God's Own Party Run Amok

South Carolina is one of those bizarre Bible-belt states. Normally it is as bat-shit crazy as Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi or Texas but it can get nutty. Of course, this is most likely the case with God's Own Party (GOP).

The Lauren County Republican Party has decided to try to get candidates to sign morality pledges straight out of some back-woods tent revival, absent the handling of rattlesnakes. Their pledge was adopted unanimously by the local Republicans who, given the demographics of the country,probably couldn't unanimously spell unanimously. The county has a median family income well below normal. Unemployment is officially over 11%, and 1 in 7 are officially living below the poverty line. Next consider the ability of locals to complete high school. Compare this graph of US dropout rates to the rates in Laurens County.

If we look at the rates for the same years we find that the local yokels in Laurens are far more unlikely to be graduate high school—which means prime hunting territory for the GOP, maybe. You will see that almost 37% of Laurens students, who should have graduated during the 1994-1996 period, dropped out of high school instead. That is just over three times the national average during the same period. One out of ten white males, ages 25-34, didn't even go to high school and have less than a 9th grade education.

Of those who did complete high school 42.5% took the Scholastic Aptitude Test in the year 2000. The average Verbal score in Laurens was 466; it was 505 for the United States as a whole for the same year. The average Math score in Laurens was 436 while the US averaged 514. The county is poorer than the average county in South Carolina and has a higher suicide rate than the state. More people die in the county than are born there and two-thirds of "adherents" there are Southern Baptists.

And, apparently, the local GOP has confused their political party with a Southern Baptist Church. The local GOP executive committee, or 13 of the 20 members, held a secret meeting which lasted 30 minutes and then unanimously adopted a resolution which stated what kind of Republicans they felt should be allowed to run for office. They said that they didn't think any candidate should be allowed who was contrary to the state Republican Party platform. But here is how the local newspaper listed the qualifications "consistent" with the Republican Party:

You must favor, and live up to, abstinence before marriage.

You must be faithful to your spouse. Your spouse cannot be a person of the same gender, and you are not allowed to favor any government action that would ALLOW for civil unions of people of the same sex.

You cannot now, from the moment you sign this pledge, look at pornography.

The local paper was surprised and contacted the State Chairman of the Republican Party, Chad Connelly. Connelly seemed supportive. He said that technically the party can't stop someone from running for office but that the GOP has to be able to vet candidates to see if they "recognize our core values." Core values? The County resolution says that all candidates must present themselves to the Holy Inquisition for questioning, that is a committee from the GOP, "within 24 hours of the closing of the file period," to see if the candidate is qualified. Connelly said this is important "now that the Republican Party is in such a dominant position in state politics and government."

Apparently the purported, though rarely lived-up-to, morality lectures of your typical fundamentalist sect is now the core values of the Republican Party. Barry Goldwater warned what would happen if these religious kooks and preachers got their hands on the Republican Party, but he own party ignored him.

Here is a county, dominated by Republicans, that can't even educate its own young people up to the pathetic levels of the rest of the country. When your school system is below average, and when you consider how bad is the actual average, then you have a real problem on your hands. But Republicans are pushing abstinence not education, and theology not science. These are people who think there is only one book, the Bible, and just as long as you can figure out what the verses say, you are educated. But, at least you would think they would worry about the poverty rates and the high-than-average unemployment in the country.

No, what inspires this Republican Party outfit isn't the horrible way they run their schools or the problems endemic in their county—what worries them is what someone might look at in their free time or whether or not they love someone of the same gender.

This is party that has their head so far stuck up their own ass, that the mistake the shit they are looking at for brains.

Sure, they might get the so-typical fake Southern Baptist wannbe politician who parades his high-haired clueless wife and butt-ugly children before them. Then he'll sneak out to the local rest stop to expose himself to some undercover cop. He'll swear by the Bible that he doesn't look at porn but will beat his children abusively, and later blame the fondling on too much booze. They will promise they don't love another man, and then for good measure try to prove how much they hate immigrants, gays and Muslims. They'll push their moralistic candidates who will get caught in some scandal.

But that's okay. He'll stand in the pulpit with Hollywood-style tears flowing down his cheeks. His numb-faced wife, clutching her Bible will stand silently and dutifully beside him, one step back, with her confused looking children at her side while he cries out, "I have sinned." He'll beg for forgiveness and the congregation, or is it the party, will yell, "Thank you, Jesus," and wave their hands in the air so God can see them. Everybody will have a good cry, pray a little, sing a little, and then return to their poverty stricken homes while the repentant sinner calls his secretary to tell her which hotel he rented for them.

Monkey Sex Senator Refuses to Back Down

The Republican state Senator, Stacey Campfield, is not backing down from his insane claims about AIDS. Campfield said that a gay pilot had sex with a monkey and then infected men and that the gay community spread AIDS to everyone else. We dissected Campfield's absurd claims here.

He said it is "virtually, if not completely impossible to contract AIDS outside of blood transfusions through heterosexual sex. It's virtually impossible." Now, he tries to claim that comment was taken out of context and that he was referring to risks and, "The odds of a regular man getting it from a regular woman are very low."

First, notice something there. He implies that men contract the disease from women, not that men can infect women. Any individual can contract the disease from any other individual. It is not spread by gay men or women, it is spread by men and women, gay and straight. It is spread by human beings. I guess we could we could add "sexist" to a description to Campfield. It is not just gay men he's bigoted against. By the way, Mr. Campfield is a conservative Republican in his mid 40s who has never been married. Given the past history of raging anti-gay conservatives that is not a good sign for him.

In the interview Campfield claims that the facts continue to back him up. No, they don't. He's just making that up. He claims that the book And the Band Played On supports the claim that a pilot got HIV from having sex with monkeys. The book says no such thing. Note that the Senator makes no attempt to quote the book. He can't. He is taking half facts from dozens of places and combining them according to his own personal bigotry and theories. No one has ever claimed that sex with a monkey started AIDS.

Also pay attention to his use of "regular" man. He was asked what he meant by "regular" and he said "someone who is not from Africa, someone who is not a homosexual, someone who is not an IV drug user, someone who is not sleeping with someone who is one of those things." Okay. So, by regular he means white straight Americans and everyone else is not regular. Apparently marrying someone from Africa also means you are not "regular." Does this sound a tad bit racist? This man is walking stereotype of the Southern redneck, conservative Republican with firm opinions totally unrelated to the facts.

Iowa and Ron Paul: How the Rockwell Strategy Harmed Ron Paul

Let’s look at Iowa and what it may mean. First, Santorum obviously pulled up at the last second. This is not particularly surprising. Santorum is one of the most fanatical of the Religious Right candidates. The rural counties in Iowa are filled with Religious Right types. Remember this is a process that put Pat Robertson into first place in the Republican caucus before and favored Mike Huckabee. So, religious kooks like Santorum do have an edge in Iowa.

The religious voters are a firm percentage of the vote. Romney had little chance with them as his Mormonism counts strongly against him. Next to gays, these people certainly hate Mormons. Ron Paul did his level best to secure their vote, but failed. He put a religious extremist in charge of his Iowa campaign, who actively courted the most extreme fundamentalists in the state, but it didn’t work. At the last minute, the Religious Right voters fled to Santorum, not to Ron Paul.

In spite of this, we should remember that the difference in votes between Santorum and Romney is insignificant. Both have 25% of the vote and with Romney winning by only 8 votes.

The other thing to remember is that these votes don’t mean a lot. There are almost 1200 precincts and each of them will elect delegates to go to the 99 local country conventions. At those conventions delegates will be elected to district conventions, which will then elect delegates to the state convention who elect the delegates to the national convention. At no stage are delegates required to vote for any particular candidate. They are free to vote for any candidate they want. Long-term. a lot can change before the state convention and delegates are free to vote for whomever they wish. Circumstance between now and then can easily sway delegates. This is why I argue the Iowa caucus doesn’t actually mean a whole lot. And Iowa has a poor record picking winners in the national election.

I will guess that a majority of the small number of delegates, 28, that Iowa sends to the Republican convention will support Romney.

From where Ron Paul gain his support? Voters did NOT support Ron Paul because of his paleolibertarian leanings. The views expressed in his newsletters were NOT the main reason people supported Paul. In addition Ron Paul’s attempts to appeal to religious conservatives failed.

The so-called paleolibertarian strategy, which was concocted by Lew Rockwell and Murray Rothbard, was an attempt to appeal to the ugliest aspects of the Right. It promoted a moralistic view, intolerance of gays, racism, conspiracy paranoia and religious-based politics. Rothbard and Rockwell were the main forces behind the ugly parts of Ron’s newsletters. And, I simply cannot accept, based on my knowledge of the newsletters, that Ron was unaware of it. In fact, some of those very elements made their way into later campaigns.

Rothbard and Rockwell hated what they called “modal libertarians,” those who promoted social tolerance, social freedom and didn’t like the bigotry they were spewing. Ron tried to appeal to social conservatives with his emphasis on abortion and his attempts to win over fundamentalist Christians.

So, how did this strategy work out in Iowa?

It didn’t. Ron’s support, according to entrance polls came from the voters LEAST likely to find the bigoted views of Rockwell and Rothbard appealing.

First, the most socially liberal age group in the Republican Party is those under the age of 29. Ron Paul won an overwhelming plurality of young voters. He had 48% support in that age group, more than double the closest rival. Santorum won the age groups of 30 to 64, those Republicans most likely to have come to the GOP during the take-over of the party by evangelicals. The oldest voters, those most likely to be old line Republicans, went for Romney. [Please note that entrance poll data is being updated constantly and that the percentages are changing. What is stated here may be slightly off when the final numbers are accumulated.]

Breaking this down further you see that Paul got 50% of the votes of those 17-24 years of age, 45% of those 25 to 29 and 34% of those 30 to 39. In each age group this is a plurality. Young voters, who tend to be socially liberal, voted for Paul.

Paul also attracted non-typical Republicans. Of caucus virgins, voters who never attended a previous caucus, Paul won a plurality with 33%. Both Republicans and independent voters could attend the caucus. Republican voters overwhelmingly rejected Paul. Paul only received 14% of Republican votes, but he got 43% of the votes cast by independents. .

Republican voters went strongly for the candidates who were most consistently attempting to use religion as the foundation for law. I define those candidates as Santorum, Perry, Gingrich and Bachmann. Between them they received 59% of the Republican votes. The candidates who were perceived as the less religious candidates, in terms of imposing religious values through the law, received 41% of the Republican vote. The GOP is still controlled by the Religious Right.

Among independent voters at the caucus a very different story is told. The theocratic wing of the GOP only got 36% of the support. Candidates not perceived as theocrats—Paul, Romney, and Huntsman—received 64% of the votes.

Voters who self identified as “very conservative” rejected Paul; only 15% of them supported him, about the same percentage as went to Romney. The theocrats received 70% of the “very conservative” vote. For those who identified as “somewhat conservative” Paul’s support increased to 21%. The theocrats received 47% of this group. Voters who identified as moderates or liberals went to Paul. Forty percent of them supported Ron Paul and 35% went for Romney with 3% for Huntsman. Only 22% of these voters supported one of the theocratic candidates.

When it comes to the evangelical voters Ron Paul only received 18% of the vote. The plurality of the evangelicals went to Santorum. The theocratic wing won 66% of the evangelical vote. Romney, Paul and Huntsman received 33% of the evangelical vote. Among non-evangelicals Paul did better; support was 8 points higher. The non-evangelicals preferred Romney and Paul, giving them 64% of the votes.

Ron Paul also jumped into this campaign with a renewed opposition to abortion. He has been more strongly in favor of federal regulation of abortion than any time in his past. But he didn’t gain much because of it. Only 13% of Republicans said abortion was the most important issue. Of these voters, only 7% supported Ron Paul. His support came from people concerned about the budget deficit not abortion.

Look at each group where Paul did well and you see a consistent pattern. They were not the kind of bigoted voters that Lew Rockwell was trying to appeal to with this paleolibertarian strategy. Ron’s support came from voters who were most like the libertarians that Rockwell has consistently slandered.

The very kind of voters that Rockwell would dismiss as “hippies”—the young, independents, liberals and moderates—were the people who made up the majority of Ron Paul's supporters. The people that Rockwell tried to appeal to were far more likely to vote for Santorum.

The flaw in the paleolibertarian strategy was that the people they tried to win over like big government. They are not libertarians. The very kind of people that Rockwell and Rothbard attacked in those newsletters, and in other places, were the ones willing to vote for Ron Paul.

If Ron Paul had sounded more like Gary Johnson, I suggest he would have done better, perhaps enough to win. The publicity about his hateful newsletters lost him a lot of support. He was polling better a few days ago. By trying to appeal to the bigoted vote that Rockwell cherished, Ron Paul lost votes in Iowa.

What about the future for Paul? Can he leave behind the newsletter baggage. He can, but he won’t. To effectively leave behind the ugly images of racism and bigotry Paul would have to name the author of his newsletters. He has refused to do that. And he is not likely to throw Rockwell under the bus. Without doing that the newsletter will always be a ghost from his past that will haunt him.

Paul would also need to more consciously abandon paleo strategy that he has been following. He would need to reduced his anti-abortion rhetoric—which didn’t help him—and stop trying to appeal to the Religious nutters on the Right. They rejected him as well. He needs to ratchet up his appeal to young voters, independent voters and to moderates and liberals. In other words, he needs to the do the complete opposite of what Rockwell and Rothbard laid out in their grand paleolibertarian scheme. Paul can strengthen his position by cutting his ties to Rockwell, admitting he was behind the ugly newsletters, and consciously gooing after the voters who have proven most receptive to his message—and that isn't the Religious Right.

The State of the Race for the Republicans

Here is my best guesses on the primary for God's Own Party (GOP).

Iowa is Ron Paul's best chance. It is the smallest primary which means one doesn't need wide support just fanatical support and the Paul supporters are fanatical, if they are anything. I think it will Romney or Paul but that Paul may see a last minute drop in support. While Iowa is first it is actually one of the less important races because of the small number of voters involved.

Remember that if Iowa was important then Huckabee should have been the GOP candidate in 2008, McCain, the ultimate winner, was tied in 3rd place with Fred Thompson behind Huckabee and Romney. In 1996 Dole was only slightly ahead of bigot Pat Buchanan, whose views most closely match Paul's views. Buchanan's vote then is similar to what Paul is polling now. In 1988 Iowa picked Dole, then Pat Robertson with the ultimate winner, George H.W. Bush coming in third. In 1980 they picked Bush over Reagan. Since 1980, the final winner had opposition in 5 of the elections, with no opposition in 3. Iowa Republicans only picked the ultimate nominee twice, picking a loser three times. I don't think Iowa means much in picking the winner, but it could bust a loser.

If Ron Paul and Romney take the first two places, with Gingrich in 3rd place, it can hurt him. I don't think it will help Paul much, but I think it can hurt Gingrich significantly.

New Hampshire is the first real primary, but also one of the smallest and thus one of the easies to campaign in. A lot of candidates put an emphasis hoping to start a stampede in their favor. New Hampshire picked McCain in 08. In 2004 Bush was really running uncontested. In 2000 NH picked McCain over Bush thus picking a loser. In 1996 they picked Pat Buchanan, whose campaign went nowhere. In 1992 Bush won over the very weak Buchanan. in 1988, Bush won over Dole. In 1984 Reagan was unopposed and Reagan won in 1980. In the significant contested races NH picked the final candidate twice. While more important than Iowa is still a relative unimportant race in my opinion. I think Romney will win New Hampshire.

South Carolina is the first of the bigger states with a primary. I think the race there will be between Gingrich and Romney. Both offend evangelicals because of their religion. Gingrich is part of the "anti-Christ" Catholic Church and Romney is part of the Mormon "cult." At this point Gingrich has to win. If he loses both Iowa and New Hampshire the perception will be that the parade is moving past him. That will reduce his vote in South Carolina. If Paul picks up in the polls because a perception that he is stronger than he is, he could take away enough points from Gingrich that Romney could come in first. By this time it will be apparent that Bachmann, Huntsman and Santorum are going nowhere. Their support will be dropping quickly. Ron Paul should in third place in South Carolina sending the message to Republicans that the choice is Romney or Gingrich.

Next up is Florida, where Gingrich has a lead at this time, Romney is in second and Ron Paul is a very distant third. With Paul's vote totals seeming to fall, in New Hampshire and South Carolina, he should see them falling even more in Florida. Gingrich is posed to win Florida which will give his campaign some life again. If Romney comes closer to Gingrich than currently expected the lose will not hurt him much. At this point I think the race will clearly be between Romney and Gingrich.

Next up the Nevada caucus. Another small state but one where Romney is leading with Gingrich not far behind. Paul is a distant third there. If he picks up it will probably be an Gingrich's expense. Both Gingrich and Paul attract the more rabid conservatives in the GOP. So Paul is more likely to hurt Gingrich than hurt Romney. A Romney win here is likely giving a slight boost to his campaign over Gingrich.

The Maine caucus is next. It is a small state, which often means Paul's fanatical followers have an edge. But the Maine caucus is not relevant. The attendees nominate delegates and those delegates only go to a convention in May where they will vote on a presidential candidate. Exactly who will get those votes is not clear until May so this will have little impact on how the race is perceived, helping to push one candidate or the other.

The Colorado Republican caucus is still relatively small. Gingrich is ahead at this time. But by February 7th, a lot of can happen. If Romney was doing better than originally anticipated he could move into a closer race. Ron Paul won't be significant here. I think the race is going to still be pretty close by this time. The race is going to be clearly a race between Romney and Gingrich. Ron Paul's followers will be screaming that the "Insiders," "Establishment," "Bankers" or whichever conspiracy theory they lean toward were responsible for Paul's clear demise in the election. Why? Because the Texas Messiah himself can do no wrong in their eyes.

Closer to February I will reconsider the race. At this point I would guess that Romney will be the ultimate candidate but there is too much that can happen before then.

Republican Sex Scandal of the Day

Daniel Lucas was a candidate for state representative in Colorado. More precisely he was a failed candidate. A long-time Republican, Lucas lost to the incumbent by almost a two-t0-one margin.

Lucas told a local paper that he's an "open book" and said that he were stranded on a isalnd he would want, "water, food, and a girlfriend."

Perhaps he might adjust that wish to food, water and the pizza delivery boy.

Mr. Lucas is appearing in court in February. The pizza delivery boy says he delivered the pizza but Lucas was acting weird. He was paid for the pizza and then asked if he could get some extra Parmesan cheese. The delivery boy went to the car and got the items. When he returned he found Lucas on his knees. The former Republican politician asked suggested an exchange of money for oral sex on the young man. Lucas denies it all. He says they had friendly banter and that in one comment the delivery boy intimated Lucas was gay so Lucas claims he "began acting gay." Yep, gay guys always are on their knees in front of pizza delivery boys.

The delivery boy says that he backed out of the door immediately and that Lucas tried to grab his arm to prevent him leaving. Lucas may already have started working on a defense when police arrived after the delivery boy complained.

Lucas "appeared nervous and his train of though was not linear, as he bounced between several topics." (Hmm, this sounds like the majority of the GOP presidential candidates.) Lucas claimed his mother wanted the extra condiments for the pizza but when police asked to speak to her they were told she wasn't even there. Lucas did tell police he had "probably done something inappropriate that he should not have done." Lucas later changed his story claiming that the delivery boy had come on to him and that he must have done something to the pizza and that he (Lucas) was keeping it for DNA evidence. Lucas then told police he "won't do it again" and was willing to drop the whole thing. I bet he would.

Now, to be clear, assuming the delivery boy is competent, and I assume he is, then Mr. Lucas did nothing that ought to be a crime. He made a monetary offer for sexual favors. I don't think that should be a criminal offense. But once again the Republicans are proving the difficulty that comes with being the party of "morality" and "family values." The hypocrisy is so obvious that each case will be noticed. If the GOP would just get behind a live-and-let-live philosophy, stop pretending they speak for God, and chuck the fundamentalists out into the street, things would be much better.

Big Government Scares More Americans

Gallup just released a poll asking Americans who they fear most: big government, big business or big labor. Government terrifies more Americans than the other two combined, by a two-to-one margin.

Sorry, Occupy Wall Street but fear of big business has been declining, not increasing. Sorry, conservatives, its not the unions that scare people but government.

Now, I should note that the main threat that unions and big business pose to Americans is that they have access to big government. Each of the other two "threats" gain their powers primarily because of their access to political power. And big labor, these days, is heavily about government. The unions don't represent most workers anymore, except when it comes to government workers. Unions are now cartels for bureaucrats. The New York Times wrote: "For the first time in American history, a majority of union members are government workers rather than private-sector employees." In fact, there were 500,000 more unionized government employees that unionized private employees.

Considering that the unions used to represent the taxpaying workers of the country, it is interesting to see they now primarily represent the tax consuming bureaucrats of the country. Without big government union memberships would be half what they are. Today, union officials are heavily reliant on the people who want to tax working people even more to sustain the programs that most people don't want.

And this just isn't libertarians concerned about big government. More Democrats now say they fear big government than fear big business. Gallup says that the numbers of Democrats concerned about big government was high during the Bush years and dropped after Obama took office but has been increasing. In other words, Democrats who lost their fear of government after Bush was out of office, have regained that fear with Obama in power. After Obama took office only 32% of Democrats said they were more worried about big government. After three years of Obama that number has risen to 48%. This means that the numbers of Democrats concerned about overreaching government has increased by 50% while a Democrat has been in office. And it doesn't have far to go, just 8 points, until it reaches the levels of concern under George Bush.

Among key independent voters more of them are concerning about Obama's big government than were actually afraid of it under Bush. In 2006, 60% of independents said they worried about big government more. It declines slightly by 2009, to 59%, but has since risen to 64%

The reality is, that most Americans are not in tune with Obama's attempts to centralize power in Washington. Yet, he does well in head to head polls against Republican contenders. The reason for that is simple—people don't like the Republicans either.

The Republicans who have staked their future on moralistic platitudes, religion and gay hating (Bachmann, Santorum and Perry) are doing poorly in the polls. The candidates who are doing better have emphasized other issues, even if they share the small-minded prejudices that now run the Republican Party.

What neither the Republicans, nor the Democrats, get is that voters don't like either one of them. The landslide for Obama wasn't the public embracing his elitist views about centralized power, preferably in himself. It was a vote against two terms of Bush. And, when November comes around, and asshole Republicans are swept into office, it won't be voters suddenly embracing the Republican's theocratic tendencies. It will be disgust at the first term of Obama rule.

The number of voters who identify as Republican or Democrat are diminishing. More and more are saying they are independent. And this voting group shows mushy libertarian sentiments that neither party represents. The one candidate who comes closest to that sentiment is Gov. Gary Johnson, but the Republicans and the media have worked together to make sure Johnson is excluded from the debates. Even when he's qualified the rules were changed in order to disqualify him again. Big government Republicans (which is most of them in Washington), and big government Democrats (ditto) are allies not enemies and they will close ranks on the likes of Johnson precisely because his values do resonate with a large percentage of voters, especially the growing body of independents.

To Preserve Liberty We Must Destroy Liberty

Theocrat Rick Santorum, your typical Republican these days, says that the way to preserve religious liberty is make civil law subject to "God's law."

Of course, what theocrats mean in particular is not God's law at all, but their interpretation of which God they think is the magic man in the sky, and their view of what the man in the sky allegedly says is the law.

Even the violent, cruel God of the Bible is unclear. Christians don't agree with each other as to what writings make up the Bible. For instance, Santorum is seen here trying to appeal to hateful fundamentalist Baptists at their church. What Santorum calls the Bible is different from what these Baptists call the Bible. Santorum's Bible includes Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, additional parts of Esther and First and Second Machabees. The Bible carried by Santorum's audience has none of those books.

Then there are the Old and New Testaments with different versions of "God's law." Which law is applied in which circumstance? Christians have literally gone to war with each other to try to settle these questions. Their assumption was that whichever side managed to kill the most people had the right to determine what law of the "God of love" could be imposed under penalty of execution. Even within the same denominations these people can't make up their mind which "God's law" is the correct "God's law."

And since the deity is silent on such matters it really comes down to man's beliefs, not God's law at all. It is man who has to determine what "God's law" is supposed to be. And men disagree with one another as to which God is true, if any; which law is God's law and how that law is applicable, etc.

In the end, when a politician like Santorum appeals to "God's law" as superior to all civil law, he is asking for unlimited powers, unrestricted by any concept of individual rights. What he means is that he wants the power to impose his alleged moral code on others, by violence if necessary, because he pretends to speak for God. As far as I know God is not a registered voter and hasn't endorse Santorum, or any other two-bit con man with a lust for power.

Republican says nude photos to document weight loss

Part of the American empire is Puerto Rico, which isn't quite a state, but is part of the country, something immigration officials periodically forget due to their lack of education.

Roberto Arango is a senator in the legislature there and a top official in the Republican Party. He was also revealed to have posted naughty pictures of himself to a gay website. His excuse is a gem:

You know I've been losing weight. As I shed that weight, I've been taking pictures. I don't remember taking this particular picture but I'm not gonna say I didn't take it, I'd tell you if I remembered taking the picture but I don't.

The problem with this excuse is that a photo of one rectum doesn't quite document weight loss. I don't have problem with nude photos or even people documenting weight loss with said photos. But really, this is not the pose that one would expect under those circumstances.

Meanwhile, for an update on another Republican hypocrite go below the asshole below:

You will remember that we recently posted about anti-gay Republican Phil Hinkle, a representative in the Indiana state legislature. Hinkle tried to hire a young man for a sexual encounter recently and instead found the young man rather upset by his aggressive gropes and his bragging about his political position. Hinkle didn't want to let the young man leave the hotel room as the nude Republican started fondling the clothed young man. Well, that didn't work out well as the young man fled the scene and the sister of said young man went to the media about it.

Indiana House Speaker Brian Bosma, trying to protect the hypocritical image of moralistic Republican assholes (see above) called on Hinkle to resign his seat, as opposed to fondling the seat of the said young man. Hinkle recently meet with a reporter and rambled on for 90 minutes. He admits he offered to pay the youth for a "really good time," and admits he sent the emails soliciting him, and rented a hotel room for the romp he was expecting. But, he absolutely denies offering anything to the young man to keep the incident secret, which is hard to explain after he gave the young man some valuable items to try to buy his silence.

The reporter asked Hinkle if he has done this before, with young men. Hinkle refused to answer saying, "We're not going there." Hmm, I take that to be a yes.

The reporter says Hinkle fluctuated between quoting the Bible and condemning "judgmental Bible thumpers." I guess the problem Hinkle has is who gets thumped. When he thumps gay people with the Bible that's just peachy. When his feel Bible-thumpers thump him, for precisely the same thing, he gets defensive.

He didn't pretend he was in the room for a weight-loss therapy session. He instead says he is now in therapy because something "upstairs in my brain went off that sent me down a road to self-destruction. Somewhere upstairs a button got pushed and I want to know why. People keep asking: 'What were you thinking?' I honestly don't know. It's as simple as that." Ah, no, it is more simple than that. No button was pushed, Mr Hinkle, you just went out and hired a male for sex and got caught you hypocritical fucktard!

Hinkle insists that he and the young man only talked about baseball. He doesn't explain why he was nude to talk about baseball. He says he went to the bathroom and the young man vanished with the very items the young man says he was given as an attempt to bribe his silence. Of course, Hinkle, being the forgiving conservative that he is, won't file charges against the young man for theft. How convenient. But Hinkle will not resign, though he won't run for office again.

Obama still in trouble, but so is the country.

Once again, we are approaching a sad presidential election, plagued by pathetic choices, phony rhetoric, theocratic pandering and more sleaze than you can shake a stick at.

The most recent Gallup survey indicates that voters would flock to a Republican over Obama, this when no Republican is specifically mentioned. The most recent poll shows Obama has the support of 39% of the public, a generic Republican would win 47% and 15% aren't thrilled with that selection at all.

This blogger has long contended that the independent voters in America are mostly voting against whoever holds power at the time. And they swing the elections. As go the independents so goes the nation. Independents are the more libertarian voters in their outlooks. They are not going to get hardons because Rick Santorum or Michelle Bachmann smear and slander gay people—that fetish only appeals to the shrinking religious right. Nor do independents much care for Obamacare, the wars, spending deficits or taxes. The least libertarian voters tend to be Republicans and Democrats, both brainlessly wedded to their own narrow ideologies, incapable of thinking outside the box, and doing their best to demonize anyone who doesn't agree with them.

So, while this poll gives the GOP some cause for hope, they should remember that generic Republicans are not offensive, but real Republicans are. Come on, think about it: someone like Santorum or Bachmann is almost entirely offensive. Palin would send half the voters in fits of hysterical laughter. The independents are not likely to go for a theocrat. Befuddled old conservatives are not really that hot, and Ron Paul really doesn't intend to run for president anyway—just fund raise so he has a hefty fund to "donate" to his own 501(c)3. Sadly Paul would actively be undercutting the libertarian Gary Johnson.

Johnson, in my opinion, is someone that independent voters could take a liking to, which means someone that will offend the god addicts in the GOP. Johnson is libertarian across the board. He's good on civil liberties, a major failing for Paul; he's good on economic issues, and he's anti-war. He is the candidate I always wished Ron Paul would be but wasn't. Better yet, you don't get any paranoid theorizing about international banking elites, the "Amero," "North American Union," the CFR, Bilderbergers, the kind of loony things that Paul has spouted for decades. But, between the Ron Paul "campaign" and the religious right, Governor Johnson will have a difficult time. If he gets through, you can bet I'd actually register and vote for him.

Obama, however, is in trouble. He ignored public opinion regarding his health-care meddling and support for his plan remains low. Most Americans still want his proposal repealed. But I suspect if they count on the Republicans to do it, they will be disappointed.

Is bin Laden's successor a Republican?

The man who has taken over leadership of Al Qaeda from Osama bin Laden is Ayman al-Zawahri. Omar bin Laden, the son of the previous leader, had written a book Growing Up Bin Laden, detailing his life with his father. In it he recounts an incident with Zawahri.

He told of a friend of his, a teenage boy, who was grabbed by some men and raped. The men took photos of the abuse as it happened and then showed them around the camp where they lived. Zawahri had the boy put on trial for being homosexual and with the photos as evidence he was convicted and executed. I think Zawahri is out to win the Republican vote.

Consider figures on the religious right who have advocated the same thing.

Rev. Greg Dixon was the national secretary of the Moral Majority. In a sermon, he said, regarding gay people, "I say either fry 'em, or put them in the pen. Don't unleash them on the human race." He clearly meant execution and in a debate on WIND radio between he and I, he reiterated his support for executing gay people.

When Republicans in Minnesota were in the midst of pushing an anti-gay marriage initiative, they invited a fundamentalist minister, Bradley Dean, to open the state assembly in prayer. Dean previously praised radical Islamists for being willing to execute gay people. He said: "Muslims are calling for the execution of homosexuals in America... And it shows you that they themselves are upholding the laws that are even in the Bible of the Judeo-Christian God. They seem to be more moral than even the American Christians do." So, it is "more moral" to want to kill gays. The broadcast is below.



At National Organization for (sic) Marriage rallies, individuals have shown up with signs demanding the death penalty for gay people. In Indianapolis one NOM protestor had a sign saying "The Solution to Gay Marriage;" it showed two nooses. In the video below, of a NOM rally, you can hear Rev. Ariel Torres Ortega, preaching in Spanish, which was then translated into English. He says that gay people are "worthy of death, not only they that do it, but those who practice it."



Rev. Greg Bahnsen, in Homosexuality: A Biblical View, published by a major evangelical publisher (Baker Books), told his readers," Either we will discriminate against homosexuals, or we will discriminate against the Word of God." (p.9) He writes, "the state and its rulers must act as servants of God, avenging His displeasure against evildoers." (p.14)

Bahnsen says God calls homosexuals "dogs" (p.93) and that any kind of sympathy for them is "out of place when it comes to capital crimes like... homosexuality." This doesn't mean gay people "have no civil rights at all and can be treated in a shameful fashion. They would still retain, for example the right to due process of law, to a fair and speedy trial, and to legal defense." After that, you can kill them.

Gary North, a supporter of theocracy associated with the misnamed Mises Institute as well as a former staff member for Ron Paul, says: "The death penalty is God's required means of enforcing earthly restitution for certain crimes, irrespective of the opinion of any victims." He then lists some "crimes" that qualify for the death penalty: bestiality, homosexual acts and blasphemy. (Leviticus: An Economic Commentary, Institute for Christian Economics, p. 374) North says this "crime" is against God and the "convicted criminal is to be transferred from the civil court to God's heavenly court. The means of this transfer is execution." "Death is restitution to God." (p.375)

North argues that God "does not hate the sin and love the sinner. He hates the sin and hates the sinner. God is indeed a homophobe." (p. xxix) And stoning is "God's mandated method of execution." (p.336) The "integrity of the family," he says, "must be maintained by the threat of death." (The Sinai Strategy, Institute for Christian Economics, pp 59-60.) Just remember that the next time you hear a religious conservative invoking the "defense of the family" as justification for their prejudices.

Their sad, sick obsession continues.

Evangelical Christians, who once proudly called themselves fundamentalists, but who tend to shun the term today, have been very busy in their holy jihad this week. Yesterday I mentioned one fundamentalist minister invited by the Republican Party to open the Minnesota legislature with prayer. He lectured them by falsifying history, he implied that Obama is a Muslim, and he made it clear that his idea of non-denomination, excludes everyone who isn't a Christian.

He was there the same day that the Republicans were scheduled to spend hours of legislative time debating new anti-gay measures. The Titanic is sinking and Republicans are making sure gay people don't get life preservers. You really have to give the Republicans credit for getting their priorities right. The country may in an extended depression but Republicans are going to spend all their time gay bashing, at the behest of the shrinking Religious Right.

In Tennessee the Republicans have spent days debating legislation that would make it illegal for any school teacher to even mention that gay people exist. The bill literally makes it a crime to mention the existence of homosexuals. Once again the Republican Party has their priorities in line. Remember Tennessee is the state that held the Scopes trial for teaching evolution, so the control fundamentalists have had over education there is long-standing. No doubt this explains why Tennessee is such an intellectual powerhouse in the West!

Just yesterday, in Brisbane, Australia the same thing happened except the Christians acted even worse. According to the Brisbane Times a rally in favor of marriage equality was "interrupted by violence" when "a small group of evangelicals used a microphone to yell abuse at marchers." The Times reported that scuffles broke out when "members of the small Christian minority tried to snatch same-sex marriage placards and flags from marchers' hands."

Last week at a gay rally in Adelaide, Australia a coven of born again bitches marched on the attendees, insulting them, screaming at them and even pulling one woman out of a wheelchair that she needed.

The depth of their hatred is astounding. I can understand why oppressed people would spend a lot of time to fight for their freedom. I just can't fathom why others would be so obsessed in preventing it. As for the Republicans: what the hell is wrong with them? This country is an extended depression. Every measure that Bush and Obama used to "solve" the problem were measures that failed in the past and which have shown themselves to extend the economic downturn. The solutions that have been tried merely keep the malaise alive and lingering. And what do the Republicans concentrate on? They spend their time bashing gays.

Photo: Evangelical Christian, in T-shirt from the "ministry" Operation Five Thirteen, tries to rip sign advocating marriage equality from woman at the Brisbane rally.

Obama begins reelection campaign.

After finishing the third term of George W. Bush, Obama is about to begin his campaign for a fourth.

As you might expect I am utterly and totally opposed to this malignant little man being reimposed on the American people. And I oppose him for exactly the same reasons that I thought Georgie Junior was such a disaster. The policy differences between Obama and Bush are insignificant and minor.

Bush gave us two undeclared wars. Obama denounced such moves without Congressional approval. But, in spite of saying he would end those wars he has not. Worse yet he decided to see Bush's two wars and raise him one war. He has now embroiled the US in three undeclared wars. They are Obama's wars now people. And where is the cowardly, sniveling left-wing "peace" movement? They are nowhere to be found. Why? Because it is one of their own men conducting the war.

It reminds me of the awful remark that Roger Baldwin, the founder of the ACLU, made when FDR put Japanese-Americans into concentration camps entirely based on their race. Baldwin, who normally would have screamed about such a move didn't act because Roosevelt was "one of us."

The deficits that Bush ran up continued under Obama and got much worse. The awful violations of human dignity imposed on the American people by Homeland Security and their paid gropers at the airports got much, much worse under Obama and the thuggish Janet Napolitano. Before they were rude, now they take your nude picture and fondle your genitals, all in the name of national security.

Bush gave us a vast expansion of national health care with his prescription plan and Obama took it much, much farther. You can be forced to buy health insurance and face punishments if you don't. And don't think the little man in the White House isn't going to push for less choice in medicine for you if he gets back in.

All of the significant policies that Bush promoted continue under Obama and have been escalated.

Here is the sad thing: just look at the low-lifes and theocratic scum that the Republicans are offering. You have the brainless Palin, the dangerous theocratic Huckabee, and the absolutely unprincipled Romney.

You can bet Ron Paul will run again but he isn't running for office, he's just fleecing the pockets of the true believers who make up the Rondroid legions. Apparently they were all so anxious to have "money bombs" for Paul that none of them had the brains to check the spending reports candidates file with the FEC. Had they done so they would see lots of spending to raise money, lots of traveling for Paul, but little being spent on things like actual campaign commercials. Money was flowing in but not being spent on a real campaign. Most the campaigning you saw was the unruly Rondroids, their signs, blimps and harassment of websites that challenged Ronnie. Under FEC regulations if Paul's campaign has money in the coffers when he retires, which will be after this term in office, or the next at the latest, all the extra funds can be donated to any non--profit organization including those that Ron has set up for himself. He won't be raising money for a presidential campaign at all.

There is just nothing out there. It is a wasteland. Not even the Libertarian Party can muster a decent candidate. Wayne Allyn Root is a two-bit fraud from Vegas with all the wit and charm of a pimp crossed with a used car salesman. And none of the challengers to Root are much better, at least none that have slithered out from underneath the rocks to date.

What we have is a really disgusting situation, far more disgusting than any time in recent decades. Before, the Republican Party at least didn't automatically make you want to grab for the vomit bag. Now they are catering to the dumbest, most ignorant, vile segment of the American public: Christian fundamentalists. These are the kind of people that bottom-feeding pond scum look down upon.

The Democrats are paid toadies for the unions, especially for the unions that represent government works such as the teacher's unions. The Democrats scream so much about greed regarding the Republicans because they are the organized party of greed, not the Republicans. God's Own Party, GOP, is the organized party of hate; that is different.

No, in truth the Democratic Party looks at elections as a means to rape the taxpayers to pay off the special interest groups that get them elected to office. The entire function of the Democratic Party today is to steal from taxpayers and redistribute the funds to their friends, not to the needy. The needy are merely the excuse the Democrats use to cover up their highway robbery and make it sound noble. The Republicans, on the other hand, think their job is to inflict pain and punishment on sinners in the name of Jesus. Fuck them both!

I remember a watching a radical Left group getting into an altercation with the police. The police were lined up on side, batons ready to bash heads. The screaming, dirty, radicals on the other side were spitting venom and itching for a fight. I watched for a second and yelled: "Hit them!" A woman standing next to me thought about it and asked, "Who do you want to get hit?" I told her: "Between them, I don't much care."

Both the Republicans and Democrats are so vile that I don't care which one gets bashed. Either way I know they will do a lot of damage to the rest of us in the process. Both parties are shrinking and are captured by small radical groups. The Democrats are under the thumbs of greedy unions and the hateful fundamentalists have the GOP by the balls. Fewer and fewer Americans support the two main parties and more and more independents dominate the polling places.

These independents are what I call mushy libertarians. They mostly want wars to end, aren't interested in using the state to enforce the Bible, don't care much for Obamacare, high taxes, or government control of markets. They tend to think that gay people should have most, if not all the rights, of everyone else. They aren't that keen to regulate abortion, impose censorship or see a massive expansion of the welfare state. They are not consistent libertarians but they aren't like the greedy bastards in the Democratic Party and they aren't similar to the hateful bigots that dominate the Republican Party.

And they still don't have a candidate they can support. These are the type of voters who might line up behind someone like Gary Johnson, who I think is a decent man. But the GOP won't nominate a decent man under any circumstances. Jesus wouldn't approve. And you can bet that Ron Paul will actively run in competition with Johnson, not because he wants to run for president, as Johnson clearly does, but because he wants to raise funds for future use. Ron Paul will stab Johnson in the back if that is what is necessary to raise lots of funds. Already I've seen Rondroids who are actually close to Ron spreading accusations against Johnson. Hysterically they are claiming that Johnson isn't as libertarian as Ron—quite the opposite is true. Johnson is a libertarian, while Paul is a paleoconservative. (By the way: Do you know the difference between a paleoconservative and a paleolibertarian? Good; neither do I.)

Me, I'm just sick of these sorts of choices. I'll sit out the election and just prepare as best as I can for the disasters that will be inflicted no matter which piece of shit wins office.

Thoughts on the election (yawn).

I realize I've really not blogged anything about the election in general. Perhaps that is because there is nothing to get excited about—absolutely nothing.

Obama has alienated a huge percentage of voters. Even those individuals who are voting Democrat aren't excited about the man. He has failed to perform almost completely in any area where his campaign promises were good and decent. Where he promised bad things he has delivered and then some. This blogger considers Obama worse than President Shrub, and that says a lot.

Just as Geogie Jr. horrified the majority of voters and drove them into the Democratic camp last time around, Obama is driving them right back to the Republicans. Yet, the voters are not happy with the Republicans which doesn't mean they are happy with the Republicans either. And believe me, the system is so rigged by all this so-called "campaign finance reform" and other election laws that it is virtually impossible for anyone to challenge the two-party duopoly. Given how each screws over the public for special interests we may as well assume we live in a one-party state. Regardless of which party is in the White House the occupant of that building will be more like Mugabe than like Jefferson.

The one alleged ray of hope, for less intrusive government, was supposed to be the misnamed Tea Party. But look at the sort of creeps that are considered the leading TP candidates: Sharron Angle, Christine O'Donnell, Carl Paladino, Ken Buck, Joel Miller or even Randal Paul.

Not a one of them actually wants to get government intrusion into the personal lives of people reduced. If anything these clowns want more religion-based policies to control how you live your life. We were told that the Tea Party had a "libertarian" bent to it. Right, these guys were so libertarian (NOT) that they managed to make Wayne Root even look libertarian in comparison—and believe me, Root is no libertarian.

Angel, O'Donnell and Paladino are complete whackjobs, but then so is Miller. Randal Paul is just another power-hungry politicians who sees principles as bargaining chips, something that can be traded away when power is at stake. He is as bad as his father, on those issues where Daddy Paul is bad, and where Daddy Paul is good, junior falls to perform. Daddy went over to the lunatic Religious-Right some years ago and Randal is sucking up to these theocratic creeps even more. Randal will win, in my opinion, but then his opponent actually managed to look ever more crazed with his "aqua Buddha" commercials.

My guess is that the Tea Party candidates won't do as well as people assume they will. And I actually think they gave the Democrats more than they took from them. People are disgusted with the fake in the White House and his party but the Tea Party fringes are making a lot of voters think twice about voting Republican.

Certainly the Republicans had a shoo-in seat in Delaware before Christine O'Donnell won the Republican nomination. What was a safe Republican seat looks to me as one that the Democrats will pick up. The Democrat, Chris Coons, has had a steady and healthy lead over O'Donnell from the beginning.

California's Barbara Boxer was vulnerable, and with good reason. Sure the Democrats have been advertising heavily against Republican Carly Fiorina. But from what I've seen of the ads, which have been pretty brutal and, in my opinion, dishonest, the most effective strategy the Democrats have is the Tea Party. They are trying to paint Fiorina as "too extreme for California." But this "too extreme" campaign is one the Democrats are playing around the country.

They are doing so because the Tea Party types that did win Republican nominations are actually rather extreme whackjobs. The TP gave the Democrats about the only strategy that would work for them in this election.

Face it, the Democrats can't run on keeping campaign promises. The one big promise they kept, the take-over of health care, is the one that has voters infuriated. And the Democrats don't want to bring up campaign promises anyway—since they did so badly on them. Consider various reports that gay voters are now more likely to refuse to vote than ever before because Obama has talked like Lady Gaga but performed like Georgia Jr. on issues that concern the gay community. Given how bigoted the Republicans have been regarding gays, this constituency ought to be safely Democratic. Obama has been so miserable on those issues that he alienated the most secure voting block the Democrats had outside of black voters. Only the hard-core, brain-dead Obamatrons continue to make excuses for the man in this area.

The Tea Party types are scary and certainly not advocates of small government by any means. They are the worst elements in the Republican Party, not the best. About the best Republican around is Gary Johnson, the former governor of New Mexico. I believe Johnson is fundamentally a libertarian—more so that Ron Paul for sure. I've questioned him and listened to him carefully. Even Jon Stewart, when interviewing Johnson, said, "But you're a libertarian?" Johnson smiled and said: "You think!"

I saw Johnson at a huge Tea Party rally trying to interest these Know-Nothings with his libertarian message. The response he got was deadly silence. What did get them salivating, and then foaming at the mouth, was anyone who got up and bashed Mexicans. I swear a heavy insult directed at brown people gave many in that Tea Party crowd the first orgasm they had in about six decades. Just the thought of it sends shivers down my spine. There is one good thing I can say about the Tea Party types I saw: the average age was just shy of death. A good number of them would be lucky to make until Tuesday.

Yes, the Republicans will make gains. And some big gains. But they couldn't help but do that since Obama handed them the election last year. The Tea Party probably dulled those gains somewhat. The TP movement is, in my opinion, a flash-in-the-pan and I doubt it will have any lasting impact.

The voters will continue to move in a mushy libertarian direction. The political system will continue to be "reformed" in order to prevent any real political challenge to the Democrats and Republicans. And that is the central issue in American politics today, one that no one is really talking about. The voters are moving in one direction while both parties are continuing to ignore the sentiments of the voters preferred instead to cater to their core members: left-wing loons and Right-wing bigots. Voter discontent is growing and the major parties have rigged the system so that they keep power in spite of that discontent.

Consider the "campaign reforms" that have been pushed in several places which prohibits any more than two candidates on the general election ballot for any one office. Those laws explicitly ban choice at the polls. Campaign finance reform was geared to protect incumbents from challenges, not to keep elections clean.

So, with rising voter discontent there is almost no way to fix the problem at the ballot box. The Demopublicans have made solutions illegal in order to continue their hold on power. In a third world country that would be a recipe for revolution. What it means in America is any one's guess.

Utopian libertaians and the fantasy tea pot

This blog has argued that the so-called Tea Party movement is nothing for libertarians to get excited about. But many libertarians don't listen, particularly the Utopian types who believe that some radical libertarian agenda is going to sweep America. Sorry, but that is simply moronic. It isn't going to happen. This doesn't mean that a libertarianish vision may not come to dominate American politics but the types who imagine some radical vision of that libertarianism are not going to find it happening in their lifetime, or even that of their great-great-great-great grandchildren.

Since these types simply ignore the reality of the situation they find succor in imagining libertarian successes where they aren't. Yet, ironically, they ignore libertarian reforms where they are. Witness how they still cling to the illusion that Ron Paul is a libertarian. Or, even worse, that Randal Paul is libertarian. But the wackiest bunch are those who honestly think the Tea Party movement is libertarian.

We have seen phenomenal successes in watching Americans become more tolerant of gay people, with support for equality of rights rising at a rate that pollsters find astounding. Normally social values change slowly but in that area there has been rapid change. One reason is that the equality movement often argues their case on the basis of traditional American values about the individual's right to equality before the law.

Quite honestly, where the hell are the libertarians? Now and then some libertarian puts out a press release. But all these Utopian frauds are silent about this issue. They can imagine healing the world and yet can't get their brains around a single issue where libertarians could be leading a successful charge against the power of the state. Instead, these libertarians are embracing the knuckle-draggers in the Tea Party movement.

Why? The reason is simple, simpletons don't look any deeper than the surface. Polls show that Tea Party members want "smaller" government, so do most Americans actually. Tea Party activists loudly talk about that and the crank issues like auditing the Fed—which won't accomplish a thing.

The rhetoric of the Tea Party can sound vaguely libertarianish provided you don't actually bother to look at any of the other beliefs held by these people. I reported here about my visit to a Tea Party rally, which I argued was filled with hateful xenophobes who were more worried about bashing Mexicans than they were taxes. But they would get up and say they want smaller government and the libertarians would drool in response—like mindless Pavlovian dogs.

What did this smaller government mean? Talk to the "patriots" and they want government regulating the workforce heavily to prevent Mexicans from getting jobs. They want government to go after landlords who rent to Mexicans. They want Mexicans stopped from opening bank accounts. How do they accomplish all of this—with a system of rigid controls to monitor the ID of people seek jobs, try to rent apartments, or open bank accounts. The particularly inane libertarians will even applaud the bigots for wanting to "protect the borders" (from maids, busboys and gardeners) but urge them to ignore the ID requirements. You can't have the one without the other. The xenophobia of the loony Right fuels the laws that libertarians are find onerous. Yet libertarians applaud movements that throw gasoline on the fires that libertarians say they want put out.

Now we have a survey of Tea Party movement activists. The Public Religion Research Institute looked at the make-up of Tea Party activists, who they are, and what they want. And guess what? They aren't libertarians by any stretch of the imagination.

Who they most closely resemble are the worst elements of the Religious Right. They have more in common with the Neanderthals in Christian fundamentalism than they do with libertarians. A survey of Tea Party activists shows that they say they support small government—not this is what they claim they want but their other values betray that claim.

About half of all Tea Party activists told the pollsters that they are active in the Religious Right. They are almost exclusively Republican in party preferences and they are less libertarian on social issues than average. Realistically they are less libertarian than the average American not more so.

What the survey found was that the Tea Party was mainly a white, evangelical movement. These are people who think Fox News is a source for accurate information and who think Sarah Palin is the messiah.

Here are a few of the findings regarding the Tea Party.

First, only about 11% of all Americans consider themselves as part of this movement.

Second, they are not politically independent as they are often portrayed. According to survey: "More than three-quarters identify with (48%) or lean towards (28%) the Republican Party. More than 8-in-10(83%) say they voting for or leaning towards Republicans candidates...." In the general population about one-third of Americans identify with the Republican party, one-third with the Democrats and the rest are independents. These Tea Party types are more Republican than about any other group, right up there with fundamentalist Christians.

Third, the survey found that: "Americans who identify with the Tea Party movement are mostly social conservatives, not libertarians on social issues. Nearly two-thirds (63%) say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases, and less than 1-in-5 (18%) support allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry. In other words, on these issues they are actually less libertarian than the average voter.

When the survey looked at the demographics of the Tea Party they found a "striking similarity between the demographic of Americans who consider themselves part of the Tea Party movement and Americans who consider themselves part of the Christian conservative movement." The survey found: "On nearly all basic demographic characteristics, there are no significant differences between Americans who identify with the Tea Party movement and those who identify with the Christian conservative movement." The only significant difference was the fundamentalists were more likely to be women and Tea Party activists were more likely to be men.

Tea Party activists are more likely to say they are conservatives, than do fundamentalists. They are more likely to say they are Republicans than do fundamentalist Christians. In this sense the Tea Party is actually worse than the Republican Party.

When compared to the general population the Tea Party nutters are more likely to be white evangelicals (36% to 21%). About one-third of the American people imagine that the Bible is the "literal" word of God. With the Tea Party it is 47%. Only 64% think God "is a person with whom one can have a relationship" but 71% of the Tea Party believe that. When it comes to the delusion that America was, or is, a Christian nation the Tea Party types are actually more deluded that evangelicals or the public. About 42% of all Americans buy into the "Christian America" theory, about 43% of evangelicals do, but 55% of the Tea Party thinks that way.

And, as I have argued, the Tea Party movement is far more antagonistic to minorities than the general public. Asked if government has "paid too much attention to the problems of blacks and other minorities" 37% of public says that is true. But for the Tea Party members agreement with the view is 58%.

Where immigration has divided the general public it has unified the Tea Party. About 48% of Americans think immigrants are a burden while 44% say they make the country better—almost an even split especially if margins of error in polling are taken into account. But 65% of Tea Party members take the anti-immigrant view, which is similar to the view that evangelicals take on the matter (64%).

When it comes to marriage equality rights for gays the Tea Party is on par with evangelicals in their fervent opposition. When given three choices for gay couples, about 37% of the general population opt for full marriage and 27% support civil unions, with one-third wanting no legal recognition for gay couples at all. But only 18% of the Tea Party movement support marriage equality, a statistical tie with the 16% of evangelicals who do.

The survey found that 58% of the general public think undocumented immigrants should have a means by which they can become legal citizens. Evangelicals are not quite so supportive with only 48% favoring such a move. The survey quite naturally found that the most anti-immigrant group around, even more anti-immigrant than Republicans in general, were Tea Party members, were 61% said they opposed immigration reform.

What it comes down to is that the Tea Party advocates want small government for themselves and organized state oppression for groups they dislike. These people are not libertarians and this survey shows that. So when will these deluded libertarians wake up and realize that?

Mushy libertarianism vs the religious impulse.

One of the themes that I periodically pay attention to is what I call the mushy libertarianism of the American mainstream. I wrote that the mainstream politics in this country is libertarian but "not consistent" and "not principled." I have called this mushy libertarianism a revival of the Mugwumps.

A new poll from Associated Press backs up my general analysis. Over and over the dominant opinion, among Americas, leans in a libertarian direction. Here are some of the details:

Three-quarters of the public say that the US Constitution "is an enduring document that remains relevant today." Sixty percent say that that the "rule of law" should come first, even if it does at the expense of public safety.

The Religious Right regularly argues that the rights of gay people should be subjected to a majority vote. The majority doesn't agree. Just 35% say, "If a majority of people want something to happen, the rights of a few shouldn't stand in the way" and 62% agree that "the rights of everyone should be protected, even when that means saying no to something majority of people want to happen."

Only one in four Americans would support giving the president more power, even if it would improve the economy. Three-quarters of the public opposed the idea. Half the public say "it is up to each individual to secure health insurance" and less than half say the government ought to provide it. But 83% oppose the central feature of Obama's health care plan, government mandates requiring people to buy health insurance.

Half of all Americans say they favor a way for illegal immigrants, already in the country, to legalize their position, while just under half oppose the idea. Seventy-percent agree that "people should have the right say what they believe even if they take positions that seem deeply offensive to most people."

A clear majority, 58%, now believe that same-sex couples are entitled to same benefits as opposite-sex couples and that government should not distinguish between them. In 2008, 51% agreed, in 2009 it was 54%. While support rose by 7 points opposition declined by 5 points. Even more encouraging, from a libertarian point of view, is that a majority of Americans now believe the federal government ought to recognize gay marriages: 52% to 46% opposed. This is the second national poll in recent weeks showing a majority of Americans now support gay marriage.

Fifty-one percent of Americans say that gun control laws "infringe" the right to keep and bear arms. A plurality, 42%, say that the government restricts too much information from the public.

One area where the majority goes wrong is that 64% do not thinking that banning minors from violent video games is a proper function of government. One thing you can be sure of is that if people are afraid their children are at risk they turn into raving maniacs willing to lynch anyone. This is the sort of irrational fear that the National Organization for Marriage relies upon with their anti-gay scare commercials.

Other results of interest include the fact that 43% of the public are not confident in the federal government, only 10% are strongly confident in the feds. Similarly 37% are not confident in state governments, where 10% are, and 49% are not confident in Congress, where 7% are. Other areas with high levels of distrust are: banks, 52%; large corporations , 42%; labor unions, 41%; the media, 38%; blogs, 54%; organized religion, 35%; and public schools, 37%.

Other matters of interest is that 36% of the public consider themselves to be born-again Christians and 24% say they don't belong to a religion.

A different poll indicates that almost all opposition to equality of rights for gay people is rooted in religion, and not based on other concerns. Sixty-percent of conservatives admit that they oppose same-sex marriage because of their religion. All the evidence shows that opposition to legal equality exists because people want their religion legislated onto others:

Almost six-in-ten regular churchgoers (59%) say their clergy speak out on the issue of abortion, higher than for any other issue in the survey except hunger and poverty (88%). Despite divided opinions on abortion among Catholics as a whole, seven-in-ten Catholics (70%) who attend church at least once a month report that their clergy speak out on the issue of abortion. Similarly, 65% of white evangelical Protestants and 55% of black Protestants who attend services at least once a month report that their clergy talk about abortion, while fewer mainline Protestants (39%) say this.

Among those who attend religious services at least once a month and say abortion should be illegal in most or all cases, two-thirds (66%) report having heard about the issue from their clergy. Among regular worship attenders who think abortion should be legal in most or all cases, fewer (50%) report having heard about this issue from their clergy. Half of those who say their clergy speak out on abortion cite religion as the most important influence on their views on abortion, compared with 29% of those who do not hear from their clergy about the issue.

On the issue of same-sex marriage, about four-in-ten Americans (41%) say they favor allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally while 48% are opposed. A slight majority of Democrats (52%) favor same-sex marriage, while independents are evenly split (44% favor, 45% oppose) and two-thirds (67%) of Republicans are opposed. Democrats are divided sharply along racial lines; 63% of white Democrats favor same-sex marriage, compared with just 27% of black Democrats and 46% of Hispanic Democrats.

This sort of theocratic viewpoint applies even to laws forbidding gay people to openly serve in the military—something the Republican Party just killed in the U.S. Senate with unanimous support from their caucus. In other words, not a single Republican Senator voted to allow gay people to serve in the military.

On the matter of gays in the military 60% of all Americans support equality. Even a slim plurality of Republicans, 47-43%, support equality. Of all the various subgroups the only group to oppose allowing gay people to serve in the military are white evangelical Christians, where a plurality 47-43% oppose the measure. Most blacks support equality here, most conservatives do, most independent voters do—only white born again Christians oppose the measure and that appears to be the ONLY group in American politics that Republicans listen to.

Families: united by love but divided by hate.

In discussing the terrible tragedy of two teens driven to suicide by anti-gay bigotry—which I advise you read if you haven't done so)—I said to the bigots: "But they could be your children." Of course, we know many examples when they have been their children. Certainly Bobby Griffith was tormented by his own mother and family and church until he killed himself. Mary Griffith realized what she had done, but it was too late to save Bobby. Since then she has campaigned to end the prejudice.


This is what must terrify the anti-gay bigot in ways that can't torment the racist. A Klan leader is not going to discover that the white son he has known his entire life is going to announce he's really black. But no anti-gay bigot with children can have that confidence throughout their entire life. There is always a time when they simply don't know. And many remain clueless their entire lives. But many of them do find themselves facing down their own children and hating them for being gay.


As often happens in politics two powerful political families are united when their children marry. Both families are very conservative, both are Mormons and of course, they are Republicans. Matthew Salmon was Republican state senator in Arizona, he ran for governor and he was a U.S. Congressman. Jeff Flake in the Congressman from Mesa, another conservative Republican and like Salmon, another Mormon. The Flake and Salmon families have been a foundation for the Right-wing Republicans in Arizona. And now they are united by romance—though neither of them are particularly thrilled by it.

Matt Salmon is named after his father, the former congressman. At 14-years-of-age he told his mother he was gay, which didn't stop his family from campaigning against gay people. His partner is Kent Flake, the second counsin of Congressman Flake.

Matt followed the teachings of the Mormon sect and went through therapy to change. It failed, as might be expected.

Kent is from Snowflake, Arizona. Snowflake was a small town founded on orders of Brigham Young, the alleged Mormon prophet. Young sent William Flake to found the town and Apostle Erastus Snow was put in charge of colonization. These polygamists were the founders of the town and when Mormons to name it after Flake others wanted to honor Snow. The name Snowflake was how they honored both simultaneously.

Of course each young man knew of the others family. Matt befriend Kent on Facebook and soon they started dating. At this point Kent told his family he was gay. But under pressure he broke up with Matt and tried to go through church therapy to cure himself of being gay. Matt and Kent had an argument about Kent's attempt to change and faced with a final decision Kent decided to stay with Matt and to resign from the Mormon cult. Matt was sitting in church one Sunday in the summer of 2008 when the minister, following orders from the church heirarchy, was urging everyone in the Arizona congregation to send money to defeat marriage equality in California—that is donate to Proposition 8. The minister told the congregation that all homosexuals are promiscuious and their relationships are selfish. That was when he decided to quite Mormonism completely, and today compares it to some of the outlandish teachings from the cult of Scientology.

Flake is getting the worst of it. He rarely sees his family anymore, hasn't had a real conversation with his father nad has been told that his father doesn't want Matt around his family or his grandkids. Kent's sister told has publicly said that she called them "fags" and "pedophiles" but insists they still love him, they just don't want "to see him in a gay couple." The same is true in Salmon's family. He was told that his family still loves him but that Kent is not welcome in their home. Matt's own siblings dropped him as a Facebook friend in protest over his being gay.

One cousin, Krista Gohus, still is friends. She recently left the Mormon sect as well and considers herself a libertarian, not a Republican. She told the Phoenix New Times: "Matt and his boyfriend, Kent, have been to my home many times, and my 10-year-old son knows Matt and Kent are a couple. I'm teaching my children that being gay is just like being left-handed or being born with curly hair. It's not right or wrong, it's just the way you were born."

Photos: Matt (L), Kent (R).

A good example of how adults encourage bullies.

First, watch the video and then read.

In my previous post I discussed two teens who killed themselves after being harassed by other students who perceived them as gay. I said that these kids don't just invent this hate, they adopt it from adults in their lives. The hear this hate and repeat it. Hear is a perfect example of an adult asshole encouraging the very sort of anti-gay hate that kids emulate at school, sometimes driving other kids to killing themselves.

The assistant attorney general in Michigan is Andrew Shirvell, a whiny voiced Right-wing Republican who really hates gays. He goes out of his way to send nasty emails to people he doesn't know, if they are gay. He has created a blog to attack a Chris Armstrong, a student at the University of Michigan because he was elected student body president and is gay.

When conservative Michigan blogger Joe Sylvester admitted that he was gay he received a nasty email from Shirvell, who he did not know. He wrote Sylvester: "I saw your stupid interview... Wow——you need help, Joe. Good luck with living a disordered life."

When a Michigan campaigner for equality of rights for gay people left for a job in North Carolina, Shirvell published a web article calling the man "a zealous promoter of bizarre lifestyle choices" and the "most visible proponent of the radical homosexual agenda" whose new job means he "will no longer earn his living by indoctrinating children with his perversity." Since the man took a job with a group working to keep abortion legal Shirvell, a fundamentalist Catholic, wrote: "I guess if he can't recruit the children of God-fearing Americans to his bizarre lifestyle, he wants them dead." Shirvell claims that gay people who support the libertarian position on abortion does so because "they despise 'breeders,' a.k.a normal people." Shirvell says: "The pro-abortion and radical homosexual movements are merely branches of the same rotten tree known as the Culture of Death. It is impossible to embrace one movement without embracing the other."

Shirvell's obsession with hating gays extends to their family as well.

Shirvell seems to target gay young people for attacks particularly. He trolls Facebook looking for anything he can distort. He claims that one gay student, John Oltean "believes he is above the law" and says this young man "foams at the mouth with hatred for his Creation, Christian believers and the unborn." Then Shirvell says that John's younger brother, David, joked about his "half-birthday" meaning he he 19 1/2 years old. The mother of the boys, Patricia, joked about it saying: "Happy Half Birthday, Dave! still another year and a half to go to throw away your fake ID."


Shirvell then launches an attack on the mother about this joke. He calls her the "wealthy and well-connected Patricia Oltean" and says he is celebrating "her son's lawbreaking and posts her contempt for the law right on FB!" Oddly Shirvel has complete contempt for laws that allow abortion——being a Far Right fundamentalist Catholic he wants state control of every uterus. Anyone who doesn't have contempt for some law simply is incapable of thinking for themself.

He says that anonymous sources tell him that Patricia and her son's have a relationship that is "'bizarre' and 'weird.'" He claims that a post they made on Facebook proves it. In that post one student asked David "Is Patricia your mom." David replied" Yes, Leonard, Patti is my mother." Shrivell says that the fact that David used his mother's first name proves something is wrong and claims that Patricia's joke shows her to be "the type of mother who obviously condones her underage son's possession of an illegal fake ID! It's no wonder that John and David Oltean are as screwed-up as they are: their wealthy mother is more interested in being their friends than being the parent they desperately need." Shirvell also attacked David as harboring "racist sentiments against Native Americans." His proof: David complained that class on Indian culture he was taking was painful. He didn't say anything about Indians, just about a class. One of the worst classes I ever took was by a free market economist who I agreed with, but who was a horrible teacher. I quite the class but not because I hate markets.

Out of this "evidence" Shirvell jumps to the conclusion that that Armstrong and his friends are "privileged, disrespectful, law-breaking, racist, anti-Christian, radical homosexual fanatics." Shirvell published dozens of attacks on just Armstrong alone. Shirvell told right-wing readers that Armstrong "is actively recruiting your sons and daughters to join the homosexual 'lifestlye.'" The mere fact that one thinks you "sign-up" to be gay is an indication that you are either dealing with someone who is incredibly stupid, or mentally obsessed with gay people.

When Armstrong said to students that there time at university "is as much about your own self-discovery as it is about your career" Shirvell spins that as meaning that he told student "to be entirely self-absorbed and seek self-gratification at all costs." He claims the remarks is "a thinly veiled attempt to cause sexually confused, and perhaps some impressionable, 17-and-18-year-olds to experiment sexually with members of their own gender."

When Amrstrong house mates had a party (Armstrong wasn't there) Shirvell said the aim of the party "is to liquor-up underage freshmen and promote homosexual activity."

Shirvell is entirely dishonest and completely obsessed. He uses the Internet to harass gay students at university, and to harass their families. He makes bizarre and dishonest accusations against them repeatedly.

So,to return to my previous post: Where do you think the kids who harass kids they perceive as gay, driving those kids to suicide, get the idea that harassing people is justified? Answer: Andrew Shirvell is one source.

This is an adult, a top office-holder for the Republican Party, who is harassing gay college students and their families, on a regular basis.

Kids learn hate from bigots like Shirvell. And when those kids use that hate and push another child in the desperate act of suicide it is men like Shirvell who ought to step up and take responsibility. No doubt Shirvell would say the only good queer is a dead queer.

I think it is time that people inundate the Attorney General, Mike Cox with emails of protest. Cox hired Shirvell into his position and had Shirvell as his campaign manager. The hypocrisy is that Cox is leading a campaign against "cyber-bullying" while one of his own top assistants engages in the very act of it. Attorney General Mike Cox can be contacted at miag@michigan.gov.