Far Right Calls For Exodus From Public Schools Over Gay History Law

The efforts of the Christofascists in California to repeal the newly enacted state law, SB 48, which requires the contributions of LGBT individuals to be included in the state's history curriculum have failed again.  And to listen to hate group leaders like Randy Thomasson (pictured at left) one would think the end of the world was about to occur.  God forbid that gays be portrayed in a positive light or that or contributions to society or roles in history be recognized.  So what are the Christofascists urging Kool-Aid drinkers to do?  Pull their children and grandchildren out of the California public schools so as to protect them from learning that (i) LGBT people exist and (ii) that we are not the alcoholic, drug addict perverts that folks like Thomasson depict us to be.  Of course such an exodus would also be a boon for lunatic "Christian" schools that oppose the teaching of evolution and promote batshitery in general.  Here are highlights from Thomasson's missive to the Kool-Aid drinking set:  

No SB 48 repeal, but children can still escape 'LGBT' role models

In light of the failure to qualify a ballot measure to circumvent a controversial state law, SB 48, which requires homosexual-bisexual-transsexual role models in California K-12 schools, SaveCalifornia.com -- which fought against this anti-family bill and has been continually urging parents to remove their children from the state government school system due to SB 48, seven other sexual indoctrination laws, and nine other major concerns -- hopes that even more parents and grandparents will now take action to protect their vulnerable children.

SB 48, signed by Gov. Jerry Brown in 2011, mandates that children from kindergarten through 12th grade, in all "instruction in social sciences," admire "the role and contributions of...lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans."

"Parents and grandparents who don't want their children and grandchildren sexually indoctrinated with unnatural and unhealthy 'lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender' role models must decide now to exit the immoral, imploding, dysfunctional government school system and place their children in church schools or home schools," .  .  .  .  Because of SB 48 and seven other homosexual-bisexual-transsexual indoctrination laws, California K-12 government schools have become radical sexual indoctrination agencies."

Needless to say, Thomasson includes a pitch for sending money to his organization.  Also not surprisingly, Thomasson is an advocate of the "ex-gay" myth and supports the uniformly discredited use of "reparative therapy" to "change" gays.  Given Thomasson's irrational homophobia, one cannot help but wonder if he's not actually a self-loathing closet case.

More Wednesday Male Beauty

John McCain Bitch Slaps Michele Bachmann for Anti-Muslim Lies

There are times that I wonder why Michele Bachmann isn't in a mental institution.  The same question applies to the lunatics and apparent knuckle dragging voters in her district who continue to vote this mentally ill loon into Congress.   Michele Bachmann's latest fixation - she's apparently taking a brief break from her anti-gay jihad - is the fantasy that Muslim terrorists are infiltrating the government with a goal of imposing Sharia law, i.e., the Islamic equivalent of the Christian dictatorship that Bachmann and her fellow Christofascist nutcases want to inflict on all Americans.  Bachamnn's lunacy was so unfounded and over the top that John McCaim felt compelled to bitch lap Bachmann on the Senate floor.  First these highlights from Think Progress followed by a video clip of McCain taking Bachmann to task:

On the floor of the Senate Wednesday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) repudiated Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-MN) McCarthyesque witch-hunt to root out the alleged Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of the U.S. government. The flap started when Bachmann all but directly accused Secretary Hillary Clinton’s top aide Huma Abedin of working on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood in a letter with four colleagues to the State Department’s Inspector General demanding an investigation.

Enter McCain, who put his foot down today and chided his fellow Republicans for the accusations against Abedin. McCain brought up his personal relationship with Abedin, adding that she “represents what is best about America.” He noted Bachmann’s letter and its sourcing to a report from notorious Islamophobe Frank Gaffney‘s Center for Security Policy (CSP). He then said:

To say that the accusations made in both documents are not substantiated by the evidence they offer is to be overly polite and diplomatic about it. It is far better, and more accurate, to talk straight: These allegations about Huma Abedin, and the report from which they are drawn, are nothing less than an unwarranted and unfounded attack on an honorable citizen, a dedicated American, and a loyal public servant.

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) lead the charge against Bachmann, demanding “credible, substantial evidence” to back up her accusations. Bachmann then penned a long letter responding to Ellison, which he rightly dismissed as “16 pages worth of repeated false allegations. Just regurgitated nonsense.”

Bachmann responds in a statement on her website: “The letters my colleagues and I sent on June 13 to the Inspectors General of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice and the Department of State – and the follow up letter I wrote to Rep. Ellison on July 13 – are unfortunately being distorted.” 

  

Anti-Gay and Anti-Muslim Bigotry Run Rampant in Tennessee

The insanity and no longer thinly veiled hate and animus of the Tennessee GOP towards those deemed "other" by the white conservative Christofascists who constitute the base of the GOP not only in Tennessee but across the nation has reached new heights.  The GOP controlled Tennessee legislature has already done all in its power to demonize and stigmatize gay Tennessee citizens.  Now the focus of hate has shifted to include Muslims - who the Tennessee GOP is depicting as advocates of not only Sharia law, but terrorism as well.  The Chattanooga Free Press reports on this latest GOP hate fest.  Here are excerpts:

Gov. Bill Haslam is facing a tremendous amount of heat from Republican and tea party activists across the state. No fewer than five resolutions are currently circulating urging the Tennessee Republican Executive Committee to take meaningful action against the Haslam administration. A political organization plans to purchase ads condemning the governor. Some grass-roots activists are even calling for his resignation.
His crime? Hiring the most qualified person for a position.

The Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development's new international director is from Waverly, a small town just west of Nashville. Most recently, she served as a White House fellow, one of our nation's most competitive and prestigious honors for a young professional.

She also worked as an associate attorney at Hogan Lovells, one of the most respected international law firms in the world. Before that, she clerked for a senior judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit. She is a tae kwon do champion and a volunteer for the YMCA, AIDS efforts and an organization focused on addressing diabetes. Her bachelor's and law degrees are both from Vanderbilt.

She also happens to be Muslim.

The resolutions, which also condemn Haslam for allowing "open homosexuals to make policy decisions in the Department of Children's Services," declare that the governor's actions have caused a loss of "confidence in our Governor during an election year."    The Stewart and Carroll County resolutions call for the state's Republican leaders to take "appropriate action against the administration of Governor Bill Haslam."

Samar (pronounced "Summer") Ali is, quite simply, one of the most talented, accomplished people Tennessee has produced in decades. After several years working internationally, and completing the White House Fellows program, she wanted to return home to Tennessee. With ECD wanting to expand its focus on increasing exports of Tennessee products, the 30-year-old got that opportunity.  When Ali was named international director for ECD, it prompted a handful of local loons to go berserk. The resolutions came shortly thereafter.

Some of this silliness is the fault of Republican lawmakers in the state legislature who, rather than using their hard-won majority to advance ideas of liberty in the Tennessee General Assembly, have focused far too much effort on silencing religious minorities and limiting the rights of gay Tennesseans. As a result, a small number of local activists feel empowered to criticize the governor for hiring religious minorities and not firing hard-working gay state employees.

It simply isn't necessary for Republicans to pander to racists, homophobes and bigots to garner votes and win elections in the Volunteer State.

Hiring the best person for a job -- regardless of that individual's race, religion or sexual orientation -- does not make Gov. Haslam a villain. It makes him wise.  Criticizing Haslam for hiring the best person for a job -- because of the individual's race, religion or sexual orientation -- does not make you a patriot. It makes you a bigot.

Skeletons in Rmney's Tax Return Closet?

The feeding frenzy over Mitt Romney's refusal to release more tax returns continued to boil over today and CNN has an article that looks at what the hidden tax returns might reveal - none of which is good for Romney and his efforts to woo average Americans.  What's noteworthy is that several times in the article tax experts conjecture that Romney may have been guilty of violations of the tax law.  Yes, most Americans do not hold the IRS in high regard, but they have even less regard for tax cheats and law breakers.  Once again, given the political storm, I can only assume that Romney DOES have something to hide.  Hence the refusal to release more returns.  Here are highlights from the CNN article:

By announcing that he will release no further tax returns beyond his 2010 and 2011 returns, Mitt Romney appears to have exempted himself from the proud bipartisan tradition of presidential nominees displaying genuine financial candor with the electorate.

What is more, his disclosure to date is in the wrong direction: It is the release of Romney's past returns, not his current ones, that matters.

Either Romney has an unresolved father figure issue, or he has some special reason not to follow a tradition established by his father.

Given Romney's financial sophistication, it has been assumed by some that there cannot be any tax skeletons in his closet. His reluctance to disclose past returns, however, undermines that assumption. We are left with the difficult task of plausibly reconstructing his financial record based on the one full return that he has released. The result is troubling.

Romney's 2010 tax return, when combined with his FEC disclosure, reveals red flags that raise serious tax compliance questions with respect to his possible tax minimization strategies in earlier years. The release in October of his 2011 return will at best act as a distraction from these questions.  So, what are the issues?

The first is Romney's Swiss bank account.   .   .   .  .   The Swiss bank account raises tax compliance questions  .   .   .  


Second, Romney's $100 million IRA is remarkable in its size. Even under the most generous assumptions, Romney would have been restricted to annual contributions of $30,000 while he worked at Bain. How does this grow to $100 million?   .   .   .   .   One possibility is that .  .  .  .  Romney stuffed far more into his retirement plans each year than the maximum allowed by law by claiming that the stock of the Bain company deals that the retirement plan acquired had only a nominal value.

Third, the vast amounts in Romney's family trusts raise a parallel question: Did Romney report and pay gift tax on the funding of these trusts or did he claim similarly unreasonable valuations, which likewise would have exposed him to serious penalties if all the facts were known?

Fourth, the complexity of Romney's one publicly released tax return, with all its foreign accounts, trusts, corporations and partnerships, leaves even experts (including us) scratching their heads. Disclosure of multiple years' tax returns is part of the answer here, but in this case it isn't sufficient. Romney's financial affairs are so arcane, so opaque and so tied up in his continuing income from Bain Capital that more is needed, including an explanation of the $100 million IRA.

Finally, there's the puzzle of the Romneys' extraordinarily low effective tax rate.   .   .   .  .   For 2010, the Romneys enjoyed a federal tax rate of only 13.9% on their adjusted gross income of roughly $22 million, which gave them a lower federal tax burden (including payroll, income and excise taxes) than the average American wage-earning family in the $40,000 to $50,000 range.

What the American people deserve is a complete and honest presentation by Romney of how his wealth was accumulated, where it is now invested, what purpose is served by all the various offshore vehicles in which he has an interest and what his financial relationship with Bain Capital has been since his retirement from the company. These are all factors that go to the heart of his character and values.

As I said, none of the conjectures are good for Romney.  Here's what Frank Rich suggests to Romney in a piece in New York Magazine:

Is there any major Republican, from George Will to Bill Kristol to Haley Barbour, who has not called for Romney to release more returns? Surely Romney himself is asking for more than two years of returns from the veep prospects he’s vetting. What Mitt doesn’t seem to realize is that whatever embarrassments are in his tax returns, the bigger problem is that his secrecy keeps accentuating all the mysteries in his resume: the erased hard drives he left behind when leaving office as Massachusetts governor; what exactly he did as a longtime lay official in the Mormon church; and, of course, what exactly he did and didn’t do at Bain and, for that matter, when he was there and not there. If he keeps trying to wait out the tax storm, it will keep growing — hitting a new peak when he finally releases the one additional year of tax returns he has agreed to disclose, and another when his veep pick is asked to release his or her tax returns.

The truth is that Romney isn’t really good about talking about anything, trivial or substantive. The five television interviews he gave last Friday to clarify his Bain record — instigated by his own campaign — were so tongue-tied, disingenuous and laced with corporate jargon (“entities” and whatnot) that they ended up doing more harm than good.   .   .   .   .    His strategy on NBC — to duck questions about his offshore finances by hiding once more behind his “blind trust” — was easily demolished. Just 72 hours later, Jon Stewart ran the 1994 clip in which Romney, then running against Ted Kennedy, dismissed a blind trust as “an age-old ruse” that can easily be manipulated by its beneficiary.

One is left with a sense that as a child of wealth and incredible privilege, Mitt Romney thinks that he's above the rules and laws that govern everyone else.  Candidly, I hope he holds out longer and that when additional returns are released that they include the map to some real bomb shells.  I truly like Romney as a person more and more with each passing day.

The GOP Rush to Abandon the Poor

As this blog has noted many times before, the Republican Party's verbal claims that it's the "family values" party and the party of Christian values are totally disconnected from the Party's actions.  While the GOP kisses the ass of the Christian Right non-stop, the Gospel message is nowhere to be seen in the hate, geed, and ignorance agenda of the Party. One of the things this blog tries to highlight is hypocrisy whether the hypocrisy occurs in government, religious institutions or elsewhere.  Today's GOP is all about hypocrisy and the policies it is pursuing makes a mockery of the Gospel message of the Bible - the book that the whore like members of the GOP claim to honor, if not outright worship.  The New York Times looks at the total disconnect of the GOP the Gospel message of aiding the poor as the GOP at the state and local level strive to kick the poor to the curb.  Interestingly enough, Taliban Bob McDonnell is acting in a moderate manner as he apparently still campaigns for the VP nod from Mitt Romney.  Here are editorial highlights:

The state with the country’s worst health care record just happens to have a governor who has been the loudest voice against national efforts to improve it.

A quarter of the residents of Texas, 6.3 million people, are uninsured, by far the highest percentage in the country. (That number includes more than a million children.) Texas ranks last in prenatal care and finished last on a new federal assessment of overall health quality that examined factors like disease prevention, deaths from illnesses, and cancer treatment.

Yet Gov. Rick Perry — strangely puffed up as he was so often in his presidential bid — recently told the Obama administration that he would proudly refuse a huge infusion of Medicaid money that would significantly reduce those shameful statistics and cover 1.7 million more people. The same indifference to suffering that pushed Texas to the bottom is now threatening to keep it there.

At least five other Republican governors have made a similar choice, announcing that they will not expand their Medicaid program for the poor even though the federal government would pay for almost all of it for several years under President Obama’s health care reform law.

Their refusal illuminates a growing divide over the nature of a state government’s role. Around the country, a new study shows, states continue to face a fiscal crisis because of rising costs and Republican-driven cuts in federal aid. 

Over the last year, for example, eight states have cut or eliminated cash welfare payments to their poorest residents. It happened last week in Pennsylvania, where 61,000 residents — almost all of whom are disabled and poor — were told that they would abruptly lose their $200 monthly general assistance payments, all to save $150 million a year. Our hands are tied by a tightening budget, welfare officials told astonished recipients, though Gov. Tom Corbett’s hands didn’t seem restrained when he handed out $300 million in business tax cuts earlier this month.

Gov. John Kasich of Ohio has cut hundreds of millions from education, but when the state found itself with a $235 million surplus a few weeks ago, he announced that it would all go into a rainy-day fund, doing nothing to deal with rising classroom sizes. In Maine, Gov. Paul LePage — who compared the health care reform law to the Holocaust — signed a budget bill in May that will reduce or eliminate existing Medicaid coverage for 21,000 people. 

Many mainstream Republican governors are taking a different approach. In a letter to the president last week, Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia, the chairman of the Republican Governors Association, said states should think carefully before they reject Washington’s money. Though he remained quite critical of health reform and Medicaid, he also noted that refusing the expansion would create “a significant gap in coverage” for low-income people.

For now, at least, Virginia recognizes an obligation to its weakest citizens. It’s time for Texas, Florida, South Carolina, Wisconsin, Iowa and Louisiana to do the same.

Wednesday Morning Male Beauty

Mitt Romney: The Overseas Job Creator

To listen to Mitt Romney he's all about creating jobs.  And at Bain Capital, he did a lot of job creating - most overseas as illustrated by the image above - not that most members of the GOP's Christianist/Tea Party base will even recognize the flags of the nations involved.  The GOP cynically continues to use anti-gay bigotry, anti-minority and Hispanic bigotry and feigned religiosity to convince the mental midgets in the GOP base to vote against their own est interests.  It's enough to make one's head explode.

Virginia Could Lose 207,571 Federal Jobs Under GOP Forced Budget Cuts

To listen to Mitt Romney and his fellow Republicans who seem hell bent on destroying the middle class via their calls for drastic cuts in the federal government budget, the number one reason the U. S. economy is lagging is because of too much government spending.  The truth, of course, is the direct opposite yet cretins in Virginia, including Hampton Roads, continue to support Republicans like Eric Cantor and Scott Rigell - and Bob McDonnell and Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli all of whom support massive budget cuts  A piece in the Richmond Times-Dispatch looks at the doomsday scenario that could over take Virginia if GOP forced spending cuts in fact kick in.  It ought to be a wake up call for everyone who can think beyond the religious pander and anti-immigrant/minority mantra of the GOP.  Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads could be hit very hard.  Here are article highlights:

Virginia could lose 207,571 jobs and nearly $10.7 billion in labor income from federal spending cuts starting next year if Congress fails to resolve the looming budget crisis, according to an analysis released Tuesday.

Virginia ranks second only to California in estimated job losses from the automatic budget reductions, which are scheduled to kick in Jan. 2 unless Congress acts.

Texas would take the third-biggest loss, according to the analysis conducted for the Aerospace Industries Association, a trade group for manufacturers that could lose billions of dollars in federal contracts.

The researchers said the automatic spending cuts will cost the economy more than 2 million jobs, from defense contracting to border security to education. The cuts also would reduce the nation's gross domestic product by $215 billion next year while consumer confidence would plummet.

"If they are allowed to occur as currently scheduled, the long-term consequences will permanently alter the course of the U.S. economy's performance, changing its competitive position in the global economy," the report said.

In Virginia, the spending cuts likely would hit Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads the hardest because of the concentration of defense-related and federal contracting jobs in those areas. Still, the entire state would suffer losses, Fuller said.

The impact on Virginia also could be larger than the direct job losses in the state, Fuller said. The District of Columbia and Maryland also would lose tens of thousands of jobs. They rank fourth and fifth overall in the number of jobs that would disappear.

"A lot of those jobs are held by Virginians," Fuller said.  The report says Virginia's losses would total 136,191 jobs resulting from Department of Defense cuts and 71,380 jobs from non-Defense Department cuts.

For those with short memories, Blue Virginia summarizes how the nation and Virginia in particular got to this scary precipice: 

[W]e'll have Republican'ts to thank if that happens. Remember, they scuttled a "grand bargain" between President Obama and Speaker Boehner on the deficit and raising the debt ceiling, resulting in the automatic spending cuts deal. Now, they're trying to blame Democrats for THAT too. These people are utterly shameless.

Hate Merchant Rick Warren Wants to Host Obama-Romney Forum

UPDATED:  Thank God!  Politico is reporting that the Obama campaign has said no to Rick Warren's forum proposal.  Here are highlights:

Contrary to reports on Pastor Rick Warren's call yesterday, there will be no joint Mitt Romney-President Obama appearances anywhere before the debates, campaign officials tell POLITICO.

Let's face it, the only reason for the proposed forum is to further inflate Warren's enormous ego and likely harm Obama.


ORIGINAL POST: While Rick Warren goes to great lengths to try to pretend that he's different from his fellow professional Christians whose main stock in trade consists of hate, hypocrisy, greed, the embracing of ignorance and  the denigration of others (I should probably throw in gluttony as well given Warren's obesity), he's actually little more than a more polished version of Tony Perkins and those who preach anti-gay animus.  Sadly, the mainstream media doesn't seem to have the brains to figure out that Warren's pushing the same foul message as his less moderate breather.  Now the porcine Warren wants to hold another candidate form with Barack Obama and Mitt Romney according the a story in the Baptist Press.  Obama is a fool if he agrees to this and will likely undo much of the good will he's rebuilt among the LGBT community and other progressive groups.  Meanwhile, the voters who eat up Warrens false piety and sanctimonious bullshit won't vote for Obama in any event.  It's a lose lose situation for Obama and the only winner is Warren who has his already inflated ego stroked.  Here are highlights from the Baptist Press: 

Pastor Rick Warren says he hopes to host another forum between the major two presidential candidates this year -- similar to what took place in 2008 -- although no formal agreement is in place.

The pastor of Saddleback Church in California told reporters during a conference call Monday (July 16) that he has reached out to the campaigns of President Obama and presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney, FoxNews.com reported.

Bob Felton at Civil Commotion has a strong but accurate statement as to why Obama ought to tell Warren to get lost:

Shall we count the reasons?

1. America is explicitly, designedly, a secular country; religion, however cherished, is not a licit basis for a vote decision.
2. Accepting Rick Warren’s invitation has the de facto effect of elevating a particular set of religious beliefs above others; in the instant case, the beliefs of the intellectually crude and backward-looking evangelical right that has played so large a role in frustrating national progress.
3. Rick Warren is a rotten human being, with sewage for values.  You think I overstate? Watch this urging that believers be as implacably devoted to obeying Jesus as Nazis were to following Hitler, or Mao’s peasants on The Long March.

Warren should be a universal figure of ridicule and contempt, and American presidential candidates disgrace themselves when they toady to him.

Mitt Romney will be hard put to refuse, of course; indeed, sucking-up to the sort of people who think Rick Warren is a great man is indispensable to his ambitions. He should refuse anyway, as a matter of decency, dignity and, yes, patriotism.