Ted Cruz Might Have Won, but the Midterms Bode Ill for Texas

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Republicans across Texas breathed a deep sigh of relief Tuesday night when Sen. Ted Cruz eked out a victory over Beto O’Rourke, who ran the most competitive statewide campaign a Texas Democrat has run in decades.

But Republicans in the Lone Star State shouldn’t take much comfort from the win. Yes, Cruz held on to his Senate seat, and yes, every GOP incumbent running in a statewide race won reelection. Nevertheless, a closer look at their margins of victory, along with massive voter turnout and structural changes in the electorate, tells a troubling tale for the future of the GOP in Texas.

The reality is that the Republican Party is losing ground in Texas, whose fast-growing population is increasingly willing to vote for Democrats, especially in the state’s large cities and suburbs. It’s easy to see this dynamic at play in the Cruz-O’Rourke race. Cruz won by less than 3 points, and only captured a couple hundred thousand more votes than O’Rourke out of a record-setting midterm turnout of more than 8.2 million voters. Compare that to 2012, when Cruz won by more 1.2 million votes and coasted to victory with a 16-point margin.

Even more ominous for Texas Republicans is where Cruz lost to O’Rourke. Tarrant County, which encompasses Fort Worth and is America’s most conservative large urban county, went for Cruz by 16 points in 2012, with Cruz winning nearly a million more votes than his Democratic opponent that year. Long considered a GOP stronghold, Tarrant County is the only one of the Texas’s five largest counties that hasn’t backed a Democratic presidential candidate in the past decade. (In 2016, it went for Trump by more than eight points.)

But on Tuesday, O’Rourke narrowly carried Tarrant County, edging out Cruz by less than 4,000 votes. A similar dynamic played out in central Texas, where O’Rourke won Hays and Williamson counties, which border the deep-blue state capital of Austin in Travis County, but traditionally have been Republican strongholds. Cruz won both in 2012 by sizeable margins, but on Tuesday O’Rourke won both, carrying Hays County by more than 15 points. (Read more from “Ted Cruz Might Have Won, but the Midterms Bode Ill for Texas” HERE)

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Tucker Carlson Speaks out After Leftist Mob Shows up at His Home, Reveals Chilling Details

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On Wednesday night, a 20-person leftist mob showed up at the home of Fox News host Tucker Carlson to chant threats, call him a racist, and demand the host leave town.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Carlson revealed that at least one member of the “anti-fascist” group threw himself into the host’s front door repeatedly to the point that the door cracked. . .

“She had been in the kitchen alone getting ready to go to dinner and she heard pounding on the front door and screaming,” he continued. “Someone started throwing himself against the front door and actually cracked the front door.”

His wife, who was the only person home at the time of the ambush, initially thought it was a home invasion after hearing the screaming and banging on the door. She locked herself in their pantry and called the police, Carlson said. . .

“It wasn’t a protest. It was a threat,” Carlson clarified. “They weren’t protesting anything specific that I had said. They weren’t asking me to change anything. They weren’t protesting a policy or advocating for legislation. … They were threatening me and my family and telling me to leave my own neighborhood in the city that I grew up in.” (Read more from “Tucker Carlson Speaks out After Leftist Mob Shows up at His Home, Reveals Chilling Details” HERE)

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Top Democrat Overheard Discussing Kavanaugh Impeachment Plans

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The top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee was overheard Wednesday discussing Democrats’ plans to investigate and try to impeach Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

New York Democratic Rep. Jerrold Nadler took a series of phone calls while riding the Acela train from New York to Washington, D.C., not knowing that the The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway was also on the train and within earshot.

Nadler is set to take over as judiciary chairman as a result of Democrats flipping the House in Tuesday’s midterm elections.

Nadler claimed in one call that “there’s a real indication that Kavanaugh committed perjury,” claiming the justice misled about when he first heard about the second of several unproven allegations against him.

Nadler claimed Kavanaugh was “asked at a committee hearing under oath when he first heard of the subject, he said, ‘When I’d heard of The Atlantic article.’ But there is an email chain apparently dating from well before that from him about ‘How can we deal with this?’” (Read more from “Top Democrat Overheard Discussing Kavanaugh Impeachment Plans” HERE)

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Questions About the Huge CIA Blunder That Allowed Enemies to Kill 70 U.S. Spies

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More than 70 foreign nationals working as spies for the CIA in Iran and China were systematically identified and slaughtered in the past decade, due to a ridiculously weak web-based system the CIA used to communicate with foreign assets it couldn’t reach directly. This according to a devastating November 2 report in Yahoo News written by journalists Zach Dorfman and Jenna McLaughlin (center-left, but generally trustworthy).

Although the Iranian roll-up occurred in 2011, and the Chinese rout occurred from 2010 to 2012, the CIA did not remedy the root cause of the problem in its transient messaging scheme until 2013, when Yahoo reports teams of co-opted staffers worked around the clock to dismantle the compromised system.

Based on at least one analysis, it looks like a simple internet search using the command “InURL” and other readily available search tools revealed to Iranian and Chinese intelligence agencies a network of interconnected web sites that ultimately led back to CIA official servers. Iranian intelligence appears to be the first to have discovered and used the easy exploit, so simple as to be hardly describable as a hack, then passed the methodology on to others. . .

Have tried and true, centuries-old spycraft behaviors such as dead drops, brush passes, cypher pads, and the like been adapted and put in place in a modern setting? How anybody can be stupid enough to place the personal identities of spies for the United States in an electronic directory in the first place beggars the understanding. We don’t need to know the exact details, but has this practice been nixed and something better put in place? . . .

This is an agency that seems lately given to fantasy and bureaucratic truculence, especially for its role in the idiotic Russia collusion imbroglio. Did former director Mike Pompeo address any of these issues during his tenure? Most of all, can we trust that current director and CIA lifer Gina Haspel has gotten rid of the fools who set up, maintained, and defended the horrific transient communication system, and gotten rid of the knaves who ignored and hounded the stalwart Reidy out of a job? (Read more from “Questions About the Huge CIA Blunder That Allowed Enemies to Kill 70 U.S. Spies” HERE)

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Trump Fires Attorney General Jeff Sessions

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President Donald Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Wednesday after a yearlong public shaming campaign that raised questions about whether the president improperly interfered with the Justice Department’s inquiry into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Trump, who requested Sessions’ resignation, named Matthew Whitaker to serve as interim attorney general. Whitaker was Sessions’ chief of staff and had been considered for a variety of jobs in the Trump administration, including the No. 2 post at Justice or as White House counsel.

In his new role, Whitaker also will oversee special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, prompting fears among Democratic lawmakers that Trump was seeking to derail the inquiry as it nears an end.

“Since the day I was honored to be sworn in as attorney general of the United States, I came to work at the Department of Justice every day determined to do my duty and serve my country,” Sessions said in a seven-paragraph letter. “I have done so to the best of my ability to support the fundamental legal processes that are the foundation of justice.”

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who had been overseeing Mueller’s investigation until Whitaker’s appointment, was at the White House on Wednesday afternoon for a meeting, though he remained in his job. He was among those in an entourage of Justice leaders who accompanied Sessions as he exited the department for the last time Wednesday night. (Read more from “Trump Fires Attorney General Jeff Sessions” HERE)

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Trump Opens Door to Declassifying Russia Docs, and His Acting Attorney General Could Be on Board

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President Trump is “very seriously” considering whether to declassify a slew of FBI and Justice Department records related to the Russia investigation, he said Wednesday. That controversial proposal, which Trump has toyed with for months, may have a backer in Matthew Whitaker, the acting attorney general.

“Declassification, we’re looking at very seriously,” Trump told reporters in a press conference on Wednesday, just before Attorney General Jeff Sessions was forced to resign.

Whitaker, who served as Sessions’ chief of staff, will take over as acting attorney general. In that role, he will oversee the special counsel’s investigation into Trump associates’ links to Russia. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had directed the investigation because Sessions recused himself due to contacts he had with Russians while working on the Trump campaign.

Trump announced on Sept. 17 that he was ordering the Justice Department and Office of the Director of National Intelligence to begin the process of declassifying 21 pages from an FBI application for a surveillance warrant against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

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Trump also called for the declassification of FBI notes from interviews used to obtain the surveillance warrant. He also urged the release of FBI interviews with Bruce Ohr, the Justice Department official who serve as a back channel to Christopher Steele, the author of the Democrat-funded dossier. The FBI relied heavily on the unverified dossier to obtain the spy warrants on Page. (Read more from “Trump Opens Door to Declassifying Russia Docs, and His Acting Attorney General Could Be on Board” HERE)

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Here Are the Democrats Embroiled in Abuse Allegations That Won Elections

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At least four Democrats facing sexual misconduct controversies in the #MeToo era were voted into office on Tuesday, a result that would appear to clash with the party’s claims to stand behind women and have zero tolerance toward such allegations.

House Reps. Keith Ellison, Tony Cárdenas and Bobby Scott, and Sen. Bob Menendez, all came out victorious on Tuesday, despite being accused of misconduct.

Their election raises questions whether the Democratic Party, which went all-out to stop now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in the face of assault claims and stressed the importance of believing women’s allegations, is selectively tapping into the #MeToo movement. . .

Karen Monahan, the Democrat’s [Ellison] former girlfriend, alleged that he once dragged her off a bed while shouting profanities and sent multiple abusive text messages. She also published a 2017 medical document that identified Ellison as the abuser who caused “emotional and physical abuse.”

Ellison denied the allegations and an investigation commission by the state Democratic Party cleared him of misconduct allegations. Ken Martin, the chairman of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), dismissed the allegations brought by Monahan, saying “I don’t believe her.” (Read more from “Here Are the Democrats Embroiled in Abuse Allegations That Won Elections” HERE)

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Democrats Retake Control of House, Republicans Hold Senate Majority

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By Fox News. Democrats reclaimed control of the House of Representatives Tuesday night after eight years out of power, Fox News projects, dealing a major setback to President Trump’s legislative agenda — but Republicans were able to expand their narrow Senate majority and, with it, the ability to confirm crucial judicial nominees.

The split decision on Capitol Hill follows one of the most intense and chaotic midterm campaign seasons in recent memory, in which President Trump barnstormed the country for GOP candidates and powerful Democrats including predecessor Barack Obama did the same for the other side. . .

In a boost for Trump, the GOP’s continued hold on the Senate gives Republicans control over all critical federal judicial appointments, including nominations to the Supreme Court. Republicans flipped a number of marquee Senate seats on Tuesday, with wins by Josh Hawley over Sen. Claire McCaskill in Missouri, Rep. Kevin Cramer over Sen. Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota, Republican Gov. Rick Scott over longtime Sen. Bill Nelson in Florida, and Mike Braun over Joe Donnelly in Indiana. . .

But Democrats’ win in the House gives fresh hope to liberals who want to investigate and perhaps even impeach the president. The takeover in that chamber ensures a contentious next two years leading into the 2020 presidential elections.

Democrats will also be able to halt many items on Trump’s legislative wishlist, including funding for his proposed border wall and a new middle-class tax cut — or at least extract major concessions on contentious issues like immigration reform before Trump gets his way. (Read more from “Democrats Retake Control of House, Republicans Hold Senate Majority” HERE)

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Democrats Set to Take House but Republicans Hold Senate

By Telegraph UK. Democrats look set to take the majority in the House of Representatives but fail to win back the Senate after the “blue wave” of historic support they hoped for failed to materialise.

Multiple US broadcasters projected that the Democrats would take the House. It will allow them to block Donald Trump’s laws and launch a string of investigations into his administration. However the Republicans looked on course to hold – or possibly even increase – their majority in the Senate, a result which Mr Trump is likely to use as proof that the night was not as bad as feared.

In the most closely watched race of election night, Ted Cruz was projected to see off Beto O’Rourke, the Democrat who became a nationwide pinup for liberals, and win re-election as Texas senator.

Pundits credited Republican turnout from a support base fired up by Mr Trump with robbing the Democrats of the landslide election they were hoping to secure. (Read more from “Democrats Set to Take House but Republicans Hold Senate” HERE)

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Former Navy SEAL Dan Crenshaw Wins Big in Texas

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By The Daily Caller. Ret. Lt. Cmdr. and Republican candidate Dan Crenshaw defeated his Democratic challenger Todd Litton on Tuesday to win Texas’s 2nd Congressional District.

Despite consistently polling ahead of Litton by double digits, Democrats were optimistic the area would flip blue due to the rapidly changing demographics of Harris County. Ultimately, Crenshaw beat out Litton.

The district has been represented by Republican Rep. Ted Poe who announced his retirement in November 2017. Poe flipped the seat red when he first took office in 2005 and it has since been a GOP stronghold. Litton, a director of an education non-profit, announced his run for the seat prior to Poe’s retirement. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi showed her support for the Democrat by pledging $7,000 to his campaign.

Crenshaw, a former Navy SEAL, served five deployments overseas — while on his third combat tour, he was hit by an IED blast during a mission in Afghanistan that destroyed in right eye and badly injured his left eye. After multiple surgeries, Crenshaw retained sight in his left eye and went on to deploy two more times, first to the Middle East, then to South Korea. (Read more from “Former Navy SEAL Dan Crenshaw Wins Big in Texas” HERE)

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Alyssa Milano Says Since Beto Lost ‘Now He Can Run for President’

By The Daily Caller. Alyssa Milano says it’s okay that Democratic Texas Sen. candidate Beto O’Rourke lost to Republican Sen. Ted Cruz because “now he can run” against President Donald Trump.

“Beto lost? That’s ok. Now he can run for President,” the 45-year-old actress tweeted to her millions of followers Tuesday night, shortly after news outlets called the Senate race for the incumbent Sen. Cruz.

The former “Charmed” star has been very politically active over the last year. Not just voicing her support for tons of Democrat candidates like Beto, but using her social media account to criticize President Donald Trump and other members of the administration. (Read more from “Alyssa Milano Says Since Beto Lost ‘Now He Can Run for President’” HERE)

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Trump Reacts to Midterm Results as Republicans Keep Control of Senate

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President Donald Trump tweeted his pleasure with the results so far from the 2018 midterm elections with several key races remaining to be called.

Trump heavily invested himself in several races where Republicans have either flipped Democratic seats or held on to them with victories in Indiana, Tennessee, Texas, Missouri and North Dakota. Trump also scored gubernatorial victories in Florida and Ohio. . .

“As President, Donald J. Trump has headlined an unprecedented 50 rallies — 30 in the last two months alone — and he has campaigned for dozens of candidates at all levels of government. The President has energized a staggering number of Americans at packed arenas and in overflow crowds at rallies across the country,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said ahead of polls closing Tuesday. (Read more from “Trump Reacts to Midterm Results as Republicans Keep Control of Senate” HERE)

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