“New York Attorney General Letitia James announced Wednesday that a former federal prosecutor who oversaw the criminal case against Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs will lead the investigation into an alleged 2024 sexual assault at a Cornell University fraternity house. Former federal prosecutor Jacqueline Kelly, a Cornell graduate, was also the first chief of the civil rights unit in the criminal division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. Kelly is now a partner at Boies Schiller Flexner, a firm that represented women who accused Jeffrey Epstein of sexual abuse. … A former Cornell student filed a lawsuit under the pseudonym Jane Doe in September, accusing seven members of the Chi Phi fraternity of plying her with drugs and sexually assaulting her after what was initially a consensual threesome at the chapter’s house on Oct. 19 and 20, 2024.” [editor’s note: My recollection is that this prosecutor was only able to get Combs convicted on two of five charges – TLK] (11/04/26)
“Voters will keep voting for their best chance at affordability until they get it. That’s why Trump won in 2024. People want the economy they had in 2018 again. It is, and always will be, the economy, stupid. We keep having change election after change election because both parties want to appeal to their increasingly radical bases and not to voters’ far more moderate views.” (11/04/26)
“Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Wednesday accepted as legally binding the certified results from last week’s parliamentary elections and said he would begin consultations with party representatives on the formation of a new government. Herzog’s acceptance of the results as valid dealt a blow to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s effort to discredit the vote in which his religious-nationalist bloc lost its majority in the Israeli parliament, or Knesset, while Arab-led parties made historic gains. Netanyahu and his supporters have repeatedly made unsubstantiated claims that the Arab-led parties had ‘stolen’ the election, possibly with foreign assistance. The Israeli president is required now to sit down with various party leaders to determine who to name as prime minister-designate — a process that could potentially bring Netanyahu’s opponents to power.” (11/04/26)
“Truly ending a war of choice is hard. Anything short of total victory, especially for the American psyche, is unsatisfying. If the home front can be insulated from its consequences, the temptation is strong to wade deeper into a no man’s land between peace and war in search of a more palatable outcome. With Venezuelan oil on the way to rescue gas prices, perhaps just a few more months of conflict with Iran could secure a more face-saving end?a The hard-learned answer is no. Allowing the White House to continue to wage a conflict in the background, with no pressure to meet deadlines or clear metrics of victory, is like ignoring a steady drip from a pipe and acting surprised when the basement is eventually flooded.” (11/04/26)
“Democrats secured an overwhelming victory in the midterm elections on Tuesday in a stunning rebuke to President Donald Trump’s first two years in office, winning majorities in both the Senate and House of Representatives. By midnight Democrats flipped six Senate seats — including in reliably red states like South Carolina, Texas, and Kansas. As of this morning, they added Michigan and Maine. In a rare inversion of historical trends, foreign policy played a serious role in the results of Tuesday’s midterm elections. Exit polling showed 74% of voters said the Iran War was a ‘crucial’ or ‘major’ factor in their vote. Exit polling also found that 62% of voters believed using military force against Iran was the ‘wrong decision.’ This all jibed with polls leading up to the midterms.” (11/04/26)
“House Speaker Mike Johnson privately told staff he is not planning on running for minority leader or any other leadership role in the next Congress, according to people familiar with the comments. His decision will kick off a scramble among House Republican leadership contenders in the aftermath of their sweeping losses Tuesday night. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and current Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., are launching leadership bids on Wednesday. … Republicans could see other shakeups further down their leadership chain. Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas, currently the Republican Study Committee chair, announced in a letter to GOP colleagues Wednesday that he’d run for the second-ranking position.” (11/04/26)
“Congress was not designed to be a parliament where parties vote in lockstep with their party leader in the White House. But that’s how it’s worked for decades. Starting in the 1970s, Congress was quietly revolutionized from within. It was all done in the name of ‘reform,’ but the better word is ‘deform.'” (11/04/26)
“The MAGA movement is fully rooted in the promotion of ignorance and demonization of knowledge. That’s why it’s failing now. That’s why it will fail in the future.” (11/04/260
