Ohio

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) said that his Republican Study Committee, the ultraconservative group that counts a majority of the GOP caucus as its members, told The Hill that he supports congressional action to reverse Washington DC’s marriage equality law. “I think RSC will push for it, and I’m certainly strongly for it,” the Ohio Republican said, “I don’t know if we’ve made a decision if I’ll do it or let another member do it, but I’m 100 percent for it.” Jordan voted against every major piece of gay-rights legislation and recently announced his boycott of CPAC over the conference’s inclusion of GOProud.

Even though the Republican Study Committee claims to be committed to “a limited and Constitutional role for the federal government” and reducing “government regulations [and the] size of government,” anti-gay attacks apparently take priority over its dedication to federalism and small-government.

The DC Council voted overwhelmingly in favor of marriage equality in 2009, and marriage rights for gays and lesbians went into effect in early 2010. National and local Religious Right groups, led by Bishop Harry Jackson, just last week lost a lawsuit challenging the law.

Bishop Jackson has unsuccessfully demanded a popular referendum to decide the fate of marriage equality in the District, saying that the issue should be left up to DC voters rather than their elected representatives in the Council and going so far as writing to Congress to demand a popular vote on the issue. In Congress, however, DC’s Delegate does not have the right to vote on legislation and was stripped by Republicans of her limited voting powers.

Clearly, given his aggressive stance in support of DC’s voters’ ability to have a say in the matter, Bishop Jackson will come out strongly against Congressman Jordan’s proposal any minute now…

Last week we noted that almost a year after almost completely disappearing from public Religious Right activism following her May Day Prayer Rally debacle, Janet Porter of Faith 2 Action had resurfaced in her home state of Ohio and had gotten back to her anti-choice roots and was now pushing something called "The Heartbeat Bill" that would make it illegal to have an abortion once a heartbeat has been detected.

Over the weekend Porter addressed a local anti-choice rally and uploaded a new video explaining the Ohio effort:

Faith 2 Action also uploaded this truly excellent accompanying music video featuring anti-abortion lyrics sung to the tune of the 1980's hit "99 Red Balloons": 

Janet Porter got her start in Religious Right politics back in Ohio, serving as the Legislative Director of Ohio Right to Life.  Eventually, she was lured away to Florida by D. James Kennedy to serve as the National Director for his Center for Reclaiming America.  After a few years, Porter then struck out on her own, launching Faith 2 Action and hosting a daily radio program that went increasingly off the rails until her operation was shut down due to her increasing involvement with Dominion Theology and self-proclaimed "prophets" like Cindy Jacobs.

And now things have come full circle, as Porter has moved back to Ohio and is applying her patented "send X number of Ys in support of Z" brand of activism to a piece of anti-choice legislation called "the Heartbeat Bill": 

Representative Lynn Wachtmann, the new Chairman of the House Health Committee, has announced he will be introducing the "Heartbeat Bill" in the Ohio House which will protect unborn babies from abortion once their hearts have begun to beat.

"Science has already given us a yardstick to determine if someone is alive--a beating heart;" said Wachtmann, "We just want to see that measurement applied evenly. This bill calls for an end to discrimination and the protection of every human being with a beating heart--no matter their age!"

...

Janet (Folger) Porter, former Legislative Director of Ohio Right to Life, and President of Faith2Action, has moved back to Ohio to help lead the effort. "Ohio is going to make history again," said Porter, who helped to pass the nation’s first partial-birth abortion ban in 1995. "My last conversation with my dear friend Mark Lally, Ohio Right to Life's Legal Counsel, before he passed away, was about this very bill. We're going to pass it in his honor," added Porter.

Balloons ordered now will be delivered the week of Valentine's Day, when the bill is scheduled for introduction. Orders can be placed by going to http://www.HeartBeatBill.com before February 14th. Each balloon will come with a personalized card from the sender with the message: "Have a heart, Pass the Heartbeat Bill!"

You may recall John Stemberger, president of the Florida Family Policy Council, from his involvement a few years back as the Rifqa Bary saga was being played out in Florida, when he used short-lived role as Bary's attorney as an opportunity to recklessly sling allegations that her Muslim parents had ties to terrorist organizations and that she had been physically and sexually abused by family members.

Because of his actions, Stemberger is facing a $10 million lawsuit from the attorney who represented Bary's parents and is now looking at being disciplined by the Florida Supreme Court for misconduct:

The Florida Bar asked the state Supreme Court to discipline Orlando lawyer John Stemberger for his conduct in the high-profile case of teenage runaway Rifqa Bary, according to documents released Tuesday ... According to a complaint mailed to the Florida Supreme Court on Monday, that action would have ended Stemberger's representation of Bary.

But Stemberger went on Fox News on four separate occasions and said or implied during the ongoing dependency case in Ohio that he remained Bary's attorney, the complaint said.

Stemberger also accused Omar Tarazi, the attorney for Bary's parents, of being paid by terrorist-associated organizations.

At the time, Tarazi was under a gag order in the Ohio case and couldn't refute the accusations, the Bar's complaint said.

Tarazi, in his complaint to The Florida Bar, accused Stemberger of making false and damaging statements about him.

...

On Tuesday, Stemberger responded to the complaint, by saying in a statement: "I have talked with several former members of other grievance committees who have stated that this complaint should have been closed down by the Bar immediately after it was filed as being without merit …In time, the facts presented, will cause this frivolous complaint filed by a disgruntled, opposing lawyer who lost his case to be dismissed."

Glenn Beck took his program (and self-aggrandizement) to Wilmington, OH yesterday and while he was there he reportedly experienced “four miracles," with one of them being the Wilmington House of Prayer:

The mobile stage was located along the Mulberry Street edge of the downtown Main Street block where the General Denver Hotel and the Samuel Walker’s Memorial Building are historical bookends. Nearby is a community prayer room that occupies the building that has a farmers market mural on an exterior wall. Called Burn 24/7 in reference to building a “firewall” of prayer, the prayer room is a ministry of the Wilmington House of Prayer and a dozen Wilmington churches.

Remarkably, it is open around-the-clock and usually has at least one person inside praying for local people.

Pointing to the place, Beck said he believes with his entire being in the prayer room, and it is that sort of thing that can change America.

This sounds a lot like the International House of Prayer out of which Lou Engle operates that is, as we recently noted, dedicated to preparing students for the End Times.

You know, if someone were to give me a chalkboard and the show on Fox, I could easily spin this out into a huge conspiracy theory about how Beck is secretly planning to bring about the end of the world.

Following the election, RWW will bring you our list of the "The Ten Scariest Republicans Heading to Congress." Our ninth candidate profile is on Tom Marino of Pennsylvania:

In 2007, Tom Marino resigned from his position as US Attorney in Pennsylvania after a corruption scandal clouded his career and raised questions about his honesty. Marino had used his official title as US Attorney to provide a reference in 2005 to his “close friend,” convicted felon Louis DeNaples, who was trying to win the state gaming commission’s approval to open slot machines at a resort he owned. When his office began an investigation into DeNaples for lying about his ties to organized crime, Marino's assistants uncovered his reference and notified the Justice Department, which transferred the investigation out of Marino’s office. But questions about Marino’s ties to DeNaples remained.

Defending his actions, Marino said on a local radio show that the Department of Justice gave him permission to be a reference for DeNaples. But the Justice Department says there is “no record of Marino having received the permission” to serve as a reference for DeNaples and that Marino never informed the General Counsel office. Although Marino stands by his claim that he received written permission, he failed to produce any letter from the Department.

When the Justice Department launched an investigation into Marino’s actions, he resigned and promptly took a $250,000-a-year job as “DeNaples’ in-house lawyer.” Marino later under-reported his income on his financial disclosure forms, reporting that he only received $25,000 from DeNaples. Even Zack Oldham of the conservative blog RedState said of Marino’s actions: “The reality is just as bad as–if not worse than–the optics of this scandal.”

The DeNaples affair wasn’t even the first time Marino had run into corruption accusations. When Marino was District Attorney in Lycoming County, he tried to get a friend out of a drug charge by going behind the back of the county judge who had refused to toss out his friend’s conviction. According to the Luzeme County Citizens Voice, Marino “approached another judge and won the expungement, but the plan backfired when the second judge learned of the first judge's involvement in the case.”

Marino continued to struggle with the truth in his campaign for Congress. He criticized his opponent, Rep. Chris Carney, for leaving Washington as an anti-abortion rights bill was being circulated during the health care reform debate. Carney was not in Washington at the time because his wife was undergoing surgery for breast cancer.

He later alleged that Carney “has no problem spending taxpayers’ money for abortions” and that Pennsylvania women were receiving taxpayer-subsidized abortions under the new health care law, even though nonpartisan fact-checkers have confirmed, repeatedly, that the law prohibits taxpayer funding for abortion.

Marino also berated his opponent for refusing to take questions from the press on political matters after Carney, a Navy Reservist, was called for active duty and was barred by law from making “statements to or answer questions from the news media regarding political issues or regarding government policies.”

But his ethical challenges have not kept the far-right from embracing him. In fact, his rightwing politics have earned him the endorsement of Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum, Rick Santorum’s America’s Foundation, Mike Huckabee’s HuckPAC, the Family Research Council, and the Government Is Not God PAC.

On the issue of immigration, Marino opposes a pathway for citizenship for illegal immigrants, and touts his endorsement from Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, which has been called a “nativist extremist organization” by the Southern Poverty Law Center. In his Americans for Legal Immigration PAC survey, Marino says he strongly favors Arizona’s severe SB 1070 law, would refuse to support comprehensive immigration reform, and that he would consider impeaching the President over immigration policy.

Marino said he would vote against extending unemployment benefits, maintaining that some of the people on unemployment simply don’t “want to go get work because they are being paid to stay home.” He said that non-senior citizens should face cuts in Social Security benefits if not the elimination of the program altogether, saying: “my generation and probably the generation that follows me, we are going to have to step up to the plate and say, ‘We are not going to get Social Security.’” The 60 Plus Association, a front group for the health care and pharmaceutical industries which supports privatizing Social Security, aired TV ads on Marino’s behalf.

In a radio interview in August, Marino reportedly suggested eliminating the IRS and the Departments of Education and Energy and replacing them with new agencies, saying, “There’s got to be a total revolution there.”

Despite the ethical cloud surrounding Marino, his hard-line conservative views and support from the Radical Right helped him win election to Congress. Watch this segment from an NBC affiliate revealing Marino’s ethical troubles:

• Joe.My.God: Arkansas School Board VP Clint McCance To Resign After Anti-Gay Facebook Tirade.
• Pam Spaulding: Bam Bam Barber's bottom line: 'Time to reunite church and state.'
• Andy Kopsa @ Iowa Independent: Anti-retention leaders: Iowa just the start of national gay marriage battle.
• Steve Benen: The Troops Don't Mind, Either.
• Ian Millhiser @ Think Progress: Alabama Supreme Court Justice Compares DADT Judge To Al-Qaeda.
• Matthew Yglesias: McDonald’s Telling Employees How to Vote in Ohio.

Newt Gingrich

2010: Campaigns with GOP gubernatorial candidate John Kasich in Ohio (Columbus Business First, 10/25).

Iowa: Holds “American Solutions” rally in Sioux City, Iowa (Sioux City Journal, 10/22).

Mike Huckabee

GOP: Defends Christine O’Donnell and hits “elitist” establishment (Raw Story, 10/25).

Religious Right: Sarah Posner looks into Huckabee’s ties to anti-gay groups (Religion Dispatches, 10/25).

Economy: Defends the “Fair Tax” on Fox News (Fox News, 10/25).

Sarah Palin

2010: Slams Lisa Murkowski, lauds Joe Miller, in facebook post (Facebook, 10/25).

Arizona: Sheriff Joe Arpaio presents her “pink underwear” as gift (Washington Independent, 10/25).

2012: New York Magazine says that Palin is gearing up presidential campaign (New York Magazine, 10/24).

Tim Pawlenty

Iowa: Has donated over $114,000 to Iowa Republican candidates (Des Moines Register, 10/26).

2010: Stumps for gubernatorial candidates in eight states before election (CNN, 10/25).

2012: Trails Obama in Minnesota in hypothetical race (GOP12, 10/25).

Mitt Romney

Tea Party: Hopes to pursue economic message with Tea Party activists (WSJ, 10/25).

Fundraising: Mega-donors line up behind Romney (Politico, 10/23).

Rick Santorum

Iowa: Campaigns for a GOP majority in the Iowa State House (KTIV, 10/25).

Religious Right: Speaks to Tennessee Right to Life Convention (Knoxville News, 10/21).

Judges: Joins bus tour with NOM, FRC, others to oppose retention for judges who backed same-sex marriage (On Top, 10/21).

Haley Barbour

Washington: Ranked #1 of GQ’s “DC Power List” (GQ, 10/18).

Mississippi: NYT columnist looks into his record of pardons as Governor (NYT, 10/15).

GOP: Raises $31 million for Republican Governors Association (WaPo, 10/14).

Mitch Daniels

Economy: Hit by conservatives for floating idea of value added tax (Newsweek, 10/18).

2012: Praised by President of US Chamber of Commerce (Courier & Press, 10/13).

Newt Gingrich

2010: Predicts takeover of House and Senate by GOP (KTAR, 10/18).

Fundraising: His 527, which has no cap on donations, raised over $4 million (Politico, 10/16).

Mike Huckabee

Media: Brings Ohio GOP gubernatorial nominee on TV show, says he is “not the least bit objective” (Media Matters, 10/18).

Crime: Seattle Times looks into Huckabee’s pardon of Maurice Clemmons (Seattle Times, 10/17).

Religious Right: Tells “Freedom, Faith and Family” conference that God guided Founding Fathers, condemns abortion (Winston-Salem Journal, 10/16).

2010: Predicts a “tsunami of change” while campaigning for Indiana Republicans (Indiana News Center, 10/13).

Mitt Romney

2010: Campaigns for Wisconsin’s Scott Walker and Minnesota’s Tom Emmer (GOP12, 10/18).

Fundraising: Collects $1.7 million for leadership PAC over summer (Politico, 10/14).

Iowa: May not focus as much attention on Iowa Caucuses in 2012 as he did in 2008 (Des Moines Register, 10/14).

Sarah Palin

Tea Party: Launches Tea Party Express Bus Tour in Reno, NV (Christian Science Monitor, 10/18).

2010: Set to rally in Florida with Michael Steele and Marco Rubio after appearing with Steele in California (Politico, 10/18).

Religious Right: Speaks to Liberty and Freedom Foundation about patriotism, God, and Pat Tillman; knocks First Lady Michelle Obama (Opposing Views, 10/17).

George Pataki

Health Care: Wants 1 million people to sign his petition to repeal reform law (Jackson Citizen Patriot, 10/14; The Hill, 10/14).

Economy: Criticizes Obama Administration’s green-jobs initiatives (Wall Street Journal, 10/14).

Tim Pawlenty

GOP: Holds rally with Mitt Romney in Minnesota (Star Tribune, 10/18).

Government: Criticizes federal government spending but requests money from Washington for flood aid (Up Take, 10/18).

Fundraising: Leadership PAC raised over half a million dollars over the Summer (AP, 10/14).

Rick Santorum

Abortion: Set to address Tennessee Right to Life’s annual dinner (Knoxville News, 10/17).

Religious Right: Spoke Friday to Cornerstone Action fundraiser (CPR Action, 10/15).