New Sophie Mudd Photos

At Hollywood Tuna, "Sophie Mudd’s Breasts Are the 8th Wonder of the World."

Sophie Mudd’s Breasts Are the 8th Wonder of The World https://t.co/4iQwBW1wnT

— Hollywood Tuna (@HollywoodTuna1) September 6, 2018

Vaping Babes

At Drunken Stepfather, "VAPING BABES OF THE DAY."

The Paradise Fire Nightmare

A spark by spark account of the Paradise fire.

It's like the apocalypse, man.

At LAT, "California fire: What started as a tiny brush fire became the state’s deadliest wildfire. Here’s how."

This minute-by-minute account of how Paradise burned is so harrowing that I couldn’t read it in one sitting. https://t.co/dnbbcPS8Zn

— Laura J. Nelson 🦅 (@laura_nelson) November 18, 2018

Daniel Flynn, Cult City

At Amazon, Daniel Flynn, Cult City: Jim Jones, Harvey Milk, and 10 Days That Shook San Francisco.

Orange County Goes Blue

My congresswoman, Mimi Walters, was ahead on election night, but the late ballot counting saw her slip behind and she's toast.

The Democrats swept all the so-called toss-up congressional districts in the county, plus a couple of other races that pundits had been watching. Republicans haven't been relevant in California for a long time, and while Arnold Schwarzenegger was Republican, he wasn't conservative. It's a blue, far-left California nowadays and I don't know what it going to take to swing it back the other way.

At LAT, "Orange County goes blue, as Democrats complete historic sweep of its seven congressional seats."

And, "Going, going ... with midterm wipeout, California Republican Party drifts closer to irrelevance":

For a party in free fall the last two decades, California Republicans learned that it's possible to plunge even further. https://t.co/kvKH2tl3nl

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) November 18, 2018

For a party in free fall the last two decades, California Republicans learned that it's possible to plunge even further.

The GOP not only lost every statewide office in the midterm election — again, in blowout fashion — but Democrats reestablished their supermajority in Sacramento, allowing them to legislate however they see fit.

After major defeats in Orange County and the Central Valley, two longtime strongholds, Republicans will have a significantly smaller footprint on Capitol Hill. (Democrats hold both Senate seats.) The GOP won’t even have enough lawmakers in California’s 53-member House delegation to field a nine-person softball team.

“It’s dead,” Mike Madrid, a former political director of the California Republican Party, said of the state GOP. “It exists in small regional pockets, where there are enough white, non-college-educated working-class communities for there to be a Republican Party. But that’s not much.”

Other states tilt lopsidedly in favor of one party or the other. But never before has a state with California’s huge populace and enormous import — socially, culturally, economically — been so dominated by a single political party. The implications will take years to fully comprehend.

Jim Brulte, chairman of the California GOP, professed not to worry. He said the party has legislative leaders “whose job it is to give voice to Republicans in the state capital.” Also, he went on, substantial numbers in the U.S. House and Senate, where the GOP holds the majority, will speak for Republicans in Washington as well.

The leader of House Republicans, Kevin McCarthy, hails from Bakersfield and enjoys a strong relationship with President Trump, which should help the state in its dealings with the administration. (If, as expected, San Francisco’s Nancy Pelosi is elected speaker, she would also be well positioned to protect California’s interests.)

Still, many observers — not all of them dispirited Republicans — expressed concern about the effects of such thorough Democratic domination, both in terms of policy and, more broadly, faith in the state’s political system...

Yeah, "faith" in the system, of which there's none if you're conservative.

But keep reading.

Sigrid Nunez, The Friend

The winner from last night's National Book Awards ceremony, Sigrid Nunez, The Friend.

Myla Dalbesio in the Middle of the Sea (VIDEO)

Hopefully, Sports Illustrated will keep the Rule 5 (babe-blogging) flame alive.

Victoria's Secret Chief Executive Jan Singer to Step Down

I guess Victoria's Secret is having problems, big problems.

At Quartz, "Victoria’s Secret’s CEO exits in the latest blow to the once-dominant lingerie brand":

Victoria’s Secret’s CEO exits in the latest blow to the once-dominant lingerie brand https://t.co/VG2Ix38MHI

— Quartz (@qz) November 14, 2018

The CEO of the lingerie giant Victoria’s Secret, Jan Singer, will leave her role at the company, owned by L Brands, after only two years, Bloomberg reports—the latest blow to a brand that has fallen far from the days when it held a near-monopoly on the bra market (pdf).

Singer, the former head of Spanx, was responsible for VS’s $4 billion lingerie business, which has taken a massive downturn in the past several years. And her departure—just a week after VS’s annual extravaganza of a fashion show got withering reviews—is only the latest sign of the company’s decline.

Most recently, a tone-deaf interview with the architects of the annual ogle-fest in Vogue last week served to showcase just how out of touch the brand has become. Edward Razek, chief marketing officer of L Brands, was roundly criticized on social media for his comments, many of which were defensive explanations for the show’s lack of diversity. Razek’s remarks about casting transgender models (referring to them as “transsexuals,” an antiquated phrase regarded as a slur) was especially crude:

“Shouldn’t you have transsexuals in the show? No. No, I don’t think we should,” Razek is quoted as saying. “Well, why not? Because the show is a fantasy. It’s a 42-minute entertainment special. That’s what it is.”

Razek later issued a meek apology via Victoria’s Secret Twitter account. But his message was clear: Transgender models—alongside any woman who doesn’t fit the brand’s narrow definition of bombshell beauty—does not belong in the “fantasy” that he and the show’s co-curator, VS executive Monica Mitro, want the brand to represent.

In his suggestion that the brand’s sex-kittenish aesthetic is working, the marketing chief seems to be indulging in his own fantasy, and missing a crucial fact: Victoria’s Secret is failing. As new, body-positive women’s underwear brands eat its lunch, investors have continued to abandon its parent company, L Brands, causing its stock to swan-dive—72% over three years and 43% in 2018 alone...

And everybody's hatin' on the VS fashion show, it turns out, moaning about how "out of touch the brand still is."

Right.

Mandatory intercourse with transsexuals coming soon. (*Eye roll.*)

Broward County Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes Mulls Retirement

Heh.

Serves her right.

At Instapundit, "THE DEMOCRATS MUST HAVE TOLD HER THEY COULDN’T PROTECT HER ANYMORE."

Dana Loesch: 'Law-Abiding People Should Not Always Be Paying the Price for the Actions of Criminals...' (VIDEO)

Here's Ms. Dana, on Fox and Friends the other day:

President Trump Has Been Largely Absent Since Election Day

There's a little cottage industry of these "post-midterms blues" stories.

(See for example, Vanity Fair, via Memeorandum, "“Insanity,” “Furious,” “On His Own”: Trump's Post-Midterms Blues Are Vexing His Staff and Roiling the White House.")

And at LAT, "Trump, stung by midterms and nervous about Mueller, retreats from traditional presidential duties":

For weeks this fall, an ebullient President Trump traveled relentlessly to hold raise-the-rafters campaign rallies — sometimes three a day — in states where his presence was likely to help Republicans on the ballot.

But his mood apparently has changed as he has taken measure of the electoral backlash that voters delivered Nov. 6. With the certainty that the incoming Democratic House majority will go after his tax returns and investigate his actions, and the likelihood of additional indictments by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, Trump has retreated into a cocoon of bitterness and resentment, according to multiple administration sources.

Behind the scenes, they say, the president has lashed out at several aides, from junior press assistants to senior officials. “He’s furious,” said one administration official. “Most staffers are trying to avoid him.”

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, painted a picture of a brooding president “trying to decide who to blame” for Republicans’ election losses, even as he publicly and implausibly continues to claim victory.

White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly and Kirstjen Nielsen, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, who are close allies, “seem to be on their way out,” the official said, noting recent leaks on the subject. The official cautioned, however, that personnel decisions are never final until Trump himself tweets out the news — often just after the former reality TV star who’s famous for saying “You’re fired!” has directed Kelly to so inform the individual.

And, according to a source outside the White House who has spoken recently with the president, last week’s Wall Street Journal report confirming Trump’s central role during the 2016 campaign in quietly arranging payoffs for two women alleging affairs with him seemed to put him in an even worse mood.

Publicly, Trump has been increasingly absent in recent days — except on Twitter. He has canceled travel plans and dispatched Cabinet officials and aides to events in his place — including sending Vice President Mike Pence to Asia for the annual summits there in November that past presidents nearly always attended.

Jordan’s King Abdullah II was in Washington on Tuesday and met with Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo, but not the president...

More.

Democrats Won the Wealthy Suburbs

This is interesting.

At WaPo, "These wealthy neighborhoods delivered Democrats the House majority":

Analysis | These wealthy neighborhoods delivered Democrats the House majority https://t.co/LvZ2AT15n6

— Thomas Edsall (@Edsall) November 11, 2018

In Tuesday’s election, House districts on the outskirts of major American cities were the site of electoral shifts that propelled Democrats to power.

Wealthy and middle class voters delivered the suburban votes for enough Democratic pickups to secure a majority. In several cases, the battleground districts were wealthy and highly educated places that Hillary Clinton won in 2016, exposing the vulnerability of those Republican lawmakers.

The precinct-level results shown on the maps in this story show the most precise view of how voters within a district swung. This level of detail can also provide more insight into what caused a district to flip — or not.

These maps show how those neighborhoods handed Democrats the House.

We’ll start in Virginia’s 7th District, where Rep. Dave Brat (R) was challenged by ex-CIA operative Abigail Spanberger (D). This north-south district goes from above Culpeper to rural areas near the southern border of the state, but the voters are concentrated in the suburbs of Richmond and Fredericksburg.

Here are precinct-level results for the 2016 presidential election, with circles sized based on the margin of victory for the Democrat or Republican in each precinct.

The district backed Donald Trump by six percentage points in 2016. Democratic margins around Richmond were outweighed by the Republican tilt of the rest of the district.

But in 2018, those Fredericksburg and Richmond suburbs flipped to Spanberger, securing her the win.

In 2018, Brat’s support in wealthier neighborhoods softened ... while middle-class voters surged for Spanberger. Remember that there are many more voters around the cities in the east part of the district.

As with many of the districts shown here, the 7th District voted overwhelmingly for Mitt Romney, but less favorably for Trump.

“These are places that just don’t like the president that much, and I think that’s reflected in this House vote,” said Kyle Kondik, managing editor at the nonpartisan political analysis site Sabato’s Crystal Ball...

Click through for the maps. This is a really cool article.

Hug a Veteran

An interesting post, from Jeffrey Carter, at Points and Figures, "45 Years; 66 years; 73 Years; 100 Years; 153 Years; 235 Years."

Martha McSally Concedes

This is just wow.

I mean, remember this post from 2010? "Kyrsten Sinema, Bisexual Israel-Hating Antiwar Radical, is Face of Today's Democrat Party."

Well, Ms. Sinema goes back to Washington as the new (junior?) senator from Arizona.

Just wow, man.

At the Arizona Republic, "Kyrsten Sinema defeats Martha McSally; will be first woman from Arizona in U.S. Senate," and at ABC News 15 Phoenix:

Michelle Obama, President Trump, and the Need to Forgive

From Mollie Hemingway, at the Federalist, "Dispute Between Michelle Obama and Donald Trump Shows Our Need to Forgive":

It’s legitimate to strenuously fight political battles and also to be upset at how those battles are fought and the depths people sink to. At all times, however, let’s remember the gift of forgiveness that we’ve been given and that we get to share with others.

But RTWT.

Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, the the old Bantam paperback edition, Gravity's Rainbow (Mass Market Paperback).

And the current edition, Gravity's Rainbow (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition).

Republicans Keep Majority Control of the Senate, With Lasting Implications for the Courts

This makes me happy. I was pretty sure the Dems would take the House, mostly because the president's party always loses seats in the midterms ---- 2018 was no exception.

But the map was favorable for the GOP in the Senate, and it's not a far stretch to expect another Supreme Court opening in 2019 (Ruth Bader Ginsberg comes to mind, as she is recovering from a fall this last week at the Court, which left her with three broken ribs; and it may also be that her cancer is coming back; no one should wish her ill will, but it does mean that an opening may be imminent).

At NYT, "Lasting Implications for the Courts as Republicans Gain in the Senate":

Republicans’ expansion of their Senate majority means it's easier for the White House and Mitch McConnell to confirm conservative judges https://t.co/YBF6djjntr

— The New York Times (@nytimes) November 8, 2018

Bella Hadid Tight Dress at Victoria's Secret After Party

At Taxi Driver, "Bella Hadid in Skin Tight Dress at the VS After Party."

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BONUS: Chris Cleave, Little Bee: A Novel.

California Wildfires

Huge coverage at the Los Angeles Times.

Also, "Woolsey fire explodes to 70,000 acres overnight; 2 deaths reported amid fight to save hillside communities."

And at Daily Mail, "A-list fire panic: Caitlyn Jenner's sprawling hilltop Malibu house and the 'Bachelor' mansion are burned, flames reach Kim and Kanye's home and smoke envelopes Lady Gaga's nearby pad as worried Will Smith shows how close he is to the danger zone."

A STATE OF EMERGENCIES: Fires threaten Californians in the north and south while one community deals with the anguish of two kinds of fire in the wake of a shooting followed by an evacuation. Early look @LATimes. pic.twitter.com/lfjR6iXx4P

— michael whitley (@michaelwhitley) November 10, 2018

Good lord this is my street 🙏🏻 https://t.co/IVmsw7pMp9

— Valerie Bertinelli (@Wolfiesmom) November 10, 2018

Pray for Malibu— and #TheBachelor Mansion... pic.twitter.com/D9t8VxFXeo

— Mike Fleiss (@fleissmeister) November 9, 2018