Michigan State Representative Todd Courser has an alleged bizarre way of spinning scandal. The conservative Republican ran on a religious right affiliation and was reportedly about to be implicated in an affair with another conservative lawmaker. According to a transcript released by Detroit News was to instruct his aide to implicate him in a sex scandal with a male prostitute. That’s right, it is better to be caught with a male prostitute than a fellow Republican legislator. It could be all part of Courser’s belief in what he calls “God inspired encouragers.”
According to The Detroit News, Courser told his aide Ben Graham to send out the bogus anonymous email filled with sensational details. It appears that once the scandal was disproved or blew over, his relationship with fellow state Rep. Cindy Gamrat would seem tame and unnewsworthy. Graham recorded the conversation with Courser who is married with children. Like Courser, Gamrat is a Tea-Party back candidate who is married with children.
Courser is quoted as reading the details for the fake email with the instructions that “You just get nasty about it.” The aide expresses shock and asks “Are you serious? … That’s ridiculous.” Courser is heard responding “I need it to be over the top.”
Graham says that when he refused to carry out the order, he was stripped of his duties and Courser fired him.
Courser describes a life of faith on his bio in the following way:
State Rep. Todd Courser was first elected to serve the 82nd District in the Michigan House of Representatives in November 2014. The 82nd District includes all of Lapeer County.
EARLY LIFE
Rep. Courser was born in Flint, Michigan to Daniel and Georgeann Courser, who were married shortly after his birth. When he was 4, Courser was sent to a vacation bible school, which changed the course of their lives, as first his mother and then his father, found salvation in Jesus Christ. Shortly afterwards, his family moved to a small family farm in Lapeer, Michigan. Both of his parents had grown up in difficult family situations and wanted a different experience for their family.Daniel and Georgeann Courser were not only loving and nurturing parents, but they were followers of Christ, which was reflected in their lifestyle. Although they did not have much money, they operated their home as a place for all who needed compassion and love. They did not receive any resources for this and had no government involvement. They acted selflessly, as loving, God inspired encouragers. Todd Courser grew up in this household, with his brother, his 2 sisters and however many lost souls found their way to the Courser doorstep. The family would feed them, mend them, wash them up a little spiritually and then watch them get their feet back under them as they would go back out into the world when the timing was right. Courser learned that money, accomplishments and positions that the world tends to value, were not as important as advancing God’s plans for him to do the right things for the right reasons.
Aside from the family farm, Courser grew up with his father’s meat business. His father considered savings to be 3 chest freezers full of meat in his view of the world at that time. His mother attended college, ran a daycare, cub scout dens, church events, attended her children’s sport events and worked nights as a waitress when needed to make the finances work. Courser does not remember ever living in a household without other people, who were not related, there.
The love and compassion that Courser’s parents emulated shaped the “religious” part of Courser, one of genuine faith.
For her part, Gamrat also ran on her faith and commitment to God and family:
It has been an incredible and humbling journey over these last few years and would not have been possible without the hand of God, the love of my family, and the help from all those who have supported me.
Nothing worthwhile is ever easy but I believe together, and with God’s providence, we can conquer any rough or rocky areas that present themselves on the path between us and the precious gift of liberty.
What is most interesting is that Courser’s clever plan has drawn more attention to the scandal than would have occurred otherwise. It is certainly true that both would look like hypocrites in the eyes of their constituents. However, they would not be the first such politicians caught in affair. Courser however has added a bizarre twist that places both politicians in not only greater national exposure but a rather unhinged, desperate light.
Ironically, Courser was right in one respect. Few people are really that interested in the original affair.
“We should never forget the rapist Bill Clinton, whose wife, who covered up the rapes and terrorized the victims, now wants to be President.”
… Bill Clinton… now wants to be president???
I think you mean: ‘We should not forget that Hillary Clinton, who now wants to be president, covered up for her husband.’
But I think a much more relevant remark is: ‘We should not forget that Hillary Clinton, who now wants to be president, withheld agency documents in the form of email.’
What ever you may think of Hillary, withholding agency documents seems more directly related to her performance as a high government official.
Half the country bases their lives on primitive beliefs about the nature of reality.
http://jezebel.com/hell-bound-atheists-might-be-better-at-marriage-than-ch-1457950676
“Hell bound athiests might be better at marriage than Christians.”
Yikes.
Monsters
I agree that no woman should ever have to birth a child she does not want.
Clearly it’s a matter of consent, and very much like the ‘yes means yes’ campaign for intercourse for men trying to have intercourse with women.
She can revoke her consent at any time, right up until and even AFTER sex occurs (she can regret it and decide she didn’t really want sex after all, but the patriarchy and peer pressure and booze made her do it).
Similarly, women should be able to revoke consent to pregnancy at any time, even after the birth.
I mean, babies are time sucking minsters.
What if she finds out she didn’t really want a baby after all, that all along the wanting was just patriarchal BS, and no, she doesn’t really want it after all?
Or when the brat is a painful teen, and you don’t want the child then?
So for Feminists, the right to consent and revocation of consent at any time, even long after whatever event already took place, deserves primacy.
Feminism means never having to say you’re wrong.
Bigfatmike
And hypocrisy often turns the stomach.
Gee, I missed the part where Bill Clinton was charged with or convicted of rape. Nor do I know or heard that HRC terrorized particular women. But some here have no difficulty with making stuff up. However, with Americans so beset by their fear of terror, I would think some would be more discriminating in their use of the word, ‘terror’.
MrDickens – talk to Kathleen Wiley.
Well … I guess that just goes to show the coverup really is worse than the crime.
The good thing about Presbyterians is you can’t tell the difference between them and us atheists when it comes to mocking GOP or Christian sinners.
Human failings are funniest when done by those who FWC (failed while Christian).
Having highly mobile moral standards, not unlike the football chains at the sidelines, makes my atheism so much easier for day to day stuffthan these flyover yokels who try and try to be good, but screw it up every time.
Sin is the banana peel of life.
It’s funny every time, when a Christer does it.
Vote for Bernie Sanders instead. Or of course you can vote for the thrice divorced Don the Trump.
http://youtu.be/MYQBd9ordbE
Oops, LOL, that should be “Blame it on the Bossa Nova.”
“Presbyterian”, sorry still chuckling.
Pogo, I’m a Christian, a Presbyerian.
Deflection from the philandering Republican? DBQ will be along any moment to scold us that the thread veered off topic again. Who brought PP into the conversation? Why, that would be Olly @ 12:03PM.
So why did these two Family Value Republicans break their marital vows? Maybe it was because gays can now get married? Or maybe it was the full moon? Or maybe pheromones? “Blame it on the Casanova”.
Olly
Congratulations on the nicely turned phrase. Too bad it has nothing to do with the lives of mothers and children.
MrDickens, you are correct again in the context that having an abortion or preventing a pregnancy would be the best thing for the woman’s family. Or the woman isn’t fit at that time in her life to start a family and she knows it.
“every child a wanted child isn’t a family value?”
Isn’t that cute. ‘We are Planned Parenthood, an organization devoted to the family you want to keep.’ That sounds so much better!
Olly, many of the women who have abortions are not married, are in precarious situations in which carrying a pregnancy to term and having a child is a very very bad idea. The other majority of women who use PP services are a combination of mostly single, some married women who need health services, most of which are getting birth control, so as NOT to have an abortion. Family values really has little to do with it, that is true to the extent that the women may want to not put more stress on a family situation that is already precarious. Bringing an unwanted child into such a situation would be devastating…to the child, most likely.
Olly,
Family planning, the use of contraception, breast exams, diagnosis of STDs and every child a wanted child isn’t a family value?
I congratulate Professor Turley on discovering that all humans are sinners, even Christians.
I congratulate Inga on enjoying this fall from grace even more than the good Professor.
Joy!
Thankfully, we Progressives do not believe in god or sin, and only abhor hypocrisy, hence our utter glee when we can find this occurring in a Republican, especially one from the TEA Party, and even better in a “Christian”.
Ha ha ha.
It made my day!