By Joyce White Vance, former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama

Roy Moore is committed to a culture that believes women are not men's equals. He supports the view that women should not be permitted to run for office and that when they do, people have a moral obligation to vote against them.

We know this is true because it's all in writing, in a study course he developed and promoted with other like-minded men. It was still available for sale, online, this week.

Everyone, including Moore, is entitled to their own religious beliefs in this country. But they aren't entitled to impose them on others. Moore's history suggests that if he wins the race to be Alabama's next Senator, he'll do exactly that. And, women will be the losers if he wins. Their rights will have to give way to Moore's beliefs.

In Roy Moore's vision of Alabama, it's acceptable for 32-year old men to date young teen girls, as long as their father's permission is obtained first.

Moore's views consistently suggest that men are entitled to control women; how they are schooled, who they date, what if any jobs they can hold, what their reproductive choices are.

If Roy Moore wins, over the voices of brave women who came forward with credible allegations of sexual abuse and harassment when they were in their teens, it will be because he convinces Alabama voters that women who come forward to report sex crimes and harassment should not be believed over a man who denies it. Moore's spokesperson said in an interview on Birmingham's WBRC that to prove the allegations against Moore, "you have to have a witness." But there isn't a witness when a man takes a 14-year old girl to his home, removes her clothing down to her underwear, and assaults her. In Roy Moore's Alabama, the man is always believed. Women are liars. Always. They don't count.

Some have suggested it's worth holding your nose and voting for Moore because he's against abortion in all cases. The issues surrounding abortion are difficult and important to many Alabamians.  Voters will have to decide for themselves if Moore's stance on an issue that is already decided and will not be changed in the Senate is worth the price of having him as our Senator. As Senator, he will have a platform for furthering his agenda of relegating women, and particularly women in Alabama, to second class citizenship.

If we elect Moore, we're responsible for him. Roy Moore's Alabama will be a world that is hostile to our daughters and to their hopes and dreams. I will tell my daughter, who is at college out of state, to not come home. And that's probably just what Roy Moore wants - a world without strong women who object to mistreatment and control.

As women across the country begin to shake off years of fear and publicly tell stories of harassment and abuse, will Alabama be the last refuge for men who treat women like possessions? Will women continue to live in fear here because men like Moore decide they shouldn't be believed?

Alabama now stands in sharp contrast to the rest of the country where credible allegations of harassment are taken seriously and women making them are treated with respect. It's up to the voters to respond to Moore and tell him women have come too far to fall back into unequal status. We no longer have to give into Moore, like frightened teenage girls did in the 1970s, because he was powerful and they weren't.

No one gets to control who you vote for when you're inside of the voting booth. You get to vote your conscience. I hope we all will, come a week from Tuesday.

http://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/2017/12/how_will_women_respond_to_roy.html#incart_river_home

Trump officially endorses Moore.
Breaking on Twitter

Trump endorses Roy Moore in phone call: 'We need his vote'

President Trump on Monday endorsed Alabama Republican Senate nominee Roy Moore, telling voters "we need" him to tackle illegal immigration, tax reform and more -- after weeks of holding back his full support for the embattled candidate.

The White House made it official in a statement confirming Trump personally backed Moore during a phone call.

"The President had a positive call with Judge Roy Moore during which they discussed the state of the Alabama Senate race and the President endorsed Judge Moore's campaign," Principal Deputy Press Secretary Raj Shah said.

Moments earlier, Moore tweeted that Trump had given his support and told him: "Go get 'em, Roy!"

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/12/04/trump-endorses-roy-moore-in-phone-call-need-his-vote.html

Praise Kek

Woman shares new evidence of relationship with Roy Moore when she was 17



Debbie Wesson Gibson was in her attic hauling out boxes of Christmas decorations last week when she noticed a storage bin she said she had forgotten about. Inside was a scrapbook from her senior year of high school, and taped to a page titled "Those Who Inspire" was a graduation card.

"Happy graduation Debbie," it read in slanted cursive handwriting. "I wanted to give you this card myself. I know that you'll be a success in anything you do. Roy."

The inscription, Gibson said, was written by Roy Moore, the Alabama Republican nominee for U.S. Senate

Shortly after the allegations first surfaced, Moore said in a radio interview with Sean Hannity that he did not know Corfman, but that he remembered Gibson as well as Gloria Thacker Deason, who had told The Post that she dated Moore when she was 18. He called each one "a good girl," and said that he did not remember dating them.

But at two campaign events in recent days, Moore has backtracked.

At a Nov. 27 campaign event in the north Alabama town of Henagar, Moore said, "The allegations are completely false. They are malicious. Specifically, I do not know any of these women."

At a Nov. 29 rally at a church in the south Alabama town of Theodore, Moore said, "Let me state once again: I do not know any of these women, did not date any of these women and have not engaged in any sexual misconduct with anyone."

Gibson said that after finding the scrapbook, she was not sure whether to make it public given the threats she received after publication of the original story. Then she heard what Moore said last week, she said, and contacted The Post.

"He called me a liar," said Gibson, who says she not only openly dated Moore when she was 17 but later joined him in passing out fliers during his campaign for circuit court judge in 1982 and exchanged Christmas cards with him over the years. "Roy Moore made an egregious mistake to attack that one thing - my integrity."

The Moore campaign did not respond to numerous requests for comment for this story.

Two of the other women named in The Post article have also pushed back in recent days against Moore.

Gibson, 54, now lives in Delray Beach, Florida, is a registered Republican, and is the founder of a company that provides sign language interpretation. Though she said the bulk of her work is in educational, medical and legal settings, her clients have included Democrats such as Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, and Republicans such as the mayor of Miami. She said that despite requests from dozens of media outlets, she had "very carefully said absolutely nothing" after her account was first published in The Post due to a barrage of threatening hate mail she received, prompting her to notify her local police department. She and the other women have been accused by Moore's surrogates of lying, or being paid to spread false stories, or being part of a larger political conspiracy to defeat Moore.

Then she found the scrapbook and the graduation card with the slanted, cursive handwriting, which she said immediately reminded her of another woman, Beverly Young Nelson, who had come forward after the Post story was published. In an emotional news conference with the attorney Gloria Allred, Nelson accused Moore of sexually assaulting her when she was 16, and produced what she said was her high school yearbook with an inscription to her from Moore.

"I just couldn't imagine him doing something like that," Gibson said. "And then when I saw the interview from Beverly, and I saw his handwriting in her yearbook, my heart just sank. And when I saw what I knew to be Roy Moore's handwriting, I just began to sob openly."

Mark Songer, a former FBI forensic examiner now with the firm Robson Forensic, examined an image of the graduation card at The Post's request and said that it "appears to be naturally prepared." Songer also compared an image of the yearbook inscription to the image of the graduation card and said that "the style of writing, as well as certain letter features, appear to be similar." He stressed the need for a full and comprehensive handwriting examination to arrive at a final conclusion.

Gibson said she remembers Moore handing the card to her at the Etowah High School graduation ceremony in Attalla, Alabama, where Gibson grew up about 10 miles from Moore's home. She remembers reading the inscription and writing below it: "Roy Moore inspires me because he is such a successful man himself. Also, he is about the only person I know of who seriously believes in me. I appreciate that. He's got to be one of the nicest people I know."

As she flipped through the scrapbook last week, Gibson said, she realized it contained other indications of her relationship with Moore, which she says began in March 1981, after he came to speak to her high school civics class.

On a page titled "commencement," under "My own guests," she had written "Roy S. Moore," just above "mom" and "dad."

On a page titled "remembrances," she had listed her graduation gifts line by line, including "$10, card" from "Roy S. Moore," and a check mark indicating she had sent a thank-you card.

On a page titled "the best times," she had written: "Wednesday night, 3-4-81. Roy S. Moore and I went out for the first time. We went out to eat at Catfish Cabin in Albertville. I had a great time." She had underlined "great" twice.

The scrapbook also contained a photo of Gibson as a high school senior, and when she saw it, she said, she thought to herself, "That's the age I was when I dated Roy Moore, because my braces were off."

As Gibson previously told The Post, she said that she and Moore dated for a couple of months. She said he kissed her by the swimming pool concession stand at a local country club, that he played his guitar and read his own poetry to her, and that things ended when she went off to college in another part of Alabama, though they still kept in touch.

She said she helped Moore when he was campaigning for circuit court judge in 1982, and remembers tucking fliers under windshield wipers at the Kmart parking lot.

She said that when she became engaged, Moore insisted on meeting her fiance to make sure he was "good enough for me." She said when Moore was first appointed as a circuit court judge in 1992, she sent him a gavel engraved with his name and a congratulatory note, and that her family and his exchanged Christmas cards some years.

She said that she held Moore "in high esteem," despite political differences with him, until she began hearing stories from other women who alleged that Moore pursued them as teenagers. She said that at first she did not want to believe the women.

"It takes what I thought was a very lovely part of my past, and it colors it, and it changes it irrevocably," she said. "It changes it permanently."

What made her decision to share the documents easier, she said, was watching and re-watching a video she has on her cellphone of Moore speaking last week and deciding that supporting the women who have come forward was more important than staying silent.

"At 34 minutes and 56 seconds into the video, he says, unequivocally, I did not know any of them," Gibson said. "In that moment, it changed my perspective. I knew he was a liar."

http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2017/12/woman_shares_new_evidence_of_r.html#incart_m-rpt-2

Trump's backing could make Roy Moore a powerful senator

President Donald Trump and Senate Republican leaders remained sharply divided over Roy Moore on Monday, with the president declaring his strongest support yet while top senators warned that the embattled Senate nominee from Alabama was likely to face an immediate ethics probe if he is elected next week.

The divergent attitudes toward Moore, who has been accused of making unwanted sexual advances toward teenage girls when he was in his 30s, underscored how polarizing a figure he would be among his party's national leaders if he wins the Dec. 12 special election.

Even if Moore is largely ostracized by his Senate colleagues, the support of the president could make him an influential figure in Washington - a point he appeared determined to emphasize on Monday.

"I look forward to fighting alongside the President to #MAGA!" Moore wrote on Twitter, using the acronym for Trump's signature campaign theme, "Make America Great Again."

http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2017/12/trumps_backing_could_make_roy.html#incart_river_home

Bunch more stuff at the link

Republican National Committee reinstates support for Roy Moore; Moore responds

The Republican National Committee will support Roy Moore's bid for the U.S. Senate, AL.com has confirmed.

Breitbart News first reported the decision, which came on the same day as President Trump officially endorsed the controversial GOP nominee. RNC's change was later confirmed to AL.com.

The RNC announced last month it would not support Moore's bid after allegations emerged he had improper sexual contact with teenage girls in the 1970s.

Moore denies the allegations.

Breibart reported RNC members from Alabama were told Monday the party would resume financial support for Moore in his battle against Democrat Doug Jones, a former federal prosecutor. The Alabama Republican Party's steering committee passed a measure in November in support of Moore.

Moore's camp praised the decision.

http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2017/12/republican_national_committee_2.html#incart_m-rpt-2

More at link

Hwy 31 direct mailer that was in my box yesterday.

iirc they have dumped almost $3M in this election within the past couple of weeks.

It's exactly what it is.

I doubt it. They are conducting a full on social media shamming of anyone who doubts the accusers stories.

Some are trying to doxx people who post comments in favor of Moore.

This is a bizarre election. There is ZERO comments about this election in my personal social media sphere.

Almost zero signs in peoples yards supporting Moore. Yet depending on the poll he is leading by 6 to 8 points.

More propaganda arrived today.

Notice the addresses.

Good. Now do something about it.

This would not surprise me.

Trump endorsed Strange in the primary.

WaPost came down and dragged up some bullshit that AL.com couldn't find in the past 40 years.

This Hwy 31 group was established after the deadline for disclosing donors and has spent over $3M in just the past few weeks.

Also that flyer from NY had to be process before Trump endorsed Moore.

So this is going to shape up into being almost $50M spent to stop Moore. This is huge for our state.

Total RINO douche bag.

I do wonder how these folks got my name and address.

Both were versions of my full legal name.

I have only donated money to republican candidates and the NRA.

I'm not going to post every article from AL.com

They have delved into that zone of quoting each other as sources to fluff up their own asses.

Same drivel but I did notice a lot more articles on there today.

I don't believe anything with Jones in the lead or close to Moore.

Roy Moore's campaign says a Doug Jones campaign ad about Moore's opinions in three cases involving sexual crimes misrepresents Moore's record when he was chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court.

On the three cases, Moore wrote opinions that differed from the prevailing decisions of the court and that were favorable to the offenders.

"Alabama, there's a pattern," the ad says before showing images of the opinions in the three cases. "Court documents, real facts. Roy Moore's disturbing conduct."

Moore's campaign says the ad amounts to "blatant lies" and says Moore did not disagree with the convictions in any of the three cases.

Moore's written opinions in the cases show that in two of the three, Moore believed the Supreme Court should have reviewed the admissibility of evidence the defendants wanted to introduce to try to show that their victims were lying. In both cases, six of the other eight justices disagreed.

In the third case, Moore wrote that the defendant should not have been convicted on one of two charges involving sodomy of a child. The other eight justices disagreed, overturning a decision by the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals on the second charge.

In a press release on Friday, the Moore campaign said, "We are demanding that Doug Jones immediately retract his blatant lies and apologize for misrepresenting Judge Moore's judicial record. All stations should immediately remove this deceitful ad from their rotations."

http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2017/12/roy_moore_campaign_calls_doug.html#incart_m-rpt-2

Moore, Bannon rally open to public after 'liberals' gobbled up tickets online

The Roy Moore-Steve Bannon rally south of Fairhope is free and open to the public, and attendees are not required to bring a ticket to get in.

That's a change in plans from a week or so ago. According to Moore's campaign strategist Dean Young, "We had a bunch of liberals who got on Eventbrite and they took all our tickets."

"You can come without a ticket," said Young. The rally starts at 6:30 p.m. and runs until 8 p.m. at Oak Hollow Farm.

"We need them to come and watch history and watch the most famous Alabama politician ever," Young said, referring to Moore.

http://www.al.com/news/mobile/index.ssf/2017/12/moore_bannon_rally_tonight_ope.html#incart_river_home_pop