Ken Cuccinelli and E.W. Jackson Tell Crowd They’re "Running Together"

I have long maintained that Ken Cuccinelli is just as insane and extreme as "Bishop" E. W. Jackson, the only difference between the two being that Jackson is less discrete about voicing his batshitery outside of closed events beyond the media's view.  Over the weekend, however, Cuccinelli and Jackson appeared together at with Mark "Miscarriage is Abortion" Obenshain near Roanoke and any illusions being spread that these three extremists are not one in the same in mindset out to be totally dispelled.  The Washington Post captured the true picture of this ticket.  Here are highlights:

Republicans Ken Cuccinelli II and E.W. Jackson this weekend disputed the notion that their respective campaigns for governor and lieutenant governor are not working together.

Cuccinelli, the sitting attorney general, and Jackson, a Chesapeake minister, sounded a message of unity and cooperation at a breakfast event Saturday near Roanoke. State Sen. Mark Obenshain (R-Harrisonburg), who is running for attorney general, also attended.

“Would you please greet a man who I have the utmost faith in and honor for,” Jackson said as he introduced Cuccinelli, according to audio posted on YouTube. “We are friends. We are working together. Don’t believe the rumors. We’re working together.”

Cuccinelli told the audience,“It’s great to be here with the whole ticket. As E.W. said, we’re running together. We’re running hard.”

After keeping the outspoken Jackson at a distance and stressing economic themes meant to attract independent voters, Cuccinelli is moving to shore up his conservative tea party base, the observers say.  

After the event, Cuccinelli tweeted photos of himself, Jackson and Obenshain.  “@KenCuccinelli: Had a great time in Salem this morning at the GOP Breakfast with the Republican ticket!” he tweeted.

Anyone who seriously believes that jobs and Virginia's economy are Cuccinelli's top agenda is either insane or on mind altering drugs.   This trio's whole agenda boils down to social issues and dragging Virginia back when gays had to be in the closet to survive, all abortions were illegal (even in cases of rape), and women were chattel property of their husbands.  As for minorities, they are expected to know their place, shut up and do as they were told by their white betters.  Jackson may be black, but for power and elective office, he is apparently willing to sell his soul.
 

Afghanistan: “This Is What Winning Looks Like” - Child Rape

I make no secret that I view America's venture into Iraq and Afghanistan as a fool's errand that was launched by a cretin in the White House and a megalomania consumed monster at Blair House.  The result has been thousands of Americans killed and many times more seriously wounded, some horrifically, and the squandering of billions and billions of dollars.  And what has our "nation building" created?  Something very ugly and as hypocrisy filled as the world of the "godly Christian" Christofascists and the Catholic Church hierarchy only this nightmare operates under Islam.  Besides the rampant corruption and pilfering of American funds there is the rape and trafficking in children by those American taxpayers are supporting financially.  A new documentary, “This Is What Winning Looks Like,” provides a picture of the horrors done by our "Afghan allies."  Here is a sampling via the American Conservative: 

In December 2012, Maj. Bill Steuber heard that three boys had been shot dead while fleeing the Afghan police headquarters. A fourth was shot point blank in the knee as punishment for trying to escape.

Steuber, a U.S. Marine in charge of the police advisory team in Sangin district, Helmand province, marched into the office of Qhattab Khan, the assistant district chief of police. Journalist Ben Anderson filmed the exchange for the new stomach-churning documentary, “This Is What Winning Looks Like.”

“Why was there a boy on that police base?” Steuber asks Khan, “What did that commander say to you?”  There’s sadness and anger in Steuber’s voice, because he already knows the answer: police commanders routinely abduct young boys to serve as “chai boys,” house servants who are also kept as sex slaves.

This extent of child rape in Afghanistan is hard to measure, but it’s a practice widely attested by journalists, human rights investigators, NATO soldiers, and Afghans themselves. As the White House considers how to wind down the war in Afghanistan, it’s worth reflecting on one of the saddest, most sordid of aspects of that sad and sordid war.

In 2009 the Defense Department was concerned that NATO soldiers were bewildered and outraged by the sexual practices of Afghan civilians and soldiers: seeing old men trying to fondle young boys, being shown cell phone pictures of children by their Afghan counterparts. The military commissioned an anthropological study, “Pashtun Sexuality.” In 2010 the San Fransisco Chronicle reported on the study’s findings:

For centuries, Afghan men have taken boys, roughly 9 to 15 years old, as lovers. Some research suggests that half the Pashtun tribal members in Kandahar and other southern towns are bacha baz, the term for an older man with a boy lover. Literally it means “boy player.” The men like to boast about it.

“Having a boy has become a custom for us,” Enayatullah, a 42-year-old in Baghlan province, told a Reuters reporter. “Whoever wants to show off should have a boy.”

The authors of “Pashtun Sexuality” venture that the practice of bacha baazi is a function of a culture of extreme fear of female sexuality. The Chronicle article cites a 29-year-old who told a reporter, “How can you fall in love if you can’t see her face?…We can see the boys, so we can tell which are beautiful.”

The State Department has called bacha baazi a “widespread, culturally sanctioned form of male rape.” For instance, one military intelligence reservist related a story about an Afghan colonel who stood before a judge after he hurt a chai boy by violently raping him: “His defense was, ‘Honestly, who hasn’t raped a chai boy? Ha ha ha.’ The judge responds, ‘You’re right. Case dismissed.’”

Cracking down on this practice is nearly impossible, as the main culprits are often the very law enforcement and military personnel that the U.S. works alongside.

Steuber tells the camera later, “working with child molesters, working with people who are robbing people, murdering them. It wears on you after a while.”

Khan seems considerably less concerned.  “If they don’t f–k the asses of those boys, what should they f–k?” he asks at one point. “The p—–s of their own grandmothers? Their asses were used before, and now they want to get what they are owed.”

Yep, this is what American taxpayers are financially underwriting.  We need to leave Afghanistan NOW.

Virginia Pilot Slams Cuccinelli - Why Not Scott Rigell Too?

Today the Virginian Pilot has an editorial that slams Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli's anti-abortion agenda and his efforts to manipulate and intimidate the Virginia Board of Health.  While what the editorial says is true, it's ironic that the Pilot has condemned Cuccinelli after endorsing congressional GOP candidate Scott Rigell who is every bit as extreme as Kookinelli when it comes to pushing an anti-abortion/anti-woman agenda and seeking to inject Christian extremist religious beliefs into the civil laws.  Here are highlights from the column that focuses on Cuccinrlli's efforts to completely ban all abortion in Virginia:

Political power often tempts elected officials to overreach, but rarely does the abuse of authority cause the kind of injury Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's has inflicted on the state Board of Health.

The board is by law independent. It is authorized to draft regulations. Last month, however, it caved to Cuccinelli's demands to reverse a decision that would have exempted existing abortion clinics from a 2011 law that requires such facilities to meet hospital construction requirements.

The board's reversal will likely require most of the 20 clinics across the commonwealth to undertake expensive renovations to comply with new architectural standards or to be shut down. That is the real goal of Cuccinelli and the anti-abortion activists behind the law.

The 2011 standards aren't about patient safety; otherwise, clinics performing procedures more dangerous than abortion would have been required to meet them. Instead, the standards serve as a back-door strategy for shutting abortion clinics.

The board's reversal - which came after Cuccinelli's office suggested it wouldn't defend board members from lawsuits - inflicted lasting harm on the integrity of Virginia's regulatory system.

Last week, state Health Commissioner Karen Remley resigned in protest.  "That's the kind of collateral damage you get when you start fooling around with politics and not medicine," University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias told The Pilot's Julian Walker and Amy Jeter last week.

Remley's departure is a devastating blow to the agency she has led since 2008. But it's also a blow to the people of Virginia. A pediatrician and former hospital administrator at Norfolk's Sentara Leigh, Remley has fulfilled her duties with distinction, pushing to reduce obesity and infant mortality rates, improve communication between public and private health interests and manage preparations for an array of other public health concerns.

Her mission - and her agency's - is designed to be purely nonpartisan. Cuccinelli's interference, however, made that impossible. The health of Virginia's body politic has suffered as a result.

As noted, Kookinelli's religious extremist agenda is shared by Scott Rigell.  Yet earlier in the week the Virginian Pilot endorsed Rigell in what can be best described as a fantasy fiction writing that ignored documented facts and sought to depict Rigell as a moderate.    One reader aptly laid out the truth about Rigell:

Rigell signed the Americans for Tax Reform pledge two years ago when he was challenged by the Tea Party and then verbally renounced it when challenged by the moderate Hirschbiel. Both were politically expedient.

He “vowed to avoid blind devotion to partisan interests,” but has “a record of voting 92% of the time with his fellow Republicans,” including:

* For privatizing Medicare and replacing guaranteed benefits with a voucher.

* For repealing health reform, which will cut preventive care and prescription drug benefits for current retirees.

* For a bill that would have re-defined rape as “forcible rape” and restrict access to abortion for victims of statutory rape or incest.

* Against renewal of the Violence Against Women Act.

* Against the DREAM Act.

* For maintaining tax subsidies for oil corporations.

* Against environmental protection 83% of the time.

Does the Virginian-Pilot editorial board agree with Rep. Rigell on these issues? Or do issues not matter?

Oh, and let's not forget that Rigell - shown below laughing it up with a former GOP official who had to resign after circulating racist anti-black "jokes" - has been endorsed by two anti-gay hate groups.  Why the kid glove handling of Rigell?  Frank Batten, Jr., owner of the Virginian Pilot, is a far right Christian supporter who funds Christianist organizations.  Rigell has a history of being in bed with and/or funding such organizations.  Draw your own conclusions.

  

The Republican Stance on Rape

I remain dumb struck by women who say they plan on voting Republican in less than 2 weeks.  Have they been living under rocks, had their heads stuck in the sand or what?  The chart above(click on it to enlarge it)  reminds of the GOP view or rape -  something that many in the GOP apparently believe only happens to sluts who deserve it.  Here in Hampton Roads, 2nd District GOP candidate Scott Rigell backed the "forcible rape" bill that was in Congress.  Somehow that little tidbit doesn't show up in Rigell's ads or the Virginian Pilot endorsement of Rigell - an endorsement perhaps stemming from Frank Batten, Jr.s' long standing support for far right Christian groups and extremists like Rigell.