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| Tony Perkins and his group, the Family Research Council, embraces the lie that Trump defeated COVID. |
In spite of Trump's recent irresponsible behavior with regard to his COVID diagnosis, he can always find support from the religious right. These groups and their leaders will shower Trump with praise no matter what he does or the lives he endangers. They are so dependent on the power he gives them over White House policy and the choices he makes when it comes to judges, that they bend over backwards to embrace his version of reality. Even to the point of openly embarrassing themselves.
An example of this is an incredibly awful piece from Family Research Council president Tony Perkins. With a title like Trump Tests Positive for Fearlessness, you just know it's going to be some straight up bullshit.
And Perkins doesn't disappoint.
While the other side is trying to push Americans back into their caves, President Trump refuses to believe that the solution is hiding out until the virus has passed. He made the decision long ago that the business of the country must go on, even choosing -- to the horror of liberals and their friends in the media -- to host a Rose Garden ceremony for the nomination his Supreme Court pick, Amy Coney Barrett. Now, days later, as the country pours over the photo from that event, dissecting who was and wasn't masked, there's plenty of finger-pointing and speculation about who might have been exposed. But in the end, that's all it is: speculation. The reality is, no one knows where and when the president was infected.Some people have noticed that I was in the photo too, sitting just a few seats away from former Governor Chris Christie. I wasn't wearing a mask, because I've already had coronavirus. And those of us who have the antibodies need to be out and about, because we become part of the process that stops the spread. But if we hide in our homes, waiting for a vaccine, we'll never reach herd immunity. And in the meantime, we'll destroy our economy, drive up societal pathologies because of isolation and stress, and leave hurting people -- thanks to shuttered churches -- without a single place to turn.
. . . We all need to take our cue from this president and stare down these challenges with boldness. "His push to reopen the economy, get people back to their jobs... were exactly the kinds of things a president must do to rally the nation during a crisis," Michael Goodwin applauded. "While many on the Left have help up Biden's hermit-like behavior as a model of safety, it is impossible to govern that way. No president can remain isolated and appear frightened and still command the respect and trust of the public. To his everlasting credit, Trump never stopped being president out of fear of getting sick."
The reality is a bit less pandering towards Trump:
Trump mounts bizarre and misleading White House return despite warnings
Trump's Covid performance makes you wonder if he believes his own lies — or just wants us to
Trump returns to comparing COVID-19 to the flu: 'We have learned to live with it'
Domestic Workers React With Anger After Trump Says 'Don't Be Afraid of Covid'
Trump's focus remains on himself even as virus ravages country
Majority of LGBTQ youth experiencing anxiety, depression amid Covid, poll find - This is a serious problem.
Twitter users take over Proud Boys hashtag with photos of LGBTQ love - In case you missed it, LGBTQ folks struck a serious blow against hate. Symbolic in a way but it meant the world to a lot of people.
Gavin Newsom nominates first gay, Black man to CA Supreme Court - Sweet!
Supreme Court Smacks Down Appeal By Official Who Refused Same-Sex Marriage Licenses - However, two justices revealed that they are practically drooling to snatch marriage equality away from us. And on the most ridiculous grounds.
With Donald Trump sick in the hospital from the coronavirus and there not being a consistent message on how he is doing, Americans are divided into two camps when it comes to his recovery.
There are Trump supporters and others who consider themselves to be basically patriotic in wishing for his recovery. On the other side of the spectrum are folks whose opinions range from indifference to wishing him well for while noting his blame for his own condition to finally those who have thrown all caution to the wind in wishing that he suffers as much as possible. Even to the point of death.
I guess I am leaning a bit in the second camp. I do hope Trump recovers, but I also hope that he doesn't gain sympathy for his condition for two reasons. The first reason has to do with how he put himself in this bind because of his own reckless and selfish behavior. He refused to take this pandemic seriously and undermined efforts to fight it.
The second reason has to do with basic cynicism.
In an idealistic world, Trump would take his bout with the coronavirus as a sign that his behavior needs to change. In an idealistic world, Trump would finally take on the role as president and steer the country in a direction which would lead us out of this situation.
But this is the real world. Therefore, instead of desired leadership, we get tripe like this:
The White House Gift Shop is selling a “Donald J. Trump defeats Covid” commemorative coin. You can pre-order it now for $100. https://t.co/aPQ0vNRHB3
— Christina Wilkie (@christinawilkie) October 4, 2020
. The idea of selling coins bragging about a "victory" over the coronavirus is extremely tacky and a slap in the fact to the over seven million who are presently infected. And especially to the over 200,000 who have already died. More than that, it epitomizes Trump's inherent selfishness and basic incompetence. A leader like him makes patriotism so difficult. Even though I hope and pray for Trump's recovery, I fully understand why others are either indifferent to his health or wishes that he suffers. You simply cannot show any sympathy for someone who will exploit it without any sense of shame.
John Hoadley is running as a Democrat for the U.S. House and the Republican super PAC Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF) is using words from his Live Journal from 2004 to 2007 to imply that he’s a pedophile who takes meth. At the time, Hoadley was in his early 20s, while his Republican opponent was in the U.S. Congress voting for a constitutional amendment to ban marriage equality.CLF’s ad accuses Hoadley of being “creepy” because, the ad claims, he called women “breeders,” said he wanted to “learn about crystal meth,” admitted to having sex with a “victim,” and wrote the words “four-year-old in a thong.”The blog has already been deleted. In context, though, the quotes are very different. He wrote in June 2005 about going to “straight bars” and he used the word “breeder” to refer to straight people of all genders: “I’m not going to lie: breeder=weird/bad dancers.”CLF’s reference to Hoadley wanting to “learn about crystal meth” is even more outrageous: Hoadley was writing about going to a meeting to literally learn about the dangers of the drug and even told his blog’s readers, “Don’t do meth.”The ad’s claim that Hoadley was a sexual predator with a “victim” is a reference to a poem he wrote about calling a man to discuss hooking up: “I turn to my little black book that’s commonly called a cell phone. My fingers walk as I talk to the latest victim of my sexual conquest.” Poetry criticism aside, the line was not about sexual assault, but about talking with a potential partner before having sex.The last line and the one that has received the most attention is the words “four-year-old wearing a thong.” The phrase is from a 2004 blog post where Hoadley posted a text conversation where one of his friends complained about the over-sexualization of children: “I KNOW! I mean I shudder everytime [sic] I see a four-year-old wearing a thong.”
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| Eric Trump |
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Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes using a dildo on himself to 'own liberals' and prove he wasn't homophobic |
After Tuesday night's debate, Donald Trump is in really big trouble. His overbearing and rude behavior during the debate was enough to draw heat, but the vast majority of the criticism seems to centering on what he didn't do. When asked by moderator Chris Wallace to disavow white supremacist groups, Trump dodged doing it. In fact, when asked to disavow one group in particular, The Proud Boys, Trump instead said “stand back and stand by.”
That comment turned out to be the most memorable moment of the debate because it echoed back to his "very fine people on both sides" comment after Charlottesville, his claim that Obama wasn't an American citizen, and general accusations that he is a racist.
So basically all day Wednesday, Trump and his allies have faced a universal firestorm, even from other Republicans like Sen Tim Scott from South Carolina, because of his refusal to simply disavow white supremacists. It's so bad that even Fox News personalities like Brian Kilmeade, called him out.
As Trump clean up his mess, attention has been focused on The Proud Boys, the group in the center of the storm.. What exactly is this group and who is behind it. The Southern Poverty Law Center has designated them to be a hate group and according to People for the American Way:
The Proud Boys . . . has a long history of violence, hateful rhetoric, and coziness with GOP stars and operatives, most notably Trump confidant, Republican fixer, and convicted felon Roger Stone. The group, founded by Canadian media personality Gavin McInnes and currently led by Enrique Tarrio, held a Sept. 26 rally in Portland, Oregon, prompting the governor to declare a state of emergency. Although the rally attracted far fewer attendees than anticipated, the event was spun by Tarrio with expressions of pride in having not incited violence—an effort to make their group more palatable. The group is, of course, better known for its members’ attendance at the 2017 Unite the Right white supremacist gathering in Charlottesville, Virginia, in which counterprotester Heather Heyer was murdered by a white supremacist.
A regular media personality appearing in various conservative talk shows, McInnes announced to the world Proud Boys as a secret club for “Western chauvinists,” men (“women are not allowed”) focused on “anti-political correctness” and “anti-white guilt” with meetings that would consist of “drinking, fighting and reading aloud from Pat Buchanan’s Death of the West.” The election of President Trump skyrocketed interest in the group, and by the end of 2017, the Proud Boys Facebook and Twitter pages had over 20,000 members, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, with chapters around the world, and possibly coaxed by McInnes’ inflammatory rhetoric (McInnes admitted he may be Islamophobic and acknowledged being sexist), began to attract the attention of extremist groups.
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| Come on Gavin. It can't hurt that much. I saw you lube it up. |
Well the first debate is over and I personally think anyone who watched the entire thing should have a stamp made commemorating our sacrifice.
Y'all know I feel in general but I think I can be backed up when I make the following statement - Donald Trump showed his ass . . . and not in a good way. People are going to condemn this debate and raise hell at the moderator Chris Wallace. But in my view, the entire thing stemmed from Trump being rude, obnoxious, and extremely boisterous.
His behavior controlled the tone and I don't think it helped him. Unfortunately I also think the need for some folks to play the "both sides" game will lead them to also criticize Biden for the sake of some stupid idea of parity.
Here are just a few news briefs
Tonight will be the first of three debates between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Of course I'm rooting for Biden, but if you ask me, I think Team Trump is oozing desperation. Trump has been consistently down in the polls. He is running out of time to rebound and it's showing. All day his team has pushing wild conspiracy theories against Biden, including this one about him wearing an earpiece during the debate. Thanks to several hits by right-wing sources, this claim has gone viral in several places on Facebook.
The Biden earpiece conspiracy theory (which originated in a tweet from a single anonymous source to a NYPost reporter, and was instantly denied by the campaign) is everywhere on Facebook. Absolutely everywhere. pic.twitter.com/AIdXoy4ZIi
— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) September 29, 2020
It's going to be a wild debate and an even wilder campaign as Trump tries to catch up in the polls. Too bad he can't run on his record in office, huh?
Last weekend, various groups of the religious right gathered together for huge events and marches in Washington where they did the usual "God is going to punish America because it's disgusting how women can make their own healthcare choices and LGBTQ are all out in the open" rambling which so many of us have come to know them for.
This time though, it was different. According to People for the American Way's Right Wing Watch, they included praise of Donald Trump:
Speakers lavished praise on Trump and thanked God for his presidency; Trump returned the favor, sending a supportive “presidential message” that was read from the stage to cheers from the crowd, which covered most of a two-block stretch of the National Mall. Trump’s message quoted a phrase from George Washington, a favorite of religious-right leaders, in which the first president said that the “propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained.” To that quote, Trump added, “As a country and a people, let us renew our commitment to these abiding and timeless principles.”
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| Secretary of State Mike Pompeo |
President Donald Trump paid no federal income taxes in 10 of the past 15 years, according to a report Sunday in The New York Times. Trump, who has fiercely guarded his tax filings and is the only president in modern times not to make them public, paid $750 in taxes to the federal government the year he was elected, 2016, and $750 again his first year in office.Speaking at a news conference at the White House, Trump dismissed the report as “fake news” and said he has paid taxes, though he gave no specifics. The disclosure, which the Times said comes from tax return data it obtained extending over two decades, comes at a pivotal moment ahead of the first presidential debate Tuesday, and weeks before a divisive election. A lawyer for the Trump Organization, Alan Garten, and a spokesperson for the Trump Organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press on the report.Garten told the Times that “most, if not all, of the facts appear to be inaccurate.” He said in a statement to the news organization that the president “has paid tens of millions of dollars in personal taxes to the federal government, including paying millions in personal taxes since announcing his candidacy in 2015.”
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| Kierra Johnson |
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| Trump supporting evangelical pastor Robert Jeffress thinks the coronavirus pandemic is 'background noise' when compared to the new SCOTUS vacancy. The pandemic had claimed almost 200,000 lives at the time of his tweet. It has now claimed over 200,000 lives |
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| On the same day Americans coronavirus deaths reached over 200,000, Franklin Graham put out this tweet. He did not ask that anyone pray for the families of those who died. |
If there is one positive consequence coming from a Trump Administration, it's that he took only four years to reveal something which I have been trying to do for 14 - the fact that the religious right/anti-LGBTQ industry is comprised of lying soul-sucking charlatans. And he did that by simply giving them what they wanted in terms of power.
On Tuesday, an ugly milestone was reached during the coronavirus pandemic. Over 200,000 Americans have died from the virus. And almost seven million have been infected. However, this wasn't important to the group of Trump loving evangelicals Their minds were elsewhere, i.e .the fight over Ruth Bader Ginsburg's replacement on the Supreme Court.
According to Christian author John Fea:
For many American evangelicals, Christian witness in the political sphere comes down to overturning Roe v. Wade. This is why the court evangelicals are so gleeful about Trump getting another Supreme Court nomination. This is also why they say virtually nothing about the president’s mishandling of COVID-19 (nearly 200,000 dead), his separation of families at the Mexican border, his environmental policies that will one day make the planet incapable of sustaining life, and his racism. Look for yourself. The silence is deafening.Start your research with these names: Franklin Graham, James Robison, James Dobson, Jenetzen Franklin, Jack Graham, Paula White, Greg Laurie, John Hagee, Tony Perkins, Gary Bauer, Johnnie Moore, Ralph Reed, Robert Jeffress, Eric Metaxas, Jim Garlow, Jack Hibbs, Harry Jackson Jr., Luke Barnett, Richard Land, Jim Bakker, David Barton, Steve Strang, Samuel Rodriguez, Charlie Kirk, Lance Wallnau, and Jenna Ellis.I imagine (again, I only imagine) that some of these people were on a conference call the moment Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. They no doubt started the session with prayer for the Ginsburg’s family and perhaps even threw-out a prayer or two for those suffering through COVID-19. And then, when the pleasantries were done, they got down to strategizing about how to best support the president’s forthcoming Supreme Court nomination and the most effective ways of spinning their 2016 claims that President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee–Merrick Garland–did not deserve a hearing in the Senate because it was an election year.
Robert Jeffress said that COVID-19 is mere “background noise” now that Ruth Bader Ginsburg is dead and Trump can appoint another conservative justice. Background noise? Tell that to the families who lost lives from COVID. What kind of world do we live in where a Christian pastor can say that the loss of 200,000 lives is unimportant and get virtually no push-back from his followers, all men and women who name the name of Jesus Christ?
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| Amy Coney Barrett |
I have so many reasons why I hope Trump loses in November, but this exchange which just happened reaches number one:
Trump's message about the US hitting 200,000 coronavirus deaths is to try and pass blame to China pic.twitter.com/Z2OlvxG7dy
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 22, 2020
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| FRC head Tony Perkins |
It goes without saying that none of these hysterical attacks on the Equality Act or transgender men and women are true. One would think if FRC were actually concerned with faith and morality, it and Perkins would have at least commented once about Trump undermining the pandemic.
However, for a group which places itself on a pedestal as an arbiter of faith and morality, FRC depends a lot on fear. Why change a successful, albeit hypocritical, formula for a seemingly little thing like integrity?
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| Fabian Nelson |
I’m Joe Biden and I approve this message. pic.twitter.com/TuRZXPE5xK
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) September 20, 2020
Troye also condemned Trump in a video released by the group Republican Voters Against Trump, saying Trump once mused that the coronavirus was a good thing because he wouldn’t have to shake hands with as many people.“I don’t like shaking hands with people,” Troye recalled the president saying. “I don’t have to shake hands with these disgusting people.”Troye says in the video that she’s a lifelong Republican but would “come home at night and look myself in the mirror and say, ‘Are you really making a difference?’” “I am voting for Joe Biden because I truly believe we are at a time of constitutional crisis. At this point it’s country over party,” she concluded. Troye joins several other Trump administration officials to speak out against the president ahead of the election, including former national security adviser John Bolton and former defense secretary Jim Mattis.The White House and Pence’s office both dismissed Troye as someone who was miffed over her ouster. She is “disgruntled that her detail was cut short because she was no longer capable of keeping up with her day-to-day duties,” Lt. General Keith Kellogg, Pence’s national security adviser, told the Post. But Troye told the Post she was was deeply involved in the coronavirus task force and helped organize and attend “every single meeting” it held from February until July.
Don't be blase or nonchalant about this. It's a huge crack in Trump's dome.
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| Charlie Kirk channels desperation |
And for those of you that say "Well, it really doesn't impact me, I don't care if Trump goes to prison." Well, first of all, you absolutely should care. Because if we lose, they're going to come after the churches, they're going to come after the organizations, they're going to come after the people, they're going to come after the social media accounts, they're going to come after the bank accounts, they're going to come after every single person that played any form and role into trying to defend President Trump. But social media banning, following in the streets, targeting in every form and fashion. If we lose, if the President loses, they will come for us all. They will come for your children. They will come for your schools. They will come in every fashion. And they won't stop. This idea that the left is all of sudden going to embrace the Christian ethic of forgiveness and moving on, is so short-sighted.
Kirk wasn't specifically pointing a finger at the LGBTQ community. He was speaking about "the left" in the deliberate way conservatives like himself tend to dehumanize Democrats and liberals by painting them as rabid hordes not unlike the zombies in the motion picture World War Z. It would be rather naive for anyone to think that we aren't included in his characterization.
The grand irony of Kirk's silly paranoid claim is that recently he and his group, Turning Point USA, was discovered to be recruiting teenagers to post disinformation online.
According to Raw Story:
On Tuesday, The Washington Post reported on a stealth “troll farm” by Turning Point USA, the right-wing youth group led up by Charlie Kirk, to recruit teenagers to post disinformation on social media — sometimes getting around policies that sites like Facebook and Twitter use to prevent the spread of false political information. “Teenagers, some of them minors, are being paid to pump out the messages at the direction of Turning Point Action, an affiliate of Turning Point USA, the prominent conservative youth organization based in Phoenix, according to four people with independent knowledge of the effort,” reported Isaac Stanley-Becker. “Their descriptions were confirmed by detailed notes from relatives of one of the teenagers who recorded conversations with him about the efforts.”
“I HATE BLACK PEOPLE. Like fuck them all . . . I hate blacks. End of story.”
My vision of hell without of doubt would involve being eternally trapped in a Donald Trump rally. I avoid watching them and to this day have never seen one. As the following tweet from the Lincoln Project demonstrates, they are pretty much all the same - an inept fool incoherently rambling while a bunch of mind-sucked sycophants hang on his every word as if it's the necessary ingredient for their survival. But the Lincoln Project added and subtracted a little something which breaks down this particularly rally, the one held recently in Nevada, tolerable and downright funny. If you ask me, it's more coherent than an actual Trump rally. Though you may feel it is 74 seconds too long.
Trump's Minden, NV speech in 74 seconds. pic.twitter.com/Jvo2CTDSj0
— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) September 14, 2020
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| California governor Gavin Newsom |
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| Gary Bauer thinks Trump's recent troubles prove that there is a conspiracy against him. |
But to one religious right spokesperson, it only proves a conspiracy geared to destroy Trump:
OneNewsNow approached Gary Bauer, president of American Values, about these latest condemnations – but he points out the left has been relentless in its attacks since before Trump was even elected. "They saw Donald Trump as an existential threat to them," he states. "They tried to do everything they could in his campaign in 2016 to stop him. After he won, they then tried one fact scandal after another."
Turning to the more recent anti-Trump accusations, Bauer describes the Woodward book and the Atlantic article as attempts to sway the electorate. "Now here we are in the final 60 days [of the campaign] that will determine whether President Trump can continue to take the country down this new road of reform [through] all the things he's doing – and the left will stop at nothing . . . I fully expect that literally every day there will be a new a line of attack to try to prevent the president from being re-elected."
Bear in mind that Bauer is the same dude who undermined the fight against the AIDS crisis when he worked in the Reagan Administration. Allegedly, he felt that AIDS was God's judgement and those who had it deserved what they got.
Bauer provides no proof of his claims which regards, which he probably sees as a minor concern when there is a juicy conspiracy theory to push. If there's one thing Bauer adores, it's implying that shadowy groups are in dark rooms spinning destructive plans against everything good and righteous. Or something like that. It's better than admitting that he and other religious right leaders pitched their wagons of support behind a con man whose house of cards is hopefully collapsing on his head with just enough cards left over to give them a couple of well-deserved bonks.
Truth be told, if there is a conspiracy against Trump then he should look in the mirror to see the ringleader. More specifically, look in the mirror and then direct his eyes downward. To his mouth.
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| Former 'The Apprentice' contestant Kwame Jackson |
As we ease into this week, which promises to be as chaotic as last week, let's look at a slightly comedic, but highly cautionary tale about a backfire of camp.
Once upon a time, there was a successful and openly gay producer by the name of Allan Carr. He invested money in several successful Broadway productions such as La Cage aux Folles and motion pictures such as Grease. He even won a Tony award. He also managed the marketing and ad campaigns for the motion pictures Tommy and Saturday Night Fever, which were also successful. In addition, he was known for his lavish and wild parties. All of that success meant that he could withstand a few failures, such as the motion picture disaster Can't Stop The Music.
Then came 61st Academy Awards, which he was hired to produce in 1989. It was a disaster. To put it honestly, it was tacky as hell The aftermath was like fire from the sky. The show was viciously condemned, sued by Disney, and ended up generally wrecking Carr's career? the late actor Gregory Peck was allegedly so mad that he threatened to return his Oscar?
But was it actually as bad as it was made out to be. I think so. But you decide after seeing the 11 minute opening which was the center of a lot of condemnation, including Disney's lawsuit (which was later dropped.)
