Et tu, Al

Giant No More:  Yesterday Leeann Tweeden a former playboy model, now a radio commentator, accused Senator Al Franken of groping and kissing her during a 2006 USO trip.  She says that he wrote a kiss into a skit and then proceeded to insist on aggressively practicing the scene with said kiss.  She also learned after the fact that he was photographed faux groping her while she was sleeping on the flight home.  In any case, in this environment of heightened harassment awareness  Franken’s actions are not being taken lightly.  Unlike, Alabama child molester Moore, Franken has issued a fairly sincere sounding apology saying that he regrets his activities, doesn’t remember the kissing the way she does, but acknowledges that if she was offended he must have done something wrong.  As far as the picture goes, he also admits it was in bad taste, although it doesn’t appear that he was actually touching her and I reluctantly admit that I thought it was pretty funny.  However, Senators McConnell and Schumer aren’t laughing.  Relieved to have a Democrat to skewer, McConnell has called for an ethics probe. Feeling compelled to subject Franken to the standards he wants to impose on Moore, Schumer has also called for an ethics investigation.  And not to be outdone, Franken has asked for an ethics investigation of himself.  Assuming that a rash of women don’t come forward with similar accusations, Franken could survive this but if the list of his accusers grows his days in the Senate could be cut short and it’s fair to say that his name just fell off the list of potential Democratic presidential candidates for 2020.  The governor of Minnesota is a Democrat, so if Franken has to stepdown at least his interim replacement will be a Democrat too.  At least for now, Democrats won’t be losing their New Jersey seat anytime soon.  NJ Senator Menendez, who has been on trial for accepting bribes lucked out today.  The judge hearing his case declared a mistrial after jurors said that they couldn’t reach a verdict on any counts.  Menendez isn’t completely out of the woods, prosecutors could still seek a retrial but if they do and if he is found guilty, by then the selection of any interim senator will be in the hands of NJ’s next governor, Democrat Phil Murphy.  The multiple youth harasser, Alabama’s Roy Moore is soldiering on. A group of local evangelists and faith leaders reaffirmed their support for him because they believe that a child molester is a far better choice for protecting moral standards and fighting creeping homosexuality than a Democrat, especially one like Doug Jones, who is pro-choice.  So far nine women have come forward accusing Moore of harassment but that’s not enough for Trump.  On his behalf  Sarah Huckabee Saunders said “look the president believes these allegations are very troubling and should be taken seriously, and he thinks the people of Alabama should make the decision on who their senator should be.” For what it’s worth, the most recent poll, completed by Fox News shows Jones leading Moore by 8 points.   It’s kind of hard for Trump, who weighs in on everything, to weigh in on sexual harassment accusations so his lack of tweets about Moore isn’t all that surprising. However, despite his personal concerns he has no problem slamming Franken.  Last night he tweeted “Al Frankenstien (his spelling error, not mine) picture is really bad, speaks a thousand words. Where do his hands go in pictures 2,3,4,5,& 6 while she sleeps?...”  This from the man who bragged about grabbing women’s crotches. Sadly, it’s likely that Trump, Moore and Franken represent the tip of the iceberg and while there’s a chance that Moore will lose his election and that Franken will be forced from his seat, Trump seems immune from the consequences of his actions.  The names of more legislative harassers are likely to start flowing soon and it’s likely that each of them will be equally flummoxed as to why they are getting hammered while Teflon Trump stays put.     

Kushner, Kushner, Kushner:  Son-in-law Jared hasn’t been all that forthcoming with the Senate Judiciary Committee and they aren’t all that happy about it.  Yesterday, Chairman Grassley and Ranking Member Feinstein took the unusual step of publicly revealing that they had sent Kushner a letter telling him that they are aware that he received an email about WikiLeaks in September 2016 and that he passed it on to an official within the Trump campaign. The letter said that they are also aware of a “Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite” that he didn’t disclose as well as some communications with Sergei Millian, a Belarussian-American businessman who is thought to be the source of the most salacious component of the infamous Steele dossier. They also believe that Kushner failed to produce some previously requested phone records. Grassley and Feinstein know that these emails exist because they’ve received portions of the email trail from other more forthcoming witnesses. It’s hard to understand why Kushner thinks that rules don’t apply to him and why he and his coterie of high priced lawyers think that he can get away without adequately complying with official requests.  In any case his days of getting away with sketchy responses may be over, Special Counsel Mueller has issued a “clean up” subpoena to the Trump campaign for more Russia-related documents.  Mueller had previously received the information that had been handed to the Congressional committees, but his investigators felt that there were things that they didn’t see so now they are formally seeking the rest.

Flipping on Flynn:  Mueller may have flipped a significant witness who could provide incriminating information about former security advisor Michael Flynn and his not very legitimate work with the Turkish government. Reza Zarrab a gold-trader and a dual Turkish-Iranian citizen who is close to Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan, had been in a federal prison but he is now out of jail and talking to federal prosecutors including Mueller. NBC news reports that given the relationship between Erdogan and Zarrab and the allegations of an improper relationship between Flynn and the Turkish government, Zarrab's decision to cooperate with federal prosecutors is a significant development and is likely another bigly problem for Flynn which would also be a bigly problem for Trump.

Tax Reform Progresses:  Good news for Speaker Paul Ryan, his tax reform plan passed through the House today.  Bad news for the rest of us, except for big corporations and people like Trump with really large estates.  At this point there is no point in dwelling too much on the details of the House plan because the Senate plan which passed out of committee last night is significantly different than the one that the House passed.  One notable difference is that unlike the House plan, the Senate plan provides for only a temporary cut in taxes for individuals while permanently slashing the corporate rate from 35% to 20%.  Another is that it calls for the elimination of the Obamacare individual mandate. Suffice it to say that the big picture is that the deficit will grow by at least $1.5 trillion, many lower income and middle class people won’t be getting much in the way of extra pocket money and, regardless of what Ryan, McConnell and Trump say about how corporate tax cuts will pay for themselves by spurring growth, the real plan is to pay for the deficit increase by cutting social services and crimping Medicaid and Medicare expenditures.