monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Brett J. Talley, President Trump’s choice to be a federal judge in Alabama, has withdrawn from consideration, a White House official said Wednesday.

He is the first failed judicial nominee for the new administration, but he is likely to be joined shortly by Jeff Mateer, a Texas assistant attorney general who was nominated to be a district judge in his state.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) has moved quickly to approve Trump’s proposed judges, but he said Monday that he would not hold a hearing for Mateer and would oppose confirming Talley in the full Senate.

Talley is a 36-year old lawyer and blogger who had close ties to the White House. His wife, Ann Donaldson, works for White House counsel Don McGahn. But Talley has little legal experience, has never tried a case and was rated “not qualified” by the American Bar Assn.’s screening committee.

State Rep. Rick Quinn, R-Lexington, agreed to plead guilty to one count of misconduct in office Wednesday.

Quinn’s guilty plea is part of a deal in which charges against his father, powerful political consultant Richard Quinn, were dropped. The elder Quinn also agreed to cooperate with the ongoing investigation.

However, one of the elder Quinn’s companies will pay a $300,000 fine for failing to register as a lobbyist.

Rick Quinn agreed to the guilty plea knowing the state would seek a sentence involving jail time, special prosecutor David Pascoe said.

Pascoe’s investigation into public corruption at the State House is more than three years old. It has been marked by repeated attempts to limit or stop the investigation or kick Pascoe off the case.

Since getting former House Speaker Bobby Harrell, R-Charleston, to plead guilty to misusing campaign money in October 2014, Pascoe has indicted five others.

One, former state Rep. Jim Merrill, R-Berkeley, has pleaded guilty to misconduct charges and is cooperating with Pascoe.

"Jim Merrill never stood up in front of the press and claimed he was a victim of witch hunt," Pascoe told Judge Mullen.

Instead, Merrill cooperated "because he wanted to do the right thing for a change, Pascoe said." "He (Merrill) told us some things that will continue on with this investigation"

There's A Democrat Running For Every Texas Congressional Seat Next Year

'He Looks Like Some Disheveled Drunk That Wandered Onto the Political Stage'

The simmering rage at the election of an unqualified misogynist over the highly qualified prospective first female president produced a deep backlash in politics and culture. The willingness of Harvey Weinstein’s victims to speak out against him can be traced to that frustration.


The horrific revelations of Weinstein’s systemic abuse unleashed a torrent of allegations against powerful men. At first, the reporting was concentrated in fields with liberal cultures and where female reporters had the best access: entertainment and the media itself. But it is quickly spreading elsewhere, particularly to an institution with high levels of public accountability and male ego: Congress. Reports indicate forthcoming exposés of sexual harassment by some two dozen more members of Congress.

Assume for the sake of argument that men of both parties are equally likely to engage in sexual harassment. That would mean most of the harassers will be Republican. Republicans hold 241 of 435 House seats. And they are disproportionately male; there are 219 male Republicans in the House, and 132 male Democrats. The Senate has 47 Republican men and 32 Democratic men. Republicans are therefore likely to constitute a majority of the reported harassers.

What’s more, the impact of the reports will not be felt equally. It will hurt the majority party much more. The reason is that 2018 is shaping up as a wave election. In wave elections, the out-party usually loses very few seats. It is the in-party that loses. If Democrats are forced to step aside, they can easily be replaced. Republicans who have to step aside cannot. Incumbents pressured into retirement will open up seats that might otherwise not have had competitive races.

The impact of a wave election helps Democrats on both offense and defense, then. If your party is benefiting from a wave, you want to open the field as widely as possible. Losing some of your own members is fine — it’s the best possible year to cycle out your incumbents and put new blood in place. And it’s also the most opportune time to contest seats that might normally be out of reach.

So far, the two parties have responded to allegations of harassment differently. Democrats have turned against their own members facing allegations and forced them to resign, while Republicans — following Trump’s precedent — have largely abstained. But that is not an advantage for Republicans. It is a disadvantage. It forces them to field scandal-tarred candidates, not to mention a scandal-tarred party. You need look no farther than Roy Moore to observe the costs of the tough-it-out approach.

Facing down evidence of harassment with implausible denials may have worked for Trump. But the bill may still come due. It would be fitting punishment if he lost control of one or both chambers of Congress — and became exposed to investigations and oversight — as a result of a cultural reckoning Trump set off himself.

it’s the best possible year to cycle out your incumbents and put new blood in place.

handy state by state breakdowns

https://suburbanstats.org/population/how-many-people-live-in-mississippi

He does not look healthy.

@EdanClay



Let me get this straight, by Republican logic, investigators who have negative feelings about bank robbers should not be able to investigate bank robbers?