Thursday, April 10, 2014

Greg Abbott showing up on milk cartons, but nowhere else

Thanks to John Coby for that. And the Lone Star Project for this.


Why is Greg Abbott avoiding the media and canceling appearances?

Every campaign has occasional scheduling problems. Sometimes events or appearances have to be cancelled for a variety of legitimate reasons.

But over the last several weeks, Greg Abbott has cancelled a number of events and has rarely taken press questions at the events he does attend. Clearly something is going on inside the Abbott campaign that’s affecting his willingness to appear in public or personally answer questions from the press.

-- Abbott has refused to meet with editorial boards both during and since the Texas primary.

-- Abbott spent more than three weeks (March 6 – 29) without any public events.
During this period (March 9 – 24) he refused to personally answer any questions on equal pay, even questions regarding salaries within his own AG office.

-- Abbott canceled an April 4th scheduled and publicized address to the Texas Renewal Project, an organization of Christian pastors (I posted about this conference here).

-- Abbott declined an April 5th opportunity to address the Texas AP Managing Editors Association in Padre Island.

-- Abbott’s campaign scheduled an April 7th press conference and Abbott simply failed to appear, not even bothering to send the press a cancellation notice.

It would be easy to imply, and reasonable to assume, that Abbott's campaign is wilting under pressure – especially the ongoing bad press over his bungling of the equal pay issue and his disastrous education policy rollout.

If it is something else – campaign personnel changes, pressing official business or a family issue – then Abbott needs to be forthright and explain in some detail.

If something is seriously wrong, Greg Abbott should say so, and everyone will know what to expect going forward. 

Greg Abbott is running a Steve Stockman-styled campaign at this point.  And we all know how well that turned out for Stockman.  Abbott came out of his self-imposed lockdown long enough to challenge Wendy Davis to appear in Austin today at the Civil Rights Summit with Obama.  She's going to be there.

So where is Greg Abbott hiding?  And more importantly... why is he hiding?  I mean, we all know what he is hiding (his association with undesirable supporters and the poor judgment it reflects).  But why is he afraid to be asked about it?  Why won't he stand up for what he believes?

Oops, sorry. That was insensitive.

Houston's proposed NDO making a cool spring warm

Lone Star Q and Texpate and Texas Leftist are leading the reporting on this development, and I will cede future breakers to them.  But it's clear that while the vote won't come until May, April is going to be excessively warm for a handful of wishy-washy council members.

Reposting my last update...

CM Bradford called shortly after 9 a.m. (on 4/9) to say essentially the same thing he told Noah at Texpate and John Wright at LSQ; he is supportive but wants to see what the ordinance says (it is still being drafted by the mayor's office).  No callback yet from Larry Green -- my district council member, by the way -- nor Kubosh.

And from the TL link in the first graf...

Even with this cautious response from a staff member, sources close to Texas Leftist say that Council Member Kubosh would be likely to support a Non-Discrimination Ordinance that extends to private employment. Said source worked with Kubosh on this issue prior to his election to City Council, and have spoken with him recently as well. 

Finally there's Kuff, this morning.

It’s not inconsistent for a Council member to say they support the principle and the idea of the ordinance, but they want to see what it actually says before they can confirm they’ll vote for it.

Nonetheless, everyone listed above is on record saying they would “vote in favor of a non-discrimination ordinance, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity or expression in employment, housing, and public accommodation”, and they will be expected to do exactly that. If they want to make arguments about making it stronger, that’s fine. That list above is more than enough to pass the ordinance, so there should be no waffling, no fretting about vote counts, and especially no fear of a backlash. When the time comes, everyone needs to keep their promises. Now would be an excellent time to call your Council members and let them know you look forward to seeing their vote for this NDO.

A couple of things...

1. It may not be inconsistent, but it certainly is cagey.

2. I'm not a fan of the HGLBT Caucus constantly pushing their weight around, but they have a righteous beef in this case.  If a council member says one thing to them and then does something else -- like Jackass Christie, for example -- there should be a political cost extracted for prevaricating like that.

3. Mayor Parker remains publicly uncommitted to including private sector protections in the ordinance.  This is her established pattern, but she's in for her own little world of hurt if she is too cautious here.

4. The reason there is so much waffling on a human rights ordinance by so many of our local policy-makers is because the conservatives at city hall -- Republicans, Democrats, black and white -- are getting pressured by the pastors.

As referenced yesterday, the preachers are terrified that Houston might be the next place Hell's fire and brimstone erupts.  They are determined to push back against the Sodomites, and are busily exercising their First Amendment rights to those council members riding the fence... just as the voices of tolerance are.

I'm sure Dr. Steven Hotze will weigh in at any moment.  He's finally getting the national attention he so richly deserves.  (Remember: even Big Jolly calls him the "crazy uncle".   That first link just bowled me over, if you recall.)  This would be a jihad for he and his minions.

So, as Charles K suggests, now is the time for those who have an opinion on this matter to express it to your CMs.  And to keep doing that for the next month.  This includes making sure Mayor Parker writes the ordinance so that it includes private-sector employee, housing, and service-oriented business protections (such as prohibiting restaurants, etc. from refusing to serve homosexual customers on religious grounds, for example).

I feel the warm weather already.  Don't you?

Wednesday, April 09, 2014

The moral apocalypse is nigh, according to Mike Huckabee and Texas pastors

The Texas Renewal Project, a conclave of the state's evangelical pastors, is increasingly fearful that the fire and brimstone of Hell is welling up (again) to swallow us all.  They gathered in Austin last weekend to quake and exclaim, and Chris Hooks went to observe.

Hundreds of pastors have traveled from all over Texas to the conference, which, according to the invitation penned by former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, aims to address the fact that ”our Judeo-Christian heritage is under attack by a force that is more destructive than any threat America has faced in decades.” There are speakers, and information sessions ...

The message on offer is grim and fearful. This is a room full of people that are falling out of love with their country. It used to be a place that held promise for them and their cohort. But it’s changed, dramatically and for the worse, and the pastors don’t know if they can get it back in time.

The night’s speakers give them no comfort. There’s former Oklahoma Congressman J.C. Watts, who tells diners that America is “not great enough that we can shake our fist in the face of a holy god and expect to get away with it.”

You really should go read the whole thing.  More:

“We can’t just go to church on Sunday and pay our tithe and leave it up to Washington. Washington is a Babylonian system,” says Watts. (According to Revelation 17:5, Babylon is the “the mother of harlots and of the abominations in the earth.”)

Babylon’s enforcement arm is the Internal Revenue Service, which Matthew Staver rose to speak on. Staver, the dean of the Liberty University School of Law, took time to reassure the pastors on one point: The IRS is impotent. There are strictures on tax-exempt churches engaging in political activity, but you can easily work within them. And if you break them outright, it doesn’t matter. “The IRS doesn’t have any teeth in this,” he said. [...]

Religious leaders encouraging the breaking of our nation's laws?  And they worry about the moral failings of others?  I wonder how they feel about undocumented immigration.  Probably not as forgiving as Jeb Bush.  Anyway...

It’s your duty, he told the pastors, to engage in political activity to the maximum extent you are able. Have candidates speak in your church, acknowledge them in sermons, have candidate forums and debates.

“Voting is a prophetic witness to the community,” he said. “No church has ever lost their tax exempt status for lobbying or for political activity. You’ve got to replace the muzzle that the world has placed on you.”
When he shifted to why the muzzle must be removed, things got dark. Staver spoke about legislative restrictions in New Jersey and California on “pray-the-gay-away” counseling services.

“If a minor comes to you and is struggling with same-sex attraction—maybe they were molested by the likes of a monster like Jerry Sandusky—and they have this self-hatred, they want to kill themselves because they have these desires that they don’t want, the desire to act out in the manner that they’ve been acted on,” Staver said, “and they come to a Christian counselor and say, help me, that counselor can’t help that child with those thoughts and behaviors. They have to sanctify that behavior as natural, normal, and good.” The crowd murmured.

Staver stepped back.

“I never thought I would ever say this,” he said.

And I never thought I would ever hear it said.

His trip (to Peru) culminated in another appearance, at a 70,000-seat soccer stadium, packed full with Peruvian Christians. When the first speaker addressed the crowd, Staver said, he carried a stern warning. “Any nation that supports or proposes laws that are contrary to God’s natural created order is cursed and will cease to exist.” Back at the Hyatt, audible gasps. A man in the audience yells “that’s true!”

Staver continued: “Tears began to roll down my eyes, because I began to think about the United States of America—the country that I was born in, that I love.” He added: “What we are doing now is not only destroying this country, but we are working to undermine Christian values in Peru and in countries around the world. This country is doing that. Under our watch! We can no longer be silent.”

Don't miss reading this if you want a glimpse inside the mind of today's Christian conservative Caucasians.  To be clear, there are Republicans who understand history; who for example know that -- once upon a time, not too long ago -- America's Christian fundamentalists were pro-choice.

... (P)olitical conservatives and Protestant evangelicals were relatively warm toward pro-choices causes until the ‘70’s. The nation’s most liberal abortion rights legislation prior to Roe v. Wade was signed into law by California Governor Ronald Reagan. Sen. Barry Goldwater was staunchly pro-choice across his entire career.

In 1971 the Southern Baptist Convention endorsed abortion rights for women in a remarkably bold statement for the time. The Baptists responded to Roe v Wade in 1974 by re-affirming their previous statement in favor of abortion rights.

There's more good reading there at that link.   At this point I would simply say (as someone who has come to the belief that God is a figment of man's imagination) that there's much work to be done just to slow down the spread of this pernicious mythology and its influence on our governance.  And there's a lot of good reading at that link also, depending on how open your mind is.

Barry Goldwater was right.  He would also be excommunicated from today's GOP for heresy, were he still with us.  The problem, as we know, is that the Tea Party (not particularly religious but very libertarian) cares as much about history as it does science.  And even less about hypocrisy.