A Fitting Coda to Elmo's Very Bad Week. Pras Subramanian of Yahoo! Finance: "So long, Tesla ... Cybertruck, we hardly knew ye. Yes, it is official. The Tesla Cybertruck will soon be no more, per a post from CEO Elon Musk on his X account. 'Tesla will be winding down production of the Cybertruck at Gigafactory Texas around the middle of next year to make room for increased Cybercab production,' Musk wrote early Friday morning. For many in the industry, this isn't a surprise even with Musk's grand pronouncements about the vehicle. Musk once boasted that Cybertruck demand was 'so far off the hook, you can't even see the hook,' and the company said it had over 1 million preorders. But ... Tesla and Musk had built out capacity for Giga Austin to pump out 250K Cybertrucks per year; Tesla was selling about one-tenth that amount."
Annie Karni of the New York Times (Nov. 4): “Representative Max Miller, the Ohio Republican whose campaign was rocked by accusations that he physically abused his ex-wife and young daughter, lost his re-election bid, according to The Associated Press, handing Democrats a seat in deep-red territory as they won House control. Brian Poindexter, a union ironworker, defeated Mr. Miller, a two-term congressman whose political rise was fueled by his close relationship with ... [Donald] Trump, in a district Mr. Trump won by a double-digit margin two years ago. Mr. Miller had rejected calls by fellow Republicans to drop out of the race after he was accused by his ex-wife, Emily Moreno, of domestic abuse against her and their 2-year-old daughter.” The link is a gift link.
Marie: So Wait! I leave the house for two hours and I come home to find out Trump has fired the last woman standing & replaced her with Count Dracula's More Sadistic Brother?? ~~~
Stephen Miller is the architect of the most barbaric, inhumane policies of this administration. Trump couldn’t have made a worse choice. Our Democratic majorities will fight him every step of the way. -- Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY)
~~~ Natalie Allison, et al., of the Washington Post: “... Donald Trump has removed his long-serving and top aide Susie Wiles as White House chief of staff, replacing her with Stephen Miller, the president announced Friday. The staffing shake-up comes as Trump remains angry over Tuesday’s midterm losses and represents a turn further to the right for his policy agenda. Miller, another longtime Trump aide and the architect of many of Trump’s immigration policies, has worked for him since the first Trump administration. Miller has most recently served as the White House deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser. He begins the role Monday.” ~~~
~~~ The New York Times is running a liveblog of developments; this is a gift link. ~~~
~~~ Marie: So here's the logic. As Michael Gold writes on the liveblog: Donald “Trump has chosen to elevate the architect of his administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown just days after it was clear that those policies cost Republicans significant political support.” How the hell does that make sense? It is simply a big middle finger to the voters who rejected his draconian policies and Republican officerholders who supported them. ~~~
~~~ Okay, Akhilleus & Ken W. have some explanations. See today's Comments.
Buh-Bye. Devlin Barrett, et al., of the New York Times: “The U.S. attorney who had overseen a centerpiece of ... [Donald] Trump’s retribution campaign, the so-called grand conspiracy inquiry of Obama-era officials, has resigned amid growing dissatisfaction with his performance, people familiar with the situation said. Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the departure of the prosecutor, Jason A. Reding Quiñones of the Southern District of Florida, on social media. He joins a succession of departures at the Justice Department after the midterm elections on Tuesday, including those of John Eisenberg, the head of the national security division, and Harmeet Dhillon, the chief of the civil rights division.... Mr. Reding Quiñones presided over an office in deep crisis. The Southern District had more than 200 lawyers when he arrived, but by the fall it fell by about half, after a spate of firings and resignations.... Mr. Reding Quiñones is at least the third U.S. attorney in the Trump administration to step down after being assigned to investigate all or part of the 'grand conspiracy.'” The link is a gift link.
The pinned item from another NYT liveblog: Tim Balk: “Scott Colom, the Democratic Senate nominee in Mississippi, held a slim but growing lead on Friday, as election officials continued to count votes in a race that could expand the Senate majority that Democrats secured in the midterm elections. The latest vote report showed Mr. Colom leading the Republican incumbent, Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, by 2,129 votes, according to The Associated Press.” The link is a gift link. ~~~
~~~ At 9:15 pm ET, Colom's lead had increased to 2,574.
Marie: Luci Baines Johnson always got a bum rap, I thought. She is a lovely person, IMO. Here she is with Texas Governor-Elect Gina Hinojosa, gracious as ever. Thanks to akaWendy for the lead: ~~~
~~~ And, what the heck, here she is with Steve McQueen (and Natalie Wood): ~~~
Jeff Cox of CNBC: “The U.S. economy added jobs at a much stronger-than-expected pace in October, while the unemployment rate moved lower as the labor market showed surprising strength. Nonfarm payrolls increased by a seasonally adjusted 165,000 for the month, compared with the Dow Jones estimate for 59,000, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. The unemployment rate nudged down to 4.1%, compared with the forecast for 4.2%. A more encompassing measure that includes discouraged workers and those holding part-time jobs for economic reasons rose to 7.9%, up 0.3 percentage point, amid an increase of 421,000 in the civilian labor force. In addition to the strong payroll gains for October, prior months were revised up substantially: The August figure moved to 186,000, an upward revision of 53,000, while the September count shifted to 60,000 following an upward revision of 31,000. 'You have to look pretty hard to find something to dislike in there,” Dan North, senior economist at Allianz Trade North America. “It’s a really, really good report, and all around I think you’d say it’s stronger than expected and the best one in a while...,' [said Dan North of Allianz Trade North America].”
Marie: Here's a follow-up to a story I linked earlier Friday: ~~~
~~~ Ben Conarck of the Washington Post: “D.C. officials on Thursday announced their intent to lobby incoming Democratic governors in states that flipped blue to recall their National Guard troops from the District. At a D.C. Council hearing on the surge of federal law enforcement personnel and the presence of the National Guard, council member Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2), chair of the public safety committee, said that congressional leaders have been 'unsympathetic to what we’ve been dealing with and, in some cases, directly hostile.'... Pinto said there are about 630 National Guard members currently deployed in D.C. from five states that elected Democratic governors this week: Georgia, Iowa, Nevada, Ohio and Texas.” Thanks to RAS for the link.
Here's the New York Times obituary for Jay Rockefeller (gift link).
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Marie: I'll be in & out of commission today and probably won't be back in operation till late in the day.
Trump Holds Secret Meeting with Russian Envoy. Anton Troianovski of the New York Times: Donald “Trump said he met with a senior Russian official in Washington on Thursday and promised a Ukraine peace deal that 'might involve all of Europe,' a sign that the president remains involved in talks to end the war even after his party was trounced in the midterm elections. Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that he had met with “the head person of Russia” who was at the White House earlier in the day, an apparent reference to Kirill Dmitriev, an envoy for President Vladimir V. Putin who had come to Washington for an event with Melania Trump. 'I can’t tell you what I discussed,' Mr. Trump told reporters, 'but I’m just telling you, there’s going to be an agreement, it’s going to be a big agreement, and it’s going to involve more than Ukraine.' But even as this fall’s flurry of diplomacy over Ukraine enters its third month, there is little sign that the Trump administration’s efforts are bringing the war closer to an end.” The link is a gift link. There will be grand Trump Tower, Donald. There will be views of Kremlin. There will be gold everywhere. Like here in beautiful Oval Office. ~~~
~~~ Michael Birnbaum & Francesca Ebel of the Washington Post: “Russia and the United States are close to making a 'big, beautiful agreement,' not just about Ukraine but about 'all of Europe,' ... Donald Trump said Thursday, declaring that he met the Kremlin’s top peace negotiator — but not Ukraine’s — at the White House earlier in the day. Trump offered no specifics about what he had discussed with Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev, but his vow was likely to set off alarm in Kyiv and around Europe, since it appeared that the U.S. leader had again excluded Ukrainian representatives from discussions about their own future.” MB: Not only Ukraine but “all of Europe.” What gives the Fat Fascist & his puppetmaster the idea they control Europe and can dictate unfavorable terms to European leaders?
Many people will tell you that being a caretaker for an elderly person is a difficult, challenging jobs. If the elderly person is easily agitated, it may be a good idea to make up special activities to keep him occupied. Here's the distraction one man's caretakers planned for him yesterday: ~~~
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| This is so embarrassing. |
~~~ AP, via US News: “... Donald Trump on Thursday signed a proclamation that he said will prevent future changes to the Oval Office and Cabinet Room as he has redesigned them. 'We’re making it a national monument and it will not be allowed to be touched by anybody,' Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. Trump’s proclamation signing comes two days after voters, dissatisfied with his economic policies, threw dozens of Republicans out of office, delivering control of Congress to Democrats. It’s also the third day this week in which the president, a real estate mogul, delivered remarks fixated on his pet projects in Washington, D.C., including an opulent ballroom and the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Erica Green of the New York Times: “He has transformed the presidential working space to mirror the triumphal style of Louis XIV, a theme that shows up at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida club. The office has been saturated in gold décor, including gilded appliqués that he has himself super-glued onto the walls.” The link is a gift link.
~~~ Marie: I'm sure Trump's minders did not tell him that a real president can sign another proclamation reversing this nonsense. I hope before that happens, some prim-looking little old Republican lady from, say, Nevada, will be escorted into the Oval for some Trumpity ceremony. And right off the bat, in front of everyone (cameras rolling, mics hot), she will exclaim in horror, "Oh Lordy, this place looks like a fucking bordello!" ~~~
~~~ Digby: "This is the man who destroyed the East Wing of the White House and took over the living memorial of our slain president John F. Kennedy, and threatens to tear it down unless he can put his name on it and vomit his gilt atrocities all over it."
Arc de Trump News. Luke Broadwater, et al., of the New York Times: “A federal judge on Thursday night promptly blocked construction of ... [Donald] Trump’s 250-foot triumphal arch near the entrance of Arlington National Cemetery after a Trump-friendly panel approved it. The ruling temporarily stalled progress on one of the president’s favorite projects, which Democrats have threatened to kill when they take control of Congress in January. The federal panel’s decision to go ahead with Mr. Trump’s plan would have allowed construction to begin as soon as Friday morning. But the ruling by Judge Tanya S. Chutkan halted construction for 14 days while legal challenges make their way through the court system. In a 33-page opinion, Judge Chutkan said the arch required congressional approval and that its construction could prove costly to both Virginia and the District of Columbia while disrupting traffic at the Arlington cemetery, one of the region’s most-visited sites. The case before Judge Chutkan combined two lawsuits brought by a group of veterans and another brought jointly by the District of Columbia and the Commonwealth of Virginia.” The link is a gift link. (The story is a substantial update of a report linked yesterday.)
Uh Oh. There Go Those 34 Felonies. Zach Schonfeld of the Hill: “A New York appeals panel questioned on Thursday whether presidential immunity or federal law bars ... [Donald] Trump’s criminal conviction stemming from a hush money payment made during his 2016 campaign to cover up an alleged affair. Trump’s personal lawyers said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s (D) legal theory of the case was preempted by campaign finance law and that his team wrongly showed jurors official acts from Trump’s time in the White House, including his online posts.... In addition to the posts, Trump says jurors shouldn’t have been able to consider his call records while in office, his 2018 government ethics form and testimony from his onetime campaign press secretary, Hope Hicks, about her time working in the White House. Bragg’s office says the trial was sound and none of that evidence was protected. But if the judges disagree, the guilty verdict should still stand because any issues were harmless, his office says. It left several of the judges on Thursday questioning where to draw the line.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: I wish I'd been on Bragg's team, because I could have explained to those dumb judges why none of Trump's actions or remarks in regard to the Stormy Daniels payments were part of his "official duties" and therefore subject to the Roberts Court's Trump-can-do-anything immunity ruling.
Trumpsters Lie About Every Little Thing. Meryl Kornfield of the Washington Post: “Last year, when Starlink, the satellite internet provider operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, appeared at the White House, officials said the company had donated the service. But contracting records reveal that the Trump administration has been spending taxpayers’ dollars since last year to install and service Starlink equipment at the White House. In four contract awards from March 2025 to June this year, the government has agreed to pay nearly $1.2 million to SpaceX for services provided to the White House Communications Agency, a military unit that sets up secure communications for the president, vice president and other officials. White House officials told the New York Times last year that Starlink had 'donated' its service and that the gift had been vetted by the White House Counsel’s Office....
“It is unclear whether the payments cover the same service the company said it was donating, or what exactly SpaceX gave the White House for free. The Starlink internet service was installed at the complex last year despite security concerns from White House communications experts.... Those managing White House communications systems were not warned before representatives from the U.S. DOGE Service showed up on the roof of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in February 2025 to install a terminal.”
Richard Fausset & Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times: “Mr. Trump had started his second term intent on harnessing the power of the federal government to resurface false claims that widespread fraud had tainted his earlier defeat — and to use those claims to assert unprecedented control over the midterms this year. He failed. Voters so thoroughly rejected Republicans on Tuesday ... that it became impossible to blame the outcome on fraud. Since returning to the White House in 2025, the president has resurrected outlandish and disproven theories of machines tainted by Democrats to steal votes and rampant voting by noncitizens. He tried to redirect the Postal Service to restrict mail voting. He seized ballots from 2020 in Georgia. And his administration launched a massive investigation of state voter rolls, suing states to remove suspected noncitizens.... Democrats who opposed Trump’s federal intervention will soon control the top election office in every significant battleground state for 2028, including newly competitive Texas, Ohio, Kansas and Iowa.” The link is a gift link. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Here's the headline on Fausset & Corasaniti's story: "Trump Tried to Undermine the Nation’s Elections. It Didn’t Work." That's quite extraordinary: a matter-of-fact headline in the paper of record stating that the POTUS* had tried & failed to sabotage the core mechanism of a democratic nation and deprive its citizens of the franchise.
Patrick Healy of the New York Times interviews Times reporters Tyler Pager & Erica Green on how their election night phone call went with Donald Trump. Kind of interesting if you're at least mildly interested in news-gathering & interview techniques. The link is a gift link. (Also linked yesterday.)
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: “On the day before the midterm elections that would transform American government, the Supreme Court also did something extraordinary. In the space of about seven hours on Monday, it evaluated and rejected an emergency request from the Trump administration to let it meddle in how ballots were counted in California. The court did so without even asking the other side for a response, something I don’t recall ever happening in connection with an emergency application from the Justice Department. The court’s order, issued Monday evening, was just one sentence long, and no member of the court had anything to say in dissent....
“Trump must have insisted on running to the court, leaving [Solicitor General John] Sauer to figure out how to do that without inflicting permanent damage to his own credibility with the justices[, which he did by using 'distancing' language in his filing].... The court’s quick action — a 'mercy killing,' in legal scholar Rick Hasen’s phrase — ... suggested that the justices had run out of patience with a president to whom they had long granted the benefit of the doubt.” Liptak also speculates that the justices acted quickly to avoid leaving the impression “that something serious was afoot while the nation voted.” The link is a gift link. (Also linked yesterday.)
Joe Rennison of the New York Times: “Stocks had their worst day in nearly two years as investors’ concerns about weaknesses in the A.I. industry re-emerged after Democratic midterm victories raised the prospect of tighter regulation. The S&P 500 fell 4.3 percent on Thursday, marking the most severe drop for the index since April 2025, when ... [Donald] Trump unveiled sweeping global tariffs.The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite dropped 5.5 percent, putting the index into correction, defined as a drop of 10 percent or more from its recent peak. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, a benchmark for the industry, tumbled over 12 percent. That index has fallen over 30 percent since the beginning of October and is almost 40 percent below its peak in June. The moves gathered pace through the day, engulfing all sectors of the S&P 500. The 10-year Treasury note, seen as a haven during periods of market stress, rallied, meaning its yield fell, dropping to 4.83 percent, its lowest since September. While gridlock in Washington has broadly been welcomed by investors, curtailing the likelihood of new rules and laws being imposed on businesses, concerns about an A.I. backlash are compounding fears of runaway spending and rising debt at tech firms. Democratic victories in states with large concentrations of planned data centers, like Ohio and Texas, heightened investors’ concerns that the facilities at the heart of the A.I. build out would face new hurdles.” The link is a gift link. (Also linked yesterday.)
Paul Krugman on how big money in politics can be self-defeating.
We Shall Fight Them on the Beaches, We Shall Fight Them...?? John Ismay & Chris Cameron of the New York Times: “The National Guard is expected to expand its use of military trucks, Humvees and boats for armed patrols in Washington, D.C., escalating a deployment in the nation’s capital that ... [Donald] Trump intends to maintain for the rest of his term. More than 3,000 troops are deployed in the city as part of a show of military force that began last year. The troops largely come from Republican-governed states — some of which just flipped to Democratic control in the midterm elections — in addition to 757 members of the D.C. National Guard. According to the Pentagon, the decision by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to expand the use of vehicles was made on Oct. 29, shortly before the Republican Party suffered a landslide defeat in Tuesday’s election.” The link is a gift link.
Drunk Pete Is All Upset. Greg Jaffe of the New York Times: “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who faces a likely congressional impeachment effort in the coming weeks, released a video message on Thursday defending his tenure and vowing to fight for his job. 'We are more determined than ever — more resolute than ever — to finish what we have started,' Mr. Hegseth said, standing in front of the Pentagon and a sign that read 'Department of War,' his preferred name for the agency.” The link is a gift link. ~~~
~~~ If you're a glutton for punishment, you can watch Hegseth's "message" here on X. ~~~
~~~ BTW, according to NBC News, if Pete were to get away with changing the name of the department from "defense" to "war," analysts have estimated that the cost to taxpayers could come to $2 billion. Physical signage and stationery replacements alone would cost an estimated $1 billion, with the balance attributed to rewriting digital code across secure and unclassified military software networks. ~~~
~~~ Julia Jester, et al., of MS NOW: “The White House later posted a video featuring Hegseth it its 5.3 million followers on X. The coordinated blitz came after U.S. Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Sean Parnell called a meeting at the Pentagon on Wednesday to plan an aggressive defense of Hegseth. [A Pentagon spokesman] said the meeting focused on impeachment, the department’s posture going forward and 'energizing the staff that we’re preparing to fight.'” ~~~
~~~ Natalie Allison of the Washington Post: “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is not under consideration to be appointed as Tennessee’s next senator, even as ... Donald Trump weighs his top war official’s future in the administration. Speculation about Hegseth potentially being tapped for a Senate seat in Tennessee, where he moved several years ago, has intensified in recent months. A looming Senate vacancy is coinciding with Trump’s frustration over a lack of resolution to the conflict with Iran and the expectation that Hegseth will face impeachment proceedings once the newly elected Democratic majority takes control of the House. Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn, who was elected governor of Tennessee on Tuesday, will appoint her successor after she resigns from the Senate in January to be sworn in to her new role.... Blackburn is not considering Hegseth for the role, said a Republican operative in Tennessee with ties to Blackburn.”
How Do You Say "Adios" in Spanish? David Maddox & Andrew Feinberg of the Independent: "Marco Rubio is on resignation watch from both sides of the Atlantic in the expectation he will quit to launch a bid to be the next US president.... Insiders say the US secretary of state and White House national security adviser is preparing for the race to be the Republican nominee in November 2028, with Vice President JD Vance currently his main rival. Even before the disastrous midterm results..., senior party sources in the US and senior figures in the UK government told The Independent that Mr Rubio could quit his senior role in ... Donald Trump’s administration." Thanks to Akhilleus for the lead. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Tyler Pager & Antoly Kurmanaev of the New York Times: “Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday dismissed reports that he was planning to leave the Trump administration and declined to answer questions about his political future.” The link is a gift link. MB: Even in those Trumpity Florsheims, even without his Cuban high heels, Marco is tall enough to tell tall tales. ~~~
Glenn Thrush of the New York Times: “Harmeet Dhillon, the chief of the Justice Department’s civil rights division, resigned on Thursday after conflicts with department leaders, including disagreements over legal strategy in the midterm elections, two people familiar with the situation said. Ms. Dhillon, whose tenure was defined by a successful pressure campaign against universities and unsuccessful efforts to obtain voting data from states, had been telling friends for weeks that she planned to step down to return to her law firm, the people said. In less than two years on the job, Ms. Dhillon repurposed a unit created to address Jim Crow injustices into a battering ram against the left, setting aside its longtime mission of fighting discrimination against Black people to battle campus antisemitism and diversity initiatives.... [Donald] Trump and other White House officials recently expressed annoyance over a recent appearance Ms. Dhillon made on '60 Minutes.' In the interview, she downplayed the prevalence of voting by undocumented immigrants — a central driver of the department’s aggressive legal strategy in the weeks leading up to the election.” The link is a gift link. (Also linked yesterday.)
Jodi Kantor & Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: “The Justice Department is pursuing a criminal investigation into who leaked the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning the right to abortion, examining the inner workings of an institution that has long operated in secrecy and resisted oversight from the other branches of government. At issue is who provided the draft decision to Politico two months before it was formally released by the court, a seismic breach of confidentiality that led to intense partisan accusations about the motivations of the leaker. Despite an internal inquiry by the court, no leaker has ever been publicly identified. An F.B.I. official said last year that the Justice Department was exploring the issue. But prosecutors are now pursuing a criminal case, which has not previously been reported. The investigation has ramped up in recent weeks as prosecutors have sent grand jury subpoenas for testimony and sought information from people who worked at the court at the time of the leaks, according to people familiar with the inquiry.” The link is a gift link. (Also linked yesterday.)
Salvador Rizzo of the Washington Post: “A former FBI counterintelligence agent admitted Thursday to stealing more than $2.4 million in cryptocurrency from adversarial nations, victims of financial crimes and others as he made plans for a new life in Portugal. The former agent, Patrick Yaroch, was a supervisor in the FBI’s counterintelligence and espionage division until his arrest this summer. He pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money-laundering in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, and faces a maximum prison term of 20 years at his sentencing, set for March. Federal prosecutors said Yaroch routinely rifled through classified records for cases he was not assigned to, obtaining the security credentials he needed to access the crypto accounts of state actors for two adversarial nations, as well as crypto holdings connected to the subjects of 35 separate FBI investigations.”
Santul Nerkar of the New York Times: “An F.B.I. agent who was driving recklessly in his government-issued car struck a pedestrian, dragged him through the snow onto the sidewalk and failed to call for help, federal prosecutors said. The agent, Andrew Reyes, blew through a red light and drove the wrong way on a Brooklyn street on Feb. 3, the prosecutors said. His emergency lights were activated. Driving in his Chevrolet Impala, which was issued by the F.B.I., he struck a man who was crossing Ocean Parkway, leaving him unconscious. Mr. Reyes got out of his vehicle and dragged the man across the street, and then placed him on a bench. Then, Mr. Reyes returned to his car, which still had its emergency lights on, and drove off without calling for any medical assistance, prosecutors said. The man sustained serious injuries, they said. Mr. Reyes, 30, was arrested Thursday morning and charged with violating the man’s constitutional rights and making false statements to investigators.... Mr. Reyes appeared in Brooklyn federal court on Thursday. His lawyer, Nora Hirozawa, entered a plea of not guilty on his behalf. She said Mr. Reyes had left the F.B.I. and has been working at a home remodeling business.” The link is a gift link.
It isn't often that a journal dedicated to science will comment on a U.S. midterm election. But as RAS pointed out yesterday, in what looks like a straight-up news story, Nature -- "a British weekly international scientific journal publishing peer-reviewed research across the natural sciences, including biology, physics, chemistry, the earth sciences, and related interdisciplinary fields" -- published such an article yesterday. (Firewalled, but you can read enough of it to catch their drift.) (Also linked yesterday.)
Lena Sun of the Washington Post: “An infant has died of measles amid a growing outbreak in southwestern Wisconsin, state health officials announced Thursday, the state’s first measles death in more than three decades. The Wisconsin Department of Health Services said the local coroner listed measles as the immediate cause of death. Officials did not release the infant’s age, vaccination status or other details, citing the family’s privacy. The death comes as Wisconsin experiences its largest measles surge in more than 35 years and as outbreaks continue in several parts of the country.”
The Pope Flies Commercial. Motoko Rich of the New York Times: “The Vatican, unlike the United States government, owns no dedicated planes and has no equivalent to Air Force One. Instead, the pope always flies commercial — in business class on charter flights operated by regular airlines. For more than six decades, ITA Airways — and its predecessor, Alitalia — has been the preferred airline for the first leg of the pope’s foreign journeys, and sometimes more.... Joerg Eberhart, ITA’s chief executive, said the role was not guaranteed. The airline regularly competes in Vatican tenders for the main papal flights, he said, and the airline loses money operating them. These are no ordinary flights. For starters, they are almost always perfectly on time, unlike over half of ITA’s other flights last year.” The link is a gift link. (Also linked yesterday.)
Bob Dylan meets Pope Leo. Bob looks ridiculous -- like his idea of an evil monk maybe. The link is a gift link to a NYT story. (Also linked yesterday.)
Katie Robertson of the New York Times: “Salon, the left-leaning news and opinion website that was early to online publishing, said on Thursday that it would shut down after more than 30 years. In an unsigned announcement posted on its website, Salon said that the 'business realities of independent digital journalism' had changed profoundly and that 'our publishing model is no longer sustainable.'... Salon was started in 1995 by the journalist David Talbot as a digital magazine covering books, culture and ideas at a time before blogging and online news had taken off. It was financially backed by Apple, Adobe and the now-defunct bookstore chain Borders. Over the years, it became known for its politically progressive views and expanded to cover politics and tech. It employed a number of well-known journalists, including Glenn Greenwald, Joan Walsh and Michelle Goldberg. Steve Kornacki, the beloved data nerd at NBC News, was at one point Salon’s politics editor, while CNN’s Jake Tapper also worked for the site as a Washington correspondent early in his career.” The link is a gift link. ~~~
~~~ Here's Salon's parting message. Salon's front page is still full of links to stories & articles. ~~~
~~~ Digby mourns the loss of Salon, her employer for almost 13 years.
Louis Estrada of the Washington Post: “John D. 'Jay' Rockefeller IV, an heir to a vast oil fortune and a liberal Democrat who entered politics in his adopted home state of West Virginia, serving as governor and a five-term U.S. senator and becoming a leading voice on health care, tax reform, social welfare and national security, died Friday at his home in Washington, D.C. He was 89.... Mr. Rockefeller was a great-grandson of billionaire industrialist John D. Rockefeller Sr., whose Standard Oil Trust monopolized the oil industry in the early 20th century and made him one of the world’s richest people.”
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Marie: Former Rep. Max Rose (D-NY) said on MS NOW last night that one thing that explains some of the GOP losses is that many GOP members of Congress have spent their entire Congressional careers in "safe" Republican seats and they had forgotten -- or never knew -- how to run a campaign, and they didn't really even try this time around. To me that means that in 2028, Republicans will try to recruit and sponsor some "hungrier" candidates who might really challenge Democratic members.
Alaska. Christine Zhang & Luke Vrotsos of the New York Times: “Senator Dan S. Sullivan is unlikely to make significant gains if the Alaska Senate race advances to ranked-choice tabulation, according to a New York Times analysis of the available ranked-choice data in the state. This holds true despite the fact that the reallocated ballots will come from voters who backed two candidates who ran as Republicans — including one also named Dan Sullivan. The findings suggest that Mary Peltola, the Democratic nominee, is on track to eventually prevail in the Alaska Senate race. Ms. Peltola currently leads by less than one percentage point, but she is expected to build a more substantial lead once about 60,000 more votes, mostly cast by mail, are counted in the days ahead. If Ms. Peltola doesn’t win the 50 percent needed to win outright and the race advances to ranked-choice tabulation on Nov. 18, the analysis suggests that Mr. Sullivan might not even claw back half of a point in ranked-choice tabulation, which would not be enough to overcome Ms. Peltola’s expected advantage.” The link is a gift link. ~~~
~~~ So Right on Cue.... Matthew Choi of the Washington Post: “... Donald Trump on Thursday morning demanded that the senator be declared the winner. 'The vote totals for the Fake Dan Sullivan, plus the other ‘slug’ that the Dems put on the Ballot, should be immediately given to the REAL Dan Sullivan, and the Election is over - He easily wins. There is no other fair solution!' Trump posted on Truth Social. Alaska law doesn’t allow that: When a candidate is eliminated, each ballot moves only to the next candidate that voter ranked....” MB: This is much the way Trump began his assault on democracy in November 2020: by demanding in the early morning hours of the day after the election that all vote counts be stopped and he be declared the winner of the presidential election.
California. Laurel Rosenhall of the New York Times: “Gov. Gavin Newsom of California moved to spare the lives of all 548 prisoners on the state’s death row on Thursday in the largest mass commutation of death sentences in modern American history. Mr. Newsom said he made the decision because he finds capital punishment morally objectionable. He reduced every death sentence to life in prison without parole, a sweeping move that will require a review by the state’s highest court in some cases and could draw legal challenges. 'State-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California’s values, undermines the foundations of our legal system and diminishes each of us,' Mr. Newsom wrote in an open letter to California residents. 'I know we cannot execute people in our imperfect legal system and remain true to our core values, first among them justice and human decency.'” The link is a gift link. (Also linked yesterday.) An ABC News report is here.
California. Shawn Hubler, et al., of the New York Times: “Nithya Raman, a 45-year-old democratic socialist who tapped into a widespread frustration with the quality of life in the nation’s second-largest city, will become the new mayor of Los Angeles, The Associated Press reported Thursday. Her victory over Karen Bass, the 73-year-old incumbent, is a sweeping success for a new generation of progressive leaders and the arrival of younger Angelenos as a political force in the sprawling metropolis. A Harvard-educated policy expert who served six years on the City Council, Ms. Raman turned the page on a liberal bastion whose leaders had been consumed with big-picture battles with the Trump administration. Instead, she zoomed in on the nuts-and-bolts distress of young voters who increasingly found themselves priced out of the famously expensive city. Polls consistently showed her ahead by a wide margin with voters under 35. The vote also revealed a broad appetite for change among the four million residents of the city — an echo of calls for a fresh perspective that on Tuesday night propelled a Democratic wave from Maine to California. In Los Angeles, which is already deep blue, it also suggested a widespread openness to the Democratic Socialists of America, the leftist movement that helped elect New York’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani.” The link is a gift link.
Georgia Senate Race. In an opinion column, Peter Beinart of the New York Times shows how Sen. Jon Ossoff (D) has “showed voters how democracy and economic distress are intertwined. On the campaign trail, he argued that 'corruption is why nothing works for ordinary people....' ... He showed that the president wasn’t just transgressing abstract norms of good governance. He was helping the rich and powerful rip Americans off.” MB: This should be obvious, but you do have to bang people over the head with it. Again and again. You will recall when, during a 2016 debate, Hillary Clinton remarked that Donald Trump hadn't paid any federal taxes for several years. Trump replied, “That makes me smart.” Millions of his voters bought it; they thought he was clever, they thought he knew how to play the angles. They thought he was a “smart businessman.” They were too damned stupid to realize that they were paying taxes out of their measly wages because Trump didn't pay taxes on his millions of income.
Maine Senate Race. AND Susan Collins' Days of Concern(™) Soon Will Be Over. Carl Hulse of the New York Times: “... Ms. Collins was brought down by a combination of factors, most of which were attributable to ... [Donald] Trump and the war with Iran. There were soaring fuel prices in a state reliant on home heating oil. The punishing tariffs the president imposed on neighboring Canada. An immigration crackdown that resulted in a fatal shooting by federal agents in one Maine community. And always the perception that she wasn’t doing enough to stand up to the president, even when she was one of the few Republicans to occasionally break with him. 'Everybody ignores the fact that I voted to convict him in the second impeachment trial,' Ms. Collins said. 'What bigger break could there be? It is never enough. I want results and they want angry rhetoric.' On top of dissatisfaction that she hadn’t distanced herself sufficiently from the president, some voters harbored resentment about her vote in 2018 to confirm Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, given his later role in overturning Roe v. Wade.” The link is a gift link (Also linked yesterday.)
Michigan House Primary Race. Reprise of Republican Racism. Digby on a Michigan primary race and Republicans' "off-the-charts" Muslim-bashing in general. Watch the video. MB BTW: Democrat Kristen Rivet won the general election.
Mississippi Senate Race. Oh, the Ironies! Ashton Pittman of the Mississippi Free Press: "Mississippi Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Scott Colom has flipped Forrest County, a once reliably Republican County named for Ku Klux Klan founder Nathan Bedford Forrest. With 97% of votes counted in Forrest County, Colom led Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith by 54%-44% as of Thursday, Nov. 5. That represents a 29-point swing toward Democrats in a county that Donald Trump carried in 2024 by a 58%-40% margin. Colom, who currently has a narrow lead among votes counted, would be the first Black U.S. senator from Mississippi since 1881 during the Reconstruction era."
Texas Senate Race. It was over before Election Day. Many thanks to RAS for the link: ~~~
The primary to take on Cruz is gonna be brutal.
— Dirk Lester 🇺🇸 🇬🇧 🇫🇷 ✌🏾 (@dirk2112.bsky.social) November 5, 2026 at 2:01 AM
[image or embed]
~~~ Wait, Wait! There's More! Praveena Somasundaram of the Washington Post: “Even if no ballots were cast for them on Election Day, Democrats Jon Ossoff in Georgia, James Talarico in Texas and Roy Cooper in North Carolina would have won their Senate races. The early votes alone cast for all three Democrats totaled more than the votes their Republican opponents had received after polls closed Tuesday, according to state elections data.”
40 comments:
Re the arc d'tr*mp: current court actions reveal no fund sources or project-generated cost estimates. It is illegal for any USG contracting officer or real property manager to obligate funds that are not appropriated. Any contractor beginning work would be liable for all costs, without recourse to mechanics liens. If there
are pledged donations of which the contractor(s) is aware which allow. it to cover its fiduciary liability, those pledges need to be declared to the court now.
Follow the money.
Marie wrote: "What gives the Fat Fascist & his puppetmaster the idea they control Europe and can dictate unfavorable terms to European leaders? "
My thoughts exactly. More megalomania from a fat, treasonous dotard and his Russian handler. And once again, as with the self-dealing meetings between Jarhead, Witless, and Putin we have some kind of supposed "peace plan" in the works with zero input from Ukraine. Fatty simply believes he can do whatever he likes and Ukraine will have to take it. After the drubbing the Fat Fascist received the other day, I'm guessing Eurpean heads of state will tell him whatever he decides with the war criminal and thug, Vladimir Putin, will not be binding on any of them no matter how many Louis XIV gewgaws he hs shoved up his fat ass. The Orange Ogre is simply indulging in the fantasy that he is still some kind of god whose every unintelligible word salad must needs be obeyed without complaint.
"Anatomy Of A Fox Meltdown"
Published by Tom Sullivan
Judd Legum and Rebecca Crosby
"How to investigate Jared Kushner
The president’s son-in-law has painted himself into a corner."
Patrick,
I sincerely hope your point is taken into consideration by Judge Chutkan along with the merits of the many legal complaints against this planned monstrosity. The problem is that this "administration" is a criminal organization, a not very adept one but plenty thuggish, and one which abides few laws or even court orders. I'm guessing Fatty will have the bulldozers out in force and start construction without waiting for the courts. He's done it before. And this time, there's a time constraint at work. Once Democrats take over and grab control of the budget, he should have a much harder time of it. But even if he has illegally begun construction of his arch-hole, my hope is that Congress will order work stopped and anything put up be taken down. Same with his shitty bordello-ballroom.
How you like them apples, KKKers?
"Mississippi Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Scott Colom has flipped Forrest County, a once reliably Republican County named for Ku Klux Klan founder Nathan Bedford Forrest.
With 97% of votes counted in Forrest County, Colom led Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith by 54%-44% as of Thursday, Nov. 5. That represents a 29-point swing toward Democrats in a county that Donald Trump carried in 2024 by a 58%-40% margin.
Colom, who currently has a narrow lead among votes counted, would be the first Black U.S. senator from Mississippi since 1881 during the Reconstruction era.
Nathan Bedford Forrest, a slave trader and Confederate general from Tennessee, served as the first grand wizard of the KKK during the Reconstruction era."
Oh, the humanity!
Lame Duck (not real) Wall of Presidents
Bad at Presidenting
People from around the world celebrating
Next Time
Nevermind the Law
"A landmark voting rights protection that ensures the right of every American to cast their vote without fear of intimidation does not apply to federal law enforcement, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a dangerous new argument.
If accepted by a court, DOJ’s dangerous interpretation could give the administration — or a future one — free rein to harass and intimidate voters it wants to keep from the polls."
New Colors
sportsball side note: Carolina and Jayhawk blues, and probably some others, were just sitting right there for the offering.
National Guard
"D.C. officials announced their intent to lobby incoming Democratic governors in states that flipped blue to recall their National Guard troops from the District.
A councilmember said that after midterms, “a tsunami of change is coming to our city.”"
Politico
“.. After Tuesday’s victories, Democrats hold the governor’s seats in all 10 presidential battleground states.”
This could be huge for protecting the next elections.
RAS,
The schadenfreude, she is good, no?
That Fox meltdown clip wasn't bad, but I would love to have seen their faces when the results started pouring in. One kvetch though, if you're gonna make a classical allusion, please to be getting it right. That Charles Payne guy (I had to look him up, I don't watch Fox--brain cells start heading for the lifeboats when Treason TV comes on) talking about how it was all about "diesel" quipped that "diesel was the sword of DOMocles hanging over everything". Sorry, Chuck. It's DAMocles. Get it right.
Okay, a minor kvetch, but if one were to extend this allusion a tiny bit it would seem even funnier. Damocles, so the story goes, was an excessive ass kisser to Dionysius I. His sycophantic drooling got to be so much for Dionysius that he had Damocles seated under a sword hanging by a horsehair to remind him that the life of a ruler is difficult and they cannot indulge in silly ass kissing. The entirety of the Fox ideology is ass kissing, but Fatty would never think of reminding them of the dangers of supercilious sycophancy. So much for classical allusions.
Oh yeah, and here again, we see Fatty Apologists (like those morons on Fox) trying to make it all about the economy. And yes, it was that for many voters, but there's also the self-dealing, the lies, the corruption, the stupidity, the incompetence, the war....lots of things entered into it beside the price of gas and diesel. But you'll never hear the Fox sycophants mention corruption, unless it's about a Democrat. They're still trying to make Hunter Biden's laptop the moral equivalence of the tsunami of amoral atrocities perpetrated by Fat Hitler and his thugs.
Akhilleus,
I'm sure he meant DEMocles and was attempting a pun because he is so educated, lol. Most of their references are only from hearing other people use them and I'm sure rarely have actual knowledge of the original reference. Seeing their brains explode as they register information like from Alex Ip about how the youths voted in the South would be a fun watch.
"Some more bonkers stats here: white voters in the South aged 18-29 are now essentially voting like northern Democrats.
('24-->'26 swing in parentheses):"
Or this kind of information, "Trump rallies were actually associated with Democratic Senate candidate gains in the county he visited." +5 Democratic swing on average in the Senate race.
@RAS: That would be a wonderful photo of Richards & Hinojosa -- if it were real. According to Art Intel,
"The Timeline Does Not Match: Gina Hinojosa was born in December 1973. By the year 2000, she was about 26 years old and had already graduated from the University of Texas at Austin and law school. The child in the viral photo appears to be roughly 10 to 12 years old.
"The Clue in the Photo: The young girl in the picture is holding the children’s novel Because of Winn-Dixie, which was not published until March 2000. By that time, Hinojosa was an adult, and Ann Richards passed away in 2006.
"The Real Origin: The authentic photograph actually shows former Texas Governor Ann Richards visiting a public library or elementary school in the 1990s, sitting next to a different young student."
@Marie: I did actually do a quick Google search before, Google sucks, and the top few results didn't saying anything was wrong initially. I see Ali Velshi also got fooled too, but my search just now is showing the same information you point out. So frustrating.
ProPublica
"Missouri Voters Just Made It Much Harder for Lawmakers to Overturn Citizen-Led Initiatives
For years, Missouri Republicans worked to undo or restrict voter-approved laws and amendments. In passing Amendment 6, voters have not only protected the ballot initiative process but also dramatically strengthened their power over the legislature."
If Google is not to be trusted, maybe it's threats to withhold its search capabilities from schools that won't let its students use Google's AI ain't all bad.
A few quick finds on Threads:
I'll have a blue Texas without you (Abbott and Paxton)!
Luci Baines Johnson presents Gina Hinojosa a very special pen for signing legislation to do wonderful things
Robert Reich calls it the best victory speech and provides a transcript James Talarico's Victory Speech
JB Pritzker's mid term investments paid off for a
https://www.threads.com/@rbreich/post/DfZ7wPtIaGS?xmt=AQG0A30I0Gp7HbQ4MP3oIlgekEk61ieFf49QWJvLjAl33sBZ88fFV_2QXA1dujZWu-Z1JAhy&slof=1">good return on investment
Sarah Fitzpatrick, for The Atlantic on The Epstein Election and the End of MAGA
"For Republicans, the impact of the “Epstein issue” in the 2026 midterms is a source of frustration and embarrassment—and was often described to me as an unforced error, especially given how the subject had first entered the political consciousness. Epstein immediately became fodder for conspiracy theorists after his death in a New York prison in 2019. "
"Trump Replaces Susie Wiles With Voldemort"
RAS,
In a way, I think Voldemort (a perfect cognomen for this evil creature) has always been the Chief of Shit for the Fat Fascist. Susie Wiles's job was more that of a traffic cop (she pretty much described her role this way) making sure things happened on time and without too much chaos (a neat trick in this Blight House). Voldemort has been the Grima Wormtongue (to make another literary allusion) to the Orange Ogre, the Fat Hitler Whisperer, if you will.
But the ascension of Voldemort Wormtongue augurs more than just a change in the power structure in the Palace of Vermin. Fatty is circling the wagons. Wiles was a professional political operative, never a true believer. She doesn't wear the mantle of inhuman hatred and MAGA mendacity brandished by Voldemort. The old dotard needs true believers more than ever now. He CAN'T be held responsible for anything, it's time to double and triple down on his worst instincts, and who better than the morally bereft, intellectually corrupt snake, Stephen Miller.
As for Fatty's risible "promise" to work with Democrats, that one just went right down the shitter. With Voldemort in charge, any scintilla, any molecular level hint of cooperation will be deemed reprehensible and hateful to MAGA ideology. But in a way, this frees Democrats from the demands that they be nice to Fatty and the MAGA horde and all sing Kumbaya and get along, let bygones be bygones. Forget about tea and crumpets with Jared or any other fucking denizen of the Palace of Vermin. Moderate Democrats who want to play nice can just fuck off now. They'll be playing with themselves, not something fit for public view, btw. Time for the long knives.
Never knew about Luci Watusi. Never saw or even heard about that dance party with Steve McQueen and Natalie Woods. Pretty cool. And not a bad dancer. And such a nice meeting with Governor Elect Hinojosa who seems genuinely pleased to meet with LBJ. I was impressed as well with Luci's statement that no job is too small if the cause is just. Can you imagine Melanie agreeing to stuff envelopes? She'd have that uppity person arrested and deported.
Two Miller thoughts:
Who else would take the job? Only someone who has always wanted to preside over the nation's demolition, and Miller is the perfect person to fill that role. He's been working toward that end since he arrived on the scene and it's clear that he's succeeded to the extent that he has by encouraging the Pretender's worst impulses, which we have reason to know are many.
After the midterm blowout, it will only get worse.
We're dealing with a president who wanted to own the country and since he can't have it, he'll happily wreck as much of it as he can before he leaves the scene. The greed and spite were always evident. The Pretender hated the liberals, the immigrants, the smarties, everyone who didn't bow to his wonderfulness. Now that the country has overwhelmingly rejected him, he hates it all.
Who better to have work by his side as he tries to destroy all that he has not already wrecked than the country's hater-in-chief? They make quite a team.
Wonder if Netanyahu has any buyer's remorse after Tuesday's election results?
How different both Israel's and our politics would be now if he and the Pretender hadn't launched that looney Iran war.
A word from ....Peggy Noonan?
Yeah, that Peggy Noonan, Our lady of the magic dolphins, as Charlie Pierce used to call her. But Pegs has an interesting take on the collapse of Trumpomania. Yeah, it's the corruption and the war and the economy, but it's also the complete tone deafness of the insider MAGA crowd.
[Voters will] accept a normal amount if the government keeps a strong economy and peace. But fail on the economy and peace and they’ll see your corruption and be angered by it. And if you give them corruption that is showy and shameless, they will punish you. They will admit to themselves that you are unusually sleazy and moneygrubbing—Bitcoin! Crypto! Charges of pardons for sale! Federal contracts for the companies of the sons! PLS WIRE AMEX 100K SOONEST!—and they will turn on you.
In this regard most of all, this White House drove the Republican brand into the ground.
In election coverage on the Free Press, Meghan McCain noted that when you see Mar-a-Lago in the media, it’s always like they’re having nonstop parties out of 'The Great Gatsby.' All the reveling, it’s fancy and rich and careless, and in a time, outside the club, of want and anxiety.
It’s all stilettos and tuxes and gowns and pricey surgery and shiny tuxedo loafers in there, and in the White House. On Halloween night, three days before the epochal election, the festivities were huge and jungle-themed. Yahoo News called it 'a camp, spandex-and-glitter-filled affair' with a caviar bar. Some guests dressed 'in elaborate or barely-there costumes.' The Washington Post pool report had people dressed as leopards and snakes and in 'tiger-print dinner jackets.'"
So, let them eat cake, on steroids. It's also contempt for the little people, ie, anyone who isn't on the inside grifting, grafting, stealing, laughing, snorting coke, taking bribes, having wedding parties paid for by Russian gangsters, grabbing whatever isn't nailed down, dropping bombs and blaming everyone else when the shit flies.
Noonan is old school Republican, Reagan vintage, which doesn't put her on the road to sainthood, but at least she has perspective that has been outlawed by all the other Rs who jumped aboard the treason train and kissed the flabby orange ass every chance they got.
Ken,
Your observation that Fat Hitler will destroy whatever he can if he can't own it all and have everyone worship and love him as he feels he deserves is right on the money. I mean, isn't that what he's already been doing? And on that note, my sense is that anyone on the PoT side who is thinking of running for president--Little Marco, Shady Vance, Kegsbreath?, TuKKKer KKKarlson?, anyone--better watch out. Fatty will not be your friend. He will not brook any Party of Traitors wannabe coming after him. He will kneecap anyone who tries it. As far as he is concerned, no one with an R after their name will supplant him. That's not to say he won't go after any Democrat, but if any of the above named think Fatty will come to the aid of the party and stump for them, they haven't been paying attention. Chaos is his meat and potatoes, with alongside megalomaniacal narcissism. He ain't gonna help anyone who tries to "do it better" than he did it.
Jonathan Chait, for The Atlantic, on T****'s selection of Count Dracula's More Sadistic Brother Doubling Down With Miller
"Introspection has never been one of Donald Trump’s more notable attributes. He never accepts blame or course-corrects; he only becomes a more distilled version of himself.
And so, faced with rejection at the ballot box on an overwhelming scale, the president responded by replacing his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, with Stephen Miller.
Technically speaking, Miller had been Wiles’s second in command, as deputy chief of staff. In reality, Miller was already the administration’s most powerful figure, arguably including Trump himself. Steve Bannon, a former Trump adviser and a Miller ally who was briefly cast as the power behind the throne during Trump’s first term, described Miller earlier this year as Trump’s “prime minister.” In a parliamentary system, the president or monarch is merely the symbolic head of state, whereas the prime minister is the head of government."
I'm hearing now that Fatty is blaming Susie Wiles for his catastrophic loss in the midterms.
This is like Captain Ahab blaming the Pequod's bos'n for going after Moby Dick. Funny, I don't remember seeing Susie at all those rallies talking ragtime and acting stupid, and I'm pretty sure Wiles was not the idiot who personally backed loser shitheads like Mike Rogers and Ken Paxton.
Wendy,
That's a nice distinction, the difference between the head of state (in this case often, largely symbolic--and stoopid) and the PM who machines the parts that turn the wheels of state. Fatty might say "Let's go this way" but only after getting input and direction from Miller. It's Miller who decides who the machine chews up and spits out.
Oops...I'm in the same boat as Patrick....that was me, not Anonymous on that last post.
Digby with "Dan Froomkin makes a good point in this critique of the news media’s analysis. It’s something I wondered about too. There has been almost no mention of the pro-democracy movement:"
Here is the apparent list of potential replacements
"Trump has floated several people who could replace Wiles as chief of staff: The senior elected Republican official said the president had mentioned Stephen Miller, his deputy chief of staff, and Randy Levine, the president of the New York Yankees, as an outside-the-building option.
Trump is also considering Steve Witkoff, Bill Pulte and Kevin McCarthy, people close to the president told us. Allies of McCarthy, the former House speaker, have been arguing that he could help Trump handle a hostile Democratic Congress."
Only the best.
Hang on....My Kevin, aka 15 Ballot McCarthy, sez he can handle a hostile Democratic Congress????
This loser couldn't even handle flibbertigibbet Republicans of his own party, aka Party of Traitors jackboots. It took 15 ballots to shove him into the Squeaker's chair and a few months later those same jackboots ousted his useless, sycophantic ass.
Not a good enough resume even for a Starbucks Chief of Coffee Grinders (nerdy high school baristas would kick his butt), never mind COS at the Blight House. But okay, nice try Kev.
Loser.
Marie reminds us that MAGA voters who rushed to embrace Fat Hitler as their Dear Leader thought "...he was clever, they thought he knew how to play the angles" when they heard his response to Hillary Clinton's true charge that he never pays income tax.
Playing the angles is not what a president is supposed to do, maybe when donning his or her political strategy cap, but not when it comes to screwing average Americans so he can line his pockets.
This brings us back to Trump's primary ability: gulling the rubes. He is a skilled scam artist and liar, smart enough to get not very bright people to buy his schtick, but not smart enough or skilled enough to deliver on his promises. But he has never cared about delivering. As long as he gets his marks to buy his perfidious palaver, his job is done. Pockets picked, marks scammed, perfect. Job done.
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