Climate Denial Was a GOP Staple Long Before Trump

At the recent G 20 Conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina, of the twenty (20) foreign leaders, Donald Trump was the only one to not sign a communique on climate change.  Trump's refusal was no surprise to anyone who has followed his (and Mike Pence's) regime to roll back environmental protection laws not to mention withdrawing from the Paris climate change agreement. Trump's motivations are, in my view, two fold: (i) Trump's desire to appeal to workers in the moribund coal industry - coal use has reached a 40 year low - and the fossil fuel industry in general, and (ii) Trump's desire appeal to the climate change/scientific knowledge deniers among the Christofascist base to which Trump (and Pence) have prostituted himself.  Yet, as a column in the New York Times notes, Trump's approach is in reality merely a continuation of the long GOP denial of scientific knowledge in general and climate change in particular.  Why the GOP intransigence?  See the two reasons set above that have motivated the GOP before the rise of Trump.  Lastly, how is scientific knowledge so cavalierly rejected by the GOP?  Simple: it's all a conspiracy by scientists.  Here are column highlights: 

Many observers seem baffled by Republican fealty to Donald Trump — the party’s willingness to back him on all fronts, even after severe defeats in the midterm elections. What kind of party would show such support for a leader who is not only evidently corrupt and seemingly in the pocket of foreign dictators, but also routinely denies facts and tries to criminalize anyone who points them out?

The answer is, the kind of the party that, long before Trump came on the scene, committed itself to denying the facts on climate change and criminalizing the scientists reporting those facts.

The G.O.P. wasn’t always an anti-environment, anti-science party. George H.W. Bush introduced the cap-and-trade program that largely controlled the problem of acid rain. As late as 2008, John McCain called for a similar program to limit emissions of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming.

But McCain’s party was already well along in the process of becoming what it is today — a party that is not only completely dominated by climate deniers, but is hostile to science in general, that demonizes and tries to destroy scientists who challenge its dogma.

Trump fits right in with this mind-set. In fact, when you review the history of Republican climate denial, it looks a lot like Trumpism. Climate denial, you might say, was the crucible in which the essential elements of Trumpism were formed.

Take Trump’s dismissal of all negative information about his actions and their consequences as either fake news invented by hostile media or the products of a sinister “deep state.” That kind of conspiracy theorizing has long been standard practice among climate deniers,  . . . What was the evidence for this vast conspiracy? A lot of it rested on, you guessed it, hacked emails. The credulousness of all too many journalists about the supposed misconduct revealed by “Climategate,” a pseudo-scandal that relied on selective, out-of-context quotes from emails at a British university, prefigured the disastrous media handling of hacked Democratic emails in 2016.

The truth is that most prominent climate deniers are basically paid to take that position, receiving large amounts of money from fossil-fuel companies. But after the release of the recent National Climate Assessment detailing the damage we can expect from global warming, a parade of Republicans went on TV to declare that scientists were only saying these things “for the money.” Projection much?

[C]limate scientists have faced harassment and threats, up to and including death threats, for years. And they’ve also faced efforts by politicians to, in effect, criminalize their work. Most famously, Michael E. Mann, creator of the famous “hockey stick” graph, was for years the target of an anti-climate science jihad by Ken Cuccinelli, at the time Virginia’s attorney general.

And on it goes. Recently a judge in Arizona, responding to a suit from a group linked to the Koch brothers (and obviously not understanding how research works), ordered the release of all emails from climate scientists at the University of Arizona. To forestall the inevitable selective misrepresentation, Mann has released all the emails he exchanged with his Arizona colleagues, with explanatory context.

There are three important morals to this story.

First, if we fail to meet the challenge of climate change, with catastrophic results — which seems all too likely — it won’t be the result of an innocent failure to understand what was at stake. It will, instead, be a disaster brought on by corruption, willful ignorance, conspiracy theorizing and intimidation.

Second, that corruption isn’t a problem of “politicians” or the “political system.” It’s specifically a problem of the Republican Party, which has burrowed ever deeper into climate denial even as the damage from a warming planet becomes more and more obvious.

Third, we can now see climate denial as part of a broader moral rot. Donald Trump isn’t an aberration, he’s the culmination of where his party has been going for years.

The Lament of A Moral Republican, a Disappearing Species

With the passing of John McCain one of the last consistent Republican voices of opposition to the travesty that is the Trump/Pence regime has been silenced. The political party that once respected science and knowledge now embraces ignorance and rejects objective scientific fact.  Similarly, the political party that once was rightly or wrongly identified as having a base of "country club Republicans" now counts evangelical Christian extremists and white supremacists as its core base.  And meanwhile, the mantra that "character matters" has been flushed down the toilet as the party standard bearer is thrice married, serial adulterer and self-admitted sexual predator who lies more or less constantly and has emboldened the ugliest elements of the far right.  Peter Wehner, who served in three Republican presidential administrations (those of Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush) has a lament in the New York Times that looks at the destruction of everyday morality within the GOP and expresses foreboding over where the criminality and moral bankruptcy of the Trump/Pence is headed and the damage being done to both what is left of the GOP and the nation.  Here are excerpts:

There’s never been any confusion about the character defects of Donald Trump. The question has always been just how far he would go and whether other individuals and institutions would stand up to him or become complicit in his corruption.

When I first took to these pages three summers ago to write about Mr. Trump, I warned my fellow Republicans to just say no both to him and his candidacy. One of my concerns was that if Mr. Trump were to succeed, he would redefine the Republican Party in his image. That’s already happened in areas like free trade, free markets and the size of government; in attitudes toward ethnic nationalism and white identity politics; in America’s commitment to its traditional allies, in how Republicans view Russia and in their willingness to call out leaders of evil governments like North Korea rather than lavish praise on them. But in no area has Mr. Trump more fundamentally changed the Republican Party than in its attitude toward ethics and political leadership.

For decades, Republicans, and especially conservative Republicans, insisted that character counted in public life. They were particularly vocal about this during the Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky scandal, arguing against “compartmentalization” — by which they meant overlooking moral turpitude in the Oval Office because you agree with the president’s policy agenda or because the economy is strong.

Senator Lindsey Graham, then in the House, went so far as to argue that “impeachment is not about punishment. Impeachment is about cleansing the office. Impeachment is about restoring honor and integrity to the office.”

All that has changed with Mr. Trump as president. For Republicans, honor and integrity are now passé. . . . It is a stunning turnabout. A party that once spoke with urgency and apparent conviction about the importance of ethical leadership — fidelity, honesty, honor, decency, good manners, setting a good example — has hitched its wagon to the most thoroughly and comprehensively corrupt individual who has ever been elected president. For many Republicans, this reality still hasn’t broken through. But facts that don’t penetrate the walls of an ideological silo are facts nonetheless. And the moral indictment against Mr. Trump is obvious and overwhelming. Corruption has been evident in Mr. Trump’s private and public life, in how he has treated his wives, in his business dealings and scams, in his pathological lying and cruelty, in his bullying and shamelessness, in his conspiracy-mongering and appeals to the darkest impulses of Americans. . . . It was delusional to think he would change for the better once he became president. Some of us who have been lifelong Republicans and previously served in Republican administrations held out a faint hope that our party would at some point say “Enough!”; that there would be some line Mr. Trump would cross, some boundary he would transgress, some norm he would shatter, some civic guardrail he would uproot, some action he would take, some scheme or scandal he would be involved in that would cause large numbers of Republicans to break with the president. No such luck. Mr. Trump’s corruptions have therefore become theirs. But the greatest damage is being done to our civic culture and our politics. Mr. Trump and the Republican Party are right now the chief emblem of corruption and cynicism in American political life, of an ethic of might makes right. Dehumanizing others is fashionable and truth is relative.

A warning to my Republican friends: The worst is yet to come. Thanks to the work of Robert Mueller — a distinguished public servant, not the leader of a “group of Angry Democrat Thugs” — we are going to discover deeper and deeper layers to Mr. Trump’s corruption. When we do, I expect Mr. Trump will unravel further as he feels more cornered, more desperate, more enraged; his behavior will become ever more erratic, disordered and crazed.

Most Republicans, having thrown their MAGA hats over the Trump wall, will stay with him until the end. Was a tax cut, deregulation and court appointments really worth all this?

Have Trump and GOP Caused the Forces of Decency to Awaken?

Donald Trump is perhaps the most vile and corrupt individual to ever occupy the White House.  Meanwhile, the Republican Party has become the party of constant lies which may have finally over played its hand with the Trump tax cut that voters are discovering - albeit it a bit belatedly - was a scam and a massive give away to the very wealthy and ruthless large corporation.  Seemingly, other than the 36-37% of the population made up of rabid Christian extremists, gun fanatics and white supremacists who continue to support Trump as their "dear leader," the rest of the country is increasingly recognizing Trump and the GOP for what they are: corrupt and bad people.  The NRA's near full ownership of Republicans in the wake of the Parkland, Florida mass shooting has perhaps been the straw that will break the GOP's back, especially if it cause young anti-GOP voters to surge to the polls come November.  What's powering the surge of opposition to Trump and the GOP?  A column in the New York Times argues that it is people's realization that many share their revulsion toward Trump and Republicans and this is causing them to mobilize to push for a return of decency and some semblance of honesty and an end to politicians bought by special interest such as the NRA.  Here are column highlights:

A funny thing is happening on the American scene: a powerful upwelling of decency. Suddenly, it seems as if the worst lack all conviction, while the best are filled with a passionate intensity. We don’t yet know whether this will translate into political change. But we may be in the midst of a transformative moment.

You can see the abrupt turn toward decency in the rise of the #MeToo movement; . . . You can see it in the reactions to the Parkland school massacre. For now, at least, the usual reaction to mass killings — a day or two of headlines, then a sort of collective shrug by the political class and a return to its normal obeisance to the gun lobby — isn’t playing out. Instead, the story is staying at the top of the news, and associating with the N.R.A. is starting to look like the political and business poison it should have been all along.

And I’d argue that you can see it at the ballot box, where hard-right politicians in usually reliable Republican districts keep being defeated thanks to surging activism by ordinary citizens.

This isn’t what anyone, certainly not the political commentariat, expected.

After the 2016 election many in the news media seemed all too ready to assume that Trumpism represented the real America, even though Hillary Clinton had won the popular vote and — Russian intervention and the Comey letter aside — would surely have won the electoral vote, too, but for the Big Sneer, the derisive tone adopted by countless reporters and pundits. There have been hundreds if not thousands of stories about grizzled Trump supporters sitting in diners, purportedly showing the out-of-touchness of our cultural elite.

[T]hose pink pussy hats [at the Women's March] may have represented the beginning of real social and political change.

Political scientists have a term and a theory for what we’re seeing on #MeToo, guns and perhaps more: “regime change cascades.” . . . . When people see the status quo as immovable, they tend to be passive even if they are themselves dissatisfied. . . . . but once they see others visibly taking a stand, they both gain more confidence in their dissent and become more willing to act on it — and by their actions they may induce the same response in others, causing a kind of chain reaction.

Such cascades explain how huge political upheavals can quickly emerge, seemingly out of nowhere.

[N]othing says that such cascades have to be positive either in their motivations or in their results. The period 2016-17 clearly represented a sort of Alt-Right Spring — springtime for fascists? — in which white supremacists and anti-Semites were emboldened not just by Donald Trump’s election but by the evidence that there were more like-minded people than anyone realized, both in the U.S. and Europe

I nevertheless find the surge of indignation now building in America hugely encouraging. And yes, I think it’s all one surge. The #MeToo movement, the refusal to shrug off the Parkland massacre, the new political activism of outraged citizens (many of them women) all stem from a common perception: namely, that it’s not just about ideology, but that far too much power rests in the hands of men who are simply bad people. . . . Exhibit A for that proposition is, of course, the tweeter in chief himself.

At the same time, what strikes me about the reaction to this growing backlash is not just its vileness, but its lameness.  Trump’s response to Parkland — let’s arm teachers! — wasn’t just stupid, it was cowardly, an attempt to duck the issue, and I think many people realized that.

Or consider the growing wildness of speeches by right-wing luminaries like Wayne LaPierre of the N.R.A. They’ve pretty much given up on making any substantive case for their ideas in favor of rants about socialists trying to take away your freedom. It’s scary stuff, but it’s also kind of whiny; it’s what people sound like when they know they’re losing the argument.

Again, there’s no guarantee that the forces of decency will win. In particular, the U.S. electoral system is in effect rigged in favor of Republicans, so Democrats will need to win the popular vote by something like seven percentage points to take the House. But we’re seeing a real uprising here, and there’s every reason to hope that change is coming.

Personally, I have been surprised to discover some who I never viewed as "liberal" or "progressive" are disgusted by what they are seeing flow daily from the White House and the GOP controlled Congress.  Here in Virginia, the last election cycle underscored that if people get angry and mobilize, they can over come the toxicity of the right and vote the bad guys out of office.  This resolve and motivation needs to go nationwide in 2018 and the GOP needs to become the minority party.  Hand in hand with this is a growing knowledge - which has yet to dawn on much of the media - that evangelical Christians are numbered among the bad guys. They have supported a totally immoral regime and deserve no deference or respect. 

Secret GOP Congress Members Seek to Subvert FBI and CIA

Is Nunes conspiring with Trump to derail the Russia investigation?

I love to read spy and espionage thrillers.  Books like those written by David Baldacci or Nelson DeMille which have plots that pale in comparison to what is now taking place in Washington, D.C.  Between possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives to just released news that a group of Congressional Republicans have been using materials gathered by the House Intelligence Committee investigating collusion with Russia to run their own effort to discredit the FBI, the U.S. Justice Department and the CIA.  The beneficiary of the effort? Der Trumpenführer, of course, and perhaps Republicans who knew of illicit communications between Trump personnel and Russian operatives.  Politico broke the news of this pernicious GOP undertaking.  Note how Democrats were kept in the dark even as the White House was involved in the effort.  Here are excerpts:

A group of House Republicans has gathered secretly for weeks in the Capitol in an effort to build a case that senior leaders of the Justice Department and FBI improperly — and perhaps criminally — mishandled the contents of a dossier that describes alleged ties between President Donald Trump and Russia, according to four people familiar with their plans.

A subset of the Republican members of the House intelligence committee, led by Chairman Devin Nunes of California, has been quietly working parallel to the committee's high-profile inquiry into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. They haven't informed Democrats about their plans, but they have consulted with the House's general counsel.

The people familiar with Nunes' plans said the goal is to highlight what some committee Republicans see as corruption and conspiracy in the upper ranks of federal law enforcement. The group hopes to release a report early next year detailing their concerns about the DOJ and FBI, and they might seek congressional votes to declassify elements of their evidence.

That final product could ultimately be used by Republicans to discredit special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether any Trump aides colluded with Russia during the 2016 campaign — or possibly even to justify his dismissal, as some rank-and-file Republicans and Trump allies have demanded. Tuesday, his son Donald Trump Jr. told a crowd in Florida the probes were part of a “rigged system” by “people at the highest levels of government” who were working to hurt the president [Trump]. The sources familiar with the separate inquiry said it was born out of steadily building frustration with the Justice Department's refusal to share details of the way the Trump dossier was used to launch the FBI's investigation of his campaign team last year — or whether it was the basis for any court-ordered surveillance of Trump associates. It's unclear how many members of the intelligence committee are participating in the side effort. Lawmakers on the full committee interviewed by POLITICO refused to discuss it. A congressional aide with knowledge of the meetings said Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) was not among the participants. ”While he does believe the FBI and DOJ have recently made decisions worth looking into, he is and will always be a defender of the FBI, DOJ and the special counsel," the aide said. DOJ and FBI officials also declined to comment. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein defended the FBI and Mueller's team at a recent hearing on Capitol Hill. "The special counsel investigation is not a witch hunt," he said.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, said he wasn't aware of the Nunes effort but said it fit with what he sees as an increasingly destructive bent in Republicans’ rhetoric and actions.

The Nunes-led group is the latest evidence of an increasingly toxic and bruising confrontation between Republicans on Capitol Hill and the highest ranks of the justice system. Some Hill Republicans are irate about the Justice Department's refusal to provide more details about its investigation of Trump associates' ties to Russia. To Democrats, the GOP offensive is an attempt to distract from the investigation of Trump associates by Mueller, who has already indicted Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and secured a guilty plea from his first national security adviser, Michael Flynn. There are indications he's investigating whether Trump obstructed justice by firing former FBI Director James Comey, whose exit led to Mueller taking over the Russia probe.

The more dangerous Mueller's probe has seemed to become to the White House, the louder the attacks have gotten from Trump allies on Capitol Hill, Democrats say.

“Republicans are terrified that Special Counsel Mueller is getting closer to the truth, and they are desperate to grind his investigation to a halt — even if they undermine the foundations of our democracy," Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) said in a statement after Republicans requested the FBI interviews.

Schiff said committee rules require consultation between Republicans and Democrats, but House Speaker Paul Ryan must enforce bipartisan cooperation if he wants it to occur.  "And at this point, you have to conclude that he doesn’t," Schiff said. Ryan’s office declined to comment.

One of the ways that Hitler and the Nazis increased their power in the early 1930's was to attack the integrity of those who opposed them in government agencies or sought to expose the truth about Nazi activities and lies.  Be very, very afraid if Trump/the GOP  manage to silence those seeking evidence and the truth.

Welcome to the New Gilded Age

In numerous past posts I have argued that one of the ultimate goals of today's Republican Party is to restore the wild wealth disparities of the Gilded Age when Rockefellers, Goulds, DuPonts and others amassed huge fortunes, paid little in taxes, and the vast majority of the rest of the citizenry struggled to simply get by.   The new Republican tax plan is a prime example of how today's GOP - which bears no resemblance to the GOP of Eisenhower or even of Reagan - seeks only to benefit the wealthy while playing its base for fools by playing to base prejudices based on race and religion.  It's ugly, its the antithesis of Christian values, and it will harm the long term prospect of many Americans.  A column in the Washington Post lays out how the new tax "reform" delivers wealth to the wealthy while throwing crumbs at best to most of us.  Here are excerpts:

Corporations are people, my friend. And this is where they feed. Room 1100 of the Longworth Building, with its ionic columns, gilt-fringed curtains and eagle-topped frieze, has for 80 years been the home of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee. But perhaps never before have corporations wielded their power as openly as they have here this week.

As the panel moves to approve the Republican tax plan, this is the room where it happens — where the rich will get richer, where everybody else will be forced to shoulder a greater share of the tax burden, and where a trillion dollars of tax breaks for corporations are being passed by lawmakers who work for these very corporations.

In one case, literally.  On Monday afternoon, as the committee began its markup of the tax bill, there on the top level of the dais, three seats from the chairman, munching from a bag of potato chips, was Rep. Patrick J. Tiberi (R-Ohio). Tiberi announced last month that he’s quitting Congress to lead the Ohio Business Roundtable, a group of “the CEOs of the state’s largest and most influential business enterprises.” Tiberi filed a notification with the House Ethics Committee that he was negotiating terms of employment with the group.

This isn’t illegal or against House rules. But a lawmaker drafting and passing legislation that benefits the people with whom he is negotiating the terms of his employment? That stinks.

So it goes in this new gilded age. The $1.5 trillion tax cut has $1 trillion in corporate tax breaks. The idea was that the corporate tax rate could be lowered if you eliminated corporate tax loopholes. Now corporations will have the lower rates and the loopholes.

Individuals lose the ability to deduct state and local taxes, tax preparation, moving expenses and most medical expenses. But corporations — think of them as Very Important Persons with superhuman privileges — can still deduct these same expenses.

“Will a teacher in my district who buys pens, pencils and paper for his students be able to deduct these costs from his tax returns under this plan?” He will not.

“Will a corporation that buys pens, pencils and papers for its workers be able to deduct those costs from its tax returns?” It will.

“Will a firefighter in my district be able to deduct the state and local sales taxes that she pays from her tax return?” She will not.

“Will a corporation be able to deduct sales taxes on business purchases?” It will.

As the corporate welfare is doled out, the same bill widens the gap between the rich and everybody else. The liberal Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy concluded that the middle fifth of Americans would get a modest tax cut of $460 (1.4 percent of their income) in 2018, while the richest 1 percent would have a cut of $64,720 (2.5 percent of their income). Even the conservative-leaning Tax Foundation, using a more favorable methodology, acknowledges the plan would cost the federal government $989 billion over a decade.

Corporations have had their way with Washington before. In 2003, Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-La.) caused an uproar when he quit Congress to become the top drug-industry lobbyist right after he helped to write and pass the Medicare prescription-drug expansion. He earned harsh denunciations as a symbol of Washington’s revolving door.

What’s different now is the reaction. Tiberi continues to help shepherd the corporate tax bill even after naming his corporate employer — and he is applauded. . . . . .  If only those financing his next endeavor didn’t benefit so handsomely from his current one.

The Bob/Maureen McDonnell Soap Opera Continues

PHOTO - BOB BROWN/TIMES-DISPATCH

As the sentencing of former Governor and now convicted felon, Bob McDonnell approaches, the unseemly soap opera "family values" of the Virginia GOP continue to make the stomach turn.  Earlier in the week, as reported by the Richmond Times Dispatch, two of the McDonnell children, Jeanine McDonnell Zubowsky and Cailin Young, threw their mother under the bus in a letter to the Court asking for leniency for their father.  As a column in the same paper notes, however, all of the McDonnells were in on the take and showed a rapacious greed that reflects on the true "conservative Christian values" of the Virginia Republican establishment.  First, highlights on the trashing of Maureen McDonnell:

Two children of former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell say his stunning downfall and conviction on public corruption charges can largely be attributed to the corrosive effects of just one person: Their mother.

Jeanine McDonnell Zubowsky and Cailin Young wrote in blunt — and at times scathing — letters to a federal judge that it was former first lady Maureen McDonnell's materialism and mental-health issues that derailed the rising political career of her husband. The letters of support for Robert McDonnell were part of a trove of 440 submitted by his attorneys, who are seeking leniency at his Jan. 6 sentencing in Richmond.
"My mom . . . has always been concerned about getting discounts or freebees," McDonnell Zubowsky wrote. "She hid her coordination with people for free or discounted things or services and she didn't communicate with my dad because she knew he would not approve. . . . The testimony about my mom was not just part of a defense strategy and was not an attempt to 'throw her under the bus,' but unfortunately, was the reality."

 The column in today's Times Dispatch gives a truer view of the matter.  Here are highlights:

One of the more dramatic moments of the Bob and Maureen McDonnell corruption trial was the testimony of an FBI agent who was asked by a prosecutor to identify item-by-item the Rolex wristwatch, golf equipment, designer clothes, shoes and handbags that Jonnie Williams Sr. showered on the former first family.
For more than a half-hour, the swag was paraded across the courtroom, handed by the bailiff to jurors for their examination. It was a display of legal theater that made clear the eye-popping, cash register-ringing scale of Williams’ beneficence.

Christmas, it seems, came almost every day for the McDonnells — all of them.

It’s a point overshadowed, if not altogether lost, by the orchestrated appeals of the five McDonnell children for leniency for their father. In letters to the federal judge who next week could send him to prison — 10 to 12 years for trading on his office, if the prosecution gets its way — the three daughters and twin sons, all recipients of Williams’ sometimes-garish largesse, say that Bob McDonnell doesn’t deserve to be locked away.

If it was OK for mom and dad to avail themselves of Williams’ generosity, then it was OK for the kids, too. Children learn from their parents, especially from their parents’ conduct. Some of the most powerful lessons from this are absorbed by children when parents don’t think the children are watching.

Privately, Bob McDonnell set a different example. There are few indications that, before the former first couple came under federal scrutiny, they or their children fully considered how unseemly it was to accept or solicit gift after gift after gift from a rich man looking for favors from the government that McDonnell led.  But maybe that’s because the family, in general, and McDonnell, in particular, didn’t think anyone would notice. 

Under Virginia law, it was up to McDonnell — and McDonnell, alone — to make public the goodies that he and his family harvested from Williams.  Two features of the ethics statutes allowed him to obscure, if not conceal, the gifts and sweetheart loans: First, the law relies on the official to police himself or herself. Second, that allows the official to determine whether a benefactor is a relative or personal friend. Gifts from either do not have to be disclosed.

Are not their [the McDonnell children] appeals to Spencer, while emotionally moving and emblematic of a deep devotion to their father, somewhat diminished by a troubling fact? They were a party to this tawdry enterprise.

Cailin’s 2011 wedding at the Executive Mansion was paid for, in part, with $15,000 from Williams. Daughter Jeanine and her husband took $10,000 from Williams as a wedding present, only returning it — as Jeanine testified in a scripted utterance at her parents’ trial — “after we realized he was a criminal.”

Sons Sean and Bobby were given golf clubs, a bag and shoes by Williams as well as occasional privileges at his exclusive country club outside Richmond. The twins, both of whom have had dust-ups with police over their after-hours conduct, resisted pressure from their father to return the equipment. They dismissed his concerns that it was inappropriate for them to accept it.

The "conservatives" in the Virginia GOP disparage gays and many others as "sinners" and "immoral."  Perhaps they need to take a good look at themselves in the mirror.  They are modern day Pharisees who daily exhibit behavior that makes the case for walking away from Christianity.

Republican Are Already Doing Damage Control

Republicans will not take control of Congress until later next month but find themselves frantically doing damage control in the wake of the admission the House majority whip, Steve Scalise spoke at a Neo-nazi, white supremacy convention, and the resignation of Michael Grimm, a New York member of Congress convicted of felony tax evasion.  Scalise's excuse that he did not know the nature of the group he addressed defies belief and, if true, indicates that the man is too stupid to be in Congress much less majority whip.  As for Grimm, his conduct is all to familiar to Virginians who await the sentencing of former Governor Bob McDonnell.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at the GOP's damage control efforts - Note Boehner has not pushed Scalise to resign, apparently out of fear of alienating the white supremacist base in the GOP.  Here are highlights:

Republican leaders moved forcefully on Tuesday to control the damage from a pair of scandals that have suddenly disrupted the party as it prepares to take full control on Capitol Hill.

In back-to-back moves, House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) pushed out Rep. Michael G. Grimm (R-N.Y.), who pleaded guilty last week to federal tax-evasion charges, and backed Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), who acknowledged that he once ­addressed a white-supremacist group before coming to Congress.

Some Republicans praised Boehner for his actions, expressing their eagerness to start the new Congress in a position of strength to fully exploit their gains in the midterm elections. But others worried about the potential political fallout from a fresh racial controversy for a party eager to show its broadening appeal to minorities ahead of the 2016 presidential election. 

John Weaver, a GOP consultant who advised the presidential campaigns of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), said in an e-mail that Scalise “cannot serve in leadership in our party as we’re in the process of trying to show the American people we can handle the burden of governing, especially in a country so divided across all demographic lines.”

The twin controversies could also derail the carefully laid plans of Boehner and the incoming Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), to shape the party’s message and Washington’s political agenda in the coming weeks. . . . . A controversy involving race could complicate Republican bargaining power.

In a flurry of phone calls late Monday into Tuesday, Scalise reassured his colleagues that he had been oblivious to the racist and anti-Semitic associations of the group when he addressed it in 2002 as a state legislator.

Grimm’s announcement that he will resign next Monday ended months of controversy for the lawmaker, a former FBI agent once considered a star GOP recruit. He left the powerful House Financial Services Committee in the spring after federal prosecutors unveiled a 20-count indictment, but he refused to resign and won reelection for a third term in November despite his troubles.

[C]onservative activists and more mainstream operatives were fretting about the Scalise controversy’s implications for the party’s image.

“It’s always a step forward and two or three steps backward with this kind of stuff. We’ve got to get beyond that,” said Michael Steele, former Maryland lieutenant governor and past chairman of the Republican National Committee.  One of his party’s most prominent black members, Steele suggested that Scalise might have to relinquish his leadership position . . . .

“How Do You Show Up at a David Duke Event and Not Know What It Is?” Erick Erickson, a widely followed radio talk-show host and conservative blogger, said in a Twitter message. 

Sadly, the GOP has become a party of racists and extremists - a trend that has intensified since the Christofascists were allowed to hijack much of the party base and grassroots.  I continue to wonder when the party's racism will be made official with KKK robes handed out at the beginning of every local city and county committee.   

Report: Bob McDonnell Possibly Facing Criminal Charges Over Cash Gifts

Bob McDonnell and his family acted like pigs at a trough when it came to soliciting and accepting bribes "gifts" from Star Scientific CEO Jonnie R. Williams, Sr.  Now, MSNBC is reporting that McDonnell could be facing criminal charges for the cash bribes "gifts" he accepted.  If this in fact comes to pass, McDonnell's aspirations for higher office may well be toast.  Secondly, such charges may bring renewed coverage of Ken Cuccinelli's willingness to likewise solicit and accept bribes "gifts" from Williams.  Here are highlights from MSNBC's article:

A federal investigation into Virginia governor Bob McDonnell’s accepting financial gifts from companies could lead to potential criminal charges against the Republican, the Washington Post reported Sunday.

Authorities are now investigating whether those gifts were part of a quid-pro-quo arrangement between Williams and McDonnell where the governor accepted the money in exchange for helping the company with Antabloc, a new dietary supplement, the paper reported.

Last week, McDonnell agreed to pay back the loans from Star Scientific, saying that he was, “deeply sorry for the embarrassment certain members of my family and I brought upon my beloved Virginia and her citizens.”

After receiving the gifts, McDonnell set up a meeting between Williams and Virginia’s secretary of health to discuss Andabloc; Maureen McDonnell, the first lady, hosted a lunch attended by her husband to celebrate the release of the drug at the governor’s mansion, the paper reported.

I want to know what Cuccinelli was supposed to deliver to Williams in exchange for the over $18,000 in "gifts" Cuccinelli received.  Virginia voters should be loudly asking this question.