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Republican State Senator Bill Brady has now opened a seven-point lead over embattled Governor Pat Quinn in Illinois’ gubernatorial race.
The latest Rasmussen Reports statewide telephone survey of Likely Voters shows Brady picking up 44% of the vote, while Quinn earns support from 37%. Eleven percent (11%) prefer a different candidate, and nine percent (9%) are undecided.
Earlier this month, Quinn pulled within three points of his challenger following an announcement that he was cutting state spending by $1 billion as he wrestles with one of the worst state budget deficits in the country. Read More…
By Michael Barone
Democratic spin doctors have set out how their side is going to hold onto a majority in the House. They’ll capture four at-risk Republican seats, hold half of the next 30 or so Democratic at-risk seats, and avoid significant losses on target seats lower on the list. 
That’s one plausible scenario. The shift of opinion away from Democrats so evident in the polls could turn out to be illusory. The widely held assumption that Republicans will turn out in greater numbers than Democrats could prove wrong.
Democratic candidates do indeed have a money advantage in many close races, and their campaign committee has more cash than its Republican counterpart.
All that said, this Democratic spin sounds a lot like the Republican spin back in the 2006 cycle. If the numbers don’t change too much from 2004, Republicans said then, we can hold on. If the numbers don’t change too much from 2008, Democrats think now, they can hold on.
But the Republicans, as George W. Bush said, took “a thumping” in 2006. And most signs suggest Democrats will take a thumping this year, too. Read More…
Yesterday Democrats in the Senate failed in their effort to invoke cloture (that is, end debate) on the DISCLOSE Act, perhaps the most Orwellian-named piece of legislation in recent memory.
The bill would have subjected donors of grassroots organizations to public scrutiny and regulatory harassment whether their contribution was used for the broadcast of an ad advocating the election or defeat of a candidate or not. So, for example, if someone wrote a large contribution to an organization opposing higher taxes, even if other funds were used to broadcast an express advocacy communication, the donor would be reported to the Federal Election Commission. It is an attempt by the Democrats in the Senate to regulate and restrict speech, silence critics of their extremist policies, and intimidate opponents of the administration and the Democratic majority.
It tramples on the First Amendment and the freedom of association. Unless, that is, you are a labor union—groups funded with membership dues are largely exempt. What a surprise! As is the Sierra Club. And the National Rifle Association, which vowed to score a vote for the DISCLOSE Act as a vote against gun rights. Democrats knew that would defeat the bill so they carved out a safe harbor for the NRA. This is not equal protection under the law; it is Chicago-style thuggery.
Read More…
By Gregg Keller
Today, by only a one vote margin, the liberals in the U.S. Senate failed to invoke cloture and end debate on the so-called “DISCLOSE” Act. If passed, the cynical DISCLOSE Act championed by liberals Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer would have suppressed the First Amendment free speech rights of conservative organizations while creating carve-outs for liberal organizations of which Schumer and Reid approve.
Faith & Freedom joined with dozens of other major conservative organizations in signing a coalition letter to every member of the U.S. Senate calling on them to vote “NO” on cloture and final passage. Additionally, FFC contacted our 400,000 members and activists and asked them to contact their U.S. Senator and urge them to oppose the bill.
The DISCLOSE Act supported by Congressional Democrats was one of the most egregious and transparent power grabs in the history of modern politics. It made public disclosure of donors to grassroots conservative organizations, whether they funded a political communication or not, subjecting contributors to potential regulatory and public harassment in a clear attempt to intimidate private citizens or corporations from supporting grassroots groups such as FFC. In a partisan power grab, it exempted labor unions, the Sierra Club, and other liberal advocacy groups. It also exempted the National Rifle Association, primarily because Harry Reid and Democrats knew if the NRA was included in the bill, it would go down to defeat.
“Faith & Freedom Coalition is proud to have joined dozens of major conservative organizations in ensuring liberal Democrats in the Senate failed to invoke cloture on the DISCLOSE Act today,” said Faith & Freedom Coalition Executive Director Gregg Keller. “We communicated with every member of the U.S. Senate prior to this vote, asking for their opposition to this cynical piece of liberal legislation. We asked our grassroots army of more than 400,000 members across the country to make their voices heard on this issue and we were glad to help make sure that their words were heeded.”
You can read more about the defeat of the DISCLOSE Act here.
By Lauren Green
July 23, 2010| FoxNews.com
Arizona school children are told they can’t pray in front of the Supreme Court building … Two University of Texas Arlington employees are fired for praying over a co-worker’s cubicle after work hours … In Cranston, R.I., a high school banner causes controversy when a parent complains it contains a prayer and demands that it be removed.
There are more legal challenges to prayer in the United States than ever before, says Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-founder of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, an atheist organization whose business is booming as Americans increasingly tackle church vs. state issues.
“We’ve never had more complaints about government prayer,” Gaylor says. “We have just hired a second staff attorney in July. It’s turned into a cottage industry for our attorneys.”
The foundation has had a huge volume of complaints about prayer in the public sector, including numerous issues involving civic and government meetings where sessions have traditionally begun with a prayer or moment of silence.
In Augusta, Ga., the city’s law department just issued a legal opinion defending the city’s practice of a pre-meeting prayer, saying it does not violate federal law. The statement was in response to the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s letter to the mayor’s office urging him to stop the invocations at the start of meetings. The foundation sent similar letters to three cities in South Carolina. Read More…
Frank Rich of the New York Times column has written another installment in a seemingly endless series of obituaries of religious conservatism, the latest tied to Mel Gibson’s travails. In Rich’s formulation, Gibson is a “powerful and canonized figure in the political and cultural pantheon of American conservatism,” so his recent personal challenges and the release of highly embarrassing audiotapes recorded during a bitter custody dispute are a metaphor for the decline of the cultural right.
The idea that Mel Gibson’s misconduct somehow signals the downfall of religious conservatism is nonsense. A movement for time-honored values built over three decades and enjoying the support of one out of every four voters does not slide into the abyss because of the behavior of a Hollywood actor. Recall that when the televangelism scandals erupted in the 1980’s and the Moral Majority closed its doors, many rushed to proclaim the movement’s death-knell. Within a few years the Christian Coalition had enrolled two million members and activists and a Republican Congress reformed welfare, cut taxes, balanced the budget, and passed a ban on partial-birth abortion. Whoops.
By Gregg Keller
I’ve been thrilled to return to my old political stomping grounds of Iowa for most of this week to hold meetings with our dynamic Iowa FFC President, Steve Scheffler. Although we have 23 FFC affiliates organized across the country, Iowa is certainly one of our strongest thanks to Steve and our team here. Steve and I held meetings with local business and community leaders in Dubuque, Davenport, Waterloo and Des Moines, spreading the word about what Iowa FFC is doing to identify, educate and turnout conservatives in 2010 and 2012 in the Hawkeye State.
The highlight of my visit to Iowa, however, was certainly the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition house party hosted by Jeff and Melissa Jochims in Clive Thursday night. The house party was a tremendous success, with nearly 100 attendees. We were joined by some fantastic conservative candidates who will be on the ballot in November, including: Sen. Kim Reynolds, candidate for Lieutenant Governor; Brenna Findley, who is running for Attorney General; Matt Schultz, who is an exciting young candidate for Secretary of State; Story County Treasurer Dave Jamison who hopefully will be promoted after election day; and, Sen. Brad Zaun who has the honor of taking on Washington insider liberal Leonard Boswell.
There may not be a state in the country this year that has a more impressive group of young, aggressive, smart conservatives running statewide than Iowa. It will be exciting there come Election Day!
There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia. The time for double standards that allow Islamists to behave aggressively toward us while they demand our weakness and submission is over.
The proposed “Cordoba House” overlooking the World Trade Center site – where a group of jihadists killed over 3000 Americans and destroyed one of our most famous landmarks – is a test of the timidity, passivity and historic ignorance of American elites. For example, most of them don’t understand that “Cordoba House” is a deliberately insulting term. It refers to Cordoba, Spain – the capital of Muslim conquerors who symbolized their victory over the Christian Spaniards by transforming a church there into the world’s third-largest mosque complex.
To read the full article click here.
The latest Rasmussen Reports statewide telephone survey of Likely Voter shows Kasich picking up 48% support, while the current governor earns 43% of the vote. Three percent (3%) prefer a different candidate, and another five percent (5%) are undecided.
To read the full article click here.
By KARL ROVE
Describing the White House last week, Congressional Democrats used words like “ineptness,” “neglected” and “disconcerting,” and phrases like “isn’t aggressive enough.” President Barack Obama has only himself to blame for these protests.
Well, maybe more than just himself. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs may have spoken the truth when he admitted Democrats could lose the House. He forgot that White House staffers are expected to be advocates, not prognosticators, when their party faces electoral defeat. Mr. Gibbs need not lie, but he could have been discreet.
While an angry response to Mr. Gibbs from Hill Democrats was expected, several factors produced an unusually fierce reaction. First, Democrats in Congress feel underappreciated for having cast tough votes. True, they wanted to pass health care, the stimulus, record deficits, and cap and trade. They thought these would be political winners. But now they feel exposed for supporting unpopular policies they consider poorly explained and badly defended by the administration.
Then there is the White House’s practice of outsourcing the drafting of major legislation to Democratic chairmen. This has made congressional Democrats more sensitive when Mr. Obama exerts himself, as he did with a threatened veto of a spending bill that trimmed his education priorities. One Democratic committee chairman (George Miller) affected by the veto threat complained, “there’s no strategy there,” while another (David Obey) fumed, “there’s a lot I don’t know about this administration.”
Third, Hill Democrats were upset when the president brought up immigration reform without consulting them. Vulnerable Democrats know this issue may help Mr. Obama in the long run, but it jeopardizes them in this midterm. Obama aides stoked their ire further by boneheadedly conceding this point to reporters. Read More…
Yesterday Democrats in the Senate failed in their effort to invoke cloture (that is, end debate) on the DISCLOSE Act, perhaps the most Orwellian-named piece of legislation in recent memory.
The bill would have subjected donors of grassroots organizations to public scrutiny and regulatory harassment whether their contribution was used for the broadcast of an ad advocating the election or defeat of a candidate or not. So, for example, if someone wrote a large contribution to an organization opposing higher taxes, even if other funds were used to broadcast an express advocacy communication, the donor would be reported to the Federal Election Commission. It is an attempt by the Democrats in the Senate to regulate and restrict speech, silence critics of their extremist policies, and intimidate opponents of the administration and the Democratic majority.
It tramples on the First Amendment and the freedom of association. Unless, that is, you are a labor union—groups funded with membership dues are largely exempt. What a surprise! As is the Sierra Club. And the National Rifle Association, which vowed to score a vote for the DISCLOSE Act as a vote against gun rights. Democrats knew that would defeat the bill so they carved out a safe harbor for the NRA. This is not equal protection under the law; it is Chicago-style thuggery.
Read More…
By Gregg Keller
Today, by only a one vote margin, the liberals in the U.S. Senate failed to invoke cloture and end debate on the so-called “DISCLOSE” Act. If passed, the cynical DISCLOSE Act championed by liberals Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer would have suppressed the First Amendment free speech rights of conservative organizations while creating carve-outs for liberal organizations of which Schumer and Reid approve.
Faith & Freedom joined with dozens of other major conservative organizations in signing a coalition letter to every member of the U.S. Senate calling on them to vote “NO” on cloture and final passage. Additionally, FFC contacted our 400,000 members and activists and asked them to contact their U.S. Senator and urge them to oppose the bill.
The DISCLOSE Act supported by Congressional Democrats was one of the most egregious and transparent power grabs in the history of modern politics. It made public disclosure of donors to grassroots conservative organizations, whether they funded a political communication or not, subjecting contributors to potential regulatory and public harassment in a clear attempt to intimidate private citizens or corporations from supporting grassroots groups such as FFC. In a partisan power grab, it exempted labor unions, the Sierra Club, and other liberal advocacy groups. It also exempted the National Rifle Association, primarily because Harry Reid and Democrats knew if the NRA was included in the bill, it would go down to defeat.
“Faith & Freedom Coalition is proud to have joined dozens of major conservative organizations in ensuring liberal Democrats in the Senate failed to invoke cloture on the DISCLOSE Act today,” said Faith & Freedom Coalition Executive Director Gregg Keller. “We communicated with every member of the U.S. Senate prior to this vote, asking for their opposition to this cynical piece of liberal legislation. We asked our grassroots army of more than 400,000 members across the country to make their voices heard on this issue and we were glad to help make sure that their words were heeded.”
You can read more about the defeat of the DISCLOSE Act here.
Frank Rich of the New York Times column has written another installment in a seemingly endless series of obituaries of religious conservatism, the latest tied to Mel Gibson’s travails. In Rich’s formulation, Gibson is a “powerful and canonized figure in the political and cultural pantheon of American conservatism,” so his recent personal challenges and the release of highly embarrassing audiotapes recorded during a bitter custody dispute are a metaphor for the decline of the cultural right.
The idea that Mel Gibson’s misconduct somehow signals the downfall of religious conservatism is nonsense. A movement for time-honored values built over three decades and enjoying the support of one out of every four voters does not slide into the abyss because of the behavior of a Hollywood actor. Recall that when the televangelism scandals erupted in the 1980’s and the Moral Majority closed its doors, many rushed to proclaim the movement’s death-knell. Within a few years the Christian Coalition had enrolled two million members and activists and a Republican Congress reformed welfare, cut taxes, balanced the budget, and passed a ban on partial-birth abortion. Whoops.
By Gregg Keller
The National Rifle Association entered the fray against liberal Elena Kagan’s nomination to the Supreme Court today with an ad saying she can’t be trusted to safeguard our Constitutional right to keep and bear arms. Kagan is Barack Obama’s liberal extremist nominee for the Supreme Court who famously banned military recruiters from Harvard College and who believes the Constitution is a “living document”, subject to revision. See the NRA’s ad here.
By Gregg Keller
(Henderson, Nevada) – Faith & Freedom Coalition Founder and Chairman Ralph Reed was invited by the Nevada Republican Party to headline Saturday’s lunch at the Party’s 2010 Convention. Ralph also met with U.S. Senate candidate and political phenomena Sharron Angle, who has the honor of taking on Harry Reid in November. Joining Ralph for the visit was our Nevada Faith & Freedom Coalition Board of Directors, including our Nevada Chair, Monterey Brookman.
According to event organizers, the luncheon sold out once Ralph was announced as keynote speaker and extra seating had to be set up in an adjoining room to accommodate increased attendance. Ralph addressed more than 400 conservatives.
“Nevada Faith & Freedom Coalition is going to turn out hundreds of thousands of conservatives to vote in 2010,” said Reed. “Together with our Nevada members we are going to deal Barack Obama’s socialistic agenda a major setback in November in the Silver State.”
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