THE MAGA FREAKOUT OVER THE ELECTIONS

Here we are, two days after the MAGAts got their collective ass handed to them everywhere - even in Mississippi! - and they’re having trouble dealing with the fact they really are the shitheaded morons everyone says they are. As Greg Sargent notes: “The Democratic Party’s blowout wins on Tuesday night underscore a fundamental reality about the Donald Trump era: Anti-Trump politics is affordability politics, and affordability politics is anti-Trump politics.” We have 363 days to maintain this momentum and fling them all out the third story window of politics next Noember 3.

JD Vance’s half-brother, Cory Bowman, lost his bid for Cincinnati mayor on Tuesday, the Associated Press reported. Bowman, a Republican, had been trying to unseat 42-year-old Democrat Aftab Pureval, who was first elected in 2021. Early results in the heavily Democratic city showed Bowman with just 18 percent of the vote, with 22 percent of ballots counted. Bowman’s bid was always a long shot. The last time a Republican was even on the mayoral ballot in Cincinnati was 2009. The city’s most recent GOP mayor was in 1971—when the role was filled by rotating city councilors rather than candidates who were elected by the public to the job.In the final week of his campaign, Bowman faced an allegation of voting fraud. According to Ohio newsletter The Rooster, two addresses affiliated with Bowman aren’t in Cincinnati’s “West End,” which is where said he moved to “right after the primary” in May. Bowman didn’t respond to those claims at the time.

Trump fired off a list of demands to Republicans after they were hit with a clean sweep of election defeats on Tuesday night. “TRUMP WASN’T ON THE BALLOT, AND SHUTDOWN, WERE THE TWO REASONS THAT REPUBLICANS LOST ELECTIONS TONIGHT,” according to Pollsters,” he first wrote on Truth Social following the news that New York, New Jersey, and Virginia had elected Democrats. He then posted: “REPUBLICANS, TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER! GET BACK TO PASSING LEGISLATION AND VOTER REFORM! President DJT”, then: “Pass Voter Reform, Voter ID, No Mail-In Ballots. Save our Supreme Court from “Packing,” No Two State addition, etc. TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER!!!” He can huff, and he can puff, but no Republican Senate is ever going to do that. Senate Majority Leader John Thune shut down the president’s increasingly desperate demand after GOP senators had breakfast with Trump Wednesday. Thune said Trump did not have enough support. “I know where math is on this issue in the Senate. It’s just not happening,” he told reporters. According to attendees who were there for Trump’s filibuster-busting pitch, the room was “eerily silent” and “uncomfortable’ as the president put the pressure on them.

In the wake of the GOP’s beatings in Virginia, New Jersey, California, and New York City, MAGA has descended into a blamefest, arguing over whether Republicans had failed to mobilize enough voters or if internal fighting and other strategic missteps were to blame. As the results came through on Tuesday, MAGA acolytes were livid - some angry at the party itself, and others with voters. “I told you the GOP would get hammered today. The GOP lost every major election and now multiple Islamic jihadists are in power,” said right-wing provocateur Laura Loomer, in an apparent reference to Mamdani’s religious background. Benny Johnson also lamented the New York result, writing on X: “They actually did it. They elected a communist. New York is screwed.” Conservative commentator Erik Erikson had an ominous warning for the GOP: “Lame duck status is going to come even faster now. Trump cannot turn out the vote unless he is on the ballot, and that is never happening again.” “Trump spent all year on the Middle East, his big donors loved this, the voters did not. Virginia is going to be under a Democrat super majority now,” right-wing personality Mike Cernovich wrote on X Tuesday evening, before attacking Fox News host Mark Levin. “Keep listening to Mark Levin, Mr President, and you’ll be back to impeachment trials in 2026.” The MAGA X account End Wokeness, which has been linked to Posobiec, reposted an X post the account posted in April: “The harsh reality is that without Trump on the ballot, the GOP is toast. Our coalition doesn’t show up to vote.”

Republicans in California on Wednesday filed a federal lawsuit challenging a high-stakes redistricting measure that could help flip up to five congressional seats for Democrats. The suit, filed by David Tangipa, a Republican assembly member, 18 California voters and the state Republican party in the US district court for the central district of California, argues that the new maps are unconstitutional because they were drawn to increase the voting power of a particular racial group. Mike Columbo, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said that California Democrats drew the maps to increase the power of Latino voters. “There is no majority race in California more than Hispanics,” Columbo said at a press conference on Wednesday morning. “Hispanics have had fantastic success in electing candidates of their choice. Accordingly, California cannot meet this exception.” “We haven’t reviewed the lawsuit, but if it’s from the California Republican Party and Harmeet Dhillon’s law firm, it’s going to fail,” Newsom’s office responded on X. The Dhillon firm also represented California Republicans earlier this year in their unsuccessful attempt to prevent the special election from taking place. An analysis by the Public Policy Institute of California found the new congressional boundaries created by Proposition 50 leaves racial representation nearly unchanged, maintaining the same number of majority-Latino districts as the maps drawn by the state’s independent Citizens Redistricting Commission.

Photo KarenRN

On to the continuing Trump fakakte:

Failed junior officer Pistol Pete Kegstand announced that two more people were killed in the sixteenth act of international piracy by the U.S. during an attack on an alleged drug-smuggling boat in the eastern Pacific. The death toll from the U.S. campaign of international lawlessness off the coasts of Central and South America now stands at 67.

The White House is working on an executive order on elections, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday. “The White House is working on an executive order to strengthen our elections in this country and to ensure that there cannot be blatant fraud, as we’ve seen in California with their universal mail-in voting system,” Leavitt said. Once again: The. Federal. Government. Has. No. Role. In. Organizing. Elections. These. Are. A. State. Responsibility.

The White House just sent a raft of shutdown talking points to Hill Republicans, as the GOP scrambles to limit the fallout of President Donald Trump’s threats earlier Tuesday to withhold SNAP food aid benefits from low-income families unless Democrats agree to reopen the government. Trump’s threat shocked Republicans and came just a day after Speaker Mike Johnson specifically said Trump “isn’t appealing the decision” from the courts that would force the administration to disburse SNAP assistance amid the shutdown. “We all were like ‘what the fuck is this?’” said one senior Senate GOP aide, granted anonymity to speak candidly, noting the appearance that Trump was defying a court order just hours after his own administration sent out guidance for states to receive partial SNAP food aid benefits following a court order.

In the wake of Mamdani’s victory in New York City, Maladministration II - which had waited on making its assault on the city to see who won the mayoralty - will very likely soon see troops sent there as they have been to Portland, Chicago, Memphis and Los Angeles, on the grounds that New York will be inherently unsafe under a socialist mayor. The threat to slash federal aid programs to the city is proceeding.

Photos released Wednesday by CBS of the 60 Minutes Trump interview show that Trump-minder Bari Weiss was in the room throughout the interview. Now we know the how and why of the way in which all possible punches on O’Donnell’s part were pulled without followup except at the end. And they were discarded in Weiss’ edit of the interview.

This appears to be Good News: In the arguments at SCOTUS yesterday, the Supreme Court cast serious doubts about President Donald Trump’s ability to impose sweeping tariffs and slapped down a series of arguments made by the administration on Wednesday despite Trump calling the case “literally, LIFE OR DEATH for our Country.” During the arguments, the justices, including Trump appointees, appeared deeply skeptical. There were several tense exchanges where they delivered harsh rebukes to U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer’s arguments on behalf of the government. Chief Justice John Roberts, a key vote, was quick to bring up that the ability to impose taxes “has always been a core power of Congress” and said the central questions doctrine, a legal principle that requires Congress to grant federal agencies explicit authority to act, appeared to apply in the case. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee, asked a series of pointed questions about whether there were statutes that bestow tariff authority and appeared unsatisfied with Sauer’s answers. First, she asked him to point to any time in history where “regulate importation” was used to “confer tariff importing authority.” She did not like his answer. Moments later, she said none of the cited cases talked about it as “conferring tariff authority.” Justice Neil Gorsuch, another Trump appointee, also brutally grilled the solicitor general. He wanted to know where the administration would draw the line on the president’s authority in foreign affairs and on Congress’s delegation of the power to act. Gorsuch said he was struggling with the administration’s argument and even warned of a “one-way ratchet toward the gradual but continual accretion of power in the executive branch and away from the people’s elected representatives.” In an unusual turn for the Trump administration, a number of the briefs in support of the challengers included ones from conservatives, libertarian and business groups who oppose the tariffs. Not one of the nine justices said anything at all supportive of Donnie’s illegal tariffs.

Proving what a classy guy he has never been, Trump had this reaction to Nancy Pelosi’s announcment she would not be a candidate for her House seat in 2026: “The retirement of Nancy Pelosi is a great thing for America. She was evil, corrupt, and only focused on bad things for our country,” he told Fox News’ Found Object Peter Doocy. “She was rapidly losing control of her party and it was never coming back. I’m very honored she impeached me twice and failed miserably twice. Nancy Pelosi is a highly overrated politician.” (FACT CHECK: You were in fact successfully impeached twice, you senile old shitbird; it was your spineless Senators who refused twice to convict you.) In counterpoint, Marjorie Taylor Greene praised Pelosi for her “incredible career,” adding that she is “very impressed at her ability to get things done.”

Critics of ICE goons have been proven right again, as the FBI warned that criminals are posing as ICE agents to commit sexual assault, robbery, and kidnappings. The FBI identified five such criminal acts identified in a law enforcement bulletin issued last month, first reported by WIRED, warning that fake ICE agents are using ICE’s heightened profile to target vulnerable communities, making it harder for Americans to trust law enforcement. “The bulletin cites five 2025 incidents involving fake immigration officers and says criminals are using Immigration and Custom Enforcement’s heightened profile to target vulnerable communities, making it harder for Americans to distinguish between lawful officers and imposters while eroding trust in law enforcement. A review of public reporting confirms four of the five cases described in the bulletin. One appears to have gone unreported, suggesting the FBI drew in part on internal law enforcement information. The document was first obtained by the transparency nonprofit Property of the People,” WIRED reported. What was the remedy for this that the FBI presented? That ICE agents identify themselves clearly and cooperate when asked to verify their identity. A few examples: “In Bay County, Florida, the advisory says, a woman ‘unzipped [her] jacket and revealed a shirt that said ICE’ and told her ex-boyfriend’s wife she was there to ‘pick her up,’ before driving her to an apartment complex. The woman later escaped. In Brooklyn, a man told a woman he was an immigration officer and ‘directed [her] to a nearby stairwell,’ where he punched her, tried to rape her, and stole her phone before police caught him. In Raleigh, North Carolina, a man ‘entered [a] motel room and threatened to deport the woman if she did not have sex with him,’ telling her he was a sworn officer. He showed her a business card with a badge, police said.” How these criminal masterminds were differentiated from the real ICE thugs in our cacotopia is beyond me.

Heritage Foundation honcho Kevin Roberts has discovered not everyone in the building is OK with his full-throated defense of Tucker Carlson interviewing Gen-Z failure and rabid Nazi antisemitic fuckwit Nick Fuentes. As reported in the WaPo: “Legal fellow Amy Swearer during the meeting called Roberts’s handling of the controversy ‘a master class in cowardice that ran cover for the most unhinged dregs of the far right’ and described a loss of confidence in his leadership... Asked later in the meeting about his use of the term ‘globalists’ — a common dog whistle for a conspiratorial view of world ‘Jewry’ — Roberts said he didn’t mean to imply criticism of anyone of any particular faith. When Roberts’ speechwriter complained that countering the accusations of antisemitism might mean he would be required to attend a Shabbat dinner and violate his own faith, another Heritage executive shot back, ‘I’m deeply sorry that you could not see that as a generous offer but rather a personal attack on you.’” At least five members of Heritage’s antisemitism task force have resigned in protest. Roberts has been dancing as fast as he can over his fakakte: “On Monday, Roberts reassigned his chief of staff, Ryan Neuhaus, to a lower-ranking role. By Tuesday, Neuhaus was no longer employed by Heritage. On Wednesday, Roberts called him a ‘good man’ who ‘made a mistake,’ and said he was largely responsible for drafting Roberts’s controversial remarks. Two people close to Neuhaus said he views his departure as ‘an attempt to appease Jewish Republicans.’”

NBC reports that U.S. Magistrate Judge William E. Fitzpatrick deplored the government’s “indict first and investigate second” approach during a hearing yesterday in the Comey case. A frustrated Fitzpatrick said the prosecution was not a “traditional case” and that “the procedural posture of this case is highly unusual.” Fitzpatrick largely sided with Comey, ordering prosecutors to turn over by today “all grand jury transcripts and materials from the current prosecution as well as evidence that FBI agents seized during a prior leak investigation in 2019 and 2020.”

Here’s where the economy is at: Layoffs in the U.S skyrocketed in October to their worst monthly level for 22 years; Americans now face job cuts typically seen during recessions. Despite Trump repeatedly touting that the US economy “has never been hotter,” data from outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, shows layoffs soared last month to more than 153,000, marking the worst October for job reductions since 2003. US employers have also announced 1.1 million layoffs so far this year - the biggest number since the global financial crisis. The labor market has shifted from where workers had job security even though their bosses weren’t hiring as much, to one where companies are cutting costs and replacing humans with AI. Andy Challenger said: “Some industries are correcting after the hiring boom of the pandemic, but this comes as AI adoption, softening consumer and corporate spending, and rising costs drive belt-tightening and hiring freezes. Those laid off now are finding it harder to quickly secure new roles, which could further loosen the labor market.”

After that, here’s good news about Tuesday victories that didn’t make national news, though they make real change:

In Bucks County PA, which Trump narrowly won in 2024, Democrat Danny Ceisler was elected county sheriff after the Republican incumbent signed a deal to collaborate with ICE earlier this year. Ceisler, who won with more than 55% of the vote, described the ICE agreement as “the big issue in this race.” He promised to suspend the agreement immediately after taking office and said that restoring trust with immigrants in the county was a top priority.

In Texas’s Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District (CFISD), third largest in the state, progressive candidates won all three open board seats, giving them a 4-3 majority. Since 2023, the board has been controlled by a 6-1 conservative supermajority, which has enacted a range of far-right policies. In the past two years, the board has removed textbook chapters on climate change, vaccines, Covid-19, and diversity; fired over half of librarians, leading to school library closures; restricted school library content; and created elective courses about the Bible. No more.

In Virginia, Democrats flipped 13 seats, increasing their total from 51 to 64, almost a supermajority. They won every single close race, flipping four seats in districts won by Trump and nine in districts won by Harris. They now control 64-36. They are now are almost certain to gerrymander Virginia’s congressional maps before the 2026 election, netting Democrats three or possibly four seats.

Thomas Jefferson gets today’s last word: “A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles.”

Photo KarenRN - Mt Hood with Mt Jefferson next in line

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