Courting the New Evangelicals.

The Economist Intelligence Unit ranked victory for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at 12 on an index where the current top threat is a Chinese economic "hard landing" rated 20 (AFP Photo/Jim Watson).

The Economist Intelligence Unit ranked victory for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at 12 on an index where the current top threat is a Chinese economic “hard landing” rated 20 (AFP Photo/Jim Watson).

…Buoyed by his support from deeply religious voters during the Republican primary, the thrice-married Trump has been meeting privately in Manhattan’s Trump Tower with top members of the evangelical community for months, peppering the conversations with fundraising appeals.

At one recent meeting with Trump, evangelical leaders noted how he often flashes a signature hand gesture, with a thumb out and a finger point to the sky, as he enters and exits rallies.

“You see athletes do it all the time and it’s their chance to point to the sky, to thank God for their success,” said Pastor Mark Burns, CEO of a Christian television network based in South Carolina. “Trump does this all of the time, too. He’s giving reverence to the man upstairs.”

“Even with Mr. Trump’s billions of dollars, he too still submits himself to God,” said Burns, who has become a top Trump surrogate and a staple on the campaign trail, frequently introducing the candidate at rallies. “We should all chip in to help him out. You know, even a billionaire needs some cash flow.”

[…]

“Preliminary discussions” are happening within evangelical circles to help Trump raise money—particularly in new age evangelical circles, where many of the leaders have become best-selling authors, top-selling Christian musicians and even minor-celebrities in their own right, Burns said.

And Trump is even beginning to make inroads with more traditional evangelical donors who backed religious conservative candidates who have now dropped out of the presidential race.

Foster Friess, the billionaire who supports Christian conservative causes, told Bloomberg Politics that he predicts conservatives will eventually rally behind Trump.

Full Story Here.

It’s a theory, theories are unproven…

Texas State Board of Education District 9 candidate Mary Lou Bruner (WFAA/screen grab)

Texas State Board of Education District 9 candidate Mary Lou Bruner (WFAA/screen grab)

Mary Lou Bruner. Again. Ugh. This woman makes most extreme Christians seem downright liberal. She is running, once again, for the state school board in Texas. She doesn’t care for her competition, Keven Ellis, who is of the opinion that religious instruction should take place at home, not school. Mary Lou probably thinks that makes him a demon in disguise.

During a Sunday face-off between Ellis and far-right opponent Mary Lou Bruner on WFAA’s Inside Texas Politics, both candidates made their case to voters for the May 24th runoff for the GOP nomination.

Ellis argued that schools needed to be properly funded, but that the district had a responsibility to see that money was spent wisely.

Bruner, who has warned that pre-K programs indoctrinate children into the “homosexual agenda,” called for slashing “special programs” and early childhood education.

[…]

“Ms. Bruner has said that she wants creationism taught in science class,” Inside Texas Politics host Bud Kennedy noted. “And that her views represent those of the district. Are you Christian enough to represent this district?”

“Yes, I am,” Ellis insisted. “I’ve taught Sunday school and Bible quiz in my church in 20 years. And I believe it’s my responsibility to teach my faith to my children. The catch of when you get religion in school is whose religion is going to be taught?”

Bruner disagreed: “When we only teach theory — it’s a theory, theories are unproven — but in the science class, if only one theory is taught then we’re teaching a religion. It is the religion of atheism.”

Via Raw Story.

Egyptian Artists Work Around State Oppression And Censorship.

Ollah - installation by Hossam Dirar (2015)

Ollah – installation by Hossam Dirar (2015)

 

Division (2013) installation by Hossam Dirar (Photo via Hossam Dirar)


Division (2013) installation by Hossam Dirar (Photo via Hossam Dirar)

In times of chaos, artistic expression can be cathartic. But artist expression in a place like Egypt can be insalubrious while working under an oppressive political regime.

“In recent years, the Egyptian arts and culture sector has faced debilitating repression,” the Arterial Network, a non-profit network of artists and activists building democratic arts practices in Africa, noted in December. “Prohibitive restrictions affecting the freedom of artists and journalists are ongoing.”

The Egyptian government passed a law that debilitated certain art-funding NGOs in 2014, and in December of last year, police raided and closed a gallery and a theater in downtown Cairo without giving an official reason. Some artists have also been banned from traveling abroad to receive awards for their work.

Crackdowns on the arts have led many Egyptian artists to avoid addressing politics altogether. “Most of the art since 2011 has avoided talking about political points, aside from a handful of artists,” Dirar told ThinkProgress.

“The current system is perhaps the worst in terms of attacking [or] not accepting people’s voices, whether artistic, political or social,” he said. “There can be no opposition; the state rejects opinions and ideas that differ from their own. The artist finds himself in a tight spot. If you like the system and choose to defend it, you’re fine, but if not, if you vocalize dissatisfaction, if your commentary does not match theirs, you could end up in jail for life.”

Politics may be taboo or risky, but artists throughout history have found ways to be subversive or rebellious to oppression. But for some artists, avoiding politics is impossible. Their impact casts a shadow over society and affects the calculated behavior of every individual Egyptian. To avoid repression, Egyptian artists create social and political commentary using Aesopian methods.

Justin Salhani has the Full Story at Think Progress. It’s a great read. What can I say? Artists must create, it’s not a matter of what we do, it’s what we are. These are artists working in highly dangerous circumstances, going ahead with making a statement and sharing that expression with others at personal risk.

Ollah Project.

Republicans: Who cares if your baby is brain damaged?

The Zika virus is a flu-like disease that is transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito (AFP Photo/Luis Robayo)

The Zika virus is a flu-like disease that is transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito (AFP Photo/Luis Robayo)

As the Zika outbreak grows in the US, President Obama is blasting Republicans for planning to go on Memorial Day vacation before passing needed funding to combat this potential public health crisis.

President Obama spoke to the press after being briefed about the Zika outbreak by public health officials.

The President said:

So we’ve got to get moving. And what essentially NIH and CDC have been doing is taking pots of money from other things — universal flu funds or Ebola funds or other funds — just to get the thing rolling. But we have to reimburse those pots of money that have already been depleted and we have to be able to sustain the work that’s going to need to be done to finish the job.

So bottom line is Congress needs to get me a bill. It needs to get me a bill that has sufficient funds to do the job. They should not be going off on recess before this is done. And certainly this has to get done over the course of the next several weeks in order for us to be able to provide confidence to the American people that we’re handling this piece of business.

If I’m a young family right now, or somebody who’s thinking about starting a family, this is just a piece of insurance that I want to purchase. And I think that’s true for most Americans. And understand that this is not something where we can build a wall to prevent — mosquitoes don’t go through Customs. To the extent that we’re not handling this thing on the front end, we’re going to have bigger problems on the back end.

Obama also urged the American people to tell Congress to do their jobs.

[…]

Republicans would rather go vacation than pass the needed funding to combat the outbreak of a virus that causes brain damage in infants. The Republican Congress is once again placing the priorities of the American people last.

Look what has happened to that mighty republican value of saving the unborn children – they don’t seem to care at all if there is no ungodly woman to punish. They don’t seem to be the least bit disturbed to use this as a way to punish the president, acting like temperamental toddlers, running off to vacation land while people are left to deal with the potential fallout from the Zika virus. Thanks, Republicans.

Via Politicususa.

No Birth Certificate, No School.

Tim Damos / News Republic.

Tim Damos / News Republic.

Like many educational institutions, St. John’s Lutheran School in Baraboo uses federal tax dollars to pay for certain programs, such as free and reduced-price lunches for disadvantaged students.

The funds for those programs are taken from all U.S. taxpayers, without discrimination. And federal civil rights protections say that any student who legally qualifies for the programs can participate, regardless of race, religion, gender identity or sexual orientation.

But taxpayers whose children are homosexual or transgender may not be able to take advantage of those programs, at least not at St. John’s. That’s because officials at the private religious school say they have the right to discipline students for making what they refer to as “sinful choices.”

[…]

In the letter, Breitkreutz outlined new rules that required parents to provide a birth certificate and sign a parent handbook agreement prior to enrollment.

The birth certificate allows the school to know the child’s born gender, and the handbook agreement — which apparently was recommended by the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod — lists discretions for which a student can be disciplined and expelled, including homosexuality.

[…]

“If we cannot legally refuse students who are struggling with homosexuality or gender identification, we must maintain our right to hold to the truths of God’s Word,” Breitkreutz wrote. “In other words, although we do not have the right to refuse admittance to people choosing an outwardly sinful lifestyle, we do maintain the right to discipline and dismiss students for these choices.”

Full Story Here. St. John’s Principal Letter. St. John’s Parent Handbook. Freedom From Religion Foundation Complaint.

So, they’ll accept any child, until they decide to toss that child out. They claim this isn’t discriminatory, as they aren’t looking to ‘weed’ anyone out, no. They just really need those birth certificates. You might want to avoid the comments section on the main article. “Being Christian [as opposed to be any flavour of queer] isn’t a sin.” No, it isn’t, but perhaps it should be.

Maroon 5 says No to NC.

maroon-5-x750

Maroon 5 will not be spending “One More Night” in North Carolina anytime soon, making an announcement today that may have fans in the Tar Heel state in “Misery.”

The Grammy-winning pop-rock group cancelled two shows in the state in response to anti-LGBT House Bill 2.

“This was a difficult decision for us to make as a band,” the group wrote in a statement on their website. The band wrote that they don’t want to “penalize our fans in North Carolina by not performing for them, but in the end it comes down to what we feel is morally right.” Full Story Here.

And, Target is standing firm with their commitment to diversity.

target-ceo-brian-cornellx750

Target CEO Brian Cornell told Fortune magazine on Wednesday that the retail chain’s decision to allow transgender customers and staff to use the bathroom that most closely corresponds with their gender identity hasn’t hurt sales.

“To date we have not seen a material or measurable impact on our business,” Cornell said. “Just a handful of stores across the country have seen some activity and have been impacted.”

[…]

In a May 11 interview with Kelly Evans of CNBC’s Squawk Box, the CEO stated, “We’re going to continue to embrace our belief in diversity and inclusion, just how important that is to our company. … We want to make sure we provide a welcoming environment for all of our guests, one that’s safe [and] one that’s comfortable.”

Full Story Here.

Ben & Jerry Want You

Credit: Ben & Jerry's.

Credit: Ben & Jerry’s.

Ben & Jerry’s unveiled a new social justice campaign — and a punny ice cream flavor to go with it — alongside the NAACP at a North Carolina rally on Tuesday.

The new flavor, Empower Mint, is a peppermint base with fudge brownies and swirls. The new campaign, “Democracy is in Your Hands,” is aimed squarely at the fallout from two Supreme Court cases: Citizen’s United and the 2013 gutting of the Voting Rights Act.

“We believe that these two things — the money in our political system and the attempt to disenfranchise certain segments of our voting population — are profoundly corrosive to our democratic system. And it is creating policies that are promoting deep inequities in our society,” Chris Miller, Ben & Jerry’s Social Media Activism Manager, told ThinkProgress by phone from the flavor’s premiere in North Carolina.

Full Story Here.

Oklahoma: Trans-access a State of Emergency.

The Oklahoma State Capitol. (KOKH/Keaton Fox)

The Oklahoma State Capitol. (KOKH/Keaton Fox)

Oklahoma has joined the party by declaring a state of emergency to block Obama’s directive.

Lawmakers have done so by introducing two pieces of legislation, which will be considered by May 27. First, Senate Bill 1619 would allow students to only use bathrooms based upon their gender at birth. This would render Obama’s directive powerless and also includes the following language:

“It being immediately necessary for the preservation of the public peace, health and safety, an emergency is hereby declared to exist, by reason whereof this act shall take effect and be in full force from and after its passage and approval.”

The law would allow parents to sue school districts who don’t comply, based upon a request for a religious accommodation. Then legislators introduce Senate Concurrent Resolution 43, which actually calls for articles of impeachment against President Obama over the bathroom directive. One of the bill’s sponsors, Rep. John Bennett, explains the rationale:

“This directive to schools is not only unlawful, but the breadth of overreach in this instance by the Obama Administration is shocking. We are working on legislation that would protect our citizens by not requiring our kids and women to share a facility with anyone who ‘identifies’ as a gender that they were not born. We are going to do everything we can to protect our women and children.”

Via Uproxx, Ktul, and Raw Story.

This comes after Oklahoma’s stunning disregard for, well, everything, by passing a bill making performing an abortion a felony. I think this graphic should be up everywhere Oklahoma is being discussed:

oklahoma-sign

Via Politicususa.

73 Republicans Agree

Rep. Bill Flores

Rep. Bill Flores

Seventy-three House Republicans are reportedly challenging the Obama administration’s authority to issue schools guidance on the restroom use of their trans student population.

Texas state representative Bill Flores, chairman of the Republican Study Committee, is urging “members to sign on to a letter, pushing the Departments of Education and Justice to detail how, and on what authority, they plan to enforce the new guidelines,” as The Daily Signal, a conservative news site run by the right-wing Heritage Foundation, reports.

“Americans are incensed by President Obama’s blatant executive overreach,” Flores told the conservative website. “Now they are threatening school funding over an issue that should rightfully be left to the states. Their actions are politically motivated and Congress has every responsibility to challenge them.”

[…]

North Carolina state representative Mark Walker, who authored the letter, believes that the Obama directive poses a danger to schools. Walker told The Daily Caller, a conservative website, that the decision of trans bathroom access should be up to individual administrators to make, not the federal government or youth. He said it allows students to make up the rules “from one week to the next.”

“If a 17 year-old young man wants to go shower with the girls on the soccer team,” Walker argued, “he’s allowed to do that because of his will or his gender fluidity for the week [he] can tell the teacher ‘this [is] what I’m feeling, this is where I’m at’ and she has no recourse to step in.”

Fuck me, but these idiots are beyond tiresome. They are utterly ignoring gender dysphoria and transgender people in favour of this nebulous ‘gender flu[idity]’ that people are going to mysteriously come down with whenever.

Walker’s fear, however, is unfounded. In the more than 200 localities across the United States that have passed nondiscrimination laws providing equal access in public accommodations, there’s never been a reported case of a cisgender person — student or otherwise — pretending to be trans to gain access to the opposite-sex facilities.

[…]

This statement is strikingly similar to an earlier dispatch from Oklahoma, Texas, and West Virginia, issued by their states’ attorneys general. “The so-called ‘significant guidance’ issued by the Obama Administration raises more questions than it answers, just as it creates concerns among anyone who believes sex is a biological fact and not a personal preference,” Texas state representative Ken Paxton argued in a May 17 statement.

Oh, gender is a biological fact, it just resides in the brain, not the genitals. It would certainly be nice if these people would exercise their brains a bit. This is starting to sound suspiciously like the creationism vs evolution fight. Might be nice if they remembered they lost that one. At any rate, these are bloody guidelines, it isn’t law, it isn’t an order, it isn’t enforceable.

Full Story Here.

100 Year Old Anti-War Graffiti to Be Saved

The cells of Richmond Castle, which have over 5,000 drawings on them, will now be preserved by English Heritage. Credit: English Heritage


The cells of Richmond Castle, which have over 5,000 drawings on them, will now be preserved by English Heritage.
Credit: English Heritage

Richmond Castle has been standing since shortly after William the Conqueror invaded England in 1066.

Throughout its long history, the fortress in North Yorkshire has held a lot of prisoners. Surprisingly, it was still being used for this purpose as recently as 100 years ago, during World War I.

Conscientious objectors — people who refused to take part in the war on moral or religious grounds — were held in the castle’s tiny cells.

And while they were there, they scratched messages of protest and pictures into its walls. A kind of World War I graffiti.

Since then, the castle walls have been crumbling away, threatening to erase those historical marks.

But now the structure is going to be saved, thanks to a grant of half a million dollars just approved to preserve the site.

[…]

The identities of many of the graffiti artists remain unknown, but according to Leyland, some of the drawings were made by a group who came to be known as the “Richmond Sixteen.”

Imprisoned in the castle for refusing to take part in the war effort, the group was then forcibly sent to France to carry out non-combat roles on the front.

When they continued to resist, they were sentenced to death by firing squad. But “in a dramatic scene, their sentences were reduced to 10 years of hard labor,” said Leyland.

“But they were willing to go all the way and face the ultimate deterrent. They would rather be killed than kill.”

Bert Brocklesby, one of the so-called Richmond Sixteen, drew this delicate sketch of his fiancée, Annie Wainwright. Credit: English Heritage

Bert Brocklesby, one of the so-called Richmond Sixteen, drew this delicate sketch of his fiancée, Annie Wainwright. Credit: English Heritage

Full Story Here.

La Raza says no to NC.

Janet Murguia. Via Facebook.

Janet Murguia. Via Facebook.

National Council of La Raza, the nation’s largest Latino civil rights and advocacy organization, announced it has moved its 2016 Northeast/Southeast Affiliate Leadership Convening, scheduled for October, from Raleigh, N.C., to Miami, in protest of the state’s anti-LGBT law, House Bill 2.

[…]

In a statement, La Raza president and CEO Janet Murguía said, “Hispanics know what it is like to be singled out and stripped of our humanity because of who we are or what we look like. And with the wave of anti-immigrant state laws in recent years, the Latino community is all too familiar with legislation that purports to ‘protect’ but, in fact, legalizes discrimination.”

She called HB 2 “a solution in search of a nonexistent problem; it is unnecessary, offensive and violates not only our rights, but our values as Americans. By taking this action, we extend our support to the efforts of so many in North Carolina and the LGBT, civil rights and business communities to repeal this egregious law.”

Full Story Here.

sarah_2

Cardinal Robert Sarah, keynote speaker at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. on May 17, 2016. (CNSNews/Hollingsworth)

On the other side, Cardinal Robert Sarah was having a fine time mocking LGBT peoples everywhere, at a National Prayer Breakfast in Washington.

“In your nation, God is being eroded, eclipsed, liquidated,” Cardinal Robert Sarah, who was appointed as Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments by Pope Francis in 2014…Cardinal Sarah condemned same-sex marriage, transgender bathroom laws, and attacks on the family as “demonic”.

“All manner of immorality is not only accepted and tolerated today in advanced societies, it is even promoted as a social good,” the African cardinal said. “The result is hostility to Christians and increasingly, religious persecution.”

“This is not an ideological war between competing ideas,” Sarah told the D.C. gathering. “This is about defending ourselves, children and future generations from the demonic idolatry that says children do not need mothers and fathers. It denies human nature and wants to cut off an entire generation from God.”

There is a great deal more here.

Trans* Support

AP Photo / Shutterstock

AP Photo / Shutterstock

John asked American elected officials to recognize the concerns of all people, including transgender individuals, in a commentary for The Hill. He called the North Carolina law a “brand of ignorance” that “shuts out the perspective of an already marginalized community” and expressed concern over similarly bigoted legislation introduced in other states.

While John mentioned the “millions of taxpayers dollars” wasted in defending the law, above all, he called North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory’s discriminatory law “a failure of compassion.”

Full Story Here.

AP Photo

AP Photo

On the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, President Obama has released a statement reminding nations around the world of “the simple truth that LGBT rights are human rights.”

In the statement, posted on the White House website, Obama noted his administration’s activism on behalf of LGBT people and the recent advances made in LGBT rights, such as the Supreme Court’s marriage equality decision last year. “At the same time, there is much work to be done to combat homophobia and transphobia, both at home and abroad,” he noted.

Full Story Here.

“I know you’re hearing a lot of hateful rhetoric about our LGBT families,” says Arizona Rep. Ruben Gallego. “Please, hang in there.”

 

To mark the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, 25 Democratic members of Congress are promising to stand with LGBT Americans in the face of hateful legislation and rhetoric.In a video kicking off the #WeAreWithYou campaign, members of the Congressional Equality Caucus channel U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s historic remarks last week, when she told the beleaguered transgender community, “We see you, we stand with you, and we will do everything we can to support you going forward.”

The congressional campaign is led by Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, New York’s first openly gay member of Congress and cochair of the Congressional LGBT Caucus. Maloney published a compilation video on his YouTube channel this morning, featuring clips of each of the featured members of Congress; full-length videos are slated to be published by each Democrat’s office throughout the day.

[…]

“Discrimination has no place in the law, and these attempts to legalize hate are shameful,” Maloney said in a press release announcing the campaign. “These laws tell LGBT people that who they are or who they love makes them less valuable as human beings — and that’s just wrong. I started this campaign because, from North Carolina to Missouri, I want LGBT Americans to know that they are not alone. So I am asking my colleagues in Congress and folks across the country to join me and tell our LGBT brothers and sisters, ‘We’ve got your back, and we’re going to keep fighting for you until we win.’”

Full Story Here.

London

Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, flew the rainbow flag from City Hall on Tuesday to commemorate the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia. […] “I could not be more proud to help celebrate IDAHOT 2016 by flying the Pride flag here at City Hall,” said Khan in a statement to U.K. LGBT outlet Pink News.

Full Story Here.

20.

Courtesy Whitehouse.gov Thirteen years before he took office as president of the United States, James Abram Garfield predicted the extinction of the American Indian.

Courtesy Whitehouse.gov
Thirteen years before he took office as president of the United States, James Abram Garfield predicted the extinction of the American Indian.

Thirteen years before he took office as president of the United States, James Abram Garfield predicted the extinction of the American Indian.

“The race of the red men will… before many generations be remembered only as a strange, weird, dreamlike specter, which once passed before the eyes of men, but had departed forever,” he said in 1868 when, as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, he proposed a bill that would transfer Indian Affairs from the Interior Department to the War Department.

The Indians had unpronounceable names, crude clothing and habits of “roaming,” Garfield said. He called it a “mockery… for the representatives of the great Government of the United States to sit down in a wigwam and make treaties with a lot of painted and half naked savages.”

[…]

Garfield spoke despairingly about the future of the Indians, believing nothing could be done to stop “the passage of that sad race down to the oblivion to which a larger part of them seem to be so certainly tending.” Perhaps, he concluded, it was best to let the Indians slip into extinction “as quietly and humanely as possible.”

Full Story Here.