Actually, I see now you are correct. Oil companies heavily subsidized. Don't know why it took me so long.

This is what my mother would describe as a simple case of "CRS disease." Your initials suit you. :)

I'm down with that.

In the coming days we will see if more accusers come forward -- that's what establishes the patterns of bad behaviors that amount to predation/harassment. The accuser in this case has publicly accepted his apology, which matters, I think. I had just read his most recent book where he writes about stuff going on during his SNL days and saying that for awhile he was an asshole, and that could mean anything. If there are a bunch of women whom he harassed out there, they'll come forward. And if they don't, that means something too -- "being an asshole" covers a lot of territory.

Whatever happens, I think we need to establish some ground rules and procedures because he isn't going to be the last. Of equal importance, right now the political stakes are really high and the GOP has a long history of dirty tricks so I would not put it past them to gin up some accusations. I've been worried they would, and on that basis I think investigations need to happen RATHER THAN pols like Al being martyrs and stepping down if they're not guilty or if their behaviors are in a grey zone. Collectively we have to decide what the grey zone includes and what falls outside it.

Al is willing to be scrutinized so lets do it and then draw our conclusions.

Actually, I see now you are correct. Oil companies heavily subsidized. Don't know why it took me so long.

But if we're playing by Republican rules, guess what? Franken's accuser, Leann Tweeden, has an association with Fox News that goes back to 2005, including sixteen appearances on Hannity.

Her statement sets the scene in 2006, a year after she started appearing on Fox. He was, at the time, I think, doing Air America radio, which might have led to some rivalry between the two.

I think I have a few legitimate questions about all this. At no point in her statement does she say that she asked Franken to take the kiss out of the script, which I'm sure she could have demanded. And did he want to rehearse the kiss, or rehearse the new skit? Was it described in the script as a 'deep kiss', or a peck? She says that when she later turned away from the kiss on stage, it was 'funnier'. Did Franken agree? As for the 'groping' photo, it's obviously a prank, the joke being that she's in full body armor, rendering any 'grope' absurdly futile.

Pardon my skepticism, and I'm sure a heap of scorn will rain down upon me, but if Republicans want to compare Franken's frat boy prank on a former spokesmodel for Hooters Restaurants to a DA groping a teenager in a dark parking lot, or Weinstein threatening ruination to young actresses in return for sex, I really have to take exception.

It's not even close.

"Many of them are normal business expense, all of which are deductible from gross income to calculate net income, and have zero connection to 'subsidies', and are common to all businesses."

No, actually they are not. They are specifically tailored to the oil and gas industry. A grocery store, for example, does not get a tax credit or deduction for research on oil geological surveys.

"The balance of them are subsidies for YOU AND ME, not for the oil companies. If the military has to keep ocean shipping lanes free of pirates so tankers can transmit oil, if a pipeline needs to be built on public land to transmit oil, that is a subsidy for the CONSUMER, not for the oil company."

They may benefit you and me, but they are still specifically for the oil companies, at the expense of other industries, like solar, nuclear, wind, hydroelectric, etc. If all our cars ran on batteries instead of gasoline, for instance, there would be little need for the military to protect oil shipping routes. Any way you slice it, you are still picking winners and losers among various industries through subsidized infrastructure supports and tax incentives.

Your laundry list there can be divided into two categories. Many of them are normal business expense, all of which are deductible from gross income to calculate net income, and have zero connection to 'subsidies', and are common to all businesses.

The balance of them are subsidies for YOU AND ME, not for the oil companies. If the military has to keep ocean shipping lanes free of pirates so tankers can transmit oil, if a pipeline needs to be built on public land to transmit oil, that is a subsidy for the CONSUMER, not for the oil company. Those things are why you can fill your tank for under three bucks/gal. If the oil companies had to police the oceans, your gas could cost $25/gal, or more likely, simply would not exist.

4.) Government procurement policies that pay more than the free-market price.

I did not mean to repeat number 5 twice.

This incident of bad manners-bad behavior- harassment (you decide) is a black mark on Franken's character. People have every right to consider it if he chooses to run for office again. I suppose there are legal ramifications too, should the victim or the law choose to go that far.

The people of Wisconsin voted for a comedian...there was particle of risk in that decision. Comedians tend to work close to the edge of bad taste. Let's not go overboard with equivalency and political score settling. Do really want to chuck all government officials out and ask Canada to take us on as a protectorate? Until we find and vet a few good men and women worthy of governing?

Also, have we forgotten the controversy over the Keystone XL pipeline already? The one to bring oil from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada to the USA.

When the government:

A.) Waives environmental rules and regulations, and

B.) Does things like like provide property for a right of way for construction of a pipeline through the power of eminent domain on the behalf of a oil company...

That is a subsidy, perhaps indirect, but a subsidy nonetheless.

https://www.treasury.gov/open/Documents/

The World Trade Organization provides a definition of subsidies. It says a subsidy is any financial benefit provided by a government which gives an unfair advantage to a specific industry, business or individual. The WTO mentions five types of subsidies:

1.) Cash subsidies, such as grants.

2.) Tax concessions, such as exemptions, credits or deferrals.

3.) Assumption of risk, such as loan guarantees.
Government procurement policies that pay more than the free-market price.

4.) Stock purchases that keep a company's stock price higher than market levels.

5.) Stock purchases that keep a company's stock price higher than market levels.

Oil industry subsidies include:

1.) The Deepwater Royalty Waiver Program, which allows oil companies to drill on federal property without paying royalties.

2.) The Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit

3.) Refinery Equipment Deductions

4.) The Geological and Geophysical Costs Tax Credit

5.) Natural Gas Distribution Lines

6.) Defense spending that involves military action in oil-rich countries in the Persian Gulf.

This is only a partial list.

I agree. Bible-thumping politicians in particular place themselves on precariously high pedestals, which engenders an inevitable amount of schadenfreude when they fall - it's just human nature to enjoy scandals more when they're sweetened with irony.

By comparison, Trump's Access Hollywood tape scandal wasn't surprising at all - he'd always been a public reprobate. Sure it was big news because he was a freakin' candidate for President, but honestly, if it had come to light two years earlier it probably wouldn't have even made it to section "A" of the paper.

Carter's pre-election scandal, you recall, was that he'd lusted "in his heart". Chances are, that's how Trump gets his heart started every morning, so, eh.

Somewhere in the vaults of NBC Universal are tapes that include out-takes from The Apprentice which supposedly contain examples of Trump being generally boorish toward women on the set. I doubt that their release would pose an existential threat to his presidency. I doubt that even the much-rumored Russian Hooker tape would do that much damage to Trump, given his already 'soiled' reputation.

Pence, on the other hand, is perfectly positioned for such a fall, as his every statement drips with the sanctimony of a man who has put himself on a higher moral plane than the rest of us. If a teenage hooker steps forward to accuse him, it's probably game-over for magic Mike.

Say what you will about Trump, he knows how to properly construct a glass pedestal. The key is to pre-fill it with plenty of dirt.

Sorry, the oil companies don't even get "indirect cash payments", that's all a liberal myth. And the drilling rights on public land are sold at auction to the highest bidder. That can hardly be construed as a subsidy. I wouldn't know about "pollution or safety measures".

So, yeah, I suppose the airlines, along with the truck lines, private automobiles, railroads and virtually every possible means of transportation, can be said to receive some sort of subsidies, supposedly in the public interest, but NOT the oil companies.

"Those oil company subsidies are a total myth. A subsidy is defined as a cash payment from the government to the company in question. Oil companies receive NO direct cash subsidies."

No, they are not a myth. A subsidy is still a subsidy, whether it is a direct payment in cash, or an indirect payment in some other kind.

Conservatives love to criticize cash payments to Amtrak, for example. But what about all the indirect subsidies that go to the airlines? The government pays for the buying of the land and the construction of airports, the building and running of the air traffic control system, etc. All of which keeps airline tickets artificially low because the airlines themselves don't have to pay for those things out of their own pockets.

That even doesn't include aviation technology research done and funded by government agencies like NASA.

Are you going to tell me that oil companies don't get similar subsidies; like a cost break on the leasing of Federal land that they drill on? Or a tax break on pollution or safety measures? Do they pay the full cost of any environmental clean ups, or does the government step in and do that? The list goes own.

We are all not so dumb as that, and there is a lot more complications to economics in the real world, than you make there out to be.

You mean Moore here, yet what I've been hearing on the street for months now is that Trump is being investigated for similar activity and has an accuser younger than Moore's.

Regardless of whatever happens with Roy, with indictments and arrest numbers 1, 2, and 3 and guilty plea number 1 now in the books and several other sealed indictments lying in wait, Moore will be the least of the GOP's worries as time marches into 2018... with rumors swirling for quite some time that presents would be unwrapped around the holiday season. Trump keeps insisting that we're all going to be saying "Merry Christmas" again (who stopped?), and Manafort for Halloween was a sweet treat... so might the turkey-like Flynn be served for Thanksgiving with gravy because fall is here now, and winter is coming. ;)

There should be.

I think the reason why goes way beyond the relative levels of hypocrisy involved, though that is certainly part of it.

I think too many Americans see themselves in Trump.

That, by the way, doesn't bode well for the rest of the country.

I think it's the hypocrisy factor, personally. Trump never tried to pass himself off as some sort of moral arbiter of everyone else's life. The same cannot be said for Moore.

But maybe that's just me... and I have no idea how any of this is going to play out with the voters, either next Nov. or even in Alabama next month!

:-)

-CW