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Flashback: Bill O'Reilly Hearts Kevin Jennings' GLSEN and ‘Patriot’ Hilary Duff [video]

Submitted by Josh on October 7, 2009 - 12:36pm

Fox News was against anti-gay bullying before it was for it. Or so it would seem.

Anyone who’s been watching Fox lately knows that GLSEN – which promotes tolerance and safety in schools and was founded by Obama school safety “czar” Kevin Jennings – is supposedly engaged in a secret plot to turn straight kids gay. That’s why right-wing blogger Michelle Malkin was so surprised when she saw a GLSEN ad on Fox yesterday:

Interesting. (Un)safe schools czar Kevin Jennings's GLSEN is running public service ad on...Fox News.

But she shouldn’t have been surprised. Just a year ago Fox News headliner Bill O’Reilly lavished praise on the group’s anti-bullying ad campaign and ‘patriot’ Hilary Duff:

But now that Kevin Jennings has a political target painted on his back, Fox is making GLSEN out to be public enemy #1. That’s just hypocritical nonsense.

GLSEN’s work is crucial and straightforward. It promotes tolerance and safety for all children, regardless of sexual orientation. Nothing more, nothing less. Even Fox has recognized the value of the group’s work.

Meanwhile the bashing of Kevin Jennings goes on, with Fox, the Washington Times, Limbaugh, and right-wing blogs taking turns. But the Obama Administration has given Jennings its full support. And the only way to defeat bullies is to refuse to give in to them.

[Jason Linkins at Huffington Post also reported on this story]

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Hannity, Voight, and North Join Reed For Faith and Freedom Rally

Submitted by Kyle on August 24, 2009 - 7:22am

From the Atlanta Journal Constitution:

More than 1,000 people gathered in Gwinnett County Saturday to wear red, white and blue and listen to Fox News commentator Sean Hannity and conservative organizer Ralph Reed.

The crowd waved flags, prayed and sang “I’m proud to be an American.”

Reed spoke about his new grassroots Faith and Freedom Coalition, which he launched this summer to organize conservatives to get out the vote in 2010. He encouraged the crowd to each call 25 friends to create local chapters.

It’s something of a comeback for Reed, the former head of the Christian Coalition, who has kept a low profile on the political scene after losing a bid in the 2006 primary to be Georgia’s Republican candidate for lieutenant governor.

But Reed worked the crowd into a cheering frenzy when he explained that while he’s not perfect, God called him anyway.

“God doesn’t call perfect people,” Reed said, to a huge, “Amen!” from the crowd. “He calls humble and contrite people.”

Reed spoke against President Barack Obama’s health care plan, the economic stimulus package and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, all three of which elicited strong boos from the crowd.

“We are going to stop the Obama agenda dead in its tracks,” Reed said.

Many in the crowd, including Reed, planned to attend Hannity’s sold-out Freedom Concert at the Arena at Gwinnett Center afterward. The concert series raises money for children whose parents died in military service.

The meeting at the Atlanta Marriott Gwinnett Place was a combination political rally, old-time revival and celebrity entertainment.

In addition to Hannity and Reed, speakers included Lt. Col. Oliver North, actor Jon Voight and six Republican candidates for governor.

Videos clips of the event via YouTube:

Sean Hannity

Jon Voight

Oliver North

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Ralph Reed: TEA Party Activist

Submitted by Kyle on August 4, 2009 - 1:55pm

Ralph Reed has made it clear over the last several weeks that his new organization, the Faith and Freedom Coalition, is "not your daddy's Christian Coalition" by which he means that this new effort will be young, hipper, more tech-savvy, and also more strident.

He's also made clear that much of its focus will be on economic issues, while still maintaining the traditional Religious Right positions on social issues.

And to kick things off on the economic front, Reed spoke at a TEA Party rally last week in Georgia:

"Barack Obama rushed through a stimulus package - $787 billion," [Reed] said, "almost 85 percent of which is pork and waste and bureaucracy."

He said the president's explanation of why "we had to have it right then ... was that if we didn't have it, unemployment would go over 8 percent."

But the jobless rate now is "heading toward 10 percent," Reed said.

He said Obama vowed that the plan would create 4 million jobs. Instead, Reed added, 2.6 million have been lost.

"He was only off by 6.6 million," Reed said.

Drawing cheers for himself and jeers for Obama, Reed also lambasted the president's budget, energy policy and health care proposals.

Reed praised the Tea Party movement, which drew nearly 1,500 people to a similar event at the plaza on April 15, the federal income tax filing deadline.

"These tea parties ... across the country are scaring the White House to death," he said. "... We are putting on our work boots and we're going to take our country back to the principles on which it was founded."

From a quick look at the photos from the rally accompanying the article, it doesn't look like Reed's audience was particularly young, hip, or tech-savvy ... but hey, he's got to start somewhere.

And presumably things will pick-up later this month when Sean Hannity joins Reed for his organization's "Freedom Rally":

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The Hannity-Terry-Giuliani-Robertson Connection

Submitted by Kyle on May 18, 2009 - 11:31am

Over the weekend President Obama spoke, as scheduled, at the University of Notre Dame and, as expected, the protests being led by Alan Keyes and Randall Terry continued.

The protesting has been good for the activist’s profiles, as they have received a lot of media coverage and Keyes was even scheduled to appear on Friday’s episode of “Hannity” but couldn’t make it because he had been arrested and was sitting in jail.  As such, Terry took his place and spewed the sort of nonsense everyone expects from the founder of Operation Rescue while Hannity nodded along in agreement.

The interesting thing about Hannity and Terry coming together to decry this sort of apostasy against the “pro-life” movement was that the last time Terry was throwing around these sorts of accusations was back in 2007 when the pro-choice Rudy Giuliani was seeking the Republican presidential nomination and Terry was targeting those who dared to support him:

So-called 'pro-life Republicans' that are endorsing Rudy - like TX Governor Rick Perry, or NY Representative Pete Sessions, are typical treacherous politicians. They have betrayed innocent blood to support a child-killer; we can only wonder what '30 pieces of silver' they are seeking. Pro-life Republicans are on trial, to see what we value more: life or power; principle or party."

Eventually, Terry focused his ire on Pat Robertson for endorsing Giuliani and even began protesting outside of the CBN office in Washington DC.

And who immediately came to Robertson’s defense?  None other than Sean Hannity, who brought Robertson on the show to explain his endorsement.  And the reason he did that is because Hannity was also an early supporter of Giuliani’s presidential campaign:

It's no secret that Sean Hannity, the conservative Fox News commentator, has helped to raise Rudy Giuliani's profile - but now he's helped the former mayor raise money, too.

In a little noticed event this month, Hannity - co-host of Fox News' "Hannity & Colmes" and host of a popular WABC radio show - introduced the Republican front-runner at a closed-door, $250-per-head fund-raiser Aug. 9 in Cincinnati, campaign officials acknowledge.

In so doing, some believe that Hannity - while clearly a commentator paid to express his opinions - crossed the line from punditry into financial rainmaking for a presidential candidate whose bottom line is now better for it.

When a group of Religious Right leaders declared that they would sooner leave the GOP than support Giuliani if he got the party’s nomination, Hannity brought James Dobson on the program and practically begged him to reconsider, but Dobson would not budge. Eventually, all of Hannity’s championing of Giuliani started getting under the skin of the Religious Right, with leaders like Tony Perkins calling him out for pushing their concerns aside and trying to sell this pro-choice candidate to the right-wing anti-choice base.  

So, just over a year ago, when Hannity was supporting a pro-choice candidate in Rudy Giuliani, he had no use for the hardliners on the Right and their incessant focus on abortion.  

But today, when the pro-choice President of the United States delivers a commencement address, Hannity brings those same hardliners onto his program to join him in lamenting Notre Dame’s betrayal of the sacred principles of the anti-abortion movement.

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Right Wing Leftovers

Submitted by Kyle on January 21, 2009 - 4:33pm
  • Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, formerly the home church of the late D. James Kennedy, has chosen a new pastor to replace its founder: Rev. Tullian Tchividjian, who just so happens to be the grandson of Billy Graham.
  • Sen. Orrin Hatch stepped in at the last minute and saved Rob Schenck’s annual National Service for the Pre-born by signing on as an official sponsor so that the event could take place in the US Capitol Visitor Center.
  • Sean Hannity has thrown his support to Michael Steele for Republican National Committee Chairman.
  • Connecticut Democrats are calling on Sen. Joe Lieberman to apologize for a litany of things, including his support of John Hagee.
  • Ralph Reed stayed away from Barack Obama’s Inauguration yesterday, but still couldn’t help but get overwhelmed by the emotions of the day – not because of our historic new president but because “it was a lot more emotional to watch George W. Bush depart the capital than I thought it would be.”
  • Finally, Matt Barber is not happy with the new White House’s proclamation of “support for the LGBT community,” seeing it as evidence that “Barack Obama’s administration will likely be the most leftist, divisive and discriminatory in recent memory”:

The gravity of this situation cannot be overstated.  Right out of the shoot, Obama has told the world that he is signing off, without exception, on every demand of the extremist homosexual and transsexual lobbies.  The radical homosexual agenda and religious and free speech liberties cannot occupy the same space.  It’s a zero-sum game.  When 1 - 2 percent of the population is granted special rights based on deviant sexual proclivities and changeable sexual behaviors, to the detriment of everyone else, that’s called tyranny of the minority.  People of faith and those of you with traditional values: hold on to your hats – it’s going to be a bumpy four years.

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Sean Hannity Asks the Tough Questions about So-Called “Winner” of Presidential Election

Submitted by Josh on November 6, 2008 - 5:29pm

In the weeks leading up to Tuesday’s historic election, the McCain campaign and RNC led a coordinated campaign to cast the integrity of the vote into doubt. They claimed ACORN was engaging in massive voter fraud. They claimed that Obama was receiving illegal foreign contributions. They claimed that the “liberal media” was skewing the polls in favor of Democrats.

In other words, they were writing themselves an insurance policy in the event of a contested election or narrow loss. But it wasn’t even close.

As a result, the anticipated barrage of conspiracy theories and false charges never materialized. Yet not everyone could just let it go.

Here’s the current poll on Hannity.com:

(h/t: Bob Geiger)

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McCain-Palin Pit Bulls Turn Feral

Submitted by Josh on October 21, 2008 - 6:29pm

There's a long history in American politics of exploiting divisions and fanning bigotry to win elections. In recent decades those strategies were honed by Lee Atwater and Karl Rove. Now the torch has passed to Steve Schmidt, and he’s done just about everything possible to fan the flames.

Schmidt’s tactics and the right-wing echo chamber have convinced millions of Americans that the nation is about to elect someone who hates America and “pals around with terrorists.” Just take a look at this video of supporters outside a Palin rally:

In recent weeks, the right wing has grown even more frenzied as McCain and his allies pushed the ACORN voter fraud hoax. Not only is Obama a Manchurian candidate, the thinking goes, but his evildoer comrades at ACORN are trying to steal the election. It’s little wonder that some people are going berserk.

McCain, Palin, Schmidt, Limbaugh, Hannity and the rest of them have created something very powerful, but very ugly, and it’s grown too big for them to control. Here is just some of what happens when you train your pit bulls to fear and hate and attack, and then they get loose:

Obama lawn sign replaced by rebel flag

Obama sign burned on black family's front lawn

Anti-Obama Fury Spills Over Into Down-Ticket Contests: "Bomb Obama"

Death threat, vandalism hit ACORN after McCain comments

ACORN Deluged with Threatening and Racist Voicemails and Emails

Obama Called a Socialist and 'Un-American'

McCain supporters heckle early voters

Dead bear covered with Obama signs found at school

People For the American Way is tracking such incidents around the nation. If something happens in your community that people should know about, please get in touch.

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Sean Hannity: I'm Funnier If You Are Drunk

Submitted by Kyle on September 13, 2008 - 9:58am

Sean Hannity entertains the audience at the Values Voter Summit with an extended bit about the relationship between James Carville and Mary Matlin which comes to a screeching halt when he adds Bill Clinton to the mix, forcing him to recognize that his attempt at humor works best when his audience has been drinking:

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Values Voter Summit: Starting Day 2 Right

Submitted by Peter on September 23, 2006 - 11:37am

Nothing like starting your Saturday with Sean Hannity. The Fox TV personality got a hero’s welcome. While he promised a serious talk, he couldn’t stop from entertaining himself by repeatedly breaking into innuendo-rich impersonations of Bill Clinton. The bullying partisan lamented the “troubling” nature of our public debate, saying it shouldn’t be left and right, Democratic and Republican – we should all be united in the battle of right v. wrong, good v. evil. Then he went on to deride liberals and Democratic leaders for suffering from “Bush Derangement Syndrome.”

Clearly, the kind of unity Hannity has in mind is everyone agreeing with him. He analogized those he deems insufficiently supportive of President Bush’s tactics in the war on terrorism with appeasers of the Nazis. He got applause ticking off the expected litany of conservative Republican talking points – support the President, we’re overtaxed, public schools undermine our values, etc., etc. But he may have gotten his loudest ovation when he declared “Hillary Clinton must never be the President of the United States.” He ended by assuring the audience that God had sent us George W. Bush just when we needed him.

Virtue-meister Bill Bennett seemed to surprise the crowd a bit by insisting that the Bush administration is being too tentative – that’s right, too tentative – in conducting the war on terror. After four U.S. contractors were killed in Fallujah, the town should have been leveled. Venezuelan President Huge Chavez and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad should never have been allowed into the U.S. to address the U.N. Reporters who print classified information they’ve been leaked should be prosecuted. Bennett ended on a more hopeful note, saying that while elites have corrupted our culture, we should take heart by remembering our victory in World War II and the heroism demonstrated after 9-11.

Embattled Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania did not show as expected, but appeared in a relatively low-key video. He said he has paid a price for standing up for “definitional” causes such as defining life as beginning at the moment of conception. Santorum invoked the war abroad and the battle at home (to define family and culture), though he acknowledged that the battle against radical secular humanism is “less virulent” than the battle against radical Islam.

Right-wing movement pioneer Paul Weyrich followed Santorum and declared, “Rick Santorum is the most important United States Senator that we have in this country at this time.” Weyrich’s remarks were mostly a pep talk, reminding people how far the “pro-family” movement has come since its early days and telling people not to be discouraged. “We are a national movement, we are a strong movement, we are a visible movement, we are on the march. Don’t ever get discouraged, because we’re doing so much better than we ever did before.” He gave “Dr. Dobson” credit for bringing down Sen. Tom Daschle, and predicted victory in every state with an anti-gay amendment on the ballot this year. Perhaps foreshadowing a new direct-mail and turnout theme, Weyrich claimed that if Democrats get control of Congress, they intend to shut down right-wing talk radio by reinstating the Fairness Doctrine.

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