According to calculations by The New York Times, overall prices were around 4 percent higher compared with the same time last year, up from 3.7 percent in September. Follow live updates
November 10, 2026
Pete Hegseth
NY Times - Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, attempting to fend off an impeachment effort, on Tuesday cast the accusations that he violated the Constitution as a slanderous attempt to damage President Trump by “one disgruntled and defeated congressman.”
House Republican leaders said
they could hold a procedural vote related to the effort, which is being
spearheaded by an outgoing Kentucky Republican, as soon as Tuesday evening.
That vote could be an attempt to bottle up the articles, which accuse him of
abusing his power and endangering members of the military, in a committee for
the rest of the year.
The Guardian - Hegseth says Iran war was a 'necessary undertaking' despite Republicans blaming conflict for midterms defeat. After several Republicans, including vice-president JD Vance, said that the party’s shellacking in the midterm elections was due to the ongoing Iran war and spike in prices as a result of the conflict, Hegseth danced around whether he agreed.
“I respect the vice-president greatly, and I’m certainly not going to exchange in any finger pointing. And thankfully, politics is not really my thing,” the defense secretary said. “But I agree with what the president said when he said: ‘hey, if if I had to do this all over again, would we do it again? Absolutely.”
Hegseth referred back to secretary of state Marco Rubio’s sentiment that the war, now in its eighth month, is “not necessarily popular, but it may have been necessary”.
“That’s certainly how I feel. It was a necessary undertaking,” Hegseth added.
.... Following Pete Hegseth’s press conference, Donald Trump issued a brief, and glowing, assessment of his defense secretary’s performance, while blasting the Republican representative who is moving to impeach him.
“Pete Hegseth gets an ‘A’ PLUS, PLUS, PLUS for his defense against a disgruntled, angry, defeated, former Congressman, Thomas Massie, a TOTAL LOSER!” the president wrote on Truth Social.
California rejects billionaire tax
NY Times - California voters rejected a
billionaire tax, The
Associated Press determined on Monday, rebuking a measure that would have
created the nation’s first wealth tax by targeting the assets of residents with
a net worth beyond $1 billion.
Under the tax measure,
Proposition 40, the state would have imposed a one-time, 5 percent tax on the
personal assets of billionaires and devoted most of the revenue to health care.
The Democratic voters who
dominate the California electorate generally support the concept of making
wealthy people pay higher taxes. But Democratic leaders were divided over the
proposal — Gov. Gavin Newsom opposed it while the California Democratic Party
endorsed the tax. And some of the California billionaires who stood to pay the
tax contributed heavily toward a campaign that slammed the proposal with attack
ads on TV throughout October.
Trump vs. young scientists
NY
Times - For nearly a century, the United States has been the
global leader in cultivating young scientists, training them at the nation’s
vast network of universities and harnessing their talents to ensure American
dominance in research and innovation. But now that Ph.D. pipeline is in
turmoil.
An analysis by The New York Times
of university and federal data found that the Trump administration, in its
broader dismantling of the American scientific machinery, has undermined
opportunities for young scientists.
Many of the nation’s top research
universities, facing uncertainties in federal funding, are offering fewer Ph.D.
spots across the sciences. Federal programs created long ago to finance
doctoral students are mired in chaos. Widespread grant cancellations and
funding delays have made it harder for recent graduates to find jobs and start
new labs. Some institutions have managed to adapt by marshaling funds from
elsewhere, but the sudden instability of federal support has led many others to
scale back their Ph.D. programs.
…Interviews with dozens of
early-career scientists — Ph.D. applicants, doctoral students and newly minted
graduates — revealed deep concern that even two years of disruption could
permanently alter the storied success of federally funded science in the United
States.
Joe Biden
MS NOW - Former president Joe Biden expresses frustration and delivers a rebuke to those who suggested he covered-up and failed to disclose his cancer diagnosis in a timely manner, according to excerpts obtained by MS NOW from his soon to be released memoir. Biden announced his prostate cancer diagnosis publicly last May, days after he said doctors first diagnosed him.
In excerpts of his personal memoir, “Promise Me, America” set to be released next week, Biden writes, “What did surprise me was the cynical twist the story took in the political press and among political commentators.” “Almost immediately, the reaction was: ‘You hid it from us.’ ‘You must have known it.’ ‘You’re lying.’ Let me tell you something: There isn’t anyone in this world with stage 4 cancer who doesn’t wish it had been caught sooner.”
The former president did not call out anyone by name, but his successor suggested Biden wasn’t being honest about his health.
November 9, 2026
Earth accumulating heat at accelerating rate
The Guardian - Heat is accumulating in Earth’s systems at an accelerating rate, the UN’s weather agency has reported as the Cop31 climate change summit begins in Turkey, with 2026 on track to be one of the four warmest years on record.
The imbalance between incoming energy from the sun and energy leaving Earth reached its highest level since monitoring began, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said in its State of the Global Climate update.
That imbalance and the accumulation of heat will supercharge extreme weather events such as heatwaves, droughts and tropical cyclones.
Around the world, the average surface temperature for January to September 2026 was about 1.47C above the preindustrial average, the agency said. Sea surface temperatures hit monthly records and sea level was the highest since records began. The ocean absorbs 90% of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gases and 2026 is on track to be a 10th successive year of record ocean heat.
A volunteer fits a nasal oxygen cannula on a seated woman at a smoke-haze shelter
View image in fullscreen
A centre for people experiencing respiratory difficulties in Palangkaraya, Indonesia. More than 11,000 people have been treated during a months-long wildfire crisis. Photograph: REINA/AFP/Getty Images
“We have entered a new age of climate extremes,” said António Guterres, the UN secretary general. “A supersized El Niño is colliding with a planet already superheated by manmade climate change. Climate records keep falling. The human costs keep rising. And those least responsible are suffering first and worst.”
Artificial Intelligence
Ameican Market News - Building advanced AI takes staggering amounts of computing power. This year, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Meta are expected to spend roughly $735 billion to $750 billion combined, much of it on the data centers, chips, energy and network capacity the AI buildout demands.
The question investors are starting to ask: will AI revenue ever justify that spending? If earnings don't keep pace, today's premium valuations could come under pressure. And because a handful of tech giants now make up a large share of the S&P 500, that pressure wouldn't stay contained to tech.
November 8, 2026
Charges against Trump
Google - Donald Trump has faced multiple criminal indictments, convictions, and congressional impeachments related to business records, election interference, classified documents, and official conduct:
New York Felony Conviction (Hush Money Case)
• Charges: 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree in New York State Supreme Court.
• Offense: A "catch and kill" scheme involving disguised reimbursement payments made to cover up a hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
• Verdict & Status: A Manhattan jury found Trump guilty on all 34 counts on May 30, 2024. In January 2025, Judge Juan Merchan sentenced him to an unconditional discharge (no jail time, fines, or probation). His legal team continues efforts to challenge and overturn the conviction in court.
Federal Election Interference Case (2020 Election / January 6)
• Charges: 4 federal counts including Conspiracy to Defraud the United States, Conspiracy to Obstruct an Official Proceeding, Obstruction of an Official Proceeding, and Conspiracy Against Rights.
• Offense: Alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, culminating in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
• Status: Impacted by the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling on presidential immunity, leading to a narrowed superseding indictment by Special Counsel Jack Smith.
Georgia State Election Case
• Charges: 13 felony counts including racketeering (RICO) and soliciting a public officer to violate their oath.
• Offense: Alleged efforts to interfere with and overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia.
• Status: Proceedings have been paused amid legal challenges and controversies regarding the district attorney's office.
Classified Documents Case (Florida)
• Charges: 40 felony counts regarding willful retention of national defense information and obstruction of justice.
• Offense: Allegedly removing classified documents from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago estate and resisting government efforts to retrieve them.
• Status: Dismissed by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a decision appealed by the Special Counsel.
Congressional Impeachments
• First Impeachment (2019): Impeached by the House of Representatives on charges of abuse of power (soliciting foreign interference from Ukraine) and obstruction of Congress. Acquitted by the U.S. Senate (48–52 and 47–53).
• Second Impeachment (2021): Impeached by the House for incitement of insurrection following the January 6 Capitol attack. Acquitted by the U.S. Senate (57–43).
Middle East
NY Times - Israel’s president on Saturday selected Gadi Eisenkot, the leading rival of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to try to form a new government, handing him the daunting task of forging a parliamentary coalition after an indecisive national election last month.
Isaac Herzog, the Israeli president, said he had held “in-depth talks” with both Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Eisenkot before making his decision. He ultimately tapped Mr. Eisenkot, a center-right former Israeli military chief, after more members of Parliament supported Mr. Eisenkot than Mr. Netanyahu during consultations over the past week.
The announcement gives Mr. Eisenkot, 66, a long-awaited chance to fulfill his pledge to unseat Mr. Netanyahu, but he will have to navigate significant obstacles to form a government. He has up to six weeks to build a coalition before the president passes the opportunity to another candidate, most likely Mr. Netanyahu.
Workers union on the election
United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America -The "blue tsunami" of Democratic wins in Tuesday's
midterm elections was a stunning rebuke of division, war, and corruption, and
of the corporate crime wave that Republican rule has enabled. However, the
credit for these wins belongs not to the Democratic Party - whose leadership
has offered at best tepid resistance to the Republican agenda over the past two
years - but to the working people across the country who have spent the last
two years organizing and fighting back in their communities and workplaces.
From bringing food to neighbors too terrified of
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to leave their homes, to confronting
ICE in the streets, to turning out in the largest demonstrations in our
country's history, everyday working people created the momentum that led to
this point. Trump's approval ratings began to fall after the working people of
Minnesota demonstrated in January that it was possible not only to stand up to,
but to defeat his authoritarian agenda. Tuesday was not just an electoral victory,
but an organizing win.
Crucially, the margins of victory in this election were so
large that Trump's pre-election threats not to recognize the results, based on
unfounded allegations of voter fraud, were rendered irrelevant. They were
"too big to rig," as a source within the Trump administration
admitted to CNN....
While President Trump has promised to veto any legislation passed by the new Democratic Congress, Democrats must not use that as an excuse not to craft and pass legislation to constrain corporate power and put more money in working people's pockets. Let Trump clearly demonstrate which side he is on by vetoing legislation that would improve workers' lives.
At a minimum, the new Democratic Congress should:
Raise wages with an immediate boost to the federal minimum
wage, which still stands at a paltry $7.25 per hour, unchanged since 2009. A
number of the candidates elected on Tuesday campaigned on fighting for a $25
minimum wage.
Lower costs by both investigating corporate price-gouging,
especially by oil and food companies, and addressing the biggest costs for
working families: healthcare, housing, education, and childcare. Over the past
four decades, costs for these four items have risen from one and a half to six
times faster than inflation, driven largely by bad policy choices. Good federal
policies can ensure that every American has healthcare, stable housing, quality
public education, access to higher education, and the ability to raise a family
comfortably.
Pass Medicare for All. With double-digit increases in
healthcare costs on the horizon, now is the time to finally join the rest of
the industrialized world by implementing a universal healthcare system which
takes healthcare off the bargaining table and guarantees it to every American.
End attacks on higher education and ensure that our nation's
universities have the funding they need to do research that benefits society,
without political strings attached.
Expand and fully fund Social Security so that all Americans
are guaranteed a decent retirement.
Tax the rich and corporations. In 2017 and again in 2025,
President Trump and the Republicans gave massive tax cuts to the wealthy and
corporations. Those tax cuts should be immediately reversed, and the resources
devoted to programs which benefit working people.
Dismantle the rogue ICE and Department of Homeland Security
agencies and rebuild our immigration system. The Trump administration's
approach to immigration enforcement has been especially cruel, indiscriminately
killing people, grabbing children off the streets, and detaining people in
inhumane conditions. However, it is built on a fundamentally broken system,
which through both Democratic and Republican administrations has separated
families, punished hard-working people who have contributed to our society for
generations, and been a drag on our economy. It is long past time to pass
immigration reform legislation that includes a legalization program,
prioritizes family reunification, and protects worker rights for both current
and future immigrants.
Slash funding for war and end U.S. financial support for the
Israeli military, and redirect those resources to meeting working people's
needs.
Post election
The Hill - Hispanic Americans helped deliver a historic blow to the GOP in Tuesday’s contest, diminishing gains President Trump made with Latino men while augmenting the ranks of Democrats in the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC). Exit polling data from polling firm BSP showed significant attrition among Latinos who backed Trump in 2024 — 17 percent of those who backed the president in the last election cycle supported the Democratic ticket during the midterms.
Meanwhile, a record-breaking number of Latinos voted this week, including newer, younger voters who more consistently backed the Democratic ticket. BSP found that among Latinos casting a ballot, 17 percent were first-time federal election voters, while 41 percent had joined the electorate since the 2022 cycle.
“While the numbers are still coming in, what we know so far indicates that this will undoubtedly be the largest turnout of Latino voters ever in a midterm election,” Janet Murguía, president and CEO of Unidos US, said on a call with reporters.
Alternet - When President Donald Trump's Republican Party lost the 2026 midterms in a landslide, the immediate GOP reactions varied, from Trump's surprising decision not to fight the results to conservative interest groups insisting their party would have won if Trump had listened to them. Now a new report indicates that Trump is literally in a state of dazed denial about the historic defeat he suffered on Tuesday.
"In the days since his defeat, he has sounded like a man in denial," reported The New York Times' Peter Baker on Sunday. "With his party still picking through the wreckage of a political earthquake, a seemingly oblivious President Trump signed a steel beam for his new White House ballroom and flew to Florida to give a speech on the space program. He seems flat these days, maybe a little dazed."
After describing how Trump dominated American politics from his surprise victory in the 2016 presidential election until last week, Baker points out that Trump has yet to openly accept that his heyday is behind him, something his predecessors did not struggle to do when faced with similar setbacks.
"Unlike other presidents who suffered midterm defeats, Mr. Trump has largely not acknowledged the setback," Baker wrote. "After Mr. Bush’s Republicans lost both houses in 2006, he admitted it was a “thumping.” After President Barack Obama’s Democrats lost the House in 2010, he admitted it was a “shellacking.” Mr. Trump, by contrast, has offered no expression of humility or much recognition of public discontent with him."
The Hill - After Democrats clinched majorities in both chambers of Congress, party leaders have already vowed to try and stop them through legislation.
“We need to stop the Trump tariffs that have increased costs on everyday Americans by thousands of dollars,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) told reporters on Wednesday.
How Democrats can do this once they assume the majority in both chambers could take different forms, Erica York, a senior economist at the Tax Foundation, told The Hill.
“It could be really narrow and just say, ‘These particular tariffs that the president has imposed, we want to … overrule those or … remove those from the books,’” she said of potential legislation.
She added, “It could be more expansive and say, ‘This authority in general shouldn’t sit with the president, and so we want to bring that back to Congress and not let any president do any tariff under this type of authority.’”
Arun Venkataraman, an international trade lawyer with Covington & Burling LLP who previously served in senior roles at the Commerce Department, said he sees Democrats getting more support “for specific tariff actions than they are to do a broadside against underlying” authorities.
“I don’t think we’re going to see them out of the gate on day one completely try to revise all of the U.S. trade laws,” he said. “I think that perhaps the more focused and strategic approach is to address particular tariffs, and then be able to get Republican support for some of that.” Trump, however, still holds the veto power, a fact that he has repeated since Tuesday’s blue wave.
NBC News - Sen.-elect Adam Hamilton, who flipped deep-red Kansas for Democrats, said that he hopes to prioritize lowering costs for his constituents and that he would be “deeply disappointed” to spend two years investigating members of the Trump administration.
“The bigger priority for me, and
I think for most people in America, especially people living paycheck to
paycheck, is ‘please help us with the cost of living,’” Hamilton told NBC News’
“Meet the Press.”
November 7, 2026
Middle East
Epoch Times Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has responded to President Donald Trump’s recent announcement to end billions of dollars in aid to the country. “U.S. military aid to Israel has always been a cross-the-aisle agreement,” Netanyahu’s office wrote in a post on X. “Israel has used it both to defend itself and to confront enemies who threaten America and the West. Today, Israel has a strong and stable economy.”
Framing Trump’s announcement as a collaborative transition from “aid to partnership,” the office wrote that the decision “shows the strength and sophistication of our relationship, and its ability to adapt and stand strong over time.”
Trump has said he would consider resuming strikes against Iran after the midterms. But U.S. airstrikes are unlikely to make the Iranian regime capitulate, and the country’s leaders are likely to stand by expansive demands they have made in negotiations.
“Iran has been very unwilling to have any reasonable discussions about peace,” said Leslie Shedd, a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former senior aide to Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas.
Trump could launch U.S. airstrikes against Iran but the government there has already absorbed thousands of such strikes.
In the unlikely scenario that Trump takes the extraordinary step of dropping a tactical nuclear weapon on a nuclear storage site beneath Pickaxe Mountain, it would not eliminate Iran’s nuclear program, which is deeply buried and also spans the country, experts said. The first attack since Nagasaki with a nuclear weapon of any size would create long-lasting radioactive fallout and threaten to destabilize existing weapons agreements among nuclear powers.
Meanwhile. . . .
People - In his posthumous book Camelot’s Architect, John Carl “Jack” Warnecke details his two-year love affair with Jackie Kennedy. Warnecke writes that Jackie confided in him that marrying her second husband, Aristotle Onassis, was “the biggest mistake” she ever made. Camelot’s Architect will be published on Nov. 10
California Governor Gavin Newsom unveiled a plan to review death row commutations one case at a time by stapling every case together and reviewing it once, sources have confirmed.
Stephen Miller
Republican Informer - The Wall Street Journal reported that Melania Trump complained to her husband after learning that people she knew personally had been deported. According to the account, summarized by multiple outlets on November 5, 2026, President Trump then told aides that Miller’s deportation push had gone “too far.” The report does not name the acquaintances or say when the conversation took place.
Why it matters: Miller, who starts Monday as the new White House chief of staff, is unlike any of his five predecessors who have held the job during Trump's two terms — and unlike anyone who has held the powerful position in the modern era. Miller puts the hard in hard-liner, and understands how to pull the levers of power to get his way and make the U.S. government a MAGA machine.
Miller's appointment sets the stage for two years of partisan warfare with the new Dem-led Congress, which is likely to launch investigations of Trump's administration, political committees and allies.
.... Despite his post-midterm comments about finding ways to work with Democrats, Trump's choice of Miller signals that the president isn't looking for truces. He's prepping for war, and sees Miller as a brass-knuckle general and tactical expert impervious to criticism or traditional restraints.
The 41-year-old Miller — Trump's MAGA brain for a decade — has detailed his Miller Doctrine in speeches, policies and press conferences:
Presidential power is "very substantial and will not be questioned." Miller said those words about Trump's Muslim travel ban in 2017 on CBS' "Face the Nation." But to him, they broadly apply to other areas of the executive's authority.Court authority is limited. In May 2025, when courts blocked aspects of Trump's deportation policies, Miller said the rulings were the work of "radical rogue judges" who were "at war" with the executive and legislative branches.The political opposition is a threat to America. "The Democrat Party is not a political party. It is a domestic extremist organization," Miller told Sean Hannity in August 2025. Miller also warned that if Democrats won Congress, "it's game over." They just won it.Homeland security is the nation's spine. A key architect of the administration's hard-line immigration policies, Miller said in a March speech: "Our national security, our homeland security, the safety and well-being of our people begins at home, begins in our neighborhood, begins in our home region."America should use "hard power" in the Western Hemisphere. "The cartels that operate in this hemisphere are the ISIS and the al-Qaeda of the Western Hemisphere, and should be treated just as brutally and just as ruthlessly as we treat those organizations," Miller said in the same speech, to foreign leaders at the Shield of the Americas conference.Between the lines: Trump advisers see Miller's elevation as a way to reenergize the president's populist base, which failed to turn out in sufficient numbers for the midterms — and in some cases voted for Democrats.Advisers point to Trump's handling of the Epstein files and his decision to attack Iran — which in turn escalated fuel prices — as reasons he lost support among those voters.
Without winning them back, Republicans say, they'll have no chance in the 2028 elections.
.... With Trump's legislative agenda effectively stalled, Miller's allies argue he is particularly well suited to a White House that will increasingly rely on executive orders and legal battles — areas in which Miller has extensive experience.
But some critics worry that Miller's elevation could mean Trump turns Miller's hard-line immigration agenda into a centerpiece of his final two years in office — something that could continue to alienate independent and moderate voters, as it appeared to do in the midterms.
The election
“[L]ook, I'm going to be blunt here: His demeanor, his focus on things that Americans were not talking about, like arches and ballrooms and, and reflecting pools certainly added to his problem,” said founder and senior partner at John Zogby Strategies, John Zogby, speaking of the Republican rout, and the particularly dramatic flip of the state of Texas blue
Zogby added that as a growing state and a more affordable state than California, Texas had an influx of suburban creative class people who work in the knowledge sector, along with a lot of young people coming in and “making for a new Texas.”
“This was going to happen sooner or later. What it always needed was the right candidate, the right moment. This was the right moment,” said Zogby, but he insisted that “the Republican brand has been hurt all over and it was hurt in Texas.”
JD Vance
New Republic - Where did things go wrong? That question is often top of mind after a humiliating failure, so it’s hardly a surprise that Vice President JD Vance is asking it after the Republican Party lost both chambers of Congress in the largest midterm defeat since Watergate. What’s surprising is how he’s answering the question.
In a lengthy post Wednesday on X, Vance spun the GOP’s massive defeat by blaming the administration he serves in—and the president he serves under, in particular—for launching a deeply unpopular war on Iran. The veep’s goal is barely concealed: He wants to succeed Donald Trump in two short years, and he doesn’t want the stink of Iran or the 2026 midterms on him. So he publicly threw his boss under the bus in an essay on Elon Musk’s hellsite. It has to be one of the boldest and most shameless things a vice president has ever done.
November 6, 2026
Donald Trump
The Hill - President Trump signed a proclamation Thursday making the Oval Office and Cabinet Room in the White House a national monument. Trump noted Congress would have to ratify the proclamation, and that “no major modifications” would be able to be made to the rooms without approval from Congress. “It’s a symbol of our country, and the greatness of our country,” Trump told reporters, referring to the Oval Office.
Meanwhile. . .
From 2010 to 2023, the number of minutes the average 15-19-year-old American boy spent outdoors on an average day dropped by roughly a third. That's according to a new paper published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Gov. Gavin Newsom moves to spare lives of all 548 prisoners on California's death row
The outgoing governor and potential 2028 presidential candidate said he has started the process to change the sentences to life in prison without the possibility of parole. If successful, the commutation would empty the nation’s largest death row.
Post election changes
Newsweek - Petitions calling for Senate Democrats to choose a new majority leader, opposed to current Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, have surpassed 100,000 signatures on Thursday. The petitions, both created on Wednesday, come on the heels of sweeping Democratic wins this midterm cycle that saw the House and Senate flip in their favor. President Donald Trump attempted to distance himself from the blue wave, saying he wasn't on the ballot, but if he were, "we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!"
One petition ... has 43,446 verified signatures and says, "We believe Democratic leadership should represent Democratic voters, not just the Democratic establishment," and that Schumer is not the right choice. Newly elected Democratic senators like South Carolina's Annie Andrews and Michigan's Abdul El-Sayed have been asked if they'd support Schumer as majority leader.
Andrews told Fox News' Bret Baier, "I believe it's time for a generational change on both sides of the aisle," when questioned about Schumer on Thursday.
Under an executive order from the mayor, Houston police officers will no longer alert ICE agents when they encounter an unauthorized migrant during routine traffic stops or in connection with other low level infractions.
Instead, officers will only alert ICE in cases where a person has been arrested and is being brought to, or has already arrived at, a county jail.
NBC News - The Donald Trump appointee who headed the office running a so-called “grand conspiracy” investigation looking into federal law enforcement officials who were involved in prior investigations of Trump has resigned.
Attorney General Todd Blanche made the announcement on X Friday that U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida Jason A. Reding Quiñones had submitted his resignation, part of a slate of high-profile resignation at the Justice Department this week following massive midterm losses by Republicans.
Supreme Court
Alternet - Three of the Supreme Court’s conservative justices could be forced off the bench all at once under a plan suddenly back in play now that Democrats have seized Congress.
One of the proposals for a constitutional amendment put forward by Maryland Democratic Rep. Johnny Olszewski would require sitting justices who have been on the court for more than 18 years to retire. Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Samuel Alito, and Justice Clarence Thomas have all been on the court for over 18 years.
According to CBS, Democrats are expected to have at least 54 seats in the Senate and at least 250 in the House, giving them the opportunity to take up any legislation which would have been completely out of the question in the GOP-led Congress.
New jobs jump
NBC News - The U.S. added 165,000 jobs in October, a bright spot for the economy The U.S. economy added 165,000 jobs in October, in a surprise that far outpaced expectations by economists and analysts. The unemployment rate dropped to 4.1%, extending a near-historically low streak. “Through September 2026, the US labor market had kept unemployment below 5% for 61 straight months,” Apollo Global Management chief economist Torsten Slok wrote.
The Election
Center for American Progress - There are 10 statewide offices in the state of Georgia. Eight of them—eight!—were won by Black Democratic women. In addition to the governor’s office, which will be held by Keisha Lance Bottoms, the offices include attorney general, secretary of state, insurance commissioner, agriculture commissioner, and more. The other two statewide offices were won by white men—and they’re Democrats, too.
Action Network - there are two still outstanding Senate races where no winner has been called, Alaska and Mississippi. In both cases, Democratic chances look pretty good, but legal wrangling could drag on for weeks. There may even be an attempt by Donald Trump and Republicans to either not certify, or not seat, Democrat Mary Peltola in Alaska should she emerge as the eventual winner.
NBC News - Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms has won Georgia’s race for governor, NBC News projects, defeating Republican Rick Jackson and flipping control of the battleground state office for the first time in 24 years.
Bottoms, the former mayor of
Atlanta and a former Biden administration official, overcame an enormous
spending disadvantage against Jackson, a wealthy healthcare executive who
pumped more than $100 million of his own money into his campaign.
Bottoms is the first woman and
the first Black person to be elected governor of Georgia. She is also the first
Black female governor in the country’s history.
Like many Democrats across the
country, Bottoms leaned heavily into a message focusing on affordability and
economic issues. Down the late fall stretch, she also ran ads that hit Jackson
over previous comments supporting the construction of data centers and linked
him to President Donald Trump, who faced low approval ratings in the state.
Equality PAC -
Chris Pappas just defeated Trump’s handpicked MAGA Republican to keep New Hampshire’s
Senate seat blue. This January, Chris will be sworn in as the fIrst openly
gay man to win election to the U.S. Senate.
MS NOW - As Democrats swept control of Congress on election night, Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, had a warning: “Lawyer up.” Some of America’s biggest companies already have. After two years spent courting President Donald Trump, they are bracing for Garcia, who is in line to chair the committee, and the other Democrats who will wield subpoena power come January. Some that expect to land near the top of the target lists have quietly opened back channels to the party, according to lawyers and congressional investigators familiar with the matter — a hedge against the reckoning Democrats have spent the year previewing.
Center for American Progress - In Mississippi, Democrat Scott Colom’s
lead is up to 1,138 votes from the 43 of election night. The
New York Times reports that "nearly all the votes have been
counted in the race," but results won’t be known until next Tuesday at
the earliest. In Alaska, Democrat Mary Peltola leads by 637 votes. Determining a winner there will
take longer—the deadline for tabulating ballots is November 18,
and that’s also when ranked-choice tabulation begins....
They were saying on Morning Joe this
morning that Democrats are on pace for 254 House seats.
That would be a 40-seat pickup. NBC News estimates that it’s going to be 259. Potentially,
that’s a durable majority that can last a decade or more. On the other hand, a
little perspective: After the 2008 elections, Democrats controlled 256 House seats. That majority was wiped out four
years later.
Resignations
The Hill - The U.S. attorney whose Miami office is leading the troubled conspiracy investigation into several of President Donald Trump’s political foes resigned Friday, making him the latest high-profile official to depart the Justice Department following Tuesday’s midterms rout.
Jason Reding Quiñones, who Trump appointed to lead the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of Florida, is leaving his post 15 months after he was confirmed by the Senate, Attorney General Todd Blanche said on social media. Blanche also said that John Eisenberg, head of the Justice Department’s national security division, had resigned.
His departure comes less than two months after the Trump administration’s picks to spearhead the “grand conspiracy” probe under Reding Quiñones’s supervision abruptly resigned.
At the time, Justice Department officials said the investigation would continue under Reding Quiñones’s leadership. His resignation Friday, with little explanation, threw the future of that high-profile probe into doubt.
Federal judge teporarily blocks Trump arch
The Hill - A federal judge late Thursday ordered a pause on the construction of President Trump’s triumphal arch for 14 days. The temporary restraining order by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan came shortly after the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) voted to approve the administration’s plans to build the arch between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C. The motion passed by an 8-4 vote on Thursday after more than 100 public remarks, mostly against the project, in a nine-hour meeting.
In a memorandum opinion filed with the order, Chutkan wrote that D.C. and Virginia — which sued the administration over the project last month — “have shown that construction of the Arch will cause harm by ‘clogging traffic, impeding disaster preparedness, and harming the environment,’ which will also ‘require both jurisdictions to expend resources to monitor and mitigate those impacts.’”
“First, the harm is certain,” the judge continued. “Second, the District and Virginia will incur significant unrecoverable costs.”
November 5, 2026
Donald Trump
Alternet - President Donald Trump's legal battles over the next two years have already begun, Politico reported Friday morning. It appears that the president intends to block subpoenas using a presidential protection he'll try to extend to everyone.
Courts and justice reporters Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein explained that a legal dispute over Trump’s Kennedy Center "renovation" is becoming a test of how far presidents can use executive privilege to shield their communications. The outcome could influence congressional investigations into Trump’s administration and establish rules that outlast his presidency.
Last week, Justice Department lawyers clashed in court over who decided to violate a judge's order to be informed about major work on the East Potomac Golf Course. Trump's lawyers claimed that his Truth Social posts were protected by "executive privilege."
Now there's another dispute, this time over the Kennedy Center, where the White House is trying to conceal information through executive privilege. It centers on a three-month exchange of approximately 180 messages between Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Kennedy Center operator Matt Floca.
The conversation began the day after a federal judge ordered the center’s board to remove Trump’s name from the building. Preservation groups challenging the redesign sought details about the communications, but that's when the White House lawyers asserted privilege. According to them, the messages reflected presidential advice or deliberations among close advisers. That may not work out in court.
The Nation - One of the mysteries of the 2026 midterms will always be why Donald Trump thought he could charm voters by repeatedly and lasciviously celebrating the human buttocks.
On October 12, Trump astonished a rally in Ohio with his lurid leering at Senator Jon Husted. “I started examining his body because I didn’t know he was a great athlete,” Trump said, alluding to Husted’s history as a college football player. “And I looked—I watched up, and down, I looked at his ass, and I looked at the whole…” Tributes to Husted’s rear would remain a staple until the end of the campaign.
But Trump wasn’t content to ogle just Husted. Speaking in Michigan on October 25, Trump made similar comments about both the singer Nicki Minaj (credited with “one hell of a beautiful ass”) and senatorial candidate Mike Rogers. Trump added, “I’d say that about your ass too, Mike, if it gets you a guaranteed victory.”
The degree to which Trump talks about other people’s bums really is bizarre and arguably without precedent in American political history. Abraham Lincoln did enjoy making scatological jokes about bodily functions, but that was in keeping with his persona as a son of the soil born in a log cabin.
Health
The
Guardian - Amid a surge in early onset cancer, the Trump administration
has taken more than 500 actions to systematically dismantle protections against
carcinogens once in place across the federal government, an October report
alleges.
The Natural Resources Defense
Council report, and comments from current and former officials from the
Environmental Protection Agency, bring into focus how myriad changes in federal
rules or protocol will dramatically increase the public’s exposure to carcinogens.
These are taking effect at a time when some forms of early onset cancer are
spiking by about 30% per decade.
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