Lindsey Graham's Queer Predicament

"Lady G" with Trump.

Over the weekend I wrote about the latest round in the long running story about South Carolina's closeted U.S. Senator, Lindsey Graham - or "Lady G' or "Lady Graham" as the story has exploded across the twitter sphere.  In my post, I argued that the hypocrisy of closeted elected officials who support anti-gay policies and parties make them targets for "outing" and proper subjects of mainstream media investigation.  Sadly, many in the mainstream media are squeamish about the issue just as they use false equivalency as an excuse for not calling out politicians - think Donald Trump - for the liars that they are.  In a column Michelangelo Signorile makes the further argument that closeted politicians need to be outed because if they will lie about something so core as their sexual orientation, they will lie about many other things.  In Grahams case, I would argue that it also sets him up for blackmail by the crime boss in chief in the White House. Yes, Graham is terrified of the GOP base in his home state, but I suspect that he's even more afraid of whatever information Trump has on him. That fear makes him only too willing to sell out both his constituent and the nation.  Here are column highlights:

Let’s begin with Aaron Schock, while I have your attention.

First elected in 2008, he’s the disgraced, former Republican congressman from Illinois who stood against LGBTQ rights — including voting against “don’t ask, don’t tell” repeal, and coming out against marriage equality — though it was an open secret in Washington and in queer circles that he was gay throughout that entire time. There was discussion that he was gay even before the White House picnic in 2010 and the photo of him in white pants, teal belt and pink gingham shirt that went viral, but he’d denied it in 2004 in an interview.

Schock was allowed to present himself in the media as a bachelor whose college friends had all married while he was too busy in politics — but who would presumably marry when the right woman came along.

And yet, the open secret persisted. Schock denied he was gay again when I asked him on the floor of the Republican National Convention in Tampa in 2012 for a response to those who believe he is gay and that he had voted against his own people.

Schock resigned in 2015 after a report about his Downton Abbey-inspired office set off a chain of investigations about his lavish lifestyle using taxpayer dollars and campaign funds. He was eventually indicted on 24 counts ( though, with a good lawyer, he struck an outrageous sweetheart deal in which all charges were dropped if he paid back the IRS and his campaign).

Then, this past March, Schock finally came out as gay, after living it up as a private citizen for some time, visiting gay vacation destinations and party spots, enjoying the very liberation that he worked with our enemies to try to destroy.

Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, too, has been discussed as gay for years, with those on both the left and the right hinting at it or saying it outright. He, too, has denied he is gay, most recently in 2018.

And yet, the discussion persists — as it did with Schock — and over the weekend, as reported by Towleroad, Twitter lit up with claims that an army of sex workers may be coming forward to speak out about Graham having hired them in the past, after gay adult film actor Sean Harding tweeted on Friday that it was time to reveal the truth about a “homophobic Republican Senator who is no better than Trump,” whom he referred to as “LG.” Harding claimed “every sex worker [he] know[s] has been hired by this man.”

“LadyG and “LadyGraham” — the alleged nicknames used by the sex workers — were soon trending, and tweets went viral that came from people claiming they had evidence, some of them claiming it was first hand. Harding, overwhelmed with inquiries, eventually set his Twitter feed to private, and on Sunday he tweeted:

Due to death threats against me and my family — and having my mom call me pleading to make it stop I will no longer be commenting on the LG story here. I know one individual has spoken to two prestigious media outlets with evidence but I'm not sure when that story will break.

It would be nice to think that mainstream media — or as Harding put it, “prestigious media outlets” — are finally getting it right, though I’ve learned not to hold my breath.

The closet, for powerful politicians, becomes a sort of practice run at the art of deception on a grander scale. And when you will sell out your own kind, there’s really no telling how low you will go.

Had journalists at mainstream outlets with vast resources, legal teams and researchers, been pursuing Schock for the hypocrisy of his anti-LGBTQ votes — and revealed that he was gay, with clear-cut evidence — it wouldn’t only have likely stopped an anti-gay hypocrite; it would likely have brought down a man who was spending campaign and taxpayer dollars to live in grand style and luxuriously travel around the world.

Back in 2006 when Mike Rogers, the founder of the site Blogactive — which exposed a slew of hypocritical, closeted gay politicians — revealed with detailed sources that Idaho GOP senator Larry Craig was gay, much of the mainstream media wouldn’t go near it.

They refused to follow up or track down the story further. It wasn’t until nine months later when “wide-stance” Craig was arrested for trying to have sex in an airport men’s room in Minneapolis that the mainstream media was all over it. Craig was then forced to resign, and the hypocrisy of the anti-LGBTQ Republican Party was on display.

But like Schock’s criminal activity, Craig’s arrest is the only thing that brought him down. If not for that action, involving criminal charges and thus a public record, he might still be in office, still railing against LGBTQ people. For much of the mainstream media, exposing a homophobe isn’t worth their time and effort — nor the resources of their newsrooms.

Even now, when the media is taking more seriously the issue of sexual harassment and tracking down stories of assault against women by powerful men, stories they once ignored but rightly now are focusing on — even when a story turns out to lose credibility — they still don’t see the story of the closeted hypocrite as one to investigate and report on.

Let me be clear: I’m not equating sexual harassment and assault with sexual orientation: I’m equating hypocrisy, deception and abuse of power that affects marginalized groups.

New Photos Emerge of Jerry Falwell, Jr., at Miami Nightclub

I had said that I hope the media scrutiny of modern day Pharisee and grifter Jerry Falwell, Jr., would continue in the wake of Politico's lengthy expose that looked at both questionable financial transactions, sex rumors and boasting, and drinking and dancing - both things that are banned at Liberty University and could lead to the expulsion of students guilty of such transgressions.  In true lying Christofascist/professional Christian form, Falwell claimed that photos of him dancing and drinking at a Miami nightclub were "false" or hand been "altered."  Now, the owner of the club has released an additional batch of photos putting Falwell's hypocrisy on further display.  Politico looks at the release of the additional photos.  Here are highlights:

One day after POLITICO published a piece in which Jerry Falwell Jr. denied visiting a Miami Beach nightclub in July 2014 and alleged that any images showing such were “photo-shopped,” a new trove of photos showing Falwell at the club has been released. 

Seth Browarnik, the owner of World Red Eye, a photography company that documents Miami’s bustling nightlife scene, says he was unaware how many photos he had of Falwell until Falwell alleged that his site’s images were manipulated—prompting Browarnik to explore his photo archive to prove otherwise.

On Tuesday, Browarnik published the newly unearthed photos on his website, WorldRedEye.com, along with a strongly worded “rebuke” of Falwell’s claim of photoshopping. In the article, Jerry Falwell Jr. repeatedly claimed that the photos—which POLITICO obtained from World Red Eye, which World Red Eye has had on their website for five years, and which show Falwell partying at Wall on July 19, 2014—were manipulated. “If the person in the picture is me, it was likely photo-shopped,” Falwell said.

Browarnik said he felt insulted. “My integrity is everything in this business,” he said. . . . . For the past 21 years, Browarnik has photographed Miami nightlife. Because of his trusted reputation as a photographer, he thought it was important to quickly quash Falwell’s accusation.

“That’s why I have an archive of five million photos,” Browarnik told me. “That’s why we catalog everything.”

In the images, the Falwells can be seen in the middle of the club’s dance floor while lasers and other light effects reflect around them. In at least two photos, Falwell family members can be seen holding alcohol. (Liberty University is notoriously strict about alcohol consumption, and students can receive demerits for co-ed dancing and be expelled for drinking.)

In the Closet of the Vatican

Heavens knows that hypocrisy is one of the hallmarks of the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church.  For centuries these supposedly celibate men, many seemingly bitter at the world while seeking power and perks for themselves, have preached a warped dogma on human sexuality and inflicted psychological damage on countless millions.  Now, a new book that appears to focus more on sensation than hard proof claims that 80% of the priests at the Vatican are gay.  The allegation, of course, will whip the far right elements in the Church into a frenzy and be cited as a justification for a witch hunt against gays while ignoring the heterosexual sexual escapades of non-celibate clerics. Personally, I view the Catholic Church as beyond repair and left it years ago after the sex abuse scandal exploded in Boston in early 2002. A column in the New York Times looks at the book, "In the Closet of the Vatican," and the coming circus it will likely ignite.  Here are some excerpts:

Marveling at the mysterious sanctum that his new book explores, the French journalist Frédéric Martel writes that “even in San Francisco’s Castro” there aren’t “quite as many gays.”

He’s talking about the Vatican. And he’s delivering a bombshell.

Although the book’s publishers have kept it under tight wraps, I obtained a copy in advance of its release next Thursday. It will come out in eight languages and 20 countries, under the title “Sodoma,” as in Sodom, in Western Europe and “In the Closet of the Vatican” in the United States, Britain and Canada.

It includes the claim that about 80 percent of the male Roman Catholic clergy who work at the Vatican, around the pope, are gay. It contends that the more showily homophobic a Vatican official is, the more likely he belongs to that crowd, and that the higher up the chain of command you go, the more gays you find. And not all of them are celibate. Not by a long shot.

Whatever Martel’s intent, “In the Closet of the Vatican” may be less a constructive reckoning than a stockpile of ammunition for militant right-wing Catholics who already itch to conduct a witch hunt for gay priests, many of whom are exemplary — and chaste — servants of the church. Those same Catholics oppose sensible and necessary reforms, and will point to the book’s revelations as proof that the church is already too permissive and has lost its dignity and its way. Although Martel himself is openly gay, he sensationalizes gayness by devoting his inquiry to Catholic officials who have had sex with men, not ones who have had sex with women. The promise of celibacy that priests make forbids all sexual partners, and what violates Catholic teaching isn’t just gay sex but sex outside marriage. In that context, Martel’s focus on homosexuality buys into the notion that it’s especially troubling and titillating. The sourcing of much of “In the Closet of the Vatican” is vague, and other Vatican experts told me that the 80 percent figure is neither knowable nor credible. “It’s not a scientifically based accusation — it’s an ideologically based one,” said the Rev. Thomas Reese, a columnist for The National Catholic Reporter who visits the Vatican frequently and has written several highly regarded books about the Roman Catholic hierarchy. “One of the problems is that Catholic bishops have never allowed any kind of research in this area. They don’t want to know how many gay priests there are.” Independent studies put the percentage of gay men among Catholic priests in the United States at 15 percent to 60 percent. It depicts different sexual subcultures, including clandestine meetings between Vatican officials and young heterosexual Muslim men in Rome who work as prostitutes. It names names, and while many belong to Vatican officials and other priests who are dead or whose sexual identities have come under public scrutiny before, Martel also lavishes considerable energy on the suggestion that Francis’ predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, and other towering figures in the church are gay.

Perhaps the most vivid of the double lives under Martel’s gaze is that of Cardinal Alfonso López Trujillo of Colombia, who died a little over a decade ago. According to the book, he prowled the ranks of seminarians and young priests for men to seduce and routinely hired male prostitutes, sometimes beating them up after sex. All the while he promoted the church’s teaching that all gay men are “objectively disordered” and embraced its ban on priests who are believed to have “deep-seated homosexual tendencies,” whether they act on them or not.

As David Clohessy, a longtime advocate for survivors of sexual abuse by priests, said to me on the phone a few days ago: “Many priests have a huge disincentive to report sexual misdeeds by colleagues. They know they’re vulnerable to being blackballed. It’s celibacy and the secretive, rigid, ancient all-male hierarchy that contributes to the cover-up and, therefore, more abuse.” Abuse has no sexual orientation, a fact made clear by many cases of priests having sex with girls and adult women, including nuns, whose victimization by priests was publicly acknowledged by Pope Francis for the first time early this month.

But that’s a crucial subtlety that’s too easily lost in the thicket of exclamation points in “In the Closet of the Vatican.” And more people will read the racy headlines about the book than the book itself. What they may take away is this: Catholic priests are twisted characters. And gay men are creatures of stealth and agents of deception who band together in eccentric societies with odd rituals.

I asked him if he worried about homophobes weaponizing the book. If they read it correctly, he answered, they’ll realize that rooting out gays would mean ridding the church of some of their heroes, who inveigh against homosexuality as a way of denying and camouflaging who they really are. The cardinals most accepting of gays, he said, are those who are probably straight.

Hypocrisy and Backstabbing on Display in Northam Controversy

Like many in Virginia, the ongoing drama surrounding Ralph Northam has been  on my mind throughout the day yesterday and today.  I spent part of the day yesterday with a political insider who likewise supports Northam and are disgusted by the hypocrisy and rush to judgment on display. One point of interest seemingly missing among the LGBT community, is the fact that this controversy was ignited by far right anti-abortion extremists who somehow dug up the 1984 EVMS yearbook.  These people are not only seeking to destroy Northam, are also the principal opponents of LGBT rights in Virginia and have made sure that the Republican controlled House of Delegates kills every pro-LGBT bill every year. Gays and supposed LGBT allies jumping on the anti-Northam bandwagon are unwittingly aiding their own enemies.

Like so many others, the husband and I watched Northam's press conference yesterday afternoon.  Frankly, our hearts broke seeing Pam Northam, who we adore, looking so devastated. Through it all, my thoughts are that the uproar is not really about possible transgressions 35 years ago, but rather (i) political hypocrisy, (ii) a dangerous demand for lifelong ideological purity, and (ii) politcal backstabbing. 

Ironically, Northam has been one of the strongest advocates pushing for the restoration of felons' voting rights which would disproportionately benefit black Virginians since years of Republican control of the General Assembly has seen blacks disproportionately prosecuted and convicted thanks to draconian laws. One reader summed the situation well: "Same people calling for his head are the people who believe in restoration of voting rights and second chances." 

As for the new cult of life long ideological purity, another reading was on point and commented: "What the Democrat Party is now saying is that there is no room for those who have canged their views and norms of past times Once in black face always in black face . . . you are not welcome in our "big tent." Good luck winning elections with that." The writer is on point, in my view, and in their rush to judgment on Northam, Democrat elected officials may have just ensured that the Republicans will retain control of the House of Delegates after the November 2017 elections.   Newport News Mayor McKinley Price has been one of the few with common sense:

“I think if people are true to what they will admit, everybody has had some bigotry or racism in their life,” Price said Friday. “I think this should be looked at as an opportunity for us to do what, quite frankly, we haven’t done, and that’s (having) an open and frank discussion about bigotry and its effects."

Surprisingly, Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax has not yet demanded Northam's resignation.  Sadly, the black caucus in the Virginia General Assembly has shown no such moderation and seems most motivated to force Northam out of office so that they can have a black governor in the form of the Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax who has never held elected office until being sworn in in January 2018.  This motivation also seemingly holds for at least one senior individual in the Virginia Democrat Party who is has demonstrated an active, anti-white racism (this will be the subject of a future blog post with documentation).   I have two worries about Fairfax should Northam be forced to eventually resign: (1) his inexperience, and (ii) his failure to convince me that he is a real ally to LGBT Virginians.  Should Northam resign, LGBT Virginians will lose the most powerful ally they have every had in Richmond and find themselves with a replacement who is an unknown quantity and perhaps more vulnerable to pressure from anti-gay black pastors who are regularly cynically manipulated by the anti-gay and white supremacist descended Family Foundation . 

On the backstabbing from, many Virginia Democrats now rushing to denounce Northam and call for his resignation include a number of those elected to the House of Delegates in 2017 who owe their election to the efforts of Northam's ground game.  Leading this list is Danica Roem who has lost all of my respect.  Roem, however, is not alone.  In his rush to call for Northam's resignation, Mark Herring has lost our respect and I have already withdrawn our previous promises of money and hosting a fundraiser in our home for his gubernatorial campaign.  Tim Kaine and Mark Warner have likewise lost my respect. What disturbs me most is the fact that the truth and what Northam has done over the last three decades doesn't matter to these politicians who are posturing, in my opinion, to (A) appease the  black vote and (B) appease the strident ideology police of the Democrat left.  What they are seemingly ignoring is that some of us want elected officials who are honest and stand by principle not political expediency.  This year, Virginia Democrats seeking money from us will go away empty handed. 

The winners in all of this?  The anti-abortion extremists and Virginia Republicans who are likely salivating at the thought of the inexperienced Fairfax as governor and the reality that he would likely be unable to win re-election in 2021.  Closer at hand, the Virginia Democrat Party is tearing itself apart and will now go into the 2017 elections deeply divided. While these Democrats may curry favor with the black voters, I suspect some white voters in the critical urban crescent of Virginia may sit out the election and guarantee 2 more years of Republican control in the legislature.

"Respectable" Evangelicals Distance Themselves from Trump Supporters

Like it or not, Trump supporting evangelical Christians are becoming the public face of Christianity in America.  The result of this phenomenon is not positive for those who want the faith to survive: one third of Millenials have walked away from religion (for those under 30, the figure is 36%), the number of so-called "Nones" now is the larges religious group, if you will, in the nation.  Meanwhile, all Christian denominations are losing membership overall.  And "liberal" denominations all too often fail and refuse to challenge the ugliness of the message of the Trump supporting evangelical Christians or, if they do, do it in an ineffectual manner. In sum, hatred of others, hypocrisy and dishonesty (think James Dobson, Tony Perkins, and Sarah Huckabee Sanders, daughter of Baptist pastor Mike Huckabee) are increasing what many Americans associate with Christianity.  As a piece in Religion Dispatches notes, some "respectable" evangelicals are trying to distance themselves from their Trump supporting brethren.  Will the damage control effort work?  Probably not.  Here are article highlights:

The defenders of “respectable” evangelicalism were out in force in 2017. In newspapers, magazines, and National Public Radio programs, they delivered a consistent message. That group of Trump-loving, Roy-Moore-supporting evangelicals? “It’s not us.”

Respectable evangelicals have been defining away their embarrassing spiritual kin for a century, at least.

When working-class evangelicals began speaking in tongues in the 1900s, respectable evangelicals declared the movement a delusion of Satan. It’s not us, they insisted.

When the Scopes Monkey Trial made William Jennings Bryan a laughingstock, respectable evangelicals disclaimed leadership in the fundamentalist movement they helped create. It’s not us.

In the 1940s and 50s, respectable evangelicals perfected the “not us” technique. Abandoning the fundamentalist label (though holding nearly identical beliefs), they created a “neo-evangelical” identity to distance themselves from the red-baiters and conspiratorialists. Ever since, the toxic byproducts of their movement have been shunted outside the evangelical camp. Whether tele-evangelist scandals, or hurricanes-are-God’s-judgment-jeremiads, or homophobic protests at military funerals: it’s not us.

In a recent Vox editorial, historian Thomas Kidd, a never-Trump evangelical, continues the refrain. The statistic that 80% of white evangelicals supported Trump is wrong, he argues, because it’s based on self-identification. They are evangelicals in name only; it’s not us.

Consider the definition at work. To be evangelical, we are told, is to believe in “conversion.” But is conversion a uniquely evangelical idea? It’s not even uniquely Christian; Muslims convert too. Rather, they are appealing to a particular experience of conversion. And how is an evangelical conversion measured? That’s the rub. It’s been the cause of evangelical consternation for two centuries.

But conversion’s unmeasurable quality is what makes it useful for insiders. It allows them to state (or strongly infer) that only unconverted, ‘nominal,’ evangelicals supported Trump. Apparently, a vote for Trump is evidence enough? Meanwhile, evangelical Trump voters declare that by withholding support, never-Trump evangelicals have demonstrated their faithlessness.

“Biblicism” functions similarly. Imagine a political scientist defining Republicans as “those who take the Constitution seriously.” Who would accept this transparently partisan statement? And yet many people today accept that evangelicals are “biblical,” while everyone else…isn’t? This is how former megachurch pastor Rob Bell and popular author Rachel Held Evans ceased to be evangelical: not because they quit the Bible, but because they came up with “wrong,” (thus “unbiblical”) answers about hell and being gay. “Biblicism” is evangelical gerrymandering.

[A] definition must function independent of public relations. If an abusive priest is still Catholic, then J. Dennis Hastert must remain an evangelical despite his sordid past.

Few conservative white evangelicals will question their overheated rhetoric about healthcare and wedding cakes and “religious liberty.” Few liberal white evangelicals will question how their cherished theological categories might contribute to the systemic racism and patriarchy they claim to oppose. Moore supporters will not consider whether there are lines that shouldn’t be crossed.

Because being evangelical means never having to say you’re sorry.  Being evangelical means “it’s not us.”

Conservative Christians Look the Other Way as Trump Debases the Presidency

It is Sunday morning and across America fundamentalist and evangelical Christians will be flocking to fill church pews and feign piety, many wearing their professed religiosity on their sleeves.  Many are against drinking alcohol, some won't even engage in dancing, and, of course they view loving same sex couples who are responsible members of their communities as an abomination to be annihilated.  Yet some 81% of them voted for Donald Trump and continue to support him largely because he appealed to their hatred of others and their desire to destroy the religious freedom of other citizens.  If one wants a reason to walk away from the Christian brand, these people are a strong argument that only hate-filled hypocrites call themselves Christian nowadays.  And the Millennials ARE paying attention: nearly one third have disavowed any religious affiliation, largely thanks to these self-anointed "godly folks."  A column in the Washington Post calls these so-called Christians out and ask the question of whether there is any debasement that Trump can do to the presidency or decency in general that might make these people disavow him.   Here are highlights:  

No group has been as blindly loyal to President Trump as Christian conservatives. They have not let religion or values get in the way of their support. Consider the “Access Hollywood” tape, the attack on a Gold Star family, a mass of inexplicable ties between Trump’s campaign and Russian officials (and the president’s open invitation to Russia to continue hacking), the firing of the FBI director, the humiliation of evangelical-favorite Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the politicization of the Boy Scouts, the threats to the special counsel and now an interview with Trump’s out-of-control, potty-mouthed communications director.

What about Trump, exactly, reflects their values? (Taking Medicaid away from millions and separating families to deport law-abiding immigrants?) The Trump administration is a clown show — but it’s the evangelicals who supplied the tent, the red noses and the floppy shoes. Each day presents a new insult to the office of the presidency and a repudiation of civilized behavior.

Cumulatively — let’s not forget the erratic, impulsive declaration that he was throwing transgender military personnel out of the armed services — it is not clear whether Trump has reached a tipping point when Republicans decide he actually has to leave office. Yet if Trump nevertheless proceeds to fire Sessions and then order Justice Department officials to fire Mueller (or fire them if they won’t), Republicans will have no remedy at their disposal other than impeachment; they may very well choose not to use it, but then we have the makings of a constitutional crisis on our hands.

And the religious right, which intones “Judge Gorsuch, Judge Gorsuch!” when confronted with the series of Trump abominations, should do some soul-searching. Was this trashing of the White House, assault on civil language and conduct and contempt for the Constitution (the one the religious right thinks is so important that the new Supreme Court justice must protect it) worth it? And if it gets worse, is there any point at which the religious might put country above tribe, morality above partisanship? No, I don’t think it will do so ever. 

Last evening I was at a small, intimate fundraiser with mostly members of the local Indian community and the contrast between their expectations and what they looked for in a politician could not be a more stark contrast with the evangelical Christian crowd:  they look for the personal honesty, integrity and personal morality of a candidate and whether that candidate will seek to do the best for all citizens and not deliberately harm targeted citizens.  This versus the evangelicals and their support for Trump.  In my experience, these non-Christians time and time again reflect the values of the Gospel message more than the purported Christians of Trump's base. 

Elite Washington Schools Snub Trump's Mistress of Lies

Perhaps there remains some small measure of justice as the nation hurls towards disaster under the regime of Der Fuhrer.  It seems, according to Page Six and some other sources that despite Kellyanne Conway's efforts, elite schools around Washington, D.C., want nothing to do with Conway's children.  Since Donald Trump wants to destroy public education as evidenced by his Secretary of Education nominee, Betsy DeVoes, it is fitting that Conway might have to place her children in public school or settle for some church affiliated school high on toxic theology and short on quality science and fact based education. I have no malice towards Conway's children - none of us get to choose our parents - but Ms. Conway is hopefully learning that there are consequences to selling one's soul to the service of a narcissistic, sexual predator pathological liar.  Conway forgets that less than 27% of voters supported Der Fuhrer and that no election land slide occurred except in the mind of that psychopathic liar and is sycophants.  Here are highlights from Crooks and Liars:

This is a Page Six story, so we look at it with the usual amount of skepticism we have for DC gossip. But after all her whining that she wasn't going to take a White House job because her children needed their mom at home (Re-launching the mommy wars to garnish sympathy from Stuart Varney, Kellyanne? Nobody cares.), it now appears poor Kellyanne Goebbels Conway can't seem to get the DC elite public schools to bend to her will.

She really did say this:

“My children are 12, 12, 8, and 7, which is bad idea, bad idea, bad idea, bad idea for mom going inside [the White House],” Conway said. “They have to come first and those are very fraught ages.” She then implied that the same standards should apply to all mothers who are seeking high-level jobs. When male colleagues suggested Conway take a White House job, she said, “I did politely mention to them that the question isn’t, ‘Would you take the job?’ … but ‘Would you want your wife to?’ And you really see their entire visage change. It’s like, oh, no, they wouldn’t want their wife to take that job.”

The struggle is real, Kellyanne. No one around DC wants Kellyanne or her children infesting their schools. Yes, I know, they are innocent children and shouldn't be punished because their mother is a soulless, vapid, shallow, narcissistic, lying liar or all liars who talks out of both sides of her mouth while also sucking the life out anyone in her path.

So here is the story: Page Six reports that Sewer Rat Barbie is worried that her kids will get blackballed from DC elite schools because, get this, they are *prejudiced* against President Trump. Yes, prejudiced. Oh my, she is feeling discriminated against because of who she is and that is so hard, right? How unfair it is to her children to be banned from things purely because of something out of their control, like their parent's beliefs or heritage, right?

The irony is delicious, coming from a party and candidate that literally only wins elections because of voter suppression, gerrymandering and racism. Oh, and her candidate quite literally ran on a racist campaign. But she feels discriminated against? Of course.

I expect the schools have no problem with Conway children attending but would rather Kellyanne stayed away from the PTO meetings.

And given her history of lying, it's entirely possible that Kellyanne floated this story herself in order to remind everyone what a great mom she is and how persecuted her President Trump's White House is by the Beltway insiders, boo hoo.

Meanwhile, Kellyanne is reaching out of her *friends* at her kids' current private school for help finding a placement for her children.  Welcome to the swamp, Kellyanne!

Are Trump's Lies and Hypocrisy Good for America?

Anyone who bothered to pay attention and wasn't merely swept up by Donald Trump's appeals to their racism and overall bigotry should have known that much of Trump's campaign rhetoric and "promised" action if elected were lies.  Slowly, those others than the hard core racists, white supremacists and evangelical Christians who have long lived in their own alternate universe, Trump voters may be waking up to the reality that they were deliberately conned by America's would be fuhrer.  An column by Republican columnist Michael Gerson makes the argument that this awakening and Trump's willingness to walk away from continually made campaign promises is good for America albeit, I would argue, not sufficient to save the nation from a catastrophe.  Here are column highlights:

As Donald Trump’s campaign promises have been dunked in reality’s strong solvent, many have been transformed in one way or another — modified, moderated, qualified, abandoned or pushed off into the distant future. Not a wall across the whole southern border. Not every part of Obamacare repealed. Not all illegal immigrants deported, at least in the foreseeable future. Not literally tearing up the Iran agreement. Not an actual prison cell for Hillary Clinton.

All this has opened up Trump to the charge of being a hypocrite. For the nation’s sake, let’s hope so.

But we should take care in defining hypocrisy. . . . British political scientist David Runciman says that hypocrisy involves “claims to a consistency that one cannot sustain, claims to a loyalty that one does not possess, claims to an identity that one does not hold.”

[I]t is worth recalling that the founder of Christianity took hypocrisy quite seriously: “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them.” Purity of heart and motivation, in the Christian tradition, does matter. But the hunt for hypocrisy should begin in the mirror.

The issue at hand, however, is a certain kind of political hypocrisy — the conscious use of a mask to fool the public and gain political benefit. Most would concede that this type of hypocrisy is generally harmful for a democracy, in which self-government requires informed choices. Trump’s brand of personality-driven politics — emphasizing the virtues of a single leader — exaggerates the challenge. 

Some of Trump’s strongest supporters seem to assume his cynicism. The part about forcing Mexicans to pay for the wall, according to Newt Gingrich, was “a great campaign device.” Of the largest construction project since the Qin dynasty, Rush Limbaugh now says he never expected Trump to do it.

This is a rare ethical circumstance in which realism and good sense take the form of hypocrisy. On a variety of issues, the sincerity of Trump’s current intentions — or the cynicism of his past intentions — should not matter. If the candidate who gave a wink and nod toward white nationalism now repudiates the alt-right and promises to “bring this country together,” so much the better. If the candidate who promised a trade war with China reconsiders, it is all to the good.

It is admittedly an odd thing to cheer for cynicism. But in this strange, new political era, hypocrisy is our best hope.

Personally, I believe that Gerson is too quick to assume that Trump will walk away form some of his more extreme campaign promises.  His announced appointees to date are a study in extremism that ought to terrify thinking, moral Americans.  We can hope that Trump totally lied and conned his supporters, but I am much afraid some of the ugliest promises will be delivered on.  

Will the "Christian Right" Recover Any Shred of Legitimacy Post-Trump?

Since I began following the so-called "Christian Right" roughly 20 years ago, I have discovered several things.  One is that those encompassed by the term are neither Christian, nor are they right. Second, literally no one lies and spreads deliberate falsehoods more than the parasitic professional Christian crowd, especially falsely named "family values" organizations.   The irony is that now, while a civil war rages within the Republican Party, a similar civil war is raging within the so-called evangelical Christian demographic.  Two pieces look at this latter civil war.  The first is in Christianity Today and slams Donald Trump - and by extension evangelicals supporting Trump.  The second is at MSNBC and asks the question of whether the :Christian Right" movement can recover after Trump.   Here are highlights from Christianity Today:

Just because we are neutral, however, does not mean we are indifferent. We are especially not indifferent when the gospel is at stake. The gospel is of infinitely greater importance than any campaign, and one good summary of the gospel is, “Jesus is Lord.”

The lordship of Christ places constraints on the way his followers involve themselves, or entangle themselves, with earthly rulers.

[S]ome rulers and regimes are especially outrageous in their God-substitution. After Augustus Caesar, the emperors of Rome became more and more elaborate in their claims of divinity with each generation—and more and more ineffective in their governance. Communism aimed not just to replace faith in anything that transcended the state, but to crush it. Such systems do not just dishonor God, they dishonor his image in persons, and in doing so they set themselves up for dramatic destruction. We can never collude when such idolatry becomes manifest, especially when it demands our public allegiance.

This year’s presidential election in the United States presents Christian voters with an especially difficult choice.

But not all evangelical Christians—in fact, alas, most evangelical Christians, judging by the polls—have shown the same critical judgment when it comes to the Republican nominee. True, when given a choice, primary voters who claimed evangelical faith largely chose other candidates. But since his nomination, Donald Trump has been able to count on “the evangelicals” (in his words) for a great deal of support.

This past week, the latest (though surely not last) revelations from Trump’s past have caused many evangelical leaders to reconsider. This is heartening, but it comes awfully late. What Trump is, everyone has known and has been able to see for decades, let alone the last few months. The revelations of the past week of his vile and crude boasting about sexual conquest—indeed, sexual assault—might have been shocking, but they should have surprised no one.

[T]here is hardly any public person in America today who has more exemplified the “earthly nature” (“flesh” in the King James and the literal Greek) that Paul urges the Colossians to shed: “sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry” (3:5). This is an incredibly apt summary of Trump’s life to date. . . . That Trump has been, his whole adult life, an idolater of this sort, and a singularly unrepentant one, should have been clear to everyone.

And therefore it is completely consistent that Trump is an idolater in many other ways. He has given no evidence of humility or dependence on others, let alone on God his Maker and Judge. He wantonly celebrates strongmen and takes every opportunity to humiliate and demean the vulnerable. He shows no curiosity or capacity to learn. He is, in short, the very embodiment of what the Bible calls a fool.

Enthusiasm for a candidate like Trump gives our neighbors ample reason to doubt that we believe Jesus is Lord. They see that some of us are so self-interested, and so self-protective, that we will ally ourselves with someone who violates all that is sacred to us—in hope, almost certainly a vain hope given his mendacity and record of betrayal, that his rule will save us.

Pretty damning of evangelicals supporting Trump.  Candidly, I agree whole heartedly.   Trump is revealing the moral bankruptcy and utter hypocrisy of many in the Christian Right, especially flim-flam artists like the leaders of Family Research Council, Franklin Graham and so many others.  The MSNBC piece looks at whether the so-called godly folk can ever recover from their self-prostitution to the Trump phenomenon.  Here are highlights:

Harvest Bible Chapel’s James MacDonald, a megachurch leader and a member of Donald Trump’s evangelical council, could hardly contain his disgust on Saturday after learning about the candidate’s 2005 comments about women.

“Mr. Trump’s comments released yesterday – though 10 years ago (he was 60) – are not just sophomoric or locker room banter,” MacDonald wrote in an email. “They are truly the kind of misogynistic trash that reveals a man to be lecherous and worthless – not the guy who gets politely ignored, but the guy who gets a punch in the head from worthy men who hear him talk that way about women.”

So, MacDonald was resigning from his role on Team Trump? The pastor was severing his ties to a man who’d proven himself “lecherous and worthless”? Actually, no. MacDonald was upset, but not enough to withdraw his support for Trump’s candidacy.

There’s a lot of this going around. A wide variety of Evangelical Christian leaders and power players in the religious right movement have said they weren’t pleased with the latest Trump revelations, but they’re devoted to the GOP nominee anyway. Indeed, by some measures, the Christian Right’s leadershave stuck with Trump in greater numbers than congressional Republicans.

The New Republic’s Sarah Jones recently made the case that a reckoning is inevitable.

The religious right isn’t dead yet. But after this election becomes history, the movement will be forced to reckon with the consequences of its quest for power. Young adults, who overwhelmingly oppose Trump, are already leaving conservative churches, and the religious right’s Trump moment will surely only fuel this trend. If it had maintained a consistent public morality, maybe it could have retained some countercultural appeal. Now that its most visible leaders have sacrificed that authority, it has nothing left. […]

In the Gospel of Matthew, Christ tells his disciples that no one can serve two masters; you’ll be loyal to one and not to the other. By endorsing Trump, the religious right chose a master—and sacrificed everything it says it stands for. 

It’s a fair prediction. The next time there’s a major national debate over a moral/cultural issue, and pro-Trump religious right leaders present themselves as standard-bearers for “family values” and traditional theological norms, is there anyone, anywhere, who’ll be able to contain their laughter?

These people are morally bankruptcy and need to be rejected by decent moral people.  They need to become political and social pariahs.  

.   

The Illusions of Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz

Yet another op-ed in the Boston Globe looks at Bernie Sanders' 2014 tax return and posits some on point questions (Sanders made more that we did, but paid quite a bit less in taxes - should we fire our CPA?).  The piece also looks at the dysfunction on the Republican side of the aisle in the personage of Ted Cruz, one of the most loathsome politicians in America today, yet who has "friends" only because Donald Trump is more widely feared/hated among the self-destructing GOP establishment.  First these highlights on Sanders:

So much of our politics is based on illusion. Something can look or feel a certain way but, on closer inspection, turns out to be untrue. Two examples, one from the Democrats and another from the Republicans, show the ways in which false assumptions and beliefs can mislead us.

Bernie Sanders is the socialist candidate for president, although he prefers the term “Democratic-Socialist,” since it makes it easier for him to sell Marxist social and economic theory to a nation brought up on free markets and rugged individualism. Sanders is a working-class champion fighting for tax fairness and against income inequality, or so we are led to believe.

Sanders waited until late in the day on Friday to release his 2014 tax returns, obviously hoping voters would overlook the news that he and his wife, Jane, paid an effective tax rate of 13.5 percent, or $27,653 in federal taxes on an adjusted gross income of $205,271.

When it was revealed that former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney paid 14 percent of his income in taxes in 2011, the news was greeted with howls of protest from the left.

Sanders’ six-figure income puts him in the 28 percent bracket for married joint filers. He cut that rate by more than half by taking more than $64,000 in deductions — all perfectly legal, but no one expected the redistributionist to redistribute less, on a percentage basis, than a prominent member of the capitalist class.

Sanders is near the top 5 percent of all Americans in terms of income. The core of the Sanders campaign is getting the wealthy and corporations to pay their fair share. Such high-minded principles should also apply to socialists making more than $200,000 a year.

The column then directs its focus to the loathsome Ted Cruz:

No one seems to have more fake friends these days than Cruz. The Texas senator is the most unloved person in the US Senate. Yet, as the front man for the Stop Trump movement, he has become a vessel of hope for Republicans who think he is the less bad thing of a pair of bad things. No one better exemplifies this attitude than Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who famously compared the choice between Trump and Cruz to being shot or poisoned.

In Tuesday’s New York primary, Trump crushed Cruz. The math says it is now impossible for Cruz to accumulate the delegates he needs in the remaining contests to win on the first convention ballot. What a difference from two weeks ago, when on the night of his double digit win in Wisconsin, Cruz declared, “We’re winning because we’re uniting the Republican Party.” 

A winning campaign for the White House needs to be built on something more than the absence of Trump. It requires real friends, not fake ones.

Why Porn is Exploding in the Middle East

Here in America, Internet porn usage is highest in the Bible Belt where all the sexually repressed "godly Christians" apparently cannot get enough porn to satiate their otherwise sexually frustrated lives.  Thus, it should not be surprising that porn is exploding in another repressed part of the world - Muslim countries in the Middle East.  Whenever myth based religion deprives individuals of sexual outlets, nowadays, the Internet provides an escape valve although admittedly porn tastes in Pakistan are beyond a bit bizarre and would certainly get Rick Santorum foaming at the mouth.   The more religiously oppressed - think Catholic priests - the more strange the "turn on" it would seem.  A piece in Salon looks at the Middle East's porn explosion.  Here are excerpts:

Porn is being made and watched in the Middle East, and millions more are watching it around the planet. In fact, some of the world’s top porn consumers come out of the Middle East. According to data released by Google, six of the top eight porn-searching countries are Muslim states. Pakistan tops the list at number one, followed by Egypt at number two. Iran, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Turkey come in at numbers four, five, seven and eight, respectively. Pakistan leads the way in porn searches for animals like pigs, donkeys, dogs, cats and snakes.

According to research put out by PornMD, the terms “creamy squirt,” “blowjob” and even “Kendra Wilkinson” (Hugh Hefner’s former girlfriend) appear on the top 10 most-searched terms coming out of countries like Iraq, Syria and Iran. The word “Arab” is the number-one searched porn term in Egypt, Iran and Syria. Some get a little creepier. “Pain” lands at Iraq’s fourth most-searched term, while “father daughter” and “brother sister” come in at numbers four and five for Syria. Both the words “mother” and “mom” appear on Egypt’s top 10 list.

The specifics are representative of a broader change taking place in a society all but defined by extreme “moral” standards. The fact that porn trends within the region can even be tracked is impressive, given that the sale of erotic material is banned in nearly every Arab country except Lebanon and Turkey.

[R]ecently, the Saudi Arabian government announced that it had hacked and disabled about 9,000 Twitter accounts associated with the publication of pornography and arrested many of the handles’ owners. The move was organized by the Commission for the Promotion and Prevention of Vice, also known as Haia, the Saudi religious police.

The good news for porn fans in the region is that a lot of these restrictions seem fairly easy to overcome. It’s not uncommon to find vendors lining the streets armed with pornographic videos. Nor is it rare to find young men hanging around popular shopping centers, selling cards to disable Internet blocks.

Is this a sex problem? Or is it a porn problem? Or is it just another hiccup in the long, thorny path to gender equality? Women are given center-stage in a lot of pornography, after all. Maybe some in the Middle East aren’t interested in seeing that happen. Or maybe they feel that sex should be restricted to a more private and procreative space. Many Muslim states declare that cemented social morals should not be violated. The data out there, however, suggest their public may feel otherwise.

Bob McDonnell Blatant Hypocrisy

In political campaigns from the time he first ran for the House of Delegates, Bob McDonnell has always sold himself as a champion of "family values" and shamelessly prostituted himself to Christofascist organizations like The Family Foundation.   He has condemned gays and blathered about the "sanctity of marriage" and the biblical model of "one man and one woman" even though the Old Testament model for marriage is polygamy.  McDonnell has always been a huckster pandering to those who need someone to hate and look down upon so that they can feel better about their own small minded, often miserable lives.  The ongoing criminal corruption trial in Richmond has underscored just how phony McDonnell as been in the public persona he has marketed.  A piece in the Daily Progress looks at the fraud that McDonnell has proven himself to be all these years.  Here are excerpts:

"The real enemies of the traditional family (are) materialism, irresponsibility, feminism, lust, and ultimately selfishness." - Bob McDonnell

We've been told for years by people like Gov. Bob McDonnell that allowing homosexuals to marry would mark the beginning of the end for Virginia's families and their values. Ironically, while we wait for the Supreme Court to rule on gay marriages, McDonnell is doing a fine job of destroying his own.

Whether Bob McDonnell's behavior as governor was legal or not will be decided by a jury, but no matter the verdict, receiving over $150,000 in loans and "gifts" from entrepreneur Jonnie Williams tarnished the public image of the office. With his testimony in the trial, McDonnell seems willing to break the covenant he made with his wife Maureen, and tarnish the image of his marriage, in an attempt to avoid prison. McDonnell's defense in the couple's public corruption trial appears to be centered on painting a picture of his wife Maureen as a nutbag who he was forced to placate while making apologies for her during his time in the Governor's mansion. 

Bob McDonnell has been running on the issue of "family values" even before he was a candidate for any office. In his Master's degree dissertation at Regent University, McDonnell laid out the case for a Republican campaign on family issues as the best way to lead the country and win elections."

The traditional family is the cornerstone upon which Western civilization has been built, but changes in demographics, ideology, and political philosophy during this century have resulted in the decline in the strength of the family institution. … Republicans must stay consistently committed to their principles, communicate more effectively with the American public, and take bold action to restore the family to a position of strength in modern society."

During the Governor's race, McDonnell distanced himself from some of the more controversial statements he made in the paper, but his devotion to marriage never wavered. During his decade in the House of Delegates, he was a patron of a "Covenant Marriage" bill which would indicate he considered his own marital bonds to be stronger than a piece of government-issued paper.

Bob McDonnell failed his office and the people of Virginia. He's brought shame to himself and to our state. He can be forgiven for those mistakes, he's a human being. But failing his Covenant to his wife in an attempt to escape justice is indefensible. No matter how you vote, ask yourself if you would do the same?

Sadly, I believe that McDonnell is typical of the "family values" politicians in the Virginia GOP. They fear the Christofascists that they helped to empower in the Party and now lie and prostitute themselves simply to stay in office.  It is they, not gays and "liberals" who have no values, no integrity and no honor. 

Bob and Maureen McDonnell - A Case Study of Virginia GOP "Family Values"

While thousands were at Norfolk's Town Point Park supporting marriage equality in Virginia, the federal criminal trial of former GOP governor Bob McDonnell and his wife Maureen continues to provide a case study in the type of marriages the Virginia GOP and the hate merchants at The Family Foundation want to protect.  Candidly, there seems to be little "sanctity of marriage" in the McDonnell's marriage and all too many of the marriages I witnessed during the "straight" phase of my life in a outwardly perfect high end neighborhood in Virginia Beach.  A column in the Richmond Times Dispatch looks at the ongoing spectacle of  back stabbing and throwing one's spouse under the bus that is one of the main theme of the McDonnell trial.  Here are excerpts:

Former aides Mary-Shea Sutherland, Sarah Scarbrough and Phil Cox and sister-in-law Mo Carney McDonnell chucked Maureen McDonnell under the bus. Then, husband Bob backed over her — gently.

The thread running through the testimony of prosecution and defense witnesses is that Maureen is volatile and insecure, if not unstable.

Depending on who’s asking the questions or who’s answering them, she embodies the rage of Lady Macbeth, the emotional frailty of Blanche DuBois, the blonde ambition of Eva Peron and the subtly of Snooki.

For 20 days, Maureen has quietly endured a carefully scripted trashing. Her freedom could depend on it.

Her husband of 38 years, the man with whom she held hands in public as a wife, first lady and co-defendant, now barely speaks to her. As the former governor squirmed past Maureen in Judge James Spencer’s courtroom Friday, they repelled each other — much as magnets do when their like poles are placed together.

Bob knows he’s in serious trouble; that getting out of it is serious business. He’s been in tight spots before — but politically. Each time, he successfully extracted himself on the strength of his on-cue earnestness, his talent for parsing words, and his deeply held belief that if he says something often enough, people will actually believe him.

There was Bob’s artful use in 2003 of a phrase heard often during his three days of testimony this past week on damning details of his backroom dealings with the protected-from-prosecution Jonnie Williams Sr.: “Not that I can recall.”

Eleven years ago, when Bob was chairman of the House courts committee, that was his response when asked whether he — as a married man with five children — had violated a since-scrapped prohibition on sodomy that was a factor in the doomed reappointment of a female judge accused by another woman of sexual harassment.

Possibly facing decades in prison and millions of dollars in fines, Bob — in his latest and riskiest charm offensive — is relying on these time-proven skills. But he is throwing in — or is that throwing out? — Maureen for good measure.

Bob lives for another day, but chivalry is dead.

This requires piling on Maureen — and requires that she take it. A reminder of that will be how closely, if at all, her lawyers question Bob. They’ll have a shot at him starting Monday, followed by prosecutors. And the feds are certain to have a slew of questions.

Further, Maureen’s continuing silence is interpreted as consent to the defense’s argument that she and Bob, their marriage having collapsed, were utterly incapable of communication.

Ergo, they couldn’t possibly conspire to trade on Virginia’s governorship for at least $177,000 in gifts, trips, cash and loans from Williams. A rich man, he was angling for state support of a supposed, tobacco-derived cure-all that, he hoped, would make him even richer.

McDonnell driving Jonnie Williams' Ferrari