Yesterday, Virginia State Sen. Mark Obenshain, whose claim to fame (other than losing to Mark Herring for Attorney General in 2013) is pushing a bill that would have required women to report miscarriages to the police, was named “chairman of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s presidential campaign in Virginia.” It’s a perfect fit, really, as both are right-wing extremists. In Walker’s case, for instance, he supports “a ban on all abortions with no exceptions for rape, incest or to save the life of the mother” – including on a woman’s right to choose and many other subjects. So no surprise there. Plus, Obenshain still has ambitions to be elected statewide in Virginia, just as Scott Walker looks in the mirror and sees a president staring back at him. In sum, these two are preening cuckoo birds of a feather, flocking together.

Meanwhile, back in reality, Obenshain is up for reelection to the Virginia State Senate this year, facing Democratic nominee April Moore in his overwhelmingly “red” district (e.g., Cooch won it by 24 points over Terry McAuliffe in 2013). Given that advantage, you’d assume Obenshain wouldn’t be afraid to debate his Democratic opponent, right? Well, think again. Instead, here’s what happened earlier this week when April Moore ran into Obenshain at “Family Night at the Warren County fair” (bolding added by me for emphasis):

At one point I was chatting with an elderly couple, when who should come up and greet me but Mark Obenshain himself! After a little small talk, I asked him, “So, Mark, when are you going to debate me?” After all, it has been well over a month since both Mr. Obenshain and I have been invited by the JMU student government to participate in a debate they want to hold before the election. While I agreed immediately to both dates the students proposed, I heard just recently from the student government that despite repeated efforts, they could not get Mr. Obenshain to commit.

The rest of the conversation went something like this:

MO: “Oh, of course I’ll debate you.”

AM: “Well, why haven’t you responded to the students, since they’ve been trying for more than a month to set something up?”

MO: “Well, it has to be the right time and place.”

AM: “Well, why wouldn’t an October debate at JMU be the right time and place?”

MO: “Oh, we’ll have a debate. There’s plenty of time.”

As this conversation was going on, I could see annoyance on the couple’s faces. Then the man turned toward Mr. Obenshain and said, “Now I didn’t hear you WILL debate her; I heard MAYBE. That doesn’t sound like a promise to me!”

I guess Mr. Obenshain then decided he’d had enough. He left our little group and went on to talk to others. Then the man turned to me and said, “I don’t really know you from Adam, but he just gave you MY vote!”

Let’s just hope that there are a lot more people like the man disgusted with Obenshain’s evasions and clear unwillingness (what are you afraid of, Senator?) to debate Moore.

Thanks to the awseome folks at Media Matters, who do the job that the corporate media refuses to do – researching, finding out the facts (e.g., what people actually said or did), and informing readers. For instance, check this out on raging misogynist and anti-gay bigot Erick Erickson.

Numerous Republican presidential candidates are attending the 2015 RedState Gathering hosted by conservative pundit Erick Erickson. Erickson has said males should be “dominant” over females, claimed women should be “at home” while men bring “home the bacon,” labeled Michelle Obama a “marxist harpy wife” and Justice David Souter a “goat fucking child molester,” argued LGBT people are “on the road to hell,” and wondered when Americans would raid legislators’ houses and beat them to “a bloody pulp.”

A few other choice Erickson moments from recent months include:

*Fox’s Erickson Directs Liberals To Coat Hanger Sales Site After Texas Abortion Bill Passes

*Erick Erickson Compares Pregnant Women To “Female Animals,” Calls On Companies To Stop Donating To Planned Parenthood

*Fox’s Erickson Smears Transgender Service Members As “Mentally Ill” In Response To DOD’s New Policy

*Fox’s Erick Erickson: “Abuse” And “Parental Issues” Make People Gay

*Fox’s Erick Erickson Says Society’s Acceptance of Transgender People Blinds It To “Evil” Of Charleston Killings

*Erick Erickson: All of Obama’s Policies Are Designed To “Humble The Arrogant Crackers”

*Erick Erickson Follows Scott Walker In Questioning Obama’s Christianity

*Fox’s Erick Erickson: The Only Line Between “Gay Rights Extremists” And “Islamic Extremists” Is “Death”

*Fox’s Erickson: “There Is No Reason” For Anyone To Study Women Or Gender In College “Unless They Want To Be A Professional Victim”

*Fox’s Erick Erickson: Obama Wants To Put “Pregnant Female Soldiers On The Front Lines”

*Limbaugh Guest Host Erick Erickson: Minimum Wage Workers Are “Mostly People Who Failed At Life”

*Fox’s Erick Erickson Understands Why “So Many” Believe Obama “Is A Closet Muslim Jihadist Sympathizer”

*Fox’s Erickson Agrees That “The Homosexual Movement Is … Destroying America”

Now, think about what it means about today’s “insurgent outlier” Republican Party that most of its 2016 presidential candidates want to actually COURT this extremist bigot, let alone condemn him as they should. Oh, by the way, the ONLY reason raging misogynist Erick Son of Erick isn’t allowing Donald Trump at his conference is because Trump has attacked a Fox “News’ host, not because Erickson suddenly cares that Trump is a misogynist, bully, etc. Finally, can you imagine if Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders or Martin O’Malley courted someone who constantly says the types of things Erickson says? The media would be going ape. But if it’s Republicans doing it? Yawn.

As a Democrat, of course I love seeing posts like this one — Republicans at each other’s throats and all that good stuff. But it’s also good to see as an American and a human being who finds “racists” and “nativists” to be a disgrace to our country and our species. So, kudos to recent Republican Party of Virginia Executive Director Shaun Kenney for declaring war on what he calls – in the aftermath of racist remarks by leading Virginia right-wing blogger Jeanine Martin – the (nativist/racist) “scum” of his party. Key points.

*”Bearing Drift and a host of other outlets in the Virginia blogosphere have desperately tried to maintain their independence from the Republican Civil War, with little effect, which in turn forces many of us to choose sides.”

*”…it is incredulous [sic] to believe for a moment that conservatives will and should willingly work with rank nativists and racists.”

*”For the better part of a decade, we have seen this ‘malevolent crew’ run amok and do precisely this: destroy institutions and profit in the exchange…ultimately the Republicans of the mid 20th-century were wise to reject the populists and racists in toto – no matter how hard the Democrats attempt to pin both upon us in the wake of the Southern Strategy of 1964. That marriage occurred in 1994, when the Ross Perot faction welded itself to the GOP.” (note: I disagree that Democrats attemped to “pin” the populists and racists on Republicans post-1964; to the contrary, Republicans worked very hard to win over former “Dixiecrats” to their party through their infamous “Southern Strategy” — see the superb movie Boogie Man for more on this).

*The racist/nativist “scum,” as Kenney calls them, have “been active,” “loud,” and have driven away “the business community,” “the fiscal conservatives,” “the fiscal conservatives,” “the liberty movement,” etc.

*”Until conservatives have the moral courage to stand up for fellow conservatives, and drive out those voices who tear down ‘hmongs’ and others, we’ll never become the conservative movement we ought to be.”

*”The [intra-Republican] civil war between the conservatives and the populists has been long overdue, and it’s time to clean house and make a clear and unambiguous break from those who would introduce racist or nativist sentiment into our Republican Party.”

I agree that Republicans SHOULD pure the racists and nativists from their party (I’d also suggest they purge the theocrats and bigots of all kinds), except that I don’t think it’s likely to succeed for one simple reason: Racism and xenophobia are exactly why Republicans love Donald Trump, polls show. Throw out all the “birthers,” xenophobes, racists, homophobes, etc. from today’s “insurgent outlier” Republican Party and what do you have left? A small, rump, “Chamber of Commerce” party with no chance of winning a majority for president, Congress, state legislatures, etc. Which is perfectly fine with me, but I just don’t see it happening for at least several more years to come…

Enjoy?

I probably haven’t agreed with former Republican Party of Virginia Executive Director (and blogger at right-wing Virginia blog Bearing Drift) Shaun Kenney on much of anything…ever, but this time (see below) it looks like we’re on the same page. As Kenney writes: “Either Republican Party leadership takes a clear stand against nativist sentiment, or it aids and abets such rhetoric for mere political gain.” (BTW, I’d note that when Kenney was Executive Director of the RPV, there were numerous comments made by Rpeublican elected officials that were…uh, questionable…but were not condemned by the party)

In this case, that “nativist sentiment” is spewing from an unsurprising source, the far-far-far-right-wing blogger (and self-professed “good friend” of RPV Chair John “Anti-Semitic ‘Joke” Dude” Whitbeck) Jeanine Martin. Martin runs “The Bull Elephant,” arguably the top pro-Republican blog in Virginia (at least according to former AG, 2013 GOP gubernatorial nominee, and all-around extremist nutjob Ken Cuccinelli), which spends a lot of time spreading the latest right-wing urban legend, railing against Planned Parenthood, the usual in other words. As for Shaun Kenney’s Bearing Drift, I rarely link to it, but this time it’s well worth it, for an epic, intra-Virginia-Republican civil war/super-“pie fight” over immigration – legal OR “illegal” – and racism that would be entertaining if it weren’t so appalling.

It all started with Martin referring in derogatory fashion to “Hmongs,” who as Kenney explains, are “a distinct ethnic group of Asians, prevalent in Southern China, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.” Kenney adds about Martin’s “Hmongs” comment: “It’s also a racial slur, along the lines of macaca, that can be used to apply to any Asian (see the ‘mung’ comment here). It was just that way in Gran Torino, a Clint Eastwood movie that dealt with racism as one of its themes, and the movie took heat for its portrayal.” I saw that movie, and it’s disturbing because there’s so much truth to it. Perhaps the RPV might consider screening it for all its members, then holding a discussion afterwards about why racism, xenophobia and bigotry should not be acceptable in what many MANY years ago was the “Party of Lincoln?”

Sadly, those “Party of Lincoln” (or Eisenhower for that matter, or even Ford or Dole) days are loooong gone, with the takeover of the GOP by the racist “Dixiecrats,” who thankfully (good riddance, don’t let the door hit you on the way out and all that…) left the Democratic Party back in the 1960s and 1970s, hopefully never to return. At this point, though, what’s frightening is that the GOP is infested with bigotry, extremism and lunacy of all types, from homophobia to Islamophobia to xenophobia to anti-Semitism (e.g., RPV Chair John Whitbeck) to endemic racism towards African Americans to…it goes on and on, including to Asians like the Hmong people.

The question is, will the Republican Party ever condemn/disown the Donald Trumps – and the millions of people who think like he does – or will it continue to be a modern-day mashup of the John Birch Society, Know Nothings, Dixiecrats (George Wallace, Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms…), etc? And will the Virginia GOP condemn comments like Jeanine Martin’s, like Steve “Child’s Host” Martin’s, like Buddy Fowler’s, like Eugene Delgaudio’s, like Bob Marshall’s, like Dick Black’s, like Bill DeSteph…it really never ends.

Here is the court order rejecting Virginia Republicans’ request to stay the June 5 order that requires the Virginia General Assembly to draw new congressional maps by September 1, 2015. The General Assembly is now clearly under court order to act by September 1, however much Republicans might not like having fair districts that don’t racially “pack” African Americans (in an effort to dilute their voting power and to protect Republican incumbents like Scott Rigell, Randy Forbes, etc.).

P.S. A fair map that accurately reflects the “purple” or even “purplish-blue” partisan division of Virginia would probably end up with 5 or 6 Democratic members of Congress (out of 11), not the paltry 3 Democratic members of Congress (Bobby Scott, Don Beyer, Gerry Connolly) we’ve got now thanks to gerrymandering.