Bad Boys, Nasty Boys: Out of the GOP’s Closet
Republican party politicos espouse an unflagging devotion to old-fashioned morality and family values, inveighing heavily against gay marriage, abortion, homosexuality, adultery, feminism, crime, stem-cell research, secularism, and liberalism-all of which they tend to lump together as different facets of the same evil decadence.
GOP leaders dilate on the need to “put God back into public life.” Many of them even claim to be directly guided by their deity’s mandate when legislating and governing. Their private deeds, however, frequently betray their words. Consider this incomplete sampling of politically prominent “social conservatives” who preach the conventional virtues to their constituents while practicing something else in their off-hours.
Recently-deceased Representative Henry Hyde, Illinois Republican, played a key role in the impeachment campaign waged against the adulterous president Bill Clinton. The several obituaries I read about Hyde failed to mention that he a six-year liaison with a young married mother of three children. The woman’s former husband blamed Hyde for the divorce that followed from the affair, and for the emotional damage inflicted on his children. Hyde dismissed the affair as “a youthful indiscretion”—it having ended when he was just a callow youngster of 43 or so. In 1992, Hyde divorced his wife of 45 years. Soon after that she died and he quickly remarried.
Representative Bob Livingston, Louisiana Republican, married with four children, resigned as House speaker-elect after his marital infidelities made the headlines in 1998.
Speaker of the House, Republican Newt Gingrich, led the charge against the philandering Clinton while himself carrying on an affair with a congressional aide. Gingrich hastened a divorce action against his (second) wife while she was hospitalized with cancer in order that he might marry the aide. At one point Gingrich’s ailing ex-wife and children had to get material assistance from their local church, having received insufficient sums from Gingrich himself. In 2007, he claimed to have come to grips with his “personal failures,” having sought God’s forgiveness.
Republican Baptist minister Bill Randall, who had been aggressively touted by the Republican party as a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in Florida, admitted that he had fathered an illegitimate child in the 1980s. After confirming the child’s existence, he changed his story the next day during a press interview, suddenly insisting that his teenage son was the father. Sensing that no one would swallow that story, Randall again reversed course and admitted to paternity. He did everybody a favor by dropping out of the 1998 congressional race.
Bob Barr was a Georgia GOP congressman until 2003, after which he became a conservative activist. While still married to his first wife, he was romancing the woman who would become his second wife. Barr was on record as a staunch right-to-lifer, but this did not prevent him from driving wife #2 to a clinic and paying the costs for her abortion. He soon took on a new mistress who became wife #3 shortly after he dumped #2. While in Congress, Barr authored the “Defense of Marriage Act,” probably with good reason.
Three leading candidates for the Republican 2008 presidential nomination, Rudolph Giuliani, John McCain, and Newt Gingrich, had five divorces between them, all involving adultery. On the Democratic side, the three front runners, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama, had neither divorces nor infidelities. Yet it was the Republicans who laid claim to being keepers of traditional family values, while damning the liberals for their amorality and profligacy.
In 2007, Senator David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican and family-values man, made the news for having patronized a prostitution ring in Washington, D.C. for several years, and earlier having used the services of a New Orleans brothel over a five-month period. Vitter refused to resign, assuring everyone that “I asked for and received forgiveness from God and my wife.”
Along with the hypocritical philanderers, there are the subterranean gay blades. In 2007, Bob Allen, Florida Republican state legislator, married with one child, was arrested in a public restroom after offering to perform oral sex on an undercover officer for $20.
Another restroom adventurer was Senator Larry Craig, Republican of Idaho, an outspoken opponent of gays in the military and gay marriage. Craig was famously arrested for directing sexual advances toward an undercover police officer in a men’s toilet at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. The police had been monitoring the restroom because of complaints about sexual activities there. Craig pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct. A number of other men, including one from Craig’s college days, identified the senator as having engaged in sexual activity with them or having made overtures with that intent, including an encounter in the restrooms at Union Station in Washington, D.C.
A few weeks later another GOP politico who consistently voted against gay rights, Washington State representative Richard Curtis, was caught with his panties down. Dressed in women’s lingerie he met a man in a local erotic video store, and went with him to a downtown hotel for a night of oral and anal copulation. Once the story broke, Curtis resigned from office. By now, word on the Internet was that GOP stood for “Gay Old Party” or “Greedy Old Perverts,” and that Richard Curtis had left public life “so he could spend more time masturbating with his family.”
There are the three classic cases of ultraconservative anti-gay gays who go back half a century: FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, McCarthyite investigator and Washington lobbyist Roy Cohn, and Cardinal Francis Spellman of the New York Roman Catholic archdiocese. All three of these prominent right-wingers and keepers of American homophobic vigilance were themselves secretly full-blown homosexuals who sometimes partied together in the company of choice male escorts—back in the days when the press dared not touch such stories.
In the above cases, what is deplorable is not only the obviously hypocritical inconsistency between professed beliefs and private behavior, but the professed beliefs themselves; beliefs that advocate discrimination against gays, brand prostitutes as criminals, equate abortion with murder, denounce divorce as a mortal threat to family and nation, and treat sex between unmarried consenting adults (even of the heterosexual variety) as sinful fornication.
Consequently, a noticeable number of conservative politicos face the daunting task of trying to submerge their lascivious desires in order to live up to their puritanical mouthings, trapped as they are in an unyielding cycle of surreptitious sin and furious public denunciations of those same sins.
In recent years, Republican ranks appeared to be riddled not only with sexual hypocrites but, far worse, sexual predators. There was the former Republican mayor of Waterbury, Connecticut, Philip Giordano who is now serving a 37-year sentence for sexual abuse in 2001 of two girls, ages 8 and 10.
Jim West, conservative Republican mayor of Spokane, Washington, backed a measure to prohibit gays and lesbians from teaching in public schools on the presumption that they might get too close to their pupils. Meanwhile he was using his city hall computer to troll for sex with high school boys. Two men accused West of molesting them when they were Boy Scouts and he was a troop leader. He was ousted in a recall election in 2005.
A GOP congressman from Florida, Mark Foley, was caught sending sexually explicit emails to teenaged boys who had served as congressional pages. He reportedly invited one page to engage in oral sex with him, an offer the boy refused. Foley chaired the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, which introduced stricter legislation for tracking sexual predators. Republican congressional leaders had received complaints about him from congressional pages—which they repeatedly failed to act upon. Foley resigned from Congress in 2006.
At that time, allegations of improper interactions with congressional pages were leveled at another Republican Congressman, Jim Kolbe of Arizona, who decided not to run for reelection.
In 2007, a Florida federal prosecutor working for the Bush administration, operating in “one of the most conservative United States attorney’s offices in the country,” dedicated to a hardline law-and-order approach, was charged with traveling across state lines to have sex with a five-year-old girl. J. D. Roy Atchison, had been chatting online with an undercover officer who posed as a mother offering to let men have sex with her young daughter. When arrested en route to his would-be rendezvous with a five-year-old, Atchison was carrying a doll and petroleum jelly. While detained in a federal prison in Michigan, he committed suicide.
In such instances, the most reprehensible thing is neither the hypocrisy nor the professed beliefs, but the behavior itself, involving the molestation and sexual assault of children and unwilling adolescents. The perpetrators are not merely hypocrites, they are criminals. In these cases, they really are sinners.
So the holy hypocrites-philanderers, homophobic gays, and pedophiles—crow their devotion to traditional morality while pursuing material and emotional plunder more rapaciously than any of us ordinary infidels and libertines. Looking at the above cases, and the many others that one could add if space and patience allowed, we can conclude that professions of religiosity are no guarantee of moral behavior. If anything, the hypocrites use religion as a bludgeon to be brandished against liberal opponents in order that they themselves might better pursue their aggrandizing goals and desires—no matter how selfish and destructive these may be. If this be morality, who needs degeneracy?
Michael Parenti’s recent publications include: Contrary Notions: The Michael Parenti Reader (City Lights, 2007); Democracy for the Few, 8th ed. (Wadsworth, 2007); The Culture Struggle (Seven Stories, 2006). For further information, visit his website: www.michaelparenti.org.
Yeah, but they’re all in favor of war, and what’s more moral than that?
Thanks to the author for reminding us of several good stories about GOP men not representing their party’s definition of “family values”. In addition to listing these disappointers, I’d be in favor of a movement to re-define just what a “family value” is anyway. Much of the “old-fashioned” definition is about sex behavior. Can anyone below think of any other things in life that we ought to “value”?
thanks for putting all of this in one article….handy dandy easy reference. hopefully, the dems will put that out there front and center… during the campaign.
These things have been so annoying over the last eight or ten years that my wife and I wrote a satire The Department of Homeland Decency: Decency Rules and Regulations Manual that was just published by Three Rivers Press. The Department’s motto: “Marching Proudly Backwards to the Future.”
These folks are ripe for satire, and we fun of them all. There are rules about how to completely destroy a Dixie Chick’s CD; where you can pray and whether a secular humanist can be near you when you are praying; what magazines and books you should be reading; why women should stay home and cook and look good for their husbands; and how to do “it” and remain decent.
More info at www.homelanddecency.com
Oh, come on. Anyone who did not just fall off the turnip truck recognizes the GOP is a criminal organization of predatory corporatists who cannot win elections unless they fool a substantial number of voters. They throw whatever they can to the wall of rube opinion and they run with whatever sticks. The so-called “family values” stick and so they use that to convince the rubes to vote against their own interests. It’s as plain as dirt.
Readers who don’t know who Michael Parenti is will understandably get the misleading impression from this article that he’s somewhat friendly to the Democratic Party. That’s not at all the case (despite his support for unusual figures like Kucinich). He’s a leftist radical, about where the better-known Zinn & Chomsky are, politically. He’s a brilliant writer & observer, who’s no more fooled by the Democrats’ disgusting tricks than by the GOP’s.
Sure, as kivals (11:33) says above, the GOP is a band of “predatory corporatists who cannot win elections unless they fool a substantial number of voters.” They are thugs, hypocrites & liars, no doubt. However, the Democrats’ game is not really any better. It’s simply more subtle, and thus harder to see through.
What’s key in the relationship between D’s & R’s is NOT that one party is “better” than the other. It’s that the two of them are partners with one another, in what amounts to a united front of corporatist elites, working against the interests of the broad population. It’s true that the R’s seem to specialize in sexual hypocrisy — but this is no worse than the Democrats’ equally dishonest pretenses of being “friends of the common man,” or being “antiwar.”
Michael describes the Republican political elite as ‘perverts in power’ - willing to do anything to stay in power and ‘look the other way’ with regard to their colleagues’ crimes. The Democrats are complicit in this: they have never demanded justice for the victims. In this, as in the great war crime and genocide in Iraq - they share full responsibility. At another time this would lead to a mass popular rejection of the two political parties and the formation of alternative political movements.
Robinea, the Democrats are NOT complicit in the sexual crimes described in this article. Those who committed these crimes are the guilty party. Democrats have not covered up for them either.
Iraq is a different issue altogether, but I agree with you on that.
RichM, at this point in our history, being called a “leftist radical” simply means that you agree with the majority of Americans on most issues, but you are not liked by the mainstream media. For example, Kucinich is often called a leftist radical, but his opinions on war, on health care, on class war, are actually shared by most Americans according to polls; for that he must be marginalized by the powers-that-be.
Nice piece Michael, but getting it published on CD is not going to get the information out where it needs to be. Most readers here already understand this, and many already have a great deal of the facts you put together. Why don’t you see if you can get this published in USA Today, or at least the LA Times.
Not to forget that the higher-ups in the Third Reich were also sexual deviants.
Excellent article!
I’m thinking I should become a right wing Christian- you get to do anything you want, then just admit you sinned, and everybody has to forgive you! So much easier that having honesty or integrity.
johnmorgan (12:40) - I understand your point, & agree with a lot of it — but you are inviting a discussion on terminology. When I say Parenti is a “leftist radical,” I mean considerably more than that he’s “not liked by the mainstream media,” or that his opinions are “shared by most Americans”; or that he could be compared to a Kucinich.
Parenti is a serious critic of capitalism. He’s not a “reformer” (while Nader & Kucinich are examples of reformers). He believes the great failings of American society flow directly from its capitalist foundations.
Although the MSM would call figures like Nader & Kucinich “leftist radicals,” that’s a misuse of language. The misuse of such terminology reflects the entrenched ideological bias of the MSM.
It’s true that Parenti is, for example, an opponent of the US war machine, and favors social support programs such as universal health care. Nader, Kucinich and most Americans would generally agree with him there, which was your point (and I agree with it). But neither Nader or Kucinich is an opponent of capitalism, and most Americans haven’t even made the connection between capitalism & America’s terrible failings. // So, when I used the phrase “leftist radical,” it was merely a shorthand way of alluding to this important distinction.
All of the above reactions to this article, I believe, are very good. I’m troubled, though, by the notion we seem to have developed over the years that immorality is tied to sex, and other digressions are, possibly, just illegal.
I just can’t understand this conumdrum: the Republicans want to get government out of everybody’s business (especially corporate business) except in the bedroom. It just doesn’t make sense.
If the Democrats werent so corrupt and complicit I would say their problem is that they dont go after the Republicans for their hypocrisy.
They could savage them, mock them, attack them at every turn.
But they dont.
But since they are more comfortable attacking Nader than going after the Republicans for stealing the vote–that tells you everything. They deserve what they get.
An excerpt from an interesting story about Prostitution during Political Campaigns:
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/feb/04/dnc-boost-for-sex-biz/?printer=1/
‘More business’ from GOP
Too bad for Watson and others like him that Denver didn’t land the GOP convention instead, said Carol Leigh, a San Francisco prostitute “over 50″ who has traveled to previous Democratic conventions in Los Angeles and Atlanta.
“It would be a lot better for the sex workers if it was the Republican convention,” she said.
“We get a lot more business. I don’t know if they’re just frustrated because of the family values agenda,” she said.
When the Republican convention was held in New York in 2004, some sex workers offered limited-time discounts, according to New York Magazine, which ran a feature story titled “The Girls in Their Summer Hot Pants.”
Officer Ana Aguirre, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles police, which hosted the DNC in 2000, said there’s “definitely a spike” in prostitution during large events like political conventions.
In Denver, said police spokesman Sonny Jackson, “We’re preparing to handle a variety of issues that may come up.”
queensbee: hopefully, the dems will put that out there front and center… during the campaign.
The Demoks can’t cite this article for fear that Hillary might turn up in an airport restroom with someone other than Bill…
Republicans want government out of their business, and *in* everyone else’s.
If one were a professional criminal, could hurt to tell everyone how extremely moral you are. Better than, saying perhaps, morality is for loosers.
???? Does Mitt educate his children that the american people are ignorant sheep, begging to be fleeced. “That, my children, is your place in this world.” ????
as my friend bonnie the dyke once said, “show me a homophobe and i’ll show you a homo.”
Okay - J Edgar Hoover, Roy Cohn, Cardinal Francis Spellman, all cavorting about “back in the days when the press dared not touch such stories”, the same era in which John Kennedy and brother Bobby had a tryst or two with Marilyn Monroe while the wives’ backs were turned, and one of Chicago mobster Sam Giancanna’s lady friends regularly visited JFK at the White House. What gives?
Legend also has it that during that same era, Bobby Kennedy signed off as attorney general for Mr. Hoover to wiretap Martin Luther King without any warrant, and the surveillance tape picked up phone sex talk between the good Reverend and at least one woman who was not his wife. J Edgar reportedly was livid because no matter how hard he shopped this juicy scandal about Dr. King around, not a single newspaper, media figure, or politician in the country would publish a word about it.
What was it back then, in that era, that caused the press to “dare not touch such stories”? As Michael Parenti’s above laundry list of today’s lecherous hypocrisy vividly illustrates, there has obviously been a sea change in journalistic ethics, or fashion, or else maybe just in raw power relationships between the national media, and public figures, where the privacy of one’s peccadellos is concerned.
I find it hard to believe that the press today is more courageous than it was in the 1950’s or 1960’s, or that the laws of libel have changed that significantly, or that the public now has a more voracious appetite for gossip or sexual tittilation than was the case, say, in the 1920’s or 30’s. Especially where elected politicians are concerned, suddenly everything’s become fair game for gotcha coverage.
How did this come about?
As Mr. Parenti would term it, why is there a cottage industry grown up to handle stories that “the press dared not touch” at all a few decades ago?
What were they scared of then? Are there any barriers left to lower now?
And of course, is this a change for the better, or a change for the worse?
Bill from Saginaw
re 2:45pm “How did this come about?”
maybe the existence of 24-hr cable news networks has been the difference. there just aren’t enough fires/floods/famines to keep us glued to our screens, so new forms of “news” had to be invented. also, gossip is much cheaper to do than on-site journalism—all you need is a mouth, a microphone and a tin ear for hypocrisy.
He left out one possibility - Richard Nixon.
A friend of mine who was a reporter in D.C. during the Nixon administration told me that everyone (i.e. reporters) knew that Nixon’s close friend Bebe Rebozo was homosexual. So what was Nixon doing during those vacation times he took with Bebe on his boat without Pat? Reporters speculated but didn’t write about it.
i want to know why our taxes are still paying for the pensions and health care for these GOP predators? As far as I can tell, the Congressional Accountability Act has been stuck in committee for years. I suppose there are skeletons in too many closets to let it out.
Time to clean house!
kathyodat
Parenti leaves out a simple explanation for the behavior of the private sexual “explorations” of his sample while publicly trashing the very same behavior.
Could it simply be that their public positions are their personal goals but without laws that punish such behavior they are unable to govern themselves? Since they are insecure in their ability to follow their own morals, they must force themselves and everyone else to follow the same under threat of punishment. These guys need a lot of help, if only they would admit it ;-|.
queensbee, I wouldn’t waste my time waiting for the dems to do anything with this info.
Fifty years ago I got so fed up with the dems wimpy ways in dealing with the other side during the campaigns that I stopped being a dem. Now I see them as the nerdy kids in school getting picked on by the bullies. They haven’t a clue how to fight back.
The hypocrisy of the GOP “family” is truly staggering. Clinton/Obama won’t mention this little quirk of theirs until the primaries are over if ever. If the election gets too close while “taking the high road”, it could get down in the gutter enough to let the fur fly. They will say that the GOP has a “very wide stance” when it comes to calling out pedophilia among its own. Everyone knows that we all can get carried away with lust while on a 2 week long Crank Binge….I mean Come On we’ve all been there right???
Anybody with me? Can I get an AMEN?????
JANE M: There are few drives so strongly placed into human beings that compare with sexuality. Authoritarian bodies of power understand this, as the church has used the “sin” of sex to control populations for hundreds of years. These political predators must retain the IMAGE of “righteousness” to get stamped by the elites as their power-hungers drive them towards offices where they can control others. Read John Dean’s book about the AUTHORITARIAN personality types: Conservatives Without Conscience.
No one mentioned Jeff Ganon. Given the paranoia of this White House, its anal retentive control of message, its post 911 security systems… who let that prostitute into the press room and made it routine to call on him?
In general, a subtitle for this article could run along the lines of, “Republican politicians find new ways to SCREW their constituencies!” And how. These guys are BIG on female submission, even write raunchy sexual guides that presume to make human carnal knowledge the externalization of ‘god’s’ directed will.
Hey! I have a publishing idea for a great election potential best seller… interview prostitutes and have them RATE their patrons, divide the scores, varied aptitudes, perversions, etc into which column–democrat or republican the behaviors fall into. Does this sound like a new way to rouse a Green or 3rd party alternative?
Be sure to check out the Republican Pedophiles web site to learn more:
http://www.armchairsubversive.org/
“There are the three classic cases of ultraconservative anti-gay gays who go back half a century: FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, McCarthyite investigator and Washington lobbyist Roy Cohn, and Cardinal Francis Spellman of the New York Roman Catholic archdiocese. All three of these prominent right-wingers and keepers of American homophobic vigilance were themselves secretly full-blown homosexuals … ”
roflmao
quietly!
As Rich M alluded to earlier in this thread, this article was a diversionary romp for Michael Parenti. He normally does radical analysis with great eloquence and structuraly analytical precision.
Such eloquence and structurally analytical precision that his opponets are usually reduced to either condescending or angry ad-hominum attacks because they have nothing of substance to contribute to the discussion.
Regarding the tendency of sexual debauchery among conservative Republicans who proclaim such conduct to be evil is more than a case of hypocrisy (because plenty of Democrats who profess to be for the ordinary working stiff live like self-indulgent Shieks and consistently offer their influence for sale to the highest corporate bidder.)
The deeper problem is the selection and promotion of potential candidates by the “powers that be”–translate political parties. Those in power and those who want to maintain their control over the levers of power have a vested interest in electing morally flawed cnadidates. Those with skeletons in their closets are always open to blackmail and bribes which only worsens the problem.
Those few who don’t play that game like Kucinich, Ron Paul, Cynthia McKinney, etc. are soon either marginalized as wackos or defeated by other party regulars in primaries.
It always amazes me, the difference between how humans like to see themselves and what they actually are.
I think the only answer is to change human nature before it prompts us to destroy ourselves. It can be done. The technology is there. All it needs is for us to accept the truth about ourselves!
P.S. I’ve put a few suggestions forward on my blog.
I think the Bible is the key to this phenomenon. It conveniently trashes any sexual behavior other than “legally wedded missionary position without birth control” sex, and also conveniently, at least in the Old Testament, portrays war as something done in God’s name (if you interpret it that way, which the GOP does).
When you couple the above with depression caused by taking away poor people’s jobs (NAFTA and CAFTA) and leaving them without health insurance and making them paranoid about terrorists, all they’ve got left to feel good about is that they’re better than all those sexual deviants out there (and that at least God loves them and they’ll go to heaven when they die).
Add to this mix the simple fact that the worse a GOP member’s sins are the better because then they get to say that they gave their soul to God, who forgave them and now they’re on the straight and narrow (except of course for war, but war isn’t a sin, at least not in their book). I mean, would Bush have been as powerful an attractant to Christian fundamentalists if he didn’t have a drinking problem and a cocaine problem before he found God? I doubt it. After all, what’s so special about a guy without any problems being rescued by his conversion to Christianity? It’s like people say, “See, if God can save George Bush, he ought to be able to save me! I’m not nearly as bad as he was. I guess I’ll vote for the guy.”
I guess what I’m saying is that for the GOP the Bible is basically a cold equation, a tool to be used for the manipulation of true believers. Hmmm . . . isn’t that what the Koran is to Osama Bin Laden in re his followers?
I dunno; I just dunno!
Rich M,
Right. There’s only one meaningful difference between Democrats and Republicans that I can think of: Democrats are burdened with sustaining the illusion of concern for the dispossessed, and Republicans are not.
Democrats must also consent to being depicted as weak and spineless and amoral and just generally as Losers. Perhaps Democratic politicians are best thought of as the less competent elitists. As such, they are given a less appealing assignment. Sort of like a cop stuck on traffic duty.
“I dunno; I just dunno!”
I dunno either. That’s the problem with politics: it’s like psychology and philosophy in that it’s all guesswork. And I’m tired of guessing so I’m going to vote for the candidate that says they’re going to do something good for the little people, even if he or she can’t win. Green Party candidate, probably.
The press today gobbles up pecadillos and titilating tales because if they came even close to airing the really “dirty laundry” they would get shot.
Reference: http://stevemoyer.us/reason
“Reasons to Reject Republicans”
As kivals (11:33) says above, the GOP is a band of “predatory corporatists who cannot win elections unless they fool a substantial number of voters.”
I simply say: “Republicans are evil. Never vote Republican.”
The Republican party is the party of the “rich, the super-rich and poor fools.” Use it. It’s a good line from the late Leonard Yarosovich (Chester, VT ).
I also say: “Hillary is a closet Republican. A vote for Hillary is a vote for a Republican.”
But it’s wrong to say that all Democrats are the same. Dennis Kucinich is different. Mike Gravel is different.
There are many Democrats in Congress who have a different set of values.
We need to accentuate the differences and attack the Democratic Leadership Council(DLC). The DLC needs to go away (forever) just like the Republican party.
I’m uncertain about Obama. He may be a clever politician doing “the best he can” or he may be a corporate stooge. Still, he’s the best chance we have of getting an out-of-control movement with nobody at the front of it.
Mix things up. Shake them up. Create some chaos.
Consume less and share more. That’s a good start.
Blessings!
Steve Moyer
http://stevemoyer.us
Michael Parenti is right on the money regarding GOP hypocrisy. But his history of Newt Gingrich’s marriages, divorces and affairs needs correcting. According to Wikipedia:
“Newt Gingrich has been married three times. He married Jackie Battley, his former high school geometry teacher, when he was 19 years old (she was seven years his senior at 26 years old).[8][9] After an alleged affair with Ann Manning in 1977, Gingrich sought a divorce from Battley[10]. In 1981, Gingrich wed Marianne Ginther[11], to whom he remained married until 1999, the same year Gingrich had an affair with a then 33-year-old Congressional staffer, Callista Bisek. He and Bisek were married in 2000 and currently reside in Virginia. Gingrich has two daughters, Kathy and Jackie from his marriage to Jackie Battley, two sons-in-law and two grandchildren.[12]
Although college peers noted Gingrich’s preference to discuss politics more than his personal life,[13] Gingrich’s personal life has been the subject of much attention from both the media and his political opponents over the years. In 1992, his Democratic opponent, Tony Center, ran an ad claiming that Gingrich had “delivered divorce papers to his wife the day after her cancer operation,” which was not strictly true, although friends have acknowledged that he discussed divorce terms with his estranged wife while visiting her in the hospital.[14] In March of 2007, it was revealed that Gingrich was having an affair while serving as Speaker of the House.
In March 2007, Gingrich appeared on conservative Christian leader James Dobson’s radio program and confessed, “There are things in my own life that I have turned to God and have gotten on my knees and prayed about and sought God’s forgiveness”
Daniel David asked: “I’d be in favor of a movement to re-define just what a “family value” is anyway.”
In my opinion, these are the family values we should be fighting for:
1) Ensuring that the family has enough food on the table and a decent roof over their heads.
2) Ensuring that the family has adequate health care.
3) Ensuring the children has a quality education.
4) Enabling mothers and fathers not to have to work 60 hour weeks to enable them to nurture their children.
5) Raising our children with good self-esteem and an understanding of their responsibilities as a citizen of the community.
6) Protecting the family from an evil government hell-bent on destruction and feeding our children to the war machine.
7) Protecting the family from evil corporations, marketing to children with their destructive products.
9) Teaching our children to love not hate, to give not receive and that the greatest reward comes from helping your fellow man.
10) Protecting the family from the media generated faux culture that promotes violence, racism, misogyny, hatred, substance abuse and promiscuity .
ticonderoga February 6th, 2008 5:31 pm Said : “I think the Bible is the key to this phenomenon. It conveniently trashes any sexual behavior other than “legally wedded missionary position without birth control” sex”.
Actually, nowhere in the bible does it say anything about sexual positions. That’s a man-made thing. In fact, I know a great number of Christian couples that have an excellent sex life.
Also, the whole “no birth control” thing is a catholic thing… again, man-made.
I’ve wondered why Republican voters keep lapping up the rhetoric even though their idols crack time after time. I can only think moral hypocrisy and self-deception serve some primeval human needs.
You forgot that Newt is also into playing around with boy toys. Hence, he didn’t run for president.
I can’t let Bill from Saganaw’s comment go undisputed.
It is widely known the JFK and Teddy were philanders of major proportions. Hence the connection between Bill C. and JFK. But Robert Kennedy was a very different individual. There has never even been a rumor about his being unfaithful to his wife to my knowledge. Yes, he made every effort to protect his brothers from their “indiscretions”, but I never heard of anything related to him directly participating in adultery.
Second, to connect RFK to Hoover’s wiretapping of MLK is absolutely stupid. Hoover HATED JFK, RFK, and MLK. I also believe that Hoover was involved with their assassinations. Hoover also had documented evidence against MLK and JFK about their extramerital affairs which he used for blackmail. In my opinion, Robert Kennedy was a man of strong integrity that wouldn’t give Hoover or the Mob the time of day. He lost his life for it.
The focus here should be on the Repug hypocracy related to all things sexual. Dem’s are just hypocritical about other things they try to stand for.
elmysterio: I really like your family values!
“Consequently, a noticeable number of conservative politicos face the daunting task of trying to submerge their lascivious desires in order to live up to their puritanical mouthings…”
Any self-respecting homosexual conservative politico would charge more than $20. to perform oral sex on an under-cover officer. Daunting task, indeed!
Now let’s hear about Republican serial killers, torture fetishists, and cat rapists.
It’s not just the Bible-thumping, hooker-humping, bathroom-cruising, heavy-boozing characters. Their private vices, while evidence of blatant hypocrisy, are small beer compared with their support of the savage war in Iraq, torture and forced disappearance programs, illegal spying on Americans, and other moral outrages. But why be so partisan? Bill Clinton’s statements on the war could be summed up as “I didn’t support war on that man, Mr. Hussain.”
Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act while enjoying Monica’s oral favors. Hillary’s unabashed hawkishness, opposition to humanitarian interventions in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, enthusiasm for cluster bombs and landmines, votes for the Iraq war and shameless repetition of Bush’s lies about Saddam’s WMDs and ties to al Qaeda, ruthless undercutting of the International Criminal Court and long and lucrative service on the board of WalMart even as it screwed its workers, outsourced to China, and unfairly drove competitors out of business raise serious questions about her moral character, too.
I’d like to add Joe Scarborough to this list.
http://xnerg.blogspot.com/2006/07/scarborough-country-of-dead.html
Another fine article by Michael Parenti. And thanks RichM for making the distinction in the use of ‘labels.’
For those of you unfamilar with Dr. Parenti’s work, scroll down on Common Dreams on the right side and click onto his name and take it from there. I have the greatest respect for Michael and have read several of his books and many of his articles and he is one of heros.Even heard him lecture about fours ago. Also, for those of you with audio streaming, Parenti was on ‘Flashpoints’ this evening with Mike Gravel. Go to,
www.kpfa.org and on the top, click onto today’s broadcasts and in the center you’ll see the listings of shows. Click onto Feb 06 08 ‘Flashpoints’ and listen. May I reccomend two other shows from earlier today.
‘Against The Grain’, and the show for today, ‘Is America Driving You Crazy?’ by Dr. Stephen Bezrucka, and, pertinent to Mr. Parenti’s article, the ‘Special Broadcast’ at 1;pm with Richard Dawkins. ( and if you can spare a few bucks, please help out the station. )
Bfranky; You guys are terrific! Great job!
Tonkatsu; Good information and website.
Siouxrose; Jeff Ganon…”out of sight, out of mind” whatever happened to him? All those secret meetings with the coward-in-chief…hmm?
The thing about the Kennedy’s or General Eisenhower, or President Roosevelt (FDR) or others in political office having extra-marital affairs was not the same as the Republicans mentioned by Parenti. The Dem’s I mentioned didn’t go around telling other folks how to live and “bad-mouth” people like the Republicans do. The Republi-’cons’ like to play around on the Q.T., but don’t grant others the same options. And when they ‘get caught’ out comes the Bible and the soothsaying ministers heal their souls with God’s everlasting forgiveness. What hypocrites!
Michael Parenti you are awesome! Thanks for exposing the rank hypocrisy of the Republicans.
What kills it for Repugs is that they try to posture as holier-than-thou, good-old-boys wearing white hats, that need to preach morality to the rest of us while being seriously sick.
The only thing I question is the subtext implying that Democrats don’t do these things, it’s restricted to Republicans only. I think that’s bullshit. Sorry, but great article anyway.
Bfranky: TOO funny! Love the magnet idea!
tailcap, I didn’t get the impression that Michael Parenti was suggesting that there aren’t sexually deviant or adulterous Democrats. And I don’t consider homosexuality deviant. But what the Democrats don’t do, and that’s his point, is moralize while engaging in behavior they condemn. What he’s really discussing is the hypocrisy. Their readiness to punish others for what they are secretly doing themselves. I think this is a trait peculiar to rigid authoritarian personality types. I think there are other issues involved that contribute, but that’s getting into a pretty big field.
kathyodat
I think you are mostly right, but I’ve heard about (sorry I can’t name them off the top) Democrats who are in the closet and vote against gay rights etc. I agree that the Repugs are way more hypocritical, no doubt.
Elmysterio, you’re right, it doesn’t say anything in the Bible about the necessity of using the missionary position only. What I wrote was an exaggeration to make a point.
However, although the ban on birth control probably did originate with the Roman Catholic Church, it still does have an origin in the Bible, which is the story of Onan. But before you get all Bible-technical on me, I am perfectly willing to concede that the story of Onan, like almost all Biblical stories, is open to interpretation. Personally, I tend to think the story has more to do with disobedience than birth control, but that’s just my opinion.
But I still think my main point holds true, and that is that there are a lot of GOP politicians out there who have used and still use the Bible as a control mechanism to get and keep themselves in power.
Slightly OT, I notice that Parenti’s Democracy for the Few is now in its 8th edition! Go MP. I use to use this book in my teaching 20 years ago. (Goes well with the books written by David Horowitz, before he lost his mind after writing a hagiography of the Rockefellers in 1976.)
The only thing the Christian so-called “religious right” has done for me is to make me not even want to be a Christian anymore. They use the bible to justify all the wrongs they do. The more “religious” they claim to be, the more hypocritical they are. And, if they get caught doing something that can’t be justified, they say they are so sorry and then claim to be re-born.
They claim to be pro-life, yet support an illegal war which has resulted in the deaths of thousands of people. Of course, these people aren’t Christians, so I guess it doesn’t count. They claim to be pro-life and support the death penalty. They claim to be pro-life, but don’t care that there are thousands of people in this country with no health insurance. They claim to be pro-life, yet they support the NRA. Mike Huckabee, the ex-preacher, is in favor of people being able to carry concealed weapons. He, himself does. I wonder, would Jesus have felt the need to carry a handgun? Would he encourage others to do it?
And, when you take a look at the history of our country, was it not Christians who literally stole this country from the Native Americans? Who murdered hundreds of thousands of Native Americans? Who robbed them not only of their land but their religion and their culture? But, I guess that was OK too, since they were just non-christian heathens. Oh, well, they did manage to convert some of the Natives to christianity, but still treated them like shit afterwards. And, I bet a good number of slave owners were christian. Oops, that’s right, the African slaves were non-christian heathens, too, so that made it OK. Even after the majority of African American slaves were converted to christianity, they still remained slaves. Long after slavery, black christians were not welcome in white christian churches.
I will always believe in God, and that there is one God, and only one God, who is truth and goodness and love, and that He is the father of all men. But there is something very very wrong with the christian religion. Somewhere along the way, it got distorted and evil. Not all christians, but the christian religion as a whole. And, sadly, I don’t want to be a part of it anymore.
Holy Psychological Shadow Projection Batman! Talk about over compensation for hiding the acting out of your own dark little secret masturbation fantasy world!
Nothing some effective cult deprogramming can’t take care of. Afterwards they can all come to terms with their individual little peccadilloes:
1) It’s okay to be gay. My Baptist parents damaged my development.
2) I’m a womanizer because I’m trapped in my adolescence. (Because my Baptist parents damaged my development.)
3) I’m a pedophile and need to be locked up. (Because my Baptist minister damaged my development.)
Now if we could only get them to stop starting wars and killing hundreds of thousands of people because their Baptist parents damaged their development.
Or do they start wars and kill hundreds of thousands of people because they’re evil bastards that want to control oil and love power, and they don’t mind using their colleagues that need to see a shrink help them do this?
Maybe the worst thing is that they have no problem manipulating millions of American Christians through their religion to accomplish their evil goals. I mean, religious people love their religion, and manipulating innocent people to help you do terrible things because of something they love is pretty darned rotten.
Hyperreligiosity is a very serious symptom of a limited mind. Hyperreligiosity is not compatible with rational living and represents a weight that delays progress. The US is experiencing this inability to advance in spite of its wealth. I believe this is because the American mentality, and its religiosity, is incapable of understanding reality adequately enough to find solutions. I see nothing but calamity ahead for our country.
Michael’s long list recalls the decadence of the early Papacy which in retrospect had a ‘campy’ quality and did subsidize some very fine art work.
This is how some politicians are blackmailed into collaborating with agents of interests…other than those of the American people. Michael did not mention the Republican Governor of New Jersey, McGreavy, who appointed his Israeli ‘toy boy’, Golan Cipal to head the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security…to the ‘horror’ of the FBI. The closet gay Govenor first ‘met’ agent Cipal who acted as his personal ‘tour-guide’ during an obigatory political govenors’ juncket to Israel financed by Zionist supporters. At least McGreavy had the courage or cowardice to expose Agent Cipal’s continued blackmail, announce his own homosexuality and resign. Cipal, who now requires an English ‘translator’ - despite having a Masters Degree from NYU, remains in Israel (’reclused at his mother’s house’) - beyond any extradition power. Clearly Cipal was acting in the interest of a foreign government to blackmail and manipulate an elected official in the United States.
I just love these “truth optional” Christians. They had no problem with pathological liar Oliver North. They also have no problem with the chronic lying done by police and public schools to promote the War on Drugs - even if that lying has to do with the actual danger posed by the drugs versus that posed by the policy itself. When Jesus says something that they [Christian conservatives] don’t like [tell the truth], they just tell Jesus to take a hike”!!
Christianity gave Eros poison to drink: he did not die of it, to be sure, but degenerated into a vice.
Friedrich Nietzsche
A Christian is one who follows the teachings of Christ so long as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.
Ambrose Bierce
The most perverse relationship in politics is between Nancy Pelosi and Gene Taylor.
She’s Speaker of the House, he has nice pecs,a real pretty boy Congressman.
He’s also a right-wing, pro-war, homophobic, blue dawg, Democrat from Mississippi’s 4th.
She gives him what he wants.
Dingo, anybody reads Nietzsche and Bierce, definitely has a spot in “the good place”. Add in some Twain and you have 3 Aces.
I am glad to see MP get 63 responses to his little missive. After I read his “Assassination of Julius Caesar” all of these decriptions and most of the issues of our period, time-jump because they are the same. Same oligarchy forcing yoe-men off the land to forge huge plantations worked by slave labor. Yoe-men forced into the cities where their vast numbers (renters, not homeowners) make their labor worthless. All politics is reduced to personality contests and who can smile brighter for the plebs while the Oligarchy makes war for plunder and the Commons is consumed, cooked in a sauce of sociopathic hypocrisy, murderous lies, and human blood. Empire.
Peace.
elmysterio,
Thanks for your thoughtful post on family values. I hope you’ll come and weigh in here frequently. This place needs you.
I am honored to post with the majority of the folks on this site. MP states very clearly the hypocrisy of the GOP. It mystifies me that, though this information is easily available with minimal effort, it does not make it into the information archives of most Americans(U.S. residents). Pop psychology, and Shakespeare, tell us that the more vocal the protestations and defamations, the more likely it is that the protesters have violated their own “moral” compass. None of us is free of “deviating” from our own or society’s morality codes, but it is the denial and therefore, suppression, of our “deviation” that prevents our return to balance with our environment. What this is telling me is that we are in dire need of first, accepting personal responsibility for our own behaviors and the underlying beliefs and programming that create the behaviors; and, two, suspending our judgments of others and replacing them with understanding and compassion.
George W. Bush and those named in the article are “suffering” from irrational and misguided perceptions of who they are and why they are here. As difficult as it is, and I speak here for myself, to dissociate from the judgments and condemnations of others, it is necessary to do so. As Gandhi said, Be the Change you wish to see in the world. My daily practice is to look at my world and accept that it is giving me information about my beliefs and how they manifest. I am, then, at choice to change my perceptions/behaviors, or continue down the same path and reap the same harvest. It is not easy, but it is simple.
I thank each of you for contributing to my awakening.
peace,
st john
pets4ever07, I understand well your post. The Christian belief in dominion is nothing less than a religious license to practice empire and spread the faith. Believe as we do or perish is the message. It is a false message. The majority of the Cherokees were Christian before the Trail of Tears, yet, they were brutally removed for their land and resources. Christianity is not the belief, but the excuse for empire. Christianity is used by faithless rogues to achieve their economic ends. Can you spell B U S H ? Christian people are led by the nose down the path of “anything but jesus.” They are so easily led that I cannot excuse them. They are complicit. Organized Christianity in my opinion, IS, the great satan.
To clairify a bit further, it was over one hundred million American Indians that were killed by Christians. They would do it again, at the drop of a pin, if they had the chance. That is the picture of true Christianity.
Lizard; 9;05am post…My feelings also. If you want to hear a good interview by the evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins speaking with these Christian non-thinkers, see my post above.
Doom and Gloom, thank you for reading my post. I am glad there is someone who sees things the way I do. I believe there will be a special place in the here-after for those who have used the name of God to justify the evil they have done to others.
To hear some people talk, you’d think that all Jesus ever talked about was sex and going to hell. The truth is he never talked about either. He talked alot about the Kingdom of Heaven, about love, forgiveness, being non-judgemental - but he did not talk about sex or hell.
DOLL: Jesus is not the problem. His TEACHINGS are the solution, however, his NAME has been used to endorse policies of violence, vengeance and racist segregation for centuries. DOOM & GLOOM spoke of the debt to Indigenous Americans, the red people; but the Vietnam War and the bombs dropped over Nagasaki & Hiroshima speak of a huge debt to the yellow race. Slavery represents an enormous debt to the Black race, and the war for oil in the Middle East (a policy of destruction that began in l953, although has decidedly picked up tempo since a sinister eclipse occured during Bush I’s realm on January 15,1991) signifies the debt to the brown people. There is also the not so small matter of misogyny, the burning of several million women under the accusation of “witchcraft.” No doubt those were the first feminists and wise women/healers among them. And of course Germany purported to be Christian (and there were courageous citizens, some religious figures among them who lost their lives to prevent the carnage) when it decimated as much of the Jewish people it could get its hands on.
It’s true that Martin Luther King and other luminaries TOOK from Christianity high moral teachings. Tragically, these gifted souls are the exception, NOT the rule. The way religion is being USED today to fuel militarism and the destruction of a sovereign innocent people is all I need to see and know to recognize that it has turned on its own moral center, subverted any genuine spiritual raison d’etre, and in providing the base that put and kept Bush in office (I know, the business elite is influential in this debacle, too, along with the military industrial complex and the need to maintain the dollar’s status as world/oil currency) rendered modern US christianity an equivalent ANTI-CHRIST.
I agree with Siouxrose and DOLL: the corruption of the teachings of the Ascended Masters, Jesus The Christ, Buddha, St. Germain, Mary Magdalene, and so many others, is what is at the root of the dysfunction of planetary governments. I offer some resources to explore solutions. Feel free to share this information with those you trust, and integrate them into what you already practice. I know you two get what this is about. We must start where we are and spread the Truth from the Inside out.
The Seven Sacred Flames, www.mslpublishing.com; Jean Houston, www.jeanhouston.com; The Way of Mastery, www.wayofmastery.com; Conversations with God, www.cwg.com; Way of the Peaceful Warrior, Dan Millman, www.danmillman.com; and so many more.
peace,
st john
Apologies: http://jeanhouston.org, not www.jeanhouston.com.
st john
Doll, Siouxrose and St. John are right — the teachings of Jesus in the first four books of the New Testament say nothing about sexuality except the condemning of adultery and lust, with the latter word some scholars having interpreted from the Aramaic as meaning ‘rape’ rather than simple lust. Jesus bitterly condemned hypocrisy, though, especially of those who claim to believe in his words and then do the opposite of what he taught, such as the current crop of the GOP and most of the followers of the major Christian sects. Mark Twain said the average Christian goes to church on Sunday to be forgiven for what he did on Saturday and what he’ll do again on Monday, and it’s sadly still true. Then there’s the quote from Jesus that you must serve either God or Mammon (money or commerce), something that hasn’t penetrated the thick skulls of the Bible-beaters — yes, ‘Christian businessman’ remains just as much of an oxymoron as ‘jumbo shrimp.’
As Laurence J. Peter once wrote “Going to church does not make you a Christian anymore than going to the garage makes you a car.”
I would also add that, according to some theologians, the epistles of Paul and Timothy should be ignored — they were, after all, only letters to expand the Christian faith and even Paul likely did not consider them sacrosanct. It was Paul who dwelled on the ’sin’ of homosexuality, not Jesus — he never mentioned it even once. Thomas Jefferson said: “Paul was the first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus.” And George Bernard Shaw wrote: “No sooner had Jesus knocked over the dragon of superstition than Paul boldly set it on its legs again in the name of Jesus.” Historian Wil Durant finishes Paul off with, “Fundamentalism is the triumph of Paul over Christ.” And that is the Christianity most Americans know today — the letters of Paul rather than the teachings of Jesus.
A psychologist I once talked with, who had lived in several European countries, England, Canada, and Japan, told me the US is the most sexually repressed nation in the Western world, with Japan a close second. He said sexual expression is as necessary to a healthy mind as eating and breathing are to a healthy body, and he compared the American repression of sexuality to someone who has a plastic bag on their head and is only allowed to breathe when they start to turn blue. And then they must feel guilty that they took that breath. When sexual repression is taken to extremes, such as the ‘true believers’ do, the sexual instinct is perverted into such monstrosities as rape and pedophilia. (Europe and the UK have much lower rates of rape than the US.) The best thing for America, he said, would be to free ourselves from the religious repression of sex, as they have in other parts of the world — it would also, I think, free us of the worst factions of the Republican and Democratic parties.
BTW, thanks for the links, St. John.
RSJ; Excellent post!
Siouxrose; Well stated.
St. John; The Comte De Saint Germain had many enemies ( the Republican Party of his day ) for teaching higher principals. Several asassination attempts, but he was always a step ahead of them. They even burned the school of higher learning that Pythagoras founded.
Power over others is the deadliest sin, in my opinion. Next is the lust of money.
Michael did not mention the Republican Governor of New Jersey, McGreavy, who appointed his Israeli ‘toy boy’, Golan Cipal to head the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security
McGreevey is a Democrat.
Golan Cipel ought to be in the Guinness Book of World Records in the “methinks he doth protest too much” category. He has absolutely insisted that he is neither gay, nor was McGreevey’s lover.
I hope someday he meets Senator Larry Craig– they would make a perfect couple.
Hasn’t anyone here ever read Genet’s “The Balcony”? I would highly advise you to.
Little Brother - you are right.
McGreevey was a Demoblican…
same, same. Naughty behavior with foreign agents or with Nebraska Cub Scouts poses a security risk because of blackmail and is or should be a crime.
And how do you know Senator Craig might have ‘liaisoned’ with Uber Agent and former New Jersey Homeland Security Chief- elect Golan Cipal in a Tel Aviv airport water closet? Hooray for international cultural exchanges!
Peaceman wrote: “Power over others is the deadliest sin, in my opinion. Next is the lust of money.”
I agree, Peaceman, and it’s unfortunate that most scholars will not even touch the subject of why people want power over others — probably because these academics play the same political power games in their own institutions. The inordinate lust for power, such as the desire to rule a nation, has been recognized as an aberration in some other countries except our own, where power worship is alive and kicking. Greed is concomitant to the lust for power, by my lights.
As we should have learned from the Roman Empire and Lord Acton, et al, the acquisition of power inevitably leads to the abuse of power yet, to listen to US Big Media, you’d think these lessons didn’t exist.
For the South and the perverse consequences of its evangelical religious stew, W.J. Cash’s Mind of the South is compulsory reading. This is one of American history’s great books and should be on every syllabus.
I want to amplify on what Thought Shaman said (February 6th, 2008 3:48 pm ).
“Could it simply be that their public positions are their personal goals but without laws that punish such behavior they are unable to govern themselves? Since they are insecure in their ability to follow their own morals, they must force themselves and everyone else to follow the same under threat of punishment. These guys need a lot of help, if only they would admit it”
A very large percentage of the American Population views morality as something that comes from outside the self (esp. the Bible in the US — I don’t know so much about other cultures). You can see this when they claim that if the Bible isn’t taught in schools, we will fall into depravity; likewise if the 10 Commandments aren’t posted in the lobbies of our courthouses. They tend to view tolerance as permissiveness, and claim that tolerance of one sort of human behavior leads down a slippery slope of “anything goes”. This leads to the authoritarianism that Siouxrose mentioned (February 6th, 2008 4:05 pm), and Lakoff’s Stern Father model for the family.
These people also tend to believe that good is outside the self and the devil is inside (man inherently sinful, etc…until the devil inside is supplanted with the holy spirit, of course).
Such people can easily believe that more and more strict enforcement of the rules of morality is needed to be more moral. If they have urges that go against The Rules, they hope that the promise of more punishment will dissuade them from acting on those urges. And just because they have the same urges doesn’t mean they should tolerate such acts in others: in fact, they assume everyone has such sinful urges, and that the discipline and structure provided by an agency like The Church is what keeps sinful behavior to a minimum.
This is also why they go and on about defense of the family but seem hypocritical to most of us liberal types. The family they are defending is a power structure designed to maintain morality. We tend to think of defending the family (and our troops) in terms of them being safe, healthy, nurtured, etc.
Barry
And all of these homos & molesters are still collecting their fat government pensions & their health care… its really sick, isn’t it?
Like I always say, “Thou doest protest too much”.
Those Repervertons need to be exposed like the cock roaches they are - one by one - and not a moment too soon. That’s how we end their insane attempt to kill everyone they disagree with.