Tancredo Pal Ted Nugent Doesn’t Mince Words

UPDATE: Sticklers for accuracy would like us to point out that Ted Nugent’s reference to a “chimpanzee” did not come in the same breath as Nugent’s calling President Barack Obama a “subhuman mongrel.” It’s possible that Nugent was referring to someone else as a “chimpanzee,” and that possibility should be noted for the record.

Yeah, we know. But technically he could have been talking about somebody else, right?

—–

MSNBC’s Morgan Whitaker:

Aging rock star and NRA board member Ted Nugent has taken his typical extremist rhetoric up a notch calling President Obama a “subhuman mongrel” in a recent interview at a hunting and outdoor trade show in Las Vegas.

“I have obviously failed to galvanize and prod, if not shame enough Americans to be ever vigilant not to let a Chicago communist-raised, communist-educated, communist-nurtured subhuman mongrel [Pols emphasis] like the ACORN community organizer gangster Barack Hussein Obama to weasel his way into the top office of authority in the United States of America,” Nugent said in response to a question about the 2016 election in video from Guns.com…

Acknowledging that many might consider the comment “inflammatory speech,” Nugent said, “I would call it inflammatory speech when it’s your job to protect Americans and you look into the television camera and say what difference does it make that I failed in my job to provide security and we have four dead Americans.”

“What difference does that make? he added. “Not to a chimpanzee [Pols emphasis] or Hillary Clinton, I guess it doesn’t matter.”

When we last saw aging rock legend Ted Nugent of Wang Dang Sweet Poontang fame, he was headlining an email fundraising pitch for Colorado GOP gubernatorial frontrunner Tom Tancredo (photo above right). Ordinarily, we’d expect a leading endorser of a high-profile campaign to swiftly apologize after calling the President of the United States a (making sure we’ve got this right) “subhuman mongrel chimpanzee.”

But this is Tom Tancredo we’re talking about. He’ll want Nugent on tour now.

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Norton’s loss doesn’t come up when Stephens names Stapleton as GOP model of successful caucus skipper

(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

In her appearance on KNUS' Dan Caplis show last week, Rep. Amy Stephens, who's running for U.S. Senate, said she "would not be able to go the assembly route" and "win a statewide election and to take on an incumbent."

Stephens pointed to State Treasurer Walker Stapleton as her poster child of a Republican who petitioned on the primary ballot and won. And she named Rep. Doug Lamborn, even though he didn't win statewide.

Absent during the conversation, however, was the name of Jane Norton, whom Caplis should have mentioned as having successfully petitioned onto the U.S. Senate primary ballot in 2010 before losing to Weld County DA Ken Buck.

Arguably, Norton serves as a better poster child for why Stephens should participate in the caucus process than Stapleton does for why she should petition on.

Stephens @ 5 min: "We had a very contentious 2010 Senate race that we should have been won against an unknown. And I was on the receiving end of that, because we were trying to take the House Majority. And we saw our numbers, as the top of the ticket begin to go down, down, down, down, when my opponent, Ken, exploded, and then we had the governor's debacle…

"I have understood, and the team that is with me, we believe that in order to win statewide and to take on an incumbent, that I would not be able to go the assembly route. I am going to petition onto the ballot through the petition process. Walker Stapleton did it. Others have done it. Doug Lamborn. My reasoning here is to reach a broader audience. You know you have to get a minimum of 1,500 signatures per congressional district. Let's just say you're getting 14,000 for the sake of the argument, out of 7 districts. That's 14,000 you've reached versus, in the case of our assembly, which is good, but we have 4,000 very committed Republicans. If you come out of this, and then you get on the ballot, what you do is you target this on a broader level. I believe that has to been done to take on an incumbent. Others may not. It's a strategy issue."

On KNUS 1-15-14, Rep. Amy Stephens explains why she's skipping the GOP caucuses

Asked by Caplis why she has the best chance to win, whatever ballot route she takes, Stephens said:

Stephens @6 min: "Because I know what it is to win. I win. I was in the most-watched primary in the state, as you know, through redistricting and re-apportionment, with a fellow Republican, which was awful. And I was outspent 3-1, and I won by 20 points. And I did that by working smart and disciplined and really reaching out to people. I think we're going to have to have the same thing this time."

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Official website of new personhood initiative doesn’t mention “personhood”

(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

Reporters covering the signature-gathering campaign for the so-called Brady amendment, which would change the definition of “person" and "child" under Colorado law to include “unborn human beings,” might wonder whether to call it "personhood" initiative.

Apparently, anti-abortion activists have had the same question, prompting Gualberto Garcia Jones, who's listed on the CO Secretary of State's website as a "designated representative" of the initiative, to send an email July 24 to supporters clarifying the issue:

Some of our supporters have asked whether the Brady Amendment is a personhood amendment. The answer is yes! A personhood measure is any proposal that constitutionally seeks to recognize (without exceptions) that unborn babies are persons deserving of our love and protection by law….

One need look no further than the section of the Colorado law that deals with homicide to see how central the concept of personhood is: the homicide section is appropriately titled "Offenses Against the Person." The Brady Amendment recognizes that all human beings, not just those who are born, are persons and amends the criminal code to that effect! …

Whether it is a drunk driver who avoids facing any charges for the death of a baby that is just days from birth, or a hospital that avoids malpractice liability for the death of unborn babies in its care, or an abortionist who kills children in the womb for a living, the fact is that all three rely on the same reasoning: the baby in the womb is not a person and therefore his or her life has no value in the eyes of the law.

[Read Garcia Jones' entire email at the end of this blog post.]

But in contrast to Jones' email and Colorado Right to Life's recent comment in the Colorado Statesman, the official website of the initiative's backers doesn't mention "personhood" at all. It frames the initiative as a way to protect "pregnant mothers and their unborn children from criminal offenses and negligent and wrongful acts." 

In the FAQ section of its website, called "A Voice for Brady," the initiative's backers state:

"The Brady Amendment is not about politics, it is an amendment that will protect pregnant mothers and their unborn babies from violent and dangerous criminals."

To make matters more confusing, the name backers have chosen for their initiative, the "Brady Amendment," refers to an unborn child killed by a drunk driver in Longmont. Prosecutors couldn't press charges of vehicular homicide because the mother, Heather Surovik, survived, and Colorado law did not allow prosecution for reckless acts against Brady, her an unborn baby.

All this might lead reporters to label the Brady Amendment a "fetal-homicide" initiative, designed simply to allow prosecution in cases like Surovik's.

But a 2013 law now enables prosecutors to charge a drunk driver who terminates a pregnancy, like the driver who slammed into Heather Surovik. A GOP-backed bill, mirroring the initiative, died in Committee.

And even if there were no such law, the intent of the initiative, as Garcia Jones wrote, is broader. The initiative would change the definition of "person" and "child" to "unborn human beings." This change would be mandated not just in the Colorado Wrongful Death Act but in the entire Colorado Criminal Code.

The vague phrase "unborn human beings" would be left to the interpretation of a judge. Opponents have pointed out that a judge could rule that all stages of human biological development, from conception on, should be considered "unborn human beings," thus making personhood the law of the land in Colorado and banning all abortion, even in the case of rape and incest, as well as common forms of birth control.

I asked Jones, who's also legal analyst with Personhood USA, via email, why his website doesn't mention "personhood."

Jones: Not calling the Brady Amendment the Personhood Amendment is not about running away from Personhood, it is about honoring the short life of Brady Surovik.

Heather and Brady's story stands on its own and it is a powerful real-life example of what happens when the preborn are not considered persons.

Planned Parenthood is in trouble and they know it, they can talk about fertilized eggs all day long, but they can't answer the simple question: was Brady Surovik, a baby only days from being born a person with basic rights?…

Obviously, Planned Parenthood understands that if a child in the womb like Brady is recognized as a person then the logic behind the lucrative abortion industry is severely shaken.

I asked Monica McCafferty, spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, to comment on Jones' email describing the Brady Amendment as "personhood." I also asked her to respond to Jones' view that Brady Surovik was a person.

McCafferty: Questions about when life begins are personal. For some, it’s based on faith, for others it’s a matter of science or medicine. But this isn’t a question that belongs in the state constitution.

From a policy standpoint, the majority of Americans support Roe v. Wade. Yet what we also know based on polls conducted by our national office, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, is that most voters don’t identify with the terms ‘pro-choice’ and ‘pro-life.’ It’s a complicated topic and one in which labels don’t reflect the complexity.

What most Americans get behind is the ability for women to make their own decisions about pregnancy, and that politicians do not. This sentiment rings true for Colorado voters and in relation to the past three ‘personhood’ attempts, all of which have failed.

Whether you agree with Jones or McCafferty, the scope of the debate about Jones' initiative clearly goes beyond reckless acts of violence against pregnant women.

Both sides agree that what's on the table is a personhood measure, aiming to ban all abortion, and reporters should describe it as such.

——

Jones' July 24 email to Personhood USA and Brady Amendment backers:

Some of our supporters have asked whether the Brady Amendment is a personhood amendment. The answer is yes! A personhood measure is any proposal that constitutionally seeks to recognize (without exceptions) that unborn babies are persons deserving of our love and protection by law.

In the infamous 1973 decision of Roe v. Wade, Justice Harry Blackmun wrote that:

If this suggestion of personhood is established, the case for abortion, of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life would then be guaranteed.

One need look no further than the section of the Colorado law that deals with homicide to see how central the concept of personhood is: the homicide section is appropriately titled "Offenses Against the Person." The Brady Amendment recognizes that all human beings, not just those who are born, are persons and amends the criminal code to that effect!

The language from the Brady Amendment that makes it a Personhood measure is the following:

Section 2. In the interest of the protection of pregnant mothers and their unborn children from criminal offenses and negligent and wrongful acts, the words “person” and “child” in the Colorado Criminal Code and the Colorado Wrongful Death Act must include unborn human beings.

Whether it is a drunk driver who avoids facing any charges for the death of a baby that is just days from birth, or a hospital that avoids malpractice liability for the death of unborn babies in its care, or an abortionist who kills children in the womb for a living, the fact is that all three rely on the same reasoning: the baby in the womb is not a person and therefore his or her life has no value in the eyes of the law.

The Brady Amendment has the potential to personalize the struggle to recognize the right to life, just like Emmet Till did for the civil rights movement. In honoring Brady with the hard task of collecting signatures, we honor the millions we have lost and we honor God.

In 2008 and 2010, hundreds of thousands of Colorado voters signed petitions to try to pass amendments to the Colorado constitution that would recognize the due process and equal protection rights of the unborn.

The abortion industry (with the willing cooperation of the media) characterized the personhood amendments as extreme, the product of a fringe group of people intent on giving rights to "fertilized eggs." But Brady Surovik was 8 pounds and 2 ounces when on July 5, 2012 a drunk driver ended his life in Longmont, Colorado. At the time, several thousand pro-life volunteers were collecting signatures for the 2012 Personhood Amendment. Brady's family collected signatures for personhood at Brady's funeral.

Shortly after the drunk driver ended the life of Brady Surovik, Boulder District Attorney, Stan Garnett, stated that the drunk driver would not be charged with homicide because under Colorado law unborn babies like Brady are not considered persons. The Brady Amendment, while honoring the memory of Brady Surovik, would apply to all human beings who have been deprived of their personhood.

If the Brady Amendment passes in November 2014, it will be the greatest victory for the personhood of the unborn in the last 40 years. That's why we need your help to be a voice for Brady.

For life,

Gualberto Garcia Jones, J.D.

Director, Personhood Education

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Buck lost last time saying abortion doesn’t matter, and he’s saying it again

(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

On KHOW radio Friday, U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck said voters can "absolutely" count on him to vote his conscience. (Listen to Ken Buck @6:50)

Normally, you might think this would be a good thing. But when it comes to Ken Buck, and you recall his conscience-laden opposition to abortion, even in the case of rape and incest, you realize that Ken-Buck-voting-his-conscience may not be so great for women.

Given how desired women are by political campaigns in Colorado, it's astonishing that Buck is already doing what he did during the last election. That is, trying to say abortion doesn't matter; no one cares about it.

As Buck told the Colorado Observer when asked if his abortion position had changed:

Buck: You know, what I believe is Congress has voted to ban late-term abortions, and I’m one who opposes late-term abortions, and voted to ban federal funding for abortion, and I’m one who opposes federal funding of abortion. I’m tired of people talking about issues that are not relevant to the public. I’m a pro-life candidate.

How is abortion not relevant when pretty much everyone agrees Buck lost last time because of abortion and women's issues? 

And politics aside, abortion issues are addressed in the U.S. Congress. In addition to countless bills that go nowhere, but create PR fodder, the issue gets real-time play. Remember in 2011, funding for Planned Parenthood was at the center of negotiations that almost led to a government shutdown. Federal money for the United Nations Population Fund, whose health services are a life saver for tens of thousands of impoverished people, was also under attack by Republicans with a conscience.

With any luck, reporters will respond to Buck's nonsensical no-one-cares-about-abortion defense like Gloria Neal did during a televised debate on CBS4, when Neal asked Buck, “Will you really make a raped woman carry a child to full term?”

Buck said that “we need to stay focused on the issues that voters in this state care about, and those are spending and jobs.”

Neal responded:

“Social issues are important to the voters in this state. I am one of them. So I need you to answer that question, because in addition to votes and jobs and all of that abortion is very important, and when you start talking about rape and incest, that is important to the voters. So, please, answer that question.”

Buck then said:

“I am pro-life, and I don’t believe in the exceptions of rape and incest.”

That's the kind of questioning I'd like to have seen from KHOW's Ross Kaminsky. So what if Kaminsky is a fellow conservative. If he's going to demand that Ken Buck vote his conscience, he should dig into what Buck's conscience would do to women.

Partial transcript of Ken Buck's appearance on KHOW Friday. (Listen to Ken Buck @6:50)

Kaminsky: Can I count on you, Ken Buck, that if you get in the U.S. Senate, and there’s some vote.. [and] you want to vote yes, and Senate leadership asks you to vote no, can I count on you to vote yes? Can I count on you to vote your conscience?

Buck: Oh, you absolutely can. I have to tell you. I think that's a huge problem in Washington DC. And I'm not just talking about bipartisanship. I'm talking about people who are doing the right thing regardless of special interest groups, regardless of their future.

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