Paul Ryan

• Paul Ryan will be the keynote speaker at the anti-choice Susan B. Anthony List Gala. 

• Ryan was also among the 67 Republicans to oppose a bill providing $9.7 billion in Sandy relief, which the House passed after the GOP leadership withdrew a much more substantial aid package.

• Apparently, conservatives are shocked and dismayed that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie would dare to criticize House Republicans for pulling the plug on the Sandy aid bill. 

• An Indiana Republican state senator wants to allow public schools to require the reading of the Lord’s Prayer.

• The NRA has trotted out another winning talking point.

• National Organization for Marriage founder Maggie Gallagher has ended her column after seventeen years.

Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan will hold a town hall teleconference with Ralph Reed, the disgraced former head of the Christian Coalition who is making a political comeback with a conservative voter turnout project called the Faith and Freedom Coalition. That group is sending voters flyers warning that reelecting Obama would allow the president to “complete America’s destruction.” They also compare Obama’s policies to the threat posed to America by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.

For all Paul Ryan’s talk about values, it’s worth remembering who his pal Ralph Reed is: a self-enriching win-at-any-cost political operative whose own campaign for office was tanked by revelations of Reed’s involvement in a scandal with Jack Abramoff, the convicted corrupt lobbyist who helped Reed get business “humping in corporate accounts” after he left the Christian Coalition and started his own consulting firm.

As Kyle has noted:

There are few political operatives active today that are as ruthless and cynical as Ralph Reed.

Reed is, after all, the man who infamously declared that he specializes in "guerrilla warfare," and bragged "I paint my face and travel at night. You don't know it's over until you're in a body bag." 

Reed also knowingly took hundreds of thousands of dollars from corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff to manipulate and mobilize his Religious Right allies to fight gambling expansions in order to protect Abramoff's client's gambling interests.  Reed even had some of the money laundered through third-parties in order to try and conceal its origins, yet continues to insist to this day that he is "proud" of the "outstanding" work he did on behalf of Abramoff and his clients.

Ryan cites his Catholic faith to distract attention from his devotion to Ayn Rand and her infamous hostility to charity toward the poor.  Reed himself preaches the Tea Party’s notion that federal government programs that serve the poor and elderly are unconstitutional. (And of course, for a big chunk of the Religious Right, the social safety net is not only unconstitutional, but unbiblical.)

The FFC held several events at the Republican National Convention featuring other notable “values” stalwarts such as Newt Gingrich, union-busting Scott Walker, anti-gay activist Jim Garlow and down-the-government-in-the-bathtub anti-tax zealot Grover Norquist.

Reed said earlier this year that American Christians must get down on their knees and beg God for forgiveness for “what we have allowed to happen” to the country – then God might have mercy on America (the implication being that God would help Romney defeat Obama).

 Back in 2008, John McCain was embarrassed by watchdog groups over his participation in a fundraiser organized by Reed; in the end Reed did not attend. Four years later, the values-promoting Paul Ryan seems to have no hesitation embracing Reed, who exemplifies the self-promoting values of Ryan inspiration Ayn Rand.

During an interview with Focus on the Family president Jim Daly, Paul Ryan reassured the anti-gay group that a Romney-Ryan administration will fiercely oppose gay rights. Focus on the Family and its founder James Dobson have a long history of promoting anti-gay policies and ex-gay therapy, and earned a shout-out from Romney earlier this week while campaigning in Colorado, where it is headquartered.

While Romney has moved in his career from backing gay rights to becoming a vocal foe, Ryan has a solidly anti-gay voting record in Congress. Ryan told Daly, whose political arm has been spending money on behalf of Romney and a number of other Republican candidates like Todd Akin, that the ticket is firmly against same-sex marriage and that he was a “big supporter” of a 2006 amendment which enshrined marriage discrimination into the Wisconsin state constitution. He also said the Obama administration’s decision not to defend the unconstitutional Defense of Marriage Act hurt the “rule of law” and “contradicts our system of government,” however, a number of presidents including George W. Bush have not defended statutes they deemed unconstitutional.

Daly: Focus on the Family has been behind the scenes working for years to defend marriage and to speak out for marriage and the importance of marriage. I think thirty-two out of thirty-two states where we have helped put a ballot initiative or some other mechanism in front of the people, we have won that thirty-two out of thirty-two times. It seems like when it’s in front of the people they vote for it, if it’s the state-level judges they will try to do it by fiat or if it is simply some other mechanism, the State House passes it without the vote of the people. For the Romney-Ryan ticket, when you look at marriage, what do we need to do in the culture to lift up and strengthen the very core building block of society and that’s family.

Ryan: It’s the foundation for society and for family for thousands of years. First of all, Mitt Romney and I — I’ll just say it, it’s worth repeating — we believe marriage is between one man and one woman, that’s number one. Number two, you know where I come from we had one of those amendments in Wisconsin, I was a big supporter of it and we passed it like you say, where it’s put on the ballot it passes. The second point is, President Obama gave up defending the Defense of Marriage Act in the courts, I mean, not only is this decision to abandon this law the wrong decision, it passed in a bipartisan manner, it is very troubling because it undermines not only traditional marriage but it contradicts our system of government. It’s not the president’s job to pick and choose which laws he likes. A Romney administration will protect traditional marriage and the rule of law and we will provide the Defense of Marriage Act the proper defense in the courts that it deserves.

• Michael B. Keegan @ Huffington Post: George Stephanopoulos' Ann Coulter Problem.
• Towleroad: Paul Ryan Suggests Allowing Gays to Marry is Not an 'American' or 'Human' Value.
• Joe.My.God: FBI Investigates Eugene Delgaudio For Multiple Violations Of Campaign & Employment Laws.
• Steve Benen @ The Maddow Blog: Scott Brown's team under fire for racist antics.
• Sahil Kapur @ TPM: Fox & Friends Distorts Data On Obama’s Spending Record.
• Aviva Shen @ Think Progress: GOP Lawmaker Who Called For Akin To Drop Out Now Supporting Him.

• Brad Plumer @ WonkBlog: Mitt Romney is paying… too much in taxes?
• Zack Ford @ Think Progress: Washington Archbishop Claims ‘Human Society Would Be Harmed Beyond Repair’ By Marriage Equality.
• Crooks & Liars: AARP Repeatedly Boos Ryan for Vowing to Repeal 'Obamacare.'
• Kevin Drum @ Mother Jones: Another Conservative Conspiracy Theory Bites the Dust.
• Emily Arrowood & Chelsea Rudman @ Media Matters: Fox Conspiracy Theory: Obama Admin. Is Engaged In "Cover-Up" Of Libya Consulate Attacks.
• Steve Benen @ The Maddow Blog: Worst. Surrogates. Ever.

Michelle Bachmann, speaking at the Values Voter Summit this morning, quickly one-upped Mitt Romney in pinning blame on President Obama for the violent protests in Libya and Egypt and deaths of four Americans in Libya. She accused Obama of appeasing the Muslim Brotherhood and opening our borders to terrorists. Not long after, Paul Ryan also attacked Obama over foreign policy: 

Amid all these threats and dangers, what we do not see is steady, consistent American leadership. In the days ahead, and in the years ahead, American foreign policy needs moral clarity and firmness of purpose. Only by the confident exercise of American influence are evil and violence overcome.

• the conference features a fake terrorist who claims to have smuggled weapons into the U.S. and carried out “bloody terror” missions against Israel

• the video that sparked the unrest in Egypt and Libya was created and promoted by anti-Muslim activists who have worked with backers of Bachmann’s effort to purge the U.S. government of Muslim Americans and key players in the effort to block the so-called Ground Zero mosque (e.g. ACT! for America and the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission)

• in July, misinformation promoted by Bachmann and two upcoming speakers at the Values Voter Summit, Frank Gaffney and Jerry Boykin, sparked aggressive protests against American diplomats in Egypt, including Secretary Clinton, whose motorcade was pelted by protestors – Boykin and Gaffney have been the leading forces behind Bachmann’s witch hunt against Muslim Americans in the U.S. government

• former Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, now the executive vice president of the Family Research Council, which hosts the conference, significantly set back American diplomacy in 2003, drawing a rebuke from President Bush and Pentagon investigators, when he repeatedly denounced and insulted Islam in uniform and characterized the “war on the terror” as a war in the name of Jesus