BY PRIYANKA 'LAST DAY BEFORE VACATION' ARIBINDI

& CROOKED MEDIA

Friday, November 16, 2018

—DJT to Justice Scalia’s widow, after reading the names of their nine children. We… truly cannot.

BLUE.wav

In the 10 days since the midterm elections, the Blue Wave™—which, for the record, was evident on day one—has only continued to grow. As of now, Democrats have gained a net of 36 seats—far surpassing the 23 they needed to take control of the House, and taking a national lead of over 8 million votes.

Take a victory lap for the following:

• Nearly the entirety of Orange County, CA—typically a Republican stronghold—has been flipped by Democrats, with Katie Porter (CA-45) securing her win last night, and Gil Cisneros (CA-39) taking the lead against his Republican challenger.
• Democrat Jared Golden flipped a House seat in Maine after a ranked-choice runoff yesterday.
• Democrat Andy Kim defeated incumbent Republican Tom MacArthur in NJ-03, leaving New Jersey with just one Republican in Congress.
• Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) flipped an Arizona Senate seat that had long been held by the GOP.

The six districts that still haven’t been called offer even more opportunities to add to this majority: CA-39, UT-4, NY-22, GA-07, NY-27, TX-23.

Disappointments came as well—perhaps the largest of the week was the end of Georgia’s Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams’ challenge against Georgia Secretary of State/notorious vote suppressor Brian Kemp today, after missing the cutoff to trigger a runoff.

But, as Abrams noted, ending her campaign was not a concession. "Concession means to acknowledge an act is right, true or proper,” she said. “I cannot concede that… To watch an elected official who claims to represent the people in this state baldly pin his hopes for election on the suppression of the people’s democratic right to vote has been truly appalling.” Abrams says she'll file a federal lawsuit to challenge the election’s “gross mismanagement” under Kemp.

And there are also a few races that have gone into runoffs and recounts:

• In Mississippi, Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), who was appointed to replace Sen. Thad Cochran, faces a runoff against her Democratic challenger, Mike Espy, after no candidate in the special election reached 50 percent of the vote. Hyde-Smith is an unrepentant racist, and has been caught on tape relishing in voter suppression.
• In Georgia, the race to replace Brian Kemp as Secretary of State entered a runoff between Democrat John Barrow and Republican Brad Raffensperger, scheduled for December 4. Help him out →
• In Florida, a federal judge ruled yesterday that thousands of Florida voters whose ballots were uncounted because of issues with signatures on them must be allowed time to fix the problems so their votes can be accounted for—giving them until 5 p.m. Saturday. The state has until November 20 to certify the results of the midterm elections.
• Also in Florida, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum has not conceded to Ron DeSantis, though DeSantis has maintained a narrow lead in a machine recount.

If the last 10 days are any indication, it turns out the wave—the very one that was minimized or even dismissed on Election night—was bigger than originally thought. So many of these wins were delivered by slim margins—by just thousands or even hundreds of votes. So for those who question whether their vote matters, or whether their participation can make a difference, the 2018 results should be a resounding answer. It matters. So vote every time and compete everywhere, because this is just wave number one. We see you 2020.

The CIA has officially concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Yesterday Saudi Arabia said that, if convicted, five of its agents who were suspected in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi would face the death penalty. However, they changed their story about the events surrounding his murder once again. They now claim that the team sent to meet Khashoggi was dispatched to retrieve him, but then decided to kill him on the spot—doing all of this, supposedly, without the knowledge or approval of MBS.

The Department of Justice is reportedly preparing to indict Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks who has been staying in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London after being granted political asylum in 2012. The exact charges on which he would be indicted are not yet publicly known.

In addition to taking the lives of at least 63 people, the Camp Fire has also left Northern California with the worst air quality in the entire world. Hazardous levels of pollution throughout the region have resulted in mass closings of schools and businesses. More than 600 people remain missing in a single county following the fire’s devastation. You can donate to the recovery efforts here →

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is poised to take control of the Senate Judiciary Committee, after Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the current chair, said he will take over leading the Senate Finance Committee. This means Graham, a known ally and defender of Trump, will chair the committee that is tasked with overseeing the FBI and Department of Justice, including the investigation into Trump himself. Bad.

According to Trump, he has answered written questions from Special Counsel Robert Mueller, but he hasn’t submitted them to investigators yet because “you have to always be careful.” ...ok then…?

Today, Trump said he will nominate Andrew Wheeler, the acting EPA administrator, as the agency’s permanent administrator.

According to a new House Ethics Committee report, Rep. Ruben Kihuen (D-NV) harassed and made “persistent and unwanted advances” towards women who had to work with him. The report follows a nine-month investigation into his behavior, and finds that he violated House rules. Kihuen did not seek re-election this year.

Seven women sued Dartmouth College for allegedly allowing three tenured professors to repeatedly sexually assault and harass students and create an environment characterized by meetings at bars, late-night hot tub parties, and academic support for students based on their participation in a culture of heavy drinking.

Melania Trump managed to rack up $174,000 in hotel bills for a trip to Toronto where she didn’t even spend the night—and that’s not including what it cost to house her advance team. Between this, and getting a national security adviser effectively fired by releasing an unvetted statement about her, it’s been a banner week for Melania's body double.

Here are the latest headlines from the White House:

• A federal judge (instated by Donald Trump) has ordered that the White House reinstate CNN reporter Jim Acosta’s press pass after it was revoked last week—an early victory for CNN, which alleges in a lawsuit that the White House impeded Acosta’s First and Fifth amendment rights.
• Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders’s principal deputy Raj Shah will be replaced by Hogan Gidley, who previously served as the deputy press secretary. Shah is expected to leave his post soon, though the details around his departure are not yet known.
• Trump has asked repeatedly if his Vice President, Mike Pence, “is loyal.”
• Another former White House aide is writing a tell-all about his time working for Trump.

All of this must come as a surprise to the approximately three people who thought this administration was running smoothly.

Pfizer, the country’s largest manufacturer of pharmaceutical drugs, will raise prices on nearly 10 percent of its drugs next year, after delaying the price hikes at the request of Donald Trump earlier this year. The average price hike is estimated to be five percent.

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