Chamber Of Commerce Moves To Bolster Their Boy Rubio, As Palin And The Hate-Filled GOP Base Reject Him

Two polls were released Monday-- and both auger terrible news for the GOP. One, by the reputable Pew organization trumpets the broad national support for comprehensive immigration reform embodied in the Gang of Eight proposal. The other, by the Republican Party's own polling firm, Rasmussen, showed that Marco Rubio's support among Republican voters has plummeted because of his role in the drafting of that immigration legislation most Americans want to see passed. 71% of American voters say undocumented immigrants should be allowed to stay in the country. The racists, xenophobes, Know Nothings and teabaggers who are now the base of the GOP, disagree. Rubio's dilemma is fraying the Republican Party. Republican base icon Sarah Palin started the week rolling by smearing Rubio now that he's down and out with her followers.

"It’s beyond disingenuous for anyone to claim that a vote for this bill is a vote for security," Palin wrote. "Look no further than the fact that Senator Rubio and amnesty supporters nixed Senator Thune’s amendment that required the feds to finally build part of a needed security fence before moving forward on the status of illegal immigrants who’ve already broken the law to be here.

"And if shooting down the border fence wasn't proof enough, they blew another chance by killing Senator Paul’s ‘Trust But Verify’ amendment which required the completion of a fence in five years and required Congress to vote on whether the border is actually secure before furthering any immigration measures. And then they blew it yet again, nixing Senator Cornyn’s ‘Results’ amendment, which also required border enforcement standards. Now the Senate’s pro-amnesty crowd is offering a fig leaf to security via the Corker-Hoeven Amendment, but this is really nothing more than empty promises. It’s amnesty right now and border security … eh, well, someday.”

Palin promised to make immigration a major issue in the 2014 election cycle, comparing it to 2010 when the tea party movement helped propel Republican gains as Americans rallied against President Barack Obama’s federal health-care law.

“As the Senate moves to pass amnesty, the only bright spot in this travesty is the rallying revolution we can look forward to,” Palin wrote on Monday. “For just as opposition to Obamacare became a rallying cry for the 2010 midterm elections, opposition to this fundamentally transforming amnesty bill will galvanize the grass roots in next year’s elections. And 2014 is just around the corner.”

Nor was this Palin’s only attack on Rubio in recent days. On Sunday, Palin highlighted a story from Townhall.com which insisted Rubio shifted his position on immigration between when he ran for the Senate in 2010 and today.

“Politicians wonder why we can't trust them?” Palin demanded on Facebook on Sunday before including Alaska’s two U.S. senators-- Democrat Mark Begich and Republican Lisa Murkowski. “Campaign flip-flops like this and carve-out bribes in the Amnesty Bill for politicians like Begich and Murkowski to exempt Alaska seafood workers.”

The ad up top is being run-- and run heavily-- by the very far right U.S. Chamber of Commerce, as a reward to Rubio. The Chamber isn't interested in humanitarianism or racial equality; their only interest in the immigration fight is cheap labor. Can they make up for the damage Palin and the teabaggers are doing to Rubio's reputation inside his own party? Not a chance. Just listen to Lindsey Graham (from Fox News Sunday) explaining how his party has to be bigger than just the backward racists in his own state and Utah:

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We Need A Nobel Peace Prize Winner In The White House-- One Who Earned The Award

No one knows exactly why Obama got a Nobel Peace Prize before he had done anything other than run for president as a vaguely pro-peace candidate, unless it was just the Nobel committee trying to express their relief that Bush was out of the White House. I wonder how embarrassed they are about their selection now?

So what's new on the peace front? Well... Iran sent 4,000 Revolutionary Guard troops to Syria to bolster Assad. And Putin warned David Cameron that arming the Syrian rebels would be a mistake.

Putin, who has made no secret of his opposition to US president Barack Obama's plans to send arms to the rebels, was unsparing when he was asked about previous comments by Cameron that those who armed the regime had "the blood of the children of Syria" on their hands.

"The blood is on the hands of both parties. There is always a question as to who is to blame for that. One should hardly back those who kill their enemies and eat their organs," he said, referring to an incident when a rebel fighter was filmed taking a bite out of an organ he had cut out of the body of a dead Syrian soldier.

"It is hardly in relation to the humanitarian and cultural values Europe has been professing for centuries."

Putin has also reacted sceptically to evidence produced by Britain, France and the US that the regime has used chemical weapons-- crossing Obama's "red line" for intervention.

And mixed up, sleazy little closet case Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was on Meet the Press (above) demanding Obama use cruise missiles to establish a No Fly Zone. But in the midst of all this dangerous war-talk, the Iranian people elected-- and pretty overwhelmingly-- a man who professes to be a moderate and who says he wants to establish normal relations with the West. Will Obama's response by a No Fly Zone? Vali Nasr at Foreign Policy thinks it would be a tragic missed opportunity if Obama does follow the clueless advice he's getting from Lindsey Graham, John McCain and other warmongers and Likudniks in Congress.

There is cautious optimism that popular support for moderation at the polls will translate into concessions at the negotiating table. Rowhani sent clear signals during the presidential campaign that if elected he would seek to end Iran's international isolation. Favoring engagement over resistance, he said, "We have no other option than moderation." That may well be the case, but a nuclear deal is still far from certain, and in fact this June surprise could confound U.S. strategy in dealing with Iran.

...The dilemma for Washington is that, as a reformist, Rowhani is an outsider, weaker than Ahmadinejad when it comes to selling any compromise with the West to Iran's suspicious conservative establishment. Rowhani's electoral mandate gives him room to maneuver, but that is not enough to shield him from the backlash that would follow any rebuff at the negotiating table. So he will likely wait for a signal of American willingness to make serious concessions before he risks compromise.

For the past eight years, U.S. policy has relied on pressure-- threats of war and international economic sanctions-- rather than incentives to change Iran's calculus. Continuing with that approach will be counterproductive. It will not provide Rowhani with the cover for a fresh approach to nuclear talks, and it could undermine the reformists generally by showing they cannot do better than conservatives on the nuclear issue.

Washington must realize that its success in rallying the international community to isolate Iran was due in no small part to Ahmadinejad's bombastic style. In denying the Holocaust, calling for Israel to be wiped off the map, and deliberately ratcheting up tensions with the West, he made it easy to paint Iran as an existential threat to Israel and a menace to the international community. Washington will find it difficult to make the same case when Iran has elected a reformist president who has publicly repudiated his predecessor. Nor will the United States be able to as easily threaten war-- or inflict economic pain-- on a country where half the population has voted for positive change.

Rowhani's victory is not regime change in Iran-- but it is a game-changer. The supreme leader and the Revolutionary Guards continue to control all the levers of power. However, the election result has altered the face of Iran, enough to put to question the continued viability of American policy. There is now both the opportunity and the expectation that Washington will adopt a new approach to strengthen reformists and give Rowhani the opening that he needs if he is to successfully argue the case for a deal with the P5+1.

Since 2009, the Obama administration has relied on economic sanctions-- backed by veiled threat of war-- to get Iran to agree to a nuclear deal. It has offered Iran little in exchange for giving up its nuclear program, in effect hoping that Iran would capitulate. No Iranian president, conservative or reformist, would accept that outcome, or survive the political firestorm it would unleash at home.

To take advantage of Rowhani's victory and break the logjam over nuclear negotiations, Washington has to put on the table incentives it has thus far been unwilling to contemplate. It will have to offer Iran sanctions relief in exchange for agreeing to Western demands. At a minimum, the United States would like Iran to accept IAEA demands for intrusive inspection of its nuclear facilities; cap its uranium enrichment at 5 percent, and ship out of the country its stockpile of uranium enriched to 20 percent. Iran in turn wants a formal recognition of its right to enrich uranium and, more immediately, the lifting of crippling sanctions on its financial institutions and oil exports. Ahmadinejad is faulted in Iran for wrecking the country's economy. Populism, mismanagement, and international isolation have combined to put Iran's economy into a downward spiral. Between 2009 and 2013, real GDP growth has fallen from 4 percent to 0.4 percent, unemployment has risen to 17 percent, and inflation has grown to 22 percent-- and those are official numbers, which tend to downplay the gravity of the economic crisis. It is estimated that 40 percent of Iranians live below the poverty line. Reformists will grow in strength if they are able to show that they can reverse that trend by at least getting the West for the first time to offer negotiating away specific sanctions.

The Obama administration has spurned the possibility of sanctions relief because escalating economic pressure on Iran is popular in America, while the appearance of conceding to Iran is not. The White House, which has tightly controlled Iran policy, has thus far seen serious diplomacy with Iran as politically dangerous-- a risky gambit with a low chance of success and a high cost for failure. President Obama does not want confrontation with Iran, but he has also been unwilling to assume the risk -- and spend the necessary political capital with Congress and the American public-- to pursue a diplomatic strategy. Staying the course-- relying on economic sanctions under the guise of exploring diplomacy-- has been the default strategy. This has had the added advantage of being the Bush administration's strategy, which means Republicans have been hard-pressed to oppose it.

But a reformist victory in Iran should give the administration greater room to maneuver. The American public will be more open to a new approach to Iran now, and Rowhani's election should give Congress pause in further intensifying sanctions. Washington need not lift any sanctions yet, but simply being willing to discuss the possibility in exchange for Iranian concessions would be a sea change in the nuclear negotiations. Failing that, nothing will change in the nuclear impasse and the reformist moment could just be that. The ball is in Washington's court.

An aside: if you're sickened by Lindsey Graham's constant warmongering and would like to see him out of the Senate next year, please help Democrat Jay Stamper defeat him. This afternoon, Jay told us "I wish I could say I'm surprised at Lindsey Graham's desire to establish a cruise missile enforced no fly zone in Syria. But it's just another example of Graham's guiding philosophy of war as a first resort. And it's consistent with Graham's strategy of incrementally escalating the conflict to the point where US troops can be deployed. I believe his ultimate goal isn't even a war with Syria but a wider conflict involving Iran. Thanks to Graham and other voices for war, we're now in the position of backing radical Islamic rebels in a proxy war that involves not just Syria and Iran but Russia as well."

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Lindsey Graham Wants War-- War Against American Civil Liberties, War In The Middle East

Lindsey Graham seems to be losing his mind. Thursday he claimed that American intervention in Syria-- supplying arms, enforcing a no fly zone-- is not to help the rebels but to end war before Syria can use chemical weapons against... the U.S. He put out an official press release with fellow warmonger John McCain in the hopes up drumming up some war fever and seeing Obama blunder into an unpopular and unnecessary war that could easily escalate into a war involving Israel, Iran, Turkey and Russia.

“The conflict in Syria has taken a dramatic turn for the worse. The United Nations reported today that the death toll in Syria is approaching 93,000. Hezbollah is all in. Iran is all in. Iraqi militant groups are flowing into Syria to fight for Assad. Russia continues to provide military and diplomatic support. Assad is dramatically increasing his use of airpower against civilians and opposition forces in Syria. A report today stated that Assad’s forces conducted at least 5,000 air-to-ground attacks last month alone.

“A decision to provide lethal assistance, especially ammunition and heavy weapons, to opposition forces in Syria is long overdue, and we hope the President will take this urgently needed step. But providing arms alone is not sufficient. That alone is not enough to change the military balance of power on the ground against Assad. The President must rally an international coalition to take military actions to degrade Assad’s ability to use airpower and ballistic missiles and to move and resupply his forces around the battlefield by air. This can be done, as we have said many times, using stand-off weapons such as cruise missiles.

“We cannot afford to delay any longer. Assad is on the offensive with every weapon in his arsenal and with the complete support of his foreign allies. We must take more decisive actions now to turn the tide of the conflict in Syria.”

As you may know, Blue America is trying to help South Carolina Democrat Jay Stamper defeat Graham next year. He told me he didn't think Graham could surprise him any longer. "But today, he did, with the absurd suggestion that arming Syrian rebels sympathetic to al-Qaeda will help prevent Syria from using chemical weapon against the United States. I have one question for Graham: how does helping radical Islamists overthrow a secular government in Syria make us any safer? How does helping the terrorist al-Nusra front gain power over Syria's chemical weapons stockpile make anyone safer? Whatever tortured logic Graham is employing seems to be geared toward reaching a justification for escalated U.S. involvement. He's grasping at straws in a desperate scramble to justify war. And can there be any doubt that his desired result is other people's son's and daughters being deployed on the ground in Syria." You can help him do that here. And you won't be alone. A prominent South Carolina libertarian website, FitsNews.com, run by Gov. Nikki Haley's lover, ran a guest post by Stamper on civil liberties well worth reading.

Jay Stamper: My Twitter Backlash

When I read about Edward Snowden’s disclosure of the NSA’s PRISM surveillance program, I had two immediate reactions: this guy looks like my cousin Brendan and this guy is a hero.

At great personal risk, Mr. Snowden broke the law in order to expose a much larger criminal enterprise: The Defense Department’s outrageous and unconstitutional mass-monitoring of domestic civilian communications. To my mind, his willingness to be branded a criminal and live as a fugitive makes his actions all the more heroic. And the irony that a champion of civil liberties was forced to seek refuge in the shadow of totalitarian China is more damning and embarrassing to us than to him.

So, as the news broke, I impulsively reached for my iPhone to tweet my support. Then I hesitated. Why take sides on such a divisive issue? Why not wait and see what happens? It’s not as if the media were beating down my door for a comment. There’s no hurry. And a tweet is forever. But then I was caught by surprise by a flash of embarrassment at my own lack of courage.

So, I tweeted:

The reaction from my small Twitter following was instant and almost universally disapproving. In short, it seemed that most of my progressive tweeps had gone all state security on me. People whose tweets were ordinarily peppered with terms like “choice,” “equality” and “civil rights” were now throwing around words like “treason,” “security” and “homeland.” It sounded like their accounts had been hacked by G. Gordon Liddy. I was getting a few messages of support-- from Republicans.

What was going on? Why were so many of my fellow Democrats flaking out on civil rights? What happened to being a card a carrying member of the ACLU? I’ve entertained a few theories. Maybe in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks, Democrats are still so irrationally terrified of being viewed as soft on terrorism that we feel the need to overcompensate, jumping at any opportunity to prove we’re just as mercenary as anyone else. But the real explanation turns out to be more obvious; and less disturbing than it is depressing. Though initiated under President Bush, PRISM was expanded (and exposed) under a Democratic administration. The backlash I experienced was probably just a case of Democrats protecting a Democratic administration. This theory is supported by the numerous emails I received from Democrats telling me to cool it on the hero talk because I was playing right into the hands of the Republicans.

As Democrats, we should not be trying to minimize the seriousness of genuine misconduct when it happens under a Democratic administration. On the contrary, Democrats-- not Republicans-- should be the most ardent critics of a Democratic administration that operates in a manner inconsistent with our values. After all, it’s our brand that’s being tarnished.

Unfortunately, the political landscape is so poisoned and polarized that many of us-- in both parties-- aren’t even aware we’re part of the problem. Too much time spent in the echo-chamber of partisan group-think has made us unbelievably smug and complacent. Demonizing the other side is easy, and seeing a good idea for what it is becomes impossible when it originates from someone with the wrong political credentials. A liberal number of my liberal Twitter followers unfollowed me after my controversial tweet-- a pretty illiberal thing to do if you ask me. Even if you do disagree with someone, why cut off the conversation? The Southern Poverty Law Center follows the KKK and I’m pretty sure they’re not fans.

I’m as frustrated as anyone with GOP political theater, the faux outrage surrounding non-scandals like Benghazi and other transparently cynical attempts to hobble the President’s second term agenda in advance of next year’s mid-term elections. But lets not sink to their level. If we view important issues through the lens of partisan self-interest, we are playing the game by their rules. We may gain momentary advantage but in the long term, we’ll be viewed as intellectually dishonest, we’ll lose credibility and we’ll end up defeating our own cause.

It’s like PRISM itself; it may have seemed clever at the time but the blowback just isn’t worth it.

If you'd like to help Jay end Graham's disgraceful career in Congress, here's the place.

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Q & A With Jay Stamper... The South Carolina Democrat Challenging Lindsey Graham

You always know when someone is a DCCC candidate if you get into a Q&A with them. The DCCC candidates don't A the Qs-- not if they're substantive, let alone controversial. Jay Stamper isn't running for a House seat, so he'd never have any chance to be brain-washed by the DCCC anyway. Instead, he's running for the U.S. Senate seat that Lindsey Graham is holding in South Carolina. Jay is an outspoken, very independent-minded guy. He really does represent the best of his state's politics. And Blue America has endorsed him. He sat down for a Q&A with us and I've shared it, word for word, below. Please consider helping replace Lindsey Graham with Jay. Even $5 and $10 contributions-- here, on our Senate page-- are welcome... with enthusiasm.

DWT: This is your first run for public office, so people don’t know a whole lot about you. I thought you could share some...

JS: Some info?

DWT: Yes. For instance, are you married?

JS: Yes. My wife Marnie and I were married in December of 2010.

DWT: Children?

JS: Not yet but I have a niece and nephew who would make great fill-ins when we do a tv spot. And we do have two Shih-tzu's named Georgie and Teddy who will never make it into a tv ad. I borrow my mom’s yellow lab Sunny when the occasion calls for a dog that resonates with voters. Everybody loves Sunny and I hope he makes it until 2014 so I can take him on the campaign trail with me. He has a little bit of a weight problem. I joke that he’s 50% Yellow Lab, 50% Siberian Butter Bear.

DWT: I read someone on twitter say you were a scam artist and con-man who cheated little old ladies out of their retirement savings, was run out of multiple states for securities law violations and was sentenced to 120 years in a Nevada state penitentiary.

JS: You forgot the thing about killing Kennedy. I guess we’ve concluded the human interest section of the interview.

DWT: Yes.

JS: OK. I’ll address this point by point, in reverse order of importance. First, it is true that little old ladies were involved. They don’t like being called that, by the way. Second, I have never been "run out of" a state. Or asked to leave. Or even asked not to leave town. I don’t think those things even happen in real life.

(Laughter)

JS: Third, I’m not a scam artist or con-man. Or charlatan, snake oil salesman or scalawag. I am arguably a carpetbagger, but I’m sure we’ll get to that.

DWT: Yes.

JS: Basically, in 2006, I made the colossal mistake of trying to raise investment capital on the internet through a securities registration exemption.

DWT: Federal Savings.

JS: Yes, Federal Savings. I retained securities attorneys to advise me on the possibility of selling what are known as Federal Covered Securities. They advised that I could use short term promissory notes and told me that they were exempt under the 1933 Securities Act and not subject to state registration requirements.

DWT: And you believed them?

JS: Why wouldn’t I? They were the experts. I did read the law and the plain language suggested they were right. So, that’s how Federal Savings LLC was born. We raised about $5 million from investors in 37 states but we were shut down almost immediately.

DWT: So the lawyers are to blame?

JS: They were to blame with regard to being wrong about the exemption. They were securities law specialists and one of the premier firms in the Pacific Northwest. But, to me, it also highlighted how complicated our laws have become to the point that top lawyers can’t even make sense of them.

DWT: Which you’ve already blogged about.

JS: Yes.

DWT: Well what about the con-man, scam artist thing.

JS: Well, I never lied or defrauded anyone and everyone made money except for me. I lost almost a million dollars. So, unless I’m masochistically scamming myself, no.

DWT: Your website looked a lot like a bank website.

JS: That it did. The web design firm we hired to create the website asked me for examples of websites that I liked to use as guidance for the design. I sent them links to a number of sites, including one for World Savings. Unfortunately, they pretty much copied the World Savings design, right down to the piggy bank and the elderly couple walking on the beach. I told them to redesign it, not because I was concerned that it looked too much like a bank but because I didn’t want to violate anyone’s copyright.

DWT: But wasn’t it misleading to call a company Federal Savings, have a website that looks like a bank?

JS: My intention at the time was to give the company a bank-like look and feel, but be conspicuous about it not being a bank. My attitude was “Hey, since I can guarantee everyone a good return on their money, how do we aggressively market this investment to the widest audience.” In retrospect, I was sailing too close to the wind.

DWT: What about the 120 years in prison.

JS: Well, that had nothing to do with the site looking like a bank. One day my lawyer called and said, “Nevada is charging you with selling unregistered securities, acting as an unlicensed broker-dealer, etc.” I was astounded and my lawyers couldn’t believe it because the charges were bullshit. Any idiot knows an issuer doesn’t have to register as a broker-dealer to sell its own securities.

DWT: How did you react?

JS: At first, I was just incredulous. And angry. Even though I wasn’t legally obligated, I was spending money out of my own pocket to repay investors because Nevada had wrongly frozen the bank account we used for reimbursements. Nevada was doing everything it could to delay investor reimbursements and now it was threatening me with 120 years in jail on completely ridiculous charges.

DWT: So were the charges dropped?

JS: They dropped the broker-dealer charge after we politely reminded them that an issuer isn’t required to register as a broker dealer. The other one wasn’t dropped because I guess it was just too embarrassing for them to charge me with all these things and then immediately withdraw the charges. They knew the selling unregistered securities charge wouldn't fly-- under Nevada law, you have to "willfully" commit the crime which I obviously hadn’t because I’d been advised by counsel that the securities were exempt.

DWT: So what happened?

JS: What happened was we would almost certainly have won at trial and the state knew it. They didn’t want the embarrassment of having the charges thrown out or losing at trial but they didn’t want the embarrassment of withdrawing their last charge against me either. They needed to save face. Basically, it was a game of chicken. They didn’t want a trial and neither did I. I wasn’t willing to risk even a .1% chance of spending the rest of my life in Nevada. So they agreed to zero years in prison if I would plead guilty and of course I jumped at the chance. I could have pled not guilty and taken my chances before a "jury of my peers," but as I’ve said, that would have qualified me for an insanity defense no one could contest.

DWT: What do you say to someone who says you’re not taking responsibility but blaming other people?

JS: I would say, on the contrary, I’ve actually taken way too much responsibility. I pled guilty in Nevada to a crime that even the State of Nevada knew I didn’t commit. Despite having no access to the investment proceeds, it was my priority to repay all securities as they became due, including interest. I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of my own money on legal fees and to have a forensic accountant reconstruct bank records and track refunds. In all, I voluntarily spent over $1 million of my personal funds ensuring that all investors were repaid. You know, I was extremely cheeky in marketing that website. I take responsibility for that. But, on the whole, I’ve taken too much responsibility and left a trail of happy investors in my wake.

DWT: OK, on to a different topic.

JS: OK.

DWT: Anonymous detractors of yours claim on social media that you’re a carpetbagger from Seattle who moved to South Carolina just to run for Senate.

JS: I was born in Spokane, Washington. I’ve lived all over the country, Washington State, California, and now South Carolina. I went to college in Connecticut, lived in Boston, my dad’s a New York native, my parents lived in Idaho, where I spent summers working on a ranch, I was a ski instructor in Colorado and lived there right after college. I worked for Pro Air, based in Detroit, hometown of my grandfather. My ancestors are all either Irish immigrants or from Michigan by way of Kentucky by way of Virginia. I started The Delaware Company, which I later sold to a company in Wisconsin. I’m not sure there’s a single place in the U.S. where I wouldn’t be considered a carpetbagger. The way I respond to the term is, so what if I am? I’m committed to South Carolina and we’ve chosen it as our home. Voters want someone who will stand up for the people here in South Carolina, not someone who lives in Washington D.C. and stands up for the special interests that give him millions of dollars. By the way, Southern charm and hospitality are not myths; I’m constantly amazed by how friendly and welcoming people in Columbia are.

DWT: Are you worried that these issues will hurt your campaign?

JS: It’s part of politics. I knew when I filed my candidacy that Lindsey Graham had an opposition research team that’s like J. Edgar Hoover and Mitch McConnelI combined. I have my issues. Lindsey has his issues. And then there are the real issues. I want to talk about real issues like protecting seniors and veterans from those in Congress who want to adopt the Chained CPI, a real scam targeting the elderly. I want to talk about the trillions we’re spending on wars while our own budget is in crisis. I want to talk about the obstructionism in Congress that’s sabotaging our entire democracy.

DWT: You seem to joke around a lot. Are you worried that people won’t take your campaign seriously.

JS: No, because most of my jokes aren’t funny to anyone except me.

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Lindsey Graham's Homosexuality And... Syria

Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is, in essence, one thing above all else-- a self-loathing, closeted homosexual whose fear of exposure motivates everything else in his miserable life. Lindsey Graham should not be in the Senate or in government service at all. He is obsessed with his own homosexuality. His life in the dark, dank closet, trembling with fear that "the rednecks" will find out, has made him a practiced liar and has stoked a severe mental illness. He doesn't know the truth from the lies any longer. Last week we saw the tremendous damage this gay person is doing to the LGBT community in the hope of diverting attention away from himself.

I quoted from the apology to the LGBT community that rabidly homophobic closet case Senator Roy Ashburn (R-Bakersfield) made soon after he was arrested for drunk driving with a young male prostitute in his car. Ashburn came to grips with what went wrong in his life much faster than any outed Republican hate-monger I had ever seen. From his public statement:

Something happened that I guess caused me to realize that. When I was in sixth grade, the police had a raid in the sand dunes [near San Luis Obispo] and a bunch of gay men were arrested, probably charged with indecent activity. That sticks in my mind — the publicity and the shame around it. One of my teachers was one of the people. The talk among the kids, the talk among the adults, the talk in the community, the press — at that time the choice was pretty clear: If you were gay and open, it was a life of shame, ridicule, innuendo about molesting and perversion. It was a dark life. Given that choice of whether you come out or whether you're in secret, I mean, there really wasn't a choice.

...The best I can do is to say that I was hiding. I was so in terror I could not allow any attention to come my way. So any measure that had to do with the subject of sexual orientation was an automatic "no" vote. I was paralyzed by this fear, and so I voted without even looking at the content. The purpose of government is to protect the rights of people under the law, regardless of our skin color, national origin, our height, our weight, our sexual orientation. This is a nation predicated on the belief that there is no discrimination on those characteristics, and so my vote denied people equal treatment, and I'm truly sorry for that.

And that's, basically, what the deluded voted of South Carolina sends to the U.S. Senate to represent them.

Right now there's a battle over the future of Syria raging on many fronts. In Brussels, for example, Britain, Turkey and France want to arm the "moderates" (of which there are none to base a policy on, unless you define "moderate" as someone opposing Assad). The war-mongery British Foreign Secretary, an adjunct of the U.S. Military Industrial Complex, is arguing that arming "moderate" opposition forces would lead to less killing in Syria. Austria, the Czech Republic, Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden are being more logical and argued the opposite, saying that arms supplies would only escalate the conflict.

"How would the government prevent British-supplied weapons falling into the wrong hands, and how does supplying weapons help to secure a lasting peace?" asked Douglas Alexander, the shadow foreign secretary.

"Syria today is awash with arms and in the House of Commons this week, MPs on all sides expressed real concern about the identity, intent and tactics of some of the rebel forces. "In Washington, the prime minister clearly failed to convince President Obama of his case, so tomorrow in Brussels the UK's use of the veto would confirm that the prime minister had also failed to convince our European partners."

...Oxfam's head of arms control, Anna Macdonald, said: "Allowing the EU arms embargo to end could have devastating consequences. There are no easy answers when trying to stop the bloodshed in Syria, but sending more arms and ammunition clearly isn't one of them.

"Transferring more weapons to Syria can only exacerbate a hellish scenario for civilians. If the UK and France are to live up to their own commitments-- including those set out in the new arms trade treaty-- they simply must not send weapons to Syria."

So why is this relevant to a discussion of Lindsey Graham's sad life in the closet? As always, Graham is asserting himself on the side of endless war, hoping the phony-baloney macho demeanor will somehow throw people off the scent. Last month he was shrill in his demands that the U.S. get involved with another complex Middle Eastern War dating back to ethnic rivalries that began in the Bronze Age. On CBS; Face the Nation he predicted that without U.S. intervention in the Syrian civil war, the entire region will "fall into chaos" by the end of the year. Graham falsely claims that he fought in the Gulf War but, in fact, was an Army paper-pusher who never left the safety of South Carolina. He uses his bogus claims of military heroism and hardship to make himself seem "straight" (or the red neck conception of straight) and to bolster his flimsy credentials as a foreign policy expert. If skipping around Baghdad in the shadow of John McCain-- buying "darling little rugs" in a market-- makes Graham an expert, well that's the only thing that does. Lindsey Graham will never be elected president or vice president-- or anything outside of laughable South Carolina. He should stop pretending.

Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham are pounding their fists for intervention in Syria after reports of chemical weapons being used. They have called for bombing Syrian air bases, arming the rebels and readying an international force to secure chemical weapons stocks. McCain was quick to say, though, he did not want American boots on the ground because that would be “the worst thing the United States could do right now.”

Although McCain and Graham hide under the pretense of humanitarian intervention and securing national interests, they are paving the way for another war in the Middle East. Bombing Syrian air bases to create a no-fly zone would have little effect on saving civilian lives. The Syrian Air Force has 555 combat capable aircrafts, but they have not been used against civilians. Helicopter gunships have attacked civilians, but an NFZ would have to be far more extensive to protect against them. Unlike regular aircrafts, helicopters can quickly depart, attack, and land necessitating more surveillance and striking capabilities to remove them.

Moreover, as Micah Zenko of the Council on Foreign Relations explains, “the NFZ in Libya did not protect civilian populations; it was actually the use of close air support against Qaddafi regime forces on the ground.” Close air support (CAS) requires trusted intelligence agents and forward air controllers on the ground to protect civilians and attack regime assets. That is, Western boots would have to be on the ground to actually secure civilian populations.

Additionally, General James Mattis, head of U.S. Central Command, told Congress that Syria has advanced air defense weapons from Russia that would make it difficult to establish any NFZ. Also consider that Libya’s no-fly zone required a 7-month long bombing campaign. Syria’s army is much stronger than Libya’s was, and its cities are denser than Libya’s which increases the possibility of civilian collateral damage.

Next, arming the rebels will only prolong the conflict and further ignite religious fragmentation. The Syrian army is well-equipped and has much better training than the rebels. If rebels gain heavy weaponry, Assad’s forces could escalate their own attacks or further drive moderates to pick a side. Weapons can also be traded from group to group. Attempts may be made to transfer weapons to "secular" or "moderate" groups, but they could easily end up in the hands of Jubhat Al-Nasra, an affiliate of Al-Qaeda in Syria. Previous disastrous experiences in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia should be enough to swear off the idea of funneling arms to proxies.

Involving American forces in Syria will also antagonize Russia, who is providing arms and supplies to Assad. At a time when Iran is developing nuclear weapons and North Korea is more belligerent than ever, it would be diplomatically foolish to isolate a powerhouse like Russia.

Graham is a sick, bloodthirsty sociopath hoping against hope that he isn't exposed for his true nature. The Democrat running against him for the South Carolina Senate seat, Jay Stamper, never comments of the closet case thing. But he has been very vocal about Lindsey's warmongering.

[T]he main reason we should all care about retiring Lindsey Graham is the carelessness with which he advocates the use of American military force abroad. There is something disturbing about someone who has never seen combat being so consistently eager to deploy other people’s sons and daughters overseas. Maybe that’s why he has falsely and repeatedly claimed to be a Gulf War veteran.

I believe that Graham may be one of those people who appreciates our military’s capabilities and are frustrated when they aren’t being employed. It’s like having a brand new sports car in your garage all gassed up, the keys in the ignition, but not being able to take it for a spin.

Having voted to authorize the use of force in both Iraq and Afghanistan, was Graham not chastened when these two wars left over 100,000 civilians and U.S. soldiers dead or wounded and our economy on life support. Did he consider resigning, maybe to write a memoir in the hope that we could at least learn from his mistakes. At the very least, did he shy away from any future discussion of foreign policy. No-- not Lindsey. Instead, he’s weighing in on Syria. After reviewing all the facts, he’s come to a conclusion that we need boots on the ground and we need to bomb the country with cruise missiles.

There are so many ways this can backfire. Cornering Assad with U.S. force would make it more likely-- not less-– that he would resort to using chemical weapons out of desperation. The Arab proverb is “an enemy of my enemy is my friend” and intervening would make us friends with the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Nusra Front, Syria’s al-Qaida. We could end up spending money and American lives replacing a brutal dictatorship with a radical theocracy. Lindsey actually wants us to arm fractured rebel groups, many of whom have already committed war crimes. Their empowerment would risk the disintegration of any central government and could turn Syria into a sort of lawless failed state like Somalia, even more of a refuge for terrorists than it is currently. Not to know how wrongheaded it is to intervene is to ignore the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan and also to ignore the complexity of the Syrian situation, which virtually guarantees undesired and unintended consequences.

Lindsey, can you look into the eyes of these troops, or their parents, and honestly tell them that deploying on a mission to Syria has a high probability of making Americans safer, advancing the interests of the United States or contributing to regional stability in the Middle East? In fact, intervening in the crisis will not do any of these things.

Can you look into the eyes of the veterans of past wars who are disabled and homeless and tell them they just need to wait longer to get the help they need because we need those billions of dollars to fight yet another war? And how can we claim to support the troops when we send them to war and forget when they get home, voting to cut benefits for people who risked everything to serve our country?

Has Lindsey Graham thought about how $1.4 trillion in war spending could have been used to improve people’s lives? We could have increased funding for the National Institutes of Health by 600% every year for the last 10 years, speeding the development of treatments and cures for cancer, AIDS, cystic fibrosis, MS, and countless other diseases that destroy more lives every year than any Islamic terrorist could dream of. We could have provided low-income healthcare to 70 million people for 10 years, or hired an additional 2 million public elementary school teachers for 10 years. We could have provided 17 million military veterans VA medical care for 10 years, or provided 4-year university scholarships to 40 million students.

Don’t let Lindsey Graham (or anyone else) question your patriotism because you disagree with his foreign policy views. This is a senator who single-handedly blocked President Obama’s popular choice for Defense Secretary-- not out of principled opposition-- but to gain leverage over the President on a completely unrelated issue. As a result, the United States was without a Secretary of Defense at a time of escalating tensions overseas.

If you'd like to lend a hand in helping replace Lindsey Graham with Jay Stamper, you can do it on the Blue America Senate 2014 page.

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Self-Loathing Closet Case Lindsey Graham Shafts The LGBT Community

When California's most rabidly homophobic state Senator, Roy Ashburn (R-Bakersfield) was arrested for drunken driving and discovered with a young male prostitute in his car, I was impressed with how quickly he came to terms with how disastrous his life in the closet had been.

Something happened that I guess caused me to realize that. When I was in sixth grade, the police had a raid in the sand dunes [near San Luis Obispo] and a bunch of gay men were arrested, probably charged with indecent activity. That sticks in my mind — the publicity and the shame around it. One of my teachers was one of the people. The talk among the kids, the talk among the adults, the talk in the community, the press — at that time the choice was pretty clear: If you were gay and open, it was a life of shame, ridicule, innuendo about molesting and perversion. It was a dark life. Given that choice of whether you come out or whether you're in secret, I mean, there really wasn't a choice.

...The best I can do is to say that I was hiding. I was so in terror I could not allow any attention to come my way. So any measure that had to do with the subject of sexual orientation was an automatic "no" vote. I was paralyzed by this fear, and so I voted without even looking at the content. The purpose of government is to protect the rights of people under the law, regardless of our skin color, national origin, our height, our weight, our sexual orientation. This is a nation predicated on the belief that there is no discrimination on those characteristics, and so my vote denied people equal treatment, and I'm truly sorry for that.

Not every Republican who forced the Senate to strip LGBT couple out of the comprehensive immigration bill this week is a closet case. But self-loather Lindsey Graham is. "Everyone" in Washington knows he is but he's allowed to get away with threatening to scuttle the whole bill if it includes gays like himself. Last week former GOP congressman Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) married his boyfriend. Because of DOMA-- which he voted for while still closeted-- he won't be able to sponsor his new Panamanian husband's residence permit in the U.S. Lindsey Graham will have his painful day of reckoning as well.

Jerry Nadler (D-NY), who first introduced the Permanent Partners Immigration Act, in the year 2000 and has re-introduced a version of LGBT immigration equality legislation in each subsequent Congress, was dismayed that the Senate scuttled his legislation.

As the House sponsor of the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA), I am extremely disappointed that an amendment to ensure equal treatment for same-sex, bi-national couples was withheld, without a vote, during the Senate Judiciary Committee consideration of the immigration reform legislation. I applaud the leadership of Chairman Leahy, who was determined to–and did–offer an amendment that would allow LGBT families to stay together. Unfortunately, Senate Republicans made clear that they are unwilling to even consider ending the harsh discrimination that LGBT families face in our immigration process, and the disturbing decision to give in to their threats and fear-mongering has again let prejudice rule the day. Excluding LGBT couples cannot be reconciled with so-called “comprehensive” immigration reform. Committed LGBT couples deserve better than the wanton cruelty that current law exacts, and the failure to even hold a vote both condemns thousands of loving families to more needless suffering and gives unfair cover to those unwilling to stand up for justice.

  Despite this setback, I will continue to press forward in our fight to get relief for these families. And I remain hopeful that the Supreme Court will do what’s right in the Windsor case, by overturning DOMA, and ending discrimination under federal immigration and other laws against legally married same-sex couples.

Leahy is expected to reintroduce the LGBT amendment again while the immigration bill is on the Senate floor, so that Lindsey Graham hysteria won't scuttle it. If Miss McConnell, another deranged closet case, decides to lead a filibuster-- which is likely-- it won't get a vote. But in a straight up or down vote, it would easily win, with several Republicans crossing the aisle. Many non-Southern Republicans would prefer not to be forced into voting on the issue. A large and growing majority of non-Southerners backs equality for the LGBT community. If the Republicans use the immigration bill as a hostage against gays, the Republicans who are the most likely to suffer next year are not rotten closet cases Graham and McConnell-- who represent anti-equality states-- but... no one. It's not likely that a single GOP senator will lose in 2014 because of homophobia (unless Graham and McConnell get into some kind of Larry Craig- or Mark Foley-like scandal) but it further damages the Republican brand and could help persuade independent and moderate voters in close House elections to give up on their GOP incumbents, particularly these 15 seats in areas where people are not interested in legislating bigotry:

• Michelle Bachmann (R-MN)
• Paul Ryan (R-WI)
• Buck McKeon (R-CA)
• Tom Reed (R-NY)
• Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm (R-NY)
• Joe Heck (R-NV)
• Jon Runyan (R-NJ)
• John Kline (R-MN)
• Fred Upton (R-MI)
• Jeff Denham (R-CA)
• Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL)
• Jim Gerlach (R-PA)
• Tom Latham (R-IA)
• Mike Coffman (R-CO)
• Chris Gibson (R-NY)

Ironically, in Gibson's case, the opponent likely to beat him next year is Sean Eldridge, a wealthy venture capitalist married to Facebook founder Chris Hughes. Money won't be an issue.

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Does Your Congressman Want To Embroil The U.S. In A War in Syria? Most Do-- Both Parties

Bob Menendez (D-NJ) wants to drag the U.S. into another Middle East War

There are a lot of victims and a lot of "bad guys" in the Syrian civil war. But, from a U.S. perspective, there are no good guys. Tuesday, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by Bob Menendez (D-NJ) voted 15-3 to arm the rebels. The three dissenting votes were from Mark Udall (D-CO), Rand Paul (R-KY), and Chris Murphy (D-CT). Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM) warned of the dangers of arming rebel forces whose intentions are unknown. "I think we have to ask the question, 'Who are we arming?'" Sen. Udall asked fellow senators. "To tell you the truth, I don't think we know.…It changes every day."

Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, said lawmakers who supported the legislation were in effect supporting the provision of arms to rebel groups that are "the allies of al Qaeda," referring to the Islamist al-Nusra Front, a powerful force in the insurgency against Mr. Assad. "It's an irony you cannot overcome."

Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) countered Mr. Paul's argument, saying arms now were flowing to Nusra and to the Assad regime, marginalizing more moderate elements in the resistance. To address concerns that U.S. antiaircraft weapons could fall into the hands of extremists, the legislation would require the president to certify that such arms, if he decides to provide them, have been equipped with tracking, disabling or anti-tamper devices.

Tuesday's exchange in the Golan Heights marked the first time the Syrian army has acknowledged firing intentionally at Israeli troops since the civil war began. In a statement, Syria's army said it had destroyed an Israeli jeep that crossed over its border. Israel's army chief, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, denied that allegation-- instead accusing the Syrian leader of fomenting instability, in a sharp departure from previous Israeli characterizations of cross-border fire as errant spillover from Syria's war.

"We will not allow the Golan Heights to become comfort zone for Assad's reprisals," Lt. Gen. Gantz said. "If he destabilizes the Golan Heights, he will bear the consequences." Tensions between the sides have risen in recent weeks after Israeli airstrikes near Damascus targeted what Western intelligence officials say were missiles en route to Hezbollah.

The legislation was authored by Menendez who made a bunch of spurious claims that "Vital national interests are at stake and we cannot watch from the sidelines." There is a similar piece of legislation working its way through the House, cosponsored by AIPAC/Israeli agent Eliot Engel (New Dem-NY) who is salivating at the thought of killing Syrians and Iranians and sounds more like John McCain and Lindsey Graham when it comes to war than what people think a Democratic is supposed to sound like. He was elected by his Democratic colleagues as the Ranking Member of the House Foreign Relations Committee. He's one of the worst and most repulsive warmongers on teh Democratic side of the aisle, with very dubious loyalty to the U.S. when it comes to matters that even remotely concern Israel. And, there is no light between reactionary GOP warmonger Ed Royce (R-CA), the chairman of the committee, and Engel. Tuesday he said arming the rebels "would put our Syria policy on the best possible course... "Syria presents us with a series of difficult policy choices, but the most sensible of the alternatives is to support the moderate opposition. Otherwise, we leave the field to pro-Iran and pro-al-Qaeda forces to determine Syria's fate, and Syria will remain a humanitarian and strategic disaster."

President Barack Obama rebuffed a proposal last year to arm moderate rebel groups despite support for the move by top cabinet members, including the then-Central Intelligence Agency Director David Petraeus and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In recent weeks, however, Mr. Obama and his advisers have begun looking anew at the option of providing arms to moderate rebels groups, possibly in concert with Britain and France, according to senior administration officials.

The Senate bill authorizes the U.S. to provide small arms and training to units of the Free Syrian Army and other groups opposed to the Assad regime "that have been properly and fully vetted and share common values and interests with the United States." The bill says antiaircraft systems can't be transferred.

Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.), an outspoken critic of Mr. Obama's response to the Syria crisis, said the legislation "sends a signal to the administration" that it needs to get more involved in helping end the crisis in Syria.

But Mr. McCain said more action will be needed beyond providing small arms "if we are going to reverse the tide that's now taking place in favor of Bashar Assad." Sen. McCain said the rebels need heavier weapons that those authorized under the current Senate bill.

Marco Rubio knows less than the average college junior about foreign policy. When he read his talking points, he didn't have the slightest idea what he was talking about. I got the idea Rand Paul wanted to punch him in the mouth and send him home crying. “The U.S. cannot solve every conflict on the planet. But I believe it’s in the national interest of the United States to ensure that the strongest, best-organized, and best-funded elements in a post-Assad Syria and even before his fall are interests that are aligned with us and are friendlier to us than the alternative.”

These are the senators who blundered into dragging the U.S. into another war in the Middle East:

• Bob Menendez (D-NJ)
• Bob Corker (R-TN)
• Barbara Boxer (D-CA)
• Jim Risch (R-ID)
• Ben Cardin (D-MD)
• Marco Rubio (R-FL)
• Bob Casey (D-PA)
• Ron Johnson (R-WI)
• Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)
• Jeff Flake (R-AZ)
• Chris Coons (D-DE)
• John McCain (R-AZ)
• Dick Durbin (D-IL)
• John Barrasso (R-WY)
• Tim Kane (D-VA)

Lindsey Graham, one of the Senate's most vocal advocates of war-- anywhere, any time-- isn't on the Foreign Relations Committee. But he's been braying up a storm about sending U.S. forces into Syria. The Democrat running against him in Jay Stamper, who sounds more like Rand Paul when it comes to waging the kinds of aggressive wars Graham can't get enough of. A few weeks ago he told us that "the main reason we should all care about retiring Lindsey Graham is the carelessness with which he advocates the use of American military force abroad. There is something disturbing about someone who has never seen combat being so consistently eager to deploy other people’s sons and daughters overseas. Maybe that’s why he has falsely and repeatedly claimed to be a Gulf War veteran." He continued:

I believe that Graham may be one of those people who appreciates our military's capabilities and are frustrated when they aren’t being employed. It’s like having a brand new sports car in your garage all gassed up, the keys in the ignition, but not being able to take it for a spin.

Having voted to authorize the use of force in both Iraq and Afghanistan, was Graham not chastened when these two wars left over 100,000 civilians and U.S. soldiers dead or wounded and our economy on life support. Did he consider resigning, maybe to write a memoir in the hope that we could at least learn from his mistakes. At the very least, did he shy away from any future discussion of foreign policy. No-- not Lindsey. Instead, he’s weighing in on Syria. After reviewing all the facts, he’s come to a conclusion that we need boots on the ground and we need to bomb the country with cruise missiles.

There are so many ways this can backfire. Cornering Assad with U.S. force would make it more likely-- not less-– that he would resort to using chemical weapons out of desperation. The Arab proverb is “an enemy of my enemy is my friend” and intervening would make us friends with the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Nusra Front, Syria’s al-Qaida. We could end up spending money and American lives replacing a brutal dictatorship with a radical theocracy. Lindsey actually wants us to arm fractured rebel groups, many of whom have already committed war crimes. Their empowerment would risk the disintegration of any central government and could turn Syria into a sort of lawless failed state like Somalia, even more of a refuge for terrorists than it is currently. Not to know how wrongheaded it is to intervene is to ignore the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan and also to ignore the complexity of the Syrian situation, which virtually guarantees undesired and unintended consequences.

Lindsey, can you look into the eyes of these troops, or their parents, and honestly tell them that deploying on a mission to Syria has a high probability of making Americans safer, advancing the interests of the United States or contributing to regional stability in the Middle East? In fact, intervening in the crisis will not do any of these things.

Can you look into the eyes of the veterans of past wars who are disabled and homeless and tell them they just need to wait longer to get the help they need because we need those billions of dollars to fight yet another war? And how can we claim to support the troops when we send them to war and forget when they get home, voting to cut benefits for people who risked everything to serve our country?

Has Lindsey Graham thought about how $1.4 trillion in war spending could have been used to improve people’s lives? We could have increased funding for the National Institutes of Health by 600% every year for the last 10 years, speeding the development of treatments and cures for cancer, AIDS, cystic fibrosis, MS, and countless other diseases that destroy more lives every year than any Islamic terrorist could dream of. We could have provided low-income healthcare to 70 million people for 10 years, or hired an additional 2 million public elementary school teachers for 10 years. We could have provided 17 million military veterans VA medical care for 10 years, or provided 4-year university scholarships to 40 million students.

Don’t let Lindsey Graham (or anyone else) question your patriotism because you disagree with his foreign policy views. This is a senator who single-handedly blocked President Obama’s popular choice for Defense Secretary-- not out of principled opposition-- but to gain leverage over the President on a completely unrelated issue. As a result, the United States was without a Secretary of Defense at a time of escalating tensions overseas.

Want to help an advocate for peace replace a warmonger always trying to prove how macho he is by sending troops to war? You can support Jay Stamper's campaign here.

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