October Surprise: A sermon on the mound

Tonight, World Series fans, you will get to view the latest in the paid political advertising entertainment served up for the mid-term election stem-cell wars of the Cardinals' home state. Watching, on YouTube, a fuzzy preview of the ad -- which was apparently thrown together in response to Michael J. Fox's latest star turn as an advocate for stem-cell research -- your blogstress felt the hand of Mother Church orchestrating this video confab of right-wing Roman Catholic sort-of celebrities. Now, your Webwench is not saying that she knows for a fact that Big Ma is behind this whole thing; that grail continues to elude her.

However, her ears pricked up at the mention of the name of Patricia Heaton, whose face graces the misleading Feminists for Life ad that has run on various political Web sites -- including that of The American Prospect Online, for which your cybertrix writes -- off and on for the last month. As your écrivaine reported for The Prospect's site last week, Feminists for Life is closely allied with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and even took funding from the bishops for its first ad campaign.

The television spot featuring Heaton makes a case against a Missouri ballot measure, Amendment 2, that would, according to a pro-amendment editorial in the Kansas City Star, "guarantee Missouri scientists the right to conduct all forms of stem-cell research permitted under federal law." The ad, which also features Jim Caviezel, who played Jesus in the Mel Gibson's Jew-baiting film, "Passion of the Christ" and St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Jeff Suppan, will air tonight during a World Series game in which Suppan is slated to pitch.

To learn more about the links between the bishops and the anti-stem-cell spot, check out your net-tête's post on TAPPED, the blog of The American Prospect Online.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anti-gay robo-call

Image
Robocall - Tim Wildmon Your blogstress's friends at the American Family Association have been buying airtime from whomever will sell them a bit of that public trust to spread their customary message of hatred of queer folk. Here's a robocall that went out yesterday, presumably to any and all who ever contributed a dime to AFA. Note that the call comes from AFA founder Don Wildmon 's son, Tim . (Ever notice how some of these hate-mongering groups become a sort of full-employment plan for the founder's family?) AFA's special, "Speechless: Silencing the Christians", may soon be coming to a cable channel -- or even broadcast channel -- near you, delivered as "paid programming". If you see it scheduled in your 'hood, you may wish to mobilize against the media outlet that sold the air time to AFA. Here's the text of Brother Tim's message: Hello, this is Tim Wildmon on behalf of your American Family Association, calling to sincerely than
Read more

Speaker drama: Breaking stuff is the point, and Bannon's in the middle of it

Image
The most surprising thing about the current state of affairs in the House of Representatives — the inability of the majority party to settle on a winning House Speaker candidate — is that anyone is surprised at all.  What we’re witnessing from the far-right #NeverKevin caucus has been the plan for some time; it’s just that too many political journalists and commentators too easily dismiss or ignore the utterances of political figures deemed “fringe” by the mainstream – regardless of the power held by those supposedly fringe players.  You might think that given the prominent role played by former White House strategist Stephen K. Bannon in fomenting and organizing the insurrection whose two-year anniversary we mark today, political journos might pay more attention to what he’s saying to the MAGA crowd every day, but you’d be wrong. And you might surmise that major right-wing events such as the Conservative Political Action Conference might draw the interest of people tasked with coveri
Read more