Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

We still have time to mess this up!

All your base are belong to Tunch.

A Senator Walker would also be an insult to reason, rationality, and decency.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Consistently wrong since 2002

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

Second rate reporter says what?

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

You are here: Home / Just seventeen, if you know what I mean

Just seventeen, if you know what I mean

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Worst David Brooks column ever:

In 1982, Kelly Harrison Thorp was working as a hostess at the Red Lobster restaurant in Gadsden. She was 17 years old and a high school senior.

One day Roy Moore came into the restaurant, and she recognized him.

“He was a public figure in this small town,” she said of Moore, who at the time was in his early 30s and the deputy district attorney for Etowah County. Later that year he would mount an unsuccessful campaign for circuit court judge.

Thorp said Moore asked her if she’d go out with him sometime.

“I just kind of said, ‘Do you know how old I am?'” she recalled.

“And he said, ‘Yeah. I go out with girls your age all the time.'”

Reader Interactions

227Comments

  1. 1.

    Trentrunner

    The hottest take today is that since we’re “reckoning” with Bill Clinton’s predations, we must now…

    …wait for it…

    Reckon with Hillary’s complicity.

    (Caitlin Flanagan, if anyone cares.)

  2. 2.

    hellslittlestangel

    As someone who wants to see Doug Jones win in Alabama, I wish women would stop coming forward about creepy Roy Moore — until around December 8th.

  3. 3.

    clay

    @hellslittlestangel:Conversely, I wish there to be a new woman coming forward every day from now until election day.

    EDIT: Not that I want Moore to have that many victims, but since he likely does…

  4. 4.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    Alternate blog post title: She was no Moore than a baby then.

  9. 9.

    Mnemosyne

    @hellslittlestangel:

    I’m with clay. You seem to think that there’s a limited supply of women that Moore hit on when they were underage. I’m pretty sure the number approaches infinity, so we won’t run out before Election Day.

    I’m also still hoping we find out why Moore suddenly dropped everything and fled to Australia around this same time. I suspect a shotgun wedding was in the offing and he was fleeing that.

  10. 10.

    Adam L Silverman

    Given Brooks’ oeuvre I’m surprised he didn’t set this in an Applebys, right next to the salad bar.

  12. 12.

    Tara the Antisocial Social Worker

    No way. To be a David Brooks column, it would have to have something about how a 17-year-old did something bad once, so really everyone’s equally wrong.

  13. 13.

    hellslittlestangel

    @Mnemosyne: I’m not worried about running out of revelations, I’m worried about Moore being forced to drop out, giving Alabama an excuse to reschedule the election.

  15. 15.

    Trentrunner

    Latest Moore victim (WaPo): He called me at my high school:

    Moore (on phone): What are you doing?
    Girl: I’m in Trig class!

    (Actual conversation.)

  17. 17.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    @TenguPhule:
    Bernie Bernstein strikes again! Will this degenerate Jew stop at nothing to destroy this God-fearing man!?

  21. 21.

    hellslittlestangel

    For fuck’s sake, it’s not a David Brooks column. Doesn’t anybody understand sarcasm? Doesn’t anybody know how to click on a link?

  22. 22.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mnemosyne: Eventually someone in Texas will come out and make an accusation from his brief stop there when he was on the way to Australia from Alabama. And I’m sure there are some women in Australia who are working up the courage to come out and explain how Moore destroyed their childhoods and lives as well. The easiest way to be a successful serial offender, whether rape, arson, or murder is to do it as a traveler. It is much, much harder, even with 21st century technology, to put investigative leads together across a geographically diverse set of jurisdictions.

  23. 23.

    RobertDSC-Mac Mini

    It’s a wonder he is even alive given how everyone knew he was a predator. How many fathers wished they could take him out?

  32. 32.

    Ken

    @Baud: Yet another reason Moore would never sue any of these people, or do anything that would lead to discovery. Can you imagine what a look at his e-mails, phone calls, web browsing history, and computer files might turn up?

  35. 35.

    TenguPhule

    @Ken: Too old for those.

    But I bet you dollars to donuts that a search warrant would probably turn up stacks of incriminating old photos.

    He seems like the kind of predator that would prize trophies of his victims.

  36. 36.

    Adam L Silverman

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: It is less fearing political reprisal. Rather it is about dredging up past traumas. Exposing yourself in regard to when you were most vulnerable. Telling the people you care about and who care about you this happened when you’d been keeping it quiet all this time. And, of course, being dumped on by all the usual suspects.

  38. 38.

    Trentrunner

    More Moore, this time with another sexual assault:

    It was a few days later, Richardson says, when she was called out of her trigonometry class.

    Richardson says she was startled, thinking maybe her dad was calling, and that when she realized it was Moore, “I felt like every person in that office was staring at me.”

    “At that point, he said, ‘Would you like to go out some time?’ ” recalls Richardson, who says she described the call right afterward to McLaughlin, who confirmed the account. “I said, ‘Well, I can’t talk right now.’ And being so naive, and so not worldly, I said, ‘I’ll be at work Friday or Saturday.’”

    The next Friday or Saturday night, she says, he came in to Sears and asked her out again and she again told him, “Look, my dad is so strict.”

    She recalls Moore suggesting that they meet for a late movie after she got off work. She says she called her parents and told them she was going out with friends.

    Instead, she says she met Moore at the movie theater. She says she can’t remember what they saw, but she remembers clearly what happened after. She says it was cold and Moore offered to drive her to her car, which was more than a football field’s distance away in a parking area behind Sears. She says he parked by her car and began chatting with her, and she says she told him again about her dad.

    “I just explained to him that my dad’s a minister, and you know, I just can’t sneak around because that’s wrong,” she recalls. “So I thanked him and started to get out and he grabbed me and pulled me in and that’s when he kissed me.

    “It was a man kiss — like really deep tongue. Like very forceful tongue. It was a surprise. I’d never been kissed like that,” she says. “And the minute that happened, I got scared then. I really did. Something came over me that scared me. And so I said, ‘I’ve got to go, because my curfew is now.’ ”

  39. 39.

    Mnemosyne

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Oh, I’m sure there will be. But I’m betting that his precipitous flight was because he impregnated an underage girl and was fleeing a shotgun wedding.

    I may ruin some people’s illusions here, but Charlie Chaplin was also a notorious hebephile. His second wife was 15 years old when they fled to Mexico to get married one step ahead of the police. The famous quote he gave to the reporters on the train was, “Well, boys, it won’t last, but it’s better than the penitentiary.”

  41. 41.

    trollhattan

    @Trentrunner:
    Did he call the school office and have them fetch her? What decade are we talking about here–he was damn old before every HSer carried a phone.

    OK, see the expanded story upthread.

    I need a shower.

  47. 47.

    Mary G

    @Trentrunner: The details in that story about the friends who worked at Sears, and the one at the cosmetic counter could see Moore coming and tell the other to hide, seem extremely believable, and then calling her at school to avoid the strict dad is super creepy.

  50. 50.

    Peale

    @Trentrunner: the sad thing about Caitlin Flanagan is that of the anti-Hillary at every turn women, she’s not ever interesting enough to be Tumbrel worthy. So she’ll probably skate through the Revolution.

  51. 51.

    WaterGirl

    @Mnemosyne:

    …impregnated an underage girl and was fleeing a shotgun wedding.

    If this hypothetical girl kept the baby, a DNA test and the age of the child now could clarify things quite a bit. Even for the deniers.

  53. 53.

    cokane

    @Trentrunner: god that article was shite, got snagged into reading after the amazing article on Andrew Anglin. At one point Flanagan points out that the allegations are credible against Clinton because they’re similar. Right after she writes that Broadrick accused Clinton of a savagely violent rape while Willey and Jones only accused Clinton of exposure and rubbing his dick against her.

  56. 56.

    eemom

    I have to say that the batshit crazy, gratuitous self-flagellation of the Clinton “confessors” on the left has surprised even me. Coming as it does not only from obvious worthless hacks like Yglesias (Clinton should have resigned, braaaaawk) but Rude Pundit, who I deeply respect.

    Uh, folks? Every atom of that shit was beaten like a million poor dead rented mules by Starr & Co. (i.e., the infinite gazillions of the republican Clinton-smashing machine) — and like everything else they tried, it turned up JACK SHIT.

    eta: Perhaps I should elaborate. The so called “rape” allegations were debunked out the wazoo, including by the accuser. Everything else involved consenting women over the age of consent. So the relevance to Moore is WHAT, exactly??

  57. 57.

    mad citizen

    “I’m in trig class” made me laugh. What a f&%$ing creep!

    What is the procedure for expelling a state? Or at least stop the interwebs from penetrating Alabama? The state is like an uncontacted tribe that doesn’t want outside intervention.

    I just keep having Neil Young’s song in my mind:
    Oh Alabama
    Can I see you
    And shake your hand
    Make friends down in Alabama
    I’m from a new land
    I come to you
    And see all this ruin
    What are you doing Alabama?
    You got the rest of the Union
    To help you along
    What’s going wrong?

  61. 61.

    trollhattan

    Modern southern sheriffin’

    The Republican Sheriff of Fort Bend County, Texas is threatening criminal charges against the owner of a pickup truck with a sticker against GOP President Donald Trump, KPRC 2 News in Houston reports. Sheriff Troy Nehls posted a photo of a pickup truck’s back window sticker that reads, “F*ck Trump and F*ck you for voting for him.”

    KPRC legal analyst Brian Wice explained Sheriff Nehls was wrong about the law and that the 1971 case of Cohen v. California settled the issue before the United States Supreme Court.

    “If you know who owns this truck or it is yours, I would like to discuss it with you. Our Prosecutor has informed us she would accept Disorderly Conduct charges regarding it, but I feel we could come to an agreement regarding a modification to it,” Sheriff Nehls posted.

  64. 64.

    Doug!

    @eemom:

    I have to say that the batshit crazy, gratuitous self-flagellation of the Clinton “confessors” on the left has surprised even me. Coming as it does not only from obvious worthless hacks like Yglesias (Clinton should have resigned, braaaaawk) but Rude Pundit, who I deeply respect.

    I agree

  73. 73.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mnemosyne: If that was the case he never would have gone back, let alone sought prominence. He didn’t leave because he left an impregnated girl behind. He left for some other reason. Maybe he thought the cops were on to him and he had to escape. Or he knew he had to service his compulsion, but was smart enough to realize he couldn’t do it near home anymore.

  76. 76.

    Mnemosyne

    @eemom:

    There was actually someone here saying that Starr didn’t pursue the rape allegations against Bill Clinton because Starr didn’t think they were important.

    Please don’t injure yourself when you slap your forehead.

  83. 83.

    trollhattan

    @Doug!:
    Septa Unella could march the naked Clintons down Pennsylvania Ave at noon chanting “Shame!” and it wouldn’t be enough. Fuck all of them, do they place no value on what those two have done for the nation?

  84. 84.

    No Drought No More

    Sorry, Doug, there’s only one person fit to cite a “worst column” by David Brooks, and His Name Is Driftglass.

    That’s capitalized because it would be a great title for a surfing movie (perhaps starring Paulie Schorr).

  85. 85.

    Lizzy L

    @eemom: None of these people, on the right or left, will be satisfied until and unless Bill Clinton drops dead of a heart attack and Hillary Clinton goes to jail. They are deranged.

    About Moore: I don’t want him to withdraw. I want him to LOSE. I want the voters to reject the slimy predatory bastard. And if they don’t — well, he’s the Republicans’ problem, yanno. Moar popcorn.

  87. 87.

    Trentrunner

    You know what? Fuck it! OK, yes, let’s “reckon” with Bill Clinton.

    But only if

    ONLY IF

    We fucking “reckon” with Clarence Thomas.

    You hear me, Joe “Grabbyhands” Biden?

  88. 88.

    sukabi

    @Trentrunner: how long ago was that interaction? Couldn’t have been in the 70’s, 80’s, or even most of the 90’s…kids didn’t have access to cellphones till late 90’s – 2000’s…

    If he’s been perving on kids for the last 40 years there are enough victims to fill the news cycle every day of the next 3 years.

  92. 92.

    Sab

    @Mnemosyne: I love The Atlantic magazine, but what is it with them hiring nitwit women. Molly Bloom is up to their male standards, but Caitlin Flanagan and McMegan are downright embarrassing to the female gender.

  97. 97.

    Adam L Silverman

    @schrodingers_cat: “Hi, this is Deputy District Attorney Roy Moore. I need to speak with So and So Such and Such right now. Would you please get her and bring her to the phone. Thanks. I’ll wait.”

    Any other questions?

  98. 98.

    sukabi

    @Adam L Silverman: yeah, found the link further down the thread…tried to edit my comment, didn’t work.

    Before this is over they’ll have found bodies buried in his backyard.

  100. 100.

    Adam L Silverman

    @randy khan:

    Just flipped past Hannity in my hotel room.

    Get out of their now!!! You don’t want to be in your hotel room if Hannity is holed up in there!

  101. 101.

    Origuy

    Edited because already answered.

    I’m seeing deplorables on Twitter talking about “the yearbook hoax” as though the yearbook story had been debunked. All I’ve found is Moore’s attorney wanting to have it looked at.

  102. 102.

    Jeffro

    @randy khan: Fox News dot com seems to have turned the corner and they are running a big anti-Moore headline, Ivanka’s comments, etc etc.

    Of course, the next most prominent story is the UCLA shoplifters thanking Trumpov for saving their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor by getting them home from China. Like that wasn’t an easy call on China’s part with this simpleton…for the low low price of 3 college shoplifters, he’ll probably give them a couple of our aircraft carriers…

  103. 103.

    martian

    @Mnemosyne:
    **WARNING**
    **FODDER FOR NEARLY BASELESS SPECULATION**

    The Moores met at a church Christmas party in December 1984 in Alabama’s Etowah County, where they both grew up and lived. He was 37 and worked at a local law firm. She was then known as Kayla Kisor, a 24-year-old former beauty pageant contestant with a 1-year-old daughter who had just separated from her husband, Chuck Heald, who died in 2002.

    Kisor was not interested in a relationship at that point, Moore wrote, but they met again early the next year when she visited the law firm where he worked.

    “I was the only attorney available,” Moore wrote. “And I was very available! We began to date soon after that.”

    Kisor filed for divorce on Dec. 28, 1984, according to court records, and her divorce was finalized on April 19, 1985. The Moores married on Dec. 14, 1985

    This info is from a Washington Post article.

    Moore left Alabama in 1983, traveled to Texas and Australia, and returned in 1984, around the same time he met Kayla Kisor at the church Christmas party.

    This info is from an AL.com article.

    It’s a bit odd to me that an apparent patriarchal, virgin hunter married a divorced woman with a child. So. I’m still looking for the exact or a closer approximate date for when Moore skedaddled out of Alabama in ’83. I believe the oldest daughter is Heather. I’m also looking for her date of birth. It seems possible from Moore’s account that he was involved in the divorce case in some legal capacity, just going by the dates. No proof, though. Anybody have a lead?

    **Somebody please delete if I’m way out of bounds with this post.**

  105. 105.

    hellslittlestangel

    @Adam L Silverman: “Hi, this is Deputy District Attorney Roy Moore. I need to speak with So and So Such and Such right now. Would you please get her and bring her to the phone. Thanks. I’ll wait.”

    “Yes, sir. [places phone on mute]. It’s the DA, looking for some jailbait. Go fetch So and So.”

  107. 107.

    hellslittlestangel

    @sukabi: Before this is over they’ll have found bodies buried in his backyard.

    Provocatively dressed bodies. He had no idea they were still alive when he killed them. And they were asking for it.

  108. 108.

    Jeffro

    @chris: David Frum is quietly trolling Uday and Qusay by retweeting a National Geographic article about elephants mourning their dead.

  112. 112.

    Aleta

    @? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Actually I think you’re right– It’s harder to speak out in his home state, home town, and more reprisals (from all over )if you’re in Alabama than in Australia. Locals and conservatives will blame you if a Dem wins, and the TV commentary won’t end with the election if that happens. Conservatives on Fox (and even PBS I think) have already said they’d rather Moore than a Dem. I’d like to know if any of these women are getting death threats or other harassment. I doubt that would happen in Australia because an election isn’t at stake.

  114. 114.

    PsiFighter37

    @Adam L Silverman: That’s grade-A Twitter shade.

    Still hard to believe that Democrats, as feckless as we’ve been since last year’s election, are potentially going to win an Alabama Senate race in a blowout(!!!). I know there are extenuating circumstances, but that’s fucking crazy.

  115. 115.

    Jay S

    @Mnemosyne: Or abortion or miscarriage. But I am with Adam on this. Something that took a couple of years to cool off would be a better explanation.

  121. 121.

    Barbara

    @Sab: I didn’t realize until after quite some time that Caitlin Flanagan is the daughter of Thomas Flanagan, the former chairman of the UCB Department of English, until he became famous as an author of the Tenants of Time series of novels about Irish history. It made me think that she networked her way into various publishing gigs once upon a time when her father was a big deal. I have never been able to come up with another explanation for why she gets published so often. The last thing I read by CF was a reminiscence of the time Joan Didion came to speak at UCB. It was actually fun to read, until Flanagan tried to sum up Didion’s appeal to women. Then it became the usual Flanagan dross, a social critique bathed in banality.

  122. 122.

    Trentrunner

    Good news:

    The Alabama GOP is maintaining its support for Roy Moore. In its steering committee meeting tonight, the prospect of removing Moore as the party’s candidate did not reach the point of a vote.

    The GOP is really going all in with the pedo-crazy.

  123. 123.

    raven

    Of all things the city is testing locations for 4th of July fireworks and I was about to head for the bunker!!!

  124. 124.

    Barbara

    @Jay S: Right, maybe an actual rape with an actual threat of being reported. Or maybe a super pissed off football player boyfriend.

  128. 128.

    Mary G

    @PsiFighter37: I saw somewhere today that the poll showing Jones way ahead is ‘fake news’ put out by Mitch McConnell to panic Alabama Republicans into dumping Judge Pedo and run somebody, anybody, else.

  132. 132.

    Chip Daniels

    I didn’t know Moore went to Australia.
    So now I gotta ask…did he happen to go to Bangkok?

  136. 136.

    Adam L Silverman

    @PsiFighter37: Don’t count your Senate seats before they’ve hatched. Don’t get me wrong, I think Jones is running as hard as he can. And doing the right things and trying to capitalize on the opportunity, but this is Alabama.

  144. 144.

    Aleta

    Is there a virus that can infect cat’s vocal cords? One cat lost her voice (sounded like a sqeaker toy caught in her throat); it’s still gone, affects her growl, everything; and now the other one. They’re about the same age — 11 and 12.

  146. 146.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Chip Daniels: It is an interesting question. Given that he served in Vietnam, it is probably safe to assume he knew about the region’s reputation for sex tourism of a variety of flavors.

  148. 148.

    Davebo

    What’s moore surprising?

    That he hit on a girl that had obviously finished Algebra 1?

    Or that they teach Trig in Alabama?

  149. 149.

    hellslittlestangel

    @Trentrunner: That is GREAT news.

    And speaking of Republican insanity, this is a real WaPo headline:

    Senate Republicans look to Trump to restore order amid Alabama upheaval

  152. 152.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Davebo: That they teach trig in Alabama. If this happened in Mississippi, stating one was taking trig would clearly invalidate the credibility of the person stating it.

  156. 156.

    Davebo

    @Adam L Silverman: Hey now! My grandfather was a superintendent of schools in Mississippi and his tutoring was the only reason I made it through trig!

    Then again, I could totally see Trenton Garmon making that argument in Alabama.

  157. 157.

    Duane

    @eemom: The conservatives attack the Clintons, trying to distract from Trump, and now Moore. It’s pathetic, but it’s all they got. Rather like Obama’s birth certificate. Well, they do have the nerve to peddle their stupidity, and gullible supporters who will believe anything.
    “Hey, signed up for Trumpcare yet? I told you he’d fix Obama’s mess.”

  159. 159.

    jl

    Moore off and grabbed asses on people he barely knew, with no warning, not even knowing if there would be a pay off. That is definitely ‘prospecting’

    Sounds to me like Moore was just a typical nice young man looking for true love, but he was tempted into ‘prospecting’ and then unwittingly crossed a moral line. Why aren’t we blaming liberals for creating a morally ambiguous culture of sexual permissiveness that tempts nice young men to morally ambiguous frames of mind, and they can do questionable things unwittingly?

    Brooks would also wonder that liberal permissiveness allows young men and even younger girls to mingle at places like Red Lobster, where eating shellfish overheats the sanguine humors and dampens the phlegmatic that can keep them under control. Brooks has read up on the science of this, you know.

  161. 161.

    Corner Stone

    There was never any chance the AL GOP was going to vote to do anything about Roy Moore being on the ballot.

  168. 168.

    jl

    Moore can’t do the confess and repent routine because no statute of limitations on molesting underage people in AL. And that is why he had to vehemently walk back his start at an admission a day after he made it.

  170. 170.

    hellslittlestangel

    @Aleta: Meanwhile, in reality-based journalism, a real headline from The Onion;

    Staffers Frantically Trying To Restore Chaos To White House Before Trump Returns From Asia Trip

  174. 174.

    Amaranthine RBG

    @Trentrunner:

    You shouldn’t link to the Washington Post. They occasionally run stories that do not follow the bright, shining party line and are therefore infidels.

    But, seriously … I would love to have a peek at what sort of resources WaPo has invested in Alabama. With enough bucks, you could track down a large percentage of women who were teenagers in Gadsen in a 10 year period.

    I am just going to guess that the WaPo didn’t just find these two latest and that they are dribbling out the disclosures for maximum effect.

    They are the ones who broke this story. If you are supporting their journalism with a subscription, you’re part of the fucking problem. (Generic you, not Trentrunner)

  175. 175.

    GregB

    @hellslittlestangel:

    Whom the Gods will destroy, they first drive mad.

    The earth is shifting under their feet and they are hoping the straws and gossamer they are grabbing at wil stop them from falling.

  176. 176.

    eric

    @Barbara: “hen it became the usual Flanagan dross, a social critique bathed in banality.” *golf clap* well played. As usual, your comment is dead on point.

  177. 177.

    Duane

    @chris: There is absolutely nothing too low for this administration. Disgusting, sickening people. Those who permit this, or participate in it should be hunted down. They deserve it.

  178. 178.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Davebo: I have no idea. I haven’t been in a mall, other than to go into the Red Robin attached to one in Clearwater a couple of years ago when I was at home on leave, since 2014. My Mom wanted to go there, so… In 2013, the last time I went into a mall to actually buy something, I went to the Oakley store in the mall in Crystal City, VA (across from the Pentagon). I needed new lenses. I was in DC with a colleague – he had a meeting at National Defense University and I was giving a Great Decisions talk on the Arab Spring, Syrian Civil War, what was going on in the Middle East for a women’s club at a country club in Arlington, VA as a favor to a colleague’s mother in law (who was a member of the group). We stopped on the way home. Then again for BBQ at the BBQ place just south of the Pennsylvania line in Maryland on 15 for dinner.

  182. 182.

    GregB

    Sweet mother of pearl.

    Moore’s attorney had been disbarred for impersonating a minister in order to solicit free legal work from the parents of a dead child.

    I am starting to mentally short out…

  188. 188.

    jl

    @Adam L Silverman: 2014? 2014? GTFO.
    I don’t even know who you are, now.

    Edit: well, OK, maybe I did miss it. But the tone was so commie, I could barely see for the righteous wrath rising in my throat (paraphrase of a great Reagan quote, thank you very much).

  189. 189.

    martian

    @martian:
    Okay, details shift a bit from article to article, but according to this article in the Montgomery Advertiser, Moore didn’t leave Alabama for Australia until after his triumphant return from Texas to defeat a local 2nd degree black belt.

    On February 25, 1984, Ishmael Robles watched a 37-year-old prepare to fight a younger man in a kickboxing bout. 

    So, Moore gets whipped in a circuit judge election, two bar complaints are filed against him, and he takes off for Texas to lick his wounds, work construction and study kickboxing. Sometime after winning tbe February ’84 match, he leaves for Australia. He says a year, but the timeline doesn’t work since he’s back to meet the future Mrs. Moore at a Christmas party shortly before she files to divorce her husband.

    The details of all this are slippery to pin down. There are substantial differences from article to article.

  193. 193.

    Adam L Silverman

    @jl: I’m not a big fan of the mall, even before we had Internet shopping, let alone Amazon Prime. I just don’t like the crowds. And if I’m going to shop, the I know what I want, I go to the store, get what I came to get, and leave.

  194. 194.

    Aleta

    @WaterGirl: I was going to say that with his DNA maybe they could check out some old rape cases, but then again… 1977 … I’ve read that (even in the northeast) police handling of rape cases at that time was a difficult issue that activists were barely making progress on, outside of cities like Boston. Victims would get sent away after an unsympathetic grilling at the police station, if they even tried to report. Also, to be fair, no one has mentioned rape and Roy Moore. Doesn’t seem to be any sign so far that he progressed in his pattern. It’s not a given.

  198. 198.

    Amaranthine RBG

    @chris:

    If you have access to Westlaw, search for 2013 WL 3957598

    Trenton Rogers GARMON, Appellant, v. THE ALABAMA STATE BAR

  199. 199.

    jl

    @Adam L Silverman: ” I know what I want, I go to the store, get what I came to get, and leave. ”

    Me too, but you can do that in a mall. Giant empty shopping mall retail bust (edit: actually bust was a few years ago, so I am talking about the vulture capitalist speculative salvage investment bust, and wipe out of the remaining ones) may be the next asset bubble popping. Though I don’t think enough of real economy is plugged into that asset class for it to cause much trouble. It will be cataclysmic battle between various factions of the vulture capitalist community.

    But, in any case, you obviously have not done your part to stop it.

  201. 201.

    Adam L Silverman

    @jl: I grew up in Florida. We have far too much retail and corporate space empty and languishing while new stuff is built all the time.

    Also, I misspoke, I went to the Apple Store in the International Mall in Tampa in 2015. I was home and getting my Mom her mother’s day gift.

  205. 205.

    Aleta

    @schrodingers_cat: There’s Trump shill James Woods, rabidly anti-liberal and anti-gay on twitter. His gfs have been in the 19-25 yr old range. (He’s 70 now, got with his current gf 4 years ago, when she was 20. Has been accused of trying to pick up 16 yr olds, years ago, knowing their ages.)

  207. 207.

    martian

    @Aleta:
    Not completely true. The young waitress he offered a ride home was assaulted and said she feared rape after he tried to force her head into his lap. She got out of the car somehow, but doesn’t recall if he pushed or she escaped. It was a violent encounter, though, her neck was bruised.

  208. 208.

    Calouste

    @martian: Moore also seems to suggest that he started dating his wife before her divorce was finalized. Which might also explain why Mr.& Mrs. Moore seem to have different stories about how and when they first met.

  210. 210.

    Adam L Silverman

    What I’d really like to know is how Democrats keeping losing to these geniuses?

  212. 212.

    J R in WV

    @WaterGirl:

    If you want to see an article in the WaPo, either delete the WaPo cookies (which is how they know how many stories you have seen this month), use the private browsing/incognito browsing, or as the story loads, hit the x in the address bar to stop it loading the instant the text is there, before it tries to load pics and ads.

    There’s three methods, if incognito/private browsing stops working, stop and restart your browser.

  214. 214.

    El Caganer

    So McConnell’s really going to try to replace Roy Moore with Charles Manson? I don’t see how that’s going to work.

  215. 215.

    Amaranthine RBG

    @J R in WV:

    Or maybe actually pay to support journalism that is making a real difference in the world.

    It’s $100 a year, for fuck sake.

    Why are we discussing Moore today? Why has his polling dropped 8 points in a week? Because the Washington Post paid live reporters to to actual journalism.

  216. 216.

    martian

    @Calouste:
    There are just so many coincidences. I mean, he’s just back from Australia, apparently, meets her at the Christmas party while she’s still married, then she files for divorce on Dec. 28th. And was he her divorce lawyer? What did she need that lawyer for “early in the year” if not something related to the divorce? She’s divorced by April, and they’re married later the same year. He adopted her daughter, too.

    I don’t know, my antennae are up on how all the pieces fit together with the timing of her pregnancy, marital separation and divorce, and the “courtship” with Moore. The baby was about a year old when they supposedly met, but I don’t have a birth date. I’d like to know if she was pregnant when Moore took off for Texas, had the baby been born before he took off for Australia, when did her marital separation start, that sort of thing.

  217. 217.

    JanieM

    @The Lodger:

    “…the good Lord loves the mall.”

    This thread has kept me laughing all evening, but this particular comment takes the cake. I think it’s my favorite blog comment of all time. Is everyone punchy tonight, or what?

  219. 219.

    PIGL

    @Mnemosyne: But rape is all manly and shit. OTOH, blow-jobs? From women? Those imply a certain degree of consent; also, vaguely faggy.

    Was the thinking, I expect.

  224. 224.

    martian

    @Mnemosyne: What if he just wanted to be well out of the way whilst the future Mrs. Moore organized the end of her first marriage? But I am very much wondering about the baby.

    The circumstances would be less sketchy to me if there weren’t contradictory stories and a slippery timeline going on. Kayla Moore claims to have met Roy at a bible study, lol. A ready-made family with a beautiful young woman could be a nice thing for an ambitious young pol. Instant respectability for a guy with a bad reputation. But Roy Moore is altogether such a slimeball that I’m curious about what overturning a few more rocks would bring to light.

  225. 225.

    Gretchen

    I looked at the pictures that accompanied the story. The two friends were 17 or 18. One looked like she could be 20. The other looked like she could be 12. I assumed he was pursuing the older-looking one. He was pursuing the one who looked 12.

  227. 227.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @RobertDSC-Mac Mini
    Revenge fantasies while comforting to some are really not very helpful. And mothers want to hurt the people who prey on their children just as much as fathers do but probably have a better idea of how that would work out. A woman in California who shot the man accused of molesting her seven year old son was sentenced to prison. So if one kills/shoots the person who they suspect molested their child, especially if that person is an assistant DA or a judge, one is going to go to prison, and if one is a single parent, then the child is then left without either parent… and possibly goes into foster care or is bounced from relative to relative..or both

    So the victim is again victimized but now gets to feel guilty because their parent “went to jail for them”
    Yay

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