« Miscellaneous
September 14, 2007
Heritage Foundation Official: Bin Laden 'Aping' Democrats
Mike Franc, apparently forgeting Bin Laden's call for tax cuts. Meanwhile, Gary Bauer: "Victory is a values issue."
Posted by Ezra at 11:33 AM | Permalink
August 31, 2007
Right Wing Marks Katrina Anniversary
Two years ago this week, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and other stretches of the Gulf Coast. At the time, the response by many on the Right was to blame the victims and/or social-service programs, and to take advantage of the “golden opportunity” to advance a far-right economic agenda. Remember Pat Buchanan, who criticized the “failure” of the “character and conduct” of the population of New Orleans, who “waited for the government to come save them” and “screamed into the cameras for help”? Then-Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) called for “tougher penalties” for those who were stranded when the storm hit and the city was flooded. Bill O’Reilly saw video footage of the tragedy as an ideal object lesson for young people: “If you refuse to learn, if you refuse to work hard, if you become addicted, if you live a gangsta-life, you will be poor and powerless just like many of those in New Orleans.” (Watch the video.)
A few on the Religious Right joined in: Steve Lefemine of Columbia Christians for Life and Flip Benham of Operation Save America declared Katrina and Hurricane Rita acts of God in response to abortion in America. “God has more disaster than our federal government has relief!” said Benham. Franklin Graham, son of the famous evangelist, said in a visit to Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, “There’s been satanic worship. There’s been sexual perversion. God is going to use that storm to bring revival. God has a plan. God has a purpose.” (Pat Robertson, whose organization was promoted by FEMA as a Katrina relief charity, merely stated that Katrina and the Asian tsunami were the “birth pangs of a new order.” Watch the video.)
Meanwhile, many right-wing activists sprang at the chance to implement long-standing policy aims like private-school vouchers and capital gains tax cuts (according to Jack Kemp, capital gains is “not a tax on the rich, [but] a tax on the poor who want to get rich”). A number of Republicans in the House organized a program code-named “Operation Offset,” using Katrina as an excuse to revive efforts to cut funding for bugbears like PBS, Amtrak, and the earned-income tax credit.
Most of these activists and commentators have been silent on Katrina’s two-year anniversary, but a few have marked the occasion. Fred Smith, head of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, complained this week about the government “dump[ing] billions” into a “regulated” Louisiana economy, and called for more “self-help” on the part of residents. He echoed his own comments from October 2005, when he said the Bush Administration’s response to Katrina proved his point that, “You can have good government, or you can have Big Government, but you can't have good Big Government.”
John Hawkins wrote that he was tired of the “pity party” and said victims should “get over it”:
[W]e're all supposed to eternally sit around and weep tiny little tears of sadness for the people who really took it on the chin in a hurricane because they chose to live in a city shaped like a soup bowl on the coast. Let me tell all the citizens of New Orleans something that should have been told to them 18 months ago: it's time to stop playing the sympathy card and get over it.
And Joseph Farah, publisher of WorldNetDaily, complained about any effort toward “restoring New Orleans to its former decadent glory. “
The politicians forcibly take the money from you, bestow it upon a rebuilding effort that should never take place and then slap themselves on the back for all their hard work and sacrifice. …
Somebody's got to say it: New Orleans, the party's over!
(Photo from Petty Officer 2nd Class Kyle Niemi, U.S. Coast Guard.)
Posted by Ezra at 4:51 PM | Permalink
April 12, 2007
Praise for the Genocidal Regime in Sudan
Reverend Rob Schenck of the National Clergy Council and Faith and Action says he just returned from Sudan and Darfur and apparently likes what he sees:
The Reverend Rob Schenck … returned over the Easter weekend from a seven-day diplomatic mission to Khartoum, Sudan and its Darfur state … The purpose of the mission was to engage Khartoum's government in dialogue on religion and human rights and to gain first-hand information on the state of religious liberty in the officially Islamic country.
"I was surprised by what we found in Sudan," said Schenck. "The new unity government and various peace plans seem to be working. There is new power sharing with Christians, but much remains to be done. It's an extremely complex situation, one we need look at afresh."
Schenck added, "Evangelical believers in Khartoum gave us a strong message against U.S. sanctions, one I intend to deliver to President Bush."
Schenck just returned from visiting with the Sudanese leadership in Khartoum, a regime which is accused of orchestrating a genocidal counter-insurgency campaign against the people of Darfur with the assistance of government-backed Janjaweed militias who routinely rape women, torture men and burn victims alive, killing nearly a half-million people and displacing millions more.
And he returns pledging to press the Bush Administration not to implement sanctions simply because there appears to be some “power sharing with Christians” - even as the regime continues to kill African Muslims throughout the region.
Schenck’s visit was hosted by Sudan's Foreign Ministry at the same time as Rep. James McGovern was being denied entry into Sudan because he refused to “[meet] with government officials, saying he wanted to visit the refugee sites alone.” Presumably, Khartoum realized that McGovern and Schenck would have different messages to share with the US public once they returned, which is why one was welcomed and the other barred.
Schenck is not alone in thinking that the regime in Khartoum ought to be rewarded simply because, while it continues to kill the mostly Muslim people of Darfur, it has stopped war against the mostly Christian south. In February, Franklin Graham also returned from a meeting in Khartoum with similar views:
Graham said he came away thinking that Bashir, who now stands accused of presiding over the killing of at least 200,000 people in the Darfur region in the country's west, deserves credit for signing the peace agreement with rebels in the south in 2005.
Although human rights activists and some U.S. officials are counseling tougher measures against Bashir's government to end the violence in Darfur -- and to more fully implement a faltering peace agreement with the south -- Graham said that a softer approach is needed.
"I'm not a politician, but I think our government does need to recognize some steps he's taken and reward this government in some way to show them we appreciate what they have done" regarding southern Sudan, said Graham, the son of famed evangelist Billy Graham and head of the international Christian relief group Samaritan's Purse. "I think we can do more when we're engaged."
…
Graham said Bashir pledged to allow groups to build their churches and to look into Graham's other requests, including one for $15 million to help rebuild at least 600 churches in the south destroyed during the war.
Of course, there are other faith organizations that have been vocal in their concern about the victims of Darfur, such as Evangelicals for Darfur and the dozens of organization affiliated with Save Darfur. Graham and Schenck don’t appear to be members of either.
Posted by Kyle at 5:15 PM | Permalink
March 19, 2007
Christian Coalition Still Having an Impact
A little over a week ago, the Associated Press took a look at the Christian Coalition and wondered whether it had any role to play in the 2008 election. But despite the organization’s string of defections, its financial woes, and its overall decline since the departure of Ralph Reed, Coalition president Roberta Combs insisted that “when the primary comes around and we distribute millions of voter guides, we'll be a factor.”
While the Christian Coalition might not be a key right-wing player in the upcoming presidential campaign, it appears to still be having some success on the local level – working to prevent passage of a bill in Georgia that would allow alcohol sales on Sunday:
An Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll in January found that 68 percent of respondents statewide supported giving voters the chance to consider Sunday beer and wine sales at grocery and convenience stores. About 80 percent supported the concept in metro Atlanta. Only a little over half did so in South Georgia. Support dropped to under 50 percent in Middle Georgia, home of Gov. Sonny Perdue, who opposes the bill.
Other polls also show support for the bill, but critics say surveys don't reveal the depth of opposition to the idea in Bible Belt towns like Blackshear.
"Rural Georgia doesn't want this bill," Jim Beck, president of the Christian Coalition of Georgia, said after the bill passed a Senate committee last week.
"This matters to values voters. If you buy your groceries at Piggly Wiggly, you get your hair cut at the barber shop and you go to church on Sundays, this bill matters."
The Christian Coalition is expecting about 100 rural volunteers to show up today at the Capitol to lobby against the bill. Another group, the Christian Alliance, has been rallying ministers to fight the measure.
While the Christian Coalition may no longer have of an impact on who becomes the next president, at least the Georgia chapter will be able to claim credit for preventing people from purchasing alcohol on Sundays.
Posted by Kyle at 2:44 PM | Permalink
February 20, 2007
Georgia Congressman: Global Warming Alarm Like Eugenics Movement
So claims John Linder in an op-ed.
Posted by Ezra at 6:08 PM | Permalink
February 14, 2007
Schlafly Warns against 'Feminist' Treaty
Calls on GOP to filibuster.
Posted by Ezra at 11:59 PM | Permalink
February 9, 2007
Don’t Mess With Pat Robertson
From The Virginian-Pilot
One of Hampton Roads' highest-profile Christians stands accused of a not-so-Christian act.A plaintiff in a federal lawsuit against Pat Robertson says the televangelist threatened his life and that of his family at a legal proceeding Wednesday in the Norfolk federal courthouse.
The accuser, Phillip Busch, is suing Robertson for misappropriation of his image in the promotion of Robertson's protein diet shake.
According to a complaint Busch filed with the Norfolk police, Robertson entered a room in the courthouse Wednesday afternoon to be questioned for a deposition - an out-of-court form of testimony - and told Busch: "I am going to kill you and your family."
Robertson's attorney, Glen Huff, denied the allegation Thursday, saying: "There was no such threat."
Busch had better watch his back because it is probably pretty dangerous to be suing Robertson over the very same “age-defying shake” that gives him the super-human power to leg-press 2000 lbs.
Posted by Kyle at 1:31 PM | Permalink
January 31, 2007
Vision America Can’t Decide If It Likes “Friends of God”
Vision America is angry about the new Alexandra Pelosi documentary “Friends of God,” a documentary airing on HBO that takes a look at the evangelical movement and, as the New York Times stated, serves as a “colorful reminder of how George W. Bush became president, why Fox News has the highest ratings of any 24-hour cable news network and why Democrats didn’t win an even greater landslide in the 2006 elections.”
Vision America’s Rick Scarborough reportedly appears in the documentary and is not happy about it:
The special, directed by Alexandra Pelosi (daughter of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi), focuses on every oddity imaginable -- including "Christian wrestling" and "Christian miniature golf" -- to make 80 million Americans from all walks of life seem freakish.
"I wasn't even aware that such things existed until someone alerted me that I was in the documentary and I began investigating it," Scarborough said.
…
"If you choose to watch 'Friends of God,' understand that what you are seeing is an attempt to denigrate evangelical Christians. Take it for what it is -- a cleverly packaged assault, designed to undermine the valuable contributions to our country of 80 million Bible-believing Americans," Scarborough cautioned.
Scarborough “wasn't even aware” of the Pelosi documentary? Well, others at Vision America obviously were, judging by this giant announcement on their website:
If “Friends of God” is nothing but an “attempt to denigrate evangelical Christians,” why is Vision America trumpeting Scarborough’s involvement and providing its supporters with info on scheduling?
Posted by Kyle at 1:27 PM | Permalink
December 29, 2006
Happy New Year
Right Wing Watch will return on Wednesday, January 3rd.
Posted by Kyle at 2:27 PM | Permalink
December 22, 2006
Happy Holidays
Right Wing Watch will return on Wednesday, December 27th.
Posted by Kyle at 4:30 PM | Permalink
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