Tag: Conservative Values

American Family Association Defaming Hate-Crime Legislation

Buck Banks

Disturbing distortions: I suppose it would be way too much to ask Donald Wildmon, head of the arch-conservative, hyper-religious American Family Association, not to lie. When it comes to pushing his homophobic agenda, facts become irrelevant in his efforts to stir up his constituents about hot-button issues.

If this Thought Crimes law passes, your right to share politically incorrect parts of your Christian faith could, in fact, become a federal crime.
— Donald “Wildman” Wildmon

His latest target is H.R. 1592, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007, which has been introduced in the House of Representatives and is headed toward a vote. Wildmon wants his legions of religious zealots to believe that, “If this Thought Crimes law passes, your right to share politically incorrect parts of your Christian faith could, in fact, become a federal crime,” he wrote on the AFA’s Web site and included in an e-mail alert today.

According to Wildmon’s view, “‘hate crimes’ laws inevitably leading to ‘hate speech’ laws targeted specifically at Christians and other faith groups who hold traditional beliefs on homosexuality.” Yeah, and smoking pot inevitably leads to mainlining heroin and following Islam inevitably leads to a life of terrorism. While Wildmon would like to have his followers believe that embedded in this bill is some poison pill that will undermine the entire Judeo-Christian underpinnings of our society, it is instead a bill that provides funds to local law enforcement to prosecute hate crimes.

The only catch is the $5 million annual alottment is held by the U.S. Attorney General, who provides the dough in the form of grants when communities apply for it. But hopefully by the time the bill is made into law we will have a new, competent AG. The bill effectively gives smaller and rural communities access to funds to pursue hate crime investigations and prosecutions that they might otherwise not be able to afford.

And these crimes are not merely calling someone names. Crimes covered under the statute are serious, violent, often involving guns or weapons, and always resulting in serious bodily injury or death.

What I think really galls Wildmon is the bill’s provision that adds gender, sexual identification and gender identity to the list of real or perceived attributes — including race, color, religion and national origin — that constitute the basis of hate crimes. He blames Democrats and gay activists for this assault on the family and the church, but his arguments, based as they are on lies and distortions, only serve to deceive his already deeply misguided followers.

One of Wildmon’s more blatant lies is calling the legislation a Democratic Party bill that he says the Dems are passing to make good on unspecified campaign promises to gay activists. While indeed the bill is sponsored by John Conyers, D-Detroit, it has 112 co-sponsors, among them such Republican stalwarts as Christogpher Shays of Connecticut, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, Mark Kirk of Illinois and others.

So get on board with H.R. 1592. It’s a good law, and one that we hope will help deter hate crimes.

Conservapedia Just a Wingnut Wiki, Not an Objective Answer to Wikipedia’s Alleged Liberal Bias

Buck Banks

Wicked wiki: What rock was I under when Conservapedia hit the news? How did I miss it on NPR, in the newspapers and on numerous weblogs? Oh yeah, I was completely out of pocket during the two weeks in March when it rose up out of nowhere and reared its butt-ugly head.

Like all conservative media products, Conservapedia infuses language with politics, pushing an agenda by distorting meanings and manipulating context.

Conservapedia positions itself as an alternative to Wikipedia with its librul bias:

Tired of the LIBERAL BIAS every time you search on Google and a Wikipedia page appears? Our study suggests that Wikipedia is 6 times more liberal than the American public. Now it’s time for the Conservatives to get our voice out on the internet!

Conservapedia began in November 2006, as the class project for a World History class of 58 advanced homeschooled and college-bound students meeting in New Jersey.

Conservapedia has since grown enormously, including contributors worldwide. Conservapedia already exceeds the number of entries in the Oxford Dictionary of World History. Conservapedia is rapidly becoming one of the largest and most reliable online educational resources of its kind.

The “study” referred to above is a laundry list of examples of Wikipedia’s mistakes, inaccuracies and instances where entries would not pass the “Bill O’Reilly Test.” Here are a couple, starting with the number-one instance:

  • Wikipedia allows the use of B.C.E. instead of B.C. and C.E. instead of A.D. The dates are based on the birth of Jesus, so why pretend otherwise? Conservapedia gives the credit due to Christianity and exposes the CE deception.
  • About 60% of Americans accept the account of the Great Flood in the Bible. But enter “Great Flood” into Wikipedia and it automatically converts that to an entry entitled “Deluge (mythology).” That entry then uses “myth” or “mythology” nearly 70 times in its description. Its entry on “Noah’s Ark” is just as biased.
  • Wikipedia’s entry on abortion reads like a brochure for the abortion industry. Wikipedia denies and omits the results of 16 out of 17 statistically significant studies showing increased risk of breast cancer from abortion. Wikipedia’s entry also omits the evidence of abortion causing increased premature birth of subsequent children. Instead of providing these facts, Wikipedia blames women by declaring that “breast cancer elicits disproportionate fear in women.”

OK, it’s easy to see where this is going. So how did they come up with that “statistic” that Wikipedia is six times more liberal? Creationistic math, that’s how:

Polls show that about twice as many Americans identify themselves as “conservative” compared with “liberal”, and that ratio has been increasing for two decades. But on Wikipedia, about three times as many editors identify themselves as “liberal” compared with “conservative”. That suggests Wikipedia is six times more liberal than the American public.

[…]

Thompson Only as Conservative as McCain, Brownback and Hagel 80 Percent of the Time

Buck Banks

The rest of the time, he’s more conservative: Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson is being described in the MSM as a conservative’s conservative as he mulls a possible presidential bid. But CQPolitics conducted a comparison (follow link, then click on “chart” to download the PDF) of his Senate voting record to that of Republican candidates Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, and potential prez candidate Sen. Chuck Hagle of Nebraska.

Thompson joined McCain, Brownback and Hagel in voting to authorize the current war in Iraq, to cut taxes for married couples, to ban an abortion procedure opponents call “partial birth” abortion …

The upshot of it is that there’s not much of a difference in their voting records, so Republicans are just going to have to decide between them based on their looks and personalities. Good luck with that, folks.

During the eight years that Thompson and McCain served together, they cast votes on 102 CQ-defined key votes and agreed on 83 of them — or 81.4 percent of the time.

Thompson showed a similar rate of agreement on key votes with Brownback and Hagel. Thompson and Brownback agreed on 57 of 70 key votes (81.4 percent) for which both senators participated. Thompson and Hagel voted the same way on 57 of 71 key votes (80.3 percent) during the six years they served together.

The four senators evince agreement on many legislative issues. Thompson joined McCain, Brownback and Hagel in voting to authorize the current war in Iraq, to cut taxes for married couples, to ban an abortion procedure opponents call “partial birth” abortion, to approve tax-sheltered education savings accounts, and to enact a balanced-budget constitutional amendment.

Among the instances in which Thompson and McCain differed were votes in 2002 to effectively extend a repeal of the estate tax beyond 2010, to authorize oil drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and to postpone tougher automobile fuel efficiency standards. Thompson voted “aye” and McCain voted “no” in all three cases.

Also in 2002, Thompson agreed with McCain but opposed Hagel and Brownback — and most Senate Republicans — in backing a rewrite of campaign finance laws that barred the national party committees and federal officeholders from raising the unlimited “soft money” dollars upon which the parties had come to rely. McCain was a chief sponsor of that law.

In 2001, Thompson opposed and McCain supported a Democratic bill to bolster the rights of patients in managed care plans. Hagel and Brownback joined Thompson in opposition.

‘Loyalty’ the Litmus Test of Bush Whitehouse

Buck Banks

Just drink your Koolaid: George Bush currently is facing a loyalty test. His “long-favored courtier” (as Jon called him) Alberto Gonzalez has a bipartisan lynch mob ready to leave him twisting in the March zephyrs. The eight U.S. attorneys who were unceremoniously fired failed their loyalty test, according to Karl “Hell’s Cherub” Rove, et. al., and so were summarily sacked.

But as Leonard Pitts notes in his column today, The kind of “loyalty” the Bush administration expects is of the blind, deaf and dumb variety, the kind that enables true believers to dutifully drink their Koolaid and croak at the feet of their monarch/messiah/military leader — and to take a few dozen non-believers with them.

People who applied to work for the Coalition Provisional Authority — the agency governing Iraq — were asked in job interviews about their political party, their opinion of Roe vs. Wade, their religious affiliation and whether or not they voted for Bush in 2000.

First, let me tell you what I’m not here to talk about.

I’m not here to talk about the role politics played in the sacking of eight U.S. attorneys. Or the fact that newly released e-mail exchanges and other documents indicate Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and his deputies misled Congress when they said the White House had nothing to do with the decision to fire those attorneys. Or the fact that Gonzales is facing bipartisan calls for his head from angry lawmakers.

All this I will leave to others. I want to talk about a word that jumped out at me in news reports about this latest Washington scandal.

The word: loyalty.

We learn that, in deciding which attorneys to retain and which to release, one factor that weighed prominently in Justice Department deliberations was whether they ”exhibited loyalty” to President Bush. The quote is from an e-mail sent by D. Kyle Sampson, then one of Gonzales’ top aides. Sampson was also author of another note in which he suggested that the “vast majority of U.S. Attorneys, 80-85 percent, I would guess, are doing a great job, are loyal Bushies, etc., etc.”

It is this notion — that being a ”loyal Bushie” is a qualification for getting or keeping a job — that rankles. And if any of this sounds like déjà vu all over again, that’s only because you’ve been paying attention. Indeed, the revelations spilling out of Gonzales’ office are distressingly familiar.

Take Brownie — please. You remember Michael Brown. Guy had zero experience in disaster management. So naturally, he wound up as head of FEMA, the federal disaster management agency. He was, after all, a ”loyal Bushie” — a friend of a Bush friend. Not that that helped him when a hurricane named Katrina came knocking.
[…]

Phyllis Schafly Hates George Bush — and America

Jon Ponder

Not so very long ago, the right wing told us that anyone who criticized Pres. George Bush was “Bush hater” — and that criticizing our president during a time of war was tantamount to hating America.

“We’ve got to stop this nonsense of teaching our schoolchildren in foreign languages.”
— Phyllis Schafly

Well, look who is hatin’ on America now:

[The] annual Conservative Political Action Conference that began this morning is a three-day extravaganza of activism in which purists, not pragmatists, are on parade — and they are busy bashing the president.
“We cannot afford to be ‘Bush Republicans,'” Phyllis Schlafly said, to great applause, in the vast Omni Hotel’s largest ballroom. “This has got to be a grassroots party,” and works best as such, as when “the whole conservative movement rose up to tell George Bush that we could not have Harriet Miers on the Supreme Court.”

Why, oh, why do conservatives hate America?

But wait, there’s more:

“We’ve got to stop this nonsense of teaching our schoolchildren in foreign languages,” she told the crowd. “We cannot afford to let Mexico turn us into a two-language nation.”

She was incensed, she said, that that George Bush had made such a big deal of signing the bill into law that would provide for a fence along part of the border between the countries: “Was that dishonest? I’ve been looking at TV every night and haven’t seen that fence being built yet. We want that fence!”

The less educated Americans are, the easier they are too fool. Right, Phyllis?

Richard Viguerie’s Self-Fulfilling Poll Fulfilled Its Conservative Mandate

Buck Banks

Last Friday, I posted an article about a poll being conducted by Richard Viguerie, poster boy for the Goldwater school of conservatism, and ever so wisely predicted that he would rig the poll to support his far-right platform. See, Viguerie and his cronies feel betrayed and marginalized by the Bush neocons, so what better way to highlight that fact than to mount a rigged poll? Viguerie got what he was looking for, despite the noble efforts of me and Trish to skew the results toward sanity.

The poll was hosted on Viguerie’s Web site ConservativesBetrayed.com. It asked only one question: “Who was responsible for the Republicans’ disastrous defeats, including loss of control of the House and Senate, in the 2006 elections?” Readers were encouraged to select no more than 10 reasons from the 31 choices provided. Viguerie’s agenda is clear from his presentation of the results:

How could you look at what happened in the 2006 elections and not blame the Republican loss on George Bush?

Their number one culprit: “Conservative leaders who kept silent when the GOP became the party of Big Government.” Coming in sixth was “Conservative media that kept silent while the GOP became the party of Big Government.” More than 77.1 % of Republicans selected conservative leaders, with 47.8% selecting conservative media, as one of the reasons for the negative outcome of the election.

“While many conservative leaders and conservative media outlets kept quiet, or were even cheerleaders for the White House and Congress, the grassroots noticed very little of a conservative agenda but huge increases in federal spending,” Viguerie explained. “And because the Big Government Republican politicians were not receiving criticism from conservative leaders and conservative media, they felt free to indulge their tendencies to spend and spent in order to buy votes.”

“It is interesting to note that the #3 reason cited by Republicans was ‘legal corruption’ to ‘buy’ votes through the use of taxpayers money for special interest purposes. That strategy backfired with the voters,” Viguerie said.

What’s interesting to note, Richard, is that George W. Bush was listed in fifth place when most people would agree that the election was a referendum on his incompetence and failed policies. How could you look at what happened in the 2006 elections and not blame the Republican loss on George Bush? Should have been number-one, if you ask me, but Viguerie’s cohorts loaded the results with a focus on the media’s influence and dumb stuff like Ted Stevens of Alaska:

The Top 10 selections made by 850 self-identified Republicans were:

1. Conservative leaders who kept silent when the GOP became the party of Big Government
2. Illegal corruption, such as Mark Foley, Robert Ney, and Jack Abramoff
3. Legal corruption, such as spending on special interest groups to “buy” their votes, including earmarks
4. Mainstream media that may have influenced the voters to throw out the Republicans
5. President George W. Bush
6. Conservative media that kept silent while the GOP became the party of Big Government
7. Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), former President Pro Tempore of the Senate and promoter of the $223 million Bridge to Nowhere
8. Blunders and misstatements by Republican candidates
9. Former Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN)
10. Congressman Dennis Hastert (R-IL), former Speaker of the House

Viguerie delightedly noted that “There were only minor variations in the order of the list among self-identified Democrats, members of other political parties, and independents.” Well, duh, Dickie, there were like 20 times as many self-identified Republicans voting on your site, compared to a handful of those of us with the intestinal fortitude to stomach your site’s content long enough to vote.

It’s a Miracle: Rev. Ted Haggard Is ‘Completely Heterosexual’ Now

Jon Ponder

Here is good news for unhappy homos and homo-hating Christians alike. Rev. Ted Haggard has completed his therapy and apparently has forsworn consorting with male prostitutes forever. After only three weeks of therapy, he has been judged to be “completely heterosexual” now:

Evangelicals believe science has a liberal bias.

“He is completely heterosexual,” [said Rev. Tim Ralph of Larkspur, Colorado, one of four ministers who oversaw Haggard’s re-education therapy.] “That is something he discovered. It was the acting-out situations where things took place. It wasn’t a constant thing.”

Ralph said the board spoke with people close to Haggard while investigating his claim that his only extramarital sexual contact happened with Mike Jones. The board found no evidence to the contrary.

“If we’re going to be proved wrong, somebody else is going to come forward, and that usually happens really quickly,” he said. “We’re into this thing over 90 days and it hasn’t happened.”

Science, of course, says that sexual identity is engrained and immutable, and that no amount of guilt, recrimination or praying away the gay can change it. Of course, Evangelicals like Rev. Haggard believe science has a liberal bias, as Stephen Colbert put it.

No word on whether Haggard addressed the issues behind his and his wife’s admitted use of crystal methadrine.

Newt Gingrich — High Roller

Buck Banks

Snake eyes: Newt brings a whole new meaning to “craps”:

American Solutions for Winning the Future, a Section 527 group set up in October by former Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-GA), reported receiving $1 million on 11/14/06 from Sheldon G. Adelson, chairman and CEO of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, a hotel and gaming company. The group’s goals are “To build a movement which focuses on developing and implementing a generation of solutions for winning the future both here at home and abroad.” Also contributing to the group was Rayna Casey of Atlanta, GA. ($25,000 on 10/10), and Michael G. Berolzheimer, director of California Cedar Products ($35,000 on 11/1).

Virginia Considering Mandatory Vaccination of Young Girls Against Sexually Transmitted Disease

Buck Banks

Hot shots: Should a state force girls as young as 9 to take a three-phase vaccination that prevents infection from a sexually transmitted disease which could lead to cervical cancer, even if it’s recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (which, by the way, advocates abstention as the best form of birth control)? Does this not sound plain wrong? According to the Virginia Pilot, it’s a question that the Virginia state legislature will have to answer, thanks to the lobbying efforts of — you guessed it — a drug company.

Hamilton said pharmaceutical company representatives approached him about submitting the bill, PROBABLY because he chairs the House Committee on Health, Welfare and Institutions.

Del. Phillip Hamilton, R-Newport News, has introduced a bill that would add the human papillomavirus vaccine to the list of immunizations needed for school attendance, and if it passes, it would go into effect in time for the 2008 school year. But when was the last time you heard of a Republican proposing a health measure for the greater good? Right, Hamilton makes a weasel’s excuse for volunteering to sponsor the bill:

Hamilton said pharmaceutical company representatives approached him about submitting the bill, probably because he chairs the House Committee on Health, Welfare and Institutions. Drug companies have been among the largest contributors to Hamilton’s election campaigns.

“Probably?” You bet, Phil. And keep cashing those checks, buddy.

While the vaccination is mandatory for school attendance, the bill does provide that parents can opt out on moral, religious or just creepy grounds, just because they feel a little queasy about vaccinating their 9-year-old against a sexually transmitted disease. Not to mention that the bill would seem to undermine Virginia’s Abstinence Education Initiative, which is run by the state health department.

Not to belittle the seriousness of cervical cancer, but there are apparently about 10,000 cases of it diagnosed in the United States every year, and about 3,700 women die of cervical cancer annually. And the papillomaviruses are so common (there are 100 strains) that 75 percent of all sexually active women will likely become infected at some point, and of those, only about 1 percent will develop cervical cancer.

To me, that does not indicate a pressing need to vaccinate milions of schoolgirls who may or may not engage in safe or unsafe sex.

But then, I don’t work for the pharmaceutical industry like Philip Hamilton does.

Poll: 100 Percent of Buck Thinks Zogby’s a Repug Tool

Buck Banks

Poll this, buddy: I have often cited John Zogby’s polls in Pensito Review knowing that he’s a Republican tool and conservative. I have done this because usually Zogby’s polls seem balanced, as in the late midterm elections when it was clear to anybody with sense what public opinion was, and Zogby had to call it as he saw it or look foolish.

Respondents nationwide said Reagan’s qualities are most sought after, with FDR a very close second.

Well, he’s over that, and he’s come out of the conservative closet, as it were, with his latest poll, which, he alleges, found that a majority of Americans would rather have a president with Ronald Reagan’s qualities than the empty 10-gallon hat we now have in the White House. Mr. Zogby, methinks thou hast hoisted truth on the petard of the poisoned poll. Consider his methods:

Offered thumbnail descriptions of the presidential qualities, including the names of five of the greatest American Presidents — George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan — respondents nationwide said Reagan’s qualities are most sought after, with FDR a very close second. Twenty–eight percent said they would prefer someone like Reagan, whose “far-sighted vision” and who “persevered despite harsh criticism from enemies and was firm in pursuing his agenda.” Nearly as many (26 percent) said they preferred the “pragmatism and hopefulness of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who inspired a nation in trouble and championed the needs of the downtrodden.”

Another 21 percent said they think this is a time for Democrat John F. Kennedy, while 16 percent reached back to Abraham Lincoln in search of a leader to solve today’s modern problems. Just 6 percent said they think the nation — now at war around the world for five years — would be best served by George Washington, the man who led the war for independence.

It comes as no surprise Republican respondents overwhelmingly believe America is most in need of the guidance Reagan would provide — 57 percent of Republicans say the nation needs a president like Reagan, while 18 percent said it is time for a president with Lincoln’s attributes. But only 9 percent of Democrats believe the nation is in need of a president like Reagan. They would instead turn to Democratic presidents of the past to help solve the nation’s problems — 35 percent want to have a president like FDR, while 32 percent believe a president like Kennedy would be best able to lead America today.

Don’t you like how Zogby only shares selected “thumbnails” of the presidents’ traits? Since when did Reagan get “far-sighted?” Oh yeah, since his death and subsequent canonization. And “persevered despite harsh criticism from enemies and was firm in pursuing his agenda” sounds a lot like the numbskull who’s currently president. But some of us remember Reagan’s terrible record of fighting the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, his harsh policies toward women and families, poor people, race relations, foreign policy (Iran/Contra), energy policy and general plain meanness. Reagan gave us Tom DeLay and Newt Gingrich, “Star Wars” weapons systems and Reaganomics.

I suppose we should be thankful that Zogby didn’t include genocidal maniac Andrew Jackson in his list, and it’s pretty clear why he didn’t include Richard Nixon (a crook and a Republican). I especially appreciate his characterization of Abraham Lincoln as a Republican even though the Republicans of Lincoln’s day in fact held liberal values one associates with the modern Democrat Party.

Zogby rounds out his poll with questions about the state and direction of the country (crisis; going to hell in a handbasket) about which almost everyone agrees. But as far as I am concerned, he already blew it by skewing the poll to further the sanctification of Ronald Reagan in the false memories of Americans, to whom Reagan seems like long-lost Grandpa, not the mean-ass vetoer of social legislation while quoting Clint Eastwood’s famous “make my day” line.

As the writer O. Henry once said, “Statistics are the lowest grade of information known to exist.” Zogby’s latest poll certainly fits that description.