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Politics

The 20 Craziest Tweets From The Man Who Could Be Virginia’s Next Lt Governor

By Scott Keyes on May 23, 2013 at 12:57 pm

GOP nominee for Virginia Lieutenant Governor E.W. Jackson (Credit: AP)

If you were to put the dregs of conservative Internet comment sections into a pot, boil them down to their essence, then run the resulting product through a sieve to get it to its rawest, most pure form of vitriol, it would probably look something like E.W. Jackson’s Twitter feed.

Through much of President Obama’s first term, Jackson, who was nominated this past weekend as the Republican nominee for Virginia Lieutenant Governor, used his Twitter feed to attack gays, Muslims, Obama, and even Michael Jackson.

After reading through each of his 662 tweets, here are Jackson’s 20 most vitriolic tweets (in no particular order):

Homophobia


Islamophobia



Read more

Justice

Virginia GOP Nominee Says Federal Disaster Relief Is Unconstitutional

By Ian Millhiser on May 22, 2013 at 4:20 pm

(Credit: AP)


Bishop E.W. Jackson, the Republican nominee to be the next Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, does not believe that victims of the Oklahoma tornado should receive any federal aid to help them rebuild their lives. In video from a previous campaign first posted by Right Wing Watch, Jackson claims that federal relief to disaster victims is unconstitutional:

JACKSON: I don’t think that the federal government has much of a role at all constitutionally, at all [in disaster relief]. Now, you may make an argument that it does. You might argue that it’s a national security issue you might argue that it weakens us in the event of some sort of national military emergency. So you can make an attenuated argument. But I think that as a constitutional matter the federal government doesn’t have a whole lot to do with that. In my view, these are things that are ultimately supposed to be handled by the states. And, so, we’ve got a big Tenth Amendment problem in our country. . . . We’ve turned the federal government into a kind of god.

Watch it:

Disaster relief is not an attempt to steal power from God. To the contrary, it is the just response of a nation sensitive to the lesson of 1 John 3:17, which reads that “if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?”

It is also entirely consistent with the Constitution. The Constitution gives the United States broad authority to “lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.” Ensuring that all Americans can rebuild their lives in the wake of a major national disaster is a classic example of using federal revenues to provide for the general welfare.

While Jackson’s view of the Constitution is wrong, it is not surprising giving the range of unusual views he’s expressed in the past. Jackson believes that Planned Parenthood is “more lethal to black lives than the KKK ever was.” He thinks that the original Constitution’s Three-Fifths Clause, which gave slave states additional representation in the U.S. House by allowing them to count 60 percent of their slave population when congressional seats were apportioned among the states, was “an anti-slavery amendment.” He accused Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) of faking his faith. And he believes that being gay “poisons culture, it destroys families, it destroys societies; it brings the judgment of God unlike very few things that we can think of.”

Justice

Virginia GOP Nominee: We Must ‘Stand For An End To The Hyphenated American’

By Scott Keyes on May 22, 2013 at 1:40 pm

Virginia Lt. Gov. nominee E.W. Jackson (R) (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

During the Tea Party’s uprising of 2009, E.W. Jackson, the controversial Republican candidate for Virginia Lieutenant Governor, founded a socially conservative organization named Staying True To America’s National Destiny (STAND).

Though the website has since been heavily scrubbed, a cached version from October 9, 2009 shows that Jackson’s group initially spelled out its “Top 7 Issues”. The second most important issue, he argued, was “to bring an end to the hyphenated American.” Jackson warned that by referring to oneself as Jewish-American or Hispanic-American, it comes “at the expense of our national unity.”

STAND FOR AN END TO THE HYPHENATED AMERICAN

It is time to bring an end to the hyphenated American. We have balkanized ourselves into islands of ethnocentrism: Italian-Americans, Irish-Americans, Jewish-Americans, Hispanic-Americans and African-Americans. We understand the desire of people to maintain a connection to their history and ancestry. That desire is legitimate, but not at the expense of our national unity. We are Americans with different ethnic backgrounds, but we are first and foremost Americans. Some of our forefathers came from Europe, some from Asia, India, the African continent and a host of nations around the world. If we restrict ourselves to our ethnic enclaves and ethnic identities, we deprive ourselves of the great benefits of the American experiment. It is about uniting a diverse group of people with a common love for freedom, democracy and the ideals of our nation. We are a family. We unite under one Constitution, one flag, and one common destiny. Without a single language, that ideal will become farther and farther from reality.

See a screenshot below:

Preventing Americans from acknowledging their ethnic heritage was so important to Jackson that it actually edged out abortion (3rd most important) and outlawing marriage equality (4th most important) in his list of top issues.

Jackson did deem one problem even more troubling than the hyphen, however. His number one issue was creating an “American History Month,” because “[w]e have Black History Month and Gay Pride Month, but these only serve to further balkanize us.”

Politics

Virginia GOP Nominee Thinks Harry Reid Is Just Pretending To Be A Mormon

By Scott Keyes on May 22, 2013 at 12:01 pm

Virginia Lt. Gov. nominee E.W. Jackson (R) (Credit: Associated Press)

Birtherism is passe these days, save for a few Onoda-esque holdouts. The new conspiracy, if E.W. Jackson gets his way: Harry Reid is faking his faith.

Jackson, a highly-controversial figure thrown into the limelight after Virginia Republicans nominated him to be their Lieutenant Governor nominee this past weekend, argued that Reid was just pretending to be a Mormon during an appearance on Glenn Beck’s TV show on October 18, 2012.

After Beck said he couldn’t understand how he and Reid can share the same religion yet have such different policy views, Jackson reasoned that the Senate Majority Leader must not actually believe his faith. “I think some of the people who claim to be Mormon or claim to be this or claim to be that, that’s all they’re doing. They’re just claiming,” Jackson said. “They don’t believe it or feel it in their hearts.”

BECK: How do you get people who are religious, who are decent people, just completely to divorce themselves of those principles in the voting booth? It’s like Harry Reid. I’m a Mormon, he’s a Mormon. I don’t understand, I’m sure he doesn’t understand me. I don’t understand how he can be for the things he is and do some of the things that he does and still say that he’s in good standing with the scripture, because it doesn’t work.

JACKSON: There’s a saying I’ve heard among ministers: “some are called and some were sent and some just got up and went.” I think some of the people who claim to be Mormon or claim to be this or claim to be that, that’s all they’re doing. They’re just claiming. It’s a head thing. It’s something they inherited. But they don’t believe it or feel it in their hearts.

Watch it:

Among Jackson’s other controversial statements: gays are “very sick,” Democrats are “more lethal to black lives than the KKK ever was,” and that President Obama has “Muslim sensibilities.“

Election

Cuccinelli Endorses Running Mate, But Won’t Defend Anything He’s Ever Said

By Josh Israel on May 21, 2013 at 2:09 pm

Virgnia GOP statewide nominees Ken Cuccinelli II, EW Jackson Sr., and Mark Obenshain

Virgnia GOP statewide nominees Mark Obenshain, Ken Cuccinelli II, and EW Jackson Sr. (Credit: Kyle Green/Roanoke Times)

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II (R), the Republican nominee for governor, endorsed his newly-nominated running mate, Bishop E.W. Jackson Sr., but refused to say whether he agreed with Jackson’s myriad controversial comments.

Cuccinelli told a crowd in Abingdon, VA on Monday that he wants Jackson, as Lt. Governor, breaking ties in the currently split Virginia Senate: “I don’t need to know what the subject matter that’s going to tie up 20-20 that the LG can vote on will be. I’m confident that we’re going to get the right vote every single time out of E.W. Jackson. So I’m glad he’s on this ticket, too.”

But in a statement to the Virginia Pilot, Cuccinelli also said he would not answer questions about his new running mate’s views. “We are not defending any of our running mates’ statements now or in the future,” he noted, adding “The people of Virginia need to get comfortable with each candidate individually.”

Given the panic and criticism from some Republicans over Jackson’s surprise victory at Saturday’s Republican Party of Virginia nominating convention, it is unsurprising that Cuccinelli wants to keep his running mate at arm’s length. But their arch-conservative views on key issues seem largely identical:

Jackson Cuccinelli
LGBT Rights Jackson opposes LGBT equality, claiming, “Homosexuality is a horrible sin, it poisons culture, it destroys families, it destroys societies; it brings the judgment of God unlike very few things that we can think of.” Cuccinelli opposes LGBT equality, claiming, “When you look at the homosexual agenda, I cannot support something that I believe brings nothing but self-destruction, not only physically but of their soul.”
Planned Parenthood Jackson has attacked Planned Parenthood, calling it “more lethal to black lives than the KKK ever was.” Cuccinelli has frequently attacked Planned Parenthood, accusing them of having an “open willingness to participate in human trafficking,” and has suggested the fact that abortion clinics in Virginia are in urban areas with large African American populations is an example of white racism.
Health care Jackson does not believe Virginia should comply with the Obamacare law, claiming, “Virginia is duty bound to DEFY NOT COMPLY with any federal encroachment on the rights and freedom of our people. Working families across the Commonwealth are disappointed that a Republican led General Assembly decided to COMPLY and NOT DEFY a law that will greatly hurt the economy and health care options affecting all Virginians.” After Cuccinelli’s failed challenge to Obamacare in federal court, he suggested Virginia might not need to comply with the law: “It’s not like there’s criminal penalties out there — it becomes a power struggle,” he noted, adding, “There have been periods of time when states have just thrown their hands up and said, ‘We’re not going to do this’… It’s still possible, but it’s outside the expected legal structure.
President Obama Jackson has attacked President Obama for having “Muslim sensibilities,” claiming Obama “sees the world and Israel from a Muslim perspective.” He called Obama an anti-Semite, blaming “his Muslim associations and his long period of mentorship under Jeremiah Wright.” Cuccinelli dabbled in birtherism in 2010, saying, “Someone is going to have to come forward with nailed down testimony that he was born in place B, wherever that is. You know, the speculation is Kenya. And that doesn’t seem beyond the realm of possibility.” He quickly backed down.

For his part, Jackson sees Cuccinelli as an ideological soul mate. In a March posting on his campaign website, entitled “Ken Cuccinelli Is Right,” he wrote: “As an American and a Virginian whose ancestors were deemed by some to be less than human, I am proud to stand with a man who has the courage to speak to our consciences. As the Republican nominee for Lieutenant Governor, I will be proud to help Ken Cuccinelli bring common sense values and governance to Richmond. If we are elected in November, KEN AND I WILL FIGHT FOR EVERY VIRGINIAN’S RIGHT TO LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.”

Health

If We Keep Criminalizing Abortions, Women Will Keep Being Treated Like Suspects

By Tara Culp-Ressler on May 21, 2013 at 1:25 pm

On Monday, ThinkProgress reported that a 2009 bill introduced by Virginia state Sen. Mark Obenshain (R) would have required women to report an instance of “fetal death” to the police within 24 hours if it did not occur in the presence of a doctor. The implication behind that type of measure is, of course, that law enforcement should double check to make sure that the women experienced a miscarriage rather than induced an illegal abortion. Obenshain, who is now the state’s Republican nominee for attorney general, ended up striking the proposed legislation after concerns about the undue burden it might place on women who miscarry.

But even though that bill didn’t become law back in 2009, there are still some situations in the state in which miscarriages are treated as potential crimes. In fact, the Virginian-Pilot reported on Tuesday that two women have been charged with “producing an illegal abortion” after one of them gave birth to a pre-term baby who died shortly after birth. Witnesses allege that they overhead the two women planning to buy drugs intended to end the pregnancy:

Jessica Renee Carpenter, 20, and her friend Rachael Anne Lowe, 27, each were charged with one count of producing an illegal abortion, which carries a sentence of two to 10 years. Each also was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit a felony.

According to a search warrant affidavit, Carpenter was 25 weeks pregnant — near the end of her second trimester — when she went to Bon Secours DePaul Medical Center in labor April 11. The baby died about 20 minutes after he was born.

Norfolk Child Protective Services received an anonymous call reporting that Carpenter had intended to end her pregnancy. Police interviewed three friends of both women, who said Carpenter and Lowe wanted to end Carpenter’s pregnancy and that they heard them talking about buying items from a drugstore that she could ingest to do it, according to the affidavit. [...]

Carpenter has a ninth-grade education and was unemployed, according to court records. Lowe previously worked at the Tidewater Women’s Health Clinic in Norfolk, which performs abortions for pregnant women up to 14 weeks after their last menstrual period.

Under Virginia law, second-trimester abortions must be performed in a licensed hospital facility in the presence of a physician. Obviously, it’s important to crack down on illegal abortion providers who aren’t providing women with safe care, and — unlike Obenshain’s proposed bill — that’s likely the sole intent behind the state’s current law. But, if the allegations against the two Virginia women are true, the law will have the added effect of prosecuting a woman who made the choice to terminate her own pregnancy. The Virginia-Pilot notes that the only other “illegal abortion” charge on the books was back in 2007, when a man slipped abortion-inducing drugs into his girlfriend’s drink that caused her to have a miscarriage — an act that was obviously done without the woman’s consent.

Even if Carpenter’s miscarriage was self-induced, her case brings up questions about the criminalization of elective abortion procedures across the country. The mounting pile of state-level restrictions intended to restrict women’s access to abortion mean that some desperate women can’t get the reproductive care they need without making themselves into a suspect in the eyes of the law. That’s particularly true under late-term abortion bans, an increasingly popular anti-choice tactic to narrow the window in which women may obtain a legal abortion. If abortion is criminalized at 20 or 18 or even just six weeks of pregnancy, every woman’s miscarriage after that point could be a potential piece of evidence.

And of course, if Carpenter really did take drugs to induce an illegal abortion, it’s worth considering what might have led an undereducated, unemployed, desperate woman like Carpenter to make the choice she did. Perhaps she didn’t have the money for a legal abortion earlier in her pregnancy. Maybe she was too ashamed to make an appointment at a women’s health clinic. She might not have had any support from her friends and family, and she might have felt like she didn’t have any other options.

Election

Virginia GOP Nominee’s PAC Used Donations On Himself, Overhead

By Josh Israel on May 20, 2013 at 2:51 pm

Bishop E.W. Jackson (R)

Bishop E.W. Jackson (R)

In 2010, Bishop E.W. Jackson — the Virginia Republican nominee for Lt. Governor — created a political action committee designed to elect “conservative black candidates” in districts represented by members of the Congressional Black Caucus. But a ThinkProgress review of Jackson’s PAC filings reveals that it backed just one such candidate, while funneling thousands to Jackson himself.

Objecting to the way members of the all-Democratic Congressional Black Congress has been “conflating the black struggle for civil rights with the demands of radical homosexuals for marriage and other special rights,” Jackson announced the STAND America PAC in April, 2010. He vowed to “demand that representatives of the black community start respecting the values of the people who elect them,” noting that the PAC would make sure that happens.

Since its formation, the PAC has reported raising about $130,000, all from individual donors. Of this, just $2,750 went to conservative African American candidates — about two percent of total spending. $1,000 of that went to Michel Faulkner (R), who unsuccessfully challenged Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) in 2010. The remaining $1,750 went to Jackson’s own unsuccessful 2012 campaign for U.S. Senate in Virginia. The committee also made a $1,000 donation to the 2012 re-election campaign of House Republican Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), who is white. While one solicitation asked for contributions to help defeat then-Attorney General Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) in his Senate campaign, the committee reported no contributions to his Republican opponent nor any apparent independent efforts in that race.

The vast majority of the PAC’s funds went to overhead — fundraising, strategic consulting, and overhead. More than $20,000 of the PAC’s spending, over 15 percent, was paid in “consulting – management” fees to Jackson himself. While using a PAC for personal inurement is not illegal, it is hardly the purpose for which the contributions are apparently solicited.

Other spending went to travel and meals (about $7,500), other consultants (more than $53,000), and bank fees (more than $700, including four account “overdraft” charges). The PAC also made donations to 912 First Landing Patriots and the Hampton Roads Tea Party (two Virginia Tea Party groups) and the Christian Coalition and Vision America (two Christian conservative organizations).

While new PACs do face significant upfront costs, the percentage spent on political activity is unusually low and the group appears to spending little on the group’s stated mission. Campaign finance expert Paul S. Ryan of the Campaign Legal Center frequently warns — when donating to political action committees it is really “donor beware.”

Neither STAND America PAC nor the Jackson for Lt. Governor campaign responded immediately to a request for comment.

LGBT

Virginia Republicans Nominate Rabidly Anti-LGBT Ticket

By Josh Israel on May 20, 2013 at 12:40 pm

At its nominating convention Saturday, the Republican Party of Virginia selected three candidates for the November 2013 statewide elections. Their selections — Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II for governor, Bishop E.W. Jackson for lieutenant governor, and State Senator Mark Obenshain for attorney general — represent three of the most vocally anti-LGBT figures in the history Virginia politics.

Ken Cuccinelli

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R)Over his seven-and-a-half years as a state senator and his four year as attorney general, Cuccinelli earned a reputation as Virginia’s Todd Akin. He opposes even the most basic legal protections for LGBT people because he believes same-sex relationships are immoral — previously explaining, “My view is that homosexual acts, not homosexuality, but homosexual acts are wrong. They’re intrinsically wrong. And I think in a natural law based country it’s appropriate to have policies that reflect that.” Even after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in its 2003 Lawrence v. Texas case that such bans were unconstitutional, he helped defeat an effort to repeal the state law making consensual sodomy a felony. This maneuver came back to haunt him earlier this year, when prosecutors tried to make use of the law to prosecute a statutory rape case and courts rejected the case on constitutional grounds.

He has actively pushed for state and federal constitutional amendments to prevent any legal recognition of what he terms, “what they’d like to refer to as ‘homosexual families,’” authoring a resolution calling for a federal amendment to invalidate any same-sex marriage, civil union, domestic partnership, or “other relationship analogous to marriage.” He has opined that “giving public sanction to homosexual marriage ends up redefining marriage and it’s certain to harm children.” He even opposed a state bill that allowed private companies to voluntarily provide health insurance benefits to employees’ domestic partners, warning it might “encourage this type of behavior.” His advisory opinion that Virginia’s public colleges and universities should rescind their nondiscrimination policies was called “reprehensible” by a former Republican state legislator. As recently as February, he reaffirmed his fealty to Virginia’s marriage inequality amendment, saying, “Virginians decided this in 2006 that we were going to respect traditional marriage… I don’t see that changing anytime soon.”

After unsuccessfully attempting to block a non-binding resolution honoring a Richmond-based LGBT charitable group, Cuccinelli explained, “When you look at the homosexual agenda, I cannot support something that I believe brings nothing but self-destruction, not only physically but of their soul.”

E.W. Jackson

Bishop E.W. Jackson (R)As a pastor and unsuccessful 2012 Senate candidate, Jackson has never been shy about expressing his strong opposition to LGBT people. He believes gays and lesbians are “very sick people, psychologically and emotionally” whose minds are perverted. He has also said, “Homosexuality is a horrible sin, it poisons culture, it destroys families, it destroys societies; it brings the judgment of God unlike very few things that we can think of.” Read more

Justice

UPDATED: Virginia GOP Nominee For Attorney General Introduced Bill Forcing Women To Report Their Miscarriages To Police

By Ian Millhiser on May 20, 2013 at 10:35 am

(Credit: AP)


If a woman in Virginia has a miscarriage without a doctor present, they must report it within 24 hours to the police or risk going to jail for a full year. At least, that’s what would have happened if a bill introduced by Virginia state Sen. Mark Obenshain (R) had become law.

And yet, the Virginia Republican Party wants to make Obenshain into the state’s top prosecutor. This weekend, Virginia Republicans selected Obenshain as their nominee to replace tea party stalwart Ken Cuccinelli (R) as the state’s attorney general.

Under Obenshain’s bill, which was introduced in 2009,

When a fetal death occurs without medical attendance upon the mother at or after the delivery or abortion, the mother or someone acting on her behalf shall, within 24 hours, report the fetal death, location of the remains, and identity of the mother to the local or state police or sheriff’s department of the city or county where the fetal death occurred. No one shall remove, destroy, or otherwise dispose of any remains without the express authorization of law-enforcement officials or the medical examiner. Any person violating the provisions of this subsection shall be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.

Under Virginia law, a Class 1 misdemeanor carries a maximum sentence of “confinement in jail for not more than twelve months and a fine of not more than $2,500,” so Obenshain’s bill could lead to a woman who decides to take a day to grieve the loss of a pregnancy she’d hoped to carry to term spending a year of her life in jail for that decision.

Even without Obenshain’s bill, Virginia law already treats many miscarriages as potential crimes. Under existing Virginia law, “[w]hen a fetal death occurs without medical attendance upon the mother at or after the delivery or abortion or when inquiry or investigation by a medical examiner is required, the medical examiner shall investigate the cause of fetal death and shall complete and sign the medical certification portion of the fetal death report within twenty-four hours after being notified of a fetal death.” Obsenshain’s bill, however, would treat many women as if they were criminal suspects at the moment they are confronted with a deep personal tragedy — and imprison them if they would rather deal with that tragedy privately with their family than share the vulnerable moment after a miscarriage with law enforcement.

Update

Jared Walczak, a Deputy Campaign Manager with Obenshain for Attorney General, provided a statement to ThinkProgress explaining his boss’ support for this legislation. The statement is copied below, with an added link to a news story Walczak identified as the “law enforcement issue” prompting the legislation:

At the request of one of his local Commonwealth’s Attorneys, Senator Obenshain carried legislation (SB 962 of 2009) dealing with a specific law enforcement issue. As sometimes happens, the legislation that emerged was far too broad, and would have had ramifications that neither he nor the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office ever intended. Senator Obenshain is strongly against imposing any added burden for women who suffer a miscarriage, and that was never the intent of the legislation. He explored possible amendments to address the bill’s unintended consequences, and met with representatives of both Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice in an attempt to identify a solution. Ultimately, however, he was not satisfied that any amendment could sufficiently narrow the scope of the bill to eliminate these unintended consequences, so he had the bill stricken at his own request.

Obenshain’s bill was indeed “stricken at request of patron” as Walczak states.

Election

STUDIES: Virginia’s Democratic Turn Is Looking Permanent

By Ruy Teixeira, Guest Blogger on May 17, 2013 at 3:24 pm

Virginia underwent a massive political and demographic transformation before our eyes, according to new data released on Thursday. These data confirm that state’s slide away from the GOP isn’t an election year fluke, but rather a symptom of deep underlying changes. 

Start with a Washington Post poll of Virginia registered voters. These data show that Virginians now support legalizing same sex marriage by a robust 56-33 margin, compared to just 46-43 in favor in 2011.  In addition, 86 percent of Virginia voters say they support background checks for gun buyers and 54 percent of Virginians support giving undocumented workers the right to live here legally provided they pay a fine and meet other requirements, a measure only a scant 39 percent opposes:

It’s no wonder Republicans can’t carry Virginia any more in Presidential elections: the state has just changed too much for that aggressively conservative brand to attract majority support from the new Virginia.

Other new data underscore the rapidity of change.  Census data assembled by analyst Geoffrey Skelley and posted on Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball demonstrate that Virginians are increasingly not actually from Virginia: they were born somewhere else and moved there later.  Virginia’s decline in “nativity” (the proportion of a state’s residents who were born in the state) has been the sharpest decline in the nation over the last century. In 1910, 89 percent of Virginians were born in Virginia, compared to just under 50 percent today.  That compares to a nativity drop of just 67 to 59 percent in the nation as a whole during the same time period:

Two other states to keep an eye on, judging by nativity statisticsm are North Carolina, down from 95 to 59 percent, and Georgia, down from 91 to 55 percent. Georgia, bear in mind, is probably becoming a majority-minority state sometime this decade.

Georgia. Wouldn’t it be something if that state started slipping away from the GOP. For those who say that could never happen, well…you probably said the exact same thing about Virginia.

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