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There used to be a time when the Washington Times was a real newspaper, and conservatives derided the Washington Post as Pravda on the Potomac. We no longer live in that time.

A singularly remarkable event has taken place in the United States of America. This event occurred in Arizona on March 1st and was an earth shattering revelation. 

On April 27, 2011, President Barack walked into the White House Press room with a Cheshire cat like grin and a "Long Form Birth Certificate" from the State of Hawaii in hand.  From the podium in the press room, Mr. Obama said, "We're not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers,". Quite the barb from a man holding a forged document.

 

That's right, forged.

 

The president himself created the scene; one filled laughter from an adoring press corp., a scene of unprecedented fanfare while holding a forged document which was later posted on the White House website. This was the news Sheriff Arpaio revealed on March 1, 2012 in Arizona.

Dianna Cotter is a Senior at American Military University, a 4.0 Student, the recipient of the Outstanding Student Essay of 2009, a member of Delta Epsilon Tau and Epsilon Pi Phi Academic Fraternities and on the Dean's and President's Lists for academic achievement.

The house of cards is about to come tumbling down around Barack Obama's ears as the momentum of evidence builds. Law enforcement has found his birth documents to be "highly suspect" as a forgery. His draft card has similarly been found by law enforcement as being "highly suspect" as a forgery. The smoke screen cover created by his birth certificate, hiding Minor v. Happersett in a shadow of false mockery, has been blown away. Leaving the Supreme Court case alone on the stage, glaringly exposing Barack Obama as an usurper, an unconstitutional President of the United States.

 

The American Press is deliberately hiding the evidence published on the internet about this defrauding of the American public and the deliberate evisceration of the Constitution of the United States. It is hiding Barack Obama's Fraud as it has been revealed by a Sheriff in Arizona. The silence of the American press would be unbelievable if it weren't so blatantly obvious.

 

It is nearly as egregious as the audacity of Obama's fraud itself.

On Monday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid filed cloture petitions to end GOP filibusters of 17 district court nominees, an extraordinary move brought on by unprecedented Republican obstruction. The Senate GOP started immediately to try to spin the story to try to cover for the gridlock they had created. Here are the five main Republican talking points on the judicial obstruction showdown and the facts that rebut them:

GOP Talking Point #1: Senate Democrats have invented this conflict to make Republicans look bad. This is a little skirmish about timing that’s been blown out of proportion.

Sen. McConnell: “Rather than try to manufacture gridlock and create the illusion of conflict where none exists, why don’t we demonstrate we can kind of get something done together?”

Sen. Alexander: "This is a little disagreement that we have here between the Majority leader and the Republican leader on the scheduling of votes on district judges. It's not a high constitutional matter. It's not even a high principle. It's not even a big disagreement.”

The Facts:

• Senate Democrats aren’t “manufacturing gridlock” – they’re bringing it into the daylight. Senate Republicans have created unprecedented gridlock over the last three years. Democrats are now calling them out on it.
• President Obama’s judicial nominees have been met with such consistent obstruction that they now wait an average of four times longer than President Bush’s nominees just to reach a Senate vote. This unrelenting gridlock has helped create a historic vacancy crisis in the federal courts.
• This is no minor matter: this is about whether 10% of our federal courtrooms remain empty. This is about Americans having access to fair and functioning courts.
• If Senate Republicans wanted to move on from this issue, they could easily agree to schedule a vote today and confirm all 17 nominees. The Senate did just that in 2002, when it confirmed 17 of Bush’s district court nominees -- plus a Circuit Court nomination – all by  a voice vote in just a few minutes.
• What’s really going on here is that Republicans don’t want these nominees to be put to a vote. No district court nominee has ever been successfully blocked by a filibuster – if they deny cloture on these nominees, the GOP will be setting a new and very dangerous standard.

GOP Talking Point #2: The GOP’s obstruction is a direct response to President Obama’s recess appointments.

Sen. Lee: "After the president made four unconstitutional appointments, we could no longer sustain the same level of cooperation.”

The Facts:

• Senate Republicans have been obstructing President Obama’s judicial nominees from day one of his presidency. Even before the recess appointments, Obama nominees were stalled an average of four times as long as  Bush’s.
• At the end of last year, even Sen. Lee was upset that Obama’s nominees weren’t getting votes. In December, he said he was “frustrated” that Utah District Court nominee David Nuffer had been stalled for two months on the Senate floor. “There is absolutely no reason why we shouldn’t have confirmed him before we got out.”
• In August 2010, American Bar Association warned that the judicial vacancy crisis was leading to “justice denied.” In December 2010, Chief Justice John Roberts urged the Senate to solve “the persistent problem of judicial vacancies.” In April 2011, the Federal Bar Association warned that the vacancy crisis was harming business and costing taxpayers. For three years, Editorials Boards and commentators from across the nation have called for an end to obstruction. This is a persistent problem, not a new creation.

GOP Talking Point #3: Some of the filibustered nominees haven’t been on the calendar all that long, what’s the hurry?

Sen. Alexander: “We have 17 district court judgeships that have been recommended by the Judiciary committee. They could be brought up by the majority leader. He has the right to do that but of those 17, six of them - six of them - have been here for less than 30 days. They just got here.”

The Facts:

• Moving district court nominees in under a month used to be the norm, not the exception. At this point in Bush’s presidency, the average district court nominee waited just 22 days after committee approval for a vote from the full Senate. Under President Obama, the average wait has been 93 days.
• During Bush’s first term, 57 district court nominees were confirmed within a week of being approved by the Judiciary Committee. During Obama’s first term, only 5 have been.
• On September 26, 2008, the Senate confirmed 10 district court judges by voice vote. All 10 had been reported just one day earlier.  In fact, 5 of these had just had their hearings three days earlier. Now, less than four years later and with a Democratic president in office, Republicans are saying this sort of quick processing of nominees is impossible.

GOP Talking Point #4: Senate Republicans are floating plans to vote “present” on the 17 cloture petitions, thus continuing to stall the nominees while not being tagged with a “no” vote.

Sen. Cornyn: “Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told POLITICO he thinks Republicans will vote ‘no’ or ‘present’ on the cloture votes on judges and won't allow Democrats to ‘jam’ them.”

The Facts:

• Voting “present” on cloture is exactly the same thing as voting “no.” Anyone who is at all familiar with Senate rules, where it takes 60 “yes” votes to end a filibuster understands this basic point.
• If Republicans want to continue to obstruct these nominees, they should be willing to be clear about what they are doing, not opt for some ruse. The American people are smart enough to understand that a “present vote” indicates that Republicans are playing games rather than playing their Constitutionally mandated role to advise and consent.
• No district court nominee has ever been blocked by a filibuster. Whether Republicans vote “no” or “present,” if they succeed in denying cloture to any of these 17 nominees, they will be creating a dangerous precedent.

GOP Talking Point #5: The Senate has more important issues to focus on.

Sen. McConnell: “It could be that is precisely what my friend the Majority leader has in mind, to try to make the Senate look like it's embroiled in controversy where no controversy exists. So my suggestion is, why don't we do first things first.”

The Facts:

• Americans rely on having access to a fair and functioning judiciary to assert their rights in cases of civil rights violations, employment discrimination, dangerously defective consumer goods, predatory lending practices, immigrant rights, consumer fraud, environmental destruction, and other areas. Because of Republican obstruction, the courts we rely on are in jeopardy – and the American people are paying the price.
• During the Obama presidency “judicial emergencies” declared by the U.S. Courts have soared from 20 to 35 and the vacancy rate has been kept at an all-time high. 160 million Americans live in districts or circuits with at least one judicial vacancy.
• Senate Republicans could easily move on to other priorities – by simply agreeing to hold up-or-down votes on the 17 nominees who they are currently filibustering.

Press Contact: Miranda Blue, (202) 497-4999, media@pfaw.org

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Last week, Randall Terry won 18% of the vote in Oklahoma's Democratic primary as part of his on-going "presidential campaign" aimed primarily exploiting a loophole in election law as a means of air graphic anti-abortion ads on television.

And Terry appears to be quite pleased with himself, somehow believing that his showing in Oklahoma demonstrates that President Obama is losing in the "swing states" and he wants everyone to know it ... especially us, Slate, and Jezebel:

Ryan Dobson, the son of Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, is joining his fellow conservative commentators in attacking Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke. Yesterday on Family Talk’s Grounded, he railed against President Obama for calling and thanking Fluke after she testified in favor of a mandatory insurance coverage for contraceptives. Fluke testified that many of her fellow Georgetown students must spend $3,000 over the course of three years on contraception because the school refuses to cover it in their insurance plans.

Dobson charged that Obama “belittled himself by calling her” since she “sleeps around enough to where she’s struggling financially because she can’t afford contraception.”

Dobson must have missed the Associated Press story confirming that without insurance coverage, contraceptives can indeed cost $1,000 a year. He also likely never read Fluke’s testimony, in which she pointed out that contraceptives are medically necessary to treat ovarian cysts, endometriosis, hormonal disorders and early menopause, along with preventing unwanted pregnancies.

And, along with many of Fluke’s right-wing attackers, Dobson seems to have missed the fact that the amount of contraception a woman needs is unrelated to the amount that she “sleeps around.”

Dobson: President Obama calls [Sandra Fluke] and says ‘I called you because of my own daughters, your parents must be proud.’ Really? Seriously? So Obama, when your daughter is a third year student at a college who sleeps around enough to where she’s struggling financially because she can’t afford contraception, that’s going to make you proud of your daughter? I cannot imagine a father in this country or anywhere that wakes up in the morning and is like, ‘I’m so glad my daughter sleeps around; it just makes me so proud that my daughter is sleeping around and spending money on contraception.’

…

I just think it’s such a bad precedent for the president, for the President, the President of the United States, belittled himself by calling her.

Religious Right commentators from Calvin Beisner to David Barton and Bryan Fischer like to think of themselves as experts on the topic of global climate change despite their complete lack of scientific credentials. On the 700 Club today, televangelist Pat Robertson joined the debate, arguing that human-induced climate change is a myth and “hasn’t been scientifically proven”:

But like Newt Gingrich, who costarred in an ad with Nancy Pelosi for Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection, Robertson shared a couch with Al Sharpton for ACP’s “We Can Solve It” campaign to raise awareness about climate change in 2008:

Before the Tennessee primary, Rick Santorum visited the Bellevue Baptist Church outside of Memphis where he prayed alongside Pastor Steve Gaines. Gaines said that “God doesn’t come to take sides, God comes to take over and I pray that He will takeover in America.” He asked God to forgive America for “the sins of racism, the sins of abortion and the sins of immorality”:

Gaines has a sordid history, and the website Ethics Daily, a project of the Baptist Center for Ethics, reported back in 2006 that Gaines failed to report to the police a minister in his church, Paul Williams, who molested his own:

An assistant prosecutor said Bellevue Baptist Church Pastor Steve Gaines may have committed a crime if he knew the "moral failure" a church staff member confessed to him six months ago involved child molestation.

All 50 states have laws requiring mandatory reporting of suspected child sexual abuse. Tennessee requires any person, including ministers, with reasonable suspicion that abuse of a child has occurred to report it immediately.

Gaines has admitted that Paul Williams, a minister on staff at the Memphis, Tenn., mega-church for 34 years, told him in confidence about inappropriate behavior that occurred 17 years ago.

While Gaines did not disclose details of the confession, a Web site critical of his leadership alleged Williams molested his own son. Church leaders have suspended Williams and launched their own investigation, due to last a month.

"Everyone has a duty to report," Kevin Rardin, chief prosecutor of child sexual abuse cases in the district attorney's office in Shelby County, Tenn., told Memphis station WMC-TV. "There are not exceptions for clergy or anyone else."

In fact, Gaines kept Williams’s admission a secret for six months:

"It is that every person is required to make a report to an agency like Department of Children's Services if they have reason to believe that someone may, a child may have been molested or abused," said Nancy Williams, with the Memphis Child Advocacy Center.

According to Bellevue Pastor Steve Gaines' own words, he didn't just have reason to believe it, he had a confession from one of his ministers, who admitted to molesting a child.

A report by church leaders found that Gaines allowed the minister to remain on staff even after his admission:

The report states that Williams "engaged in egregious, perverse, sexual activity with his adolescent son over a period of 12 to 18 months."

…

In May 2006, Williams informed Jamie Fish, the church's minister of biblical guidance, of his past actions. The report said Fish erred by not coming forward with the information, particularly since Williams' job duties included interviewing adult lay ministry volunteers who had indicated they had been sexually abused.

The following month Williams and his wife met to discuss the issue with Dr. Steve Gaines, Bellevue's senior pastor. Williams indicated that he confessed and repented to his family and there had been no further sexual abuse. The meeting was kept confidential and Williams remained on staff.

But in early December, Williams' son met with Gaines "for an explanation, in light of scriptural qualifications for ministers, as to why Paul should be allowed to continue as minister on the church staff."

While Gaines failed to report a case of child molestation and allowed an admitted child predator to remain on the church’s staff, he did ban a softball team from the church’s athletic league because the coach was openly gay. In fact, Gaines consistently rails against gays and lesbians, warning that gay rights and gays in the media jeopardize America’s security and economy:

"As important as these issues are, ... I believe they pale compared to two other issues that I believe will determine the future of America," Gaines warned. "I personally believe with all of my heart that the two issues that will determine what God will do not only with America but to America are abortion and homosexuality. ... America's economy and America's safety are more tied up with what's going on in those courts in Massachusetts than what's going on in Wall Street or over in Iraq." …

"We love [homosexuals] because we know -- as Jesus said from the cross -- 'they know not what they do.' They're in bondage, but aren't you glad today Jesus Christ can set people free from all sorts of bondage, even homosexuality?"

…

Southern Baptists should oppose "pro-homosexual television programming," such as "Will and Grace," "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" and MTV's homosexual channel, Logo, Gaines urged.

"We must help curb the epidemic spread of lesbianism by telling our daughters and our young girls that the passionate kisses shared by Madonna, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera at MTV's Video Music Awards last August were an abomination to a holy God," Gaines said.

In another sermon, he warned that since “homosexuals and lesbians cannot reproduce biologically so they prey on the children of normal people, seeking to entice them to be trapped in their perverted lifestyle”:

On the home-front, radical homosexuals and lesbians seek to take over our nation. You cannot watch television without being subjected to Gay propaganda. They seek to brain wash our citizens so they can make same-sex marriage the law of the land. Homosexuals and lesbians cannot reproduce biologically so they prey on the children of normal people, seeking to entice them to be trapped in their perverted lifestyle. They want to silence Baptist preachers and others from denouncing their sinful lifestyles by making it an illegal “hate crime” to point out what the Bible says about their wicked practices. Regardless of what anyone says about the goodness of being “Gay,” the Bible still calls it a “degrading, unnatural, indecent, and depraved” (Romans 1:26-28). Homosexual practice always has been, is, and always will be “an abomination” in the sight of Holy God (Leviticus 18:22). By God’s grace, homosexuals can be saved and set free from their sinful lifestyles because the blood of Jesus can cleanse anyone from any sin. But they must first repent of the sin of homosexuality and denounce their ungodly homosexual behavior.

…

The Old Testament prophet, Joel, preached to God’s people in Judah just before the Babylonian armies came and destroyed Jerusalem and took God’s people into exile. He cried out for them to repent so that God could spare the land from the coming invasion. His words of warning are very pertinent for us today. I personally believe that if America does not repent, she is headed for national disaster.

The negative publicity around Gaines, however, did not prevent Rick Santorum from actively seeking his support. In fact, Santorum has made frequent appearances with extremists in the Religious Right in his bid to defeat Mitt Romney.

The Center for Arizona Policy, one of the state’s leading conservative organizations, coming out strongly against legislation in the Arizona State Senate, Senate Bill 1462, in the Arizona State Senate that tackles the problem of school bullying, which is nothing new from right-wing groups. But while Religious Right groups typically claim they oppose anti-bullying policies because they identify “sexual orientation” as a reason that students are bullied, SB 1462 does not mention “sexual orientation” or other enumerated categories. Instead, Center for Arizona Policy says that they oppose the bullying-prevention effort just because groups such as the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network and the Anti-Defamation League support the legislation. There is no doubt about it; the ‘bullying’ theme is agenda-driven propaganda,” the group writes. “The irony is that groups like Equality Arizona and GLSEN have chosen this issue to bully you and me into allowing them access into our schools and to our children.” The group also lashed out at a Teaching Tolerance film, Bullied, which “chronicles one student’s ordeal at the hands of anti-gay bullies and offers an inspiring message of hope to those fighting harassment today.”

The questions arise when one considers which organizations would provide the training and which organizations are behind the legislation. As a leading homosexual magazine in Arizona wrote, Equality Arizona, one n ten, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) were all in attendance at the bill's committee hearing to support and see the legislation pass.

You see, groups like Equality Arizona and GLSEN have used the bullying issue in order to gain access to our public schools. These are the groups that supporters of the bill will bring into schools to teach the anti-bullying training to our students.

What concerns me is that this is already happening. I received an email from a parent whose 11-year-old daughter was forced to watch a documentary called Bullied during class time without any parental notification or consent. Taken directly off the tolerance.org website, "Bullied is a documentary film that chronicles one student's ordeal at the hands of anti-gay bullies and offers an inspiring message of hope to those fighting harassment today. It can become a cornerstone of anti-bullying efforts in middle and high schools." As this dad wrote:

Upon questioning my daughter I was able to determine the video presented was the documentary Bullied. My wife and I spent the next several minutes apologizing to her that she was forced by her school to view the material ... I should note the school was diligent in requiring written parental approval for my daughter to view a specific rendition of Star Wars, but the Administration need not trouble the parents over [these] materials. The material was not all that timely for our child either since we had to define for her the terms "homo" and "fag" at our dinner table.

There is no doubt about it; the "bullying" theme is agenda-driven propaganda. [emphasis theirs]. The irony is that groups like Equality Arizona and GLSEN have chosen this issue to bully you and me into allowing them access into our schools and to our children. To express concerns about anti-bullying bills is portrayed in the most unfavorable light.

These bullying bills are not sound public policy. Not only are they a thinly veiled attempt to allow political groups into our schools, they also divert the focus of our school system off the fundamentals. Class time should be for reading, writing, and arithmetic.