Republicans

[L'Emmerdeur]

Onward, Christian Soldiers ...

"Sessions announces 'religious liberty task force'"

Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Monday that the Department of Justice is creating a "religious liberty task force."

Sessions said the task force, co-chaired by Associate Attorney General Jesse Panuccio and the assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy, Beth Williams, will help the department fully implement the religious liberty guidance it issued last year.

The guidance was a byproduct of President Trump’s executive order directing agencies to respect and protect religious liberty and political speech.
Sessions said on Monday that the task force will “ensure all Justice Department components are upholding that guidance in the cases they bring and defend, the arguments they make in court, the policies and regulations they adopt, and how we conduct our operations.”

The announcement came during the department’s religious liberty summit.

Sessions said the cultural climate in this country — and in the West more generally — has become less hospitable to people of faith in recent years, and as a result many Americans have felt their freedom to practice their faith has been under attack.

“We’ve seen nuns ordered to buy contraceptives. We’ve seen U.S. senators ask judicial and executive branch nominees about dogma—even though the Constitution explicitly forbids a religious test for public office. We’ve all seen the ordeal faced so bravely by Jack Phillips,” he said, referring to the Colorado baker who took his case to the Supreme Court after he was found to have violated the state’s anti-discrimination laws for refusing to make a cake for a same-sex wedding.

[L'Emmerdeur]

I think this analysis is more or less correct:

"Jeff Sessions’ ‘Religious Liberty Task Force’ Declares Holy War on LGBT People"

Addressing his LGBT-hating compadres, [Sessions] continued, “As people in this room know, you have to practice what you preach, so we are going to remain in contact with religious groups across America to ensure their rights are being protected. This administration is animated by that same American view that has led us for 242 years, that every American has a right to believe and worship and exercise their faith in the public square.”

But this isn’t in question; of course people already have the right to worship. What "religious freedom" and "religious liberty" mean to Sesions and his ilk are totally different. It means seeking to restrict the freedoms and equality of those whose lives you, as a Christian person, disapprove of. That is not an exercise of faith, it is an exercise in prejudice and discrimination.

“This approach has served this country well,” Sessions said. “We are perhaps the most religiously developed nation in the world, and can take pride in respecting all people as they fully exercise their beliefs.”

But if that was the case, Sessions and the DoJ would be supporting equality for all LGBT people when it came to accessing services and justice in the courts. But the “religious liberty task force” isn’t in service for all; it’s for entirely for one, already powerful group.

What is motivating Sessions in his crusade is fear; and it is not simply a fear of LGBT people and equality. It is a fear of how he and other Christians feel their faith has been diminished, rejected, and impinged upon. Like much of the Trump agenda, it feeds on those feeling aggrieved and embattled by a changing world.

LGBT people, and those damned feminists wanting control of their bodies, are convenient scapegoats when it comes to blame for why fewer people want to follow Christian teaching to the letter; and why "holy writ" authority from the pulpit just isn’t what it was.

“We must not let it depart from this noble tradition,” Sessions said of our nation.

That’s where this animus comes from, the "task force" that will go out unto the land to insist on religious "liberty" and "freedom." Sessions and his ilk feel "their" nation—such an arrogant sense of ownership—is receding from them, becoming too varied and multiple; and so the bully losing the attention of the mob enlists a new, bespoke mob—a "Task Force" no less, to impose an old world order.

It’s a frightening move, for sure, and one streaked with prejudice. It is a charter for discrimination, now sanctioned by the president, the legislative branch, and—if Trump and Sessions have their way—the courts. We can take a very small comfort in the fact that it also smacks of pathetic desperation.

[Emphasis mine -L'E]

[Seabass]

Congrats, Coito! I hope your stupid tax break was worth it!

[L'Emmerdeur]

Congrats, Coito! I hope your stupid tax break was worth it!

The tax break is just one of the things the Trump Republican party has done that please their supporters. Remember, Il Douche has "A Track Record of Accomplishment."

[pErvinalia]

The gambling(stock) market is up! People working 1 hour a week is up! Less muzzies travelling to Merka! Mexican kids locked up in bare cages!

WINNING!

[Seabass]

This is what you are voting for when you vote Republican.

http://churchandstate.org.uk/2017/04/ok ... ll-of-god/
Oklahoma Republican Declares That Rape Is The ‘Will Of God’

Women should get as far away from Oklahoma as soon as possible because Christian Sharia law is about to make their lives a living hell.

If Oklahoma state GOP Rep. George Faught has his way, rape will be on the path to being legal in the state. At least that’s what rapists are hoping for after Faught made a frightening statement on the subject during a debate on House Bill 1549, which restricts abortion.

Democratic Rep. Cory Williams masterfully cornered Faught during the hearing by asking him if he believes rape and incest are the “will of God” since the legislation has no exceptions for either, meaning women would be forced to give birth to their rapist’s baby.

Faught’s reply is absolutely appalling and demonstrates once again why women should never vote for Republicans, especially Republicans who want to base our laws on the Bible.

“Well, you know, if you read the Bible, there’s actually a couple circumstances where that happened,” Faught said. “The Lord uses all circumstances. I mean, you can go down that path, but it’s a reality unfortunately.”

Faught literally just used the Bible to justify rape. And then he used it to justify incest.

“Same answer,” Faught replied. Then he argued that Williams’ questions have nothing to do with the bill. Williams vehemently disagreed and explained why.

“You are proffering a divine intervention as the reason why you won’t do that and so I think it is very important,” Williams said before demanding Faught repeat his answer again. “This body wants to know — and myself personally — whether you believe rape and incest are actually the will of God.”

Faught obliged and stated that rape and incest are God’s will because God is sovereign over all activities that happen.

“It’s a great question to ask. And, obviously if it happens in someone’s life, it may not be the best thing that ever happened, but — so you’re saying that God is not sovereign with every activity that happens in someone’s life and can’t use anything and everything in someone’s life and I disagree with that.”

Seriously.

Here’s the video via YouTube.



This is exactly the same kind of statement that Republicans like Rick Santorum and Richard Mourdock made during the 2012 Election.

“I believe and I think the right approach is to accept this horribly created — in the sense of rape — but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you,” Santorum said during his run for the presidency. “As you know, we have to, in lots of different aspects of our life. We have horrible things happen. I can’t think of anything more horrible. But, nevertheless, we have to make the best out of a bad situation.”

“I’ve struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize that life is that gift from God,” Mourdock said during his Senate run in Indiana. “And even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.”

Both of these guys think that rape is sanctioned by God and that women should appreciate the “gift” God is giving them by force. It’s disgusting and is the reason why both men lost their races.

And now Faught should be ousted from office as well.

[pErvinalia]

It's unimaginable how the party doesn't kick these people out. Coiti Two tried to tell me once that anyone can run as a republican and there's nothing that the party can do about it. I find that extremely hard to believe, and if it is true, it makes a mockery of the point of parties. Someone saying that in Australia would be barred from the party within a day. And no other party (except maybe tiny fringe Christian whacko parties) would have anything to do with them.

[Seabass]

Coiti Two tried to tell me once that anyone can run as a republican and there's nothing that the party can do about it. I find that extremely hard to believe, and if it is true, it makes a mockery of the point of parties.

He's basically right. The party can put their support behind a preferred candidate to try to prevent a serious nutter from winning the nomination, but they can't actually stop someone from running as a member of their party. Our government was not designed with political parties in mind. In fact, our political parties are still private organizations.

Of course, the religious dirtbag in that article is par for the course in the Republican party. A bit on the extreme side, perhaps, but no worse than say Pence or Santorum.

[pErvinalia]

Crazy system you have over there. A party can't decide who can run under their name.

[Seabass]

Yep.

[Forty Two]

Crazy system you have over there. A party can't decide who can run under their name.

Technically, they can, and do, by voting. Like, when someone runs for President, they try to get the nomination of the Republican party. The primaries are where the party members vote to see who runs as the GOP nominee - who gets the nomination. But it wouldn't be very "democratic" to have entrenched political parties who receive massive amounts of government money, to then decide who the candidates are by a backroom meeting of party leaders. Democrats often use "caucuses" which are meeting where attendees divide themselves into groups and "caucus" about who to nominate.

Various state laws opened up primary voting in many cases to include anyone who wants to vote in the primary, not just people are are, in fact, Republicans. So, Democrats can vote in the Republican primary in many places. That bit was added as the government took more and more control over the election process, thus entrenching the two major parties in law, handing them millions and millions of dollars in matching funds, etc.

There are ballot access rules as to when you have to file papers noting intention to run, how many petition signatures you need to get to be put on the ballot, etc. But, I'm pretty sure that if you want to try to run for the Republican or Democrat nomination, you just have to follow the rules and regulations, pay fees, get petitions signed, etc., meet deadlines, and then get the primary nomination by vote. There is no committee within the party that declares who may run in the primaries. The rules and regulations are set up to exclude anyone who doesn't have a big war chest and lots of support. A small timer might be able to get volunteers to help them get on the ballot in a state, but to have a 50-state organization, and get on the various ballots meeting all the deadlines, that's a big operation.

[Tero]

Tax returns! Vetted candidates!

[L'Emmerdeur]

Can't quite decide whether a pissant neo-Nazi is good to have as an ally or not.

"Republican Official Says White Nationalist Was ‘Label-Lynched’"

A Spokane, Washington GOP leader says she feels duped after inviting a known member of a white nationalist group to speak at an event, where—surprise—he did not denounce his white nationalist ties.

James Allsup is an alt-right YouTuber and a member of Identity Evropa, a whites-only youth group that marched during the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia last year. Allsup also won a position in his county Republican party in an uncontested election in June, The Daily Beast first reported. Immediately after the report, Republican groups disavowed Allsup. But some of those groups were quietly building inroads with Allsup.

Last month, Spokane County GOP Chair Cecily Wright and her husband hosted Allsup at a meeting of their local libertarian group, Right Wing Watch first reported.

After The Daily Beast reported Allsup’s election, Wright told local media that she’d “like to go punch the guy in the nose myself.” But in private, Wright was more welcoming to Allsup.

...

Since The Daily Beast first reported his election, [Allsup] appeared on the white supremacist “Daily Shoah” podcast (the name is a reference to the Holocaust) and shared a liberal Facebook meme comparing caged immigrant children to Jews in concentration camps. “They present this like it’s a bad thing,” Allsup wrote of the meme, which warned of “American fascism.”

[L'Emmerdeur]

Shameless, sanctimonious duplicity; it will get you far in the political world.

'Ignoring his own record, Hatch complains of "dumbass" Supreme Court antics'

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) decided not only to whine about Senate Dems’ appeals, he also took partisan hypocrisy to levels rarely seen, even by contemporary standards.

“We can’t keep going down this partisan, picky, stupid, dumbass road that has happened around here for so long. I am sick and tired of it to be honest with you and I’m tired of the partisanship.” […]

“Frankly, we didn’t treat their candidates for these positions, the way they are treating ours. I would like to see us hopefully break through and change that,” Hatch said.

The retiring Utah Republican was, as best as I can tell, not kidding. Hatch acted as if his complaints had real merit.

For now, let’s put aside the oddity of the longtime GOP senator, who has complained about the decline of “decorum” in the chamber, using the word “dumbass” a bit too often.

Instead, let’s take a quick stroll down memory land to a time Orrin Hatch has conveniently forgot. It’s an era popularly known as “two years ago.”

It was in March 2016, after Justice Antonin Scalia’s passing, that Hatch publicly recommended that President Obama nominate Judge Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court. The Democratic president, Hatch said, “could easily” nominate Garland, though the Utah Republican doubted that Obama would take his advice, predicting instead that the White House would choose a more liberal jurist.

That didn’t happen. Rather, Obama did exactly what Hatch suggested: he nominated Merrick Garland.

It was at that point that Orrin Hatch helped lead the opposition to kill Garland’s nomination. His efforts included writing an op-ed about a meeting the senator had with the judge that never actually occurred in reality.

Hatch soon after said it was imperative “to maintain the integrity of the Supreme Court,” which meant keeping the court’s vacancy open until “after the political season” ended.

No, really, that’s what he said.

Let’s not play games: Hatch urged Obama to offer a compromise nominee; Obama agreed; and Hatch helped kill the nomination anyway – not because of merit, but because of pure, raw partisanship.

[Seabass]

The huevos on that guy are frickin' ginormous.