing or two about impeachment. Before his election to Congress, he served as the lead counsel for the House Intelligence Committee investigation that led to Donald Trump’s first impeachment. Senate Republicans ultimately declined to convict.

    Dan Goldman

    “At least for now” is the text balloon that hangs over all of this, as Democrats prepare to take control of both the House and the Senate in January. The articles include eight charges against Hegseth, including violating the War Powers Resolution of 1973, dismantling protections against civilian casualties, extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean and the Pacific, retaliating against Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona for participating with other members of Congress who made a video reminding service members of their duty to refuse unlawful orders, unauthorized military action in Venezuela, and conducting an unauthorized military campaign in Yemen.

    You may recall that Senator Kelly was censured, threatened with military prosecution and loss of rank and pension for exercising his First Amendment rights. This morning, when Hegseth took to the podium to reiterate that he’d engage in the conduct the articles specify all over again, and was proud of it, NBC reports that “Two Pentagon officials, including a member of Hegseth’s security detail, approached reporters while they were waiting for him to appear at the lectern … They said that if any reporters behave in a manner that is ‘not professional’ or ‘get out of line’ or ‘get out of hand,’ they would be ‘physically removed’ from the room.” Hegseth doesn’t want you to know what he’s doing, which is precisely why we have a First Amendment. The allegations in the articles of impeachment, even though well known, are still shocking, at least in the sense that it’s shocking that the supposedly pro-military Republican Party would tolerate them—they’ve just set a precedent for what behavior is tolerable if a Hegseth-like figure arises during a Democratic administration (unlikely, since today’s Democrats aren’t hardwired like that). All of the conduct described in the articles of impeachment is awful, but the First Amendment allegations sting to the core of our democracy.

     Today is Veterans Day, and Trump visited the hallowed cemetery today, but don’t expect him to learn anything from the experience. He is still fighting to build a “triumphal arch” that will interfere with views of Arlington Cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial.

    Zach Montague at The New York Times (gift link): Trump Visits Arlington Cemetery as His Proposed Arch Faces Growing Opposition.

    President Trump traveled to Arlington National Cemetery on Wednesday to lay a wreath in honor of fallen service members, a time-honored presidential tradition on Veterans Day at a site that could be dramatically reshaped by his proposal to build a 250-foot triumphal arch in a traffic circle just outside the cemetery’s main entrance.

    Mr. Trump’s arch project is being challenged in court by a trio of Vietnam War veterans; Arlington County, Va.; the state of Virginia; the District of Columbia; and as of Tuesday, members of the Kennedy family, whose relatives’ graves sit at the emotional heart of the cemetery.

    A common thread throughout the suits is the contention that the giant arch, which would loom over the nearly 640-acre military cemetery in Virginia, would have a negative effect on it.

    The planned site of the arch holds “symbolic significance as the physical and ceremonial connection between Washington, D.C. and Arlington National Cemetery — the final resting place of more than 400,000 active-duty service members, veterans, and their family members,” Virginia and the District of Columbia contended in their joint lawsuit.

    A view along Memorial Bridge toward Arlington Cemetery, which would be blocked by Mr. Trump’s planned arch. Credit Eric Lee for the NYT.

    “For more than a century, that direct sight line has stood as a testament to the reunification of the nation after the Civil War and a point of reflection for visitors,” Arlington County said in a legal filing.

    For months, Mr. Trump has vowed to push forward and celebrated the proposed arch as one of his grandest contributions to the city, dwarfing similar triumphal arches around the world. The administration has argued that aesthetic concerns about the area are not enough to win a federal lawsuit, and that various historical proposals for the bridge linking Virginia to Washington at the entrance to the cemetery included proposals for an arch built in the same corridor.

    But as plans to break ground have accelerated, government bodies on both sides of the Potomac River have said the idea would bring unwelcome service interruptions to the region — and overshadow the solemn site.

    On the Lincoln Memorial issue:

    The arch would sit on an island in the Potomac River at the southwestern boundary of the District of Columbia, just across a 2,100-foot bridge. The bridge was designed to trace a vista to the Lincoln Memorial from the Robert E. Lee Memorial, also known as Arlington House, which sits atop a hill in the cemetery.

    There’s much more information about the Arch battle at the gift link.

    Luke Broadwater at The New York Times (gift link): Kennedys Join Suit to Block Trump’s Arch, Saying It Would Mar J.F.K. Gravesite.

    President Trump’s planned 250-foot triumphal arch has come under legal fire on multiple fronts: from veterans, a historian and the governments of the District of Columbia, Virginia and Arlington County.

    Now comes another legal challenge, from the storied Kennedy family.

    John F. Kennedy’s grave site with the eternnal flame.

    Arguing that the arch, with its golden angels and flame on top, would cast a shadow on their relatives’ graves in Arlington National Cemetery, nine members of the Kennedy family moved to join existing litigation in Washington on Tuesday seeking to block the project. They also say the arch would obstruct the intended sightline from the eternal flame at President John F. Kennedy’s gravesite, “destroying an essential element of the gravesite’s design.”

    Construction of the arch, one of Mr. Trump’s favorite projects, has been temporarily paused by a judge in another case. If allowed to proceed, it would rise between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery. The filing claims that the placement would obstruct “a line of sight that was designed to represent the unification of the nation following the Civil War and that has existed for nearly a century.”

    The arch “will permanently cast a shadow over plaintiffs’ parents’ graves and the graves of servicemen and -women who made the ultimate sacrifice for this country,” the filing added.

    The plaintiffs are children or grandchildren of Senators Robert F. Kennedy and Edward M. Kennedy, the former president’s brothers, who are buried near him.

    “A towering arch casting shadows across the graves of our father, mother and uncles, as well as the graves of so many who have served our country, would also cast a shadow over our democratic principles, undermining the safeguards established by our elected representatives to protect this hallowed ground for generations to come,” two of the plaintiffs, Rory Kennedy and Maxwell Kennedy, who are children of Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Kennedy, said in a statement.

    Read more at the gift link.

    That’s all I have for today. What do you think? What else is on your mind?

     

  • Tuesday Cartoons: Go on, Git

    jjlo1970

    Git! If only Trump could git. As we still wait for the final results in a few key races.

    Yes get rid of those losers, because Trump would've won that war in two weeks by bombing Ho Chi Min City.

    — Khashoggi's Ghost (@urocklive1.bsky.social) 2026-11-09T22:55:17.392Z

    Cartoons via Cagle:

    Stay safe, and take it easy. This is an open thread.

  • Mostly Monday Reads: Go on,Take the Money and Run

    Mostly Monday Reads: Go on,Take the Money and Run

    dakinikat

    “I guess there could be worse things than two years of HGTV. John Buss, @repeat1968

    Good Day, Sky Dancers!

    Today there are a lot of new headlines about the Great Trump Grifters. Since that’s what essentially set the Blue Tsunami in motion, I thought it would be a good idea to see what the folks in investigative reporting were up to. It is, of course, mostly the independent media, not the legacy media, that are telling us where our taxes have gone over the last two years.  To quote Warren Zevon, “It just ain’t pretty at all.” What we’re seeing now is how many people got around to taking the money and are now trying to run before investigations and hearings heat up.

    Here’s one to think about from ProPublica, which should give a lot of the Congress Critters something to move on. “Firm Linked to Trump’s Sons Got Nearly $40 Million in Federal Contracts to Screen for Ebola and Other Diseases. XpresTest has years of experience conducting disease screening in U.S. airports but has never worked with Ebola or provided biosecurity services abroad. It’s “a new thing for us,” the company’s CEO said.” Sharon Lerner, Anna Maria Barry-Jester and Robert Faturechi share the lede.

    The Trump administration awarded a small biosecurity company nearly $40 million to screen for Ebola and other infectious diseases just months after a firm linked to President Donald Trump’s elder sons invested in its parent company, according to records and interviews.

    The contracts, one to screen for Ebola in several U.S. airports and the other to respond to disease outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of Congo, are seven times the total value of government contracts the company had directly received before.

    The company, XpresTest, has years of experience monitoring for COVID-19 and other diseases for the government at U.S. airports. That makes its parent, XWELL, an unusual hybrid, selling both spa treatments and biosecurity services. Last year, it made most of its money from waxing salons and airport spas that offer manicures, massages and “chakra beds.”

    The contracts are the latest example of the president’s family benefiting financially from his administration’s actions. And the stakes for these deals are particularly high. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, an Ebola outbreak has killed more than 5,000 people this year, and the federal government is trying to stop the pathogen from coming to the U.S.

    XpresTest has never worked with Ebola or provided biosecurity services abroad, let alone in the kind of volatile locales it’s now expected to work in. The CEO of its parent company, Ezra Ernst, said XpresTest won both contracts in a competitive bidding process and pointed to its years of experience doing screening for COVID-19 and other pathogens at American airports. But even he acknowledged that working internationally is “a new thing for us” and expressed uncertainty about being able to complete the work in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

    “This is a risky contract. I’m not sure we can do it,” Ernst said in an interview.

    Jeremy Konyndyk, who helped oversee the U.S. government’s response to a 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, said there are some parallels between monitoring for COVID-19 and Ebola at airports, but he said it’s concerning that the government would award such a lucrative contract to a company that has no experience in Africa.

    “There are countless organizations in the world that have decades of experience doing this work,” Konyndyk said. “I have to wonder why the hell they’re not going with someone who has actually done this before.”

    Under previous administrations, the U.S. government addressed international disease outbreaks in partnership with the World Health Organization. But Trump withdrew from the group last year, dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development, which handled much of this work, and dramatically scaled back the global presence of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    Gee that all sounds pretty convenient and strange doesn’t it?  Here’s the punchline, but do go read this very informative article at the link.  Of course, the CDC said nothing but the team of investigative reporters did the work digging out the facts anyway. There is a lot more at the link.

    A spokesperson for the president’s sons Donald Jr. and Eric Trump said that they are “merely passive, minority investors in a fund that invested in this company,” and that they had no “involvement in or knowledge regarding the negotiation or procurement of any of its contracts, including any government contracts.”

    “Both are private citizens who hold no government positions, broken no laws and who have every right to pursue lawful business and investment opportunities,” the spokesperson said.

    The Trump sons’ connection to XWELL was established in February, when a fund called American Ventures invested in the company. The fund was launched by Dominari Holdings, a small financial firm with offices inside Trump Tower in New York. The leaders of Dominari hired the Trump sons as advisers after their father was elected to a second term and granted them a stake of more than 10% in Dominari.

    Ben Berkowitz, writing for AXIOS, has some of the down low on Trump’s relationship with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. This is getting to be terrifically juicy story. “Trump backs Nvidia’s Huang amid affair, spy investigation.” 

    President Trump defended Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Sunday night, even as the company’s board launched an investigation into his affair with a suspected Chinese spy.

    Why it matters: The blowback to Huang’s relationship is only getting more intense by the hour, with multiple members of Congress calling for probes and investors saying the news could put a cloud over the entire AI trade.

    What they’re saying: Trump was asked Sunday night if he’s taking Huang with him on an Asia trip next week.
    • “I don’t know, but I’d certainly take him,” the president told reporters.
    • “I haven’t heard that he’s done anything wrong,” Trump added. “He dealt with somebody but, you know, so does everybody else.”

    The intrigue: The New York Times reported in late October that Trump was briefed earlier this year about Huang’s relationship with the potential spy but chose not to act.

    • Huang has been one of Trump’s favorite corporate executives since his return to office, with Huang frequently appearing at White House events.
    • He also traveled with Trump to China earlier this year, even after the reported memo warning the president of Huang’s relationship.

    What’s next: A group of House Republican committee chairs have asked Huang to agree by Nov. 11 to a date for a briefing on his relationship and Nvidia’s national security controls.

    Here’s some information from that New York Times article from late October. There was a large team of reporters on this. The link is gifted. “Nvidia Chief Seen as Target of Chinese Spy Plot. A Chinese businesswoman who had a close relationship with Jensen Huang was found to be passing intelligence to Beijing. President Trump was briefed and took no action.” The oldest trick in the book

    American spy agencies had gathered striking intelligence.

    A top executive at a Singapore-based data center company was under scrutiny for possibly steering advanced Nvidia A.I. chips to China. And now American officials had concluded that she was a Chinese intelligence asset, funneling information to Beijing.

    But what came next was even more alarming. Surveillance of the executive, Alice Huang or Huang Le, a Chinese citizen, revealed that she had developed a close relationship with Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s chief executive.

    For years, Washington has worked to deny China the technology needed to match or surpass the United States in the intense global competition for superiority in artificial intelligence. The discovery that Beijing was getting reports from someone with direct access to Mr. Huang, one of the most powerful figures in the A.I. revolution as well as an influential ally of President Trump’s, set off alarms at the White House.

    Roughly a year ago, Mr. Trump was briefed about the intelligence findings, which have not been previously reported, and chose not to do anything with the information. Mr. Trump has been wary of disrupting Nvidia’s chip sales, which are helping to drive the economy and the stock market, and of further complicating the trading relationship with China.

    This account is based on interviews with people briefed on the surveillance, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the findings are drawn from classified intelligence, as well as other officials and industry executives and analysts.

    You have to wonder what was in it for Trump to ignore the entire thing or if it was just his usual lack of interest in anything that’s not related to turning the White House into Liberace’s Dressing Room.  However, this follow-up today by The New York Times, suggests there’s more intrigue we’ll discover soon. “Commerce Dept. Chip Inquiry Was Halted After Nvidia Intervention. An investigation into Megaspeed, a Singapore company that was buying advanced Nvidia A.I. chips, was transferred to the Justice Department after a top Nvidia executive reached out to Commerce Department officials.” Don’t you just love it when life mimics a John le Carré novel?

    Investigators at the Commerce Department were deep into a monthslong investigation of a Singaporean company that they suspected of smuggling Nvidia’s artificial intelligence chips into China when their work came to a sudden halt late last year.

    The investigation centered on Megaspeed, a data center company led by an executive who U.S. officials now believe to be a Chinese spy who had a relationship with Nvidia’s chief executive, Jensen Huang.

    But the case was abruptly transferred to the Justice Department last year. The shift came after Commerce Department investigators working on the case received an email from Nvidia’s general counsel seeking information about the inquiry into Megaspeed.

    It is not necessarily unusual for Commerce Department agents working on a case to speak with a company’s representatives about issues involving their firm. But what was unusual was the content of the message. Tim Teter, Nvidia’s general counsel, said that Jeff Kessler, a top official at the department, had given Nvidia permission to reach out about the case.

    The agents were alarmed that Nvidia had invoked the name of Mr. Kessler, their superior, who was nominated to his role by President Trump. Some viewed Mr. Kessler’s interaction with Nvidia as violating government procedure and potentially tainting the case, according to current and former government officials and others familiar with the incident.

    It is not clear what led to Mr. Teter’s outreach to the department, but the recent revelations about Mr. Huang’s acknowledged affair with a Megaspeed executive have only intensified scrutiny of Nvidia’s role in influencing policy on chip sales to China. The New York Times reported last month that the U.S. government had concluded that Huang Le, or Alice Huang, a top executive at the firm, was a spy working on behalf of the Chinese government.

    On Sunday, Nvidia said it was opening an investigation into Mr. Huang, after he acknowledged to the company’s board that he had been intimate with Ms. Huang. The pair, who are not related, had been photographed together on multiple occasions, including at a bar and a restaurant in Taiwan alongside other tech executives.

    So, I like the sounds of this interview, however, I just will believe it all when I see it. This is from CBS NEWS. “Hakeem Jeffries says Democrats are committed to “holding the crooks accountable” in new Congress.”

    House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who’s poised to become House Speaker in the new Congress following his party’s widespread gains in the midterm elections, said Monday that Democrats will focus “relentlessly” on addressing affordability in their majorities, while also setting their sights on combatting corruption.

    “We’re committed to accountability and to holding the crooks accountable if you’ve been stealing from the American people, screwing over the American people or shortchanging the American people,” Jeffries said on “CBS Mornings.”

    As the high cost of living became a key driver in the midterm elections, corruption has also invigorated voters at the ballot box. Roughly nine in 10 voters nationally said government corruption was a major factor in their vote, according to CBS News exit polling. And Democrats put the issue front and center in their final pitch to voters, who turned out overwhelmingly for the party, resulting in the House and Senate flipping control.

    Now, as Democrats prepare to take control of Congress, they’re working to align priorities, amid concerns that investigations and possible impeachment efforts against the administration could detract from their ability to address affordability for voters.

    Asked whether Democrats can address both cost-of-living and corruption concerns, Jeffries said, “Yes, and we have to.”

    Jeffries said Democrats will “focus aggressively and relentlessly on dealing with the affordability crisis,” while also pursuing accountability. He said, “We’re going to follow the facts, apply the law, be guided by the Constitution, and then let the chips fall where they may.”

    The New York Democrat linked the affordability issue to corruption concerns, just as a number of Democratic candidates did on the campaign trail, saying, as Americans have struggled with high prices, “we’ve seen unprecedented corruption unleashed on the American people.”

    Additionally, Jeffries said this about Pete Hegseth as reported by The Guardian. “Hakeem Jeffries supports impeachment of Pete Hegseth: ‘He has got to go’.  House Democrat is a ‘hard yes’ on impeachment resolution against defense secretary who ‘has abused his power’.”

    House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, poised to become majority leader, said on Sunday that he strongly supports impeaching defense secretary Pete Hegseth as a Republican lawmaker prepares to force a House vote.

    The top Democrat made his position clear during an appearance on ABC’s This Week, declaring himself a “hard yes” on the impeachment resolution targeting Hegseth.

    “I’m a hard yes on the Hegseth resolution. The so-called secretary of defense has abused his power, undermined our national security, and engineered this reckless and costly war of choice in Iran, which has skyrocketed prices on the American people and made the country less safe,” Jeffries said. “Pete Hegseth has got to go.”

    The announcement comes as Kentucky Republican representative Thomas Massie, an outgoing congressman and frequent critic of Donald Trump, moves to revive his impeachment effort against Hegseth.

    Massie said he plans to reintroduce an impeachment resolution as soon as Monday, potentially setting up a House showdown within days. The measure includes eight articles of impeachment accusing Hegseth of multiple offenses, including violating the War Powers Resolution of 1973.

    Asked whether he expects the entire Democratic caucus to support the resolution, Jeffries said members will “have that conversation” Tuesday morning when lawmakers return to Washington for the first time since the midterm elections.

    “But I believe there will be incredibly strong support for that resolution,” Jeffries said.

    The mounting pressure on Hegseth follows Republican losses in the midterm elections, with both Trump and voters identifying the Iran war as a major factor in the party’s defeat.

    President Donald Trump had a tough time on CBS’s 60 Minutes trying to defend the massive increase in his wealth since the start of his second term.

    In an interview that aired Sunday, interviewer Ross Douthat pointed out to the president that his net worth has gone up by $3 billion since January 2025, to which the president tried to argue that it was all because of his children. Trump then claimed that everyone’s wealth went up, prompting Douthat to note that he himself didn’t make $3 billion. Trump retorted, “You should have owned stock.”

    “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. I have a son who’s a very straight, good guy. He watches over money. I don’t even talk to him about it. He watches. He gives, they gave my money, I have a lotta cash, have, had a lotta cash long before I came in here. I don’t take a salary, you know?” Trump said, trying to explain his newfound wealth.

    Douthat also pointed out the apparent corruption from Trump’s cryptocurrency venture, World Liberty Financial, and how it took money from the United Arab Emirates. He pointed out that if President Joe Biden had done something similar, Trump would have called it corrupt. Trump tried to pin it all on his sons.

    “I have, but you have sons where they go around and they build buildings. That’s what they do. That’s what I did long before I became president. I did it better than anybody. I was very good at real estate. I made a lotta money. But—but I have a company. My sons run the company. It’s hard to say to them, ‘Don’t do anything any more for four years because I’m president,’” Trump said.

    In response to Douthat asking about outside forces who use Trump’s cryptocurrency for influence peddling, Trump tried to claim that every president has had a similar problem, “going back to George Washington.”

    My goodness — Douthat landed knockout punches on Trump over his corruption

    — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-11-09T01:04:55.727Z

    I don’t know how much of this well actually happen. We should see hearings but with the DOJ still under Trumps command, I’m not so sure they will be prosecuted withing whatever time limits exist. At least the information is out there for all to see!  Anyway this was a story about Trump and Cronies.

    What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?