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iamtrebleclefstories · 4 years

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I Was Made For Loving You - Part 3

Soulmate AU series of unrelated one-shots where Jo and Alex discover that they are made for each other.

where you have a clock counting down the minutes

Please enjoy this insanely long monstrosity of a fic :)

Part 3 - I Was Made for Loving You

The day his clock showed up, he was excited. At the age of thirteen, he’d been a little older than most. For a while, he didn’t think he had a soulmate. Most other kids got their clocks at twelve years old. Yet on his twelfth birthday, when he woke up and saw his empty wrist he was disappointed to see that his hadn’t. No, instead his clock showed up on a random Tuesday morning, about four months after his thirteenth birthday. His excitement was short-lived though. Because according to his clock, he wouldn’t meet his soulmate for at least two decades.

20:05:17:6:49

Twenty years, five months, seventeen days, six hours, and forty-nine minutes away to be exact. He’d be thirty-three by the time he met the woman he was supposed to spend the rest of his life with. This didn’t sit right with Alex. He’d thought for sure the universe would favor him considering he’d had the crappiest childhood. The least the universe could do was grant him a soulmate sooner than twenty years from now.

It was frustrating when he got to college and it felt like everyone he knew was meeting their soulmate. It was even more frustrating when he got to medical school and the majority of his friends were in nice, loving, soul-bonded relationships while he was out partying and sleeping around. He’d never admit it, but as fun as sleeping around was, all Alex had ever wanted was the sureness and clarity of a soulmate bond. His whole life, he wondered what it was like to be loved for exactly who he was. He wondered what it was like to have someone stay. He wondered what it was like to have someone sane. The partying and the girls just so happened to serve as a useful distraction for the fact that he was years away from meeting the one person who just might stick around.

When he started working at Seattle Grace, he didn’t do much to change who he was. If anything, he was worse than before. With only seven years, three months, five days, ten hours, and thirty-six minutes left to meet his soulmate, Alex was growing even more restless. He couldn’t handle the idea of walking around the hospital as all of his friends met their soulmates before he did. Meredith had already met her’s, Izzie’s clock said that she was three months away, Cristina’s clock said one year left, and George’s said two years.

There wasn’t much time left for them to wait. The sad and funny thing was that some of his friends found themselves in relationships with someone other than their soulmate. Meredith was trying to get over McDreamy, Cristina was doing it with Burke, George was in love with Meredith, and Izzie had tried going out with him despite the fact that she was supposed to meet her guy very soon. It kind of sucked too, because he could see himself liking her enough to actually try something more than a one night stand.

Knowing that Izzie would be meeting her soulmate very soon didn’t make it much easier when she finally did. The guy came in the form of a bedridden cardiac patient who was on the brink of death. If Alex thought the universe was screwed up for making him wait so long to meet his soulmate, it was even more screwed up for giving Izzie a soulmate that might not live past his next surgery. That was all kinds of messed up and shitty that he didn’t even want to go into. As horrible as it sounded though, he hoped that maybe Izzie’s soulmate would kick the bucket and die. Then maybe he’d have a chance at something more than just meaningless.

And they did get the chance at it. Denny died and Izzie was a wreck. She ended up making some questionable decisions, got George to cheat on his wife—but not his soulmate—with her, and nearly got herself fired multiple times over. Alex on the other hand, had lived through a hookup with Addison Montgomery, a strange—regrettable—relationship with a patient by the name of Rebecca Pope, and had even hooked up with Meredith’s sister Lexie a couple times. So when they finally got together, Alex thought that this could be it. Maybe it could be enough. Maybe Izzie could be enough for him, and he could be enough for her.

Things didn’t go as planned, though. Izzie got cancer and started hallucinating Denny. So they got married and tried to make the best out of a bad situation, then George died on the very day he was supposed to meet his soulmate—saving her life apparently. He doesn’t know if it was the cancer or the soul bond that attached her to Denny that caused it or even her friendship with O’Malley, but one morning he woke up and she didn’t. Alex woke up and turned around to shake Izzie awake, but she wouldn’t wake up. Her body was cold. She’d died sometime in the middle of the night and he never noticed.

That stuck with him for a long time. He felt like he should’ve been able to save her. He was a doctor for crying out loud. A doctor whose wife died in her sleep as he laid right beside her. He was a widower now and it was hell. His heart ached and he became a bigger asshole than before. And hence started the string of endless women all over again. He tried to date Lexie Grey, and it worked for a little while. But then the shooting happened and Lexie went crazy and Alex was trying to understand how he survived and so many others didn’t. He added that to his laundry list of failed attempts at love.

Then there was Lucy—the one who stole his job. After that he gave up on trying to have a real relationship. He realized it was pointless to try making a connection with someone that wasn’t soulmate. All it brought was hurt and pain that he didn’t have the patience for. He slept around again, waiting for the moment when he’d finally meet his soulmate and maybe, just maybe, he search would be over.

The week before he was supposed to meet his soulmate, he decided to take advantage of the little bit of time he had left and slept with a lot of the new interns. Sure, he felt a little bad every time he looked down at his wrist, but he was trying to brace himself for the worst case scenario. The worst case scenario being that his soulmate hated him or that she was a horrible person and they didn’t work out. If his worst fears came true he wanted to at least have something to soften the blow. It may sound depressing, but that’s how it worked. And Alex had been through enough in his life to know that life was rarely ever fair or full of hope.

*****

She was sixteen when her clock finally showed up on her wrist. For the longest time, she thought that maybe there just wasn’t someone out there for her. Most kids got their clocks at twelve years old. They’d wake up the morning of their twelfth birthday to find a clock there counting down the years, months, days, hours, and minutes until one met their soulmate. She tried to tell herself not to be discouraged. After all, she’d been left at a fire station as an infant. Who knows when her real birthday was? So, for about two weeks she held onto the tiniest bit of hope that one day she’d wake up and it would be there.

When the clock didn’t come in, it only reinforced everything she’d ever believe about herself. That she was unlovable. She was broken. She was unwanted. She was a waste of space. Those feelings intensified when her peers realized that her clock was missing. They made up mean jokes and rumors about soulmate-less Brooke. It was so bad that the family she’d been staying with at the time sent her away. They didn’t want a “defective” child in their home.

For about four years, she wore long sleeves. She didn’t want anyone to see her wrist. She didn’t want to see her own wrist and be reminded of the fact that she had no one in this world. That’s why it was such a surprise when her clock showed up on her wrist.

She remembered the day vividly. It was four in the morning and she’d been attempting to get some sleep while she heard the junkies talking outside her car. She’d just burrowed a little further into her blankets in an effort to cover herself so that no one would realize she was living there when she felt it. There was a dull ache in her wrist and then the sound of a clock chiming. After the sounding stopped, she was scared to look down. She was scared to look and realize that it had all been a figment of her imagination.

It wasn’t though. It was definitely there. The clock displayed the numbers brightly on her wrist for all to see. The countdown to meeting her soulmate was there. It was real. She had someone. For the first time in her life she thought that maybe she’d have someone. But when she realized the number of years before she’d meet him, she grew discouraged. Ten years was a long time. A very long time.

10:02:30:8:57

Of course she’d have to wait a decade to meet her soulmate. As if her life wasn’t already difficult, as if she didn’t need for someone to love her right now. Maybe that’s why she got caught up with Paul in the first place. She just wanted so badly for someone to love her that she ended up in an abusive marriage for about two years before she did something about it.

Of all the decisions she’d made in her life, getting with Paul was the worst one. He was harsh and hateful and deceptively charming. He’d told her exactly what she wanted to hear and she believed him. She ate up every false promise and calculated compliment. Her friends had not been happy with her, but she didn’t care. They told her to wait, to hold out for her soulmate, but Brooke wasn’t sure she believed in them anymore.

Paul didn’t have a soulmate. He was one of the very few people in the world that didn’t have a clock at all. He’d convinced her that it was all a fantasy. A childish daydream that would soon fade away like everything else in the world. For the most part, she believed him.

A part of her tried to hold on to the hope that maybe there was someone better for her out there than Paul. It all changed when she became a mother, though. The only thing that was supposed to be stronger than a soul bond was the bond between parents and their children. She could not possibly understand how or why her mother had abandoned her like she did. She couldn’t comprehend how you’d let go because the moment she held her child in her arms, she knew that she’d never be able to give this up.

The road to motherhood wasn’t easy, though. It was full of pain and suffering and complications she’d never anticipated. Originally, she wasn’t going to keep the baby. She had decided that after being beaten so bad that she had landed in the hospital. There was no way she could raise a child in the environment she was living in. For weeks, she walked around fearful of the decision that was looming over her. One day, while she was in the car with Paul they got into a horrible accident. She’d made it out mostly okay. Paul on the other hand sustained a severe injuries and was declared dead on arrival.

The death of her husband was not sad for her. If anything, it was liberating. She was a pregnant senior in college and suddenly inherited all of his money and his property. Of course, she was alone again, but for the first time in her life loneliness didn’t seem as daunting. As soon as she graduated with her degree in biology, she sold the house, their rings, and all of Paul’s belongings and hauled ass out of New Jersey.

She was about seven months pregnant when she finally moved into her brand new apartment in Boston. For a while after moving, she grappled with her identity. She didn’t want anything tying her to the life she’d left behind. She didn’t want her child to bear the legacy of hurt and pain that she’d left. Brooke Stadler didn’t feel like her anymore. That name was attached to the despair that she vowed to leave behind for the sake of the life she was about to bring into the world.

It was during one quest for baby names when she stumbled upon one that resonated with her. Josephine, God will increase. Jo, for short. Yes, that was it. No more standing back and letting people take advantage of her. She would increase. She would grow so tall that she would make a fool out of anyone who ever said she would never be enough.

So, she became Josephine. A last name would be a little more difficult. Jo knew that she didn’t want to keep the last name Stadler. She briefly considered Schmidt—after her high school teacher whom she had kept in contact with, but decided against that. She settled on Wilson. It was the name of the chief of the fire station where she’d been left as a child. That was it. That was her name. Josephine Brooke Wilson.

Her name change was approved about a week before she gave birth to her son on July 16, 2007. Yes, she had a boy. A little boy with the sweetest dimples and the craziest head full of hair. He had her eyes and her nose and her ears. Jo fell in love with him instantly. At twenty-two years old she became a mother to the most beautiful baby boy she’d ever laid eyes on.

She named him Liam Michael Wilson. Liam was a good baby, and she was grateful for that. It was difficult raising a child on her own while simultaneously trying to do well in med school. Harvard Medical School, to be specific. In the mornings she’d drop Liam off at daycare and pick him up after her classes were over. Her life consisted of going to school, being a mom, and working part time at the daycare Liam attended. She didn’t go out or party. She didn’t sleep around or start anything serious. There was no time and she definitely did not have the motivation to try harder.

On the day of her medical school graduation, she walked across the stage hand in hand with her almost four year old son. She smiled wide and almost cried after her son told her how proud he was of her. She’d done it. She was finally a doctor.

And so began the next chapter of their lives. Jo had matched with Seattle Grace Mercy West’s surgical residency program. She was excited and nervous at the thought of moving across the country with her son. Her whole life, she’d lived on the east coast. It was time to leave this place and move on to the next thing.

*****

“Today’s the day,” Jackson walked into the attendings lounge and clapped Alex on the back.

“What’s today?” Webber asked as he poured himself some coffee.

“Today’s the day Evil Spawn gets to meet his soulmate,” Cristina supplied.

April gasped, “Oh my goodness! Finally.”

“Yeah it only took him thirty-three years,” Meredith snickered as she put her stuff into her locker.

"Awe, Karev is becoming a man today," Mark teased and slapped Alex on the shoulder.

“Maybe this means he’ll stop being an ass that sleeps with all the interns,” Callie called out from her spot on the couch.

“Oh shush. Might I remind you that you slept with me once. So, you're no better,” Alex sent Callie a pointed look.

“And now I no longer sleep with men,” Callie lifted her hands in mock surprise.

The room full of doctors laughed at Callie's comment. Alex on the other hand rolled his eyes, "Whatever. You guys are way too invested in this soulmate thing."

"Because we all already found ours. We want you to be happy. You of all people deserves something happy," Meredith smiled warmly at Alex. "So, stop complaining and let us be happy and excited for you."

Alex knew that his friends just wanted what was best for him. They'd been by his side through a lot of really crappy things. When his wife died, Meredith opened up her home again for him to stay. Cristina hugged him—which was a miracle in and of itself. Kepner and Avery, who he wasn't even close to made it very clear that they would be there for him if he needed it. So many more of his friends and colleagues did the same.

“How much time do you have left on your clock?” Bailey asked, trying to get as many details from Alex as possible.

Alex looked down at his clock and read the numbers. It was strange to see mostly zeros. For years, he’d seen the clock full of numbers counting down very slowly. Today though, it seems as if the time had flown by.

00:00:00:04:37

“Four hours and thirty-seven minutes,” Alex replied. “Which means that you all will be too busy doing your jobs to pay attention to me when I meet her. If this is even real and I meet her.”

Meanwhile, Jo was in the locker room with her fellow interns getting ready for the day. She had just taken off her shirt and was about to put her scrub top on when she heard Stephanie gasp and grab her arm, “Oh my God.

Today is the day. Guys, Jo meets her soulmate today!”

“Really?” Leah jumped up and squealed. “No why didn’t you say anything? We would’ve made a big deal about it.”

“That’s exactly why I didn’t,” Jo removed her hand from Stephanie’s grasp and continued to get dressed for the day. “It’s not that big of a deal. Calm down.”

“Not that big of a deal?” Stephanie looked at her as if she had three heads. “Jo. This is a huge deal. This is it. This is the most important day of your life. Why aren’t you more excited about this?”

“Look, I’ve been burned one to many times in my life. It’s all a scam. It doesn’t mean anything,” Jo shook her head. “And it’s not the most important day of my life. The most important day of my life was the day I gave birth to my son. That’s the most important bond. It’s more important and stronger than a soul bond. So, unless my soulmate magically bonds with my son, then it’s meaningless.”

Shane looked at Jo sadly, “There’s nothing wrong with trying find your own version of happiness. You’re allowed to let yourself be loved.”

“Yeah,” Heather agreed. “You of all people deserves to meet their person.”

“How much time is left on your clock?” Leah asked.

Sighing Jo looked down and read it out loud, “Four hours and thirty-seven minutes.”

00:00:00:04:37

“I wonder who it is,” Heather tilted her head to the side. “You’d have to meet him here in the hospital. Maybe it’s another doctor or a nurse. Ooh! Maybe even a patient! I’ve heard a couple stories of a few doctors that used to work here before us that met their soulmates while they were patients in the hospital.”

“Gosh, I hope not,” Jo’s eyes widened. “I have a kid. I don’t have time to take care of a sick soulmate.”

“I highly doubt it’s going to be a patient,” Stephanie assured. “It’s probably one another doctor. Which doctors are still single?”

“Well, there’s Franklin from derm, Harrison from anesthesiology, that one guy Myers from OB, Johnson and Archer from Radiology, some others I don’t remember, and Karev," Leah replied.

"How do you even know that?" Jo made a face. "Actually, I don't want to know."

"She probably slept with all of them," Stephanie smirked.

Leah shrugged, "Hey, I don't meet my soulmate for two more years. I'm taking advantage of all the freedom I have left."

"No offense, but I don't want your sloppy seconds," Jo closed her locker and put on her lab coat. "I haven't had sex in... I can't even remember. But, I would still prefer it if my soulmate didn't sleep with all of my friends first."

"I don't know, I kind of hope my soulmate is a manwhore," Heather thought out loud. The others turned to look at her strangely. "What? I do. That means he'll be good in bed. That's important. I'm going to be stuck with him for the rest of my life. He's got to know what he's doing."

The interns busted out in laughter and chatted for a few more minutes before their resident, Lexie Grey walked in, “Hey guys. Today you all start new rotations so listen out for your assignments. Edwards you’re with Grey, Ross with Avery, Brooks with Bailey, Murphy with Robbins, and Wilson you’re with Yang.”

The interns nodded and all made their ways to find their attendings. Jo walked over to where Yang was standing in the Cardiac ICU and smiled warmly, “Dr. Yang, I’m on your service today.”

“Oh yes, Wilson right? I’ve heard some good things about you from Hunt and Torres. Make sure you keep up and don’t screw anything up,” Cristina instructed. “I’ve got things to do and lots of patients to see so there’s no time for messing around. Come on, before we’re late for rounds.”

The next few hours were okay. Jo mostly kept an eye on Yang’s pre and post ops while Yang worked on studying for a new procedure she was going to preform later that afternoon. The day was going by so smoothly that she forgot to take a look at her clock to see how much time was left. She was about to look down when she heard her pager go off, Pit 911. Jo jumped up from her seat at the nurse’s station and hurried down to the ER, Dr. Yang following close behind her.

They pulled on their trauma gowns and hurried into the trauma room they’d been paged to. The room was a buzz with multiple doctors from various specialties looking at a kid who seemed to be somewhere around eleven or twelve. Derek Shepherd was there, Kepner was there, Torres was there, and Karev.

“What do we got?” Yang asked as she walked into the room.

“Brandon Miller, eleven years old. He jumped off a balcony while on a school field trip because his friends dared him to,” Karev sounded off, not looking up from the kid he was examining. “He’s got splenic rupture that I’m going to have go in and repair, wrist fracture, an injury to his spine that’s putting pressure on the cord, a few broken ribs and a pneumothorax. I need you to run an echo on his heart to see if he can even withstand the stress of surgery.”

For some reason, Jo’s heart rate picked up a little when she heard his voice. She’s seen Karev from afar, but in the past few months that she’d been working at Seattle Grace Mercy West, she’d never been on his service before. He seemed like a great doctor. She’d heard wonderful things about the projects he’d established and his dedication and commitment to his patients. She snapped out of her thoughts when she heard Karev yell out instructions.

“Can someone insert a damn chest tube?”

Yang looked at Jo and motioned to get to work, “Wilson, you know how to insert a chest tube?”

“Yes ma’am,” Jo nodded.

“Okay, then do it. We don’t have time to waste,” Yang commanded.

Jo looked around the room for the supplies and was handed a tray by one of the nurses. She made her way up towards the kid and proceeded to insert the tube. She was about to move out of the way when bumped into Karev.

“Do you mind?” Karev sneered gave her a sideways glance. He didn’t have time for this. He wanted to get out of this trauma room as quickly as possible. He was supposed to meet his soulmate any minute now, and he couldn’t do that if he was stuck in here fixing a kid in a room full of all his friends. He couldn’t miss their encounter. He’d been waiting for this exact moment for decades and he’d be damned if he missed it because some intern was in his way.

“Sorry,” Jo apologized.

Alex felt a jolt of electricity run through him as he heard her voice. Looking up, he finally decided to spare more than a quick glance at the intern. Feeling that someone’s eyes were on her, Jo looked up and locked eyes with Karev. She felt her heart and breathing pick up, then skip a few beats, before returning to normal. Alex felt a stirring within his chest and stopped what he was doing to stare at her for just a moment.

That’s when the dinging started. It was a low chime sort of sound. It grew progressively louder and was getting on Alex’s nerves. He broke eye contact with the intern and looked around for the source of the noise. With all the commotion, he was unsure if anyone else heard it. He looked around at the monitors the kid had strapped to him, trying to determine what was going off.

“What the hell is that noise? Can someone please figure out what freaking monitor is making that weird noise and turn it off?” Alex growled in annoyance.

His request made the room go quiet, allowing everyone to hear for themselves exactly what was going on. Alex watched as one by one, all of his friends’ eyes widened in surprise. They looked at each other strangely, not saying anything.

“Will someone please turn that freaking monitor off?” Alex continued to work on stabilizing the kid’s injuries.

“Dr. Karev, that’s not one of the monitors,” nurse Tyler spoke, motioning to Alex’s clock that was covered by his trauma gown.

He stepped away from his patient and pulled up the sleeve of his trauma gown. His numbers were at zero. How the hell were his numbers at zero? When did he meet her? He’d been stuck in this room for the past half hour. He was in a room full of friends and veteran nurses he’d known for years.

Jo took a deep breath when she realized what happened. She removed her own sleeve and looked at the clock on her wrist. Sure enough, all zeros. Jo froze in fear and confusion as a steady ding came from her clock. After a couple seconds, she looked up at Karev who was still lost in thought.

There was a gasp somewhere in the background. It sounded like Kepner, “Oh. My. God.”

“Holy shit,” Yang’s voice rang out.

“Woah!” Torres exclaimed.

“I’ll be damned,” Shepherd chuckled.

A couple of the nurses mumbled their own surprise as Jo continued to stare at her supposed soulmate with wide eyes. Finally, after a few seconds, he looked up at her.

Jo felt it immediately. She felt the bond attach itself instantly. The thing that she’d convinced herself wasn’t real, the thing that seemed too much like a fairy tale to actually exist in real life, was happening to her. It all made sense. The shivers and butterflies she felt when she heard his voice. The heart palpitations she experienced and the sensation of breathlessness, were all her body’s way of syncing up their heart beats.

Alex couldn’t believe it. He did meet her. She was here. She was the intern he’d bumped into. He’d been so caught up and desperate to meet her that when he did, he missed it. But then it made sense. The jolt of electricity he felt when he heard her speak. The captivating call of her eyes. Her gorgeous, hazel eyes. He didn’t think he’d ever seen more beautiful eyes. The longer he looked into them, the more he felt the soul bond increase. It was strong, and unlike anything he’d ever really experienced before. It was instant and all consuming. It was real.

Soon, the dinging ceased. It was no longer needed. They had acknowledged each other. They had met.

*****

They never had a chance to talk after that moment. Brandon—the kid—began de-sating and needed to be rushed to the OR immediately. The echo he’d called Cristina in to run would have to wait. There was no time to waste, or he wouldn’t make it. It killed Alex to leave without being able to say anything to her. He wanted to get to know her and hear her story. He barely knew her name—and it was only because he asked while on his way to the OR with Torres, Kepner, and Shepherd. They hadn’t stopped talking about his soulmate throughout the entire time he was in the operating room. Thankfully, he and April were able to resolve the kid’s internal bleeding, leaving Shepherd and Torres to do the real work and try to keep Brandon from being paralyzed.

Alex wanted to find her. Jo Wilson. That was her name. He asked around before he was directed to the OR board. Sure enough, her name was listed as the resident in OR 4 with Cristina. In the hours he’d been in surgery, she’d been pulled into one of her own. Sighing, Alex decided that he could use this time to talk to someone. He needed to vent. He needed to find Meredith.

He ran around the hospital for about half hour before realizing where she was. Alex made his way to the hospital daycare and smiled as he showed his ID and walked to where Meredith was playing with Zola. Meredith was sitting on a bean bag chair while Zola was on the floor working on a puzzle. He hurried over to the corner they were in and sat in the bean bag chair across from Meredith.

“Dude, I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

“What is it Alex? I’m trying to spend what little free time I have with my daughter. Can it wait?”

“No, it can’t,” Alex rolled up the sleeve of his lab coat and showed her his arm. “I met her.”

“Oh my God!” Meredith gasped and dropped the barbie doll that was in her hand. “You met her? Who is she?”

“She’s an intern. Jo Wilson,” Alex shared. “I don’t really know a lot about her. I didn’t even get a chance to talk to her because my patient needed to get up to the OR because he was de-sating on us.”

“Wilson is your soulmate?” Meredith’s eyes widened. “She was the intern I picked for the intern appy. She did really well until she freaked out and froze, but I think she’ll make it. You can normally tell who’s going to make it and who isn’t. She hasn’t given me any reason to believe otherwise. What are you doing here talking to me? Go find her.”

“I did try to find her. But then I found out she was in OR 4 with Cristina, who just so happened to be there when we met,” Alex grimaced.

Meredith let out a peel of laughter, “Oh, Cristina is never going to let you live it down. She’s probably airing out all your dirty laundry as we speak. Who knows what she’s told Wilson about you?”

Alex narrowed his eyes, “Oh shush. I sure hope not. I don’t need my soulmate thinking that I’m an ass before she even meets me.”

“Hey! There are children present. Language!” Meredith warned motioning to the children playing around them.

“You act as if I don’t work with children all day.”

Meredith rolled her eyes. Being friends with Alex really was a pain sometimes, but she wouldn’t have it any other way. She was happy for him. He’d finally met his soulmate. He was finally going to get the happiness he deserved. She just hoped that the universe knew what it was doing when it chose Jo Wilson as his soulmate, “Hold on… you said your soulmate is one of the interns?”

“Yeah? So what? You were an intern when you met Derek,” Alex shrugged. “It happens.”

“No, I know that. That’s not what I’m talking about,” Meredith shook her head. “Didn’t you sleep with half the intern class?”

“Oh crap… You don’t think she knows, right?”

“Are you kidding? Don’t you remember what it was like to be an intern? Gossip around here spreads like wildfire,” Meredith leaned back in her bean bag chair. “I’m positive she knows exactly how many of her friends you’ve slept with.”

“Which means she already knows how big of a douche I am,” Alex groaned. “You know, on some level, I always knew that being a man-whore was going to come back and bite me in the ass.”

Meredith was going to open her mouth to respond when they heard a crash followed by a child crying in the background. Being the peds surgeon that he was, Alex jumped up from his bean bag chair and scanned the room for the source of the crying. There was a young woman holding a boy who looked to be about four. He had a nasty head lac that would probably need stitches.

“Can someone get ahold of an intern to come take a look at this kid? And page his parents?” One of the daycare workers yelled out.

Not wanting an intern working on this kid’s face, Alex decided to step in, “Hey. No need to call an intern. I’m a peds surgeon. I’ll take a look at him and get him stitched up. You don’t need an intern leaving a nasty scar on his face. Just page his parents while I check him out.”

The daycare instructor, Bethany, nodded in appreciation and Alex walked them over to a nearby exam room. He asked a nurse to bring him a suture kit and had Bethany place the crying boy on the bed. The kid was cute. He had wild brown hair and big hazel eyes that looked up at him in awe and wonder, “Hey kiddo, my name is Dr. Alex. What’s yours?”

“Liam,” the little boy responded, the tears that had once been running down his face now dried.

For some reason, Alex felt a connection to this kid. He couldn’t explain it. Of course, he’d bonded with patients in the past, but this was different. He’d known this boy for all of two minutes and already felt his protective instincts kick in. Alex decided to try to make some conversation, “Well, hi Liam. I see that you hurt your head a bit there. Do you think you can follow some instructions that I give you?”

Liam attempted a nod but winced in pain a bit, “Yes Dr. Awex.”

Alex seriously did not know what was wrong with him. Every time this little boy opened his mouth, he felt the love and affection he had for him increase. What the hell is wrong you? He’s not even your kid. You find your soulmate and all of a sudden you are overwhelmed by the desire to procreate? Shaking the thoughts out of his head, Alex looked over to Bethany, “Can you go make sure one of his parents are on their way? I’m going to do a quick neuro exam and some stitches. They might want to be here for that.”

The two boys watched as Bethany nodded and walked out the room. Liam looked back up at Alex, “Is she getting my mommy?”

“Yeah buddy, she is. Now how about you say we make sure you didn’t hit your head too hard when you fell,” Alex proceeded to go about his exam while trying to divert Liam’s attention from the needles he was about to use to close up the head lac.

Meanwhile in OR 4, Jo had been trying her best to ignore the looks and questions Dr. Yang was sending her way. The first two hours had been mostly quiet, with Yang only speaking in order to teach or give instructions. Now that they were entering their third hour in surgery, Yang seemed to have loosened up a little bit, “Oh come on, give me something. You are Alex Karev’s soulmate, who just so happens to be one of my best friends. I care about him and I love him—if you ever say that I will deny it. What’s your story?”

This was getting tiring. All Jo wanted was to distract Yang long enough to stop asking questions. Jo was this close to giving in and answering Yang’s questions when a nurse rushed into the room, “Dr. Wilson, Ms. Bethany from daycare called to let you know that your son fell and sustained a head injury. He’s being checked out by a doctor in an exam room nearby the daycare. The doctor said that he’s okay, but he’s going to require some stitches.”

Jo looked up at the nurse with a panicked expression, “Oh my God. What the hell happened?”

“I’m not sure of all the details, but your son was requesting your presence.”

“Well that explains part of the story,” Cristina mumbled to herself. She looked over at the intern standing in front of her. “Go, take care of your kid. We’ll be okay here. Take the rest of the day off while you’re at it.”

“Thank you so much Dr. Yang,” Jo rushed out of the OR and scrubbed out quickly. She hurried out of the scrub room into the hallway and made her way to the elevators. She tapped her foot impatiently as she waited for the elevator to arrive.

As soon as she made it to the daycare, Jo asked for her son’s whereabouts. She had finally reached the door of the exam room when she heard a familiar peel of laughter on the other side. She breathed a sigh of relief when she realized that her son was laughing and steadied herself as she opened the door.

Alex had been having the time of his life stitching Liam’s head lac up. Sure, he was great with kids, his job required it. But spending time with this kid is different. Alex was sure that he’d never clicked with a kid as much as this one. And he was kind of hilarious. The four-year-old was very bright for his age and had a sense of humor better than most adults. In the fifteen minutes that had passed, Alex learned that he and Liam had the same favorite color (green), favorite ice cream flavor (s’mores), they even shared a middle name. On top of that they were both obsessed with babies—Alex was a peds surgeon and Liam said that he was constantly asking his mom when they would have a baby.

Alex had just promised to sneak Liam up to the hospital nursery when the door opened. With his back was to the door, Alex spoke to the parent he’d assumed had walked in, “Oh, hey. I’m Dr. Karev. I just was in the daycare visiting my niece when your son fell. He got a few stitches, but other than that he’s just fine.”

Finally turning around, Alex came face to face with his wide-eyed soulmate. Confused, he stared at her dumbly as she stood unmoving like a deer in headlights. The moment was broken when Liam look up and grinned, “Mommy!”

Breaking out of her trance, Jo looked up at the little boy sitting on the exam table, “Hey baby! I heard you took a fall in daycare. Are you okay?”

“Yup,” Liam nodded happily. “Dr. Awex fixed me up! He’s so funny, mommy. We wike wots of the same tings and he pwomised to take me to see the babies!”

“Really? You love babies don’t you,” Jo smiled at her son and glanced quickly at Alex.

“Uh huh! Dr. Awex fixes babies,” Liam grinned brightly. “I want to fix babies too!”

“You do, huh? Well, I’m sure he’d love to teach you one day,” Jo wrapped her son in her arms and hugged him closed. She looked up at Alex, “Was he good?”

“Oh yeah, he was great,” Alex gave her one of his crooked grins. “So, he’s yours?”

“Yeah, I had him a couple months before I started med school. It’s just us,” Jo felt her heart pick up in speed the more she looked at him. If this whole soulmate thing was true, the Jo was sure that his heart was beating equally as quickly. “Thank you for taking care of him.”

“Of course,” Alex took a deep breath. This was all too surreal. He was standing in an exam room with his soulmate and her son and he’d never felt more at home. He didn’t want this to end. “You know, I was telling Liam here that maybe I’d try to get him some ice cream. What if we all go together? I know this really great place a couple blocks away. I’ve taken my niece, Zola there a couple times and she loves it.”

Jo felt like she was dreaming. There was no way this was real. There was no way that her soulmate wanted to take her and her son out for ice cream. This didn’t happen in real life. It only happened in all the rom coms she’d grown to despise over the years. Men were never this good, but somehow, she could tell that Alex was. Jo turned to her son who looked at her with pleading eyes. Deciding that it wouldn’t hurt to say no, she smiled, “I think the two of us would like that very much.”

And they did enjoy it. The trio looked like the sweetest little family as they went out for ice cream that night. Both Jo and Alex had been commented to on separate occasions by multiple people regarding their adorable dynamics. It was almost strange how normal it felt to be out and about with each other. Maybe it was because Liam was there acting as a buffer, but neither Jo nor Alex could remember why they’d been skeptical in the first place.

Alex offered to give Jo and Liam a ride home after leaving the ice cream parlor. They’d taken the bus to the hospital that morning and Jo had been planning on taking it back when Alex insisted on getting them home safely. When they finally arrived at Jo’s apartment, Liam refused to go inside and go to sleep unless Alex tucked him into bed. Jo had tried reasoning with Liam, but Alex assured her that it was fine, and he wouldn’t mind reading Liam a bedtime story or two.

So, that’s how she found herself standing in the doorway of her son’s room, watching as her new soulmate laughed with her son as he read a book to Liam. Jo’s heart fluttered at the scene. Her soulmate and her son had bonded in a matter of hours. Her soulmate actually existed and he was here in her home, tucking her son into bed as if he’d done it a hundred times before.

When Alex was done, he pulled the covers up over Liam’s small frame and ruffled his hair. He turned off the light and walked out the door, finding Jo standing in the living room. He stuffed his hands in his pockets, “Hey.”

“Hey,” Jo breathed out a shaky breath. “Thanks for… everything today. You really didn’t have to do all that.”

“It was nothing,” Alex shrugged bashfully. “I—uh, I had fun.”

The stood in awkward silence for a few minutes, each person staring at the ground. It’s wasn’t that they didn’t have anything to say, it was that there were too many things to say and neither one of them know where to start.

"You don't have to do this," Jo shook her head. "I come with a lot of baggage, more than you probably bargained for. I have a very complicated past and I don't trust people easily. On top of that, have a kid. He's the most important person in my life. So if you don't think you can handle all that, it's okay. I won't hold it against you. I'm giving you an out."

Alex looked at her curiously, "Are you free tomorrow night?"

"What?" Jo scrunched her eyebrows.

"Are you free tomorrow night?” Alex repeated.

“Uh—yeah,” Jo looked at him strangely. “Why?”

“Go out with me tomorrow, just us. I can ask Meredith if she can babysit. Liam can play with Zola,” Alex offered.

Jo could feel her heart beating wildly. The nerves in her stomach increasing, “Okay.”

*****

The date was a disaster. Everything that could’ve gone wrong went wrong. To be fair, Alex wasn’t really one to go on dates. Which is why he’d enlisted the help of Kepner and Robbins to set up the perfect first date. They had given him a list of suggestions of all the places he could take Jo and all the things they could do.

Of course, nothing went as planned. The restaurant they were going to eat at, didn’t have a table available. The movie they were going to watch was sold out. They missed their ferry, lost their tickets to the Seattle Great Wheel, and got stuck in traffic for about an hour.

Finally deciding to screw it, Alex ordered a pizza and fried chicken, bought a six pack of beer, and drove up to one of the cliffs just outside the city. He grabbed the blanket that was in the trunk of his car and set it outside in the grass. Jo hopped out and put the food and beers on the ground.

They spent some time talking about their pasts. They talked about their upbringing, discovering that they had a lot more in common than they would’ve thought. Alex shared about his first marriage and Jo shared hers. She told him about her name and why she chose it. They’d been making self-deprecating jokes and laughing while stargazing when it started to pour out of nowhere. They laugh and squeal as they hurry back into the car. Alex turned the heater on to help them warm up. He looked back at Jo and grimaced, "I am so sorry. This night has been a disaster. I should’ve known I would’ve screwed it up.”

“Are you kidding?” Jo looked at Alex in disbelief. “I don’t think I’ve laughed this much ever. I’ve had more fun tonight than I have in a long time.”

“Really?” Alex raised his eyebrows. “You don’t care that we’re sitting in my car, soaked, eating pizza and fried chicken while drinking a couple of beers.”

“I don’t mind at all, honestly. I prefer this to fancy restaurants and cheesy movies,” Jo smiled brightly. Looking at Alex, she felt butterflies. She felt seen, she felt heard, she felt happy. “You know, I didn’t believe in all this. I didn’t believe that there was someone out there specifically made for me. I thought it was all a made-up fairytale that people just tried so hard to hold on to because life sucks sometimes. But meeting you, talking to you… I know that I want to do this for the rest of my life.”

“I do too,” Alex gave her a crooked grin. In the past few hours, he knew he’d fallen in love with this woman. “Can I kiss you?”

Jo felt her cheeks heat up. She nodded shyly, “Yes.”

Alex leaned in and pulled Jo into a passionate kiss, leaving her breathless. Nothing had ever felt more right in her life. She wanted to stay here in his arms and never leave and so did he. Alex would give anything to stay in that moment forever.

When they finally broke apart, both were grinning like idiots. Alex tucked a piece of hair behind Jo’s ear, “That was definitely worth the twenty years I spent looking at my clock wishing I could just hurry up and meet you.” He looked at the time on the dashboard of his car. “It’s getting late. We should go pick up Liam at Mer’s and I’ll drop you guys off at your place.”

“Or… we could see if she wouldn’t mind keeping him overnight. He’s probably asleep now anyway. It would be a shame to wake him up,” Jo looked up at him mischievously.

“It would be a shame,” Alex nodded in understanding. His face broke out into a smirk. “Guess I’ll just be taking you home instead.”

******

One year later….

“Okay, you remember the plan?”

“Yes, Daddy!” Liam nodded his little head at Alex. He was jumping with excitement. Today, his Daddy was going to propose to his Mommy. His Daddy wasn’t always his Daddy, though. For a long time, it was just Liam and Mommy. Now, the nice doctor that stitched up his head was his new Daddy and Liam couldn’t be happier. “Will Mommy like the ring?”

“I sure hope so, because I spent a lot of money on that thing,” Alex muttered under his breath. “You’re going to make sure that Mommy walks over here to the fountain when it’s time. Got it?”

“Got it!”

Minutes later, Alex was standing by the fountain in downtown waiting for his son to lead his soulmate to where he was waiting for them. He paced nervously as he watched them round the corner, Liam pulling on his mom’s coat sleeve to get her to hurry. As they approached, Alex took a deep breath and adjusted his tie. He smiled as the two people he loved most in the world came to a halt in front of him.

“Hi,” Alex smiled cheekily.

“Hi,” Jo beamed in return. “What are you doing here? And why are you wearing a suit?”

“I’m here because, I have something to say. And I decided to do it in public with Liam present so that I couldn’t’ chicken out,” Alex chuckled and looked down at the ground before lifting his gaze to meet Jo’s once more. “Jo, from the moment I met you, everything in my life suddenly made sense. Right then, I met the person I knew I was going to love for the rest of my life. You have changed me. I am a better man because of you and Liam. I want to grow old with you. I want to be by your side until we’re old and gray and yelling at each other about who was a better surgeon.”

Jo let out a laugh as tears filled her eyes. Alex leaned in for a brief kiss before finally getting down on one knee, “I love you. So, Jo Wilson, will you marry me?”

Jo’s breath hitched, “Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes! Alex, I can’t wait to marry you.”

“Mommy and Daddy are getting married!” Liam squealed from where he was standing.

Alex and Jo laughed at Liam’s excitement, “Yeah, we are.”

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bountyofbeads · 5 years

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Why Does Only One Party Play by the Rules? https://nyti.ms/2MNdCOX

Why Does Only One Party Play by the Rules?

Thanks to Trump’s deepening dependence on “alternative facts,” the assertion of reality is now a viable campaign strategy for 2020 Democrats.

By Jennifer Senior, Opinion columnist | Published October 25, 2019 | New York Times | Posted October 25, 2019 |

It’s that time of the campaign season when some Democrats are starting to feel — as President Jimmy Carter might have put it — malaise. They’re staring at their 2020 lineup and wondering whether it’s a guaranteed recipe for buyer’s remorse. Joe Biden is too old, Pete Buttigieg is too young, Kamala Harris is too uncertain, Bernie Sanders too unpalatable, Elizabeth Warren too unelectable.

All of which may be right. But I have an additional theory for why some Democrats are the vexed and depleted souls they seem to be these days, waking up with lead in their veins and worms in their stomachs. It boils down to this: They can’t escape the sense that they’re living by different rules.

Let me rephrase that: Democrats are acting as though there still are rules, when in fact they’re living in a political multiverse — with at least one parallel reality containing no rules at all.

What do you do when one party stakes its faith — and ultimately government itself — on observable, measurable realities while the other has made the cynical decision to cast these principles away? How do you strategize? How do you cope?

It’s not just that President Trump serially lies in plain sight. (What’s The Washington Post’s latest tally? 13,435? Whatever: Just imagine a whirring odometer on a shuttle to Mars.) It’s that he’s surrounded by occluders and toadies, nihilist tricksters spun directly from the looms of the Marx Brothers’ imagination. (“Who you gonna believe? Me or your own eyes?”)

A raft of House and Senate Republicans — including (say it with me) Senator Lindsey Graham — learned that Ukraine’s top diplomat had confirmed the Trump administration’s aid-for-dirt caper, yet still insists the impeachment proceedings are a sham. The acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, acknowledged this same quid pro quo in a news conference, only to proclaim later that none of us understands English. Any public servant who dares say that two plus two just might equal four is immediately accused by Trump of radicalism, treason, witch hunting.

Compare that with President Barack Obama’s relationship with those who inconvenienced him. When James Comey, then the head of the F.B.I., made the fateful decision to announce that he’d reopened his inquiry into Hillary Clinton’s emails just days before the 2016 election, Obama could not have been especially pleased. By imperiling Clinton’s chances, Comey was imperiling Obama’s own legacy too. Yet Obama still behaved warmly toward him, according to James Stewart in his new book, “Deep State.” Why? Because “Democrats,” as Jonathan Chait explained in his review of that book, “still believed in institutions and norms.”(See review below)

This idea — that Democrats still believe in norms, customs, the rather crucial notion of checks and balances, in government itself — may be the crux of the multiverse problem. Look at someone like Joe Biden, whose essential pitch (in addition to experience, incremental change, working-class-guyness) is that he can work with the men and women on the other side of the aisle.

But this suggests that compromise is an option. It doesn’t appear that the other side is much interested. You have Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, holding a Supreme Court appointment hostage for nearly a year, blocking almost all legislative debate and passing a bill to protect the 2020 elections from foreign interference only under extreme duress; the world’s “greatest deliberative body” is now a speedway for the Trump agenda. You have the House Republicans informally observing the “Hastert Rule”— named for the former speaker Dennis Hastert, who was carted off to prison for paying hush money to a former student he’d sexually abused — which says bills can come to the floor only if a majority of the Republicans support them. It virtually ensures minoritarian rule.

And you have partisan news outlets with zero interest in reporting the basic facts of Trump’s corruption or the catastrophic consequences of his impulses. We’ve gone from Pax Americana to Fox Americana in the blink of an eye.

Whereas the more traditional media, whatever their unconscious biases, do try to hold Democrats to account. Sure, let’s stipulate that there are more liberals than conservatives at these organizations. Maybe even a lot more. But it was mainstream newspapers that broke the Whitewater story, which led to an independent investigation of Bill Clinton. It was mainstream newspapers that kept Hillary Clinton’s emails on the front page in the run-up to the 2016 election. This newspaper covered Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine too — in May. These pages also ran an editorial about it. That was in 2015.

Of course Democratic politicians — all politicians — distort, gerrymander evidence, even lie and apply their greasy thumbs to the scales. (What was Bill Clinton doing on that plane with Loretta Lynch in 2016?) The question is whether their sins are occasional or habitual, whether their worldviews are Capra or Chandler. The Trumpkins are firmly in noir territory.

Now you have Trump strafing Facebook with campaign ads popping with falsehoods. Elizabeth Warren, meanwhile, ran a Facebook ad with falsehoods that acknowledged they were false midway through.

Which says it all, really.

So, to repeat: What to do about this? Do you capitulate, sell your soul and resort to the same lawless tactics as your opponents? Or do you take the high road and run the risk of losing?

The only guide we have is 2018. But it’s not a bad one. What it showed was that sometimes it pays to go high. The Democrats just have to aggressively sell an honorable message.

Specifically, what the Democrats should say is: Anyone who’s not in the business of peddling the truth shouldn’t be in the business of government. Or publishing, for that matter. Trump once said that he could probably get away with murder. (And his lawyers recently, surreally, made this same case in a federal appeals court.) That’s what Mark Zuckerberg is doing on Facebook, figuratively speaking, by allowing political ads with demonstrably false content to run on his platform, no matter what other features the company rolls out.

Right now, the Democrats are badly losing the Facebook war. But it’s not too late for them to wage this fight, and in the right way. They could still campaign on the idea of a government that believes in itself — and self-evident truths, like something as basic as the size of an inaugural crowd.

It would be a declaration of values. In the Trump era, that’s not a bad place to start.

*********

Two Candidates, Two Investigations, One Deeply Flawed Agency

By Jonathan Chait | Published October 25, 2019 | New York Times | Posted October 25, 2019 |

DEEP STATE

Trump, the FBI, and the Rule of Law

By James B. Stewart

During the 2016 presidential election, one of the two major candidates labored under the shadow of a criminal investigation by the F.B.I. That candidate was Hillary Clinton. As we now know, though voters had little reason to apprehend it at the time, there were actually two investigations underway — and, while the probe into Clinton’s mishandling of emails played out in public, the more serious probe of Donald Trump’s secret political and financial connections with Russia remained largely unknown until well after the voting had concluded.

In “Deep State,” James B. Stewart, a columnist for The New York Times and the author of “Blood Sport” and “Den of Thieves,” among many other books, tells the story of both investigations. His account produces few new facts, nor a bold new thesis, that would dramatically alter our understanding of either. Instead, his contribution is to combine the two accounts into a single chronological narrative. He shows how the twin investigations turn out to be closely linked, and not just because an election pitted their subjects against each other.

The F.B.I. agents investigating Clinton’s use of a personal email account realized early on that they would never have a prosecutable case. While Clinton had violated laws pertaining to the handling of classified material, she had apparently done so out of a combination of technical ineptitude and convenience, and the government had never charged an offender without establishing nefarious motives. As a result, the bureau concluded it didn’t “have much on the intent side.”

You might think this decision made life easier for the F.B.I., which would be spared the ordeal of having to insert itself into a presidential campaign. Instead, it made life harder. The reason for this: The bureau contained what some Department of Justice officials considered “hotbeds of anti-Clinton hostility,” especially in the Little Rock and New York offices. Stewart describes how F.B.I. officials encouraged colleagues investigating the Democratic nominee with messages like “You have to get her” and “You guys are finally going to get that bitch.” James Comey, the F.B.I. director during the Clinton email probe, went so far as to tell Attorney General Loretta Lynch, “It’s clear to me that there is a cadre of senior people in New York who have a deep and visceral hatred of Secretary Clinton.” Those agents leaked regularly to right-wing media sources that the bureau was turning a blind eye to what they saw as Clinton’s criminality.

This pressure drove Comey to make two fateful decisions. First, when he announced that the bureau was not bringing charges against Clinton, he denounced her “extremely careless” behavior, as a kind of middle course between what the law dictated and what Republicans demanded. Second, when an unrelated investigation into sex crimes by the former Democratic congressman Anthony Weiner turned up more Clinton email 11 days before the election, Comey felt trapped into announcing that he had reopened the investigation.

Stewart shows how Comey violated the F.B.I.’s norm of doing everything possible to avoid involving itself in election campaigns, especially at the end. He believed that failing to intervene would lead conservative agents to leak the story — and would result in his own impeachment by the Republican Congress after the election. As a result, Comey told his staff he needed to publicly reopen the investigation lest he create “corrosive doubt that you had engineered a cover-up to protect a particular political candidate.”

This was a catastrophic violation of protocol — and probably a decisive one; as Stewart notes, the new email story led the news in six of the seven days in the final week before the election. But what drove Comey to this error was the refusal of Republicans in the bureau and Congress to accept and follow the rules. Stewart’s narrative shows Democrats still believed in institutions and norms — even after Comey’s extraordinary intervention against Clinton, he was still treated warmly by President Obama and cordially by Loretta Lynch. Comey felt bound to appease the Clinton-haters because they refused to accept any process that failed to yield their preferred outcome.

Notably, the Republican William Barr enthusiastically endorsed Comey’s decision to reopen the case against Clinton, but then — once Comey became a threat to Trump — cited that very decision as grounds to fire him. Barr’s subsequent elevation to attorney general is an ominous development that hangs over the second half of Stewart’s book.

Unfortunately, his account of the Russia investigation is less satisfying. When Comey briefs Trump on the so-called Steele dossier and its litany of supposed ties between Trump and Russia — including the unproven allegation that Trump had watched prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room urinating on a bed where the Obamas once slept — we see the new president give suspiciously unconvincing denials. “Almost to himself, Trump repeated the year ‘2013’ and seemed to be searching his memory,” Stewart recounts. Trump tells Comey he would not need to pay for sex, and links the charges to other women who have accused him of groping them — charges that have high levels of credibility. He insists his well-known fear of germs would preclude him from enjoying such a performance, even though he could easily have done so at a safe distance.

We also see Trump or his agents dangling pardons before Paul Manafort and Roger Stone, the two advisers who had the closest political contacts with Russia and WikiLeaks, leading to both men refusing to cooperate with the investigation. We come to see Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general and supervisor of the Mueller report, as human Jell-O, losing his composure at times to the point of seeming unhinged. Stewart points out that Rosenstein agreed to meet with Trump privately. “Each time, against seemingly long odds, Rosenstein emerged with his job intact,” he notes. “What did he offer Trump in return? What threats, explicit or implied, did Trump bring to bear?”

Stewart also recounts the harsh treatment dispensed to government officials who, as a result of their involvement in the Russia investigation, became Trump’s targets. The Department of Justice publicized an affair between two agents working on the probe. It demoted the Justice Department lawyer Bruce Ohr after he spoke out, and ended the career of the longtime F.B.I. agent Andrew McCabe. All of these things, Stewart writes, “raise disturbing questions about their willingness to stand up to a president and preserve the long tradition of independent law enforcement and the rule of law.”

However, for all the suspicious patterns he reveals, for all the dots he connects, Stewart does not manage to produce a smoking gun that proves misconduct. We never learn the depth of Trump’s involvement with Russia, or whether he or Attorney General Barr applied undue pressure on the department. If these questions have incriminating answers, the people who hold them probably have no incentive to reveal them and possibly never will. What “Deep State” does tell us is that there are ample grounds for suspicion that Trump’s well-documented efforts to obstruct justice succeeded. To what end? That remains a mystery.

*********

In Tribute to Cummings, Obama Hints at Rebuke of Trump

The former president said that Representative Elijah E. Cummings showed that “you’re not a sucker to have integrity.”

Peter Baker

Oct. 25, 2019Updated 3:52 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON — Former President Barack Obama, who has remained largely silent amid the convulsive impeachment debate now gripping the nation, offered a tribute to a late Democratic congressman on Friday that sounded to some listeners like an implicit rebuke of President Trump.

Speaking at a service for Representative Elijah E. Cummings, who died last week, Mr. Obama never mentioned the president by name but seemed to draw a contrast between his successor and the congressman whom Mr. Trump denigrated last summer.

Mr. Obama said that Mr. Cummings showed that being strong meant being kind and that being honorable was no flaw.

“There’s nothing weak about kindness and compassion,” Mr. Obama told a packed hall at New Psalmist Baptist Church in Baltimore, which Mr. Cummings, a Democrat, represented in the House for the past 25 years. “There’s nothing weak about looking out for others. There’s nothing weak about being honorable. You’re not a sucker to have integrity and to treat others with respect.”

Warming to his topic, Mr. Obama pointed to a sign behind him referring to “the Honorable” Mr. Cummings.

“This is a title that we confer on all kinds of people who get elected to public office,” he said as the largely African-American and Democratic audience responded with knowing applause and laughter. “We’re supposed to introduce them as honorable. But Elijah Cummings was honorable before he was elected to office. There’s a difference. There’s a difference if you were honorable and treated others honorably outside the limelight.”

As chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, Mr. Cummings, 68, had become a major thorn in Mr. Trump’s side and was one of the leaders of the drive to impeach the president for abuse of power. Last summer, Mr. Trump lashed out at Mr. Cummings, calling him “racist” and “a brutal bully” who had done “a very poor job” representing a district that he described as a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.”

Mr. Obama was part of an all-star lineup of speakers and guests at the Friday’s service, including former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Senator Elizabeth Warren.

But much of the attention was focused on the 44th president, who has largely avoided weighing in lately on his successor even as Mr. Trump lately has repeatedly accused Mr. Obama of illegally spying on him while in office and blamed the former president for various policy setbacks.

Mr. Obama made no reference to any of that, but did call on his audience to step up as Mr. Cummings did. “People will look back at this moment,” he said, “and ask the question: What did you do?”

*********

Elijah Cummings’s Funeral Draws Presidents and Thousands of Mourners

Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton spoke Friday at the service for the longtime Maryland congressman.

By Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs | Published October 25, 2019 Updated 3:39 PM ET | New York Times | Posted October 25, 2019 |

BALTIMORE — Representative Elijah E. Cummings was firmly rooted in Baltimore, but for decades his voice extended far from his brick rowhouse on the city’s west side. On Friday, the legacy of his tireless advocacy brought powerful leaders from Washington and elsewhere to his city.

Mr. Cummings, a Democrat who rose in prominence in recent years for his unwavering pursuit of President Trump, died at 68 last week in the city he called home, the same one in which he was born and lived all his life.

Two former presidents, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, were among the prominent cast of politicians, mentees and relatives who spoke at his funeral on Friday morning. Others included Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts senator and presidential candidate.

Mr. Obama roused the congregation, extolling Mr. Cummings’s values and saying that the congressman had earned the title, “the honorable.”

“This is a title we confer on all kinds of people who get elected to public office,” Mr. Obama said. “We’re supposed to introduce them as honorable. But Elijah Cummings was honorable before he was elected to office.”

“There’s a difference,” Mr. Obama continued, his voice rising as many in the crowd stood up and clapped. “There’s a difference if you were honorable and treated others honorably — outside the limelight, on the side of a road, in a quiet moment counseling somebody you work with.”

Mr. Cummings’s success validates the concept of the American dream, Mr. Obama said, and his compassion and empathy were a lesson that kindness can be a sign of strength.

“There’s nothing weak about looking out for others,” Mr. Obama said. “There’s nothing weak about being honorable. You’re not a sucker to have integrity and to treat others with respect.”

Earlier in the service, following a psalm read by Ms. Warren and a song from one of Mr. Cummings’s favorite singers, BeBe Winans, Ms. Clinton took the stage and thanked members of Mr. Cummings’s district “for sharing him with our country and the world.”

Ms. Clinton said Mr. Cummings never backed down in the face of abuses of power or from “those who put party ahead of country or partisanship above truth.”

“But he could find common ground with anyone willing to seek it with him,” she continued. “And he liked to remind all of us that you can’t get so caught up in who you are fighting that you forget what you are fighting for.”

Ms. Pelosi asked attendees how many had been mentored by Mr. Cummings, and at least a dozen raised their hands. She recalled that he had sought to mentor as many freshman representatives as he could after Democrats took control of the House in the 2018 election.

“By example, he gave people hope,” she said.

Ms. Pelosi had spoken at another funeral in Baltimore on Wednesday for her own brother, Thomas D’Alesandro III, a former mayor of the city.

Earlier in the morning, thousands of grieving Baltimoreans stood in looping lines as the sun rose outside of New Psalmist Baptist Church, which seats 4,000 people and filled up shortly before 10, with many still outside. It’s the same church where Mr. Cummings sat in the front row most Sundays even after he began using a walker and wheelchair.

Mr. Cummings’s body lay in an open coffin at the front of the church on Friday, his left hand resting on his right as mourners passed by and a choir sang gospel music. An usher stood nearby with a box of tissues in each hand.

Elonna Jones, 21, skipped her classes at the University of Maryland to attend with her mother, Waneta Ross, who nearly teared up as she contemplated Baltimore’s loss.

“He believed in the beauty of everything, especially our city,” Ms. Ross said. “It’s important we’re here to honor a civil rights activist who was still around in my generation.”

Ms. Jones, a volunteer coordinator for a City Council candidate, said Mr. Cummings had motivated her to pursue a role in improving her city.

“As a young, black woman in Baltimore who wants to be in politics, he inspired me,” she said.

Mourning residents stood in black coats, hats and heels and sang Mr. Cummings’s praises as the police corralled the extended lines of people who woke up early to pay their respects. Above all, attendees noted, he always looked out for his city.

“He never forgot who we were,” said Bernadette McDonald, who lives in West Baltimore. “He was a son of Baltimore and a man of the people.”

The big names on the service’s agenda, the television cameras lined up outside and the large crowd belied the way many attendees interacted with the devoted congressman, who lived in the heart of West Baltimore and would simply give a knowing nod to those who recognized him on the street. He carried himself like anyone else when running errands or taking a walk around the block.

“If you didn’t already know him, you wouldn’t know who he was,” Ms. McDonald said.

Mr. Cummings saw his profile rise in recent years as he consistently sparred with Mr. Trump, determinedly pursuing the president, his businesses and his associates as head of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. Mr. Cummings became a leading figure in the impeachment inquiry and was said to still be joining strategy discussions with colleagues from his hospital bed.

Rhonda Martin, who works at a local high school, said Mr. Cummings had inspired the next generation of Baltimore’s leaders by speaking to students in schools around the city.

“He brought a message of hope and told students that he did it, and they can do it, too,” Ms. Martin said.

Mr. Cummings, whose parents were former sharecroppers in South Carolina, graduated from Howard University in Washington and earned a law degree at the University of Maryland. He was first elected to Congress in 1996 and never faced a serious challenge over 11 successful re-election campaigns.

On Thursday, Mr. Cummings’s body lay in state in the Capitol, the first black lawmaker to do so, and Republicans and Democrats praised his integrity and his commitment to his constituents.

Over more than two decades in Congress, Mr. Cummings championed working people, environmental reform and civil rights. He served for two years as the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus and frequently spoke of his neighborhood while pushing legislation to lower drug prices, promoting labor unions and seeking more funding for affordable housing.

Even in his war of words with the president, the battle made its way to Baltimore when, in July, Mr. Trump called Mr. Cummings’s district a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess” and appeared to make light of a break-in at Mr. Cummings’s home, during which the congressman scared an intruder away.

The president’s insults still anger Baltimore residents. “See? We’re not all trash and rats,” one congregant said as she sat down in the church on Friday.

Mr. Cummings responded to the president by saying it was his “moral duty” to fight for residents in his district. “Each morning, I wake up,” he wrote, “and I go and fight for my neighbors.”

Jennifer Cummings, one of Mr. Cummings’s two daughters, recalled early morning calls from her father on her birthdays and the ice cream they shared in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.

Reading from a letter to her father, Ms. Cummings said her father had taught her to “love my blackness” by insisting on buying her dolls with brown skin and telling her to appreciate her lips and nose.

While she was proud of all the titles he held over his life, “perhaps the most important title you held in your 68 years on earth was dad,” she said.

One of Mr. Cummings’s brothers, James Cummings, said that in one of their last conversations, the congressman spoke of his heartbreak over the unsolved killing of James’s 20-year-old son, Christopher Cummings, in Norfolk, Va., in 2011.

The killing “haunted Elijah for the rest of his life,” James said.

Adia Cummings, the congressman’s other daughter, said Mr. Cummings always challenged her and her sister to be better people. And even though he would nudge her about owing him money, he rarely turned down her requests, even recently making sure that she could attend a concert for the rapper Cardi B.

“He didn’t really know who she was, but he went out of his way, even from his sick bed, to make sure I could go see her,” she said.

Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, Mr. Cummings’s wife and the chairwoman of the Maryland Democratic Party, gave a fiery speech that brought multiple rounds of applause and many congregants to their feet more than once. And while she did not cite President Trump by name, she invoked him clearly, saying her husband’s work had become “infinitely more difficult” in the last few months of his life when he “sustained personal attacks” on him and his city. “It hurt him,” Ms. Cummings said.

Looking at Mr. Obama, she recalled that Mr. Cummings had stood with the former president early and proudly. “But you didn’t have any challenges like we have going on now,” she added with a smile, as Mr. Obama nodded and responded with an appreciative chuckle.

Ms. Cummings said she felt as if people were trying to tear Mr. Cummings down, and that the celebrations and outpouring of love this week had assured her that he was sent off with the respect he deserved.

Two days before Mr. Cummings died, his wife said, the staff at the Johns Hopkins Hospital had wheeled him up to the roof to see the sun and look over the city he never left.

“Boy, have I come a long way,” he said, according to Ms. Cummings.

*********

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MUELLER ‘has enough evidence’ to charge FLYNN — BEYOND THE BELTWAY: SEXUAL MISCONDUCT rocks statehouses — More DONNA BRAZILE fallout — CNN’S David Chalian and Justin Bernstine wed — B'DAY: John Harwood

BREAKING … NBC NEWS — “Mueller Has Enough Evidence to Bring Charges in Flynn Investigation,” by Julia Ainsley, Carol Lee and Ken Dilanian: “Federal investigators have gathered enough evidence to bring charges in their investigation of President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser and his son as part of the probe into Russia’s intervention in the 2016 election, according to multiple sources familiar with the investigation.

“Michael T. Flynn, who was fired after just 24 days on the job, was one of the first Trump associates to come under scrutiny in the federal probe now led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into possible collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign. Mueller is applying renewed pressure on Flynn following his indictment of Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, three sources familiar with the investigation told NBC News.” http://nbcnews.to/2zyReDm

Story Continued Below

Good Sunday morning. THE POWER OF PLAYBOOK — PUTTING THE PIECES TOGETHER: “Sexual misconduct allegations rock statehouses,” by Illinois Playbooker Natasha Korecki, California Playbooker Carla Marinucci and New York Playbooker Jimmy Vielkind: “Statehouses from Boston to Sacramento have been rocked by an onslaught of sexual misconduct allegations, creating unprecedented pressure on state legislative leaders to take immediate action.

“Amid a flood of recent testimonials from female legislators, staff and lobbyists, a portrait is fast emerging of male-dominated state capitol cultures rife with sexual harassment and bereft of protections for victims, where complaints from women frequently languish — or are outright ignored. In Illinois alone, hundreds of women signed onto an open letter charging a pervasive predatory culture in the state capitol, prompting a public hearing that exposed a grossly neglected, nearly non-existent reporting system. Already, one high-ranking Illinois lawmaker has been stripped of his leadership post — and mandatory training from an outside professional is likely to become legally required. An emergency meeting of an ethics commission is set for next week.” http://politi.co/2zi3Goh

SUNDAY BEST — TAX REFORM TIMING — SPEAKER PAUL RYAN told “FOX NEWS SUNDAY” host CHRIS WALLACE that Republicans are on track to move the tax reform bill through the House before Thanksgiving with hope to get a final bill on the president’s desk by Christmas. http://politi.co/2zhb8Ca

— CHUCK TODD speaks with SEN. JAMES LANKFORD (R-OKLA.) on NBC’S “MEET THE PRESS”: “If this tax bill increases the debt too much, you’re a no?” LANKFORD: “I am a no. I want to make sure we have reasonable assumptions in the process for growth estimates.”

WEEKEND NUMBERS: WAPO’s DAN BALZ and SCOTT CLEMENT: “Approaching the first anniversary of his victory over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, Trump has an approval rating demonstrably lower than any previous chief executive at this point in his presidency over seven decades of polling. Fewer than 4 in 10 Americans — 37 percent — say they approve of the way he is handling his job.” http://wapo.st/2lT6bdz

BOSTON GLOBE’S MATT VISER: “A year after Trump’s election, York, Pa., is forever changed” http://bit.ly/2Akw9tv

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING … TRUMP ABROAD …

— POOLER WSJ’S MIKE BENDER: “About 6.5 hours into the 8-hour flight, POTUS unexpectedly walked back to the press cabin and spoke for a little less than 12 minutes. During that time, he went off the briefly went off the record at two different moments. Wearing a white shirt with no tie and his collar open, he was in good spirits — joking with reporters, and taking a few questions from the trip. … ‘I think it’s expected we’ll meet with Putin, yeah. We want Putin’s help on North Korea, and we’ll be meeting with a lot of different leaders.’ … Explaining his Aramco tweet: Said he spoke to the Saudi King during the flight: ‘I know they’re looking at London, I know they’re looking at others, they’re probably looking at themselves, they have a much smaller stock market. So I would like them to consider the New York Stock Exchange or NASDAQ.’”

— ON THE BUSH BOOK: “I’ll comment after we come back. I don’t need headlines. I don’t want to make their move successful.”

— AT GOLF: The two leaders signed white ball caps that read, ‘Donald and Shinzo Make Alliance Even Greater.’

— AT DINNER: “Hello everybody. Thank you very much for being here. We’re in the midst of having very major discussions on many subjects, including North Korea and trade and we’re doing very well. Doing very well. Our relationship is really extraordinary. We like each other and our countries like each other. And I don’t think we’ve ever been closer to Japan than we are right now. It’s a great honor, it’s a great honor. We’ll have dinner tonight. I think we’ll insult everybody by continuing to talk about trade. But the time is a little bit limited and then tomorrow is a very busy day.’” On the menu: Hokkaido scallops and white truffle salad, sautéed Shizuoka’s ise-ebi bisque and Tajima beef steak.

ANDREW RESTUCCIA in Tokyo — “Trump gets ready to ‘maximize pressure’ on North Korea”: “President Donald Trump eased into his 12-day sprint through Asia with a round of golf and a private dinner with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, one of his closest allies on the international stage. But the seemingly carefree start to his five-country tour belied the sky-high stakes of the trip. With the threat of North Korea’s burgeoning nuclear weapons program looming, the grueling swing through the region — the longest trip since Trump took office — will likely be a defining moment for the president.

“The White House’s top priority for the trip is to ratchet up pressure on Asian nations to denuclearize North Korea. But the administration is also under pressure to confront a series of other challenges, including China’s unrelenting dominance of the continent and Trump’s desire to challenge what he deems unfair trade practices.” http://politi.co/2zjm0zi

— @JenniferJJacobs: “Trump thought about throwing a party to celebrate one-year anniversary of his election victory then thought better of it, he told us on AF1.”

****** A message from BP: We invest more in the U.S. than in any other country. And we reinvest every dollar we earn here right back into the American economy. See how our investment in America is at work in your community. ******

TRUMP’S SUNDAY — Trump is speaking to U.S. and Japanese business leaders this morning. He and the First Lady will participate in an embassy meet and greet, in a welcoming ceremony and state call with Their Majesties Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko of Japan. Trump will have lunch with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan, take an official photo with Abe, and hold a joint press conference with him. Trump and the First Lady will also meet with families of Japanese abducted by North Koreans. Tonight, they will attend a state banquet.

WHAT EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT — “Donna Brazile: I considered replacing Clinton with Biden as 2016 Democratic nominee,” by WaPo’s Phil Rucker: “Former [DNC] head Donna Brazile writes in a new book that she seriously contemplated setting in motion a process to replace Hillary Clinton as the party’s 2016 presidential nominee with then-Vice President Biden in the aftermath of Clinton’s fainting spell, in part because Clinton’s campaign was ‘anemic’ and had taken on ‘the odor of failure.’ In an explosive new memoir, Brazile details widespread dysfunction and dissension throughout the Democratic Party, including secret deliberations over using her powers as interim DNC chair to initiate the process of removing Clinton and running mate Sen. Tim Kaine (Va.) from the ticket after Clinton’s Sept. 11, 2016, collapse in New York City.

“Brazile writes that she considered a dozen combinations to replace the nominees and settled on Biden and Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.), the duo she felt most certain would win over enough working-class voters to defeat Republican Donald Trump. But then, she writes, ‘I thought of Hillary, and all the women in the country who were so proud of and excited about her. I could not do this to them.’ …

“As one of her party’s most prominent black strategists, Brazile also recounts fiery disagreements with Clinton’s staffers — including a conference call in which she told three senior campaign officials, Charlie Baker, Marlon Marshall and Dennis Cheng, that she was being treated like a slave. ‘I’m not Patsey the slave,’ Brazile recalls telling them, a reference to the character played by Lupita Nyong’o in the film, ‘12 Years a Slave.’ ‘Y’all keep whipping me and whipping me and you never give me any money or any way to do my damn job. I am not going to be your whipping girl!’” http://wapo.st/2zzadxO … $16.80 on Amazon http://amzn.to/2xMw0gL

— DOES ANYONE actually believe she could’ve and would’ve done this?

— BRAZILE talking to GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS on ABC’S “THIS WEEK”: STEPHANOPOULOS: “Do you agree with Elizabeth Warren that the primaries were rigged?” BRAZILE: “I don’t think she meant the word rigged, because what I said, George, as you well know after I left this show on July 24, I said I would get to the bottom of everything. And that’s what I did and I called Sen. Sanders to say, I wanted to make sure there was no rigging in the process. I’m on the rules and bylaws committee. I found no evidence. None, whatsoever. The only thing I found, I found the cancer, but I’m not killing the patient, was this memorandum that prevented the DNC from running its own operation.”

–“Open Letter from Hillary for America 2016 Team”: “We were shocked to learn the news that Donna Brazile actively considered overturning the will of the Democratic voters by attempting to replace Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine as the Democratic Presidential and Vice Presidential nominees. It is particularly troubling and puzzling that she would seemingly buy into false Russian-fueled propaganda, spread by both the Russians and our opponent, about our candidate’s health.” http://bit.ly/2h6ttr6

— SOME OF THE LETTER’s 120 signers included: Huma Abedin, Lily Adams, John Anzalone, Glen Caplin, Brynne Craig, Leslie Dach, Amy Dudley, Marc Elias, Adrienne Elrod, Brian Fallon, Jesse Ferguson, Tyrone Gayle, Teddy Goff, Mandy Grunwald, Alex Hornbrook, Connolly Keigher, Ron Klain, Elan Kriegel, Marlon Marshall, Jim Margolis, Nick Merrill, Robby Mook, Jen Palmieri, John Podesta, Christina Reynolds, Jake Sullivan and Josh Schwerin and Dan Schwerin.

KEEP AN EYE ON THIS — “Billionaire prince among dozens arrested in Saudi sweep,” by AP’s Abdullah Al-Shihri in Riyadh and Aya Batrawy in Dubai: “Saudi Arabia has arrested dozens of princes and former officials, including a well-known billionaire with extensive holdings in Western companies, as part of a sweeping anti-corruption probe that further cements control in the hands of its young crown prince. A high-level employee at Prince Alwaleed bin Talal’s Kingdom Holding Co. told The Associated Press that the royal was among those detained overnight Saturday.

“Reports suggested those detained were being held at the Ritz Carlton in Riyadh, which only days earlier hosted a major investment conference with global business titans from the U.S., Japan and other countries. A Saudi official told The Associated Press that other five-star hotels across the capital were also being used to hold some of those arrested. … Analysts have suggested the arrest of once-untouchable members of the royal family is the latest sign that the 32-year-old crown prince is moving to quash potential rivals or critics.” http://bit.ly/2zeyfNN … Investments of Kingdom Holding, fund controlled by Alwaleed bin Talal http://bit.ly/2zypFKe

****** A message from BP: We delivered 11 billion gallons of fuel in the U.S. last year – that’s enough to run all the cars in New York & New Jersey for the entire year. Find out what we’re doing in your state. ******

— NYT’s ALEXANDRA STEVENSON in Hong Kong: “Citigroup, 21st Century Fox, Twitter: Prince’s Arrest Touches Many”: “Among Prince Alwaleed’s crown jewels: sizable stakes in Twitter, Lyft, Citigroup and 21st Century Fox. He has gone into business with some of the corporate world’s biggest titans, from Bill Gates to Rupert Murdoch and Michael Bloomberg. His investments span the globe, including the historic George V hotel in Paris, the Savoy in London and the Plaza in New York. He has also invested in the AccorHotels chain and Canary Wharf, the London business development.” http://nyti.ms/2ywT1Zy

— TRUMP called the king of Saudi Arabia. White House readout: “[P]resident Trump noted that the King and Crown Prince’s recent public statements regarding the need to build a moderate, peaceful, and tolerant region are essential to ensuring a hopeful future for the Saudi people, to curtailing terrorist funding, and to defeating radical ideology – once and for all – so the world can be safe from its evil.”

FOR YOUR RADAR — “Securing North Korean nuclear sites would require a ground invasion, Pentagon says,” by WaPo’s Dan Lamothe and Carol Morello: “The only way to locate and secure all of North Korea’s nuclear weapons sites ‘with complete certainty’ is through an invasion of ground forces, and in the event of conflict, Pyongyang could use biological and chemical weapons, the Pentagon told lawmakers in a new, blunt assessment of what war on the Korean Peninsula might look like.” http://wapo.st/2zgyzt7

THIS IS A NEW ONE — “Mitch McConnell: Facebook, Google should help U.S. government ‘retaliate’ against Russia” — Fast Company: “‘What we ought to do,” McConnell said [on MSNBC yesterday], ‘with regard to the Russians is retaliate, seriously retaliate against the Russians. And these tech firms could be helpful in giving us a way to do that.’” http://bit.ly/2zyhoX4

SPEAKING OF RUSSIA — “Manafort proposes $12.5 million bail package,” by Josh Gerstein: “Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort is offering to post $12.5 million-worth of assets — including his Trump Tower apartment — as part of a bail package to ensure that he appears for the trial he’s facing on charges of money laundering and failing to register as a foreign lobbyist, Manafort’s defense team said Saturday. Manafort’s lawyers identified three properties he is willing to pledge: the Trump Tower condo in Manhattan, a condo several miles to the south on Baxter Street in Chinatown and his primary residence in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.

“In a court filing, the veteran lobbyist also said several life insurance policies worth a total of $4.5 million could be posted, although they’re held by trusts or Manafort’s wife Kathleen. In exchange for pledging the properties, Manafort is seeking to be released from home confinement at his Alexandria, Va. condo and permitted to travel freely in Florida, Virginia, Washington, D.C. and New York.” http://politi.co/2hF48Fm

FIRST PERSON — “I worked for Paul Manafort. He always lacked a moral compass,” by K. Riva Levinson on the cover of WaPo’s Outlook: http://wapo.st/2hevCET

— PAUL MANAFORT sent an email this week to his neighbors in his Alexandria condo building apologizing for the inconvenience of the media staking out the building, according to two residents and another neighbor who saw the letter.

ON TAX REFORM — “Multinationals grapple with Republican excise tax surprise,” by Reuters’ Amanda Becker in Washington and Tom Bergin in London: “The Republican tax bill unveiled last week in the U.S. Congress could disrupt the global supply chains of large, multinational companies by slapping a 20-percent tax on cross-border transactions they routinely make between related business units. …

“The proposed tax, tucked deep in the 429-page bill backed by President Donald Trump, caught corporate tax strategists by surprise and sent them scrambling to understand its dynamics and goals, as well as whether Congress is likely ever to vote on it. Reuters contacted seven multinational companies and four industry groups. None would comment directly on the proposal, with most saying they were still studying the entire tax package.” http://reut.rs/2j3BNMz

ELECTION WATCH — “Activists eye post-Charlottesville surge in black voting in Virginia,” by Kevin Robillard in Norfolk, Virginia: “Democratic activists expect a surge in black political engagement fueled by backlash to this summer’s violent white nationalist rally in Charlottesville could tip the scales in Tuesday’s Virginia gubernatorial race. … Turnout already shot upward in heavily black areas during the Democratic primary, compared to the last one in 2009, and Northam won big in those regions in June. Since then, black political groups have run a steady stream of radio and digital ads invoking Charlottesville and inequality in the criminal justice system, including NFL players’ protests of the issue. And they are talking with voters one-on-one in Norfolk and other African-American population centers to make a personal case about voting this year.” http://politi.co/2hGktto

SUNDAY BEST …

— BONUS: WALLACE and RYAN on “FOX NEWS SUNDAY”: “House Speaker Paul Ryan vowed Sunday that Congress would not interfere with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 elections, a probe that has intensified with recent indictments of Trump campaign officials. … ‘We’re not going to interfere with his investigation. The investigation will take its course, and we will let it take its course,’ the GOP leader said. Ryan (R-Wis.) also said he believed that President Donald Trump would uphold his repeated pledge to not dismiss Mueller.” http://politi.co/2Aay2bs

— JAKE TAPPER talks with HOUSE MINORITY LEADER NANCY PELOSI on CNN’S “STATE OF THE UNION”: TAPPER: “Now, a letter from the Pentagon to members of Congress says that the only way to take out North Korea’s nuclear program with — quote — ‘complete certainty’ would be a ground invasion. Is that something that you could support?” PELOSI: “Well, I think we have to exhaust every other remedy. North Korea’s behavior is — has to be contained, stopped, reversed. They cannot have a nuclear weapon that they — my view, my concern about North Korea is not only what they’re doing, but what they’re advertising, that they may want to sell some of this technology. … I would like to think that we would exhaust every diplomatic remedy, because we’re dealing – we’re sticking a — poking a stick in the eye of a mad dog with some of what we’re saying.”

ON TAX REFORM — TAPPER: “There seem to be provisions that you could support. There is a tax cut for middle-class Americans, as well as for wealthier Americans. The plan doubles the standard deduction to $12,000 for individuals, $24,000 for couples. Is it not true that some lower- and middle-class families will do better under the plan?” PELOSI: “No. No, they won’t.” TAPPER: “They won’t?” PELOSI: “And here’s the thing, is they give with one hand and take away with the other. First of all, this — let me just give it a macro and then the micro, because the micro is very important, what it means in people’s lives. But the macro is that this thing will explode the deficit, the national debt.”

BOWLING GREEN NEWS — “BG man charged with assaulting Paul at senator’s home,” by Don Sergent: “A Bowling Green man was arrested Friday and charged with fourth-degree assault after an incident at the Bowling Green home of U.S. Sen. Rand Paul. Rene Boucher, 59, is in the Warren County Regional Jail in lieu of a $5,000 bond … Paul suffered minor injuries … Kelsey Cooper, Paul’s Kentucky communications director, issued a statement to the Daily News indicating that ‘Senator Paul is fine.’

“‘Senator Paul was blindsided and the victim of an assault’ … The arrest warrant in the case indicates that Paul told police his neighbor came onto his property and tackled him from behind, forcing him to the ground and causing pain. According to the warrant, Paul had injuries to his face and had trouble breathing due to a rib injury.” http://bit.ly/2zz3VOF

SNL COLD OPEN – “Paul Manafort’s House Cold Open” — TRUMP (played by Alec Baldwin) visits PAUL MANAFORT’s condo: “I just came by to check up on you.” MANAFORT (Alex Moffat): “Of course. I’m embarrassed. I only wore a casual $10,000 suit. I thought you were on your way to Asia.” TRUMP: “Everybody does. But in fact I sent Melania, along with a very convincing lookalike.” MELANIA (Cecily Strong), reading “Private Islands” magazine on Air Force One: “Donald: why are you so quiet? … Okay for the first time in 10 years, let me tell you about my day.”

TRUMP: “Paul: Believe me my staff is much happier that that look-alike is going. They were terrified that when I got to China, I would do that slant-eyes like that guy on the Houston Astros. Hilarious by the way. Everyone is so politically correct now. I’m surprised that you can even say Oriental rugs anymore, which by the way these are fantastic.” MANAFORT: “Yeah thanks thanks. I got a great deal, only a million bucks because I paid cash.” 5-min. video http://bit.ly/2yxs08o

PHOTO DU JOUR: President Donald Trump puts on a military jacket as he meets the U.S. troops at the U.S. Yokota Air Base, on the outskirts of Tokyo, Sunday, Nov. 5. | Eugene Hoshiko/AP Photo

WEST COAST WATCH — “Jerry Brown’s holy war on Donald Trump” by California Playbooker David Siders in Vatican City: “California has opened a new front in its war on Donald Trump — the Vatican, where Gov. Jerry Brown on Saturday sought to enlist the Catholic Church in his effort to undermine the president’s climate policies abroad. Brown, addressing a somber gathering of scientists, politicians and religious leaders here, rebuked Trump’s rejection of mainstream climate science as a ‘lie within a lie,’ urging religious establishments to help ‘awaken the world’ to efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” http://politi.co/2Aa2Yse

— “Poised for West Coast Dominance, Democrats Eye Grand Agenda,” by NYT’s Alex Burns and Kirk Johnson in Sammamish, Washington: “It is the stuff of liberal fantasies: a vast, defiant territory, sweeping along the country’s Pacific coastline, governed by Democrats and resisting President Trump at every turn. A single election in a wealthy Seattle suburb on Tuesday could make that scenario a reality, handing the party full control of government in Washington State — and extinguishing Republicans’ last fragile claim on power on the West Coast. The region has been a rare Democratic stronghold on an electoral map now dominated by vast swaths of red, and Republicans’ only toehold on power there has been a one-seat majority in the Washington State Senate.

“The prospect of such far-reaching autonomy for Democrats, who already hold all three governors’ offices as well as both houses of the legislatures in Oregon and California, has infused extraordinary energy into what might have been a low-key special election. The race is on track to draw more than $9 million in campaign spending, a record-breaking sum for Washington State. National environmental and abortion rights groups have mobilized, business associations and oil companies have poured in money, and a former vice president, Joseph R. Biden Jr., has intervened on the Democratic side.” http://nyti.ms/2h4gQg5

BUSINESS BURST — “The Inside Story of How the Sprint and T-Mobile Deal Collapsed, Again,” by WSJ’s Ryan Knutson, Drew FitzGerald and Dana Mattioli: “During months of merger talks with T-Mobile US Inc., Sprint Corp. Chairman Masayoshi Son sought a way to merge the two wireless rivals without really having to hand over the keys. There was discussion over inserting a provision to buy the combined company back after two years, two people familiar with the matter said. They explored giving the Japanese billionaire the right to increase his stake over time. He was offered the role of co-chairman.

“In the end, nothing worked. In a joint statement Saturday, the companies called off the merger for good. The abrupt turn of events derailed a deal that many on Wall Street have anticipated for years, and that Mr. Son has long desired. … The latest round of deal talks began to unravel in late October. The transaction that was being contemplated was an all-stock merger that would have given Deutsche Telekom control over the combined company and made T-Mobile Chief Executive John Legere the new firm’s head, the people said. Beyond having a voice as a major shareholder, Mr. Son wouldn’t be able to dictate the combined company’s direction.” http://on.wsj.com/2Aa7jvH

2018 WATCH — “Can Erik Prince Beat the GOP Establishment and Win a Senate Seat?” by NBC News’ Keri Geiger and Jon Allen: “In an interview last month in a noisy, crowded German bar in Washington, D.C., Prince acknowledged that he is ‘mulling’ a primary challenge to [Sen. John] Barrasso … ‘The people of Wyoming, they embrace very much Trump’s agenda and its senator should too.’ Or, Prince said, he ‘needs to be replaced by someone who does, too.’ … He advocates a tightly run Special Forces unit, overseen by a supreme commander (which he calls a ‘viceroy’) and assisted by private military contractors, that would not only ‘deny terrorists sanctuary’ but save the government billions of dollars over the long run. … ‘He [Trump] resisted the Pentagon’s approach all the way up until that weekend. If it was not for the debacle of Charlottesville and all the political pressure the president took that week, he would have done this,’ said Prince. …

“Barrasso hasn’t shown much capacity for raising money from Wyoming—one measure of the intensity of support for a candidate. Of the roughly $2.4 million he’s collected in itemized individual contributions since the start of 2013, only $130,525 — or 5.5 percent of the total haul — has come from the Cowboy State.” http://nbcnews.to/2yvFzVL

— PER KURT BARDELLA: “More than 80 members of the country music community have signed a letter urging songwriter Lee Thomas Miller to run for the Congressional seat currently held by Marsha Blackburn. Those signing the letter include Brad Paisley, Kix Brooks, Dustin Lynch, Jamey Johnson, Chris Janson, John Esposito (CEO of Warner Music Nashville), the famous songwriters behind almost every hit in country music Luke Laird, Craig Wiseman, busbee, Chris DeStefano, Corey Crowder, Ross Copperman, Kelley Lovelace, etc.” The letter http://bit.ly/2zgS1rS

BONUS GREAT WEEKEND READS, curated by Daniel Lippman:

— “The war against Pope Francis,” by Andrew Brown in The Guardian: “His modesty and humility have made him a popular figure around the world. But inside the church, his reforms have infuriated conservatives and sparked a revolt.” http://bit.ly/2h3NHSt

— “The Other Foucault,” by Bruce Robbins in the Nation: “What led the French theorist of madness and sexuality to politics?” http://bit.ly/2zbWaLw

— “Western philosophy is racist,” by Bryan W. Van Norden in Aeon Magazine: “Academic philosophy in ‘the West’ ignores and disdains the thought traditions of China, India and Africa. This must change.” http://bit.ly/2lNlcgJ

— “Philadelphia’s Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” by Charles F. McElwee III in the American Conservative: “At the same time as the Parkway is struggling, Philadelphia is also experiencing a renaissance. Over the past decade, the city witnessed a boom in commercial and residential development, game-changing investments made by universities, and gentrifying neighborhoods that had recently suffered from crime and blight. The Fairmount neighborhood, near the Art Museum, has turned into a thriving residential quarter and a popular nightlife destination.” http://bit.ly/2A7ns4S

— “How to Replace a Ghost,” by Alan Massey in Longreads: “En route to a wedding, Alana Massey is haunted by the ghosts of relationships past.” http://bit.ly/2zdzpa5

— “Here’s Why Vaccines Are So Crucial,” by Cynthia Gorney in the Nov. issue of NatGeo: “If children in poor countries got the shots that rich countries take for granted, hundreds of thousands of young lives could be saved.” http://on.natgeo.com/2zbsvo1

— “The Sins of Leon Wieseltier,” by Joseph Epstein in the Weekly Standard: “The climb and fall.” http://tws.io/2zead3j

— “The Dialysis Machine,” by Anne Kim in the Nov./Dec. issue of Washington Monthly: “How Medicare steers low-income and minority kidney patients toward the hell of dialysis—and keeps two big companies rolling in profits.” http://bit.ly/2zhcyMF

— “Decriminalization: A Love Story,” by Susana Ferreira in the Common: “Portugal’s remarkable recovery, and the fact that it has held steady through several changes in government—including conservative leaders who would have rather ushered in a return of the War on Drugs—could not have happened without an enormous cultural shift and collective change of heart around how the country viewed drugs, addiction, and itself.” http://bit.ly/2zgAy2F

— “What Killed the Democratic Party?” by William Greider on the cover of the Nation: “A new report offers a bracing autopsy of the 2016 election—and lays out a plan for revitalization.” http://bit.ly/2h6CrEU … The cover http://politi.co/2zkvjyP

— “How Much is Too Much to Save a Dying Cat?” by s.e. smith in Longreads: “A series of losses prompts s.e. smith to wonder why, if it’s inevitable, we tend to view death as failure.” http://bit.ly/2zaKE31

— “The True, Twisted Story of Amityville Horror,” by Michelle Dean in Topic: “There were haunted houses before Amityville, of course, but no one place has made as deep an impression on American pop culture in the past half century or so as the notorious Long Island home, the site of a terrible murder and then the basis of scores of books and movies.” http://bit.ly/2xZU7bN (h/t Longform.org)

— “The Russian Spies Who Fooled Seattle,” by James Ross Gardner in Seattle Met: “Before hackers tried to sway the 2016 election or word spread that our new president might be compromised, a peculiar couple resided on Seattle’s Capitol Hill. Have we really taken stock of the spies who lived among us?” http://bit.ly/2j0CxC9

— “General David Petraeus: How The Best Leaders Inspire And Confront Failure” – Q&A by Zack Friedman in Forbes: http://bit.ly/2lNCLgH … Bloomberg Businessweek Q&A https://bloom.bg/2hbUGw6

— “Inside Trump’s Cruel Campaign Against the U.S.D.A.’s Scientists,” by Michael Lewis in the Nov. issue of Vanity Fair: “The folks at the Department of Agriculture laid on a friendly welcome for the Trump transition team, but they soon discovered that most of his appointees were stunningly unqualified. With key U.S.D.A. programs—from food stamps to meat inspection, to grants and loans for rural development, to school lunches—under siege, the agency’s greatest problem is that even the people it helps most don’t know what it does.” With a shout-out to Politico’s Jenny Hopkinson http://bit.ly/2iZ5azs

— “Weaken From Within,” by Hannes Grassegger and Mikael Krogerus on the cover of TNR: “Moscow has been honing an information age art of war—through fake news, disinformation, leaks, and trolling—for more than a decade. How can free societies protect themselves?” http://bit.ly/2ytaphS

DANIEL MITROVICH, author of a new book “Forever at the Finish Line,” with a foreword by former President Bill Clinton, tells the story of getting a life-size statue of New York Marathon founder Fred Lebow in Central Park. It would end up taking an army of politicos, including former President George H.W. Bush, VP Joe Biden, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, former Sens. Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.) and Al D’Amato (R-N.Y.), former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and 13 members of Congress. Mitrovich is running the Marathon today. Good luck to him and all the runners! $13.68 on Amazon http://amzn.to/2Ak54Xz

OUT AND ABOUT — Betsy Fischer Martin and Jonathan Martin, Hilary Rosen and Megan Murphy, Kelley and Brian McCormick, former Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) and Jeremy and Robyn Bash hosted a surprise birthday party last night for Tammy Haddad at Jose Andres’ restaurant FISH at the MGM National Harbor. 13 courses were served. Guests wore black and white wigs to surprise Tammy and the evening concluded with Jeremy Bash leading the crowd with his guitar singing “Country Road,” “Sweet Tammy” (a version of “Sweet Caroline”), and “Leaving on a Jet Plane.” JMart and others also took the mic to sing. PICS — Jeremy on the guitar and JMart, Patrick Steel and Lee Satterfield, Hilary Rosen, Heather Podesta and Tammy all singing http://bit.ly/2zg93UO … JMart with the mic http://bit.ly/2AlgpGv … Tammy about to blow out her cake http://bit.ly/2j2AhtS

SPOTTED: Greta Van Susteren and John Coale, Capricia and Rob Marshall, Carol Melton, Dan Meyers, Heather Podesta and Steve Kessler, Jim Popkin, Kevin Cirilli, Lee Satterfield and Patrick Steel, Marc Adelman, Polson Kanneth, Robin Goldman, Niki Christoff, Mike Allen, Ryan Williams, Kellie Meyer, Alice Lloyd, Jacqui and Keith Bloom, Kevin Letek.

SPOTTED at Taylor Lorenz’s going-away party at Satellite Room last night to toast her move to SF as the Daily Beast’s new tech reporter: Nikki Schwab, Neil Grace, Betsy Woodruff and Jonathan Swan, Sara Pearl Kenigsberg, Greg Overzat, Keturah Hetrick and Patrick Tucker, Asawin Suebsaeng, Lachlan Markay.

WEEKEND WEDDINGS — “David Chalian, Justin Bernstine” — N.Y. Times: “Mr. Chalian, 44, is a vice president of CNN in Washington, where he serves as political director, overseeing all the political coverage across all of CNN’s platforms. He graduated from Northwestern. … Dr. Bernstine, 39, is the assistant dean for undergraduate academic services in the School of Communication at American University in Washington. He graduated from Brown and received a doctoral in higher education administration from George Washington University. … The couple met online in October 2013.” With pic http://nyti.ms/2zzb1mi

— Sarah Kaplan and Joe Feinmann were married Saturday at sunset at Houston’s McGovern Centennial Gardens. Kaplan, who is from Houston, is staff director for the House Democratic Caucus’s Future Forum. Feinmann, from Scotland, works for PricewaterhouseCoopers. The traditional Jewish nuptials were officiated by Rabbi Steve Gross under a Chuppah made of the bride’s mother’s wedding gown and witnessed by family and friends. Pic http://bit.ly/2yxD6dD SPOTTED: Reps. Gene Green (D-Texas) and Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.); and Danielle Aviles Krueger, Cait McNamee, and Carly Reed.

— “Katey McCutcheon, Ryan Black” — Times: “The couple met at West Virginia University, from which they graduated. Mrs. Black, 25, is a deputy press secretary in Washington for Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia. … Mr. Black, 26, is a deputy sheriff at the Arlington County Sheriff’s Office.” With pic http://nyti.ms/2zeBC7r

— Zach Butterworth, former legislative director to former Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) who now works for New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, married Ariel Roland, Saturday night in St. Francisville, Louisiana. SPOTTED: Mary Landrieu, Mitch Landrieu and Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.).

BIRTHDAYS: John Harwood … NBC News D.C. bureau chief Ken Strickland … Valerie Biden Owens, E.V.P. at Joe Slade White and Co. … Politico’s Katy O’Donnell, who was surprised on Friday night with Neapolitan pizza, close friends and family (hat tip: Alyson Chwatek) … Nolan McCaskill … Benjamin Wittes, senior fellow at Brookings and editor-in-chief of Lawfare blog … Jason Calabretta, associate producer at “NBC Nightly News” … Autumn VandeHei (h/ts Jim VandeHei and Lisa Barclay) … Moira Whelan, partner at BlueDot Strategies (h/t Ben Chang) … Casey Smith, deputy director of the office of protocol and special events at USAID … HFA alum Heather Stone … Steve Pfister … Annie Kelly Kuhle, SVP at FP1 Strategies and Jeb alum (h/t Ryan Williams) … Stephen Rubright … WaPo senior correspondent Kevin Sullivan … New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu is 43 (h/t Ed Cash) … Tom Guthrie … Lori Sanders … Richard Parker … Trudy Vincent (h/t Jon Haber) … Keith Castaldo, general counsel to Sen. Gillibrand …

… Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.) is 75 … Camille von Kaenel … Jeremy Ravinsky … Curtis Skinner … Austin Butler … Zack Marshall … Kristin Bodenstedt … John Procter, EVP at Signal Group, is 38 (h/t Eric Bovim) … former Rep. Ben Quayle (R-Ariz.) … former Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.) … Corey Jones … Steve Caldeira … Chris Mewett … Susan Arbetter … Ryan Mewett … Malik Haughton … Ted Kulongoski … Joseph Perman … Kate Throneburg … Meryl Holt of the NYC Law Department … Jessica Harris … Ben Polk … Kim Griffin … Sheri Sweitzer … Jackie Boynton … Rick Leach … Karen Mulhauser … Janice Griffin … Craig Kirby … Evie deFrees (h/ts Teresa Vilmain)

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