Imagine you vote for somebody, they win, and Washington decides your district doesn’t get to seat them. According to reporting, that’s being openly entertained in a circle of MAGA influencers heading into the midterms.

Retired Air Force colonel Rob Maness floated a hypothetical about Ilhan Omar being charged and said he wouldn’t seat her as speaker, election or not. I spent twenty years as a cop. A charge isn’t proof. And the Supreme Court already addressed the House inventing new qualifications for elected members in Powell v. McCormack.

The same allegation-versus-proof problem shows up in California. DOJ identified more than 20,000 people it suspects are noncitizens on the rolls. On October 30, a federal appeals court denied the administration’s emergency request. That doesn’t make everyone on the list eligible. It means the government hadn’t earned that kind of intervention in the middle of an election.

Then there’s the civil war talk, from people who, according to reporting, have held civilian roles at the Pentagon. That doesn’t mean the department directed any of it, and nothing in the reporting shows Trump ordered it. The White House sent reporters to the Pentagon, and the Pentagon didn’t respond.

I know what happens when people decide a political emergency gives them permission. On January 6, I was on the receiving end. The guy on the mic calls it a hypothetical. The person listening may hear a mission.

Vote. Protect election workers. Challenge real misconduct with evidence. Don’t let them scare you out of your rights.

Haley Stevens lost Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary to Abdul El-Sayed by less than a point. Then she walked into a Detroit church and endorsed the Trump-backed Republican, Mike Rogers. Her explanation is that she’s standing for her country. Are you fucking kidding me?

You don’t have to like the guy who beat you. You don’t even have to campaign for him. But staying home and actively helping the other side are two very different things. Her longtime chief of staff has resigned, Chuck Schumer called her decision a despicable betrayal, and Trump is praising her.

There’s also the money. The AIPAC-affiliated super PAC reportedly spent about $30 million backing Stevens and attacking El-Sayed, and Michigan voters picked him anyway. Then there’s a new Drop Site News report saying two people working on the Rogers campaign are registered foreign agents tied to an Israeli government-funded PR contract. One of them was standing behind Stevens at the endorsement.

FARA registration isn’t a crime, and the reporting doesn’t show Israel directed her endorsement. But voters deserve to know who’s behind the people speaking for a candidate.

Haley Stevens can live with her decision. Democrats are going to remember it.

Bill Maher sat down with Karoline Leavitt, and the conversation turned into how nice Trump is when you get invited over. He listens. He lets Bill talk. He’s doing wonderful things with the decorating.

Maher said, “America does need a ballroom.” Thank fucking God somebody’s standing up for Americans who need somewhere more elegant to have dinner with the president.

To be fair, Maher did criticize Trump in the interview, including concerns about vengeance after the midterms. I’m glad he did. But good manners don’t balance out abuses of power. According to Maher, Trump acknowledged taking a Supreme Court decision too personally. That’s the standard now?

And when Maher asked Leavitt if anything could cost Trump her loyalty, she answered with a thank-you note.

I have a different experience with Trump’s judgment. I was beaten on January 6th, and he pardoned the people who assaulted me.

Bill, tell us what these dinners accomplished. Did he change a policy or correct an abuse? Show us the result.

Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s first campaign manager and Kristi Noem’s gatekeeper at DHS, is reportedly under criminal investigation. One of the guys selling that “drain the swamp” bullshit.

NBC reported he sought payments from GEO Group, a private prison company seeking DHS contracts. One source called it a “success fee.” Oversight Democrats allege that when the deal went nowhere, he told a DHS official to stop awarding the company business. Lewandowski denies wrongdoing and hasn’t been charged.

The inspector general has reportedly referred the matter to the Justice Department. A referral isn’t a conviction, but prosecutors need room to work without political interference.

Trump’s reaction: “They’re stealing from me.” From you? That money belongs to the nurse coming off an overnight shift and the electrician loading the truck before sunrise. American taxpayers.

Let the evidence establish what happened. But nobody in his circle gets a private claim on public money, no matter how hard they fuckin try.

A police officer shot and killed one-year-old Kohen Wiley during a shoplifting call at a Walmart in Senatobia, Mississippi. The AG’s office says the force was justified. The family still hasn’t seen the body-camera footage.

The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation says the driver drove toward officers and nearly struck one. Kohen’s mother disputes that and denies they stole anything. AP reports neither woman has been charged. We need the footage to sort out those competing accounts.

But before anybody defends the shot, ask this: did trying to stop that car, right then, make anybody safer? You can have grounds to arrest somebody and still not need to force it right fucking now. And shooting the driver doesn’t stop the car.

We need national use-of-force standards, real training, and records that follow officers from department to department.

Release the footage. Explain the decisions, including what happened before the shot.

Kohen Wiley deserved to get home alive.