Norm Coleman

The news cycle has been filled with stories about the barrage of attack ads from new groups backed by wealthy donors and corporations, such as Karl Rove’s American Crossroads and Norm Coleman’s American Action Network. But many new organizations are formed on the local level and receive less attention for their misleading and business-backed ad campaigns. One of those new groups is the New Prosperity Foundation, a conservative organization that was formed in 2009 and is dedicated to electing Republicans in the Midwest.

A 527 organization, the New Prosperity Foundation received $50,000 from the Hunter Engineering Company, a car-parts company, $50,000 from right-wing activist Ethelmae Humphreys, $25,000 from Sam Fox (who previously financed Swift Boat Veterans for Truth), and $20,000 from the Illinois company FTC Services. The group is chaired by Gregory W. Baise, the head of the state’s Manufacturers’ lobby, and 2004 Bush Pioneer Ronald J. Gidwitz. The New Prosperity Foundation has spent over $300,000 in the Illinois Senate race alone.

While many organizations like the New Prosperity Foundation employ disingenuous and misleading charges in their ads, they don’t usually peddle flat-out and easily fact-checkable lies.

In its contrast ad criticizing Democrat Alexis Giannoulias, the group claims that while Giannoulias was "playing basketball" Mark Kirk was serving in Iraq.  Although Kirk claimed he served in Iraq, in reality, he never did. In fact, Kirk lied about serving in Iraq in 2003 on the House Floor, saying, “The last time I was in Iraq, I was in uniform flying at 20,000 feet and the Iraqi Air Defense network was shooting at us.”  Kirk also made false claims about his service in the Pentagon, Operation Desert Storm, and Kosovo, along with his time as a “teacher.” But for groups like the New Prosperity Foundation, airing factually accurate advertisements isn’t necessary when they have funding from a host of Bush pioneers and businesses to back them up.

Update: The New Prosperity Foundation has just taken down the ad, but here is the image when the narrator says: "When Mark Kirk was serving his country in Iraq, Alexi Giannoulias was serving his basketball team in Greece."

• Norm Coleman and others are seeking to create a right-wing version of the Center for American Progress and hoping to exploit the Citizen's United ruling to fund it.
• Mike Huckabee will be heading to Iowa to campaign for GOP gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats.
• James Dobson has endorsed Kansas GOP Senate candidate Rep. Todd Tiahrt.
• Apparently both the Indianapolis Colts and New Orleans Saints have players who are deeply religious.  Who knew? 
• According to campaign finance reports, the Alabama Christian Coalition has been accepting money from gambling interests.
• Finally, here is an argument that you don't see every day, from Bev Ehlen of Concerned Women for America: "I believe people are discriminated because of their age, because of their sexual practices, because of their weight, they have a speech impediment, because they're ugly, maybe because they're good looking. I know that people are being discriminated against. That's still not a reason to change law."

• Are you anxiously awaiting the return of Norm Coleman?
• Georgia's Republican House speaker resigned today after a suicide attempt and allegations by his ex-wife of an affair with a lobbyist.
• I, for one, am shocked: "The report represents a comprehensive review of the [Civil Rights] division’s litigation activity in the Bush administration. When compared with the Clinton administration, its findings show a significant drop in the enforcement of several major antidiscrimination and voting rights laws."
• Peter LaBarbera: Meredith Baxter Became a Lesbian, Let’s Pray She Becomes a Christian.
• CWA is concerned what marriage equality in Washington DC will mean to "those with moral beliefs, children, and the poor."
• Finally, enough with the Reagan worship already:

I have to say that Alan Colmes’ decision to leave his position on “Hannity and Colmes” is just about the best thing to ever happen … at least for me personally. And the reason is because he now has time to dedicate to interviewing fringe right wing figures on his radio program, much to my delight.

Take, for instance, this two-fer he pulled off yesterday where he interviewed Norma McCorvey (AKA, Jane Roe) to discuss her arrest during Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearing and Orly Taitz to discuss her representation of U.S. Army Maj. Stefan Frederick Cook, who is contesting his deployment to Afghanistan on the grounds that Barack Obama is ineligible to hold the office of President.

The Taitz interview is pretty much what you would expect: an exercise in insanity. Taitz flat-out dismissed Colmes' attempts to explain that Obama’s birth certificate has been made public and calls the people at Factcheck.org a “bunch of yahoos” for trying to explain as much.  Then, when Colmes asked her why she disliked the term “birther,” she replied by asking him if he likes the term “moron” because that is what she calls those who buy into Obama’s lies about his eligibility. She then said that all the name-calling is “retarded” … and that the judges who have thrown out her cases are “idiots" before alleging that there has been “one hundred times more fraud committed by Obama than [Richard] Nixon”:

That was crazy enough, but Colmes’ interview with McCorvey is unlike anything I have ever heard.

In it, she explained that she fell asleep during Sen. Al Franken’s remarks (because he was soooooo boooooring) during the opening of Sotomayor’s hearings and then work up and decided to just disrupt the proceedings so she could get her point across. Amazingly, McCorvey doesn’t even seem to know what state Franken represents (she says he’s from Michigan and calls him a “pirate” for stealing all those votes from poor Norm Coleman) and, more amazingly, doesn’t even seem to know Sotomayor’s name, calling her “Sotomotor” even after Colmes’ properly pronounced her name.

She then went on to assert that she had to protest because Sotomayor supports reproductive choice and when Colmes pointed out that very little is actually known about Sotomayor’s views on the issue and cites a case in which she ruled on procedural grounds against a challenge to President Bush’s Mexico City Policy, McCorvey said that was several years ago and that “she’s changed” since then. When Colmes asked her what evidence she has that Sotomayor has “changed,” she asserted that it’s obvious that she has changed because “she’s lived in liberal New York for all these years.”

Eventually, she admitted that she would oppose anyone that Obama nominated and, as Colmes valiantly tried to get her to provide some evidence that Sotomayor had “changed,” McCorvey just continued to insist that she had … until she reached the point where she was proclaiming that she wouldn’t be surprised if Sotomayor had Obama’s blood running through her veins – literally.

You absolutely have to listen to this:

God bless you, Alan Colmes.

• Crooks and Liars reports that former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline sent out a fund-raiser that invokes physician George Tiller and Planned Parenthood in seeking contributions for a campaign against abortion rights.
• Brian Beutler points out that the National Review's cover caricature of Sonia Sotomayor make her appear "inexplicably Asian."
• Alex Koppelman says gay marriage foes running out of arguments.
• Good As You, which has been doggedly following Cornerstone Policy Research's claims that it sampled every household in New Hampshire for its poll showing that 64% of residents oppose gay marriage, points out that its sample size was about 400,000 households less than it claimed.
• Steve Benen calls Sen. James Inhofe a "walking, talking disgrace."
• Finally, the Minnesota Independent catches Norm Coleman saying the key for Republican success is to be able to compete “in the ethernet."

• Good as You has the letter as well as the complete list of names of those who signed Elaine Donnelly's latest effort to save Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
• Anti-illegal immigration activist William Gheen is blaming the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League for a recent Missouri law enforcement report linking some right-wing organizations to the growing militia movement, despite that fact that neither group had anything to do with it.
• Media Matters catches Fox News once again passing off Republican talking points as "facts."
• Steve Benen finds that Norm Coleman's legal team responding to yesterday's damaging court loss by claiming they have "no choice but to appeal that order to Minnesota Supreme Court." As Benen notes: "And when that doesn't work out, it's safe to assume Ginsberg will have 'no choice' but to head to federal district court. And when that fails to give the GOP the results the party wants, Ginsberg will have 'no choice' but to seek relief from the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals. Eventually, the U.S. Supreme Court will be asked to weigh in."
• Sarah Posner is back with her latest FundamentaList - she also has a good post on Tony Dungy, saying the invitation risks creating a situation where the "White House's approval institutionalizes the cover that religion gives people like Dungy for their hostility to their fellow citizens."
• Dan Gilgoff reports on the growing rift between "Religious Progressives" and the "Religious Left," though I think his use of the term "religious progressives" to describe the centrists ends up glossing over what is actually one of the key areas of contention between the two groups.
• Think Progress reports that the authors of a report, which Republicans are citing to back up their claim that the green economy legislation before Congress would "cost every American family up to $3,100 per year in higher energy prices," are telling the GOP to stop intentionally misinterpreting their study.
• Jonathan Stein argues that "conservatives have a built-in ideological reason for opposing expertise on all subjects, not just science and the environment" which stems from the fact that "they fundamentally do not believe government should play an active role in Americans' lives."

• Politico reports that Republicans are encouraging Norm Coleman to be "as litigious as possible and take his fight all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court if he loses this round, believing that an elongated court fight is worth it if they can continue to deny Democrats the 59th Senate seat that Franken would represent."
• Next week, the Family Research Council will host a lecture entitled "Why Isn't Anyone Telling Our Kids About the Other Dangers of Casual Sex?"
• It seems that Sarah Palin's various staffers don't communicate very well.
• Lou Engle weighs in to voice his opposition to Kathleen Sebelius.
• It seems that Rick Santorum is unwilling to debate Andrew Sullivan on the issue of marriage equality.
• The Committee for Justice comments on President Obama's first judicial nominee, saying it "indicates that we will see the more radical side of Obama when it comes to judicial nominations," while LifeNews.com is already urging its readers to "contact your members of the Senate and express your opposition to Hamilton's nomination."

• Like Sarah Palin, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist is coming under fire for appointing a justice to the state Supreme Court whom the Religious Right did not support.
• We can all be glad that we didn't make donations to Norm Coleman's re-election campaign.
• Former Congressman and right-wing crank Virgil Goode has filed to re-claim the seat he lost last November.
• John Hagee, Rod Parsley, and others are coming together for GOD TV's "Mammoth Missions Week" which, unfortunately, has nothing to do with mammoths.
• Robert Knight says that efforts to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell is "a train wreck waiting to happen."
• Finally, Al Mohler says that there is no human punishment that can fully achieve justice for Bernie Madoff's crimes:

True justice is achieved only by the only one who is truly just and all powerful, whose verdicts are perfect and whose judgments are eternal. Human justice points to the need for a greater justice. The very inadequacy of human courts points to our yearning for a heavenly court.

We yearn for the end of history, when God will bring His creation to a perfect end; when God's redemptive purposes will be known to all; when justice flows like a mighty river. On that day justice will be perfect, and the righteous Judge will be none other than Jesus Christ, who paid the only adequate penalty for sin. On that day, God will judge both the quick and the dead, and his judgment upon the sheep and the goats will be both holy and just