Our guest blogger is Josh Dorner, Communications Director for Progressive Media.
Documents and audio recordings released yesterday by One Wisconsin Now document an apparent plot by the Wisconsin Republican Party, Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity (aka Fight Back Wisconsin), and various other tea party groups to suppress votes from minorities and students in this year’s elections using a well-documented — and illegal— practice known as “voter caging.” The alleged plot offers fresh evidence that long-discredited right-wing conspiracy theories about massive voter fraud supposedly perpetrated by minorities and others remain alive and well in both the official GOP establishment and its tea party base.
“Voter caging” is a means of voter suppression and intimidation that involves sending mail to a list of voters, compiling a list of mail pieces returned as undeliverable, and then challenging those voters at the polls or otherwise attempting to remove them from the voter rolls. The mere process of challenging voters can intimidate from voting even if they are eligible, cause long lines to form at polling places that will then discourage others from voting, and may result in eligible voters casting provisional ballots which stand a high likelihood of not being counted in the final tally.
In the alleged conspiracy uncovered in Wisconsin, Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity, whose Wisconsin state chair was previously banned from politics in Wisconsin for three years, would finance a test mailing and other costs associated with compiling the caging list and then coordinate with the Wisconsin Republican Party to undertake an elaborate process to remove voters from the rolls ahead of the election, if possible, or at the polls on Election Day. Tea party groups were to provide the volunteer labor and cover for the activity — with all participants signing an extensive non-disclosure agreement under which they agreed to publicly operate in the name of Wisconsin GrandSons for Liberty, who would also provide some funding for the plan. The Wisconsin GOP would also provide additional funds, trainers for the tea party volunteers and would have a team of lawyers “standing by” on Election Day to respond to tea party volunteers and “bring the police” if necessary. As is typically the case in voter caging operations, the plotters appeared intent on targeting minorities, students, and others from heavily-Democratic areas of the state.
Audio recordings of the tea party meeting where the alleged voter suppression plot was discussed include numerous references by presenters to supposed instances of minorities and college students voting illegally. Tim Dake, a prominent tea partier in the state who belongs to Wisconsin GrandSons of Liberty, cited an anecdote about busloads of out-of-state voters voting multiple times in previous elections, then went on to discuss “the racial thing”:
“So, the problem is now you see elections being stolen and we have to get these guys fired up about it, which is not happening. The other thing is you run into the racial thing. You have people screaming, ‘Oh, you’re denying the minorities their right to vote.” No, we’re denying their right to vote multiple times.’”
“No, we’re not even denying the minorities anything, we’re denying fraud,” added an unidentified attendee of the meeting.
Later in the meeting, Dake offered up another anecdote that included a comment implying that individuals with Vietnamese surnames had committed voter fraud. He described how after moving into a “brand new condo” in 2004, he attempted to vote and was told that there were already twelve others registered to vote at his address:
“They said, ‘Wow, you must have a big family.” And I’m looking at names and going, ‘No, there’s nobody named “Nguyen” and “Din” and that sort of thing in my family.”
Considering that the voter rolls used to check voters in at the polls are typically organized by last name, it’s unclear how a poll worker could have immediately discovered this information or why they would have chosen to share it.
In the past two years, WorldNetDaily (WND) publisher Joseph Farah — the self proclaimed “Birther King” — has made a name for himself promoting “birther” conspiracy theories and sponsoring billboards questioning President Obama’s citizenship. But in August, Farah made news by booting Ann Coulter from her speaking role at his “Taking Back America” conference after learning that she planned to address GOProud, a right-wing group for gay conservatives. Reacting to her dismissal, Coulter mocked Farah as a “publicity whore” who peddles “birther nonsense.”
Because of the Coulter controversy, GOProud sent one of its founders, Chris Barron, to debate Farah over the topic, “Is GOProud conservative?” That debate took place last weekend at the WND conference in Miami attended by ThinkProgress. In full display of his paranoid style, Farah called in security officers to wave metal detectors over members of the audience before the debate. Several audience members and loyal WND readers told ThinkProgress that the extra security was warranted because Barron could bring his “radical gay” supporters to the debate.
During the debate, Farah called into question the conservative credentials of Sens. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and John Thune (R-SD) for associating themselves with GOProud. He also called for an outright ban on any gays serving in the military — openly or not:
FARAH: I would actually agree with you. I’d like to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell also. But I think we should go back to banning from the military.
BARRON: I’m sure you can understand as a veteran of the United States Air Force reserves, I find that more than just a little insulting.
FARAH: Well, you know, lots of military leaders who have looked at this. Commissions and others have determined that they’re getting the best and the brightest without recruiting from homosexuals.
Watch it:
Before the event, ThinkProgress spoke to GOProud board member Jimmy LaSalvia, who said WND is “clearly out of the mainstream.” He also expressed disbelief that WND had ordered additional security for the event.
Yesterday, the conservative Weekly Standard leveled what Politico described as an “explosive” accusation against the White House, accusing its operatives of improperly snooping on the tax returns of Koch Industries, the giant oil and gas conglomerate owned by right-wing mega-donors Charles and David Koch.
Based solely on the account of the Koch’s general counsel, the Weekly Standard alleged that the White House had obtained, and subsequently revealed, private tax data about the company. According to the Standard, during a conference call with reporters last month, an unnamed administration official suggested Koch was one of a “series of entities that do not pay corporate income tax.” Indeed, many companies that are privately owned do not pay corporate taxes, but instead “pass through” their profits to the company’s owners, who then pay personal income tax on the profit.
A company’s tax status is confidential, so Koch’s lawyer and the Standard — noting that the White House and the Koch brothers have clashed publicly in the past over their funding of right-wing attack groups — are suggesting that the White House learned of Koch’s status by illegally obtaining information from the IRS. Other right-wing blogs piled on, and by this afternoon, Fox News dutifully chimed in to defend Koch. Almost entirely ignoring the actual details of the story, host Megyn Kelly and legal analyst Peter Johnson Jr. wondered if “this is a return to the Nixon’s enemy list,” and suggested that the White House is trying to “intimidate” its “political rivals”:
Koch’s lawyer is not denying the claim that the company doesn’t pay corporate taxes, but rather is concerned about how the White House knew. But as the White House noted in a statement to Politico, this assumption could be easily made by merely visiting the company’s website, which explains that most of its subsidiaries are the types of companies that are generally “pass-through entities,” and thus do not pay corporate taxes. Rather, they pass profits onto the owners who in turn pay personal income tax. The White House flatly denied any wrong doing, further explaining that several experts testified before a presidential economic board about Koch’s tax status. “If this information is incorrect, we are happy to revise statements,” the White House statement continued.
Of course, this kind of wild conspiracy theorizing is nothing new for Weekly Standard, which has implicated the Obama White House in nefarious (and entirely fabricated) schemes to blackmail Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) into voting for the Affordable Care Act, buy Rep. Jim Matheson’s (D-UT) vote on the bill, and bribe Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) to drop out of a Democratic primary. None of these false charges have prevented more mainstream outlets from repeatedly turning to the Weekly Standard as a reliable source. But the tax status of Koch Industries speaks to a much larger issue than the right-wing media’s attempt to baselessly implicate the White House in illegal activity.
In the ongoing debate about extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, Republicans repeatedly insist that “small businesses” will be dangerously impacted by the tax rates resetting to a higher level. In reality, as House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) himself has admitted, just three percent of small businesses would actually be affected. Moreover, many of the “small businesses” Republicans whine about are actually huge corporations, such as accounting giant PriceWaterHouseCooper, engineering juggernaught Bechtel Corp., and — if it is indeed a “pass-through” company — Koch Industries, the nation’s second-largest private company.
Colorado Senate candidate Ken Buck (R) has made a name for himself kowtowing the Tea Party line. First, he said liberal Americans were this country’s “greatest threat.” Later, Buck tacked hard-right on abortion, coming out against exceptions even in cases of rape or incest.
Buck has also doubled-down on his Tea Party credentials by calling for Veterans Administration hospitals to be privatized. At a Pueblo Tea Party meeting this summer, Buck told attendees that the VA hospital system would “be better run” if it were privatized:
BUCK: Would a Veterans Administration hospital that is run by the private sector be better run then by the public sector? In my view, yes. But, does the funding for something like that have to come from the public sector and not from the injured veteran’s pocket? Yes.
Watch here:
In fact, the VA hospital system is one of the most heralded parts of the American health care system. A 2005 Washington Monthly article called it “the highest quality care in the country.” A head-to-head comparison in 2003 between Medicare patients who were free to choose their own private doctors and veterans who were covered by the Veterans Health Administration, the New England Journal of Medicine found the latter “significantly better” on all 11 measures of quality. In addition, a 2006 survey found that veterans are significantly more satisfied with their care than civilians who received private care.
For Buck, however, it’s more important to toe the Tea Party line of privatization than continue allowing veterans to receive the high quality health care they deserve.
Last night on Fox News, Bill O’Reilly took a little jab at Bill Maher for releasing a clip from his Politically Incorrect program in 1999 where anti-masturbation crusader Christine O’Donnell said she “dabbled into witchcraft.” O’Reilly called Maher “very far left these days” and wondered if airing the video was “fair.”
The Fox News host then offered that he has clips of O’Donnell saying some “crazy stuff” on his show in the past, but that he’ll be fair to her and won’t release them “yet”:
O’REILLY: It just seems to me — I don’t know, Juan, I’m trying to be fair to Christine O’Donnell. She’s been on this program a number of times and we have some kind of crazy stuff that she said. We’re not going to play it yet. I don’t think it’s relevant yet. We’d still like Ms. O’Donnell to come on “The Factor.” I’m not in the business to injure her.
Watch it:
Perhaps O’Reilly has never heard of the information archive Lexis/Nexis. Or even if he has, maybe he doesn’t know that transcripts from his show are archived on that database. The difference in this case is that transcripts and video from Maher’s Politically Incorrect are not available to the public, as he noted Friday night when he released the tape. “You need to come on this show. If you don’t come on this show, I’m going to show a clip every week. I’m the only one who has them!”
But in O’Reilly’s case, he appears to be unaware that ThinkProgress (and others) already went through the transcripts of his past shows in which O’Donnell appeared and found some pretty interesting material:
– In 2002, O’Donnell railed against the popular TV show “Friends,” saying it was doing a “disservice to society.”
– On the Sept. 22, 2006 edition of O’Reilly’s show, O’Donnell warned there’s “a connection” between “freak dancing” and “date rape.”
– On Jan. 6, 2006, O’Donnell told O’Reilly that contraception is “anti-human.”
– In October 2007, O’Donnell warned on the Factor about mice with “fully functioning human brains.”
– And in January 2007, O’Donnell said told O’Reilly that she believes House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is a false Christian.
Check out our full document on Christine O’Donnell here.
Of course, if for some reason O’Reilly has any clips from O’Donnell’s appearances that didn’t make it on air, the American people — and particularly voters in Delaware — might be grateful if he could make them public.
Moments ago, in a 56-43 vote, Senate Democrats failed to invoke cloture on the 2011 National Defense Authorization Act, falling three votes shy of the 60 need to break a Republican filibuster. As is customary, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) voted against the measure as a procedural tactic, allowing him to revive the bill at a later date. The result represents a major setback for advocates of repealing the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy and supporters of the DREAM Act.
Chances of invoking cloture began to fade early this afternoon, as moderate Republican Senators who support DADT repeal, used procedural explanations to substantiate their vote against starting debate on the measure. Along with concerns about voting to repeal the DADT policy before the Pentagon completed its year-long review and the suggestion that the DREAM Act was unrelated to national defense, the Republicans also complained that Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) was limiting debate to just three amendments — DADT, DREAM, and secret holds. Reid, however, had made assurances that he would consider Republican amendments after the recess. Ignoring Reid’s concession, Republican moderates like Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) took to the floor to equate repealing the ban against open service in the military to restricting the right of Republicans to offer alternative amendments:
– SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R-ME): “I support the provisions in this bill. I debated for them; I was the sole Republican on the Committee that voted for the Lieberman-Levin language on don’t ask, don’t tell. I think it’s the right thing to do, I think it’s only fair. I think we should welcome the service of these individuals who are willing and capable of serving their country. But I cannot vote to proceed to this bill under a situation that is going to shut down debate and preclude Republican amendments. That too is not fair.”
– SEN. OLYMPIA SNOWE (R-ME): “First and foremost, the Senate should have the ability to debate more than the three amendments the Majority Leader is allowing…We should all have the opportunity to review that [DADT] report which is to be completed on December 1, as we reevaluate this policy and the implementation of any new changes”
– SEN. SCOTT BROWN (R-MA): “The majority party, I feel, is using our men and women in uniform as a tactic to pass politically expedient legislation entirely unrelated to the defense authorization. It is in my view not appropriate.”
– SEN. GEROGE VOINOVICH (R-OH): “The DREAM Act deals with immigration and shouldn’t be on this bill. ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ is a controversial issue that needs to be debated on the Senate floor but I believe it would be logical to wait for the Department of Defense to issue its report on ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’”
Democrats, who also today announced that they would likely adjourn a week early, say they plan to take up the act after the midterm elections. “We’re going to come back into session in November or December. I spoke to Sen. Reid today. He’s very clear and strong that he’s going to bring this bill to the floor in November or December,” Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) told the Washington Blade’s Chris Johnson. Lieberman also predicted that “opponents of the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ have enough votes to take that repeal out of this legislation,” something Collins confirmed in her floor speech today, saying that she would vote “against the amendment to strike don’t ask, don’t tell provisions from this bill.”
At a press conference earlier today, Durbin said that this is the first time since 1952 that the Congress failed to pass a defense authorization measure. “What would be unprecedented is if Republicans block the Senate from passing the defense authorization bill for the first time since 1952,” Durbin said.
Back in July, when he was in the midst of a fierce primary battle with Sen. Lisa Murkowkski (R-AK), tea party candidate Joe Miller railed against the concept of unemployment benefits. “The unemployment compensation benefits have gotten — first of all, it’s not constitutionally authorized,” he said. After he secured the nomination, Miller continued with this theme, falsely suggesting that Medicare and Social Security are both unconstitutional as well.
When journalists pressed Miller to expound on his Medicare and Social Security statements, the Tea Party favorite seemed reluctant to go into detail. Now, it seems that Miller is backtracking from his position on unemployment benefits as well. Yesterday on CNN, when host John King noted his previous claim, Miller danced around the question but ultimately said it’s extending the benefits that is the problem, not the benefits themselves:
KING: Now you have said you believe extending unemployment benefits and federal unemployment benefits are unconstitutional.
MILLER: Let me tell you why. The Democratic Party and even the votes that many of which Murkowski voted in support of the Democratic Party is not the answer to putting people back to work. And as long as the federal government stays on the back of the American worker by too much regulation, by creating an anti-competitive atmosphere, by taxation, we absolutely are going to maintain the unemployment benefits so that workers can continue to be where they need to be but long term there has to be a transition there, too. … Why we’re talking about expanding unemployment compensation for a much longer period than what had been done in the past?
Watch it:
Miller also hinted that his position was shifting on unemployment benefits during an interview with Fox News’s Chris Wallace this weekend. When Wallace asked repeatedly (without an answer) how he would help the nation’s poor if he believes unemployment is unconstitutional, Miller said, “We have an extension of unemployment benefits several weeks ago, which is beyond what we had in the past in this country,” adding, “What we have in this country is an entitlement mentality.”
Last weekend, the Family Research Council (FRC), one of the most politically active right-wing Christian lobbies in America, hosted the Value Voters Summit in Washington, D.C. FRC has kept virulent social issues on the agenda for the conservative movement, forcing candidates and Republican figures to triumph causes like forced pregnancies and opposing gay marriage.
Yesterday, NewsMax posted an interview with Tony Perkins, the leader of FRC and a frequent contributor to CNN. Asked why so many Americans question Obama’s Christian faith, Perkins said myths and conspiracy theories about the President’s faith are not his “problem.” Perkins then furthered the myth that Obama is a Muslim by saying that Obama “claims to be a Christian,” but is actually “advancing the idea of the Islamic religion”:
Q: What do you say to Americans who believe Obama is not Christian as he claims to be?
PERKINS: Well thats not up to me. I cannot convince people that they think the President by his actions is inconsistent with his claims. He claims to be a Christian but yet claims America is not a Christian nation. He seems to be advancing the idea of the Islamic religion. You know, that’s up to him. The White House has to deal with that problem, it’s not up to me.
Watch it:
FRC is a rising force within the right. While many pundits have credited the Tea Party Express with helping insurgent far right candidates win in GOP primaries this year, FRC has actually been one of the most powerful forces. FRC endorsed and campaigned for Joe Miller in Alaska and Christine O’Donnell in Delaware before many Tea Party groups gave much notice to their candidacies.
FRC, itself an extremist anti-gay and anti-Muslim organization, works with even more radical hate groups. FRC’s Value Voters Summit was cosponsored by the American Family Association, known for calling gay sex “domestic terrorism” and demanding a moratorium on the construction of mosques anywhere in America.
Before she became a Tea Party darling, Delaware Senate nominee Christine O’Donnell (R) was hired as a public relations consultant at the conservative Intercollegiate Studies Institute. While on the job, O’Donnell allegedly worked in a hostile environment where, according to a lawsuit, the company “wanted every female employee to report to a male employee, which was in line with its philosphy that a female employee should not have any authority without being under the headship, or authority, of a male employee.” She was also the subject of lewd comments and insubordination from male employees. As a result, O’Donnell filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and was subsequently fired. She then filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against ISI, though she dropped the case in 2008 because she could no longer afford the attorney fees.
At the Right Nation conference in Chicago this past weekend, Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund sat down with a blogger’s roundtable and discussed O’Donnell’s complaint against ISI. Fund admitted that O’Donnell’s case may well be justified, but went on to admonish her for filing a gender discrimination lawsuit because, according to Fund, “that’s not the responsible thing for a conservative to do.” Instead of combating gender discrimination in the workplace, Fund suggested that O’Donnell should have just quit her job and looked for work elsewhere:
FUND: Maybe there was some male chauvinism involved, I’m not saying it’s impossible. Boys will be boys. I don’t deny that that can’t [sic] happen. But the bottom line is she became dissatisfied and her response was not to seek other employment, it was not to have a showdown with the management. She took a train down to Washington and she met with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and accused ISI of gender discrimination. Now, gender discrimination does exist in this country. There are women everyday who are given less than their due. But the response of a conservative – a properly thinking conservative – is not to go first to the federal government and still try to keep your job. She was basically blackmailing ISI. ‘Don’t fire me, because you know what’s going to happen, I’m going to file an EEOC complaint.’ That is not the responsible thing for a principled conservative to do. So they did fire her. They fired her for cause. I’m not saying it was true, I don’t know, but they fired her for cause and they also fired her for going to complain to the EEOC.
Watch here:
It’s important to note that Fund does not doubt that O’Donnell was discriminated against for being a woman. Rather, he opposes the fact that she responded to such an injustice by going to the authorities rather than quitting her job. In Fund’s world, a woman’s proper response to gender discrimination – the existence of which Fund readily admits – is not to tell anyone.
Last year, research by the Institute of Medicine and the Veterans Affairs Department found that there was a strong possibility of a link “between exposure to the defoliant Agent Orange and other herbicides used during the Vietnam War and an increased chance of developing serious heart problems and Parkinson’s disease.”
Then, in October, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki announced that he would be adding Ischemic heart disease, Parkinson’s disease, and B cell leukemias to the list of Agent Orange-related diseases, meaning that veterans suffering from those conditions would be eligible for subsidized treatment from the Veterans Administration. The new rules expanded the list of beneficiaries by 86,000 and was estimated to cost $40.2 billion over ten years.
Now, the “leading Republican on the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee,” Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), says he “has concerns” about the new funding for veterans compensation, worrying that the “defined population” receiving the compensation may not be the “appropriate one.” He also complained that the benefits are being dispensed under an “overly broad” definition and that we may have to “at some point…look at the definition of exposure”:
The leading Republican on the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee said Monday that he also has concerns about a proposal that would spend billions of dollars on disability compensation for Vietnam veterans who get heart disease. North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr added his voice to leading Democrats on the committee who have reservations about the spending and plan to discuss the issue at a Capitol Hill hearing this week. Because of concerns about the defoliant Agent Orange, the Department of Veterans Affairs wants to allow tens of thousands of Vietnam veterans to get compensation for heart disease, a common ailment for older adults.
Burr said he shares some of the same concerns raised by Virginia Sen. Jim Webb, a Vietnam combat veteran. “We’d like to make sure that, one, the science has a causal link, and two, that the defined population is an appropriate one,” Burr said in an interview, his first public comments on the topic. [...]
Veterans advocates have said that it would be unreasonable for veterans to have to prove on a case-by-case basis that their illness came from Agent Orange. Burr said the catchall phrasing that allows a veteran to get benefits for serving just one day in Vietnam may be overly broad. “At some point we will have to look at the definition of exposure,” he said.
While a handful of “members of Congress have balked at the price” of extending veterans compensation to ex-servicemembers suffering from the three diseases, it should be noted that the two most prominent critics of the extension — Burr and Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) — have both expressed a willingness to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. Doing so would cost nearly 17 times as much as caring for veterans suffering as a result of their government’s decision to send them into battle.
Over the weekend, the Kansas City Star published a lengthy article explaining how Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS), the Republican gubernatorial candidate in Kansas, has for years maintained a symbiotic relationship with the right-wing oil plutocrats David and Charles Koch and their conglomerate Koch Industries. Alongside Brownback in the Senate, Koch Industries, which is based in Wichita, has counted outgoing Wichita Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-KS) as one of its closest allies in the House of Representatives.
Former Rep. Dan Glickman (D-KS), who was defeated by Tiahrt in 1994, said that Koch Industries funneled resources — including its employees and funds — to oppose him. Now, with an open seat in Koch Industries’ backyard, the massive “Kochtopus” network of Koch money and front groups is working to elect a new right-wing Republican to fill the seat: Mike Pompeo. Pompeo isn’t just another Wall Street-friendly, pro-polluter GOP radical (his initial response to the BP oil disaster was to say that he “fervently” hoped the government wouldn’t “overreact”), he is essentially a subsidiary of the Koch brothers’ business empire:
– Pompeo developed much of his wealth from a firm he founded, Thayer Aerospace, which he ran with investment funds from Koch Industries. According to a December 11, 1998 article in the Wichita Business Journal, “[Pompeo's] company’s capital base is drawn in part from Wichita’s Koch Venture Capital, a division of Koch Industries.” Pompeo sold Thayer in 2006.
– Pompeo still relies on Koch for his private wealth. After the sale of Thayer, Pompeo became the President of Sentry International, a business specializing in the manufacture and sale of equipment used in oilfields. Sentry International is a partner to Koch Industries through its Brazilian subsidiary, GTF Representacoes & Consultoria.
– Pompeo won his Republican primary largely with the support of Koch Industries’ PAC, which gave him one of his largest endorsements in March. Despite the fact that Koch Industries is the recipient of tens of millions in federal contracts, Pompeo boasted about the endorsement: “The employees of the Koch Companies have jobs here in the Wichita because of their own hard work and creativity, not because a federal agency deemed it to be so.”
– With $31,400 in contributions from KOCHPAC, Koch Industries is by far the greatest contributor to Pompeo’s campaign. The second largest contributor, the law firm Bartlit Beck LLP, gave $7,200 to the campaign. As ThinkProgress first uncovered, Koch Industries also works with Democracy Data & Communications, a firm specializing in helping major corporations to activate their employees politically.
– Pompeo has leaned on Americans for Prosperity (AFP), the right-wing Tea Party group founded and financed by David Koch. On August 28, 2009, Pompeo spoke at a large Tea Party rally organized by AFP, and AFP has used its extensive Kansas-based staff to mobilize dozens of other right-wing events in and around the 4th Congressional District. In addition to the rallies and Tea Party events, AFP has touted Pompeo for signing onto its pledge to ignore climate change. The Kansas chapter of AFP was previously run by Alan Cobb, who once served as a chief lobbyist for Koch Industries. Cobb is now coordinating state efforts nationwide for AFP.
– According to his campaign biography, Pompeo’s only substantive political experience appears to be his stint as a trustee of the Flint Hills Center for Public Policy, a Koch-organized front formerly known as the Kansas Policy Institute. The Flint Hills Center for Public Policy is staffed primarily with Koch-funded operatives and economists, like Art Hall. Until recently, George Pearson — a libertarian activist who began working for the Koch brothers in the early seventies — chaired the board of the Center. In an interview with the Wichita Eagle, Pompeo said he supports Social Security privatization and explained that his ideas for health reform came from Koch’s Flint Hills Center.
The Koch brothers have historically leaned on their home state Republican members of Congress for lobbying assistance. For instance, Business Week reported on how Koch Industries used then-Sen. Bob Dole (R-KS) to try to suppress an investigation into Koch Industries’ massive theft of oil from Indian reservations. In another case, Koch Industries faced a $55 million civil suit for causing more than 300 oil spills over a five-year period. Again, Dole, a major recipient of Koch money and support, sponsored a bill that would allow Koch to easily defend itself from the oil spill charges. Investigative reporter Robert Parry found that David Koch “also helped Dole achieve majority leader status through his checkbook, contributed mightily to a Dole foundation and even turned his Gatsbyish estate in Southampton, New York, into the site for celebrating Dole’s 72nd birthday in July 1995, raising $150,000 for his campaign.”
Recently, Koch Industries has lobbied aggressively against clean energy jobs legislation and against H.R. 4213, a law closing tax loopholes for companies that ship jobs overseas.
While much attention has been paid to Koch’s role in funding the organizers of the Tea Party movement and its supporting institutions, it should be noted that the right-wing conglomerate is also sponsoring its own candidate for election this November.
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) said that, if the Republicans regain control over Congress, they “will reopen the broad Wall Street reform law and overhaul the newly created consumer protection bureau.” “The bill is so sweeping and such a game changer in many ways that it’s incumbent upon us to revisit it,” Shelby said.
New FEC data reveals that 91 percent of the funding for American Crossroads — Karl Rove’s attack group targeting Democrats in the fall election — is coming from billionaires. Disturbingly, American Crossroads also has a partner group called American Crossroads GPS which does not have to report its donors.
Koch Industries is concerned that the White House is calling attention to the fact that some of its entities don’t pay a corporate income tax. And the Koch-friendly right wing blogosphere is all too happy to try to turn it into a White House scandal.
Nine NATO soldiers died in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan this morning, “making 2010 the deadliest year for the U.S.-led international force in Afghanistan.” Although the Taliban took credit for the downing of the aircraft, NATO officials say there is no evidence of them being involved.
At a rally in Portland, Maine yesterday campaigning in favor of DADT repeal, pop star Lady Gaga expressed concern “that John McCain and other Republican senators are using homophobia as a defense in their argument.” “This equality stuff, I thought equality meant everyone,” she said.
Israeli Army Radio reported yesterday that Israeli officials have suggested they would extend the temporary moratorium on Jewish settlement construction in the West Bank in exchange for the release of Jonathan Pollard, an American serving a life sentence in a U.S. jail, guilty of spying for Israel. An Israeli diplomat said the proposal is “one of many ideas” circulating the prime minister’s office.
The National Bureau of Economic Research announced yesterday that the recession that started in December 2007 ended more than a year ago, in June 2009. Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi noted that the timing coincided with the peak of stimulus spending. “One conclusion is that the stimulus played an important role in bringing the recession to an end,” he said.
“Conservative groups have taken a decisive lead in spending,” with 85 percent of outside expenditures reported last week going to support Republicans, according to a Washington Post analysis. Meanwhile, the Center for Responsive Politics found that corporations are now sending a majority of donations to Republican candidates, “a reversal from the trend of the past three years.”
And finally: Despite being a multi-billionaire, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg “owns only two pairs of work shoes,” and has “been wearing the same shoes for 10 years.” “One day he’ll wear one, the next the other — and when they get worn down, he has them resoled,” his spokesman said.
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As the Wonk Room reported in June, the Montana GOP adopted an anti-gay platform that referenced the Constitution at least 10 times to herald the preeminence of it as the sole source of law. While much of the media has discussed the Montana GOP’s anti-gay platform, few have noted the inherent contradiction within the document itself on its beliefs about the Constitution.
In their platform, Montana Republicans declared that the Constitution “be upheld in all of its entirety” and that all state and federal policies be “Constitutional in their effects, laws and practices.” But while they “adamantly oppose any attempts, whether direct or indirect, to destroy and/or undermine the Constitution,” the Montana Republicans criminalize homosexuality and call for more drastic “policies” and “practices” that directly conflict with the Constitution:
– We support the clear will of the people of Montana expressed by legislation to keep homosexual acts illegal.
– We support the repeal of the 16th amendment of the U.S. Constitution which authorizes a national income tax.
– We agree with Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, who stated that the U.S. Supreme Court does not have the sole authority to judge the constitutionality of federal laws. We hold with these men that the States not only have the right, but also the duty to nullify unconstitutional laws in order to protect their citizens.
As the Wonk Room’s Igor Volsky noted, both the Montana Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court found such a law unconstitutional as it violates the State’s constitutional right to privacy and the Constitution’s Due Process clause. But in calling to repeal the 16th amendment, the GOP flouts Article VI of the Constitution stating that Acts of Congress “shall be the supreme law of the land…anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding,” thus expressly establishing that states do not have a veto power over federal laws. Article III and the Marbury v. Madison decision of 1803 established that the independent judiciary has “the last word on the law and the Constitution.”
The Montana GOP is not alone in its constitutional hypocrisy. As the GOP shifts further to the right, many state GOP platforms are redefining Constitutional authority to validate more extreme agendas. While the Texas GOP similarly sought to outlaw homosexuality, the Iowa GOP platform sought to reintroduce and ratify the “original 13th Amendment” to strip President Obama’s citizenship because he won the Nobel Peace Prize. In May, the Maine GOP adopted a “Tea Party” platform asserting “10th amendment sovereignty rights over unconstitutional government intrusions” like health care reform. And in Washington, GOP candidates who view the platform, which calls to reject health care reform and the United Nations, as “incredibly intrusive” and hostile to “moderate stances” risk losing the GOP’s endorsement.
Despite having a lesbian sister, Delaware GOP Senate nominee Christine O’Donnell has long history of taking hateful and ignorant positions against gay people, as ThinkProgress has noted in our report on the former anti-sex activist. For example, O’Donnell has said she “cannot understand” why gay people are offended by homosexuality being called a “deviant sexual orientation,” and has claimed that gay people are “attacking the very center of what is America — freedom to have different views.” But in a 2006 quote uncovered by the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent, O’Donnell took an even harsher stance, calling homosexuality an “identity disorder:”
“People are created in God’s image. Homosexuality is an identity adopted through societal factors. It’s an identity disorder.”
As Sargent writes, “O’Donnell’s suggestion that gays suffer from a psychological disorder is far worse than other comments about gays that have already gotten media attention.” Indeed, until 1973 the American Psychiatric Association considered homosexuality to be a disease, causing tremendous problems for gay men and women who were labeled mentally ill. Now, the APA states firmly that “homosexuality is not an illness, a mental disorder, or an emotional problem,” and that “human beings cannot choose to be either gay or straight.” O’Donnell has claimed that her views have “matured” since she was in her 20s, but the recency of this homophobic remark raises serious questions about how much her extremist beliefs have actually evolved.
Wisconsin GOP Senate candidate Ron Johnson has made opposition to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, commonly referred to as the stimulus, a cornerstone of his campaign. On his campaign website, the candidate brags that he “opposed…the $862 billion stimulus bill. Ron does not believe the federal government is capable of picking ‘winners and losers’ and should not remove capital from the private sector to create more government programs and jobs, which are unsustainable.” He even complained to Politico that “we spent $1 trillion dollars and we got nothing for it.”
Now, the Northwestern has discovered that, in March 2009, Johnson himself sought stimulus dollars for an opera house. While serving as president of the board of the Grand Opera House, Johnson sent an e-mail to Oshkosh Area Community Foundation CEO Eileen Connolly-Keesler to “ask about the availability of stimulus dollars to help fund the $1.8 million repair project“:
Ron Johnson, the Republican Senate candidate who has been harshly critical of the Democrat-backed stimulus bill, sought stimulus funds for renovations to the Grand Opera House when he was president of the Grand’s board in March 2009.
In an e-mail obtained by the Northwestern, Johnson called Oshkosh Area Community Foundation CEO Eileen Connolly-Keesler to ask about the availability of stimulus dollars to help fund the $1.8 million repair project. Connolly-Keesler sent an e-mail to state Rep. Gordon Hintz, D-Oshkosh, to see what funds might be available for the project.
“I just got a call from Ron Johnson about the Grand and stimulus money,” Connolly-Keesler wrote in a March 25, 2009, e-mail. “I can’t imagine it will pay for non-profit buildings but I am willing to make some calls if you think it would work.”
It now appears that Johnson does believe that the “government is capable of picking ‘winners and losers’” — so long as the opera house he was in charge of was got to be a winner. Unfortunately, he did not end up recieving any stimulus funding for his project. As ThinkProgress has previously noted, Johnson’s hypocrisy on government spending runs deep. Despite railing against government subsidies, the candidate received a “$2.5 million industrial revenue bond” that helped him build his company in the 1980’s.
This Sunday, Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ) appeared on Univision’s Al Punto with Jorge Ramos to talk about immigration and Arizona’s new immigration law, SB-1070. In the interview, Brewer insisted she was not a racist and proclaimed that she loves Latinos. “I love them from the bottom of my heart,” Brewer told Ramos:
RAMOS: I remember having an interview with him [Arpaio] and he told me that some people call him racist. Are you concerned that some people might think the same thing of you?
BREWER: Not only am I concerned, it’s really disappointing to me. I’ve lived in the southwest my whole life. I’ve got many friends, of many cultures and certainly a great deal of them are Hispanics, and I love them from the bottom of my heart. I love everybody Jorge, from the bottom of my heart.
RAMOS: Do you feel rejected by the Hispanic community?
BREWER: I feel that I’m somewhat hurt that they would think that I would be a racist, you know. And I was… and a bigot and that I would stand by and allow any kind of racial profiling or anything like that to take place.
Watch it [in Spanish]:
However, Brewer stood by many of the comments that have most offended the Latino community, describing the controversy surrounding her erroneous claim that illegal immigration has led to beheadings in the Arizona desert as a simple “misunderstanding.” Brewer told Ramos she has “no idea” what to do about the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. and has “not a clue of what an undocumented, anybody looks like.” According to Brewer, racial profiling “is illegal in Arizona,” so therefore “Senate Bill 1070 didn’t have anything to do with that.” Wonk Room has more on Brewer’s defense of statements she’s made connecting illegal immigration to violence and criminality.
At WorldNetDaily’s Take Back America 2010 conference in Miami this weekend, ThinkProgress spoke to William Murray, the chairman of a group organizing protests against the proposed Park51 community center in lower Manhattan. Murray recently ran an advertisement against building mosques in America.
During our interview, Murray noted that Frank Gaffney, a well-funded anti-Muslim activist, actually provided Newt Gingrich with the idea for Republicans to ban sharia law in the United States. Asked why some Republican leaders, like Mitt Romney, have been relatively quiet on his crusade against Park51, Murray suggested that Romney might reveal “similarities between Islam and Mormonism” if he became vocal. He added that such a connection would be “false logic”:
MURRAY: I don’t know with the case with Mitt Romney. It could be because of some similarities between Islam and Mormonism, to be very frank with you, and his fear that any criticism of Islam, that those arguments could then be construed or used against Mormonism. I think that is some false logic. Also there is the issue of Mitt Romney being purely an economic conservative, not a social conservative.
Watch it:
Murray echoed his broadside against “economic conservatives” in his remarks to the WND audience. At one point, he attacked Grover Norquist for opposing the recent right-wing effort to demagogue against Muslims. Murray even assailed Norquist for supporting gay conservatives and for “marrying a Muslim woman.” Listen here:
Murray, who meets regularly with Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Rep. Joe Pitts (R-PA) through the “Values Action Team” caucuses in Congress and maintains his own influential political action committee, has long opposed the libertarian wing of the conservative movement. Murray’s ally Frank Gaffney staged a high profile attempt to purge Norquist from the movement several years ago.
Later during the interview, Murray noted that openly criticizing Islam was difficult during the Bush-era because Bush had said Islam is a “religion of peace.” With Bush choosing to remain silent on the issue, Murray and his cohorts are on the rise within the conservative movement.
Soon after hearing that radical tea party favorite Christine O’Donnell emerged with a surprise victory in the Delaware’s GOP primary last week, many in the Republican and conservative establishment quickly denounced the result. “O’Donnell is very problematic, she probably will lose,” right-wing columnist Charles Krauthammer said. Karl Rove questioned O’Donnell’s character, noting her “checkered background.”
But as the National Republican Senatorial Committee announced it would put its full support behind her and other right-wing figures such as Rush Limbaugh attacked O’Donnell’s conservative detractors, the split on the right over O’Donnell’s chances began to close. “She’s got a shot to win!” Rove said days later. But, a recent revelation from O’Donnell that she had once “dabbled into witchcraft” is threatening to once again fuel an intramural spat. Since the news surfaced last Friday night, not only has Rove seemed to have reexamined his view of O’Donnell, but also conservatives of all stripes are finding it difficult to defend her:
GLENN BECK: “It’s creepy. … If you’re at a satanic alter, that’s a couple steps beyond witchcraft, dabbling in witchcraft. Is it just me?”
REP. MIKE PENCE (R-IN): “Certainly, she has some explaining to do about that.”
KARL ROVE: “[Delaware voters] are probably going to want to know what was that all about. … My view is she can’t simply ignore it. She’s got to deal with it and explain it and put it in its most sympathetic light and move on.”
JOE SCARBOROUGH: “You know, usually I like to say, ‘It happens,’ but this is just in a new realm. I’m a live and let live kind of guy but this is out there even for me.”
MICHAEL GERSON: “I think the reality here is that this adds to an aura of oddness.”
Watch the compilation:
Although neocon leader Bill Kristol said yesterday on Fox News Sunday that he would vote for O’Donnell if he were a Delaware resident, he said that she is “a bit of a flake.”
Today, President Obama participated in a live CNBC townhall event. Recently, Obama has been feeling the “rage of the rich,” as Paul Krugman describes it today. One top Wall Street executive recently compared Obama’s tax proposals to Hitler’s invasion of Poland. During today’s discussion, Anthony Scaramucci, a CNBC contributor who is also a hedge fund manager, stood up to represent the aggrieved “Wall Street community.”
Scaramucci told Obama, “We have felt like a piñata,” complaining that “we certainly feel like we’ve been whacked with a stick.” Obama responded that Scaramucci needs to put things into perspective:
Now, you know, I have been amused over the last couple years, this sense of somehow me beating up on Wall Street. I think most folks on Main Street feel like they got beat up on. … There’s — there’s a big chunk of the country that thinks that I have been too soft on Wall Street. That’s probably the majority, not the minority.
Obama went on to note that the top 25 hedge fund managers took home $1 billion in profits last year. “If you’re making $1 billion a year after a very bad financial crisis where 8 million people lost their jobs and small businesses can’t get loans,” Obama said, “then I think that you shouldn’t be feeling put upon,” Watch it:
Indeed, 54 percent of respondents in a recent WSJ/NBC poll said Obama has “fallen short” on improving oversight of Wall Street and the banks, despite his signing of a new law that will put in place the most significant improvements to the nation’s regulatory framework since the New Deal.
The Wall Street Journal notes today that business groups are working with the GOP to compile a wish-list of regulations they’d like to see stopped or repealed. It’s no surprise, then, that Wall Street executives have been contributing upwards of 70 percent of their political contributions to Republicans.
This past weekend, conservative activists and Tea Party groups gathered in Chicago for the Right Nation 2010 convention. Among those who attended was former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, the chairman of one of the original Tea Party groups, FreedomWorks.
During the event, ThinkProgress sat down with Armey at a blogger’s roundtable. No sooner than we took our seats did Armey come out guns-blazing against Social Security. He called it a “corrupt government practice” that steals people’s money “under false pretenses.” He went on to call Social Security a “Ponzi scheme”:
ARMEY: The government uses the concept of a trust fund to take your money under false pretenses. For years, I wrote about and talked about and taught about what I call ‘corrupt government practices,’ because they’re always so quick to talk about corruption. One of the corrupt government practices is stealing your money under false pretenses. I’ll give you a to wit: social security. When they had the Alan Greenspan commission, they knowingly raised payroll taxes more than what was necessary to meet the flow of output. Social Security is a pay-as-you-go Ponzi scheme. They knew very well that the extra $250 billion would be spent on their social schemes.
Watch here:
Though Tea Party candidates continue to flail on whether or not they would like to privatize Social Security, Tea Party groups like FreedomWorks mince no words about what their plan is for the hugely-successful social safety net. In a Politico interview, Armey said that if he could do one thing as president of the United States, he would make “all government programs…voluntary.” However, the American public remains adamantly opposed to this plan, with two of every three Americans uncomfortable with the idea of privatizing Social Security.
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