Census

The Religious Right loves manufacturing controversies that “prove” the victimization of Christians in the United States. When NBC left the words “under God” out of the Pledge of Allegiance in the broadcast of a golf tournament, Religious Right groups jumped to proclaim that the network was in the pocket of God-hating liberalism. When an exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery included an image of Christ’s suffering made by a gay artist, the Religious Right called it “hate speech” and got the work of art pulled.

Recently, we’ve been reminded of one of these made-up controversies that may have more sinister consequences. In 2009, a Department of Homeland Security report on the threat of violent right-wing extremists was leaked. The report dealt exclusively with violent racist and anti-government groups – your Timothy McVeighs and Hutaree militias – but the Religious Right saw an opportunity to play the victim and do some fundraising. Groups including the Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America and the American Center for Law and Justice labeled the report an attack on American Christians, ginned themselves up some allies in Congress, and ultimately got the report pulled. (But not before Liberty Counsel had a chance to print up some “I’m Proud to be a Right Wing Extremist” membership cards).

Now, the main author of the DHS report, who left his job after the fallout from the controversy made it “difficult to get any work accomplished,” is speaking out. Daryl Johnson tells California State University’s Brian Levin that he is a gun-owning, anti-choice Republican Mormon who started work on the report under the Bush Administration. And he’s worried that the manufactured controversy over the report continues to hinder DHS’s ability to combat violent right-wing extremism:

Do you have any political antagonism towards conservatives, military veterans or religious people?
Absolutely not. I am a conservative. I'm married, have children and am a lifetime third generation registered Republican. I have military veterans in my extended family. I'm also a Mormon. I respect people of all faiths. I feel so strongly about our religious freedoms, that I served two years as a missionary for my church.

Would you consider yourself prolife?
Yes. I believe in the sanctity of life including the preborn.

Do you support a broad right to individual gun ownership by competent non-felons?
Yes, I am a gun owner myself and enjoy target shooting and experienced game hunting in my youth.

…

Why interview now?
Obviously, I couldn't discuss this with the media while employed at DHS. It took me a year after leaving to finally decide that this was truly the right thing to do. I also wanted to give DHS adequate time to determine whether or not it wanted to reconstitute the domestic non-Islamic terrorism effort. It never did.
Since Obama took office, there have been nearly twenty extremist rightwing attacks and plots, including the killing of almost a dozen police officers in six separate attacks. There have also been militia plots in places like Alaska and Michigan that targeted government officials such as a judge and police. Package bombs were mailed in the DC area. In recent months we had three sovereign citizen related shootings in Florida, Arizona and Texas.

How many people worked on your team?
Six worked directly for me with two others in support roles.

How many analysts at DHS worked Muslim extremism issues?
A: In 2008, there were close to 40. A year later that number had decreased to around 25. There were additional analysts working other topics such as critical infrastructure, border security and weapons of mass destruction.

How does the threat from radical Muslim extremists in the U.S. compare with that of right wing domestic extremists?
During the past 10 years there have been five successful attacks in the U.S. by Muslim extremists, but in the last three years there have been 20 attacks attributed to domestic right wing extremists and the number of fatalities is about equal between the two. There were more firearms possessed by the Hutaree [an alleged extremist] militia than by all 200 of the Muslim extremists arrested in the U.S. since 9/11.

…

What happened at DHS as a result of the criticism?
My team was dissolved. All training courses and briefings presentations were stopped. DHS leaders made it increasingly difficult to release another report on this topic.
Why would DHS leaders dissolve your team and stop these analytic activities?
The subject had become too politically charged. As a result, DHS leaders adopted a risk adverse approach toward this issue. Perhaps they thought it was a matter of organizational preservation.

Do you think the dissolution of your unit that you discuss has negatively affected State and local law enforcement?
Certainly. There is one less agency to assist state and local law enforcement with this growing and dangerous problem at a time of heightened activity.

Why did you leave DHS?
I could no longer effectively do my job. New processes made it increasingly difficult to get any work accomplished.

Have the conditions which affected your conclusions changed since the report was issued?
No. The factors have remained the same - the economy remains sluggish and uncertain; unemployment hovers around 10 percent nationally; Obama is still President; and the 2010 Census results show a changing demographic in America shifting away from a predominantly Caucasian nation.

Has the leak had a chilling effect on the analyst community?
Within the intelligence community at-large, I don't think so. Inside the Department of Homeland Security, I believe it did. Other DHS analysts saw what happened to us - saw leadership backing away from supporting the report and those responsible for writing it. Many left the agency as a result.

 

Washington DC Mayor Vince Gray along with a number of City Councilmen were arrested on Monday for protesting the budget deal which eliminates the city’s right to use local tax dollars to help low-income women access reproductive healthcare. The Family Research Council responded by saying that Gray and other pro-choice officials were actually responsible for the falling black population in the city. The Washington Post reports that recent census data shows that African Americans will soon make up less than 50% of the city’s population, “with the city’s black population dropping by about 1 percent a year.” Analysts point to rising unemployment and the city’s rapid gentrification with “rising rents and soaring property taxes” pushing much of the working class black community out of the city.

But the Family Research Council says the real reason is legal abortion. Adding to the anti-choice movement’s strategy of claiming that abortion providers are trying to commit genocide against African Americans, the FRC said in an email alert to members that the city’s declining black community is because “the local Planned Parenthood clinics are doing their job.” While the FRC uses no evidence to back up its claim that Planned Parenthood “actively targets African-Americans” and is responsible for the city’s loss of black residents, the group also spews out false, discredited claims that the women’s health organization is tied to “child prostitution, sex abuse, [and] statutory rape”:

According to pundits, this was supposed to be the year that social issues took a backseat to the economy. Apparently, Democrats didn't get the memo. If the last six weeks proved anything, it's that the culture war is alive and well--and lurking in the halls of Congress. When the dust finally settled from last week's budget talks, Americans learned that it wasn't conservatives with a one-track mind. It was the White House and Senate leadership, who thought it was worth putting more than 800,000 people out of work to satisfy the single-issue abortion supporters in their ranks. "Thanks to the way this deal was struck," the Wall Street Journal says, "we have a reminder that it was the Democratic President--and not the Republican Speaker--who stood on ideology." To those inside the Oval Office, "...it was 'chilling' to see how inflexible Mr. Obama was." But as far as liberals are concerned, an attack on abortion is an attack on the Democratic Party. D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray (D) obviously thought so. He was so angry about the ban on taxpayer-funded abortion in the District that he and 41 others plopped down in the middle of Constitution Avenue yesterday to protest. "The District restrictions that were part of the budget deal reached Friday were unacceptable," Gray said, after he was hauled away by Capitol police. "It's an outrageous position... All we want is to be able to spend our own money." Like his party, the Mayor was willing to stand in the way of progress at a major crossroads to protect taxpayer-funded abortion.

And for what? According to the latest D.C. census, the number of African-Americans in the city is alarmingly low. In one decade, "the black population dropped by more than 39,000." Experts say the percentages haven't been this low since World War II. Do liberals think that's a coincidence? Obviously, the local Planned Parenthood clinics are doing their job. So while Vincent Gray rages on about taxation without abortion representation, he should stop and consider where his city would be in another 10 years without the legislation. If you thought that black children were endangered before, imagine if the city could continue promoting free abortions to local women.

Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood, the group that most actively targets African-Americans, is awaiting its federal funding fate. As part of the budget compromise, President Obama agreed to give the Senate a vote on language to zero out Planned Parenthood's tax dollars. "Surely it tells you something about who the real extremists are that an up-or-down vote is deemed a 'concession,'" William McGurn wrote. Help your members take advantage of the opportunity. Contact your Senators and remind them that there are plenty of legitimate health clinics out there that will provide services to women other than abortion. And 99% of them probably haven't been implicated in child prostitution, sex abuse, or statutory rape!

Despite the fact that she generally has no idea what she is talking about, Rep. Michele Bachmann is planning on holding weekly classes on the Constitution for new members in the next Congress.

I wonder if she'll teach these freshmen members of Congress what she told WorldNetDaily's Burt Prelutsky, which is that they should be trying to get the federal government back to its "original size":

Q. If, with a snap of your fingers, you could change anything about America, what would it be?

A. Reduce the federal government to its original size and constitutional limitations and to restore the 9th and 10th amendments.

Of course, the population of the United States back when the government was at its "original size" was just under 4 million - it is now over 310 million.  For that matter, Congress only had 26 seats in the Senate and 69 seats in the House and met in New York City.

But, according to Bachmann, it would be a dream come true to see our government reduced to the size it was back when the country had only thirteen states.

• Texas Freedom Network: Yet Another Historian Corrects David Barton.
• Justin Elliot: Koch Industries: We Don't Fund Tea Parties (Except For The Tea Parties We Fund).
• Sarah Posner: The Lord Is My Insurer.
• Think Progress: GOP Rep. Paul Broun Admits To Illegally Sending Back An Incomplete Census.
• Raw Story: Tucker Carlson’s ‘non-ideological’ news site sponsors Tea Party bash.
• Media Matters: Myths and falsehoods surrounding the judicial nomination of Goodwin Liu.
• Finally, do not ask Rep. Steve King about his justification of the suicide plane attack on an IRS building:

On the lastest episode of "The Brody File," the half-hour program featuring CNB's David Brody, Tony Perkins voiced his displeasure with Michael Steele and Bart Stupak, as well as his belief that President Obama is a "threat to America."

That statement came about after Brody asked Perkins if the Obama administration has turned out to be as bad as he expected.  Beginning at the 5:00 mark, Perkins claims that while he was never a fan of Obama's, he was "not hostile" to the administration initially ... but:

My worst nightmare has come to reality and more, in this administration. I was indifferent, going about our business, continuing to work on policy.  This administration, in my view, is a threat to America. What we see coming out of this administration, [not only] the hostility to traditional values, but the outright ignoring of the law.  We can have the theoretical debate over the Constitution when it came to the pushing of health care and the authority of the federal government, but even when it comes down to the Census, which we saw this week the Commerce Department basically telling homosexual couples out there to ignore federal law, to lie and put on your Census form that you're married if you feel like you're married. That's a violation of the 1996 Federal Defense of Marriage Act. What kind of government tells its people to lie on official forms?

A little over a week ago, we noted that the American for Legal Immigration PAC was desperately trying to raise $11,000 in order to avoid being forced to shut down. Thanks to a last minute donation, ALIPAC took in enough money to keep functioning, which means the organization can now get back to doing what it does best - like demanding that data from the Census "be used to detect, detain, and deport illegal immigrants" who fill it out: 

ALIPAC is asking supporters to initiate tens of thousands of calls to Congressional offices asking for a new law that would allow US Census data to be used to detect, detain, and deport illegal immigrants who fill out the 2010 Census.

"Our Federal government has a Constitutional responsibility to enforce our existing immigration laws and those laws state that it is unlawful to encourage or assist an illegal alien to remain unlawfully in the US," said William Gheen. "Therefore, we are asking Congress to pass new legislation to block the Obama administration's current efforts, which are encouraging illegal aliens to use the American Census to steal more taxpayer resources and diminish representation for legal Americans."

...

"Each illegal alien counted by the census without deportation will take away taxpayer resource allocation and congressional representation from one legal American citizen," said William Gheen. "We want Congress to take action now to authorize and require the use of census data collected to identify illegal aliens, exclude them from the census count for tax resources and Congressional redistricting, and to detain and deport those found in violation of our immigration laws."

• Alvin McEwen: Religious right attacks Chai Feldblum's appointment with more lies.
• Think Progress: Gun Advocates Plan DC March On 15th Anniversary Of Oklahoma City Bombing.
• Is a tax on tanning racist?  Of course it is.
• Yesterday Alan Colmes had the Southern Legal Resource Center’s Kirk Lyons on his program to defend his campaign to get the Census to recognize "Confederate Southern Americans." Things went well until Colmes asked Lyons about getting married at the Aryan Nation compound, at which point Lyons lost it:
• Finally, where you do suppose Republicans are getting all these bizarre ideas about President Obama?

While reading through the most recent "Washington Update" from the Family Research Council, I had to stop and wonder if the organzation had perhaps hired Peter LaBarbera or Matt Barber and put them in charge of drafting the daily email.

But no, this language can be attributed to FRC president Tony Perkins himself, who responds to this Washington Post article claiming that Washington DC's recognition of marriage equality will be a boon to the District's economy by claiming that it'll actually damage the economy due to the "massive health care expenses incurred by taxpayers every year to cope with the diseases spread by homosexual behavior":

Not so fast, says FRC. The last census counted 3,678 same-sex partner homes in D.C. Assuming that number has stayed roughly the same, then the 150 who applied for marriage licenses yesterday would amount to a whopping four percent of the local homosexual population--hardly the stuff of economic recovery. For the Post's $52.2 million projection to come true, all 3,678 of those D.C. couples would have to get married and spend over $14,000 per wedding. (I don't know about you, but my wife and I spent a LOT less!) These "marriages" (which have yet to meet financial expectations in other states) may make a fast buck in the short term, but they will do nothing but drain the economy down the road. Consider the massive health care expenses incurred by taxpayers every year to cope with the diseases spread by homosexual behavior. According to the Kaiser Foundation, federal funding grew to more than $18 billion in 2004 to deal with the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Over half of all U.S. infections are in men having sex with men! That means taxpayers spend roughly $10 billion a year treating the diseases caused by a behavior celebrated in same-sex "marriage." So much for economic development!

• Pam's House Blend reports that Oklahoma's Sally Kern is trying to make it harder to get divorced in her state.
• Good As You covers Mike Heath's recent appearance on Wallbuilders Radio.
• Richard Pombo is back and TMP provides a look back at his ethical troubles.
• Steve Benen notes that Michele Bachmann's anti-Census crusade could potentially end up costing her her seat in Congress.
• Joe.My.God takes great pleasure in the fact that Glenn Beck is at war with the Birthers.
• Towleroad reports that marriage equality in Iowa is safe, at least for this year.
• Finally, Alvin McEwen exposes the latest nonsense from Cliff Kincaid, who claims that the outcry over Uganda's anti-gay bill is all part of a conspiracy to save Kevin Jennings.