Politics

The Associated Press reports: The Senate confirmed 15 more judges late Thursday and left town until after next month’s midterm elections, as Republicans chalked up more wins days after Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court. Clearing the judicial nominees provided a signature walk-off for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who has focused on reshaping the judiciary with more …

The Texas Tribune reports: U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-El Paso, raised $38.1 million for his U.S. Senate campaign in the third quarter, a new record for the largest fundraising quarter ever in a U.S. Senate race, according to his campaign. The haul more than tripled Republican incumbent Ted Cruz’s fundraising for the past three months, which Cruz has said was …

Law & Crime reports: A federal judge ordered the unsealing of a significant portion of the grand jury report sent to the House Judiciary Committee in 1974 regarding the infamous break-in at the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate hotel and President Richard Nixon‘s role in covering it up. The report is commonly referred to as the Watergate “road …

The Hill reports: First lady Melania Trump brushed off allegations of her husband’s rumored affairs, saying she has “much more important things to think about.” Melania Trump spoke with ABC News’s Tom Llamas while on her first solo tour throughout Africa. In the interview, which is airing Friday on “Good Morning America,” the first lady she doesn’t have time for …

The Week reports: Kimmel said he had no idea why they allowed cameras in to capture the Kanye-Trump Oval Office sit-down, “because not only was this a crazy conversation for this White House, this is the kind of conversation that would typically be held between people wearing hospital bracelets.” He played part of West’s monologue, annotated with Trump thought bubbles. …

The New York Times reports: Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, the Las Vegas Republicans who have already spent more money on federal races this year than any other donors in either political party, are piling even more of their casino fortune into Republicans’ campaign efforts, people with knowledge of their plans said Thursday. The newest donations, made recently to a pair …

The Daily Beast reports: Don Lemon was so fired up about Kanye West’s Oval Office performance, he couldn’t wait until his primetime show to talk about it. “Listen, I have no animosity for Kanye West,” Lemon told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Thursday evening. “I’m just going to be honest and I may get in a lot of trouble for it. …

BOOM. Bloomberg reports: A California Democrat hit back at President Trump’s eldest son on Thursday after Donald Trump Jr. accused the candidate of links to extremist groups through the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim civil rights group. Ammar Campa-Najjar, a Democrat running to replace Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), tweeted a picture of himself meeting then-candidate Donald Trump in …

NBC News reports: Republican Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin is behind by double digits in his re-election bid, while Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin is comfortably ahead in hers as a near majority of likely voters say they prefer Democrats to control Congress, according to a new NBC News/Marist poll of the state. In Wisconsin’s race for governor, Democratic challenger Tony …

Axios reports: Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former attorney who until June served as the Republican Party’s deputy finance chair, today changed his party registration from Republican to Democrat, according to a knowledgeable source. Cohen went online around noon to the Albany-based New York State board of elections to make the change, according to the source. The move fits a pattern …

Talking Points Memo reports: Democratic gubernatorial nominee Andrew Gillum on Thursday demanded that Florida TV stations stop broadcasting a “maliciously false” attack ad put out by the state Republican Party, warning that further broadcast of the ad would be intentionally defamatory. In a cease-and-desist letter, lawyers for the Gillum campaign claims the ad was approved by his GOP opponent Rep. …

People Magazine reports: No matter how much fans beg her, a career in politics is not Michelle Obama‘s path. The former first lady, 54, addressed rumors that she’d run for office and other aspects of the often contentious current political climate during an appearance on Today in celebration of the International Day of the Girl, Thursday. When anchor Savannah Guthrie …

We’re not holding our breath, but fingers crossed: Just two days ago, attorney Michael Avenatti tweeted that Donald Trump Jr. will be indicted, in a response to a tweet that Trump Jr. made mocking the idea that Avenatti could run for President. This garnered a lot of attention from the public, as Avenatti has consistently been a thorn in President …

Yahoo News reports: Melania Trump has raised a fair share of eyebrows since she launched her pet project, Be Best, because it aims, in part, to combat cyberbullying — with critics accusing her husband, President Trump, of being one of Twitter’s most egregious offenders. But the first lady shrugged off charges of hypocrisy to promote her anti-bullying initiative during this …

Newsweek reports: Barack Obama’s former attorney general Eric Holder said that when Republicans “go low” Democrats need to “kick them.” “Michelle [Obama] says, ‘When they go low, we go high.’ No, no. When they go low, we kick them,” Holder said during a campaign appearance in Georgia this past weekend. The comment, a riff of the former first lady’s famous …

Salon reports: Sen. Ted Cruz has decided to not participate in a CNN town hall event with his Democratic rival, Rep. Beto O’Rourke. So instead, O’Rourke will get a full hour on the cable news network alone. The town hall event will be held in the Texas town of McAllen and had initially been accepted by both candidates. As CNN …

Talking Points Memo reports: Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp’s (R) office is blocking 53,000 people from registering to vote, according to records obtained by the Associated Press, a huge number that could sway his gubernatorial race against Democrat Stacey Abrams. Kemp has used a controversial “exact match” program to block voter registrations that disproportionately impacts minority voters. The secretary …

The Washington Post reports: Senate Democrats fell one vote short Wednesday in a bid to overturn the Trump administration’s expansion of short-term health insurance plans that do not have to cover preexisting conditions and certain kinds of health care that the Affordable Care Act requires. By forcing a vote on what they term “junk” plans, however, Democrats managed to put …

The Associated Press reports: Mat Beren and his friends used to drive by the vast greenhouses of southern British Columbia and joke about how much weed they could grow there. Years later, it’s no joke. The tomato and pepper plants that once filled some of those greenhouses have been replaced with a new cash crop: marijuana. Beren and other formerly …

Mediaite reports: Melania Trump is calling on sexual misconduct accusers to produce “hard evidence” to back up their claims. During an interview which was taped in Egypt last week as part of a one-hour special set to air Friday (which was previewed on Good Morning America Wednesday), ABC’s Tom Llamas asked the First Lady whether she believes “men in the …