The Evening Blues - 11-6-26
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features Studebaker John. Enjoy!
Studebaker John - Freight Train Blues
"It disturbs me no more to find men base, unjust, or selfish than to see apes mischievous, wolves savage, or the vulture ravenous."
-- Jean-Paul Sartre
News and Opinion
Iranian Strength Is What Killed The Republicans
Vice President JD Vance made the surprising admission on social media that Trump administration’s war with Iran was what caused the massive Democratic Party sweep of the midterm elections, stating plainly that “The reason we lost is the war.”
Saying “the real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone,” Vance noted that a poll found Trump 2024 voters who ditched the president’s party in 2026 gave four main answers to the question of what the Republicans could do to win them back: “1) End the war, 2) Focus on cost of living/inflation, 3) Put America First , 4) Change our relationship to Israel.”
Holy shit!
Read Vance's entire tweet. Here's a teaser:
"The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night."
— Trita Parsi (@tparsi) November 4, 2026
All four of these answers tie directly in to Trump’s decision to launch an unprovoked war of aggression against the Islamic Republic of Iran. The war itself, failing to put America first, and Washington’s grotesque alliance with the state of Israel are all straightforward references to Trump’s warmongering in the middle east. Cost of living/inflation is also strongly related since the blockades resulting from Trump’s war have been costing every American household thousands of dollars in rising fuel and grocery prices.
That last one is the real story of this election. As is often the case, economic concerns ranked as the number one concern among US voters in the lead-up to the midterm elections, and one of the major reasons why Americans have been struggling economically is because of the war in Iran.
So the story isn’t that Americans spontaneously transformed into a country full of tender-hearted peaceniks in November 2026. The story is that Iran was able to impose an economic cost on ordinary Americans for the actions of their evil government.
The average American is a propaganda-addled empire zombie who has been indoctrinated into cold-hearted indifference to their government’s abuses in the global south. American voters didn’t reject the war in Iran because they believe it’s immoral to bomb schools and civilian infrastructure in depraved wars of aggression overseas, they rejected it because it was costing them more to fill up their pickup trucks and they were having to pay more money for their buckets of Mountain Dew and ranch dressing.
The Republicans didn’t lose because Trump attacked Iran, they lost because Iran had the ability to fight back. Republicans lost because Iran did whatever it needed to do to retain the military capability to impose an economic toll on Americans for the actions of their government.
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) November 4, 2026
If Trump had won the war in four to six weeks as he initially claimed he would, his monstrous attack on Iran would have been no more consequential in the voting booths than his regime change interventionism in Venezuela. It is only because Iran succeeded in doing whatever it needed to do to retain the military strength needed to impose a financial toll on the American electorate that the Republicans lost the Senate for years to come. War with Iran is now officially political poison because of Iranian strength.
US officials love to whine and complain that Iran spends its money on its military instead of on the Iranian people (though the United States is literally the absolute dead-last country on earth who has any business airing such a grievance), and to this day they’re still weeping crocodile tears about the way Tehran aggressively smacked down the CIA/Mossad uprising at the beginning of the year. But Iran has shown the world that a nation must retain its strength if it wants to retain its sovereignty and avoid being turned into another resource extraction scam for the US empire.
Every country that retains the necessary muscle to beat back the US empire’s efforts to absorb it into its power umbrella invariably gets smeared by the imperial propaganda machine as a tyrannical and despotic rogue state, but it is the US empire who makes it necessary for governments to exert force if they don’t want to be replaced with subservient US puppet regimes. Western propaganda likes to frame the global struggle as free democracies versus oppressive autocracies, but really it’s just nations who wish to retain their sovereignty versus the empire who wants to take that sovereignty away from them. It is the fault of the US empire that the only nations who have thus far resisted absorption are the ones who retain enough military strength and domestic control to do so.
The United States didn’t retreat from Vietnam because the Americans suddenly developed a conscience, it retreated because the Vietnamese fought like lions and kept sending home coffins draped in red, white and blue. The Republicans didn’t lose the midterms because Americans dislike war, they lost because the Iranians beat the shit out of them.
Trump: A Lame Duck With a Loaded Gun /Alastair Crooke
Trump GREENLIGHTS Israeli Attack? Russia Arms Iran! | Seyed M. Marandi & Alex Christoforou
Trump Says He May Have To ‘Destroy the Rest of the Country’ of Iran in Latest Threat
President Trump said on Thursday that he may have to “destroy the rest of the country” of Iran as he continues to make threats against the Islamic Republic following the Republican Party’s major defeat in the midterm elections, which was seen as a referendum on the war.
The threat came after the US president and Vice President JD Vance said that the war was a major factor in the midterm results, but Trump has continued to defend his decision to launch the war. Reuters cited two unnamed sources on Thursday who told the outlet that the president is still planning to restart the bombing campaign against Iran despite the acknowledgment.
Reuters also reported on Thursday that Tehran sent a nuclear proposal to Washington through Qatari mediators, but said it would only discuss it after the US meets Iran’s seven conditions, which has been its position all along. Those conditions include ending the US blockade of Iran, providing sanctions relief, and releasing frozen Iranian funds.
Amb. Chas Freeman: BREAKING: 9 U.S. Refueling Tankers Rush Toward the Strait of Hormuz
Israel’s Herzog yet to decide on who should form government as Eisenkot secures significant backing
Gadi Eisenkot, the main rival to Benjamin Netanyahu, secured endorsements on Thursday from a majority of lawmakers to try to form a government but Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, said it was still unclear who could break the deadlock and that he would decide on Sunday which of the two men should try first. Of the Knesset’s 120 elected lawmakers, 67 had endorsed Eisenkot through several days of talks with Herzog, while 46 endorsed Netanyahu. Herzog said on Thursday that while the “results of the consultations may appear clear”, there were “mutual vetoes between the blocs and within the blocs themselves” that make it difficult to say who has the best shot to form a government.
He said he would make a pick on Sunday, and that he would hold “personal talks with some of the party leaders” over the Israeli weekend, which runs Friday-Saturday. A bitterly contested election last month, seen by many observers as one of the most consequential for Israel in many decades, ended with neither Netanyahu nor Eisenkot, a former military general and chief of staff, securing a clear pathway to power.
Netanyahu’s coalition lost its majority, dropping from 68 to 53 seats in the 120-seat Knesset. The Change bloc of Zionist parties led by Eisenkot has 48 seats, leaving parties representing Israeli Palestinians as potential kingmakers with a record 19 seats. The Joint List has 11, while the more conservative, Islamist Ra’am has eight.
In Israel’s political system, the otherwise largely ceremonial president decides which candidate has the best initial chance of building a stable coalition to rule. Both Arab-majority parties reported backing Eisenkot, according to Haaretz. United Torah Judaism, though often aligned with Netanyahu, did not endorse either man.
Anthony Aguilar: Trump May Resign – But First, All-Out War With Iran?
Arrest of Palestinian Israeli Journalist Abed Abu Shehadeh Slammed as ‘Campaign to Silence’ Truth
Palestine and press freedom advocates on Thursday demanded the immediate release of journalist and activist Abed Abu Shehadeh, a Palestinian citizen of Israel who was arrested during a Tuesday raid on his home, with critics calling his detention part of a “campaign to silence” critical reporting and dissent.
Abu Shehadeh, 38, was arrested by a group of 15 Israeli police officers and agents from the internal intelligence agency Shin Bet, some of them masked, who stormed his family’s home in Jaffa and seized him in front of his wife and two children, according to The New Arab.
The arrest of the prominent Arabic-language journalist, podcast host, and political activist was reportedly connected to an interview he conducted with Palestinian intellectual and former Knesset member Azmi Bishara, the exiled leader of the Balad party, which advocates for Israel to become a nation of all its citizens rather than what critics, including the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, describe as a Jewish supremacist apartheid state.
The detention of journalist Abed Abu Shehadeh by Israeli security forces is outrageous and a clear attempt by the reeling Netanyahu government to use security agencies to up the pressure on his political opponents during a time of coalition negotiations.
— Yousef Munayyer (@YousefMunayyer) November 4, 2026
Bishara fled Israel in 2007 and is accused of helping Hezbollah during Israel’s 2006 war on Lebanon. Israeli authorities suspect him of being a foreign agent.
On Wednesday, the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court prolonged Abu Shehadeh’s detention after police sought an eight-day extension on suspicion of “contact with a foreign agent.”
According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ):
During the court hearing, a police representative initially acknowledged that Abu Shehadeh was a journalist, but after a recess she retracted this statement and instead said he is a political adviser. The defense objected to this new description and asked whether there was evidence that the meeting went beyond recording a podcast interview or contained information not available to the public.
Adalah, also called the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, noted Thursday:
The legal team representing Abu Shehadeh claimed that there was no justification for holding him in detention. The interview, which dealt with the Israeli election campaign, was widely published and available to all... The mere criminal investigation for a media interview is a serious violation of freedom of expression and freedom of the press, and his detention is completely arbitrary.
Abu Shehadeh’s arrest sparked accusations that Israeli authorities are using national security allegations to intimidate Palestinian journalists and suppress political expression.
“Arrest for an interview is not a legitimate criminal procedure, but a tool for political silencing,” Adalah civil and political rights attorney Hadeel Abu Salih said Thursday in a statement. “The police are asking to send a message to the entire Arab public: Even a public conversation with a political figure can lead you to the detention cell. Abu Shehadeh must be released immediately.”
Abu Salih told The New Arab that police illegally arrested Abu Shehadeh, lacking a court order for the apprehension and prosecutorial permission to interrogate.
“We cannot disconnect this arrest from the attack on the free speech of Palestinians of Israel since 7 October,” she said, citing over 1,000 arrests for speech-related “offenses” in the years since the Hamas-led attack on Israel.
“This is not a criminal investigation, it is a campaign to silence Palestinian journalists and political activists,” Abu Salih added.
Scott Ritter: Total Energy Blackout Now Inevitable If This Happens
Russia agreed to supply Iran with 90 helicopter missile launchers
Russia arranged to supply Iran with 90 launchers for advanced guided missiles, according to leaked defence industry documents that shed light on the depth of military cooperation between Moscow and Tehran.
The documents, obtained by Dallas Analytics, a Ukrainian private intelligence firm, and shared with the Guardian, detail plans to supply Iran with launchers for the LMUR, a guided missile fired from attack helicopters which Russian forces have used extensively against Ukrainian targets since the full-scale invasion in 2022.
A production schedule drawn up in May 2024 by Vympel, a leading Russian designer of missiles and launch systems, lists an order for 90 launchers under an export contract designated “K-10”, with deliveries scheduled between late 2024 and December 2025. Separate internal paperwork explicitly identifies K-10 as Iran.
The records do not establish whether the launchers were ultimately delivered. However, a separate production schedule listing six Yak-130 jet trainers destined for Iran in 2023 is consistent with publicly reported deliveries of the aircraft.
The files offer fresh insight into Russian-Iranian military cooperation at a sensitive moment as Washington weighs its next steps in its war against Iran after the US midterm elections.
Workers Across France Strike Over Austerity Budget
Hundreds of thousands of workers across France held demonstrations to protest the high cost of living and the French government’s proposed budget that includes a number of austerity measures.
As reported by Euronews, the government of French President Emmanuel Macron is attempting to pass a budget that has been decried by major trade unions for “targeting the most vulnerable and those who are ill, freezing social benefits, and undermining the protective role of the social security system.”
Sophie Binet, head of the General Confederation of Labor, acknowledged the need to curb the country’s budget deficit, but told Euronews that “we need to reintroduce taxes on the wealthiest individuals and the largest companies,” which “will enable us to fund our public services.”
The French Interior Ministry estimated that 600,000 people attended Thursday’s demonstrations, which took place across 180 different locations, according to Bloomberg.
The Ministry of Public Action and Accounts estimated that nearly 10% of French public servants were on strike Thursday, including almost 16% of all teachers, according to The New York Times.
The nationwide protests began in September when students blockaded their schools to protest staffing shortages, dilapidated buildings, and a widely criticized university application system.
They have since spread to encompass a wide range of grievances in the country, including the cost of living and the high cost of fuel sparked by US President Donald Trump’s illegal war with Iran.
While earlier demonstrations had been marked by violent unrest, Thursday’s protests were overwhelmingly peaceful, and included a festive performance from the Orchestre du Nouveau Monde in Paris.
« J'ai deux passions ! »
Ambiance festive pour le concert géant de l'orchestre du Nouveau Monde sur la Place de la République à Paris.
#grevegenerale #5Novembre #greve5novembre https://t.co/A5KhOjGxmN
— Luc Auffret (@LucAuffret) November 5, 2026
In an interview with the Times, 27-year-old Antonia Barot said that she attended the Thursday protests because of the government’s “disregard for young people’s and workers’ living conditions,” adding that “we need to realize how powerful we are.”
Florence Eliakine, 61, told the Times the protests should “make it clear to our government, which pursues right-wing policies, that there is a social and ecological crisis that must be taken into account.”
Gaëlle Martinez, national secretary of the trade union Solidaires, told France 24 that the motive behind the demonstrations was a simple one.
“People just want to live, not survive,” Martinez explained.
She also said that the government needed to draft “a new budget” that would “tax the biggest companies, the richest companies where the profits are made,” while eliminating proposed cuts to vital programs.
Paraguay’s president quits after millions of people’s savings frozen in bank crisis
Paraguay’s rightwing president, Santiago Peña, resigned on Thursday after a political and financial crisis collapsed the South American country’s banking system in recent days.
At the centre of the crisis is Ueno Bank, which in just a few years under Peña went from an obscure digital bank to one of the country’s largest lenders, claiming to have about 60% of Paraguay’s adult population as customers.
Last Monday, the central bank ordered Ueno into resolution over insolvency, freezing the deposits of 3 million customers, leaving hundreds of thousands of families without access to money for food and basic daily expenses. Bank executives were arrested, and people took to the streets in massive protests.
In power since August 2023 and with a term running until 2028, the 47-year-old economist was already facing impeachment proceedings that had broad support.
Harmeet Dhillon, controversial head of DoJ’s civil rights division, steps down
Harmeet Dhillon, a Donald Trump ally who led the justice department’s civil rights division, is leaving her position. “Today, I accepted the resignation of Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who led the Civil Rights Division with conviction the past 18 months. She has defended the civil liberties of every American and enforced the law without fear or favor. The Department is grateful for her dedicated public service, and we wish her every success in her future endeavors,” the attorney general, Todd Blanche, said in a post on X.
Dhillon dramatically transformed the civil rights division in a little over a year and a half there, reorienting its mission away from the work it had traditionally done protecting the civil rights of minorities. Under her leadership, the department dropped many cases alleging discrimination against racial minorities in voting, housing, employment and education. Scores of career lawyers also left the division under her leadership, leading to an exodus of expertise of civil rights enforcement.
Dhillon aggressively pursued claims of discrimination at universities, including claims that minorities were unfairly favored in admissions and claims of antisemitism against Jewish students. A whistleblower has said that investigations into the schools were conducted with a predetermined outcome and that lawyers were told to find a reason to file a lawsuit.
The civil rights division also oversaw investigations into the killing of US citizens Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good by federal agents in Minnesota during an immigration enforcement surge – neither has resulted in criminal charges. “From day one, Harmeet Dhillon abdicated her responsibility to enforce our nation’s federal civil rights laws and destroyed the crown jewel of the justice department,” said Kristen Clarke, who led the civil rights division under Joe Biden and is now general counsel at the NAACP.
Trump signs proclamation to try to prevent changes to gold-covered Oval Office
Donald Trump signed a proclamation on Thursday that he says will prevent future administrations from changing his design of the Oval Office and Cabinet Room, spaces which he declared as national monuments that should be preserved.
In the days since his party suffered historic defeats in the midterm elections, the president has seemingly turned his attention to the many renovation projects he has begun across the nation’s capital. Sitting behind the Resolute Desk on Thursday, Trump declared the Oval Office a “national monument”.
“I’m going to be signing a document which will make them into a landmark for the ages,” he told reporters in the gold-covered Oval Office.
According to the president, the proclamation would ensure the West Wing rooms would not be “touched by anybody, destroyed, ripped down by stupid people, in order to build something in a slightly different shape”.
“I just thought it was very important that nobody be allowed to come and take it down and try and do something with it,” he said. “Every once in a while they’ll look and they’ll say, oh, maybe what we’ll do is we’ll put some glass up that’s a little bit better or something, and I say no, you’re not going to do anything. We’re going to leave this as it is,” he continued.
Bloodbath: $2.2 TRILLION Wiped Out in Minutes - This Happens Next
Nasdaq sees worst day in 18 months as investors bet on AI slowdown after Democrats’ election triumph
The Nasdaq share index had its worst day in 18 months after slumping 5.5% on Thursday amid growing signs that the artificial intelligence industry will face tougher regulation because of the midterm election results. As Wall Street sustained widespread losses, the Nasdaq composite tumbled into “correction territory” – more than 10% below its recent record high – with more than $2tn shaved off its value by the end of trading Thursday. The tech-heavy index had its biggest one-day fall since Donald Trump announced his “liberation day” tariffs on US trading partners in April 2025.
Worries over massive AI spending gripped the New York stock market and rippled out to other bourses worldwide as investors anticipated tougher scrutiny of datacentre expansion plans. Chip stocks led the slump, with memory maker SanDisk tumbling by 22% and hard drive maker Western Digital falling by 17%. Wall Street’s “fear index”, the VIX, jumped by 61% to its highest levels since the early weeks of the Iran war, in a sign of rising market volatility.
The heavy falls continued in Asia on Friday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 index sinking 6% and South Korea’s Kospi index tumbling more than 8% in early trading. Analysts pointed to expectations that Democratic governors will clamp down on the rollout of new datacentres after the party won a series of gubernatorial races this week. US voters also rejected datacentres in a series of local ballots across the country.
The Dow Jones industrial average (DJIA) of 30 large US companies was down more than 1,800 points by the end of the day, a fall of 3.4%, to 51,868 points. The S&P 500 was down 4.3%.
Scott Ritter Defends Dr Jill Stein, facing jail for Gaza protest
The violent ICE detention of a US citizen with disabilities as he walked to his high school has sparked outrage in California where leaders are condemning the incident as racial profiling and calling on authorities to investigate. Erik Zepeda, a 20-year-old high school student, was stopped by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers last month in the small agricultural city of Santa Maria, famed for its strawberry harvest, where 79% of residents are Latino. His wrist was broken and later required surgery. Zepeda, who has disabilities that affect his physical reflexes and ability to communicate verbally, told the Guardian in writing that he was “walking to school the same way I do every day” when the ICE agents “tackled me and handcuffed me (and) hurt me”.
“I thought they were going to kill me,” Zepeda said. “I did not do anything wrong, and they should never have done that. I don’t want this to happen to anyone else.” An ICE-watch observer who witnessed the incident unfold on 21 October told the Guardian that masked ICE agents approached Zepeda from behind, pinned him face-down on the ground and put him in a car. The agents then drove the student around for a while before letting him out. With a black eye and his wrist in severe pain, Zepeda walked the remaining half mile to his school, where staff called an ambulance.
The observer, who volunteers with a local rapid response network to document ICE activity, asked not to be named due to fears of retaliation from federal officials. To independently verify the observer’s account, the Guardian reviewed dashcam and phone videos that the observer recorded of the incident. Local activists and US lawmakers are calling the ordeal the latest example of ICE brutality. “ICE’s assault and wrongful detainment of Erik Zepeda was grotesque and heartbreaking,” said Adam Schiff, a Democratic US senator from California, in a statement to the Guardian. “There must be accountability for what happened to Erik.”
Democratic representative Salud Carbajal, whose central coast district includes Santa Maria, said during a press conference that he was “outraged” by the incident, calling the ICE agents’ conduct “thuggish” and racial profiling “rampant”. In an Oct. 29 letter to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and ICE, Carbajal called for “a full, transparent investigation” into Zepeda’s detention.
The incident comes amid a surge of ICE activity in California that started in early October and has led to multiple hospitalizations. Days earlier, agents broke the arm of Ricardo Gonzalez, also a US citizen, in Long Beach. In videos, Gonzalez appears face-down in a gutter crying out for help while officers kneel on his back. In the Bay Area, two separate ICE arrests also led to hospitalizations, sparking anti-ICE protests outside of an Oakland hospital.
LIVE Q&A: Chris Hedges Discusses the Midterms
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Democratic socialist Nithya Raman wins Los Angeles mayoral race over incumbent Karen Bass
Nithya Raman was elected to serve as the mayor of Los Angeles, defeating incumbent Karen Bass in a major political shake-up that reflects the growing dissatisfaction with the direction of the city. The progressive urban planner had served on LA’s city council since 2020. She caused a stir when she entered the race earlier this year hours before the filing deadline – and shortly after endorsing Bass for re-election – and her campaign was once viewed as a long shot.
But she shot up in the polls over the summer and, with support from the Los Angeles chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, frequently garnered comparisons with Zohran Mamdani, New York City’s mayor. The Associated Press called the race for Raman on Thursday, with returns showing Raman was leading with just over 52% of the votes to Bass’s 48%.
Raman’s win came after a historic election night for Democrats across the US who won control of the House and Senate in a rebuke of Donald Trump and his party. The contest in deep blue Los Angeles was unique by comparison. Raman and Bass are progressives, and the mayoral race became a bitter battle between two candidates representing different generations and frequently clashing wings of the party.
Bass had never before lost an election, but faced a difficult road to winning another term as mayor given her low approval ratings on par with Donald Trump’s, Angelenos’ frustration about the state of the city, and the wave of anti-establishment sentiment that has swept US politics.
Schumer, Jeffries ON THE ROPES After Mass Defections w/ David Sirota
Warming UK seas could ‘fundamentally reshape marine ecosystems’
Warming seas around the UK and the wider north-east Atlantic could destabilise marine food webs, weaken ocean health and jeopardise food security by 2050, according to a four-year study. Scientists who projected the impact of climate breakdown on four key groups of marine life crucial to maintaining ocean ecosystems in the region said their results challenged assumptions that in middle latitudes, such as the UK, marine biodiversity was likely to increase across the board.
Instead, their projections highlight a predator-prey imbalance that could “fundamentally reshape marine ecosystems” in unforeseen ways, they said. The seas around the British and Irish Isles, particularly the southern North Sea, have been identified as “marine climate hotspots”, one of 20 globally to have warmed the fastest over 50 years.
The new predictions, under a scenario of 3C (5.4F) of warming by 2100, found that while fish and seabed invertebrates may become more diverse by mid-century, key plankton groups lower in the food chain were likely to decline. This imbalance, the authors of the report said, could disrupt marine food webs and weaken the health and resilience of ocean ecosystems.
“What surprised us is that warming doesn’t increase or decrease biodiversity across the board,” said Elena Couce, a marine ecologist at the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas), a British government agency, and co-lead author of the study. “While some groups higher up the food chain, like fish, may gain species in parts of the north-east Atlantic, key plankton groups that underpin marine ecosystems are projected to lose species,” she said.
How Democrats used the midterms to turn affordability concerns into ‘green populism’
Climate-forward Democrats swept into power on Tuesday night as a blue tsunami flipped the Senate, House and several governor’s races. Voters were laser-focused on affordability, and experts said Democrats succeeded in linking cost-of-living concerns with rising energy prices, datacenters and, to some extent, the climate crisis. They may have even created a path for a “new climate politics”. The results delivered a sharp rebuke of Donald Trump, who started a war with Iran that raised gas pump prices across the country and exposed the fragility of fossil fuels, all while the US oil industry earned $130bn in profits since the war began. Household energy costs soared, driven by various factors including constraints on renewables, climate disasters and a datacenter boom.
But how to articulate this before the election was a matter of debate among Democrats known for “climate forward” views: should they talk about the worsening climate crisis directly or keep messaging tight on affordability? Some senior figures including Gavin Newsom warned about “climate hushing”. In the end, as one analysis on Wednesday put it, the results showed “candidates can win on green economic populism”.
Successful candidates “made connections between the cost of living crisis and the climate crisis, and how the same bad actors – such as utilities, oil companies, corporate landlords, and data center developers – are driving both”, said the analysis, by the thinktank Climate and Community Institute (CCI). It found the candidates with the “strongest alignment with green economic populism won 39 of 56 (70 percent) of federal races for House and Senate in which they ran, including 6 of 7 in the Senate and 33 of 49 (67 percent) in the House”. The results show that “voters want leaders who will make life affordable and stand up for working people against elites, and climate is a critical part of that equation,” said Johanna Bozuwa, the CCI’s executive director.
While climate was not at the heart of this election, voters were focused on intersecting issues, said environmentalist and author Bill McKibben. “Energy prices played a significant role, and so did the war in Iran, and those are linked,” he said. “Those are both about the president’s strategy of oil dominance, which people are realizing is expensive folly … [The blue wave] was a rejection of this focus on oil as the way to power the future.” Datacenters became a key focus of voters’ ire, he added: “There’s no question it was the biggest crossover issue to get Republicans, Democrats and independents going in the same direction.”
The debate about how to talk about the climate in elections will continue – but attention will shift to how Democrats use their success when the new Congress forms. Holding power in the House and Senate will give Democrats the ability to launch investigations and subpoena witnesses and documents. The representative Jared Huffman, the top Democrat on the House natural resources committee, has vowed to investigate big oil’s skyrocketing profits amid the war in Iran. Climate-forward Democrats now have several avenues to push their agenda. Trump must compromise with Democrats to pass budgets, giving them the power to add climate provisions. Controlling the Senate means Democrats can prevent the appointments of anti-climate federal judges, cabinet officers and sub-cabinet positions.
Tech barons cozied up to Trump. What will they do in newly blue America?
The photo of Silicon Valley centibillionaires at Donald Trump’s inauguration – Musk, Bezos and Zuckerberg, front row and side by side – now looks like a hitlist for a blue Congress hellbent on making life difficult for billionaires. The picture symbolized at the time the bending of the knee by the richest men in the world to its most powerful, a symbiosis of the ultra-rich. Already unfathomably wealthy, Silicon Valley tycoons believed a Maga-sized public shift to the right would enrich them even more. It did. For several years, while Trump seemed an everlasting kingmaker and AI’s expansion seemed unstoppable, their fortunes ballooned to values beyond comprehension. Elon Musk’s surpassed $1tn.
In the harsh blue light of Tuesday’s midterms, though, going all-in on Maga seems an unwisely unhedged bet. Democrats took decisive control of the US Congress, flipping seats right and left that in previous years seemed like given wins for Republicans. Governors’ mansions across the country likewise lit up blue as Democrats ascended even in the reddest of states, such as Texas.
Voters concerned about corruption expressed their displeasure at oligarchs’ blatant attempts to create a political environment to their liking. Voting against technocrats drove people into the hands of Democrats and away from Republicans. Tech oligarchs themselves, along with anger over the AI boom, datacenters and Flock surveillance cameras, shifted the tides. “Voters rejected Republicans in part because they were bought and paid for by AI billionaires. Democrats must hold them accountable instead of cashing their checks,” wrote the Texas Democratic representative Greg Casar.
Democrats have both promised congressional investigations into tech companies and moratoriums on datacenters, which may hamstring compute-hungry AI companies. In the past year, the major AI firms have been competing in a fierce race to buy or build massive, noisy, resource-intensive facilities full of semiconductor chips that will supply their growing needs for computing power. Americans hate them. Democrats stand firmly in the way of that arms race. Democrats took governors’ mansions by promising to institute moratoriums on hyperscale datacenter construction.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some of which defied fair-use abstraction.
Netanyahu Appears Doomed as Arabs Join Opposition
Burying US Military Aid to Israel in Pentagon Budget
Abdul El-Sayed’s victory has laid bare a truth about America’s view on Israel
Supermajority of Jewish Americans think Israel and Aipac drive antisemitism
Neocons in full meltdown as voters punish GOP for Iran war
AIPAC dumped more than $55 million into losing midterm races
Saudi Airstrikes in Yemen Killed 140 Civilians, Including 40 Children, in October
JD Vance Continues To Maneuver Towards His 2028 Run
No Electricity But Lots Of Scandals – Ukraine Is Coming Apart
Europe’s far right has a Trump problem after Republican US midterms wipeout
Ben Jennings on the billionaires who bent the knee to Trump – cartoon
A Little Night Music
Studebaker John & The Hawks - Rolling & Tumbling Around
Studebaker John - Self Made Man
Studebaker John - Your Hoodoo Man
Studebaker John - Boogie Twist
Studebaker John - Howlin' in the moonlight
Studebaker John - Headin Down To Maxwell Street
Studebaker John & The Hawks - Nothin' But Fun
Studebaker John - Flippin' Out
Studebaker John - Rockin' That Boogie
Studebaker John & The Hawks - Shake
Comments
It looks like Abdul El-Sayed is going to be a thorn to both
sides of the uniparty.
https://newrepublic.com/post/217725/abdul-el-sayed-launches-habibi-pac
evening humphrey...
heh, i am waiting to see how el-sayed uses his influence. i am somewhat put off by his close association on the campaign trail with the likes of kamala harris and obama, at best you can say that they have better taste than he does.
on the other hand, if one were serious about building progressive power, being able to fund the movement would be a key development. i'll be looking to see who he accepts contributions from for his pac.
I think it was almost a necessity to utilize Harris and Obama
to compensate for the damage in the black community done by the lies being spread by AIPAC and his opponent in the primary.
yep...
that may be true, but it still bears watching. associations like that require forms of payback and/or political support and favors. it will be interesting to see what sort of reciprocity is requested.
This is only a small example of what goes on in the west bank
and Lebanon when a carte blanche has been given and most western countries.
Israeli settlers sit in the courtyard of a home, one of a few which Israeli settlers moved into, in the Palestinian city of Jericho, November 5
heh...
they must feel very comfortable in their newly stolen home, kicking back on the back porch with a baby and an assault weapon.
Good briefing by LtC Aguilar
I think that's one of his best. His description of the Iranian OOB/military posture, and potential moves in response to any US/Israeli attack was really informative. I hadn't heard anyone discuss the Iranian air defense systems in the detail he provided.
Lately, the very recent North Korean firepower demonstrations, show that their conventional weapons are not as out of date as popularly thought but reflect some modern innovations. I hadn't really seen any references to North Korean air defensive posture, mostly just offensive weapons systems. In terms of air defense I'd expect something similar to what Iran has developed.
A major element not mentioned is going underground to avoid bombardment. I had read elsewhere that Iran did pick up this practice from North Korea. The overall Iranian approach to defensive tactics is area denial.
I liked how Aguilar brought up Sun Tzu's principle of near and far. Pretty basic isn't it?
Thanks for the EBs Joe!
PS forgot to mention "mountain dew and ranch dressing." That was good for a laugh!
己所不欲，勿施于人。