Wednesday Morning Male Beauty - Pt 1

Doug Jones Wins Alabama U.S. Senate Seat

First snow in the Deep South last week and now a Democrat winning the Alabama U.S. Senate in a special election.  True, Roy Moore was always a flawed candidate known for racist and religious extremism plus more recently credible allegations of sexual predatory behavior towards teenage girls.  But both Der  Trumpenführer and Steve Bannon threw their weight behind Moore as did the RNC after a brief hiatus.  Interestingly, eleven (11) counties that had voted for Donald Trump swung to the Democrat candidate in this election. Already Mitch McConnell is throwing blame at Bannon and less directly Donald Trump.   Following the GOP disaster in Virginia last month, I suspect that a number of Congressional Republicans are seeking a clean pair of underwear and dreading November, 2018.  Yet, in many ways they have brought the GOP low but throwing decency, the rue of law, and norms on the trash heap.   I can only hope this victory further energizes Democrats, progressives, and anti-Trump/Pence forces across America.  As a former Alabamian myself, I am also thrilled that a majority of voters in Alabama decided to put decency, concern for fellow citizens and morality ahead of partisan habit.  Tonight the vote reflected the Alabama that I experienced years ago where the majority were decent people. I am also happy for the Alabama business community which will hopefully be boosted in its efforts to remake Alabama.  The Washington Post looks at this wonderful upset victory.  Here are highlights:

Democrat Doug Jones has won the special election to fill a Senate seat in Alabama, according to exit polls and returns – a shocking upset in a solidly Republican state, in which massive turnout among African American voters helped defeat a candidate enthusiastically backed by President Trump.

The Associated Press called the race at 10:23 p.m. Eastern time.  Jones becomes the first Democrat elected to the Senate from Alabama since 1992. 

Jones’s victory followed a pattern set earlier this year in Virginia’s gubernatorial election: a wave of enthusiasm among the Democratic party’s traditional base, which was aided by a swing from Republicans to Democrats among well-educated suburban voters.

Jones, 63, is a former U.S. attorney best known for prosecuting two Ku Klux Klan members for the 1963 bombing of a Birmingham Baptist church, which killed four girls. The bombers were not tried until the 1990s.

Jones’s opponent, Republican Roy Moore, is a former state chief justice who believes that “God’s law” trumps the U.S. Constitution. [T]he night’s early returns showed Moore ahead, as mainly rural votes came in. But he [Jones] surged ahead after 10 p.m. Eastern, as large cities like Mobile, Montgomery and Birmingham reported huge increases in turnout and large margins for the Democrat. Overall, news reports indicated that statewide turnout had smashed expectations, roughly doubling what officials had predicted. Jones’ victory will reshape the calculus of the Senate, where Republicans will see their thin majority shrink from two votes to one. While Republicans are likely to pass a huge tax-reform push before Jones is officially seated, the rest of the GOP’s agenda may now plunge into jeopardy. The coalition that backed Jones was sketched out in early exit polls. They indicated that black turnout might be slightly higher than the levels in 2012 and 2008, when Barack Obama was on the ballot. African Americans made up 28 percent of the electorate in 2008, and 29 percent in 2012. In this election, they make up about 3 in 10 Alabama voters so far on Election Day according to preliminary exit polls. During the campaign, Jones sold himself as a centrist who would work with Republicans – and as a politician who would not embarrass Alabama or drive away business. He took advantage of a scandal that began with a report in The Washington Post: several women said that Moore had pursued romantic relationships with them decades before, when he was in his 30s and they were in their teens. Jones also encouraged voters to put “decency” ahead of party loyalty and urged them to consider how Alabama will be viewed by business leaders as a result of the election.

In the longer term, Jones win may signal the limits of President Trump’s political pull – and the drawbacks of remaking the GOP in his image. Trump had joined enthusiastically. He become one of Moore’s most fervent defender in recent days, tweeting about him repeatedly and recording a robocall to drive out the vote. “Roy Moore will always vote with us. VOTE ROY MOORE!” Trump tweeted on election day. ““This is the first time I’ve voted for a Democrat,” said Henry Waller, 24, who works in logistics for a granite company, said at a polling place in Mountain Brook, Ala. “I’m a Christian, and I think Moore represents the absolute worst way to put Christianity into politics.”

Gillespie Lamely Blames Trump for His Gubernatorial Loss

At the moment that I write this post, the results from the Alabama U.S. Senate special election are still coming in and Doug Jones is in potential striking distance.   Time will tell, especially as the largest counties in the state - Mobile, Montgomery, Jefferson, Madison, Shelby and Tuscaloosa - come in.  Meanwhile, here in Virginia failed GOP gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie is seemingly blaming Donald Trump for his loss last month.  Yes, Donald Trump is toxic in Virginia outside of the evangelical Christian and neo-Confederates who predominate in the rural regions (especially in Southwest Virginia), but Gillespie conveniently forgets his ridiculous tax proposal that would have bankrupted the state or his racist Trump style campaign ads that many voters found to be repulsive and/or frightening.  The Hill looks at Gillespie's effort to throw blame solely at Trump.  Here are excerpts:

Republican Ed Gillespie said that President Trump may have been a "big factor" in his defeat in the Virginia gubernatorial race last month.

In an interview with CNN's David Axelrod on his podcast "The Axe Files," Gillespie said that during his race against Democrat Ralph Northam, the eventual winner of the election, he tried to separate his campaign from the president and instead make it about Virginia.  But the race was widely seen as an early referendum on Trump's presidency.

"If you're not standing up for President Trump, for his supporters, they see you as not for him," Gillespie said. "And it's not that I was not for him, it's just that I'm not against him. I wanted to be for Virginia and I wanted to keep the focus on Virginia."

"It's a tough tightrope to walk, and it may not be walkable, to be honest with you."

On the campaign trail, Gillespie appeared at times to distance himself from Trump, who remains deeply unpopular in Virginia. He said that he never asked Trump to campaign with him in the state, and that the president never offered to.

Gillespie fell to Northam by about 9 points in the state's Nov. 7 gubernatorial election, and Democrats swept statewide, picking up 16 seats in the Virginia House of Delegates.

After the results of the election, Trump tweeted that Gillespie lost because he did not fully embrace the president and his brand of politics.

Should Roy Moore lose in Alabama, it will be interesting to see if he likewise throws blame at Trump.  Ditto for Congressional Republicans. 

More Tuesday Male Beauty

The Dangerous Partisan Attacks on Robert Mueller

So far in his investigation Robert Mueller has found that crimes WERE in fact committed and has two guilty pleas and two indictments to show for his efforts to date.  Many expect more indictments and more disclosures of illegal activities by members of the Trump/Pence campaign and Trump transition team, the latter of which was headed up by Mike Pence.   Polls show that a majority of Americans view Mueller's investigation is (i) important, and (ii) being properly undertaken.  The exception is a growing chorus of Republicans and Trump self-prostituting news outlets which have begun to attack not only Mueller but the FBI.  Why?  I suspect that they know that crimes were committed and are very fearful that if Mueller persists in his investigation Trump, Pence and perhaps even other senior Republicans could see indictments and/or may see their political careers go down in flames.  The one thing certain about today's Republicans is that party is more important than country or the truth and the rule of law.   A piece in The Atlantic looks at this dangerous phenomenon.  Here are highlights:

If you’re not a regular consumer of pro-Trump media outlets, it could be easy to underestimate or overlook the recent onslaught of attacks on Special Counsel Robert Mueller. There are a couple reasons for that. One is that this discourse exists almost entirely within that media ecosystem (which is distinct from, though overlapping with, the broader world of conservative media). The other is that critics have been calling for Mueller’s dismissal and an end to his probe since it was announced. Nonetheless, the intensity of the recent spree is notable, as is the gradual shift from ostensibly politically neutral critiques to openly partisan ones. “Mueller is corrupt. The senior FBI is corrupt. The system is corrupt,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said on Fox News. The channel’s legal analyst Gregg Jarrett said Mueller was employing the FBI “just like the old KGB,” which Sean Hannity piously told viewers was “not hyperbole.” . . . . Fox host Jeanine Pirro said, “There is a cleansing needed at the FBI and Department of Justice. What all of these denunciations lack is any concrete instance of wrongdoing by a member of Mueller’s team, much less Mueller himself. They have seized on the case of FBI agent Peter Strzok, who apparently wrote some text messages critical of Trump to a girlfriend, but who, as I wrote last week, was immediately reassigned from Mueller’s team when Mueller learned of the texts, and about whom there is as yet no proof of wrongdoing. But the path from Mueller’s appointment to the current critiques bears close examination. When Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Mueller in May, the announcement drew varied conservative reactions. . . . . . some Trump backers welcomed Mueller’s appointment, seeing the former FBI director as a man of integrity who would finally clear the president. Newt Gingrich was one notable example:  "Robert Mueller is superb choice to be special counsel. His reputation is impeccable for honesty and integrity. Media should now calm down." Gingrich was right about Mueller’s reputation in Washington: He was a celebrated former FBI director, a longtime Republican, and an appointee of both Democratic and Republican presidents. And Rosenstein, who appointed him, was another example of a lifelong Republican, appointed by Trump, who had an impeccable reputation for fairness. In hindsight, this was hopelessly naive. Trump’s black-hole-like gravity is such that it overwhelms even reputations for probity and impartiality built up over decades. . . . . The opposition to Mueller is partisan, but not in that it pits Republicans against Democrats. Its partisans are loyal first and foremost to President Trump. And in the inexorable logic of fiercely loyal partisans, they can only interpret other people’s actions through the same lens. Hence they have decided that Mueller, despite no real evidence in favor of the proposition and plenty of circumstantial evidence against it, must also be entirely partisan. Back in May, when Mueller started his work, Trump partisans could still argue with a straight face that there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, there was no evidence of collusion, and there would never be any evidence of collusion. . . . . it has become impossible to claim that the special counsel’s probe is purely a fishing expedition. The July revelation of a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer established that if there was no collusion, it was not for want of trying. . . . . George Papadopoulos and Michael Flynn have since both pleaded guilty to lying about their contacts with Russian officials—in the former case, contacts that occurred during the campaign. Carter Page testified to the House about extensive contacts with Russians. [S]ince Mueller’s extensive indictment of Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, accusing them of laundering $75 million in foreign income, it has been harder to sustain the claim that there might not be serious crimes outside the campaign. Trump, too, has thought better of publicly repeating that he’d fire Mueller for poking into the Trump Organization or his personal finances, though that doesn’t mean he’s abandoned the idea.

Trump’s defenders have regrouped around the argument that the probe is a partisan effort to get Trump. . . . . Now, they are willing to state the stakes more bluntly: “Mueller poses an existential threat to the Trump presidency,” Newsmax CEO and Trump friend Chris Ruddy contends.  They are also seeking to discredit Mueller.

What drove Gingrich’s flip? . . . . Though he presents his objections today as principled, Gingrich’s reversal, and current labeling of Mueller as “corrupt,” are probably best viewed in the context of his many comically opportunistic reversals over the years. The strongest argument against Mueller is his friendship with James Comey. The problem is that given Comey’s experience as both FBI director and deputy attorney general, there is practically no qualified lawyer with government experience who isn’t connected to Comey in some way. As I wrote last week, concurring with arch-conservative Andrew McCarthy, the U.S. governmental system is constructed on the idea that politically interested individuals can set aside their biases to serve in government roles, with sufficient guidelines and checks and balances. This resembles similar right-wing critiques of academia and the press, and it is essentially nihilistic, seeking to disqualify not only avowed partisans but also those like Mueller, whose reputation Gingrich could praise heartily in May, denigrate in June, and call corrupt by December. The very idea of a reputation for fairness is obsolete before this totalizing partisanship. It doesn’t matter that Rosenstein last week rated Mueller’s work so far highly; as another lifelong Republican with a reputation for fairness, he can just as easily be written off, as Trump’s attack on him demonstrated. Thus the cynicism of The Wall Street Journal editorial board’s conclusion that “Mr. Mueller is too conflicted to investigate the FBI and should step down in favor of someone more credible.” This, of course, was just who Robert Mueller was said to be a few short months ago. Even if Rosenstein could find a replacement with a reputation as strong as Mueller’s, it’s clear that the Trump partisans would just as quickly work to undermine it. Who would satisfy the Journal’s editors? It’s hard to imagine many names beyond, say, Pirro or her Fox colleague Andrew Napolitano, both of them unshakeable Trump partisans. Appointing such a person would finally satisfy those critics, but it would also effectively end the special counsel’s investigation—which is, of course, the point.

I fully expect that Mueller, if allowed to complete his investigation, will find a panoply of crimes, some reaching up to Trump.  Congressional Republicans like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell know this - they may even be already aware of the crimes and/or implicated themselves.  It is critical that this investigation be allowed to run its course and the crimes and possible treason that took place exposed.  A review of Trump's history in business dealings shows that he constantly has skirted the law if not broken it.  Does anyone sane think anything about the man changed once he moved into the political realm?

Many Americans Exited the GOP in 2017

When I left the Republican Party a good many years ago - my extended family followed me soon there after - there were two motivations: (i) that I could not in good conscience remain in a party that ignored the separation of church and state and that was rapidly becoming the captive of right wing religious extremists and racists, and (ii) there was basically zero chance of reforming the GOP from within given the manner in which the party grassroots was being hijacked by  right wing religious extremists and racists.  The only plausible way, therefore, to "save the GOP" was to work to see it defeated in as many electoral contests as possible.  Ironically, now that the GOP holds the White House and both houses of Congress, more and more Republicans are coming to the realization that I came to a good 15 or more years before them: the only way to retain one's moral integrity and basic decency is to leave the party. A piece in the Washington Post looks at the exodus from the Republican Party in no small part thanks to Der  Trumpenführer (a post yesterday looked at the reasoning behind one evangelical Republican's decision to disassociate from both groups).  Here are article excerpts:

For much of 2017, President Trump’s poll numbers have been pretty consistent. In its most recent weekly average, Gallup has Trump at 36 percent approval . . . . Trump is where he is because, although Democrats hate him and independents generally view him negatively, he continues to enjoy high approval ratings from Republicans. Eighty-two percent of those in his own party approve of Trump, as of last week. That’s pretty good, but not good enough to keep Trump’s overall approval from being historically low for a modern president.

The problem for Trump may not just be that only Republicans like him, but that there are fewer Republicans than there were a year ago.

Last week, Gallup reported that the gap in partisan identity between Republicans and Democrats was 7 points — narrower than during the summer but still wider than it was at this point last year. In other words, the percentage of Americans who say that they are Democrats, or independents who tend to vote Democratic, is 7 percentage points higher than the percentage who identify as Republican or Republican-leaning.
 “Democrats’ edge has expanded this year mainly because of a decline in Republican affiliation,” Gallup’s Jeffrey Jones wrote. “A year ago, 44% of Americans identified as Democrats or leaned Democratic, the same percentage as now. However, Republican identification and leaning is five points lower than it was a year ago.” . . .  Women are 5 points less likely to identify as Republicans relative to last November. White women are 7 points less likely to.

This raises the question of why Americans were giving up on the party. Was it a function of the president?

Gallup found slips in Trump’s approval across the board since his inauguration, but polling from Marist conducted last December and in November of this year seems to reinforce the idea that some Republicans soured on Trump specifically. Asked whether they view Trump favorably — a different metric than approval — Trump’s numbers have dropped six percentage points over that 11-month period. 

You’ll notice that the Democrats have fairly consistently had an advantage in terms of party identification. Republicans are more reliable voters, generally speaking, since voting propensity correlates to age and income, which both also correlate to Republican Party membership.

If partisan identification shows a wide advantage for the Democrats in November of 2018, that suggests that the party could see an advantage in the polls.

If Republican leaders think Trump is to blame for that shift, deservedly or not, Washington politics could get very interesting very quickly.

Trump is hardly the only reason to exit the GOP, but he is a malignancy that shows no sign of going away voluntarily and albeit belatedly more and more Republicans seem to be realizing that the man is a liar, sexual predator, and possible traitor.  And that doesn't even begin to look at the GOP's  war on average Americans as embodied by the versions of the GOP tax bill or the growing effort to grant special rights to Christofascists to discriminate against others at will. 

Tuesday Morning Male Beauty - Pt 1

Reminds me of my hard core surfing days when I had 70 consecutive months in the water, including all through the winter. 

 Me years ago nears the .Hatteras light

More Monday Male Beauty

An Evangelical Republican Calls it Quits

Peter Wehner, a heretofore Republican and evangelical who served in the previous three Republican administrations, has seemingly reached the point I reached long ago: the Republican Party and Christianity as defined by evangelicals, are now a toxic threat to American society. It's the same conclusion reched by Millennials, a super majority of which despise the GOP and over a third of whom have walked away from Christianity.  In a sane world such data would cause concern for the long term viability of bot the GOP and Christianity, but sanity no longer defines either one.  Today's GOP is sadly defined by a mentally unbalanced sexual predator in the White House and a core base that consists of religious extremists and white supremacists.  I's often questioned how decent moral people can remain a part of this toxic cesspool.  In Wehner's case, he has publicly stated that he can no longer be a part of such ugliness.  Here are highlights from an o-ed column he wrote in the New York Times:

There are times in life when the institutional ground underneath you begins to crumble — and with it, longstanding attachments. Such is the case for me when it comes to the Republican Party and evangelicalism.

I’ve been a part of both for my entire adult life. These days, though, in many important ways they are having harmful effects on our society.

The latest example is in Alabama, where Roy Moore, the Republican Senate candidate, stands accused of varying degrees of sexual misconduct by nine women, including one who was 14 years old at the time. Mr. Moore leads in most polls, and solidly among most evangelicals, heading into Tuesday’s election.

A bit of personal history may be in order here. . . . . Both the Republican Party, which was created to end slavery and preserve the Union, and evangelicalism, a transdenominational effort to faithfully represent Christ in word and deed, shaped my life and outlook, helping me to interpret the world.

I don’t mean to imply that politics and religion are a perfect fit. Often they’re not, and over the years Christians, myself included, have not gotten the balance right. But overall I felt that the Republican Party and the evangelical movement were imperfect forces for good, and I spent a large part of my life defending them.

Yet the support being given by many Republicans and white evangelicals to President Trump and now to Mr. Moore have caused me to rethink my identification with both groups. Not because my attachment to conservatism and Christianity has weakened, but rather the opposite. I consider Mr. Trump’s Republican Party to be a threat to conservatism, and I have concluded that the term evangelical — despite its rich history of proclaiming the “good news” of Christ to a broken world — has been so distorted that it is now undermining the Christian witness.

Just the other day I received a note from a friend of mine, a pastor, who told me he no longer uses the label “evangelical” to describe himself, even though he meets every element of its historical definition, “because the term is now so stained as to ruin my ability to be what evangelicalism was supposed to be.”

Another pastor who is a lifelong friend told me, “Evangelical is no longer a word we can use.” The reason, he explained, is that it’s become not a religious identification so much as a political one. A third person, who heads a Christian organization, told me the term evangelical “is now a tribal rather than a creedal description.”

I cannot help believing that the events of the past few years — and the past few weeks — have shown us that the Republican Party and the evangelical movement (or large parts of them, at least), have become what I once would have thought of as liberal caricatures.

Assume you were a person of the left and an atheist, and you decided to create a couple of people in a laboratory to discredit the Republican Party and white evangelical Christianity. You could hardly choose two more perfect men than Donald Trump and Roy Moore.

Both have been credibly accused of being sexual predators, sometimes admitting to bizarre behavior in their own words. Both have spun wild conspiracy theories, including the lie that Barack Obama was not born in America. Both have slandered the United States and lavished praise on Vladimir Putin, with Mr. Moore declaring that America today could be considered “the focus of evil in the modern world” and stating, in response to Mr. Putin’s anti-gay measures in Russia: “Well, maybe Putin is right. Maybe he’s more akin to me than I know.” Both have been involved with shady business dealings. Both have intentionally divided America along racial and religious lines. Both relish appealing to people’s worst instincts. Both create bitterness and acrimony in a nation desperately in need of grace and a healing touch.

I hoped the Trump era would be seen as an aberration and made less ugly by those who might have influence over the president. That hasn’t happened. Rather than Republicans and people of faith checking his most unappealing sides, the president is dragging down virtually everyone within his orbit.

In the latest example of this, a rising number of Republicans are attempting to delegitimize the special counsel’s investigation into whether there were links between Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign and Mr. Putin’s Russia because they quake at what he may find. Prominent evangelical leaders, rather than challenging the president to become a man of integrity, have become courtiers. What’s happening with Mr. Moore in Alabama — with the president, the Republican National Committee, the state party and many white evangelicals rallying around him — is a bridge too far for many of us. Where exactly is the bottom? And at what point do you pull back from associating yourself with a political party and a religious term you once took pride in but that are now doing harm to the things you treasure?

[A] solid majority of Republicans and self-described evangelicals are firmly aboard the Trump train, which is doing its utmost to give a seat of privilege to Mr. Moore. So for those of us who still think of ourselves as conservative and Christian, it’s enough already.

Monday Morning Male Beauty - Pt 1