I just checked the news for the latest on voter turnout in Alabama. Word is that turnout is “high”; they expect about 25 percent of registered voters to vote.

WTF, Alabama? The whole country is biting its nails over this election, and the best you can do is 25 percent?

Last night at a rally Roy Moore’s wife Kayla actually said this —

Classic. In other news …

The European Parliament has accused Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross of insider trading.

Earlier this year, Luke Ming Flanagan, an Irish politician and member of the European Parliament, the European Union’s governing body, commissioned a report on the 2008 eurozone banking crisis. The final version of this report, written by two Irish financial analysts, was presented in Brussels last week to a group of 52 European Parliament members affiliated with left-leaning parties. And it included a section covering Ross’s investment in the Bank of Ireland, in which he was a major shareholder and a member of the board of directors. The report alleges that when Ross sold off his holdings in the bank for a massive profit in 2014, he possessed inside information that the bank was relying on deceptive accounting practices to mask its losses and embellish its financial position.

You’ll have to read the article for details, which look pretty incriminating. But jeez louise, the guy cheats but still had to lie about being a billionaire. Pathetic.

How about this one — after dumping Matt Lauer, the Today Show’s ratings have gone up. Not surprised.

By now you’ve heard about the tweet Trump sent after Sen. Gillibrand called for him to be investigated for sexual assault.

Lightweight Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a total flunky for Chuck Schumer and someone who would come to my office “begging” for campaign contributions not so long ago (and would do anything for them), is now in the ring fighting against Trump. Very disloyal to Bill & Crooked-USED!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 12, 2017

Because, you know, nothing says “I’m not really a sexual predator” more than hurling sexist and demeaning insults at  women. And then, even better, deny that an obviously sexist comment was a sexist comment. Absolutely brilliant.

Elsewhere — take Steve Mnuchin. Please. Far, far away. He’s turning into one of the most annoying members of Trump’s cabinet, which is saying something. Bess Levin writes for Vanity Fair:

When Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin claimed that more than 100 people in his department were “working around the clock” on forthcoming analysis regarding the G.O.P.’s tax plan, those he credited with “running scenarios” on the bills were surprised, given that such analysis did not, in fact exist. Their time had been spent, they told The New York Times, running models on “individual provisions or policy ideas”–a far cry from the detailed, thorough analysis that Mnuchin had repeatedly promised was right around the corner, and would definitively prove that the cuts paid for themselves. With the clock running down and the Inspector General digging into the mysterious case of the missing Treasury analysis, the former Goldman partner turned foreclosure mogul pulled through on Monday with a report clocking in at a single page and fewer than 500 words that says the Senate plan will totally pay for itself–assuming a set of circumstances that are about as likely as Jared Kushner bringing peace to the Middle East.

Seriously; the Treasury analysis is on one piece of paper, which is not nearly big enough to cover Mnuchin’s lying ass.

For real-live economists and tax experts, Mnuchin’s “analysis” is an infuriating disgrace. “The Treasury’s one-page note is a pathetic joke,” Jason Furman, a professor of Practice at Harvard Kennedy School and former Chairman of Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, told me. “I feel awful for the dozens of talented Treasury economists who have worked for years developing sophisticated models for dynamic analysis and dynamic scoring only to be completely shut out of this process. Instead of doing an analysis, the Treasury Department assumed a can opener, using an assumption they made about growth in the budget they put together long before they even had a tax-reform plan. Then they mechanically calculated the consequences of that growth assumption for the budget finding that the tax cuts pay for themselves, a result that a consensus of top economists in the recent Booth survey rejected.”

And so on. Paul Krugman said,

The document was a shameless attempt to fool the public — carefully worded to imply that economic experts at Treasury (they’re still in there somewhere, maybe locked in a closet) had actually done an analysis to that effect, without explicitly saying so. In fact, there was no economic analysis; Trump officials just made up numbers that would give them the result they wanted.

Even reporters hardened to Trump administration lies seemed shocked by the brazenness of this bait-and-switch. What made Steve Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, think he could get away with it?

And the answer is, Paul Ryan’s been getting away with fantasy numbers for years. Why not Mnuchin?

And all of our futures may hinge on bleeping Alabama. I need a drink.