Sarah Huckabee Sanders: Portrait of a Liar

The Trump/Pence regime is full of liars, the worse, of course, being Trump himself.  Following closely behind him is Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a case study of why anyone honest and decent should not want to wear the "Christian" label if it puts them in the same category as Sanders. About the only thing that can be said in Sanders' defense is that she was raised in a household where lying, con-artistry, and hucksterism were the norm and embodied in the person of her father, Mike Huckabee, a man devoid of any moral compass save self-aggrandizement and self-enrichment often achieved by preying on the ignorant and gullible (i.e., evangelical Christians). Now, Huckabee Sanders is leaving her role as press secretary to the worse, most dishonest occupant of the White House in history and rumors are afloat that she will run for governor of Arkansas - her election would show that state as a place to be avoided - no doubt trying to lie her way into office.  A piece in Politico reminds us of Huckabee Sanders moral bankruptcy.  Here are excerpts:

If Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ departure as White House press secretary meant she would be leaving public life, I’d be toasting her goodbye this week. Unfortunately, since it probably represents only a brief pause in her now well-established history of sliming people, a firm marker should be laid down about her right now.

Sanders reportedly is considering following in her father’s footsteps and running for governor in her home state of Arkansas, where Mike Huckabee served from 1996-2007. With high built-in name ID and the benefit of riding President Donald Trump’s coattails in a ruby red state, she is already talked about as the favorite in the race, which isn’t until 2022. This says far more about the sorry state of our political system than it does about any merits she has as a potential candidate. The barrage of lies she told from the White House podium would disqualify her from any industry but politics.

[A] lot of politicians lie. Sanders, however, has participated in mean-spirited, personal and cruel lies that have hurt people.

Back in the spring of 2016, in the height of the GOP presidential primary, the National Enquirer, a rag we now know took tremendous efforts to support Trump, published my likeness on its front page and insinuated that I had had an affair with my former boss and Trump’s then-campaign rival, Senator Ted Cruz. It was 100 percent false without a shred of evidence supporting the allegation. Still, Trump supporters furiously fanned the falsehood online. I was abruptly confronted by a Trump supporter about the story on CNN, where I work as a contributor, and was forced to respond live on air.

Trump claimed he had nothing to do with the story, but he said the tabloid had been right to expose other affairs and suggested Cruz was an evangelical hypocrite. . . . A cacophony of pro-Trump forces had come together to gaslight me and feast on the media explosion.

As so often happens when a woman is unfairly attacked, the burden fell on me to clear my name. It was an absolutely infuriating position to be in, but I was not about to be driven from the public space over something that had never happened. Trump supporters wanted nothing more than to force me, a committed NeverTrumper, off the air.  So, I went back on television to defend myself . . .

That afternoon, Sanders happened to be scheduled for an interview with Tapper as well and was asked about fake news her campaign was pushing. Sanders, a wife, a mother, a conservative, a [faux] Christian and a political staffer—just like I am—twisted the knife. . . . She also claimed to have no knowledge of what Scavino had done. Then, she chalked up the entire thing to the scummy business of politics at large and slammed Cruz’s team as “one of the dirtiest and nastiest campaigns out there.”

Sanders has outright lied throughout her time as press secretary. She had the jaw-dropping audacity to lie about FBI agents in spring 2017, when she stood in front of the national press corps and offered an absurd pretense for the firing of Director James Comey, saying that “countless” agents had “lost confidence in their director” over his handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails. Under oath, she later admitted she had made up the statement “in the heat of the moment,” and special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators concluded her statement “was not founded on anything.”

These are just two examples in a long line of Sanders’ casual smears against perceived opponents. Let’s not forget how she tweeted a video that analysts said had been doctored to suggest that CNN correspondent Jim Acosta had inappropriately grappled with a White House intern over a microphone during a live briefing. Or how Sanders adopted Trump’s talking point that the women who have accused him of sexual misconduct or assault are lying. Or how often she deflected legitimate questions by suggesting that those who posed them had nefarious motives.

Sanders never rose to the level of professionalism exhibited by diligent, respectful people who previously held her position. She became an echo of internet trolls.

Many Republicans will say Sanders performed about as well as anyone could under a difficult boss who demands total loyalty and under the most challenging of circumstances. I do not accept that. She is a woman in control of herself, and she willingly opted to make disrespect for others the defining characteristic of her tenure as White House press secretary. That’s all on her. She wasn’t conscripted into service for Trump; she enthusiastically volunteered.

It’s obvious Sanders is not a bit sorry for her disgraceful work. . . . there is no reason to believe Sanders would change her ways if elected governor. Arkansas, you’ve been warned.

Sarah Sanders to Leave White House Position

Sarah Huckabee Sander - in my view, less truthful than a tawdry prostitute.

After Donald Trump himself, few among the White House staff has lied more often or more brazenly than Sarah Huckabee Sanders. A tawdry prostitute like has far more credibility when it comes to truth and veracity than Huckabee Sanders. Indeed, the only thing that can be said in her defense is that she was raised in a household where lying and scamming the gullible was part of her father's job description as a Baptist minister/scamvangelist and it obviously warped her ability to tell the truth from a lie.  How else to explain her indifference to objective facts and regular regurgitation of demonstrable falsehoods.  With Sanders leaving her position as press secretary, the only question is whether Trump has found someone even more willing to prostitute themselves and engage in non-stop lies. At the same time, Sanders' statement that she wants to spend more time with her school-age children leaves me wondering what moral harm she will inflict on her children.  With a morally bankrupt ,calculating lying for a grandfather and for their mother cut from the same cloth, one has to worry about these children.  One can only hope that history will be most unkind to Ms. Huckabee Sanders. A piece in Politico looks at Sanders much welcomed departure.  Here are article highlights:   

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, whose fierce loyalty to President Donald Trump and clashes with reporters defined her tenure, is stepping down at the end of the month.

[Trump] The president announced her departure on Twitter Thursday afternoon. Trump said she would be returning to her home state of Arkansas, adding that he hoped she would decide to run for governor.

Speaking to reporters in her office on Thursday, Sanders did not rule out a run for governor, something that her associates have been buzzing about for months. "I learned a long time ago never to rule anything out," she said. Sanders’ father, Mike Huckabee, was governor of the state from 1996 to 2007. She became a lightning rod for some of the Trump administration’s most controversial policies, for which she was called out by both reporters and the public.

Last June, the owner of a rural Virginia restaurant asked Sanders to leave, later citing the administration’s push to ban transgender people from serving in the military as a reason. “I explained that the restaurant has certain standards that I feel it has to uphold, such as honesty, and compassion, and cooperation,” Sarah Murray, the owner of the Red Hen in Lexington, Va., told The Washington Post.

In recent months, Sanders has refused to hold formal briefings, instead opting to appear on Fox News and brief reporters in the White House driveway, a Trump-approved strategy that has prompted fierce criticism from journalists.

Sanders' critics have repeatedly questioned her credibility, especially in the aftermath of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report. The report revealed that Sanders acknowledged to investigators that there was no basis for her 2017 assertion that “countless” rank-and-file FBI agents had lost confidence in James Comey, a claim she used to rationalize Trump’s decision to fire him as the bureau’s director. Sanders told reporters that she hoped to spend more time with her school-age children this summer. She said she informed the president about her decision earlier Thursday. Her press team formally found out about her departure less than an hour before it was announced, in an apparent bid to keep the news from leaking. Sanders got her start in politics working for her father‘s first campaign for governor, and later served as national political director for his presidential campaign. She co-founded a consulting firm in Arkansas and later joined Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign as a senior adviser. She is the latest senior administration official to announce plans to leave the White House. Others recent departures include Shahira Knight, the White House legislative affairs director, and senior White House adviser Johnny DeStefano.

Good riddance and, again, I hope history will be most brutal on Ms. Huckabee Sanders who apparently subscribe to the Josef Goebbels school of propaganda - for Fox News viewers, Goebbels was Hitlers propaganda minister.  Yes, I am harsh, but despite her upbringing, Sanders could have opted for honesty and integrity, but she chose the "dark side." Shame on her.

LGBT Equality Bill Sends Christofascists into Hysteria

The usual liars and charlatans from the "Christian Right" are beside themselves over the Democrat backed LGBT Equality Act that would bar discrimination against LGBT individuals in employment, housing and public accommodation on a national basis. And true to form, they are trotting out the same tired lies that have been their stock in trade for decades, including the lie that gays can change their sexual orientation through fraudulent ministries operated by, you guessed, the Christofascists.  Spouting this latter lie is Peter Sprigg of Family Research Council ("FRC") - a certified hate group - who has ZERO credentials when it comes to medical and mental health issues despite his title of "senior fellow" at FRC.  Indeed, until he became a hate merchant at FRC, Sprigg's longest career stint was as a "professional actor and unit leader in Covenant Players, an international Christian drama ministry."  Sadly Sprigg epitomizes the norm of FRC - and Christofascist organization in general - experts, meaning they have no legitimate credentials.   

In a piece in the Christian Post - which discredits itself by carrying article by fraudulent experts - Sprigg cites old, discredited studies claiming conversion therapy has some minimal level of success and ignores more recent studies, and, of course, the findings of all legitimate medical and mental health associations.  Based on this bad science, Sprigg rants about the Equality Act and maintains:

In light of this evidence, the public would be wise to question whether the efforts of the LGBT movement to ride on the coat-tails of “civil rights” can any longer be justified. 

It should be noted that in 2008 when the Obama administration moved to allow LGBT Americans to apply for visas for foreign partners, Sprigg declared that it would be better to “export homosexuals from the United States.”

Joining Sprigg in his conniption fit is Mike Huckabee, who has a long history of anti-gay lies, and whose daughter lies daily for the Trump regime.  In another piece in the Christian Post Huckabee rants as follows:

Redefining gender and sexual identity is the “greatest threat” to the moral fiber of America, said former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, and the fault lies with the Church.

“The biggest threat to biblical principles today is the failure to apply a biblical standard of maleness and femaleness,” Huckabee told The Christian Post during a sit-down interview last week in Anaheim, California. “We are creating this illusion that there is no gender, there is no identity, and I'm blaming the Christian Church.”

“The gender dysphoria we're seeing today is largely due to the fact that the Church has failed to present very clearly the words of Jesus and Genesis 5:2: ‘Male and female He created them.’” 

Huckabee also goes on to equate allowing children to learn about the existence of LGBT individuals much less LGBT inclusive sex education with allowing one's child to play in a busy street. 

What is frightening is that both Sprigg and Huckabee have the ear of those in the Trump/Pence regime who are waging war against the LGBT community.  On the positive side, 40% of Millennials have left organized Christianity in large part due to the Christofascists' non-stop screeds against gays. Hopefully, the exodus will accelerate and individuals like Sprigg and Huckabee will become increasingly irrelevant outside of stagnant backwaters.  Meanwhile, more states are barring conversion therapy.

Country Music's Embrace of LGBT Rights

June is Pride Month - not that Der Trumpenführer will be signing a declaration as some prior occupants of the White House have done.  The sweet irony is that despite the pandering of the Trump/Pence regime to hand to Christofascists various elements of a too little, too late rear guard action, America is steady becoming more LGBT friendly. As a piece in the New York Times explains, even country music has opened its arms to embrace LGBT rights.  The driving force behind the phenomenon?  Millennials, the majority of whom are LGBT accepting and who play an increasingly important part in the country music audience.  The number of so-called "Nones" who have exited organized religion is steadily increasing, especially among Millennials, and the number of white evangelicals is decreasing.  Like any industry that needs to be mindful of its customers, country music is changing with the times.  Here are article highlights:

Every June, with the arrival of Pride Month, we take time to evaluate legislative actions, court decisions and public opinion shifts as measures of the state of L.G.B.T. rights. . . . . this year, I found perhaps the most significant indicator of the prevailing cultural vibe, to my surprise, in country music.

One of the most popular songs on country radio in 2018 has been Luke Bryan’s “Most People Are Good.” The song faithfully serves up genre-typical lyrics like “I believe most mommas oughta qualify for sainthood” and “most Friday nights look better under neon or stadium lights” — but the chorus also contains a clear pro-L.G.B.T. declaration: “I believe you love who you love/Ain’t nothing you should ever be ashamed of.” And in case fans were tempted to interpret this lyric in other ways, Mr. Bryan’s music video features gay couples and same-gender parent family configurations among a diverse montage of “good” people.

Rather than generating protests or public outcry, this song has dominated country music radio since its debut in late 2017. It broke into the Top 10 in February, and it has remained at the top of the air wave charts, occupying the No. 1 slot for three weeks. It’s also notable that Mr. Bryan is no progressive crusader out to make a political statement. . . . For Mr. Bryan, and for many country fans today, pro-L.G.B.T. lyrics exist comfortably within a new country worldview.

While “Most People Are Good” was topping the charts, there was another major event in the country-music world signaling strong support for L.G.B.T. rights. In early March, the former Arkansas governor and Trump campaign surrogate Mike Huckabee resigned within 24 hours of his appointment to the board of the Country Music Association Foundation, the charitable and educational arm of the C.M.A. At issue, raised by several C.M.A. board members and prominent industry leaders, was Mr. Huckabee’s history of anti-gay remarks.

Jason Owen, a co-president of Monument Records . . . wrote that Mr. Huckabee’s statements about the L.G.B.T. community, such as comparing gay marriage to incest and polygamy, “made it clear my family is not welcome in his America.” Whitney Pastorek, a longtime C.M.A. member and prominent agent, wrote similarly to the C.M.A. leadership . . . . The C.M.A. board was deluged with email and social media calls to rescind the invitation to Mr. Huckabee and threats of boycotts at C.M.A. events. Mr. Huckabee quickly conceded and resigned, but not without writing his own long protest letter on his website . . .

Part of the story is the growth and increasing crossover appeal of country music . . . Country music is as popular among millennials as it is among baby boomers, a fact not lost on C.M.A. leadership.

A recent large national survey of over 40,000 interviews conducted by P.R.R.I., where I serve as chief executive, provides a stereotype-busting portrait of where likely young country music fans are on L.G.B.T. rights. Among young white, non-Hispanic adults (ages 18 to 29) in the South and Midwest, fully three-quarters (75 percent) favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry legally, and a similar percentage favor laws that would protect L.G.B.T. people against discrimination in jobs, public accommodations and housing.

On a key question currently before the Supreme Court — whether a small-business owner can refuse to provide products or services to gay or lesbian people on religious grounds — young white adults in the South and Midwest oppose such religious liberty claims by two to one (64 percent oppose, 32 percent favor). Even if we narrow the lens to young whites in the four states with the highest concentrations of country music fans — Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky — the numbers are virtually identical.

Pride month will no doubt feature all manner of quantifiable assessments of the current cultural milieu. But by my lights, this revolution on the unlikely terrain of country music is the sturdier evidence of just how much the nation has changed its tune on L.G.B.T. rights.

Trump, Pence and the GOP at large are placing their future with a shrinking demographic which is literally dying off.  Country music and progressives are looking to the future and what will soon be the largest voting/consumer generation. Barring an overthrow of democracy by Der Trumpenführer  and his supporters - one would hope the military would intervene to stop such a move - the Christofascists have lost the culture wars - they just have not realized it. 

Sarah Huckabee Sanders - a Woman Devoid of Any Credibility

The list of those who have been willing to destroy their own credibility and integrity is lengthy.  A willingness to lie constantly is a prerequisite to any role in the Trump/Pence regime.  It began the day after the inauguration when Sean Spicer began lying about the size of the inaugural crowd despite indisputable evidence to the contrary. Since that day, the lies have been non-stop with the Washington Post calculating that Trump himself has lied over 3,000 times.  Thus, the question becomes one of what type of person would remain in a job where disseminating lies daily is a requirement of the job?  The question is particularly true of those who claim - or at least pretend - to support "Christian values."  In my view, if you continue to lie for a morally bankrupt, pathological liar, the reality is that you are as morally bankrupt as the boss. All of which brings me to Sarah Huckabee Sanders, one of the most dishonest women in Washington, D.C.  She comes by her dishonesty honestly, one might argue, given her father, Mike Huckabee, another perpetual liar who wraps himself in the cloak of religion.  An article in the Washington Post looks at Sanders' position and the derision she justly is receiving.  Here are highlights:

The West Wing shouting match was so loud that more than a dozen staffers heard it.  White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders cursed and yelled at White House Counsel Donald McGahn during the February confrontation, according to two people familiar with the episode. Misleading statements about the domestic abuse scandal that felled staff secretary Rob Porter had dragged the administration into a maelstrom of chaos and contradictory public statements.

Exasperated, Sanders told McGahn she would not continue to speak for the administration unless she was provided more information about Porter’s situation.

The dispute, which erupted in a hallway outside Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Hagin’s office, was resolved after Sanders received the clarity she sought, the people familiar with the argument said. Hours later, Sanders returned to her lectern to field queries from a skeptical press corps, though her answers left reporters with more questions.

Sanders was thrust into an especially harsh limelight over the past week. She was the subject of an acerbic broadside about her “bunch of lies” by comedian Michelle Wolf at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner. Then she was forced to explain the inconsistent accounts from her, President Trump and his new personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, about the hush money paid to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels. The week was punctuated by an onslaught of commentary about Sanders’s character.

Sanders is inextricably bound in the mistruths of the Trump administration. She is a willing warrior for Trump, and her critics say she should be held accountable for his utterances — from the untruthful to the racist to the sexist.

“When [Trump] the president blithely admits to lying, it makes all those who are paid to repeat and defend his stories liars, as well,” said David Axelrod, who was a senior White House adviser under President Barack Obama. “Their credibility is tied to his. It’s a high price to pay for a job, even in the White House.”

By the time she took over as White House press secretary from Sean Spicer in July, the administration’s penchant for misleading the public at the president’s direction was well established. 

Allies of Sanders say that she often pushes back on Trump, who wants her to attack the media even harder and more frequently, and that other administrations have also faced credibility problems, . . .

Fresh trouble for Sanders arose Wednesday night, when Giuliani, in a freewheeling interview with Sean Hannity, told the friendly Fox News host that Trump had reimbursed his longtime personal attorney, Michael Cohen, for the $130,000 in hush money he paid to Daniels . . .

Giuliani’s disclosure appeared to be at odds with Sanders’s repeated insistence that Trump was not aware of Cohen’s payment to Daniels. The interview, which Sanders did not coordinate, left her in an untenable position,. . .

Reporters pressed Sanders on Thursday: Was she a liar or simply in the dark? And why was the president’s personal attorney authorized to announce news about sensitive hostage negotiations?

Before most briefings, she meets with Trump in the Oval Office to discuss how he would like her to answer news-of-the-day questions, White House officials said. The president sometimes dictates lines for her to read or orders her to use precise words on particularly sensitive matters.

Sanders routinely dodges questions on hot topics by telling reporters she has not asked the president about it — a deliberate strategy to avoid having to wade into delicate issues, according to a Sanders confidant.

I'm sorry, but Sanders is a liar and she knows that she's a liar and it seemingly simply does not matter.  If she was a "godly Christian," she'd resign immediately.  

Huckabee Booted from Country Music Association Foundation

Sarah Huckabee Sanders learned to lie from one of the most proficient liars in the country, her father Mike Huckabee.  But not only is Huckabee a liar, he's a bigot as well, especially when it comes to LGBT individuals.  Like most Christofascists, we seeks to inflict his hideous version of Christianity on all Americans.  In Huckabee's world, only right wing Christian extremists have rights under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.  Thankfully, the Country Music Association had enough of Huckabee's bigotry and he was booted from the board of its charitable arm, the CMA Foundation.  One can only hope that more and more organizations will see those like Huckabee for what they are: undesirable and and anti-American principles.  The Advocate looks at Huckabee's welcomed ejection from the CMA Foundation board.  Here are highlights:

Mike Huckabee’s homophobia has struck a sour note with the country music industry.

After outcry against his presence on the board of directors of the CMA Foundation — the charitable arm of the Country Music Association — the former Arkansas governor and failed presidential candidate resigned from the board today, one day after his election, reports Nashville newspaper The Tennessean.

“The announcement follows pointed criticism from members of the country music industry, as well as fans — much of it stemming from Huckabee's stance on LGBT issues,” the paper reports.

Among other anti-LGBT stances, Huckabee is a longtime opponent of marriage equality and has made offensive jokes about transgender people. He has likened marriage equality to U.S. Supreme Court’s infamous 1856 Dred Scott decision upholding slavery, and he once characterized gender-confirmation surgeries as strictly cosmetic, like implants for a woman who wants larger breasts.

He also opposes gun control and abortion rights, and he recently said his daughter, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, is a victim of feminists who are seeking to discredit her.

While the country music industry may be one of the more conservative portions of the entertainment world, there are numerous country music executives, artists, and fans who are LGBT or allies, and they were quick to object to Huckabee’s election to the board of the foundation, which is “devoted to growing and supporting music education programs across the country,” according to The Tennessean.

“Huckabee speaks of the sort of things that would suggest my family is morally beneath his and uses language that has a profoundly negative impact upon young people all across this country,” said Jason Owen, a married gay father who is co-president of Monument Records and owner of Sandbox Entertainment, in an email to CMA officials, The Tennessean reports. “Not to mention how harmful and damaging his deep involvement with the [National Rifle Association] is. What a shameful choice.”

Whitney Pastorek, who manages Sugarland singer Kristian Bush, also objected to Huckabee’s presence on the board. “What a terrible disappointment to see [the CMA Foundation’s] mission clouded by the decision to align with someone who so frequently engages in the language of racism, sexism, and bigotry,” she told CMA executives via email.

Huckabee, a former Fox News Channel host, now has a talk show on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, an evangelical Christian outlet. . . . He was not immediately available for comment on his resignation, The Tennessean reports.

No doubt Huckabee will claim that his a victim of "anti-Christian bigotry" when in fact he's the one who is the bigot.  Kudos to CMA for giving im the boot.  

Ted Cruz: 'I'm a Christian First, American Second

Speaking of the insanity plaguing the Republican Party, a pissing contest has arisen among Ted Cruz and some of the most lunatic elements of the Christofascists over the validity of Cruz's religiosity which he wears constantly on his sleeve as he prostitutes himself to the most deranged elements of the GOP base.  Some of the attacks on Cruz trace to Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum who are at the bottom of the polls having seen their theocratic message fall flat.  Others trace to equally scary elements of the professional Christian crowd.  The upshot is that Cruz is now making statements that were they said by a non-Christian - or Heaven forbid, a Muslim - that would have Cruz's audience screaming treason and demanding deportation.  Cruz's defense to the attacks on his religiosity:  that he is a Christian first and American second.  Daily Kos looks at the batshitery.  Here are highlights: 

His Christianity is probably the last thing Ted Cruz ever thought would give him problems. However, a new ad produced by Americans United for Values attacks him for being, get this, a “false prophet.” 

Among other slings and arrows hurled, the ad slams Cruz for not tithing—donating 10 percent of his income to charity—something many Christians believe is a sacred obligation. Cruz, it seems, has donated only about one percent of his income—which came to around $1 million annually—to charity between 2006 and 2010.

In response to the ad and other attacks on his Christianity as well as his conservatism, Cruz responded:

“I’m a Christian first, American second, conservative third and Republican fourth...I’ll tell ya, there are a whole lot of people in this country that feel exactly the same way.”

The politics of this aside, I want to highlight here something we might call Christian Privilege. Could you imagine, for example, a Jewish candidate for president saying that he or she was a Jew first and an American second? Now imagine the sheer outrage if a Muslim American of any prominence whatsoever declared that he or she was Muslim first and American second. People’s heads would explode.

 

I demand, a president whose first loyalty is to the Constitution, and to the people—all the people—he or she was elected to serve. Only a Christian has the privilege—and only ones like Ted Cruz, who present themselves as holier than thou, would have the gall—to claim otherwise.

Can we send Cruz back to Canada? I suspect they would not want him either!

"Death Penalty For Gays" Literature At Hate Group Conference Attended by GOP Candidates

As predicted, Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz and Bobby Jindal attended the hate group sponsored National Religious Liberties Conference in Iowa where among other extremist propaganda a pamphlet entitled “Is The Death Penalty Just?,” was disseminated.  The pamphlet argues that the death penalty is just, and that homosexuality is among the offenses deserving the death penalty.  The American Taliban is alive and well and increasingly shows itself to be little different from ISIS except for the level of violence it is willing to use. Right Wing Watch looks at the gathering of extremist to whom Huckabee, Cruz and Jindal are only too happy to prostitute themselves.  Sadly, there is little media outcry.  Imagine if the same thing was said about blacks, Jews or Hispanics?  Here are highlights of the hate mongering:

Phillip Kayser is among the several speakers joining Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz and Bobby Jindal at the National Religious Liberties Conference in Iowa this weekend, and as we've reported, he, along with the conference's chief organizer, Kevin Swanson, has called on the government to execute gay people. Kayser's views are so extreme that back in the 2012 election, Ron Paul's campaign tried to cover up his endorsement.

However, it seems that in today's GOP, calling for the execution of gay people isn't beyond the pale.

At the conference, where he is giving two speeches on how local officials and others can defy the Supreme Court's marriage equality decision, Kayser distributed the very pamphlet calling for the death penalty for gay people that caused a stir back when he endorsed Paul.

In the pamphlet, “Is The Death Penalty Just?,” Kayser unsurprisingly concludes that the death penalty is in fact just, and lists homosexuality among the offenses deserving of capital punishment. Ironically for a "religious liberties" summit, he also claims that the government should treat "breaking the Sabbath," "blasphemy and cursing God publicly," "publicly sacrificing to other gods" and "apostasy" as death penalty crimes as well.

He writes that government officials are "subject to Biblical statutes and judgments," claiming that "Christians should advocate the full implementation of all God's civil penalties in every age.... Every Old Testament statue continues on the books, and without those statutes, we could not have a consistent ethnical standard." Even "pagan" nations are obliged to follow biblical law, he writes, as "God held gentile kings accountable to these civil laws."

These people are frightening!  What's equally frightening is that they are completely welcome in today's Republican Party - as is Ben Carson.  

Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, and Bobby Jindal Pander to Group Call for Execution of Gays

While Bobby Jindal's and Mike Huckabee's appear moribund, that doesn't mean that they aren't still busy prostituting themselves to the most ugly and extreme elements of the Christofascist base of the Republican Party.  The same holds true for Ted Cruz who continues to strike me as a frightening reincarnation of the late Joe McCarthy.  All three of these political whores are set to appear at a conference hosted by a radio host who has repeatedly called for the execution of gays.  As Salon notes, GOP debate moderators need to call out all three of them and force them to acknowledge that they are in bed with those who want to murder law abiding Americans merely because they do not adhere to a hideous form of Christianity.  Here are story highlights:

Republican candidates may want softball questions for the rest of the debate season, but here’s something that the moderators should be confronting at least some of them about: Three candidates—Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, and Bobby Jindal—are scheduled to speak this weekend at a conference hosted by a radio host named Kevin Swanson who has openly advocated for putting gay people to death.

The conference is called the National Religious Liberties Conference, and it’s based on the premise that Christians are somehow having their religious liberties stripped from them because they can’t impose their views on others.

“Over the past few years, we’ve seen a marked erosion of the religious liberties that were the bedrock of the founding of our country,” Swanson says in a press release promoting the conference.

[A] look over the list of supposedly oppressed Christians that are speaking at the conference shows that the real source of anger is that it’s becoming harder than ever for Christians to oppress others, particularly LGBT people.

For instance, one of the supposedly persecuted Christians is former Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Phillip Monk, who runs around claiming that he was fired from the Air Force for his devout religious beliefs. This is a lie. Monk was supervising a staff sergeant who was supposed to be training recruits and was using his captive audience to proselytize his version of Christianity, particularly pushing his religious beliefs against homosexuality on them. Using your position of authority to push your religion on your underlings is against military rules . . . . In other words, Monk lost his job for refusing to uphold the value of religious liberty. 

Most of the other people labeled “Persecuted Christians” who are speaking at this conference have similar stories: Two anti-gay brothers who believe they are owed a TV show and are somehow persecuted if they don’t get one. A couple who violated anti-discrimination laws by refusing to let a gay couple rent their building to hold a wedding, even though they use their building all the time for straight weddings.  A couple who own a bakery that pulled the “we don’t serve your kind around here” move with a lesbian couple who wanted a wedding cake. An evangelical preacher who feels entitled to have a public high school advertise his church for him. 

Unsurprisingly, Ted Cruz’s father, Rafael Cruz, is speaking at the conference as well. Rafael Cruz is a completely unhinged radical, so much so that Ted Cruz has sought to distance himself on occasion from his father. But, as Ted Cruz’s participation in this event suggests, he has more in common with his father than not, including the rock solid belief that Christians are somehow being “oppressed” if they can’t impose their views on the unwilling.

Right Wing Watch has more details on the level of hate and mental derangement of the folks that Cruz, Huckabee and Jindal - and by some reports, Ben Carson - seek to prostitute themselves too.  This trio of hate mongers belong in a nut house, not the White House.  When it comes to mindset, these folks are really little different than the extremists of ISIS.