Corey Stewart: White Nationalists' Dream Candidate

Charlottesville - August 12, 2017

Virginia's 2018 election for U.S. Senator is going to be a moment of truth, if you will, for a number of Republican "friends."  With the Trump/GOP tax cuts having destroyed any shred of a fig leaf argument that the GOP is the party of fiscal responsibility, Trump trashing free trade, and destroying safety regulations, support for the Republican Party is boiling down to one thing: white nationalism.  Now, these "friends" who view themselves as moral, refined and educated will have to decide if they are going to vote for Corey Stewart, an avowed Neo-Confederate loved by white supremacists and the Al-Right. Will they define themselves by politically aligning with these frightening, racist elements?  Will they at last tacitly admit that they are racists by voting for Stewart?   A lengthy piece in the New York Times looks at Stewart and the ugly company he keeps.  My Republican "friends" need to read the article and know that the rest of us will know the truth about them if the back Stewart.  Here are article highlights:

Corey Stewart stands at the end of a long driveway that leads back in time, to his 18th century plantation manor hidden in woods behind a modern housing development. Mr. Stewart, the Republican Senate nominee from Virginia, treats the brick home like a living museum, complete with buttons from Redcoats, a Civil War soldier’s belt buckle and a room dedicated to George and Martha Washington, who were once visitors.
 Mr. Stewart has styled himself as a champion of the Confederacy and its statues, and, as he puts it, “taking back our heritage.”

This has made him a popular figure with white nationalists, much to the horror of many Virginia Republicans. While Mr. Stewart has disavowed some on the extreme right, interviews with dozens of his friends, colleagues, supporters and fellow Republicans yielded a portrait of a political opportunist eager to engage the coarsest racial fringes of his party to advance his Trumpian appeal.

Some white nationalists volunteer for Mr. Stewart’s campaign, and several of his aides and advisers have used racist or anti-Muslim language, or maintained links to outspoken racists like Jason Kessler, the organizer of last year’s violent rally in Charlottesville, Va. Mr. Stewart has not distanced himself from those aides.
 [A] profound political dilemma of the Trump era is whether to support the growing number of candidates like Mr. Stewart who make racially divisive remarks — particularly about immigrants — and back causes that are championed by white nationalists. President Trump’s own language and policies have energized Mr. Stewart and other far-right candidates, and Mr. Trump has high approval ratings from Republicans, but it is not clear how many rank-and-file voters will embrace like-minded politicians like Mr. Stewart.
 Sitting in the living room of the historic brick home he bought in 2012, Mr. Stewart praised President Trump’s statement that there were “very fine people on both sides” at the Unite the Right white nationalist protests in Charlottesville last August. . . . He does not accept that slavery was at the heart of the Civil War. . . . He contended that the term “white supremacist” was a concoction of the left.

In an extraordinary sign of discomfort with Mr. Stewart, some Republicans have been eager behind the scenes to provide opposition research aimed at discrediting him, with disaffected party members circulating racially inflammatory tweets and Facebook postings authored by one of Mr. Stewart’s advisers.

Shaun Kenney, former state party executive director, lamented that “the alt-right has taken over the Virginia Republican Party.” After Mr. Stewart secured the nomination in June, John C. Whitbeck, Jr., the party chairman who once accused Mr. Stewart of “racist” language, resigned.

But many Republican leaders haven’t publicly disavowed Mr. Stewart, mindful that Mr. Trump is supporting him, and that [Trump] the president has strong influence with the party base . . .

Virginia has not elected a Republican statewide since 2009 and voted for Hillary Clinton over Mr. Trump in 2016. With its strong economy and elite public university system, Virginia has become a symbol of Southern moderation and tolerance, but the far right sees an ally in Mr. Stewart who will push back against the leftward drift and demographic changes underway in the state.
 He also refashioned himself as a booster of the Confederacy, especially in his unsuccessful 2017 race for governor. He has appeared at the Old South Ball, an antebellum-dress event in Danville, and likened his own political crusade to that of Confederate rebels.  “You’ve got this guy who is a transplant coming into Virginia trying to out-Southern folks who’ve been here for 400 years,” said Brian Schoeneman, a Fairfax Republican and former legislative candidate.

Over the years, Mr. Stewart became increasingly outspoken. He dismissed one Republican rival as a “cuckservative” and assailed David Hogg, the teen gun control activist, as “that punk” who has “been brainwashed.” He became an ardent defender of Alabama’s Roy Moore amid allegations of sexual misconduct with underage girls. “I think they all disappeared since, didn’t they?” he said of Mr. Moore’s accusers. (They have not.)

At a board meeting this summer, one that Mr. Stewart did not attend, several speakers blamed him after Klan fliers landed on local lawns.  “This isn’t a coincidence that this happened in my neighborhood,” said Maggie Hansford, a local teacher who has decided to run for a board seat. “Our chairman can’t stop talking about the Confederate flag.”

A “Corey Stewart for Senate” sign flanks the gravel driveway leading to George and Donna Randall’s southern Virginia home.  An avowed secessionist, Mr. Randall is eager to explain himself, welcoming a visitor onto his porch.

“I’m a secessionist because the federal government is anti-Christian and we’re different culturally,” explained Mr. Randall, a retired heavy equipment operator whose forebears include Confederate veterans. “The government never surrendered, only the Army. We’re still under Reconstruction.”

George Randall and his wife Donna have helped organize “meet and greets” for Mr. Stewart. The 60-year-old brothers have been seen frequently with him and are known to provide volunteer security for Mr. Stewart at public events, a task they both confirmed, though Mr. Stewart denied it, saying “that was one of those crazy rumors.”

Both brothers took part in the Unite the Right rally and also belong to the League of the South, a Southern nationalist organization that honors John Wilkes Booth “for his service to the South” and seeks to secure ”a future for white children.”

Mr. Stewart’s associations with Mr. Kessler, the Charlottesville rally organizer, and Mr. Kessler’s ties to a Stewart aide, Brian Landrum, have raised the most serious questions.

Trump’s Offshore Drilling Plan Roils East Coast Communities

This could be the Virginia Beach oceanfront under Trump/GOP offshore drilling proposals.

Looking from my bedroom window, I can see across Hampton Roads harbor to the Norfolk Naval Base. Behind the house, we own 4.6 acres of tidal creek and marsh.  The tide that impacts these areas flow in through the mouth of Chesapeake Bay from the Atlantic Ocean all the way into the far reaches of our marshland.  A significant offshore oil spill could wreak horrific damage to not only our property, but to tourism in Virginia Beach and across the region and also devastate the local seafood industry.  The economic losses and property losses could extend into the hundreds of millions, if not more.  Yet, up and down the East Coast of America the Trump/Pence regime is pushing to open up huge areas to offshore drilling, putting local environments and economies at huge potential risk.  From Virginia on south, the opposition from local communities is near complete to the proposal.  The exception: Trump supporting Republicans like Virginia 2nd District Republican Scott Taylor who supported offshore drilling until recently (if, of course, Taylor's word can be believe - my vote is that it cannot since he votes with Trump 98% of the time) when confronted with his opponent, Elaine Luria's staunch opposition to potentially catastrophic offshore drilling.   If one opposes offshore drilling, the best way to stop it is to vote for Democrats like Elaine Luria and Tim Kaine and send Trump/Pence a strong message by flipping control of the House of Representatives (and ideally the Senate). Here are excerpts from The Atlantic that looks at Trump's dangerous effort to endanger our coastlines:

Carteret County sits in a region of North Carolina known as the Crystal Coast. It’s celebrated for its charming lighthouses, sun-bleached beaches, and relaxed atmosphere. The population is 89.9 percent white and staunchly Republican.

President Trump won the county in 2016 with 71 percent of the vote. But he has touched off an insurrection among the GOP faithful here on the issue of offshore drilling, which the county almost universally views as a threat to tourism. In that, Carteret is typical of areas up and down the Eastern Seaboard, where opposition to the Trump administration’s proposed plan to allow offshore drilling in nearly all U.S. coastal waters has become a top issue in the 2018 midterms. . . . . people are very aware “how important tourism, and the quality of life, is for our market,” he continued. “That really is our life blood.”

In Carteret County, six municipalities have already passed resolutions opposing offshore drilling and seismic testing, a controversial technique used to pinpoint petroleum deposits in the ocean floor. So have local governments in other states.

“Everyone is pretty much united” in opposition, Kies explained. And with the midterms approaching, Republicans up and down the ballot are breaking from the party line to oppose the president’s proposed plan.  

In Republican and Democratic areas alike, residents, legislators, and advocacy organizations held town halls, protested on beaches, and lobbied Washington. The military expressed concern that drilling would impact their operations off of Florida and Virginia. By the end of 2016, the Obama administration revised its plan, removing the Atlantic from the leasing program, and invoked an obscure law to ban drilling in much of the Atlantic and the Arctic.  

“It really was like a bipartisan thing,” said Alex Taurel, the conservation program director for the League of Conservation Voters. “It really translated into kind of changing the politics of offshore drilling in the Atlantic, over the course of the Obama era into this Trump era.”

The threat of an oil spill looms large; few have forgotten the damage the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster inflicted on the Gulf of Mexico. Since then, there have been 4,105 reported offshore explosions, fires, collisions, and spills, resulting in 13 deaths, according to the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement. In 2017 alone, there were 10 offshore spills.

“We could not recover from an oil spill in North Carolina,” said Bob Woodard, the chairman of the Board of Commissioners in Dare County. Woodard, who supports Trump, strongly opposes offshore drilling and says opposition in the county is “overwhelming.”

Trump issued an executive order revoking the Obama-era ban on Arctic and Atlantic drilling in April 2017, and in January of this year the Interior Department proposed a new five-year plan that included almost all American coastal waters.

Following these policy changes, offshore drilling opposition has only grown in the Southeast, and it’s front and center in some congressional campaigns this year. Candidates who’d previously expressed support for drilling now find themselves on the defensive—and have, in some cases, switched their positions.

One example can be found in Virginia’s 2nd congressional district, where Navy veteran and Democrat Elaine Luria is running to unseat Republican incumbent Scott Taylor. Her campaign has significantly featured her resistance to offshore drilling.

During Taylor’s first run for Congress in 2010, he supported drilling, before reversing that stance earlier this year. “I’m a representative,” Taylor explained to me. “In my district, all the localities passed resolutions [against drilling]. The tourism industry, the military has an issue, obviously various environmental groups, fishing industry, shellfish industry, are just about unanimously opposed to it.”

In South Carolina, offshore drilling and seismic testing have taken center stage in the first congressional district, which runs from the North Carolina border to Seabrook Island along the coast. It has one of the state’s most watched elections: Republican Representative Mark Sanford, who has long opposed offshore drilling, was defeated by primary challenger Katie Arrington, who framed herself as the Trumpian candidate.

But in June, she flipped her position (though she recently suggested she has always held that stance).

The change was a conspicuous one. Since June, five district mayors—all Republicans or independents—have endorsed her Democratic opponent in the general election, Joe Cunningham, due to his opposition to offshore drilling.

Even South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster, who was the first and highest-ranking state official in the country to back Trump’s campaign in 2016, opposes drilling and seismic testing. “Opposition to offshore drilling is just about a political necessity these days,” said John Tynan, the executive director of Conservation Voters of South Carolina.

Offshore drilling is also a prominent issue in the Florida Senate race between Republican Governor Rick Scott and Democratic Senator Bill Nelson. Both candidates have emphasized their opposition, though Scott, like Arrington, has been accused of flip-flopping.

Though Zinke has signaled that the Trump administration’s revised plan will likely be scaled back, a second wave of backlash is anticipated if Atlantic drilling remains on the table. And depending on when the report is released, it could have even more consequences for the midterm elections.

Again, do not take chances.  Make sure you are registered to vote and vote Democrat in November, 2018.  Your region's economic safety could depend on it.

Kaine Calls Out Stewart's Praise and Encouragement of White Supremacists

Republicans faced a moment of truth in 2016 as to whether or not the party retained any shred of morality when they nominated Donald Trump as their presidential candidate.  Some 70,000 voters spread across three states failed the test of morality when they gave Trump an Electoral College victory - sadly, the Electors failed the test of morality when they rejected their constitutional duty to protect the nation from an unfit demagogue.  Now, in 2018, Virginia faces a test of the morality in the U.S. Senate contest between Democrat Tim Kaine and Republican extremist and white supremacist Corey Stewart. Stewart embodies everything morally deficient in today's Republican Party as he bases his campaign on racial hatred and pandering to religious extremists who make the biblical Pharisees look to be the height of moral decency.  Over the weekend, Tim Kaine blasted Stewart for the ugliness that under-girds his campaign and his connections to racists and anti-Semites.  Here are highlights from the Washington Post:

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) attacked Republican challenger Corey A. Stewart for his ties to white supremacists in a speech to more than 1,000 cheering Democrats on Saturday, unloading on the brash defender of Confederate symbols who won the GOP nomination last week.

“My opponent likes to praise and encourage white supremacists, those who organize hate-filled rallies like the tragedy in Charlottesville and perpetrate online filth and anti-Semitism,” Kaine said. “This week the American press was filled with stories about his bizarre connections to spreaders of hate. And Israeli newspapers were filled with articles about his ties to notorious anti-Semites. Is this who Virginia is in 2018? Is this what the Senate needs?”

Stewart, chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors since 2006, leads Virginia’s second-largest jurisdiction with a swaggering style that he touts as “more Trump than Trump.” His efforts to crack down on undocumented immigrants in the county stretch back more than a decade. He [Stewrt] embraced the Confederate flag and monuments in a bid for governor last year, a strategy that startled many establishment Republicans but nearly propelled him to victory in a primary battle with former Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie. Gillespie, who went on to ape some of Stewart’s hard-edge messaging, lost in a landslide to Democrat Ralph Northam in November.

During the gubernatorial primary race, Stewart twice appeared with Jason Kessler, founder of Unity and Security for America (USA), a fledgling group that calls for “defending Western Civilization.” Kessler went on to organize the Unite the Right rally, which sparked deadly unrest in Charlottesville last summer.

Stewart also called Paul Nehlen, a self-professed “pro-white” candidate for Congress in Wisconsin, “one of my personal heroes” for challenging House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.).

In his speech Saturday, Kaine also took aim at the Trump administration for separating hundreds of migrant children from their parents on the nation’s southern border — a practice that Kaine suggested was rooted in racism. . . . . “On the night before Father’s Day, that’s what this nation has come to with this president. . . . Is there any doubt that if these children had light skin and were speaking English that they wouldn’t be loaded into cells and rooms in a windowless Walmart in the hundreds and the thousands on the southern border of this country?”

Kaine laid out what he called his “positive vision” for the country, including “health care for all,” affordable college and criminal justice reform. He eventually pivoted to a full-throated condemnation of Stewart, starting with the county board chairman’s record on taxes, education, climate change and abortion.

[E]ven the Koch brothers — refused to support him,” Kaine said, referring to the founders of Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group that has announced that it will not back Stewart.

It goes without saying that The Family Foundation - Virginia's faux "family values" organization and leading hate group - supports Stewart.

Why George Allen is a LGBT Virginian's Worse Nightmare

I've know George Allen, the GOP candidate for U.S. Senate, for just shy of 38 years.  That's when er became classmates in law school at the University of Virginia.  George was always the party boy and ran with a crowd that liked to see itself as macho - something George still does today wearing his cowboy boots.  Now, I have no problem with cowboy boots and own a couple pair myself, but I DO have a problem with those who hold a mindset akin to that of the many rednecks who wear them.  And George is one such individual when it comes to LGBT rights and the treatment of gays in general.  Just as his infamous "macaca" quip revealed his contempt for Indian-Americans (many of whom I have as clients), he has documented his contempt for LGBT Americans.  Think Progress has compiled George's record on LGBT  issues and it should send every LGBT Virginian running to pull the lever for Tim Kaine come election day in November.  Indeed, they should tell all their friends and family to vote the same way.  Here are highlights:

Over his time as Governor of Virginia, in the U.S Senate, and as a candidate:

1. Allen said homosexuality was not “acceptable” and should be “illegal.” In a 1994 radio broadcast, then-Gov. Allen told listeners that he didn’t want his children “even seeing the news of some of these things here, thinking that, this is acceptable behavior.” He added: “I don’t think this is acceptable behavior… and as a matter of government policy I don’t think we should condone that sort of behavior.” In the same broadcast, he praised Virginia’s unconstitutional Crimes Against Nature law –which made private consensual sex between same-sex adults a felony — saying “It’s against the criminal law in Virginia, that homosexual acts are illegal, and I think should stay illegal.”

2. Allen has vigorously fought to stop any recognition for same-sex unions. As Governor, he signed Virginia’s state defense of marriage law in 1997. Allen campaigned for the 2006 state constitutional amendment that banned all state recognition of same-sex unions. He co-sponsored the “Federal Marriage Amendment.” He continues to reaffirm his support for both the unconstitutional Defense of Marriage Act and a federal constitutional amendment, noting “My stand on marriage is clear: I believe that marriage should be between one man and one woman.”

3. Allen opposed Hate Crimes protections for LGBT Americans — and still does. Though he promised in his 2000 Senate campaign that he would support adding sexual orientation to the federal hate crimes law, in 2005 he changed his mind. “I wouldn’t define it as a flip-flop,” his Virginia state director told reporters. Allen’s reasoning? He feared “some courts that would use that as a building block toward civil rights status, which he is opposed to.” In other words, he worries that treating terrorism against LGBT Americans in the same way as the law treats terrorism against other minority groups would be okay if it weren’t for the risk of a slippery slope that might mean LGBT Americans would have other civil rights. Perhaps unaware that President Obama signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act into law in 2009, on Allen’s current campaign website he bizarrely promises to “vote against adding sexual orientation to federal hate crimes statutes, as he did in 2005.”

4. Allen opposed adding employment protections for LGBT people. Fearing anything that would raise sexual orientation to civil rights “status,” he has never supported the Employment Non-Discrimination Act or other efforts to end anti-LGBT discrimination. In 2004, the Human Rights Campaign listed him as refusing to adopt a voluntary office policy not to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Allen’s civil rights record is not much better for other minority groups–he opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1991 and even voted against making Martin Luther King Day a holiday in Virginia.

5. Allen opposed allowing same-sex couples to raise kids. In his 1994 anti-gay radio tirade, he said he opposes same-sex couples raising kids because it is “not in the best interests of a child to be raised in that environment.” His view has not evolved — last year, an Allen spokesman told Politico that the former Senator has never been a supporter of same-sex couples adopting and that he “agrees with Governor [Bob] McDonnell’s [R] recent decision to keep current adoption regulations in place.” Allen also backed efforts to allow adoption agencies to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. His campaign website notes that he “does not support same-sex couples adopting children.”

6. Allen fought against same-sex couples being eligible for low-interest home loans. As Governor, he backed a restriction preventing the Virginia Housing Development Authority from making low-interest home loans to LGBT families. “Governor Allen doesn’t agree with these relationships and is not going to be advocating these relationships in his administration. This could establish a precedent that could lead to a redefinition of what family is,” an Allen spokesman noted at the time, adding that homosexuality was “basically viewed by the governor as an unnatural relationship.”

7. Allen opposed allowing LGBT servicemembers to serve openly and opposes chaplains conducting same-sex ceremonies. In 2000, he criticized his Senate race opponent’s support for allowing gay and lesbian Americans to serve in the military as “Vermont values.” Allen told the Veterans of Foreign Wars in the same campaign that he opposed using the military for “social experimentations.”

In short, while George may be amusing and entertaining at a cocktail or dinner party, we truly don't need him back in the U.S. Senate.  Sadly, he is all too typical of today's GOP and would strive to take the country backwards in time.  Gays, minorities and women need to understand that George is no friend of equality for all and that he will readily do the bidding of the worse elements of the Christofascist elements of the GOP.