GM shares tanked after President Trump threatened to cut “all GM subsidies including for electric cars," leading us all to wonder who in the president's inner circle knew his attack was coming and traded on it. Currently winning the office pool is Steve Mnuchin. On Monday, GM announced it would shutter U.S. manufacturing plants, including one in Ohio, and Trump promptly threatened the company with retribution, because Ohio is a red-trending swing state. We’re old enough to remember when Republicans accused Obama of running a “gangster government” because he bailed out the auto industry! From Priyanka: I’m actually not old enough. I am young and cool.
Mississippi held its runoff Senate election today—the final Senate race of 2018, which pit Mike Espy, a black Democrat with a long history of public service, against Republican incumbent/Confederate sympathizer Cindy Hyde-Smith—after neither candidate won over 50 percent of the vote on Election Day. The winner will face re-election in 2020.
With the threat of a partial government shutdown looming in just 10 days, President Trump continues to insist he will let the shutdown happen unless Congress, which his party still controls, gives him $5 billion to fund construction of a wall along the southern border. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has countered with an offer to sign off on $1.6 billion in new border security spending. Hey Chuck, how about getting protection for Robert Mueller into the bill before giving Trump even an inch on the border? I guess he forgot his party won the midterms by eight percentage points.
Fair Fight Action, a political organization backed by former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, filed a federal lawsuit challenging the management of the state’s elections today. The lawsuit alleges that the gross mismanagement of the 2018 election deprived citizens—low-income individuals and people of color in particular—from exercising their right to vote. According to the organization’s CEO, more than 40,000 people called to report difficulty registering.
Dr. Christine Blasey Ford says she will donate the remaining funds from the GoFundMe created to support her after her security expenses are covered. She has faced threats and has had to move four times since she came forward to allege that now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh assaulted her when the two were in high school.
Democrats won the House by the largest popular vote margin in history, receiving over 8.8 million more votes than Republicans. When the dust settles, Democrats will likely have netted 40 House seats. On Monday, Democrat TJ Cox took the lead from incumbent Republican David Valadao in California’s 21st district—the last undecided district in the country.
Bassem Masri, a Palestinian American activist who frequently live-streamed from the frontlines of protests in Ferguson, MO, has died. From Brittany Packnett: “There are some folks who you wonder if they’re all the way in for liberation. You could never wonder that of Bassem Masri.”
The creator of SpongeBob SquarePants, Stephen Hillenburg, has died of ALS at 57.
