Taliban Dan Wants To Be Speaker (Of The U.S. House Of Representatives)

Right-wing crackpot Daniel Webster (R-FL) was the first member of the extremist Freedom Caucus to say he wants Boehner's Speaker's gavel. He'll be the far right's sacrificial lamb against current Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). Oddly enough, both men are in electorally vulnerable districts. McCarthy's district, CA-23 has been solidly Republican and still officially boasts an R+16 PVI. Romney beat Obama there 62-36%, Obama's worst performance the state. But don't be fooled; the district is changing demographically-- and rapidly. Nearly 36% of the population is now Hispanic, a numbering growing faster than any other demographic group in the district and 30.9% of the voters are Hispanic, also a number that is growing quickly. Over half the newly eligible voters in the district are Latino, Asian and immigrants. And, unlike McCarthy, 76% of the voters in CA-23 support Comprehensive Immigration Reform. The district starts in Los Angeles County's Antelope Valley and includes the northern and western parts of Lancaster, as well as Rosamond, Mojave, California City, Taft, Maricopa and most of Bakersfield. Civil rights icon Dolores Huerta is a resident and Democrats have begged her to run against McCarthy for years.

Webster is even even worse shape. When Florida's court's threw out the gerrymandered districts that gave Webster a congressional career, FL-10 (with a PVI of R+6 and which saw Romney beat Obama 54-46% became a lot bluer, a Democratic-leaning district that would be very hard for an extremist like Webster to win. (In 2012, up against a terrible candidate, DCCC-hack, DINO Val Demings, Webster scraped by 164,873 (52%) to 153,646 (48%). This year, were he to stay in FL-10, he would like have to face an actual Democrat, Bob Poe, who would in all likelihood wipe the floor with him. But it appears that Webster is moving north. Fellow crackpot Ron DeSantis (FL-06: from just south of Jacksonville, through St. Augustine, Daytona Beach nd nearly to Cape Canaveral and inland to Palatka) is giving up his nice red R+9 district in a futile attempt to win Marco Rubio's open Senate seat. The district includes John Mica's original base of support and Mica, whose district is also becoming less Republican, is going to jump into FL-06, leaving FL-07 (Deltona, Altamonte Springs, Winter Park, Maitland and Oviedo) to Webster. It isn't a safe Republican district but it is considerably safer than Webster's FL-10.

OK, that complicated situation, especially for Webster, leaves us to look at the last time Webster ran for Speaker, when he was the Tea Party candidate against Boehner on January 6 of this year. He came in 3rd. Boehner got 216 votes. Pelosi got 164 votes. And Webster got 12 votes-- Rod Blum (IA, likely to lose his seat to Pat Murphy next year), Scott Garrett (NJ), Pope Francis boycotter Paul Gosar (AZ), Koch puppet Tim Huelskamp (KS), Walter Jones (NC), racist Steve King (IA), Boehner-antagonist Mark Meadows (NC), Rich Nugent (FL), Bill Posey (FL), Scott Rigell (VA), Marlin Stutzman (IN) and... Webster himself. Other members of Ted Cruz's suicide caucus voted for Louie Gohmert, Ted Yoho, Jim Jordan, Jeff Duncan, Trey Gowdy and Kevin McCarthy (who got one vote, moderate Chris Gibson) and two senators, Rand Paul (compliments of yet another Florida nut-case, freshman Curt Clawson) and KKK Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions. At the time, the over-excited Webster sent around a treatise he wrote-- which he sent around again yesterday, Widgets, Principles and Republicans, noting that he was the first Republican speaker of Florida's state House.

If a widget maker produced flawed widgets, the owners could choose to make significant alterations by offering additional colors, new packaging, and special pricing. They also could employ new marketing techniques like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Although well intentioned, none of these improvements will fix the flawed product. It is the process by which the widgets are made that is flawed.

If the process is flawed, the product will be flawed. The only way to improve the product is to fix the process.

By his own admission, the midterm election was a referendum on the President’s policies, and those policies received a strong rebuke. The American people have made their voices heard.

Does that mean that, by default, the Republicans are the answer? No; that verdict is still out.

Republican leaders from Washington and across the country have said that our GOP brand is tarnished and must be fixed. Low public approval of Congress speaks clearly of a flawed process.

The only way to improve the GOP brand and make good public policy is to fix the process.

Republicans now own the Congress and must change the way they lead. Not just a change in packaging and marketing, but a different process-- one that is focused on principle, not on power. We only have one opportunity to prove we can lead. Our opportunity is now.

A pyramid of power in a legislative body always works the same. A few people at the top of the pyramid make most of the decisions with the bulk of the members at the bottom-- unless needed. A legislative body that is founded on principle pushes down this pyramid of power and spreads out the base so every elected member becomes a player.

Power and principle cannot coexist.

Power focuses on self-preservation; principle focuses on making ideas successful. Power tends to protect itself merely to maintain its own status and control. Principle gives up power for the sake of the highest good and to create the best public policy.

Power demands to be heard; principle earns the right to be heard. Power focuses on rights; principles focus on responsibility.

One of the most significant contrasts between power and principle is how it treats policy. Power tends to view an idea based on the position, loyalty, rank, or seniority of the sponsor. Principle focuses solely on the merits of the idea itself.

The Republicans have a choice. This is it. This is our moment. We only have one opportunity to make a first impression.

Flawed widgets or solid principles; which will it be?

Taliban Dan, who thinks he's fit to be Speaker, home-schooled his 6 kids using the widely discredited Bill Gothard curriculum. The poor kids are grown up now and all unemployable & working in his air-conditioning repair shop. Webster on Gothard's demented teachings: "They are the basis for everything I do today." In the video below he brags about using Gothard's sick, corrupted rants in the political life of his district:



Webster ally and co-founder of the Liberty Caucus, Tim Huelskamp, rattled the right-wing sabers that his caucus, which had just tasted blood, can prevent anyone from being elected Speaker. He says, the Freedom Caucus will vote as a bloc and there are probably 40 radicals who will apply a litmus test for right-wing extremism. There is little doubt that had Pelosi cleaned house at the failed, incompetent and dysfunctional DCCC after their last two stupendous catastrophic cycles, the Democrats would be figuring out how big their 2017 majority would be. But she did't and they aren't. They are practically being handed back the majority of the House but Steve Israel and his bitterly anti-progressive allies would rather see Republicans back in control than see more progressives elected to the House. These are progressives running for House seats who the DCCC is either ignoring or sabotaging; think about thwarting Steve Israel and helping these Democrats win and helping make Nancy Pelosi speaker again. (Remember how good she was and how well the House functioned back when she was?)

Is Florida Really The Most Corrupt State In America?

The superficial, court-ordered redistricting in Florida only scratches the surface of the prevalent culture of political corruption that permeates the state's two political parties. The judgment does not attempt to deals ith anything but two tiny and blatant cases of grotesque gerrymandering-- and that was all the state legislature dealt with. Even if the new plan goes into effect in 2016, Florida will still be one of the most unfairly gerrymandered states in the Union-- despite the overwhelming passage of a citizens' initiative to put an end to the practice. But even the tiny ameliorative effort agreed to by the legislature is being challenged by corrupt Republican political hack Daniel "Taliban Dan" Webster.

Webster is busy raising money for a court challenge. No one has contributed yet, but Taliban Dan has filed the Daniel Webster Legal Expense Trust with the House Ethics Committee and plans to use it to solicit money from crooked lobbyists and other special interests who have already maxed out to his reelection campaign. Webster, a crackpot religious fanatic and follower of cult leader and child rapist Bill Gothard, has managed to amass one of the most reactionary/anti-family voting records of any Member of Congress. Webster on Gothard's demented teachings: "They are the basis for everything I do today." He brags about using Gothard's sick, corrupted rants in the political life of his central Florida district:



Webster, like many Florida Republican legislators, has been violently anti-LGBT throughout his miserable career. On February 28, 2013, for example, he voted for the failed amendment to strip protections for American Indians, immigrants, and members of the LGBT community from an anti-domestic violence bill. It failed because 60 Republicans joined the Democrats to defeat it, 257-166, including conservative Floridians Ted Yoho, Ron DeSantis, Mario Diaz-Balart, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and Trey Radel. Two years earlier he had worked frantically to prevent gay men and women volunteers from serving in the military and has voted against every attempt to allow members of the LGBT community to get married. He's a sick cookie-- and he isn't evolving, not even at the snail's pace other Florida Republicans are finally adopting. Just yesterday, the Miami Herald in covering the GOP primary debate for FL-26, pointed out that Republican candidates are not taking the kinds of vicious anti-LGBT stands that Old Testament authoritarians like Webster are clinging to. In fact, other GOP candidates have also been lightening up a bit on Global Warming, another agenda item that finds Taliban Dan off muttering to himself and to a shrinking band of fringe lunatics in crazy-land.

Questions on sea-level rise, immigration and gay marriage revealed divisions among the four contenders who taped Facing South Florida, which will air Sunday on Miami Herald news partner WFOR-CBS 4. A fifth candidate, ex-Congressman David Rivera, declined to attend.

By the end of the taping, Carlos Curbelo, Ed MacDougall, Joe Martinez and Lorenzo Palomares-Starbuck had agreed on plenty. But there was dissent in the very first question from investigative reporter Jim DeFede, who asked if all the candidates vying to represent Westchester to Key West would concur that-- whatever the cause-- seas are rising.

Yes, said the candidates-- except for one.

“I’m not exactly sure,” said Martinez, a former Miami-Dade County commissioner. “I’m not a scientist, Jim.”

…On gay marriage, it was again Martinez who differed with his three rivals. MacDougall, Curbelo and Palomares-Starbuck said they support making marriages among same-sex couples legal.

“It’s the right thing to do,” MacDougall said.

Martinez, however, said the question should be left up to states-- and if Florida voters were asked to repeal the state’s gay-marriage ban, he would vote no, Martinez added after the show’s taping. He does support civil unions and benefits for same-sex partners, he said.

A federal judge in Tallahassee ruled Thursday that Florida’s gay-marriage ban is unconstitutional, though he stayed his own order pending appeals.

Reform-minded citizens in every state like to brag that their state is the most corrupt: New Jersey, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Illinois, Texas, New York, California, all have good cases that can be made on their behalf. But some say that Florida already has it sewn up. We're talking about a state that elected the most overtly corrupt governor in modern history after he had plead the Fifth Amendment 75 times and was then fined $1.7 Billion for running the biggest Medicare fraud scheme in history. This guy:



But Rick Scott isn't the root of Florida's endless epidemic of political corruption. One of the worst symptoms is the toxic role Big Sugar plays-- not just with slimy Republicans like Scott, but with just as slimy Democrats like Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the Democrats' go-to shill for the Fanjul sugar empire. This week Eye On Miami singled out Florida Republicans for their shocking corruption in relation to Big Sugar.

The excellent investigative report by the Tampa Bay Times, exposing links between Florida's top GOP politicians-- including Gov. Rick Scott and Republican legislative leadership-- Big Sugar and high cost, free hunting trips to the King Ranch in Texas show the extent to which the party of the "free market" freely undermines the ideals of its base: sugar is one of the most heavily protected industrial crops in America, enjoying vast subsidies including illegal (according to the Florida Constitution) subsidies for the costs of Everglades cleanup.

Sugar's true cost to taxpayers, and the context of U.S. Sugar and Florida Crystal's flagrant entertainments of elected officials, isn't the Everglades and measures to shift cleanup costs to taxpayers-- it is public health and strategies to prevent Big Sugar from becoming the next Big Tobacco.

"Drastic Measures," in the Financial Times (April 25, 2014): notes the reach of Big Sugar, but also details a dramatic shift in health care priorities that is putting the first significant, coordinated pressure on sugar consumption. Earlier this year the World Health Organization reduced the recommended daily sugar intake by half, to the equivalent of six teaspoons of sugar a day.

"The amount of scientific research linking sugar intake with obesity has increased. And governments are waking up to the rising costs of illnesses such as diabetes and cancer that have increased alongside obesity. "The discussion of sugar linked to dietary concerns has been has been gathering momentum," says Stefano Natella of Credit Suisse. "The related global healthcare costs are at an all-time high--the bill is $500 billion or over 10 percent of global healthcare spending-- as are obesity and diabetes levels."

While Republican members of Congress ranted and raved about the costs of the Affordable Health Care Act, none also complained about the toll on consumers' health through excess consumption of sugar.

Democrats have also been loathe to tie the costs of Big Sugar to the domestic health care emergency, because of the enormous impact of campaign contributions to members of Congress and state legislatures where sugar is grown. When Michele Obama tried to move her popular "Get Moving" campaign towards the sugar problem, she was warned off by White House policy makers.

It is not just Florida, but Florida is the state where the lockdown by Big Sugar of the Florida legislature and Governor's Office is a given. The entire governmental investment for Everglades restoration, spending billions and hundreds of thousands of man hours in the multi-decadal effort, is a work-around of Big Sugar.

Cynical industry manipulation of public processes, with billionaires at their joysticks -- is crippling government agencies and forced Congress through the Farm Bill and state legislatures through lax regulations to keep intact taxpayer backed programs that form the backbone of protectionist trade policies.

So why haven't environmentalists decried Big Sugar as the same kind of destroyer as Big Tobacco? It's time.

"Sugar has become the new tobacco," says Simon Capewell, professor of clinical epidemiology at Liverpool University, one of the founders of Action on Sugar, a UK campaign group formed in January. "Everywhere, sugary drinks and junk foods are pressed on unsuspecting parents and children by a cynical industry focused on profit not health."

A secondary impact for bribe-hungry conservatives is that sugar rots the brains of people who over-use it, which explains why non-millionaires vote for Republicans and for deceitful politicians from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party.

Daniel Webster-- Now A Florida Congressman Without A Cult

Last night I took old friend, Wisconsin Democratic Senate Leader Chris Larson, for dinner at the best vegan restaurant in the area, Crossroads. Unfortunately, all the desserts are made with sugar so afterwards, we went down the road to Cafe Gratitude for some sugar-free, gluten-free desserts. As we were parking and walking over to the restaurant, I explained to Chris that the place was run by a cult. He seemed stunned. "Oh, they're harmless enough," I assured him. He seemed skeptical and I explained that I thought they were affiliated with Landmark, a group that grew out of the wreckage of est after that popular cult's founder, Werner Erhard, was accused of having incest with his daughters. Larson seemed totally creeped out and didn't want to go in. I was eager for the apple crumble with cashew nut milk "ice cream." Larson's instinctual revulsion for a cult was something I thought about later. And it drew me back to a time when we were looking at the frightening connections between Christo-fascist cult leader Bill Gothard and extreme right Florida politician Daniel Webster.

A little political background: In 2010, the Florida legislature carved up central Florida around Orlando in such a way to create 4 relatively safe Republican seats for John Mica (FL-07- R+4), Bill Posey (FL-08- R+9), Dennis Ross (FL-15- R+6), and Daniel Webster (FL-10- R+6). To accomplish this, they had to squeeze as many Democrats as possible into one district-- FL-09, which gave Alan Grayson a super-safe D+8 seat. Ungerrymandered, the area would probably send either 3 Democrats and 2 Republicans or, in a really bad year, 3 Republicans and 2 Democrats to Congress, not 4 Republicans and one Democrat-- even if Alan Grayson alone is the equivalent of, at least, 4 Republicans.

The weakest of the 4 Republicans is Daniel Webster, a deranged religious fanatic that many normal people in Orange County and Lake County and some in Polk County are saddled with. Under the old lines, Obama won the district (FL-08) in 2008 by 5 points. The new 2010 boundaries would have had Obama losing the district by 5. In 2012, the district went to Romney 54-46%. Webster was reelected on that day 52-48%, underperforming Romney significantly. Webster is the most politically prominent member of Gothard's deranged Illinois-based cult. Part of Gothard's sick vision that Webster takes so much inspiration from includes "stoning as a form of capital punishment for rape, kidnapping, murder, heresy, blasphemy, witchcraft, astrology, adultery, 'sodomy or homosexuality,' incest, striking a parent, extreme juvenile delinquency, and 'unchastity before marriage'." Worse, Webster has used Gothard's hateful fanaticism as an inspiration for legislation. His degenerate Covenant Marriage bill and his attempts to outlaw divorce in Florida come right out of Gothard's pseudo-religion/cult. Webster doesn't believe in public education; he opposes it and subscribes to Gothard's homeschooling precepts. Webster has a gaggle of uneducated, unemployable offspring who were home-schooled and now work in his air-conditioning repair business.

This week, Kathryn Joyce did a spectacular job in explaining the sex abuse scandals rocking the milieu the Quiverfull Gothard-Duggars-Webster cult exists in, By Grace Alone for The Prospect. Sexually m and raping young women is almost standard operating procedure for cult leaders. Gothard has been forced out of his own cult for multiple rapes of women and underage girls. Dozens of women have come forward with testimony about Rep. Dan Webster's spiritual guru harassing and molesting them.

For years, Protestants have assumed they were immune to the abuses perpetrated by celibate Catholic priests. But Tchividjian believes that Protestant churches, groups, and schools have been worse than Catholics in their response. Mission fields, he says, are “magnets” for would-be molesters; ministries and schools do not understand the dynamics of abuse; and “good ol’ boy” networks routinely cover up victims’ stories to protect their reputations. He fears it is only a matter of time before it all blows up in their faces and threatens the survival of powerful Protestant institutions.

In the past couple of years, Tchividjian has begun to look prophetic. Reports and allegations of sex abuse, rape, and harassment-- and a culture that has badly mishandled them-- have become more and more frequent. In fall 2012, former members of Sovereign Grace Ministries, a “family” of about 80 conservative churches from various theological traditions, filed a class-action lawsuit against the ministry for failing to report allegations of sex abuse in the 1980s and 1990s-- including abuse perpetrated by church leaders’ immediate family members-- and discouraging victims and their families from going to law enforcement. (The lawsuit was dismissed last year because of expired statutes of limitations and jurisdictional questions, but an appeal and criminal investigations are under way.) This spring, an exposé in the New Republic revealed that Patrick Henry, the college of choice for evangelical homeschoolers, has covered up alleged campus rape and sexual assault, thanks largely to its victim-blaming emphasis on women’s purity. Allegations of similar practices soon surfaced against other Christian colleges, including Pensacola Christian College in Florida and Cedarville University in Ohio. A documentary released in February, No Place to Call Home, recounts the systematic sexual abuse of children in the 1980s at Jesus People USA, an evangelical commune in Chicago. The empire of Bill Gothard, founder of the fundamentalist Institute in Basic Life Principles, crumbled earlier this year after bloggers revealed dozens of sexual-harassment and molestation claims against him.

…Tchividjian delivered a scary set of facts: If general statistics apply-- a quarter of U.S. women and a sixth of men have been sexually abused before age 18… Congregations need to understand that churches are targets and havens for abusers. One study has found that 93 percent of admitted sex offenders describe themselves as religious. Offenders who report strong church ties abuse more often, with younger victims. That’s not because Christians are inherently more abusive, he said, but because they’re more vulnerable to those who are. Tchividjian repeated what one convicted sex abuser told clinical psychologist Anna Salter in her book Predators: Pedophiles, Rapists, and Other Sex Offenders: "Church people"-- always looking to see the best in people, to welcome converts, to save sinful souls-- are “easy to fool.”

Tchividjian rattled off ways in which Christians’ openness can allow abuse to go unchecked: Perpetrators tend to use scripture to coerce, justify, and silence. If they’re clergy, they will exploit their positions; if they’re laypeople, they will take advantage of a church hungry for volunteers and rely on the trust given to members of a church family. “The reason why offenders get away with what they do is because we have too many cultures of silence,” Tchividjian said. “When something does surface, all too often the church leadership quiets it down. Because they’re concerned about reputation: ‘This could harm the name of Jesus, so let’s just take care of it internally.’"

Although Webster is the Republican most frequently associated with Gothard and his crackpot cult, the serial rapist has, according to the Washington Post rubbed shoulders with Republican luminaries, from GOP presidential wanna-be Mike Huckabee and former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue to Ms Republican herself, Sarah Palin. Gothard's tale of woe sounds exactly like cult leader Werner Erhard's back in the '70s and early '80s when his followers included Yoko, Diana Ross, Cher, Joe Namath, John Denver, Jeff Bridges, Patrick Swayze, Peter Gabriel, Ida Rolf (the creator of rolfing) and several members of the 5th Dimension.

The allegations against Gothard dovetail with financial woes. In recent years, IBLP’s net revenue has dropped significantly, and the ministry is losing money. In 2009, it reported a net income loss of $1 million. It lost $4.1 million in 2011, and $3.5 million in 2012, according to its most recently available tax forms. Its net assets dropped from $92 million in 2010 to $81 million in 2012.

Since it started as a class at Gothard’s alma mater, Wheaton College, in 1961, more than 2.5 million people have gone through his “basic seminar” training on authority, success and other issues. IBLP held 504 seminars in 2010, but that number dropped to fewer than 50 in 2012.

The financial decline came around the same time that the whistle-blowing website Recovering Grace was formed in 2011. A string of allegations has been posted on the website, including one alleging Gothard molested a woman who was underage in the early 1990s. Four articles allege Gothard engaged in sexual harassment, and four articles allege his failure to report child abuse to Child Protective Services.

Calls placed to IBLP Thursday and Friday were not immediately returned.

Gretchen Swearingen, who goes by her middle name “Charlotte,” wrote on the website that Gothard requested she come work for him in 1992 at IBLP’s headquarters in Oak Brook, Ill., when she was 16. During her time there, she said Gothard would play footsie with her and hold her hand. At one point, she said, he had coordinated a ride from the airport for them to be together. “That’s when he first put his hand between my legs and felt me all the way up,” she wrote.

Now 38, she said the statute of limitations has expired, leaving her unable to sue. She said she told her mother, who told her that she was lying, so Swearingen assumed there was nothing she could do.

“No one was there when the molestation was happening,” she said in an interview. “I never had the guts to say anything. I thought if my mother didn’t believe me, who would? You’re not to bring home false witness against someone at headquarters.”

She said that she and her mother have reconciled since she wrote her story.

Swearingen said she reported her story to the Hinsdale (Ill.) Police Department a week ago. A police spokesman said no investigation has been opened at this time.

“It’s not about revenge, not about suing him or taking him to court,” she said. “It’s about my healing and giving other people voices.”

Gothard would create an emotional bond with several women during counseling, said Rachel Frost, who also worked at IBLP’s headquarters when she was 16.

“There was a very common grooming pattern of creating emotional bonds and physical affirmations, the footsie, the leg rubs, the stroking of the hair, the constant comments on physical appearance,” she said.

She also wrote about her experience on the Recovering Grace website.

Julie Terrell, another woman who worked at IBLP’s headquarters, said Gothard sexually harassed her when she worked there in 1998. But before stories were posted at Recovering Grace, she never thought to say anything.

One woman behind the Recovering Grace website, who declined to be named because she did not want to hurt the reputation of her husband who is a pastor, said 34 women told the website they had been sexually harassed; four women alleged molestation. She said she refers anyone whose story is within the statute of limitations to the police.

Daniel Webster (FL-10) on Gothard's demented teachings: "They are the basis for everything I do today." He brags about using Gothard's sick, corrupted rants in the political life of his district:

Streams Of Consciousness

Since my John Wayne random quote went over so well last night, I found another one-- from the same 1971 Playboy interview-- for tonight. Looks like African-Americans weren't the only ethnic group the right-wing icon had some antipathy for. Even off camera he didn't cotton to Native Americans much-- or at least didn't seem to be able to walk a mile in their shoes:

"I don't feel we did wrong in taking this country away from the Indians. There were great numbers of people who needed new land and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves."

Which circle of hell is that again? The fourth is for avarice. Of course, the seventh (for violence), eighth (for fraud) and ninth (for treachery) are far worse places to spend eternity, according to Dante... but what does he know?

Miss McConnell, Caught In A Deadly Obama/DeMint Pincer, Raises His White Boxers On A Stick And Surrenders On Earmarks

Jerry Lewis (R-CA) must be flipping out but it looks like earmarks will be going the way of the dodo bird. McConnell, a major earmarker from way back, could no longer take the intense pressure from both Obama and DeMint, DeMint backed by whatever power the teabaggers are reckoned to have.

In a floor speech, McConnell said: "There is simply no doubt that the abuse of this practice has caused Americans to view it as a symbol of the waste and out-of-control spending that every Republican in Washington is determined to fight.

"And unless people like me show the American people that we’re willing to follow through on small or even symbolic things, we risk losing them on our broader efforts to cut spending and rein in government," McConnell said. 

McConnell has been a staunch defender of earmarks, arguing that banning them simply cedes spending authority to the executive branch.

He acknowledged in a floor speech Monday that he was “not wild” about the ban, but said the “only way” to turn the corner on spending would be to make “difficult decisions.”

McConnell refused to apologize for his own earmarks. "Make no mistake, I know the good that has come from the projects I have helped support throughout my state," he said. 

“I’m not wild about turning over more spending authority to the executive branch," McConnell added. 

The Senate GOP conference is expected to hold a vote Tuesday on DeMint's voluntary ban.

Maybe This Is A Big Deal For The Kids

Today the Wall Street Journal reported that Steve Jobs is nearing the end of his long and winding pursuit of the Beatles catalog. Apple is about to announce that iTunes will finally be selling Beatles music.

Even as recorded-music sales have plummeted, the Beatles have remained one of the most reliable franchises in the business. In 2009, 39 years after breaking up, they sold the third-highest number of albums of any act in the U.S., according to Nielsen SoundScan, with 3.3 million copies sold.

In the past decade, the Beatles sold the second-highest number of albums of any artist (trailing Eminem by 2 million units), and the second-highest number of albums since SoundScan launched in 1991 (Garth Brooks has sold more), according to SoundScan.

The only significant holdouts left not selling through iTunes are Metallica, Led Zeppelin, Radiohead, and Tool.

I Found A Mistake In Markos' New Book

I'm loving American Taliban and I ration a few pages a day so I can stretch it out. And today I found a mistake. Markos was expanding on the assertion that "The American Taliban's longstanding attitude is that women who wear revealing clothes or unmarried women who have sex deserve the consequences of sexual assault, rape, sexually transmitted diseases, AIDS, etc." That's all perfectly true and well reflected in the attitude towards women in both Afghanistan and Alabama. But then Markos let his guard down for a moment to make a point:

Unlike Muslim extremists who want to stone or give public lashings to women who sexually misbehave, our American fundamentalists simply want to let them die.

This is partially true of the American Taliban-- but not for the hardest of the hard core. Take newly elected Florida psychopath Daniel Webster. This fringe maniac is a devout follower of cult fanatic Bill Gothard whose crackpot "religion" specifically does call for stoning-- and stoning to death-- women who misbehave. Let me throw in some B.E. Wilson:

As I've detailed in a recent Alternet story, Daniel Webster's intimate, over three decade long involvement with evangelist Bill Gothard appears similar to a classic guru-disciple or mentor-pupil relationship and has included speaking multiple times at Gothard's conferences, traveling with Gothard to Korea in 1996, using Bill Gothard's material to homeschool his six children, making an instructional video for Gothard's Institute For Basic Life Principles, and, when Webster became speaker of the Florida legislature in 1996, hiring four of Gothard's IBLP employees as high-level Florida State House staffers.

As I describe in my Alternet story, Alan Grayson's GOP Opponent Directly Tied to Christian Group That Wants Permanent Subordination of Women, according to the Vice President of the Chalcedon Institute, before the institute's founder, father of Christian Reconstructionism R.J. Rushdoony, died, Rushdoony nearly struck a deal with Gothard that would have allowed him to distribute Rushdoony's Institutes of Biblical Law book, a template for implementing Biblical law in government.

Rushdoony was a virulently racist Holocaust denier who believed in Geocentrism, the proposition that the Sun, and all the heavens, rotate around the Earth, which is the center of creation.

Although the deal fell through because the two men held clashing positions about divorce (Gothard wanted to ban it altogether) they otherwise were in agreement including, apparently, on R.J. Rushdoony's vision of instituting stoning as a form of capital punishment for murder, adultery, homosexuality, idolatry, apostasy, and witchcraft.  
 
Asked about his 1996 trip to Korea with Bill Gothard, Daniel Webster told the Florida Gainesville Sun, for an August 5th, 1996 story, "I respect (Gothard) as much as anybody. I wouldn't have gone [with Gothard to Korea] but he wanted me there."

Interviewed for a February 16, 1997 story from the Florida newspaper the St. Petersburg Times, Webster stated, on Gothard, "I enjoy the advice he's given. I think it's been a major part of my life. I'm not ashamed of that. What he has said I believe to be the truth."

You see why the new congressman from Orlando is called "Taliban Dan?"

And Ole Steny...


He wasn't just the go-to-guy for the Blue Dogs, particularly the Blue Dogs who voted more frequently with the Republicans than with their own party. Now we find out, courtesy of another member of the Wall Street fraternity, that Steny is the Republicans' favorite Democrat too-- and not just because he and Boehner would rather be golfing. "Steny," says Ryan, "talks to us." Yeah, I bet he does.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the incoming chairman of the House Budget Committee, suggested Republicans get along best with Hoyer, the second-ranking House Democrat who will stay in the No. 2 position in the next Congress.

"I get along pretty well with Steny. He's the only one we really talk to," Ryan said Monday morning on CNBC. "I don't know Nancy Pelosi. I had a 30-second conversation with her about six years ago, and that's about it."

...The Maryland Democrat is seen as an emissary to centrist Democrats in the House. And the incoming Republican majority, Ryan suggested, might see Hoyer as a better option for outreach compared to Pelosi, who will stay on as Democratic leader.

Gay Conservatives Coming Out? Well... Maybe Joe Blow But Not Aaron Schock Or Patrick McHenry... Or Even David Dreier

Guess who didn't get mentioned in The Advocate's story on conservative closet cases coming out?

Normally, when we think of "gay Republicans" we think of pathological closet cases whose very lives are psychologically debilitating hellish lies. From former Maryland Congressman (and American Conservative Union founder and president) Bob Bauman in his 1986 book about being outed and abandoned by his rightist allies to the more incident in California with state Senator Roy Ashburn the lesson Republicans should be learning is "closets are for clothes," not for dignified human beings. It's virtually impossible to live a worthwhile life as a closet case. Examples include not only recently out wrecks and wretches like Mark Foley (R-FL), Larry Craig (R-ID), Jim West (R-WA) and Ed Schrock (R-VA) and half-in-half-out closet queens like Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Miss McConnell (R-KY) and David Dreier (R-CA) but also hysterically furtive night-prowlers Mark Kirk (R-IL), Aaron Schock (R-IL), Patrick McHenry (R-NC), Adrian Smith (R-NE), and Trent Franks (R-AZ). But, the new issue of the Advocate wants us to know that there's a new breed of conservative Republican gays who are stepping out of the closet.

You've probably never heard of any of them... other than maybe Ken Mehlman, who was outed while plotting the Bush campaign's divisive, hate-filled and ruthless anti-gay strategies. It's mostly about recently uncloseted minor gay staffers in DC, approximately 2/3 of the city's temporary residents. It's a story "of a growing number of Republicans who hope young conservatives no longer feel the need to hide their sexual identity in order to pursue their passion for politics. Their stories vary wildly: Some came out in protest of what they see as a political ethos that fundamentally rejects their humanity, while others say they aren’t so troubled when their professional obligations seem, to others at least, at odds with their sexual orientation. But most believe the unprecedented support of conservative icons such as George W. Bush’s former solicitor general Ted Olson, currently litigating the federal case against California’s antigay Proposition 8, and the recent openness of high-profile operatives like onetime Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman can help motivate aspiring young gays-- and perhaps reshape the national conversation in the process."

If you're hoping Kerry Eleveld actually unlocks the conservative closet... well, you might as well skip the Advocate altogether and stick with the magazine's bulkier fashion/booze-recipes-and-gossip-oriented sister publication, Out. One gay GOP operative, Dan Gurley, was so outraged ("gut-punched," he recalls) when Bush decided to try to pass a Constitutional Amendment to outlaw gay marriage that he adamantly refused to hang a life-size photo of Bush in his office "for months." Now, "in retrospect, Gurley acknowledges that he could have made more of a difference if he’d been out to his RNC colleagues. 'It might have given a heightened sense of awareness to others if everyone had known, rather than some knowing and others not knowing,” he says." You think?

Markos Moulitsas' brilliant new book, American Taliban has a chapter he probably designed to make right-wingers, gay and straight, squirm. It's called "Sex," and I suspect many of the reviewers only read this chapter. "While the lust for power and the flirtation with violence are definitely traits of the American Taliban," he begins, "what really gets their panties in a twist is sex." He could just as well be writing a biographical sketch of Daniel Webster (AKA- "Taliban Dan"), the fanatic, sex-obsessed career politician running against Alan Grayson in the Orlando area of central Florida.

Unlike power and violence, sex is something they are obsessed with avoiding. This creates a paradox: they are so fearful of the pleasures of the flesh that they can't stop talking about them. Or, as we'll see, often indulging in them. Hence they've created an entire regressive moral code, dressed it up as "family values," and set out to violate almost every one of its tenets. All this repression ultimately screws them up in the head.

...Both Christianity and Islam consider homosexuality immoral. Indeed, same-sex relations are illegal in most Muslim countries [though widely practiced], generally punishable by jail time or corporal punishment, and the more extreme the regime, the more brutal the punishment.

In the extremist cult Taliban Dan ascribes to, led by multimillionaire charlatan Bill Gothard (Webster's top advisor) you couldn't get more extreme. Closeted or not, he decrees that all gay men and women should be stoned... to death. But you can kind of see why people growing up in this kind of depraved milieu might chose to bolt that closet door from the inside-- and barricade it shut.

Meet Jamie; she survived Bill Gothard and, unlike Taliban Dan, she broke free:

Why Do They Call Daniel Webster "Taliban Dan?" Is It Fair?

More than a few progressives have questioned the wisdom and "the fairness" of Alan Grayson's Taliban Dan ad... and some Villagers have been positively gleeful in clobbering Grayson for his tactics. But as we've been pointing out since the advent of the firestorm, even if the portrayal was a little clumsy, it was never less than completely accurate. In fact, it's impossible in a 30 second ad to explain the full degree to which Webster ascribes to-- and has acted in a manner consistent with-- the worst tenets of religionist fundamentalism that would be more at home in backward areas of Afghanistan than in Orlando... or even Kabul. Yesterday TPM did the full report that Florida media has been to lazy--- or too biased-- to bother with. As they point out, Webster's been with Bill Gothard's religious cult, the Institute for Basic Life Principles, for decades and publicly admits to being a staunch supporter and follower. An ex-member of the cult Vyckie Garrison, watched the ad and explained to TPM that Grayson's ad hit the nail right on the head. "I watched that ad, that video that the Grayson guy...and after I watched it, I thought, yeah, that's definitely provocative, but I don't think that's an exaggeration to compare Dan Webster and IBPL ideals to the Taliban because, as far as women go, we are reduced to non-personhood status." Garrison divorced her husband and left the cult when one of her daughters attempted to commit suicide. She now blogs about Gothard's dangerous cult-- to which Webster (as well as Mike Huckabee are both devoted) at No Longer Quivering.

What we now call IBLP was founded decades by Bill Gothard, an influential, and deeply conservative minister. In a Time Magazine article written over 30 years ago, Gothard, then 39, was quoted as advising women, attacked by their husbands, to pray, "God, thank you for this beating." His group has existed in different forms, until it was finally incorporated as IBLP about 20 years ago.

According to Garrison, IBLP gets its hooks into evangelical parents by offering them a program for home schooling their children, to protect them from the evils of public schools-- "Satan's indoctrination centers." (Webster's six children have all been home schooled.)

"The next thing we heard was to trust the Lord with our home planning," Garrison said.

They pretty much pushed in IBLP the primary ideal is that you will not use birth control, that you will accept all the blessings the Lord sends your way. There's all these code words, but basically what they're saying is women should not use birth control for any reason. In my case I had a lot of health reasons, it was recommended to me after my third that I not have any more kids-- I'd had a C-section-- but once I got into this whole teaching, I felt that I was going against Scripture by not allowing the Lord to bless me and I needed to trust that if he was going to give me a baby he'd protect me."

So Garrison had four more children.

Those children, and Garrison herself, wound up in a position of complete subservience. Whether Webster preached it directly or not, the Institute teaches that women should indeed submit themselves to their husbands.

"There's a big emphasis on this authority structure within Gothardism and the whole IBLP. If you're submitting to him that's how you obey God, that's how you gain physical, spiritual, financial protection, is being basically obedient to the spiritual head, which would be your husband, or if you're a child, your father," Garrison told me. "Being in submission, that's how you're going to keep the devil from ruining your life."

"The main trouble for us was there's such a focus on this patriarchal teaching, that the husband is the head, he is the leader, the wife is to submit, the children are to obey," she described. "And it gives so much authority and power to the man that it turned my husband into just a tyrant. He had the idea in his head that as our spiritual covering he had a responsibility for my spiritual life, our children's spiritual life. And if he feels like he's the one who's ultimately going to answer to God, he has the authority and the responsibility and the obligation to use so much control over all our actions, down to our thoughts and beliefs."

Kathryn Joyce, an expert on Gothardism and similar lifestyles, estimates that tens of thousands of people in the country live their lives this way. The movement is known as the Quiverfull movement, because, as Garrison put it, "children are arrows in the hands of the holy man." Adherents believe themselves to be in a "battle for the Kingdom of Righteousness, and you want to have as many arrows in your quiver as you can and you want them to be sharp, you want them to be focused...you are raising up an army for God."

I asked Garrison whether it would be possible to be a member of IBLP and not adhere to the patriarchal aspects of its teachings.

"No," she insisted. "It's one of the foundational principals. It's what gets you into it. There's the whole thing: This is what a godly woman looks like. There's very clearly delineated roles for women, and those roles are all based on submission, they're based on self denial, on obedience, and respect, and even the word respect translates into 'you just take it, and with a smile.' Because that's how God would have you respond to tyranny and abuse."

Does it sound something like the Sharia Law of fundamentalist Muslims? It should-- because it is, "with strict instructions on how to dress, date, and run a home, and with strict consequences for disobedience." According to Gothard, "Once they are married, the husband 'gives the law' and the wife 'works out the proper procedure to carry it out.' Equal authority in marriage is 'Satan's goal.' The key to a happy marriage is 'the wife's submission and the husband's sacrifice'."

As I've detailed in a recent Alternet story, Daniel Webster's intimate, over three decade long involvement with evangelist Bill Gothard appears similar to a classic guru-disciple or mentor-pupil relationship and has included speaking multiple times at Gothard's conferences, traveling with Gothard to Korea in 1996, using Bill Gothard's material to homeschool his six children, making an instructional video for Gothard's Institute For Basic Life Principles, and, when Webster became speaker of the Florida legislature in 1996, hiring four of Gothard's IBLP employees as high-level Florida State House staffers.

As I describe in my Alternet story, Alan Grayson's GOP Opponent Directly Tied to Christian Group That Wants Permanent Subordination of Women, according to the Vice President of the Chalcedon Institute, before the institute's founder, father of Christian Reconstructionism R.J. Rushdoony, died, Rushdoony nearly struck a deal with Gothard that would have allowed him to distribute Rushdoony's Institutes of Biblical Law book, a template for implementing Biblical law in government.

Rushdoony was a virulently racist Holocaust denier who believed in Geocentrism, the proposition that the Sun, and all the heavens, rotate around the Earth, which is the center of creation.

Although the deal fell through because the two men held clashing positions about divorce (Gothard wanted to ban it altogether) they otherwise were in agreement including, apparently, on R.J. Rushdoony's vision of instituting stoning as a form of capital punishment for murder, adultery, homosexuality, idolatry, apostasy, and witchcraft.  
 
Asked about his 1996 trip to Korea with Bill Gothard, Daniel Webster told the Florida Gainesville Sun, for an August 5th, 1996 story, "I respect (Gothard) as much as anybody. I wouldn't have gone [with Gothard to Korea] but he wanted me there."

Interviewed for a February 16, 1997 story from the Florida newspaper the St. Petersburg Times, Webster stated, on Gothard, "I enjoy the advice he's given. I think it's been a major part of my life. I'm not ashamed of that. What he has said I believe to be the truth."

...As I describe in Alan Grayson's GOP Opponent Directly Tied to Christian Group That Wants Permanent Subordination of Women, other notable teachings [aside from female submission and obedience] and practices of Bill Gothard include,

• The claim that schizophrenia is merely a form of "irresponsibility."

• The need for believers to submit to all forms of authority, which is put in place by God.

•  As charged by several conservative Christian critics, the claim that Cabbage Patch and troll dolls are evil and inhibit childbirth.

• As charged by author Cora Anika Theill, the claim that rebellious wives can be 'cured' by casting out spirits of 'rebellion.'

• The doctrine that rock music is demonic and can cause possession by evil spirits.

Gothard and Huckabee and Webster are all entitled to their religious beliefs-- as long as they don't rape minors-- but the danger to society is when their primitive, self-serving beliefs are inserted into the political system by members like Webster who stealthily manage to get into official positions and attempt to use the underlying tenets of the cult in crafting legislation. One of the Founding Fathers' greatest gifts to our country was a wall they built-- a wall between church and state. Otherwise, we'd be just as screwed up as... well, the Taliban.

Taliban Dan, Meet Taliban Sharron, Your Sister in Hatred

When Alan Grayson exposed the ominously strong connection between Republican candidate Daniel Webster and Christo-fascist hatemonger Bill Gothard with his Taliban Dan ad, the brainless, lazy media-- both in Orlando and nationally-- jumped all over him and said it was offensive to accuse another American of being like the Taliban. Markos had the same reaction to his brilliant new book, American Taliban, which was deemed "too mean" by the mainstream media.

Digby turned me on to some of the writings of Daniel Webster's guru, Bill Gothard, who he used to brag about but is now strangely silent about. And, as I pointed out yesterday, part of Gothard's vision that Webster takes so much inspiration from includes "stoning as a form of capital punishment for rape, kidnapping, murder, heresy, blasphemy, witchcraft, astrology, adultery, 'sodomy or homosexuality,' incest, striking a parent, extreme juvenile delinquency, and 'unchastity before marriage'.”

Webster has used Gothard's hateful fanaticism as an inspiration for legislation in the past. The media should be writing about his Covenant Marriage bill and his attempts to outlaw divorce in Florida instead of whining about Alan Grayson being mean in his ad. That aside-- and I'll let astrologers, people who have sex outside of wedlock and blasphemers, heretics and juvenile delinquents deal with the idea of being stoned to death on their own-- I want to focus on the age-old drive on the far right inhabited by creatures like Taliban Dan and Bill Gothard to exterminate gay people-- and to do it in the name of Christ, God, religion, the Bible, the Koran... whatever. Gothard wants to stone us to death. When Taliban Dan was singing his praises-- before the campaign-- he didn't say he was inspired by him except in the case of stoning gays to death. There were no exceptions.

And Taliban Dan isn't the only Republican radical who hides behind the Bible and transforms it into a tome of hatred and bigotry in the service of calling for the extermination of the LGBT community. Let's not forget Taliban Sharron (R-NV). Although recently eclipsed in national infamy by Christine O'Donnell, readers of DWT are no doubt aware of Sharron Angle, a former state Assemblymember who "has repeatedly come under fire for her comments about autistic children and gay adoption; opposing abortion for rape and supporting a constitutional amendment against marriage for same-sex couples, among other issues." Derek Washington, chair of the Stonewall Democratic Club of Southern Nevada likens her to "a peach with knuckles" but warns he knows "perfectly normal people who are social liberals" who support her. "She’s just weird."

Washington predicted dire consequences for LGBT Nevadans if Angle defeats Reid.

"This woman will lay waste to the gay community here; I can say that without reserve," he said. "This woman seeks nothing short of a right wing fascist state where here extreme views are the norm."

Chris Miller, president of the Nevada Stonewall Democratic Caucus, agreed.

"They [LGBT Nevadans] are afraid if she’s elected, she will take the LGBT community in Nevada and around the country a step backwards," he told EDGE from Las Vegas.

..."She’s got to be stopped," said Washington. "If she wins, it can’t be hopeful for our country and it will be disastrous for our community here. I get physically ill at the thought of looking at the election result and seeing that woman won."

Homophobia, albeit not usually as openly extreme as Bill Gothard's, is, despite Ken Mehlman's belated coming out party, an integral part of the 21st Century Republican Party coalition. At the minimum, the homophobic crazies are part of their big pup tent. The Party is filled with anti-gay sociopaths who are constrained from publicly screaming "Nigger! Nigger!" these days but encounter no such constraints when it comes to gays and lesbians. American Taliban like Virginia Foxx (R-NC), Michele Bachmann (R-MN), and Steve King (R-IA) regularly go on hysterical anti-gay tirades and Republican congressional closet cases like Patrick McHenry (R-NC), David Dreier (R-CA), Mark Kirk (R-IL), Aaron Schock (R-IL), Trent Franks (R-AZ), Adrian Smith (R-NE), etc are so petrified about being outed that they automatically adopt extreme anti-gay legislative attitudes.

These are attitudes-- from the stoning to the bigotry-- that you would expect to find in a history book, or at worst, in a country ruled by an oppressive regime that uses religion as a form of political control, the way the Taliban does. We don't want that in American-- not in Orlando and not in Nevada. Let me know if you hear of any reporter asking Daniel Webster about his relationship with Bill Gothard, a relationship that ReligionDispatches has had more success looking into than anyone else:

[C]ontrary to both FactCheck.org and PolitiFact's assessments, Webster's 2009 talk is actually an excellent example of the point made in the Grayson ad: that Webster holds views that are outside the mainstream. He is unself-conscious about his sense that God is on his side and that God opposes his opponents. And he has aligned himself with organizations and individuals who advocate the application of biblical law to contemporary society, including wives submitting to their husbands.

...Webster has aligned himself with an organization that espouses an orientation to the Bible and its role in civil society that is certainly relevant to his campaign for public office, the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP) and its affiliated Advance Training Institute International (ATI). He claims to pray for IBLP founder Bill Gothard "every day," has traveled with Gothard, has spoken at Gothard’s conferences (2009 and 2010 programs are online), and has contributed to "Wisdom Booklets" training materials that include David Barton and his Christian American history. These include The Light and the Glory, a Christian American history textbook popular in fundamentalist Christian schools and home schools. Webster's section itself cites Christian Reconstructionist Gary DeMar’s work in "Optional Resources."

Over at AlterNet, Bruce Wilson writes that Gothard wanted to use Christian Reconstructionist R.J. Rushdoony's seminal Institutes of Biblical Law for his programs if it weren't for their disagreement over divorce. In his post, Wilson focuses too much on the issue of the capital offenses for which some Reconstructionists advocate stoning. That emphasis favors sensationalism over more pressing issues in our political culture -- like the fact that this wing of the home school and Christian school movements wants to eliminate public education by replacing it. In the meantime, they want public schools to teach their revisionist Christian history as well as Creationism. (If you think they can't accomplish that, consider, as Lauri Lebo has documented at RD, the fundamentalist revision of the Texas public school curriculum, and Barton's role in that.) They believe in an entirely second-class status for women (some believe women shouldn't vote). They are virulently hostile to gays and lesbians. They believe that any social safety net should be eliminated and replaced by church programs—available only to believers. (And they succeeded in getting an exemption from the health insurance mandate for believers.)

Is It Fair For Liberals To Call Him "Taliban Dan?"

I had a call today from a trustworthy ally asking me why we're not supporting the reelection of the most endangered Democratic House incumbent, Tom Perriello, someone we helped get elected in 2008. I don't want to go into this in any great detail-- since I have before-- other than to say he got Blue America to endorse him by specifically and unambiguously lying to us about protecting women's right to choice. That's a bright red line in the sand-- bright blue line?-- that progressives just cannot get around. If women don't have control over their own bodies, there is no chance for Democracy to thrive. And that's exactly what conservative patriarchal ideologues are aiming for. And that brings us to... Taliban Dan down in Orlando. Digby has been writing quite a lot about him, just today, in fact, here and here. (Actually that second "here" refers to Taliban Dan's dangerous and radical mentor, Bill Gothard and we'll get to him very soon.)

Group Think Inside-the-Beltway among "liberal" pundits and would-be Broders-- quotations around liberal because, of course, a blue team shirt doesn't really mean "liberal" anywhere but... Inside-the-Beltway-- tell us that protecting Perriello (who lied and betrayed women by voting for the Stupak Amendment and who boasts an overall ProgressPunch score of a very dismal 47.11, just fractionally above Blue Dog elder Gene Taylor, the Mississippi Dixiecrat who called for the ouster of Nancy Pelosi as Speak this week) is a "must." And this same Group Think is mortified, just mortified, that Alan Grayson called out Taliban Dan for his extremist views on women's rights, views that would be more at home in the most backwards reaches of Afghanistan than in Orlando-- or even Kabul! "Women's issues" don't seem to mean much to these fellas. Never does.

But they sure are worked up that FactCheck.org, a tenuous source of "truth" in the best of times, attacked Grayson's Taliban Dan ad as less than factual. Let's start with a powerful rebuttal from a far more trustworthy and authoritative source, Sarah Posner, author of God’s Profits: Faith, Fraud, and the Republican Crusade for Values Voters, and an associate editor of Religion Dispatches. She points out that FactCheck's point was that the Taliban Dan quotes in Grayson's ad were taken out of context. But FactCheck botched it.

Grayson's campaign argued that Webster seemed to be supporting submission in his comments to an audience of conservative men, whom he directed to pray that they would better fulfill their biblical duty to love their wives, and leave prayers about women's submission to their wives. However, the emphasis of these remarks, as those familiar with Christian rhetoric could recognize, is not on the optional nature of wives' submission. Wifely submission is part of an often-unbalanced equation to Christians who subscribe to "complementarian" or "patriarchal" marriage roles, where men must "love" and women "obey." Saying that a woman should pray for God's guidance in submission, if she wants to, is not leniency, but rather standard evangelical language that emphasizes individuals must obey biblical mandates regardless of how others around them behave. So, Webster is saying, men must be accountable to God for their responsibility to love their wives regardless of whether she submits-- that they must pray to do right, even if she doesn't. 

However, the much more relevant application of this principle on following God's orders despite your circumstances is on women. Submission is a contentious and tricky issue even within conservative evangelical churches. Most churches promoting submission make certain to couple demands for submissive wives with those for loving, servant-leader husbands. But at the end of the day, it's women who bear the brunt of the principle; their obligations are to God, not to a husband who may or may not keep his end of the contract. Accordingly, the message is impressed by countless women's ministries and leaders that women must continue submitting even when their husband doesn't show love, because they owe their obedience, above all, to God. In circles that take submission seriously-- as does any organization associated with Bill Gothard-- that's what wives' options really look like.

What's more, Factcheck.org fails in a much broader context to describe what the IBLP is really about, describing it as a "non-denominational Christian organization that runs programs and training sessions."

Sounds sweet, doesn't it? It isn't, as Time reported way back in 1974 in a feature, Religion: Obey Thy Husband:

It is a metaphor that infuriates both liberated women and spirited youth. God holds in his hands a hammer (symbolizing a husband). The husband/hammer bangs a chisel (representing the obedient wife) that "chips away the rough edges" to turn a diamond in the rough (a teenager) into a gem.

God to husband to wife to child. That is "God's chain of command," the most controversial of the "universal, underlying, nonoptional principles" of family life that are being proclaimed by the Rev. Bill Gothard, 39, to mass audiences in two dozen cities from Seattle to Philadelphia... Children must be totally obedient. A religious teenager, for example, should not attend a church college if atheistic parents order him not to. As for a man's wife, she "has to realize that God accomplishes his ultimate will through the decisions of the husband, even when the husband is wrong." Citing I Thessalonians 5:18 ("In every thing give thanks"), Gothard even advises a wife whose husband chastises her to say, "God, thank you for this beating."

...Besides following the chain of command in the family, Christians should also be obedient to their employers and their government, Gothard asserts. Only if an order from a parent, the state or a boss conflicts with God's explicit commandments may it be disobeyed. But first the Christian is supposed to follow six complex steps, beginning with an examination of his own bad attitudes.

Taliban Dan has every right in the world to his own peculiar, primitive religious beliefs. But he's running for the U.S. Congress. When he was in the Florida legislature he attempted to pass a bizarre and arcane Bible-inspired bill that would prevent women from divorcing abuse husbands. It failed, of course, but Taliban Dan is even more extreme now than he was back then. He has been on record as wanting to put his literal interpretation of the Bible into actual practice-- just the way the Taliban does in the areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan where they've managed to gain a foothold. Taliban Dan has admitted to the St. Petersburg Times that Gothard is "a major part of my life... What he has said I believe to be the truth."

But even if you're a Beltway Boy and would-be David Broder manly man aspirant, there's a reason you don't want Taliban Dan and other Republican fanatics like him getting a foothold in our government. You see, it isn't just women they hate. They also hate working people. Here are a couple of Bronze Age passages they take quite literally and think should be part of the American legal system:

Peter 2:18 "Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh."

Ephesians 6:5 "Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ."

It explains why so many religious fanatics in our country, like Taliban Dan, hate labor unions with such intensity and such vehemence. Daniel Webster has a long history of narrow-minded extremism and religious fanaticism, as well as a record of palling around with like minded Christian Reconstructionists, the very definition of the American Taliban.

For the political right to demonize Obama with racist slurs, compare him to Hitler, claim he's illegitimate, call him a Muslim, a socialist, a fascist and a communist-- and have it echoed 24/7 on Fox and by Hate Talk Radio... well, that's fine. But for a fighting Democrat to give them a tiny taste of their own medicine? Oh, Mabel, get my smelling salts. Taliban Dan claims he's getting a flood of American Taliban dollars this week from religious fanatics all over the country. This might be a good time to let Grayson that we admire what he's doing... and that we have his back. Please, if you can, contribute to America's best congressman here.



UPDATE: Oh... And Taliban Dan's Guru Wants To Stone Astrologers... And People Who Have Sex Before Marriage

Digby just put up the whole horrifying revelation. "Another expert on the Religious Right, Bruce W. Wilson who writes at Talk2Action, has delved into Daniel Webster's ties to Christian Reconstructionists and writes this fascinating piece for Alternet. He notes Webster's continuing association with Bill Gothard, (at whose Institute Webster was recorded making his remarks about women submitting to their husbands in 2009):"

As an August 5, 1996 article in the Gainesville Sun quoted Webster, ‘I respect (Bill Gothard) as much as anybody...

Bill Gothard, in turn, was a close ally of R.J. Rushdoony, considered the father of Christian Reconstructionism and founder of the movement’s flagship institution, the Chalcedon Institute.

As Vice President of the Chalcedon Institute Martin Selbrede stated in the Institute’s March/April 2010 issue of Faith For All Of Life, the only reason Bill Gothard didn’t agree to use Chalcedon founder R.J. Rushdoony’s monumental Institutes of Biblical Law tome in Gothard’s sprawling evangelical empire is that the two couldn’t agree on divorce. Rushdoony’s Institutes was a template for instituting Biblical law in government... [W]while Gothard was categorically opposed to divorce, Rushdoony, a virulently racist Holocaust denier who espoused Geocentrism, was a little more liberal on divorce. In other words, the two men were otherwise in substantial agreement-- except for the sticking point of divorce, they both agreed that Rushdoony’s vision for Biblical law should be imposed upon America.

That vision included instituting stoning as a form of capital punishment for rape, kidnapping, murder, heresy, blasphemy, witchcraft, astrology, adultery, “sodomy or homosexuality,” incest, striking a parent, extreme juvenile delinquency, and “unchastity before marriage.”

Daniel Webster’s association with Bill Gothard’s Institute For Basic Life Training has continued into the present, and a speech Webster made at a Nashville IBLP conference in 2009 has now become a source of controversy due to a new Alan Grayson campaign ad. Grayson is currently taking a media drubbing because of a campaign ad that calls Grayson’s political opponent, Republican Daniel Webster, “Taliban Dan.”