Tom Williams/Congressional Quarterly/Newscom via ZUMA

Over at National Review, Alexandra DeSanctis is doing her best to use the growing sexual abuse scandal to target Democrats:

Any Democrat who examined the credible allegations against Conyers and Franken and still declined to call for their immediate resignations has forever forfeited the right to lecture us about “women’s rights.” Because the “war on women” is, sadly, all too real — and Democratic leaders care more about their politics than they do about its victims.

This has only just started, and it’s already getting tiresome. But we might as well get used to it. After all, it’s not as if stronger action from Democrats would change anything. The Al Franken groping allegations may be curiously petty, but they nonetheless highlight Democratic hypocrisy because “some of his colleagues are perfectly willing to overlook his misdeeds.” Meanwhile, plenty of Democrats are asking John Conyers to resign, including Nancy Pelosi, so at least Democrats got that one right. Right? Ha ha ha. “It took her ten days too long,” DeSanctis declares.

Democrats could have unanimously called for both men to be tarred and feathered within hours of the accusations, and it wouldn’t matter. Let’s get real here: conservatives have spent decades fighting stiffer penalties—both legal and cultural—against the feminists and social justice warriors who are trying to take all the fun out of ordinary human affairs. Like the budget deficit, they care about abuse against women only when they can make political hay out of it. And they would make that hay no matter what Democrats did.

That said, the evidence against Conyers is both strong and believable. He should go. The charges against Franken, however, are—peculiar. Or something. It’s not just that Franken is accused of plainly less serious acts than Conyers and Roy Moore. There’s also something that just doesn’t quite fit about the string of allegations. I’m not precisely sure what that is, but I don’t believe he should quit, and I do believe the Ethics Committee should take a close look at what happened. I keep feeling like there’s another shoe that’s going to drop here, and we should wait for it before rushing to dump a possibly innocent man just because it might be good for the party or good for the movement. Allegations of sexual misconduct from women should be taken seriously, but they shouldn’t be automatically believed, especially in a political setting.

Alex Edelman/CNP via ZUMA

Oh man, I really slept in today. Oh well. It’s Friday, I’m sure I didn’t miss anything—

Former national security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty Friday to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, and authorities indicated in court he was acting under instructions from senior Trump transition officials in his dealings with the diplomat. Flynn’s admission to the charge Friday in federal district court in D.C. is an ominous sign for the White House, as court documents indicate Flynn is cooperating in the ongoing probe of possible coordination between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin to influence the 2016 election, and that he was operating with direction from above when it came to his own dealings with Russians.

It looks like 2018 is going to be an interesting year.

I'm no fan of either one of these guys. But if I were forced to choose, I'd pick the guy on the right.Ron Sachs/CNP via ZUMA

CNN’s Jake Tapper today on the reaction in Parliament to President Trump’s retweet of a racist British hate group:

This concern about the president’s behavior consumed a great deal of time in Parliament today in London, where leaders are expressing concerns about the behavior and judgment about the president of the United States. But President Trump, as always, loathe to admit a mistake. He tweeted to Prime Minister May — quote — “Don’t focus on me. Focus on the destructive radical Islamic terrorism that is taking place within the United Kingdom. We are doing just fine.”

We are doing just fine. That is, of course, unless you’re in a U.S. Embassy bracing for violence because of the president’s impulse control issues, I suppose, or if you’re the parent of a Muslim American child and you’re worried that the president’s retweets of that bigotry might have some horrific action and response on your kid. Or if you’re an American just worried about fundamental basic loss of decency by the president of the United States. Except for that, we’re just fine except, absolutely.

This is the 21st century. A man with “impulse control issues”—I guess we’re still being polite about it—can’t be trusted in the White House. I wouldn’t love the policies of President Pence any more than the policies of President Trump, but at least I wouldn’t be worried having an unrepentant racist in the Oval Office. Or worried about the president starting a war by accident. Or worried about our allies basically abandoning us because they don’t feel like they can depend on the United States any longer.

One of these days Republicans need to pull their heads out of their desks and think about this. They can still have their tax cut. It will just get signed by a different guy.

Patrick Pleul/DPA via ZUMA

Our story so far:

Republican Deficit Hawks: We won’t vote for the tax bill if it increases the deficit.

GOP Leadership: No problem. Lower taxes will supercharge the economy so much that it will cause revenue to go up. The tax bill will actually cut the deficit!

RDH: Uh huh. Can we have that in writing?

GOPL: Sorry, no time for that. We need to pass this bill now now now.

RDH: Well then, we want a trigger. If the economy doesn’t skyrocket, taxes will automatically go back up.

GOPL: Um, OK. Hold on a sec.

Joint Committee on Taxation: Hey, look! We burnt the candle at both ends and got the deficit projection done! It’s gonna be a trillion dollars.

GOPL: Sigh.

RDH: Now we really need that trigger.

GOPL: Don’t panic. We can work something out.

And here’s the latest:

A visibly frustrated Corker, normally a cheerful man, tells us: “My understanding is, that the parliamentarian has ruled against (a trigger) so they’re just going to automatically put it in, period.”

— Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) November 30, 2017

Oof. The parliamentarian. Apparently she ruled that a trigger doesn’t affect the budget, something that’s required for every provision of a reconciliation bill. That actually strikes me as odd, but there must be some subtlety here that I’m missing.

So now the plan is to simply build tax increases directly into the bill. Maybe the corporate tax rate starts at 20 percent, and then goes up to 21 percent in 2020, 22 percent in 2022, etc. However, there are two problems with this. The first is that the militant tax cutters won’t like it. The second is that since JCT has finally produced a dynamic score for the tax bill, it means they have their models all set up. It would only take them a few hours to plug in new tax rates and produce a new deficit projection. And I’ll bet that a couple of points here and there won’t be enough to make much difference. The deficit will still be in the arena of a trillion dollars.

It’s always something, isn’t it? But that’s what happens when you base legislation on a fundamental lie. It doesn’t mean the sausage can’t be passed, but it does mean that occasionally you’ll run into people who need theirs grilled well done, not raw.

Republicans in Congress were desperately hoping that the Joint Committee on Taxation wouldn’t have time to perform a dynamic estimate of their tax bill before they passed it. But the JCT wonks put in some overtime and got the job done. Yay wonks! Here’s the result:

• Over ten years, the tax bill will increase the deficit by $1 trillion rather than $1.4 trillion.

This means that the deficit hawks no longer have any excuse for pretending that the tax cut will supercharge the economy so much it will pay for itself. JCT applied the dynamic fairy dust, but it was nowhere near enough.

As for growth, Republicans were going around saying that all they needed was 0.4 percent higher GDP each year and everything would be great. JCT projects instead that the bill will increase GDP by a little less than 0.1 percent each year.¹

I doubt that this means the bill is in danger of not passing. It just means the deficit hawks have to come up with a different excuse for voting for it.

¹I think. The actual JCT wording is that the tax bill would increase output “by 0.8 percent on average throughout the ten-year budget window.” This is oddly ambiguous. It obviously doesn’t mean 0.8 percent per year, but neither does it mean that GDP is 0.8 percent bigger by the end of ten years (“the increase in output is expected to be smaller towards the end of the budget window”). Truthfully, I’m not really sure precisely what it means, but I think it probably translates into roughly the equivalent of an additional growth of about 0.1 percent per year.

Times like this call for poetry. I’ve got you covered:

Fall’s pall: small blue balls
Pray for winter’s warmth to come
In twenty-twenty

See, it’s a metaphor. Or maybe an allegory. And it’s about stuff that’s dying—which could be either your hope for a better future or maybe just an ingrown toenail. The small blue balls are right there in the picture, and they’re dying because it’s autumn. But there’s a deeper meaning! Blue is the color for Democrats and also the color for sadness. Democrats are feeling small and sad right now. So they’re waiting for winter’s warmth. But winter isn’t warm, is it? That’s where the old haiku juxtaposition switcheroo comes in: sure, winter is cold, but for our allegorically sad Democrats, winter of 2020 could turn out to be very warm indeed.

As for why the Democrats are apparently represented by balls in this imagery, I’ll leave that up to you. I mean, do I have to explain everything? Are you feeling inspired yet?

Via email, Avalere Health sends me their latest estimate of the growth of narrow networks on Obamacare. These are networks like HMOs or EPOs (Exclusive Provider Organizations) that allow you to choose only a limited range of doctors and hospitals. Here’s the chart:

Note that this is only for the federal exchange, but there’s no reason to think that things are especially different on the state exchanges. Avalere also reports that deductibles have gone up for silver plans, but not for the other metal levels.

The Regional Plan Association has made some suggestions for improving the New York city subway. Justin Davidson reports:

Much of what the RPA suggests is sensible: Install glass doors at the edge of subway platforms so 50 people a year can’t tumble onto the tracks and die.

The consensus seems to be that about 15 of these deaths are suicides. So that’s about 35 people who fall onto the tracks and die either accidentally or from being pushed. But I was curious: how does that compare, say, to London’s Underground, which is roughly the same size and also has no safety barriers? Apparently the answer for London is zero. However, they do seem to rack up about 25 successful suicides per year.

This seems very peculiar, no? If a few minutes of googling is to be believed, New York’s subway is responsible for 35 falls and 15 suicides per year, while London’s is responsible for zero falls but 25 suicides. Surely this can’t be right? Are the two cities really that different?

The Wall Street Journal is breathless yet again because the Dow has crossed another threshold with three zeroes in it:

Just 30 days! Of course, that’s how things go with an exponential series: the time between fixed intervals gets smaller and smaller. For your viewing pleasure, then, here’s a less dramatic take on the stock market over the past seven years:

There you have it. This is not the Dow, it’s the S&P 500—which is a better measure—but they’re pretty much the same. The market has been growing at a fairly steady 11 percent per year ever since the Great Recession ended. There’s really nothing very special going on right now. In case you’re interested, here’s the P/E ratio since 2004:

It’s starting to look a little pricey. The last two recessions began when the P/E ratio was at 26.1 (March 2001) and 22.4 (December 2007). It’s currently at 25.5

Dana Nessell, a Democratic candidate for attorney general in Michigan, has a unique idea for taking advantage of the current deluge of sexual harassment revelations among entertainers and politicians. This is a real ad:

This comes via Amanda Terkel at HuffPost. She’s got the whole video there.