Lazy Caturday Reads

Posted: November 8, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Good Afternoon!!

Raphael Balme, Three cats and wallpaper.

I’m feeling slightly more optimistic after Tuesday’s Democratic sweep of theoff-year elections on Tuesday. According to the polls, Trump is very unpopular, and I have to believe that his efforts to avoid giving food to starving Americans are not going to help him. Democracy is still in danger, but it is beginning look as if there’s still hope for saving it.

Julia Manchester at The Hill: Trump approval drops as Dems show more motivation for midterms: Poll.

President Trump’s approval rating is dropping as Democrats signal more motivation than the GOP ahead of next year’s midterm elections, according to a new Emerson College Polling survey released on Friday.

Forty-one percent of voters said they approved of the job Trump is doing as president, a four-point drop from Trump’s October approval rating of 45 percent. Forty-nine percent of voters said they disapproved of Trump’s job in office, up from 48 percent last month.

Meanwhile, the same poll found that 71 percent of Democratic voters said they were motivated to vote in next year’s midterm elections compared to 60 percent of Republicans. Forty-two percent of Independents said the same.

Fifty-seven percent of all voters said they were more motivated to vote than usual, while 12 percent said they were less motivated. Thirty-one percent said they were motivated as usual ahead of the midterms.

The polling comes after Republicans suffered losses to Democrats in Tuesday’s off-year elections, which were seen as a referendum on the first year of Trump’s second term in office….

The same poll found that 43 percent of voters said their vote in the midterms would be an expression of opposition to Trump, while 29 percent said their vote would be an expression of support.

The Emerson College national poll was conducted Nov. 3-4 among 1,000 active registered voters. The margin of error is plus or minus three percentage points.

Here’s the full report from Emerson College polling.

I’ve been listening to/watching regularly a Daily Beast podcast called Inside Trump’s Head.” The show consists of interviews with journalist Michael Wolff, who has written 3 books about Trump. You can watch it on YouTube. Wolff is not only an expert on Trump (and Jeffrey Epstein), but also has numerous current sources inside the Trump circle. In addition, he is often funny.

Robert Davis at Raw Story: ‘Measure of optimism’: Analyst predicts ‘end of Trump’ after Democratic election wins.

Controversial journalist Michael Wolff made a bold prediction about the future of the second Trump administration on Thursday during a new podcast interview.

Wolff joined The Daily Beast’s Joana Coles on a new episode of “Inside Trump’s Head” that aired on Thursday, where the two discussed what Tuesday’s election results mean for President Donald Trump. Democrats won a spate of key races, including two governor’s offices and a host of statewide offices.

By Timothy Matthews

Trump and Republicans like Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) have tried to brush off the Democratic victories. Wolff argued that they reveal a troubling trend for the Trump administration.

“Let’s look at that in the context of we are not today in an autocracy and [with] a measure of optimism, which is that we’ve just spent a year since last Election Day with Trump as this omnipotent figure in politics,” Wolff said. “And while I would not say that today spells in any way the end of Trump, I would say that the end of Trump could well happen.”

Leading up to Tuesday’s election, Trump shared multiple social media posts attempting to help his preferred candidates win. However, Trump-aligned and Trump-backed candidates did not fare well in the election.

“That’s what happens in American politics,” Wolff continued. “That’s one of the great things in American politics. Reversals, landslides. Things that you would not dream of happening, happen.”

“This has been a horrifying year of Trump, and without any sense that anyone could stand in his way,” he continued. “But in American politics, that’s what happens. You think these people are permanent, and it turns out that they are fleeting.”

Late last night, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson allowed Trump to continue withholding full SNAP benefits to the states after an appeals court ordered the payments to begin immediately.

Jennifer Ludden at NPR: Supreme Court temporarily blocks full SNAP benefits even as they’d started to go out.

The U.S. Supreme Court temporarily granted the Trump administration’s request to block full SNAP food benefits during the government shutdown, even as residents in some states had already begun receiving them.

The Trump administration is appealing a court order to fully restart the country’s largest anti-hunger program. The high court decision late Friday gives a lower court time to consider a more lasting pause.

The move may add to confusion, though, since the government said it was sending states money on Friday to fully fund SNAP at the same time it appealed the order to pay for them.

Shortly after U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr. issued that decision Thursday afternoon, states started to announce they’d be issuing full SNAP benefits. Some peoplewoke up Friday with the money already on the debit-like EBT cards they use to buy groceries. The number of states kept growing, and included California, Oregon, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Connecticut among others.

The Supreme Court’s decision means states must, for now, revert back to the partial payments the Trump administration had earlier instructed them to distribute. While the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit rejected the administration’s request for an administrative stay, the appeals court said it would consider the request for the stay and intends to issue a decision as quickly as possible.

SCOTUS whisperer Steve Vladeck quickly published an explainer at One First: SNAP WTF?.

Basically, Vladeck thinks that Jackson knew that if she didn’t issue the hold, the 5 right wing justices would go along with Trump’s wish for an administrative hold, and it might take a long time for them to get around to making a final decision on the SNAP payments.

I wanted to put out a very brief post to try to provide a bit of context for Justice Jackson’s single-justice order, handed down shortly after 9 p.m. EST on Friday night, that imposed an “administrative stay” of a district court order that would’ve required the Trump administration to use various contingency funds to pay out critical benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

Willem den Ouden (NL 1928) Ferry with cat

It may surprise folks that Justice Jackson, who has been one of the most vocal critics of the Court’s behavior on emergency applications from the Trump administration, acquiesced in even a temporary pause of the district court’s ruling in this case. But as I read the order, which says a lot more than a typical “administrative stay” from the Court, Jackson was stuck between a rock and a hard place—given the incredibly compressed timing that was created by the circumstances of the case.

In a world in which Justice Jackson either knew or suspected that at least five of the justices would grant temporary relief to the Trump administration if she didn’t, the way she structured the stay means that she was able to try to control the timing of the Supreme Court’s (forthcoming) review—and to create pressure for it to happen faster than it otherwise might have. In other words, it’s a compromise—one with which not everyone will agree, but which strikes me as eminently defensible under these unique (and, let’s be clear, maddening and entirely f-ing avoidable) circumstances.

Everyone agrees that, among the many increasingly painful results of the government shutdown, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) can no longer spend the funds Congress appropriated to cover SNAP—a program that helps to fund food purchases for one in eight (42 million!) Americans. Everyone also agrees that there are other sources of appropriated money that the President has the statutory authority to rely upon to at least partially fund SNAP benefits for the month of November. The two questions that have provoked the most legal debate is whether (1) he has the authority to fully fund SNAP; and (2) either way, whether federal courts can order him to use whatever authorities he has.

The dispute in the case that reached the Supreme Court on Friday involves a lawsuit that asked a federal court in Rhode Island to order the USDA first to partially fund SNAP for November, and then, as circumstances unfolded, to fully fund it. Having already ordered the USDA to do the former, yesterday, Judge McConnell issued a TRO ordering it to do the latter (to fully fund SNAP for November)—and to do so by the end of the day today.

I won’t quote any more, but I hope you’ll go read the explanation. Vladeck thinks that Jackson did the right thing under the circumstances, because she wants to make sure that the full court debates the case and makes a decision quickly. Vladeck also notes that Trump could just approve payment of the SNAP benefits. There’s no need of a court order. Democrats should make sure people understand that Trump is willing to starve children and old people in order to get his way on the shutdown and the cruel cuts in his big ugly bill.

Meanwhile, Democrats have offered a new proposal to reopen the government. NBC News: Democrats make a new offer to end the shutdown, but Republicans aren’t buying it.

Senate Democrats made an offer Friday to reopen the government, proposing a one-year extension of expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies alongside a package of funding measures in order to secure their votes.

By Kichisaburou Hirota

The offer, rolled out on the floor by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., includes a “clean” continuing resolution, which would reopen the government at current spending levels, and a package of three bipartisan appropriations bills to fund some departments for the full fiscal year.

“After so many failed votes, it’s clear we need to try something different,” Schumer said, calling it “a very simple compromise.”

The short-term health care funding extension would prevent a massive increase in insurance costs for millions of Americans on Obamacare next year. In addition, Democrats proposed creating a bipartisan committee to negotiate a longer-term solution.

“This is a reasonable offer that reopens the government, deals with health care affordability and begins a process of negotiating reforms to the ACA tax credits for the future,” Schumer added. “Now, the ball is in the Republicans’ court. We need Republicans to just say yes.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., called the Democratic offer a “nonstarter.”

“The Obamacare extension is the negotiation. That’s what we’re going to negotiate once the government opens up. … We need to vote to open the government — and there is a proposal out there to do that — and then we can have this whole conversation about health care,” he said.

Yeah, no. Republicans can’t be trusted to honor their promises.

Trump has started trying to get Republicans to get rid of the filibuster in order to reopen the government. Theodoric Meyer at The Washington Post: Trump wants to abolish the filibuster. GOP senators aren’t on board.

Senate Republicans have largely backed President Donald Trump’s agenda since he returned to office — but many refuse to support his campaign to scrap the filibuster.

Trump asked Republican senators at a meeting at the White House on Wednesday to end the government shutdown by getting rid of the filibuster and reiterated his demand Thursday at a news conference.

By Tatyana Rodionova

The filibuster, a long-standing Senate rule, allows a single senator to block most legislation unless 60 senators vote to cut off debate. Democrats have used the filibuster to block Republicans’ government funding bill for more than a month despite Republicans’ 53-seat Senate majority.

Some Senate Republicans returned from the White House saying they were open to ending the filibuster. But doing away with the rule would require the support of almost every Republican senator — and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) and many other Republicans say they are implacably opposed to it.

“There’s nothing that could move me on the filibuster,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) told reporters Wednesday after the White House meeting.

Senate Republicans’ unwillingness to scrap the filibuster underscores the limits of Trump’s influence in his second term, during which lawmakers have been reluctant to defy him.

There is quite a bit of immigration news out there today.

NBC News: Judge permanently bars Trump from deploying National Guard troops to Portland in response to immigration protests.

A federal judge in Oregon on Friday issued a permanent injunction barring the Trump administration from deploying the National Guard on the streets of Portland in response to protests against the president’s immigration policies.

“This Court arrives at the necessary conclusion that there was neither ‘a rebellion or danger of a rebellion’ nor was the President ‘unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States’ in Oregon when he ordered the federalization and deployment of the National Guard,” U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut, who was appointed by President Donald Trump in his first term, wrote in her ruling.

The Trump administration can appeal the ruling if it wants to.

Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek responded to the ruling Friday, calling Trump’s move to federalize the guard “a gross abuse of power.”

“Oregon National Guard members have been away from their jobs and families for 38 days. The California National Guard has been here for just over one month. Based on this ruling, I am renewing my call to the Trump Administration to send all troops home now,” Kotek said.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, whose justice department argued in the case objecting over his state’s National Guard’s deployment, called the decision “a win for the rule of law, for the constitutional values that govern our democracy, and for the American people.”

There are a number of immigration stories coming out of the Broadville neighborhood in Chicago where there is a large ICE facility.

Adrian Carrasquillo at The Bulwark: ICE Has Created a ‘Ghost Town’ in the Heart of Chicago.

DHS’S IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT ACTIONS continue to land like hammer blows on communities across the United States. Families are being torn apart, protesters are catching pepperballs, businesses are at risk, and, increasingly, entire neighborhood economies in areas with large Latino populations are grinding to a halt.

The worst consequences occur when these different aspects of the Trump administration’s deportation regime overlap. Case in point: Chicago’s food scene, specifically the capital of the Mexican Midwest, Little Village, where I got both a firsthand look at the compounding harms of ICE’s actions and the best gorditas I’ve ever had in my life.

By Cindy Revell

The first sign of how different things are come well before you take a bite of the gordita. It’s when you look around and realize that there is now an eerie emptiness to a once-vibrant place.

As I pulled into Little Village for dinner with some local Chicagoans, we experienced no traffic and had our pick of parking spots. “Traffic used to be bumper to bumper for decades and start blocks away, I’ve never experienced it like this,” Chicago food writer Ximena N. Beltran Quan Kiu told me. In a TikTok about the neighborhood, she noted that Little Village is the second-largest shopping district in the city after Michigan Avenue, which is home of the “Magnificent Mile” of luxury stores.

Our destination that day last month was Carniceria Aguascalientes, which sits on the main thoroughfare of 26th Street. We passed through a glittering Mexican grocery store at the street side to get to the large diner-style restaurant lined with tables and booths. Only two or three of roughly thirty tables were in use when we sat down. As we enjoyed our food, the largely vacant dining room became less and less comprehensible.1

When I told our friendly waitress, Michelle Macias, 24, what I do and why I was in town, she was eager to share what had happened to the restaurant. Aguascalientes, a staple of “La Villita,” has welcomed customers for half a century. But lately, its business has plummeted. Sales are down a staggering amount: more than 60 percent compared to last year.

Everything has been turned on its head, Macias explained. While in past years Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays were bustling, lately Mondays have become the restaurant’s busiest day—perhaps a result of people trying to avoid the usual crowds of the weekend. The restaurant announced this year that it would be closing an hour earlier, a money-saving measure. And as I had noticed, there’s now parking readily available, a fact that shocks longtime patrons accustomed to the gridlock that formerly surrounded the popular eatery.

Everything has been turned on its head, Macias explained. While in past years Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays were bustling, lately Mondays have become the restaurant’s busiest day—perhaps a result of people trying to avoid the usual crowds of the weekend. The restaurant announced this year that it would be closing an hour earlier, a money-saving measure. And as I had noticed, there’s now parking readily available, a fact that shocks longtime patrons accustomed to the gridlock that formerly surrounded the popular eatery.

The bleak reality facing Carniceria Aguascalientes weighs on its forty employees—especially Macias, whose parents own the restaurant.

As I took it in, I couldn’t help but think back to when Trump’s mass-deportation policy was just getting underway, and the many conversations I had then with Democratic lawmakers who wondered aloud about where we would be in three years. Forget three years: In the Latino enclaves of Little Village, and in Back of the Yards, in Pilsen, and on the North Side, they’re wondering how they will get through the next three weeks.

“Everyone is staying home, everyone is scared,” Macias told me. “There’s so much uncertainty. COVID was bad, but this is way worse.”

It sounds like what happened in Washington DC. Read the whole thing at the Bulwark link.

Charles Thrush at Block Club Chicago: Feds Tell Faith Leaders ‘No More Prayer’ Outside Broadview Facility.

BROADVIEW – Federal authorities told demonstrators Friday that there would be “no more prayer” in front of or inside the Broadview ICE facility, in a move that mystified local leaders and raised legal questions.

A federal representative delivered the news to a huddle of faith leaders and activists standing outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility Friday, speaking after faith leaders were denied entry to the building for the third time Friday.

By Miroslaw Hajnos

Broadview Police Chief Thomas Mills, whose department helped facilitate the phone call, said that he was “trying to figure out” in discussions with Mayor Katrina Thompson and an attorney if a federal agency could legally ban religious gatherings on land owned by the village. Religious groups previously have been allowed to practice outside the facility, he said.

“I’m just a messenger,” an anonymous voice stuttered over the phone to a huddle of faith leaders and activists standing outside the Broadview immigration processing facility on Friday.

During the call, which took place with a Block Club reporter present, the anonymous representative told a group of faith leaders and activists that “There is no more prayer in front of building or inside the building because this is the state and it’s not [of a] religious background.”

“I’m dumbfounded,” the police chief told Block Club. “Every time I talk with [federal officials], it feels like their rules keep changing. We don’t really know what’s happening, I’m sorry I can’t say more. We just want to keep people safe and let them peacefully protest without getting hurt.”

That sounds like a violation of the First Amendment to me.

Chicago Sun-Times: 14 suburban moms arrested in sit-in protest outside Broadview ICE facility.

A group of moms from the western suburbs were arrested Friday morning during a protest against the separation of families outside of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview.

Fourteen mothers jumped over the barricades and sat in a circle on Beach Street to “demand an end” to the immigration raids that have swept through the Chicago area since the Trump administration launched “Operation Midway Blitz” in September.

Less than a minute later, the women were arrested by Cook County sheriff’s deputies. The women were charged with obstruction, disorderly conduct and pedestrian walking on highways.

“We want to encourage other people who feel strongly about ICE’s actions to step off the sidelines and take our cities back,” said Teresa Shattuck, a mother from Oak Park. “We want to use our collective power and our white privilege in the way it should be used.”

Meghan Carter, another mother from Oak Park, said the women who were arrested understood the risks when they chose to take a stand, adding their experiences paled in comparison to what the detained immigrants inside the facility were enduring.

Carter said the suburban moms were a group of parents “fed up” with seeing immigration agents “terrorizing” their communities.

One more immigration/deportation story from NBC News: ‘Mega detention centers’: ICE considers buying large warehouses to hold immigrants.

The Trump administration is exploring buying warehouses that were designed for clients like Amazon and retrofitting them as detention facilities for immigrants before they are deported, a move that would vastly expand the government’s detention capacity, according to a Homeland Security Department official and a White House official.

By Timothy Matthews

The precise warehouses that Immigration and Customs Enforcement may buy have not yet been determined, but the agency is looking at locations in the southern U.S. near airports where immigrants are most often deported, the DHS official and the White House official said. Selecting such warehouses would “increase efficiency” in deportations, the DHS official said.

A deal to purchase the warehouses, which on average are more than twice the size of current ICE detention facilities, is past the early stages but not yet final, the DHS official and the White House official said. The DHS official described the warehouses as future “mega detention centers.”

Amazon would not be a part of any deal and would not profit from it as the warehouses were built by developers for Amazon but never used or leased by the company, the officials said.

An Amazon spokesperson said that the company is not involved in any discussions with DHS or ICE about warehouse space and that it leases and does not own the vast majority of its warehouse space.

It was not immediately clear who owns the warehouses that the government may buy and the DHS official and the White House official did not know how much the deals could be worth. The DHS official said some of the warehouses under consideration were built by developers with Amazon in mind but never used.

That’s it for me today. I hope everyone is having a relaxing weekend. I’m working on it.

Finally Friday Reads: Thank you for Your Attention to this Matter

Posted: November 7, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: #FARTUS, #MAGAnomics, 2024 Elections | Tags: , , , , , , | 7 Comments

“The ultimate photo defining the trump presidency deserves the cartoon that ultimately defines the trump presidency. Thank you in advance for all the accolades. Dozing Don has a bad dream.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Yesterday, the foul-mouthed nickname guy who initiated the slur “Sleepy Joe Biden” spent most of a televised meeting sound asleep. This wasn’t just the usual work meeting where it’s easy to fall asleep listening to the droning tones of your CEO try to explain something that he never fully understood no matter how much data and explanations you gave him when you prepped him through the least technical stuff you had to do to show him the company was going underwater and your next assignment will be explaining it to some Republican Congressional aid so he can beg Congress for some form of bail-out. Oops, sorry, jumped back to me around 1980, didn’t really mean to.

This particular meeting of Big Pharma CEOS included a dramatic medical emergency. Donnie Dotard stood up and just stood there while a few others rushed to examine the fallen. The Secretary of Health and Human Services made a quick break for the door. Finally, a staffer thought about ushering the media out the door. Hopefully, with all that tacky signage and gold gee-gaws, they figured their way out of the Oval Office.

I noticed that Entertainment Weekly covered the story, but decided to go with The Independent instead.

A pharmaceutical executive collapsed in the Oval Office Thursday as members of the Trump administration were announcing a new deal for weight-loss medications.

The man was standing behind President Donald Trump during the event when his knees appeared to suddenly buckle underneath him. Reporters initially identified the man as Novo Nordisk executive Gordon Finlay however the company later denied that it was him.

Reporters who witnessed the incident first-hand said Dr. Mehmet Oz, Administrator for Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, helped the executive to the ground, preventing the man from hitting his head. As reporters were ushered out of the Oval Office, Cabinet members attended to the man, elevating his legs.

Okay, I’m too cheeky today, so fuck all that. Let’s see what Stephen Colbert had to say last night, as reported by TV Insider.  “Colbert Gives Verdict on Trump’s Reaction After Man Collapses in Oval Office.”

On Thursday’s Late Show, Colbert aired a clip of the scary moment, in which the man collapsed at the start of Eli Lilly CEO Dave Ricks’ speech. While several people rushed to help the man, including Dr. Mehmet Oz, the President rose from his desk and stood by nonchalantly.

“As I said, the fella’s okay, but I’m sure that was scary,” Colbert said. “But thankfully, the room was full of exactly who you want in a medical emergency: pharmaceutical executives. ‘Quick! Quick! Someone maximize shareholder value!’”

The late-night host reiterated that the man was “okay” and praised the quick action of everybody who rushed to help him.

“Well, almost everybody,” he added. “Because this photo’s been going around. Take a look at this photo, this viral photo from after the fainting. Look at that.”

Colbert showed a photo that has been making the rounds on social media, featuring Trump standing at his desk looking vacantly ahead as several people attend to the man in the background.

“They’ve got his legs up and everything!” Colbert stated. “That picture is worth a thousand words… none of which I can say on CBS.”

We’re beginning to see some analysis of the voting numbers and outcomes analyzed by political data specialists. Heather Cox Richardson has a good piece on some of that at her SubStack Letters from an American.

“None of this is complicated,” political data specialist Tom Bonier wrote yesterday about Tuesday’s dramatic Democratic victories around the country. “The [Republicans] ran on affordability in 2024. They gave sanctimonious lectures on cable news on election night about how the ‘silent working class majority’ had spoken. Then they governed as reckless authoritarians, punishing the working class.”

For nine months now, officials in the Trump administration have pushed their extremist policies with the insistence that his election gave him a mandate, although more people voted for someone other than Trump in 2024 than voted for him. Tuesday’s elections stripped away that veneer to reveal just how unpopular their policies really are.

Aside from the health of the country, this poses a dramatic political problem for the Republicans. The midterm elections are in slightly less than a year, and Tuesday’s vote, which suggests the 2024 MAGA coalition has crumbled, may spell bad news for the mid-decade gerrymandering Republicans have pushed in states they control, like Texas. Republican lawmakers created the new Republican-leaning districts by moving Republican voters into Democratic-leaning districts, thus weakening formerly safe Republican districts. That could backfire in a blue-wave election.

First thing Wednesday morning, on the day the government shutdown became the longest shutdown in history, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) wrote to President Donald J. Trump to “demand a bipartisan meeting of legislative leaders to end the [Republican] shutdown of the federal government and decisively address the Republican healthcare crisis.” They assured him that “Democrats stand ready to meet with you face to face, anytime and anyplace,” and concluded: “Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

Trump had a different approach to Tuesday’s news. He met with Republican senators before the cameras and admitted that the shutdown had badly hurt the Republicans. But rather than moving to compromise—as all previous presidents have done to end shutdowns—he reiterated his crusade to make sure Democrats can never again hold power. He demanded that Republican senators end the filibuster and, as soon as they do, promptly end mail-in voting and require prohibitive voter ID. “If we do what I’m saying,” he told the senators, Democrats will “most likely never obtain power because we will have passed every single thing that you can imagine.”

Former Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) stopped Bloomberg News Senate reporter Steven Dennis in the hallway to say: “We’re not going to do that.”

The results in the states were not as cheery as they could’ve been. This was especially true for ballot initiatives. This is from Bolts Magazine as reported by Alex Burness. “Five Ways Tuesday’s Results Will Affect Voting Rules and Democracy. From felony disenfranchisement and mail voting to mid-decade gerrymanders, Tuesday delivered verdicts on election law across these five states.”

On Tuesday, mostly in the shadow of the Democratic Party’s headlining triumphs, were a series of state and local elections that carried high stakes for election law and voting rights.

Conservatives failed to restrict mail-in voting in a state key to next year’s battle for the U.S. Senate. Voters in two states boosted Democrats’ mid-decade redistricting aspirations. And voters made sure that a plan to unwind one of the nation’s harshest felony disenfranchisement schemes can proceed.

Here, we tour these results, and some others, from five states where the rules of elections were most prominently on the line—California, Maine, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

We’ve heard a lot about candidates, but it’s essential to read this information and consider what else was at stake.

Now that a Federal Judge ordered the Trump administration to continue to pay SNAP benefits for the month of November, we see the usual Trump move. Take it to court. This is from the AP.  “Trump administration seeks to block full SNAP payments for November.” Starving the elderly, children, and the poor is such a Republican Holiday Tradition!

President Donald Trump ’s administration asked a federal appeals court Friday to block a judge’s order that it distribute November’s full monthly SNAP food benefits amid a U.S. government shutdown, even as at least some states said they were moving quickly to get the money to people.

The judge gave the Trump administration until Friday to make the payments through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. But the administration asked the appeals court to suspend any court orders requiring it to spend more money than is available in a contingency fund, and instead allow it to continue with planned partial SNAP payments for the month.

The court filing came even as the U.S. Department of Agriculture said in a memo to states that it’s working to make funds available Friday for full monthly SNAP benefits.

California and Wisconsin said some SNAP recipients already received their full November payments overnight on Thursday.

“Food benefits are now beginning to flow back to California families,” Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement. A spokesperson for Democratic Gov. Tony Evers of Wisconsin also confirmed that full SNAP payments had gone through.

Forbes reveals that the Trump Family’s Grift is still strong and growing. “Trump Wine Hits Government Shelves. This is reported by Zach Everson.

Topline

The Trump Organization’s second-term push to monetize Donald Trump’s presidency has reached the aisles of military exchanges, as Coast Guard-run stores, which provide service members and their families with access to tax-free consumer goods, have stocked Trump-branded wine and cider.

Key Facts

Coast Guard Exchanges at its headquarters in Washington, D.C., and in Centreville, Virginia, recently stocked Trump-branded wine and cider, according to a photo posted on Instagram and confirmed by Forbes from calls to the stores.

Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin confirmed the exchanges were carrying Trump wines in a statement to Forbes, saying, “The brave men and women of the USCG are pleased to be able to buy Trump wine and cider tax free.”

While there’s been no shortage of Trump’s businesses capitalizing on the presidency—from using the presidential seal on golf markers at his courses to selling a $75 coffee table book showcasing pictures by his official White House photographer—these wines are among the few times Trump products have been sold at a government facility.

The White House referred inquiries to the Coast Guard and Department of Homeland Security, the Coast Guard deferred to DHS and the Trump Organization did not respond to requests for comment.

Representatives from the government watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington had this to say.

“This is one of those things where there probably isn’t any legal issue, but there is an optics and an ethics issue,” said Jordan Libowitz, a spokesperson for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a government watchdog.

It’s just one scam after another with this group. Jacqueline Sweet writes this at her SubStack Disaster Girl.   “FBI Informant Who Lied About Bidens Quietly Released From Jail Sparking Trump Pardon Fears. Alexander Smirnov was quietly furloughed from prison months ago.” For a guy obsessed with crime and criminals, he sure puts a lot of them back on the street.

An FBI informant convicted of lying to the Bureau about a fake bribery scheme involving the Bidens has been quietly released from prison just months into a six-year sentence—raising concern he could be pardoned by Donald Trump any moment.

Alexander Smirnov, who has multiple business ties to Trumpworld, was sentenced on January 8, days before Trump became president. He had pleaded guilty to fabricating a story that former President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, had received millions in bribes from Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, as well as to a $2 million-plus tax evasion offense.

Yet despite Smirnov being judged a flight risk, with ties to Russian intelligence and foreign assets, the U.S.-Israeli citizen has been mysteriously missing from prison for at least the past four months, Disaster Girl can reveal. Following reports in April that the Trump administration was reviewing the case, concerns have now arisen that the president is considering an imminent pardon.

Smirnov had been serving his sentence at FCI Terminal Island, a low-security prison in Los Angeles. He is still listed at FCI Terminal Island on the Bureau of Prisons website, with a release date of February 2029. But while no filings on the docket for his appeal indicate how or why his release was ordered, he has not been there since at least July.

His absence became apparent when a process server attempted to serve Smirnov with papers for a civil lawsuit related to Smirnov’s time working as a confidential informant for the FBI on a securities fraud case involving California man Andrew Hackett. The process server hired by Hackett told Hackett he had been unable to locate Smirnov at Terminal Island. The prison confirmed to the process server that Smirnov is on “furlough,” according to emails and court filings reviewed by Disaster Girl

The server said that the person responsible for processing service at Terminal Island FCI had “confirmed that Alexander Smirnov is affiliated with the facility, but is not currently housed there,” but that they had declined to provide his current location or any further details. “I was advised to call back in approximately 15 days, as [Smirnov] may or may not return to the facility by that time. The representative was notably guarded and provided minimal information beyond that,” an email from the server to Hackett states.

By October, after repeated attempts to locate Smirnov at the prison, Hackett finally received an answer from the local Sheriff’s Department, which said: “They’ve confirmed that Mr. Smirnov has been furloughed, but no forwarding or new address has been provided.”

Trump’s lies are still making Broadcast news.  This is from NBC News. “Trump touts cost of Walmart’s Thanksgiving meal to vindicate his policies — ignoring a key detail. Since Tuesday’s elections, Trump has repeatedly boasted that Walmart’s Thanksgiving meal bundle is cheaper than it was under President Joe Biden. But there’s also less food in it.”

In the wake of Republicans’ heavy election losses on Tuesday, President Donald Trump has responded to voters’ growing concerns by insisting the economy is actually experiencing a “golden age.”

As tangible proof, he has pointed to the cost of Walmart’s Thanksgiving meal bundle, which is roughly 25% less expensive this year than it was last year.

“Grocery prices are way down, and Walmart just announced that the cost of their standard Thanksgiving meal — this is the greatest, their greatest,” Trump said in a speech to the American Business Forum on Wednesday, adding: “It is 25% lower than one year ago. That’s a big deal.”

Trump is right — but the 2025 Thanksgiving bundle is also smaller than the 2024 package.

This year’s package, at less than $40, contains 23 items; last year, there were 29. The missing items this year include onions, celery, sweet potatoes, chicken broth, poultry seasoning, muffin mix, marshmallows, whipped topping and pecan pie.

This year’s meal comes with standard dinner rolls and fresh cranberries, which both currently cost less at Walmart than the sweet Hawaiian rolls and cranberry sauce in last year’s edition.

The 2025 meal also includes just one can of cream of mushroom soup, down from two in 2024.

Walmart did make some additions to its new package, including a twin pack of turkey stuffing, baby carrots and three boxes of macaroni and cheese. Last year, Walmart included ingredients to make stuffing from scratch.

I’m eager to see the Black Friday sales numbers. The only thing booming in the economy is AI-related stocks. They are bubblelicious.  And the news and demand for the Epstein files just keeps on building.  This is from The New Republic. “DOJ Admits to Republicans That Epstein Files Are Even Worse for Trump. Details in the files are reportedly even more damning for Donald Trump than previously indicated—and it was already bad.” Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling has the byline.

Rumors about Donald Trump’s connection to Jeffrey Epstein have gripped the Republican Party.

A few conservative representatives with ties to the FBI and the Justice Department have spilled that the true details of the Epstein files are “worse” for Trump than previously reported, according to journalist David Schuster.

Michael Wolff, a longtime chronicler of Trump’s White House who conducted extensive interviews with Epstein prior to his death, told The Daily Beast last month that Epstein had shown him photos of Trump with half-naked “young girls” in his lap.

These rumors have galvanized into a legitimate movement among Republicans, who are now, Schuster wrote on X Wednesday night, clamoring for the files’ full release.

For months, just four Republicans had penned their signatures on a discharge petition demanding transparency into the investigation of the pedophilic sex trafficker and his potential associates. Those conservative lawmakers include Representatives Thomas Massie, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nancy Mace, and Lauren Boebert.

Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva, who won the special election in Arizona in September, has also vowed to sign the bipartisan petition. She’s the last signature that the House needs to force a vote on the issue—and Speaker Mike Johnson has conveniently refused to swear her in for more than a month.

But the disturbing new rumor has dredged up far more support, with “more than 100 Republicans” planning to vote alongside Democrats in an effort to “get in front of what’s coming,” reported Schuster.

The Trump administration has failed at every turn to mitigate anxieties about the president’s longtime friendship with the child sex criminal. The typically bombastic Attorney General Pam Bondi was silent when asked about the photos during a Senate hearing last month, a choice that further “spooked” several GOP lawmakers, with many interpreting her nonresponse as a very vocal “yes.”

Karma can be a bitch after all. Here are a few other suggestions as a close-out to this post.

What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blog lists today?