Pundit Country

for the week ending January 7, 2010. As always, these items come predominantly from Right Wing Watch and Hatewatch.

• Think Progress: Ollie North On What Happens If Gays Are Allowed To Serve Openly In Military: ‘NAMBLA Members’ Are Next.

• Box Turtle Bulletin: AZ Senator Jack Harper discusses the details of a gay soldier’s life (without permission) in order to advance his anti-gay agenda.

• National Tea Party Convention organizers announced plans to form a group called “Ensuring Liberty Corporation” that will seek to raise $10 million to help conservative candidates running for office.

• White House Office Faith Director Joshua DuBois tells David Brody that questioning President’s Obama’s Christian faith goes “beyond the boundaries of what’s acceptable.” (Editor’s note: we still have that office?)

• Randall Terry is unimpressed with Focus on the Family’s Super Bowl ad because it is not explicit enough about abortion.

• Speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast, President Obama called the proposed anti-gay Uganda legislation “odious” … and Ugandan officials are apparently not pleased.

• Norm Coleman and others are seeking to create a right-wing version of the Center for American Progress and hoping to exploit the Citizen’s United ruling to fund it.

• According to campaign finance reports, the Alabama Christian Coalition has been accepting money from gambling interests.

• Think Progress: All the funding for anti-marriage equality campaign in the nation’s capital came from outside of D.C.

• Sarah Palin defends her plans to speak at the National Tea Party Convention.

• New VA Governor Bob McDonnell quickly moved to undo two gay rights-related measures institute by former Gov. Tim Kaine.

• This upcoming FRC event looks exciting: ”How Did the Early Christians of Rome Defeat Pagan Sexuality?”

• Sarah Palin’s PAC spent more than $60,000 buying copies of her book?

From the Wall Street Journal article denoting the rising costs of public spending on healthcare. There really is no way some editor didn’t catch this, had a good laugh, and said go with it. At least that’s what I tell myself in between banging my head against the wall.

By the way, nice job on the placement of the word “projections”. It made my inner 12-year-old giggle.

For the week ending January 31, 2009.

As always, these pieces come from Right-Wing Watch and Hatewatch.

• TPM: Alleged Phone Tamperer O’Keefe To Go On Hannity Tonight.

• The Family Research Council is seeking signatures for a petition opposing efforts to end Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

• Rep. Michele Bachmann has $1 million in the bank for her re-election bid.

• Religious Right activists are holding a prayer vigil outside of CBS headquarters in support of Focus on the Family’s anti-choice Super Bowl ad.

• Student Activists Confront Anti-Semitic California Prof

• It might help if Rudy Giuliani actually watched the State of the Union Address before he went on television to criticize it.

• Is Orly Taitz planning on running for office? (please say yes)

• Politico has an excellent piece on the right-wing groups who have been funding and training activists like James O’Keefe.

• Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz has submitted legislation in the House of Representatives that would overturn D.C.’s marriage equality bill

• Think Progress: Fox News Devastated Over Arrest Of ACORN Pimp, Says The Story Probably Needs ‘A Lot Of Context’.

• Raw Story: GOP sends fundraising letter disguised as ‘Census’ form.

• Operation Rescue wants to make it clear that it has nothing to do with Randall Terry.

• Randy Travis will be headlining the first annual Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Concert.

• David Weigel: Tea Partiers and FreedomWorks Craft a 2010 Agenda.

• Apparently, the election of Scott Brown “put a stake in the heart of Camelot.”

• Where online politics goes wrong:  “Virtual March for Life“

• Controversial Oregon Campus Group is Relocated

• Joe.My.God: Pastor Launches Boycott Of Houston Over Lesbian Mayor Annise Parker.

• Is there a political litmus test for football coaches now?

Good news: It looks like Attorney General Eric Holder’s DOJ has largely cleared them of wrongdoing in the legal ground work that established a torture regime by Bush officials.

Bad news: Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon is proceeding with his investigation of illegal methods of interrogation used by the U.S. military on prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. If you remember, Garzon was the judge who used Spain’s ‘universal jurisdiction‘ statute to prosecute Argentina’s former ruler, Augusto Pinochet for crimes against humanity. If I were the Bush crew, I would plan my foreign travel very carefully for the next few years.

Call me old fashioned, but I like it when smart people call out craven fools for incendiary rhetoric. Having said, that, I really wish he’d stop referring to the health care reform legislation in the past tense.