Part two of ThinkProgress’ profiles of right-wing groups that are taking advantage of the Citizens United ruling to flood the airways with independent attack ads. See Part 1 here.

American Crossroads is an independent expenditure-only Super PAC.

Created in 2010, American Crossroads claims a “deep love for all that America represents – and a deep concern about the direction we are headed in” and says its vision its vision is that “our country is always at its best when its citizens—not self-serving politicians in Washington—are in control of its future.” It has raised more than $40 million already this cycle and spent at least $11.5 million on independent expenditures.

American Crossroads was co-founded by former George W. Bush campaign architect Karl Rove and Mitt Romney campaign adviser and former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie. The group’s president, Stephen Law, is a former chief legal officer and general counsel for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Mike Duncan, chairman of American Crossroads, is a former Republican National Committee Chairman.

One of the group’s top donors, Crow Holdings, is led by Harlan Crow, who made ethically questionable payments to the wife Justice Clarence Thomas and provided gifts to Thomas himself

Watch a sample American Crossroads ad:

Affiliates:

• Crossroads GPS, a 501(c)(4) organization
• Crossroads Generation, a Super PAC aimed at younger voters

YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/AmericanCrossroads
Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/americanxroads

Graphics by Adam Peck. Christina Lewis and Ellie Sandmeyer contributed to this report

Special Operations Speaks, a new right-wing political action committee comprised of three former special operations officers, is doubling down on the Romney campaign’s latest false claim that President Obama is suing to prevent members of the military from voting early in Ohio.

Here is an excerpt from an email the group sent to its listserv early this morning:

If you haven’t already heard, Obama’s campaign has just filed a lawsuit in Ohio to restrict military voting. In Ohio, there is a law that allows the public to vote early in-person up until the Friday before the election. Members of the military are given three extra days to vote early. The Obama campaign is suing to strike down this part of the law, claiming that there is “no discernible rational basis” for why military members are allowed extra time to vote.

The facts are apparently of little concern to Special Operations Speaks. As ThinkProgress has documented, the allegation is a flat-out lie. A 2005 Ohio law introduced in-person early voting for all Ohio residents who are legally eligible to vote, allowing them to cast their ballots beginning the Friday prior to election day. Earlier this year, the Republican legislature repealed that law for everyone except active duty military personnel. The Obama administration’s lawsuit isn’t aimed at ending early voting for those military members, but restoring it for everyone else.

In fact, by repealing the 2005 law, Republicans in Ohio succeeded in restricting the voting rights of 900,000 veterans in the state, as well as the elderly and disabled, groups that all benefit from avoiding the long lines of Election Day.

The Romney campaign has sought to deflect criticism of it’s false attacks by pointing to a dozen military and veterans groups that have called for a judge to dismiss the Obama administration’s lawsuit, but if Special Operations Speaks is at all indicative of the premise on which these groups are basing their complaints, it’s unclear how many of these groups know what

Amgen, a biotechnology firm with approximately 17,000 employees, joined 30 other companies today that have broken ties with the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council. ALEC provides “model” legislation, often drafted by industry lobbyists, to state lawmakers with the intention of having those model bills be enacted into law. Although ALEC recently eliminated a task force that pushed voter suppression laws and the so-called “Stand Your Ground” laws that played a significant role in the aftermath of the Trayvon Martin shooting, the conservative group remains committed to other priorities such as repealing minimum wage laws, eliminating capital gains and estate taxes, and blocking safeguards that protect children from eating rat poison.

Other companies that have broken ties with ALEC in the wake of a progressive campaign exposing its connection to Stand Your Ground and voter suppression laws include Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Kraft, McDonalds, Wendy’s, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Procter & Gamble, Amazon.com, Wal-Mart, Johnson & Johnson, Dell Computers, Best Buy, General Motors and Walgreens.

One Louisiana school is dealing with the state’s high rates of teen pregnancy by taking an “out of sight, out of mind” approach. No pregnant students are welcome at Delhi Charter School in Delhi, Louisiana — a policy that the institution enforces by requiring students who are “suspected” of being pregnant to submit to a mandatory pregnancy test.

If students are pregnant, they are no longer allowed to attend classes on the school’s campus and will be forced to either switch to another school or begin a home school program. If a student refuses to take the test, she is “treated as a pregnant student” and also kicked out of Delhi Charter School, according to the student handbook:

If an administrator or teacher suspects a student is pregnant, a parent conference will be held. The school reserves the right to require any female student to take a pregnancy test to confirm whether or not the suspected student is in fact pregnant. The school further reserves the right to refer the suspected student to a physician of its choice. If the test indicates that the student is pregnant, the student will not be permitted to attend classes on the campus of Delhi Charter School.

If a student is determined to be pregnant and wishes to continue to attend Delhi Charter School, the student will be required to pursue a course of home study that will be provided by the school…Any student who is suspected of being pregnant and who refuses to submit to a pregnancy test shall be treated as a pregnant student and will be offered home study opportunities. If home study opportunities are not acceptable, the student will be counseled to seek other educational opportunities.

The American Civil Liberties Union points out that Dehli Charter School’s discriminatory policy for pregnant students is “in blatant violation of federal law and the U.S. Constitution.” On Monday, the ACLU of Louisiana and the ACLU Women’s Rights Project sent a letter to the school asking it to suspend its policy, on the grounds that New Delhi Charter School’s unfair treatment of its pregnant students violates the following laws:

• Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, for excluding students from educational programs based on sex.
• The Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution, for treating female students differently than their male peers, as well as stereotyping “suspected” pregnant studies on the basis of their gender.
• The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment that recognizes the right to procreate as well as the right to decide whether to terminate a pregnancy, for targeting students in a way that appears to stigmatize pregnancy.

Aside from its unconstitutional premise, the charter school’s policy toward pregnant students is also furthering a serious education gap between teen mothers and the young women who do not have unplanned pregnancies. Thirty percent of all teen girls who drop out of high school cite pregnancy as the main reason. And a full 70 percent of teenage girls who give birth end up leaving school — although if New Delhi Charter School had its way, that statistic might be closer to 100 percent.

Three days after a gunman massacred twelve people during a screening of the latest Batman film, the nation’s largest gun lobby mailed a nationwide fundraising letter warning of an implausible government conspiracy to seize firearms:

“The future of your Second Amendment rights will be at stake,” the letter said. “And nothing less than the future of our country and our freedom will be at stake.” . . .

The solicitation letter says that Obama’s re-election would result in the “confiscation of our firearms” and potentially a “ban on semi-automatic weapons.” The suspect in the Aurora, Colorado killings, 24-year-old James Holmes, had four semi-automatic weapons at the theater, police said.

For the record, gun rights have actually expanded under President Obama. The most significant guns legislation he signed was a law allowing people to carry guns in national parks. And Obama has stubbornly refused to support new gun regulations even in the wake of three mass shootings — Tucson, Aurora and the recent Sikh temple shooting — that occurred on his watch.

These facts have done nothing to temper the NRA’s rhetoric, however. Indeed, NRA head Wayne LaPierre claimed last year that Obama’s entire record of keeping his distance from the guns issue is “all part of a massive Obama conspiracy to deceive voters and hide his true intentions to destroy the Second Amendment in our country.”