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ORIGINAL RESEARCHPhil Wilayto Anti-Woman, Pro-Confederacy Racist Nominated for Attorney GeneralMILWAUKEE --It would be hard to find a more reactionary nominee for the position of U.S. Attorney General than John Ashcroft. The 58-year old Republican senator from Missouri and former two-term governor of that state is well known for his extremist views on abortion and the death penalty. He is also an outspoken defender of the Confederacy who has used his political power to block appointments of Black judges and defeat civil rights legislation. Ashcroft & Abortion RightsAshcroft supports enacting a federal law and amending the Constitution to ban abortions even when a woman has been raped or is the victim of incest. He has advocated proposals in Congress so broad they could have been used to ban common forms of contraception, including the pill and IUDs. He supported the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the use of federal funds for abortion services and promoted laws requiring parental notification and consent. Ashcroft also helped lead the fight for the bill pushed by anti-choice extremists that would impose criminal and civil penalties against doctors that perform so-called "partial birth" abortions. As Attorney General, Ashcroft would be responsible for enforcing the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, passed following the murder of a doctor at a Florida clinic. Ashcroft would also be responsible for reviewing and helping to select potential nominees for the federal bench. This includes lower court judges and Supreme Court Justices who may rule on issues dealing with reproductive freedom. He would also represent the Bush Administration's position on issues within the courts - including the Supreme Court. Ashcroft, Civil Rights & the Death PenaltyIn an editorial urging the Senate to "investigate Mr. Ashcroft's opposition to civil rights, women's rights, abortion rights and to judicial nominees with whom he disagrees," the St. Louis (Missouri) Post-Dispatch recalled that "Mr. Ashcroft has built a career out of opposing school desegregation in St. Louis and opposing African-Americans for public office." Bob Jones University - the one Bush got in trouble for speaking at during the presidential campaign - gave Ashcroft an honorary degree in 1999, and he was proud to accept it. Ashcroft was "credited" with engineering the defeat of the nomination to the federal bench of Missouri State Supreme Court Justice Ronnie White. White, who is African American, is somewhat moderate on the issue of the death penalty. As one writer in the Post-Dispatch put it, "Ashcroft's success in rounding up 54 Republican votes was an unmistakable signal to state judges like White that if they challenge death sentences -- no matter how infrequently and no matter the cause -- they risk being barred from higher judicial office." At a news conference after the announcement of Ashcroft's nomination, Bush said, "This is a person who believes in civil rights for all citizens." (In this regard, it would be helpful to remember it was President Clinton who signed the 1996 Effective Death Penalty Act, which effectively eliminated the right of habeus corpus in death penalty appeals on the federal level.) In 1998, Ashcroft gave an interview to the Southern Partisan, a South Carolina quarterly promoting the Confederacy. Ashcroft said, "Your magazine also helps set the record straight. You've got a heritage of doing that, of defending Southern patriots like [Robert E.] Lee, [Stonewall] Jackson and Davis. Traditionalists must do more. I've got to do more. We've all got to stand up and speak in this respect, or else we'll be taught that these people were giving their lives, subscribing their sacred fortunes and their honor to some perverted agenda." Like slavery. Ashcroft & Government Funding of "Faith-Based" InstitutionsAshcroft is author of the landmark Charitable Choice provision of the 1996 welfare reform law, which made it legal for charities, churches, and other faith-based organizations to deliver publicly-funded services under contracts and vouchers with the states. The provision allows government-funded religious groups to refuse to hire people of different faiths and to promote their own religious beliefs to the people they are paid to serve. This development would be strengthened and expanded by the passage of the Ashcroft-sponsored "Charitable Choice Expansion Act". In addition to being a violation of the Constitutional separation of church and state, this act would accelerate the trend towards privatizing government-funded social services, weaken public sector unions, and deprive the community of the protection of the present requirements for certification, oversight, inspections, etc. Besides being a darling of the far right (he was their first choice for president), Ashcroft is very popular among the wealthy. According to a recent report by the watchdog Center for Responsible Politics, 95.9% of Ashcroft's campaign contributions come from corporate sources, with another 4% from "ideological/single issue" funders, such as the Eagle Forum and the National Rifle Association. Some of his biggest contributors are oil and tobacco companies and military contractors. This past December, Ashcroft became the first U.S. senator to lose a re-election bid to a dead man, after Democratic opponent Gov. Mel Carnahan died in a plane crash during the campaign. Sources:American Civil Liberties Union sign in, or register to email stories or comment on them.
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MORE ORIGINAL RESEARCHBill Berkowitz PERC receives Templeton Freedom Award for promoting 'enviropreneurs'Right Wing foundation-funded anti-environmental think tank grabbing a wider audience for 'free market environmentalism' On the 15th anniversary of Terry Anderson and Donald Leal's book "Free Market Environmentalism" -- the seminal book on the subject -- Anderson, the Executive Director of the Bozeman, Montana-based Property and Environment Research Center (PERC - formerly known as the Political Economy Research Center) spoke in late-January at an event sponsored by Squaw Valley Institute at the Resort at Squaw Creek in California. While it may have been just another opportunity to speak on "free market environmentalism" and not the kickoff of a "victory tour," nevertheless it comes at a time when PERC's ideas are taking root.
Bill Berkowitz Neil Bush of Saudi ArabiaDuring recent visit, President’s brother describes the country as a 'kind of tribal democracy' In late February, only a few days after Saudi Arabia beheaded four Sri Lankan robbers and then left their headless bodies on public display in the capital of Riyadh, Neil Bush, for the fourth time in the past six years, showed up for the country's Jeddah Economic Forum. The Guardian reported that Human Rights Watch "said the four men had no lawyers during their trial and sentencing, and were denied other basic legal rights." In an interview with Arab News, the Saudi English language paper, Bush described the country as "a kind of tribal democracy."
Bill Berkowitz Newt Gingrich's back door to the White HouseAmerican Enterprise Institute "Scholar" and former House Speaker blames media for poll showing 64 percent of the American people wouldn't vote for him under any circumstances Whatever it is that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has come to represent in American politics, the guy is nothing less than fascinating. One day he's espousing populist rhetoric about the need to cut the costs of college tuition and the next day he's talking World War III. One day he's claiming that the "war on terror" may force the abridgement of fundamental first amendment rights and the next he's advancing a twenty-first century version of his Contract with America. At the same time he's publicly proclaiming how "stupid" it is that the race for the presidency has already started you know that he's trying to figure out how to out finesse Rudy, McCain and Romney for the nomination. And last week, when Fox News' Chris Wallace cited a poll showing that 64 percent of the public would never vote for him, he was quick to blame those results on how unfairly he was treated by the mainstream media back in the day.
Bill Berkowitz American Enterprise Institute takes lead in agitating against IranDespite wrongheaded predictions about the war on Iraq, neocons are on the frontlines advocating military conflict with Iran After doing such a bang up job with their advice and predictions about the outcome of the war on Iraq, would it surprise you to learn that America's neoconservatives are still in business? While at this time we are not yet seeing the same intense neocon invasion of our living rooms -- via cable television's news networks -- that we saw during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, nevertheless, a host of policy analysts at conservative think tanks -- most notably the American Enterprise Institute -- are being heeded on Iran by those who count - folks inside the Bush Administration.
Bill Berkowitz After six years, opposition gaining on George W. Bush's Faith Based InitiativeUnmentioned in the president's State of the Union speech, the program nevertheless continues to recruit religious participants and hand out taxpayer money to religious groups With several domestic policy proposals unceremoniously folded into President Bush's recent State of the Union address, two pretty significant items failed to make the cut. Despite the president's egregiously tardy response to the event itself, it was nevertheless surprising that he didn't even mention Hurricane Katrina: He didn't offer up a progress report, words of hope to the victims, or come up with a proposal for moving the sluggish rebuilding effort forward. There were no "armies of compassion" ready to be unleashed, although it should be said that many in the religious community responded to the disaster much quicker than the Bush Administration. In the State of the Union address, however, there was no "compassionate conservatism" for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Bill Berkowitz Frank Luntz calls Republican leadership in Washington 'One giant whining windbag'On the outs with the GOP, legendary degrader of discourse is moving to California He doesn't make great art; nothing he does elevates the human spirit; he doesn't illuminate, he bamboozles. He has become expert in subterfuge, hidden meanings, word play and manipulation. Frank Luntz has been so good at what he does that those paying close attention gave it its own name: "Luntzspeak."
Bill Berkowitz Spooked by MoveOn.org, conservative movement seeks to emulate liberal powerhouseFueled with Silicon Valley money, TheVanguard.org will have Richard Poe, former editor of David Horowitz's FrontPage magazine as its editorial and creative director As Paul Weyrich, a founding father of the modern conservative movement and still a prominent actor in it, likes to say, he learned a great deal about movement building by closely observing what liberals were up to in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Bill Berkowitz Ward Connerly's anti-affirmative action jihadFounder and Chair of the American Civil Rights Institute scouting five to nine states for new anti-affirmative action initiatives Fresh from his most recent victory -- in Michigan this past November -- Ward Connerly, the Black California-based maven of anti-affirmative action initiatives, appears to be preparing to take his jihad on the road. According to a mid-December report in the San Francisco Chronicle, Connerly said that he was "exploring moves into nine other states."
Bill Berkowitz Tom Tancredo's missionThe Republican congressman from Colorado will try to woo GOP voters with anti-immigration rhetoric and a boatload of Christian right politics These days, probably the most recognizable name in anti-immigration politics is Colorado Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo. Over the past year, Tancredo has gone from a little known congressman to a highly visible anti-immigration spokesperson. "Tancredo has thoroughly enmeshed himself in the anti-immigration movement and with the help of CNN talk show host Lou Dobbs, he has been given a national megaphone," Devin Burghart, the program director of the Building Democracy Initiative at the Center for New Community, a Chicago-based civil rights group, told Media Transparency.
Bill Berkowitz Institute on Religion and Democracy slams 'Leftist' National Council of ChurchesNew report from conservative foundation-funded IRD charges the NCC with being a political surrogate for MoveOn.org, People for the American Way and other liberal organizations If you prefer your religious battles sprinkled with demagoguery, sanctimoniousness, and simplistic attacks, the Institute on Religion and Democracy's (IRD) latest broadside against the National Council of Churches (NCC) certainly fits the bill.
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