The Anti-Sam Brownback Blog

We all know that Senator Sam Brownback supports the overturning of Roe v. Wade and criminalization of abortion. In What’s the Matter With Kansas, Thomas Frank mentioned several times that many Conservatives don’t actually want Roe overturned. Abortion serves them well as an issue to inflame the base but would destroy moderate support if banned. Now a Republican House member tells the truth:

Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), chairman of the Government Reform Committee, said the desire of GOP conservatives to see a newly constituted Supreme Court eventually overturn Roe v. Wade could produce a political backlash, particularly in the suburbs. “It would be a sea change in suburban voting patterns,” Davis said at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.

“If Roe v. Wade is overturned,” Davis said, “you’re going to have a lot of very nervous suburban candidates out there. . . . It’s easy to say you’re for a culture of life, but the answer is what do you do about it at that point.”

If Brownback really got what he wanted, it would be the end of the Republican party. Republicans need abortion to remain a contentious, but available (to rich whites) issue in order to continue winning elections.

I have always wondered whether Brownback is a true believer. I get the feeling that many conservatives talk the talk on abortion and gay marriage solely to get the votes. I don’t think many of them actually care. Senator Brownback, however, is a tough case to figure out. His rhetoric often rises above simple bigoted screeds to a level of vitriol that seems to be genuine.

Perhaps someday we’ll get memos or memoirs that tell the true story. Until then, just remember that he is crazy like a fox and dangerous.

You know BRAC, the Base Realignment and Closing commission. The giant political boondoggle that every year targets those not in the majority and pushes pork to the majority’s members. Brownback wants to have a similar system in place to review all federal programs. This can get a little complicated, so I’ll let ombwatch.org explain:

CARFA was modeled on the Defense and Base Closure and Realignment Act (BRAC), which was first used during the Kennedy administration in the 1960s and then resurfaced in the late 1980s to close unneeded military bases while avoiding political skirmishes among representatives. CARFA, however, had important differences from BRAC. First, while BRAC required a bipartisan commission, comprised equally of Republicans and Democrats, the CARFA bill would have allowed the president to choose all the members of the commission. Further, while a straight up-or-down vote saved the closing of military bases from political infighting, voting up or down on CARFA proposals would play only into special interests; by selecting programs to be eliminated but never addressing unmet needs, CARFA would act as a one-way ratchet, slashing needed government programs without addressing gaps in protection. Whereas a commission more closely comparable to BRAC would recommend closures of specific program sites, such as one Head Start center, a CARFA commission would recommend the elimination of entire programs, such as Head Start itself.

In the last Congress, Brownback put forth the same legislation, but with several important changes. First, Brownback’s legislation, which was also introduced in the House by Tiahrt, excluded entitlement programs as well as those operated by the Department of Defense from review by the commission. Second, the bill would have required the president to develop a review methodology, present it to the commission for approval, and conduct reviews of at least half of all government programs. The Brownback version would have required program assessments to be “based primarily on the achievement of performance goals.”

Why is this bad? The commission would be appointed by the President so would be completely partisan. It would recommend throwing out the baby with the bathwater by axing entire programs.

Plus, and this really gets me because conservative republicans are supposed to be all about reducing bureaucracy, it would create a powerful unelected body that would have the power to build an entirely new bureaucracy. How much time will all of these programs likely to be under the knife have to spend lobbying and filling out mounds of paperwork to keep their essential services afloat? Why do republicans love big government?

It seems that Brownback is going to focus on this issue more while glossing over the realities that it would create mounds of new paperwork and cut vital programs needed by middle class Americans.

In a discussion today with conservative bloggers, Senator Sam Brownback claimed that Senate Republicans are prepared to use the nuclear options should the Democrats mount a filibuster of Samuel Alito.

On Alito and filibusters: If Democrats go the route of filibustering Sam Alito, we’re going to go the route of changing the rule.

In case you missed the earlier posts on how Brownback is a complete hypocrite on this issue I reference you to “Filibuster Bluster” to refresh your memory.

Senator Sam Brownback was part of a group that yesterday unveiled their “Vehicle and Fuel Choices for American Security Act of 2005″. The Kansas City Star Explains:

Because two-thirds of the oil used in this country is used in transportation, the bill focuses on reducing oil consumption by changing the way Americans fuel their vehicles.

The legislation would include tax breaks, as much as 35 percent, and loan guarantees to get automakers to switch to gas-electric hybrids, advanced diesel or other alternative technologies, including ethanol.

Ten percent of all vehicles sold in the United States would have to be hybrids, hybrid-electric plug-ins, or operable on alternative fuels by 2012. That would rise to 50 percent by 2016.

It also includes new tax breaks for those who buy such vehicles for car fleets, and incentives for developing alternative fuels, such as ethanol from cellulosic biomass, research into use of lightweight material in cars, and the promotion of mass transit corridors.

Before I discuss what we know about the bill, I would like to point out there is much we do not know. I haven’t been able to find the text of the bill (it is not in thomas.loc.gov) so the only information we have has been fed to us in political sound bites.

That being said, I find one glaring problem with the bill that the KC Star mentions:

The bill’s supporters range from liberal Democrats to conservative Republicans, mainly because the bill avoids issues like increased drilling or mandated vehicle fuel-efficiency standards.

This is what kills me. They are happy to talk about the way Americans fuel their vehicles, but are not willing to talk about the actual vehicles Americans drive. I don’t see the point if in ten years we have hybrid Hummers that instead of 7 mpg get 10 mpg. Fuel choices are an important piece of the puzzle, but are not all we need to address. This bill gains support by sacrificing hard issues.

Additionally, it looks as though this bill will be a boon to ethanol producers. Ethanol sounds great, but there needs to be more research as to the total energy cost of making the fuel. I have heard estimates that it uses more energy to produce make the ethanol product than the ethanol product provides. We need to be clear as to the real efficiency of the process. Will any politician bring that up? Not likely considering ethanol is the golden calf of the Iowa Caucuses. Every politician must worship at its feet in order to curry favor for Presidential election season.

I feel like this is a good first step. The reality is that talk is cheap. I want to see specifics and I want to see methods of enforcement. If any of these long term goals are going to be met we must start today.

Another day, another mention of Brownback in the Family Research Council’s newsletter. This time it is about a porn survey conducted by Morality in Media. With a name like that, I am sure they are completely non biased. In any case, here is what they found:

…three quarters of Americans want the Justice Department to strictly enforce laws against pornography. Bob Peters is with the media watchdog.

“77 percent of the public support this new effort and over 60 percent said that they strongly supported it. I think that’s an indication that the American people are not, on the whole, pleased with this proliferation of hardcore pornography in our society.”

At the same time, child pornography is a multi-billion dollar commercial enterprise, and is among the fastest growing businesses on the Internet. Kansas Senator Sam Brownback says the proliferation of obscenity bears careful scrutiny.

“We’re seeing this now impact marriages in such a significant way and society overall and yet it continues to spread and we have not been as concerned about it as we need to be.”

They do not include the questions asked in the survey, nor do they include a data chart so that we can see the raw numbers. On the basis of this alone, I would not consider this survey to be scientific or at all accurate. The first rule of fundamentalist Christian polling? Do not let the peons view polling data for they may draw conclusions not sanctioned by the Holy One, James Dobson.

Looking past the glaring statistical omissions, there is another problem with this poll. Most Americans will rail against porn in public and then consume it in private. Perhaps the most famous case is Utah v. Larry Peterman. Peterman was a video rental store owner who has a section of the store devoted to “adult” titles. He was charged under a Utah obscenity law and subsequently acquitted after it was shown that his store did not run afoul of the Miller Test. What was the most important piece of evidence? The NYT explains:

The 1973 Supreme Court case Miller v. California established a threshold for defining illegal pornography; a major test was that it had to be considered obscene to the “average person, applying contemporary community standards.”

[Mr. Peterman’s] lawyer argued that Mr. Peterman was not violating community standards, because people in Utah County bought 20,000 adult sex videos from one satellite programmer alone in the period that Mr. Peterman was said to have broken the law; it was double the volume in most cities the size of Provo. And in the Provo Marriott, guests were paying for nearly 3,000 explicit adult videos every year, according to court testimony.

Hmmmm. So the largest public opponents of pornography are likely its largest private consumers. That’s why I don’t believe this survey. People aren’t going to support pornography over the phone to a stranger.

I mentioned at the beginning of the post that Brownback get yet another mention in the FRC’s newsletter. These hearings on pornography have garnered him a decent amount of attention in religious circles. This is a continuation of his strategy to inflame his base. Brownback needs to scare his base into voting for him so he uses themes that scare and validate the concerns of religious fundamentalists. His campaign slogan could be “Gays, Abortion Doctors and Porn… They’re Commin’ to git ya!”

Never let it be said that I always disagree with Senator Sam Brownback. 98% of the time I think he is ignorant at best and maniacal at worst, but we agree on refusing military funerals for convicted killers. From the AP:

The Senate passed a bill Wednesday to keep BTK serial killer Dennis Rader and other veterans convicted of murder from being buried in national cemeteries or given military funeral honors.

The bill’s backers, including Sens. Pat Roberts and Sam Brownback, both R-Kansas, and Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, said the measure would close a loophole under current law and require the Defense Department and Veterans Affairs Administration to be more proactive in checking the backgrounds of those slated for military burials.

I view this as a straightforward victim’s rights issue.

So there you have it. Will I agree Brownback again before 2008? Not likely. The guy is crazy as a loon.

Josh over at Thoughts from Kansas wrote this up before I had a chance, and rather than rewriting much the same information I would implore you to visit his post. The gist is that the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs has long been known as a hotbed of evangelical Christianity. There have been allegations of discrimination against recruits who did not buy into this belief system. As a result, there are new regulations to spell out exactly what officers can and can’t tell their recruits about religion. Josh continues:

But Ryun, Tiahrt and Brownback signed a letter calling on the Air Force to rescind these rules. A Focus on Families spokeswoman said “We should be encouraging spiritual reflection at the Air Force Academy and the other service academies.”

I’d say that we shouldn’t discourage spiritual reflection, but the Air Force Academy isn’t a seminary. The people there are learning to fight for America, not run monasteries. There’s no excuse for evangelical officers to tell Jewish students that they killed Christ, that half of the cadets have heard religious slurs, or that Christians should get special treatment.

While this issue has not received much attention in the mass media, Christian organizations have been lobbying hard for the reversal of these rules. By signing this letter, Brownback is again laying the foundation for running as the “Christian Candidate” in 2008.

Iowa conservatives are warning GOP presidential hopefuls (including Senator Sam Brownback) to support the Alito nomination or face caucus consequences in 2008. From the Sioux City Journal:

“Please know that we have communicated with our constituents regarding this nomination and will continue to keep our statewide members informed of your stance on this important nomination”

“In your constitutional role of advising and consenting on the nomination, the undersigned organizations expect you to diligently review the nomination, conduct fair and respectful hearings and swiftly vote,” the letter said. “It is our hope that through this process you too will recognize Judge Alito’s impeccable qualifications and vote to confirm.”

One of the signatories of this letter was the Iowa Family Policy Center. Their President, Chuck Hurley, is a college and law school friend of Brownback. What does Hurley, a prominent and influential Iowa conservative, have to say about his classmate?

“I am 100 percent behind him personally, in terms of a presidential bid,” Hurley said. “My friendship and my confidence in Sam as a leader is what’s driving me personally. Professionally, I think he’d do a great job on our issues.”

In the New Jersey Governor’s election, Democrat John Corzine convincing trounced Doug Forrester in a race that was hailed by pundits as a possible sign of future republican electoral troubles. While this race was interesting on many levels, I think the most important landmark event was Democrat John Corzine’s usage of stem cell research as an effective wedge issue. The TV ad with a quadriplegic talking about stem cell research was devastatingly simple and to the point. Plus, it garnered a ton of free media coverage.

There were no public exit polls in NJ, so the exact effect of the stem cell push may never be known. However, based upon conventional wisdom I think conservative republicans should be scared. Senator Sam Brownback especially should be aware that his opposition to stem cell research could sink his campaign.

Brownback’s position on the issue is indefensible. Few people when faced with the choice of incinerating an embryo or using it for life saving research would choose incineration on principle. Senator Sam Brownback’s insistence that stem cell research is a matter of “life” is correct. It is a possibility for millions of Americans to live better lives.

Brownback, and every other republican who opposes stem cell research should be scared. If an anti research republican runs in 2008, s/he will be decimated with ads on the issue. The Corzine strategy is only the beginning. Democrats will stand up for the millions of Americans who need these treatments. We will not let religious dogma cause them a lifetime of pain and agony.

The voters will be with us. From the Philadelphia Enquirer:

Other advocates, such as Tricia Riccio, a Warren County mother of a quadriplegic teenager, said she had not given up hope for Codey’s proposals.

She is, however, the kind of voter Forrester fears: Riccio said she and her family would vote for Corzine solely because he supported embryonic stem-cell research, which she believes could someday allow her son Carl to walk again.

“My husband and I are lifelong Republicans who switched our parties because of the need for stem-cell research,” Riccio said. “This issue matters more for us than anything else.”