11.3o I play my 800th Wordle. Currently I have a 99 percent solve rate, and a streak of 68. My longest streak was 85.
11.29 Tom Stoppard dies at 89.
11.27 Robert A.M. Stern dies at 86.
11.24 A federal judge throws out the criminal charges against James Comey and Letitia James after finding that Lindsay Halligan, the prosecutor Trump handpicked to bring the cases, had been illegally appointed.
11.23 1929, by Andrew Ross Sorkin
11.23 Anand Giridharadas in the Times: “The idea of an Epstein class is helpful because one can be misled by the range of people to whom Mr. Epstein ingratiated himself. Republicans. Democrats. Businesspeople. Diplomats. Philanthropists. Healers. Professors. Royals. Superlawyers. A person he emailed at one moment was often at war with the ideas of another correspondent — a Lawrence Summers to a Steve Bannon, a Deepak Chopra to a scientist skeptical of all spirituality, a Peter Thiel to a Noam Chomsky. This diversity masked a deeper solidarity. What his correspondents tended to share was membership in a distinctly modern elite: a ruling class in which 40,000-foot nomadism, world citizenship and having just landed back from Dubai lend the glow that deep roots once provided; in which academic intellect is prized the way pedigree once was; in which ancient caste boundaries have melted to allow rotation among, or simultaneous pursuit of, governing, profiting, thinking and giving back. Some members, like Mr. Summers, are embedded in all aspects of it; others, less so. If this neoliberal-era power elite remains poorly understood, it may be because it is not just a financial elite or an educated elite, a noblesse-oblige elite, a political elite or a narrative-making elite; it straddles all of these, lucratively and persuaded of its own good intentions. If it’s a jet set, it’s a carbon-offset-private-jet set. After all, flying commercial won’t get you from your Davos breakfast on empowering African girls with credit cards to your crypto-for-good dinner in Aspen.”
11.22 John Adams: “Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private [virtue], and public virtue is the only foundation of republics. There must be a positive passion for the public good, the public interest, honour, power, and glory, established in the minds of the people, or there can be no republican government, nor any real liberty.”
11.21 Larry Sabato, the founder and director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, quoted in The Washington Post: “It’s one of the worst months that any president has had in his first year. It’s true with all presidencies, every day matters, and a million things happen, and every month is different. But the bad things tend to be remembered longer than the good things. He really has accumulated a lot of wounds, and he still has 80 percent of this term to go.”
11.21 The Coast Guard reclassifies “noose” and “swatstika” as hate symbols.
11.20 The Coast Guard, which had classified “noose” and “swatstika” as hate symbols, reclassifies them as “potentially divisive.”
11.20 A 1940 self-portrait by Frida Kahlo sells for $54.7 million, becoming the top-selling work by any female artist at an auction.
11.20 Pam Bondi, explaining what had changed to prompt her open an investigation into Democrats named in the Epstein Files after declaring in July that ““we did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties, and that “no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted”: and “Information that has come for, um, information. There’s new information, additional information.”
11.19 New York Rangers coach Mike Sullivan, quoting baseball executive Chaim Bloom: “We are in the business of the relentless pursuit of small improvements.”
11.19 According to the Commerce Department, after Trump’s sweeping tariffs took effect in August, imports dropped 5.1 percent, to $340.4 billion.
11.18 Gustav Klimt‘s “Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer” sells at auction for $236 million
11.18 Donald Trump, sitting next to Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, on the 2018 killing of Jamal Khashoggi: “You’re mentioning someone that was extremely controversial. A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about. Whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen. You don’t have to embarrass our guest.”
11.18 By a vote of 427-1, the House approved legislation to compel the Justice Department to release its records related to Jeffrey Epstein, Hours later, the Senate by unanimous consent agreed to pass the measure as soon as it arrived in the chamber, which would clear it for President Trump’s signature.
11.17 Mediabistro: “AI isn’t coming for Hollywood. It already moved in, took the best parking spot, and edited itself into the credits. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Los Angeles County has lost over 41,000 film and television jobs since 2020. That’s one in four entertainment workers gone. . . .A FilmLA executive recently told me that 2025 is tracking worse than 2024, which was already the worst non-COVID year on record – and he expects 2026 to be even worse. Studios aren’t making content anymore; they’re making code. The message is simple: if you can’t outshoot the algorithm, you’d better learn to feed it. . . . California lawmakers have passed a $750 million annual production tax credit package—more than double the prior cap. The problem? The math doesn’t work. Soundstage occupancy in the Los Angeles area is down to 63 percent. More than 70 percent of productions rejected from the program end up filming elsewhere, often in Georgia, New York, or Canada. Sony Pictures CEO Tony Vinciquerra summed it up: “Even with subsidies, California just doesn’t make sense.” . . .FilmLA reports the city lost 1,500 shoot days in the last quarter. That’s not a slowdown. That’s an evacuation (or another WGA strike).”
11.17 Federal judgeWilliam Fitzpatrick offers “a blistering assessment” of the Justice Department’s case against former FBI director James B. Comey, detailing what he described as a “disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps.” Fitzpatrick criticizes authorities for their “cavalier” attitude toward the rights of Comey and others, and says that Lindsey Halligan, the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney overseeing the case, also appeared to have made “fundamental misstatements of the law” to the grand jury that indicted Comey on charges of lying to Congress. “Here, the procedural and substantive irregularities that occurred before the grand jury, and the manner in which evidence presented to the grand jury was collected and used, may rise to the level of government misconduct resulting in prejudice to Mr. Comey.”
11.17 Garden Lights, Holiday Nights at Atlanta Botanical Garden
11.14 Richard Moore, former head of MI6, in an interview with Bloomberg: “I was paid to steal secrets, not solve mysteries.”
11.14 After a female reporter from Bloomberg asked Trump on Air Force One “If there’s nothing incriminating in the files, sir, why not…”, Trump responded “Quiet! Quiet, piggy,” and jabbed his finger in her direction.
11.14 Olivia Nuzzi in American Canto: “[W]hat is a politician? Any man who wants to be loved more than other men and through his pursuit reveals why he cannot love himself.”
11.14 11.13 Charlie Wurzel in The Atlantic: “[The Epstein files] are a skeleton key for understanding the dynamics of Donald Trump’s America, one in which the wealthy and powerful appear not as master operators but as bumbling sycophants, eager to cozy up to influence no matter how villainous or depraved.”
11.13 Fodors.com: Italy is investigating claims that “sniper tourists” traveled from the country to Bosnia-Herzegovina in the early 1990s to shoot civilians for sport. These war tourists allegedly paid the equivalent of $115,900 today to shoot at civilians in the city of Sarajevo, which was under siege by Bosnian Serbs.
11.13 Rep. Jason Crow, quoted in The Washington Post: “There is a perception that Democrats talk down to certain folks in this country. There is a perception that Democrats are weak and scared of their own shadow, and you see that playing out in elections. We have lost vast swaths of rural America and working-class America, largely because of the way we’ve communicated with folks.”
11.13 Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani win baseball’s Most Valuable Player Awards. For the first time, both recipients are consecutive winners. Judge won for the third time in his career (2022), narrowly topping Seattle’s Cal Raleigh. Judge is the fourth Yankee with three MVPs, joining Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra and Mickey Mantle. A unanimous selection, Ohtani won for the fourth time. He is the only player to have won twice in each league.
11.13 Larry Brooks dies at 75.
11.13 Tim O’Brien on Bloomberg: “Trump, who hasn’t been accused of any crimes in connection with Epstein, once made political hay stoking conspiracy theories about Epstein’s relationships with elites. He knitted that tale into a broader narrative about institutional malfeasance smothering average Americans, and it may not have occurred to him that some of the traps he set would eventually snap back. It should have crossed Trump’s mind, of course. After all, he and Epstein were pals.”
11.12 The U.S. Mint strikes the final penny that will be used as legal tender.
11.12 The Gales of November, by John U. Bacon
11.12 House Democrats released email in which Jeffrey Epstein wrote that Trump had “spent hours at my house” with one of Epstein’s victims, among other messages that suggested that Epstein believed Trump knew more about his abuse than he has acknowledged. In an email from April 2011, Epstein tells Ghislaine Maxwell “I want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is Trump.” He adds that an unnamed victim “spent hours at my house with him ,, he has never once been mentioned.” [Republicans say this victim in Virginia Giuffre.] “I have been thinking about that,” Maxwell replies. In an email from January 2019, Mr. Epstein wrote to Michael Wolff of Mr. Trump: “Of course he knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine to stop.”
11.11 In an unprecedented result, both of the managers of the year–Stephen Vogt of the Guardians and Pat Murphy of the Brewers–were repeat winners, and also winners in their first two years of managing a major league team.
11.11 Michael Ray Richardson dies at 70. “The ship be sinkin’.”
11.10 The Giants fire Brian Daboll.
11.10 Trump pardons Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Mark Meadows, Boris Epshteyn, and Sidney Powell for federal crimes related to the January 6th insurrection.
11.9 Paul Tagliabue dies at 84.
11.8 Mel Bridgman dies at 70. Pat Quinn: “He had a special determination. When Mel went after the puck, he was like a bulldog. He had his mind set. If you put a wall between him and his assignment, you would lose that wall.”
11.8 Nuremberg
11.7 James Watson dies at 97.
11.7 Derek Thompson in The Atlantic: “[F]or the second straight election, the president has violated his mandate to restore normalcy. Elected to be an affordability president, Trump has governed as an authoritarian dilettante. He has raised tariffs without the consultation of Congress, openly threatened comedians who made jokes about him, pardoned billionaires who gave him and his family money, arrested people without due process, overseen the unconstitutional obliteration of the federal-government workforce, and, with the bulldozing of the White House East Wing, provided an admirably vivid metaphor for his general approach to governance, norms, and decorum. A recent NBC poll asked voters whether they thought Trump had lived up to their expectations for getting inflation under control and improving the cost of living. Only 30 percent said yes. It was his lowest number for any issue polled. The affordability issue, which seemed to be a rocket exploding upwards 12 months ago, now looks more like a bomb to which the Republican Party finds itself tightly strapped.”
11.6 Jeff Flake in the Washington Post: “In politics, migrations rarely happen all at once. They start quietly — one or two members of a herd moving toward safer ground while the rest pretend not to notice. But once the wind really changes, the movement becomes unmistakable. I believe that a migration has begun within the Republican Party. The first signs are visible. A few Republican members of Congress — some of them proud standard-bearers of the MAGA movement — have begun to distance themselves from President Trump. Senators are resisting his dangerous push to end the filibuster. Sen. Rand Paul has taken a stand against the president’s tariffs. Outspoken Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s recent break with President Trump on several issues may not last, but even a temporary defection signals to others that it can be done. It gives cover to those who have privately questioned the direction of the party but have been unwilling to say so aloud. The political climate that once rewarded absolute loyalty to the president is shifting. The Democratic landslide in Tuesday’s off-year elections will only add momentum to that. The midterms, now less than a year away, clearly favor the Democrats — particularly in the House, where they are poised to take the majority. And if that happens, it will not be because Democrats have suddenly found the perfect message. It will be because the president’s economic policies are fundamentally misaligned with both conservative principles and economic reality.”
11.6 Jonathan Chait in the Atlantic: “Marjorie Taylor Greene has been bucking the Republican party line with increasing frequency—standing with Democrats to demand that the Justice Department release the Epstein files, decrying the spike in health-care premiums, and holding love-ins with the hosts of The View. Many people are trying to get their heads around the fact that the “Jewish space lasers” lady is now a leading voice of heterodoxy and, at least intermittently, common sense. . . . Greene seems to have recognized that the president has broken faith with his own followers. That realization may also now be dawning on other Republicans after Tuesday’s electoral mini-rout, but Greene not only saw it happening sooner; she began planning her future around it. She may be planning for a day when the MAGA movement is not led by Trump, or even by a member of his administration, but by a leader who can speak on behalf of its disgruntled base. Somebody like her.”
11.6 Tesla shareholders approve a plan to grant Elon Musk shares worth nearly $1 trillion if he meets ambitious goals, including vastly expanding the company’s stock market valuation. If it happens, he will become the world’s first trillionaire. CNN Business Report: If you spent $40 per second, around the clock, it would take you 289 days to exhaust a billion dollars. If you did the same thing with a trillion dollars, it would take you 792.5 years to go broke.
11.6 Nancy Pelosi announces that she will not seek reelection.
11.6 After seven hours of deliberation, a Washington DC jury acquits Sean C. Dunn, the man who pitched a Subway sandwich at the chest of a federal agent in an act of opposition to Trump‘s law enforcement policies. He had been charged of misdemeanor assault.
11.5 Joanne Carducci: A historic, motherfucking tsunami that tore across the map and peeled the gold foil off Mar-a-Lago like a cheap advent calendar chocolate coin. Democracy didn’t knock. She kicked the door off its hinges, boots muddy, hair wild, eyeliner smeared, and said, “Miss me, bitches?”
11.5 Michael Tomasky in The New Republic: “[P]eople hate Donald Trump and what he’s doing to this country. And in an election that provided, as elections invariably do, a jillion takeaways, let’s not lose of sight of what is obviously and toweringly takeaway number one: Americans have developed a big-time case of buyer’s remorse about Trump, and a very solid majority of them despise what Trump has perpetrated against America. Trump and his MAGA world saunter forward in confidence. They live in a daydream; a fantastical bubble where Trump can say that his polls are great, the economy is the best ever, the tariffs are working miracles, energy prices are low, and his ICE agents are following the law. All this is reinforced by the so-called “media” that serves as Trump’s Soviet-style propaganda arm, and it’s swallowed hook, line, and sinker by the brain-rinsed . . . They talk only among themselves and are therefore able to pretend to themselves that we’re living through some kind of American renaissance. Elections are the one opportunity we have to see what the people think. And what they think is clear: Trump sucks.”
11.5 Mary Ellen Klas on Bloomberg: “Although [the Georgia Public Service Commission] regulates the state’s electric utilities, making decisions that impact every household and business in the state, many Georgians likely don’t know what the board does. . . .The contest surprised both sides when 21% of the state’s active voters — 1.5 million Georgians — turned out for the election. More than 63% of those who cast ballots Tuesday voted to oust Republican incumbents Tom Echols and Fitz Johnson and elect Democratic newcomers Alicia Johnson and Peter Hubbard.” That such an upset occurred in Georgia, of all places, may signal a shift.
11.5 Jonathan Martin on Morning Joe, observing that for the first time since Biden‘s disastrous 2024 debate with Trump, the subject of the day is not the Democrats in disarray. “How do the Republicans deal with a deeply unpopular president who is also abusing his power?”
11.4 Democrats swept key elections across the country on Tuesday night, delivering a rebuke of Donald Trump’s second term so far and boosting the party’s hopes ahead of the midterms. In Virginia — traditionally a bellwether in the year after a presidential election — Democrats won every statewide contest; Abigail Spanberger led the governor’s race by 15 points with almost all of the vote tallied. In New Jersey, Democratic gubernatorial pick Mikie Sherrill won by almost as much, easily beating back a strong Republican candidate whom she attacked for embracing Trump. In California, Democrats won a ballot measure to redraw their congressional districts. In New York City, democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor over former governor Andrew M. Cuomo. In Georgia, voters ousted the Republicans on 
the Public Service Commission.
11.4 Dick Cheney dies at 84.
11.3 Paul McCartney
11.3 Jonathan Chiat in The Atlantic: “ donating to [D]onating to a Clinton charity [is] like buying your date a nice dinner in the hopes of getting lucky; donating to a Trump charity is more like bringing a fistful of cash to a brothel.”
11.2 Cam Little of the Jacksonville Jaguars sets an NFL record with 68 yard field goal in Jacksonville’s 30-29 win over Las Vegas.
11.1 A very competitive World Series ends with a classic Game 7 featuring clutch hitting and slick fielding, in which the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4, retaining their title of World Champions. Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto won three games, including the clincher with thre tough innings of relief.