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Election

Former GOP Congresswoman Blasts New GOP Women’s Caucus: ‘They’re Not Voting In Best Interest Of All Women’

By Josh Israel on May 26, 2012 at 8:30 am

Former Rep. Claudine Schneider (R-RI)

Former Rep. Claudine Schneider (R-RI)

Former Rep. Claudine Schneider (R) was the first — and only — woman to represent Rhode Island in Congress. Over five terms in the House (from 1981 to 1991), she helped pass key environmental, health, and gender-equity laws, including the Economic Equity and the Pension Equity Acts. Like former Sen. John Danforth (R-MO) and former Rep. Connie Morella (R-MD), Schneider told ThinkProgress there is no longer a place for centrists like herself in the modern Republican Party:

THINKPROGRESS: Why do you think today’s Republican Congresswomen are so much less progressive on issues relating to women’s health and safety?

SCHNEIDER: Because they are afraid of losing in the primaries. The have drunk the Kool-Aid that makes them think it is more important to win, than to do what is right by ending discrimination. The conservatives have co-opted the primaries and in order to win, they appear to do whatever it will take. Clearly, based on [the voting records of the 24 current Republican Congresswomen], they are NOT voting in the best interest of all women and men, because when women lose (on fair pay, etc.) families lose!

THINKPROGRESS: Would you have felt at home in the Women’s Policy Committee with these 24?

SCHNEIDER: Not at all! Congress is elected to represent all of the people in one’s district, to begin, one’s state, country and the world. As a Congresswoman, my job was not to represent my Party or my contributors. My job was to vote for the “good of the whole.”

Schneider says that there is “obviously not” a room for centrist women in today’s Republican Party, noting that “moderates have been pushed out in every primary” or retired to avoid being bullied by leadership. President Ronald Reagan, she claims, “would be embarrassed” by what has happened to the party. She is “disappointed and sad that the Republican women have chosen to form the Women’s Policy Committee to divide and fracture the Congress further. It is only by working together that the Congress can be effective … This is merely posturing so that the Republican party might stop hemorrhaging the women’s vote.”

NEWS FLASH

Arkansas GOP Nominates House Candidate Who Called For Jailing NY Times Journalists | On Tuesday, the Arkansas Republican Party nominated Tom Cotton as their candidate to replace retiring Blue Dog Mike Ross. Cotton became a minor celebrity in the right-wing blogosphere after he penned a letter in 2006 calling for two Pulitzer Prize winning reporters and the New York Times‘ executive editor to be thrown “behind bars” for publishing a story about a Treasury Department program to disrupt terrorist organization’s finances. Since President Obama took office, Republicans have taken to campaigning on outlandish claims that they are the sole protectors of our Constitution. Before Cotton takes up this strategy, however, he might want to familiarize himself with the following words: “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” [HT: Adam Serwer]

Justice

Iowa’s GOP Platform Endorses Birtherism

By Annie-Rose Strasser on May 22, 2012 at 10:35 am

The state’s GOP released its platform on Monday, and the document is full of some of the most far-reaching, Tea Party-inspired policy proposals ever introduced into mainstream politics, including a call to investigate the citizenship of any presidential candidate. Here is a round up of the top five most notably far-right ideas from the document:

1. BIRTHERISM: Under the section entitled ‘Elections,’ the Iowa GOP uses non-specific language to hint at the idea that President Obama was not born in the United States. The section reads:

We insist that a candidate prove that he or she meets all requirements for that office prior to being placed in nomination, including proof of United States citizenship.

2. GETTING RID OF GOVERNMENT: The platform proposes the elimination of 16 federal departments and agencies — despite the fact that throughout the rest of the document they call on these particular agencies to enact or repeal certain policies:

We support the elimination of the departments of Agriculture, Education, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Energy, Interior, Labor, and Commerce as well as TSA, FDA, ATF, EPA, National Endowment for the Arts, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac.

3. INVESTIGATING ACORN: The Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) came up a lot during the 2008 election, because it was a ‘radical‘ group that ran voter turnout for President Obama. Critics — and apparently the Iowa GOP — believe that Obama ‘stole’ the election using ACORN. Despite the fact that ACORN no longer exists, the Iowa platform calls for an investigation:

We call for a full investigation of the organization formerly known as ACORN and its allied organizations, call for full prosecution of those involved in any illegalities discovered, and call for elimination of government funding of such organizations.

4. AGENDA 21: While most think of Agenda 21 as a global sustainable development campaign, there is a long-running conspiracy theory that the UN effort is actually a plan for world-dominating government entity. The Iowa GOP has included this theory as well:

We demand that the term “sustainable development” be defined, vetted, and controlled by county and state agricultural agencies whose private property it impacts rather than the UN, other international or Agenda 21 agencies, or any federal organization.

5. NULLIFICATION: The platform takes the stance of ‘nullification’– that any state, under the 10th amendment, can choose to side-step federal law because they deem it unconstitutional. The platform also takes the stance that they can ignore Supreme Court rulings under the 10th amendment:

We support constitutional state sovereignty including nullification of federal oversteps.

We disagree with Roe vs. Wade and Doe vs. Bolton as “settled law.” Under the Tenth amendment, these Supreme Court decisions have no authority over the states.

Politics

WATCH: Strategist Behind Proposed Reverend Wright Attack Ad Has Long History Of Race-Baiting

By Annie-Rose Strasser on May 17, 2012 at 11:35 am

GOP Strategist Fred Davis

A group of GOP strategists is planning to pull out all the stops — including racism — in its campaign strategy to defeat President Obama, the New York Times reported today.

The Times obtained a proposal, crafted by race-baiting GOP media consultant Fred Davis, that says the group will go after Obama for his relationship to Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s former pastor who has come under fire for controversial race-related comments.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) steered clear of these attacks during the 2008 election — even suspending a staffer who tweeted out a Wright video — much to the chagrin of Davis and his associates, who include Chicago Cubs owner/ TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts.

Davis’s proposal makes clear that no holds will be barred this time around, and that Rev. Wright will be prominently featured. According to the article, the group is seeking as “a spokesman an ‘extremely literate conservative African-American’ who can argue that Mr. Obama misled the nation by presenting himself as what the proposal calls a ‘metrosexual, black Abe Lincoln.’”

Davis, it turns out, has a long history of making ads that evoke racism, xenophobia, or general aversions to anything “other” or “different.” Here are his top three ads in that vein:

Alabama’s English-Only Governor: Fred Davis helped with Tim James’s gubernatorial bid, during which he ran this dog-whistle xenophobic, racist ad.

Read more

Politics

Former Republican Senator Hagel Says Reagan Would Not Identify With Modern GOP

By Josh Israel on May 14, 2012 at 7:00 pm

Former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE)

Former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE)

Last week, former Sen. John Danforth (R-MO) told ThinkProgress that his party was becoming “increasingly inconsequential” and “intolerant” following the defeat of veteran Sen. Dick Lugar (R-IN). Now, former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) has also taken aim at his party for its ideological extremism.

Hagel — who served two terms in the Senate, between 1997 and 2009 — told Foreign Policy magazine on Friday that the Republican Party “is in the hands of the right, I would say the extreme right, more than ever before.” He observed:

Reagan wouldn’t identify with this party. There’s a streak of intolerance in the Republican Party today that scares people. Intolerance is a very dangerous thing in a society because it always leads to a tragic ending. Ronald Reagan was never driven by ideology. He was a conservative but he was a practical conservative. He wanted limited government but he used government and he used it many times. And he would work with the other party. …

Now the Republican Party is in the hands of the right, I would say the extreme right, more than ever before. You’ve got a Republican Party that is having difficulty facing up to the fact that if you look at what happened during the first 8 years of the century, it was under Republican direction. …

The Republican Party is dealing with this schizophrenia. It was the Republican leadership that got us into this mess. If Nixon or Eisenhower were alive today, they would be run out of the party.

Hagel hopes the pendulum will eventually swing back to moderation for the GOP, but warned that it is unlikely to happen in this election, noting that “what latitude [Mitt] Romney has to shape the party as we go into the election is somewhat limited because of the primary he’s had to run.”

It again bears mentioning that like Lugar and Danforth, Hagel was himself a solid conservative in the Senate earning a lifetime 85 percent rating with the American Conservative Union. The fact that even solid conservatives like these men — or Reagan — are not conservative enough to fit in the modern Republican Party is an indication of just how far right the GOP has drifted.

NEWS FLASH

Greene County GOP Denounces Call For ‘Armed Revolution’ | A day after revelations of a March newsletter by the Greene County Republican Committee (GCRC) featuring a call for “armed revolution” should Republicans lose this November, that committee has denounced the column. In an open letter on the GCRC website, the committee’s chairman notes that the newsletter editor has since been replaced and that the committee denounces the author’s rhetoric and thinking, noting “While we believe this election is critical to the direction of the future of this great nation, we do not believe that if the results end up with the re-election of Barack Obama, that will necessitate what the author suggests.”

Health

GOP Freshman Breaks With His Party To Support Planned Parenthood Funding

By Amanda Peterson Beadle on May 9, 2012 at 3:51 pm

As another state has banned Planned Parenthood funding, Rep. Robert Dold (R-IL) introduced a bill to protect federal funds to Planned Parenthood. Dold, one of the few pro-choice Republicans in Congress, said today that he was pushing for the bill because of the importance of Title X family planning funds for women’s health:

We have seen several attempts to block funds and exclude health care providers from participating in the Title X program simply because they separately offer services beyond the scope of Title X. We should not discriminate against hospitals and organizations that provide access to basic, preventative, and in some cases life-saving services for so many underprivileged women through Title X.

Dold said he wants to “bring both sides together” in support of Planned Parenthood and health care for women, but it’s unclear how much support he will get. Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL), Energy and Commerce Oversight subcommittee chairman who launched an investigation into Planned Parenthood, told Politico that he did not understand why Dold’s bill was necessary because “there’s no discrimination against Planned Parenthood.”

In recent years, eight states have voted to block Planned Parenthood from receiving funds. And last year, the GOP-controlled House voted to prevent the women’s health organization from receiving Title X money. Dold was one of seven Republicans to break from their party, and he spoke out against the measure, saying it would be “shortsighted and would negatively impact the lives of women who depend on these health care services.”

But the need to protect women’s access to health care has not stopped other Republicans from defunding Planned Parenthood. Texas Republicans’ decision to cut Planned Parenthood out of the state’s Women’s Health Program endangered care for 130,000 women.

Justice

Local Republican Party Newsletter Suggests ‘Armed Revolution’ If President Obama Is Reelected

By Adam Peck on May 9, 2012 at 12:30 pm

The Greene County Republican Committee's March 2012 Newsletter

The Republican Party of Greene County in Virginia published their monthly newsletter in March and in it, the editor suggested an “armed revolution” will be necessary if President Obama is reelected in November:

We have before us a challenge to remove an ideologue unlike anything world history has ever witnessed or recognized. . . . The ultimate task for the people is to remain vigilant and aware ~ that the government, their government is out of control, and this moment, this opportunity, must not be forsaken, must not escape us, for we shall not have any coarse[sic] but armed revolution should we fail with the power of the vote in November.

The editor of the newsletter, listed as Ponch McPhee, is the latest Virginian to threaten violence towards the president or his administration. Just this week, Christopher Hecker was charged with a felony for threatening to kill the president and other officials, as well as bomb landmarks along the east coast.

The eight page newsletter features remarks from the chairman of the Greene County Republican Committee alongside contributions from fellow members, and is heavy on generic tea party talking points on President Obama, socialism and the liberal media.

The Secret Service, which is tasked with investigating all threats made against the president, wasn’t immediately available for comment on whether they have — or will — conduct a similar investigation into McPhee or the county committee.

Security

Conservative WSJ Columnist Blasts GOP Candidates For ‘Allowing The GOP To Be Painted As The War Party’

By Ali Gharib on Apr 16, 2012 at 10:00 am

Conservative Wall Street Journal commentator Peggy Noonan’s weekend column criticized the Republican presidential field just as the primary race seemed to be tilting inexorably toward a nomination for Mitt Romney. The former speechwriter for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush lit into the campaigns’ reliance on outside groups’ advertising, weak political organizing by some of the candidates, and the base’s criticisms of Romney from the right, all before discussing foreign policy at length and accusing the GOP of “itching for a fight” with Iran.

Lamenting that the candidates were trying to outdo each other on hawkishness toward Iran — sardonically painting the debate as whether to attack Iran on Monday, Wednesday or Thursday — Noonan suggested the primary campaigns seemed to push another war Americans don’t want:

Finally, in foreign affairs the Republican candidates staked out dangerous ground. They want to show they’re strong on defense. Fine, we should have a strong defense, the best in the world. But that is different from having an aggressive foreign policy stance, and every one of the GOP candidates, with the exceptions of Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman, was aggressive….

There was no room for discretion, prudence, nuance, to use unjustly maligned terms. There was no room for an expressed bias toward not-fighting. But grown-ups really do have a bias toward not-fighting.

They are allowing the GOP to be painted as the war party. They are ceding all non-war ground to the president, who can come forward as the sober, constrained, non-bellicose contender. Do they want that? Are they under the impression America is hungry for another war? Really? After the past 11 years?

Indeed, a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll found that a majority of American oppose bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities. More than four in five Americans supporting direct diplomacy to make a deal with Iran, and more than six in ten supported giving sanctions and pressure more time to work.

Noonan is right to bring up the past 11 years: though Americans do show some support for military action, when asked in another poll last week about a potential conflict comparable in scope to the Iraq war — which, remember, was meant to be a “cakewalk” — support for an attack plummeted.

Presumptive GOP nominee Romney should pay attention to Noonan’s warnings: his foreign policy team is stacked with those who pushed hardest for war with Iraq and, more recently, have been pushing for military confrontation with Iran. (HT: Philip Weiss)

Climate Progress

How Exxon Mobil Finances The Republican Party

By Rebecca Leber on Apr 5, 2012 at 12:56 pm


The Senate minority who last week blocked a vote on ending Big Oil subsidies received more than four times the oil and gas contributions than the 51 senators voting to end them. Exxon Mobil, the world’s most profitable corporation, has helped preserve these and other loopholes for oil and gas by building a Washington force tied intimately to conservative lawmakers, Steve Coll reports in this week’s New Yorker. The corporation relies on an algorithm to determine tiers of oil industry allies and sent 90 percent of contributions to Republicans last year.

Lacking the same connections it had from the Clinton and Bush administrations, Exxon’s strategy has shifted in Washington to pursuing a “blocking strategy” that thwarts climate and tax reform legislation:

During both the Bush and the Obama Administrations, ExxonMobil has concentrated its efforts in Washington on preventing certain tax and regulatory bills from being enacted, such as Obama’s proposal, this winter, to strip away industry tax advantages. The corporation has invested mainly in a blocking strategy, focussing its PAC donations on Republicans who can try to assure that no damaging laws go through. “Whoever’s in power in the House has almost dictatorial power,” a Washington consultant who has worked on oil-industry issues says. “If you control what’s going on in the House, you have huge influence over the final” legislation, as well as over the budgets and spending mandates that shape regulation.”

In the past decade, the leading recipient of ExxonMobil PAC contributions has been Representative Joe Barton, a Republican from Texas, who has held senior positions on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, where most legislation affecting the oil industry originates. Anne Northup, a former Republican congresswoman from Kentucky, who now serves on the Consumer Product Safety Commission, received the second largest amount of campaign money. ExxonMobil’s ten leading campaign contribution recipients in that decade were all House Republicans, according to research done by the journalist Ann O’Hanlon.

Exxon is the largest political contributor in the oil and gas industry, spending nearly a million so far in the 2012 election cycle and another $12.7 million in 2011; it also funds corporate front group American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). The strategy has paid off for Exxon, which made 35 percent higher profits last year on higher gas prices, yet paid a lower federal tax rate of an estimated 13 percent.

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