I stopped being a journalist, but I didn't stop seeing stories, so here's a running list of ideas. If you're a North Carolina reporter looking for a story, have a look --> docs.google.com/document/d/1dp…

Mentioned this to someone today: of these new young Republicans voters - what percentage are racist? Were specifically drawn to the Republican Party for the white nationalism.

I’ve no idea. But I bet it’s a higher % than in decades. What a brand.

Joseph’s Brothers Jealous Of His Vintage Charlotte Hornets Starter Jacket buff.ly/JZqbZHz

It's not just the #ncga: Democrats managed to flip at least one chamber of the legislature in 9 different states.

We took a national view at legislative elections on NPR's Weekend Edition yesterday: npr.org/2026/11/08/nx-… #ncpol

We truly appreciate @NC_Governor issuing this proclamation. Sunday is World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims. Please take a moment for the families forever altered by preventable crashes.

And drive focused - drive safe

Just stunning: With just one exception, Democrats are set to hold every single statewide elected office across Georgia, Texas, Nevada, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Ohio.

I have a history PhD from Oxford and try to support all of my historical claims with strong evidence, particularly when regarding the president of the United States.

But based on a comprehensive review of 250 years of American history, it is simply irrefutable that Donald Trump is by far the most corrupt president in U.S. history when it comes to using the office to enrich himself and his family.

Here are the facts, and why there isn’t even a close second.

Trump’s own federal financial disclosure reported more than $1.4 billion in 2025 income from family crypto ventures, including about $635 million from his meme coin and nearly $800 million from World Liberty Financial. Reuters separately estimated that the family added at least $2.3 billion to its fortune from crypto ventures after Trump returned to the White House.

The clearest example of how Trump used the office came in May 2025. The 220 biggest holders of his meme coin were invited to dine with the sitting president at his private golf club. The coin jumped more than 60 percent when the dinner was announced. To get a seat at the table, you had to buy and hold a product that made the president money. Trump turned access to the presidency into a sales pitch.

The foreign dealings raise an even more serious question. Four days before Trump took office, an investment vehicle backed by a UAE national security official agreed to pay $500 million for nearly half of World Liberty Financial. The Wall Street Journal reported that $187 million of the initial payment was directed to Trump family entities.

Trump is clearly not the first United States president to be guilty of corruption, but the size and scale of his malfeasance put him in a league of his own.

Under Ulysses S. Grant, whiskey distillers and federal officials pocketed money by cheating the government out of liquor taxes. Under Warren Harding, Interior Secretary Albert Fall took bribes in exchange for leasing federal oil reserves. Richard Nixon had a personal tax scandal, but his defining abuse of presidential power was the Watergate cover-up, an effort to protect his hold on office. LBJ’s political connections helped turn a small Texas radio station into a family broadcasting empire.

By September 2025, less than eight months into Donald Trump’s second term, he and his family were roughly $5 billion richer than they had been around the 2024 election, according to Forbes. In comparison, a reasonable estimate is that all 44 other U.S. presidents combined added about $250 million to their wealth while in office, adjusted to today’s dollars. That puts the Trump family’s gain at about 20 times the estimated combined total for all other presidents over the course of two and half centuries.

The election results were, at least in part, a clear repudiation of this staggering and historically unprecedented corruption. Congress now has a mandate to investigate, follow the money, pursue the recovery of all ill-gotten gains, and enact enforceable safeguards so that no president can ever again use the White House as a vehicle for personal enrichment.

Launch our football program into the sun.

Looking at the party breakdown for remaining provisionals in SD-24:

For Robeson the ballots break 286 DEM, 117 REP, 177 UNA. For Scotland, 82 DEM, 22 REP, and 25 UNA.

It is really important to note that Robeson is home to many ancestral Democrats that have become quite Republican over the years.

This race is not over, and depending on which ballots are allowed to be included in the final count, it seems like many could break in Hamm's (D) favor. #ncpol

This photo from Election Night in Boone, North Carolina, is a modern Norman Rockwell painting

📸 Credit: Noah Williford, @TheAppalachian

Nothing against these particular lawyers - don’t know ‘em. But go read some of the journalism from @murphsturph and @PatrickWelter and @PabloTorre and (on a different topic) @dankane’s power & secrecy series then tell me why a public university has to spend $1m on stuff like this

Investigation = reading documents and interviewing people. It does not have to cost $2,200+ an hour. Full story (gift link) from @sartwell_jane @MikeJMcCleary newsobserver.com/news/local/edu…

Vance 3.0 is here

Masten nails it

Full @paigemasten column, gift link --> newsobserver.com/opinion/articl…

Luckily, at least at the state level where I'm much more familiar, I think we have Democratic leaders who understand this and will work hard to govern accordingly. I'm highly optimistic for North Carolina.

Herrera had a pal volunteer to help his opponent, triumphantly revealed the scheme on election day, and then lost the race with a 23-point shift towards Democrats from 2024? I don't think I've ever seen anything like this before.

Domestic was foreign and foreign was domestic in this election because corruption was transnational. An entire speech built around Wall Street Journal and New York Times investigations, and it just sang. Now imagine the Qataris, Emiratis, Kazakhstanis, Albanians, and Russians waking up today to chatter that Ossoff is liable to be president in two-plus years. After he just implicated them all in a multibillion-dollar American racket.

JUST IN: The "Kornacki Cam" is officially the #1 election livestream on YouTube.

@SteveKornacki's 10.5-hour marathon generated a RECORD 29 million views across platforms, drawing twice as many live viewers on YouTube as key broadcast and cable competitors.

nbcuniversalnewsgroup.com/nbcnews/2026/1…

This account has 4.7 million followers as of today. Be interesting to check back in a year.

Kudos to Bob Dylan for breaking through the zeitgeist after a generational election with this wtf outfit still relevant man