Bannon tells Roy Moore's supporters: 'They want to take your voice away' -- and derides Mitt Romney

FAIRHOPE, Alabama. — It already felt a little like a victory party in Alabama Tuesday, where Senate candidate Roy Moore is suddenly feeling love from the Republican Party despite weeks of disclosures that he sexually pursued and assaulted underaged girls.

There was a barn packed, standing room only, with supporters. American flags and twinkling white lights decorated the interior, while rain occasionally pounded on a tin roof. And Stephen K. Bannon, the former White House strategist turned king-maker, was here to help push Moore over the finish line with his trademark defiance.

“They want to destroy Judge Moore. And you know why? They want to take your voice away,” Bannon declared.

“There is no better way to spend a rainy evening in Alabama than with the deplorables,” he said, playing to the antiestablishment crowd gathered to hear him Tuesday night.

Bannon also tore into former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, a Republican who is a sharp Moore critic and a possible candidate for Senate in Utah if incumbent Senator Orrin Hatch opts to retire.

“You hid behind your religion,” Bannon said of Romney, referring to his Mormon missionary work in the 1960s in France, which allowed him to win a draft deferment. “Judge Moore has more honor and integrity in his pinky finger than your entire family does.”

Bannon’s support in the contest against Democrat Doug Jones has been crucial for Moore, the former renegade state judge and Christian favorite who has been accused of sexually assaulting teenaged girls when he was a single man in his 30s. The contest, a special election set for Tuesday, is to replace Jeff Sessions who was tapped to be Trump’s attorney general.

Moore drew parallels between his race here and Trump’s 2016 contest. “He fought both the Democrats and the Republicans and became president of the United States,” Moore said.

“When he was elected I felt like a big weight had been taken off my shoulders. It felt like we had another chance. And do have another chance,” Moore said.

This week marked the beginning of an improbable turnaround, after the renegade Moore, and by proxy, Bannon, appeared headed for a repudiation just a month ago.

“Alabama isn’t sending no Democrat to the Congress,” said Les McMinn, 56, who held up a handwritten sign at Tuesday’s rally that read, “Thank you Lord Jesus for Roy Moore.”

Moore appeared to be in serious trouble after The Washington Post reported early last month that he had sexually molested a 14-year-old girl in the late 1970s and sexually pursued other teenagers. Another woman came forward at a press conference and said Moore sexually assaulted her in a car when she, too, was in high school. Many Republicans distanced themselves from Moore and called on him to drop out of the race.

But in a sign of how much the party has changed since Donald Trump’s 2016 election, the president turned the tide back in Moore’s favor two weeks ago, when he said Alabama voters should reject Jones, whom he described as too liberal. This week, Trump explicitly endorsed Moore, the Republican National Committee restored the spigot of campaign cash, and Mitch McConnell moderated his earlier rejection of Moore after the Post’s revelations.

Now Moore has reestablished a lead in the polls. If he wins, it will be seen as a bigger triumph for Bannon and his far-right movement that has inspired cadres of white nationalists than for Republicans in the Senate. One reason Bannon backs Moore is the sheer discomfort he will bring to Washington.

“He’s going to make McConnell’s life a living hell,” said Andrew Surabian, a former Trump White House aide and Bannon confidant.

Particularly in this moment of reckoning about sexual misconduct by powerful men, adding Moore to the Senate — with the president’s blessing — will further radicalize the Republican Party and redefine the boundaries of acceptable behavior for membership in the country’s most esteemed body, according to critics from both parties.

Moore moves the party so far away from the establishment that the previous rebels are suddenly seen as reasonable, Surabian said. “Roy Moore will normalize Ted Cruz,” he said, referring to the Texas senator whose antics contributed to a temporary government shutdown in 2013.

Trump, after initially waffling, gave Moore a full-throated endorsement on Monday, calling him from Air Force One to say: “Go get ‘em Roy.”

Last month, after the revelations of Moore’s alleged sexual misconduct, McConnell said that Moore should step aside. But on Sunday, on ABC’s “This week,” he declared, “Let the people of Alabama make the call.”

But the party is still not united behind Moore, whom many see as an incoming albatross for Republican senators. And Bannon gets the blame. Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona and Romney are among party leaders who have condemned Moore, and Bannon.

“What (Bannon’s) doing is trying to elect people to the US Senate who have one issue, that is to destabilize the leadership of Mitch McConnell,” said Scott Jennings, a Republican strategist and McConnell ally. “I happen to think it is a misguided goal.”

He noted that McConnell has delivered Trump some legislative victories, including Senate passage last week of a tax cut bill that would also repeal the federal mandate that Americans purchase health insurance, a key tenet of the Affordable Care Act. The GOP-controlled Senate has also confirmed a Supreme Court justice and a raft of judges to the federal bench.

Moore is still in a close fight with Jones. Polls are showing the Alabama race within the margin of error, which is in some ways stunning given that Trump won Alabama by nearly 28 percentage points.

Bannon, 64, took over Trump’s struggling campaign in August 2016 when polls suggested little room for a Republican victory. He went on to become Trump’s chief strategist in the White House.

But it’s been since leaving the West Wing in August that Bannon has emerged as a national figure in his own right. On Tuesday, Bannon announced he would return to hosting a morning radio show SiriusXM radio. That’s in addition to his perch atop Breitbart News Network.

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Trump Is Rolling Back Obama’s Last-Minute Land Grab. Here’s What Must Come Next

Today marked an important moment as President Donald Trump made much-needed changes to sweeping land use designations made under previous administrations.

The Trump administration listened to the combined voices of individual citizens, tribal members, small communities, and elected officials from the county, state, and federal levels. In doing so, Trump has responded to Utahns’ calls by dramatically reducing the size of both the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, which had a combined land mass larger than the state of Connecticut.

This is a good step forward in reforming a law that has too easily been abused to drown out the voices of the people who care most about these lands. Today marks a victory for the people of southern Utah who know and love their public lands the most.

Trump’s bold move to reduce the size of the Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears monuments is the result of a true grass-roots effort. Locals held rallies, lobbied their representatives, passed resolutions, fundraised, and so much more, traveling hundreds of miles to do so.

While Kane, Garfield, and San Juan counties celebrate, they understand that these two national monuments were just a symptom of a much larger problem.

Unlike previous designations, recent national monuments were not about protecting specific historic and cultural sites as outlined in the Antiquities Act. Instead, political gamesmanship, outdoor recreation, presidential legacies, climate change, and a host of other motivations drove the designation process.

The result is expansive national monuments that restrict access, weaken local economies, corrode rural communities, and put the very archeological resources they are supposed to protect at a greater risk of destruction.

Presidents of both parties have abused the Antiquities Act for decades and will continue to do so as long as they are allowed to designate national monuments unchecked with just the stroke of a pen.

It’s time that Congress act to transform the Antiquities Act into a law of the people, by the people, and for the people, where constitutional principles safeguard the environment, protect archeological sites, create abundant recreational opportunities, and secure the American dream for rural communities.

If there is no change in the Antiquities Act, Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante, and southern Utahns will be in danger of future unilateral action with every change of presidential administration. Hardworking Americans and our public lands deserve better.

Here’s what we propose. National monument designations and reductions should be approved by Congress and state elected officials. By integrating state leaders and Congress into the process, we’ll protect the will of the people from presidential overreach and the whims of centralized government.

No longer would Utahns sit on pins and needles waiting to see how a president changes the management of millions of acres. Instead, we can assure that local voices are prioritized over political and ideological interests with the democratic process as a central fixture in the future of our public lands.

We want to thank the Trump administration for finally listening to the voices of San Juan, Kane, and Garfield county residents and giving power back to the people. This is truly a step in the right direction.

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Illegal Alien Now Faces Federal Charges in Kate Steinle's Death

A federal grand jury in San Francisco on Tuesday indicted Jose Inez Garcia-Zarate for being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition; and for being an illegal alien in possessions of a firearm and ammunition.

On July 1, 2015, Garcia-Zarate fired the bullet that ricocheted and killed Kate Steinle, a woman walking on a San Francisco pier with her father.

Last week, a San Francisco jury acquitted Garcia-Zarate on murder and manslaughter charges, but it did convict him on state charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm. He is still in state custody.

Garcia-Zarate had been deported five times from the United States at the time of Kate's death. He was homeless, and the only reason he was wandering the streets is because of San Francisco's sanctuary city status, meaning it does not cooperate with immigration detainers.

The verdict by a San Francisco jury outraged many Americans, including President Trump, who called the verdict "disgraceful."

If Garcia-Zarate is convicted on either of the federal charges, he faces a maximum of ten years in prison, the Justice Department said.

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Israel PM Netanyahu's Remarks on US President Trump's Statement on Jerusalem

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