Meat The Press, Con't

Donald Trump goes all in on backing the Saudi murder of a US reporter, because oil is more important than anything.

President Donald Trump vowed on Tuesday to remain a “steadfast partner” of Saudi Arabia despite saying that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman may have known about the plan to murder dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi last month.

Defying intense pressure from U.S. lawmakers to impose tougher sanctions on Saudi Arabia, Trump also said he would not cancel military contracts with the kingdom. He said it would be a “foolish” move that would only benefit Russia and China, competitors of the United States in the arms market.

Trump said U.S. intelligence agencies were still studying the evidence around Khashoggi’s killing inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2 and who planned it. Since the murder, Trump has taken varying positions on how to react, including possible sanctions.

But on Tuesday, Trump stressed Saudi Arabia’s weapons purchases and its role in keeping world oil prices low as influencing his decision.

“It’s all about, for me, very simple. It’s America first,” Trump said, adding: “I’m not going to destroy the world economy and I’m not going to destroy the economy for our country by being foolish with Saudi Arabia.”

Speaking at the White House to reporters before departing for Florida, Trump said of the possibility that the Saudi crown prince had a hand in the murder: “Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t” and argued that the CIA had not made a definitive determination.

His comments contradicted the CIA, which believes Khashoggi’s death was ordered directly by the crown prince, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler widely known by his initials MbS.

Trump was accused by Democratic lawmakers of undermining his own intelligence agencies and failing to confront Saudi Arabia over a human rights atrocity.

To recap, holding Saudi Arabia responsible for killing a US resident will never happen, because it might hurt the global economy.  Saudi Arabia apparently is the most powerful economy on Earth and could destroy America and the world at any time.  Also, if you're an autocrat, feel free to kill American citizens because we won't lift a finger.

And America slides ever closer to authoritarian rule, complete with state media defending Dear Leader.

Sean Hannity tonight defended President Donald Trump at length over his statement on Saudi Arabia even as he repeatedly emphasized that the murder of Jamal Khashoggi was “evil.”

Hannity made it clear he has little doubt that the crown prince ordered it before claiming “there’s nobody that’s been tougher on Saudi Arabia” than him.

“I’ve been their loudest critic, for good reason,” he continued, noting Saudi human rights abuses and how women have been treated in Saudi Arabia.

But then he went on to say that the world “is an ugly, dangerous, complicated place” and that “as evil as this kingdom is––as I have said over the years––the President is right.”

He said that America has always had to make “difficult strategic decisions” and deal with “evil international partners.” Hannity brought up Saudi Arabia’s role in the alliance against Iran and argued, “If the mullahs that chant ‘death to America, death to Israel’ want to wipe Israel off the map, if they ever get nuclear weapons, millions and millions of people can die. So we have to make a strategic decision. We can’t take that risk.”

"Iran will nuke us if we dare defy the regime that's killing US residents!" is an odd position, but here we are.  It's too complicated for you, citizen, only Dear Leader has all the information, so stop worrying about it.  Please ignore the Saudi payments to the US.

All hail Trump.

That Whole Saturday Night Massacre Thing, Con't

It's not longer a question of "if" Donald Trump will order the Justice Department to go after his enemies, but when Acting AG Matt Whitaker will do it.

President Trump told the White House counsel in the spring that he wanted to order the Justice Department to prosecute two of his political adversaries: his 2016 challenger, Hillary Clinton, and the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey, according to two people familiar with the conversation.

The lawyer, Donald F. McGahn II, rebuffed the president, saying that he had no authority to order a prosecution. Mr. McGahn said that while he could request an investigation, that too could prompt accusations of abuse of power. To underscore his point, Mr. McGahn had White House lawyers write a memo for Mr. Trump warning that if he asked law enforcement to investigate his rivals, he could face a range of consequences, including possible impeachment.

The encounter was one of the most blatant examples yet of how Mr. Trump views the typically independent Justice Department as a tool to be wielded against his political enemies. It took on additional significance in recent weeks when Mr. McGahn left the White House and Mr. Trump appointed a relatively inexperienced political loyalist, Matthew G. Whitaker, as the acting attorney general.

It is unclear whether Mr. Trump read Mr. McGahn’s memo or whether he pursued the prosecutions further. But the president has continued to privately discuss the matter, including the possible appointment of a second special counsel to investigate both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Comey, according to two people who have spoken to Mr. Trump about the issue. He has also repeatedly expressed disappointment in the F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray, for failing to more aggressively investigate Mrs. Clinton, calling him weak, one of the people said.

A White House spokesman declined to comment. A spokeswoman for the F.B.I. declined to comment on the president’s criticism of Mr. Wray, whom he appointed last year after firing Mr. Comey.

“Mr. McGahn will not comment on his legal advice to the president,” said Mr. McGahn’s lawyer, William A. Burck. “Like any client, the president is entitled to confidentiality. Mr. McGahn would point out, though, that the president never, to his knowledge, ordered that anyone prosecute Hillary Clinton or James Comey.”

But McGahn and Jeff Sessions are no longer there to tell him no, are they?

The closer Mueller gets to his indictments, the closer Trump comes to ordering the DoJ to start going after his enemies.  Again, who will stop him?  Mitch McConnell?  Lindsey Graham?  Please.

It's only a matter of time.

StupidiNews!

• The CDC is once again warning everyone to avoid romaine lettuce after people in 11 states have become ill with E. coli. infections, with 13 hospitalized so far.
• Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is calling a Tuesday ruling by the 9th Circuit staying Trump's move to end asylum "dangerous" and predicts it will "undoubtedly be overturned".
• Interpol's new head will be South Korea's Kim Jong-yang after concerns that Russia's Alexander Prokopchuk was not independent of Kremlin political directives.
• The S&P 500 is now negative for the year as stocks, oil, and bonds took a second beating this week on Tuesday, meaning the decade-long bull market run in the US appears to be coming to an end.
• Americans love new car smell, but in China it's a big problem for Ford, who has filed a patent to have its Chinese vehicles bake it out in the sun.

Last Call For The Man From Interpol

It's strange enough that the Chinese head of Interpol suddenly resigned last month, vanished for three days, and the resurfaced as a detained "guest" of Beijing's government.  But now the Russians are suddenly in the driver's seat to replace him as the new head of the world's biggest police agency, and as Magnitsky Act activist Bill Browder writes, Vladimir Putin appears to be pulling off a bloodless international coup under everyone's noses.

Early last month, the wife of Meng Hongwei, a Chinese national and the president of Interpol, reported that her husband had disappeared on a trip to China. Three days passed before the Chinese government admitted detaining him and placing him under investigation. Following that, Interpol received a notice of Meng’s resignation. Whether he wrote it or not is unknown.

Last Saturday, news began circulating that a Russian official is the front-runner to replace Meng as president of Interpol. At first, I thought this must be a joke. Russia has demonstrated some of the most criminal tendencies of any country in the world. Its agents used a military-grade chemical weapon in an attack in Salisbury in Britain. Russian missiles murdered 298 innocents on Flight MH17 over Ukraine. And the Kremlin’s operatives have interfered with elections in the United States and Europe. Russia shouldn’t even be on the list of countries that could provide a leader for Interpol.

Later this week, Interpol’s general assembly in Dubai will decide who becomes Interpol’s next president. The vote will take place on Wednesday, and the choice is between the Russian interior ministry officer Alexander Prokopchuk and Interpol’s current interim president, a South Korean named Kim Jong Yang.

No one should want to see a Russian elevated to this post, but I have a particular personal interest in seeing that it doesn’t happen.

In 2012, I succeeded in advocating for the U.S. government to pass the Magnitsky Act, named after my colleague Sergei Magnitsky, who was imprisoned by Russian authorities after exposing high-level corruption, and who died in detention after being beaten and denied medical care. This law allows the United States to freeze the assets and ban visas for Russian human rights abusers. Since then, Russian President Vladimir Putin has embarked on a vendetta against me. This has taken a number of forms, including death threats and plans for illegal renditions. But one of the most pernicious has been Moscow’s repeated attempts to misuse Interpol to try to have me arrested and extradited back to Russia, where they will likely torture and kill me.

Moscow first attempted to use Interpol to go after me in May 2013 with a request for an Interpol Red Notice. Interpol rejected this, stating that the Russian request violated Interpol’s constitution, since it was obviously politically motivated. Several months later, the Russians tried again to get a Red Notice for me — and once again, it was rejected.

After two explicit rejections, one might think Russia would give up trying to use Interpol to have me arrested. Instead, the Russians altered their tactics.

In October 2017, the Canadian Parliament unanimously passed its own version of the Magnitsky Act. In response, Putin’s government went after me using something called an Interpol “diffusion notice.” This was also an Interpol arrest warrant, but one that required far less oversight than a Red Notice.

Again, Interpol intervened, declaring it politically motivated.

Then, in May of this year, I was actually arrested in Madrid. I’d been invited there by a senior Spanish prosecutor to give evidence against Russian organized crime and money laundering taking place in Spain and connected to the Magnitsky case. I was arrested at my hotel by Spanish National Police, and released from custody only after Interpol intervened.

In reaction to the Madrid incident, Russia’s most senior law enforcement officer, Yuri Chaika, gave a news conference in Moscow, saying: “We will redouble our efforts to get Bill Browder. . . . He should not sleep peacefully at night.”

On Monday morning, the Russian government went one step further. Officials in Moscow held a news conference at which they absurdly accused me of murdering Sergei Magnitsky himself and described me as the leader of a “transnational criminal group” who needed to be apprehended.

In total, Russia has tried to use Interpol seven times to have me arrested. If there ever was a case for why Russia should not have any authority at Interpol, I am that case.

Bill Browder won't make it to 2019 as a free man if Alexander Prokopchuk is voted in as head of Interpol, that much seems certain.  Interpol is used to help hunt down criminals, not political dissidents, reporters, and whistleblowers, but if Putin gets his hands on Interpol, he will use it to do just that.

Turkey has also been using Interpol as its personal dissident arrest squad since Ergodan consolidated power in the failed coup attempt against him in July 2016, issuing piles of "red notices" to round up political enemies. 

Up until now, Interpol has been resisting this sort of clearly political behavior.  But unless you believe Bill Browder is an international terrorist who killed Sergei Magintsky and is really the dastardly mastermind behind all of Putin's recent European assassinations of former Russian agents, Putin getting full control of Interpol will be a complete nightmare.

Something Trump of course won't bat an eyelash at.

 

The Orange Doesn't Fall Far From The Rotting Tree

Just another reminder that Ivanka Trump is just as narcissistic, amoral, corrupt and awful as her father is.

Ivanka Trump sent hundreds of emails last year to White House aides, Cabinet officials and her assistants using a personal account, many of them in violation of federal records rules, according to people familiar with a White House examination of her correspondence.

White House ethics officials learned of Trump’s repeated use of personal email when reviewing emails gathered last fall by five Cabinet agencies to respond to a public records lawsuit. That review revealed that throughout much of 2017, she often discussed or relayed official White House business using a private email account with a domain that she shares with her husband, Jared Kushner.

The discovery alarmed some advisers to President Trump, who feared that his daughter’s practices bore similarities to the personal email use of Hillary Clinton, an issue he made a focus of his 2016 campaign. Trump attacked his Democratic challenger as untrustworthy and dubbed her “Crooked Hillary” for using a personal email account as secretary of state.

Some aides were startled by the volume of Ivanka Trump’s personal emails — and taken aback by her response when questioned about the practice. Trump said she was not familiar with some details of the rules, according to people with knowledge of her reaction.

The White House referred requests for comment to Ivanka Trump’s attorney and ethics counsel, Abbe Lowell.

In a statement, Peter Mirijanian, a spokesman for Lowell, acknowledged that the president’s daughter occasionally used her private email before she was briefed on the rules, but he said none of her messages contained classified information.

“While transitioning into government, after she was given an official account but until the White House provided her the same guidance they had given others who started before she did, Ms. Trump sometimes used her personal account, almost always for logistics and scheduling concerning her family,” he said in a statement.

Mirijanian said Ivanka Trump turned over all her government-related emails months ago so they could be stored permanently with other White House records.

And he stressed that her email use was different than that of Clinton, who had a private email server in the basement of her Chappaqua, N.Y., home. At one point, an archive of thousands of Clinton’s emails was deleted by a computer specialist amid a congressional investigation.

“Ms. Trump did not create a private server in her house or office, no classified information was ever included, the account was never transferred at Trump Organization, and no emails were ever deleted,” Mirijanian said.

Sounds like we need a House Committee or three to investigate that, yes?

Of course, the real problem is America's enemies were certainly reading Ivanka's emails and she was a security threat, with clearance.  She violated public records acts, and if she sent anything remotely classified, she broke national security acts as well.  And yes, she did discuss official WH business over this unsecured domain.

And hey, who was running that domain, anyway?  If the Russians or Chinese had an ounce of competence, they layered that up with back doors and got all kinds of stuff from it.

Of course the President's daughter won't face any consequences for this.  That would involve quite a bit of prison time and loss of clearance for any of the rest of us, but we're not Ivanka.

Besides, she will go to prison over her Russian money laundering.

The Road To Gilead, Con't

Once again the GOP supermajority in Ohio's House has passed another doomed "heartbeat bill" as with the last couple of years, unable to get enough of a margin to beat a guaranteed veto by Gov. Kasich.  This time around though they're considering a new bill, one that would criminalize all abortions and miscarriages in the state.

There’s been a lot of attention given to the contentious “Heartbeat Bill,” which bans abortion at the point that a fetal heartbeat can be detected, since it passed the Ohio House earlier this week. But Republican lawmakers are considering another bill during this lame-duck session that would ban abortions entirely.

HB 565, which was introduced in March, would allow criminal charges against both doctors and pregnant women seeking abortions. It would characterize an “unborn human” as a person under Ohio’s criminal code, meaning abortions could be punishable by life in prison or even the death penalty.

There are no exceptions even in cases of rape, incest, or danger to a woman’s life.

Jaime Miracle with NARAL Pro Choice Ohio says the bill would punish both women and doctors. NARAL and Planned Parenthood are spending money on advertisements opposing the bill.

“This could criminalize women who have miscarriages that might seem suspicious to somebody or could criminalize in-vitro fertilization procedures that might end up with an embryo," Miracle says.

This is all cover for the heartbeat bill, which is headed for the Ohio Senate, and an eventual date for incoming Gov. Mike DeWine's desk.  DeWine has said in the past that he will sign the bill into law, setting up the endgame for Roe v. Wade in a Supreme Court battle that could very well be the end of safe abortions for most women in the US.

It's the fight they've wanted for years and will almost certainly get in 2019 or 2020.

StupidiNews!

• A suspect and three others are dead after a shooting at Chicago's Mercy Hospital, the gunman allegedly shot and killed a doctor after she broke off an engagement with him last month.
• The White House now says it will immediately ban any reporter who asks more than one question at any White House press event, saying that "decorum" will be followed.
• A number of Saudi royals are now concerned that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Sultan may not be the best choice for king after his behavior in the Jamal Khashoggi murder.
• A recent court filing revealed that Special Counsel Robert Muller believes the naming of Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker has "no effect" on his current investigation.
• Almost a year to the day after its disappearance, Argentinian naval officials have located the downed submarine ARA San Juan some 3,000 feet below the South Atlantic.

Last Call For Happy Turkey Day In Bevinstan

Kentucky GOP Gov. Matt Bevin must feel really good taking away food from tens of thousands Kentuckians with the holidays coming up as the state's new Dickensian work requirements kick in and nearly 20% of the state's neediest households have now been thrown off SNAP food benefits.

More than 10,000 Kentuckians have lost food assistance in the state in the last several months because of a work requirement affecting some people who are part of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program commonly referred to as SNAP.

That’s according to an analysis by representatives of the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy and the consumer advocacy group Kentucky Voices for Healthwho have been looking at how the work requirement is affecting participation in SNAP this year in Kentucky.

SNAP is a federal program that helps low-income individuals and families buy food, such as meat, fruits and vegetables. It also can be used to purchase seeds and plants to grow food.

In recent years, the state has been reinstating a three-month time limit on how long adults, ages 18-49, without a disability or dependents could receive benefits without working about 20 hours a week, according to policy analysts Dustin Pugel and Jason Dunn. The bulk of the counties were brought on board earlier this year, from February to May.

The result, according to the co-authors, is 10,097 individuals out of a potential 54,000 losing their benefits between May and September. And only 34 people had re-entered the program as of September, according to the analysis, which relies on data from the state.

The loss of benefits is concerning, Pugel said, because that’s “a lot of folks who are no longer getting help buying groceries.”

Although SNAP only covers a small portion of participants’ food budgets, “it’s very important, not only to the folks who use it but to local economies,” Pugel said in an interview.

Dunn noted the vulnerability of the recipients: “By being eligible for SNAP benefits, these individuals’ income is less than 133 percent of poverty, and since they’re working less than 20 hours per week, they’ll be at the lower end of that scale,” he noted by email. “Loss of these benefits will increase their food insecurity, which numerous studies have shown increases negative health outcomes.”

The state's chilling answer:

The state Cabinet for Health and Family Services takes issue with the term “loss,” noting, “No one loses access to SNAP benefits, although some beneficiaries may choose not to comply, or cannot comply because they are already working but not reporting income.” 

No work, no eat, get a job loser.  Doesn't matter if not being able to get healthy food makes you more likely to be sick and lose that job, but who cares.

Welcome to Bevinstan.

Happy Thanksgiving from Bevinstan, ya'll.

Meat The Press, Con't

The fight between CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta and the Trump regime is far from over after Friday's court ruling.  Mike Allen:

After a federal court ruling on Friday restored the White House press pass of CNN's Jim Acosta, the West Wing moved almost immediately to once again contest his access, sources involved in the negotiations tell me.

What's happening: The White House sent CNN a letter Friday giving a chance for Acosta to make the case for continued access. A White House official said a decision will be made after hearing the case.

CNN is fighting back, and is expected back in court as soon as today.

Acosta was blocked after clashes with President Trump, who accused the reporter of hogging the microphone at a post-midterm press conference. A CNN spokesperson told me: "The White House is continuing to violate the First and Fifth amendments of the Constitution. These actions threaten all journalists and news organizations. Jim Acosta and CNN will continue to report the news about the White House and the President."

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders, speaking on Fox News, accused the correspondent of "grandstanding": "[I]f certain reporters like Jim Acosta can't be adults, then CNN needs to send somebody in there who can be."

Why it matters: This is a high-risk confrontation for both sides. It turns out that press access to the White House is grounded very much in tradition rather than in plain-letter law.

So a court fight could result in a precedent that curtails freedom to cover the most powerful official in the world from the literal front row.

These are admittedly big stakes.  If Trump is allowed to banish media from his presence because he doesn't like their coverage of him, and that becomes a legal precedent, then our free press is gone.   Likewise, this turns into a giant legal mess if CNN can claim not having a WH correspondent is a violation of First and Fifth Amendments and other news outlets can sue over the same.

We've already reached the point where 2019's White House Correspondents' Association press dinner headliner will no longer be a comedian, but speaker, author, and historian Ron Chernow, and that's 100% to please Trump.  Our press is already reeling.

Meanwhile CNN is scrambling for another hearing as today the Trump regime once again threatened to refuse to comply with the Friday's court order and says it reserves to right to revoke Acosta press pass next week.

The White House has issued a new letter to CNN's Jim Acosta, saying his press pass could be revoked again at the end of the month. 

In response, CNN is asking the U.S. District Court for another emergency hearing. 

"The White House is continuing to violate the First and 5th Amendments of the Constitution," the network said in a statement. "These actions threaten all journalists and news organizations. Jim Acosta and CNN will continue to report the news about the White House and the President." 

Government lawyers downplayed CNN's request for urgent court action. 

Last Friday CNN won a temporary restraining order, forcing the White House to restore Acosta's press access to the White House for 14 days. Judge Timothy J. Kelly ruled on Fifth Amendment grounds, saying Acosta's right to due process had been violated. He did not rule on CNN's argument that the revocation of Acosta's press pass was a violation of his and the network's First Amendment rights. 

Later that same day, the White House sent Acosta a formal letter outlining a "preliminary decision" to suspend his pass. The letter -- signed by two of the defendants in the suit, press secretary Sarah Sanders and deputy chief of staff for communications Bill Shine --cited Acosta's conduct at President Trump's November 7 press conference, where he asked multiple follow-up questions and didn't give up the microphone right away. 

"You failed to abide" by "basic, widely understood practices," the letter to Acosta claimed.

More on this fight as it comes in.

Bloomberg Off The Rose, Con't

If billionaire former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg is aiming for 2020, he sure is picking an expensive way to enter the race.

Former New York mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced Sunday he is giving a record $1.8 billion to Johns Hopkins University to support student financial aid at his alma mater and make its admissions process “forever need-blind.”

The gift, believed to be the largest private donation in modern times to higher education, is a landmark in a growing national movement to make elite universities more accessible to students from low- to middle-income families.

It will enable the private research university in Baltimore to eliminate loans from financial aid packages for incoming students starting next fall, expand grants for those in financial need and provide relief to many current undergraduates who had previously taken out federal loans to pay their bills.

In years past, Hopkins President Ronald J. Daniels said, the university struggled to achieve its goal of welcoming all talented students regardless of their means or backgrounds.

“Our dedicated financial aid endowment was simply too small,” Daniels said. “Now, as a consequence of Mike Bloomberg’s extraordinary gift, we will be fully and permanently need-blind in our admissions and be able to substantially enrich the level of direct assistance we provide to our undergraduate students and their families.”

Bloomberg, who graduated from Hopkins in 1964, wrote in an op-ed for the New York Times that his gift is intended to support the idea that opportunities should be based on merit and not wealth. “This will make admissions at Hopkins forever need-blind; finances will never again factor into decisions,” he wrote.

With the donation, the 76-year-old businessman and politician underscored his philanthropic commitment at a moment when he is mulling a run for the presidency in 2020 as a Democrat. (He also has been a Republican and an independent in his political career.) Bloomberg had given $6.4 billion to education and other causes before Sunday’s announcement.

Now, his total lifetime giving to Hopkins alone will exceed $3.3 billion.

It's hard to be mad at a guy who has given away more than six billion dollars to charity.  It however does not qualify him for President, Zandar said, momentarily forgetting that the current guy in the Oval Office is a corrupt mobbed-up game show host.

Still, it's good that Bloomberg is doing this.  It's bad that he's running for President.  Two separate things.  The previous billions still didn't make him a good presidential candidate then, it doesn't now either.

StupidiNews!

• Florida Republican Rick Scott is claiming victory in his Senate race after a state-mandated recount found Democrat Bill Nelson coming up short. 
• UK Prime Minister Theresa May is warning Tory rebels that there is "no alternative" to her Brexit plan announced last week after her cabinet's chief Brexit minister resigned in protest.
• Donald Trump says he will not intervene in Justice Department affairs should Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker curtail or even end Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.
• Life insurance companies are looking to Apple Watch and Fitbit users to reward customers with lower premiums and other perks in exchange for data tracking healthy habits.
• Elon Musk's Boring Company has completed digging a two-mile test tunnel in LA for its new transit system, the tunnel is expected to be completed by mid-December.

Last Call For The Blue Wave Wipes Out The Orange

That sound you heard last night is the fork being stuck in the California GOP, effectively wiped off the map in the 2018 midterms as all 7 congressional districts in formerly red Orange County now belong to Team Blue.

California Democrats completed their sweep of the congressional delegation in Orange County on Saturday as Gil Cisneros defeated Young Kim, a Republican, to capture a fourth seat in what had once been one of the most conservative Republican bastions in the nation.

The victory by Mr. Cisneros, a philanthropist, was declared by The Associated Press. It completes what has amounted to a Democratic rout in California this year. Democrats set out to capture seven Republican-held seats where Hillary Clinton defeated President Trump in 2016, including four in Orange County. They won six of them.

Representative David Valadao, from the Central Valley, is the only Republican who survived the Democratic onslaught in those seven districts, according to The Associated Press. His margin has shrunk as mail-in votes have continued to be counted. The deadline for counting those votes in California is Dec. 7.

With Mr. Cisneros’s victory, Democrats now control all four House seats in Orange County — the birthplace of Richard M. Nixon and modern-day conservatism. The party also won supermajorities in the California Assembly and Senate, while the party’s candidate for governor — Gavin Newsom, the lieutenant governor — easily turned back a Republican challenge. Democrats control every statewide elected position in California.

Before this election, the 53-member California congressional delegation included 39 Democrats and 14 Republicans. Assuming Mr. Valadao keeps his lead, after this year’s midterms it will be 45 Democrats and eight Republicans.

Mr. Cisneros and Ms. Kim were competing for the seat left open after Representative Ed Royce, who has represented the area since 1993, decided not to seek re-election. Mr. Cisneros won by about 3,500 votes, receiving 50.8 percent of the votes cast.

And it's still possible that Valadao loses to Democrat TJ Cox as Valadao's lead has been cut to under 2,000 votes.  It's entirely possible that the Republican GOP delegation, a massive group compared to just about any other state at 14, will be 7 by the time January rolls around.  That would be just 13% of the state's delegation, a smaller percentage than Democrats have here in Kentucky (17%), Ohio (29%) or Indiana (22%).

If the Democrats are toast in the Rust Belt,  then the GOP is on the slab in California, and there's no real reason to think they're coming back anytime soon.  Pollster Stan Greenberg:

At first, the results looked like something of a stalemate. The Republican Party retained and even strengthened its hold on the Senate. President Trump’s approval rating was at 45 percent, one percentage point below his percentage of the popular vote in the 2016 election. Analysts said that Mr. Trump still knew how to get Republicans “excited, interested and turn them out” and that he had “deepened his hold on rural areas.”

In the days that followed, though, it became clear that Democrats had made substantial gains. Analysts I trusted concluded that this was because suburban and college-educated women issued “a sharp rebuke to President Trump” that set off a “blue wave through the urban and suburban House districts.” At first, I also believed that was the main story line.

But the 2018 election was much bigger than that. It was transformative, knocking down what we assumed were Electoral College certainties. We didn’t immediately see this transformation because we assumed that Mr. Trump and the polarization in his wake still governed as before.

First of all, Democrats did not win simply because white women with college degrees rebelled against Mr. Trump’s misogyny, sexism and disrespect for women. Nearly every category of women rebelled.

These conclusions are based on Democracy Corps’ election night survey for Women’s Voice Women’s Vote Action Fund and a study of the exit polls conducted for Edison and Catalist.

Yes, House Democrats increased their vote margin nationally among white women with at least a four-year degree by 13 points compared with the Clinton-Trump margin in 2016. But Democrats also won 71 percent of millennial women and 54 percent of unmarried white women (who split their votes two years earlier). In 2018, unmarried white women pushed up their vote margin for Democrats by 10 points. In fact, white women without a four-year degree (pollster shorthand for the white working class) raised their vote margin for Democrats by 13 points.

Overall, white women split their vote between Democrats and Republicans, but it is clear which way they are moving. Interestingly, the white college women who were supposed to be the “fuel for this Democratic wave” played a smaller role in the Democrats’ increased 2018 margin than white working class women, because the former were 15 percent of midterm voters and the latter 25 percent. 

Yes, white women made up 40% of the 2018 vote, but moving that needle from a 4-5% Trump win to an even split turned the overall election into a full 2% swing in favor of the Dems, and that turned this from 20-25 Dem seats to 40.

The other big move to Dems:  No national third party candidates stealing Dem votes among men.  In 2016, men voted 52%-41% for the GOP and nearly ten percent voted for a third party candidate.  In 2018, that went to 51%-47%.   That also made a huge difference.

Dems can win in 2020 by huge margins if voters keep dropping Trump.

Mississippi Turning

There's still one more Senate race to be decided next week, the runoff in Mississippi between Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith and Democratic candidate Mike Espy, and we could very well have another Doug Jones/Roy Moore situation in the works.

A U.S. Senate runoff that was supposed to provide an easy Republican win has turned into an unexpectedly competitive contest, driving Republicans and Democrats to pour in resources and prompting a planned visit by President Trump to boost his party’s faltering candidate.

Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith stumbled recently when, in praise of a supporter, she spoke of her willingness to sit in the front row of a public hanging if he invited her — words that, in the South, evoked images of lynchings. She has struggled to grapple with the fallout, baffling members of her party and causing even faithful Republicans to consider voting for her opponent, former congressman Mike Espy.

That Espy is attempting to become the state’s first black senator since shortly after the Civil War made her remarks all the more glaring. It has positioned him to take advantage not only of a substantial black turnout but of a potential swell of crossover support from those put off by Hyde-Smith’s campaign.

Espy remains the underdog in the conservative state, but Republicans with access to private polling say Hyde-Smith’s lead has narrowed significantly in recent days. Republicans need only to look to next-door Alabama, where Democrat Doug Jones pulled out a surprise win last year, to stoke concern.

For Republicans, the Nov. 27 runoff is a chance for a slight expansion of their majority in the Senate, their one bright spot in this year’s midterm elections. If Hyde-Smith wins and Gov. Rick Scott keeps his lead in the Senate race in Florida, Republicans would have a senate majority of 53 to 47. A loss in Mississippi would give the GOP a 52-to-48 majority, only one up from the current razor-thin margin.

Trump’s campaign announced Saturday that he would hold rallies for Hyde-Smith in Tupelo and Biloxi the night before the election. The Republican National Committee, meantime, has two dozen staffers in Mississippi and plans to send more. The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) is also sending reinforcements and last week made a $700,000 ad buy.

The GOP is in full panic mode here and will most likely lock the state down as they did with Tennessee and Sen. Marsha Blackburn cruising to a easy win.  But -- and it's a big caveat here -- Hyde-Smith was appointed earlier this year and Mike Espy is a former Congressman, there's more than a bit of name recognition on Espy's side.

Republicans will almost certainly keep this seat, but it won't be a double-digit runaway win, either. 

If you're in the Magnolia State, you can make a difference next week!

Sunday Long Read: We Gotta Face The Face

 With all due respect to Pete Townshend...

You must have heard the cautionary tales
The dangers hidden on the cul-de-sac trails
From wiser men who've been through it all
And the ghosts of failures spray-canned up on the wall

Sheryl Sandberg was seething.

Inside Facebook’s Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters, top executives gathered in the glass-walled conference room of its founder, Mark Zuckerberg. It was September 2017, more than a year after Facebook engineers discovered suspicious Russia-linked activity on its site, an early warning of the Kremlin campaign to disrupt the 2016 American election. Congressional and federal investigators were closing in on evidence that would implicate the company.

But it wasn’t the looming disaster at Facebook that angered Ms. Sandberg. It was the social network’s security chief, Alex Stamos, who had informed company board members the day before that Facebook had yet to contain the Russian infestation. Mr. Stamos’s briefing had prompted a humiliating boardroom interrogation of Ms. Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, and her billionaire boss. She appeared to regard the admission as a betrayal.

“You threw us under the bus!” she yelled at Mr. Stamos, according to people who were present.

The clash that day would set off a reckoning — for Mr. Zuckerberg, for Ms. Sandberg and for the business they had built together. In just over a decade, Facebook has connected more than 2.2 billion people, a global nation unto itself that reshaped political campaigns, the advertising business and daily life around the world. Along the way, Facebook accumulated one of the largest-ever repositories of personal data, a treasure trove of photos, messages and likes that propelled the company into the Fortune 500.

But as evidence accumulated that Facebook’s power could also be exploited to disrupt elections, broadcast viral propaganda and inspire deadly campaigns of hate around the globe, Mr. Zuckerberg and Ms. Sandberg stumbled. Bent on growth, the pair ignored warning signs and then sought to conceal them from public view. At critical moments over the last three years, they were distracted by personal projects, and passed off security and policy decisions to subordinates, according to current and former executives.

When Facebook users learned last spring that the company had compromised their privacy in its rush to expand, allowing access to the personal information of tens of millions of people to a political data firm linked to President Trump, Facebook sought to deflect blame and mask the extent of the problem.

And when that failed — as the company’s stock price plummeted and it faced a consumer backlash — Facebook went on the attack.

While Mr. Zuckerberg has conducted a public apology tour in the last year, Ms. Sandberg has overseen an aggressive lobbying campaign to combat Facebook’s critics, shift public anger toward rival companies and ward off damaging regulation. Facebook employed a Republican opposition-research firm to discredit activist protesters, in part by linking them to the liberal financier George Soros. It also tapped its business relationships, lobbying a Jewish civil rights group to cast some criticism of the company as anti-Semitic.

In Washington, allies of Facebook, including Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate leader, intervened on its behalf. And Ms. Sandberg wooed or cajoled hostile lawmakers, while trying to dispel Facebook’s reputation as a bastion of Bay Area liberalism.

This account of how Mr. Zuckerberg and Ms. Sandberg navigated Facebook’s cascading crises, much of which has not been previously reported, is based on interviews with more than 50 people. They include current and former Facebook executives and other employees, lawmakers and government officials, lobbyists and congressional staff members. Most spoke on the condition of anonymity because they had signed confidentiality agreements, were not authorized to speak to reporters or feared retaliation.

Facebook declined to make Mr. Zuckerberg and Ms. Sandberg available for comment. In a statement, a spokesman acknowledged that Facebook had been slow to address its challenges but had since made progress fixing the platform.

Facebook really does need to be shut down, or at least, Zuckerberg and Sandberg need to be summarily fired and replaced by people who actually care about Facebook's users.  But this NY Times piece makes the strong case for the former, that Facebook isn't salvageable, and that they've done more damage to the US as a whole than just about any other corporate cancer in this country.

House Democrats really do need to come down on Facebook, and hard.

Meat The Press, Con't

With the CIA now firmly pointing the finger for the murder of Saudi dissident journalist and Washington Post reporter Jamal Khashoggi at Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, it appears that at least one Trump regime official has resigned over the White House's complicity in Khashoggi's grisly death.

A top White House official responsible for American policy toward Saudi Arabia resigned on Friday evening, a move that may suggest fractures inside the Trump administration over the response to the brutal killing of the dissident Jamal Khashoggi.

The official, Kirsten Fontenrose, had pushed for tough measures against the Saudi government, and had been in Riyadh to discuss a raft of sanctions that the American government imposed in recent days against those identified as responsible for the killing, according to two people familiar with the conversations. Specifically, she advocated that Saud al-Qahtani, a top adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, be added to the list, and he ultimately was.

The exact circumstances of her departure are murky, and it is unclear whether her advocacy for a hawkish response to the killing angered some in the White House. When she returned to Washington, according to the two people, she had a dispute with her bosses at the National Security Council, where she had served as the director for the Persian Gulf region.

A representative for the council declined to comment. Ms. Fontenrose did not reply to messages seeking comment.

It gets worse, as the Turks are understandably pissed about having the Saudis run US hit squads in their back yard, and the White House is now trying to appease them as well.

President Donald Trump on Saturday declined to say whether American intelligence officials had implicated Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, following reports the CIA had concluded the crown prince ordered Khashoggi's assassination.

"They haven’t assessed anything yet. It’s too early,” the president told reporters when asked if the CIA had assessed the crown prince's involvement, according to a pool report.

“It’s a horrible thing that took place, the killing of a journalist,” Trump said. “We’ll be having a very full report over the next two days, probably Monday or Tuesday.”

Trump said that report will convey what members of the intelligence community "think the overall impact was, and who caused it, and who did it.” Trump also said he spoke with CIA Director Gina Haspel earlier in the day.

Upon departing the White House on Saturday morning for a trip to survey damage from wildfires in California, Trump heralded Saudi Arabia as a “spectacular ally” — two days after his administration leveled sanctions against 17 Saudi officials for Khashoggi's death. The president demurred on any potential involvement by the crown prince.

“As of this moment we were told that he did not play a role,” Trump told reporters. “We’re going to have to find out what they have to say.”

Trump also rejected a Thursday report by NBC News alleging that his administration is considering extraditing exiled Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen in the hope of dissuading Turkish President Recep Erdogan from punishing the Saudis for Khashoggi’s murder.

“It’s not under consideration,” Trump said, adding that “we’re having a very good moment with Turkey,” and citing Erdogan’s release of American pastor Andrew Brunson in October.

Needless to say, this is a full-blown diplomatic nightmare and Trump is bending over backwards to make both Riyadh and Ankara happy, while each one would love for the US relationship with the other to crumble.  It also means somebody at the CIA definitely wants the Trump regime to dump the Crown Prince as the result of the leaked report late last week.

Trump is dithering on the report's contents, but it's pretty clear that the Crown Prince is responsible.  What happens from here is anyone's guess.  Say what you will about the CIA leaking for political reasons, but Trump has gone out of his way to piss off the intelligence community, and they were always able to make his life miserable.

They did just that this week.  There's a lesson there for Trump.