The Long Count: Some prominent Republicans appeared on the Sunday talk shows to establish distance between the party and its erstwhile leader Donald Trump after Democrats retained control of the Senate with a win in Nevada.

  “We’re not a cult. We’re not like, OK, there’s one person who leads our party,” Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” 

  Outgoing Maryland Republican Gov. Larry Hogan said on CNN, “I’ve been saying since 2020 that we have to get back to a party that appeals to more people.” That means someone with a wider appeal than Trump.

  Trump’s endorsement in some races was the mark of death. Republican election deniers who ran for governorships in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania lost. Republicans in two swing states who did not get in line with Trump won. 

  In Nevada, incumbent Catherine Cortez Masto held on with 48.8 percent of the vote, merely a .7 percent margin over Adam Laxalt, to keep control of the Senate for Democrats.

   But with control of the House still to be determined, Trump posted, “WE WON, Nancy got fired and is on her way to foreign lands, Republicans are taking over the House and, importantly, its Committees, and may very well win the Senate Majority, depending on whether or not Arizona or Nevada Elections are RIGGED (which I believe they are!)?”

  The current seat count for the House is 204 Democrats to 2012 Republicans with 2018 required for control.

  There has been no evidence of vote rigging, but “fraud” has become the mantra of Republican losers. 

  In Arizona, the fire breathing election denier Kari Lake, who hopes to be governor, told Fox News host Tucker Carlson, “We’ve had such terrible elections. They’re run poorly. They’re ripe with fraud.” She went on, “Our elected officials tell us that if we dare bring it up we’re conspiracy theorists, we’re election deniers. Darn it, we’ve got to start bringing this up.”

  This morning, Katie Hobbs leads Lake by 50.5 percent to 49.5 percent, a difference of 26,011 votes among almost 2.4 million cast.

China Syndrome: Joe Biden was having his first face to face meeting today as president with Chinese President Xi Jinping in an attempt to repair the deteriorating relationship between the two countries.

  The US and China have had tensions over Taiwan, technology, the war in Ukraine, and differing visions of what ought to be the global order. Biden said it is important to “manage our differences” and “prevent competition from becoming conflict.”

The Shooting Gallery: Police in Charlottesville, Virginia are hunting for a student gunman who killed three people and wounded two in a garage at the University of Virginia campus. The university cancelled classes for today and urged everyone to stay in place.

  The University of Virginia Police Department identified the gunman as Christopher Darnell Jones Jr.

  The editor of the student newspaper told The NY Times, “People are stuck in the libraries, they’re stuck in academic buildings, they’re stuck in you name it.” 

Trump World: John Kelly, who was one of four men who served as Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff, told the NY Times that Trump had demanded IRS investigations of perceived enemies like James Comey, the former FBI director.

  The Times reports that, according to Kelly, “Trump’s demands were part of a broader pattern of him trying to use the Justice Department and his authority as president against people who had been critical of him, including seeking to revoke the security clearances of former top intelligence officials.”

  Kelly told the Times that Trump wanted IRS investigations of  Comey and his deputy, Andrew McCabe. Ultimately both were subjected to highly intrusive IRS audits. The chances of anyone being selected for that are about one in 30,600.

The War Room: Ukraine President Volodomyr Zelensky made a surprise visit today to the liberated city of Kherson, celebrating a huge military victory. “We are, step by step, coming to all of our country,” he said to a crowd of hundreds. “I am happy we are in Kherson.”

  Zelensky warned in is nightly address that Kherson still has many land mines left by the Russians and that one of the Ukrainian sappers was killed.

  “Investigators have already documented more than 400 Russian war crimes, the bodies of both civilians and military personnel are being found,” Zelensky said. “In the Kherson region, the Russian army left behind the same atrocities as in other regions of our country, where it was able to enter.”

  He vowed that the perpetrators will be prosecuted.

The Obit Page: An Iranian man who lived for 18 years in Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport, inspiring the Steven Spielberg movie, “The Terminal,” died Saturday in the airport that was his home.

  Merhan Karimi Nasseri died of a heart attack in the airport’s Terminal 2F. Nasseri had first lived in Terminal 1 from 1988 until 2006, first because he didn’t have  residency papers and later by choice.

 For years he slept on a red plastic bench, showering in staff facilities, writing in his diary, reading magazines, and watching the world pass.

The Spin Rack: Two World War II airplanes collided in midair at an air show in Dallas on Saturday, killing six people. Video shows a single-seat  Bell P-63 Kingcobra slamming into a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and both falling in flames. The bomber had five people aboard. — The embattled head of US Customs and Border Protection resigned Saturday. The head of Homeland Security had asked Chris Magnus to step down because of the increase in migrant crossings at the  southern border. — Donald Trump’s 29-year-old daughter Tiffany got married at Mar-a-Lago Saturday. Her mother is Trump’s second wife, Marla Maples.

Below the Fold: Gettysburg College has postponed a November 12^th event hosted by its Gender Sexuality and Resource Center for people who are “Tired of White cis men.” For those of you not in college, “cis” means “straight.” 

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