Santorum Compares Kim Davis To MLK, Columbine Victim

Rick Santorum went out of his way on Wednesday to say that Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis, a woman who was jailed a few days for refusing to issue a marriage license to same-sex couples, was a Christian martyr on the level of a Columbine victim and Martin Luther King Jr.

After virtually unknown presidential candidate George Pataki said at the second Republican presidential debate on CNN that he would have fired Kim Davis for refusing to do her job, the former Pennsylvania senator defended her.

Rick Santorum Suggests That Only Muslims Are Violent

Ex-Senator and religious film producer Rick Santorum blasted practitioners of Islam at the Values Voter Summit this past week, contending that the current conflict in the Middle East is a product of an age-old fight between the West and those who see the world in a “fundamentally different” way — namely, Muslims.

Rick Santorum: Nelson Mandela Fought 'Great Injustice,' Just Like Republicans Are Battling Obamacare

During an appearance on Fox News Thursday night, former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) discussed the death of Nelson Mandela, saying the former South African president fought "great injustice" just like Republicans who are battling Obamacare.

"Nelson Mandela stood up against a great injustice and was willing to pay a huge price for that. That's the reason he's mourned today, because of that struggle that he performed," Santorum said. "But you're right, I mean, what he was advocating for was not necessarily the right answer, but he was fighting against some great injustice, and I would make the argument that we have a great injustice going on right now in this country with an ever-increasing size of government that is taking over and controlling people's lives, and Obamacare is front and center in that."

The statement, pointed out by Slate's Dave Weigel in a tweet Friday morning, came after Fox News host Bill O'Reilly claimed Mandela "was a great man, but he was a communist."

"I would never attack Nelson Mandela," O'Reilly said next.

Original Article
Source: huffingtonpost.com
Author: The Huffington Post  |  By Paige Lavender

Rick Santorum: Gay Marriage Discourages Straight Marriage

Former Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum said on Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor" this week that he thinks same-sex marriage discourages marriage between a man and a woman.

"Would we be discouraging heterosexual marriage by allowing gay marriage?" Bill O'Reilly asked Santorum.

"Yeah, I believe we would," Santorum replied.

Santorum then suggested that legalizing gay marriage results in Americans having less children.

Rick Santorum: It Would Be 'Suicidal' For GOP To Embrace Gay Marriage

Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) continued to bolster his social conservative platform on Monday, telling the Des Moines Register that the GOP must maintain its opposition to marriage equality to avert political suicide. He also predicted that the Supreme Court would reject gay-marriage rights in upcoming rulings.

“I’m sure you could go back and read stories, oh, you know, ‘The Republican party’s going to change. This is the future.’ Obviously that didn’t happen,” Santorum said. “I think you’re going to see the same stories written now and it’s not going to happen. The Republican Party’s not going to change on this issue. In my opinion it would be suicidal if it did.”

Rick Santorum 2012 Campaign: Repeating Missteps Of The 2006 Calamity

WASHINGTON -- Ryan Miner remembers watching a fat piece of sausage splatter with a thud against a picture of Sen. Rick Santorum adorning the side of the senator’s campaign RV.

It was fall 2006, and Miner, then a Santorum intern, was helping feed a group of Pittsburgh Steelers fans tailgating outside of Heinz Field. But it was a tough sell -- especially because the Santorum volunteers were peddling snacks and campaign literature to rowdy, buzzed hordes. The crowd eventually turned on the volunteers, and a weapon of choice was Polish.

"Fuck you, Rick Santorum!" Miner recalls the sausage-tosser shouting.

In short order, the tailgaters assailed the Santorum volunteers with whatever they could get their hands on: sausage, cookies, half-empty cups of beer, and beer cans.

"For the most part it was pretty unpleasant," recalls Bryan Nagy, who had joined his friend Miner for the event so he could get some free food. "A lot of booing. Some people would spit in the general direction of the bus."

The event was supposed to build camaraderie and sell Santorum as a beloved member of Steeler Nation. Yet, like much of that brutal 2006 campaign that ended Santorum's Senate career, it simply reinforced the impression that Santorum -- whom the electorate had come to regard as sanctimonious and out-of-touch -- played for the away team.

Flashback: Santorum Compares Voting For Him To Tiananmen Square's "Tank Man"

On the presidential campaign trail, Rick Santorum has never shied away from calling out the bluster of his fellow Republicans, chief among them Newt "Moon Base" Gingrich. "Grandiosity has never been a problem with Newt Gingrich," Santorum deadpanned at a January presidential debate. Casting Newt as a loose-lipped gaffe machine, Santorum said, "I don't want a nominee that I have to worry about going out and looking at the paper the next day and worrying about what he's going to say next."

Yet Santorum himself is no stranger to overblown campaign talk. In a previously unreported radio interview from April 1994, then-Rep. Rick Santorum (R-Penn.) argued that supporting his underdog US Senate campaign and voting for him in the election was "every bit as important" as the bold Chinese protester who, in June 1989, blocked a column of military tanks near Beijing's Tiananmen Square, the site of student protests against China's Communist ruling elite.

America’s public morality crisis

Republicans have morality upside down. Santorum, Gingrich and even Romney are barnstorming across the land condemning gay marriage, abortion, out-of-wedlock births, access to contraception and the wall separating church and state.

But America’s problem isn’t a breakdown in private morality. It’s a breakdown in public morality. What Americans do in their bedrooms is their own business. What corporate executives and Wall Street financiers do in boardrooms and executive suites affects all of us.

There is moral rot in America but it’s not found in the private behavior of ordinary people. It’s located in the public behavior of people who control our economy and are turning our democracy into a financial slush pump. It’s found in Wall Street fraud, exorbitant pay of top executives, financial conflicts of interest, insider trading and the outright bribery of public officials through unlimited campaign “donations.”

Political scientist James Q. Wilson, who died last week, noted that a broken window left unattended signals that no one cares if windows are broken. It becomes an ongoing invitation to throw more stones at more windows, ultimately undermining moral standards of the entire community

Rick Santorum's Housing Hypocrisy

Rick Santorum wants the government out of every aspect of Americans' lives—especially the housing market. He pledges to eliminate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the twin government housing giants that help guarantee 90 percent of all new mortgages in America. As for jump-starting the country's dismal housing market, Santorum wants to "let capitalism work" and allow the housing market to "find its bottom." Only then, he says, will the recovery begin. It's a plan that would make Adam Smith proud.

Yet Santorum wasn't always so opposed to government intervention in housing. In a deal that's gone unreported during his presidential run, Santorum bought his first house in 1983 with a cut-rate government-backed mortgage, according to campaign records compiled by Sen. Harris Wofford (D-Penn.), who Santorum defeated in 1994. He received his loan through a state program to boost homeownership among low- and middle-income families. Santorum, in other words, benefitted from a program whose mission mirrored that of Fannie and Freddie, the companies he now rails against and wants to dissolve. (Santorum spokesman Hogan Gidley did not respond to a request for comment.)

Santorum: Single Moms Are "Breeding More Criminals"

During his first US Senate campaign, Rick Santorum warned voters of a growing menace that was "breeding more criminals" and threatened to destroy America from within: single mothers.

"Most people agree a continuation of the current [welfare] system will be the ruination of this country," Santorum told a town meeting in Clairton, Pa., in February 1994, according to transcripts of the appearance obtained by Mother Jones. "We are seeing it. We are seeing the fabric of this country fall apart, and it's falling apart because of single moms."

Santorum, who often trumpets his role in pushing through landmark welfare reform during stump speeches and debates, made the federal program a centerpiece of his 1994 race against incumbent Sen. Harris Wofford (D-Penn.). At his Clairton town hall, Santorum came prepared with a prop—a poster-size chart tracking the increase in the welfare rolls since 1965, alongside the increase in children who were born out of wedlock.

Rick Santorum's Elite Background

Of all the states to hold primaries on Tuesday, everyone agrees that by far the most important is Ohio. It is the largest state voting, and it is essential for Republicans to carry in November.

But the reason Ohio is especially important this year is that Rick Santorum is in a dead heat with Mitt Romney in the Ohio polls. The reason is presumably Santorum’s appeal to conservative blue-collar voters. Thus far, Santorum has performed better in the industrial Midwest than in the service economy Sunbelt. Romney is stronger among wealthier, more educated and suburban Republicans, Santorum among the more religious, less educated, less affluent and rural. In Michigan, Santorum carried voters making less $100,000 per year and those who did not graduate from college, while those who make more than $100,000 and college graduates provided Romney with his narrow margin of victory.

Why is this? It’s not because Santorum’s proposals on taxes and spending are less skewed towards the wealthy than Romney’s. If anything, they are even more so.

Satanic Reverses

After ten months of ruthless culling, has the Republican “base”—an excitable, overlapping assortment of Fox News friends, Limbaugh dittoheads, Tea Party animals, war whoopers, nativists, Christianist fundamentalists, à la carte Catholics (anti-abortion, yes; anti-torture, no), anti-Rooseveltians (Franklin and Theodore), global-warming denialists, post-Confederate white Southrons, creationists, birthers, market idolaters, Europe demonizers, and gun fetishists—finally found its John Connor, a lone hero equipped to terminate the Party establishment’s officially designated cyborg? So it seemed as of February 7th, the night Rick Santorum came out of nowhere to hit his trifecta, trouncing Mitt Romney in Missouri, Minnesota, and Colorado.

A year ago, Romney’s route to the nomination looked like the highway to Heaven. As the rich, successful, respected governor son of a rich, successful, respected governor father, Romney trod the well-worn path of dynastic inheritance, a tradition in American politics that stretches from the Adamses to the Bushes. In a party that respects order and hierarchy, or used to, Romney had another, analogous advantage: like Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole, Bush the elder, and John McCain before him, he had previously been the runner-up. He was next in line. It was his turn. His history as a Massachusetts moderate Mormon was a problem, of course, but not to worry: his fourth M would more than make up for it. Money talks, quite as loudly in politics as it does in conservative ideology.

Rick Santorum, Meet Hamza Kashgari

President Kennedy’s 1960 speech on religious freedom makes Rick Santorum “throw up.” “What kind of country do we live in that says only people of nonfaith can come into the public square and make their case?” Santorum says. It’s a central part of his campaign strategy to distort such things as a Kennedy speech, or an Obama speech, to whip up outrage at the supposed war on religious people in America. Here’s what Kennedy said:

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute; where no Catholic prelate would tell the President—should he be Catholic—how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference, and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him, or the people who might elect him… I believe in a President whose religious views are his own private affair.

Rick Santorum's Mystery Donor

The biggest donor to the pro-Rick Santorum super-PAC in January was a man you've almost certainly never heard of: William J. Doré Sr., a megarich energy executive from Lake Charles, Louisiana, with a short but complicated history of political giving. His $1 million donation to the Red, White, and Blue Fund was one of the largest gifts of the cycle, and almost certainly the most mysterious.

Despite post-Citizens United fears of profligate dark money spending, for the most part, super-PAC donors have been loud and proud about their political aims. Sheldon Adelson, primary benefactor of the Newt Gingrich-supporting Winning our Future PAC, recently boasted to Forbes that he could spend $100 million on the race if he wanted to; on Thursday, comedian Bill Maher justified his $1 million gift to the Obama-supporting super-PAC Priorities USA by earmarking his check for "kicking ass!" Doré, however, has kept the motivations behind his sudden call to arms to himself.

"Mr. Doré is unavailable for comment," is all Doré's spokeswoman would say when reached by phone on Friday.

An Open Letter To Rick Santorum From A Michigan Pastor (And Voter)

Dear Mr. Santorum:

I live in Michigan and write to you as a sister in Christ. I worship the same Christ as you do -- only radically differently. I have been touched by the stories of your daughter with Trisomy 18. When I was pregnant with our daughter we were told there was a 1-in-3 chance of her having Trisomy 18. I explained that even if our child did have Trisomy 18, we would not abort. Our daughter is strong and healthy and does not have the condition, and I pray for you and your wife in caring for your beloved little one.

I write publicly because I've heard a lot from you lately, and you have made statements in the public arena that bruise our national capacity for honest dialogue. Folks on the right are cheering you and folks on the left are deriding you -- and I imagine a lot of folks in the middle are just waiting for Nov. 7, quelling the opportunity for conversation that elections offer. Toward the end of concourse, I wish to challenge you from an educational, evangelical and experiential perspective.

Santorum: Separation Of Church And State 'Makes Me Want To Throw Up'

Rick Santorum on Sunday took on separation of church and state.

"I don't believe in an America where the separation of church and state are absolute," he told 'This Week' host George Stephanopoulos. "The idea that the church can have no influence or no involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives and vision of our country...to say that people of faith have no role in the public square? You bet that makes me want to throw up."

The GOP candidate was responding to comments he made last October. He had said that he "almost threw up" after reading JFK's 1960 speech in which he declared his commitment to the separation of church and state.

Santorum also on Sunday told Meet The Press host David Gregory that separation of church and state was "not the founders' vision."

The GOP candidate has been doubling down on religious rhetoric in an effort to court evangelical voters ahead of Super Tuesday. Last week, he questioned Obama's spiritual beliefs.

"[Obama believes in] some phony ideal, some phony theology ... not a theology based on the Bible, a different theology," he said.

Original Article
Source: Huff
Author: Alana Horowitz

Rick Santorum's Political and Biblical Mistake

Sen. Rick Santorum has made a serious mistake.

On Saturday, the presidential hopeful was addressing a group in Ohio when he made the unfortunate assertion that Obama's agenda is:

    not about you. It's not about your quality of life. It's not about your jobs. It's about some phony ideal. Some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible. A different theology.

The first reason this is a mistake is that Santorum has decided to make the presidential campaign about religious orthodoxy and introduced theology into politics in an aggressive way. His less than subtle message is that anyone who believes in the Bible, or even takes the Bible seriously, should be suspect of the president who is serving up 'false teachings' referencing Matthew 7:15 which reads: "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves."

Santorum's recent comments should be a major turn off to anyone who understands that while all politics are informed by values, religious and secular, we should be very wary when politicians begin to assert religious creedal tests into electoral politics.

Santorum Cashes In on the Very Tax Credit He Claims to Hate

Rick Santorum regularly knocks the stimulus bill that the Democratic Congress passed, and President Obama signed into law, back in early 2009. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act "cost American jobs," he told CNN last July. But that didn't stop Santorum from claiming a tax credit for home efficiency funded through the stimulus plan that year.

According to his 2009 tax form, which was released last week, Santorum claimed a $3,151 expenditure on new exterior windows and skylights, one of the "qualified energy efficiency improvements" for homes that was granted a tax credit through the stimulus bill. The stimulus bill revived a tax credit that had expired at the end of 2007 and increased the amount of money homeowners could claim. This allowed the Santorum family to knock $945 off their taxes.

The purpose of the tax credit was to help homeowners save money by using less energy, while at the some time generating fewer emissions. But the efficient choices can often cost more upfront—hence the desire to create a tax credit to incentivize that kind of expensive upgrade. The measure was also intended to benefit the manufacturing and construction industries by creating more opportunities for them to make and install the windows and other efficient products.

Senator Santorum’s Planet

If Rick Santorum is so staunch a Catholic, why does he often sound such a Protestant, not to say puritanical, note? His remarks about how President Obama’s world view is just “some phony theology” have received a lot of attention but too little examination. It turned out that Santorum was talking, in general terms, about “radical environmentalists,” and using environmentalism as a synecdoche for everything he abominates in secular progressive politics. “This idea that man is here to serve the earth as opposed to husband its resources and be good stewards of the earth” is, he maintained on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” “a phony ideal. I don’t believe that’s what we’re here to do. That man is here to use the resources and use them wisely, to care for the earth, to be a steward of the earth. But we’re not here to serve the earth. The earth is not the objective. Man is the objective, and I think a lot of radical environmentalists have it upside-down.” That kind of ideology, he complained, “elevates the earth above man.”

What Bible Is Santorum Reading?

When conservative Congressman Todd Akin a few months back suggested that liberalism was a "hatred of God," I postulated that given the overwhelming support for liberal and progressive values in the Judeo-Christian Bible, perhaps he had never bothered to actually read the Bible. With Rick Santorum's recent comment that Obama's agenda is "Some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible. A different theology," I am now beginning to wonder if Santorum, Akin, and other conservatives are just reading a different Bible entirely than the one I read.

Because here's the thing: while you can -- if you really work hard to do it -- find verses here and there supporting a more conservative political point of view on certain specific issues, there is simply no way to read the Bible I read and not come to the conclusion that it is overwhelmingly supportive of helping the poor, showing mercy to the weak, refraining from judging, treating others as you would treat yourself, calling on the wealthy to give their money to the poor, and all kinds of other liberal, lefty, progressive values. You would have to ignore a great deal of Genesis and Exodus, with their talk of being our brother's keeper and bringing justice to the poor, oppressed slaves in Egypt; you would have to skip over a great many of the verses of Psalms with its poetry about justice and mercy for the poor and the widow; you would have to avoid the books of the Prophets almost entirely since so much of what they are angry about is the Israelite society's mistreatment of poor people and immigrants in their midst. Then there is the New Testament, where between St. Paul, the relatives of Jesus, and the big guy himself, there are so many verses on these subjects that it is virtually impossible to ignore them.