People For the American Way President Michael Keegan responds to the Log Cabin Republicans’ endorsement of Mitt Romney:
I’m not surprised that the Log Cabin Republicans have gone against the best interests of LGBT Americans in endorsing Mitt Romney. Responding to their rationalization would normally not be worth the time, but one of their attempts at self-justification deserves a response. Log Cabin claims, ‘Those who point fearfully to potential vacancies on the United States Supreme Court, we offer a reminder: five of the eight federal court rulings against DOMA were written by Republican-appointed judges. Mitt Romney is not Rick Santorum, and Paul Ryan is not Michele Bachmann.’
The Log Cabin Republicans have willfully ignored everything Mitt Romney has said about the Supreme Court.
Romney has said that he will appoint Supreme Court justices and lower court judges in the mold of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, who are both adamantly opposed to protecting the rights of gay people under the Constitution. Both dissented in Lawrence v. Texas, the ruling that ended criminal sodomy laws. In his dissent, Scalia accused the Court’s majority of signing on to the ‘homosexual agenda.’ These are the kind of Justices that Mitt Romney has promised to nominate to the Supreme Court.
We can also look to Romney’s choice of Robert Bork to lead his judicial advisory committee, a clear signal that he’s ready to cede judicial nominations to the Religious Right. Bork has vehemently disagreed with every pro-gay rights decision the Supreme Court has ever made, and even claims that marriage equality will lead to ‘man-boy associations’ and ‘polygamy.’ This is who Romney has picked to advise him on judicial nominations.
Romney doesn’t just support amending the Constitution to prohibit marriage equality – an amendment that every justice would be obliged to enforce. Everything Romney has said about judicial nominations indicates that he will appoint Supreme Court justices and lower court judges who will do lasting damage to the rights of all Americans – including LGBT people. No LGBT American or anyone who believes in equality should be fooled into thinking otherwise.
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Election 2012
Michael Keegan: Log Cabin Republicans Kidding Themselves About a Romney Supreme Court
Religious Right Attacks 'Demonic' and 'Mean' Obama in Final Debate
Michael Brown: Obama is a 'Religious Apostate' and a 'Disciple of Saul Alinsky'
Michael Brown in his latest column argues that President Obama is not a Christian because he supports gay equality and opposes the criminalization of abortion, and is “more a disciple of Saul Alinsky than of Jesus.” He compares Obama negatively to Martin Luther King, Jr., whom he said was a “great unifier” while Obama is the “great divider.”
Actually, King was not seen as a unifier during the highly contentious and divisive civil rights movement and not a popular figure, in fact in 1966 he was viewed unfavorably by 63 percent of Americans. King was neither a moderate nor religious right activist, as Brown suggests. In his Letter from a Birmingham Jail he sharply criticized religious “moderates” and he later spoke out against “the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism,” hardly “unifying” positions. And Brown himself may have found problems with King over his support for Planned Parenthood and his work with openly gay activist Bayard Rustin.
According to CNN writer John Blake, President Obama is “a religious pioneer” who, in the opinion of some scholars and pastors, is “also expanding the definition of who can be a Christian by challenging the religious right’s domination of the national stage.” To be candid, and with due respect to the office of the president, Obama should be viewed as a religious apostate more than a religious pioneer. He has shown an extraordinary disregard for society’s most innocent and vulnerable members (babies in the womb), he has misused the Bible to defend the radical redefinition of marriage, and he has trashed religious freedoms with his health care mandates to the point that groups as disparate as Hobby Lobby and Catholic hospitals are suing the government. This is hardly the legacy of a religious pioneer.
…
Putting aside the fact that “the religious right” is used as a term of disparagement in contrast with what Blake calls “progressive Christianity,” the truth is that conservative Christians lead the way in worldwide humanitarian relief efforts, they continue to build hospitals and orphanages and schools in many nations, they are active in drug and alcohol rehab programs in the inner cities of America, and they are at the forefront of the pro-life, pro-adoption movement.
As for their opposition to gay activism, it is the natural offshoot of their belief in marriage as defined by Jesus Himself (one man and one woman joined together for life), it is in keeping with their high esteem for sexual purity, and it is in harmony with their wholly justified concerns that homosexual activism is the principle threat to our freedoms of conscience, religion, and speech. From a biblical perspective, President Obama is on the wrong side of these critically important issues.
…
But Barack Obama is no Martin Luther King, as our president has proven himself to be a great divider whereas King was a great unifier. And King, for his part, would not have shouted “amen” to the sermons of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s mentor, whose often shrill version of black liberation theology formed the ideological basis of Obama’s Christianity. With spiritual foundations like that, it is no wonder that the president could make the obscene comparison between “Christ sacrificing Himself on our behalf” and gay marriage.
…
In that regard, Obama is more a disciple of Saul Alinsky than of Jesus.
The Circuit Court's DOMA Decision and the 2012 Election
Right Wing Round-Up - 10/18/12
- PFAW: Appeals Court Strikes Down Discriminatory DOMA, Congress Should Repeal It.
- Annie-Rose Strasser @ Think Progress: Leaked Audio Captures Romney Asking Employers To Tell Their Employees How To Vote.
- Michelle Goldberg @ The Daily Beast: Why Social Conservatives Don’t Mind Romney’s New Abortion Pivot.
- Rebecca Berg @ BuzzFeed: Duggar Family Joins Todd Akin's Campaign.
- Amy Sullivan @ TNR: The Right-wing Rivalry Behind Dinesh D’Souza's “Sex” Scandal.
More Recognition of the Courts as a Presidential Election Issue
Jeffress: 'Cult' Member Romney Still Better than Obama, who has his 'Fist in the Face of God'
After Mitt Romney secure the Republican nomination, prominent Southern Baptist pastor Robert Jeffress has said that Christians should vote for the Mormon candidate over President Obama since he “espouses unbiblical principles.” Such a sentiment is striking since Jeffress attacked Romney’s Mormon faith in the 2008 and 2012 primary elections, hoping that the GOP would nominate an evangelical Christian like Rick Perry over Romney as Mormonism is “a heresy from the pit of Hell.” Now, Jeffress is rallying evangelical support for Romney, despite his prior warning that electing a Mormon will lead to God’s judgment.
Jeffress told Janet Mefferd, who has also criticized Romney over his faith, that it is still better to vote for Romney, even though he is a member of a “cult” and “false religion” that believes in a “multiplicity of gods,” than Obama because of his stances on marriage equality and abortion rights. The pastor said defeating Obama is even worth potentially giving Mormon missionaries a tool to bolster “legitimacy of their faith” and make more converts.
I still think there are concerns out there among evangelicals about voting for a Mormon. I’ve made peace with it; the way I’ve made peace with it is to make it very clear on programs like yours that Mormonism is a cult, it is a false religion, Mormons worship a multiplicity of gods, they deny the Bible, in fact they think the Bible is so error-filled there had to be a second book of revelations. I want to make it very clear that I don’t believe Mormonism is Christianity but I do think that in this case it is better to vote for a non-Christian who supports biblical principles like life and marriage than voting for a professing Christian like Barack Obama who absolutely repudiates what Jesus Christ said about some key issues.
…
I don’t want to minimize the Mormonism issue. I had probably the most well-known pastor in America say to me last week; you know one concern is the mission implications of this, Mormons are so involved in missions overseas, they’ll be able to point to a Mormon president as legitimacy of their faith. So I think we need to be clear that Mormonism is a false religion that leads people away from rather than toward the true God, but having said that we are making this choice in spite of that.
He warned that America is “about to go over the moral and spiritual cliff from which there is no return” if Obama is re-elected, asserting that his administration is “openly involved in high-handed sins” and shaking its “fist in the face of God” on matters like same-sex marriage.
You know in the Old Testament the Bible had what it called high-handed sins, sins that were like a clenched fist in the face of God. We are now seeing an administration that is openly involved in high-handed sins: the embracing of gay marriage. A friend of mine said to me recently, ‘think about this just ten years ago if a pastor or a sandwich company were to say marriage is between a husband and a wife, a man and a woman, no one would have batted an eye at that, but today that is labeled as hate speech,’ now what has changed? It’s not the Bible or the message that has changed, it shows what has happened in our culture. I know this sounds alarmist but I believe we are at the precipice, we are at a tipping point in our country right now, we are about to go over not the fiscal cliff, we are about to go over the moral and spiritual cliff from which there is no return, and that is why it is imperative for Christians to get out and vote in this election.
Romney Distorts His Record As Governor
During Tuesday’s presidential debate, Mitt Romney continued to sell himself as a turnaround artist and savior of the economy—a former CEO whose stellar business acumen will create an abundance of jobs (12 million in four years, to be exact), champion small businesses, and improve the middle class.
But what Romney failed to mention is that when he inherited Massachusetts’ damaged economy in 2003, he was unable to spur the economic growth he had promised in his gubernatorial campaign. And it doesn’t stop at an unsuccessful economic policy. Many of the “accomplishments” that Romney touted last night, such as his education policies and his advocacy of women in the workplace, were futile as well. If we delve deeper into Romney’s record as governor of Massachusetts and look past the lies he spouts, we can foreshadow what a Romney presidency would look like. And it’s not a very promising vision.
Last night at the debate, Romney promoted his five-point plan, alleging that he “knows why jobs come and go.” He claimed that he knew “what it takes to get this economy going.” But does he? Here is how Romney’s leadership played out in the Massachusetts economy from 2003 to 2007:
- In Romney’s four years as governor, Massachusetts ranked 47th out of 50 in job growth. Jobs growth over that period was a pitiful 0.9 percent.
- Massachusetts only gained one percent in payroll jobs under Romney, compared to 5.3% in the nation as a whole.
- The net number of jobs added during the four years Romney was in office was 24,400 – a fraction of the total of about 200,000 lost during the recession.
- Manufacturing jobs in Massachusetts declined by more than 14 percent, the third worst record in the country. The loss was double the rate that the nation as a whole lost manufacturing jobs.
- Massachusetts infrastructure accrued a $20 billion deficit of overdue maintenance by the end of Romney’s term, according to the Massachusetts Taxpayer’s Foundation.
- Between 2003 and 2005 the median hourly wage for Massachusetts workers fell 5%–the largest decline in the country during that period.
- Under Romney, Massachusetts had the 3rd highest rate of domestic out-migration.
Though Romney assaults Obama’s economic record, job growth in the U.S. has been swifter under Obama than job growth in Massachusetts under Romney.
Romney also likes to flaunt the education policies he put in place in Massachusetts. Last night at the debate, he boasted about his John and Abigail Adams Scholarship, which he claimed would send the top quarter of each high school class to the Massachusetts college of their choice tuition-free. But this is not the full picture. Here is the reality of Romney’s education policies in Massachusetts, according to a report in the Boston Globe:
- Romney’s valued John and Abigail Adams Scholarships cover only tuition at state colleges, not fees , which account for more than 80 percent of yearly costs at some schools. Just a quarter of the recipients actually choose to attend state colleges.
- Massachusetts students regularly score at the top on national and international tests. But that achievement is largely due to the state’s 1993 landmark education reform law.
- Mitt Romney campaigned for governor in 2002 in favor of eradicating the nation’s first bilingual education law and instead immersing non-English speakers in classrooms where only English would be taught.
- In 2006, three years after the law Romney campaigned for went into effect, new state tests showed that 83 percent of students learning English as a second language in the third through twelfth grades could not read, write, speak or understand English well enough for regular classes after their first year in Massachusetts schools.
When asked about pay equity, Romney highlighted his efforts as governor of Massachusetts to hire women to work in his administration. However he does not have a history of appointing women to high-level positions in the private sector, nor did he appoint many women to judicial positions:
- Romney stacked his Judicial Nominating Commission with mostly white males. There were only four people of color and three women among the 17 JNC members.
- Of the 19 nominations made by Romney in 2005, 17 were men and only two were people of color.
Romney’s record in Massachusetts related to women’s health is also not very encouraging:
- Romney vetoed a bill to require hospitals to offer emergency contraception to rape victims.
- Romney vetoed $35,678 for early breast cancer detection and research.
- Romney vetoed $2.8 million for cervical and breast cancer treatment.
Romney is right that his record as governor of Massachusetts shows us a lot about how he would act as president. But he’s intentionally misleading voters about what that record is.
Debate Exposes Importance of Supreme Court to Working Women
Janet Huckabee: 'Women are Really on Fire for Todd Akin'
As her husband Mike Huckabee has emerged as one of Todd Akin’s biggest boosters, Janet Huckabee is now hitting the campaign trail along with the Duggar family for Akin, whose campaign has been unraveling after he said survivors of “legitimate rape” rarely become pregnant as a result. She told conservative radio show host Janet Mefferd, who noted before the broadcast that “portions of The Janet Mefferd Show are sponsored by the Todd Akin for U.S. Senate campaign,” that “women are really on fire for Todd Akin” and “women know what they want and right now I think they want Todd Akin to be their Senator.” Despite Huckabee’s spin or presence in an alternative reality, polls have consistently shown McCaskill with a double digit lead among women voters.
Mefferd: As you’re going around and you’re talking to women and you’re doing these events around the state of Missouri, what are you hearing from women in particular about their support for Todd Akin and what they think conversely about Senator McCaskill?
Huckabee: I think women are really on fire for Todd Akin. They’re out there, they’re praying for him, they’re lifting him up in prayer, they’re giving financially. You know everybody can’t give millions and millions of dollars, and it’s to me more important that a thousand people give one dollar than it is for one person to give a thousand dollars, because if you have a thousand people that are willing to give a dollar the amount is the same but you have a thousand people that have put skin in the game and you have a thousand votes of people who are going to say ‘hey, I’m going to vote for him.’ I tell people it doesn’t matter what you give, it’s equal sacrifice that you’re willing to make phone calls, that you’re willing to put up signs, that you’re willing give that dollar or that thousand dollars, whatever you can do and women around the state are doing that. To me it’s exciting, they always want to say ‘do you want to talk to the man in charge or the woman who knows’? Women know what they want and right now I think they want Todd Akin to be their Senator.
Mefferd: Oh I agree, it is so exciting. Go to JanetMefferd.com, click on that box that says ‘Support Todd Akin, Help Take Back the Senate’ and get involved today.
Rep. Gohmert Says America is Worse off Now than During Slavery
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) joined the fervently anti-gay, anti-Latino pastor Rick Scarborough of Vision America for his “40 Days to Save America” conference call today, and delivered a somber message to participants about how America is on the verge of collapse if their prayer efforts to shift the election don’t work. “The truth is if you look at great nations, great civilizations, great powers throughout recorded history, when they’ve passed some of the milestones we have as a nation, that was the sign that they were toward the end of their existence,” Gohmert said. He stated that “the only reason I continue to run for Congress is because I still have hope" as he urged Americans to “follow the rule book as to what blesses a nation” and join Scarborough’s prayer initiative.
The congressman argued that our Founders “followed biblical teachings” and therefore gave us “more liberties, more individual freedoms and values, ease of living, quality and standard of living than even more than Solomon’s Israel.” Gohmert went on to claim that the U.S. is in a state of such spiritual disrepair that the country is even worse off than during slavery, arguing that while “Andrew Jackson’s time was not a great time, at different times slavery was a blot on our existence,” America has “never as an entire nation overall been so far away from God’s teaching and so openly rebelling, even from the top, against God’s teaching in the Bible.”
There is so much that is so critical to whether or not this country continues, the greatest gift of a country to any people in history: more liberties, more individual freedoms and values, ease of living, quality and standard of living than even more than Solomon’s Israel. No explanation as to why we’ve been so blessed other than the people who went before us were blessed, they followed God’s rule book, in our founding they followed biblical teachings. We strayed away at different times, Andrew Jackson’s time was not a great time, at different times slavery was a blot on our existence, but the trouble is we have never as an entire nation overall been so far away from God’s teaching and so openly rebelling, even from the top, against God’s teachings in the Bible.
CWA Tries to Win Over Women By Claiming Romney Can’t Overturn Roe v. Wade
Concerned Women for America is trying out a novel strategy in its fight to draw women to support Mitt Romney this November: denying that the next president can do anything to eliminate abortion rights. In a new TV ad, CWA counters a MoveOn.org ad featuring female celebrities talking about the issue of reproductive rights in the presidential election. In the CWA ad, women derisively call the MoveOn.org supporters “Hollywood women” and mock the contention that a President Mitt Romney would “overturn Roe v. Wade.”
“Have they ever heard of the separation of powers?” asks one Concerned Woman.
Maybe it’s CWA that needs the civics lesson. Mitt Romney has repeatedly stated that he would choose Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade. It even says so on his website. With as many as three Justices possibly retiring in the next four years, Romney might very well have the opportunity to shape a court that would take away the right to choose.
Which, of course, is what CWA has been working toward since its founding. A petition on CWA’s website calls for signers to support “any and all legislative efforts to overturn Roe v. Wade” and “support pro-life nominees to the courts.” A pamphlet the group distributed shortly before President Obama's inauguration said anti-choice advocates should work to "pass limits on abortion and appoint judges who will overturn Roe." And here’s the CWA’s blog discussing an Alabama Supreme Court ruling in February that challenged Roe.
This ruling has major implications for the pro-life movement. First, it clearly mirrors the growing sentiments of a majority of Americans who are pro-life, especially our younger generation. Second, Alabama has set a clear precedent that more states are expected to emulate. Finally, as state laws continue to represent Americans’ growing pro-life attitude, the U.S. Supreme Court will be called upon to reconsider and, ultimately, repeal Roe.
Unveiling the deception of Roe shouldn’t be a difficult task. Mario Diaz, Esq., Legal Counsel for Concerned Women for America, explains, “Legally speaking, Roe v. Wade is simply indefensible. It rests on the false premise that the ‘fetus’ is not a ‘person’ because the Justices say so. The scientific bases for that claim simply were not there in 1973, and they are not there now. In fact, JusticeBlackmun acknowledged that ‘[i]f this suggestion of personhood is established, [Roe's] case, of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the [Fourteenth] Amendment.’ Advances in science have been proving just that: we are dealing with a baby, not a blob of tissue as some conveniently tried to tell us. This decision by the Alabama Supreme Court is another indication that Roe‘s house of cards is slowly tumbling down.”
Pro-life conservatives can only hope that the Supreme Court revisits the abortion question sooner rather than later. With a few more decisions like the one in Alabama, we may just hold the legal trump card when that time comes.
Romney himself as also tried this tactic, claiming that there is nothing he would do to restrict abortion rights. A New York Times editorial this morning sets that notion straight.
Conspiracy Theorist Ed Klein: Obama is an 'Imperial President' who is Controlled by Feminists
Discredited right-wing author and conspiracy theorist Ed Klein was featured on Eagle Forum Live with Phyllis Schlafly, where he discussed his erroneous book The Amateur and deplored Obama’s character and presidency. Klein has previously promoted claims that Obama is Muslim, and has contended that Bill Clinton raped his wife Hillary in his highly contested book, The Truth about Hillary. The Amateur alleges that Obama is ill-suited for the presidency, charging that his temperament and lack of experience make him unqualified to fulfill a role in governance. The book reflects long-standing conservative allegations against Obama, painting a portrait of the president as a Muslim, a closeted socialist and an inept, ungrateful leader.
According to those Klein interviewed, the book contains scenes that did not occur or were immensely misconstrued. Media Matters reports that The Amateur is filled with “lazy research, bad writing, bizarre generalizations…and gossip forwarded by anonymous sources.” But conservatives like Dick Cheney and Schlafly continue to praise Klein as a truth-teller who is unearthing Obama’s true incompetency.
In his interview with Schafly — who believes that “feminists completely control the Obama administration” — Klein assailed Obama’s relationship with feminists and disclosed that Michelle Obama is a domineering wife and the true power holder in the White House, calling Obama “a hen-pecked guy.”
Schafly: You can see he is kind of already in hoc to the feminists.
Klein: Very much so, in hoc to—he married a big, big feminist. Michelle Obama is really the person who wears the pants in the family, and Barack Obama admits to that. He says when they have a difference of opinion he says “Yes Ma’am!” to his wife. He’s a bit of a, you know, a hen-pecked guy, let’s face it. And Michelle is very strong-willed, and Barack I think, surrounds himself with feminists, and people who espouse that, what I would call, extreme feminism, including and up to abortion on demand, paid for by the government, up to and including the ninth month of pregnancy.
Klein also did not fail to insinuate Obama’s supposed connection with Islam, citing birther Jerome Corsi as a valid source and floated his new “Muslim ring” conspiracy.
Caller: I was wondering about the ring that Obama wore in college, you know the Islamic and Arabic one about there’s only one God but Allah and he’s the only prophet, Mohammed’s the only prophet. Do you know anything about that?
Klein: Well, if you’re asking me that question…I can only tell you that I spoke to Jerome Corsi, who has been the person following this story, breaking this story, and exposing this story. And Jerry Corsi tells me that, he’s been, as you said, wearing this ring since college, and that it does have this Islamic inscription on it. I have not seen the ring, I can’t comment on it.
Schafly and Klein contended that Obama is waging a war on capitalism, alleging that it is Obama’s plan to increase dependence on the government and suppress free market capitalism. Klein warned of Obama’s executive orders, cautioning that if Obama is re-elected, he will have achieved a “Roman Imperial presidency.”
Schlafly: There are people who think he’s following the Frances Fox Piven strategy of breaking the capitalist system by simply loading so many people on welfare and on dependency on government.
Klein: It’s very strange, Phyllis, this debate on whether he’s a socialist or not a socialist, I don’t think, quite frankly, that’s an important debate, what is important is what he’s actually doing. And I think what you’ve just described is what he’s doing—making this country more and more dependent on a central government that is taking over the role of deciding who are the winners and who are the losers…who to back, who do give money to…it is the opposite of what this country is founded on which is free market capitalism.
Schafly: Well, that’s why I called my book No Higher Power, and it applies to a lot of these things…he just thinks the federal government is the last word, and it’s even higher than your conscience, it’s higher than your religious liberty, it’s higher than his issuing executive orders that are a violation of congressional laws, and etc.
Klein: And I think that if he is re-elected, I think that’s going to continue unabated for the next four years. And that could turn this country permanently into something different than what it was before. These executive orders, in violation of congressional laws that you just pointed out, that’s a very dangerous constitutional matter. And I can see this happening more and more if this man is re-elected, kind of a Roman Imperial presidency.
People For the American Way Expands Latino Vote Campaign, Launches New TV Ad in Four Swing States
Washington, DC -- People For the American Way expanded its campaign targeting Latino voters this week, adding outreach in Nevada and North Carolina and launching the second in a series of Spanish-language television ads exposing Mitt Romney's dangerous agenda for Latinos. The ad, running in key markets in Nevada, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin, features interviews with real voters reacting to Romney's promise to veto the DREAM Act if it were to be passed by Congress. The two TV ads, along with radio and direct mail outreach are part of a $1.2 million and growing campaign in key swing states.
The new ad, "Dream Act," can be viewed here.
"Mitt Romney has been very clear about his extreme anti-Latino agenda," said Michael Keegan, president of People For the American Way. "He slammed Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice. He touted the endorsement of Kris Kobach, the architect of disastrous, draconian anti-immigrant measures in Arizona and Alabama. He vowed to make life so difficult for undocumented immigrants that they would be forced to 'self-deport.' He even rejected the DREAM Act, which after being partially implemented by President Obama's executive order, is helping thousands of loyal, hard-working young Americans give back to the country they call home."
"Romney plans to heap further tax cuts on the wealthiest at the expense of programs that benefit working people,"continued Keegan. "Americans should have a shot at the American dream. Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan want to slam the door on all but the already privileged few."
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Land: Fighting Abortion & Gay Marriage is Like MLK Fighting for Racial Justice
Recently, Christian television host John Ankerberg sat down with Janet Parshall, Frank Wright, and Richard Land to "examine the moral issues surrounding the upcoming election," during which Wright, President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Religious Broadcasters, warned that the choice of the next president would determine whether the Bible can be freely preached in America because "there is legislation pending on Capitol Hill today, even as we sit here in your studio, that could so constrain your free speech rights and the rights ultimately of all Americans that the Bible will be something that is referred to only in part because there will be parts of it that are untouchable" out of fear of government persecution:
Land then asserted that Christians would continue to be involved in politics so long as abortion remained legal and efforts to expand marriage equality existed, saying that criticizing the Religious Right for fighting this issues is "like attacking Dr. [Martin Luther] King for making a priority out of racial reconciliation and racial justice":
Ohio Ministers Celebrate Supreme Court’s Upholding of Early Voting Rights
Cleveland, Ohio – Ohio members of People For the American Way Foundation’s African American Ministers Leadership Council praised a U.S. Supreme Court ruling today that ensures Ohio polls will remain open in the three days prior to November’s election. The state legislature eliminated early voting in the weekend before the election despite the fact that over 90,000 Ohioans had taken advantage of that period to vote in 2008. Ohio’s Secretary of State appealed a lower court ruling reinstating the early voting period to the Supreme Court.
“This is a great victory for voting rights, and for voters, in Ohio,” said Rev. Dr. Tony Minor of Cleveland, Ohio Coordinator of the African American Ministers Leadership Council. “Weekend voting in the days before the election was an unmitigated success in 2008, helping to increase turnout and reduce long lines. But some of our elected leaders saw this great success as a failure, and worked hard to make sure it wasn’t repeated. Their efforts to restrict turnout – especially among African Americans – weren’t just wrong, they were unconstitutional. Community and church leaders will take advantage of this restored early voting period to not only repeat, but expand the voter turnout success of 2008.”
The African American Ministers Leadership Council, a program of People For the American Way Foundation founded in 1997, works nationwide to help bring African Americans to the polls through the non-partisan “I Am A VESSEL and I Vote!” program.
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Perkins: 'We Don't Want to Encourage Folks Who are Going to be Voting the Wrong Way'
Last week, Brian noted that FRC president Tony Perkins and vice presidents Jerry Boykin and Kenyn Cureton were all heading to Catalina Foothills Church in Tucson, Arizona for a "Recapturing America" conference where they would join up with a pastor who had been called on members of the church to “actively pray and work for the defeat of Barack Obama” in the upcoming election as he is an “enemy” of Christianity and religious freedom.
The event was held this weekend and after delivering his remarks, Perkins took some questions from the audience including from a mother who wanted his advice on how her children away at college could get their friends and roommates motivated to vote. Perkins responded by joking that the first thing they should find out is which way their friends intend to vote because "I want people to vote, but only if they're voting the right way."
But it seems that Perkins was actually entirely serious, as he followed that up by declaring that "in all seriousness, find out which way they're going; we don't want to encourage folks who are going to be voting the wrong way":
CitU Spending Overwhelmingly Benefits Romney
Corporate Allies at the DC Circuit
Klayman: Obama is a ‘Ruthless Bolshevik Thug’ and ‘Muslim in Chief’
Judicial Watch founder Larry Klayman, who is facing a bit of legal trouble, is slamming Paul Ryan in his latest column for not getting tough on Vice President Biden during their first and only debate. Indeed, Klayman explained how he “would have handled the sleazy, Democrat vice-presidential buffoon named Joe Biden,” starting by refusing to refer to Obama or Biden as President and Vice President, respectively. He warned that the “Muslim in chief” is leading “the most evil and destructive administration in the history of the republic.” Obama and Biden, Klayman warns, are “ruthless Bolshevik thugs” with a “ruthless socialist and ultra-leftist philosophy” that intend to “retain control of our so-called government – to dominate our lives, remove our freedoms and redistribute wealth to them and their friends, communist style.”
Let me tell you how I would have handled the sleazy, Democrat vice-presidential buffoon named Joe Biden.
First, when Biden persisted at making childish gestures, rolling his eyes, snickering and grinning like a Cheshire cat each time Ryan spoke, I would have turned to the vice president and said simply, “Mr. Biden (I would never dignify Biden by calling him Mr. Vice President, as Ryan did frequently), why are you smiling and laughing when so many good and honest Americans are suffering and can’t afford to send their kids to college, eat decent food or even buy gasoline? Do you think this is funny?”
Second, as the debate wore on and Biden continued his antics, I would have added, “Mr. Biden, I know you and Mr. Obama (I would never call him the president, either), want young people to vote for you, but five year olds, whom you seem to be targeting with your immature behavior tonight, are not able to vote.”
…
But while Ryan could have “KO’d” Biden and Obama by pushing back, Ryan did not do himself any favors with a lot of what he did say. His statements effectively endorsing the Obama administration’s proven worthless sanctions as the primary means to stop Iran from building nuclear weapons, his endorsement of Obama’s policies regarding Afghanistan and Iraq, and a host of other gratuitous bows to the “Muslim in chief,” were simply unbelievable for someone who wants his party to ascend to the presidency and vice presidency. As a trial lawyer and, for a brief period in 2004, a politician running for a U.S. Senate seat in Florida, I can tell you, from 35 years of experience, that it is unwise and even stupid to concede anything to an opponent. Ryan’s unnecessary bows to Heckel and Jeckel were unnecessary, and they made him (and his boss, Romney) look less than serious about defeating the most evil and destructive administration in the history of the republic on Nov. 6.
Winning the White House takes a “killer instinct,” particularly given Obama’s and Biden’s ruthless socialist and ultra-leftist philosophy – first perfected by the Bolsheviks at Red Square – that the ends justify the means. Even with the electoral map looking somewhat better for Romney and Ryan after Obama’s collapse in the first presidential debate, Obama and his partner in crime, Biden, are only down but hardly out. Like the ruthless Bolshevik thugs they are, expect some major gambits and outrageous acts in the days ahead to destroy Romney and Ryan so they and their leftist minions can retain control of our so-called government – to dominate our lives, remove our freedoms and redistribute wealth to them and their friends, communist style.
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