Just Like Bogey and Bacall

More on Moore:  The Washington Post article that detailed the accusations about how Alabama Senatorial candidate Roy Moore’s had pursued “sexual relationships” with young women and girls had more than thirty sources, including people who were told about Moore’s predatory actions years ago.  The authors didn’t set out to write an article about sex abuse, they uncovered the information while they were writing a more general article about Moore.  Not surprisingly the reaction to the story depends on where you stand on the political spectrum so a number of Moore’s defenders don’t care whether or not he’s guilty, they just don’t want to see a Democrat win the Alabama Senate seat.  Steve Bannon, an early and vociferous supporter of Moore’s Senate run, attacked the story by questioning the motivation of its source, the “Bezos Amazon Washington Post that dropped the dime on Donald Trump,” as far as he’s concerned the story is part of a liberal conspiracy to block candidates with different “world views.” Speaking for the White House Sarah Huckabee called the molestation claim against Moore a “mere allegation,” but said she knows he would do the right thing and step aside if they are “proven” true, because that’s what Trump would do? Moore defended himself on conservative pundit Sean Hannity’s radio show by denying all of the accusations, and saying that he doesn’t remember ever knowing the fourteen year old accuser.  However, he kind of screwed up his denial by admitting to dating young girls when he was in his thirties but only with their mother’s approval, because parental approval makes pedophilia okay, right?  For the most part the Alabama Republican party remains firmly on team Moore, one local politician defended him by pointing out the age disparity between Jesus’ parents, conveniently leaving out the whole virgin birth thing.  Another cited the romance between Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart, and yes Bacall was young but she was twenty when they married, not fourteen and Moore is no Bogey. Pulling no punches, one local politician just said that he’d rather vote for a pedophile than a Democrat, another said that the accusers should be prosecuted for taking so long to come forward with their claims, and Jack Posobiec, the man who promulgated the Pizzagate conspiracy theory about the non-existent Clinton pedophile ring, posted a photo and the workplace of the main accuser on Twitter so that she could be harassed some more.  A few locals may be falling off of the Moore wagon, by Friday afternoon the polls showed a dead heat between Moore and Doug Jones, his Democratic opponent.  Senate Republicans are in a dither, most never liked Moore to begin with but were willing to tolerate his bigotry because they want and need to keep the Alabama Senate seat in Republican hands and what’s a little bigotry among friends anyway.  However, tolerating pedophilia is a step to far, even for them. Early Friday Mitt Romney, who is expected to announce that he is running for Orrin Hatch’s Utah Senate seat once Hatch announces his retirement, called for Moore to step aside, saying that he believed the accusers. Later in the day the McConnell controlled Republican campaign arm withdrew from its joint funding agreement with Moore and Utah Senator Lee and Montana Senator Daines, two of the few Senators who had endorsed Moore’s candidacy, withdrew their support.  The election takes place on December 12, and Moore, who is leveraging the “unfair” accusations to raise money from his base, could still win.      

More on Flynn:  The story behind former security advisor Michael Flynn’s criminal activities have moved firmly into bad spy novel territory.  Special Counsel Mueller is drilling in on Flynn’s curious relationship with the Turks and by curious, think illegal and treacherous.  Reports are that Flynn was offered $15 million to “remove” Fethullah Gulen, the Turkish cleric that Turkey’s leader Erdogan hates and blames for the failed Turkish coup against his regime.  Some of the planning for this illegal extradition, which never happened, may have taken place at a dinner at New York’s 21 Club restaurant. If proven, the alleged plan to kidnap the cleric with the aid of foreign money directly violates US criminal code and could result in up to a 20-year sentence for Flynn and his son and co-conspirator.  Though these Flynn crimes have nothing to do with Russian collusion they do reach into the White House for a few reasons. First, it appears that Flynn was still working on his Turkish project and representing Turkish interests after the election. On his advice the Trump administration delayed a plan to provide additional arms to Kurdish allies in the ISIS fight because the Turks oppose ever arming their Kurdish “enemies.” Months later, after Flynn was gone, the plan was implemented.  Second, and more significantly, Trump was unusually committed to keeping Flynn in his administration.  He appointed him to the national security role despite warnings from then transition team head Governor Christie’s that it was a bad idea. He kept him on after then acting Attorney General Sally Yates ran to the White House to warn that Flynn was vulnerable to blackmail and probably a few other things that the discrete Yates never disclosed to the rest of us and then fired her shortly afterwards.  And then of course there is that Comey problem, Trump asked then FBI Director Comey to lay off investigating that “nice guy” Flynn, before firing him too.  It’s looking more and more like the FBI and Yates knew a whole lot about Flynn’s nefarious actions, that their intelligence went beyond his discussion of sanctions with the Russians, that Trump knew their concerns and that Flynn wasn’t fired for “lying” to VP Pence, who probably knew a lot more too.   

More on Trump and Putin:  The two BFFs didn’t get much one-on-one time in Viet Nam but they did get to participate in a neat photo-op, looking debonair in their matching blue shirts, the outfits they donned for the traditional group photo.  During their three “brief” encounters they agreed to defeat ISIS in Syria and squeezed in some chatter about that whole Russian meddling in the US election thing.  Trump reported that Vlad again said “he didn’t meddle,” and was insulted about the accusation. Trump then added that he believed him because that “whole thing was set up by the Democrats, I mean they ought to look at Podesta. They ought to look at all of the things they’ve done with the phony dossier.”  After a stop in Hanoi, Trump is off to Manila for some quality time with another autocrat, Rodrigo Duterte, Manila’s murderous strongman, and the ASEAN summit meeting.