Archive for the ‘Corruption’ Category

Saying that the IRRRB is corrupt is understatement. Thanks to this investigation, that corruption has gotten exposed.

The article starts by saying “For more than 20 years, Sandy Layman, of Grand Rapids, has worked to convince lawmakers in St. Paul that the Department of Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation is more than a revolving door of political patronage for Iron Range DFLers. Layman, now a Republican House member, first served on the IRRR board in the 1990s and later became commissioner of the agency under Gov. Tim Pawlenty. ‘One of my goals has always been to depoliticize the agency,’ said Layman during a recent interview with the Timberjay. ‘It has a highly partisan reputation in St. Paul.'”

It goes further:

Which is why Layman says she is so frustrated with the agency’s recent hiring of Joe Radinovich, the unsuccessful 2018 DFL candidate for the U.S. House in Minnesota’s Eighth District. Radinovich was hired in early March to a highly-paid, permanent position that IRRR officials appear to have created specifically for him. While political appointments are not unusual in state government, and are typically temporary, the kind of job created for Radinovich, known as a “permanent classified” position, is supposed to be nonpolitical and is subject to state hiring guidelines designed to ensure a fair and competitive process in which state workers are hired on merit rather than politics.

Yet an investigation by the Timberjay found substantial evidence that the IRRR’s process, in this instance, fell short of that goal, and that top agency officials sought from the beginning to offer Radinovich a plum new position, with a salary of $100,000 per year in addition to the state’s handsome benefits package. In so doing, the agency sought exemption to sharply limit the posting of the position and appeared to pass over a female candidate for the position with far more relevant experience and education than Radinovich brings to the job.

Radinovich’s hiring comes on the heels of the appointment of Jason Metsa as the agency’s deputy commissioner, which is considered a political appointment and was not subject to the typical state hiring process. Metsa is an Iron Range DFLer who ran unsuccessfully for his party’s nomination for the Eighth District seat.

If that sounds like it’s on the up-and-up, then you’re likely from Chicago. This definitely doesn’t sound like everything was on the up-and-up:

IRRR Commissioner Mark Phillips acknowledges that he sought early on to hire Radinovich at his agency and initially considered hiring the Crosby native as deputy commissioner. “It really was down to Jason or Joe to be deputy,” he said. When the job went to Metsa, Phillips began exploring options to offer Radinovich a different position.

Gov. Walz, what’s your reaction to this? Will you fire Commissioner Phillips? Will you excoriate Rep. Radinovich for being that corrupt? As a former DFL state legislator, Rep. Radinovich knew civil service laws and the IRRRB. Hell, he was a member of the IRRRB board as a member of the Iron Range legislative delegation.

Politically speaking, Radinovich is damaged goods now that he’s identified as gaming the system. He’s bounced around from being a DFL legislator to being the chief of staff for one of the Twin Cities mayors to running Rick Nolan’s congressional campaigns to running for Nolan’s seat before losing to Pete Stauber.

Saying that Jim Comey’s reputation is tarnished is understatement. Still, he’s been tarnishing his reputation since July 5, 2016. That’s when Mr. Comey pitched aside the Constitution and decided that the FBI Director had the authority to decide whether he could ignore the fact that the Attorney General could authorize the prosecution of a person.

It wasn’t Mr. Comey’s responsibility to decide whether to prosecute Hillary Clinton for illegally storing confidential information on her private email server. That was Loretta Lynch’s call. Instead, Dir. Comey decided against prosecuting Hillary. Monday, Comey denied that he had anything to do with the FBI’s sullied reputation, saying “as far as hurting the FBI’s replication, I hope not. We had to make very hard decisions in 2016. I knew we would get hurt by it. The question is, how do we reduce the damage? What I’m doing now is not what I love to do. I’d rather not be talking to you all. But somebody has to stand up and speak for the FBI and the rule of law. And I hope there’s a whole lot more somebodies out there than just me.”

That’s a steaming pile of BS. First, President Trump is right in criticizing the FBI’s political thugs, aka Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. He’s right in firing Andrew McCabe for subversion of President Trump’s administration both before and during his administration. Next, President Trump and people like Trey Gowdy are right in ridiculing him for telling Congress that he either didn’t know, didn’t recall or didn’t remember key parts of the FBI’s investigation 245 times during his first day of testimony. Greg Gutfeld got it right in this segment of The Five:

Finally, it’s stunning to see how arrogant Comey is. Nothing is his fault. In Comey’s mind, it’s President Trump’s fault for calling out Page’s, Strzok’s and McCabe’s corruption.

The FBI’s responsibility is to investigate. It isn’t the FBI’s responsibility to determine whether to prosecute. I don’t think it’s too much to ask that the FBI director know that sort of thing.

I’ve long agreed with the things that Kurt Schlichter said in this article:

Let’s stop pretending that America in 2018 has a “justice system.” It’s not a justice system. It’s a set of elite institutions that swing the law like a sledgehammer to crush threats to the ruling class’s monopoly on power. You know, threats like the people we elect to represent our interests against the elite. And we are under no moral obligation to pretend it is anything else.

This painful to admit it, but we need to grow up. There are two sets of law in America today, meaning there is no rule of law in America today. Oh, there are statutes, and there are courts, and there are agencies full of people with guns willing to enforce the will of aspiring tyrants, but there is not rule of law. There is only power, theirs and ours. Time to get woke to the undeniable fact what the Fredocons deny up and down. Justice is no longer blind. Her blindfold is off and she’s picking favorites.

Anyone looking at what happened during the Clinton ‘investigation’ knows that she got treated differently than Gen. Flynn got treated, even though she did far worse things than Gen. Flynn.

It isn’t difficult to find incompetence within the Dayton administration. The first high-profile example of incompetence, of course, was the MNsure disaster. This year, we’ve dealt with the MNLARS crisis, which is definitely a major case of incompetence.

State Sen. Karin Housley’s investigation into the nursing home abuse crisis is a case of both incompetence and corruption since the caretakers who abused their patients weren’t investigated. Only a portion of these cases were investigated.

The daycare scandal is both a matter of incompetence and corruption. It dwarfs the nursing home scandal. This morning, we learned through Fox9’s excellent reporting that “Scott Stillman spent eight years managing the state’s digital forensics lab, meaning he mined data from computers and smart phones. ‘I have never seen anything like this level or scope in my 27-year career as an investigator,’ he told Fox 9.” Later in the interview, Stillman “was so alarmed by what he found that in March of 2017 he fired off a series of emails to his supervisors at DHS. ‘We are working on and overwhelmed by a significant amount of fraud cases involving organized crime, defrauding hundreds of millions of dollars annually in taxpayer monies,’ he wrote.”

That means that the Dayton administration knew about this ripoff and did nothing. Let that sink it. The Dayton administration knew about this ripoff and did nothing. Now they’re denying hearing about it:

According to Stillman, he alerted a number of people in DHS including the Commissioner’s Chief of Staff with the following message: “Significant amount of these defrauded dollars are being sent overseas to countries and organizations connected to entities known to fund terrorists and terrorism.”

At a Monday press briefing, the governor told Fox 9 his office was not told about the warnings. Sources tell the Fox 9 Investigators people within the governor’s office were told about the concerns a couple of years ago. “My chief of staff, current and previous staff, from what I’m told, did not get any information alleging there was that kind of theft,” Dayton said.

The Dayton administration finished with this gem:

DHS responded with a statement: “The Deputy Commissioner, communications and legal staff learned there may be emails on this subject when Fox 9 made its data request in March. The then-chief compliance officer was informed at the time the emails were originally sent.”

What type of communications team did they establish in the Dayton administration? Or didn’t they bother with that whatsoever? Or are they just lying?

Think about this: hundreds of millions of dollars left in suitcases via MSP. An inspector notices this & reports it to the Department of Human Services. Nothing happens until this Fox9 investigation. Then Gov. Dayton insists that he never heard about these whistleblower reports.

This isn’t uncommon with Democrats. The Obama administration didn’t admit that news about Fast and Furious made it to Eric Holder’s desk. President Obama still insists that he found out about Hillary’s private email address through a news report even after he sent her emails at her private email address. Why should anyone think that Democrats care one iota about accountability and honesty?

Saying that Mayor Kleis made a major mistake in selling city park land to Costco is understatement. The city councilmembers who voted to approve the sale should be terminated the next time they’re up for re-election. Ditto with Kleis. George Hontos’ op-ed explains things perfectly.

Hontos writes “First, the sale of 18.56 acres of city park land for Costco for $3.5 million was a give away that the mayor could have prevented. The city had an independent professional appraiser determine the land had a value of over $5 million. Back in Jan. 2018, before any purchase agreement was signed with Costco, a local developer offered the city $6.5 million, but the Mayor rejected this offer, saying it was too late in the process.”

Mayor Kleis isn’t the only person who should get criticized. Later, Hontos wrote “There was nothing stopping the Mayor from calling for a bidding process. Just as disappointing were the actions of my cohorts on the city council, there was nothing stopping them from voting the Costco offer down and calling for a bidding process. But they did not do so. Why? What happened to the mayor and city council’s fiduciary responsibilities to the taxpayers? Now they have given a deep discount on some of the most valuable commercial property left in our city.”

Mayor Kleis has touted himself as fiscally conservative. This transaction proves that he isn’t. This transaction proves that he isn’t that good of a negotiator. Then there’s this:

Second, a highly taxpayer-subsidized “affordable” housing project was approved and again I voted against this. Not that I am against affordable housing, but because of the way this project was billed as helping the affordable housing needs of our community. The developer and city staff billed this project to be one of the nicest apartment buildings in the area. The rents are so out of sync with market rate units. This project has a one bedroom apartment starting at $950 per month. After going on apartments.com I canvassed 30 local apartment buildings with one bedrooms. The average rent as advertised was $699.33 and not one was listed at $950. The majority of the city council, along with the support of city staff, has allowed a private developer to extract significant public assistance from taxpayers all in the name of affordable housing.

Providing affordable housing isn’t a core function of city, county or state government. Period. The government should keep its nose out of this stuff.

PS- The people that voted for the Costco transaction and the affordable housing need to be run off the City Council ASAP.

Apparently, Tina Smith thinks that she can win her special election by peddling the latest DFL BS about the Trump-Russia nothing burger. She might be able to gin up enthusiasm with the DFL’s far-left base with that but I’d doubt that thoughtful people care a whit about the investigation. I’m betting that people will be more interested in interrogating Ms. Smith over why she voted for shutting down the government on Friday night, then voting to reopen the government on Monday, especially considering that the votes were literally on the identical bill.

Further, I’m betting that voters will want to know whether she supports President Trump’s immigration framework that would give 1,800,000 illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship in exchange for the appropriation of money to built President Trump’s border wall and ending chain migration. Will Ms. Smith represent the DACA recipients she claims to care about or will she vote to keep the issue alive for this year’s campaign? In other words, will she represent her constituents? Or the special interests that fund her campaign?

“The report that President Trump sought to fire Robert Mueller—the man leading the Trump-Russia investigation—is profoundly disturbing, to say the least,” Smith’s statement continued. “I plan to support measures that would help protect this investigation from further political interference.”

First, the firing didn’t happen. Why be worried about something that didn’t happen? It isn’t like Smith doesn’t have truly important things to do. She’s got immigration reform to think through. She’s got to decide whether she’ll support lifting the spending caps on the military. BTW, the military got hollowed out thanks to Sen. Franken’s votes. Will she fix what he broke?

The New York Times reported Thursday night that Trump had ordered a White House lawyer to fire Mueller, but backed down after the attorney, Don McGahn, threatened to resign. If carried out, the firing would likely have created an extraordinary political crisis.

A significantly different version of the story is now making the rounds. In that newer article, it’s being reported that President Trump asked McGahn what would happen if he fired Mueller. McGahn replied that it would create more headaches for the President. McGahn then recommended that President Trump drop the idea, which apparently happened.

It isn’t a big deal for the President to have expressed frustration with the Mueller investigation. Mueller’s team is filled with biased ‘investigators’ who wanted Hillary Clinton to be president. It’d be a miracle if a person wasn’t upset with the team Mueller picked.

Here’s a point worth considering: Smith is more upset with something that didn’t happen than she’s been about the abuse of residents in Minnesota’s elder care facilities. Forgive me but why isn’t Smith upset about something that’s actually happened? Why isn’t she upset about that crisis? When you watch this video, I want you to think about the questions you’d ask if your parents were subject to this abuse:

Ponder what Sen. Housley said:

It snowballed over the Dayton administration and was completely ignored and was brushed completely under the table so I think there needs to be some apologies made and some accountability taken.

I’ll be clear. Much of this happened while Tina Smith was Lieutenant Governor, a time when she paraded around the state doing ribbon cuttings, etc. Why didn’t Smith dig into this crisis rather than be Gov. Dayton’s PR person? Is it because Smith prefers the role of PR spokesperson over the responsibility of fixing things?

Technorati: Tina Smith, Robert Mueller, Special Counsel, Nursing Home Abuse, Investigations, Government Shutdown, DFL, Karin Housley, Republicans, Election 2018

The DFL hasn’t hidden their support for public employee unions like AFSCME, SEIU and MAPE. That means they’ve supported the things described in this article. What’s outlined in this article, though, seems more like highway robbery than representation.

For instance, “Labor unions in a handful of states have been able to take a portion of [Medicaid payments paid to PCAs] by organizing all the personal caregivers as one bargaining unit. Lawmakers in those states have allowed the practice by implementing policies that classify the caregivers as public employees – but only for the purpose of collective bargaining.”

The previous paragraph describes who these PCAs are, saying “Medicaid funds can be provided to personal caregivers who care for an elderly and disabled individual. The caregiver in most cases is related to their client. It’s a system that allows for personalized treatment and oftentimes it allows families to care for loved ones. But it’s also a system that has enriched unions.”

The unions have enriched themselves to the tune of “$200 million annually from Medicaid funds through personal caregivers.” These aren’t public employees. They’re relatives. The union collects their dues but the relatives don’t get the benefits that the unions bargain for. What part of that sounds justifiable?

Here’s what happened in Minnesota:

The union practice exists in states like California, Washington, Oregon, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Vermont, and Connecticut Minnesota lawmakers, for instance, allowed a state union to organize Personal Care Providers (PCA) as a single bargaining unit by passing a law dictating they are state employees simply because they collect Medicaid funds. Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton tried to do the same in 2011 through an executive order, but it failed in the courts.

The same bill that allowed unionization of in-home child care providers also authorized the unionization of family-based PCAs. Here’s part of the committee debate on that legislation:

Rep. Mahoney didn’t tell the truth. The union dues get taken out of money paid by government to in-home child care providers and PCAs. With PCAs, that money comes from Medicaid. These aren’t wages. They’re support payments paid to help families provide care for family members who otherwise might be housed in nursing homes or mental institutions. The state is actually saving money as a direct result of this program.

The family member is subsidized to care for family members because they’ve given up their jobs. That’s essentially a reimbursement paid in exchange for helping the state save money. That isn’t a wage.

“Medicaid will pay for homecare services for the elderly and disabled,” Nelsen told InsideSources. “The SEIU and AFSCME, back in the late 90s, when union membership was generally declining saw these workers, and this pool of Medicaid dollars, as a potential organizing opportunity.”

The U.S. Supreme Court addressed the issue to an extent during the 2014 case, Harris v. Quinn. The justices ruled that Illinois home care providers couldn’t be forced to pay dues because they weren’t technically state employees. Nelsen argues that unions and state leaders have found ways around those restrictions. “The states and unions have worked hand and glove to design a series of workarounds to the Harris v. Quinn decision, and to keep people paying dues whether they want to or not,” Nelsen said. “There are literally hundreds and thousands of these care providers around the country paying union dues to the SEIU and AFSCME against their will.”

In Minnesota, PCAs have petitioned the government to hold a decertification vote. If it’s held, the largest unionized bargaining unit will be decertified. The vote won’t be close.

When the unionization vote happened for in-home child care providers, it was rejected by a 1,014-392 margin. There’s no reason to think this vote won’t be similarly lopsided.

Thus far, Acting Health Commissioner Dan Pollock has said the right things. It isn’t just a matter of saying the right things, though, like when he said “accelerating investigations of abuse and reducing the huge backlog of uninvestigated complaints will be his “first, second and third priority.”

I recall the Obama administration making the same promises after the VA scandal broke. The promises sounded appropriate. The actions didn’t match the promises. At this point, I’ll just say that there’s lots of pressure on Pollock because it’s his responsibility to clean this mess up.

Since taking the job, Pollock said ““We have heard the message. This needs to be resolved. Families want the investigations to happen in a timely way and the only way that’s going to be possible is by doing this restructuring.”

I’d love hearing how that’s going to happen, especially considering this information:

The move comes weeks after a Minneapolis Star Tribune series exposed widespread elder abuse in Minnesota nursing care facilities that for years was systematically ignored.

All too frequently, complaints were thrown away without people conducting even a preliminary investigation. Frankly, I’m skeptical that anything meaningful will happen this year. It isn’t that I’m skeptical of Pollock. It’s that I’m skeptical that they can pull together the investigators and other resources in time to make a difference. How do you change a culture like this?

This isn’t just about investigating. It’s about firing people who are put in charge of caring for people that can’t care for themselves who aren’t interested in caring for the people they’re charged with caring for. Frankly, in this instance, it’s about charging them with crimes, too.

Simply put, this is what’s wrong with facilities that aren’t interested in providing professional care to its patients. Further, I don’t trust Gov. Dayton’s appointees at this point anymore. Too frequently, they’re political allies rather than qualified people.

This LTE explains in very personal terms why tax simplification is required. A few paragraphs into the LTE, it says “But the tax reform proposal introduced by the U.S. House could undo much of that success. It breaks a bipartisan deal agreed to at the end of 2015 to phase down the wind energy Production Tax Credit by 2020. House lawmakers are looking to re-write the rules in the middle of the game, and that puts our economy and U.S. workers at risk.”

There’s no disputing that the new tax legislation will put some businesses at risk. Entrepreneurship requires taking risks. Why should a renewable energy business not face risk but farmers live with the prospect of getting wiped out every minute of their lives?

It’s time that the federal government got out of the corporate welfare business. If a product is a quality product and it’s essential to enough people, it will succeed. If it isn’t that essential, people might ignore it, in which case the company will soon be bankrupt. That’s capitalism and it’s the best economic model in the history of mankind. Here’s what Milton Friedman thinks of capitalism:

Congress developed the PTC to help wind developers gain access to the private investment capital they need to build wind farms. That in turn keeps U.S. factory workers busy making new wind turbines, and it keeps construction businesses like ours stay busy installing them. Our workers depend on these orders, and the PTC has helped keep our construction queue full.

What this company is apparently lobbying for is lower corporate tax rates and corporate welfare, too. Taxpayers shouldn’t shoulder the burden on whether a company succeeds or fails.

This is crony capitalism at its worst. For the foreseeable future, companies will introduce studies that highlight the benefits of corporate welfare:

That’s why American wind power added jobs nine times faster than overall economy last year, and keeping the investment policies stable will create an additional $85 billion in economic activity through 2020, according to Navigant Consulting. It will also grow an additional 50,000 American jobs, including more 8,000 jobs at U.S. factories, by the end of President Trump’s first term.

With all due respect, we don’t know that. I’m certainly not willing to trust a self-serving report. Companies that commission these types of reports frequently can’t survive without corporate welfare.

It’s time to cut this cord.

Mike Rothman has announced his immediate resignation as commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Commerce. In a separate statement, Rothman announced that he will run for the job of Minnesota Attorney General.

MPR’s Tim Pugmire is reporting “Mike Rothman is stepping down as commissioner of the Minnesota Department Commerce and plans to run for state attorney general. Rothman announced his intentions Friday in a resignation letter to Gov. Mark Dayton.”

In his statement, Rothman said “Thank you for the incredible opportunity to serve the people of Minnesota. You placed great trust in me – and every day, I dedicated myself to fulfilling that trust by doing my very best to improve the lives of Minnesotans. I am very proud of what we have been able to accomplish together.”

Frankly, Rothman was a failure because he was anti-commerce and because he did his utmost to kill the Line 3 Pipeline replacement project. Simply put, he’s an environmental activist. Imagine the destruction he could cause as Minnesota’s Attorney General. That’s a frightening thought.

In his statement, Gov. Dayton said “For nearly seven years, Mike Rothman has devoted himself to protecting consumers, improving the lives of Minnesotans, and ensuring fair regulatory environments for Minnesota’s businesses.” Rep. Kelly Fenton wasn’t that kind, saying “Commissioner Rothman’s tenure was stained by his failure to protect Minnesota consumers and tax dollars. His poor judgment is well documented.”

This KSTP article contains information that Pugmire’s article doesn’t have:

The news comes as the Office of the Legislative Auditor confirmed it had been asked to investigate actions taken by various DOC officials in connection to an investigation into an auto glass company a federal judge ruled was ‘unjustified.’ “As you may know, the case has involved considerable litigation that continues in process,” legislative auditor James Nobles wrote in an email to KSTP. “The case is very complex, and we are reviewing all of the documents related to the legal proceedings at both the state and federal levels.

“In sum, we are at a preliminary stage, and our review will undoubtedly take us into next year. So, yes, we are investigating what happened in the Commerce/Safelight case.” In that case, federal judge Susan Nelson ruled the DOC carried out an “unjustified” investigation into Safelite Auto Glass for its billing practices with insurance companies.

Nelson also said the DOC “initiated a baseless investigation against Safelite based on financially-motivated complaints from competitors.” Further, Nelson said there was testimony from a DOC employees stating “an assistant commissioner made a ‘deal’ to provide information on Safelite in order to ‘get Safelite out of Minnesota.'”

The last thing Minnesota needs is a crooked AG. That being said, Rothman wouldn’t be the first crooked Minnesota AG. Mike Hatch blazed that trail long ago.

Gov. Dayton’s statement is predictable. It’s also BS. Here’s why:

In December 2011, Minnesota Commerce Commissioner Mike Rothman and Community Action of Minneapolis CEO Bill Davis stood side-by-side at a press conference to plead for more federal money to help low-income people pay their heating bills. As the pair made their case in front of the cameras, however, staffers inside the Commerce Department were struggling to figure out how Davis’ nonprofit had already misspent more than $1 million in energy funds.

Commerce analysts had grown increasingly alarmed that money meant to aid the poor was going to people who were not eligible to receive it. Those staffers, who requested anonymity because they aren’t authorized to speak, say the red flags raised in 2011 were the first alerting Rothman that Davis, his DFL political ally, was mismanaging money from the energy assistance fund run by Commerce. The warnings, they say, were repeated over the years but went nowhere. Rothman would not sever ties with Community Action. Several in the department say they were told the contracts would continue because “the political ramifications are greater than staff would understand,” a characterization Rothman does not dispute.

Gov. Dayton, how can you say that Commissioner Rothman protected consumers or improved Minnesotans’ lives while ignoring Community Action of Minneapolis’ outright corruption? These DFL thieves stole money meant to pay poor people’s heating bills.

Instead of paying poor people’s heating bills, Community Action paid for a trip to New York City for State Sen. Jeffrey Hayden and his wife. They’ve since repaid the money.

Technorati: Mike Rothman, Department of Commerce, Community Action of Minneapolis, Corruption, Mark Dayton, Investigation, DFL, Jim Nobles, OLA, Election 2018

Before getting into this post, let me state without hesitation or equivocation that I won’t defend Roy Moore’s disgusting behavior. Further, I find these women’s stories credible. Finally, I find Judge Moore’s replies to the reporters’ questions to be shifting, defensive and filled with platitudes.

John Kass’s column starts by saying “There is a cost to defending Moore. Don’t kid yourselves that there is no cost to it.” Kass continues, saying “But as long as he fights this, even as more women come out with their accounts of what happened years ago and reports surface about how Moore, in his 30s, trolled shopping malls for teen-age girls, there is the temptation for some in the GOP to defend him.”

Don’t count me as one of Moore’s defenders. I won’t defend the indefensible. Based on the steady stream of credible reports of Moore’s behavior, it isn’t difficult to believe that he’s a pervert attempting to hide behind his faith. It’s a disgusting sight for me, especially as a person of faith.

To his credit, Sean Hannity has issued an ultimatum to Judge Moore. I join with Sean Hannity in this ultimatum:

It’s being charitable to say that Judge Moore’s answers have been inconsistent. Frankly, I think he’s been outright dishonest. Meanwhile, Steve Bannon has defended Judge Moore, hinting that the MSM is trying to destroy a conservative. First, let’s admit that Judge Moore isn’t the first conservative that the MSM has attempted to destroy. Let’s also admit that it’s possible that they have a natural anti-conservative bias and still be honest.

When Judge Moore denied ever knowing the then-16-year-old who accused him of rape, I was skeptical, mostly because she was represented by Gloria Allred. That skepticism was erased, though, when the woman produced a yearbook with Judge Moore’s signature attached to it.

He calls all this a lie, threatens to sue The Washington Post and says he’s the victim of the Democrats and the establishment Republicans. His answers seem incomplete and remarkably thin. He signed his name in a girl’s yearbook? He can’t remember the name of the restaurant where he met one of them, where an alleged assault took place?

If Steve Bannon continues defending the indefensible, that’s his right. It’s also stupid. By defending the indefensible, he’s destroying his credibility and the candidates he’s supporting. In the end, that might be Mr. Bannon’s only gift to Republicans during the 2018 campaign cycle.

Republicans have done the right thing in distancing themselves from Moore. Even if they lose that seat to a Democrat, they’ve still done the right thing. This is one of those times when political considerations just aren’t the most important considerations in a person’s life.

It’s time for Moore and Bannon to exit the stage. That’s because they’re both disgusting people who are indefensible.