Tag: Conservative Values

Baptists are declaring victory and voting to end their boycott of all things Disney today, despite their demand to abolish “gay days” being ignored.

Houston Chronicle:

The Rev. Wiley S. Drake of Buena Park, Calif., who initiated the boycott at the 1997 annual meeting, said he would support ending it.

“The boycott was very, very successful,” Drake said. Drake’s First Southern Baptist Church is close to Disneyland in Anaheim. Drake said the recent resignation of Michael Eisner as president of Disney convinced him to support the lifting of the boycott. Drake blamed Eisner for problems at Disney.

The 1997 annual meeting approved the boycott to protest what they perceived as Disney’s anti-Christian policies, including production of adult movies through its Miramax Productions and gay days at its theme parks, Drake said. Disney no longer owns Miramax, although it still holds gays days.

The oddest thing about the meeting will no doubt be Bush’s video comparison of himself to George Washington. (BTW, “messenger” is apparently Baptist-speak for “meeting participants.”)

In other action, messengers received a video appearance by President Bush with a cheering standing ovation. “In 1789, President George Washington called America’s Baptist the ‘firm friends’ of liberty,” Bush said. “Today another George W. thanks you — because more than two centuries later, you remain firm in your dedication to God and country.”

Bush outlined several of his conservative political stances, including his support of a constitutional amendment to protect the traditional definition of marriage as between a man and woman.

“Because marriage is a sacred institution and the foundation of society, it should not be redefined by local officials and activist judges,” Bush told cheering messengers.

Anti-abortion terrorist Randall Terry declared he will in fact run for Florida Senate. This makes the third time Terry has drummed up press by agonizing over his “decision” but it’s finally official.

He will be running against the valiant Jim King, who stood up to the wingers of his party and tried to do the right thing for Terri Schiavo this time, despite being up for re-election in 2006.

Florida Times Union:

King helped lead a group of nine Republican senators who blocked a bill aimed at saving Schiavo, sealing the brain-damaged woman’s fate. She died March 31, and autopsy results released last week showed she indeed had severe and irreversible brain damage.

He is the only one of the nine up for re-election next year.

Terry is anything but homegrown, and chose to blight Northeast Florida with his recent residency for reasons unknown, except to live in a rich, powerful, white neighborhood.

The contest is already centering itself as a core fight over Republicanism. King is a social moderate and fiscal conservative who has sometimes clashed with the right-wing elements of the party. Terry says the district has no room for moderation and that he can better represent Republican principles.

“I want a smaller government, lower taxes and more respect of life and marriage,” he said Tuesday.

Terry has been a Jacksonville resident for two years and is making his second political campaign after a failed 1998 U.S. House bid in New York.

Terry, who says he wants more respect for marriage, is on his second, this time to the much younger bride you would expect a chauvinist middle-aged man to have. And that smaller government is evidently a real impediment when it tries to stay out of people’s death beds.

Via DailyKos, here is a cause close to our hearts here at the Pensito Review. The youth brigades Brown Shirts of the GOP are holding their annual conclaves in the next few weeks, so Jesus’ General has created Operation Yellow Elephant to encourage these strapping young Americans to put their money where their silver spoons are, so to speak, and volunteer for military duty in Iraq.

The events are:
– College Republicans National Convention, this weekend June 24-26, Crystal Gateway Marriott, Crystal City, Arlington, VA
– Young Republicans National Convention, July 6-10, Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas, NV.

Mike Tidmus created the excellent recruitment poster above.

Here is the Operation Yellow Elephant logo from Jesus’ General:	Pensito Review’s recruitment poster for GOP Youth:

So far, the GOP youth groups have rejected the ads, saying that they are “too negative.” Why do young Republicans hate U.S. military service?

Ask them yourself. You’ll find a list of email addresses for GOP youth organizations HERE.

From Roll Call via Capitol Buzz

From being busy with other legislative business to a belief that the measure was simply not necessary, 13 Senate Republicans offered a variety of explanations for their decision not to co-sponsor a resolution apologizing for the chamber’s past inaction on lynching…

The following quotes come from the 13 Senate Republicans — or their press staff — explaining their reasons for not signing on as co-sponsors of the bill apologizing for not approving legislation outlawing lynching during the civil rights struggle. These statements were provided by the Senators’ offices or culled from the Congressional Record. Some of the offices could not provide explanations by press time Friday.

Lamar Alexander (Tenn.) “I also condemn lynching. … But, rather than begin to catalog and apologize for all those times that some Americans have failed to reach our goals, I prefer to look ahead. I prefer to look to correct current injustices rather than to look to the past.”

Bob Bennett (Utah) “I come from a State that does not have a history of lynchings, but that does not mean I should be absolved from the concern that all Americans should have over the lynchings that have occurred. I note that it was the filibuster that made it possible for the Senate to be the body that blocked this legislation in the past. I would hope that in the future, we would all realize that the filibuster should be used for more beneficial purposes than that.”

Thad Cochran (Miss.) “I don’t feel I should apologize for the passage of or the failure to pass any legislation by the U.S. Senate. But I deplore and regret that lynchings occurred and that those committing them were not punished.”

John Cornyn (Texas) “There are different ways to acknowledge those times when Americans have failed to achieve the goals we have set for ourselves.”

Mike Enzi (Wyo.) “Sen. Enzi believes the lynchings that took place were tragic and that they never should have occurred. The legislation was passed by voice vote. Sen. Enzi agreed to that. He did not object.”

Judd Gregg (N.H.) “The fact that this amendment passed unanimously showed the depth of the support this resolution rightfully received, and Sen. Gregg was pleased to offer his support.”

Kay Bailey Hutchison (Texas) “You don’t have to co-sponsor everything that you are in favor of. She abhors lynching and thinks it is a horrific part of American history.”*

Jon Kyl (Ariz.) No response.

Trent Lott (Miss.) No response.

Richard Shelby (Ala.) “There are many instances where Sen. Shelby supports legislation and resolutions without being a co-sponsor.”

Gordon Smith (Ore.) “Sen. Smith strongly supports the resolution. He has a long record protecting civil rights.”

John Sununu (N.H.) “Sen. Sununu supported the resolution, and was on the Senate floor Monday evening when the resolution passed unanimously by a voice vote.”

Craig Thomas (Wyo.) “The Senator was working on the energy bill and CAFTA when that came around. … If it passed by unanimous consent, that means everyone supported it. I don’t see the news value.”

Extra bonus hackery points to Bob Bennett for tying the Senate’s lack of support for anti-lynching laws to today’s controversy about the filibuster.

*Hutchinson announced over the weekend that she will seek another term in the Senate, rather than running for governor of Texas.

The big surprise is that Jeb seems to realize how fortunate he was to have been born a Bush. Certainly, like Paris Hilton, he never would have gotten where he is in life had he been say, Jeb Griswold.

Palm Beach Post:

“I thank God every day that when I was born on February 11, 1953, I came out with my mom who’s my mom, which meant that I got to have my dad, who has been an incredible inspiration to me in every way,” Bush said of his father, former President George H.W. Bush.

You kind of lost of me for a minute, but a big “duh,” there Jeb.

And didn’t George H.W. spawn kids to be proud of?

o George W. — nuff said

o Neil, the poster child for failing at both business (Silverado Savings & Loan) and marital fidelity (Chinese calls girls, divorce and paternity tests)

o Marvin, who was director of the firm that provided electronic security for the World Trade Center and Dulles International Airport, the airport where American Airlines flight 77 originated on the morning of September 11th

o Dorothy, or Doro, as her family calls her, whose husband #2, Richard Koch, is son of the founder of the John Birch Society. His family foundation funds Libertarian causes and conservative think tanks including the Cato Institute. During the Clinton administration, one of his companies, Koch Oil, was charged with 97 counts of covering evidence of a benzene spill in Corpus Christi and another 315 acts of pollution.

o Jeb himself, who is only too happy to give fathers credit for how children turn out.

The governor touted studies that indicate that a child with an involved father is “more likely to meet success, to live a healthier lifestyle, maintain higher self-esteem, and perform better inside and outside the classroom.”

Bush said his own parenthood has been “the most rewarding experience of my life.”

…Bush’s 27-year-old daughter, Noelle, graduated from a 16-month drug court program nearly two years ago after her arrest in 2002 for attempting to obtain the drug Xanax with a forged prescription at a Tallahassee pharmacy.

What dad wouldn’t be proud to take credit for raising his kids when they turn out like that? Makes me kind of tear up just thinking about it. Noelle lives with Jeb and Columba at the governor’s mansion but his sons, George P. and Jeb Jr. (does this family have any imagination at all?) have been exiled to Texas.

While still in Miami, George P. had the police called on him after he broke into his ex-girlfriend’s house at 4 a.m. and began arguing with her father. Twenty minutes after he fled the scene, he returned in his Ford Explorer and tore across the front lawn, grinding a path through the grass.

Jeb Jr. had Tallahassee police summoned after someone called mall security about a couple in the back of a Jeep Cherokee. They found them in the parking lot, both naked from the waist down although Jebby, as he is known, showed his fine Bush breeding by retaining his socks.

If Jeb is half the father that he is a governor, and judging by his kids, I’d say he is, it’s no mystery how they’ve turned out.

According to AmericaBlog, Sen. Orrin Hatch decided to sign the Senate’s apology for its inaction while nearly 5,000 Americans were lynched in the 20th Century.

All six Southern members of the Caucus are proudly hanging tough in favor of barbarism and bigotry.

The remaining members of the Senate’s Pro-Lynching Caucus are:

Lamar Alexander (R-TN) – (202) 224-4944
Robert Bennett (R-UT) – (202) 224-5444
Thad Cochran (R-MS) – (202) 224-5054
John Cornyn (R-TX) – (202) 224-2934
Michael Enzi (R-WY) – (202) 224-3424
Judd Gregg (R-NH) – (202) 224-3324
Kay Hutchison (R-TX) – (202) 224-5922
Jon Kyl (R-AZ) – (202) 224-4521
Trent Lott (R-MS) – (202) 224-6253
Richard Shelby (R-AL) – (202) 224-5744
Gordon Smith (R-OR) – (202) 224-3753
John Sununu (R-NH) – (202) 224-2841
Craig Thomas (R-WY) – (202) 224-6441

Please call the holdouts and ask why they’re opposed to making a strong statement against lynching.

Dr. Frist on the “Today Show” on June 16, 2005 – from Think Progress:

LAUER: But when you stood on the floor and you said, She does respond, are you at all worried that you led some senators…

FRIST: I never said, She responded. I said I reviewed the court videotapes – the same ones the other doctors reviewed – and I questioned, Is her diagnosis correct?

Frist on Senate Floor, 3/17/05:

I have looked at the video footage. Based on the footage provided to me, which was part of the facts of the case, she does respond.

More from Frist, 3/17/05:

She certainly seems to respond to visual stimuli…

And so then Lauer goes, “Oh yes, Doctor. I’m sure you’re right. My mistake….” [Rest is unintelligible as Lauer jumps up Frist’s butt.]

Sounds like Rush Limbaugh has plenty to hide in his “doctor-shopping” investigation.

Palm Beach Post:

“Many of the things in these records deal with medical procedures, symptoms, things that are potentially embarrassing for my client to be released,” [Superstar lawyer Roy] Black told the judge. “They are very intimate matters, discussed with his doctors, which are not within the scope of the warrant.”

Wow. Really makes you want to see them, doesn’t it? If you looked through my medical records, the only embarrassing thing you’d find is how much I really weigh. Wonder why Rush has so much more to worry about?

The issue, of course, is whether Rush, whom we already know is a recovering (we hope) drug addict, went to doctors to support his habit. Unless you’re Elvis, it’s hard to believe one doctor would give you enough meds to feed your addiction, or that Rush would have never broken any laws in order to stay hopped up.

Limbaugh, 54, of Palm Beach, has not been charged with a crime. He acknowledges an addiction to painkillers but says he did not doctor-shop.

Doctor-shopping — seeking duplicate prescriptions from different doctors — is a felony, but almost never prosecuted in Palm Beach County.

Well, isn’t it lucky that Rush lives in one of the most privileged areas of the country, where anyone can get pretty much anything as long as they have the cash? But it still boils down to this: either Rush lied to his doctors, Rush did in fact doctor-shop, or Rush goes to doctors who should be prohibited from practice.

In court filings, Black pointed out that all but six of the prescriptions in the records came from two Jupiter doctors who practice in the same office. “There can be no doctor-shopping between them,” Black wrote.

[Judge] Barkdull denied the request but said Black was free to file it again.

Yeah, sure, file some more bogus injunctions. Rush and Roy have tried about every trick in the book to get out of ‘fessing up and getting this over with. When it suits their cause, they say Rush is being unfairly targeted because he’s a celebrity (not a journalist, mind you); when it doesn’t they say, as a public figure, he should have special protection because his records could embarrass him and threaten his career.

Isn’t part of the 12-step program admitting you did wrong?

USA Today reports that a cabal of Christianist extremist groups that includes the Family Research Council, American Values, Focus on the Family, Free Congress and American Family Association have announced they will jointly interrogate Republican candidates for president in 2008 in order to find one whose ideology is sufficiently pure to receive their endorsement.

Candidates who seek anoinment from these pashas of the pulpit will have to prove that they are bigots and debunkers of science on issues that range from whether or not to apply the death penalty to gays and lesbians to whether or not to apply the death penalty to doctors who perform abortions.

While the mullahs of the American Right expect wingnut candidates to line up for inspection, some political observers aren’t so sure being the talibanis’ Chosen One would be a good move politically:

Being seen as the “candidate of the Christian right” would be a “very, very mixed blessing” in the general election, said Stuart Rothenberg of the non-partisan Rothenberg Political Report— akin to Walter Mondale’s stamp as the “candidate of labor” in the 1984 campaign.

“That would really pigeonhole a candidate,” Rothenberg said.

It had to happen. Sooner or later, someone even more reprehensible, extremist, and paranoid than George W. Bush or Dick Cheney had to come along. That day is nigh.

Former Judge Roy Moore, who gained national attention when he masterfully staged a showdown in Alabama over posting the Ten Commandments in a courthouse, is looking presidential.

A fascinating and well-researched story in the Boston Globe shows how pumping up the Christian far right might come home to bite Bush/Rove squarely in the ass.

Moore, a Republican who enjoys widespread support in his home state, is poised to run against a vulnerable Republican governor. If he wins, some party strategists speculate, he could defy a federal court order again by erecting a religious monument outside the Alabama state Capitol building.

With the 2008 presidential race looming, President Bush would then face a no-win decision: either call out the National Guard to enforce a court order against a religious display on state grounds or allow a fellow born-again Christian to defy the courts.

Ah yes. Having made a deal with the devil that is the born-again “silent” minority, Bush could find himself out-righteoused. Actually, he already did in the Schiavo case, and those same folks who showed up with bottles of water and homemade cookies to “feed” Terri haven’t forgotten and are behind the Moore campaign.

Polls indicate that Moore, a 58-year-old graduate of West Point, has a good shot at beating Governor Bob Riley in next year’s Republican primary. Riley angered conservatives by signing the largest tax increase in Alabama history in an effort to get the state’s fiscal house in order and make the tax code more progressive…

Meanwhile, the former state chief justice is bolstering his national standing. He has filed amicus curiae briefs in two Supreme Court cases expected to be decided this month that will determine whether displays of the Ten Commandments on public grounds in Texas and Kentucky violate the US Constitution.

On Capitol Hill, Moore is lobbying for legislation in Congress to strip federal courts, including the Supreme Court, of jurisdiction over any challenges to government agencies or officials that acknowledge ”God as the sovereign source of law, liberty, or government.”

Sounds like Moore is the poster child for “activist judges.” And talk about a victim mentality. This guy has the required pissed-off-with-all-this-liberal-nonsense pique down to a red-faced science.

…In his autobiography, ”So Help Me God: The Ten Commandments, Judicial Tyranny, and the Battle for Religious Freedom,” Moore frequently casts himself as a lone man of principle battling dark forces…

Fully aware that he would attract a lawsuit, Moore hung in his courtroom a redwood plaque of the Ten Commandments. A local ACLU attorney complained; Moore described this as ”the first time the civil rights group attempted to intimidate me.”

He also began opening his court sessions with a prayer. In 1994, six months into his tenure, the ACLU recorded his prayer — and a local star was born.

The media covered the subsequent lawsuit, crowds singing ”Amazing Grace” showed up in support. A year later, Moore launched his race for chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court.

Moore at least makes no pretense of being a “uniter not a divider.” His world view is strictly us vs. them, and the number that qualifies as “us” is…pretty much just him.

”Roy was never that interested in what the law was versus what he wanted to do,” said James Hedgespeth, the county’s district attorney for 18 years and a Democrat who describes his personal relations with Moore as cordial. ”I always thought the code books in his office were just for decoration. He always felt he knew better than anyone else.”

Expect to hear more from Moore in the dark days ahead. Having empowered the previously marginal Bible literalist beast, Bush/Rove can now figure out how to tame it.

In 2004, after the disciplinary panel had forced Moore to resign, supporters urged him to run for president, but he decided the timing was not right. Phillips compares Moore’s national popularity to that of Pat Robertson, the TV evangelist whose 1988 bid for president divided the GOP, and said Moore is well-positioned to consider his own run.

”There’s no question he would heighten the debate on the whole issue of religion and politics,” Scarborough said. ”And nationally, there is a core following that would be faithful to him.”