SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:55 P.M. ET: 

COMPLICATIONS – FROM THE HILL:   A New York cosmetics executive who publicly alleged Donald Trump sexually assaulted her in the 1990s repeatedly solicited the future president to become his campaign makeup artist and to pitch her new product line in the months before her story roiled the 2016 race, according to the woman and her contemporaneous emails.   “Hi Donald, you are doing a tremendous job of shaking things up in the United States. I am definitely on Team Trump as so many others are,” Jill Harth wrote the future president in an Oct. 1, 2015, email sent to him through his New York company’s headquarters.   “I can’t watch television without seeing you or hearing your name everywhere! It’s a good thing for sure but PLEASE let me do your makeup for a television interview, a debate, a photo session, anything!” Harth wrote.  We have no independent confirmation here, but, if the story is true, this was a revenge hit against Trump...revenge for not giving the accuser a job.  I think we'll see many more stories like this, but each one must be verified.

ECONOMIC OPTIMISM SOARS – FROM CNBC:  American optimism on the economy is reaching new heights and President Donald Trump's approval ratings look to be benefiting, at least somewhat.  The CNBC All-American Economic Survey found that for the first time in at least 11 years, more than half of respondents to the survey rated the economy as good or excellent, while a near record 41 percent expected the economy to improve in the next year.  "We're not measuring a marginal change in the economy, we're measuring a different economy,'' said Public Opinion Strategies' Micah Roberts, the Republican pollster for the survey. The poll of 800 adults across the nation, with a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points, was conducted Dec. 10-13 by that firm and Democratic pollster Hart Research.  We hope it lasts.  Trump needs a strong economic engine to take into next year's midterms, which are crucial.  Remember, if the GOP loses control of the Senate, it means that all Trump Supreme Court appointments can be blocked.  If it loses control of the House, it means probable, if frivolous, impeachment of the president.  A strong economy is the best guarantee of electoral victory.

THE BLOG – FROM SCIENCEALERT.COM:   A vast mass of hot rock is welling up underneath Vermont and extending into other subterranean regions below New England, new research shows.
Scientists used a network of thousands of seismic measurement devices in the largest geological study of its kind, detecting the enormous blob upwelling under Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts – and possibly elsewhere.  "The upwelling we detected is like a hot air balloon, and we infer that something is rising up through the deeper part of our planet under New England," says geophysicist Vadim Levin from Rutgers University – New Brunswick.  Scientists have told me privately that this has something to do with the chemical interaction between Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.  Both are known for over-production of hot air.

December 18, 2017