Heritage Foundation

Heritage Foundation: Change We Can Obstruct

Submitted by Peter Montgomery on Thursday, 11/6/2008 3:47 pm
Heritage Email Offer

The Heritage Foundation, a behemoth of right-wing marketing muscle, wasted no time in pledging to stop the Obama administration from advancing progressive policies on health care, the environment, the courts. After eight years of backing the Bush administration, NOW they’re encouraging people to read the Constitution?

Click here to see more of Heritage's email.

Ward Connerly's Lucrative Charade

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Tuesday, 10/21/2008 1:58 pm

The Ballot Initiative Strategy Center has unveiled a new ad highlighting the fact that between 1997 and 2006, anti-affirmative action gadfly Ward Connerly has "lined his own pockets with over $7.6 million from his two tax exempt non-profit organizations; American Civil Rights Institute and the American Civil Rights Coalition."

The BISC points to this recent article on Connerly from The American Conservative that sums up his career by explaining that while "his activism is not entirely cynical" he has somehow managed to acquire "wealth and fame for accomplishing nothing":

But don’t spend too much sympathy on Ward Connerly. The Right’s point man on affirmative action doesn’t need political successes to be a success. While his plans sputter and his former achievements are overturned, Connerly is still being handsomely rewarded. Once he received favored status from the conservative movement, his future was guaranteed. As an activist, Connerly has made millions opposing affirmative action. As a businessman and consultant, he has also made hundreds of thousands in large part because of it.

Between 1999 and 2005, Connerly’s nonprofits, the American Civil Rights Institute and the American Civil Rights Coalition, didn’t challenge a single affirmative-action law. Yet donations climbed to almost $2 million per year. The share that Connerly paid to himself, or to his private for-profit consulting firm, Connerly and Associates, also dramatically increased. In 1998, 22 percent of his nonprofits’ revenue was paid to Connerly in salary or to his firm. By 2001, Connerly’s salary and the fees charged by Connerly and Associates ate up 49 percent of the nonprofits’ combined revenue. Most of the money paid to the firm was listed on tax forms as “speaking fees.” In 2006, when Connerly took up a concrete goal in political activism—ending Michigan’s affirmative-action policies—the cut of nonprofit revenue paid to him and his firm rose to 66 percent of total receipts, nearly $1.6 million.

Connerly’s nonprofits employ him for 30 hours a week and two others full time. The nonprofits then hire him from Connerly and Associates to make speeches. In 2003, ACRI and ACRC paid him $314,079 while he managed two people. By comparison, that year the National Action Network, which receives about $1 million in public funds, only paid Al Sharpton about $4,000. The Claremont Institute, a neoconservative think tank in California, paid its top executive $132,000, and its staff is 9 times the size of Connerly’s. The Heritage Foundation paid its president $292,000 to manage a staff of over 180. The primary financial responsibility that Ward Connerly had at his nonprofits that year was paying his firm over $400,000 for Ward Connerly the consultant, Ward Connerly the speaker, Ward Connerly the political maven—and occasionally a security detail to guard him.

Using "Race as a Wedge Issue" By Using Race as a Wedge Issue

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Thursday, 10/9/2008 3:49 pm

You just know that when Jesse Lee Peterson of the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny (BOND) releases a statement, it is going to be something ridiculous ... and once again he doesn't disappoint:

According to BOND ACTION, Inc, Founder and President, Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, the Obama campaign and its surrogates have knowingly used race as a wedge issue to scare black voters and mischaracterize Republican positions on the issues. Rev. Peterson said today, "If the McCain campaign doesn't start aggressively combating these false allegations it will cost them the election" ... Rev. Peterson said, "Democrats are using the same racially charged scare tactics used by white segregationists in the past to antagonize the races. This is shameless and dangerous, and we have a moral duty to point it out."

Peterson, a right-wing African American activist, has built an entire career out of calling African American Democrats racists while defending white people who are actually ... you know ... racist, like Michael Richards:

By not allowing whites to express themselves, it only drives the problem underground and forces people to keep these emotions bottled up -- in essence, the politically correct culture is helping to create people like Michael Richards!"

And Duane Chapman:

Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, Founder and President of BOND, the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny, issued the following statement today congratulating Duane “Dog” Chapman and his fans on the news that plans are in the works to resume production of the hit show “Dog The Bounty Hunter.” A&E suspended the show on October 31 after a tape of Duane using a racial slur to describe his son’s girlfriend was sold to the Enquirer. Since the incident, Duane Chapman has worked closely with conservative black organizations such as BOND and CORE to reach out to the black community.

The following is Rev. Peterson’s statement about this developing story: “Congratulations to Duane Chapman and his family. Duane is not a racist. We’re happy to learn that A&E is planning to resume production of ‘Dog The Bounty Hunter,’ which should have never been suspended.

Back in 2005, Max Blumenthal wrote a good profile of Peterson that explains the role he plays in the right-wing movement:

In late February, inside a sterile conference hall at Washington's premier conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation, a crowd of no more than seventy took off their snow-flecked coats and settled in for an afternoon with a group of speakers billed as "The New Black Vanguard." Perched on a platform above the audience, the speakers promptly launched a barrage of attacks on the civil rights establishment and "the entertainment-industrial complex." At first the audience seemed disengaged, even a bit overwhelmed by the cacophony of blustery rhetoric. Then the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson piped up. "W.E.B. Du Bois was a communist, socialist pig," Peterson crowed. A few of his fellow panelists blanched at his overheated language. But once the shock subsided, laughter rippled through the previously mute crowd, followed by vigorous applause.

It was vintage Peterson. Throughout his fifteen-year career as a right-wing evangelical minister, Peterson has never shied from bombastic assaults on targets ranging from civil rights leaders to liberal Democrats to undocumented immigrants. But while Peterson's strident style may be unique, with his extremist politics he is merely playing the role of front man for a murky, well-funded network of white nationalist activists and right-wing Beltway operatives. By deploying Peterson to gatherings like the Heritage event and into the media, this coterie of conservatives have been able to apply a bold veneer of blackness over the brand of bigotry they find increasingly inconvenient to espouse on their own. Peterson has no professional or political accomplishments to speak of, beyond directing a small inner-city aid ministry and hosting a radio show syndicated on a handful of AM stations across the country. To his sponsors, though, that's irrelevant; it is his immunity from charges of racism that matters.

 

Doing Away With VAWA

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Tuesday, 9/30/2008 5:46 pm

Apparently, tomorrow the Eagle Forum and RADAR [Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting] are co-hosting an all-day event entitled “The Conflict between Federal Domestic Violence Policies and Traditional Family Values” [PDF] at The Heritage Foundation that will focus on how to do away with the Violence Against Women Act: . 

The Violence Against Women Act, which now costs the federal government $1 billion a year, has spawned an industry that undermines Constitutional protections, thwarts welfare reform, weakens military readiness, fosters immigration fraud, and is harmful to families. This conference will probe how to rein in a federal law that increasingly encroaches on the personal lives of millions of Americans.

Just check out the forum’s agenda:

9:30
Feminist Fatherphobia and Domestic Violence
Phyllis Schlafly – Eagle Forum

10:00
How Marriage Protects Against Domestic Violence
Robert Rector – Heritage

10:45
How Domestic Violence Policies Weaken Families and Harm Children
Stephen Baskerville, PhD – Patrick Henry College
Foundation

11:15
VAWA: Victimizing All Taxpayers Act?
Benjamin Foster, PhD, CPA – University of Louisville College of Business

11:45
Impact on Military Readiness
Elaine Donnelly – Center for Military Readiness

It’s easy to understand that “marriage protects against domestic violence” provided that you share Schlafly’s view that wives cannot be raped by their husbands.

Gay Marriage = End-Times Prophecy, Says Janet Folger

Submitted by Anonymous on Tuesday, 5/20/2008 2:56 pm

Ex-Rep. Ernest Istook of the Heritage Foundation might have thought he was pretty edgy in resorting to Nazi metaphors to describe the California Supreme Court’s decision in favor of marriage rights for gays and lesbians. But Janet Folger consulted her sources and came up with an even more apocalyptic comparison:

There was only one time in history, according to these writings, where men were given in marriage to men, and women given in marriage to women.

Want to venture a guess as to when? No, it wasn't in Sodom and Gomorrah, although that was my guess. Homosexuality was rampant there, of course, but according to the Talmud, not homosexual "marriage." What about ancient Greece? Rome? No. Babylon? No again. The one time in history when homosexual "marriage" was practiced was … during the days of Noah. And according to Satinover, that's what the "Babylonian Talmud" attributes as the final straw that led to the Flood. …

In fact, [Caucus for America’s Aryeh Spero] said, "the writings indicated that it wasn't even so much the 'straw that broke the camel's back,' but that the sin in and of itself is so contrary to why God created the world, so contrary to the order of God's nature, that God said then and there 'I have to start all over … to annihilate the world and start from the beginning. …'"

Not only did Folger indicate that gay marriage is what caused the deluge, she outlined specifically what that means for the California decision: “the end of the world.”

The one time it happened was: "During the days of Noah." When I first heard this, my mind immediately went to a verse I've heard many times but never with such relevance. The verse is found in Matthew 24:37. It reads:

As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. – Mathew 24:37 (NIV)

I used to read this verse and think: It was bad at lots of points in history; it doesn't necessarily mean now, but if these Jewish writings are true, we are uniquely like the "days of Noah" right now – and only right now. …

I'm praying and working to protect marriage in California (and the rest of the country) not only because I care about marriage, but because I care about civilization. And, if we obey God, he just may spare us from the judgment we deserve.

Right Attacks California Marriage Ruling

Submitted by Anonymous on Tuesday, 5/20/2008 12:21 pm

Not surprisingly, the Right’s reaction to last week’s ruling by the California Supreme Court in favor of equal marriage rights for gays and lesbians was swift and negative.

Former Rep. Ernest Istook, now of the Heritage Foundation, evoked Nazi metaphors to blame those who supported civil unions as a compromise: “By trying to appease homosexual rights activists, those who have refused to stand up for traditional marriage helped to create this court ruling.  They are the Neville Chamberlains of the cultural wars.”

Barrett Duke of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission said he was "saddened for the people of California" but "especially for the children of that state."

"The California Supreme Court ruling not only overruled the very clear will of the people, it also proposes to overrule God's design," Duke said. "These judges may think they know more about marriage than the rest of us, but I am confident they don't know more about marriage than God. Marriage is the union of one man and one woman. Children need that environment to give them their best chance to fulfill their great potential. That's not only my opinion and the opinion of most of the people in this country, it's God's opinion, and His opinion overrules the opinion of any judges.

Indeed, the Right emphasized this “activist judges” angle; Gary Bauer, attacking the “four unelected robed radicals,” wrote:

It was an egregious exercise in judicial activism – of judges wielding raw political power to redefine our most basic values. But that is how the Left has succeeded. It cannot achieve its goals through the democratic process via the elected legislatures, so it ignores the people and goes to the courts, where it relies on political activists cloaked in black who answer to no one. The Left succeeds by using the most undemocratic methods possible.

Of course, Bauer may not realize that, while appointed at first, justices on California’s Supreme Court face voters at the next general election; each of the justices in the majority for this case has been retained by voters at least once. Bauer is probably aware, though, that the “elected legislature” in California passed marriage equality in 2005 and 2007, only to have it vetoed both times by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Nevertheless, right-wing activists hoped the decision would energize opponents of gay rights into action. “The good news is that I believe this will re-ignite the debate over a federal constitutional amendment,” according to Concerned Women for America’s Matt Barber. Jan LaRue called on Californians to recall members of the state’s Supreme Court in the way they recalled the governor several years ago. “Are you going to sit by and do nothing while four black-robed despots take away your right to govern yourselves?”

Meanwhile, the effort to put on a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage on the California ballot continues—now, apparently, with more funding.

And, in spite of a beleaguered GOP’s effort to keep a low profile on social wedge issues during this election cycle, the Right is hoping the decision will push John McCain to “speak out more strongly in support of defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman,” as Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council put it.

Paul Weyrich’s Penance

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Friday, 4/4/2008 2:57 pm

Back in the Fall of 2007, Gov. Mitt Romney was riding high, having barely won the Values Voter Summit’s straw poll and positioning himself as the candidate favored by both Religious Right Beltway-insiders like Jay Sekulow and outsiders like Lou Sheldon and Bob Jones.   In fact, Romney was being pitched as the only alternative to unacceptable Rudy Giuliani, the unelectable Mike Huckabee, the unexciting Fred Thompson, and the unforgiven John McCain.

Romney’s efforts to position himself as the Right’s candidate of choice received a significant boost when, in November, he secured the endorsement of right-wing icon Paul Weyrich:

Today, Paul Weyrich, Chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Research and Education Foundation, announced his support for Governor Mitt Romney and his campaign to be our country's next President. Paul Weyrich is one of the premier leaders in the conservative movement, having founded the Heritage Foundation and the American Legislative Exchange Council.

"As he travels across the country, Governor Romney has outlined a blueprint to build a stronger America rooted in our common conservative principles. With a clear conservative vision to move America forward, he will strengthen our economy, our military and our families. More importantly, he already has an exceptional record of putting conservative values to work. Because of his experience, vision and values, I am proud to support Governor Romney," said Paul Weyrich.

But over the coming months, Romney’s campaign failed to catch fire and he eventually dropped out of the race and Weyrich threw his support to Huckabee, whose campaign likewise failed to generate significant support and folded.

Since then, Weyrich appears to have done some soul-searching and has come to regret his support of Romney at the expense of Huckabee:

In a quiet, brief, but passionate speech, Weyrich essentially confessed that he and the other leaders should have backed Huckabee, a candidate who shared their values more fully than any other candidate in a generation. He agreed with Farris that many conservative leaders had blown it. By chasing other candidates with greater visibility, they failed to see what many of their supporters in the trenches saw clearly: Huckabee was their guy.

The extent of Weyrich’s remorse appears to be even deeper than anyone could have imagined, as he has now joined a group of former-Huckabee backers and other right-wing activists in warning McCain that picking Romney as a running mate would be “utterly unacceptable”

The Goldilocks Right Settles on a Candidate, After the Fact

Submitted by Anonymous on Wednesday, 4/2/2008 9:20 am

It was at a Council for National Policy meeting back in September that the Goldilocks brigade of the Religious Right, led by Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, threatened to break away from the Republican Party if Rudy Giuliani won the nomination. And the CNP meeting in March was one of John McCain’s first stops after securing the GOP mantle—continuing his pandering to the fringe.

Now, Warren Cole Smith of the conservative-Christian World magazine relates a tense scene from the CNP meeting:

Michael Farris of the Home School Legal Defense Association, an early supporter of Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, chided the group for cold-shouldering his candidate until it was too late. Others, including Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, disagreed. The meeting quickly threatened to dissolve into accusations, rebuttals, and recriminations.

Then, venerable Paul Weyrich—a founder of the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority, and the Council for National Policy (CNP)—raised his hand to speak. Weyrich is a man whose mortality is plain to see. A freak accident several years ago left him with a spinal injury, which ultimately led to both his legs being amputated in 2005. He now gets around in a motorized wheelchair. He is visibly paler and grayer than he was just a few years ago, a fact not lost on many of his friends in the room, some of whom had fought in the political trenches with him since the 1960s.

The room—which had been taken over by argument and side-conversations—became suddenly quiet. Weyrich, a Romney supporter and one of those Farris had chastised for not supporting Huckabee, steered his wheelchair to the front of the room and slowly turned to face his compatriots. In a voice barely above a whisper, he said, "Friends, before all of you and before almighty God, I want to say I was wrong."

In a quiet, brief, but passionate speech, Weyrich essentially confessed that he and the other leaders should have backed Huckabee, a candidate who shared their values more fully than any other candidate in a generation. He agreed with Farris that many conservative leaders had blown it. By chasing other candidates with greater visibility, they failed to see what many of their supporters in the trenches saw clearly: Huckabee was their guy.

Protect Your Money From Your Liberal Kids!

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Wednesday, 3/12/2008 9:36 am
That seems to be the mission of DonorsTrust, a right-wing investment firm founded by people from the Capital Research Center and the Heritage Foundation. From a recent email pitch: "We love our children, our grandchildren, and our families. But that doesn't mean we always see eye to eye with them. Sometimes we just have a difference of opinion on trivial matters. Other times it becomes quite obvious that they do not share our fundamental understanding of the world and the way it operates. That's why our clients use DonorsTrust. They love their families but know they can rely on DonorsTrust to carry out their charitable intent. DonorsTrust erects a protective boundary, which means our clients' successor advisors will never be able to support the likes of Greenpeace or MoveOn.org."

McCain Courts the Council for National Policy

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Friday, 3/7/2008 1:56 pm

Fresh off his endorsements from John Hagee and his stumping around Iowa with Rod Parsley, John McCain’s outreach to the Right appears to be picking up steam:

FOX NEWS HAS LEARNED that in New Orleans on Friday John McCain makes a major speech to the influential and little known Council for National Policy. The CNP is an umbrella organization of influential social and religious conservative groups.

What is the Council for National Policy, you ask? 

The council was founded in 1981, just as the modern conservative movement began its ascendance. The Rev. Tim LaHaye, an early Christian conservative organizer and the best-selling author of the ''Left Behind'' novels about an apocalyptic Second Coming, was a founder. His partners included Paul Weyrich, another Christian conservative political organizer who also helped found the Heritage Foundation.

They said at the time that they were seeking to create a Christian conservative alternative to what they believed was the liberalism of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Back when it first formed, the CNP was linked to the Iran-Contra scandal though, most recently, it generated media attention after many of its members threatened to bolt the GOP if Rudy Giuliani won the nomination.  Despite the organization’s penchant for secrecy, they are perhaps best known as being the organization George W. Bush addressed back in 1999 where he reportedly promised to appoint only anti-abortion-rights judges to the Supreme Court and then both he and the CNP refused to release the audio tape of his remarks.

Fox News reports that, unlike Bush’s address, McCain’s will be released but that remains to be seen, since the CNP has never been particularly interested in openness or transparency:

Three times a year for 23 years, a little-known club of a few hundred of the most powerful conservatives in the country have met behind closed doors at undisclosed locations for a confidential conference, the Council for National Policy, to strategize about how to turn the country to the right.

Details are closely guarded.

''The media should not know when or where we meet or who takes part in our programs, before of after a meeting,'' a list of rules obtained by The New York Times advises the attendees.

The membership list is ''strictly confidential.'' Guests may attend ''only with the unanimous approval of the executive committee.'' In e-mail messages to one another, members are instructed not to refer to the organization by name, to protect against leaks.

…

The secrecy that surrounds the meeting and attendees like the Rev. Jerry Falwell, Phyllis Schlafly and the head of the National Rifle Association, among others, makes it a subject of suspicion, at least in the minds of the few liberals aware of it.

…

The membership list this year was a who's who of evangelical Protestant conservatives and their allies, including Dr. Dobson, Mr. Weyrich, Holland H. Coors of the beer dynasty; Wayne LaPierre of the National Riffle Association, Richard A. Viguerie of American Target Advertising, Mark Mix of the National Right to Work Committee and Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform.

While there is no mention of McCain’s appearance before the group on his schedule or website, it seems that the McCain camp realized that sneaking off to woo the Right might undermine his reputation as a straight-talkin’ maverick and decided to clue the press in ahead of time in an effort to avoid the sort of controversy that plagued Bush back in 2000:

CNP does not publicize its meetings, speakers or agenda, but the McCain campaign informed the press of his agreement to address the council. As a result, reporters following the McCain campaign deluged the council with requests for coverage.

"We agreed the press could sit in a separate room and listen to the speech and the questions and answers," a CNP official said, speaking anonymously because the rules of the council forbid officials or members to speak by name in public.

McCain’s Delicate Dance

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Monday, 2/4/2008 4:58 pm

With John McCain seemingly poised to emerge from Super Tuesday as the de facto front runner in the Republican primary, the question will become just how much he intends to try and make nice with the Religious Right base that does not much like him.

As the McCain campaign admitted last year, his previous efforts to win them over were entirely half-hearted and purely political, but now that he might very well become the nominee, it looks as if some on the Right might be starting to warm up to him out of political necessity:

Republican presidential candidate John McCain today publicly thanked two prominent conservative Christian leaders who have rallied to his defense in recent days.

``I was very pleased to see comments made by people like Tony Perkins and Dr. Richard Land,'' McCain told reporters after a rally in Nashville, Tennessee. ``I appreciate the words that they have been using.''

Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, a conservative public policy group, and Land, a leader in the 16- million member Southern Baptist Convention, have criticized McCain in the past. Perkins told the New York Times that he has ``no residual issue with John McCain,'' while Land told the newspaper McCain ``is strongly pro-life.''

But even in accepting this praise, McCain went out of his way to make it clear that it was not he who did the reaching out :

“I will continue to reach out to all parts of the party but I did not call anyone,'' the Arizona senator said today. McCain's acknowledgement that he is not proactively reaching out to conservative leaders comes a day after he told reporters that he doesn't listen to conservative Rush Limbaugh's radio show.

Should he win the GOP nomination, McCain will undoubtedly change his tune on this issue – but quotes like this won’t be easily forgotten

McCain seems distinctly uninterested when asked questions concerning abortion and gay rights. While campaigning in South Carolina, he told reporters riding with him on his bus that he was comfortable pledging to appoint judges who would strictly interpret the Constitution in part because it would reassure conservatives who might otherwise distrust him.

"It's not social issues I care about," he explained.

Thus, it comes as no surprise that right-wing activists who care only about social issues are attacking him, such as BOND’s Jesse Lee Peterson, Faith and Action’s Rob Schenck, Janet Folger’s RoeGone front group, and various others:

"Most Texans I know think that McCain is the second-least desirable candidate" among all those who ran this year and with Rudy Giuliani out, he's now officially the worst, says Cathie Adams, head of Texas Eagle Forum. "McCain's policies are awful."

…

"He is no conservative. Yes, maybe on the war, although many of us are not happy about the war," said Mitt Romney supporter Paul Weyrich, president of the Free Congress Foundation and a founder of the conservative Heritage Foundation and the Moral Majority. "McCain hates strong conservatives. McCain hates the religious right. Thus far he has made no overtures to us."

When it comes down to it, McCain needs the Right if he hopes to win the presidency – and some of the Religious Right’s political leaders seems to realize that they might have the upper hand at the moment, with Tony Perkins saying that what happens between McCain and the Right going forward entirely "depends on how bad he wants to be president. Really it does."

Heritage/Cato Economist Comes to Defense of 'Ron Paul Dollars'

Submitted by Anonymous on Wednesday, 11/28/2007 11:22 am
Fed raid earlier this month just "validates" big-government paranoia, writes Richard Rahn of FreedomWorks, Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, and Discovery Institute.

Heritage Foundation Official: Bin Laden 'Aping' Democrats

Submitted by Anonymous on Friday, 9/14/2007 11:33 am
Mike Franc, apparently forgeting Bin Laden's call for tax cuts. Meanwhile, Gary Bauer: "Victory is a values issue."

Right-Wing Think Tank Claims Credit for Immigration Crackdown

Submitted by Anonymous on Wednesday, 8/15/2007 4:48 pm

The White House, in an apparent attempt to mollify right-wing critics of comprehensive immigration reform, announced last week that it would sharply step immigration enforcement—and at least one group that attacked reform is taking credit for this latest move. Matthew Spaulding of the Heritage Foundation writes:

The Border Security and Immigration Administrative Reform initiative is smart and sensible and deserves to be commended. Virtually all of the policies within it have been proposed by The Heritage Foundation's policy research and analysis.

GOP Finally Getting Hip to Blogs?

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Wednesday, 8/15/2007 12:24 pm
The Washington Times reports that the Right and the GOP might have finally figured out that blogs and bloggers are valuable, noting that the Heritage Foundation's Robert Bluey has been hosting weekly "Conservative Bloggers Briefings" that have included people such as Robert Novak, Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich.

Anti-Immigrant Group's Membership Balloons

Submitted by Anonymous on Monday, 7/16/2007 5:53 pm

The anti-immigrant group NumbersUSA is crowing about its amazing growth: According to the New York Times, the group’s membership has reached 447,000, compared with less than 50,000 in 2004.

The “little-known” outfit has become a key player in the immigration debate, according to the Times, coordinating daily with well-known groups like Eagle Forum and the Heritage Foundation and working closely with Congress. “We’re involved in weekly discussions with Numbers USA and other immigration-control groups as part of a team effort,” said Rep. Brian Bilbray, the successor to Tom Tancredo as head of the Immigration Reform Caucus.

NumbersUSA’s success in capitalizing on opposition to comprehensive immigration reform bills considered in Congress recently stems in part from its efforts to channel raw anti-immigrant sentiments, which congeal around NumbersUSA’s explicitly restrictionist stance, into what Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center calls a “kinder, gentler” movement:

“Numbers USA initiated and turbocharged the populist revolt against the immigration reform package,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, a pro-immigrant advocacy group. “Roy Beck takes people who are upset about illegal immigration for different reasons, including hostility to Latino immigrants, and disciplines them so their message is based on policy rather than race-based arguments or xenophobia.”

But it also stems from a savvy – and numbers-intensive – use of the Right’s Internet marketing industry. During the debate over immigration, it’s been hard for conservatives on the Internet to avoid NumbersUSA. Those who subscribe to right-wing e-mail lists – such as those of GOPUSA, NewsMax, and Human Events – have received countless “sponsored” or “third-party” e-mail messages from NumbersUSA over the past months, sometimes multiple copies in the same week. Here’s one received via Human Events, and another similar message sent through GOPUSA. Both feature an “instant poll” on whether “Kennedy’s Illegal Alien Amnesty Should Fail” (95 percent of respondents agree), taking you to a site where you can send a fax to Congress and join NumbersUSA.

These spurts of faxes and e-mails, driven by NumbersUSA e-mail, can have a heady impact on members of Congress. “You have to give them credit: The phone calls, the faxes, the people who show up at town halls and meetings — you have to say NumbersUSA is behind a fair amount of that,” said Sharry of the National Immigration Forum.

Sharry acknowledged NumbersUSA's influence on lawmakers, pointing to Georgia's two Republican senators, Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss. The two, who helped write the immigration bill, were immediately in NumbersUSA's crosshairs. Both have withdrawn their support, saying the bill fails to provide adequate border security.

Romney Names High-Profile Supporters to Religious-Right Committee

Submitted by Anonymous on Monday, 6/18/2007 5:00 pm

Mitt Romney has been aggressively courting the Religious Right for months, slowly recruiting supporters from among the cadre of full-time activists. Earlier this year he scored Pat Robertson’s superlawyer Jay Sekulow, along with Gary Marx of the Judicial Confirmation Network and James Bopp, a prominent anti-abortion attorney.

Last week Romney’s campaign announced the formation of its National Faith and Values Steering Committee, a list of 50 better- and lesser- known religious-right figures. Among the co-chairmen of the committee are Sekulow, Marx, Bopp, Matthew Spaulding of the Heritage Foundation, Barbara Comstock of the Susan B. Anthony List (an anti-abortion PAC), and Jack Templeton, head of the Templeton Foundation and Let Freedom Ring – suggesting the kind of “values” Romney hopes to be absorbing from this caucus.

Most newsworthy was the endorsement of Lou Sheldon, head of the Traditional Values Coalition and one of the most fervently anti-gay activists in the country. Nicknamed “Lucky Louie” by imprisoned lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who directed a gambling company to donate generously to TVC in exchange for support on legislation, Sheldon is the author of “The Agenda: The Homosexual Plan to Change America,” an agenda he describes as “an attack on everything our Founding Fathers hoped to give us,” consisting of Hitler-like propaganda designed to “recruit” children. “As Homosexuals continue to make inroads into public schools, more children will be molested and indoctrinated into the world of homosexuality. Many of them will die in that world,” he wrote in one “special report.”

"When I give my support for a candidate, I am giving the green light, if he wins, all the way down the line in terms of so many moral and social issues," Sheldon recently said. Sheldon joined other big-name religious-right leaders in a meeting with Romney last fall, and he recently met with the candidate for five hours, leaving with a promise that Romney would swear his oath of office on the Bible, not the Book of Mormon. “My thinking is that Mitt Romney is a person with the experience and with the Jude[o-]Christian moral values,” Sheldon told CBN’s David Brody, adding that he’d “been around Mormons long enough to know that … they are sincere about” Jesus.

Other religious-right activists on Romney’s committee include Christian Coalition board member Drew McKissic, Jay Sekulow’s son Jordan, anti-immigration writer James Edwards, and leaders or activists associated with the Alliance Defense Fund, Iowa Christian Alliance (formerly the Christian Coalition of Iowa), Heartbeat International, Legacy Law Foundation, and Citizens for Traditional Values.

Cosmopolitan Religious-Right Groups Travel to Europe to Fight Gay Marriage, Abortion

Submitted by Anonymous on Thursday, 5/10/2007 5:28 pm

“[T]he cultural battle has gone international," declared Allan Carlson, president of the Illinois-based Howard Center for Family, Religion, and Society. "The American religious right, instead of being isolationist, has in fact gone global." Indeed, representatives from leading far-right groups – including American Family Association, Concerned Women For America, the Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, the Heritage Foundation and the Discovery Institute (advocate of “Intelligent Design” creationism) – are taking a field trip to Poland this weekend for the Howard Center’s fourth World Congress of Families.

The conference is centered around a “manifesto” co-authored by Carlson outlining his model of “the natural family,” described by Salon.com as a combination of encouraging mothers to stay at home and have many children and fervent opposition to gays and abortion:

"It is not enough to stop public recognition of 'gay marriage,' nor to oppose 'safe sex education' in the public schools, nor to ban partial birth abortion, nor to create optional 'covenant' marriages," it reads. "Victory for the natural family will come only as we change the terms of debate."

Joining the jet-setting religious-right activists is Assistant Secretary of State Ellen Sauerbrey, and as we noted, members of the European parliament are not happy with this apparent “official U.S. government stamp of approval [on the] extremist and intolerant views” likely to come together in the conference as it battles “the secularists” (in the Howard Center’s words) and a conspiracy of world governments (as a papal representative warned at a previous Congress of Families) that are pushing the continent to a “demographic winter.” "If Europe succumbs to the modern, post-family, secular worldview completely, it's like losing a great ally in a global contest," warned Carlson.

The Right has also found a new hero in the conservative Polish government, which recently proposed firing teachers accused of promoting “homosexual culture” in schools. The Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute is circulating a petition in advance of the conference commending Poland’s fight against the “radical homosexual movement.” Poland’s president will be speaking at the World Congress of Families.

The pro-choice website RH Reality Check will be covering the conference from Poland; you can find their posts here.

Buying a Movement?

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Monday, 4/23/2007 5:15 pm

So far, Gov. Mitt Romney has managed to win two relatively high-profile Republican straw polls, which undoubtedly help solidify his status as one of the frontrunners for the Republican presidential nomination.

Back in March, he won the Conservative Political Action Committee’s (CPAC) straw poll … mainly because he brought in activists specifically for this purpose:

Kevin Madden, a spokesman for the Romney campaign, said the conference volunteers were part of a long-term effort to build grass roots support. “These volunteers are the folks who are going to be on the front lines of our campaign across the country,” he said. “The investment that we are making here is going to offer a greater result as this campaign continues to grow.”

Mr. Madden said the Romney campaign planned to have at least 225 student volunteers at the event, with 90 percent of them living close enough to eliminate the need for housing or transportation.  … All the campaigns encourage their supporters to turn out for the conference and other straw polls. But organizers of the Conservative Political Action Conference said reports from students indicated that Mr. Romney’s was the only campaign providing transportation or hotel rooms. The campaign has provided small buses or vans for students from Michigan and Boston, two strongholds of support for Mr. Romney

A closer look at the numbers revealed that Romney didn’t do particularly well, but apparently the Romney campaign was pleased enough with the result to try something similar in South Carolina:

By midday Saturday, the upstate area was rife with rumors of a fixed straw poll. When I asked Sullivan, Romney's state advisor, if the campaign was paying for supporters' votes, he said, "No, absolutely not." But he admitted to recruiting people to the polls as so-called proxy delegates, which he said was a common practice among the campaigns. The campaign of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani also admitted some "friend-to-friend" recruitment of delegates, but denied paying any delegate fees. A few hours later, I tracked down Lynch, a gospel musician, at his home in Greenville.

"We were delegates of Mitt Romney, so we didn't have to pay," Lynch said. Like thousands of South Carolinians, Lynch and his wife, Melissa, have been bombarded with direct mail from the presidential candidates. He sent back a card from Romney, saying he would like to help. Sometime later, he said, Slick, the Romney aide, showed up at his door, and told him not to worry about the money. "He came over and we signed papers to be delegates, so we wouldn't have to pay the $15 fee," Lynch said. "Is there a problem?"

And again it paid off:

Among the 421 voters in Greenville County, Romney finished first with 132 votes, followed closely by Huckabee with 111. California Rep. Duncan Hunter got 87, Giuliani had 35 and Brownback received 19. McCain received 17 votes. Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo had five votes, former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson got three, and Texas Rep. Ron Paul and former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore each got one. Only candidates who have established presidential exploratory committees were considered in the poll.

…

In Richland County, 126 delegates participated in the straw poll. Romney won with 39.7 percent of the vote. Brownback had 13.5 percent, Giuliani got 11.9 percent, and both McCain and Huckabee got 10.3 percent. Hunter got 7.9 percent and Tancredo received 3.2 percent. Cox and a write-in President Bush both received 1.6 percent.

And just as at CPAC, a closer look at the numbers suggests that while he may be winning straw polls, he is not necessarily winning over Republican voters:

About 700 people participated and awarded the candidates one, three or five points. Huckabee finished first with 3,522 points, Giuliani came in second with 3,161, followed by Hunter with 3,090 and Romney with 2,972. Brownback earned 2,931 points, Cox had 2,456 and McCain got 2,027.

Of course, perhaps these efforts by Romney and his campaign are entirely legitimate and just appear to be a bit suspicious – not unlike, say, the $25,000 he donated to the right-wing Heritage Foundation, which favorably reviewed his health-care policy, or the $25,919 his campaign paid to a company run by religious-right superlawyer Jay Sekulow, who endorsed Romney around the time that his campaign was hurting from revelations of ideological heresies in his past.

U.S. Religious Right Groups Not So Welcome in Europe

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Wednesday, 4/18/2007 3:48 pm

The “world’s largest conference of pro-family leaders and grass-roots activists” is slated to take place next month in Warsaw Poland. Known as the World Congress of Families, the event is backed by various right-wing groups such as The Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, Concerned Women For America, The Heritage Foundation, and others.  

The year’s event, entitled “The Natural Family – Springtime For Europe and the World” is being held in Poland because apparently it alone is last hope for saving Europe and the rest of the world from the “demographic winter and … the secularists”:

Europe is almost lost; to a demographic winter and to the secularists.  If Europe goes much of the world will go with it.  Almost alone, Poland has maintained strong faith and strong families, though even Poland comes under severe pressure to change.  Poland has saved Europe before.  It is likely she will save Europe again.  On family and population questions, Europe is the battleground in the early years of the 21st Century, and Poland is the pivot point.   It makes abundant sense that The World Congress of Families IV meet among the brave people of Poland.

Among those who have reportedly agreed to attend is US Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration Ellen Sauerbrey – and members of the European Parliamentary Working Group on Separation of Religion and Politics are not particularly understanding about the Bush Administration’s willingness to lend the “official U.S. government stamp of approval to [the] extremist and intolerant views” that will surely be espoused at this conference: 

We urge you to withdraw from this conference because your participation provides an official U.S. government stamp of approval to extremist and intolerant views held by some participants and attendees. These extremist and intolerant views include prejudiced attitudes toward foreigners, people from other religions, homosexuals, and the inclusive vision of what represents a family unit that has been developed by the United Nations and the European Union.

…

The United States rightly prides itself on supporting and spreading religious tolerance, pluralism and inclusion. This conference, and many who will be attending, reject that ethos outright. We have no problem with people expressing beliefs and convictions that we do not share. In a free society, that is right and just. However, we do object when foreign government officials lend support to such views, especially when platforms are used to denigrate and attack those with whom they disagree.

We’re not sure if any of those parliamentarians have been paying attention to American politics for the past six years, but it doesn’t seem very likely that concerns over religious tolerance, gay rights, and xenophobia would cause Sauerbrey to withdraw from a conference put together by a still-loyal group of the Bush administration’s ever-dwindling political supporters.

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Heritage Foundation Posts Archive

GOProud: Driving a Wedge Deep Into The Heart of the Conservative Movement
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Wednesday 02/09/2011, 4:14pm
With CPAC kicking off tomorrow, Metro Weekly profiles GOProud, the gay conservative group that has set off a culture war within the conservative movement and whose participation in the conference led to a boycott by several Religious Right organizations.  And while we don't agree with most of GOProud's agenda and believe their sense of smug self-satisfaction is annoying and entirely undeserved, we do whole-heartedly support their effort to drive a deep wedge into the conservative movement in order to marginalize the "nasty, anti-gay bigots" who make up the Religious Right... MORE >
GOProud: Driving a Wedge Deep Into The Heart of the Conservative Movement
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Wednesday 02/09/2011, 4:14pm
With CPAC kicking off tomorrow, Metro Weekly profiles GOProud, the gay conservative group that has set off a culture war within the conservative movement and whose participation in the conference led to a boycott by several Religious Right organizations.  And while we don't agree with most of GOProud's agenda and believe their sense of smug self-satisfaction is annoying and entirely undeserved, we do whole-heartedly support their effort to drive a deep wedge into the conservative movement in order to marginalize the "nasty, anti-gay bigots" who make up the Religious Right... MORE >
Religious Right Channels Reagan to Condemn CPAC
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Tuesday 02/08/2011, 12:19pm
CPAC boycotters, angered over the upcoming event’s inclusion of the gay conservative group GOProud, have taken out a full page ad in the right-wing Washington Times to ask, “What would Ronald Reagan think of CPAC today?” Rick Scarborough’s Vision America was behind the ad which accused CPAC of “betraying conservative principles and threatening conservative unity by creating the false impression that gay activism is somehow compatible with conservativism” by allowing GOProud to be a participating organization: The self-proclaimed gay Republicans support hate... MORE >
Religious Right Channels Reagan to Condemn CPAC
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Tuesday 02/08/2011, 12:19pm
CPAC boycotters, angered over the upcoming event’s inclusion of the gay conservative group GOProud, have taken out a full page ad in the right-wing Washington Times to ask, “What would Ronald Reagan think of CPAC today?” Rick Scarborough’s Vision America was behind the ad which accused CPAC of “betraying conservative principles and threatening conservative unity by creating the false impression that gay activism is somehow compatible with conservativism” by allowing GOProud to be a participating organization: The self-proclaimed gay Republicans support hate... MORE >
Right-Wing’s Dupnik Pile-On Continues
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Tuesday 01/11/2011, 12:30pm
After calling for politicians and political commentators to tone down violent and hateful political rhetoric, Sheriff Clarence Dupnik is now experiencing himself the force of right-wing hostility and rancor. Dupnik never suggested that the deeply disturbed shooter was directly influenced by political debate, but called into question the use of vicious rhetoric and violent imagery that has become all too commonplace in political discourse today. “The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country,” Dupnik said, “is getting to be outrageous.... MORE >
Heritage Foundation and Media Research Center Join CPAC Boycott
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Friday 01/07/2011, 11:24am
Last February the Media Research Center’s director of media analysis Tim Graham defended the American Conservative Union’s annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) from a charge that the event was “once a venue for the radical fringe.” Today, the Media Research Center joined other groups in boycotting the conference because it isn’t conservative enough. While the Heritage Foundation announced on Wednesday that it would be boycotting CPAC, the Media Research Center, led by notable right-wing activist Brent Bozell, is both the latest and one of the... MORE >
IRD Slams State Department for Backing Gay Rights Abroad
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Monday 01/03/2011, 3:49pm
Writing for the American Spectator, Jeff Walton of the Institute on Religion and Democracy condemned the State Department for advancing the rights of gays and lesbians abroad. The IRD is a far-right group with a two-pronged strategy to advance its opposition to gay rights: dividing and decrying churches, particularly Mainline Protestant denominations, which favor LGBT equality, while at the same time aiding and promoting groups in Africa and the U.S. that attack gays and even support the criminalization of homosexuality. Most recently, the IRD vilified a North Carolina church group for... MORE >
Far-Right IRD Blasts Church Group for Electing Openly Gay President
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Wednesday 12/29/2010, 3:25pm
When the North Carolina Council of Churches, a coalition composed of mainline Protestant and Catholic churches, selected an openly gay man as the body’s new president, right-wing activists jumped on the story in their efforts to foster divisions and anti-gay sentiment among church groups. Seventeen denominations, including Episcopal, Lutheran, AME, Roman Catholic, Baptist, Reformed, and Methodist churches, are members of the North Carolina Council of Churches, and President-Elect Stan Kimer promised to make outreach, environmental stewardship, and social justice key parts of his agenda... MORE >