senate

The battle over marriage equality in Iowa is heating up as Republicans in the State House are moving forward with plans to ban gay marriage and civil unions, an attempt to reverse a unanimous 2009 State Supreme Court decision in favor of marriage equality. To amend the constitution, “an amendment would require approval by state lawmakers during two legislative sessions, and then approval by voters at the ballot box.” Encouraged by major Republican gains in the midterm elections and the removal of three pro-equality Justices through retention votes, Iowa Republicans have emphasized restrictions on gay-rights and reproductive-rights in their legislative agenda, and Religious Right leader Bob Vander Plaats is pressing for the removal of the entire Supreme Court.

Vander Plaats’s new organization, The Family Leader, recently blasted pro-equality faith leaders in an alert message that questions their faith, stating: “167 ‘religious’ leaders signed a letter delivered to the Iowa Legislature saying that people of faith support homosexual ‘marriage.’ Don’t stay silent while others speak for you and misrepresnt [sic] God.” The group calls on pastors to sign an alternative petition which describes “homosexual behavior” as “immoral and sinful” and “harmful both to the individuals who choose to participate in it and the society that chooses to accept it.”

The mobilization of pastors by The Family Leader comes at a time when, according to the Des Moines Register, Republican leaders are trying to prohibit not only gay marriage but also other forms of legal rights for gay couples such as civil unions and domestic partnerships. The Register reports:

House Republicans will introduce legislation this week to begin the process to amend the Iowa Constitution to ban not only same-sex marriage but also civil unions and domestic partnerships.

That prospect raised alarm with civil rights advocates, who said it would legalize discrimination.

Republicans, who took control of the House in the Nov. 2 elections, had pledged to pass a measure this legislative session that would eventually allow Iowans a vote on same-sex marriage. But the resolution they've prepared is more sweeping than that, a move intended to help place finality on the issue of the legality of same-sex unions, said Rep. Dwayne Alons, R-Hull, who is the lead sponsor of House Joint Resolution 6.

"I think the biggest issue is that if that (a same-sex marriage ban) is carried forward, and then Iowa does civil unions and recognizes that as a substitute status, then, from what I've seen in other states," people would come to consider same-sex civil unions as equal to marriage, Alons said.

As of late Wednesday, no Democrats had signed on as co-sponsors of the bill. Fifty-six of the 60 House Republicans are listed as co-sponsors. The measure is expected to easily pass the House, but Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal has vowed to block consideration of a same-sex marriage amendment in that chamber.

The resolution says: "Marriage between one man and one woman shall be the only legal union valid or recognized in this state."

Des Moines attorney James Benzoni said such an amendment would run counter to the intent of Iowa laws that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation.

"The problem you're going to have is that it allows prejudice," Benzoni said. "It's going to open the door now for discrimination, for bullying, for treating people as second-class citizens."

The wording raised questions about whether private companies and governments in Iowa could still extend benefits to domestic partners. State government, for example, provides domestic partnership benefits to same-sex couples.

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Those who agree with the Iowa Supreme Court ruling have noted that same-sex couples have in previous years been shut out from hospital visitation and inheritance rights. The U.S. Government Accountability Office has listed more than 1,100 benefits the government provides to married couples.

The Rev. Keith Ratliff Sr. of Des Moines, president of the NAACP State Conference for Iowa and Nebraska, has helped lead protests against same-sex marriage. He said Wednesday he agrees with the attempt to also keep domestic partnership or civil unions from gaining legal status.

Ratliff said he believes same-sex marriage further erodes the family, similar to the way that two-income families have eroded traditional nuclear families.

"I think there is an immediate consequence to gay marriage because people let their guard down in relation to what the word of God says," Ratliff said.

• Gary Bauer says Sarah Palin's "blood libel" speech "very Reaganesque."
• Bryan Fischer praises Tim Pawlenty for vowing to reinstate DADT.
• John Thune is unmoved by the CPAC boycott and will still attend.
• Kay Bailey Hutchison will not seek re-election ... and based on no evidence whatsoever, I am going to predict that Rick Green of Wallbuilders decides to make a run for her Senate seat.
• I have to say that the people paying Harry Jackson to shill for energy interests are getting ripped off.
• Norm Coleman, Jeb Bush and other Republicans launch the Hispanic Action Network to try and woo Hispanics over to the GOP.
• Charisma offers a "Prophetic Look at the Tucson Tragedy" that you really need to read.
• Finally, the quote of the day from David Boaz of the Cato Institute: "Twenty years from now, conservatives will deny they were ever anti-gay, just as they now have no memory of ever supporting discrimination against African-Americans or women."

After the news broke that Rep. Michele Bachmann was considering a bid for the Presidency, the Minnesota Congresswoman immediately found strong support in the GOP’s far-right base. While much attention has been paid to her leadership role in the Tea Party, as she chairs both the Tea Party and the Constitutional Conservative Caucuses, Bachmann is also one of the Religious Right’s most beloved members of Congress. She built her political career in Minnesota as a fierce opponent of the teaching of evolution, reproductive rights, and LGBT equality. Once elected to the House of Representatives, she became a Religious Right leader on a national level, finding favor with figures like David Barton, Rick Scarborough, Tony Perkins, and Lou Engle, along with a whole litany of far-right organizations and radical religious groups. Stephanie Mencimer of Mother Jones details the Congresswoman’s close ties to the Dominionist movement, which believes that fundamentalist Christians must run the government to hasten the end-times, most notably Coral Ridge Ministries.

Today, Bachmann received a ringing endorsement from Matt Barber, the Liberty Counsel’s Director of Cultural Affairs and a ferociously anti-gay leader, who calls her “Reagan in pumps.” Barber praises Bachmann for being the most conservative member of the House, and believes her mix of Tea Party bravado and Religious Right fundamentalism makes her the perfect presidential contender that would “mop the floor” with Obama:

From the instant his fruitful eight-year reign ended, Republicans have pined for the next Ronald Reagan. To date, no man has succeeded in filling the conservative standard-bearer's legendary boots. Well, maybe it's time to swap boots for pumps. Could he be a she?

Sarah Palin, you say? Perhaps, but there's actually another outspoken, attractive, fearlessly conservative Tea Party favorite firing up the center-right grass roots: Rep. Michele Bachmann, Minnesota Republican.

Forget a Senate run. The buzz inside the Beltway is that Mrs. Bachmann may be looking to add a woman's touch to the Oval Office (beyond just sprucing up its temporary occupant's eyesore decor). Her spokesman, Doug Sachtleben, has confirmed to media that the congresswoman is considering a potential presidential run, saying: "Nothing's off the table."

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Mrs. Bachmann has been a stalwart in advocating on behalf of constitutional conservatism. She's chairman of the HouseTea Party Caucus and has put her money where her mouth is, voting consistently in Congress to limit the size and scope of government, fortify national security and protect life, liberty and the natural family. National Journal rated Mrs. Bachmann among the most conservative members of Congress in 2009.

Moreover, as with Reagan, it's principle over popularity with the feminine firebrand. She's evidently indifferent to what the moonbat media and the larger loony left think about her. This is an indispensable quality in a leader "We the People" can get behind. She's a maverick's maverick, not the media's.

Still, Mrs. Bachmann is not afraid to shake things up in her own Republican Party. What she lacks in physical stature, she makes up for in - to borrow one of the mainstream media's favorite terms - gravitas. If it takes a step stool to kick a moderate Republican in name only's tail into line, the counterestablishment lawmaker will climb it and kick it.

True, a House member hasn't been elected president since James Garfield, and a woman never has. But as Barack Obama, our first black president, might tell you: We live in an age of firsts.

And speaking of Mr. Obama: In the unlikely event that you could untether him from his tele-prompter binky long enough to debate Mrs. Bachmann, I'd bet my share of the stimulus money that she'd mop the floor with him.

Will she run? Could she win? It remains to be seen. But one thing's for sure: The fireworks leading up to the 2012 presidential election will be something to behold. Based on her penchant for telling it like it is, her existing widespread Tea Party support and her fast-growing national popularity, if this intelligent, principled, bomb-dropping bombshell were to run, I suspect her campaign might just catch fire.

In addition, Larry Klayman, the former founder of Judicial Watch and Freedom Watch, is also excited about a Bachmann presidential bid. Writing for WorldNetDaily, Klayman believes that Bachmann is the best Republican suited to take on Obama’s “socialist, anti-white and anti-Judeo-Christian policies” and is “the next Ronald Reagan”:

Still smug that it can retain the White House in 2012, even after President Obama has alienated most of the nation with his socialist, anti-white and anti-Judeo-Christian policies, the left has set out to destroy the one truly principled politician who can unite conservatives, libertarians, independents, tea partiers, people of faith and any American who truly believes in constrained government, fiscal and individual responsibility, a strong national defense, life, and yes, freedom under God! Her name is Michele Bachmann, and she is a congresswoman from Minnesota.

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Last Thursday, as I was flying to New York City on Virgin America (it would be nice if the nation and the media were still "Virgin America" and not run by whores) to attend a proceeding before the New York Supreme Court in my case against the Ground Zero mosque and its terrorist-connected Imam Rauf, I tuned in Matthews, Obermann, Maddow and O'Donnell on the airline's in-flight television system. Not surprisingly, Matthews, with his characteristic nasty sneer, immediately mocked Michele's having been recently appointed to the House Intelligence Committee, implying that she is stupid and has no "intelligence." Then, as he did in a low-class way on election night 2010, Matthews mocked her again for having previously challenged the media to discuss the anti-American rhetoric that spews from many Democratic members of Congress, not to mention the Mullah in Chief himself, Barack Hussein Obama. To add insult to injury, Matthews then also insinuated that Michele is mentally ill, saying that she always has that weird gaze when she comes on camera. And, if this were not enough, Matthews and his leftist media guests boasted that Michele cannot be trusted and, with the age-old stereotype for "chatty women," would surely reveal national security secrets once on the House Intelligence Committee. They also made fun of her Christian beliefs. All in all, it was a disgusting display.

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The lesson is simple. Michele Bachmann, because she is a principled anti-establishment conservative who not only talks the talk but walks the walk, is a real threat to the establishment left in particular. An attractive anti-feminist woman who is a Christian and is not afraid to be part of our revolution to take Washington apart at the seams, she could well be the next president of the United States. And, not only is the left scared, so much so that it will disgrace itself by mocking a highly intelligent, well-educated and experienced straight female who believes in individual freedom and the vision of our Founding Fathers, it is catatonic. This in and of itself tells us who the next Ronald Reagan could well be.

Back around the election, a group of Religious Right leaders sent a letter to top Republicans urging them to cut taxes, shrink the government, build up the military and restore "traditional moral values."

Apparently concerned that the "restoring traditional moral issues" part might get left out of the mix, many of those same leader have signed on to a new letter to these same top Republicans warning them not to ignore social issues like abortion and marriage:

"When considering America's fiscal and national defense policies, which are critically important, we believe that social issues, including, but not limited to, the sanctity of human life and the preservation of marriage as the union of one man and one woman, are indispensable," the Dec. 20 letter said.

The signers said they believe focusing on all three issues is "essential for America and our future."

"A stool with only one or two legs is unstable," they said. "All three legs are necessary. We believe it is critically important that the leadership, and those appointed or elected to lead, embrace all three legs of the stool. A broad-based and sustainable movement requires all three core values."

...

The letter went to Boehner and Cantor, as well as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl of Arizona.

In addition to [Richard] Land, other signers were Mathew Staver, chairman of Liberty Counsel; Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council; Gary Bauer, president of American Values; Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference; Harry Jackson, chairman of the High Impact Leadership Coalition, and Jim Garlow, chairman of Renewing American Leadership.

• Colorado right wing activist Douglas Bruce faces stiff fines for running a “secret campaign.”

• Speaking of campaign problems, federal officials are investigating Christine O’Donnell for using campaign finances on personal expenses.

• A third court has ruled against Joe Miller, but he still refuses to concede!

• New York’s Conservative Party now number three on the state ballot, while The Rent Is Too Damn High Party falls around 9,000 votes short of receiving an automatic spot.

• Log Cabin Republicans in New York start their own school to train Republican activists.

Back in January the Christian Science Monitor declared “Scott Brown: the tea party’s first electoral victory,” following his surprise win in the special election to fill the Senate seat of the late Ted Kennedy. But now the Boston Globe reports that conservatives and Tea Party activists are mulling over a primary challenge to the Massachusetts Republican. According to the Globe, Brown’s votes in favor of repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, ratifying the START Treaty, and reforming Wall Street (but only after it was watered down to win his support) made him toxic to many Tea Party members and other movement conservatives. The Family Research Council has pledged to back a primary challenger to any Senator who voted to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and the National Republican Trust PAC promised to do the same to any Republican who supported START.

More surprisingly, movement conservatives in Virginia are hoping to block George Allen from running again for the seat he lost to Jim Webb in 2006. Allen, a former Senator and Governor best known for using a racial slur against his opponent’s campaign worker, is already finding himself in trouble with Tea Party groups even though he hasn’t even announced his candidacy yet. The Washington Post reports that Allen’s voting record in the Senate may sink his chances among Virginia Tea Partiers:

For months, it appeared that former U.S. senator George Allen would have a clear path to the Republican nomination if he chose to try to reclaim his old job.

But in the summer, grumbling about his past began, culminating in a Web site outlining the reasons some fellow Republicans oppose him: He's too moderate. He's part of the establishment. He's partly to blame for the record spending and ballooning deficit in Washington.

By this month, no fewer than four Republicans billing themselves as more conservative than Allen were considering challenging him for the right to run against Sen. James Webb, if the Virginia Democrat seeks reelection.

"There are some concerns based on his record and his rhetoric," said Mark Kevin Lloyd, chairman of the Lynchburg Tea Party and vice chairman of the Virginia Tea Party Patriots Federation, a statewide umbrella group. "People are looking at things in a new light," he said.

Allen, who received a 92.3% lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union, was hardly considered a moderate in the Senate. But apparently 92% isn’t enough:

But during his one term in the U.S. Senate, some Republicans complain, he backed President George W. Bush's proposals to increase spending; supported No Child Left Behind, a costly program to create a national education report card; favored a federal program to subsidize the costs of prescription drugs for Medicare beneficiaries; and voted to expand the Hate Crimes Prevention Act to include crimes based on sexual orientation.

Jamie Ratdke, who recently stepped down as chairwoman of the Virginia Tea Party Patriots Federation in order to explore a Senate bid, said she began to consider a run for the Senate after attending a Tea Party convention that featured Rick Santorum, Lou Dobbs, and Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinnelli as speakers:

Radtke said that she had considered running for the state Senate next year but that she began thinking about the U.S. Senate instead after Virginia's first tea party convention, which drew an estimated 2,800 people to Richmond in October.

Radtke, who worked for Allen for a year when he was governor and she was right out of college, said it's time for a new candidate. She said that Allen was part of "George Bush's expansion of government" when he was senator and that she was concerned about some of his stances on abortion.

Allen has said that abortions should be legal in cases of rape, incest and when the life of the mother is endangered, and he owned stock in the manufacturer of the morning-after pill.

If George Allen is deemed not conservative enough for the Republican Party, then expect many more extremist candidates like Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell to win contested GOP primaries. Allen hurt his chances by supporting healthcare and education initiatives that were backed by President Bush and the Republican leadership, and is also deemed too moderate because he voted to include sexual orientation under hate crimes protections and believes in exceptions under a ban on abortion.

While running for reelection in 2006, Allen received wide praise at FRC’s Values Voter Summit for his staunch conservative beliefs, but now he is under attack from the Right for being “too moderate” even though he hasn’t served in public office since he lost the 2006 race. As Corey Stewart, chairman of the Prince William County board of supervisors and a likely primary opponent, says, Allen’s “base has moved on.”

The Senate battle over the confirmation of judicial nominees reflected the epitome of Republican obstructionism, with nominees who won significant if not unanimous support from the Judiciary Committee failing to receive up-or-down votes on their confirmation. Of the 38 pending judicial nominees the Senate was only able to confirm 19 of them before adjourning for the year, exacerbating the country’s judicial vacancy crisis that is growing so badly that even GOP-appointed judges have called on Senate Republicans to end the blockade.

Mario Diaz, the Policy Director for Legal Issues at Concerned Women for America, believes though that Republicans should oppose Obama’s judicial nominees just like starving children should avoid eating “poisoned apples.” He resurrects the same tired arguments used to oppose the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan when he takes direct aim at Goodwin Liu, suggesting that he should not be appointed to the Ninth Circuit Court because he views the Constitution as a living document and “has no judicial experience and almost no legal experience.” Diaz writes:

The liberal cry for more judges has reached an all-time high. Their media cohorts have been banging the drums with the numbers game and the judicial emergency cry in perfect sync. They have become masters of smokescreens and shadows while ignoring the essence.

The nomination of judges is about substance.

If children are starving and you give them poisoned apples, have you really helped them? Hardly! Oh sure, you can say they have more than they had before, but they can’t eat it. It would kill them.

In the same way, assuming you can successfully argue that the country is “starving” for judges (others might argue that what we need are fewer lawsuits, not more judges), President Obama seems to think that by nominating extreme liberal political operatives like Goodwin Liu he is somehow meeting that need. But like the poisoned apples, such nominees would pervert justice, not promote it. And we must be willing to go to great lengths to oppose them.

Aside from the fact that Liu has no judicial experience and almost no legal experience, his view of the role of a judge and the Constitution cannot be more warped. He has made clear he sees the Constitution as a living, breathing document that changes with the times and that judges get to decide what those changes are.

In a 2008 Stanford Law Review article, he argued that judges should use “socially situated modes of reasoning that appeal ... to the culturally and historically contingent meanings of particular social goods in our own society” and that they should “determine, at the moment of decision, whether our collective values on a given issue have converged to a degree that they can be persuasively crystallized and credibly absorbed into legal doctrine.” He was apparently arguing for a new constitutional right to welfare.

Liu is such a political operative that he actually testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee against the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, attacking him viciously. He was also an outspoken opponent of Chief Justice Roberts’ nomination. They were, of course, too far to the right for him. Can you imagine, they actually said they will take the Constitution only for what it says?

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And he is not alone. President Obama has been consistent in nominating radicals (see David Hamilton, Louis Butler, Edward Chen, and Robert Chatigny).

So the liberal elite and their media can keep playing their sad tune about judges. It doesn’t really matter how hungry you are if a person keeps giving you poisoned apples. In fact, can you even trust when they offer one that looks okay?

According to Diaz, Justices Roberts and Alito are model justices who “take the Constitution only for what it says.” Of course, Roberts and Alito have been exposed for their pro-corporate agenda, as Jeffrey Toobin of The New Yorker writes, “the rule in the current Supreme Court” is that if “there is a human being on one side of the ‘v.’ and a corporation on the other, the corporation wins.” A New York Times analysis found that the Roberts Court is far more sympathetic to corporations than even the conservative Rehnquist Court. As Arlen Specter recently claimed, “Chief Roberts promised to just ‘call balls and strikes,’ and then he moved the bases.”

Diaz’s misguided praise for Roberts and Alito is only matched in its absurdity to his opposing Liu, the Associate Dean of the Berkeley School of Law, on the grounds that he “has no judicial experience.” If Diaz believes that Republicans should block Liu’s confirmation to the Ninth Circuit because Liu is not a judge, then by the same logic he should have opposed confirming Roberts to the DC Circuit since he never served as a judge prior to his nomination.

He also badly misconstrues Goodwin Liu’s legal experience. Liu served as a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg and a DC Circuit court judge, in addition to working as an appellate litigator. As Associate Dean of the Berkeley School of Law, Liu has received wide praise from both progressive and conservative legal scholars, and conservatives John Yoo and Ken Starr said “Goodwin is an outstanding nominee.” While Diaz believes that Liu’s criticism of Roberts and Alito disqualifies him from serving, The New York Times notes that “Liu’s warnings that the two men would be extremely conservative justices have turned out to be completely on target,” while Liu’s “views fall within the mainstream of legal scholarship and American politics.”

Diaz goes on to distort Liu’s legal writings, maintaining that he argued “for a new constitutional right to welfare.” The Alliance for Justice makes clear that Liu has ardently opposed an expansive role for the judicial branch:

[Liu] has argued for a model of judicial restraint, concluding that courts should not interpret the Constitution to create affirmative welfare rights, whether to education, health care, or minimal levels of subsistence. Liu has explained that “such rights cannot be reasoned into existence by courts on their own” and has explained that his understanding of the judicial role “does not license courts to declare rights to entirely new benefits or programs not yet in existence.”

Only a right wing hypocrite like Diaz could falsely represent Justices Roberts and Alito as archetypes of judicial restraint and claim that Obama’s urgently-needed judicial nominees as “radicals.” Diaz is forced to levy ridiculous and bogus arguments against Liu in order to backup his wildly inaccurate case opposing Obama’s nominees, however, Senate Republicans have largely followed his lead in their willingness “to go to great lengths to oppose them.”

When the Senate voted to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell Mat Staver of the Liberty Counsel promised the "full mobilization" of the Freedom Federation and "faith-based and policy organizations, veterans, and military families in the states of every Senator who voted for repeal of DADT against the advice of our service chiefs and during a time of war. Those Senators – and the Pentagon leaders responsible for this breach of trust – should understand that they will be the object of concerted political action against them."

Of course, that threat was pretty vague, but now Staver has begun to lay out his plans in an interview with Concerned Women for America,  explaining that they intend to push for state-based legislation barring gays from serving in the National Guard and pressuring House members to defund the implementation of the DADT repeal while seeking to elected members of Congress who vote to reinstate the law:

Staver: This is not the end of the line because there's two situations that are happening; first of all on the national guard - in fact, there is already a bill that is being put forward in Virginia by a Delegate in that state to say that the National Guard is under the individual states and the direction of the Governor, not the President of the United States and therefore the National Guard in Virginia will not abide by this repeal and other states, I'm sure, will follow.

Secondly, and more importantly, it's going to take a while for this law to actually be implemented and I believe that Congress can defund any implementation of this law when they take their seat in January.

And I believe that we can move forward to actually reinstate this law - I think we have enough votes in the House; we probably don't have enough votes in the Senate obviously, but we need to move forward in 2011 and 2012 to make sure that we do have enough votes so that we can protect our men and women and our national security, put that at highest regard and not the homosexual agenda as this Congress and this President has done.

Contact you members of the House, particularly the House, and ask them to defund the implementation of this repeal next year. You know, as part of repeal they're going to have to do training, they're going to have to spend money and the House holds the purse strings and the House can certainly withhold those purse strings from any kind of action to implement this repeal.

• Bryan Fischer continues to rail against the DADT vote.
• Matt Barber continues to rail against the SPLC.
• NOM wants questions about marriage asked at the RNC debate.
• Cliff Kincaid is set to become the director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism, presumably so he can write long investigations about how gays plan to infect everyone with HIV-tainted blood.
• I genuinely hope that Michele Bachmann decides to run for the Senate because I find it unlikely that the state the elected Paul Wellstone would ever elect someone like her.
• Finally, the quote of the day from Gary Bauer: "It would be wrong to suggest that by stirring up class resentment the Left caused any of these crimes. What seems fairly clear, however, is that the Left is turning the anger and frustration that many struggling Americans feel about the economy into resentment against those who have succeeded."