Phill Kline

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Right Wing Leftovers

Submitted by Kyle on February 19, 2009 - 5:19pm

The Victory Christian Center in Tulsa, OK will host the 2009 Night to Honor Israel from 7-9 p.m. March 2 with the Rev. John Hagee speaking.

Rick Santorum says the Quran was "written in Islamic,” which is not a language. It was written in Arabic.

FRC says it is understandable that so many Republicans are refusing to run for re-election. After all, "who can blame them for choosing not to sit at the foot of the most pro-abortion, socialist Speaker of the House in history?"

Bill Donohue gets results. Yesterday the Catholic League voiced its outrage over a poster at the University of Georgia, claiming the "famous Michelangelo painting on the Sistine Chapel ceiling that features the hand of God giving life to Adam has been hijacked to promote condoms." The school's Vice President for Student Affairs immediately apologized.

On his last day as Johnson County District Attorney, Phill Kline reportedly had copies of abortion records mailed to his office to Lynchburg, Va., where he had taken a job at Liberty University. The Johnson County District Attorney's Office only found out about it because the box was returned because the address on the label was incorrect.

Finally, this quote from Richard Land in opposition to DOJ nominee David Ogden seemed to be worth highlighting:

Ogden told the committee during his oral and written testimony that his legal positions on controversial pornography-related cases represented the views of his clients and did not reflect his personal beliefs. But that hasn't been enough to appease opponents, who say that he could have turned down representing those clients if he found their positions so objectionable.

"That's a moral cop-out, and it's one reason why there are so many lawyer jokes," Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, told Baptist Press regarding Ogden's defense. "… A person's views on pornography are a window to a person's worldview, and this window shows a worldview that is inconsistent with what I want the American Justice Department to be."

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Right Wing Leftovers

Submitted by Kyle on January 26, 2009 - 4:41pm

How cool is Facebook? So cool that even the hipsters over at the American Family Association now have their own page.
John Hagee writes that he is praying "fervently for [Barack Obama's] success" and calls on the Religious Right, when they disagree with the new president, to do so with "the same civility and respect that he has thus far shown to us."
The AP reports that the Arkansas Family Council is trying to intervene in a lawsuit stemming from the recent passage of the law banning gays from adopting children, arguing that the current Attorney General is not supporting of the law and trying to bring in the Alliance Defense Fund to help defend it.
Much like the right-wing criticisms that helped sink Mike Huckabee's presidential aspirations, some commentators are now saying that Gov. Bobby Jindal "doesn't actually walk his conservative talk."
Phill Klein now has his own website called Stand With Truth where he can share his views:

President Obama did not mention abortion once in his inaugural address despite the issue being the most divisive in our nation. Just as President Franklin Pierce did not once mention slavery in his only inaugural address in 1853, less than a decade before the issue plunged the nation to war.

On abortion, politician Obama has survived through political calculation, deception and with gratitude to a self-indulgent culture full of distraction and willful ignorance. And his first actions have been aggressively opposed to this significant civil rights issue. Yet, President Obama will not escape the judgment of history.

Finally, last week we noted that Sen. Orrin Hatch had stepped in to help save Rob Schenck's annual National Service for the Pre-born, allowing it to be held at the new Capitol Visitor Center - now some footage of the event has been put on-line:

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Virginia: The Destination of Choice for Right Wing Attorneys General

Submitted by Kyle on January 12, 2009 - 12:25pm

What do you do if you are a right-wing former Attorney General who is longer in public office? If you are John Ashcroft, you take a position teaching at Pat Robertson's Regent University ... and if you are former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline, you take a teaching position at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University:

Former Johnson County District Attorney Phill Kline has taken a visiting law professorship at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va.

He begins Monday, the same day his successor, Steve Howe, is sworn in.

Liberty University was founded in 1971 by Jerry Falwell.

Law school dean Mathew Staver met Kline when he was Kansas attorney general.

“Knowing his roles in the legal realm, the legal skills he acquired in private practice, as a prosecuting attorney and attorney general, provide a number of skills that will make him a good professor,” Staver said.

Because nothing shows that you are serious about increasing the reputation of your Tier 4 institution by bringing in a militantly anti-abortion politician who has resoundingly lost his last two elections and pals around with the likes of Rick Scarborough.

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Scarborough's Crusades Continue Their Losing Record

Submitted by Kyle on August 6, 2008 - 10:05am

As we have chronicled several times in the past, Vision America’s election-related "One Day Crusades" have been plagued by difficulties. When Rick Scarborough first announced his bold “70 Weeks to Save America” tour, the goal was to with the goal of sign up “100,000 Values Voters, 10,000 key leaders, 5,000 Patriot Pastors and 5,000 women” to “vote their Christian values on Election Day 2008.” Since then, its messaging has been, at best, confusing and its efforts to rally supporters have repeatedly run into problems, especially once his partner in the endeavor, Alan Keyes, decided to run for president. But Scarborough forged ahead, opening chapters of Vision America in New Mexico and Kansas and planning scaled-down “One Day Crusades” in both states.

His latest Crusade was held last week for the express purpose of bolstering Phill Kline's efforts to retain his position as Johnson County District Attorney - as Scarborough said at the time, "It’s the only reason I’m here." Unfortunately for both Scarborough and Kline, attendance at the event "was the lowest the group has seen" and that lack of enthusiasm seems to have carried over into yesterday's primary:

A political newcomer knocked Phill Kline out of the race for Johnson County district attorney Tuesday, defeating the hopes of abortion opponents who had campaigned nationwide.

With all of the vote counted, Steve Howe, a former Johnson County prosecutor, trounced Kline with 33,260 votes to Kline’s 22,188, a margin of 60 percent to 40 percent, according to final unofficial returns.

...

Abortion played a key role in the race because Kline is the first prosecutor since Roe v. Wade to file criminal charges against a Planned Parenthood clinic. The case is pending.

Independent groups from outside Kansas are thought to have spent more than $100,000 to keep Kline’s candidacy alive.

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Scarborough’s Crusade Comes to Kansas

Submitted by Kyle on July 29, 2008 - 1:23pm

Back when Vision America’s Rick Scarborough first announced his bold “70 Weeks to Save America” tour, the goal was to with the goal of sign up “100,000 Values Voters, 10,000 key leaders, 5,000 Patriot Pastors and 5,000 women” to “vote their Christian values on Election Day 2008.” Since then, its messaging has been, at best, confusing and its efforts to rally supporters have repeatedly run into problems, especially once his partner in the endeavor, Alan Keyes, decided to run for president.

But Scarborough has forged ahead, apparently opening new chapters of Vision America in New Mexico and Kansas and planning scaled-down “One Day Crusades” in both states. In fact, Scarborough was just in Kansas yesterday for one of his events where Johnson County District Attorney Phill Kline was the featured speaker. In fact, helping Kline in his primary re-election bid next week seems to have been the primary reason for the event

Scarborough said the first thing the Kansas City media has been asking him is, Why is he here?

“The reason I am here is because of Phill Kline,” Scarborough told the audience. “It’s the only reason I’m here.”

Kline is seeking a four-year term as district attorney. On Aug. 5, he faces former Johnson County prosecutor Steve Howe in the GOP primary.

Of course, even though the event was held explicitly for Klein and just one week before his primary election, Scarborough insists that the event was entirely nonpartisan:

Scarborough wasn’t here to endorse Kline, however. As a non-profit, Vision America would run afoul of IRS rules if he did so.

He was here as part of the group’s mission to encourage pastors to be pro-active in restoring Judeo-Christian values in communities across the nation.

But apparently, local pastors weren’t buying Scarborough’s assurances and wisely stayed away in droves:

Scarborough said he checked with his lawyers in advance and was told that there would be no problem with Kline “sharing his faith” at those meetings.

However, the idea of it “apparently scared the pants” off the pastors, Scarborough said. The attendance rate of the pastors was the lowest the group has seen, he said.

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Dobson Snubs Scarborough's "One Day Crusade"

Submitted by Kyle on July 17, 2008 - 12:49pm

Phill Kline has been something of a right-wing cause célèbre ever since he used his position as Attorney General in Kansas to launch a one-man crusade against Planned Parenthood and subpoena "records of more than 80 women and girls who received abortions in 2003 at two clinics" in the state, ostensibly in a "search for evidence of illegal late-term abortions and child rape."

As it turned out, it was his obsession with abortion that did him in when he was up for re-election in 2006 when he lost his position to Paul Morrison. But then, in an odd twist, the Johnson County Republican Party's precinct leaders elected him to finish out the remainder of Morrison's term as Johnson Country Attorney General and now he is running for re-election, even though he hasn't been particularly keen on actually showing up for work.

And now the Kansas City Star reports that Klein is scheduled to join Rick Scarborough at one of his one-day "Crusade to Save America" events on July 28th in Overland Park - and Scarborough is insisting that this is not election-related at all:

A conservative organization based in Texas is reaching out to pastors and their churches in Johnson County before the upcoming Aug. 5 primary.

The Rev. Rick Scarborough, who founded Vision America, said this week that his group would not be endorsing any candidate. But Johnson County District Attorney Phill Kline, who is seeking a full four-year term, is expected to share his faith at three of four events set up for clergy and at a public rally July 28, Scarborough said.

Scarborough said Kline would appear not as a candidate but as district attorney.

“We can’t endorse a candidate and don’t, but we do hope people will vote not as Republicans or Democrats but as followers of Christ,” Scarborough said. “We try to get Christians to vote their biblical values.”

...

Kline has been “forewarned and carefully advised” that nothing will be said about his candidacy, Scarborough said.

“Legally, any elected official can come to an event and discuss his faith,” Scarborough said. Kline also is expected to provide an update to his constituents on his criminal case against Planned Parenthood’s clinic in Overland Park, where abortions are performed.

Not too long ago, James Dobson personally endorsed Kline's re-election bid and Scarborough even invited Dobson to participate in the event, but it looks like even James Dobson has enough sense to avoid being seen in public with the likes of these two right-wing zealots:

Organizers had hoped that James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, would speak at the rally, but a spokesman with the group said he would not be able to attend.