God Bless The Queen

The Joe Cunningham Show airs 3-4 p.m. every weekday on NewsTalk 96.5 KPEL. The daily show notes offer you a look into the topics of the day and the links to the top stories and Joe's own writings on the state of politics in Louisiana and around the country. Follow Joe on Twitter at @JoePCunningham and Like the Joe Cunningham Show on Facebook. You can also subscribe to the Joe Cunningham Show podcast on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or Amazon.

Queen Elizabeth II, Dead At 96

It's the biggest news story in the world today. No one under 70 has known a Great Britain without Queen Elizabeth II as its monarch. She served as the longest-reigning monarch in Britain's long history, and she is the longest-serving monarch in all history - behind King Louis XIV of France, who had taken the throne when he was just 4 years old. Elizabeth took the throne at 26, after the passing of her father. She has been a constant force, beloved by many in her country and out. She met with 13 of the last 14 U.S. Presidents (she did not meet with LBJ, which may or may not have been a good thing), and she once said of the U.S. "Ours is a partnership always to be reckoned with in the defense of freedom and the spread of prosperity."

She concluded that statement with, “That is the lesson of my lifetime.”

And now, for the rest of the top news stories.

Trump's Document Problem Gets Worse (As Does The DOJ's)

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

It's hard to square the Washington Post's story from earlier this week with the fact that reporters even having knowledge of what those documents are and what they might say is itself a crime. The piece is very carefully worded because the very materials they describe Trump as having are materials that whoever is leaking the information either doesn't have clearance to see them and is just speculating or they are breaking the law by mentioning these documents to a reporter.

Some of the seized documents detail top-secret U.S. operations so closely guarded that many senior national security officials are kept in the dark about them. Only the president, some members of his Cabinet or a near-Cabinet-level official could authorize other government officials to know details of these special-access programs, according to people familiar with the search, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive details of an ongoing investigation.
Documents about such highly classified operations require special clearances on a need-to-know basis, not just top-secret clearance. Some special-access programs can have as few as a couple dozen government personnel authorized to know of an operation’s existence. Records that deal with such programs are kept under lock and key, almost always in a secure compartmented information facility, with a designated control officer to keep careful tabs on their location.

Now, you won't like what I have to say here: Trump having those documents is monumentally dumb. His team of lawyers are also not covering themselves in glory here. But the leaking of this information to the press is extremely problematic, and it's indicative that this is as much (if not more) about building a case in the court of public opinion. The Department of Justice is allowing these leaks to happen.

GOP In-fighting Continues With More Attacks On Rick Scott

It is getting ugly behind the scenes in the U.S. Senate. Two things are now clear. The first is that Rick Scott must go after the NRSC debacle. The second is that Mitch McConnell is no longer capable of keeping his caucus together.

Headlines Of The Day

GOP donor pool unexpectedly shrinks as midterms near (Politico)
King Charles III and PM Liz Truss Issue Statements After Queen Elizabeth II's Death (RedState)
European Central Bank raises rates by 75 basis points to tackle soaring inflation (CNBC)
Police arrest county official in reporter’s stabbing death (Las Vegas Review)
Putin threatens to let Europe ‘freeze’ over winter, raising risk of energy rationing (CNBC)

Tweet Of The Day