December, 2006

Right Wing Watch will return on Wednesday, January 3rd.

On Nov. 30th, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced the release of 144 questions, including 80 that are new or reworded, for its proposed new naturalization exam.  To test the new questions, the USCIS announced that it would be administering pilot exams “to about 5,000 volunteer citizenship applicants in 10 cities beginning in early 2007 … To pass, applicants will have to correctly answer six of 10 selected questions.”

Republican leaders in the state say they will not push right-wing agenda; Lt. Gov.-elect Cagle says he’ll “govern from the center on mainstream ideas and mainstream issues

Be more like Sam Brownback.

The Family Research Council’s David Prentice pens op-ed criticizing Missouri’s stem-cell research measure, accuses voters of turning democracy “into tyranny.”

ADF says court ruled state legislature “must vote” on proposed marriage amendment, but the court did no such thing.

American Family Association Center for Law & Policy attorney angry by decision to abandon efforts to place anti-evolution stickers on textbooks.

Law aimed at stopping the activities of the virulently anti-gay Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church.

American Family Association takes credit for nearly 10% decrease in auto sales.

The Buffalo News profiles Judge Frank Easterbrook as a possible Supreme Court nominee.

Right-wing columnist Michelle Malkin blames Democrats for “grandstanding” and Republicans for blowing “monumental opportunity to show liberals how to end disaster socialism.&rdquo

“Left Behind” series authors Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins currently promoting new four-part book series “The Jesus Chronicles.”

Flushed with adrenaline after having grappled with those nebulous, non-existent forces that sought to “annihilate expressions of Christmas and Christianity” this Holiday season, some on the Right just cannot bring themselves to lay down their arms.

And the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny’s Jesse Lee Peterson is no longer content to merely play defense and has gone on the offensive  - against Kwanzaa: 

On the observance of the 40th anniversary of Kwanzaa (celebrated Dec. 26 to Jan. 1) Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, founder and president of BOND, the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny, is calling on blacks to abandon this “godless holiday.” Kwanzaa was founded by Maulana Karenga in 1966 to “help blacks get in touch with their African roots.” Karenga is a violent ex-con who served time in prison for torturing two women. He was also the head of the United Slaves Organization, a violent “black power” group …

Rev. Peterson said, “Kwanzaa was designed to separate blacks from Christmas and Christianity. Kwanzaa is anti-white and anti-American. Black Americans need to make a choice between the Prince of Peace and the Marxist Karenga.

The Right is apparently so committed to winning this fictitious “War on Christmas” that it had decided to launch its own counterattack.

It is ironic that the only perceptible victim to date in the “War on Christmas” appears to be Kwanzaa.

The National Review asked a few right-wing political figures to try and come up with some things that the Right “can be optimistic about going into 2007.”  Not surprisingly, the responses are not particularly uplifting. 

Aside from taking some glee in the fact that “the American people will now hold [the Democrats] partly responsible for Iraq policy” and getting to watch “the spectacle of liberal congressional Democrats struggling to reconcile what they want to do (impeach George Bush, raise taxes, get out of Iraq, fling wide the gates to all immigrants) with what the public wants them to do,” those queried didn't really have anything positive to offer.  

Rep. Jeb Henlsarling takes some solace in the fact that the GOP might now get a chance to the things they failed to do for the last six years, such as “embrace the core conservative principles of a balanced budget, limited, accountable government, and traditional values” while Phyllis Schlafly looks forward to re-claiming the party “by outnumbering and outsmarting the false prophets of RINO politics, nation-building utopians, and globalism economics.”   

Perhaps the most pessimistic response came from defeated Senator Rick Santorum who appeared to be so despondent that he could barely muster a few vague platitudes about making “judicial activism” a bigger issue – and even that was overshadowed by his own apparent sense of hopelessness:

Conservatism, of course, will never be the political disposition of a majority of Americans. Conservative objectives, however, will from time to time find the support of such a majority; the success of the conservative movement depends in large part on leaders taking advantage of such moments.

So that is what conservatives have to look forward to in 2007:  Hoping the Democrats struggle while waiting for opportunities where they can take advantage of those rare occasions when the American people might fleetingly support some isolated part of their right-wing agenda.  

Robert Dierker has been a judge on Missouri’s 22nd Circuit for twenty years and, having just been re-elected, apparently decided the time was right to publicly profit from his position by writing a book trumpeting his right-wing ideology:

A book by a veteran St. Louis judge, due out this week, is causing a stir in political and legal circles for its sentiments on "femifascists" and "illiberal liberals."

And some say it could cost him his job.

…

The first chapter of "The Tyranny of Tolerance: A Sitting Judge Breaks the Code of Silence to Expose the Liberal Judicial Assault," has circulated for weeks via e-mail and been widely read in legal circles, lawyers and judges told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The chapter, which frequently uses the term "femifascists" and is titled "The Cloud Cuckooland of Radical Feminism," prompted a complaint with the state body that can reprimand or remove judges.

The Associated Press offered a few excerpts from Dierker’s book:

_ "Just as we saw with the femifascists, illiberal liberals don't want equality; they want to make some people more equal than others. And they've made it happen through their dominance of the courts over the past seventy-five years. Liberals have converted the courts from the 'least dangerous' branch of government envisioned by the Founding Fathers to the most dangerous." (From a chapter titled "Making Some Americans More Equal Than Others," about the 14th Amendment and equal protection under the law)

_ "This is liberal law in a nutshell. History and tradition count for nothing; the language of the Constitution itself counts for little; the only criterion is whether a ruling will advance the liberal agenda." (From the chapter "Ozzie and Harriet Are Dead," about abortion and the attack on the traditional family.)

_ " ... The Constitution died on April 18, 1990, as a direct result of the liberal pursuit of racial 'equality.'" (From the chapter "Taxation for Tolerance," about school desegregation and desegregation rulings that allow judges to impose taxes.)

Press coverage notes that “other judges and lawyers have said Dierker may have violated a state rule against a judge using his or her position for personal profit” but Dierker is defending his book, saying he broke no rules and that his open disdain for feminists and liberals in no way makes him unfit for the bench: 

Dierker said he is always fair in the courtroom. "Conservative judges are much more likely to know where their biases are and how to draw the line," he said.

…

Dierker writes that the views in the book are "personal, and should not be construed as any indication of how I would rule on any case coming before me. No public resources were used in the preparation of this work. The use of my title is strictly for identification."

Considering that the Right loves nothing more than complaining and picking fights over the issue of judges, Dierker can probably take solace in the fact that if he is in some way reprimanded or punished for his book, he will always be able to translate his newfound notoriety into speaking engagements at the next “Confronting the Judicial War on Faith Conference” or “Values Voters Summit.”

Right Wing Watch will return on Wednesday, December 27th.

In a post on his ghostwritten (but apparently not fact checked) blog, former somebody Tom Delay took aim at People For the American Way Foundation and the ACLU, who along with Voter Action and the Electronic Frontier Foundation are representing Sarasota County voters suing for a revote in Florida's 13th congressional district race in which more than 18,000 voters were disenfranchised in a contest decided by fewer than 400 votes.

[Democratic Congressional Candidate Christine] Jennings, for her part, is filing an official election challenge with the House Administration Committee, and she and leftwing advocacy groups such as People for the American Way and the ACLU have already launched a lawsuit in Florida, asking Leon County (Tallahassee) Circuit Judge William Gary to negate the November 7th results and order a new election. The suit was filed in Tallahasse, hundreds of miles from the 13th district, in hopes of getting a more liberal judge and jury pool instead of Sarasota County where the election actually occurred and the voting machines in question are located.

Of course, had Delay paid attention to the law, he would have known state law requires that an election contest like this, where the election encompassed more than one county, must be filed in state court in Leon County (Tallahassee). Oh, and it’s not a jury trial either.

It’s nice to nice to see Tom Delay is maintaining the high standards of honesty and integrity that gave him the opportunity to be a blogger rather than a member of Congress.

Sen. Sam Brownback continues his one-man crusade against the nomination of Janet Neff over her attendance at a lesbian commitment ceremony in 2002, taking to the pages of The Grand Rapids Press to explain his opposition:

I placed what is known as a "hold" on the nomination of Judge Neff in order to get information on two items: First, what were the facts surrounding the same-sex ceremony? Second, how did Judge Neff view the legal issue of same-sex marriage under the United States Constitution: For example, did she believe that the law passed by the people of Michigan in 2004 to prohibit same-sex marriage violated the Constitution?

Neff was voted out of the Senate Judiciary Committee in October and Brownback claims that he had no choice but to put a hold on her nomination: 

Without the hold, we would not have had time to ask Judge Neff relevant questions and afford her the time to respond, and the nomination likely would have been passed by unanimous consent without debate -- even though the consensus on the nominee clearly would not have been in fact unanimous.

Brownback’s claim is clearly bogus, as the Senate’s own website explains:  

A Senator may request unanimous consent on the floor to set aside a specified rule of procedure so as to expedite proceedings. If no Senator objects, the Senate permits the action, but if any one Senator objects, the request is rejected.

Unanimous Consent requires … well, unanimous consent.  As such, Brownback could have objected to any effort to confirm Neff by this method.  

As it stands now, Brownback appears resigned to defeat on this issue, but is still trying to save face by saying that so long as the Democratic “leadership will agree to a debate and an up-or-down roll call vote on the nomination … I will not reinstate the hold on Judge Neff.” 

Of course, the implication is that if he doesn't get his way, he won't hesitate to reinstate his hold.

Struggling group afraid of “alienating their base” – and their donors – says Joel Hunter.

Right-wing complained “Nativity” movie not in city’s Christmas market, despite presence of nativity scene. Now city approves movie for different location. Meanwhile: AFA launches “Public School Christmas Project.”

Far-right position “universally popular,” and in turning out House, voters were rejecting Bush’s support for comprehensive reform, he claims in the Dec. 18 print edition of the Pat Buchanan-founded American Conservative.

2008 candidate hires Gary Marx from Judicial Confirmation Network and picks up endorsement from right-wing superlawyer Jay Sekulow.