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Meet the New Squad Members - The Thursday AM Quickie 11/10/22

By Corey Pein —

Like a lot of people, I signed up for Mastodon, an open-source Twitter alternative, but I'm not sure I'd recommend it to anyone and everyone yet. There are some real rough edges still. - Corey

Tell your friends to sign up for this M-F newsletter at AMQuickie.com!

THE BIG NEWS

We Probably Won't Know Full Results for Another Week

All praise to Jack, who did a terrific job summing up where things were at last night with the midterm election returns. Picking up where he left off, there's still more news than we have room for, so I'll try to move quickly. To me, the big story is, as the Associated Press reports, that "Election Day unfolded without major or widespread voting snags" -- and without bloodshed, despite constant incitement from Trumpist Republicans. Getting full results "could be a week-plus journey" of ballot-counting but, as the acting Pennsylvania secretary of the commonwealth told the Washington Post, "it doesn't mean anything nefarious is happening."

  • Control of the Senate is coming down to Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada. Georgia will hold a runoff election on Dec. 6 between Republican Herschel Walker and Democrat Raphael Warnock. In Arizona, Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly "held onto a shrinking lead over Republican rival Blake Masters as election officials continued to tally votes." Nevada's mail-in ballots won't be counted "until at least Tuesday," but Republican Adam Laxalt had a narrow lead yesterday over Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto. In Wisconsin, Republican Ron Johnson defeated Democratic hope Mandela Barnes.
  • Control of the House is still up in the air but the AP deems it likely that Republicans will win with a slight majority: "In a particularly symbolic victory, the GOP toppled House Democratic campaign chief Sean Patrick Maloney of New York." Scapegoat located! (House Speaker Nancy Pelosi praised Maloney's "vision, his strategic thinking and his leadership" in a statement yesterday.) Meanwhile, Republicans are fighting among themselves, deliciously, over who to blame for their poorer-than-expected showing. Some say the results prove Donald Trump belongs "in the rearview mirror." Trump himself is said to be "frustrated" and "really irked." Poor baby.
  • The Squad got bigger, as Vice News reports:
Florida gun violence activist Maxwell Frost became the youngest person ever elected to Congress, Democratic Socialists of America member Greg Casar won election in an Austin-area seat, and a trio of left-wing state representatives—Delia Ramirez in Illinois, Jasmine Crockett in Texas, and Summer Lee in Pennsylvania—were easily elected to safe Democratic seats after winning contentious primaries earlier this year.
  • President Joe Biden held a news conference yesterday afternoon and indicated he would run for reelection in 2024. Election Day turned out to be "a good day for America" and "a good day for democracy," he said. "The American people have made clear they expect Republicans to be prepared to work with me," the president added. You need a stick to go with that carrot, Joe.
  • Governor's races were a bright spot. Per Politico:
Democrats scored major victories across the map. Two incumbents in pure tossups — Wisconsin's Tony Evers and Kansas' Laura Kelly — dispatched their challengers to score second terms. Beyond that, Democratic incumbents in a slew of still competitive races — including Michigan's Gretchen Whitmer, New York's Kathy Hochul and more — all won as well.

In Oregon, Democrat Tina Kotek beat the Republican, Christine Drazan, even though an "unaffiliated" spoiler, Betsy Johnson, siphoned off some voters.

  • Election deniers got denied by the voters in some important secretary of state races. Trump-loving deniers running for that top elections office did win in Alabama, Indiana, and Wyoming, with a few races like those in Arizona yet uncalled. GOP election deniers fared better in House races. Per the Washington Post: "At least 143 Republican election deniers running for the U.S. House had won their races as of Wednesday morning, ticking past the 139 House Republicans who objected to the counting of electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021." By NBC's count, 14 of 36 election deniers running for governor, attorney general, or secretary of state are projected to win. GOP candidates who directly participated in Trump's Jan. 6 coup attempt also suffered losses, with a couple of exceptions. So: no huge gains for democracy-hating fascists. I'm going to call that good news.

A few more noteworthy items, in no particular order:

  • Louisiana voters upheld slavery by rejecting a ballot measure to ban involuntary servitude by people in jail or prison. Voters in three other states -- Alabama, Tennessee and Vermont -- approved similar bans, and a measure in Oregon was moving toward approval by a wide margin yesterday.
  • Kentucky voters defeated an antiabortion amendment, one of many victories for abortion rights supporters across the country.
  • "The Los Angeles County district attorney's office has opened a criminal investigation into whether Sheriff Alex Villanueva violated state law when he solicited campaign donations from deputies," the Los Angeles Times reports. The news dropped as the tyrannical crackpot Villanueva was on track to lose his reelection bid to retired Long Beach police chief Robert Luna.
  • Maryland and Missouri voted to legalize weed, but Arkansas and the Dakotas rejected recreational marijuana measures.
  • The Democrat who took on Colorado GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert, Adam Frisch, is a former currency trader and Aspen city councilmember who attributes his strong showing (local news forecast his victory last night) to having put in thousands of road miles and attending hundreds of community events where he talked to people Boebert ignored. Maybe not the ideal Democrat, but another valuable lesson, regardless!

QUICKEST QUICKIES

  • Russia Announces Retreat from Illegally Annexed Regional Capital Ukrainian officials said the purported Russian withdrawal from Kherson might be an attempt to lure their forces into a trap. via the BBC.
  • Delegates to Egypt Climate Talks Endure Food, Water Shortages "Ice-cream stands have been the only places not affected by shortages. One [COP27] delegate said they had resorted to eating three ice-creams in one day." via the Guardian.
  • Latest Tech Layoffs: 11,000 Meta Workers Laid Off The division working on Mark Zuckerberg's half-baked "metaverse" project had $3.67 billion in operating losses at last report, and those losses are expected to grow next year. via the New York Times.
  • Oath Keeper Suffers Heart Attack After Being Outed as FBI Informant The former No. 2 to group founder Stewart Rhodes, Greg McWhirter, was set to testify in Rhodes' defense on seditious conspiracy charges when the New York Times revealed his big secret, triggering a medical emergency and delaying his appearance. via Law & Crime.
  • WNBA Star Brittney Griner Sent to Russian Penal Colony "Her lawyers said Wednesday that they did not know exactly where she was or where she would end up." via the Associated Press.
  • Newt Gingrich Ordered to Testify in Georgia 2020 Probe The former Republican House Speaker must testify to the Fulton County grand jury investigating the GOP plot to overturn the election on Trump's behalf on November 29. via CNN.
  • Florida, Georgia, Bahamas Hit with Major Storm Tropical Storm Nicole, which became a Category 1 hurricane as it hit the Gulf Coast, caused flooding, tornadoes, and airport cancellations. via the New York Times.
  • Eggs, Insults Lobbed at King Charles, Camilla A man in York, England "was heard to boo the royals as he threw the eggs and to shout 'this country was built on the blood of slaves' and 'not my king.'" via the Guardian.

SOME NUMBER

$14.6 billion

That's how much crypto promoter Sam Bankman-Fried lost in a single day this week. Bankman-Fried had pledged to spend $1 billion donating to political candidates, including many Democrats, ahead of the midterms -- a promise that fell short. His company FTX is now under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

ON THE SHOW TODAY

11/10: I don't know yet. Enjoy the suspense!

DON'T MISS MR CLIPS

Tulsi Gabbard's Quest to Become Trump's VP Begins With Chuck Grassley Endorsement

Ugh, this is exactly the game, isn't it?

Joe Rogan and Matt Walsh Have an Idiot Contest

More factually false transphobic bigotry served up as irreverent infotainment.

PARTING WORDS

"I have long believed that I was trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein to Alan Dershowitz. However, I was very young at the time, it was a very stressful and traumatic environment, and Mr. Dershowitz has from the beginning consistently denied these allegations. I now recognize I may have made a mistake in identifying Mr. Dershowitz. This litigation has been very stressful and burdensome for me and my family, and we believe it is time to bring it to an end and move on with our lives."

-- Virginia Giuffre, one of the late serial sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein's many victims, in a statement released on Election Day as part of a settlement with Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard law professor who was friends with Epstein.

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