December 2008

The Washington Times reports that a group calling itself the RNC Conservative Steering Committee has formed in order to try and control the process of picking the next Republican National Committee Chairman.  Among those involved in the newly formed group is long-time right-wing attorney and early Mitt Romney-backer James Bopp:

In a highly unusual move, 37 self-identified conservatives on the 168-member Republican National Committee have formed a group to vet candidates for the $200,300-a-year, elected post of Republican national chairman, The Washington Times has learned.

An e-mail in which the group dubbed itself the RNC Conservative Steering Committee defines its goal as to ensure the election of a reliably conservative national leader. The group of vetters, however, itself includes several of the candidates for national chairman.

The group was the brainchild of Solomon Yue, an RNC member from Oregon and himself a supporter of one of the candidates for national chairman, sitting RNC Chairman Robert M. "Mike" Duncan.

…

James Bopp Jr., hired in September by Mr. Duncan to be the attorney of record in challenges in federal courts of the constitutionality of the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law, is another of the organizers who signed the e-mail. Mr. Bopp said he expects to see grow in numbers as more RNC members ask to join the steering committee.

The committee will use a Dec. 12 conference call to develop the conservative criteria for picking the next national chairman and then will interview no more than four prospects. Voting will take place on Dec. 19 at an undisclosed location in Washington.

It's the Holiday season, so inevitably that means that right-wing legislators and activists are launching their annual effort to save Christmas from the forces of secularism. 

Via AU's Wall of Separation, we learn that Sen. Chris Buttars of Utah is sponsoring a resolution calling on everyone to say "Merry Christmas" instead of "Happy Holidays" and doing so, he insists, because he's "sick of the Christmas wars":

Sen. Chris Buttars wants Utah's Legislature to declare its opposition to the "war on Christmas."

The West Jordan Republican is sponsoring a resolution encouraging retailers to embrace Christmas in their promotions rather than the generic "holidays."

"It would encourage the use of 'Merry Christmas,'" Buttars said of the non-binding statement that is still being drafted. "I'm sick of the Christmas wars -- we're a Christian nation and ought to use the word."

Several fellow lawmakers he wouldn't yet name support his effort, added Buttars, who has a long history of championing the socially conservative agenda of the Utah Eagle Forum.

I too am sick of the Christmas wars, but it seems that the proper way of handling it is to let people decide for themselves what phrase they want to use instead of demanding that they say "Merry Christmas"  ... in fact, this is exactly the sort of effort that seems destined to simply prolong the "Christmas wars" Buttars is complaining about.

And speaking of the "war on Christmas," it looks Freedom From Religion Foundation is putting up their own holiday signs this year:

In the latest round of what's become almost a winter tradition — conflicts over religious symbols in public places — a group of atheists and agnostics have put up a sign in the state Capitol that says, in part: "Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds."

Freedom From Religion Foundation members put up the sign Monday, partly in response to a nearby Nativity scene. They also debuted a billboard in downtown Olympia that reads: "Reason's Greetings."

Of course, now people are unhappy about this:

[I]n 2006, Olympia real-estate agent Ron Wesselius saw a menorah displayed inside the Capitol and wanted to put up a Nativity scene. He was denied because he applied too late for the state to research the issues, according to the state Department of General Administration.

Wesselius, working with the Alliance Defense Fund, filed a lawsuit, the state settled, and he put up a Nativity scene in 2007. He put up another one Monday morning — a few steps from the Freedom From Religion Foundation's sign.

"I think people are losing track of what Christmas is," Wesselius said. "It's not about one religion against another religion."

Of the foundation's sign, Wesselius said: "I think they're being a little divisive there in their saying. But they have freedom of speech and equal access."

That's right - in 2006, Wesselius and the ADF sued the state of Washington because he saw a menorah in the Capitol and demanded to be allowed to put up a nativity scene and now he's complaining that other people are being "divisive" and pitting one religion against another and ultimately "losing track of what Christmas" is all about.

I've always wanted to launch my own grassroots political organization dedicated to protecting our Third Amendment rights, collecting donations, and then just sitting back while turning out glowing annual reports about how, thanks to our tireless efforts, no citizen was compelled to house soldiers in their place of residence during times of peace for 217 consecutive years.

While it is not quite as ingenious as my idea, it looks like the Media Research Center is launching it's own version of this sort of can't-possibly-fail initiative, as Alex Koppelman points out:

Whether they know it or not, the staff at the Media Research Center -- a conservative press watchdog -- seems to have hit upon an ingenious new strategy: make a big deal about getting involved in fights in which your enemy is nonexistent. You can't possibly lose!

Monday, the MRC announced the formation of the Free Speech Alliance, a group dedicated to fighting against the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine, an old FCC regulation that mandated equal time for opposing viewpoints in opinion programming. The move was announced in a post on MRC's blog, Newsbusters, that was titled "The Free Speech Alliance Declares War on the 'Censorship Doctrine.'"

The MRC is also asking people to sign a petition against revival of the regulation. "In 1987, President Ronald Reagan rescinded the Fairness Doctrine and since then, talk radio has flourished. Conservatives dominate it, and liberals can't stand it. By re-instating the Fairness Doctrine, liberals would effectively silence the conservative leaders of the day ... and would essentially take control of all forms of media," the group says in an introduction on the Web page that hosts the petition. On the same page, the MRC warns, "In recent months, the groundswell for reinstatement is intensifying. In fact, a growing number of liberal leaders in Washington, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, have openly stated their intent to do so."

...

According to the MRC, Fairness Alliance member organizations include Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform, Concerned Women for America and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.

Of course this sort of right-wing effort to save America from the return of the Fairness Doctrine is almost guarantee to succeed without those involved having to do anything at al since, as Marin Cogan explains, there is no effort underway or desire whatsoever to actually reinstate it:

Today, the doctrine has almost no support from media-reform advocates. According to Mark Lloyd, co-author of the CAP report, "I don't think there's any movement [to restore the fairness doctrine] at all. ... We don't support it. " Craig Aaron of the media-reform group FreePress says, "[I]n reality, the fairness doctrine as it existed is never ever coming back."

Responses from the offices of most of the Democrats who have been pegged as fairness-doctrine proponents--Schumer, Dick Durbin, Dianne Feinstein, and others--have ranged from a firm denial that the issue is a priority at all to disbelief at finding themselves at the center of a manufactured controversy. "Somebody plucked this out of the clear blue sky," says the press secretary for New Mexico Senator Jeff Bingaman, a Democrat who was questioned about the issue by a conservative radio-show host a few weeks ago. "This is a completely made- up issue." Senator Durbin's press secretary says that Durbin has "no plans, no language, no nothing. He was asked in a hallway last year, he gave his personal view"--that the American people were served well under the doctrine--"and it's all been blown out of proportion." In fact, as recently as last year, the House voted by an overwhelming three-to-one margin to temporarily prohibit the FCC from imposing the dead policy; 113 Democrats voted to support the move.

Meanwhile, the president-elect himself has said in no uncertain terms that he does "not support reimposing the fairness doctrine on broadcasters." Republican paranoia is nothing more than that.

For many years, Mat Staver of the Jerry Falwell created Liberty Counsel had seemed like a relatively reasonable man.  We didn’t agree with his legal views or agenda, but he wasn’t necessarily the type of right-wing figure to start spouting utterly nonsensical and offensive views about gays or abortion or Democratic politicians or what have you.  

But something seems to have changed recently and, ever since he agreed to join various other second and third-tier right-wing figures for the Values Voter Debate in Florida last year, he has become increasingly unhinged. 

For instance, not too long ago he was blaming our current financial crisis on the “radical redefinition of marriage” and saying that American will be cursed if it elected Barack Obama.  After Obama won, Staver told Newsweek that people who believe Barack Obama might be the Antichrist are not necessarily crazy, but are just “expressing a concern and a fear that is widely shared.” 

Now we get Staver warning that Obama (and his gay allies) are the “biggest threat to religious liberty we've ever had”:

Mat Staver, chairman of Liberty Counsel, a religious liberty legal organization, told Baptist Press he believes religious freedoms could be impacted under Obama, especially if the bills he supports become law.

"I would consider him to be the biggest threat to religious liberty we've ever had [in the White House] because he will push the homosexual agenda," Staver said. "... I think churches and pastors will be very negatively affected by Obama's policies."

…

"My biggest fear is that his agenda will not only advance the homosexual agenda but restrict freedom of speech and freedom of religion," Staver said ... "What we've seen recently with the violence and the attempt to intimidate Christians into silence following the passage of Prop 8 by the homosexual activists ought to be a wake-up call for Christians," Staver said. "That's what's coming if we don't stand up and resist now these homosexual policies."