Dumb, Dumber and Dumbo

Men Behaving Badly:  Judge Roy Moore is still running for Senate in Alabama, with the full support of his wife,  her Stepford friends and Alabama Governor Kay Ivey, who says that despite Moore’s “indiscretions” she does believe that she’ll cast her vote for him because he’s a Republican and we need him to vote on things we care about like the Supreme Court. Trump, the serial molester, is still president and Al Franken, the guy who so far only has one accuser is holding on for dear life. Picking up on Governor Ivey’s Supreme Court theme, Trump updated his list of potential Supreme Court nominees to include an outspoken anti-abortion activist, his way of suggesting that a vote for Moore is just fine with him.  Sarah Huckabee Sanders defended Trump’s snide anti-Franken tweet and virtual silence about Judge Roy Moore by saying that since Franken has admitted his bad act he, unlike Trump who asserts his innocence, is fair game. A number of Franken’s former colleagues, including former Not Ready for Prime Timer Jane Curtin and women from his Minnesota office have jumped to his defense saying that despite his stupid crass behavior on the USO tour he’s always treated them with respect.  New York Senator Kristen Gillibrand is taking a really hard line, not only is she ready to ditch Trump,  Moore and Franken, she’s now also throwing former President Clinton under the bus as well.  Even though she sits in Hillary’s former seat, a seat she won with the early support of the Clintons, she says that he should have stepped down back in the days when he got into trouble for lying about his Monica Lewinsky sexcapades.  Her remarks aren’t making her many friends in high Democratic places,  if she keeps this up, the presidential wannabee could end up joining Franken in the trash bin of fallen contenders.  As to Trump, it’s been suggested that he is staying out of the Moore battle on the advice of Steve Bannon who appears to still be coaching Moore to stick to the Bannon-Trump deny all strategy. Though he may be listening to Bannon, Trump isn’t paying much attention to his staff’s advice.  They told him to avoid tweet smacking Franken or face the consequences but since Trump has no impulse control he went ahead with his tweets and the consequences are that several news channels have been running stories featuring his accusers.  Funny how when merged into one continuous clip the allegations show a distinct Trump groping pattern, one that may someday catch up with him, or not.  

Kushner, Kushner, Kushner:  Son-in-law Kushner’s hole keeps getting bigger and bigger.  When Senators Grassley and Feinstein released their letter telling his lawyers that they expect a full dump of his emails, calls and correspondence pronto the letter mentioned a “Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite.”  Apparently that particular reference was to an invitation from still another Putin crony, this one named Aleksander Torshin, a Russian Central Banker with links to Russian organized crime.  Torshin wanted to organize a meet-up between Trump and Putin but reportedly Kushner put the kibosh on any meeting.  Unfortunately for him Kushner also failed to provide the Congressional committees or Special Counsel Mueller with the emails about the offer justifying his omission by saying that since he didn’t okay the meeting the outreach was a nothing burger.  However the nothing burger defense isn’t working since the email trail was provided by campaign aide and White House deputy chief of staff Rick Dearborn and may have also been provided by Don Jr.  While Kushner rebuffed the offered meeting, Don Jr appears to have been a little more receptive, he ended up breaking bread with Aleksander Torshin at a May 2016 National Rifle Association reception. Kushner is also in trouble for lying to Congress.  During his testimony, he said that he knew nothing about the WikiLeaks outreach to the Trump campaign, yet he was a recipient of Don Jr’s email detailing the WikiLeaks offer to help and he forwarded that email on to Hope Hicks, who at that time served as Trump’s human email box.  Lying to Congress is a crime.  Now Communications Director, Hope Hicks is due to meet with Special Counsel Mueller very soon, reports are that she’s spent months preparing for her grilling because telling the truth, and nothing but the truth takes lots and lots of preparation.  Another possible testifier is waiting in the wings.  Rob Goldstone, the guy who was the intermediary for the meeting between Don Jr, Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort and the Russian lawyer, Natalia Vesilnitskaya has offered to make the trip from his current home in Bangkok to the US to spill his guts.     

Return of the Elephants:  Maybe it was the really bad press including criticism from arch conservative commentator Laura Ingraham who had tweeted that she “did not understand how the decision would not INCREASE the gruesome poaching of elephants.”  Maybe Daddy Don decided that Donny Jr didn’t deserve a reward for failing to be more discrete about all his Russian collusion.  Whatever the reason, Trump has decided to freeze his decision that would have lifted the ban on elephant hunters bringing their trophies, and by trophies think body parts and tusks, back to the US.  It’s probably too soon to celebrate because Trump still plans to further discuss the issue with Interior Secretary Zinke, the tone-deaf serial private plane traveler, before reaching a final decision. For now Dumbo and his awesome friends have been spared from being shot and dismembered by one or more of the Trump sons and their misguided, mean spirited hunting buddies.   

Senate Fisticuffs:  The Senate is off on a weeklong Thanksgiving recess and not a moment to soon.  Before departing, Senator Sherrod Brown, the Ohio Democrat and another Democratic presidential contender, and Senator Orrin Hatch, the possibly retiring Utah Republican, got into a heated verbal sparring match about the Senate tax plan with Brown attacking the plan for its “dishonesty, misdirection and bottomless bad faith” for prioritizing corporate tax cuts over the needs of Americans.  Hatch blew a gasket snapping back at Brown for his lack of civility because you are supposed to act civil even when your constituents are being pillaged.  When they return from their Turkey, the Senators will get back to their fighting.  Right now a number of Senate Republicans remain in the “no” or “not so sure” column about the tax plan.  Republican leadership wants to do whatever it takes to move forward with a vote before the Alabama Senate special election to avoid having to deal with the consequences of seating child molester Senator Moore or worse yet, losing a vote to a Democratic Senator Doug Jones.