Who needs help navigating the holidays? Any of you excited to bite your tongue when Grandma talks about "the *whispers* BLACKS" or when your cousin bitches about the "Mexicans" taking jobs away? How about when someone you love brags about "Jewing" someone down on the house they just bought? You psyched to grin and bear it?

No one likes confrontation. Wait, I take that back. Some people like confrontation. But lots don't, and it's those people I'm talking to. Here's a round up of articles that can help you deal with your family/friend/co-worker's particular brand of bigotry without feeling like they've won, and that you've done nothing to disrupt it.

Here's the thing, though. You need to do this work to prepare — before you see them. You KNOW who will be at Thanksgiving. Christmas. The holiday office party. It happens every year, and you know who you'll encounter. So whoever it is, whatever brand of bigotry they spout, run down this article to find something that helps you cope. I'm about to hand you a huge number of resources with advice for all personality types - on how to handle these situations. But you have to prepare.

Learn your facts. Say the words before the event. In your room, in your bathroom, in front of a mirror, whatever. Let the air pass over your vocal cords and the words come out of your mouth. It's as much physical muscle memory as emotional and social muscle memory, and it takes practice. Just like anything difficult does.

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This morning, iTunes has launched its Black Friday movie sale offering one of the largest selections of price drops we have ever seen. There are 4K films from $5, holiday titles under $10, a number of notable bundles, and much more. Of course, you’ll want to grab a discounted iTunes gift card before you jump in here to take your savings even further. There’s not been a better time in 2018 to load up your movie library, so head below for all of the deals in the iTunes Black Friday movie sale!

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The post iTunes Black Friday Movie Sale: Bundles from $10, 4K as low as $5, holiday films, much more appeared first on 9to5Mac.

The new, second-generation Apple Pencil is here, but is it worth it? At $129, the improved Apple stylus is a bit tough on the wallet. Then again, it works so well with the new iPad Pro. So is the new Pencil really worth the premium? iDownloadBlog’s Harris Craycraft investigates.... Read the rest of this post here

"Review: second-generation Apple Pencil—is it worth it?" is an article by iDownloadBlog.com.
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Toggle switches have been present in iOS since its conception, and apart from the significant redesign post-iOS 7, these toggle switches have kept mostly the same appearance over the years.

Enter Switches, a new jailbreak tweak by iOS developer c1der that resolves this problem by letting you put a custom spin on your jailbroken handset’s system-wide toggle switches.... Read the rest of this post here

"Switches lets you theme your iPhone’s universal toggle switches" is an article by iDownloadBlog.com.
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A federal judge is once again standing in the way of Donald Trump’s illegal orders—this time his proclamation blocking people who cross the southern border between ports of entry from applying for asylum:

"Whatever the scope of the president's authority, he may not rewrite the immigration laws to impose a condition that Congress has expressly forbidden," Tigar wrote in his opinion. "Asylum seekers will be put at increased risk of violence and other harms at the border, and many will be deprived of meritorious asylum claims."

The immigration law in question says that migrants can apply for asylum “whether or not at a designated port of arrival.”

This is likely another place where Trump will look to Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch to bail him out by being a lapdog and a sociopath, respectively. 

The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.

Leading Off

● GA-Sen: On Sunday, two days after acknowledging Republican Brian Kemp as the winner in this year's race for governor, Democrat Stacey Abrams told CNN's Jake Tapper that she plans to seek public office again, though she didn't specify a race or a timetable:

"I'm going to spend the next year as a private citizen, but I do indeed intend to run for office again. I'm not sure for what and I am not exactly certain when. I need to take a nap, but once I do, I'm planning to get back into the ring."

After turning in the best gubernatorial performance by a Georgia Democrat in decades with her 50-49 loss, Abrams would be a top contender to challenge GOP Sen. David Perdue in 2020. However, if she does indeed plan to take a full year off (which would be quite understandable after a bruising year and a half on the campaign trail), it might be too late to mount a Senate race. That said, Abrams' name-recognition and fundraising prowess could allow her to wait longer than most candidates.

Strangely Blogged: Trump rake-steps in deep "Schitt"

Reality-Based Community: A warning to states on marijuana tax revenue.

Scottie's Toy Box - Cartoons of the week

And then there's this, Wally: John Scalzi re-prints and reads aloud his short story on automated customer service.

Blog round up by Fran Langum, associate editor of C&L and also producer/co-host of The Professional Left Podcast. Send tips to mbru (at) crooksandliars (dot) com.

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In this December 2017 photo, U.S. President Donald Trump congratulates Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, while Paul Ryan looks on, during a ceremony at the White House after the final passage of tax overhaul legislation. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Bruce J. Berman, Queen's University, Ontario and Daniel Levine, University of Michigan

The transformation of the Republican party from a recognizable center-right conservative political party to what it has become under Donald Trump began a half century ago.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Mercury News: Nine out of every 10 Silicon Valley jobs pays less now than when Netflix first launched in 1997, despite one of the nation's strongest economic booms and a historically low unemployment rate that outpaces the national average. While tech workers have thrived, employees in the middle of Silicon Valley's income ladder have been hit hardest as their inflation-adjusted wages declined between 12 and 14 percent over the past 20 years, according to a study from UC Santa Cruz's Everett Program for Technology and Social Change and the labor think tank Working Partnership USA, which examined the economic impact of technology companies. Technology workers saw a median wage increase of 32 percent over the past 20 years, the study found. But Silicon Valley workers in virtually all other areas lost ground during that time. Across all jobs, wages for even the highest-paid 10 percent increased just under 1 percent, the study found. Meanwhile, the region's economy has been booming. Since 2001, the amount of money generated per Silicon Valley resident -- the area's per person GDP -- has grown 74 percent, the study found. That's more than five times faster than the equivalent national growth. Also, a smaller percentage of wealth is going to workers. "In 2001, about 64 percent of the money generated in Silicon Valley went to workers," reports Mercury News. "By 2016, that was down to 60 percent. The drop translated to $9.6 billion -- about $8,480 in potential pay and benefits per worker -- that instead went to investors and owners, according to the study."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A large-scale survey has found that the majority of Americans now back Apple’s call for tech regulation.

Some 55% fear that the government won’t do enough to regulate tech giants …

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The post Majority of Americans now back Apple’s call for tech regulation appeared first on 9to5Mac.

With the release of iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR, Apple has changed the way you can get the Unique Device Identifier (UDID) of these specific models.

In the past, you could easily find a UDID by plugging the device into your Mac, and clicking several times on the Serial Number until it showed the UDID. At the time of writing, this is not possible any longer for these specific devices.... Read the rest of this post here

"How to find the UDID of iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR" is an article by iDownloadBlog.com.
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Finally taking a break from politics this week. In the early days of social media, it seemed a notification was a notification. Someone mentioned you or tagged you in a photo, you got pinged, and that was that. Over the past couple years or so, I've noticed both Facebook and Twitter desperately throwing random notifications into the mix about various friends' activities. I'm getting Facebook alerts about people I don't know commenting on posts written by people I don't know. Once in a while, Twitter burps up some obnoxious little nudge informing me that someone has tweeted, or liked a tweet. Now, before people write me with advice about changing my settings, let me assure you I have tried everything humanly possible. At least in some cases, YOU CAN’T TURN THEM OFF. (I realize this is hardly the biggest problem in the world right now, but it’s fun to complain about.)

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Follow me on Twitter at @JenSorensen. 

We begin today’s roundup with a very important piece by Nelson W. Cunningham, former federal prosecutor and general counsel of the White House Office of Administration, on the transparent ploy by Donald Trump to hinder Robert Mueller’s investigation and the ability of acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker to curtail the investigation even without firing Mueller: 

[T]here is another, more insidious threat to the investigation: that Whitaker will curtail it without firing Mueller and that, because of a loophole in the special-counsel regulations, the public would not find out until far too late. On “Fox News Sunday” this past weekend, Trump said he wouldn’t stop Whitaker if he wanted to limit the investigation. “It’s going to be up to him,” Trump said. “I would not get involved.” 

The regulations establish the special counsel’s independence and give him a wide ambit, but they also require him to report — in advance — to the attorney general all significant actions that might be taken. The attorney general, in turn, may request that the special counsel explain a contemplated action, and “may, after review, conclude that the action is so inappropriate or unwarranted under established Departmental practices that it should not be pursued.”

The attorney general is directed to give “great weight” to the special counsel’s views but, otherwise, his discretion to overrule is broad and cannot be appealed.

Here’s the loophole in regulations that would keep Congress from learning about such an overruling in a timely way: The attorney general is required to notify Congress that he had taken the action only “upon conclusion of the Special Counsel’s investigation.”

Harry Litman, a former deputy assistant attorney general, provides an overview of the status of the investigation at The Los Angeles Times:

If any of the as-yet uncharged cooperating defendants opts to go to trial, that process will take at least many months. And we likely have not seen the end of Mueller’s efforts to secure information — or, preferably, testimony — from the president. Trump’s answers to Mueller’s initial written questions are supposed to be submitted to the investigators this week, but they won’t begin to provide a satisfactory account of the president’s conduct and mental state.

Even if Mueller is not about to close up shop, it is increasingly likely that the full contours of his inquiry will be sketched out and known to the public by year’s end. For the president and his circle, it is not shaping up to be a pretty picture.

Apple’s iOS 12 update brought several changes to the company’s mobile operating system, but perhaps my favorite of those is the new grouped notification feature that keeps your Lock screen and Notification Center interfaces free of unwanted clutter.

While this feature was initially native to iOS 12, those sporting jailbroken iOS 11 devices can now enjoy a similar notification grouping feature with a new free jailbreak tweak called StackXI by iOS developer Ominousness.... Read the rest of this post here

"StackXI brings iOS 12’s stacked notification system to jailbroken iOS 11 handsets" is an article by iDownloadBlog.com.
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At the Health Affairs blog, I co-authored a piece with RAND’s Mark Friedberg and Jodi Liu asking a very simple question: When someone says Medicare for All, what do they mean?

For policy analysts, such high-level proposals quickly draw a question: “What do they really mean by Medicare?” Medicare has multiple components: traditional Medicare (Part A and Part B, also called original Medicare or fee-for-service Medicare), Medicare Advantage (Part C), and Medicare prescription drug plans (Part D). Each of these components requires a separate premium, and Parts C and D plans are offered by private insurers…..

There are serious holes in the insurance design features of Medicare in that there is no out of pocket maximum and low incentives for care coordination. Drugs and physical health services may or may not be seen as complements or substitutes as appropriate. These problems are often ameriolated if not resolved by beneficiaries buying Medigap plans or integrated Medicare Advantage plans.

As there is significant political movement towards a variety of Medicare for All proposals, we need to know what we are talking about. Is it Medicare as it is with new age qualifications? Is it a comprehensive no cost sharing cover everything proposal where the only thing that ties it to Medicare is branding and claims processing infrastructure? Is it something in between?

We must know what these answers are in order to actually figure out how things could work and how the transitions that need to be managed could be managed. The tough work of converting a slogan into policy requires honesty.

AAPL stock has officially entered a bear market as its stock has fallen more than 20% from its high on October 3. A stock, or a market as a whole, is considered to be in bear territory when its price has fallen 20% or more from its highest price in the past 12 months.

AAPL entered a bear market when it fell by 3.96% in yesterday’s trading, making a total decline of 20.3% in less than two months …

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It occurs to me, as we prepare to wind up a short week of live shows due to the holiday, that alien observers, or perhaps future anthropologists, might very well think that participation in ritual traffic jams is the real point of Thanksgiving. Like the Running of the Bulls, or something.

I have a theory that this food-based holiday might keep Donald Trump relatively quiet on the Great Twitter Machine. He’s off to Mar-a-Lago, where club members value his personal mingling more so than bombastic tweeeting. Trumpologists may want to keep a close eye on whether he indulges that favorite habit, or whether he cloisters himself to stew in his own juices.

Meanwhile, we’ll spend the day in the usual way, rounding up the Best of the Worst of What’s Wrong with America Today.

Listen right here at 9:00 AM ET!

PODCAST LISTENERS: There’s a new podcast platform in town, and the big news is: this one pays! RadioPublic pays podcast producers on a CPM basis, for listens on their native app (available for iPhones & Androids), financed by pre- and post-roll ads they insert. Not a bad way to support the show, with somebody else’s money!

So if you’re a podcast listener, please consider downloading the RadioPublic app on your Android or iOS phone. Yes, you can still download directly from their site, or listen to the player embedded here at Daily Kos. But it’s listens in their app that count toward payment.

Nothing changes on our end. It’s still Greg Dworkin, Joan McCarter, and even Armando. Plus also, me. And you! As always, we still want your voice on the air with us. Sit down with your smart phone or other electronic recording device and send us your stories and commentary to share with the audience. There’s no easier way to try your hand at podcasting, without all the hassle!

Of course there’s no substitute for having your support via Patreon, or one-time contributions via Square Cash. (And hey, if you want a cool trick for donating sorta-kinda cost free, get their cash.me app and use this share code to get $5 in your account (plus $5 in mine) when you send your first $5 (to anyone)!

For now, how about one on the house? Here’s what we did last time out, on our LIVE show:

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RadioPublic|LibSyn|YouTube|Patreon|Square Cash (Share code: Send $5, get $5!)

Donald Trump didn’t destroy the world yet, and Robert Mueller didn’t save it yet, but David Waldman and KITM always exceed our expectations: The Trump campaign paid millions to Trump businesses during the midterm elections. No one would expect otherwise. Also, Playacting Attorney General Whitaker's term immediately commences with illegal activity, And in death, Jamal Khashoggi further exposes the corruption of Kushner and Trump. Trump misremembered Finland’s forest management system. Trump misremembered where he was this weekend. He however remembered Smoky Bear crossed him before. He remembers those things. Even before we hear from Mueller, Greg Dworkin can tell you things are getting shaky for Trump. A Californian Gop Congresswoman loses a race she thought wasn’t even competitive. It’s not just Californians telling Donald to kiss their red ass either. Trump is losing his grip on white suburban women, and parts of the rural and white working class. The $12 billion bailout program for farmers in the line of the Trump trade war hasn’t helped. His border stunt is clearly a profound betrayal of our military. Trump Country keeps falling further behind. The GOP has just two problems: Trump and Trumpism. Meanwhile the Daily Kos community came together for a woman and her parrots. Crazy numbers turned out to vote for Democrats for the House, and Democrats won Senate seats in 7 Trump states. No wonder that Dotard seethes. Nativism isn’t going away, as the Republican party becomes smaller, whiter, and hotter. Marco Rubio evolves to survive.

(Thanks to Scott Anderson for the show summary! Please help me pay him more!)

Need more info on how to listen? Find it below the fold.

Mark Wilson, writing for BetaNews: Having released a series of updates for Office 2010, 2013 and 2016 as part of this month's Patch Tuesday, Microsoft has now pulled two of them and advised sysadmins to uninstall the updates if they have already been installed. In both instances -- KB4461522 and KB2863821 -- Microsoft says that the problematic updates can lead to application crashes. While this is not as serious a problem as, say, data loss, it does little to quieten the fears that have been voiced about the quality control Microsoft has over its updates.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.