"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
-- Sinclair Lewis
Sunday, July 05, 2020
Midnight Meme Of The Day!
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by Noah Sunday Thoughts: I'd like to think that a totally insane goof like Franklin Graham would be pleased to hear that I've changed my heathen ways and started believing in God and praying to him. If you happen to run into Franklin, please tell him that I've been very Christian and unselfish in my prayers. Tell him that I make my entreaty to the Lord, as shown in tonight's meme, in the interest of humanity gaining a better world to live in. I won't even ask for a pony, a date with Emma Peel, or that red and chrome 1960 Chevy 2-door convertible I've always coveted.
Really-- What Would Jesus Say About Trump-- And About Those Who Twist His Message To Promote And Market Trump?
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One premise of Vote Common Good is that the progressive evangelical group will be able to persuade 10-15% of evangelical Trump voters to not make the same mistake in 2020 that they made in 2016. Last cycle, they helped elect a dozen House Democrats in red districts-- like Katie Porter in Orange County-- and helped other candidates build campaigns that they expect to see flip blue next year-- like Mike Siegel in TX-10 and Audrey Denney in CA-01. But the evangelical establishment is putting its weight fully behind a second term for Trump, defending the Republican-controled Senate and winning back the House for the GOP. Newsweek reporter Ben Fearnow did a piece Saturday on how evangelical hucksters are selling their parishioners Trump snake oil-- along with Trump t-shirts. One of the worst of them, Franklin Graham, wrote Fearnow, "called the impeachment inquiry of Donald Trump an 'unjust inquisition,' and claimed the Christian Bible directs Americans to pray for the president.
Graham, the president of Samaritan's Purse and his late father's Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, quoted the Bible Friday in a plea for Americans to purchase a 'Pray for 45' T-shirt being sold on his organization's website. Earlier this week, Graham urged Christians to pray for God to give Trump 'wisdom and protection' just hours after the House voted in favor of impeachment procedures. The pro-Trump evangelical and his daughter, Cissie Graham Lynch, both promoted the $15.99 'Pray for 45' T-shirts on social media alongside Bible verses. 'The Bible instructs us to pray for our leaders & @realDonaldTrump needs our prayers. We have t-shirts that are a reminder to 'PRAY for 45'-- my daughter@CissieGLynch is wearing one. People have asked where they can get one. You can order them at this link,' the elder Graham tweeted Friday, showing a picture of his daughter wearing the T-shirt.'
Graham has been a staunch supporter of Trump's presidency and has publicly defended him after his innumerable controversies since taking office. Graham told MSNBC in 2018 that Trump's repeated denials about having an alleged extramarital affair with Stormy Daniels should be believed for the good of the country. "He said he didn't do it. So okay, let's say he didn't do it. I found the president to be truthful with me, we just have to give the man the benefit of the doubt." And despite Graham's ardent opposition to the impeachment inquiry into Trump, he was one of the most vocal proponents of impeaching former President Bill Clinton in the late 1990s. In an August 1998 piece in the Wall Street Journal entitled, "Clinton's Sins Aren't Private," Graham ridiculed the Democratic president over his extramarital affair with Monica Lewinsky. Making his pro-Trump political stance very clear ahead of 2020, Graham earlier this week applauded South Carolina priest Father Robert E. Morey for denying Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden communion last weekend. Graham said he wishes "more churches, pastors and priests would take a strong stand against abortion." And on Saturday morning, Graham again praised the president over his abortion stance, remarking on Facebook, "Do Christian Adoption Agencies have to conform with the LGBTQ agenda? The Trump Administration says no! Thank you President for proposing these changes that protect our religious freedoms."
More spiritually-serious evangelicals are probably-- or at least hopefully-- ignoring Graham and others like him-- think about his doppelgänger, Jerry Falwell, Jr, for example-- and reading John Pavlovitz instead. His stunning post yesterday, This Isn't Christianity, referred directly to the Trumpist religionist goons.
"They may use the word and steal the iconography and cop the aesthetic," wrote Pavlovitz, "but that is where the resemblance diverges and where the similarities end. There remain no other commonalities with which to rightly associate the two. This isn’t Christianity. It is spiritual misappropriation: the violent hijacking of something helpful and weaponizing it in order to do the greatest amount of damage in the shortest amount of time. It is a hostile takeover of something beautiful and grossly disfiguring it to terrorize people with. This isn’t Christianity-- that is, not if Jesus was Christian."
If Jesus was Christian, then Christianity is:
• “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. • Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. • Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. • Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. • Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. • Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. • Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” — Jesus (Matthew 5:3-10)
And there is nothing of mercy or humility or purity or peacemaking in this thing claiming to be Christianity. No, this thing is the antithesis of all of it. This isn’t Christianity-- at least, not if we’re going to listen to Jesus. Where Jesus implored Christians to love and to care for and to show hospitality to their neighbors-- this drives people to fear them and have contempt for them and send them back and wall them off. Where Jesus directed Christians to pray and to give in quiet and secret-- this is a shameless, staged photo op to engender applause.
Where Jesus told Christians that they would be defined by the way in which they lavishly love humanity-- this is a malicious assault on nearly all of it. Where Jesus directed Christians to live humbly and take the lowest place-- this is arrogance and boasting and self-promotion. Where Jesus fed multitudes and healed sick without asking for repayment-- this is healthcare repeals and canceled school lunch programs and “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps disdain for the needy. Where Jesus’ followers shared all things and lived interdependently and made sure that no one went without-- this is cries of “Socialism” whenever those with abundance are asked to share with those who lack. Where Jesus threw open the doors of the kingdom so that the entire world could find welcome and refuge and comfort-- this is a guarded, gated community of privileged, close-fisted white Americans. No, this isn’t Christianity-- and more people who know what Christianity was intended to be, need to say so right now. We need to call this what it is: a bait and switch of the vilest kind. This may be what Franklin Graham says Christianity is. It may be what Paula White wants you to believe Christianity is. It may be what Bible Belt pastors screaming from behind pulpits claim that Christianity is. It may be what Donald Trump wants to pretend that Christianity is. It may be what it has been too many times in the past two thousand years, when opportunistic hucksters like these have commandeered it. It’s just not what Jesus says it is. No, he told us what this is:
“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.”
— Jesus (Matthew 7:15-20)
This thing is not Christianity. Jesus said it wasn’t.
• This is Rome. • This is Empire. • This is corrupt and predatory power. • This is perverted religion wielded like a hammer. • This is hypocritical, showy piety paraded for everyone to see. • This is the darkness Jesus claimed we should be brilliant light streaking into. • This is the bloated ugliness he said we were to live in quiet, gentle opposition to. • This is the table of greed he invited us to angrily turn over. • The Christianity of Jesus left people with more dignity and greater care; with healed wounds and fuller bellies, with calmed fears and quieted worries. It left people seen and heard and known. It left a wake of kindness and generosity and goodness and compassion.
No, this isn’t Christianity. To hell with what this is.
Do You Think Trump Laughs At Evangelicals Out Loud?
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See? Justin Amash isn't the only Republican standing up to Trump; he's just the only Republican in Congress standing up to Trump. Republicans For The Rule of Rule-- the 501 (c) (4) nonprofit group running that Fox TV ad above-- describes itself as "a group of life-long Republicans dedicated to defending the institutions of our republic and upholding the rule of law. We are fighting to make sure that the laws apply equally to everyone, from the average citizen to the president of the United States. We believe in fidelity to the Constitution, transparency, and the independence of prosecutors from politics." But these "constitutionalist" types were never part of the Trump coalition. Trump doesn't give a hoot about them. His coalition are the least educated and least intelligent segment of the population-- the religionists who expect to be told what to do and couldn't begin to function without being told what to do. The evangelical vote is the Trump vote. Just yesterday, one of the top charlatans of that movement, Franklin Graham, told a right-wing website, the Western Journal, which pretends to by related to the Wall Street Journal that Trump "has honored his commitments to the faith-based community. He is pro-life, first president really in my lifetime that has been this vocal about life. I certainly appreciate that about him. He’s fulfilled his promise as it relates to conservative judges. He’s put two Supreme Court justices so far on the bench that are conservative. He’s appointed a number at lower courts. I hope that he’ll be able to do even more in that area, because that will have an impact on my childrens’ lives. If we have the right judges, it will benefit all of us." Franklin went on to repeat a whole litany of Trumpist lies the pretend "president" will run on: "I think he has done an excellent job getting people back to work, turning the economy around, defeating ISIS as a military power on the battlefield. He has done all of these things, and he’s done it very quickly... I think God was behind the last election." And this brings us to a couple of NY Times-type conservatives, James Kirchick (a a really loathsome-- and self-loathing-- right-wing gay Jew who was a Republican-for-Hillary bigwig) and Peter Wehner, a puffed-up, self-proclaimed "expert" on religion and ethics who tries pretending God loves wars of aggression and who wrote speeches for Bill Bennett and George W. Bush. Among Christians, he's the foremost hater of the Sermon on the Mount, but is accepted by the NY Times crowd because of his disdain for Señor Trumpanzee. Before the last election he said he would never vote for Trump (nor, unlike Kirchick, Hillary) and was reviled by Trumpists for noting that their hero is "Trump is "characterized by indifference to objective truth (there are no facts, only interpretations), the repudiation of Christian concern for the poor and the weak, and disdain for the powerless... it is fair to say that there existed in the Republican Party repulsive elements, people who were attracted to racial and ethnic politics and moved by resentment and intolerance rather than a vision of the good. This group was larger than I ever imagined, and at important moments the Republican Party either overlooked them or played to them. Some may have been hoping to appeal to these elements while also containing and moderating them, to sand off the rough edges, to keep them within the coalition but not allow them to become dominant. But the opposite happened. The party guests took over the party."
Wehner has a new book out, The Death of Politics-- How to Heal Our Frayed Republic After Trump that was reviewed yesterday by Kirchick in a column titled A Man of Faith Wonders at How Evangelicals Can Support Trump. Kirchick is positively delighted to begin his review by pointing out that fellow conservative windbag is offended by the Trump presidency. "Wehner," he writes, "is horrified at the way the president uses words 'to murder the very idea of truth.' Trump, Wehner writes in The Death of Politics, his lament for the state of our civic discourse, "embodies a Nietzschean morality rather than a Christian one."
Up until the point he feigned religiosity to secure the votes of evangelical Christians, Trump would likely have agreed with this brutal character assessment. Which brings us to the other plane on which the current presidency represents an affront to Wehner: traditional morality. One of evangelical Christianity’s most thoughtful political communicators, Wehner is appalled at the way in which his coreligionists have so enthusiastically backed Trump, voting for a thrice-married, loutish beauty pageant producer in higher numbers than they did for Bush, a born-again Christian “who spoke easily and openly about his relationship with Christ.” The rise of Trump, and the slavish devotion he inspires among leading evangelicals, has forced Wehner to consider seriously something he had always deemed a secular slander: that “both politics and the Christian witness are now made worse by people of faith actively involving themselves in politics.” Wehner attributes this degeneration to the adoption of an all-or-nothing mentality by his fellow evangelicals, for whom eight years of Barack Obama were apparently so catastrophic that a figure like Trump could emerge as the country’s improbable savior. Wehner excoriates this apocalyptic rationalization, naming and shaming a slew of evangelical personalities who have issued “defenses of Trump that range from rhapsodic to ridiculous.” He singles out the former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed, who privately joked about murdering Pat Buchanan during the latter’s insurgent 1996 Republican presidential primary campaign against Bob Dole, and yet is today an important ally of a president who essentially ran on Buchanan’s platform of nativism, protectionism and racial resentment. ...Though his recognition of the evangelical right’s manifold hypocrisies and corruptions is welcome, one wonders what took Wehner so long. A clue can be found in his occasionally earnest tone, visible in the expression of sincere shock that a movement that propelled the likes of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and Jimmy Swaggart would eventually throw in its lot with a pagan who embodies the seven deadly sins. ...Aside from appeals to our better angels, The Death of Politics doesn’t offer much in the way of practical solutions to the societal ills it analyzes. But the value of this book lies less in its proposals than its example. With conservatives increasingly scorning decency as a crutch for the weak, Wehner is a model of conscientious political engagement. For that reason alone, his book should be pressed upon both those on the left who believe that the only way to “resist” the current administration is by sinking to its level, and those on the right tempted to wallow there.
Sunday Thoughts: There they go again, and again, and again. There will be plenty of things that voters can use to judge whether or not they want to vote for Pete Buttigieg or any candidate but, leave it to Fake Christians to make who a person sleeps with one of them. In demanding that Pete Buttigieg repent for his homosexuality, Trump ally Franklin Graham is continuing to throw around his moral manure, making himself smaller in the eyes of more and more Americans, and, he is continuing to besmirch his professed religion and both his and its relevance.
In California Voting Your Conscience Means Voting For Kevin de León! And Antonio Villraogosa-- Really!
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by Dorothy Reik In this crazy world of "top two" primaries, we Democrats who want to flip Republican congressional seats need to be strategic. We need to vote to be sure Democrats are the top two contenders in the statewide races for Governor and U.S. Senate. As I write this, Franklin Graham is revival-touring our state to turn out radical evangelicals to vote for Republicans "Can you imagine if your school boards were controlled by evangelical Christians?" he asked the pastors in Pasadena. "The gays and lesbians have their people run for politics and win," he said. "As Christians, we are just being stupid." Gubernatorial frontrunner Gavin Newsom is GOTV texting Republican frontrunner John Cox supporters to make his own general election race easier. To hell with congressional and legislative races which will suffer with a Republican competing candidate at the top of the ticket! Fewer Republicans turn out if there are no Republicans at the top of the ticket. They deserve-- richly deserve-- this grotesque fate for cynically forcing the jungle primary on California. Those who think voting their "conscience" means voting for one of the outlier candidates need to realize that anti-Semite Patrick Little could wind up on the ballot instead of Kevin de León who, as President Pro Tem of the California Senate, led our state in fighting Trump's policies with progressive legislation that kept immigrants safe, our air and water clean and-- if Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon would have cooperated-- would have brought Medicare for All to our state. Little says, "I propose a government that makes counter-semitism central to all aims of the state. A government:
1) Of a People, for that people, free from jews 2) That cannot revoke the right to bear arms, such that this people can remain free from jews 3) that forbids all immigration except of biological kin, where no person of jewish origin may live, vacation, or traverse
Is it voting your "conscience" to give Little a statewide platform to promote his vile hatred? Remember, you are NOT voting for who will be your Senator, you are voting for who will be on the November ballot! Not one of the other Democratic candidates-- besides Feinstein and de León-- has a chance to get in the top two. Meanwhile in the Governor's race we have Gavin "to hell with Congress" Newsom GOTV texting supporters of Trump-endorsed Republican John Cox to make his own general election race easier. Cox wants to end the sanctuary state status of California and take it back for white people. Hold your ears or the dog whistle could blow out your eardrum: President Trump Endorses John Cox:
"California finally deserves a great Governor, one who understands borders, crime and lowering taxes. John Cox is the man-- he’ll be the best Governor you’ve ever had. I fully endorse John Cox for Governor and look forward to working with him to Make California Great Again!" We have to face reality, neither Delaine Easton nor John Chiang can beat Cox-- Chiang is polling at 9% and Easton at 6%-- and make it into the top two! The vote here has to be for Villaraigosa! Remember again- you are NOT voting for Governor-- you are just voting for who will be on the ballot! And Gavin is doing more than just texting: "Newsom figures he’ll have an easier time defeating Republican John Cox in November and is airing ads "attacking" Cox in ways that could help him gain GOP votes for one of the top-two spots in the June primary. The top two primary system was designed to hurt Democrats by making them spend their money in the primaries. It did that and more. With Newsom determined to turn out the Republican vote he has made California's bid to lead in turning Congress blue even more difficult. The Cook Report runs it down race by race. Eric Bauman, California Democratic Party Chair, has the last word on the top two primaries:
“From the outset, the Top Two Primary system was designed by its sponsors to bleed the Democratic Party. Before the vote to amend California’s Constitution, the Sacramento Bee recalculated the prior Primary Election and found that Prop 14 would result in 24 Dem on Dem races and 3 Rep on Rep races-- guess what we had in November 2016... you got it. They sold this as a tool to "moderate" who sat in Sacramento and DC. Instead it’s been a farce that has cost Democrats tens-of-millions of dollars. We are looking at how best to repeal or amend it, ASAP!
Earlier today, Frank Schaeffer, whose dad, Francis Schaeffer, was one of the founders of the Religious Right, reminded his readers that this country was never meant to be a theocracy and still isn't. Odd that he had to say so-- but today was the day it needed to be done. "For seven hours today," he wrote, "the remains of the evangelist Billy Graham will lie in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda. Why? Billy was a family friend but this is not appropriate. We aren’t Iran. We aren’t a theocracy. Watch Franklin Graham and Mike Pence strike a blow for further establishing of a homophobic white nationalist American theocracy this week by abusing the Billy Graham funeral/lying in state hoopla. And Trump will try to get in on the afterglow too."
The Religious Right is set to hijack Billy’s remains as his own son Franklin has long since planned to do. I first met Billy Graham when I was nine. He visited my parents’ home and spent the day with us. I sat next to him and his then nine-year-old son Franklin, as they listened to my father preach in our living room that doubled as our chapel at my parents’ evangelical mission of L’Abri” (the shelter) in Switzerland. I last saw Billy in the early 1980s when I was with my evangelist father Francis Schaeffer (“credited” as one of the founders of the religious right) who was undergoing treatment at Mayo Clinic. Billy, Dad and I met several times there when Billy was visiting for his checkups. It seems to me that Billy died in the very year that the subculture of white evangelicalism he helped create has committed suicide by continuing to support Trump. And the double irony is Billy’s son Franklin has led what might now be called the Trump Crusade, not for Christ, but for power.
Trump’s most vocal evangelical supporter is Franklin Graham. Admired among far right white evangelicals, Franklin has defended Trump on television and social media through the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, VA, the crackdowns on immigrants and refugees, the Stormy Daniels scandal, and the slur against Haiti and Africa. When Barack Obama was president, Franklin Graham was part of the “birther” conspiracy that claimed the president was not an American citizen. He lied suggesting that Obama was not a Christian and might secretly be a Muslim. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Franklin held rallies in 50 states to pump up evangelical turnout on what he called a “Decision America Tour.” There’s a bizarre symmetry here: To get elected Trump held Graham-like mass “evangelistic” rallies and led white Christians to deny the faith Billy Graham had once preached. They denied Graham’s Jesus for the sake of accepting earthly and utterly corrupting power as their new “personal savior.” Trump becoming president may turn out to be the lasting Billy Graham legacy. Graham’s funeral in North Carolina on Friday, which Trump will attend, will serve as a reminder of nothing so much as how the evangelical movement has mutated and splintered from one generation to the next. And sadly Billy fused his faith message with 1950s American anti-communism in ways that are still playing out today. As Anthea Butler writes in Religion dispatches (February 22, 2018 Billy Graham and the Gospel of American Nationalistic Christianity):
With Graham’s death, it’s time to reconsider how his promotion of a nationalistic version of Americanized Christianity has influenced evangelicals today. Graham’s proximity to the office of the presidency and government since the Eisenhower administration is part of why we see scenes of eager evangelicals embracing President Trump. It’s also responsible for a large cohort of evangelicals who are actively supporting Islamophobia, isolationism, and America first policies. Billy Graham may have been “puffed” by William Randolph Hearst newspaper reporters in his first crusade in Los Angeles, but the more important event in Graham’s ministry was his Washington, D.C. crusade in 1952. It was there that he would begin what was part of his lifelong work: fusing Christianity and Americanism together to create a potent cocktail of Evangelical Christian Nationalism.
...Franklin Graham is cashing in on his parents’ deaths by making a shrine of their final resting place, and this was against his mother’s wishes. White evangelical Trump supporters don’t care about such niceties these days. They are into Franklin’s magical thinking-- that Trump is president because of God’s will, notwithstanding details like being a scum woman-abuser-- and no doubt think that Franklin is even more in touch with God’s will-- even in matters of where his mom wanted to be buried-- than the rest of us, let alone his mother. Billy made magical thinking mainstream. He shaped a movement that then became as political as he was in his Nixon-supporting years and unlike Billy, never turned back. Full circle: Billy Graham sought to forge a movement that was distinct from the Southern racist fundamentalism of his day, yet that is precisely what today’s evangelicalism has become again. Magical thinking isn’t a very good basis for policy or politics. “I believe Donald Trump is a good man,” Franklin Graham said on CNN, last month. “He did everything wrong as a candidate and he won, and I don’t understand it. Other than I think God put him there.” Graham’s converts from the 1950s to 1990s (my generation, old, white, and tired) lined up to support not only Trump but Roy Moore. One of their very own, Sarah Huckabee, stands up every day and knowingly lies for Trump, covering for his multitude of sins on everything from racism to his lies about paying off porn stars, to abusing scores of women and denying that the Russians attacked our democracy to help get him elected. Graham and the neo-evangelicals, as they called themselves, tried to create religious revival in the United States. Fifty years on what they got instead was Trump and Roy Moore, climate change deniers, white nationalism and the NRA’s lock on the party evangelicals uniquely empower. Franklin Graham actually went to bat for the NRA. He blasted President Obama for his stand against military weapons being legal. Graham parroted the NRA/Gun-Lobby line in a Facebook post (January 6, 2016): “Your executive actions will do nothing to change this horrific problem. You can take all the guns in America and put them in a pile on the Mall in Washington DC, and those guns will stay there and will eventually rust and decay. Not one gun will crawl out of that pile and shoot or harm anyone. It takes a human being, and a human heart bent on evil, to pick up a gun, load it, and pull the trigger.” Do evangelicalisms’ leaders remain interested in the spiritual at all these days as Billy Graham sincerely was? Or has their agenda become merely political? Trump is the answer to those questions. The fatal arc of decline is clear. To use the biblical analogy of Saul, before he converted and took the name of Paul, holding the coats of the killers stoning St. Stephen to death, Graham’s son’s Franklin, is “holding Trump’s coat” while he stones American decency to death. Franklin even says this is God’s will. Billy Graham’s veneer of pious civility is long gone from the white evangelical movement. It’s been replaced by Billy Graham’s own worst inner demons that he repented of after he’d become Nixon’s confidant. As he sat by Dad’s bedside Billy told Dad and me how he lamented supporting Nixon and never would “be political” again. The context of this conversation was when Billy was explaining to my father why he would not support Dad’s anti-abortion efforts. Franklin never got the memo. The image of the white evangelicals these days is not of sinners repenting as they surge forward to the altar call while the hymn “Just as I Am” wafts over them, but rather of Nixon-type online trolls supporting gun rights by spreading vile lies about grieving high school students. If Trump remains the defining bookend bracketing the Billy Graham era of white evangelical empowerment historians may judge Graham’s stated purpose to reach “the lost” for Christ as failed. His lasting significance may rather be understood as having contributed to the creation of a power-crazed movement that enabled an American tragedy.
2017, A Hell Bound Train Of A Year (Part 7): Is Franklin Graham Brain-Damaged, Or Is It Just Because He’s A Typical Fake Christian Republican?
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-by Noah With every year-end review I do, I like to include one or more Republicans that, while they get some attention, largely fly under the radar. Sure, I do that all year long, but, you see, I just feel so bad that some miscreants just don’t get the exposure they so righteously deserve. Oh, how I long to rectify the situation! So, this year, I thought I’d do an additional good work that will, I’m sure, gain me entrance into Christian Heaven, aka The Ultimate Gated Community. The Ultimate Gated Community? Yeah. You bet. Why else do you think that Christianity, especially pompous, sanctimonious, fake Christianity, has sooo much appeal to Republicans? As for the question posed by the headline of this post, the correct answer is both. After all, one can’t be a Republican without a) hiding behind a fake and perverted version of what was once one of the world’s great religions, before it got so corrupted by greed and toxified by hate, and b) from what I’ve seen, you do have to be brain-damaged to be a Republican. How else does one explain things like promoting pedophilia for the sake of power? Franklin Graham is, or at least likes to be known as Donald Trump’s pastor. He’s also the son of the late Billy Graham who, although he hung around politicians of both parties, liked to think of himself, especially, as Richard Nixon’s pastor. The Grahams like to really hang with the uber-douchebags. Billy Graham, however, was a man of great accomplishment in his field. He managed to successfully apply the principles of old time western patent medicine salesmen to the selling of a brand of Christianity that is as phony as those old cure-all “medicines.” Sure, that’s what it’s all about anyway. Whether you’re Pat Robertson, Graham, or Joel Osteen, the godly man so famous for shutting his doors during the Houston flood this past summer, it’s all about marketing yourself and preaching for money, lots of money, more money than God, in fact. Saving souls? What’s that about? Just send your checks. Whatever else you say about Billy Graham, at least he had the respect of the public, deservedly or not, even from people who didn’t like a lot of things he stood for. Maybe one reason is because Billy Graham didn’t engage in overt bigotry when it came to Islam or our LGBTQ citizens like his son does. Franklin, in fact, is in danger of being banned from Great Britain for those very reasons. Graham is so batshit crazy about anything to do with LGBTQ issues that he has warned music legend Grace Slick that her sins carry “a death sentence.” What set him off into full-blown crazyland? Well, when the anti-gay rubber chicken chain, Chick-fil-A used one of her songs in a commercial, she decided to donate her royalties to Lamda Legal, a legal rights organization that fights on behalf of LGBTQ people. Franklin also says that same-sex marriage is the work of Satan. No, sorry Franklin. You are the work of Satan. Period. Graham has also made it clear that he thinks former President Obama is a “Secret Muslim” and that God chose Trump to be president. Franklin Graham is such a perfect match for birther Trump that I’d be surprised if Trump didn’t someday put tits on him and marry him. To date, Franklin Graham is but a shadow of his father, a faded xerox copy printed on cheap paper. I know I’ve used this analogy before, but, it’s true 99% of the time so why not beat it to death? Over the years, I’ve noticed what seems to be an as yet unnamed disorder. For lack of a better name, I call it Rotten Apple From The Tree Syndrome. I observed it numerous times during my career in the corporate world: First there is a father who rose to the top of his profession, was actually good at it, and stacked up a lot of achievements and respect. After that, came the son, the opposite side of the coin. The son who was both supremely obnoxious, insecure, and utterly incompetent. Such sons never learned how to grow up and only got a job because of daddy. Often, they lose their jobs but daddy is always there with the diaper-made parachute of another job. Unlike the father, the sons often temporarily just hang on by claiming achievements that will never stand up to investigation or analysis. People laugh at them behind their back, constantly. Some people call it the lucky sperm bank but I see it as a disorder. That’s Franklin Graham. To his credit, Franklin Graham falls short of the hideousness of the more well-known Pat Robertson when it comes to being counted on for lunatic pronouncements from fake Christians, but, let’s be fair, Franklin just hasn’t been around as long and he doesn’t have his own TV channel. Graham could be just as crazy as ol’ Pat, but we just don’t know it yet. That’s as good of a reason as anything to write this post. His fans can thank me later for doing God’s work. So here we have Franklin Graham, a man who is also a pastor. These days, he hangs out with a supremely obnoxious, insecure, and incompetent president who has even deeper problems; problems that affect all of us, regardless of religious (or not) background. Graham and Trump are kindred spirits in hate. Graham also shares in Trump’s cries of fake news, even saying that the concept of fake news is illustrated in the Bible. Isn’t everything? Some people will even tell you that the Bible has a code you can decipher to give you winning lottery ticket numbers and World Series winners. Next thing you know, Trump and Graham will be telling us that the fabled Bowling Green Massacre appears in the Bible too, so it has to be true. In the past, Graham has also taken one of George W. Bush’s daughters to task for her support of Planned Parenthood saying:
Planned Parenthood is the #1 abortion provider in the United States. Raising funds for this organization is like raising money to fund a Nazi death camp, like Auschwitz, except for innocent babies in their mother’s wombs!
An obvious proponent of fake news himself, Graham also prides himself on spreading the big lie that Planned Parenthood was caught on video “trying to sell baby parts.” But, promoting fake news comes naturally if you are a fake Christian, especially one who kisses up to a fake president.
Republican Of The Year Nominee #4: It’s A Sad Thing When Cousins Marry Edition
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2016 In Review: America Off The Rails, Part 9
Um, Rudy, near the end there, do you realize what you're saying?
by Noah
Before I get to the winner of my little Republican Of The Year contest (in tomorrow's installment), I thought it would be downright mean of me to leave out some other participants. I call them not just deplorables but also Dishonorable Mentions.
I also want to mention that I am not one who believes in that every-participant-gets-a-trophy nonsense. But I do want to give my No. 4 pairing below an award. I did, after all, declare Michigan's own Lex Luthor, Gov. Rick Snyder, the winner in the Governors' category for overseeing the poisoning of his citizens. So, with that in mind, James Comey and Rudy Giuliani are getting some well-deserved recognition. You can't just lightly dismiss people who will sell their souls (if they ever had souls to sell) and then sell out their country. For this, as you will see, they have earned, if not (regrettably) actual prison time, at least a very special award.
1. FRANKLIN (son of BILLY) GRAHAM
I haven't done any research into Franklin's mother, but he's blathered enough over the years to make me suspect that she was way too closely related to his father. Billy Graham was certainly very religious, very respected, and sane. Franklin? Well, maybe not so much.
I don't have any scientific information. I don't have a stack of emails to read to you. But I have an opinion: I believe it was God. God showed up. He answered the prayers of hundreds of thousands of people across this land who had been praying for this country.
I'm always amused by people who "give glory to God" for a victory. It's especially prevalent in the sports world. Some guy wins, the microphone is in his face, and he says he prayed to God and God came through. Well, what about the folks on the other team who prayed to God? Why did God choose you and not that loser on the other sideline? Is your ego so big? Are you so wonderful? In Franklin's case, he must think he's really extra-special, since he led so many in prayer and God sided with him. Then again, maybe God has had it with us and he's gone all biblical and decided it's time to rid the Earth of humankind.
2. NYS gubernatorial candidate CARL PALADINO
Bromancers Donald and Carl -- sticking up for the, er, little guy?
Republicans constantly whine that "The Left" is always accusing them of being racists. They go on and on, pretending to be mystified as to why. I saw one of these "out on a day pass" types just the other night on MSNBC. She was a guest panelist for a discussion about the nomination of Alabama $en. Jeff Sessions or some other KKK sympathizer to be a member of Comrade Trumpinsky's administration.
Over at FOX "News" it's an hourly, sometimes minute-by-minute whine. They do it so much on FOX that the total effect is like a yard full of straining, shorting, dull-bladed hedge clippers. It's so bad, you can smell the acrid smoke. They push it and push it and they just don't know when to turn it off.
Dear Republikooks: You are racists, and that's all there is to it.
Here in New York, republicans recently chose Carl Paladino as their candidate for governor against dem incumbent Andrew Cuomo. He lost badly, but New York is not Maine, Wisconsin, Michigan, Mississippi, or any other state that wants to proudly point to a racist governor as "one of us."
Still, Paladino is known for his racist and pornographic e-mails. In the past, he has sent out e-mails to his coworkers and his legions of republican fans which are are laced with N-words, pictures of President Obama dressed as a pimp, apes (i.e., to republicans: black folks), and, maybe worst of all, a clip of some African tribal dancers which he described as rehearsals for the Obama inauguration. More recently, he made a Michelle Obama-and-gorilla connection.
I'd like her to return to being a male and let loose in the outback of Zimbabwe where she lives comfortably in a cave with Maxie, the gorilla.
Damn, Carl! You've managed to express republican bigotry toward not only African-Americans but transgender people as well, all in one sentence! Just one question: How does one return to being a male yet still be a she?
That republican "black = apes-swinging-from-the-trees" bit never gets tired for the republican freaks that walk among us. You'll see it with the next morons covered in this post, too. Best of all, when it came time for Carl to apologize for his e-mail about Michelle Obama, he said it wasn't racist because it wasn't meant to be seen by the public!
He's a birther guy, too, just like his friend and idol, Donald Trump. It turns out, Trump and Paladino have a mutual-admiration, bromance kind of thing going on -- forged in racism, no doubt. You see, Trump made Paladino the New York State chairman of his campaign. Kellyanne Konartist will, of course, whine that their words are just words and we don't know what's in Trump's heart. Oh yes we do.
3. Clay County, WV's PAMELA RAMSEY TAYLOR
and MAYOR BEVERLY WHALING
Don't you see, Pamela's the victim here!
Who, you say?
Leave it to "ordinary" republicans. The ordinary voters and officials who toil in near-anonymity. Because these are the people who often get to the heart of the matter when it comes to defining exactly who the foundation of the republican party is and revealing it to us all. Such was the case when Ms. Taylor, the now-former director of the Clay County (West Virginia) Development Corporation, proudly spread her republican freak flag and let it fly.
She had those best words, those best words that she just had to share on her Facebook page. She just had to let the world know what she thinks of incoming First Lady Melanoma Trump as opposed to outgoing First Lady Michelle Obama:
It will be so refreshing to have a classy, beautiful, dignified First Lady back in the White House. I'm tired of seeing a ape in heels.
First Lady-in-waiting Melania -- classy is as classy does?
Mayor Whaling, as you can see below, was in total agreement:
I suppose I should just let that hang there, but hell, I bet they'll get jobs in the Trump administration, or maybe they'll just have Taylor do her stand-up republican comedy act at the inauguration.
Meanwhile, Whaling has resigned, but Taylor isn't going so easily. No, she's got a lawyer and she's pulled out the old, well-worn republican "I'm a victim" card. She says the retribution she has reaped is a "hate crime against me" and is charging that she's being done in by, get this, "reverse racism."
You go, girl! You go directly to hell!
4. RUDY GIULIANI and JAMES COMEY
Just another bromance, or criminal co-conspirators too?
Here's another republican bromance, FBI and republican operative James Comey and senile useful-idiot-crank Rudy Giuliani, who by the way really did marry a cousin.
Lost in all the discussion about the so-called shock of the Trumpinsky win was Rudy Giuliani's appearance on FOX "News" a few days before the election, which you can see at the top of this post. Go back and take a close look at it. Forget about Rudy's correct prediction. Forget about him failing to mention how Kerry "lost" Ohio in 2004. Forget (if you can) that wide-eyed crazed look. There are more noteworthy things in this clip.
One is Rudy's compulsive need to repeatedly state that he, the magnificent Rudy, "over-
performed," "overperformed," "overperformed"! This is an assclown with some
insecurity issues.
Number two comes towards the end, where Rudy states, reassuringly, to the FOX bozette (on October 25th):
And then I think he's got a surprise or two that you're gonna hear about in the next few days. I, I mean, I'm talking about some pretty big surprises. You'll see . . . We're not gonna go down. We're certainly not gonna stop fightin'. We've got a couple of things up our sleeve that should turn this around.
What the complicit media has failed to lay out for the American people is the relationship between Comey and Giuliani. It seems Comey, a former employee and still good friend of Rudy's, was just a phone call away. The result of the letter was a media barrage filled with false charges by Trump and Rudy that Comey's letter proved Clinton was a criminal.
When asked about Comey's letter on November 4th, the day after the election, Rudy responded, arrogantly and perhaps stupidly:
thought it was going to be about three or four weeks ago . . . I did nothing to get it out. I had no role in it. Did I hear about it? You're darn right I heard about it, and I can't even repeat the language that I heard from the former FBI agents.
Note how Rudy goes to great lengths to say that he is honest and tells the truth. Then he says he knew about it for three or four weeks, quickly adding that he had nothing to do with getting the letter out, "no role." I believe the technical term for this is covering one's ass. But he admits he was in direct contact with the FBI, and, given his long relationship with Comey, we can assume that it wasn't just "agents" he was in contact with. Is this on-air public admission the reason why Rudy was suddenly no longer being considered for a cabinet position? His phone records should be seized, along with all of his phones and computers. Let's have a look at his e-mails!
The key sentence is: "You're darn right I heard about it, and I can't even repeat the language that I heard from the former FBI agents." This is a public, on TV, admission that he could be a co-conspirator, along with current and former FBI people. He could be in violation of U.S. criminal code 18 U.S.C. § 1512 c (2): "Whoever otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both."
Where are the media on this? Where is the investigation? Where is the outrage?! Our media and our Congress might as well be listed as co-conspirators -- if we had a real criminal-justice system in this country, that is. In the absence of a proper investigation, the least we can do is declare Rudy and Jimmy co-winners of the First "In Treasonous Service To Trumpinsky" Award.
POSTSCRIPT: RE. TRUMP, DIRECTOR COMEY, AND THE RUSSIANS
Digby writes today about the new rumors swirling regarding links between Comrade Trump and the Russian. In "Comey and the Russian rumors," she notes, for example, CNN's report --
that a former operative for the British intelligence agency MI6, who had proved to be a credible source in the past, had produced some reports alleging that the Russian government said it had compromising information on Trump and that there had been contacts and deals made between Trump campaign associates and Russian agents.
After taking pains to note that allegations included in an "addendum" circulated to DC officialdom by the intelligence services remain unverified, Digby concludes:
[A] healthy dose of skepticism is called for, as always, when it comes to this fast-spreading new Trump scandal. There are many reasons why a foreign government might say it had compromising information and illicit ties to a presidential candidate, even if it’s not true. But according to the Guardian article ["a comprehensive article," "John McCain passes dossier alleging secret Trump-Russia contacts to FBI"], at least some of the early reports [from MI6's previously "credible" source] did turn out to be true. It’s also true that some of Trump’s mysterious campaign behavior, or the odd circumstances under which pro-Russian language was injected into the GOP platform, might make more sense in light of this timeline of events. This is far from the end of this story, and we’ll undoubtedly know more in the coming days.
All we can say for sure right now is that this is a perfect illustration of the way Comey improperly inserted himself into the election. These scandalous rumors connecting Trump to the Russian government information are unproven and unverified, and the FBI director was right not to reveal this material prior to the election. He completely ignored that principle when it came to Clinton, and there can be no doubt that it made a difference in the outcome. The fact that Comey clearly knew at the time it was at least possible that Trump had been compromised by a foreign government makes his decision even more shameful.
Well, yes, this is what I'm saying!
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2016 IN REVIEW: AMERICA OFF THE RAILS
Here it is, Noah's completed Year in Review for 2016:
Has Ted Cruz Already Joined Speaker Ryan's War Against Evangelical Christians?
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Early Wednesday Sarah Palin tweeted a Neil Munro post at Breitbart about the Republicans (Paul Ryan) giving away the store in the Omnibus. Paul Ryan has been trying to cover his ass for compromising and not shutting down the government in his first month as Speaker, primarily by serially tweeting about how the repeal of the Oil Export ban is "like having 100 Keystone pipelines" and how there will be no "new funding" for Obamacare. What a message! And still not good enough for the right-wing extremists who feel they didn't just lose their country but have now lost their party. In fact, Billy Graham's son, the far more right-wing and satanic Franklin Graham, best known, aside from who his daddy is, as an Islamophobic maniac, announced to his flock, via Facebook, that he's leaving the Republican Party. He's angry the Ayn-Rand devotee from Janesville didn't shut down the government to get even with all the myriad sins of Planned Parenthood colliding inside his brain. "After all of the appalling facts revealed this year about Planned Parenthood, our representatives in Washington had a chance to put a stop to this, but they didn’t... murder in God’s eyes," he howled. I don't know if that means this is the end of his backing for the Trumpf candidacy or not but as Betsy Woodruff wrote at the DailyBeast, Graham's "growing frustration highlights growing (and sometimes paradoxical) anger that pro-life and evangelical Christian leaders have for Republican Party leadership... [E]vangelical leaders say he’s channeling a sentiment that’s increasingly widespread in their community."
After the House voted to pass the omnibus spending bill that kept federal dollars in place for Planned Parenthood, many conservative Christians-- evangelical and Catholic-- were furious. Robert Jeffress, the pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, said the uproar isn’t surprising. “This Planned Parenthood sponsorship in this bill further confirms what many evangelical Christians believe about the Republican Party establishment, and that is, there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between the Republican establishment and the Democratic establishment,” he said. “And I believe that disenchantment that many evangelical Christians have explains the rise of Ted Cruz and Donald Trump,” he added.
Jeffress said this disenchantment has been growing for more than a decade, especially since George W. Bush’s 2004 presidential campaign. During that race, Bush pushed for a federal Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage as part of a strategy to get evangelical Christians to the polls. It worked, and he got reelected thanks to their strong showing. But in his second term, the president and his team abandoned their promise to try to write a gay-marriage ban into the Constitution. And that left many evangelicals feeling used and betrayed. Brent Bozell, a prominent conservative activist who founded the Media Research Center, said Graham’s split from the Republican Party is especially devastating because of his role as a faith leader, rather than a political one... “He’s not taking a political position,” said Bozell. “He’s taking a moral position, which is far more serious in the evangelical world.” That means Graham’s excoriation of party leaders carries special significance. “When they’re funding the murder of children, this is where the evangelicals say, enough is enough,” Bozell said. Ed Martin, the president of Eagle Forum-- a conservative activism organization that Phyllis Schlafly started-- called the inclusion of Planned Parenthood in the spending bill “an extraordinary betrayal.” “When Franklin Graham and others say, ‘Hey don’t put all your hope in a party because that’s not the ultimate hope and should not be the focus of this earthly realm,’ we recognize that,” he said. “So there’s a tension that you want to further the values informing your heart and life through politics, through policy. But you also want to say, don’t make a political party a false god. Any false god will fail you. There’s only one true God”... And Graham’s comments will fuel that anger.
Schlafly has already endorsed Trumpf (not Cruz). Pastor Huckabee, who, still hasn't ended his embarrassing, aborted presidential campaign, seemed to agree when they humored him on Morning Joe Wednesday. "I do know that voters are very angry. You sense it on the campaign trail. One of the things you see is a seething rage. This budget vote last week… it put a lot of people over the top because they just feel like the whole purpose of working hard to get Republican majorities in the House and the Senate was to make some significant policy changes. The Republicans folded... They were given four aces, and they laid their cards down before they even anted up for the game... [A]ll the Republicans got was export of oil. What does that say about Republicans? That the only thing they care about is exporting oil? They don’t care a hoot about rank-and-file Republicans? That’s why people in the Republican Party are just bolting for the door." Yep... GOP priorities are always about their rich contributors, like the Koch brothers who only cared about this one point and made that completely clear to Ryan.
Now, back to Palin's suggestion that all good little right-wing robots read Munro's nonsense at Breitbart: "Beltway-insider publications Politico and The Hill are hiding House Speaker Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)’s 2016’s disastrous report card, even days after the Dec. 18 passage of his $1.1-plus trillion 2016 spending-and-tax plan. Ryan and his top aides 'really gave away the store,' Democratic leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) declared Dec. 18. Her report-card phrase-- 'they really gave away the store'-- doesn’t appear in Politico or The Hill, even by Dec. 22. Instead, Politico suggested that Ryan came out roughly even. 'The four leaders-- Ryan, Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Senate Minority Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV)-- were all able to tout wins. There were complaints from the right about high levels of spending and gripes from the left about aiding Big Oil, but each side got enough in return to pass the deal in overwhelming fashion.'" Oh, no wonder Palin was pushing this post. Munro ends with a plus for her: "'The GOP establishment in Congress is our abuser,' she added. 'We can’t hide the black eyes any more. The whole neighborhood knows. The Democrats are gloating. Obama thanked Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) effusively-- and why shouldn’t he?'" And that brings us to a very dishonest Texas neo-fascist senator, who tells every audience a different story. Remember when he was raising money among right-wing gays with flamboyant Fire Island entrepreneurs Mati Weiderpass and Ian Reisner at their Central Park den of inequity. When he got called out in the press for cavorting with unsavory types, he quickly introduced two symbolic anti-LGBT bills in the Senate, knowing full well neither had any chance to even get out of committee. Cruz also solicits money from Peter Thiel, a crackpot libertarian gay billionaire, who have given him thousands of dollars directly and thru the pro-Cruz Endorse Liberty PAC to which Thiel has given around $3 million.
But all that was nothing when the psychotically insane and gay-obsessed Wilks brothers gave a Cruz SuperPAC $15,000,000 premised on one issue: ugly, militant homophobia (one fancies himself a preacher). So now Cruz goes back and forth from pandering to lunatics who want to kill gays to reassuring more mainstream wing nuts that he just says that to keep the idiots from all deserting him and running off to Herr Trumpf or-- God forbid-- the even more anti-gay candidate, Marco Rubio. This is all blowing up in Cruz's face now because Mike Allen wrote about it a couple days ago at Politico, making Cruz sound just like... an untrustworthy politician who tells everyone what they want to hear. How do you think the lunatic fringe reads this-- and you can count on Rubio to make sure they do read it?
In June, Ted Cruz promised on NPR that opposition to gay marriage would be “front and center” in his 2016 campaign. In July, he said the Supreme Court’s decision allowing same-sex marriage was the “very definition of tyranny” and urged states to ignore the ruling.
But in December, behind closed doors at a big-dollar Manhattan fundraiser, the quickly ascending presidential candidate assured a Republican gay-rights supporter that a Cruz administration would not make fighting same-sex marriage a top priority. In a recording provided to Politico, Cruz answers a flat “No” when asked whether fighting gay marriage is a “top-three priority,” an answer that pleased his socially moderate hosts but could surprise some of his evangelical backers. While Cruz’s private comments to a more moderate GOP audience do not contradict what the Republican Texas senator has said elsewhere, they demonstrate an adeptness at nuance in tone and emphasis that befits his Ivy League background. Indeed, the wording looks jarring when compared with the conservative, evangelical rhetoric he serves at his rallies, which have ballooned in size and excitement as he has moved to the front of the pack in Iowa. ...A well-known Republican operative not affiliated with a 2016 campaign said by email when sent Cruz's quote: "Wow. Does this not undermine all of his positions? Abortion, Common Core-- all to the states? ... Worse, he sounds like a slick D.C. politician-- says one thing on the campaign trail and trims his sails with NYC elites. Not supposed to be like that."
Among the hardcore anti-gay fanatics who have endorsed Cruz because they assumed he would be as anti-gay as they are, are David Barton, Cynthia Dunbar, Ron Baity, a final solution maniac from hate group Reclaim America, notorious hate-monger Matt Barber, Flip Benham of Operation Save America and American Family Association lobbyist and Hate Talk Radio host Sandy Rios. Will they all skip over to Rubio's side now that Cruz has been exposed as a two-faced hack?
