Johnny Isakson

Herman Cain: The Right Wing Sleeper Candidate in 2012?

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Thursday, 12/16/2010 4:39 pm

Politico’s Ben Smith discussed today the unforeseen possibility that right wing activist Herman Cain could be a surprise Republican candidate for president, after he bested all other Republicans in an online straw poll conducted by the conservative blog RedState. Cain, an African American businessman and radio talk show host, even topped Sarah Palin, who came in second, to be the favorite of the right wing blogosphere. Erick Erickson of RedState writes, “I like Herman Cain and, though truth be told I never thought he’d make it past Mike Pence, I am delightfully surprised by the results.”

There is already a Draft Cain movement and he operates his own political action committee, called The Hermanator PAC (seriously). He has received praise from conservative darlings from Bishop Harry Jackson and Bryan Fischer to Joe the Plumber, and Cain himself is talking-up his chances at a presidential bid, telling The Daily Caller: “I will run proudly as a non-establishment candidate. I think the public has an appetite for a non-establishment candidate.” More recently, Cain told Fischer on the American Family Association’s radio program that after Republican gains in November, he is “one step closer” to running for President. When pondering a run, he explained: “No I don’t want to…but I feel like I must run.”

Of course, a 2012 presidential run wouldn’t be Cain’s first foray into politics. Cain is closely involved with Tea Party organizations and co-signed a letter with prominent right wing leaders asking the GOP leadership make “restoring traditional moral values” a key part of their agenda. He also ran for US Senate in 2004 in his home state of Georgia but garnered just 26% of the vote and lost to Senator Johnny Isakson in the GOP primary.

During the 2006 election, Cain was the public face of America’s PAC, a group that used stereotypical language and imagery when calling on Black voters to support Republicans. Cain, who voiced many of the group’s ads, maintained, “The main thing that America’s Pac is up to is it basically is challenging the thesis or the belief on the part of the Republican Party that they cannot attract the black vote.” America’s PAC suggested that Democrats were “decimating our population” by supporting abortion rights:

“Black babies are terminated at triple the rate of white babies,” a female announcer in one of the ads says, as rain, thunder, and a crying infant are heard in the background.

“The Democratic Party supports these abortion laws that are decimating our people, but the individual's right to life is protected in the Republican platform. Democrats say they want our vote. Why don't they want our lives?”

Or as put in another ad:

Michael: And if you make a little mistake with one of your ho’s, you’ll want to dispose of that problem toot sweet, no questions asked, right?

Dennis: Naw, that’s too cold. I don’t snuff my own seed …

Michael: Huh. Really? (pause) Well, maybe you do have a reason to vote Republican!

America’s PAC was heavily backed by Republican financiers and led by a conservative activist who said that teaching evolution is “tantamount to teaching atheism.” Another one of their ads suggested that Democrats who opposed the Iraq War were treacherously allied with racist and right wing leader David Duke, who also opposed the war:

Now, I can understand why a Ku Klux Klan cracker like David Duke makes nice with the terrorists. They fight voting rights in Iraq, just like he does back home. But what I want to know is why so many of the Democrat politicians I helped elect are on the same side of the Iraq war as David Duke.

According to a report by the New York Sun, “Many of the ads with conservative social themes are sandwiched between hip-hop songs that convey blunt sexual messages. A spokesman for America’s Pac, John Altevogt, said no stations have refused the ads, but a few asked for minor edits, such as the removal of the word ‘cracker’ from the David Duke spot.”

However, the ads failed to produce significant gains for the GOP among Black voters, as nine in ten African Americans backed Democratic candidates in 2006.

Certainly, the Tea Party, the Religious Right, and the GOP will seek Cain’s help to attract Black voters in case his presidential run fails to get off the ground. Judging by his track record at America’s PAC in 2006, they may want to look elsewhere.

 

2012 Candidates Weekly Update

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Tuesday, 9/14/2010 10:31 am

Although there are no announced Republican candidates for President, the race for 2012 is already underway with a number of candidates testing the waters. RightWingWatch will begin bringing you weekly updates on new speeches, events, controversies, and activities of potential 2012 contenders.

Haley Barbour

2012: Claims that his lobbyist experience will help him as President (US News & World Report, 9/14).

Civil-rights: Odd history from Barbour on Ole Miss integration (McClatchy, 9/9)

Mitch Daniels

2012: Meets with GOP fundraisers and “well-connected Republican figures” (Politico, 9/14).

Newt Gingrich

Obama: Claims that Obama represents “Kenyan, anti-colonial” worldview citing a D’Souza article in Forbes which says Obama’s agenda is to fulfill the dreams of his father, whom D’Souza calls a “philandering, inebriated African socialist” (WhoRunsGov, 9/12).

2010: Predicts GOP majority in House and Senate, Reid loss (CNSNews, 9/13).

Government: Floats government shutdown if GOP wins majorities (GOP12, 9/12).

Abortion: Gingrich adviser blames legal abortion for unemployment (RightWingWatch, 9/13).

Education: Scheduled to appear on Rev. Al Sharpton’s new show on education issues (Hollywood Reporter, 9/13).

Mike Huckabee

2010: Fundraises for Rob Portman and Steve Chabot in Ohio (Business Courier, 9/13).

2012: Set to address the Michigan Chamber of Commerce on economy, education, and health care (WLNS, 9/14).

Sarah Palin

2010: Holds fundraiser for Rand Paul in Louisville on Thursday (Kentucky Enquirer, 9/13); records robocalls for two Mama Grizzlies: Christine O’Donnell in Delaware and Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire before primaries.

GOP: David Plouffe claims “Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck” lead the Republican Party. “All of these Republican candidates have to pledge allegiance to them, their intolerance and their backwards thinking” (New York Times, 9/13)

Right-wing: Says Statue of Liberty meant to be a “warning” to the US “not to go down the path of other countries that adopted socialist policies” (FireDogLake, 9/13).

Park51: Imam Rauf cites Palin for encouraging a “growing Islamophobia” (NY Daily News, 9/12).

George Pataki

New Hampshire: Tells Bedford audience that “government is intimately involved in creating the problems,” responsible for stoking the economic crisis (Union Leader, 9/13).

Health Care: Writes Op-Ed calling for repeal of Health Care Reform (USA Today, 9/13).

Tim Pawlenty

New Hampshire: Sends six staffers from leadership PAC to the Granite State (AP, 9/14)

Economy: Visits Shanghai World’s Fair, says of China: “They're not racing us to the bottom. They're racing us to the top” (Minnesota Post, 9/13).

Mitt Romney

2010: Fundraiser in the works for GA Senator Johnny Isakson (Atlanta Journal Constitution, 9/13).

Rick Santorum

2012: Calls for infusion of religion into politics, rejects JFK’s 1960 speech defending the separation of church and state (RightWingWatch, 9/13).

Obama: Claims the President is “condescending” to GOP leaders (GOP12, 9/13).

Right Wing Round-Up

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Wednesday, 8/12/2009 5:21 pm
  • The Southern Poverty Law Center has released a new report: "They're back. Almost a decade after largely disappearing from public view, right-wing militias, ideologically driven tax defiers and sovereign citizens are appearing in large numbers around the country."

  • Be sure to take a look at some of the other crazy things that Orly Taitz believes.

  • Sen. Johnny Isakson has now boldly recanted his statement that people who think healthcare reform will lead to death panels are "nuts."

  • Rep. Paul Broun declares that Democrats are just waiting to use a pandemic disease or natural disaster as an excuse to declare martial law.

  • Rep. Michele Bachmann's son has fallen victim to one of President Obama's "re-education camps."

  • What is the deal with conservative politicians in Oklahoma?

  • Finally, I was not aware that gay sex spread swine flu while straight sex did not, but apparently that is the case in Malaysia.

The Right Turns Ezekiel Emanuel Into "Doctor Death"

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Tuesday, 8/11/2009 11:15 am

Alex Koppelman has written a good piece on how Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, healthcare adviser to President Obama and brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, has become, for the Right, the poster boy for the supposed push for "death panels" and mandatory euthanasia in healthcare reform legislation, despite the fact that, as Koppelman notes, he "opposes even voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide":

Like Sarah Palin said last week, if you're old, sick or disabled -- or have a friend or loved one who is -- you should be very wary of Democratic healthcare plans. And, too, you should keep an eye on "the Orwellian thinking of the president’s health care advisor, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of the White House chief of staff." This is, after all, one of the two advisors to President Obama dubbed "deadly doctors" by the New York Post, a man also known as "Doctor Death," who, as conservative blogger Gateway Pundit explained, "supports euthanasia ... [and] believe[s] medical care should be reserved for non-disabled 'participating' members of society."

It's become a growing theme on the right: "Obamacare" will mean mandatory euthanasia for your grandmother in order to save money, and the person who created the ideological underpinnings for that policy is the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

There's a certain irony to that suggestion. Ezekiel Emanuel, who's currently advising the administration on healthcare reform through a post at the White House Office of Management and Budget, is actually one of the country's leading medical ethicists, a forceful defender of people approaching the end of their life. Indeed, he opposes even voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide.

Koppelman points out that the false claims about Emanuel's work, recommendations, and beliefs are the result of notorious right-wing healthcare hack Betsy McCaughey's intentionally misleading smears, which have been quickly picked up by the Right and spread as gospel.

Case in point: this new Rick Scarborugh Report from Vision America:

Prov. 13:20 states "He who walks with the wise becomes wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm." The phrase "suffers harm" comes from a word that means "to become evil, to be made worse."

A fool is defined in the Bible as the person who says there is no God. I think we are being fair with Scripture to also include those who redefine who God is and who usurp roles which God has reserved only for Himself, including the choice of who lives and who dies.

It seems that our President has surrounded himself with people who believe they have the wisdom to make decisions which our Founders clearly left in the purview of God.

Dr. Ezekiel Emmanuel, one of Obama's top healthcare advisors and brother of Rahm Emmanuel who is the President's Chief of Staff, co-authored an article earlier this year entitled "Principles for allocation of scarce medical interventions" It outlines four principles:

1. Treating people equally - which suggests a lottery type system, because it is "hard to corrupt." In other words, let's just roll the dice to see who gets treatment first!

2. Prioritarianism - treating the youngest first because "they have had the least life." In other words: Good luck Granny, here's another pill!

3. Utilitarianism -maximizes the most life-years produced

4. Promoting and rewarding social usefulness. - In Ezekiel Emmanuel's own words, and reminiscent of members of the Third Reich: Include only irreplaceable people who have suffered serious losses. God, help us stop this madness!

...

If Obama's Healthcare Czar implements this system, God help the very old and the very young. Is this what you want? Sarah Palin put into words what millions are thinking: what will happen to me or my loved one if government bureaucrats decide that my/their life isn't worth saving prolonging? Do we really want a government bureaucrat making these decisions?

Of course, if you actually bother to read "Principles for Allocation of Scarce Medical Interventions" [PDF] you immediately see that it focuses on the allocation of "very scarce medical interventions such as organs and vaccines" of which there is very clearly a finite and limited number. It is not talking about limiting healthcare treatment, but rather focuses on how best to allocate finite medical resources.

And even then, the article is primarily an examination of the various ways currently used in deciding the allocation of such resources, looking at the pluses and minuses of the various methods and concludes by offering its own system, which it calls "the complete lives system":

[T]he complete lives system combines four morally relevant principles: youngest-first, prognosis, lottery, and saving the most lives. In pandemic situations, it also allocates scarce interventions to people instrumental in realising these four principles. Importantly, it is not an algorithm, but a framework that expresses widely affirmed values: priority to the worst-off, maximising benefits, and treating people equally. To achieve a just allocation of scarce medical interventions, society must embrace the challenge of implementing a coherent multiprinciple framework rather than relying on simple principles or retreating to the status quo.

In short, not one word of Vision America's explanation of the article Emanuel co-authored is true ... and neither is this claim:

Dr. Emanuel has also said that in order to save money, doctors must "eliminate the Hippocratic Oath, which has been the foundation of medicine for centuries, and give more attention to cost when delete treating patients." He advocates rationing care to worthy patients who "need it most." This man and others who think like him are advising our President!

Take one guess where this quote, attributed to Emanuel, actually comes from. 

That's right: Betsy McCaughey.

For what it is worth, Ezra Klein conducted an interview with Sen. Johnny Isakson, a Republican from Georgia who pushed for the inclusion of end-of-life planning in the legislation, and Isakson says that claims that it would lead to "death panels ... where people would be euthanized" are absolutely "nuts." 

Klein also points out that Emanuel happens to believe that physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia ought to remain illegal.

But none of that will matter, because right-wing groups don't care about things like facts or reasonable debate ... especially when they can use their lies and distortions to whip up outrage and opposition and, more importantly, use it to raise money:

The time to act is NOW!!! If you believe that God, not Government, should decide who lives and dies, please fax, email and call our Congressmen. You can find contact information at www.Congress.org. We have to attend our Town Hall Meetings and express our outrage at the little value placed on human life in this Orwellian healthcare plan. If we are not motivated to action by this outrage, God help us! The time to act is NOW.

Select here to send a fax to all 535 Congressmen and tell them to vote no on the President's $1.6 trillion takeover of health care. Now is not the time to be silent.

Thank you in advance for your generous support!

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.

Syndicate content

Johnny Isakson Posts Archive

Herman Cain: The Right Wing Sleeper Candidate in 2012?
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Thursday 12/16/2010, 4:39pm
Politico’s Ben Smith discussed today the unforeseen possibility that right wing activist Herman Cain could be a surprise Republican candidate for president, after he bested all other Republicans in an online straw poll conducted by the conservative blog RedState. Cain, an African American businessman and radio talk show host, even topped Sarah Palin, who came in second, to be the favorite of the right wing blogosphere. Erick Erickson of RedState writes, “I like Herman Cain and, though truth be told I never thought he’d make it past Mike Pence, I am delightfully surprised... MORE >
2012 Candidates Weekly Update
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Tuesday 09/14/2010, 10:31am
Although there are no announced Republican candidates for President, the race for 2012 is already underway with a number of candidates testing the waters. RightWingWatch will begin bringing you weekly updates on new speeches, events, controversies, and activities of potential 2012 contenders. Haley Barbour 2012: Claims that his lobbyist experience will help him as President (US News & World Report, 9/14). Civil-rights: Odd history from Barbour on Ole Miss integration (McClatchy, 9/9) Mitch Daniels 2012: Meets with GOP fundraisers and “well-connected Republican figures... MORE >
Right Wing Round-Up
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Wednesday 08/12/2009, 5:21pm
The Southern Poverty Law Center has released a new report: "They're back. Almost a decade after largely disappearing from public view, right-wing militias, ideologically driven tax defiers and sovereign citizens are appearing in large numbers around the country."Be sure to take a look at some of the other crazy things that Orly Taitz believes.Sen. Johnny Isakson has now boldly recanted his statement that people who think healthcare reform will lead to death panels are "nuts."Rep. Paul Broun declares that Democrats are just waiting to use a pandemic disease or natural... MORE >
The Right Turns Ezekiel Emanuel Into "Doctor Death"
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Tuesday 08/11/2009, 11:15am
Alex Koppelman has written a good piece on how Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, healthcare adviser to President Obama and brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, has become, for the Right, the poster boy for the supposed push for "death panels" and mandatory euthanasia in healthcare reform legislation, despite the fact that, as Koppelman notes, he "opposes even voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide":Like Sarah Palin said last week, if you're old, sick or disabled -- or have a friend or loved one who is -- you should be very wary of Democratic healthcare plans... MORE >
Anti-Immigrant Group's Membership Balloons
, Monday 07/16/2007, 5:53pm
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.... MORE >