Modern Day Pharisee Evangelicals Look to Rescue GOP

I try not to reference articles from the same publication more than once per day, but I could not pass up this second piece in the New York Times that looks at the plan on the part of evangelical Christian organizations to mobilize a massive voter turnout operation in the lead up to the 2018 midterm elections.  For these groups and their followers, the fact that the GOP's agenda is the antithesis of Christ's social gospel message and/ot the fact that Donald Trump is close to being the antiChrist when it comes to living a life that is the diametrical opposite of the Christian message seemingly is irrelevant.  Instead, their sole focus is on supporting a man/political party that gives them deference and that attacks and denigrates their perceived enemies, gays and Muslims leading the way in terms of those most hated. The take away, for me, is that anyone who values the separation of church and state needs to redouble their efforts to support Democrat candidates and urge family and friends to vote come November, 2018.  Here are article excerpts:

The conservative Christian coalition that helped usher President Trump into power in 2016 is planning its largest midterm election mobilization ever, with volunteers fanning out from the church pews to the streets to register voters, raise money and persuade conservatives that they cannot afford to be complacent this year.

But the cumulative weight of scandals in Mr. Trump’s private and public life is threatening to overshadow what the religious right sees as its most successful string of policy victories in a generation. And Republicans will be up against not only a resurgent liberal opposition to Mr. Trump but also the historical disadvantages that burden any party in full control of Washington, especially in the first off-year congressional elections of a president’s term.

The vast majority of evangelical Christians are digging in for Mr. Trump, despite accusations by a pornographic film star and a Playboy playmate that he had separate affairs with them shortly after his wife, Melania Trump, gave birth to their son. Those controversies, paired with the multiple women who accused him of groping them before the election and his own boasts of sexual aggressions, have highlighted the unyielding support of a political bloc that once put moral behavior at the center of its political judgment.

“Now even the Christian culture is O.K. with it,” said Jim Daly, the president of Focus on the Family, one of the nation’s largest evangelical groups. “That’s the sadness,” he added. “The next time a Democrat in the presidency has a moral failure, who’s going to be able to say anything?”

But Christian conservatives say Mr. Trump has also more than honored his end of the bargain . . . He has begun the process of moving the American Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, won the confirmation of numerous judges and a Supreme Court Justice who seem likely to advance their anti-abortion cause, moved against transgender protections throughout the government, increased the ability of churches to organize politically . . .

“I don’t know of anyone who has worked the evangelical community more effectively than Donald Trump,” said Ralph Reed, the chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, which this year plans to devote four times the money it spent in the 2014 midterms.

A poll released last week by the Public Religion Research Institute found white evangelical approval for Mr. Trump at its highest level ever: 75 percent. Only 22 percent said they had an unfavorable view of the president.

The message to energize Christian conservatives has twin purposes: to inspire them to celebrate their victories and to stoke enough grievance to prod them to vote. . . . leaders of the movement plan to lean hard into a message that fans fears and grudges: that the progressive movement and national media mock Christian life and threaten everything religious conservatives have achieved in the 15 months of the Trump administration.

Leaders of the Christian right have not only largely accepted Mr. Trump’s flaws and moved on; they seem to almost dare the president’s opponents to throw more at him. Ms. Nance said she heard a common sentiment from volunteers and supporters who did not seem bothered by the allegations of Mr. Trump’s infidelity.

The danger for Republicans is the many evangelicals who do not like what the president is doing. His petty insults, coarse language, lack of humility and private life are difficult to square with Christian faith, opponents say. The president has helped devalue character, morality and fidelity as essential qualities in political leaders, they say.

A meeting of evangelical leaders in Illinois last week featured a frank and candid discussion of the president’s failings, prompting some pro-Trump attendees to walk out.

The take away is that the "leaders" of the evangelicals will disseminate yet more calls to fear and hatred while underscoring their utter moral bankruptcy as they link evangelicals to a man devoid of basic morality.  One can only hope that as a result revulsion for evangelicals will grow and the exodus of Americans from organized religion will accelerate. Christianity has become something hideous under Trump supporting evangelicals. 

How a Porn Star Became More Credible Than Trump

A piece in Vanity Fair takes a look at why Stormy Daniels is viewed by many as more credible than Donald Trump (I never give him the title "president" since it diminishes the office).  True, Trump is a pathological liar and lies about countless things where only someone brain dead and utterly incurious would know in a heartbeat - or after a quick Google search - that the words flowing from Trump's lips are complete lies or, at best, half truths.  Instead, the piece suggests that porn and porn performers have become more respectable and that as a consequence stigma that once might have destroyed Daniels' credibility has greatly abated.   Indeed, the Bible Belt has the highest use of Internet porn.  Here are article highlights and I'd like to know what readers think:

It wasn’t so long ago that the sort of person who made their livelihood by starring in a film called Sexbots: Programmed for Pleasure, or who staged a nationwide strip-club tour under the banner “Make America Horny Again,” would have had some serious credibility issues. Yet ever since she emerged as a fetching national figure, Stephanie Clifford, the adult-film actress and exotic dancer known as Stormy Daniels, has resoundingly appeared more credible than [Trump]the president. It’s the result, certainly, of Trump’s own complications with honesty, . . . . And it also has something to do with Clifford’s sangfroid as a canny, press-savvy entrepreneur and entertainer.

She seemed preternaturally collected during her much-hyped appearance on 60 Minutes. Indeed, after federal agents raided the office and hotel room of Michael Cohen, who offered Clifford $130,000 in hush money, it is [Trump] the president who has seemed ruffled and the porn star who seems demure. One presumes they will both be watching her appearance on The View on Tuesday.

But Clifford’s credibility also owes to a less obvious transformation that took place during the 1990s, when the culture, if inadvertently, was beginning to normalize porn. Long considered a medium that degraded women, exploited actors, and de-valued sexual intimacy, pornography began gaining mainstream traction in the 1980s. It became inexpensive and ubiquitous thanks to videotapes, cable, satellite, pay-per-view, and CD-ROMs, developing into a multi-billion-dollar industry.

After the introduction of the World Wide Web, in 1991, a new boom followed: online porn, which opened the kimono to every age, demo, geographic region, and kink. And with a culturally progressive president occupying the White House, porn prosecutions—which had been on the rise under Ronald Reagan—virtually dried up.

At the same time, baby boomers were coming of age, and many of them, children of the counterculture, considered porn a form of pop-culture camp. The guy and gal next door suddenly realized that they, too, could make a career for a while by getting down and dirty in front of a video camera.

The 90s was also a period of peak erotic indulgence and adult entertainment. Massage parlors and “spas”—fronts for sexual favors—set up shop in suburban strip malls. Several thousand gentleman’s clubs, many of them decidedly upscale, operated across the heartland. The stories and struggles of exotic dancers, adult-film performers, escorts, and sex workers—who were often socially and economically disadvantaged to begin with—surfaced in the press and on the screen.

Which is another way of saying that Clifford’s stock-in-trade had become rather ho-hum—a career so common that it would not disqualify someone like her from comporting (or posing for pictures) with a future president—a man whose name until recently graced Atlantic City’s Taj Mahal, once home to a strip club.

All of this occurred against the backdrop of the tabloidization of the news. In the 80s and 90s, news items that involved infidelity, crime, violence, or graphic footage were referred to, among America’s editors and news directors, as sexy. . . . . Meanwhile, TV newsmagazines and supermarket tabloids were turning the nocturnal exploits of public personalities into addictive serials.

And now, of course, Clifford seems almost a conventional player in a Trump-era news cycle that has brought us Anthony Scaramucci, Don King, and the Mnuchins taking selfies at the U.S. Mint. During these crazy days, a scandal with a porn star is at least a crisis [Trump] with precedent.

Add to all of this Trump's own sleazy escapades and serial adulteries, and perhaps the author is on to something. 

The Stormy Daniels Scandal Gets Serious

Alleged Trump mistress Stormy Daniels.

Ironically, most of Donald Trump's problems are self-made and the growing scandal swirling around porn star Stormy Daniels' affair with Trump is a perfect example.  Like so many other of the Trump/Pence regime scandals, this scandal - which would upset evangelical Christians if they actually stood for what they claim - stems directly from Trump's belief that he can do whatever he wants.  A wife and small infant at home, who cares.  Ditto for possible conspiracies with Russia.  Ditto for the stream of daily lies.  The law and common morality simply mean nothing to the man.  Now, the Stormy Daniels scandal seems to be gaining steam and more and more questions grow about possible illegalities that may surround the $130,000 in hush money paid to Danils under a bizarre agreement that seemingly did not use either Daniels' or Trump's names.  A column in the New York Times looks at the mounting scandal which, if Republicans were consistent with the feigned outrage over the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal, ought to be resulting in outrage.  Here are column highlights:

In January we learned, thanks to The Wall Street Journal, that Michael Cohen, a lawyer for Donald Trump, arranged a $130,000 hush money payment to the pornographic film star known as Stormy Daniels in the closing days of the 2016 presidential campaign. The payment was to stop Daniels from speaking out about an alleged affair she’d had with Trump shortly after Melania Trump, his third wife, gave birth to their son, Barron.

With any previous president the story would have been explosive, but with this one, it felt relatively minor. The real scandal, it seemed, was that there was no scandal, because no one expects any better of Trump. The religious right was willing to give him a “mulligan,” in the words of Tony Perkins, president of the [hate group] Family Research Council. Liberals rolled their eyes at right-wing hypocrisy, but ranked the affair fairly low on the list of Trump outrages.

But Daniels — whose real name is Stephanie Clifford — is a clever capitalist who’s been determined to force the story of her relationship with Trump into the public eye. She has parlayed her new notoriety into a series of strip-club appearances, including two in South Florida on Friday and Saturday. More significantly, her lawyer has filed a lawsuit arguing that the nondisclosure agreement she signed is null and void because Trump himself never signed it. The suit, ingeniously, has given Daniels’s lawyer a pretext to make that agreement public.

[F]or all its sordid details, it isn’t really a sex scandal. It’s a campaign finance scandal, a transparency scandal and potentially part of an ongoing national security scandal. It’s salacious and absurd, but we should take it seriously. Trump’s team certainly seems to; Cohen recently obtained a temporary restraining order to silence Daniels.

Let’s start with the campaign finance piece. On Jan. 22, the nonpartisan government watchdog group Common Cause filed complaints with the Federal Election Commission and the Department of Justice claiming that the $130,000 payment to Daniels constituted an in-kind contribution to Trump’s presidential campaign, in violation of federal campaign law.

[T]he release of the NDA makes clear that Trump himself was a party to the agreement. If Trump authorized the $130,000 payment, it’s harder to explain away his campaign’s failure to disclose it, as required by law.                               He calls it the “Al Capone problem.” The Daniels NDA refers repeatedly to “property” that she agreed to turn over to Trump, including video images, still images, emails and text messages. Eisen argues that Trump was required to report ownership of this property, as well as any obligations he might have had to reimburse Cohen for the $130,000, in his federal financial disclosure forms. . . . . “Imagine what she could get if she has texts or images. Imagine the millions she could command! So there’s this incredibly valuable agreement, and the L.L.C., Essential Consultants, which Trump now appears to be a beneficiary of. That’s an asset.” But it’s an asset Trump didn’t reveal.

Finally, the Daniels story is germane to the overriding scandal of the Trump administration, the one involving Trump’s relationship with Russia. Christopher Steele, the British ex-spy who compiled an infamous dossier of opposition research on Trump, wrote that Russia could blackmail Trump with evidence of his “sexual perversion.” Nothing we know of Daniels confirms the dossier’s outré claims about what such perversion entailed. The NDA does, however, show that Trump was susceptible to blackmail. 

Indeed, Daniels isn’t the only woman who was allegedly paid off after an encounter with Trump. . . . . Steve Bannon told “Fire and Fury” author Michael Wolff that another Trump lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, “took care” of “a hundred women” during the campaign.  “It all kind of fits together in a way,” Nick Akerman, a former Watergate prosecutor, said of the Daniels scandal and the Russia one. “It’s really blackmail over sex.”

Ultimately, the details of Trump’s relationship with Daniels will likely come out. . . . Should Daniels prevail in court, we might learn interesting information about the president. Among other things, the NDA forbids her from discussing Trump’s “alleged children” or “paternity information.” But the scandal will lie less in the details of Trump’s degeneracy than in the steps he and his lawyers took to cover it up. “This is early days yet in the unfolding of this scandal,” said Eisen. Like Trump himself, it’s preposterous, but it’s not going away.

I hope Daniels is successful in getting the story out.  I have no desire to see images of a naked Trump cavorting with Daniels - the very though is repulsive and vomit worthy - but I do want all of this rubbed in the faces of the evangelical Christians who threw away morality when they voted for Trump and Republicans only too willing to prostitute them self to Trump and the hideous GOP party base.  I suspect that the only person laughing about all of this is Vladimir Putin who likely has more sexual escapade bombshells in his possession.  As for Melania, I feel sorry for her, but she should have known what she was getting herself into given Trumps adulterous past. 

Evangelicals Sell Their Souls for Trump

Speaking of the toxicity of evangelical Christians, a column in The Hill looks at how this segment of American society has sold its collective soul for Donald Trump, a man now confirmed to have paid hush money at least twice to cover up stories of marital infidelity while his current wife was at home with his infant son.  And let's not forget Trump's bragging about sexually molesting women in the Access Hollywood tape.  These modern day Pharisees who want to regulate the sex lives of everyone else - even as they have the highest usage of Internet porn - continue to turn a blind eye toward a man whose behavior is abhorrent to anyone with true moral standards.  Here are article highlights:

When it comes to the Stormy Daniels story, it is hard for me to understand the silence from evangelical Christians.  Let it sink in: It is now confirmed that the president’s personal lawyer paid a porn star for her silence.

After the story broke, a friend sent me an old article from a left-wing website. Democrats, the story said, beat themselves up for not better understanding white, Christian support for President Trump.  But that is a fool’s errand, the writer argued, because there is no understanding people who don’t accept facts.  The facts on the porn star and Trump became clear last week when Michael D. Cohen, the president’s lawyer, said he personally paid $130,000 to Daniels.

The money changed hands just before the 2016 election to allegedly stop her from talking about a sexual affair with candidate Trump that took place in 2006, just after Trump’s wife had a baby.  There is no longer any way to deny the fact of the payment and the nature of the tawdry story.

Also, there is no way to deny a former Playboy playmate’s telling of another extramarital affair with the president in 2006 and 2007.

And there is no way to deny that FBI Director Christopher Wray testified to Congress last week that Trump’s White House knew about two serious charges of domestic abuse against top aide Rob Porter but let him keep his job. Porter resigned only when those allegations became public.

Yes, the injunction to let he who is without sin cast the first stone is an important one. But it now seems clear that evangelical Christians, who hold up biblical edicts on lying, cheating and adultery, don’t care about the word of God when it comes to Trump.

A January poll for The Washington Post and ABC News “found 68 percent of white evangelical Protestants approve of Trump’s job performance — a figure that is nearly double that of the population as a whole and that is higher than any other religious or demographic group.” For a group that regularly preaches about the “sanctity of marriage” and inveighs against the evils of divorce, it was a major political puzzle to me when evangelicals first backed the thrice-married, adulterous Trump over Hillary Clinton.

She suffered years of public humiliation rather than breaking up her family, turning away from marriage vows and divorcing her philandering husband.

And now the puzzling behavior of evangelicals is pushed to the limit by their support for Trump despite the slimy facts of the Stormy Daniels story.

What we are seeing is a hollow core in evangelical faith as practiced by its leaders. . . . . [Pastor Robert] Jeffress said he doesn’t “care” if Trump is a religious phony but only that Trump has “embraced and enacted” policies favored by Jeffress and other evangelicals.

That led Tara I. Burton to conclude in an article on Vox that Jeffress’ indifference about Trump’s nasty earlier comments about "shithole countries" in fact “revealed the dark heart of Christian nationalism: It is as much…about jingoism and ethno-nationalism as it ever has been about Christian values.”

When it comes to Trump, the nation’s political, social and historical norms do not matter anymore.

Truly, no decent and moral person should give evangelicals the time of day.  Their hypocrisy and dishonesty is stunning.  

There’s a Good Chance Trump Is Being Blackmailed

In the wake of the Stormy Daniels sex scandal swirling around serial adulterer and self-proclaimed sexual predator Donald Trump, a new story of illicit sex and payoffs has come out, this time involving a former Playboy playmate.  As in the Daniels sexcapade, this latest affair to be revealed,   took place while Trump's youngest child was an infant and steps were taken to payoff Trump's sex partner to guarantee her silence.  All of which makes some wonder: were the sex stories in the Steele dossier true and, if so, is Trump being blackmailed by Vladimir Putin?   One can just imagine Putin reminding Trump of what a sensation the alleged "golden shower" video would be.   A second question, at least in my mind, is when are evangelical Christians going to disavow Trump.   A piece in New York Magazine looks at the question of Trump being blackmailed.  Here are excerpts:

We have no idea if the wildest and most memorable allegation Christopher Steele picked up in his investigation of Donald Trump — that the future president is vulnerable to Russian blackmail related to his paying Russian prostitutes in 2013 — is true. There are two common grounds for skepticism. One is that Trump, who is known both for his affairs and for grabbing women, would pay for sex. The second is that a man so happily associated with infidelity and vice could be blackmailed at all. We now know neither of these objections holds water.

Ronan Farrow’s new story shows that Trump habitually pays for sex. He had an affair with former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal, and offered her money after sex, which she turned down. At another point in the story, he offered adult entertainer Jessica Drake $10,000 for “her company.”

Farrow’s reporting also implies, without quite establishing as an absolute certainty, that Trump maintained a system for silencing his sexual partners. A network of sleazy operators, sometimes working in conjunction with National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, Trump’s close friend, would pay off women to prevent their stories from seeing the light of day. 

So, we know Trump habitually pays for sex, and we also know he is willing to pay to keep embarrassing secrets from going public. That is to say, these secrets could be leveraged against him. One of Pecker’s former employees tells Farrow, “In theory, you would think that Trump has all the power in that relationship, but in fact Pecker has the power — he has the power to run these stories. He knows where the bodies are buried.” What else do we know? We know Russia has a decades-old system for gathering compromising sexual secrets on prominent foreign visitors. We also know Trump harbored a burning resentment of President Obama in the wake of Obama’s mocking him at the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner. And many reports of Trump’s decision-making suggest that the strongest consideration in any decision is the chance to defile or destroy something associated with Obama.

Far from being bizarre, imagining Trump paying prostitutes to pee on a bed Obama used as a primitive revenge ritual, and Russians taping the episode, is perfectly consistent with what we know about both parties.  That exact scenario may not have happened. Indeed, sex is not the only kind of secret Trump harbors.

Some of that information is in the hands of his business partners, many of whom are associated with Russia or are unsavory in some other way. All in all, the odds are disconcertingly high that Russia, or somebody, has blackmail leverage over the president of the United States.

Disgusting and frightening as well.  And remember, evangelical Christians who want to dictate what others do in their bedrooms, support this foul and disgusting individual.  They have ZERO moral authority.  Absolutely ZERO! 

Will Evangelicals' Support of Trump Be Their Undoing?

I have been following evangelical groups for well over two decades.  My first exposure was during my years as a Republican Party activist and member of the City Committee of the Republican Party of Virginia Beach which I helped incorporate.  Over the years my impression of evangelical leaders and their followers has basically gone down with every passing day, month and year.  Much fanfare is put on to supposedly demonstrate their piety and religiosity, but in the final analysis, as a group, no on lies more often and more insidiously or is more self-centered and oblivious to the Gospel message of loving others and caring for the poor, the sick, homeless and needy in the world. And that's not even counting in the "scamvangelists" who push the prosperity gospel and rake in millions and live lives of conspicuous consumption, huge mansions, private jets, etc.   Indeed, the true mark of far too many evangelicals is hatred of others, racism, rejection of knowledge and science and a mindset that the end justifies the means, no matter how reprehensible.   Their continued support of Donald Trump underscores the moral bankruptcy of these individuals and their self-anointed leaders.  As a piece in the Washington Post suggests, with luck they will lose what little moral authority they have left with the general public.  It's already happened with Millennials.  Now it needs to happen across the board.  Here are article highlights:

Few voting blocs back President Trump as strongly as white evangelicals. Many of them on Friday reminded the world why as they descended upon Washington for the March for Life, one of the nation's largest antiabortion gatherings.

Trump became the first sitting president to address the event and reminded those in attendance that ending legal abortion and protecting religious freedom, issues on which he campaigned, will remain priorities for him throughout his administration.

At the rally, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) credited God for Trump’s election, saying: “Can we just thank God for giving us a pro-life president back in the White House?”

While not specifically a religious event, the annual march on the Mall in Washington attracts evangelicals, Catholics and conservative Christians who share a common goal of overturning Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court ruling on abortion rights.

Before entering the 2016 presidential election, Trump was better known for his “Playboy” tendencies than possessing conservative Christian values, but many evangelicals embraced Trump as he ran for the Republican presidential nomination. Jerry Falwell Jr., the son of the founder of the Moral Majority movement and president of Liberty University, went so far as to call Trump “a dream president.”
 Their support has not wavered much, even after the recent claim by porn star Stormy Daniels that Trump had an affair with her and paid her hush money before the election. For many evangelical voters, moving America forward means continuing to support the most antiabortion candidate regardless of his track record on any other moral issue. A recent testament of that came last month, when white evangelical voters in Alabama overwhelmingly backed Senate candidate Roy Moore, despite his facing allegations of sexually assaulting multiple teenage girls while in his 30s. For a group of people who regularly view themselves as soldiers in a culture war, there is some belief that evangelicals could wind up losing the overall fight for moral authority over the country and the world.

While many white evangelicals are unapologetic about being one-issue voters when it comes to abortion, others within and outside of the Christian faith argue other topics — including character and “loving your neighbor as yourself” — must be of high importance in deciding who will lead the country forward. These voters say a comprehensive conversation about family values has to include issues beyond abortion and are looking for candidates who are willing to do that.
 Trump's recent reported reference to Haiti, El Salvador and countries in Africa as “shitholes” caused conservative blogger Erick Erickson to question if some evangelicals had reached a breaking point with the president and the Republican Party. In an Acts of Faith post, he questioned the impact this would have on the 2018 elections and beyond:

These evangelicals are patriotic Americans, but their Christianity comes first and they realize they cannot separate their vote from their faith. As they see fellow Christians beclowning themselves to defend the indefensible, they want no part of it. So they will wash their hands of it and stay home or they will join African American and Hispanic Christians in voting for those who have spoken loudly against the rise of white nationalism and Trump’s abhorrent behavior.

Winning the White House has always been important to evangelicals. But historically, winning people to the Christian faith has taken higher priority. To some within the tribe, it appears the former has replaced the latter.

Trump, Porn Stars and Evangelical Christian Moral Bankruptcy

Here in Richmond in the afterglow of the inauguration of three decent and moral leaders who will lead Virginia for the next four years, one has to pause to recall that the majority of evangelical Christians voted against these new leaders who reject the values and ugliness of Trumpism.  Meanwhile, these same "Christians" continue to support the current occupant of the White House who continues to put his moral depravity on constant display.  Between the continuing international fallout and condemnation for his "shit hole" remarks directed at majority non-white nations and new disclosures of Trump's payments of hush money to porn stars with whom he allegedly cheated on his current wife, one has to wonder (i) what is wrong with these "Christians" and (ii) why does anyone give them any deference.  They need to be condemned like their "dear leader" and avoided by decent, moral people.  The following are highlights from a piece in the Washington Post and The Daily Beast that look at Trump's sexual immorality.  First these highlights from the Post:

An adult-film star was paid $130,000 by a lawyer for Donald Trump in the weeks before the 2016 election to not talk publicly about a sexual relationship with the then-Republican candidate, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

The lawyer, Michael Cohen, allegedly paid Stephanie Clifford to remain silent about an encounter at Lake Tahoe in 2006, a year after Trump married his third wife, Melania, according to the Journal. The Journal said the payment was made to a client-trust account at City National Bank in Los Angeles.

Cohen has called himself Trump’s “fix-it man” and has become part of the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election for his emails to Russian officials about a business project there, including a note to Vladi­mir Putin’s spokesman.  

In the days before the 2016 election, the Journal reported that Clifford was in talks with ABC’s “Good Morning America” to air her story about Trump. That report came days after The Washington Post released a video from a 2005 “Access Hollywood” recording in which Trump said he could grab women by the genitals because he was famous.

The Journal also reported in 2016 that the National Enquirer — a publication owned by a close friend of Trump — paid Playboy model Karen McDougal $150,000 for her story about an affair with Trump but never published it. 

Then there is this in the Daily Beast:

The Daily Beast was informed late Friday that porn star Jessica Drake is not allowed to discuss President Donald J. Trump on account of a non-disclosure agreement she signed barring her from any such talk. NDAs are often deployed as part of settlements to silence accusers.

“Jessica’s NDA blankets any and every mention of Trump, so she’s legally unable to comment,” her publicist informed The Daily Beast. “Jessica signed a non-disclosure agreement after her allegations of misconduct, and she can’t do as much as peep his name publicly.”

In late October 2016, Drake became the 14th woman to accuse then-candidate Trump of sexual misconduct. At a public press conference, Drake, flanked by her attorney Gloria Allred, claimed that after she met Trump in July 2006 at Nevada’s American Century Celebrity Golf Championship, where she was working a promotional booth on behalf of the adult film company Wicked Pictures, he made a pass at her. Trump’s wife, Melania, had recently given birth to their son Barron at the time. She alleged that Trump later called her and asked, “'What do you want? How much?” and then offered her $10,000 for sex. “This is not acceptable behavior for anyone, much less a presidential candidate,” Drake said at the presser. The Drake NDA news comes on the heels of a Friday report in The Wall Street Journal that President Donald J. Trump’s longtime lawyer, Michael Cohen, had arranged a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels “as part of an agreement that precluded her from publicly discussing an alleged sexual encounter with Mr. Trump.” Around the time Drake came forward, then-candidate Trump issued a vow of revenge, threatening to sue every woman who came forward to accuse him of sexual misconduct. “Every woman lied when they came forward to hurt my campaign,” Trump announced at a rally in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on Oct. 22, 2016. “Total fabrication. The events never happened. Never. All of these liars will be sued after the election is over.”   Thus far, he has not sued a single one. 

The reason one doesn't sue is because one in litigation, Trump could be sworn under oath and the courts could order the production of banking records, etc.  Trump will never sue these women because he'd lose and they would likely be shown to have been telling the truth - something that is unknown to Trump.

As for the evangelicals who continue to support this vile man, it's the height of hypocrisy that they say the gays threaten the "sanctity of marriage" even as they support this serial sexual predator and hate-filled man. Oh, and as for porn stars, they are more honest, in my view, than many of the "godly folk" who pretend to be something that they are not.

GOP In Panic Mode As Outrage with Trump Soars

My youngest daughter - a Millennial voter - shared this photo on Facebook.  Thankfully, some Millenniasl "get it."

Part of me cannot help but laugh as many in the GOP go into complete panic mode as Friday's release of a tape of Donald Trump's misogynist comments on women goes viral.  I mean, WTF did they think they were getting with Trump?  The man has a decades long history of bigotry and anti-women misogyny. Why the feigned surprise?  Why are Republican woman just now waking up to the reality of who and what Donald Trump is and will always be?  As a former Republican who resigned from the party over the party's refusal to recognize the concept of the separation of church and state not to mention the racism always just under the surface with many Republicans, I relish that the GOP's chickens are coming home to roost.  A piece in Politico look at the panic gripping the GOP.  Here are excerpts:

The Republican Party was in a state of turmoil on Friday night over revelations that Donald Trump once bragged in explicit terms about sexually harassing women, driving GOP leaders to denounce their nominee and even prompting calls that he leave the presidential ticket.

But while Trump and his senior aides huddled to strategize next steps, many Republicans felt paralyzed -- stuck with a candidate few ever wholeheartedly embraced with only 31 days left until Election Day.

Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz withdrew his endorsement, saying: "I’m out. I can no longer in good conscience endorse this person for president. It is some of the most abhorrent and offensive comments that you can possibly imagine."

Even Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, who has emerged as a trusted Trump ally and adviser, scolded in scorching terms: "No woman should ever be described in these terms or talked about in this manner. Ever.”

The party's past nominees were unflinching in their condemnation.

“Hitting on married women? Condoning assault? Such vile degradations demean our wives and daughters and corrupt America's face to the world,” Mitt Romney, the party’s last GOP presidential nominee, wrote on Twitter. And Arizona Sen. John McCain, the 2008 nominee, said Trump could have no excuse: "No woman should ever be victimized by this kind of inappropriate behavior. He alone bears the burden of his conduct and alone should suffer the consequences.”

Even within Trump’s own campaign, there was an overriding sense of doom. One aide expressed doubt that the GOP nominee, who has successfully weathered a number of scandals, would be able to ride the current firestorm.

There's "absolutely no excuse to ever talk about women in such a crude and demeaning way," Trump’s Texas chair, Dan Patrick, was quoted as saying.

As the hours passed, some Republicans began to call for Trump to step aside, leaving the presidential race to vice presidential nominee Mike Pence. Rob Engstrom, the Chamber of Commerce’s national political director, was the first to call for Trump to quit, followed by Rep. Mike Coffman, former N.Y. Gov. George Pataki, Virginia Rep. Barbara Comstock and Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse.

Utah Sen. Mike Lee said: “You are the distraction... I respectfully ask you, with all due respect, to step aside.”

At least one of the party’s top fundraisers declared that major GOP donors were “looking to fund an effort to back someone else as the Republican nominee”, and there were vague suggestions that the party brass might be looking into its options “in case” Trump isn’t the nominee.

But the party’s officials swiftly and aggressively rejected those suggestions. And one of its elite election lawyers argued convincingly that the logistical hurdles to replacing Trump made it next to impossible. 

Again, why the shock and surprise?  They have known who Trump is for years.  All of these vapors and conniption fits are the height of hypocrisy.  As for Republican women, another piece in Politico looks at those who are belatedly pulled their heads from out of their asses.  Here are highlights:

Republican women are abandoning Donald Trump in an historic repudiation of their party’s nominee, a devastating development for the GOP candidate's chances one month before Election Day.

Trump’s lewd, sexually aggressive comments about women, revealed in a 2005 audio recording that became public Friday, have prompted large-scale defections, from female Republican senators to conservative activists in the swing states. That dynamic further jeopardizes his chances with women voters, including white, married voters who typically back Republicans. After nearly two years of listening to Trump denigrate women — including Fox News host Megyn Kelly, Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina, Heidi Cruz and former Miss Universe Alicia Machado — Republican women have had enough.

A mass desertion by white, married women would effectively torpedo Trump’s chances of defeating Hillary Clinton. That demographic has been a core part of every Republican nominee’s constituency this century — Mitt Romney and John McCain won 53 percent of married women, and still lost the election — meaning that Trump, who struggles far more with party unity than previous nominees have, has even less room for error. But he is already losing badly with women overall, and Friday’s bombshell threatens to set him back further with women of all marital statuses.

High-profile Republican women over the weekend made clear that they have zero interest in helping Trump regain his footing, instead offering cover to other lawmakers looking to abandon Trump.

“I wanted to be able to support my party’s nominee, chosen by the people, because I feel strongly that we need a change in direction for our country,” said New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who is in a competitive re-election fight in a key swing state. “However, I’m a mom and an American first, and I cannot and will not support a candidate for president who brags about degrading and assaulting women.”

One particularly notable defection: Nebraska Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), who is perhaps Trump's most prominent female defender in the Senate.

"The comments made by Mr. Trump were disgusting and totally unacceptable under any circumstance," she tweeted. "It would be wise for him to step aside and allow Mike Pence to serve as our party's nominee."

Condoleezza Rice, who served as secretary of state under George W. Bush, posted on Facebook, "Enough! Donald Trump should not be President. He should withdraw."

And Fiorina, once a target of Trump’s trash talk — “look at that face! Would anyone vote for that?” he mocked during the primary — released a statement Saturday asking the Republican National Committee to replace Trump with Pence.

Again, why the shock and feigned horror?  The Donald Trump revealed in the tape on Friday id the same Donald Trump who has always existed.  Closing your eyes to the real Trump doesn't makr thr real Trump any different.  Thankfully, this revelation of the true Trump came out before the election and not afterwards.   

Quote of the Day: Michelangelo Signorile on Trump

In a Facebook post, writer and radio host Michelangelo Signorile sums up the reality of Donald Trump and his supporters - and by extension today's Republican Party in its entirety.  He thankfully hits on the moral bankruptcy and hypocrisy of the evangelical "Christians" who are supporting a thrice married, serial adulterer.  Here's the quote:

So now we have a GOP presidential candidate who admits to, promotes sexual assault of women and then gives a bullshit video non-apology mostly focused on the Clintons and how they're supposedly worse.

Billy Bush's involvement partially explains how we got here. Many in the media indulged, encouraged and excused #Trump, their fun rich pal.

The hypocrisy is astounding as well. Trump supporters have claimed Hillary was wrong to stick with Bill after he had affairs. (Of course, this is a private matter between them and none of us know how they work it out). So I'm sure they're calling for Melania to leave Trump now, right?

And yes, the evangelicals -- voting for him anyway and already putting out the "everyone's a sinner" crap. In a way it’s not inconsistent for evangelicals to support Trump because they, too, want to grab vaginas/whole bodies of women via the next Supreme Court pick.

And GOP leaders are "sickened" but still supporting this corrupt, racist monster, who even yesterday said he still believed the Central Park 5 are guilty, despite being exonerated by DNA evidence.

Let's hope this destroys not the just Trump but the entire Republican Party.

 Well said!!

Trump's Lewd Conversation About Women in 2005

As readers have no doubt gathered by now, I find nothing redeeming in Donald Trump who in many ways symbolizes what is wrong with far too many American males: he is a totally self-absorbed sexist pig who cares for no one and nothing other than himself.  What I find startling as  the father of two daughters myself is how little he values women (does this include his own daughters?) and sees them merely as objects to be pursued sexually, provided, of course, they meet his standards of beauty. Some had speculated that Trump might seek to bring up Bill Clinton's infidelities in tomorrow night's debate, but a newly released tape that shows Trump seeking to have sex with a married woman just months after his marriage to his current wife may chasten him on that front.  It also ought to convince women that Trump, despite his unusual and disingenuous apology, is the last man any self-respecting woman should vote for.  As for those Republicans who delude themselves that Trump is/will be capable of self-control, that myth should be totally put to rest.  The Washington Post looks at the bomb shell.  Here are article highlights:

Donald Trump bragged in vulgar terms about kissing, groping and trying to have sex with women during a 2005 conversation caught on a hot microphone, saying that “when you’re a star, they let you do it,” according to a video obtained by The Washington Post.

The video captures Trump talking with Billy Bush, then of “Access Hollywood,”on a bus with the show’s name written across the side. They were arriving on the set of “Days of Our Lives” to tape a segment about Trump’s cameo on the soap opera.

Late Friday night, following sharp criticism by Republican leaders, Trump issued a short video statement saying, “I said it, I was wrong, and I apologize.” But he also called the revelation “a distraction from the issues we are facing today.” He said that his “foolish” words are much different than the words and actions of Bill Clinton, whom he accused of abusing women, and Hillary Clinton, whom he accused of having “bullied, attacked, shamed and intimidated his victims.”

In that audio, Trump discusses a failed attempt to seduce a woman, whose full name is not given in the video.

“I moved on her, and I failed. I’ll admit it,” Trump is heard saying. It was unclear when the events he was describing took place. The tape was recorded several months after he married his third wife, Melania.

“Whoa,” another voice said.  “I did try and f--- her. She was married,” Trump says.

Trump continues: “And I moved on her very heavily. In fact, I took her out furniture shopping. She wanted to get some furniture. I said, ‘I’ll show you where they have some nice furniture.’”

“And when you’re a star, they let you do it,” Trump says. “You can do anything.”“Whatever you want,” says another voice, apparently Bush’s. “Grab them by the p---y,” Trump says. “You can do anything.”

Trump was also criticized by members of his own party. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, who said he is “sickened” by Trump’s comments, said the Republican presidential candidate will no longer appear with him at a campaign event in Wisconsin on Saturday.

Former presidential candidate Mitt Romney, a Trump critic, said in a statement: “Hitting on married women? Condoning assault? Such vile degradations demean our wives and daughters and corrupt America’s face to the world.”

Paul Ryan may be distancing himself from Trump for the moment, but the man has totally prostituted himself from Trump and made me have an even lower opinion of hi, if that is possible. Can you imagine what Trump would see himself free to do as president?   That thought is frightening. 

Why Conservative Christians Are Backing Trump

As regular readers know, I hold few people in lower regard that far right conservative Christians whose most pronounced traits are incessant lying, hypocrisy, racism, and a desire to impose their religious beliefs on all citizens.  They talk constantly about their own supposed faith and religiosity even as they hate nearly everyone and back Republican policies that are the antithesis of the Gospel message.  Some pundits and others are shocked that so many conservative Christians are backing Donald Trump, whereas I see it as a match made in heaven, if you will: foul, self-centered hypocrisy filled pathological liars bonding to one another.  A piece in Salon puts forth an explanation for Christofascist support of Trump in less direct terms, but nonetheless shows the underlying hypocrisy of these people and their always self-enriching "leaders."   Here are excerpts:  

In theory, the religious right should hate Donald Trump. He’s a libertine, he clearly worships Mammon and not Jesus, he has been married three times, he has a long history of bragging about his sex life . . . . But the ugly truth is that the supposed guardians of American morality, religious conservatives, are lining up behind Trump. I spoke with Peter Montgomery of People for the American Way about why.
 Your piece is called “‘God’s Guy’: 25 Religious Right Justifications For Supporting Donald Trump.” What kinds of religious authorities did you look at for this piece?Well, there’s a range of people. There are religious right political figures like Tony Perkins and David Barton and David Lane, who are people that we cover pretty extensively, and then there are some folks who don’t show up on [our] website as much [as those] who are sort of in the “prophet and apostle” category of that wing of Pentecostal Christianity [who tend] to see things in terms of spiritual warfare and demons and the Antichrist. So it’s a mix. Since the primaries, most of the religious right leaders who were in Cruz’s camp are rallying around Trump, and it’s true that some of them are doing so kind of reluctantly. Some based on the Supreme Court, some based on the fact that they just really hate Hillary Clinton. And some have offered this range of religious rationales. 

Some of the folks that you’ve covered seem to believe that Trump is God’s emissary or that he’s here to do God’s will. What’s that about?The religious right hates Barack Obama. They really did everything they could and prayed very hard for him not to get elected or reelected. And some of them actually saw his reelection as a sign of God’s judgment on the country. That hatred also applies to Hillary Clinton.Some of the religious right leaders also distrust the Republican establishment and they think that God is using this sort of bulldozer strongman person like Trump to come in and knock down the establishment of both parties and really clean house. They’ve found examples in the Bible. One of the ones that people reference is King Cyrus, who was not one of God’s chosen people and was not a believer but God had his purposes and used King Cyrus in a way that advanced his wishes. So that’s one of the rationales that has come up for Trump. . . So when Trump destroys everything, why is that considered a good thing in their view?I’ll talk about David Lane in answering that. David Lane is a political operative who organized the event that Trump just spoke at this past week in Orlando and, in fact, Marco Rubio also spoke at. David Lane is a Christian nationalist who believes that America was founded by and for Christians and that it has a covenant with God and a mission to advance the Christian faith. He believes that we have gone far from that mission. And his goal is to use the political process to bring America back to his idea of a Christian nation. . . . for someone like him, the establishment Republican Party has been a disappointment because they haven’t aggressively pursued this idea of a Christian nation. He hopes that somehow kicking down all the walls is going to make that more possible. Somebody else like James Robison believes that God is going to give Trump some kind of high-profile conversion moment like the biblical story of Saul, who used to persecute Christians, having this vision of Jesus and then becoming Paul the Apostle.  Do you often see religious right figures grapple with the fact that the Democrat in the race, Hillary Clinton, is clearly more religious than the Republican?They do not want to grapple with that at all, no. You don’t see a lot of religious right leaders acknowledging her lifelong commitment as a Christian, as a member of the United Methodist Church, even though it’s very much out there. A lot of the religious right leaders, when they say “Christian,” they don’t really mean all Christians. They’re talking about a subset of Christians that share both their theological worldview and their right-wing politics. . . . It’s why we have people on this list talking about Hillary Clinton as channeling the spirit of the Antichrist. How much do you think this rallying around Trump has to do with his statements about Muslims?There are a number of reasons they’re rallying around him, and one is that he’s been a very outspoken critic of radical Islam with his call to keep Muslims from coming into the country. Some of these religious right leaders, as much as they like to posture as champions of religious liberty, they really don’t feel the same way about Islam. They try to make these convoluted arguments that the First Amendment doesn’t really apply to Muslims in the same way because Islam is not a religion but a totalitarian political ideology. I think they like his attacks on Muslims because they think this is a country by and for Christians. The question of religious freedom comes up here, and you see some of these pastors and religious right leaders claiming that Trump is for religious freedom. What do they mean by that?When the religious right talks about religious freedom these days, they’re mostly talking about the right of people to discriminate against LGBT individuals and couples and families. For them, religious liberty is not the kind of shield for everyone to exercise their religion [that] we think of when we think of the First Amendment.  . . . It’s about being able to use religious beliefs as a cudgel against people and policies that they don’t like.