Who Exactly Is Ken Cuccinelli?

The New AG Mussolini for Virginia

(Foto from Blue Virginia Blog)

At a Morton Blackwell’s 2009 4th of July event, Cuccinelli’s wife bragged from the podium about her husband being “right wing extremist”, this was no joke.

Despite being the keynote speaker at tea bagger and pro militia events Cuccinelli has been dodging the bullet on addressing his right wing “third position” politics , his support for and from dangerous racist militia groups, his burning hatred of gays and immigrants, not to mention he believes birth control is equal abortion and both should be made illegal and unavailable to the public.

From “Nick”:

Hard Right Republican Favored to be Next Attorney General of Virginia

In Virginia, registered voters are preparing to cast their ballots in a statewide election that could significantly affect the future of the Commonwealth. The governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general seats are all open and Virginia Republicans appear to be within electoral reach of each seat.

While the governor’s race has received the most attention from the local media and Virginia voters, the Republican candidate for attorney general might be the key political player who shapes the state’s future should he win the race.

Ken Cuccinelli, a state senator from Virginia’s 37th district, is favored to be the state’s next attorney general according to several reputable polls.

Cuccinelli is a hard right Republican who believes global warming is fabricated, thinks state law should reflect his derogatory views of homosexuals and introduced a law in the state legislature that would have allowed employers to fire workers who did not speak English and subsequently deny them unemployment benefits.

Here is a breakdown of his views on three critical issues:

Environment
The far-right Republican denies global warming exists. He told a group of William and Mary university students in late September that the climate is getting colder and it is a natural part of the Earth’s climate cycle.

When a W&M student asked him about the professional views of Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, Cuccinelli described his science as “absolutely baseless.” Chu has a Nobel Prize in Physics and has publicly advocated for national economies to reduce or eliminate fossil fuels and adopt renewable sources of energy. When the same student asked about the educational experiences that shaped his views on climate change, Cuccinelli responded by saying that he took a few engineering courses in college.

Cuccinelli then ominously warned the W&M students that “the environmental movement has been used more than any other movement…to destroy and get rid of capitalism.”

The Republican state senator has also threatened to sue the federal government if it institutes carbon cap emissions. He said this year that supporters of carbon cap emissions are like “watermelons”: green on the outside but communist red on the inside.

He enthusiastically supports granting permits for companies to explore and possibly drill for petroleum and natural gas off Virginia’s Eastern Shore. Sites already eyed for potential exploration and subsequent drilling include areas off Virginia’s famous southern portion of Assateague Island.

Assateague Island, which is shared territorially between Virginia and Maryland, includes a National Wildlife Refuge (NWF) that serves as a resting spot for numerous migratory birds. It is a nationally protected park and continues to serve as a vital part of the area’s ecological system.

If a petroleum spill were to occur, whether accidental or intentional, Assateague’s NWF could be destroyed.

Homosexuality
Cuccinelli recently told the Virginia-Pilot, a daily newspaper based in Norfolk, that “ homosexual acts are wrong…intrinsically wrong. And I think in a natural law based country it’s appropriate to have policies that reflect that.”

He was instrumental in promoting the November 2006 statewide referendum which defined marriage as “only a union between one man and one woman.” The Marshall-Newman Amendment was approved by 57% of Virginia voters and is now part of Virginia’s state constitution.

Cuccinelli attends St. Andrew the Apostle Catholic Church in Clifton, VA. It is the same church that hosts former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum. The former Pennsylvania Senator was arguably one of the most homophobic members of the U.S. Senate. Santorum famously compared homosexuality to sexual intercourse with non-human animals in an interview with the Associated Press in 2003.

Cuccinelli was spiritually nurtured by Father Jerome W. Fasano. The priest, who is now the resident pastor at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Front Royal, Virginia, preaches homosexuality is perverse. Fasano’s sermons include hysterical homophobic diatribes and condemnations of individuals who are not both Roman Catholic and socially conservative.

Father Jerome W. Fasano can be reached at his current office phone, 540-635-3780, for questions or concerns about Cuccinelli.

Cuccinelli has avid support from the laity of St. Andrew the Apostle Catholic Church. Supporters of Cuccinelli are often seen after weekend masses in Clifton holding supportive signs.

St. Andrew the Apostle Catholic Church is located at 6720 Union Mill Road Clifton, VA 20124. The Parish office can be reached at 703-817-1770 for questions or concerns about Cuccinelli.

Immigration
Cuccinelli has notoriously anti-immigrant views. In the Virginia State Senate, he proposed amending Section 1 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to revoke citizenship rights of the children of undocumented immigrants who were born in the United States.

The Republican state senator gained national attention in early January 2008 when he introduced a bill in the Virginia state legislature that would have allowed employers to fire individuals for the “inability or refusal” to speak English in the workplace and subsequently deny them unemployment benefits. The bill, SB339, would have even allowed employers to fire employees who spoke a non-English language on the phone or to co-workers when away from clients and the public.

Cuccinelli boasts on his official AG campaign website, that he will deport “Illegal aliens who choose to break additional laws by stealing identities, dealing drugs, joining criminal gangs, driving without a license.”

He also introduced a bill in the State Senate which would allow a Virginia business to file suit against another competing Virginia-based business “if the [competing business] employs or employed persons it knew or should have known were illegal aliens.”

More posted about Coooch:
Ken Cuccinelli And the White Supremacists In His Campaign

Cuccinelli: The Crackpot Candidate

Ken Cuccinelli And the White Supremacists In His Campaign

We here at the Lady Liberty’s Lamp Collective are surprised that this has not come in the Virginia campaign races before.
It appears that crazy Ken Cuccinelli has some very unsavory racist connections to his campaign by way of the Gun Owners of America’s founder “Larry Pratt”

Cuccinelli with his campaign spokesman the white supremacist Larry Pratt

It appears Larry Pratt has been a long time Cuccinelli supporter and advocate:

Gun Owners of America Political Victory Fund E-Mail/FAX Alert
8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102, Springfield, VA 22151
Phone: 703-321-8585 / FAX: 703-321-8408

July 26, 2002
Dear Friend of the Second Amendment,
Believe it or not, the staunchest friend of the Second Amendment in
the Virginia state Senate could get into office in a special
election being held in a few days — August 6. And he will be a
Senator from Northern Virginia!

Ken Cuccinelli of Centreville pulled off an upset to win the
Republican primary in the 37th state Senate district.

Cuccinelli defeated the establishment candidate who was backed by
some of the worst anti-gun Republicans in the state.

Cuccinelli now faces the kind of candidate that only the members of
the so-called Million Moms could love — Cathy Belter. Belter is a
liberal librarian who is on the Fairfax County School Board.

Belter has boasted of her teacher union support. As you probably
know, the national and state teachers unions openly and militantly
support gun control.

I assure you that the virulently anti-self defense teachers unions
do not want Cuccinelli to win this special August 6 election.

Frankly, Gun Owners of America thinks that this election is just as
important as does the anti-gun Virginia Education Association
teachers union.

We have been able to pass pro-self defense legislation in the House
of Delegates only to see the legislation get killed in the Senate.
This is exactly what happened this year to the House-passed bill to
remove the ban on carrying a concealed firearm in restaurants that
serve alcoholic beverages.

The pro-Second Amendment forces are close to a majority in the
Senate. Cuccinelli’s victory would put us much closer to victory
there.
Another benefit of a Cuccinelli victory would be to put the lie to
the anti-gun mantra that a pro-Second Amendment candidate cannot be
elected in Northern Virginia.

Cuccinelli’s victory will tell pro-gun activists that they could
win, too — if they would just take the plunge and run for office.

Cuccinelli is running an excellent grassroots campaign. But even if
you do not live close enough to the 37th Senate district in Northern
Virginia, you can help with a contribution.

You can give as much as you want under Virginia law. Corporate
contributions are also OK in Virginia. A few $1,000 checks would
give a huge boost to the Cuccinelli campaign.

But even $25, $50 or $100 would help a lot.

Please send your check, today! You can send it to Cuccinelli for
Senate, 6801 Mount Olive Court, Centreville, VA 20121.

Online contributions can be made at:

https://www.campaigncontribution.com…?ano=2151&db=3

If there is any way you can volunteer — even if you have to drive
across the state the weekend before Election Day — please call the
campaign office at 703-766-0635. Or use Ken@cuccinelli.com to drop
Cuccinelli an e-mail message.

Cuccinelli has bucked the anti-self defense establishment in
Northern Virginia. Please take part in the effort to enable him to
buck the anti-gunners in Richmond.
Sincerely,
Larry Pratt
Executive Director

P.S. If you live in parts of Springfield, Burke or Fairfax Station,
or anywhere in Centreville or Chantilly, you are in Cuccinelli’s
37th Senate district. You can verify in which district you reside
by calling the information desk at a public library

More about Larry Pratt from the Southern Poverty Law Center

Larry Pratt

Larry Pratt, a gun rights absolutist whose Gun Owners of America (GOA) has been described as “eight lanes to the right” of the National Rifle Association, may well be the person who brought the concept of citizen militias to the radical right.

In 1990, Pratt wrote a book, Armed People Victorious, based on his study of “citizen defense patrols” used in Guatemala and the Philippines against Communist rebels — patrols that came to be known as death squads for their murderous brutality.

Picturing these groups in rosy terms, Pratt advocated similar militias in the United States — an idea that finally caught on when he was invited for a meeting of 160 extremists, including many famous white supremacists, in 1992.

It was at that meeting, hosted in Colorado by white supremacist minister Pete Peters, that the contours of the militia movement were laid out.

Pratt, whose GOA has grown since its 1975 founding to some 150,000 members today, hit the headlines in a big way when his associations with Peters and other professional racists were revealed, convincing arch-conservative Pat Buchanan to eject him as a national co-chair of Buchanan’s 1996 presidential campaign.

The same year, it emerged that Pratt was a contributing editor to a periodical of the anti-Semitic United Sovereigns of America, and that his GOA had donated money to a white supremacist attorney’s group.

Pratt is today close to the extremist Constitution Party and its radical theology.

Cuccinelli himself is no stranger to hate and bigotry in his latest homophobic remark to the Virginia Pilot:

“ My view is that homosexual acts, not homosexuality, but homosexual acts are wrong. They’re intrinsically wrong. And I think in a natural law based country it’s appropriate to have policies that reflect that. … They don’t comport with natural law. I happen to think that it represents (to put it politely; I need my thesaurus to be polite) behavior that is not healthy to an individual and in aggregate is not healthy to society.”

UPDATE!! Virginia political blogger Vivian Page also has a great article addressing Cuccinelli extremism here. A very good read!