Even without last week’s midterm election, there was a lot going on last week. And the election isn’t even fully decided yet; in some places, the counting is still going on and there are runoff elections coming up. Several races have not yet been called, and a few are already looking like they’ll automatically trigger a recount. I’m sure by the time I post this, some of the election info will be obsolete. There was a lot that was interesting about this election, so I’ll summarize it all in a later blog post after things shake out.

Here’s what else happened last week…

Russia:

1. The day after the midterm elections, Jeff Sessions tenders his resignation as Attorney General at Trump’s request. Until Trump nominates his permanent replacement, DOJ Chief of Staff Matthew Whitaker will serve as Acting Attorney General. The administration expects additional turnover after the elections, with possible ousters of Rod Rosenstein, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Jim Mattis, Ryan Zinke, Kirstjen Nielsen, and Wilbur Ross.
2. Whitaker will take over Rod Rosenstein’s responsibilities in overseeing the Russia investigation. Whitaker has been a frequent talk-show guest speaking out strongly against the Russia investigation.
3. A federal court orders Robert Mueller to explain how all this might influence Andrew Miller’s case. Miller has refused to respond to subpoenas and is challenging the constitutionality of Mueller’s appointment.
4. Sessions’ firing results in over 900 protests and rallies held across the country in support of protecting Mueller and his investigation.
5. Paul Manafort isn’t fully cooperating with Mueller’s investigation even though that was part of his agreement.
6. Mueller’s team has begun writing their final report, though Trump has still not decided whether he’ll answer their questions.
7. Russia had said Trump would meet with Putin in France at the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the end of WWI. They did not end up meeting.
8. After taking the House in the midterms, Democrats plan to open several investigations into Russia’s meddling in our elections, into actions taken by the administration around healthcare and education, and into Trump’s finances. Trump says he’ll take a “warlike posture” against Democrats should they decide to investigate him. He likens this to a game, saying Republicans can play the game better. But he also says he’ll make deals with Democrats.

Legal Fallout:

1. The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump was involved in almost every action in the payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal to keep them quiet about their affairs with him. The deals were made in the run-up to the 2016 elections, so are likely violations of campaign finance laws.

• • Trump has denied knowing anything about the $130,000 payout to Daniels.
  • David Pecker, CEO of American Media Inc., used the National Enquirer to buy off Karen McDougal.
  • Michael Cohen has admitted they made the payoffs to influence the outcome of the presidential election.

Courts/Justice:

1. Kellyanne Conway’s husband writes an op-ed outlining why he thinks Whitaker’s appointment is unconstitutional. I’m dying to know what their home life is like.
2. World Patent Marketing, where Matt Whitaker once served on the advisory board, is under FBI investigation for defrauding consumers out of millions of dollars. As part of his work there, he used his previous position as a federal prosecutor to intimidate consumers who attempted to get their money back.
3. 29 days after Trump is on record saying he knows Matt Whitaker and that he’s a great guy, Trump says he doesn’t know Matt Whitaker. Kellyanne Conway confirms that Trump does, indeed, know Matt Whitaker.
4. Whitaker says he won’t slash Mueller‘s budget and will allow the probe to continue unhindered.
5. The harassment and death threats against Christine Blasey Ford continue. She’s had to move four times, she hired private security, and she hasn’t been able to return to her job.
6. On his way out the door, Jeff Sessions gives us one parting shot by putting restrictions on consent decrees between the DOJ and local police departments. Consent decrees let federal agencies create agreements with local PDs to overhaul departments accused of civil rights violations. The new restrictions include:

• • Top political appointees must approve the agreements.
  • There must be evidence of additional violations beyond unconstitutional behavior.
  • All consent decrees must have an end date.

Healthcare:

1. Trump issues the final version of new rules allowing employers to deny contraception coverage to employees based on religious grounds. His previous versions of the rules are pending litigation, but he issues the new ones anyway.

International:

1. 60 business leaders in the UK are pushing for another Brexit vote, hoping to overturn the previous one (which frankly doesn’t seem to be working out well for the UK). They say none of the exit deals in the works are as good as what’s in place now.
2. Turkey shares the audio recording of Jamal Khashoggi’s murder in the Saudi Consulate in Turkey. Saudi Arabia, the U.S. , Britain, France, and Germany all have a copy.
3. Trump meets with global leaders in France to commemorate the 100-year anniversary of the end of WWI. When he arrives, Trump insults French President Macron in an angry tweet over Macron’s call for an EU army. He actually seems pretty sullen the whole trip.
4. When a reporter asks Trump and Macron about Trump’s tweet, Macron reassuringly pats Trump’s knee to defuse tensions. Trump didn’t react at all.
5. On the 243rd birthday of the Marine Corps, Trump forgoes attending a ceremony in France at a military cemetery (Aisne-Marne) where they buried the Marines who fought at Belleau Wood. They say his helicopter can’t operate in the rain (really?) and that he didn’t want to plug up the roads with a motorcade.
6. And finally, while 60 other world leaders perform a symbolic walk up the Champs-Elysées to a World War I remembrance at the Arc de Triomphe, Trump and Putin both take private cars.
7. Gun and air fights break out between Hamas and Israeli military in the Gaza Strip after a covert Israeli operation is uncovered. Eight people are dead.
8. Over a year ago, Saudi intelligence discussed assassinating Iranian enemies. The Saudi official implicated in the death of Jamal Khashoggi had a meeting with businessmen who tried to sell him on a plan to sabotage Iran’s economy.

Legislation/Congress:

1. Wonder why we all think we hate Congress? Here’s part of why. A Washington Post and ProPublica study finds that the legislative branch is weak. Party leaders dictate what goes on and most of our elected officials don’t really get a say. Also, the threat of government shutdowns keeps us at an impasse. House committees met almost twice as often to deliberate legislation in 2005/2006 as they did in 2015/2016. Senate committees met around 3.5 times as often.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

1. Ramping up the fear baiting, Trump floats a plan to deploy up to 15,000 troops to our border with Mexico to stop the migrant caravan. If my math is right, that’ll end up being around 10 soldiers for each migrant who makes it this far. It’s estimated to cost around $220 million. The Pentagon says the caravan poses no threat.
2. There are an estimated 200 vigilante (and unregulated) armed militia members patrolling the border between the U.S. and Mexico.

• • The troops that Trump sent to the border are have to deal with the militias as well as their regular duties.
  • The militias have a record of stealing military supplies from troops deployed there.
  • The militias think we are under literal attack from people trying to cross the borders illegally and have put out calls to increase their numbers.

3. Yet another federal appeals court rules that Trump can’t immediately end DACA. Even though there are three cases pending, Trump has asked the Supreme Court to rule on it now.

• • Note: Congress has always had the power to fix this, but has been unable to agree on the most minor immigration reform.

4. Remember when we found out that Motel 6 was letting ICE know when people with Hispanic sounding names checked in? Well that was illegal, and now Motel 6 will pay out $7.6 million to their Hispanic guests. As part of the settlement, Motel 6 is forbidden from sharing guest information without a subpoena or warrant.
5. The average number of people in ICE detention each day reaches a record high (44,631 people). This is larger than the number that Congress has approved funding for.
6. The University of Virginia bans 10 people from their campus for their participation in the Unite the Right rally last year in Charlottesville. The ban is in effect for four years.
7. Trump changes the rules of asylum so only people who show up at a port of entry can seek asylum. Previously, you had to seek asylum within a year of being physically present in the country. Lawsuits against the move are already filed.
8. Major TV stations drop or refuse to even air an ad from Trump’s political team that was deemed so racist that even Fox News stopped airing it. The ad’s purpose was to drum up fear of Central American and Latin American immigrants.
9. A review by ABC News found 17 cases of violent criminal acts or threats of violent acts where Trump’s name was invoked. There were none invoking his name in protest; rather 16 of the 17 cases have direct evidence of the suspect or perpetrator echoing Trump’s rhetoric. The suspects and perpetrators are mostly white men and the victims are mostly minorities. ABC News was unable to find similar cases carried out in Barack Obama’s name nor George W. Bush’s name.

Climate/EPA/Environment:

1. The Supreme Court denies Trump’s request for a stay in the lawsuit brought by a group of young people against the government for its lack of action on climate change.
2. Heavy rains and flooding devastate areas in Italy, killing at least 17 people. The rains have also destroyed around 14 million trees, devastating forests.
3. A federal judge halts construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline saying that the environmental impact studies aren’t complete.
4. A UN report says that it’s possible that the hole in the ozone layer could be fixed by the 2060s, thanks to the ban on chlorofluorocarbons and hydrochlorofluorocarbons.
5. Wildfires devastate California once again, burning down almost the entire community of Paradise in the north and threatening suburbs of Los Angeles in the south. The death toll is at least 31.
6. In a tweet, Trump blames California for the wildfires, saying they mismanage their forest land. But the fires started on federal land, and California didn’t create the drought nor the Santa Ana winds that make the fires so much worse. Trump says there’s no reason for these fires. Firefighters say climate change is to blame.
7. The International Firefighters Association criticize Trump for putting out a tweet like that at a time when lives and homes are being lost. They call his words reckless and irresponsible; The California Firefighters Association calls him ill-informed.
8. Trump hasn’t read his own administration‘s National Climate Assessment report, but he says he thinks that climate change will probably reverse itself. Problem solved.
9. The EPA’s website previously removed over 80 climate change websites, and noted that they were updating the site to reflect the administration’s views. Now they’ve removed the note about updating and any links to the archived climate change website from Obama’s administration.

Budget/Economy:

1. The price of oil reached a four-year-high in October, and then proceeded to slide 21% to below $70 a barrel. The price rose because of imminent sanctions on Iran, but then dropped when Russian, Saudi, and U.S. oil companies overcompensated to make up the difference.
2. The Trump administration reimposes all sanctions against Iran that Obama lifted under the joint agreement. The sanctions include an oil ban and are against over 700 Iranian banks, companies, and people.
3. Trump grants China, India, Italy, Greece, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Turkey waivers; so Iran might not be hit as hard as originally thought.
4. The Trump administration isn’t watchdogging the big banks and corporations as much as previous administrations. SEC penalties are down 62% under Trump and criminal prosecution by the DOJ is down 72%. Maybe they all just cleaned up their act? Ha! I crack myself up.
5. U.S. businesses paid 50% more in tariffs this September than last September, paying out $4.4 billion.

Elections:

1. Despite a lack of evidence of voter fraud, Trump and Sessions both warn that there will be fraud in the midterm elections.
2. Voter enthusiasm is up! Election day has the highest voter turnout for a midterm election in over 50 years, partly due to a drastic increase in young people voting.
3. Democrats take back the House after 8 years of Republican control. With several races still too close to call, and some recounts pending, Democrats are predicted to take 35-40 seats. Republicans hold on to the Senate, and are predicted to gain 1-2 seats.
4. Democrats took 7 additional governorships, including in Colorado (where they elected the first openly gay governor and their first Jewish governor) and in Kansas (where the leader of Trump’s voter fraud commission, Kris Kobach, lost his bid).
5. At least 111 women win elections. We elect the first Native American women and the first Muslim women to Congress. Maine and South Dakota elect their first female governors.
6. The people elect a number of open LGBTQ people to Congress.
7. The North Dakota representative who sponsored the voter ID laws that disproportionately affected Native Americans loses his seat to a Native American woman.
8. A few “notable” Republicans who won:

• • Representative Chris Collins: Under felony indictment for securities fraud.
  • Representative Duncan Hunter: Under felony indictment on 60 counts of conspiracy, fraud, and campaign finance violations.
  • Dennis Hof: Deceased brothel owner in Nevada.
  • Arthur Jones: Self-proclaimed Nazi.

9. But Democrats aren’t immune:

• • Keith Ellison: Accused of domestic violence (but is requesting an investigation).
  • Bob Menendez: His corruption trial ended with a hung jury and charges were dismissed.

10. U.S. intelligence officials say they haven’t seen any evidence of any foreign state interfering in the voting systems.
11. Some of the races from the midterms are so tight they can’t be called, and some states will be counting votes into December. And everyone is suing in Florida, Arizona and Georgia to stop ballot counts, to make sure all ballots are counted, or to stop ballot counters from discarding ballots.
12. Georgia, Florida, and Arizona are hotbeds of political gamesmanship after the elections. After observing the vote count for a bit, I say let these people do their jobs. They take their work very seriously.
13. In California, Harley Rouda and Josh Harder both pull ahead of their Republican opponents in late counting, with Harley’s race being called for him. Two other races in Orange County are tightening and are too close to call, though 538 gives the Democratic candidates the highest probabilities.
14. Cindy Hyde-Smith is in a special election runoff with Mike Espy. She says that if Trump invited her to a public hanging, she’d be first in line. Racist to begin with, but given that her opponent is black that comment is unconscionable.
15. North Carolina got a reprieve on redrawing their unconstitutionally gerrymandered district lines for this election, but they must redraw them for 2020.
16. In a ballot measure, Florida votes to reinstate voting rights to 1.4 million ex-felon Floridians. Previously, Governor Rick Scott decided which ex-felons could get their rights reinstated on a case-by-case basis.

Georgia:

1. In Georgia and Texas people report that their party-line ballots cast votes for a member of the wrong party. Officials blame old and outdated computer systems. This really highlights the need for an auditable paper trail in all elections.
2. In fact, earlier this year a federal judge found that continuing to use the Georgia machines disenfranchises voters, but did not force them to replace the machines before the election.
3. Brian Kemp is Georgia’s Secretary of State and tasked with overseeing elections, including his own election for governor. Just before the elections, he accuses the Democratic Party of trying to hack into the voter system. He says he’s opening an investigation and taking it to the DHS and FBI.

• • It turns out that what really happened is that a man discovered a way to download voter information through a security hole. He reported it to the Democratic voter protection director.

4. When Kemp tries to vote, his voter card says “invalid.” He has to get a replacement to vote.
5. There are calls for Kemp to recuse himself from the election process and then from the ballot counting process. Kemp only steps down to start transitioning to the governorship which has still not been called for him.
6. Democrats accuse Kemp of multiple counts of voter suppression; Kemp accuses Democrats of trying to get people to vote illegally and of hacking into the elections system.
7. Currently, Kemp’s percentage of the vote sits at 50.3%, just slightly above the required 50% threshold. Stacey Abrams hasn’t yet conceded, and is hoping to get all votes counted and force a runoff.
8. Kemp, for his part, stepped down from the SoS position to start transitioning to the role of governor, though a runoff is still possible.
9. Meanwhile, all the lawsuits alleging voter suppression and invalid ballot counts are still going on.

Arizona:

1. Arizona Republicans sue to challenge how counties count ballots, saying the process should be standard. At issue is the fact that some counties allow fixes to things like missing information or mismatched signatures after election day (which sort of makes sense, since mail-in ballots don’t have to arrive until election day).
2. Arizona Republicans and Democrats come to an agreement that gives rural counties the same ability to fix errors as in urban counties.
3. Democrat Kirsten Sinema is projected to win Jeff Flake’s old Senate Seat. The more ballots that are counted in Maricopa County, the bigger her lead gets.
4. While the NRSC (National Republican Senate Committee) alleges corruption and fraud against Democrats in the ongoing ballot count, both Martha McSally, Sinema’s Republican opponent, and Jeff Flake say there is no evidence to support that. The NRSC files a FOIA request of the Maricopa county recorder to turn over any correspondence he’s had with George Soros and Tom Steyer. Huh? I’m dying to see the results of that request.
5. Senator Cory Gardner (R-CO), the NRSC chair, tells Face The Nation that the Maricopa County Recorder is “cooking the books” for Sinema.
6. Cindy McCain also speaks out against the NRSC’s attempts to stop the ballot count.
7. Speaking of McCain, on Veterans Day, the Wall Street Journal chose to run an op-ed by a defeated Minnesota Republican blaming McCain for the Republican losses in the election. Aside from the misguided premise, who runs an op-ed disparaging a deceased military hero on Veterans Day?

Florida:

1. In Florida, Governor Rick Scott threatens to send police to seize ballots in Broward County for a race in which he is running. He says there’s rampant fraud because they’re trying to count all the ballots. Scott and his Democratic opponent, Bill Nelson, are likely headed toward a recount.
2. Trump also makes accusations of fraud. Florida Law Enforcement says there have been no claims of fraud and no evidence of fraud.
3. Trump sends lawyers down to help Rick Scott’s case.
4. Bill Nelson files a lawsuit challenging the rejection of certain ballots.
5. Actually, there are a lot of lawsuits going around. Here’s a recap of the Florida lawsuits.

Miscellaneous:

1. In a contentious press conference after the midterm elections, Jim Acosta refuses to back down from questioning the president about whether there is any threat posed by the “caravan of migrants.”
2. Trump suspends Acosta’s press pass.
3. Sarah Huckabee Sanders retweets a doctored video to support their accusation that Acosta was overly aggressive with the woman handling the microphone. Her video makes it look like Acosta karate chopped the woman’s arm, and also deletes the part where he says “excuse me, ma’am.” Does she think we don’t have access to the real-time videos?
4. Trump calls reporter April Ryan a “loser” who “doesn’t know what the hell she is doing.” He also responds to reporter Abby Phillips by saying angrily “what a stupid question that is” and “you ask a lot of stupid questions.”
5. Trump threatens to revoke press passes for more journalists.
6. An ex-marine kills 12 people at the Borderline Bar and Grill, a country bar in Thousand Oaks, CA. One of the dead is the responding officer. The gunman then kills himself. Some of the victims and people at the bar had also been in the crowds during the shooting at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas last year.
7. Just hours before the shooting, the NRA responds to a paper written by a group of physicians calling for a comprehensive approach to gun violence. The NRA tells doctors to stay in their lane, apparently not realizing that doctors are the ones left cleaning up the mess from gun violence. And doctors are the ones who have to tell people that their loved ones didn’t make it.
8. Ruth Bader Ginsberg is hospitalized with fractured ribs (giving Democrats a collective panic attack), but she’s back a work within a few days.
9. The Trump administration backs Sudan in a lawsuit brought by the families of military personnel killed in the bombing of the USS Cole. The lawsuit asserts that the bombers were funded by Sudan.
10. A lawyer in the case of two men on trial for a bomb plot against Muslims in Kansas is pleading for leniency in the case, saying that Trump’s angry rhetoric spurred the plan. He says Trump’s language before the 2016 election fueled hysteria about Muslims and immigrants.