Daily Archives
25 posts · Tuesday
Alabama pastor Flip Benham, who recently appeared with U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore (R) at a campaign rally, told an Alabama radio station that Moore dated “younger ladies” for their “purity.”
Said Benham: “He did that because there is something about a purity of a young woman, there is something that is good, that’s true, that’s straight and he looked for that.”
“Robert Mueller’s investigators are asking questions about Jared Kushner’s interactions with foreign leaders during the presidential transition, including his involvement in a dispute at the United Nations in December, in a sign of the expansive nature of the special counsel’s probe of Russia’s meddling in the election,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The Mueller team’s questions come as investigators scrutinize Mr. Kushner for his initial omission of any foreign contacts from a government form required to obtain a security clearance.”
Gabriel Sherman: “It’s perhaps hard to remember now, but it wasn’t long ago when Trump handed Kushner a comically broad portfolio that included plans to reinvent government, reform the V.A., end the opioid epidemic, run point on China, and solve Middle East peace. But since his appointment, according to sources, Kelly has tried to shrink Kushner’s responsibilities to focus primarily on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And even that brief appears to be creating tensions between Kushner and Kelly.”
“According to two Republicans who have spoken with Trump, the president has also been frustrated with Kushner’s political advice, including his encouragement to back losing Alabama G.O.P. candidate Luther Strange and to fire F.B.I. Director James Comey, which Kushner denies. (For what it’s worth, Kushner’s choice of Strange prevented Trump from the embarrassment of inadvertently supporting Roy Moore.) Trump, according to three people who’ve spoken to him, has advocated for Jared and Ivanka to return to New York in part because they are being damaged by negative press.”
Said one source close to Kushner: “He keeps pressuring them to go.”
A new Strategy Research poll in Alabama finds Roy Moore (R) edging Doug Jones (D) in the U.S. Senate special election, 47% to 45%, with 5% undecided with 3% indicating plans to write-in a candidate.
The previous poll, conducted after first round of sexual misconduct allegations, had Moore leading by six points. The poll before that had Moore up by eleven points.
“The FBI said it is investigating Rep. Bob Brady (D-PA) for an alleged scheme to pay his primary opponent to drop out of a 2012 race against him and for allegedly lying to investigators,” the Daily Beast reports.
“The revelation came from a search warrant application unsealed in a Pennsylvania federal court on Monday… An FBI agent asked a judge to authorize access to Brady’s personal email account on the belief it holds evidence contradicting an anticipated defense about the campaign payments. The judge approved the warrant and the FBI said it got one CD worth of data from the e-mail account.”
A new Quinnipiac poll finds that American voters by a 60% to 28% margin that if Roy Moore (R) is elected to the U.S. Senate from Alabama, the U.S. Senate should vote to expel him.
Republicans, however, say he should be allowed to serve by 49% to 33%.
Every other listed party, gender, education, age and racial group says expel him.
President Trump “appeared to throw his support behind Roy Moore (R), despite allegations of sexual misconduct lodged against the Republican Alabama Senate candidate,” The Hill reports.
Said Trump: “We don’t need a liberal Democrat in the seat… He denies it. He totally denies it.”
“Absolutely not! I will never give up. Republican voters in our state have spoken loudly and clearly by giving me an overwhelming victory in the primary and runoff. I will do everything in my power, and with the help of Almighty God, I will ensure that we win the election and keep this seat.”
— Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore (R), quoted by the Birmingham News, on whether he’s drop out of the race.
A Survey Monkey poll in 2014 found that 11% of Americans indicated that Barack Obama was the topic most likely to spur an argument on Thanksgiving. This year, 37% say that about Donald Trump.
“The expectation that Trump would be the subject most likely to hijack Thanksgiving transcended party lines: We asked respondents if they considered themselves Republicans, Democrats or independents, and regardless of party affiliation, the most common answer in each group was still Trump. Just over half of self-identified Democrats — 169 out of 319 respondents — said talking about Trump was most likely to start an argument, compared to 34% of independents and 20% of Republicans.”
“Amid rising calls for an ethics investigation into his behavior, Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) confirmed that he reached a financial settlement with a former staffer who accused him of sexual harassment but stressed that he did not admit fault in the case,” the Washington Post reports.
Said Conyers: “I expressly and vehemently denied the allegations made against me, and continue to do so… My office resolved the allegations — with an express denial of liability — to save all involved from the rigors of protracted litigation. That should not be lost in the narrative.”
“We had so much shit in our entire technology ecosystem that we couldn’t clean it up. Oh man, those Russians were on us like white on rice. I mean, they were, Joe, they were destroying data, critical data, Joe. I had a walking list for precinct 89 in Washington, D.C. I know precinct 89, right? And the Russians went in there and corrupted all of our critical data. All of our critical data. So, I no longer trusted this damn list that I’ve had for over 20 years of knowing every frequent voter, every Democratic voter.”
— Donna Brazile, in an interview on Sirius XM, on the extent of the Russian hacking of the DNC’s computer systems.
“Doug Jones, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Alabama, is wielding prominent conservative voices against his Republican rival Roy Moore, who has been dogged by allegations of sexual misconduct with teenage girls and young women when he was in his 30s,” NBC News reports.
The Democratic Party of New Mexico says its political candidates will need to complete sexual harassment prevention training to receive campaign support from the party in 2018 elections, the AP reports.
“Republicans are losing the public relations battle on their tax-cut bills. While a tax bill cleared the House last week, several Senate Republicans appear skeptical of their chamber’s version. And polls show that Americans are much more opposed to the GOP’s tax effort than supportive — a fact that has to be weighing on those same wavering Senate Republicans,” the Washington Post reports.
A new report from the bipartisan Tax Policy Center should make it even more difficult for senators to get to yes:
On average in 2027, taxes would rise modestly for the lowest-income group, change little for middle-income groups, and decrease for higher-income groups. Compared to current law, 9 percent of taxpayers would pay more in 2019, 12 percent in 2025, and 50 percent in 2027.
“It’s not difficult to see this winding up in just about every piece of Democratic pushback on the Senate GOP’s tax bill.”
Bloomberg: House tax bill is littered With loopholes for Wall Street’s wealthiest.
Stan Collender: “Congressional staff, lobbyists and reporters all cheered when the current continuing resolution — the law that’s keeping the government’s lights on while Congress figures out what to do about the fiscal 2018 spending bills — was drafted so it would expire on December 9. They all figured the early-in-December deadline meant they could make relatively secure plans to be out-of-town for the holidays.”
“I sure hope they didn’t get nonrefundable tickets.”
“The GOP’s efforts to enact a tax bill by President Trump’s arbitrary and nonsensical Christmas 2018 deadline has made it almost certain that Congress will be in session until close to the end of December. That, in turn, virtually guarantees that the (hopefully) final funding decisions for the year also won’t be made until the end of the month. That will wreak havoc with holiday schedules. It could also mean there could be a federal government shutdown by January 1.”
Alabama’s top election official told NBC News he is lowering his prediction for turnout in Alabama’s December 12 special election, a potential measure of how sexual misconduct allegations have roiled the Senate race between Roy Moore (R) and Doug Jones (D).
“Secretary of State John Merrill also said his office has just sent local election officials more detailed guidance for processing write-in votes, a result he said of a higher volume of inquiries than his office normally receives from voters across the state.”
First Read: “While it’s impossible to predict what will happen in the Moore-vs.-Jones race — it’s an election in December, in Alabama and with the Republican nominee facing terrible accusations — it’s fair to say that a lower turnout and more write-in votes probably help Jones.”
A USA Today editorial says the Trump administration’s decision to sue to block the proposed merger of AT&T and Time Warner “smacks of politics” because of the president’s vendetta against CNN.
Ever since the Nixon administration secretly meddled in antitrust policy, both parties have tried to keep raw partisan politics out of it. Presidents appoint certain types of lawyers to head the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission antitrust units, then leave them alone to conduct independent reviews that follow the facts and the law. At least that was the practice until Trump became president… None of this makes any sense outside of political vendettas. Turner Broadcasting is fairly small potatoes in terms of market power…
If the AT&T-Time Warner case goes to court, the administration is highly likely to lose, but not before wasting a lot of taxpayer and shareholder money on legal fees in the process.
The Chicago Sun Times concurs: “Trump is behaving again like a tin-pot dictator, trying to punish a media company that has dared to cover him honestly, aggressively and accurately.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.