What the Roy Moore Victory Means

It’s often said that you can know a man by his enemies. That being the case, we can know a lot about Judge Roy Moore by the blaring headline on Huffington Post last night: “Alabama Earthquake: GOP Picks Outsider Bigot.” Translated, this means, “GOP Picks Conservative Christian, Anti-Establishment Candidate.” Sounds good to me.

What does Moore’s victory mean in national, political terms? What does it mean in social and cultural terms?

First, Moore’s victory reminds us that the same anti-establishment wave that brought President Trump into office brought Moore the GOP victory.

To the extent Trump is associated with the establishment, to that extent, he loses much of his appeal. Conversely, to the extent a candidate is perceived to be anti-establishment, to that extent the candidate is embraced by the core of Trump’s base.

That’s why the president’s endorsement of establishment candidate Luther Strange only went so far. That’s why the investment of $30 million in GOP advertising funds only went so far.

That’s why the crowd that attended the Trump rally last Friday in Alabama chanted, “USA, USA” more than “Luther Strange, Luther Strange.” And that’s why the president had to hedge his bets, with statements like, “I’ll be honest, I might have made a mistake.” And, “If his opponent wins, I’m going to be here campaigning like hell for him.”

That’s also why Trump immediately tweeted out congratulations to Judge Moore after his victory was announced, also deleting (!) his earlier tweets supporting Strange.

Second, Moore’s victory sends a message to the GOP establishment from fed-up Republicans across the country: “We’ve had it with your compromising and your political games. We’ve had it with career politicians in general. You represent what we reject. You represent one of the major reasons we voted for Donald Trump. Your time in DC is over.”

If recent headlines on Breitbart.com are to be believed – and note that Breitbart was all-in in support of Moore – then establishment GOP candidates up for reelection in 2018 are quaking in fear. (If Breitbart is also to be believed, Jared Kushner strongly advised the president to endorse Strange, providing another alleged example of Kushner counseling the president to do the opposite of what his base would expect.)

Third, Moore’s victory reminds us that there remain strongly conservative pockets throughout our country for whom biblical values are a positive, not a negative.

Let’s not forget that Roy Moore is known as the Ten Commandments Judge, and for the last 20 years, he has been involved in legal battles to keep these commandments in central, public view. It began when he hung a homemade version of the commandments in his courtroom in Alabama, refusing to remove them after the ACLU successfully sued him.

Then, when he became Chief Justice of Alabama, he “installed a 5,280-pound granite block that featured Constitutional quotes and two large tablets with the 10 Commandments outside the state Judicial Building. The move prompted a lawsuit from the ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center, among other groups, which Moore dismissed saying the 10 Commandments were the ‘moral foundation of U.S. law’ and therefore appropriate in a judicial setting.”

He was ultimately removed from office after refusing to comply with court orders, only to be reelected as Chief Justice in 2013, “but served only three years before being suspended again, this time for directing probate judges to continue to enforce the state's ban on same-sex marriage despite a U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Moore appealed his removal but then opted to resign and announced he was running for the Senate to replace Jeff Sessions, who had been named U.S. Attorney General.”

This is the man who just crushed establishment candidate Luther Strange, despite the endorsement of President Trump and a flood of establishment money.

In his victory speech last night, Moore said, "As long as it’s constitutional, as long as it advance[s] our society, our culture, our country, I will be supportive. As long as it’s constitutional. But we have to return to knowledge of God and the Constitution of the United States to the United States Congress."

“I believe we can make America great, but we must make America good, and you cannot make America good without acknowledging the sovereign source of that goodness, the sovereign source of our law, liberty, and government, which is Almighty God.

“We have become a nation that has distanced ourselves from the very foundation. Washington said that of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.”

Moore also “spoke of protests, demonstrations, mobs, and racial strife, but that ‘we’re all made in the image of God.’”

Yes, this is the man who will likely be the next Senator from Alabama.

To be candid, it sounded like his speech came straight from the pages of Saving a Sick America, where I wrote, “Now, there is a widely circulated, powerful quote attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville, a quote that scholars agree does not originate with him. But regardless of who first uttered these words—if not Tocqueville, then one of his contemporaries— I wholeheartedly affirm the sentiments they reflect:

“‘America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.’”

“These words underlie the central argument of this book: America can be great only to the extent that America is good, and for America to be good, it must recapture its biblical heritage. Stated another way, a theocracy is not the answer; returning to God’s Word is the answer.”

That was the message of Judge Roy Moore, and that is the message that still resonates with many Americans today.

Could it be that the tide is beginning to turn? That we are getting sick and tired of radical liberalism? Could it be?

The message from conservative Alabama is loud and clear.

Roy Moore's victory had nothing to do with President Trump.

Luther was going to lose no matter what and here's why:

Here's why: Luther Strange had a very young and attractive campaign consultant who ended up getting a lot of money from him for consulting after the campaign had concluded. Not saying they had an affair. I have no idea. But as AG, Strange indicted a state legislature for paying someone for campaign work on a non-current campaign, which is what Strange did for his dear and close friend Jennifer.

Jennifer proceeds to divorce her husband. She filed notice with the court that she was moving to Bham from Tuscaloosa with her shared custody son. She gave the address of the house she was moving to in court documents in 2011. (Luther’s neighborhood when he lived in Bham.)

The house, in the upmarket exclusive conclave of Mountain Brook, was valued at around $450,000. But it wasn’t foreclosed on until 2012 and her “high bid” of $30,000 was accepted. Curious that she listed THIS ADDRESS in court papers when it wasn't even on the market!

A blogger wrote about that. A judge ordered that blogger jailed for writing about an alleged affair between then Gov. Bob Riler's son and a lobbyist, and then the blogger was sued for the Big Luther post . The blogger refused to be silenced. The judge put him in jail. He lost his home to foreclosure.

Fast forward: Alabama governor Robert Bentley is embroiled in an affair with a much younger married woman from his church. He puts the mistress and her husband on the state payroll.

The mistress basically begins to run the state. Lots of illegal things happen, not the least of which is the governor being caught on tape in a serious sexual conversation with the young lady.

He and she are getting dark money and open a safe deposit box together. Everyone knows that to get something on the Bentley’s desk it goes through Rebecca. So money flowed.

The same blogger who broke the alleged Luther/Jennifer affair broke the news of what the elderly Governor of Alabama was doing with his hook-up hottie Rebecca Mason. The Alabama media refused to touch it and gave the luv guv a free pass to continue raping the state.

Then the gov’s long suffering wife left her phone on record while she went on a beach walk and the lecherous old luv guv called his young mistress and proceeded to tell her what he wanted to do.

Someone unknown took the file to a gas station (on a jump drive) and called YellowHammer news, conservative news outlet in Alabama. (Former owner Cliff Sims now works for Trump.) Yellowhammer broke the story and then the chips all started falling.

But it took months for governor to get investigated. I mean, this just went on and on. Then Jeff Sessions was tapped for AG by Trump and Gov. Bentley took this opportunity to make a deal with Big Luther Strange.

Gov. appointed Luther to the senate and Luther called off the investigation into the gov and his mistress.

So it took even more months for things to be resolved. A new AG came in and got the gov. out, but a lot of people who did a lot of bad things walked because Luther called off the dogs.

The Gov. had members of his staff who knew about the affair targeted. He fired the head of the Alabama Law Enforcement, ALEA, Spencer Collier and accused him of stealing just to cover up his own crimes with his mistress and the dark money.

The gov attacked and sicked law enforcement on people who wrote about the affair. (This was blogger Roger Schuler and attorney David Watkins who broke the story first when no one else would.) Watkins owns a bank and Bentley had false investigations started on his bank.

There is soooo much more evil that went on and a lot of innocent people got hurt. And it went on far longer than it had to, all because Big Luther stopped the investigation so he could be appointed senator.

Mr. & Mrs. Strange

Mr. Strange's "Close Friend"

Mr. Strange's New Campaign Song: "People Are Strange" - The Doors

That’s not even the half of it!

A huge arrested just happened today. Two major player lawyers for Drummond Coal were arrested for bribing a state senator to help shut down an EPA investigation in an urban neighborhood. http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2017/09/two_balch_bingham_lawyers_and.html#incart_big-photo

They funneled the money to him via a fake nonprofit that Luther’s campaign fundraiser head was on the board of!

Ok, I realize that’s a convolated way of saying it so here’s this:

“The head of Sen. Luther Strange’s campaign fundraising committee is listed on federal tax documents as an officer in the nonprofit agency federal prosecutors say was used to bribe an Alabama lawmaker who pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges this month.”

http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2017/09/luther_strange_finance_chair_t.html

recommending is one thing, vetting is another. Presuming they are two different functions, Jared might be technically off the hook...

Even so, ...

Trump has no prior political office experience. He brought in his immediate family as advisors. They also have no prior political office experience.

Hopefully we are getting a decoy story. Alternatively, as I mentioned a few posts ago, Trump had to lose some losers simply because he needed some votes on other bills such as (though not limited to) repealing and replacing Obamacare, and someone told Trump that support by Trump for Luther was the price of those votes.

It is all speculation and most of it might be Kabuki. Sometimes I speculate that the current obamacare thing is a feint for something to come that is not quite fully baked yet. I get that sense by (for example) watching Rand Paul talking about Obamacare with the sound turned off. Of course I am totally in flyover country, out of the loop, uninformed, etc.

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