Here’s a troubling story out of Texas. Democrat Mike Siegel is running against Rep. Michael T. McCaul (R) in Texas’s 10th district. This evening I saw a tweet from Siegel which said: “Just learned that my field director was arrested while delivering our letter. He told police he was working for me and the officer asked, “what party is he?” Now Jacob is under 48 hour investigatory detention in Waller County.”

That didn’t seem right, especially the part about getting arrested after being asked what party he’s affiliated with. So I managed to get Siegel on the phone to get some more details. Read More

As noted below, Sarah Sanders says Jared Kushner (along with John Bolton) called Saudi Crown Prince and de factor ruler Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) to ask for information about the whereabouts of exiled and now presumed dead Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. A lot of circumstantial evidence points to MBS as the one who ordered the killing, if that’s what happened. Logic too. There’s always the possibility of rogue elements in Saudi security services. But something so audacious would almost certainly have to come from the top. So it’s worth reviewing the relationship between these two men, Kushner and MBS.  Read More

One of the things I want to focus on as we get into the final weeks of the campaign are a series of unfolding efforts by Republicans to hold their own by preventing as many people as possible from voting. One of the clearest, most egregious cases is a voter ID law in North Dakota which the Supreme Court refused to block yesterday. All voter ID laws are bad. But this one is uniquely so. It is specifically tailored to disenfranchise the state’s substantial Native American population. Read More

Statement from Sarah Sanders …

“White House National Security Advisor, Ambassador John Bolton and White House Senior Advisor, Jared Kushner spoke to Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman yesterday about the missing Washington Post journalist. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo then had a follow up call with the Crown Prince to reiterate the United States request for information. In both calls they asked for more details and for the Saudi government to be transparent in the investigation process. We will continue to monitor this situation and provide updates as available.”

Don’t miss the fifth installment of our 10 part series on voting rights and democracy. The Georgia Governor’s race pits a hardened vote suppresser Brian Kemp against Stacey Abrams, a long time champion of voting rights in the state. The fact that Kemp is a hardcore Trumping white man and Abrams is a progressive African-American woman makes it a battle that brings together, in stark relief, almost everything going on in the country today. It’s very close and voting rights are on the ballot. Cam Joseph has our story.

As I explained last night, we should be considering whether the Trump administration involved itself — even at the passive level of failing to act in deterrence — in the apparent murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi. Trump’s and Kushner’s relationships with the ruling Crown Prince run incredibly deep and involve not only to foreign policy but private business deals as well. Kushner and MBS once stayed up all night together in Riyadh brainstorming how these two degenerate princelings could reshape the region. The Saudis even seem to have played some role getting Trump elected in 2016.  Read More

The fate of exiled Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi has been bubbling through the news for the last week while most of our focus was on Brett Kavanaugh and the impending midterm election. But tonight it took a decidedly more ominous turn, one that involves not only the possibility of a brutal extra-legal killing but scandal reaching into the Trump administration itself. Read More

The most repeated explanations of Nikki Haley’s departure today are that she wanted to make money in the private sector or she wanted a ‘breather’. I just wanted to reiterate that this makes absolutely no sense. People do sometimes leave high profile positions for those reasons. But not without warning and not four weeks before an election. President Trump claims she gave him a heads up six months ago. But he’s a notorious liar. Various reports claim that neither John Bolton nor Secretary of State Pompeo knew anything about it. Apparently nobody did.

I’m not saying there’s some big scandal lurking here. But these explanations do not hold up. There’s certainly some as yet unknown driver of this decision.

Here’s something I’ve been watching for a bit. You can see here that “New Fox” has just hired Hope Hicks as its chief communications officer. Sort of a lateral transfer in the state propaganda world. But here’s something worth noting about “New Fox”. Read More

We’re now watching the President’s impromptu appearance with outgoing Ambassador Nikki Haley. The closest they’ve come to an answer is Haley saying she believes in rotating top officials with some regularity. She decided that four weeks before the election made sense. Meanwhile, CNN reports that both John Bolton and Mike Pompeo were taken by surprise by Haley’s announcement. Haley was effusive, going so far as to laud Jared Kushner as a “hidden genius.” Read More