Trump Says Epstein Files Exonerated Him - THAT'S NOT TRUE!

From The Hartmann Report

 

The Case Against Roy Moore Is Strong

(Cartoon image is by Nate Beeler in The Columbus Dispatch.)

William Saletan has written an excellent article at Slate.com about the dilemma Republicans find themselves in with a pedophile running on their ticket in Alabama. Many try to ignore the evidence against Roy Moore by claiming it hasn't been proven. That is some rather disingenuous wishful thinking on their part. The case is really very strong. Here's the case laid out by Saletan:

1. The accusers. Moore portrayed his first four accusers as pawns of the Washington Post, which reported their allegations. Since then, five more women have come forward, mostly speaking to outlets other than the Post. With one exception, the nine women don’t know one another. They’ve given their names and answered hard questions, in some cases on live TV, while Moore has stiff-armed reporters. Each woman has told only her own story, but there are hints that they’re just the tip of the iceberg. One recalls Moore telling her, “I go out with girls your age all the time.” Two of the women say they supported Trump. Another says she’s a Republican. A fourth calls herself a devout Christian. Yet Moore and his allies continue to dismiss all the allegations as a liberal plot.

2. Supporting witnesses. One accuser, Leigh Corfman, says Moore seduced her when she was 14. Moore says he never met her, but Corfman’s mother says she was present when the two met. Another accuser, Wendy Miller, says Moore flirted with her when she was 14 and asked her out at 16. Her mother, too, confirms the story, saying she told Moore he was too old to date her daughter. Kayla McLaughlin, who worked at a mall store with a third accuser, Gena Richardson, says she saw Moore pursue Richardson. Two other accusers, Beverly Nelson and Tina Johnson, told their sisters about Moore years ago. The idea that all these girls, their mothers, their sisters, and their friends began coordinating a massive lie decades ago—and somehow conspired to keep it quiet through Moore’s many previous political campaigns, saving it for a special Senate election in 2017—is completely preposterous. And that’s before we get to the many other people in Moore’s town, including a colleague in the district attorney’s office, who have broadly described, in some cases firsthand, how Moore fished for teenagers.

3. Documents. A February 1979 court order supports Corfman’s contention that she was down the hall from Moore’s office on the day she says they met. Moore’s campaign says Corfman’s story about where Moore picked her up for dates can’t be true because she didn’t live where she claims to have lived. But an old police report confirms that she did. (When the Post asked the Moore campaign to document its counterclaim that Corfman lived a mile away, the campaign replied: “We will not respond to anyone from the Post.”) Another court record shows that Johnson was a client of Moore in 1991, when she says he groped her.

Moore’s campaign has attacked Nelson’s story that he assaulted her 40 years ago outside a restaurant. The campaign has questioned whether the restaurant existed there at the time, and Moore’s wife has promoted claims that it didn’t. A 1978 city directory confirms that it did. Moore has also denied allegations by Corfman and another woman, Gloria Deason, that he gave them alcohol when they were underage. Moore says he couldn’t have done that, because the county didn’t permit alcohol sales at the time. This, too, is false: The county had legalized alcohol sales several years earlier, and the restaurant where Deason says Moore ordered bottles of Rose confirms that it served booze.

4. The yearbook. Moore says he never met Nelson. That leaves him to explain why she has a 1977 high-school yearbook bearing the inscription: “To a sweeter more beautiful girl, I could not say ‘Merry Christmas.’ Christmas, 1977, Love, Roy Moore.” Moore points out that Nelson, too, has something to explain: Why, he asks, are the exact date and place where he ostensibly signed the yearbook written below his name “in a style inconsistent with the rest of the yearbook inscription”? That’s a good question. It’s possible that somebody else appended those details. But what’s striking is that Moore doesn’t challenge the inscription itself. He can’t dispute that it bears an uncanny resemblance to his handwriting on other documents. An expert consulted by the Post observes that the script flows without interruption, which would be hard for a forger to do.

At a Nov. 15 press conference, Phillip Jauregui, an attorney for Moore, questioned whether “everything written in that yearbook was written by Roy Moore.” That sounds like an implicit acknowledgment that part of it was. (Nelson’s attorney, Gloria Allred, says she’ll hand over the yearbook if Moore agrees to testify, along with Nelson, under oath. Moore hasn’t accepted the challenge.) It’s also curious that Moore’s campaign, which has dug up old documents bearing his signature, has yet to produce any that don’t match Nelson’s inscription. And the yearbook itself nails down that the inscription was written in late 1977, when Moore was 30 and Nelson had just turned 16. So even if you discount the appended text, we’re left with Moore’s note to a “beautiful girl” half his age, whom he claims he never knew.

5. Confessions. Moore says he first noticed Kayla Kisor, the girl who would become his wife, when she performed at a dance recital at age 15 or 16. That would be around 1977, the same year that three of his accusers, who were roughly the same age as Kisor, say he pursued them. In fact, Nelson was in Kisor’s high-school class. And though Moore told Hannity he did “not generally” date teenagers while in his 30s, he also denied “dating any girl without the permission of her mother,” which suggests that the girls were young. That fits the story told by Wendy Miller’s mother, who says she rejected Moore’s request to date her 16-year-old daughter. . . .

Like anyone else accused of wrongdoing, Moore began with a presumption of innocence. But he has forfeited it. His assertions are demonstrably false. Too many witnesses, documents, and self-incriminating statements have discredited him and substantiated the case against him. You can still plead, as Trump does, that voters should look past the allegations because Moore “totally denies” them. But that’s not a serious argument. It’s an excuse to ignore what Moore did.

Trump Verifies That He Is Totally Devoid Of Morality

Donald Trump continues to surprise me. I did not think he could get any lower, any more devoid of morality, after all the actions and statements he made during the campaign and since he was sworn in -- but I was wrong.

We already knew that Trump was racist, misogynist, homophobic, xenophobic, and narcissistic. Now we learn he is a defender of pedophiles. After a couple of weeks of silence about the child molester running for senate on the Republican ticket in Alabama (neither endorsing or opposing him), Trump has finally climbed down off the fence.

On Tuesday, Trump effectively threw his support behind the GOP pedophile in Alabama. He did it by attacking Moore's opponent in the race. When reporters asked Trump if he thought a pedophile was preferable to a Democrat, Trump just replied that Moore had denied the accusations -- as if denying the very credible accusations (as Trump himself did with his own sexual misconduct accusations) is all that's needed to justify supporting Moore.

Trump always seems to be able to get lower on the scale of morality just when I didn't think it was possible. I'm now convinced you could place the moral bar on the floor and he would find a way to get under it.

And don't think the rest of the world isn't watching. They now know that the American president is a defender and supporter of pedophilia. IMPEACH this fool!

A Saint For Pedophiles ?

Today the Catholic Church performed an action that should be viewed as an abomination. They officially declared Pope John Paul II to be a saint of the Catholic Church.

You probably remember this pope. He 's the one that was in power when the pedophilia scandal among the priesthood was discovered. He's also the one that refused to take action for many years, and protected those priests by refusing to defrock them (and just moved them from parish to parish, so they could have new victims).

And when the scandal became so widely known that the church could no longer try to hide it, he instructed that homosexuals be discriminated against and not allowed to become priests (even though homosexuality and pedophilia have no connection). And even after the scandal was widely known, this pope continued to protect his pedophile friend, Marcial Maciel (one of the worst of the churches pedophiles, because of his high ranking in the church), ignoring the many accusations against him (which were proven to be true).

This man knew about pedophile priests for most of his papal reign, and did nothing about it. If there were a god, I can't believe he would want this man honored as a saint. His sin is too great. Frankly, I am shocked to see such a failure as a decent person honored in any way by people who call themselves christians.

Abbott Campaign Welcomes Racist, Misogynistic, Pedophile

(The cartoon above is by Nick Anderson in the Houston Chronicle.)

I was taught growing up that a person is judged by the company he/she keeps. If you hang around racists, misogynists, or pedophiles, then you will be tarred with that same brush (regardless of how innocent you may consider yourself to be). Evidently no one has ever let Texas gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott in on that fact, because he went for the trifecta when he invited Ted Nugent to join his campaign.

And he did that shortly after Nugent had called the President of the United States a "subhuman mongrel". Following such a racist statement by Nugent, Abbott could have quietly asked Nugent to not appear with him -- making it clear that such racist rhetoric would not be tolerated by his campaign. But he didn't -- and that tells me that Abbott either approves of Nugent's racism, or he has some extremely poor judgement. Either one would make him unqualified to be the governor of any state.

Abbott has refused to condemn Nugent for his "beyond the pale" statement, but he did try to back-pedal a bit by saying he was just trying to appeal to the Texans for whom owning a gun is a sacred right. That won't fly. There are many ways to let voters know he supports gun owners without climbing down into the gutter with a know racist and misogynist. Hell, even most gun owners don't want to affiliate themselves with Nugent.

You may have heard that Nugent apologized for calling the president a racist name. But he did NOT. He apologized to Texas Republican leaders like Abbott for using a term that reflected badly on them. But he did not apologize to the president -- the person to whom he owed an apology. In fact, while making his "apology", he made it very clear that he was not apologizing to the president.

It seems the Texas Republican Party is racing to the bottom in its gubernatorial candidates. I didn't think they could find anyone worse than George Bush, but they did when they nominated Rick Perry. Now they have found a candidate (Greg Abbott) that's worse than Perry. It makes me wonder -- just how far down can they go?

NOTE -- Even some right-wingers think Abbott went too far this time, and showed very poor judgement. The Dallas Morning News, a newspaper with a history of supporting right-wing Republicans, wrote an editorial condemning Abbott for campaigning with Nugent. That editorial is well worth reading.

Anonymous Attacks NAMBLA Website

I like to think I am a big supporter of the First Amendment, even when the speech being protected is obnoxious speech. But even First Amendment supporters must have limits, and for me, promoting pedophilia is over the line. That's why I was actually happy to see the internet hacker group, Anonymous, take on NAMBLA.

For those of you who haven't heard about NAMBLA, it's full name is the North American Man-Boy Love Association -- and it is an organization that supports the "rights" of pedophiles (portraying pedophilia as a natural love between adults and children, including those who have been convicted of this sick crime).

A few days ago (April 25), pedophiles celebrated their own "pride" day -- called Alice Day. Here's some of what Anonymous wrote about the day:

On numerous unnameable forums, where adult men chat publicly about their love and affection for young girls and boys, users post about how they plan to celebrate Alice Day—often by wearing pink and spending time in parks to "LG (little girl) watch." Some might hand out pamphlets about CL, or "childlove," in an attempt to decrease stigma against and raise awareness of what to them is a significant social movement: pedophile pride.

These men claim they would never physically abuse or rape a child; it would be anathema to the childlove philosophy. They want to cuddle, kiss, hold, and otherwise express their affection for children—and if they can't in person, they'll do it from a distance, emboldened by Alice Day.

Like Anonymous, I don't for a minute believe that many of these sick bastards confine themselves to "cuddling" children. They believe there is nothing wrong with having sex with children, and sites like NAMBLA promote this kind of perversion.

So Anonymous chose April 25th to cause these perverts a few problems. They attacked the NAMBLA site and several other pedophilia internet sites -- shutting them down for the day, defacing their web pages, and exposing the personal information of suspects. And from what I hear, they were pretty successful (as they normally are).

I don't know about you, but I support Anonymous in this action. I just wish they could shut down all the pedophilia websites for good. Thank you Anonymous!

Proof That Vatican Protected Pedophile Priests

Many of you will recognize the picture above as being of former Pope John Paul II.   He was a much-beloved Pope and recently the Catholic church has taken steps toward making him an official "saint".   He doesn't deserve that honor (or any other).  

Irish journalists have uncovered a letter from Pope John Paul II's diplomat to Ireland -- Archbishop Luciano Storero.   The letter orders the church in Ireland to NOT report priests found to be pedophiles to the civilian authorities (so they could be tried, convicted and punished for their dastardly crimes).   The letter threatens to punish church officials that don't follow the edict of the Vatican to keep priestly child molestation a secret.

We have known for a while now that the current Pope actively hid and protected child molesting priests while a church official in Germany.   This letter shows that he probably did it on the explicit orders of the Vatican.   After all, what was ordered by the Vatican to be done in Ireland was surely ordered in all other countries also.   And it is beyond belief to think the orders were issued without the knowledge of Pope John Paul II.

There is no doubt any more that the Catholic Church, specifically the Vatican, considered the safety of children to be secondary to saving the church from bad publicity.   That is indefensible, and so is even thinking of making a protector of child molesters a "saint".

Pope's Letter Is Smoking Gun

As you must know by now, the Pope has been accused of trying to hide child abuse by pedophile priests rather then kicking those priests out of the church and turning them over to the proper authorities -- both as a Cardinal and later as head of the church's agency to discipline priests for unacceptable conduct. Until now, his underlings in the church have been trying to shield the Pope by claiming that he knew nothing and the wrongdoing was by those working for him.

That is an ridiculous argument since he should have known what his subordinates were doing if he was even mildly competent. Be that as it may, the AP has now come into possession of a letter from the Pope with his signature clearly on it, in which he comes down on the side of not firing a pedophile priest because it might mean bad publicity for the church. This is the smoking gun that proves his knowledge of and participation in the cover-up of pedophile priests.

In 1978, Priest Stephan Kiesle pled no contest to misdemeanor charges of lewd conduct and received three years probation. That was a good deal for the pedophile priest, because he had tied up two young boys and molested them in a San Francisco church rectory. When his probation was over in 1981, the diocese submitted papers to the Vatican to defrock the priest and kick him out of the priesthood.

Now this should have been a cut-and-dried case. The priest was known to be a pedophile and had already pled guilty and completed his sentence. I would think that common sense would dictate that the church would want to disassociate themselves from this criminal as soon as possible -- but that was not the Vatican's reaction.

It took the Vatican four years to respond to the diocese's request, and that response came in the form of a letter from Cardinal Ratzinger (the current Pope). That letter, written in Latin in 1985, did NOT give the diocese the authority to defrock the pedophile priest. Instead, the Cardinal outlined reasons why this should not happen.

The future pope said that although the arguments for removing the priest are of "grave significance", they must consider the "good of the universal church". He went on to say they must also consider the "detriment that granting the dispensation can provoke within the community of Christ's faithful , particularly the young age (of the priest)." The priest was 38 years old at that time.

In plain language, Cardinal Ratzinger said the fear of bad publicity for the church was more important than kicking the pedophile out of the priesthood. That was an amazingly unethical and immoral decision for a high-ranking church official to make. It took another two years and repeated appeals from the American diocese before the priest was finally defrocked in 1987 -- after he had resumed duties as a youth minister.

This letter, which the Vatican admits bears the signature of Cardinal Ratzinger, should remove any doubt as to whether the current Pope was complicit in protecting pedophile priests to avoid bad publicity for the church. The attempted cover-up of the Pope's actions by his subordinates will no longer pass the smell test.

This Pope does not have the ethics or morality to be the moral guide for millions of christians. It is time for him to resign (and we know that is possible by canon law because two past Popes have resigned). Delaying his resignation any further is nothing short of a slap in the face to all the victims of the pedophile priests.

Pedophiles And The Irish Church

A few years ago, the American Catholic church went through a scandalous period in which it was discovered that the church covered up numerous incidents of child sexual abuse, and even protected the pedophile priests. Instead of turning these vile child abusers over to legal authorities, they just transferred them to another diocese (where many of them continued to commit their crimes).

Once the actions of the church was finally exposed, many priests were finally convicted, the reputation of the American church was severely damaged and millions were paid by the church to settle a large number of lawsuits. Now it looks like the Irish Catholic church is experiencing the same type of thing.

Recently, there have been accusations made by over 2,000 people who say they were abused either physically or sexually while in the care of Catholic-run schools, orphanages and other institutions. Recently the Irish Minister of Justice commissioned a report on the matter. The report was released late last month.

That report calls the matter "a scandal on an astonishing scale" and said "the welfare of children counted for nothing". The report went on to say, "The Dublin archdiocese's preoccupations in dealing with cases of child sexual abuse, at least until the mid-1990s, were the maintenance of secrecy, the avoidance of scandal, the protection of the reputation of the church, and the preservation of its assets."

In other words, the Irish church acted just like the American church. They acted to protect themselves -- regardless of what that meant for children. The report also faulted civil officials like the police, saying they gave the church too much respect and deferred to them too much. It was found that in many cases where a report of abuse was actually made, the police simply reported the accusation to the church and no investigation was conducted. The priest was then transferred and began to abuse a new set of kids.

Five Catholic Bishops were named in the report as being especially responsible for the cover-up. Four of those Bishops have now resigned. The last two resigned in a joint statement read at yesterday's midnight mass. That just leaves one Bishop, the current Bishop of Galway, and public pressure will probably force him from office soon.

I bring all this up just to point out the danger of giving a church or its officials, of any religion, too much respect. Far too often, we consider these church officials (priests, ministers, pastors, preachers, deacons, elders, etc.) to be "men of god" who can do no wrong. This gives them an almost free pass to commit crimes and abuse children and others, if they are so-inclined.

The fact is that all churches, temples, mosques, etc. are earthly organizations run by men -- men (and women) who are generally no better or worse than others. Some are good and some are not, but you cannot assume they are good just because of the religious title they may hold.

There are both good people and bad people in every profession, but some professions are given such respect that much of the bad is overlooked -- such as doctors and police. But no profession gets the benefit of the doubt (free ride) that those in religion get. Many consider these people to be "chosen of god" and therefore incapable of doing wrong. That's just rubbish.

Some religious officials are trying to do good and some are doing bad things (and some are even doing both). But they are all just human, and subject to the same foibles as other humans. We must never forget that.

U.S. Finally Uses The Protect Act

Six years ago, the United States passed the Protect Act. It was meant to protect the children in other countries from American pedophiles, but to date there has not been a single prosecution under the law. It looks like that's fixing to change.

The Justice Department brought three pedophiles back from Cambodia yesterday, and they will appear in federal court today. All three have previously been convicted of sex offenses in this country, and had traveled to Cambodia to engage in "sex tourism". They were apprehended due to information provided by human rights groups International Justice Mission and Action Pour les Enfants.

They are Ronald Boyajian (49), Erik Peeters (41) and Jack Sporich (75). Peeters and Sporich are both being charged with having sex with at least three minor boys over a several months period. Boyajian engaged in sexual activity with a 10 year-old girl.

A violation of the Protect Act carries a 30 year sentence for each child violated (and there is no parole in the federal system). Personally, I would like to see the three do 30 years in a Cambodian prison, but I'll settle for a maximum security federal prison.

Thank goodness the Justice Department is finally doing something about this disgusting pedophile "tourist sex". They need to make examples of these three so that others will be afraid to try the same thing.