Miami Herald Trashes Marco Rubio

This blog often looks at the moral bankruptcy of today's Republican Party and various Republicans who have put even basic decency aside in their quest for raw power or due to fear of the ever more ugly base of the party.  Too often these craven and/or spineless individuals get away with little public indictment for their behavior.  But not always.  Over the weekend the Miami Herald looks at the despicable behavior of Marco Rubio and how he has sold his soul to Donald Trump and the party base.  The irony is that once upon a time some viewed Rubio as a "savior" of the GOP.  Not anymore.  Here are excerpts from the scathing column:

Witnessing Sen. Marco Rubio’s pathetic response last week to President Trump’s latest racist outrages, it is impossible now to believe that Florida’s senior senator was once hailed as “The Savior of the Republican Party” on the cover of Time magazine.

He was supposed to be a rising star who would help shake the party up after the disastrous election of 2012. The son of immigrants, he would help the party overcome its long-term demographic challenge as its older base shrinks and America becomes ever more diverse.

But Rubio flamed out in the 2016 presidential election, among the last victims of Donald Trump’s brutal, degrading, slash-and-burn campaign — though not before lowering himself by trying to beat Trump at his own game, ridiculing the size of his opponent’s hands, suggesting that it reflected on other aspects of Trump’s physiology.

Rubio tried to regain a bit of dignity when he left the race. “America needs a vibrant conservative movement,” he said. “But one that’s built on principles and ideals, not on fear, not on anger and not on preying on people’s frustrations.”

But during the first two-and-a-half years of Trump’s presidency, Rubio abandoned the pretense of idealism or principles, except, perhaps, in his on-target approach to the crisis in Venezuela. Otherwise, he has transformed from Trump critic to a sycophantic cheerleader — derided by former adviser and Washington Post columnist Max Boot as a “Trump fan-boy” — to the point that he’s willing to kill Obamacare even though his own state leads the nation in enrollment. . . . [Rubio] could not find the spine to do more than mildly criticize Trump after his blatantly racist attacks on four Democratic congresswomen.

Even after Trump whipped a crowd in Greensville, North Carolina, into a hateful froth against U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar that erupted in chilling chants of “Send her back! Send her back!” — Rubio couldn’t muster the courage to truly object to the horrifying display of blatant racism. He called the chant “grotesque,” which it was, but he reserved most of his vitriol for “left wing politicians and many in the media.”

How disappointing. Obviously, he was not the only Republican to punt or remain silent last week. But, Rubio, in particular, should know the dangers of this moment and the path down which Trump is taking his followers, his party and the nation. He should have a deeper understanding of America’s tortured racial history and comprehensive knowledge of the animosity once faced by Cuban immigrants like his parents. He can do better. It leads us to ask whether he thinks his Senate bill, filed Thursday, to extend TPS for Haitians is compensation for his timidity in the face of Trump’s “go back” tweets.

Rubio, far from the Republicans’ savior, seems just another slick politician with his finger in the wind — pushing the party deeper into Trump’s swamp.

Again, Rubio's rejection of morality and decency is not unique in today's GOP.  Sadly, it is the norm.

Rubio Claims Democrats Want to "Steal" the Florida Elections By Counting All Votes

Lying Marco wants to ignore possible Democrat votes.

The more I see and hear about Marco Rubio anti-democratic bloviating, the more despicable I findA case in point is Rubio - and other Republicans' whining about the recounts that will likely take place in Florida's gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races where it seems that a significant number of votes were not counted.  From the additional votes discovered so far, the winning margins of the supposed Republican victors have shrunk to under the threshold for a manual recount.  A piece in New York Magazine looks at Rubio's shameless effort to have votes not counted.  Here re article highlights:

On Tuesday night in Florida, Democratic senator Bill Nelson conceded a Senate race to Republican Rick Scott, because he was trailing the Florida governor by more than 57,000 voters. Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, meanwhile, conceded Florida’s governor race to Republican Ron DeSantis, because he was trailing the congressman by an even larger margin.

And then, Nelson and Gillum discovered that there were more outstanding votes from heavily Democratic counties than they had realized. By Thursday afternoon, Nelson’s deficit had fallen to just 17,000, or 0.22 percent. State law requires a manual recount of any election with an initial margin under 0.25 percent. Gillum’s deficit, meanwhile, fell to 38,000, or 0.47 percent, which is under the 0.5 percent threshold that triggers an automatic machine recount, under state law.

More significantly (and alarmingly), irregularities began to emerge in Nelson’s pattern of support. Specifically, an aberrant percentage of voters in Broward County marked their ballots for gubernatorial candidates — but left the Senate ballot-line blank.

[U]ndervoting in the Senate race was especially pronounced in Florida’s 24th Congressional District, where no House race was listed (as the incumbent ran unopposed), and thus the Senate race box was even lower down on the ballot’s left-hand side. . . . it is also possible that vote-processing machines in Broward suffered a technical glitch that caused them not to read Senate votes that were properly marked on paper ballots — and if that is the case, then a recount would very likely tip the Senate race to Nelson.

For this and other reasons, lawyers for Nelson and Gillum decided to call on the state of Florida to honor its statutory obligation to perform a recount.

In response, Florida senator Marco Rubio decided to accuse the Democratic Party of conspiring with Broward County election officials to illicitly overturn the will of the electorate, and illegitimately install Bill Nelson into the U.S. Senate.

Rubio offered no evidence to support the claim that Democratic lawyers have been very clear that they don’t want every vote to count, and are merely seeking to win the election by any means necessary (even if that involves not counting all the votes), nor did he specify what “ongoing” violations of the law Broward County election officials were engaged in. He also neglected to mention that the election supervisor who is supposedly trying to rig the election for Nelson was appointed by former Republican governor (and Rubio ally) Jeb Bush.

Many #NeverTrump conservatives like to fantasize about a world in which Marco Rubio won the 2016 GOP nomination — and, as a result, the Republican Party retained its commitment to civility over demagoguery, and democratic ideals over the raw pursuit of power. There are many problems with this fantasy. But two conspicuous ones are that Rubio spent much of his 2016 campaign baselessly accusing America’s first black president of deliberately sabotaging the country (“he knows exactly what he’s doing”); and that he is now telling his supporters, without evidence, that if Bill Nelson wins a recount they should regard the outcome of the 2018 Florida Senate race as illegitimate.

Which suggests that an affinity for reckless demagoguery, and hostility to liberal democratic norms, weren’t qualities that Trump introduced to Republican politics — they were actually embedded deep inside the party all along.

GOP Senators Re-Introduce Federal License to Discriminate Law

In an apparent desperate attempt to motivate their base now that (i) Der Trumpenführer likely trade war may wipe out whatever meager take home pay increases the working class elements of GOP  base might have experienced from the GOP/Trump tax cuts - a column in the Washington Post looks at this topic and others here - and (ii) the Stormy Daniels story seemingly gaining steam, 22 GOP U.S. Senators have re-introduced the falsely named "The First Amendment Defense Act" ("FADA") which would bar the federal government from taking any action against Christian extremists (and arguably other homophobes) who engage in discriminate against same-sex couples or others based on "a sincerely held religious belief."  With polls showing congressional Republicans down by double digits compared to a generic Democrat and Trump's polling still in the toilet, Republicans see pandering to still loyal evangelical Christians critical in the lead up to the 2018 midterm elections. The Hill looks at this disgusting effort at self-prostitution.  Here are excerpts: 

A group of 22 GOP senators is reintroducing a controversial measure that would protect opponents of same-sex marriage from federal actions intended to curb discrimination. 

The First Amendment Defense Act (FADA) would bar the federal government from taking any action against individuals who discriminate against same-sex couples or others based on "a sincerely held religious belief."

The bill would also protect those who discriminate against marriages not recognized under federal law or individuals who engage in sex outside of marriage.

The measure was introduced by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and 21 Republican co-sponsors, including Sens. Marco Rubio (Fla.), Ted Cruz (Texas) and Orrin Hatch (Utah). 

FADA was introduced in both the House and the Senate in 2015, but only received a hearing in the House.  The bill never advanced to a full vote, however, amid protests from Democrats and concerns among Republicans that then-President Obama would veto the measure if it reached his desk. 

Supporters of the bill say that it is necessary to protect First Amendment guarantees, while opponents argue that it ultimately amounts to an attempt to legalize anti-LGBT discrimination. 

As a presidential candidate, Trump indicated that he would sign the measure if it were sent to his desk, saying that it would "protect the deeply held religious beliefs of Catholics and the beliefs of Americans of all faiths."

Note that Ted Cruz - a man with a long history of homophobia and self-prostitution to Christofascists  - is one of the bill's sponsors.  This bill would allow Christofascists - and arguably homophobic Muslims - to ignore non-discrimination laws while demanding protections for themselves under they very laws they seek to ignore.  As stated often, NO ONE is more selfish and self-centered - and more hypocrisy filled - than the "godly folk."

The Myth That More Guns Could Have Stopped the Parkland Massacre

NRA apologist Marco Rubio confronted by student survivor.

To listen to the NRA and its cheaply bought political whores in the Republican Party (one student survivor said AR-15 should be called Marco Rubio's since both could be cheaply bought) , more individuals armed with guns would have prevented the high school massacre in Florida.  It turns out that there were four (4) Broward County sheriff department deputies on the scene at the high school, none of whom entered the school as the shooter conducted his murderous rampage. One can ponder why trained deputies, one of who was highly decorated, refused to enter the school, but one possible reason was their fear of possible certain death going up against some one armed with an assault weapon while armed only with pistols.  Thus, not only did the assault weapon allow more students to be killed and wounded, but it may have intimidated trained and armed deputies from acting notwithstanding department policies that required them to enter the building.  The easiest way to have prevented the massacre? Take assault weapons out of the equation by banning them and confiscating those in circulation was was done in Australia two decades ago (which ended that nation's mass shooting problem). CNN looks at the deputies' failure to act:

When Coral Springs police officers arrived at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on February 14 in the midst of the school shooting crisis, many officers were surprised to find not only that Broward County Sheriff's Deputy Scot Peterson, the armed school resource officer, had not entered the building, but that three other Broward County Sheriff's deputies were also outside the school and had not entered, Coral Springs sources tell CNN. The deputies had their pistols drawn and were behind their vehicles, the sources said, and not one of them had gone into the school.

With direction from the Broward deputies who were outside, Coral Springs police soon entered the building where the shooter was. New Broward County Sheriff's deputies arrived on the scene, and two of those deputies and an officer from Sunrise, Florida, joined the Coral Springs police as they went into the building. Some Coral Springs police were stunned and upset that the four original Broward County Sheriff's deputies who were first on the scene did not appear to join them as they entered the school, Coral Springs sources tell CNN. It's unclear whether the shooter was still in the building when they arrived. The resentment among Coral Springs officials toward Broward County officials about what they perceived to be a dereliction of duty may have reached a boiling point at a vigil the night of February 15, where, in front of dozens of others, Coral Springs City Manager Mike Goodrum confronted Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel. A source familiar with the conversation tells CNN that Goodrum was upset that the Broward deputies had remained outside the school while kids inside could have been bleeding out, among other reasons. The Broward County Sheriff's Office confirmed to CNN that it is investigating the claims that, in addition to Peterson, three other deputies did not try to enter the high school after the shooting began. "What I saw was a deputy arrive ... take up a position and he never went in," Israel said at a news conference. Israel said Peterson should have "went in. Addressed the killer. Killed the killer." Peterson was suspended without pay, after which he resigned.

County Superintendent Robert Runcie said, "I'm in shock and I'm outraged to no end that he could have made a difference in all this. It's really disturbing that we had a law enforcement individual there specifically for this reason, and he did not engage. He did not do his job. It's one of the most unbelievable things I've ever heard."

Israel also announced an investigation into how two other deputies had handled warnings about the gunman prior to the shooting.

Tax "Reform": A Republicans Festival of Corruption

Marco Rubio has reportedly been bought off so that he will vote for a bill that the Republican Party and congressional Republicans refer to as "tax reform" but which in reality is a budget busting give away to the extremely wealthy.  On the positive side - although not for the reason behind it - John McCain has left Washington, D.C., and will not be on the scene to vote for the GOP's poisonous tax bill.  In the short term some average Americans will be thrown a few scraps - one calculation indicated that the husband and I (who combined earn far more than many Americans) will allegedly receive a whopping 1.3% reduction in our federal tax bill. Those who make less will receive even less and any short term benefit will phase out.   For the very wealthy and large, cash rich corporations, the give away is permanent.  How anyone can claim that this bill - which will add far more than a $ trillion to the federal debt - is good for working Americans is mind numbing.  A column in the Washington Post looks at the the corruption and dishonesty behind the bill.  Here are excerpts:

The tax bill the GOP is trying to foist on the country is not only an unfair and deficit-bloating hodgepodge written on the fly. It is also deeply corrupt. Every Republican who votes for this bill will be joining a festival of venality.

Corruption is not a word to be used lightly, so let’s be disciplined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary’s definitions: “dishonest or illegal behavior especially by powerful people” and “inducement to wrong by improper or unlawful means.”

We can stipulate that the tax bill is not illegal. But it is a dishonest power and money grab by — and on behalf of — the already powerful. As for “inducements,” well, there are those long-term investments of tens of millions of dollars in campaign contributions (enabled by the collapse of all the guardrails around political money) from wealthy individuals and regiments of interest groups. They will have a merry holiday season if the bill passes as expected.
 This legislation proves that Washington is, indeed, the “swamp” that President Trump described during the campaign. But instead of draining it, he and his partisan allies have jumped right in. Actually, they have polluted it further.

A prime example of this subtle corruption is how the “compromise” bill deals with the radical scaling back of the deduction for state and local taxes. Gutting what is known as the SALT tax break sets back the common good because doing so penalizes states that (a) have progressive income taxes and (b) have somewhat larger governments and thus tend to invest more in education, infrastructure and programs for the needy. While California, New York and New Jersey would be hit hard, many other states would hurt, too.

But instead of restoring all or most of the lost deduction, Republicans offered a fig-leaf compromise. . . . .  The new version keeps the cap while allowing the deduction to be used for sales and income taxes as well.

For most taxpayers who use the existing deduction, this won’t solve their problem. One estimate from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that 1.89 million Californians would still see their taxes rise under the new provision, only a modest drop from the 2.36 million who would have had a tax increase under the version confined to property taxes. Any California representative who votes for this is voting against the interests of the state.

Ah, but the Republicans did want to respond to rich New Yorkers and Californians who were howling to their usual GOP benefactors, including Trump, about their lost SALT deductions.  So rather than offer general relief, the Republicans sliced the top income tax rate — for couples earning $600,000 or more — from the current 39.6 percent to 37 percent. 

The shamelessness of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s description of the bill on CNN Sunday as “a very large tax cut for working families” is quite staggering. Consider that this confection of loopholes gives lawyers at big firms many paths to lower taxes but not much to the people who clean their offices. Soon, all Americans will demand the right to transform themselves into “pass-through” legal entities.

The bill’s champions claim that the big corporate tax cut will lead to massive new investment. But, as former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg (no enemy of business) pointed out, corporations are already “sitting on a record amount of cash reserves: nearly $2.3 trillion.” Bloomberg added: “It’s pure fantasy to think that the tax bill will lead to significantly higher wages and growth.”

Needlessly rushing a massive special-interest tax bill through Congress is the antithesis of good government. This doesn’t seem to matter anymore, even to Republicans who built reputations as champions of moderation, openness and rectitude.

Rubio to Christian Conservatives: There are Costs to Gay Intolerance

Marco Rubio likely majorly pissed off some of the Christofascists attending a confab on the two month anniversary of the Pulse massacre, when he chastised them for their intolerance and cruelty towards the LGBT community.  Perhaps he was reacting to the sharp condemnation he has received for attending an anti-gay zealot gathering in the first place or perhaps he is realizing that in order to save his sorry - and rumored to be gay - ass in his upcoming primary challenge and then the general election, he needs more that just the votes of raging homophobes.  While some of what Rubio said was a vast improvement over what most Republicans say about LGBT individuals, he nonetheless repeated opposition to LGBT non-discrimination protections that would lessen special rights for Christofascists.   Here are excerpts from the New York Times:

Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who has faced widespread condemnation for agreeing to speak at a conference alongside Christian conservatives who have denounced homosexuality and gay rights, used his speech to the group on Friday to warn of the costs of intolerance.

His remarks in Orlando, Fla., not far from the site of the massacre at a gay nightclub in June, were his most extensive yet in public on the subject of prejudice against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. And he struck a notably softer tone than during his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, during which he repeatedly reaffirmed his opposition to same-sex marriage.

Using the shorthand “L.G.B.T.” several times, Mr. Rubio told the group that the perception that many Christians are anti-gay is harming their faith. He urged them to resist passing judgment on gays.

“Do not judge, or you will be judged,” he said, echoing a verse from the Bible.

"To love our neighbors we must recognize that many have experienced sometimes severe condemnation and judgment from some Christians,” he said. “They have heard some say that the reason God will bring condemnation on America is because of them — as if somehow God was willing to put up with adultery and gluttony and greed and pride, but now this is the last straw.”

While he repeated his belief that marriage should not be redefined to include same-sex couples, his speech touched on the history of discrimination against gays, which he asked his audience to consider.

“When it comes to our brothers and our sisters, our fellow Americans, our neighbors in the L.G.B.T. community, we should recognize,” he said, that American history “has been marred by discrimination against and rejection of gays and lesbians.”

He then walked through a list of examples that included discriminatory hiring practices by the federal government, raids of gay establishments by the police and the proliferation of anti-gay slurs.

Mr. Rubio drew especially harsh criticism from gay rights activists for agreeing to speak to the group, the Florida Renewal Project, because he has said the killings at the Pulse nightclub caused him to reconsider his decision not to run again for the Senate. As he runs for re-election, social conservatives are an important constituency.

According to People for the American Way, which tracks anti-gay activists, several of the speakers listed on the invitation with Mr. Rubio have said many of the things the senator spoke out against on Friday. One of them, David Barton, a longtime Republican Party activist from Texas, has said that AIDS is a punishment for homosexuality. 

Do I trust Rubio or think he is really sincere?  Not at all, but perhaps he - and hopefully others in the GOP - is realizing that anti-LGBT extremism is becoming a negative with the majority of the American public.

Marco Rubio To Headline Radical Anti-LGBT Event

While the dishonest and delusional Donald Trump continues to claim that he would be a protector of the LGBT community, Marco Rubio - always a self-prostituting sleaze back who makes real prostitutes look virtuous - is underscoring the GOP{'s real approach to LGBT Americans by headlining an event for anti-LGBT hate group Liberty Counsel.   Worse yet, Rubio - who has been rumored to have his own gay history - will be speaking in Orlando, the cite of the worse LGBT massacre in American history.   Right Wing Watch looks at this foul bigotry.  Here are excerpts:

When Marco Rubio cited the deadly attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando as a reason he was changing his mind and running for re-election to the U.S. Senate, many LGBT allies immediately noted that the Florida senator and failed presidential candidate has never been an ally of the LGBT community.

“To be using the tragedy in Orlando as a time to reflect on his Senate career, when his career and his promises on the campaign trail have been anti-LGBTQ consistently, it’s just staggering to think he would be using this moment for his own personal ambitions,” said Jay Brown of the Human Rights Campaign at the time.

It comes as no surprise, then, to see that Rubio is slated to address an event in Orlando next month that will feature some of the country’s most vehement anti-LGBT activists.

The Orlando-based Liberty Counsel Action, an extreme anti-LGBT group whose affiliate is famous for representing Kentucky clerk Kim Davis in her stand against the Supreme Court’s marriage equality decision, announced in an email today that the Florida Renewal Project will be hosting an event called “Rediscovering God in America” in August. The event will be headlined by Rubio, who will speak alongside anti-LGBT activists David Barton, Bill Federer, Ken Graves and Mat Staver.

The Florida Renewal Project is an affiliate of conservative activist David Lane’s American Renewal Project, which hosts “Rediscovering God” conferences around the country.

The event will put Rubio in the company of some of the most extreme anti-gay activists in the country:

• David Lane, whose organization is hosting the event, believes that gay rights will lead to the “utter destruction” of the U.S. and “car bombs in Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and Des Moines, Iowa.” (Learn more about David Lane here).

• Mat Staver, whose Liberty Counsel Action sent out the invitation to the event and who is scheduled to speak, has gained a national reputation by representing Davis and Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore through the affiliated Liberty Counsel. Last month, Staver denounced memorial gatherings for the victims of the Orlando nightclub attack as “homosexual love fests.” Staver has claimed that gay people are “demonic,” seek to abuse children and are similar to terrorists, and has warned that gay rights victories could lead to “forced homosexuality” and “another civil war.” At the same time, he has praised countries that outlaw same-sex relationships. (Learn more about Mat Staver here).

• David Barton, a Republican Party activist who styles himself as a historian, thinks that God is justly preventing a cure for HIV/AIDS because it is a divine “penalty” for homosexuality, and has lamented that public schools try to “force” students “to be homosexual” when homosexuality really should be regulated by the government. (Learn more about David Barton here).

• Maine pastor Ken Graves preaches against “militant homofascism” that he says “seeks to take over our land and make it Sodom” and argues that gay people cannot build happy families because they are “depressed.”

• Bill Federer, a Religious Right activist and conspiracy theorist, believes that gay rights are bringing about the Islamist takeover of America.

Rubio represents the true GOP and his views mirror those of the supporters of Donald Trump and anti-LGBT zealot, Mike Pence.  

•  

Rubio Suspends Campaign; GOP Doubles Down on Extremism

In the wake of Mitt Romney's 2012 loss to Barack Obama, conservative and Republican think tanks stressed the need for the GOP to remake itself and welcome a more diverse party base.  One of those tagged to represent the new face of the GOP was Marco Rubio.  That was then.  Now, the GOP base has become more racist and extreme and seemingly is headed in the opposite direction from what the 2012 post mortems said was need for the party's survival.  After losing badly to Donald Trump in Florida, Marco Rubio - once heralded as the GOP's savior - suspended his presidential campaign.  At the same time, GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz is "thrilled" to be endorsed by Christofascist lunatics and hate group leader (and KKK affiliated) Tony Perkins has been yet again elected to the 2016 GOP platform committee.  Moderation and tolerance are dead in the GOP base.  First, these highlights from a piece in the Washington Post:

WEST MIANI - Years of carefully laid plans to repackage the Republican Party’s traditional ideas for a fast-changing country came crashing down here on Tuesday when Sen. Marco Rubio suspended his campaign for the presidency after a crippling defeat in his home-state primary.

Since Mitt Romney’s devastating loss in the 2012 presidential election, the Republican National Committee and leading voices at think tanks, editorial boards and Capitol Hill symposiums have charted a path back to the White House based on inclusive rhetoric and a focus on middle-class issues.

Nobody embodied that vision better than Rubio, a charismatic standard-bearer for conservative orthodoxy who readily embraced the proposals of the right’s elite thinkers. The Florida senator spoke urgently and eloquently about raising stagnant wages and eradicating poverty. He had an immigrant’s tale to match the rhetoric. And on foreign affairs, he was a passionate defender of the GOP’s hawkish tilt.

But Rubio’s once-promising candidacy, as well as the conservative reform movement’s playbook, was spectacularly undone by Donald Trump and his defiant politics of economic and ethnic grievance. The drift toward visceral populism became an all-consuming rush, leaving Rubio and others unable to adjust.

“The party finds itself catching up to its base. Those very elegant papers it published and conferences it held may have been good and smart, but they didn’t really matter,” said William J. Bennett, a conservative talk-show host and former education secretary in Ronald Reagan’s administration. “Instead, everyone who’s been prominent for the last 15 to 20 years finds themselves getting pushed out.”

Rubio’s fall comes weeks after others who advocated for conservative reforms, such as former Florida governor Jeb Bush and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, have dropped out of the race, and as the donors and institutions who have long supported hawkish policies on fiscal and foreign policies find themselves scrambling to hold onto the consensus that has shaped the GOP for decades.

For many of them, Trump represents a threat to the traditional order of the party and its platform. He does not support overhauling Social Security — a key plank for Romney and GOP congressional leaders — and he was a vocal critic of the 2003 invasion of Iraq in its aftermath, setting him apart from much of the party’s high command.

Whit Ayres, Rubio’s pollster, spent the last several years compiling data and published a book showing that Republicans could not afford to alienate minority voters, especially Hispanics, if they ever hope to retake the White House. Watching Rubio’s concession speech, Ayres was despondent. “After 2012, you thought we’d learned our lesson,” he said.

 While Trump is riding rough shod over supposed GOP reformers, the party and other candidates such as Ted Cruz are cozying up with some of the ugliest elements of the GOP's Christofascist base - the very element that has been the driving force in the party's succumbing to a swamp fever like insanity. A case in point: Tony Perkins - president of the hate group Family Research Council with KKK ties - has been elected to the GOP platform committee.  Here are highlights of Perkins' gloating via Joe My God:

We may not know who will be representing the GOP at the Republican National Convention, but I know one person who will be representing Louisiana — me! For the second time, I’ll be serving as a delegate for my home state when the Cleveland event gets underway July 18. Just as importantly, I’ve been elected by the delegation to serve on the Republican Platform Committee, which is where some of the most significant debates over the party’s core values occur.

In 2012, my role as a delegate gave me the opportunity to play a key role in amending the marriage plank, which led to the committee approving a much stronger version than 2008’s. We also tightened language on obscenity and pornography, protected conscience rights, explained how abortion hurts women, and supported the Second Amendment in D.C. And while the platform work is usually overshadowed by the pageantry of the broader convention, make no mistake: What happens over those two days could dramatically impact the direction of — not just the presidential campaign — but the entire Republican Party and the country.

Very scary stuff given Perkins' anti-gay, anti-woman, and anti-modernity agenda.  Just as scary as Perkins' election to the platform committee is Ted Cruz's embrace of Linda Harvey's endorsement.  For those unfamiliar with Harvey, the woman, in  my opinion, belongs in a mental institution.  Only among the Christofascists could someone with no credentials and it would seem a significant degree of mental imbalance become a successful social parasite.  Right Wing Watch looks at Cruz's self-prostitution to Linda Harvey.  Here are highlights:

Earlier this year, we reported that a handful of right-wing activists in Ohio, including anti-gay activist Linda Harvey of Mission America, had issued a press release announcing their support for Ted Cruz but that these endorsements had not been officially promoted or announced by the Cruz campaign.

That changed yesterday when the Cruz campaign "announced the endorsements of more than 30 key Ohio leaders, including clergy, elected officials, and activists," including three of the activists we highlighted in our original post: Harvey, Phil Burress of Citizens for Community Values Action and Molly Smith of Cleveland Right to Life.   

In honor of the Cruz campaign's announcement, we decided to republish our earlier post in order to remind everyone just whom Cruz is embracing:  

Perhaps Harvey thinks that Cruz will be the president she has longed for who will issue “an Emancipation Proclamation … to free America from the tyranny of sodomy.”

Harvey, who is boycotting so many pro-LGBT businesses that she complains she is running out of places to shop, has just this year:

·        Claimed that efforts to combat bullying of LGBT young people amount to “sexual abuse.”

·        Said that gays “were not born this way, but created through sexual indoctrination” and now want to recruit kids in turn.

·        Worried that LGBT youth are possessed by “demonic spirits.”

·        Said that gay pride parades are signs of God’s impending judgment on America and “ought to be banned.”

·        Backed Jamaica’s law criminalizing homosexuality.

·     Said she actually loves gay people, but supporting gay rights is “the least compassionate, the meanest and most hateful thing you can do” because that will “accelerate and confirm this behavior in more and more people in our country.”’

Harvey has also advised parents not to let gay doctors or nurses treat their children, even when they’re hospitalized, and has insisted that “there is no proof that there’s ever anything like a gay, lesbian or bisexual or transgendered child, or teen or human.”

Anti-gay zealot and nutcase, Linda Harvey

The Tea Party's Revenge on Marco Rubio

Today may usher in the end of Marco Rubio's presidential quest - and perhaps his political career.   Expectations are that he will fair poorly in the Florida primary, taking a third place finish.  The irony is that it is the forces he rode to power that are not determined to end his career.  I make no pretense about my dislike of the so-called Tea Party and its embrace of ignorance and thinly veiled racism.  Rubio at one time prostituted himself to the Tea Party faction and now he is about to face the consequences of his heresy of once supporting comprehensive immigration reform.  A piece in The Daily Beast looks at his likely payback today.  Here are excerpts:

If Marco Rubio’s campaign flames out in Florida tonight, as polls suggest, it will be delicious revenge for the Tea Partiers who have been waiting years to embarrass the senator in his home state.

“We’re going to have a sweet taste in our mouths tomorrow when little Marco gets embarrassed by those he betrayed. He betrayed all of Florida, but mostly he betrayed people like me who worked hard to get him elected,” said Dan Ray, a founding member of Tea Party group in The Villages, a large retirement community in Florida, where Rubio campaigned earlier this week.

When Rubio joined with the so-called Gang of Eight to propose a bipartisan, comprehensive immigration reform bill, Tea Party groups saw it as akin to an act of treason. They had supported the young lawmaker, preferring him to the alternative, Gov. Charlie Crist (who later became a Democrat). They had also trusted him on the issue of immigration—and worked as foot-soldiers to get him elected.

The people who elected him in 2010 don’t trust him anymore.”  

Like Ray, Hall had supported Rubio in 2010, volunteering as a liaison for his staff with conservative activists. She now says she is “ashamed” that she worked so hard for him.

Jack Oliver, the legislative director for Floridians for Immigration Enforcement, can recite the date, from memory, where he believes he was sold a bill of goods. It was Dec. 22, 2009, he said: the day when Rubio “conned us all... and then went out to con the rest of the citizens of Florida.”

Instead of a resounding victory on home turf, polls seem to indicate a humiliating defeat is in Rubio’s very near future. A number of public polls show billionaire businessman Donald Trump leading Marco Rubio by double digits, in some cases by more than 20 percentage points. A Quinnipiac University poll published Monday shows Trump leading Rubio in the senator’s home state, 46 percent to 22 percent.

Florida’s Tea Partiers have found at least one unifying theme to rally against once more: Repaying Rubio on Tuesday night—by making sure he loses big.

And Oliver couldn’t be more pleased: “I expect him to lose by double digits… The informed voters aren't buying his B.S. anymore.”

I have little sympathy for Marcoot who has shown that his is only too willing to say anything that he thinks will play well with the ugliest elements of the GOP base.   Selling one's soul can carry a very high price.

The imploding Campaign of Marco Rubio

Given the implosion of his campaign and disastrous performance in the last round of Republican primaries/caucuses, it is ironic that Marco Rubio, a/k/a Marcobot, for a time was seen as potentially the biggest threat to Hillary Clinton.  As has so often has happened in this campaign cycle, pundits and members of the GOP establishment must be asking themselves WTF was I thinking.  At least one article in the Washington Post tracks the full on implosion of Marcobot to his decision to engage in childish insults and immature behavior in attacking Donald Trump which proved that Rubio is anything but presidential material.   Here are highlights:

Marco Rubio had suffered three electoral thumpings in a row when the senator from Florida and his image-makers abruptly shifted strategy. The aspirational candidate, whose presidential campaign was built on a promise of generational change and Republican unity, would morph overnight into Donald Trump’s chief assailant.

Rubio launched what he and his team felt was an imperative assault on the front-runner at the Houston debate on Feb. 25. The next morning at a Dallas rally, he mocked Trump mercilessly. Rubio whipped out his iPhone and, with boyish glee, read aloud the billionaire mogul’s misspelled tweets. He made fun of Trump’s makeup and “sweat mustache,” and suggested the mogul had wet his pants.

For the next three days, Rubio’s crude schoolyard taunts continued: over Trump’s made-in-China suits, his “horrible spray tan” and his small hands — a quip that, as Trump would later explain on the debate stage in Detroit, implied something else was small, too.

Rubio’s benefactors were aghast to see their candidate practicing Trump’s gutter politics. “Everyone went, ‘What?. . . Why are you going down to that level?’ ” recalled one fundraiser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly. “You might as well support Trump.” 

Looking back, Rubio’s supporters see these fateful days as central to his unraveling. A strategy designed to get under Trump’s skin and force him on the defensive instead backfired on Rubio, diminishing the 44-year-old senator who had spent years trying to demonstrate presidential gravitas. At rally after rally, Rubio was unintentionally personifying the caricature that Trump was perpetually drawing of him: “Little Marco.”

The results were not pretty. Rubio lost 18 of the next 20 contests,  . . . The ultimate humiliation came on Tuesday, when Rubio performed so poorly in four states — he got just 5 percent in Mississippi — that he was shut out from gaining any delegates.

A  cloud of fatalism now hovers over his campaign. Aides on Wednesday tried to beat back rumors he would quit the race — perhaps before Thursday’s CNN debate in Miami. Donors exchanged grim messages about Rubio’s fate in Florida, where his campaign, short on cash, is running no advertisements. New polls showed him trailing Trump here badly.

Supporters in the small and subdued Hialeah crowd all but conceded defeat. “I’ve been around for a long time,” said Sal Pittelli, 70. “And you can smell the flop sweat.

Rubio’s backers on Capitol Hill tried to show a united front of optimism amid the negative chatter. . . . . Other Rubio associates were downright despondent. They were reticent to speak openly because they did not want to damage their friend’s prospects, but one confessed privately, “I don’t see how this campaign continues.”

There are a multitude of reasons to account for Rubio’s collapse: . . . .  another reason is that Rubio has no natural base. In the sprawling field, he was never the most experienced establishment-friendly candidate (that was Bush), nor the most conservative ideological warrior (Cruz), nor the rebellious outsider (Trump).

I can't feel much sympathy for Rubio who has demonstrated that he will say and do anything in an effort to win and to pander to the ugliest elements of the GOP base.  Perhaps Marcobot needs to go back to dancing at foam parties in gay clubs.  He might be more believable. 

Tampa Bay Times: Marco Rubio Not Ready to be President

With the preliminary results in from the Mississippi and Michigan GOP primaries showing Rubio not even in 3rd place, the Florida primary next week is all the more crucial if one is to believe any of Marco Rubio's claims that he is positioned for a "come back."  Yet, what is one seeing?  One South Florida newspaper opted to endorse no one.  In the case of the Tampa Bay Times, today's editorial is a scathing denunciation of Marco Rubio who is labeled as "not ready to be president."  Indeed, the take away is that Rubio is an empty suit with few accomplishments.  One cannot help but wonder what so many in the GOP establishment saw him other than the fact that he isn't Donald Trump or Ted Cruz.  Here are highlights:

Vote for me to stop Donald Trump. That is Sen. Marco Rubio's message to Florida voters this week as the Republican establishment desperately tries to prevent the billionaire from winning the Republican nomination for president and completing a hostile takeover of the party. It's a weak argument from a weak candidate who is not prepared to be president.

Throughout his political career, Rubio has focused on promoting himself and preparing for his next move rather than providing leadership to effectively address the challenges of the moment. Relying on a charming personality and a smooth speaking style, he has been more talk than action, more gimmick than substance, more opportunist than committed public servant. The result is a thin resume, a reputation for failing to pay attention to detail and a tendency to bend when the political winds shift.

[O]ther highlights of Rubio's time in Tallahassee. It was while he was House speaker that Rep. Ray Sansom inserted $6 million into the state budget for a community college building that was really an airport hangar sought by a friend. It was Rubio who made it a priority for his friends on the state appellate court to get the $48 million "Taj Mahal" courthouse in Tallahassee. It was Rubio who charged thousands of dollars to his Republican Party credit card for personal expenses such as repairs to the family minivan that he says he repaid. So much for the fiscal responsibility Rubio likes to preach.

Let's remember that Rubio's single term in the U.S. Senate has been devoid of a single significant accomplishment, unless we count a successful sneak attack on a small portion of the Affordable Care Act. He rose to national prominence as a key member of a bipartisan group of senators who passed sweeping immigration reform. True to form, Rubio abandoned it when the heat was turned up by opponents, and he has spent much of this campaign trying to explain himself without satisfying anyone.

Rubio is a leader in Washington in one respect: He has missed more votes than any other senator in the past 12 months. . . . . The best argument for a promotion is a stellar performance in the current job, and Rubio fails that test.

One of this year's ironies is that the anti-establishment Republican voters whom Rubio relied upon to win the U.S. Senate race in 2010 have abandoned him. The 2016 version of the tea party wave is angrier, more disillusioned and wider. Rubio, who has spent his career plotting his next move and exploiting opportunities rather than building a strong record and a natural constituency, has no viable way forward absent a Florida miracle. 

A vote for Rubio may be a protest vote — but it won't be a vote for someone who is prepared to be president.

Stopping the GOP Apocalypse

But for the danger posed to the country, the hand wringing among Republicans over the Party's descent into insanity and the rise of Donald Trump might be almost humorous.  Certainly well deserved misfortune.  A piece in The Daily Beast joins the chorus of those lamenting the situation and proposing a means to block a Trump nomination.  The piece which equates the GOP with European powers bumbling their way into World War I fails, however, to concede that the current state of affairs was self-created and is the result of years of pandering to lunatics and extremists, not some chance mistake.  Here are column highlights:. 

These are, as the Chinese curse goes, interesting times. In a Republican presidential debate, the leading candidate defends the size of his penis and attacks the Constitution, asserting that he will order the U.S. military to commit war crimes. A few days earlier the same candidate said on national television that he had to “do research” on the KKK, David Duke, and white supremacism before he could take a position. During the week, the frontrunner threatened Jeff Bezos, owner of The Washington Post, because the Post had dared write articles he thought critical. “And believe me, if I become president,” Trump said, “oh, do they have problems. They’re going to have such problems.”

Welcome to Donald Trump’s world. Trump isn’t the first ridiculous character to run for president—Al Sharpton ran for the Democratic nomination in 2004—nor the first openly bigoted candidate—George Wallace ran for president three times. But Trump is the first ridiculous, openly bigoted candidate who stands a very good chance to win a major party’s nomination.

How did this happen? 

It’s everyone’s fault and no one’s fault. There were some who welcomed Trump onto the presidential scene, confident that he could help scold an out-of-touch establishment slow to grasp the problems of a troubled America. In a July 2015 Politico piece, National Review editor Rich Lowry wrote that Trump had hit “on an important truth that typical politicians either don’t know or simply fear to speak. “When Mexico sends its people,” Trump said, “they’re not sending their best.” That’s obviously true,” wrote Lowry who compared him to “Herman Cain squared—an early-nominating-season phenomenon with a massive media megaphone.”

By January, Lowry’s magazine was dedicating an entire issue to the urgency of stopping the threat of Trump, who “would destroy the conservative movement.” And I was just as wrong, if not more so. I wrote that facing a loss in Iowa, Trump’s ego would tilt him toward leaving the stage before being proven a loser. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

For various reasons, the Republican candidates have enabled Trump’s rise, slow to launch a concerted attack, largely giving him a clear path. Each candidate seemed more obsessed with this currently popular but insane notion of winning a “lane” rather than winning a race, while Trump was focused on winning a race.

Logic dictates that the remaining candidates should focus on holding Trump as far below 1,237 as possible, with the goal of pushing the convention to a second ballot. While some speculate a second ballot might be a scenario for a new candidate like Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan to enter the race, that strikes me as unlikely. The far more plausible outcome would find two candidates joining together to form a ticket, pooling delegates to get over 1,237.

There are rules for securing the nomination, and as long as the rules are adhered to, the game has been played fairly. In 1976, the great conservative Ronald Reagan took his fight to the convention and came within one delegation (Mississippi’s) of defeating a sitting Republican president, Jerry Ford. Surely if a convention strategy is good enough to challenge a Republican president, it’s good enough to challenge a major Clinton donor like Donald Trump.

As the process moves into a slate of winner-take-all states, the key to the convention strategy—call it the Reagan Strategy, not the brokered convention strategy—is for Rubio and Kasich to win their home states. But in what strikes me as a bizarre move, Ted Cruz is moving resources to Florida and attacking Marco Rubio on the air. Why? Does Cruz think he can win Florida? It seems the longest of shots. Much more likely is that he helps hand the state to Donald Trump. That will all but finish any chance Cruz has of becoming the Republican nominee.

So the madness and miscalculation apparently continues. The Republican Party is lurching toward the Somme, where death and destruction will replace hopes for a November victory. Dig your trench. Get your gas mask. The boys aren’t going to be home by Christmas.