The Commentariat -- November 16, 2017

Afternoon Update:

Thomas Kaplan & Alan Rappeport of the New York Times: "The House passed a sweeping rewrite of the tax code on Thursday, taking a significant leap forward as Republicans seek to enact $1.5 trillion in tax cuts for businesses and individuals and deliver the first major legislative achievement of President Trump's tenure. The House voted to 227 to 205 to approve the bill, shortly after Mr. Trump came to Capitol Hill to address House Republicans. Thirteen Republicans voted against the bill, and zero Democrats voted for it. The Republicans who voted no were from New York, New Jersey, California and North Carolina." ...

... The Rich Get Richer & the Poor Get Poorer. New York Times: "The Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress's bipartisan referee on tax policy,said on Thursday that the amended Senate's version of the tax bill will raise taxes on low-income Americans beginning in 2021, in what appears to be a side effect of the bill's decision to repeal the so-called individual mandate that requires most people buy health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. Because of this decision, the joint committee's analysis showed that taxpayers earning less than $40,000 would see their tax bills go up in the second half of the next decade. The committee also forecast that taxpayers earning $75,000 or less would see, as a group, large tax increases in 2027, if the individual tax cuts in the bill expire as scheduled at the end of 2025.... Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, the Republican chairman of the finance committee, said that the appearance of a tax increase was a mirage that is the result of arcane scoring rules." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: No doubt people struggling to get by will enjoy their tasty soupe du mirage, will imagine the electricity is still on, & won't even see that illusionary red ink in their bank statement. Or at least the ones who aren't dead from lack of health care will. Ain't we got fun.

Thomas Moriarty of NJ.com: "A hopelessly deadlocked jury brought an end to the corruption trial of U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez Thursday with the declaration of a mistrial, after a contentious 11-week courtroom drama that concluded without a final act. The government now must decide whether to retry the Democratic lawmaker from New Jersey and co-defendant Salomon Melgen, a wealthy Florida ophthalmologist, who are accused of swapping lavish gifts for government favors."

Amy Wang, et al., of the Washington Post: "Broadcaster and model Leeann Tweeden said Thursday that Al Franken 'forcibly kissed' and groped her during a USO tour in 2006, two years before the Minnesota Democrat's election to the U.S. Senate -- prompting Franken to apologize and call for a Senate ethics investigation into his actions. 'You knew exactly what you were doing,' Tweeden wrote in a blog post for Los Angeles radio station KABC, for which she works as a morning news anchor. 'You forcibly kissed me without my consent, grabbed my breasts while I was sleeping and had someone take a photo of you doing it, knowing I would see it later and be ashamed.'... Tweeden's blog post included an image of Franken looking into a camera, his hands either over or on Tweeden's chest as she slept.... Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Franken's home state colleague, also didn't immediately respond to inquiries. She is co-sponsor of a bill unanimously approved by the Senate last week that will mandate sexual harassment training for all senators and their staffs.... On Tuesday, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) announced that the House will adopt a policy change to make anti-harassment training mandatory for all members and staff. That announcement followed a congressional hearing during which members publicly came to terms with sexual harassment as a pervasive problem on Capitol Hill. Female lawmakers aired tantalizing details, albeit without naming names, of unwanted sexual comments and advances taking place in their midst." ...

... Esme Cribb of TPM: "Sen. Al Franken (D-MN), accused on Thursday of forcibly kissing and groping a woman on a USO tour in 2006 before he was in office, has made the prevention of sexual assault and violence against women one of his signature issues as a lawmaker. Franken on Thursday said he 'certainly' did not remember the incident 'in the same way' as Leeann Tweeden, who accused Franken of kissing her over her protestations and later groping her in a photograph. Franken offered his 'sincerest apologies.'" ...

... Via Politico, here's the text of Franken's full apology, made after his initial statement. ...

... Philip Bump of the Washington Post looks at immediate fallout & possible consequences for Franken. ...

... Steve M.: "... if Franken stays, every Alabama Republican voter who's on the fence about Roy Moore receives a Get Out of Moral Quandary Free card. Hey, the lib harasser gets to stay, so hell yeah, I'm voting for Roy Moore. I still think a Doug Jones victory in Alabama is a long shot, though people who are smarter than I am think it's possible. But it won't be possible if Franken hangs on. That's not the main reason he should go. But he should go."

Oliver Darcy of CNN: "U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore published an open letter to Sean Hannity on Wednesday night pushing back against allegations of sexual abuse.... In the letter, which came one night after Hannity said he would give Moore 24 hours to explain inconsistencies in how he has addressed the allegations before calling on him to step aside in the race, Moore [wrote]..., 'I am suffering the same treatment other Republicans have had to endure.'... Moore said in his letter to Hannity that he was 'in the process of investigating' what he characterized as 'false allegations.'... Hannity responded to Moore's letter at the end of his Wednesday night program and said that the allegations against Moore 'are beyond disturbing and serious.' But Hannity declined to drop his support for Moore...."

Natasha Bertrand of Business Insider: "... Jared Kushner forwarded emails concerning a 'Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite' to Trump campaign officials and failed to produce those emails to the Senate Judiciary Committee, says a letter the senators sent Kushner's lawyer on Thursday. Kushner also failed to produce emails on which he was copied involving communication with WikiLeaks and with a Belarusan-American businessman named Sergei Millian, the senators said. Millian most recently headed a group called the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce.... The senators also saidKushner had not produced any phone records.... The Wall Street Journal and ABC reported earlier this year that Millian was 'Source E' in the dossier alleging ties between Trump and Russia."

Sean Illing of Vox: "'Politicians lie, but this is different,' says [Robert Dallek] a historian who studies presidential history, and estimates the Trump administration easily ranks among the most corrupt in American history.... Dallek estimates that historical examples of corruption, like that of the Warren G. Harding administration, don't hold a candle to how Trump and his people have conducted themselves in the White House. History will judge Trump, and it will not be kind." Illing interviews Dallek.

*****

AFP/Getty Image by Herika Martinez.... Shame on the USA. You Risked Your Lives for the U.S. Now Get Out. Kristine Phillips of the Washington Post: The men on the Cordova International Bridge between El Paso, Texas, & Juarez, Mexico, are deported U.S. veterans saluting the American flag & a pair of empty boots, on Memorial Day 2017, to pay homage to fallen U.S. soldiers. The photo went viral on Veterans Day.

Trump Has His Marco Moment:

Small Hands, Smaller-Minded. Trump Calls for Tribute. AP: "... Donald Trump is asking whether three UCLA basketball players released from detention in China will thank him. Trump said he raised their case with China's president when he visited Xi Jinping ... in Beijing last week. Freshmen LiAngelo Ball, Jalen Hill and Cody Riley returned to Los Angeles on Tuesday and ignored questions from reporters. Trump returned late Tuesday from a trip through Asia and tweeted Wednesday: 'Do you think the three UCLA Basketball Players will say thank you President Trump? They were headed for 10 years in jail!'" ...

... Even Chris Cillizza, not the sharpest tack on the board, gets this right: "Larry Scott, the PAC-12 commissioner -- the conference that includes UCLA -- quickly issued a statement thanking Trump. "We want to thank the President, the White House and the US State Department for their efforts towards resolution," said Scott. That 'thank you' is apparently not enough for Trump, at least according to his tweet. He wants the actual players -- LiAngelo Ball, Cody Riley and Jalen Hill -- to say 'thank you.' That the three players are all young black men should also not be lost here.... Part of being President is trying to get US citizens out of dicey situations in foreign countries.... Even if you take out the racial element, what Trump is asking for is to be thanked (or, more accurately, thanked by the 'right' people) for doing his job." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Trump's appeal is not just asking for high-profile public praise; it also is meant to suggest that black people expect to get everything handed to them, so if any ever showed gratitude for one of the handouts he's used to getting, it would be unusual for a person of his race. Every president I can remember has worked to get Americans abroad out of trouble, & not a one ever demanded praise for it.

... Update. Adam Raymond of New York: "President Trump got the public praise he was looking for Wednesday after helping to bring home three UCLA basketball players arrested for shoplifting in China. Cody Riley, Jalen Hill, and LiAngelo Ball, brother of Lakers rookie Lonzo Ball, appeared at a press conference Wednesday morning and all three thanked Trump by name.... On Tuesday Trump told reporters he put a word in with Chinese president Xi Jinping. 'The basketball players, by the way -- I know a lot of people are asking -- I will tell you, when I heard about it two days ago, I had a great conversation with President Xi,' he said. 'What they did was unfortunate. You know, you're talking about very long prison sentences. [The Chinese] do not play games.' Neither Trump's suggestion of a 'very long' prison sentence or a full decade in jail is in line with Chinese law, as the Washington Post reports.... The U.S. State Department also assisted in the effort, as did Jack Ma, the billionaire CEO of the Chinese shopping giant Alibaba, a sponsor of the Shanghai game. But Trump was the only one to make a personal plea for gratitude." ...

... China, BTW, is not saying whether or not Trump had anything to do with the men's release: "'I am not aware of the details,' Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said Wednesday, 'But I believe the Chinese police would have handled the case in strict accordance with the law.'" Jen Kirby of Vox has more detail on the saga.

IRS Building a Safe for Trump's Tax Returns. Michael Grunwald of Politico Magazine: "In an hourlong conversation with Politico Magazine's Michael Grunwald, [retiring IRS Commissioner John] Koskinen ... discussed Democratic concerns that ... Donald Trump and his appointees could breach the independence of the IRS, using the agency to harass or persecute his enemies. Koskinen doesn't share those concerns -- not because of his faith in Trump, but because of his faith in the IRS staff and the strict rules governing the integrity of its audits and investigations.... He hasn't spoken to Trump or anyone in the White House in 2017, even though he's known the president since they negotiated the sale of the Commodore Hotel in New York City in 1975. He's never looked up Trump's tax returns -- legally, he can't, and neither can any other IRS employee who isn't working on them -- and says the agency not only keeps them in a locked cabinet in a locked room, but is replacing the cabinet with a safe." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: The expensive safe likely would not be necessary if Trump -- like every other top presidential candidate in the last decades -- had released recent returns to the public.

Darren Samuelsohn of Politico: "Special counsel Robert Mueller's team is preparing to interview the woman who's seen it all: Hope Hicks.... As a senior White House adviser and now as communications director, she's been in the room for moments critical to Mueller's probe, which has grown to include the president's response to the Russia investigation itself." ...

... WTF? Noor Al-Sibai of RawStory: "A lawyer working to get charges against now-infamous Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos dismissed has claimed that special prosecutor Robert Mueller tried to have him killed.... As the New York Times' Adam Goldman noted, this lawyer tried to do the same for former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. Earlier in the day, legal reporters had expressed confusion after discovering that someone had filed a motion to dismiss the indictment against Papadopoulos." --safari: I'm smelling the thick sweat of panicked desperation in the air. ...

... Alex Hern of the Guardian: "It is impossible to accurately estimate the number of Russian state-sponsored accounts operating on Twitter and Facebook. Researchers come up with a wide range of possibilities, suggesting that Russian interference in British political and cultural life could come from anywhere between 50 and 150,000 accounts. The explanation for this is not because the Russians are particularly secretive or expert at covering their tracks, but the attitude of Twitter and Facebook who fight attempts by independent researchers to come up with an answer.... The problem for all the researchers is that only one organisation has the data they need, and Twitter is not willing to share it." --safari ...

... "In Cahoots". Bill Buzenburg in Mother Jones: "On Monday, The Atlantic published private messages from September 2016 in which WikiLeaks gave Donald Trump Jr. the password to a forthcoming site documenting his father's ties to Russia. But there was more to the story of WikiLeaks' apparent effort to conspire with the Trump campaign against PutinTrump.org -- and I had a front-row seat to it, as editorial director of the site. Within just minutes of reaching out to Trump Jr., WikiLeaks also publicized the password, setting off a wave of online harassment, email bombs, and personal threats against people behind the site. Here's the deeper story." --safari...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I don't see why Buzenburg didn't just change the password -- which wasn't exactly difficult to guess -- & delete all the alt-right crap. ...

Illustration needs weird orange combover.... Even the Intercept Has Turned on Assange. Robert Mackey of the Intercept: "Before his private messages to Trump Jr. were leaked, [Julian] Assange himself had categorically denied that he or WikiLeaks had been attacking Hillary Clinton to help elect Donald Trump. 'This is not due to a personal desire to influence the outcome of the election,' he wrote in a statement released on November 8 as Americans went to the polls. Even though Assange had by then transformed the WikiLeaks Twitter feed into a vehicle for smearing Clinton, he insisted that his work was journalistic in nature.... While WikiLeaks has undoubtedly facilitated the release of information that is both true and important, it is Assange's Trump-like willingness to traffic in ... unsubstantiated rumors, conspiracy theories, and innuendo not supported by evidence that undermines his claim to be a disinterested publisher, not a political operative."

... ** Luke Harding of the Guardian has a long read on "The inside story of how a former British spy was hired to investigate Russia's influence on Trump -- and uncovered explosive evidence that Moscow had been cultivating Trump for years." --safari ...

... Russians Meddled in Brexit Vote. David Kirkpatrick of the New York Times: "More than 150,000 Russian-language Twitter accounts posted tens of thousands of messages in English urging Britain to leave the European Union in the days before last year's referendum on the issue, a team of researchers disclosed on Wednesday. More than 400 of the accounts that Twitter has already identified to congressional investigators as tools of the Kremlin, other researchers said, also posted divisive messages about Britain's decision on withdrawing from the bloc, or Brexit, both before and after the vote. Most of the messages sought to inflame fears about Muslims and immigrants to help drive the vote, suggesting parallels to the strategy that Russian propagandists employed in the United States in the 2016 election to try to intensify the polarization of the electorate."

Junior bags an elephant, poses with severed tail.Stephanie Ebbs of ABC News: "The Trump administration plans to allow hunters to import trophies of elephants they killed in Zimbabwe and Zambia back to the United States, reversing a ban put in place by the Obama administration in 2014, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service official confirmed to ABC News today. Even though elephants are listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act, a provision in the act allows the government to give permits to import these trophies if there is evidence that the hunting actually benefits conservation for that species. The official said they have new information from officials in Zimbabwe and Zambia to support reversing the ban to allow trophy hunting permits." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Probably Dad's gift to Junior for doing such a great job with the Russia thing.

Stupidest Senator Makes Sense. Alan Rappeport & Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: Ron Johnson, (R-Wis.) "became the first senator in his party to declare that he could not vote for the tax bill as written, and other senators expressed serious misgivings over the cost and effect on the middle class. The House is set on Thursday to pass its own version of the tax bill, which would cut taxes by more than $1.4 trillion over 10 years and broadly rewrite the business tax code. But as with the health care debate earlier this year, the Senate emerged as the inconstant ally in President Trump's pursuit of a major legislative accomplishment in his first year. [Johnson] came out against both chambers' tax plans on Wednesday, saying that the bills favored corporations over small businesses and other so-called pass-through entities, whose owners pay taxes on profits through the tax code for individuals." ...

... Paul Waldman sums up the tax "reform" bill: "The Republican tax bill raises taxes on somewhere between 16 million (Senate version) and 47 million (House version) American households; the difference is mostly because the Senate bill doesn't get rid of as many deductions as the House bill. Most of the benefits of the tax bill go to the wealthy and corporations. It may raise taxes on people with large medical expenses, and parents who adopt children, and people with student loans, and graduate students (these provisions are in the House bill, which ends these deductions, but not the Senate bill). It raises taxes on people who live in states with significant state and local taxes, because it does away with this deduction (in both versions). Because it eliminates personal exemptions, it raises taxes on many families with multiple children (in both versions). It will increase insurance premiums and lead to 13 million fewer Americans with health coverage. It could trigger a $25 billion cut to Medicare because of existing budget rules. If you had to sum it up simply..., you could say that Republicans are raising taxes on millions of Americans and taking away health insurance from millions more, all to pay for a huge giveaway to corporations."

Hannah Levintova of Mother Jones: "On Monday, the Senate Banking Committee announced that it struck a rare bipartisan deal to deregulate banks. The deal would gut several of the protections enacted in 2010 in response to the financial crisis as part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, most notably a key rule requiring that 'Too Big To Fail' banks -- those with more than $50 billion in assets -- undergo stricter oversight. The deal is backed by nine Democrats.... The total number of financial institutions subject to this highest level of supervision would drop from 40 to about 12. This same deregulation was proposed this summer by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, an alum of Goldman Sachs, and a number of the banks that would be excluded have failed stress tests in the past." --safari

Ben Protess & Jessica Silver-Greenberg of the New York Times: "After the financial crisis in 2008, the Obama administration turned one of the banking industry's friendliest regulators into one of its toughest. But that agency is now starting to look like its old self -- and becoming a vital player in the Trump administration's campaign to roll back regulations. The regulator, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which oversees the nation's biggest banks, has made it easier for Wall Street to offer high-interest, payday-style loans. It has softened a policy for punishing banks suspected of discriminatory lending. And it has clashed with another federal regulator that pushed to give consumers greater power to sue financial institutions. The shift, detailed in government memos and interviews with current and former regulators, is unfolding without congressional action or a rule-making process. It is happening instead through directives issued at the stroke of a pen by the agency's interim leader, Keith A. Noreika, who -- like the nominee to fill the post going forward -- has deep connections to the industry." ...

... 'Twas Nice While It Lasted. Alan Pyke of ThinkProgress: "Consumer Financial Protection Bureau chief Richard Cordray plans to leave the agency several months shy of the expiration of his five-year term.... Cordray's abrupt departure comes after years of work by Wall Street's allies in Congress to strip the agency of its independence, an effort for which the CFPB's director was a natural lightning rod.... It's unclear who President Donald Trump might turn to as a replacement in the meantime as those efforts continue on Capitol Hill. But if the notoriously distractible administration cares to move quickly here, it has a number of available candidates suited to replace Cordray's pragmatic approach with right-wing economic ideology." --safari: Expect the worst.

Trump U Spite. Edwin Rios of Mother Jones: "For-profit college magnates Corinthian Colleges and ITT Technical Institute shuttered operations in recent years after facing state and federal investigations into fraudulent and predatory practices.... The Department of Education under President Barack Obama made it easier for students to submit 'borrower defense claims' to try and recoup the funds. By January 2017, the administration announced it had granted more than $650 million in relief.... Since Donald Trump took office, the approval of such claims has ground to a halt.... In 10 months, the Trump administration has yet to approve a single claim." --safari...

Betsy Woodruff of The Daily Beast: "The number of leak probes run out of the Justice Department has increased 800%, according to testimony Attorney General Jeff Sessions delivered [Tuesday] on Capitol Hill.... Sessions said the Justice Department currently has 27 open investigations into these matters. He added that in the previous three years, there have been a total of nine such investigations -- just three last year. A nine-fold increase, in other words.... 'In the whole history of the country, there have only been about a dozen prosecutions for leaks,' said Ben Wizner, an attorney with the ACLU who also represents Edward Snowden. 'So the 27 number, if it's real, is staggering.'" --safari

Chris Geidner of BuzzFeed: Louis Gohmert "Brought This Chart To An Important Hearing And Everyone Is Very Confused." Mrs. McC: This report is starred not because the post is insightful or important, but because it is hilarious. Before linking to Geidner's post, you might want to read Akhilleus' analysis in yesterday's thread, which is what brought this moment of levity to my attention. I can't stop laughing. (Also linked late yesterday morning.)

The AP in the Guardian: "Papa John's has apologized for comments made by CEO John Schnatter blaming sluggish pizza sales on NFL players kneeling during the national anthem.... Schnatter donated to Donald Trump's presidential campaign. Papa John's added that it is 'open to ideas from all. Except neo-nazis.' It has previously tried to distance itself from white supremacists who praised Schnatter's comments, saying it does not want those groups to buy its pizza. The company's stock has fallen by nearly 13% since Schnatter's comments." --safari

Senate Race

Alan Blinder of the New York Times: "Alabama's increasingly bizarre Senate race was convulsed again on Wednesday as four more women came forward to describe encounters with the Republican candidate, Roy S. Moore, and Mr. Moore's campaign sharply questioned the credibility of another accuser."

Stephanie McCrummen, et al., of the Washington Post: Another woman, Gena Richardson, gives a detailed account of Roy Moore's pursuing her when she was about 18 years old & working at the Gadsden Mall. When she turned him down for a date, he called her at her high school. Later, he lured her into his car & gave her a "forceful," unwanted kiss. Richardson said she was afraid of Moore, & a friend & co-worker -- who today backs up her report -- would warn her when Moore came into the store so Richardson could escape to a back room. Others say that Moore trolled young women & girls working at the mall. Becky Gray, who also worked at the mall & was 22 at the time "says Moore kept asking her out and she kept saying no." Moore's persistence made her uncomfortable, & when she complained to the store manager, he told her that hers was not the first complaint about Moore. ...

... Anna Vollers of AL.com: "A Gadsden woman [-- Tina Johnson --] says Roy Moore groped her while she was in his law office on legal business with her mother in 1991. Moore was married at that time." Johnson was 28. ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Like most sexual predators, Moore picked on vulnerable women. These young women were working in capacities (store clerks, a waitress) in which they were required to be nice to customers. If a well-dressed man walked into the socks department in 1980 & asked the clerk for a date or flattered her in an inappropriate way, she couldn't just tell him to fuck off. ...

... AND Moore Continues to Try to Intimidate. Nicole Lafond of TPM: "An attorney for Alabama Senate Republican candidate Roy Moore's wife and his Foundation for Moral Law has sent a letter to a local news outlet asking the newspaper to retract stories about allegations of sexual misconduct against Moore and threatening to sue, according to several reports.... AL.com's publisher, Alabama Media Group, is standing by its reporting." ...

... Sean Sullivan, et al., of the Washington Post: "Senate Republicans turned to President Trump on Wednesday in hopes he would join their urgent attempt to force GOP nominee Roy Moore out of the Senate race in Alabama following allegations of sexual misconduct -- but Trump did not oblige. Instead, back in Washington after a 12-day Asia trip, Trump was silent on Moore.... His daughter Ivanka Trump, however, voiced confidence in Moore's accusers and said there is 'a special place in hell for people who prey on children' in comments to the Associated Press. She did not call for Moore to step aside." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Is there "a special place in hell" for a man who says publicly that he'd like to date his own daughter because she's so hot? BTW, the headline on the WashPo story is hilarious: "Senate Republicans look to Trump to restore order amid Alabama upheaval." Good luck to anybody who wants President Chaos to "restore order" to anything as complicated as his sock drawer. ...

... Jeremy Diamond & Jeff Zeleny of CNN: "Behind the scenes, the President and his advisers are closely watching the developments in Alabama's special election.... That includes, in particular, the reaction of influential conservative supporters such as Fox News host Sean Hannity.... Trump, one source said, believes the allegations of child sexual abuse and sexual assault against Moore are bad for the Republican brand.... In conversations in the West Wing on Wednesday, Trump expressed apprehension about being dragged into the topic of sexual assault or harassment if he weighs in.... [T]he President believes his accusers were unfair and some of Moore's may be, too." -- safari: This entire article is outrageous in the callousness and absolute cowardice of the entire Trump administration, from its rotten head to its fetid feet. ...

... Rick Hasen explains why a couple of Republicans ideas to get themselves out of the Moore Mess violate the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Mrs. McC: So far, it appears there are no good options for Republicans. For Alabama & the nation, of course, the best option would be for Alabama's voters to choose Democrat Doug Jones. ...

... Brett Samuels of the Hill: "An attorney for Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore seemed to suggest Wednesday that MSNBC host Ali Velshi's 'background' might help the journalist understand why the Republican nominee would date underage women." When Velshi's co-host Stephanie Ruhle challenged him, attorney Trenton Garmon said, something something, Kenya, something, arranged marriages. Because you can't say Muslim, Muslim, Muslim on the teevee. Mrs. McC: BTW, I have no idea if Velshi is Muslim, but I found out from the segment that he's a Canadian. I'm pretty sure Garmon -- who says he checked up on Velshi's "background" -- thinks Velshi is Muslim so he should be good with sexually assaulting young teens. Or else he thinks Canadians are into pedophilia. They are foreigners, after all.

Beyond the Beltway

Thomas Fuller of the New York Times: "The death toll in a Northern California shooting rampage rose to five on Wednesday after the authorities said they found the body of the gunman's wife hidden under the floor of the couple’s house.... Phil Johnston, assistant sheriff of Tehama County ... said investigators believed that the rampage started with the killing of [Kevin] Neal’s wife, possibly on Monday night. The police believe that Mr. Neal shot and killed his wife, cut a hole in the floor of their house and placed her body inside."

Way Beyond

David Agren of the Guardian: "Violence in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero ... has shut down the state's overcrowded morgues as workers walked off the job, saying the stench of hundreds of decomposing bodies had become unbearable.... Bodies have arrived in such numbers that morgues in the state have neither the space to store them nor the personnel to carry out autopsies, workers told local media.... 2017 looks set to be the country's most murderous year since such statistics were first compiled in 1997." --safari

Way, Way, Way Beyond

Stuart Clark of the Guardian: "A potentially habitable world, termed Ross 128 b, has been discovered just 11 light years away. It is roughly Earth-sized and orbits its parent star once every 9.9 days. Astronomers calculate that its surface temperature could lie somewhere between -- 60° and 20°, making it temperate and possibly capable of supporting oceans, and life." --safari

The Commentariat -- November 15, 2017

** NEW. Chris Geidner of BuzzFeed: Louis Gohmert "Brought This Chart To An Important Hearing And Everyone Is Very Confused." Mrs. McC: This report is starred not because the post is insightful or important, but because it is hilarious. Before linking to Geidner's post, you might want to read Akhilleus' analysis below, which brought this moment of levity to my attention. I can't stop laughing.

Trump Gets Crazier by the Day. Steve Benen: Tuesday "morning, in another press gaggle, Trump said [of President Obama's relationship with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte], 'Many of you were there, and you never got to land. The plane came close but it didn't land. And now we have a very, very strong relationship with the Philippines, which is really important.... So we've accomplished a lot.' Apparently, Trump has convinced himself that Barack Obama, aboard Air Force One, intended to travel to the Philippines, but en route to the country, the American president was not permitted to touch down on Filipino soil.... In the real world, Obama was scheduled to meet ... Duterte in Laos last year, but the Democratic president canceled following a Duterte tantrum. A year earlier, before Duterte took office, Obama visited the Philippines and the trip went smoothly. In other words, Trump has embraced an odd fantasy as if it were true, pointing to an incident that never occurred as evidence of his diplomatic superiority over his predecessor. The Republican president's difficulties in separating fact from fiction is unsettling, but let's not overlook the underlying point Trump seems so eager to emphasize: he's bragging about his chumminess with an authoritarian president accused of mass murder." ...

... ** Jeet Heer of the New Republic: "As passionate as [Trump] was about making friends and negotiating deals in Asia, he was completely uninterested in the more public diplomacy of engaging with its citizens. That's starkly distinct from his last trip abroad, to Europe, where he used soft power to energize the populist masses in Poland -- and effectively so, based on Saturday's enormous demonstration in Warsaw, where banners called for 'White Europe' and 'Clean Blood.' In the contrast between these two trips, we see the emerging outlines of a Trump foreign policy ideology to match his domestic one: white nationalism.... Trump has a dual foreign policy: He seeks solidarity with white-nationalist forces in Europe, thereby undermining democratic leaders who have been America's longest allies, and he cozies up with the ruling elite of the rest of the world, even murderous dictators.... If successful, Trump's foreign policy would create a Europe dominated by right-wing populists intent on controlling borders, while the people of Asia would be ruled by despots untroubled by calls for democratization and eager to cut bilateral trade deals."

We are concerned that the president of the United States is so unstable, is so volatile, has a decision-making process that is so quixotic, that he might order a nuclear weapons strike that is wildly out of step with U.S. national security interests. -- Sen. Chris Murphy [D-Conn.], at a hearing Tuesday ...

... Patricia Zengerle of Reuters: "A U.S. Senate committee on Tuesday held the first congressional hearing in more than four decades on the president's authority to launch a nuclear strike, amid concern that tensions over North Korea's weapons program could lead to war. Senator Bob Corker, Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, held the hearing as ... Donald Trump wrapped up a 12-day trip to Asia largely dominated by concerns about Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions.... Corker said the hearing was not intended to target Trump. Democrats made clear they were concerned about Trump." ...

... Fred Kaplan of Slate: "... the results [of the hearing] were fascinating, frightening, and ultimately maddening. Fascinating because not since the Cold War has any public figure wrestled with the strategic and moral issues of a nuclear first strike or the legal question of resisting a presidential order. Frightening because the presence of an unstable, insecure, brimstone-fueled president is what's reviving this discussion. Maddening because it was clear, by the end of the two-hour hearing, that Congress isn't going to do a damn thing about the dangers."

You're accusing me of lying about that [meeting with George Papadopoulos, et al.]? I would say that's not fair, colleagues.... I don't think it is right to accuse me of doing something wrong. -- Jeff Sessions, in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee

I don't want to hear in a few days or a few weeks that your answers, Mr. Attorney General, have changed. -- Rep. Luis V. Gutiérrez (D-Ill.) ...

... Nicholas Fandos & Matt Apuzzo of the New York Times are live-updating Jeff Sessions' testimony before the House Judiciary Committee. His memory is not too good. The reporters call it "selective recall." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Update: Fandos & Apuzzo's report is here. "Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Tuesday denied, again, lying to Congress about the Trump campaign's ties to Russia. He said he had forgotten about a campaign round-table in which an aide touted his Russian connections and suggested arranging a meeting for Donald J. Trump in Moscow.... Mr. Sessions ... has twice amended his sworn testimony, creating a distraction for the White House and renewing questions about whether the Trump administration is concealing its connections with Russia.... Mr. Sessions sidestepped questions about whether the president's [urging the DOJ to investigate Hillary Clinton] were appropriate." ...

... Matt Zapotosky & Sari Horwitz of the Washington Post: "Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Tuesday that he has 'always told the truth' in describing his knowledge of Trump campaign contacts with Russians -- though he acknowledged he now recalls an interaction with a lower-level Trump adviser [George Papadopoulos] who has said he told Sessions about contacts who could help arrange a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... It's Not Perjury if the Attorney General Says It. Cathleen Decker of the Los Angeles Times: "U.S. Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions angrily denounced accusations that he had intentionally misled members of Congress about any Russian interference in the presidential campaign.... [Rep. Hakeem] Jeffries [D-N.Y.] noted that Sessions had set a tough standard on false statements in the past -- voting to remove then-President Clinton from office after he was impeached on charges of perjury in the 1990s. During that time period, Jeffries said, Sessions spoke of his earlier prosecution of a police officer on the same charge. The congressman also reminded Sessions that he had suggested to Fox anchor Lou Dobbs that Hillary Clinton was guilty of perjury when, in a conversation with the FBI about her email server, she said that she did not recall the answers to some questions." ...

... Allegra Kirkland of TPM: "Attorney General Jeff Sessions denied knowing that former national security adviser Michael Flynn lobbied on behalf of Turkey and allegedly discussed with Turkish officials the possibility of kidnapping of a U.S.-based Muslim cleric [Fethullah Gulen] while serving on the Trump campaign. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) grilled Sessions on his awareness of Flynn's Turkey dealings in a taut exchange during a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing Tuesday.... NBC has reported that Trump administration officials asked the FBI to conduct a new review of the Gulen situation after inauguration, but that the FBI denied it because Turkey provided no new evidence to bolster its case." Mrs. McC:: JeffBo ran Trump's national security team, but apparently his "team" kept him out of the loop on what-all it was doing. ...

... Amber Phillips of the Washington Post: "Meetings he had with the Russian ambassador during the campaign. Campaign-related conversations he had with the Russian ambassador. Shutting down campaign aide George Papadopoulos after Papadopoulos suggested then-candidate Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin get together. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said he couldn't remember any of these events -- that is until the media or Robert S. Mueller III's investigation remembered them for him. That's the key takeaway from Sessions's hearing before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. What is typically a routine check-in between Congress and the head of the Justice Department got political real fast, largely because of Russia. Here are four takeaways from Sessions's nearly day-long hearing. 1. Sessions is not helping clear up questions about the Trump campaign's Russian involvement.... 2. Sessions doesn't seem that keen on a special counsel looking into Hillary Clinton's affairs..... 3. Sessions sides with Roy Moore's accusers.... 4. Sessions is suspicious of WikiLeaks." ...

... JeffBo Says Something Sensible. Kyle Cheney & Darren Samuelsohn of Politico: "Attorney General Jeff Sessions threw cold water Tuesday on Republicans clamoring for the Department of Justice to appoint a special counsel to investigate former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) pressed Sessions on why it had taken the Justice Department months to hint, as it did Monday, at the prospect of considering a special counsel to probe years-old matters connected to Clinton. Jordan said he thought evidence unearthed in the last year about how FBI decided not to charge Clinton over her handling of classified information at the State Department appeared to be enough to warrant a special counsel. "'Looks like' is not enough basis to appoint a special counsel,' Sessions responded." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Peter Baker of the New York Times: "President Trump ... [made his instructions clear via Twitter]: The Justice Department should investigate his defeated opponent from last year's campaign. However they were delivered, Mr. Trump's demands have ricocheted through the halls of the Justice Department, where Attorney General Jeff Sessions has now ordered senior prosecutors to evaluate various accusations against Hillary Clinton and report back on whether a special counsel should be appointed. Mr. Sessions has made no decision, and in soliciting the assessment of department lawyers, he may be seeking a way out of the bind his boss has put him. At a congressional hearing on Tuesday, he pushed back against Republicans impatient for a special counsel. But if he or his deputy ultimately does authorize a new investigation of Mrs. Clinton, it would shatter post-Watergate norms intended to prevent presidents from using law enforcement agencies against political rivals.... With his job potentially on the line, Mr. Sessions has been put in the difficult position of absorbing his president's ire while safeguarding the department's traditional independence." ...

... New York Times Editors: "What better way [for Republicans] to distract from the investigation [by] ... Robert Mueller, than to call for a criminal investigation of the president's defeated opponent?... Meanwhile, Mr. Sessions spent most of Tuesday's hearing as he has all the others he's sat through this year -- by not recalling things that one would think most people would.... His explanation for his poor memory was that he couldn't be expected to remember every detail from 2016, since the campaign 'was a form of chaos every day, from Day 1.'"

... Kyle Cheney: "Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Tuesday that he has 'no reason to doubt' the women who have accused Alabama GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore of sexual misconduct. 'I have no reason to doubt these young women,' he told the House Judiciary Committee." Mrs. McC: Pardon my math, but the "young women" are in their 50s. (Also linked yesterday.)

Jason Leopold, et al., of BuzzFeed: "The FBI is scrutinizing more than 60 money transfers sent by the Russian foreign ministry to its embassies across the globe, most of them bearing a note that said the money was to be used 'to finance election campaign of 2016.'... The transactions, which moved through Citibank accounts and totaled more than $380,000.... It is not clear how the funds were used.... After discovering the $30,000 transfer to the embassy in Washington, Citibank launched a review of other transfers by the Russian foreign ministry. It unearthed dozens of other transactions with similar memo lines."

Dana Milbank provides all the information you need to come to the conclusion Milbank does: Donald Trump, Jr. is as dumb as a post. Junior is so stupid, he's funny. ...

... Junior Implicates Dad. John Cassidy: "... Trump, Jr.'s campaign activities have created a real problem for him and his father, and a public-relations disaster for the White House.... Just fifteen minutes after WikiLeaks sent Trump, Jr., a message suggesting that his father should tweet out a link to a WikiLeaks search tool, Trump tweeted, 'Very little pick-up by the dishonest media of incredible information provided by WikiLeaks. So dishonest! Rigged system!'... On October 7th, just five days earlier, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the National Intelligence Director had issued a joint statement, saying, 'The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations.' Referring directly to WikiLeaks, the statement went on, 'These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: The fact that U.S. intelligence agencies had previously warned that the WikiLeaks e-mail dumps were gifts from the Russian government implications Donald Senior even if Junior had not corresponded with WikiLeaks. BUT, as Marshall Cohen of CNN outlines in this timeline, candidate Trump had plenty of other avenues to know that Russia had hacked the DNC & John Podesta e-mails. George Papadopolous found out in April 2016, & he was in contact with senior campaign officials. Jared Kushner & Paul Manafort knew as early as June 2016, as did Cambridge Analytica, which had employees inside the Trump campaign, the New York Times reported the Russian connection in July 2016, (and the next day Trump asked Russia to hack Clinton's server), Roger Stone communicated with WikiLeaks & Russian hackers in August 2016 & predicted WikiLeaks dumps. I'm betting Bob Mueller & his team are smart enough to put together these contacts, as well as other connections the public don't know. There is a lot of damning information to implicate the presidential candidate in a conspiracy with Russian government actors.

Rex Hires KGB to Guard U.S. Embassy & Consulates. Andrew Higgins of the New York Times: "To make up for the loss of security guards axed in the Russian-mandated staff cuts, Washington has hired a private Russian company that grew out of a security business co-founded by Mr. Putin's former K.G.B. boss, an 82-year-old veteran spy who spent 25 years planting agents in Western security services and hunting down their operatives. Under a $2.8 million no-bid contract awarded by the Office of Acquisitions in Washington, security guards at the American Embassy in Moscow and at consulates in St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and Vladivostok will be provided by Elite Security Holdings, a company closely linked to the former top K.G.B. figure, Viktor G. Budanov, a retired general who rose through the ranks to become head of Soviet counterintelligence." ...

     ... Mrs. McC: This is astounding. We now have the KGB protecting U.S. secrets from the KGB. AND the way Rex "punishes" Russia for expelling hundreds of U.S. State Department employees is to hire Putin's operatives to replace some of them. As Rachel Maddow noted last night, it isn't just that Russia interfered in the presidential election; Russia is now entwined with the Trump administration.

Shaun Walker of the Guardian: "Russia's defence ministry said ... the Americans refuse[d] to carry out a joint operation to strike Isis fighters leaving Abu Kamal but also allowed them to regroup on coalition-controlled territory.... The allegations are extremely grave, but may be harder to take seriously given the 'irrefutable proof' offered in the form of photographic accompaniment.... [O]ne photograph [is] apparently a screenshot from the promo for a mobile phone game called AC-130 Gunship Simulator: Special Ops Squadron.... [T]he other four ... photographs appear to be taken from 2016 footage released by Iraq's ministry of defence.... Soon after people noted the dubious origin of the photographs, the defence ministry deleted its tweets, and removed the photographs from the corresponding Facebook posts." --safari (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Remember that Donald Trump places more faith in Vladimir Putin than in U.S. intelligence agencies. Are we to assume then that the agencies regularly brief Trump on international flare-ups with video games? Hey, they might work for President ADD.

CEOs Burst Gary's Bubble. Wherein Trump economic advisor Gary Cohn is surprised to find out -- directly from CEOs themselves -- that they don't plan to invest more if their tax bills go down. Heather Long of the Washington Post reports. ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: The other day I said in the Comments section that wealthy people who opposed the GOP tax bill were not the same wealthy people who are on Republicans' speed-dials. Here's a guy -- who probably is at least relatively wealthy -- who proves me wrong. Steve Goldmacher of the New York Times: "Steve Louro, a Republican donor who hosted an event for Donald J. Trump at his Long Island home last year, abruptly quit his post as regional finance chairman for the state's Republican Party on Tuesday over objections to the Republican-led tax bill advancing through Congress. 'The bill that's going to get passed is not going to take care of the American people. It's a disgrace,' Mr. Louro said in a phone interview. He had resigned from his post as a fund-raiser via email earlier in the day, he said. 'The Republican Party took control of the government against all odds, and the bottom line is' they messed up, he said, using an expletive. 'It's a disgrace. It's going to hurt a lot of middle-class Republicans.'" ...

... Senate to Take Another Shot at ObamaCare. Thomas Kaplan & Jim Tankersley of the New York Times: "Senate Republicans have decided to include the repeal of the Affordable Care Act's requirement that most people have health insurance into the sprawling tax rewrite, merging the fight over health care with the high-stakes effort to cut taxes. The move to tuck the repeal of the so-called individual mandate into the tax overhaul is an attempt by Republicans to solve two problems: math and politics. Repealing the mandate, a longstanding Republican goal, would save hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade. That would free up money that could be used to expand middle-class tax cuts or help pay for the overall cost of the bill, which can add no more than $1.5 trillion to the deficit over 10 years. It could also help secure the votes of the most conservative senators, enabling lawmakers to pass the bill along party lines.... Democrats said the mandate repeal would underwrite tax cuts for the rich at the expense of people who buy insurance on the individual market." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: "Democrats said"? Democrats said that because it's true. Why not report a fact as a fact rather than as a partisan talking point? Thanks again for your devotion to he-said/she-said "journalism," boys. ...

... Patrick Caldwell of Mother Jones: "While not as far-reaching as the health care bills Republicans considered earlier in the year, this new plan would be a massive shock to the country's health insurance system. The CBO recently estimated that ending the individual mandate's financial penalties would save the government $338 billion over the next 10 years. But an extra 4 million people would lack insurance in 2019, rising to 13 million by 2027. And insurance would be more expensive for the people who stick around to buy it on Obamacare's exchanges, with premiums going up about 10 percent, according to the CBO. Still, the cost savings would help one group of Americans. Fifty percent of the benefits from the proposed tax cuts in the bill would to the top 5 percent of earners in 2027."

Senate Race

Deirdre Shesgreen of USA Today: "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday did not rule out trying to expel Roy Moore if the Alabama Republican wins a U.S. Senate seat in that state's special election next month. 'He's obviously not fit to be in the United States Senate,' the Kentucky Republican told reporters on Tuesday. 'And we've looked at all the options to try to prevent that from happening.'" In the video that accompanies the report, McConnell sidestepped the question of whether or not he also believed the women who accused Trump of sexual abuse. ...

... Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post: "... if you believe the women accusing Roy Moore..., why did you ignore the women who accused presidential candidate Donald Trump? If you&'re troubled by Moore's alleged behavior, why were you so nonchalant about Trump's?... Notwithstanding Trump's creepy interest in barging into beauty-pageant dressing rooms to ogle young contestants and his even creepier comments speculating about how he might have dated Ivanka Trump if she weren't his daughter, Trump, unlike Moore, faces no allegations of improperly pursuing teenagers, including those beneath the age of consent." ...

     ... Mrs. McC: Marcus reprises two accusations that Trump attacked women who didn't know him: one by a woman who just happened to be sitting next to him at a nightclub & another by a woman who had come to see him on business; in other words, women who could not have seen the attacks coming.

... Donald Judd, et al., of CNN: "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he spoke with ... Donald Trump from Vietnam about the Roy Moore situation, and will have 'further discussions' with him when the President returns."

... Jake Novak of CNBC: "The accusations against Moore and the nature of those allegations couldn't have come at a better time for McConnell, whose top priority is and has always been consolidating his personal power in the Senate. Politically, this works out well for McConnell because the news broke a few weeks after Moore defeated Senator Luther Strange in the Alabama special election primary. Strange was the candidate McConnell backed in the race, and the loss was a blow to his personal political fortunes. But now, Moore looks just like the unpredictable non-establishment approved candidate McConnell said he was all along.... In politics, even horrific allegations of sexual assault and preying on underage victims only seem to elicit politically-centered responses." ...

... Brandon Carter of the Hill: "The Republican National Committee (RNC) has cut fundraising ties with GOP Senate hopeful Roy Moore. The new Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings follow allegations of sexual misconduct against Moore by five women, two of whom accused him of sexual misconduct with them when they were minors. New documents filed Tuesday with the Federal Election Commission show the RNC is no longer listed alongside other groups involved in the joint fundraiser." ...

... Cameron Joseph of TPM: "As national Republicans ramp up the pressure to force Roy Moore to drop his Alabama Senate campaign, the small group of local GOP power players who will ultimately determine Moore's political fate are taking reluctant steps towards deciding whether to cut him loose. The 21 members of Alabama's Republican Party central steering committee are the only ones who can pull Roy Moore's nomination and potentially block his path to the Senate. After days of mounting allegations that their Senate nominee had sexual contact with teenage girls while he was in his 30s, two Alabama GOP sources tell TPM they've finally decided to hold a meeting later this week to hash out whether they can stand by his side." ...

... All in the Family. Molly Olmstead of Slate: Roy Moore's wife Kayla Moore "has been spreading misleading endorsements from religious leaders as well as falsehoods and fake stories, including the claim that the Washington Post paid the accusers to come forward." ...

... Jon Swaine of the Guardian: "Roy Moore challenged the scope of an Alabama law that protects rape victims while serving as the most senior judge on the state's highest court, according to a review of records. As chief justice of Alabama's supreme court, Moore twice argued that the state's 'rape shield' law should not prevent alleged sex offenders from using certain evidence about their underage accusers' personal lives to discredit them. The cases were among 10 between 2013 and 2016 where Moore dissented from the court's majority and sided with alleged offenders...." ...

... Annals of "Journalism," Ha Ha Ha. Betsy Woodruff, et al., of the Daily Beast: "The rightwing blog The Gateway Pundit pushed a single-sourced rumor from an anonymous Twitter account, @Umpire43, claiming that one of Roy Moore's accusers was offered $1,000 by The Washington Post to go public with her claims. That rumor quickly made its way to InfoWars and the top of r/The_Donald, the most active pro-Trump community on the web. The pro-Trump cable station One America News Network even aired the news, citing a 'report.' But the source for that viral accusation is a serial fabulist who has been using the identity of a Navy serviceman who died in 2007.... Umpire43 ... has repeatedly invented stories in the past -- particularly about his own background." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: While we're all worried about the fake news Russia & other foreign entities generated, we should bear in mind we have popular "news" sources in the U.S. who push fake news every day. These home-grown fake-news outlets have millions of regular viewers, listeners & readers. And I do want to distinguish here between fact & opinion. These sources don't just interpret factual events or data; they make up fake ones. Some of these outlets have gained a modicum of legitimacy, like this guy. ...

... Jacqueline Thomsen of the Hill: "Volvo has pulled its advertisements from Sean Hannity's show on Fox News after his coverage of sexual misconduct allegations made against Roy Moore. Volvo is the latest advertiser to pull its ads from "Hannity" in the wake of the prime-time host's coverage of Moore, the Alabama GOP Senate candidate accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women. Keurig and Realtor.com both said they were pulling their ads in recent days." Mrs. McC: And we're all very sorry for Sean. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

     ... Update. Fleeing Advertisers Move Hannity. Brandon Carter: "Fox News host Sean Hannity is calling on Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore (D) to prove he did not engage in sexual misconduct with teenage girls or exit the Senate race. '... Between this interview that I did and the inconsistent answers; between him saying "I never knew this girl" and then that yearbook comes out - for me, the judge has 24 hours,' Hannity said Tuesday night. 'You must immediately and fully come up with a satisfactory explanation for your inconsistencies that I just showed,' Hannity continued. 'You must remove any doubt. If he can't do this, Judge Moore needs to get out of this race.' Hannity's comments follow several advertisers pulling their ads from Hannity's in the wake of his coverage of Moore." ...

... AND Rush Limbaugh knows why Roy Moore used to sexually abuse girls & young women: "Did you know that before 1992, when a lot of this was going on, that Judge Moore was a Democrat? Nobody said a word. When he supposedly was attracted to inappropriately-aged girls -- he was a Democrat."

Congressional Creep List. M.J. Lee, et al., of CNN: "Be extra careful of the male lawmakers who sleep in their offices -- they can be trouble. Avoid finding yourself alone with a congressman or senator in elevators, late-night meetings or events where alcohol is flowing. And think twice before speaking out about sexual harassment from a boss -- it could cost you your career. These are a few of the unwritten rules that some female lawmakers, staff and interns say they follow on Capitol Hill, where they say harassment and coercion is pervasive on both sides of the rotunda. There is also the 'creep list' -- an informal roster passed along by word-of-mouth, consisting of the male members most notorious for inappropriate behavior, ranging from making sexually suggestive comments or gestures to seeking physical relations with younger employees and interns." ...

... Blair Guild of CBS News: "A congresswoman revealed Tuesday morning that she is aware of two congressional members currently in office who have sexually harassed staffers. Rep. Jackie Speier, D-California, did not name either member, but noted that one is a Democrat and the other, a Republican."

Alex Isenstadt & Josh Dawsey of Politico: "Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, the GOP's most prominent megadonor, is publicly breaking with former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon over his efforts to oust Republican incumbents in 2018. 'The Adelsons will not be supporting Steve Bannon's efforts,' said Andy Abboud, an Adelson spokesman. 'They are supporting Mitch McConnell 100 percent. For anyone to infer anything otherwise is wrong.'" (Also linked yesterday.)

Beyond the Beltway

Jim Schultz of the Redding Record Searchlight: "Five people are dead, including the suspect, in a mass shooting at and around a school some 15 miles southwest of Red Bluff, [California,] where at least another 10 victims have been hospitalized -- some of them children. Tehama County Assistant Sheriff Phil Johnston, who called the incident a 'bizarre and murderous rampage,' confirmed two children were shot and wounded, but said children were not among the dead. Johnston said one child was shot at the school, while a second child was in a car with his mother when the gunman opened fire. The child's wound was not life-threatening, but the mother's injuries are, he said.... [The rampage] ended in a shootout with two sheriff's deputies. The deputies, who weren't injured, found the gunman dead inside a car, and they also found the semiautomatic rifle and two handguns they say he used." ...

... Stella Chan, et al., of CNN: "A gunman killed four people in a remote Northern California community on Tuesday morning, but a much bigger death toll was averted when the killer was unable to break into an elementary school. The staff at tiny Rancho Tehama Elementary School west of Corning moved quickly when they heard gunfire nearby just before classes were set to begin, Tehama County Assistant Sheriff Phil Johnston said. Doors were locked and students dashed inside and hit the floors underneath desks and tables."

Way Beyond

Jeffrey Moyo & Norimitsu Onishi of the New York Times: "Zimbabwe's military said early Wednesday that it had taken custody of President Robert Mugabe, the world's oldest head of state and one of Africa's longest-serving leaders, in what increasingly appeared to be a military takeover in the southern African nation. After apparently seizing the state broadcaster, ZBC, two uniformed officers said in a short predawn announcement that 'the situation in our country has moved to another level.' While denying that the military had seized power, they said that Mr. Mugabe and his family 'are safe and sound, and their security is guaranteed.'"

Adam Baidawi & Damien Cave of the New York Times: "A solid majority of Australians voted in favor of same-sex marriage in a historic survey that, while not binding, paves the way for Parliament to legally recognize the unions of gay and lesbian couples. Of 12.7 million Australians who took part in the government survey, 61.6 percent voted yes and 38.4 percent voted no, officials announced on Wednesday morning. Participation was high, with 79.5 percent of voting-age Australians sending back their postal ballots."

The Commentariat -- November 14, 2017

Late Morning Update:

Nicholas Fandos & Matt Apuzzo of the New York Times are live-updating Jeff Sessions' testimony before the House Judiciary Committee. His memory is not too good. The reporters call it "selective recall." ...

... Matt Zapotosky & Sari Horwitz of the Washington Post: "Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Tuesday that he has 'always told the truth' in describing his knowledge of Trump campaign contacts with Russians -- though he acknowledged he now recalls an interaction with a lower-level Trump adviser [George Papadopoulos] who has said he told Sessions about contacts who could help arrange a meeting between Trump and Russian PresidentVladimir Putin." ...

... JeffBo Says Something Sensible. Kyle Cheney & Darren Samuelsohn of Politico: "Attorney General Jeff Sessions threw cold water Tuesday on Republicans clamoring for the Department of Justice to appoint a special counsel to investigate former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) pressed Sessions on why it had taken the Justice Department months to hint, as it did Monday, at the prospect of considering a special counsel to probe years-old matters connected to Clinton. Jordan said he thought evidence unearthed in the last year about how FBI decided not to charge Clinton over her handling of classified information at the State Department appeared to be enough to warrant a special counsel. "'Looks like' is not enough basis to appoint a special counsel,' Sessions responded." ...

... Kyle Cheney: "Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Tuesday that he has 'no reason to doubt' the women who have accused Alabama GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore of sexual misconduct. 'I have no reason to doubt these young women,' he told the House Judiciary Committee." Mrs. McC: Pardon my math, but the "young women" are in their 50s.

Jacqueline Thomsen of the Hill: "Volvo has pulled its advertisements from Sean Hannity's show on Fox News after his coverage of sexual misconduct allegations made against Roy Moore. Volvo is the latest advertiser to pull its ads from "Hannity" in the wake of the prime-time host's coverage of Moore, the Alabama GOP Senate candidate accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women. Keurig and Realtor.com both said they were pulling their ads in recent days." Mrs. McC: And we're all very sorry for Sean.

Alex Isenstadt & Josh Dawsey of Politico: "Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, the GOP's most prominent megadonor, is publicly breaking with former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon over his efforts to oust Republican incumbents in 2018. 'The Adelsons will not be supporting Steve Bannon's efforts,' said Andy Abboud, an Adelson spokesman. 'They are supporting Mitch McConnell 100 percent. For anyone to infer anything otherwise is wrong.'"

Shaun Walker of the Guardian: "Russia's defence ministry said ... the Americans refuse[d] to carry out a joint operation to strike Isis fighters leaving Abu Kamal but also allowed them to regroup on coalition-controlled territory.... The allegations are extremely grave, but may be harder to take seriously given the 'irrefutable proof' offered in the form of photographic accompaniment...[O]ne photograph [is] apparently a screenshot from the promo for a mobile phone game called AC-130 Gunship Simulator: Special Ops Squadron...[T]he other four of the five photographs appear to be taken from 2016 footage released by Iraq's ministry of defence...Soon after people noted the dubious origin of the photographs, the defence ministry deleted its tweets, and removed the photographs from the corresponding Facebook posts." --safari

*****

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan, a stately pleasure-dome decree ...

... Oh, the Humanity! Charles Pierce is full of the spirit of the season in his analysis of "The Adventures of Marco Polo Donaldo Trumpo": "According to the Beeb [BBC], the folks in the nations he visited looked at the departing Air Force One very much like Les Nessman's on-the-spot report of the great Thanksgiving giveaway."

     ... "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." ...

... Okay, that was fun, BUT the real effects of Trump's buffoonery & thug-hugging are not so hilarious. ...

... ** Susan Rice, in a New York Times op-ed: "President Trump's recently concluded trip to Asia ... left the United States more isolated and in retreat, handing leadership of the newly christened 'Indo-Pacific' to China on a silver platter. The trip began with solid performances in Japan and Korea.... But in China, the wheels began to come off his diplomatic bus. The Chinese leadership played President Trump like a fiddle, catering to his insatiable ego and substituting pomp and circumstance for substance.... President Trump's last stops in Vietnam and the Philippines proved the most problematic.... President Trump's lighthearted embrace of a self-proclaimed killer, President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, was the nadir of a high-stakes trip that set back American leadership in Asia. But it was, perhaps, the perfect if unintended coda to the president's 'Make China Great Again' tour." ...

... New York Times Editors: "Authoritarian leaders exercise a strange and powerful attraction for President Trump. As his trip to Asia reminds us, a man who loves to bully people turns to mush -- fawning smiles, effusive rhetoric -- in the company of strongmen like Xi Jinping of China, Vladimir Putin of Russia and Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines.... At home, Mr. Trump's determination to arrogate power unto himself has seriously weakened the State Department and the cadre of professional diplomats that is central to successful international problem-solving. It has effectively sidelined people like Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. It has left to other nations the important tasks of pursuing goals like climate change and the Iran nuclear deal. In major ways, he is dealing America out of the game." ...

I think Mr. Trump is, for whatever reason, either intimidated by Mr. Putin, afraid of what he could do or what might come out as a result of these investigations. -- Former CIA Director John Brennan on CNN's "State of the Union," Sunday

... Juan Cole: "Brennan gave three possibilities, that Trump is easily manipulated by flattery, or easily cowed, or compromised. The first is true but can't account for the obsequiousness of Trump's behavior toward Putin. The second is not true -- Trump is like an enraged bull rampaging around an arena trying to gore everyone in sight. His typical response to attempts to make him back down is to explode. So what Brennan is really saying is that there is actually only one possible explanation for Trump's creepy and peculiar relationship to Putin. Kompromat."

Nolan McCaskill of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Monday challenged congressional Republicans to use tax reform to repeal Obamacare's individual mandate and slash the top tax rate for the wealthiest Americans to 35 percent, potentially throwing up new hurdles for legislation moving in Congress. Neither the House bill nor the Senate version under consideration repeals the individual mandate or proposes a top rate that is as low as Trump suggested on Monday." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Eric Levitz of New York: "For months, the White House has pledged that its tax plan will not benefit the rich -- or, at least, that it won't do so intentionally. Then, the House and Senate unveiled tax bills that deliver the lion's share of their benefits to the idle superrich, while raising taxes on a broad swath of middle-class households. The bills would also eliminate deductions that benefit veterans, indebted students, and people who suffer from rare diseases -- while preserving loopholes that enrich hedge-fund managers and owners of golf courses.... So: The populist president looked at legislation that increases the tax burden of half of all families with children -- even as it allows the heirs of multimillion-dollar estates to avoid paying all capital gains taxes on their inherited assets -- and concluded: This bill really needs to do more to increase the post-tax income of millionaires, and reduce the number of Americans with health insurance.... Here he is, bucking the congressional leadership ... by calling for an even more regressive tax-cut plan." Emphasis added. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Paul Krugman: "... this isn't just ordinary class warfare; it's class warfare aimed at perpetuating inequality into the next generation. Taken together, the elements of both the House and the Senate bills amount to a more or less systematic attempt to lavish benefits on the children of the ultra-wealthy while making it harder for less fortunate young people to achieve upward social mobility. Or to put it differently, the tax legislation Republicans are trying to ram through Congress with indecent haste, without hearings or time for any kind of serious study, looks an awful lot like an attempt not simply to reinforce plutocracy, but to entrench a hereditary plutocracy." Mrs. McC: Instead of calling the bill "Cut, Cut, Cut!" as Trump wanted, why not call it "Ivanka, Ivanka, Invaka!" to convey a more accurate & compelling image of the true beneficiaries.

"Lock Her Up!" Michael Schmidt & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Ten days after President Trump said that he was frustrated with the Justice Department for not investigating Hillary Clinton and other Democrats, the Justice Department told Congress on Monday that senior prosecutors were looking into whether a special counsel should be appointed to investigate them. The prosecutors will examine reports of misconduct at the Clinton Foundation and the Obama administration's 2010 decision to allow a Russian nuclear energy agency to acquire much of the United States' uranium, among other matters, according to a letter sent to the House Judiciary Committee from a senior Justice Department official on Monday.... The decision to examine those matters raises questions about whether Mr. Trump is trying to use the Justice Department to investigate his political rivals and distract from the special counsel's investigation into his presidential campaign. It also comes at a tenuous time for Attorney General Jeff Sessions, whom Mr. Trump has hinted to advisers he may want to fire." Senior prosecutors will report directly to JeffBo. ...

... Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "Attorney General Jeff Sessions is entertaining the idea of appointing a second special counsel to investigate a host of Republican concerns -- including alleged wrongdoing by the Clinton Foundation and the controversial sale of a uranium company to Russia -- and has directed senior federal prosecutors to explore at least some of the matters and report back to him and his top deputy, according to a letter obtained by The Washington Post. The revelation came in a response from the Justice Department to an inquiry from House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), who in July and again in September called for Sessions to appoint a second special counsel to investigate concerns he had related to the 2016 election and its aftermath. The list of matters he wanted probed was wide ranging, but included the FBI's handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, various dealings of the Clinton Foundation and several matters connected to the purchase of the Canadian mining company Uranium One by Russia's nuclear energy agency. Goodlatte took particular aim at former FBI director James B. Comey, asking for a second special counsel to evaluate the leaks he directed about his conversations with President Trump, among other things.... President Trump has repeatedly criticized his Justice Department for not aggressively probing a variety of conservative concerns. He said recently that officials there 'should be looking at the Democrats['] and that it was 'very discouraging' they were not 'going after Hillary Clinton.'" ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Now this would be the very definition of a political witch hunt -- Trumped-up accusations, so to speak, & a president & his attorney general -- who are supposed to maintain an arm's-length distance from one another (for this very reason) -- collaborating on a plot to undermine & possibly bring charges against the top people in the opposition party. The only way JeffBo can extricate himself from this mess is to find no cause, as he did when the DOJ "investigated" the Clinton e-mail saga earlier this year. The only way Trump can extricate himself -- oops! there's no way.

** Frank Rich of the New Yorker: "For many, if not most, Americans, the only pleasure to be had from Donald Trump's presidency is to imagine his premature eviction from the White House.... Once Trump exits -- whenever and however he goes '' then what? It's a continuing liberal blind spot to underestimate the resilience of Trumpism, which, if history is any guide, will easily survive both the crack-up of the GOP and the implosion of the Trump presidency. Whether Trump lasts another three weeks, another three years, or another seven years, our troubles won't be over when he's gone. They may well get worse." Read on. --safari

Eileen Sullivan & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Trump nominated a pharmaceutical executive to be the next secretary of the Health and Human Services Department. The nominee, Alex M. Azar II, served as a deputy at the department under former President George W. Bush. Until January, he was the head of the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly's United States division. Mr. Trump made his announcement in a Twitter post while traveling in Asia. Mr. Trump said Mr. Azar would be 'a star and lower drug prices!'" Mrs. McC: Right, because there's nothing a drug company executive wants to do more than lower drug prices. Donald Trump thinks your stupider than he (actually) is. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)...

... Joanna Purpich & Sam Stein of The Daily Beast: "[I]f there is one trend that has defined this current president's staffing decisions, it has been his proclivity to turn to men when filling out key posts. Since he assumed office, Donald Trump has sent 480 nominations to the U.S. Senate for positions in the judicial branch and executive branches. Of those, The Daily Beast found, 387 were men -- constituting just over 80 of all of Trump's nominees. The trend goes across government, though it is truly accentuated in certain fields." --safari: Yeah, but, fear not egalitarians, Ivanka's on the case!

Sharon Lerner of The Intercept: "Massive conflicts of interest no longer stand in the way of confirmation to the Environmental Protection Agency's highest posts.... YetMichael Dourson, the industry scientist Trump nominated to head EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, may be unable to clear even this low bar.... Resistance to his nomination is coming from red states that have been directly harmed by chemicals Dourson has defended on behalf of industry.... Dourson was responsible for setting a state standard for [the chemical] PFOA that was thousands of times higher than the EPA's current safety level.... Dourson has worked on behalf of industry to defend dozens of chemicals that have contaminated the water and air of Republicans, as well as Democrats." --safari

Matt Apuzzo & Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "One of President Trump's most controversial judicial nominees did not disclose on publicly available congressional documents that he is married to a senior lawyer in the White House Counsel's Office. The nominee, Brett J. Talley, is awaiting a Senate confirmation vote that could come as early as Monday to become a federal district judge in Alabama. He is married to Ann Donaldson, the chief of staff to the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II. Mr. Talley was asked on his publicly released Senate questionnaire to identify family members and others who are 'likely to present potential conflicts of interest.' He did not mention his wife.... Democrats have strongly criticized the nomination of Mr. Talley, a 36-year-old who has never tried a case and who received a rare 'not qualified' rating from the American Bar Association. His nomination advanced through the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday on a party-line vote." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: In fairness to Talley, he's probably too dumb to know that it's a conflict when your wife works in the White House & you may be adjudicating matters that have an impact on administration policies. As he was filling out the questionnaire, he probably put his pen in his mouth, furrowed his brow, looked at the ceiling & decided, "Nah, you can't say you have a conflict with your own wife. That would look like you & your wife didn't get along or something. And, hey, we're great. Hell, I probably wouldn't of been nominated if not for little Annie putting in a good word." Really, you want to cut these bozos some slack for stupid. ...

     ... UPDATE: I highly recommend your reading Akhilleus' report, in today's thread, on Talley Ho. Among Talley's other fine attributes, apparently he's a ghostbuster or something.

Carol Leonig & Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "President Trump's eldest son exchanged private messages with WikiLeaks during the presidential campaign at the same time the website was publishing hacked emails from Democratic officials, according to correspondence made public Monday. Donald Trump Jr. did not respond to many of the notes, which were sent using the direct message feature on Twitter. But he alerted senior advisers on his father's campaign, including his brother-in-law, Jared Kushner, according to two people familiar with the exchanges. In the messages, WikiLeaks urged Trump Jr. to promote its trove of hacked Democratic emails and suggested that President Trump challenge the election results if he did not win, among other ideas. They were first reported by the Atlantic and later posted by Trump Jr. on Twitter. WikiLeaks, which bills itself as an anti-secrecy group, was described in April by CIA Director Mike Pompeo as a 'non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: If you read the Atlantic piece, by Julia Ioffe, you'll find that Junior did not reply often, but neither did he didn't rebuff WikiLeaks (presumably featuring Julian Assange on keyboard), nor did he report the correspondence to law enforcement officials -- as far as we know. One interesting passage: "'Strongly suggest your dad tweets this link if he mentions us,' WikiLeaks went on, pointing Trump Jr. to the link wlsearch.tk.... Trump Jr. did not respond to this message. But just 15 minutes after it was sent, as The Wall Street Journal's Byron Tau pointed out, Donald Trump himself tweeted, 'Very little pick-up by the dishonest media of incredible information provided by WikiLeaks. So dishonest! Rigged system!'" So if the question is, "Did Donald Trump himself knowingly collaborate with WikiLeaks to disseminate info hacked by Russian operatives that damaged the Clinton campaign?" the answer appears to be, "Yes, he did."...

... Margaret Hartmann: "[I]f real, the messages shed light on WikiLeaks' role in the election, the Trump campaign's relationship with the organization, and what other campaign officials knew.... While WikiLeaks bills itself as a neutral proponent of transparency, the 2016 election made it quite clear that wasn't the case.... WikiLeaks suggests that the campaign should let them leak Trump's tax returns.... [I]t would help make WikiLeaks appear less anti-Clinton -- thus aiding their efforts to undermine her.... 'If we publish them it will dramatically improve the perception of our impartiality,' WikiLeaks wrote.... If someone in the Trump campaign was directing the leaks, it appears Trump Jr. didn't know about it (or wasn't dumb enough to let the WikiLeaks Twitter account know that he knew)." --safari

Fred Kaplan of Slate: "For the first time in over 40 years, Congress is holding hearings on Tuesday about the president's authority to launch nuclear weapons. The reasons for the revived interest should be clear.... Everyone knows that the president's powers include the ability to blow up the world, but few have explored -- in part because they'd rather not know -- the degree to which the president can do this on his own.... Massachusetts Sen. Edward Markey, a member of the committee holding hearings on Tuesday, has drafted a bill requiring the president to obtain a declaration of war from Congress before launching a nuclear first-strike.... Another step, proposed by many nuclear strategists, would be to get rid of the land-based ICBMs. They are likely to be the targets of a nuclear strike; and because they are vulnerable, a president would have to decide very quickly whether to 'use them or lose them.'"

Thomas Moriarty & MaryAnn Spoto of NJ.com: Jurors in the corruption case of Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) are deadlocked. "Seven of the 16 jurors and alternates in the trial of U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez raised their hands when U.S. District Judge William Walls on Monday morning asked whether they'd heard or read anything about the case, prompting the judge to take them into his chambers individually to get more details. The inquiry came after defense attorneys in the trial noted that widespread news coverage of an excused juror's public statements may have tainted the remaining members of the panel.... After questioning the four seated jurors, Walls said he found no reason to declare a mistrial."

International Embarrassment. Mark Hand of ThinkProgress: "[T]he Trump administration's delegation to the United Nations' climate conference in Bonn, Germany, is using the talks to promote the U.S. coal industry.... Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who serves as the UN Secretary-General's special envoy for cities and climate change, said Monday that 'promoting coal at a climate summit is like promoting tobacco at a cancer summit.'" --safari

Senate Race

Sean Sullivan, et al., of the Washington Post: "Senate Republican leaders on Monday waged an urgent campaign to pressure GOP nominee Roy Moore to withdraw from the Alabama Senate race amid allegations of sexual misconduct, declaring him 'unfit to serve' and threatening to expel him from Congress if he were elected. But Moore showed no signs that he was preparing to step aside.... The fusillade from Senate Republicans started Monday morning in Louisville, where Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) called on Moore to end his run.... Later, National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) issued a written statement going further. 'If he refuses to withdraw and wins, the Senate should vote to expel him,' Gardner said." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Don't kid yourself into believing these invertebrates suddenly sprouted backbones. They were against Roy Moore from the git-go. ...

     ... BTW, I hope many of you got to read David Atkins' post, linked yesterday, on why evangelicals are sticking with Roy. I found it illuminating.

... Jonathan Martin & Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: "An Alabama woman accused Roy S. Moore on Monday of sexually assaulting her when she was 16, the fifth and most brutal charge leveled against the Republican Senate candidate. Senate Republicans are now openly discussing not seating him or expelling him if he wins the Dec. 12 special election. The new accuser, Beverly Young Nelson, told a packed news conference in New York that Mr. Moore attacked her when she was a teenager and he was a prosecutor in Etowah County, Ala. Ms. Nelson was represented at the news conference by Gloria Allred, a lawyer who has championed victims of sexual harassment. 'I tried fighting him off, while yelling at him to stop, but instead of stopping, he began squeezing my neck, attempting to force my head onto his crotch,' Ms. Nelson said, growing emotional as she described the assault, which she said happened one night after her shift ended at a local restaurant, where she was a waitress." ...

... Margaret Hartmann: "Moore adamantly denied her allegations, saying ... that he does not even know Nelson.... 'I never did what she said I did. I don't even know the woman. I don't know anything about her. I don't even know where the restaurant is or was.' [Which is a teeny bit unbelievable because] Nelson presented a copy of her yearbook in which the then-30-year-old Moore wrote: 'To a sweeter more beautiful girl I could not say Merry Christmas. Christmas 1977. Love, Roy Moore, D.A.' Below his name, he wrote the date and 'Olde Hickory House,' the name of the restaurant he now claims he has no knowledge of.... [As Josh Barro notes,] 'Roy Moore's signature from that 1977 yearbook matches Roy Moore's signature on his US Term Limits pledge this year." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: What was that thing about "thou shalt not bear false witness"? Didn't Roy have it engraved in stone someplace?

... Sheryl Stolberg: "Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, said Monday that Roy S. Moore, the Republican Senate candidate in Alabama, 'should step aside' and that he believes the women who have accused Mr. Moore of sexual misconduct when they were teenagers. 'I believe the women, yes,' Mr. McConnell said at a news conference in Louisville. Mr. McConnell also said that encouraging a write-in candidate to run in the Dec. 12 special election is 'an option we're looking at.' Mr. Moore, a judge who was twice removed from the state's high court, first for refusing to remove the Ten Commandments from the Supreme Court grounds, then for refusing to accept gay marriage, responded defiantly. He showed no sign of leaving the race ahead of Alabama's Dec. 12 special election date.... At 2:30 p.m. Monday, New York lawyer Gloria Allred, who has made her name by championing victims of sexual harassment, will publicly introduce a new woman accusing Mr. Moore of sexual impropriety." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Charles Bethea of the New Yorker: "This past weekend, I spoke or messaged with more than a dozen people -- including a major political figure in the state -- who told me that they had heard, over the years, that Moore had been banned from the [Gadsden] mall because he repeatedly badgered teen-age girls. [Gadsden is the seat of Etowah County.] ...

     ... Anna Vollers of AL.com writes a similar story, with some of the same sources. ...

... Jessica Contrera of the Washington Post: "The photos of teenage girls began appearing on Twitter Thursday night. First, a smiling, ponytailed 14-year-old looking into the camera. Then, another 14-year-old, this one posing for a school-style photo. Soon, there were photos from Katie Couric, Alyssa Milano and Sarah Silverman -- all showing what they looked like when they were 14. 'Can't consent at 14. Not in Alabama. Not anywhere,' wrote attorney Catherine Lawson, the first woman to tweet a photo of her 14-year-old self with the hashtag #MeAt14. Lawson and the others on Twitter were responding to allegations against Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore of Alabama, first reported in The Washington Post." See the pix & commentary at #Me@14." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Dahlia Lithwick & James Sample in Slate: "... the idea that it might be the alleged molesting of multiple teenage girls and women that could prove disqualifying for Moore, rather than his decadeslong contempt for the law, the courts, and the Constitution, tells us how very far we have strayed from our legal moorings at this moment in history. Roy Moore ... is revered ... for his long-standing performance of figurative -- and literal -- contempt for any legal ruling or norm with which he disagrees.... He was never fit for a seat in the U.S. Senate in the first place. That the Republican Party still fails to see this will forever be to its shame. It shouldn't take child molestation allegations to realize that lawlessness is not a credential." ...

... Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "In this #MeToo moment, when we're reassessing decades of male misbehavior and turning open secrets into exposes, we should look clearly at the credible evidence that Juanita Broaddrick told the truth when she accused [Bill] Clinton of raping her."

President George H.W. Cop-a-Feel. Aric Jenkins of Time: "Roslyn Corrigan was sixteen years old when she got a chance to meet George H.W. Bush, excited to be introduced to a former president having grown up dreaming of going into politics. But Corrigan was crushed by her encounter: Bush, then 79 years old, groped her buttocks at a November 2003 event in The Woodlands, Texas, office of the Central Intelligence Agency where Corrigan's father gathered with fellow intelligence officers and family members to meet Bush, Corrigan said. Corrigan is the sixth woman since Oct. 24 to accuse Bush publicly of grabbing her buttocks without consent.... Corrigan said the incident happened while she was being photographed standing next to Bush.... Her mother, Sari, said Corrigan told her about the encounter as soon as Bush stepped away." Several other people, including Corrigan's ex-husband, told Time that Corrigan had told them about the incident over the years." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Bush, who joked about it with some of the other women he groped, seemed to think ass-grabbing is hilarious & harmless. No, actually, it's physically aggressive & demeaning. You can see in Sari Corrigan's response that VIPs like Bush get away with it (while many ordinary men do not) because women realize they're comparably powerless & could suffer repercussions if they object. Yes, some mothers would read the POTUS the riot act in a roomful of their husband's colleagues, but most would not. Bush's (alleged) little joke hurt two women -- a 16-year-old & her mother.

Beyond the Beltway

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Sam Levin of the Guardian: "Journalists working for Facebook say the social media site's fact-checking tools have largely failed and that the company has exploited their labor for a PR campaign. Several fact checkers who work for independent news organizations and partner with Facebook told the Guardian that they feared their relationships with the technology corporation, some of which are paid, have created a conflict of interest, making it harder for the news outlets to scrutinize and criticize Facebook's role in spreading misinformation. The reporters also lamented that Facebook had refused to disclose data on its efforts to stop the dissemination of fake news.... 'I don't feel like it's working at all. The fake information is still going viral and spreading rapidly,' said one journalist who does fact-checks for Facebook."

Renée Feltz of The Intercept: "[I]nestimable tons of moldy debris have to be mucked out as [Houston] rebuilds. Much of the work is being done by undocumented immigrants, who make up half of the Texas construction workforce, according to some estimates. But even as their labor is in high demand, many are silently enduring abuse as they fear deportation.... Post-Harvey, Houston has become a perfect storm for worker exploitation. Texas leads the nation in construction industry deaths, and workers in the state lose the most money to wage theft. But confronting abuse on the job now carries an added risk for undocumented workers, thanks to a new state law that allows police to report anyone in their custody to immigration officials." --safari

**Republican Dreamland. Kansas City Star: "Kansas runs one of the most secretive state governments in the nation, and its secrecy permeates nearly every aspect of service, The Star found in a months-long investigation. From the governor's office to state agencies, from police departments to business relationships to health care, on the floors of the House and Senate, a veil has descended over the years and through administrations on both sides of the political aisle...In the past decade, more than 90 percent of the laws passed by the Kansas Legislature have come from anonymous authors...Kansas became the first state to fully privatize Medicaid services in 2013, and now some caregivers for people with disabilities say they have been asked to sign off on blank treatment plans -- without knowing what's being provided.... The state, they say, seems hellbent on keeping information from the public." Read on for many more examples. --safari

Way Beyond

Natasha Geiling of ThinkProgress: "For the first time in three years, global carbon dioxide emissions are back on the rise, illustrating that while the world has taken some crucial steps to curb greenhouse gas emissions, the work is far from over...[a]ccording to figures released on Monday by the Global Carbon Project." --safari: And coal barons raise a toast!