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When an atheist asked Tom Perriello how his Catholicism would affect his approach to governing Virginia and whether he could keep the two separate, the former Democratic congressman answered carefully. Faith, he said, is both one of the most powerful forces for justice in the world and a vehicle for repression and dehumanization.

My relationship with my church is complicated, Perriello told the crowd in a small room at a Richmond LGBT community center in mid-March. And my faith is complicated.

Once a leading light of the religious left who made faith-based outreach a key feature of his successful 2008 run for Congress in the conservative 5th District, Perriellos political comeback bid has focused more on the secular than the sacred.

Summing up his political calling in past campaigns, Perriello often quoted the biblical prophet Micahs description of what God asks of his followers: to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. When Perriello talks about what motivated him to make a surprise run for governor and challenge Lt. Gov. Ralph S. Northam for the Democratic nomination, the story has been a little more ominous. And it starts with the election of President Donald Trump.

I think you saw with Trumps election that people are willing to overlook all of these behaviors that I grew up certainly being taught were un-Christian in order to get a particular party elected, Perriello said in a recent interview. I think it has been a wake-up call to many that we perhaps need some more prophetic voices out there.

In one of the first major elections of the Trump era, Perriellos candidacy presents an early test of how faith may or may not factor in to Democrats efforts to reconnect with rural and small-town voters who sunk Hillary Clintons candidacy last year. Despite Trumps defiance of the traditional pieties of Republican politics, he won a majority of Christian voters, particularly white evangelicals, while Clinton drew more support from those with no religious affiliation.

Trumps racist and sexist language and the decision by leaders of the religious right to embrace him anyway, Perriello said, create an opportunity to continue the mission of the faith-based progressive groups he helped organize in the mid-2000s, which tried to nudge religious voters away from issues related to sex and sexuality while elevating poverty, the environment and social justice.

It was about trying to return the moral conversation in the United States back to love of neighbor, Perriello said.

Sociologist Rebecca Sager, who embedded with Perriellos congressional campaigns in 2008 and 2010 as a case study of faith-based Democratic politics in action, concluded that Perriellos first campaign stemmed from beliefs held by some in the Democratic Party that by abandoning faith and ceding what it meant to be a religious or moral voter to the Republican Party, Democrats had lost the soul of the country.

In his earlier campaigns, Perriello asked his staff and volunteers to tithe 10 percent of their time through charitable work at homeless shelters and food banks.

The faith that Perriello says fuels his fervor for caring for the poor, his readiness to travel to foreign hot spots such as Sierra Leone and Darfur to promote peace, and his admiration for progressive Catholic leaders like Pope Francis and the late Bishop Walter F. Sullivan of the Richmond Diocese could take more prominence in the general elections broader appeals to the middle. But in a June 13 Democratic primary shaping up as a battle over who has the strongest claim to progressive purity, Perriellos religious convictions are, in some ways, a potential liability.

His nuanced earlier stance on abortion saying he was personally opposed, but fully supportive of the Supreme Courts 1973 Roe v. Wade court decision that enshrined abortion as a constitutional right has resurfaced as opponents try to paint him as a political shape-shifter.

He tried to masquerade as being a conservative, said former 5th District congressman Virgil Goode, a Democrat-turned-independent-turned-Republican who lost his seat to Perriello in 2008 by a little more than 700 votes.

In many ways, Perriellos challenge mirrors that of another Catholic Democrat from Virginia: U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine. Like Perriello, Kaine, a Northam backer, is an Ivy League-educated lawyer whose faith took him overseas. Kaine took a year off from law school at Harvard to be a Catholic missionary in Honduras. Both men say they believe in demonstrating faith through action, and both have delicately tried to separate the political from the personal.

The Northam campaign has sought to highlight Perriellos involvement with Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, a progressive group he co-founded in 2004 whose website includes abortion among racism, violence, human trafficking, the death penalty and torture on a list of affronts that further degradation to human dignity and to life.

We are pro-life, said Christopher Hale, CACGs executive director. We think that life begins at conception, but it doesnt end there.

The groups political advocacy drew criticism in a 24-page broadside from a pro-choice Catholic group.

From the beginning, a central tactic of CACG was to play down abortion rights and reframe the debate in terms of reducing the number of abortions as a way to assure Catholics that they could safely vote for Democratic candidates, reads the introduction to a 2009 publication from Catholics for Choice.

A mention of Perriellos former group in the so-called Catholic Spring messages released last year after Clinton campaign chief John Podestas email account was hacked cuts against the notion that the group had right-wing motives.

We created Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good to organize for a moment like this, wrote Podesta, who has endorsed Perriello, in a 2012 email. He was responding to an associate who asked him who could plant the seeds of the revolution to push the Catholic Church in a more progressive direction on gender equality and contraception.

Hale said Perriello was never a staffer at CACG and was not involved in the day-to-day operations.

It would be unfair to associate our views with Tom Perriellos views, Hale said.

Asked if he still personally opposes abortion, Perriello said his own beliefs are not particularly relevant when it comes to policy.

Thats not something that is mine to judge, he said, adding later that he has no constitutional or moral problem with when a woman decides to start or expand a family.

Though Perriello has said he believes he can win over Trump voters with a message of economic populism, it remains to be seen how faith will factor in to that calculation. Authenticity and values were part of what helped him break through in 2008, he said, and he believes thats what Trump supporters and other voters care about.

Religion is at its best when its used to overcome divides, he said, stressing that the search for common values must include people of all faiths and secular brothers and sisters as well.

The Catholic guilt that Perriello says fueled his interest in public service and politics has led to an incredibly meaningful life.

I got into this for the guilt, he said. And stayed for the joy.

Read more from the original source:
Can Tom Perriello help Democrats find religion in the Trump era? - Richmond.com

George Washington

Under cover of darkness and with construction crews wearing masks, they drove Old Dixie down in New Orleans.

A statue of Confederate States of America President Jefferson Davis was removed from its podium early Thursday morning, one of four Confederate memorials Democratic Mayor Mitch Landrieu has vowed to banish from the city in the name ofdiversity, inclusion and tolerance in the crime-ridden Louisiana city.

Though the removal of the statue was greeted with a cheer, The Lost Cause was not without its supporters, many of whom waved Confederate battle flags and called for the mayor to be imprisoned.

David Barton, a historian and author of The Jefferson Lies, said the crusade against Confederate monuments is simply an attempt by the left to erase history. He said even monuments that some might think are offensive can be used for a good purpose.

Confederate Memorials would not need to be taken down if we still truly taught American history, he told WND. I can stand below the statue of Jefferson Davis, and although there were many good things that he did do, particularly before he joined the Confederacy, I can make his statue a positive helpful lesson by telling what we can learn from his life, including the bad that he did.

I could explain the devastation, humiliation and tyranny that results from him having a philosophy that sees people not as individuals but only as part of groups, and that tries to interpret the Constitution apart from the values of the Declaration of Independence. Of course, progressives, liberals and the courts are doing that now! I wonder where that will lead? History clearly tells us if only we still knew that history.

Barton also believes the Democrats cheering the statues being taken down would be shocked if they knew the history of their own party.

The city plans to pull down four statues, those of Jefferson Davis, PGT Beauregard, the Crescent City White League and Robert E. Lee, he noted. I hope they tell the folks in New Orleans that all of these monuments honor Democrats, and that the Confederacy was led solely by Southern leaders of the Democrat Party. In a Democrat city like New Orleans, I cant understand why Democrat leaders want old venerated Democrat heroes taken down!

What do YOU think? Sound off in todays WND poll on the lefts attempt to erase Confederate history.

Scott Greer, author of No Campus For White Men, says the answer is obvious. While he agrees with Barton the destruction of the statues is an attempt by the left to erase history, he argues what is happening has nothing to do with political parties but is something more primal.

Its an attempt to wipe out any pride Southerners should have in their heritage, said Greer. Its the same kind of process we see on college campuses, where anything white people did in the past tends to be demonized. The left is driven by a desire to interpret all of history through the eyes of 21st century progressive dogma. In their eyes, everything about the American past is bad and shameful and must be driven into the dirt.

Barton agrees the intolerant atmosphere on leftist dominated college campuses has spread to the larger society. He believes the lefts militancy will eventually backfire.

We have created a snowflake environment that demands safe spaces for things that challenge the politically correct bias of the month, he said.

Soon well have to take down Susan B. Anthony statues because even though she fought for womens suffrage, she was openly pro-life; and, in todays womens movement, no one can be a true woman unless she supports Planned Parenthood and abortion. And of course Harriet Tubman statues will be taken down, for even though she was a leading conductor on the Underground Railroad bringing slaves to freedom, she was also a huge advocate for the right to keep and bear arms. For modern civil rights advocates, guns are anathema, and no true civil rights advocate can be for guns!

We no longer look at heroes as people or as complex individuals; rather we now judge them solely by one issue, whatever that issue happens to be at the time. We are creating a culture where we believe we have a right not to be offended or even have our misconceptions challenged; and were willing to use coercion to keep me from being offended, even if that offends you. What offends us now is so routinely redefined that probably no statue now will survive more than a generation before it becomes offensive to someone who will demand its removal.

Barton is no fan of the Confederacy or of certain American leaders such as Andrew Jackson, whom he faulted for being pro-slavery and forcibly taking American lands. But Barton believes statues should remain to teach students about the American past. He also believes American Founding Fathers such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson can be defended because their work ultimately led to the abolition of slavery.

Washington and Jefferson both owned slaves, but their state laws made it difficult if not impossible for them to free all their slaves, said Barton. Yet there were few Virginia voices more anti-slavery than those two. Both worked to advance abolition laws in their state and both signed federal anti-slavery laws. There is a reason that black civil rights leaders for generations praised both Washington and Jefferson.

Discover the truth behind the most mysterious Founding Father. Read the book which a fanatic media offensive pulled from publication now available once again only from WND, The Jefferson Lies by David Barton. Dont miss it!

But Greer believes conservatives are underestimating the ferocity of what they are facing.

Too many conservatives think they will be able to draw this distinction between figures such as Robert E. Lee, or Andrew Jackson or George Washington, he said. But to the left, there is no distinction between any of these figures, any of these dead white men they so hate. Conservatives cannot support taking down Confederate monuments and think somehow the statues and monuments to the slave-owning Founding Fathers will still remain up. Nor will it stop there. The anti-Confederate push will eventually swell to consume all of American history. Look whats happening on college campuses.

Indeed, Malcolm Suber, an organizer of one of the groups agitating to take down the statues, the Take Em Down NOLA Coalition, is a professor of political science at a historically black college and was casually identified by the New York Times as an avowed Marxist-Leninist.

Suber has previously been a part of activist efforts that successfully renamed a school that originally honored George Washington. He also told the Times he wanted to see the statue of Washington by the New Orleans Public Library be taken down.

Greer pointed out reports the statue dedicated to Joan of Arc had been recently defaced by unknown protesters, though it would be hard to blame Joan of Arc for slavery. He also noted Lee Circle, now being targeted for removal, had been vandalized soon after President Donald Trumps election by spray-painted slogans including die whites die and black power.

Furthermore, said Greer, monuments and statues to Thomas Jefferson are also habitually attacked, even at his own alma mater. After Confederate monuments are removed nationwide, suggested Greer, it seems likely Jefferson is next.

Its not about politics or limited government or Republicans versus Democrats, said Greer. Just listen to the words of those agitating for this. They always want more and they arent going to stop with the Confederate flag. They arent going to stop with George Washington or Thomas Jefferson either. They want to take away our entire history. And unless conservatives stop apologizing and actually start pushing back, theyre probably going to win. The whole country will look like one far-left college campus.

Political correctness is just the beginning. The situation on college campuses is worse than you could ever imagine and Americas future is at stake. Dont miss the political blockbuster of 2017 No Campus For White Men by Scott Greer.

Originally posted here:
Democrats erasing history in American South - WND.com

Ever since the election of US president Donald Trump, consumer surveyors have noticed a trend: A determining factor for Americans economic outlook is whether they are Democrats or Republicans.

Between June 2016 and December 2016before and after the electionthe University of Michigans consumer sentiment survey found [pdf] that Democratic consumer sentiment fell almost 13 percentage points on their index, while Republican sentiment rose 40 percentage points. Today, the latest data shows that the divergence is still huge, but the gap between Democrats and Republicans narrowed slightly to 55 Index points from 65 three months ago.

Though the new administration has yet to enact any significant economic policy, there is a logic to the shifting expectations: Republicans are more optimistic because they are expecting Trumps administration to eventually pass what they see as pro-growth policiestax cuts, for examplewhile Democrats become more pessimistic because they fear their unintended consequences.

That makes sense. What makes less sense is that while overall confidence is growing, this increase doesnt seem to be translating to direct measures of economic activity. While the sentiment survey hit a 13-year high in January, the first three months of the year saw slowing economic growth and consumer spending.

In other words, economists and investors are counting on consumers to tell them their expectations for the economy, but consumers may be offering political opinions instead.

The latest quarters economic data is still preliminary and unrevised, and more analysis will be needed to see if the partisan divergence effects the survey and how it is used. But so far, the surveys director isnt concerned that the partisan divergence will effect the datas usefulness.

People will use the data as long as it predicts, says professor Richard Curtin, the director of the University of Michigan survey. And there is no evidence so far that it isnt a good predictor.

The survey is a leading indicator of inflation, the unemployment rate, and personal consumption expenditures, Curtin says. Personal consumption spending increased at an annualized rate of 0.3% in the first quarter of 2017 (the most sluggish growth since 2013), but the Michigan survey forecasts 2.3% growth over the full year, only slightly slower than in 2016.

The remarkable divergence in partisan responses to the survey is a transient phenomenon that will pass, according to Curtin, unlike larger demographic changes. The two partisan preferences cancel themselves out, with self-identified independents driving the aggregate results of the data, he says, adding that questions about partisan disparities effecting the survey are naive and the wrong approach.

It is a losing strategy for either side to promote such unrealistic economic prospects, Curtin wrote in January. Indeed, in the months ahead, it is more likely that economic optimism will improve among Democrats and decline among Republicans.

So far, Curtins prediction has been true, but partisan views of the economy can last longer than expected. Gallups consumer survey reported a massive gap in economic confidence ahead of the 2012 election. That survey raised similar questions about political polarization and perceptions of the economy.

Research into the predictive utility of consumer surveys like these has found that they tend to be useful at predicting future activity, but also that they can change and be effected by non-economic factors.

This OECD working paper comparing 30 years of consumer surveys across eight countries found that while they were useful prediction tools, they werent correlated to any one set economic indicators across different countries. Instead, consumer confidence indicators were more predictive during major economic shocks that gain consumer attention, and could be affected simply by intense political debate about public finances or the welfare state.

Another interesting example comes from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, where researchers wondered about periods where consumer sentiment is driven away from what economic fundamentals suggest. Their culprit? The media. Assuming that many people form their conceptions of the economy based on what they read about it, the researchers tested measures of media coverage of the economy against changes in the sentiment index. They found coverage of layoffs or other bad economic news coincided with more negative sentiment than other indicators suggest.

These findings suggest that as long as US political debates and news coverage remain deeply polarized, so will American views of the economy. Only time can tell if that will make prosperity harder to predict.

More here:
Why don't Republicans and Democrats see the same economy? - Quartz

Some, such as California Rep. Maxine Waters, have explicitly called for impeaching the President. Others, like Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, have merely mentioned the possibility, with Gabbard saying last month that she was studying the impeachment process.

Impeachment requires the support of a majority of members of the House of Representatives. No Republicans have publicly voiced support for impeaching Trump. CNN's KFile is, however, keeping a running count of Democratic lawmakers who have talked about impeachment. That count, which includes those who discussed impeachment prior to Comey's firing, is currently at 11, 10 members of the House and Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal.

California Rep. Maxine Waters: Waters has been talking about impeachment for months, most recently telling MSNBC's Chris Hayes on Thursday that "The President needs to be impeached." Waters also suggested in the interview that Trump could be charged with "obstruction of justice" for saying that the FBI's Russia investigation was a factor in his decision to fire Comey.

"If the President is found to have done this to circumvent this investigation, to thwart to the efforts to get the bottom of this, I think this is going to be an impeachable offense," Green said. "He's really treading in some very dangerous waters. This is unusual for this kind of thing to happen in the United States of America."

"Impeachment will happen if handful of Republicans in Congress join Dems to put country above party. Or in 2019 after Dems win the House," Huffman tweeted at 1:51 a.m. on Friday morning.

"It may well produce another United States vs. Nixon on a subpoena that went to United States Supreme Court," he said. "It may well produce impeachment proceedings, although we're very far from that possibility."

"On the issue of impeachment, I am doing my homework," Gabbard said at the Hilo, Hawaii, event. "I am studying more about the impeachment process. I will just say I understand the calls for impeachment, but what I am being cautious about and what I give you food for thought about is that if President Trump is impeached, the problems don't go away, because then you have a Vice President Pence who becomes President Pence."

Continued here:
A running list of Democrats who have discussed impeachment ... - CNN

Candidates, from left, Assemblyman John Wisniewski, Phil Murphy, Jim Johnson and Sen. Ray Lesniak attend a Democratic gubernatorial primary debate, Thursday, May 11, 2017, in Newark.(Photo: Julio Cortez, AP / Pool AP)

Democratic candidates for governor sharpened their attacks on Phil Murphy during the partys second and final primary debate Thursday night, calling his progressive values into question and condemning what one called an obscene amount of spending.

Murphy, the wealthy former banker and ambassador who is leading the contest for the nomination, endured the assault with a broad, toothy smile. Rather than punch back at his opponents, Murphy often dismissed them by responding with all due respect and saying, in some instances, that their charges against him were alt-facts, the term made famous by President Donald Trumps gaffe-prone counselor Kellyanne Conway.

The forum, hosted by NJTV and NJ Spotlight at the television stations studio in Newark, was a departure from the more collegial debate two nights earlier, at Stockton University, when the challengers fired at Murphy but when it came to policy they all found themselves mostly in agreement.

Over the course of Thursdays 90-minute debate, the candidates had light moments teasing each other and backing certain ideas, like $15 minimum wage, but largely clashed with each other.

Assemblyman John Wisniewksi and Jim Johnson particularly went after Murphy hard, especially when given the opportunity during the debate to question other candidates. Wisniewski said that Murphys investment portfolio includes companies that sponsor and run pipelines that he says he opposes and companies that produce the fracking fluid that contaminates water.

How can you really expect the people of New Jersey to believe your environmental credentials when your financial portfolio takes a different position than youve taken publicly here in the campaign? Wisniewski said.

Murphy responded, Theres probably no good answer in terms of those investments, adding, I mean what I say about fracking, I mean what I say about the environment.

Wisniewski also cited speech Murphy made while he was the U.S. ambassador to Germany and said that Murphy extolled the virtues of fracking, the controversial process to extract natural gas. Murphy disagreed and said that he was discussing fracking as a geopolitical step to push back on the Russians.

The candidates also condemned Murphys heavy spending $18.4 million so far, more than three times all other candidates combined -- and New Jerseys system of county party bosses endorsing hopefuls and giving them a significant advantage in the primary. Murphy has the backing of all 21 county party chairs, helping to make him the front-runner for the nomination.

Lesniak, a 40-year lawmaker, said the Union County chairman, Assemblyman Jerry Green, told him not to run because were going to get whatever we want from Phil Murphy.

He tried to convince me to get out of the race. That convinced me to get in the race, Lesniak said.

Murphy said that his campaign knocked on thousands of doors, working the phones, shaking hands and earned the support of workers and volunteers around the state. And the money that Murphy has spent, he said, has been for grassroots organizing and party-building.

And asked whether he would support reforms to strip county party committees of their ability to award preferential ballot placement to the candidate of their choice, Murphy said vaguely that he was open to open democracy."

I am participating in a system that exists, he said in an interview after the debate.I did not create this system.

Johnson, a former U.S. Treasury official, repeatedly went after Murphy for his spending and questioned how he could have progressive values after two decades at Goldman Sachs, the bank often vilified by progressives. And, echoing Christie, Johnson said Murphys candidacy is unrealistic because he has promised to fully fund pensions, schools and legalize marijuana, among many other initiatives.

The list of promises that youve made is breathtaking and its unachievable, Johnson said. He added, Youre in bed with the insiders and youre not challenging what theyre doing.

Staff writer Nicholas Pugliese contributed to this report.

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Democrats train fire on Murphy in final primary debate - Asbury Park Press