Colorado’s Senate candidate Ken Buck (R) offered several nuggets of wisdom concerning his policy positions this year. On reproductive rights: “I don’t believe in the exceptions of rape or incest” for abortion procedures. On religious freedom: “I disagree strongly with the concept of separation of church and state.” And on climate change: “Global warming is the greatest hoax.”

During a debate with his Democratic opponent Michael Bennet last week, Buck announced another firm view on a salient policy issue: the Afghanistan war. Believing “we have the wrong policy in Afghanistan” and that “it is a mistake to set a timetable to tell your enemy when you’re leaving,” Buck outlined his three “goals” for the region. The first goal, he said, is to make Afghanistan as safe as the terrorist safe havens in Somalia and Yemen:

BUCK: The first thing I think we need to do is to make sure that Afghanistan is not a safe haven for terrorists. And when I say safe haven, I’m not talking about that there isn’t a possibility of a terrorist in Afghanistan. I’m saying that when you look at other countries similarly situated — Somalia, Yemen, other countries — that Afghanistan is at least as safe as those countries.

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Buck’s standard is certainly perplexing considering that the terrorist activity in Somalia and Yemen practically make them the antonym of “safe haven.” With “no effective government” in place, Somalia has long been an “attractive location for terrorists,” including al Qaeda members.

More than 1.5 million Somalians “have been displaced as a direct result of the terrorist activities.” Yemen is also “a major new battleground for al-Qaeda.” Beginning with the suicide bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, the burgeoning al-Qaeda franchise in Yemen has executed a series of terrorist attacks that put it “at the forefront of the next wave of jihad.” As if to underscore the point, the same week Buck dubbed Yemen a model example, the U.S. uncovered a terrorist plot involving packages containing explosives on U.S.-bound cargo planes originating from Yemen.

Yesterday, ThinkProgress noted the anti-Constitution stance taken by the Republican Senate candidate in Colorado Ken Buck, who said that “I disagree strongly with the concept of separation of church and state.” The story quickly gained mainstream media attention.

Spokespeople for the Buck campaign insist that the comments were “taken out of context,” and Buck gave an interview to CNN yesterday to defend his comments:

BUCK: My problem isn’t with separation of church and state. It is with how far we have gone in that area. I think when you have a soup kitchen for example that is run by the Salvation Army which has religious ties in town and you have another soup kitchen in town which is purely secular. For the federal government to give one organization money but not the other because one has ties with a religious group is wrong. The idea is that we need to have compassionate programs for people. And if religious organizations are performing some of those functions without proselytizing then I think the federal government should include both.

Buck’s comments were not taken out of context. The original post included the entirety of his comments on the separation of church and state. A video of his entire answer — which was not about the First Amendment, but rather the government’s role in preserving culture — can be found here. As Denver Post columnist Mike Littwin observed, noting Buck’s recent attempt to take back comments he made about global warming, the campaign’s “default position” is “that whenever Buck is quoted as saying something he wished he hadn’t said, he must not have actually meant it.” (As the Wonk Room noted, Buck also said he wanted to privatize Social Security, then insisted that he didn’t.)

Moreover, much like the deceit in his original comments, which falsely suggested that Obama renamed the White House Christmas tree, Buck is completely wrong with his Salvation Army example. According to their 2010 Annual Report, the Salvation Army received over $392 million in government funds last year. They are simply not allowed to use that money to proselytize, exactly as Buck recommends should be done, but certainly can use it to provide “compassionate programs” for people.

Buck has consistently said that the government has “gone too far” with the separation between church and state, yet he’s been unable to give a valid example. Perhaps he’s misinformed about current federal policy and would find it satisfactory. Alternately, perhaps he would like the government to get much more actively involved in promoting religion, but is afraid to give real examples of what that would look like.

During a debate last week, Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell (R-DE) repeatedly questioned whether the First Amendment laid out a separation between church and state. “That’s in the First Amendment…?” she asked her Democratic opponent, sending the crowd into fits of laughter.

GOP Senate candidate in Colorado Ken Buck is less equivocal about his view. At a forum for GOP Senate candidates late last year, Buck said that he “disagree[d] strongly with the concept of separation of church and state,” and that “it was not written into the Constitution,” and then went on to rip President Obama for supposedly getting rid of the White House Christmas tree:

I disagree strongly with the concept of separation of church and state. It was not written into the Constitution. While we have a Constitution that is very strong in the sense that we are not gonna have a religion that’s sanctioned by the government, it doesn’t mean that we need to have a separation between government and religion. And so that, that concerns me a great deal. So I think there are cultural differences, I think there, we are as strong as we, our culture, our culture gives us our strength, I guess is the best way to put that. And, and I am worried about the fact that we seem to be walking away from culture. And, and one thing that President Obama has done that I would certainly speak about is calling the Christmas tree, which has historically been called a Christmas tree in Washington DC, a holiday tree. It’s just flat wrong in my mind.

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Needless to say, while the Constitution doesn’t contain the exact words “separation of church and state,” legal scholars and the courts agree it does prohibit the establishment or endorsement of religion, and that the involvement Buck wants is dangerous. As Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote in a concurring opinion in 1984, the government is prohibited from “making adherence to a religion relevant in any way to a person’s standing in the political community.” In 1801, Thomas Jefferson wrote that “religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God,” and argued the Constitution required “building a wall of separation between Church & State.”

Also, Buck’s charge about Obama and the White House Christmas tree doesn’t rise above the level of a crude viral e-mail hoax: or in the words of FactCheck.org, “hooey.”

Colorado Republican Senate candidate Ken Buck, like his endorser Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), believes “global warming is the greatest hoax that has been perpetrated.” Buck is part of the Tea Party army storming the U.S. Congress this November that believes the overwhelming scientific consensus about the threat of fossil fuel pollution is a conspiracy. On Wednesday, Buck toured the state with Inhofe, whom he celebrated as “the most conservative senator in the U.S. Senate.” Meeting with supporters, Buck said the “evidence just keeps supporting” Inhofe’s senseless conspiracy theory:

Sen. Inhofe was the first person to stand up and say this global warming is the greatest hoax that has been perpetrated. The evidence just keeps supporting his view, and more and more people’s view, of what’s going on.

In reality, the year 2010 is in the course of becoming the hottest year in recorded history, with Zambia the 18th nation this year to reach an all-time record high.

In their joint appearance in Longmont, CO, Inhofe explained whom he and Buck will be fighting for — corporate lobbyists:

I never dreamed that we would end up with someone in the White House with a huge majority that would attack every institution that made America great. Right before we broke for this recess I had in my office five groups of people. One was a group that was the insurance industry, one was the fiscal industry, one was the military — the defense contractors — one was the energy industry, and of course, the health care industry. Each one of those groups thought they were being targeted.

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“I came out here because I’m lonely,” Inhofe said. “Ranked the most conservative senator? That’s right. But we’ve got a lot more coming in, more than any other election in the history of this country.”

Last month, ThinkProgress released a video of Colorado Senate nominee Ken Buck (R) calling for privatizing Veterans Administration (VA) hospitals during a local Tea Party meeting in June. The Buck campaign at first stuck to its guns, choosing to reiterate the nominee’s belief that the market would do a better job running VA hospitals than the public sector. Soon after, several Buck campaign spokespersons claimed that the candidate never even hinted at privatizing VA hospitals.

During an appearance this Sunday on Face The Nation, the candidate once again said he was “in favor” of allowing the private sector to operate VA hospitals. When host Bob Schieffer asked Buck if he is in favor of privatizing the VA, the candidate first claimed, “You’re getting the Democrats’ talking points.” But when Schieffer gave Buck the chance to fully explain his position on VA hospitals, he explained that he thinks “the private sector runs operations like hospitals better than the government” and that he’d be “in favor of doing something like that”:

SCHIEFFER: Let me ask you about something else in the papers out there. At one point, you were over to turning hospitals in the VA over to the private sector, is that what you said?

BUCK: You’re getting the Democrats’ talking points —

SCHIEFFER: These come from newspapers, but I want to hear your side of it. Obviously that’s why I asked.

BUCK: Sure. What I said is what I was asked a question about the VA and I said if we could improve the quality and care for veterans by outsourcing some of the functions such as outsourcing a VA hospital I would be in favor of doing that. And I think that it’s important also as part of that answer, I think that we have to look at the costs. The costs can’t come out of the veterans pocket, the cost would come out of the government. But I think the private sector runs operations like hospitals better than the government, if we can reduce the deficit and increase the quality of care for veterans I’m in favor of doing something like that.

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It should be noted that the VA hospital system — our one “true island of socialized medicine” — is world-renowned for its high quality of providing public, not-for-profit care for America’s veterans. A head-to-head comparison in 2003 between Medicare patients who were free to choose their own private doctors and veterans who were covered by the Veterans Health Administration, the New England Journal of Medicine found the latter “significantly better” on all 11 measures of quality. In addition, a 2006 survey found that veterans are significantly more satisfied with their care than civilians who received private care.

A whole host of Republican congressional candidates and lawmakers — including former Rep. Pat Toomey (R-PA) — have tried to run away from their support for Social Security privatization, denying that they favor such a move (despite continuing to call for the creation of personal Social Security accounts). Last night, Colorado’s Republican Senate candidate Ken Buck became to latest to deny that his privatization plan would actually privatize the system:

“I’ve never said we should privatize Social Security,” [Buck] told [Sen. Michael] Bennet, whose committee has made that accusation against Buck in television ads.

Contrary to his assertion, Buck has been a full-throated supporter of privatization, saying, “we’ve got to peg Social Security to individuals so those individuals have the ability perhaps to invest in various funds that are approved by the government. But those individuals also own that fund.” In fact, Buck has questioned whether the federal government should have any role in a retirement plan at all, saying “the idea the federal government should be running health care or retirement or any of those programs is fundamentally against what I believe and that is that the private sector runs programs like that far better.” As The Wonk Room explained, Buck’s claim that his plan would limit investments to safe, government approved funds, is also dubious.

Yesterday, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) made the extraordinary demand that every single piece of legislation in the Senate would be blocked by his office unless it had been preapproved by his own staffers. As Roll Call reported, “Democratic and Republican aides alike were stunned, arguing that DeMint had essentially made a unilateral decision to end legislative activity in the Senate.”

At a fundraiser for Republican Senate candidate Ken Buck yesterday afternoon, ThinkProgress interviewed several GOP Senators about DeMint’s move to singlehandedly take control of the chamber. DeMint himself told us that his crop of candidates, like Buck, would support his efforts if they are elected to the Senate. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), the chairman of the GOP committee tasked with electing more Republican Senators, did not find anything wrong with DeMint’s undemocratic move to seize control of Congress. Asked about DeMint’s unilateral power grab, Cornyn simply smiled and said that he “certainly think[s] it’s a good idea” because it would give more time for lawmakers to review bills:

TP: I have a quick question about Senator DeMint. What do you think about his unilateral hold of all the bills in the Senate before they’re reviewed by a member of his staff.

CORNYN: Well, I think it’s important for every member of the Senate to review legislation before it passes by unanimous consent. There’s a lot of garbage that gets through that should be stopped, certainly ought to be reviewed. I certainly think it’s a good idea to look at it, to read it, know what we’re voting on before it passes.

TP: But what do you think about the leadership structure if just one member can hold up the entire Congress essentially, one member could just have a whim and shut everything down, right?

CORNYN: Well, what creates the pressure is, we’re at the tail end of the session. A lot of people like Senator Reid, Speaker Pelosi want to get out of town and a lot of folks want to go and campaign. A lot of this stuff should have been taken care of earlier in the year.

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Cornyn appears to be weary about picking fights with DeMint. Earlier this year, DeMint publicly challenged Cornyn’s power as the head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee and declared that he would be picking his own ultra-conservative candidates to run for office. For instance, Cornyn funneled money to his own candidate in Colorado, Jane Norton, who later lost to DeMint’s candidate, Ken Buck. While Cornyn initially tried to support his own candidates, he was eventually steamrolled by DeMint’s allies in the Club for Growth, a Wall Street front group, FreedomWorks, and other lobbyist-controlled conservative organizations.

As ThinkProgress’ Ian Millhiser wrote in a post yesterday, DeMint can get away with this stunt because the Senate’s rules are ripe for abuse. By exploiting the rules, DeMint can force up to 60 hours of uninterrupted debate before a final vote. Using this tactic, DeMint can require over two and a half years to deliberate just the 372 bills already passed by the House since August. “In other words,” Millhiser explained, “there is simply not enough time to get more than a fraction of the Senate’s business done if a minority is determined to do everything they can to block progress.” Regardless of national security interests, national emergencies, or really any matter confronted by Congress, DeMint wields ultimate power — while Cornyn and the GOP leadership is too afraid to stand up to him.