Tag: Conservative Values

Newt Gingrich is Such a Loser

Buck Banks

When Newt Gingrich announced last weekend that he would not be running for president, I wasn’t too surprised. See, for the past several weeks, I have subscribed to Newt’s e-newsletter, Winning the Future Through Human Events.

Now I know I’m going to catch it from co-editor Trish for that confession, but I just wanted to know what Newt was up to. Call it research.

Two weeks ago, he announced in his newsletter (which carries really pathetic adverts, but more on that in a minute) that he would be announcing his American Solutions for the Future agenda in Second Life on Thursday, Sept. 27. I signed up, mainly because I wanted to see what kind of avatar Newt would choose (my guess: tall, dark, slender, handsome — after all, you can be who you want to be in Second Life, and why would he choose to be a short, chunky Georgian?).

This Free Report Reveals How You Can Reverse 50 Years of Artery Plaque With Just Four Tiny Capsules a Day!

Didn’t happen. I was supposed to get a notice about where in Second Life Newt would be ‘splaining his solutions for the future, but didn’t get one. I went to Second Life at the appointed time, but could get nothing from the virtual child molesters, pickpockets and perverts that I encountered there. And I didn’t want to spend any Linden dollars tracking the Newt down.

Then, last weekend, Newt announced that he would not run for president because he couldn’t do that and run American Solutions, due to it being a 527 organization. In other words, Newt would be prevented from running for prez while heading up his cash cow that falls into that gray area outside election finance laws:

According to the IRS, a Section 527 (§527) organization is an organization that is created to receive and disburse funds to influence or attempt to influence the nomination, election, appointment or defeat of candidates for public office.

On the face of the above definition, a §527 Organization sounds like a PAC. In effect that is what a §527 organization is—a PAC by another name. However, there is one key difference, a §527 organization does not fall within the regulator realm of the Federal Election Commission and therefore it is not subject to the same limits as FEC-regulated PACs.

Often called “soft money” PACs or organizations, a §527 organization is permitted to accept contributions in any amount from any source. However, the organization is required to make regular reports to the Internal Revenue Service of its funding and expenditures.

Except not all 527s are required to report to the IRS. Is American Solutions? Who knows?

I received an e-mail yesterday in which Newt tries to explain why he simply can’t run for president. His explanation? Those Blue Meanies, McCain-Feingold, the campaign finance reform legislation, which rightly draws a line between shadow organizations like American Solutions and political action committees and legitimate campaign organizations.

Co-Editor Jon nailed it Sunday when he said Newt is just too damn unpopular to win the presidency and that the Newtster is more interested in maintaining a cushy source of revenue than doing the hard work of campaigning and governing.

And, man, the dough must be rolling in, given the kinds of adverts Newt is running in his newsletter. There’s this snake-oil pitch:

FREE Report
THE 23-CENT LIFE-SAVER Heart Surgeons NEVER TELL YOU ABOUT!

This Free Report Reveals How You Can Reverse 50 Years of Artery
Plaque With Just Four Tiny Capsules a Day!

Scientific studies have proven this one nutrient is up to 82%
effective at eliminating rogue calcium from plaque, causing
clogs to soften, and be flushed away. As plaque is flushed away,
healthy blood flow is restored to the heart, brain, muscles, and
every organ in your body.

This report reveals the astonishing health miracle 1.5 million
grateful patients swear by. So safe, it’s FDA-APPROVED for use
in baby food. So effective, you can actually SEE it working. So
Cheap, it’s JUST 23 cents per capsule.

I wonder how you can see it working INSIDE YOUR ARTERIES!

And this one:

NEVADA WATER DEAL SET TO PAY 381%

The fight for water in the Southwest is heating up faster than a
blow torch. The Arizona Republic calls it “a classic Western
showdown.” And right now one small company is about to turn this vicious demand into millions of dollars on one of the most
important water deals in decades — at near record prices.

This company is about turn its holdings into a 102,000% gain.
Investors have only a short time to get in on this deal before
the hedge funds or private equity gobble it up …

Wow! A 102,000 percent gain! I wonder if Fed Chair Ben Bernanke knows about that.

And then there’s this gem:

IF DEMOCRATS HAD ANY BRAINS, THEY’D BE REPUBLICANS

Ann Coulter at her funniest and most outrageous

Who knew Ann Coulter was funny?

So, not only is Newt getting dough from the 1,200 misguided individuals who actually showed up at the the Cobb Galleria Centre in Atlanta, Ga., Saturday — so many more than the Newt expected, they had to “expand the ballroom we were in by removing a wall and setting up more chairs” — he’s raking it in off Web ads for Ann Coulter books. Ew!

No wonder a run for president seemed like too much work. “Winning the Future” indeed — one click at a time.

Richard Viguerie Is Kind of Right About Who Bush Should Choose for AG, But for the Wrong Reasons

Buck Banks

My favorite right-wing punching bag Richard Viguerie has an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times today in which he proves once again why he’s not in George W, Bush’s cabinet. His free advice to Bush on who he should choose to replace disgraced Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has some elements that I actually agree with — but for reasons different from Viguerie’s.

Nominate someone with a record of toughness on law-and-order issues who
will not shy away from investigating government corruption.

Well, I don’t agree with everything the Goldwater conservative says:

Liberal commentators and, I’m sure, spineless Republican consultants are advising the president to attempt to make peace with such critics as Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) by naming a nonpartisan, inoffensive
fellow like Edward Levi, whom President Ford picked as AG in the wake of Watergate and of the 1974 election of a left-wing majority in Congress. Of course, Levi’s appointment did nothing to appease the liberal Democrats and deprived Ford of a legitimate political weapon against Democratic corruption. Levi wasn’t even the “moderate” he was advertised to be; he pushed Ford into appointing to the U.S. Supreme Court the radical John Paul Stevens, who remains there today.

Viguerie says the Democrats cannot be appeased, and he’s probably right, and I do agree with his next suggestion to Bush:

… nominate someone with a record of toughness on law-and-order issues who will not shy away from investigating government corruption (including vote fraud), and who will push for the nomination of highly qualified judges who faithfully follow the law rather than making it up as they go along.

That’s good, sound advice that Bush won’t take because a true law-and-order AG would have to be willing to investigate the party in power and oh, say Dick Cheney and his gang, which ain’t going to happen. But it’s still the description of the kind of AG who should always be sought out, instead of a party-line stoolie.

But then Viguerie goes off the rails back onto his familiar complaint that the Democrats want an activist judiciary — as if the Republicans don’t:

If the Democrats block the confirmation, expose them for their partisanship, for their refusal to be tough on law enforcement out of fear that they will upset their own base, and for their efforts to use the unelected judiciary to create policies that would never be enacted through a democratic process. 

[…]

A New Online Compendium of Republican Sleaze

Jon Ponder

A Review:Tommy Korioth at Basket of Puppies deserves kudos for the hard slogging he did in putting together the Republican Culture of Corruption – An Extended List.

During divorce proceedings, one Focus on the Family physician and Bush FDA appointee was accused of anally raping his wife for eight years. When asked about it, he said, “I missed.”

There are around 200 entries categorized by high profile crimes (espionage, corruption and bribery and perjury), sex-related offenses (child rape, child pornography, rape, sexual harassment, lewd conduct and prostitution) and lesser offenses including drugs and DUI.

The list also looks at specific cases, including those of Jack Abramoff, Tom Delay, the Merit System Scandal in Kentucky and the incredibly under-reported White House gay prostitution ring in the George H.W. Bush administration.

Talk show hosts get their own break-out as do Republican serial killers. There were at least two: Dennis Rader, the BTK killer, and Ted Bundy.

As extensive as the list is, there is so much Republican sleaze out there that no one person could list them all. A couple of notable omissions here include the DUI of George W. Bush at age 30, and Dick Cheney’s two arrests in the 1960s.

(Korioth’s list also does not cover adultery, per se, however for a review of the most egregious cases, we put together The Real Threat to Marriage: Top 10 GOP Adulterers last year.)

A few notable from the Republican Culture of Corruption that were news to me or that I’d forgotten:
[…]

Like Its Boycotts, AFA’s ‘Debate’ Will Likely Be Ineffectual

Buck Banks

Donald “The Wildman” Wildmon is touting the American Family Association’s upcoming GOP Values Voter Presidential Debate Sept. 17. Here’s how he describes it:

We’ve heard the questions from talking snowmen. We’ve gotten the crumbs that fell from Chris Matthews. Now it’s our turn. It’s time the candidates answer questions from the largest voting block in America: the values voters. Yes, the values voters.

It wasn’t supposed to be just a GOP event among the presumptive losers. Wildmon invited all candidates, Democrats and Republicans to come to Fort Lauderdale to answer real questions. Of course no Dems are coming, and the list of GOPers who have committed to the event reads like the also rans following the primaries: Huckabee, Brownback, Hunter, Paul, Tancredo and Cox.

What does Wildmon say makes this debate different?

The candidates will be asked questions related to abortion, immigration, marriage and other issues Values Voters consider important.

If you want to see where they stand on the traditional, pro-family issues, don’t miss this debate.

Whoa, there should be a wide array of differing opinions among these white guys in black suits with red ties, setting off a spirited debate among them to see who can be the most right-wing and least tolerant.

Of course, this marginal event is not being broadcast by any television network, but will be streamed live from the AFA Web site.

Republicans Painted Themselves Into Gay Corner

Trish

When the Karl Roves and Andrea Laffertys of the world decided that the best way to get out the vote was to fire up the masses about gay rights, they never considered that some of their own were gay too. It’s kind of like forgetting that some Republicans are black, and one or two are poor. Easy to do, but a mistake nonetheless.

Houston Chronicle: “A party that harps on sexual orientation, as the Republicans now do, forces many of its own into furtive, destructive behaviors”

When reality intrudes into their rhetoric, the dissonance stings — hard. The Houston Chronicle notes the consquences for a party, “which since the 1980s has, culturally and legislatively, demonized gay men and women.”

By preoccupying the party with homosexuality…Republican strategists have helped force out or into hiding numerous lawmakers who served the party well. Instead of disclosing their orientation and getting on with their work, gay or bisexual Republicans typically have felt compelled to choose between personal integrity and political survival.

Yet heterosexuality is hardly a bedrock Lincolnesque value. [Sen. Larry] Craig’s own constituents happily re-elected him for years — despite rumors about his orientation — before he began opining on others’ sexuality.

An even better example of this dynamic is the successful career of former U.S. Rep. Steve Gunderson, a Wisconsin Republican who told voters he was gay while still in office. Then he continued working diligently for the causes they cared about most.

…Gunderson backed the balanced budget amendment. He supported President Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts, approved the first Gulf War and promoted the dairy industry. Rural, conservative voters re-elected him eight times in a row for his conservative values before he chose not to run again in 1996…Gunderson never betrayed voters or himself.

In contrast, since 1980 the Republican Party has lost at least three once-closeted House members to scandals…But the scandals were at least partly fueled by each congressman’s need to deny his sexuality. Craig, now frantically trying to deny his guilty plea, may be the latest on the list.

…a party that harps on sexual orientation, as the Republicans now do, forces many of its own into furtive, destructive behaviors.

So while those caught are passing around blame — in Craig’s case to newspapers, lying cops, and wide stances — they should examine their own willingness to jump on the hate train, and partake of the payoff at the end of the line.

Mitt’s Heartfelt Convictions Do Another Flip-Flop; Now He Supports Pardons

Trish

If, like most Democrats, you weren’t born with the defective gene that causes the brain to short-circuit and allows the mouth to lie and spew hypocrisy even while the vocal tones and facial expression exhibit assertions of extreme sanctimony, you might not appreciate Mitt Romney’s interpretation of the Bush/Libby commutation.

Presidential candidate Mitt Romney…yesterday called President Bush’s commutation of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s prison sentence “reasonable.”

Romney often proudly points out that he was the first governor in modern Massachusetts history to deny every request for a pardon or commutation during his four years in office.

Defending Bush, Romney, a Republican, said at a campaign stop that “the president looked very carefully at the setting” before deciding to commute the 2 1/2-year sentence given the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney in the CIA leak case…

As governor, Romney twice rejected a pardon for Anthony Circosta, who at 13 was convicted of assault for shooting a boy in the arm with a BB gun — a shot that didn’t break the skin. Circosta worked his way through college, joined the Army National Guard, and led a platoon of 20 soldiers in Iraq’s deadly Sunni triangle.

In 2005, as he was serving in Iraq, he sought a pardon so he could to fulfill his dream of becoming a police officer.

In his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, Romney often proudly points out that he was the first governor in modern Massachusetts history to deny every request for a pardon or commutation during his four years in office.

Celebrating Anita Bryant: The Mother of Gay Rights

Trish

You’d have to call Anita Bryant, the former beauty queen gone anti-gay zealot gone born again Christian gone divorced gone bankrupt orange juice spokesperson, a reluctant hero. But a new exhibit in South Florida does just that, commemorating the 30-year anniversary of her crusade and its monumental unintended affects.

Anita Bryant in 1977: “I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children; therefore, they must recruit our children”

In 1977, singer Anita Bryant successfully campaigned to repeal a Dade County ordinance banning discrimination against gay men and lesbians. [The recently called home Rev. Jerry] Falwell came to South Florida in support and two years later created the Moral Majority. Jim Bakker, Pat Robertson and Phyllis Schlafly quickly joined Falwell in becoming outspoken opponents of gay rights.

“This is where they all had their stage debut,” said Jack Rutland, executive director of the Stonewall Library & Archives and organizer of the exhibit “Days Without Sunshine: Anita Bryant’s Anti-Gay Crusade…”

“In a completely unintended way, Anita Bryant was about the best thing to happen to the gay rights movement,” said John Coppola, exhibit curator and former head of exhibits at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. “She and her cohorts were so over the top that it just completely galvanized the gay rights movement.”

Rutland goes so far as to call Bryant the mother of the gay rights movement…

Bryant, now 67, declined to comment when contacted at her Anita Bryant Ministries International Inc. in Oklahoma City.

That’s probably because Anita herself hasn’t fared so well.

Singing from the age of two, Bryant became Miss Oklahoma in 1958 and was a second runner-up in the 1959 Miss America beauty pageant. She had three big pop hits: “‘Til There Was You” (1959); “Paper Roses” (1960); and “In My Little Corner of the World” (1960). In 1960, she married Bob Green, a Miami disc jockey, with whom she eventually raised four children. She became a spokeswoman for the Florida Citrus Commission in 1969, and nationally televised commercials featured her singing “Come to the Florida Sunshine tree”, and opining that “A day without orange juice is like a day without sunshine”.

…concerns over homosexual recruitment of children inspired the name of Bryant’s political organization, Save Our Children. Among Bryant’s assertions during the campaign were “As a mother, I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children; therefore, they must recruit our children” and “If gays are granted rights, next we’ll have to give rights to prostitutes and to people who sleep with St. Bernards and to nailbiters.”

Bryant was also a pioneer on the receiving side of getting “pied,” as the YouTube video above shows. Before she took that pie in the face during an anti-gay press junket, such tactics were rare. So anyone who enjoyed seeing Ann Coulter pied should really thank Anita for leading the way.

But Anita’s fortunes took a dive after she spoke out.

Her contract with the Florida Citrus Commission also was allowed to lapse because of the negative publicity generated by her political campaigns, the resulting boycott of Florida orange juice, and, at least reportedly, because of her divorce.

Her marriage to Bob Green failed at that time and in 1980 she divorced him. She married her second husband, Charlie Hobson Dry, in 1990, and they have tried to reestablish her career in a series of small venues. Commercial success has been elusive, and they have left behind them a series of unpaid employees and creditors. They filed for bankruptcy in Arkansas (1997) and in Tennessee (2001).

Who knows? Without Anita’s St. Bernard analogies and parental paranoia, gay people might still be in the closet. At the very least, she was fun to make fun of. Actually, she still is.

Son of ‘Dr. Laura’ Accused of Publishing Sadistic War Posts on MySpace

Jon Ponder

NOTE: Due to a server shutdown on May 22, 2007, the original version of this article was permanently deleted from our database. What follows is back up of a draft of the original. All comments posted to this article were lost.

Laura Schlessinger, the rightwing radio hatemonger, is back in the news. Last week, she told military families to stop whining about life at home while their loved ones are deployed:

In one of the stick drawings, a top-hatted man laughs as he rapes a bound and bleeding woman in front of her family. In another depiction, a man forces a boy to perform oral sex at knifepoint as the child’s mother pleads for her son’s life.

“He could come back without arms, legs and eyeballs, and you’re bitching?”

Now Schlessinger’s son, Deryk, who is serving in the military in Afghanistan, is accused of publishing horrific graphics and messages on his MySpace page:

The MySpace page, publicly available until Friday when it disappeared from the Internet, included cartoon depictions of rape, murder, torture and child molestation; photographs of soldiers with guns in their mouths; a photograph of a bound and blindfolded detainee captioned “My Sweet Little Habib”; accounts of illicit drug use; and a blog entry headlined by a series of obscenities and racial epithets.

The site is credited to and includes many photographs of Deryk Schlessinger, the 21-year-old son of the talk radio personality known simply as Dr. Laura.

On one hand, it’s not surprising that a parent as filled with hatred and rage as Laura Schlessinger would produce a child who is a monster — nonetheless, what Deryk allegedly posted here is beyond shocking:

“Yes . . . F–ING Yes!!!” said one blog entry on the Schlessinger site. “I LOVE MY JOB, it takes everything reckless and deviant and heathenistic and just overall bad about me and hyper focuses these traits into my job of running around this horrid place doing nasty things to people that deserve it . . . and some that don’t.”

Deryk Schlessinger seems to imply he may have participated in, or at least was aware of, war crimes and atrocities:

Deryk Schlessinger’s Web site indicated the 21-year-old soldier is stationed in Kandahar, Afghanistan, where, the site’s author writes, “godless crazy people like me,” have become “a generation of apathetic killers.”

The site indicated Schlessinger’s team has survived numerous mortar, rocket and roadside bomb attacks. It also included several graphic cartoons. In one of the stick drawings, a top-hatted man laughs as he rapes a bound and bleeding woman in front of her family. In another depiction, a man forces a boy to perform oral sex at knifepoint as the child’s mother pleads for her son’s life.

Laura Schlessinger often couches the hatred she spews, especially toward gay people, in rhetoric about “family values,” but her son’s alleged posting about horrific acts he may have participated in is not the first time the reality of her own failings as a family member have made news.

In December 2002, the body of Schlessinger’s estranged mother was found in her apartment months after she had died. Schlessinger’s critics claimed she was a hyporcrite “as she had often chastised listeners who said they had broken off contact with their families, calling them selfish.”

Update: The BRAD BLOG reported in September 2004 that Deryk Schlessinger was among the young GOP goons who were caught on tape roughing up protesters at the Republican Convention in New York.

Another GOP Prostitute Scandal – This Time It’s Bush’s Former AIDS Czar, And He’s Not Gay

Jon Ponder

ABC News:

Deputy Secretary of State Randall L. Tobias submitted his resignation Friday, one day after confirming to ABC News that he had been a customer of a Washington, D.C. escort service whose owner has been charged by federal prosecutors with running a prostitution operation.

Tobias, 65, director of U.S. Foreign Assistance and administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), had previously served as the ambassador for the President’s Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief…

On Thursday, Tobias told ABC News he had several times called the “Pamela Martin and Associates” escort service “to have gals come over to the condo to give me a massage.” Tobias, who is married, said there had been “no sex,” and that recently he had been using another service “with Central Americans” to provide massages.

Tobias’ private cell number was among thousands of numbers listed in the telephone records provided to ABC News by Jeane Palfrey, the woman dubbed the “D.C. Madam,” who is facing the federal charges

As AIDS czar he was on message:

As the Bush administration’s so-called “AIDS czar,” Tobias was criticized by some for emphasizing faithfulness and abstinence over condom use to prevent the spread of AIDS.

In a 2004 interview, Tobias explained his approach as “A and B and C. . . Abstinence works. ‘Be faithful’ works. Condoms work. They all have a role. But it’s not a multiple choice, where there is only one answer.”

Tobias is married, of course. So there goes “A” and “B” – hope he had a condom on for the “massage.”

GOP Rep. Renzi Alleged to Have Concealed $200k Payment

Pensito Editors

The Hill:

Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.) failed to disclose a $200,000 payment he received from a business partner in 2005 in apparent violation of House ethics rules. Prosecutors could use the omission as evidence that Renzi intended to conceal a transaction he knew to be controversial or even improper.

The $200,000 was a payment from James Sandlin to settle a debt related to a previous business transaction involving land in northeast Arizona, one of the lawmaker’s attorneys, Grant Woods, told a newspaper last week.

However, Renzi did not disclose the payment in his 2005 required income filings with the House clerk.