Happy Sunday. FRONT PAGE EDITORIAL -- BIRMINGHAM NEWS, HUNTSVILLE TIMES, PRESS-REGISTER (MOBILE) -- “STAND FOR DECENCY, REJECT ROY MOORE”: “This election is a turning point for women in Alabama. A chance to make their voices heard in a state that has silenced them for too long.
“During the phone call on Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Ryan, who had campaigned heavily for Mr. Johnson in 2016, posed an essential question, according to the senator: ‘What are you going to need?’ What Mr. Johnson needs … is for the bill to treat more favorably small businesses and other so-called pass-through entities -- businesses whose profits are distributed to their owners and taxed at rates for individuals. Such entities, including Mr. Johnson’s family-run plastics manufacturing business, account for more than half of the nation’s business income, and the senator says the tax bill would give an unfair advantage to larger corporations.
-- IT’S WORTH NOTING: This is hardly the first time Johnson has clashed with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his GOP leadership team. He also fought with them over how the Obamacare repeal process played out. He is just the first Senate Republican out of the gate opposing the bill. Just because the House GOP tax overhaul was on the fast track and didn’t face many hiccups, don’t expect the same to be true in the Senate.
FOR EXAMPLE… JAKE TAPPER talks with SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R-MAINE) on CNN’S “STATE OF THE UNION: TAPPER: “You said this week that Republicans made a big mistake when they changed the tax bill to include this repeal of the Affordable Care Act individual mandate because that -- removing that could raise taxes or payment -- health care payments, premiums, for millions of Americans. If that provision stays in the tax bill, will that mean a ‘no’ vote from you?” COLLINS: “Well, first of all, I think we need to distinguish between taking away insurance from people who already have it, which is what the health care bill said we considered earlier this year would have done, versus removing a fine on people who choose not to have insurance. And that’s … disproportionately 80 percent on those who make under $50,000.
MORE TAX DRAMA IN THE STATES -- “In Democrat-led state capitals, GOP tax reform push could scramble fiscal plans,” by Laura Nahmias in New York, Katherine Landergan in New Jersey and Carla Marinucci in California: “The Republican tax reform push in Washington is setting off budgetary alarm bells in high-tax states like New York, California and New Jersey, in the latest political skirmish to pit national Republicans against Democratic state and big city leaders.
TROUBLE FOR FRANKEN -- A1 of the STAR TRIBUNE -- “Sidelined by scandal, Sen. Al Franken faces questions about ability to do his job,” by Jennifer Brooks and Erin Golden: “Suddenly a senator whose statewide approval rating stood at 58 percent in the last Star Tribune Minnesota Poll is facing calls to resign — even from prominent Minnesota DFLers and deeply disappointed supporters.
-- TOO CLOSE TO THE SUN?: STAR LEDGER FRONT PAGE: “Why this N.J. Republican keeps voting for things that could hurt Jersey” (print headline: “MacArthur is showing affinity for risk-taking: Representative’s tax stance could hurt N.J., his future”): “In just his third term in office, Rep. Tom MacArthur is helping to shape legislation in a way lawmakers who've been here a long time can only dream of.
BUT, BUT, BUT -- EMILY HOLDEN in Bonn, Germany: “The White House goaded activists at the international climate talks by pushing coal and other fossil fuels. But behind closed doors, U.S. negotiators stuck to their Obama-era principles on the 2015 Paris deal — despite President Donald Trump’s disavowal of the pact. State Department negotiators at the U.N. conference that ended Saturday hewed to the United States’ long-established positions on the details of how to carry out the Paris agreement. And that's the U.S. role that most foreign political leaders sought to highlight, despite the low expectations inspired by Trump’s ‘America First’ agenda and his dismissal of human-caused climate change as a hoax.
-- TONIGHT ON “KASIE D.C.”: Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, Katty Kay, Ashley Parker, Jonathan Swan, Leigh Ann Caldwell, Ken Dilanian, Paul Kane, Paul Singer, Gen. Barry McCaffrey and Azmat Khan.
GREAT STORY -- SCOTT BROWN IN NEW ZEALAND -- “Scott Brown’s pay is $155,000 per year. The benefits are priceless,” by the Boston Globe’s Joshua Miller in Wellington, New Zealand: “Of the waves that followed from Donald Trump’s 2016 tsunami, Brown’s ascension from the everyman-with-a-pickup who lost two U.S. Senate races in two years in two states to US ambassador to New Zealand ranks among the most unlikely. And, for him, the most fortunate.
2020 WATCH -- “Don’t trust politicians to solve our problems, U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse tells Iowa crowd,” by the Des Moines Register’s Jason Noble: “Don’t look to politics to solve the pressing problems in American culture or address looming technological and economic changes that will rearrange American society, U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse told an Iowa audience Saturday. Politicians, he said, simply aren’t up to the task.
--SPOTTED: Wolf Blitzer and Dana Bash cutting the challah, Spencer Garrett, David Chalian, Alex Moe and Derek Flowers, Joy Lin, Juana Summers, John Legittino, Lauren Pratapas, Polson Kanneth and Sandhya Kotha, Ben Kochman, Rob Yoon, Katie Hinman, Sean and Ashley Kennedy.
OUT AND ABOUT -- SPOTTED at the So Others Might Eat Gala Saturday night at the National Building Museum: Tom Donohue, Suzanne Clark, Bill Conway, Jack Gerard, Matthew Say, Jim McCarthy, Wayne Berman and the winners of this year’s Humanitarians of the Year award, Jane and Steve Caldeira of the Consumer Specialty Products Association.
-- SPOTTED at the “Wonder Woman”-themed birthday party for BBC’s Suzanne Kianpour at Lapis Saturday night: Andrew Rafferty, Neil Grace, Molly Weaver, Walt Cronkite Jr., Lauren French, Paul Kane, Lauren Culbertson, Anastasia Dellaccio, Nikki Schwab, Brendan Kownacki, Sophie Pyle, Chris Brown, Lindsay Walters, Sean Weppner and Richard Strauss.
-- Bert Gomez threw a party celebrating wife Susie Santana’s birthday Saturday night on the W hotel rooftop where guests salsa danced till midnight and were treated to cupcakes and the “Susie Q” specialty cocktail, according to a tipster. SPOTTED: Estuardo Rodriguez, Lyndon Boozer, Maria Cardona, Angela Arboleda, Laurie Saroff, Cristina Antelo and Miguel Franco.
... Brad Bauman … Jason Dumont … John Axelrod, MSNBC alum now at BerlinRosen, is 26 ... Lauren McCulloch of “Meet the Press” ... Obama DOJ alum Dena Iverson DeBonis … Chris Harlow ... Eric Finkbeiner ... Mike Deutsch, FAA attorney … Matt Allen ... Beth Mickelberg … Lynne Walton ... Patrick K. O’Donnell ... Andrew Sollinger, EVP of subscriptions at Business Insider... Cait Graf, VP of comms at The Nation ... Ivan Levingston ... Alexander Heffner is 28 ... Ellen Silva of NPR ... Shelley Hearne (h/ts Jon Haber) … Charlie Siguler ... Geoff Sokolowski ... Neil Bjorkman, VP of legislative affairs at the U.S.-India Strategic Partnership Forum … Hannah McLeod … Michael Reynold … Amber Manko … Bush 43 W.H. alum Ivvete Diaz ... Bush 43 HHS alum Mary Kay Mantho, now director at GSK ... Ivette Diaz ... Shannon Vilmain ... Barb Leach ... Julie Cassidy … David O’Boyle ... Ricky Wilson.