What They Vote For (Yellowhammer Special)

#supremacism | #WhatTheyVotedFor

This is the sort of thing only voters can achieve:

Rep. Mo Brooks is moving on after a distant third-place finish in the Republican primary on Tuesday for the Alabama Senate special election.

And Brooks is doing that without endorsing either of the two men, Judge Roy Moore and appointed Sen. Luther Strange, who beat him to enter a runoff on Sept. 26 to decide the GOP nominee.

(Connolly)

More precisely: After rejecting Rep. Mo Brooks to replace Attorney General and former U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions, voters find themselves presented with a choice between the disgraceful Luther Strange and the disgraced Roy Moore, and history reminds that state voters have already re-elected the twice-disgraced former Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court after his first tumble from grace for abuse of authority. What chance does Luther Strange have? All he ever did was take his dispute against human rights, on behalf of religious supremacism, to the Supreme Court and lose.

A Note on Domestic Terrorism

#resist

So … yeah. Any questions on this one?

We might call these people “alt-right”, but they are the American hardline right wing, and they’ve been here the whole time. In recent decades, Republicans have pandered to them in hopes of cultivating a permanent conservative majority. What happened in Charlottesville is not an accident. Nor was the conservative effort to take it this far.

Many prominent Republicans have stepped forward to say what needs to be said in the vital minutes and hours following the terror attack, and then President Trump’s attempt to spread the blame. We need not ask where Republicans were before this happened: They were busy stirring supremacists against people of color, women, homosexuals, and non-Christians.

Heather Heyer died yesterday. May her family and friends find peace, and may she please find justice. We shall carry her name until then, and, you know how it goes, we probably won’t ever want to put it down.

And we need to recognize that she will not be the last.

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@MarkHerringVA. “The violence, chaos, and apparent loss of life in Charlottesville is not the fault of ‘many sides.’ It is racists and white supremacists.” Twitter. 12 August 2017.

Some 2020 Democratic Presidential Speculation, Just Because

It would be easy enough to overplay the drama in an early look toward the 2020 election by Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin of the New York Times:

In a largely leaderless party, two distinct groups are emerging, defined mostly by age and national stature. On one side are three potential candidates approaching celebrity status who would all be over 70 years old on Election Day: Mr. Biden, and Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

‡

Competing against the Democrats’ senior cohort is a large and relatively shapeless set of younger candidates who span the ideological spectrum: governors, senators, mayors, wealthy executives and even members of the House. They are animated by the president’s turbulent debut and the recent history, from Barack Obama’s victory in 2008 to Mr. Trump’s last year, of upstart candidates’ catching fire.

‡

In the Senate alone, as much as a quarter of the Democrats’ 48-member caucus are thought to be giving at least a measure of consideration to the 2020 race, among them Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kirsten E. Gillibrand of New York, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Kamala Harris of California. All are closer to 40 than 80.

‡

For now, however, it is the party’s septuagenarian trio that is casting the longest shadow over 2020, and all three have taken steps to extend or expand their leadership status in the party.

In between, for good measure, is discussion of an amorphous non-faction we might consider as the collected other, including Rep. Seth Moulton (MA-06), Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, and New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu. Before booking the orchestra for a dramatic score, we should remember this is merely April, 2017; Democrats need to to read the midterm map, first. That is to say, it seems a bit early to see who lands where in relation to what. And, admittedly, it is hard to account for the proverbial known unknowns in the time of Trump; the unknown unknowns seem extraordinary at this time, too.^α

Butchery and Botchery

#trumpswindle | #WhatTheyVotedFor

Chauncey DeVega inquires after a point close to the heart of the #trumpswindle:

What happens when Trump and the Republican Party are done feasting on the “white working class” and their other supporters? When the bones are picked clean, to whom will they turn for a meal? People of conscience know the answer even if it terrifies them.

If a budget is a kind of moral document and a statement of priorities, Trump has shown that he is an enemy of the American people and the common good—including his most stalwart supporters. If Trump is willing to betray them, all others should quake in fear at what he plans for his enemies in the process of “making America great again.”

The question echoes: To call for Main Street over Wall Street, why would anyone vote for Donald Trump? To call for empathy with the working classes, why would anyone vote for Donald Trump? To drain the swamp of entrenched interests, why would anyone vote for Donald Trump?

Justice Answering Hatred

The report from Cleve Wootson, Jr. for the Washington Post:

A jury has convicted an Atlanta truck driver accused of pouring boiling water over two gay men as the couple slept in February.

The jury deliberated for about 90 minutes Wednesday before finding Martin Blackwell guilty of eight counts of aggravated battery and two counts of aggravated assault, according to the Associated Press.

Blackwell was sentenced to 40 years in prison.

Three words: United States of America.

Two more: Scald attack.

And one more: Bigotry.

This is not complicated math.

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Wootson Jr., Cleve R. “Man who threw boiling water on gay couple will spend 40 years in prison”. The Washington Post. 24 August 2016.

Beehive Buzz

Just an update to a tale out of Utah:

A Utah judge who had ordered a baby girl taken away from her lesbian foster mothers and placed in a heterosexual home removed himself from the case Monday as criticism turned into calls for his impeachment.

Though Judge Scott Johansen had reversed his decision and allowed the 9-month-old baby to stay with the married women recommended by state welfare authorities, there were concerns he could still have the baby removed from their home in Price later on.

April Hoagland and Beckie Peirce asked for the judge to be disqualified, saying that the decision revealed a potential bias that broke the rules of judicial conduct, their lawyer Jim Hunnicutt said.

While Johansen disputed their legal standing to call for his removal, he nevertheless stepped aside nearly a week after the Nov. 10 order criticized by national gay rights groups, the state’s Republican governor and others.

(Whitehurst)

This is a relevant question, I think: For all we might hear our politically conservative neighbors bawl about liberal judicial activism, what would they call a judge who has to make stuff up in order to desperately cling to traditional family values?

Just like we didn’t hear them complaining when the Sixth Circuit decided to arbitrarily recriminalize homosexuality for the purpose of sending a case to the Supreme Court.

Then again, I still recall the cries of liberal judicial activism in Roper v. Simmons, in which the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the decision of one of the most conservative state supreme courts in the country.

A judge getting caught faking it as he goes in order to exercise his right of conscience to deny equal protection in his own courtroom? If that isn’t an example of the sort of judicial activism our conservative neighbors constantly complain about, then … er … well, it would be one thing to say, then it is no longer clear what, exactly, they are complaining about, except, you konw, something about the day ending in -y.

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Whitehurst, Lindsay. “Utah judge removes himself from gay foster parent case”. Associated Press. 16 November 2015.

Hatred (Beehive Betrayal)

This is a fair question: Why do angry grown-ups take it out on children?

No, really, after all these years of hearing homophobes wailing, “What about the children! Won’t someone please think of the children!” just what are we to think about the astounding temper tantrums in which allegedly responsible, sober adults―judges, legislators, governors, whole churches―aim to harm children in order to make some sort of stupid point? To the one, by the time we get back to Utah, we’re not surprised. To the other―

A married Carbon County couple says they plan to fight a judge’s order that would force them to give up their infant foster daughter simply because they are lesbians.

(Dobner)

―oh, come on!

You are not ....

What? What can I possibly say?

House Boehn

Over the years, one constant is that American conservatives have some of the best potential to actually, genuinely surprise me. In a way, this is predictable; if we suggest it is not simply the positions they hold―e.g., a diverse range of prioritized supremacism―but also the severity and desperation, it only makes sense that it would be conservatives offending me, as there are very few liberal advocates of white, Christian, male, heterosexual supremacism. That sort of thing.

But it happens in other ways, too. Imagine an accurate description of George W. Bush’s presidency, offered as a prognostication the night he was elected. And think of it this way, too―it’s not just the wars. Consider: Vice President Cheney will craft energy policy in secret meetings with people who wreck the energy industry, and then claim executive privilege to hide that record from public scrutiny until it is time to surrender those materials to the National Archives, whereupon he will claim to be part of the Legislative branch of government. Back then, it would have seemed a wild claim. Not that a vice president would hold secret policy meetings and try to hide the record, but to suggest Mr. Cheney would be so damnably stupid as to hide behind executive privilege and then claim to not be part of the executive branch―both claims regarding the same issue―would have seemed an insulting condemnation of his character and intellect alike.

Then again, by the time the Bush/Cheney administration was finished, nothing really seemed surprising, did it?

What about the Speakership of John Boehner?

When he took the gavel, would any of us have imagined this end? What would it have sounded like to predict the worst speakership in the history of the nation? What would people have said of purported clairvoyance spinning tales of such incredible incompetence? Here, try this one: No, we don’t want the President to use his executive authority on immigration; I have a bill. No, we can’t pass our bill; I guess the President will have to use his executive authority. No, the President should not have used his executive authority; we will find a way to sue him in order to stop him.^α

How about Tuesday?

No, really, I made a joke. It wasn’t a good joke; it was an obvious joke about a House Republican Conference so fractious and intractable that the Speaker of the House could not actually manage to do anything useful. And it is a House Republican Conference so fractious and intractable that we now get to find out whether or not Speaker Boehner is capable of merely resigning properly.

Boehner said in a statement that he’ll continue to serve as speaker until the House selects someone to replace him. “We will announce the date for this election at a later date, and I’m confident we will elect a new Speaker in the coming weeks. Our conference will work together to ensure we have the strongest team possible as we continue to focus on the American people’s priorities,” said the Ohio lawmaker.

(Frumin)

This is really happening.

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^α And we’re still waiting for the lawsuit, as I recall.

Frumin, Aliyah. “Kevin McCarthy abruptly drops House speaker bid, race postponed”. msnbc. 8 October 2015.

Another One

So …

Indiana House Majority Leader Jud McMillin, a cosponsor of the state’s controversial “religious freedom” law resigned his seat abruptly Tuesday, after a sexually explicit video starring the representative was sent via text message from McMillin’s cell phone. The Indianapolis Star reported it is unclear who sent the text or how broadly it was distributed.

This is the second time McMillin has resigned from a job over sexual misconduct allegations.

McMillin was a rising star in Indiana Republican politics, a conservative who also spoke out against marriage equality, opposes nondiscrimination protections for LGBT people, and coauthored legislation to prevent an LGBT youth group from obtaining a specialty license plate. In a prepared statement released yesterday, McMillin said the “time is right for me to pass the torch and spend more time with my family.”

(Browning)

… what, really, is anyone supposed to say?

Here’s another paragraph about this paragon of Indiana virtue:

In 2011, a Bilerico Project expose on the lawmaker highlighted McMillin’s past brushes with the law and allegations of sexual impropriety. The site reported that McMillin had faced petty theft allegations, vehicular homicide charges, and was forced to resign a job as a deputy prosecutor after a domestic violence victim claimed he forced her to press charges against her will and coerced her into a sexual relationship. Court filings in the victim’s subsequent lawsuit against for the former prosecutor show McMillin sent her incredibly graphic sexually explicit photographs from his phone and was caught having sex with her in a state park.

This is a guy who Indiana Christians rallied behind, because, you know, he said he would “protect the institution of marriage”.

Now that we understand a bit more about what that actually means, can any of us really say we are surprised?

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Image note: Rep. Jud McMillin (R-Brookville) takes the oath of office during Organization Day at the Statehouse in Indianapolis, Tuesday, 18 November 2014. (AP Photo/A.J. Mast)

Browning, Bil. “Antigay Indiana Lawmaker Resigns After Sex Tape Text”. The Advocate. 30 September 2015.

The End Times Shuffle (Bachmann’s Belfry Backbeat Redux Remix)

The Bach is back.

Indeed, if Michele Bachmann is aiming for a new hit, perhaps recycling her old clearance-bin favorites isn’t the best of ideas.

Former Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann this weekend warned that gay couples marrying and legal abortion could lead to America’s destruction.

Appearing on Understanding the Times with Janet Markell, Bachmann, who spent much of her political career heaving anti-gay rhetoric, denounced President Barack Obama’s “dangerous policies,” which she claimed have angered God.

“When we raise our fist to a holy God and say that we are going to redefine marriage, we are going to be okay with paying a Planned Parenthood to cut up innocent baby parts and sell them for research, that clearly is a problem,” Bachmann said. “And we have seen God render judgment in the days of Noah, in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah and so forth throughout history. What the prophets have told every generation is that there is a just God and the people must repent and turn to him. So too in this day of wickedness in our own culture, we need to do the same. We need to repent, and we need to confess because a holy Savior is coming to save us and redeem us from this sin-sick world.”

Markell agreed, saying that the pair could witness “the Lord’s literal return even before we finish this broadcast.”

(On Top)

Maybe the problem is that Bachmann wasn’t clear enough last time, when she said God would remove his “hedge of protection” over the United States, “and we will suffer the consequences as a result”.

Then again, we might also wonder at the strange phenomenon in which faith in the Almighty and American patriotism alike depict a God and nation so horrible.

Think about it this way: This is the same brand of “Christian” faith that bawls about the lack of patriotism in a black preacher complaining of racial discrimination, but rallies around white Christians celebrating a murderous God who will destroy America because we’re not being mean enough to gays and women.

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Image note: Michele Bachmann, then a Republican Congresswoman from Minnesota’s Sixth Congressional District, speaks with reporters at the U.S. Capitol, 11 December 2014. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

On Top Magazine Staff. “Michele Bachmann: God May Destroy America Over Gay Marriage, Abortion “. On Top. 29 September 2015.