Poll: Majority of Americans Oppose GOP "Bathroom Bills"

Time and time again I have noted my shock that today's GOP continues to chase after a shrinking right wing white voter pool even as poll after pool suggests that the majority of voters do not support what the GOP/Christofascists are peddling.  With all Hell breaking loose around North Carolina's HB2 which was passed by the North Carolina GOP to supposedly rally North Carolina Christofascists to the voting booths in November, CNN commissioned a poll that found that nearly 3 out of 5 Americans oppose the GOP's "bathroom bills" and anti-LGBT agenda.  As I have noted before, the modern day Pharisees and political whores who now control the GOP have no long term plan for the Party's survival.  Perhaps it is a God send that Donald Trump has appeared on the scene to accelerate the death of the GOP and perhaps minimize the death throes.  Here are highlights from The Advocate on the CNN poll findings:

Most Americans support LGBT rights in some measure and oppose anti-transgender bathroom laws, such as the one passed in North Carolina, according to a poll released by CNN on Monday.

The survey found 57 percent of respondents were against laws which would require transgender people to use bathrooms that did not correspond with their gender identity. A law passed in North Carolina in March requires transgender people to use bathrooms matching the gender listed on their birth certificates, regardless of gender identity. Only 38 percent said of those polled by CNN they support such legislation.

Additionally, strong opposition outweighed strong support for these anti-LGBT laws, with 39 percent strongly opposed to 25 percent strongly supporting such efforts. Democrats and independents were more likely to oppose the transphobic laws than Republicans, but Republicans were evenly split on the matter, according to the survey.

About 75 percent of respondents favored laws guaranteeing equal protection for transgender people in jobs, housing, and public accommodations, while 80 percent were in favor of such protections for gay and lesbian people. 

I truly believe that today's GOP and its Christofascist supporters make the Pharisees of the Bible look like nice and decent people in comparison.

Bernie Sanders Cancels Meeting with HIV Activists

With both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders courting all aspects of the LGBT vote, especially in advance of the New York State primary last month, both Clinton and Sanders agreed to meet with HIV activists this month in Indianapolis.  Now, Sanders has cancelled and failed to reschedule or communicate with activist groups he had agreed to meet with.  The Washington Blade looks at the strange cancellation and cessation of communications.  Here are highlights:

Bernie Sanders has cancelled a meeting with HIV advocates his campaign affirmed days before the crucial New York Democratic primary he would attend, according to the activists who sought to arrange the meeting. The 30-minute meeting between Sanders and HIV advocates was set for May 13 in Indianapolis.

Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton also agreed to meet the activists, who say they’re are still on track to meet with her Thursday for one hour in New York City.

Hilary McQuie, director of U.S. policy and grassroots mobilization for the HIV/AIDS group Health GAP, told the Blade the Sanders campaign cancelled the meeting without explanation. “He did cancel — no reason given and they have not rescheduled,” McQuie said. “We feel a bit burned by the bern, and hope they will answer our emails now.”

Peter Staley, a New York-based gay rights and HIV advocate, told the Blade HIV advocates before the unexpected cancellation were in daily contact with the Sanders campaign. “They sent a ‘need to reschedule’ email last Sunday (for our Tuesday meeting), and then bizarrely stopped communications completely after that,” Staley said.

“We’ve been emailing and calling every day since then, including warning them days ago about our intent to go public.” According to a statement announcing the cancellation from the Brooklyn-based HIV and homeless advocacy group Housing Works, attendees were informed on April 30 the Sanders meeting was cancelled, which was two days after many of them purchased expensive, last-minute plane ticket to attend the event.

Although the Sanders campaign promised to “reschedule” as soon as possible, it has yet to propose a new date, time or city, the statement says. The Sanders campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment late Sunday to confirm the meeting with HIV advocates was cancelled or to explain why the event would be nixed.

Charles King, CEO of Housing Works, said in the statement he’s among Sanders’ supporters, but the candidate’s decision to cancel the meeting is “incredibly disappointing.” “I have been a supporter of Bernie Sanders, and was proud to vote for him in the New York primary,” King said.

“It is disheartening to see the ‘revolutionary’ candidate who claims to value grassroots organizing and visionary politics not make time in his schedule to meet with us. He is supposed to be the guy who walks the walk, but all we’ve heard the past six weeks is talk—and fairly tepid, reactive talk at that.”

Ramon Gardenhire, vice president of policy and advocacy for the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, said Sanders should remain true to his word to meet HIV advocates. 

Department of Justice Files Lawsuit Against Pat McCrory and North Carolina

Perhaps trying to get ahead of the curve before the United States Department of Justice could act, prostitute-in-chief to the Christofascists in North Carolina, Gov. Pat McCrory filed a lawsuit against the federal government defending the anti-LGBT law he signed into law in a likely attempt to save his sorry ass from defeat in November by rallying the knuckle dragging, spittle flecked elements of the GOP base.  The irony, of course is that McCrory's lawsuit runs directly against the recent 4th Circuit rulin in the Gavin Grim case pending in Virginia.  Hence, the rejection of McCrory's lawsuit is almost guaranteed given the binding precedent in the Grimm case.  Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Justice filed its own lawsuit this afternoon seeking a court order barring the enforcement of the Christofascists inspired and backed HB2.  The Washington Post looks at the federal lawsuit and possible consequences for McCrory and his fellow pandering whores in the North Carolina GOP.  Adding to the fun is the likelihood that North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper will refuse to defend against the DOJ Lawsuit.  Here are excerpts:

North Carolina and the Justice Department announced on Monday dueling lawsuits over the state’s so-called “bathroom bill,” which has become the epicenter of a larger fight over transgender rights. . . . the Justice Department’s civil rights office said the measure is discriminatory and violates civil rights.

“This action is about a great deal more than just bathrooms,” Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch said during a news conference after the Justice Department’s lawsuit was filed. “This is about the dignity and respect we accord our fellow citizens and the laws that we, as a people and as a country, have enacted to protect them.”

Lynch on Monday linked the bill with a dark legacy that included Jim Crow laws and resistance to the Brown v. Board of Education decision.

“It was not so very long ago that states, including North Carolina, had signs above restrooms, water fountains and on public accommodations keeping people out based upon a distinction without a difference,” said Lynch, who is also a North Carolina native, during her unusually impassioned remarks.

Vanita Gupta, head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division, said Monday that calling the law a “bathroom bill,” as it has become commonly known, “trivializes” the measure’s true impact, which she said could impact state employees, students and sports fans alike.  “It speaks to all of us who have ever been made to feel inferior – like somehow we just don’t belong in our community, like somehow we just don’t fit in,” Gupta said. “Let me reassure every transgender individual, right here in America, that you belong just as you are.”

North Carolina receives more than $4 billion in federal education funding each year, much of it in the form of student loans, and the Education Department has said it is reviewing whether to withhold that money due to the bathroom law. The government has withheld funds from schools before over civil rights issues, holding back money from dozens of districts in Southern states that refused to desegregate in the 1960s.

The Justice Department’s lawsuit, in addition to naming the state of North Carolina, also includes the state’s department of public safety, and the University of North Carolina and the school’s board of governors.

North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper (D), who will face McCrory in what is expected to be a close gubernatorial election in November, has said he will not defend the measure. He said Monday that McCrory was “pouring gas on the fire that he lit” by filing a lawsuit against the federal government.

“Instead of doing what’s right for our state, he’s doubling down on what he knows he did wrong,” Cooper said in a video message Monday. “Enough is enough.”

Three groups challenging the bathroom measure in federal court-American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of North Carolina and Lambda Legal-released a statement saying that McCrory “doubled down on discrimination” against transgender people with his suit Monday.  Transgender people work for the state of North Carolina, attend school in North Carolina, and are a part of every community across the state,” the groups said in their statement. “It is unconscionable that the government is placing a target on their backs to advance this discriminatory political agenda. Lawsuits are normally filed to stop discrimination – not to continue it.”

While I hold no ill will toward average citizens of North Carolina, I hope that the Justice Department will play real hard ball with McCrory and the state.  If it takes withholding federal funds and causing a financial crisis in North Carolina to get the point across, so be it.  Religious based ignorance and bigotry have NO PLACE in the civil laws and North Carolina needs to pay the price of electing Christofascist puppets to both the governorship and the state legislature.  As the chaos goes forward, average citizens need to be reminded again and again that the true source of the upheaval is the  Christofascists who want to impose their Bronze Age beliefs on all and the sorry political whores in the GOP who are only to happy to serve as their prostitutes.   The Christofascists need to become political and social pariahs who are avoided by decent, moral people.  As for the "good Christians," I am still waiting to see more of them get off their assess, break their silence and loudly attack their hate-filled fellow believers.   If they fail to do so, then they need to be painted with the same anti-modern day Pharisee brush.

Monday Morning Male Beauty

Sarah Palin: I Will Work To Defeat Paul Ryan In Primary

John McCain is worrying that Donald Trump heading up the GOP ticket may doom McCain's own re-election effort.  The irony is that one of Trump's loudest supporters is the lunatic from Alaska that McCain had tapped as his own vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin.  In many ways Palin embodies the insanity and embrace of ignorance that has swept the Republican Party and ultimately lead to Trump being the presumptive GOP presidential nominee.  Now, Palin is threatening to try to rally the GOP base to defeat Paul Ryan in a primary contest in revenge for Ryan's reluctance to support Trump.  Crooks and Liars looks at Palin's anti-Ryan rantings.  Here are excerpts:

Just when you thought this election couldn't get any crazier....Crazy Sarah inserts herself into the mix, guaranteeing there won't be enough popcorn to go 'round.

Washington (CNN) - Sarah Palin will work to defeat House Speaker Paul Ryan by backing his primary opponent in Wisconsin, the former Alaska governor told CNN's Jake Tapper.

Palin said in an interview that airs Sunday on "State of the Union" that her decision was sparked by Ryan's bombshell announcement to Tapper last week that he wasn't yet ready to support Donald Trump, the Republican presumptive nominee. Palin endorsed Trump back in January.

"I think Paul Ryan is soon to be 'Cantored,' as in Eric Cantor," Palin said, referring to the former Republican House majority leader who was ousted in a shocking upset in 2014 when challenger Dave Brat ran to his right in a Virginia primary.

"His political career is over but for a miracle because he has so disrespected the will of the people, and as the leader of the GOP, the convention, certainly he is to remain neutral, and for him to already come out and say who he will not support is not a wise decision of his," Palin continued.

Palin deserves to be in a mental institution, in my view, yet she remains a heroine of much of the knuckle dragging, ignorance embracing GOP base.  If McCain is defeated in November, perhaps it will his just reward for giving the nation Palin back in 2008. 

Evangelicals Feign Dismay at Trump's Gathering of "Religious" Supporters

One of the big ironies of the 2016 election cycle - unless one has followed the self-styled "godly folk" and fundamentalist Christian organizations over the years - is how evangelical Christians are now whining over the fact that so many of their brethren are now supporting Donald Trump.  One need not search the websites of many "Christian" and "family values" groups to see that Trump's message of contempt for others who are different, open racism and nativism are all threads of what these groups have been preaching for many years.  Seemingly, up until now few in the mainstream media have ever bothered to look at what these groups have always been all about even as they gave a platform to hate merchants like Tony Perkins and other leaders of "Christian" groups.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at the crocodile tears of evangelicals who in Trump have largely found the leader they have always wanted.  Trump's only disappointment is that he doesn't call for a formal theocracy.  Here are article highlights:

Fuller and other conservatives whose voting decisions are guided by their Christian faith find themselves dismayed and adrift now that Trump has wrested control of the Republican Party. It is a sentiment that reaches from the small, aluminum-sided church with a large white cross on its front that Fuller and his wife built on the Nebraska plains to the highest levels of American religious life. Even progressive Christians — evangelicals and Catholics, among others — who don’t necessarily vote Republican are alarmed that Trump is attracting many voters who call themselves religious. A coalition of nearly 60 Christian leaders — many progressive and some conservative — published an open letter last week asking voters of faith to reject Trump and his “vulgar racial and religious demagoguery,” warning that the nation faces a “moral threat” from the candidate.

There is consternation about the hard line Trump takes on immigrants and about the morality of a thrice-married man who has long bragged about his sexual conquests. But another factor is at work as well: The traditional social and cultural positions that drive many religious conservative voters, including same-sex marriage and abortion, have been cast aside by a candidate who seems to have little interest in fighting the culture wars.

In the past, Trump has espoused social views to the left of his party, including a longtime acceptance of gay rights, although he has since moved right on many of them.  . . . . And while he says he is against same-sex marriage, he has attended a same-sex wedding and is opposed to a North Carolina law — aimed at transgender people — that requires people to use bathrooms that correspond with the gender on their birth certificate. He said transgender activist Caitlyn Jenner could use the women’s room at his properties.

“This year the Republican Party has not just surrendered on the culture wars, they’ve joined the other side. And that’s a unique situation,” said Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.

“Trying to use social issues as primary issues to define a campaign has not borne out as effective for those candidates who embraced it,” said Gregory T. Angelo, president of the Log Cabin Republicans, which advocates for conservative gays and lesbians.

But there are voters like Fuller for whom “it’s always about social issues.” He cast ballots for John McCain and Mitt Romney despite not loving their platforms, but he felt they were men of character who would do right by the country. Many at a Baptist conference he attended last week were shaking their heads, he said, unsure about how to handle the upcoming election; supporting Hillary Clinton and her liberal positions seems contrary to everything many of them stand for.

Moore said many evangelicals are “horrified” to have to choose between Trump and Clinton. More conservative evangelicals like Moore are concerned about moral and social issues. Gushee said that progressive ones such as himself and the other letter-signers are worried about the “bigotry, xenophobia and misogyny” they see from Trump.

Despite this, many self-described evangelicals have cast ballots for the brash New Yorker. Trump has captured about a third of the vote of white born-again or evangelical Christians and tends to do well among evangelicals who don’t frequent church. He has also won the endorsement of leaders such as Jerry Falwell Jr., president of Liberty University, where Trump spoke this year and where Cruz announced his candidacy in March 2015.

 

The debate over whether evangelical Christians can support Trump’s candidacy while keeping true to their beliefs “may be shaping the very nature of evangelicalism,” Mark Galli, editor of Christianity Today, wrote in March.

Heather Dreesman said thinking about the election in November makes her feel sick to her stomach. She said she now carries a sense of grief that the country is forsaking its values and feels anguish about what will happen. She would like to see a third-party candidate but doesn’t think it’s a real possibility — meaning she probably won’t vote.

“I hate to make this comparison,” she said. “I really do feel like in the future I would hate to look back and say, ‘I voted for Hitler.’ I feel like that may be what is happening if I vote for Trump.”

Paul Ryan Wake Up Call: The GOP Has Always Been Trump’s Party

It has been case after case of disingenuous high drama watching Paul Ryan and other members of the so-called Republican Party establishment whining and pontificating about Donald Trump not being a "real conservative" or follower of "Reaganism."  The truth is that since the rise of the Christofascists and white supremacists within the GOP, the Republican Party as now personified by Trump has been the true reality, not the blather represented by bleatings about "limited government," "family values," and vigilant foreign policy.  But beyond that, it is important to understand that the Republican Party of the 1970's and 1980's was actually an exception to most of the history of the GOP.  A piece in Salon looks at the truth versus the fictional reality that Paul Ryan and others like to cling to.  Here are article highlights:

Amid the chaos, sadness and jubilation of Donald Trump as the Republican nominee, one should remember that Trump isn’t that far from the ideology the party promoted well into the 20^th century.  While the much maligned Republican “establishment” and their allies in the fourth estate are still struggling to deal with the reality of Trump as nominee, the conservative insurgents of the fifth estate are eagerly optimistic for a November showdown. Far from killing the Republican Party, Trump is restoring it to its old precepts: nationalism, economic protectionism, and nativism.

One of the most popular myths about American political history is that the Democrats and Republicans used to be opposites of one another, and sometime around 1964 they flipped.  At face value, this myth makes a lot of sense. . . . But that narrative gets history badly wrong, and even romanticizes the old cosmopolitan Republican civic conservatism and elitism as a form of progressivism. 

Republicans and Democrats in the past, had big tent coalitions, which have slowly been dwindling over the last few decades—but at a much faster and alarming rate among Republicans while Democrats have largely retained a strong centrist faction that retains many leadership positions inside the party.  The much romanticized “liberal” Rockefeller Republicans would likely be loathed by today’s progressives due to their close connections to Wall Street, commitment to deficit reduction, and generally hawkish foreign policy even if they held progressive views on civil rights, immigration reform, and environmentalism. 

Just because the Republican Party was partially founded by anti-slavery and abolitionist activists, doesn’t mean the Republicans were “liberal” in their past.  The GOP’s economic program was strongly nationalistic, much like Trump’s economic nationalism he peddles today.  It aimed at preserving domestic industry against foreign competition, which may have preserved working-class jobs but made the prices of goods artificially high and maintained de-facto monopolies that held complete control of American markets without the inclusion of foreign goods.  According to Trump, that’s the economic policy he plans to recreate.

On trade policy, Trump would fit right in with the old Republican Party’s anti-trade protectionism which was popular well into the mid-1950s with men like Senator Robert Taft, “Mr. Republican,” from Ohio.  And of course, Herbert Hoover was one of the most protectionist presidents in history—and after the Great Depression hit, his signing into law a Republican-backed protectionist bill, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, only exacerbated the Depression.  Throughout their history, Republicans have been the party of protectionism and high tariffs—and it was only after the New Deal consensus of trade liberalization that Republicans embraced the benefits of international trade.

On immigration, the Republicans of yesteryear were strongly nativist, tended to be anti-immigrant (and often anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic), and were the overseers of anti-immigrant legislation like Emergency Quota Act of 1921 (signed by President Warren G. Harding) and the Immigration Act of 1924 (signed by President Calvin Coolidge).  These laws numerically limited the number of immigrants allowed in the United States and biasedly favored immigrants from Western and Northern Europe and discriminated against immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Asia.  Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and prospective policies are nothing new; they have historical precedence within the history of the Republican Party.  Indeed, this is the immigration policy many conservatives want: open borders for White Europeans, walls and deportation for everyone else.

However, the New Deal and the outbreaks of hostilities in Europe in 1939 also gave rise to a new breed of Republicans who can trace their lineage back to Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and the Federalist Founding Fathers.  These Republicans, largely from the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, were deficit hawks, internationalists, accepting of the New Deal (some even enthusiastically supportive like La Guardia), and had largely moved away from anti-immigrant attitudes.  This group of Republicans, the “eastern establishment” derided by Flyover Country conservatives like Robert Taft and later Barry Goldwater, orchestrated a modernizing and rebranding effort for the Republican Party that remained true to the tenants of fiscal conservatism and free-markets, but embraced new ideas in foreign policy, trade relations, and immigration.

These Republicans, led by figures like Henry Stimson (Roosevelt’s Secretary of War), Fiorella La Guardia, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., Thomas Dewey, Leverett Saltonstall and later by Samuel Prescott Bush and Nelson Rockefeller, moved the Republican Party toward a direction of acceptance of the New Deal, a re-invigorated Hamiltonian internationalist foreign policy of maintaining global stability and advancing American business interests, and an openness to immigration. 

From the 1940s to the 1970s, the “Me Too” Republicans helped steer the GOP away from its nativist, isolationist, and anti-immigrant attitudes that had long shaped and dominated the party.  But the nomination of Barry Goldwater and the election of Ronald Reagan marked an important tipping point for the Republican modernizers.
Although media entrepreneurs like William F. Buckley Jr. and his army at National Review also helped the Republican image makeover by purging anti-Semites (like those found writing for the American Mercury) and isolationists (like the members of the John Birch Society) from the acceptable ranks of the new “movement conservatism” emerging in the 1950s . . . .
 Reagan remains the ever illusive hero of Republicans.  Goldwater was unable to maintain the fragile alliance between Republican modernizers and reactionaries, between the arch-conservative base and the preppy, connected, Wall Street oriented educated elite typified by men like Rockefeller whom Goldwater vilified.  Reagan, it is said, struck the balance.

In Trump’s nomination, we are seeing a return of the Grand Old Party, not a demise of it.  He is no Ronald Reagan, but the ghost of Republicans past.  His supporters, and his rhetoric, feed into the self-victimized belief that the Republican Party was hijacked by the eastern establishment.  His nomination is the culmination of an 80 year conspiracy imagined by the conservative-nationalist working class.

The modernizers who shed the shackles of nativism, insular nationalism, isolationism, and economic protectionism while retaining the creedal Republican commitment to deficit reduction, balanced budgets, and free markets mixed with a new conservative internationalism which sough global stability, were the real enemies all along.  Of course, these Republicans, now a decrepit and dying species, have a certain claim to a conservative-federalist lineage too that goes even beyond the Republican Party to America’s very founding with Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and John Adams.

The venom aimed at Donald Trump by the Republican establishment and their media allies is not necessarily one of antagonism to his policies, but a venom pitted against Trump for visibly destroying what they had been working so tirelessly to build since the days of the New Deal—a remodeled, civil, and polite conservatism that hid its more crass and insular elements while promoting a policy-oriented politics.  Far from being out of place, or even “destroying” the conservative movement, Donald Trump has channeled the suspicions of conservatives who had been ostracized by Republican modernizers for the last 80 years.  Trump has exposed the Republican establishment as nothing more than a new makeover in an old face—and that is why they hate him.

Sunday Morning Male Beauty

Trump Refuses To Denounce His Racist Neo-Nazi Supporters

Perhaps being gay and having been on the receiving end of name calling and threats - and even harassment by some Norfolk police officers roughly a decade ago - I am perhaps extra sensitive to the dangers of those who seemingly get their thrills by threatening others and and venting their anger at those deemed "other," but one of the frightening things about Donald Trump's candidacy - there are sadly, so many to choose from - is his coddling of and tacit approval of white supremacist and neo-Nazi aggressiveness and threats of violence.  Instead of acting presidential as his apologists claim, he looks more akin to Hitler encouraging his brown shirts to engage in violence against enemies of his foul and ultimately murderous regime.  A piece in Media Matters looks at Trump's ongoing refusal to condemn some of his most frightening supporters.  Here are highlights:

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has thrilled and emboldened his racist online neo-Nazi supporters with his refusal to denounce them in a recent CNN interview.

Reporter Julia Ioffe recently wrote a profile of Melania Trump for GQ which was criticized by Melania Trump for purportedly being unfair. The Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website that’s endorsed Trump, responded to Ioffe’s piece by directing followers to “go ahead and send her a tweet and let her know what you think of her dirty kike trickery.”

What followed was a barrage of anti-Semitic messages and death threats against the reporter. Ioffe told CNN that Trump fans have been sending her “the most obscene, anti-Semitic stuff I have frankly ever seen directed at me in my life.” She “also received a call from someone claiming to be from a company called ‘Overnight Caskets.’ ‘We got an email with your phone number saying you'd need our services,’ Ioffe detailed in a post on her Facebook page.”

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer interviewed Trump on May 4 and asked if he would denounce the anti-Semitic death threats against Ioffe. Trump refused to condemn the threats, saying he was unaware of them and adding, “I don’t have a message to the fans. A woman wrote a article that was inaccurate.”

Trump’s refusal to condemn their behavior has thrilled Trump’s neo-Nazi fans. Daily Stormer editor Andrew Anglin responded to the interview with the headline, “Glorious Leader Donald Trump Refuses to Denounce Stormer Troll Army.” He began:

Asked by the disgusting and evil Jewish parasite Wolf Blitzer to denounce the Stormer Troll Army, The Glorious Leader declined.

The Jew Wolf was attempting to Stump the Trump, bringing up stormer attacks on Jew terrorist Julia Ioffe. Trump responded to the request with “I have no message to the fans” which might as well have been “Hail Victory, Comrades!”

The pro-Hitler writer explained that “we are his most ardent supports. We will be on the ground, getting him elected. By the way: You all need to get ready to volunteer. We’re going to need a lot of boots on the ground to ensure the evil bitch Hillary is vanquished from the realm.”

Anglin -- an ally of fellow Trump supporter David Duke -- then turned his attention to Blitzer, directing followers: “Tell the dirty Jew Wolf Blitzer (זאב ברק) what you think of his diabolical agenda against us and Our Leader: @wolfblitzer.” (A separate Anglin post about the Blitzer interview was headlined, “Glorious Leader Holocausts Filthy Kike Wolf Blitzer.”)

Trump's campaign has received support from numerous white nationalist groups and leaders, who have used Trump's campaign to recruit followers, fundraise, and spread their message.

 To those I know who are flirting with supporting Trump, are these the types of people with whom you with to associate?  If not, perhaps you ought to reanalyze your pro-Trump leanings. If they are, then shame on you!

Will Donald Trump Hand the Senate to Elizabeth Warren?

Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren share many views and both now tend to define Democrat populism.  Of the two, I see Warren as the more genuine and with more staying power and less driven by ego.  I'm sorry, but with Sanders, too much of the story is about him.  Now, should fears that Donald Trump will lead the GOP to a rout in November prove true, a lengthy piece in Politico considers how Warren could be poised to take charge of the U. S., Senate, something that would be a true case of karma being a bitch for the Republicans who blocked her confirmation to head the CFPB.  Here are some article highlights which I hope prove to be accurate: 

In a normal year, the Senate would be likely to stay in Republican hands. But now that Trump has secured the nomination, the prospect of a powerful anti-Trump turnout puts as many as a dozen Republican-held seats in play—with the possibility of electing as many as eight new female senators to join the 12 Democratic women who will return in 2017. That would give us a new Senate with a Democratic majority, a historically large bloc of women—as many as 20 on the Democratic side—and one person ready to lead them. In short, Trump could end up making Warren one of the most powerful people in the Capitol.

It would be quite a set of ironies to cap off this strange national election: While Republicans decide which cliff to leap off, Trump’s nomination could unwittingly usher into power a small army of liberal women, following Warren into battle against wealthy money men like himself. And the gate-crasher who ran for Senate in 2012 because Senate Republicans wouldn’t let her run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau could soon be pulling the strings of the Senate Democrats—and bossing around the very Republicans who blocked her.

For Democrats soured by Republican obstructionism during Obama’s eight years in office, the stakes couldn’t be higher. “Having the majority is critical. An example right now is what is happening to Merrick Garland,” Warren says. “The difference between majority and minority is being able to hold hearings and call votes.”

Of course, if Democrats take the Senate, it’ll be a Senate majority forged in Warren’s image. “A lot of groundwork is being laid in 2015 and 2016 for an Elizabeth Warren-style agenda to be put on the floor in 2017, if we have a Senate majority,” says Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.

In other words, it’s Warren’s Senate for the taking—but first she needs to pay for it.
It’s no secret that Warren is now the go-to banker for Democrats in need of campaign cash. . . . But the amounts she can give directly pale next to what she can raise. (Direct donations aside, the PAC is primarily to cover costs for her travel to speak at fundraisers.) And the scary thing is, Warren’s influence and name recognition are so powerful that she doesn’t even need to get on a plane to get the money flowing. She just needs to hit send.

Flipping a Senate majority, from its current 46-54 deficit, has been considered a crapshoot. But a Trump nomination could slide a whole host of contests into Democratic hands. As the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia depicted last month, a “Trumpmare” scenario would push Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania Senate races from “Tossup” or “Lean Republican” to “Lean Democrat.” It’s easy to see why: Recent polls show Clinton beating Trump by 15 points in Pennsylvania and 19 points in New Hampshire. It’s hard to imagine that kind of lopsided drubbing wouldn’t affect the Senate races there.

That alone would get Democrats a 51-seat majority. But the Trumpmare map also puts Arizona, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio contests in play—a potential rout for the blue team. And even without Trump, the University of Virginia’s analysis throws six Senate race “Crystal Ball” ratings in the direction of Democrats. Other experts have made similar adjustments.

That’s eight Democratic women seeking to join the 12 who will be returning to the Senate in 2017—a potentially game-changing shift even within the Democrats’ Caucus, where a little less than a third are women. Warren’s transformation of the Senate could usher in not only a majority, but a particularly Warren-esque revolution: Democratic, female and progressive.

Asked if she sees herself as a potential leader of Democratic women in the Senate, Warren demurs but does not deny. . . . . Warren’s only real rival in terms of national following would be Sanders, whose historic presidential run has built a loyal following outside of Washington. But, as Barney Frank has made abundantly clear in recent public tirades, Sanders’ progressive Capitol colleagues have always looked at him as a party of one, not a leader or even a team player. He became a Democrat only last year, and has publicly conceded that he did so only for self-interest; he continues to list himself as an Independent for Senate business. And Sanders isn’t doing himself any favors with them by criticizing what he calls a “rigged” nominating system of superdelegates—which includes all Democratic senators. His failure to help raise money for down-ballot Democrats hasn’t helped either.

“She’s one of the most mission-driven politicians I’ve ever worked with, says Doug Rubin, top strategist for Warren’s 2012 campaign, who says he speaks with Warren regularly. “It always starts with driving her agenda: income inequality and rebuilding the middle class.”

What she couldn’t have known was how perfectly the GOP might play into her plans. If Trump’s numbers don’t improve, the presidential contest could quickly become a foregone conclusion—pushing attention further toward the action in the Senate races.  And, quite possibly, toward making Elizabeth Warren the new Queen of the Capitol.