Why Is David Vitter Backing Progressives In Their Attempt To End "Too Big To Fail?"

Sherrod Brown is one of the most deep-thinking progressives in the Senate. And David Vitter is a sleazy, mindless reactionary-- even worse than the average fringe lunatic the GOP runs in the South. But the two of them are preparing a joint bill that addresses a pressing and even existential problem-- banks that are too big to fail. Odd to see this unlikely pair working together-- on anything. Brown: “Wall Street has been allowed to run wild for years. We simply cannot wait any longer for regulators to act.”

And Vitter backed him up on the Senate floor Thursday. “We have objective numbers and evidence that ‘too big to fail’ is alive and well. The fact is that since the financial crisis, the mega banks have only continued to grow in size and dominance in market share.” The legislation the two of them are crafting will reduce the amount of capital and subsidies for large banks if another financial crisis hits and will likely cause them to restructure. “I want to talk about the subsidy that these six largest banks get,” Brown said. “The market views their investments as not risky because the markets believe they are too big to fail because government would bail them out so they’re allowed to borrow at a lower interest rate... Only these six largest banks have that advantage... they are in a sense being subsidized.” It's exactly what Elizabeth Warren was grilling Fed Chaorman Ben Bernanke about this week. Watch:



I understand why this is important to Sherrod Brown and why this is important to Elizabeth Warren and, obviously, why this is important to normal working families across the country. But I honestly don't understand what David Vitter has to do with any of this. I can hardly believe he even understands it. In his book, Republican Gomorrah, Max Blumenthal offers the most insightful look into what motivates David Vitter and what drives him as a politician and a man. It's hard to grasp how "too big to fail" fits in. It's important to remember that Vitter, always a serious flawed candidate going back decades has a severe sex addiction and had been paying prostitutes for many many years before he was finally caught. Right-wing religionist charlatans like James Dobson, Gene Mills, Billy McCormack, and Tony Perkins-- a Louisiana crony of Vitter's-- have had Vitter on a string for his entire federal career and "have exploited the secret transgressions" to ensure Vitter's servility. He always carries their crackpot bills, puts in earmarks for their projects and does all he can to enrich them and their sleazy families. He's always fit in very nicely to the right-wing religionist honey-trap and personal crisis industry that feeds off their sick trauma-wracked subculture. Blumenthal, writing about the 2004 election that saw Vitter win a Senate seat:

[No] candidate gained more from Dobson's blessing than David Vitter, a conservative Louisiana congressman running to become the firs Republican U.S. senator from his state since Reconstruction. In 2002, he had withdrawn from the governor's race amid a storm of lurid rumors... that he had repeatedly patronized a notorious Canal Street whorehouse.

Always enablers for morally paralyzed right-wing politicians they can get their hooks into, Dobson and his cronies grabbed Vitter, accepted his obvious lie-- "There are no skeletons in my closet"-- and pushed him on the unsuspecting, easily duped evangelicals who don't understand that Dobson's preaches an anti-Jesus perversion of Christianity. The evangelical vote controls the Louisiana GOP and it took Vitter-- and his diapers-- all the way to the U.S. Senate.

Although Vitter's culture war cant propelled him to victory, the lurid rumors about his prostitution problem continued to haunt him. In 2002, New Orleans newspapers reported allegations that Vitter had paid $300 an hour for services at a bordello on the city's notorious Canal Street. Operated by Jeannette Maier, the brothel specialized in satisfying the fetishes of the Big Easy's power Elite.

Maier made certain that chains, whips, cuffs, and leather accoutrements were always available, particularly when a prominent Republican client had booked time with one of her girls. After all, she explained, Republicans were her kinkiest cients. "They wanted to be spanked and tortured and wear stockings-- Republicans have impeccable taste in silk stockings-- and these are the people who run our country," Maier said.

...Dutifully, Vitter manned the trenches against the onslaught of gay marriage. In June 2006, as the Republican Party sought to energize its Christian-right base for the upcoming midterm elections, Vitter co-authored a bill to ban gay marriage. Even as his constituents reeled from the damage of Hurricane Katrina, Vitter preached on the Senate floor, "I don't believe there's any issue as important as this one [keeping gays from marrying each other]. I think the debate is very healthy and were winning hearts and minds." Yet many members of Vitter's party, including Senator John McCain, disagreed, sending the bill to easy defeat.

...I did't have a crapload of clients," Wendy Cortez, Vitter's favorite escort, disclosed in an interview with Hustler. Cortez, whose real name is Wendy Yow Ellis, said that Vitter visited her twice a week for several years at a French Quarter apartment. He instructed her not to wear any perfume or lotion, and even forbade her to shower, for fear that the scent of another woman would pique his wife's supsicions. She described him as "a clean old man." When he finished, Vitter took his used condoms along with him, thus ensuring that the evidence would be destroyed... The escort explained that her motive in revealing his identity was that he had lied about seeing her. He lacked "Cojones," she said. She added, cruelly, "His penis was very small."

Now Vitter publicly confessed to employing the DC Madam at a press conference on July 16, 2007. When Vitter made his grand confession, however, he stage-managed it to appeal to the sensibility of the Christian right, emphasizing his redemption from crisis through the wonder-working power of God.

...Perkins rushed to Vitter's defense... Why did Vitter's allies so casually forgive his sins? Certainly political expediency factored into their motives. Vitter was a fervent culture warrior froma a state led at the time by a Democratic governor. If he resigned, his defenders reasoned, a Democrat would fill his seat, and the balance of power in the Senate would tilt even more against the Republicans. But there was more meathod to their madness than was apparent on the surface. Just two months after Perkins, Mills and other Christian-right figures leapt to Vitter's defense, Vitter earmarked $100,000 in federal money to the Louisiana Family Forum, the policy council that Perkins founded and Mills directed. Whether or not the earmark was a financial reward to his two most ardent defenders, it reprsented at the very least a troubling conflict of interest.

...Just as Reverend Billy McCormack pedicted, Vitter's redemption made him more determined than ever to demonstrate his fealty to the Christian right. In October 2007, Vitter introduced a bill the Family Research Council had long advocated that banned federal grants to women's health centers for STD testing, contraceptives, and pap smears... another token of his gratitude to his masters in teh movement.

To Satanic figures like James Dobson and Tony Perkins, morality only matters to the extent that it is convenient. In 2010 Vitter was up for reelection and, predictably, all the charlatans of the religious right were banging their drums for him. He faced an extremely weak Blue Dog Democrat, Charlie Melançon, who had very weak support even among Louisiana Democrats. Vitter beat him 715,415 (57%) to 476,572 (38%) winning all but 8 parishes statewide, including all the evangelical Bible Belt parishes.

The GOP's Right Wing Cross To Bear

Thursday night we looked at how thoroughly the Americans people have rejected the Republican Party, both in terms of the untrustworthiness of it's leaders and, more importantly, the inappropriateness of its ideas and policies. So did Lawrence O'Donnell, as you can see in the video above. GOP leaders claim the president has no plan, an outright lie. Here's the plan he put forward, the plan Boehner, Miss McConnell, their cronies and apologists are assiduously trying to ignore.

And now the congressional Republicans are turning on themselves over-- what else-- military spending. Patrick O'Connor at the Wall Street Journal went through the unavoidable lament as the budget hawks and the plain hawks start turning on each other as the reality of the Sequester-- embraced by some liberals, like Howard Dean, Because of the Pentagon cuts-- comes into clearer focus. There are a lot of post-congressional careers and lobbying jobs with the war industries riding on what happens with the Sequester. Members of Congress most beholden to the war manufacturers-- that would be, for example, House Armed Services Committee chair Buck McKeon, who has taken more in thinly veiled bribes from the war industries than any two other Members of Congress combined-- are slipping into freak out mode. And vulnerable Republicans targeted by the DCCC-- O'Connor uses Scott Rigell (R-VA) as an example-- are breaking with party orthodoxy to save their own necks.

The prospect of deep cuts in defense is troubling to many in the party, which has traditionally supported robust defense spending. But increasingly, that impulse is giving way to arguments from GOP lawmakers, many of them new to Congress, who say the most important goal is to rein in federal deficits. They believe that steep, across-the-board spending cuts due to hit on March 1, while an imperfect tool, are the only way to accomplish their goal.

Even some Republicans in defense-heavy districts are calling for the budget cuts to take effect-- a development that helps explain why the $85 billion in defense and nondefense cuts, known as sequestration, are now likely to go through. Part of the 2011 deal between the White House and Congress to raise the debt ceiling, the cuts were seen as a threat so dire that they would be replaced with a more nuanced spending-reduction plan. But that threat hasn't produced the expected effect.

"My community in Fayetteville is going to be gravely impacted, and I'd like to avoid it," said Rep. Renee Ellmers (R., N.C.), whose district includes the Army's Fort Bragg. Yet, she is committed to seeing cuts take effect, as will happen unless Congress and President Barack Obama strike a deal to avoid them.

Ms. Ellmers said she had become even more committed to cutting spending since Mr. Obama was re-elected, because she believes Republicans need to serve as a counterbalance to the president. "We're just going to have to stick to our guns on spending cuts," she said.

Other lawmakers, including those from defense-heavy districts, think the party has to work harder in the next week to avoid the cuts, which will be split between defense and nondefense discretionary programs.

That has left GOP leaders struggling to mask differences within the party ahead of the March 1 deadline. GOP leaders are left with a challenge in communicating their position: that they want big budget cuts, but not the ones about to take effect, which will fall heavily on the military.

The president, meanwhile, has the easier task of traveling the country and claiming congressional Republicans are the sole impediment to his call for offsetting the cuts by closing tax loopholes. And Democratic leaders in Congress face no contingent of members agitating for the budget cuts to go through, as GOP leaders do.

Most Republicans in the House would rather see the cuts kick in than agree to additional tax revenue, which Mr. Obama has said must be included in any plan to replace the budget cuts. Party leaders have counseled their rank-and-file to blame the president for coming up with the idea of the sequestration, while they highlight House-passed alternatives to find savings in Medicare and other programs.

A split within the GOP could occur if the cuts have drastic implications, particularly in communities that rely heavily on military spending. There are already signs that some Republicans from such districts might be willing to break from party leaders' pledge not to raise additional tax revenue.

Rep. Scott Rigell (R., Va.), whose Hampton Roads district is home to the largest naval base in the world and relies heavily on Pentagon spending, said he is reaching the point where he will consider whatever Senate Democrats offer up, even if that includes closing tax loopholes.

"I want our leadership to consider it and not reject it outright," he said.

The defense cuts proved a bitter pill for many Republicans to swallow in August 2011, when Congress first passed the measure that set the stage for this current fight. Party leaders sold the cuts, in part, by assuring the rank-and-file that they would never happen because negotiators would be able to work out a solution sparing the Pentagon.

Since then, House Republicans have shown an increased eagerness to cut defense spending. Last summer, 89 House Republicans joined with liberal Democrats to approve an across-the-board $1.1 billion cut to the Department of Defense budget. In January, 157 Republicans voted to cut more than $10 billion from the Pentagon to offset the costs of a disaster-aid bill approved to help communities ravaged by superstorm Sandy.

Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R., S.C.), the author of both measures, predicts a majority of House Republicans would rather see the cuts take effect than to postpone them again or offset them with additional tax revenue. "The problem is serious enough that it must be addressed, even with an imperfect solution," Mr. Mulvaney said.

Founder & chair of the House Drone Caucus, Buck McKeon

In the video up top, Orrin Hatch acknowledges employment cuts will be catastrophic for Utah familes... and says he embraces them. The party has lost its collective mind in its thirst for doling out Austerity and pain to the American public. They have transformed the party of Lincoln, Eisenhower and Reagan into the party of sadomasochism. Even beyond Gene Lyons stunning summation of the GOP's latest evolution: “As with many religions, political parties have a tendency to start as a movement, transform into a business, and finally degenerate into a racket designed to fleece the yokels-- the Republicans have some basic problems they need to work on and allow President Obama to keep the ship of state afloat while they work out their inner conflicts. Max Blumenthal from Republican Gomorrah:

In his incisive book, Spare the Child: The Religious Roots of Punishment and the Psychological Impact of Physical Abuse, [Professor Philip] Greven analyzed Dare to Discipline in detail, concluding that Dobson's violent child-rearing methods served an underlying purpose, producing droves of activists embarked on an authoritarian mission.

"The persistent 'conservatism' of American politics and society is rooted in large part in the physical violence done to children," Greven wrote. "The roots of this persistent tilt towards hierarchy-- so evident in Germany earlier in this century and in the radical right in America today-- are always traceable to aggression against children's wills and bodies, to the pain and the suffering they experience, long before they, as adults, confront the complex issues of the polity, the society, and the world."

But the infliction of pain on young children, social deviants, and other weaker beings is only one half of a binary solution Dobson has prescribed to his followers for curing America's social ills. As Dobson has consistently made clear to his flock, they must first purify their own souls of sin before striking out, literally, to purify the land.

...Dobson's emphasis on pain, simultaneously inflicted on weaker beings and the self, reflects the sadomasochism at the core of his philosophy, As Greven noted, books such as Dare to Discipline that urge parents to beat their children are hardly distinguishable from S&M manuals such as Larry Townsend's The Leatherman's Handbook," which advise men on erotic techniques of "discipline" and "punishment." The principle distinction between the two is that the methods Townsend advocates are applied to adults who have chosen to participate, whereas Dobson's techniques are wielded against the wills of small children.

"Wherever children suffer from painful physical punishments and humiliating submission [as Dobson claims he did when he was growing up in Mississippi] to more powerful authorities, sadomasochism will be present," Greven wrote. "Sadomasochism is thus one of the most enduring consequences of coercive discipline in childhood."

Erich Fromm, in his book Escape From Freedom, insisted that sadomasochism was more than a sexual kink. It was, he claimed, a defining characteristic of the authoritarian personality, finding its most dangerous expression in the political sphere. "These essence of the authoritarian character," Fromm wrote, "has been described as the simultaneous presence of sadistic and masochistic drives. Sadism was understood as aiming at unrestricted power over another person more or less mixed with destructiveness; masochism an aiming at dissolving oneself in an overwhelmingly strong power and participating in its strength and glory."

Dare to Disclipline and several of Dobson's subsequent tracts are little more than how-to guides for the cultivation of sadomasochists. As Dobson's own personal history shows, many of those raised on a steady diet of corporal punishment demonstrate a tendency later in life to reenact the painful experiences familiar to their childhoods, through either radical-right political activism or cruel impersonal behavior, or both. The appeal of illicit, even macabre sexual behavior to some social conservatives [again, David Vitter is a perfect example]-- a trend that has produced no end of colorful scandals-- further reflects their sadomasochistic tendencies.

The sadomasochism that is latent in so many figures of the new radical right is often activated by a traumatic personal crisis. As Fromm explained, "Both the sadistic and the masochistic trends are caused by the inability of the isolated individual to stand alone and his need for a symbiotic relationship that overcomes this aloneness."

Dobson Fails To Get Satan To Rain On Obama's Parade But McCain Ready To Turn Gustav Into A Photo-Op

I've said for months that in mid-October when McCain's numbers are still struggling to get into the low 40's, he'll go with the ultimate strategy: the Manchurian candidate will try tarring Obama as the anti-Chist. I've been told they've thoroughly tested this strategy in small backward towns in Tennessee and Kentucky and that it works fairly well on people with 2-digit IQs, much of the GOP's southern base. I still don't see how that's going to get McCain's numbers from, say 38-39 up above 45. But you probably already saw McCain's One video. To a sane person it looks like a joke. To the Buy Bull thumpers, it's deadly serious. They even have their crazed websites up and e-mail chains going.

One of the worst of the charlatan preachers fleecing the 2-digit IQ flock is Jimmy Dobson, head of a GOP Front operation called Focus on The Family. Although they have now scrubbed it from their website, one of Dobson's more heinous lieutenants, Stuart Shepard, a former weatherman turned crooked religionist, tries persuading church-goers to pray for rain on the night Obama gave his acceptance speech in an outdoor arena. God must have heard and overruled Satan, because it was the most beautiful night of the year. And Dobson was foiled. What kind of a man asks God to send torrents of rain so hard that it will block out network TV coverage so no one will be able to see or hear Obama's speech during the convention? Shepard defended his nutty video in an interview with KOAA. Anyway, the actual video they scrubbed is below.

Maybe God was pissed off enough that He decided to send Gustav towards America, just in time to disrupt the Republican Convention in St Paul. First McCain was thinking he could turn the coming disaster in his favor by using it as an excuse for Bush to not show up at the Convention, because, after all, Bush has always been so concerned about victims of hurricanes. Last time there was a big one, in fact, he and a certain Arizona senator were so busy eating birthday cake that they didn't bother doing anything at all while the residents of New Orleans were drowning.

Since then, though, McCain has been talking about scrapping the convention altogether (or at least postponing it until Rove can run another week of negative ads smearing Obama) and staging some kind of show of concern by the Forces of Evil for the folks who get hit by the Hurricane God is sending to show how much he disapproves of Republicans. Yes, they're hoping to "turn Republicans into Red Cross-type volunteers who would help collect donations, food and goods for storm victims."

McCain, who just made the most cynical choice of running mates in American history, showing absolutely zero regard for the good of the country, yapped on Fox about his campaign motto being "America First" and how "helping people during an emergency will take precedence over accepting the nomination... It wouldn't be appropriate to have a festive occasion while a near-tragedy or a terrible challenge is presented in the form of a natural disaster." SO instead McCain will go down to the Gulf Coast and try to capitalize on the problems while getting in the way-- seriously in the way-- on rescue operations. He's really a disgusting excuse for a human being. He did the same thing when there was flooding in Iowa. Does McCain think natural disasters are sent solely to provide him with opportunities for campaign backdrops?

It is genuinely revolting to think of a Cat 4 or 5 hurricane as a marketing op, but this is, after all, a country run by a man who let himself be photographed carrying a fake turkey to feed soldiers in Iraq. So I wonder if the Obama team has given any thought to what a spectacular PR coup this will be. And the bar for Republicans to "succeed" is particularly low. All Bush needs to do is to ensure that less than 1836 Americans end up drowning in their own waste, as they did the last time a hurricane struck during a Republican presidency to declare Operation Hype The Hurricane a triumph.

Meanwhile, brutally authoritarian-type police sweeps of the Twin Cities are seeing round-ups of potential protesters already-- kind of like Communist China's response to peaceful protesters at the Olympics. There is a problem with postponing the convention, though. If they change the date, does that mean that all the Republican senators and House members who had "previous appointments they couldn't get out of" that week, can now come? I mean would it really be a Republican Convention without Gordon Smith, Susan Collins, Ted Stevens, Pat Roberts, Mike Johanns, Roger Wicker, John Sununu, Liddy Dole... not to mention half the Michigan Repug congressional delegation? And of course there's the Larry Craig problem. They finally persuaded him to stay away from the city where he so grievously disgraced himself and exposed their collective hypocrisy, but the following week, he'll be in court in St. Paul for another appeals hearing. So... would he actually miss the convention and the parties (and the party boys) if he was actually in town? McCain better decide what's gonna be worse, Larry Craig or Gustav.

CNN Exposes McCain-- Serial Liar, Serial Cheater, Serial Adulterer... Not Someone We Can Trust

CNN's McCain Revealed has really been mostly a whitewash-- especially on his military career. But CNN did go to the questions about McCain's serial infidelities. He's isn't just an adulterer once or twice by someone who has adopted it as part of a lifestyle. As we pointed out a few days ago, McCain's years and years of philandering has made it difficult for the religionist wing of the Republican Party-- even for as big a GOP hack as James Dobson-- to endorse him (though they all will, including the hypocritical Dobson).

Notice CNN refers to multiple "affairs," not to "an affair." They also point out McCain's lies and cover-ups as to timelines about when he separated from the first wife and started screwing wealthy young Cindy. Like with everything throughout his life, he's been lying about this too. Amazing that CNN stepped outside the cone of silence the media has had on exposing this stuff!

Republican Religionist Groups And The Hypocrisy Problem-- GOP Adultery Isn't The Same As Democratic Adultery

Jonathan Stein makes a good point in Mother Jones today: "John Edwards cheated on his wife. The media found out about it. John Edwards will not be attending the Democratic convention. Rudy Giuliani used public funds to cheat on his wife and used city agencies to cover his tracks. The media found out about it. Rudy Giuliani will be delivering the keynote at the Republican convention."

When it comes to "moral issues," Republicans use them as clubs-- with the help of their media allies-- to beat up on Democrats. Other than that, they certainly don't take them seriously. If they did, would lawbreakers David Diapers Vitter (R-LA) and Larry Craig (R-ID) still be in the Senate? If they did, would paragon of Republican moral rectitude, GOP charlatan James Dobson, be about to urge his sheeple to support a political hack he has been denouncing for years? You remember earlier this year when he said that under no circumstances would he even vote for either keynote speaker Giuliani or nominee McCain? Earlier he was even stronger in the specifics of his McCain denunciation:

"The Senator is being touted by the media as a man of principle, yet he was involved with other women while married to his first wife, and was implicated in the so-called Keating scandal with four other senators. He was eventually reprimanded by the Congress for the 'appearance of impropriety.' The Senator reportedly has a violent temper and can be extremely confrontational and profane when angry. These red flags about Senator McCain's character are reminiscent of the man who now occupies the White House."

He was talking about Bill Clinton, not his pal Bush. But if he could never forgive Clinton, he's certainly well on the way to not just forgiving, but embracing McCain. Watch Dobson tap dancing over the next couple of months as he tries having his cake and eating it too-- or at least persuading his followers what a man of principle he is. I doubt he'll be as funny as Fox "News'" Hannity as he explains the great moral character of John McCain-- a many who probably has the lowest ethical standards of anyone in Congress-- but... he'll be funny.

Dobson Ready To Jump Aboard The Double Talk Express

Dobson worship in Colorado Springs

Germans don't get to vote in American elections and that's very lucky for John McCain. When polled about who they prefer in the U.S. presidential election, 72% of Germans said they would vote for Obama. Even after denazification, there are still 11% of Germans who prefer the candidate of the far right, McCain. And although Condoleeza Rice won't say who she will vote for in November-- only that she has made up her mind, a major McCain detractor from the further right is dangling the possibility that he will support McCain after all.

Yesterday's NY Times reported that there's a kumbaya moment coming on the outer fringes of GOP internal politics. Jimmy Dobson, probably the most ideologically corrupt of all the circus tent evangelical hucksters, seems to be changing his mind about the Republican he once publicly declared was unfit to be president. A preview from his Monday radio show to the sheep: "While I am not endorsing Senator John McCain, the possibility is there that I might."

His position is now that McCain is the lesser of two evils. I suspect neither of the two evils is terribly thrilled about Dobson or his ability to influence thousands of brainwashed evangelicals, especially in Colorado Springs. Some think this is a play by Dobson to get his snout into the VP nomination process. Aside from saying that McCain was unfit to be president, he had previously proclaimed that Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney are also. Presumably he wants McCain to pick a radical right running mate, although one that does flaunt sexual mores or participate in a bizarre and hated cult.

SIGNALS FROM HELL: McCAIN GETS BUSH ENDORSEMENT; HUCKABEE GETS THE NOD FROM DOBSON

McCain has had a very able p.r. machine. When he was caught taking bribes, he turned himself into a campaign finance reformer and voters still have the impression he fought against the dreadful Keating Five, instead of understanding that he was the Keating Five-- or at least one of the 5 senators who were caught. And McCain, probably the dirtiest of the 5 is the only one who is still in government. Many voters, Republican and otherwise, see him as the anti-Bush. The pictures of him with Bush, the voting record of him rubber stamping virtually every piece of disastrous legislation Bush sent down the pike... none of that matters compared to the carefully planted and nurtured impression that he stands up to Bush.

I wonder how they will spin tomorrow's endorsement. By Bush. According to Peter Baker in the Washington Post Bush is going to skip over to the Hate Fest tomorrow morning to bless McCain for the hard core radical loons on the fringes of his crumbling coalition.

President Bush plans to give an implicit endorsement of onetime rival John McCain's conservative bona fides tomorrow as the Arizona senator seeks to consolidate the party behind his candidacy.

In a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference in the morning, Bush plans to say that the nominee of the party will be a strong conservative, according to excerpts released by the White House tonight.

"We have had good debates and soon we will have a nominee who will carry the conservative banner into this election and beyond," Bush says in the excerpts. "The stakes in November are high. Prosperity and peace are in the balance. So with confidence in our vision and faith in our values, let us go forward, fight for victory and keep the White House in 2008."

Bush, of course won't mention McCain by name; that could wind up in a Democratic attack ad. Instead he just blows the dog whistle, lets the 26-27% of Americans left who still claim Bush is doing a swell job know that McCain is Bush's political heir and leaves it at that, hoping McCain's p.r. crew-- with a little help from GOP-controlled media-- spins it in such a way so that the masses never figure it out.

Meanwhile the Grand Ayatollah of the religionist right, Jimmy Dobson, has endorsed The Huckster. Dobson hasn't endorsed in a contested GOP primary before but he has already said he would never under any circumstances vote for McCain, which is fairly ironic since they see exactly eye-to-eye on every important issue facing America today. Huckabee came to seek his endorsement in Colorado Springs today.

The Wall Street Journal pointed out that on "the sane day the Arizona senator became the near-certain Republican nominee following Mitt Romney’s exit from the race, prominent evangelical leader James Dobson has decided to endorse his opponent, Mike Huckabee, the Associated Press reported this evening."

So, at least for now, it will be a two-pygmy race for the worthless GOP nomination. Huckabee says he's in for the duration, which is what Romney said yesterday and before him it's what Frederick of Hollywood said, as well as Giuliani, that other Thompson, Tancredo, and Duncan Hunter, so...

FAR RIGHT GOP BOSSES GIVE A GIULIANI NOMINATION A THUMBS DOWN-- NOT THAT THEY LIKE ANYONE ELSE EITHER

Tom Schaller gets it so very right in Whistling Past Dixie when he makes the points that a)- the GOP is rapidly declining into a regional, racist, backward southern party which will be unable to compete in national elections, and b)- that the Democrats can win the presidency without wasting a dime on the Old Confederacy. You may have noticed that yesterday Giuliani was wimpering how even though he's out of step with the traditional reactionary southern values that have come to dominate the contemporary GOP, "The reality is we need a candidate who can run in all 50 states. I can." He may sound like Howard Dean there but he has a very good reason for pointing that up to Republicans who hate him. He says it's because he's the only one of the pathetic pygmies™ who can beat Hillary. But it goes beyond just that. You see, there was another little meeting yesterday, a very closed door one among the power-brokers who control the Hatred and Bigotry part of the Republican coalition that has paired Hatred and Bigotry with Greed and Selfishness. (Giuliani already competes well for the Greed, Selfishness and Fear-mongering contingents.)

A powerful group of conservative Christian leaders decided Saturday at a private meeting in Salt Lake City to consider supporting a third-party candidate for president if a pro-choice nominee like Rudy Giuliani
wins the Republican nomination.

The meeting of about 50 leaders, including Focus on the Family's James Dobson, the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins and former presidential candidate Gary Bauer, who called in by phone, took place at the Grand America Hotel during a gathering of the Council for National Policy, a powerful shadow group of mostly religious conservatives. James Clymer, the chairman of the U.S. Constitution Party, was also present at the meeting, according to a person familiar with the proceedings.

The secretive-- even paranoid-- group of neo-fascist politicians agreed that if Giuliani wins the nomination, they'll bolt and take the South with them, dooming any already far-fetched hopes Giuliani has to win the presidency. Dobson, one of the big dogs in the group has already announced that nothing would permit him to support McCain, Giuliani or Frederick of Hollywood. He was the moving force behind the Gingrich trial baloon, which crashed to earth yesterday when Gingrich admitted that he can't run. Both Romney and Cheney addressed the group earlier in the day. The religionist right doesn't trust Flip Flop Mitt, not just because he changes his positions the way normal people change their socks, but because they view his Mormon religion as a dangerous-- and competitive-- cult. Some left the meeting muttering about finding someone else to run, either another Republican-- Sam Brownback and that Arkansas fella who lost all the weight must feel like shooting themselves about now-- or a third party spoiler. Looking at the Progressive Punch lists of the most reactionary senators and House members, may I suggest John Barrasso or Mike Enzi of Wyoming or, if that's digging a little too deep in the shitpile, how about Miss McConnell or John Cornyn, each facing huge disapproval ratings and possible defeat in his home state? OK, from the House we could go with any of a dozen congressmembers with perfect zeros: Patrick McHenry (if he manages to not get indicted and/or outed before the primaries, Steve King (the Ann Coulter of Congress), Virginia Foxx, Michelle Bachmann (fun at parties), Tim Wallberg. I think any of these would be the perfect representative of what is left of the Republican Party. Go for it, boys!

Oh, and one more thing. You know all that stuff up top about Rudy whining how the GOP has to be inclusive and bring everyone into the party, not just white southern bigots? He was just kidding. As this new video clip shows, he avoided Tavis Smiley's GOP debate that addressed issues important to the minority communities while he kissed up to California Hispanic's most distrusted ex-governor, Pete Wilson... and some former actress who now serves as a beard for Republican closet queens like David Dreier and Mark Foley.

JAMES DOBSON MAKES THE CASE: ANYBODY BUT GIULIANI (NOT COUNTING OBAMA OR HILLARY)

Whether you want to call James Dobson a minister of Jesus or, more obviously, an agent of Satan, one thing is for sure: he has a lot of clout with the Republican base. "Dobson, widely considered an important GOP rainmaker, says he will not vote for former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani under any circumstance in the upcoming presidential elections because of his positions on abortion, domestic partnerships for homosexual couples and other moral issues." And it's "an irrevocable decision," says Dobson, who, like the Pope, apparently considers himself infallible.

In a bull, entitled Rudy's Not The One, Dobson writes that "his public pronouncements as mayor of New York, together with his more recent tap dances on the campaign trail, have told a very clear story." Dobson finds that story very disturbing-- but for different reasons than most normal Americans find Giuliani disturbing and unfit for leadership. Dobson doesn't mention the criminal elements that have become part and parcel in the life of Rudy Giuliani and he doesn't mention the brittle, fascist temperament, so accepted, even celebrated, on the far right. Nope, Dobson is on a jihad against Giuliani over women's right to choice.

How could Giuliani say with a straight face that he "hates" abortion," while also seeking public funding for it? How can he hate abortion and contribute to Planned Parenthood in 1993, 1994, 1998 and 1999? And how was he able for many years to defend the horrible procedure by which the brains are sucked from the heads of viable, late-term, un-anesthetized babies? Those beliefs are philosophically and morally incompatible. What kind of man would even try to reconcile them?

I love when right wing kooks like Giuliani are the victims of gross lies like this by the same right wing kooks who are usually their allies and role models. I hope every brain-dead religionist lemming in America thinks about brains being sucked from the heads of viable, late-term, un-anesthetized babies
whenever they hear the name "Giuliani." Dobson also hates Giuliani for being a philanderer and for being semi-pro-homo, and he finally talks about Rudy being a transvestite.

This self-styled defender of marriage says he is "proud" of having submitted, as New York's mayor, a bill creating "domestic partnerships" for homosexual couples. Admittedly, many liberal Americans will agree with the social positions espoused by Giuliani. However, I don't believe conservative voters whose support he seeks will be impressed. Presidential elections are won or lost by slim margins. Rudy has an uphill slog ahead of him, even though he is the darling of the media.

There are other moral concerns about Giuliani's candidacy that conservatives should find troubling. He has been married three times, and his second wife was forced to go to court to keep his mistress out of the mayoral mansion while the Giuliani family still lived there. Talk about tap dancing. Also during that time, the mayor used public funds to provide security services for his girlfriend. The second Mrs. Giuliani finally had enough of his philandering and, as the story goes, forced him to move out. He lived with friends for a while and then married his mistress. Unlike some other Republican presidential candidates, Giuliani appears not to have remorse for cheating on his wife...

One more question: Shouldn't the American people be able to expect a certain decorum and dignity from the man who occupies the White House? On this measure, as well, Giuliani fails miserably. Much has been written in the blogosphere about his three public appearances in drag. In each instance, he tried to be funny by dressing like a woman. Can you imagine Ronald Reagan, who loved a good joke, doing something so ignoble in pursuit of a cheap guffaw? Not on your life.

My conclusion from this closer look at the current GOP front-runner comes down to this: Speaking as a private citizen and not on behalf of any organization or party, I cannot, and will not, vote for Rudy Giuliani in 2008. It is an irrevocable decision. If given a Hobson's – Dobson's? – choice between him and Sens. Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, I will either cast my ballot for an also-ran-– or if worse comes to worst-– not vote in a presidential election for the first time in my adult life. My conscience and my moral convictions will allow me to do nothing else.

UPDATE: WHAT DO RIGHT WING NUTS SAY TO EACH OTHER?

Neo-fascist Laura Ingraham interviewed holy roller Jimmy Dobson on her hate talk radio show about the presidential race. Dobson dismisses Giuliani's campaign rhetoric as "double-talk" and dismisses him with "I don't think he's a good idea." Listen here. He warns Republicans that radical right religionists will prevent the GOP from winning in '08 if they nominate someone who is unacceptable to him. Dobson doesn't think Giuliani can win Ohio or Florida or Pennsylvania. He also says he couldn't vote for McCain "for a lot of good reasons" (he was for McCain-Feingold and for embryonic stem cell research and "now this immigration bill," and against Marriage Protection Amendment). He doesn't rule out cult member Mitt Romney.

THERE ARE MANY REPUBLICANS WHO DON'T BELIEVE GEORGE BUSH IS THE ANTI-CHRIST-- THAT'S BECAUSE THEY KNOW TOMMY THOMPSON IS

I bet that when you heard that James Dobson pronounced that Republican presidential hopeful Tommy Thompson-- who was once actually a governor of a state-- is not a Christian you just thought, "Oh, there they go again; it's old James Dobson and Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps and Jerry Falwell with their hateful exclusionary religionism." But nope... there's a lot more to Tommy Thompson being "not a Christian" than meets the eye. Just ask Janet Folger.

And Janet Folger knows he's even worse than "not a Christian;" he's the goddamned ANTI-CHRIST. She used to the National Director of the radical right fringe group Center for Reclaiming America and has since moved right into the heart of George Bush's GOP as president of Faith2Action. And the hordes of people who hang on Ms. Folger's every word know she's one dame who ain't voting for Tommy Thompson, no matter what. You see, Mr. Thompson, according to Ms. Folger, really is the anti-Christ-- and Ms. Folger has the proof. He supports the use of chip implants. No, not potato chips or even healthy raw dehydrated veggie-chips. No, indeed; Thompson supports the kind of chips God warned us about!

Now it may be true that Janet Folger, as some claim, is certifiably insane and filled with irrational and barely controlled hatred and venom. But that doesn't make her wrong about everything. You've read the Book of Revelations, right? If you haven't, how can you hope to remotely understand the Bush Regime and their supporters?

He [Thompson] wants us all to be "chipped" with Radio Frequency Identification and sits on the board of the VeriChip Corp., a company currently talking to the Pentagon about inserting the grain-sized microchip into American citizens, beginning with our soldiers.

High-tech stuff like that you can find in the book of… Revelation-- written 2,000 years ago. Here's what I remember from Sunday School: In the end times, there's a one-world government and a good-looking charismatic leader [that would be Thompson alright; see photo] who seems like a really great guy, except for the fact that he happens to be the Antichrist. He talks all about peace and requires that everyone take this mark in order to buy and sell. The upside of taking the mark: you get to buy and sell; the downside: you go to hell forever.

I hope you're not laughing. Easy to laugh at someone who appears mentally unstable or even deranged. But... did you know Ms. Folger is a published author? See? You may have thought it was Bill O'Reilly who wrote The Criminalization of Christianity but it wasn't. Ms. Folger wrote it and she didn't even publish it herself! And I want you to pray on this before you go to sleep tonight:

If this chip is truly a pre-curser to the Mark of the Beast, it may happen soon anyway, but the way I see it, it doesn't have to happen "on our watch." And we don't have to play a role in expediting it. Just another reason why Tommy Thompson's not getting my vote.

H/T: Right-wing Watch

DOBSON TRYING TO NIP THOMPSON IN THE BUD?

The Pope of the GOP-- or the Lord High Executioner of the Radical Right Department of Fake Religiosity-- James Dobson, wants Newt, Newt, Newt. With actor Fred Thompson surging in the polls, and looking like a Republican that all the factions that hate the crossdresser, the senile double-talker and the Mormon can finally get behind, Dobson put the kibosh on his candidacy today.

Focus on the Family founder James Dobson appeared to throw cold water on a possible presidential bid by former Sen. Fred Thompson while praising former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is also weighing a presidential run, in a phone interview Tuesday.

"Everyone knows he's conservative and has come out strongly for the things that the pro-family movement stands for," Dobson said of Thompson. "[But] I don't think he's a Christian; at least that's my impression," Dobson added, saying that such an impression would make it difficult for Thompson to connect with the Republican Party's conservative Christian base and win the GOP nomination.

Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Thompson, took issue with Dobson's characterization of the former Tennessee senator. "Thompson is indeed a Christian," he said. "He was baptized into the Church of Christ."

Dobson, who is known to have made his deal with the Devil to bring the hated and hypocritical and perverted Gingrich into the White House, dug in his heels. Through a flack he lectured Thompson about what it means to be a Dobson-approved Christian. "We," he emphasized imperiously and in a way I doubt the all-embracing Jesus would ever approve of, "use that word-- "Christian"-- to refer to people who are evangelical Christians." Oh dear.

Dobson who had already vetoed McCain, says he doesn't believe that "the current excitement over Giuliani will continue" and that many evangelicals "would find it difficult" to support Romney "because of his Mormonism." Can you believe that there are people who actually pay attention to their monstrosity from the bowels of Satan? (No, not Romney; DOBSON!)

TONIGHT'S HOMOEROTIC EPISODE OF THE LIFESTYLES OF THE RICH AND REPUBLICAN: I WONDER IF DOBSON WILL ALLOW McCAIN TO BRING SOME LUBE

Saturday I did a little run-down of how the far far right looks at the prospective Republican presidential field and I mentioned that GOP theocrat-in-chief, James Dobson would rather commit public sodomy with Mark Foley, Ken Mehlman, Jim Kolbe, Jim McCrery, Phil English, David Dreier, and Jim West's corpse than vote for John McCain-- or something to that effect. This morning they were babbling about it on CNN. "Kewl," I thought, especially coming right on top of another serious McCain-speaking-with-forked-tongue incident, which my pal Cliff Schecter wrote about so eloquently today. The straight-talking maverick got a little hoist on his own petard from a 1990 quote about Iraq much at variance with the bloodthirsty rantings he and his boyfriend Holy Joe Lieberman have been making of late. Then:

If you get involved in a major ground war in the Saudi desert, I think support will erode significantly. Nor should it be supported. We cannot even contemplate, in my view, trading American blood for Iraqi blood." [New York Times Aug 19, 1990]

Now:
"Blood; give me blood! More blood!" (Or something to that effect.)

Perhaps Lieberman can intercede with Dobson for McCain. Or maybe Dobson will be mollified with McCain's baying for blood every night on Fox. Whatever the case, McCain is determined to sew up the religionist right vote and get Dobson on the team the same way he bought off Jerry Falwell. Dobson really hates McCain-- I mean really hates his guts the way only a self-professed make believe prophet can hate-- and his support will not go as cheaply as Falwell's. His exact quote, in fact, was "I would not vote for John McCain under any circumstances... He is not in favor of traditional marriage and I pray that we will not get stuck with him." Amen, brother Jimmy!

McCain says he's got plenty of religionist nuts and kooks in his pocket already but that he wants to "have a dialogue" with Dobson (meaning: "should I concentrate on the head or the shaft?") That John Amato at Crooks & Liars is so partisan; he never lets a poor wingnut live down anything!


UPDATE: FINALLY, MOVEON TAKES OFF THE GLOVES AND SOCKS IT TO McCAIN

First watch the MoveOn video telling the truth about McCain escalation policies. Then wait a day or two and watch the McCain propaganda squad start screaming about how MoveOn is "out of the mainstream" and how they compared Bush to Hitler (a good comparison but one MoveOn never made). Like most Americans-- though not McCain, of course-- MoveOn opposes the War in Iraq and McCain wants a wider and bloodier war, McCain doesn't like people telling the truth about him; it's bad for the carefully crafted image. Dobson doesn't get much right but he sure is right to be praying that "we will not get stuck with him."


UPDATE: McCAIN TO DOBSON: "NO RUBBER/NO BJ/NO EXCEPTIONS"

Actually what McCain really said is that he's never had a single conversation with Dobson in his entire life and that he has no intention of calling him now that Dobson has announced that he's praying that America not get stuck with McCain. Apparently Adam's little illustration (above) wasn't the only commentary pointing out what a kiss-ass McCain can be when he sees that presidential apple dangling in front of him.