11/05/25

Good morning! It’s Wednesday, November 5th.

American Football Day.

I spend a lot of time around football lately. It’s a long story. But here’s what I can now confidentially tell you, having been thrust into the world of football and been forced to very quickly learn a lot about it.

Football… is a game of yards. There are many of them. And you gotta run ‘em.

Or kick ‘em.

Come to me with all your football questions.

And now, the news.

Dick Cheney

-via CNN

I’ll get into election results shortly, but first – Dick Cheney, George W. Bush’s Vice President and the man who led the country into the “war on terror,” putting us into the Iraq war, where 4,431 servicemembers died, another 35,000 were injured, and an untold, and still unfolding, number of those who came home are dealing with the consequences of returning to a country that consistently shutters the resources that they were promised when they went overseas, and so we actually don’t know, and will never know, the true cost of the “war on terror”… has died.

He was 81.

Legacies are complicated things. And while I have many, many opinions (on quite literally everything. Things I don’t even know about yet. Give me a second and I will have a passionate opinion on it!), I don’t think this is the place for opinion. Or of speaking ill of the dead.

Ironically, his final presidential vote was in 2024, and he let it be known that he’d cast that ballot for Kamala Harris.

Like I said – legacies are complicated things.

Election Night 2025

-via NY Times, CNN, NBC News, Politico, and Washington Post

And now… talk election results to me, baybee.

All the cool kids went to the polls on Tuesday (unless you voted early, or you voted by mail, or you didn’t have an election… There are still plenty of reasons you could have not gone to the polls on Tuesday, and could still be cool.) The point is… eligible voters who don’t vote are losers.

Anyway!

So distracted already. Wow, that never happens. If you’re new to this show, I… am a professional.

There have been a few elections since Trump’s second term began, but with mayoral, gubernatorial, and public policy elections all over the country, Tuesday truly was the first referendum on Trump’s second term.

And what are the people thinking about Trump?

They are… not fans!

Yeah, turns out Americans are not super into fascism. Some would even say they’re anti… it.

Used the ol democracy to fight a dictator.

A tale as old as time.

Let’s run down the scoreboard!

In New York City:

Zohran Mamdani beat Andrew Cuomo and will be the next mayor of America’s most populous city. Cuomo entered this with incredible name recognition (not for anything good, but still, people knew his name). Eric Adams dropped out of the race and urged supporters to vote for Cuomo. Trump threatened to take federal funding away from the city. Mamdani came out of nowhere. Even the people who supported him needed to learn how to spell and pronounce his name.

And still…

When Mamdani won the primary, Cuomo went and decided to remember actually, maybe he’s an independent. So he stayed in the race, running as an independent.

And still – Mamdani victory was a lock early in the evening.

There was a republican in the race as well. His name is Curtis Sliwa and he best I can say about him is that he certainly was a candidate and no one can take that away from him. He earned 7.1% of the vote.

In New Jersey:

Despite the concerns of the voice of the tristate area (that would be one Ashley Dylan Zazzarino. Dylan is her middle name.), former Navy helicopter pilot and federal prosecutor, Democrat Mikie Sherrill, will be the state’s next governor.

In New Jersey, police responded to bomb threats at seven polling places. They were found to not be credible. Additionally, New York City and federal authorities responded to what they called an “elaborate swatting attempt” that targeted polling sites.

That did not stop voters from getting out there and making their voices heard.

New Jersey, once a democratic stronghold, has become a bit of a little ball of maroon stress in recent years so, while I’m inclined to think Zazz is right at all times (as is the case in any normal and healthy friendship), despite polling showing Sherrill with a lead for most of the race, I don’t think she was the only New Jerseyian… New Jersey-itte? New Jersey-fornian. That’s it.

She was not the only New Jersey-fornian worried about this race.

In fact. It was this race here that told me what the rest of the night would look like. And if you are a democrat, or just someone who enjoys the basic tenets of democracy and wants to make sure we get to keep fighting for it… it was a nice little evening.

Virginia elected its first female governor!

Now, to be fair… it was going to, no matter what. Both the democratic and republican candidates were women. But the republican candidate was worried about what happens to solar power when the sun goes down so I’m not sure she was the best woman, ya know?

And while I don’t think that was the biggest problem voters had with her, it certainly didn’t help. In the end, Virginia went blue down the line. Electing not one Abigail Spanberger for the first female governor of the state, but they also elected a democratic Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General.

I talked about this last week, but Virginia is also joining the redistricting fight and will soon as the voters – hey, do you want to redistrict for a couple minutes so that we can fight for the future of democracy?

Well now, when they ask that question, they will be able to point to California as an example of a state that’s doing it.

That’s right, California’s Prop 50 also passed on Tuesday. This means that the state will, temporarily, redistrict itself in reaction to the many Republican states that are gerrymandering voters out of the democratic process, at the request of the president. The redistricting will last through 2030, and then the state will return the job of drawing districts to the Independent Redistricting Commission.

On Tuesday morning, Maryland announced that it’s joining the fight. Governor Moore announced the creation of the Governor’s Redistricting Advisory Commission one week after the state Senate President (also a Democrat) told state lawmakers that they would not be redistricting.

In Pennsylvania, every few years they have to do a little check-in on their state Supreme Court just to see how people are feeling about the justices. Can you believe that? Voters get to just check in! Hey, have you been on any private jets lately? Did your spouse support an insurrection? Has your fond of flags spouse put any super inappropriate flags outside of your home or on your boat? Have you twice leaked a Supreme Court ruling and/or pretended to check the couch cushions or something for the person that leaked the ruling and then when you looked in like one place and didn’t find them, did you give up because you know who did it and don’t want to lose a seat on the bench?

No to all? Okay cool, you’re good to stay.

I don’t know if anyone’s mentioned it lately but, uh… we’ve gotta unplug and plug our Supreme Court back in again. I’m telling you, Pete Buttigieg had some really good ideas for the court. Someone go ask him about it.

Anyway, again… I never get distracted. This is a rare thing. So in Pennsylvania, three of their justices were on the ballot. Voters were asked for all three – yes or no? Keep or no keep?

All three justices, backed by democrats, were voted to stay on the bench.

Detroit elected its first female mayor. She will replace Mike Duggan, who is a democrat but is running for governor of the state as an independent because he’s too afraid of Jocelyn Benson to run as a Democrat. So, I would like to ask Duggan: What policies of the Republicans, specifically those of Trump, are you a fan of enough that you’re willing to move over to that side of the aisle? What liberal policies are you walking away from? If you’re not even brave enough to debate Benson, what else aren’t you brave enough to do? Why should voters trust you if you’re not even willing to be honest about your political beliefs?

Man… next year, reading these results and being able to announce that Jocelyn Benson has won the governor’s race is going to be… incredible. Hands down, there is no better choice to lead Michigan than someone who has done such amazing work statewide.

And what of the ballot measures?

If you’re only watching with your ears, what you don’t know is that I… don’t have any graphics for ballot measures. If you’re watching on YouTube… spoiler alert, I don’t have any graphics for ballot measures. It’s a work in progress, this show. It took four years to get YouTube. I’ll really have it together by 2037. You’ll see. You’ll all see.

$10 million a year Or. I. Walk.

In Maine, voters rejected harsher voting laws and approved a red flag law that allows family members or law enforcement to petition the court to temporarily prevent people at risk of harming themselves or others from having weapons.

In a real “I neglected to read the room” moment, Texas swung the other way and will amend their constitution to both require citizenship to vote (yeah, I’m so sorry but there will be a quick lecture here… citizenship is already required to vote. Full stop. They drag this one out because it seems like a no-brainer, but this isn’t a problem anywhere, and the reason we know it’s not is because fraud by voters is not an issue. Period, full stop. It’s just the math of it all. I want the best, safest, greatest elections possible. And that includes, as mentioned, the safest. If fraud by voters was an issue, I’d want to fix it. The only reason they bring this one out is so they can try to scare people away from voting, confuse them out of voting, or act as if the fraud that isn’t there, is. It’s another way to get a voter ID. A voter ID is a poll tax. It’s not about protecting democracy, it’s about hiding it away from anyone they think might use it they way they don’t want them to.).

They also added to the constitush the idea that parents have to protect their kids and make decisions about their upbringing. It doesn’t say what those decisions are, but jeepers, I wonder if they’ll even be, you know… don’t be gay. Don’t be trans. That certainly wouldn’t be what that’s about… would it?? (Of course it is!)

And you’d think my favorite ballot measure would be Maine voters safeguarding their rights.

Instead it’s this: In Colorado, voters elected to send $12.4 million in tax overages into a school meal program to make sure kids have free meals. What was the other option? For it to be returned to the taxpayers.

This money could have gone to them. They decided to send it to the kids.

So when Donald Trump tries to say that this election wasn’t about him. When he tries to say, as he has, that everyone would have done better if he’d been on the ballot – he was.

Today is Day 36 of the shutdown.

SNAP benefits aren’t being paid out. Either at all or on time. That’s kids – kids and adults not having access to already meager funds they depend on, so that they don’t starve.

While the president builds a ballroom.

And in Colorado, voters could have gotten money back and they instead decided to send it back to make sure kids they don’t know will have meals.

Our democracy is the envy of the world.

America is the great experiment.

And I know right now it feels like we’re watching the beaker overflow and the whole thing catch on fire.

But there are two things that I have said over and over and over again. Two separate ideas that I want to come back to yet again.

First – that story about the car being parked on top of the missile silo in Wyoming. I’ve told this story a few times. I’m very honest about the fact that I heard it on Rachel Maddow’s show first and it’s something that I really latched onto, but there’s a missile silo in Wyoming. Missile’s underground, all of the sudden the alarm goes off as if the missile is going to pop out of the silo and take off (normally I tell this better). And so everyone’s trying to figure out what to do and someone thinks – I’m just going to park on top of the silo cover. The idea being that when it opens, it’ll be like yanking a tablecloth off a table really fast and then the car will crash down on the missile and maybe that’ll stop it.

Not the strongest idea but this is America and in times of crisis – under, over, or around, we find our way through.

We are in the middle of a hostile government takeover. Literally, in some places. The worst kind of person, one who chooses to be cruel and vindictive, who stands against everything this country is meant to stand for, is our president.

But he is not forever. This moment is not forever. Under, over, or around.

A man whose supporters barely even knew his name a year ago became the mayor of the most populous city in country on Tuesday.

The biggest state in the country is going to redraw its maps to fight back against the gerrymandering the Republicans are doing, and that’s giving other states the courage to do the same.

A car over a missile silo.

Under, over, or around. We are finding our way through. Because the experiment isn’t over yet. It does not even with a man who is so vindictive that he takes food away from hungry children while he builds a $300 million ballroom, destroying the hundreds of years of history instead of it.

And if you are looking for what it is that is still here worth fighting for. What on earth we would drive a car onto a missile silo for: In Colorado, voters had the chance to literally get their own money back.

Instead, they chose to give $12.4 million to make sure school kids could get free meals.

And that’s it. That’s the news.

I’m proud of us.

The world watched us vote. They wondered what this first referendum on our dictator would look like. In the middle of our constitutional crisis, with our fascist authoritarian dictator threatening to send election watchers to polling stations.

And what we showed the world is that just because someone represents us, it doesn’t mean they represent us.

This is just the beginning.

America is an experiment. That means no one knows what’s coming next. We definitely didn’t know we’d be here! The next step is up to us.

The midterms are next, let’s keep this party going.

And because you love to party, because you are the party… I’m proud of you.