If you are looking for a Republican candidate in 2016 who isn’t either bought and paid for by the Kochs, or in thrall to the Religious Right – or both – good luck. Not one of them has your interests at heart. Or for that matter, America.
People for the American Way in a press release yesterday informed us that both Bobby Jindal and Ted Cruz will be not just attending but headlining an event in Iowa next week with the Religious Right’s evil mastermind, David Lane.
And remember the supposedly moderate Jeb Bush, the guy whose attempt to tell Republicans at CPAC that it’s not good to be seen as “anti-everything” triggered a walk-out? (For that matter, remember when Bobby Jindal warned the GOP they have to stop being the party of stupid?)
Well, Tony Perkins from the Family Research Council (FRC) says he managed to sink his hooks into Jeb Bush while at CPAC (apparently after the “anti-everything” attempt), and reported Monday that, “the former Florida leader was very willing to listen” (I bet he is!), “especially on issues like religious liberty and same-sex ‘marriage.’ Although social issues may not be his first priority, I sensed he was genuinely interested in learning how to effectively work those themes into his overall messaging.”
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And OneNewsNow suggests God has selected Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker:
Sam Rohrer, president of the American Pastors Network, believes Governor Walker could be a very special candidate. “My personal opinion is it may just be that we’re seeing an individual who God has raised up perhaps for this time,” Rohrer tells OneNewsNow.
“He has already stood against a great deal of opposition, and God has kept him standing. He has stood for the right issues. He has stood for the rule of law. He’s stood firmly on the side of biblical, moral issues.”
You know, like comparing teachers to terrorist who behead and burn people alive. You can’t get more biblical than that.
In fact, the entire Republican field for 2016 is as tainted as a bucket of rotten meat. There is not a single one among them prepared to defend American democracy or the United States Constitution.
Take a look at PFAW’s press release:
Cruz, Jindal Headline Event with Extremist David Lane
Likely Presidential contenders Ted Cruz and Bobby Jindal will headline the American Renewal Project’s Pastors and Pews event in Iowa next week, according to the Des Moines Register. By leading the event, Cruz and Jindal ally themselves with one of the most inflammatory voices in the Republican Party: David Lane, who founded the American Renewal Project.
“By standing with David Lane, Ted Cruz and Bobby Jindal show their extreme anti-gay allegiances and their blatant disregard for the fundamental American value of embracing religious freedom,” said People For the American Way President Michael Keegan. “We deserve to know why Cruz and Jindal would align themselves with David Lane and this event.”
All members of the Republican National Committee (RNC) have been invited to attend the event. RNC chair Reince Priebus also has previously sung the praises of David Lane, and Priebus ignored calls from PFAW and others to cancel the recent RNC trip to Israel that Lane organized.
PFAW’s Right Wing Watch blog has long documented the bigoted statements of David Lane. Here are some of the key examples:
“Homosexuals praying at the Inauguration” of President Obama in 2013 will provoke God’s wrath in the form of “car bombs in Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and Des Moines, Iowa.” [7/23/13]
“Our long-term strategy must be to place the Bible in Public Schools as the principle [sic] textbook of American education.” [1/29/15]
“America was founded by Christians, as a Christian nation.” [7/17/13]
Republicans who support marriage equality are like politicians who backed slavery in the run-up to the Civil War. [1/29/15]
While “America was a Christian nation” since its founding, now it must choose between being “a Christian nation or a pagan nation.” [7/17/13]Americans “grovel to the false god of Islam”; “America, a Christian nation in heritage and culture, is being dismantled brick by brick.” [1/29/15]
See more here.
You get the idea these people don’t like America too much, don’t you?
We can probably expect limited media exposure to these events from now on, as a Bobby Jindal speech in Greenville, North Carolina last night, demonstrates. Originally, David Lane’s American Renewal Project, told the media, “News reporters aren’t allowed to attend unless they can agree with the candidate on which quotes to report.”
In other words, he may have said it, but you can’t report it. This is an interesting attempt to retroactively edit the past by an ideology that regularly repurposes the past for its own ends.
This, the local paper, the Greenville News, “declined to do,” they tell us. But “after a version of this story broke online, Twitter lit up and a Jindal aide asked the sponsors to reconsider.”
Social media, at this point, may be Democracy’s last, best hope for survival in this country. But you have to ask yourself, if Jindal wants to be president, why is trying to hide from the media? The Greenville News reports,
The American Renewal Project, Jindal’s host for a dinner at the Embassy Suites hotel, is a California-based, socially conservative organization that says its mission is to return America to its Judeo-Christian roots.
David Lane, its president, told The Greenville News he has little to gain from exposure in the news media. Some reporters, he said, “have agendas” and “don’t even care what the truth is.”
“It’s too bad that’s the way it is, but that’s the way it is,” Lane said.
As for Jindal, reporters can quote him “all they want,” said Shannon Dirmann, an aide to the governor.
This is also interesting – it’s the media that has an agenda, not the guys trying to overthrow American democracy and the Constitution using the Bible and theocracy.
David Lane is right about having little to gain, given exposure of his plans will certainly retard his attempts to destroy the country founded on secular Enlightenment principals.
The 2016 elections will be nothing less than an attempt by Religious conservatives to destroy America and turn it into a 13th century-ish, Islamic State-like apparatus of repression. We have already seen agreement by the Religious Right and the Islamic State on certain theological issues, with the major disagreement between them being what to call God and the set of anti-constitutional religious laws used to hold us all in thrall.
Practically speaking, from where the rest of us stand, it doesn’t matter if we are being repressed by Sharia law or the Law of Moses. Repressed is repressed. I warned you that the 2014 midterms would be a vote between democracy and theocracy. It was, and democracy lost. But in 2016, we are electing not only a congress but a president.
One thing become clear in all this: the enemy isn’t in Iraq and Syria. The enemy is here. And they’re coming for us in 2016.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
