Ralph Reed Demands Good Christians Obey Señor Trumpanzee

Republican Party continues to pervert Jesus' message to mankind

Crooked carnival tent barker and greed-obsessed power-monger Ralph Reed, who somehow managed to avoid prison for his role in the Abramoff bribery scandal, has a new book coming out before the 2020 election with two working titles, Render to God and Trump and For God and Country: The Christian case for Trump. Best short bio of Reed I ever saw was by award-winning documentary film producer, Alex Gibney, who made the 2010 movie Casino Jack And The United States Of Money.





Gibney also wrote a piece that year for The Atlantic, The Deceptions of Ralph Reed, that captures the essence of the man: "Let's say it plain: Ralph Reed is a fraud."

On a recent radio show-- highlighted by a blog from People for the American Way-- Ralph Reed was chatting about his halcyon days as part of Jack Abramoff's lobbying machine. He recalled that his work with "Casino Jack," the once and famous king of K Street, "was outstanding, I'm proud of it, and it advanced sound public policy."

God Bless. What would that policy be? The legalized bribery of government officials?

To recap, Ralph Reed worked for team Abramoff by mobilizing Christians opposed to gambling to shutter casinos. The only hitch: Reed was usually paid by other casinos who had a financial interest in eliminating their competitors. Therefore, Abramoff needed to find a way to make Reed comfortable, and to protect him against critics and the likely fury of his own Christian followers-- who might have been upset if they had discovered that Reed was being paid by gamblers to do their bidding. The solution: Abramoff laundered the Indian casino payoffs to Reed by routing them through other organizations, including Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform and a phony "think tank" in Rehoboth Beach, MD, run by a life guard and a yoga instructor who were friends of Abramoff's pal, Mike Scanlon. Details of this can be found in my film, Casino Jack and the United States of Money.

...Reed correctly notes that he has never been charged with a crime and implies that he had been fully investigated by John McCain's Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. But the implication is deceptive. According to one very famous, disgraced former lobbyist, Reed was supposed to have been called before McCain's committee but Karl Rove intervened and pressured McCain not to call Reed. (Reed was an enormously powerful fund-raiser for the Republican Party.)

If true (McCain and Democratic Committee head Byron Dorgan refused to respond to my inquiries) it would be amazing. After all, McCain hated Reed for Reed's scurrilous personal attack campaign (funded by Abramoff) on McCain during the 2000 South Carolina Primary. And no one was more fundamental to Abramoff's Indian casino business than Reed. Yet Reed was never called. Why?

This leads to another intriguing part of the radio interview. Reed tries to downplay a famous statement of his: "I do guerrilla warfare. I paint my face and travel at night. You don't know it's over until you're in a body bag." He says it was just youthful hyperbole.

Really, the language is key to the militarized "take-no-prisoners" mindset of many movement conservatives. To them, politics is never about religion--or what's right or wrong--it's only about getting caught. By "painting his face and traveling at night," Reed avoided being called by the McCain Committee. To Reed, Abramoff committed the unpardonable sin of getting caught, and that's why Reed prays for him. Well, Abramoff did his time and now seems to be willing to speak the truth. Reed should pray for himself.

According to Gabby Orr's report in Politico yesterday, Reed intends to argue persuasively in his book that "evangelicals have a duty to defend the incumbent Republican leader against 'the stridently anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, and pro-abortion agenda of the progressive left' [and] will also rebut claims by religious and nonreligious critics that white evangelical Protestants 'revealed themselves to be political prostitutes and hypocrites' by overwhelmingly backing Trump, a twice-divorced, admitted philanderer, in 2016."

Frank Schaefer, an apostate who once sat at the pinnacle of the Religious Right, is one of those critics. He noted that "As Politico notes, "The book’s author, Faith and Freedom Coalition founder Ralph Reed, wants us to back a man that even fellow far right fundamentalist Trumpite, Pat Robertson, is now 'appalled' by Trump's decision to withdraw U.S. troops from northern Syria: 'The President of the United States is in great danger of losing the mandate of Heaven if he permits this to happen.' ... 'Ladies and Gentlemen,' Pat said, 'I want to say right now, I am absolutely appalled that the United States is going to betray those democratic forces in northern Syria that we are possibly going to allow the Turks to come in against the Kurds. The president, who allowed [Washington Post journalist Jamal] Khashoggi to be cut in pieces without any repercussions whatsoever, is now allowing the Christians and the Kurds to be massacred by the Turks,' he added. 'And I believe-- and I want to say this with great solemnity-- the president of the United States is in danger of losing the mandate of heaven if he permits this to happen.' Just a reminder: Love what Trump is doing by betraying the Kurds who have died by thousands frighting by America's side? Love that Trump is backing an Islamist militant leader in Turkey who murders opponents including Christians?-- Then thank a white evangelical American voter and evangelical leaders including Ralph Reed. Wait for the pictures of dead Kurdish children. Turkey's airstrikes against Kurdish villagers will inflame tensions between Trump and senior GOP figures including McConnell, Nikki Haley and Lindsey Graham already breaking with Trump with Mitt Romney calling it a 'betrayal.' And that’s the context even before we get to impeachment issues in which Trump-enabler Reed makes his pitch to support this anti-Christ and friend of men of blood to the bitter end."

Orr continued that "Reed, who once said Trump’s comments about women in the leaked Access Hollywood tape were low on his 'hierarchy of concerns,' belongs to an informal group of evangelical leaders-- including Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell Jr., Robert Jeffress and Paula White-- who have become some of the president’s most devoted fans and vocal defenders since he took office. They have cast his foray into politics as divinely inspired; equated him to biblical figures such as Esther, an Old Testament heroine; and frequently cited Scripture to rationalize his most controversial policies-- actions that other religious scholars and leaders have found particularly cringeworthy.

“I think evangelical efforts would be far better spent critiquing their own shortcomings than sanctifying a president,” said Matthew Rowley, a research associate with the Cambridge Institute on Religion and International Studies at Clare College.

For his part, Trump has inspired loyalty among his white evangelical base by positioning himself as a warrior against the secular culture they fear. He’s frequently appeared at conferences hosted by conservative Christian groups, including the “Road to Majority” summit put on by Reed’s organization each summer; strengthened conscience protections for religious Americans in the labor force; nominated dozens of socially conservative judges for lifetime federal appointments; and fervently supported Israel.

“Part of the reason why many religious leaders support Trump is because he is great on life, religious freedom, judges, Israel, taxes, conscience protections, fetal issue and also because Hillary Clinton and his would-be opponents next year are so awful on all of the above,” a senior administration official said.

But the same official said there‘s a difference between the president’s alliance with influential evangelical leaders and his private reaction to those who publicly fawn over his administration. Asked about Reed’s book, in particular, this person responded, “Oh, for crying out loud.”

“It shows how little they understand Donald Trump. He actually abhors obsequiousness,” the official said.

Indeed, the president has been known to mock right-wing television personalities and former aides who have showered him with praise on their shows and in books. After an on-air interview with Sean Hannity in which the pro-Trump Fox News host admitted to warning Trump on Election Day that he was likely to lose, the president reportedly complained to aides about Hannity’s “dumb” softball questions. Trump also teased former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who now serves as one of his personal attorneys, after he unabashedly defended him in the wake of the Access Hollywood tape scandal, the Wall Street Journal reported last week.

...Reed’s book is expected to be released next April, seven months before voters will decide whether to reelect Trump. He has written seven books, including three political novels.

Samir Selmanović, a brilliant writer and seminarian and co-chair of Vote Common Good, thought about Reed's efforts and told us that "The saddest story behind Reed's campaign is monumental falling apart of Evangelical theology. What kind of a God do they believe in? It is a kind of god who cannot get shit done without Trump. No kidding. Trapped god. God the Hostage. The number of putdowns, destruction, and hostility that this god had to hoist on human beings by choosing Trump as his new man of the hours is staggering. Evolution, for example, would be quite a divine way to get things done. At least everyone participates in giving their lives for the advancement of others. In Trump's world, zero-sum game and looking for oneself is the ideal and only truth. More of a hunger-games approach to work, relationships, and self. Trump's words are unequivocal in supporting everything they used to want to be delivered from. But the fear of not being in charge is too much to bear for them. Anything less than being in charge renders them as victims. And as victims, they need a villain, which is the role they give to liberals. They also need a hero to save them. Down the escalator, arrives Trump!

"With Ralph Reeds as the whisperers of the official story about what is really going on, most Evangelicals are not paying attention to what's happening outside of their circle of wagons. And what is happening outside this large encampment is not hatred for Evangelicals, but the love of humans for each other, love for the earth, and love for the mystery we all are living with. Outside of their circle of certainty and fear, there is truth, grace, and compassion. They are losing touch with what love looks like and that is the greatest tragedy here. What used to be a great American religion, championing grace above all, is now known for its self-serving self-centredness, using up most of its energy in devising new ways to judge others and hate this world that, as the Jesus says, 'God so loved.' We have lost a wonderful religion."

White Evangelicals Are Embracing Concentration Camps As Revenge For Their Petty Grievances And Resentments And Because They Feel Mocked And Scorned

Babies in Cages by Nancy Ohanian

Death camps are different from concentration camps; they're worse. But concentration camps are bad enough. If Trump was setting up concentration camps what would you do about it? What are you doing about the concentration camps? Silence, beloved brothers and sisters, is not golden... it's complicity. Our country is complicit in his crimes against humanity, his crimes against these women and children.

What about Trump's evangelical supporters? They may bear more responsibility than other Americans. Do the concentration camps make them uncomfortable? From what I'm reading... not at all, not at all. Yesterday The Atlantic published The Deepening Crisis in Evangelical Christianity-- Support for Trump comes at a high cost for Christian witness by Peter Wehner. Their leaders are reveling in Trumpism. Wehner began with a quote from noted evangelical huckster Ralph Reed: "There has never been anyone who has defended us and who has fought for us, who we have loved more than Donald J. Trump. No one!" And evangelicals are fighting for him too. They believe the concentration camp regime "is spiritually driven" and that "God’s hand is on Trump, this moment and at the election... Donald Trump is God’s man." He's kidnapping children and putting them up for adoption. "God has chosen him and is protecting him." These people want an authoritarian asshole. They welcome fascism and the end to democracy. "Jerry Falwell Jr.: "Conservatives & Christians need to stop electing ‘nice guys.’ They might make great Christian leaders but the United States needs street fighters like @realDonaldTrump at every level of government b/c the liberal fascists Dems are playing for keeps & many Repub leaders are a bunch of wimps!"


Late last night, writing for the NY Times, Thomas Edsall pointed out how the "give-us-our-orders" evangelicals fit into Trump's plans for reelection. "Alex Gage, head of TargetPoint Consulting, a Republican firm specializing in voter mobilization, found that 'anger is a much stronger motivation' than recounting the beneficial things a politician has done. Trump has aligned himself with two overlapping, declining constituencies that are clearly motivated by a combination of anger, resentment and anxiety-- white evangelical Christians and whites without college degrees. If Trump is to win re-election next year, he must raise the stakes for these two sets of voters so that they turn out in unprecedented numbers. Demonizing immigrants and other minorities is crucial to this strategy."

Between 65 and 70% of white evangelicals approve of him-- 25 points higher than the national average. "The enthusiastic, uncritical embrace of President Trump," wrote Wehner, "by white evangelicals is among the most mind-blowing developments of the Trump era. How can a group that for decades-- and especially during the Bill Clinton presidency-- insisted that character counts and that personal integrity is an essential component of presidential leadership not only turn a blind eye to the ethical and moral transgressions of Donald Trump, but also constantly defend him? Why are those who have been on the vanguard of “family values” so eager to give a man with a sordid personal and sexual history a mulligan?"

Part of the answer is their belief that they are engaged in an existential struggle against a wicked enemy-- not Russia, not North Korea, not Iran, but rather American liberals and the left. If you listen to Trump supporters who are evangelical (and non-evangelicals, like the radio talk-show host Mark Levin), you will hear adjectives applied to those on the left that could easily be used to describe a Stalinist regime. (Ask yourself how many evangelicals have publicly criticized Trump for his lavish praise of Kim Jong Un, the leader of perhaps the most savage regime in the world and the worst persecutor of Christians in the world.)

Many white evangelical Christians, then, are deeply fearful of what a Trump loss would mean for America, American culture, and American Christianity. If a Democrat is elected president, they believe, it might all come crashing down around us. During the 2016 election, for example, the influential evangelical author and radio talk-show host Eric Metaxas said, “In all of our years, we faced all kinds of struggles. The only time we faced an existential struggle like this was in the Civil War and in the Revolution when the nation began … We are on the verge of losing it as we could have lost it in the Civil War.” A friend of mine described that outlook to me this way: “It’s the Flight 93 election. FOREVER.”

Many evangelical Christians are also filled with grievances and resentments because they feel they have been mocked, scorned, and dishonored by the elite culture over the years. (Some of those feelings are understandable and warranted.) For them, Trump is a man who will not only push their agenda on issues such as the courts and abortion; he will be ruthless against those they view as threats to all they know and love. For a growing number of evangelicals, Trump’s dehumanizing tactics and cruelty aren’t a bug; they are a feature. Trump “owns the libs,” and they love it. He’ll bring a Glock to a cultural knife fight, and they relish that.

... There's a very high cost to our politics for celebrating the Trump style, but what is most personally painful to me as a person of the Christian faith is the cost to the Christian witness. Nonchalantly jettisoning the ethic of Jesus in favor of a political leader who embraces the ethic of Thrasymachus and Nietzsche-- might makes right, the strong should rule over the weak, justice has no intrinsic worth, moral values are socially constructed and subjective-- is troubling enough.

But there is also the undeniable hypocrisy of people who once made moral character, and especially sexual fidelity, central to their political calculus and who are now embracing a man of boundless corruptions. Don’t forget: Trump was essentially named an unindicted co-conspirator (“Individual 1”) in a scheme to make hush-money payments to a porn star who alleged she’d had an affair with him while he was married to his third wife, who had just given birth to their son.

While on the Pacific Coast last week, I had lunch with Karel Coppock, whom I have known for many years and who has played an important role in my Christian pilgrimage. In speaking about the widespread, reflexive evangelical support for the president, Coppock-- who is theologically orthodox and generally sympathetic to conservatism-- lamented the effect this moral freak show is having, especially on the younger generation. With unusual passion, he told me, “We’re losing an entire generation. They’re just gone. It’s one of the worst things to happen to the Church.”

Coppock mentioned to me the powerful example of St. Ambrose, the bishop of Milan, who was willing to rebuke the Roman Emperor Theodosius for the latter’s role in massacring civilians as punishment for the murder of one of his generals. Ambrose refused to allow the Church to become a political prop, despite concerns that doing so might endanger him. Ambrose spoke truth to power. (Theodosius ended up seeking penance, and Ambrose went on to teach, convert, and baptize St. Augustine.) Proximity to power is fine for Christians, Coppock told me, but only so long as it does not corrupt their moral sense, only so long as they don’t allow their faith to become politically weaponized. Yet that is precisely what’s happening today.

Evangelical Christians need another model for cultural and political engagement, and one of the best I am aware of has been articulated by the artist Makoto Fujimura, who speaks about “culture care” instead of “culture war.

According to Fujimura, “Culture care is an act of generosity to our neighbors and culture. Culture care is to see our world not as a battle zone in which we’re all vying for limited resources, but to see the world of abundant possibilities and promise.” What Fujimura is talking about is a set of sensibilities and dispositions that are fundamentally different from what we see embodied in many white evangelical leaders who frequently speak out on culture and politics. The sensibilities and dispositions Fujimura is describing are characterized by a commitment to grace, beauty, and creativity, not antipathy, disdain, and pulsating anger. It’s the difference between an open hand and a mailed fist.

Building on this theme, Mark Labberton, a colleague of Fujimura’s and the president of Fuller Theological Seminary, the largest multidenominational seminary in the world, has spoken about a distinct way for Christians to conceive of their calling, from seeing themselves as living in a Promised Land and “demanding it back” to living a “faithful, exilic life.”

Right-wing former GOP congressman assesses Trump

Labberton speaks about what it means to live as people in exile, trying to find the capacity to love in unexpected ways; to see the enemy, the foreigner, the stranger, and the alien, and to go toward rather than away from them. He asks what a life of faithfulness looks like while one lives in a world of fear.

He adds, “The Church is in one of its deepest moments of crisis-- not because of some election result or not, but because of what has been exposed to be the poverty of the American Church in its capacity to be able to see and love and serve and engage in ways in which we simply fail to do. And that vocation is the vocation that must be recovered and must be made real in tangible action.”

There are countless examples of how such tangible action can be manifest. But as a starting point, evangelical Christians should acknowledge the profound damage that’s being done to their movement by its braided political relationship-- its love affair, to bring us back to the words of Ralph Reed-- with a president who is an ethical and moral wreck. Until that is undone-- until followers of Jesus are once again willing to speak truth to power rather than act like court pastors-- the crisis in American Christianity will only deepen, its public testimony only dim, its effort to be a healing agent in a broken world only weaken.

At this point, I can’t help but wonder whether that really matters to many of Donald Trump’s besotted evangelical supporters.

Ralph Reed, a follower of Jesus? Give me a break. Falwell, Jr.? You're joking right? What makes Wehner imply they are? Must be something I don't understand.





Also on Friday, writing for The Economist, Erasmus noted "the widening ideological and personal schism within the very group of citizens who should be a conservative president’s most natural supporters... white evangelical Christians, of whom 80% are thought to have voted for Mr Trump. Leading evangelicals are not just sparring over metaphysics, they are also trading insults. Think of the war of words that erupted after June 25th when Russell Moore, a distinguished theologian who heads the Ethics and Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, protested over the fate of migrant children on the Mexican border." Moore wrote that the plight of the kidnapped children at the southern border stuffed into Trump's concentration camps "should 'shock all our consciences' given that all 'those created in the image of God should be treated with dignity and compassion.'" Vicious Trumpist Falwell went on the attack against the man who runs the public-policy arm of America’s largest Protestant denomination immediately: "Who are you Dr Moore? Have you ever built an organisation of any sort from scratch? You’re nothing but an employee-- a bureaucrat." [An inheritor of great wealth, it is notable that Falwell never built anything except an alliance with Satan.] The neo-Nazi evangelicals on the far right fringe joined Falwell by claiming protesting the immigration crisis amounted to an unpatriotic slur on the U.S. Border Patrol.

The Kavanaugh Nomination And The Religionist Right

This week, as the carefully constructed persona Republican operatives had created for Brett Kavanaugh started to crack, so did Trump's cool. By Thursday night, at a rally in Las Vegas, he was demanding the Senate Judiciary Committee just steamroll the confirmation through and to hell with the legal and normative niceties. That smell is desperation... mixed with sulphur.

If Trump says someone is a "fine, fine person," vouches for his character and claims someone is a "gentleman" who has "great intelligence," what does that mean when most people already realize that Trump himself possesses none of those characteristics? A new poll from USA Today by Ipsos finds an unprecedented level of disapproval for a nominee to the Supreme Court. Those surveyed say by 40% to 31% that the Senate shouldn't vote to approve his nomination, the first time a plurality of Americans have opposed a Supreme Court nominee since polling on the issue began. Republicans ought to especially worry that just 24% of independent voters support the confirmation.

Frank Schaeffer's father, Francis Schaeffer, was one of the original "founders" of the "religious right." Frank worked inside it for many years before realizing he wasn't doing Jesus' work there and quit-- loudly. He and John Pavlovitz are both clear-eyed about what they see coming out of the for-profit evangelical movement today... and both are standing up against it-- and especially standing up against the identification of Christianity with Trump and his immoral movement.

Jeremy Peters' article in the NY Times yesterday, Evangelical Leaders Are Frustrated at G.O.P. Caution on Kavanaugh Allegation, looks at the rumblings from the far right religionists over Kavanaugh-- and it isn't because they're concerned about his character or about the credible allegations of attempted rape and his dishonesty in confronting it. Grifter Ralph Reed warned that if Senate Republicans fail to confirm him "it will be very difficult to motivate and energize faith-based and conservative voters in November."

Worried their chance to cement a conservative majority on the Supreme Court could slip away, a growing number of evangelical and anti-abortion leaders are expressing frustration that Senate Republicans and the White House are not protecting Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh more forcefully from a sexual assault allegation and warning that conservative voters may stay home in November if his nomination falls apart.

...The evangelical leaders’ pleas are, in part, an attempt to apply political pressure: Some of them are warning that religious conservatives may feel little motivation to vote in the midterm elections unless Senate Republicans move the nomination out of committee soon and do more to defend Judge Kavanaugh from what they say is a desperate Democratic ploy to prevent President Trump from filling future court vacancies.

“One of the political costs of failing to confirm Brett Kavanaugh is likely the loss of the United States Senate,” said Ralph Reed, the founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition who is in frequent contact with the White House.

...The evangelist Franklin Graham, one of Mr. Trump’s most unwavering defenders, told the Christian Broadcasting Network this week, “I hope the Senate is smarter than this, and they’re not going to let this stop the process from moving forward and confirming this man.”

Social conservatives are already envisioning a worst-case scenario related to Judge Kavanaugh, and they say it is not a remote one. Republican promises to shift the Supreme Court further to the right-- which just a few days ago seemed like a fait accompli-- have been one of the major reasons conservatives say they are willing to tolerate an otherwise dysfunctional Republican-controlled government. If Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination fails, and recent political history is any guide, voters will most likely point the finger not at Mr. Trump but at Republican lawmakers.

To be sure, evangelicals leaders are trying to push Senate leaders to stiffen their resolve to force the Kavanaugh confirmation to a vote at a time when it may be politically perilous to do so. And the likelihood that the base will stay home in November and risk handing the Senate to the Democrats may be relatively low, given how popular Mr. Trump remains with white evangelicals.

The reason the prospect of Judge Kavanaugh’s defeat is so alarming to conservatives is that they fear he could be the last shot at reshaping the nation’s highest court for years. If Republicans were to lose control of the Senate, where they hold a 51-to-49 majority, in November, Mr. Trump would find it difficult to get anyone confirmed before the end of the year. Even if Senate leaders were able to schedule hearings and hold a vote, there could be defections from Republican senators uneasy about using a lame duck session to ram through a lifetime appointment that would tip the court’s ideological balance.

Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Dallas and one of Mr. Trump’s most vocal evangelical supporters, said he did not know who was telling the truth, Judge Kavanaugh or Dr. Blasey. “But I can say with absolute certainty,” he added, “that the Democrats don’t care who is telling the truth. Their only interest is in delaying and derailing this confirmation.”

“The White House is walking a tightrope,” Mr. Jeffress said. “They cannot summarily dismiss these allegations and alienate G.O.P. and independent female voters in the midterms. Neither can they abandon a nominee they and their base strongly support.”

On Thursday, more groups affiliated with the religious right piled on: Concerned Women of America’s legislative action committee sent a blast to its members urging “No More Delays,” and the American Family Association sent out another, “Confirm Kavanaugh Now!”

The importance of the Supreme Court to the Trump White House and the Republican Party is difficult to overstate. Mr. Trump has heralded Justice Neil M. Gorsuch and Judge Kavanaugh, his two Supreme Court nominees, as crowning achievements in an otherwise uneven presidency. Conservative groups have spent tens of millions of dollars building the men up as legal luminaries, gentleman scholars and the fulfillment of Mr. Trump’s campaign promise to nominate judges who have “a record of applying the Constitution just as it was written,” as one ad by the Judicial Crisis Network described Judge Kavanaugh.

A relatively smooth, predictable confirmation fight has also been a key part of Republicans’ strategy to keep the Senate. In the 10 states that Mr. Trump won where Democratic senators are up for re-election, Republicans have attacked Democrats for either opposing the judge or remaining noncommittal. But Dr. Blasey’s claims may have given Democrats who were on the fence a way to vote no without paying a steep political price.

Even social conservatives who describe Dr. Blasey’s account as part of a Democratic plot to upend the nomination acknowledge the bind they are in. While they decry the process as tainted and unfair, some are also arguing that they cannot be indifferent and insensitive to a victim.

...In the days since Dr. Blasey went public in an interview with the Washington Post and alleged that, when they were both teenagers, Judge Kavanaugh pinned her down on a bed, clapped his hand over her mouth and groped her, Republican leaders and White House officials have urged a muted and restrained approach. Show Dr. Blasey respect; offer to hear her out; and avoid questioning her credibility, at least directly, they have agreed in private conversations.

But many conservatives see little use in being deferential when, they argue, the Democrats play by no such rules. They look back at the failed confirmation of the Republican nominee Robert Bork in 1987, whose writings on civil rights were picked over by Democrats, and the 1991 hearings for Clarence Thomas, who faced testimony from Anita Hill that he had sexually harassed her, and they see a sophisticated and ruthless Democratic machine bent on discrediting their nominees.

“Republicans are right, as a moral matter as well as a political matter, to take allegations of misbehavior like this seriously,” said Frank Cannon, president of the American Principles Project and a veteran social conservative strategist. “At the same time, we’ve seen anything and everything thrown at Republican Supreme Court nominees for decades,” he added, noting that Republicans have been slow to understand that Democrats are “playing by different rules.”

“From the point of view of the average Republican conservative,” Mr. Cannon added, “these people aren’t the apparent monsters they’re being made out to be,” referring to maligned judicial nominees like Justice Thomas, Judge Bork and Judge Kavanaugh.

Privately, some conservatives were thrilled that Dr. Blasey and her lawyer have resisted the opportunity to testify in the Senate on Monday and demanded instead that the F.B.I. first investigate her claims. That would be just enough, they said, to give Republicans the justification for moving forward without her. The Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, made clear on Wednesday that he would not postpone a hearing past Monday.

And once the Senate puts the Kavanaugh nomination on track for a final vote, barring any unforeseen disclosures, that sets up a fight that Republicans could win in the Senate but might ultimately lose at the ballot box in November. The level of outrage could run so hot among Democrats, who would likely use every procedural and political tool at their disposal to delay confirmation, that it could provide even more fuel to an already energized liberal base.

Some conservatives, however, seem happy to have that fight.

“Given the confirmation theatrics, followed by this allegation that was held until the last moment, this could be seen as another partisan attack and could actually fuel conservative turnout,” said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council.

Conservatives are likely to use protests and other forms of resistance to Judge Kavanaugh as a way to clarify for unmotivated Republican voters what Democratic control of the Senate means: a Trump-nominated Supreme Court justice would never be confirmed again.

“If Chuck Schumer is majority leader and Dianne Feinstein is chairman of the Judiciary Committee,” said Mr. Reed of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, “it will be open season on any Trump nominee to the federal bench at any level of the judiciary.”

Let me go back to Frank Schaeffer for a moment. He's working with Ted Lieu and I on promoting the Vote Common Good mission and I asked him to connect it again with the stand evangelical hucksters like Reed, Franklin Graham and Robert Jeffress and taking with their worshipful approach to Trump. "Vote Common Good is inviting Christians to use their votes to change Congress in 2018," he wrote. "Why? Because you know who doesn’t have to worry about getting endorsed by neo-Nazis, white nationalists and racists? People who don’t give neo-Nazis, white nationals and racists any reason to believe that they share their views. Why? Because in places like El Salvador and Guatemala there is a white colonial elite and in the middle a mixed white management class and at the bottom a wretched oppressed brown population who are regularly raped, murdered, rounded up at the whim of the elites-- rather like Trump/GOP's USA. Why? Because there is no need for burning crosses anymore: White racist bigots have Trump, the Republican courts, the Supreme Court and the entire Republican legislative branch doing all they can to suppress black political activity... and this The New Improved KKK is very effective. Why? Because the nonpartisan RAND Corporation warns that a growing disregard for basic facts could have dire long term consequences for American democracy. Do Republicans care that Trump is destroying even the concept of truth?

"Pastors, teachers, musicians, and others in the group will be crossing the country on a bus tour, spreading the message to believers in 31 crucial cities. The team includes Jacqui Lewis, John Pavlovitz, Michael Waters, Brian McLaren, Christy Berghoef, Shane Claiborne, Rev. William Barber, Rev. Vince Anderson, and others. They will be reminding people that our politics can be moved closer toward respecting Jesus’s commandment to love our neighbors, even “the least of these.” If you are in one of the cities listed below and want to learn more about how you can be a part of this movement, please visit the Vote Common Good website and sign up to do what you can. Our democracy depends on YOU!"

No, G.K. Chesterton Was Not Gay-- But Ralph Reed Was

Bill Maher had some fun with right wing hustler and hypocrite Ralph Reed on his show Friday night. Reed, the head of the so-called Faith and Freedom Coalition, a GOP front group dedicated to electing right-wing Republicans to office by suckering paranoid and superstitious rubes, will host well-known libertine and glutton, Chris Christie at their annual conference on June 20. Others playing patty-cake with Reed are GOP presidential and vice presidential aspirants, Paul Ryan, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry, Mike Huckabee, Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum.

But Maher didn't want to debate Reed about politics, about whether Republican conversion therapy helped him overcome his lust for men's penises or about his shocking career of grotesque corruption. He wanted to talk about how silly religion in general-- and the Bible in particular-- are. Reed's career is inexorably tied to religionism and exploiting and fleecing the flock. Long before he founded the Faith and Freedom Coalition, he was ripping off the Christian Coalition, from which he resigned in disgrace to become a political consultant, an even sleazier occupation than a religious huckster. He wound up ripping off American Indian tribes with Jack Abramoff and managed to escape without the prison sentence Abramoff was given.

Still, the interview is pretty funny and worth the 8 minutes-- even if Maher didn't ask him about how own personal experiences with reparative therapy.


UPDATE: Ammosexuals

Bill Maher's wake up call to old white Republican men: "Clint Eastwood Is Directing Jersey Boys Now."

Nature Of Addiction And Republican Party Politics

The music business has had a very long and storied history in terms of drug use-- and not just among artists. But by the end of the '80s, the drug lifestyle among music executives was being frowned on. I worked at a very humane company and addicts were given so many opportunities to recover and rehabilitate that it took years for anyone to actually get fired. I remember two on my team who were still using massive amounts of drugs long after everyone around them had cut it out-- or had at least cut back to mere recreational weekend use. One guy's drug abuse impaired his ability to function effectively and releases and even artists' careers were ruined because of his inability to do his (key) job. He was eventually fired-- although not before endless interventions. The other guy actually did great work on coke; it was like high octane fuel for him and his department functioned flawlessly. Every now and then-- though not often-- he'd end up at the bottom of a dark hole... and that was bad. He too was given an ultimatum: straighten up or look for a new job. So he kicked his drug use-- completely.

I was so proud of him. And he continued doing an amazing job and his department continued outperforming in terms of profitability. And then one day it all collapsed. He had traded in one addiction-- drugs-- for another. And the other caught up with him with devastating consequences for everyone around him. And no one suffered more than he did, of course... his career and his personal life shattered and ruined. I thought about both these guys I used to work with last night when I was reading the Tom DeLay chapters in Max Blumenthal's book, Republican Gomorrah.

DeLay's grimy political career had two overarching premises: on the one hand a rebel's crusade against regulations and on the other, a raw, naked lust for unprecedented authoritarian power. DeLay's father was an alcoholic who beat young Tom and his two brothers mercilessly when he was bingeing, leaving them "with physical and psychic scars." Like most right-wing politicians who are the product of that kind of abusive upbringing, he fell right into the same patterns himself, getting expelled from school and earning himself the nickname "Hot Tub Tommy for his bawdy, drunken behavior and his disrespect for women. He was easy prey for a charlatan snake oil salesman like Jim Dobson, whose poison is proselytized on Capitol Hill by Virginia reactionary and religionist kook Frank Wolf.

But DeLay's born-again experience had only transformed his alcoholism into another addiction. "The convert maintains the same addictive thinking as before," University of Kansas professor of religious studies Robert Minor wrote of alcoholics who trade liquor for evangelical religion. "There's a similar level of intensity in their dependence religion as [in] their dependence upon the previous addiction. And the substitution will remain successful as the religion continues to produce a more fulfilling high than the substance or process they abandoned."

With his conversion, DeLay gained loyalty of the evangelical grassroots. Writing in 2001, when DeLay's influence was at its zenith, Peter Perl, observed that "DeLay's faith has solidified his political base and fundraising with the Christian Coalition and other religious and socially conservative groups. They love him, because DeLay's America would stop gun control, outlaw abortion, limit the rights of homosexuals, curb contraception, end the constitutional separation of church and state, and adopt the Ten Commandments as guiding principles for public schools."

Instead, it led to one of the ugliest political scandals in contemporary politics with DeLay forced to resign from Congress and eventually sentenced to prison for a wide range of corruption. The way he and his sleazy cadre of allies played the religious right reinforced the stereotype that "evangelicals are easily manipulated and that evangelical leaders are using moral issues to line their own pockets." Some of the fake religionists DeLay had in his pocket-- particularly Ralph Reed, who was on the cover of Time ("The Right Hand of God"), like Marco Rubio was last week ("The Republican Savior")-- were disgraced and shunned by the movement. Reed went from being the Savior to losing a Republican primary in Georgia for Lt. Governor by 12 points and then having his ex-lover, Rafael "Ralph" Gonzalez murdered in a love triangle by Jason Drake, a staffer-- and lover-- of Patrick McHenry. Will Rubio fall as hard and fast? Probably. Here's something to ponder about Reed and his circle from a 2011 article in Salon, 4 years after my post (linked above at "lover"):

Ralph Gonzalez had served as the executive director of the Georgia Republican Party at a time when Ralph Reed was that Chair of that organization as well as the executive director of the Christian Coalition. In his role as executive director, Gonzalez helped orchestrate the smear campaign against Vietnam Veteran Max Cleland that contributed to his defeat at the hands of Saxby Chambliss. Gonzales worked as campaign chair for Tom Feeney, Jeb Bush’s running mate in his first, unsuccessful, run for Florida’s governorship, when Feeney was running for Speaker of the Florida House. Feeney was later accused of ordering a prototype of a system to hack electronic votes while working for a Chinese company whose Quality Control Manager, Hai Lin Nee, was let off with a suspiciously soft slap on the wrist for selling protected electronic components of a radio-frequency guidance system to the People’s Republic of China, a scandal connected to the purported suicide of an investigator linked to that case. Gonzalez, who reportedly did not hide his homosexuality from those who knew him, was also president of the Strategum Group, a political consulting firm that was paid $3,144.06 by the Alabama Republican Legislative Committee to produce a anti-gay pamphlet that depicted two men sitting on a porch swing holding hands with the caption, “God Created Adam and Eve; Not Adam and Steve.”

David Abrami kept a lower profile. An attorney, Mr. Abrami was described as a “long-term” friend of Gonzales’s. The two lived together and vacationed together, once taking a trip to Amsterdam, although Abrami was reported to have a girlfriend. Abrami was a former business partner of convicted criminal and Fox Radio host, Doug Guetzloe. Guetzloe also acted as attorney for Tom Feeney. Abrami did have one additional moment of infamy in 1992 when as the 22-year-old Vice President of the Central Florida Young Republican Club he garnered attention from the Secret service after holding a fundraiser at the University of Central Florida where participants were charged two-dollars to fire a shotgun at enlarged photographs of President Bill Clinton in what he dubbed a “Turkey Shoot.”

Patrick McHenry started his political career as a protégé of Karl Rove as the National Coalition Director for George W. Bush’s 2000 Presidential campaign and later briefly worked for Secretary of Labor Elaine Chou, wife of house minority whip Mitch McConnell. It is reported that Jason Drake worked as a campaign volunteer for Patrick McHenry while Drake was stationed in North Carolina. After initial denials, McHenry’s staff confirmed that they knew Drake though they would not comment of the nature of McHenry’s relationship with the man though it has been reported that it was both, “intimate and business/political.”

...The murders of Gonzalez and Abrami were first believed to be “a lover’s quarrel,” as reported by police at the scene. However, that term was later scrubbed from news reports and in a final disposition of the case police refused to release a timeline of events or speculate on a motive in the case.

“What prompted him to go in and commit that crime remains undetermined and may never be known,” stated a complacent Joe Picanzo, a Commander with the Orange County Sheriff’s department, “We have so many different and conflicting statements from people.”

At the time of the murders rumors swirled that there was a link to that crime and another murder in Virginia involving homosexual pornography and a male escort service employing ex-marines. Those rumors were never substantiated though with Karl Rove in the mix images of Jeff Gannon and his extraordinary, and still unexplained, access to the White House leap to mind.

“All three associated socially and professionally to some degree,” confirmed Officer Picanzo back in 2007, as he picked up a broom to sweep all of this back into the closet.

What's in Rubio's closet? Plenty.

Yes, there is a clearer-and-presenter danger from corruption than the venality of born-to-be-crooks right-wingers

by Ken

The other evening I went to a screening of Casino Jack and the United States of Money, the new documentary produced and directed by Alex Gibney, whose previous films include Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005) and the 2007 Oscar-winning Taxi to the Dark Side, which works from the murder of the Afghan taxi driver Dilawar while in U.S. custody to the larger issues of torture and interrogation.

It's a really good movie, and you should see it. The two cases it looks at closely, the American Far Right's championing-for-hire of the virtual-slave sweatshops of the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI becomes a familiar acronym) and the Abramoff-led ripoffs of every Native American tribe that could be hoodwinked into filling the grifters' coffers for casino influence-peddling, the grand stunt being the unleashing of the religious and family-values Right to shut down casinos that were not paying them off. I'm sure the outlines of these stories are familiar to most DWT readers, but it's good to review them, and there's probably detail here that most of us never knew. There's also ample attention to the curious business dealings, including the suspicious murder of Gus Boulis, the shady figure Abramoff muscled out of ownership of the SunCruz gambling ships.

One of the many "looks" of Casino Jack

Along the way there is excellent background on the cabal of College Republicans, those Future Hoodlums of America, prominent among them such ideological crusaders as Jack Abramoff and Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed (even the collegiate Karl Rove is seen briefly, looking almost human), radical-right young hustlers for whom the ultra-conservative Young Americans for Freedom weren't conservative enough, and who actually did engineer a revolution, overthrowing their elders in the party and, under the mantel of that apostle of imbecility and deception Ronald Reagan actually took over Congress in 1994. There are impressive interviews with some of the good guys, like the Washington Post's Susan Schmidt, who broke the Abramoff story, CREW's Melanie Sloan, who did yeoman's work ferreting out some of Washington's dirtier secrets, and commentator Thomas Franks, who admits to having been a College Republican ("I was in college. There was beer") before his awakening.

What Gibney's reconstruction makes clear is that there doesn't appear to be a shred of honest principle among the whole lot of them there, and what's more, their corruption is inseparable from their bogus political "philosophy." For them, apparently, the insatiable greed is part and parcel of their "conservatism." In their minds, the shameless personal enrichment via enslaving Asian workers or extorting Native American casino operators is actually part of their commitment to their conservative "values."

There are other players in the high-flying Republican Culture of Corruption for whom this was apparently less true, notably Ohio Rep. Bob Ney and his onetime chief of staff, Neil Volz [above], two of the very few people hooked into Abramoff who went to prison for their misdeeds, having glommed onto Abramoff as a potential source for the money that pretty much every member of Congress, in both houses and of both parties, now seeks perpetually. Volz in his interview now sees all the signs that he should have seen at the time, and really did see (he just didn't pay them any mind), that the whole Abramoff operation stunk -- stunk, that is, beyond a level that he and Ney, his then-boss, should have allowed themselves to be associated with.

In Ney's interview there's an almost comical moment when the former congressman recalls inserting some derogatory reference to Gus Boulis into the Congressional Record without having any clear idea who the guy was, let alone why Ney was bad-mouthing him for the record. Volz, the office's contact with Abramoff (for whom he later went to work, via the famous congressional revolving door, lobbyist division), had to explain to him that this was something they were doing for their miraculous new benefactor.

I think you too will have a strong emotional reaction to the stinking corruption of the right-wingers. The odious Tom DeLay, the architect of the modern K Street primacy over Congress, appears in the film more slithery than ever, and utterly unrepentant. Emotionally, as I say, it's very satisfying.

But the film doesn't spare the opposition, noting in particular New York Sen. Chuck Schumer's responsibility for preserving the loophole that keeps hedge-fund managers paying a preposterous 15 percent tax rate. I'm not sure enough was made of this, though, and I'm glad that I was lucky enough to attend a screening of the film followed by a panel on which the ubiquitous Prof. Lawrence Lessig appeared, and I was persuaded, much to my surprise, that the sweatshop and casino looting, emotionally revolting as it is, is actually the lesser story here. Casino Jack is merely an over-the-top case of what is now a toxically standard relationship between Congress and its institutionalized paymasters, the K Street lobbying industry, and the entire structure of pay-to-play congressional financing.

I've had mixed feelings about Lessig's much-trumpeted legal and philosophical expertise, but on this he was dead-on. His argument was that the real terror for the country is the systematic corruption that is now part of the job description of all members of Congress. This, he argued, is what makes Congress intractably useless for any kind of responsible government, and he argued persuasively that given this situation, all the single-issue constituencies that plead the case for their causes, whether it's health care or the environment or immigration, however worthy and important and worthy those causes are, have to understand that until we can do something about the money problem, all the rest is near hopeless.

Which is how he arrived at the concept of an organization called Fix Congress First! The man makes an excellent case. By all means, see Casino Jack. But then check out the Fix Congress First! website.

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