More Wednesday Male Beauty

New York Weekend

The boyfriend and I are headed to New York City tomorrow as we make our annual flight from the Hampton Bay Days festival that forces the boyfriend to shut down the salon. We've got the house sitting/dog baby sitting worked out and tomorrow evening we will be in the Big Apple staying at a friend's place on Christopher Street in the West Village. We will return home on Monday night.

As always, I will be checking in with the office via e-mail and phone and will try to keep all of clients happy all of the time.

While we have a tight schedule in terms of meeting up with friends, I'd nonetheless love to hear from New York readers who could perhaps meet us for a drink - say at The Monster Bar (it's half a block from where we'll be staying) or some other nearby spot. I will have the lap top with me and will be posting as time permits.

Tonight's Republican Debate: The 19th Century or the Stone Age?

I watched some of the GOP presidential candidate debate - or as much of it as I could stomach after a crazy day at the office and a non-profit board meeting after office hours. Suffice it to say, I was not overly impressed and the only candidate who seemed to want to discuss the bigger picture of the nation's future was Jon Huntsman. Most of the other seemed to be seeking to focus on pet issues of the Tea Party in the hopes that some of the looniest elements of the GOP base would be driven to orgasms by the effort. Some, like Rick Perry fluffed facts and figures so much that one almost expected him to say he could turn chicken shit into caviar. For the most part, I could not help but think "God help this country if one of these nutcases gets elected." Robert Reich has a column at Huffington Post which looks at the backward thinking that seems to predominate the GOP candidate slate. Here are some highlights:

Tonight a bevy of Republican presidential hopefuls hope to emerge as finalists. Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann will battle for the right-wing nut Tea Party finals. Mitt Romney and John Huntsman will position themselves for the moderate right-wing finals. The putative winners in both these rounds will take on each other in the months ahead.

Nonetheless, listen tonight, if you can bear it, for anything other than standard Republican boilerplate since the 1920s -- a wistful desire to return to the era of William McKinley, when the federal government was small, the Fed and the IRS had yet to be invented, state laws determined worker safety and hours, evolution was still considered contentious, immigrants were almost all European, big corporations and robber barons ran the government, the poor were desperate, and the rich were lived like old-world aristocrats.

In the late 1950s and 1960s, the Republican Party had a brief flirtation with the twentieth century. Mark Hatfield of Oregon, Jacob Javits and Nelson Rockefeller of New York, Margaret Chase Smith of Maine, and presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon lent their support to such leftist adventures as Medicare and a clean environment. Eisenhower pushed for the greatest public-works project in the history of the United States -- the National Defense Highway Act

But the Republican Party that emerged in the 1970s began its march back to the 19th century. By the time Newt Gingrich and his regressive followers took over the House of Representatives in 1995, social conservatives, isolationists, libertarians, and corporatists had taken over once again.

Some Democrats are quietly rooting for Perry or Bachmann, on the theory that they're so extreme that they'll bolster Obama's chances for a second term and make it easier for congressional Democrats to scare Independents into voting for a Democratic House and maybe even Senate.

I understand the logic but I'd rather not take the chance. A Perry or Bachmann wouldn't just take us back to the 19th century. They'd take us back to the stone age.

Gloucester County Library Censorship Debate Continues

I wrote a while back on the anti-gay censorship of a Pride Month display in the Gloucester County, Virginia public library apparently initiated by County Supervisor Gregory Woodard (pictured at far left in the photo) — a fundamentalist pastor when not on the Board of Supervisors. I also wrote about the Gloucester situation in a large piece I wrote for the print issue of VEER magazine, a local fashion and arts focused publication, under a column headlined as "Teaching Tolerance: Learning Gays’ Role in History Could Reduce Anti-Gay Bullying." I suspect that Rev. Woodard probably wasn't too well please if he saw the column, but the statements challenging his bigotry and misuse of his elected position to inflict his personal religious views on all county residents needed to be made. Fortunately, LGBT residents of Gloucester DO have allies and Jody Perkins, who resigned her position on the Library Board of Trustees in protest over the anti-gay bigotry spearheaded by Rev. Woodard has a wonderful letter to the editor calling for action to keep the matter from being "swept under the rug." Here are some highlights from Ms. Perkins' letter in the Gloucester-Matthews Gazette Journal:

am assuming that there are many people in Gloucester County who are curious about the contents of the Gay Pride display in the Gloucester Library that the library director removed after receiving complaints. I have recently discovered the details of the display after an article was published in Veer magazine’s Aug. 15 issue, "Teaching Tolerance: Learning Gays’ Role in History Could Reduce Anti-Gay Bullying"; to quote:

"The anti-gay mindset of CRI is not limited to California as was recently revealed in Gloucester County, Virginia in an incident that arose out of a "Pride Month" display in the Gloucester Public Library. As reported by the Daily Press, as a result of the display, an anti-gay witch hunt was touched off and spearheaded by County Supervisor Gregory Woodard—a fundamentalist pastor when not on the Board of Supervisors—who objected to the library promoting homosexual and gay rights …

The Gay Pride display at our library should never have been prematurely removed. However, when asked why this happened, the chair of the Library Board of Trustees was quoted as saying that the director "has the authority to install and take down exhibits." This does not answer the question of why Director Diane Rebertus acted as she did and why procedure about complaints was not handled as it has been for years in our library. They have circled the wagons to defend the director’s knee-jerk reaction when she received a call in the late afternoon of June 20, hurriedly left her office for the public area and was seen to reappear in the back room with an armload of books, CDs, DVDs, etc. She caved to someone, but no one has admitted making the call.

County Administrator Brenda Garton has said that she did not make the call but will not say anything further to clear up this conundrum. So, a problem ignored and swept under the rug will eventually be forgotten.

But, one more point. When I resigned from the Gloucester Library Board of Trustees on July 15, the revised Library Policy Manual to be submitted to the state library by Aug. 1 had been amended and approved by the board chair to include specific information so that displays, whether put on by the library or by the public, be handled in the same way as general materials complaints. These requirements were subsequently removed after July 15 so that the approved Policy Manual may in the future be interpreted in any way that the director wishes regarding complaints.

One would like to feel that our public library is going forward as I know it did under the past directors, but under the present leadership and watered-down policy, I am fearful that this is not the case, as everyone in control is in denial and the library director will not take responsibility for the mistake she made by removing the Gay Pride display.

Kudos to Ms. Perkins. It is individuals like her who will move Gloucester forward from backwater status and make sure that ALL citizens receive recognition and respect - not just those who conform to the beliefs of certain Bible beaters who could use a major lesson in accurate history. Rev. Woodard's church "accepts the Bible as the Word of God." I'd love to know if it's the King James Bible. I'd also love to know how he's responding to scientific knowledge that says that Adam and Eve never existed!

Wednesday Male Beauty

Many in U.S. Are Slipping From the Middle Class

Given the GOP's war on the middle class and the nation's rush toward banana republic levels of wealth disparity, it is no surprise that a new Washington Post story looks at the increasing numbers of Americans slipping from the middle class. Sadly, I suspect that the trend will only get worse unless there is a sea change in government policies and measures are implemented to stem the flow of living wage jobs overseas. When I was a child, most families had a single working parent who could provide some standard of living to the entire family. Today, even with multiple family members employed outside the home, the battle to survive is a daily struggle. Here are some excerpts from the story:

Nearly one in three Americans who grew up middle-class has slipped down the income ladder as an adult, according to a new report by the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Downward mobility is most common among middle-class people who are divorced or separated from their spouses, did not attend college, scored poorly on standardized tests, or used hard drugs, the report says.

People were deemed downwardly mobile if they fell below the 30th percentile in income, if their income rank was 20 or more percentiles below their parents’ rank, or if they earn at least 20 percent less than their parents. The findings do not cover the difficult times that the nation has endured since 2007.


Overall, African American men have a particularly hard time clinging to middle-class status. Thirty-eight percent of black men who grew up middle-class are downwardly mobile, nearly double the rate of white men, the report says. Hispanic men are slightly more likely than white males to fall down the economic ladder, but the difference was not statistically significant.

The irony is that GOP policies will worsen the trend, yet the idiots in the Tea Party support those who in practice - as opposed to their demagoguery - are the enemies of the middle class.

Ninth Circuit: Arizona Same-Sex Partners Entitled to Health Benefits

In a common sense decision, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has temporarily ruled that an Arizona law that stripped same sex couples of partner health care benefits - while, of course leaving them in place of married couples - is unconstitutional under the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution. The ruling will hold until the larger trail on the issue is completed. The law, signed by extremist Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, targeted state employees and was (like all anti-gay measures) aimed at punishing LGBT couples for their failure to conform to conservative Christian moral views on marriage and same sex relationships. Should Arizona appeal the decision, the U. S. Supreme Court could either refuse the appeal or wade into the equal protection issue - something it might well prefer to avoid. Here are highlights from the Tucson Citizen:

Arizona must continue to provide health-care benefits to the partners of gay and lesbian government workers, at least for the time being.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday upheld a temporary injunction from a lower court that blocked a 2009 state law eliminating health-insurance coverage for same-sex partners of state employees from taking effect.

In its unanimous ruling, a three-judge panel of the appellate court noted that the state is not obligated to provide health-care benefits but said denying them to a specific group of employees violates the equal-protection provisions of the U.S. Constitution.

“When a state chooses to provide such benefits, it may not do so in an arbitrary or discriminatory manner that adversely affects particular groups that may be unpopular,” the court stated in its opinion.

It was not immediately clear whether the state would appeal the 9th Circuit ruling. If it does appeal, the state can choose to seek “en banc” review, a decision by the entire 9th Circuit, or it could choose to bypass that step and appeal directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.

When asked about next steps, Brewer spokesman Matthew Benson would say only that the Governor’s Office is “studying the ruling.” But he did question the foundation of the appellate court’s argument.

In its opinion, the court said the state’s policy unfairly impacted gay and lesbian workers because, unlike their heterosexual counterparts, they are not able to legally marry under state law.

More Tuesday Male Beauty

Post Hurricane Reflections and Possible Refittings

As noted in several posts, the repairs and water proofing that we did in 2009 after flooding in the November northeaster worked in terms of avoiding having to rip out water saturated materials and also kept the water levels lower during flooding from Irene. Nonetheless, they did not keep the water as minimized as we had hoped. The result? We are likely looking to installing three battery powered sump pumps to take care of flooding in the future in the lowest areas of the house. The bigger effort - assuming we can pull it off financially - would be to add a third floor to the house and have the main kitchen, dining area and living area on the top floor. We'd benefit from greatly enhanced water views and be free of having to move such extensive amounts of furniture, etc. from the first floor when faced with a hurricane threat.

We will be working on plans and feasibility issues. Conceptually, when completed, the house would look very different with the faux mansard added in 1999 before the boyfriend bought the house stripped off and a two story porch added across a portion of the new front facade and a totally new roof line and an elevator for easy higher floor access from a resale perspective. The first floor would remain largely as is, although the staircase would be reversed in direction and much of the heavy furnishings would be moved to the third floor once completed. In short, the first floor would be turned into more of an upscale recreation/party area with a first floor kitchen (which is already fully in place) for such events. A friend is going to help us see if any government assistance is available so that we can "evacuate" the flood prone portion of the house. A friend who is an architect will be helping with design ideas and layout. I'll keep you advised as things develop.

A Christianist Manifesto’s Call to Arms

I have written a number of times about Christian dominionism and, more frighteningly, its appeals and connections to some of the darlings of the GOP presidential candidate slate, namely Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry. From following the "Christian Right" - which is any thing but right - for over a decade, I continue to believe that too few people appreciate just how successful the dominionists have been in infiltrating more mainstream evangelical groups, some of which have no idea that they are being moved like puppets by the far more extreme dominionists. The far right continues to be working in over drive to minimize the level of influence now enjoyed within the GOP by those who a decade ago would have been viewed as radioactive and certifiably insane. These extremists DO control the GOP to a large extent and, therefore, it is crucial that the larger public understand the clear and present danger the Christianists and dominionist pose to the country. A piece in The New Yorker looks at the true subversive aspect of the Christian dominionists who while wrapping themselves in a flag and clutching a Bible would happily overthrow the U.S. government and replace it with a frightening theocracy. Here are some highlights:of

appreciate Ross Douthat’s partial praise of my recent piece about Michele Bachmann, especially since I led him into debate with a tweet. But when Douthat writes about Francis Schaeffer, an important influence on the Presidential candidate, he misses the mark.

Schaeffer didn’t like the formal melding of church and state, but his exhortation to readers was that Christianity, properly applied, “brings forth not only certain personal results, but also governmental and legal results.” Schaeffer’s big point was that, for too long, American Christians had divided the world into spiritual and material spheres, and that they had applied Christianity only to the former.

He saw an apocalyptic, zero-sum struggle between the Christian world view and what he called the “humanist” world view. In “A Christian Manifesto,” Schaeffer writes: “What we must understand is that the two world views really do bring forth with inevitable certainty not only personal differences, but total differences in regard to society, government, and law. There is no way to mix these two total world views. They are separate entities that cannot be synthesized.”

And our view of final reality—whether it is material-energy, shaped by impersonal chance, or the living God and Creator—will determine our position on every crucial issue we face today. It will determine our views on the value and dignity of people, the base for the kind of life the individual and society lives, the direction law will take, and whether there will be freedom or some form of authoritarian dominance.”

And later in “A Christian Manifesto,” he writes: “It is not too strong to say that we are at war, and there are no neutral parties in the struggle. One either confesses that God is the final authority, or one confesses that Caesar is Lord.”

If Christians were to lose this “war” over world views, the consequences would be catastrophic. Schaeffer wrote that the humanist world view—leave aside the matter that almost no one self-identifies as a “humanist”— was on the cusp of defeating Christianity in America.

Either Christians defeated the humanists and reinstated “God’s written Law” as the “base” in America or we would lose our democracy. He genuinely believed that freedom could not flourish unless biblical law formed the foundation of society.

But Schaeffer believed Christians needed to follow a path of escalating actions, and he left no doubt where those actions led if they were not successful. Indeed, much of “A Christian Manifesto” is concerned with the question of “what to do about it if the window does shut?”

Schaeffer agrees that we have reached the point by which Rutherford argued revolution was justified, he later makes it clear: “It is time we consciously realize that when any office commands what is contrary to God’s Law it abrogates its authority. And our loyalty to the God who gave this law then requires that we make the appropriate response in that situation to such a tyrannical usurping of power. I would emphasize at this point that Samuel Rutherford was not wrong, he was right; it was not only right in the seventeenth century in Scotland where he was right; it was not only in 1776 where he was right: he is right in our century.”

to read “A Christian Manifesto” as only a call for non-violent civil disobedience is to willfully ignore a central argument of the book: that at a certain point—the “bottom line”—the government loses its moral authority, and its overthrow by any means is justified.

That's right. One of the founders and advocates for dominionism advocate for revolution against the government if Christianists principles were driven from controlling civil government. In most circles, this is called treason. Yet the Christianist continue to be treated with kid gloves and are allowed to say and advocate for things that would land the rest of us in prison. It's far past time that this special treatment and privilege end.

Will Obama's Perceived Weakness Cause the GOP to Overreach and Lose 2012?

Based on my rant earlier today, it's no secret that I'm far from happy with the Barack Obama administration and it drives me crazy to watch Obama squander opportunity after opportunity. At the same time, however, the current line up of GOP presidential candidates, most of whom seem to drink Christianist laced poison Kool-Aid in large quantities, scare the Hell out of me. As my youngest daughter remarked today, Michele Bachmann is so whacked out that she comes across as a caricature that would be created by the writers at South Park. Yet she's real and popular with many in the untethered from reality GOP base. Some suspect that Obama's perceived weakness may turn out to be the undoing of the GOP in 2012 as the base is emboldened to demand and nominate a "true believer" who will unelectable in the general election. I agree with part of the argument made in a Bloomberg column from I offer these excerpts:

President Barack Obama has never looked more vulnerable. His poll numbers keep dropping. The economic news is still grim. And his team’s political sense often seems to be missing. . . . . Almost nobody is talking about Obama as a lock for re-election anymore. But maybe the biggest advantage he has is that his weakness is tempting Republicans to take risks with the election.

The more beatable Obama looks, the more the balance for Republican voters will tilt toward ideology and away from electability. That doesn’t just mean they will be more likely to support candidates such as Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain, who will have trouble winning votes from independents and Democrats. It also means the terrain of the primaries will shift: The candidates will place more emphasis on outflanking one another on the right and less on showing they can win in November 2012.

Even if Obama were doing better, the Republican primary would put a heavy weight on ideology. Whenever someone suggests that a candidate can’t win, many conservatives retort that people said that about Reagan, too. (What they forget is that people also said it about Barry Goldwater, and they were right.) And much of the Republican Party has convinced itself that Bush- era compromises bred political failure, a line of thought that makes concerns about electability seem beside the point. Combine these views with the natural inclination of people to think that their ideas are more widely shared than they are, and the result is a process where electability gets short shrift. Obama’s weakness only reinforces this tendency.

Already the Republican primaries have seen candidates take positions that will be hard sells in the fall of next year. Both Bachmann and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, for example, want to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency. . . . . Texas Governor Rick Perry has suggested that Social Security and Medicare are unconstitutional and that they should be replaced by state-run programs. There’s a reason no Republican candidate since 1964 has run on a platform anything like this one on entitlements: Both programs are extremely popular.

In each of these cases, provocative positions have been met by silence from rival candidates. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney hasn’t come out in favor of abolishing the EPA or getting rid of federal entitlement programs, but he hasn’t denounced these ideas or even used them as an argument against the electability of the candidates who have advanced them.

If Republican voters had electability on their minds, they would also want to see the candidates address issues that concern the broader public: how to get wages growing again after years when they stagnated even during periods of growth; and what to replace Obama’s health-care reform with. But the candidates feel no pressure from primary voters to outline plans on those issues, and haven’t done so. Instead, they are focused on issues -- such as the alleged threat of “sharia law” and the heavy share of income taxes paid by the rich -- that are of interest only to the party faithful.

[A] party that cares about electability is looking outward, beyond its members. Today’s Republican Party is more interested in refining its doctrines than gaining converts. It has turned inward.

That is good news for Obama, at a time when he isn’t getting much. The more his political standing falls, the more Republicans will think they are sure to beat him. And the more they think that, the less likely they will be to win.

I agree with the analysis. But I'm not thrilled d by the prospect a nail bitter election in 2012 and worries that the new president might want to intern me and and the boyfriend in a concentration camp.

Tuesday Male Beauty

California Supreme Court to Review Standing Issue in Perry v. Schwarzenegger

Today the California Supreme Court will hold hearings on the issue certified to it by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Perry v. Schwarzenegger of whether or not the proponents of Proposition 8 have standing to appeal the decision rendered by the U.S. District Court that found Proposition 8 to be unconstitutional. As noted on this blog quite some time ago, the federal court precedents for non-governmental entities and organizations having the right to appeal referendum issues is not good. Should the California Supreme Court rule against the Prop 8 supporters on standing, the case would potentially be all but over with the U.S. Supreme Court being able to easily side step any attempted appeal by the religiously motivated Prop 8 hate merchants. Here are some highlights from the Los Angeles Times on today's hearings:

The California Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday on whether conservatives who sponsored Proposition 8 are entitled to appeal last year's federal ruling that overturned the 2008 same-sex marriage ban.

The court's ruling, due 90 days after argument, will determine whether all initiative sponsors in California are legally entitled to defend their measures in state court when the governor and the attorney general refuse.

If the court rules against the initiative backers, then a federal appeals court is more likely to rule that ProtectMarriage.com, the sponsor of Proposition 8, also lacks standing under federal law and "Proposition 8 dies because no one will defend it," said Vikram Amar, UC Davis constitutional law professor.

"Just because someone sponsors an initiative doesn't mean they are good representatives of the voters, because the voters never chose the sponsors," he said.

Gay rights groups want the state high court to deny standing to backers of ballot measures. That could avoid a constitutional showdown on Proposition 8 that gays might lose before the U.S. Supreme Court. The League of Women Voters has urged the California court to deny standing to initiative sponsors, as has Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals asked the California court to clarify whether state law gives initiative backers special status to defend measures in court, but the appeals court won't be bound by what the California court determines.

Still the appeals court could use the state ruling to buttress a finding that Proposition 8's backers also have standing under federal law.

Strict legal rules about who has standing — the right to pursue a case — have ended many high-profile constitutional disputes in federal courts. Federal judges in recent years have embraced the narrow use of standing to limit the kinds of cases that can be brought. Under federal law, a person must have suffered an actual injury, among other requirements, to have standing in court. California courts have been more flexible in granting standing.

If the 9th Circuit determines that ProtectMarriage has standing, a three-judge 9th Circuit panel is likely to overturn Proposition 8 on constitutional grounds, and the case will probably then go to the U.S. Supreme Court. But the U.S. Supreme Court could reject the appeal on grounds of standing, limiting the case's effect to California.

Both Santa Clara's Uelmen and UC Davis' Amar said they would not be surprised if the U.S. Supreme Court ducked the constitutional issues by denying standing to ProtectMarriage and avoiding a ruling that would affect the rest of the country.

Obama's Ratings Sink to New Lows

It would seem that Barack Obama's no strategy re-election strategy is not playing too well with the public. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll indicates that more than 60 percent of those surveyed say they disapprove of the way Obama is handling the economy and the stagnant job market situation. I suspect much of the displeasure comes from the perception that Obama is doing nothing - something that grows from his refusal to act as a leader, his failure to utilize the bully pulpit of the presidency, and his overall appearance of in effectiveness. In 2008, people voted for a man that wanted to be a leader and instead they got the follower-in-chief. Here are highlights from the Washington Post on the poll findings:

Public pessimism about the direction of the country has jumped to its highest level in nearly three years, erasing the sense of hope that followed President Obama’s inauguration and pushing his approval ratings to a record low, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

More than 60 percent of those surveyed say they disapprove of the way the president is handling the economy and, what has become issue No. 1, the stagnant jobs situation. Just 43 percent now approve of the job he is doing overall, a new career low; 53 percent disapprove, a new high.

The urgency for Obama to act is driven not just by the most recent unemployment report, which on Friday showed no job growth in August and the unemployment rate stuck at 9.1 percent, but also by the depth of the political hole in which the president finds himself. Even more than two-thirds of those who voted for Obama say things are badly off course.

[C]urrent trends are highly unfavorable for the president. By 2 to 1, more Americans now say the administration’s economic policies are making the economy worse rather than better. The number who say those policies have helped has been chopped in half since the start of the year. The percentage of Americans disapproving of how Obama is doing when it comes to creating jobs spiked 10 percentage points higher since July.

Of the more than six in 10 who now disapprove of Obama’s work on jobs and the economy, nearly half of all Americans “strongly” disapprove.

Things are also bad for Obama when Americans are asked a version of the famous “are you better off today” question that Reagan used to bludgeon Jimmy Carter on his way to defeating Carter in 1980. By better than 2 to 1, more say they are not as well off financially as they were at the start of Obama’s term.

The sense of deflation is particularly apparent among Democrats, with nearly two-thirds saying things are pretty seriously off on the wrong track. The percentage of Democrats saying things are headed in the right direction has cratered from 60 percent at the start of the year to 32 percent now.

Among political independents — a prime target of Obama’s new outreach — 78 percent see the country as off-kilter.

Given Obama's lack of leadership and constant caving to the GOP I frankly do not see how he turns around the current free fall in the polls. That said, the prospect of a GOP president from the current candidate field scares the daylights out of me.

More Monday Male Beauty

Top Bachmann Campaign Staff Are Fleeing

It's no secret that I want to see Michele Bachmann's GOP presidential campaign effort crash and burn (hopefully, Rick Perry will follow a similar downward trajectory soon). Thus, I am hardly saddened to hear that Bachmann seems to having an exodus of top advisers from her campaign. Admittedly, things can change, but one can only hope that Bachmann's campaign will ultimately transform itself into a irreversible death spiral. The woman is toxic and an idiot. Politico looks at Bachmann's staffing problems. Here are some highlights:

On the heels of our report that Michele Bachmann campaign manager Ed Rollins is stepping back into an advisory role, citing health concerns, comes word that his deputy, David Polyansky, is leaving the campaign.

"I wish Michele nothing but the best, and anyone who underestimates her as a candidate does so at their own peril," Polyansky told POLITICO.

But a GOP source familiar with the situation said that Polyansky had "strategic differences on the path forward" with the candidate, who has struggled to gain traction in the last few weeks.

Bachmann is known for having had an unusually large number of staffers from her congressional office depart in a short time frame, although a campaign spokeswoman said they'd always planned on restructuring.

Sarah Palin Slams Northern Virginia

Resident village idiot of the Republican Party, Sarah Palin attacked Northern Virginia in one of her anti-government diatribes. In Palin's distorted world view, Northern Virginia represents the image of corrupt government lobbyists who suck off the teat of government programs. The problem, of course, is that Palin ignores the fact that many of the groups firmly based in Northern Virginia are some of the foulest far right/Christianist organization s which run the gamut of Chuck Colson's so-called prison ministry to the Arlington Group, to Mike Farris' lunatic Patrick Henry University, to others who make up the Who's Who of the Christian Right. And lest we forget, Northern Virginia is home to Republican extremists like Ken Cuccinelli and the always foul Del. Bob Marshall who wants to force LGBT citizens from Virginia. One can only assume that Palin - not that it's a surprise - has failed to do her homework before shooting off her mouth. Blue Virginia looks at Palin's verbal diarrhea. Here are some highlights:

It might be Labor Day. But Tim Kaine's campaign should be hard at work preparing for a press conference tomorrow, calling out George Allen and the VA GOP as to whether they agree with the 2008 Republican VP nominee's attack on the good people of Northern Virginia. Mrs Palin's belittling of the "permanent political class" got a lot of headlines over the weekend.

I went on her PAC's web site to get the text. As the headline stories reported, the former Alaska Governor did indeed deliver a scathing condemnation of the political class. That she happens to be one of the highest paid members of this posse - did she think we thought the FOX political gig was for free, not to mention her two political books and paid speeches - is of course amusing.

She took her Republican brand of criticism much farther however. This is what she said, the text taken from her PAC's web site, defining the "permanent political class" as opposed to the "rest of America" in a deep economic morass. No, they don't feel the same urgency that we do. But why should they? For them business is good: business is very good. Seven of the ten wealthiest suburbs are suburbs of Washington, D.C. Polls there actually - and usually I say polls, nah, they're for strippers and cross country skiers - but polls in those parts actually show that some people there believe that the economy has actually improved. See, there may not be a recession in Georgetown, but there is in the rest of America.

Palin is telling the GOP to lock and load against a bigger target, to run the class warfare attack against residents of Northern Virginia (Maryland commuters and Metro riders too), since it is easy to make them villains in the eyes of the rest of the country.

But the most troubling aspect of her Saturday speech is this: here we are, 48 hours later, and no Virginia Republican has stepped forward to call her out over this type of anti-Virginia demogoguery politics.

Does George Allen actually think he can win in NOVA by staying silent about this type of language? How does Governor McDonnell believe his remaining silent helps his hopes for getting on the GOP ticket? Cut to the 2012 bottom line: By remaining silent in the face of this latest Palinism, the VA GOP has given the VA Democratic Party a huge opening.

Sarah Palin lost Virginia in 2008 in part due to a big loss in NOVA. She is not the person the VA GOP wants to have to defend in NOVA. Bottom line: VA Democrats need to make the VA GOP take a clear and definitive position on the Palin attack of NOVA. Hello: We have some key state Senate races in NOVA in 60 days. Is anyone at DPVA paying attention?

In all candor, someone needs to call out Sarah Palin for her anti-Virginia comments. As note previously, some of the biggest hogs lined up at the government trough are Republicans and far right politicians, groups and "foundations." They condemn "big government" while they suck up every available penny of government largess - e.g., Marcus Bachmann sucking up Medicare funds for his "ex-gay" therapy or Michele Bachmann's family sucking up agricultural subsidies. These folks talk a good game until one looks at the real fact. Once you know the truth it soon becomes apparent that they are lying.

Monday Male Beauty

Irish Times Slams Vatican Rebuke to Ireland

I wrote last week about the Vatican's disingenuous rebuke to the government of Ireland for its on point and honest language in terms of the Vatican's culpability in the still exploding sexual abuse scandal in a country that once was considered a bastion of Catholicism. The Vatican sharply denied that it had discretely advised bishops that they could ignore sex abuse reporting requirements and tried to feign ignorance of the musical chairs like policies of reappointing predator priests to one unsuspecting parish after another. Both the head of Ireland's labor party and the Irish Times have defended the governments labeling of Vatican culpability and fired back additional salvos at Rome. The Vatican continues to see itself as above the law and hopefully Rome's unbelievable arrogance will convince still more Irish Catholics to vote with their feet and leave the Church. Here are highlights from the Irish Times main editorial:

THE VATICAN in its statement responding to criticism from the Taoiseach acknowledges the “anger, confusion and sadness” of the faithful in Ireland. Unfortunately, its statement shows that it is still struggling to engage with those feelings. There are a few points of detail on which the Vatican’s response is convincing.

Irish Catholics, and citizens in general, had a right to expect much more from an institution that sets itself up as the ultimate arbiter of spiritual and moral truth than some effective debating points. The most notable aspect of the Vatican statement is what it does not contain – any substantial reflection on the Cloyne report itself. While declaring itself “sorry and ashamed” for the suffering of victims, it expresses neither sorrow nor shame for the systematic covering up of abuse by church authorities.

There is no sense in the document of the moral urgency of ending, once and for all, a corrupt culture of placing the interests of the church as an institution before the welfare of children. In this regard, the Vatican’s statement is more a manifestation of the problem than a response to it.

It is hard to avoid the sense that the Vatican is still more concerned with avoiding any admission of legal responsibility than with the anger, confusion and sadness of the faithful. To a moral and spiritual crisis, it has given only a bureaucratic, self-serving and legalistic response.

As for the reaction of the Labor Party to the Vatican's dissembling response, here are highlights from another Irish Times article:

Speaking while attending a Labour parliamentary party meeting in Co Carlow, Eamon Gilmore said the real issue was the Catholic Church did not deal effectively with paedophile priests.

“There was the most horrific sexual abuse of children perpetrated by clerics. The Catholic Church did not deal with that as it should have dealt with it. Let’s not be distracted. Let’s not miss the point - no less charges were made. The Taoiseach and the Government stand over what was said,” the Minister for Foreign Affairs said.

The Government is to discuss the Vatican’s weekend response to the Cloyne report at its Cabinet meeting this week, although there was no indication yesterday it was backing down on its criticism of the Holy See.

“There was the most horrific sexual abuse of children perpetrated by clerics. The Catholic Church did not deal with that as it should have dealt with it. Let’s not be distracted. Let’s not miss the point - no less charges were made. The Taoiseach and the Government stand over what was said,” the Minister for Foreign Affairs said.

The Government is to discuss the Vatican’s weekend response to the Cloyne report at its Cabinet meeting this week, although there was no indication yesterday it was backing down on its criticism of the Holy See.

Mr Gilmore today said the Government was not going to be dragged into a prolonged semantic debate over the use of language. “As a Government we are entitled to and we will stand by the people who are victims in those cases, their families and we will ensure that that kind of abuse will not happen again,” the Tánaiste said.

Mr Gilmore said the Government was determined to press ahead with tough new child protection measures, including making it an offence to withhold information about crimes against children and introducing new vetting to allow “soft information” transfers.

I continue to believe that the only way to force the Vatican to clean its cesspool like hierarchy is for civil governments to start imprisoning bishops and cardinals implicated in knowingly abetting and covering up for predator priest.

Did Osama Bin Laden Win?

In many ways the last decade has been a nightmare - eight years of misrule under Chimperator Bush and Emperor Palpatine Cheney, an endless war in the Middle East that has played no small role in bankrupting the nation, growing Christianist extremism, the use of torture as approved policy by the military and intelligence services, and a level of domestic surveillance most of us never thought possible in America. And what helped usher all of this in? Andrew Sullivan makes the case that it was 9/11. Rather than being destroyed from an outside force, Bin Laden lit the fuse to set America on a course to destroy itself from within. And unfortunately, the nation's leadership fell for the bait. Bin Laden may not have won, but the damage he caused the USA to inflict upon itself will be long lasting, especially if the GOP should win the White House in 2012 and gain control of Congress. Obviously, things could still change and lead to a different ending, but at present, Sullivan seems to be on to something. Here are highlights from his column:

We often talk about terror in terms of the terrorist. We do so less in terms of the terrorized. But it was how this act changed those of us who were bystanders that made this event more awful than a mere mass murder. It was mass murder as theater and as threat.

We need to understand that 9/11 worked. It worked as a tactic to induce American self-destruction, even if it failed spectacularly as a strategy to advance Al Qaeda—and its heretical message of suicidal warfare—across the globe. It worked because this was not just another terror attack.

The simplicity of the plot made it even scarier. On that day the West’s own airplanes, which had taken off peacefully, were transformed into makeshift weapons of mass destruction; the only actual weapons deployed were a handful of box cutters you could find in any office-supply store. The rest was merely human will and the advantage of surprise. More to the point, the people murdered that day, charred in the remains of the towers or jumping from windows in the sky only to thud onto the pavement below, had only that morning been just like us: settled complacently in airline seats or beginning their day at the office.

Nobody seemed to know if this was the end or just the beginning. But what we did know was that only one word really sufficed to define the scale and gravity of what had taken place: war. And in that very formulation, in the depths of our psyches and souls, we took the bait. The bait was meant to entice the United States into ruinous, polarizing religious warfare against the Muslim world, so that the Islamist fringe could seize power in failing Muslim and Arab dictatorships. The 9/11 attacks were conceived as a way to radicalize a young Muslim population through a ginned-up war of civilization against the Great Satan on the Islamist home turf of Afghanistan and, then, Iraq. It looks obvious now.

As mysterious envelopes containing anthrax began to appear in mailboxes, as our airports shut down and reopened as police states, as terror-advisory color codes were produced, as the vast new bureaucratic behemoth of the Department of Homeland Security was set up, as a system of torture prisons (beginning with Guantánamo Bay) was constructed ... many concluded the threat must be grave enough to justify shredding some of the Constitution’s noblest principles and precedents.

Hence the turn to Iraq. Without the psychic terror of 9/11, and its swamping of reason in our frontal cortex, the Iraq War would never have happened. In our panic, fear kept spiraling upward. . . . . a majority of Americans who supported the war that handed bin Laden exactly what he wanted.

What he wanted, it seems obvious now, was central relevance to the power shifts in the Middle East, and U.S. troops in lands they could never understand and never fully win over. History has proved him right on that. Even the finest soldiers in the world, with the finest leadership in the world, were not capable of miracles.

The fiscal costs of our actions are one reason we find ourselves today in a lost, jobless, debt-driven decade. About $2.6 trillion was spent in a decade of war—approaching some of the most ambitious spending cuts now being proposed. The human cost—in lives, limbs, and loves—is incalculable. And not just for us. Millions of Iraqis lived through the closest human equivalent to hell for years as the incompetent occupation tore Iraq apart.

The approval of sickening torture techniques by the president and vice president destroyed American moral standing in the world, eviscerated our soft power, and became the prime recruitment tool for the Islamist thugs. Neoconservatives alone can call this “victory.”

So did bin Laden succeed? Not at all. On most fronts, he spectacularly failed—down to the amazing end to his pathetic, deranged life. . . . . From the streets of Tehran to Cairo, it appears that the young Muslim generation does not want to withdraw from the modern world into a cultural and intellectual blind alley forever. They are too busy on Twitter. That’s why after 9/11, Al Qaeda saw its popularity in the Arab world plummet, resuscitated only by American floundering in a newly anarchic Iraq.

It’s time we fessed up: the madmen of 9/11 were not the Soviets; they were not the Nazis. If we had seen them in that calm perspective a decade ago, we would be living in a very different America today. Bin Laden and his henchmen failed, in other words. But our own fear won. Fear stopped us, overwhelmed us, as our ra-tion-al-ity deserted us.

[W]e need to admit that our response was close to fatal. A bankrupted America that tortured innocents and disregarded its own Constitution is barely recognizable as America. We have survived and endured as a civilization because we have recognized our errors and corrected most of them. That capacity is proof that our democracy still lives. But fear is a tougher enemy than mere mistakes. It can only be overcome by hope. And hope is a choice, not a fate. Until we decide to grasp hope again, the war will live on.

Career GOP Staffer - The Party Is Full of Lunatics

As a one time Republican from a family of long time Republicans, I note frequently the mental illness like state that has over taken the Republican Party. Ignorance is now celebrated, self-centered partisanship trumps the interests of the nation, and individuals who not too many years ago would have been viewed as lunatics are potentially viable presidential candidates by the party base. Add to that the reality that the GOP is now a de facto sectarian party and it adds up to a truly toxic brew. I'm not the only one who fled the GOP because of the sickness - and that's what it is - that has turned a once rational and respectable political party into a veritable insane asylum. Mike Lofgren, a retired 28 years veteran GOP Congressional staffer, has a piece on TruthOut.org that explains why he has now fled the GOP like so many others. It is a lengthy piece and I urge all readers to look at his full discussion of the three current tenants of the GOP. Here are some excerpts:

Both parties are rotten - how could they not be, given the complete infestation of the political system by corporate money on a scale that now requires a presidential candidate to raise upwards of a billion dollars to be competitive in the general election? Both parties are captives to corporate loot.

But both parties are not rotten in quite the same way. The Democrats have their share of machine politicians, careerists, corporate bagmen, egomaniacs and kooks. Nothing, however, quite matches the modern GOP.

To those millions of Americans who have finally begun paying attention to politics and watched with exasperation the tragicomedy of the debt ceiling extension, it may have come as a shock that the Republican Party is so full of lunatics. To be sure, the party, like any political party on earth, has always had its share of crackpots . . .

But the crackpot outliers of two decades ago have become the vital center today: Steve King, Michele Bachman (now a leading presidential candidate as well), Paul Broun, Patrick McHenry, Virginia Foxx, Louie Gohmert, Allen West. The Congressional directory now reads like a casebook of lunacy.

It was this cast of characters and the pernicious ideas they represent that impelled me to end a nearly 30-year career as a professional staff member on Capitol Hill.

The debt ceiling extension is not the only example of this sort of political terrorism. Republicans were willing to lay off 4,000 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employees, 70,000 private construction workers and let FAA safety inspectors work without pay, in fact, forcing them to pay for their own work-related travel - how prudent is that? - in order to strong arm some union-busting provisions into the FAA reauthorization.

It should have been evident to clear-eyed observers that the Republican Party is becoming less and less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and becoming more like an apocalyptic cult, or one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century Europe. This trend has several implications, none of them pleasant.

John P. Judis sums up the modern GOP this way: "Over the last four decades, the Republican Party has transformed from a loyal opposition into an insurrectionary party that flouts the law when it is in the majority and threatens disorder when it is the minority. . . . If there is an earlier American precedent for today's Republican Party, it is the antebellum Southern Democrats of John Calhoun who threatened to nullify, or disregard, federal legislation they objected to and who later led the fight to secede from the union over slavery."

The media are also complicit in this phenomenon. Ever since the bifurcation of electronic media into a more or less respectable "hard news" segment and a rabidly ideological talk radio and cable TV political propaganda arm, the "respectable" media have been terrified of any criticism for perceived bias. Hence, they hew to the practice of false evenhandedness.

Undermining Americans' belief in their own institutions of self-government remains a prime GOP electoral strategy. But if this technique falls short of producing Karl Rove's dream of 30 years of unchallengeable one-party rule (as all such techniques always fall short of achieving the angry and embittered true believer's New Jerusalem), there are other even less savory techniques upon which to fall back. Ever since Republicans captured the majority in a number of state legislatures last November, they have systematically attempted to make it more difficult to vote: by onerous voter ID requirements

This legislative assault is moving in a diametrically opposed direction to 200 years of American history, when the arrow of progress pointed toward more political participation by more citizens. Republicans are among the most shrill in self-righteously lecturing other countries about the wonders of democracy; exporting democracy (albeit at the barrel of a gun) to the Middle East was a signature policy of the Bush administration. But domestically, they don't want those people voting.

You can probably guess who those people are. Above all, anyone not likely to vote Republican. As Sarah Palin would imply, the people who are not Real Americans. Racial minorities. Immigrants. Muslims. Gays. Intellectuals. Basically, anyone who doesn't look, think, or talk like the GOP base. This must account, at least to some degree, for their extraordinarily vitriolic hatred of President Obama.

Among the GOP base, there is constant harping about somebody else, some "other," who is deliberately, assiduously and with malice aforethought subverting the Good, the True and the Beautiful: Subversives. Commies. Socialists. Ragheads. Secular humanists. Blacks. Fags. Feminazis. The list may change with the political needs of the moment, but they always seem to need a scapegoat to hate and fear.

[T]he faux-populist wing of the party, knowing the mental compartmentalization that occurs in most low-information voters, played on the fears of that same white working class to focus their anger on scapegoats that do no damage to corporations' bottom lines: instead of raising the minimum wage, let's build a wall on the Southern border (then hire a defense contractor to incompetently manage it). Instead of predatory bankers, it's evil Muslims. Or evil gays. Or evil abortionists.

How do they manage to do this? Because Democrats ceded the field. Above all, they do not understand language. Their initiatives are posed in impenetrable policy-speak: . . . It was not always thus. It would have been hard to find an uneducated farmer during the depression of the 1890s who did not have a very accurate idea about exactly which economic interests were shafting him. An unemployed worker in a breadline in 1932 would have felt little gratitude to the Rockefellers or the Mellons. But that is not the case in the present economic crisis.

Thus far, I have concentrated on Republican tactics, rather than Republican beliefs, but the tactics themselves are important indicators of an absolutist, authoritarian mindset that is increasingly hostile to the democratic values of reason, compromise and conciliation.

As for what they really believe, the Republican Party of 2011 believes in three principal tenets I have laid out below. The rest of their platform one may safely dismiss as window dressing:

1. The GOP cares solely and exclusively about its rich contributors. The party has built a whole catechism on the protection and further enrichment of America's plutocracy.

2. They worship at the altar of Mars. While the me-too Democrats have set a horrible example of keeping up with the Joneses with respect to waging wars, they can never match GOP stalwarts such as John McCain or Lindsey Graham in their sheer, libidinous enthusiasm for invading other countries.

3. Give me that old time religion. Pandering to fundamentalism is a full-time vocation in the GOP. Beginning in the 1970s, religious cranks ceased simply to be a minor public nuisance in this country and grew into the major element of the Republican rank and file. Pat Robertson's strong showing in the 1988 Iowa Caucus signaled the gradual merger of politics and religion in the party. The results are all around us: if the American people poll more like Iranians or Nigerians than Europeans or Canadians on questions of evolution versus creationism, scriptural inerrancy, the existence of angels and demons, and so forth, that result is due to the rise of the religious right, its insertion into the public sphere by the Republican Party and the consequent normalizing of formerly reactionary or quaint beliefs. Also around us is a prevailing anti-intellectualism and hostility to science; it is this group that defines "low-information voter" - or, perhaps, "misinformation voter."

It is my view that the rise of politicized religious fundamentalism (which is a subset of the decline of rational problem solving in America) may have been the key ingredient of the takeover of the Republican Party. For politicized religion provides a substrate of beliefs that rationalizes - at least in the minds of followers - all three of the GOP's main tenets.

Some liberal writers have opined that the different socio-economic perspectives separating the "business" wing of the GOP and the religious right make it an unstable coalition that could crack. I am not so sure. There is no fundamental disagreement on which direction the two factions want to take the country, merely how far in that direction they want to take it. The plutocrats would drag us back to the Gilded Age, the theocrats to the Salem witch trials.

It is this broad and ever-widening gulf between the traditional Republicanism of an Eisenhower and the quasi-totalitarian cult of a Michele Bachmann that impelled my departure from Capitol Hill. . . . . I left because I was appalled at the headlong rush of Republicans, like Gadarene swine, to embrace policies that are deeply damaging to this country's future; and contemptuous of the feckless, craven incompetence of Democrats in their half-hearted attempts to stop them.

If Republicans have perfected a new form of politics that is successful electorally at the same time that it unleashes major policy disasters, it means twilight both for the democratic process and America's status as the world's leading power.

Sadly, I believe the analysis is correct and that if something isn't done to stop the increasingly dangerous lunatics now in control in the GOP, the future of this country does not look promising either economically for most citizens or in terms of sustained personal freedoms.

More Sunday Male Beauty

The American Psychological Association Slams Rick Santorum

Delusional GOP presidential candidate - and likely self-loathing closeted gay given the level of his anti-gay hysteria - recently claimed that there was no legitimate scientific evidence that sexual orientation was immutable and not something changeable. The "frothy mix" just cannot abide the fact that there are well adjusted LGBT citizens who have accepted themselves for who God/the creator made them to be and that legitimate mental health and medical associations are aligned firmly against his dishonest anti-gay propaganda. No doubt, Santorum cannot to stand countenance the realization that he's lived his life as a lie and that not matter what he claims or does, sexual orientation does not change. Interestingly, the American Psychological Association did not let Santorum's lies and propaganda go unchallenged. Think Progress has these highlights on the APA's response to the "froth mix":

Earlier this week, Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum told students at his alma mater, Pennsylvania State University, that the American Psychological Association’s support for marriage equality and same-sex families is immaterial. He suggested the APA is made up only of people who support what the APA believes, and that the organization’s statements are “not evidence of benefit to society.”

Here’s how APA spokeswoman Kim Mills responded:


MILLS: The American Psychological Association’s position in support of same-sex marriage is based on a body of empirical research concerning sexual orientation and marriage. APA believes that it is unfair and discriminatory to deny same-sex couples legal access to civil marriage and all its attendant benefits, rights and privileges.

Indeed, the various resolutions and amicus briefs APA has issued on behalf of marriage equality, same-sex couples, and their children cite multitudes of studies that inform their conclusions. It is unknown whether the former senator read any of APA’s publications or the decades of research that inform them before dismissing its 154,000 members for having a “point of view.”

Part of me could almost - and almost is the operative word - feel sorry for Santorum. He obviously has deep seated psychological issues that require serious mental health intervention. But he's such a lying ass*ole that I find it hard to muster any real sympathy. Santorum has chosen to embrace ignorance and bigotry of his own free will and/or as a route for self-promotion. He cares nothing about the harm he does to others and he truly ignores Christ's Gospel message.

Why Are the Number of Non-Religious Americans Growing?

I've written about the question raised in the title of this post before and, in my view, much of the ever increasing number of Americans stems from the increasingly negative connotation the term "Christian" has in society based on the toxicity of conservative Christianity which seems best defined by who is hated - i.e., almost everyone - and ties to the Tea Party which views lower class and unfortunate citizens as disposable. Because of this foul image, many who had slipped away for active church involvement do not want to be associated with religion whatsoever. I'll admit, when I encounter someone who makes a point of proclaiming that they are a Christian, the first thoughts that come to my mind are likely to be that the person must be an extremist, bigot or both. Yes, there are some exceptions, but increasingly, knowing that someone is a Christian is typically a turn off for me, especially since it seems to be only the ultra conservative intolerant ones who seem most driven to make sure they announce their religiosity to you. An article in Science & Religion Today makes the connection between the image of increasingly negative image of the Christian Right and the surge in the number of Americans disclaiming any religious affiliation. Here are some highlights:

Why Are Americans Becoming More Willing to Say They Don’t Belong to a Religious Tradition? . . . . One thing that is interesting about this is that the proportion of Americans who claim no religious affiliation has been rising for a long time. In the 1950s, only 3 percent of Americans said they had no religion affiliation. Today, it’s about 18 percent. This increase probably reflects a growing willingness among the least religious people to say that they have no religion as well as a decline in meaningful attachments to religious traditions.

But it hasn’t been going up in a straight line. The trend seems to have accelerated since 1990 ; it has gone up faster from 1990 to today than it did from 1950 to 1990. The question is: Why? What happened in the 1990s that changed the rate of increase?

I]t is part of the reaction to the religious right’s rising visibility in the 1980s. That is, before 1990, people who were raised, say, Catholic or Baptist, but were socially and politically liberal and already religiously inactive, would still be comfortable enough with their religious background to tell a pollster they were Catholic or Baptist. And then they saw all this conservative politics happening in the name of religion, in the name of their own religion maybe, and said, “You know what, I’m not that.” It pushed them across the line. They were less comfortable affiliating with the religion in which they were raised. Now, they are more likely to respond to a religious preference question by saying “none” because that is a way to say, “I’m not like them.”

Another aspect of the trend is that there’s a big generational component, meaning younger people are more likely than older people to say they have no religion. And each successive generation seems a little more likely to say that than the one before. So it’s not just people who used to say they had some religion who stopped saying it; it’s that young people today are saying they have no religion at higher rates than young people before them.

[O]ver decades, more and more people are saying “none” when asked about their religious preference. It’s still a minority. It’s still under 20 percent. But it’s increasing.

Given the trend lines, one has to again wonder why the GOP is on a long term basis putting all of its eggs in the baskets of a demographic group - i.e., aging white far right Christians - when (a) the Hispanic population is mushrooming and (b) the percentage of voters who identify with no organized religion is surging. Long term, it seems a form of political suicide. But given the present insanity of the GOP, perhaps the ultimate death of the party as its base literally dies off would be a significant positive for the USA.

Sunday Male Beauty