Many Of The GOP’s Anti-Gay Bigots Defeated in Midterms

In the 2018 midterm elections some studies suggest that 82% of LGBT voters voted for Democrat candidates.  Given the homophobia and anti-gay animus that defines today's Christofascist dominated GOP, it should come as no surprise,   And, while the "blue wave" could have been far stronger and failed to wrest control of the U.S. Senate from Republicans - the projected GOP margin went down by one this evening as  Democratic candidate Kyrsten Sinema finally was called the winner against anti-gay extremist Martha McSally - many of homophobic Republicans lost at the ballot box.  Whether or not the GOP will get the message that its anti-gay agenda is a losing proposition outside of Christofascist circles and backwater red states remains to be seen.  Blogger friend Michelangelo Signorile has a piece in Huffington Post looks at the blood bath experienced by anti-gay Republicans last week.  Here in Virginia, the roster of the defeated includes soon to be former members of Congress David Brat, Barbara Comstock and Scott Taylor (I include Taylor because I believe he has never been truly gay friendly, but rather has tried to play the local LGBT community for fools).  Here are excerpts from Michelangelo's piece:

Dana Rohrabacher, the 15-term Republican incumbent washed away by Democratic challenger Harley Rouda when the blue wave came ashore in Southern California’s 48th Congressional District last week, isn’t your average homophobic extremist.

He is, in fact, an architect of the decades-long battle against LGBTQ rights and a politician, among many others, whose bigotry is partly responsible for the deaths of thousands of people from AIDS.

Rohrabacher was a lieutenant of President Ronald Reagan throughout his two terms as a speechwriter and special assistant, helping Reagan court the evangelical right, which Reagan has been credited with bringing into politics. Reagan, bowing to the zealots from whom he helped amass enormous power (power they still wield with President Donald Trump), was among the most anti-gay presidents in history, ignoring the AIDS epidemic until far too late.

Rohrabacher was . . . . was among a trio of California right-wing Republican congressmen ― including Bob Dornan and William Dannemeyer ― who demonized people with AIDS in that era, voted against efforts to stem the epidemic and battle discrimination and pushed legislation that was discriminatory against LGBTQ people. 

Now, after 30 years, this bigot has finally been booted. And he’s not the only one.

There has been much discussion in the aftermath of last week’s midterms about the rainbow wave, a record number of LGBTQ candidates elected in races across the country ― over 150 at last count. But on the other side of the coin, many ardent homophobes and anti-gay candidates were taken down too. 

In Minnesota, Rep. Jason Lewis, a Republican who equated gay couples with rapists, lost his House seat to Democrat Angie Craig ― the first lesbian mom elected to Congress.

In another case of poetic justice, openly bisexual California Democrat Katie Hill defeated Republican House member Steve Knight, who supported Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California, and voted against banning “ex-gay” therapy during his time in the California Senate.

In Georgia’s now-famous 6th Congressional District, short-lived GOP incumbent Karen Handel, who said last year while running in a special election against Democrat Jon Ossoff that she didn’t support allowing adoption by gay and lesbian couples, was beaten by African-American Democrat and gun reform advocate Lucy McBath.

Texas GOP Rep. Pete Sessions, who claimed the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida ― the site of a 2016 gun massacre ― wasn’t actually a gay club (and who voted anti-gay every chance he got in his more than 20 years in Congress, garnering a score of zero every year from the Human Rights Campaign) was defeated by African-American civil rights lawyer Colin Allred. 

In a huge upset in Oklahoma, Republican Steve Russell, who in 2016 introduced a bill that would have provided religious exemptions to President Barack Obama’s executive order banning anti-LGBTQ discrimination among federal contractors, lost to Kendra Horn, the first Democrat to win the state’s 5th Congressional District in 44 years. 

Former CIA analyst Elissa Slotkin took down Republican Rep. Mike Bishop in Michigan. He voted last year to deny transgender service members medically necessary transition-related health care and was an ardent opponent of marriage equality, seeking religious exemptions. 

In fact, the list of GOP House members opposed to marriage equality who came crashing down last week goes on and on: Dave Brat and Barbara Comstock in Virginia, Iowa’s Rod Blum, Illinois’ Randy Hultgren, Mike Coffman in Colorado and Keith Rothfus in Pennsylvania.

In the Senate, GOP marriage equality opponent Dean Heller went down in Nevada against Jacky Rosen. And in Arizona, . . . .  Martha McSally, another equality opponent, could lose in [lost] the fight for the open seat to replace marriage equality opponent Jeff Flake ― to openly bisexual Democratic candidate Kyrsten Sinema.

Far-right Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who once compared homosexuality to polygamy, was stopped from taking the governor’s seat and continuing the Kansas GOP’s anti-LGBTQ agenda. Democrat Laura Kelly flipped the state and has already vowed to reinstate protections for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender government employees, which were rescinded in 2015 by then-Gov. Sam Brownback. 

In Wisconsin, anti-LGBTQ Republican Scott Walker lost his governorship to Tony Evers, after nearly eight years, in a major win for equality. 

Democrat Gretchen Whitmer flipped Michigan in its governor’s race, preventing Republican Attorney General Bill Schuette ― who rejected the Michigan Civil Rights Commission’s expansion of state law to protect LGBTQ people ― from continuing GOP Gov. Rick Snyder’s hostile agenda.

And in the open governor’s race in Maine, Democrat Janet Mills flipped the state, ensuring right-wing extremist Gov. Paul LePage’s horrifically anti-LGBTQ agenda won’t continue under Shawn Moody, who similarly opposed marriage equality.

In many state legislatures, the blue wave washed away the hate last week. In Texas, where anti-LGBTQ Republicans in recent years introduced more than a dozen bills harmful to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people each session, Democrats flipped 12 House seats, in the biggest shift since 2010. In an upset, Ron Simmons, who authored an infamous anti-transgender “bathroom” bill ― which died in the Texas House last session but which conservatives vowed to bring back next year ― was defeated by Michelle Beckley.

Much work remains to be done and here in Virginia all in the LGBT community need to work to assist Democrats in retaking control of both houses of the Virginia General Assembly so that bills that have been blocked for years - if not decades - by Republicans can be enacted. Virginia started the blue wave in 2017 and we need to complete the job in Virginia in November 2019.  

Scott Taylor and House Republicans Lie About Their Votes on Health Care

Scott Taylor - lying about his health care votes

McMorris-Rodgers - lying about her health care votes

If one watches television in the Hampton Roads viewing area, it is hard to miss the Elaine Luria campaign ads taking Scott Taylor to task for his votes to make health care insurance less obtainable and less affordable for many residents of the Virginia 2nd Congressional District.  Taylor whines that the ads are lies and that he has voted to protect access to health care for average Americans.  Obviously, Taylor is hoping that voters will not take the time to research his voting record for themselves.  If they do so, they will find that Luria's ads are accurate.  Scott Taylor DID vote to gut the Affordable Health Care Act, a/k/a Obamacare, just like he voted for the massive Trump/GOP tax cuts that gave massive tax breaks to the extremely wealthy and large corporations, threw a few crumbs to average taxpayers, and reduced a number of tax deductions for small businesses (meaning their taxes will go up). But Taylor is not alone on his lies about his votes on health care issues. As a piece in Politico notes as but one example of GOP dishonesty, Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), the No. 4 Republican in the House, is busy lying through her teeth about her votes that have made healthcare less attainable for many.  Here are article excerpts:

Cathy McMorris Rodgers got an earful about health care on a recent Friday afternoon knocking on doors in the suburban Balboa neighborhood of Spokane. McMorris Rodgers, the top-ranking Republican woman in the House facing the toughest reelection contest of her career, heard one resident complain his wife’s monthly insurance premiums have swelled to over $700 per month. Another agonized about affording long-term care for her elderly mother. Yet another worried whether Medicare would go bankrupt.

In past election cycles, the seven-term lawmaker might have had an easy talking point: Repeal and replace Obamacare. But like other Republicans who suddenly find themselves on the defensive on health care, she avoids mentioning her party’s long-standing pledge to eliminate the 2010 law.

The fact that she’s now steering clear of one of the GOP’s core tenets about repealing Obamacare shows just how treacherous the health care issue has become on the campaign trail. . . . she’s also the sole Washington state lawmaker to have voted to repeal Obamacare last year.

Now, she faces attack ads spotlighting that vote, not to mention lawn signs imploring voters to “repeal McMorris Rodgers, not our health care.” And while McMorris Rodgers talks about the importance of insurance protections for people like her son who have pre-existing conditions, she voted for a bill that health experts largely agree would have eroded those [pre-existing conditions] protections.

“She’s still defending that vote,” said her Democratic rival Lisa Brown, a former state Senate majority leader with health care bona fides, including helping to start a medical school in eastern Washington. “She’s still saying, ‘Well, people just didn’t understand our vision.’ It’s so much not in the best interests of this region and the whole state of Washington that I had to conclude she’s either really out of touch with the district … or has just decided to choose the party over the district.”

When pressed on health care on the campaign trail, she promises to ensure that vulnerable people, including those with pre-existing conditions, get the care they need, even though the Trump administration is asking the courts to throw out Obamacare’s insurance safeguards.

McMorris Rodgers’ district, which sprawls across the eastern part of the state and borders Canada and Oregon, carries historic symbolism that makes it an irresistible target for Democrats. When the Gingrich revolution led a Republican takeover of the House in 1994, the most prized scalp was that of former House Speaker Tom Foley, who held the seat for three decades and became the first sitting speaker to lose reelection since the Civil War.

Democrats believe Brown is the candidate who could turn the district blue again. She spent two decades in the state Legislature, rising to Senate majority leader before becoming chancellor of Washington State University’s Spokane campus. In both roles, she helped create a new medical school at the college, which enrolled its first class last year, cementing Spokane’s status as a regional health care hub.

On a recent afternoon, Brown touted her work establishing the medical school during a candidate forum on the Colville Indian Reservation, about two hours north of Spokane. “The health care issue is probably the most important issue I hear about as I travel through the district,” she told the audience.

Brown, like other Democratic candidates this cycle, frequently criticizes Republicans for threatening insurance protections for pre-existing conditions, which a recent POLITICO-Harvard poll found is an overwhelming concern for Democrats. The Trump administration’s decision to support a lawsuit from 20 conservative states that would gut Obamacare’s protections has been a political gift for Democrats and a messaging challenge for Republicans.

“By trying to dismantle it and not having anything to put in its place, clearly that’s in jeopardy,” Brown said. “It’s the distance between the rhetoric and the reality.”

Like McMorris Rodgers, Scott Taylor is at best talking out of both sides of his mouth, but to put it bluntly, is just plain lying.  Just as he's lying about protecting Social Security and Medicare, programs that the always despicable Mitch McConnell targeted for cuts just this week.  Don't trust Taylor. Vote him out on November 6, 2018. 

The Disingenuousness of Vulnerable House Republicans

To be a Republican nowadays means one's stock in trade is lies and misogyny, yet on the campaign trail one sees the lies most sharply, especially among vulnerable Republican House members.  In the Virginia 2nd District, Scott Taylor is lying through his teeth and misrepresenting his lock step voting with Trump and the GOP leadership.  At a Hampton Arts Foundation event over the weekend, he was so sleazy and dishonest I wanted to wash my hand after he insisted on shaking my hand.  Move westward in Virginia and similar intentional misrepresentations are being disseminated by David Brat who is even more repugnant than Taylor.   A piece in Politico looks at the deliberate dishonesty of these Republican candidates who like Scott Taylor are trying to desperately dupe independents and moderates to believe they are not lock step with Trump.  Here are excerpts:

Vulnerable House Republicans have to lead double lives these days if they hope to hang on.

Take Dave Brat. At a private fundraiser in early September, the Virginia Republican joked to a roomful of Republicans about how he mimics archconservative House Freedom Caucus founder Jim Jordan on Fox News when discussing the FBI’s Russia investigation.

But in TV ads, Brat has touted his work on issues that transcend party lines. One of them features images of puppies playing with children, and a narrator touting the congressman's work “to stop a federal agency from conducting cruel medical research on dogs.”

The two sides of Brat, a member of the Freedom Caucus, highlight the dissonant strategies House Republicans are deploying in their struggle to keep the House. As national Republicans implore endangered members to localize their races and tout bipartisan victories, hard-liners are urging them to embrace the president to get Trump voters to the polls.

Survival might ultimately depend on Republicans successfully doing both — not an easy feat since Democrats are reminding voters of their ties to Trump at every opportunity. But the conundrum is clear: GOP office-holders in swing districts can’t afford to repel independents by appearing too cozy with Trump, yet they also need Trump’s followers to turn out in force.

“I would argue it's best in the vast majority of congressional seats to nationalize the election,” Jordan, a guest speaker, told the crowd during the fundraiser for Brat in Arlington, Va., on Sept. 7, according to the recording.

The advice is quite different from that being given by Republican leaders, who as recently as three weeks ago encouraged vulnerable members to run hyper-local races, focusing on their legislative accomplishments and de-emphasizing the president.

Instead of choosing one path or another, many Republicans appear to be trying to do both, adjusting their tones depending on the audience.  Democrats have held up partisan comments Republicans have made to base voters as evidence that their more moderate tone toward independents is phony.

Brat isn’t the only vulnerable Republican who’s welcomed help from his friends on the far right while trying to hold off a blue wave from the left. Jordan has been raising money and stumping for other Freedom Caucus conservatives in tough races.

He’s appeared with many of them at fundraisers or events aimed at turning out Republicans. In recent weeks Jordan sent emails soliciting donations to help Reps. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.), Ted Budd (R-N.C.) and Rod Blum (R-Iowa), all top Democratic targets.

During a recent event with Republican women in Southern California, Republican candidate Diane Harkey described the predicament she's facing in trying to succeed Darrell Issa in a swing district. According to a recording obtained by POLITICO, Harkey said, “We need to get the Trump voters out” and tried to brainstorm ways to do it while also attracting independents.

“In order to hold this election, we're going to have to get Republican voters to vote at least 2 percentage points higher than they normally do in a midterm,” she said. . . . . Harkey proposed that local Republicans make the election about Democrats potentially trying to impeach Trump and roll back the GOP tax cuts.

Jordan has encouraged Republicans to go even further. At the Brat event, he suggested that GOP leaders were in part to blame for Republican Rick Saccone’s loss to Conor Lamb in a Pennsylvania special election earlier this year. Their sin: running “cookie cutter traditional campaign” ads accusing Lamb of being a Pelosi puppet [Scott Taylor is running such ads].

"Even in these suburban districts," Jordan said, "you still have to run toward the president to bring our team out.”

For anyone believing Taylor's and Brat's intentional lies, I have some ocean front property in Colorado I want to sell to you.

Polls: Rep. Scott Taylor Falling Behind Elaine Luria

Scott Taylor's campaign's sleazy - and illegal - effort to place Shaun Brown on the November ballot as an independent candidate for Virginia's 2nd Congressional District seems to be blowing up in Taylor's face in the wake of media coverage of the forged signatures and irregularities in how signatures were gathered to place Brown on the ballot.  Yes, there are many other reasons to oppose Taylor, not the least being his lock step voting with Donald Trump and the GOP vulture capitalist and tax cuts for the wealthy agenda. But the entire Brown affair reveals just how morally bankrupt - and incredibly arrogant - Taylor is in reality. As for some in the LGBT community who support Taylor for his supposed support for the LGBT community - frankly, I suspect their support is more motivated by political aspirations of their own - the truth is that the pro-LGBT legislation Taylor sponsored in Congress had no chance in Hell of passage (a fact known to Taylor) and, therefore, was little more than a ploy to dupe members of the LGBT community into shortsightedly supporting him.   A piece in Roll Call looks at Taylor's much deserved sinking prospects.  Here are highlights:

Democrat Elaine Luria led Rep. Scott Taylor by 8 points in Virginia’s 2nd District amid lingering questions about the Republican lawmaker’s role in a ballot signature scandal, according to an internal poll released by Luria’s campaign Tuesday.

The survey, conducted by Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group, gave the Navy veteran a 51 percent to 43 percent lead over Taylor. A June survey by the same firm showed her trailing by 4 points, the campaign said.

Luria’s campaign credited her lead partly to the alleged scheme to submit fraudulent qualifying petitions to help independent candidate Shaun Brown make the ballot — an apparent attempt to siphon support from Luria.

“While voters in the district have been bombarded by coverage of the election fraud scandal surrounding Congressman Scott Taylor, we have remained focused on sharing Luria’s record of service to her country and community,” Luria campaign manager Kathryn Sorenson said.  “This is a swing district, and we are going to fight for every vote between now and Election Day.”

A special prosecutor is investigating four of Taylor’s campaign staffers for allegedly forging dozens of signatures on Brown’s behalf.

A Richmond, Virginia, circuit court judge ordered Brown’s name removed from the ballot Sept. 5 after finding the petitions she submitted were “rife with errors, inconsistencies, and forgeries.” The Virginia Supreme Court last week dismissed Brown’s appeal.

The Democratic Party of Virginia, which filed the original lawsuit in August to kick Brown off the ballot, has accused Taylor of helping Brown, his 2016 Democratic opponent, in a backdoor maneuver to split the Democratic vote.  Taylor has denied those claims.

Make sure you are registered to vote and, if you live in the 2nd District, get out and vote for Elaine Luria on election day.  If you live outside of the 2nd District, make sure you are registered and vote for every Democrat on the ballot on election day. 

Scott Taylor Staffers Submitted 4 Dead People, 59 Fraudulent Signatures

I first met Scott Taylor at a Hampton Roads Pride launch event when he was - in my view - pandering to LGBT voters and claiming to be "LGBT friendly," a pretense he has continued.  At the time, I had a hard to define reaction that Taylor was a bit off and not necessarily genuine.  Nonetheless, I backed Taylor over Randy Forbes, a former law school classmate who had become a Christian zealot over the intervening years and supportive of endless anti-gay efforts.   I figured Taylor was the lesser of the two evils.  Fast forward to today, and Taylor has largely marched lock step with the Trump/Pence, the most anti-LGBT regime in decades which is actively undermining LGBT rights and rescinding LGBT non-discrimination protections.   Now, the unease I felt about Taylor has been quantified by the ongoing scandal over the fraudulent signatures collected by Taylor's campaign staffers to put Shaun Brown on the November ballot as an independent candidate for Taylor's congressional seat.  The obvious goal: to drain votes from Taylor's Democrat challenger, Elaine Luria.  The Virginian Pilot looks at the deepening scandal.  Here are some tawdry details:

The problem was that Floyd Newkirk died in 2016 at the age of 83, according to his obituary. He was a retired Marine, Korean War veteran and long-distance truck driver. Eddie Newkirk was disheartened to hear that his deceased father’s name was used for political gain. “I’m not surprised,” he said. “But I’m disappointed that someone would stoop to that level.”

The elder Newkirk was one of four Virginia Beach men who had died in recent years but whose names appeared on the petitions. The others were Hugh Doy, Melvin Chittum and R. Stuart Cake.

A team of reporters from The Virginian-Pilot conducted a two-week investigation of Brown’s petition signatures, trying to contact each voter listed on the dozens of pages submitted by five people paid by Taylor’s campaign.  The Pilot reached 115 of the 584 people listed – or a family member – by phone.

Of those reached, 51 people – including several local Republican politicians – acknowledged signing the petition. Six others weren’t sure whether they did.  But 59 – more than half of those reached – declared the signatures to be fraudulent.

Some of the fake entries contained misspelled names. Others included an outdated address next to the name. One person was in the hospital being treated for throat cancer on the day he was reported to have signed. Another said she was out of town attending a graduation ceremony.

Many of those named were elderly people, including Floyd Felten of Virginia Beach, whose name also was misspelled. Felten’s daughter, Carol Campbell, said she’s sure that her father didn’t sign. “He’s 102,” Campbell said. “He really can’t sign his name that well.”

Most of those who said they didn’t sign had no idea how their names ended up on the petitions. Some said they were Taylor supporters or Republicans, had given money to Taylor’s campaign, were on an email list for him or had agreed to put his campaign signs in their yards.

Most of the signatures submitted by the Taylor supporters were obtained during a two-day blitz on June 8 and 9, just days before the June 12 filing deadline.

Brown, a Hampton businesswoman who ran as a Democrat against Taylor in 2016, has said she didn’t know that Taylor staffers were collecting signatures for her. She faces trial in October on charges that she defrauded the federal government through a summer meal program for children. She was tried on the charges in federal court earlier this month, but the case ended with a hung jury. She did not return a call from The Pilot seeking comment for this story.

The Pilot found five people associated with Taylor’s campaign listed as being among the circulators of the petitions: Heather Guillot, Lauren Creekmore, Roberta Marciano, Daniel Bohner and Nicholas Hornung.

Federal Election Commission records show that Creekmore, Marciano and Hornung each received payments from Taylor’s campaign this year that were listed as payroll disbursements. Creekmore received five payments totaling $6,036; Marciano got three for $3,097; and Hornung got two for a total of $2,041, the records show.

Guillot, who served as chief of staff and campaign manager for former Republican state Del. Rocky Holcomb, had the most that were questioned – 29 reported as fraudulent. She also was the only one who had the names of dead people listed on her submitted petitions.  Thirteen people claimed that signatures submitted by Marciano were forged, and 12 said the same about signatures handed in by Creekmore.

Taylor spokesman Scott Weldon refused to say whether any of them were still associated with the campaign.

Before submitting petitions to get Brown on the November ballot, workers were required to sign an affidavit on the back of each page.  They promised that they had witnessed the signature of each person named on the document. They also acknowledged that breaking this promise would make them guilty of a felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $2,500 fine. Each affidavit also had to be notarized.

If the prosecutor determines there’s enough evidence to support charges in the case, they likely would include felonies such as filing false statements or perjury, said Matthew Shapanka, an attorney in Washington, D.C., who specializes in political law.

Among those who acknowledged signing the petitions were numerous employees of the Virginia Beach Sheriff’s Office, a detail first reported by the Richmond Times-Dispatch.  The Pilot’s investigation found 52 sheriff’s employees listed on petitions submitted by Taylor’s campaign staff. . . . they were passed around during the workday by members of his staff, not the Taylor campaign members who signed affidavits on those pages.

If that’s the case, then those 52 signatures also were obtained illegally, said Rebecca Green, a professor at the College of William & Mary’s law school who runs the election law program.

Taylor's feigned lack of knowledge defies belief. Sadly, Taylor has shown that he is not only only too willing to dupe LGBT voters, but he seeming also subscribes to the morally bankrupt standards of Trump.  Taylor needs to be voted out of office in November. 

Special Prosecutor Appointed to Investigate Scott Taylor Election Dirty Tricks

When Scott Taylor challenged former Congressman Randy Forbes for the 2nd Congressional District primary - Forbes, a former law school classmate of mine, had decided to avoid running in his own redrawn district for fear of losing - I recommended that voters back Taylor since I was beyond tired of Forbes' religious fanaticism and sponsorship of whacky pro-Christofascist resolutions and anti-gay votes.  Also, Taylor had made what I now suspect were totally cynical efforts to appear "gay friendly" as a ruse to draw votes for the LGBT community.  With Taylor generally voting lock step with the Trump/Pence regime and supporting ugly GOP policies, he's proven that he is, in fact, little different than Forbes.  Now, Taylor faces a special prosecutor who is investigating fraudulent signatures gathered by Taylor campaign staffers to put failed Democratic candidate Shaun Brown - who is on trial for federal fraud charges - on the November ballot  as an independent, the obvious goal being to drain votes from Taylor's Democrat challenger, Elaine Luria.  In retrospect, Forbes despite his pandering to Christian extremists may have been the more honest candidate back in the GOP primary.  I can only conclude that Taylor arrogantly thought no one would ever know about his dirty tricks towards Luria.  The Virginian Pilot reports on the investigation.  Here are highlights:

A special prosecutor will look into reports that false names were entered on ballot petitions gathered for Shaun Brown to run as an independent in the 2nd Congressional District.

The names were collected by paid staff and others associated with the re-election campaign for Rep. Scott Taylor, R-Virginia Beach.

Virginia Beach Commonwealth’s Attorney Colin Stolle’s request Tuesday for a special prosecutor was granted within hours. That prosecutor will be Roanoke’s longtime commonwealth’s attorney, Donald Caldwell.

Four paid Taylor staffers gathered signatures in a two-day blitz shortly before the deadline for turning in ballot petitions. It also was two months after Brown, of Hampton, dropped her bid for the Democratic nomination in the wake of her indictment on federal corruption charges.

A hung jury led to a mistrial last week for those charges. The case is scheduled to be heard again – with a new jury – beginning Oct. 9.

Meanwhile, Del. Glenn Davis, R-Virginia Beach, said he was surprised to find his name on two petitions – both circulated by Taylor supporters. He did sign one, circulated by one of Taylor’s paid staff, but not the second – which had his first name misspelled and with an incorrect address five doors down on his street. That signature was on a petition gathered by a man whose father received $200 for consulting on the Taylor campaign a few days later, Federal Election Commission reports show.

Virginia Beach resident Tony Flores said he learned his name was on a Brown petition when someone with the local Democrats called his parents – whose names were listed on the same petition as his – to ask if they had really signed it. That petition was gathered by another of Taylor’s paid staff.  Flores said that he did not sign the petition, nor did his parents and three friends whose names were on the same petition as his.

 

In Stolle's request for a special prosecutor, he said his office was investigating potential violations of election law and of forgery. He said a special prosecutor was needed because his office is “so situated with respect to potential witnesses in this matter as to render it improper for this office to make any potential charging decisions or to prosecute such potential charges.”

Meanwhile, local Democrats have been contacting people listed on the petitions to see if they actually signed the documents, said Jake Rubenstein, communications director of the Democratic Party of Virginia.

“Voters deserve to know if Congressman Taylor's paid staff violated the law and if all candidates received the required number of signatures to make the ballot this November,” he said.

Taylor would appear to be yet another corrupt Republican incumbent.  He needs to be voted out of office in November.  2nd District voters and residents deserve someone honest and with integrity.  

Trump’s Offshore Drilling Plan Roils East Coast Communities

This could be the Virginia Beach oceanfront under Trump/GOP offshore drilling proposals.

Looking from my bedroom window, I can see across Hampton Roads harbor to the Norfolk Naval Base. Behind the house, we own 4.6 acres of tidal creek and marsh.  The tide that impacts these areas flow in through the mouth of Chesapeake Bay from the Atlantic Ocean all the way into the far reaches of our marshland.  A significant offshore oil spill could wreak horrific damage to not only our property, but to tourism in Virginia Beach and across the region and also devastate the local seafood industry.  The economic losses and property losses could extend into the hundreds of millions, if not more.  Yet, up and down the East Coast of America the Trump/Pence regime is pushing to open up huge areas to offshore drilling, putting local environments and economies at huge potential risk.  From Virginia on south, the opposition from local communities is near complete to the proposal.  The exception: Trump supporting Republicans like Virginia 2nd District Republican Scott Taylor who supported offshore drilling until recently (if, of course, Taylor's word can be believe - my vote is that it cannot since he votes with Trump 98% of the time) when confronted with his opponent, Elaine Luria's staunch opposition to potentially catastrophic offshore drilling.   If one opposes offshore drilling, the best way to stop it is to vote for Democrats like Elaine Luria and Tim Kaine and send Trump/Pence a strong message by flipping control of the House of Representatives (and ideally the Senate). Here are excerpts from The Atlantic that looks at Trump's dangerous effort to endanger our coastlines:

Carteret County sits in a region of North Carolina known as the Crystal Coast. It’s celebrated for its charming lighthouses, sun-bleached beaches, and relaxed atmosphere. The population is 89.9 percent white and staunchly Republican.

President Trump won the county in 2016 with 71 percent of the vote. But he has touched off an insurrection among the GOP faithful here on the issue of offshore drilling, which the county almost universally views as a threat to tourism. In that, Carteret is typical of areas up and down the Eastern Seaboard, where opposition to the Trump administration’s proposed plan to allow offshore drilling in nearly all U.S. coastal waters has become a top issue in the 2018 midterms. . . . . people are very aware “how important tourism, and the quality of life, is for our market,” he continued. “That really is our life blood.”

In Carteret County, six municipalities have already passed resolutions opposing offshore drilling and seismic testing, a controversial technique used to pinpoint petroleum deposits in the ocean floor. So have local governments in other states.

“Everyone is pretty much united” in opposition, Kies explained. And with the midterms approaching, Republicans up and down the ballot are breaking from the party line to oppose the president’s proposed plan.  

In Republican and Democratic areas alike, residents, legislators, and advocacy organizations held town halls, protested on beaches, and lobbied Washington. The military expressed concern that drilling would impact their operations off of Florida and Virginia. By the end of 2016, the Obama administration revised its plan, removing the Atlantic from the leasing program, and invoked an obscure law to ban drilling in much of the Atlantic and the Arctic.  

“It really was like a bipartisan thing,” said Alex Taurel, the conservation program director for the League of Conservation Voters. “It really translated into kind of changing the politics of offshore drilling in the Atlantic, over the course of the Obama era into this Trump era.”

The threat of an oil spill looms large; few have forgotten the damage the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster inflicted on the Gulf of Mexico. Since then, there have been 4,105 reported offshore explosions, fires, collisions, and spills, resulting in 13 deaths, according to the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement. In 2017 alone, there were 10 offshore spills.

“We could not recover from an oil spill in North Carolina,” said Bob Woodard, the chairman of the Board of Commissioners in Dare County. Woodard, who supports Trump, strongly opposes offshore drilling and says opposition in the county is “overwhelming.”

Trump issued an executive order revoking the Obama-era ban on Arctic and Atlantic drilling in April 2017, and in January of this year the Interior Department proposed a new five-year plan that included almost all American coastal waters.

Following these policy changes, offshore drilling opposition has only grown in the Southeast, and it’s front and center in some congressional campaigns this year. Candidates who’d previously expressed support for drilling now find themselves on the defensive—and have, in some cases, switched their positions.

One example can be found in Virginia’s 2nd congressional district, where Navy veteran and Democrat Elaine Luria is running to unseat Republican incumbent Scott Taylor. Her campaign has significantly featured her resistance to offshore drilling.

During Taylor’s first run for Congress in 2010, he supported drilling, before reversing that stance earlier this year. “I’m a representative,” Taylor explained to me. “In my district, all the localities passed resolutions [against drilling]. The tourism industry, the military has an issue, obviously various environmental groups, fishing industry, shellfish industry, are just about unanimously opposed to it.”

In South Carolina, offshore drilling and seismic testing have taken center stage in the first congressional district, which runs from the North Carolina border to Seabrook Island along the coast. It has one of the state’s most watched elections: Republican Representative Mark Sanford, who has long opposed offshore drilling, was defeated by primary challenger Katie Arrington, who framed herself as the Trumpian candidate.

But in June, she flipped her position (though she recently suggested she has always held that stance).

The change was a conspicuous one. Since June, five district mayors—all Republicans or independents—have endorsed her Democratic opponent in the general election, Joe Cunningham, due to his opposition to offshore drilling.

Even South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster, who was the first and highest-ranking state official in the country to back Trump’s campaign in 2016, opposes drilling and seismic testing. “Opposition to offshore drilling is just about a political necessity these days,” said John Tynan, the executive director of Conservation Voters of South Carolina.

Offshore drilling is also a prominent issue in the Florida Senate race between Republican Governor Rick Scott and Democratic Senator Bill Nelson. Both candidates have emphasized their opposition, though Scott, like Arrington, has been accused of flip-flopping.

Though Zinke has signaled that the Trump administration’s revised plan will likely be scaled back, a second wave of backlash is anticipated if Atlantic drilling remains on the table. And depending on when the report is released, it could have even more consequences for the midterm elections.

Again, do not take chances.  Make sure you are registered to vote and vote Democrat in November, 2018.  Your region's economic safety could depend on it.

Scott Taylor Paid to Get Failed Democrat Candidate on Ballot as "Independent"

Scott Taylor and his apparent role model, Donald Trump

I have made no secret of the fact that I want to see GOP Congressman Scott Taylor defeated this November and replaced by an individual who will not vote for Donald Trump's agenda roughly 98% of the time.  Now, Taylor, whose chances of re-election have been re-categorized as a "toss up"  has been exposed of engaging in dirty tricks and deceptive acts in  what can only be deemed an act of desperation given his seemingly declining re-election hopes. As the Virginian Pilot is reporting, Taylor paid his campaign workers to assist a failed Democrat primary candidate, Shaun Brown, who is facing charges of defrauding the federal government on the ballot for November as an independent.  The obvious goal - peeling off votes from his Democrat challenger, Elaine Luria.  Dirty tricks and corruption are one of the leading problems with Congress and by this action, Taylor has shown that he is indeed part of the problem and willing to engage in fraud and deception.  Here are highlights from the Pilot: 

Four of U.S. Rep. Scott Taylor’s paid campaign workers gathered more than half the signatures needed to assure Shaun Brown a spot on the November ballot as she faced charges of defrauding the federal government.

Brown, who had originally sought the Democratic nomination to challenge Taylor, is now running as an independent against Taylor, seeking to represent the Williamsburg-to-Eastern Shore 2nd Congressional District. Norfolk business-owner Elaine Luria is the Democratic candidate.

The staff members’ efforts were first reported by WHRO-FM radio, which obtained the records through a Freedom of Information Act request and are published on its website.

Stephen Farnsworth, a political scientist at the University of Mary Washington, said the Taylor campaign’s work was most likely an effort to split the vote against him.

“The first rule of politics is to figure out a way to divide your opposition,” Farnsworth said. “It’s one of the oldest tricks in the book …

Brown was still pushing hard on deadline day to nail down enough signatures – she herself gathered more than 50 that day, the elections department records show.

Federal Election Commission records, meanwhile, show that Taylor’s four staff members – Lauren Creekmore, Roberta Marciano, Nicholas Hornung and Heather Guillot – were each paid more than $1,200 the week after turning in the signatures.

Asked if Taylor was aware of what the four were doing, spokesman Scott Weldon replied: “Yep, of course he knew.”

Brown, who was charged in December with defrauding the federal government, had originally planned to run as a Democrat. But after the Democratic Congressional Campaign Commission endorsed Luria, a Norfolk business owner, Brown began gathering signatures in May, seeking a place on the ballot as an independent. Luria campaign manager Kathryn Sorenson issued a statement Wednesday afternoon:

“Dirty and deceptive politics like this are exactly why Washington is broken and people are losing faith in their government. Clearly, Scott Taylor is terrified and willing to do anything to avoid going head to head with Commander Luria.”

Brown’s trial on charges of defrauding the government by overstating the number of meals her nonprofit agency distributed under a federal summer program for young people goes to a jury this week.

In a court filing for the case, prosecutors said they have evidence Brown lied to an investor while seeking funds for that agency, and that she falsified campaign finance filed with the Federal Elections Commission.

Lies, questionable morality, and loyalty to Trump define Taylor.  If you live in the 2nd Congressional District, vote for Luria in November and send Taylor into forced retirement.

The Virginia GOP's Road of Self-Destruction

As I have noted many times, years ago, I was a GOP activist, an eight (8) year precinct captain and member of the City Committee of the Republican Party of Virginia Beach.  I also held a state board position by appointment from Republican Governor Jim Gilmore.  During the intervening years, I, my entire extended family, and many friends all fled the Republican Party of Virginia ("RPV") as the party embraced homophobia, swore fealty to a radical white evangelical Christian agenda, and more recently, embraced white supremacists.  "Moderate Republicans" are nearly extinct and have either fled the asylum the Virginia GOP has become or have literally died off.  Meanwhile, instead of striving to broaden its base of support, RPV has moved further and further to the far right, falling for the Chtistofascists/white supremacist fantasy that victory could be won if the party only mounted "true conservatives" as its candidates.  The result?  RPV has not won a statewide race in Virginia for almost a decade and 15 GOP House of Delegate seats were lost in 2017.  With Corey Stewart now the standard bearer for RVP in 2018, even the National Review sees little upside for the party.    Even Bearing Drift notes that Republican Reps. Dave Brat and Barbara Comstock are on the "flip list" and that Scott Taylor's seat is now a "toss up."  First, these highlights from National Review:

According to political experts, Virginia can be considered either the northernmost southern state or the southernmost northern state. Recent Democratic successes and shifting demographics seem to favor the latter view. The main areas of recent population growth have been Democratic areas — Northern Virginia, just outside the District of Columbia; the capital, Richmond; and Henrico County in the Richmond suburbs. Meanwhile, the population has declined in the southwest and in Hampton Roads, the former a Republican stronghold and the latter a battleground. From 2000 to 2010, Virginia’s Hispanic population, which tends to support Democrats, increased by 92 percent, with two-thirds of that growth concentrated in Northern Virginia.

One experienced Republican activist argues that “Virginia is more like a purple state with a roller-coaster pattern than it is a red state turning blue.” But Mike Murphy, a longtime GOP political consultant, says: “The state is turning blue, and the Republicans are responding to that by turning crazy. That is a cycle that will electorally wipe out the party, at least at the state level.”

Tucker Martin, a veteran political strategist with extensive experience in the state, tells National Review that there’s a disconnect between what Virginia is and what many Virginia Republicans believe it to be. “The Democrats are on home turf now, and Republicans need to branch out and create their own brand,” Martin says. “The problem is that the Trump era has made it almost impossible to do that.”

Over the last few years, these factors have converged to push Virginia from purple to blue. Even as its quickly changing demographics have favored the Left, a stripe of populist Republican politician has arisen on the right, appealing to a core of supporters who have driven the state GOP even further rightward, distancing moderate voters and, in some cases, encouraging Democratic engagement.

Enter Donald Trump, a political outsider much like Brat who surged onto the scene in 2015 to compete for the presidential nomination, appealing to many of the same parts of the GOP base that Brat had wooed. Though Trump’s strategy played well nationally, it wasn’t as successful in Virginia. The businessman even struggled to find a state politician willing to chair his state campaign until Corey Stewart, chairman of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors, stepped in.

Trump barely won the Virginia primary on March 1, with Florida senator Marco Rubio coming in a close second. Tellingly, Trump received only a plurality of the vote. This lack of widespread support was a sign of things to come. Virginia was the only southern state to go to Hillary Clinton, who won it by more than Barack Obama had in 2012.

Stewart’s far-right rhetoric occasionally slipped into outright support for white supremacists. In early 2017, he called anti-Muslim conspiracy crank Paul Nehlen (a primary challenger to House speaker Paul Ryan) one of his “personal heroes,” and his campaign paid Nehlen a fundraising commission for the use of his email list. Stewart also appeared during the primary with Jason Kessler, an organizer of last August’s neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville.

Recently, Stewart disavowed both Nehlen and Kessler, saying he had been unaware of their extremism. Shaun Kenney, former executive director of the state party, calls this claim nonsense, saying “everyone in Charlottesville knew what Jason Kessler was and knew what he represented.”

In November, Gillespie lost to sitting lieutenant governor Ralph Northam by nearly nine percentage points. Democratic candidates took 15 seats in the house of delegates, where Republicans had held a 66–34 advantage. One delegate race was deemed a tie, and a random drawing allotted the seat to the Republican, allowing the GOP to retain a 51–49 majority — literally dependent on the luck of the draw. The biggest story was turnout among Democrats, who voted at unprecedented, presidential-election levels: One analysis estimated that turnout among under-30-year-olds in Virginia was 34 percent, nearly twice  its 17 percent in the 2009 gubernatorial race. Nearly seven out of ten of those voters cast their ballots for Northam.

“Trump has made it a social value among those Democratic-leaning, younger voters to be against Trump and to demonstrate it by voting,” Murphy explains. “Trump has solved the problem the Democrats have faced for decades, which is how to get their younger, unengaged voters to show up and pull the ‘D’ lever.”

[E]xperts predict that Republicans can’t expect to win Virginia with only the segments of the electorate that Trump won. Stewart’s general-election campaign will be the test. While populist rhetoric undoubtedly appeals to enough of the base to hand primary elections to Trump and Stewart, Virginia is slipping away from the GOP: The Cook Political Report just moved Brat’s reelection campaign in the seventh district from “leans Republican” to “toss-up.” “The trend over the last 20 years has been that, as the Republican party pushes more to the right, Virginia has shifted to the left, and it’s created a chasm,” Martin explains. “Trump has broadened that chasm. Corey Stewart makes it a little wider. As a party, we need to look at ways to close that divide.”

So long as they remain the party of Corey Stewart, Virginia Republicans are likely to stand on the outside looking in.

Bearing Drift continues the dire picture for the RPV.  Here are highlights:

The Wason Center’s Rachel Bitecofer has published a new paper that will hearten Virginia Democrats. Nationally, the party is “primed to pick up enough seats to control the House.”

In Virginia, Bitecofer pulls no punches: Republican Reps. Dave Brat and Barbara Comstock will lose. And the state’s other race to watch, the 2^nd District, is a pure toss-up. And for Republicans, the bad news looks like it will continue for as long as Donald Trump is in the White House.

Part of the reason is “negative partisanship” — the negative attitudes, even extending outside of politics that members of the major political parties have toward the other party’s candidates. The negative feelings are stronger among those supporting the party out of power. All that negativity keeps them motivated.

The deciding factor for Democrats is getting their own partisans to the polls: Democrats lose Independents quite often, and in elections they win and they lose because they have a population advantage in many places and when their partisans turn out in high numbers, it trumps the combined loss of Republicans and Independents, assuming they don’t lose the latter group by wide margins.

[I]f it’s true, it could mean that races that were already going to be expensive and rough, such as Virginia’s 10^th, will be even costlier and much rougher than we imagined. The reason? Democrats will do everything possible to raise turnout among their base voters and to capture a good share of the true independents.

According to the Monmouth University poll of the 10^th — the only data we have so far –Democrats are already doing what’s necessary to reach both goals, long before the mud starts flying. In Monmouth’s “turnout surge” model, in areas where “Trump is unpopular,” Democratic nominee Jennifer Wexton leads Comstock 51 percent to 40 percent.

Another key to Bitecofer’s model, and another troubling sign for Republicans: the number of college graduates in a district. She looked at Virginia’s 2017 House of Delegates races and discovered this: Of the 17 Clinton districts in Virginia, Democrats won nearly all of them. They even picked up a seat in a district that broke for Trump. And the most significant factor explaining districts that flipped from those that didn’t (other than the district’s partisan advantage and challenger spending relative to incumbent spending) is the percent of college educated residents residing within the district.

Brat once complained,“women are in my grill no matter where I go.” Negative partisanship means they still are. The question is whether the energy can be sustained until November. Bitecofer argues it can and will be — and that it will continue far beyond then, as Republicans demonstrated when Barack Obama was in the White House.

The leadership of the RVP decided years ago to sell its soul to Christofascists and white supremacists (the two for the most part overlap, in my view) and mow it is repealing the whirlwind of tying its future to minority extremists.  The RPV deserves every misfortune that befalls it. 

Corey Stewart, Scott Taylor, et al: Foul Things that Crawled Out from Under Trump’s Rock

Corey Stewart - an open racist and Neo-Confederate.

Scott Taylor - a man who refuses to condemn Corey Stewart  or disavow Donald Trump. 

The depths of the depravity of today's Republican Party seemingly know no limit.  At the national level, we see the amoral, sexual predator-in-chief at the White House lying multiple times a day and doing his upmost to destroy the Western alliance to please his puppet master in the Kremlin.  Here in Virginia we have the equally amoral and dishonest Corey Stewart, the GOP candidate for the U. S. Senate seat held by Tim Kaine, a morally decent man I know personally. Of course, both Der Trumpenführer and Stewart count evangelical Christians - using the term "Christian" very loosely -  as their strongest adherence.  It's amazing how racism and bigotry trump the message of the New Testament with these modern day Pharisees (no offense to the biblical Pharisees who were decent and upstanding in comparison).  A piece in the Washington Post looks at what a toxic cesspool the GOP has become under Trump, Pence and their Satan's spawn in races across America.  Here are column highlights (Note the reference to GOP 2nd District congressman Scott Taylor):

Behold, a new breed of Republican for the Trump era.

Seth Grossman won the Republican primary last month for a competitive House seat in New Jersey, running on the message “Support Trump/Make America Great Again.” The National Republican Congressional Committee endorsed him.

Then, a video surfaced, courtesy of American Bridge, a Democratic PAC, of Grossman saying “the whole idea of diversity is a bunch of crap.” Grossman then proclaimed diversity “evil.” CNN uncovered previous instances of Grossman calling Kwanzaa a “phony holiday” created by “black racists,” labeling Islam a cancer and saying faithful Muslims cannot be good Americans. . . . And this week, the liberal group Media Matters found that Grossman had previously posted a link on Facebook to a white-nationalist website’s piece claiming black people “are a threat to all who cross their paths.”  After weeks of delay, the NRCC finally withdrew its nomination.

Many such characters have crawled out from under rocks and onto Republican ballots in 2018: A candidate with ties to white nationalists is the GOP Senate nominee in Virginia (and has President Trump’s endorsement); an anti-Semite and Holocaust denier is the Republican candidate in a California House race; a prominent neo-Nazi won the GOP nomination in an Illinois House race; and overt racists are in Republican primaries across the country.

It is an indication of where Trump has taken the party that Republicans need the support of people like this.  By [Trump’s] the president’s own standard, it is fair to identify these candidates with the national Republican brand. . . . . many have been inspired or emboldened by him. Corey A. Stewart, the Republican Senate nominee in Virginia, said he was “Trump before Trump.”

The party won’t back Stewart, but Republican lawmakers are tiptoeing. Rep. Scott W. Taylor (R-Va.), declining to disavow Stewart, noted to the Virginian-Pilot newspaper that people won’t see him as racist because “my son is named after a black guy.”

In California, the Republican facing Democratic Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, John Fitzgerald, has appeared on neo-Nazi podcasts, claimed the Holocaust is a lie and alleged an international Jewish conspiracy. In Illinois, the Republican nominee against Democratic Rep. Daniel Lipinski, Arthur Jones, has a campaign website that mixes anti-Semitic propaganda and support for Trump, and has pictures of him speaking at a neo-Nazi rally for Trump in 2016 and making a Nazi salute with other “white patriots.”

Russell Walker, Republican nominee for a North Carolina state House seat, is a white supremacist whose personal website is “littered with the n-word” and states that Jews are “satanic,” Vox reports.

Running in the Republican primary for Speaker Paul D. Ryan’s congressional seat in Wisconsin is Paul Nehlen, who calls himself “pro-white” and was booted from Twitter for racism.

Neo-Nazi Patrick Little ran as a Republican in the California Senate primary, blaming his loss on fraud by “Jewish supremacists,” according to the website Right Wing Watch.

In North Carolina, nominee Mark Harris, in the NRCC’s “Young Guns” program for top recruits, has suggested that women who pursue careers and independence do not “live out and fulfill God’s design.”

The Kansas GOP asked state Sen. Steve Fitzgerald, a Republican congressional candidate, not to repeat his claim that Planned Parenthood is worse than the Nazi death camp Dachau. Fitzgerald did it anyway — and also declared that “outside of Western civilization, there is only barbarism.”

What makes so many think such exotic views are welcome?

Maybe they see the wife of former Fox News executive Bill Shine defending racists on Twitter. Her account was deleted when her husband became Trump’s deputy chief of staff for communications.

Or maybe they see David Bossie, Trump’s former deputy campaign manager, telling a black man on TV that “you’re out of your cotton-picking mind” — and then returning after a brief suspension and apology.

Or perhaps they see Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) retweeting a Nazi sympathizer, refusing to delete it and saying he doesn’t want Somali Muslims working at a meatpacking plant in his district because they think people go “to hell for eating pork chops.”

Is it any wonder the likes of Seth Grossman think this party is theirs?

Again, note how 2nd district congressman Scott Taylor will not denounce Corey Stewart's blatant racism.  Rather he gives the laughable excuse about his son's name - Sterling - is allegedly after a black man.  As a piece in The Root notes, "whether or not your son is named after a black man has absolutely no bearing on whether or not you are a supporter of white supremacy and white nationalism."