Birther

Michele Bachmann

Book: Considering a proposal to write her memoirs (AP, 4/18).

South Carolina: Rally in South Carolina a bust (CBS News, 4/18). 

Birther: Continues to float birther conspiracy on Fox News (The Atlantic, 4/18). 

Budget: Falsely claims that the top 1% pay 40% of taxes (PolitiFact, 4/13). 

Haley Barbour

South Carolina: Wins Charleston County GOP straw poll (The State Column, 4/18). 

New Hampshire: Takes two-day swing in New Hampshire (Boston Globe, 4/15). 

Mike Huckabee

South Carolina: Meets with supporters from the 2008 campaign (RCP, 4/18). 

Iowa: Volunteers from 2008 bid work to build new campaign (The Ticket, 4/15). 

Jon Huntsman

South Carolina: Organizes campaign in the Palmetto State (CNN, 4/18).

Obama: Conservative website features laudatory letters from Huntsman to Obama (Daily Caller, 4/15).

Roy Moore

2012: Forms presidential exploratory committee (AP, 4/18). 

Religious Right: Travels around Iowa with staffer from the far-right The Family Leader (Des Moines Register, 4/18). 

Sarah Palin

PAC: Launches new website for leadership pac (The Caucus, 4/18). 

Tea Party: Addresses small rally for Koch front group in Wisconsin (TPM, 4/16). 

Ron Paul

South Carolina: Tops the field in the Lexington County straw poll (CNN, 4/16). 

2012: Opens fundraising account for potential presidential bid (Politico, 4/14). 

Tim Pawlenty

Tea Party: Keynotes tea party rally in Boston, slams health care reform (Boston Globe, 4/16). 

Budget: Criticizes compromise budget deal (The Fix, 4/13). 

Mitt Romney

Florida: Leads in early poll of Sunshine State Republicans (Taunton Daily Gazette, 4/17). 

Fundraising: Benefits from network of state leadership PACs (Boston Globe, 4/15). 

Donald Trump

GOP: Presidential campaign gains increasing interest among Republican activists (AP, 4/19). 

Tea Party: Addresses Tea Party rally with Florida Congressman Allen West (The State Column, 4/17). 

Poll: Leads other likely candidates in poll of Republicans nationwide (WSJ, 4/15). 

Rick Santorum

Campaign: Rejects pro-union line of Langston Hughes he used as a campaign motto (The Guardian, 4/18). 

Equality: Supports reinstating Don't Ask Don't Tell policy (Think Progress, 4/18). 

Religious Right: Plans to join The Family Leader's Iowa presidential lecture tour (RWW, 4/18).

New Hampshire: Plays in mini golf tournament in Granite State tour (Foster's Daily Democrat, 4/17).

• PFAW: Anatomy of a Koch-a-Thon: Sham Budget Hearings Brought to You by the Koch Brothers.
• Good As You: Marinelli to Newsweek/Daily Beast: Brian Brown has threatened legal action.
• Andy Kopsa @ Washington Independent: Rep. Trent Franks prepares secretive hearing on Defense of Marriage Act.
• Igor Volsky @ Wonk Room: NOM Won’t Back Notion That Homosexuality Is Health Risk, Claim No Concern Over Defecting Strategist.
• Joe.My.God: Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli To Block Gay Adoption Regulation.
• Alan Colmes: Factcheck.Org Trumps Trump.
• Jillian Rayfield @ TPM: Birther Czar Joseph Farah: I've Been Talking To Donald Trump 'Quite A Bit.'
• Carlos Maza & Brian Powell @ Equality Matters: Santorum To Beck: States Should Be Allowed To Criminalize Gay Sex.
• Alex Pareene @ Salon: The biggest, dumbest wingnut site on the Web.

After speaking alongside Newt Gingrich at Liberty University’s Awakening 2011, Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily is now praising Donald Trump for casting doubts on President Obama’s birth certificate. WorldNetDaily is a bastion for conspiracy theories about Obama and other issues, and most recently the website blatantly photoshopped a picture of Obama and his grandparents to try to find a “missing year” in his biography. Farah is one of the most vocal advocates of the discredited conspiracy that Obama is not a naturally-born citizen and consequently ineligible to serve as president, and even left CPAC after the gathering refused to hold his birther panel. In his column today, Farah says he is “eternally grateful” to Trump for propagating the conspiracy:

Donald Trump has billions of dollars and a very large megaphone.

I am eternally grateful to him for standing up boldly and demanding to see Barack Obama's birth certificate, as I have been doing for the last two and a half years.

He probably doesn't need my help, but I offer it here anyway. He's right – and the gals on "The View" and Lisa Myers at NBC are dead wrong.

Obama has not revealed his long-form birth certificate to anyone. And people who work in the press should be the first to recognize that rather than making excuses for the occupant of the White House to continue his stonewalling crusade.

It's a matter of constitutional integrity. It's a matter of national security.

This charade has gone on much too long – aided and abetted by people like Lisa Myers and Bill O'Reilly.

…

So, don't be discouraged, Mr. Trump. You are doing God's work here. You're right, and most of my colleagues in the news media are wrong. We have not seen the most essential and primary evidence needed to make a determination as to Barack Obama or Barry Soetoro's constitutional eligibility to serve in the White House.

Amazingly enough, we still don't know who this man is.

However, one thing the last two and a half years have established: He certainly has divided loyalties when it comes to the country he supposedly serves.

• PFAW: PFAW Applauds Ruling on Arizona Immigration Law.
• Good As You: Of course NOM's misrepping Louis' role. It's the one constant of the Brown/Marinelli marriage.
• Alan Colmes: Sarah Palin Encourages Donald Trump’s Birther Fantasies.
• Towleroad: Catholic League Takes Out Full-Page Ad in NYT Blaming Priest Abuse on Homosexuality.
• Scott Keyes @ Think Progress: As Bachmann Preps For Speech To Family Leader, Her Political Director Calls Group’s Claim About Gays ‘Absurd.’
• Equality Matters: Linda Harvey: Day Of Silence Creates "Hitler Youth Product."

Michele Bachmann

Iowa: Hires Mike Huckabee’s former state director for campaign (MN Public Radio, 4/4).

Religious Right: Slated to speak at Family Leader events (Des Moines Register, 4/4).

Fundraising: Tops Mitt Romney in fundraising (Time, 4/1).

Obama: Says President Obama is deliberately damaging the economy (RWW, 3/31).

Haley Barbour

2012: Wife concerned about presidential race, says bid “horrifies” her (Reuters, 4/2).

Mississippi: Economic conservatives criticize Barbour’s record as governor (Politico, 4/2).

Poll: Trails Huckabee in poll of home state’s Republican voters (Mississippi Press, 3/31).

Herman Cain

Obama: Says President Obama is “not the president of black people” (Daily Caller, 4/4).

Birther: Joins Donald Trump in questioning President Obama’s birth certificate (Politico, 4/1).

Newt Gingrich

Iowa: Defends financial assistance to Religious Right group in Iowa judicial election (Think Progress, 4/4). 

Obama: Likens Obama's fundraising goal to extortion (CNN, 4/4). 

Religious Right: Poised to kickoff right-wing Awakening conference at Liberty University (RWW, 3/28). 

Rudy Giuliani

2012: Frames himself as an electable Republican candidate (GOP12, 4/4).

Foreign Affairs: Criticizes President Obama’s handling of Libyan crisis (Ozarks Unbound, 4/4).

Mike Huckabee

Campaign: Advisers want Huckabee's 2012 campaign to be less family-run (US News & World Report, 4/4). 

South Carolina: Wins straw poll in heavily GOP county in upstate South Carolina (UPI, 4/3). 

Background: Public records as governor destroyed (Mother Jones, 4/1). 

Sarah Palin

Media: Slated to appear in E! True Hollywood story biopic (Mediaite, 4/4).

New Hampshire: Former GOP Senator from New Hampshire slams Palin as overly ambitious, polarizing (Boston Globe, 4/4). 

Rand Paul

Religious Right: Scheduled to address Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition (RWW, 4/4).

Iowa: Speaks to Iowa GOP’s “Night of the Rising Stars” (Iowa Independent, 4/4).

Tim Pawlenty

Obama: Launches new cinematic video to respond to Obama's reelection announcement (HuffPo, 4/4). 

Background: Left Minnesota with a massive budget deficit (LA Times, 4/2). 

Mitt Romney

Foreign Affairs: Claims his experience in business will help him in foreign policy (RCP, 4/5).

New Hampshire: Set to address Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity forum in New Hampshire (CNN, 4/4). 

Campaign: Runs subdued campaign in order to reintroduce himself to voters (NYT, 4/2).

Rick Santorum

South Carolina: Accepts invitation to appear in South Carolina debate for presidential candidates (CBS News, 4/1).

Religious Right: Blames legal abortion for Social Security problems (RWW, 3/29).

Arizona Congressman Trent Franks is preparing a campaign for US Senate following the retirement of Jon Kyl. According to Politico, Franks intends to “campaign to the right” of already-announced Republican Congressman Jeff Flake in the primary. Running to the right of Flake or almost any other Republican shouldn’t be difficult for Franks, who was tied for first as the most conservative member of the House.

Franks is a frequent critic of President Obama, even going so far as to call him an “enemy of humanity” at a right-wing conference, and later claimed unconvincingly that he simply meant he was an “enemy of unborn humanity.” He even wanted to impeach Obama over his decision not to defend unconstitutional Defense of Marriage Act and warned that Obama has an “ideological commitment” to “weaken America.” Most recently, Franks joined Rick Santorum to claim that Obama and his allies were deliberately trying to destroy America. Such rancid statements shouldn’t come as a surprise, since Franks has floated Birther conspiracy theories and said Obama consistently “acts un-American.”

Expect the Religious Right to rally behind Franks against the more libertarian Flake. Franks is a noted proponent of the charge that abortion providers are leading a genocide against African Americans, and said that African Americans were better off under slavery than in America with reproductive freedom. He even introduced legislation barring “race-based” abortion along with leading anti-choice figures, believing his bill will “blow a fatal hole in Roe v. Wade,” and also screened the discredited documentary Maafa 21, which argues that Planned Parenthood wants to exterminate African Americans, in Congress. Moreover, Franks participated in Lou Engle’s militantly anti-choice and anti-gay The Call rallies, and worked with Dominionist groups.

The possibility of a Franks candidacy has already forced Flake to abandon his previously pro-reform position on immigration to compete with Franks, who is an anti-immigrant hardliner. Politico reports that Franks is poised to announce following a fundraiser with Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Michele Bachmann:

Currently in his fifth term, Franks has solidified himself as the most conservative member of Arizona's delegation and indicated in early March he felt like he had a "responsibility to give the people a chance to choose between my perspective and Mr. Flake's."

Franks' Senate announcement will come after a $250 morning fundraiser hosted by Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann and Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Arizona insiders warn that Flake's flip on immigration gives Franks's candidacy immediate room to grow in a state still consumed by border violence and crime by undocumented workers. The key question is whether Flake will be able to replicate Sen. John McCain's conversion on the white hot issue.

"If it's a two-person fight, I believe Trent wins. Flake's flip on immigration kills him. He cannot effectively do a McCain and rebrand himself. McCain spent millions against a weaker opponent to rebrand himself. Flake will not have that luxury," according to one GOP operative currently unaffiliated with either campaign.

The Freedom Federation's "Awakening 2011" conference is being held next week at Liberty University and I think nothing better sums up what we can be expected from the event than the fact that it kicks-off with a speech from Lila Rose followed by an invitation-only luncheon with Newt Gingrich and Birther king Joseph Farah:

In addition to Rep. Tom Price and Texas Senate hopeful Ted Cruz, the event features a panoply of right-wing participants and speakers including Matt Barber, Frank Gaffney, Harry Jackson, Robert Knight, Andrea Lafferty, Mat Staver, Rick Scarborough, Ryan Sorba, Janet Porter, and Penny Nance.

And while Cindy Jacobs is not listed on the schedule even though she participated in last year's conference, her fellow prophet Rick Joyner is:

• Confronting the Culture: Engaging People of Faith
  • Rev. Rick Scarborough (Moderator)
  • David Brog
  • Rev. Rick Joyner
  • Cynthia Dunbar, Esq.

• Equality Matters: Maryland's Marriage Equality Bill Sent Back To Committee, Reportedly Delayed Till Next Year.
• Tim Murphy @ Mother Jones: Birther Bill Author: What's a Long-Form Birth Certificate?
• Towleroad: Leading Anti-Gay Utah State Senator Chris Buttars is Retiring.
• Joe.My.God: Corruption Bust: New York Post Outs Anti-Gay Sen. Carl Kruger And Boyfriend.
• Media Matters: Wash. Times Gives Platform To Anti-Choice Extremist Randall Terry.
• Igor Volsky @ Wonk Room: Iowa Kingmaker Vander Plaats Still Comparing Gay Marriage To Polygamy, Incest.
• Brian Beutler @ TPM: New Hampshire Republican Won't Apologize For Saying 'Defective' People Should Die In Siberia.

• Tom Allison @ Equality Matters: Al Cardenas Suggests GOProud Will Not Be Invited To CPAC 2012.
• Alan Colmes: Republican Congressman Wants To End Funding For President’s Teleprompter.
• Jodi Jacobson @ RH Reality Check: GOP: Yes to Contraception for Wild Horses, No for Women.
• Justin Elliott @ Salon: Bachmann comes out as birther-curious.
• Warren Throckmorton: Uganda defends Anti-Homosexuality bill in embassy cables.
• Pat Garofalo @ Wonk Room: Republican Officials Cut Head Start Funding, Saying Women Should Be Married And Home With Kids.
• Media Matters: Who Is Joel Richardson, Beck's End Times Prophet?
• George Schwarz @ The Amarillo Independent: Repent Amarillo's Grisham in mayoral race.