MITCH KNIFES ROY – AT 12:41 P.M. ET:   Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has lowered the boom on Roy Moore.  From The Hill: 

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Monday called for GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore to "step aside."

"I think he should step aside," McConnell said during a tax reform press conference in Louisville, Ky., when asked about the calls from his Senate colleagues for Moore to leave the race.

Moore has been under growing pressure from Republicans to drop out of the Senate race after The Washington Post published a story containing allegations that Moore pursued an inappropriate sexual relationship with a teenage girl.

When pressed about the allegations, McConnell said, "I believe the women."

The Post's story last week detailed an account from Leigh Corfman, now 53, who said she had a sexual encounter with Moore in 1979, when she was 14 years old and he was 32.

The report also included accounts from three other women who said Moore attempted to court them around that time, when they were between 16 and 18 years old.

Even if Moore withdraws from the Senate race — something he has said he will not do — Republicans are stuck with his name remaining on the ballot.

The deadline for the party to remove Moore's name from the ballot passed in October, though Republicans could mount a write-in challenge. Republicans have also floated trying to move back the December election date.

COMMENT:   Look, as we've noted here before, the GOP establishment dislikes Moore intensely, and did so even before these new allegations.  They consider him a renegade and a pain in the neck.  The allegations provide a convenient reason for kicking him out, if they can.

November 13, 2017