The Commentariat -- November 8, 2018
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
William Cummings of USA Today: "Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is in the hospital after falling in her office Wednesday night, the Court announced in a statement on Thursday. Ginsburg, 85, went home after the fall but continued to experience 'discomfort overnight' and went to George Washington University Hospital early Thursday. Tests revealed she fractured three ribs and she 'was admitted for observation and treatment,' according to the statement." Thanks to PD Pepe for the lead.
** Devlin Barrett, et al., of the Washington Post: "Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker has no intention of recusing himself from overseeing the special counsel probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election, according to people close to him who added they do not believe he would approve any subpoena of President Trump as part of that investigation.... The two people close to Whitaker also said they strongly believe he would not approve any request from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III to subpoena the president.... While Whitaker is now Mueller's ultimate supervisor, it was not immediately clear whether that meant [Deputy AG Rod] Rosenstein would step aside. Justice Department officials said that under normal circumstances, the deputy attorney general would likely play an active, hands-on role in overseeing such a high profile probe, and they had no reason to believe that Rosenstein would now be cut out." ...
... Adam Silverman of Balloon Juice: "... Special Counsel Mueller has been planning for something like this to happen. As such he has contingency plans in place and for each contingency plan he has multiple sequels (to use DOD planning terminology). I would expect to see a bunch of indictments, either previously sealed ones or ones prepared and waiting to go, to be dropped in short order. I would also expect that whatever could be farmed out to the Federal prosecutorial districts, such as the Southern District of New York or the Eastern District of Virginia, as well as to the state level, such as NY state, Maryland, Virginia, and DC will be handed off to them. Whitaker will have limited ability to interfere with anything Mueller hands off or farms out to the Federal prosecutorial districts and no ability at all to interfere with state or DC prosecutions.... I also expect, just as we saw with Sessions, that a selected leak or two from the intel community will be quickly released as warning shots across Whitaker's bow." Thanks to OGJerry for the link.
Major Garrett of CBS News: "Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is being considered to replace Jeff Sessions as attorney general, two sources familiar with the matter tell CBS News. President Trump forced Sessions out as the nation's chief law enforcement officer on Wednesday, one day after Democrats captured the House in the midterm elections. No decisions are expected soon, and the list of those being considered -- which also includes Rudy Giuliani, outgoing Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, and former Attorney General William Barr, who served under President George H. W. Bush -- is likely to grow in the coming days...."
Evan Perez, et al., of CNN: "As he was preparing to remove Jeff Sessions as attorney general..., Donald Trump had already begun reviewing with his lawyers the written answers to questions from special counsel Robert Mueller.... Among the questions Mueller has asked the President to provide written responses on are queries about [Roger] Stone and his communications with then-candidate Trump, according to a source briefed on the matter....Trump made clear once again in a news conference Wednesday he believes the investigation is a waste of time and money. 'It's a disgrace, it should have never been started because there was no crime,' Trump said.... Mueller's team has begun writing its final report, multiple sources told CNN.
Matthew Choi of Politico: "Prominent CNN personalities on Thursday accused White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders of posting an altered video to suggest CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta inappropriately made contact with a White House intern over control of a microphone. Sanders posted a video Wednesday of Acosta maintaining his grip on a microphone as a White House intern tried to take it from him during a news conference with ... Donald Trump. Sanders used the video as justification for the White House revoking Acosta's press access Wednesday evening -- a move that was met with immediate and fierce condemnation from other journalists. On Thursday morning, CNN's Matt Dornic, vice president of communications and digital partnerships, and Brian Stelter, chief media correspondent, both claimed the video had altered speeds to make Acosta seem more aggressive and the intern more demure.... Dornic and Stelter suggested the video might have come from the far-right website InfoWars, which has been booted from mainstream social media sites for peddling inflammatory conspiracy theories."
California. Michael Finnegan of the Los Angeles Times: "California Republicans lost two House seats in Tuesday's midterm election and could surrender more as tens of thousands of ballots are counted in four other contests that remain too close to call. The party has an exceedingly small chance of holding the seats of Reps. Dana Rohrabacher and Jeff Denham, historical voting patterns suggest. Two other Republicans, Rep. Mimi Walters and Young Kim of Fullerton, hold thin leads over their opponents that could also vanish."
Florida. Steve Bousquet of the Tampa Bay Times: "As the Senate race between Gov. Rick Scott and Sen. Bill Nelson appears headed to a statewide recount, both candidates are mobilizing teams of lawyers and legal skirmishes are well underway. Thursday dawned with Scott leading Nelson by just more than one-fourth of a percentage point. The candidates for agriculture commissioner are much closer, divided by 0.06 points, and in the contest for governor, Ron DeSantis' advantage of 0.52 over Andrew Gillum was close to the threshold for a mandatory machine recount. In a fierce scramble for votes that's expected to soon intensify, thousands of provisional ballots cast by people who didn't have IDs, or who voted at the wrong precinct, are already the focus of both sides in the Senate race."
Georgia. WSB-TV Atlanta: "Karen Handel [R] has conceded the Georgia's 6th Congressional District race to Lucy McBath [D] Thursday morning."
Mrs. McCrabbie: Here's one I forgot:
New York. Dan Mangan of CNBC: "Rep. Chris Collins, the Republican recently indicted on federal insider trading charges, will retain his House seat representing New York's 27th District, NBC News has projected. The three-term incumbent -- the first House member to have endorsed the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump -- apparently defeated Democrat Nate McMurray, an attorney, in the Buffalo-area district. Collins had suspended his campaign in August after being arrested. But he relaunched his campaign in mid-September after efforts by the Republican Party to replace him on the ballot failed." Mrs. McC: GOP voters do love their allegedly crooked reps.
North Carolina. How Gerrymandering Works. Brian Murphy of the Raleigh News & Observer: "To critics of the state's Republican-drawn congressional districts, which have been declared unconstitutional by a panel of three federal judges, Tuesday's results provided another example of a broken redistricting process, protecting Republicans from a strong showing by Democrats.... Across the state, Republican candidates for Congress won 50.3 percent of the vote and Democrats won 48.4 percent of the vote, according to a News & Observer analysis of vote totals. Democrats did not have a candidate in Eastern North Carolina's 3rd district, won by Republican incumbent Rep. Walter Jones. But Republicans kept their 10-3 edge in the state's House delegation."
Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "After a six-month investigation, prosecutors said Thursday that they would not pursue criminal charges against Eric T. Schneiderman, the former New York State attorney general who resigned in May after four women accused him of assaulting them. The decision not to file charges was announced in a statement issued by Madeline Singas, the Nassau County district attorney, who was asked by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to investigate the case shortly after Mr. Schneiderman left his post. Ms. Singas said the women who accused Mr. Schneiderman of abuse were credible, but there were legal hurdles to bringing charges. She did not elaborate on those obstacles, except to say that some of the accusations were too old to pursue under state law."
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Trump Has Kelly Fire Sessions; Replaces Him with Collusion Apologist, Mueller Critic. Peter Baker & Katie Benner of the New York Times: "President Trump forced out Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Wednesday and replaced him with a loyalist who will now take charge of the special counsel investigation into Russia's election interference, a defiant move just a day after a midterm election loss. Mr. Sessions delivered his resignation letter to the White House at the request of the president and Mr. Trump tapped Matthew Whitaker, Mr. Sessions's chief of staff, as acting attorney general. In that capacity, Mr. Whitaker assumes control of the Russia investigation, raising questions about the future of the inquiry led by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III. In a column for CNN last year, Mr. Whitaker wrote that Mr. Mueller would be going too far if he examined the Trump family's finances.... John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff, called Mr. Sessions before his postelection news conference on Wednesday to tell the attorney general that Mr. Trump wanted him to step down, the administration official said. Mr. Trump, who did not speak with Mr. Sessions himself, then ducked questions about Mr. Sessions's fate at the news conference. Mr. Sessions then had his letter, which was undated, delivered to the White House. Mr. Whitaker has previously questioned the scope of the investigation." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Adam Goldman & Edward Wong of the New York Times: "Inside the Justice Department, senior officials, including Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, have viewed Mr. Whitaker with intense suspicion. Before his current job at the Justice Department, Mr. Whitaker, a former college football tight end, was openly hostile on television and social media toward the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, and was seen by department officials as a partisan and a White House spy.... People close to the president said Mr. Whitaker first came to the attention of Mr. Trump because he liked watching Mr. Whitaker express skepticism about aspects of Mr. Mueller's investigation on television.... Mr. Whitaker has the support of Senator Charles E. Grassley, the Iowa Republican who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee." ...
... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Appearing on CNN in July 2017 -- before he became Sessions's chief of staff, the position he occupied before Wednesday -- Whitaker mused about a scenario in which Trump might fire Sessions and replace him with a temporary attorney general. Whitaker noted that federal regulations still gave the attorney general power over the budget for a special counsel. That temporary replacement, he then said, could move to choke off Mueller's funding.... 'The President is absolutely correct,' Whitaker said after Trump suggested that Mueller investigating his finances would cross a red line. 'Mueller has come up to a red line in the Russia 2016 election-meddling investigation that he is dangerously close to crossing.' He has also downplayed the idea that anything illegal was done at the Trump Tower meeting, saying, 'You would always take the meeting.' Whether any of this will come to pass, we don't know. But comments like these could now be hugely consequential. Update: Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) says Whitaker should recuse himself from the Russia investigation, in light of the above commentary." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Betsy Woodruff, et al., of the Daily Beast: "It's been a meteoric rise for [Whitaker]..., an ex-prosecutor and failed political candidate who less than two years ago was the head of a little-known conservative nonprofit with designs on a judgeship in his home state of Iowa. Through that nonprofit, and with the help of a PR firm later tied to a bizarre conspiracy theory, Whitaker ran interference for Sessions at one of the most fraught moments in his tumultuous time as attorney general.... 'Whitaker is on record as being more interested in propping up Trump than in upholding the rule of law,' one DOJ trial attorney told The Daily Beast. 'It's hard to have confidence that he'll do anything other than what the president had said in his tweets.'" ...
... Rekha Basu of the Des Moines Register (May 2014 & republished yesterday): "If elected to the U.S. Senate, former U.S. Attorney Matt Whitaker says he would only support federal judges who have a Biblical view, and specifically a New Testament view, of justice. 'If they have a secular world view, then I'm going to be very concerned about how they judge,' Whitaker said at an April 25, 2014, Family Leader debate.... As a lawyer, one might expect him to know that setting religious conditions for holding a public office would violate the Iowa and U.S. constitutions. He was effectively saying that if elected, he would see no place for a judge of Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, agnostic or other faith, or of no faith." ...
... Brittany Shammas of the Miami New Times: "Whitaker is a former U.S. attorney in Iowa, but he was also involved in a Miami-based invention-marketing company the Federal Trade Commission shut down last year after calling it a scam. Whitaker not only sat on the board of World Patent Marketing but also once sent a threatening email to a former customer who had complained after he spent thousands of dollars and did not receive the promised services.... World Patent Marketing collected almost $26 million by promising starry-eyed inventors it would turn their inventions into best sellers." Mrs. McC: You can see why Trump wouldn't find Whitaker's history as a scam artist in the least disqualifying. His little venture was, after all, just another version of Trump "University." ...
... ** Mikhaila Fogel & a host of others in Lawfare: "The firing of Jeff Sessions and his replacement on an interim basis by a man who has expressed open hostility to the Mueller investigation and in whose loyalty President Trump has expressed confidence marks a major moment in the course of the Russia investigation. It is a profoundly dangerous moment: The president fired the attorney general, as he once fired the FBI director, for plainly illegitimate reasons: because the attorney general acted appropriately on an investigative matter in which Trump himself has the deepest of personal interests.... Yes, the president has the raw power to do this. But as was the case with the firing of James Comey, it is an abuse of the power he wields." The article discusses numerous aspects of the situation. ...
... Rosalind Helderman, et al., of the Washington Post: "A Justice Department official said Wednesday that Whitaker would assume final decision-making authority over the special counsel probe instead of Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein.... As acting attorney general, Whitaker could sharply curtail Mueller's authority, cut his budget or order him to cease lines of inquiry. Within hours of his appointment, there were mounting calls by congressional Democrats and government watchdog groups for Whitaker to recuse himself, citing critical comments he made about Mueller's investigation. Furious Democrats ... also promised to investigate Sessions's forced resignation and suggested Trump's actions could amount to obstruction of justice if he intended to disrupt the criminal probe. 'There is no mistaking what this means, and what is at stake: this is a constitutionally perilous moment for our country and for the President,' Rep. Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.) said in a statement. He is set to take over in January as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, the panel that would oversee any impeachment proceedings." ...
... Post Mortem. Matt Ford of the New Republic: "Sessions's departure marks an ignominious end for one of the president's most effective Cabinet members. Not since A. Mitchell Palmer was the nation's attorney general so singularly focused on imposing his own ideological vision on the rest of the nation. In the U.S. Senate, Sessions's strident restrictionist views on immigration had been relegated to the ideological fringes. But as attorney general, he enjoyed unparalleled influence over the machinery of American immigration and wielded it against those hoping to build a better life for themselves in the United States. His greatest policy triumph amounted to systemic child abuse.... The great tragicomedy of Sessions's downfall is that it came not from his objectionable decisions, but from a wise one."
Michael Grynbaum of the New York Times: "President Trump lashed out at journalists during a surly and contentious news conference at the White House on Wednesday, renewing his attacks on the news media as 'the enemy of the people' just moments after pledging an end to partisan politics in the wake of a grueling midterm election. In tense exchanges on live television, Mr. Trump denounced [CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta] as 'very rude,' sternly told several reporters to 'sit down,' and at one point stepped away from his lectern, suggesting that he was prepared to cut off the session -- a rare formal East Room news conference -- because of queries he disliked.... 'CNN should be ashamed of itself, having you working for them,' the president said. 'You are a rude, terrible person. You shouldn't be working for CNN.' He added, in a reference to the White House press secretary: 'The way you treat Sarah Huckabee is horrible. You shouldn't treat people that way.' Jabbing a finger in the reporter's direction, he said, 'When you report fake news, which CNN does a lot, you are the enemy of the people.'" Trump also excoriated two black female correspondents, April Ryan & Yamiche Alcindor. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... ** Watch Trump dismiss Yamiche Alcindor of NPR & accuse her of asking a "racist" question:
... Mrs. McCrabbie: This is a guy who dares to call reporters "rude." I know we have come to expect Trump's insane behavior, but it still shocks the conscience. ...
... Update. Noor Al-Sibai of Raw Story: "The White House is suspending the press credentials of CNN's Jim Acosta after he angered Donald Trump during a press conference earlier in the day by asking why the president refers to the Latin American migrant caravan as an 'invasion.' 'As a result of today's incident, the White House is suspending the hard pass of the reporter involved until further notice,' White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters." In her statement, Sanders falsely, IMO, claimed Acosta manhandled a female intern. Rather, the woman, an intern, physically assaulted Acosta. But you decide:
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: I can't emphasize enough how serious this is. The "incident" that got Acosta's press pass pulled was "Trump doesn't like question." His verbal assaults on the press have been dangerous enough. Actually shutting out a reporter for asking serious questions moves Trump right into dictator territory. This is ratcheting up the assault on the First Amendment to battery. The White House Correspondents Association -- not exactly known for its bravery -- should go really hard against the Trump administration. This incident may not get a lot of attention because of the Sessions firing & other news stuff. But pulling Acosta's press pass is one of the worst things the administration has done.
... Update. Peter Baker of the New York Times: "When Mr. Acosta tried to re-enter the White House on Wednesday evening for a live shot for his network, a Secret Service officer asked him to hand over his 'hard pass,' which grants journalists access to the compound. Mr. Acosta captured the episode in a grainy video on his cellphone and posted it to Twitter. Sarah Huckabee Sanders..., who has also repeatedly clashed with Mr. Acosta during televised briefings at the White House, announced the decision, claiming falsely that Mr. Acosta had placed 'his hands on a young woman' who was responsible for giving the microphone to reporters asking questions.... A review of the video from the news conference did not suggest that Mr. Acosta put his hands on the woman, and a reporter who was present said that the White House account was not true.... The decision to yank Mr. Acosta's credentials, effectively denying him access to the White House and the president's staff, was a nuclear-level response by the president and the administration's communications staff after more than two years of escalating tensions between the CNN correspondent, the president and the president's aides.... Olivier Knox, the president of the White House Correspondents' Association, urged the White House to reverse its decision.... The American Civil Liberties Union weighed in, as well. 'It is unacceptable and un-American for the president to expel a reporter for doing his job aggressively.'" ...
... White House Turns to Conspiracy Theorist to Smear Acosta. Jeet Heer: "To bolster the case against Acosta..., Sarah Sanders posted an edited video of the incident where the action is generally slowed down but speeds up right before the moment of contact, to create the false impression of a deliberate jab on the part of Acosta.... As Ashley Feinberg of The Huffington Post notes, the source of the doctored video Sanders posted seems to be Paul Joseph Watson, the editor-at-large of Infowars.com, a notorious conspiracy theory website." Mrs. McC: Next, Alex Jones will replace Acosta in the White House press corps. ...
... During Presser, Trump Name-checks Republicans Who Didn't "Embrace" Him. CBS News: "... Mr. Trump began by framing the results [of the election] as a 'success' and emphasizing his role in helping the GOP maintain control of and even gain seats in the Senate. 'We saw the candidates I supported achieve tremendous success last night,' Mr. Trump boasted. 'We picked up a lot,' he said. The president also talked about Republican candidates ... who eschewed the Trump "embrace," and he suggested this may have been a contributing factor to their losses. 'On the other hand you had some that decided to let's stay away, let's stay away,' Mr. Trump said. "They did very poorly. I'm not sure that I should be happy or sad. But I feel just fine about it. Carlos Curbelo. Mike Coffman. Too bad, Mike. Mia Love.... But Mia Love gave me no love, and she lost. Too bad. Sorry about that, Mia. And Barbara Comstock was another one I mean I think she could have won that race, but she didn't want to have any embrace. For that I don't blame her. But she uh, she lost, substantially lost. Peter Roskam didn't want the embrace, Erik Paulsen didn't want the embrace and in New Jersey I think he could have done well but didn't work out too good. Bob Hugin, I feel badly because I think that's something that could have been won, that's a race that could have been won. John Faso. Those are some of the people that you know decided for their own reason not to embrace whether it's me or what we stand for, but what we stand for meant a lot to most people.'" Mrs. McC: Bizarre. ...
... Erica Werner & Damian Paletta of the Washington Post: "President Trump and newly empowered congressional Democrats appeared to be on a collision course over the release of the president's tax returns, as a top Democrat signaled he would demand the information under federal law and Trump insisted he would attempt to block any release. Rep. Richard E. Neal (D-Mass.), expected to become the chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, plans to insist Trump voluntarily release his tax returns, he said in an interview. If Trump doesn't, then Neal will file a legal request with the Treasury Secretary that would require the returns be disclosed to a small group of people on Capitol Hill. He predicted the matter would end up in federal court. At a news conference Wednesday, Trump said his tax returns were already under audit and therefore he would not release them. He said he might consider releasing them at a later date, something he has said since at least 2016.... If Neal formally requests Trump's tax returns, the request would go to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. Federal law stipulates that Mnuchin 'shall' turn over the tax returns and doesn't appear to give him much flexibility. It also doesn't appear to give the White House the power to intervene."
... ** Greg Sargent on both Sessions' firing & Trump's "startlingly unhinged performance at a news conference.... There is a tendency after big electoral victories such as the one last night to grow a bit complacent, to imagine that a semblance of normalcy has been restored. In multiple ways, Trump reminded us today that we can't relax even for a second." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Peter Baker & Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "George W. Bush saw a 'thumpin'.' Barack Obama saw a 'shellacking.' Donald J. Trump sees a 'Big Victory.' Never one to admit defeat, even in the face of a major setback, President Trump wasted little time on Wednesday morning trying to frame his party's election losses.... 'Received so many Congratulations from so many on our Big Victory last night, including from foreign nations (friends) that were waiting me out, and hoping, on Trade Deals. Now we can all get back to work and get things done!' [-- Trump, in a tweet.] But ... he quickly went on offense against the newly elected Democratic House, threatening to retaliate if the opposition uses its new subpoena power to investigate him for corruption and obstruction of justice.... 'If the Democrats think they are going to waste Taxpayer Money investigating us at the House level, then we will likewise be forced to consider investigating them for all of the leaks of Classified Information, and much else, at the Senate level,' he wrote. 'Two can play that game!' Then, in a head-spinning pivot, Mr. Trump shortly afterward endorsed Representative Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, for House speaker and even volunteered Republican votes if she cannot muster enough in her own caucus." (Also linked yesterday.)
Buh-Bye, "Operation Faithful Patriot." Luis Martinez & Elizabeth McLaughlin of ABC News: "The day after a midterm election in which ... Donald Trump played up the Pentagon's mission to provide logistical support along the southern border, the Pentagon said Wednesday it will no longer publicly refer to the mission as Operation Faithful Patriot. Instead, the deployment of active duty troops will be referred to as what it's always been: a border support mission." Mrs. McC: Just a coincidence, I'm sure.
David Graham of The Atlantic: "[T]he [electoral] outcomes still tell us something about the strengths and weaknesses of the president's campaign strategy -- and, more important, about the slog that's ahead for the next two years in Washington, as Democrats harry Trump from their perch in the House. The result is arguably much worse for Trump personally than for the Republican Party as a whole.... Democrats have expressed frustration with the Trump administration's stonewalling of requests for information over the past two years. Now they will be able to demand it. For a White House that has seen effectively no oversight from the Republican Congress, this will be a rude shock." --s
Jim Newell of Slate: "It may have felt like such a meh-bleh night for Democrats, then, because it was -- relative to expectations heading into Election Day.... Expectations got out of hand.... The Democratic Party hit rock bottom after the 2016 election, when they lost the presidency to television character Donald Trump, and then had to find some way to regroup quickly enough to face a fantastically gerrymandered Republican House and the worst imaginable Senate map. They took the House within one election and grinded out Senate races where they could, even if they couldn't save some of the ones that they had little business holding in the first place. They'll have governors ready to veto Republican gerrymanders after 2020 in crucial states that they didn't hold the last time. As bleh as it all might feel, it's a start." --s
Sen. Jon Tester (D-Montana) is up by a teensy bit with 88 percent reporting, according to the NYT. He's been losing in most of the earlier returns. Update: The AP has projected Tester as the winner. (Also noted yesterday.)
House count as of Wednesday evening:
Dan Spinelli of Mother Jones: "Four years ago, Rep. Dave Brat (R-VA) dethroned House Majority Leader Eric Cantor as part of the Tea Party revolution that would eventually topple Speaker of the House John Boehner and pave the way for Donald Trump's presidential bid. Now former CIA agent Abigail Spanberger has defeated Brat and will be the first Democratic representative from Virginia's 7th District in more than four decades, NBC News and the Cook Political Report confirmed Tuesday night. Brat, once the darling of Breitbart and the insurgent conservative movement, aligns with the far-right House Freedom Caucus." Thanks to Akhilleus for the lead. (Also linked yesterday.)
Florida & Georgia. Jonathin Vankin of the Inquisitr: "As the United States Senate race in Florida headed to a recount, the governor's race there on Wednesday morning also looked likely to go to a recount of its own even though Democrat Andrew Gillum, as The New York Times reported, gave a concession speech on Tuesday and Republican Ron DeSantis ... declared victory.... According to April Ryan, White House correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks, Gillum's representatives as of Wednesday morning said that his losing margin was only about 15,000 votes.... Ryan also reported that the NAACP planned to investigate 'voter irregularities' in Florida -- as well as in Georgia where Democrat Stac[e]y Abrams trailed by less than 1 percent of the vote and believed that she would gain in ballots yet to be counted...."
** Tim Craig of the Washington Post: "... Democrats expanded their influence in state capitols on Tuesday, flipping more than 300 state legislative seats while also claiming a majority of the nation's attorney general offices. The Democratic gains mark a significant turnaround for a party that had been losing clout in state legislatures for nearly a decade, allowing Republicans in many states to loosen restrictions on firearms, push through new voter-identification laws and weaken environmental regulations. Democrats had also ceded enormous power to Republicans to redraw congressional boundaries. The victories -- buoyed by an apparent net Democratic pickup of seven governorships -- will also help fortify the party's efforts to use states as a firewall against President Trump, including through coordinated lawsuits against the administration." ...
... Bryce Covert in a New York Times op-ed: "Democrats ... seized control of seven legislative chambers, flipping the State Senates in Colorado, Maine, and New York; the House in Minnesota; and both chambers in New Hampshire. Connecticut's Senate, previously evenly split, is now held by Democrats. They broke Republican supermajorities in Michigan and Pennsylvania's Senates and both chambers in North Carolina.... While Democrats in the House will now most likely act as a bulwark against a number of Republican policy goals, the real action will continue to be at the state level."
White Power Politics. Adam Serwer of The Atlantic: "It's fashionable in the Donald Trump era to decry political 'tribalism,' especially if you're a conservative attempting to criticize Trump without incurring the wrath of his supporters.... But calling this 'tribalism' is misleading, because only one side of this divide remotely resembles a coalition based on ethnic and religious lines, and only one side has committed itself to a political strategy that relies on stoking hatred and fear of the other.... A large number of Republican candidates, led by the president, ran racist or bigoted campaigns against their opponents. But those opponents cannot be said to belong to a 'tribe.' No common ethnic or religious ties bind Heitkamp, Campa-Najjar, Delgado, or the constituencies that elected them. It was their Republican opponents who turned to 'tribalism,' painting them as scary or dangerous, and working to disenfranchise their supporters." --s
Daily Beast: "Former Rep. Stephen Stockman (R-TX) was sentenced to 10 years in prison Wednesday for orchestrating a scheme to defraud donors and using the money for personal and campaign use, according to a Justice Department press release. Stockman was charged with 23 felonies back in April -- including wire fraud, making false statements to the Federal Election Commission, and money laundering -- after he and his co-defendants solicited $1,250,571.65 in donations from charities and their leaders. Stockman and the others then laundered the money before using it for a personal and campaign expenses."
Linda Greenhouse: "The Trump administration's treatment of the Supreme Court as a wholly owned subsidiary is one of the most compelling dramas now unfolding in Washington. Whether this drama plays out as comedy or tragedy is up to the court.... I've been more than a little amused by the administration's frantic and largely failed effort to enlist the justices in keeping the public from learning how the decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census actually came about."
News Ledes
Los Angeles Times: "A gunman threw smoke bombs and rained bullets on a crowd of hundreds inside a Thousand Oaks bar that is popular with college students Wednesday night, leaving 12 dead including a Sheriff's sergeant shot trying to stop the carnage. The massacre occurred at the Borderline Bar & Grill, with the assailant firing wildly into the crowd. In addition to the dead, 10 other people may have been injured, according to Sheriff Geoff Dean, who added that it's too early to know if the shooter took his own life. The gunman burst into the bar around 11:20 p.m., cloaked in all black. Ventura County Sheriff's Department Sgt. Ron Helus and a California Highway Patrol officer entered the bar first and exchanged gunfire with the suspect, whose identity was not immediately known. Helus was shot several times and died at an area hospital early Thursday morning, according to Dean."
Slate: "The gunman who killed 12 at a crowded country bar in Thousand Oaks, California, on Wednesday night has been identified as 28-year-old Ian David Long of Newbury Park, California. Ventura County Sheriff Geoff Dean said Thursday that Long was a former Marine and that sheriff's deputies had been called to Long's home in April. They found him 'somewhat irate and acting irrationally,' according to the Associated Press. A mental health crisis team was then dispatched to Long's home but concluded he did not need to be taken into custody, Dean said. The other incident in which Long came in contact with the Ventura County sheriff's department listed Long as the victim of assault at a bar."
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