Brian Tashman's blog

Along with Steve King, Republican congressman Steve Stockman of Texas also appeared on The Steve Deace Show last night to criticize the push for comprehensive immigration reform and President Obama’s speech in Mexico City.

Stockman claimed Obama “basically told everybody in Mexico our doors are open, come up, come up, please,” and that they’re “all going to have a great time because y’all are going to be legal.” “He’s going to be the President of the United States and Mexico,” Stockman said.

After touting the very, very discredited Heritage Foundation report on the immigration bill, Stockman later insisted that “there will never be another Republican president and the entire agenda of the left will become the law of the land” if Congress passes a reform bill: “This is the rope that they’re hanging us and we’re going to hang ourselves with it and we’re willingly doing it.”

Stockman: It’s a horrible bill. It legalizes—I don’t know if you remember this Steve but you go down and look in Mexico, about two weeks ago the President went down there and basically told everybody in Mexico our doors are open, come up, come up, please! They were cheering him. He’s going to be the President of the United States and Mexico, apparently. And when he gave that speech it was tantamount to saying y’all come up here, we’re all going to have a great time because y’all are going to be legal.

Deace: People are finally doing the math on this. Now you’ve got Byron York at the Washington Examiner doing this math, you have National Review doing this math with Andrew McCarhty—

Stockman: Heritage Foundation.

Deace: Heritage Foundation. What they’re finding is, if this is your panacea to get the Hispanic vote you better try harder because Romney was going to have to win 73 percent of the Hispanic vote to win this last election and obviously this is not going to help that at all. I still don’t see what the benefit is to this for people paying taxes and obeying the law and silly me congressman I think we ought to pursue legislation that benefits the people paying taxes and obeying the law.

Stockman: Let me say this. Reagan passed comprehensive immigration reform, which was supposed to be the last time we ever needed to do it. After he passed it, California went totally Democrat. They have two Democrat senators, a Democrat legislature, a Democrat governor and you’re going to continue to see that if we pass this. There will never be another Republican president and the entire agenda of the left will become the law of the land. This is the rope that they’re hanging us and we’re going to hang ourselves with it and we’re willingly doing it because we’re intimidated by the press and intimidated by political consultants in the Republican Party who say this is what we need to do as to hang ourselves.

Rep. Steve King attacked the proposed immigration reform legislation during an appearance on The Steve Deace Show last night, warning that the bill will do great damage to “American liberty” and “the underpinnings of the pillars of American exceptionalism.” He said that undocumented immigrants, whom he believes are approximately 33 million in number, and their children and grandchildren will “be taught to disrespect” the rule of law and collect tens of thousands of dollars in welfare benefits.

King maintained that Democrats are only pushing the reform bill in order to create a voting bloc “similar to that bloc that they have created out of African Americans,” describing Hispanics as a “special interest group” that will become part of the Democrats’ “powerful political base.”

It destroys the rule of law with regard to immigration and if that happens the generations of people who would follow, those beneficiaries of amnesty, would not be taught and raised to respect the rule of law, they’d be taught to disrespect it and they would be rewarded for disrespecting the law. The only claim that this 11.5 million people that’s more legitimately projected to be 33 million people, the only claim to the welfare benefits that range up into the area of $46,000 a year for typical benefits for a household, the only claim that the people have for that is that they broke American law. That is the wrong reason, it’s the wrong thing, it’s wrong economically, it’s wrong culturally, it’s wrong for the underpinnings of the pillars of American exceptionalism such as the rule of law and there’s no way that Americans benefit from this. When we ask the question, why? There is no real reason except Barack Obama and the Democrat Party [sic] for a long time have been seeking to create a monolithic voting bloc out of Hispanics that is similar to that bloc that they have created out of African Americans and they have designs to go right on down the line with each special interest group, creating a more powerful political base at the expense of our American liberty.

Upon news that Republicans altered emails from government officials to make it appear that the State Department was engaged in a cover-up of the attack in Benghazi, Sen. Rand Paul attempted to revive the non-scandal in his column for the Washington Times.

Paul writes that “[Gregory] Hicks testified that he spoke with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on the night of the attack and that a special-forces unit was stopped from deploying.”

I think Mr. Obama has failed that test of power. From the cover-up in Benghazi to letting the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) target the Tea Party to First and Fourth Amendment violations in obtaining records from the press, Mr. Obama has shown disregard for the Bill of Rights and his responsibilities as commander in chief.

The handling of the tragedy in Benghazi continues to raise more questions than it produces answers. The White House’s original story, that no one was told to “stand down” on the night of the attack, was contradicted last week by Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens‘ deputy, Gregory Hicks. Mr. Hicks testified that he spoke with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on the night of the attack and that a special-forces unit was stopped from deploying.

But Hicks actually testified that the order came from Special Operations Command Africa, not the State Department or anyone in the Obama administration, and that the security team in question was not organized to intervene in the attack but to secure the airport for evacuation.

PolitiFact explains:

But Hicks’ testimony and a State Department review board report show it was clear the “people that were getting killed” were already dead when the security team was ready to go.

…

“We determined that we needed to send a second team from Tripoli to secure the airport for the withdrawal of our personnel from Benghazi after the mortar attack,” he said.

…

During Hicks’ testimony last week, Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Ill., read from a Defense Department press release explaining the security team was directed to stay in Tripoli because those in Benghazi “had shifted to evacuation.”

"We continue to believe that there was nothing this group could have done had they arrived in Benghazi, and they performed superbly in Tripoli," she read. "In fact, when the first aircraft arrived back in Tripoli, these four played a key role in receiving, treating and moving the wounded."

…

But it’s clear from Hicks’ testimony that four Americans "getting killed" in Benghazi were already dead when the decision was made to keep the special forces team in Tripoli. The mortar attack was over. A Defense Department drone watched overhead in Benghazi as Libyan militia members helped Americans get to the airport.

Alan Keyes, who recently warned that gay marriage is leading to the creation of a totalitarian government, is now arguing that President Obama is using the IRS scandal as a distraction from his plan to allow terrorist attacks to take place and impose martial law.

Speaking with Stan Solomon on Wednesday, Keyes maintained that Obama “could very well be working a strategy that collaborates with and comports with the strategy of the very people who are trying to kill us,” with the goal of bringing America down and “destroying our way of life.”

By collaborating with terrorists to allow these attacks, Keyes continued, Obama will be able to consolidate “the tools and instruments that would be needed to fasten the structure of martial law and totalitarian tyranny on this country by force.”

He concluded that the “implementation of a terrorist strategy [is] aimed at producing the very kind of disorder, confusion, fear and anger that would then provide an excuse for that fastening on the country of martial law.”

Watch:

Following the passage of his state’s marriage equality law, Minnesota Republican state representative Glenn Gruenhagen is urging constituents to “resist the implementation of the gay agenda in public and parochial schools.” The blog Bluestem Prairie noticed Gruenhagen’s letter to the editor of the McLeod County Chronicle Wednesday, in which he claims that in Massachusetts there have already been cases where “citizens who would not succumb to politically correct speech have been charged with hate crimes.”

He cites the anti-gay group MassResistance as the source of his information and links to their website.

Of course, there are no such cases of people being “charged with hate crimes” for not using “politically correct speech.”

What is more troubling is that a state lawmaker is citing an organization whose leader Brian Camenker suggested gay marriage led to a rise in homelessness, crime, poor air quality and domestic violence, denies that gay people died in the Holocaust, likened pro-gay rights educators to “Nazi concentration camp guards” and compared gay rights efforts to Jim Crow laws.

Under this legislation, children could be chided and corrected for using gender specific terms like “mother and father” and instead will be told to use gender neutral terms like “parent and spouse” so as not to offend certain groups.

This may be difficult to believe, but as a long-term school board member, I do not make this statement lightly. I have personal experience as a board member, where state statutes were changed and eventually school curriculum and speech had to conform. I was then chided for public comments on school issues when I used terminology that was not politically correct.

In other countries and in the state of Massachusetts, where gay marriage has become the law, we have observed that citizens who would not succumb to politically correct speech have been charged with hate crimes and their parental rights infringed upon. (Seewww.massresistance.com for more information.)

When signed, this bill will become the law of our state. We are a nation of laws, however we still have the right as citizens, parents and school officials to passively resist the gay agenda coming into our schools. …

During these past several months, Lutheran and Catholic organizations were key groups opposing the gay marriage bill. As your state representative, I am very thankful for their help in opposing the passage of gay marriage.

I plan to introduce legislation next session in an attempt to strengthen parental rights and school official rights to resist the implementation of the gay agenda in public and parochial schools. I will also introduce legislation to strengthen protection for our religious freedoms.

Washington Times columnist Jeffrey Kuhner says that the real political scandal isn’t about the IRS, Benghazi or the Associated Press, “but the president himself.” Kuhner, who has been demanding Obama’s impeachment for several years, calls the scandal “Obamagate,” which he believes best expresses his belief that “Mr. Obama is the root cause of the White House’s woes” and “is a political thug masquerading as a progressive reformer.”

President Obama is facing a perfect storm of scandals, cover-ups and criminality that threatens to sweep him from power. This week marks the 40th anniversary of the first Watergate hearings. They eventually brought down President Nixon, forcing him to resign. Mr. Obama is the liberal Nixon — a corrupt chief executive, who is presiding over a lawless administration.

…

Beyond the IRS, AP and Benghazi lies a deeper scandal: Obamagate. Ultimately, Mr. Obama is the root cause of the White House’s woes. The problem is not the president’s men (and women). It is the president himself. He has no respect for the Constitution or for legal constraints on his power. He has presided over a scandal-ridden administration — Fast and Furious, Solyndra, the open bribery and abuse of parliamentary procedures to pass Obamacare, suing states seeking to uphold our immigration laws, enabling the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens simply if they’re accused of being “terrorists,” and now the use of government power to suppress dissent, persecute opponents, spy on the press and cover up the jihadist slaughter of Americans. Mr. Obama is a political thug masquerading as a progressive reformer. He is worse than Nixon: No one died as a result of Watergate.

Republicans should insist that several special prosecutors be appointed to investigate the administration’s purported crimes. In the end, Nixon was unable to run from the truth. Mr. Obama is now running as fast as he can. It is our responsibility to catch and expose him.

David Barton isn’t just a terrible and unaccredited historian, he’s also an awful amateur sociologist. While talking to co-host Rick Green on today’s edition of WallBuilders Live about how same-sex marriage will take away from society the benefits of marriage, Barton argued that “spousal abuse is through the roof, up to ten times higher in homosexual couples whether they be gay or lesbian, male or female, spousal abuse is higher.”

He also said that “no sociological study out there” is supportive of same-sex parenting, adding that “we know that kids coming out of those homes are having much more difficulty.”

Green: If you were to come and totally rearrange my house when I wasn’t here and do something totally different than what it was intended for that would— if you do that with marriage and government does that with marriage it also changes the benefits of that institution that God created. Now you’re not going to have that stability of the home, you’re not going to have that environment for a child to be raised where they won’t go down those paths that you were talking about. Just like if you were to change my house I wouldn’t have the benefit of the way that we designed our house and the things that we enjoy about our house, so if we allow government to go outside its jurisdiction and redefine what marriage is we’re going to lose all those benefits of the family and marriage as one man and one woman.

Barton: Lose is the right word because you don’t create new benefits, I mean there is no sociological study out there that says ‘hey look kids do so much better when they are in a home without a mother and a father, when they are in a home with two mothers, two fathers.’ By the way, we know that in those homes where gay marriage exists, spousal abuse is through the roof, up to ten times higher in homosexual couples whether they be gay or lesbian, male or female, spousal abuse is higher; we know that kids coming out of those homes are having much more difficulty.

But the CDC’s 2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey [PDF] notes that lesbian women experience slightly higher rates of intimate partner violence (43.8%) than heterosexual women (35.0%) and found comparable rates among gay men (26.0%) and heterosexual men (29.0%).

Bisexuals are much more likely to experience partner violence, but the CDC notes that the vast majority of them — 89.5% of bisexual women and 78.5% of bisexual men — reported that an opposite-sex partner was the perpetrator.

The anti-violence group Jane Doe Inc. found that “Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals are abused at approximately the same levels as heterosexual couples, but the abuse may be exacerbated by social isolation caused by societal oppression and discrimination,” and the Center for American Progress similarly reports that “studies have found that domestic violence occurs among same-sex couples at comparable rates to straight couples.”

Barton’s claim about children is also erroneous.

The American Sociological Association maintained in an amicus brief that “the social science consensus is both conclusive and clear: children fare just as well when they are raised by same-sex parents as when they are raised by opposite-sex parents.” The Washington Post adds that “there is a growing consensus among experts that the sexual orientation of parents is not a major determinant in hos well children fare in school, on cognitive tests and in terms of their emotional development,” noting that one recent survey found that children of lesbian parents “did fine—better even, than children in a similar study involving more diverse families.”

Minnesota-based Religious Right activist/rock star Bradlee Dean went ballistic on his radio show yesterday in response to his state’s new marriage equality law. Dean warned that Gov. Mark Dayton, who signed the same-sex marriage bill into law, is at “war with God” and is “about to find out what it’s like as to what the fallout is when you throw rocks towards God, he’s going to learn how gravity works.” He added that Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, who backed his state’s marriage equality law, and other pro-gay rights “criminals” will face divine justice as well: 

Dean even seems to believe that every gay person in the country showed up for yesterday’s celebration of the marriage equality law in order to “push their propaganda and their agendas on the American people,” just as Saul Alinsky commanded.

“They come from all over the country to do this so what you’ve seen was probably the whole lump of the population of the homosexual community in the United States of America,” Dean said.

After lamenting about the “pansies” in the Minnesota legislature, Dean and his co-hosts began discussing the “Safe and Supportive Minnesota Schools Act,” an LGBT-inclusive anti-bullying bill, which he said is proof that “radical homosexuals” are part of a “UN global agenda” to “destroy the family.”

Dean then channeled his inner-Antoine Dodson and claimed that gays are coming after your wife and kids: “Go home, look at your wife and look at your kids, because now that’s what they’re coming for.”

He even lashed out at “my good friend Alex Jones,” who is apparently not anti-gay enough for Dean, despite his belief that chemicals in juices are turning kids gay.

Dean concluded the show by warning that gay rights advocates are creating a “totalitarian system” by pushing the anti-bullying legislation, fearing that “pharmaceutical giants” might diagnose anti-gay activists as mentally ill.

“The conservatives on the airwaves in Minneapolis are sitting there playing games with the homosexuals because they think it’s a puppy to be played with when in fact it’s a stinking water rat filled with rabies,” he concluded.

Thanks to RWW reader Matthew for the tip!

Former Charisma editor J. Lee Grady has an article in the Religious Right publication today discussing a Bible verse which he claims condemns homosexuality and sexual violence: Deuteronomy 23.1: “No one whose testicles are crushed or whose penis is cut off shall be admitted to the assembly of the LORD.”

He says that homosexuality, along with promiscuity and sexual abuse, are all “categories of crushed manhood,” arguing that gay men “crave the healthy male attention they should have received from a dad” and “mistakenly think that sex with another man will restore the manhood they crave:

Deuteronomy 23:1 is painful—but it shows us that God wants to heal the wounds of the masculine soul.

Most of us dismiss or ignore this odd passage, either because the subject matter is embarrassing or because the law seems unfair. After all, if a man’s private parts are damaged in an accident, why should he be considered an outcast?

But this verse is relevant to us today because we face a masculinity crisis. In our fatherless culture, many guys struggle with their identity as men, and as a result they feel alienated from God. Meanwhile the church offers little to help men find true healing. Our idea of men’s ministry is to provide food, sports or entertainment while we dance around men’s deepest problems without actually addressing them.

Yet everywhere I go today, I find men who suffer from crushed masculinity. They have been kicked in the groin, spiritually speaking. Their actual anatomy may be intact, but because of poor fathering, lack of affirmation, bullying, family rejection, inferiority or some form of abuse, their manhood did not develop properly. They are men on the outside, but inside they are wounded boys who are afraid to tell anyone how they feel.

Over the years I’ve identified several categories of crushed manhood:

1. Insecurity. Many guys become selfish, driven performers, out to prove their manhood through competition. Because they didn’t get healthy encouragement at home, they become self-absorbed and crave the spotlight. They can appear extremely successful, but inside they are afraid of failure. They find it hard to build healthy friendships, and their wives usually feel used and ignored. In the end, these guys end up in divorce, scandal, prison or worse.

2. Indecisiveness. Some men just don’t have the ability to make decisions. They may have never had a father to encourage them or a role model to learn from. As a result they flounder in their careers, struggle financially, fear the future and feel spineless. Many of these men find Christ, but they live in painful isolation and get trapped in addictions because they lack self-control.

3. Domination. Some men—especially if they were abused physically or even sexually as boys—believe the only way to prove their manhood is to wield power. Violent anger seethes below the surface. If they marry, their wives suffer the brunt of their dysfunction. These men are tormented by secrets, but they cannot take their armor off long enough to admit their problems to anyone.

4. Promiscuity. Sex is a selfish contest for many guys. They try to bed as many women as possible to prove they are “real men.” Ironically, it is their lack of manhood that drives them to hurt themselves and others. Some men who were abused sexually as boys seek to have sex with as many women as possible to prove they are not gay.

5. Homosexuality. It’s not popular today to suggest that homosexuality is sinful. So what if I rephrase the question and ask: “Is it healthy?” Many men today struggle with their core identity as men, and often it is not their fault. They may have never had a father to affirm them, or their father may have withheld affection. Others have gender confusion because of abuse. In many cases, guys experience same-sex attraction because they crave the healthy male attention they should have received from a dad. And they mistakenly think that sex with another man will restore the manhood they crave.

It looks like the American Family Association isn’t the only group pushing the patently false claim that Muslim-Americans are exempt from the new health care reform law.

The Traditional Values Coalition is now telling members that “Islam got a free pass” under Obamacare, even though as FactCheck.org pointed out back in 2010, Muslims are not one of the groups granted a religious exemption.

The health care law only exempts the same religious groups already exempt from government benefits like Social Security. In fact, the only religious sects that have exemptions are Christian denominations.

But what else would you expect from the group which claimed that President Obama signed a law that “makes the Bible illegal”?

Guess what? Muslims don't have to participate in Obamacare due to "religious exemptions" not extended to Christians! Need evidence? Here you go:

EXEMPTIONS FROM INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY REQUIREMENTS.

—In the case of an individual who is seeking an exemption certificate under section 1311(d)(4)(H) from any requirement or penalty imposed by section 5000A, the following information:

In the case of an individual seeking exemption based on the individual’s status as a member of an exempt religious sect or division, as a member of a health care sharing ministry, as an Indian, or as an individual eligible for a hardship exemption, such information as the Secretary shall prescribe.”

Senate Bill, H.R. 3590, pages 273-274

Now what's curious about this tidy little insertion is that it's primarily designed for religious groups such as the Amish. But add a wrinkle here -- for Muslims, modern health care systems are a bit more akin to "gambling" -- which is haram or forbidden in Islam. Liberty and Pride explains:

There are several reasons why an individual could claim exemption, being a member of a religion that does not believe in insurance is one of them. Islam is one of those religions. Muslims believe that health insurance is “haraam”, or forbidden; because they liken the ambiguity and probability of insurance to gambling. This belief excludes them from any of the requirements, mandates, or penalties set forth in the bill. Other excluded groups include Amish, American Indians, and Christian Scientists.

What's fascinating about this is while Christian business owners and organizations -- most notably the Catholic Church, Domino's Pizza, and Hobby Lobby -- are fighting for their very lives resisting the violations of religious conscience in Obamacare, apparently Islam got a free pass.

Why?