Is There Such A Thing As A Tent That's Too Big?

Gov. John Bel Edwards (D)-- The DNC will spend any money you send them to save him

"I call on the overwhelming bipartisan majority of legislators who voted for it to join me in continuing to build a better Louisiana," wrote Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards just before he signed one of the country's most draconian anti-Choice bills, "that cares for the least among us and provides more opportunity for everyone." Edwards ran as a Democrat. With his signature on the bill yesterday, Edwards helped the GOP with their pledge to get Roe v Wade overturned by the Trumpist Supreme Court. And now they can say it was "bipartisan." Louisiana is one of several states-- Alabama, Missouri, Ohio, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi-- to pass extreme and unconstitutional anti-Choice legislation this year... but the only one with a Democratic governor.

Edwards was not a reluctant supporter of the bill either. In his own words: "My position hasn’t changed: In eight years in the Legislature, I was a pro-life legislator, 100 percent with the Louisiana Right to Life. When I ran for governor, I said that I was pro-life, and so that’s something that’s consistent."

Under this law, which contains no exceptions for rape or incest, a doctor who performs an abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected-- say 6 weeks-- could face two years in prison and lose his or her medical license. Edwards is up for reelection in November and he must be wondering how much of his Democratic base will desert him. In 2015-- when he ran against crook and pervert David Vitter (R)-- Edwards couldn't have asked for a better opponent. He beat Vitter 646,924 (56.1%) to 505,940 (43.9%) in a state that was just about to give Trump a 1,178,638 (58.09%) landslide victory over Hillary Clinton's 780,154 (38.45%). So far Republican Congressman Ralph Abraham and extremely right-wing political donor Eddie Rispone are Edwards' opponents. The filing deadline is August 8 and former congressmen Charles Boustany and John Fleming are both considering jumping in.

In any case, I think this betrayal of Louisiana Democratic women will end Edwards' chance for a second term. The latest poll showed him leading Abraham-- 40% to 36% with 24% undecided.

A Democrat in the legislature, John Milkovich, wrote the bill and Democrats in the state legislature also voted for it. State Senator Karen Carter Peterson wasn't among them. She's the chair of the Louisiana Democratic Party and her twitter stream today was not exactly Edwards-friendly. Lots like this:

All that said, I want to bring up a nice Louisiana piece in The Independent that ran a couple of years ago, Louisiana floods destroy home of Christian leader who says God sends natural disasters to punish gay people. Kate Nelson: "A flood has destroyed the home of a Christian lobbyist who preached that God sends natural disasters to punish gays. President of the controversial Christian group Family Research Council, Tony Perkins, described a deluge of 'near biblical proportions' hitting his Louisiana home. During a broadcast on the group’s radio station, he told how he and his family had fled in a canoe.

[Perkins] has also claimed homosexuality is incompatible with evolution and has likened it to a drug or alcohol addiction.

He added: "The most important thing that Christians can offer to homosexuals is hope-- hope that their sins, just like the sins of anyone else, can be forgiven and their lives transformed.”

Mr Perkins said he has been forced to live off “God’s provisions” following the flood.

2017, A Hell Bound Train Of A Year (Part 10) Republican Words As Windows To Their Souls. Round 3

-by Noah

Except for the times that Republicans start speaking complete gibberish, it’s not really hard to understand what they’re saying. What is difficult is understanding how they got the way they are. Did their moms drink way too much alcohol when they were in the womb? Were the water pipes in their childhood homes made of corroding lead? Were things like greed, hate, thugishness, and nihilism just drilled into them by horrid parents? Any or all of these things are possible. The cause doesn’t really matter. Only the soulless result matters.

Here’s Round 3 of things that Republicans actually said in 2017. You just can’t make this stuff up. It’s who, and what, they are.

1. Attorney Marc Kasowitz: Kasowitz is a longtime lawyer for Señor Trumpanzee. Back in April, Bill O’Reilly had finally been booted from FOX “News” for an amount of serial sexual harassment that was too much even for them. FOX was, and probably still is, a petri dish for sexual harassment, but Bill-O’s escapades had gone way too public and had become too expensive in more ways than one. Advertisers were leaving in droves. Already, Roger Ailes had been tossed for the same thing. Rupert Murdoch’s sons were gaining more say about things at FOX and Ailes was no longer there to protect O’Reilly. His “Sell by” date was up and it was long past time to remove the putrid rotting goods from the store.

But, none of that mattered to Kasowitz. To Kasowitz, Bill-O had done no wrong. Bill-O’s end at FOX “News” was all the result of a “liberal conspiracy.”

Bill O’Reilly has been subjected to a brutal campaign of character assassination that is unprecedented in post-McCarthyist America. This law firm has uncovered evidence that the smear campaign is orchestrated by far-left organizations bent on destroying O’Reilly for political and financial reasons.

In Trump and Bill O’Reilly, Marc Kasowitz has the best clients; matched bookends of lunacy. I love the first eleven words of the above quote. In addition, I note the use of two of O’Reilly’s nightly standard, clichéd tools of commentary “smear’ and “far-left.” As for “character assassination,” well, don’t you need character first, if it’s going to be assassinated?

Never the less, most Republicans yelled and belched along the same lines about O’Loofah boy’s “character” being smeared, but, then these are the same people that nominated and voted for President Pussy Grabber. Was O’Loofah smeared? No. He is who he is and he has proven it repeatedly. His lack of decency simply zoomed past its sky high tipping point. Hey, It’s not like anyone accused him of murdering 300 people and running a pedophile ring out of a pizza place.

Back in Boston in the 1970s, Bill-O was known for, among other things, viewing the city’s school busing crisis through a pair of racist lenses. But, that’s probably what Rupert Murdoch liked about him in the first place. O’Reilly always was perfect lead-in for Sean Hannity, but, Murdoch need not have worried. FOX had a whole stable of replacement wackos already in house. Had Harvey Weinstein been a Republican, he would have been a natural for the job. Instead, the Murdochs had to settle for a smarmy pole-dancing retread called Tucker Carlson.

Once O’Reilly had been yanked from the big chair of pomposity, all FOX staffers were ordered to undergo sensitivity training. Think about that. Think about a white supremacist like Sean Insanity in a sensitivity training class. Think about a simpleton like Steve Doocy trying vainly to get his miniscule brain around the concept. Think about what the hell FOX “News” might even consider to be sensitivity! I imagine it to be something along the lines of a Grand Wizard learning to say thank you to the minority worker who washed his hood.

2. White House Asylum Faker Donald J. Trump: There isn’t much else to say about this treasonous assclown, this week. So, Let’s just go straight to the quote:

No collusion. No collusion!

Trumpanzee says this one so much that it’s now obvious that they will be the last words he ever utters. They are the equivalent of O.J. Simpson saying that he will “find the real killers.

In one of my dreams about Trump, he is standing before a firing squad, having been found guilty of treason. When asked if he has any “last words”, he sputters out “No collusion. No collusion! These words will end up on his gravestone. Have you ever wondered if he knows what they mean? Warning to the gravestone carver: Don’t expect to be paid.

3. Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert: Louie Gohmert is commonly called “the dumbest of all House members.” That makes you single digit IQ dumb. But, it’s more than that. Gohmert’s grain of sand-sized brain has led him to believe that, had Hillary Clinton ended up as president, she would have put him in jail because he brands himself as a Christian. Also, when Judge Roy Moore held his last rally (In a barn. How perfect!), there was Louie Gohmert on the stage at Moore’s side. Yep, he’s another Christian who doesn’t seem to see anything wrong with pedophilia. So, maybe he’s right. Maybe he would end up in jail, but not for being a Christian, per se.

I’ve never been able to do an end of the year review without mentioning a quote or two by Louie “the bestiality guy” Gohmert. Each time, I wonder how long he will be around to quote. After all Michele Bachmann is gone, at least for now. But, Gohmert sticks around like filthy sidewalk gum on your shoe. That’s because Gohmert represents a congressional district in Texas, our biggest nut state. He truly does represent them. He is them. They are him. In Texas, Gohmert probably finished at the top of his high school class. Yeah, I know it’s hard to imagine that such a dullard made it past the 5th grade, let alone how he found his way home every afternoon without arrows painted on the sidewalk.

It’s also hard to pick just one quote from the mind of Gohmert. Someday, someone might write a “Little Red Book Of Gohmert Quotations.” May it’ll be me. Anyway, here’s my choice for this year. It’s vintage conspiracy theorist Gohmert plying his scrambled moonbat “thoughts” on the FOX Business Channel. It represents Gohmert’s twisted view that the violence in Charlottesville, VA that erupted out of the Confederate statue removal issue was all due to a conspiracy by Democrats:

Well, this has been stirred up, and I think the Democrats- I mean this needs an investigation. And the president, or through him the Attorney General can appoint an independent council- this is so political. This is being driven by forces of evil that are beyond what normal people can think about. How do you have instances of people with KKK shirts and Black Lives Matter shirts getting off the same bus? I mean somebody’s stoking this…

When the FOX Business host says “So that’s your claim?” Gohmert replies:

No, no it’s not my claim. I’m telling you there are witnesses out there.

Yeah. Something’s out there alright. Out to lunch. Which is it, Louie? In Gohmert’s mind, people from both sides were, somehow, able to peacefully ride on the same bus, and then break out in violence once they got off the bus. To Batshit Crazy Louie, the whole thing was a plot, hatched by Democrats, including Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe and Charlottesville Mayor Michael Signer to make white supremacists look bad. After all, didn’t Herr Trump himself say they were “very fine people?” And, what in Gohmert’s short-circuited mind tells him that only external forces can make white supremacists look bad? They are bad by nature, but not to Gohmert and like-minded republicans like Trump. To Gohmert, Nazis need defending.

Note to Louie: One of your “very fine people” plunged a car into the crowd and killed a woman, yet you use the whole incident to whine and promote Republican crackpot “theories.” You need treatment, asap.

Gohmert’s conspiracy theory illustrates a basic problem with today’s Republican Party. Angry older white men are dying off as a percentage of the total population. The demographics of the country are changing and not in the Republican Party’s favor. Hence, their desire to place limitations on which citizens can vote, and, to defend and appeal to any groups they see as voters who will support them, including Nazis. That Nazi beliefs dovetail nicely with core Republican beliefs is a bonus. For decades, they’ve tried to be a little quiet about it. Now, they can’t afford even a grain of subtlety. They need Nazi votes and they have no problem merging with virulent white supremacy groups to get them.

4. Tony Perkins, Professional Bigot: Here’s professional bigot Tony Perkins of the notorious hate group, Family Research Council, as he celebrated Senor Trumpanzee’s attempt to ban transgender soldiers from serving our country. This is a very sick man, a malignant tumor growing in our society.

The military has never been and should never be used as a vehicle to advance civil rights, political correctness, or workplace fairness.

Yeah, like when President Ike Eisenhower sent those troops to Little Rock in 1959 to assure the integration of the city’s schools. Can’t have that now, can we Tony. Fuck you! And, I’d like to see you say the same thing to those skeletal survivors at Auschwitz when Ike sent our troops there at the end of WW2. Where do Republicans get these people?

5. Georgia Rep. Karen Handel: Handel represents Georgia’s 6th Congressional district in the House of Representatives. Well, at least that is her job description. Here’s Handel in her debate with Democrat Jon Ossoff:

I do not support a livable wage.

Georgia’s current minimum wage is a viciously mean $5.15 an hour. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. According to M.I.T.’s Living Wage Calculator, the minimum wage for Georgia’s 6th District should be $12.01. All minimum wages are sociopathically out of date, in many cases by decades. http://livingwage.mit.edu/states/13/locations Handel won the race and is now part of Speaker Paul Ryan’s team of warriors in the war against the middle and working classes. The people in Georgia’s 6th District voted for low wages for themselves and tax cuts for the rich. What’s that they say about keep them poor and keep them stupid? The Republican Party crushed their 1956 platform into the dirt long ago.

This concludes the 2017, A Hell Bound Year In Review series. Let’s all hope that 2018 brings better news for America and the rest of civilization. Here’s also hoping that there is a 2019.

1. http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2017/12/2017-in-review-hell-bound-train-of-year.html

2. http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2017/12/2017-hell-bound-train-of-year-part-2.html

3. http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2017/12/2017-hell-bound-train-of-year-part-3.html

4. http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2017/12/2017-hell-bound-train-part-4-look-at.html

5. http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2017/12/2017-in-review-hell-bound-train-of-year_31.html

6. http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2018/01/2017-in-review-hell-bound-train-of-year.html

7. http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2018/01/2017-hell-bound-train-of-year-part-7-is.html

8. http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2018/01/2017-hell-bound-train-of-year-part-8.html

He's A Mutt?

Far right extremist Martha Roby represents a blood red (R+17) hellhole-- ethnically cleansed-- in southeast Alabama. Romney beat Obama there 63-36%. No Democrat will ever win her district; the DCCC doesn't even run candidates there. This morning she woke up-- perhaps having slept badly because of yesterday's Trump revelations-- and withdrew her ill-advised Trumpy-the-Clown endorsement. "Trump's behavior," she said, "makes him unacceptable as a candidate… and I won't vote for him." GOP crackpot Barbara Comstock, who represents a very swingy (R+2) northern Virginia district Hillary is going to win handily, didn't need to sleep on it. She denounced Trump and called for him to step down from the ticket last night as the media began pounding the "pussy" revelations nonstop. Unlike Roby, she's in a very tough reelection campaign with the DCCC heavily backing reprehensible Blue Dog LuAnn Bennett for the seat. By the June 30 FEC reporting deadline Comstock had already spent $2,256,613 (and Bennett had spent $871,830). The NRCC had spent $1,189,109 to hold the seat-- $431,582 just last week! "This is disgusting, vile, and disqualifying," she said minutes before Trump's carefully crafted non-apology apology was issued. "No woman should ever be subjected to this type of obscene behavior and it is unbecoming of anybody seeking high office. In light of these comments, Donald Trump should step aside and allow our party to replace him with Mike Pence or another appropriate nominee from the Republican Party. I cannot in good conscience vote for Donald Trump and I would never vote for Hillary Clinton."

On the other hand, Tony Perkins, head of the neo-fascist (but Christianist neo-fascist) Family Research Council-- which claims in its mission statement that its goal is to "make a lasting difference for timeless values across our land"-- says he's sticking with Trump. "My personal support for Donald Trump," he admitted this morning, "has never been based upon shared values." Oh. So is Dr. Ben.

This morning John Harwood speculated that Trump "has brought the Republican Party to its nightmare scenario... Trump, trailing Clinton by several percentage points nationally and in most battleground states, was on track to lose the election before disclosure of the tape. Republican confidence that he can close that gap and win has vanished as Trump approaches Sunday night's second debate with Clinton in a severely-weakened position. The principal question now is how many other Republicans go down with him. Democrats need to gain at least four seats to win back a Senate majority; their odds are good. It remains unlikely that Democrats can achieve the 30 seat gain they need to win back the House. But the moves Friday night by jittery Republican members suggest that they are alarmed by the possibility. The theme of the next month will be the scramble of Republican politicians to protect themselves."

This is starting to smell like when Rahm sprang the trap on Mark Foley in late September, 2006... one day after it was too late to get his name off the ballot. The Democrats had the best of all worlds: Foley withdrew from the race but his now-toxic name remained on the ballot as the GOP nominee. The question, of course, is how badly it will hurt down-ballot Republicans... like Peter King on Long Island, Pat Meehan in the Philly suburbs, John Faso in upstate New York, Cresent Harding in North Las Vegas (a Mormon who, after defending every Trumpist outrage for the last year, finally pulled his support for the sociopathic billionaire this morning), Mario Diaz-Balart in Miami-Dade, Darrell Issa in San Diego and Orange counties, Fred Upton in Kalamazoo, Frank Guinta in New Hampshire, Sean Duffy in northern Wisconsin, Lamar Smith in Bexar and Travis counties. Is this-- and Trump's reaction over the next couple of days-- going be enough to wipe the GOP out? Please help that along here. Damn shame that doddering Pelosi doesn't have an even remotely competent DCCC in place to take advantage of this!




A short time ago, the Wall Street Journal reported that Reince Priebus told party officials today to start redirecting funds away from Trump and to down-ballot candidates.

The speed and breadth of the abandonment of Mr. Trump’s candidacy shocked some long-time party members and exposed a shattered party without a clear path forward.

“Our party is in its deepest crisis since Watergate in 1974,” said Ron Nehring, former chairman of the California Republican Party, referring to the mid-term election when the resignation of then-President Richard M. Nixon led to a Democratic landslide. “It’s compounded by the fact that it doesn’t matter whether Donald Trump were to bow out. It’s too late to change the candidate on the ballot."

The immediate consequence of the RNC’s decision on allocating resources is a halt to the party’s mail program so it can be redirected toward a new universe of voters, the official said. News of the mail program stopping was first reported by Politico. Mr. Priebus and top party strategist Sean Spicer didn’t respond to requests for comment.

...Trump’s latest imbroglio is also widening a chasm between the party’s old guard and the legions of voters drawn to his anti-establishment message.

Those divisions surfaced on Saturday when House Speaker Paul Ryan appeared at a rally in his Wisconsin district after disinviting Mr. Trump from that event and denouncing his crude comments. Mr. Ryan’s own welcome was mixed with boos and pro-Trump hecklers in the crowd.

Can A Cabal Of Kingmakers From The Far Right Fringe Win The Nomination For Ted Cruz?

Yesterday, writing in The Hill, Texas GOP operative Matt Mackowiak speculated that if Trumpf is the Republican nominee, as the Clinton's pray he is, some awful things could ensue for the GOP... although all would be absolutely spectacular for ordinary working families in this country:

• He could lose 45 states and elect potential Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in a landslide.
• He could lose the GOP majority in the U.S. Senate, and cost us dozens of House seats and governorships.
• He would badly hurt the GOP brand.

Mackowiak, presumedly speaking for all establishment Republicans, writes "[w]e all desperately want a Trump-free race... [and] we can get that still." He goes on the write that even if something bizarre happens and Trumpf winds up as president, the Republican establishment will have nothing to rejoice about since Trumpf "has said he'd like to appoint his pro-choice sister, a federal judge in New Jersey, to the Supreme Court," and "favors a single-payer healthcare system, to the left of ObamaCare" and would try to implement a tax plan that "adds $10 trillion to the national debt" while starting a trade war with China. He also mentioned something that the dumbed down Republican base has no capacity to understand: Trumpf "has no understanding of foreign policy or national security." Not a very appealing prospect for an establishment Republican, huh?

Mackowiak's pie-in-the-sky solution is to beat Trumpf in Iowa and New Hampshire. I guess that's why he makes the big bucks. Oh, and he mentions the only person who can do so-- at least in Iowa-- just happens to be his candidate, someone many establishment Republicans fear and loathe as much as Trumpf, Ted Cruz.

With less than two months before Iowa, it appears clear that only Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is positioned to defeat Trump. He's been surging of late, rising to a statistical tie in one recent Iowa poll, won the endorsement of the state's leading conservative congressman and has a large and strong organization on the ground. It is time for Republicans to unite behind Cruz in Iowa in order to stop Trump.

He suggests the other candidates all coalesce around Governor BridgeGate, knowing full well that Cruz would be able to wipe him out in South Carolina, Nevada and the March 1 Confederate primary, their Super Tuesday which includes Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia as well as Alaska, Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming. 4 days later comes Louisiana and the following week Mississippi and Idaho, 3 more states where Cruz is guaranteed to dominate anyone but Trumpf.

As you know, it's as likely that the Republican candidates will unite around Cruz as it is that Bibi Netanyahu will form a coalition government with Mahmoud Abbas. In fact Rubio, for example, probably hates Cruz more than Bibi hates Mahmoud! Wednesday, Tim Alberta, in the National Review, addressed the Stop-Trump Cruz plan Mackowiak was proposing. Noting that Cruz will find that "a binary battle with [establishment fave] Rubio is a double-edged sword," he believes Cruz can win by "monopolizing the support of the conservative movement’s most prominent leaders in the hopes of consolidating their grassroots followers behind his candidacy." That right-wing alternatives like Rick Perry, Bobby Jindal and Scott Walker were driven out of the race because of utter lack of national support, appears to be good news for Cruz. Unfortunately for Cruz and his partisans, though, Rubio is not Jeb Bush and "Rubio’s emergence as the establishment favorite lessens the urgency to throw their weight behind Cruz. In fact, they say, it could entirely neutralize the campaign by Cruz supporters to coordinate the sweeping endorsement their activist allies have long planned."

Ohio right-wing nut Ken Blackwell: "If it’s a Rubio-Cruz battle, there are folks in different parts of the conservative coalition that Rubio energizes. And that could in fact block efforts to coalesce behind Cruz."

[S]ocial conservatives have begun to bicker about when an endorsement should come-- after months of spirited dialogue over whether one should come at all. And at the center of all this is Perkins, a former police officer and Louisiana lawmaker who has become arguably the nation’s most politically influential evangelical.

Cruz has been relentless in his courtship of Perkins, who says he has spent more time with the Texas senator over the past year than with any other candidate. The two have shared frequent dinners in Washington, and attended public and private events together. Just last month, Perkins headlined a religious-liberty rally for Cruz in South Carolina. Perkins says he would do the same for other candidates, but Cruz’s team feels certain they’ll win his support, as well as that of Bob Vander Plaats, the evangelical kingmaker in Iowa.

What’s unknown is whether those endorsements will trigger, or be part of, the larger coalescence that Perkins, Vander Plaats, and their allies have long plotted. Some of the uncertainty stems from the primary calendar itself: While Vander Plaats’s support is needed (and almost certain to come) before the Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses, it’s increasingly unclear whether national leaders will weigh in before then. Perkins himself says any mass endorsement “needs to happen before Iowa,” but some of his closest allies have long viewed such a drastic move as necessary only if an establishment steamroller threatens to flatten them. Since there is no such threat, some now say they should wait to see which three or four candidates emerge from Iowa and New Hampshire and act accordingly.

...Jenny Beth Martin, who chairs the Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund, says Rubio’s actions on immigration hurt his standing among conservatives and will factor heavily into the group’s forthcoming deliberations over which candidate to endorse. Still, she says a Cruz-Rubio contest would represent a “win-win” for her members because both candidates “ran and got elected originally based on tea-party values, and they are running again based on tea-party values.”

That Rubio and Cruz are currently the two leading GOP candidates with elected experience is, says Mike Needham, the CEO of Heritage Action for America, a “tremendous testament to what conservatives have been able to achieve.”

This sentiment echoed in weeks of conversations with conservative leaders, none of whom have endorsed and all of whom have been involved in discussions about uniting their movement behind a single candidate.

“If Marco Rubio is the establishment candidate, look at how far we’ve come. This is someone who ran as an outsider, who ran as a conservative, someone who was a Jim DeMint–endorsed, Club for Growth–endorsed candidate who forced a sitting governor to switch parties,” says Wesley Goodman, the former executive director of the Conservative Action Project, an umbrella organization that brings together leaders from dozens of activist groups such as the American Conservative Union and the Susan B. Anthony List.

Goodman, now a candidate for state representative in Ohio, adds: “If it comes down to a Cruz-Rubio race, it’s a huge win for the conservative movement. . . . I think most people will be with Cruz, but secretly jumping up and down with excitement” about having Rubio as the alternative.

That scenario poses a grave threat both to Cruz and to the conservative activists scheming alongside him, whose common theory of the primary is predicated entirely upon facing an unpalatable opponent. Both publicly and privately, Cruz has predicted that establishment Republicans would yet again rally behind a candidate with limited appeal among the grassroots. The only way to prevent another “mushy moderate” from becoming the party’s nominee, he told a closed-door gathering of the Council for National Policy (CNP) in May, would be to unite around him.

“D.C. knows if we’re divided, then the moderate Washington candidate with all the money comes right through and wins the nomination with 26 percent of the vote,” he told members of the secretive, Perkins-helmed group, which brings together activist leaders from across the country. “The men and women in this room, if you decide, have it in your capacity to unify the conservative movement. The numbers are such that if conservatives are united, it’s game over.”

Cruz’s speech was momentous: a pitch to become conservatives’ consensus candidate, delivered to the very people who have led discussions about uniting the movement. At the same event, a smaller group led by Perkins, Vander Plaats, Senate Conservatives Fund president Ken Cuccinelli, and longtime social-conservative leader Gary Bauer convened an invite-only meeting to map out their plans for a mass endorsement. Cruz, after his speech, became the focal point of those plans.

...“A significant number of our people, despite the immigration issue, are considering Rubio,” Bauer says. “He’s got obvious political abilities, and he’s been willing to wade into some of these social issues in a significant way.”

But much of that goodwill will erode, Perkins predicts, now that Rubio is positioning himself as an establishment-friendly candidate and enlisting the financial support of those who don’t share the movement’s values.

“When you’ve got guys like Singer supporting him that have views that are antithetical to most social conservatives, that makes it harder for Rubio,” Perkins says of Paul Singer, the billionaire hedge-fund manager who financed initiatives supporting same-sex marriage in New York. “We realize we have to build coalitions to win, but in a coalition you don’t blow up your partners. . . . You can’t have somebody like Singer who is adamantly for the redefinition of marriage teaming with people who adamantly want to defend marriage.”

...Rubio’s biggest obstacle with conservatives isn’t the definition of marriage but the path to citizenship he pushed as part of the 2013 immigration bill. It remains his chief political vulnerability and the subject on which Cruz is likely to hammer him hardest.

“Rubio is terrible on immigration, which is a top issue for our people. It’s been his big stumbling block since the beginning,” says Ed Martin, president of Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum. “If someone has the money and the brain to do it, they can run really damaging ads. And I think Cruz’s team could do it.”

But barring a scorched-earth campaign that eradicates Rubio’s support among conservatives, the immigration issue may not matter. If the race becomes a two-way fight between Rubio and Cruz-- a big if, but still the likeliest scenario in the eyes of Republicans who think Trump and Carson will eventually collapse-- the outcome will be determined by which candidate can siphon more support from his rival’s base and build a broader alliance of voters.

Cruz has many political skills and strengths; crossover appeal to the establishment is not one of them. Rubio, meanwhile, continues, as Perkins puts it, to “straddle the fence,” which won’t land him any mass endorsement but could be key to constructing a winning coalition.

“Cruz’s challenge is to not totally alienate the establishment, whereas Rubio already has significant appeal in the conservative world,” Blackwell says. “It’s not like he has to win them all over; he just has to loosen Cruz’s grip a bit. And he’s already won some of them over.”

To normal people, the Wall Street Journal is the voice of the far right, but to movement conservatives, it's little better than Mother Jones or The Nation, and this week they were emphasizing that Rubio's supposed foreign policy chops are leagues ahead of Cruz, a virtual Obama clone in their eyes. Rubio has enthusiastically taken on the mantle of the Cheney-Bush-McCain neocon and it's just what the Journal is looking for. The Wall Street [Yellow] Journal wants war in Syria and war against Iran and war wherever it can be found (even Russia), as usual, and they know Rubio is their patsy and Cruz isn't. An OpEd Wednesday made the case that Cruz isn't even a "real Republican" because he's "advocating a Syria policy that seems to have been drawn from President Obama ’s situation room... The Texan’s defensiveness might have something to do with his opposition to the National Security Agency’s bulk telephony metadata collection programs, which looks dangerous as policy and politics after the terror attacks in Paris. Mr. Cruz was a cosponsor of the legislation last summer that killed the program over Mr. Rubio’s opposition, and one of Mr. Cruz’s campaign lines is to encourage audiences to turn on their cell phones so President Obama can listen in."

Oh yeah, they also want a Big Brother policy of domestic spying, which Rubio is just fine with too. Careful not to endorse Rubio yet, they continued that "Several GOP candidates have laid out a far better Syria strategy than Mr. Cruz’s imitation of Mr. Obama. It starts with a much faster destruction of Islamic State in its strongholds in eastern Syria and northern Iraq through air power, the Kurdish peshmerga and what remains of the Free Syrian Army, and former General Jack Keane ’s recommendation of perhaps 6,500 more U.S. ground forces than the 3,500 already there. The effort would include creating and enforcing no-fly and no-drive zones in Syria on the model of the 1991 intervention in northern Iraq. Sustaining such safe zones is the only immediate remedy for the refugee crisis, but it can also help establish new borders in a country that no longer exists. The strategy would also require the destruction of the Assad regime’s air bases-- to stop it from barrel bombing civilians and signal to Syria’s Sunni majority that our anti-ISIS campaign is not part of a U.S. conspiracy against the Sunnis. Mr. Cruz’s Syria and NSA gambits seem intended to signal to Rand Paul and Donald Trump supporters that he should be their number two choice. Perhaps it will work as primary politics. But the positions-- and opportunism-- don’t speak well of his judgment as a potential Commander in Chief."

UPDATE: GOP Still Has A Trumpf Problem

The just-released CNN national poll of registered voters shows Cruz with the most momentum, as Dr. Ben and the GOP establishment's poor Jebster continue to disappear under the waves:

• Trumpf 36%, up 9
• Cruz 16%, up 12
• Dr. Ben 14%, down 8
• Rubio 12%, up 4
• Christie 4%, steady
• Jeb 3%, down 5
• Fiorina 3%, down 1

Everyone else was below the margin of error and not worth discussing.

Did You Hear The One About The Deranged Lesbian Who Voted Against Marriage Equality?

Sad, pathetic person

"Truth is on the side of the oppressed… If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”

-Malcolm X

A couple of years ago, when uber corrupt, very conservative and somewhat homophobic state Senator Colleen Hanabusa decided to try once again to get into the U.S. House of Representatives-- having been defeated several times previously-- she resigned from her state Senate seat. Governor Neil Abercrombie appointed state Rep. Maile Shimabukuro to her old seat and then appointed Jo (Georgette) Jordan to Shimabukuro's old state House seat just northwest of Honolulu (Wai‘anae, Mākaha, Makua, and Māʻili). Not many people had heard of her until this week when she made history-- the first openly gay legislator anywhere to vote against marriage equality. (So this is different from closet cases like Aaron Schock (R-IL), Patrick McHenry (R-NC), Trent Franks (R-AZ), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Miss McConnell (R-KY), Larry Craig (R-ID) or any of the endless parade of hypocritical Republican closet cases who routinely vote against equality for the LGBT community their fears and careerism alienate them from. Georgette is an out lesbian-- a shockingly stupid one, but still an out one. How do I know she's stupid? That wasn't a gratuitous slam against someone I disagree with; this is one extremely stupid person. Read her pathetic, incoherent and moronic interview in the new Honolulu Magazine about… how no mainlanders are going to tell her what to do! She even admits she's intellectually out of her depth in the state legislature and still hasn't figured out what's going on. This was supposed to be an interview about why she voted against the LGBT community.

Friends in the legislature have told me she's a petty, vindictive little shit who's angry at the world for being dealt a bad hand and angry at Democrats, embittered after having her side lost a leadership fight at the start of the current term. She voted against marriage equality even while admitting that 75% of her constituents favored it. I hope they remember when she's up for reelection.

What we do know about her is that she takes campaign money from shady donors like the NRA and Big Tobacco and that she identifies with religionist bigots who think they are entitled to force gay people into second class citizenship because of their primitive beliefs. She would be Malcolm X's worst nightmare… if he could even stop laughing. Meanwhile, religious right hate mongers are calling her a hero and using her to cast aspersions on the LGBT community fighting off the bigots. From Tony Perkin's own personal hate group, he Family Research Council:

During the hearings, when she hadn’t stated her position, Jordan says that she expected “to get blasted by the religious community.” Instead, pastors and faith leaders stunned her with their outpouring of thanks just for listening. The people who were truly hostile, Jordan says, were her own LGBT community.

…It doesn’t matter who you are, homosexual activists will harass anyone who isn’t one hundred percent sold out to their radical agenda to remake society. Unfortunately, Jo Jordan found that out the hard way. Hopefully, her story will help dissuade others from trying to appease the extreme Left on marriage.

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Hate Group" Designation Angers Hate Groups

Tony Perkins-- Good actor/bad actor

-by Noah

Earlier this week, I happened across an article from The Washington Post titled "Hate Group Designation Angers Same-Sex Marriage Opponents." It seems that some hate groups aren’t comfortable with their recent designation as hate groups by The Southern Poverty Law Center. Gee. Ain’t that just a whole lot of too damn bad.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a major Civil Rights organization based in Montgomery, Alabama defines itself as a non-profit civil rights organization that is dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry towards the vulnerable in our society. It monitors and tracks hate groups, militias, white supremacists, and other extremists. The SPLC started up in 1971 and they define hate groups as those who have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people. The SPLC issued its newest report on the haters just in time for Thanksgiving.

Chief among the included and affronted was The Family Research Council. The SPLC accuses the council of putting out “demonizing propaganda aimed at homosexuals and other sexual minorities.” Peter Sprigg, who calls himself a “senior fellow for policy studies” at the FRC, recently went so far as to state, proudly no doubt, that he thinks “homosexual behavior” should be outlawed. Council President Tony Perkins (no blood relation to the guy from Psycho), clearly resenting the designation called the designation a political attack by “a liberal organization.” There it is again. Imagine what the flies on the walls heard: Damn liberals! Always fighting for peoples’ rights! Next thing ya know, they’ll be allowing gay people to vote! Oh, wait! They do! This is terrible! The sky is falling! My marriage is being threatened!

Perkins’ hissy fit statement droned on:

“The left’s smear campaign of conservatives is… being driven by the clear evidence that the American public is losing patience with their radical policy agenda as seen in the recent election and in the fact that every state… that has had the opportunity to defend the natural definition of marriage has done so.”

These guys are soooo touchy; like schoolyard bullies. Every sign of human decency is “radical” to them, but, when you stand up to them, they start to whine and cry. Gee Tony. Sorry to ruin your holiday weekend as you and your faux Christian group of mental misfits would do to others. You dedicate your whole life, your whole being to causing misery for others and then you whine when someone calls you on it. How dare they! Burn in your Crypto-Christian Hell, Tony.

I wish President Obama and the rest of the Democrats would learn this: It’s time to call these Republican nutbags out loudly and reveal them for what they are once and for all. For instance, I think the about-to-be House Speaker, John Boehner, is so tightly wrapped that he could be reduced to a sobbing, wailing, puddle quite easily. We’ve seen the evidence. He’d have to be carried away to a padded cell where he belongs. Put him in a cell next to one that says Bachmann on the door, just down the hall from one that says Jabba the Limbaugh. Throw it right back in their faces like the editor of Motor Trend Magazine did earlier this week when Limbaugh went all wackadoodle over their calling GM’s Chevy Volt the Car Of The Year; seeing something good as a threat. "Just remember: driving and Oxycontin don't mix."

Tony Perkins, like the rest of the Repugs, keeps referring to the midterm election results as if they were some sort of mandate for their various and sundry perversions. They will continue to do so until they are called out. The Dems need to do some research on these hideous gasbags and find out what pushes their buttons. Then, push away, with extreme prejudice. Most Republicans are so far gone down the road to blithering nutbagville why not speed them on their way to their final destination and be done with them? Give them the treatment that matches what they dole out. Smack ‘em upside the mind and make ‘em cry for mommy. The Post’s article goes on to quote gay rights advocate Dan Savage as saying on CNN:

“… [W]e need a cultural reckoning around gay and lesbian issues. There was once two sides to the race debate. There was once a side you could go on television and argue for segregation, you could argue against interracial marriage, against the Civil Rights Act, against extending voting rights to African Americans, and that used to be treated as one side… of a pressing national debate, and it isn’t anymore. And we really need to reach that point with gay and lesbian issues. There are no ‘two sides’ to the issues about gay and lesbian rights."

Savage is right, of course, and just as good people stood up to pro-segregation bullies decades ago when the SPLC was just getting started, good people need to stand up now. Tolerating the incessant hate of Neanderthal groups like the Family Research Council only serves to impede social progress, and, yes, social justice. If Republicans don’t like it, make them eat it.

Brian Brown, President of another merry band of homophobes, the ironically named National Organization For Marriage, also griped about the inclusion of his group in the SPLC’s new report:

“This is about protecting marriage… The whole idea that somehow those folks who stand up for traditional marriage, like the Family Research Council, are hateful is wrong. [The Law Center is] trying to marginalize and intimidate folks for standing up for marriage and also trying to equate them somehow to the KKK is wrong.”

Yeah Brownie. Heckuva job. And your point is? You see, I’ve been married to the same woman for 28 years and I know you’ll be appalled to learn that we lived together without a piece of paper for many years before that. In that time, I have known and worked with and for some very fine gay people. I even know some who are married to other gay people, great gay people. At no time in all that time, have I ever felt that my marriage was threatened by what you fear and what most of us would call the real world. Get over it. What is it about YOUR marriage that makes you feel threatened?

Cornyn Better Watch His Back-- DeMint's Got A Million Prayers He Can Turn Loose On Him

In 2002 Texas Senator Phil Gramm, having accomplished all the banksters had asked him to do, decided that rather than run for the Senate again he could make a lot more money as a bank lobbyist. So John Cornyn ran for the open seat and won. (Gramm sucked up $5,513,718 in contributions" from the finance sector and so far Cornyn, in a much shorter time, has taken in $4,690,892 from the same crooked banksters.) Gramm was the third biggest recipient of legalistic oil company bribes in the history of Congress-- after John McCain and Kay Bailey Hutchinson. Cornyn is 4th but is expected to overtake Gramm's record early next year and surpass Kay Bailey and McCain long before his next reelection bid in 2014.

He was just reelected to head the NRSC, the corrupt committee charged with winning Senate seats for Republicans. And this week, in closed door caucus session, he went after Jim DeMint, who is widely blamed for having kept the GOP from winning control of the Senate by helping torpedo mainstream conservative Republicans in favor of reactionary and-- more to the point-- unelectable sociopaths like Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell. DeMint doesn't get the kind of corporate bribes that Cornyn does. Big Oil has only given him $231,939 and the finance sector a mere $2,612,173. But if "Big John" Cornyn were to piss off DeMint badly enough, DeMint could make his reelection propsects a lot less bright. DeMint has a different kind of non-traditional power inside the GOP.

DeMint did not respond to Cornyn’s comments, the Republicans said. However, the two lawmakers have had several conversations since Election Day, GOP aides familiar with the situation said.

NRSC spokesman Brian Walsh declined to comment, but according to Republicans, Cornyn delivered his warning in a speech to the entire Conference during their leadership elections. In the speech, Cornyn noted that some members of the Conference were unhappy with the conservative credentials of Cornyn’s picks and opted to actively work against them during the 2010 cycle.

Rather than attack candidates who have been backed explicitly by the NRSC or by a state’s party, Cornyn said, unhappy Members should come to him with their concerns.

Cornyn’s speech and his post-election meetings with DeMint are unlikely to curb the South Carolinian’s efforts to forge a more conservative GOP Conference in the Senate. Although he did not have the kinds of successes this year that would warrant the title of conservative kingmaker, he nevertheless was a key player in the victories of Sens. elect Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Rand Paul (Ky.).

His Senate Conservatives Fund political action committee also helped funnel thousands of dollars to conservative [when Inside-the-Beltway publications like Roll Call say "conservative," they actually mean "reactionary" or "fascist;" conservatives are called "moderates"] candidates, and DeMint has built over the past two years a significant donor list to help fund future campaign efforts.

Additionally, there have been long-standing rumors that those close to DeMint actively worked behind the scenes to help Republican Mike Lee in his successful primary bid against Sen. Bob Bennett (Utah), although DeMint has repeatedly denied those claims. Lee went on to win the general election.

While DeMint is still expected to actively support conservative candidates in primaries for open seats or seats held by Democrats, he said Thursday that he has agreed not to “plan” to support primary challengers looking to oust any of his colleagues.

“I have no plans to oppose incumbent Republicans in primaries, but I do plan to play an active role in primaries where there is a Democrat incumbent or an open seat. It’s important that principled candidates like Marco Rubio and Rand Paul are not overlooked by our party,” DeMint said.

Cornyn and McConnell had not just backed mainstream conservatives Charlie Crist and Trey Grayson for those two seats, they had recruited and helped finance them. DeMint's interference in those races-- as well as in Utah-- have weakened the Establishment conservatives and strengthened the reactionary-- or even neo-fascist-- forces inside the GOP caucus. Although Rubio is likely to revert to his Establishment roots-- many say the teabag thing was just a pose-- Mike Lee and Rand Paul are out-of-control kooks on a level with some of the more outrageous and dangerous Republicans elected in the House-- from Daniel Webster, Allen West, Sandy Adams and Steve Southerland (the 4 fringe lunatics elected in Florida) to anti-gay zealot Vicky Hartzler (who replaced less of a zealot but still effectively plenty anti-gay incumbent Ike Skelton), obsessed racist Lou Barletta, all around teabag crackpot Alan Nunnelee, and Karl Rove protégé Tim Griffin. And DeMint has plenty of fringy allies if he really decides to take Cornyn (or McConnell) down a peg:

Richard A. Viguerie, Chairman of ConservativeHQ.com, issued the following statement regarding a declaration in support of Senator Jim DeMint signed by 56 Tea Party and conservative leaders that was sent to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, National Republican Senatorial Committee John Cornyn, and Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele:

"As recently as two days ago, a bitter Lisa Murkowski joined the ranks of GOP establishment whiners who wrongly claim Senator Jim DeMint's support for constitutional conservatives somehow cost Republicans a majority in the Senate.

"Members of the GOP establishment tried to undermine Ronald Reagan in the '60s and '70s, but failed. They will fail in their efforts to undermine Senator DeMint, and the consequences will be far-reaching to the party committees.

"Conservative leaders want it made clear that they consider any attack on Senator Jim DeMint as an attack on conservatives and Tea Partiers.

"Constitutional conservatives stand behind Senator Jim DeMint, who, more than any elected Republican official, is responsible for energizing the conservative base and keeping the Tea Partiers in, or moving them to, the GOP."

On top of that the American Taliban, led by hatemonger Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, is asking religious fanatics to pray for DeMint. "When the establishment failed to energize the base with its moderate platform, Senator DeMint became a crusader for principled conservatism that reached beyond the GOP,” Perkins said. “We want the men and women from both parties to know that an attack on Senator DeMint is an attack on all conservatives and people of faith. He says hee'll have a million of his followers "pray on a regular basis for Senator DeMint.”

The Battle Of New Orleans-- Cao Fragged By Right Wing Extremists For Being Squishy On The Gays

When the corruption got even too outrageous for New Orleans voters, and one of the nation's most solidly Democratic districts-- LA-2 may have turned on Democrats for saddling them with William Jefferson but gave Obama 74% of its vote-- elected Republican Anh "Joseph" Cao, a typically tipsy John Boehner was noted remarking that "The future [of the Republican Party] is Cao." In the last days of the 2010 election cycle, a key component of the Republican machine-- the Talibanesque religious right-- turned viciously against Cao in his tough struggle towards an ultimately failed reelection bid.

Cao was the first Vietnamese-American elected to Congress. [Republicans thought they could solidify their base with the Vietnamese community by electing corrupt California Assemblyman Van Tran but he failed this month, 52-41% against weak Blue Dog Loretta Sanchez in Orange County, California.] Meanwhile Cao, went down to defeat against Democratic state Rep Cedric Richmond 83,653 (65%) to 43,364 (33%). Richmond wiped him out in Orleans Parish (71-28%) but beat him handily in Jefferson Parish as well, where Cao had hoped he stood a slim chance to save his seat. In 2008 Cao had beaten the corruption-scarred incumbent 49-47%, becoming the first Republican to represent New Orleans since 1890, by racking up a huge win in Jefferson Parish while William Jefferson only took Orleans Parish with 51% of the vote.

Cao was born in Saigon and his father had been a rightist who fought against Vietnamese liberation and unification. He was imprisoned after the war and young Cao came to the U.S. (well... Texas) at age 8. He wound up in a Jesuit seminary for 6 years but decided against becoming a priest and pursued a career in law instead, as an immigration attorney. He wasn't involved in politics before Katrina and only managed to win because of William Jefferson's exploding corruption scandal. Once in Congress he set about to support the aspirations of his-- mostly African-American-- new constituents by supporting a lot more Democratic legislation than almost any other Republicans and by bringing home the bacon in terms of earmarks. With a 17.50 Progressive Punch voting score, only Vern Ehlers (MI), Ron Paul (TX) and Tim Johnson (IL) crossed the aisle more frequently than Cao. He voted with the Democrats about as frequently as Alabama Blue Dog Bobby Bright-- though not on the same issues as Bright. In fact, Bright was one of Congress' most bigoted homophobes and one of the Democrats' most persistent opponents of the legitimate aspirations of working families. Cao was one of the only Republicans to support the LGBT community. He was also one of only 2 Republicans to vote for the DISCLOSE Act and he was the only Republican to vote with the Democrats on the original healthcare reform act, although he ultimately voted against final passage because he felt it wasn't anti-Choice enough. That's what made the attack against him by Tony Perkins and the demented right wing hate group, Family Research Council, so tough to take.

Cao remains angry at Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council for launching a last-minute radio ad against him, and for effectively fragging a fellow pro-lifer who is a former Jesuit seminarian and was once considered a model for a more diverse Republican Party.

"For a conservative Christian organization to attack a Republican pro-life candidate in a general election is as ignorant as it is inexcusable," Cao told Warren Throckmorton, an evangelical Protestant psychologist and author.

...Cao's approach to homosexual rights also got him into trouble with Perkins and the FRC, despite his own conservative Catholic and pro-life bona fides. Cao co-sponsored both the Hate Crimes Protection Act of 2009 and legislation to repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military, and that was enough to label him a traitor to the cause in the eyes of Tony Perkins, who had enthusiastically endorsed Cao in 2008.

Perkins was very clear about what he was hoping to accomplish by attacking a wounded Republican in battle. He says he "wanted to send a very clear message to Republicans across the country; if you take a stand against the family, we will take a stand against you. These squishy Republicans need to know that we will come after them, just like the Democrats." Perkins ran his attack ad on WRNO, a Hate Talk Radio station that is the New Orleans home of Rush Limbaugh and other far right extremists. It actually calls itself "Rush Radio" and also features Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, John Osterlind and Dennis Miller in the GOP propaganda lineup. The tag line was "Washington doesn't need more liberal Republicans. Stop Joe Cao on Election Day."

"Who is Rep. Joseph Cao representing in Washington?" the FRC ad asks. "Cao has repeatedly voted for extra protections for homosexuals at the cost of religious liberty. Cao voted to use the military to advance the radical social agendas of homosexual activists and he voted for a so-called hate crimes bill that places your personal liberties at jeopardy."

Cao co-sponsored both the Hate Crimes Protection Act of 2009 and House legislation to repeal the policy that prohibits openly gay men and women from serving in the armed forces, known as "don't ask, don't tell."

"I believe it is a human rights violation to impose government-sanctioned penalties on a group of people just because of their sexual orientation, just as it would be a human rights violation to impose penalties on a group because of its religious affiliation or race," Cao said. "I will continue to fight for the protection of human rights for all people.