Barack Obama

Kansas Conservatives Tear Into Anti-Discrimination Ordinance

At the end of 2010, the city commission of Manhattan, Kansas, passed an ordinance that adds sexual orientation and gender identity protections to anti-discrimination law, as neither category is protected under the statewide law against discrimination in housing and employment. Naturally, Religious Right groups were enraged and now are moving to repeal the ordinance. A new group called Awaken Manhattan accuses the commission of creating “special rights,” “exalting a lifestyle that is morally wrong,” and legalizing gay sex in the workplace. The group also features video of a self-proclaimed “ex-gay” who “declared war” on homosexuality and called on people to “point the LGBT community to Christ.”

Kansas radio host and author Paul A. Ibbetson writes that the ordinance in Manhattan goes all the way up to President Obama, who he believes is acting like “a tyrannical third-world dictator.” Ibbetson says “liberals have been working to destroy Christian values” through the “infiltration of homosexual ideology,” and that in Manhattan “‘Main Street’ is being transformed into ‘Gay Street’” by gay-rights activists:

If one looks closely, a repetitious pattern of presentation and action is observable from the liberal left. To start with, some radical change in traditional culture for the greater good is always forwarded, while at the same time the public at large is denied an opportunity to exercise their voices through a vote on the issue. When a people's vote does slip by the liberal machine, it is later circumvented by a governmental fiat. To liberals, the best societal decisions are best made without society. The issue of how we recognize traditional marriage, the law that Barack Obama is now declaring void without the authority of the courts, as a tyrannical third-world dictator might do, is an issue that has already been decided by the voters. The overwhelming majority of Americans have already voted for traditional marriage as being between a man and a woman. Once again, it would take a complete subversion of the voting majority to attack this Judeo-Christian pillar of American society. Unfortunately, this is not just a Barack Obama problem. The actions of this President are simply a byproduct of a growing problem that has been taking place for some time in this country. In reality, Barack Obama is nothing more than the predictable fruit of the loins of modern-day liberalism, and that fruity fruit has been very fruitful.

As moral depravity is being pushed on America's defensive forces and the foundation of America in traditional marriage, liberals have been working to destroy Christian values in day-to-day business interactions. While an infiltration of homosexual ideology may have been brewing as far back as 2005, the actual blitzkrieg that struck Manhattan, Kansas, and turned the traditional town into the most liberal in the state happened within 11 short months. Within those months, the gay activist group LGBT became ensconced within Kansas State University, a month was designated by political decree for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender awareness complete with its own gay pride parade, and the passage of the most liberal anti-Christian discrimination law the state of Kansas has ever seen was passed by a 3-2 vote.

...

While the nation needs to push back the societal suicide being demanded by Barack Obama and liberal surrogates, the people of Manhattan, Kansas, are taking it upon themselves to stand up for their town's traditional values. They are doing this through a repeal petition on the anti-discrimination ordinance alteration that made lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people a protected class with the ability to bring preemptive charges against citizens of Kansas, thus beginning a process of mayor-appointed kangaroo courts with non-elected judges and business crushing fines. The same bill gives no protection to Christians outside their congregational buildings as "Main Street" is being transformed into "Gay Street" and all those who find themselves in violations will be severely punished. The citizens of Manhattan, Kansas, are pushing back against the gay agenda with the radical notion that they, of all things, should be able to vote on the laws that will affect their daily lives.

Religious Right Reactions to DOJ's DOMA Decision

Earlier today it was reported that President Obama had ordered the Justice Department to stop defending the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act.

So far, reactions from the Religious Right have been few and far between but we are going to post them here as they trickle in:

National Organization for Marriage:

“We have not yet begun to fight for marriage,” said Brian Brown, president of NOM.

“The Democrats are responding to their election loss with a series of extraordinary, extra-constitutional end runs around democracy, whether it’s fleeing the state in Wisconsin and Indiana to prevent a vote, or unilaterally declaring homosexuals a protected class under our Constitution, as President Obama just did,” said Brown. “We call on the House to intervene to protect DOMA, and to tell the Obama administration they have to respect the limits on their power. This fight is not over, it has only begun!”

...

“On the one hand this is a truly shocking extra-constitutional power grab in declaring gay people are a protected class, and it’s also a defection of duty on the part of the President Obama,” said Maggie Gallagher, Chairman of NOM, “On the other hand, the Obama administration was throwing this case in court anyway. The good news is this now clears the way for the House to intervene and to get lawyers in the court room who actually want to defend the law, and not please their powerful political special interests.”

FRC:

"It's a dereliction of duty,'' said Tom McClusky, senior vice president of Family Research Council Action. "Whether they agree with the law or not is irrelevant...The Obama administration has purposely dropped the ball here."

AFA:

"I think it's a clear sign that we simply cannot avoid engaging on the social issues," Bryan Fischer, director of issue analysis for the group, told TPM. "Mitch Daniels has called for a truce on social issues and that would be fine if the homosexual lobby was willing to lay down arms, but they're obviously not and this proves it. A truce is nothing more than a surrender."

Fischer said he was not surprised by the president's decision.

"Frankly I was surprised that President Obama pretended to be a defender of natural marriage as long as he did," he said.

He said that the White House move should serve as "a wake-up call to all conservatives that fundamental American values regarding the family are under all-out assault by this administration. It ought to represent a clarion call to man the barricades before we lose what is left of the Judeo-Christian system of values in our public life."

Focus on the Family:

Tom Minnery, a vice president with Focus on the Family, said the Obama administration did not aggressively defend the Defense of Marriage Act in any case. "If the federal government will not defend federal laws, we're facing legal chaos," Minnery said. "If the administration can pick and choose what laws it defends, which law is next?"

"We would hope Congress uses the tools at its disposal to counter this decision and defend marriage," Minnery said.

ADF:

“Typically, when a law is challenged, the government has a duty to defend the law, and typically they do so with the most vigorous possible defense,” said Jim Campbell, attorney with the conservative Alliance Defense Fund. “In this case, we’ve seen executive branch officials refuse to do so.”

Official FRC statement:

"This decision by President Obama and the Department of Justice is appalling. The President's failure to defend DOMA is also a failure to fulfill his oath to 'faithfully execute the office of President of the United States.' What will be the next law that he will choose not to enforce or uphold?

"Marriage as a male-female union has been easily defended in court and overwhelmingly supported by the American people. There is absolutely no excuse beyond pandering to his liberal political base for President Obama's decision to abandon his constitutional role to defend a federal law enacted overwhelmingly by Congress.

"With this decision the President has thrown down the gauntlet, challenging Congress. It is incumbent upon the Republican leadership to respond by intervening to defend DOMA, or they will become complicit in the President's neglect of duty," concluded Perkins.

Liberty Counsel:

Today President Barack Obama instructed the U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder, and the Department of Justice to cease defending the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). “This is outrageous and unthinkable that the President would abandon the defense of marriage,” said Mathew Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel. “President Obama has betrayed the American people by his refusal to defend the federal law that affirms what many courts upheld as constitutional, namely, that marriage is between one man and one woman,” said Staver.

...

“Regardless of President Obama’s own ideological agenda, as President, he and his Attorney General have a duty to defend lawfully passed legislation, especially when the essence of the law has been upheld by many courts. Thirty states have passed marriage amendments affirming marriage as one man and one woman. Today President Obama has abandoned his role as President of the United States and transformed his office into the President of the Divided States. He has been the most divisive president in American history. He has today declared war on the American people and the fundamental values that are shared by most Americans. His radicalism resulted in the historical push-back in the 2010 elections. His radicalism today will come back around when the people respond to this betrayal in 2012,” said Staver.

TVC:

“The Obama Administration has been sabotaging marriage in direct contradiction to his campaign promises. Today, President Obama takes his most unprecedented step yet, choosing to rule and reign through executive decree in what could only be called a supra-constitutional act. After massive defeats at the polls in November, a total repudiation on health care, and staring down a cost-cutting Congress, Obama is looking to secure what little base remains. Obama’s actions today are an unprecedented grab for power and perhaps the most audacious in the 235 year history of the American republic.

“President Obama believes he has “concluded” that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional, as passed along by Attorney General Eric Holder -- effectively asserting that Obama may rule by whim and decree.

“We are a nation of laws, not whims.

“Virtually every state in the country has overwhelmingly passed laws and state constitutional amendments protecting marriage. This unprecedented power grab demands the immediate reaction of the United States House of Representatives, who must do everything possible to fight back against what can only be described as a despotic and alarming attack on the rule of law.”

Catholic League:

Now Obama is officially on record as president opposing the defense of marriage. Thus does he pit himself against the 1996 law that was signed by President Bill Clinton, and opposed by only 15 percent in the House and 14 percent in the Senate. He also stands in opposition to the over 30 state initiatives affirming marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

Now that Obama is totally out of the closet, it will spur a genuine effort to adopt a constitutional amendment affirming the integrity of marriage.

Gary Bauer:

The president is the chief law enforcement officer, not the chief justice! It is not up to Barack Obama to determine which laws he likes and which laws he doesn’t. It is his responsibility to enforce the law until the nation’s highest court decides the law does not pass constitutional analysis.

But this president sees things very differently — he’s here to fundamentally transform America, by, among other things, redefining marriage ...

Today’s news should put to rest any suggestion that Obama has moved to the center. He has just aligned himself with the most radical elements in the culture war who are trying to redefine normalcy.

I’ll have more on this tomorrow, but I have to be honest with you: I’m worried our side has gone back to sleep. Financial support for our work has dropped significantly. But the left is energized. Obama suddenly feels free to abandon the law and let the militant homosexual rights movement force same-sex “marriage” on every state in the nation. A liberal politician is urging the unions to “get a little bloody” in the streets.

The Tea Party protests have ebbed while the left-wing radicals are fired up. The momentum seems to have shifted back to the left. Men and women of faith must remain engaged in the public policy battles of the day. The culture war is real and only one side can prevail.

Religious Right Reactions to DOJ's DOMA Decision

Earlier today it was reported that President Obama had ordered the Justice Department to stop defending the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act.

So far, reactions from the Religious Right have been few and far between but we are going to post them here as they trickle in:

National Organization for Marriage:

“We have not yet begun to fight for marriage,” said Brian Brown, president of NOM.

“The Democrats are responding to their election loss with a series of extraordinary, extra-constitutional end runs around democracy, whether it’s fleeing the state in Wisconsin and Indiana to prevent a vote, or unilaterally declaring homosexuals a protected class under our Constitution, as President Obama just did,” said Brown. “We call on the House to intervene to protect DOMA, and to tell the Obama administration they have to respect the limits on their power. This fight is not over, it has only begun!”

...

“On the one hand this is a truly shocking extra-constitutional power grab in declaring gay people are a protected class, and it’s also a defection of duty on the part of the President Obama,” said Maggie Gallagher, Chairman of NOM, “On the other hand, the Obama administration was throwing this case in court anyway. The good news is this now clears the way for the House to intervene and to get lawyers in the court room who actually want to defend the law, and not please their powerful political special interests.”

FRC:

"It's a dereliction of duty,'' said Tom McClusky, senior vice president of Family Research Council Action. "Whether they agree with the law or not is irrelevant...The Obama administration has purposely dropped the ball here."

AFA:

"I think it's a clear sign that we simply cannot avoid engaging on the social issues," Bryan Fischer, director of issue analysis for the group, told TPM. "Mitch Daniels has called for a truce on social issues and that would be fine if the homosexual lobby was willing to lay down arms, but they're obviously not and this proves it. A truce is nothing more than a surrender."

Fischer said he was not surprised by the president's decision.

"Frankly I was surprised that President Obama pretended to be a defender of natural marriage as long as he did," he said.

He said that the White House move should serve as "a wake-up call to all conservatives that fundamental American values regarding the family are under all-out assault by this administration. It ought to represent a clarion call to man the barricades before we lose what is left of the Judeo-Christian system of values in our public life."

Focus on the Family:

Tom Minnery, a vice president with Focus on the Family, said the Obama administration did not aggressively defend the Defense of Marriage Act in any case. "If the federal government will not defend federal laws, we're facing legal chaos," Minnery said. "If the administration can pick and choose what laws it defends, which law is next?"

"We would hope Congress uses the tools at its disposal to counter this decision and defend marriage," Minnery said.

ADF:

“Typically, when a law is challenged, the government has a duty to defend the law, and typically they do so with the most vigorous possible defense,” said Jim Campbell, attorney with the conservative Alliance Defense Fund. “In this case, we’ve seen executive branch officials refuse to do so.”

Official FRC statement:

"This decision by President Obama and the Department of Justice is appalling. The President's failure to defend DOMA is also a failure to fulfill his oath to 'faithfully execute the office of President of the United States.' What will be the next law that he will choose not to enforce or uphold?

"Marriage as a male-female union has been easily defended in court and overwhelmingly supported by the American people. There is absolutely no excuse beyond pandering to his liberal political base for President Obama's decision to abandon his constitutional role to defend a federal law enacted overwhelmingly by Congress.

"With this decision the President has thrown down the gauntlet, challenging Congress. It is incumbent upon the Republican leadership to respond by intervening to defend DOMA, or they will become complicit in the President's neglect of duty," concluded Perkins.

Liberty Counsel:

Today President Barack Obama instructed the U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder, and the Department of Justice to cease defending the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). “This is outrageous and unthinkable that the President would abandon the defense of marriage,” said Mathew Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel. “President Obama has betrayed the American people by his refusal to defend the federal law that affirms what many courts upheld as constitutional, namely, that marriage is between one man and one woman,” said Staver.

...

“Regardless of President Obama’s own ideological agenda, as President, he and his Attorney General have a duty to defend lawfully passed legislation, especially when the essence of the law has been upheld by many courts. Thirty states have passed marriage amendments affirming marriage as one man and one woman. Today President Obama has abandoned his role as President of the United States and transformed his office into the President of the Divided States. He has been the most divisive president in American history. He has today declared war on the American people and the fundamental values that are shared by most Americans. His radicalism resulted in the historical push-back in the 2010 elections. His radicalism today will come back around when the people respond to this betrayal in 2012,” said Staver.

TVC:

“The Obama Administration has been sabotaging marriage in direct contradiction to his campaign promises. Today, President Obama takes his most unprecedented step yet, choosing to rule and reign through executive decree in what could only be called a supra-constitutional act. After massive defeats at the polls in November, a total repudiation on health care, and staring down a cost-cutting Congress, Obama is looking to secure what little base remains. Obama’s actions today are an unprecedented grab for power and perhaps the most audacious in the 235 year history of the American republic.

“President Obama believes he has “concluded” that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional, as passed along by Attorney General Eric Holder -- effectively asserting that Obama may rule by whim and decree.

“We are a nation of laws, not whims.

“Virtually every state in the country has overwhelmingly passed laws and state constitutional amendments protecting marriage. This unprecedented power grab demands the immediate reaction of the United States House of Representatives, who must do everything possible to fight back against what can only be described as a despotic and alarming attack on the rule of law.”

Catholic League:

Now Obama is officially on record as president opposing the defense of marriage. Thus does he pit himself against the 1996 law that was signed by President Bill Clinton, and opposed by only 15 percent in the House and 14 percent in the Senate. He also stands in opposition to the over 30 state initiatives affirming marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

Now that Obama is totally out of the closet, it will spur a genuine effort to adopt a constitutional amendment affirming the integrity of marriage.

Gary Bauer:

The president is the chief law enforcement officer, not the chief justice! It is not up to Barack Obama to determine which laws he likes and which laws he doesn’t. It is his responsibility to enforce the law until the nation’s highest court decides the law does not pass constitutional analysis.

But this president sees things very differently — he’s here to fundamentally transform America, by, among other things, redefining marriage ...

Today’s news should put to rest any suggestion that Obama has moved to the center. He has just aligned himself with the most radical elements in the culture war who are trying to redefine normalcy.

I’ll have more on this tomorrow, but I have to be honest with you: I’m worried our side has gone back to sleep. Financial support for our work has dropped significantly. But the left is energized. Obama suddenly feels free to abandon the law and let the militant homosexual rights movement force same-sex “marriage” on every state in the nation. A liberal politician is urging the unions to “get a little bloody” in the streets.

The Tea Party protests have ebbed while the left-wing radicals are fired up. The momentum seems to have shifted back to the left. Men and women of faith must remain engaged in the public policy battles of the day. The culture war is real and only one side can prevail.

Molotov Mitchell Blames Obama for Christina Aguilera and Destroying America

Molotov Mitchell, a WorldNetDaily darling and champion of Uganda’s “kill the gays” bill, has only one person to blame for Christina Aguilera forgetting the words to the Star-Spangled Banner during the Super Bowl: President Barack Obama. According to Mitchell, Obama is trying to create “Obamaland” and a “culture of effete snobs” by allegedly effacing religion, chipping away at the Constitution, and concealing records of his birth certificate.

“Obamaland is not America,” says Mitchell, “Obamaland is an intellectual invasion, it is a zombie apocalypse, and it is the duty of every learned American to repel it.”

Ironically, while Mitchell is busying railing against those who know nothing about the anthem because it means nothing to them, he asserts that the song contains “Francis Scott Key’s bloody vision of America’s War for Independence.” In fact, the anthem was composed during the War of 1812, not the War of Independence.

Molotov Mitchell Blames Obama for Christina Aguilera and Destroying America

Molotov Mitchell, a WorldNetDaily darling and champion of Uganda’s “kill the gays” bill, has only one person to blame for Christina Aguilera forgetting the words to the Star-Spangled Banner during the Super Bowl: President Barack Obama. According to Mitchell, Obama is trying to create “Obamaland” and a “culture of effete snobs” by allegedly effacing religion, chipping away at the Constitution, and concealing records of his birth certificate.

“Obamaland is not America,” says Mitchell, “Obamaland is an intellectual invasion, it is a zombie apocalypse, and it is the duty of every learned American to repel it.”

Ironically, while Mitchell is busying railing against those who know nothing about the anthem because it means nothing to them, he asserts that the song contains “Francis Scott Key’s bloody vision of America’s War for Independence.” In fact, the anthem was composed during the War of 1812, not the War of Independence.

Celebrating Jefferson Davis's Inauguration, Youth for Western Civilization Links Obama to "Oppressive" Union Government

The far-right student group Youth for Western Civilization, which hosted a panel at CPAC on immigration featuring Rep. Lou Barletta (R-PA) and former Reps. Tom Tancredo and Virgil Goode, is now promoting the Confederacy’s 150th Anniversary and “Anglo-Celtic” pride. William L. Houston of YWC attended a ceremony commemorating Jefferson Davis’s inauguration, and discussed the need for ethnic and historical pride among the “native Anglo-Celtic population of the American South.” He went on to say that the federal government both under Lincoln and Obama are rightly “perceived as being out of control, hostile toward, and oppressive of the people of the states,” and concludes that the “common soldier of the Union Army could have only seen what has become of the Union in our own times, quite assuredly he would have laid down his arms and deserted to the other side.” Houston writes:

As far as heritage and ethnic pride events tend to go, they don't come more politically incorrect than the Southern Rights parade held by the Sons of Confederate Veterans in Montgomery on Saturday.

Before a cheering throng of hundreds of Anglo-Celtic Southerners, an actor portraying Jefferson Davis was sworn in as President of the Confederate States of America on the grounds of the Alabama State Capitol.

Confederate flags flapped in the Southern breeze. Dixie was played. Cannons were fired. There were speeches of defiance and rebellion - about events both historical and modern.

The purpose of this event was to remember and celebrate the birth of the Confederacy a hundred and fifty years ago. Yet everyone who gathered there left with the sense that there was more to the story.

This was a direct assault on the double standard of multiculturalism by "the wrong sort" of people - the only people in the United States who are denied a sense of pride and identity in their heritage - the native Anglo-Celtic population of the American South - who are told that every group in the world can come to the South and celebrate their heritage but the people who were born and raised here.

"What is it in a man that would cause him to deny his fellow man the pride and dignity of his heritage," said Chuck Rand, an adjutant in chief of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.



The crowd in attendence [sic] in Montgomery didn't hesitate to draw parallels between the Confederacy and contemporary America. Then as now, the federal government was perceived as being out of control, hostile toward, and oppressive of the people of the states.

In 1861, it was Southerners who felt this way. In 2011, it is the majority of Americans who live in the South, West, and Midwest.

In their worst nightmare scenarios, even the secessionists couldn't have imagined anything like the President of the United States attacking the State of Arizona for defending itself from a Mexican invasion, celebrating Kwanzaa and Cinco de Mayo in the White House, Obamacare, affirmative action, abortion, gay marriage, or Barack Obama's $3.7 trillion dollar proposed federal budget.

Even Abraham Lincoln would be flabbergasted at his modern heirs who have declared war on traditional marriage and Christmas celebrations. Nothing is more pointless than arguing over the causes of the Civil War.

If the common soldier of the Union Army could have only seen what has become of the Union in our own times, quite assuredly he would have laid down his arms and deserted to the other side.

Celebrating Jefferson Davis's Inauguration, Youth for Western Civilization Links Obama to "Oppressive" Union Government

The far-right student group Youth for Western Civilization, which hosted a panel at CPAC on immigration featuring Rep. Lou Barletta (R-PA) and former Reps. Tom Tancredo and Virgil Goode, is now promoting the Confederacy’s 150th Anniversary and “Anglo-Celtic” pride. William L. Houston of YWC attended a ceremony commemorating Jefferson Davis’s inauguration, and discussed the need for ethnic and historical pride among the “native Anglo-Celtic population of the American South.” He went on to say that the federal government both under Lincoln and Obama are rightly “perceived as being out of control, hostile toward, and oppressive of the people of the states,” and concludes that the “common soldier of the Union Army could have only seen what has become of the Union in our own times, quite assuredly he would have laid down his arms and deserted to the other side.” Houston writes:

As far as heritage and ethnic pride events tend to go, they don't come more politically incorrect than the Southern Rights parade held by the Sons of Confederate Veterans in Montgomery on Saturday.

Before a cheering throng of hundreds of Anglo-Celtic Southerners, an actor portraying Jefferson Davis was sworn in as President of the Confederate States of America on the grounds of the Alabama State Capitol.

Confederate flags flapped in the Southern breeze. Dixie was played. Cannons were fired. There were speeches of defiance and rebellion - about events both historical and modern.

The purpose of this event was to remember and celebrate the birth of the Confederacy a hundred and fifty years ago. Yet everyone who gathered there left with the sense that there was more to the story.

This was a direct assault on the double standard of multiculturalism by "the wrong sort" of people - the only people in the United States who are denied a sense of pride and identity in their heritage - the native Anglo-Celtic population of the American South - who are told that every group in the world can come to the South and celebrate their heritage but the people who were born and raised here.

"What is it in a man that would cause him to deny his fellow man the pride and dignity of his heritage," said Chuck Rand, an adjutant in chief of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.



The crowd in attendence [sic] in Montgomery didn't hesitate to draw parallels between the Confederacy and contemporary America. Then as now, the federal government was perceived as being out of control, hostile toward, and oppressive of the people of the states.

In 1861, it was Southerners who felt this way. In 2011, it is the majority of Americans who live in the South, West, and Midwest.

In their worst nightmare scenarios, even the secessionists couldn't have imagined anything like the President of the United States attacking the State of Arizona for defending itself from a Mexican invasion, celebrating Kwanzaa and Cinco de Mayo in the White House, Obamacare, affirmative action, abortion, gay marriage, or Barack Obama's $3.7 trillion dollar proposed federal budget.

Even Abraham Lincoln would be flabbergasted at his modern heirs who have declared war on traditional marriage and Christmas celebrations. Nothing is more pointless than arguing over the causes of the Civil War.

If the common soldier of the Union Army could have only seen what has become of the Union in our own times, quite assuredly he would have laid down his arms and deserted to the other side.

CPAC Leftovers - Peacemaking Pleas and Tea Party Coffee Table Books

A few tidbits from the piles of stuff picked up at CPAC 2011:

The CPAC “Resource Guide,” a spiral-bound booklet with info about sponsors and participating organizations, included several essays, some of which were pleas for peace between libertarian-leaning economic conservatives and social conservatives. Some of the latter, of course, dropped their sponsorships and trashed CPAC leaders over the participation of GOProud, whose leader in turn derided the Religious Right groups as “loser” organizations. Former Reagan official Donald Devine contributed “Why We are Conservatives,” which includes:
 
Western civilization has been a harmony of both. Not a simple uniform tune, but a harmonic masterpiece, not simple libertarianism nor univocal traditionalism but both…The price of a successful conservatism must be a gracious acceptance of the traditional live and let live formula. If the modern scourges of brutal egalitarianism, debilitating fatalism and feckless progressivism are to be transcended, traditionalist and libertarian conservatives must learn again to work together in bold harmony.
 
Focus on the Family’s Tom Minnery contributed “Social and Economic Conservatives Have Much in Common,” which notes (correctly) that there is much overlap between the Tea Party and Religious Right movements. And he warned libertarians that they should embrace the social conservatives’ morals-based policies as the only bulwark against chaos:
 
In the West, these principles find their source in the Judeo-Christian moral tradition, and if we lose that collective sense of “oughtness” then individual liberty degenerates into selfishness, and eventually into social chaos. And at that point it is only the loaded gun and the barbed wire fence that can preserve order.
 
On the lighter side, among the countless books available to CPAC participants were “Grandma’s Not Shovel-Ready,” a picture book of signs from 9-12 and Tea Party protests in 2009, and “The New Democrat,” a Dr. Seuss-style parody of “The Cat in the Hat” starring a Marxist-insignia-wearing Barack Obama as the chaos-provoking interloper. The editors of the picture book were clearly not worried about soft-peddling the movement’s message: the book is replete with signs depicting Obama as a Communist thug bent on destroying America and killing off the elderly.  Other signs attack the patriotism of the movement’s targets (“Beware of liberals posing as Americans”) or threaten violent revolution (“A Revolution is brewing. We will not subsidize tyranny. Violate our Liberty at Your Peril.” and “Now Look!! Nice people forced to protest!! This must be serious we came unarmed…this time”). There are a few signs joking about anal sex (“Obamacare. Bend Over. This is gonna hurt.” and “Taxation without lubrication!!!”). The “Cat in the Hat” parody includes explanatory information that Dr. Seuss – Theodor Geisel – was a leftist who injected his progressive polemics into the books on which our current leaders were raised.
 
I haven’t yet had the time (or stomach) to read Phyllis Schlafly’s latest attack on feminism (The Flip Side of Feminism: what conservative women know – and men can’t say written with Suzanne Venker, a columnist for David Horowitz). Not helping is the list of people blurbing the book, which includes Horowitz, Ann Coulter, David Limbaugh, and the shouldn’t-be-treated-seriously-ever-again-after-his-latest-book Dinesh D’Souza.

CPAC Leftovers - Peacemaking Pleas and Tea Party Coffee Table Books

A few tidbits from the piles of stuff picked up at CPAC 2011:

The CPAC “Resource Guide,” a spiral-bound booklet with info about sponsors and participating organizations, included several essays, some of which were pleas for peace between libertarian-leaning economic conservatives and social conservatives. Some of the latter, of course, dropped their sponsorships and trashed CPAC leaders over the participation of GOProud, whose leader in turn derided the Religious Right groups as “loser” organizations. Former Reagan official Donald Devine contributed “Why We are Conservatives,” which includes:
 
Western civilization has been a harmony of both. Not a simple uniform tune, but a harmonic masterpiece, not simple libertarianism nor univocal traditionalism but both…The price of a successful conservatism must be a gracious acceptance of the traditional live and let live formula. If the modern scourges of brutal egalitarianism, debilitating fatalism and feckless progressivism are to be transcended, traditionalist and libertarian conservatives must learn again to work together in bold harmony.
 
Focus on the Family’s Tom Minnery contributed “Social and Economic Conservatives Have Much in Common,” which notes (correctly) that there is much overlap between the Tea Party and Religious Right movements. And he warned libertarians that they should embrace the social conservatives’ morals-based policies as the only bulwark against chaos:
 
In the West, these principles find their source in the Judeo-Christian moral tradition, and if we lose that collective sense of “oughtness” then individual liberty degenerates into selfishness, and eventually into social chaos. And at that point it is only the loaded gun and the barbed wire fence that can preserve order.
 
On the lighter side, among the countless books available to CPAC participants were “Grandma’s Not Shovel-Ready,” a picture book of signs from 9-12 and Tea Party protests in 2009, and “The New Democrat,” a Dr. Seuss-style parody of “The Cat in the Hat” starring a Marxist-insignia-wearing Barack Obama as the chaos-provoking interloper. The editors of the picture book were clearly not worried about soft-peddling the movement’s message: the book is replete with signs depicting Obama as a Communist thug bent on destroying America and killing off the elderly.  Other signs attack the patriotism of the movement’s targets (“Beware of liberals posing as Americans”) or threaten violent revolution (“A Revolution is brewing. We will not subsidize tyranny. Violate our Liberty at Your Peril.” and “Now Look!! Nice people forced to protest!! This must be serious we came unarmed…this time”). There are a few signs joking about anal sex (“Obamacare. Bend Over. This is gonna hurt.” and “Taxation without lubrication!!!”). The “Cat in the Hat” parody includes explanatory information that Dr. Seuss – Theodor Geisel – was a leftist who injected his progressive polemics into the books on which our current leaders were raised.
 
I haven’t yet had the time (or stomach) to read Phyllis Schlafly’s latest attack on feminism (The Flip Side of Feminism: what conservative women know – and men can’t say written with Suzanne Venker, a columnist for David Horowitz). Not helping is the list of people blurbing the book, which includes Horowitz, Ann Coulter, David Limbaugh, and the shouldn’t-be-treated-seriously-ever-again-after-his-latest-book Dinesh D’Souza.

Heck: Obama's Support For Reproductive Choice Makes Him a Disgrace To His Ancestors

A few weeks back, Rick Santorum made news when he declared it "almost remarkable for a black man" like President Obama to be in favor of reproductive choice because, in the Religious Right worldview, abortion is just like slavery.

But in case that tortured analogy was not clear enough, right-wing Indiana talk show host Peter Heck has penned a column that has been posted on the AFA's OneNewsNow claiming that Obama's support for reproductive choice means he is an enemy of the likes of Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, and Abraham Lincoln and is therefore a disgrace to "his ancestors":

Only a man terrifyingly unmoved by the injustices perpetrated against his own ancestors could, just a century and a half later, facilitate even worse atrocities without a hint of remorse.

Intellectual honesty demands that we face a harsh and uncomfortable reality: Barack Obama -- our first black president -- has chosen to take up the whip against his fellow man. By doing so, he carves out an eternal legacy for himself far removed from the dignified halls of honor reserved for those with the moral courage to defend the defenseless. By instead regarding them as subhuman, Obama wars against the life work of [Frederick] Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, and Abraham Lincoln.

Imagine how history would regard Lincoln had he chosen to respond to the great moral evil of his day as Barack Obama has chosen to respond to the holocaust of child sacrifice that has occurred with impunity since 1973. Imagine Lincoln proclaiming that determining whether blacks were entitled to human rights was "above his pay grade." Imagine Lincoln pledging to "protect this constitutional right" of slavery, while calling the brutality of plantation masters a "legitimate disciplinary procedure."

How would history have judged such a small man if not for the same way it will soon regard Mr. Obama: an utter coward. When given the incredible opportunity to stand on the shoulders of the Great Emancipator -- an opportunity generations of slaves labored to make possible -- Barack Obama chose not to use it to defend the inalienable rights of all, but to undermine them.

In the final analysis, such an incomprehensible betrayal of human rights for the sake of convenience and political expediency far outweighs any contributions his electoral success has brought to "black America." For what Douglass, Tubman, Truth and so many other courageous black abolitionists fought for was not the day when they would see a man with dark skin pigmentation sitting in the White House. They fought for the day when all men -- black and white, large and small -- would see their inalienable rights protected from those who would callously demean them as less than human.

Obama has failed miserably in living up to their vision, and shamefully discredits their efforts. As he commits himself to what Douglass called the denial of justice, the perpetuation of ignorance, and the organized conspiracy to degrade his fellow countrymen, it can rightly be concluded that Barack Obama disgraces his office, his ancestors, and his place in the eternal struggle for the rights of man.

Heck: Obama's Support For Reproductive Choice Makes Him a Disgrace To His Ancestors

A few weeks back, Rick Santorum made news when he declared it "almost remarkable for a black man" like President Obama to be in favor of reproductive choice because, in the Religious Right worldview, abortion is just like slavery.

But in case that tortured analogy was not clear enough, right-wing Indiana talk show host Peter Heck has penned a column that has been posted on the AFA's OneNewsNow claiming that Obama's support for reproductive choice means he is an enemy of the likes of Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, and Abraham Lincoln and is therefore a disgrace to "his ancestors":

Only a man terrifyingly unmoved by the injustices perpetrated against his own ancestors could, just a century and a half later, facilitate even worse atrocities without a hint of remorse.

Intellectual honesty demands that we face a harsh and uncomfortable reality: Barack Obama -- our first black president -- has chosen to take up the whip against his fellow man. By doing so, he carves out an eternal legacy for himself far removed from the dignified halls of honor reserved for those with the moral courage to defend the defenseless. By instead regarding them as subhuman, Obama wars against the life work of [Frederick] Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, and Abraham Lincoln.

Imagine how history would regard Lincoln had he chosen to respond to the great moral evil of his day as Barack Obama has chosen to respond to the holocaust of child sacrifice that has occurred with impunity since 1973. Imagine Lincoln proclaiming that determining whether blacks were entitled to human rights was "above his pay grade." Imagine Lincoln pledging to "protect this constitutional right" of slavery, while calling the brutality of plantation masters a "legitimate disciplinary procedure."

How would history have judged such a small man if not for the same way it will soon regard Mr. Obama: an utter coward. When given the incredible opportunity to stand on the shoulders of the Great Emancipator -- an opportunity generations of slaves labored to make possible -- Barack Obama chose not to use it to defend the inalienable rights of all, but to undermine them.

In the final analysis, such an incomprehensible betrayal of human rights for the sake of convenience and political expediency far outweighs any contributions his electoral success has brought to "black America." For what Douglass, Tubman, Truth and so many other courageous black abolitionists fought for was not the day when they would see a man with dark skin pigmentation sitting in the White House. They fought for the day when all men -- black and white, large and small -- would see their inalienable rights protected from those who would callously demean them as less than human.

Obama has failed miserably in living up to their vision, and shamefully discredits their efforts. As he commits himself to what Douglass called the denial of justice, the perpetuation of ignorance, and the organized conspiracy to degrade his fellow countrymen, it can rightly be concluded that Barack Obama disgraces his office, his ancestors, and his place in the eternal struggle for the rights of man.

Bill Donohue’s Lesson from Tucson: More Censorship, More Smears

Catholic League President Bill Donohue’s time in public life has been centered on pushing anti-gay bigotry, ridiculing progressive Christians, and promoting censorship and boycott campaigns. He most recently won a notable victory when, with the help of GOP leaders and other social conservatives, he convinced the Smithsonian to censor an exhibit on the marginalization of gays and lesbians in America. The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery removed a film by the late artist David Wojnarowicz exploring the suffering of people with HIV-AIDS because the video, which included a short clip of ants crawling on a crucifix, might “spoil the Christmas season.”

Rattled by the Smithsonian’s decision to censor its exhibit, other museums began screening the film. Today, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) announced that it has acquired Wojnarowicz’s banned film, A Fire In My Belly, leading to a swift and ugly response from Donohue and the Catholic League.

In a statement released today, Donohue tried to use President Obama’s speech in Tucson, which called for greater civility and dialogue in American politics, as a reason for the MoMA to keep challenging and provocative artwork such as Wojnarowicz’s film out of the public eye. (Of course, there is a very significant difference between the violent imagery and incendiary rhetoric that the President criticized and the intense, but nonviolent, debate that the artwork in question might engender.) And then, after misusing the President's call for civility, Donohue switched gears and engaged in the same gutter politics and hate mongering, even calling MoMA director Glenn D. Lowry a “corporate welfare queen,” that have long-defined his career:

In Tucson, President Barack Obama correctly noted that "our discourse has become so sharply polarized" that it has disfigured our society. He made note of the "lack of civility" which marks our culture, beckoning us to "sharpen our instincts for empathy." And just one day later, MoMA announced that he was wrong. It wants a sharply polarized society; it delights in incivility; and it abhors empathy. That is why it has decided to assault Christian sensibilities by hosting the vile video.

"We really do live in a time when anything can be hailed as a work of art. This has naturally led to a proliferation of pretentious and often pathological nonsense in the art world." Those words were penned ten years ago by noted art critic Roger Kimball. As evidenced by the reaction to this "artwork" by the artistic community, nothing has changed.

Unlike the Smithsonian, which is federally funded, MoMA is largely supported by fat cats like Glenn D. Lowry, the museum's director, thus alleviating some of our objections. Lowry makes over $2 million a year and lives for free in a $6 million condo atop the museum. Unlike the rest of us, he pays no income tax on his housing.

Looks like the artistic community got fleeced twice: once by embracing the "pathological nonsense" of this masterpiece, and once by the corporate welfare queen who runs—and lives in—the joint.

Bill Donohue’s Lesson from Tucson: More Censorship, More Smears

Catholic League President Bill Donohue’s time in public life has been centered on pushing anti-gay bigotry, ridiculing progressive Christians, and promoting censorship and boycott campaigns. He most recently won a notable victory when, with the help of GOP leaders and other social conservatives, he convinced the Smithsonian to censor an exhibit on the marginalization of gays and lesbians in America. The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery removed a film by the late artist David Wojnarowicz exploring the suffering of people with HIV-AIDS because the video, which included a short clip of ants crawling on a crucifix, might “spoil the Christmas season.”

Rattled by the Smithsonian’s decision to censor its exhibit, other museums began screening the film. Today, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) announced that it has acquired Wojnarowicz’s banned film, A Fire In My Belly, leading to a swift and ugly response from Donohue and the Catholic League.

In a statement released today, Donohue tried to use President Obama’s speech in Tucson, which called for greater civility and dialogue in American politics, as a reason for the MoMA to keep challenging and provocative artwork such as Wojnarowicz’s film out of the public eye. (Of course, there is a very significant difference between the violent imagery and incendiary rhetoric that the President criticized and the intense, but nonviolent, debate that the artwork in question might engender.) And then, after misusing the President's call for civility, Donohue switched gears and engaged in the same gutter politics and hate mongering, even calling MoMA director Glenn D. Lowry a “corporate welfare queen,” that have long-defined his career:

In Tucson, President Barack Obama correctly noted that "our discourse has become so sharply polarized" that it has disfigured our society. He made note of the "lack of civility" which marks our culture, beckoning us to "sharpen our instincts for empathy." And just one day later, MoMA announced that he was wrong. It wants a sharply polarized society; it delights in incivility; and it abhors empathy. That is why it has decided to assault Christian sensibilities by hosting the vile video.

"We really do live in a time when anything can be hailed as a work of art. This has naturally led to a proliferation of pretentious and often pathological nonsense in the art world." Those words were penned ten years ago by noted art critic Roger Kimball. As evidenced by the reaction to this "artwork" by the artistic community, nothing has changed.

Unlike the Smithsonian, which is federally funded, MoMA is largely supported by fat cats like Glenn D. Lowry, the museum's director, thus alleviating some of our objections. Lowry makes over $2 million a year and lives for free in a $6 million condo atop the museum. Unlike the rest of us, he pays no income tax on his housing.

Looks like the artistic community got fleeced twice: once by embracing the "pathological nonsense" of this masterpiece, and once by the corporate welfare queen who runs—and lives in—the joint.

Conservative Blogs Unleash More Animosity in Reaction to Obama’s Speech

After President Obama called for more civility and reconciliation in politics and asked Americans to remember the late Christina Taylor Green, saying, “I want our democracy to be as good as she imagined it,” right-wing blogs came out swinging and swiftly responded with their predictable enmity.

RedState’s Erick Erickson wrote that Obama was the one to atone for his ties to Bill Ayers, and also said that progressives were plotting Sarah Palin’s murder:

This is, after all, a man who got his political start in the home of a terrorist who’d dedicated a book to Robert F. Kennedy’s killer — a man who never repented but who Mr. Obama then gave grant money to.

Will the President live up to his own standard? Everyone can change. Everyone can repent. Let’s hope this President will.

But there is much that still must be done and much the left must still learn.



All week long, the left has said Jared Loughner was persuaded to try to kill Congresswoman Giffords because of right-wing hate. We know that was not true. But here is what else I am sure of.

Out there somewhere is someone who would love to kill Governor Palin. God forbid they do it. But you and I both know there is some crazy MSNBC watcher and Media Matters reader who even now is dreaming of doing so.

And should they try, we can be equally sure of something else. The left will be divided into two camps: (1) bitch deserved it and (2) not my fault.

It is unfortunate. I hope it never happens. But you and I both know the reality in which we live.

John Hayward of Human Events charged Obama and event organizers for putting on a political rally rather than a memorial service, and while Hayward said the President’s speech was “mostly excellent,” he then slammed him for being a “hard-core liberal” and for supporting Sheriff Dupnik’s earlier call for tolerance:

One of the most emotional moments came when President Obama departed from his script to announce that wounded Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords had opened her eyes… and he proceeded to work the line with hallelujah fervor, repeating it several times to juice up the crowd. There doesn’t seem to have been much effort to engineer an atmosphere of solemn dignity.



The most anticipated, and problematic, passage in the President’s speech was his call for a return to civility in politics. “What we can’t do is use this tragedy as one more occasion to turn on one another,” he declared. Sorry, Mr. President, but a vast segment of your supporters has already done that. Admonishing every part of the political spectrum to avoid “pointing fingers and assigning blame” is horribly disingenuous. Barack Obama is not a centrist wandering into a partisan squabble, and offering a hand of peace to both sides. He’s a hard-core liberal, and the hard Left has been doing all of the finger-pointing during this drama, beginning within minutes of the shooting.

Remember, this is the same President Obama who recently called the vicious partisan gasbag sheriff of Pima County, Clarence Dupnik, to congratulate him on a job well done. There is absolutely no evidence that Obama, or anyone from his Administration, told Dupnik to lay off his wacko theories about Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin inspiring Loughner to commit murder… theories he has loudly repeated in front of every television camera he can find.

Paul Mirengoff of Power Line was angry that despite numerous readings from the Bible from the President and other speakers, the service wasn’t 'Christian' or 'American' enough:

As for the "ugly," I'm afraid I must cite the opening "prayer" by Native American Carlos Gonzales. It was apparently was some sort of Yaqui Indian tribal thing, with lots of references to "the creator" but no mention of God. Several of the victims were, as I understand it, quite religious in that quaint Christian kind of way (none, to my knowledge, was a Yaqui). They (and their families) likely would have appreciated a prayer more closely aligned with their religious beliefs.

But it wasn't just Gonzales's prayer that was "ugly" under the circumstances. Before he ever got to the prayer, Gonzales provided us with a mini-auto biography and made several references to Mexico, the country from which (he informed us) his family came to Arizona in the mid 19th century. I'm not sure why Gonzales felt that Mexico needed to intrude into this service, but I have an idea.

In any event, the invocation could have used more God, less Mexico, and less Carlos Gonzales.

Conservative Blogs Unleash More Animosity in Reaction to Obama’s Speech

After President Obama called for more civility and reconciliation in politics and asked Americans to remember the late Christina Taylor Green, saying, “I want our democracy to be as good as she imagined it,” right-wing blogs came out swinging and swiftly responded with their predictable enmity.

RedState’s Erick Erickson wrote that Obama was the one to atone for his ties to Bill Ayers, and also said that progressives were plotting Sarah Palin’s murder:

This is, after all, a man who got his political start in the home of a terrorist who’d dedicated a book to Robert F. Kennedy’s killer — a man who never repented but who Mr. Obama then gave grant money to.

Will the President live up to his own standard? Everyone can change. Everyone can repent. Let’s hope this President will.

But there is much that still must be done and much the left must still learn.



All week long, the left has said Jared Loughner was persuaded to try to kill Congresswoman Giffords because of right-wing hate. We know that was not true. But here is what else I am sure of.

Out there somewhere is someone who would love to kill Governor Palin. God forbid they do it. But you and I both know there is some crazy MSNBC watcher and Media Matters reader who even now is dreaming of doing so.

And should they try, we can be equally sure of something else. The left will be divided into two camps: (1) bitch deserved it and (2) not my fault.

It is unfortunate. I hope it never happens. But you and I both know the reality in which we live.

John Hayward of Human Events charged Obama and event organizers for putting on a political rally rather than a memorial service, and while Hayward said the President’s speech was “mostly excellent,” he then slammed him for being a “hard-core liberal” and for supporting Sheriff Dupnik’s earlier call for tolerance:

One of the most emotional moments came when President Obama departed from his script to announce that wounded Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords had opened her eyes… and he proceeded to work the line with hallelujah fervor, repeating it several times to juice up the crowd. There doesn’t seem to have been much effort to engineer an atmosphere of solemn dignity.



The most anticipated, and problematic, passage in the President’s speech was his call for a return to civility in politics. “What we can’t do is use this tragedy as one more occasion to turn on one another,” he declared. Sorry, Mr. President, but a vast segment of your supporters has already done that. Admonishing every part of the political spectrum to avoid “pointing fingers and assigning blame” is horribly disingenuous. Barack Obama is not a centrist wandering into a partisan squabble, and offering a hand of peace to both sides. He’s a hard-core liberal, and the hard Left has been doing all of the finger-pointing during this drama, beginning within minutes of the shooting.

Remember, this is the same President Obama who recently called the vicious partisan gasbag sheriff of Pima County, Clarence Dupnik, to congratulate him on a job well done. There is absolutely no evidence that Obama, or anyone from his Administration, told Dupnik to lay off his wacko theories about Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin inspiring Loughner to commit murder… theories he has loudly repeated in front of every television camera he can find.

Paul Mirengoff of Power Line was angry that despite numerous readings from the Bible from the President and other speakers, the service wasn’t 'Christian' or 'American' enough:

As for the "ugly," I'm afraid I must cite the opening "prayer" by Native American Carlos Gonzales. It was apparently was some sort of Yaqui Indian tribal thing, with lots of references to "the creator" but no mention of God. Several of the victims were, as I understand it, quite religious in that quaint Christian kind of way (none, to my knowledge, was a Yaqui). They (and their families) likely would have appreciated a prayer more closely aligned with their religious beliefs.

But it wasn't just Gonzales's prayer that was "ugly" under the circumstances. Before he ever got to the prayer, Gonzales provided us with a mini-auto biography and made several references to Mexico, the country from which (he informed us) his family came to Arizona in the mid 19th century. I'm not sure why Gonzales felt that Mexico needed to intrude into this service, but I have an idea.

In any event, the invocation could have used more God, less Mexico, and less Carlos Gonzales.

SBA List’s Marjorie Dannenfelser Claims Victory Over “Social Issues Truce”

Indiana Governor and potential presidential candidate Mitch Daniels has taken a pounding from the Religious Right, since June and even up to today, for suggesting that there should be a “truce” over social issues in order to increase attention to the country’s economic problems and debt. Marjorie Dannenfelser, the head of the fiercely anti-choice and poorly named group the Susan B. Anthony List, writes in the National Review that the debate over the next chairman of the Republican National Committee shows that GOP has decidedly rejected any moderation on social issues such as the right to choose and gay rights. She praises the conservative views of the RNC chair candidates and also points out that Daniels himself even backpedaled on his own call for a truce. But while Dannenfelser believes the GOP is united over the importance of social issues, CPAC’s growing crisis reflects otherwise.

The debate was completely devoid of the kind of fireworks that political commentators love. As SBA List and National Organization for Marriage Skype pre-interviews had suggested, each of the five candidates affirmed without hesitation their determination to support the Republican platform’s social-issue stands and to honor that support in the party’s programs, from recruiting candidates to buying ads to micro-targeting votes.

The aura of unity sorely exasperated professional cynics like the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank, who fumed for his readers, “The candidates were nearly dissent-free. Abortion? All opposed. Lower taxes? All in favor. Gay marriage? All opposed. Cutting spending? All in favor.” Jon Stewart found comedy in the comity.

Far from being a dull affair, however, the debate proved that the 2011 GOP has an unshakable core — and this core exercises real influence over the expressed convictions of the GOP’s national leaders. After all, only two short years ago, current RNC chairman Michael Steele — who was a board member of the pro-choice Republican Leadership Council — told GQ magazine that he believed abortion was an “individual choice.” Maria Cino, one of the four leading challengers he faced this week, served on the board of WISH List, a political action committee devoted solely to electing pro-choice Republican women.

At the debate, both Steele and Cino expressed profound pro-life conviction and commitment.



Governor Daniels, for his own part, made another attempt just after Christmas to explain away his “truce talk,” saying that his message was not directed at social conservatives but at the people “aggressively trying to change the definition of marriage.” His advice to the liberal activists: “Stand down for awhile” so the country can focus on its deepening fiscal crisis.

All of this is progress — and rapid progress at that. It’s also recognition that the conservative resurgence this past November involved a confluence, and not a divergence, of the social, fiscal, and national-security streams within the GOP. One week into the two-year cycle that leads to the reelection or defeat of Barack Obama, the GOP truce on internal disunity is turning out to be the one that really counts.

Jon Stewart Named 28th “Most Dangerous Liberal” in America

According to the popular conservative online news website Townhall, Comedy Central host Jon Stewart is the number 28 “most dangerous liberal” in the country. Written by Townhall’s Executive Editor Chris Field, Stewart is a “radical liberal” and part of George Soros’s progressive web. Stewart falls right below Rev. Jim Wallis, the leader of the Christian social justice group Sojourners, who placed #27, but he’s seen as far more “dangerous” than Markos Moulitsas of DailyKos (#40) and Rachel Maddow of MSNBC (#44). While Field didn’t have any problems with the Daily Show’s report by Aasif Mandvi on critics of the McDonald’s Happy Meals, Field slams Stewart for purportedly persuading young voters into becoming progressives:

Political satirist Jon Stewart's tongue is acid-tipped. His popular "Daily Show" program regularly slays elected officials for hypocrisy and self-importance, derides political buffoonery and skewers media excesses. More often than not, it's bitingly hilarious and decidedly Left-leaning: a potent combination.

A 2007 media survey revealed that more than one-in-10 young voters relied on Stewart's show as a primary source of political news -- a share that has undoubtedly swelled since. It's no small coincidence that voters aged 18-29 backed Barack Obama for president by a breathtaking 2-to-1 margin.

While acting as a formidable political opinion maker, Stewart inoculates himself against serious criticism by playing the "I'm just a comedian" card. This artifice has become known among conservatives as the Jon Stewart "clown nose on, clown nose off " routine.

Laugh all you want. It works.

Potential Bachmann Presidential Bid Makes the Religious Right Giddy, Elicits Reagan Comparisons

After the news broke that Rep. Michele Bachmann was considering a bid for the Presidency, the Minnesota Congresswoman immediately found strong support in the GOP’s far-right base. While much attention has been paid to her leadership role in the Tea Party, as she chairs both the Tea Party and the Constitutional Conservative Caucuses, Bachmann is also one of the Religious Right’s most beloved members of Congress. She built her political career in Minnesota as a fierce opponent of the teaching of evolution, reproductive rights, and LGBT equality. Once elected to the House of Representatives, she became a Religious Right leader on a national level, finding favor with figures like David Barton, Rick Scarborough, Tony Perkins, and Lou Engle, along with a whole litany of far-right organizations and radical religious groups. Stephanie Mencimer of Mother Jones details the Congresswoman’s close ties to the Dominionist movement, which believes that fundamentalist Christians must run the government to hasten the end-times, most notably Coral Ridge Ministries.

Today, Bachmann received a ringing endorsement from Matt Barber, the Liberty Counsel’s Director of Cultural Affairs and a ferociously anti-gay leader, who calls her “Reagan in pumps.” Barber praises Bachmann for being the most conservative member of the House, and believes her mix of Tea Party bravado and Religious Right fundamentalism makes her the perfect presidential contender that would “mop the floor” with Obama:

From the instant his fruitful eight-year reign ended, Republicans have pined for the next Ronald Reagan. To date, no man has succeeded in filling the conservative standard-bearer's legendary boots. Well, maybe it's time to swap boots for pumps. Could he be a she?

Sarah Palin, you say? Perhaps, but there's actually another outspoken, attractive, fearlessly conservative Tea Party favorite firing up the center-right grass roots: Rep. Michele Bachmann, Minnesota Republican.

Forget a Senate run. The buzz inside the Beltway is that Mrs. Bachmann may be looking to add a woman's touch to the Oval Office (beyond just sprucing up its temporary occupant's eyesore decor). Her spokesman, Doug Sachtleben, has confirmed to media that the congresswoman is considering a potential presidential run, saying: "Nothing's off the table."



Mrs. Bachmann has been a stalwart in advocating on behalf of constitutional conservatism. She's chairman of the HouseTea Party Caucus and has put her money where her mouth is, voting consistently in Congress to limit the size and scope of government, fortify national security and protect life, liberty and the natural family. National Journal rated Mrs. Bachmann among the most conservative members of Congress in 2009.

Moreover, as with Reagan, it's principle over popularity with the feminine firebrand. She's evidently indifferent to what the moonbat media and the larger loony left think about her. This is an indispensable quality in a leader "We the People" can get behind. She's a maverick's maverick, not the media's.

Still, Mrs. Bachmann is not afraid to shake things up in her own Republican Party. What she lacks in physical stature, she makes up for in - to borrow one of the mainstream media's favorite terms - gravitas. If it takes a step stool to kick a moderate Republican in name only's tail into line, the counterestablishment lawmaker will climb it and kick it.

True, a House member hasn't been elected president since James Garfield, and a woman never has. But as Barack Obama, our first black president, might tell you: We live in an age of firsts.

And speaking of Mr. Obama: In the unlikely event that you could untether him from his tele-prompter binky long enough to debate Mrs. Bachmann, I'd bet my share of the stimulus money that she'd mop the floor with him.

Will she run? Could she win? It remains to be seen. But one thing's for sure: The fireworks leading up to the 2012 presidential election will be something to behold. Based on her penchant for telling it like it is, her existing widespread Tea Party support and her fast-growing national popularity, if this intelligent, principled, bomb-dropping bombshell were to run, I suspect her campaign might just catch fire.

In addition, Larry Klayman, the former founder of Judicial Watch and Freedom Watch, is also excited about a Bachmann presidential bid. Writing for WorldNetDaily, Klayman believes that Bachmann is the best Republican suited to take on Obama’s “socialist, anti-white and anti-Judeo-Christian policies” and is “the next Ronald Reagan”:

Still smug that it can retain the White House in 2012, even after President Obama has alienated most of the nation with his socialist, anti-white and anti-Judeo-Christian policies, the left has set out to destroy the one truly principled politician who can unite conservatives, libertarians, independents, tea partiers, people of faith and any American who truly believes in constrained government, fiscal and individual responsibility, a strong national defense, life, and yes, freedom under God! Her name is Michele Bachmann, and she is a congresswoman from Minnesota.



Last Thursday, as I was flying to New York City on Virgin America (it would be nice if the nation and the media were still "Virgin America" and not run by whores) to attend a proceeding before the New York Supreme Court in my case against the Ground Zero mosque and its terrorist-connected Imam Rauf, I tuned in Matthews, Obermann, Maddow and O'Donnell on the airline's in-flight television system. Not surprisingly, Matthews, with his characteristic nasty sneer, immediately mocked Michele's having been recently appointed to the House Intelligence Committee, implying that she is stupid and has no "intelligence." Then, as he did in a low-class way on election night 2010, Matthews mocked her again for having previously challenged the media to discuss the anti-American rhetoric that spews from many Democratic members of Congress, not to mention the Mullah in Chief himself, Barack Hussein Obama. To add insult to injury, Matthews then also insinuated that Michele is mentally ill, saying that she always has that weird gaze when she comes on camera. And, if this were not enough, Matthews and his leftist media guests boasted that Michele cannot be trusted and, with the age-old stereotype for "chatty women," would surely reveal national security secrets once on the House Intelligence Committee. They also made fun of her Christian beliefs. All in all, it was a disgusting display.



The lesson is simple. Michele Bachmann, because she is a principled anti-establishment conservative who not only talks the talk but walks the walk, is a real threat to the establishment left in particular. An attractive anti-feminist woman who is a Christian and is not afraid to be part of our revolution to take Washington apart at the seams, she could well be the next president of the United States. And, not only is the left scared, so much so that it will disgrace itself by mocking a highly intelligent, well-educated and experienced straight female who believes in individual freedom and the vision of our Founding Fathers, it is catatonic. This in and of itself tells us who the next Ronald Reagan could well be.

WND: AZ Shooter Attended School "Founded by Bill Ayers and Funded by President Obama"

As the nation attempts to deal with the tragic events of this weekend in Arizona in which Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and several others were shot and several people lost their lives, everyone is trying to figure out what drove Jared Lee Loughner to carry out such an attack.

While Loughner apparently had serious mental problems, you can always leave it up to WorldNetDaily to discover the true cause - Bill Ayers and President Obama

Jared Lee Loughner, the suspected gunman in Saturday's Arizona shooting, attended a high school that is part of a network in which teachers are trained and provided resources by a liberal group founded by Weatherman terrorist Bill Ayers and funded by President Obama, WND has learned.

The group, Small Schools Workshop, has been led by a former top communist activist who is an associate of Ayers.

Obama provided the group with funds in the 1990s when he worked at an education reform group alongside Ayers.

Right Wing Boycott Movement Links CPAC to the Muslim Brotherhood

Incensed over the participation of the conservative gay-rights group GOProud in the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, far-right activists are now trying to connect the major conservative event to the Muslim Brotherhood. The American Conservative Union (ACU), which hosts CPAC, has been the target of Religious Right groups and leaders over their handling of GOProud’s involvement, with Joseph Farah even calling for conservatives to “purge” the ACU from the movement. Already, the Family Research Council, Concerned Women For America, American Values, the American Principles Project, the Capital Research Center, the Center for Military Readiness, Liberty Counsel, Liberty University, and the National Organization for Marriage have announced their boycott of CPAC.

Now, the conservative news site WorldNetDaily, a major cheerleader for the groups boycotting CPAC, is giving right wing activist Frank Gaffney a platform to charge the ACU with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, a radical Islamist group. Gaffney is no stranger to conspiracy theories, as he previously claimed that the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell “amounts to a vote for reinstating the draft,” maintained that Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan is tied to an “ominous campaign” to “bring Shariah to America,” and said that Barack Obama is “America’s first Muslim president.” He is joined by WorldNetDaily’s Paul Sperry, who wrote a book asserting that radical Muslims were infiltrating the government through the congressional internship program.

Gaffney outlines a theory that since the ACU is allowing the leader of an organization known as Muslims for America, a conservative group with ties to the GOP, to participate in CPAC, the ACU is supporting a “stealthy effort to bring Shariah” to America. He is also outraged that Grover Norquist, the head of the highly influential Americans for Tax Reform and a GOProud board member, is involved in CPAC as well. But mostly, Gaffney directs his vitriol at Suhail Khan, the chairman of the Conservative Inclusion Coalition. Both Khan and Norquist are ACU board members, and in 2009 Khan received the Young Conservatives Coalition’s Buckley Award at CPAC. But according to Gaffney, Khan has ties to radical Islamists and, along with Norquist, wants to promote a “seditious totalitarian political program” in the U.S.:

With the Conservative Political Action Conference under fire for allowing participation by a homosexual activist group called GOProud and for a financial scandal in which some $400,000 was misappropriated under the watch of current leadership, Frank Gaffney, a leader of the conservative movement for the last 30 years, charges that CPAC has come under the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is working to bring America under Saudi-style Shariah law.

Gaffney, deputy assistant secretary of defense under Ronald Reagan, is founder and president of the Center for Security Policy and co-author of the new book "Shariah: The Threat to America." He told WND that Islamism has infiltrated the American Conservative Union, the host of CPAC, in the person of Washington attorney and political activist Suhail Khan and a group called Muslims for America.

Khan is a member of the ACU board and, according to Muslims for America, will assist the group's presence at CPAC during the 2011 meeting Feb. 10-12.

Gaffney also accuses another ACU board member, leading conservative political organizer Grover Norquist, of helping the Muslim Brotherhood spread its influence in the nation's capital.



Paul Sperry, author of "Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington" and "Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That's Conspiring to Islamize America," says Khan is running "an influence operation on Capitol Hill that's quite sophisticated and slick."

"Suhail is the firstborn son of the late Mahboob Khan, a founding father of the Muslim Brotherhood movement in America," said Sperry, a Hoover Institution media fellow. "Suhail has been a consultant to CAIR [The Council on American-Islamic Relations] and served on committees at ISNA [the Islamic Society of North America], both of which the government says are fronts for Hamas and its parent the Muslim Brotherhood."



Gaffney describes Norquist, who, ironically also serves on the board of the controversial GOProud, as the enabler for Muslim Brotherhood associates, providing them with access into the highest reaches of the conservative movement and the Republican Party through his many contacts. Norquist, the founder of Americans for Tax Reform, hosts a weekly political organizing meeting attended by many of the leading conservatives in Washington.

"This is a ticking time bomb for the conservative community," said Gaffney. Using language reminiscent of the Cold War, Gaffney declared, "An influence operation is contributing materially to the defeat of our country, supporting a stealthy effort to bring Shariah here.

"Grover Norquist is credentialing the perpetrators of this Muslim Brotherood influence operation," he adds. "This is part of tradecraft, to get people who have standing in a community to give it to people who lack it, so they can do what they're assigned to do in terms of subversion. We are in a war, and he has been working with the enemy for over a decade."

Norquist declined to respond to WND requests for comment.

Said Gaffney, "What's going on in conservative circles should give everyone real cause for concern. What it bespeaks is an effort to penetrate and influence conservatives, who are the most likely and perhaps only community in America who will stand up to and ultimately help ensure the defeat of this seditious totalitarian political program."
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Barack Obama Posts Archive

Brian Tashman, Tuesday 09/27/2011, 10:56am
Lou Engle traveled to Columbus, Ohio last week to join Janet Porter, Wendy Wright, Jim Garlow, Bob McKeown, Dutch Sheets and other Religious Right leaders at Faith 2 Action’s rally promoting Porter’s Heartbeat Bill, which would criminalize abortion in the vast majority of cases. The legislation has passed the state House, but the Republican leadership in the Senate has been reluctant to hold a vote on the bill, which is so extreme and clearly unconstitutional that it’s even opposed by the Ohio Right to Life Society. In a speech at the rally, Engle repeated his... MORE >
Brian Tashman, Monday 09/26/2011, 2:08pm
Judicial Watch founder Larry Klayman took to Renew America to demand Americans “take matters into our own hands and wage a Second American Revolution” against President Barack Obama, who he calls “our mullah in chief.” The conservative activist focuses on the bid to recognize Palestinian statehood in the United Nations to attack Obama and the “self-hating ultra-leftist Jews Obama surrounds himself with.” Klayman writes: It always amazes me how naïve many in the conservative movement are. While optimism is generally a good thing, there is no cause for... MORE >
Brian Tashman, Monday 09/19/2011, 12:17pm
Jim Bakker, following the collapse of The PTL Club and a stint in jail for twenty four counts of fraud, seems to be having something of a revival. He has launched a new television program and founded Morningside, a Christian community in Missouri modeled after his failed and fraudulent Heritage USA project (Heritage USA is now the home of Rick Joyner’s MorningStar Ministries). Now Bakker is out with a new book, “Big Book of History.” Promoting the book on his blog, Bakker explains that the courts and President Barack Obama “kicked God out of schools and eventually we... MORE >
Kyle Mantyla, Friday 09/09/2011, 5:24pm
Bradlee Dean is apparently under the impression that President Obama cares what he thinks. I suspect that the fact that Rick Joyner used to own a charter jet company probably has a lot to do with this defense of corporate jets. Hey, Bryan Fischer still hates Muslims. FRC says that "until the crisis within the family is reversed, America's economic slowdown is only going to increase." NOM says it has launched a $75,000 independent expenditure campaign in the race to replace Anthony Weiner in New York's Congressional District 9." Finally, I... MORE >
Brian Tashman, Monday 08/29/2011, 1:50pm
No matter how many times the deceitful claim that abortion providers are systematically targeting the black community for genocide is repudiated, new anti-choice groups can’t seem to stop running more ‘black genocide’ billboard campaigns. In March, a group called Life Always notoriously used images of President Barack Obama and a young black girl in their billboard campaign that abortion is black genocide. Earlier this summer the National Black Pro-Life Coalition put up billboards in Atlanta likening legal abortion to slavery and the Radiance Foundation and Issues4Life... MORE >
Brian Tashman, Friday 08/26/2011, 11:39am
As first reported on Right Wing Watch, William Gheen of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC appeared on The Janet Mefferd Show and discussed the possibility of a military coup and other “extra-political activities that I can’t really talk about because they’re all illegal and violent” to overthrow “Dictator Barack Obama.” While Gheen later denied the comments, even after they were replayed to him verbatim on Alan Colmes’s show, Mefferd yesterday weighed in on Gheen’s statements. Mefferd strongly distanced herself from Gheen and made clear that... MORE >
Brian Tashman, Wednesday 08/24/2011, 5:48pm
Americans for Legal Immigration PAC’s William Gheen is out in force after we at People For the American Way’s Right Wing Watch reported on an interview with Janet Mefferd in which he said that “extra-political activities” that he described as “illegal and violent” might be the only way for people to stop the "Dictator Barack Obama." Gheen told Mefferd that the Obama administration is “putting out videos and propaganda telegraphing what I believe to be a conflict with White America they’re preparing for after they get another 10 or 15... MORE >
Brian Tashman, Monday 08/22/2011, 5:22pm
William Gheen of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC joined Janet Mefferd today to make the case that President Obama is now a dictator who plans to create a police state and use undocumented immigrants to wage war on “White America.” Gheen, who previously accused Obama of treason and “replacing many core Americans” (among other radical claims), told Mefferd that “extra-political activities that I can’t really talk about because they’re all illegal and violent” may be needed to bring down Obama. Later in the interview, Gheen demanded that... MORE >