Stealing The Vote - Alabama Edition (UPDATED)

Not content with the fact that their candidate is a serial sexual predator and child molester, Alabama Republicans are sinking ever lower, doing all they can to get Roy "Teen Spirit" Moore over the line in today's special election.

Led by their Republican Secretary of State John Merrill, Alabama has been using every method possible to suppress the votes of minority populations:

In recent years, Alabama Republicans have taken steps to protect their grip on power by making it harder for African Americans and Latinos to vote. They passed a law requiring voters to show a government-issued photo ID, a measure that has been found to disproportionately disenfranchise African Americans and Latinos, who are more likely to lack such an ID and face impediments to getting one. The ID law also applied to absentee voting, which is used by many elderly black voters in rural counties, who now must mail in copies of their photo IDs with their ballots. (The NAACP Legal Defense Fund is challenging the law in federal court as intentionally discriminatory.) They reformed campaign finance laws to weaken the political organizations that mobilize African American voters. They closed 31 DMV offices across the state, disproportionately affecting rural majority-black counties. In every county in which African Americans made up more than 75 percent of registered voters, the local DMV was slated for closure. (After a federal civil rights investigation, Alabama agreed to increase DMV service in rural African American counties, partially reversing the closures.) Since the US Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, allowing states like Alabama to change voting procedures without federal approval, Alabama has closed about 200 voting precincts, creating longer lines and sowing confusion among voters.

So, what's their fail safe, last line of defense in case voter suppression isn't enough to elect Moore?  How about some post- voting ballot chicanery:

The Alabama Supreme Court stepped into Tuesday’s U.S. Senate race between Republican Roy Moore and Democrat Doug Jones on Monday night by blocking a lower state court’s ruling earlier in the day that ordered election officials to take steps to preserve digital images of every ballot cast Tuesday. 

In effect, the Alabama Supreme Court’s stay—or freezing—of an earlier court order to preserve the digital ballot images undermines the best-case scenario for ensuring that an accurate vote count can be verified in the controversial Senate race. 

Alabama’s Supreme Court, where Moore served as chief justice, did not issue an explanation with its stay. However, a lengthy brief filed at the close of business Monday by the state on behalf of Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill contained a list of eyebrow-raising assertions, such as Merrill had no authority to tell local election officials how to operate their voting machines. The state also said only private vendors holding contracts to program the machines could do so—and that it was too late for that.  (our emphasis)

The Alabama Supreme Court is an elected body and -- spoiler alert! -- all nine judges are Republican!  Well, gawww- leee!

We shouldn't be surprised if there are "irregularities" in the voting today. In Alabama, stealing the vote isn't a bug, it's a feature. It's the sort of rigged system, along with gerrymandering, that's keeping Republicans in power in state after state.  It's the same system authoritarian demagogue Donald "Rump" Trump's "voter suppression commission" led by the notorious vote suppressor Kris Kobach would want to see installed nationwide, with a complicit Republican- majority U.S. Supreme Court that has already undercut remedies to voting discrimination (specifically in Alabama) in Shelby County v Holder.

The stakes are going to be high in every election from now on. We'll see if Alabamians, and we, can overcome.

UPDATE:  The Republican white supremacists are pulling some nasty voter suppression based on real time reports.

Monday Reading

We know demagogue Donald "Rump" Trump is a liar. A pathological liar. A uniquely evil liar. A liar who does great damage to our country and its institutions. A liar who tries to deflect attention by calling reports of his un- American misdeeds "fake news." Fortunately, a substantial majority of Americans know him for what he is.

The Kansas City Star has been tracking the outpouring (the article has a list dating back to January 21):

Two weeks ago, U.S. President Donald Trump was much more honest than usual. He made a mere 10 false claims, about half of his usual weekly average. 

As always, it didn’t last. Trump made 30 false claims last week, including 21 during an especially freewheeling 46-minute Missouri speech about his proposed tax legislation. 

In total, Trump has now made 907 false claims over his first 318 days in office — an average of 2.9 false claims per day. 

Trump has proven uniquely willing to lie, exaggerate and mislead. By all expert accounts, he is more frequently inaccurate than any of his predecessors.

(BTW, the Star is generous. The New York Times has counted 1,628 Rump lies since taking office.)

Bella DePaulo, a social scientist who studies the psychology of lying, has never seen anyone like the rotten- to- the- core Rump, especially in one particular aspect:

The most stunning way Trump’s lies differed from our participants’, though, was in their cruelty. An astonishing 50 percent of Trump’s lies were hurtful or disparaging. For example, he proclaimed that John Brennan, James Clapper and James Comey, all career intelligence or law enforcement officials, were “political hacks.” He said that “the Sloppy Michael Moore Show on Broadway was a TOTAL BOMB and was forced to close.” Talking about green card applicants, he insisted that other “countries, they don’t put their finest in the lottery system. They put people probably in many cases that they don’t want.” And he claimed that “Ralph Northam, who is running for Governor of Virginia, is fighting for the violent MS-13 killer gangs & sanctuary cities.” [snip]

By telling so many lies, and so many that are mean-spirited, Trump is violating some of the most fundamental norms of human social interaction and human decency. Many of the rest of us, in turn, have abandoned a norm of our own — we no longer give Trump the benefit of the doubt that we usually give so readily.  (our emphasis)

We stopped giving Rump the benefit of any doubt wayyy back when he was suckering rubes with his "University," filing for bankruptcy and leaving his creditors in the lurch, and stirring up racial animosity by ignorantly intruding himself into the Central Park Five case.

Looking at the Alabama special election tomorrow, Amy Davidson Sorkin wonders how low the party of Rump and his mini- me, serial sexual predator and pedophile Roy Moore, would go:

What would they tolerate in order to secure the fifty-first vote? Put another way, if the Party is willing to give its money and its credibility to protect a candidate accused of molesting teen-agers, what might it talk itself into doing to protect the President? Robert Mueller may be interested in the answer.

If there's any consolation to this dumpster fire of an election, it's that, whatever the outcome, the Republican Party is the big loser. The danger, as Sorkin points out, is that either way, it reveals a desperate party willing to do anything to hold onto power -- even to the point of torpedoing an investigation into the Rump crime family and what the Russians have on Rump.

Last, for your medley of wide- ranging links, we recommend checking out Infidel 743's link round- up again this morning. Lots of topics of interest and amusement.

Trump Campaigns For Fellow Serial Sexual Predator Roy Moore

They shook the map and all the local yokel, mouth- breathing, pedophile- supporting, credulous suckers ended up at nitwit un- indicted co- conspirator Donald "Rump" Trump's rally for teen molester Roy Moore in Pensacola, FL, last night. (Luckily for Rump, he was either using industrial strength Poligrip or Putin replaced the batteries in his remote before the speech.) We're going to avoid afflicting you with other parts of his self- admiring tirade to focus on one part where it seems he and his cult are still hung up on something -- guess what!

13 months after the election, attendees of Pres. Trump's campaign-style rally in Pensacola, FL break into "lock her up" chant at mention of Hillary Clinton https://t.co/NFyqQFaIKP pic.twitter.com/bZSwME9WG9

— CBS News (@CBSNews) December 9, 2017

Check out these great reactions on Twitter.

Doug Jones Smacks Roy "Men Who Hurt Little Girls" Moore

The special election in Alabama is a week from today (December 12), and Democrat Doug Jones is  punching against Republican sexual predator/ pedophile Roy Moore:

Doug Jones: "I damn sure believe that I have done my part to ensure that men who hurt little girls should go to jail and not the United States Senate." https://t.co/CyMiwpoMa9 pic.twitter.com/N8dSw603bg

— ABC News (@ABC) December 5, 2017

BONUS: Arizona Republican Sen. Jeff Flake sends some bucks to Doug Jones, adds "Country Over Party" on check.

Country over Party pic.twitter.com/JZMTaEYdxQ

— Jeff Flake (@JeffFlake) December 5, 2017

If only he cared enough about country to have voted against his party's destructive agenda.

O'Keefe's Latest "Sting" Ends Up Stinging Him (Again) - UPDATED

In an attempt to discredit the Washington Post's reporting on serial child predator and Republican Senate candidate Roy "Teen Spirit" Moore (R- Shopping Mall), the scurvy operation run by  Republican amateur ratf*cker James "G. Gordon Diddy" O'Keefe -- ironically named "Project Veritas" -- got its short hairs caught in its zipper once again:

A woman who falsely claimed to The Washington Post that Roy Moore, the Republican U.S. Senate candidate in Alabama, impregnated her as a teenager appears to work with an organization that uses deceptive tactics to secretly record conversations in an effort to embarrass its targets. 

In a series of interviews over two weeks, the woman shared a dramatic story about an alleged sexual relationship with Moore in 1992 that led to an abortion when she was 15. During the interviews, she repeatedly pressed Post reporters to give their opinions on the effects that her claims could have on Moore’s candidacy if she went public. 

The Post did not publish an article based on her unsubstantiated account. When Post reporters confronted her with inconsistencies in her story and an Internet posting that raised doubts about her motivations, she insisted that she was not working with any organization that targets journalists. 

But on Monday morning, Post reporters saw her walking into the New York offices of Project Veritas, an organization that targets the mainstream news media and left-leaning groups. The organization sets up undercover “stings” that involve using false cover stories and covert video recordings meant to expose what the group says is media bias.

The article is worth a read, if only to recap the lengths to which these amoral ratf*ckers will go in order to discredit the so- called "liberal media," in this case egregiously siding with a child predator simply because he's got "Republican" next to his name on the December 12 ballot in Alabama. Think about that and the fact that these assholes hired a woman to lie about a sexual encounter simply to discredit the 9 women who've spoken out against "Teen Spirit" Moore. Can't get much lower than that.

This morning, the Post also ran an article about what an incompetent "sting" operation these pinheads ran. It's also worth checking out.

Jonathan Chait explains why the frequent O'Keefe "stings" meant to expose media bias often go awry:

Another reason O’Keefe’s plot collapsed again is because it is premised on a ludicrously false worldview. The Washington Post does not, in fact, publish unverified accusations just because they’re against Republicans. His various attempts to prove rampant voter fraud have failed in part because voter fraud is not rampant. 

But this larger conceptual problem with O’Keefe’s enterprise creates a secondary problem, which is that the people who are dumb enough to believe these conspiracy theories are not generally smart enough to carry out a competent entrapment scheme. (our emphasis)

That sounds about right to us.

Obligatory musical accompaniment.

UPDATE:  The Onion has a hilarious take (h/t Silver Spring Bureau Chief Brian). Hey, even Fox "News" is mocking the caper.

(Photo: Vintage O'Keefe in his clever and totes believable disguise as a "pimp," with accessory "ho.")

Accused Sexual Predator Trump Backs Up Accused Sexual Predator Moore, Naturally!

As we noted in an update below, p*ssygrabber- in- chief Donald "Rump" Trump, echoing what his flunkies have been saying for days now, said of the Alabama Senate seat, "We don't need a liberal person in there, a Democrat..," and proceeded to slough off the witness of nine women who've accused Republican pedophile peckerwood Roy Moore of sexual assault and other improprieties, when most were teenagers and Moore was a 30- something assistant DA.

Rather than paraphrase the rest of this despicable shitheel's words, here's the tape from MSNBC:



Speaking for us:

When he was 32, Roy Moore picked up an 8th grader outside a custody hearing and molested her. And the White House supports him becoming a Senator.

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) November 21, 2017

So Doug Jones, a lifelong prosecutor who convicted the monsters that murdered four little girls is "soft on crime," but Roy Moore, the district attorney alleged to have molested a child and sexually assaulted a 16yo is not.

Got it.

— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) November 21, 2017

Trump on Putin: He totally denies interfering. What do you want me to do?

Trump on Roy Moore: He totally denies sexually assaulting teenagers. What do you want me to do?

— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) November 21, 2017

Trump basically just endorsed Roy Moore. Anyone not see this coming?

— Blake Hounshell (@blakehounshell) November 21, 2017

Question: What does Trump see in Roy Moore?

Answer: Himself.

— Frederick Douglass (@gettinnoticedmo) November 21, 2017

Tweets Of The Day - Prioritays! (UPDATED)

(click on images to enlarge)

Fox & Friends host: "So, vote Roy Moore?"
Kellyanne Conway: "I'm telling you that we want the votes in the Senate to get this tax bill through." pic.twitter.com/27pyaCx3um

— David Wright (@DavidWright_CNN) November 20, 2017

Vote for the child molester so we can pass a corporate income tax cut financed by Medicare cuts and middle class tax hikes. https://t.co/aYZC0FlrLo

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) November 20, 2017

UPDATE: Not surprisingly, that's p*ssygrabber- in- chief Donald "Rump" Trump's position, too.

Tribal Rage

Adam Serwer looks at a deeply embedded delusion in the media, in parts of the broader society, but especially at the core of the Republican base that supports neo- fascist nitwit Donald "Rump" Trump:

... What I found was that Trump embodied his supporters’ most profound beliefs—combining an insistence that discriminatory policies were necessary with vehement denials that his policies would discriminate and absolute outrage that the question would even be asked. 

It was not just Trump’s supporters who were in denial about what they were voting for, but Americans across the political spectrum, who, as had been the case with those who had backed Duke, searched desperately for any alternative explanation—outsourcing, anti-Washington anger, economic anxiety—to the one staring them in the face. The frequent postelection media expeditions to Trump country to see whether the fever has broken, or whether Trump’s most ardent supporters have changed their minds, are a direct outgrowth of this mistake. These supporters will not change their minds because this is what they always wanted: a president who embodies the rage they feel toward those they hate and fear, while reassuring them that that rage is nothing to be ashamed of.  (our emphasis)

You need look no further to understand what fuels the supporters for Republican pedophile peckerwood Roy Moore. Their rage is directed against everyone and anything standing up for a diverse, tolerant society that defends the separation of church and state. Get a load of this, from Moore supporter "pastor" Mike Allison:

"He has staunchly defended the Constitution of the United States, he has stood for the word of God ... he is against the murder of the unborn by abortion. He is for the defunding of Planned Parenthood. He is against a redefinition of marriage and believes firmly that it is only between a man and a woman. And he is against all threats against the traditional family," Allison said. "He is a fighter and a champion for right ...."

See if you can spot magic dog whistle words in this Moore supporter's rationalization:

"Every election cycle there's this tendency among the electorate to say 'Let's get rid of these rascals. They say one thing and govern another way,'" said [John] Giles, who runs a super PAC that supports Moore. "The one thing about this man is what he says he means, and at all cost." 

Did you catch that?  "... what he says he means..."  If we had a nickel for every Republican voter who rationalized their vote for Rump by saying some variation of "he says what he means," we could get a big Republican tax cut.  As Serwer and others have pointed out, that's Republican- speak for, "He hates/ fears the same people I do and he's not afraid to say it. So I'm validated!"

People who support Rump and Moore and all the rest of that rotted out party are, of course, not unique to our times.  Getting back to Serwer's article (please take time to read it in its entirety), he frames what we're seeing as, unfortunately, profoundly American:

Trumpism emerged from a haze of delusion, denial, pride and cruelty—not as a historical anomaly, but as a profoundly American phenomenon. This explains both how tens of millions of white Americans could pull the lever for a candidate running on a racist platform and justify doing so, and why a predominantly white political class would search so desperately for an alternative explanation for what it had just seen. To acknowledge the centrality of racial inequality to American democracy is to question its legitimacy—so it must be denied.

Think about that the next time you read or hear another "safari into Trump Country" story by our broken media.

Monday Morning Reading (UPDATED)

As always, please go to the links for the full articles!

We'll start this Monday morning with the State of Alabama. The three main Alabama news papers owned by Advanced Publications (The Birmingham News, The Huntsville Times and the Press- Register of Mobile) have a recommendation:

By the various misdeeds, miscalculations and mistakes of its voters and leaders, Alabama has left itself with few options. Alabamians must show themselves to be people of principle, reject Roy Moore and all that he stands for. 

There is only one candidate left in this race who has proven worthy of the task of representing Alabama. He is Doug Jones. 

The voters must make their voices heard.

The editorial is accompanied by this (click on image to enlarge):


(J.D. Crowe, AL.com)

UPDATE:  NBC's Today show had an interview this morning with Leigh Corfman, the first woman to tell her Roy Moore sexual assault story.  If there's a more credible person than her on this planet, we'd like to know about them. Here's the interview:

WATCH: @savannahguthrie's full interview with Roy Moore's 1st accuser, Leigh Corfman, who says Moore sexually abused her when she was 14 pic.twitter.com/ll4FGmPvUZ

— TODAY (@TODAYshow) November 20, 2017

We believe the wide- ranging investigation being conducted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller is focusing more and more on "what do the Russians have on Trump?" Politico has some pieces of the puzzle:

It was around this time that Donald Trump appears to have attracted the attention of Soviet intelligence. How that happened, and where that relationship began, is an answer hidden somewhere in the KGB's secret archives. Assuming, that is, that the documents still exist. 

Trump's first visit to Soviet Moscow in 1987 looks, with hindsight, to be part of a pattern. The dossier by the former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele asserts that the Kremlin had been cultivating Trump for “at least five years” before his stunning victory in the 2016 US presidential election. This would take us back to around 2011 or 2012.

As they say in intelligence circles, he's dirty. Mueller will get the goods on him and his crime family.

UPDATE II: But wait, there's more:

Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team investigating whether President Donald Trump sought to obstruct a federal inquiry into connections between his presidential campaign and Russian operatives has now directed the Justice Department to turn over a broad array of documents, ABC News has learned. 

In particular, Mueller's investigators are keen to obtain emails related to the firing of FBI Director James Comey and the earlier decision of Attorney General Jeff Sessions to recuse himself from the entire matter, according to a source who has not seen the specific request but was told about it. 

Issued within the past month, the directive marks the special counsel's first records request to the Justice Department, and it means Mueller is now demanding documents from the department overseeing his investigation.

We're betting Mueller already has some of these documents in hand and is waiting to see what's turned over -- or at least he wants the Trumpkins to think that way.

Finally, we would again like to recommend the link round- up assembled by Infidel 753. You're going to find something there to inform, amuse, and possibly enrage -- always worth a look.

More Moore - It's Now SIX Women And Counting! (UPDATED)

Drip, drip, whoosh:

A Gadsden woman says Roy Moore groped her while she was in his law office on legal business with her mother in 1991. Moore was married at that time. 

In the past week, Moore has been accused by five other women of a range of behaviors that include sexual misconduct with a woman when she was 14, and sexual assault of another when she was 16. This is the first public accusation of physical contact that happened after Moore was married. 

In recent days, Moore has publicly denied any wrongdoing, and has denied knowing some of the women. [snip]

According to Johnson, he asked questions about her young daughters, including what color eyes they had and if they were as pretty as she was. She said that made her feel uncomfortable, too. 

Once the papers were signed, she and her mother got up to leave. After her mother walked through the door first, she said, Moore came up behind her. 

It was at that point, she recalled, he grabbed her buttocks. 

Good for her and all the other victims who've come forward to tell what Roy "Teen Spirit" Moore did to them. That's what's called courage.

UPDATE: "But wait, there's more..."  But of course there is.

Another Woman Steps Forward To Accuse Moore Of Groping Her

Will this, finally, be enough?

Another woman has come forward to say that Alabama Republican Roy Moore sexually pursued and assaulted her when she was a teenager. At a press conference with attorney Gloria Allred, Beverly Young Nelson described how Moore moved from flirting with her, to signing her yearbook in creepy fashion, to assaulting her when she was a teenager waitressing at a Gadsden, Alabama, restaurant where Moore was a regular. 

Nelson read a statement describing how, one cold night when her boyfriend was late to pick her up from work, Moore offered her a ride, then parked between a dumpster and a building and “reached over and began groping me and putting his hands on my breasts.” When she tried to get out of the car, Moore locked the door, grabbed her by the neck, and tried to force her head down onto his crotch. When Nelson continued to struggle, Moore finally opened the door and, she says, she’s not sure if she fell out of the car or he pushed her out. He drove away leaving her on the ground, and Nelson quit her job at the restaurant the next day, covering the bruises on her neck with makeup.

Paging Sean Hannity. Paging Breitbart.

Let's see whose moral compasses are corrupted enough to let this pass.

BONUS:  Republican strategist Rick Wilson -

 In a just and sane world, Roy Moore would have already been disqualified, but in the era of Bannonite Republicanism, the gravity, credibility, and seriousness of the accusations against Moore aren’t disqualifiers; they’re selling points to a faction of the GOP intent on showing the world just how low they can sink as a party and as humans.

BONUS II: It appears that the "good" citizens of Gadsden, AL knew of Moore's reputation: there are reports that he was banned from their local mall after his frequent sexual advances on teen girls.

It certainly appears that the Trump/ Bannon/Republican swamp is bottomless.

Saturday Morning Reading

The topic this morning is the Grand Old Pedophile party.  As always, please go to the links for the full articles.

Charles Pierce leads us off:

The fact is that Roy Moore is very much who the Republicans are. He is representative of a fanatical splinter of American Protestantism that has accounted for a great deal of the success enjoyed by modern conservatism and the Republican Party for over four decades, and there always has been dark sin at the heart of that success. 

The rise of what used to be known as “the religious right” did not begin with the legalization of abortion. That’s a nice story that the various Bible-banging charlatans would like you to believe. No, the institutions that would nurture and produce the religious right were the white-only Christian academies and universities that sprang up in the South as part of the massive resistance to desegregation—the churchgoing end of that strategy. The religious right was not born out of opposition to Roe v. Wade. It was born out of opposition to Brown v. Board. 

There was always something wretched in its founding that invariably asserted itself in our politics. Dishonesty and camouflage were its primary sacraments. As part of their bargain with these people, Republicans and conservatives agreed tacitly to overlook these things, and so they became accustomed to overlooking everything until, today, alleged pedophilia of the most grotesque sort is the latest thing to be overlooked in the cause of tax-cuts and the restriction of women's reproductive rights. (our emphasis)

You could easily argue that the roots of this complicity go back many decades more, back through when a resurgent KKK cloaked itself in religious symbolism, through the Jim Crow era, all the way to this country's founding. The party labels changed, but conservatives were always the most culpable.

Speaking of conservatives, we have a few who want the Grand Old Pedophile party to die.

Jennifer Rubin:

If there is a single idea animating Trump’s GOP, it is that “blood and soil” (or race and religion, if you prefer) — not the American creed (“All men are created equal…”) — is the defining feature of the United States. Whatever else that is not white and Christian is foreign, alien and a threat to “real America.” Whether in day-to-day politics, foreign affairs or domestic policies, there is no right and wrong, only them and us. That’s Trumpism in a nutshell. The Republican Party’s inability to immediately and completely separate itself from and denounce Moore is the predictable result of this thinking. 

I would like to think that Americans have gotten a good look at this Frankenstein-esque party and will repudiate it in 2018 and 2020. I still carry the belief (bolstered by Tuesday’s election) that most Americans have not lost their minds and souls.

Rubin wants a new "conservative" party to replace the GOP. A question for her: what would keep that new party from devolving exactly the way the current conservative party devolved, through shameless and dishonest pandering to the worst instincts of those Americans who have come to internalize the bullshit they've been fed for over 40 years?

Rubin's fellow neo- con Max Boot joins the chorus:

This episode is the sorry culmination of two trends that have disfigured the conservative movement beyond all recognition: contempt for the facts and desire to win at all costs. Republicans are increasingly reliant on “alternative facts” manufactured by the likes of Fox News and Breitbart, which claim that global warming isn’t real and neither is the Russian hack of the Democratic National Committee. The real scandal, they tell us, is the Steele dossier paid for by the Democrats in an attempt to uncover Trump’s Russian connections. Or is it the evidence-free claim that Obama supposedly wiretapped Trump?  

In the final analysis, no indictment of their candidate will convince the faithful. As Trump once said, “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.” Or, more to the point, Roy Moore could molest a 14-year-old girl and not lose votes. Because for Republican partisans, their opponents are “the forces of evil,” and anything is preferable to that. Even Donald Trump. Even Roy Moore. So in ostensibly fighting evil, Republicans have become complicit in it. 

This is a party that does not deserve to survive.

While, again, we would heartily agree with this conclusion, we doubt that American politics would be without a right- wing party of hypocrites, bigots and nihilists for very long.

Tweets Of The Day - Roy Moore Edition (UPDATED)

Bible- banging hypocrite and Republican candidate for Senator from Alabama Roy Moore is having a very bad day (sad!):

Four stages of GOP scandal response:
1. As the father of a daughter, I'm outraged.
2. If the allegations are true, he should step down.
3. While I have my differences with him, I support my party's nominee.
4. Look, I'm focused on tax cuts.

— Ken Schultz (@KSchultz3580) November 9, 2017

MSNBC: “Roy Moore is a creepster”
CNN: “Roy Moore is a creepster”
FOX: “WHAT DID HILLARY CLINTON KNOW ABOUT ROY MOORE AND WHEN DID SHE KNOW IT”

— shauna (@goldengateblond) November 9, 2017

Breitbart guy is defending Moore to @AliVelshi by saying the other 3 girls were "legal" and Moore was "single." They were teens, he was in his 30s, one was 14.

— Laffy (@GottaLaff) November 9, 2017

It’s almost like a guy who thinks it’s okay to whip out a gun in the middle of political rally shouldn’t be trusted to make decisions.

— Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) November 9, 2017

Alabama: where a guy who prosecuted Klan members who killed little children is an underdog in a US Senate race against a guy who molested a 14-year-old.

— scary lawyerguy (@scarylawyerguy) November 9, 2017

GOP: WE believe Democrats ran a child sex ring in the basement of a pizza parlor that had no basement.

Also GOP: We don't believe the major newspaper story with 30 SOURCES about a Republican pedophile.

— Mikel Jollett (@Mikel_Jollett) November 10, 2017

If Roy Moore’s campaign song is Great Balls Of Fire he should probably get a new one.

— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) November 9, 2017

UPDATE: If you didn't think he could be any more vile, you don't know Roy Moore -

Roy Moore is fundraising off of a story alleging he sexually abused a girl. pic.twitter.com/MTjWI2hwmA

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) November 9, 2017

UPDATE II:  Wonders may never cease -

Innocent until proven guilty is for criminal convictions, not elections. I believe Leigh Corfman. Her account is too serious to ignore. Moore is unfit for office and should step aside.

— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) November 10, 2017

Report: Republican Senate Candidate Roy Moore Sexually Assaulted A Minor

The Washington Post has a blockbuster report this afternoon claiming bible- banging hypocrite and Alabama Republican Senatorial candidate Roy Moore sexually assaulted at least one minor nearly 40 years ago, then- 14- year- old Leigh Corfman:

Alone with Corfman, Moore chatted with her and asked for her phone number, she says. Days later, she says, he picked her up around the corner from her house in Gadsden, drove her about 30 minutes to his home in the woods, told her how pretty she was and kissed her. On a second visit, she says, he took off her shirt and pants and removed his clothes. He touched her over her bra and underpants, she says, and guided her hand to touch him over his underwear. 

Moore was in his 30's at the time. And, yes, we know we're talking about Alabama here, but he apparently had a proclivity for teenage girls:

Aside from Corfman, three other women interviewed by The Washington Post in recent weeks say Moore pursued them when they were between the ages of 16 and 18 and he was in his early 30s, episodes they say they found flattering at the time, but troubling as they got older. None of the women say that Moore forced them into any sort of relationship or sexual contact.

When you hear the denials coming from the s.o.b., keep this in mind:

This account is based on interviews with more than 30 people who said they knew Moore between 1977 and 1982, when he served as an assistant district attorney for Etowah County in northern Alabama, where he grew up.

This only adds to the portrait of Moore --a theocrat, homophobe and "Sharia law" crackpot -- as a seriously damaged person.

(Photo: Roy Moore wants to show you his pea -- pee? --shooter.)

Pictures Of The Day - Pew Pew! Ride That Horsey!

Here's Roy "Less Is" Moore, the Talibangelist Alabammy Republican voters in their wisdom selected as their Senatorial candidate yesterday:


(Getty Images)

Q.1.  Where do you put the coin in to get the little horsey to rock back and forth?
Q.2.  How many horses' asses do you see in this picture?


(CBS News)

"'Scuse me while I whip this out." Hey, that's not much of a penis compensator there, Roy!

As Adam Silverman at Balloon Juice put it:

Your Alabama GOP senatorial runoff winner is cowboy cosplayer and teeny weeny wheel gun aficionado Judge Roy Moore – the Last Law West of Ashkelon.

That sounds about right.

"The South Always Resists"

(click on image to enlarge)

(Stuart Carlson, via gocomics.com)

Leonard Pitts, on the "tradition" of Alabama Republican Supreme Court Chief "Justice" Roy "Less Is Less" Moore's anti-same sex marriage bigotry:

Last week, apparently channeling his inner George Wallace, Moore, chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, ordered the state’s probate judges not to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples. This was in defiance of a federal court that had struck down as unconstitutional Alabama’s ban on gay unions. [snip]

... History reminds us that whenever social change comes too fast for the South’s taste — which is to say, whenever social change comes — there seems to invariably arise some demagogue to decry the “tyranny” of having to obey the law and follow court orders. The South always resists. 

That’s what necessitated the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Freedom Rides of 1961. It’s why federal troops had to march into Little Rock in 1957. For that matter, it’s why they had to march into Richmond in 1865. The demagogues always use the same justification, always say that in denying it the right to discriminate as it sees fit, the federal government steps on the South’s “traditions.”

As they were in 1865, 1957, 1961 and 1965, today's Southern brain-fried bigots (joined by many millions of bigots everywhere else in the country) are on the wrong, losing side of history.  As Pitts notes, resistance to any change is, historically, a particularly Southern reaction.  But even more, it's just the natural reaction of small-minded, parochial, ignorant people regardless of where they live. That the chief "justice" of Alabama's highest court should be leading this resistance, given the State's reactionary history, is especially noteworthy and offensive, but not altogether surprising.

BONUS:  As might be expected, the boys in bedsheets have issued a "call to arms."  Isn't "tradition" wonderful?

BONUS II:  Looks like we got some bigots in the Mississippi judicial system, too.  Shocking.

BONUS III:  And the Mississippi legislature.

Sunday Quote - American Taliban Edition

Alabama's (Alabammy!) Republican Chief Justice, Roy "Less Is" Moore has been known for his outlandish (even for Alabama) views on gay marriage, secularism and "Sharia law", and merging church and state.   But in remarks to the"Mississippi Pastors for Life" luncheon, Moore has more on (Moore-on?  Moron?) a favorite topic:

Buddha didn’t create us, Mohammed didn’t create us, it was the God of the Holy Scriptures on which this nation was founded. 

They didn’t bring a Quran over on the pilgrim ship Mayflower. Let’s get real, let’s go back and learn our history, let’s stop playing games.

Ergo, the First Amendment only applies to Christians.

We wouldn't let this crackpot judge a pie contest, much less preside over the highest State court in Alabama.  Unfortunately, since it's an elected office, Alabama's yahoos put one of their own on the bench.  Score one for the American Taliban.

BONUS:  Looks like the 5 American Taliban on the Supreme Court have no further use for the Establishment Clause.