As Power Shifts, Expect a Lot of Big Changes; California’s Billionaire-Tax Effort Backfires Badly–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: Nov. 5, 2026

Indy Digest: Nov. 5, 2026

The people have spoken. Americans are displeased with the status quo. People want change.

And change, they shall get.

Due to the impending power shift in Washington, D.C. (and pretty much everywhere else), there will be a lot of resignations, firings and announcements—at all levels of government—over the next couple of months.

For starters, it appears that Pete Hegseth may be on his way out. However, the emphasis is on may. The Washington Post (gift link) says:

Senior Pentagon officials were confronted Wednesday by how the unpopular Iran war spelled disaster for the Trump administration in the midterm elections, as Democrats seized power in Congress and questions arose about whether President Donald Trump will hold someone accountable for the GOP’s shellacking.

Democrats immediately set their sights on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, with whom they have clashed repeatedly over the past two years. But those close to the Trump administration questioned whether the president instead might dismiss Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or Adm. Brad Cooper, who has overseen the war. …

On Thursday morning, Jonathan Karl of ABC News reported that the president, in an interview, said he had received complaints about Hegseth but has “every intention” of retaining him. Trump, Karl reported, also acknowledged that he would have a difficult time getting a replacement confirmed once Democrats take power in the Senate.

We shall see!

Here in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom made a huge announcement as his eight years in office come to an end. Our partners at Calmatters report:

Gov. Gavin Newsom is commuting the death sentences of 548 people, clearing the California death row for the first time since the state conducted hangings in the late 19th century.

It is a monumental move in the history of capital punishment in America: The prisoners represent more than a quarter of the nation’s condemned inmates.

And it is a decision Newsom, a longtime opponent of the death penalty, has spoken about in starkly personal terms. In 2019, shortly after taking office, he issued a moratorium on executions and then dismantled the execution chamber in San Quentin State Prison. It was just three years after voters rejected a ballot measure to abolish the death penalty and instead approved one to speed them up. At the time, the governor said he couldn’t be responsible for killing another person.

“After nearly 30 years in office I have come to understand the limits of what government can justly accomplish,” Newsom wrote in a Thursday letter addressed “to all Californians.” “I take this action because I firmly believe that state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California’s values, undermines the foundations of our legal system, and diminishes each of us.”

His anticipated decision garnered sharp condemnation in recent weeks from victims’ … groups, who argued it flew in the face of juries and judges that had upheld the death sentences, and voters who have upheld the practice.

Expect a firehouse of news coming at us over the next two months. Unlike recent news firehoses, a lot of this news may not be terrible—fingers crossed.

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• A lot of people are calling the results of Election 2026 a blue tsunami. However, that term does not sit well with some. The New York Times (gift link) reports: “The Japanese masterpiece known popularly as the ‘Great Wave’ has long been celebrated as a pioneering cultural work. But on Wednesday, the print, created around 1831 by the artist Katsushika Hokusai, appeared in an unlikely place: the cover of The New York Post. The ‘Great Wave’ had been repurposed to depict Democrats’ landslide victory in midterm elections, with President Trump shown being menaced by a breaker. ‘BLUE TSUNAMI,’ blared the headline. The rendering came as a surprise to the staff of the Sumida Hokusai Museum in Tokyo on Thursday, which displays the artist’s woodblock prints, paintings, sketches and artifacts. After Tuesday’s election, pundits and politicians around the world are talking about the ‘blue tsunami.’ But in Japan, which has a long history of natural disasters, the word tsunami, and its imagery, are complicated, evoking destruction and despair.“

• The year 2026 was the Year of Redistricting, a battle—launched by the president, in an attempt to stay in power—to gerrymander as many states as possible. Turns out it didn’t work all that well. Politico says: “President Donald Trump went all-in on an unprecedented mid-decade redistricting push to protect the GOP’s House majority. The blue wave washed right over it. In a normal year, Republicans’ multi-state push to redraw seats should have handed them as many as a dozen extra seats. But in a historically large wave year—Democrats are on pace to win the national popular vote by roughly a 13-point margin—Republicans ended up netting just two seats. In Texas, Republicans who kicked off the national fight thought they could pick up five more House seats with their new map. Instead, they won just one. In Tennessee, their gerrymander netted one seat—but they’re also on track to lose another deep-red seat that surprisingly flipped. The party’s only clear win is in Louisiana, where they’ll likely gain a seat in a race that is headed to a runoff. ‘Calling it a dummymander is generous. This was more like moron-mandering,’ said one frustrated Texas Republican strategist who, like others in this report, was granted anonymity to speak candidly. ‘We went for five seats, won none, killed an incumbent, and handed Democrats a reason to turn out.’“

• The effort to enact a one-time billionaire tax in California via Proposition 40 not only failed; it backfired. Rather spectacularly. Our partners at CalMatters report: “The proponents of a California billionaire tax didn’t just lose their campaign to impose a first-in-the-nation tax on wealthy people’s assets. They also appear to have lost a campaign that will make it harder for them to try again in the future. Proposition 42, which prohibits new taxes on personal property such as business holdings, intellectual property and financial assets, is leading by a wide margin at 54% with nearly 60% of anticipated votes counted. It was one of two measures that tech billionaires placed on the ballot in an effort to cancel out the wealth tax. Its apparent passage puts proponents of Proposition 40—who have vowed to keep pushing for a tax on the wealthiest residents—at an immediate disadvantage. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office says Prop. 42 will make it harder for state lawmakers to raise taxes in the future and potentially reduce state revenue, though it’s hard to say how much.”

• On to a couple of bits of non-election news. First: Social-media companies are suing the state over new restrictions on children’s usage of their platforms. The Los Angeles Times says: “Technology companies Google, Meta and Tik Tok sued the state of California on Wednesday to block a new law that restricts companies from targeting children younger than 16 with ‘addictive’ social media content that can keep them scrolling for hours. Assembly Bill 1709, introduced by Assemblymember Josh Lowenthal (D-Long Beach), bars social media sites from providing features such as autoplay and recommended content displays to teenagers and young children. The social media companies, which filed separate lawsuits in federal court, cited their 1st Amendment right to free speech and the Communications Decency Act, which protects online platforms from being sued over content posted by third parties. Meta Platforms, as well as Google and YouTube, filed lawsuits in the Northern District of California. TikTok filed in the Central District. California’s attempt to ‘appoint the State as the editor, curator and controller of online speech’ and ‘override Meta’s editorial judgment about how to curate and display these billions of posts of third-party speech,’ violates the U.S. Constitution, attorneys for Meta wrote in its lawsuit.“

• And finally … today’s recall news involves … ladders! A lot of them! USA Today explains: “Little Giant is recalling more than 3.6 million rapid lock ladders after receiving reports of head injuries like traumatic brain injury, skull fractures, concussions and vision (loss) because the ladder unexpectedly retracted. Select Little Giant rapid lock ladders may suddenly retract if the locks are not fully engaged, posing a fall hazard to consumers, according to a U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) recall report. As of Nov. 5, Little Giant had received 25 reports of the ladders retracting, including 19 injuries. Three of the injuries included head injuries like traumatic brain injury, skull fracture, concussion, vision and hearing loss and cognitive impairment, according to the recall report. Sixteen of the other injuries included joint or bone fractures, lacerations and bruising. Little Giant had also received 39 reports of the ladder’s rapid lock not working.”

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