Take it to the streets, America. The investigation into Trump's corruption and likely criminality must not be stopped. Read the rest

Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, Trump's replacement for fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions, thinks that if you're not Christian, you shouldn't be a federal judge.

Judges should be "people of faith" and need to have a “biblical view of justice," and Whitaker would like to see a person's "world view," because if they have a secular world view, he'd be "very concerned with how they judge."

Whitaker revealed his ignorance with these remarks during a 2014 conservative forum while vying for the Republican US Senate nomination in Iowa.

The takeaway from this: According to the acting Attorney General of the United States, if you're open-minded, don't be a judge. Read the rest

Chris Christie's not my first choice to watch being dragged naked and whimpering to the White House lectern and then chained to a ring on it, but beggars can't be choosers.

Former Gov. Chris Christie is being considered to replace Jeff Sessions as attorney general, according to a CBS News report that cited “two sources familiar with the matter.”

Christie is among several candidates reportedly on the list of those being considered after Sessions, who had a tortured relationship with President Donald Trump, was forced out Wednesday as the nation's chief law enforcement officer.

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"I hadn't quite understood the full extent of this," Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union Dominic Raab said, "but if you look at the UK and you look at how we trade in goods, we're particularly reliant on the Dover-Calais crossing." [via James Felton]

Raab hopes to find a "bespoke arrangement" which "recognizes the peculiar, frankly, geographic economic entity that is the United Kingdom."

Islands, Dominic. They're called islands.

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Hundreds of #ProtectMueller protests and other events are planned for Thursday, November, 8, at 5pm local time. Read the rest

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has submitted his letter of resignation to the White House. "Thank you for the opportunity, Mr. President," he closes. Read the rest

For the Dems, what's a 9% lead in the vote good for? Seven governorships, a 20-seat House majority and losing 3 Senate seats. Despite voter suppression efforts, there's much to love in the details, even if the big picture offers conservatives, if not Trump himself, another chance to trot out the old canard that America is "a Republic, not a Democracy." Read the rest

"Which is good," he added. "But it'll leave the bad parts behind."

After the Republicans voted more than 60 times to repeal Obamacare, their president has a new lie to peddle: that they're its great defenders. It's a new variant of Poe's law: a position so ridiculous it's impossible to tell if it's comedy.

Shame there's nothing funny about it: the truth is that for Republicans, killing Obamacare (and Medicare more generally) remains the first order of business. Read the rest

They surely got hacked, but some of those guys are on the strong stuff and you just never know what happens when you mix high-proof conservatism with Jesus and give everyone unlimited access to the Twitter account.

Update: The Examiner said their feed was hacked and a tweet was posted that did not come from our staff. Read the rest

In a letter published online today, 56 of America's largest corporations tell Donald Trump not roll back legal protections for transgender people, as he is threatening to do with the midterm U.S. elections one week away. What he appears to be trying to do, of course, is far more than that. Donald Trump says he wants to be the one who determines your gender. Read the rest

Roger Stone today revealed that in 2016 he was in communication with at least one senior Trump presidential campaign official about forthcoming WikiLeaks leaks that would be damaging to the campaign of Hillary Clinton. Read the rest

The United States Senate Intelligence Committee is “pursuing a wide-ranging investigation” into ex-White House adviser Steve Bannon’s activities during the 2016 election, Reuters reports, and looking into what possible co-conspirators George Papadopoulos and Carter Page had to do with those activities. Read the rest

Trump intends to sign an executive order ending "birthright citizenship"—the right of people born in the United States to citizenship irrespective of their parents' status, as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

MSNBC:

Trump, in an interview with Axios, part of which aired Tuesday morning, said birthright citizenship “has to end” and that it would, “with an executive order.”

"We're the only country in the world where a person comes in, has a baby, and the baby is essentially a citizen of the United States for 85 years with all of those benefits," Trump said. "It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. And it has to end."

"It's in the process. It'll happen with an executive order,” he said, adding that he's consulted with the White House counsel on the matter.

Making it up as he goes along, as usual. I can't speak to the trumpkin theory that the Fourteenth Amendment has its fingers crossed behind its back. But it's kinda annoying to watch him claim that the U.S. is the only country to have birthright citizenship and the Axios interviewer just sits there slack-jawed and clueless. I know we can't be expected to rebut every dumb lie instantly but... we're not sending our best.

Read the rest

Here is a new and frightening tweet that I don't understand. Read the rest

Americans are confident local poll workers will run elections smoothly and that votes will be counted accurately, but they are less sure about nationwide elections and worry about foreign hacking.

After a poor showing in regional elections this weekend, Angela Merkel says she plans to step down as chancellor of Germany in 2021. She's giving three years notice.

She also said she would not seek re-election as leader of the centre-right CDU party in December. She has held the post since 2000. The CDU was severely weakened in Sunday's poll in the state of Hesse, the latest in a series of setbacks. Both the CDU and its coalition partners, the Social Democrats, were 10 percentage points down on the previous poll there - even though they remain in power in Hesse.

Merkel's conservatives still won, but no longer dominates, while the center-left Social Democrats appear to have been severely punished for joining her government. Voters peeled off to the left and right: greens and fascists shared the votes her centrist coalition lost.

On the left, the Greens’ share of the vote rose to around 20 percent, from 8 percent previously. The right-wing Alternative for Germany, or AfD, had a 12 percent share, a little below the 15 percent it has nationally.

With Sunday’s results, the anti-immigrant AfD easily passed the threshold for entering the regional legislature for the first time, giving it representation now in all 16 of Germany’s state parliaments.

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The Hillsborough County Republican Party hoped people would pay up to $20,000 for tickets to dine with Steve Bannon, and no less than $125 for the cheap seats. Due to demand, however, the tickets are now on sale for $0.

Last week it cut the prices to $5,000 for the 10 "chairman's table" seats with Bannon, $300 for VIP seats, and general admission at $50. Announcing the price cuts, the party said in a Facebook posting, "We want to pack the house!!!"

Those prices have now been reduced to zero. The event is to commemorate the anniversary of Trump being elected president.

Read the rest