Miranda Blue's blog

Phyllis Schlafly has been on a tear after the Boston Marathon bombings, using the tragedy to call for the reinstatement of the House Un-American Activities Committee and a hold on comprehensive immigration reform.

In a syndicated column today, the Eagle Forum founder seizes on a report that some of the bombing suspects’ family members – all legal immigrants – received occasional welfare and food stamp assistance. “Tamerlan [Tsarnaev] can be said to have financed his radicalization with welfare handouts from our taxpayers,” she charges. She is also shocked that Tamerlan received a court-appointed attorney when he was charged with domestic violence in 2009.

Later in the column, Schlafly demands to know what immigration officials did when Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was taking his citizenship oath “to assure that Dzhokhar was not using the Koran-authorized practice of taqiyya, i.e., tell a lie in order to advance Muslim objectives.” Officials should have been tipped off, she says, by the first name of his older brother, which is common in Central Asia.

Once admitted into the United States, the entire family cashed in on generous U.S. welfare benefits, cash and food stamps. Those receiving taxpayer handouts included the two criminal sons, both of their parents and, ultimately, Tamerlan's wife and child.

Tamerlan can be said to have financed his radicalization with welfare handouts from our taxpayers. Those were the years when Tamerlan became a more devout Muslim, gave up drinking in order to devote himself to "God's business" and sought out jihadist websites.

When accused of domestic violence against a girlfriend in 2009, he had the benefit of a taxpayer-funded attorney to get his case dismissed. Welfare was terminated only in 2012 when his wife's salary pushed their income outside of eligibility limits.

…

When the younger brother, Dzhokhar, was naturalized as a citizen. He would have been required to swear that he renounces "all allegiance" to any previous country and that "I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion." What did our naturalization bureaucrats do to assure that Dzhokhar was not using the Koran-authorized practice of taqiyya, i.e., tell a lie in order to advance Muslim objectives?

Why didn't our FBI recognize the signal that the older boy was named for one of the most brutal murderers in all history? The name Tamerlan is known throughout Asia as a 14th-century Muslim who called himself the "Sword of Islam" and murdered 17 million people, beheaded many and displayed their heads to showcase his brutality.

Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly dropped by the Steve Malzberg Show on NewsMax TV recently to discuss the bipartisan Gang of Eight’s efforts on comprehensive immigration reform. Schlafly told Malzberg that creating a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants would be “suicide for the Republican Party because they’re going to vote Democratic.” Schlafly predicts that immigrants will vote for Democrats “because they come from a country where there’s no tradition or expectation of limited government” and “think government should be there to give orders and solve their problems and give them a handout when they need it.”

Having this amnesty is suicide for the Republican Party because they’re going to vote Democratic, and that’s why the Democrats are pushing it. And the reason is because they come from a country where there’s no tradition or expectation of limited government. You know, you and I want the Constitution obeyed and we want limited government to get it off our back so that we can be a free country. But other countries don’t even have the experience. They don’t know what you’re talking about. They think government should be there to give orders and solve their problems and give them a handout when they need it.

Right-wing talk show host Kevin McCullough has a column in the American Family Association-affiliated One News Now today, cleverly titled “Barack Hussein Gosnell.” McCollough’s argument is that President Obama, by speaking at Planned Parenthood recently, is morally equivalent to accused murderer Kermit Gosnell.

McCullough claims that “every woman I’ve ever spoken to on the matter” agrees with him that Planned Parenthood is not “helpful to women.” Instead, he writes, “They say they give women choices -- which they interpret to mean, encourage them to be as promiscuous as possible.”

See Planned Parenthood touts cancer screenings, but Lila Rose proved they don't do mammograms. They claim they are improving the health of women, but they have become the biggest cemetery of unborn women in history. They say they give women choices -- which they interpret to mean, encourage them to be as promiscuous as possible. Planned Parenthood may be many things, but helpful to women, is not one of them -- so says every woman I've ever spoken to on the matter.

McCullough goes on to accuse the president of “abject racial self-loathing” because of his support for choice.

What is also stunning is the abject racial self-loathing it must require for President Obama and Kermit Gosnell to directly and unequivocally contribute to an organization and "medical" practices that were set up by design to extinguish the people with their same color of skin.

Margaret Sanger -- Planned Parenthood's founder -- argued in articles such as "The Eugenic Conscience" (February 1921) that sterilizing the "unfit" Negro was her "plan of Salvation" for the American civilization.

Evidently President Obama and Kermit Gosnell strongly agree with that racial "solution." Their actions certainly demonstrate as much.

The truth is Kermit Gosnell's house of horrors, where he burned, chopped, snipped, and stabbed babies to death, is very little different than the Planned Parenthood "super-sized" abortion mills. Very little different indeed.

The truth is that both Planned Parenthood and Kermit Gosnell prey upon mostly immigrant minority women. And while President Obama trots out Sandra Fluke to yell "squirrel" about contraception and has attempted to force those of us who have a moral objection to providing money to those who will burn, chop, snip and stab babies, the smoke screen never fools the children who always end up dead.

The anti-choice group Americans United for Life is using the trial of Philadelphia abortion provider Kermit Gosnell – accused of infanticide and causing the injury and death of several women in his care – to push for “TRAP” laws meant to shut down safe abortion clinics.

TRAP – “targeted restrictions on abortion providers”—laws are a favorite tool of anti-choice activists trying to work their way around Roe v. Wade. Passed under the guise of improving care for women, they are in fact aimed at shutting down abortions providers by burdening them with onerous and unnecessary regulations. A TRAP law in Virginia forced a respected 40-year-old abortion clinic to close this month. Last year, Mississippi passed a TRAP law aimed at shutting down the state’s only abortion clinic.

And this is exactly what Americans United for Life wants more of. In a press release today, AUL president Charmaine Yoest presents two model state-level TRAP measures, falsely claiming that her group “has led the nationwide effort to combat the reality of legalized ‘back-alley’ abortions”:

"For more than a decade, Americans United for Life has led the nationwide effort to combat the reality of legalized 'back-alley' abortions, advocating for meaningful and comprehensive regulation and oversight of abortion clinics.  And legislators across the country are responding to AUL's call to protect women from substandard abortion clinics and providers.  Over just the last three years, eight states have enacted new comprehensive abortion clinic regulations or made significant improvements to existing regulations.

"Commonsense regulations must be a national priority. Enacting medically appropriate and comprehensive abortion clinic regulations is a critical and sensible solution to the on-going problem of unsafe, legal 'back-alley' abortions, which is now better understood as a result of the horrific revelations in the Gosnell trial.  These regulations are designed to safeguard against unsanitary conditions, inferior equipment, and the employment of unsuitable and untrained personnel.  They are also intended to put an end to substandard medical practices that injure and kill untold numbers of women each year."

Of course, these laws do nothing to prevent back-alley abortions or “safeguard” women’s health. Instead, they serve to force safe clinics out of business, forcing women into unsafe practices like Gosnell’s. Gosnell’s squalid and dangerous clinic was the last refuge for many low-income women in Philadelphia. Yet AUL and its allies are trying to exploit the Gosnell story to make it even harder for women to access safe abortion care.

On her Eagle Forum Live radio program last weekend, Phyllis Schlafly was joined by eminent conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi. Corsi, who is promoting his new book on the American Civil Liberties Union, told Schalfly that the ACLU and progressives are using the Supreme Court marriage cases as a way to enact hate speech laws and shut down churches. Schlafly agreed, saying, “I do think that the main goal of the homosexuals is to silence any criticism. Most of them aren’t interested in getting married.”

Later in the conversation, Schlafly compared a potential Supreme Court ruling in favor of marriage equality to the infamous Dred Scott decision.

Corsi: The ACLU has been very strong behind the same-sex marriage. They have a whole section of the ACLU devoted to the LGBT agenda, the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender. And, Phyllis, if we get the Supreme Court saying that there’s a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, I think the next thing that’s going to happen is that we’re going to see an attempt to define hate speech, any minister or priest who from the pulpit condemns homosexual behavior from a scriptural basis or on principles of Judeo-Christian faith. And following that, the left will not only try to close that church down, but they’ll do it through pressing to take the tax-exempt status away from the church because the priest or the minister doesn’t agree with their agenda and is now engaged in ‘hate speech.’

Schlafly: Well, I do think that the main goal of the homosexuals is to silence any criticism. Most of them aren’t interested in getting married. But I think that’s what they want to do, and they’re starting out by trying it in the schools.

…

Schlafly: If five people on the Supreme Court are able to overturn our definition of marriage, which we’ve had for centuries, we had even before the Pilgrims landed on the Atlantic coast, there’s something wrong with our system. As Abraham Lincoln said in a famous, in his First Inaugural, in describing the Dred Scott case, probably the worst decision in history, and he said, okay, we have to accept what they decided for poor old Dred Scott. But we don’t have to accept it as a precedent and as something that will rule us forever, and we’re going to get this overturned. And if we don’t, we will be just simply subjects of what he called ‘that imminent tribunal.’ And we need to speak out. And before they hand down that decision, you need to pray that they come to the right decision and you all need to get your pastor to tell his congregation to pray for it.

Earlier this week, we reported that Schlafly is calling for a reinstatement of the House Un-American Activities Committee in response to the Boston Marathon bombings. When a caller asked why the ACLU couldn’t be tried for “subversive activity,” Schlafly repeated her demand to reinstate HUAC, and Corsi agreed.

Caller: The question I have is, how is it that no one has taken the ACLU to task in the courtroom and basically charged them with subversive activity?

Schlafly: Well, personally, Dr. Corsi, I think we need a new House Un-American Activities Committee, but I’ll let you answer your way.

Corsi: I’m in favor of it.

The Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins came across a story in CNSNews yesterday about a $150,000 NIH grant to George Washington University researchers who are studying “voice production and perception” among transgender people. Naturally, Perkins was outraged. In the top story of his daily email, Perkins accuses the NIH of “directing valuable resources away from treating mental illness--to enabling it in the name of political correctness.” Derisively calling transgender people “cross-dressers,” Perkins claims they “will have trouble leading ‘healthy, safe lives’ because of the emotional and physical tolls of their ‘lifestyle.”’

“The President’s priorities are as confused as some people’s gender identities,” he adds.

Taxpayers may be losing their voice in Washington, but transgenders are sure finding theirs! America may not be able to beef up defense, but apparently, it has more than enough money to fund "voice therapy" for cross-dressers. Based on the latest grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the President's priorities are as confused as some people's gender identities.

While the Obama administration claims it's too poor to staff airports or White House tours, it continues to fund projects that should have never been considered in the first place! For the next two years, the NIH is directing valuable resources away from treating mental illness--to enabling it in the name of political correctness. The long term goal of this "voice therapy," researchers explain, "is to inform and provide new directions for transgender voice care, thereby improving the lives of transgendered people who feel their voice is a great obstacle to living as their preferred gender." As part of the $152,000 program, men and women will submit speech samples for 100 listeners who will guess the sex of the speaker.  "Those male-to-female transgenders who pass as a female voice will be placed in a separate group and then compared to those who still sound like men," CNS News explains.

How is this remotely relevant to public health, you ask? Well, as far as NIH is concerned, the study will help end the "discrimination" transgenders face when "their voice does not match their preferred gender presentation." And that, researchers insist, "limits their ability to contribute to society and live healthy, safe lives." No one seems to recognize that transgenders, by their very definition, will have trouble leading "healthy, safe lives" because of the emotional and physical tolls of their "lifestyle." And no amount of taxpayer-funded speech lessons can change that.

(Emphases are mine)

The Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society, an Illinois-based conservative group, convened a symposium in Washington earlier this month to discuss topics including “Defending Faith in an Age of Christophobia,” “The Pornography Industry,” and “Economic and Social Costs of Abortion.” 

At a panel titled “The ‘War on Women’: Myth or Reality?,” Concerned Women for America senior fellow Janice Shaw Crouse argued that it is in fact “those who present themselves as champions of women’s rights” who “constitute a very real war on women.” This “war,” Crouse declares, began in the 1960s and has “undermined and torn apart the faith, values and morality that have held together a diverse and multicultural people.”

Why, then, do we even have to ask, ‘Is there a war on women?’ The war began as early as 1960. Since then, our nation has been experiencing a harsh cultural winter. Howling winds of change, insidious myths and outright falsehoods have undermined and torn apart the faith, values and morality that have held together a diverse and multicultural people.

These myths and those attacks, those falsehoods by those who present themselves as champions of women’s rights constitute a very real war on women. It’s a senseless war, promoting casual sex, spreading the myth that women don’t need marriage, and pushing the cultural and public policies that inevitably lead women to be the majority of those in poverty. That war against women has loosened and upended many of the foundation stones of the Judeo-Christian principles.

Iowa Republicans are determined to remove the nine state supreme court justices who ruled unanimously in 2009 to allow same-sex marriage in the state, and they'll try just about anything. In 2010, anti-gay groups funded a successful campaign to oust three justices in retention elections. Then Iowa anti-gay leader Bob Vander Plaats called for the remaining justices to resign. When that didn't work, state Republicans then tried to impeach them. Last year, an effort to remove a fourth justice failed at the ballot box. So now Iowa Republicans are trying a different strategy, proposing to dramatically lower the salaries of the remaining judges who were involved in the marriage equality decision. The Iowa City Gazette reports:

A handful of House conservatives want to reduce the pay of Iowa Supreme Court justices involved in a 2009 decision striking down a ban on same-sex marriages as part of an effort to maintain the balance of power in state government.

“It’s our responsibility to maintain the balance of power” between the three co-equal branches of government, Rep. Tom Shaw, R-Laurens, said Tuesday.

The justices “trashed the separation of powers” with their unanimous Varnum v. Brien decision and implementation of same-sex marriage without a change in state law banning any marriages expect between one man and one woman, added Rep. Dwayne Alons, R-Hull.

Their amendment to House File 120, the judicial branch budget bill, would lower the salaries of the four justices on the seven-member court who were part of the unanimous Varnum v. Brein decision to $25,000 – the same as a state legislator.

It’s not meant to be punitive, Alons and Shaw said Tuesday.
“We’re just holding them responsible for their decision, for going beyond their bounds,” Shaw said.

“It’s not the merits of what they said in that decision,” added Alons. He’s trying to stop “an encroaching wave” of judicial activity including decisions on nude dancing and landowner liability – decisions the Legislature also is trying to correct through legislation this session.

The chairman of the state Senate Judiciary Committee tells Gazette “that a plan to pay justices differently based on their role in one case would be unlikely to withstand a court challenge.”

Former ambassador and perennial presidential candidate Alan Keyes has recently taken a liking to the “Talk to Solomon Show,” a fringe radio program hosted by Stan Solomon and his sidekick “Chief” Steve Davis. Keyes, who frequently appears on the show to warn about the various ways in which progressives are destroying America, was back on Tuesday to discuss the Boston Marathon bombing. 

Keyes told Solomon and Davis that he found it “hard to believe” that President Obama, because he supports abortion rights, “was crying anything but crocodile tears” about the deaths in Boston. He also made the bogus claim that Obama has supported infanticide:

Later in the program, the three turned the subject to immigration reform. Davis alleged that undocumented immigrants are “jumping the border” and “mocking the guards, saying ‘Obama’s going to let us go and give us goods.’” Solomon then suggested that the U.S. accept the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the country and deport the president and first lady instead, to which Keyes responded, “Unfortunately, Stan, the way these folks have been observing the law when it comes to immigration, they’d let Michelle and Barack Obama slip back into the country.” Solomon replied with a “joke” about the first lady’s body, a racist meme popular among right-wing commentators: 

The Family Research Council is joining many of its fellow right-wing groups in celebrating Wednesday’s Senate filibuster of a bill that would have expanded background checks on gun sales. In an email to supporters yesterday, the group claims that gun violence prevention legislation isn’t needed because it wouldn’t have stopped the Boston marathon bombing. What is to blame for recent mass murders, the group claims, is “the government’s own hostility to the institution of the family” compounded by Congress’ supposed encouragement of  “abortion, family breakdown, sexual liberalism, or religious hostility.”

In the aftermath of horrible tragedies like Newtown, the government desperately wants to do something--even if that something is the wrong thing. There seems to be this notion, at least among liberals, that more laws will protect us--but as we all witnessed in Boston, that isn't necessarily the case. The government can't make us safer until it recognizes that the problem isn't the instruments of violence--but the environment of it. Stronger background checks wouldn't have prevented the deaths of three people at the finish line on Monday, any more than it would have stopped Floyd Corkins from walking into our lobby and shooting Leo Johnson.

If Congress wants to stop these tragedies, then it has to address the government's own hostility to the institution of the family and organizations that can address the real problem: the human heart. As I've said before, America doesn't need gun control, it needs self-control. And a Congress that actively discourages it--through abortion, family breakdown, sexual liberalism, or religious hostility--is only compounding the problem.