Ken Cuccinelli: the Anti-Chris Christie

Ken Cuccinelli may be the darling of the spittle flecked Christofascists who want a Christian theocracy in Virginia and the knuckle draggers of the Tea Party, but the recent polling suggests that Cuccinelli - or Kookinelli, as I prefer to call him - isn't gaining need traction among moderates and independents to win in November (I hope this trend continues).  In stark contrast, Republican Chris Christie appears headed towards a landslide reelection in New Jersey.  Some suggest that Kookinelli should learn a thing or two from Christie.  I would argue that such a transformation is impossible for Kookinelli, especially given his documented record of extremism.  A piece in The Daily Beast looks at the night and day differences between the two GOP candidates.  Here are highlights:

Chris Christie and Ken Cuccinelli are both New Jersey natives, Republicans, and their party’s gubernatorial nominee in their respective states. Beyond that, they share little else.

Christie, the governor of New Jersey, is a moderate conservative cruising to reelection; Cuccinelli, currently the attorney general of Virginia, is the darling of the GOP base and not much more. Christie has a double-digit lead over his Democratic challenger, State Senator Barbara Buono; Cuccinelli is down by about five points to former Democratic National Committee Chair, Clinton crony, and alleged grifter Terry McAuliffe, according to the latest pair of polls.

Christie’s strength in the reliably blue Garden State and Cuccinelli’s weakness in the Old Dominion are about persona, policy, and political reality. Christie knows that he’s the governor of a state that has consistently gone for Democratic presidential candidates over the last two decades. On the other hand, Cuccinelli fantasizes that Virginia voted for John McCain and Mitt Romney, and that ethnic-slurring George Allen made it to the Senate.

But Cuccinelli’s problems go deeper than that. Right now, he is underperforming even Romney’s showing in Virginia. Romney lost the state, but still managed to win its upscale voters and white women—Cuccinelli is losing both blocs to McAuliffe.

Cuccinelli owned stock in Star Scientific, the very same company whose chief, Jonnie Williams, showered both McDonnell and Cuccinelli with gifts—gifts that Cuccinelli has refused to return in kind or in cash. In all, only $18,000 or so is involved, and yet Cuccinelli cannot find it in himself to cut a check. Not surprisingly, McAuliffe hammers away on this sore point, leaving Cuccinelli trailing and the story festering.

More worrisome for Republicans is Cuccinelli’s incapability of eliding over hot-button social issues. As Virginia’s outgoing Republican Lt. Governor Bill Bolling sees it, Cuccinelli is a “rigid ideologue who thrives on conflict and confrontation and tends to be drawn to the more controversial and divisive issues of the day.”

Christie, meanwhile, is tradition-minded but not mired in debates over ultrasound wands or sodomy. He flatly stated that sexual orientation is a matter of biological predisposition.  . . . . He hasn’t dabbled with birtherism, in contrast to Cuccinelli.

Christie is of the modern world; Cuccinelli less so. For Republicans in Virginia and nationally, that is a problem. As one Republican White House veteran and Virginian put it, “the race is between a crook and a kook, and I expect the crook to win.”

Sadly for Cuccinelli, while voters may say “ugh” about “the Macker,” they have yet to walk away from him. Much as Cuccinelli may try to talk about taxes and roads, not enough voters are buying. A well-funded McAuliffe ad blitz is cementing an image of Virginia’s attorney general as fixated on social issues.

Cuccinelli’s struggle is compounded by the fact that Virginia’s demographics dramatically shifted, making it emblematic of the New South. Indeed, nothing tells the story better than a recent Quinnipiac Poll showing Hillary with comfortable leads over Christie and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in a hypothetical 2016 presidential matchup. She polls ahead of Christie by nine, and crushes Cruz by almost 20 points.

The times are changing, and the question for Cuccinelli and the Republicans is whether they can change with them. The GOP cannot continue to behave as if the whole country were a Republican primary—not if it endeavors to recapture the presidency.

Read More

New Mexico Supreme Court: Photographer Cannot Deny Services to Gay Couples

In a unanimous - and completely common sense - opinion, the New Mexico Supreme Court has ruled that a photographer (and by extension, any business that offers services to the general public) cannot refuse to provide goods or services to same sex couples citing "religious belief."  If one is going to market to the public, then one has to provides goods and services to ALL of the public, gays included.  Not surprisingly, the Christofascists who see themselves above the laws governing others are apoplectic that they cannot discriminate at will against those they don't like and screaming that they are being persecuted.  In truth - as is increasingly the case, it is they who are the ones persecuting others.  Metro Weekly looks at the important ruling.  Here are highlights

The New Mexico Supreme Court ruled in a unanimous decision Thursday that a wedding photographer who refused to provide services to a same-sex couple violated the state's Human Rights Act.

"[W]e conclude that a commercial photography business that offers its services to the public, thereby increasing its visibility to potential clients, is subject to the antidiscrimination provisions of the [New Mexico Human Rights Act] and must serve same-sex couples on the same basis that it serves opposite-sex couples," the state's highest court ruled. "Therefore, when Elane Photography refused to photograph a same-sex commitment ceremony, it violated the NMHRA in the same way as if it had refused to photograph a wedding between people of different races."

The ruling comes in the case of Elane Photography v. Vanessa Willock, which was filed after Elaine Huguenin, co-owner of Elane Photography in Albuquerque, turned away Vanessa Willock and her partner in 2006 on the grounds that photographing the ceremony would violate her religious beliefs.
An investigation by the state Human Rights Commission that found the company was guilty of discrimination based on sexual orientation was upheld by the New Mexico Court of Appeals in June of 2012.

In its decision today, the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled that the state's Human Rights Act, which was amended in 2003 to add "sexual orientation" as a class of people protected from discrimination, does not violate free speech because it does not compel the photographer to either "speak a government-mandated message or to publish the speech of another."

"The purpose of the NMHRA is to ensure that businesses offering services to the general public do not discriminate against protected classes of people, and the United States Supreme Court has made it clear that the First Amendment permits such regulation by states," the decision states. "Businesses that choose to be public accommodations must comply with the NMHRA, although such businesses retain their First Amendment rights to express their religious or political beliefs.

Illustrative of the bullshit coming from the Christofascist is the rant by Bryan Fischer of the hate group, American Family Association, who says the ruling is tantamount to the Jim Crow laws and that Christians are the "new blacks."  Right Wing Watch reports on Fischer's disingenuous screed:

Bryan Fischer is incensed at the New Mexico Supreme Court’s unanimous decision that a wedding photography business violated the state’s anti-discrimination law by refusing its services to a same-sex couple. The American Family Association spokesman called on the business, and others, to file countersuits and “fight fire with fire” by alleging that preventing them from discriminating against customers is religious discrimination.

“Essentially what this court has done and what the Obama administration has done with this abortifacient mandate is that they have turned Christians into Dred Scott,” Fischer claimed, arguing that the New Mexico court “said that Christians have no rights which this court is bound to respect. So to me this looks like Jim Crow is alive and well, we’ve got Jim Crow laws right back in operation, Christians are the new blacks.”

Hate, bigotry, selfishness and, of course endless lies, are the hallmarks of conservative Christians.  Kudos to the New Mexico Supreme Court for making it clear that these vile people are not above the law.

Read More

GOP Elites in Full Blown Panic Mode

The damage being done to the Republican brand continues unabated as the lunatic Christofascist/Tea Party controlled base of the GOP veers further and further off into extremism and what is basically a fantasy world.  A fantasy world that a majority of Americans tethered to reality do not inhabit - and most importantly reject. As a former Republican who left the GOP as it sold its soul to the Christofascists, I will admit that I get some perverse delight in seeing my warnings to former GOP compatriots come true.  Unfortunately, the GOP has now become a threat to America and the party base seemingly would savor destroying the American (and world) economy.  A column in the Washington Post looks at the apparent panic gripping those who allowed the lunatic fringe to take over the party grassroots.  Here are excerpts:

Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei are well sourced among top Republicans. And today they weigh in with a big piece reporting that GOP elites are in full blown panic mode about the party’s drift towards a series of Apocalyptic showdowns this fall.

The most interesting bit is the profound worry about the drift towards a government shutdown over Obamacare. But I think the fundamental problem is still being overlooked. Here’s the key part:

Republicans are in jeopardy of convincing voters they simply cannot govern. Their favorable ratings are terrible and getting worse. But there is broad concern it could go from worse to an unmitigated disaster this fall. Most urgently, according to a slew of key Republicans we interviewed, conservative GOP senators have got to give up their insistence that the party allow the government to shut down after Sept. 30 if they don’t get their way on defunding Obamacare.

The quixotic drive — led by Rubio, Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. Mike Lee — is part of Rubio’s effort to make up with the conservative base after he was stunned by the backlash over his deal-making on immigration. Pollsters say the funding fight makes Republicans look even more obstructionist, and causes voters to worry about the effect a shutdown would have on their own finances.

Whit Ayres of North Star Opinion Research, who has been drilling down on this issue for the conservative public-opinion group Resurgent Republic, said: “Shutting down the government is the one way that Republicans can turn Obamacare from a political advantage to a political disadvantage in 2014.”

The government shutdown push has focused the attention of GOP elites, because it is probably suicidal politically for the party. At the same time, though, the unspoken premise is that the problem is only one of excessive tactics, rather than something more fundamental. If Republicans are in jeopardy of convincing voters they cannot govern, as top GOPers seem to fear, it’s not clear that this is only because a shutdown has become a real possibility.

A shutdown, because of its visibility and destructiveness, is obviously a glaring symbol of an inability to govern, one that voters (as the 1990s showed) easily understand in such terms. But the result of the relentless focus on the shutdown has been to quasi-normalize other opposition to Obamacare. If a shutdown risks conveying a fundamental inability to govern, why do not other efforts to sabotage the law . . . . while offering no alternative also convey the same?

Some Republicans have begun to acknowledge this larger problem in public, albeit in somewhat different terms. But the battle over the shutdown is distracting from the need to focus on that more basic challenge.

Read More

California Supreme Court Again Rejects Prop. 8 Proponents' Arguments

The supporters of Proposition 8 continue to try to derail the striking down of their hate and animus based agenda.  Their latest attempt sought to claim that a U.S. District Court could not strike down a state wide constitutional amendment.  Like all of these hate merchants' other arguments, the California Supreme Court threw out their claims.  Should they continue to file frivolous petitions and lawsuits, one can only hope that the courts will start imposing sanctions on both the Prop 8 proponents and more importantly, their legal counsel.  The Los Angeles Times looks at this latest defeat.  Here are highlights:

The California Supreme Court refused Wednesday to revive Proposition 8, ending the last remaining legal challenge to same-sex marriage in the state.

Meeting in closed session, the state high court rejected arguments  by ProtectMarriage, Proposition 8’s sponsors, that only an appellate court could overturn a statewide law.

A federal judge in San Francisco declared Proposition 8 unconstitutional in 2010, and state officials refused to appeal. ProtectMarriage did appeal, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that initiative sponsors have no right to defend their measures in federal court. The decision left in place the ruling by retired Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker.

In its challenge before the state’s highest court,  ProtectMarriage argued that a single judge lacked the authority to overturn a state constitutional amendment.  The group also contended that Walker’s injunction applied to two counties at most and that state officials had overstepped their authority by ordering county clerks throughout California to issue same-sex marriage licenses.

State officials countered that the challenge was a veiled attempt to persuade a state court to interfere with a federal judge’s order in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

Same-sex couples began marrying in California in late June after a federal appeals court lifted a hold on Walker’s injunction. ProtectMarriage went back to the U.S. Supreme Court the following day, arguing the appeals court acted prematurely because the high court’s decision was not even final. The Supreme Court refused to intervene.

Then the group went to the state Supreme Court, asking the justices to halt the marriages immediately while considering the legal arguments. The seven-member court unanimously rejected the request for a “stay” or hold.

Let's be clear.  The Christofascists do not give a damn about the U.S. Constitution and the religious freedom rights of others.  Instead,  they seek to subvert the Constitution and impose a theocracy on America based on their sick, hate and fear based version of Christianity.  They remain a clear and present danger and need to be treated as a threat accordingly.

Read More

National Organization for Marriage Cheers Russia's Anti-Gay Laws

I've often said that the dishonesty of the National Organization for Marriage ("NOM") knows no limits.  While claiming to be solely concerned with "protecting the sanctity of marriage," NOM in fact promotes reparative therapy - which is condemned by EVERY legitimate medical and mental health association in America - and promotes anti-gay lies.  Now, totally revealing its true agenda, NOM is praising Russia's anti-gay laws and providing a glimpse of what the Christofascist would do in America if they were allowed to do so.   Here are  highlights from Gay Star News:

Rev. William Owens, a religious liaison for the US group National Organization for Marriage, is proudly defending Russia's anti-gay propaganda laws.

According to the site Right Wing Watch, Owen emailed members of the Coalition of African-American Pastors; CAAP, like NOM, is against same sex marriage.

Owens also went after LGBT organizations who are calling for a boycott of the Sochi Winter Olympics..

'I believe that this is just another one of their ploys to cover their real intent, which is to force the acceptance of a lifestyle that is a clear violation of American values and moral law.'

Owens ends his email with an assertion that the US is in steep moral decline and in need of pray.

'I must declare to you that our nation is in trouble. We must pray without ceasing for our nation and we ask for your support to help us stay in the fight.'

As reported by Right Wing Watch, after the Supreme Court's decision on the Defense of Marriage of Act, Owen promised anti-gay marriage advocates 'are going to fight to the end, we are not going to give up, we are going to fight like we fought to get civil rights...'

Owens is in my view - like so many Virginia black pastors who act as water carriers and flunkies for the white supremacists at The Family Foundation - shows his ignorance and stupidity by supporting organizations that are as much anti-black as they are anti-gay.  He might just as well stencil "I'm a cretin" or "I'm a moron" on his forehead.  But meanwhile, it remains imperative to expose NOM's lies, hypocrisy and true anti-gay agenda.

Rev. William Owens, a religious liaison for the US group National Organization for Marriage, is proudly defending Russia's anti-gay propaganda laws.
According to the site Right Wing Watch, Owen emailed members of the Coalition of African-American Pastors; CAAP, like NOM, is against same sex marriage.
- See more at: http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/national-organization-marriages-religious-liaison-hails-russias-anti-gay-laws130813#sthash.SNwMwCaS.dpuf

Rev. William Owens, a religious liaison for the US group National Organization for Marriage, is proudly defending Russia's anti-gay propaganda laws.
According to the site Right Wing Watch, Owen emailed members of the Coalition of African-American Pastors; CAAP, like NOM, is against same sex marriage.
- See more at: http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/national-organization-marriages-religious-liaison-hails-russias-anti-gay-laws130813#sthash.SNwMwCaS.dpuf

Read More

The Tea Party Vision: Gays and Minorities Should Not Exist

I often get challenged for equating the Tea Party and the Christofascists as being more or less one and the same.  Both have hatred towards others who look different or hold differing belief and seem driven by greed as well as exhibited by their desire to slash social programs and leave millions of citizens without access to healthcare.  If Christians do not like being equated with these, in my view, vile people, then they need to open - and loudly - confront and condemn these Christofascists/Tea Party hate merchants.  As for gays, we need to understand that in the world view of these people, they literally do not want us to exist.  A piece in The New Civil Rights Movement looks at the Tea Party's anti-gay agenda.  Here are highlights:

The Tea Party has a “big picture” vision and gay people are not in it. Neither are black people, Hispanic people, or outspoken women. Why do we pretend we don’t know what they really want?

The Republicans are gathering again in Iowa this weekend at the Family Leadership Conference. Right Wing Watch compiled a list of speakers,  . . . . Right Wing Watch noted the Family Leadership conference this way:

“For anyone who anticipates that Republican presidential candidates will move towards the center in 2016, this weekend’s festivities are a very loud wake up call.”

The Republican Party of Karl Rove is now a wholly owned subsidiary of the Tea Party. The Tea Party accomplished this takeover by instilling in every elected Republican a testicle-shrinking fear of a primary challenger coming at him from the right. The Republicans of old, except for Ronald Reagan, who they like to pretend shared their stone-hearted philosophy, are no longer relevant.

This new Tea Party controlled Republican Party does not want to attract any “ethnic” people to its membership. They do not want black people to join. They do not want Hispanics to join. They do not want people who aren’t Christian, and they especially do not want Muslims. They do not want women who don’t know how to be “demure” and “feminine”, and they do not want new gay Republicans. To the contrary, they have done everything but put a plank in the party platform pledging to reinstate sodomy laws,

When the Tea Partiers talk about “taking my country back”, it’s true they yearn for a time when white made right. But it isn’t true that they want to go back to slavery, or ship black citizens “back to Africa.” They think there is a way to return to a time when people of color stayed in their ethnic ghettos and white people had the rest of the country to themselves, and in their minds, everyone got along just fine. 

The Tea Party vision is to establish a “Christian Country”. But they have adopted a  modern standard of Christian conduct, where everyone is armed just as Jesus and the apostles would have been, had firearms been an option in 18 AD. Things would have gone a lot differently for Judas and Pontius Pilate if Jesus and his boys had been packing AK-47s.

Those who want public schools, and there are many who don’t, want them to teach a Christian curriculum, and students to be led daily in Christian prayer. They aren’t going to insist every student join in. They are willing to tolerate other faiths in the name of freedom of religion. But they want non-Christians to do their misguided worshiping quietly. In a Tea Party country, their Christian way would be the government sanctioned way, and all laws great and small would have to be in agreement with the Christian bible.

They want schools where science takes a back seat to Bible studies. Where evolution is given the same weight as creationism. And where bullies are given a pass provided they are motivated by a deeply held religious belief that suspected gay kids should be given swirlies.

[T]hey are opposed to the government offering any relief. They call it “redistributing wealth”. Making sure your baby’s belly is full should not be the government’s concern. Taxes are for bombs and soldiers, and executing criminals, not for school lunches and Head Start. In a Tea Party America, not a dime would go to help the “takers.
 
It’s a grand vision, and they are executing it while our political pundits pretend they are merely a bunch of conservative leaning folks who are concerned about the deficit.

If it’s true that “By their fruits ye will know them”, the Tea Party fruits are rotten to the core. The Tea Party infested Republicans are no longer the “loyal opposition” keeping a check on power. It’s time we start talking about them as the threat to domestic tranquility that they have become.

Read More

The Tea Party’s Path to Irrelevance

One of the things most notable about today's Republican Party is the embrace by the party base of ignorance, bigotry, and racism, the later being openly displayed by the push for voter ID laws to disenfranchise blacks and opposition to immigration reform which is openly anti-Hispanic.  Fueling this trend is the Tea Party and white supremacist Christofascists like The Family Foundation here in Virginia.  While the Tea Party/Christofascist overlap is not complete, some 85% of the Tea Party crowd describes itself as conservative Christian.  Both groups are fighting a rear guard battle against modernity and demographic changes that are irreversible.  It's a case of long term political suicide.  The only question is how long before these bigotry filled Neanderthals drag the GOP to irrelevance.  I would argue, not soon enough.  An op-ed column in the New York Times looks at the lessons the GOP ought to learn from history.  And by history, I mean real history, not Christofascist revisionist history.  Here are some column highlights:

THE Tea Party has a new crusade: preventing illegal immigrants from gaining citizenship, which they say is giving amnesty to lawbreakers. Judson Phillips, the founder of Tea Party Nation, recently told Politico that his members were “more upset about the amnesty bill than they were about Obamacare.”

They’re so upset, in fact, that Republican supporters of immigration reform, like Senators Marco Rubio of Florida and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, have become marked men in their party, while House Republicans have followed the Tea Party lead by refusing to even consider the Senate’s bipartisan reform plan. 

Tea Partyers often style themselves as disciples of Thomas Jefferson, the high apostle of limited government. But by taking the ramparts against immigration, the movement is following a trajectory that looks less like the glorious arc of Jefferson’s Republican Party than the suicidal path of Jefferson’s great rivals, the long-forgotten Federalists, who also refused to accept the inexorable changes of American demography.

The Federalists began as the faction that supported the new Constitution, . . . .   Culturally, however, they were identified with the ancient stock of New England and the mid-Atlantic . . .

The Federalists held together for the first few decades, but in 1803 the Louisiana Purchase — Jefferson’s great coup — drove a wedge between the party’s ideology and its demography. The national party was suddenly faced with a nation that looked very different from what it knew: in a stroke, a vast new territory would be opened for colonization, creating new economic and political interests, slavery among them. 

“The people of the East can not reconcile their habits, views and interests with those of the South and West,” declared Thomas Pickering, a leading Massachusetts Federalist.

Fearing that Irish, English and German newcomers would vote for the Jeffersonian Republicans, they [the Federalists] argued — unsuccessfully — for excluding immigrants from voting or holding office, and pushed to extend the period of naturalization from 5 to 14 years. Leading Federalists even plotted to “establish a separate government in New England,” 

Finally, in the fall of 1814, the Federalists convened the Hartford Convention to vote on whether to stay in or out of the Union. By then even the hotheads realized how little support they had, and the movement collapsed. And the Federalists, now scorned as an anti-national party, collapsed as well. 

Today’s Republicans are not likely to disappear completely, like the Federalists did. But Republican leaders like Mr. Rubio and Mr. Graham understand that a party that seeks to defy demography, relying on white resentment toward a rising tide of nonwhite newcomers, dooms itself to permanent minority status. 

The problem is that the Tea Party is not a party, and its members are quite prepared to ride their hobbyhorse into a dead end. And many Republicans, at least in the House, seem fully prepared to join them there, and may end up dragging the rest of the party with them. 

The example of those early days shows that American political parties once knew how to adapt to a changing reality. It is a lesson many seem to have forgotten. 

I doubt that the Tea Party/Christofascists will learn from history.  Why? First because they don't know accurate history.  Second, because they are too wrapped up in the own supposed exceptionalism and ignorance to see the handwriting on the wall. When I see a vehicle locally that has a Tea Party license plate - Virginia allows all kinds of plates to generate money - I cannot help but think, why not put a bumper sticker on ones car that reads "I'm a cretin."

 

Read More

Ken Cuccinelli's Sodomy Obsession. Would He Prosecute Grandmothers?

As I have noted in prior posts, my own conjecture on why GOP gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli is so obsessed with Virginia's unconstitutional sodomy statute is because he is a self-loathing closet case (college contemporaries thought he was gay and I continue to receive a trail of rumors) who takes his marching orders from the Christofascists at The Family Foundation.   To mask the real source of his obsession, Cuccinelli has made it a campaign claim that the sodomy statute be saved to allow the Commonwealth to protect minors from sexual predators.  This, claim, like most of what Cuccinelli claims, is untrue.  A post at the Bilerico Project expands on some of the issues I addressed previously that cut Cuccinelli off at the knees on these dishonest lies.  And a post in Huffington Post underscores that long married heterosexual couples would be made felons under the statute that Cuccinelli seeks to reinstate.   The man is mentally ill in my view.  Here are excerpts from the Bilerico piece:

To my understanding, it's your perspective that if you don't criminalize me, a professional in my mid 30s, from butt-loving my 31 year old boyfriend, that it will open the door to legalize sodomy between adults and minors.

I assume you took the Virginia Bar Exam. The criminal law portion of it ensures that you know that the age of consent in Virginia is 15 (unless a detainee in a detention center). While I don't agree with the age difference of the man you're trying to convict and his "victim," it could have still consensual in Virginia, since the girl was 17. However, you don't need a "Crimes Against Nature" statute to convict the man. There are other statutes you could use, such as the statute against solicitation. This covers sodomy.

In addition, if you want to protect people under the age of consent, there are already statutes in place for that, including: § 18.2-61. Rape. § 18.2-63. Carnal knowledge of child between thirteen and fifteen years of age. § 18.2-64.1. Carnal knowledge of certain minors. § 18.2-67.1. Forcible sodomy. § 18.2-67.2. Object sexual penetration; penalty. § 18.2-67.3. Aggravated sexual battery; penalty. § 18.2-67.4. Sexual battery. § 18.2-67.4:1. Infected sexual battery; penalty. § 18.2-67.4:2. Sexual abuse of a child under 15 years of age; penalty. § 18.2-67.5. Attempted rape, forcible sodomy, object sexual penetration, aggravated sexual battery, and sexual battery.

The only reason these don't protect minors between 15 and 17 is the age of consent. If there are already all of these laws on the books to protect people under the age of consent, but they don't protect all minors, why not raise the age of consent if you're so concerned? That would be a narrow tailoring of the law to suit your purpose. It would also be something that doesn't affect consensual relations between people of voting age.

If the government's purpose is to protect minors, criminalizing consensual adult sexual activity is irrational. Your question of the age of consent and the definition of what types of sex are allowable between consenting adults are completely different questions.

Why would you make consenting adults criminally liable for something that's already criminal if non-consensual, and why would you use government funds to do it? You'd have to hire more police and more prosecutors to handle the increased caseload and increase the already ridiculous expenditures on corrections facilities.

As for the impact of Cuccinelli's quest to save the unconstitutional law, a piece in Huffington Post underscores the pernicious nature of the statute:

Never in my 79 years, nearly 59 of them married to the only man I have ever known, did I imagine being able to say -- much less write -- this:

I am guilty of sodomy.  For that matter, so is my husband, pleasurably so.

We live in Virginia, home base for all our married -- as well as courting -- years. And in Virginia, the state's anti-sodomy law is again front and center. The law describes sodomy as "crimes against nature," which include all oral as well as anal sex, even between consenting adults, and is to be prosecuted as a felony. In other words, ordinary human behavior, criminalized.

Having the statute invalidated by the Appeals Court could easily have been have been the end of the matter. But it's Virginia. And it's an election year.  .  .  .  .  So, the present Attorney General and Republican candidate for governor, Ken Cuccinelli, has appealed the Fourth Circuit's decision to the Supreme Court and requested a stay of the ruling pending the appeal. The Chief Justice has asked the other side for a response by next Monday. We shall see. That I might conceivably be guilty of sodomy had never remotely crossed my mind until the issue bounced brashly into the news. 

[T]he net effect of the Attorney General's attempt to reinstate the Crime Against Nature Law has been to make Virginia once again a laughing stock, open to legitimate ridicule.

What outrages me is that this law is a not-even-thinly-disguised attack on homosexuality and plays into only sometimes-coded anti-gay rhetoric. Indeed, all the anti-sodomy laws that remain on the books fit that description. Apparently, legislatures are not removing them even though they are effectively unenforceable because too many politicians fear the effect that would have on their reelection chances.  Cuccinelli's views on homosexuality are widely known. 

This grandmother is correct.  Gays are the real targets of the sodomy statute and it is used to impose harsher sentences and longer prison terms.  That's Cuccinelli's real goal.  He wants to punish those who are having the kind of sex he knows in his heart he desperately wants himself.  The man needs to be not only defeated in November but outed.  

Bring me a credible witness who will sign a sworn affidavit and let's take this closet case down.

Read More

Krauthammer: GOP Shut Down the Government over Obamacare is Nuts

I don't often agree with Charles Krauthammer on many things - he drinks too much of the GOP Kool-Aid typically - but in a Washington Post editorial he assails the GOP threat to shut down the national government as a means to sabotage Obamacare.  As is now the norm for the GOP on almost every issue, the far right faction in the party has no proposed alternative to the Affordable Health Care Act - or the Senate immigration reform bill either.  They'd rather throw millions of Americans on the trash heap with no insurance coverage and keep America with the highest priced, least effectively delivered health care in the world.  Here are excerpts from the editorial:

A combination of early presidential maneuvering and internal policy debate is feeding yet another iteration of that media perennial: the great Republican crackup. This time it’s tea party insurgents vs. get-along establishment fogies fighting principally over two things: (a) national security and (b) Obamacare.

(a) National security

The more fundamental GOP divide is over foreign aid and other manifestations of our role as the world’s leading power. The Paulites, pining for the splendid isolation of the 19th century, want to leave the world alone on the assumption that it will then leave us alone. 

Which rests on the further assumption that international stability — open sea lanes, free commerce, relative tranquillity — comes naturally, like the air we breathe. If only that were true. Unfortunately, stability is not a matter of grace. It comes about only by Great Power exertion. 

In the 19th century, that meant the British navy, behind whose protection the United States thrived. Today, alas, Britannia rules no waves. World order is maintained by American power and American will. Take that away and you don’t get tranquillity. You get chaos.

(b) Obamacare

 

The other battle is about defunding Obamacare. Led by Sens. Mike Lee and Ted Cruz, the GOP insurgents are threatening to shut down the government on Oct. 1 if the stopgap funding bill contains money for Obamacare.

This is nuts. The president will never sign a bill defunding the singular achievement of his presidency. Especially when he has control of the Senate. Especially when, though a narrow 51 percent majority of Americans disapproves of Obamacare, only 36 percent favors repeal. President Obama so knows he’ll win any shutdown showdown that he’s practically goading the Republicans into trying.

Never make a threat on which you are not prepared to deliver. Every fiscal showdown has redounded against the Republicans.

Those who fancy themselves tea party patriots fighting a sold-out cocktail-swilling establishment are demanding yet another cliff dive as a show of principle and manliness. 

But there’s no principle at stake here. This is about tactics. If I thought this would work, I would support it. But I don’t fancy suicide. It has a tendency to be fatal.

As for manliness, the real question here is sanity. Nothing could better revive the fortunes of a failing, flailing, fading Democratic administration than a government shutdown where the president is portrayed as standing up to the GOP on honoring our debts and paying our soldiers in the field.

How many times must we learn the lesson? You can’t govern from one house of Congress. You need to win back the Senate and then the presidency. Shutting down the government is the worst possible way to get there. Indeed, it’s Obama’s fondest hope for a Democratic recovery.

Note how he touches on the issue of sanity.  Sanity is what the GOP has lost thanks to the Christofascists and Tea Party which now control the party base like a metastasizing cancer. 

Read More

Republicans: Blinded by Self-Righteousness

Once again, one has to wonder when the swamp fever (i.e., the Christofascists and Tea Party) that has overwhelmed will be broken.  A new Pew Research Center poll released yesterday found that nearly 6 in 10 Republicans believe that the GOP need to reconsider some positions, while just over a third - again, the Christofascists and Tea Party lunatics - want the party to merely to make a stronger case for its current positions: anti-gay, anti-women, anti-immigrant, etc.  Candidly, until sane Republicans (or at least what ones are left) are willing to stand up to the Christofascists and Tea Party, or better yet, kicking them to the curb, I do not see meaningful change happening.  A column in the New York Times looks at the situation.  Here are highlights:

Two-thirds of Republicans recognize that the party needs to change in order to do better in future

But that’s where things get tricky. Fifty-four percent believe that party leaders need to move in a more conservative direction, while only 40 percent believe that they need to move in a more moderate direction.  There’s the deflator. I knew this was too good to be true. 

The poll specifically asked Republicans whether the party’s position was too conservative, not conservative enough or about right on five issues: gay marriage, immigration, abortion, government spending and gun policy. 

In all cases except one a plurality thought that the party’s position was about right. The lone exception was government spending, on which a plurality thought that the party was not conservative enough. In fact, “not conservative enough” beat “too conservative” on every issue but gay marriage.

presidential elections, but they’re torn over what that change should be. 

Tea Party supporters were significantly more likely than Republicans who don’t support the Tea Party to say that the party was not conservative enough on these issues. 

[T]he problem the Republicans still have but many don’t seem to recognize is that the extreme arm of the party has an outsize role in selecting a nominee, and they don’t like anyone who smells of moderation.  . . . . .  most don’t have a favorable opinion of Chris Christie. In fact, among Tea Party supporters Christie had the highest unfavorable rating of the seven Republican leaders mentioned in the poll. 

This is the perpetual Republican Party conundrum: moderate, or go harder right. And many still seem to believe that going harder right is the best way to go. They have learned nothing. They can see no other way. They are so convinced that their way is the right way, but it’s just misunderstood, not clearly explained, not persuasively advocated. 

That’s what can happen in political echo chambers — faltering positions are reinforced rather than rightfully abandoned. Voices for moderation are maligned as agents of moral erosion. Giving a little feels like giving up.

In this world few leaders, particularly ones that could win a national election — which would require the winning of moderates and possibly the sloughing off of some conservative Democrats — would ever be sufficiently conservative to pass the purity test. 

So long as these voices — those of the most conservative Republicans — warp nominees who emerge from primaries on the right, they are doomed to an uphill climb toward the White House. 

It is  sad that a once rational party has been hijacked by crazy people who relish ignorance, racism, homophobia and bigotry in general as all the while they pat themselves on the back for their godliness.  The hypocrisy is stunning.

Read More

More Bad News for Christianists/GOP - Support for Gay Marriage Growing

A new Gallup poll contains more bad news for the Christofascists and their puppets in the GOP: the percentage of Americans supporting full marriage equality has increased again.  Perhaps more significantly, 52% would make gay marriage nationwide.  The spittle will be flying in the offices of hate groups like The Family Foundation and in Ken Cuccinelli's campaign headquarters.  Here are some highlights:

If given the opportunity to vote on a law legalizing gay marriage in all 50 states, the slight majority of Americans, 52%, say they would cast their vote in favor, while 43% would vote against it.

Gallup used two separate approaches to measure public support for gay marriage this month, and they produced similar results: 52% would vote for a federal law legalizing same-sex marriages in all 50 states, and 54% think gay marriages should be recognized as valid, with the same rights as marriages between men and women. … [G]roups showing at least 60% support for legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide include Democrats, adults aged 18 to 34, those who rarely or never attend a church or other place of worship, moderates, Easterners, and Catholics.

By prostituting itself to hate and bigotry filled Christofascists, the GOP is committing a slow moving form of suicide.

Read More