Benghazi Farce Blows up in GOP’s Face

From its outset, the GOP controlled House Benghazi committee has been a partisan witch hunt with only one goal: Damage Hillary Clinton as much as possible and Barack Obama as well should the opportunity present itself.  The GOP hit men have conveniently developed amnesia on the issue of their own cuts to funding for State Department security.   Meanwhile, they have near orgasm leaking selective tidbits to the media - which is itself part of the problem - with the knowledge that lazy journalists will likely run with the proffered GOP sound bite/talking point.  Thankfully, the charade is now getting unwanted scrutiny that shows that the committee's work has been akin to one of Josef Stalin's show trials in the 1930's.  A piece Salon looks at the GOP's wet dream unraveling.  Here are highlights:

The chaos and dysfunction currently roiling the Republican majority in the House of Representatives has made life difficult for the House Select Committee on Benghazi. Under the leadership of Trey Gowdy, the committee had been maintaining a low profile, keeping quiet and staying out of the news as it dug up dirt on Hillary Clinton to strategically leak to the press. The low-profile game plan was shot to hell by Kevin McCarthy, who bragged of the committee’s political agenda on national television, and was then forced to walk back his comments and deny saying the thing he said several times over. Suddenly, Gowdy and his committee were facing the one thing they’d hoped to avoid: scrutiny.

That scrutiny has taken the form of a front-page New York Times investigation into what the committee has been up to over the past year and half. What the paper turned up is an investigation that didn’t really seem to be going anywhere until Hillary Clinton’s emails emerged as an issue, at which point its focus “shifted” from the actual attacks in Benghazi to Clinton’s electronic communications. 

As the Times notes, the official response from the Republicans on the committee is to “dispute any suggestion that their inquiry… has been partisan or ineffective or that it has changed course.” . . . though it became harder to maintain that fiction in the aftermath of McCarthy’s inopportune truth-telling.

But the unofficial Republican response to the committee’s recent troubles is a bit more enlightening:

Senior Republican officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were discussing confidential conversations, said that Mr. Boehner had long been suspicious of the administration’s handling of the attacks and that Mrs. Clinton’s emails gave him ato keep the issue alive and to cause political problems for her campaign.

[[N]ow Republican officials are dishing to the Times about how it was all the outgoing Speaker’s idea to focus on Hillary’s emails for political benefit. This has all the hallmarks of a cover-your-ass operation – Paul Waldman sees this as Gowdy and his people working to push away any responsibility for what is turning into a damaging story for his committee.

But it doesn’t really matter what excuses Republicans come up with. The Times story has punched a hole in the committee’s credibility and made clear just how little trust one can place in the public statements emerging from the Benghazi investigators.

The three-pronged investigation was supplanted by a singular focus on Clinton’s emails. The interviews they promised would happen were, per the Times, “never followed up on.” And its mandate seems to have been abandoned in a messy political fight that is threatening to blow up in their faces.

The GOP Sinks Deeper into Chaos

As I have said before, the Republican Party has become an insane asylum under the control of the patients, many of who suffer from severe delusions and detachment from objective reality.  With John Boehner's unexpected announcement last month that he was resigning as Speaker of the House of Representatives, many thought that Kevin McCarthy - not one of my favorite people - would succeed Boehner.  Now, McCarthy has thrown the GOP into chaos by his sudden announcement that he would be withdrawing his name from consideration.  Whether McCarthy changed his mind after realizing that he's suffer the same difficulties as Boehner, feeling that his honesty about the true nature of the House Benghazi committee was toxic, or knew that some other bombshell might be forthcoming, his withdrawal has left the lunatic right rejoicing and less insane Republicans fearful of what may yet be to come.  A column in the Washington Post looks at the batshitery reigning supreme in the GOP.  Here are highlights:

Less than a year after a sweeping electoral triumph, Republicans are on the verge of ceasing to function as a national political party.

The most powerful and crippling force at work in the ­once-hierarchical GOP is anger, directed as much at its own leaders as anywhere else.

First, a contingent of several dozen conservative House members effectively forced Speaker John A. Boehner (Ohio) to resign rather than face a possibly losing battle to hold on to his job. Now they have claimed House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), who had been considered the favorite to replace Boehner until he announced Thursday that he is dropping out of the race.

With no obvious replacement for Boehner in sight, “it is total confusion — a banana republic,” said Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.). “Any plan, anything you anticipate — who knows what’ll happen? People are crying, they don’t have any idea how this will unfold, at all.”

Parallel currents of rage and chaos have been roiling the 2016 presidential race, diminishing hopes that an eventual nominee can bring order and direction to the increasingly dysfunctional party.

But government experience has become a liability for Republicans, rather than a credential. Celebrity billionaire Donald Trump, the leader in every poll, has rallied the conservative base by mocking the entire GOP establishment as weak and feckless. Many of the other candidates have followed his lead.

The forces that have made the House ungovernable are coming from the same wellspring of insurgency, beginning with the tea party movement, that propelled the Republicans back into control of Congress.

Battalions of conservative ground troops have come to Capitol Hill in the past five years with expectations that were not in line with what could actually be achieved while there is still a Democrat in the White House.

Disappointed in their ability to follow through on their campaign promises to turn back President Obama’s policies, they trained their fire on their own commanders.

For all their gains on the state and local level, Republicans are deepening the problems that have cost them the popular vote in all but one of the last six presidential elections. The divisive and exclusionary rhetoric of their 2016 contenders has hit a chord with primary voters . . . .
but threatens to further alienate key groups of voters in an increasingly diverse country.

Their contempt for compromise has also undermined the Republicans’ drive to prove that they can actually govern.  

Junior members of Congress no longer have to seek the favor of more senior ones to rise through the ranks. Modern media has given them the power to play to a national audience — as presidential contender and first-term senator Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) has demonstrated in the Senate.

In July, Cruz went so far as to call Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) a liar on the floor of the Senate. Such a breach of decorum would have been unthinkable in earlier times, but it has burnished Cruz’s image with the conservative base.

At the Obama White House, officials were not gloating at the Republican turmoil — in part, because it could pose problems for carrying out their own agenda. For instance, the president is going to have to rely on a large number of GOP votes to pass a Pacific Rim free-trade deal that is drawing opposition from Obama’s own party.

Candidly, I do not know how the Christofascists and Tea Party (a euphemism in my view for Christofascists and white supremacists) can be brought under control .  They are simply crazy and logic and reason - and objective reality - get nowhere with them.  The GOP establishment allowed them to hijack the party base and now the price may be the ultimate death of the GOP.

Boehner Expects House GOP to Accept SCOTUS Gay Marriage Ruling

I cannot say that I feel any sympathy for John Boehner.  The man is, in my opinion, a douche bag (and that's being kind).  That said, Boehner today stated that, if the U.S. Supreme Court, issues a ruling confirming gay marriage nationwide, he believes the House GOP will accept the ruling.   Part of Boehner's statement is based on the reality that there really would be little or nothing that the House GOP could do other than take symbolic votes to pass a proposed anti-gay amendment to the U.S. Constitution which would never see passage.  Nonetheless, I can already hear the howls and imagine the spittle flying in the office of hate groups like FRC, The Family Foundation here in Virginia, and the lunatic Traditional Values Coalition.  The New York Times looks at Boehner's apparent capitulation.  Here are excerpts:

Speaker John A. Boehner said on Thursday that he expected House Republicans to accept the decision on same-sex marriage that the Supreme Court is scheduled to issue later this year. 

“I don’t expect that we’re going to weigh in on this,” Mr. Boehner said. “The court will make its decision, and that’s why they’re there, to be the highest court in the land.” 

The statement comes as a bit of a surprise, given the House Republicans’ expensive defense of the Defense of Marriage Act in 2013.

After the Supreme Court deemed parts of the act unconstitutional in 2013, some House Republicans sought to draft an amendment to go around the Supreme Court’s ruling. 

 The Washington Blade further noted in part:

Evan Wolfson, president of the LGBT group Freedom to Marry, said House Republicans made a “commendable decision” not to participate in the marriage cases this time around and called it “a real step forward” after defending DOMA in court.

“Their evolution reflects the momentum for the freedom to marry nationwide, as well as the quiet hope of most Republican officials and operatives that the Supreme Court will rule in our favor and bring the country to national resolution, thereby rescuing them from their prior stance against the freedom to marry,” Wolfson said. “They know their past pandering to part of their base is way out of step not only with a majority of the American people and independents, but with Republicans under 50 and even with young Evangelicals.”

Outgoing U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has already said the Obama administration will file a brief in the case arguing on behalf of marriage rights “for all Americans.”

Billionaires Push Republicans on Employment Non-Discrimination Act

While Barack Obama sits on his hands and refuses to sign an executive order ENDA, some Republican billionaires are pushing anti-gay Republicans in the House of Representatives to change their position and vote for passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act ("ENDA") which was passed by the U.S. Senate.  The result is that GOP Congress members must decide between angering major GOP donors or continuing to prostitute themselves to Christofascists within the GOP base.  There is certainly an element of sweet irony to the situation.  Politico looks at the pressure being applied to members of the House GOP.  Here are excerpts:

Republican billionaires Paul Singer and Seth Klarman are supporting gay rights activists in a $2.2 million campaign to get the Republican-controlled House to extend workplace protections to the LGBT community.

An umbrella group called Americans for Workplace Opportunity wants a vote on a bill passed by the Senate before the end of the year.

“We really see this as an important piece of unfinished business for LGBT workers and people around the country,” said Campbell Spencer, who is managing the campaign.

Spencer said the group’s goal is to demonstrate they have the 218 supporters needed for passage and then work with House GOP leadership to get it to the floor and passed. The group is already having a “tactical conversation about how best to move to passage,” according to Spencer.

Currently, the House bill has 202 co-sponsors. Only six Republicans are signed on as co-sponsors. Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) has also voiced his support of the measure.

But the campaign is already getting some traction from Colorado Republican Rep. Mike Coffman.

That Coffman is one of the first Republicans coming out in support of ENDA is no surprise, and it highlights another step in his political evolution. The Colorado Republican has reversed positions on immigration and abortion in recent months as he tries to fend off an challenge from Democrat Andrew Romanoff in Colorado’s competitive sixth district.

“I see this legislation as the workplace equivalent of the Golden Rule — do unto others, as you would have them do unto you,” Coffman said in a statement to POLITICO. “In the workplace, in 2014, we should judge employees the way we would want to be judged — based on our qualifications, our contributions and by our character, period.”

The group has identified GOP Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart (Fla.), Mike Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Jim Gerlach (Pa.), Joe Heck (Nev.), Leonard Lance (N.J.), Frank LoBiondo (N.J.), Dave Reichert (Wash.) and Democratic Rep. Dan Lipinski (Ill.) as top-tier targets to try and convince them to support the legislation.

Other groups involved in the group include Log Cabin Republicans, AFSCME, ACLU and the SEIU.

Federal Judge Rules Gays Are Protected by Sex Discrimination Laws

Library of Congress

Today it remains perfectly legal in 29 states for employers to fire gays because of their sexual orientation regardless of how well they perform their job duties.  Religious based bigotry is allowed to trump all else.  Meanwhile, the Republicans in the House of Representatives are blocking a vote on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act ("ENDA") and Barack Obama blathers and sits on his hands rather than sign an ENDA executive order - evens as Democrats daily demand money from LGBT citizens.   It is a disgusting situation.  Now, a federal judge has very sensibly ruled that gays are protected under current laws barring discrimination based on sex (I would add that bans on religious based discrimination should apply as well as suggested by the judge).  The Advocate looks at the development which will no doubt have Christofascists howling.  Here are highlights:

A federal judged has determined that gays and lesbians who have experienced bias in the workplace can find relief under existing sex discrimination laws.

U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly has ruled that Peter TerVeer, a gay man who is suing his employer, the Library of Congress, because his supervisor created "a hostile environment in which he imposed his religion and sexual stereotypes," falls under the protections of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

In a preliminary ruling that allowed the lawsuit to move forward, Kollar-Kotelly found that discrimination that stems from noncomformity to “gender stereotypes associated with men” is prohibited by Title VII, which prohibits workplace discrimination due to sex.

As Kollar-Kotelly notes in her preliminary ruling issued Monday, “Title VII prohibits an employer from discriminating ‘against any individual … because of such individual’s … sex.’ Under Title VII, allegations that an employer is discriminating against an employee based on the employee’s non-conformity with sex stereotypes are sufficient to establish a viable sex discrimination claim.”

“Here, Plaintiff has alleged that he is ‘a homosexual male whose sexual orientation is not consistent with the Defendant’s perception of acceptable gender roles,’ that his ‘status as a homosexual male did not conform to the Defendant’s gender stereotypes associated with men under Mech’s supervision or at the LOC,’ and that ‘his orientation as homosexual had removed him from Mech’s preconceived definition of male," she continued.

“As Plaintiff has alleged that Defendant denied him promotions and created a hostile work environment because of Plaintiff’s nonconformity with male sex stereotypes,” she concluded, “Plaintiff has met his burden of setting forth ‘a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief’ as required by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a). Accordingly, the Court denies Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff’s sex discrimination claim (Count I) for failure to state a claim.”

Because TerVeer’s boss, John Mech, also allegedly imposed antigay religious views upon his employee, TerVeer may also be able to find relief under religious discrimination, noted Kollar-Kotelly. The preliminary ruling listed several instances of such acts. On June 24, 2009, Mech told Vermeer “putting you … closer to God is my effort to encourage you to save your worldly behind.” A few months later, TerVeer also received an email from his Catholic boss that contained photographs of assault weapons. The caption read “Diversity: Let’s Celebrate It.”

In 2012 the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission made the landmark ruling that Title VII does not simply prohibit discrimination based on biological sex, but also includes “protections sweep far broader than that, in part because the term 'gender' encompasses not only a person’s biological sex but also the cultural and social aspects associated with masculinity and femininity.”

Since this ruling, several transgender people have found relief under Title VII, but TerVeer would be the first to obtain a ruling that these protections cover sexual orientation.

As I have said over and over again, special rights based on adherence to ignorance based religious beliefs need to end.  For too long Christofascists have been allowed to punish others who do not conform to their fear and hate based belief systems.  Kudos to Judge Kollar-Kotelly

 

GOP Controlled House Approves Higher Debt Limit Without Condition

By a narrow margin the U.S. House of Representatives approved an increase in the United States' debt limit without imposed conditions suggesting that at least a minority of GOP House members learned at least something from last year's government shut down.  Far too many members of the House GOP proved too spineless to challenge the demagogues and saboteurs of the GOP's Christofascist and Tea Party base.  It would be nice if this vote offered evidence that the GOP is steering back towards sanity, but that is probably too much to be hoped for.  Here are highlights from the New York Times:

WASHINGTON — Ending three years of brinkmanship in which the threat of a devastating default on the nation’s debt was used to wring conservative concessions from President Obama, the House on Tuesday voted to raise the government’s borrowing limit until March 2015, without any conditions.

The vote — 221 to 201 — relied almost entirely on Democrats in the Republican-controlled House to carry the measure and represented the first debt ceiling increase since 2009 that was not attached to other legislation. Only 28 Republicans voted yes, and only two Democrats voted no.

Simply by holding the vote, Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio effectively ended a three-year Tea Party-inspired era of budget showdowns that had raised the threat of default and government shutdowns, rattled economic confidence and brought serious scrutiny from other nations questioning Washington’s ability to govern. In the process, though, Mr. Boehner also set off a series of reprisals from fellow Republican congressmen and outside groups that showcased the party’s deep internal divisions.

“He gave the president exactly what he wanted, which is exactly what the Republican Party said we did not want,” said a Republican representative, Tim Huelskamp of Kansas, who last year unsuccessfully tried to rally enough support to derail Mr. Boehner’s re-election as speaker. “It’s going to really demoralize the base.”

The vote was a victory for President Obama, Democrats and those Senate Republicans who have argued that spending money for previously incurred obligations was essential for the financial standing of the federal government. 

But outside Republican groups were sharply critical of the speaker. Both the Club for Growth and Heritage Action for America, for example, had put out a “key vote” alert urging members to vote against the measure.

Mr. Boehner stunned House Republicans on Tuesday morning when he dropped a package that would have tied the debt ceiling increase to a repeal of cuts to military retirement pensions that had been approved in December and announced he would put a “clean” debt ceiling increase up for a vote.

Enough Republicans had balked at that package when it was presented Monday night to convince the speaker he had no choice but to turn to the Democratic minority. 

For Mr. Boehner it was a potentially momentous decision. Conservative activists, including the Tea Party Patriots, FreedomWorks, L. Brent Bozell’s ForAmerica and commentators on the website RedState.com are all circulating petitions to end Mr. Boehner’s speakership.

I hold no love whatsoever for Boehner, but thankfully he grew a partial spine and stood up to the lunatics of the GOP.

 

GOP Base Goes Berserk Over Possible Immigration Bill

I do truly wonder at times when it will become fashionable for members of local city and county committees to attend monthly committee meetings dressed in KKK regalia.  Increasingly, the GOP base acts as if they were already card carrying members of the Klan.  Just look at the reaction that has been triggered by the GOP House leadership floating some still rather nebulous principles for immigration reform.  In some circles the spittle flecked hysteria is so bad one would think that Pope Francis had raped an altar boy on the main altar of St. Peter's Basilica.  If one wants two see how Hitler rose to power, look no farther than today's GOP base and its inability to see humanity in others.  The New York Times looks at the blow back John Boehner and others are receiving from the knuckle dragging racists in the party base (most of whom probably go to church on Sundays and congratulate themselves on their piety) .  Here are excerpts:

As House Republicans embarked late last month in luxury buses for their retreat on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, their ears were already ringing with angry phone calls. Heritage Action, the political arm of the conservative Heritage Foundation, was imploring its members to flood the Capitol with warnings to accept “no amnesty.”

The day before, the Tea Party Patriots group set in motion 900,000 automatic phone calls in 90 Republican House districts, connecting tens of thousands of voters to their members of Congress. The hashtag #NoAmnesty blazed across Twitter. About the same time, FreedomWorks, another anti-tax, limited-government group, was pulling in signatures on its “fire the speaker” petition against the House speaker, John A. Boehner. 

 When House Republicans gathered on Jan. 30 to actually read and discuss Mr. Boehner’s principles on immigration reform, his was already a losing battle.

A week later, Mr. Boehner shelved the issue, declaring Thursday that he could not move forward with a comprehensive overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws until President Obama won the trust of the Republican conference.

“I would’ve been surprised if Boehner didn’t do that,” said Representative John Fleming, Republican of Louisiana and a leader in the opposition to immigration legislation. “Few things in politics are as obvious as this one. That’s why there was a collective shrug in conservative leadership” when the speaker all but declared the measure dead.

Since October’s government shutdown, Mr. Boehner has been in open warfare with outside conservative groups, dealing them one loss after another . . . .  But on immigration, the groups flexed their collective muscles.

[A]rdent opponents grew bolder in the week after the Republican retreat. Representative Raúl Labrador, Republican of Idaho and a negotiator on immigration, suggested a push now would cost Mr. Boehner his speakership. Representative Mo Brooks, Republican of Alabama, echoed the threat.

In the end, Mr. Fleming, the representative from Louisiana, said that the speaker understood it was not worth picking a fight that would almost certainly end with nothing accomplished.

An Out of Touch Congress: Off 239 Days This Year While Workers Are Guaranteed Zero Days Off

Last evening Rachel Maddow was reviewing all the legislation that has not been passed by Congress this year - including routine legislation like a Farm Bill, Water Bill, Defense Bill, etc. - even as the GOP controlled House voted on the symbolic repeal of Obamacare roughly four dozen times.  House Republicans like to chide the poor to get a job and be responsible for their own security, yet Congress most assuredly is NOT doing its job.  But then, it's hard to do your job when you have more than two-thirds of the year off from work.  The gulf between the lives of professional politicians in Congress and average Americans has never been so stark.  Think Progress looks at this out of touch Congress.  Here are highlights:

Congress has just eight days on the job between now and the start of the next session on January 7, with the House coming back on Monday and adjourning for the year by December 13 and the Senate returning on December 9 only to most likely adjourn for the year on December 20. In total, the House will have had 239 days off this year with even more scheduled for next year. 

Certainly members of Congress have work to do when they’re not required to be in D.C., including meetings with constituents, running their other offices, talking to local community leaders, and doing media interviews. Some may also use those days off on other jobs for supplemental income, but most make side money by owning businesses or from investments.

The picture is very different for the rest of Americans, however. The country doesn’t guarantee its citizens any paid vacation or holiday time off, unlike 20 of its developed peers. All European Union countries guarantee workers at least 20 paid days of vacation a year, with France going so far as to lock in 30, the United Kingdom mandating 28, and Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden guaranteeing 25.
Of course, many American employers still give their workers paid vacation time and holidays off. But that holds true for fewer and fewer workers. . . . . The biggest drops have come for those who work part-time — a position more and more find themselves in — or for employers with fewer than 100 workers.

The U.S. also lags developed peers in other kinds of paid time off. It is the only one out of the top 15 most competitive that doesn’t guarantee paid sick days, which leaves 40 percent of private sector workers out of paid leave. Those who do get paid sick days also get fewer of them than two decades ago. The country is even more lonely when it comes to maternity leave to take care of a new child, joining just three countries out of 178 in failing to guarantee paid time off. Fathers similarly get no guarantee of paid time off when a new child arrives.

Why Passing ENDA Should Be a Republican Priority

With the Senate's passage of ENDA - the Employment Non-Discrimination Act - yesterday, the focus will now turn to the House of Representatives.  Sadly, unlike the Senate, the House (or at least its GOP members) is much more under the thumb of the Christofascists of the GOP base who desperately want laws that allow discrimination against gays to give justification to their ignorance and bigotry.  As gay rights have increased, it has become much harder for bigots and homophobes to point to state sponsored discrimination as proof that they are not in fact, horrible, nasty people.  An opinion piece in Politico by Ari Fleischer, White House press secretary under President George W. Bush, lays out why the passage of ENDA ought to be a priority for the GOP if the party is true to its claimed principles.  Here are highlights:

On Thursday, the U.S. Senate passed legislation to protect gay employees from job discrimination with an overwhelming bipartisan vote. Republicans should support these protections, and I hope the GOP leadership in the House schedules the bill for a vote. It’s the morally right thing to do. No one should lose their job, or not get hired, because of their sexual orientation.

Allowing people to be successful in their workplaces is an essential piece of individual opportunity and liberty. Working for a living is one of America’s freedoms. It’s a virtue to be encouraged — and supporting it is important to the future of the Republican Party. In an era in which the government often punishes hard work and individual success, this bill encourages it.

At its core, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act is about individual liberty. All employees should be treated the same and be judged on their job performance. No one should receive special treatment, and no one should be fired because of their sexual orientation.

Since the 1960s, Congress has passed laws ensuring that employers can’t discriminate on the basis of race, religion or gender — personal characteristics that have nothing to do with how well someone does his or her job. These laws are widely accepted throughout our society. Who among us today would say an employer should have the right to fire someone because of their faith or the color of their skin? The same sense of fairness and respect should apply to the hundreds of thousands of qualified, hardworking Americans covered by ENDA.

[A] strong majority of Americans (68 percent) said they favored a federal ENDA. Among Republicans, 56 percent nationwide supported the law, while only 32 percent opposed it. Additional statewide polling conducted by conservative pollster Jan van Lohuizen in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Ohio and New Hampshire confirmed those findings.

It’s a little sad that these questions even need to get put to a poll, but old ways of thinking sometimes take time to change. The time for this change has arrived. In fact, many in the business community, recognizing the importance of a qualified, skilled workforce, are well ahead of the federal government.

Now is time for the government to catch up so that nondiscrimination laws protect workers at all companies, not just some.

Politically, it’s about time for the GOP to do the right thing while acting in a more inclusive and welcoming manner. Republicans need to expand our appeal and earn the support of millennials. The younger generation of Americans views gay rights differently than our parents’ generation, and as was noted in an assessment of the Republican Party I co-authored following the 2012 elections, issues like this are gateways into whether young people see the GOP as a party worthy of support.

As for the question, "Who among us today would say an employer should have the right to fire someone because of their faith or the color of their skin?", the answer is simple: your typical Christofascist and Tea Party member.  As I have said before, these folks are not nice and decent people. 

House GOP Vows to Kill ENDA

With the Employment Non-Discrimination Act poised to likely pass the U.S. Senate, the GOP controlled House of Representatives led by the foul John Boehner has vowed to kill the legislation.  Never mind that even in Alabama and Mississippi a majority of voters support employment protections for gays.  All that matters in the House is what the hate groups like Family Research Council and similar foul organizations have to say against the bill.  It's ultimately part and parcel with the GOP's long term suicide wish.  I just wish the death would come more quickly.  Here are excerpts from an article that looks at the GOP House effort to keep gays inferior as demanded by their Christofascist masters: 

The path towards the Employment Non-Discrimination Act or ENDA becoming law took one step forward on Monday morning but two steps backward when Speaker of the House John Boehner came out against the measure. The bill, which prohibits workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, was endorsed by Sen. Dean Heller, (R-NV) giving it the 60 votes needed to avoid a filibuster in the Senate. Heller’s support may help ENDA pass the Senate, but Boehner’s opposition dealt a major blow to its chances in the House.

Just minutes after Heller’s office announced that the Nevada Republican was supporting the bill, Boehner came out against the measure. In a statement,  Michael Steel, a Boehner spokesman, said “The Speaker believes this legislation will increase frivolous litigation and cost American jobs, especially small business jobs.”

Boehner’s opposition means it is very unlikely that ENDA will be brought to the House floor for an up-or-down vote, which hurts but doesn’t totally derail the legislation’s chances. Supporters could still attach it as an amendment to a defense-spending bill or even try to use a legislative maneuver called a discharge petition to force a vote, if they can get a majority of the House behind the bill.

The result will be a victory for LGBT advocates who have pushed to pass an anti-discrimination law for decades. But the likely consequence of Boehner’s open opposition will be to make a Senate victory merely symbolic. ENDA’s approval by the Senate will be an important milestone but the bill still needs to pass the House of Representatives to become law.

How Sleazy Christian Con Artists Took Over the GOP

I came across this piece on AlterNet that was just too good to pass up since it describes the consequences of the Christofascist take over of the GOP base, a process that I began witnessing before I resigned from my GOP City Committee position and walked away form the Republican Party. The result has been that sane, serious minded Republicans - e.g., my entire extended family - have bolted from the GOP and the death spiral initiated by the Christofascists seems to be accelerating except in the eyes of those living in an alternate universe or who have shown themselves to be gullible to lies and smoke and mirrors.  Today, instead of advancing problem solving policies and serious program proposals, the entire GOP message has been transformed to attract those motivated by greed, ignorance, religious extremism, a severe fear of modernity and, of course,  racism.  It is not a pretty picture and, in my view, it all ties back to the rise of the Christofascists in the Republican Party.  Here are column excerpts:

The culture of fundamentalist Christianity has had profound impacts on the Republican party in the past few decades, moving Republicans to the right on various issues and forcing Republicans to prioritize gay-bashing and attacks on reproductive rights. The shutdown, however, ended up demonstrating something even more sinister. Republicans are no longer just cribbing their political ideology from fundamentalist Christianity. Increasingly, conservative politicians are abandoning the basic task of representing the interests of their voters and instead are exploiting their voters in the same way televangelists and other fundamentalist charlatans exploit the true believers that come to them looking for spiritual salvation.

 

Ted Cruz is the most prominent example, at least in the past month. After the shutdown debacle, it became clear that Cruz has no interest in using his position as a Texas senator to work on behalf of the voters who got him there. Instead, his M.O. is pure sleazy televangelist: Lots of public grandstanding to convince his marks, previously known as constituents, that he's on their side, for the sole purpose of shaking them down for money and support without offering anything in return.

The Houston Chronicle lamented ever endorsing Cruz, comparing him unfavorably to his predecessor Kay Baily Hutchinson. Hutchinson actually bothered to represent her voters, putting a priority on the state’s economic development. Cruz is as different from Hutchinson as a miracle-promising conman taking old ladies for their Social Security checks is from the local minister who actually bothers to do the unglamorous work of holding hands, wiping tears and performing weddings and funerals for parishioners.

That Cruz resembles a faith healer selling lies to gullible people more than a politician working to represent the interests of his voters shouldn’t be too surprising. His family is wrapped up with some of the worst of the worst when it comes to sleazy preachers seeking to exploit vulnerable people. Cruz’s father is a member of Purifying Fire Ministries, founded by Suzanne Hinn, the wife of one of the nation’s most despicable fundamentalist conmen, Benny Hinn. Hinn is a minister only in the loosest sense of the word: He goes about the world conducting fake faith-healing “miracles” that make him a lot of money, but he doesn’t actually provide any services real people need. It’s all just magic tricks to con the rubes out of their hard-earned money.

Of course, Cruz is far from the only politician who apparently models his career off fraudulent fundamentalist preachers who love self-aggrandizing drama but don’t care too much about, well, caring for their people. The all-flash-no-substance model is beginning to take over the Republican party.

 

Obviously, the right has always had a charlatan side, with plenty of self-appointed leaders viewing the faithful as marks to bilk for cash instead of giving people the services promised. Faith healers and other religious conmen have preyed on fundamentalist Christian audiences for over a century now. As historian Rick Perlstein wrote in the Baffler, conservative media has long subsisted on selling snake oil to their followers and running mail order schemes to defraud conservative readers while making the leaders wealthy. But, by and large, Republicans of the past did consider it a duty to actually work for the people who elected them. That relationship has fundamentally changed.  . . . the modern Republican sees the voters as rubes he can hoodwink into sending him to D.C. while not doing any actual work for them.