God Bless America
DAWN BULLETIN! Things kept getting better all night. By 4:30 AM El-Sayed had won in Michigan, and Susan Collins had lost in Maine. Democrats had also flipped Senate seats in Kansas, South Carolina and Ohio, giving the Democrats at least 54 seats in the Senate.
NBC News said there were at least 258 Democrats elected to the House, yielding a gigantic 81 seat majority.
Charles: I’ve never doubted that decent Americans were in the majority. All we needed was the worst president of modern times stealing billions for himself, shooting innocent Americans in the streets, starting idiotic wars against everyone from Canada to Iran–and driving up the price of gas.
After all that, enough of America finally woke up to shout ENOUGH!
There is so much to celebrate today, from Georgia giving us America’s first black woman governor to Texas sending one Democrat to the Senate and another to the governor’s mansion. New Mexico elected the first Native American woman to serve as governor. Plus there are new Democratic governors in Iowa, Colorado, Minnesota and California. At dawn the AP said Kansas was still too close to call.
At 2 o’clock this morning with 80 percent of the vote counted in Michigan, the AP showed these results.
Abdul El‑Sayed
Dem
2,061,455
51.7%
Mike Rogers
GOP
1,845,165
46.3%
At 2:30 the Michigan race had been too close to call. But by dawn El-Sayed had triumphed.
Most astonishing of all: with 97 percent of the vote counted, Democratic Senate Candidate Scott Colom had a lead of 43 votes in Mississippi at 5AM.
The latest from the AP on Mississippi:
Scott Colom
Dem
462,82148.9%
Cindy Hyde‑Smith*
GOP
462,77848.9%
MS Now said there might be 10,000 ballots in dispute in Mississippi, so we probably won’t have the final result for many more days.
The last time Texas elected a Democratic Senator was the year before James Talarico was born.
The Presbyterian Seminarian from Texas gave the best victory speech of the night. He celebrated the biggest miracle: America proved that Elon Musk’s $440 million dollars were actually worthless at this year’s polls.
“We proved that all the money in the world is no match for the power of the people of Texas,” Talarico declared. “Tonight we sent a crystal clear message to the people at the top: we will not be conquered.”
America firmly and finally rejected the politics of hate.
“People want a politics of love,” said the newly elected Texas Senator.
This time I was not surprised. As soon as I saw Trump making his closing argument in front of the reflecting pool, I was serenely confident that victory would be ours.
My only regret is that my husband Joe isn’t here to celebrate this moment with me.
No one ever cared more about seeing a decent America again than Joe did.
But I am certain he is looking down on us right now with with a beatific smile.
How Will Russia Manage Trump Post Election?
Bloomberg News
Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, in August 2025. Photo: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images
Scott: In the second year of his second term, Trump appears to have thrown caution to the winds, openly advertising and acting on a plan to realign the United States with the Kremlin. This was shown principally in moves relating to Ukraine, specifically, throttling Ukrainian use of StarLink and StarShield systems to open the door to Russian ballistic missiles. But also in furtive negotiations led by presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner and Trump groupie Steve Witkoff designed to give Trump, his family and friends highly lucrative deals, largely with Russia’s oil and gas sector. With a Democratic Congress, these strategies become a far riskier proposition. Here Bloomberg details how we may anticipate a modulation of the Kremlin’s management style with Trump.
Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy will face a different Donald Trump if the US president emerges weakened from the midterm elections, a new political reality that may have a major impact on Russia’s war in Ukraine.
After Trump and Putin reached a deal on Russian diesel supplies to the US in the run-up to the midterms, the Kremlin will look for ways to further ease American sanctions on Russia, a person close to the Kremlin said, asking not to be identified discussing sensitive issues. The goal would be to persuade Trump that the US and Russia can do business together without first ending the war in Ukraine.
Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who’s also his son-in-law, have sought to persuade Putin to enter negotiations by highlighting potential business deals on the table once a peace agreement is reached. The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that Kushner and Witkoff promoted a plan for Russia to resume natural gas sales to Europe via a US intermediary during visits to Kyiv and Moscow in September.
Russia “dragged out all the negotiating processes with us as long as they could, until the elections, without any serious results in terms of de-escalation, so they can see what happens next and whom to negotiate with next,” Zelenskyy told reporters Oct. 27. “And to prevent any new US sanctions.”
Few believe that a weakened Trump is going to emerge more supportive of Ukraine and Europe if his Republican party loses to the Democrats in Tuesday’s congressional elections, though it may reduce his leverage to pressure Zelenskyy into accepting a deal. That’s likely to embolden Putin to step up attacks on Ukraine’s power infrastructure as winter approaches to try to force Ukraine to capitulate.
An early test is likely to come at the resumption of peace talks between officials from Russia, Ukraine and the US planned for Nov. 10-11 in Abu Dhabi. Putin has given no indication he’s willing to abandon hardline demands for Ukrainian territory in exchange for a deal.
“Discussions will focus on post-war security arrangements, de-escalation, humanitarian efforts, and next steps toward peace,” Witkoff said on the X platform. US negotiators will meet with European officials in Brussels this week to discuss those issues “and economic opportunities to support Ukraine’s reconstruction,” he said.
Trump’s Election Day Shocker: No More Money for Israel
The Guardian
Donald Trump also spoke warmly about the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, during an interview with Fox News. Photo: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
Scott: In an Election Day bombshell, Trump abruptly announced in an interview with Fox News that after this year’s $4 billion in security assistance for Israel, there would be no more. The heavy levels of US assistance to Israel “weren’t a good look” he said, appearing to acknowledge that US voter sentiment has shifted starkly against security support for Israel..
Donald Trump has said that the US will end military aid to Israel at the end of this year in a surprise election day announcement that appeared to be targeted at voters sceptical of US support for Israel and the war in Gaza.
In a phone interview with Fox News as voting began on Tuesday morning, Trump said the US would cut nearly $4bn (£2.96bn) in military aid to Israel because “they don’t need it.”
“We were giving them $4bn … But it gets cut off at the end of the year,” he said.
Trump also indicated that he had decided to end the aid – which he claimed would be replaced by arms sales to Israel instead – because it had become a popular criticism of US foreign policy led by outspoken candidates including the Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed.
Just Because They Won the Elections Doesn’t Mean We Have to Seat Them, Say GOP Analysts
Wired
Scott: Turns out all that strange rhetoric about “Muslim fundamentalist terrorist Neo-Marxists” you heard from Republicans in the last days of the 2026 midterm campaign is tied to a specific strategy: refuse to seat them after they win their races, claiming a national security pretext. A Republican think tank is drawing on precedent developed in the years between 1900 and the end of World War I, in which Republicans refused to seat socialists who were elected to Congress from Wisconsin, Illinois and New York. It worked then. And it provides a path for the outgoing GOP Congress to refuse to seat the incoming Democratic Congress.
With polls indicating that the Democrats are poised to win big in the midterm elections, the Trump administration is already attempting to mount legal challenges in certain races and cast doubt on the results.
A post published last month by the Center for Renewing America, an influential right-wing think tank, suggests a more radical strategy, asserting that a number of Democrats could be prevented from holding office even if they win their elections.
The post, titled “Can Congress Seat a Member-Elect Who Vows to Destroy our Constitution?” argues that even winning candidates from what it believes to be a purported “Red-Green Alliance” between “neo-Marxist progressives and anti-Western Muslims” can and should be kept from being seated in Congress. The post, in effect, claims that Muslim and progressive candidates don’t have to be legally accepted into their elected positions.
“This is another attempt to contort and twist basic norms that have never been used this way for their own partisan purposes,” says Richard Pildes, a professor at New York University’s School of Law.
The CRA was founded by Russell Vought, one of the main architects of Project 2025 and now the director of the Office of Management and Budget. Vought faced criticism for his anti-Muslim comments—he once said that Muslims had a “deficient theology” and “do not know God”—when he was nominated for OMB director during the first Trump administration.
Russia Withdraws from the European Convention Against Torture
Kommersant
Scott: Nothing better sums up the foreign policy of Vladimir Putin than his decision yesterday to denounce and withdraw from the European Convention against Torture, and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment. Russia’s conduct of its military operations in Ukraine reveal very clearly that under Putin, Russia has ceased adhering to major aspects of the law of armed conflict, including the anti-torture prohibition—even though the Soviet military’s general adherence to its terms has been well documented.
“Russia did not refuse cooperation and was prepared to discuss the modalities for a potential visit by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture to its territory—provided that Russia’s rights under the convention were first restored. The Committee itself, however, demanded additional guarantees that went beyond the provisions of the convention,” explained Ms. Zakharova (as quoted on the Foreign Ministry’s website). According to her, authorities in Strasbourg “continue to seize upon any pretext” to criticize Russia.
The Foreign Ministry spokesperson stated that one of the reasons for Russia’s withdrawal from the convention was the violation of its rights within the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture. Maria Zakharova noted that, since December 2023, Russia had been denied the opportunity to elect a new member to the Committee. She further accused the Committee of politicizing its work, pointing out that it only issued inquiries regarding high-profile cases—specifically those involving Alexei Navalny (who had been designated an extremist and terrorist) and individuals detained in connection with the terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall.
The denunciation process was initiated in the summer of 2025 by the government and President Vladimir Putin. The Council of Europe received notification of this decision by the Russian leadership on October 30, 2025. It took effect on November 1.
Comet PanSTARRs and Rainbow Meteor
Explanation: Did this meteor come from that comet? Probably not. Although many meteors do originate from comets, there are thousands of comets that have visited the inner Solar System recently, and matching meteors to them can be tricky. And to be clear, the pictured comet is far behind the streaking meteor. Comet C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS) was captured from Hautacam, France in April when the giant space iceberg sported impressive ion (blue) and dust tails. Sand-sized rocky debris that enters Earth’s atmosphere typically appears as meteors, while the colorful foreground streak here may indicate a complicated composition. This month three notable meteor showers will reach their peaks. Over the next few days, the Southern Taurids will be reaching their apex, while the Northern Taurids will top out about a week later. Both originate from Comet 2P/Encke. November is most famous for the Leonids Meteor Shower, though, which originates from Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle and will reach its crescendo in about two weeks.
Photo: Eddy Metals
Your Online Moment of Zen
God Bless America
Performed by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir
Written by Irving Berlin in 1918. Rewritten by him in 1938, just after he returned from London, where he had been when Chamberlain flew to Munich to meet Hitler. First performed in public by Kate Smith on CBS Radio on November 10th, 1938. “I feel it’s one of the most beautiful compositions ever written,” said Smith. “A song that will never die.”
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