Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Lunatic Franklin Graham Claims to Quit the GOP

Parasite and con-artist Franklin Graham
As crazy and extreme as the Republican Party has become, it's not crazy enough for Franklin Graham - a parasite on society in my view who makes a cushy living peddling religious lunacy and who would be a nobody but for his famous father - who has announced that his is quitting the Republican Party.  The party's unpardonable offense?  Passing a year end funding bill that provided funding for Planned Parenthood, which he compared to the Nazis.  The irony is, of course, that Graham if he had his wish would impose a Spanish Inquisition like Christian theocracy on America.  As for the 97% of Planned Parenthood's services that have nothing to do with abortion and which meet the health care needs of poor Americans, Graham has no alternate solution other than to apparently allow them to sicken and die.  Can't you feel the "Christian love"?  Here are highlights from the Washington Post on Graham's batshitery:
Evangelist Franklin Graham has announced he is abandoning the Republican Party in disgust over the move by the GOP-led Congress last week to pass a budget that Graham said was “wasteful” and provided funding for Planned Parenthood, which he compared to the Nazis.

Graham has previously said he has no faith in any political party, but his apparent renunciation of his Republican affiliation is an indication of anger on the right and the strong interest many disaffected evangelicals have shown in populist outsiders like Donald Trump.

Graham himself has expressed admiration for Trump, the surprise frontrunner in the Republican presidential field, and has voiced support for some of Trump’s more controversial positions — such as his call to ban Muslims from the U.S. — which have drawn condemnation from more mainstream evangelical leaders.

The federal government provides $528 million in funding for Planned Parenthood — about 40 percent of the organization’s annual budget — primarily through payments to Medicaid for health services for low-income Americans. Federal law prohibits funding of most abortions and Planned Parenthood separates federal taxpayer dollars from those used to provide abortions.

[T]he shooting massacre at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood clinic late last month by a lone gunman, Robert Lewis Dear, who proclaimed himself “a warrior for the babies,” seemed to change the calculus and congressional leaders last week reached a deal that averted a shutdown and funds the government through September of next year.

The deal also funds Planned Parenthood at previous levels — a development that has enraged many on the religious right, including Graham, son of the renowned evangelist Billy Graham.

[I]n denouncing the Republican Party this week, Graham made a pitch for the prayer rallies he will hold in every state next year, starting in Iowa in January shortly before the crucial first presidential primary.  The rallies, as Graham says, aim to “challenge Christians to live out their faith at home, in public and at the ballot box.”
 Blogger friend Bob Felton made the following apt comments on Graham:

So: Graham is severing ties with the Republican Party because they aren’t crazy enough, while people like Michael Hamar and I have stopped calling ourselves Republicans because they are too crazy.

With luck, millions more evangelicals will follow Graham’s lead and abandon the party, and the Republicans will go back to behaving like the educated, pragmatic, forward-looking realists they used to be.
 Amen to that!!

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