Salon.com > Max Blumenthal

James O’Keefe’s race problem

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 14:04:00 +0000

(This article has been corrected since publication.)

Many of the conservatives who gleefully promoted James O’Keefe’s past political stunts are feigning shock at his arrest on charges that he and three associates planned to tamper with Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu's phone lines. Once upon a time, right-wing pundits hailed the 25-year-old O’Keefe as a creative genius and model of journalistic ethics. Andrew Breitbart, who has paid O’Keefe, called him one of the all-time “great journalists” and said he deserved a Pulitzer for his undercover ACORN video. Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly declared he should have earned a “congressional medal.”

The new Palin campaign commences

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:17:00 +0000

Sarah Palin's heavily publicized book tour begins in earnest this Monday, but weeks before, her ghostwritten memoir, Going Rogue: An American Life, had already vaulted into the number one position at Amazon. Warming up for a tour that will take her across Middle America in a bus, Palin tested her lines in a November 7th speech before a crowd of 5,000 anti-abortion activists in Wisconsin. She promptly cited an urban legend as a "disturbing trend," claiming the Treasury Department had moved the phrase "In God We Trust" from presidential dollar coins. (The rumor most likely originated with a 2006 story on the far-right website WorldNetDaily.)

In fact, a suggested alteration in its position on the coin was shot down in 2007 after pressure from Democratic Senator Robert Byrd. Nonetheless, Palin did not hesitate to take up this "controversy," however false, since it conveniently pits a tyrannical, God-destroying, secular big government against humble God-fearing folk. In doing so, of course, she presented herself as this nation's leading defender of the faith.

Meet Sarah Palin’s radical right-wing pals

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 10:18:00 +0000

On the afternoon of Sept. 24 in downtown Palmer, Alaska, as the sun began to sink behind the snowcapped mountains that flank the picturesque Mat-Su Valley, 51-year-old Mark Chryson sat for an hour on a park bench, reveling in tales of his days as chairman of the Alaska Independence Party. The stocky, gray-haired computer technician waxed nostalgic about quixotic battles to eliminate taxes, support the "traditional family" and secede from the United States.

So long as Alaska remained under the boot of the federal government, said Chryson, the AIP had to stand on guard to stymie a New World Order. He invited a Salon reporter to see a few items inside his pickup truck that were intended for his personal protection. "This here is my attack dog," he said with a chuckle, handing the reporter an exuberant 8-pound papillon from his passenger seat. "Her name is Suzy." Then he pulled a 9-millimeter Makarov PM pistol -- once the standard-issue sidearm for Soviet cops -- out of his glove compartment. "I've got enough weaponry to raise a small army in my basement," he said, clutching the gun in his palm. "Then again, so do most Alaskans." But Chryson added a message of reassurance to residents of that faraway place some Alaskans call "the 48." "We want to go our separate ways," he said, "but we are not going to kill you."

Born-agains for Sharon

Mon, 01 Nov 2004 20:30:00 +0000

For some 7 million evangelicals at 25,000 churches worldwide, Oct. 17 was the third Annual Day of Prayer and Solidarity with Israel. For President Bush's Southeastern regional campaign coordinator, Ralph Reed, and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's liaison to the U.S. evangelical community, Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, the event was their latest attempt to rally Bush's base to the side of Sharon. To help make their point, Eckstein and Reed summoned 21 of Israel's diplomatic representatives in the U.S. to the pulpits of some of America's leading conservative churches.

In Atlanta, at the Mount Paran Baptist Church, to which Reed belongs, Israel's consul general to the Southeast, Shmuel Ben-Shmuel, shared the stage with Pastor David Cooper, author of the bestseller "Apocalypse." Meanwhile, Israel's ambassador to the United States, Danny Ayalon, traveled to Colorado Springs, Colo., to pay a visit to New Life Church and its senior pastor, Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals and a star in the glowing documentary about Bush, "Faith in the White House."

Backlash on the border

Mon, 18 Oct 2004 20:52:00 +0000

In the third and final presidential debate in Tempe, Ariz., George W. Bush and John Kerry were called upon to explain their positions on immigration, an issue so hotly debated in Arizona that debate moderator Bob Schieffer remarked, "Mr. President, I got more e-mail on this question this week than on any question." In his response, Bush focused on his support for a guest worker program for undocumented immigrants "that allows a willing worker and a willing employer to mate up." His mention of the program was surprising -- since he first proposed it in his State of the Union address last January, he has carefully avoided discussing it, even when trolling for Latino votes on the campaign trail.

Bush's reticence is well advised. His initial proposal of the program sparked a bitter backlash from the traditionalist, anti-immigration wing of his party that threatened to shatter his grass-roots base. Three weeks after Bush's State of the Union address, at a House Republican retreat, angry conservative members of Congress surrounded presidential advisor Karl Rove and demanded that the White House bury the guest worker plan.

The other regime change

Sat, 17 Jul 2004 00:53:00 +0000

On Feb. 8, 2001, the federally funded International Republican Institute's (IRI) senior program officer for Haiti, Stanley Lucas, appeared on the Haitian station Radio Tropicale to suggest three strategies for vanquishing Haiti's president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. First, Lucas proposed forcing Aristide to accept early elections and be voted out; second, he could be charged with corruption and arrested; and finally, Lucas raised dealing with Aristide the way the Congolese people had dealt with President Laurent Kabila the month before. "You did see what happened to Kabila?" Lucas asked his audience.

Kabila had been assassinated.

IRI's communications director, Thayer Scott, in an interview with Salon, characterized Lucas' radio remarks as "a comparative analysis of countries that embrace democracy and those that do not."

Avenging angel of the religious right

Tue, 06 Jan 2004 22:58:00 +0000

In the summer of 2000, a group of frustrated Episcopalians from the board of the American Anglican Council gathered at a sun-soaked Bahamanian resort to blow off some steam and hatch a plot. They were fed up with the Episcopal Church and what they perceived as a liberal hierarchy that had led it astray from centuries of so-called orthodox Christian teaching. The only option, they believed, was to lead a schism.

But this would take money. After the meeting, Anglican Council vice president Bruce Chapman sent a private memo to the group's board detailing a plan to involve Howard F. Ahmanson Jr., a Southern California millionaire, and his wife, Roberta Green Ahmanson, in the plan. "Fundraising is a critical topic," Chapman wrote. "But that topic itself is going to be affected directly by whether we have a clear, compelling forward strategy. I know that the Ahmansons are only going to be available to us if we have such a strategy and I think it would be wise to involve them directly in settling on it as the options clarify." It was a logical pitch: As a key financier of the Christian right with a penchant for anti-gay campaigns, Ahmanson clearly shared the Anglican Council's interest in subverting the left-leaning church. Moreover, Ahmanson and his wife were close friends and prayer partners of David Anderson, the Anglican Council's chief executive, while Chapman and his political team were already enjoying hefty annual grants from Ahmanson to Chapman's think tank, the Discovery Institute.

California GOP — slow-mo implosion

Mon, 15 Sep 2003 20:05:00 +0000

As supporters rushed into the LAX Marriott parking lot outside the GOP state convention to hear Arnold Schwarzenegger speak on Saturday, they were greeted at the entrance by Jackie Goldberg, a feisty Democratic Assembly member from Los Angeles. With a welcoming smile, Goldberg handed out pink fliers reading "Attention Republican Delegates: Arnold Schwarzenegger is the only candidate not to have weighed in on LESBIAN and GAY issues." The flier, which highlighted arch-conservative state Sen. Tom McClintock's opposition to "gay bills," was a clever ploy to exploit the ideological divide between Republican moderates and conservatives and peel right-wing voters away from Schwarzenegger. "I do support domestic partnerships," the actor-turned-candidate had remarked on Sean Hannity's radio show last month. It was the kind of comment that helped deepen the Republican conflict inside the convention as McClintock's operatives maneuvered to blast Schwarzenegger's political career into oblivion and secure conservative control over the Republican Party in California.

Vigilante injustice

Thu, 22 May 2003 23:39:00 +0000

It's high noon in Tombstone, Ariz., a dusty little town that's part ranching outpost and part Old West theme park, and over on Toughnut Street, a block away from the tourists and the tacky souvenir shops, Chris Simcox is toiling away inside the cluttered office of the Tombstone Tumbleweed. An Associated Press feature on Simcox has just been wired to every newsroom in the country, and the atmosphere is chaotic. Phones in the little newsroom are ringing off the hook.

Simcox, the Tumbleweed's editor and owner, is in his element. After a failed marriage in Los Angeles, a stint of unemployment, the shock of Sept. 11, and three months camped out in the Arizona desert, he arrived here last year and has fashioned for himself a new life as the poster boy for the American anti-immigrant movement. He bought the newspaper in August; by October, he had clearly stamped it with his own personality. "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!" declared the Tumbleweed's front page that month. "A PUBLIC CALL TO ARMS! CITIZENS BORDER PATROL MILITIA NOW FORMING!"

Onward Christian soldiers

Tue, 15 Apr 2003 20:35:00 +0000

Now that the Big Brother busts of Saddam Hussein are crashing to the ground from Basra to Kirkuk and widespread looting and violence have filled the power vacuum, Iraq remains tense and its future is murky. There, people are more concerned with things like water and medical care than the abstract world of politics. But in the West, a growing corps is squabbling over the spoils of war. While winners and losers in bids for reconstruction contracts and humanitarian opportunities are still being sorted out, one group seems certain to gain an avenue into the country: Southern Baptist Convention ministers prominent in the galaxy of the religious right. Among them is Charles Stanley, the former two-time president of the Southern Baptist Convention, a close ally of former President George Bush and a fervent supporter of the current president's war on Iraq.

Day of the dead

Wed, 04 Dec 2002 23:24:00 +0000

The body of another murdered woman was found late last month in the Mexican industrial hub of Ciudad Juarez, dumped behind some shrubs in the squalor of the Anapra neighborhood, a ramshackle hodgepodge of corrugated tin and cardboard shacks on the sludge-washed banks of the Rio Grande. Her hands had been tied, and the evidence suggested she had been raped. The body was so badly decomposed that investigators calculated that she'd been dead for seven months.

However horrific the details, they were numbing in their familiarity. The body of a woman who had died in similar circumstances was found in the same dusty lot a couple of months earlier. The bodies of eight women were found in a lot not far away a little more than a year ago. So many women have been murdered here in the past 10 years that there is no reliable count. Most experts place it close to 325, an average of 32 a year, nearly three every month. At least 90 of the deaths are believed to be the work of one or more serial killers. Hundreds more women have simply vanished.