Nose/Mouth Protection Was Once Popular Among Right Wingers

The now-defunct Moral Majority was a far-right-wing, extremist political arm of a primarily Protestant Christian Fundamentalist organization founded by the now-late Rev. Jerry Falwell, Sr. (1933-2007), Founding Pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church, in Lynchburg, VA, who infamously filed, and lost, a defamation of character lawsuit against pornographer Larry Flynt (1942-2021), Founder of the Hustler magazine empire, which was ultimately appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Based upon First Amendment principles, the SCOTUS found that Flynt’s plainly-marked parody depiction of Falwell fell under protected speech, holding that “the First and Fourteenth Amendments prohibit public figures and public officials from recovering damages for the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress by reason of the publication of a caricature…” and noted that “the State’s interest in protecting public figures from emotional distress is not sufficient to deny First Amendment protection to speech that is patently offensive and is intended to inflict emotional injury when that speech could not reasonably have been interpreted as stating actual facts about the public figure involved.”

Moral Majority Report, July 1983, AIDS

In other words, the First Amendment protects parodies of celebrities or other public figures, even if they are intended to cause distress to the subjects depicted/portrayed.

Such a matter is now ongoing and involving soon-to-be-former U.S. Representative Devin Nunes, a Republican who has represented California’s 22nd Congressional District since 2003. CD 22 is in the state’s fertile San Joaquin Valley farmland area, and encompasses parts of Fresno, and Tulare counties, which includes portions of the cities of Fresno, and all of the cities of Clovis, Tulare, and Visalia.

Nunes is infamously litigious, and as some would characterize it, is thin-skinned, and becomes very “butt-hurt” when he is mocked, satirized, or parodied publicly, which has occurred regularly on Twitter, where the satire account “Devin Nunes Cow” (Nunes has interests in dairy farming in the district), and several other parody accounts, including some naming his mother, regularly poke fun of him.

Ironically, the two men Falwell and Flynt, later became good friends, and frequently appeared together in several public venues on college & university campuses, including on the Larry King Show.

Dr. Heather Murray, PhD, an Associate Professor of History at the University of Ottawa, Canada, (see her faculty page here) recently wrote the following, in part, about the matter of the far-right-wing now refusing to wear protective nose/mouth coverings (aka “face masks”) during the SARS-CoV-2 novel coronavirus (aka COVID-19) pandemic, whereas once, they were gung-ho to wear them, despite the fact that

Rest In Peace, Larry Flynt: Renown First Amendment Advocate, Vietnam Veteran, Entrepreneur Dies Aged 78

Larry Flynt, known globally as an entrepreneur and First Amendment champion, has died aged 78.

Mr. Flynt had a strong desire for service to the nation, and first enlisted in the United States Army using a false birth certificate when he was aged 15, and had dropped out of the 9th grade. After 7 months, in 1960, he was declared supernumerary and honorably discharged. He then repeated that performance, and joined the United States Navy, where he served for 5 years, and was honorably discharged in 1964 during the Vietnam War. While serving aboard the USS Enterprise as a radar operator, he was on duty during the operation to recover John Glenn’s space capsule after splashdown following his first space orbit.

Larry Flynt (center) makes his way through a crowd at a rally in Cincinnati in 1977.

He was a native Southerner, and was born and raised in Lakeville, Kentucky, in Magoffin County, a still-small village in the practical middle of nowhere, in the state’s eastern central portion, due east of Lexington about a 2-hour drive on Kentucky State Highway 9009.

Mr. Flynt may perhaps best be known as pornographer, and publisher of Hustler magazine, a title of which he was unashamed, and for which an attempted assassin’s bullet severed his spinal cord outside the courthouse in Gwinnett County Georgia, on March 6, 1978, where he was facing obscenity charges, which he won. From that point on, he was never able to walk, and relied upon a wheelchair for mobility, albeit, a custom-made, gold-plated one.

For many years thereafter, Mr. Flynt’s sniper went undiscovered until an arrest for two unrelated killings elsewhere, when the suspect confessed to being Flynt’s shooter. White Supremacist John Paul Franklin said the reason he shot Flynt, was because he objected to photos in Hustler depicting interracial couples. He was executed by the state of Missouri in 2013 – an act which Mr. Flynt disapproved of as an opponent of the death penalty.

For many years, he had a long-term friendship with the Reverend Jerry Falwell

Money, Sex, and Politics: Is Jerry Falwell, Jr. A Closeted Bisexual?

Editor’s Note: The point of the headline of this entry is to expose what appears to be the presence of blatant hypocrisy in Falwell, and in the greater Evangelical community, if not the practical entirety of the Christian religion, in its long-standing intolerance toward, and abhorrence of same-sex attraction, and their continual denial of civil rights, and even basic human rights to that community.

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By now, you’ve probably heard of, or read about, the escapades and/or exploits – sexual, and otherwise – of Jerry Falwell, Jr., the once-and-soon-to-be former President of Liberty University, the Lynchburg, VA-based private Christian school founded by his late Baptist pastor father, the Rev. Jerry Falwell, Sr.

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UPDATE: As the article was being written, Falwell had not resigned. By press time, he had.

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Most recently (Monday, August 24, 2020), Reuters News posted a news report in which Jerry Falwell Jr., the President of Liberty University, whom is an attorney by education and real-estate developer by experience, was named by a Miami-based long-time sexual play friend of his, and wife Becki, in which Falwell Jr. played the cuckold role. Of course, in an official statement to the Washington Examiner, a well-known right-wing sympathetic D.C. Beltway news group, Falwell has denied all culpability, claimed he was being blackmailed and pointed the finger of sexual blame at his wife. Exclusive: Falwell says Fatal Attraction threat led to depression & STATEMENT BY JERRY FALWELL, JR.

Giancarlo Granda, who was befriended by Liberty University President Jerry Falwell, Jr. and wife Rebecca “Becki,” while working as a pool attendant at Fontainebleau Miami Beach, a renown luxury hotel, and was later backed by them in a business venture involving an area gay youth hostel, poses for a portrait in Washington, U.S., August 10, 2020. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

The Falwell’s relationship with Giancarlo Granda – the 29-year-old man claiming to have had 6 years of cuckolding sexual liaisons with Jerry and Becki Falwell – goes back several years, and Falwell claims that Granda was attempting to blackmail him.

In October 2019, the Miami Herald published an account that detailed an undisclosed financial settlement Falwell made in Federal court with

Jerry Falwell, Jr. Watched As Pool Boy Banged His Wife… For 6 Years

Well, well, well…

Since 2012 America’s Evangelical Protestant religious power couple, Jerry Falwell, Jr. and his wife Becki, have been sexually playing with the pool boy, with whom they later partnered in business – as well as monkey business.

Will we see Falwell Junior crying his eyes out on television, begging for forgiveness, like Jimmy Swaggart did after he was found to have frequented prostitutes in 1988?

In the parlance of sexual play, watching while another man has sex with your wife/partner, is called “cuckolding.”

Frankly, this event – in, and of itself – is no big deal, per se, and is certainly nothing new. By that, I mean that everybody involved was in agreement, and as Evangelicals often flout, there’s power in agreement. And frankly, no one was harmed, and everyone agreed to it. Furthermore, no criminal or civil laws were broken.

What was broken, however, was Jerry Falwell, Jr.’s trust with the private religious university he led, the general public, his followers, and those within his religious circle.

In common parlance, that’s called betrayal, and hypocrisy.

Maybe native Kentuckian, and U.S. Army veteran Larry Flynt, the longtime publisher of Hustler magazine, and renown First Amendment warrior, will pay for the pictures, for undoubtedly, there are some.

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reuters.com

Exclusive: Business partner of Falwells says he had long affair with evangelical power couple

by Aram Roston

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-falwell-relationship-exclusive/exclusive-business-partner-of-falwells-says-he-had-long-affair-with-evangelical-power-couple-idUSKBN25K1ZO

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In a claim likely to intensify the controversy surrounding one of the most influential figures in the American Christian conservative movement, a business partner of Jerry Falwell Jr has come forward to say he had a years-long sexual relationship involving Falwell’s wife and the evangelical leader.

Giancarlo Granda says he was 20 when he met Jerry and Becki Falwell while working as a pool attendant at the Fontainebleau Miami Beach hotel in March 2012. Starting that month and continuing into 2018, Granda told Reuters that the relationship involved him having sex with Becki Falwell while Jerry Falwell looked on.

Granda showed Reuters emails, text messages and other evidence that he says demonstrate the sexual nature of his relationship with the couple, who have been married since 1987. “Becki and I developed an intimate relationship and Jerry enjoyed watching from the corner of the room,” Granda said in an interview. Now 29, he described the liaisons as frequent – “multiple times per year” – and said the encounters took place at hotels in Miami and New York, and at the Falwells’ home in Virginia.

His friendship with the Falwells eventually soured, Granda told Reuters, in part because he wanted to dissolve his ties with the couple and fell into a business dispute with them.

Giancarlo Granda, who was befriended by Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr and his wife Rebecca while he was working as a pool attendant at a luxury Miami Beach hotel and was later backed by them in a business venture involving a youth hostel, poses for a portrait in Washington, U.S., August 10, 2020. To match Special Report USA-FALWELL/RELATIONSHIP REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Granda first emerged as a figure in the Falwells’ circle two years ago, when BuzzFeed News reported that the couple had befriended Granda and gone into business with him, buying a

How TRUE is “largely poor, uneducated, and easy to command”? You’d be surprised… or, maybe not.

Remember how ANGRY some folks got when Michael Weisskopf (b.1946) of the Washington Post wrote on February 1, 1993 (link to original article with the WaPo’s editorial addendum) that the simple-minded evangelical groupies of Jerry Falwell (who himself died in 2007), Pat Robertson (b.1930), et al, that:
“The gospel lobby evolved with the explosion of satellite and cable television, hitting its national political peak in the presidential election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.

“Unlike other powerful interests, it does not lavish campaign funds on candidates for Congress nor does it entertain them. The strength of fundamentalist leaders lies in their flocks. Corporations pay public relations firms millions of dollars to contrive the kind of grass-roots response that Falwell or Pat Robertson can galvanize in a televised sermon. Their followers are largely poor, uneducated and easy to command.

“”The thing that makes them powerful is they’re mobilizable,” said Seymour Martin Lipset (d.2006), professor of public policy at George Mason University. “You can activate them to vote, and that’s particularly important in congressional primaries where the turnout is usually low.”

“Some studies put the number of evangelical Americans as high as 40 million, with the vast majority considered politically conservative.”

[ed. note: The excerpt, which has frequently been distilled to “largely poor, uneducated and easy to command,” is provided here in full proper context with leading and following sentences, not merely excerpted, in order to thoroughly show proper context.]

It’s true.

Folks don’t get mad because of falsehoods.

They get mad because of truth.

It’s true.

According to the United States Census Bureau (USCB), in 2015 (22 years AFTER that was written), 32.5% of the American public aged 25, or older, have a Bachelor’s Degree (Table 1.), which is CLEARLY a minority. Thus, we see automatically the “largely” part of “uneducated.”

The USCB has also performed research on income, which is similarly delineated and categorized by education. For the year 2011 (18 years AFTER the remarks were made), and those aged 25+ with at least a Bachelor’s Degree, the average income was

Feel like an economic victim? Here’s how to TAKE CONTROL!

Seal of the Great State of Alabama - Sweet Home Alabama

You’re laid off, the victim of downsizing, or your company went belly up… and you can’t find work.

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