Gay Porn Star Threatens to Out Lindsey Graham

I have caught flack over the years for referring to GOP Senator Lindsey Graham as the "Palmetto Queen."  Generally, I believe that when one comes out is a personal decision with one exception: if you hold elected office and are in the closet and supporting anti-gay policies and/or anti-gay politicians, then you are open game for "outing."  It's a simple matter of exposing hypocrites.  Rumors have swirled around Lindsey Graham for years, but his self-prostitution to Donald Trump, a man who is waging war on LGBT Americans, has made outing him a high priority if he's a closeted gay and aiding those harming the LGBT community.   If Graham is a closeted hypocrite, then he deserves to be outed.  FitNews based in South Carolina) has details on the latest rumors about about Graham.  Here are excerpts:

Around the time most South Carolinians were sitting down to their evening meals on Thursday night, a gay porn star by the name of Sean Harding fired off a tweet that set tongues-a-wagging across the Palmetto State (and in the nation’s capital).

“There is a homophobic republican senator who is no better than (Donald Trump) who keeps passing legislation that is damaging to the LGBT and minority communities,” Harding tweeted. “Every sex worker I know has been hired by this man. Wondering if enough of us spoke out if that could get him out of office?” Wait … what?

“I cannot do this alone,” Harding added in a follow-up tweet. “If you’d be willing to stand with me against LG please let me know.”

Considering there is only one member of the U.S. Senate with those initials, speculation quickly turned (again) to U.S. senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who has been dodging rumors like this for the better part of the last decade. This time, though, the allegation quickly took on a life of its own. By Friday afternoon, the hashtag “Lady G” – which is purportedly Graham’s nickname among male sex workers – was trending on Twitter.

Just when you thought 2020 couldn’t get any crazier, right?

For years (most recently in October 2018), Graham has denied being a homosexual.

“I know it’s really gonna upset a lot of gay men – I’m sure hundreds of ’em are gonna be jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge – but I ain’t available,” he famously told The New York Times Magazine in 2010. “I ain’t gay. Sorry.”

Still, the rumors have persisted … with many of Graham’s conservative opponents espousing the theory that he was being manipulated (or blackmailed) politically due to secrets surrounding his sexuality.

To be clear: This news outlet does not care about Graham’s sexual orientation. In fact, the sooner we can stop contemplating whatever might turn on the 64-year-old Central, S.C. native, the better.

We are much more concerned with Graham’s chameleon-esque inability to settle on a political orientation. An erstwhile #NeverTrumper, he flip-flopped and began supporting Trump in late 2017 when it became clear he was about to lose his seat.
Were we surprised? No … everything with this guy is calculation.

Thankfully, there are those in Trump’s orbit who are able to see this career chameleon for what he is … an ally in name only.

We think his votes are bad … and we would like to see him out of office. But we are not going to vilify him over something in his personal life without a damn good reason. Like abuse of power. Something involving tax money. Overt hypocrisy. Or maybe … a clown mask?

Graham is facing a tougher-than-expected fight this fall from Democrat Jaime Harrison, who has attracted significant national support (and raised some serious cash) in his bid to oust the third-term lawmaker. Harrison, incidentally, has been the focus of similar rumors over the years … which we care as much about as the rumors surrounding Graham.

Still, something about this particular installment of the “Lindsey Graham is about to be outed” rumor that seems … different. Lots of national reporters are clearly chasing it (including several who have called our news desk), and the chatter about numerous male escorts contemplating the consequences of violating alleged nondisclosure agreements seems curiously (disturbingly) specific.

Stay tuned … we will have to wait and see what the future holds for the senior senator from South Carolina as he battles the latest (and greatest) round of rumors.

Lindsey Graham's Transformation From Trump Critic to Lap Dog

Few members of the Republican Party have more debased themselves and prostituted themselves to Donald Trump than South Carolina's Lindsey Graham, a/k/a the Palmetto Queen. Graham went from critic of Trump to apologist and cheerleader seemingly simply so as to not offend the racist and knuckle dragging base of the GOP in his home state.  Honor, integrity and simple honesty were all jettisoned as Graham raced to pander to Trump and the ugliest elements of the GOP base.  A new ad by a PAC working for Graham's defeat in his reelection bid in November highlights Graham's two faced conduct and the limitless way Graham willing prostitutes himself to Der Trumpenführer.  A piece in The Advocate looks at Graham's moral and ethical decline.  Here are article excerpts: 

A new ad opposing the reelection of U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina uses his own words against him, noting that he’s gone from calling Donald Trump a “kook” and a “bigot” to deeming him “a damn good president.”

The ad highlighting “the two faces of Lindsey Graham,” from a super PAC called Lindsey Must Go, contrasts “old Lindsey” with “new Lindsey.” It shows, among other things, “old Lindsey” referring to Trump as “a race-baiting, xenophobic religious bigot,” then “new Lindsey” saying the president “deserves the Nobel Peace Prize and then some.”

The three-term Republican senator is facing a serious challenge this year from Democrat Jaime Harrison. Super PACs can’t coordinate with candidates, but Harrison is likely to benefit from the ad, Jonathan Capehart writes in The Washington Post.

“We believe that we can make the case that Lindsey Graham has been a failure to South Carolina,” Harrison told Capehart a few months ago. The ad, Capehart writes in a Friday column, “makes the case better than anyone else could — especially since Graham does all the talking.”

Graham has always been a solid conservative, but he once exhibited at least a degree of integrity and was one of the few Republicans willing to criticize Trump; now he’s become a sycophant. “Here’s a guy that many of us had tremendous respect for. Because when John McCain was alive, we thought in the end of the day he would do the right thing for either the state or the nation when the rubber met the road,”

“But what we have now seen is that this guy’s only interest is in Lindsey O. Graham. His only interest is being in the middle of things, to have power.”

“Lindsey Graham has done both the impossible and the unthinkable: He went from being the late John McCain’s best friend to Donald Trump’s best friend,” Jimmy Williams, senior adviser to the Lindsey Must Go PAC, told the journalist. “We’re simply tired of his snarling, revengeful, dirty payback politics down here, and I promise you we will do whatever we legally can to make his last nine months in the U.S. Senate a miserable hell.”

Southern GOP Governors Create a Covid-19 Coalition and Experts Fear a '"Perfect storm"

Georgia Gov. Kemp gambles lives of constituents.

In a televised "town hall" meeting this evening Virginia Governor Ralph Northam responded to various questions and explained why he was in no rush to reopen Virginia's economy and intended to remain mindful of the recommendations of medical experts.  Northam's approach is at sharp odds with that  of a reported coalition of Southern governors who are seemingly more concerned with staying in the good graces of Der Trumpenführer and the white supremacist, Neo-Nazis and anti-vaccine extremist now protesting in various state capitals against social distancing and stay at home orders.  The recommendations of medical experts is being ignored and these GOP politicians are not only gambling with their political careers but also the lives of their states' residents if there is a second wave of Covid-19 - which could be even worse - for failure to continue policies that have been working.  A piece in Politico looks at the situation and what could prove to be a deadly gamble. Here are article highlights:

Republican governors across the Southeast are teaming up to reopen the region’s economy, even as they lack the testing to know how rapidly the coronavirus is spreading.

One health expert called the political decision a “perfect storm” for the virus to reassert itself.

The newly formed coalition includes Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi, a part of the country that has underfunded health systems, as well as high rates of obesity, diabetes and other illnesses that amplify the deadliness of the coronavirus.

And unlike their peers in New York, New Jersey and other Northeastern states that have been working cooperatively since last week to restart their economies, the six in the South have lagged on testing and social distancing measures.

“If you put these states together, there is a perfect storm for a massive epidemic peak later on,” said Jill Roberts of the University of South Florida’s College of Public Health. “The Southeast region is not known for having the best health record. Diabetes and heart disease come to mind. I am very concerned about how our states will do it.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis mentioned the move Tuesday on "Fox & Friends," but there was no formal announcement or much communication from other states involved.

“We have had a meeting with all the Southeastern governors — Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and Tennessee,” DeSantis said. “And we shared a lot of ideas. I think we will be the same page on some stuff.”

As of Tuesday morning, the six states had collectively tested about one-tenth of 1 percent of their total populations. Mississippi, which ranks 15th nationally in testing, had the group’s best testing rate at 1.7 percent of its population. Georgia was the lowest, with a testing rate of less than one one-hundredth of 1 percent, or 42nd in the country, according to the Covid Tracking Project.

Southern governors, most of whom have built political careers on small-government conservatism, are driving, by contrast, to restart their economies and get people back to work, even as infections mount.

Southern governors, including DeSantis, point to their slowing rate of increases of positive tests and falling numbers of hospitalizations.

Dr. Aileen Marty, a pandemic and infectious disease expert at Florida International University, said gains made through social distancing and other precautions are good signs, but not the signal to loosen efforts that Southern governors think they are.

“They are heavily Republican with social conservatives who are all of a like mind,” Marty said. “They are tempting fate by having the virus out and about among us, but if they don’t do it in a controlled way, we will again be back in situations of overwhelmed hospitals and more people dying.”

Georgia drew national attention — and some ridicule — after Republican Gov. Brian Kemp said Monday that he would allow bowling alleys, gyms, nail salons and massage therapists to reopen on Friday, and let theaters show movies starting Monday, even as he admits the number of cases is likely to grow.

Roberts, with the University of South Florida, called the move fraught with peril. “I kind of enjoyed Gov. Kemp’s talk about reopening these places with ‘screening.’ He did not say testing. That capacity does not exist,” Roberts said. “My guess is he meant taking temperatures, which as we know is pointless,” because asymptomatic people can carry and spread the coronavirus.

Former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb was equally blunt.
“Gyms, nail salons, bowling alleys, hair salons, tattoo parlors,” he said Tuesday on CNBC. “It feels like they collected a list of the businesses you know that were most risky and decided to open those first.”

The Humiliation of Lindsey Graham, a Trump Political Prostitute

Lindsey Graham - who willingly sold his soul.

One of the confounding things about Donald Trump sycophants and Republicans trying to outdo each other in give Trump political fellatio is that throughout his tawdry career, Trump has never shown true loyalty to anyone. It is all about Trump 24/7 and those who toss aside integrity and what little shred of honor today's Republicans can claim sooner or later find themselves tossed aside and disposable.  The same holds true in the international realm.  Trust Trump and any believe what he says and it's only a matter of time before the betrayal unfolds.  Ask the Syrian Kurds who allied with the United States only to find Trump summarily decide to withdraw American troops and aid and throw the Kurds to the mercy of Turkey.  Or ask Lindsey Graham who has prostituted himself to Trump more than almost any other congressional Republican in order to (i) remain "relevant" and (ii) stay in the good graces of the racists and Christian extremist in South Carolina that are keys to Trump's base.  A piece in Politico Magazine looks at Graham's self-degradation seemingly for little return.  Here are excerpts:

It was a cri de cœur from Lindsey Graham, the lament of the sycophant scorned.

President Donald Trump’s decision to abandon our Kurdish allies in Syria by leaving them undefended against a Turkish invasion was, Graham tweeted, “a disaster” and a “nightmare.”

As Monday morning wore on, he expanded his indictment. Betraying the Kurds would force them to align with the Assad regime and Iran and would ensure the comeback of ISIS. It would be, he tweeted, “a stain on America’s honor,” and a virtual surrender to the terrorists. . . . “By abandoning the Kurds we have sent the most dangerous signal possible — America is an unreliable ally and it’s just a matter of time before China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea act out in dangerous ways.“ . . . In his cruelest cut of all, he compared Trump with Barack Obama.

Graham’s disappointment was palpable, but understandable, given all that he has given up to avoid this moment.

For the past several years, Graham has transformed himself from one of Trump’s fiercest critics, into one of his most reflexive defenders. Even by the cynical and shape-shifting standards of Washington, Graham’s metamorphosis has been a thing of wonder. The senator once known as John McCain’s best friend in the Senate, transformed himself into Trump’s shinebox, willing to ingratiate himself with rationalizations and praise even as Trump became increasingly erratic.

During the 2016 campaign, Graham had called Trump a “nutjob” and a loser,” as well as a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot.” He predicted that if the GOP nominated him, “we will get destroyed … and we will deserve it.”

But as McCain faded from the scene, Graham seemed to shift his affections to the man who so publicly insulted McCain.

In moments of candor, Graham tried to explain the deal he thought he was making. When Mark Leibovich asked him earlier this year what had happened to him, Graham explained:

“Well, OK, from my point of view, if you know anything about me, it’d be odd not to do this,” he said.  I asked what “this” was. “ ‘This,’ ” Graham said, “is to try to be relevant.”

Like many others in his party, staying “relevant” was central to their political calculations. Capitulating to Trump meant that Graham would become a rock star in the increasingly Trumpist party and virtually assured of reelection in South Carolina next year.

He would also have the president’s ear. And this was at the heart of Graham's bargain.

Others made the same calculation, but Graham made the uber-tradeoff, because the stakes were so high. What did it matter if he had to endure temporary embarrassments, abase himself on cable television, or even become a political punchline, if he could stop Trump from impulsive decisions regarding Russia or North Korea? Or Syria?

The world saw Graham as a craven, cringing Uriah Heep. Graham saw himself as someone who could save the world, or at least the Kurds. . . . . He was not simply the adult in the room; he was the adult BFF in the room, who would temper Trump’s worst instincts.

And then came Trump’s decision.

Despite Graham’s compulsive turd-polishing of the past few years, Trump didn’t even consult him before making the decision to abandon the Kurds. Graham, who had given up so much self-respect to prevent just this outcome, was not even in the room. He didn’t even get a text.

This is the thing about Faustian bargains. The price is high and the rewards turn out to be illusory. They end badly.

This week, Lindsey Graham, found that out the hard way. I wonder what they’ll talk about the next time they go golfing together.

Buttigieg Creates A Media Moment as Far Left Whines That He's White and Male

Left to their own devices, part of me suspects that the far left of the Democrat Party would never pull of wining a general election.  Pragmatism is an unknown concept, identity politics and division run rampant, and policy minutia are a wet dream to this crowd.  At least, that is my read of things. As 2020 approaches, the number one task is finding a candidate that can win moderates and at the same time press progressive approaches that will address real needs of real people.  Then there is also the need to get behind a candidate who can adeptly use the media in a way to counter Donald Trump's media sucking narcissism and constant turmoil.   I am not say that ultimately Pete Buttigieg is the one who can meet these requirements, but he surely highlights the inability of other would be Democrat nominees to manage the media as will be needed during the 2020 general election campaign.  Former Republican and "Never Trumper" Jennifer Rubin looks at Buttigieg's tour de force on Fox News in a column in the Washington Post.  Here are column excerpts:

Pundits arguing that South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg simply cannot be president because his only civilian public service has been at the local level, or that he is heavy on values and persona but lighter on policy, seem not to have learned anything from 2016. President Trump won the Republican primary by stringing together media moments, dominating the airwaves and intensifying his audience’s emotions (anger, resentment, etc.). Buttigieg is testing the proposition that Democrats desperate to take back the White House may admire Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s policy parade but what they long for is someone who can beat Trump and reflect their longing to reassert their values (respect for intellect, empathy, tolerance).

Buttigieg, in appearing on Fox News Sunday night, helped his cause tremendously. Projecting the same calm, incisiveness and wit that have impressed other audiences, he won enthusiastic applause and a standing ovation. He created some viral moments that will echo around the mainstream media for days.

Buttigieg accomplished several things.  First, he showed how to defend progressive positions and dismantle the right-wing frame for discussing them. On abortion, he had this answer to recent abortion bans: I believe that the right of a woman to make her own decisions about her reproductive health and about her body is a national right. I believe it is an American freedom that should be enjoyed by women in every state. The next president needs to be ready to protect those rights.

The ability to defend Democrats’ values and views effectively, to avoid being cornered by right-wing talking points impresses — and delights — Democratic voters.

Second, going on Fox News, in contrast to Warren (D-Mass.) and others (who had perfectly acceptable moral reasons for shunning the propaganda machine,) reinforced the notion that his political instincts are superior to hers and other competitors. Instead of refusing to appear to denounce hate, Buttigieg used the airtime on Fox to denounce its hateful hosts.

Third, by going on Fox News and winning plaudits, he implicitly made the argument for his own electability. Hey, he can win those people over. Part of his argument is that a religious mayor from the heartland knows the secret sauce for breaking through to working- and middle-class voters in the Midwest. His appearance on Fox News will convince some Democrats that he can.

Fourth, Buttigieg recognized that, in a field of 23 Democratic candidates, holding the media’s attention for a sustained time is nearly impossible for those challenging front-runner Joe Biden. . . . Buttigieg’s answer: Use earned media to create viral moments. These cement in the public’s mind the image of a feisty, witty, super-smart candidate with a Zen-like ability to turn Trump’s anger back against him, making the president look small and childish.

Finally, Buttigieg debunks the notion that Democratic viewers want an angry candidate. They are angry at and about Trump. They pine for someone who can slice and dice him in a way Hillary Clinton never could.

Buttigieg, to be certain, has real challenges. Most importantly, he needs to find support among African American voters who are a critical part of the Democratic primary electorate. He’ll need to show he has some policy plans to avoid looking like a lightweight when he goes up against Warren, Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.) and others who’ve presented (whether you like them or not) bold policy ideas. That said, he showed Sunday night just how formidable are his communication skills and political antenna.

Others can help you construct policy proposals, but that “it” factor (which Harris certainly has) is either there or it’s not. And, yes, Buttigieg has it.

Despite Buttigieg's triumph on Fox, the usual suspects are hard at work dividing the party and arguing that only someone with the right skin color or level a far left fervor can represent the Democrat Party and lead it to victory over Trump.  A piece in Politico looked at this all too predictable circular firing squad - the same one that allowed many Virginia Democrats to be played for fools by far right operatives in early February.  The piece also looks at the reality gays face daily: blacks expect gays to support and protect their civil rights, but blacks all too often do not reciprocate in kind much less in acceptance. Here in Virginia, time and time again white supremacist groups like The Family Foundation use religion to rally black pastors to oppose LGBT rights, playing them for fools in the process. Here are article highlights:

Joe Darby, a prominent pastor in Charleston, S.C., was discussing the Democratic presidential field with fellow clergymen when Pete Buttigieg’s name came up. A fellow pastor quickly interjected.

“Isn’t that the dude who kissed his husband on TV?” the person asked skeptically, according to Darby.

The exchange highlights a major obstacle for Buttigieg, who’s vaulted into the top tier of Democratic candidates without gaining traction among African Americans, according to recent surveys of national and South Carolina Democrats. But as the mayor of South Bend, Ind., devotes more effort to campaigning for black votes in the South and elsewhere, he will have to break down some resistance over his sexual orientation, particularly among older voters, according to interviews with more than a dozen African American activists, political strategists and clergy, as well as a review of public polling.

Buttigieg and his campaign are well aware of the issue. As he skips from sold-out fundraisers to overflowing rallies around the country, Buttigieg set aside time last week for a smaller gathering of black LGBTQ faith leaders and activists in Houston. Gathered around a glass coffee table, Buttigieg opened up to the group of a dozen about his record with African Americans as mayor in South Bend, Ind. — an area that has generated some criticism — as well as his agenda for black voters and his experience as an openly gay candidate for president, including the challenges he may face.

“He’s white, male and gay, all three of those things are going to create obstacles for various communities — specifically, I think, the white and the gay, for the black community, are definitely going to be obstacles for him,” said Harrison Guy, a Houston-based choreographer and LGBTQ activist who led the discussion with the mayor. “He’s very aware of that.”

American views on LGBTQ rights and issues have moved rapidly in the last decade, and black support for bedrock issues like same-sex marriage has also jumped to a narrow majority in recent polling. But those numbers lag behind the nation: 61 percent of adults (and an even higher share of Democrats) backed same-sex marriage in a recent Pew Research Center poll, compared to 51 percent of African Americans.

“It’s an obstacle in the minds of some. And for others, it’s an opportunity,” said Antjuan Seawright, a Democratic strategist and a 5th-generation member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. “He has opportunity to educate and take the temperature here and chart a pathway forward, because I suspect he will not be the last [openly gay] candidate” to run for president.

“Are there implicit biases that women candidates have to face? Absolutely. Are there biases that a black candidate has to face? Is there implicit baggage that a gay candidate has to face? Absolutely,” Belcher said. “How you inoculate yourself from those biases goes back to how you define yourself and talk about yourself authentically.”

Some of that involves building relationships with individual African American activists and voters to break the ice, which the Buttigieg campaign did in their latest swing through South Carolina, setting up private meetings with black leaders.

Buttigieg’s regular invocation of his marriage and his husband, Chasten, on the campaign trail — usually in the context of his Christianity, “putting his faith on his sleeve” — is also an “excellent way to inoculate himself from that implicit bias about the gay community,” Belcher said.

It’s also a way to connect with those wary voters, and by casting his marriage through the lens of his faith “can bring in those Christians he’s trying to reach,” because “he can say to them, ‘I’m just like you,’ a married person of faith,” said Guy, the Houston activist who met with Buttigieg.

Buttigieg also used a recent speech before LGBTQ activists in Las Vegas to promote empathy between minority groups.

“What every gay person has in common with every excluded person of every kind is knowing what it’s like to see a wall between you and the rest of the world, and wonder what it’s like on the other side,” Buttigieg said at an event for the Human Rights Campaign.

Based on public polling, support for gay rights has grown dramatically in recent years. In 2006, 43 percent of Americans said they would feel enthusiastic or comfortable about a candidate who is gay or lesbian, according to an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll. In April, 70 percent said they’d be enthusiastic or comfortable with it, and Buttigieg and his husband appeared on the cover of Time magazine under the headline: “First Family.”

But as a group, black voters still lag compared to the party that gets most of their votes.  In particular, Democratic consultants emphasized that it could be a sticking point for older black voters. In 2017, 69 percent of African Americans aged 18 to 29 backed same-sex marriage, but just 40 percent of African Americans aged 65 and older did, according to a Public Religion Research Institute poll.

Buttigieg “understands there are barriers there, and that it’s something he’s going to have to get over,” Guy said. “He didn’t treat it like a photo-op. It was very much about relationship-building.”

One would hope that black voters would comprehend that ANY DEMOCRAT would be better for their rights and interests than allowing Trump to be re-elected because minority voters fail to go to the polls. Yet, in 2016, many did precisely that and the nation has suffered as a consequence.

GOP Political Whores Just Don't Get That Anti-Gay Bigotry Doesn't Sell Anymore

Even as North Carolina continues to reel over the backlash stemming from the batshitery of HB2 and dunce in chief Pat McCrory issues a worthless executive order as part of his damage control effort, Republicans in South Carolina and elsewhere continue to prostitute themselves to hate-filled, know nothing Christofascists.  Indeed, in South Carolina, even before possible passage of an anti-LGBT bill - a bill that Governor Nikki Haley has intimated she might veto - one CEO has announced that he will be moving the U.S. corporate headquarters of his company out of South Carolina.  Progressive businesses increasingly want nothing to do with knuckle dragging, backward looking states. The State looks at the announcement by the CEO of financial services firm Uphold.  Here are highlights:

A senate bill that would ban transgender men and women from using the bathroom of their choice has caused a Charleston-based company to decide to move to the West Coast.

Anthony Watson, CEO of Uphold, described himself as an “openly gay, British CEO” and said the company will move its U.S. corporate headquarters from Charleston to Los Angeles. Uphold is a financial services company that claims to have handled $830 million in transactions since its founding in 2014.

“I have watched in shock and dismay as legislation has been abruptly proposed or enacted in several states across the union seeking to invalidate the basic protections and rights of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) U.S. citizens,” he stated on the company’s website.”

Watson specifically called out S.C. Sen. Lee Bright for introducing a bill similar to North Carolina’s recently-passed law that blocks local governments from passing LGBT-inclusive and anti-discrimination ordinances.

“As such, we feel compelled to take action to oppose the discrimination being proposed in South Carolina and protect our LGBT employees,” he said. “We will stand firm in our commitment to fairness, equality and inclusion and our strong conviction that we can make a difference by living our core values. It’s the right thing to do for our members, employees, partners and the communities in which we live and work.”

As for Dunce in chief McCrory's lame damage control effort, Back to Stonewall  had this:

In what can only be called a bait and switch tactic to take some heat of his state Gov. Pat McCrory has just issued an executive order that in reality only overrides only a very small portion of HB2, the sweeping, broad, unconstitutional anti-LGBT.

Executive Order 93 WILL NOT change the ban on transgender people using public restrooms based on gender identity and WILL NOT allow local municipalities to create laws protecting the LGBT community against discrimination in housing, employment, and public accommodations.

Executive Order 93 states it will add sexual orientation and gender identity protections to the state’s employment policy for state employees and also it will seek “legislation to reinstate the right to sue in state court for discrimination.” That was taken away when he signed HB2 into law. (Which is impossible without LGBT discrimination protection laws actually in place.)

Kate Kendall, head of National Center for Lesbian Rights, a national legal organization, calls it “a cynical political move.”

Despite Recent Bills, Are Anti-LGBT Forces Losing?

After the euphoria of last years Supreme Court marriage ruling in Obergefell v. Hughes, the recent successes of the Christofascist in pushing their tawdry whore-like supporters in the Republican Party to enact anti-LGBT laws that grant special privileges to animus motivated "conservative Christians" has been frightening.  Indeed, but for its Republican governor, Virginia would be saddled with a heinous license to discriminate law.   Longer term, however, these successes may be paving the way for the ultimate defeat of Christofascist backed candidates.  Two pieces look at the possible longer term loss on the part of Christofascist forces.  One appears in The Daily Beast.  The other is in The State, one of South Carolina's largest newspapers.  The State piece is interesting because (i) it shows GOP Governor Nikki Haley arguing that a North Carolina-like law is not needed in South Carolina, and (ii) looks at the Spartanburg Chamber of Commerce's plan to actively campaign against and anti-LGBT Republican.  Here are excerpts:

S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley said Thursday that a proposed law to limit the bathrooms that transgender people can use is not needed.

Haley said her office has not received any complaints about the issue, adding South Carolinians are respectful to people of different backgrounds.

“I don’t believe it’s necessary,” the Lexington Republican told reporters. “There’s not one instance that I’m aware of.

“When we look at our situation, we’re not hearing of anybody’s religious liberties that are being violated, and we’re again not hearing any citizens that are being violated in terms of freedoms,” she said. The S.C. Chamber of Commerce will campaign actively against state Sen. Lee Bright, a Spartanburg Republican seeking a third term this year, chamber president Ted Pitts said Thursday. The chamber had concerns about Bright’s Senate performance before he introduced his transgender bill, Pitts said. Bright has three GOP primary challengers.

“Sen. Bright is trying to create a political crisis that doesn’t exist to save his political career,” said Pitts, a former chief of staff to Haley. “Meanwhile, our state has real issues we need to address, including crumbling roads and a (workforce) skills gap. We’ll be working on electing serious senators next year who will be focused on addressing the state’s infrastructure and workforce needs, and limiting government’s role in our lives.” 

Haley also questioned whether Bright’s proposal, introduced Wednesday, could win passage in the Senate before the May 1 deadline for a bill to cross over to the S.C. House for consideration. “Nothing is going to happen with the bill this year.”

Frankly, it sounds as if Haley is positioning herself to veto the bill if it becomes necessary.  The piece in The Daily Beast expands on the blow back to Christofascist/Republican overreaching.  Here are highlights:

North Carolina’s Republican legislature and governor used what they thought would be their best tactic to repeal anti-discrimination ordinances, one that that worked in Houston and elsewhere: that pro-LGBT laws would let men use women’s restrooms.

And yet, the only way North Carolina could pass the law was in a bizarre special session, passing a bill that no one seems to have read. The bill was so overbroad, it was like putting out a match with a fire hose. And it was passed like a midnight massacre, suddenly and taking everyone by surprise.

This may seem like a victory, but in the long run, it will go down as a loss. The reaction has been swift, from Fortune 500 companies to religious leaders to celebrities. (Among others, PayPal just canceled plans to expand in the state.) The law has been widely condemned, and Gov. Pat McCrory is on the defensive. What he presumably hoped would help shore up his base now threatens to alienate the moderate voters he needs to win reelection this year.

But their defeat goes even further: Even within their own false context, they’re losing. This is not the way trans advocates wanted to have a public conversation about gender identity, but here the conversation is, and, not unlike same-sex marriage, trans people are persuading people simply by telling the truth.

There are little transgender girls out there, kids like Coy Mathis who were born biologically male but who have dressed like girls, played with “girl toys,” and understood themselves to be girls since as long as they could talk. And there are butch transgender men like the bearded, country-boy-looking James Sheffield, whose Twitter post to Gov. McCrory—“It’s now the law for me to share a restroom with your wife”—has gone viral.

Thanks to North Carolina’s odious, ignorant law, these folks are now able to tell their stories to wider audiences. And when they connect, on a human level, with reasonable people willing to listen, they are their own best advocates. 

The second tactic of the Right has been to talk about religion.  The Christian right can no longer directly demonize gays and transgender people, so it has to lie and even the lies are backfiring.

In the wake of last year’s loss on same-sex marriage, the Christian Right has begun to act tactically, attacking what it perceives to be the LGBT equality movement’s weakest links. And yet amazingly, this strategy is backfiring. Not only is the right failing to make their easiest cases, they are hardening opposition in those very cases, losing key battles in the areas of transgender rights and religious freedom.

Under clear First Amendment precedent, no church could ever be compelled to host any wedding of any sort. The government can’t make an Orthodox synagogue host an interfaith wedding, and it can’t make a Catholic church host a gay wedding. This is how it is, how it should be, and how it’s going to stay.

But the Right’s attempt to move out from there to include for-profit businesses (bakers and otherwise) has run into trouble, most recently in Georgia, where the Republican governor, Nathan Deal, vetoed a “religious freedom” bill that would have enabled businesses to discriminate for religious reasons, under heavy pressure from dozens of large corporations including the National Football League.

Ultimately, though, what the left has that the right doesn’t have is truth. I’m not naïve enough to think that’s enough to win every battle but it certainly does help. Just as gay men are not getting married in order to more effectively recruit youngsters to homosexuality, trans women are not transitioning in order to spy on the ladies room. There are actually facts of the matter, and they’re almost all on one side.

That, I think, is why these tactics are backfiring. For an ostensibly religious movement, they’re awfully cynical maneuvers. And sometimes, lying to folks is a bad idea.

 Sadly, the most common trait of the "godly folk" is their willingness to deliberately lie and their hatred towards anyone the deem "other" - a list that includes blacks, Hispanics, LGBT individuals, non-Christians, etc., etc.  Indeed, the hate just about everyone but their fellow extremists.

Bernie's South Carolina Problem

One take away from the Nevada caucuses yesterday is that Bernie Sanders to date has not been able to win the support of black voters.  As the Democrat primaries move into South Carolina and then on to other states, this failing could fatal to Sanders' claim to be viable nationwide.  A piece in Politico looks at Sanders' problem and speculation as to how Sanders will do or not do in the upcoming primaries.  Here in Virginia (our primaries are on March 1, 2016), we are already beginning to see Clinton ads on television.  Here are excerpts from the Politico piece:

For Bernie Sanders, who took a drubbing from African-American voters in Nevada Saturday, it only gets worse from here.

On the heels of losing the black vote by a blowout margin of 76 percent to 22 percent, according to entrance polls, the Vermont senator now must look ahead to South Carolina next Saturday, where African-Americans will cast a dramatically larger share of the vote than in Nevada.

In the first-in-the-West caucuses, African-Americans cast just 13 percent of the vote. In the upcoming first-in-the-South primary, they’re expected to cast nearly 60 percent of the Democratic primary vote. Then, several days later, comes a burst of Super Tuesday primaries where Sanders must run in nine states with higher black populations than Nevada.

Cornell Belcher, a Democratic pollster, laid out Sanders' quandary in direct terms.  "This is Bernie Sanders' problem: If you cannot compete for the black vote, you cannot be the Democratic nominee for president," Belcher said.

South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Jaime Harrison said . . . . When you're going into states like Georgia and North Carolina and Louisiana and Mississippi that have a significant African American population which will make up a large component if not the majority of the Democratic primary in those states you need to be able to win significantly enough so that you can pull out a victory in those states," Harrison said.

Both neutral Democrats and Clinton campaign observers concede that Sanders is making some progress among black voters in South Carolina, but contend that it's not enough to cut the deep roots the Clinton name has among black voters in the state.

"It's a wall," said Rick Wade, President Barack Obama's 2008 African American outreach director, correcting himself after first saying Clinton had a "firewall" of African American support. "And I'm confident that she will win South Carolina, The question is by what margin."

The Clinton campaign is determined not to give Sanders the opportunity to gain ground. Louisiana Congressman Cedric Richmond, a Clinton surrogate, offered a sharp critique of Sanders' college plan during the senator’s tour of black colleges in the South.  Ohio Congresswoman Marcia Fudge and former Bill Clinton administration Labor Secretary Alexis Herman making stops at churches and black sororities. Fudge and a handful of other prominent African-American members of Congress also made stops at black churches across South Carolina in support of Clinton.

Some of my friends will likely have a fit with me, but tomorrow I think I will put a Hillary bumper sticker on my car.

The GOP’s Three-Headed Monster

The morning after analysis is going on fast and furiously in the wake of Donald Trump's victory in South Carolina yesterday.  An increasingly desperate GOP establishment which is faced with the issue of how to stop Trump is seemingly left with two choices: the much loathed Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio, a/k/a Marcobot.  A piece in Slate looks at the dilemma faced by the GOP establishment, which in some way a choice of which poison you prefer.  Here are highlights:

The results of the South Carolina primary helped the Republican Party winnow the field, effectively, to a three-candidate race. But there’s a long way to go for the GOP to get to two. Donald Trump retains an edge until that happens.

Modern Republican electoral history is black-and-white here: the candidate who does this wins the nomination. Modern Republican electoral history also has a small sample size, though, and there’s still a scenario in which Trump goes down: if he’s faced with a one-on-one contest against either Sen. Marco Rubio or Sen. Ted Cruz. The problem for the anti-Trump majority is how to get from that three-candidate race, which South Carolina’s results reinforced is the true dynamic of the contest, to a two-person race.

[T]he Rubio-industrial complex is touting this double-digit defeat as a dramatic victory for the Florida senator. If he finishes in second, he will have started the nominating contests with 3-5-2 finishes—far away from his pre-voting “3-2-1” strategy, a path that acknowledged the importance of winning an early state. There’s only one early state left. Though Nevada is a caucus state and we shouldn’t hand it to him just yet, Trump is dominating there in a way that he was not in Iowa, the only completed contest so far that he did not win.

Cruz, meanwhile, has claimed at least one win, but hasn’t been able to translate that into gains elsewhere in the country. Cruz was supposed to be an Iowa winner with the resources to build from there, unlike recent winners Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum.

It’s not promising for him that he’s going to finish somewhere in the low-20s in South Carolina after what amounted to a bye week in New Hampshire. It’s also hard to see where Cruz gets his wins now, with the notable exception of Texas. And he needs his wins, soon, since his delegate path involves sweeping through the South on March 1 to build up a lead that positions him as the front-runner heading into the big winner-take-all states coming on March 15. The thing is, South Carolina is very much in the South. And Trump crushed him there.

On the whole, Rubio has the better argument. With Jeb Bush now officially out of the race and John Kasich living on fumes, he could suck up enough votes (and money) to turn in stronger performances than he has so far. And the calendar will get much more favorable to him—or, at least, much less favorable to Cruz—beginning on March 15.

But even if Cruz does begin trending behind Rubio, what rationale will there be for him to drop out? Most candidates drop out when the money’s gone, and money is not a problem for Cruz.

The “establishment lane” question may now be all but out of the way, but it’s replaced with an even trickier one: Who emerges from the “anti-Trump lane” at this point? The stakes are becoming much higher now than they were in New Hampshire, or even South Carolina. If the Cruz–Rubio collective action problem doesn’t get resolved, Trump will benefit and his prize will be much more than a couple of early primaries. He’ll either win the nomination or head into a convention fight with the delegate lead. In the latter case, wresting the nomination from the delegate leader wouldn’t be a pretty sight.