Franklin Graham Goes To Russia, Praises Putin, Slams America, Attacks Obama, Denigrates Gay People
Gays ‘Take Other People’s Children’Â
Remember the hatred spewed on the Dixie Chicks when they went overseas and said they were ashamed President Bush was from Texas? Franklin Graham just went to Russia and said horrible things about America, President Obama, and gay people – but not a peep of outrage from conservatives.
In 2003, just before America invaded Iraq, the Dixie Chicks gave a concert in London. During one song, “Travelin’ soldier,” lead singer Natalie Maines told the audience, “Just so you know, we’re on the good side with y’all. We do not want this war, this violence, and we’re ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas.”
That comment, a negative remark about the President of the United States on foreign soil, drew such heated outrage from conservatives it drew death threats and greatly harmed their career.
This past week Christian evangelical Franklin Graham went to Russia.
He praised Vladimir Putin, repeatedly attacked President Barack Obama, America, and gay people, and yet not one peep of outrage has been voiced by conservatives.
“I have met the president on several occasions. He’s a very nice person,” Graham told a Russian newspaper. “But he supports and promotes policies that contradict the teachings of God. As a Christian I believe that abortion is murder, he supports it. Homosexuality and same-sex marriage — those are sins against God, and the president is promoting them. I’m not against homosexuals as people. But God commanded that marriage should be between a man and a woman.”
“And I very much appreciate that President Putin is protecting Russian young people against homosexual propaganda,” Graham continued. “If only to give them the opportunity to grow up and make a decision for themselves. Again, homosexuals cannot have children, they can take other people’s children. I believe that President Obama (and I’ll repeat, he’s a very nice person) is leading America down the wrong road. He’s taking a stand against God.”
Right Wing Watch reports Graham also told the paper, Americans have been “losing many religious freedoms,†while there have been “positive changes†in the area of religious freedom in Russia.
The “situation in the US regarding religion is in decline. Secularism, which is almost no different from communism, is an atheistic movement. Our country is becoming more and more secular, more atheist, taking God out of government, taking God out of schools. We are witnessing America losing many religious freedoms,” Graham told the Russia newspaper. “In your country over the past 30 years, we have seen positive changes. But over this same period of time in the US, the changes have been negative.”
It gets worse.
Posted by Franklin Graham on Wednesday, October 28, 2015
Graham had a meeting with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow (photo, above), who has close ties to Vladimir Putin and has grown in power as a result.
“I call for prayers for the president of Russia, who is protecting traditional Christianity,†Graham told the bishop.
“Many churches in America have started to support homosexuality. This is terrible, it’s a sin and it’s against God.â€
“When I was a young man, we worried that the world would become atheist under the influence of communism, but while communism fell, atheism didn’t go anywhere. Unfortunately my own president promotes atheism … I spoke about this with President Obama, but he did not understand. Unfortunately he does not have a Christian worldview.â€
In 2012, Franklin Graham on national television said, “I can’t say categorically” if Obama is a Christian, suggesting he might be Muslim.
Â
Image: Franklin Graham/Facebook
Hat tip:Â Right Wing Watch
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Roughly 140 Environmental Protection Agency employees have been placed on administrative leave after signing a letter warning of political interference in the agency’s work—prompting critics to accuse the Trump administration of ignoring their First Amendment rights.
Calling the letter “a remarkable rebuke of the agency’s political leadership,” The New York Times reported on Monday that more than 270 EPA employees had signed the public letter “denouncing what they described as the Trump administration’s efforts to politicize, dismantle and sideline the main federal agency tasked with protecting the environment and public health.”
On Thursday, the Times reported that 144 workers had been suspended, other news outlets put the number at 139.
In that public letter, signatories said they are joining in “solidarity with employees across the federal government in opposing this administration’s policies,” and that they “stand together in dissent against the current administration’s focus on harmful deregulation, mischaracterization of previous EPA actions, and disregard for scientific expertise.”
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They detailed their five primary concerns, including, “Undermining public trust,” “Ignoring scientific consensus to benefit polluters,” “Reversing EPA’s progress in America’s most vulnerable communities,” “Dismantling the Office of Research and Development,” and “Promoting a culture of fear, forcing staff to choose between their livelihood and well-being.”
On Thursday, the 140 or so employees who allegedly had signed the letter with their official titles received emails saying they had been placed on leave for two weeks “pending an administrative investigation,” The New York Times reported.
“The Environmental Protection Agency has a zero-tolerance policy for career bureaucrats unlawfully undermining, sabotaging, and undercutting the administration’s agenda as voted for by the great people of this country last November,” Brigit Hirsch, an EPA spokesperson, said in a statement, according to Bloomberg Law News.
“The letter, addressed to EPA head Lee Zeldin, alleged the agency has used its communication platforms to ‘promote misinformation and overtly partisan rhetoric,'” Bloomberg added. “One example the signatories cited was a March statement laying out the administration’s deregulatory agenda, in which Zeldin referred to ‘the climate change religion.'”
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Nicole Cantello, president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 704, called the move “blatant retaliation,” The Hill reported.
“We don’t swear an oath to the Trump administration, we swear an oath to the Constitution and so we don’t feel like we violated that oath or that we did anything wrong by signing this letter,” she said.
Cantello, on social media, wrote that EPA workers “have the right to freedom of speech, just like every other American.”
Addressing EPA Administrator Zeldin directly, she said: “See you in court.”
Some denounced the administration’s move.
Attorney Mark Zaid, who handles national security and whistleblower cases, wrote: “Apparently retaliation has already begun. This is what defines this Administration.”
He also offered to “provide pro bono consultation to examine current situation.”
The New York Times’ Trip Gabriel asked, “What First Amendment?”
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Image of Lee Zeldin via Shutterstock
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, in an apparent attempt to prevent the Republican Speaker, Mike Johnson, from passing President Donald Trump’s massive budget bill in the dead of night, has been delivering a speech on the floor for over six hours, and may break the record of 8 hours and 32 minutes set in 2021 by then GOP Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.
Speaker Johnson reportedly allowed minimal time for debate on what Trump calls his “One Big, Beautiful Bill,” which cuts Medicaid by about $1 trillion, and forces cuts to Medicare and SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, by hundreds of billions of dollars while carving out tax breaks that largely favor the wealthy. An estimated 17 million people could lose insurance as a result of the legislation.
Once Leader Jeffries concludes his remarks—which he began around 5 AM—Johnson will put the bill to a final vote, and he’s anxious to get the legislation to the President’s desk before Trump’s arbitrary July 4 deadline.
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“What is contemplated in this one big, ugly bill is wrong,” Leader Jeffries said, as NBC News reported. “It’s dangerous, and it’s cruel, and cruelty should not be either the objective or the outcome of legislation that we consider here in the United States House of Representatives.”
Jeffries also called it “cruel” to cut Medicaid.
“Republicans are trying to take a chain saw to Social Security, a chain saw to Medicare, a chain saw to Medicaid, a chain saw to the health care of the American people, a chain saw to nutritional assistance for hungry children, a chain saw to farm country and a chain saw to vulnerable Americans,” Jeffries added.
Speaker Johnson, speaking to reporters, appeared displeased.
“If Hakeem will stop talking, we’ll, we’ll get the job done for the American people,” Johnson, using the Democratic Leader’s first name, told reporters.
“It takes a lot longer to build a lie than to tell the truth,” Johnson claimed. “So he’s really spinning a long tale in there, but we’re excited. The people will see the effect of this bill—the extraordinary legislation.”
Johnson offered no evidence to support his accusation.
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“It’s going to get the economy humming again, really, at a record pace, and it will help every American,” he added.
“So the sooner we can get to it, the sooner the Democrats will stop talking, we’ll get this bill done for the people, and we’re really excited about it.”
Critics blasted Speaker Johnson.
Walter Kimbrough, a three-time HBCU president, responded by posting a meme quoting the famous historian Alexis de Tocqueville, that reads: “It is easier for the world to accept a simple lie than a complex truth.”
Watch the video below or at this link.
Speaker Johnson: “If Hakeem would stop talking, we’ll get the job done for the American people. It takes a lot longer to build a lie than to tell the truth. So he’s really spinning a long tale in there.” pic.twitter.com/ih931XJnjE
— The Bulwark (@BulwarkOnline) July 3, 2025
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Image via Reuters
Well-known veteran Democratic strategist James Carville is out with a second dire warning about President Donald Trump and the 2026 midterm elections.
Earlier this week, Carville, a political consultant and strategist since the 1970s and now a political commentator, warned that Trump might try to rig the 2026 elections in one way or another—including, he suggested, by possibly trying to cancel them.
On Wednesday night, he offered up another possibility: martial law.
On NewsNation (video below), Carville predicted a “Democratic blowout” in this November’s gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia, and that President Trump will be forced to see the writing on the wall.
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“I think he’s gonna read the election,” Carville said. “And I think he’s going to see this big, beautiful bill, is about 25 points underwater. It’s going to be 30 points underwater,” Carville added, referring to the Republican budget bill that guts Medicaid and Medicare, and is likely to pass the House and head to Trump’s desk for a July 4 signing.
“He’s going to see a massive defeat coming, and he’s going to try to do anything he can to extricate himself in that defeat,” Carville warned.
“And I would not put it at all past him to try to call martial law or declare that there’s some kind of national emergency in the country, or anything like that, because the hoofprints are coming, you can hear ’em, and they’re gonna get a shellacking in November of ’26.”
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Mediaite noted that “Bill O’Reilly and Stephen A. Smith also joined the panel discussion, with O’Reilly mocking Carville’s mention of ‘martial law,’ calling it a ‘scare tactic’ and arguing the economy will dictate the midterms.”
On Tuesday, Carville spoke about Trump with former CNN journalist Jim Acosta.
“I don’t put anything past him, nothing,” Carville warned. “To try to call the election off, to do anything he can. He can think of things like that that we can’t because we’re not accustomed to thinking like that.”
“You know people come up to me all the time and say, ‘James. I’m really scared,’” Carville told Acosta on “The Jim Acosta Show.”
“I said, ‘you should be, you have every reason to be scared. Don’t kid yourself,’” Carville added.
Watch the video below or at this link.
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Trump Appeared Unaware His Budget Bill Cuts $1T From Medicaid: Report
