No, Republicans aren't rascist...

AGR. Another Good Reason I left the Republican Party.

Student GOP leader resigns over Obama remark

By MICHAEL RUBINKAM, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 46 minutes ago

ALLENTOWN, Pa. - The leader of a statewide group of college Republicans has been forced to resign after posting racially insensitive comments about Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama on the Internet.

Adam LaDuca, 21, the former executive director of the Pennsylvania Federation of College Republicans, wrote on his Facebook page in late July that Obama has "a pair of lips so large he could float half of Cuba to the shores of Miami (and probably would.)"

LaDuca, who previously had called Martin Luther King Jr. a "pariah" and a "fraud," also wrote: "And man, if sayin' someone has large lips is a racial slur, then we're ALL in trouble."

The College Republicans asked LaDuca to resign after his remarks were publicized by the Pennsylvania Progressive, a blog written by a Democratic committeeman from Berks County. The group announced LaDuca's resignation on its Web site Friday.

"The comments were completely uncalled for and very offensive," said Anthony Pugliese, 22, a senior at West Chester University and chairman of the College Republicans, an umbrella group with more than 50 chapters statewide. "The P-A College Republicans do not accept or tolerate racism in any way."

LaDuca said Monday that he regrets posting the comments and understands how they can be construed as racist. "In hindsight, when you read it a second time, it's like, 'oops,'" he said. "It was just a dumb move on my part to make a statement like that public."

He said he is not a racist and that he admires prominent blacks such as economist and author Thomas Sowell and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. He compared the comment about Obama to jokes about Republican presidential nominee John McCain's thinning hair or President Bush's large ears.

LaDuca is a senior at Kutztown University. Two years ago, Kutztown's College Republicans chapter was heavily criticized for holding a "bake sale" to protest affirmative action in which whites were charged more for cookies than blacks. LaDuca, then the group's spokesman, made a public apology on the group's behalf.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080908/ap_on_el_pr/college_republicans_obama

Bob,

So we see here again that the Republican fire their racists.

When are the Democrats going to deal with the former grand dragon of the KKK who still serves as the US Senator from West Virginia?

John

THE FINANCIER

Biography

(Howard) Ahmanson is the son of the American financier Howard F. Ahmanson, Sr (1906-1968). His parents divorced when he was 10, and his mother died shortly afterwards. Despite the trappings of wealth, he was a lonely child. Ahmanson has said, "I resented my family background, [my father] could never be a role model, whether by habits or his lifestyle, it was never anything I wanted." Howard Ahmanson, Sr. died when his son was 18, and Ahmanson Jr. inherited a vast fortune.

Ahmanson Jr. went to Occidental College, where he obtained a degree in economics. He then toured Europe, but he returned because of arthritis. He earned a master's degree in linguistics at the University of Texas at Arlington and has fluency in several languages.

In the 1970s Ahmanson became a Calvinist and joined R. J. Rushdoony's Christian Reconstructionist movement. Ahmanson served as a board member of Rushdoony's Chalcedon Foundation for over ten years. In an article published in the Orange County Register on June 30, 1996, Ahmanson said he had left the Chalcedon board and "does not embrace all of Rushdoony's teachings. However, Max Blumenthal reported in 2004 that "until Rushdoony's death in 2001, Ahmanson served on the board of his think tank, Chalcedon, granting it a total of $1 million.

In the 1970s Ahmanson was instrumental in starting the career of conservative Christian intellectual Marvin Olasky who then became an important figure in the conservative Evangelical media and political scene.

Ahmanson is a board member of the John M. Perkins Foundation and (along with his wife) the Claremont Institute. He was a member of the Council for National Policy in 1984–85, 1988 and sat on its Board of Governors in 1996 and 1998. He has written articles appearing in The Los Angeles Times, Philanthropy, Religion and Liberty, and other publications.

TIME Magazine covered the Ahmansons in their 2005 profiles of the 25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America, classifying them as "the financiers.

Howard Ahmanson Jr. is a trustee of The Ahmanson Foundation, which was established by his father and is still operated by members of the Ahmanson family. The Ahmanson Foundation serves Los Angeles County non-profit organizations "by funding cultural projects in the arts and humanities, education at all levels, health care, programs related to homelessness and underserved populations as well as a wide range of human services."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Ahmanson,_Jr.

THE FINANCIER'S FIRST POLITICAL SUCCESS

Ahmanson's first major political success came in 1992, when he banded together with four right-wing businessmen to back the campaigns of anti-gay, anti-abortion, pro-big business candidates to take over the California state Assembly. With $3 million funneled through seven pro-business, anti-abortion and Republican political action fronts, Ahmanson and company tipped the balance of the Legislature to the Republicans, capturing a startling 25 of the GOP's 39 seats for their candidates. Their push ushered two important movement cadres into power: Tom McClintock, a veteran activist and former director of economic and regulatory affairs of the Ahmanson-funded libertarian think tank Claremont Institute; and Ray Haynes, an unknown lawyer from another Ahmanson-funded group, the Western Center for Law and Justice, which once filed a brief defending a local school district for banning Gabriel Garc�a Marqu�z's novel "One Hundred Years of Solitude."

Upon seizing power, McClintock sponsored a bill returning the death penalty to California, while Haynes led a failed 1995 attempt to ban state funding for abortion and numerous futile fights to block anti-hate crime and domestic partnership legislation. In 2003, the two Ahmanson cadres became instrumental figures in propelling the campaign to recall Democratic Gov. Gray Davis. In March 2003, Haynes personally convinced a fellow arch- conservative, U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, to bankroll the recall ballot qualification. After the recall qualified with the help of $1.7 million from Issa, McClintock entered the recall campaign, ultimately finishing third as the token cultural conservative. As in 1992, Ahmanson's camp provided the groundwork for McClintock's campaign: John Stoos, an avowed Reconstructionist associated with Chalcedon, served as his deputy campaign manager, and Ahmanson hosted some of the most prominent leaders in the Christian right for a fundraiser in Colorado in September that, according to the Los Angeles Times, raised $100,000.

http://www.theocracywatch.org/ahmanson.htm

John,

They fire them when they attract unwanted attention. They promote them when they don't.

Bob

THE FINANCIER'S FATHER, THE UNDERTAKER

Ahmanson(Sr.) had positioned himself in the marketplace; before even graduating from college, Howard Ahmanson went with what he knew,and just like his father, began selling insurance. H.F. Ahmanson Company, the enterprise he founded while living a student’s life,quickly became the largest fire underwriter in California.

The years that followed saw even greater success for Howard F.
Ahmanson. On the eve of the Great Depression, he innovated an idea
that would soon become an industry staple – fire insurance for
property under foreclosure. Noting the irony, Ahmanson was reported
to have said that the Depression made him feel “like an undertaker.”

“The worse things got, the better they got for me,” he told the New
York Times.

http://www.theahmansonfoundation.org/ar03.pdf

Ahmanson Jr. inherited money made from one of the most tragic events to happen to hard working folks during the Great Depression, the loss of their home through foreclosure.

Ahmanson Jr. inherited that money in 1968. Does the year 1968 ring a bell with anyone? The year the Ahmanson Jr. was given Easy Street for life, there was the tumult of the Vietnam War escalated by the Tet Offensive, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F Kennedy.

Ahmanson Jr. was 18 years old when he inherited Easy Street for life. Ahmanson Jr. had Tourette's. He would not be going to Vietnam. However, Ahmanson Jr. functioned well enough to go on to wage war against Americans that he didn't much care for...

More about that later...

THE FINANCIER WAGES WAR AGAINST MY CHURCH

My church by any standard is considered a "mainline Christian church". At least 13 of the Founding Fathers were past members of my church.

Ahmanson Jr. wages war against my church. The means by which he wages war against my church is to provide the money he inherited to actively foster schism in my church. He has indeed achieved some success in waging that war.

He caused my wife and me to leave the church we attended in Roseville to attend a church of the same denomination in Rocklin.

My wife and I were married in the church we were forced to leave. My wife had been Senior Warden when the Priest had a massive heart attack in the UK. It was so massive that the Priest could not be transported by air back home for weeks. It fell upon my wife to hold the church together during this time.

In 2003, Ahmanson saw his path to waging war against my church. The Priest whom my wife supported through his recovery from the heart attack became the local "spokesperson" for Ahmanson. His flagging career got a shot in the arm. He bragged about "the wave" that he had caught and there a bounce in his step.

The falling out happened on Saturday morning out in the church parking lot. My wife confronted the Priest, "You are trying to take our church out of the Diocese aren't you!" He said, "Yes, and the congregation will go with me!"

My wife came home crying. She had not only gave her heart and soul to that church, she gave her treasure too. She was the first and only person to step up the plate and give to the church building fund for a future new church building to be built. She gave this anonymously, a very, very substantial amount of money. My wife worked very hard for that money during her career. She grew up poor, not as Ahmanson who inherited Easy Street for life at 18 so that he could wage war against her.

That money stays with that church we left. Our new church is beginning a building campaign itself. That money can not come over for this new campaign.

This story has been repeated many times over across this nation since 2003. It unfolds week by week. It is now.

And McClintock's FINANCIER is financing this war against good good Christian Americans, hard working Americans who played by the rules, patriotic Americans who served in the uniform and are sending their sons and daughters in harms way.

This has become personal, very very personal for me...

more later...

Without giving any specifics about which church or what issues were involved, how can we judge who took the right action here? If Howard is defending someone who is fighting for the orthodox Christian faith, say by standing up against ordaining homosexuals, then he is on the right side, and his actions should be praised.

So, since you wanted to share this story, how about the details. No names needed, just the details.

Otherwise it is just the kind of vicious attack you are reacting to waged against someone who has directed tens of millions of dollars to very worthy projects to help the poor around the world. Shame on you Lee.

John

John

Tell me when and how you met Howard Ahmanson, Jr? And whether he has funded some of the organizations you have worked for, thereby in effect funding your paycheck.

You are the vicious one, in effect attacking my wife who did not deserve Ahmanson's vicious attempt to promote schism in my church. We are now in a parish of the same denomination in Rocklin. Our Priest there is about as fundamentalist as one can expect given he originally was Seventh Day Adventist.

Our church gives coffee cups to newcomers with this on the cup...

"A Safe Place to Worship"

Lee,

I have met Howard once or twice and I don't think Fieldstead [his political organization] has ever given me any direct funding, but I would have taken any that was offered if that is your point.

Did you know that MOST of his charity giving is directed at missionary and compassion ministries?

I did NOT attack your wife: I said we don't know the details so what are we to think. IF you wife attends churches that ordain homosexuals then yes, I would say that she is wrong to do so: Romans chapter one should make that pretty clear so her argument is with the Lord and not me. If the issue is another matter, then we need to know what it was over.

John

PS: I think our church is a "safe place to worship" too, but we don't put it on the cups, but rather make sure we are practicing what God told us to do in His Word when we are worshiping!

THE FINANCIER IS GENEROUS TO McCLINTOCK

For the last 10 years, however, McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks) has received only modest sums from such GOP stalwarts as the oil and insurance industries. Instead, McClintock, the antitax, free-market Republican who hopes to replace Gov. Gray Davis in Tuesday's election, has come to rely on some of the most conservative political donors in California to sustain his campaigns.

As GOP leaders have urged McClintock to cease campaigning and most major Republican donors have contributed to action movie actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a political moderate, many of McClintock's most conservative donors have remained loyal.

With the recall campaign bringing him national exposure, McClintock has expanded his base. He traveled to Colorado last weekend for a fund-raiser put on by national conservative leaders Richard Viguerie, Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schafly and Focus on the Family founder James Dobson.

One host of the event was Howard Ahmanson Jr., scion of the family that founded Home Savings & Loan. Ahmanson, a major financier of free-market and religious think tanks, and his wife, Roberta, have given McClintock $202,000 since 2000, making them among his largest donors, campaign finance reports show.

Ahmanson and a political action committee he founded with three others have given McClintock at least $400,000 in the last decade, making McClintock one of the largest beneficiaries of its money.

"Howard Ahmanson's support is the California conservatives' equivalent of a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval," said Jack Pitney, professor of government at Claremont McKenna College and a former Republican strategist. At a time when the California Republican Party is trying to portray itself as more moderate, Pitney said, Ahmanson "has been an important source of life support for conservatives."

Ahmanson's patronage benefits several nonprofit think tanks, including the Claremont Institute, where McClintock worked for two years after losing his 1994 run for state controller, and the Chalcedon Foundation, which promotes a brand of Christianity known as Christian Reconstructionism. Chalcedon produces journals for which McClintock political aide John Stoos routinely writes.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Ahmanson served on Chalcedon's board of directors and was its largest benefactor, giving it at least $733,000. He remains a donor to the nonprofit organization, which was founded by Rousas John Rushdoony. Often called theologian to the religious right, Rushdoony, who died in 2001, advocated a nation ruled by Biblical law, a vision that assigned the death penalty for 18 sins, including murder, rape of a betrothed virgin, adultery and sodomy

To which McClintock becomes agnostic...

"I don't believe the religious views of any of my supporters is relevant to this campaign," McClintock said. "This great debate that we're involved in is over the future of California. I leave theological questions to everyone's individual conscience...

http://pewforum.org/news/display.php?NewsID=2694

JUST SHOW ME THE MONEY, HOWARD

Lee,

Thanks to those great enemies of the 1st Amendment called campaign finance laws the Ahmansons can only give $2,300 each to the campaign for Congress. You will have to check the report to see if they had.

John

Mr. Reed,

Now that Mr. Stoos has shown up to defend himself and McClintock, you've switched gears away from him and are now trying to associate McClintock with this Ahmanson. I've come to the conclusion that you are somewhat peculiar in what you think is important to discuss in this race.

Once again I've read all your comments and find this issue tenuous, and little worth the emphasis. If Ahmanson has done something to your church, then I'd take it up elsewhere. Tying him to McClintock is just silly.

Hector