Travelers across the United States and beyond were still facing delays and uncertainty on Saturday as airlines and airports sought to recover from the ground stop the day before that brought air travel to a halt for hours.
Thousands of passengers were stranded on Friday after the Federal Aviation Administration ordered the ground stop. More than 8,200 flights — or over 31 percent of those scheduled for Friday — were canceled nationwide, according to Cirium, an aviation data firm, though some international flights received permission to take off.
Sean Duffy, the transportation secretary, said at a news conference on Friday night that the authorities had decided to issue the ground stop after aging air traffic communications equipment became overloaded and began to falter on Friday afternoon.
He said that it would take “some time” for airlines to recover, predicting that flight schedules would return to normal in time for the busy Thanksgiving travel season.
Mr. Duffy blamed lawmakers for not fully funding upgrades that he said were needed to prevent similar failures. To upgrade aging air traffic facilities and technology, he said, he wanted another $50 billion from the Republican-controlled Congress, which last year approved $12.5 billion for the project.
He said the new amount should be delivered in emergency funding by the end of the year, before control of Congress — and the budget — switches to Democrats.
Stephen Miller apparently decided that the last thing we needed was to hear from the President. He’s probably right.
BTW, as of now, Flight Aware reports that 4060 flights within, into, and out of the US have been canceled for today. Betcha that number at least doubles by day’s end.
Trump The Traitor–For those who missed this yesterday:
“Donald Trump bought Nvidia stock worth millions of dollars as he made decisions on America’s China policy that would benefit the chipmaker, an analysis has found.
In May 2025, Trump’s administration rescinded a Biden-era rule designed to prevent the most advanced US-made AI chips from being exported to China.
This rule aimed to strengthen the US’s own chip industry and to protect America from what was widely regarded as a national security threat: the possibility that China might develop superior AI.
In the days before he rescinded the rule, Trump’s public financial disclosures indicate that he bought between $1m (£760,000) and $5m worth of Nvidia stock – a purchase noted in an analysis by the anti-corruption group DeKleptocracy.
He also bought shares in other tech companies, including Apple, Meta and Microsoft.
DeKleptocracy wrote in its analysis: “While the country debates how a possible Chinese spy may have manipulated White House policy for one AI company, it must grapple with how Trump’s corruption may have motivated him to deliver the entire AI industry’s technology to China.”
Only the corrupt DOJ could argue that this wasn’t treasonous behavior.
A Long, Meandering (But Fascinating) History Of How Texas And Florida Diverged This Election Year. Dave Redlawsk, if you’re here, you’ll love this. As will all political scientists:
This article started as stray thoughts in the weeks leading up to the election, based upon partial information: polls, rumors the Republican internals looked “demented” (according to Texas Monthly reporter Chris Hooks). It was born — admittedly — two neat double whiskies deep at the Harris County Democratic Party’s election watch party in Houston’s East End. The idea was matured with several Hefeweizens and half-a-pack of cigarettes later on the porch of Under The Volcano. But we promise, we’ve since sobered up (mostly) and brought this idea into something articulate, historicized, and we hope both enlightening and entertaining.
The thesis is simple. The Texas Republican Party got too Florida, and it cost them Texas. Florida and Texas have been the Id and the Ego of modern movement conservatism in the Republican Party. Yet, take note of why we’ve gone Freudian in the analogy and not Taoist. Texas and Florida are not Yin and Yang. They do not compliment one another, nor do they represent any duality of nature. They are like two negatively charged particles. They may generate energies from separate sources that might look complimentary on the surface, but they can actually never touch. They are two strong forces that automatically repel one another. They’re on opposite sides of the Gulf of Mexico (that’s back, right?) for a reason. When two negative charges collide with one another they repel with such force that it can, for example, eject an electron from an atom’s nucleus. And that’s what happened on Tuesday, November 3. Florida collided with Texas, and Texas escaped its orbit of the Republican Party.
There’s a story to tell about how the Texas Republican Party became the dominant and eventually all-encompassing power in Texas Politics. And there’s a story to tell here about how choices and actions taken by the Texas Republican Party scattered over the years helped usher in the absolute clock-cleaning they suffered last night. Of course, this story also needs to be enriched with a little lore of the Florida Republicans, and their much more recent climb to dominance in their state, to explain why their party can, on the surface at least, look so similar in form and substance to the Texas GOP while being so — as it turns out — incompatibly and poisonously different.
Yep, that whetted my appetite for this story. Pour yourself another cuppa and read this opus. You’ll feel smarter because you’ll be smarter.
Most of the remaining vote in Alaska was reported in tonight, and Mary Peltola doubled her lead over incumbent Republican Senator Dan Sullivan, from ~5,800 to ~10,400, and now stands at 49.84% of all first-round votes. And even though less than 4% of the total vote is still outstanding (10-12k votes), what does remain to be reported is overwhelmingly in districts favorable to Peltola.
Based on my analysis of precisely where that missing vote is still located, I can reasonably predict that Peltola’s lead will grow by another 4-6 thousand by the Nov 18 reporting deadline, and her share of the total vote will expand to about 50.4% +/-0.2% — obviating any need to include 2nd place votes according to the ranked choice voting procedure if no candidate manages to clear the 50% +1 threshold during the initial count.
That’s 56 senators. That D Senate majority is likely safe for at least 4 years.
The Post-Election Vibe Shift Is–Real?:
If you’ve forgotten what the world felt like after the 2024 election, I don’t blame you. That was like a decade ago, and a lot has happened since. But here’s what I remember most clearly: a succession of billionaires, corporations, celebrities, and institutions slowly (or quite rapidly) bending the knee. Mark Zuckerberg told Joe Rogan we needed to celebrate “masculine energy.” The NFL took the words “End Racism” out of the end zone. Corporations backed away from their commitments to diversity with the urgency and alacrity with which you always wished teens in a horror movie would back away from the door. The story was that the Great American Middle had spoken, we were in the midst of a historic realignment, and we all had to figure out what a Nelk Boy was or get left behind. A Republican finally won the popular vote—must be a vibe shift!
Is this a vibe shift?:
LIV Golf, the Trump-backed Saudi venture that advertised itself as “golf, but louder,” officially folded. Russell Brand, who was recently featured at a “Make America Healthy Again” conference alongside JD Vance, was convicted of rape and sentenced to more than 10 years in prison. Elon Musk announced that the Cybertruck was being discontinued. Susie Wiles, Harmeet Dhillon, and a significant percentage of the Department of Justice almost immediately left. Alina Habba Mildon was fired by the company that was set to pay her $50 million. Laura Loomer and Vivek Ramaswamy both logged off. Kalshi, which joined forces with Donald Trump Jr. just before the inauguration last year, parted ways with Donald Trump Jr. one week after the midterms. Ken Paxton finally got divorced and then dropped his years-long harassment campaigns against immigrant aid organizations in El Paso and Houston. Calley Means accused the administration he just left of trading health policy concessions for campaign donations. Palantir CEO Alex Karp, who has spent the last however many months sounding like someone who builds a machine to kill Spider-Man, told Politico he’s “been a Democrat my whole life” and that he’s “been saying in private” that the administration’s immigration agenda has gone “too far.” OpenAI announced a new slate of data center-policies designed to placate policymakers and the public. The NYPD’s notorious Strategic Response Group—ostensibly an anti-terror squad that has been used for crowd control and sweeps of homeless encampments—is finally getting disbanded. Former NFL coach and Trump surrogate Rex Ryan getting arrested for allegedly running over someone’s foot in Nashville? You may not call it a vibe shift, but I’m banging the gavel.
Even the Trump administration is trying to distance itself from the Trump administration—witness JD Vance running away from the war he helped start, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent throwing Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick under the bus.
For the first time since 2024, I’m looking forward to seeing what next week brings. And the week after that, and…
What do you want to talk about?
