In the Heart of Dixie

Home in Alabama:  By the end of today we should know the name of the next US Senator from Alabama.  A Fox News poll indicates that Democratic candidate Doug Jones is up by ten points over Republican candidate Roy Moore, an Emerson College poll gives Moore a nine point advantage and a Monmouth University poll says it’s a toss-up. Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight attributes the conflicting results to the uncertainty associated with predicting special election turnout and differences in polling techniques, saying that some pollsters like Fox employ live interviewers who call both cell phones and landlines while others like Emerson use computer generated systems that by law can only call landlines.  As a result the Fox poll reaches a younger more diverse audience while Emerson reaches an older, white crowd. Even with statistical adjustments the results can differ dramatically, making election outcomes hard to predict.  For what it’s worth Silver thinks that Moore is the more likely winner, but otherwise reliable, he also thought that Clinton would beat Trump and we know how that turned out. Moore spent most of the weekend avoiding the press, but on the advice of a Trump super PAC he did grant one interview yesterday to a twelve year old girl because some brain trust thought it was a good idea to put a young girl in jeopardy.  At his final campaign rally, Moore’s wife Kayla made a point of calling out the “fake news” for suggesting that she and her husband are anti-Semitic, saying that was a lie because “one of our attorneys is a Jew,” we have a Jewish friend, we know a rabbi and we eat kosher hotdogs.  Standing by Moore’s side, Steve Bannon paraphrased Ivanka Trump by saying that there was a special place in hell for Republicans opposing Moore. While dissing Ivanka, he was also referencing Moore disparaging remarks made by Alabama’s senior senator, Richard Shelby, and Alabama native and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who said that Alabamans should insist that “our representatives are dignified, decent, and respectful of the values we hold dear.” Calling the campaign “stranger than fiction” former basketball player Charles Barkley joined Doug Jones at his last rally going on to say "If somebody told you guys to put this election in a movie script ... you would throw it in the trash. You'd say there's no way possible this other dude [Moore] could be leading in any polls." To counteract Trump’s pro Moore robo calls, Obama and Biden jumped into the fray with pro Jones calls. By tonight we should know whether we get to toss Moore into Barkley’s bin or whether he gets to live out the rest of the plotline in the Senate.  

The Women Are Back:  Yesterday in the hope that the “Me Too” movement lends their accusations more credibility three of Trump’s accusers, Rachel Crooks, Samantha Holvey and Jessica Leeds, appeared at a news conference for a new film focusing on the women who have accused Trump of sexual misconduct. Together the three women experienced all of the things that Trump bragged about on either the Access Hollywood Tape or during his appearance on the Howard Stern radio show.  One was a teen beauty contestant when he walked into a dressing room to examine his “possessions,” another sat next to him on a plane when he groped her, and the third was forcibly kissed at Trump Tower. They followed up with an appearance on “bloody” Megyn Kelly’s NBC show.  When asked about the women’s reappearance Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that Trump says that the women are all lying, the accusations are false and that he ought to know because he was there. When pushed to say what she believes, she answered that her job is to represent Trump not to express opinions.  She did her best to avoid the subject, instead trying to shift talk back to yesterday’s terrorist attack by Bangladeshi immigrant Akayed Ullah at New York’s Port Authority Station, an attack that she and Trump blame on Democrats for their support of “chain migration,” the Republican catchword for family immigration.  Her attempt at shifting attention away from Trump’s accusers didn’t go over well with the press corps, particularly the persistent April Ryan, who earns her stripes everyday by politely hammering away at Huckabee Sanders.  Democratic Senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden both of Oregon, Cory Booker of NJ, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and Kirsten Gillibrand of NY also remain focused on Trump’s sex crimes, yesterday they called for Trump to step down.  Having thrown Al Franken under the bus for a purpose Gillibrand is ready to take on Trump.  She said “These allegations are credible; they are numerous. I’ve heard these women’s testimony and many of them are heartbreaking.” Bernie Sanders added “we have a president who acknowledged on tape that he assaulted women, I would hope that he pays attention to what’s going on and thinks about resigning. Yesterday 56 Democratic Congresswomen followed suit, sending a letter calling for a Congressional investigation into the “allegations by various women of sexual misconduct” against Trump to the heads of the Government Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Republican Trey Gowdy and Democrat Elijah Cummings.  The pressure is on, the topic is hot but it’s highly unlikely that anyone in Republican leadership will act. However, men outside of Washington continue fall, Ryan Lizza, The New Yorker correspondent whose scathing article about Communications Director for a minute Anthony Scaramucci cost him his job is now out as is famed chef Mario Batali.  Further dampening Trump’s day, a federal judge ruled that the government would not be “irreparably injured” if transgender soldiers were allowed to enlist while the case against their participation in the military continues through the courts.  In response the Pentagon said that transgender applicants will be allowed to enlist.  And promising to make “our planet great again,” France’s President Macron poked Trump by offering thirteen US climate scientists grants to come work in France at least until the US come to its senses and by that he means until the US gets new leadership.

Tax Justification:  Steve Mnuchin’s Treasury Department finally released his promised analysis of the proposed tax reform legislation, the analysis that he insisted was being prepared by one hundred of his best Treasury drones.  The terse one page document uses unrealistically high growth assumptions to conclude that the tax cuts will pay for themselves only when welfare reform is implemented, by welfare reform think cuts in all social service programs including Medicaid and Medicare.  Several prominent economists called the ridiculously short analysis a “pathetic joke” and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, never one to mince words, called it a pathetic excuse for a study saying that it wasn’t signed by anyone at Treasury because none of the real analysts there would ever put their name on something so inadequate, adding that the relevant data had probably “been suppressed by the administration to “obscure the truth.“  The nonpartisan Joint Commission on Taxation finally released their report on the House tax plan, concluding that it, like the Senate plan, would increase the deficit by $1 trillion even after considering economic growth. Criticism aside, even though key issues remain unresolved, leadership remains undeterred and still plans to pass tax legislation by Christmas.

The Investigation:  Though the Rupert Murdoch owned Wall Street Journal insists that nothing Trump has done could be deemed an obstruction of justice, Special Counsel Mueller apparently disagrees, according to NBC news he is piecing together the events that took place during the eighteen day period that began when former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates told senior officials that national security adviser Flynn was susceptible to blackmail by Russia and ended with him firing Flynn. One of the people who was around during that period is the infamous Steve Bannon.  Though it’s not clear if it’s happened yet, expectations are that he too will get to spend some time under the Mueller lights.  In the meantime, Trump’s supporters are doing their best to malign Mueller, ramping up their efforts in the hope of dispatching him before he dispatches Trump.