Wayne Besen

• February 5, 2020 • Uncategorized • 219

  The Day Democracy Died in the U.S. Senate

  Today seems like a regular day. The sun is shining, the traffic hums, I walked my dog and had coffee in the morning. Yet, this was no ordinary day and we live in extraordinary times. Because today, a bit of democracy died in the United States Senate.

  We have now entered a strange interregnum — a precarious 10-month period that starts with Moscow Mitch McConnell’s craven cover-up and ends with the upcoming 2020 elections. Make no mistake these 10-months will determine our future. It is going to be victory, or the End Times for America, as we know it.

  Let’s be clear, there was no acquittal of President Trump, but one party did quit democracy today. Moscow Mitch McConnell shamelessly colluded with the White House to ram through a sham trial with no documents or witnesses. It was a total farce. Vladimir Putin would certainly be proud.

  Trump is guilty as the day is long and everybody knows it. Yet, these Republican quislings traded democracy for autocracy. They revealed themselves, yet again, as Orwellian sycophants who elevated party above principle and political power above patriotism. The Republican Party in its current iteration must die, or America will. That I guarantee.

  How the hell could any person in good conscience who loves this country still vote Republican? It’s mind-boggling.

  I think it has a lot to do with FOX News and the universe of right wing media. One third of this country feasts on alternative facts and gets a fake narrative instead of real news. A third of this country thinks efforts to hold Donald Trump accountable are the efforts of a nefarious left wing coup that wants to come for their guns and bibles. This is the dishonest crap they are fed each day. This is the dangerous and destabilizing message they hear. And we wonder why they have abandoned reason and support Trump’s treason. We wonder why they have left their senses to join a cult?

  What gravely concerns me is that the fix may already be in. It may be to late. We may have already lost our country. That’s because today the Senate gave Trump, and Republicans in general, the green light to cheat with no consequences.

  Hmm, what do we know about modern Republicans and Donald Trump? Well, they are cheaters. They don’t play by the rules. They operate in bad faith and have no compunction about harming America to further their grip on power. And that’s when we still had a co-equal Congress that actually did oversight.

  What about now, when the president has, as Adam Schiff said, carte blanche to cheat? The president illegally withheld aid to Ukraine, to blackmail that country into investigating Joe Biden, a political opponent. Republicans said at the bogus trial that such undemocratic, illegal behavior is perfectly acceptable. How do you win an election when one party is allowed to cheat and has shown a propensity to do so?

  The answer is you don’t – and that’s why you see strongmen like Vladimir Putin perpetually ruling their countries. They have the trappings of democracy, but it’s all a ruse. It’s a Potemkin Village. But isn’t that what we had in the Senate this week? What we all witnessed looked like Capitol Hill. They went through the motions of the United States Senate. But it was a big fraud. It wasn’t real. It was a show trial like we have in communist and authoritarian countries. Thank you Moscow Mitch, Lindsey Graham, Lisa Murkowski, Lamar Alexander and the rest of this motley crew.

  So, Donald Trump now has near absolute power between now and Election Day. That’s a terrifying thought. Does any unbiased observer doubt that the president wants to a dictator or king? Let’s not forget this doosey during Trump’s nominating speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention:

  In today’s New York Times, Charlie Savage laid out Trump’s autocratic actions:

  • Trump said during his first campaign he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose any support.

  • Trump has repeatedly claimed that Article II of the Constitution, which creates the presidency, gives him “the right to do whatever I want.”

  • Trump said that he could pardon himself and vowed to systematically stonewall “all” congressional subpoenas.

  • Trump broke with a long-held norm by personally ordering an investigation into the Russia investigators, and he repeatedly tried to impede the special counsel inquiry, boasting that he has “an absolute right to do what I want to with the Justice Department.”

  • William Barr, provided the Trump administration with a legal theory by which obstruction of justice laws do not apply to presidents who abuse their power over the Justice Department.

  • Trump declared a national emergency to spend more taxpayer money on a border wall with Mexico

  • Trump wants a big military parade so he can act like a dictator

  • Speaking of dictators, Trump has bent down and kissed every ring and every ass of every dictator he’s ever met

  • Trump also demands extreme personal loyalty from aides, instead of loyalty to the country.

  • The president lied more than 16,000 times and gaslights on a regular basis to disorient people

  • The president has called the independent media the enemy of the people.

  The most egregious example of Trump’s dictatorial impulses occurred this week. The President’s legal team started their defense by essentially claiming, “Donald Trump is above the law.” They ended by going even further and arguing, “Donald Trump IS the law and Donald Trump IS the state.” Therefore, anything he does to help himself personally is in the pubic interest. Here is the crux of the deranged and delusional case made by Trump lawyer Alan Dershowitz:

  It’s one thing for a washed up attorney to make a bat shit crazy argument. It’s quite another for Republican Senators to rally behind such a nutty case and shred the United States constitution in broad daylight. There are two types of Senators who emerged from impeachment: Those who voted to convict and those who collaborated. Let the cruel and unforgiving hand of history record for the ages where they stood.

  If you think about it, the Republican defense was that George Washington was incorrect and picked the wrong side of Revolutionary War. What Washington should have done is support King George over “we the people.” Every one of these lying Trump mob lawyers should be disbarred.

  You know, even if we win the election, what makes anyone think Donald Trump and his Republican cultists would accept it? They view Democrats as illegitimate and believe that they have sole right to power. I happen to agree with comedian Bill Maher:

  If Donald Trump loses the election, but refuses to leave office because he falsely claims the election was rigged, who in government is going to stop him? It’s certainly not going to be his compromised and corrupt lackey Attorney General William Barr. Barr is America’s top cop and can have anyone that opposes Trump illegal squatting in the White House arrested.

  When there are inevitably huge protests, Trump could declare a state of emergency and shut down the media – except for media outlets he likes, such as FOX and Breitbart. If William Barr commanded the police to arrest political opponents or even shoot protesters, would the police obey his illegal order? Maybe.

  Would Chief Justice John Roberts take Trump’s side against democracy? Probably, considering he didn’t lift a finger to call witnesses at the impeachment trial, even though he had the authority to do so.

  And what would the military do? That’s a wildcard. Increasingly, the top military brass doesn’t care for Trump. But many of the soldiers carrying weapons come from deep red states and support the president. Even if the military was opposed to Trump, there are heavily armed militia terror cells and lone wolves who might take up arms. We saw a glimpse of this militia crowd in Virginia a couple of weeks ago, traipsing around Richmond with their weapons. Trump has already bragged he has the military, the police and the bikers. And there is always Erik Prince and Blackwater, a great friend of the president’s.

  Sadly, these terrifying scenarios are no longer far fetched? Anyone who watched embarrassing charade in the Senate can no longer rule it out. We have entered a new age of political peril and dysfunction and anything is possible.

  Look, democracies have died before, and ours could already be over. I hate to break it to you, but we’re not special. Our fate depends on the decisions we make and the actions we take. And every decision and action recently embraced Republicans points to fascism.

  As of today, Donald Trump now has de facto authoritarian powers. There is no longer a check to balance this most psychologically imbalanced of leaders.

  I’d like to know. Do Republicans know the gravity of their depravity? The impact of their insolence? Are they blind to their shameful deeds that are as unconscionable as they are unpatriotic? Or, maybe they were well aware and just don’t care.

  Do they comprehend that they are catapulting our country, for no good reason, into a political death spiral? I just want to shake them and say, “What the hell are you doing? Why are you doing this to our country? Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.”

  I for one, will never give in to these shameless quislings who whose sedition corrodes our nation, erodes our norms, fritters away our freedoms and devastates our democracy. Never.

  Now is not a time for moping or mourning. It’s not a moment for reticence or resignation. For sadness nor sorrow.

  It’s a time for real patriots to reenergize and organize for the long slog ahead to save this great country from ruin. We are called to act and we are commanded by conscience to rise to this moment of destiny to stave off our national destruction.

  We’ve got news for you Donald Trump, William Barr and Mick Mulvaney…we are never going to “get over it.” But we sure as hell are over you and will fight you to the finish, every step of the way.

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• February 5, 2020 • The Wayne Besen Show • 122

  You Can’t be Pro-Life and Anti-LGBT

   

  Right wing Evangelicals and Catholics like to say they are pro-life. They even had a big March for Life earlier this month on the National Mall, where President Donald Trump thanked participants for “making America the pro-family, pro-life nation.”

  But Trump and his supporters are phony hypocrites because they are outspokenly anti-gay. The fact is you cannot claim to be pro-life unless you are also pro-LGBT.

  Let me repeat that: You cannot, under any circumstances, claim to be pro-life if you are also anti-LGBT.

  Suicide is the second-leading cause of death for all U.S. teens. But, LGBT teens are five times more likely to make an attempt on their life than their straight peers.

  Furthermore, Dr. Caitlin Ryan’s published a study in the Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics that showed: “LGBT teens who were highly rejected by their families were 8 times more likely to have attempted suicide, 6 times as vulnerable to severe depression, and 3 times more likely to use drugs.”

  So, it’s clear that negative actions and attitudes against LGBT teenagers can have serious, life altering consequences.

  Upworthy reports that legalizing gay marriage has caused a dramatic drop in LGBT suicide rates. While the studies supporting this, don’t show direct causation, they do suggest a strong correlation.

  One study by Julia Raifman, a researcher at Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health, showed that in the 32 states that enacted same-sex marriage laws during the study, suicide attempts dropped 7 percent among all students and 14 percent among gay kids after the laws were passed. There was no change in suicide attempts in states without those laws.

  A 2019 study in Denmark and Sweden found similar results among married gay couples. Gay marriage was made legal in 2009 in Sweden and 2012 in Denmark. The study found that couples in same-sex unions saw a 46% decline in suicide, compared to 28% of those in heterosexual unions.

  The researches said: “Although suicide rates in the general populations of Denmark and Sweden have been decreasing in recent decades, the rate for those living in same-sex marriage declined at a steeper pace, which has not been noted previously.

  One would think that fundamentalist Christians would look at these statistics and say we need to change our ways. What we are doing is harmful, destructive and not pro-life. Instead, they are doing the opposite.

  For example, the Republican Florida legislature just dropped eight anti-gay bills. Two of the bills supported “ex-gay” conversion therapy. The American Psychiatric Association says that conversion therapy can lead to “anxiety, depression, and self-destructive behavior”, including suicide. But these good Christians, just don’t seem to care about life – if the person is LGBT. If they are gay or trans, they are expendable. They are collateral damage in the culture wars.

  LGBTQ Nation reports that Republican lawmakers in Iowa filed a bill that would remove transgender people from the state’s civil rights protections. This monstrous bill could make Iowa the first state to rescind protections for transgender people.

  Republican South Dakota Rep. Fred Deutsch just compared parents and doctors who helped transgender kids to Nazis. His disgusting bill Deutsch would ban a list of surgeries from being performed for the purpose of gender confirmation on someone under the age of 16. Republicans in at least ten states are working to ban any gender confirmation-related medical care for transgender youth.

  This, despite a recent study that found puberty blockers were effective in stopping suicidal thoughts in 2/3 of people who wanted them as teenagers and got them.

  Clearly, these religious zealots might be in favor of protecting the unborn. But having a fetus fetish, is not the same as respecting all human life. So, if you’re only about the unborn, and don’t care about actual, living breathing people, just because you don’t like them, please rename your movement pro-fetus, but you ain’t pro-life.

  WayneBesenShow.com
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• February 5, 2020 • The Wayne Besen Show • 93

  Podcast: The Adam Schiff Show Outshines the Republican Shit Show

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• February 5, 2020 • The Wayne Besen Show • 90

  Right wing zealots declare war on LGBT people with new hate bills

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• December 31, 2019 • The Wayne Besen Show • 197

  Gay Rights Debacle in Zambia Shows Trump Regime Celebrates Corruption

  By Wayne Besen

  In the African nation of Zambia, a gay couple was sentenced to 15 years in prison for consensual sex. The U.S. Ambassador, Daniel Foote, condemned the barbaric sentence as “horrifying”.

  Unfortunately, American Christian extremists infiltrated Zambia many years ago peddling a hateful version of Pat Robertson so-called Christianity. Like the paternalistic, bigoted Christian colonialists they truly are, these malicious missionary thugs imported their homophobic hang-ups, which demonized and continue to terrorize the local LGBT population, and no doubt other groups who don’t share their backward beliefs.

  Thankfully Ambassador Foote stood up to these zealots and spoke out against the abuse of this gay couple. What he represents is the best of American foreign policy and why, at our finest, we are lighthouse for liberty the world over.

  It seems, however, that there was more to the story. Not only is Zambia morally bankrupt and run by fake Christians, it also may be financially corrupt. This is a country that sucks up $500 million annually in American aid. Ambassador Foote essentially accused the government of misappropriating millions in funds saying, Zambia “wants foreign diplomats to be compliant, with open pocketbooks and closed mouths.”

  According to The New York Times, the ambassador wrote, he had found it very difficult to get an audience with the president and said, “Both the American taxpayers, and Zambian citizens, deserve a privileged, two-way partnership, not a one-way donation that works out to $200 million per meeting with the head of state.”

  Zambia’s president, Edgar Lungu, was predictably apoplectic saying, We want Ambassador Foote, “gone.” Lungu told Sky News: “If that is how you are going to bring your aid, then I’m afraid the West can leave us alone in our poverty. And we’ll continue scrounging and struggling.”

  Hmm, sounds good to me. I’m sure they could use some of that money for education and job training in Detroit or Baltimore. Or, to combat crystal meth addiction in West Virginia or Ohio.

  By the way, President Trump appointed Foote ambassador to Zambia in November 2017. So, you think that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would have his back, both protecting American values and taxpayer money. But instead, Pompeo pulled out the rug and stabbed Foote in the back.

  In a statement, the Department of State said that it was dismayed the ambassador was “no longer tenable.” The department said that President Lungu’s remarks were “the equivalent of a declaration that the ambassador is persona non grata.”

  If this sounds familiar, it is reminiscent of the dismissal of Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, who tried to stop corruption in Ukraine, before she was stymied by Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump’s so-called drug deal to extort dirt on Joe Biden.

  Republicans defend Trump by laughably saying he illegally withheld aid to Ukraine only because he was obsessed with stopping corruption. If that’s the case, then why is the Trump Administration dismissing Foote from his post for his role in fighting corruption in Zambia?

  The New York Times writes, a recent report by the Environmental Investigation Agency, an international organization that investigates environmental crime and abuse, described the Zambian president, his daughter and two ministers as central figures in a “cartel” that traffics mukula rosewood trees. It said that the trees were on the verge of commercial extinction.

  Notice the similarities? An Ambassador in Ukraine fired for trying to stop a drug deal. An Ambassador in Zambia fired for taking on a cartel. But Trump tells us he is concerned about stopping corruption.

  The Times reports Ambassador Foote had spoken out about the sleaze in Zambia before. The popular musician Fumba Chama, who repeatedly criticized government corruption in songs said, “Foote’s voice is powerful. He had exposed their hypocrisy and corruption.”

  The episode in Zambia once again shows that the Mike Pompeo has no loyalty and undercuts the best diplomats at State. It highlights the administration’s ongoing love affair with shifty tyrants, political pirates, as well as hostility to human rights.

  Ambassador Foote represents the best of America. Unfortunately, he was working for the worst president and Secretary of State in American history. They are a disgrace to our flag and a stain on our country’s international reputation. Trump has essentially put out a giant, neon flashing sign to corrupt dictators across that globe that reads: America is open for shady business.

  I’d like to see the Democratic presidential hopefuls declare that if they are elected, Ambassador Foote will have his position immediately restored and if Zambia has a problem with it, we can find better use for $500 million of taxpayer’s money than allegedly lines the pockets of the fake Christian President Lungu and his crooked associates.

  Finally, we need to finally stop American right wing Christians from poisoning minds across the globe with Bible-based bigotry. Th ey aren’t pushing spirituality, but instead are inciting people to hate and violence. The toxic presence of organizations like The Family, which runs the National Prayer Breakfast, as well as the World Congress of Families, has even created a shadow foreign policy that puts us all in danger.

  The sketchy and self-serving agenda of these insurgent Christian groups is often at odds with official American interests and values. They are incompatible with our creed and credibility. Moving forward, these moral perverts and purveyors of hate ought to be denied visas when their rhetoric endangers the liberty or lives of local populations, including LGBT people, like the ones targeted and terrorized in Zambia.

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