republicans

The Family Research Council is joining other Religious Right groups in elevating their attacks on CPAC, which begins tomorrow. The FRC is already boycotting CPAC over the conference’s inclusion of GOProud, and hosts a similar gathering called the Values Voter Summit. But today’s news that former New Mexico governor and likely GOP presidential candidate Gary Johnson will address the annual event, where he “plans on advocating legalizing marijuana and gay rights,” enraged Tom McClusky. McClusky, the FRC’s Vice President for Government Affairs, has taken to his blog to bash Johnson for his libertarian views and CPAC for including him:

Guess Who (else) Is Coming to CPAC? Grover Norquist’s pot-smoking/pro-abortion/pro-gay marriage Presidential candidate

I wrote about the pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage, pro-pot legalization, pro-illegal immigration former New Mexico governor and wannabe President Gary Johnson before when it was learned that Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform were partnering with the liberal homosexual group Log Cabin Republicans for a fundraiser for him. It appears now that CPAC is so desperate to fill speaking spots that they have invited Gary Johnson to speak at CPAC as well. What is equally likely is that they hope to divide the libertarian vote to avoid the joke of a straw poll they had last year.

The Log Cabin Republicans will be hosting a fundraiser for Johnson, who supports “gay unions,” on CPAC’s opening night.

Norquist, for his part, earlier today called boycotting groups like the FRC “loser organizations.”

We have often asked if someone - anyone - would be willing to stand up to Bryan Fischer and his unrelenting bigotry and the answer has always been "no," as leading Republicans and presidential contenders have continued to embrace him despite his outrageous views and offensive comments.

Just yesterday, Fischer declared that Native Americans were "morally disqualified" from controlling North America and are plagued by poverty and alcoholism today because they refuse to embrace Christianity.

This sort of claim is nothing new from the likes of Fischer, so we didn't really expect anyone on the Right to so much as blink an eye, much less actually stand up to him.

And we certainly didn't expect that is someone did actually do so, it would be another American Family Association blogger and radio personality.  But that is exactly what has happened.

Elijah Friedeman is a seventeen-year-old a high-school senior who writes "The Millennial Perspective" for the AFA's RightlyConcerned.com blog and appears twice a week to deliver commentary on "The Matt Friedeman Show" on American Family Radio.

And today, much to Friedeman's credit, he put up a post on the AFA blog rejecting and distancing himself from Fischer's bigotry:

Native Americans were immoral, so they deserved what happened to them? I find the idea repulsive.

Yesterday, Bryan Fischer posted a blog about how American indians disqualified themselves from any claim to land in America by their sexual immorality and violence. I want to officially reject and distance myself from that viewpoint.

...

[I]n the past Bryan Fischer, when challenged on biblical commands to smite the enemy, has refused to answer, stating that a question like that about the Old Testament should be answered by a Jewish scholar. The sudden decision to embrace God's command to destroy the Canaanites, when in the past he has avoided it, is interesting to me.

Another point Bryan Fischer offers up as a reason for the indians' expulsion from their lands is their spiritual belief in something other than Jesus. There are many groups throughout history, and even today, who reject Jesus and the influence of Christians. However, that in no way gives Christians the authority to take their land, kill them, break our treaties, and force them to live on reservations.

...

Since, as Bryan Fischer points out, the United States of America is immoral, using his standards we deserve to be destroyed. Does that mean we should helping our nation's enemies bring judgment on America? Absolutely not. Our mission as Christians is to love.

We aren't here to bring or justify judgment; that's God's job. Our duty is to love people, to help others, and to share the gospel of Jesus with everyone around us.

Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it

CitizenLink, the policy and advocacy arm of Focus on the Family, is calling on members to put pressure on the House GOP to implement their far-right goals. Despite the initial claims of House Republican leaders that they would concentrate their work on economic issues, the GOP leadership has embraced a litany of anti-choice bills along with legislation that aims to block the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and revoke marriage equality in Washington DC.

The group is now demanding Republicans pass harsh anti-choice bills that would cripple women’s health services, and also wants the GOP to rollback the rights of gays and lesbian: asking Republicans to repeal the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, reinstate Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, block the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, and protect the unconstitutional Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Tom Minnery, the head of CitizenLink, previously called on the House Oversight Committee led by Darrell Issa (R-CA) to investigate the Department of Justice over their handling of successful challenges to DOMA.

According to CitizenLink’s petition, Republican leaders should:

1.) Eliminate government support and funding of abortion in any federal health care program, particularly the new health care law.

2.) Eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion seller, which received $363 million in government funding during fiscal year 2008.

3.) No new taxes or fees imposed on American families.

4.) Defend the free exercise of religion and speech by rejecting the proposed Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) and repealing the Hate Crimes bill passed in 2009.

5.) Support the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and demand that the Obama Administration uphold and defend DOMA.

6.) Reinstate the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy and underlying federal law that affirms homosexuality is incompatible with military service.

CPAC boycotters, angered over the upcoming event’s inclusion of the gay conservative group GOProud, have taken out a full page ad in the right-wing Washington Times to ask, “What would Ronald Reagan think of CPAC today?”

Rick Scarborough’s Vision America was behind the ad which accused CPAC of “betraying conservative principles and threatening conservative unity by creating the false impression that gay activism is somehow compatible with conservativism” by allowing GOProud to be a participating organization:

The self-proclaimed gay Republicans support hate crime laws (which will be used to bludgeon the church) and oppose the Federal Defense of Marriage Amendment, without which judges will ultimately legislate homosexual “marriage”—making the natural family an endangered species.

Last year, GOProud advocated for homosexuals serving openly in the military, which will devastate our armed forced and sacrifice unit cohesion on the altar of “inclusiveness.”

Ask yourself: Would CPAC allow participation by the Democratic Socialists of America? Why is the free market an inviolable conservative principle, but not family values?

Would organizers invite George Soros to address the gathering? Then why associate with groups who share his worldview?

What does it profit us to gain tax cuts and lose the family—the foundation of a free society?

…

President Reagan used to say that he didn’t leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left him. Sadly, that’s the way many conservatives increasingly feel about CPAC’s current direction.

…

In the war on the family, Judeo-Christian morality and authentic conservative principles, neutrality is impossible. We call for a return to first principles.

While the boycott movement has had some notable successes by pushing Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) to decline to attend the conference, other Religious Right luminaries like Rick Santorum, Timothy Goeglein, Tom Minnery, and Phyllis Schlafly are still slated to address CPAC. In fact, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) is giving the conference’s keynote address.

Notably, some of the most prominent groups boycotting CPAC have not signed on to Scarborough’s letter, including the Heritage Foundation, the Family Research Council, Concerned Women For America, and the Media Research Center. The signatories include:

Mark Andrews, (Casino Watch)
Pastor Paul Blair, (Reclaiming America for Christ)
Susan Carleson, (American Civil Rights Union)
Brian Camenker, (MassResistance)
Mandi Campbell, (Liberty Center for Law and Policy)
Frank Cannon, (American Principles Project)
Chris Carmouche, (GrassTopsUSA)
Joseph Farah, (WorldNetDaily.com)
Don Feder, (Don Feder Associates)
Diane Gramley, (American Family Association of Pennsylvania)
Bishop EW Jackson Sr., (STAND America PAC)
Phillip Jauregui, (Judicial Action Group)
Gordon James Klingenschmitt, (Pray In Jesus Name)
Robert Knight, (American Civil Rights Union)
Mike and Cris Kurtz, (The USA Patriots)
Peter LaBarbera, (Americans For Truth About Homosexuality)
Shelli and David Manuel, (Resurrect America Project)
William J. Murray, (Religious Freedom Coalition)
Rev. Rick Scarborough, (Vision America)
Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, (Traditional Values Coalition)
Sharon Slater, (Family Watch International)
Mat Staver, (Liberty Counsel)
Mike Valerio and Helen Valerio, Americans
Tim Wildmon, (American Family Association)

Elected to Congress last November, Missouri Republican Vicky Hartzler campaigned as both a Religious Right activist and as a Tea Party adherent. But while she literally wrote the book on how and why ultraconservative Christians should run for office, she has had trouble staying true to her anti-government Tea Party rhetoric— she has received hundreds of thousands of dollars of government farm subsidies and, during her campaign, couldn’t name any programs she would cut funding to other than “the Lady Bird Highway Beautification projects.”

In an interview on Sunday with The National Defense, Hartzler swore off any cuts to the Defense budget, denying that Defense costs have increased and claiming that Republicans in Congress already “passed $2.7 trillion in costs savings and cutting the budget.”

Spending on Defense actually outpaces all other discretionary spending programs combined, with estimated spending well over $708 billion in the 2011 fiscal year. In fact, defense spending is approaching 5% of US GDP and comprises about 44% of the global total of defense spending. And while Hartzler claims that “defense isn’t the area in our government where we have increased costs,” Laicie Olson of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation points out that in “inflation-adjusted dollars, the total U.S. defense budget has grown from $432 billion in fiscal 2001 to $720 billion in fiscal 2011, a real increase of approximately 67 percent.”

But perhaps even more outrageous is Hartzler’s that House have managed to cut $2.7 trillion from the budget since they took over as the majority in January. Her figure falls far short of the budget proposals by the GOP leadership, and the House Republicans’ Pledge to America is actually projected to significantly increase the deficit. While the congresswoman included the House’s symbolic vote to “repeal Obamacare” in her dramatic $2.7 trillion total, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that repealing health care reform “would ratchet up the federal deficit by about $230 billion over the next decade.”

Listen to Hartzler laud the GOP’s budget policies while distorting defense spending and coming up with imaginary budget numbers:

Defense isn’t the area in our government where we have increased the costs; it’s in these other areas of government. So let’s look at those areas and cut there, and let’s keep a priority to our men and women who are fighting a war on two fronts. Now is not the time to even be talking about cuts in my view.

…

We’ve only had a limited amount of time to do things, but I feel good about the three weeks that we had what we’ve accomplished. We voted to change the way Washington works, or Congress works I should say, by first and foremost in the second or third day in session we voted to cut our own House budget by five percent, saving $35 million, as a sign to show the American people that we get it and we’re going to start with us. We know that families and businesses are having to tighten their belts, and we think Washington needs to as well.

And then we have passed $2.7 trillion in costs savings and cutting the budget. Every week we are going to be voting to cut government in some way so we have been doing that and we’re going to continue doing that. And so far, if you include repealing ‘Obamacare,’ that’s $2.7 trillion that we have saved. We are serious.

After Michael Steele’s failed attempt to give the GOP a “hip hop” makeover, many Republicans hoped newly-elected Congressman Allen West could boost the Party’s outreach to African American voters. Today, West expressed his concerns about DC residents’ lack of representation, as Washingtonians don’t have a voting member of Congress. In one of the first votes of the session, the Republican majority stripped the DC delegate’s ability to vote in House Committees, a move West supported.

While West floated the idea of “an exclusionary zone” where “District residents do not pay federal taxes” since they don’t have a voting member of Congress, he went on to say that the African American-majority city and black voters across the country may only have themselves to blame for their political marginalization since black voters consistently support Democrats:

West, who was one of two African-American Republicans elected to the House last year, said he hopes to make the GOP more appealing to black voters.

"We need to open up the conversation because blacks cannot expect to have power in this country when they vote 90 percent Democratic," he said.

"You cannot put all of your trust in one political party. I know that blacks will not change overnight or become Republicans in large numbers overnight, but we have to have the conversation about this."

The anti-choice movement has consistently attempted to tar reproductive freedoms as anti-black genocide. Most recently, Rick Santorum said that it was “almost remarkable for a black man” like Obama to support abortion rights, and Terry Heck believes that Obama’s pro-choice position made him a “disgrace” to “his ancestors” like Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass.

Now, a state legislator in Arizona wants to “criminalize abortions if they’re sought because of race or sex,” reports Cronkite News:

If a state lawmaker has his way, women seeking abortions in Arizona would be required to sign documents saying they’re not terminating a pregnancy because of the fetus’ race or sex.

Rep. Steve Montenegro, R-Litchfield Park, is sponsoring two bills that would criminalize abortions if they’re sought because of race or sex. Doctors knowingly performing abortions for those reasons would face Class 3 felony charges.

Michelle Steinberg, an Arizona policy manager for Planned Parenthood, said women should never have to make a case to get an abortion and called the bills demeaning and bizarre.

“This could be a slippery slope in terms of requiring women to disclose why they’re choosing abortion,” she said. “Women should never have to present a case to get an abortion.”

Montenegro didn’t respond to several requests for interviews left with his office and with a spokesman for House Republicans. However, he told Capitol Media Services that abortion clinics are targeting minority areas and that more females are aborted than males.

Steinberg said the fact that minority women seek more abortions stems from other problems.

“This idea that minority women are having abortions at higher rates than white women speaks more to rates of poverty, access to contraception and a lack of sex education,” she said. “This is not racial genocide for God’s sake; this is a real problem that we’re not addressing.”

…

U.S. Rep. Trent Franks, a Republican representing Arizona’s second district, in 2009 sponsored similar legislation: the Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act. The bill, which never made it out of committee, would have criminalized abortion because of the “sex, gender, color or race of the child, or the race of a parent.”

Illinois and Pennsylvania have laws prohibiting sex-selection abortions. Several other states, including Georgia, Mississippi, New Jersey, Idaho and Oklahoma have tried to enact legislation that would prevent sex- or race-selection abortions.

…

Roy Spece, a lawyer and professor at the University of Arizona’s law and medical schools who co-authored a book on cases of bioethics and the law, said Montenegro’s bills could move Arizona backward.

“We could return to the era when you have hospital committees who would decide why each specific woman’s reason for having an abortion is sufficient,” he said.

On the heels of the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell late last year, Virginia Delegate Bob Marshall declared that he was going to introduce legislation that would ban gays and lesbians from serving in the Virginia National Guard.

Now Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has weighed in, saying that the state can do so ... provided that it is willing to fund the militia entirely on its own:

Virginia would have to establish and fully fund its own independent militia if it wanted to ban gays from its National Guard force, Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli says ...Cuccinelli said he could not give a detailed answer to the question until federal regulations repealing the policy are issued. But regardless of how those regulations are written, he said, Congress pays most the Guard's costs and can yank funding for noncompliance with federal policy.

...

Cuccinelli said in his opinion that the nation's state militias evolved over the years into a "dual enlistment system" in which National Guard members "are both members of the organized militia and a reserve component of the armed forces of the United States."

A key aspect of the system, he said, is that the federal government provides virtually all of the funding. The dual enlistment system and the spending power of Congress "has meant in practice that Congress set the standards and policy for state Guard units," Cuccinelli wrote.

Marshall, for his part, isn't buying Cuccinelli's claim and is accusing him of "making this up for political cover" for Republicans who don't want to be forced to vote on Marshall's anti-gay bill.

During the last election, it seemed that just about every Republican running for office was eager to wrap themselves in the mantle of the Tea Party ... but now that the election is over, it doesn't seem that members of Congress are particularly eager to keep on carrying it:

Although dozens of Republicans sailed into office with the help of the tea-party movement last year, finding a self-identified "Tea Party Republican" on Capitol Hill is harder than you'd think.

The first meeting of the Senate Tea Party Caucus on Thursday attracted just four senators - out of a possible 47 GOP members - willing to describe themselves as members. The event was as notable for who wasn't there than who was.

• Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., once a tea-party darling, has for now declined to join the caucus, whose first meeting was organized by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.

• Sen. Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican whose campaign sprang from the small-government movement, has passed for now.

• Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., showed up to address the group of activists Thursday, but then hustled out of the room, ignoring reporters' questions about whether he was in or out.

But those who did show up at the meeting seem eager to demonstrate the bona fides as Tea Party activists pressed Sen. Jim DeMint to cut at least $1.4 trillion in spending per year while Rand Paul burnished his reputation for being one of he most extreme members of the Senate:

[Sen. Rand] Paul's approach - bold, specific and unwaveringly conservative - is exactly what the most engaged activists of the tea party have been seeking. One of the biggest applause lines at Thursday's meeting came when staunch conservative Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., quoted Paul as saying, "My goal is to make DeMint look like a moderate."