monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Who didn't meddle?

What is the legal definition of meddling?

What action did Russia authorize that directly altered the outcome of the 2016 election?

My advice; ignore it.

There are people from the far left — and of course, righties — who see real holes and outrageously dishonest motives behind this phony Russian narrative. It was born as a desperate colossal distraction from the REAL NEWS giving email evidence of DNC cheating during the primaries —. Hillary Clinton’s team elevated trump to pied piper status and we can thank them for President Trump.

Roy Moore, who has been accused by two women of initiating unwanted sexual contact with them when they were underaged, is back in the lead in the most recent polls of Alabama’s Senate race. Although it’s still anyone’s election — turnout is hard to model in special elections and Moore’s lead is narrow — he has to be considered at least a modest favorite.

If Moore wins, you’re liable to see a lot of commentary along the lines of what the notoriously corrupt Democratic Gov. Edwin Edwards said when seeking to regain Louisiana’s governorship in 1983: “The only way I can lose this election is if I’m caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy.” (Edwards won by 26 percentage points.) Or, if you prefer a more recent example, what President Trump said about his political base in 2016: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.” That is to say, a Moore win would be taken as a canonical example of how politicians can get away with almost anything — even allegedly molesting two teenage girls — and still win elections so long as their base remains loyal to them.

The truth is a little more complicated than that. Moore — even if he wins by a few points — will have vastly underperformed a typical Republican in Alabama. He’ll have benefitted from running in a highly partisan epoch in a deeply red state and from drawing an opponent in Democrat Doug Jones who has fairly liberal policy views, including on abortion. If Alabama were just slightly less red — say, if it were South Carolina or Texas instead — Jones would be on track to win, perhaps by a comfortable margin. In Alabama, he’s an underdog. Nonetheless, the marginal effect of the allegations and of Moore’s other controversies may be fairly large.

It’s really hard for a Democrat to win in Alabama

Alabama has been an extremely red state since the demise of the Solid South. Moreover, it’s been consistently red; unlike states such as West Virginia, where Democrats are sometimes viable in races for local office and for Congress, Alabama has been voting Republican for pretty much everything. There are currently no Democrats who hold statewide office in Alabama. With one exception, all members of the state’s Congressional delegation are Republicans. And in recent elections for president, Congress and governor, the Republican candidate has won by an average of about 30 percentage points.