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  • Finally Friday Reads: Next Phase Phasers On!

    Finally Friday Reads: Next Phase Phasers On!

    dakinikat
    “The short-lived resurrection resulted in massive damage, but we are a resilient nation.” John Buss, @repeat1968

    Good Day, Sky Dancers!

    It looks like the chickens are either coming home to roost or scattering elsewhere. I really hope we can learn from this and move forward. It looks like we’re finally filling our governments, both federal and local, with the voices of We the People instead of a few inbred throwbacks to the Gilded Age.

    The real first business of the House should be to get rid of Dark Money and the funding of politicians — and their appointments —that benefit from the corruption it causes. And in case you’re wondering, all the Republicans, Democrats, and Independents who voted for change shared one top motivating reason. It was the overwhelming Government Corruption that exists at all levels. The Trump Family Crime Syndicate was just so obvious it couldn’t be ignored by the vast majority of Americans.

    The Trump Regime has many targets we must take down.  You can smell the scent of Congressional hearings in the air. The first on the list is one that even Trump recognizes is a big liability for him and an opportunity to shift blame. The self-anointed Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, sees the chickens coming for him. Between forcing Evangelical White Patriarchal Christianity on our military and getting rid of anyone who doesn’t match that wet dream, and mishandling the entire Iran War started by Israel debacle, he should spend the rest of his days sucking his thumb in a padded cell.

    This analysis of Hegseth and the Democratically held House’s plan for him is from Greg Sargent, writing for The New Republic. “Transcript: Trump Shivs Hegseth in Weird Aside as GOP Knives Come Out. With Pete Hegseth on thin ice, Rep. Adam Smith, the next Armed Services Committee chair, explains in an interview how Democrats will work to end Trump’s illegal war—and defund it if necessary.” This is a very good start.

    Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.

    Donald Trump’s war on Iran played a major role in the GOP’s massive electoral drubbing this week, and as a result, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is in serious trouble. Donald Trump just defended him, but then in a strange aside seemed to suggest he’s vulnerable. Meanwhile, Republicans and Trump allies really have their knives out for Hegseth, and the campaign to remove him appears serious. He even faces an impeachment vote next week.

    But we want to get into what the Democratic Congress can really do about Hegseth’s disastrous reign. So we’re talking to Congressman Adam Smith of Washington State, the incoming chair of the House Armed Services Committee. Congressman, thanks so much for coming on.

    Adam Smith: Well, thanks for having me, Greg. It’s always a pleasure.

    Sargent: So, on Hegseth’s tenuous position, ABC News’ Jonathan Karl spoke to the president and reported Thursday that Trump said, “I have every intention to keep him.”

    But Trump said people unhappy with Hegseth aren’t contacting him, saying, “I get these calls about him. I don’t understand why.”

    And Trump even admitted it would be easier to confirm a new defense secretary before Dems control the Senate next year.

    Congressman, this is how Trump turns on people, with talk like this. You’ve been around the Pentagon a long time. How do you read it?

    Smith: I think it’s 50-50 that Trump does get rid of Hegseth for the reasons you stated. And also because the Iran war has been a complete disaster. Trump needs a fall guy. And we all know Trump’s not going to take personal responsibility for it.

    So Hegseth would be convenient, and deservedly so. Hegseth was a cheerleader for this and a lot of the disastrous decisions that have been made going into it, Hegseth has been right in the middle of. So I think that’s a distinct possibility.

    The other thing to weigh here is that on Wednesday the motion by Congressman Massie is ripe for a vote. And by every estimation, it will pass and he will be impeached. And off that goes to the Senate. Then the Senate is legally required to spend all of their time dealing with that until it’s done with.

    Sargent: That’s going to be quite a scene. And MS NOW reports that Trump has been asking allies what they think about Hegseth, and some of them are pushing for a replacement. One official says, “There’s a lot of people who want his scalp, and they smell blood in the water.”

    This looks real to me, Congressman. What are you hearing from inside the Pentagon? Is there consternation?

    Smith: Yeah, well, we don’t hear a lot from inside the Pentagon. I can tell you, from inside the military more broadly, yes. There are people who have been concerned with the way Pete Hegseth has been running the department. And it comes down to politicization of it, first of all.

    And second of all, it’s become so much about personality. Look, there is a professionalism within the military. And that’s not that there aren’t people who serve in the military who don’t have strong political views one way or the other. There certainly are. But they’ve always put those aside in favor of the job, the mission, and working together.

    Pete Hegseth has not done that. I mean, he’s had those two, you know, ridiculous forums where he brought every flag officer together to give a pep rally of sorts, in which he seems to be obsessed with physical appearance more than with actual results.

    We’ve had the firings that, from what we’ve heard, in many instances people have no idea why they happened. Hegseth is the first secretary of defense ever to directly involve himself in mid-level promotion decisions, you know, to go in and cross off names.

    So all of that, I think, has had a very negative effect on morale within the Pentagon. And look, none of this is to say that there aren’t some people, I’m sure, in the military who love Hegseth and love what he does. But dissatisfaction within the Pentagon about his leadership is high, from what we have heard, or what we’ve been told.

    Sargent: I’m sure it is. I’m sure there would be a lot of people who’d like to see him go.

    The Iran war has cost $47 billion so far. Trump is still talking about a major attack. Have you been briefed on what the attack is? Senator Murphy says it’s “insane.” Is he right?

    Smith: Yeah, I mean, look, they haven’t briefed us consistently on this from the very start. They have been doing attacks in the last few days, last few weeks.

    What isn’t widely understood is, for months now, we have been engaged in a major military operation to secure safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz. Now, yeah, we’re up close to, like, 80 percent of traffic of what was there before the war. But it’s costing us an enormous amount of money to protect those ships coming through, and to bomb potential missile launchers and missiles that Iran’s trying to build. So it’s become very, very expensive.

    As usual, there is more at the link. Some of the best news is the number of corrupt and political prosecutors who are leaving the building. This is from Matt Cohen writing for Democracy Docket. “Prosecutor leading Trump’s ‘grand conspiracy’ investigation into Democrats resigns.”

    Jason Reding Quiñones, the top prosecutor investigating an alleged “grand conspiracy” by Democrats against President Donald Trump, has resigned.

    As United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Quiñones was tasked with a wide-ranging probe into top Democrats and high-profile Trump foes who the president alleged conspired to sabotage his first term. The investigation also targeted officials who led the criminal investigation of Trump’s 2016 campaign.

    Quiñones’ departure likely signals the end of the politically motivated investigation.

    Another important resignation happened yesterday. This is from The Independent. “Trump’s ally and DOJ civil rights chief resigns after embarrassing midterm losses
    Harmeet Dhillon resigns from Justice Department’s storied civil rights division after embarrassing GOP losses.” Alex Woodward has the story.

    Donald Trump’s chief of the storied Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice has resigned, marking the first top administration official to leave the administration after Republicans suffered brutal losses in midterm elections this week.

    Harmeet Dhillon — who steered the agency away from critical missions like protecting voting rights, police oversight and combating racial discrimination during her 18 months at the Justice Department — submitted her resignation Thursday.

    “She has defended the civil liberties of every American and enforced the law without fear or favor,” Attorney General Todd Blanche announced Thursday.

    “The Department is grateful for her dedicated public service, and we wish her every success in her future endeavors,” he added.

    Dhillon, an attorney who supported the president’s efforts to reverse his election loss in 2020 and joined his “election integrity” team in 2024, had refocused the Civil Rights Division to investigate what she called “woke ideology,” including transgender athletes in girls’ and women’s sports, “anti-Christian bias,” and institutions with diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, among other culture war issues that departed from the department’s core mission to combat discrimination and protect the rights of historically marginalized groups.

    In her resignation letter to the president, Dhillon said she told White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles in October that she was planning to leave the administration. “I resigned three weeks ago, and Susie asked me to please wait until after the midterms,” she told Fox News.

    Further analysis of this horrible appointment can be found at Mother Jones. “The DOJ Official Who Spent 19 Months Terrorizing Colleges Is Resigning. Harmeet Dhillon turned the Civil Rights Division into a weapon against DEI, and she’s leaving after the GOP’s midterm rout.” This story is reported by Sonel Cutler.

    Misery loves company, and for the past 19 months, American colleges have had plenty of both, largely thanks to Harmeet K. Dhillon, the Justice Department’s assistant attorney general for civil rights, who has spent her entire tenure treating campuses like crime scenes.

    Dhillon undid years of diversity, equity, and inclusion work at more than 300 colleges by launching aggressive investigations, lawsuits, and pressure campaigns. Now she’s leaving because she didn’t get a promotion.

    Dhillon had become increasingly frustrated that she had not been promoted to a higher post, MS NOW reported. She told the administration before the midterms that she planned to step down after the election.

    “Serving my country as AAG for Civil Rights has been the honor of a lifetime,” Dhillon wrote Thursday on X. “We ushered in the downfall of illegal DEI, we fought to protect women and girls’ sports, and so much more.”

    She’s being modest. Under Dhillon, the Justice Department stopped investigating accusations of systemic racism or sexism and declined to investigate ICE officers’ fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis earlier this year. Tasked with protecting the rights of people with disabilities, Dhillon has also used the r-word in casual social media posts.

    Dhillon also turned the Civil Rights division of the Justice Department—created to repair the injustices of Jim Crow—into a relentless legal sledgehammer aimed at universities with programs that uplifted marginalized groups.

    Since starting the job in April 2025, Dhillon has bragged about opening more than 100 investigations into university admissions practices, accusing colleges of discrimination for maintaining race-conscious programs and of antisemitism for allowing pro-Palestinian activism on campus.

    In a way, she was wildly successful. Since 2024, more than 300 campuses have eliminated DEI requirements, closed DEI offices, removed diversity statements from hiring processes, and changed or removed their DEI policies.

    “She has corrupted [the Civil Rights Division’s] mission,” Vanita Gupta, a former head of the DOJ civil rights division under President Joe Biden, told the New York Times in August.

    There will be more news undoubtedly, on what’s going on with Toddy Blanche’s massive political operation as AG.  Kathryn Wilkens of MEDIAITE has this development concerning Blanche and possible impeachment motions.  “Two House Democrats Advocate Impeaching AG Todd Blanche — And One Sees a Possible Path to Conviction in New Senate.”

    Two House Democrats are already discussing impeaching Attorney General Todd Blanche following their party’s sweeping midterm victories Tuesday, with one suggesting there could even be enough votes in the Senate to convict him.

    Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) told Mediaite founder Dan Abrams on Thursday’s edition of SiriusXM’s The Dan Abrams Show that Blanche should be removed from office over his handling of the Justice Department.

    The conversation followed Democrats’ crushing defeat of Republicans on Tuesday, which gave them control of both the House and Senate.

    Abrams asked Johnson what the newly-empowered Congress could do to rein in the DOJ’s political retribution campaign.

    “I personally believe that the offenses of Todd Blanche demand that he be impeached and convicted and removed from office,” Johnson said. “That’s my personal opinion. I think his efforts to undermine the rule of law can’t go unaddressed.”

    Abrams then brought on Rep. Deborah Ross (D-NC) and asked whether she agreed.

    “100%,” Ross replied. “But I think we should start with Hegseth.”

    Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth faces a potential impeachment vote as soon as next week, with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) spearheading the effort.

    “I can’t imagine we won’t have one,” she said, though, of a Blanche impeachment resolution.

    Ross suggested the Democrats’ expanded Senate majority could change the calculus for convictions, noting that previous Trump impeachments failed to secure enough Senate votes.

    And of course,  Orange Caligula does what Orange Caligula likes best, besides checking out men’s butts. “Trump focuses on White House decor for second straight day in post-midterm remarks. The president signed a proclamation that he said would prevent major changes to the Oval Office and the Cabinet Room by future presidents without congressional approval.” This story is from NBC NEWS. Such an important task at hand that!  Kyla Guilfoil has the lede.

    President Donald Trump is using his postelection public appearances to talk about the lasting physical changes he hopes to leave behind at the White House.

    In the two days since Republicans suffered massive losses in the midterm elections, Trump has spoken twice in public. Both times he focused on rooms and renovations at the White House.

    On Thursday, Trump signed a proclamation that designates the Oval Office and the Cabinet Room as a national monument in an effort to block any significant changes to them by future presidents.

    “We’re going to be declaring it a national monument, and we’re going to send it over to Congress to have it ratified,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “It won’t be able to be taken down, destroyed, touched or anything else.”

    Trump, who later took questions from reporters about other topics, said any “major modifications” to the Oval Office and the Cabinet Room would have to be approved by Congress, adding that he hopes “the people in Congress will be smart enough not to let that happen.”

    The White House has officially been a U.S. National Historic Landmark since 1960. Trump wrote in the proclamation that “the Oval Office merits specific recognition and protective management as a discrete historic structure of national significance.”

    The signing ceremony came a day after Trump spoke to reporters at the construction site for the new White House ballroom he’s building. Even though it was his first time addressing the media publicly after the Democrats swept several seats in deep red states to secure control of Congress, he focused his comments on the ballroom.

    “I’m doing it because the White House is the ultimate symbol of America and it’s got to be pristine — it’s got to be perfect,” Trump said, adding that he felt “it would be appropriate to have the media here.”

    Wow, that really tops the nation’s problems and priorities, doesn’t it?  So, what do we do with a problem like Elon?  MS NOW reports that some Democratic Congress Critters have some ideas. “Democrats’ new idea for fighting Elon Musk’s influence is a good one.  Closing the “Elon Musk loophole” is a smart way to advance the cause of cracking down on corruption.”
    Zeeshan Aleem has the story.

    Now that Democrats will have control of Congress, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., are reportedly looking to close what they call the “Elon Musk loophole.” It’s an idea that is worth serious consideration.

    The lawmakers’ idea is to block titans of industry from trying to sway elections while benefiting from contracts with the federal government. Such a law wouldn’t end ultrawealthy donors’ ability to buy politicians, but it would at least block one of the most baldly unethical forms of political influence.

    “If you ask the normal person on the street whether it reeks of corruption for a CEO or big corporate shareholder to spend boatloads of money to elect members of Congress who will then ratify billion-dollar federal contracts, I think almost every person would say that stinks,” Van Hollen told The Washington Sun last week.

    It’s already illegal for federal contracting companies to donate to federal political campaigns, but the law doesn’t block donations from individuals linked to and profiting from those companies. As Government Executive reports, the new bill, called the Close the Campaign Cash-for-Contracts Loophole Act, “would also bar donations from officers of contracting corporations and their affiliates as well as anyone with at least 5% interest or share in the company.”

    Elon Musk runs multiple companies, including Tesla and SpaceX, that have made billions of dollars from federal contracts. Those companies have helped make him the world’s richest person. But since he’s considered a separate entity from his company, he’s not constrained from making donations. And he’s made plenty of use of that freedom. In this election cycle alone, he spent close to half a billion dollars. According to The New York Times, 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.”

    Again, I think getting rid of this kind of money floating around elections is a high priority.  One more from Mother Jones. “America Finally Has the Votes to End the Electoral College, After more than 200 years, the midterm results could change how we pick presidents.” Pema Levy and Ari Berman share the lede.

    Tuesday’s wave election swept Democrats into power in Congress. But the most seismic result for American politics and democracy may come out of the battleground states where Democrats just won trifecta control by taking both state houses and the governor’s mansion: Come January, Democratic legislators will have the votes to elect the next president by the popular vote.

    State lawmakers could circumvent the Electoral College by enacting what’s known as the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Under the current system, each state gets a set number of electors, and the candidate who wins enough states to accumulate at least 270 electoral votes becomes president. This system allows the winner of the popular vote to lose, as Al Gore did in 2000 and Hillary Clinton again in 2016. But the NPVIC would bypass the Electoral College, with each state that enacts the compact awarding its electors to the winner of the national popular vote. The compact would only take effect once states representing a majority of electoral votes sign on, ensuring that the winner of the national popular vote becomes president.

    In April, Virginia became the 18th state to join the compact, bringing the total number of electoral votes pledged under the proposal to 222. On Tuesday, Democrats took trifecta control of state governments in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Nevada. That’s 61 electoral votes. Add in Alaska, where late-arriving votes are still being counted, and that’s 64. With Virginia on board, only 48 more votes are needed for the compact to reach 270 votes and take effect. The emerging math means there is a real chance that the next president is selected based on the national popular vote.

    That would represent a sea change in American politics. The current Electoral College system violates the basic principle of one person, one vote. Instead of candidates being forced to campaign for every vote, millions of presidential votes in uncompetitive states are effectively wasted in a winner-take-all system. Politicians and donors pour billions of dollars into a handful of battlegrounds, while the votes—and concerns—of most of the country are ignored. “Under the current system, four out of five American voters are on the sidelines,” says Patrick Rosenstiel, a Republican strategist who is advocating for the compact. “Every voter should be politically relevant. Under the current system, they are not.”

    So, elections have all kinds of ramifications. If we could really, truly rid the country of all the kinds of things that restrict our votes and democracy, I would be thrilled. Just call me a cockeyed optimist.

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

     

     

  • Thursday Cartoons: Clear Blue Morning

    jjlo1970

    Innit wonderful?

    To have a bit of hope after so many years?

    This is interesting:

    "The agreement only kicks in when participating states collectively control at least 270 electoral votes. The five new Democratic trifectas could bring the total to 283…"www.axios.com/2026/11/04/d…

    — Rachel Maddow (@maddow.bsky.social) 2026-11-04T21:52:38.150Z

    All this talk of "getting even" or payback or whatever. It's not "getting even". It's enforcing the law. Say that. Correct that. Don't fall into that trap. There's absolutely no reason to.

    — Josh Marshall (@joshtpm.bsky.social) 2026-11-04T20:57:00.914Z

    This is bullshit:

    — paulpro (@mariopro.bsky.social) 2026-11-04T23:20:52.640Z

    It is my opinion, we seriously need to reconsider Schumer…

    …and Jeffries as well.

    Can’t the guy read the fucking room. Leave the religion out of it!

    Cartoons via Cagle:

    Watch this video:

    That just makes me smile…

    The memes have been spot on…

    Stay safe, this is an open thread.

  • Wild Wednesday Reads: Blue Tsunami!

    bostonboomer

    Good Day!!

    I don’t know where to begin. Last night’s election results exceeded my wildest dreams. Trump is still in the White House, but Democrats will now control both houses of the next Congress. Democrats won races all over the country. With some races still undecided, Democrats now hold 54 seats in the Senate and 228 seats in the House.

    After 11 long, horrible years, we finally have an opportunity to restore democracy in America. With control of the House and Senate, Democrats can restore the cuts to Medicare and Medicaid and Obamacare. They can investigate the blatant corruption that has been going on in the Trump administration. They can block Trump’s judicial appointments. They can get rid of his stupid tariffs. They could impeach Pete Hegseth and RFK Jr. Who knows? Some Senate Republicans might even vote to convict.

    Here are just a few reactions from the pundits and knowledgeable  observers.

    Peter Baker at The New York Times (gift link): Angry Voters Usher in Beginning of the End to the Trump Era.

    The Democratic wave in the congressional elections on Tuesday amounted to a stinging rebuke of a deeply unpopular president after more than a decade in which he has dominated the national stage. More than any of his predecessors, Mr. Trump deliberately made the midterm contest a referendum on himself, only to pay the price.

    The electoral backlash extended even into deep red states and indicated that Mr. Trump has lost his hold over the coalition that lifted him to the White House twice. Frustrated by high gas prices, an intractable war with Iran and allegations of flagrant profiteering by Mr. Trump and members of his circle, voters who previously took a chance on an outsider promising change either rejected his party or stayed home.

    As of early Wednesday morning, the Democratic margin of victory in the overall national vote for House seats was expected to be about 13 percentage points, the largest that either party has lodged in a congressional election since at least 1976, according to estimates by The New York Times. It will dwarf even the margins that the Republicans won in their two big landslide victories of modern times when they defeated congressional Democrats when Bill Clinton held the White House in 1994 and Barack Obama was president in 2010.

    Thanks to redistricting, that margin may not translate into as many seats as the winners gained in those watershed years. Gerrymandered House districts leave far fewer seats available for poaching by the other party than in the past. But the overall margin of Democratic victory indicates that while the president has two more years left in office and can still wield power to great effect, Americans are signaling the beginning of the end of the Trump era.

    “It’s basically a repudiation of Trump and the Republicans and what they’ve done for the last two years,” said Douglas B. Sosnik, who was White House political director for Mr. Clinton and closely tracked the races this fall. “I do think starting tomorrow, we’re in this new phase and it’s a transition phase and it will last two years. And it will be much more volatile than the last two years.” [….]

    Mr. Trump quickly tried to save face by insisting that the rout by Democrats was not really a rejection of him since he was not actually on the ballot — never mind that he told voters repeatedly to vote as if he were.

    Use the gift link to read more if you wish.

    Lisa Lerer at The New York Times (gift link): How a Blue Wave Became a Red Wipeout.

    In the end, it wasn’t just a wave. It was a wipeout.

    A Democrat won a Senate seat in Kansas for the first time since the Herbert Hoover administration. The party picked up Senate seats in Texas, North Carolina and South Carolina. Republicans even fell short in House districts in the South where they had tried to give themselves an edge by drawing new, gerrymandered maps.

    A crowd reacts as Senator Jon Ossoff speaks at his victory party.Credit…Nicole Craine for The New York Times

    The sweeping Democratic victories on Tuesday night offered a decisive rebuke to President Trump and his aggressive, often chaotic second-term agenda.

    The party seized control of both houses of Congress. Voters rejected Republicans in conservative states that supported Mr. Trump by double-digit margins just two years ago, in places that had not seen competitive elections for major seats in decades.

    Even some Democrats were stunned by the extent of their wins, which included defeating Greg Abbott, the three-term Republican governor of Texas; and Susan Collins, the five-term Republican senator from Maine.

    “It’s a blood bath,” said Dan Sena, who was the executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee during the last Democratic wave, in 2018. “Democrats are going to be in power in places they haven’t been in power in decades.”

    And so the era of one-party rule in Washington ended with a crash, as voters pushed back on high gas prices, an unpopular war in Iran and stubbornly high inflation. As Wednesday dawned, there were signs that the country was entering a new and uncertain political time, in which both parties would be forced to consider how to navigate a post-Trump political era.

    A bit more:

    For years, Democrats seemed to compete on a smaller and smaller map, concentrating on fewer states, blue cities and diversifying suburbs and trying to cut their losses in rural America. But Tuesday’s results showed that the last two years had turned off voters even in deep red terrain. For Republicans, the losses were a generational defeat, giving Democrats a foothold from which to build a robust political operation in places that had been long out of reach.

    In Seward County, Kan., a majority-Hispanic area, the Democratic Senate candidate, Adam Hamilton, won by double digits. Just two years ago, Mr. Trump won there by 40 percentage points.

    In Iowa, a largely agricultural state, Democrats won the governor’s mansion and a U.S. Senate seat and flipped three of the state’s four congressional seats.

    And in South Texas, Democrats won three heavily Latino border districts that Republicans had redrawn to be more favorable to their party.

    In many states, Democrats ran candidates who offered a decidedly different brand of politics from the “resistance” ethos that characterized their response to Mr. Trump’s first term.

    Instead, they focused their message on the deep economic anxiety that has roiled the country, arguing that the president and his Republican allies were enriching themselves while ordinary Americans struggled. Survey after survey showed a majority of voters, and a notable share of Republicans, offering low marks to his signature policies: tariffs, immigration enforcement and the Iran war.

    Read more at the link.

    Paul Krugman: It Wasn’t (Just) the Economy, Stupid.

    What happened last night was no ordinary election. It was a mass affirmation that most Americans still believe in our nation’s basic values, and a mass rejection of a movement that wants to destroy everything our nation stands for. And no, it wasn’t just economic dissatisfaction.

    Yes, Trumpflation created by tariffs and the Iran debacle helped. But an election swung by public anger over high prices looks like 2024, when Trump won the popular vote by 1.5 percentage points. Last night Democrats appear to have won the popular vote by 13 -14 percentage points.

    Amy Acton elected Governor of Ohio

    What drove this amazing victory? Hispanic voters, who swung to Trump in 2024 in the naïve belief that he would bring prices down, turned massively against a regime that is arresting, imprisoning and deporting their friends and families. Blacks turned out in droves against a transparently racist party that is trying to take away their voting rights. Americans of every kind were repelled by the administration’s cruelty and its rampant, brazen corruption.

    After 2024, large swathes of the elite rushed to prostrate themselves before Trump, somehow convincing themselves that the narrow defeat of Democrats in a year when incumbent parties were defeated almost everywhere heralded a permanent transformation of U.S. politics, that corrupt authoritarians peddling hate would rule forever. There’s a lot to be written about why oligarchs in particular were so willing to believe that small-d democratic values were a thing of the past — and one of the main things big-D Democrats need to do now is hold not just Trump’s officials, but also his enablers, accountable. But that’s a topic for another day.

    The main point for now is that MAGA took 2024 as proof that Americans want fascism, and acted on that premise. But tens of millions of Americans in effect said, no, that is not what we want. That is not who we are.

    The damage done over the last two years is incredible, and I don’t know how much of it can ever be repaired. But there is, at last, hope. For last night America showed that it is still America.

    Anne Applebaum at The Atlantic (gift link): The Future of American Democracy.

    Gas prices, the war in Iran, data centers, health care: Americans have debated all of these subjects for weeks. But something more fundamental than control of Congress was on the ballot in these midterm elections. Americans were also voting to decide whether the United States, 250 years after its founding, would remain a democracy.

    President Trump, who tried to overturn the 2020 election, did his best to manipulate this one too. Never before has the federal government demanded voter lists from states, and lost so many court cases in the process. Gerrymandering is an old tradition, but it has never before been directed from the White House. This put real pressure on state Republican leaders to redraw boundaries, in some cases with the deliberate aim of eliminating Black members of Congress. Once, the federal government helped state officials keep elections safe. This year it was the states that had to mount a defense against Washington to protect their constitutional right to run elections.

    By now, most of us recognize Trump’s assault on elections as part of a pattern. Since he started his second term, the president has closely followed a playbook originally built by autocratic leaders in places like Hungary and Russia. He began with a full-scale attack on civil servants, universities, the legal profession, and scientists.

    He appointed a conspiracy theorist to dismantle America’s public-health system and a narcissistic television host to run the most powerful army in the world. He used regulatory institutions to put pressure on journalists. He turned ICE into a federal paramilitary force. He let Elon Musk cut food aid and medical care for the world’s poor so abruptly and so incompetently that he wasted hundreds of millions of dollars and killed untold numbers of people in the process.

    The White House oversaw assaults on America’s foreign broadcasters, cyber defense, counterintelligence. The president used the power of his office to earn money for himself, his family, and his business friends. He undermined America’s alliances, started a war in Iran, and prolonged the Russian invasion of Ukraine through diplomatic incompetence and possibly greed.

    James Talarico wins Senate seat in Texas

    Through this period of chaos and destruction, the Republican majority in Congress either cheered or remained silent. Instead of asserting the legislative branch’s right to check the president, control the budget, and investigate corruption, congressional leaders let Trump break laws and norms egregiously and continuously. They let the president not only impose illegal tariffs, and therefore raise prices for all Americans, but they also looked the other way when he and his entourage bet money on the stock market while doing so. They refused to block his reckless war in Iran, they refused to restrain ICE even after it killed Americans, and they refused to ask why Musk was given power over agencies that regulate his companies, or why taxes on the wealthiest Americans were cut even as poor Americans lost their health-care benefits.

    The next Congress can change this trajectory. Newly elected leaders must not only investigate the president’s worst abuses of power and help Americans recover from his destructive policies, but also restore the health of the political system. We may need to rethink the role of institutions that the president has weakened, or write laws that stop people with deep conflicts of interest from making American foreign policy. We have to confront an AI industry that is unable to control its models, and a health-care system weakened by the president’s reckless policies.

    Alexander Burns at Politico: Trump’s Whole Theory of Power Is in Ruins.

    That whooshing, gurgling sound you hear this morning is the power draining out of President Donald Trump’s White House.
    The 2026 election results are an electoral humiliation unseen this century. They would be calamitous for any president.

    They are even worse for Trump.

    Trump is a singular figure in American history, a quasi-strongman leader whose particular brand of presidential power simply cannot coexist with the kind of rout his party faced last night.

    Adam Hamilton wins Senate seat in Kansas

    His fundamental theory of power is in ruins. The survival of his presidency now depends on him adapting to diminished circumstances in a way he has never done before.

    The essential problem for Trump is that his favorite instrument of governing is fear. His second term has been a 22-month exercise in projecting invulnerability and ruthlessness, then presenting powerful people and institutions – even foreign countries – with a choice. Either live peacefully with Trump on his terms or prepare to suffer the consequences.

    This proposition, imposed on the world’s largest companies and America’s wealthiest universities and oldest allies, has worked in Trump’s favor more often than not. Faced with a president returned to power from political exile, promising vengeance and brandishing the support of more Americans than had ever voted for him before, so many executives and diplomats and generals and prime ministers chose to submit.

    This has been the defining dynamic of elite politics in this chapter of the Age of Trump. That is how Trump has wrangled lavish investment pledges out of foreign nations and tech giants, deterred corporate criticism of his agenda and raised money to fund a new White House ballroom, inspired the NATO secretary-general to call him “daddy” and assembled a gallery of rictus-faced billionaires at his inauguration.

    And that’s over now.

    The breadth and depth of Republican defeats have shredded the aura of invincibility that any strongman needs: the sense that no matter what his adversaries do and no matter what the courts say, at the end of the day he will still be there, with the apparatus of the state in his grasp, and he will remember the names of his friends and his enemies.

    With his political coalition in tatters and Democrats on the march even in Texas and Kansas and South Carolina, Trump doesn’t look so permanent anymore.

    Compared to that shift, losing the House and Senate is almost incidental.

    I hope that’s true. Read the rest at Politico.

    For now, Trump isn’t trying to fight the election results. We’ll see if he sticks to that.

    Erica L. Green and Tyler Pager at The New York Times (gift link): Trump Says in Interview That He Will Accept Election Results.

    President Trump said on Tuesday night that he was “absolutely willing” to accept the results of the midterm elections, and was prepared to work with Democrats.

    “We’ll, you know, look forward to working with them,” he said in a phone interview with The New York Times. “We’ll probably work something out.”

    Mr. Trump blamed Republican losses on the fact that he was not on the ballot, and called his decision to go to war with Iran a “very wise decision.”

    Troy Jackson defeats Susan Collins in Maine Senate race.

    He said he had no regrets about endorsing candidates such as Senator Darline Graham, Republican of South Carolina, and Ken Paxton, the Republican attorney general of Texas, who both lost their Senate bids.

    Mr. Trump spoke to The Times shortly before 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday, while he was watching election results at the White House. Democrats were on track to take control of the House and the Senate….

    In the short conversation with The Times, the president sounded subdued as he absorbed decisive Democratic wins across the country.

    But he insisted that he regretted nothing about the first two years of his second term, despite the widespread Republican defeats. “I consider it to be the most successful two-year period in the history of any president,” he said.

    Mr. Trump’s pledge to accept the results of the elections followed his sustained efforts over the last year to sow doubt about the security of elections. On Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security posted a series of social media messages vowing to arrest noncitizen voters, despite the fact that the administration had struggled to find them.

    The president’s comments came after he huddled inside the White House’s East Room Tuesday night with some of his top aides, including Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Attorney General Todd Blanche and Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, to watch the results come in. Some in attendance described it as a “dark” and “funereal” atmosphere.

    What will happen now with Trump’s war in Iran?

    Daniel  W. Drezner and Elizabeth N. Saunders at Foreign Policy: The Dangers of a Lame-Duck Trump. How Far Will He Go to Make Peace—and War?

    With the midterms over, U.S. President Donald Trump is now a lame duck. Second-term presidents who lose control of Congress have to face the reality that the time for signature legislation or other domestic policy initiatives has passed. As they think about their legacy, lame ducks often turn to foreign policy, where the power of the presidency allows them to act unfettered by pesky domestic politics. It is not unusual for a lame duck to reach for a final, lofty goal abroad. U.S. President Bill Clinton, for instance, put great effort into trying to advance a proposal for a final settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the end of his presidency.

    Trump’s lame-duck period will not be like those of his predecessors, however. He has already gone through what was widely considered at the time to be a lame-duck phase, between November 2020 and January 2021. He used it to contest the election outcome despite clear evidence that Joe Biden had won. Trump is the first president in the past 100 years to have served two nonconsecutive terms, and therefore the only American leader in living memory to have a second lame-duck period—this time lasting more than two years.

    With Democrats soon to be in control of the House and the Senate, the threat of impeachment or investigations into the Trump family’s business dealings will likely make the president feel cornered and angry. And that’s what makes the remainder of Trump’s term so dangerous. A boxed-in Trump, with no obvious constructive foreign policy outlet to channel his energy, may well lash out internationally. And Congress, even if controlled by Democrats, will have little power over his day-to-day management of foreign policy.

    There are plenty of ways Trump could act out: issuing fresh threats against Canada, launching new attacks on U.S. alliances, or colluding with Russia or China at the expense of Ukraine or Taiwan. But to turn those threats into policy would require serious effort, such as repositioning U.S. troops or painstakingly negotiating with other great powers.

    More stories to check out:

    CNBC: Dow rallies 1,300 points as political risk eases after resounding Democratic victory in U.S. midterms: Live updates.

    Mississippi Free Press: Democrat Scott Colom Leads Mississippi US Senate Race by 43 Votes Against Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith.

    CBS News: Alaska Senate race unresolved as candidates expect weekslong ballot-counting process.

    The Texas Tribune: Democrats seize power in Texas, ending decades of GOP dominance.

    Politico: Elon Musk suffers major blow in US midterms.

    So…that’s what’s happening today. There will be more assessments in the coming days. We’ll probably have to deal with more insanity from Trump. I doubt if he will really take this lying down. In the meantime, Democrats have won a huge victory, and we have hope that we can still save our democracy.

  • Tuesday Cartoons: Election Day

    jjlo1970

    Cartoonist Pat Bagley puts it on the line…actually vote like your life depends on it!

    🚨➡️ The DOJ has released a list of the election locations it has sent “monitors” for today’s midterms:www.justice.gov/opa/pr/doj-m…

    — Katie Phang (@katiephang.bsky.social) 2026-11-03T12:42:28.469Z

    Click on the link in the BlueSky post to see the full press release.

    Take a look at the list of cities…that is some huge bullshit right there…for example, in my state of Georgia:

    Georgia

    • Cobb
    • DeKalb
    • Fulton
    • Gwinnett
    • Chatham
    • Bibb

    Get the fuck out of here with that shit.

    Something major is going to happen tonight…let’s hope we make it out okay.

    Cartoons via Cagle:

    Stay safe today, and vote your asses off!

    This is an open thread.

  • Mostly Monday Reads: Souls to the Polls

    Mostly Monday Reads: Souls to the Polls

    dakinikat

    “The promised caravans have crossed the southern border just in time! Join them at the polls tomorrow!” John Buss, @repeat1968

    Good Day, Sky Dancers!

    Today’s news is filled with coverage of tomorrow’s elections. Early voting turnout is amazing here in Lousyanna.  Black voters are voting in record numbers. Democrats and Independent voters in general are turning out like crazy here.  But we’re not alone. Even a rainy day in Floriduh did not stop voters. It’s happening far and wide. This makes for some striking headlines.

    I can’t help but gloat a bit reading this Bill Kristol headline in The Bulwark. “It Won’t Be a Blue Tsunami. It’ll Be an Orange Crush. Is this the decisive repudiation of Trump we’ve been waiting for?”  We find out tomorrow evening.

    We are on the cusp of a thoroughgoing defeat for Donald Trump, his administration, and his party. That is not something we could have taken for granted. On key occasions over the last decade, we’ve fallen short. In 2018, Democrats picked up forty-one seats and flipped the House—but Republicans gained two senate seats and strengthened their hold on that body. In 2020, Trump was defeated, but not in a landslide, and Republicans gained thirteen House seats. Then, following the insurrection and Trump’s impeachment, the Senate failed to convict him. And while Democrats did relatively well in the 2022 midterms, Republicans still managed to regain the House.

    And about 2024, the less said the better.

    In other words: Since Trump entered national politics in 2015, there’s never been a decisive electoral repudiation of him. This year looks likely to be that.

    Now I’ll hasten to stipulate that 2026 is only a midterm election, and that presidential elections matter most. Still, 2026 is an unusually significant midterm. Think of what it would mean for our future if Trump had remained popular over the last two years, if his policies were viewed with relative approval, and if he were about to suffer only a minor midterm setback. Trumpism would still be an ascendant political movement.

    That is not where we are. Instead, 2026 looks as if it will be a clear repudiation of Trump and Trumpism. Democrats are very likely to flip both the House and the Senate and, indeed, are likely to end up with comfortable majorities in both chambers.

    For example, the final New York Times/Siena polls released last night of seven battleground Senate states—Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Ohio, and Texas—show Democrats ahead in six of those races, and effectively tied in the seventh. As the Times notes with some astonishment, Democrats hold sizable leads in Texas, which has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1988, and Kansas, which has not elected one since 1932.

    As Nate Cohn put it: “In today’s polarized era, there’s no precedent for a party to fare this well in so many states that are generally safe wins for the other side.” He cautions judiciously that the polls may be overstating Democratic strength. But as he also explains at some length, they may well be understating it.

    A question we all might be asking is this one answered by ProPublica.  Exactly how safe and secure will this election be for voters? ““Chaos” in the Air: Five Ways Voting Could Be Disrupted on Election Day. The Trump administration has initiated a string of unprecedented actions to assert more federal control over elections. While courts have thwarted most of the plans, voting experts remain concerned about potential problems at the polls.”  This a really long article but it’s worth the time to read. Jen Fifield and Peter Elkind share the lede.

    As Americans head to the polls on Tuesday, voting experts are watching to see how the Trump administration’s unprecedented efforts to assert more federal control over elections will play out.

    Since President Donald Trump retook the White House, his administration has tried to force states to turn over their unredacted voter rolls and to restrict mail-in voting. The Department of Homeland Security has used its resources to identify and prosecute noncitizen voters, an effort that has unfolded alongside the agency’s massive crackdown on immigrants.

    The president has justified these steps by claiming, without evidence, that American elections are beset by fraud and that illegal voting is tipping the scales in favor of Democrats.

    Courts have thwarted most of the administration’s plans to date, but Trump and his top deputies have kept up the pressure. Most recently, they’ve threatened to prosecute election officials who don’t reject ballots from people that the federal government has identified as likely noncitizens.

    The administration hasn’t explicitly ruled out sending federal agents to the polls or seizing ballots or voting machines.

    Election experts say the cumulative effect has been to ramp up anxiety about the midterms and to erode voters’ trust in the system.

    “The administration has been creating a lot of noise, a lot of confusion, a lot of doubt,” said Ben Hovland, whom Trump fired as a commissioner for the bipartisan Election Assistance Commission earlier this year. He said he worries that this will make voters “sit it out” and “throw their hands up.”

    In an emailed response to questions, a DHS spokesperson said Immigration and Customs Enforcement “is not planning operations targeting polling locations,” adding that the agency would only arrest people at the polls to address a safety threat as part of “intelligence-driven targeted enforcement.”

    The DHS and the Justice Department “are laser focused on identifying, prosecuting and removing aliens who vote and dilute the votes of U.S. citizens,” the spokesperson added. “Our message to aliens who vote in American elections is clear: we will find you, arrest you, and you will face the consequences — including criminal charges and deportation.”

    Before and on Election Day, it’s typical for the major political parties to mount poll-watching operations, but both Democrats and Republicans say they’ve expanded these activities in this pressurized midterm.

    Republicans will focus on issues such as voter eligibility and voter-roll accuracy, according to Ally Triolo, the Republican National Committee’s election integrity communications director. Democrats will concentrate on voter intimidation and other hurdles to voting, Angelo Fernández Hernández, a Democratic National Committee spokesperson, said.

    The authors elucidate 5 issues that are worrying voting rights experts. Again, go to the link to read the details  There are quite a few articles up specifically on possible election problems at Propublica. This research focuses on Trump’s obsession with noncitizen voting. “Inside Trump’s Futile Hunt for Noncitizen Voters. Claiming that hundreds of thousands of noncitizens were voting illegally, Trump tasked agents who usually investigate cross-border crime with uncovering proof. We followed along to find out: How many of these voters could there actually be?”

    President Donald Trump has claimed that hundreds of thousands of people who are not U.S. citizens have been illegally voting in our federal elections, tipping the scales for Democrats. If there was massive fraud, reporters at ProPublica wanted to uncover it. So they followed along as federal investigators set out to find and prosecute these voters. How many were there, really?

    ProPublica has researched many issues with this years elections including one JJ sent me. “Ballot Rejections Soared in Rural Counties After USPS Reduced Mail Service.” These articles are long, but you will face tomorrow more informed as you head to your polling place.

    But a ProPublica data analysis shows that delays resulting from the U.S. Postal Service’s cost-cutting measures have endangered the validity of ballots cast in rural areas, not only in Washington, but across the country.

    Over the past three years, as mail volume continued to plummet and annual deficits ballooned, the Postal Service started consolidating the processing of first-class mail at larger regional plants instead of at smaller hubs closer to local post offices. Then, in a little-noted switch that mostly took effect after the 2024 election, the agency cut the frequency of mail pickups in half at many post offices 50 miles or more from these processing plants, from twice daily to once.

    The changes often added a day or more to delivery time and, most importantly for ballots, pushed back postmarking, which doesn’t happen until mail reaches the regional centers.

    In this year’s primary, the effects of the cuts were clearest in five states that make detailed data on mail-in ballots available: Washington, California, Ohio, North Carolina and Oregon. All have or recently had grace periods allowing ballots to count if they come in after Election Day as long as they’re postmarked by the deadline.

    Despite all of this, the numbers geeks are still saying the Democratic candidates have the advantage and the momentum. I’m still largely fixated on the senate race but watching NW Lousyana kick out Mike Johnson and thus, end his speakership, would make me happy too. This is from the New York Times. “Democrats Show Strength in Final Days of Race for the Senate, New Polls Find, Democrats are up in Michigan, Texas, Kansas, Maine and Ohio, have an edge in Alaska and are effectively tied with Republicans in Iowa, new New York Times/Siena polls found.” Shane Goldmacher and Ruth Igielnik share the lede.

    Democrats are ahead of Republicans in almost all of the seven battleground states that will determine which party controls the Senate, according to the final set of polls from The New York Times and Siena University before the midterm elections.

    The surveys found that Democrats hold sizable leads in Texas, which has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1988, and Kansas, which has not elected one since 1932.

    To win a Senate majority, Democrats need to defend all the seats they currently hold and flip at least four seats that are currently held by Republicans. It has been seen as an uphill battle because many of the seats they need to win are in Republican strongholds.

    But the new polls found Democratic candidates ahead in five states that now have Republican senators and effectively tied in a sixth. They hold leads in Kansas, Maine, Ohio and Texas and a narrow edge in Alaska. They are effectively tied in Iowa.

    In Michigan, the lone top Senate battleground already held by Democrats, the poll found the Democratic candidate leading by double digits. (It was conducted before a Democratic feud erupted in Michigan this weekend.) The surveys did not include North Carolina, where polls have long found the Democrat leading and Republicans have pared back their campaign spending.

    Dissatisfaction with President Trump and frustration over his management of the economy are dragging down Republicans, according to the polls. Just 38 percent of likely voters approved of the president’s job performance in the seven states in the poll, a strikingly low figure given that Mr. Trump had won five of the states by double digits just two years ago.

    The newfound Democratic strength was powered by growing trust in the party to handle the economy — the key motivating issue for voters this year. Democrats hold a nine-point advantage on the cost of living across the battlegrounds, and they led on this crucial measure in every single state.

    If the polls are accurate and these trends hold, Democrats would win control of the Senate.

    Like I said, I’m wondering if that huge surge of black voters up in the NW corner of Louisiana will manage to dethrone Mike Johnson. This is from the Federal News Network. Terry Gerton interviews Mitchell Miller  the story. “Election results decide who holds power. What comes next determines how they’ll use it. “Clearly a lot of potential political drama here on the GOP side after the results come in,” said Mitchell Miller, a Capitol Hill correspondent from WTOP for his take.

    Terry Gerton All right, tomorrow is election day. Everybody’s been watching early voting and polling, trying to anticipate who will win, but I actually want to talk about another set of horse races and those are for congressional leadership positions. After the election is over and we have a sense of the results, walk us through what actually happens inside the parties before the next Congress will convene.

    Mitchell Miller Well, this is going to be a very interesting time and one that’s going to make a lot of people nervous, obviously, because everything is going to unfold over the next 24 plus hours. Of course, the election results will probably continue to spill out throughout the rest of the week, particularly on the Senate side. But let’s start with the House. The House Republican leadership has said that a week from election day, they will hold their internal elections. And decide who is going to remain in what positions. Now, this is really fascinating because House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has repeatedly said that they are going to defy history. Republicans are going to maintain a very small majority, but they are gonna maintain the majority. Now, if that were to happen, of course, then things are pretty straightforward, mike Johnson would likely retain the House speakership, especially because this would be so rare that he would actually have the Republicans hold the lower chamber. However, if, as many people expect, that the Republicans lose power to the Democrats, then everything starts to shift. And there’s a lot of talk about whether Mike Johnson would still try to become the minority leader, which I have to say just basically doesn’t happen after a large loss, if that’s what happens in the House. Virtually every House speaker, once there was a defeat, left that position and did seek the house minority position and in fact usually the party doesn’t want them in that leadership role after that, despite all the campaigning that Johnson has done. So who does that leave? Then you have current House Majority Leader, Steve Scalise (R-La.), who was, of course, considered for House Speaker when all that wild gyrating happened after Kevin McCarthy (R-Ca.) Was forced out. And you also have the House Judiciary Committee Chairman, Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who has indicated he might be interested in a leadership position. So we’ll have to see what happens when things shake out. Now, if you move down the roster of leadership, the House majority whip is Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), and he has indicated he wants to stay in that position no matter what happens. And it doesn’t seem like anybody else wants to push him on that position, so he will likely stay there. So clearly a lot of potential political drama here on the GOP side after the results come in.

    So, that’s all I can take reading and writing on today!  We’ll see you tomorrow and hopefully with enough steam to keep a live thread going between us all!  I’ll leave with a little bit of economics truth. Its a bit higher today, btw.  $40,596,030,180,635 and ticking upwards every minute. Every word this man speaks is basically a lie.

    — Paul Marvin (@paulmarvin.bsky.social) 2026-11-02T01:52:52.876Z

     

    What’s on Your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?  If you didn’t early vote, I hope Voting will be on your Action list tomorrow. It certainly will be on mine!