Flotsam and Jetsam - An Overview of the Wreckage

At substack, Insty does a big piece on Trump’s Next Act, "And America’s." Cynical Publius @CynicalPublius, "When you lose a battle, you do not retreat in disarray. You conduct an orderly tactical withdrawal, refit and rearm, and COUNTERATTACK." PJM's Athena Thorne says Meh. 2008 Was Worse. At NYPo Michael Goodwin claims How Trump reacts to this shellacking will determine his legacy Joel Pollak @joelpollak, "Trump was elected to do politically difficult but necessary things. Securing the border is ugly. Fighting Iran is costly. Taking on special interests upsets donors. Backing AI scares people. Tonight, Republicans paid the costs. The benefits will be with us for many generations." and Most of the takes today are wrong and you can ignore. What to know: 1. Reagan lost both houses and 8 Senate seats in 1986. 2. Bush did the Iraq surge *after* losing 2006 midterms. 3. Oversight won't be pretty but accountability is useful. 4. Have a good day. It's a great country. At Hat Hair, Mark Judge calls it The End of Trump’s Punk Rock Presidency. Cecile Shaw @CecileShaw, "What happens if Trump loses the House and Senate? Clinton & Obama already set precedent. They weren't done at all in their last 2 years. Victor Davis Hanson explains: Clinton fell to 37% approval but left office at about 66%. ..." Sundance at CTH hosts President Trump Delivering Remarks from White House Following Midterm Election and A Midterm Election Message from Vice President JD Vance. Capt. Ed at Hat Hair cites Trump: 'I Thought They'd Do Better,' but I'll Work With Democrats. 

News Wax cites Vance: Iran War Drove Trump Voters to Democrats and hears Trump Blames Fox for GOP Losses, Hits Democrat Donations. At Althouse, "Vice President JD Vance, a potential 2028 presidential contender, broke sharply with the president in owning the failures of the administration’s policies.", "That's the WaPo subheadline, under the headline "Vance blames Republicans’ midterm losses on Iran war, cost of living" (gift link). Here, read Vance's post. It doesn't strike me as a "sharp break" from Trump. I see it as just analyzing the substance of yesterday's big losses:" At Insty, Vodka refers to JEN VAN LAAR: Vance’s Explanation for the GOP’s Midterm Disaster Is a Little Too Neat and Tidy. At Chapter and Verse, Dana Loesch explains What J.D. Vance Gets Wrong. At Hat Hair Dave Strom sees Vance Comes Out Swinging: End the War, Abandon Israel, and Love or Hate Trump, Candidate Selection Was a Problem – Again.

CBS crows about Trump asking advisers if Hegseth should stay after midterm losses, sources say. Beege Welborn at Hat Hair calls it Sacrifices to Angry Gods Time: Are They Going to Send Pistol Pete Packin'? Did he make major wrong choices in his pursuit of the Iran conflict? If so he should go, but don't do it just to assuage the mob. They won't be assuaged, they'll just taste blood. 

To be fair to Trump, the Republican congressional majority wasn't a lot of help. News Wax reports Johnson Stepping Aside, Setting Up House GOP Leadership Fight. Leader John Thune @LeaderJohnThune, "Over the last two years, Senate Republicans have put up a strong record of accomplishment that’s created safer streets, more money in Americans’ pockets, and new opportunities for families and businesses to get ahead. After fighting Democrat obstruction at every turn, we prevented the largest tax hike in American history, secured our border in an unprecedented way, confirmed the president’s Cabinet at the fastest pace in two decades, and put strong conservative judges on benches across the country faster than we have since the Reagan administration. ..." From Twitchy, Sen. John Thune Gets a ‘Hello’ From DataRepublican Over His Tone-Deaf Pep Rally Post. Harold__Finch @HaroldWren22, "No recess appointments. 230 outstanding appointments to confirm. Huge backlog of judges you failed to confirm. Failure to pass the save act. Six HUNDRED house bills sitting on your desk with no action. You’re a failure. And a disgrace." Matt Van Swol @mattvanswol, "Remember when the GOP gave Elon Musk a standing ovation in front of the American people... ...and then only voted on 1 DOGE cut, didn't defund the Taliban, gave $315 MILLION to a far Left group that DOGE defunded, and NEVER passed the SAVE ACT? I don't understand the GOP..." The Patriarch Tree @PatriarchTree, "Trump’s veto pen is now the only thing that stands between us and the complete Californication of America."

From Ace, The Wreckage, "Sorry for bailing last night. It was painful. It was a bloodbath. We're in a tough position now" and The Brutal Shifts in Demographic Groups That Doomed Us, "I started bolding the important parts but I stopped because it's all bold-faced important. Dmitri Bolt:" Sundance has some Initial Perspectives on Midterm Election Outcome. Conrad Black at RCP, Few Will Lament the End of This Midterm Campaign. Eric Florack at PJM, 'Marvin, What Do We Do Now?': Dems Wake Up to Their Bill McKay Moment. Hat Hair's John Sexton tells What the Exit Polls Say About Why Republicans Lost. Democrats did a good job of selling the affordability story. I doubt they can make good, but they'll blame Trump. Alexandriabrown @alexthechick, "(Long tweet warning) In which I anger everyone. 1. The Democrats won because the Democrat candidates persuaded more people that the Democrat positions would answer the problems that those people have. I can hear the instant but that's not true, those answers are not answers, they are actions that will compound the problems! Agreed. And the Republican candidates failed to persuade people that was the case..." Inez Stepman @InezFeltscher, "My only shred of hope to offer tonight: the left got wiped out this bad in the midterms multiple times and kept marching right through the institutions. So must we." 

Bill Melugin @BillMelugin_, "Understand the implications of what happened in Texas last night. Gina Hinojosa has called on Gov. Abbott to end state & local cooperation with ICE & she can order that on day one. Hinojosa voted against the 2017 SB 4 as a TX state rep. The bill was essentially a sanctuary cities ban and required TX law enforcement to cooperate with ICE detainers. She then voted against another SB 4 in 2023, which made it a state crime to cross illegally into Texas...."

Kyle Becker at RedState hears Abdul El-Sayed Gave His Victory Speech. He Said Something Absolutely Chilling. Roger Simon says Welcome to Europe!, "Not the one in your guidebooks."

TownHall's Jeff Charles predicts Democrats Have Some Horrible Things Planned for Trump Next Year. Ya think? Dave Strom hears Lawyer Up! Mark Hemingway @Heminator, "Guy who broke the law to come to America now wants to use the law to punish his political enemies. Sounds about right." Quote Congressman Robert Garcia @RepRobertGarcia, "LAWYER UP." John Sexton, Get Ready for the Investigations and cites Scott Galloway: We Should Execute Traitor Elon Musk. Ian McKelvey @ian_mckelvey, "This is what national socialism looks like." Quote Matt Binder @MattBinder, "arrest Elon Musk seize his factories nationalize SpaceX." The Manhattan Contrarian has "Saving Democracy" By Prosecuting Political Adversaries: A Roundup. Cam at BA worries about The Blue Wave's Hidden Threat to Gun Owners. It's not so hidden. PoIiMath @politicalmath, "The big headline is the GOP collapse but this is also the first big election where AI policy went to a vote and AI lost big." Quote Brad Carson @bradrcarson, "So the 41 datacenter moratoria across the country are, I predict, going to go 41-0. In nearly every case it's about 67-80% opposing datacenters. True in California, Ohio, everywhere. Read all the results here: https://dashboard-production-c2fc.up.railway.app."

Charles C. W. Cooke @charlescwcooke, "There is a very interesting mismatch between the elections for *candidates*, which effectively yielded a massive and historic sweep for the Democrats, and the *ballot initiatives*, almost all all of which yielded conservative outcomes, even in the deep blue states (but not VA)." Capt. Ed says Hmmm: Eight States Elect Dems – and Overwhelmingly Pass Voter-ID, Citizenship Laws. At Da Caller, Ohio Enshrines Voter ID Into State Constitution — And Elects A Democrat Who Opposes It. John Sexton, The California Wealth Tax Looks Dead. Dave Strom sees a Bright Spot in the Election: Biological Reality Won When It Was on the Ballot  So voters rejected conservative politicians, not conservative principles. Good to know.

Driscoll at Insty wishes GOODER AND HARDER, LA: Raman ousts Bass as Los Angeles mayor. "In other words, Los Angeles citizens have chosen the socialist who massively inflated their homeless population, rather than the socialist who burned their city down:" At Hollywood in Toto, How Hollywood Helped Fuel Tuesday’s Blue Tsunami. "Breitbart warned us politics is downstream of culture (did we listen?)."

John Lott at Da Fed notes The Media Won’t Tell You Felony Violent Crime Is Plunging Under Trump. From Shooting News Week, Trump Admin Experiment in Jailing and Deporting Criminals – While Gun Ownership Soars – Has Made Americans Safer. 

Driscoll calls it UNEXPECTEDLY: "Crude oil prices plummet a day after the election. And: Dow Jones surges 1,500 points in best day of 2026, S&P 500 and Nasdaq rally after historic midterm election." Businessmen like divided government; they do less to interfere. Breitbart Bus Dig reports Factory Demand for U.S. Labor Is Rising Sharply. 

Abroad, Northern Barbarian @xnoesbueno, "The Bundeswehr in Poland? If I were commanding so much as a platoon of the Polish Army, I’d make it my business to put as many German “soldiers” upside down in garbage cans. Give them swirlies.* Pull their flecktarn jackets over their heads, and boot their heinies in the direction of Der Sausageland. Go full high school jock on them. This is not the Wehrmacht. And yes, the Russians are watching. * Polish soldiers. DM me if you need to know what a swirly is." Quote Konrad Berkowicz @KonradBerkowicz, Translated from Polish, "Democracy according to the European Union. German army in Poland. Ursula von der Leyen sends the German army to Poland. Donald Tusk gave his consent. The media are silent about this. The world must see this."  Beege Welborn is Paging Hank Johnson - Guam Flipped and Greenland Ratified the Trump Treaty, but can the Democrats still fuck that up out of spite?

Beege Welborn worries The Border Worries Begin Anew. Da Caller hears Trump ‘Will Never Allow For Mass Amnesty’ After Floating Working With Dems On Immigration. At Twitchy, THESE People South of the Border Sure Seem Invigorated by the Midterm Results. From CIS,  If Sanctuaries Demand ‘Judicial Warrants’, Give them Judicial Warrants. "‘ICE-Free Zones’ are saying, ‘Show me the crime, and I’ll show you the alien’ — so show them the U.S. Code crime, and highlight the federal jail time those aliens receive before being deported."

Still more at the Wombat's In The Mailbox: 11.02.26 and  In The Mailbox: 11.04.26 (Morning Edition). "Well, that was unpleasant.Kurt Schlicter’s American Warlord is out. How timely."

A Thursday Tune or Two, Gone and Fancy

Pittsburgh-bred/Atlanta-based singer KELS is known for her powerful vocals and rootsy blend of soul, pop, and R&B. She broke through with her 2025 single "Gone," and delivered her debut EP, Dirty Blues Princess, in 2026.

Born Kelsey Anne Hillock in 1995 in Germany to an American military family, KELS grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where she started singing and performing at a young age. She studied both jazz and classical opera privately, before starting to write her own songs. Drawing inspiration from artists like Sarah Vaughan, Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill, and Amy Winehouse, she built a local following and released a string of independently released singles. Around 2023, she relocated to Atlanta, Georgia where she continued to garner attention, embarked on a self-funded 52-show U.S. tour, and headlined at the 2024 Atlanta Jazz Festival. In 2025, she released the single "Gone," posting a live, one-take performance on social media that went viral. A year later, she released her debut EP, Dirty Blues Princess, which featured "Gone" along with the singles "6 ft Under" and "Daddy's Not the One."

As Dolly Parton told Stevie Ray Vaughn, it costs a lot of money to look that cheap.

Oregon, My Oregon

 From the Free Bacon, Portland-Area County To Eliminate All Race-Based Housing Programs as Part of Agreement With Trump Administration

Multnomah County, Ore., agreed on Wednesday to eliminate all race-based housing programs as part of a voluntary compliance agreement with the Trump administration, which had alleged that the county's "culturally specific" services—including special apartments for the "BIPOC community"—violated the Fair Housing Act.

The county, which encompasses most of Portland, had previously agreed to remove questions about race and sexual orientation from a screening tool—first reported by the Washington Free Beacon—used to prioritize applicants for housing assistance. Wednesday's agreement covers a wider range of programs and requires the county to rescore pending applications for homeless services. It will also require all employees of the county's Homeless Services Department to complete four hours of fair housing training.

I wonder if, in light of the midterm results, Multnomah County (basically Portland) will rethink it's public revocation of their pledge to honor equal rights, rather than equity. I'm quite sure they never really intended to honor it. 

Maine Wakes Up to the Problem With Stripers

The Maine Monitor, With a shortage of young striped bass, Maine anglers fear for their sport’s future

For now, the fishing is good, with plenty of big stripers around to catch (and mostly, release). But a current of anxiety runs underneath the sport and the industry.

Captain Marco Lamothe, who runs Keeper Charters out of Saco, went on more than 100 fishing trips this year and caught plenty of larger, older striped bass, which can live to 30 years or more. But he worries about the fishery’s future because he’s not seeing as many smaller, younger fish.  Of the hundreds of striped bass he caught this year, only one measured less than 28 inches.

That's bigger than the majority of the fish we catch here, where 22-25 inches seems to be the median size, at least where Pete has been fishing. But it makes sense that sea run fish are larger.

“The tourists were abundant, and the fish were cooperative, and we had a lot of really successful fishing trips,” Lamothe said. But, he added, “We’re just not seeing any small- to medium-sized fish. So it’s concerning.”

Zachary Whitener, a senior research associate at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute and a former charter boat captain himself, put it more strongly. “It’s terrifying,” he said. “Once those big fish are gone, there’s nobody to refill the population.”

The factors behind this decline are complex, Whitener said. But one major factor is rainfall in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Some striped bass spawn in the Kennebec River watershed here in Maine, but most stripers are born in the Chesapeake and migrate up and down the East Coast each year.

 

For nearly a decade, there haven’t been very many young stripers.

The latest survey from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, released on Oct. 19, shows that striped bass recruitment was low for the eighth year in a row. Results from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science survey were better, showing average recruitment in the southern half of the bay this year. The scientists noted in their report, however, that “low recruitment in recent years remains a major concern.”

I don't know, but I've been told, that their is pretty decent crop of young stripers up in the northern end of the bay. Not the great masses we used to see all over but at least a smattering of undersized, but catchable fish. But I was a little concerned to see this:

Carrie Kennedy, acting associate director of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources’ fishing and boating services, said she wonders if fisheries managers like herself need to adjust their expectations for striped bass as their environment changes. Kennedy oversees Maryland’s fish monitoring efforts, including the juvenile striped bass survey. “The likelihood of making that 2029 rebuilding seems less and less likely every additional year we have low recruitment,” Kennedy said.

Striped bass isn’t the only sea-run fish — fish that spawn in freshwater but live as adults in the ocean — struggling with recruitment, Kennedy pointed out. White perch and yellow perch show similar trends over the same time period. “I think it’s a pretty good indicator that fishing isn’t the problem,” she said.

Instead, Kennedy pointed to the large-scale ecosystem shifts currently underway due to climate change and other factors, such as development on land that affects streams, rivers, estuaries and ultimately the ocean, too. “It’s not the same Chesapeake Bay. It’s not the same planet that we had 20 years ago when we had really great recruitment,” she said.

She may be right, and I've had the same thought about oysters, but I hate to MDDNR turning their back on the possibility of restoring healthy striper populations. 

Flotsam and Jetsam - Wipeout!

That's what the FreeP called the near total victory of Democrats in yesterday's midterm elections. Stacy McCain calls it The End of Polls and Predictions and posts MIDTERM ELECTION RESULTS HQ. Lawrence. As Lawrence Person's BattleSwarm Blog likes to say,  Well, That Absolutely Fucking Sucked. Republicans lost both the House (reasonably expected) and the Senate (which we'd hoped to keep), with Muhammad Abdulrahman El-Sayed beating Mike Rogers in Michigan, and James 'Talafreako' overcoming Ken Paxton in Texas to become the first Democrat Senator from Texas for a long time. At Twitchy, 2026 Election Night Live: The Results Are In… and So Are the Hot Takes, Memes, and Meltdowns. Closer to home, Maryland passed, over my vote, Question 3, a duplicitously worded proposition to allow Democrats in the state legislature to redistrict in midterm to eliminate the sole congressional Republican representative, Andy Harris, from the Eastern Shore. The only question is whether they will follow through. I suspect they will.

Adam Coleman at Speaking Wrong at the Right Time says It’s the Economy, Stupid: Why the Midterms Were Predictable. I don't want to argue with the voters, but overall, the economy is pretty good, with the exception of high gas and diesel prices (largely caused by the war with Iran, but also plenty of blame to go around for blue states), and inflation persistently running above the Feds 2% target. There was never a goal for a general price decrease, called deflation, and generally considered a very bad thing economically. Althouse like her NYT, "Many voters told pollsters and interviewers that they felt hoodwinked by Mr. Trump, believing that he was going to bring down prices and not start new wars," and cites Trump, "I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP." "Wrote Trump, on Truth Social, 7 hours ago." Maybe, maybe not.

Chris Rufo warns Reprisals Are Coming, "After the midterms, the Left will seek revenge." Brian Joondeph at Am Think thinks When Democrats Tell You What They’ll Do, Believe Them. Seth Mandel at Commentary fears Democrats’ Day of Rage. Austin Dunn @austindunn96, "Calmest guy at the polling place today in NH was the 18-year old that got swung at. We want conversation, not violence!" A Turning Point guy assaulted by what appears to be a Bernie bro old enough to better. Victory Girls wonder When Will the Violent Left Be Held Accountable? Now? Probably never. At Althouse, "Impeaching Trump is a bad idea. I want to be clear that we believe that Trump commits five impeachable offenses before breakfast every morning." "So this is not a question of his culpability. This is a question of political reality, and the reality is there’s literally zero chance that he will be removed from office unless he does something even more egregious. Impeaching him for a third time without succeeding in removal isn’t a good idea and it would send voters a message that we’re not listening. Voters are saying, yes we are concerned about corruption and of course Congress should do oversight, but mostly what they’re saying is, 'help me in my life right now because I am struggling.'" Said Matt Bennett, co-founder of the centrist Democratic think tank Third Way, quoted in "Will Trump be impeached? What happens now Democrats have won the midterms/Figures in the party that has won back control of Congress are wary of a third failure to remove the president and may target Pete Hegseth instead" (London Times)." Michael Bicksel at Da Fed says I Saw Slotkin Threaten GOP Staff. She Deserves An Ethics Probe. Not gonna happen. So now, I'm dumping most of the election related news I collected yesterday, most of which is past its shelf life.

Inez Stepman @InezFeltscher, "The Trump administration has delivered on a long list of conservative priorities, many of which seemed like pipe dreams for lonely academic discussion for decades. These are not small policy tweaks, they are major structural changes: shrinking and controlling the administrative state, getting immigration and mass migration under control, enforcing civil rights laws for everyone (read: also for white men, what a concept), defunding the institutional left’s woke NGO complex, turbocharging school choice and reining in universities legally and financially. They amount to an excellent groundwork for what must be recognized as a counterrevolution against the march through the institutions the left has been operating for a century. But somehow, we’ve never been more deflated and blackpilled. This is madness!" Byron York @ByronYork, "Peggy Noonan wants Republicans to lose big so the GOP will have to rebuild. But not so the old GOP establishment can return. "It will never return. The GOP establishment of 1990-2016 ran things into the ground, is discredited and over. Also, they're 80.""

From Ace, Trump Will End the $3.8 Billion Per Year of Military Aid to Israel by Year's End;

Counterintuitively, Is This the Best Outcome for the US and Israel? "The US will stop the payment of military aid to Israel. It will, however, continue authorizing the sale of key US weapons systems to its ally." Mark Tapscott at Insty on US AID TO ISRAEL: "Now that President Donald Trump has announced the end of U.S. military aide to Israel, all kinds of conjecture is blowing up on Social Media on the backstory. But Richard Pollock’s is one of the few sane voices and he provides the needed context that points to the continued strong relationship between the U.S. and Israel."

Roger Kimball at Am Great, Sovereignty or Submission? Poland’s Battle Against the Eurocrats "What is a stake in this ongoing confrontation? Writ large, it is the choice between Polish sovereignty and Polish submission to the globalist agenda of the EU." Beege Welborn at Hat Hair wonders Is Donald Tusk Planning to Invoke Martial Law Tonight?

At Da Signal, Greenland Parliament Ratifies Security Deal Agreed With Trump. Can, or will Democrats deliberately fuck this up too?

I have a little more in the old digital fridge, but I'm going to stop here today, and look around. So what's going to happen in the next couple of years? My predictions:  Senate Democrats will quickly nuke the filibuster, and start to legislate their agenda; try to pack the Supreme Court (I still say Trump should try it quickly, just to get Dems on record it's a bad idea), make Washington and Puerto Rico states, open the borders, abolish ICE, and begin hearings into any Republican who sticks his head up. Only Trump's veto is in the way to stop them. Will Republicans fight to uphold it? They haven't been all that trustworthy in the past. Also, media companies and big tech will be ready to start censoring conservative voices again, and educational institutions will being to bring back DEI.

The Wednesday Wetness

With Nicole Aloha:

PADI Freediving Instructor @seastaythailand 🌺 @gopro Ambassador