Let Moore run then defeat him on Dec 12

Who is Roy Moore?    The Alabama Republcan candidate for U.S. Senate in a special election to replace Jeff Sessions,.   Moore is a right-wing nut who has been twice elected to be Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court.    Both times he was dismissed for judicial misconduct for refusing to obey federal laws, claiming that states are not bound by SCOTUS decisions.

He says that homosexual conduct should be criminalized;  Muslims should not be allowed to serve in Congress;  that God's Biblical law overrides our Constitution, and other equally odious undemocratic claims.  As a judge, he tried to give custody of a child to the father accused of abusing the same child, rather than give custody to the child's lesbian mother.  There are also allegations about a charity that he and his wife founded and raise money for, which does little charity work but pays both Moore and his wife salaries in the hundreds of thousands.

The Washington Post just published a superbly researched story -- with 30 sources -- of claims by four women who say that Moore made inappropriate sexual overtures to them when he was in his 30s and they were teenagers.   One was 14 at the time.  Their stories are backed up by other witnesses who say they were told about it by the victims at the time.   The youngest, 14 at the time, told her mother about it some 10 years later.   The 14 year old is now in her 50s -- and denies that this is political, given that she usually votes Republican and voted for Donald Trump.

Independent journalists have declared that the reporting is highly credible and well-backed by others who were told at the time. Having read the entire Post article myself, I too found it very credible.

But this is Alabama politics.   Voters have already re-elected Moore once to their highest judicial position, despite (or maybe because of) his having been discharged for defying the U.S. Supreme Court.    Recently they re-elected their House majority leader despite his facing 32 counts of financial corruption.  (He is now in jail.)  And their governor was being impeached in a sexual scandal, but the Attorney General stopped the proceedings, saying his office would handle it.   Then he dropped the whole thing -- and was rewarded by that same governor appointing him to the empty Senate seat left by Jeff Sessions, for which Moore is  now running to fill as the Republican nominee.

Moore has strongly denied the allegations;  and there seems no ground swell of outrage or even concern about him among local Republicans.   He's even using these accusations for fund-raising, playing the victim of a "Democrat plot."  Republicans in Congress are so intent on passing their agenda, they'd go along with Jack the Ripper, if he voted for their tax bill.   After all, they continue to support Trump.

It seems that Alabama Republican politicians are ready to give Moore a pass -- calling the accusations fake news.  Sean Hannity jumped on the bandwagon, claiming (without a shred of evidence) that the women are being paid to make these claims.  (But . . . just read their stories in the Post article, not the excerpted versions;   the women are very believable in their reasons for not having spoken before now.)

However, a late report on Friday said that the fundraising arm of the National Republican Party had parted ways with the Moore campaign and would no longer support him, saying that the people should be allowed to choose another candidate.

So, could Moore be replaced?   No, it's too close to the election.   Absentee ballots have already been sent out.  There is no provision for removing him from the ballot, even if he voluntarily withdrew, at this late date.   He could announce a withdrawal, and they could mount a write-in campaign;  but those rarely work -- except it did for Lisa Murkowski in Alaska.

What's the chance of beating Moore in the December 12th election?   The Democratic candidate is Doug Jones, a strong, progressive attorney.  As a U.S. attorney in Alabama in 2002, he found enough evidence and finally prosecuted two KKK members who were part of the groups that killed four little black girls in the church bombing way back in 1963.   Jones got a conviction, and the men are serving their sentences.

Shortly after the primary, when Moore beat Republican opponent Luther Strange -- the former AG who got the governor off the hook (above) and was rewarded with temporary appointment to Sessions Senate seat -- a poll between Moore and Jones showed them in a virtual tie.  Since then, other polls show Moore with a single digit lead of about 6%.

I'm optimistic, following this Tuesday strong showing from Democrats all over the country, that -- even in Alabama -- the people power may come out to defeat the politicians.   The African-American voters especially will likely be strong supporters.  Say no to the likes of Roy Moore, and send Doug Jones to Washington instead.

The point is that Roy Moore is unqualified to be a U.S. senator -- even if he is not a sexual predator on young women.   He has proved that he considers himself above the law, and he quite openly puts his own religious beliefs above the Constitution.

There are big consequences to the outcome of this election -- all over.   First, is the vindication of women everywhere who have been mistreated by men exerting power over them.  Second would be good government.    As closely divided as the Senate is right now (52 to 48) it takes flipping only two votes to make a 50-50 tied, which will be broken by VP Pence's vote.   If Jones wins, it would make it 51-49, meaning pealing off only two votes would give the Democrats a win on any issue.

In addition, the Republicans have two senators who are struggling with serious illnesses, and Rand Paul may be out for a while with his injuries.  So getting a Republican majority is pretty dicey right now.  It's sure worth an all-out effort to win this seat, even in Alabama -- for moral, political, and for good government reasons.

Ralph

Why do we have more gun deaths ?

Why does the U.S. have so many more mass shootings than any other country?   That question has been asked thousands of times, and been batted down by the NRA and even sane gun owners . . . thousands of times.

Some have offered explanations -- we are an unusually violent culture -- or blamed it on racial divisions fraying the bonds of society, or on lack of proper mental health care.   All of these have been shot down, when you look at comparative data.

Let's substitute some data for opinion.   The New York Time's Max Fisher and Josh Keller recently reported on a 2015 data analysis done by Adam Lankford, a professor at the University of Alabama.

Lankford found that, worldwide, "a country's rate of gun ownership correlated with the odds that it would experience mass shooting."   And no other factors come close to that correlation.    It even holds if you exclude the U.S. from the data -- and just look at other countries -- the correlation is still there:   higher rate of gun ownership and the increased likelihood of mass shootings.

Mass shootings do not correlate with overall homicide rates, with mental illness issues, suicide rates, racial diversity, prevalence of video game playing.

Gun homicide rates are a special case.  Like mass shootings, the U.S. has a very high rate of gun homicides, but not of crime overall.    The U.S. rate is 33 per million, compared to 5 per million for Canada and 0.7 per million for Britain.  But the study also shows that Americans are not simply more prone to crime than other developed countries;  it's just that here it's more likely to be lethal, as shown by a 1999 lankmark study at UC Berkeley.   As the authors put it:  "A New Yorker is just as likely to be robbed as a Londoner . . . but the New Yorker is 54 times more likely to be killed in the process."

And Fisher and Keller continue:  "More gun ownership corresponds with more gun murders across virtually every axis . . . and gun control legislation tends to reduce gun murders, according to a recent analysis of 130 studies from 10 countries."

"In 2013, American gun-related deaths included 21,175 suicides, 11,208 homicides and 505 deaths caused by an accidental discharge.  That same year in Japan, a country with one-third America's population, guns were involved in only 13 deaths."

There is another factor besides the sheer numbers of guns.   Switzerland has the second-highest gun ownership in developed countries but a relatively much lower rate of gun homicide, 7.7 per million, compared to our 33 per million.  As the authors explain:

"Swiss gun laws are more stringent, setting a higher bar for securing and keeping a license, for selling guns and for the types of guns that can be owned.  Such laws reflect more than just tighter restrictions.  They imply a different way of thinking about guns, as something that citizens must affirmatively earn the right to own.

"After Britain had a mass shooting in 1987, the country instituted strict gun control laws.   So did Australia after a 1996 incident.   But the United States has repeatedly faced the same calculus and determined that relatively unregulated gun ownership is worth the cost to society.   That choice, more than any statistic or regulation, is what most sets the United States apart. . . .

"In retrospect Sandy Hook marked the end of the U.S. gun control debate," wrote a British journalist.  "Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over."

*     *     *

I cannot improve on the sheer, apt shock of that statement.   It is plainly -- and shamingly -- true.

Ralph

Obamacare is very much alive, surging.

During the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump shouted at every rally that Obamacare is a disaster and that it is dying.   In his ten months as president, he has engaged in what can only be called sabotage, in multiple efforts to kill it.

And yet, after the first week of the open enrollment period for the coming year, the federal exchanges that administer enrollment for the ACA-Obamacare are busier than ever.   They're even saying that enrollment is "surging."   On the first day, something like 200,000 people visited the sign-up sites, twice as many as a year ago.

Trump's administration may have slashed the budget to promote signing up, and reduced the amount of open time, and threatened to stop paying subsidies -- but don't underestimate people-power.    Among others, late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel is urging his viewers to "do something positive, like sign up during the Affordable Care Act's open enrollment period that's happening now."  He then gives a sales pitch listing some of the advantages for those who don't have health insurance.

Democrats, diversity big election wins

Tuesday night's election returns made it a great night for Democrats.  New DNC chair Tom Perex had promised to recruit and support good candidates up and down the ticket, instead of just seeing it's mission as electing a president every four years.   It seems he went a long way toward fulfilling that promise -- with diversity proving to be a popular secondary theme.

Most significant were the statewide races in Virginia, where Democrats won for governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general.   In addition, they won a slew of delegates in the House that might still flip control to the Democrats, depending on recounts in some close races -- which even the most optimistic predictors did not think was possible.

In Georgia, Democrats picked up three open seats that had previously been held by Republicans in the state senate.   But the real gratifying story is the diversity among the winning Democrats in office down ticket.

As mentioned in yesterday's post, trans woman Danica Roem was one of those winners that flipped a Virginia House seat, ousting the Republican who proudly called himself the "Homophobe in Chief."   Another trans woman, Andrea Jenkins won a seat on the Minneapolis city council.   A trans man won a seat on the Erie, PA school board, becoming the first trsns person ever elected in Pennsylvania.

African-American Democrats won spots as Lt. Governor in Virginia and in New Jersey, as well as Mayor of Charlotte and of Framington, MA.   A white woman became the first female mayor of New Hampshire's largest city, while Seattle just elected its first lesbian mayor, only the second woman mayor in their history.   St. Paul, Minnesota chose its first African-American man as mayor.

Two Latina women and a Vietnamese woman also became firsts of their ethnic backgrounds in the Virginia House of Delegates, each one defeating a Republican.  Hoboken, NJ elected its first Sikh-American as mayor;  Helena, Montana elected as mayor a former refugee from Liberia.

Three small towns in Georgia -- Statesboro, Cairo, and Milledgeville -- all elected African-Americans as their mayors.

As the Bob Dylan song says:  "The times, they are a-changing.

Ralph

PS:  Late Update:  The Washington Post reported last night that, all across the country, it was women who racked up the victories for Democrats, often newcomers to politics unseating Republican men incumbents.   The Virginia House of Delegates jumped overnight from 17 women (of 100 members) to 30 or more, depending on some recounts.   In 2018, reports are that 40 women are already planning to run for governor.  "This is huge," said Stephanie Schriock, president of Emily's List, the political group that backs women Democratic candidates.

Dems sweep races in VA; win NJ governor

Given New Jersey's Gov. Chris Christie's unpopularity (14% approval), it was not surprising that the Democratic candidate easily won the governor's race there.

But the blowout Democratic wins in Virginia were thrilling -- and surprising.   They swept all statewide races:   governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general.   Ralph Northam had led the polls for governor until the race tightened in the last couple of weeks, as the Republican candidate, Ed Gillespie, began adopting Trump-type tactics, emphasizing divisive cultural issues.  Polling was not very reliable, but people were worried the Dems might lose badly.  Instead, they won gloriously.

Northam pulled off a surprising win with a margin of over 9 percent.  In addition to taking the Lt. Gov. and AG positions, they were close to doing what no one had even thought possible:   taking back control of the House of Delegates.  It would require flipping 17 seats.  As of this writing at 10:30 pm, they have taken 10 and have slim leads in another 7.   So it's possible.

As if to put a cherry on top of all these goodies, a trans woman candidate has soundly defeated the 25 year incumbent, a man who literally wrote the trans-ban bathroom bill (which did not pass); a man who proudly calls himself the "Homophobe-in-Chief."   What a stunning development !!!

Overall, it was an outpouring of anti-Trumpism fervor.   It will energize the Democrats, who are now, finally, talking about going all out in the Alabama race, in early December, to defeat Roy Moore and elect Democrat Doug Jones to fill Jeff Sessions senate seat. Let's do it.

Ralph

Nov 8, 2016 - - - - - - - - Nov 8, 2017

What a difference a year makes -- election day 2016 to today.  David Smith, writing in The Guardian, looks back to the moment just before 3 AM on November the 9th:   "Donald Trump moved to the microphone at the Hilton hotel in Midtown Manhattan as an astounded, euphoric crowd chanted:  'USA!   USA!   USA!'   The president-elect gave a thumbs up, spoke graciously about opponent Hillary Clinton and made a promise:  'Now it's time for America to bind the wounds of division.'"

Smith continues:  "The billionaire businessman's acceptance  speech . . . raised the hope that Trump the president would differ from Trump the candidate.   Today, however, many of those hopes have been dashed.   Critics say he has divided America more deeply than ever, driving wedges between black and white, female and male, rural and urban -- perhaps as a deliberate political strategy."

Looking back to that moment a year ago, Smith says, those "were just words on paper because there has not been healing, no binding of the wounds. . . ."   Charlie Sykes, a conservative pundit who was not a Trump supporter, was unimpressed by the election-night speech.   "He can read a speech written by others that may have some grace notes but his presidency has thrived on division, stoking acrimony and inflaming the culture wars.  No one who paid attention during the campaign should be surprised, but it's still shocking to see a U.S. president behave like that.  Division is the business model for much of the conservative media and it is central to the political strategy of the president."

David Smith says that:  "It was his inaugural address, not his election night speech, that revealed his true colors:  'Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities;  rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation . . . . the crime and gangs and drugs that have stolen too many lives. . . . This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.'"

Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to both Clintons, pointed out the irony.   Although Trump's election night comment -- "binding the wounds of division" -- echoed Abraham Lincoln's similar phrase on the eve of the Civil War, Lincoln was appealing to "the better angels of our nature."   Trump, however, hammered home his negative and divisive message of "American carnage."

Smith reminds us that, just one week into his new presidency, Trump's executive order banned refugees and immigrants from Muslim majority countries -- the first of many orders dividing us "along the fault lines of class, culture, gender, gun ownership, race and religion."

And Smith quotes Blumenthal, a biographer of Lincoln:  "Trump pursues polarization whenever he can.  It's his life raft.  He cannot survive without dividing.  All he has is his base, such as it is, and it can only be held together through constant alarms, emergencies and appeals to its instincts.  Instead of the better angels of of our nature, he appeals to the demon instincts of his base."

Some have suggested that Trump was not always a white supremacist but that is was a persona he created to get elected, and he can no longer tell the difference.   Smith points to the fact that he has "continued to fire up his core support with an average of one [campaign style] rally per month, seeking to delegitimate institutions through 'us against them' rhetoric and claiming to back the common man against the elites."   In West Virginia, he told his supporters that the Russia investigation was an attack on them;  In Arizona, he railed against the "damned dishonest" journalists who "don't like our country."   The crowd chanted back:   "USA!   USA!   USA! . . . CNN sucks!   CNN sucks! . . . Build that wall!   Build that wall!"

Smith continues, quoting Neil Sroka, communications director of Democracy for America, a liberal advocacy group.   When he and his colleagues heard Trump's election night speech, he said:  "There was not a moment of hesitation for us in the room:   we knew he was lying.   This is a man who has spent his life saying what he needs to say to get ahead.  In a moment of shock for him, somebody handed [the speech] to him and he read it. . . .  There has never been a president more focused, more dedicated and more committed to dividing the country against itself over and over again. . . .  The only way he wins is by dividing us further.   It's our job to unify the country specifically against his divisive kind of politics."

*     *     *     *     *

Meanwhile, Bob Mueller's investigation -- and the important evidence that honest journalists are uncovering -- are closing in with new evidence almost every day that shines the spotlight of justice on the Trump Team's multiple ties to Russia.

Either we continue the path of Trump's first 10 months in office, hurtling toward authoritarianism, with a complicit Congress and backed by a more conservative judiciary with each nomination they approve -- or we find a way to slam on the breaks.   And the most likely way that will occur is through the Mueller investigation, multiple indictments of Trump associates, and ultimately impeachment of the president himself.

Ralph

Trump's Asia trip -- waiting for the gaffes.

We've been watching President Trump's visit to Asia with a collective holding of breath, hoping that his gaffes or his displays of ignorance will merely cause embarrassment, not the start of World War III.

Wait no more.   On Sunday, in Japan, he opined his surprise that "a country of samurai warriors did not shoot down the North Korea missiles as they flew over Japan" -- referring to Kim Jong Un's testing of his ICBN capacity back in August.

Of course, the Japanese -- who, deep in their DNA, would never embarrass a guest -- just calmly explained.  They had monitored the rockets from the moment of launch and determined that they would not land on Japanese territory.   In addition, at their speed and altitude, they would have been extremely difficult to hit.   Attempting, and failing, would have embarrassed Japan -- and might have been interpreted by North Korea as an act of war.

Ah, yes, the adults in the room.

National Climate report -- sobering facts

As mandated by law, the U.S. Global Change Research Program makes a report every four years, the latest of which has just been released as "The Fourth National Climate Assessment."  Here's the gist, as reported by the Washington Post:

“It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. . . .  For the warming over the last century, there is no convincing alternative explanation supported by the extent of the observational evidence.”

"The report affirms that climate change is driven almost entirely by human action, warns of potential sea level rise as high as 8 feet by the year 2100, and enumerates myriad climate-related damages across the United States that are already occurring due to 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit of global warming since 1900."

Phil Duffy, director of the Woods Hole Research Center, is quoted saying:  "This is a federal government report whose contents completely undercut their policies . . . [and] the statements made by senior members of the administration.”

The Post article continues:  "Federal scientists have continued to author papers and issue reports on climate change . . . even as political appointees have altered the wording of news releases or blocked civil servants from speaking about their conclusions in public forums. . . .  

"[EPA] Administrator Scott Pruitt, Energy Secretary Rick Perry and President Trump have all questioned the extent of humans’ contribution to climate change.  One of EPA’s Web pages posted scientific conclusions similar to those in the new report until earlier this year, when Pruitt’s deputies ordered it removed. . .  [The Trump administration is] working to promote U.S. fossil fuel production and repeal several federal rules aimed at curbing the nation’s carbon output . . . [while] Trump has also announced he will exit the Paris climate agreement. . ."

The take-away warning of this report, as analyzed by Jeff Goodell of Rolling Stone magazine is this:   If we do not decrease our level of CO2 emissions, we have about 20 years before we reach cumulative carbon threshold that would be the tipping point into catastrophic effects.

Ralph

Repub tax bill -- worse than expected

Vox.com's Dylan Matthews says:
   "I've spent months covering Republican tax policy.   This bill is way worse than I expected.   The party had some legitimately good ideas.   They're not in this bill."

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told Rachel Maddow that he expects the House will pass the bill, but he thinks the Democrats have a pretty good chance of defeating it in the Senate.   Let's hope so.

Schumer says it would make the income inequality problem much worse;  increase the deficit by a huge amount, and do little to help any group -- except big corporations (who are already "awash in cash" that they're not putting into increased wages);  and very wealthy people who are the least likely to use a tax cut in ways that stimulate the economy.

Meanwhile, the Repubs are not even saying what spending cuts they will demand to pay for all the tax cuts.   That comes later --  always a bad idea, to slash revenue and then decide how you will get along without it.  Not to worry, if you're a Republican, since you think most everything, except defense spending, is excess anyway.

Schumer says they're also employing the same procedural tactics they tried with healthcare:   keep the details secret, hold no hearings, and try to ram it through before people understand what it does and how bad it is.

Ralph

Trump names Powell to head Fed Reserve

I was hoping that President Trump would appoint Janet Yellen for a second term as Chair of the Federal Reserve.   She has kept a steady hand, presiding over an improving economy without letting inflation take over.   Besides, I like the idea of having a woman as the most powerful global financial official.

Trump had apparently winnowed his choices to three:  (1) reappoint Yellen;  (2) Jerome Powell, who currently is a member of the Fed Board;  and (3) John Taylor, a Stanford University economics professor.

Of the three, Yellen was no doubt the best choice;  but Trump just can't bring himself to endorse anything Barack Obama did, and Yellen was an Obama appointee.   Powell is by far a better choice than Taylor, who has some controversial ideas about monetary policy that don't have wide support.  Here's what the New York Times editorial board said about it:

""Donald Trump has not proved himself to be much of a talent scout;  as president he has tended to pick far right zealots, inept toadies, conflicted swamp dwellers and unqualified family members for top jobs.   So it is a relief that he picked a level-headed and competent person to lead the Federal Reserve . . . .

"By choosing Jerome Powell, a Republican respected across the political spectrum, Mr. Trump has opted for continuity and stability. rather than disruption and destruction.  Mr. Powell has been a solid member of the Fed Board since 2012 and has supported its current chair-woman Janet Yellen . . ."

The editorial goes on to say Ms. Yellen would have been the best choice;  and it encourage her to keep her seat as a member of the Board through the rest of her Board term (2024) even though her term as Chair ends in 2018.  The Board will continue to profit from her experience, and will also hold a seat that would otherwise give Trump another one to fill.

Ralph

"One of the great memories of all time"

Donald Trump claims to have "one of the great memories of all time."   He said it again in defending himself over his call to the widow of Army Sgt. La David Johnson, one of the four soldiers killed in Niger.

Ms. Johnson said that the president didn't seem to know her husband's name.   Trump claims otherwise, in his typical defensive manner -- adding that he has "one of the great memories of all time."

However, his memory seems to be selective.  In two different depositions for lawsuits over his now-defunct university, Trump said "I don't remember," a total of 35 times in one and 24 times in the other.

Ralph

What if there's a party and no one comes?

There's a disturbing article on vox.com by David Roberts raising the question:   "What if Mueller proves his cases and it doesn't matter?"

Meaning, have we gone so far down the road of fake news and denigrating the validity of evidentiary truth, that the rule of law has become irrelevant?

What if Mueller reveals hard proof -- but the president says it's a plot and that Mueller is working for Hillary [they're already trying to discredit him by asking why he didn't prosecute her over the Russia uranium deal when he was FBI director].

And what if Trump is backed by the Wall Street Journal editorial page, Fox News, Breitbart, most of the U.S. Cabinet, half the panelists on CNN, most of radio talk show hosts . . . and an enormous network of Russian-paid hackers . . . working through social media -- to reject the evidence?

What if the entire right-wing media machine "dismisses the whole thing as a scam -- and conservatives believe them. The conservative base remains committed to Trump, politicians remain scared to cross the base, and US politicians remain stuck in paralysis, unable to act on what Mueller discovers."

"In short, what if Mueller proves the case and it's not enough?  What if there is no longer any evidentiary standard that could overcome the influence of right-wing media?"

To the extent that Mueller has proof of criminal behavior, that will go through our court system.   But any charges against the president would require Congress to impeach him;  and that becomes a political matter -- and the above scenario could become true.

Ralph