monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

It would also be a tu quoque fallacy in operation. Moral turpitude on the part of Mr. Clinton does not excuse of justify moral turpitude on the part of Mr. Moore, nor of anyone else.

it is endless circular debate on Clinton no matter who the subject at hand is.

...Fifteen senators have been expelled from the Senate in the history of the country. All of them were expelled for what amounted to treason and sedition.

...As I stated above, this is not to defend Moore who was obviously an ogre well before we found out about his penchant for teenage girls. But we have a separate interest in not casually using extreme powers for reasons of momentary expediency – and that is what it is for Republicans right now. Republicans have already canvassed the idea of simply canceling the election – something Alabama state law apparently may make possible through a series of workarounds but is obviously improper in any democratic practice sense. Indeed, it may conflict with federal law or even be unconstitutional. What Republicans are reacting to is what they see rightly as a situation of extreme political embarrassment. They’ve considered canceling the election. They’ve considered refusing to seat Moore. (From what I can tell that’s no longer possible under Supreme Court decisions that only allow non-seating for issues of eligibility or the legitimacy of the election.) Now they’re treating it as open and shut and obvious that he should be immediately expelled. They have shown with several different proposed strategies their willingness to do all manner of totally crazy things to save themselves from the will of Republican voters in Alabama.

...Having said all this, I’m not saying definitively that it would be wrong to expel Moore. What concerns me is that it is being treated as a simple and obvious expedient when it is, in fact, a completely unprecedented move and highly questionable in terms of the precedent it sets regardless of Moore’s past crimes. The party at issue here isn’t Moore. It’s Alabama voters. The polls released since this scandal broke do not show them in a very good light at all. But voters have a perfect right to be terrible.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) has crunched the numbers on repealing Obamacare’s individual mandate, and she does not like what she sees.

The morning after Senate Republican leaders gave their blessing for the tax bill to include a provision gutting the mandate, the Maine senator told reporters that her staff used data from the IRS, the Congressional Budget Office, and the Kaiser Family Foundation to calculate that the large increase in health insurance premiums that would result from the mandate’s repeal would more than cancel out the tax breaks many middle class Americans would get from the rest of the GOP tax bill.

The latest national Marist poll found Democrats with an impressive lead on the generic congressional ballot, 51% to 36%. FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver added yesterday that if Dems can maintain that kind of support, they'll take the House majority with relative ease.

* On a related note, a national Quinnipiac poll released yesterday pointed in a similar direction, showing Democrats ahead on the generic House ballot, 51% to 38%, and leading the generic Senate ballot, 52% to 39%.

* The same Quinnipiac poll showed Donald Trump's approval rating down to 35%. The results also found that only 40% of Americans believe Trump is fit for office -- a new low for this president.

Why does Trump talk about Putin like Putin's his boss?

We have by now grown so inured to the sight of Donald Trump treating Vladimir Putin like a trustworthy source it was only moderately shocking when he dismissed his own country’s intelligence analysts as “political hacks” while refusing to consider the possibility that Russia’s dictator might have political interests of his own. Still, Trump made another comment in passing that deserves more attention. Speaking of Putin, and expressing his fear that continued investigation into Russian election interference would upset relations between the two countries, Trump said, “I think he is very insulted by it, which is not a good thing for our country.”

Consider how unusual a statement this is, especially coming from Trump. Trump is assuming that Putin is a sensitive soul who might be personally wounded by unflattering portrayals in the American media. He is further asserting that Putin’s emotional distress might cause him to lash out at the United States or harm its foreign-policy interests in some way. Trump is speaking to his country like a cowering mother warning her children not to upset their father.

Needless to say, this is the opposite of the imagery Trump uses to discuss almost everybody else. He is famously obsessed with dominance.

Larry Sabato‏Verified account
@LarrySabato
We can't believe we're doing this, but at least for now AL-SEN--that's ALABAMA--Leans D (Doug Jones). The GOP may find a way out of this mess, but the party--thanks to Roy Moore--is on the verge of blowing what was once a sure thing. More tomorrow in the Crystal Ball.
12:06 PM - 15 Nov 2017

USA TODAY‏Verified account
@USATODAY
#BREAKING Taxpayers are paying the bill for government lawyers to protect Trump’s private business profits

If I was king of this (or any other such) site, I would make serial use of logical fallacies as prime grounds for banning. The ban would expire as soon as the perp submitted a two page essay on the fallacies and why they are to be avoided, rather than wielded.

(...)hailing his yuuuuuuuge success on his return from Asia.

The fact that he got back safely without prompting a nuclear exchange is certainly encouraging.

I get a kick out of the matching white-on-white shirts that Trumplusconi and Duterte modeled in Manila the other day.