NBC:
"Obviously, I would never vote for Doug Jones," the Democratic candidate in the race, Curtiss said in a telephone interview with NBC News. "At this point, I would probably not even go to vote on Dec. 12."
That's not a position she ever thought she'd find herself in — and it's not a comfortable one.
"I've never felt the inner turmoil I feel over this," she said. "At some point, decency comes before politics."
It’s not that Rs will vote for Doug Jones, it’s that they stay home. That’s the dynamic to watch for.
The Hill:
Establishment GOP conflicted over potential Moore win
One Republican strategist close to the Senate GOP leadership said it’s better for the party if Moore loses the race, even though it would reduce the GOP majority to 51 seats.
“This is a case where it’s better to chew off your foot to save your leg,” said the source, who argued that supporting Moore’s election in order to advance Trump’s agenda “is very short-term thinking,” calling the allegations against Moore “very credible.”
“No legislative win is worth sacrificing the integrity of our political institutions, which is what you’d be doing by asking people to accept the legitimacy of this candidacy,” the strategist added.
But other Republicans argue that while the allegations of sexual misconduct are disappointing and distressing, it would be foolish to hamstring Trump’s agenda by hoping that Moore looses — or to actively withdraw support.
“They need a Republican in that seat and there are no two ways about. I think they’ll have to quietly support Roy Moore,” Brian Darling, a former Republican Senate aide, said of the GOP establishment in Washington.
“He’s going to vote the right way when he comes to the Senate,’ Darling said of Moore. “That’s more important than these personal controversies, which are very discouraging.”
If you have not seen this Adam Serwer/Atlantic piece , it is a must read. Long, and brilliant:
[David] Duke’s strong showing, however, wasn’t powered merely by poor or working-class whites—and the poorest demographic in the state, black voters, backed Johnston. Duke “clobbered Johnston in white working-class districts, ran even with him in predominantly white middle-class suburbs, and lost only because black Louisianans, representing one-quarter of the electorate, voted against him in overwhelming numbers,” The Washington Post reported in 1990. Duke picked up nearly 60 percent of the white vote. Faced with Duke’s popularity among whites of all income levels, the press framed his strong showing largely as the result of the economic suffering of the white working classes. Louisiana had “one of the least-educated electorates in the nation; and a large working class that has suffered through a long recession,” The Post stated.
By accepting the economic theory of Duke’s success, the media were buying into the candidate’s own vision of himself as a savior of the working class. He had appealed to voters in economic terms: He tore into welfare and foreign aid, affirmative action and outsourcing, and attacked political action committees for subverting the interests of the common man. He even tried to appeal to black voters, buying a 30-minute ad in which he declared, “I’m not your enemy….
While the rest of the country gawked at Louisiana and the Duke fiasco, Walker Percy, a Louisiana author, gave a prophetic warning to The New York Times.
“Don’t make the mistake of thinking David Duke is a unique phenomenon confined to Louisiana rednecks and yahoos. He’s not,” Percy said. “He’s not just appealing to the old Klan constituency, he’s appealing to the white middle class. And don’t think that he or somebody like him won’t appeal to the white middle class of Chicago or Queens.”
Missoula Current:
In the years that John Heenan worked as a consumer protection lawyer, he fought cases involving medical bankruptcies and dark-money efforts to funnel cash into Montana’s political system, staving off quiet efforts to buy a preferred outcome.
But it wasn’t until freshman Rep. Greg Gianforte was facing charges of assault in Bozeman and resisted an order by the court to submit fingerprints and a mugshot that Heenan decided to challenge the sitting congressman for his seat.
Heenan, a political newcomer, is taking aim at this potential GOP rival as his campaign gears up for the primary next year and, if successful, the 2018 General Election. And while his opponent in the Democratic primary, Grant Kier of Missoula, withheld criticism of Gianforte in his interview with the Missoula Current, Heenen didn’t mince words.
“There was the assault on the reporter, but then on top of it and beyond it, (Gianforte) lied to us about it,” Heenan said. “The behavior of showing us that he thought he was above the law was troubling. As a lawyer, I’m hard-wired that no one is above the law, no matter how rich and powerful you are.”
Francis Wilkinson/Bloomberg:
GOP Surrenders Cherished IRS Scandal at Last
The fiction served the GOP for years, yet died quietly this month, forsaken and alone.
The IRS scandal came to a pathetic, whimpering conclusion earlier this month. For half a decade the scandal had kept delinquent members of Congress occupied and served up reliable programming to Fox News and other conservative media. But when Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John Koskinen walked out of his office on Nov. 9, of his own volition, on schedule, his fine reputation intact, the whole greasy production quietly expired.
When President Barack Obama appointed Koskinen in 2013, the Republicans had been swinging at the IRS for some time. A band of House Republicans later attempted to impeach Koskinen, claiming various misdeeds. But it was a late-inning stunt, a too-obvious effort to extend a scandal that had served so many so well for so long.
Willie Nelson/USA Today on behalf of family farmers:
On Thursday, most of us will come to the table as families, friends, communities and a nation to celebrate our blessings. What people may not think about is that it’s the family farmer who brings us all together. We will gather over a meal that represents the year-round hard work of often-forgotten Americans — our family farmers. Farmers are working to stay on their land, all the while knitting communities together by providing healthy food and an economic bedrock for rural communities. This is an important time to recognize their efforts and do all we can to strengthen them.
Another very good read, this from Joshua Holland/The Nation:
Here’s a Path to Medicare for (Almost) All That Isn’t Doomed to Fail
Bernie Sanders and John Conyers are proposing massive changes, for a huge number of people, in a very short space of time. There’s a better, less risky way.
But, as I wrote in August, these bills represent the most disruptive and difficult possible route to a comprehensive national health-care system. They’re too easy to misrepresent. Like any other deep reforms, they’d face concerted opposition from the right, centrist Democrats and health-care providers. But they’d face another obstacle, too: Because they compel so many people to give up their existing coverage for the promise of something better—all within a short period of time—they’re almost guaranteed to spark a popular backlash. Without strong popular support, these approaches are doomed to fail….
So consider an alternative approach, one that combines the audacity of the Sanders and Conyers plans with an understanding of the difficulties involved in restructuring a sector of the economy that accounts for one out of every 11 American jobs.
We could roll Medicaid’s low-income coverage, the Child Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and other public spending into the Medicare system, creating a very large pool of people insured through that program. We can empower it to negotiate with providers, and then expand the program’s coverage, as a benefit, to older working people, children, and the poor. And we can then open up this new Medicare for the rest of the population—individuals and businesses—to buy into, voluntarily and at their own pace.
Daniel Schultz/Religion Dispatches (aka Pastor Dan):
It seems obvious that Dems should reach out to religious voters, but the more critical that outreach is deemed, the more argle-bargle the reasoning becomes. While faith appeals might help peel off a few members of the Republican base, there’s no evidence that it will lead to a broad Democratic appeal, that it’s any more important than a solid economic platform, a charismatic candidate, or keeping the ferkakte Russians from meddling in American elections.