Signs supporting Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate Doug Jones line a road in Birmingham, Ala. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
So much for competition. “Two major hospital operators are in talks about a possible merger that would create the largest U.S. owner of hospitals, as a series of deals shape up to further consolidate control of the health-care landscape.”
Either way Democrats win the Alabama matchup. “If Doug Jones prevails, Democrats expect it will further excite their base, bolster candidate recruitment and fuel fundraising heading into 2018, coming off their near-sweep of last month’s elections. They will revel in picking up a Senate seat in the Deep South, especially in a state so central to President Donald Trump’s political rise and where he earlier backed the loser of the GOP primary. Practically, Republicans would have a 51-49 Senate majority, leaving them with a single vote to spare assuming Democrats stick together. . . . If Roy Moore wins, they’ll spend the next year yoking every Republican they can to the accused child predator and a president who welcomed him into the GOP fold.”
Sensible people can fight about “beyond a reasonable doubt,” but that’s a standard for criminal justice, not impeachment. “So, we have all these facts in chronology. You would have to be believe that these were all isolated incidents, not connected to each other. It just doesn’t make rational sense. Now, can you prove beyond a reasonable doubt will be Mueller’s question to answer that the Russians communicated to the campaign that the way they were going to deliver the help they offered and that the campaign accepted was not by handing the e-mails directly over to the campaign, but by publishing them? That will be up to Mueller, and we continue to try to fill in all of the missing pieces. But we do know this. The Russians offered help. The campaign accepted help. The Russians gave help. And the president made full use of that help. And that’s pretty damning, whether it is proof beyond a reasonable doubt of conspiracy or not.”
In the credibility face-off with President Trump, the press wins hands down. For one thing: “Atlantic editor: ‘Mistakes are precisely the reason that people should trust the media.’” And then they correct the errors.
No contest: “The TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) was the best trade accord we ever negotiated, I think, and arguably President Obama’s greatest foreign policy legacy. We need to find a way back to it, or something like it.”
This won’t help her in the battle with CIA Director Mike Pompeo to replace Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. “Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said Sunday that the women who have accused President Trump of touching or groping them without their consent ‘should be heard.'” Perhaps at a congressional hearing on the issue of sexual assault.
Trump sure can whip up racial conflict in an already divided country. “President Trump’s unfortunate tendency to go out of his way to offend non-whites, whether they be Navajo war heroes, Hispanics or inner-city African Americans, makes this all worse. The president and the radical racialists both seem to find common purpose in the creation of kindling for racial bonfires.”