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November 2018

From joy and relief to oh-em-gee. Florida's Republican Secretary of State has been forced to order a recount of Tuesday's election results for both the Senate and the gubernatorial races.  The recount is mandatory and automatically triggered when the vote margin is less than 0.5%, as it has become since initial results were announced. The recount results are due by 3 p.m. EST on Thursday, November 15th, 2018.  If there is a margin of less than 0.25% following this recount, there will be a second recount, this time by hand. The results of this second recount (which seems likely in the Senate race since the margin is already less than 0.25%) will be due three days later, on the 18th.

U.S. District Judge Brian Morris has just ordered a halt to the construction of the $8 billion Keystone XL Pipeline, the next phase of the massive pipeline system, until further environmental analysis is conducted.
The decision comes as TransCanada is preparing to build the oil pipeline beginning in northern Montana, with pipe being shipped to the state by train and trucked to locations along the line.

It's never over. During my time in private law practice, time and time again I saw cases that were lost converted into wins at the last second when the 'winning' attorney wasn't paying attention.

Friday, the Trump Administration issued a proclamation via the Department of Homeland Security that makes it more difficult for illegal border crossers to obtain asylum status once inside the US. The administration claims the goal of the new rules is to dissuade asylum-seekers from entering the country illegally and encourage asylum-seekers to do so properly at a port of entry.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) wants to become Speaker of the House again, but quite a few Democrats in the House do not want her to become their leader. Eight representatives have already voiced their opposition while two more that won on Tuesday said on the campaign trail that they will oppose her .

Despite a lot of political flim-flam from the Tracy Mitrano campaign, including misleading use of polls to suck over $1 million from area liberals based on the false hope that the race was close, Republican Tom Reed easily won reelection in NY-23. The district includes ultra-liberal Ithaca and Tompkins County, where there was record turnout mostly for Mitrano, but Reed prevailed by 10 points:

The Florida elections remain a mess. The heat has turned up even more since Governor Rick Scott announced last night he and the National Republican Senatorial Committee have decided to sue Broward County and Palm Beach County. Scott is in a tight race with incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson. Now it looks like Nelson has decided to sue "to extend the deadline for local election offices to turn in vote counts."

Lakeisha Sorey at Miramar Elementary School in Broward County found a provisional ballot box inside a closet. Sorey did not touch it in order to avoid tampering. She phoned state Rep. Shevrin Jones (D) and the Broward Supervisor of Elections Office. The woman at the office told Sorey the box probably contained blank ballots, but Sorey mentioned the box is locked.