Fear and Loathing: Hallmarks of the Right/GOP

The unvarnished hate and loathing that the Christianists, Tea Party crowd and their political whores in the Republican Party are directing at their political opponents and those who are not white, heterosexual, conservative Christians seems to be intensifying.  In fact, it seems that the virulent hate has hit new levels during the current 2012 campaign season.  The types of open hatred range from anti-gay marriage opponents in Maryland who have proclaimed that gays and their supporters "deserve death" to the GOP's repeated use of dog whistle phrases to appeal to the open racism of the white evangelicals and Mitt Romney's contempt for the 47% of Americans who Romney deems to be parasites and about who he feels no need to have concern.  It's all very ugly and clearly shows the hypocrisy of those who claim to be "godly Christians" even as the totally dishonor the Gospel message.  A piece in Salon makes the argument that what we are seeing is the last foul gasp of the Christofacists and racists who realize that their days of dominance and privilege may soon be gone.  These people may not win the ultimate battle for America's soul, but they clearly intend to inflict as much harm and divisiveness as possible while they can.  Here are some article highlights:

[T]he far right has an unfortunate legacy of racism, sexism and homophobia  .  .  .  .  but the kind of hatred that I’m talking about goes way beyond ordinary politics and deep into the realm of abnormal psychology. In its full-blown manifestations, it is akin to what an ophidiophobe feels at the sight of a snake: visceral and existential; categorical and absolute. It turns on the gut certainty that your adversaries aren’t looking just to raise your taxes but to destroy your whole way of life: that they are not only wrongheaded, but preternaturally evil.

When Mitt Romney promised to “keep America America” and Michele Bachmann launched a witch hunt against Muslims in the State Department, when Newt Gingrich called Obama a “food stamp president” and Rick Santorum railed against the “elite, smart people” who will never be “on our side,” those were the buttons that were being pushed.  Conspiratorial shibboleths are seeded throughout the GOP platform, .  .  .

And of course there is race. From the destruction of North America’s indigenous inhabitants to the importation of Africans as chattel slaves, from Jim Crow to racially targeted voter suppression efforts today, race has played as fraught a role in the American psyche as Freud believed sex did for bourgeois Austrians. “Affirmative action” and “reparations” are two of the most resonant buzzwords in the rhetorical arsenal of the right. Republican congressman Steve King of Iowa has accused Obama of plotting to make taxpayers pay slavery reparations to American blacks.

But as much as the extreme right might have hated FDR, JFK, Bill Clinton and even Eisenhower, Nixon and George H.W. Bush, President Obama is the visible embodiment of everything that they fear the most. He is an elite Harvard lawyer and the bearer of a foreign name.  .  .  .  . 
Most of all, Obama has dark skin.

But as noisome as all this fear and loathing may be, I suspect it will prove less influential than one might expect in the long term .  .  .  .  The great arc of American history bends toward greater, not lesser, tolerance and open-mindedness.

The writing is already on the wall. According to the U.S. Census, 50.4 percent of the babies born in the U.S. between July 2010 and July 2011 were minorities — up from 37 percent in 1990. In “Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?” Pat Buchanan envisions an America in which whites “may discover what it is like to ride in the back of the bus.” Go to a meeting of white nationalists, and you’ll quickly learn that their deepest fears are demographic. “White Christians are threatened with extinction as a separate and identifiable people,” writes Dr. Michael Hill, the president of the neo-Confederate League of the South. 

No matter how this election turns out, the endgame has already begun: America is becoming more multicultural, more gay-friendly and more feminist every day. But as every hunter knows, a wounded or cornered quarry is the most dangerous. Even as the white, patriarchal, Christian hegemony declines, its backlash politics become more vicious. They may succeed in turning back the clock for some time.

The description of the far right and Christofascists as cornered and wounded animals is actually quite apt in my view.  They certainly have the same type of viciousness and desperation.

More Sunday Male Beauty

Washington Post: Kaine Leads Over Allen 51% to 44%

Besides intensely hoping that Barack Obama prevails over Mitt"I'm A Liar" Romney on November 6th, I very much want to see my former classmate, George Allen, go down to defeat to Democrat Tim Kaine.  As noted before, George Allen's plan for America has changed little since he was first elected to the U.S. Senate 12 years ago even though the world and America's circumstances have changed markedly during the intervening years.  Allen still believes in large tax cuts for the wealthy, drastic cuts to social programs, blind fealty to Christianist extremists, and a subtle form of racism that is far too prominent in the Republican Party of Virginia.  In sharp contrast Tim Kaine - who I also know personally - understands that pushing recycled versions of failed GOP policies doesn't serve either Virginia's or the nation's best interests.  Here are highlights from the Washington Post on Kaine's continued lead in the polls over George "Macaca" Allen:

Timothy M. Kaine enters the final days of Virginia’s U.S. Senate contest with a clear advantage over George Allen, a new Washington Post poll shows, keeping an edge despite a tightening presidential race and an avalanche of outside spending against the Democrat.

Kaine (D) leads fellow former governor Allen (R) among likely Virginia voters, 51 to 44 percent, nearly unchanged from the 51 to 43 margin the Democrat enjoyed in the Washington Post’s mid-September poll. While that survey showed the Senate race mirroring the presidential — Kaine and President Obama held identical 8-point leads — Kaine is now in a stronger position than his party’s standard-bearer.

The two men have raised nearly $30 million combined, and more than $40 million has been poured into the race by outside groups — the most of any non-presidential race in the country, according to the Center for Responsive Politics — with the majority coming from Allen’s allies.

Kaine’s lead is fueled by a continued strong showing among women voters and voters in the Northern Virginia suburbs closest to the District, and comes despite growing advantages for Allen among whites and seniors. Kaine enjoys a 12-point edge on the question of which man would do a better job working with the other party on Capitol Hill — a focal point of Kaine’s message.

59 percent of likely voters say Obama was not a factor either way in their choice for Senate, while 25 percent say they would use their Senate vote to express support for the president and 13 percent say they wanted to express opposition.

Kaine has a seven-point lead on the question of which man better understands the economic problems of Virginians, and also has a 12-point advantage on which candidate is “the more friendly and likable person.”

Overall, Kaine is viewed favorably by 57 percent of likely voters and unfavorably by 33 percent. Allen’s rating is 50 percent favorable, 37 percent unfavorable.

 

The gender gap in the race continues to widen, with Kaine leading among women by 18 points and Allen holding a narrow four-point edge with men. Allen has the backing of 56 percent of white likely voters, while Kaine is supported by 77 percent of non-whites, including 86 percent of African Americans.

Mitt Romney the Perjurer

While some may argue that Mitt Romney's false testimony in a divorce case back in the 1990's is old news, I would argue that it remains relevant because if Romney was willing to be a perjurer and face potential criminal prosecution to "help a friend" what can we expect of the man in a heated and close political race.  Time and time again on this blog focus has been placed on Mitt Romney's dishonesty.  The man lies without a second thought and it is a trait that goes back at least to the mid-1990's.  TMZ.com has details and here are highlights:

Mitt Romney LIED under oath when he testified in the divorce of his good friend and screwed the friend's wife out of a lot of money in the process ... so claims the ex-wife of Staples' founder TomStemberg.

Multiple sources connected with the divorce tell TMZ ... during Tom's uber nasty divorce case with ex-wife Maureen, Mitt Romney gave a deposition and testified during the trial that Staples was worth virtually nothing. Romney testified that the company was worth very little and Tom was a dreamer and "the dream continues."

Romney characterized the Staples stock as "overvalued," adding, "I didn't place a great deal of credibility in the forecast of the company's future."

Partly as a result of Romney's testimony, Maureen got relatively little in the divorce, but we're told just weeks after the divorce ended, Romney and Tom went to Goldman Sachs and cashed in THEIR stock for a fortune. Short story -- Romney allegedly lied to help his friend and screw the friend's wife over.

And there's more ... Our sources say years later, Maureen, who suffered from MS and had multiple bouts with cancer, got a visit from one of Tom's guys, who gave her papers informing her that Tom was cancelling her health insurance. Our sources say the irony here is that we're told Tom was working as one of then Governor Mitt Romney's chief health care advisers.

Sources tell us ... Tom also got custody of the couple's one child, making allegations of abuse against Maureen. And get this ... in the mid-90s, after the divorce, Tom sent the boy a letter saying, although he loved him, because of issues related to the divorce "it will not be possible for you to be a part of our family for the foreseeable future."

Despite Romney's documented dishonesty, the Christianist continue to rally to his support.  Leading the charge are folks like pathological liar Tony Perkins of FRC and the child rapist enablers and protectors in the Catholic Church Conference of Catholic bishops.  The Catholic Church may condemn gays like myself, but I would argue that few are more morally bankrupt nowadays than today's Republicans (see the post earlier today on the moral case for voting for Obama) and those  like the Catholic bishops who wrap themselves in religiosity and false piety.

Hurricane Sandy - Sunday, October 28th

UPDATE: 10:20 PM - We are at peak high tide this evening and the water is half way up the driveway.  The sump pumps have started pumping ground water seeping into the sump wells as a result of more than a day of constant raining.   The water in the backyard is up to the top of the bank seen in the bottom most photo of our home taken from across the creek this morning.  So far the power remains on.

As the entire northeastern part of the country braces for the onslaught of Hurricane Sandy those of us in the mid-Atlantic states are already feeling the effects.  As always seems to be the case, the Outer Banks of North Carolina - a favor surf destination for me - is getting socked.  The image above is the Frisco Pier on Hatteras Island meeting a violent end this morning.  Further north in Hampton Roads, the wind, rain and tides are building even as Sandy remains several hundred miles away.  This morning's high tide was considerably higher than normal and as the images below indicate nearly reached the top of the bank of the tidal creek behind our home and started to flood Chesapeake Avenue in front of our home (our neighbors across the street had their driveway go under water.  

Tonight's high tide should be higher and the morning high tide tomorrow around 8:00 - 9:00 AM depending where one is in Hampton Roads will be higher yet.  Meanwhile, currently Surfline.com is predicting up to 12 foot waves at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront (check it out to see the live cam).   Tomorrow's waves should be even bigger.  In terms of preparations, the boyfriend and I have moved both of our Mercedes Benz to higher ground and later this evening the SUV will be parked on higher ground up the street.  We've put the flood doors in place for the garage and the sliding glass doors to the deck and patio and have them positioned outside the other doors at the ready.  We are rolling up all of the first floor carpets and carrying them upstairs.  Unlike past serious storms, we are not moving furniture upstairs since the whole house generator and three large industrial sump pumps (which kick on automatically if water accumulates) should keep any water that gets in the house from accumulating.   

Given the likely significant flooding in flood prone the Ghent area of Norfolk where my office is located tomorrow morning at high tide, I suspect the law firm will be closed at least in the morning, if not all day.   

Neighbor's Drive Way

Creek Water Coming up Storm Drain

Creek at morning high tide

High tide this morning

New York Times: Re-elect Barack Obama

In a well reasoned (at least in my view) and lengthy editorial the New York Times has endorsed Barack Obama for re-election.  Not surprisingly, the editorial notes Mitt Romney's shape shifting and willingness to change his position - dare we say blatantly lie? - depending upon the audience he is addressing.  The editorial also notes that Romney would be a disaster for efforts at deficit reduction.  In short, the best bets for further improvements in the economy and fixing the nation's budget problems lie with Obama.  Here are editorial highlights:

The economy is slowly recovering from the 2008 meltdown, and the country could suffer another recession if the wrong policies take hold. The United States is embroiled in unstable regions that could easily explode into full-blown disaster. An ideological assault from the right has started to undermine the vital health reform law passed in 2010. Those forces are eroding women’s access to health care, and their right to control their lives. Nearly 50 years after passage of the Civil Rights Act, all Americans’ rights are cheapened by the right wing’s determination to deny marriage benefits to a selected group of us. Astonishingly, even the very right to vote is being challenged.

That is the context for the Nov. 6 election, and as stark as it is, the choice is just as clear. 

President Obama has shown a firm commitment to using government to help foster growth. He has formed sensible budget policies that are not dedicated to protecting the powerful, and has worked to save the social safety net to protect the powerless. Mr. Obama has impressive achievements despite the implacable wall of refusal erected by Congressional Republicans so intent on stopping him that they risked pushing the nation into depression, held its credit rating hostage, and hobbled economic recovery. 

Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, has gotten this far with a guile that allows him to say whatever he thinks an audience wants to hear. But he has tied himself to the ultraconservative forces that control the Republican Party and embraced their policies, including reckless budget cuts and 30-year-old, discredited trickle-down ideas.

 

In the poisonous atmosphere of this campaign, it may be easy to overlook Mr. Obama’s many important achievements, including carrying out the economic stimulus, saving the auto industry, improving fuel efficiency standards, and making two very fine Supreme Court appointments. 

Health Care

Mr. Obama has achieved the most sweeping health care reforms since the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965. The reform law takes a big step toward universal health coverage, a final piece in the social contract. 

Mr. Romney has no plan for covering the uninsured beyond his callous assumption that they will use emergency rooms. He wants to use voucher programs to shift more Medicare costs to beneficiaries and block grants to shift more Medicaid costs to the states.  

The Economy

Mr. Obama prevented another Great Depression. The economy was cratering when he took office in January 2009. By that June it was growing, and it has been ever since (although at a rate that disappoints everyone), thanks in large part to interventions Mr. Obama championed, like the $840 billion stimulus bill. Republicans say it failed, but it created and preserved 2.5 million jobs and prevented unemployment from reaching 12 percent.

Last year, Mr. Obama introduced a jobs plan that included spending on school renovations, repair projects for roads and bridges, aid to states, and more. It was stymied by Republicans. Contrary to Mr. Romney’s claims, Mr. Obama has done good things for small businesses — like pushing through more tax write-offs for new equipment and temporary tax cuts for hiring the unemployed.  

Mr. Romney’s economic plan, as much as we know about it, is regressive, relying on big tax cuts and deregulation. That kind of plan was not the answer after the financial crisis, and it will not create broad prosperity. 

Foreign Affairs

Mr. Obama and his administration have been resolute in attacking Al Qaeda’s leadership, including the killing of Osama bin Laden. He has ended the war in Iraq. Mr. Romney, however, has said he would have insisted on leaving thousands of American soldiers there. He has surrounded himself with Bush administration neocons who helped to engineer the Iraq war, and adopted their militaristic talk in a way that makes a Romney administration’s foreign policies a frightening prospect.

Mr. Obama gathered international backing for airstrikes during the Libyan uprising, and kept American military forces in a background role. It was smart policy.

In the broadest terms, he introduced a measure of military restraint after the Bush years and helped repair America’s badly damaged reputation in many countries from the low levels to which it had sunk by 2008. 

The Supreme Court

The future of the nation’s highest court hangs in the balance in this election — and along with it, reproductive freedom for American women and voting rights for all, to name just two issues. Whoever is president after the election will make at least one appointment to the court, and many more to federal appeals courts and district courts.

 Mr. Obama, who appointed the impressive Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, understands how severely damaging conservative activism has been in areas like campaign spending. He would appoint justices and judges who understand that landmarks of equality like the Voting Rights Act must be defended against the steady attack from the right. 

There is no doubt that he [Romney] would appoint justices who would seek to overturn Roe v. Wade. 

Civil Rights

 .  .  .  .   Mr. Obama, however, has reversed Bush administration policies that chipped away at minorities’ voting rights and has fought laws, like the ones in Arizona, that seek to turn undocumented immigrants into a class of criminals. 

The military’s odious “don’t ask, don’t tell” rule was finally legislated out of existence, under the Obama administration’s leadership. There are still big hurdles to equality to be brought down, including the Defense of Marriage Act, the outrageous federal law that undermines the rights of gay men and lesbians, even in states that recognize those rights. 

Mr. Romney opposes same-sex marriage and supports the federal act, which not only denies federal benefits and recognition to same-sex couples but allows states to ignore marriages made in other states. His campaign declared that Mr. Romney would not object if states also banned adoption by same-sex couples and restricted their rights to hospital visitation and other privileges. 

Mr. Romney has been careful to avoid the efforts of some Republicans to criminalize abortion even in the case of women who had been raped, including by family members. He says he is not opposed to contraception, but he has promised to deny federal money to Planned Parenthood, on which millions of women depend for family planning. 

For these and many other reasons, we enthusiastically endorse President Barack Obama for a second term, and express the hope that his victory will be accompanied by a new Congress willing to work for policies that Americans need.

 

Sunday Male Beauty

The Moral Case for Voting for Obama

The Christianists and professional Christian set by vast majorities support the Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan ticket.  These people who proudly proclaim such support typically also wrap themselves in misplaced religious piety.  More often than not, they seem most motivated by hate and bigotry against others forgetting that NONE of us had the luxury of deciding whether we were born black, white or of some other ethnic background; whether we we born male or female; whether we were born gay or straight; whether we were born into a family of wealth and privilege like Messrs. Romney and Ryan; or whether we born into a family that was Christian. Muslim or something else.  Not a one of us had any control over the hand we were dealt in these regards.   Yet these proud Republicans - most of whom are white, conservative Christians and straight - have a sense of extreme superiority and self-righteousness over others not born into the same circumstances that they themselves enjoyed.  Worse yet, they hold hate and contempt for those not born white, Christian and straight.  But the case in support of labeling them morally bankrupt is even worse.  Andrew Sullivan makes the case why one is truly moral - and I make the case that the Christianists/tea Party base of the GOP is inherently immoral - voting for Barack Obama is the only moral choice.  Here are excerpts:

[T]there is another dimension to politics and it's about morality. Some issues are not subject to prudential or utilitarian reasoning, but are fundamental a priori moral questions. Let me cite three areas where I think the difference between Obama and Romney is a deep and moral one and requires the exercize of conscience as well as judgment.

The first is universal access to healthcare. I've long been a fan of the great parts of America's private healthcare system: its treatment of patients as customers they want to keep, as opposed to human beings they are simply mandated to treat; the innovation of the pharmaceutical companies in a free market; private hospitals and doctors. But the fact that tens of millions of human beings cannot afford access to this often excellent private healthcare, even in a basic form, remains, to my mind, a scandal. That there are two nations in this country - one with the security of healthcare and one with no security at all - remains, to my mind, a moral disgrace.

This election is really asking you: do you believe everyone should be able to have access to private health insurance or not?  .  .  .  . To run a campaign in favor of removing that kind of security for tens of millions of Americans and replacing it with nothing remotely comparable is simply, deeply, morally wrong. 

Torture is also a non-negotiable issue for me. It is simply unacceptable. It is the negation of the West's entire founding principles. Any candidate of any party who supports it rules himself out for me on that ground alone. Romney will bring it back. He will make America a torturing nation again. He would employ the former war criminals of the dark years of Bush-Cheney and legitimize them still further.

Finally, I cannot reconcile a pre-emptive war against a country that only has the technical ability to make a nuclear bomb, but has not weaponized it or threatened its use, with any reading of just war theory. 

I have no illusions about the evil in the Tehran regime.  .  .  .  .  But when the Supreme Leader of that theocracy publicly declares as religious doctrine that using a nuclear bomb is a sin, and when the opposition in Iran favors the nuclear program as a matter of national pride, and when Iran's nuclear capability would still be no match for Israel's massive and fully actionable nuclear apparatus, then pre-emptive war is morally unconscionable. To use an expression like "mowing the lawn" to decribe such acts of war that would kill countless people makes me sick to my stomach. 

Romney favors such a pre-emptive war based merely on Iran's capability. Obama favors it based on the actual decision to construct a nuclear weapon. Both, I believe, are morally troublesme, from a just war perspective. But Romney's is far worse. I'm no pacifist. But I also deeply oppose war except in self-defense with as few civilian casualties as is possible. 

Andrew also correctly looks at the support for equal civil liberties and employment protections for LGBT Americans which in my mind is also a moral issue, but it is health care, torture and unnecessary war that he finds determinative:

I'm not citing civil rights issues, but they of course factor in. The GOP's institutional bigotry toward gay people and our lives and families and its stated intent to keep a whole class of us disenfranchized from the basic right to marry the person you love appalls me.

On the universality of access to healthcare, on torture, and on pre-emptive war, my conscience therefore requires me to withhold support for the Republican candidate. I disagree with him on many prudential policy grounds - but none reach the level of moral seriousness of the above.

Porcine Catholic Bishop: Vote for Obama and Go to Hell

It never ceases to amaze me how Catholic bishops who have participated in perhaps the largest worldwide conspiracy to enable and protect sexual predators and hide crimes against children and youth still have the audacity to lecture others on how to case their vote for politicians and political parties.  Equally amazing is how anyone listens to what these men who have obstructed justice have to say on anything.  A case in point is Bishop David Ricken of the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay - who looks to have NEVER missed a meal and be living pretty high on the hog - who in a letter to Catholics in his diocese has stated that supporting politicians who support choice and same sex marriage is to support something "intrinsically evil."  I would venture a far bigger evil is men like Ricken himself.  Here are highlights from Northwestern.com on Rickens bullshit:

Bishop David Ricken, the leader of the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay, noted in a recent letter to parishioners that voting for candidates who support what he calls “intrinsically evil” positions, such as abortion and gay marriage, could “put your own soul in jeopardy.”

Ricken’s letter, dated Oct. 24, notes that the church has a responsibility to “speak out regarding moral issues, especially on those issues that impact the ‘common good.’” It goes on to note principles to keep in mind in the voting booth on Nov. 6, including abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, human cloning and gay marriage.

“Some candidates and one party have even chosen some of these as their party’s or their personal political platform. To vote for someone in favor of these positions means that you could be morally ‘complicit’ with these choices which are intrinsically evil. This could put your own soul in jeopardy.”

 Ricken’s guidance on these issues carry a lot of weight in this region — the diocese has 304,614 members in 16 counties. Across the state, Catholics make up more than 25 percent of the population, or 1.5 million people, according to the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies’ 2010 U.S. Religion Census: Religious Congregations & Membership Study.

This from a man who has sworn obedience and fealty to a Pope who is a former Hitler Youth and who has been documented to have protected sexual predators in the same manners as Monsignor Lynn of Philadelphia who is headed to prison.  It's Ricken and his cohorts who are "intrinsically evil."   I suspect that Ricken's own soul is in more jeopardy than those of most members of his diocese.

Ann "Marie Antoinette" Romney: Throw Out Public Education

Proving herself again to be an out of touch bitch Ann "Marie Antoinette" Romney proposes that the solution to America's education system is to discard it and go with charter schools.  I'm surprised she didn't outright say school vouchers are the solution since a pet project of the Christianists is to send their children to church affiliated, science denying schools - the Christianist equivalent of a madrassa, if you will - and have the government pick up the cost.  As for everyone else's children, being the "godly Christians" that they are, they'd happily kick those children to the curb.   The irony, of course, as noted in Daily Kos is that neither Ann Romney, her husband, or any of her children has ever attended public school:

Among her talking points, this:

I've been a First Lady of the State. I have seen what happens to people's lives if they don't get a proper education. And we know the answers to that. The charter schools have provided the answers. The teachers' unions are preventing those things from happening, from bringing real change to our educational system. We need to throw out the system.

 Mrs. Romney, of course, is not an educator and has no experience as a teacher. Other than as a candidate's wife (if then), she's probably never even set a well-shod dainty foot inside a public school. She went to private school; so did her husband and children. And the "answers" the charter schools are providing? As mysterious as her tax returns. I guess we'll just have to take her word for it.

Equally disturbing is her mindset that serving as a Mormon missionary is equivalent with serving in the nation's armed forces.  Unlike one of my sons-in-law, the Romney sons are too good to risk their lives for their country - they are "too important" just like their draft dodging father:

As Mrs. Romney said on The View last week, Mormon missions are the equivalent of military service:

My five sons have also served their mission. None served in the military. None served in the military, but I do have one son that feels that he’s giving back to his country in a significant way where he is now a doctor, and he is taking care of veterans. So we find different ways of serving, and my five boys and my husband did serve missions, and did not serve in the military.   "I sent them away boys, and they came back men," she added.

So many real "gold star" Moms would have been so very grateful to have had their sons "come back men" -- or to have had them come back at all.

Can someone please tell this woman to get her head out of her self-centered, self-absorbed ass?   The woman is despicable.