Hampton City Council Withdraws "Gun Sanctuary City" Resolution

Downtown Hampton, VA.

While Hampton City Council withdrew a "sanctuary city" resolution to the outrage of gun fanatics and likely white supremacy last night, it is still troubling that any such resolution was ever put into motion, especially because it was the white city council members in a majority black city who first brought up the resolution.  The optics were terrible and many blacks residents, rightly in my view, saw racism in the move to consider the resolution. The fact that the resolution - which would have had no legal basis  and arguably would have encourage extremists to ignore new gun control laws likely to be passed by the General Assembly - was ever brought up in the first place is a study in cowardice.  Thankfully, after reflection, City Council unanimously withdrew the resolution.  The move is in sharp contrast to action taken by the City of Virginia Beach recently that saw city council cave to the demands of gun nuts and extremists. WAVY-TV looks at the action in Hampton and also has a listing of localities who have pandered to gun extremists and, in my view, white supremacists.  Here are highlights:

Hampton City Council has signed onto a letter supporting Second Amendment rights, without actually voting on anything.

The move was met with “boos” from the hundred or so gun-rights supporters that gathered in council chambers Wednesday night in hopes of seeing an official resolution passed supporting Second Amendment rights.

For nearly two hours speakers on both sides of the issue spoke in front of the council.

The resolution as initially proposed expressed support for law-abiding citizens to keep their guns. It also urged the General Assembly and Gov. Ralph Northam to not take any action that would violate freedoms guaranteed in the state or federal Bill of Rights.

Council members Linda Curtis, Eleanor Weston Brown and Billy Hobbs brought forward the resolution.

But when it came time for a vote, Brown withdrew the resolution citing fear it “is perceived we would undermine the rule of law with this.”

“Because we did not want to create misunderstanding in the general Public’s we decided that it was best to withdraw the resolution and not create that misunderstanding or give the inference that Hampton could be a second amendment sanctuary city,” Brown said.

Localities across Virginia are considering the idea of becoming Second Amendment sanctuaries, which are localities that have pledged not to use public resources to enforce any laws they see as unconstitutional. Some have passed resolutions simply in support of citizens’ Second Amendment rights, while others have said discussions on gun laws belong in Richmond.

Here’s the rundown on where area localities stand:

• Accomack County: The Board of Supervisors did not make the county a “sanctuary,” but approved a resolution affirming its commitment to citizens’ rights under the Second Amendment Dec. 18.

• Chesapeake: City Council did not make the city a “sanctuary,” but approved a resolution affirming its commitment to citizens’ rights under the Second Amendment Dec. 10.

• Exmore: Exmore officials have passed a resolution to become a Second Amendment sanctuary city.

• Gloucester County: The Board of Supervisors voted to become a Second Amendment sanctuary.

• Hampton: City Council has not voted on any Second Amendment-related resolution, but hundreds voiced their support at the council meeting Dec. 11. The NAACP also attended and came out against the idea. Mayor said the issue is “premature.”

• James City County: The Board of Supervisors did not make the county a “sanctuary,” but approved a resolution affirming its commitment to citizens’ rights under the Second Amendment Dec. 10.

• Isle of Wight: The Board of Supervisors did not make the county a “sanctuary,” but approved a resolution to affirm its commitments to citizens’ rights under the Second Amendment.

• Mathews County: The Board of Supervisors voted Dec. 17 to become a Second Amendment sanctuary.

• Newport News: City Council has not voted on any Second Amendment-related resolution, but a large crowd attended a Dec. 10 meeting to voice support for gun rights.

• Norfolk: City Council has not voted on any Second Amendment-related resolution, but a large crowd of residents voiced their support Dec. 10.

• Northampton County: The Board of Supervisors passed a resolution expressing its support for the rights of citizens to bear arms under the Second Amendment Dec. 10, but the resolution did not declare it a “sanctuary.”

• Poquoson: Poquoson City Council voted to become a “Constitutional City” and uphold citizens’ rights under the Second Amendment Dec. 9.

• Southampton County: Southampton officials have passed a resolution to become a Second Amendment sanctuary city.

• Suffolk: City Council voted on December 16, 2019 in support of a resolution reaffirming Suffolk’s commitment to the Constitutions of the United States and the Commonwealth of Virginia.

• Surry County: County officials did not make the county a “sanctuary,” but approved a resolution affirming its commitment to citizens’ rights under the Second Amendment Dec. 5.

• Virginia Beach: City Council voted Jan. 6 to become a “Second Amendment Constitutional City.”

• York County: The Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 Dec. 17 to become a “Constitutional City” and uphold citizens’ rights under the Second Amendment.

The vast majority of Virginians support common sense gun control laws - something Republicans have blocked for many years.  That so many localities have felt the need to pander to extremist minorities is a testimony in how ready too many elected officials are to prostitute themselves to extreme and unsavory groups.

Trump Just Invited Congress to Begin Impeachment Proceedings

I cannot imagine what int must be like to be in the Conway household.  On one side you have George Conway, a skilled and seemingly principled attorney and on the other you have his wife, Kellyanne Conway, whose principles seemly are lower than those of a tawdry prostitute given the way in which she lies for Donald Trump and her total disregard for the truth, not to mention common decency.  George Conway frequently argues that Trump is unfit for office, is little better than a common criminal, and is out to destroy constitutional government.  Now, he has an-op ed in the Washington Post that makes the case that Congress should begin impeachment proceedings against Trump. The piece went to press before Trump stated in an ABC News interview that  he would accept a foreign government assistance in the form of damaging information about a political rival -- and wouldn't necessarily report the contact to the FBI.  Trump clearly views himself as a monarch or a virtual dictator like Vladimir Putin.  Indeed, he embodies the very type of individual the Founding Fathers feared could one day secure the presidency (which as designed, the Electoral College electors should have refused to certify Trump's election.   Here are highlights from George Conway's piece:

Much ink has been spilled about whether President Trump committed a criminal and impeachable offense by obstructing justice. That question deserves extensive debate, but another critical question — the ultimate question, really — is not whether he committed a crime but whether he is even fit for office in the first place. And that question — the heart of an impeachment inquiry — turns upon whether the president abuses his power and demonstrates an unfitness to serve under the defining principles of our Constitution.

On Tuesday, Trump gave us direct evidence of his contempt toward the most foundational precept of our democracy — that no person, not even the president, is above the law. He filed a brief in the nation’s second-most-important court that takes the position that Congress cannot investigate the president, except possibly in impeachment proceedings. It’s a spectacularly anti-constitutional brief, and anyone who harbors such attitudes toward our Constitution’s architecture is not fit for office. Trump’s brief is nothing if not an invitation to commencing impeachment proceedings that, for reasons set out in the Mueller report, should have already commenced.

The case involves a House committee’s efforts to follow up on the testimony of Trump’s now-incarcerated former attorney, Michael Cohen, that Trump had allegedly committed financial and tax fraud, and allegedly paid off paramours in violation of campaign finance laws. The House Committee on Oversight and Reform subpoenaed Trump’s accountants in mid-April for relevant documents, and Trump tried to block the move, only to be sternly rebuked in mid-May by a federal judge in Washington. The appeals brief filed Monday by Trump attacks that decision. But to describe Trump’s brief is to refute it. He argues that Congress is “trying to prove that the President broke the law” and that that’s something Congress can’t do, because it’s “an exercise of law enforcement authority that the Constitution reserves to the executive branch.” But in fact, Congress investigates lawbreaking, and potential lawbreaking, all the time. Mobsters, fraudsters, government employees, small companies, big companies — like it or not, all types of people and businesses get subpoenaed from time to time so that Congress can figure out whether current laws are effective, whether new laws are needed, whether sufficient governmental resources are being devoted to the task, whether more disclosure to the government or the public is required, or greater penalties, and so on.

Congress’s “power to investigate is deeply rooted in the nation’s history.” Congress, relying on English parliamentary tradition, has performed this function since the founding.

To accept Trump’s argument to the contrary — to say Congress can’t look into matters that might involve crimes — would in many cases gut Congress’s ability to gain information it needs to legislate. And perversely, in Trump’s case, it makes a virtue of the fact that he has been accused of committing crimes.

Which brings us to the main point: England’s King George III was above the law, but the founders of our republic wanted a system that would divide power and have the branches check one another. The idea that only the president can investigate the president is an argument for autocrats, not Americans. Congress could investigate Trump’s finances in an impeachment proceeding, but it can do so without launching the formal process of impeachment.

That said, Trump’s brief can be construed as an invitation to commence impeachment proceedings. In those proceedings, Trump’s attitudes toward our Constitution’s checks and balances, in addition to evidence of obstruction of justice, must play a key role. Indeed, the third article of impeachment against President Richard M. Nixon, adopted by the House Judiciary Committee in 1974, charged him with defying lawful subpoenas issued by the House Judiciary Committee.

Not only has Trump done that, but he has also demonized judges who disagree with him and insulted the press (despite its constitutional status) for calling him to account. Other leaders around the world may behave this way, but these are not proper actions of a president of the United States. What makes the United States exceptional is its commitment to its constitutional architecture, particularly divided powers.

For the past three decades, many constitutional law classes have begun with Nixon’s breathtaking statement to David Frost in May 1977: “Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” Generations of students have gasped, shocked that a former president could say such a thing. This time, it’s not a former president but a sitting one. Every principle behind the rule of law requires the commencement of a process now to make this president a former one.

Mike Pence’s Fantasy Running Mate

click image to enlarge

As noted in the previous post, one of the take aways from last night's vice presidential debate is the willingness that GOP vice presidential candidate Mike Pence has shown to lie and disclaim reality and behavior of his running mate that is captured on video.  In my view, it should surprise no one since Christofascists like Pence can generally be assumed to be lying if their lips are moving.  The New York Times editorial board correctly takes Pence to task on his dishonesty.  Here are excerpts:

We’ve seen presidential candidates in the past try to defend an unlikely choice of running mate. But we’ve never before seen a vice-presidential candidate try to defend a bizarre choice of nominee.

Yet that was the daunting task that Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana faced on Tuesday night, as he labored to defend Donald Trump, a nominee with contempt for many of the principles, much of the policy agenda and all of the dignity of the Republican Party that Mr. Pence cherishes.

Mr. Pence simply ignored the Donald Trump we have seen on the trail for more than a year — the one who would build a wall against Mexico, the one who would disregard our security treaties and tear up our trade agreements, the one with a crush on Vladimir Putin — and instead dreamed up a more conventional, right-wing Republican, a Republican, that is, very like Mike Pence.

Mr. Pence has his own political aspirations and abandoned his re-election bid for governor to sign on with Mr. Trump when he was surging.

Since then, Mr. Pence has been engaged in the same compromising maneuvers that Republican leaders like Paul Ryan, the House speaker, and Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, have been performing almost daily since they reluctantly embraced their party’s standard-bearer.

On Tuesday night, Mr. Pence resorted at times to repeating some of Mr. Trump’s own thin claims, including his preposterous justification for not releasing his tax returns. And he simply ducked rather than try to address questions about Mr. Trump’s egregious attacks on women and minorities; instead, he accused the Democrats of unleashing “an avalanche of insults” on his running mate.

Donald Trump and the Self-Prostitution of Evangelical Leaders

I had noted in a recent post how James Dobson had made the ludicrous statement that Donald Trump is a the equivalent of a "baby Christian" as part of the rationale for his decision - along with other evangelical extremists - to support Trump in the 2016 presidential election.  Once one stops either vomiting or laughing at the concept of Trump being even remotely a  Bible believe Christian, Dobson remarks reveal just how morally bankrupt the Christofascists have become and just how willing they are to prostitute themselves to someone like Trump in their never ending quest for power.  A piece in Salon looks at the moral sell out of Dobson, et al, and their true lover affair with access and power. Here are article highlights:

I’ve written quite a bit about Donald Trump’s unexpectedly successful wooing of the religious right in this presidential campaign. After all, we’ve been told for more than three decades now that conservative Christians require that America’s political leaders have the highest personal moral standards and adhere to a strict commitment to traditional values so he wasn’t expected to do well with them. Recall the stirring words of Focus on the Family’s James Dobson back in 1998 during the impeachment scandal:

As it turns out, character DOES matter. You can’t run a family, let alone a country, without it. How foolish to believe that a person who lacks honesty and moral integrity is qualified to lead a nation and the world! Nevertheless, our people continue to say that the President is doing a good job even if they don’t respect him personally. Those two positions are fundamentally incompatible 

We are facing a profound moral crisis — not only because one man has disgraced us — but because our people no longer recognize the nature of evil. And when a nation reaches that state of depravity — judgment is a certainty.

There was Ralph Reed, formerly of the Christian Coalition and current leader of the Faith and Family: 

”Character matters, and the American people are hungry for that message. We care about the conduct of our leaders, and we will not rest until we have leaders of good moral character.”

It’s fair to say that Donald Trump misses the mark on these requirements by a thousand miles.  With his three marriages, his history of public bragging about his sexual exploits and the size of his penis in the national media, and his obvious lack of even rudimentary knowledge of the Bible or any religious teachings, Christian or otherwise, he would seem to be the last person that people of strong faith would find acceptable.

But in the primaries, it became clear that he was drawing many of the voters Ted Cruz had counted on being in his corner. It’s not that Cruz didn’t get evangelical voters, it’s that he was only getting the ones who actually attended church.  . . . . it turns out that for a lot of people “evangelical” is itself just another cultural signifier like those boots and those pork rinds, a tribal designation rather than a serious adherence to Christian teachings.

That’s not to say that this particular group of self-identified evangelicals don’t believe in anything. They undoubtedly go to church from time to time and think of themselves as Christians. It’s just that they don’t actually live their lives in accordance to the Bible as Christian Right leaders have spent years indoctrinating the public to believe. They’re conservatives the way Donald Trump is conservative — authoritarian, intolerant and often cruel. 

A Christianity constantly looking for political answers to moral and spiritual problems gives believers an excuse to blame other people when they should be looking in the mirror.

But then the Christian Right has long been a political operation rather than a religious movement, hasn’t it?
 
This brings us to Trump’s most recent “outreach” to the religious right which took place last week in New York when Trump met with a large group of Christian leaders to set their minds at ease about his candidacy. . . . . he also sold himself as someone who would protect “religious liberty”—  the latest social conservative buzzword — with his Supreme Court picks which seemed to thrill the assembled church leaders.  

At the end of the meeting, Trump released a long list of religious right leaders as his “Evangelical advisory committee” including Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, a man who has been scathing in his criticism of Trump. (He torturously explained that he would agree to serve Hillary Clinton too because that’s what Jesus would do.)

Not everyone is buying it. This evangelical scholar suggests that the real believing evangelicals are being played:

What happened on Tuesday in New York was the theo-political equivalent of money laundering.  Dobson and his gang are making Trump clean so that he is worthy of evangelical votes.

So, all those white working class types who identify as evangelical but don’t go to church are being seduced by Trump’s crude nationalism and nativism, largely as result of religious leaders politicizing religion and turning it into a vehicle for their own secular power.  Now, after years of lectures about morality and personal rectitude in public life, they’ve sunk so low that they’re actually trying to convince the truly devout weekly church goers that this depraved demagogue is someone they should support.

 These people are making the spineless establishment Republicans look like saints by comparison.

When I look at Christian Right figures like James Dobson and Ralph Reed -  I met Reed years ago and he struck me as a conflicted closeted gay  and made my gaydar alarm go off the charts - it reinforces my desire to no longer call myself a Christian.  These foul people have become the face of Christianity and the so-called "good Christians" remain sitting on their hands doing little or noting to silence these hate merchants thus becoming by default complicit in the horrors they do and the harm they cause to so many. 

Kansas and South Carolina Join Marriage Equality States

Despite what looks to be a brief victory in the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals under an opinion that is making some White supremacists proud, the opponents of gay marriage had another losing day yesterday as (i) the U.S. Supreme Court refused to continue a stay delaying marriage equality in Kansas and (ii) a federal court in South Carolina struck down that states marriage ban based on the precedent of Bostic and the state's inability to any rational basis for the ban.   Metro Weekly looks at the news.  First highlights on Kansas which would suggest that Judge Sutton's anti-gay ruling at the 6th Circuit is fated for reversal:

The U.S. Supreme Court ended the hold on same-sex marriages in Kansas Wednesday, thus allowing same-sex nuptials to proceed in the state.

In an order issued this afternoon, the nation’s highest court denied the request for a stay by Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt of a lower court ruling striking the state’s ban on same-sex marriage.

Schmidt had filed the request with Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who oversees the 10th Circuit. Sotomayor issued a temporary stay while the request was considered and referred the stay request to the entire Supreme Court. The order notes that Supreme Court Justices Anthonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas would have granted the stay.

Kansas is one of the states in a circuit impacted by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last month declining to hear arguments in cases challenging same-sex marriage bans in five states — Utah, Oklahoma, Virginia, Indiana and Wisconsin — thus allowing lower court decisions legalizing marriage equality in those states to stand. Because the Supreme Court left intact rulings by the 4th Circuit, 7th Circuit and 10th Circuit Courts of Appeals striking down same-sex marriage bans in those five states, those appeals courts’ decisions applied to six other states in those three circuits: West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kansas, Colorado and Wyoming.

Note that only Scalia and Thomas would have granted the stay.  Yet, not surprisingly, Kansas GOP governor Sam Brownback, homophobe extraordinaire, says he will appeal, although its unclear where he can appeal to.   South Carolina finds itself in a similar posture as Kansas: the ruling in the 4th Circuit which was allowed to stand by the U.S. Supreme Court is binding on that state.  A federal judge made that official yesterday.  Despite the inevitable, Republicans say that they will appeal.  Again, the question is where to - the 4th Circuit and Supreme Courts have spoken.  Here are additional highlights from Metro Weekly.

A federal judge struck down South Carolina’s ban on same-sex marriage in a ruling handed down Wednesday.

U.S. District Court Judge Richard Mark Gergel found South Carolina laws prohibiting same-sex couples from marrying “unconstitutionally infringe on the rights of Plaintiffs under the Due Process Clause and Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution and are invalid as a matter of law.”

According to Gergel, the decision by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals striking down Virginia’s same-sex marriage ban “controls the disposition of the issues before this Court and establishes, without question, the right of Plaintiffs to marry as same sex partners.”

Although Gergel denied a stay pending appeal due to the unlikelihood that the South Carolina ban will be upheld, he did grant a temporary stay until noon on Nov. 20 to allow South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson to petition either the 4th Circuit or the U.S. Supreme Court for a longer stay.

The willingness of Republican officials to seek appeals that are clear dead ends underscore the desperate desire of these individuals to prostitute themselves to the Christofascists.  Meanwhile, all they are doing is wasting taxpayer funds which they might just as well place in a pile and set on fire. 

Are "Culture Warriors" Becoming a GOP Liability?

Here in Virginia and in other states - especially "red states" - across the country, the Republican Party continues to shamelessly prostitute itself to the ugliest and most extreme elements of the "Christian Right."   Perhaps this is the expected result of a political party that has allowed itself to become a sectarian party dominated by "Christian" extremists who, if the truth be told, want a far theocracy which would throw the U.S. Constitution on the trash heap.  But, in Virginia and elsewhere, this self-prostitution is becoming more and more of a long term liability as urban areas and younger voters reject the toxic message of those not so far distant from ISIS in terms of their desire to force their religion on all.  As the New York Times notes, Democrats are finally waking up to the fact that calling out GOP extremists can be a winning approach.  Here are column highlights:

Not long ago, it would have been unusual for a Democratic senatorial candidate in Iowa to run a powerful abortion-rights television ad like the one recently broadcast by Representative Bruce Braley.

[P]ersonhood ideas, shared by at least five other Republican candidates for United States Senate this year, have been radical for years. What’s new is that Democrats are increasingly willing to say so. For years they were cowed by the religious right into changing the subject when abortion or birth control or same-sex marriage came up. But now, increasingly assured that public opinion supports their positions, Democrats have become more aggressive in challenging Republicans about their beliefs.

The decision to go on the offensive is in part designed to incite the anger of women and draw support in the November elections, particularly that of single women, who tend to vote in small numbers in midterms. But it is also a reflection of the growing obsolescence of traditional Republican wedge issues in state after state. For a younger generation of voters, the old right-wing nostrums about the “sanctity of life” and the “sanctity of marriage” have lost their power, revealed as intrusions on human freedom. Democrats “did win the culture war,” Alex Castellanos, a Republican strategist, admitted to The New York Times recently.

One of the most telling signs of the cultural change is the number of Republicans who are bucking conservative activists and trying to soft-pedal or even retreat from their ideology. . . . . Several other Republican candidates are trumpeting their support for over-the-counter birth control pills, though they remain opposed to the insurance coverage of contraception required by the Affordable Care Act.

In Oregon, the Republican candidate for the Senate, Monica Wehby, is running an ad promoting her support of same-sex marriage.

The shift in public opinion might not be enough for Democrats to keep the Senate this year. But over time, it may help spell an end to the politics of cultural division.

I look forward to the day when Christofascists are not welcome within the GOP - or in decent society.  They need to become cultural piranhas.

House Republicans Propose Nationwide Religious Based "‘License To Discriminate"

Proving once again that today's Republican Party is caught in the stranglehold of the Christofascists and hate groups like Family Research Council, etc., Republicans in the House of Representatives led by Raul Labrador (pictured above) have introduced a bill that would allow far right Christians to discriminate at will against those they deem offensive to their narrow, hate and fear based religious beliefs.  Naturally gays and also unmarried heterosexual couples "living in sin" are targets.  It's a recipe for chaos and arguably seeks to set up conservative Christianity as America's established religion.  So much for the U. S. Constitution and non-discrimination laws.  As I have repeated over and over again, the Christofascists are nasty, selfish, self-centered people who do not give a damn about the rights of others.  The rest of society needs to see them for the foul force in society that they are.  Think Progress looks at this dangerous batshitery.  Here are highlights:

A group of House Republicans, led by Rep. Raúl Labrador (R-ID), has proposed a new bill that would provide a nationwide “license to discriminate” against married same-sex couples. Though Labrador claims the bill protects “religious liberty,” it is nothing less than a blanket invitation to deny benefits to same-sex couples that they are entitled to under law.

According to the draft of the bill (HR 3133), there would be no consequences for any organization or individual that chooses not to recognize a same-sex marriage:

The Federal Government shall not take an adverse action against a person, on the basis that such person acts in accordance with a religious belief that marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman, or that sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage.

Under the guise of “religious freedom,” this bill specifically endorses one particular set of religious beliefs without concern for any others, a pretty clear violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

The consequences of this legislation would be immense, such that a few individuals could short-circuit the rights of gay and lesbian couples across the country. Given its prudish inclusion of opposition to premarital sex, these consequences could likely apply to many straight couples as well. Here are a few possible examples of the potential for abuse:

• Businesses could refuse to provide leave for an employee to take care of a sick same-sex spouse.
• Federal workers processing tax returns, visa applications, or Social Security filings could refuse to do their job if it meant providing benefits to a same-sex couple.
• Federally funded programs like homeless shelters and substance abuse programs could turn away LGBT people.
• A church-run hospital could refuse to provide visitation privileges to a married same-sex couple without fear of endangering their tax-exempt status.

[T]he National Organization for Marriage has enthusiastically endorsed the legislation and the Heritage Foundation claimed it will “encourage tolerance.”

As for Rep. Labrador, one can only wonder how long it will be before we learn that he's been busted in a sting for soliciting a blow job in a rest room somewhere.