Tag Archives: elections

6 Mind-Blowing Stats on How 1 Percent of the 1 Percent Now Dominate Our Elections

by siteforme Posted on June 24, 2013

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Here’s a statistic that should jolt you awake like black coffee with three shots of espresso dropped in: In the 2012 election cycle, 28 percent of all disclosed donations—that’s $1.68 billion—came from just 31,385 people. Think of them as the 1 percenters of the 1 percent, the elite of the elite, the wealthiest of the wealthy.

That’s the blockbuster finding in an eye-popping new report by the Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan transparency advocate. The report’s author, Lee Drutman, calls the 1 percent of the 1 percent “an elite class that increasingly serves as the gatekeepers of public office in the United States.” This rarefied club of donors, Drutman found, worked in high-ranking corporate positions (often in finance or law). They’re clustered in New York City and Washington, DC. Most are men. You might’ve heard of some of them: casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Texas waste tycoon Harold Simmons, Hollywood executive Jeffrey Katzenberg.

Those are a few of the takeaways from Sunlight’s report. Here are six more statistics (including charts) giving you what you need to know about the wealthy donors who dominate the political money game—and the lawmakers who rely on them.

(1) The median donation from the 1 percent of the 1 percent was $26,584. As the chart below shows, that’s more than half the median family income in America.

Economic Policy Institute

(2) The 28.1 percent of total money from the 1 percent of the 1 percent is the most in modern history. It was 21.8 percent in 2006, and 20.5 percent in 2010.

Sunlight Foundation

(3) Megadonors are very partisan. Four out of five 1-percent-of-the-1-percent donors gave all of their money to one party or the other.

Sunlight Foundation

(4) Every single member of the House or Senate who won an election in 2012 received money from the 1 percent of the 1 percent.

Orham Cam/Shutterstock

(6) For the 2012 elections, winning House members raised on average $1.64 million, or about $2,250 per day, during the two-year cycle. The average winning senator raised even more: $10.3 million, or $14,125 per day.

Dawid Konopka/Shutterstock

(6) Of the 435 House members elected last year, 372—more than 85 percent—received more from the 1 percent of the 1 percent than they did from every single small donor combined.

Sunlight Foundation

So what are we to make of the rise of the 1 percent of the 1 percent? Drutman makes a point similar to what I reported in my recent profile of Democratic kingmaker Jeffrey Katzenberg: We’re living in an era when megadonors exert control over who runs for office, who gets elected, and what politicians say and do. “And in an era of unlimited campaign contributions,” Drutman writes, “the power of the 1 percent of the 1 percent only stands to grow with each passing year.”

See original article: 

6 Mind-Blowing Stats on How 1 Percent of the 1 Percent Now Dominate Our Elections

Posted in FF, GE, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on 6 Mind-Blowing Stats on How 1 Percent of the 1 Percent Now Dominate Our Elections

Soros-Backed Super-PAC to New York Pols: Pass Reform or We’re Taking You Down

by Margherit Posted on June 18, 2013

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

The deadline draws closer by the hour. In New York, the band of good-government reformers, labor unions, enviros, community organizers, religious leaders, and more have until Thursday night, when the current legislative session ends, to press state lawmakers to pass legislation combating political corruption and kickstarting a public financing program for statewide elections. Standing in their way: The odd coalition of breakaway Democrats and Republicans who control the state Senate and who are blocking the public financing bill, which passed the state Assembly earlier this year and is backed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Friends of Democracy, the super-PAC run by political operatives Jonathan Soros and David Donnelly, is one of the most aggressive backers of public financing in New York State. Soros, the son of liberal financier and mega-donor George Soros, and Donnelly see New York as the front line in the post-Citizens United battle against big-money politics. In an interview on Tuesday, Donnelly had a cut-and-dry message for the independent Democrats, who broke away from the traditional Democratic caucus to form a new leadership coalition, and the Republican legislators who are denying a vote on public financing: Support reform, or we’ll fight to replace you.

Donnelly says public financing should be a no-brainer for independent Democrats and Republicans given the public support for the issue. According to a recent Siena College poll (PDF), 61 percent of New Yorkers say they support statewide public financing. Indeed, in five Siena polls dating back to August 2012, a majority of New Yorkers backed a public financing program. The way it’s proposed, a statewide public financing program would match each dollar of donations up to $175 with $6 in state money. The goal is to nudge political candidates into courting lots of less-wealthy donors instead of a few very wealthy ones.

“It’s pretty painfully clear that if this leadership structure, the Independent Democratic Conference and Republicans together, doesn’t produce on behalf of the citizens of the state a public financing law that addresses corruption, there needs to be a leadership structure that will do that,” Donnelly says. “That means electing people who will lead the Senate in a way that moves that legislation. It’s not so much of a threat as the reality of what we’re going to have to do.”

Donnelly declined to say which state senators Friends of Democracy would target. (Nor would he say how much Friends of Democracy has spent so far on New York’s public financing fight.) “I’m not about one senator or not about independent Democratic senators Diane Savino or Jeff Klein or any of these other Republican senators,” he says. “I’m agnostic about how we go about doing it. It’s a numbers game; we need to take out those numbers.”

Donnelly says he still holds out hope that the state Senate will pass a public financing bill before heading home for the summer. But if the state Senate fails, Friends of Democracy won’t walk away from the issue. In addition to targeting anti-reform senators, Donnelly explains, the super-PAC will continue pushing for a bill in the legislature, possibly during a special session or when lawmakers return later this year to work on a state budget. “If the senators can do it under the current leadership, great. Do it by Thursday, do it in a special session, during the budget session, great,” he says. “We’re not going away.”

View original post here:  

Soros-Backed Super-PAC to New York Pols: Pass Reform or We’re Taking You Down

Posted in Citizen, FF, GE, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Soros-Backed Super-PAC to New York Pols: Pass Reform or We’re Taking You Down

Supreme Court: Arizona Law Requiring Proof of Citizenship to Register to Vote Is Unconstitutional

by Billy Jobs Posted on June 17, 2013

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

The US Supreme Court on Monday struck down an Arizona law that required people to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote. The case, Arizona v. The Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, concerned Arizona’s Proposition 200, which was passed by voters in 2004 during the fight over President George W. Bush’s immigration reform proposal. The now-defunct law required new voters to prove that they’re citizens during the voter registration process. That proof could be in the form of a driver’s license number, a copy of a birth certificate, a copy of a passport, copies of naturalization documents, a Bureau of Indian Affairs card number, a tribal treaty card number, or a tribal enrollment number.

Unfortunately, millions of US citizens—mostly poor and elderly people—lack documentary evidence of their citizenship. Because of that, thousands of US citizens who should otherwise have been able to vote—31,000, according to the American Civil Liberties Union—were denied access to the ballot box under Proposition 200.

The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 requires only that potential voters check a box on a form attesting that they are citizens and eligible to vote. During oral arguments before the high court in March, the groups challenging Proposition 200 said that the federal voter registration law and the stricter Arizona law were incompatible, and the federal statute should take precedence. Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne, defending Proposition 200, said the federal requirement was “essentially an honor system” and that the two laws should be allowed to coexist. The Supreme Court decided the anti-Proposition 200 forces were right, and the federal law trumped Arizona’s.

But voting rights advocates aren’t out of the woods yet. At SCOTUSblog, Lyle Denniston notes that although the justices ruled that the state’s requirements were out of line with federal election law, states that want to require potential voters to provide proof of citizenship may still be able to convince the Election Assistance Commission or Congress to implement such a requirement. The court also said that states could claim they had a constitutional right to require proof of citizenship for voter registration—an argument Arizona did not make in this particular case. In other words, there’s a strong chance that Arizona or any other state that wants to could eventually get strict proof-of-citizenship requirements into law.

“The opinion seemed to leave little doubt that, if Arizona or another state went to court to try to establish such a constitutional power, it might well get a very sympathetic hearing, because that part of Justice Antonin Scalia’s opinion laid a very heavy stress on the power of states under the Constitution to decide who gets to vote,” Denniston wrote.

Arizona voting rights advocates will also have to deal with a batch of election-reform bills sitting on Republican Gov. Jan Brewer’s desk right now that could derail mail-ballot collection drives and purge the state’s permanent early voting list.

Link: 

Supreme Court: Arizona Law Requiring Proof of Citizenship to Register to Vote Is Unconstitutional

Posted in Citizen, FF, GE, ONA, PUR, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Supreme Court: Arizona Law Requiring Proof of Citizenship to Register to Vote Is Unconstitutional

This Is What a Multimillionaire Calling In His Chits Looks Like

by BenjamingBolton Posted on June 14, 2013

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Art Pope is the conservative mega-donor in North Carolina whose millions helped usher in Republican majorities in both chambers of the state legislature in 2010, and who dropped millions more in 2012 to elect Republican Gov. Pat McGrory. Perhaps to say thanks, McGrory promptly named Pope, a former board member of the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity group, the state’s new budget director.

One of Pope’s pet causes has been killing North Carolina’s public funding program for judicial elections, an aim of his when he served in the state legislature. The NC Public Campaign Fund, as it’s known, provides judicial candidates with taxpayer money to fund their campaigns so long as they collect 350 or more small donations from registered voters and also abide by campaign spending limits. The program is popular: Since its launch in 2004, 80 percent of judicial candidates in contested race for state Supreme Court and North Carolina Court of Appeals have used it. In May, 14 of the 15 judges on Court of Appeals, judges who represent both parties, urged state lawmakers to preserve the program. “Our current system of nonpartisan judicial elections supplemented by public financing is an effective and valuable tool for protecting public confidence in the impartiality and independence of the judiciary,” the judges said.

North Carolina’s judicial public financing program gets its money from a $3 check box on state tax forms and a $50 annual fee paid by attorneys. The budget proposed by North Carolina Republicans would suck all the money out of the elections fund and eliminate its funding sources, a death blow to the program. But as Chris Kromm of Facing South writes, state Rep. Jonathan Jordan, a Republican, had a fix. He offered a budget amendment that would preserve the $50 attorney fee while still sucking out all the fund’s money and eliminating the taxpayer check-box. Although Jordan’s amendment would hurt the fund in the short term, the attorneys fees would replenish it over time. Other Republicans liked this idea.

That’s when Art Pope called in his chits:

Soon after Jordan’s amendment was filed the next day, the multimillionaire GOP donor and budget director for Republican Gov. Pat McCrory made a rare visit to the General Assembly and took Jordan aside. When the impromptu meeting with Pope ended, Jordan made an abrupt U-turn and dropped the amendment.

The amendment died—and with it chances of saving North Carolina’s pioneering judicial program.

Art Pope took a direct role in killing the landmark election reform measure even though his presence as budget director wasn’t needed, since Jordan’s amendment was revenue-neutral. His involvement highlights the unique power Pope holds as both a top campaign donor to state lawmakers and the highest ranking member of McCrory’s cabinet.

It also marks the culmination of a more than decade-long crusade by Pope to dismantle judicial public financing and other reforms that aim to curb the clout of big donors like himself in North Carolina politics.

Why, you might ask, would Jordan so easily abandon his amendment? Well, the money trail is a good place to start:

When Jordan first ran for office in 2010, he was one of two dozen Republicans that benefited from a flood of money Pope poured into elections, helping the GOP capture the state legislature.

That year, Jordan received $16,000 in campaign contributions from Pope and his close family, the maximum allowed by law. On top of that, three groups backed by Pope—Americans for Prosperity, Civitas Action, and Real Jobs NC—shoveled more than $91,500 into election spending on Jordan’s behalf, bringing Pope’s total investment in launching Jordan’s legislative career to more than $107,000.

But Pope’s connection to Rep. Jordan goes back even further. In the late 1990s, Jordan spent two years as research director at the John Locke Foundation, one of a network of conservative groups in North Carolina largely funded by Art Pope’s family foundation.

In an email to the News and Observer newspaper, Pope declined to comment on his talk with Rep. Jordan. “Of course the governor’s recommended budget proposed to stop giving taxpayer dollars to political campaigns,” Pope said. “That position has not changed, and I have stated this to the legislators, members of the public, and organizations such as Common Cause when they have asked about the issue.”

Episodes like these are what make North Carolina such a fascinating case study. On the one hand, you have Pope, an ideologue who gave handsomely to conservative causes for decades and now controls North Carolina’s budget. On the other, there is a progressive groundswell pushing back against Pope, McGrory, and the Republican majorities in the legislature. But in this case, the imminent death of North Carolina’s judicial funding program shows just how much clout a single donor can have.

See original article – 

This Is What a Multimillionaire Calling In His Chits Looks Like

Posted in FF, GE, Landmark, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on This Is What a Multimillionaire Calling In His Chits Looks Like

Secret Money Is Now Swaying State Judicial Elections

by 07ld5ksl Posted on June 13, 2013

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

The “banjo ad” supporting North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Paul Newby.

Sam Ervin IV must have been feeling pretty good about his chances of winning a seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court last fall.

He had name recognition—his grandfather was the legendary senator who led the Watergate investigation—and a poll released less than a week before Election Day showed him leading his opponent, incumbent Justice Paul Newby by 6 points, 38-32.

But on the Friday before the election, “Justice for All NC”—an independent political committee whose funding came mostly from out of state—dropped a TV ad depicting a scowling Ervin and asking: “Sam Ervin. Can we trust him to be a fair judge?”

Ervin lost the race by 4 points, 52 percent to 48 percent.

“As far as I know,” says Ervin, “there had never been an attack ad in a North Carolina judicial race.”

North Carolina’s supreme court election was arguably decided by groups like Justice for All—secretive nonprofits, unaffiliated with a candidate, whose money came from out of state.

Continue Reading »

Credit – 

Secret Money Is Now Swaying State Judicial Elections

Posted in FF, GE, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Secret Money Is Now Swaying State Judicial Elections

Florida Dems Snub Their Own Challenger To Rick Scott

by Obeey99 Posted on June 4, 2013

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Florida Governor Rick Scott is highly unpopular with voters, and polls show him losing his reelection race next year to any generic Democrat. But now that at least one Democratic challenger has emerged, it appears that the Democrats may already be shooting themselves in the foot. Case in point: The Florida Democratic Party denied Nan Rich, the only Democrat who’s jumped into the race, a speaking slot at its annual Jefferson-Jackson fundraising dinner later this month.

“I think it’s inappropriate, given the amount of attention the governor’s race will draw,” Rich told the Miami Herald. “I’ve been a candidate for a year. I’ve traveled the state and built a significant infrastructure and grassroots support. And I’m just asking for five minutes.”

Party organizers claimed they didn’t want big donors to get “bored by too many speeches” at the event, but the snub is largely viewed as an attempt to sideline Rich, a state senator, in favor of the party’s preferred candidate, former Republican governor Charlie Crist. (Signs that Crist is seriously considering jumping into the Democratic primary: Most recently an independent, he officially switched party affiliation again in December after losing a Senate race to Sen. Marco Rubio. Then, in early May, he suddenly became a supporter of same-sex marriage, which he’d previously opposed.)

Florida Dems clearly see Crist as the stronger candidate, even if he is, well, a Republican. A recent poll showed Crist prevailing in a Democratic primary, with Rich receiving just 1 percent of the vote, and faring much better than Rich in a matchup with Scott. Still, polls suggest that Crist isn’t exactly a shoe-in, with at least one showing him in a dead heat with Scott. And rank-and-file Democrats are understandably leery about jumping on the bandwagon with a candidate who has previously described himself as a “Jeb Bush Republican.”

But Rich, a stalwart liberal Democrat known for her work on child welfare issues and sharp criticism of Scott, has had trouble raising money and her profile. She could have used the platform at the dinner to help boost her visibility. Instead, the state Democratic party decided it’s more important to hear from the mayor of San Antonio, Texas. Meanwhile, the head of the state GOP, Lenny Curry, has seized the opportunity to taunt Florida Democrats for dissing one of their own. He started the hashtag #FreeNanRich and tweeted, “Are big donors really more important than 5 min for @SenatorNanRich?” He also sent out a press release targeted at the state’s Democrats to let Rich on the podium, writing:

While Senator Rich and I might not see eye to eye politically, she has a long history of leadership in public service and deserves five minutes of speaking time as the only announced gubernatorial candidate in your party.

Because Senator Rich is an experienced spokesperson for Democratic ideology in Florida, it must be disappointing to see your Chairwoman, Allison Tant, put the interests of big-dollar donors ahead of a mere five minutes for Florida’s leading champion of liberal causes.

The Rich snub promises the beginning of a bitter primary battle for the right to challenge Scott, who will certainly benefit from the distraction from his own record. Whether the Democratic primary fight will be enough to keep one of the nation’s most loathed governors in office, though, is still very much an open question.

Source: 

Florida Dems Snub Their Own Challenger To Rick Scott

Posted in FF, GE, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Florida Dems Snub Their Own Challenger To Rick Scott

Cigarette Maker Funded Dark-Money Conservative Groups

by 7GrittonMaine146 Posted on May 31, 2013

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

When we use the term “dark money,” we’re usually referring to politically active nonprofit groups—like the kind at the center of the recent IRS scandal—that spend millions on political campaigns yet don’t disclose their funders. Think Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS, Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity, and pro-Democrat Patriot Majority. Rarely, if ever, does the public learn who bankrolls these organizations.

This week, though, we got one such glimpse. As the Center for Public Integrity reported, Reynolds American Inc., the corporation behind Camel and Winston cigarettes, funded several high-profile dark money groups in 2012. Reynolds doled out $175,000 to Americans for Tax Reform, conservative activist Grover Norquist’s anti-tax group. The company also gave $50,000 to Americans for Prosperity, $45,000 to the US Chamber of Commerce, and $100,000 to the Partnership for Ohio’s Future, an Ohio Chamber-backed group that supported restricting the worker bargaining rights.

Here’s more from CPI‘s Dave Levinthal:

The tobacco company’s donations are just a fraction of the nearly $50 million that those two groups reported spending on political advocacy ads during the 2012 election cycle, almost exclusively on negative advertising. Federal records show that Americans for Prosperity alone sponsored more than $33 million in attack ads that directly targeted President Barack Obama.

But the money, which Reynolds American says it disclosed in a corporate governance document at the behest of an unnamed shareholder, provides rare insight into how some of the most powerful politically active 501(c)(4) “social welfare” nonprofits are bankrolled.

Reynolds American is the parent company of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, which makes Camel and Winston brand cigarettes.

“The shareholder specifically requested that we disclose information about 501(c)(4)s, and in the interests of greater transparency, we agreed,” Reynolds American spokeswoman Jane Seccombe said.

Large corporations—tobacco companies or otherwise—almost never release information about their giving to such groups, and it’s most unusual for the groups themselves to voluntarily disclose who donates to them.

After the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, which freed corporations to pump vastly more money into American campaigns, businesses faced two options. They could donate to super-PACs, which can raise and spend unlimited sums of money but must disclose their donors. Or they could fund politically active nonprofits, which can dabble in politics but don’t name their donors. In the wake of Citizens United, we heard countless warnings about a “flood” of corporate cash into politics through big-spending super-PACs. But that flood never quite materialized: For-profit corporations accounted for just over $1 of every $10 raised by super-PACs in the 2012 election cycle. Instead, it was a small band of millionaires and billionaires that gave super-PACs most of their dough.

What the relatively small Reynolds American Inc. donations suggest is that corporations chose the nonprofit route and so avoided scrutiny of their political giving in today’s big-money era. In this case, Reynolds’ donations were disclosed only because a pesky shareholder asked for them to be. That’s not the case for most corporations, whose giving remains a secret.

Credit: 

Cigarette Maker Funded Dark-Money Conservative Groups

Posted in alo, Citizen, FF, GE, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Cigarette Maker Funded Dark-Money Conservative Groups

After Bachmann, Who’s America’s Next Top Wacky Right-Winger?

by Fredrick Wise Posted on May 29, 2013

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Facing a mounting investigation into her presidential campaign’s alleged campaign finance improprieties, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) announced Wednesday morning that she won’t seek reelection in 2014. Here’s a quick guide to the people jockeying for Bachmann’s place as the far right’s biggest star in Congress.

Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas)

Is he crazy? Once caught with 30 mg of Valium in his underwear. Lived in a Fort Worth park for a year with a homeless man he compared to Lenny from Of Mice and Men. Warned that sex ed classes were teaching kids the virtues of bestiality. Started an AR-15 sweepstakes for his constituents. Actual campaign bumper sticker: “If babies had guns they wouldn’t be aborted.”
Put it in granite: “The best thing about the Earth is if you poke holes in it oil and gas come out.”
Do people care? Stockman has had no discernible impact on public policy and Democrats have written off his seat—he won his last race by 44 points.

Joe Miller, Alaska Senate candidate

Is he crazy? Hired private security guards who handcuffed a reporter during failed 2010 Senate run. Argued that unemployment benefits, Social Security, and Medicare are unconstitutional. Wrote a column for birther site WorldNetDaily alleging that President Obama should be impeached for secretly giving away American islands to Russia.
Put it in granite: “Obama’s State Department is giving away seven strategic, resource-laden Alaskan islands to the Russians. Yes, to the Putin regime in the Kremlin.”
Do people care? Only if he wins.

Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.)

Is he crazy? Compared the Affordable Care Act to the “war of Yankee aggression.” Pointed out alarming similarities between Obama and Hitler. Worries that the federal government will force people to eat fruits and vegetables. Believes Southerners will die of hyperthermia if clean energy laws are passed.
Put it in granite: “All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the Big Bang Theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of hell.”
Do people care? An outspoken critic of science, Broun’s position on the House Science Committee has alarmed such high-profile scientists as Bill Nye.

Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah)

Is he crazy? World-record holder for fastest flight around the world. Described as a “certified nutcase” by a former Utah Republican politician and “Glenn Beck on steroids” by a former Utah Democratic politician. Wrote end-times novels that have been endorsed by Glenn Beck. Expressed concern that protecting species from extinction, while noble, “harms people” too much.
Put it in granite: “My true worldview is just the opposite of the apocalyptic. Look, I know we’re going to have challenges and, who knows, maybe there will be a zombie apocalypse or something like that.”
Do people care? Stewart hails from a safely Republican district, but Republicans and Democrats alike have expressed concerns about his fringe views. He’s also skeptical about climate change and chairs a House subcommittee on the issue.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas)

Is he crazy? Opposed gun control by comparing gay marriage to bestiality. Supported Alaska oil drilling so that caribou would have more sex. Cosponsored a birther bill. Wanted Congress to investigate the threat of Shariah law in America. Sounded alarm about terrorists who “are now being trained to come in and act like Hispanics.” Sounded alarm about terrorists who are babies.
Put it in granite: “The attorney general will not cast aspersions on my asparagus.”
Do people care? Gohmert represents an overwhelmingly conservative district and is better known for his outrageous statements than his impact on public policy.

Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.)

Is she crazy? Compared Obama to “Louis XIV, the Sun King.” Said Democrats passed the Affordable Care Act “simply to control our lives.” Supported defunding the Justice Department to stop Attorney General Eric Holder’s lawsuit against an Arizona immigration bill that allows racial profiling. Insinuated that terrorists were behind the proposal to build an Islamic community center in Manhattan a few blocks from ground zero.
Put it in granite: “The terrorists haven’t won, and we should tell them in plain English, ‘No, there will never be a mosque at ground zero.'”
Do people care? After Republicans won control of North Carolina’s state Legislature in 2010 and redrew congressional district lines in the state, Ellmers moved from a competitive district to a safe seat. She’s only serving her second term in the House but is already considering a Senate bid against Democrat Kay Hagan.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas)

Is he crazy? Believes George Soros masterminded a plot to ban golf and force Americans into “hobbit homes.” Said that “Shariah law is an enormous problem” in the United States. Thinks states have the constitutional right to disregard federal law. Bragged that he helped nullify a gay divorce. Thinks Harvard Law School has been overrun by communists.
Put it in granite: “I think President Obama is the most radical president we’ve ever seen.”
Do people care? Called the “next great conservative hope” by the National Review, Cruz may have presidential aspirations. But his Senate obstructionism has annoyed more compromise-minded Republican colleagues, including John McCain, whom Cruz said he doesn’t trust.

See more here:  

After Bachmann, Who’s America’s Next Top Wacky Right-Winger?

Posted in Bragg, FF, GE, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on After Bachmann, Who’s America’s Next Top Wacky Right-Winger?

Flashback: Virginia Gov. Candidate Cuccinelli Investigated "Sextravaganza"

by rezhh8j Posted on May 28, 2013

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Controversial Virginia Republican lieutenant governor candidate E.W. Jackson, as I reported last week, began his career as a social conservative crusader as an anti-anti-AIDS activist in Boston, where he fought against public health initiatives that promoted condom use and sterilized needles. And Jackson’s extreme views on such issues as LGBT rights (“If we need a gay rights bill, then we need an adulterers’ rights bill, we need a cohabitators’ rights bill, a pedophiles’ rights bill, and a sadomasochists’ rights bill”) and Islam (he’s against it) have launched a flurry of stories on the potential impact of Jackson’s extremism on Ken Cuccinelli, the Republican running for governor. Cuccinelli has tried to distance himself from Jackson, but he has a problem: his own past as a social conservative activist is not that different from Jackson’s.

In 2005, for example, Cuccinelli, then a state senator, sent a volunteer to investigate a mostly-female planning meeting for an event to be held at George Mason University by “Pro-Choice Patriots,” a student group, and dubbed the “Sextravaganza.” This gathering was designed to promote healthy sexual activity—dispensing information on date rape, AIDS, and contraception. But Cuccinelli condemned the plan to hold such an event at a public school, warning that “Sextravaganza” would promote “every type of sexual promiscuity you can imagine.”

“This whole thing is really just designed to push sex and sexual libertine behavior as far, fast and furiously as possible,” he told the Washington Post at the time, adding, “Do we need to establish some statewide standards here? It’s pathetic we even need to have this discussion, but apparently we do.”

Cuccinelli, like Jackson, was a fierce fighter for what they called traditional family values. In 2004, the Washington Times reported that Cuccinelli was leading the fight against, in his words, “homosexuals and AIDS education.” He was doing so by pushing a resolution asking Congress to pass a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman:

“The resolution would enshrine in the Constitution effectively what is Virginia law today, and that is that marriage is between one man and one woman and that there are no analogous relationships under law,” said Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, Fairfax County Republican and the bill’s sponsor.

Mr. Cuccinelli and others worry recent protests on the topic are part of an overall strategy by homosexuals, who he thinks plan to “dismantle sodomy laws” and “get education about homosexuals and AIDS in public schools.” On Friday in a 79-18 vote, the House passed a bill that affirms the state’s ban on homosexual “marriage.” It is expected to pass the Senate.

Cuccinelli may find it tough to separate himself from Jackson, given that the two were both fierce leaders in the culture war fights of the 1990s and 2000s.

See original: 

Flashback: Virginia Gov. Candidate Cuccinelli Investigated "Sextravaganza"

Posted in alo, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Flashback: Virginia Gov. Candidate Cuccinelli Investigated "Sextravaganza"

How Far-Right Activists Like E.W. Jackson Took Over the Virginia GOP

by 0df53x21 Posted on May 22, 2013

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

After dropping the last two presidential elections and the last three US Senate races, Virginia Republicans had good reason for optimism heading into this fall’s elections: Terry McAuliffe, the former Democratic National Committee chair who bragged about nearly missing his child’s birth so he could party with a gossip columnist, is at the top of the Democratic ticket. Things should be looking up for the Virginia GOP. Instead, the party’s activists have resisted calls for moderation and swerved hard to the right quicker than you can say transvaginal ultrasound.

Ken Cuccinelli, the Republican party’s nominee for governor, once cited Martin Luther King Jr. as justification for his argument that sexual relations between two people of the same gender should be illegal. E.W. Jackson, the party’s nominee for lieutenant governor, believes that gays are “degenerate” and “spiritually darkened” and will eventually destroy America. Mark Obenshain, the party’s nominee for attorney general, recently attempted to require women to contact the police within 24 hours of a miscarriage.

The immediate cause is obvious. Virginia Republicans don’t select their executive ticket via primary. Instead, they chose their slate last Saturday at a one-day nominating convention packed with grassroots activists. Jackson, a Baptist preacher who finished in the low single digits in last year’s US Senate primary, was able to win on the first ballot by virtue of well-received speech typified by lines like, “I am not an African-American, I am an American!”

“Conventions are not representative of the party,” says Tom Davis, a former Republican congressman from Northern Virginia, referring to Jackson’s nomination. “When you get a convention, this is what you get.”

Continue Reading »

More:

How Far-Right Activists Like E.W. Jackson Took Over the Virginia GOP

Posted in Bragg, FF, GE, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on How Far-Right Activists Like E.W. Jackson Took Over the Virginia GOP