Star Parker

Remember that White House effort last month that asked people to send in misinformation about healthcare reform so that the administration would set the record straight that right-wing groups jumped all over as proof that the Obama administration was creating an enemies list in order "to intimidate and if possible silence their opponents"?

Well, the White House eventually shut it down, but that doesn't mean that the story is over:

The Office of the President and other White House officials are defendants in a free speech lawsuit filed by a prominent physician group, and a non-profit advocate for inner-city poor.

The White House has “unlawfully collected information on political speech,” thereby illegally using the power of the White House to chill opposition to its plans for health care reform, according to the complaint filed in District Court for the District of Columbia, by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) and the Coalition for Urban Renewal and Education (CURE) .

The lawsuit was prompted by the White House solicitation for the public to report any “fishy” comments to ‘flag@whitehouse.gov.’ Although the White House slightly revised its data collection procedure last week, the email address still exists, the illegal activity continues, and is part of an “unlawful pattern and practice to collect and maintain information” on the exercise of free speech, which “continues in violation of the Privacy Act and First Amendment even if the Defendants terminate a particular information-collection component due to negative publicity.”

The AAPS is a conservative group that seems to have a history of filing healthcare-related lawsuits, but I am especially confused as to why CURE has gotten involved, given its mission statement:

MISSION

Address issues of race and poverty through principles of faith, freedom and personal responsibility.

OBJECTIVE

Build awareness that conservative agenda of traditional values, limited government, and private ownership is of greatest marginal benefit to low income peoples.

METHOD

We explore and promote market based public policy to fight poverty.

So how does suing the White House over this effort advance CURE's goal of fighting poverty and helping "low income peoples"?  It doesn't, but Star Parker, CURE's founder and president, thinks that she is particularly well-suited to fight back against this sort of "intimidation":

Star Parker, the CURE president, also chimed in on the lawsuit and the actions that preceded it.

"As a black conservative spokesperson and columnist, intimidation tactics aren't new to me,” she said. “But it is of great concern to see the current Administration build an enemies list of those who disagree with them on this important issue.”

Today is the annual March for Life, held every year on January 22 to protest abortion and press for the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

As such, Religious Right groups are doing what they do every year, with the Family Research Council  hosting its Blogs for Life Conference and March for Life organizers and activists complaining that the media isn't paying attention to them and nobody takes them seriously:

Still, Nellie Gray — who founded the March for Life 36 years ago — pines for some meaningful attention from the press. Her marchers hit the streets near the Capitol on Thursday, virtually retracing the steps of an estimated 1.8 million inaugural revelers whose every move was chronicled by a crush of media just two days earlier.

...

"Anyone climbing on a bus from somewhere else, thinking they're going to wave into a network news camera, is going to be very disappointed. In the last 20 years, despite large annual crowds, the liberal manufacturers of TV have simply never found the March for Life to be the slightest bit newsworthy," said Tim Graham of the Media Research Center, drawing a comparison to a liberal antiwar activist.

"Everyone knows that a single Cindy Sheehan in the summer seems to be worth more than 20,000 pro-lifers in January."

For his part, Gary Bauer has seemingly decided to dedicate this day to getting his name in print - first with an op-ed with Star Parker in The Weekly Standard:

A century and a half ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Dred Scott case that African Americans have no rights under the Constitution. Barack Obama's election would seem to put the final nail in the coffin of that evil philosophy. With its Roe decision, however, the court again wrongly declared that some Americans are entitled to no constitutional rights and can be destroyed at the discretion of others. Sadly, that evil philosophy will be given new hope under President Obama.

The battle for equal rights has reached a major milestone. But Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream of full equality will remain just a dream as long as unborn children are denied the right to life, the most fundamental right of all.

And secondly with a solo op-ed in the Politico debunking the "myths" of Roe:

Another misconception concerns what would happen if Roe were overturned. The day after Roe’s reversal, abortion policy would revert back to the states. Some states would severely restrict abortion, while a bigger group of more populous states would likely pass laws guaranteeing the same access to abortion they have now. So, far from ending the abortion battle, Roe’s reversal would mark the beginning of a battle to which the past 35 years have been a prelude.

A post-Roe America would look like the America of today in terms of the sheer volume of abortions. The major difference would be an anti-abortion movement toiling to tackle 50 separate abortion policies simultaneously. Another important difference is that we would no longer teach young Americans the lie that — among their cherished constitutional rights of free speech, religion and assembly — there is also a right to take the life of an unborn baby.

A final misconception about Roe is one too often held by its opponents: that Roe’s reversal is the ultimate anti-abortion goal and that support for constitutional protections for the unborn betrays the federalist principles of conservatism. But by asserting states’ rights, Roe’s anti-abortion opposition effectively (if unwittingly) accepts Roe’s reasoning that prenatal life is not a due process right within the constitutional framework and, therefore, that the unborn child is not a constitutional “person.”

Moreover, in our system of government, certain issues are left to the states while others are deemed so essential to our understanding of democracy that they must be taken up nationally. We fought a civil war over the conviction that some issues are too fundamental to be decided state by state. Just as slavery was an assault on human dignity, the slaughter of millions of unborn children is an assault on a natural human right that exists prior to, and regardless of, the whims of a majority.

So you see there really is nothing to worry about - anti-choice activists merely want to overturn Roe so that the issue can be decided by the states ... and then they can eliminate the right to reproductive choice in all fifty of them by passing a constitutional amendment making it illegal. 

Soon after breaking with televangelist John Hagee, John McCain rejected another right-wing pastor who had campaigned with him, Rod Parsley. While Parsley, like Hagee, subsequently withdrew his endorsement, it remains to be seen whether he will put his Ohio-based “Patriot Pastors” machine in motion on behalf of the Republican candidate before November.

But the McCain campaign may be more concerned about fallout greater than these two pastors and their television audiences. In working for the Hagee endorsement and incorporating Parsley into the campaign, McCain was no doubt hoping to solidify the Religious Right credibility he has been sweating over for the past two years. While Hagee and Parsley are influential and well-connected, meeting with the president and lobbying Congress, they are active primarily outside of D.C., in the megachurch, “prosperity gospel” world of Trinity Broadcasting Network. As this blog and others revealed some of the pastors’ rough edges—just a sample—McCain was forced to walk a fine line between losing his “maverick” reputation among independent voters and alienating the right-wing base he feels he needs.

McCain’s decision to dump Parsley and Hagee has prompted some warning shots from the Right. “This move may cost him the mainstream evangelical vote. At the very least it will make the Senator suspect to other pastors and millions of unconvinced believers,” wrote Bishop Harry Jackson, who added that the two televangelists have “10 times the outreach muscle” of Barack Obama’s controversial ex-pastor Jeremiah Wright.

Star Parker wrote, “John McCain wants Americans to elect him to provide tough leadership in a dangerous world. But when it just takes some mud slung from a few left-wing websites to drive him under a rock, you have to wonder.”

And Gary Bauer, an ally to both McCain and Hagee, said that “radical left” blogs managed to “drive a wedge” between evangelicals and McCain.

But as CBN’s David Brody reports, the McCain campaign is at the same time stepping up its efforts to woo the Religious Right by running weekly meetings with Bauer and other activists and consulting right-wing groups such as the Family Research Council and the Eagle Forum. Brody writes:

Look, here's the bottom line: The McCain campaign is gearing up for a true battle over Evangelicals this fall. They are NOT taking them for granted. They know they have work to do but what we are seeing here is a ramped up effort that is fully supported by the head guy, John McCain. The Hagee endorsement and subsequent retraction was not the campaign's best moment but the system they have in place now is starting to make headway.

It’s likely McCain’s efforts will pay off in getting the support, explicit or implicit, of the Religious Right groups and activists who have long wedded their politics to the GOP’s—especially if he keeps meeting their demands on judges and other issues. But as they continue to pull McCain to the right, the conflict between the base and independent voters—the conflict McCain saw with Hagee and Parsley—will expand.

An organization called Republicans for Black Empowerment announces a press conference urging Mike Huckabee to stay in the race: "Inside-the-beltway Republicans have lost touch with the increasing seriousness with which heartland conservatives relate to the traditional values agenda," states Star Parker, a nationally syndicated columnist and conservative activist. "More and more folks are feeling personally assaulted by the meaninglessness that is gripping our culture and believe that Mike Huckabee is the only republican candidate that embodies the moral clarity of the GOP ideals. The groundswell generating support for Huckabee's candidacy understand that moral and economic health go hand in hand and should not be underestimated."