{"id":"1794317659904-news-show_open","slug":"california-voters-reject-billionaire-tax","title":"California Voters Reject Billionaire Tax","summary":"Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), a retiring Trump critic, has reintroduced articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, forcing a House floor vote within two legislative days (expected by Nov. 11) unless Republicans move to kill it. The eight articles center on the Trump administration's war with Iran and other military actions, alleging violations of the War Powers Resolution because Congress neither declared war nor authorized force. Hegseth held a rare Pentagon briefing calling the effort \"a farce and a stunt\" and \"sabotage,\" while defending the Iran operation (Operation Epic Fury) as lawful and historic.\n\nImpeachment is politically significant because Democrats swept the midterms and will control the House in January, but Republicans still hold the majority now. Massie's privileged resolution forces a vote while the GOP still controls the chamber. The push reflects Democratic anger over the Iran war and a belief that impeaching Hegseth may be more achievable than impeaching Trump, per legal expert Stanley Brand. Hegseth and Trump argue the military actions were lawful and successful, citing historical precedent and framing the impeachment as partisan revenge.\n\nThe House has impeached only two Cabinet secretaries: Secretary of War William Belknap in 1876 and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in 2024 — neither case involved \"carrying out lawful military operations,\" so Hegseth's narrow claim holds. This is a live-coverage announcement, not a factual claim. (The Pentagon briefing did occur.)\n\nHegseth did use this language, calling the impeachment effort \"a farce and a stunt... driven by ego and resentment\" aimed at Rep. Thomas Massie.\n\nHegseth explicitly compared his impeachment to Trump's two prior impeachments, saying \"we've seen this show before\" and predicting it would fail the same way. This is Hegseth's subjective praise of Trump's leadership — opinion, not a checkable factual claim.\n\nThe House is indeed set to vote on impeaching Heg","publishedAt":"2026-11-10T13:34:19.904Z","channel":{"id":"news","name":"Oncast News","language":"en"},"show":"Morning Briefing","verification":{"status":"verified","leadVerdict":"TRUE","notes":"TRUE: The House has impeached only two Cabinet secretaries: Secretary of War William Belknap in 1876 and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in 2024 — neither case involved \"carrying out lawful military operations,\" so Hegseth's narrow claim holds. This is a live-coverage announcement, not a factual claim. (The Pentagon briefing did occur.)\nSource: [politifact.com](https://politifact.com/article/2026/11/09/hegseth-impeachment-house-massie-jefferson/) NAMES: None. POST 2120140193671819571: NOCLAIM [bbc.com] (https://x.com/FoxNews/status/2120142239229673568)\n\nTRUE: Hegseth did use this language, calling the impeachment effort \"a farce and a stunt... driven by ego and resentment\" aimed at Rep. Thomas Massie.\nSource: [bbc.com](https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cq1j3jngn81dt) NAMES: None. (https://x.com/FoxNews/status/2120141790988607590)\n\nTRUE: Hegseth explicitly compared his impeachment to Trump's two prior impeachments, saying \"we've seen this show before\" and predicting it would fail the same way. This is Hegseth's subjective praise of Trump's leadership — opinion, not a checkable factual claim.\nSource: [bbc.com](https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cq1j3jngn81dt) NAMES: None. POST 2120145279978479818: NOCLAIM None. NAMES: None. (https://x.com/FoxNews/status/2120143975117885911)\n\nTRUE: The House is indeed set to vote on impeaching Hegseth (likely by Nov. 11 unless Republicans kill it), and removal in the Senate would be difficult. SCOTUS also ruled a federal judge lacked authority to halt border wall construction. NPR's own Planet Money analysis of Prop 40; source-labeled news commentary, not a third-party factual claim to verify.\nSource: [npr.org](https://www.npr.org/2026/11/10/g-s1-152777/up-first-newsletter-pete-hegseth-impeachment-trump-iran-nvidia-border-wall-texas); [politifact.com](https:/ (https://www.npr.org/2026/11/10/g-s1-152777/up-first-newsletter-pete-hegseth-impeachment-trump-iran-nvidia-border-wall-texas)","claims":[{"verdict":"TRUE","summary":"The House has impeached only two Cabinet secretaries: Secretary of War William Belknap in 1876 and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in 2024 — neither case involved \"carrying out lawful military operations,\" so Hegseth's narrow claim holds. This is a live-coverage announcement, not a factual claim. (The Pentagon briefing did occur.)","sourceName":"[politifact.com](https://politifact.com/article/2026/11/09/hegseth-impeachment-house-massie-jefferson/) NAMES: None. POST 2120140193671819571: NOCLAIM [bbc.com]","sourceUrl":"https://x.com/FoxNews/status/2120142239229673568","claim":"NEW: “No Secretary of War or Secretary of Defense has ever been impeached for carrying out lawful military operations.” Secretary Pete Hegseth pushes back against an impeachment threat, pointing to 250 years of American history and military operations under presidents from both h","author":"Fox News (@FoxNews)"},{"verdict":"TRUE","summary":"Hegseth did use this language, calling the impeachment effort \"a farce and a stunt... driven by ego and resentment\" aimed at Rep. Thomas Massie.","sourceName":"[bbc.com](https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cq1j3jngn81dt) NAMES: None.","sourceUrl":"https://x.com/FoxNews/status/2120141790988607590","claim":"BREAKING: “It’s a political spectacle, a personal manifesto driven by ego and resentment.” Secretary of War Pete Hegseth blasts Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie and his impeachment efforts, accusing him of using his final days in Congress to target President Trump and the h","author":"Fox News (@FoxNews)"},{"verdict":"TRUE","summary":"Hegseth explicitly compared his impeachment to Trump's two prior impeachments, saying \"we've seen this show before\" and predicting it would fail the same way. This is Hegseth's subjective praise of Trump's leadership — opinion, not a checkable factual claim.","sourceName":"[bbc.com](https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cq1j3jngn81dt) NAMES: None. POST 2120145279978479818: NOCLAIM None. NAMES: None.","sourceUrl":"https://x.com/FoxNews/status/2120143975117885911","claim":"BREAKING: War Secretary Pete Hegseth compares impeachment efforts targeting him to the two impeachment proceedings against President Trump during his first term, accusing political opponents of attempting the same strategy against the current administration. “Now they’re trying h","author":"Fox News (@FoxNews)"},{"verdict":"TRUE","summary":"The House is indeed set to vote on impeaching Hegseth (likely by Nov. 11 unless Republicans kill it), and removal in the Senate would be difficult. SCOTUS also ruled a federal judge lacked authority to halt border wall construction. NPR's own Planet Money analysis of Prop 40; source-labeled news commentary, not a third-party factual claim to verify.","sourceName":"[npr.org](https://www.npr.org/2026/11/10/g-s1-152777/up-first-newsletter-pete-hegseth-impeachment-trump-iran-nvidia-border-wall-texas); [politifact.com](https:/","sourceUrl":"https://www.npr.org/2026/11/10/g-s1-152777/up-first-newsletter-pete-hegseth-impeachment-trump-iran-nvidia-border-wall-texas","claim":"House set to vote to impeach Hegseth. And, SCOTUS allows border wall work to proceed - The House could vote to impeach Hegseth, but removing him from office will be tough. And, SCOTUS ruled that a federal judge did not have the authority to halt border wall construction.","author":"NPR"}]},"sources":[{"url":"https://x.com/FoxNews/status/2120142239229673568","name":"[politifact.com](https://politifact.com/article/2026/11/09/hegseth-impeachment-house-massie-jefferson/) NAMES: None. POST 2120140193671819571: NOCLAIM [bbc.com]","kind":"x","verdict":"TRUE","author":"Fox News (@FoxNews)"},{"url":"https://x.com/FoxNews/status/2120141790988607590","name":"[bbc.com](https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cq1j3jngn81dt) NAMES: None.","kind":"x","verdict":"TRUE","author":"Fox News (@FoxNews)"},{"url":"https://x.com/FoxNews/status/2120143975117885911","name":"[bbc.com](https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cq1j3jngn81dt) NAMES: None. POST 2120145279978479818: NOCLAIM None. NAMES: None.","kind":"x","verdict":"TRUE","author":"Fox News (@FoxNews)"},{"url":"https://www.npr.org/2026/11/10/g-s1-152777/up-first-newsletter-pete-hegseth-impeachment-trump-iran-nvidia-border-wall-texas","name":"[npr.org](https://www.npr.org/2026/11/10/g-s1-152777/up-first-newsletter-pete-hegseth-impeachment-trump-iran-nvidia-border-wall-texas); [politifact.com](https:/","kind":"news","verdict":"TRUE","author":"NPR"}],"url":"https://oncast.fm/story/1794317659904-news-show_open-california-voters-reject-billionaire-tax","listenUrl":"https://oncast.fm/c/news","attribution":{"publisher":"Oncast","site":"https://oncast.fm","url":"https://oncast.fm/story/1794317659904-news-show_open-california-voters-reject-billionaire-tax","cite":"Cite https://oncast.fm/story/1794317659904-news-show_open-california-voters-reject-billionaire-tax and the original source links. Fact-check by Oncast (oncast.fm)."},"hostsSaid":[{"host":"Brian","text":"Morning Briefing, I'm Brian. California just voted down a billionaire tax, and now the economists are fighting over why."},{"host":"Bella","text":"And I'm Bella. The state that taxes everything just said no to taxing billionaires more. That's a political earthquake."},{"host":"Brian","text":"NPR's Planet Money asks why California's billionaire tax failed to surf the blue wave."},{"host":"Bella","text":"Blue wave? California just rejected the tax. That's the wave crashing."},{"host":"Brian","text":"No, voters rejected this tax, not the whole idea. There's a difference."},{"host":"Bella","text":"The state that elected every progressive under the sun just said no to a wealth tax. That should worry the movement."},{"host":"Brian","text":"Or it means voters heard the argument that rich people will leave and took it seriously."},{"host":"Bella","text":"Rich people already leave California. This was a chance to make them pay."},{"host":"Brian","text":"And drive out more? That's the whole debate, Bella. You don't tax your way out of an exodus."},{"host":"Bella","text":"They're not leaving because of taxes—they're leaving because housing is impossible."},{"host":"Brian","text":"Sure, and the tax bill never matters. Come on."},{"host":"Bella","text":"You can't keep cutting services and then wonder why people leave."},{"host":"Brian","text":"No, you can't keep raising rates and then wonder why job creators leave."},{"host":"Bella","text":"My take: California voters are more practical than the legislature gives them credit for."},{"host":"Brian","text":"Mine is the movement just learned a hard lesson—if you can't win in California, you can't sell it anywhere."},{"host":"Bella","text":"NPR has two economists debating this right now. One says the movement is dead, the other says wait for the next crisis."},{"host":"Brian","text":"That's the only thing they agree on: it's not settled. Fine."},{"host":"Brian","text":"Still in politics—DIN Intel Network posted a clip on X of Thomas Massie saying the quiet part out loud."},{"host":"Bella","text":"Which part?"},{"host":"Brian","text":"Massie's exact words: 'We control the House, Senate, Supreme Court, and the White House, and we're yelling election fraud?' Then he adds, 'we won all the damn elections.'"},{"host":"Bella","text":"He's not wrong. It is a strange thing for a party in total control to claim the system is rigged."},{"host":"Brian","text":"Massie is also retiring and loves throwing grenades. So take it with salt."},{"host":"Bella","text":"He still said it. And he's a Republican. That gives it a different sting."},{"host":"Brian","text":"Sure, but the complaint isn't that Republicans lost; it's that specific races had problems. Those aren't the same."},{"host":"Bella","text":"That's exactly the kind of thing that sounds like an excuse after you won everything."},{"host":"Brian","text":"Oh, come on. You can win the White House and still question a county's ballot count. That's not hypocrisy."},{"host":"Bella","text":"Maybe. But when your own guy says it's ironic, that's a problem for the message."},{"host":"Brian","text":"Massie says it because he's never met a Republican leadership he wouldn't fight. This is his goodbye tour."},{"host":"Bella","text":"Fine, the clip's real. The question is whether it lands."},{"host":"Brian","text":"Speaking of money: CNN posted on X that Anthropic may price its shares as high as seventy-eight dollars."},{"host":"Bella","text":"That's a giant number. But there's no official confirmation yet. CNN says 'plans.'"},{"host":"Brian","text":"Right, so treat it as early. Still, a reported trillion-dollar valuation for an AI company going public would be about as big as it gets."},{"host":"Bella","text":"Investors once hoped for more. The report says the valuation is less than they wanted."},{"host":"Brian","text":"So the AI boom is cooling? Or sanity is returning."},{"host":"Bella","text":"Maybe both. Anthropic makes Claude, one of the big AI assistants. Real product, real revenue."},{"host":"Brian","text":"Real revenue, but still a race that burns billions. A high IPO price isn't a business model."},{"host":"Bella","text":"Neither is staying private and starving competitors of capital. They have to scale."},{"host":"Brian","text":"Fine, but I'd want more than a high share price before calling it the next great American company."},{"host":"Bella","text":"Today it's a report, not a prospectus. We'll see if the number holds."},{"host":"Brian","text":"Let's get serious for a minute. NPR has a report from Ethiopia that is hard to read."},{"host":"Bella","text":"Renewed fighting has flooded one emergency room with war trauma patients. A surgeon described a brutal week in September."},{"host":"Brian","text":"This is what collapse looks like up close. Not numbers, just a room full of wounded people."},{"host":"Bella","text":"NPR says the healthcare system is close to collapse after seven days of chaos."},{"host":"Brian","text":"And that's one hospital. The country has been at war on and off for years. This is the human cost of a conflict the headlines mostly ignore."},{"host":"Bella","text":"I wouldn't say the headlines ignore it. It's that too many crises compete for the same ten minutes."},{"host":"Brian","text":"That's fair. But one flooded ER is enough to warrant more than ten minutes."},{"host":"Bella","text":"We should all sit with that. It's a reminder that the rest of the world doesn't pause for our politics."},{"host":"Brian","text":"We'll keep an eye on it."}]}