Ann Coulter

Rep. Trent Franks Considering Birther Lawsuit?

Submitted by Kyle on August 24, 2009 - 7:43am

Is Rep. Trent Franks really considering filing a lawsuit to demand that President Obama release his birth certificate? According to the Mohave Daily News, the answer is yes:

The other main issue dealt with numerous speakers questioning Obama's birth certificate and why there wasn't an investigation into whether he is a naturalized citizen. One woman said a newspaper announcement of his birth in Hawaii was not sufficient. Another asked how he could have a passport without a birth certificate.

Franks said there was not enough evidence that Obama is not an American citizen. He did say there was a lot of conflicting evidence of Obama's citizenship and that he was considering filing a lawsuit, the only congressman to do so. Franks asked why the president did not simply produce a birth certificate.

David Weigel has more.

And on a related note, there is just something hilarious about Joseph Farah complaining that Ann Coulter's attack on the Birthers is "much less informed than is her usual standard":

Coulter committed what many see as the unpardonable sin of attacking "birthers" – those "nuts" and "fruitloops" like me who actually want to see Barack Obama release his birth certificate and other documents he is so clearly hiding from the American public – documents crucial to knowing who our president really is and whether he is constitutionally eligible to hold office.

The attacks from friends, which I consider Ann to be, always hurt much more than attacks from adversaries. My skin is thick. It has to be in this business. Coulter's comments were scathing, and she painted with a broad brush. I was grateful she didn't make it personal in her comments on TV and in her WND column – the place where more people read Coulter than anywhere else. Nevertheless, I noted that her statements on this subject were much less informed than is her usual standard.

But the real hurt came when some WND readers began forwarding me Coulter's personal responses to their questions. They included what I consider to be scathing personal indictments of me and the company I direct ... Then came the vicious personal attack: "not one known conservative public figure or publication believes this – except WND, which I believe is pushing it to get website hits, bc no sane person could believe it – but the MSM keeps interviewing the nuts to make all conservatives look crazy and to distract from the serious problems with obama."

It really grieves me that Ann Coulter dismisses the one real investigative news agency's work and relies on warmed-over pabulum from the American Spectator and an unknown blog. There's a reason the American Spectator is named as such. It is a spectator when it comes to news. It is simply untrue that the Spectator found the birth announcements during the campaign. The first known source of the newspaper birth announcements was a pro-Hillary Clinton blogger in the summer of 2008.

Coulter's problem seems to be her contempt for real reporting – unless it is conducted by a pedigreed "conservative" source. Unfortunately for Coulter, as a lifelong journalist involved in investigative reporting for 30 years, I can tell you there is no such animal as a pedigreed "conservative" news outlet that does real investigative reporting. Apparently WND is just too "independent" for Coulter's trust.

Kyle's blog

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Coulter to Speak, Limbaugh to be Hailed at CPAC

Submitted by Kyle on February 6, 2009 - 2:22pm

Remember last year when the hosts of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) decided not to give Ann Coulter her traditional speaking role at the event because, the year before, she had called John Edwards a "faggot"? Well, apparently, all has been forgiven

Coulter still spoke last year, of course, but was relegated to a back room where she was the guest of several of the conference's sponsors. And now, as the conservative movement tries to figure out its course of action under a Democratic president and Congress, it looks like CPAC organizers have decided to place her front and center once again by giving her, and several other right-wing blowhards, prime speaking spots at the event:

The latest schedule for the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C. late February: Possible presidential candidates include Rep. Paul Ryan (WI), speaking Thursday, Rep. Mike Pence (IN), speaking Thursday -- he's invited, not confirmed -- Gov. Mike Huckabee, on Thursday, Gov. Sarah Palin, on Thursday -- invited, not confirmed, and Rep. John Shadegg (AZ). On Friday, Sen. John Cornyn speaks in the early morning; Newt Gingrich hosts a screening of a movie about Ronald Reagan. Ron Paul and Mitt Romney speak in the afternoon. On Saturday, Rick Santorum begins the day and Gov. Tim Palwenty is an invites speaker. The lovely Ann Coulter speaks at noon. And Rush Limbaugh finishes the conference.

Indeed, according to the schedule, Coulter and Limbaugh are slotted to speak in the Regency Ballroom, which is the hub of the entire conference, on the final day ... and Limbaugh is going to be awarded with a "Defender of the Constitution Award" to close out the whole event.

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Right Wing Leftovers

Submitted by Kyle on January 12, 2009 - 4:21pm

Mike Huckabee welcomed Ann Coulter to his television program and things got a little tense, with Huckabee demanding to know if she though he was stupid before Huckabee was humiliatingly reduced to defending his conservative credentials by proclaiming that he is "definitely not pro-sodomy"

The Catholic League is not happy that Eugene Robinson has been chosen to participate in inaugural events.
Steve Benen catches Elaine Donnelly fundamentally misunderstanding the meaning of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
Joseph Farah warns that "America is being judged" because there is a "lack of discernment about the eternal and unchanging laws of God" and that "this path leads only to destruction."
The National Review calls upon Barack Obama to re-nominate some Bush judges as an act of bipartisanship and Quin Hillyer sees it as evidence of a "groundswell."
Don Feder lists the "Best and Worst Developments Affecting the Family in 2008." The worst development? "The Election of Barack Obama." The best? "Sarah Palin, Pro-life Woman Is Vice Presidential Nominee."

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Right Wing Joins Conversation About Race

Submitted by Ezra on March 21, 2008 - 3:43pm

A few voices on the Right have expressed partial praise for Barack Obama’s speech on race, but by and large, right-wing commentators have stuck to the script, picking over the parts where Obama mentioned the country’s racial wounds, excoriating him for failing to disavow affirmative action or liberal economic policies, and generally promoting the idea that Obama is some kind of Manchurian candidate who secretly hates both America and white people.

But if Obama hoped to start a national conversation about race, he succeeded, in a way. Many right-wing commentators have proved willing to redirect their attacks on Obama to a discussion of their views on African Americans in general. Cal Thomas opined that “black people should be listening to” Bill Cosby, not Rev. Wright. Ann Coulter announced that she had had enough of blacks talking about racism:

But the "post-racial candidate" thinks we need to talk yet more about race. How much more? I had had my fill by around 1974. How long must we all marinate in the angry resentment of black people? …

We treat blacks like children, constantly talking about their temper tantrums right in front of them with airy phrases about black anger. I will not pat blacks on the head and say, "Isn't that cute?" As a post-racial American, I do not believe "the legacy of slavery" gives black people the right to be permanently ill-mannered.

Unfortunately, the online videos of Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s church appear to be the first exposure some on the Right have had to blacks or the African American church. Human Events reporter Ericka Anderson admitted as much: “Those of us outside the black community lack any deep knowledge of black churches. The only black minister we are very familiar with was Martin Luther King, Jr.” Anderson added, “He never damned America.”

George Neumayr, editor of the Catholic World Report, was apparently scandalized by what he described as the “feverish” church-goers in the videos “hopping up and down like hyperactive children” as they follow their “buffoonish[],” “sashaying” pastor.

Perhaps we should leave the final word to Pat Buchanan, who has made a career out of claiming that “white America” is under constant threat from other ethnicities. Before Obama’s speech, Buchanan pined for the “Negroes” of the 1950s:

That Wright is a revered preacher in black America also tells us that, far from coming together, we Americans are further apart than we were in the 1950s, when Negroes could be described as Christian, conservative and patriotic. Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad did not speak for black America then. Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young and Dr. Martin Luther King did. But Jeremiah Wright makes Stokely Carmichael and Rap Brown sound like the Mills Brothers.

After the speech, Buchanan was more blunt, writing that “Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.”

What is wrong with Barack's prognosis and Barack's cure?

Only this. It is the same old con, the same old shakedown that black hustlers have been running since the Kerner Commission blamed the riots in Harlem, Watts, Newark, Detroit and a hundred other cities on, as Nixon put it, "everybody but the rioters themselves."

Was "white racism" really responsible for those black men looting auto dealerships and liquor stories, and burning down their own communities, as Otto Kerner said -- that liberal icon until the feds put him away for bribery.

Barack says we need to have a conversation about race in America.

Fair enough. But this time, it has to be a two-way conversation. White America needs to be heard from, not just lectured to.

This time, the Silent Majority needs to have its convictions, grievances and demands heard.

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CPAC in Pictures

Submitted by Kyle on February 11, 2008 - 11:19am

Perhaps nothing sums up the current state of the conservative movement like seeing a Hummer back into a limousine in the parking lot outside the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and seeing Mitt Romney beat John McCain in the CPAC straw poll on the question of “If the election were held today to decide the Republican Nominee for President in 2008, for whom would you vote?” despite having appeared at the conference only to drop out of the race. And while attendees were asked not to boo McCain, it didn’t stop them from doing so when he spoke … or whenever his name was mentioned by any of the other speakers.

Aside from the weirdness of Mike Huckabee basing his entire on speech on Phyllis Schlafly’s "A Choice, Not an Echo" despite the fact that Schlafly hates him and the sense of overwhelming despair at the possibility of a McCain nomination, the rest of CPAC consisted of typical right-wing fare, such as Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily delineating the dangers of the Fairness Doctrine, warning that if Democrats take control of the White House and Congress, “there will be no stopping these people” who operate with a “neo-fascist mentality,” only to be followed by David Horowitz who ranted about “fair-minded” conservatives being oppressed by liberals who want to “exterminate us.” Or, as he put it, when liberals control the universities, they merely send conservatives to sensitivity training, but when “they control they state, they shoot you.”

But it wasn’t all fear-mongering. There was some good news too, such as the announcement by the National Black Republican Association that they were slowly becoming a force to be reckoned with, because last year their website received over one thousand visitors. Of course, the NBRA might be even more of a force within the GOP if their panels weren’t relegated to a tiny room at the back of the convention

Though the event appeared to be less-well attended than in previous years, there was no shortage of red meat for those in attendance, as demonstrated by the hundreds of convention-goers who lined up hours in advance to get in to hear Ann Coulter

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But despite the seeming disarray of the right-wing movement at the present, there still appears to be at least one thing that can unify them in this country: hatred of Hillary Clinton

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To see more photos from CPAC, check out our Flickr page.

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Coulter Dropped From CPAC

Submitted by Kyle on February 1, 2008 - 10:46am

CPAC organizers have apparently grown tired of Ann Coulter's antics, says Think Progress.

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The Right Demands Post Flip-Flop Consistency

Submitted by Kyle on November 5, 2007 - 3:49pm

In early October, Ann Coulter appeared on "Hannity & Colmes" and stated that she has no problem with politicians "flip-flopping" on issues, provided they do so in the right direction:

COLMES: Mitt Romney, the other possible contender, flip-flopped on every issue, has flip-flopped on illegals, flip-flopped on gays...

COULTER: He's flipping in my direction.

COLMES: But he's flip-flopped. He's changed his position. It depends on what office he's running for in terms of what he says.

COULTER: Have I ever said I'm against flip-floppers? ... I just want them to flop in my direction.

With Mitt Romney working to position himself as a consensus candidate for the various right-wing leaders who cannot make up their minds about who to support but know that they will not accept Giuliani, it seems as if this mentality is starting to gain traction:

But [Giuliani's] position on abortion seems to have benefited Mr. Romney, whose new, pro-life position has helped him with religious conservatives. Some say they fear Mr. Giuliani’s pro-choice stance enough to overlook Mr. Romney’s late-in-life conversion.

“If they come around to seeing things our way the last thing we should do, I think, is throw stones at them,” said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, an influential social conservative group. But, he warned, “For whatever reason, the positions Governor Romney has arrived at are his positions, and if he is to remain politically viable in any way, he will have to maintain those positions.”

The latter part of Perkins' statement pretty well sums up Romney's current predicament in that the only reason he is even being considered a legitimate candidate by the Right is because he has done a 180 degree turn away from his record in Massachusetts and blatantly pandered to their agenda.

And many on the Right seem perfectly willing to overlook that, provided that Romney remains committed to the post flip-flop positions he now claims to hold.

It must be difficult to run for President when the people you have been pandering to suddenly start demanding consistency and accountability.

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Claiming to be Misled, Senate Chaplain Bows out of Far-Right Conference

Submitted by Ezra on February 2, 2007 - 4:28pm

Black in brochure Senate Chaplain Barry Black has cancelled his scheduled appearance at a right-wing conference hosted by televangelist D. James Kennedy’s Center for Reclaiming America for Christ, the AP reports, “after he was pictured with columnist Ann Coulter and other prominent conservatives in a brochure promoting the event.”

Black told Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) that he wouldn't be addressing next month's Reclaiming America for Christ Conference because his appearance wouldn't uphold the Senate chaplain's "historic tradition of being nonpolitical, nonpartisan, nonsectarian," a spokeswoman for the chaplain said Thursday.

Spokeswoman Meg Saunders said Black, a Seventh-day Adventist and a former Navy chaplain, had received "a very generic invitation" in fall 2005 to speak at the March conference and had agreed because there was room on his schedule.

After learning more about the other speakers and the event's featured topics, Black became "concerned" and canceled his appearance, Saunders said. "He felt the information had been incomplete," she said.

Over the last three decades, D. James Kennedy has established himself as one of the most powerful religious-right leaders in the country – called an “ivy-league Jerry Falwell.” Kennedy’s Center for Reclaiming America for Christ is dedicated to mobilizing its supporters against abortion, gays, and evolution, and his Center for Christian Statesmanship is dedicated to honoring almost exclusively Republican politicians who take up the religious-right standard in office. His 2007 conference will reflect those missions:

Reclaiming America for Christ 2007 is coming, and “evil” is counting on you.

That’s right. The only thing evil requires for its triumph is for Christians to say and do nothing.

According to the brochure, attendees will receive “Power packed training sessions taught by ‘culture war’ veterans” on “How to recruit and mobilize your pastor and church” to combat abortion, homosexuality, and “Darwin’s deadly legacy.”

And although the conference, in Fort Lauderdale, is at the same time as the much larger Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, a number of prominent right-wing speakers will make the trip down, including Coulter, Phyllis Schlafly, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, Frank Pavone of Priest for Life, and Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention. (Schlafly and Coulter are scheduled for both conferences.)

Although Center for Reclaiming America Executive Director Gary Cass claims “It's not political,” his organization’s history and the choice of speakers makes that assertion pretty unconvincing.

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Values Voter Summit: Friday Night Battle of the Bullies

Submitted by Peter on September 23, 2006 - 9:48am

The closing session of Day 1 at the Values Voters conference had the feel of an emotional roller coaster. The evening kicked off with stand-up comedy by Steve Bridges, whose impersonation of President Bush is uncanny - every shrug, eyebrow raise, hand gesture, whisper, squint, smirk, and laugh were instantly recognizable. The performance had people rolling in the aisles, even though there was a lot of good-natured humor playing on the very-popular-in-this-crowd president's difficulties with the English language and his reputation for not being, as he said, "the brightest bulb in the knife drawer."

The tone shifted dramatically darker with the next two speakers, Religious Right strategist and former presidential candidate Gary Bauer and notorious pundit Ann Coulter. Bauer focused on "two wars"- the war against "Islamo-fascists" and the battle over values. Coulter's theme was "two evils" to be fought - Islamic terrorists and the Supreme Court. Both mocked concerns about mistreatment of detainees at Guantanamo. Bauer particularly seemed to take offense at the very notion that detainees would be treated humanely, which he said sends a signal of weakness to our enemies. He derided Republican Sens. McCain, Warner and Graham for trying to ensure that the U.S. retained its commitment to the Geneva Convention's requirement for humane treatment of prisoners of war. And he slammed the "left wing of American politics," which he said "appears to hate you and me and George Bush more than they hate the Taliban and Osama bin Laden."

Bauer described the values battle - over abortion and marriage - in equally pugnacious terms, insisting that Roe will soon be overturned and declaring that "we are putting the radical gay rights movement on notice. You will not defeat us. We will defend marriage."

Bauer closed by invoking the memories of people in the twin towers who called loved ones in their final moments, and of the passengers on flight 93 who sacrificed their lives to prevent another terror attack. He called on the image of those passengers charging up the aisle to shame anyone who stays out of the culture war or doesn't find time to vote. Bauer, of course, gave no sign of recognizing that among those callers and passengers were gay Americans with their own loved ones and families.

Coulter, while extremely popular with the crowd, seemed a bit off, rushing through her speech in order to get to the book signing table, but not so quickly that she didn't throw out some tradmark outrageousness designed to delight right-wing audiences: liberals don't want to go to war with Islamic fascism, and the killing of doctors who provided abortions was basically the fault of the Supreme Court's decision in Casey. She derided Supreme Court decisions that "read like newsletters from NAMBLA" and asked when the other branches of government would finally start ignoring "absurd" Supreme Court decisions. (She suggested that Bush and Congress should have ignored decisions on the rights of detainees.)

Without a trace of irony Coulter declared the war in Iraq a "magnificent success," made light of the massive looting that took place there ("broken pottery") and dismissed concerns about the conditions in Iraq raised by the "treason lobby." Now let's sell some books.