June 2009

• Good As You smartly asks when the Associated Press will start caring about the way OneNewsNow misuses its articles.
• Vanity Fair examines Sarah Palin's disastrous VP run and tries to understand ""why did so many skilled veterans of the Republican Party—long regarded as the more adroit team in presidential politics—keep loyally working for her election even after they privately realized she was casual about the truth and totally unfit for the vice-presidency?"
• Think Progress notes that Rep. Michelle Bachmann might have a legitimate reason to fear the Census.
• Media Matters reports that Dick Morris has fully joined the black helicopter crowd.
• Steve Benen points out that its hard to find common ground with anti-choice activists when they are against every effort to find common ground.
• The Southern Poverty Law Center reports that Mississippi State Sen. Lydia Chassaniol was the "surprise guest" at the Council of Conservative Citizens' annual conference, where she was introduced as “the right hand to the Governor [Haley Barbour].”

Despite all of the predictions that the Religious Right was on its deathbed, they sure do seem to be extremely active of late.

Of course, they don't seem to have any new ideas or desire to change their agenda in any way, but in last few months have seen a flurry of new groups popping up designed to fill some unseen void that has been apparently responsible for their current predicament.

In the last few months we seen the arrival of the Faith and Freedom Institute, which was followed by Ralph Reed's Faith and Freedom Coalition, while Newt Gingrich was unveiling his Renewing American Leadership effort, and Lou Engle was announcing his Call to Action.

And now we come to find out via Pam that pretty much every Religious Right group has joined together under the umbrella of something called The Freedom Federation, incuding Renewing American Leadership and Call to Action, which were just recently created - so now you have two new groups created specifically to fill this void joining a new coalition effort ... designed to fill this very same void:

Press Conference to discuss the formation of the Freedom Federation and its purpose.

The Freedom Federation is a new and unique federation of some of the largest multi-ethnic and transgenerational faith-based organizations in the country committed to plan, strategize, and work together on common interests within the Judeo-Christian tradition to mobilize their grassroots constituencies and to communicate faith and values to the religious, social, cultural, and policymaking institutions.

-- American Association of Christian Counselors
-- American Family Association
-- Americans for Prosperity
-- Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny (BOND)
-- Campaign for Working Families
-- Catholic Online
-- Concerned Women for America
-- Conservative Action Project
-- Eagle Forum
-- Exodus International
-- Faith and Action
-- Family Research Council
-- High Impact Leadership
-- Liberty Alliance Action
-- Liberty Counsel
-- Liberty University
-- Life Education and Resource Network (LEARN)
-- Marc Nuttle
-- Morning Star Ministries
-- National Clergy Council
-- National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference
-- Renewing American Leadership
-- Strang Communications
-- Teen Mania
-- The Call to Action
-- Traditional Values Coalition
-- Vision America

Wow - did they put this coalition together by going through our list of right-wing organizations and simply inviting all the groups and individuals we write about most frequently to join?  Sorry,  Christian Anti-Defamation Commission  - if only we had written about you a few more times, maybe you would have been deemed worthy of inclusion in this ground-breaking new effort by the Religious Right ... to do whatever it is this new organization is going to do.

Honestly, what purpose can this possibly serve?  Are the Council for National Policy and the Arlington Group somehow lacking and so these groups decided that what they really needed was yet another coalition to carry out the same work?

Anyway, this effort seems to be organized by Rick Scarborough ... or at least he is the first to send out a press release trying to take credit for it:

Today, representatives of some of America's largest faith-based groups gathered in the nation's capital to announce that they will organize and mobilize their grassroots constituencies in a common cause.

At the National Press Club, Vision America President Pastor Rick Scarborough joined other conservative leaders, including Mat Staver, dean of Liberty University Law School and the Federation's convener, to formally announce the formation of the Freedom Federation.

The Federation encompasses individuals of different races, faiths and backgrounds who are committed to the preservation of freedom and American values, founded on the Judeo-Christian tradition. The Freedom Federation is not a separate organization, but an association of like-minded national organizations with large and unique religious and political constituencies.

...

Scarborough commented: "These organizations represent some of the nation's largest constituencies of youth, Hispanics, African-Americans, women, pastors and churches, who are uniting to defend a tradition increasingly under attack."

The Freedom Federation is committed to defending and extending core values expressed in the Declaration of American Values, the organization's founding document. These include the right to life, the institution of marriage, parental rights, religious liberty, an environment free of pornography and indecency, the right to property, freedom from excessive taxation, and national sovereignty. The statement is posted on the Vision America website at www.visionamerica.us.

And here is their Declaration of American Values, which they vow to protect with their lives:

We the people of the United States of America, at this crucial time in history, do hereby affirm the core consensus values which form the basis of America’s greatness, that all men and women from every race and ethnicity are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We adhere to the rule of law embodied in the Constitution of the United States and to the principles of liberty on which America was founded. In order to maintain the blessings of liberty and justice for ourselves and our posterity, and recognizing that personal responsibility is the basis of our self-governing Nation, we declare our allegiance –

1. To secure the sanctity of human life by affirming the dignity of and right to life for the disabled, the ill, the aged, the poor, the disadvantaged, and for the unborn from the moment of conception. Every person is made in the image of God, and it is the responsibility and duty of all individuals and communities of faith to extend the hand of loving compassion to care for those in poverty and distress.

2. To secure our national interest in the institution of marriage and family by embracing the union of one man and one woman as the sole form of legitimate marriage and the proper basis of family.

3. To secure the fundamental rights of parents to the care, custody, and control of their children regarding their upbringing and education.

4. To secure the free exercise of religion for all people, including the freedom to acknowledge God through our public institutions and other modes of public expression and the freedom of religious conscience without coercion by penalty or force of law.

5. To secure the moral dignity of each person, acknowledging that obscenity, pornography, and indecency debase our communities, harm our families, and undermine morality and respect. Therefore, we promote enactment and enforcement of laws to protect decency and morality.

6. To secure the right to own, possess and manage private property without arbitrary interference from government, while acknowledging the necessity of maintaining a proper and balanced care and stewardship of the environment and natural resources for the health and safety of our families.

7. To secure the individual right to own, possess, and use firearms as central to the preservation of peace and liberty.

8. To secure a system of checks and balances between the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches within both state and federal governments, so that no one branch – particularly the judiciary – usurps the authority of the other two, and to maintain the constitutional principles of federalism which divide power between the state and federal governments.

9. To secure our national sovereignty and domestic tranquility by maintaining a strong military; establishing and maintaining secure national borders; participating in international and diplomatic affairs without ceding authority to foreign powers that diminish or interfere with our unalienable rights; and being mindful of our history as a nation of immigrants, promoting immigration policies that observe the rule of law and are just, fair, swift, and foster national unity.

10. To secure a system of fair taxes that are not punitive against the institution of marriage or family and are not progressive in nature, and within a limited government framework, to encourage economic opportunity, free enterprise, and free market competition.

We hereby pledge our Names, our Lives and our Sacred Honor to this Declaration of American Values.

One thing about this job is that every time you start to think that you have seen every argument imaginable about why letting gays get married with destroy America, you come across something that proves you wrong.  And via Amanda Marcotte, who got it via Dan Savage, we found just one of those things in this new and novel argument from David Klinghoffer, a Senior Fellow at the creationist Discovery Institute. 

Writing on Beliefnet, Klinghoffer offers up the thoughts of Joshua Berman, author of "Created Equal: How the Bible Broke with Ancient Political Thought" on "How Women Will Be Hurt by Gay Marriage." The gist of the argument is that "on the issue of same-sex marriage, we have much to learn from the writers of ancient Rome" where "homoeroticism [was] fully accepted" and, as such, women just simply couldn't compete.

Seriously: 

Men, we learn from ancient Rome, will enjoy sex with other men, if there is no social censure. Now, all of this should be fine for us as well -- after all, we should let free choice and tolerance reign.

The real problems begin, however, when we read what these writers had to say about marriage. Consider this piece from the first century BCE poet Catullus (Carmen 61:134-141), in which the poet addresses himself to a bridegroom on the eve of his nuptials:

"You are said to find it hard, Perfumed bridegroom, to give up Smooth-skinned boys, but give them up... We realize you've only known Permitted pleasures: husbands, though, Have no right to the same pleasures."

The social history behind this piece is clear: once they've experienced sex with other men, Catullus tells us, men are unsatisfied with what their new wives provide them. Notice that the poet is unconcerned about the husband's dallying with other women -- it's the other men around that threaten the marital union.

If Catullus addressed the bridegroom on the eve of his wedding, the satirist Martial (Book 11, Epigram 43) depicts the reality of married life itself. As satire, the section is too bawdy to be reprinted here, but the sanitized version goes like this: A woman chastises her husband for continuing to dally with male acquaintances. He counters that many other married men are doing it as well. Desperate, she offers to service him in the same way that his male suitor does. He rebuffs, concluding, that she just can't satisfy him the way his suitor can.

And so now we come back to the idyllic day of free choice and tolerance envisioned by the gay and lesbian movement. It turns out that that day has winners and losers. The winners -- big time -- are homosexual men, because the historical record shows that they can expect their potential pool of partners to expand exponentially. Of note here is that this expanded pool of partners accrues to gay men, but not to homosexual women. At the risk of getting too explicit, I leave it the reader's basic grasp of anatomy to figure out why in ancient Rome a man who found pleasure in a woman, could also find pleasure in a man, while the record shows that a heterosexual woman rarely found sexual satisfaction in the company of another woman.

The losers from all this will be the vast majority of women. With full social sanction given to homoerotic activity, the historical precedent suggests that tomorrow's women will have a harder time finding and holding on to suitable men. As women will suffer, so will the vitality and stability of the nuclear family.

• Pam Spaulding reports that Family Research Council has launched a campaign against Kevin Jennings' nomination to serve in the Department of Education.
• TPM notes that, in it's rush to get out a statement using the Ricci decision against Sonia Sotomayor, the Judicial Confirmation Network couldn't even bother to spell her name correctly.
• Steve Benen reports that we just might be approaching the end of the on-going saga regarding Minnesota's senate race.
• Timothy Kincaid points out that John Hagee, of all people, met with Soulforce and Atticus Circle over the weekend.
• According to Dump Bachmann, Rep. Michelle Bachmann is scheduled to appear on Alex Jones' program later this week.
• As David Weigel says, there is a difference between being humored by Secret Service agent and being taken seriously, but the Birthers don’t seem to know the difference.
• And speaking of the Birthers, Think Progress reports that WorldNetDaily's latest efforts are being stymied by the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.

I've seen a lot of fawning coverage of Michael Jackson in the wake of his death last week.  But what I hadn't seen was anyone claiming that he was roasting in hell ... until now:

World's Leading Internet Evangelist Claims Michael Jackson is in Hell

Sadly, Michael grew up in the Jehovah's Witnesses cult. This is the cult born out of the depraved mind of Charles Taze Russell and denies the very deity of Christ. You can go to Google and type in "cults Jehovah's Witnesses" and it will give you many websites to document their false theology. However, Michael has not only followed the false theology of the Jehovah's Witnesses, he made the choice to live his life in rebellion to God and His Word and follow all kinds of false religions and teachings.

During his 2005 trial for child molestation, instead of turning to Christ for strength, he turned to a cult I have exposed and talked about, Kaballah which was popularized by singer Madonna, signified by the "red string" bracelet he wore throughout the trial. He had during his life several high profile spiritual advisors, Orthodox Jew Rabbi Shmuley Boteach and New Age tool charlatan Deepak Chopra, a tool of satan I have warned you about in past Devotionals. Jackson was also heavily influenced by several of his brothers who are deep in the false religion of Islam. Clearly Michael Jackson was a man lost and searching.

I know it makes people feel better when a famous person or someone they know dies, though think that they are in Heaven. This is why I have literally given my life 24/7/365 these past 20 years for the Gospel, because the FACT is, those who die without Jesus will not be in Heaven, but in the flames of hell for all eternity. What you believe matters, and based on what he believes, Michael Jackson is not in Heaven, but in eternal torment and punishment for his sins.

Keller is perhaps best known for declaring back during the Republican Primary that a vote for Mitt Romney was a vote for Satan and launching a campaign to make that position known. 

Obviously, Keller inhabits the far fringes of the Religious Right movement, out there where Janet Porter resides - after all she just invited Keller onto her radio program a few weeks ago.

Have I mentioned that Porter was also co-chair of Mike Huckabee Faith and Family Values Coalition during his presidential campaign and is co-hosting a conference later this year at which Huckabee is going to be the keynote speaker? 

It never hurts to occasionally remind everyone about the sorts of people with whom Porter, and by extension Huckabee, chooses to associate themselves.

Recently, the Barna Group released a "Spiritual Profile of Homosexual Adults" that, according to the group, contained "some surprising results" about the spiritual lives of gays and lesbians:

George Barna, whose company conducted the research, pointed out that some popular stereotypes about the spiritual life of gays and lesbians are simply wrong.

“People who portray gay adults as godless, hedonistic, Christian bashers are not working with the facts,” declared the best-selling author of numerous books about faith and culture. “A substantial majority of gays cite their faith as a central facet of their life, consider themselves to be Christian, and claim to have some type of meaningful personal commitment to Jesus Christ active in their life today.

“The data indicate that millions of gay people are interested in faith but not in the local church and do not appear to be focused on the traditional tools and traditions that represent the comfort zone of most churched Christians. Gay adults clearly have a different way of interpreting the Bible on a number of central theological matters, such as perspectives about God. Homosexuals appreciate their faith but they do not prioritize it, and they tend to consider faith to be individual and private rather than communal.

“It is interesting to see that most homosexuals, who have some history within the Christian Church, have rejected orthodox biblical teachings and principles – but, in many cases, to nearly the same degree that the heterosexual Christian population has rejected those same teachings and principles. Although there are clearly some substantial differences in the religious beliefs and practices of the straight and gay populations, there may be less of a spiritual gap between straights and gays than many Americans would assume.”

Predictably, Peter LaBarbera is opposed to the entire notion that someone who is gay can also be a Christian:

Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, believes Barna speaks "too cavalierly" about "homosexual Christians."

"My test is [to] substitute another sexual sin and see if it makes sense. Would we be talking about a survey of porn-using Christians or incestuous Christians? That sounds stark, but that's, I believe, the appropriate biblical analogy," he contends.

Barna, LaBarbera says, is naïve if he thinks the homosexual activist movement is not made up of "hedonistic Christian bashers."

"I think there are Christians who struggle with the sin of homosexuality -- but proud homosexual Christians? That's an oxymoron to me in the same way as I would say proud adulterous Christians," he adds. "And so, I think we have to be very careful because I see the tactic of the Emergent Church and the Christian left is to start talking more and more about 'gay Christians,' and what they end up doing is demonizing the so-called 'Religious Right' and saying that the Religious Right is all wrong in the way it has talked about homosexuality."

None of that is particularly surprising, this comment made me literally laugh out loud:

A book by Barna Group president Dave Kinnaman titled UnChristian contends that "hostility toward gays has become virtually synonymous with the Christian faith;" however, LaBarbera says he does not know any born-again Christians who hate homosexuals.

Um, considering that LaBarbera just participated in a press conference with Matt Barber and Sally Kern, it seems that, including himself, he knows at least three born-again Christians who fit that description.

• Adam Serwer explains that while "the anti-gay-rights movement has long sought to use the relative religiosity of the black community to marshal its support," it's running into problems in Washington, D.C. where "the face of LGBT leadership in D.C. is often black."
• Dan Gilgoff interviews Galen Carey, Richard Cizik's replacement at National Association of Evangelicals.
• Alex Koppelman points out that Sen. Jim DeMint is seeking donations of $17.76 because "the only way to take back our freedom is to return to the constitutional principles our founding fathers promised in 1776." Of course, the Constitution wasn't actually written until 1787.
• David Weigel notes that TownHall is trying to get in on Birther bucks.
• BlueTexan lets us know that the joke that is Joe the Plumber is still going strong.
• Zachary Roth reports that Gov. Mark Sanford says he has a lot in common with King David.

We mentioned this earlier this week, but via HRC's Back Story we see that Oklahoma's News 9 has done a segment on Rep. Sally Kern's Proclamation for Morality in which she blames the nation's current economic and other problems on gays, abortion, divorce, and all around lack of Christian faith:

News 9 has also posted a copy of the proclamation, which you can read here [PDF]:

WHEREAS, the people of Oklahoma have a strong tradition of reliance upon the Creator of the Universe; and

WHEREAS, we believe our economic woes are consequences of our greater national moral crisis; and

WHEREAS, this nation has become a world leader in promoting abortion, pornography, same sex marriage, sex trafficking, divorce, illegitimate births, child abuse, and many other forms of debauchery; and

WHEREAS, alarmed that the Government of the United States of America is forsaking the rich Christian heritage upon which this nation was built; and

WHEREAS, grieved that the Office of the president of these United States has refused to uphold the long held tradition of past presidents in giving recognition to our National Day of Prayer; and

WHEREAS, deeply disturbed that the Office of the president of these United States disregards the biblical admonitions to live clean and pure lives by proclaiming an entire month to an immoral behavior;

NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that we the undersigned elected officials of the people of Oklahoma, religious leaders and citizens of the State of Oklahoma, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world, solemnly declare that the HOPE of the great State of Oklahoma and of these United States, rests upon the Principles of Religion and Morality as put forth in the HOLY BIBLE

I don't really have anything to say about this latest column from Matt Barber other than to marvel at how he's managed to become a relatively high-profile right-wing activist based on little more than his seething animosity toward gays:

The idea of open homosexuality within our armed services has long been considered preposterous.

[George] Washington wisely understood that to allow men among the ranks who sodomized other men would necessarily distract from the mission at hand, disrupt unit cohesion and damage the morale of non-sodomy-disposed soldiers forced to sleep and bathe alongside those so inclined. It's understandably disquieting to wonder whether your foxhole buddy "has your back" or wants to rub it.

Barack Obama is no George Washington. He and a like-minded gaggle of congressional liberals have pledged to repeal the federal law, Section 654, Title 10, which stipulates that homosexual practice is incompatible with military service. Furthermore, they intend to do away with Bill Clinton's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" administrative compromise.

The president has asked Congress to pass and send to his desk H.R. 1283, which, for the first time in American history, would homosexualize the military. To wit, he seeks to supplant military vitality with San Francisco vice. Whereas George Washington put a premium on combat readiness and national security, these indispensable safeguards play last fiddle to liberals' obtuse fixation with political correctness.

In the deadly game of war it's dangerously irresponsible to place extreme social ideology above national security. In combat, even the slightest disruption or distraction can spell the difference between victory and defeat – life and death. The left fails to understand this grave reality.

...

I'm speaking from personal experience. I served 12 years in the Army National Guard. During basic training a young man who later turned out to be homosexual was discharged after making unwanted advances toward other soldiers and for inappropriately touching several while they slept in the barracks.

A lengthy investigation ensued. Troops were pulled away from their regular training to answer questions. It was a tremendous distraction for our entire platoon. This incident most definitely disrupted unit cohesion and harmed troop morale.

But none of this matters to liberals. Obama is the un-Washington. The left – of which Obama sits on the fringe – loathe the armed services. Rather than viewing the military as a noble and necessary institution designed as our last line of defense, they consider it a giant petri dish ripe for radical social experimentation. Move over Army National Guard; make way for the smarmy avant-garde.

Once upon a time, Barber was an manager for Allstate Insurance until he was fired for writing anti-gay pieces for right-wing websites like The Conservative Voice and Men's News Daily. That firing transformed him into a right-wing hero and he quickly became Policy Director for Cultural Issues with Concerned Women for America, where he continued his militantly anti-gay diatribes.  He was eventually lured away from CWA by the Liberty Counsel where he became Director of Cultural Affairs, as well as the Associate Dean for Career and Professional Development at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University.

In just four years, Barber has gone from an unknown employee at an insurance company to an associate dean at a right-wing university thanks solely to his unrelenting hatred of gays.

Amazing.

• Hal Turner has been arrested for calling for the murder of Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook and Judges Richard Posner and William Bauer of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
• Every time you think that Rep. Michelle Bachmann can't become any more ridiculous, she proves your wrong.
• You know who is really responsible for Gov. Mark Sanford's affair?  President Obama, of course.
• Ken Blackwell struggles mightly while refusing to answer if he thinks the Republican Party is morally superior to the Democratic Party.
• But if the GOP gets rid of its self-righteousness, what does it have left?
• Ta-Nehisi Coates says "the religious right isn't what's wrong with the GOP. It's the pervasive, unthinking, unreflective nationalism. It's the arrogance of thrice-divorced adulterers reaching for the banner of traditional families, and it's the arrogance of men who prosecuted a poorly planned war, on weak intelligence, presuming to lecture us on national security."

Bob Pawson, national coordinator for Pro-Life Educators and Students (PLEAS), has announced that he's added a few familiar faces to his "prayer and picket" planned for the National Education Association's annual conference in San Diego on July 2nd.

Earlier this month, I wrote about Pawson's personal vendetta against the NEA, a group who is hardly an outspoken abortion advocacy group (they dedicate three sentences of their 462-page charter to reproductive rights).

Now, he's gained some support from, among others, the recently jailed Rev. Walter B. Hoye, president of Issues4Life Foundation. Along with Hoye, Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue, and Rev. Patrick Mahoney of Christian Defense Coalition have pledged their support:

Bob Pawson of Pro-Life Educators and Students (PLEAS), announces, "Our growing team of pro-life coordinators now includes Jeff White from Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust, Rev. Patrick Mahoney of Christian Defense Coalition, and Troy Newman of Operation Rescue, for the July 2 prayer-and-picket demonstration during the NEA teacher union convention at the San Diego Convention Center and NEA-State-Affiliate offices across America.

"These esteemed pro-life leaders are promoting and recruiting for our peaceful, prayerful demonstrations regarding the NEA leadership's pro-abortion track record. They are speaking at the Rally for Life at New Beginnings Church in Norco, CA, this Tuesday evening alongside Rev. Walter B. Hoye II, president of Issues4Life Foundation."

While Pawson didn't re-affirm his belief that abortion caused the current economic crisis, he did downplay the size of the protests at state-level NEA offices. He also advised parents to bring their children, because hey, they make for good marketing:

"Gather together your family members and a few pro-life friends and just go to your state's NEA-affiliate offices with pro-life posters. Pray and picket for an hour. Children are especially effective messengers highlighting the hypocrisy of teacher-union leaders supporting abortion," said Pawson.

"The number of locations nationwide is more important than the number of picketers at any location. We don't necessarily need hundreds of picketers at each state's NEA-HQ. A dozen or two would be sufficient -- multiplied by many sites across 50 states. Pro-Lifers far from state capitals can picket their county or town's local NEA-affiliate listed in telephone book white pages."

Just yesterday I wrote a post about the fact that Manuel Miranda seems to think that the time-line for a vote on Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court should be determined primarily by ... well, Manuel Miranda.

Today, CQ reports that Miranda and his Third Branch Conference will be sending a letter to Senators tomorrow demanding that any debate and vote on the nomination be held off until after the August recess:

The Third Branch Conference will send a letter to senators Friday asking that debate on Sotomayor's nomination be postponed until September, said the group's leader, Manuel Miranda.

"It would be a failure of leadership to allow a confirmation vote before the August recess," Miranda said Thursday.

Asked about the idea Thursday, Jeff Sessions, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee said, "I haven't given that any thought. Obviously they're trying to rush this through."

But Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., who serves on the Judiciary Committee told reporters the confirmation schedule will not slip into September.

Miranda said the focus should be on trying to push back the floor vote rather than Sotomayor's confirmation hearing scheduled to begin in the Senate Judiciary Committee on July 13.

"I'm afraid the postponed hearing will be the basis for a barter," Miranda said, in which Republicans would agree to a floor vote prior to the August recess.

Despite Miranda's claim that they would never engage in an "obstructive filibuster" of Sotomayor's nomination, you can already see them plotting to do just that by incessantly issuing demands that, are they not met, they can use to justify to filibuster or otherwise obstruct the confirmation process.

The Hill has more on this "not-a-filibuster" effort to filibuster Sotomayor's nomination:

A coalition of more than 100 conservative activists have called on Senate Republicans to delay a final vote on Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor until the fall.

A group of conservatives have called on Senate Republicans to use every tactic at their disposal to hold up Sotomayor’s confirmation until September.

“The confirmation debate and the final vote should occur is September and Republicans should ensure that happens, to allow the American people to engage in this debate,” said Manuel Miranda, chairman of the Third Branch Conference, which includes groups such as the American Conservative Union, Americans for Tax Reform, Focus on the Family and Concerned Women for America.

The Third Branch Conference polled its members in recent days and found unanimous desire among more than 100 conservative activists and leaders to press Senate Republicans for a delay.

“This issue is bigger than partisan politics; some of the statements Sotomayor has made should be of concern to everybody,” said Mario Diaz, policy director of legal issues for Concerned Women for America.

Members of the coalition will begin contacting and writing letters to Senate Republicans on Friday.

...

Miranda argued that Republicans could delay the nomination by refusing to participate in a vote to move Sotomayor to the Senate floor.

Rule IV of the Judiciary Committee states that at least one member of the minority party must vote to cut off debate in committee.

Charles Colson, who knows his way around a jail cell, told Southern Baptist pastors that they would be headed behind bars, too, if the current Hate Crimes bill becomes law.

In an address to the Southern Baptist Convention Pastor's Conference, Colson chose to attack everything from the Hate Crimes bill to Islam:

"Sponsors of congressional hate crimes legislation insist it won't restrict speech, but Colson warned that ministers will face the threat of prosecution within the next two years.

He also said medical professionals are losing their conscience right to refuse to perform abortions, and faith-based ministries could soon have to hire non-believers.

Colson also predicted a continuing threat from Islamic terrorists and dismissed the Qu'ran as an "irrational invention of Muhammad rather than divinely inspired scripture."

It seems Colson is reverting back to the Right's tired (and false) argument: If we protect LGBT people from violent crimes targeted specifically at them because of their sexual orientation, then any conservative, anti-homosexual priest who speaks out against homosexuality will be jailed.

Maybe Colson is still shaken up, and paranoid, by his own 7-month prison sentence due to his involvement in Watergate.

• Sarah Posner announces the end of the weekly FundamentaList and reports that The National Association of Evangelicals has announced its replacement for Richard Cizik.
• Could Glenn Beck get any more ridiculous?
• Can you believe that Sarah Palin is the most popular figure among Republicans?
• Alex Koppelman wonders "whatever happened to the right's skill at fighting political battles by using language as a primary weapon?"
• Pam Spaulding posts a proclamation being peddled by Sally Kern declaring that the citizens of Oklahoma "humbly call upon Holy God, our Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer, to have mercy on this nation, to stay His hand of judgment, and grant a national awakening of righteousness and Christian renewal as we repent of our great sin."
• Finally, Media Matters catches Fox News once again erroneously classifying a scandal-plagued Republican politician as a Democrat.

Yesterday in writing about Ralph Reed's triumphant return with his Faith and Freedom Coalition, we noted that his reputation has been badly tarnished by his close ties to imprisoned lobbyist Jack Abramoff. 

One other figure who played a key role in Ambramoff and Reed's business dealings was Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, who often served as a conduit through which Abramoff funneled the money gambling interests ponied up to fund Reed's anti-gambling work among the Religious Right.

As such, it is rather hilarious to see Norquist gushing about Reed's new endeavor:

One veteran conservative leader who's got a pretty good track record himself thinks this is just what the conservative movement needed.

"This is going to be big," said Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist.

It's almost as if Norquist is salivating at the idea of being able to partner with Reed once again in hopes of cashing in, just as he did the last time around:

Reed, who left the Christian Coalition in 1997 to found a political consultancy, said he was counting on Abramoff "to help me with some contacts."

As it turned out, Abramoff needed them too. In 2000 Alabama was considering establishing a state lottery, which would compete with the casino business of the Mississippi band of Choctaws, an Abramoff client. Norquist and Reed were well positioned to help.

"ATR was opposed to a government-run lottery for the same reason we're opposed to government-run steel mills," Norquist told TIME. Reed publicly opposed gambling. It wouldn't do to have casino owners directly funding an antigambling campaign.

So Abramoff arranged for the Choctaws to give ATR $1.15 million in installments. Norquist agreed to pass the money on to the Alabama Christian Coalition and another Alabama antigambling group, both of which Reed was mobilizing for the fight against the lottery. Reed knew the real source of the money was the casino-rich Choctaws. The antigambling groups say they didn't.

On February 7, 2000, Abramoff warned Reed that the initial payment for antilottery radio spots and mailings would be less than Reed thought. "I need to give Grover something for helping, so the first transfer will be a bit lighter," Abramoff wrote.

The transfer was apparently lighter than even Abramoff expected. In a note to himself on February 22, Abramoff wrote, "Grover kept another $25K!"

Norquist says he had permission. He says a Choctaw representative -- he can't remember who -- instructed him on two occasions to keep $25,000 of the money for his group.

If Reed is trying to re-establish himself as a trustworthy player on the Right, it probably doesn’t help to have Norquist gleefully rubbing his hands together in the background.

Today, Manuel Miranda took to the pages of The American Spectator to decry all the misinformation surrounding his Third Branch Conference's call for a filibuster of Sonia Sotomayor's Supreme Court nomination.

Miranda insists that he and his are not calling for an "obstructive filibuster" of the sort Democrats used against George W. Bush's nominees but rather a "traditional filibuster" that would allow for a "spectacular" debate that will allow the GOP to stake out and explain its position on the issue of judicial philosophy:

Republican opportunity for statecraft is in ensuring that debates on the Senate floor are not business-as-usual, but rather an inspired effort to highlight the issues that both define and divide us as a people. Even Republican senators who vote to confirm the judge can sound an alarm by explaining the risk of any more justices influenced by bias.

The emphasis is not on time. A great debate does not have to be long. But it should be spectacular; enough to illuminate what is at stake. We have seen such effort from Republicans before. It is possible.

The only thing missing from this is any sort of explanation of just what differentiates an "obstructive" filibuster from a "traditional" filibuster.  Miranda and company insist that they merely want to ensure that Republican Senators have enough time to make their "spectacular" case and that, when they are finished, a vote on Sotomayor's confirmation will be granted.

But how long exactly this "debate" should last is completely unknown.  Do they need several hours, or several days, or several weeks?  Having some sense of just how long these right-wing activists expect Republican Senators to be given to make their case before allowing a floor vote on the nomination would be a useful thing to know.  

But, as it stands now, nobody has any idea about how much time Miranda thinks is necessary, leaving us to assume that he simply wants Republicans to just drag out the process for some indeterminate length until such a time as considers himself satisfied that a proper debate has been had. 

And, of course, it's pretty safe to predict that whatever amount of time Republicans are given to "debate" this nomination, it will be deemed unsatisfactory by the likes of Miranda and company, which will in turn justify their demand to hold up Sotomayor's nomination.  And all the while, they will be claiming that they are merely engaging in a "traditional" filibuster while they, in actuality, actively obstruct her confirmation.

It is entirely possible that we will see Miranda and his Senate allies eventually calling for an "obstructive" filibuster of Sotomayor's nomination and justifying it by claiming that they were denied an opportunity to carry out their "traditional" filibuster of her nomination.

• The Washington Post interviewed Focus on the Family's Jim Daly and he seems to be quite a change from James Dobson, though he also says "we're not going to back out of that or back off expressing a Biblical world view in the public square."
• WorldNetDaily's Joseph Farah is offering a $10,000 reward to anyone who can prove he or she was present at the birth of Barack Obama.
• Gordon Klingenschmitt announced a state-wide 'Prayer Rally for Jesus' in Lodi, California for August.
• Liberty University announced a policy change that will allow the College Democrats to exist as an unofficial club and also changed the College Republicans from an officially recognized campus group to the new unofficial status.
• Rep. Steve King has recorded a call on behalf of the National Organization for Marriage which questions Iowans about their views on same-sex marriage.
• Don Feder and Boycott The New York Times triumphantly announced its 100th web posting.  Wow, a hundred posts in ten months.  Where do they find the time?
• Finally, Mike Huckabee ripped the RNC for backing Charlie Crist over Marco Rubio, calling it "outrageous" and claiming "they ought to get behind the guy who would do a whole lot more, in my mind, to unite and fire up Republicans."

During the Roberts and Alito confirmation battles, I seem to recall GOP senators claiming that when someone was nominated to a seat on the federal judiciary, especially to the Supreme Court, it was unacceptable for Senators to ask them about specific issues, legislation, or cases that might come before them once they are on the court.  Furthermore, if such questions were asked, it was incumbent upon the nominee to refrain from answering such questions, less they appear to be pre-judging potential cases.

Apparently, Sen. Jim DeMint doesn't care much for that tradition because, when he met with Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor earlier this month, he tried to grill her about the pending hate crimes legislation and then got miffed when she refused to answer:

When meeting with President Obama's Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor, DeMint says she dodged his question about the bill.

"One of those questions I asked is if my children were assaulted, should the penalty for the person who did that be less than if a [sic] African-American or Hispanic or someone with a different worldview was assaulted? And she said, 'Of course not.' But then when I began to question her about hate crimes legislation and what it meant, she really avoided giving me any answer," he points out.

DeMint says the first time around, Sotomayor gave him what she thought was the right answer, but the second time she gave him a purely political response.

Aside from the impropriety of this question, DeMint's intentionally obtuse misrepresentation of the issue is especially galling since if his children were assaulted because of their race, the perpetrator would almost certainly be charged with a hate crime, the same as if an African-American or Hispanic were assaulted because of their race.

At first, I thought that DeMint was incessantly lying about hate crimes legislation because that was the only way he could justify his opposition, but now I am starting to think that he just has no idea what he is talking about.

I have to admit that, outside of tales involving Gordon Klingenschmitt, I am pretty much ignorant of what goes on in the military's chaplaincy service.

Fortunately, there is the Military Religious Freedom Foundation which focuses on these sorts of topics and via whom we found out about this recent Kathryn Joyce piece in Newsweek exposing the efforts of Chaplaincy of Full Gospel Churches and its founder Jim Ammerman:

According to the group's president, Mikey Weinstein, a cadre of 40 U.S. chaplains took part in a 2003 project to distribute 2.4 million Arabic-language Bibles in Iraq. This would be a serious violation of U.S. military Central Command's General Order Number One forbidding active-duty troops from trying to convert people to any religion. A Defense Department spokeswoman, in an e-mail to NEWSWEEK, denies any knowledge of this project.

The Bible initiative was handled by former Army chaplain Jim Ammerman, the 83-year-old founder of the Chaplaincy of Full Gospel Churches (CFGC), an organization in charge of endorsing 270 chaplains and chaplain candidates for the armed services. Ammerman worked with an evangelical group based in Arkansas, the International Missions Network Center, to distribute the Bibles through the efforts of his 40 active-duty chaplains in Iraq. A 2003 newsletter for the group said of the effort, "The goal is to establish a wedge for the kingdom of God in the Middle East, directly affecting the Islamic world."

...

Among the "endorsing agencies" is CFGC, which represents a conglomeration of independent Pentecostal churches outside established denominations. The group was accepted as a chaplain-endorsing agency by the Department of Defense in 1984, two years after it first applied. Since 1984, MRFF charges, Ammerman's agency has violated numerous codes that govern chaplaincies, including a constant denigration of other religions, particularly Islam, Judaism, mainline Protestantism and Catholicism, but also non-Pentecostal evangelical churches. In a 2008 sermon, Ammerman described a CFGC chaplain at Fort Riley, Kans., who demanded the 42 chaplains below him "speak up for Jesus" or leave his outfit. In a video for an organization called the Prophesy Club, CFGC chaplain Maj. James Linzey called mainstream Protestant churches "demonic, dastardly creatures from the pit of hell," that should be "[stomped] out." But the primary target of CFGC's ire is Islam. A 2001 CFGC newsletter asserted that the real enemy of the U.S. wasn't Osama bin Laden, but Allah, whom the newsletter called "Lucifer." A 2006 issue argued that all Muslim-Americans should be treated with suspicion, as they "obviously can't be good Americans." In a 2008 sermon, Ammerman called Islam "a killer religion" and Muslims "the devil."

...

Ammerman and chaplain Linzey have espoused conspiracy theories about "Satanic forces" at work in the U.S. government facilitating a military takeover by foreign troops; Ammerman even appears in a video favored by militia groups titled The Imminent Military Takeover of the USA. In 2008, Ammerman implied that four presidential candidates should be "arrested, quickly tried and hanged" for not voting to designate English America's official language, and speculated that Barack Obama would be assassinated as a secret Muslim.

Bruce Wilson has a related piece up on Huffington Post featuring various video clips of Ammerman, Linzey, and the Prophecy Club, including this one from 1997 where Ammerman claims that the US economy is controlled by Jews and says that Bill Clinton and Jane Fonda should have been executed:

Jim Ammerman from Bruce Wilson on Vimeo.

 UPDATE: Newsweek has issued the following correcting regarding the excerpted article above:

In an earlier version of this story, NEWSWEEK should have identified Pastor James Linzey as retired from active duty when he spoke to the Prophesy Club. We also should not have characterized him as having said that mainstream Protestant churches are "demonic, dastardly creatures from the pit of hell," that should be "[stomped] out." The pastor was referring to demonic forces he says are within the mainstream Protestant Church, and not the Church itself. NEWSWEEK regrets the errors.

Literally, just yesterday as I was doing my right-wing monitoring, I thought to myself "you know who's name I never see any more?  Ralph Reed."

And for good reason, given his deep ties to Jack Abramoff.  Actually, the last time he made any news was when he was forced to skip a fund-raiser with John McCain last year thanks to the fact that he has been permanently tainted by his association with Abramoff.

But, as Dan Gilgoff reports, Reed is now back with a new organization called The Faith and Freedom Coalition:

Ralph Reed, the Republican operative who built the Christian Coalition into a potent political force in the 1990s by mobilizing evangelicals and other religious conservatives and who did similar work to help George W. Bush win two presidential elections, is quietly launching a group aimed at using the Web to mobilize a new generation of values voters. In addition to targeting the GOP's traditional faith-based allies—white evangelicals and observant Catholics—the group, called the Faith and Freedom Coalition, will reach out to Democratic-leaning constituencies, including Hispanics, blacks, young people, and women.

"This is not your daddy's Christian Coalition," Reed said in an interview Monday. "It's got to be more brown, more black, more female, and younger. It's critical that we open the door wide and let them know if they share our values and believe in the principles of faith and marriage and family, they're welcome."

"There's a whole rising generation of young leaders in the faith community, and rather than nab the publicity I did at Christian Coalition, I want to cultivate and train that rising generation," Reed said. "One question is, who is our future Barack Obama, doing local organizing just like he was in the 1990s?"

The Faith and Freedom Coalition has been quietly active for a few weeks but has attracted no news media notice so far. Reed said that was intentional: "We're less focused on the pyrotechnics than on being a strong grass-roots presence all the way down to the precinct level, which has always been my emphasis."

The idea for the new group, which is still hashing out an organizational blueprint, was born just after Election Day 2008, when exit polls showed that Obama made gains among traditionally Republican religious constituencies, including evangelicals, conservative Catholics, and frequent churchgoers. "Since I left the Christian Coalition, we haven't had an engine designed to turn out this large part of the vote," Reed said. "After the election, people said that I ought to consider doing something about it."

Of course, the Christian Coalition was the engine that turned out "values voters," but it faltered under Reed's control. When he finally jumped ship to launch his own consulting and PR operation and "start humping in corporate accounts,” the organization all but collapsed.

Gilgoff reports that this new effort also features Gary Marx - who happens to be a long-time associate of Reed's and the current Executive Director of the Judicial Confirmation Network - and that, for now, the organization is operating out of his Century Strategies office in Atlanta:

Reed is serving as chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition and says he has filed papers with the Internal Revenue Service to register it as a 501(c)(4), a tax-free designation that permits lobbying and certain political activities. Gary Marx, Reed's deputy at the 2004 Bush campaign and Mitt Romney's conservative outreach director in 2008, will help advise the group. Jack St. Martin, a former top Republican National Committee staffer, is running day-to-day operations.

The Faith and Freedom Coalition plans to launch state and local chapters, as the Christian Coalition did, but is exploring the idea of organizing as much via "virtual chapters" that would operate online with the help of social networking technology. "The Internet's first wave was E-mail, and the next wave was social networking, which Obama perfected," Reed said. "There's going to be a third wave, which we're still developing."

...

Headquartered in the offices of Reed's consulting firm, Century Strategies, near Atlanta, the group plans to open a Washington office but says it will keep its staff small. St. Martin is currently the only full-time employee. "We don't want the huge overhead of a centralized group," says St. Martin, who worked at the Christian Coalition in the 1990s. "We'll have a few generals, but at the end of the day, we're going to emphasize putting boots on the ground out in the field."

Everything about this effort is pure Ralph Reed. From the focus on grassroots mobilization to his use of military language, it sounds like Reed is breaking out his Christian Coalition era playbook and seeking to recapture his former glory, even going so far as to dust off his efforts to reach out to minority groups, which, as I explained in a report [PDF] I wrote about him several years back that chronicled his rise from the College Republicans through his Abramoff-related downfall, is exactly what he tried and failed to do during his last days with the Christian Coalition:

In 1996, in an attempt to reach out to religious African American voters and bring them into the right wing movement, Reed announced that the Coalition was going to raise one million dollars to help rebuild black churches in the South that had been destroyed in a series of fire bombings. What had initially been planned as a one-day fundraising event ended up taking seven months. Similarly, Reed announced in 1997 the creation of the Samaritan Project, “A bold plan to break the color line and bridge the gap that separates white evangelicals and Roman Catholics from their Latino and African American brothers and sisters.” Reed pledged that the Coalition would raise $10 million for inner city churches, but less than a year later the project was abandoned after raising less than $50,000.

The simple point needs to be made that Reed, the man once dubbed "the Right Hand of God," had been seening his star dim even before he left the Christian Coalition and that the influence and power he had accumulated over the years all but evaporated when his efforts to exploit his Religious Right allies for Jack Abramoff's business purposes were finally revealed, culminating in his failed campaign to secure the Republican nomination for Lieutenant Governor in Georgia.

But, as we pointed out in our report: "Reed is still young and American politics is full of redemption stories. No doubt Reed is already writing his."

And with the announcement of this new effort, it looks like that is exactly what he is undertaking now.

One thing I will say about Janet Porter is that she is always moving forward with her efforts to shape America to suit her fevered right-wing dreams and is constantly positive that the next thing is the one that is going to turn it all around.

In her most recent column, Porter declares that the upcoming How To Take Back America Conference is going to be a key event in the Right's resurgence as it wrests control away from President Obama and saves America from its descent into socialist paganism:

But this isn't funny any more.

If you're not laughing, sign up today for the How to Take Back America Conference in St. Louis Sept. 25 and 26. I'm co-chairing the event along with Phyllis Schlafly of Eagle Forum and a host committee that includes: Rick Scarborough of Vision America, Michael Farris of the Home School Legal Defense Association, Mat Staver, of Liberty Counsel and Don Feder, from the World Congress of Families. Speakers include Gov. Mike Huckabee, Delta Force Leader Gen. Jerry Boykin and California Rep. Tom McClintock.

For those of you who want to take our country back while there's still something left of it, every speech, workshops and panel will all have something in common: They will all answer the most often asked question about taking America back: "How?"

See you in St. Louis.

Frankly, I'd be a little more frightened by this if it wasn't pretty much the same thing Porter was declaring back in 2007 ahead of the Values Voter Debate she also organized:

You know that I'm one for taking action, so I'll cut straight to the chase. There's a big event coming up and you need to be a part of how it's going to re-shape America.

What: The GOP Values Voters Presidential Debate

When: Sept. 17, 2007

...

We must know just how close we are to winning everything we've been working for in the last three decades: one more seat on the Supreme Court can restore the right to protect children again to the people of each state. We have a chance to protect the institution of marriage from the courts that are attacking it. We have the right to protect our freedom of speech, freedom of religion and right to own property.

If you are sick of reacting and tired of retreat, this is your time. This is our time. Our moment in history to change the future. Please pray for the event and become involved in it: submit your questions for the candidates to f2ainfo@f2a.org. We need to hear the questions that are burning in your heart. Quit shaking your fist at the television and write the questions that you want answered!

Following the debate, Porter predicted that "the Values Voter Straw Poll will unify the pro-family movement and determine the nominee" and that that nominee would be Mike Huckabee, whose presidency would be the culmination of all of the Right's political efforts:

My eye is on the prize – the Supreme Court – and Huckabee is the only guy in the race that we know will give it to us. Everything is on the line, whether we win it all or lose it all. Yet, during this time of moral crisis, many of our leaders are silent. Others just throw rocks. Dante put it this way:

"The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in a time of moral crisis, remain neutral."

I'm going to keep sending donations until I reach the $2,300 maximum so I will have a clear conscience when my children and grandchildren ask me the question I know will come. That question? "Where were you when they were killing babies?" I want to answer: "I did everything I could to stop it."

If you will vote now with your pocketbook to help elect the only guy we know for certain will give us the judges we need on the bench, we can have a much better answer. When our children and grandchildren ask us: "Where were you when they were killing babies?" we can reply: WE WERE THE ONES WHO STOPPED IT.

One more election, one more judge. Everything we've worked for is within our reach. Don't let our last chance pass us by. Multiply next December's pro-life donations by more than a hundredfold: Go to www.mikehuckabee.com now and vote for life.

Remind me how that worked out again?

So here we are two years later and Porter is organizing another right-wing confab featuring Mike Huckabee and a gaggle of fringe leaders who will take back America and I find myself decidedly unimpressed because ... well, it all sounds just so familiar: 

I said it before, I'll say it again: Values Voters are going to determine the outcome of this election. Don't believe me? Wait and see. One more prediction: With this election, we're going to take back the Supreme Court of the United States, stop the killing of unborn children, protect the institution of marriage and regain our freedoms of speech and religion. We're going to take back America. You heard it here first.

• As Think Progress notes, there is something fitting about the fact that Pat Buchanan and other English-only advocates hosted a conference beneath a banner upon which the word "conference" was misspelled.
• Think Progress also reports that when Sonia Sotomayor was ten minutes late to a meeting with Sen. Bob Corker due to recent injury, he bailed because he didn't feel like waiting around for her.
• David Neiwert posts some insights from Chip Berlet into "the roots of right-wing conspiracism and the violence it engenders."
• David Hart reports that the Associated Press is enforcing its terms of service which preclude OneNewsNow from altering AP content.
• Joe Conason says that the "scandal" involving the firing of Gerald Walpin is as phony as Whitewater.
• TPM wants to know if "The Family" knew about Sen. John Ensign's affair and try to keep it a secret.
• Finally, like Steve Benen I'm curious to know just where South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford has gone.

The Family Foundation of Virginia seems to take great pride in being mentioned on this blog so allow me to indulge them again.

The last time we mentioned them was a few weeks ago when they unveiled their "Rediscovering God in America" conference where Lou Engle lay his hands upon Newt Gingrich and beseeched God to extend his "influence for righteousness in this nation, lay your supernatural hand of God upon him and deliver him from the evil schemes of the enemy."

Now FFV has announced the formation of something it calls “Winning Matters,” a campaign that "will register to vote people who believe in Biblical and traditional values" to get active in Virginia's upcoming off-year elections:

1. Identifying more Virginians who share our values;

2. Turning concerned citizens into values voting Virginians by registering them to vote.

3. Educating newly and previously registered voters on the differences between candidates on matters of life, marriage, parental authority, religious liberty and constitutional government.

4. Motivating and mobilizing these informed voters to make a wise choice and to vote on election day.

This voter identification and mobilization plan is the largest in our history — potentially larger than the 2006 Marriage Amendment campaign. In the weeks to come, we will tell you more about this project and how you can, and must, be a part of the work we are doing with (and for) pro-family Virginians for the future of our Commonwealth.

On a related note, the affiliated Pastors For Family Values is launching its own "Winning Matters" speakers series featuring the likes of Rick Scarborough, Mat Staver, Jonathan Falwell and, somewhat surprisingly, Bishop Harry Jackson:

Pastors For Family Values Winning Matters 2009 Pastors Events

» Roanoke: June 26, Golden Corral, 8-10:00 a.m.

Speakers: Pastor Rick Scarborough, Ph.D., of Vision America; and Mat Staver, Dean, Liberty University School of Law

* * * * *

» Harrisonburg: July 7, Shoney’s, 8-9:30 a.m.

Speakers: Local pastors reporting on the recent Watchman on the Wall Conference; and Mickey Mixon, Area Coordinator Winning Matters 2009 Campaign

* * * * *

» Fredericksburg: August 4, Fredericksburg Expo and Convention Center (tentative), 9:00 a.m.-3:00 p.m.

Speakers: Jonathan Falwell, Pastor, Thomas Road Baptist Church; and Bishop Harry Jackson, Pastor, Hope Christian Church, Washington, D.C.

* * * * *

» Richmond: July 23, Wyndham Hotel, 7:30-9:30 a.m.

Speaker: Bishop Harry Jackson

* * * * *

» Norfolk: August 20, Spring Hill Suites by Marriott, 7:30-9:30 a.m.

Speaker: Pastor Rick Scarborough

I guess Jackson really is on his way to becoming a bona fide right-wing star now that he has graduated to headlining right-wing events along with figures like Scarborough and Staver.

Politico has an article today reporting that Republicans are disappointed that Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court hasn't turned out to be "the political lightning rod some in their party had hoped she would be."

Of course, that just means that right-wing groups will just have to try that much harder:

Curt Levey, executive director of the conservative group Committee for Justice, said senators are often slow to get into politically thorny fights — and do so only after a passionate showing by their base. Levey said he expects GOP senators to gear up for the fight, particularly during the confirmation proceedings. And he said that he is pushing the Republicans hard to delay a final Senate confirmation vote until after the monthlong August recess, to give opposition groups enough time to spotlight any controversial statements Sotomayor makes during the hearings.

“She is sort of like a Robert Bork: She’s very opinionated, and when she should be silent, she isn’t,” Levey said.

Speaking of Bork, the Wonk Room points us to this new interview with him and, shockingly, he doesn't like Sotomayor ... or pretty much anyone else for that matter:

What are your thoughts about Judge Sotomayor's nomination?

I think it was a bad mistake. Her comments about the wise Latina suggest identity-group jurisprudence. She also has a reputation for bullying counsel. And her record is not particularly distinguished. Far from it. And it is unusual to nominate somebody who states flatly that she was the beneficiary of affirmative action. But I can't believe she will be any worse than some recent white male appointees.

Anyone you'd care to name?

I could, but you don't want the estate of these people suing me, do you?

As it's currently composed, this is sometimes called a conservative court.

I don't see it at all. It's a very left-leaning, liberal court.

Could you elaborate? Compared to what?

Well, compared to what the Constitution actually says. They tend to enact the agenda or the preferences of a group that thinks of itself as the intellectual elite.

Frankly, the fact that Bork sees nothing he likes in Sotomayor is a huge positive in her favor considering that, since his own defeat to the Supreme Court in 1987, he's become a certified crank:

Robert Bork has carved out a niche for himself as an acerbic commentator on the Supreme Court, as well as various cultural issues. In fact, to Bork the two topics are closely related and the Supreme Court’s “illegitimacy” and its departure from the Constitution are in many ways responsible for our growing “cultural depravity.”

According to Bork, we are rapidly becoming a fragmented society that has totally lost its nerve and is now either unwilling or unable “to suppress public obscenity, punish crime, reform welfare, attach stigma to the bearing of illegitimate children, resist the demands of self-proclaimed victim groups for preferential treatment, or maintain standards of reason and scholarship.” Abortion, technology, affluence, hedonism, and modern liberalism are gradually ruining our culture and everywhere you look “the rot is spreading.”

Bork has denounced the public education system that “all too often teaches moral relativism and depravity.” He considers sensitivity training to be little more than “America’s version of Maoist re-education camps.” He has shared his fear that recognition of gay marriage would lead to accommodation of “man-boy associations, polygamists and so forth.” And he has criticized the feminist movement for “intimidat[ing] officials in ways that are destructive of family, hostile to masculinity, damaging to the military and disastrous for much education.”

It appears as if almost everything within contemporary culture possesses the capacity to offend Bork. He attacks movies for featuring “sex, violence and vile language.” He faults television for taking “a neutral attitude toward adultery, prostitution, and pornography” and for portraying homosexuals as “social victims.” As for the art world, most of what is produced is “meaningless, uninspired, untalented or perverse.” He frets that the “pornographic video industry is now doing billions of dollars worth of business” and the invention of the Internet will merely result in the further indulgence of “salacious and perverted tastes.” When it comes to music, “rock and rap are utterly impoverished … emotionally, aesthetically, and intellectually.”

More to the point, Bork is not content merely to criticize; he wants the government to do something about it. “Sooner or later,” he claims “censorship is going to have to be considered as popular culture continues plunging to ever more sickening lows.” So committed is he to this cause that he dedicated an entire chapter in his 1996 book Slouching Toward Gomorrah to making “The Case for Censorship.” In it, he advocates censoring “the most violent and sexually explicit material now on offer, starting with obscene prose and pictures available on the Internet, motion pictures that are mere rhapsodies to violence, and the more degenerate lyrics of rap music.”

When asked by Christianity Today about how he would decide what should and should not be censored, Bork announced: “I don’t make any fine distinctions; I’m just advocating censorship.”

• Judicial Watch has released a "Special Report on Judge Sotomayor's Connection to the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund."
• Rick Warren will reportedly be attending Islamic Society of North America's annual convention in Washington, D.C. over the Fourth of July weekend.
• Carrie Prejean is seeking a book deal.
• Gary Bauer says that Sarah Palin's feud with David Letterman "proves conservatives can fight pop culture and win."
• Operation Rescue and other Wichita-based anti-abortion groups say they have received death threats in response to last month's killing of George Tiller.
• The Family Research Council defends Bill O'Reilly's attacks on Tiller, saying "Something has been lost in the canonization of George Tiller--and that 'something' is the truth ... If Bill O'Reilly was fanning anything, it was the facts. We applaud him for drawing attention to a grisly procedure that even the most hardened pro-choice Democrats in Congress oppose.
• Finally, the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission explains that Tiller's murder was wrong because, even though "Tiller certainly was guilty of murder before God ... lawfully established civil authorities are the rightful ministers of God’s wrath. They have been granted a monopoly by God on the use of the sword, namely capital punishment and physical coercion. "

Late last year, Reader's Digest announced that it was partnering with Rick Warren to launch a multimedia effort called The Purpose Driven Connection:

Together the organizations will pool their international resources to produce and publish this Purpose Driven platform to help people who are seeking their purpose in life and wish to interact with others on their spiritual journeys. The platform will provide a suite of bundled multimedia tools: "The Purpose Driven Connection," a quarterly magazine; Small Group study materials delivered in DVDs, workbooks and downloadable discussion guides; and a state-of-the-art Christian social networking website.

"We are excited about this new partnership and its unprecedented potential for international impact," said Warren, who will serve as Editor-in-Chief and be heavily involved in the conception of each element. "The Purpose Driven Connection represents more than simply integrated multimedia resources; it will become a platform for a movement of people to change the world."

Apparently, the effort has been a success, so much so that it is going to be the model for the future as the magazine seeks to turn itself into the print equivalent of Fox News:

For 87 years, Reader’s Digest, that monthly breadbasket of condensed articles, can-do tales and grandmother-approved jokes, has aimed squarely at Middle America.

Now it is aiming a little more to the right.

After years of trying to broaden the appeal of Reader’s Digest, the publishers are pushing it in a decidedly conservative direction. It is cutting down on celebrity profiles and ramping up on inspiring spiritual stories. Out are generic how-to magazine features; in are articles about military life.

“It’s traditional, conservative values: I love my family, I love my community, I love my church,” said Mary Berner, the president and chief executive of Reader’s Digest Association.

...

The project that signals Reader’s Digest’s future, Ms. Berner said, is a new multifaceted effort produced with Rick Warren, the evangelical pastor, called the Purpose Driven Connection.

For about $30, subscribers get a quarterly magazine with religious workbooks, along with DVDs featuring Mr. Warren, and membership in a social-networking Web site, including tips on what to pray for each week. It is available through churches and at Wal-Marts, and Ms. Berner wants to introduce other unorthodox distribution strategies.

“That is the model going forward,” she said.

...

“It’s an unabashed commitment to and focus on a market that’s ignored but is incredibly powerful,” she said.

The editorial team had even considered turning Reader’s Digest into a right-wing handbook, a companion to Fox News. “It was a supposition,” Ms. Berner said, that half the country is annoyed that Barack Obama is president.

“What if we just go after them?” said Ms. Berner, who has a framed photograph of President Obama in her office. But testing the right-wing handbook idea with cover lines like advocating prayer in schools flopped.

“What worked was conservative values,” Ms. Berner said.

When I saw a press release announcing that Alan Keyes was going to be in South Carolina campaigning for a woman named Christina Jeffrey who is running Congress, my first thought was "wow, she must be crazy."

After all, no sane candidate would ever seek the assistance of someone like Keyes and expect to win, so I did a little research to try and found out a little about her on her website:

In these difficult economic times, the citizens in the Up-state of South Carolina deserve better representation in Congress. Christina Jeffrey, with a PhD. in Political Science and a college professor, is a person who has built her life based upon Conservative Principles.

Christina has worked in Germany and Turkey, and understands the international problems we are confronted with today. Christina has been a college professor for many years. She has been a tenured Associate Professor of Political Science at Kennesaw State University in Georgia, and the Congressional Historian for the 104th Congress of the United States. She currently teaches Foundations of American Government at Wofford College.

What I also found out was that her claim to have been the "Congressional Historian for the 104th Congress of the United States" leaves out a few key pieces of information ... like the fact that she held the job for less than two weeks before she was fired by Newt Gingrich:

Fired by Speaker Newt Gingrich as House historian because she complained Nazi views weren't represented in a Holocaust course, Christina Jeffrey said Tuesday that allegations against her ``are slanderous and outrageous.''

In a statement the morning after her firing, Jeffrey, who was hired less than a week ago, also said she was ``fired in the press.''

Reporters, who received materials from Democratic sources, began making inquiries to Gingrich's office after learning of Jeffrey's review of the Holocaust course in 1986.

House Democrats quickly pounced on her eight-year-old review, one saying it bordered on Holocaust revision.

...

Jeffrey, hired at $85,000 a year, headed a panel that reviewed the Holocaust course for the Republican-run U.S. Department of Education. The panel recommended against a federal grant for the course and the department -- insisting the decision was its own -- declined funding in 1986 and again the next two years.

Concluding her remarks on ``Facing History and Ourselves'' a course designed for eighth and ninth graders, Jeffrey wrote: ``The program gives no evidence of balance or objectivity. The Nazi point of view, however unpopular, is still a point of view and is not presented, nor is that of the Ku Klux Klan.''

While Jeffrey insisted at the time and continues to insist that her remarks were taken wildly out of context, this does at least shed some light on just what sort of political candidate openly welcome the support of someone like Keyes.

• Tony Perkins says Sen. John Ensign's affair is "why the Republicans are having trouble and have had trouble over the last three years with many voters ... because there is a sense of hypocrisy."
• Cindy Jacobs has become the chairman of the Apostolic Council of Prophetic Elders.
• Roy Moore says that he sees "a nation that is turning away from God" and complains that "every politician talks about God before they get in office ... then the rest of the time they ignore it."
• Utah lawmakers are considering a proposal that would give parents the choice between two sex education classes for their children. One class would be abstinence-based while the other would also emphasize abstinence but provide information about contraceptive options. The Utah Eagle Forum supports the idea ... except for the part about offering a second class that would provide information about contraceptive options.
• Finally, guess who Janet Porter had as guest on her radio program yesterday? Bill Keller, the militantly anti-Mormon activist who declared that a vote for Mitt Romney was a vote for Satan.

It is no surprise that Bill Donahue, president of the Catholic League, is displeased with the Hate Crimes bill that is making its way through Congress. It's also no surprise that he labeled Eric Holder a "master of demagoguery" after the Attorney General supported the bill and cited the recent murders of Dr. George Tiller and Stephen Johns, the fallen Holocaust Museum security guard, to show the hatred that still exists in our society.

What's troubling is Donahue's attempt to sever the connection between the actions of Scott Roeder and James von Brunn and the radical, hateful beliefs that they held. He claims that Roeder wasn't propelled by an extreme anti-abortionist viewpoint and that von Brunn didn't storm the Holocaust Museum due to anti-Semitic views. Rather their actions were solely prompted by possible mental illnesses:

Roeder was never involved in any pro-life organization, and von Brunn is an old man who was as much anti-Christian as he was anti-Semitic. In other words, it is nothing if not demagogic for Holder to exploit these two recent tragedies—committed by madmen, not political activists.

Obviously, the facts directly counter Donahue's claim. Roeder had been in contact with Operation Rescue prior to Dr. Tiller's death and was arrested in 1996 for having the ingredients to make a bomb in the trunk of his car. He was a regular member of anti-abortion rallies in Kansas and a member of the Freeman, a radical anti-government group.

Von Brunn is an anti-Semitic white supremacist whose views were known by federal authorities. The day of the Holocaust Museum shooting, police found a note in his car which undeniably portrays von Brunn's ideals and motive:

"You want my weapons; this is how you'll get them," von Brunn wrote in a note he had signed, according to the arrest affidavit.

"The Holocaust is a lie," the note read. "Obama was created by Jews. Obama does what his Jew owners tell him to do. Jews captured America's money. Jews control the mass media."

Roeder is an anti-abortion fanatic who killed Dr. Tiller for a political purpose. Von Brunn is an anti-Semitic white supremacist who chose the Holocaust Museum for a reason. Therefore, it is baseless for Donahue to label Holder a "demagogue" for simply explaining the need for hate crimes legislation by logically citing two very timely examples of political hate crimes.

Yesterday, President Obama extended some benefits to same-sex partners of US government workers, but progressive groups and activists were decidedly unimpressed.  We released a statement calling it a "very small step in the right direction" and urged the president to live up to his own rhetoric about being a "fierce advocate" for gay and lesbian Americans and many others issued similar statements.

On the opposite side, Religious Right groups blasted the move, calling it an affront to traditional marriage and a challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act while accusing Obama of pandering, with the Family Research Council saying he was using taxpayer funds to "placate an angry portion of his base" while Concerned Women for America called the move an "outrageous abuse by the president to benefit his supporters and quell their criticism of him.”

In fact, the idea that President Obama was somehow caving to a bunch of gay rights whiners seems to be predominant theme of the Right's response:

A Christian pastor and staunch opponent of same-sex "marriage" says President Obama threw a bone to homosexual activists yesterday, but they're acting like "playground bullies" because he's not moving quickly enough to enact their top priorities ... Bishop Harry Jackson, Jr., chairman of the High Impact Leadership Coalition, believes President Obama issued the directive in order to placate homosexual activists who are upset that the Obama Justice Department defended DOMA in a legal brief earlier this month -- a move that was at odds with Obama's campaign pledge to repeal DOMA.

Apparently, the prospect of activists trying to hold a president to his campaign rhetoric is completely foreign to the Right ... or at least it is now that they are no longer in power because, in case they have forgotten, when George W. Bush was in office and making nominations to the Supreme Court, they were very very vocal in demanding a “return on their investment” and crowed repeatedly about how Bush had kept his promise when he nominated John Roberts. And when Bush later nominated Harriet Miers, the Right went absolutely bonkers, accusing him of betraying the very voters who had put him in office, forcing Miers to withdraw her nomination and then, when Bush subsequently nominated Samuel Alito, the Right went back to crediting him for once again living up to his promise.

It is especially hypocritical of Jackson, of all people, to be claiming that activists are acting like "playground bullies" for holding President Obama to his promises, considering that, ahead of the 2008 election, Jackson told Jay Sekulow that if John McCain were to win the election, they were going to make sure that McCain knew that they got him elected and that they expected a significant return on their investment (skip ahead to the 3:25 mark):

Sekulow: Senator McCain becomes President-elect McCain, what's the message? What is the message you say to him as President-elect?

Jackson: Well, I think you say to him "we got you elected." If he gets elected, it's only going to be because Christians turned out en masse at the last minute, without being really wooed by him, and then we need to say "look, we have several key priorities, we need to protect life" and we can go down the list of things that we're very concerned about. But we need access - most people don't realize that we did not have as much access to President Bush in the last term that we should have had by rights, having put him in 2004.

• Truth Wins Out reports that the authors of a book on the health of gay men have accused Focus on the Family of distorting their research, making this the tenth time in two years that researchers have claimed that Focus on the Family misrepresented their work.
• TPM offers more information about anti-immigration zealot/accused murder Shawna Forde's history while Blue Texan reports that Forde shared the stage with Jim Gilchrist at a 2007 event at which several GOP presidential candidates or their representatives appeared.
• Cristina Page notes that if Troy Newman of Operation Rescue can be judged by his Facebook friends, he's got ties to some violent anti-choice activists.
• Sarah Posner points out that Rep. John McHugh, who was nominated to be secretary of the Army, has a voting record from his time in the House that "shows a disrespect for church-state separation generally, as well as a disregard for the ongoing infringement of service members' constitutional rights from aggressive proselytization in the armed forces."
• Spencer Ackerman catches Rep. Pete Hoekstra comparing House Republicans to Iranian protesters.
• Think Progress catches Rep. Michelle Bachmann vowing to break the law by refusing to answer questions on the US Census.
• Finally, Media Matters posted this video of Pat Robertson declaring that countries that embrace homosexuality go "down into ruin" and end up "in the garbage heap of history":

Given the recent insulting and offensive statements made by Pat Buchanan and Tom Tancredo about Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, coupled with the recent revelations about Marcus Epstein, executive director of The American Cause, you'd think that other right-wing activists would be doing everything in their power to disassociate themselves from this group of toxic bigots.

Of course, you'd be wrong, as people like Phyllis Schlafly and Ken Blackwell are still happily participating in a conference hosted by The American Cause and featuring Buchanan and Tancredo this weekend:

When: June 20 8:30 AM-6:00 PM
Where: The Ritz Carlton * 1700 Tysons Boulevard * McLean, VA 22102
Admission: $75 per person * $35 students * $1,000 co-sponsor

Speakers Include:

* Patrick Buchanan
* Tony Blankley
* Tom Tancredo
* Phyllis Schlafly
* Terry Jeffrey
* Ward Connerly
* John Hostettler
* Ken Blackwell
* Christopher Horner
* Richard Scott
* Lou Barletta
* Peter Brimelow

People like Buchanan, Tancredo, Schlafly, Connerly, Blackwell, and Barletta are relatively well-known, but the Southern Poverty Law Center provides some good background on Brimelow, founder of "the white nationalist hate website Vdare.com":

[Brimelow] described the role of race as "elemental, absolute, fundamental." He said that white Americans should demand that U.S. immigration quotas be changed to allow in mostly whites. He argued that spending tax dollars on anything related to multiculturalism was "subversive." He called foreign immigrants "weird aliens with dubious habits."

He worried repeatedly that his son, with his "blue eyes" and "blond hair," would grow up in an America in which whites had lost the majority.

...

Once a relatively mainstream anti-immigration page, VDARE has now become a meeting place for many on the radical right.

One essay complains about how the government encourages "the garbage of Africa" to come to the United States. The same writer says once the "Mexican invasion" engulfs the country, "high teenage birthrates, poverty, ignorance and disease will be what remains."

Another says that Hispanics have a "significantly higher level of social pathology than American whites. ... In other words, some immigrants are better than others." Yet another complains that a Jewish immigrant rights group is helping "African Muslim refugees" come to America.

Brimelow's site carries archives of columns from men like Sam Francis, who is the editor of the newspaper of the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens, a group whose Web page recently described blacks as "a retrograde species of humanity."

Generally speaking, rational people immediately decline an invitation to share the stage with people like Tancredo and Buchanan at an event being hosted by an organization run by a man who, not too long ago, pled guilty to attacking a black woman and calling her "nigger." 

But then again, rational people also don't claim that women can't be raped by their husbands or equate gays with arsonists and kleptomaniacs, so I guess it is really not surprising that Schalfly and Blackwell would see nothing wrong with attending this gathering.