Republican: Voter ID Laws Are ‘Gonna Allow Governor Romney To Win’

Even though there is virtually no data to support the GOP claim that voter fraud is a problem, GOP controlled legislatures - including the Virginia General Assembly - have been aggressively passing voter ID laws to fight the non-existent problem.  Now, one GOP Congressman has been honest enough to state what the real goal of these laws has always been: diminish minority voting so that the GOP candidates - particularly Mitt Romney - have a better chance of winning.  If you're black, Hispanic or some other non-white race, they simply do not want you voting.  Think Progress looks at this candid confession by Pennsylvania Republican House Leader Mike Turzai (pictured at left).  Here are highlights:

This weekend, Pennsylvania Republican House Leader Mike Turzai (R-PA) finally admitted what so many have speculated: Voter identification efforts are meant to suppress Democratic votes in this year’s election. 

At the Republican State Committee meeting, Turzai took the stage and let slip the truth about why Republicans are so insistent on voter identification efforts — it will win Romney the election, he said:

“We are focused on making sure that we meet our obligations that we’ve talked about for years,” said Turzai in a speech to committee members Saturday. He mentioned the law among a laundry list of accomplishments made by the GOP-run legislature.

“Pro-Second Amendment? The Castle Doctrine, it’s done. First pro-life legislation – abortion facility regulations – in 22 years, done. Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done.”

Voter identification efforts disproportionately affect low-income voters of color, a typically Democratic demographic. Despite insistence by Republicans that the efforts are needed to prevent misconduct on election day, voter fraud is less likely than being hit by lighting. 

Marco Rubio Releases First Communion Certificate to QuellGOP Base Attacks

In yet another sign that the Republican Party is becoming a Christianist sectarian party not the least bit tethered to objective reality, Florida Senator Marco Rubio apparently felt compelled to release a copy of his Roman Catholic First Communion Certificate to counter claims in an unauthorized biography that he was actually a Mormon and, therefore, not really a Christian and by default, not worthy of support by the Bible beater crowd.  It's lunacy, but welcome to today's GOP.  Here are excerpts from BuzzFeed: 

Senator Marco Rubio's staff is disputing a section of a new biography that suggests that Rubio, as a boy, was a Mormon until the family returned to Miami.

A Rubio spokesman sends over a document to back up the Senator's recollection, is that he returned to the Catholic Church while his family still lived in Las Vegas. The document shows Rubio was baptized into the Catholic Church as a baby in 1971, and given first communion at age 13 in December of 1984.

“The author incorrectly claims that Senator Rubio returned to the Catholic Church after the family moved to Miami and suggests the ‘exact date of their return is in dispute’," spokesman Alex Conant said in an email of the new book, Manuel Roig Franza's "The Rise of Marco Rubio." "In fact, Marco entered preparation courses for communion in 1983 and it is a documentable fact that he received his first communion in Las Vegas on Christmas Day 1984 before the family returned to Miami the next year.”

Mitt Romney: A Man of Falsehoods

His own campaign has admitted that Mitt Romney is like an old time Etch A Sketch that keeps being erased and reformatted. And each time this happens, what Romney supposedly believes in changes. Moreover, he tries to act like he either never made his prior statements or claims a conversion of opinion that seems to fluctuate depending on the make up of the crowd being addressed. One is left wondering what, if anything other than his own advancement, does the man believe in? Is there any position he won't change like a chameleon? A column in the Washington Post looks at this phenomenon and calls Romney out for his willingness to lie about just about anything and everything. Here are highlights:

Among the attributes I most envy in a public man (or woman) is the ability to lie. If that ability is coupled with no sense of humor, you have the sort of man who can be a successful football coach, a CEO or, when you come right down to it, a presidential candidate. Such a man is Mitt Romney.

Time and time again, Romney has been called a liar during this campaign. (The various fact-checking organizations have had to work overtime on him alone.) A significant moment, sure to surface in the general election campaign, came during a debate held in New Hampshire in January. David Gregory, the host of “Meet the Press,” turned to Newt Gingrich and said, “You have agreed with the characterization that Governor Romney is a liar. Look at him now. Do you stand by that claim?” Gingrich did not flinch. “Sure, governor,” he started off, and then accused Romney of running ads that were not true and, moreover, pretending he knew nothing about them.

I admire a smooth liar, and Romney is among the best. His technique is to explain — that bit about not knowing what was in the ads — and then counterattack. He maintains the bulletproof demeanor of a man who is barely suffering fools, in this case Gingrich. His message is not so much what he says, but what he is: You cannot touch me. I have the organization and the money. Especially the money. (Even the hair.) You’re a loser.

There are those who maintain that President Obama, too, is a liar. . . . But where Romney is different is that he is not honest about himself. He could, as he did just recently, stand before the National Rifle Association as if he were, in spirit as well as membership, one of them. In body language, in the blinking of the eyes, in the nonexistent pounding pulse, there was not the tiniest suggestion that here was a man who just as confidently once embodied the anti-gun ethic of Massachusetts . . . he tore into Obama for the (nonexistent) threat the president posed to Second Amendment rights — a false accusation from a false champion.

[W]hat his career has given him is the businessman’s concept of self — that what he does is not who he is. This is what enables the slumlord to be a charitable man. This is what enables the corporate raider to endow his university. Business is business. It’s what you do. It is not who you are. Lying isn’t a sin. It’s a business plan.

We definitely do not need such an unapologetic liar in the White House.

The 5 Worst Things About The House GOP’s Budget

While I realize that the GOP base has gone basically insane and is principally comprised of religious extremist Christiansts and ignorant Tea Party followers, it continues to amaze me that no one in the GOP congressional ranks has managed to figure out that no one is doing more to insure Barack Obama's re-election than the GOP itself. Between the disastrous series of debates and self-destructing primary battles, the GOP presidential nominees have engaged in incessant destruction of the GOP brand. Now, the GOP House Budget Committee has released its proposed budget plan which some news outlets have described as Christmas in March for Democrats. Yes, I agree that budget deficits must be reined in. But that doesn't mean that average Americans should be punished while the wealthy reap huge benefits. Think Progress looks at the latest phase in the GOP plan for self-destruction. Here are highlights:

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) unveiled the House GOP’s new budget this morning, painting it as a sensible plan to reform the nation’s tax code and reduce the debt while maintaining entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Yet again, however, Ryan and the GOP have the social safety net and Medicare in their sights, and yet again, they’re attempting to pass the cost of massive tax breaks for corporations and the rich off to middle and lower-income Americans.

Here are the five worst things about Ryan’s budget:

1. SENIORS WOULD PAY MORE FOR HEALTH CARE: Beginning 2023, the guaranteed Medicare benefit would be transformed into a government-financed “premium support” system. Seniors currently under the age of 55 could use their government contribution to purchase insurance from an exchange of private plans or traditional fee-for-service Medicare. But the budget does not take sufficient precautions to prevent insurers from cherry-picking the the healthiest beneficiaries from traditional Medicare and leaving sicker applicants to the government. As a result, traditional Medicare costs could skyrocket, forcing even more seniors out of the government program. . . . . And since the budget would scale back or eliminate other coverage options, hundreds of thousands of seniors would become uninsured.

2. ELDERLY AND DISABLED WOULD LOSE MEDICAID COVERAGE: The budget would eliminate the exiting matching-grant financing structure of Medicaid and would instead give each state a pre-determined block grant that does not keep up with actual health care spending. This would shift some of the burden of Medicaid’s growing costs to the states, forcing them to — in the words of the CBO — make cutbacks that “involve reduced eligibility for Medicaid and CHIP, coverage of fewer services, lower payments to providers, or increased cost sharing by beneficiaries—all of which would reduce access to care.”

3. THIRTY MILLION AMERICANS WOULD LOSE HEALTH COVERAGE: The budget repeals the Affordable Care Act’s requirement to purchase health insurance coverage, the establishment of health insurance exchanges and the provision of subsidies for lower-income Americans, the expansion of the Medicaid program, tax credits for small businesses that provide insurance coverage. As a result, more than 30 million Americans would lose coverage and the budget would eliminate the new law’s consumer protections, which have already benefited tens of millions of Americans.

4. CORPORATIONS AND THE RICH WOULD GET A $3 TRILLION TAX CUT: By repealing the Alternative Minimum Tax and the investment taxes in the Affordable Care Act and lowering the top income tax rate to 25 percent, the Ryan budget provides the wealthiest Americans with $2 trillion in tax breaks. By lowering the top corporate tax rate and allowing corporations to return profits made overseas to the United States at no cost, he gives corporations more than $1 trillion in tax breaks.

5. DEFENSE BUDGET WOULD GET A BOOST, WHILE THE SAFETY NET IS CUT: The Ryan budget protects defense spending from automatic cuts agreed to in last year’s debt deal, then boosts defense spending to $554 billion in 2013 — $8 billion more than agreed upon in the deal. At the same time, it asks six Congressional committees to find $261 billion in cuts. That includes $33.2 billion from the Agriculture Committee, meaning food stamps and other social safety net programs are likely to face cuts, all while the Pentagon remains untouched.

Yes, the GOP seems Hell bent on protecting the rich while throwing everyone else under the bus.

When Will the GOP Face a Reckoning On Marriage Equality?

Andrew Sullivan has written on why marriage equality should be a conservative goal - and I have done the same in a VEER Magazine column - because of the stability and benefits that flow not only to the couples involved, but also to their families and the larger community. Despite this, the GOP continues to pander like a tawdry whore to the Christianists. When has to wonder when the ultimate reckoning will come given the rapidly growing acceptance of same sex marriage by the younger generations. A piece in the New Yorker looks at this issue and again makes the case as to why marriage equality should be a conservative value. Here are some excerpts:

Why isn’t gay marriage conservative? One would think that, at a certain point, there would be a real confrontation within the Republican Party about this—one that goes beyond its libertarian wing’s impatience with the subject. Do you want children to grow up in a home with married parents? Do you want adults who live together to make a binding commitment, one that helps weave them into their community? Are your party’s candidates and alleged intellectuals turning out books complaining about the absence of both of the above, books with titles like “It Takes a Family”? Would you like to help plan, attend, and dance at the wedding of your daughter, nephew, brother—or your own marriage? All of these people exist; so do their children. A wedding ring is the symbol of a transformative legal act, but it is not the sort of magic ring that conjures people out of nowhere or, pulled off, makes them invisible.

Perhaps that confrontation has begun, quietly enough, although the agreement of the G.O.P. Presidential candidates (other than Ron Paul) on the subject makes that harder to see.

And yet the legalization of gay marriage in New York State was eased by Republican Party donors who supported it and told Senators and assemblymen that they wouldn’t be abandoned financially. And, as the Times noted recently, they haven’t been—quite the opposite. . . . . The Washington bill was supported by Nike, Microsoft, and Starbucks—liberal-minded corporations on issues like this, maybe, but still corporations. But what may be more effective is the voter in the back of the auditorium who checks himself when he hears bitter talk about the supposed assault on marriage, because the words are no longer abstract, and because they seem unloving.

When policemen in Virginia barged into the bedroom of Richard and Mildred Loving, in 1958, there was a wedding certificate hanging on their wall. Because Richard was white and Mildred was black and Native American, the piece of paper marked them, in the eyes of the local government, as disreputable. . . . . They were forced to leave the state. The perversion of that position was recognized by the Supreme Court five years later, in a unanimous decision that overturned miscegenation laws.

Gay marriage may get to the court, but it’s looking as though it will stop in many statehouses along the way, and by then more marriage certificates will hang on more walls, recognized as something to honor.

Between the GOP position on contraception, the glorification of discrimination against those deemed "other," the anti-abortion extremism and the efforts to dehumanize LGBT citizens I have to wonder when the majority will wake up and throw the GOP on the trash heap of history.

Penn State Scandal Spreads into Politics

Based on reader comments, many hope that the sexual abuse scandal that has exploded at Penn State - and revealed a mindset for cover ups that rivals the Vatican's malfeasance - will be thoroughly investigated and that all the players in the heinous affair will be exposed and forced to be held accountable. As this process rolls forward, Pennsylvania politicians seem to be either running for cover - e.g., man on dog sex obsessed Rick Santorum had advocated for an award for Jerry Sandusky - while others seem to see the debacle as a means to further their careers - e.g., Pennsylvania Attorney General Linda Kelly. Politico looks at some of the political jockeying transpiring. Here are some highlights:

The shocking child sexual abuse scandal that ended football coach Joe Paterno’s storied career at Penn State University is reverberating far beyond the world of college sports, consuming Pennsylvania’s political class . . . . federal Department of Education announced Wednesday it would conduct its own investigation into how the school dealt with allegations against the former assistant coach at the football powerhouse.

For [Rick] Santorum, there is the prospect of damaging political fallout: Wednesday, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that, while serving in the Senate, Santorum sponsored Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State defense coordinator at the heart of the scandal, for a “Congressional Angels in Adoption” award, citing his work with a nonprofit group he founded for foster children.

Gov. Tom Corbett, a member of the university board of trustees and formerly the state’s attorney general, has been thrust into a very public role. He said Thursday that he welcomed the firings of Paterno and Spanier because he had lost confidence in “their ability to lead.”

Only hours after the announcement of the firings, Sens. Bob Casey and Pat Toomey were dragged in: The Democrat and Republican said they were withdrawing their recent nomination of Paterno for the Presidential Medal of Freedom — the nation’s highest civilian honor. “We hope the proper authorities will move forward with their investigation without delay,” said Toomey and Casey in a joint statement. “

GOP Rep. Glenn Thompson, a Penn State alum whose district includes the campus in State College, wouldn’t say whether he would sign on to the effort to withdraw Paterno’s name for the Medal of Freedom. It was Thompson who, in July 2010, nominated the coach for the award, writing a letter to President Barack Obama in which he called Paterno “an ideal of what student and college athletics should be.”

Other members of Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation have also seen the need to go on record about the scandal. GOP Rep. Bill Shuster, who represents a central Pennsylvania seat that abuts State College, said in a tweet that Paterno had “so fumbled his moral and professional responsibilities in this instance that it cannot be overlooked.” Freshman Republican Mike Kelly, who represents Erie, described himself as “sickened and saddened by the allegations against Jerry Sandusky.” On the other side of the state, in the Philadelphia suburbs, Republican Pat Meehan said that he had welcomed the news that a federal investigation had been opened into Sandusky’s conduct.

Democratic blogs highlighted Paterno’s well-known GOP ties and pointed out that he spoke at a George W. Bush campaign rally in 2004. When Paterno’s son, Scott, ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2004, it was as a Republican.

Meanwhile, I'd predict that there will be some major law suits in the near future against both the university and those who chose to cover up abuse rather than rock the boat. Sadly, too often judgments in the seven or eight plus figures seem to be the only way to hold individuals accountable. Unless, of course, those guilty of orchestrating the cover ups are Catholic bishops and cardinals - or even a Pope.

Marco Rubio's Fictional Family History

It seems the typical GOP politician is either a closeted gay, a religious fanatic or someone who invents a more dazzling self-history to dupe the gullible. A case in point for the latter phenomenon is Florida Senator Marco Rubio who fabricated a compelling family story to promote his political future. The only problem is that now the story has been shown to be totally false. It's one thing to modestly enhance one's biography. It's something far different to totally make it up. Yet that's what Rubio apparently did in part to cater to Cuban-American voters in Florida. The question obviously arises as to what elese Rubio has lied about in the course of his self-promotion. The Washington Post has details - here are some highlights.

During his rise to political prominence, Sen. Marco Rubio frequently repeated a compelling version of his family’s history that had special resonance in South Florida. He was the “son of exiles,” he told audiences, Cuban Americans forced off their beloved island after “a thug,” Fidel Castro, took power.

But a review of documents — including naturalization papers and other official records — reveals that the Florida Republican’s account embellishes the facts. The documents show that Rubio’s parents came to the United States and were admitted for permanent residence more than two-and-a-halfyears before Castro’s forces overthrew the Cuban government and took power on New Year’s Day 1959.

The supposed flight of Rubio’s parents has been at the core of the young senator’s political identity, both before and after his stunning tea-party-propelled victory in last year’s Senate election.

And the 40-year-old senator with the boyish smile and prom-king good looks has drawn on the power of that claim to entrance audiences captivated by the rhetorical skills of one of the more dynamic stump speakers in modern American politics.

The real story of his parents’ migration appears to be a more conventional immigrant narrative, a couple who came to the United States seeking a better life. In the year they arrived in Florida, the future Marxist dictator was in Mexico plotting a quixotic return to Cuba.

The senator’s office tried to clarify the facts in its statement Thursday. . . . legal scholars on both sides of the McCain debate told The Post that Rubio’s citizenship does not appear to be an issue.

Obama's Jobs Speech

I will concede that I did not see Obama's speech. That said, he obviously faces two problems: (1) the GOP will seek to block him from accomplishing anything because those now in control of that party want the economy to tank for partisan purposes (they care nothing for families destroyed in the process), and (2) even many of those who supported him in 2008 no longer trust or believe him. It's a mess and frankly, I don't know what the solution will be. When one political party puts partisan advantage ahead of small businesses and families, it's the equivalent of dealing with terrorists. Rationality and the common good simply do not matter. The Daily Beast has gathered some reactions to the speech. Here's a sampling:

Howard Kurtz. Barack Obama looked forceful, almost angry, in his much-ballyhooed speech to Congress, pitching a plan that he promised would deliver a “jolt” to the nation’s sagging economy, and perhaps to his presidency as well.

But whether that happens depends in large measure on an aggressive White House plan to take the fight to the Republicans who have thwarted most of his agenda.

Yet Thursday’s address may not have much impact, and not just because it began at 4 p.m. on the West Coast since Obama was maneuvered into starting early before the NFL season kickoff. Many people are tired of this president’s speechifying, and with zero job growth last month, they want action, not words.


But the speech did what Obama has so often failed to do: lay down a marker against the opposition.

Harold Evans.Has Barack Obama found his inner Harry Truman?

The parallels are eerie. Truman in 1946 lost midterm elections, just as Obama did last fall. The Republicans took the House (their first time since 1930) and the Senate. Truman’s approval ratings tanked, falling much lower, at 32 percent, than Obama’s have done. Unemployment wasn’t the issue it is today, but inflation was just as scary, and one in 10 of the labor force went on strike in 1946.


Heading into 1948, Republicans were hungry to eat up the New Deal. For Robert Taft then, read Rick Perry today.

Truman brilliantly exploited that regressive attitude. He came up with new proposals—just as Obama has done with the American Jobs Act in his speech to the joint session of Congress. The Republicans became the party of No. Maybe they will do the same with Obama’s Jobs Act. And maybe Obama will do what Truman did.

Truman made the Republican Congress his whipping boy. He recalled it for a special session on July 26. “Out in Missouri,” he said, “we call it Turnip Day.” Taft, angry at being brought back into steaming Washington, duly fell into the Truman trap. He led the massacre of Truman’s Turnip Day proposals.

I'd love to see Obama repeat the Truman model, but I am not going to hold my breath. Time and time again he fails to go on the attack and lay blame where it principally belongs: at the feet of the GOP and the Tea Party.

Religious Leaders: GOP Budget Gies Against Christ's Teachings

I have frequently noted how members of the GOP at all levels - and their professional Christian allies - wear religion on their sleeves, claim to worship Christ and his message, and then act in manners 100% against the social ministry teachings of Christ. It's hypocrisy raised to an art form. If one wants to see modern day examples of the Pharisees so consistently slammed in the Gospels, look no further than the leaders of the GOP and self-satisfied, hate filled bigots of the Christian Right (Tony Perkins, Maggie Gallagher, Bryan Fischer and others of that ilk immediately spring to mind). They are beyond disgusting in their hate and hypocrisy, but rarely are they called out by the media. As Think Progress is reporting, some religious leaders finally got the balls to condemn these hypocrites and the GOP's Ryan budget for the monstrosity that it is - indeed, how it violates the teaching of Christ. Would that more people - especially news anchors - would call these liars and hypocrites out. Here are some highlights:
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While religious conservatives and Republican political leaders gathered at the Faith and Freedom Conference in Washington this weekend, another group of religious leaders held a small gathering across the street to warn against the perils of the Republican Party’s fiscal priorities.
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Four members affiliated with the religious group Faith In Public Life held a brief press conference during FFC’s afternoon intermission to denounce the GOP’s adherence to the philosophies of anti-government, anti-religion author Ayn Rand. The leaders — Rev. Jennifer Butler, Jim Wallis, Rev. Derrick Harkins, and Father Clete Kiley — asserted that the GOP efforts to cut funding from many anti-poverty programs while balancing the budget on the backs of the poorest Americans were not in line with Christian values:
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What we’re saying in the faith community, across the spectrum, is that a nation is judged — our Bible says — by how we treat the poorest and most vulnerable. Period. That’s what God says to us. That’s God’s instruction to us. To be faithful to God, we have to protect poor people.
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Religious leaders have recently spoken out to House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan (R-WI) and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) — both of whom are practicing Catholics — telling them that the cuts in their budget disproportionately target poor Americans and are thus out of line with Christian and Catholic teaching.
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As I have noted before, I don't want to be called a Christian if being Christian means engaging in the conduct of the GOP leadership and the Christian Taliban. Their true gods are hate, greed, callousness, and hypocrisy. If they are Christians, then count me out.

Would Be POTUS Pawlenty Endorses Iowa "Same-Sex Marriage Is Worse Than Smoking" Group

The depths to which Republicans will go denigrating gays in the hope of furthering their election chances with the vile, ignorant bigots of the GOP base is truly shocking. The latest example is would be presidential candidate former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty (who in my view thankfully has no chance in Hell of getting the nomination) who has endorsed Iowa homophobe Bob Vander Plaats, head of The Family Leader, who is spreading the lie that gay marriage is more dangerous to the public than second hand smoke from cigarettes. Why doesn't Pawlenty wear a sign around his neck stating that he's a shameless whore? Pawlenty and Vander Plaats are shining examples of how and why bigots feel that they have a license to bully gays and often incite violence against the LGBT community. Here are highlights the Iowa Independent on Pawlenty's shameless prostitution of himself to haters:
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Nearly every public policy issue that can be named has a direct impact on the very foundation of American society, according to former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, which is a traditional marriage consisting of one man and one woman.
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Pawlenty, who told reporters before his public remarks on Monday that he is definitely “leaning toward” a 2012 presidential run, spoke on a litany of issues ranging from the economy to freedom of religion to education to health care, bringing each one back to his primary focus on the family.
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The remarks were made on the University of Iowa campus at the first of many lecture events featuring national conservatives hosted by The Family Leader, a state-run advocacy group that acts as an umbrella organization for the Iowa Family Policy Center and the formerly federally funded Marriage Matters. Pawlenty began his public remarks by discussing why he believes the U.S. is a Christian nation.
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Pawlenty applauded Bob Vander Plaats, head of The Family Leader, for “being a champion for saying and doing, and pushing and promoting and leading efforts to try to highlight, encourage and support families.”
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“The Family Leader and other organizations have taken a position in favor of traditional marriage. I don’t distance myself from that position — I embrace it,” he said. “I support the notion that we, as a society, should continue to elevate traditional marriage, that it should remain as between a man and a woman, and that all other domestic relationships are not the same as traditional marriage.
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“It’s not a matter of somebody’s opinion or political discourse,” Pawlenty said. “We know from research, we know from history, we know from the results that if you have an intact family with a mom and a dad that is the most nurturing environment, the most stable form of a family that gives the children the best chance of success.
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When asked to name examples of the research he cited, Pawlenty said he was “speaking about children who are in households that are intact, functioning that have two parents — a mom and a dad, a traditional marriage setting — so there is a lot of research that supports that.” The Daily Iowan then asked specifically about Zach Wahls, a current University of Iowa engineering student that was raised by two lesbians and spoke before the Iowa House in defense of marriage equality. Pawlenty admitted that there are exceptions to his rule.
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Pawlenty’s appearance in Iowa on behalf of The Family Leader was the first in a series of events that Vander Plaats described as “educational opportunities” for Iowans. Others expected to speak to the group’s supporters are rumored 2012 presidential hopefuls Ron Paul, Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum.

"Awakening 2011" - A Gathering Where the GOP Mingles with Hate Groups

Click Image to Enlarge

I consistently view Liberty University as a foul boil on Virginia's backside that needs to be lanced and exposed for the evil force that it is. In keeping with its other anti-gay and anti-democracy efforts, Liberty University will be gathering a coven of theocrats and haters to its "Awakening 2011" where GOP elected officials will prostitute themselves to the vilest of theocrats and the leaders of active hate groups. The roster of loons who will be present and in the hater category the only thing missing is an appearance by the Grand Wizard of the KKK and Sarah Palin. Right Wing Watch has the following to say about this gathering:
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Last year, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli joined dozens of Religious Right leaders for an event called "Awakening 2010," organized by the Freedom Federation and hosted at Liberty University, where Cindy Jacobs declared that "the Bible is the government of the people, by the people, for the people," while Matt Barber and Andrea Lafferty claimed that passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act would allow those working at the Veteran's Administration to freely molest disable veterans.
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In April, the Freedom Federation will host its second annual "Awakening" conference entitled "Raising Our Voices: Equipping and Empowering a New Revolution" which organizer hope will feature a mix of right-wing activists like Lou Engle, Tony Perkins, Mat Staver, Frank Gaffney, Wendy Wright, David Barton, and Gary Bauer with Republican leaders like Cuccinelli, Michele Bachmann, Marco Rubio, Alan West, Mike Pence, Newt Gingrich, and Mike Huckabee.
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Not surprisingly, I suspect that more violence inducing rhetoric and hate inducing demagoguery will fill the air at this anti-liberty event.

Scott Rigell Suggests Racist Virginia Beach GOP Chair Was Victim of Conspiracy

Christianist/Tea Party subscribing GOP congressional candidate Scott Rigell has strangely suggested that David Bartholomew, the GOP Party chair in Virginia Beach who resigned after being linked to an incredibly bigoted and racist e-mail, was a victim of a conspiracy. A conspiracy apparently aimed at Rigell. The logic - or lack there of - is bizarre, but then far right zealots like Rigell (who is running a stealth campaign modeled on Bob McDonnell's last year) typically live in some alternate universe. Bartholomew, not some secret cabal, sent out the horrid e-mail and when caught provided an utterly lame and unbelievable excuse. That a former GOP party chair had also forwarded another racist e-mail must likewise be to Rigell's thinking part of a conspiracy as well. Here are highlights from Blue Virginia:
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Scott Rigell, who the other day condemned (now former) Virginia Beach Republican Committee chair David Bartholomew for forwarding a racist email. Now, in response to a woman's question about why he let this happen to a "wonderful leader" like Bartholomew, and why this came up now, here's the bizarre, conspiratorial part of Rigell's response (after once again, correctly, stating that with leadership comes responsibility and accountability):
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Now, why it came out the way it came out and when it came out? You understand that. And you know what, the full fabric of our community understands that as well, because I've been in touch with our friends in all parts of our community...they're not fooled by this.
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Yep, it's all a ploy to drive votes from Rigell according to Rigell. While I'm not a strong fan of Democrat incumbent Glenn Nye, Glenn is neither a racist nor a homophobe like Rigell and he certainly is the better man to represent the area in Congress.

Many Big Donors to Democrats Cut Support

Obama and company seem to keep reaping the rewards of failing to deliver on campaign promises and, in the case of the White House, playing kiss up to the GOP which would as soon run over him with a truck than look at him - and that's when they're not claiming he's a Muslim. The New York Times is reporting that a number of major donors have closed their wallets and check books just as many in the LGBT community. Interestingly enough, a number feel that their money is better spent with groups that will actually push for progressive reforms as opposed to the Democratic Party and the White House which talk a good game but which are missing in action when it comes time to actually do something. The post mortem on November 3, 2010 will be most interesting and, if as some predict, it's a Democratic Party disaster, I truly hope much of the blame is hung around Obama's condescending neck. Obama has forgotten the old rule of remembering the ones who brought him to power and that is largely the progressives who helped turned out the vote of the independents. Here are some story highlights:

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Many wealthy Democratic patrons, who in the past have played major roles financing outside groups to help elect the party’s candidates, are largely sitting out these crucial midterm elections. . . Democratic donors like George Soros, the bête noire of the right, and his fellow billionaire Peter B. Lewis, who each gave more than $20 million to Democratic-oriented groups in the 2004 election, appear to be holding back so far.

“Mr. Soros believes that he can be most effective by funding groups that promote progressive policy outcomes in areas such as health care, the environment and foreign policy,” said an adviser, Michael Vachon. “So he has opted to fund those activities.” The absence of these Democratic megadonors is contributing to a huge disparity in spending between pro-Republican and pro-Democratic groups.

In the last week, Republican-leaning groups outspent their Democratic counterparts on television by more than seven to one on Senate races and nearly four to one on House races across the country, according to data from theCampaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks political advertising. The gap shows few signs of abating, even with the midterm election season in full swing.

The donors’ reluctance stems from a variety of factors, including pessimism about the party’s prospects in November, but also President Obama’s strong condemnations of this kind of independent activity

[S]ome more ideological donors are also upset that the Obama administration has not been more aggressive in pushing a liberal agenda. Big donors from Wall Street, including hedge fund executives and investment bankers, are also angry at the administration.

Tea Party Candidate Opposes Masturbation

There are some who have tried to depict the Tea Party crowd as conservatives who are focused on economic issues and smaller government rather than in many ways just another incarnation of the Christian Right. Sharon Angle and others demonstrate that the Tea Party candidates are more of the same tired bedroom police that we've seen time and time again. Then there's Tea Party candidate Christine O'Donnell (pictured at left) who who seems to want masturbation outlawed - she equates the act, in fact, as "self-abuse." If Ms. O'Donnell doesn't want to engage in masturbation, then my message to her is "don't." However, if she wants to police people's bedrooms and crusade for abstinence only education and other Christian Right whack job issues, then she ought to join a convent as opposed to running for Congress. Jezebel.com has details on O'Donnell's insanity. Here are some highlights:
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Sorry, what was that about the Tea Party being all about economic and not social issues? Not only has this year brought Sharron Angle. There's also Christine O'Donnell, whose definition of abstinence includes self-abuse.
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O'Donnell is challenging a congressman in Delaware's Republican Senate primary, and until now no one took her seriously. (Possibly because she's a wackjob . . . ) But then establishment Republican Lisa Murkowski lost in Alaska to a previous unknown, backed by Tea Party money, and the groups vowed to make Delaware their next target.
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Republicans party officials are scrambling, trashing her in the press and making websites like "The Real Christine." And reporters have just started digging. The Huffington Post reports that O'Donnell was on a Sex In The 90s special on MTV. (Remember those?) "The Bible says that lust in your heart is committing adultery. So you can't masturbate without lust," she said,
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The good news, this is all dandy for Democrats, who have every reason to want O'Donnell to win the primary — polls show that Democrat Chris Coons can beat O'Donnell, but not Republican Mike Castle. And that would actually be wonderful.
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Until the GOP ceases to be largely a religious based party (no matter what the remnants of the country club set claim), we are going to see more and more Sharon Angles and Christine O'Donnells. The wealthy may want lower taxes and neat tax loop holes, but do they seriously want lunatics running the country? They - including some of my neighbors - need to wake the Hell up to what has become of the Republican Party.

Conservative Bloggers Paid to Support Partisan Candidates

I am obviously doing something seriously wrong. Why you ask? Because I haven't been getting paid - and often paid very well - to write what politcal candidates and parties want me to write. However, while I - and I suspect most of by LGBT Blogger Summit compatriots - do not hold back in our criticism of the Obama administration, Congressional Democrats, and many others, our counterparts on the right are in many instances raking in the cash to say nice things about GOP primary candidates, etc. For example, it seems that the blog Red County received $20,000 from the Meg Whitman campaign in December, 2009, which has sent the site $15,000 a month since then. I guess if one is willing to sell their soul, then conservative blogging can be quite lucrative. The Daily Caller has details on this faux independent citizen journalists. Here are highlights:
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Katie Couric once described bloggers as journalists who gnaw at new information “like piranhas in a pool.” But increasingly, many bloggers are also secretly feeding on cash from political campaigns, in a form of partisan payola that erases the line between journalism and paid endorsement.
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“It’s standard operating procedure” to pay bloggers for favorable coverage, says one Republican campaign operative. A GOP blogger-for-hire estimates that “at least half the bloggers that are out there” on the Republican side “are getting remuneration in some way beyond ad sales.”
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In California, where former eBay executive Meg Whitman beat businessman Steve Poizner in a bitterly fought primary battle in the campaign for governor, it sometimes seemed as if there was a bidding war for bloggers. One pro-Poizner blogger, Aaron Park, was discovered to be a paid consultant to the Poizner campaign while writing for Red County, a conservative blog about California politics. Red County founder Chip Hanlon threw Park off the site upon discovering his affiliation, which had not been disclosed.
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But while Red County’s Hanlon expressed outrage at Park’s pay-for-blogging scheme, questions arose about his own editorial independence when it emerged that Red County itself had been taking money from the Whitman campaign. In December of 2009, Red County received $20,000 from the Meg Whitman campaign, which has sent the site $15,000 a month since then.
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The money is ostensibly for advertising, yet by conventional measures the numbers don’t add up. According to Quantcast, Red County reaches around 125,000 unique viewers per month. Two new media industry experts confirmed that, given such a readership, Whitman’s ad purchase is “ridiculously” expensive, surpassing the going market rate for such ads by 1,000 percent or more.
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Ad purchases at above market rates are a common means by which some campaigns seek to influence bloggers, according to numerous campaign operatives and bloggers. Bloggers, aware of this, have begun to request improbably high rates on their own.
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Lowell Feld, who writes for the liberal political blog Blue Virginia, has received a considerable amount of money from Democratic campaigns, including $21,000 from Lt. Gov. candidate Jon Bowerback in 2009. Feld discloses his consulting work on his blog.
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Dan Riehl, who writes the Riehl World View blog, is one of Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Michael Steele’s most vocal defenders in the conservative blogosphere. . . . . “Riehl World View” readers might be interested to know that Riehl is not simply a blogger, but also a paid consultant to the RNC.
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If it appears that conservative bloggers are more likely to take campaign money than their liberal counterparts, there may be a reason. According to Dan Riehl, conservatives can’t rely on the infrastructure of foundations and think tanks that supports so many liberal bloggers.
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many of the groups now employing liberal bloggers meet with White House aides for a weekly strategy session on Tuesday afternoons organized by the group Common Purpose. It was here that Obama’s chief of staff Rahm Emanuel famously told independent-minded liberals that they were being “fucking retarded” for straying from the party line.

Can Republicans Take Back the House?

I continue to have a sense of deja vu as we limp through the summer economically watching the destruction of the Gulf of Mexico as the result of corporate greed and regulators ready to turn a blind eye in exchange for future industry employment or outright bribes. It feels like the summer of 2009 with the lead up to Virginia's statewide races that witnessed a debacle for the Democrat candidates and the election of the most extremist GOP slate in likely decades. How did this happen? Democrats simply failed to give the party base any reason to be excited and motivated. And it's happening again. The GOP minority continues to out maneuver the spineless Democrats who continue to wimp out and fail to deliver properly on campaign promises. Meanwhile, the increasingly insane base of the GOP is enthused and motivated. Political pundit Larry Sabato - who graduated from UVA with me as an undergraduate - has some prognostications at his "Crystal Ball" website that ought to galvanize Democrats to action, but I fear it won't. Since the Democrats have delivered so pathetically on their promises, Sabato may well be right. Here are some highlights:
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With less than five months left until Election Day, many political commentators are asking whether this year’s midterm elections could be a reprise of 1994 when Republicans picked up 8 seats in the Senate and 54 seats in the House of Representatives to take control of both chambers for the first time in 40 years. There is almost universal agreement that Republicans are poised to make major gains in both the House and the Senate. And while the GOP’s chances of gaining the 10 seats needed to take control of the upper chamber appear to be remote, the 39 seats required to take back the House of Representatives may be within reach.
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There are some striking similarities between the mood of the American people today and the mood of the country 16 years ago. The most important similarity is that President Obama, like President Clinton in 1994, has seen his approval ratings fall below 50 percent which is generally considered the danger zone for an incumbent president and his party. The Democratic-controlled 111th Congress, like the Democratic-controlled 103rd Congress, is very unpopular with an approval rating of 21 percent in a May Gallup Poll. And only 24 percent of Americans according to the same poll are satisfied with the way things are going in the country. Given these results, it is not surprising that Republicans have been running either even with or ahead of Democrats when voters are asked which party they want to control the next Congress. That was true in the summer of 1994 as well.
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If we project the 1994 loss probabilities onto the 2010 distribution of Democratic seats in terms of party strength and incumbency status, we would expect Democrats to lose 42 of their current seats in November. Since Democrats are given a good chance of picking up at least three current Republican seats (one each in Hawaii and Louisiana and the at-large seat in Delaware), we would expect a net loss of 39 House seats, leaving Republicans with the narrowest possible majority: 218 seats to 217 for the Democrats.
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As I continue to state, the Democrats need to do things to motivate their base - and that means delivering on the campaign promises of 2008.

2nd District GOP Contenders Target Ken Cuccinelli Want to Be Scott Ridgell

I've previously written about Scott Rigell - who I suspect is a Ken Cuccinelli clone trying to campaign as a "moderate" - as he attempts to buy the GOP nomination for Virginia's 2nd Congressional District with his own personal wealth. Rigell is in a six way contest with only one gay friendly candidate, Jessica Sandlin (pictured at left and who I will vote for), in the fray. Also in the contest are a tea party candidate and far right extremists of the type one would expect to find in Mississippi or Alabama. With the primary on Tuesday, June 8, 2010, the rhetoric is heating up and the ultra far right contenders are in a feeding frenzy going after Rigell. Actually, it's something that's fun to watch and I personally hope that Rigell doesn't win. If he does prevail, many will by default support incumbent Glenn Nye rather than see a Cuccinelli clone go to Washington. The fact that Rigell is supported by Bob McDonnell and Eric Cantor ought to frighten voters. It is critical that all registered voters vote on Tuesday and stop Rigell - anyone can vote in the GOP primary since voters do NOT register by party in Virginia. Here are some highlights from the Virginian Pilot on the free for all:

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With the Republican primary in the 2nd District days away, several of the six candidates are stepping up efforts to weaken the contender who has the biggest bank account and the backing of state party leaders.
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In mailings, radio spots, Internet videos and speeches, their focus is Scott Rigell, founder of Freedom Automotive, whose $1 million-plus campaign - funded in part by more than $600,000 of his own money - far exceeds the combined expenditures of the other candidates.
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Rigell has the support of Gov. Bob McDonnell, Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling and U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor, the House whip.
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"We're really trying to take a bunch of dings at Scott Rigell because his hope is to float above the five of us like we're all fighting against him," candidate Ed Maulbeck said during a debate Thursday on 1650 WHFT-AM. "We need to basically destroy him as a group."
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All voters in the district, which includes Virginia Beach, the Eastern Shore and parts of Norfolk and Hampton, can participate in the primary Tuesday. The winner will take on U.S. Rep. Glenn Nye, a first-term Virginia Beach Democrat, and independent Kenny Golden in the November general election.
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Rigell, who has been critical of the federal economic stimulus plan, said he participated in the Cash for Clunkers program because if he hadn't, customers would have bought cars from his competitors and his employees would have suffered. His business sold 107 cars under the program, he said.

GOP Veering to the Far Right - Sen. Bob Bennett Too Liberal

First it was Florida's moderate Republican Gov. Charlie Crist who was forced to bolt from the GOP because of the teabagger and extremists in the GOP who were rallying behind the rather scary Marco Rubio. Now in Utah the GOP convention has given incumbent GOP U.S. Senator Bob Bennett his walking papers by defeating his nomination to run for an additional term. Bennett's sin? He is "too liberal." Bennett is not exactly my idea of a "liberal, but apparently, unless one is to the right of Attila the Hun, there is no room for you in today's Republican Party. Only Kool-Aid drinkers, teabaggers, birthers and religious extremists need apply. It is almost impossible to recognize the political party I once belonged to - back then logic, reason, small government and a separation of church and state were things to be proud of. Not any more. The Salt Lake Tribune has coverage on Bennett's rejection by the GOP faithful. Here are highlights:
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Three-term Sen. Bob Bennett became the first victim this year of a wave of voter anger toward Washington in a defeat that will likely send a jolt through incumbents everywhere. . . . When it was announced that Bennett had been eliminated from the race, a huge ovation swept through the convention hall and there were hoots and shouts of "He's gone! He's gone!" Other delegates hugged and tea party members waved their yellow "Do Not Tread On Me" flags.
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Bennett becomes the first Utah senator to fail to get his party's nomination since Democrats tossed out Sen. William King in 1940 over King's opposition to the New Deal.
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A member of the Senate appropriations committee and close adviser to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Bennett came under fire in recent months for supporting the first round of bank bailouts during the Bush administration and his co-sponsorship of a bipartisan health reform package that would have required individuals to buy insurance.
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That anger melded with an anti-incumbent rage. Fueled by tea party movement and 9/12 groups, Republicans flooded their party caucuses, nearly doubling the turnout two years ago, and endangering Bennett.
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Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine said Bennett's defeat proves that the tea party has a firm grip on the GOP. "That the tea party would consider Bob Bennett, one of the most conservative members of the U.S. Senate, too liberal, just goes to show how extreme that tea party is," Kaine said. "If there was any question before, there should now be no doubt that the Republican leadership has handed the reins to the tea party."
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Some in the GOP have fanned the flames of tea party lunacy and it would now appear that they have created their own Frankenstein monster. While ultra-far right candidates can win in tea party controlled nomination settings, the tea party crowd is forgetting to ask itself whether they can win in a general election against viable Democrat candidates.

Another GOP Sexual Pervert Arrested

For those who say that I am too hard on the Catholic Church, this post will underscore that I give equal opportunity to all Christo-fascist hypocrites regardless of the religious affiliation. Via Joe By God's "This Week in Holy Crimes" an Obama hating, gay hating anti-immigrant GOP tea party type is identified as the "winner of the week" for his arrest for sexual molesting 10 year old girl. The story is interesting not only because it refutes the far right's efforts to depict gays as the only sexual molesters of minors, but also because the individual arrested, Kris Lounsbury (pictured at right), had been a GOP candidate for Congress who failed to defeat the incumbent Democrat. Among the other things that Lounsbury supported were the following: abolishing the income tax, deporting illegal immigrants, abolishing the United Nations, and fighting LGBT rights laws. In January 2009 he posted a recording of a sermon calling for imprecatory prayer curses against President Obama and in a linked clip, Lounsbury rails against the repeal of DADT, saying that "you have no idea how vicious, these homosexuals, can be." Once again, it is the incredible hypocrisy of folks like Lounsbury that justifies showing their true malignant natures to as many as possible. Here are highlights from the Spectrum & Daily News:

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Additional child sex abuse charges were filed against a lay pastor at Living Word Christian Fellowship who also ran an unsuccessful bid to unseat Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, four years ago in the race for U.S. House of Representatives. St. George Police Officer James Schafer said Kris Lounsbury, 62, was arrested Thursday on the new charges.
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He said a 10-year-old girl confided in her father that Lounsbury, 62, allegedly had touched and fondled her over an extended period of time."The evidence brought forward substantiated the claims," Schafer said.
Lounsbury was booked on charges of aggravated sexual abuse of a child, both first-degree felonies, Schafer said. Lounsbary was already charged with two counts of rape, two counts of aggravated sex abuse of a child and two counts of forcible sexual abuse.
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Why is it that it is ALWAYS the family values far right Christians/GOP base types who are the sexual perverts - even as they seek to malign normal gay Americans who would NEVER even contemplate doing the weird sh*t that is the norm for the GOP hypocrites?

The GOP's "Southern Problem"

The recent GOP victories have all had one thing in common: the successful candidates have campaigned claiming to be moderates and tried to avoid social issues dear to the GOP base which is increasingly focused in the Deep South. Whether or not these winning candidates will act as moderates now that they are in office is another issue and a danger for the GOP if they do not govern with moderate position since if they do not, hopefully the electorate will learn that lying during campaigns is the GOP norm. Virginia governor Bob McDonnell is a case in point. Every position he has taken since being sworn in tends to confirm that he is no moderate regardless of a well run campaign that stayed on a false message of moderation. The Financial Times looks at the problem the national GOP will likely face as it tries to win independent voters yet not alienate the bat shit crazy base, especially in the South. Here are some highlights:

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The south is the spiritual and – along with the mountain states of the west – electoral base of the Republican party. And yet, as the party ­struggles back into national relevance with recent gubernatorial triumphs in both New Jersey and Virginia and a genuinely shocking upset last month with the victory by Scott Brown in the race for Ted Kennedy’s former seat in ­Massachusetts, the south has become as much a curse as a blessing. If the “Grand Ol’ Party” wants to win nationally in 2010, it must attract ­voters who do not identify with southern values. And if it wants to harness, as it did in Massachusetts, the power of the anti-Washington “tea party” ­protests – the grassroots movement that emerged in 2009 in opposition to Obama’s tax and spending plans – it may have to distance itself from the southern establishment. The great paradox of recovery, then, is that it now seems that the fastest way for the Republican party to return to its broader base of the late 1990s and early 2000s is at the expense of its most loyal and ardent followers.
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The south is still defined by the spaces in between its cities, the rural expanses separating Charlotte, Atlanta and Birmingham. While this world is changing – a drive through the south today offers few glimpses of the grime-faced, dungareed cotton pickers of old – some ­elements of life here remain intractably linked to the impoverished Reconstruction years following the civil war. Southerners are still poorer, more conservative, more religious and less educated than their northern peers.
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Everyone to whom we spoke placed great stock in the unique intersection of religion, tradition and grassroots politics that plays out in their ­communities every day. Such fierce local engagement has a corollary: fear of change and interference. These fears manifest themselves in an underlying anxiety about life and livelihood in the south.
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This is the constituency who lack “the resources and social capital to rebound from illegitimacy, broken homes, and failed marriages” – and many of them are southern. For these voters, issues such as abortion and gay marriage are not simply political questions but moral ones – ­indicators of their insecurity about changing social and economic structures.
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[F]rom South Carolina to Louisiana, we encountered a general distaste for such politicking. Asked about gay marriage, abortion or gun control – all strategy-shaping issues key to Republican victories in the past 20 years – southerners sighed and explained that their views on these didn’t define them and never would. We met many southerners who cared deeply about these topics and whose vote depended upon them; what they resented was the suggestion that their worldview could be boiled down to a singular cause, their political power caricatured away.
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Even more troubling than these polling numbers were the ­demographics of the group that identified as Republican. A base that was once ­geographically and economically diverse had largely been whittled down to a single constituency. The question for the Republican party, then, is how to address southern anxiety about a changing world – and an endangered heritage – while also managing to appeal to voters in ­Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and across the nation.
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All across the south we hear similar views. One man in tiny Oneonta, Alabama, told us “there are more Mexicans than white people”, even though, across the region, evidence suggests otherwise.
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The Republicans can’t win in ­Massachusetts, or in New Jersey for that matter, with a southern-themed party, but now they have proven that they can win on a pragmatically themed, economically conservative platform. Ultimately, Brown ­triumphed because he rejected Obama’s big spending, on healthcare and beyond. But, tellingly, he ran less as a Republican than as the alternative to ­Obamanomics; just try to find the word “Republican” on his website.
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By the end of our journey it was clear to us that the south is up for grabs; the southerners we spoke to are as disenchanted with Republicans as they are with Democrats. If Republicans walk away from the southern voter, the Democrats may have a chance to regain ground in a land they once dominated.
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The irony is that in many parts of the South - outside the large cities of Atlanta, Charlotte, Birmingham and New Orleans - it is exactly the conservative social beliefs and "anti-other" mindset that keeps the area more impoverished and less likely to see modern businesses and industries relocate there. Many companies and employees simply do not want to move to a bigoted and intolerant region. Thus, many Southerners are ultimately their own worse enemy. Having lived in Alabama myself, I have seen the phenomenon first hand. Thus the challenge for the GOP is how to retain this voting block without alienating everyone else