senate

Alaska Governor Sean Parnell nominated Don Haase, a former candidate for the state House of Representatives, to serve on the state's Judicial Council, the board which nominates candidates for open judgeship positions.

During his confirmation hearing, it was discovered that Hasse was formerly the president of the Eagle Forum's state affiliate ... and that he thinks people should prosecuted for having sex outside of marriage: 

Gov. Sean Parnell's appointee for the panel that nominates state judges testified Wednesday that he would like to see Alaskans prosecuted for having sex outside of marriage.

The candidate, Don Haase of Valdez, also admitted under questioning by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that his official resume failed to disclose his leadership role in Eagle Forum Alaska, which advocates for social conservative issues. He most recently was president of the organization, but resigned when he learned of his nomination, he said.

Haase, picked by Parnell for one of three public seats on the Alaska Judicial Council, said that he wouldn't let his personal beliefs influence which candidates he'd approve for judgeships.

Failed Alaska Senate candidate Joe Miller, who lost to incumbent Lisa Murkowsi even though she wasn’t even on the ballot, has been named the chair of a right-wing political action committee. Western Representation PAC announced today that Miller is coming on as the group’s new chairman, and Miller is also set to appear at a fundraiser for the Committee to Defeat Barack Obama. The Western Representation PAC backed far-right candidates like Miller and Sharron Angle, along with other unsuccessful candidates for Congress.

Currently, Miller’s group is leading a campaign called “Break the Unions” and is running radio advertisements in Wisconsin slamming a “vicious minority…organized by corrupt labor unions and by President Obama’s Organizing for America.” According to Miller’s PAC, the unions are “nothing more than a political arm of a dangerous liberal agenda.”

Miller’s PAC says that its endorsed “candidates must support civil liberty and uphold the Constitution,” which in Miller’s case does not apply to the First Amendment’s protection for the freedom of the press or the or the Fourth Amendment’s ban on arrests without warrants.

Only in the worldview of the Religious Right do marginalized Americans like gays and lesbians have excessive clout in government while conservatives have little to none. Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America, one of the most influential right-wing lobbyist organizations, describes LGBT-rights organizations as “bullies” whose crime is raising too much money. She told the American Family Association’s news service OneNewsNow that opponents of the Defense of Marriage Act are “claiming rights that don’t exist” and are trying to “intimidate” public officials. In addition, Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel ranted against the “radical leftists” allied with “extremist, homosexual pressure groups.” Wright and Barber were responding to legislation, the Respect for Marriage Act, introduced by Rep. Jerrod Nadler (D-NY) that would repeal the dubiously-constitutional DOMA:

Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America tells OneNewsNow: "The congressmen who introduced this bill are claiming rights that don't exist. There is no right to same-sex 'marriage,' and they seek to confuse people by using language like that. Every time that marriage has come up for a vote in a state, that state has protected marriages between one man and one woman."

Matt Barber, vice president of Liberty Counsel Action, refers to the bill as the "Disrespecting Marriage Act." He says the good news is that it is really an exercise in futility -- and he believes Democrats know that.

"We have a faction of radical leftists in the House and in the Senate who are willing to side and align themselves with extremist, homosexual pressure groups in order to try to take a sledgehammer to the institution of marriage, which is fundamental to any healthy society," says Barber.

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force applauds the move by Democrats, calling it "landmark legislation." Wright says homosexual lobbying groups often act like victims, but it is quite the contrary.

"So when you look at how they operate, they are in fact the bullies," says the CWA spokeswoman. "They're the ones who have massive amounts of money. When you look at the budgets of these groups, it's rather shocking the multimillions of dollars they have -- they bring in every year -- and with that, they're able to hire full-time lobbyists who then intimidate not only politicians but corporations."

For some time now, Rick Scarborough of Vision America has been hosting a daily half-hour radio program on KAVX 91.9 in Lufkin, Texas but we haven't really paid much attention to it because archived programs had never been available. 

But that appears to have changed, as Vision America has started posting the broadcasts on its website. And I am glad they have, otherwise we would never have known that, on Tuesday, Scarborough was in Washington, DC to attend a summit with Congressional leaders like Rep. Michele Bachmann and Rand Paul (whom he mistakenly called "Paul Rand") to discuss how they can work together to "advance the kingdom of our savior, the dear and precious lord Jesus Christ":

Please pray for me. I was invited to attend a summit of national leaders in Washington DC, I'll be in those meetings throughout the day today along with several others that you know well, like Elaine Donnelly who was on our program just yesterday and a host of other leaders of the same caliber. We're discussing how we can best bring the limited resources at our command together so we can advance the kingdom of our savior, the dear and precious lord Jesus Christ. I'll give you a full report when I return. We're going to be listening to about five or six of the key legislators, both on the Senate side as well as the House side.

Paul Rand [sic], the newly elected senator and son of a Texas congressmen, Paul Rand will be speaking to us along with such notables as Michele Bachmann .. and by the way, during these sessions, they're a small enough gathering that while they will be initializing some comments, we'll be interacting and talking back and forth about our concerns. A host of well-known conservative leaders will be in that room and I really covet your prayers for that.

As personhood legislation sprouts up in states like Mississippi, Georgia, Florida and Iowa, the radical anti-choice group Personhood USA also hopes to introduce their extreme (and unconstitutional) legislation in North Dakota. Personhood bills criminalize abortion and certain forms of birth control by granting legal rights to zygotes, declaring it a separate ‘person’ from the mother. Many doctors believe that such legislation would ban in vitro fertilization and prohibit doctors from giving medical assistance to women with serious pregnancy complications like ectopic pregnancies. The AP reports on North Dakota doctors speaking out against the radical legislation in their state:

Doctors told the North Dakota Senate's Judiciary Committee that it could affect couples using in vitro fertilization to try to have a baby as well as women who have complications in early pregnancy that will prevent an embryo from developing into a viable baby. Such complications include an ectopic pregnancy, which happens when a fertilized egg begins growing outside the uterus. The doctors who testified said they did not perform abortions.

…

Although the measure exempts in vitro fertilization from criminal penalties, it includes language saying that "causing injury to a human being" is not justified.

Dr. Stephanie Dahl, a Fargo infertility specialist who works at North Dakota's only in vitro fertilization center, said the bill would make it illegal to do the procedure.

"The process of IVF may result in injury to an embryo," Dahl said. "It is unavoidable."

Dr. Shari Orser, a Bismarck obstetrician and gynecologist, told the committee that most eggs that are fertilized for in vitro fertilization never become viable embryos "and only a small percentage of embryos thought to be viable produce a child."

"To suggest that every embryo is a person is absurd," Orser said.

Orser said the law also would complicate the treatment of ectopic pregnancies. Without treatment, a tubal pregnancy can result in serious internal bleeding and death, she said.

Other conditions can result in a fetus developing without kidneys, lungs or a brain, Orser said.

"These diagnoses are often made in the first half of these pregnancies," Orser said. "Should a woman be forced to continue the pregnancy when she knows that her baby will die, or can she be spared the emotional distress and the risks of carrying a pregnancy to term?"

• It seems like Tim Kaine is preparing to run for the Senate.
• Governor Haley Barbour's press secretary has resigned after sending out an email joking about the Japan earthquake and former Attorney General Janet Reno.
• On a similar note, the 91 year-old New Hampshire legislator who declared that "crazy people" should be sent to Siberia has also resigned.
• Rick Santorum attacked Mitt Romney over healthcare and John F. Kennedy for supporting the separation of church and state.
• Herman Cain says you never hear people talking about the fact that Planned Parenthood was started "so they could help kill black babies before they came into the world,” Really? He ought to come and work here because we hear about that every day.

In 2004, voters in Alabama were given an opportunity to remove racist language mandating separate schools for "white and colored children" and poll taxes from the state constitution ... and they refused.

In 2012, it looks like they will get another chance ... and "Ten Commandments Judge" Roy Moore is opposed to the effort because apparently trying to rid Alabama's Constitution of the vestiges of racism makes Alabama look racist: 

Republican Sen. Arthur Orr of Decatur got a Senate committee to vote unanimously Tuesday for his proposed constitutional amendment that would remove language providing for poll taxes and for schools separated by race.

The vote by the Constitution, Campaign Finance, Ethics and Elections Committee sends his legislation to the Senate, where its passage is almost assured because more than two-thirds of the senators are co-sponsors. If approved by both houses of the Legislature, it would go before Alabama voters in a statewide referendum in November 2012.

...

Moore, however, opposes the current amendment. He said the racist language is meaningless because of court rulings and is ignored by people, and he said Orr could do more damage to the state's image by bringing it up for a statewide referendum.

"Painting Alabama as still racist is not a good thing for our state," Moore said in an interview.

The Republican governor of South Dakota announced that he is “inclined to sign” an extreme bill passed by the state legislature that requires women seeking an abortion to undergo a 72 hour waiting period and biased counseling. RWW first reported on the bill when it was first approved by a House committee, and has since passed the full House and Senate.

As outlined in a new People For the American Way report on the flurry of anti-choice laws under consideration in the states, the impending 72 hour waiting period would even exceed the more common 24 hour waiting period in a state which only has one clinic that offers abortion services, which are provided just once a week.

If signed into law, South Dakota women would be forced to meet with staffers of so-called “pregnancy care centers,” better known as crisis pregnancy centers, who are typically not medical professionals but instead anti-choice activists. Such centers receive significant funding from Religious Right groups and organizations opposed to abortion rights, and frequently employ deceiving and discredited propaganda against abortion and contraception.

According to a 2006 Congressional report, close to 90 percent of such centers “grossly misrepresented the medical risks of abortion, telling the callers that having an abortion could increase the risk of breast cancer, result in sterility, and lead to suicide and ‘post-abortion stress disorder.’” Many of the groups also receive government funding through abstinence-only-until-marriage programs and one of the largest private financers said that the goal of such centers is to “get the chance to share the Gospel with [women], which is the ultimate thing of what we’re doing.” In fact, the New York City Council just passed a measure that would make the centers disclose that they are not accredited medical offices.

Just days after Rep. Steve King (R-IA) announced plans to cut funding to the Department of Justice because it will no longer defend the unconstitutional Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-MO) has introduced legislation requiring the Obama administration to enforce DOMA. Hartzler accuses President Obama of “selectively enforcing our laws” and “breaking his word to the American people,” which could lead to “chaos.”

Of course, Hartzler’s argument is totally baseless: the Defense of Marriage Act will continue to be enforced, even though the Department of Justice decided that it will no longer defend the law in court. As Reuters reported, “In a filing on Monday, DOJ attorneys reiterated that Obama told executive agencies to enforce the law until Congress repealed it -- even though the administration would no longer defend its constitutionality in court.”

But that hasn’t stopped Hartzler, whose political career is based on her vehement opposition to gay rights, from offering her specious legislation:

Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler (MO-4) is the lead sponsor of legislation calling on President Obama and his Department of Justice to respect the law and enforce the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

“President Obama’s decision to order his Justice Department to stop defending DOMA is not a surprise but it is disappointing,” Hartzler said. “Once we start going down the road of selectively enforcing our laws we are headed for chaos. President Obama took an oath to uphold the laws of the United States and he is breaking his word to the American people.”

“The 1996 Defense of Marriage Act was enacted through large majority votes in both the House and Senate and was signed into law by President Clinton,” added Hartzler. “President Obama is subverting the will of the representatives of the people. The good citizens of the 4th Congressional District are expected to follow the law and President Obama should not put himself above the law."

In 2004, Hartzler served as state spokesperson for the Coalition to Protect Marriage, which supported Missouri’s defense of marriage amendment. That amendment passed with the support of 71 percent of the state’s voters.