Politics

According to a report from Ohio today, a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has asked the ACORN-tainted Ohio Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, to investigation ACORN's voter registration work in the state.

“U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan has formally asked Ohio's secretary of state to look into allegations that ACORN had at least a preliminary plan to back Democrat candidates in key Ohio congressional races in 2008.”

The political plan was described in an October article as “having been scaled back,” and of course, ACORN denied any partisan activity.

“But to some, ACORN's early 13-page plan for the 2008 election reinforces what critics always assumed: The group's goal was never nonpartisan. The political plan and other ACORN documents show that the group was interested not just in helping presidential candidate Barack Obama, whom it urged its members to support, according to post-election Federal Election Commission reports. ACORN also was interested in Congress and the Ohio Statehouse.

"There's no question that ACORN strategized to figure out how its election efforts could maximize the benefit for selected Democratic candidates in the most competitive races," U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa of California told The Plain Dealer. “

An illuminating  fact not mentioned in either article is that ACORN prepared political plans for several key battleground states in 2006 and again during the 2007-08 election cycle. As evidenced by the draft plans developed in the Spring of 2006 by the Strategic Writing and Research Department (SWORD) of ACORN Political Operations, these plans were aimed at electing “progressives” and in some cases broke down the Congressional districts by race for maximum targeting. SWORD, which was staffed by Project Vote staff, including myself, worked with ACORN head organizers in FL, MD, MI, MN, OH, PA, and RI to create local documents for the ACORN field staff to implement and present to funders and/or various partner organizations.

A copy of the Maryland and Colorado draft plans from 2006 are available online. Key parts of the plans are the contact and Congressional district sections at the end. For example, in the Maryland plan, it calls for mailings and face to face contact. A screen shot of the type of mailing Marylanders received is shown below.

ACORN used Project Vote staff and computers to create the PowerPoint “Campaign for a New Congress." This PowerPoint was aimed at swaying the Congressional election in Maryland from Albert Wynn to ACORN ally Donna Edwards. Using the final political plan, ACORN canvassed voters and mailed pieces through its affiliate Communities Voting Together.

Campaign for a New Congress

Communities Voting Together has the same address as the Project Vote office in DC and its address on the screen shot above is the same Elysian Fields address where hundreds of other ACORN entities "reside.

As a 527 group, Communities Voting Together paid over 150,000 to Citizen's Services Inc, and contributed to Wade Rathke's Chief Organizer Fund. Jeff Robinson is listed as the contact for Communities Voting Together and some may remembered Robinson from the 2008 elections (emphasis mine):

"In fact, the Obama campaign paid an ACORN-run organization more than $800,000. In Federal Election Commission required filings, the Obama campaign reported that this money was paid for polling, advance work and event staging. After watchdog scrutiny called this claim into question, the Obama campaign revised its filing and acknowledged that CSI was paid for “get-out-the-vote” projects.

CSI Executive Vice President Jeff Robinson last August told Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporter David M. Brown that CSI is a 'separate organization entirely' from ACORN. But as Brown reported, CSI has the same office address as ACORN’s national headquarters, ACORN itself described CSI in 2006 as its 'campaign services entity.' Coincidentally, the widely identified “national deputy political director for campaigns and elections” for ACORN is...Jeff Robinson."

ACORN's shell corporations make it easy for a political plan to become a partisan voter registration drive facilitated by thin veiled “partnerships.” The filing reports of Communities Voting Together raise a number of questions, including whether the misspelling of the name on the filing was intentional. The payments to various ACORN entities should give any astute lawmaker pause.

ACORN has been able to claim that it never worked in some recent elections including NY-23, but as this screen shoot illustrates, Communities Voting together was mailing and passing out door knockers in 2006 for Corzine in New Jersey (without a mention of ACORN).

Will ACORN backed officials like Jennifer Brunner (who has her eye on a Senate seat) and officials in Maryland and Colorado take notices of these obvious attempts to elect Democrats, or will they continue to turn a blind eye to ACORN in order to save themselves?

 Media Matters continues to try to provide cover for the public flogging ACORN has received as a result of investigative videos which showed ACORN employees giving advice on a number of illegal activities including human trafficking, child prostitution, bank fraud, illegal immigration and tax evasion. Meanwhile, the mainstream media has largely ignored a growing scandal that cannot be contained: ACORN is reportedly closing offices across the country, including the site of the DC undercover videotape..

Also, today another damning ACORN tape was released at Big Government. This time an ACORN member openly confessed to ACORN using non-partisan voter registration to secretly produce Obama votes.

Anyone paying attention knows accusations relating to voter registration fraud, illicit partisan activity and other chicanery often have been made against ACORN, with ACORN either denying all or any ACORN fault. In October of 2008, I testified in Pennsylvania regarding the illegal coordination between Barack Obama's Campaign and ACORN:

“A former staffer for Project Vote, a sister organization of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, testified at a hearing in Pennsylvania on Wednesday that the Obama campaign provided the group with a campaign donor list in late 2007 for their fundraising efforts. The former D.C. staffer, Anita Moncrief, said she still has a copy of what she called the 'development plan' she used to help her identify the maxed-out Obama donors for solicitation. The hearing was part of a lawsuit brought by the GOP seeking information and an injunction against certain ACORN activities in Pennsylvania.

“McCain-Palin campaign manager Rick Davis said in a statement, 'We now know that Barack Obama's campaign was working hand-in-glove with an organization reportedly under investigation by the F.B.I. and in more than a dozen states. In addition to funneling $832,000 to ACORN for get-out-the-vote efforts, the Obama campaign and ACORN have been sharing donor lists, encouraging maxed-out Obama donors to contribute to this unethical organization.'" (emphasis mine).”

The member caught on tape publicized by Big Government is another in a long line of “bad apples” for ACORN. As it becomes harder to hide behind poor minorities, ACORN appears to be on the run. Unfortunately, they are running to the White House. There Barack Obama, ACORN's “inside man,” seems poised to protect ACORN and even strike down its enemies. Andy Stern of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) serves as a close confidant of the President with over 20 visits logged in at the White House (he tops the frequent visitor list). Stern has every reason to expect this sort of access, as he not only funneled many millions of dollars into the Obama campaign, but also aligned with SEIU's sister organization, ACORN, to ensure that Obama was elected.

The screen shot is from an internal ACORN document from 2006. When combined with the admissions of the member, it provides additional proof that ACORN and SEIU - with the help of the Obama presidential campaign - intentionally took government and tax exempt donations through organizations like Project Vote to run a partisan voter registration drive aimed at electing Obama. Both the Federal Elections Commission and the media ignored the Obama donor list that was submitted as evidence in the Pennsylvania case and sworn testimony. But can they ignore the admission of someone saying: “I Am ACORN”?

As President ,Obama has paved the way for ACORN and SEIU to receive stimulus money and ACORN favorites to receive prime appointments to both executive and judicial positions.

Of course, Obama has admitted to limited ties with ACORN. But Americans have witnessed Obama run the country like one big ACORN office and trying to implement ACORN's radical agenda. Apparently being a community organizer is something that - like ACORN - is hard for Obama to shake. In 2001, a group of ACORN protesters broke up a community tenant meeting by shouting the words, “Yes, We Can.” Eight years later, ACORN man Obama rode to victory using the same slogan of those angry protesters.

With so much to lose, lawmakers are concerned about the lengths to which Obama will go to in order to protect ACORN. Congressman Steve King of Iowa released a statement today suggesting that a cover-up may be being executed under the guise of an investigation:

“Bob Bauer has a public record of defending Barack Obama’s relationship with ACORN. Bauer has acted as the agent between Obama and ACORN, and now he will be perfectly positioned to be tasked with erasing the tracks between Obama and ACORN. Bauer’s hiring appears to be a tactical maneuver to strategically defend the White House exactly one week after Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell raided ACORN's national headquarters in New Orleans and seized paper records and computer hard drives that may lead to the White House.”

Congressman King has reason to worry. The Democrat-controlled Congress has given ACORN plenty of time and warning to prepare for these “investigations”. In March of this year Michigan Representative John Conyers backed down from a call to investigate ACORN after several witnesses testified about the 2008 elections and ACORN. Portions of my Pennsylvania testimony regarding ACORN's illegal activities in 2008 were read into the record and hundreds of pages of evidence were submitted by GOP Attorney Heather Heidelbaugh. In explaining his flip flop, Conyers cited “the Powers that be.” As the “Age of Obama” unfolds, it's not hard to guess who "the powers" are.

Obama is willing to make small, symbolic concessions like removing ACORN from the Census, but his Justice Department remains oddly complacent with ACORN. The bailout hungry media covered up the Obama/ACORN story  and continue to ignore damaging stories like the IRS dropping ACORN from its list of VITA sites.

Mainstream newspapers and online liberal “news” sources appear content to continue to play the “race card” and paint conservatives as obsessed about ACORN because ACORN purported to help the poor. ACORN may be Teflon as long as Obama is in the White House. Charges of tax evasion, child prostitution, voter registration fraud, illegal immigration, bank fraud, etc. may not stick to ACORN.

With 2010 rapidly approaching, a look at ACORN's cookie cutter statements on its voter programs tells us what ACORN plans for America.

Fortunately, Big Government caught one of those “highly trained” ACORN organizers on tape. How many more "bad apples" does it take before it is generally realized that ACORN itself is rotten to the core?

Megan McArdle has previously postulated Jane's Law.

Jane's Law: The devotees of the party in power are smug and arrogant. The devotees of the party out of power are insane.

I think it's a good generalization about very broad political dynamics.  Thinking about that this weekend, I came up with the following psychological spectrum.  People tend towards the left side of the spectrum when it comes to allies; towards the right side of the spectrum when it comes to opponents.

Cognitive biases are a natural human tendency and none of us (including me) are immune to them.  It is useful to be aware of the problem.

As Doyle Webb, the Chairman of the Republican Party of Arkansas  mentioned  earlier , recently we held the annual RNC State Chairman’s meeting.  I traveled with Doyle and sat in on the Executive Director meetings.

Having the chance to meet with National Committee members and other state party staff from around the country proved to me that our State Party is moving in the right direction.  I am not knocking other State Parties, I do feel that the Republican Party as a whole is making a comeback, but I am proud to say the Republican Party of Arkansas has it together!

We are using the resources we have both efficiently and effectively.  Our new website has put us leaps and bounds ahead of the competition.  The candidates we are talking with not only have a clear and conservative message, but more importantly, have the ability to follow that message through with action.

I am excited and I hope you are too!  If we continue to strengthen our base while reaching out to and educating the other pieces of the political spectrum, it will be no time before we have successfully painted Arkansas Red!

Written by Chase Dugger, Political Director

Also posted at the Republican Party of Arkansas.Follow us on Twitter@argopTo become a fan of the Republican Party of Arkansas click here. Go to the Republican Party Of Arkansas to learn more. 

This week the Congressional Budget Office projected enormous cost increases under the current congressional plan for national health care. It was promoted as saving taxpayers money, but the CBO estimates a cost over $1 trillion and it is likely to raise the tax burden for many Americans to close to 60% of their already dwindling incomes, as government bureaucrats balloon the cost of what is already the most expensive health care system in the world. The devastating financial impact of ObamaCare for the nation and every citizen is now overwhelmingly clear. But just in case you still harbor any illusions about how disastrous current proposals for national health care would be, I thought it was time to revisit the other cost — the cost in human suffering and loss of life under socialized medicine.

A key element of the cynically misnamed Affordable Health Choices Act, which is the plan currently being rushed through congress to meet deadlines and criteria set by President Obama, is rationing health care using Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER) methodology where government bureaucrats would set up schedules by which treatment would be allocated based on statistics and cost to benefit ratios rather than the interests and needs of the specific patient. Decisions on care would be matters of policy based on group effectiveness rather than on a case by case basis and doctors would have to abide by these decisions without regard to the welfare of the patient.

The impact of rationing in other nations where it has been introduced as part of the national health care system has been horrendous. It attempts to reduce the financial cost of the system by a trade-off which increases the cost in lives lost and individual suffering. Two nations with many similarities to the United States which have resorted to rationing health care are Great Britain and Canada. In both nations the human cost has been high and the results are easily quantified.The failure of rationing comes down to two basic problems — denial of treatment and very long wait times. Both of these can result in suffering and death for patients, especially those with critical and chronic conditions which are treated easily and routinely in the United States today, but which often result in death in Great Britain and Canada.One telling scenario of denial of care comes with cardiac patients. In the United States if you come into a hospital with an arterial blockage you are usually scheduled for an angioplasty or a bypass in a matter of days, because that is the best way to achieve a long-term solution to the problem. In Canada and Britain the common response is dictated by a shortage of surgeons and facilities, so you are given beta blockers to try to keep your heart functioning and sent away. If you're lucky you'll survive the months that it takes to get you scheduled for surgery or maybe come into the hospital in the middle of an actual heart attack when your chances of surviving the surgery are lower but they may actually operate. Or even better, if you live in Canada they may slap on a heart monitor and have an ambulance drive you to the US for treatment as they do with hundreds of cardiac patients every year. The sad reality is that many who are denied immediate surgical treatment for heart problems just die.In the US a coronary patient is four times as likely to receive surgical treatment as in Britain. In the US only 5% of Americans are made to wait more than four months for surgery. In Canada 27% wait four months or more and in Britain 36% wait four months or more. While the base rate of coronary disease in the US is higher than in other countries because of diet and lifestyle, the rate of survival for those diagnosed with coronary problems is much higher than in other countries because patients get the best and most appropriate treatment more quickly.

The same pattern holds true with cancer. Overall Britons and Europeans in general die at a higher rate from all forms of cancer than US citizens and the difference is dramatic in cases where early detection and treatment are important. For example, women with breast cancer in Britain have a 46% death rate as opposed to 25% in the US. Men with prostate cancer in Britain have a 57% mortality rate while in the US only 19% die and the death rate is declining rapidly because of early detection. It's the same with colon cancer. In Europe as a whole there is only a 8% survival rate, in Britain there's a 40% survival rate and in the US there's a 60% survival rate. With cancer of the esophagus only 7% survive while in the US 12% survive, although it's still one of the most deadly forms of cancer. Both long- and short-term recovery and survival rates for all forms of cancer are also significantly higher for US patients. Rationed care has limited diagnostic facilities like MRI machines and has created long wait times for specialist doctors. In fact, 40% of cancer patients in Britain never get to see a cancer specialist at all, and the National Health bureaucrats have denied basic tests like pap smears and ruled out powerful chemotherapy medicines as too expensive, all of which has cost lives. With diseases like cancer where early detection and treatment are vital,  resource rationing means a lot more dead patients.

The human cost of delay of care caused by rationing is particularly significant. One key element of this is the wait time to see a specialist who can provide the best treatment for specific ailments. In the US 74% of patients get to see a specialist within four weeks. In Canada only 40% get seen that quickly and in Britain only 42%. In many cases these delays can cost lives, but the cost of suffering has to be considered as well. In both Canada and Britain the wait times are even longer for conditions which are not life threatening, but can be very painful and seriously reduce quality of life. In Britain a hip or knee replacement can take more than five months and in Canada it can take as long as eight months. That's a very long time when pain is literally crippling.

An unsurprising irony is that as our congress looks at health care reform, activists in Canada, Britain, and a number of other countries are also looking at health care reform. The difference is that they are trying to figure out ways to introduce more choice and more market elements and reduce rationing at the same time we are plunging headlong into the same mistakes which they made a generation ago and which they now realize have left them with unacceptable failures in their systems with thousands of preventable deaths every year and millions stuck on waiting lists for essential treatment.

This is how bad it can get with government-run, single-payer systems, which may have a cost in lives and suffering, but do at least bring down the cost of health care. Imagine how much worse it could be with a combination of government bureaucracy and rationing and the high prices of private insurance and you have some idea of what ObamaCare will be like. It is likely to have all the flaws of socialized medicine while preserving most of the shortcomings of our current private insurance system, because the thousand-page bill which congress was considering is largely authored by lobbyists for the health care, pharmaceutical and insurance industries. It's like yet another bailout for these industries at a high cost in life, suffering and taxation to the American people.

Even the far left agrees that the health care plan currently being rammed through congress serves the interests of big insurance, medical and pharmaceutical companies while doing more harm than good to the average citizen. It rations and reduces the quality of medical care. It massively increases costs and forces small businesses and individuals to purchase insurance plans at inflated prices which they cannot afford or pay substantial penalties which they also can't afford. It passes many of these costs on to the public in huge tax increases. It doesn't solve the key problem of inflated insurance and health care costs and is projected to still leave 20 million people uninsured.

This may be the most monumental legislative disaster ever given serious consideration in the notoriously profligate halls of congress. This plan is not what the American people have in mind when they think of health care reform. It ignores their needs and sets their interests aside to pander to statist radicals and big business. The American people deserve better.

Crossposted from Sunlight Foundation

Reps. Baird and Culberson introduced legislation today that would shine more sunlight on the most fundamental work of Congress. Their bill, H. Res. 554, would require that all non-emergency legislation be posted online, in its final form, 72 hours before consideration. The bill is not a panacea for all that ails Congress, but if enacted, it will stave off many congressionally created debacles before they become law.

Most citizens, for example, would have supported amending the economic stimulus bill to remove the provision allowing AIG executives to receive retroactive bonuses. The average person probably would have preferred to let the judicial system work rather than have Congress give immunity from lawsuits to telecommunications companies that participated in a controversial wiretapping scheme. Workers hoping to retire on their 401(k) investments might have liked to have some serious analysis of whether credit default swaps ought to be regulated. And just about everyone benefit from a check on questionable and wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars.

Not to undermine the administrators since apparently my log-in had been blocked, but for any members of this organization which claims to be a conservative site and which is in some areas would like to email me with any questions on Barry Goldwater or John McCain (since I lived in Arizona over 45 years, and campaigned for Senator Goldwater, and graduated one year ahead of Cindy McCain from the same grammar and high school), please let me know.

I am an expert on both "Republicans" and also was a member of the Republican Party for many years, until the first Bush, and also have much local information about both candidates that is a little more enlightening than what you will find in the media.

My blog is also available for any interested Constitutionalists, at www.backupamerica.org.

Good luck to you on your mission of the "Next Right," but I do think the Republican and Democratic labels are long, long dead.  And Goldwater and McCain are as different as night and day, and after Keating, Senator Goldwater did not have much good to say about Senator McCain - and that "general" information can be found online.

Oh, and there are many, many homeless veterans in Arizona now due to the support Senator McCain has for the illegals along with Ms. Napolitano, who was also my Governor for six, , and for which blame can be laid directly on his misrepresentation of Arizonans on this issue for years - so much so that Phoenix now has the distinction as the "Kidnapping Capitol of the World."

If any are interested in either the blog, or any further information on the fractured party, Arizona is fundamental in what has occurred there, since Senator McCain really was not an Arizonan, but a politician who simply moved to Arizona after his marriage to an Arizona native.

Again, good luck on trying to change this beleagured party, but there is not a shred of true "Republicanism" left in it at this point, and has not been for quite some time.

As expected, and widely predicted even before the choice of Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court was announced, portions of the right wing have been engaging in their usual politics of personal destruction to distort Sotomayor’s record and engage in character assassination. In this case the right is actually divided. Some conservatives see attacks on Sotomayor as part of their grand strategy for 2012 of painting Obama as a leftist, and many other conservatives  just fall into character assassination as a Pavlovian response to any action from a Democrat.

In contrast, some conservatives realize that it is counter to their goal of receiving greater Hispanic support to someone who is probably the first Hispanic nominee. I wonder if any on the right are also beginning to realize the degree to which their reliance on the politics of personal destruction has backfired, with even many who might not vote against them based upon their beliefs now wishing to disassociate themselves with the Republican Party and conservative movement due to their unsavory tactics.

There is far too much material and too little time to quote everything of relevance here so I will try to choose some of the best links. A case such as this is an example of both the blogosphere at its worst and best. At worst the blogs permit the right wing echo chamber to repeat the same lies and distortions, allowing good conservative sheep to quickly learn which lies to repeat. At best the blogoshpere has quickly presented far more actual analysis than has been present in the news media.

To begin, The Scotus Blog has presented a summary of her decisions in posts here, here, and here. Her decisions have often been on narrow, technical grounds and only provide limited insight into her views on the types of issues considered by the Supreme Court (despite attempts by the right to mischaracterize her as having a far left record ). There are some favorable signs with respect to her views on First Amendment rights.

There are many blog posts responding to the character assassination from the right, such as from Adam Server here and here,  John Cole, Matthew Yglesias, Digby, Steve Benen, Chris Bowers (here and here), Nate Silver, Greg Sargent,  Media Matters,  Joan Walsh, Mahablog, and Ta Nehisi Coates. They include responses to some of the more prominent attacks from the right including distorted claims about her decisions being overturned, claims about her competence,  their rants against empathy, and statements taken out of context to claim she is racist or sexist.

Hopefully these links contain the facts with regards to all the falsehoods already being spread by the right wing noise machine–at least so far. The fiction writing ability of the right far exceeds their competence or principles, and we can expect many more comparable lies to be spread.

While conservatives quickly launched a smear campiagn full of misinformation on Sonia Sotomayor, it looks like it might already be fizzling out. There is no doubt that some right wing bloggers and talk radio propagandists will continue to repeat the same lies indefinitely. Those indocrinated in far right propaganda have a tough time shaking it off regardless of how much evidence is presented that they are wrong.  There are still some who claim that Obama isn’t a natural born American citizen and that there is some validity to the discredited claims of the Swift Boat Liars against John Kerry. There are also some signs of rationality as some conservatives realize that, barring some unexpected revelations, none of their false claims will be enough to prevent Sotomayor’s nomination from being approved.

The right wing attacks have been based on limited and distorted evidence and are so weak that even some conservatives are not able to go along. Some such as Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich are making claims that she is a racist–a claim which certainely takes a lot of chutzpah considering the record of the GOP. These claims were based upon taking a few lines out of context from a lecture given in 2001. The simple fact that claims of racism are based upon a single lecture from almost eight years ago should already raise some red flags as to the validity of the argument. Rod Dreher reviewed the statements which earlier had him thinking she was racist in context and conceded,  I was wrong about Sotomayor speech.

They have made an even weaker argument in dishonest claims that sixty percent of her cases were overturned by the Supreme Court. This argument is so deceitful that it might help open a few more eyes as to the dishonest tactics regularly employed by the right wing noise machine. They leave out the important facts that she only had five cases reviewed by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court typically reverses 75% of circuit court decisions that rules on. Having three cases reversed is hardly meaningful. This actually represents 2% of her total cases, far less than the 60% number misleadingly cited by the right.

The attackers also claimed that Sotomayor has a far more liberal record than she actually has. Her decisions have offen been based upon narrow technical grounds specific to the individual case  as opposed to ideology. The conservatives who have actually looked at her record are finding that she is far more centrist and far less ideological than they first heard. She has a very limited record with regards to abortion, and opponents of abortion rights found that her record was not what they expected. Steven Waldman wrote:

One has to assume Obama wouldn’t have appointed Sonia Sotomayor without some indication that she’s pro-choice but — based on very, very little information — I wonder if she might not end up being an abortion centrist.

First, in Center for Reproductive Law and Policy v. Bush, she actually ruled against the pro-choice group on Constitutional grounds.

Second, in Amnesty America v. Town of West Hartford, she ruled in favor of the rights of anti-abortion protestors.

Neither of these cases dealt with the merits of abortion. Nonetheless, it’s interesting that in the two cases we know of that related partly to abortion, she took the position that pro-life groups would have wanted (albeit for reasons unrelated to Roe v. Wade). At a minimum, these cases would seem to indicate that, if she is pro-choice, she didn’t let those views affect her view of the relevant law.

While some bloggers and right wing pundits will repeat any attack, the arguments are appearing to be too weak even for the Senate Republicans. Mike Allen reports that any Republican opposition to her is fizzling out quickly:

More than 24 hours after the White House unveiling, no senator has come out in opposition to Sotomayor’s confirmation.

“The sentiment is overwhelming that the Senate should do due diligence but should not make a mountain out of a molehill,” said a top Senate Republican aide. “If there’s no ‘there’ there, we shouldn’t try to create one.”

So far there is certainly no ‘there’ there in the accusations being fabricated by the right. The attacks upon Sotomayor are so weak, and so transparently false, that if they have any impact it should be to increase the backlash against the Republicans. It takes a certain amount of chutzpah for the Republicans to raise charges of racism against others and only their most hardcore supporters can even listen to such claims without chuckling at them. Maybe Joe Gandelman of The Moderate Voice is on to something and their attacks are being orchestrated by a mole out to further destroy the Republican Party:

In instance after instance since Obama’s 2008 election and the Democratic sweep of Congress, the GOP is proving itself to be not so much “stuck on stupid” as much as “stuck on preaching to its (already convinced) choir.” It seems oblivious to the fact that OTHER voters — from critically important ethnic and age demographics — need to be courted which means being at least partially on the same cultural wavelength. Today’s Republican party is seemingly Super-glued to the slash-and-burn, characterize and demonize conservative talk radio political culture.

It’s hard to imagine that a party that has problems with independent voters and Latino voters so going out of its way to repel voters it needs, unless there is a Democratic mole inside the GOP instigating these comments.

Calling her a racist will get lots of publicity but it’s going to drive many Hispanic voters away in droves. And so will the faces delivering this message: the well-fed, sizeable face of multi-millionaire private- jet-owner Limbaugh, sitting in front of his mike, and the very familiar face of Gingrich. Many Americans (who are not millionaires or who aren’t conservative Republicans) will look at and compare the two GOPers’ life narratives with that of Sotomayor. Even worse: many independent voters, Democrats who may not be enamored with Obama, and moderate Republicans have already distanced themselves from the GOP. This latest barrage at Sotomayor now clearly is part of a pattern: no matter what the issue, the GOP is responding now with demonization in attempts to stir up hot button resentments and/or political rage.

And even worse for the GOP: its unlikely to resonate among the younger voters the GOP will need to regain footing in the 21st century.

So, except for getting nods of approval and cries of “That’s the way, go get ‘em!” from Republicans, what gains will Republicans (via talk shows, Gingrich and weblogs) make in accusing Sotomayor of being a racist — except, rightfully or wrongfully, causing some on the fence to conclude that those Republicans raising the racism issue could perhaps be mistakenly talking about what they are seeing when they look in the mirror?

A mole might be the most rational explanation for the manner in which the Republicans persist in utilizing tactics which drive away rational voters, but unfortunately what we are seeing is the actual mindset of the conservative movement.

Barring any unexpected findings she will be easily confirmed. The manner of the right wing attacks are now one of the most  significant aspects of this story, considering that any pick would have been subjected to similar lies from the right wing. Their distortion of her judicial record is very similar to how the right typically distorts voting records, such as taking an up or down vote on an overall budget and then launching attacks based upon saying a Senator voted for or against a specific item in the budget.

In a democracy  it is an extremely serious issue when votes are being influenced not by the actual facts or serious discussion over different viewpoints but based upon repeated campaigns of distortion such as this. It is important for a democracy to work for the voters to be working from accurate information, not the misinformation regularly spread by the right. It would be both legitimate and healthy for the democratic process if conservatives responded to a nominee with an honest discussion of the areas where they disagreed. Instead they ignore her actual record, as they also do with political candidates, and launch attacks based upon fabrications created by distortions of the record and taking statements out of context.

Even thirty years after this controversial decision, the jury is still out on Roe v. Wade.

Decided in the early 70's, I remember well when the case was decided, as I had just completed high school.

For many, it was one of those days embedded in your brain due to it's reach and "precedent," along the lines of the day Kennedy was assassinated. A monumental moment in history, and now even in the 21st Century, the controversy still reigns.

When the decision was reached, it turned our country quite upside down and polarized.

Interestingly, historians and others who bring Roe to the forefront in political discussions and discourse, and of course at election time, fail to also mention that at the time Roe was decided, the Pill and other rather reliable methods of birth control were becoming more and more available.

Planned Parenthood had just opened it's doors to "free birth control" during this "free love" era, and AIDS was nothing more than someone's assistant. At the time it was decided, there were many states which did allow early abortions, since this also was the time when the "globalists" had started their scares about overpopulation, and the destruction of our planet.

It is now, of course, being resurrected by many of those former hippies, and capitalists types as the new scheme in which to become a millionaire before 35.

Seems out in California there is now a blend of "hippie capitalists." They don't mind being that dirty word "capitalists" so long as they are making their fortunes along environmentally friendly lines, and saving the planet from overpopulation is one of them.

Many of these left wing pro-choice activists believe in unrestricted access to abortion, such as third trimester partial birth abortions, including from all accounts the Democratic nominee. The defense has been with respect to that Illinois bill a fear that in supporting the partial birth ban it might overturn Roe v. Wade, and was worded incorrectly.

My understanding is that was what the Committees in the state legislatures were for, writing and reviewing laws for Constitutionality prior to bringing them to the floor, and Roe actually only addressed and upheld the right to first term abortions since those were already allowed in most of the states, for rape, health of the mother, and had been expanded for teen pregnancies so long as there was parental consent.

Hey, it's for the good of the planet, and expands the "free market" for the abortion clinics in the process.

For all the scare tactics the libs like to throw out every election about the "threat" of Roe being overturned if, horror of horrors, a conservative should get into office and further stack the Supreme Court, I have just one thing to say.......don't you think it's about time that decision was reviewed, and in the 21st Century now?

At this point throughout the country, we now have even the "Morning After" pill, for heaven sakes. Birth control pills now in many areas of the country can be obtained by even teens without their parent's consent, and due to the AIDS and other STDs epidemic, the use of contraceptives between committed or uncommitted couples has never been higher.

Isn't it about time we pulled the plug, at least, on second and third trimester abortions nationwide, except in the event of health risk to the mother or child in continuing the pregnancy?

Just what are you liberals afraid of, that in so doing we will go back to the dark ages, where abortions were performed in dark alleys with unsterilized equipment, when now there is even a pill that can abort during the first trimester?

I believe abortion should be restricted to the first trimester at this point in our history, and not simply for moral reasons but legal ones.

This was never a "right to privacy" issue to begin with, it was always a "right to life" issue, since if the founder's were not concerned with "life" they certainly wouldn't have based an entire document in order to secure "life, liberty and happiness" for "us and our posterity" if they were unconcerned with just what the "Creator" would think.

And it's pretty clear there is 10 Commandment law behind that Constitution, whether the atheists in this country wish to believe it or not. Those rights referred to as unalienable are acknowledged as "endowed by the Creator."  A Creator they clearly acknowledged.

Religious tolerance is actually a Christian doctrine, it is not a Jewish, Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist doctrine, and the freedom of religion provision was also provided in order to prevent a NATION-WIDE or "State" religion, such as they had experienced in England with the decades long fighting between the Catholics and the Protestants.

 "Loving thy neighbor," and the story of the Good Samaritan are examples of the scriptural basis upon which the "freedom of religion" provisions were meant to flesh out in our "new" government which had been denied them in England under the Church of England's dominance during the 18th Century.

Read Ben Franklin's speech when the Constitution was ratified, and he specifically alludes to the problems they were attempting to avoid by recognizing each individuals right to worship God according to their own understanding, and in their own way, without "nationalizing" a state religion such as in Britain and the Church of England, and in more recent history, Israel.

It does seem the founder's knew what they were doing, since even today those countries with "national" religions do seem to be engaged in much more strife, both internal and external, than others.

The problem that I do have with the far, far right wing evangelical Christians is their rather rigid interpretation of when life begins, since Jesus never truly addressed it.

Most pastors and members of the evangelical churches relate to the biblical passage of God "knowing you in your mother's womb." The problem I have with that is that adultery was a criminal matter in Jesus's time, and the punishment under the 10 Commandment law at the time was death by stoning.

If life truly begins at conception rather than viability, then God allowed innocent fetuses to be killed along with their mothers since I'm sure a great many of those adulteresses were pregnant.

It is also biblically clear that the first life God created, Adam, he did so by "breathing" life into dust, and that in then creating Eve, he clearly then gave them, not he, the gift of procreation by directing them to "go forth and multiply."

And it's also pretty darn clear that he intended children to be raised in two sex households optimally, since he didn't give us the ability to recreate independently of the other sex.

What is truly amazing to me is that for all the bravado of the "pro-choice" movement and those mostly liberals who even today with medical knowledge and technology the way it is, still cling to this decision as a benchmark of a candidates worthiness.

It is interesting that while the radical liberal element protest over global warming and how it is affecting the whales, polar bears, and other Arctic creatures, they were nowhere to be seen when Teri Schiavo was judicially literally starved and dehydrated to death for almost 14 days while she clung to life, breathing on her own, before dehydration of her vital organs caused her body to literally feed upon itself until her execution. 

She was also a practicing Catholic, and nowhere in the court documents does it appear her civil rights, and individual religious beliefs were even given any consideration during that entire multi-year fight over the removal of her feeding and hydration tubes.

The most painful type of death any human can experience ending in progressive organ shutdown, and a judge in this country so ordered it.

Her "right to life" without clearly artificial life support in its termination by fiat was nothing more than judicially sanctioned murder.

Better watch out, liberals, since your definition of "pro-choice" and "freedom" sounds more like Germany, circa World War II.

It would seem that listening to the right people is crucial now for the Republican party--or, really, conservatives.   Much of the mainstream, mostly printed and telvised media is constantly saying that only a broader, open, more liberal Republican Party will be a winning Republican party.  A few things are problematic about this assesment. 

For one, listening to the other side is only a good idea if they don't know your listening.  How many times does James Carville go out on CNN and talk about his new 40yr book and actually give advice to conservatives that will help them?

Secondly, liberals will always be better liberals than conservatives.  Becoming like the winners if often a good idea, but not when it compromises who you are and what you stand for.  The liberals won big on a liberal platform, so becoming more liberal only means that conservatives will be the second best bunch of liberals out there.  Or, they will be irrelevent.  Maybe they seem irrelevent now, but standing up for what you believe in, articulately presenting alternatives to President Obama's liberalism, and waiting for it to go wrong--since as a conservative you believe it will indeed go wrong--is much better than becoming redundant.  

Finally, along the same lines, the type of Republican we are being advised to be looks just like our last candidate.  Senator McCain was beaten badly, and did not manage (I realize it was too soon to fully do this anyway) to seperate himself from President Bush.  The "more liberal" Republican got pounded.  Yet, we are constantly encouraged to emulate something like the McCain campaign if we want to continue the life of the GOP.  This doesn't make any sense.  (Morover, if you consider that fact the McCain was even somewhat close in an election following a historically unpopular President, two wars, a rapidly falling economy and a huge media push towards Obama, it stands to reason that the American people aren't as liberal as the last election made them appear to be.  A combination of bad luck [the economy], really bad communication, and some dishonest Republicans had a lot more to do with Obama's win than a huge liberal revolution). 

Republicans--conservatives--need to clearly and compellingly communicate conservative principles, principles with which the American people still identify, despite thier current hope in President Obama.  If conservatives belive they are right on the issues, like the economy, then they must also believe that the President's policies will fail, will hurt the country, and that the American people will recognize this and look for an alternative.  The alternative should be the party that has been offering smart, practical, persuasive ideas the whole time.