* Prior to allegations that he sexually assaulted teenagers, we knew that Roy Moore was a racist, homophobic Islamophobe. We now know that he is also a liar.
Kayla Moore, wife of Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore, shared a letter on Facebook over the weekend indicating support from more than 50 Alabama pastors. Not all the pastors said they gave permission for their name to be used on what appears to be a recycled letter from before the GOP primary, however.
Moore’s wife Kayla posted the letter to her Facebook page Sunday after days of controversy surrounding her husband and allegations he had sexual contact with a 14-year-old in 1979 when he was 32-years-old. Three other women said Moore pursued them as teenagers. The letter was posted before a fifth woman, Beverly Young Nelson, came forward with additional charges Monday…
The letter appears to be a version of one already posted on Moore’s campaign website. That letter, posted prior to the primary, contains all the same wording as below but with three extra paragraphs at the top, including a sentence referencing the Aug. 15 vote.
* Only sexual predators go trolling for teenagers at the local mall.
Roy Moore’s penchant for flirting with teen girls was “common knowledge” and “not a big secret” around Gadsden, according to some area residents…
Colleagues and others who knew Moore told the Washington Post that he often walked alone around the Gadsden Mall…
Usry, who was a teenager at the time, remembers seeing Moore at the mall often.
“He would go and flirt with all the young girls,” he said. “It’d seem like every Friday or Saturday night (you’d see him) walking around the mall, like the kids did.”
Jason Nelms, who now lives in Tennessee but grew up in nearby Southside, was a regular at the mall when he was a teenager.
He recalled being told by a mall employee that they kept watch for an older guy who was known to pick up younger girls.
Nelms said he was told later by a concession worker at the mall that it was Roy Moore.
* There seems to be some movement among Republicans to include repeal of the Obamacare mandate in their tax bill, something CBO said would result in 4 million people losing their insurance next year.
@SenJohnThune CONFIRMS:
-Individual mandate repeal will be added to tax bill in SFC.
-They have 50 votes on the floor.
-Passing Alexander-Murray alongside (not within the tax bill) is part of the deal.— Mike DeBonis (@mikedebonis) November 14, 2017
But reports are confusing.
* This report from CBO is alarming.
The GOP tax bill could trigger automatic cuts worth $136 billion from mandatory spending in 2018, including $25 billion in Medicare cuts, if Congress doesn’t find another way to offset its deficit increases, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
The tax bill would add an estimated $1.5 trillion to the deficit over a decade. Congressional “pay-as-you-go” rules, called pay-go, require that the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) automatically cut mandatory spending if legislation increases the deficit beyond a certain point.
“Without enacting subsequent legislation to either offset that deficit increase, waive the recordation of the bill’s impact on the scorecard, or otherwise mitigate or eliminate the requirements of the [pay-go] law, OMB would be required to issue a sequestration order within 15 days of the end of the session of Congress to reduce spending in fiscal year 2018 by the resultant total of $136 billion,” CBO wrote on Tuesday.
Medicare can only be cut by a maximum of 4 percent through the pay-go rules, however, which amounts to $25 billion in cuts.
* I wasn’t able to watch AG Sessions’ testimony at the House Judiciary Committee today. But based on what I’ve read, the headline of the story from Eric Levitz captures the substance: “Sessions: I Can Remember Only the Parts of 2016 That Exonerate Me.”
Jeff Sessions’s memory works in mysterious ways. He has “no clear recollection” of the March 2016 meeting where George Papadopoulos offered to set up a meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin — but the attorney general does remember shooting down the campaign aide’s unseemly suggestion.
Or, so Sessions tells the House Judiciary Committee.
* There are a lot of people serving in Congress that don’t garner national attention. For example, I had never heard of Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-WA) until today. But you really should take a few minutes to watch her questioning Tom Barthold from the Joint Committee on Taxation about how middle class people vs corporations would fare under the Republican tax cut plan. She lays it out in a way that anyone can understand.
Does the #GOPTaxPlan treat corporations & individuals the same in terms of who gets to keep deductions & who doesn’t? Nope, not even close. pic.twitter.com/2h2iQzqXl0
— Rep. Suzan DelBene (@RepDelBene) November 6, 2017
* Finally, today’s musical selection is from Elbow and goes out to all of the little girls who continue to dream.
