The Best of the Rest of the News. — Donald Trump calls our concern over the cost of living a "con," but the real con is being foisted on working Americans by the billionaires and corporate monopolies that bankroll him. — Consumer confidence collapses in the face of Trump's incoherent economic and tariff policies that seem driven more by threats he can use to get bribes from foreign dictators than what's best for America and American citizens. — Nothing, it seems, gives "Whiskey Pete" Hegseth a bigger hard-on than threatening war and bloodshed (and sharing it with friends and family on an insecure Signal chat). Unless, of course, it's beating up a woman, as his former sister-in-law alleged in a sworn affidavit. — The election was bigger than we thought: we even won school boards in Texas! — Health insurance prices are exploding: where is all that money going? — ICE agents dragged off a Portland green-card holder — a legal resident of the US — in front of his wife and three children, ignoring his screams that he had documentation and was in the country legally. He's still missing in their byzantine prison system weeks later. — How New York City is quietly preparing for a possibly violent Trump takeover. — U.S. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson published a scathing dissent after six bought-off right-wingers on the Court issued a ruling trashing trans rights.

Let debate rage for days, then vote, as the founders intended; end the antique veto and force both parties to own their visions before the people… Emperor Trump saw this wipeout election coming and he knew who to blame in advance: the Senate. On Tuesday (election day) morning, he posted to his Nazi-infested social media site: "TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER NOW, END THE RIDICULOUS SHUTDOWN IMMEDIATELY, AND THEN, MOST IMPORTANTLY, PASS EVERY WONDERFUL REPUBLICAN POLICY THAT WE HAVE DREAMT OF, FOR YEARS, BUT NEVER GOTTEN. WE WILL BE THE PARTY THAT CANNOT BE BEATEN – THE SMART PARTY!!!" Republicans yawned and ignored him; they've been hiding behind the filibuster for decades to avoid having to actually take a serious vote on the crazy crap that Republicans in the House keep sending them, like bills to outlaw abortion nationally, end voting rights for married women, or end climate protections and deregulate the fossil fuel industry. Ending the filibuster — even now with King Crazy in the White House — would be a good thing for both Democrats and America. And Trump may actually pull it off.

A 50-year project to turn the world’s strongest democracy into a playground for the rich... It’s election day in much of America, although the biggest races are in California, Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maine, and New York City. As a bellwether for next year’s midterms that could define the fate and future of Trumpism, the stakes are enormous, and are bleeding through into social media. One of the most viral Facebook posts yesterday was from a MAGA mom complaining that her Democratic mother-in-law won’t loan her grocery money. She explains that she can’t feed her family because Trump’s government shutdown has frozen her SNAP (Food Stamps) and WIC benefits, and, she wrote: “He asked his mother to buy a can [of baby formula] until our WIC comes in. Her response was, ‘We voted for this.’” The largest percentage of comments were variations on, “That’s what you wanted when you voted for that orange asshole, but you must have thought he’d only do it to Black and Hispanic people. FAFO!” Along those same lines, Trump went on 60 Minutes this weekend and lied to Leslie Stahl’s face multiple times, including a whopper about grocery prices when she pointed out that they’re going up, up, and up.

The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all. —John F. Kennedy It didn’t look like the end of democracy. It looked like a Tuesday. I remember watching the television that day, January 6, 2021, as a man stood on the Capitol lawn. Red hat, blank expression, that thousand-yard stare people get when something fundamental breaks inside them. His face was flushed crimson against the winter cold, fists clenched like he was holding onto the last threads of a reality rapidly unraveling, and his voice—already sandpaper-rough from hours of shouting—cracked as he howled into the January wind: “They’re stealing my country!” Inside those historic halls, American police officers were being beaten with the very flagpoles that once carried our stars and stripes.