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Gay GOP Group Attacks Gay GOP Presidential Candidate For Being Gay

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GOProud, a gay Tea Party GOP group, has again attacked Fred Karger, America’s first openly-gay presidential candidate, essentially for being gay and for discussing LGBT-related issues, such as marriage equality. Karger, a Republican, has been barred from participating in Republican presidential debates, such as the recent one televised on Fox News, despite the fact that he apparently met the qualifications demanded by Fox.

The Advocate reports that “executive director Jimmy LaSalvia told the San Francisco Chronicle. “I would love for there to be an openly gay, credible candidate for president who was out there making a case for why they would be better than Barack Obama.

“Unfortunately, Fred Karger is playing a stunt, and his stunt has run its course. His whole shtick is … running around the country with a rainbow flag, saying ‘I’m the gay guy,’ ” LaSalvia reportedly said. “But he hasn’t made a case about why he should be president of the United States.”

GOProud has a history of attacking Karger.

In May, The Raw Story noted GOProud “fiercely denounced and dismissed gay GOP presidential candidate, Fred Karger of California.

“Fred Karger’s candidacy is a bad joke. He is not a credible candidate,” GOProud‘s executive director Jimmy LaSalvia told Raw Story in an email. “For one, I’ve never heard him articulate why he would be a better president than Barack Obama, and he spends all his time talking about how homophobic the Republican Party is.”

“It seems to me that he’s probably running in the wrong primary,” LaSalvia said. “Maybe ‘Mr. Pro-Marriage Equality Karger’ should run in the Democratic primary against ‘Anti-Marriage Equality Obama.'”

And there’s the issue. Jimmy LaSalvia, co-founder of the Tea Party Republican group GOProud, doesn’t like the fact that a Republican is supporting marriage equality. Go figure.

(Chris Barron, LaSaliva’s co-founder, is gay and married to a man. Go figure, again.)

The Bay Area Reporter in May also reported bias, noting, “Jimmy LaSalvia, executive director of the conservative gay Republican group GOProud, doesn’t believe Karger should be added to the polls or asked to the debates.

“I think his 15 minutes are up,” LaSalvia told the B.A.R. “Now that the race is on and the credible candidates are launching their campaigns, Fred should find something else to do. His run for president stunt has run its course.”

For the record, Fred Karger’s website states the Republican candidate has said,

“We have to discourage companies from sending jobs overseas… I want to work with these corporations to incentivize them to keep these jobs in America.”

“I am a fiscal conservative; I come from a finance background. I want to work to strengthen our economy. I believe in the private sector.”

“I want to elevate [education] to number one again, to put attention on it and get public discussion. I think we need to make school more interesting and fun to get kids excited.”

“I support Obama right now on the international coalition in Libya, if we can get in there without ground troops, if we can get rid of Gaddafi, who is the ultimate terrorist, who has done great damage not only to his people but our own, then that would be a success.”

“I want a path to citizenship for immigrants already living in the country, as well as greatly improve border security to discourage future law-breaking.”

“We need to explore alternative energy, wind and solar power. My home state of California is going to have a third of all power from renewable sources by 2020.”

“I feel that we should immediately begin discussion and planning to lower the legal voting age in the United States to either 16 or 17 years old.”

“We should then encourage our schools and school districts to teach these young people about elections and the campaigns on the local, state and national level while they are happening.”

Certainly more issue-discussion than LaSalvia gives Karger credit for. Is LaSalvia afraid of a gay Republican on the campaign trail or in the White House? While tNCRM is decidedly liberal, progressive, and Democratic, we certainly believe in equality of opportunity, evidently, unlike LaSalvia.

(image: Karger campaigning for President in Iowa in 2010.)

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Closer to Russia, Closer to Trump: US Official Says Alliances Are Shifting

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A top Trump official says global power alliances are shifting, observing that nations closest to Russia are now increasingly aligned with President Donald Trump’s interests.

Fox News host Martha MacCallum told Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum that she had spoken with President Trump earlier Friday, “and he basically said that Japan is a better ally to the United States than NATO, which, when you look at the big picture in history, is a pretty stunning statement.”

She also asked the secretary, “do you think that our orientation, in terms of our alliances, is changing?”

“Well, clearly, it is,” Burgum replied.

“What we might consider our traditional allies from Europe have been less than reliable,” he said, “and from the time that we’ve spent working with those folks in Eastern Europe, the closer they are to Russia, the more aligned they are with President Trump, and the more … aligned they are on energy policy.”

READ MORE: Trump Official Says He Teleported 50 Miles to a Waffle House

Offering Japan as an example, Burgum said that nation “is 120 million people living in the size of an area of North Dakota, and they’ve got complete dependence on foreign energy. They want to buy energy from the United States.”

He explained that it takes eight days by ship from Anchorage to Tokyo, as opposed to 30 days from the Middle East.

“People are desperate to have the stronger relationship with the United States right now on energy,” he claimed.

President Trump’s policies are “absolutely working to build alliances around the world,” Burgum said.

MacCallum noted that “the alliance seems to be the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Japan have a good relationship with us as well right now, and a lot of repair needed in Europe.”

READ MORE: Conway’s Dire Warning: Trump Poised to Interfere With Election — and Nation’s Not Ready

 

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‘Down There With the Titanic’: Fetterman Has Historic Polling Swing Says Analyst

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Democratic U.S. Senator John Fetterman has suffered a historic collapse in support, plunging 108 points among Pennsylvania Democrats from his strong standing just three years ago.

The Pennsylvania lawmaker, who often appears on Fox News and has accused Democrats of having “Trump derangement syndrome,” enjoyed a positive 68 percent approval rating in 2023, his first year in office.

Now, he stands at a negative 40 percent, according to CNN analyst Harry Enten.

“John Fetterman is doing as well with Pennsylvania Democrats as the New York Giants are liked in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” Enten said on Friday, while noting that in 2023, Fetterman was a “Democrat liberal darling.”

READ MORE: Trump Official Says He Teleported 50 Miles to a Waffle House

Now, Enten says, Fetterman is “down there with the Titanic.”

Enten compared Fetterman to Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who he says is “not well liked by the Democratic base nationwide.”

Schumer’s popularity rating is about minus two points.

Leader Schumer “is 38 points more popular than John Fetterman is with Pennsylvania Democrats.

Enten also compared Fetterman to several senators who were unpopular and lost their primaries.

“His net popularity with his own party is worse than all senators who lost a primary this century,” Enten noted online.

READ MORE: Conway’s Dire Warning: Trump Poised to Interfere With Election — and Nation’s Not Ready

“He is below the lowest,” Enten said. “The ones who actually got beat in a primary. There is no historical analog to this. That is how unpopular John Fetterman is with Pennsylvania Democrats.”

If Fetterman runs for re-election in 2028, what happens?

“There is basically no doubt in my mind that if Fetterman decides to run for re-election as a Democrat, he will face a primary challenge and it will be a very competitive one,” said Enten.

“The bottom line is this: John Fetterman, when you look, when you look at his net popularity rating, minus 40 points, he’s on a completely other planet from Chuck Schumer, who is also unpopular, and he is on a different galaxy entirely from other incumbents who actually lost re-election — far less popular than them.”

READ MORE: ‘I Don’t Think She Survives This’: Gabbard Faces Blowback After ‘Devastating’ Testimony

 

Image: Public Domain

 

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Conway’s Dire Warning: Trump Poised to Interfere With Election — and Nation’s Not Ready

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George Conway, once a leading Never-Trump Republican and now a Democratic congressional candidate, has issued a stark warning, saying that Americans remain perilously unprepared for President Donald Trump’s potential interference in November’s election.

Conway, who founded the Anti-Psychopath PAC, said in a video posted on Friday that Trump’s “brain is mush, and he says, with conviction, things that he said the opposite of five minutes before or five days before.”

He says that Trump “has the capacity to declare that the polls are fake — and that if an election goes the same way that the polls do, well, that’s fake, too, and that’s why we need to ignore an election, and that’s why we need the voter rolls.”

READ MORE: Trump Official Says He Teleported 50 Miles to a Waffle House

But Conway warns that despite what happened on January 6, 2021, the American public is not ready for what Trump could do to the 2026 election.

“I don’t think people are sufficiently prepared, notwithstanding what happened in 2021, for the possibility that he will try to f — — with this election. And he will.”

“I mean, he’s already basically telling us that’s what he’s gonna do, just the same way he told us he would do that in 2020.”

READ MORE: Trump Re-Endorses Congressman He Dumped — Then Dangles Job to His Rival

Conway warns, “I don’t think truth means anything to him.”

Trump, he adds, “doesn’t care about the distinction between truth and lies. And so, does he know he’s lying? It doesn’t matter to him. Truth has no meaning to him. All that has any meaning to him in any given moment is whether or not he’s receiving praise or adulation, or some kind of a reward — like money, or a peace prize.”

“And what comes out of his mouth is whatever is in his head at the moment that he wants to believe or he wants other people to believe,” Conway says. “He’s divorcing himself from reality because he thinks he can create his own reality and the great megalomaniacs of history have always done that.”

Trump is in a “very dangerous place psychologically,” says Conway,”and he is a man, don’t forget — he talked about nuclear weapons the other day — he’s got 5,500 nuclear weapons.”

“He’s gonna trash everything once and for all,” Conway warns.

READ MORE: ‘I Don’t Think She Survives This’: Gabbard Faces Blowback After ‘Devastating’ Testimony

 

Image by Presia Debauch via Flickr and a CC license

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