Wildfire: The town of Paradise 80 miles north of Sacramento appears to have been obliterated by a wildfire that killed at least nine people. Five of them were overtaken in their cars as they tried to escape.

The fire grew to 70,000 acres by midday yesterday. About 27,000 people had to evacuate. Hundreds of homes and businesses burned to the ground and five out of nine local schools were destroyed. Cars burned, leaving trails of melted chrome.

Another fire far to the south that started in Thousand Oaks spread to Malibu on the rim of the Pacific Ocean. Dozens of homes burned as the fire spread over 35,000 acres

Matt Who?: President Trump seems to be already backing away from his acting attorney general Matthew Whitaker saying, “I don’t know Matt Whitaker.” When Trump says he barely knows someone or they only carried coffee, it’s his kiss of death.

Just a month ago Trump said on Fox News, “I can tell you Matt Whitaker’s a great guy. I mean, I know Matt Whitaker.”

News reports have pointed out that Whitaker sat on the board of a company that bilked millions of dollars from inventors by promising them patent agreements that would make them wealthy.

Whitaker took over the Justice Department, and more importantly the Russia investigation this week, after Trump fired Attorney Gen. Jeff Sessions. Questions have already been raised as to whether his appointment, even as the acting AG, is legal because he has not been confirmed by Congress.

The Fraud Card: With the vote margin narrowing in the now-disputed Florida governor’s election, President Trump has raised the specter of voter fraud. Yesterday he tweeted, “Rick Scott was up by 50,000+ votes on Election Day, now they ‘found’ many votes and he is only up 15,000 votes. ‘The Broward Effect.’ How come they never find Republican votes?”

The “found” votes are absentee and provisional ballots.

The contest for governor in Georgia is also disputed by the Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams, who refuses to concede. Trump dismissed it all tweeting, “You mean they are just now finding votes in Florida and Georgia – but the Election was on Tuesday? Let’s blame the Russians and demand an immediate apology from President Putin!”

The count also continues in Arizona where the Democrat Kyrsten Sinema now leads Republican Martha McSally, 49.3 percent to 48.3 percent.

Trump tweeted, “Just out — in Arizona, SIGNATURES DON’T MATCH. Electoral corruption – Call for a new Election? We must protect our Democracy!”

As of this morning there are still 11 House races undecided and three for the Senate but the results will not change the numerical balance of power. The Democrats have the House and the Republicans have the Senate.

The Trump Party has the White House.

Unforgiven: Michele Obama says in her new book that she can’t forgive Donald Trump for challenging her husband’s US citizenship.  Trump claimed for years that President Obama was not born in Hawaii as his birth certificate proves.

Mrs. Obama wrote, “The whole [birther] thing was crazy and mean-spirited, of course, its underlying bigotry and xenophobia hardly concealed. But it was also dangerous, deliberately meant to stir up the wingnuts and kooks.”

Never one to apologize, Trump said yesterday, “She got paid a lot of money to write a book and they always insist that you come up with controversial. (sic) Well I’ll give you a little controversy back. I’ll never forgive him for what he did to our United States military. By not funding it properly. It was depleted. Everything was old and tired. I came in and had to fix it.”

He’s done no such thing.

Obama also lays down speculation that she would ever run for office. “I’ve never been a fan of politics,” she writes, “and my experience over the last 10 years has done little to change that.”

Last Moments:  Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said today that he has shared with other major countries the audio recording made as Saudi Journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. “We gave it to Saudi Arabia,” he said of the recording. “We gave it to America. To the Germans, French, English, we gave it to all of them.”

The Millennial Goes to Washington: Representative-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezfrom New York’s 14^thDistrict says she can’t afford to rent an apartment in Washington until she gets her first paycheck. She made $26,500 last year. At 29, the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, she says the American electoral system “isn’t designed for working-class people to lead”.

-30-