Pallin’ Around With Putin: Conservatives Jump the Patriot Shark With Moscow Pro-Life Summit

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Conservatives have jumped the patriot shark. Siding with Putin over Obama, conservatives justify holding their World Congress of Families summit meeting (referred to as the “pro-life Olympics”) in Moscow even after the Ukraine crisis because “Putin doesn’t threaten our national security, Obama does.”

Funding this little gathering of patriotic freedom lovers is a close Putin ally. Pallin’ around with Putin? The summit also includes a joint session with the Russian parliament, according to Right Wing Watch.

In an article titled, “U.S. Conservatives To Go Ahead With ‘Pro-Life Olympics’ In Moscow Despite Ukraine Crisis: ‘Putin doesn’t threaten our national security, Obama does,’ the communications director for the World Congress of Families wrote”, Buzzfeed reported:

The U.S. organizers of a World Congress of Families summit to be held in the Kremlin in September show no signs of canceling over the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The World Congress of Families counts several leading U.S. conservative organizations among its affiliates, including the Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America, Alliance Defending Freedom and Americans United for Life. The Moscow meeting is described as the “‘Olympics’ of the international Pro-Life movement supporting the Natural Family” in a promotional brochure, and will bring together conservative activists from around the world. The meeting is funded in part by Vladimir Yakunin, head of Russia’s railroads monopoly and a close ally of President Vladimir Putin and supporter of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The Family Research Council attracts the big players in conservative politics — Ted Cruz, Paul Ryan, Rand Paul, Mark Rubio, and more spoke at the Value Voters Summit, put on by the FRC last fall.

If being funded by a close ally of Putin isn’t enough to justify “pallin’ around”, but sitting on a board was, then Republicans might want to stop making such accusations.

On Saturday, October 4, 2012, the Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin said Obama is someone “who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.”

She said this in reference to university professors William Ayers, who was a radical in the 1960s. Obama was born in August of 1961. CNN pointed out, “Beginning in 1995, Ayers and Obama worked with the non-profit Chicago Annenberg Challenge on a huge school improvement project.” Oh, such a terrorist.

Also, both were “board members on the Woods Fund, a charitable foundation that gave money to various causes, including the Trinity United Church that Obama attended…” CNN concluded, “CNN’s review of project records found nothing to suggest anything inappropriate in the volunteer projects in which the two men were involved.” Their verdict was a big old “false” for Palin, noting that neither man was currently engaged in terrorist activity.

We can’t say the same of Putin. But it’s okay for conservatives to take money from a close Putin ally, while at the same time calling Obama weak for not nuking Putin. This is what happens when your number predominant values are hate, opposition and resistance to change.

Buzzfeed quoted Don Feder, the conservative World Congress of Families’ communication director, who thinks that Obama has weakened our military because of the gays. He wrote quite an essay working to justify, exonerate and extol Putin’s behavior, as well he should since Putin is behaving a lot like George W Bush.

I for one am glad to see conservatives just admitting that they want this kind of “leadership” and see it as “freedom”. In this essay in the American Thinker (you couldn’t make this stuff up), Feder’s headline is, “Putin Doesn’t Threaten Our National Security, Obama Does.” He is very disappointed that Obama is out invading countries on a whim. BAD OBAMA.

For this transgression apparently, the allegedly (not factually) pro-life Olympics will still take place in Moscow, where they really value life as much as conservatives do — which is to say, only if you agree with them. Sorta jumping that old American patriot shark there, but hey. At least it’s out in the open now.

In reality, the most effective way to reduce abortion rates it to provide contraception and family planning education. Conservatives are against both. The abortion rate has dropped considerably under President Obama, because a real culture of life deals with hard issues like unwanted pregnancy realistically in order to actually address the causes rather than use unwanted pregnancy as a way to punish women for having bodies that get pregnant.

A pro-life gathering in Moscow and wishing Putin were running America – this is what American conservatives have come to.

Sarah Jones

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