Saint Reagan vs RNC.

FFRFRNCProof

Former President Ronald Reagan’s son and namesake Ron Reagan is literally the poster-person against religion. While the younger Reagan has been doing ads on news channels for the Freedom from Religion Foundation, it will be his father’s words that will hover over the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio in July.

“We establish no religion in this country… Church and state are, and must remain, separate,” the billboard will read.

[…]

“The RNC needs to be reminded that our nation is predicated on a godless and entirely secular Constitution,” she said. “The fate of our Establishment Clause hangs in the balance of the election. We’re not voting for the next president — we’re voting for the next Supreme Court justice.”

The local chapter director, Marni Huebner-Tiborsky, agreed that the message is an important one for Republican leaders to remember. “This billboard couldn’t be any more timely, and is definitely needed to remind our political leaders and the public that political campaigns should stick to a secular platform, where real change can happen,” she says.

Full Story Here. While I do think this might turn some heads, I doubt it will make a serious impact at this late date in the game. I also think the current crop of repubs is simply too far gone to consider this seriously, although it will hurt to see St. Ronnie going against their constant screed.

26.

Theodore Roosevelt. Whitehouse.gov.

Theodore Roosevelt. Whitehouse.gov.

When Theodore Roosevelt took office in 1901, he already had a long legacy of animosity toward American Indians.

Seventeen years earlier, Roosevelt, then a young widow, left New York in favor of the Dakotas, where he built a ranch, rode horses and wrote about life on the frontier. When he returned to the east, he famously asserted that “the most vicious cowboy has more moral principle than the average Indian.”

“I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indians are the dead Indians, but I believe nine out of every 10 are,” Roosevelt said during a January 1886 speech in New York. “And I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth.”

[…]

Roosevelt’s seven and a half years in office were marked by his support of the Indian allotment system, the removal of Indians from their lands and the destruction of their culture. Although he earned a reputation as a conservationist—placing more than 230 million acres of land under public protection—Roosevelt systematically marginalized Indians, uprooting them from their homelands to create national parks and monuments, speaking publicly about his plans to assimilate them and using them as spectacles to build his political empire.

[Read more…]

A Gay Republican Is Still A Republican.

Jason Elliott.

Jason Elliott.

A conservative republican, gay or no, is still a conservative republican, with a lot of repugnant views. I’d so like to think that being queer would provide more insight, generate some compassion, but it doesn’t in such cases. Next January, Jason Elliott will become South Carolina’s first openly gay lawmaker, representing a portion of Greenville in the S.C. House that includes conservative Bob Jones University.

Elliott says voters in Greenville’s House District 22 know he is gay but his sexual orientation did not play a role in the race. […] “With my knowledge and understanding that people knew of my orientation, the election results tell me that — rightfully — we focused on issues that are relevant to the position for which I was running,” Elliott said. He is pro-life, and supports the 2nd Amendment, restructuring state government and school choice.

Right. No surprises there. What did leave me scratching my brain was this little bit:

“Unquestionably and undeniably, I am a Republican and proud to be one,” Elliott said. “I’m also proud of the fact that I’m a white male, 6 foot, 2 inches with too much gray hair for 45 — and also happen to be gay.”

Um, what is that? An advertisement? Because those are kind of odd things to be proud of, outside of being gay and out.

Via Greenville Online.

Sunday Facepalm

Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi.

Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi.

Well, the KKK is back at it with their little flier campaign. It’s a bit more involved than the last effort in Georgia.

Following the mass shooting at gay nightclub ‘Pulse’ in Orlando, Florida, the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi gave out anti-gay pamphlets to the homes in Gautier and Ocean Springs along the Gulf Coast.

[…]

In response to news reports of the incident, Brent Waller, who identifies as the Imperial Wizard of the United Dixie White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan Realm of Mississippi, said it’s his right to distribute whatever material even if locals do not welcome them.

‘I got the same right under the First Amendment to pass out pamphlets and literature just the same as the newspaper does,’ Waller told the Hattiesburg American.

Waller defended his group’s anti-gay sentiments by saying that black people and Muslims are also their list.

‘[The pamphlets were] put out in a legal fashion, nobody’s being targeted,’ he said. ‘There’s some things about gays, but there’s also some things about blacks and we’re coming out with one on Muslims next week.’

Goodness, he sounds a wee bit defensive. I’ll admit to being quite amused at the politically correct disclaimer after the Boycott 101’s final paragraph:

“Don’t let the outside immoral crowds and their news media get your butt in a bind. We will never bow to homosexuality and bestiality or other unnatural sexual perversions that go against the laws of nature and GOD.”

It said: “This is a mass flier drive, no one is being targeted because of race, religion, national or sexual orientation.“

Emphasis mine. Not overly amused though, because while the Klan is not remotely the same powerful organization it used to be, given the rise of the far right everywhere, along with white nationalism, it doesn’t pay to completely discount such groups. There’s a great deal of ugly in the Boycott 101 flier, but even the Klan, it seems, has had to learn where to carefully draw a line.

And Waller said he and his group don’t want outsiders coming into his state “spreading their liberal agenda.”

“Our state is being bombarded by outside views,” he said. “They get on the news about the flag and gay rights agenda.”

But the straight white perspective is rarely told, even though the bulk of Mississippi residents are white, Waller said.

According to a U.S. Census report issued in July 2014, an estimated 62 percent of the state’s residents are white.

“We’re the Klan that’s been here since the Civil War,” Waller said. “We have long been the voice for the white right wing. People may not like our views, but we are entitled to them.

“We’re not out here hanging people no more, but we certainly have some viewpoints that some people don’t agree with, but we certainly have some who do. I don’t sugarcoat it. I’m not politically correct. We are the main group for the white man. We have been for 150 years.”

Waller said the UDWK will continue to push for the right to be heard.

“We’re really going to get the message out this summer,” he said. “As long as we’re not using any inflammatory or hate-type material in our fliers we’re OK.”

And contrary to popular belief, Waller said, he has nothing against gays as long as they don’t flaunt their lifestyle.

“If somebody wants to live a certain lifestyle, I’m cool with that,” he said. “But if they want to push their agenda on us … I had one of those gay churches contact me. I told them I’m going to pray for you. You don’t have to worry about us harming you, but I think what you are doing is wrong.”

It does appear, at least for now, that the Klan remains mostly de-fanged.

Via Hattiesburg American, and Gay Star News. Boycott 101 Flier.

The United States is not a Christian country anymore.

SAB

That’s according to 59 percent of white evangelical Protestants recently surveyed by the Public Religion Research Institute in partnership with the Brookings Institution. And that number has jumped 11 points in just four years, from 48 percent in 2012.

Evangelicals’ growing conviction that the U.S. is losing its Christian identity, and that the country now is headed in the wrong direction, comes as politicians debate immigration and cultural change during the 2016 election season.

[…]

While a strong majority of white evangelical Protestants agree that the U.S. has lost its Christian identity, Americans overall are split on the question — 41 percent say it was Christian and remains so, and 42 percent say it was in the past but is no longer. Relatively few (15 percent) say America never has been a Christian nation.

The white evangelical Protestant community feels its cultural dominance in America has been lost, said Henry Olsen, senior fellow at the Ethics & Public Policy Center, who attended the press conference.

It certainly doesn’t feel that way to me.

“Over the last four years a growing number are seeing that it’s lost irretrievably,” he said. “That has massive implications for our politics going down the road.”

Americans also are split on whether American culture and the country’s way of life have mostly changed for the better (49 percent) or worse (50 percent) since the 1950s.

And, the PRRI/Brookings report said, “no group of Americans is more nostalgic about the 1950s than white evangelical Protestants,” with 70 percent saying the country has changed for the worse. Americans also split politically on the question: 68 percent of Republicans agree things have gotten worse, while nearly the same share of Democrats (66 percent) say times are better.

Oh, that 1950s nostalgia, for an America that never was. Nothing screams racist white privilege quite like 1950s love.

But Americans agree the country is moving in the wrong direction — a belief that crosses the political divide and has inched up from 65 percent in 2011 to 72 percent. And most (57 percent) believe they should fight for their values, even if they are at odds with the law and changing culture.

That’s fairly obvious, with all the current hysteria over anti-bigotry legislation.

There’s more at RNS. The PRRI survey.

Brexit, Nexit, Frexit…

Marine Le Pen with Heinz-Christian Strache of Austria's far-right Freedom Party (AFP Photo/Vladimir Simicek)

Marine Le Pen with Heinz-Christian Strache of Austria’s far-right Freedom Party (AFP Photo/Vladimir Simicek)

Brexit, Nexit, Frexit, Fuck it. The chain has begun, with far-right, racist leaders all over* cheering Brexit, and whipping up similar sentiments all over Europe. I’ll just give you one small quote, and you can go read the rest, I hate beginning the day with despair.

— And the leader of Germany’s right-wing populist AfD Frauke Petry said in a Facebook post the Brexit was a warning that “if the EU does not abandon its quasi-socialist experiment of every greater integration then the European people will follow the Brits and take back their sovereignty.”

Yeah! Can’t have that whole humans being compassionate and caring stuff going on, oh no.

*Including American racist moron, Trump.

Full Story Here.

Ownbey’s Final Solution.

Oklahoma state Rep. Pat Ownbey, R-Ardmore, in 2013. CREDIT: AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki.

Oklahoma state Rep. Pat Ownbey, R-Ardmore, in 2013. CREDIT: AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki.

An Oklahoma lawmaker personally propagated an article over the weekend calling for a “final solution” regarding “radical Islam,” arguing that the 1,400-year-old faith is not a religion and should not be protected under the first amendment of the Constitution.

On Sunday, Oklahoma State Rep. Pat Ownbey re-published an article to his Facebook page entitled “Radical Islam – The Final Solution.” The article was originally published on the personal blog of Paul R. Hollrah, an Oklahoman who touts himself as a “retired government relations executive,” but Ownbey appears to have copy-pasted the piece and reposted it in its entirety, citing Hollrah.

The author is seemingly unaware that the phrase “the final solution” was used by Adolph Hitler and Nazi leadership to describe the horrific genocide enacted against Jews by the Third Reich during World War II, also known as the Holocaust. Instead, the article Ownbey shared purports that in light of the recent massacre of 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando by an ISIS-affiliated shooter, Islam should no longer be categorized as a religion in the United States — or in any western nation.

I really find it difficult to believe that Ownbey is in any way unfamiliar with the phrase the final solution or its meaning. It’s just another alt-right move: “hey, it won’t be like that, we can do a final solution right, you betcha!”

“…if we in the west are to protect our children and grandchildren from the horrors of a worldwide Islamic caliphate, we must first dispense with the cruel fiction that Islam is just another religious denomination, subject to all of the legal protections afforded legitimate religious sects,” Hollrah argues. “Islam is not a religion, subject to First Amendment protections, as we in western cultures understand the term. Rather, it is a complete political, legal, economic, military, social, and cultural system with a religious component.”

Hollrah — who, like presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, appears to be opposed to Muslim immigration into the United States — goes on to blast Christian traditions such as the Catholic Church that take a welcoming approach to Islam, accusing them of being naive. He then defends Trump’s Muslim ban by citing the Communist Control Act of 1954 before insisting that the West “quarantine” all Muslims.

“And since the 95% of Muslims who are described as either ‘moderate’ or ‘un-radicalized’ appear unwilling to play an active role in keeping their radicalized brethren in check, we have no long term alternative but to quarantine them… prohibiting them from residing anywhere within the civilized nations of the Earth,” he writes.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Not even wrong. As for prohibiting them from residing anywhere within the civilized nations of the Earth, once again, we see an American asshole who thinks America runs the world. This point of view is so damn pervasive, and so very poisonous. How do we rid ourselves of this cumbersome and meddlesome belief?

The author of the article at Think Progress goes on to debunk all this ineffable, but dangerous twaddle. A good read.

The “Disarmed Citizen Compensation Act”

State Rep. Bob Gannon (R-Slinger) is proposing the “Disarmed Citizen Compensation Act” that would impose liabilities on businesses that ban guns.

State Rep. Bob Gannon (R-Slinger) is proposing the “Disarmed Citizen Compensation Act” that would impose liabilities on businesses that ban guns.

A state lawmaker wants businesses that ban guns to be held strictly liable for any gun-related injury that might occur in their premises, and to pay triple damages.

The “Disarmed Citizen Compensation Act” is the brainchild of Rep. Bob Gannon (R-Slinger).

“This bill will give the citizens of Wisconsin a better chance of defending themselves and their loved ones against this scourge of terrorist activity,” Gannon said in a news release.

[…]

Gannon’s bill would discourage businesses from posting signs stating that firearms and other weapons are prohibited on the premises. That option was part of Wisconsin’s concealed carry law. License holders who violate the restrictions can be subject to a fine of up to $1,000.

Wisconsin became the 49th state to allow concealed weapons in 2011 with the passage of Act 35. More than 300,000 people have since obtained permits.

To encourage businesses to allow concealed carry, the concealed carry law provided owners immunity from any liability that may from any gun incident on the premises.

But the law didn’t address liability in the opposite scenario — a business that posts a weapons ban and has a gun incident.

Under Gannon’s bill the liability would attach automatically. In other words, if someone — a concealed carry permit holder or otherwise — injured or killed someone with a gun inside a store that had a sign prohibiting weapons, the business would be on the hook for triple the damages to any victims.

Gannon, who is in the property and casualty insurance business, said he was not aware of any similar law in other states.

Anyone surprised at this step of punishing people who don’t want guns on their premises? I think uStates has become the living embodiment of The Peter Principle.

Full Story Here.

Make America White Again.

"Make America White Again" billboard in Polk County, Tennessee (Amy Hines Woody/Facebook)

“Make America White Again” billboard in Polk County, Tennessee (Amy Hines Woody/Facebook)

Rick Tyler, an independent Congressional candidate for Tennessee’s 3rd district, is facing a boycott of his restaurant business after he advertised his candidacy with racist billboard messages like “Make America White Again.”

In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Tennessee resident Amy Hines Woody expressed her outrage by posting a photo of the “Make America White Again” sign, WTVC reported.

“This disgusting bunch of bigotry was erected about 20 minutes from our house,” she wrote, noting that Tyler owned Whitewater Grill in Ocoee. “Please, if you are the decent and loving people I know you to be, boycott this business.”

A Web address on the billboard redirects to Tyler’s campaign website, which explains that the candidate chose a sign that “is difficult to ignore and its message comes across as authoritative and influential.”

Tyler also suggests that his billboard is based on Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan.

Difficult to ignore? Yeah, okay, I’ll say that much is so. Authoritative and influential? Well…perhaps in a Nazi-ish manner. Mostly, Mr. Tyler, it comes across as the same old bigotry, with a healthy helping of asshole whine added in.

“Of great significance, as well, is the reality of the Trump phenomenon and the manner in which he has loosened up the overall spectrum of political discourse,” he noted. “The Make America White Again billboard advertisement will cut to the very core and marrow of what plagues us as a nation.”

Oh FFS, the mealy mouthness! Yes, Trump has brought bigotry back into popularity, and rather than bigoted assholes feeling rather shamed, they are screaming, having fits of hysterics, and collecting guns even more. The very core and marrow of what plagues us…yeah, that would be brown people, right? I rather expect all the pasty queer people will have to go too.

A second sign used words from Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech along with an illustration of the Confederate flag surrounding the White House.

If I ever manage to find my eyebrows after they fell off the back of my head, I might then gather up my jaw from somewhere on the floor. What. In. The. Fuck.

Oh, here it is, folks, via Daily Kos:

tyler

Tyler said that he planned to put up other billboards, including “Fight federal tyranny / Stop the Muslim invasion” and “Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be miscegenators.”

Jesus Fuck, it gets worse.

The candidate told WRCB-TV that he did not hate people of color, but wanted to return to a “1960s, Ozzie and Harriet, Leave it to Beaver time when there were no break-ins; no violent crime; no mass immigration.”

Aauuuuggghhh no no no no no no. People this fucking ignorant should just have to leave. I don’t care where they go, just go. 1960s Ozzie and Harriet, Leave it to Beaver was television, you scant-brained asshole. uStates was not stuffed to the gills with benign papas smoking pipes who always had time for their children, with wives maintaining sparkling clean houses and cooking vast meals in dresses, fuck me heels, and pearls. There were plenty of break-ins, a lot of crime, actually, violent and otherwise, and as for mass immigration? Holy shit, just go away.

Via Raw Story.

Oh, McCrory’s Not Happy. Tsk.

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory speaks to NBC's Chuck Todd (screen grab)

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory speaks to NBC’s Chuck Todd (screen grab)

A school district in North Carolina announced this week that its students can choose which bathroom to use based on their gender identity, and Gov. Pat McCrory is not happy.

The Republican governor released a statement Tuesday condemning the decision after the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District revealed its plans to buck the recently passed House Bill 2, a law that in part rolls back protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees and forces public school students to use restrooms that correspond to their biological sex, the Huffington Post reported. Starting in the fall, the 146,000 students in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg system can base the facilities they use on their identities — something McCrory does not agree with.

“Instead of providing reasonable accommodations for some students facing unique circumstances, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School System made a radical change to their shower, locker room and restroom policy for all students,” McCrory’s press secretary, Graham Wilson, said in a statement to WJZY. “This curiously-timed announcement that changes the basic expectations of privacy for students comes just after school let out and defies transparency, especially for parents. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg School System should have waited for the courts to make a decision instead of purposely breaking state law.”

The school district’s attorney, George Battle III, told the Charlotte Observer the system wasn’t trying to fight HB2, which was passed in March. He said the district was following a precedent set by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled in April that the Title IX anti-discrimination law covers transgender students’ right to choose their restrooms.

“That’s the law of the land for five states that are in the 4th Circuit, North Carolina being one of those states,” Battle told the Observer.

Full Story at Raw Story. I am seriously pleased the school district is doing right by students, but I’ll admit to some happy pleasure at seeing McCrory publicly smacked.

GOP: Guns, God, and Surveillance.

http://www.advocate.com/politics/2016/6/20/not-even-orlando-could-get-senate-act-guns

http://www.advocate.com/politics/2016/6/20/not-even-orlando-could-get-senate-act-guns

After many of them sent “thoughts and prayers” toward the victims of the mass shooting in Orlando last week, Senate Republicans cast enough votes against a group of gun safety bills on Monday — including two proposals from within their own party — to prevent them from moving forward.

The move, while perhaps not surprising, still angered many Twitter users who supported the measures, which included expanded background checks and a ban on gun sales to individuals on terrorism watch lists.

Tweets

There’s more at Raw Story.

In the meantime, the GOP has made clear what they do think will help: more surveillance. Yep, let’s erode the rights of citizens a bit more, it will be okay!

enate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell set up a vote late on Monday to expand the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s authority to use a secretive surveillance order without a warrant to include email metadata and some browsing history information.

The move, made via an amendment to a criminal justice appropriations bill, is an effort by Senate Republicans to respond to last week’s mass shooting in an Orlando nightclub after a series of measures to restrict guns offered by both parties failed on Monday.

“In the wake of the tragic massacre in Orlando, it is important our law enforcement have the tools they need to conduct counterterrorism investigations,” Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican and sponsor of the amendment, said in a statement.

The bill is also supported by Republican Senators John Cornyn, Jeff Sessions and Richard Burr, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Privacy advocates denounced the effort, saying it seeks to exploit a mass shooting in order to expand the government’s digital spying powers.

[…]

The amendment would broaden the FBI’s authority to use so-called National Security Letters to include electronic communications transaction records such as time stamps of emails and the emails’ senders and recipients.

[…]

The amendment filed Monday would also make permanent a provision of the USA Patriot Act that allows the intelligence community to conduct surveillance on “lone wolf” suspects who do not have confirmed ties to a foreign terrorist group. That provision, which the Justice Department said last year had never been used, is currently set to expire in December 2019.

Full story here.

Top 1% Accountability Act.

Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI)

Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI)

Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI) has had enough of the growing movement to drug test poor people who need government assistance. So on Tuesday, she’s introducing a bill that she says will make things fairer.

Her “Top 1% Accountability Act” would require anyone claiming itemized tax deductions of over $150,000 in a given year to submit a clean drug test. If a filer doesn’t submit a clean test within three months of filing, he won’t be able to take advantage of tax deductions like the mortgage interest deduction or health insurance tax breaks. Instead he would have to make use of the standard deduction.

Her office has calculated that the people impacted will be those who make at least $500,000 a year. “By drug testing those with itemized deductions over $150,000, this bill will level the playing field for drug testing people who are the recipients of social programs,” a memo on her bill notes.

Moore has a personal stake in the fight. “I am a former welfare recipient,” she explained. “I’ve used food stamps, I’ve received Aid for Families with Dependent Children, Medicaid, Head Start for my kids, Title XX daycare [subsidies]. I’m truly grateful for the social safety net.”

Ten states require applicants to their cash welfare programs to undergo a drug test. States are currently barred from implementing drug testing for the food stamps program, but Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) has sued the federal government to allow him to do so and has gotten some Congressional Republican support.

Moore has been frustrated to witness attempts to tie those who avail themselves of the safety net to drug use. “Republicans continue to criminalize poverty and to put forward the narrative, the false narrative in fact, that people who are poor and reliant upon the social safety net are drug users,” she said.

In fact, evidence from test results among states that test welfare recipients indicates that they are no more likely to use drugs than the general population — in fact, they may be less likely.

That didn’t stop House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) from using a drug rehab center as the backdrop while he unveiled his poverty plan last week. “I think this is what tipped me over the edge,” Moore said, “rolling out his poverty initiative in front of a drug treatment program to sort of drive that false narrative forward.”

[…]

Her bill will also help illuminate this very fact: that so much is spent on tax expenditures, not just on direct aid programs like welfare and food stamps. “We think it’s important to engage in some transparency and accountability around tax deductions,” she said.

[…]

She also wants to “engage the wealthy in this poverty debate,” she said. “I would love to see some hedge fund manager on Wall Street who might be sniffing a little cocaine here and there to stay awake realize that he can’t get his $150,000 worth of deductions unless he submits to a drug test.”

You go, Rep. Moore! I am all for this, even though this would be one tiny bit of accountability on the part of the filthy rich. Any accountability is better than none. As someone who gets the pleasure of the regular humiliation of drug tests, it would be nice to see the rich unable to dodge this little test the rest of us get hit with for the most basic things. There’s much more at Think Progress.

The Face of A GOP Convention.

Protesters clash with Chicago police after grand jury decisions in police-involved deaths in December 2014. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

Protesters clash with Chicago police after grand jury decisions in police-involved deaths in December 2014. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

For security reasons, Cleveland spokesman Dan Williams said he can’t get into the details of what the city has bought or borrowed, and if all goes well during the convention, we will likely never see much of it. The Cleveland police did not respond to a request for comment. They will oversee security in much of the “event zone” where rallies, marches and other protests are allowed to take place.

The thing about the LRAD, and other devices like it, is that more and more cities have them. And things haven’t always gone smoothly — which is what has activists, civil liberties groups and others in Cleveland concerned.

Much like the federal programs that many Americans only learned of after they saw images of police in tank-like vehicles trying to quell protests and riots in Ferguson, Mo., those $50 million national special security event grants are changing the way America’s cities are policed. They have supplied the funds for cities across the country to obtain devices that some have described as dangerous — or, at the very least, unsuitable for urban settings.

[Read more…]