The Faith and Freedom Crew Is In Town

++13 Republican candidates are speaking before the Faith and Freedom Coalition here in Washington this weekend, only 1 made it to the National Latin convention of over 1700 elected Latino officials.  It sort of reminds me of the days when Republicans would boycott the NAACP.

++Jeb Bush got off to a flying start by reminding the audience of his fight for Terri Schaivo, one of the most unsightly episodes in our political history. I'm surprised Jeb didn't being the videos of the braindead Terri seemingly following a balloon.

++Yesterday,to capitalize on the right-wing theme that the attack on Mother Emmanuel was an attack on Christianity,the gathering had to be evacuated because Ralph Reed said there were "threats". Smell anything here?

++Texas pastor Rick Scarborough pledges to set himself on fire if the Supreme Court approves same-sex marriage. 

++Louie Gohmert continuing Texas' tradition of genius said that the Supreme Court better be ready because this nation is founded on the laws of Moses and Jesus Christ (who was known as a superb litigator). 

++Red State's Eric Ericksson said that we can't fight "evil" like the attack on Emmanuel if we accept transgender people. I guess Catlyn Jenner,a conservative Republican,poses a problem of identity for the right.

++Of course the gathering is for the Supreme Court ruling. So naturally people like Franklin Graham and Focus of your Family's Perkins and Dobson take full page ads out asserting the priority of "biblical marriage", which can mean anything.

++The Head of the Southern Baptist Conference as well as several of his processors took a vow never to perform a same sex wedding.

++Throwing a big stink bomb into the gathering was Pope Francis with his release of his encyclical on Climate Change and the imperatives of developed countries to assist poorer nations in sustainable development.

++Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio,Bobby Jindal,and Rick Santorum pretended that this was Francis' opinion and they disagreed. Catholic spokespeople insisted that the encyclical is now Catholic canon and you just can't be a cafeteria Catholic. As this spokesman said,"there is no room for Catholic libertarians." 

++If you want an idea why the Republicans, with the exception of Ben Carson,seemed obtuse to the racial nature of the killings at Emmanuel--at least four pastors slain--it's because of the audience at the Faith and Freedom conference. They did not want to insult the largely southern evangelicals and fundamentalists by bringing up race,which has been a core element of their faith before, during and after the Civil War.