10 Biggest Doozies From the Right-Wing Wackosphere This Week

Who gets the prize for most deranged statement this week? Limbaugh? Palin? Santorum? Or maybe the RNC.

AlterNet / By Janet Allon

 

 

Photo Credit: Christopher Halloran/Shutterstock.com

December 7, 2013  |  

 

The week that began with talk of the socialist pope, ended with right-wing absurdities about Nelson Mandela. Is nothing sacred?
1. Rush Limbaugh: The pope rips America, causing Obama to orgasm! And then Mandela really showed those American blacks how to do civil rights!
The man who has continually raised the ante on outrageousness brought his A-game this week, starting with comments about Pope Francis and President Obama. “The pope is ripping capitalism, ripping trickledown economics, ripping America. And Obama is having an orgasm,” Limbaugh spewed. “The pope has co-opted Obama.” Because what really gets this president’s motor going is “ripping this country apart.” (Are you listening, Michelle?) Obama demonstrated his ejaculatory pleasure in criticizing America a few days later when he had the audacity to say that “increasing inequality is most pronounced in this country.” The nerve!
Nelson Mandela’s death provided fodder for the right-wing radio ranter to reach new paroxysms of offensiveness and denounce the civil rights movement in America, which of course helped bring about Obama’s presidency. Here’s his case:

“Nelson Mandela actually lived through the indignities, the punishment, the discrimination, the horrors of the South African apartheid system. Came out of it — you realize when he was inaugurated president, he invited as his special guests the white jailers from his Robben Island prison? He literally did forgive everybody.
“Nelson Mandela would not qualify as a civil rights leader in this country with that philosophy. They can’t let it go. It’s become too big a business. They will not let it go. Mandela let it go. It's just — amazing.”

Of course, Mandela went on to decry the ongoing “cancer of racism” in America and elsewhere. He did not think racism had ended (unlike the RNC, it seems: see item #3 below).
(h/t: mediamatters)
2. Sarah Palin: Thomas Jefferson and I agree. Those meanie atheists are trying to abort Christ from Christmas.
Sarah Palin managed to combine those dreaded atheists with abortion, Christ-killing and the dastardly war on Christmas all in one fell swoop in a speech at Liberty University. She was, of course, promoting her new book Good Tidings and Great Joy: Protecting the Heart of Christmas, and the former not full-term Alaska governor is nothing if not good at self-promotion.
She also revealed a new talent for channeling the founding fathers. She knows exactly what Thomas Jefferson would do if he were alive today: He’d go on Fox News to complain about the war on Christmas. In other words, he’d be Sarah Palin.
That’s because—and this might come as a surprise to those who have read the part of the constitution about separation of church and state—Jefferson and his buds wrote the constitution specifically for religious people. Nonreligious people, in other words, amoral people, are not capable of understanding the constitution, and they are therefore not able to follow its precepts.
Here’s an excerpt from this marvelous bit of oratory:

 “If you lose that foundation, John Adams was implicitly warning us, then we will not follow our constitution, there will be no reason to follow our constitution because it is a moral and religious people who understand that there is something greater than self, we are to live selflessly, and we are to be held accountable by our creator, so that is what our constitution is based on.”

There’s some more rambling after that, but you get the idea.

From there, she jumped back to her favorite topic and the one that promotes her book, saying Jefferson would agree with her that “angry atheists armed with an attorney” had set their sights on destroying the religious themes in Christmas celebrations.

“Why is it they get to claim some offense taken when they see a plastic Jewish family on somebody’s lawn—a nativity scene, that’s basically what it is, right?”
A plastic Jewish family. Is that in the scripture?
(h/t Raw Story)
3. Tin-eared RNC: Racism and sexism have ended.
The national Republicans deftly demonstrated how they can appeal to both women and blacks this week. They started offering lessons to candidates on how not to say offensive things about women, especially when you are running against one, as Todd “legitimate rape” Akin did. Clearly, a steep learning curve there. Emergency reinforcements may be needed.
Over the weekend, the RNC declared that racism has ended in a tweet marking the anniversary of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and celebrating Rosa Parks’ famous act of civil disobedience. “Today we remember Rosa Parks’ bold stand and her role in ending racism,” they said. Hilarious tweets ensued under hashtag #racismendedwhen, with answers like “when Mr. Drummond adopted Arnold and Willis,” “when Bill Clinton played the sax on Arsenio Hall” and “when the Fresh Prince moved to Bel-Air.”
Realizing their mistake after, well, millions of people ridiculed them, the RNC amended the tweet, “clarified it,” by saying Parks fought to end racism. But, let’s face it, they really think racism has ended. We’ve got a black president and the Supreme Court itself ruled there is no need for a Voting Rights Act anymore. That ought to settle it.
Does anyone still wonder why more than 90 percent of black America votes for anyone but the GOP?
4. Rick Santorum: Obamacare is like apartheid. And I am like Mandela. O’Reilly: Oh, you mean that commie?
Wow. Flabbergasting things happen when you combine two idiots on Fox with the death of a great man.
Here’s Santorum on Mandela:

“He was fighting against some great injustice, and I would make the argument that we have a great injustice going on right now in this country with an ever-increasing size of government that is taking over and controlling people’s lives—and Obamacare is front and center in that.”

Apartheid and affordable healthcare. Yes, very similar. And that would, of course, make you Mandela-like in fighting this injustice. Amirite? We’ve seen some questionable analogies before, i.e. Obamacare and Katrina, Obamacare and the Fugitive Slave Act, Obamacare and the Nuremberg Laws, but this one might be the biggest doozy of them all. Points for creativity, Rick!
O’Reilly couldn’t top that, so he just kept repeating the one thing he did have to say about Mandela.

“He was a communist, this man. He was a communist, all right? But he was a great man! What he did for his people was stunning!...He was a great man! But he was a communist!”

So, uh, wait? Does that make Santorum a communist?
5. Fox News: Sharia law is here and the proof is that Muslim girls are taking swim classes at the Y.
Head for the hills. Sharia is here and it’s coming after your women. Fox continued its quest to stoke the fires of Islamaphobia when it targeted a seemingly harmless YMCA swim class in St. Paul Minnesota that offers hour-long swim practice once a week for Muslim Somali-American girls between the ages of 5 and 17. The YMCA (that’s “C” for Christian, hello) even makes considerations for the girls’ modesty and religious beliefs. On Fox & Friends, an outraged Heather Nauert said this is just one more piece of evidence that "Sharia law is now changing everything."
Modesty considerations have long kept observant Somali-American Muslim girls from learning even basic swimming skills, which, of course, is the problem that the program is designed to overcome. This pernicious tolerance trend is spreading all over the Midwest, Fox reports. Thankfully, Nauert promised viewers that Fox will keep an eye on it.
We are sure they will.
6. S.C. Sheriff refuses to fly flag at half staff for Mandela.
Another great American with a modicum of power and a desire to use it, Rick Clark, the sheriff of Pickens County, S.C., is taking a bold stand against... ummm... Obama’s tyranny? Sheriff Clark is refusing to lower the flag to half staff in honor of Mandela on December 9, 2013, as the president ordered.
Now, we know what you are thinking, but this has nothing to do with race, Clark swears. It has to do with Amurrica. "Nelson Mandela did great things for his country and was a brave man but he was not an AMERICAN!!!” Clark wrote on his Facebook page. “The flag should be lowered at our Embassy in S. Africa, but not here."
Clark knows full well when it is appropriate to lower that flag. He did it last Friday in honor of a deceased deputy, and on Saturday in honor of Pearl Harbor Day. But then it’s straight back up for Ole Glory. Unless another Amurrican dies.
7. Texas Republican Rep.: Minimum wage, schminimum wage.
Sometimes the best defense is a good offense. So, in a week when low-wage workers went on strike to demand an increase in the minimum wage, and President Obama finally acknowledged that inequality is the defining challenge of our time, Rep. Joe Barton decided to be deeply offensive.
Abolish minimum wage, he told the National Journal. “I think it’s outlived its usefulness,” he said. His view is that it was only useful during the Great Depression.
Raising the minimum wage is bound to be on the list of things not to do in the Republican obstructionist playbook, now that Obama has announced making structural inequality the focus of the rest of his presidency.
Think Progress reports:

“At least 67 Republicans who are still serving in Congress today supported an increase under President George W. Bush, including Alexander and Ryan. Yet House Republicans unanimously voted down an increase in March.”

But while many of them won’t raise it, Barton’s going one better.
Let them eat cake!
8. House Chair of Science Committee Lamar Smith: Climate change, no way; aliens, sure.
Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), who chairs the Science, Space, and Technology Committee, has no use for climate change science, and less use for the efforts to regulate carbon emissions. Setting standards for polluting power plants is partisan politics, he recently argued, blasting the EPA for trying to do so, not science. And the petroleum industry favorite knows from science. He’s using one of the seven days left on the legislative calendar to talk about extraterrestrials in a hearing called, “Astrobiology: Search for Biosignatures in our Solar System and Beyond.”
Well, if there are aliens out there living on some other planet, that could help give people a hint about where to go when the Earth becomes uninhabitable due to global warming, which isn’t happening, of course, no matter what 97 percent of scientists say.
9. California GOP-er: It’s part of Middle Eastern culture to lie.
Rep. Duncan Hunter must have been a cultural anthropology major. He displayed his deep knowledge of Middle Eastern culture in an interview with CSPAN this week when he expressed his opposition to the recent treaty with Iran. They lie, he said, in essence. Not only do they lie, they revere lying. Here’s how he knows. He’s heard about how bargaining goes on over there. "In the Middle Eastern culture it is looked upon with very high regard to get the best deal possible, no matter what it takes, and that includes lying," Hunter said.
His interlocutor gave him the chance to add some nuance to this keen geopolitical observation, and asked if he meant "all Middle Eastern countries are this way."
Yep, he said: "They like to barter there."
In damage control mode later, his communications director clarified that Hunter was talking about Middle Eastern political leaders, not all the people, especially Iranians.
Furthermore, Hunter, who also thinks U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants should be deported and opposes gays in the military, recommends using a nuclear bomb on Iran if necessary.
"I don’t think it’s inevitable but I think if you have to hit Iran, you don’t put boots on the ground, you do it with tactical nuclear devices and you set them back a decade or two or three."
Then you can go back to the bargaining table.
(h/t TPM)
10. GOP Rep: "I wake up every day not thinking about social issues."
Virginia Rep. Scott Rigell is up for re-election next year, and he just wants to clarify what does and what does not keep him up at night. He apparently told Politico: “I wake up every day not thinking about social issues.”
You have to admire his succinctness!

Sarah Palin Disgraces History With Claim Adams and Jefferson Support Her War on Christmas

Sarah Palin Disgraces History With Claim Adams and Jefferson Support Her War on Christmas 

 

By:  Rmuse

Sunday, December, 8th, 2013, 6:40 pm

If there is one distinguishing feature unique to conservatives, it is their predilection for war. They will declare war on anything, seemingly for sport, but primarily to advance their sick agendas whether it is war against Muslims, women, the poor, gays, or equality; they just love war. It is interesting then, that conservatives of the Christian persuasion claim there is a war on their religious liberty when they are prohibited from forcing compliance to their religious dogmata on the entire population, and then there is their annual outrage that they are victims of the “war on Christmas.” Of course, the aggressors, according to conservative Christians, in the war on Christmas are the dreaded atheists who, interestingly, enjoy the winter “holiday” season as much as the next American, but resent the fact that any sector of government uses their tax dollars to promote the religious aspect of the uniquely commercial holiday.
America’s “resident dunce,” half-term governor, and failed vice presidential candidate has taken advantage of the  non-existent “war on Christmas” to speak to like-minded conservative Christians to sell her latest screed against President Obama and all-things secular proving once again why she has the “well-established-reputation as a world-class idiot.” One hesitates commenting on the absurdity that is Sarah Palin, but her latest contention that Founding Fathers John Adams and Thomas Jefferson would join her in the war against the imagined war on Christmas is too much of an affront to American history, facts, and reason to bear; especially for a secular humanist.
On Thursday, Palin pimped her “war on Christmas” book at Jerry Falwell’s Christian Liberty University, a place of “higher education” that Palin likely understands teaches David Barton revisionist history of America’s founding as a Christian nation based on the Christian bible. Palin told the audience that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams wrote the U.S. Constitution (Adams did not) for moral and religious people. She said, “If you lose that foundation, John Adams was implicitly warning us, there will be no reason to follow our constitution because it is a moral and religious people who understand we are to be held accountable by our creator so that is what our constitution is based on. So those revisionists, those in the lamestream media who would want to ignore what our founders actually wrote about in our charters of liberty” must not comprehend the principles espoused by the Founding Fathers. Principles, by the way, that apparently include celebrating Christmas the “religious way” by honoring the virgin birth she claimed atheists were hard at work fighting in an attempt to “abort Christ from Christmas” (note the “abortion” reference).

She said, “Why is it they get to claim some offense taken when they see a plastic Jewish family on somebody’s lawn – a nativity scene, that’s basically what it is right?  Oh, they take such offense, mentally distresses them so they sue, right?” No atheist considers plastic Jewish facsimiles of “virgin birth Jesus” on someone’s lawn offensive or worth a lawsuit. They do, however, take offense when Christians erect plastic virgin-birth Jesus displays, crucifixion crosses, or resurrection representations on land paid for with their tax dollars.
She continued that “heaven forbid we claim any type of offense when we say, ‘Wait, you’re stripping Jesus from the reason, as the reason for the season,’ but heaven forbid we claim any type of offense.” Then Palin went rogue and spoke for Thomas Jefferson she claimed “would recognize those who would want to try to ignore that Jesus is the reason for the season are angry atheists armed with an attorney. They are not the majority of Americans. So I think Thomas Jefferson would certainly recognize it and stand up and he wouldn’t let anybody tell him to sit down and shut up.”
Thomas Jefferson, a deist, eschewed everything divine about biblical Jesus; particularly what he called the “contrary to the laws of nature” virgin birth and resurrection story. What Jefferson did appreciate about biblical Jesus was the humanitarian ethics of goodwill toward human beings, charity for the poor, and his inherent humanism that Jefferson himself espoused.  To make his point, Jefferson gathered 4 translations of the gospel accounts, edited out each and every “contrary to natural law” part, and compiled humanistic Jesus into his version of the gospels minus Christ’s miracles, Christ as divine, and especially the virgin birth and resurrection. In fact, Founding Father Thomas Jefferson wrote to another Founding Father, John Adams, in 1823 that “The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.” So much for America’s resident dunce counting on Thomas Jefferson joining her in fighting against “atheists trying to abort Christ in Christmas” or the “reason for the season” that is as absurd as a star guiding wise men to Bethlehem around December 25.

Astronomers, real “wise men,” who use science, mathematics, and empirical data of the observable Universe have concluded that according to the Christian bible account of Christ’s birth, Christmas should be June 17 and not, as Christians contend, December 25. That particular date coincides with a pagan holiday celebrated around December 25th as a time for feasting, goodwill, generosity to the poor, the exchange of gifts, and the decoration of trees sometime after Roman Emperor Constantine’s conversion to Christianity that began imperial patronage of the Christian church. The festival of Saturnalia was a popular Pagan Roman holiday around the winter solstice, and if there really is a war on the Christ in Christmas, it is Christians celebrating a pagan holiday (Saturnalia) that, according to the god of the bible, is a major sin punishable by death; but that is another story.
The real story is that Palin is a charlatan, an imbecile, and an opportunist with no more knowledge of the “Christ” in Christmas than the Founding Fathers she attempted to channel to sell her pathetic book. Her assault and false account of the Founding Fathers’ intent in writing the Constitution is as offensive as her assault on atheists’ desire to abort Christ from Christmas or wage a war on Christmas. Sarah Palin is a parasite on America and this secular humanist has had just about as much of her bloodsucking pandering to pad her bank account as one person can take. Obviously, the Liberty University audience has not had enough of Palin because there were no reports of even one “higher education” student standing up and telling Palin that her lack of knowledge of the Christ in Christmas, or the Founding Fathers, informed that the only war this holiday season is her assault on intelligence of which she has none.

Sarah Palin Disgraces History With Claim Adams and Jefferson Support Her War on Christmas was written by Rmuse for PoliticusUSA.

© PoliticusUSA, Sun, Dec 8th, 2013 — All Rights Reserved

United States Is Now the Most Unequal of All Advanced Economies

Posted: 12/08/2013 3:15 pm

Eric Zuesse

Investigative historian

The United States has such an unequal distribution of wealth so that it's in the league of corrupt underdeveloped countries, no longer in the league of the developed nations, according to the latest edition of the world's most thorough study of wealth-distribution.
The most authoritative source comparing wealth-concentration in the various countries is the successor to the reports that used to be done for the United Nations, now performed as the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Databook. The latest (2013) edition of it finds (p. 146) that in the U.S., 75.4% of all wealth is owned by the richest 10% of the people. The comparable figures for the other developed countries are: Australia 50.3%, Canada 57.4%, Denmark 72.2%, Finland 44.9%, France 51.8%, Germany 61.7%, Ireland 58.4%, Israel 68.9%, Italy 49.8%, Japan 49.1%, Netherlands 54.6%, New Zealand 57.6%, Norway 65.9%, Singapore 61.1%, Spain 54.0%, Sweden 71.1%, Switzerland 71.5%, and U.K. 53.3%. Those are the top 20 developed nations, and the U.S. has the most extreme wealth-concentration of them all. However, there are some other countries that have wealth-concentrations that are about as extreme as the U.S. For examples: Chile 72.5%, India 73.8%, Indonesia 75.0%, and South Africa 74.8%. The U.S. is in their league; not in the league of developed economies. In the U.S., the bottom 90% of the population own only 24.6% of all the privately held wealth, whereas in most of the developed world, the bottom 90% own around 40%; so, the degree of wealth-concentration in the U.S. is extraordinary (except for underdeveloped countries).
The broadest mathematical measure of wealth-inequality is called "Gini," and the higher it is, the more extreme the nation's wealth-inequality is. The Gini for the U.S. is 85.1. Other extremely unequal countries are (pages 98-101 of this report) Chile 81.4, India 81.3, Indonesia 82.8, and South Africa 83.6. However, some nations are even more-extreme than the U.S.: Kazakhstan 86.7, Russia 93.1, and Ukraine 90.0. But Honduras and Guatemala are such rabid kleptocracies that their governments don't even provide sufficiently reliable data for an estimate to be able to be made; and, so, some countries might be even higher than nations like Russia.
Under Barack Obama, the U.S. has, for the first time in this nation's history, increased the concentration of its privately held wealth during an "economic recovery" from a financial crash. (Consequently: the bottom 90% have experienced no benefit from this "recovery.") Usually, there is more instead of less economic equality in the wake of a crash; but Obama's policies of holding harmless the Wall Street insiders who profited enormously from creating the bubble, and of restoring their wealth by taxpayers buying up their toxic assets via the bailouts, etc., have made the U.S. more like nations such as Chile, India, Indonesia, and less like nations such as Australia, Canada, and Finland. Although Mr. Obama's rhetoric has been opposed to extreme wealth-concentration, his policies have actually intensified that tendency. Republicans are not satisfied with the extent to which he has done this, and they call for even more extreme wealth-concentration policies, but Obama has actually benefited America's billionaires a great deal. Romney received most of their campaign money, but Obama has performed extraordinarily well for them.
According to the latest study by the highly regarded economic-concentration specialist Emmanuel Saez, the richest 1% of Americans have been receiving 95% of the income-gains during the Obama "economic recovery." This "recovery" has raised incomes for the top 1% by 31.4%. Everyone else has seen income-gains of 0.4%. Other studies have shown that the bottom 95% of Americans have actually experienced overall reductions in their incomes under President Obama. So: for most Americans, the "recession" has merely continued.
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They're Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST'S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

Rand Paul Tells Millions He’s Doing Them a Favor By Cutting Off Unemployment Benefits

Rand Paul Tells Millions He’s Doing Them a Favor By Cutting Off Unemployment Benefits

By: Sarah Jones more from Sarah Jones

Sunday, December, 8th, 2013, 10:58 am

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) was on Fox News Sunday to continue his minority outreach to African Americans, by saying we shouldn’t extend unemployment benefits set to expire momentarily because he knows one black businessman who wants tax cuts.
Video:


Paul said, “I do support unemployment benefits for the 26 weeks that they’re paid for, but if you extend it past that you do a disservice to these workers.” His reasoning is that when you “allow people” to be on unemployment for longer, you are causing them to be “perpetually unemployed”. Don’t forget about his one black businessman.
See, it’s not that there are no jobs, it’s that employers don’t like to hire people who have been out of work for very long. Thus, by taking away the “incentive” to stay unemployed, Paul thinks he can solve the unemployment problem. It’s the “firmer hand” theory, also used as an argument for slavery.
There can be no other explanation for Paul’s reasoning other than people want to stay unemployed, otherwise he wouldn’t think that taking away unemployment benefits creates job opportunities. This veers dangerously close to the “lazy urban” narrative that Republicans favor. It is not accurate to suggest that starving will create jobs. So this is not a good plan for jobs or for the unemployed.
Paul said that African American unemployment hasn’t budged under this President, implying that he thinks he can get the African American vote by criticizing this president and blaming him for higher unemployment among African Americans, as if this is a new phenomenon best addressed by letting a white Southern man make decisions for African Americans and this president. Some things just shouldn’t be said by certain people, especially not people who employed a white supremacist. It’s bad optics.
The carrot dangling is far from over. You know what the number once concern is for African Americans, after tax cuts for businesses? School choice, apparently. “My economic stimulus plan would stimulate Detroit. There is no other plan on the table. If my plan would pass I think it’s the only one that would pass. I am also talking about restoring voting rights and school choice.”
Voting rights? His party is the party that came after voting rights nationally and his party is the party that made Detroiters’ votes meaningless under Republican Gov. Rick Snyder. That’s going to be a hard sale.
When asked for alternatives to ObamaCare, Rand criticized ObamaCare and then said he’s for Freedom of Choice. Seriously. The anti-choicer is for Freedom of Choice, which means no plan. It means repeal ObamaCare because the “premiums are higher” – which they aren’t for the majority of people. So that’s his big sell to Detroit: Come and get nothing in order to protect the rich. That’s new for Republicans in Detroit. Detroiters will never see through that (see sarcasm). Clearly Sen. Paul is unaware of the high priority most Americans put on the issue of affordable healthcare. It’s an issue of economic survival for many. Not something they want to toss away into the GOP “freedom” for corporations ring.
Yes, 2016 2016 2016. The Senator is a GOP presidential front runner, and it seems he is already running for President, “the thought has crossed my mind, Chris.” But he’s concerned about the “haters and hacks”. So are we, Senator.
Image: Fox News

Rand Paul Tells Millions He’s Doing Them a Favor By Cutting Off Unemployment Benefits was written by Sarah Jones for PoliticusUSA.

© PoliticusUSA, Sun, Dec 8th, 2013 — All Rights Reserved

Oops: Republican Obamacare Amendment Expanded Abortion Access for GOP Staffers

—By Molly Redden

| Mon Dec. 9, 2013 3:00 AM GMT

"Crap." Pete Marovich/ZUMA

Nearly 9 in 10 health care plans that members of Congress and their staff must choose from include abortion coverage, a fact that has Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) and right-wing media outlets raising hell.
But the only reason that congressional staffers have to choose from these plans at all is because a Republican amendment to Obamacare requires it. Thanks to this amendment, congressional staffers, who once had to pay for abortions out of pocket, can now buy insurance that covers abortions.
The bizarre story of how a conservative, anti-abortion Republican ended up expanding abortion access for congressional staff dates back to the initial fight over the Affordable Care Act in 2010. Here's how it happened: The Obamacare exchanges were expressly designed to provide insurance to the uninsured, so congressional staffers—who, like most Americans, already had insurance—were initially excluded. Republicans claimed that this amounted to Democrats "exempting" themselves and their staff from Obamacare, and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) introduced an amendment that would force members of Congress and their staff to use the exchanges. Grassley's proposal was intended to embarrass Democrats. But Democrats called Grassley's bluff, and the law passed with his amendment.
But Grassley's measure forced congressional staff out of the Federal Health Benefits Program, which federal law prohibited from offering any abortion coverage. Under the the federal plan, any congressional employee who wanted an abortion had to pay for it out of pocket. Now that they're on the Obamacare exchanges, though, congressional employees will only pay out of pocket for abortion insurance. They'll be able to choose any of the 112 plans available via Washington, DC's health care exchange, only 9 of which do not cover abortion.

Advertise on MotherJones.com

Grassley's office did not respond to a request for comment.
Smith claimed to the Associated Press that this means Congress is spending taxpayer dollars on abortions. But as ThinkProgress' Tara Culp-Ressler detailed, the employer contributions congressional staff receive for health care—i.e., federal, taxpayer dollars—will not be used to pay for abortions. The Office of Personnel Management has bent over backward to ensure that when congressional staff purchase health care plans, they'll be paying for any abortion coverage with segregated personal funds.
And the cost of that abortion coverage will likely be much less than that of an actual abortion. A 2013 Guttmacher Institute study using 2009 data found that the average out-of-pocket price women paid for an abortion was $485.
So to recap: Republican fearmongering about an Obamacare exemption for congressional staffers that never existed has earned congressional staffers a big abortion discount.

Molly Redden

Reporter

Molly Redden is a reporter in Mother Jones' Washington bureau. She tweets at @mtredden. RSS | Twitter

"you will know them by their works..."

Post by The Christian Left.

ALEC’s Influence over Lawmaking in State Legislatures

ALEC and State Legislatures

Saturday, 07 December 2013

ALEC’s Influence over Lawmaking in State Legislatures

The goal of this article is to begin to fill the gap in our knowledge. Given the pervasive gridlock in Congress, key legislative change is occurring predominantly in the states.  It is, then, all the more important to know who is affecting which bills are introduced in the state legislatures, and which bills pass.  Using text analysis, I find where bills based on ALEC model legislation are introduced in the statehouses during the 2011-2012 session and track their progress in the legislative process.
My findings are threefold.  First, ALEC model bills are, word-for-word, introduced in our state legislatures at a non-trivial rate.  Second, they have a good chance – better than most legislation – of being enacted into law.  Finally, the bills that pass are most often linked to controversial social and economic issues.  In the end, I argue that this is not good for ALEC, its corporate partners, or for the democratic process.

About ALEC

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a national policy organization that “provides a constructive forum for state legislators and private sector leaders to discuss and exchange practical, state-level public policy issues.” (ALEC website). ALEC members, including state legislators and corporate representatives, meet in task forces on specific issue areas (i.e., environment and energy, worker’s rights, etc.) and collaborate to write model legislation. Once the task force completes a model bill it is approved by the ALEC membership and governing board.  Once bills clear those hurdles, they become official ALEC “model policies,” which are disseminated to state legislators.
ALEC is notoriously secretive about the process by which members draft and approve model legislation. A recent Washington Post article by Dana Milbank detailed the closed-door policy at ALEC’s annual policy summit.  My own attempts to contact ALEC staff in order to understand the model bill drafting process were unsuccessful.
ALEC does list on its website all official ALEC policies (though it does not say – and representatives claim not to have collected – information on where those policies have been introduced in the states).  However, there is reason to believe that the list is incomplete. The ALEC board reviews the status of every piece of model legislation every five years, and adds and removes model bills from the website periodically.  It is not surprising, then, that the Castle Doctrine (a.k.a. Stand Your Ground) was removed from the ALEC website following the public scrutiny that arose during the Trayvon Martin trial.
Thus, obtaining a complete list of ALEC model bills and their rates of introduction and success in the U.S. statehouses requires a nuanced data collection strategy.

Methodology:

As discussed in the previous section, ALEC’s public list of model bills is not complete – and may include some of their most controversial and influential bills.  Rather than relying on the organization’s own list, I turned to a third party website: ALEC Exposed.  ALEC Exposed, a subsidiary of PR Watch, tracks all ALEC activity and keeps a list of the most significant ALEC model legislation approved between 2010 and 2013.  From the ALEC Exposed database, I collected information on the 169 model bills that they tag as most significant, covering each of the nine ALEC task force areas.
Using the text from those169 model bills, I used Boolean string searches in LEXIS to find bills with the same language that were introduced in the 2011-2012 legislative session. In total, I recovered 132 bills.  I then coded a variety of features of those bills including their state and chamber of origin, sponsors’ party identification and connections to ALEC, and legislative history.

ALEC Bills Introduced

During the 2011-2012 legislative session, 132 bills based on ALEC models were introduced in the states.  Democrats sponsored nearly 18% of those bills, while Republicans sponsored more than 81% (one bill was introduced by a joint committee, and, thus, does not have a single sponsor).  Nearly two-thirds of those bills were introduced in state lower chambers, while only 34% were introduced in upper chambers.  Of those legislators who sponsored ALEC model legislation, 57% can be explicitly connected to ALEC.  However, that does not necessarily preclude the other legislators from having ALEC ties; ALEC does not disclose the names of their legislative members, so this figure is based primarily on information from leaked documents.
ALEC model language appeared in bills in 34 states (see Figure 1).  Those bills were most common in West Virginia, where legislators introduced 10 bills based on ALEC model legislation.  Both the Oklahoma and Mississippi legislatures considered nine ALEC bills, Arizona eight, and Kansas and Montana saw seven apiece.

One feature that separates ALEC from other lobbying ventures is that it partners with corporations whose interests span the space of conservative issues.  This is reflected in the fact that legislation introduced based on ALEC models covers a variety of seemingly-unrelated subjects (see Figure 2).

Most common were bills pertaining to immigration and the environment, followed by those relating to guns and crime.  The now-infamous Castle Doctrine Act was introduced in nine chambers and was, thus, one of the more common pieces of ALEC legislation to appear in the statehouses.  The five most common ALEC model bills introduced in the state legislatures include:

Table 1: Top 5 ALEC Model Bills Introduced in the States
ALEC Model Bill	# of States Introduced	Description
No Sanctuary Cities for Illegal Immigrants Act	23	Closely resembles Arizona’s SB1070 law in that it mandates local law enforcement of federal immigration law, and allows private citizens to sue their local government if they feel the law is not being fully enforced. In addition, it further criminalizes the employment of illegal immigrants, and creates a crime of “trespassing” on state land without immigration status, and a crime of having an illegal immigrant in one’s vehicle, among other provisions.
The Disclosure of Hydraulic Fracturing Fluid Composition Act	10	Requires the disclosure of fluid used in the production of natural gas through hydraulic fracturing. It would also allow operators not to disclose any materials that are considered a “trade secret” or present incidentally in the hydraulic fluid, and would limit the ability of individuals to challenge a the operator’s claim to trade secret protection.
Castle Doctrine Act	9	Also commonly referred to as “Stand Your Ground” legislation, this act authorizes the deadly use of force against an intruder in a residence or vehicle. It declares that a person has a right to stand his or her ground under reasonable fear of great bodily harm. It also reduces the grounds under which law enforcement may investigate the use of deadly force under these circumstances.
ALEC State Withdrawal from Regional Climate Change Initiative	9	Declares the lack of benefit to reducing carbon emissions in the state that would adopt it, and would provide that state reasonable cover to withdraw from a regional climate initiative.
Consistency of Firearm Regulation	9	Prohibits local jurisdictions from independently enacting restrictions on the possession of firearms. This bill would also preempt the right of local jurisdictions to bring certain civil actions against firearms or ammunition manufacturers, trade associations, and dealers.

ALEC Bills Enacted
Of the 132 ALEC model bills introduced, 12 were enacted.  One additional bill passed the New Hampshire legislature only to be vetoed by the governor.  Now, a success rate of 9% may not seem high upon first glance.  However, consider the fact that, in the 112^th session of the U.S. Congress, less than 2% of introduced bills passed.  That means that bills based on ALEC policies have a survival rate nearly 5 times that of the average bill in Congress.
Table 2 summarizes the ALEC policies that were passed in the 2011-2012 session.  Republicans sponsored all of the enacted bills, and 7 of those sponsors have explicit ties to ALEC.  Two states – Pennsylvania and Oklahoma – passed the Castle Doctrine.  Though the modal ALEC bill introduced in the states was the No Sanctuary Cities for Illegal Immigrants Act, only Alabama passed it.

Table 2: ALEC Bills Enacted
Enacting State		ALEC bill	Sponsor	Known ALEC Tie?	Description
|Alabama	2011 H.B. 56	No Sanctuary Cities for Illegal Immigrants Act	Rep. Micky Hammon (R)	-	See Table 1.
Arizona	2011 S.B. 1546	Eminent Domain Authority for Federal Lands Act	Senator Al Melvin (R)	Yes	Increases the state government’s ability to appropriate federal lands (such as wilderness areas or national parks)
Arizona	2012 H.B. 2503	Regulary Compliance Congruity with Liability Act	Rep, Kimberly Yee (R)	Yes	Increases protection for corporations in product liability suits, and adopts a presumption in favor of the corporate defendant when it can show compliance with governmental standards.
Kansas	2011 S.B. 9	Discovery of Electronically Stored Information and Limitations on Waiver of Attorney-Client Privilege	Judiciary Committee	-	Limits the ability to produce electronically-stored information during discovery.
North Carolina	2011 H.B. 542	Regulatory Compliance Congruity With Liability Act	Rep. Johnathan Rhyne (R)	Yes	Increases protection for corporations in product liability suits, and adopts a presumption  in favor of the corporate defendant when it can show compliance with governmental standards.
North Carolina	2011 H.B. 650	Consistency of Firearms Regulation Act	Rep. Mark Hilton (R)	-	See Table 1.
Oklahoma	2011 S.B. 704	Class Actions Improvement Act	Senator Constance Johnson (R)	Yes	Limits individual’s ability to bring class action suits against large companies by specifying that class action suits cannot seek any monetary relief, and restrict the ability to bring a class action suit with plaintiffs from multiple states.
Oklahoma	2011 H.B. 1439	Castle Doctrine Act	Rep. Steve Vaughan (R)	Yes:Yes	See Table 1.
Pennsylvania	2011 H.B. 40	Castle Doctrine Act	Rep. Scott Perry (R)	-	See Table 1.
Tennessee	2011 H.B. 1030	Virtual Public Schools Act	Rep. Harry Brooks H (R)	Yes	Requires “virtual” or online schools be recognized as public schools and given equal resources as other public schools in the state.
Texas	2011 H.B. 3328	The Disclosure of Hydraulic Fracturing Fluid Composition Act	Rep. James Keffer (R)	Yes	See Table 1.

Conclusion
This research shows that the American Legislative Exchange Council wields considerable influence in state legislatures.  The bills that it writes find their way into the majority of state legislatures.  Moreover, the percentage of those bills that pass is strikingly high compared to the dismal rate at which all other bills are enacted into law.
In the midst of this success, recent controversy over particular ALEC-inspired bills – such as  the Castle Doctrine Act (a.k.a. Stand your Ground) – has caused the organization to come under increased scrutiny from journalists, transparency groups, and voters. As a result, almost 400 legislators and 60 corporations have cut ties with ALEC in the last two years, with some now publicly repudiating the organization’s methods.
Many of ALEC’s prominent (former) corporate partners, such as Wal-Mart, General Electric, and McDonald’s, were almost certainly displeased with the negative publicity and media criticism sparked by ALEC’s foray into hot-button issues like gun control.  That involvement damages ALEC’s reputation, hindering their typical (corporate-friendly) efforts surrounding manufacturing regulations, court procedures, and environmental laws.  ALEC’s corporate partners are paying to influence legislators over those issues, which they want introduced and passed quickly and quietly.  Dirtying its hands with social issues undermines ALEC’s ability to exercise influence over fiscal ones.
This has broader implications for how we think about lobbying.  Consolidation of lobbying groups into broader organizations of legislators and corporations increases their reach but also creates significant hazards. Attempting to tie together such a wide range of interests undermines the ability of the umbrella organization to achieve any of its objectives.  The bigger you get, the more likely it all is to fall apart.  ALEC’s Napoleonic reach may turn out to be its undoing.
This article was researched and written by The Brookings Institute.  Both CMD’s Sourcewatch and Firedoglake identify Brookings as a once-liberal now-conservative think tank, with FDL stating “it has become the Alan Colmes of think-tanks, fake liberals who meekly accept conservative mythology on every major point, but says we should at least think of the misery we are causing.”
The author credits ALECexposed for a lot of the information used in the article.  I want to note that ALECexposed is still the source I use regularly to verify and cross-check information that I have researched.  Its Sourcewatch articles are, IMHO, the best.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This article is written by Molly Jackman with research assistance from Grace Wallack and Brian Boessenecker.  It is posted by the Brookings Institute at http://tinyurl.com/mw5bog6

Cato Institute suggests an ‘overthrow’ of U.S. Government is needed

David PhillipsLas Vegas Democrat Examiner

December 5, 2013

Testifying before a Congressional hearing Tuesday on the President’s Constitutional powers, Michael Cannon the Cato Institute’s Director of Health Policy Studies, suggests that as a last “resort” the U.S. Government should be “overthrown” because President Barack Obama overstepped his executive powers implementing the Affordable Car Act. And Congressman Trey Gowdy (R-SC) who was questioning Mr. Cannon, agreed.

“There is one last thing to which the people can resort if the government does not respect the restrains that the constitution places on the government,” Cannon said. “Abraham Lincoln talked about our right to alter our government or our revolutionary right to overthrow it.”
“That is certainly something that no one wants to contemplate,” he continued. “If the people come to believe that the government is no longer constrained by the laws then they will conclude that neither are they.”

Cannon goes on to say that it's “very dangerous” for the President to “ignore the laws” by imposing an “obligation upon the people”

“That is a very dangerous sort of thing for the president to do, to wantonly ignore the laws,” Cannon concluded, “to try to impose obligation upon people that the legislature did not approve.”

There have been several calls for a revolution to overthrow the U.S. Government because of President Obama and the Affordable Care Act by right wing activists, and they have received some support from Republicans in Congress.
Last month right wing activists held a rally in Washington D.C., promoted by Larry Klayman a far right wing activist, along with Larry Pratt, Bob Barr, Pamela Geller, Alan Keyes, Bradlee Dean, Joseph Farah and Zeeda Andrews. All of these people are right wing activists who say that President Obama is either a Muslim terrorist or worse.
Klayman had suggested that there may be a violent revolution if his Nov. 19 rally failed, he even went as far as issuing a new Declaration of Independence to promote his rally, which did turn out to be a massive failure. During the promotion of the rally, Klayman said that he expected upwards of 1 million people, but only about 100 people showed up.
You can view the C-SPAN2 video clip of Michael Cannon testifying at the Congressional hearing attached to this article above.
Don't miss any of the Las Vegas Democrat Examiner articles: Click the Subscribe button and enter your E-mail address. You’ll be alerted to the latest column when it's published. You can also follow on Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

Foreign Press Says What America’s Won’t: Sarah Palin is a Traitor

Foreign Press Says What America’s Won’t: Sarah Palin is a Traitor

 

 from: Sarah Jones
 

Sarah Palin has made it to the big time; she’s been called out by international media. Three years ago, the Russian newspaper Pravda (this same paper has been quoted in numerous Right Wing publications when it criticized President Obama, and was considered a paper of merit at such time) eviscerated Sarah Palin for her unrelenting attacks upon the democratically elected President, at a time when America needs to stand together, united. When members of the International Press call Sarah Palin out for her lack of American patriotism, it’s time for the American Press to pay attention. It’s about time someone did. Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey wrote in Pravda:

“By attacking the democratically elected President of the United States of America at a sensitive time in her country’s history, she shows the tact of a boorish drunkard bawling obscenities at a funeral….
And now she turns not only against the fibre and backbone of her country, but against its democratically elected President, accusing him of being incompetent for not stopping Wikileaks. Where was she and where was her GOP before and during the 9/11 attacks? She accuses President Obama of not taking “steps” to assure the leaks were not published. What “steps”?……
If anything is a threat to the national security of the United States of America, it is this screaming, unrefined oaf with as much class as a searing release of flatulence followed by hysterical giggling at a state banquet. Is this what the people of the USA deserve?
To attack the President of the country at a time when the USA needs to close ranks and stand together to consolidate the enormous strides his (President Obama’s) intelligent and respectful approach has achieved in building bridges, when her party’s period in government bombed them, Spankin’ Sarah Palin comes across as a pitifully inadequate anachronism from the times of the Far West.”

Bancroft-Hinchey has been proven correct by the way MSNBC handled Martin Bashir. Palin was engaging in more treasonous talk when she compared the national debt to slavery. Her comments were more of Palin reminding everyone that the president is black, and in her view that is a very bad thing.
Bashir saw through her latest barrage of hate speech gibberish, and called her out in the most graphic way possible. The media responded by bowing to the imaginary power, and very real privilege of Sarah Palin.
The American Press won’t say what the International Press will for a variety of reasons, but suffice it to say that there are many agendas at play here, causing truth to take a back-seat to dollars. As a noted US media critic once said, “everything to sell and nothing to tell.” And what a shame, because this isn’t about partisanship or even elitism; it’s about patriotism and who better to cover this issue than our domestic press?
Ms Palin cloaks her myth in her flag, but one has to question just what that symbol represents to Ms Palin, given that she won’t stop attacking this country’s sitting President during each crisis that presents itself. The word patriotism derives from the Greek patriōtēs meaning “fellow countryman”; that would include all of us, even President Obama. I’m afraid Ms Palin and her followers conflate their false community of nationalism with patriotism, and under the guise of said nationalism, justify harming America’s standing in the world along with the very unity of our nation. One can’t help but question Ms Palin’s true motives, along with her jingoistic, tabloid-driven patriotism, since she beats this drum of division in each public appearance she makes.
One wonders, can Sarah Palin can see what the Russians see: a shrill, desperate demagogue more interested in making money and getting famous than in the best interests of her country; a woman so jealous of a sitting President that she takes every blow her country faces and exploits it, turning it into an even more negative, frightening moment while distracting from the real work – never once stepping into the debate to lead, to soothe, to unite.
Never once has Ms Palin shown her love for this great country by standing by it and her President in a time of need. Instead, she views each crisis as a cynical opportunity to sow the seeds of division among fellow countrymen. During the oil spill crisis, she took to Fox News to spew nonsense about the Dutch not getting their phone calls received, claiming she knew how to fix the leak if only the President had called on her. Of course, since she was on Fox News, no one bothered to ask her why, then, she did nothing to stop the oil spills that took place during her brief tenure as Governor of Alaska.
When she went to Hong Kong for a speaking engagement, Ms. Palin attacked her President on foreign soil during a time of war. On her first book tour, Palin and her entourage of hit men (aka, her father, et al) attacked the Commander in Chief on military bases. In times of major decisions regarding the war in Afghanistan, Palin has mocked the President when he followed the course of action recommended by his Generals. On 9/11, Palin bashed the President. In her speeches, Ms Palin is sure to remind her followers that Obama’s foreign policy is weakening America while she accuses the President of not loving his country. During the WikiLeaks crisis, Palin blamed the President instead of calling for a united front for our country.
Ms Palin and her followers justify this unpatriotic behavior by claiming the President is “un-American”. We all know what that’s about but if we’re left with any doubt, we have only to listen to Ms Palin assure her listeners that they have every right to ask for the President’s birth certificate:
And here she is just weeks ago suggesting that the failure to vet the President and his associations has harmed our democracy. Talk about projection.
Ms Palin’s heavily moderated Facebook page was just months ago full of comments calling for the death of our President, sedition, and the overthrowing of the Obama administration as being God’s will. Those comments were left standing while comments questioning Ms Palin in any way were scrubbed. Ms Palin stands for a level of vitriolic, simmering revulsion so steeped in delusions of self-righteousness, it’s tough to swim to sanity once you’ve been washed in the blood of her particular lamb.
We are at war, facing a global economic crisis, still reeling from a devastating oil spill and now facing the challenges brought on by the WikiLeaks dump. Yet, on every issue of importance, Palin has inserted herself with jarring accusations against the President, offering nothing but malicious hate fueled by a failure to understand what she doesn’t understand.
Ms Palin’s particular brand of tabloid patriotism leaves out anyone who disagrees with her, beats her in a contest, dares to question her, or has the temerity to actually read and debate important issues. She’s become an international embarrassment:
“If Sarah Palin is not some kind of a massive political joke in the USA, wheeled out to liven up the political scene from time to time with nonsensical and pastiche (one hopes) displays of sheer and utter ignorance, then it is worrying.”
Sarah Palin is the figurehead for an unpatriotic movement here in the United States of America. A movement so bereft of love for this country that they would go to any means to see it fail, in order to elevate themselves into power. A movement which just yesterday met with the democratically elected President of this fine country and then immediately stabbed him in the back in their post-game press conference.
And nestled into this web of traitors is one particularly odious senator, Senator John McCain, upon whose shoulders the blame for this national embarrassment rests. Ms Palin is the front-runner of this group for Presidential candidate in 2012 according to polls. This makes sense, given the Republican Party’s current gamesmanship of our political system, wherein their only goal is to destroy the President – not to lead, not to govern – but to destroy. At any cost necessary.
When the Russians are calling you out for failing to support your country in a time of need, for attempting to bring her to her knees with petty attacks on the President, you have seriously jumped the patriotism shark. Sarah Palin is the traitorous figurehead of the GOP, whose only purpose seems to be to assist them in their goal to bring down President Barack Obama.
So while a scant few of them (Rove, Scarborough, and a few of the “elites” who are not elected officials; the elected officials are quivering in the corner rather than standing up to the myth of Palin lest they alienate what little remains of the Republican Party base) make the rounds distancing themselves from her now, do not forget how they set her into motion in 2008 to do exactly what she’s doing now. And do not forget that even as they take a slight step away from the noxious whiff of disgust that follows in Ms Palin’s wake, they’re not silencing her; they’re not calling her out for her attacks on the President. No, the most they can muster from their cowardly bunkers of fear from which they wage their war on America is mild outrage that she would insult the Bushes or Reagan.
Nary a word about her outrageously destructive actions toward our current President. And why is that? Because Ms Palin is doing the dirty work for the Republican weaklings; sowing seeds of division, suspicion, hatred, and rage against a sitting President.
And those, my friends, are not the actions of a patriot. True Glasnost has arrived when the International Press says what the American Press will not. Sarah Palin is no patriot.
(Note: The original version of this story was first published on December 1, 2010. It has been updated to reflect recent events.)

Foreign Press Says What America’s Won’t: Sarah Palin is a Traitor was written by Sarah Jones for PoliticusUSA.

© PoliticusUSA, Fri, Dec 6th, 2013 — All Rights Reserved

 

The Right Wing’s Campaign To Discredit And Undermine Mandela, In One Timeline

By Igor Volsky and Zack Beauchamp on December 6, 2013 at 11:04 am

"The Right Wing’s Campaign To Discredit And Undermine Mandela, In One Timeline"

The world is celebrating Nelson Mandela as a selfless visionary who led his country out of the grips of apartheid into democracy and freedom. But some of the very people lavishing praise on South Africa’s first black president worked tirelessly to undermine his cause and portray the African National Congress he lead as pawns of the Soviet Union.
In fact, American conservatives have long been willing to overlook South Africa’s racist apartheid government in service of fighting communism abroad. Below is a short history, and some explanation, of how conservatives approached Mandela with the hostility they did:

1960s

National Review predicts end of white rule would result in “the collapse of civilization.”

After Mandela was sentenced to life in prison, the magazine observed that “The South African courts have sentenced a batch of admitted terrorists to life in the penitentiary, and you would think the court had just finished barbecuing St. Joan, to hear the howls from the Liberal press.” By March of the following year, conservative Russell Kirk argued in the pages of the magazine that democracy in South Africa “would bring anarchy and the collapse of civilization” and the government “would be domination by witch doctors (still numerous and powerful) and reckless demagogues.”

1980s

Reagan described apartheid South Africa as a “good country.”

After President Jimmy Carter imposed sanctions on South Africa Reagan reversed course, labeling the African National Congress a terrorist organization. As he explained to CBS’ Walter Cronkite in 1981, the United States should support the South Africa regime because it is “a country that has stood by us in every war we’ve ever fought, a country that, strategically, is essential to the free world in its production of minerals.” In 1985, he told an interviewer: “They have eliminated the segregation that we once had in our own country — the type of thing where hotels and restaurants and places of entertainment and so forth were segregated — that has all been eliminated.” He later walked back the comment. As late as 1988, Reagan called apartheid “a tribal policy more than…a racial policy.”
Jerry Falwell urges supporters to oppose sanctions.

The late Jerry Falwell urged “supporters to write their congressmen and senators to tell them to oppose sanctions against the apartheid regime.” “The liberal media has for too long suppressed the other side of the story in South Africa,” he said. “It is very important that we stay close enough to South Africa so that it does not fall prey to the clutches of Communism.”
180 House members opposed free Mandela resolution.

In 1986, 145 Republicans and 45 Democrats voted down a none-binding House resolution urging the Government of South Africa to indicate its willingness to negotiate with the black majority by granting unconditional freedom to Nelson Mandela, recognizing the African National Congress; and establishing a framework for political talks. This included Dick Cheney, John McCain, Newt Gingrich, Dan Coats, Pat Roberts, Joe Barton. Asked in 2000 if he regretted the vote, Cheney said he did not adding, “The ANC was then viewed as a terrorist organization.”
20 Senators and 83 House members oppose sanctions.

The 1986 bill cut virtually “all U.S. economic ties with South Africa, requiring American companies to cease operating there within 180 days.” Lawmakers had to override Reagan’s veto. Sens. Thad Conrad, Orrin Hatch and Reps. Hal Rogers, Joe Barton, and Howard Coble all voted against imposing sanctions on the regime.
Jack Abramoff leads think tank dedicated to tearing down Mandela.

In 1986, the South African government helped fund and establish The International Freedom Foundation (IFF), a conservative think tank designed to “reverse the apartheid regime’s pariah status in Western political circles” and “portray the ANC as a tool of Soviet communism, thus undercutting the movement’s growing international acceptance as the government-in-waiting of a future multiracial South Africa.” The Washington branch of the IFF listed, among others, Senator Jesse Helms, James Inhofe as advisers. The lobbyist Jack Abramoff led the organization.
U.S. Senator testified in support of the apartheid government.

“In the late 1980s and early ’90s, after returning from his Mormon mission to South Africa,” Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) lobbied for South African interests and in 1987, “testified before the Utah State Senate in support of a resolution expressing support for the government of South Africa while racial segregation laws were enforced — largely to support U.S. mining interests in the region.”
Now, it would be unfair to say conservatism spoke univocally in condemnation of Mandela. A group of upstart Republicans in the mid-80s, led by Reps. Vin Weber, Robert Walker, and Newt Gingrich pushed hard for the United States to take a more critical stance on apartheid.
But this group was bucking the conservative mainstream at the time. “South Africa has been able to depend on conservatives in the United States . . . to treat them with benign neglect,” Weber said. That has a lot to do with the enduring conservative hostility towards rapid change. Conservatives see broad challenges, even to oppressive systems, as dangerous “revolutionary” change, whereas slower “evolutionary” tweaks in a better direction would be preferable.
Reagan’s South Africa point man, Chester A. Crocker, made this revolutionary/evolutionary binary into one of his three main principles for thinking about South Africa policy. “The circumstances in South Africa do not justify giving up on the hopes for evolutionary change (as distinguished from a revolutionary cataclysm),” he wrote in a famous Foreign Affairs essay. Many in the West, Crocker believed, held “a mistaken assumption that American and South African clocks are synchronized-that our impatience signifies the imminence of the revolution.”
It was Crocker, of course, who was mistaken, writing only about a decade before Mandela was freed from prison. But this skepticism about the possibility and desirability of radical change (Crocker seemed to think any dissolution of the apartheid government would necessarily be in part a violent one), together with the obvious cultural affinity that mainstream conservatives felt with Westernized Afrikaner elites, made conservatives distinctly inclined to view Mandela’s calls for political transformation with jaded eyes.

1990s

Heritage Foundation says Mandela is no “freedom fighter.” “Americans nevertheless have reasons to be skeptical of Mandela,” the foundation warned as he planned to visit the United States in 1990. “First, Nelson Mandela is not a freedom fighter. He repeatedly has supported terrorism. Since Mandela’s release from prison and his subsequent refusal to renounce violence, the Marxist-dominated ANC has launched terrorism and violence against civilians, claiming several hundred lives.”
Conservative think tank links Mandela to communists. “When Mandela made his first visit to the United States in 1990, following his release from prison, the IFF placed advertisements in local papers designed to dampen public enthusiasm for Mandela,” Newsday reported. “One ad in the Miami Herald portrayed Mandela as an ally and defender of Cuba’s Fidel Castro. The city’s large Cuban community was so agitated that a ceremony to present Mandela with keys to the city was scrapped.

2000s

National Review labels Mandela a “communist” for opposing the Iraq war.

“[Mandela's] vicious anti-Americanism and support for Saddam Hussein should come as no surprise, given his long-standing dedication to Communism and praise for terrorists. The world finally saw that his wife Winnie, rather than being a saintly freedom-fighter, was a murderous thug.”
This positioning of Mandela as being on the wrong side of a divide between “friends” and “enemies” — once communism, in the 2000s Saddam and terrorism — is the most important ideological lesson to learn from this history of hostility to Mandela. Conservatives have a deep tendency to judge foreign conflicts principally by the proximity of each side to the enemy du jour.
The treatment of South Africa in Jeane Kirkpatrick’s famous “Dictatorships and Double Standards” essay, where she argued that authoritarian anti-Communist states were more amenable to transition to democracy than revolutionary socialist governments, exemplifies this point nicely. She listed Jimmy Carter’s more confrontational South Africa policy as an example of the Carter Administration taking “at face value the claim of revolutionary groups to represent ‘popular’ aspirations and ‘progressive’ forces–regardless of the ties of these revolutionaries to the Soviet Union.”
Modern conservatives explaining the movement’s Mandela position in the past 12 hours have repeatedly employed Kirkpatrick-style to argue that conservative positions were, at the time, reasonable. “In retrospect, it’s easy to think of Mandela as the grandfatherly statesman,” Matt Lewis writes, “but the Soviet Union posed an existential threat; it’s not like nuclear weapons weren’t aimed at us. Such a thing has a way of focusing your priorities. In that milieu, one can understand why the U.S. would have been very cautious about anyone who had even ‘dabbled’ in Communism.” Deroy Murdock describes the view at the time as “Nelson Mandela was just another Fidel Castro or a Pol Pot, itching to slip from behind bars, savage his country, and surf atop the bones of his victims.”
Now, both Lewis and Murdock readily admit that this view was in hindsight mistaken. But the overemphasis on the friend/enemy distinction that blinded conservative’s to the justness of the ANC’s cause has hardly gone away.