Franklin Graham: The Evangelical, the ‘Pool Boy,’ and Michael Cohen

Some time back I did a post about a potentially severely damaging story involving Jerry Falwell Jr., a Donald Trump sycophant, major scamvangelist, in my opinion, and head of Liberty University, in Lynchburg, Virginia, a blight on Virginia only rivaled by Pat Robertson's Regent University in Virginia Beach. In the post, reference was made to a seemingly bizarre relationship between Mr. Falwell and his wife and a very attractive 21 year old Florida pool boy.  The story back then involved the issue of "compromising photos" of Falwell and his wife and a seemingly incomprehensible loan made by the Falwells to the pool boy. Much to Falwell's likely outrage, the story has not gone away and now the New York Times has a very long article looking at the the connections between the pool boy, the alleged photos and Falwell's contacts with Michael Cohen, Donald Trump's former fixer, and Falwell's decision to endorse Trump in 2016 rather than Ted Cruz.  Suffice it to say that, despite Falwell's denials, something doesn't add up and one is left wondering when the photos or the rest of the story may emerge. Here are article highlights:

MIAMI BEACH — Senator Ted Cruz was running neck and neck with Donald J. Trump in Iowa just before the caucuses in 2016, but his campaign was expecting a last-minute boost from a powerful endorser, Jerry Falwell Jr.

Mr. Falwell was chancellor of one of the nation’s largest Christian colleges, Liberty University, and a son of the Rev. Jerry Falwell Sr., the televangelist and co-founder of the modern religious right.

But when the time came for an announcement, Mr. Falwell rocked the Cruz campaign and grabbed the attention of the entire political world. He endorsed Mr. Trump instead, becoming one of the first major evangelical leaders to get behind the thrice-married, insult-hurling real estate mogul’s long-odds presidential bid.

Mr. Falwell — who is not a minister and spent years as a lawyer and real estate developer — said his endorsement was based on Mr. Trump’s business experience and leadership qualities. A person close to Mr. Falwell said he made his decision after “consultation with other individuals whose opinions he respects.” But a far more complicated narrative is emerging about the behind-the-scenes maneuvering in the months before that important endorsement.

That backstory, in true Trump-tabloid fashion, features the friendship between Mr. Falwell, his wife and a former pool attendant at the Fontainebleau hotel in Miami Beach; the family’s investment in a gay-friendly youth hostel; purported sexually revealing photographs involving the Falwells; and an attempted hush-money arrangement engineered by the president’s former fixer, Michael Cohen.

The revelations have arisen from a lawsuit filed against the Falwells in Florida; the investigation into Mr. Cohen by federal prosecutors in New York; and the gonzo-style tactics of the comedian and actor Tom Arnold.

Mr. Arnold befriended Mr. Cohen — who had lately become a vivid, if not entirely reliable, narrator of the Trump phenomenon — and then surreptitiously recorded him describing his effort to buy and bury embarrassing photographs involving the Falwells.

[T]he new details — some of which have been reported by news outlets including BuzzFeed and Reuters over the last year — show how deeply Mr. Falwell was enmeshed in Mr. Cohen’s and Mr. Trump’s world.

And they add another layer to one of the enduring curiosities of the Trump era: the support the president has received from evangelical Christians, who have traditionally demanded that their political leaders exhibit “family values” and moral “character.” Mr. Falwell’s father forged those words into weapons against the Democrats after he co-founded the Moral Majority political movement

Three years later, Mr. Falwell remains an unwavering Trump supporter. Last month he went so far as to suggest that the president deserved an extended term as “reparations” for time lost to the Mueller investigation. In turn, he has had entree to the White House, providing input on education policies that stand to benefit Liberty.

Mr. Falwell began to grow close to Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen after Mr. Trump came to speak at Liberty, in Lynchburg, Va., in 2012. Mr. Cohen, who was working to connect his boss with important political constituencies and their leaders for a possible presidential run four years later, came along for the trip.

Mr. Trump lacked the religious bona fides of those who typically filled the school’s speaker lineup. But he was the star of the top-rated “Apprentice” reality show, and Mr. Falwell admired his career in real estate.  As it happened, the Falwell family was exploring a real estate venture of its own.

Earlier that year, Mr. Falwell and his wife, Becki, had stayed at the Fontainebleau — the grande dame of the Miami Beach hotel scene and a somewhat unlikely vacation spot for the chancellor of a university whose student code prohibited short skirts, coed dorm visits and sex outside of “biblically ordained” marriage.

Once a glamorous hangout for John F. Kennedy, Frank Sinatra and Elvis, the Fontainebleau was now the stomping grounds of the Kardashians, Paris Hilton and Lady Gaga, known for allowing topless sunbathing and for a cavernous nightclub that one travel guide described as “30,000 square feet of unadulterated fun.” Techno music was pumped out at its 11 pools, where waitresses in polka-dot swimsuits served drinks and white-uniformed male attendants brought fresh towels and positioned umbrellas for tips.

The Falwells struck up a conversation with one of those pool attendants, Giancarlo Granda. Mr. Granda, then 21 and the son of immigrants from Cuba and Mexico, was working at the hotel while studying finance at Florida International University. . . . Soon he was hiking and water skiing with them in Virginia. Within months, they were offering to help him get started in business in Florida.

Together, they directed Mr. Granda to a South Beach youth hostel that was for sale. The building also housed a restaurant and a liquor store. . . . In 2013, the Falwells completed the deal for the Miami Hostel, which rents beds for as little as $15 a night, bunking 12 people to a room. The hostel became known as one of South Beach’s best budget party hostels and is sometimes listed as gay-friendly. . . . . Tourism pamphlets included one for Tootsie’s Cabaret, “74,000 square feet of adult entertainment and FULL NUDITY.”

Real estate records show that an LLC called Alton Hostel Inc. bought the hostel and its building for $4.7 million in cash. Within weeks, Alton Hostel secured a $3.8 million mortgage from Carter Bank & Trust, the Virginia-based bank the Falwells had long used to finance and expand Liberty University. The source of Alton Hostel’s initial full-cash payment is not known. But Mr. Falwell would later say in a sworn affidavit that his family’s financial contribution to the deal amounted to a loan of $1.8 million, including $800,000 for renovations. The Falwells’ son Jerry Falwell III, who goes by “Trey” and was 23 at the time, was listed as manager of the LLC; Mr. Granda was added later as a co-manager. In his affidavit, Mr. Falwell said his wife was also a member of the LLC.

By late 2015, the lawsuit over ownership of the hostel had devolved into a fight over compromising photos, according to several people involved in the case. It was understood that between Mr. Granda, the Fernandezes and their lawyers, one or more people were in possession of photographs that could be used as leverage against the Falwells.

And so Mr. Cohen tried to play the fixer for his friends.

In a recent legal filing, Mr. Fernandez Jr. said he was forced to change his name because of the case. He became Gordon Bello. His father, Mr. Fernandez, Sr., became Jett Bello. Their name changes took place after Mr. Cohen intervened.

Mr. Cohen described his involvement in his conversation with Mr. Arnold, which was first reported last month by Reuters.

“There’s a bunch of photographs, personal photographs, that somehow the guy ended up getting — whether it was off of Jerry’s phone or somehow maybe it got AirDropped or whatever the hell the whole thing was,” Mr. Cohen told Mr. Arnold in the recording, which Mr. Arnold shared with The Times. Mr. Cohen never identified “the guy.”

“These are photos between husband and wife,” Mr. Cohen added, joking that “the evangelicals are kinkier than Tom Arnold.” He explained, “I was going to pay him, and I was going to get the negatives and do an agreement where they turn over all the technology that has the photographs or anything like that, any copies.”

With a few weeks to go before the Iowa caucuses kicked off the primary season on Feb. 1, 2016, Mr. Cruz was steadily racking up high-level endorsements. He was banking on strong evangelical support to push him past Mr. Trump in the state.

Signs that something was amiss came shortly afterward, when Mr. Trump arrived at Liberty for another speech. Mr. Falwell introduced Mr. Trump as a man who “lives a life of loving and helping others as Jesus taught.” Despite the generous introduction, the appearance seemed an unmitigated disaster for Mr. Trump. . . . A few days later, Mr. Falwell announced his endorsement of Mr. Trump, calling him “a successful executive and entrepreneur, a wonderful father and a man who I believe can lead our country to greatness again.”

Meanwhile, rank and file evangelicals continue their blind support of Trump and Falwell. No wonder Millennials are fleeing religion.

O'Rourke and Castro on Collision Course in Texas

Beto O'Rourke and Julian Castro.

Following up on the theme of the last post, two possible 2020 Democrat contenders are on a collision course in their home state of Texas of all places: Beto O'Rourke and Julian Castro.   Ironically, Castro may have hurt himself by not running against the loathsome Ted Cruz, thereby giving O'Rourke the opening to become a surprising darling of Democrats both within and outside of Texas. Where the contest between the two will go is anyone's guess, but should be interesting to watch.  The goal for Democrats, of course, should be selecting a candidate to defeat Trump and/or Pence if  they avoid indictment or impeachment.  A piece on Politico looks at the coming collision course.  Here are excerpts:

The Democratic Party’s dream of a resurgence in Texas has long run squarely through San Antonio and the Castro brothers — Joaquin, the third-term congressman, and Julián, the city’s ambitious former mayor.

But that was before Beto O’Rourke catapulted himself into the party’s national consciousness this year.

Now, O’Rourke and Julián Castro are both inching toward presidential campaigns, an unlikely bounty for Texas Democrats accustomed to near-irrelevance at the statewide and national levels. O’Rourke and Castro would likely run on different platforms and rely on different donors, limiting the likelihood of direct combat.

But assuming they both run and don’t flame out, the presence of the two Texans in the race would test the allegiances of state Democrats in a way that could be a significant factor in the fight for the nomination. Texas will hold its primary relatively early in the 2020 calendar, timing that will likely make the diverse and delegate-rich state a big prize in a competitive contest.

Until now, the two have operated worlds apart despite their home-state ties. In San Antonio, Castro cultivated a local following while steeping himself in policy and traditional fundraising practices. Five hundred miles and one time zone to the west in El Paso, O’Rourke became an instant sensation with his charismatic, closer-than-expected U.S. Senate run and a national following of small-dollar donors.

“They’re not only from two different parts of Texas, they’re from two different parts of the country,” said Colin Strother, a Texas Democratic strategist who has advised Castro in previous campaigns. “This idea that there’s a finite constituency that they’re going to chop up, I just don’t see it … I see them as two completely different types of candidates.”

Castro and O’Rourke have cast each other as nonfactors in their decisions whether to run. But Castro has moved aggressively to climb out from under O’Rourke’s shadow.

But the uphill climb facing Castro has been exacerbated by O’Rourke’s attention-grabbing run against Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. O’Rourke is now soaring in early 2020 polls, often running behind only Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, while Castro is barely a blip on the national landscape.

Even in Texas, the last time Castro appeared in a University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll, when he was still mayor of San Antonio in 2013, a majority of Democrats statewide did not know him well enough to form an opinion of him. In the midst of a supercharged Senate race five years later, O’Rourke’s favorability rating among Texas Democrats hit 93 percent.

Jeff Roe, who was Cruz’s chief strategist, said after the November election that Democrats “don’t have anyone of [O’Rourke’s] caliber on the national stage.”

Castro, on the other hand, is “the Bobby Jindal of the Democrat cycle,” Roe said. “He’s pound cake. He’ll run, he’ll raise like $3.2 million, he’ll be out by August and they’ll recruit him to run against [Republican Sen. John] Cornyn” in 2020.

Castro could hardly have foreseen O’Rourke’s rise. Long viewed by Democratic Party activists and donors as an emerging star in Texas, Castro was a significant surrogate for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential campaign and made her shortlist for vice president, while O’Rourke served in relative anonymity as a backbench member of the House minority.

But in a cruelty of political timing, the Castros themselves may have helped open a door for O’Rourke. Many Democrats were courting Joaquin to run for U.S. Senate, and had he opposed O’Rourke in the primary, his appeal in heavily Latino swaths of the state — areas where O’Rourke struggled — might have stamped out O’Rourke.

Houston Chronicle: For U.S. Senate: Beto O'Rourke

It's always an embarrassment for a state wide political candidate to have their hometown newspaper endorse and out of town opponent.  Yet that's what has happened to Ted Cruz who the same paper had endorsed when he last ran for the U.S. Senate.  Having seen the real Ted Cruz in action, the Houston Chronicle - which has a history of endorsing Republicans - endorsed Beto O'Rourke for the Senate race, trashing Cruz in the process.  Houston is part of the growing "blue" urban base for Democrats in Texas which to date, unlike what has happened in Virginia, still lacks enough votes to out vote the reactionary, racist rural areas of Texas. The Chronicle's main complaint: Cruz has not been representing the interests of Texas or average Texans.  Instead he has been on a quest of running for president and ignoring his duties.  Here are editorial highlights:

With eyes clear but certainly not starry, we enthusiastically endorse Beto O'Rourke for U.S. Senate. The West Texas congressman's command of issues that matter to this state, his unaffected eloquence and his eagerness to reach out to all Texans make him one of the most impressive candidates this editorial board has encountered in many years. Despite the long odds he faces – pollster nonpareil Nate Silver gives O'Rourke a 20 percent chance of winning – a "Beto" victory would be good for Texas, not only because of his skills, both personal and political, but also because of the manifest inadequacies of the man he would replace.

Ted Cruz — a candidate the Chronicle endorsed in 2012, by the way — is the junior senator from Texas in name only.  Exhibiting little interest in addressing the needs of his fellow Texans during his six years in office, he has kept his eyes on a higher prize. He's been running for president since he took the oath of office — more likely since he picked up his class schedule as a 15-year-old ninth-grader at Houston's Second Baptist High School more than three decades ago. For Cruz, public office is a private quest; the needs of his constituents are secondary.

It was the rookie Cruz, riding high after a double-digit win in 2012, who brazenly took the lead in a 2013 federal government shutdown, an exercise in self-aggrandizement that he hoped would lead to the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Cruz, instead, undercut the economy, cost taxpayers an estimated $2 billion (and inflicted his reading of Dr. Seuss's "Green Eggs and Ham" on an unamused nation). Maybe the senator succeeded in cementing in his obstructionist tea party bona fides, but we don't recall Texans clamoring for such an ill-considered, self-serving stunt.

Cruz's very first vote as senator was a "nay" on the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act, a bill authorizing $60 billion for relief agencies working to address the needs of Hurricane Sandy victims. More than a few of Cruz's congressional colleagues reminded him of that vote when he came seeking support for Hurricane Harvey relief efforts.

Voters don't send representatives to Washington to win popularity contests, and yet the bipartisan disdain the Republican incumbent elicits from his colleagues, remarkable in its intensity, deserves noting. His repellent personality hamstrings his ability to do the job.

"Lucifer in the flesh," is how Republican former House Speaker John Boehner described Cruz, adding: "I get along with almost everyone, but I have never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch in my life."

Former U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Texas Republican who was adept at tending to Texan needs and who worked tirelessly on the state's behalf, once reminded the Chronicle editorial board that Cruz would have to decide where his loyalties lay when he got to Washington: with fellow Texans or fellow obstructionist ideologues. Six years later, it's obvious he's decided.

Cruz's challenger is running as an unapologetic progressive. He supports comprehensive immigration reform, including a solution to the Dreamer dilemma; health care for all; an end to the war on drugs (including legalizing marijuana); sensible (and constitutional) gun control, and other issues that place him in the Democratic mainstream this political season.

What sets O'Rourke apart, aside from the remarkable campaign he's running, are policy positions in keeping with a candidate duly aware of the traditionally conservative Texas voter he would be representing in the U.S. Senate. Representing a congressional district that includes Fort Bliss and numerous military retirees, he has focused on improving the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, with special attention to mental health. He's a strong believer in free trade and global markets, an economic position that should appeal to pragmatic Houston business interests.

As a lifelong border resident, O'Rourke supports our trade ties with Mexico and our need to sustain and encourage those ties (despite the anti-Mexican malice that emanates from the White House).

"While he may look like the second coming of Bobby Kennedy to D.C. pundits," political scientist Jay Aiyer of Texas Southern University has written, "Texans can see that O'Rourke has more in common with the politics and approach of former Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby, who advocated for modernizing Texas through bipartisan cooperation during his time leading the Texas Senate."

There's one more reason O'Rourke should represent Texas in the U.S. Senate: He would help to serve as a check on a president who is a danger to the republic. Cruz is unwilling to take on that responsibility.

[I]magine how refreshing it would be to have a U.S. senator who not only knows the issues but respects the opposition, who takes firm positions but reaches out to those who disagree, who expects to make government work for Texas and the nation. Beto O'Rourke, we believe, is that senator.

Top Republicans: "Unlikable" Ted Cruz Might Lose

Personally, I hope that Republicans who keep claiming that their "organization" and fundraising advantage will allow them to hold control of Congress after the 2018 midterm elections will prove to be little more than a group of delusional misogynist rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.  While Trump lies and says his approval ratings are soaring even as new polls show him with a 36% approval level, some Republicans seemingly are realizing that Trump poses a huge problem for the GOP.  He may be welcomed at rallies in red states, but his vitriol may well be turning alienation voters from the GOP and motivating even larger numbers of voters to turn out in November to vote against Republicans as the sole means to contain Trump.  A piece in the New York  Times based on audio from a GOP confab looks at the hopefully worsening prospects for the GOP and Ted Cruz.  Here are article excerpts:

A pair of top Republicans acknowledged in a private meeting on Saturday that the party was battling serious vulnerabilities in the midterm elections, including what one described as widespread “hate” for President Trump, and raised the prospect that Senator Ted Cruz of Texas could lose his bid for re-election because he is not seen as “likable” enough.

The two Republican leaders, Mick Mulvaney, the federal budget director, and Ronna McDaniel, the Republican National Committee chairwoman, . . . . But Mr. Mulvaney and Ms. McDaniel also offered an unusually raw assessment of their own party’s strengths and weaknesses in the midterm elections. They pointed to the burning energy among Democratic voters and the dozens of open House seats, where Republican incumbents decided not to seek re-election, as fearsome obstacles to retaining control of Congress. And Mr. Mulvaney suggested Republicans would fare better if they could “subtract” [Trump] the president’s divisive persona from voters’ minds, and stress instead that the country is in a “pretty good” condition.

Their comments were captured in an audio recording that was obtained by The New York Times from a person who attended the party meeting.

Even as Mr. Mulvaney conceded that Mr. Trump’s personal unpopularity was a problem for the party, he predicted it would not ultimately be a decisive factor for most voters. He also alluded to Mr. Cruz, without mentioning his name, as a lawmaker who might lack the charm to win a contested race this year.

Mr. Mulvaney said, Democrats were putting forward a “movement of hate,” and asked rhetorically: “What is the signature piece of legislation they’re against? The tax bill?”

Ms. McDaniel, a former chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party, alluded more delicately in her remarks to the explosive Democratic turnout in the midterm primary elections that Mr. Trump had helped stir, telling the meeting, which included many major donors, that Republicans were spending money aggressively to build a voter-turnout machine to block a Democratic takeover.

She framed the election as an asymmetrical contest — Republican organizing prowess and financial supremacy versus raw Democratic energy.

Spokesmen for the R.N.C. and Mr. Mulvaney declined to comment.

The suggestion, by Mr. Mulvaney, that Republicans might fare better without Mr. Trump as the dominant factor in voters’ minds is a far cry from [Trump's] the president’s personal approach to the campaign. He has held rallies across the country in recent days, focusing on red states where Democratic senators are seeking re-election, and warning conservative voters in intensely personal terms that a victorious Democratic Party would try to hound him from office.

And Mr. Mulvaney’s comments came at the end of a week that dramatized just how difficult it might be to nudge any particular issue, aside from Mr. Trump, to the center of the campaign.

The budget chief, who has been seen at points as a potential White House chief of staff, acknowledged that Republicans had nominated poor candidates in some important races and might struggle to defend a huge number of open seats in the House, where dozens of Republican lawmakers decided not to run for re-election.

Democrats must gain 23 seats in the House to take control of the chamber. Senior Republican strategists have grown sharply concerned about a collection of open seats where they have put forward flawed nominees, including in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and North Carolina. Mirroring in some respects the Republican campaigns of 2010, Democratic candidates have been running on a message of blocking Republican health care and economic policies, and reining in an unpopular White House.

The Senate appears more secure for Republicans at this point. Even though they hold only a slim, 51-seat majority, Democrats are defending far more seats than Republicans, and many of the Democratic incumbents up for re-election are running in conservative states.

Still, there is a path for Democrats to capture the Senate, and Mr. Mulvaney pointed to crucial Senate races in Texas and Florida as places where candidate quality could be decisive.

“There’s a very real possibility we will win a race for Senate in Florida and lose a race in Texas for Senate, O.K.?” Mr. Mulvaney said. “I don’t think it’s likely, but it’s a possibility. How likable is a candidate? That still counts.”

Mr. Mulvaney’s comments about the Texas Senate race represent perhaps the most candid admission by a senior Republican that Mr. Cruz, a first-term lawmaker who battled Mr. Trump for the presidential nomination in 2016, is actually facing a fight for his political life. He is being challenged by Representative Beto O’Rourke, a maverick Democrat who has raised enormous sums of money online.At the same conclave of Republicans on Saturday, one of the party’s key Senate candidates, Mike Braun, a wealthy former Indiana state legislator who is running against Senator Joe Donnelly, a Democrat, framed the stakes of the election in grimmer terms.

At a forum for Senate candidates, Mr. Braun pleaded with party donors to put up the money needed for Republicans to defend their control of the Senate, warning that if the party did not govern successfully under Mr. Trump it could face a long political winter.

“We’ve got four to six years to get this right, and if we don’t, it’ll go the other direction, demographically and all those other things that point negatively for us,” Mr. Braun said, in comments captured on a second recording. “We’ll be miserable for 15 to 20 years.”

It is actually shocking that Braun admitted that the GOP is committing political suicide by its alienation of all but white Christian extremists and white supremacists. 

Cruz Allies Sound Alarm About Texas Senate Race

Grandpa Munster look-a-like Ted Cruz and Beto O'Rourke.

As politicians go, GOP Texas Senator Ted Cruz has got to rank very high on the list of the most foul and most lacking in basic honesty and morality - Trump and Pence are in a league of their own - and, therefore, it would be a true delight to see him defeated in November, 2018. For a long time many thought that Cruz going down to defeat was near impossible given the reactionary nature of Texas, but Beto O'Rourke has surged in the polls and by some polls is even in a statistical dead heat with Cruz.  While not yet to the point where Virginia is in terms of urban areas being able to out vote the backward, knuckle dragging areas of the state, Texas' cities are moving in that direction.  Add to that a Hispanic population that, if it has any sense of self-preservation, should vote for any Democrat against any Republican.  Now, Cruz allies are panicking and the insidious and misnamed Club for Growth - which wants even more tax cuts for the wealthy and large corporations - has announced that it will launch an attack ad campaign against O'Rourke.  Politico looks at this high profile contest.  Here are excerpts:

Republicans are sounding the alarm about Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s closer-than-expected reelection contest, with an influential conservative group racing to his aid.

The Club for Growth, a Washington-based anti-tax group, is drawing up plans for a major TV ad campaign boosting Cruz — the first such intervention by a Republican outside group in this race. The move comes as Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke, an online fundraising behemoth who has attracted national support, continues to narrow the gap in polling.

David McIntosh, the Club for Growth’s president, said on Tuesday the organization is planning a seven-figure-plus offensive targeting O’Rourke. McIntosh was speaking from Texas, where he is meeting with pro-Cruz donors who could help fund the effort.  “In the last five weeks, it’s become clear that the race has tightened,” said McIntosh.

Republican officials once saw Cruz, a failed 2016 presidential candidate, as safe given Texas’ conservative tilt, and in public, they have largely derided O’Rourke’s candidacy and public polls showing a close race. But, privately, they have grown increasingly concerned. An NBC News/Marist poll conducted earlier this month showed Cruz leading O’Rourke by a narrow 49 percent to 45 percent margin.

O’Rourke has emerged as a national liberal cause célébre. An online video of O’Rourke defending the right of NFL players to kneel during the national anthem has gone viral in recent days, and it was announced on Tuesday that O’Rourke would appear on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” in September.

The extent of the rescue effort remains an open question. While a pro-Cruz super PAC, Texans Are, has been established, other conservative outside groups have remained focused on other Senate contests.

The White House, meanwhile, has been monitoring the contest. Two senior Republicans said they expected President Donald Trump, who fought bitterly with Cruz during in the 2016 presidential race, to hit the trail for the Texas Republican ahead of the November election.

McIntosh said it had not been determined when the Club’s campaign would begin. But he said it would focus heavily on casting O’Rourke as an establishment figure who, contrary to the nonpolitical and outsider persona he has cultivated, is eager to climb the ranks of political power.

To some Cruz backers, the help cannot come soon enough, and many of them are eager to see Cruz’s donor network, which he forged during his 2016 presidential bid, activated for his reelection.

“I don’t think you can count anybody out at any point. This world is changing so rapidly. It’s pretty unbelievable,” said Lee Roy Mitchell, a Dallas-based Cruz donor and founder of the Cinemark movie theater chain.

“We’re solidly behind the senator, and I would like to think most Texans are. I believe they are,” said Mitchell, who with his wife Tandy has donated a combined $1 million to the pro-Cruz super PAC. “But there’s a tremendous amount of money being poured in here to change people’s opinions.”

One can only hope that Trump campaigning in Texas for Cruz will only further energize the Democrat base and convince the must go to the polls and vote Democrat as a means to strike back and the racist Trump. 

GOP Senators Re-Introduce Federal License to Discriminate Law

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is Texas Poised to Begin the Shift to Purple?

The always foul Sen. Ted Cruz (R) faces a strong challenge from Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D).

years Virginia was a reliable Republican leaning state.  The two things happened: the Christofascists and white supremacists hijacked the Virginia GOP and the party base basically became something akin to a rabid dog.  The second thing that happened was that the voters in the growing urban areas finally decided that they were over the insanity of the GOP and its efforts to drag Virginia backwards in time.  The 2017 Virginia elections underscored the results of these two factors when Republicans lost the gubernatorial election by 9 points and 15 Republicans lost their seats in the House of Delegates.  Now, some believe - or at least hope - that Texas may be on the verge of a similar shift towards Democrats and modernity in general fueled by the growth of that state's urban areas and growing minority population.  The turn out in the Texas primaries today suggest a surge in Democrat voters - more, in fact than the Republican turnout. Here are highlights from a piece in the Washington Post:  

Texas polls have closed and the vote counting has begun in the first statewide primary of the 2018 election season, a major test of the elevated enthusiasm of Democratic voters in a Republican-dominated state.

According to figures published over the weekend by the Texas secretary of state’s office, of the 885,574 ballots already cast in the state’s 15 largest counties, more than 52 percent were for Democrats — a major jump from the last midterm primary.

In 2014, only 592,153 early ballots were cast in those counties, with Republican voters accounting for nearly 62 percent of the votes.

Tuesday’s voting stands to give a fuller picture of whether Democratic turnout in the state is truly outsized or whether Republicans simply waited till Election Day to cast ballots. Texas has routinely elected GOP officials in statewide races for a generation, though recently with declining margins. President Trump won the state by nine points four years after GOP nominee Mitt Romney beat President Barack Obama by 16 points.

Democratic turnout has been surging for months in elections around the country. Democrat Ralph Northam handily won the Virginia governor’s race in November, even though the Republican candidate, Ed Gillespie, received more votes than any GOP candidate in the state’s history.

Democrats have also been winning special state legislative elections around the country, including seats in states like Florida, Wisconsin and Kentucky that were once considered safe for Republicans. “WAKE UP CALL,” tweeted Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) in January, after a Democrat handily won a state legislative race in his state that Republicans won by 27 points in 2016.

The trend was set to continue Tuesday.

“There’s something different going on in Texas this cycle,” said David Wasserman, who analyzes House races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. “It’s a uniquely anti-Trump state, because it has a rare combination of diversity and a suburban professional class. And, in that sense, it’s becoming a little bit more like California every year.”

Top Republicans are taking notice of the trend, with Sen. Ted Cruz (R) telling state reporters even before polls closed that the new enthusiasm among Democrats, including his opponent Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D), had limited potential. “Congressman O’Rourke’s campaign is benefiting from left-wing rage,” Cruz said. “Left-wing rage may raise a bunch of money from people online, but I don’t believe it reflects the views of a majority of Texans.”

Others were more cautious about the coming danger.

“I think it would be malpractice if we didn’t pay attention and respond accordingly,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) said Monday of the early voting results, suggesting that “we need to encourage the president” to email his supporters “and encourage them to vote in November.”

What Tuesday’s voting is unlikely to do is pick nominees in the most closely watched House races, many of which feature jam-packed fields where even the best-financed and best-known candidates will struggle to win an outright majority and avoid a May 22 runoff.

Rep. Joaquín Castro (D-Tex.) predicted Tuesday that the elections will reflect a rising wave of discontent in his home state not just with Trump, but also with state Republican leaders who have governed from the hard right.

Few things would give me more joy than to see Ted Cruz defeated in November.  I hope Democrats continue to push and organize their ground game.  I remain convinced that the Northam/Democrat ground game in Virginia provides a wonderful template for implementation nationwide.

Something is Deadly Wrong With the "Conservative" Movement

Right wing nut case Dana Loesch.

Continuing on the theme of the last post, in a column in the Washington Post, Kathleen Parker - generally a conservative - is off the GOP reservation again and on a tear decrying the lunacy on display at the CPAC confab where Der Trumpenführer spoke for some 90 minutes yesterday.  What's perhaps most frightening is that Trump looks relatively sane compared to many of the other speakers, some of whom seemingly need a mental health care intervention. If CPAC gives a glimpse at the real GOP, it is nothing short of scary.  One spittle flecked speaker after another launching into utter insanity disconnected from objective reality.  One striking thing to note is how little one needs in terms of actual credentials to become a "leader" in today political right.  Here are excerpts from Parker's column:

Oh, for God’s sake.  What else can one say about the week after Florida’s high school massacre? Funerals for the 17 students and faculty were barely begun before rhetoric on the right descended into indecency.

Much of it came from the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, a gathering of the extreme right who snack on brimstone. Speaking to the mostly young crowd, politicians and officials from the National Rifle Association went ballistic over recent talk of gun control. Low points included characterizing the media as loving mass shootings and as wanting to advance its socialist agenda.

Is this really the best we can do? I ask this not as a member of the media but as someone who grew up with guns; lives in a house with guns; knows how to shoot and is good at it; doesn’t object to hunting for food; has friends in the NRA. . . . . I’ve weathered my share of gun spookiness, in other words, with the result that I’m neither anti-gun nor a socialist. I do not, however, feel the need to pose in pictures wearing a tightfitting dress and heels, while holding my very own AR-15, as NRA spokesvixen Dana Loesch does on the cover of her book.

A few highlights from the lectern:

Loesch, who gained prominence as a “conservative” radio host, projected a she-devil in Prada when she pointed to members of the media and said, “Many in legacy media love mass shootings. You guys love it. I’m not saying that you love the tragedy, but I am saying that you love the ratings. Crying white mothers are ratings gold to you and many of the legacy media in the back.”

[T]his vile idiocy is too much. . . . . What’s true is that school shootings seem to be the domain of white boys focused on killing their mostly white peers.
 To segregate grieving parents by race, essentially mocking the mothers we’ve witnessed of late, is disgusting. To applaud such distortionist propaganda should be beneath any serious adult concerned enough with these mass assaults to consider sensible alternatives to doing nothing.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), a human bellows (useful at campfires), criticized CNN’s town hall as an “infomercial,” and said calls for new restrictions were “tiresome.” As are so many people these days. 

No, actually, the media follows news. A school massacre qualifies. And, yes, people want to know more as a way of seeking solutions. But hating the media is how many Republicans pass the buck. Their accusations are a distraction, the roots of which can be traced to evil. 

Longtime NRA chief executive Wayne LaPierre cited the Democrats’ “socialist” agenda and, without irony, said, “As usual, the opportunists wasted not one second to exploit tragedy for political gain.” Check.

Therein lies the problem in any debate these days. We’re either on the slippery slope to serfdom or everybody gets an AR-15. Surely there is sane ground in between such extremes. 

When the final showdown is between the NRA and children who have just buried their friends, brothers, sisters, teachers and coach, something is deadly wrong in this country. Out of respect for the dead, wounded and grieving, the adults need to stop acting like children.

The Out Hotel Is No More, Thanks to Ted Cruz

Out Hotel and club

Readers may recall when I wrote about Ian Reisner and his business partner, Mati Weiderpass, self-anointed A-List gays who hosted a fundraiser for anti-gay zealot, Ted Cruz.   The backlash against Reisner and Weiderpass has taken its toll and now the Out Hotel and New York City and the affiliated gay club (which the husband and I visited a year ago last September) has been sold and will no longer cater to an LGBT clientele.  The Advocate looks at the fall of Out Hotel thanks to Ted Cruz.  Here are excerpts:

The hotel that had become a symbol of support for Ted Cruz’s antigay policies is now closing.

The Out Hotel in New York City faced a heated boycott last year after its gay owners held a fundraising dinner party at their home for the Texas senator and Republican presidential hopeful. Ian Reisner and his business partner at Parkview Developers, Mati Weiderpass, came up with a lot of reasons for that party, but none flew.

 

Numerous groups canceled events in outrage, including the New York Gay Men’s Chorus, AIDS Walk, Broadway Bares, Urban Bear, and more. When the boycott began spreading to the Fire Island Pines commercial district, the management there publicly distanced themselves from their chief investor. A Facebook group launched in the hopes of exacting a punishment, though exactly what that should be was always unclear. 

Things had recently calmed down, with that Facebook group disbanding, but business remained slow. The Real Deal, a real estate blog, reports Out NYC was just sold for $40 million to Merchants Hospitality. Its hotel, restaurant and nightclub will no longer cater to a gay clientele.

Cruz, booed by his own party during the Republican convention, was named The Advocate’s Phobie of the Year at the end of 2014. Along with a table of high-dollar guests, he’d met with Reisner and Weiderpass in April 2015. The two had first claimed it wasn’t a fundraising dinner but later admitted donating $2,700 — the maximum allowed — as a show of “support for his work on behalf of Israel.” 

The owners have been alternately contrite and angry during the boycott. They feigned ignorance about Cruz’s anti-LGBT policies and asked for forgiveness. Nothing seemed to work.

It wasn’t a win for Cruz either. When asked about the dinner party on the campaign trail, he called himself a “big tent Republican” and simultaneously announced he’d push for two new anti-LGBT bills in the Senate. The first would amend the Constitution to allow states to define marriage as only between one man and one woman, and the second would ban federal courts from ruling on marriage. Amping up his anti-LGBT rhetoric, though, didn’t stop the meeting from coming up here and there in attacks against him as weak on LGBT issues. 

The hotel might never have made money, even before the boycott began. In an interview in May 2015 with New York magazine intended to smooth things over — but that actually insulted LGBT consumers — Reisner said it hadn’t turned a profit. 

 

 

Ted Cruz Continues to Face Blow Back for Refusal to Endorse Trump

As noted in a post last evening, I loath Ted Cruz.  At the same time I have to applaud his refusal to endorse Donald Trump and his attempt to remind those gathered at the Republican convention in Cleveland that principles do matter.  Granted, I may not agree with Cruz's principles, but at least he has some motivation other than the mere self-promotion, narcissim and egomania that motivate Donald Trump.  The New York Times looks at more of the blow back swirling around Cruz for not kissing The Donald's ring.  Here are highlights:

The Republican convention erupted into tumult on Wednesday night as the bitter primary battle between Donald J. Trump and Senator Ted Cruz reignited unexpectedly, crushing hopes that the party could project unity.

In the most electric moment of the convention, boos and jeers broke out as it became clear that Mr. Cruz — in a prime-time address from center stage — was not going to endorse Mr. Trump. It was a pointed snub on the eve of Mr. Trump’s formal acceptance speech.

Mr. Cruz was all but drowned out as he asked for God’s blessing on the country and left the stage, while security personnel escorted his wife, Heidi, out of the hall. One delegate yelled “Goldman Sachs!” at her — a reference to the company that has employed her, a job that Mr. Trump attacked during the primaries.

A short while later, Mr. Cruz faced insults as he made his way down a corridor — one woman yelled “Traitor!” When he tried to enter the convention suite of the Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, he was turned away.

“I’ve seen some crazy things,” said Brandon Bell, the chairman of the Rhode Island Republican Party, who was still stunned as he absorbed what had happened on the convention floor. “I don’t think this is going to play well.”

Mr. Cruz, who has all but declared that he wants to run for president again in 2020, especially angered Republican leaders who had been counting on him to keep his pledge that he would support the eventual nominee, a vow that other leading Republican contenders also made last fall.

Trump had been unhappy with the text of Mr. Cruz’s speech but held out for the remote possibility that Mr. Cruz would make a last-minute endorsement.

When none arrived, and with Mr. Cruz sounding like a nominee-in-waiting, Mr. Trump grew impatient with the stubbornness of his rival. Gov. Chris Christie, a close ally to Mr. Trump, could be seen shaking his head watching Mr. Cruz go on, just before Mr. Trump made his unplanned entrance into the hall.

Convention organizers were furious at the length of Mr. Cruz’s speech. He was originally allotted 12 minutes, but planners made a late decision to allocate 20 minutes instead.

The rumpus on the floor, which broke out shortly before 10 p.m., captured a reality that Republicans had hoped to minimize: that significant factions of the party remain hostile to Mr. Trump, while his own base of supporters are fervent and unyielding.

[T]he scene that will be remembered for years is the split screen image of Mr. Cruz, seemingly stunned on the stage as the boos grew, and a scowling Mr. Trump dramatically entering the arena to wrest back control of his convention.

When I see Trump supporters I am reminded of the fervent supporters of Adolph Hitler in the 1930's. The mindsets of both groups are the same, motivated in particular by bigotry and xenophobia. Things turned out badly for Germany and the world and I fear the same will occur if Trump is not defeated in November.   

Cruz Booed as He Refuses to Endorse Trump

I will be the first to admit that I hold no love for Ted Cruz.  I find the man to be slimy, a liar, an extremist and dangerous among other things.  But tonight Cruz showed that he has some shred of conscience and conviction - unlike all the Republicans who have prostituted themselves to Donald Trump - when he refused to endorse Trump at Trump's own coronation convention.   As a result, Cruz got booed from the stage, but before that happened he made the case that Republicans need to vote their conscience in November.  Obviously, Cruz hopes that Trump crashes and burns and that the 2020 nomination will be his for the taking. But in another sense, perhaps Cruz recognizes just how large a danger Trump poses to the nation.  Politico and CBS News among others have coverage.  Here are highlights from Politico:

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz got booed off the stage Wednesday.

The Texas firebrand delivered a prime-time address at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland and urged Republicans to vote their conscience in November, prompting disapproval from the thousands of Republicans on the floor of the convention.
“To those listening, please, don’t stay home in November,” Cruz said, a plea that suggested he was about to endorse Republican nominee Donald Trump. But he didn’t.

“If you love our country and love your children as much as I know that you do, stand and speak and vote your conscience,” Cruz said. “Vote for candidates up and down the ticket who you trust to defend our freedom and to be faithful to the Constitution.” “Heidi and I are so honored to join you here in Cleveland, where LeBron James just led an incredible comeback victory. And I am convinced America is going to come back, too,” Cruz said at the outset of his remarks. He spoke for more than 20 minutes before he was booed off the stage.

[F]ellow conservatives in recent days had increased pressure on the Texas senator to fall in line behind Trump. After it became clear Cruz would not be endorsing the GOP nominee, the crowd in the Quicken Loans Arena broke out in chants of “we want Trump,” to which Cruz replied, “I appreciate the enthusiasm of the New York delegation.” The audience proceeded to break out in overwhelming boos. As Cruz concluded his speech, cameras cut to Trump arriving in the arena, giving the crowd a thumbs up.

As much as I loath him, have to say kudos to Cruz.  Had more of the GOP establishment held by their principles rather than expediency or putting winning elections ahead of all else,  the GOP would not be the insane cesspool that it is today.

Pastors and Republicans Show Their Hate and Hypocrisy

Many Republicans and more than a few fundamentalist pastors are showing the hate, lies and hypocrisy that under gird their poisonous beliefs.  Additional pastors have applauded the slaughter of gays in Orlando and foul hypocrites like Ted Cruz ignore their own role in creating the toxic, discriminatory atmosphere in which LGBT Americans continue to live.  Indeed, as the Sacramento CBS affiliate reports, a Baptist pastor's sermon on Sunday morning praised the deaths of the Orlando victims:

A Sacramento Baptist preacher’s sermon praising attack on an Orlando nightclub that killed 50 people has the local LGBT community outraged.

Recordings of the sermon by Pastor Roger Jimenez surfaced under the Verity Baptist Church’s YouTube account.

“Are you sad that 50 pedophiles were killed today?” he said in the sermon. “Um no, I think that’s great! I think that helps society. I think Orlando, Florida is a little safer tonight.”

The remarks were delivered on Sunday morning, hours after the attack happened.

Jimenez’s sermon went on to call for even more death at the hands of the government.  “If we lived in a righteous government, they should round them all up and put them up against a firing wall, and blow their brains out,” Jimenez said in the sermon.

While Christian apologists will fume and say that Jimenez's remarks do not define Christianity, sadly they do.  Through the centuries Christianity has left a trail of death and destruction in its wake.

On the political front, in addition to Donald Trump, other Republicans have jumped on the "blame the Muslims" bandwagon even as a more bizarre portrait of the Orlando shooter is emerging.  Moreover, some of this self-prostituting Republicans ignore their own roll in fanning the flames of homophobia and encouraging anti-LGBT violence.  Ted Cruz perhaps best personifies this as Joe Jervis lays out:

Last fall Ted Cruz stood smiling on the stage with a Christian pastor who had just called for exterminating homosexuals in the name of White Jesus. But somehow that scandal seems to have slipped his feeble mind. From his Facebook page:

For all the Democrats who are loud champions of the gay and lesbian community whenever there is a culture battle waging, now is the opportunity to speak out against an ideology that calls for the murder of gays and lesbians. ISIS and the theocracy in Iran (supported with American taxpayer dollars) regularly murder homosexuals, throwing them from buildings and burying them under rocks. This is wrong, it is evil, and we must all stand against it. Every human being has a right to live according to his or her faith and conscience, and nobody has a right to murder someone who doesn’t share their faith or sexual orientation. If you’re a Democratic politician and you really want to stand for LGBT, show real courage and stand up against the vicious ideology that has targeted our fellow Americans for murder.

Take it away, Right Wing Watch:

We wonder why Cruz himself didn’t display such heroism when he spoke at a conference late last year where the main speaker, Kevin Swanson, a long-time and notorious advocate of the government instituting the death penalty for gay people, said repeatedly on stage that the Bible calls for gays and lesbians to be put to death and argued that America should introduce capital punishment against unrepentant homosexuals once society is moved in that direction.

That conference was also attended by Cruz’s father and his then-rivals Mike Huckabee and Bobby Jindal.

The summit, called the National Religious Liberties Conference, even distributed literature calling for the death penalty for gay people and others, mentioning stoning and throwing people off cliffs as possible forms of executions.

And yet now Ted Cruz has the gall to lecture liberals about the importance of showing “real courage” in the face of those who want to put gays to death.