Missouri

Voter ID off the table in Missouri

The state legislature recently recessed without having rewritten a ballot measure that would have paved the way for voter ID.
PFAW Foundation

Push for voter ID marches on in Missouri

Though a court ruled against SJR 2, Representative Shane Schoeller wants to make sure that voter ID makes it on the Missouri ballot in November.
PFAW Foundation

Todd Akin: 'We are Going to War, Not with Bullets but with Ballots'

Rick Scarborough of Vision America, the self-proclaimed ‘Christocrat,’ held a conference call today with US Senate candidate Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) and disgraced former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay as part of his new 40 Days to Save America effort to rally Religious Right voters before the November election.

DeLay, who has appealed his convictions on money laundering and conspiracy charges that led to a three year prison sentence, prayed during the conference call and said that Americans “threw away” God’s blessing. “You gave us this nation and we’re at a crossroads, we can either succumb and do nothing or we can fight for Your worldview and for you Lord,” DeLay said, “You assigned civil government to us and that it is part of our responsibility to work hard for Your glory and Your will so Lord please give us a special favor”:

The conference call was mostly used to boost the candidacy of Akin, a Religious Right favorite who earlier claimed that “at the heart of liberalism really is a hatred for God,” and told listeners that class and racial differences in America only began recently as a result of the growth of government. He said that Americans must follow the Founders who went to war against a “foreign tyrant” just “not with bullets but with ballots.” “It’s no surprise that liberalism tries to remove references to God because God is the source of strength of those patriots,” Akin said.

For a nation based on the idea that there is a Creator who blessed us with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and he gave us those blessings because they were necessary for us to fulfill the special purpose that he called every single one of us to. That of course, implies, that there are no classes, there are no hyphenated Americans, we are all just God’s children and that’s good enough. That was the dream that every single one of us could live in the blessing of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That is the thing that has held us together, it’s the glue that made America special and it’s the reason why Americans went to war because some foreign tyrant threatened our ability to be alive and to have liberty and to pursue the dreams that God gives us, that’s why we went to war. And right now, in a sense, we are going to war, not with bullets but with ballots because there is a threat in Washington, D.C. that will take every part of that dream away from us. It’s no surprise that liberalism tries to remove references to God because God is the source of strength of those patriots.

Bill Donohue Gets Tough on Rape Victims, Wants to Fight Them 'One by One'

Catholic League president Bill Donohue is sick and tired of coddling rape victims. That’s why he supports efforts by lawyers for two Missouri priests accused of sexual abuse to cripple an organization that advocates on behalf of the victims of pedophile priests – Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP). 

SNAP is not involved in the Missouri litigation, but the priests’ lawyers are seeking “more than two decades of e-mails that could include correspondence with victims, lawyers, whistle-blowers, witnesses, the police, prosecutors and journalists.” Donohue thinks this effort, which seeks to bankrupt and embarrass the organization, is justified because “SNAP is a menace to the Catholic Church.”
 
Donohue went further, telling the New York TimesLaurie Goodstein that the Catholic Church “has been too quick to write a check” and could save money “in the long run if we fought them one by one” – them being rape victims. He also claimed that the bishops are reaching the conclusion that “they had better toughen up and go out and buy some good lawyers to get tough.” “We don’t need altar boys,” he continued, as only Bill Donohue could.
 
Donohue may just be projecting though, or at least speaking out of turn. Sister Mary Ann Walsh, a spokesperson for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, told Goodstein that Donohue was wrong: “‘There is no national strategy,’ she said, and there was no meeting where legal counsel for the bishops decided to get more aggressive.”
 
Meanwhile SNAP is resisting subpoenas in the Missouri cases, but national director David Clohessy has already been deposed. He told Goodstein that the deposition was “not a fishing expedition,” instead it was “a fishing, crabbing, shrimping, trash-collecting, draining the pond expedition.” He said the real motive is to “harass and discredit and bankrupt SNAP, while discouraging victims, witnesses, whistle-blowers, police, prosecutors and journalists from seeking our help.”
 
As for Donohue, he really can’t seem to help himself. He may have been an asset for right-wing bishops at some point in the past, but now he’s a liability. He attacked rape victims without denouncing pedophile priests, and then dropped in an altar boy quip. It’s almost as if he’s in the fight to amuse himself, not to win any arguments or friends.
 
But we probably shouldn’t be surprised. After all, Donohue has a history of this sort of thing.

 

Attend a Rally to Save the American Dream this Saturday!

Events have been organized in cities and state capitols across the nation to show solidarity with workers in Wisconsin. Find the event or events nearest you.

Foreign Funded Chamber of Commerce Pours Money into U.S. Elections

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is spending millions of dollars supporting the GOP in the 2010 Elections, collects hundreds of thousands of dollars from foreign owned businesses.

“Rogues’ Gallery” Report Profiles Far-Right Senate Candidates

People For the American Way today released “The Rogues’ Gallery,” profiling 15 far-right Republican nominees for Congress. The report makes clear that the Republican slate of nominees is everything the Tea Party or the Religious Right could want.

The Rogues' Gallery

In our latest report, PFAW takes an in-depth look at 15 of the far right's most extreme candidates for Senate, and it isn't pretty.

The Patriot Pastors Electoral War Against the 'Hordes of Hell'

A new generation of Religious Right leaders is turning conservative churches into political machines for far-right Republican candidates with rhetoric that might make Pat Robertson blush. The new report by People For the American Way Foundation, NAACP, and the African American Ministers Leadership Council documents how high-level Republican officials in Ohio and elsewhere are embracing the self-proclaimed "Christocrats" and counting on a new wave of aggressive politics-from-the-pulpit to win elections.

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