Tipping the Scale: The House impeachment inquiry is a legally-conducted proceeding, a federal judge ruled yesterday, and she says the House Judiciary Committee is entitled to view secret grand jury evidence gathered by former Special Counsel Robert Mueller. 

  It’s a big win for House Democrats and it counters the claim by President Trump and Republicans that the investigation is unconstitutional. As a result of the ruling, if it holds up on appeal, the Judiciary Committee gets to look at what’s behind all those black bars in the Muller report.

  Usually Congress can’t see secret evidence gathered by a grand jury, but based on the precedent set in the case of Richard Nixon, Judge Beryl Howell ruled in a 75-page opinion that, the Department of Justice is “wrong” and that “Congress need not redo the nearly two years of effort spent on the Special Counsel’s investigation.”

  “Tipping the scale even further toward disclosure is the public’s interest in a diligent and thorough investigation into, and in a final determination about, potentially impeachable conduct by the president described in the Mueller report,” Howell wrote.

  She also trashed the Republican objection that no formal vote has been called on an impeachment inquiry. Going back to the case of Andrew Johnson, Howell said it’s not necessary. “Even in cases of presidential impeachment, a House resolution has never, in fact, been required to begin an impeachment inquiry,” she wrote.

Negative Numbers: Pretty soon, you’re talking real money.

  The federal budget deficit jumped 26 percent in the 2019 fiscal year and is projected to top $1 trillion in 2020 as the global economy slows and trade wars put a further drag on the economy. The deficit this year reached $984 billion, the highest in seven years, because of President Trump’s tax and spending policies.  

  The deficit would have topped $1 trillion last year, but Trump’s trade tariffs collected $70 billion, all of it paid by American companies and customers.

Tech Services Dept.: The Department of Defense awarded a $10 billion computer services contract to Microsoft over Amazon in a contest that President Trump criticized.

  The DOD has been working with 80s and 90s computer technology and Amazon had been considered the lead contender after building cloud services for the CIA. But President Trump hates Amazon because its founder Jeff Bezos also owns The Washington Post. Trump said he might intervene in the contracting process, but we don’t know whether he did.

Book Beat: The new book, “A Warning,” written by a White House insider about Donald Trump, is already #3 on Amazon’s bestseller list and it doesn’t come out until November 19^th.

  The author is “Anonymous,” who originally wrote a damning op-ed published in The NY Times.

  The book jacket, which has been released online, reveals that the author took copious notes about conversations he had with the President, or things he heard Trump say. The blurb on the jacket says, “In these pages, you will not just hear from me. You will hear a great deal from Donald Trump directly, for there is no better witness to his character than his own words and no better evidence of the danger he poses than his own conduct.”

The Boys of October: The Houston Astros beat the Nationals, 4-1, in Game 3 last night in Washington. It’s 2-1 for the Nationals. They will have to win the next two games to win the series at home.

Prison Break: Actress Felicity Huffman has been released from a federal prison in California. She got out a bit early because they let inmates go early when they are scheduled for exit on a weekend.

  And Marina Butina, the gun-loving Russian operative considered by investigators to have been part of the 2016 Russian election tampering scheme, has been released from federal prison and is expected to be deported. 

Chicken Fights: Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, the fried chicken chain, announced that it’s hiring 400 people to once against start churning out chicken sandwiches in November. With all that’s been going on in the world, little did we know that a chicken sandwich war has been quietly raging.

  Popeyes introduced the sandwich over the summer and it was so popular they couldn’t slam them together fast enough to keep up with the customers, so they stopped.

  The primary competition has been Chick-fil-A’s original chicken sandwich, but now KFC — Kentucky Fried Chicken — is getting in the game with a fried chicken sandwich made with a glazed donut. They must have a five-year-old in their test kitchen. 

Whiff of Scandal: President Trump said that if he’s removed from office, “I really believe that you’d really have a recession depression the likes of which this country has never seen.”

  Former NY Times television critic Bill Carter tweeted, “He thinks “Apres moi, le deluge” is something Ivanka dabs behind her ears.

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