US Politics November 2017

Roy Moore supporter Brandon Moseley of @ALReporter on CNN just now compared sexual touching of a 14-year old to stealing a lawnmower, stressing it was a misdemeanor pic.twitter.com/UJ1Bf7JehZ

— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) November 13, 2017

the lawnmower gambit

I mean, you don't usually steal a lawnmower with your penis.

At least, not more than once.

If they don't seat him, they have a scapegoat whenever someone accuses them of being misogynists or apologists. They'll point to not seating Moore as a moral pinnacle and continue being horrible in every other way.

dude looks like he is sexually touching a 14yo while being interviewed

xp

if the Senate expels him, doesn't that just mean that AL has to have another election

Alabama, that's not what a lawnmower is for

these guys treat every moral/legal problem they've had like jaywalking, and also think anyone who's not them should get beat up by a cop for jaywalking

"beat up", we should be so lucky

kneeling on a sports field: deport them
pursuing underage children: execute them
pursuing underage children while republican: elect them

if moore wins the senate will seat him. everybody will forget about it in a couple of months

dude looks like he is sexually touching a 14yo while being interviewed

xp

― Οὖτις, Monday, November 13, 2017

hearty LOL

the Senate boasted James Vardaman, "Cotton" Ed Smith, Theodore Bilbo, and Strom Thurmond, often in leadership roles.

The Senate can fuck right off.

Touching the lawnmower over the grass catcher or under the grass catcher.

WaPo breakdown of unlikely scenarios

Senate Republican leaders are making clear they would rather have a Democrat join them in the Senate than Roy Moore, who has been accused of initiating sexual contact with a 14-year-old girl when he was in his 30s. But there's not much they can do about it before the election. Even if the Alabama Republican Senate candidate were to suddenly heed their calls to drop out, his name would still appear on the ballot in December's special election.

After the election, though, is a different story. If nearly half of Senate Republicans join with all 48 Democratic senators, they could kick out the newest Alabama senator shortly after he takes a seat. The Constitution lets the Senate censure or even expel its members, but it hasn't successfully happened since the Civil War. Now, in the wake of allegations that Moore dated teenage girls and touched a 14-year-old inappropriately (an allegation he denies), some senators seem to be considering it.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) floated the idea of expelling Moore on NBC's “Meet the Press” on Sunday. When asked about it on the same show, Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.) didn't rule it out: “We'll have to — we'll wrestle with that if and when the time comes,” he said.

Here's how it would work, as guided by Senate procedural experts Sarah Binder of the Brookings Institution and Josh Chafetz of Cornell Law.

1. Decide whether they can stop him from taking the seat: The Senate has constitutional power to decide whether to seat someone the voters elect, and that only requires a majority vote, Chafetz said. But the rules around this are pretty strict and probably don't follow this case: The Senate can only prevent someone from taking their seat if they either weren't duly elected or don't have the constitutional qualifications to be a senator (like being under the age of 30 or not a U.S. citizen). "They can’t just exclude someone because they don’t like him or even because he has committed a crime; it has to be because he’s not actually entitled to a seat," Chafetz said.

2. The Senate's Ethics Committee moves to conduct an investigation into Moore: Just like the Senate is running its own investigation into Russia meddling, senators almost certainly wouldn't vote to expel one of their own based on one news report, no matter how carefully reported it is. (As far as litigating decades-old sexual allegations in the media goes, this story is as close to proof as reporters can get.) They'd launch their own investigation, likely calling in witnesses and perhaps even talking to Moore himself.

3. If the committee finds grounds to expel Moore, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) decides to bring up the question of expulsion for a vote before the full Senate. He hasn't commented publicly on whether he's even considering this. But on Monday, he did say he believes Moore's accusers, and he said Moore should leave the race.

4. Two-thirds of the Senate votes to expel him: That means all 48 senators who caucus with the Democrats, plus 19 Senate Republicans.

This last step in particular is an extraordinarily high bar to clear; getting a two-thirds majority in the Senate is one of the hardest things to do in politics. The requirement in the Senate to expel a senator is the same required to override a veto or change the Constitution. The last time the Senate had this much agreement on a controversial topic was when it sent new Russia sanctions to President Trump's desk.

Expelling a senator is also extraordinarily rare. Binder said the last senator expelled by the Senate was in 1862, when the Senate voted to expel more than two dozen members on the grounds of supporting the Confederacy during the Civil War.

A century later, the Senate twice got close to kicking out senators only to see them step down. Moore's defiance to establishment Washington throughout this entire campaign suggests that's not something he'd consider.

There's another roadblock to getting rid of Moore. The Senate has a long-standing, unwritten rule that they don't kick out someone for conduct known to the voters at the time that senator was elected, Chafetz said.

The thinking behind that is to avoid a slippery slope where the Senate is overriding the will of the voters.

For now, this is mostly a theoretical debate. It's possible that Democrat Doug Jones beats Moore in the election next month. Before the allegations, Jones was already within a six-point margin, according to a RealClearPolitics average of polls. Afterward, some polls show him even.

But if Moore does pull out a win, the Senate could seriously consider doing something it hasn't done in more than a century: unseat one of their own.

that would turn into such a clusterfuck for the GOP, i can't even imagine the reaction from the Bannon wing of the party.

Does the dude [nb: McConnell] even have smarts?

I doubt you'd be impressed by his smarts as they are ordinarily measured, but political smarts are a fairly specialized branch, in the same way that surgeons may be among the bottom of their class academically, but still be excellent surgeons. McConnell has a very narrowly and specialized knowledge base that applies directly to his work, within which he is eminent, but the moment you move outside that framework I think there'd be a drastic drop off.

Dying at DJP's penis/lawnmower retort, but the more I look at Brandon Moseley, the more I think he may have tried it.

Wow, just a year from electing a proud sexual assaulter to "Touching a 14-year-old is just a misdemeanor." Where will we be 12 months from now?

"healthcare win: the GOP in conjunction with north korea will now offer free radiation treatment for cancer patients."

That surgeon comparison is pretty helpful.

Moore accuser currently crying on TV. She accuses Moore of assaulting her when she was 15 and 16. Moore would hang out at a restaurant until closing and mack on the teens, like a real predator. She got into his car, hoping for a ride home, but instead he drove her to the back of the restaurant, parked in the dark, and that's where the assault occurred. Horrifying story in progress.

Accuser describing attempted rape, full stop. "You're just a child, but I'm the district attorney, and if you tell anyone about this no one will believe you."

She (a Trump supporter) told lots of family members.

Wow, just a year from electing a proud sexual assaulter to "Touching a 14-year-old is just a misdemeanor." Where will we be 12 months from now?

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Monday, 13 November 2017 19:54 (four minutes ago) Permalink

on ilx arguing about a tv show or pop song or marvel puzzle quest

Wow, she has a portrait someone did of her when she was 16. She has her high school yearbook, which Moore had signed.

She was 15 in 1977, the year of the yearbook.

. She has her high school yearbook, which Moore had signed.

hooooly shit

here's the (upsetting) text of her statement

Beverly Young Nelson alleges Roy Moore “began squeezing my neck attempting to force my head into his crotch.” She was 16. pic.twitter.com/dForLnaVnp

— Alex Silverman (@AlexSilverman) November 13, 2017

Nelson says Moore would eat at the restaurant where she worked, flirting and pulling her hair starting when she was 15. He allegedly wrote this in her HS yearbook. pic.twitter.com/MeIrRVPUlb

— Alex Silverman (@AlexSilverman) November 13, 2017

sorry, I meant to link there rather than embed

this is insane

He signed it, "Love, Roy Moore, D.A."

Well that's that, right? Is even Breitbart going to have the stomach to go after her?

(I know, I shouldn't be so naive.)

Maybe it was some other Roy Moore, D.A.

Well that's that, right? Is even Breitbart going to have the stomach to go after her?

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Monday, November 13, 2017 12:11 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i suspect -- yes, and yes

Meanwhile, Menendez jury tells judge they are deadlocked. He's not off the hook yet, but at least he's staying put for a while longer.

Breitbart and Moore are some never-say-die fuckers, they aren't going to give up

the standard for a bribery conviction is currently an exchange of a sack of cash with a dollar sign on it with a note that says 'FOR BRIBES' accompanied with a memo of the quid pro quo

The plan: Let the voters elect Moore. The Senate refuses to seat him. He resigns and the guv appoints Strange.

I don't know why it only occurred to me now while reading Young Nelson's account that my college a capella group's signature song is "You're Sixteen"

The plan: hold your nose, embrace the skunk, then take a bath in milk, hoping no one notices the stench.

It would be great if people would stop holding on to this fiction that the Senate is going to block Moore from being seated.

i have a better method for avoiding skunk stank but whatever floats their boat

yeah they're going to seat him, period. the game plan is to simply prevent him from getting past the post, but with sufficient deniability.

This is a disaster for GOP but it should be an even bigger disaster for the Bannon / Breitbart wing. They wanted Moore instead of Strange, and it has been a catastrophe. But they are going to continue on in 2018 as if nothing has happened, right? I don't get where they get the money, even the Mercers must at some point realize they can't deliver whatever it is that these people want.

The people who brought you the unmerged layers of the Obama birth certificate PDF are not to be dissuaded by a grown attorney's signature in a dated yearbook, come on. That could have been written in yesterday by a snickering Hillary Clinton. Better get pajamaheddin amateur ink analysts to show that the pen used was manufactured in the late 2000s. See? It's Ra(th)ergate again!

I think we may only be a year out from a republican candidate who makes public appearances slathered in the viscera of the person he's most recently serial murdered. And who wins, naturally.

the pen used was manufactured in the late 2000s.

Surely the Deep State® has better forgery resources than that!

NRSC Chairman Cory Gardner on Moore: "he is unfit to serve in the United States Senate and he should not run for office. If he refuses to withdraw and wins, the Senate should vote to expel him" pic.twitter.com/VVoureII4c

— Alexis Levinson (@alexis_levinson) November 13, 2017

a republican candidate who makes public appearances slathered in the viscera of the person he's most recently serial murdered

Slogan: "He's not soft on crime victims!"