Same sex marriage

Anti-Gay Iowa Republicans Will Try To Impeach Supreme Court Justices

Rachel Slajda | December 20, 2010, 3:49PM

The "Judge Bus"

For conservatives angry over the Iowa Supreme Court's unanimous decision last year to legalize gay marriage, getting three of the seven justices booted from the bench just isn't enough. Now, a handful of Republican lawmakers are now trying to impeach the remaining four.

The Iowa Independent reports that three freshmen members of the Iowa House are writing legislation to impeach those four justices. They're joined by a freshman state senator, Kent Sorenson, who will sit on the judiciary committee and who has called the fight against same sex marriage "my generation's defining moment."

Such a move would require a majority vote in the House, followed by a two-thirds majority in the Senate. It's unclear how much support there is for impeachment -- a punishment generally reserved for judges who've committed a crime or other serious misconduct.

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Hezbollah

Huckabee Buys GOP Rep's Claim That Hezbollah Is Infiltrating The U.S. Through Mexican Border

Jillian Rayfield | November 30, 2010, 11:01AM

Mike Huckabee on Fox News

Republican Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC) often appears on Fox News to discuss her theory that agents of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah are infiltrating the U.S. through the Mexican border by posing as illegal immigrants.

On Sunday, former (and possibly future) presidential candidate Mike Huckabee was shocked that the Obama Administration is ignoring the threat: "This porous border, where we see people running across at will, if Hezbollah, a very, very deadly terrorist organization, can use that network to get into the U.S., all of these pat-downs at the airport are meaningless."

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Bryan Fischer

Top Social Conservative: Hitler Used Gay Soldiers Because They Had 'No Limits'

Zachary Roth | May 26, 2010, 11:16AM

Bryan Fischer, issues director at American Family Association

A top official with a leading social conservative group recently laid out the view that Adolf Hitler deliberately recruited gays to be his "enforcers," because they had "no limits" to "the savagery and brutality they were willing to inflict."

During a radio broadcast, Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association explained:

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Common Sense Issues

Push Poll Group Returns: Says Senator Supports 'Health Care For Homosexuals'

Zachary Roth | April 1, 2010, 10:13AM

Republican senate candidate Mike Lee of Utah

They're baaaaaack!

Long-time readers may remember Common Sense Issues, a group that gained brief notoriety during the 2008 GOP presidential primary for launching a massive barrage of push poll calls in support of Mike Huckabee. One typical call claimed that John McCain supported "experiments on unborn babies."

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Washington Police Killings

How Clemmons Went From Prisoner To Alleged Cop Killer -- And Why It Matters For Mike Huckabee

Justin Elliott | November 30, 2009, 5:17PM

Seattle Police search for Maurice Clemmons 11/29/09; Clemmons and Mike Huckabee (inset).

How did Maurice Clemmons, once sentenced to 100 years in prison in Arkansas, end up a free man and the prime suspect in the grisly killing of four Seattle area police officers Sunday?

Clemmons' story begins with a teenage crime spree, winds through his years as a young man spent behind bars and the commutation of his life sentence by Mike Huckabee, continues with more years in and out of prison and the degeneration of his mental state, and finally leaves off today with a massive search for a man police describe as armed and dangerous.

The story carries potentially big political ramifications for possible presidential contender Huckabee, who is now trying to deflect criticism of the commutation to the state parole board. That's in part because Huckabee's effort to downplay his role in the Clemmons commutation echoes his response in the case of another Arkansas parolee who went on to commit a gruesome crime.

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Washington Police Killings

Huckabee Cites System's 'Failures' In Response To Washington Police Killings

Justin Elliott | November 30, 2009, 9:53AM

Mike Huckabee and Maurice Clemmons (inset).

Mike Huckabee has responded to the killing of four police officers in Washington State by saying that if the suspect in the case -- a man whose sentence Huckabee commuted in 2000 -- is found responsible, "it will be the result of a series of failures in the criminal justice system in both Arkansas and Washington State."

Huckabee's statement, posted late last night on the Web site of his PAC, downplays any agency on the governor's part in commuting the 95-year prison sentence of Maurice Clemmons, who had been convicted of aggravated robbery.

As Josh noted on the editors blog, Huckabee previously faced another controversy about a prisoner who won parole, Wayne Dumond.

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