FRIDAY UPDATE: With outrage growing, Cory Gardner’s “if true” avoidance qualifier becomes less tenable by the minute:
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
—–
UPDATE #2: The Hill:
Embattled Alabama GOP Senate nominee Roy Moore told supporters on Thursday that he would not back down amid calls for him to step aside from the race following a new report that accuses him of inappropriate sexual conduct with a minor in 1979.
“I refuse to stand down,” he said in a new email.
Moore blasted the accusations, levied in a new story by The Washington Post, in a fundraising email to supporters. He called the allegations attacks from “the Obama-Clinton Machine’s liberal media lapdogs.”
“The forces of evil are on the march in our country…I have a duty to stand up and fight back against the forces of evil waging an all-out war on our conservative values,” he wrote.
—–
UPDATE:
Wow. This defense of Roy Moore from AL state Auditor Jim Ziegler:
“Take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus.”https://t.co/IhaWiCEFmq
— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) November 9, 2017
—–
FOX News reports on the huge scandal brewing in the Alabama special U.S. Senate election, threatening to upset the campaign of far-right Republican Roy Moore ahead of his up-to-now likely victory:
Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore is firing back after The Washington Post published the account of a woman who claims the former judge and staunch social conservative initiated a sexual encounter with her when she was 14 – allegations that have rocked the race in the final stretch…
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who backed Moore’s rival Luther Strange in the GOP primary, said in a statement: “If these allegations are true, he must step aside.”
Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., head of the Senate GOP campaign arm, called the allegations “deeply troubling” and said: “If these allegations are found to be true, Roy Moore must drop out of the Alabama special Senate election.” [Pols emphasis]
But Moore’s campaign issued a statement saying the report is “baseless” and false.
There hasn’t been anything as of this writing that’s surfaced to cast doubt on the reporting in the Washington Post’s story today, but the allegations date from the year 1979. There is no physical evidence one way or the other to support the allegations, and the statute of limitations for the offenses that would have been committed is long past. That means it’s highly unlikely that new information will come out to “prove” these allegations one way or the other, and Moore has denied everything. You could reasonably conclude from this that National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) chairman Cory Gardner just said he’s leaving it up to Moore to decide.
So what happens next? That depends. The swift condemnation of Moore from some other fellow Republicans, including Sen. John McCain’s call for Moore to “immediately step aside and allow the people of Alabama to elect a candidate they can be proud of” disregards the possibility that Moore is not guilty, simply arguing that Moore is unacceptably tainted by the allegations–and with the election fast approaching, that Republicans should find somebody else now. Moore’s embarrassingly fringe politics, public awareness of which has been getting worse with each passing news cycle, were already making him a political liability to fellow Republicans. Now, needless to say, it’s a lot worse.
But the bottom line is, if Moore doesn’t want to get out of the race, nobody can really make him. And if he wins? We already have a precedent for what will happen then. In President Donald Trump. And that is why Cory Gardner can’t make the call on his own.
Because he might have to eat his words, just like he did with Trump.
Morality’s got nothing to do with it, folks.
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Paging ImmoderateRatAss! Paging ImmoderateRatAss!
There's an urgent call STILL WAITING for you, Mr. RatAss.
Please pick up. NOW.
Jesus, Joseph and Mary….
Damn it, Hilz. What are you waiting for?
Sucks to be Cory Gardner. Having a bad candidate's a bitch.
Stay the course. They'll thank you.
Nope. Via Reuters, 'ol Roy is on his own.http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-congress-moore/republican-establishment-bails-on-alabama-candidate-after-sex-allegations-idUSKBN1DA2R9?
The feces are striking the oscillator…..
And Cory is standing downwind from it. As I said on a different tread earlier this afternoon, if Fox (or the National Enquirer) picks up on this story, it could have legs.
Ziegler's quote is priceless….
Is Ms. Corfman going to come forward with a modern-day, 30-something year old, Christ child whom she and Judge Moore begot?
The crazy part about it is this analogy might just sell with some of these evangelical fools.
It's a horrible analogy.
Isn't there a gaping hole in Ziegler's defense? Joseph couldn't have molested Mary; the conception was immaculate.
Not even Ziegler believes that virgin birth crap anymore . . .
. . . even teenagers stopped trying to convince their parents of that, in what, the 1950s?
Remember, my Catholic friend, the immaculate conception states that mary was conceived without sin. Not Jesus, Mary.
Now , the Virgin birth thing would have allowed a degree of molesting as long as there was no penetration.
<dusts off old Catechism book>
I 'borrowed' this from the Facebook page of a wingnut in Alabama who is a Judge Moore supporter (she appears to be straight out of Deliverance). Apparently Mary isn't who I thought she was? #PraiseProsperityJesus
Man. That is straight out of the KKK / Bircher Catholic-hating manual.
For that matter, one of the Inquisition, or the Salem Witch Trial judges, would have been pretty comfortable with it, as well.
True bigotry never changes much….
In other news, if you pray hard enough Jesus will make sure you have just enough milk for your recipe! Let’s hope he’s not so distracted with your needs that he forgets about the needs of Brother Judge Roy Moore. It's almost like he has nothing better to do. (/Catholic sarcasm off)
It's Alabama, remember.
If you want to witness the real Alabama (not the fake, Jesus-lovin', God-fearing, chaste, marijuanas-hating, liquor hating' Christians) just spend some time on Talladega Avenue after the races at the Speedway. The debauchary in Sin City can't hold a candle to those rednecks.
Do as I say, not as I do.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, . . .
. . . if you wanted to see some really wild shit you should have been at the Bethlehem ass races!!
Them ain't rednecks, Michael. They's just good ol' boys havin' them a little bit of fun.
Sounds more like Deliverance.
Politics. It’s a bitch. Stay the course, Roy. The voters will thank you! . . .
Deleting duplicate
If he just hadn't fought so hard over those 2-ton stone monuments and started the Foundation for Moral Law, he might not look much worse than a lot of other congresscritters. As it is, I see the thread his campaign's hanging by fraying rapidly.
Alabama GOP is sticking with their guy…
–From Daniel Dale, Toronto Star (Twitter)
Wait, the grumpy old white guys are standing by the grumpy old white guy? Who'da thunk it
I’ll bet these good ol’ white boys weren’t demanding “proof” as the elite white boys from Hollywood having been falling like dominos over the past few weeks.
Anthony Weiner was locked up for less.
Well – more exposure, less touching.
Hypocritical right wing "Christian" guys are the worst. Sexual predators are sexual predators, and Roy Moore is clearly a predator in the same class as Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein, Jerry Sandusky, Dennis Hastert, and Donald Trump.
But the Christian right- wing nuts are so good at shaming their victims and making them feel crazy. And they have a whole choir of victim-shamers chorusing and repeating every word. The rich ones also have lawyers.
I predict that many more women will come forward, as they did with the predators named above. The Post story details 4 instances of classic victim-grooming, predatory behavior, and it doesn't get better without punitive consequences, counseling, and therapy. Moore's assaults would have only increased in frequency and intensity.
Yeah, please stay the course, wannabe Senator Moore. You'll damage the Republican party even more with the slow unfolding of obscenity over months, and we all want that.
Were they his cousins? Or from the domestic staff?
Democrat who prosecutes KKK church bombing that killed four children no less.
I keep wondering what level of proof WOULD be sufficient to consider Moore deeply flawed and not worth electing.
4 independent accusers. Each supported by multiple contemporary witnesses. No evidence of any of them having a political motive. None who sought out the limelight, but they were willing to talk to a reporter who found them. All that is insufficient for "proving" the allegations about a Republican.
On the other hand, accusations about Bill Clinton were immediately credible. Accusations about Hillary Clinton were immediately credible. I just don't get it.
Reverse the situation and pretend these accusations came up about Jones. Would that be enough to make you vote for Moore?
It would make me stay home…
and that is ALL we need.
The Hill is calling Moore embattled. Let's see, how does that go again? Oh, yeah…controversial… beleaguered…embattled.. gone.
GOP = grand old pedophiles.
There will be more women coming forward, even in Alabama. But, Alabama is one of the top states for child marriages. So the kill-the-gays guy could say he was just testing the waters for a child bride.
Nasty: Moore was doing the Lord's work. That makes everything OK, including his removal twice from the Alabama Supreme Court for ethics violations.
Their response will be: the Lord acts in mysterious ways.
So is Moore also going to claim that his conception was immaculate?
I guess they're playing by Louisiana rules in Alabama:
Way to Go, Mittens!
It's noteworthy that the 2008 and 2012 Republican presidential nominees are the only GOP pols who made unequivocal statements that Roy Moore must step down.
The rest have prefaced their remarks by saying, "If the allegations turn out to be true…"
lol Jim Zeigler
This story was always destined for Shitshowville, but I'd hoped that it wouldn't be traveling there on the What's the Big Deal About Child Rape Express.
Senator Gardner: Who do you believe, the women accusers or Roy Moore?
Oddly enough, I read the NRSC (National Republican Senatorial Committee) led by Gardner was severing their fund-raising agreement with Roy Moore's campaign. That hints there is a bit more "judgment" being exercised than comes out in the "if proven" comments.
I just knew that somehow, sooner or later, this despicable old racist son of a bitch child-molester's inability to refrain from molesting adolescent girls would turn out to be Bill's, Hillary's and/or Barack's fault!
Un-fucking-believable! Wah! Wah! I'm a victim because I couldn't keep my tiny limp dick in my trousers when I was near under-aged girls! Wah! Wah!
These scumbag GOP scoundrels are absolutely soulless and utterly immoral. They would sooner DIE than ever accept responsible for their many, massive, colossal failings, misdeeds, criminal acts and failures.
They are, I fear, subhuman, in the truest sense of the word.
Criminals, frauds, shirkers, liars, con artists and thieves, every goddam one of them.
The NRSC has decided it's time to cut bait.
National Republican Senatorial Committee ends joint fundraising agreement with Roy Moore campaign
This is big news. Of course, the NRSC was running out of money anyway. We all heard Cory crying about the donors closing their wallets. Events of the last 36 hours cannot possible help entice them to open those wallets.
Are donations to the NRSC public? It might be interesting to see who donates in the next, say, 5 weeks?
This is likely to up the GOPedophile’s cred at home. He’s being oppressed by McConnell!! This is spiritual warfare!!
Obviously someone needs a big ol' tax break. Why, they're barely getting by. While our junior senators constituents wrestle with pesky little things like affordable health care this is what he and his colleagues fight for?