Conundrum

What's happening in Russia & Ukraine now is serious. And it's becoming dangerous for many there. It's the kind of foreign policy conundrum...

That the usual G-O-TEA suspects are politicizing. Once again, they're looking for a "SCANDAL!!!" to blame President Obama for. And once again...

They're celebrating the Russian government's brutality? Oh, yes. That's right. They're going there... Again.

This time, it's religious right icon Franklin Graham joining Focus on the Family and other extreme religious right groups in praising Russia's persecution of its own LGBTQ citizens. He thinks Russian President Vladimir Putin is "right on these issues" of quashing civil rights in his nation. And he agrees with other radical right crackpots media personalities on the "moral clarity" that great "lion of Christianity" Vladimir Putin offers the world.

And ironically, this is the same person running the same nation that many G-O-TEA media pundits falsely claim President Obama isn't doing enough to confront. And in another ironic twist, one of those leftover Bush era neocons will be coming to Las Vegas next week to raise money for Adam Laxalt, the G-O-TEA Attorney General candidate on a mission to destroy marriage equality regardless of what that pesky US Constitution has to say about equal protection under the law. We bet that Nevada G-O-TEA fundraiser will be interesting... Especially since Governor Brian Sandoval (R) was invited. And Adam Laxalt has made quite the point of running against Sandoval's decision to stop fighting against marriage equality in court.

Of course, Adam Laxalt is not the only Nevada Republican facing this kind of conundrum. NV-04 hopeful Cresent Hardy is still on the lookout for "segregation laws". And NV-03 incumbent Rep. Joe Heck (R) recently tried to spin his way out of his own confusing argument against marriage equality.





We've talked about this before. But since it's back in the news, let's dig a little deeper into the Republican Party's tortured stance in LGBTQ civil rights. Even as it embarks on a slick new ad campaign meant to spread awareness of "Republican rebranding", its 21st Century Know Nothing base continues to remind us of what's actually behind all that "rebranding".

Think about that. Even as G-O-TEA media spinners take to the cable channels to proclaim its "TSUNAMI!!!" of new energy, we look past their spin to see them (still) beating their dead horse. And we still notice their conundrum of giving a new spin to their same old agenda of fighting against equality. Even as they're airing the slick new ads and trying to showcase their "new energy" in a softer light, they're nonetheless complaining about the "hidden agenda" behind beer, graham crackers, and tornados.

What's happening in the Republican Party right now is very real. It faces a real conundrum. Its electoral future depends on accepting the reality of 21st century America, but its base continues to resist even the progress of the 20th century. And as long as this continues, it will be difficult to take any cosmetic "rebranding" seriously.