July 2009

In a post I wrote yesterday about the Reclaiming Oklahoma for Christ Conference, I pointed out that Peter LaBarbera is calling for a "comprehensive federal study on the health risks of homosexual sex," because gay sex is, among other things, more dangerous than smoking. 

Today, LaBarbera responded with a new post claiming that he never made such a claim:

Here’s a People for the American Way report attacking AFTAH that says that I have called homosexual sex more dangerous than smoking, which I did not claim in our original report. In fact, I think some “gay” behaviors like sodomy are more dangerous than cigarettes — although there are many variables here that make comparisons difficult.

Well, here is the original report:

The very first line says "More Dangerous than Smoking?" next to a photo of an ashtray.  What else could that mean? And later, LaBarbera's post says this (emphasis added):

LaBarbera read from a Food & Drug Administration (FDA) report explaining why “men who have sex with men” (MSM) cannot donate blood due to the high incidence of sexually transmitted diseases linked to MSM. He noted that since government agencies and politicians are active in confronting the health risks of smoking (using taxpayer dollars), they should do the same for homosexual sex — especially between men — which appears to be as dangerous or more so than smoking cigarettes.

How can he claim that he never suggested that gay sex was more dangerous than smoking when he did so repeatedly? 

And then, not content with falsely accusing us of lying, he also declares that our post advocated for something entirely unrelated: 

It’s utterly beyond me as to how LaBarbera concluded that my post criticizing his effort to declare gay sex more dangerous than smoking by relying solely on a document pertaining to restrictions on blood donations was, in reality, a call by this organization "for [an] end to gay blood donation ban."

So not only did LaBarbera accuse us of claiming he said something he never said (though, in fact, he did) , he in turn accused us of saying something we never said.

By now, everyone realizes that Orly Taitz is the "Queen of the Birthers" and, more importantly, a verifiable nutcase.  Everyone that is except for people like Lou Dobbs, Janet Porter, and all of the others who have latched onto her conspiracy theories.

And while Taitz has been saying crazy things since she launched this crusade, the recent attention she has been receiving seems to have emboldened her to really let loose, leading to profiles like this one by Max Blumenthal in which she proclaims that President Obama is worse than Stalin, ought to be in prison, and rapidly turning America into Nazi Germany: 

Almost as soon as Orly Taitz answered her cellphone, before I could even ask a single question, the leader of the movement determined to disprove President Obama’s American citizenship breathlessly told me the president was “connected” to 39 bogus Social Security numbers, including one for a deceased person born in 1890. “If Obama is not stopped, we will be in Nazi Germany!” Taitz, who has a thick Russian accent, shrieked. “Forgery is a criminal matter and he committed it. Obama should be in the Big House, not the White House!”

Since Taitz’s “birther” campaign began, in the summer of 2008, during the late stages of the Democratic primaries, the dentist, lawyer, and mother of three has begun winning friends in high places. Taitz told me excitedly that since she opened her Facebook account, she has had to hire a staff of five to process the thousands of friend requests she receives each week.

Among those requesting her online friendship, Taitz said, are House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA), Rep. Mary Bono (R-CA), and Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele. She has even received a request, she said, from someone saying they are Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “I personally checked [the request] and determined that it came from his office,” Taitz said.

Among Taitz’s “biggest supporters,” she said, is CNN anchor Lou Dobbs. “I did Lou’s radio show for half an hour and he was very understanding,” she told me. “He became a supporter and since then he became a supporter of the whole [Obama eligibility] issue.” Indeed, during the July 15 broadcast of Dobbs’ radio show, he praised Taitz’s work, suggested Obama might be “undocumented,” and demanded the president “show the documents” to prove he was born in the United States.

When I spoke to Taitz, she had just finished taping an interview with The Colbert Report. By her own count, she has been interviewed by no fewer than 170 news outlets around the world. While she’s grateful for the exposure, the scrutiny of the media seems to have her in a persistent state of heightened exasperation.

“This is Nazi Germany! These are brownshirts in action!” Taitz exclaimed when asked about recent segments by Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, and Jon Stewart mocking her campaign and questioning her credibility. “Anybody who does not take Obama’s word at face value will be harassed by brownshirts like Rachel Maddow.”

Taitz’s apparent view of present-day American life through the lens of World War II Europe may be due in part to her upbringing in the Soviet republic of Moldova and then in Israel, where she lived until she immigrated to the U.S. in 1987. Now a resident of Buena Park, California, Taitz said she feared Obama would transform her adopted country into a totalitarian state as soon as he stepped onto the national stage. Reading online discussions about Obama’s supposed plan to create a “civilian national security force” aroused Taitz’s early alarm.

“I realized that Obama was another Stalin—it’s a cross between Stalinist USSR and Nazi Germany,” she said.

Interestingly, while Tatiz is reportedly hiring staff, other Birthers are closing up shop because they can't get any financial support, as Alan Keyes, himself a Birther, laments today in WorldNetDaily:

I read with sadness but no surprise WND's article about the demise of The Obama File [run by Parker Shannon], "an extensive depot of information questioning Barack Obama's eligibility to hold the office of president."

...

The juxtaposition of prayerful good wishes and indolent support highlights one of the saddest realities of our time ... many of those who work today to defeat the overthrow of our God-given liberty are perishing from the material indifference of those who benefit from and approve of their work.

This partly reflects a successful strategy being implemented by the forces working to achieve the overthrow of liberty. Faced with facts and reasoning they cannot refute, they resort to ad hominem attacks. Chief among these is the accusation that greed motivates the people who try to share facts and arguments the manipulative media systematically ignore. (Ironically greed is, of course, among the chief motives of those who staff the corporate media outlets.) Meanwhile, the people being accused, people like Parker Shannon, me and others I hear from practically every day, inexorably slide toward bankruptcy.

Did you notice how Keyes managed to include himself among those defenders of liberty who find themselves sliding toward bankruptcy?

Hmmm, it looks like all the money he was bringing in through his complicated ties to the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps must have dried up.

Lou Engle of The Call tends to only generate press when he hosts one of his massive prayer rallies, and even then, only the events that are timed to coincide with political events or elections ever receive any coverage, like the one he held last year in San Diego that was focused largely on the need to pass Proposition 8. 

As recent developments have made clear, Engle has been making a leap from mainly religious events into more overtly political activism, joining hands with the likes of Tony Perkins, Mike Huckabee, and James Dobson and appearing at rallies where he introduced and prayed over Newt Gingrich and unveiled his own political organization called "Call 2 Action."

In addition to his work with The Call, Engle is also a "a senior leader at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City with Mike Bickle," an organization which is the focus of this excellent profile by Donald Bradley of The Kansas City Star:

The article explains that IHOP's mission is to engage in constant prayer in effort to bring about and prepare the world for the return of Christ :

The digital signal from the International House of Prayer in south Kansas City, Mo., makes its way via Washington, D.C., to Jerusalem, where it streams live on God TV for broadcast all over the world.

This ... never ... stops.

Two in the morning, 8 at night, dusk and dawn. Holidays and ice storms. Time doesn't matter because these young worshippers are more concerned with the "End Times." The signs are here. The Messiah is near.

So they've come here for the last 10 years, by the hundreds - thousands - for what perhaps is Kansas City's biggest religious phenomenon in a century.

They've come to an old renovated strip mall on Red Bridge Road.

To answer the call of a leader named Mike Bickle, who says a purpose of their worship is to hasten the Second Coming.

...

Bickle says he's heard God's voice. And that he's been to heaven. Twice.

Inside the walls of his growing IHOP nation, the 53-year-old is revered as a great leader and something of a prophet.

Outside, Bickle and other IHOP officials acknowledge, they're seen by some as a cult.

Many of Bickle's messages can be read or heard on the IHOP Web site. In a recent post about a prophetic dream about war between Satan and Michael the archangel, Bickle wrote that he saw "large snakes, over 100 feet long and 50 feet thick, each having a huge head that looked like a dragon, and many of them were coming from the sky down to the earth."

His brand of Christianity relies heavily on the Book of Revelation and a sense of urgency that the Rapture is near.

When Jesus returns to make war against his enemies and marches into Jerusalem, Bickle preaches, "untold millions will die in the wake of his righteous, loving judgments."

Some of what is preached at IHOP is heard in other fundamentalist denominations. Israel is embraced for its role on the path to the End Times. Fasting is encouraged.

Other aspects seem well out of the mainstream.

IHOP has a "Children's Equipping Center," which, according to the Web site, seeks to mold a million children to lead the next generation, by empowering them "with DNA components that produce in them a holy passion."

Throw in the proportionally heavy infusion of young believers, things such as the "Fire in the Night" internship that meets from midnight to 6 a.m. and a "prenatal soaking room" for expectant mothers and the word "cult" occasionally can be heard in the neighborhood.

One owner of a nearby business, who did not want to be identified, said many people in the neighborhood worry that IHOP is a cult.

The entire piece is worth reading, just as this video explaining IHOP's mission is worth watching: 

• Think Progress: Former Rep. Tom Tancredo claimed that President Obama’s appointment of “Sonia Mayer” could serve as an indication that he is a racist.
• It seems likely that Justin Barret's days as a Boston police office will soon be coming to an end after he sent an email to the Boston Globe calling Professor Henry Gates a “jungle monkey.”
• On a semi-related note, If Sean Hannity is going to bring people onto this show to discuss whether President Obama has “alienated police” because of his recent comments on the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, he should probably find someone who is not Mark Fuhrman.
• What a deal: For a mere $100, Grasstops USA will send a fax with your name on it to Obama and all 535 members of Congress, at which point it will go directly into their recycling bins.
• Guess what?  Feminists don't hate men ... but anti-feminists do.
• Finally, Barack Obama is, in fact, the Antichrist.  Jesus said so.

Hooray!  Two of our favorite people are going to be appearing together ... on national TV no less:

Presumably, we'll have more to write about this next week after it airs and Barton inevitably tries to convince Huckabee's viewers that his biased, partisan claptrap is the real "history" of this nation.

Back in May we found out that fourth annual Reclaiming Oklahoma for Christ conference was going to feature right-wing luminaries like Janet Porter and Peter LaBarbera, among others.

Well, the event was held last weekend and was apparently a monumental success:

The fourth annual Reclaiming Oklahoma for Christ conference, July 24-25, was another smashing success. Another near capacity crowd on Friday night enjoyed educational and inspirational messages from Janet Folger Porter, Lt. General Jerry Boykin, Peter LaBarbera, and Dr. John Morris. The conference is intended to bring believers together from all over the state to encourage them to take a strong stand for truth in our decaying society. In addition, it is hoped that the conference will help to awaken and activate pastors who, in turn, will lead their congregations to join the struggle for the soul of America. Pastors from across the state of Oklahoma attended and this year’s conference was visited by pastors from Iowa as they are beginning work to Reclaim Iowa for Christ.

...

Janet Folger Porter, founder of Faith2Action, spoke first and reminded those in attendance that God is bigger than anyone or anything else and sits above the earth to insure that His people ultimately win the victory. She said that, although we may often feel like “grasshoppers in the fight,” we are more than conquerors through Christ Jesus. On Saturday afternoon, she challenged believers to attempt great things for God and reminded us that He often uses the most unlikely of candidates to do big things for Him. She ended by challenging believers to attempt “bigger things for God than we can do on our own.”

Peter LaBarbera, founder of Americans for Truth, a group dedicated to exposing the homosexual activist agenda, reminded the crowd Friday night that Americans are in a battle to preserve the biblical model for sex and marriage. He shared how the homosexual activists often gain the upper hand by redefining the terms, misrepresenting the facts. No one “labels” Christians as having a phobia for opposing pornography or infidelity, yet when we stand against the sin of homosexuality the left attempts to guilt believers into silence by labeling them as homophobes. He urged believers to unapologetically stand for Biblical morality no matter how loudly the homosexuals protest. On Saturday morning, Peter discussed the medical risks of the homosexual lifestyle. He emphasized the irony of our government’s attack on tobacco use while it essentially ignores the proliferation of STD’s and AIDS by homosexuals. LaBarbera closed by emphasizing that Christians do not hate homosexuals but rather, desire that they experience the forgiveness and transformation that comes from knowing Jesus.

What the Reclaiming Oklahoma coverage doesn't report is that LaBarbera didn't merely note the "irony" that the government is ignoring "the proliferation of STD’s and AIDS by homosexuals," he actually called for a federal study of the issue:

When it comes to combating cigarettes, the government not only restricts, taxes and bans smoking, it also funds and encourages anti-smoking messages and advertisements. Given the immense health risks of male homosexual sex, shouldn’t the federal government do a comprehensive study on the matter, tax sodomitic establishments, and educate the public and especially young people about the dangers of “gay” sex?

Speaking Friday at the annual Reclaiming Oklahoma for Christ conference in Edmond, OK, Americans For Truth about Homosexuality (AFTAH) President Peter LaBarbera called for a comprehensive government study on the heath risks of homosexual sex.

LaBarbera read from a Food & Drug Administration (FDA) report explaining why “men who have sex with men” (MSM) cannot donate blood due to the high incidence of sexually transmitted diseases linked to MSM. He noted that since government agencies and politicians are active in confronting the health risks of smoking (using taxpayer dollars), they should do the same for homosexual sex — especially between men — which appears to be as dangerous or more so than smoking cigarettes.

I have no idea on what LaBarbera is basing his assertion that gay sex is more dangerous than smoking ... and neither does he apparently, because the only link he provides to any sort of "evidence" makes no such claims or comparisons.

And, let's just imagine that the government did undertake this sort of study - what exactly would it do then? Institute bans or taxes on gay sex?  

Anyway, the biggest development from the conference seems to be the resurrection of Coral Ridge Ministries' Center for Reclaiming America, which shut down back in 2007:

A highlight of this year’s event was the announcement that Coral Ridge Ministry is allowing Reclaiming Oklahoma for Christ to carry on the legacy and work of Dr. D. James Kennedy.

Reclaim Oklahoma will be more actively working with other states in awakening pastors from across the nation to take back their own communities and states in an effort to Reclaim America for Christ.

The article mentions that there are already efforts underway to create a similar organization in Iowa, and with the announcement that organizers seek to spread the effort throughout the nation, it looks like we'll be hearing a lot more about the effort to "reclaim America for Christ" in the months and years ahead.

• Glenn Beck stands by his assertion that President Obama is a racist.  And I stand by my assertion that Glenn Beck is a joke.
• Hal Turner: FBI informant?  Apparently.
• Alvin McEwen continues to explain how religious right groups distort legitimate research to demonize the gay community.
• Box Turtle Bulletin: Matt Barber is not exactly an intellectual giant, but sometimes he’s so illogical and ridiculous that you just have to laugh.
• The Louisiana Democratic Party's spokesman responds to Sen. David Vitter's comment that it is Southern senators who are keeping the GOP committed to "core conservative value": "Last time I checked, you don't find core Southern values in the places David Vitter has been found. If David Vitter can lead his party back to their conservative values, maybe Larry Craig can give them tips on bathroom etiquette and Mark Sanford can recommend a really good restaurant in Buenos Aires."
• Sarah Posner: A rabbi, Tony Perkins, and Maggie Gallagher walk into a bar ...
• Finally, even Bill O'Reilly and Michael Steele are getting tired of the Birthers' absurd crusade.

Human Events may want to take an adult education class in headline writing. This morning, Michelle Malkin, a right-wing blogger and "journalist", was on the Today show with Matt Lauer to discuss her new book, "Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies."

The conservative website, Human Events, posted the video on their website with the headline "Lauer Loses Cool During Malkin Interview." It seemed rather odd that Lauer, a guy who usually seems pretty level-headed, would "lose his cool", on national television nonetheless. After reviewing the video, however, there isn't even a fleeting moment in which Lauer does anything that resembles a loss of temper.

Even when Malkin calls President Obama a "racial opportunist" and Michelle Obama "the first crony", Lauer simply restates what Malkin said and asks how she can justify such sweeping, broad based claims. Malkin goes even further by attacking Lindsey Graham's desire for more diversity in the Republican Party:

"I think Lindsay Graham has a history of pandering to this idea that somehow the party should broaden itself for the sake of pandering to diversity."

Here's the video, get ready for Lauer's "insane" outbursts:

Rather than misrepresenting the content of an article for the sake of your own columnist, maybe Human Events should work on writing some more accurate headlines.

In yesterday's Round-Up I mentioned that  Sen. George Voinovich has a theory about why the Republican Party has been struggling lately - too many Southerners:

Too many conservative senators like Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) are to blame for the GOP's downfall, one of their retiring Republican colleagues complained Monday.

"We got too many Jim DeMints and Tom Coburns," Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) told the Columbus Dispatch. "It's the southerners."

Voinovich, a native Clevelander who retires after the 2010 election, continued after the southern elements of the GOP.

"They get on TV and go 'errrr, errrrr,'" he said. "People hear them and say, 'These people, they're southerners. The party's being taken over by southerners. What they hell they got to do with Ohio?'"

So today, one of the GOP's Southern senators decided to speak-up, touting their role in ensuring that the Republican Party remains firmly rooted in the conservative, family values that made America great.

Guess which one:

Sen. David Vitter disagreed Wednesday with criticism that Southern Republicans are ruining the party and said a return to conservative values is the best way to restore political power.

"I'm on the side of conservatives getting back to core conservative values," said Mr. Vitter, Louisiana Republican and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. "There are a lot of us from the South who hold those value, which I think the party is supposed to be about. We strayed from them in the past few years, and that's why we performed so badly in the national elections."

If "getting back to core conservative values" includes "violating the sanctity of your marriage" (and recently, it sure seems as if it does) then Vitter is the perfect man to be leading this effort.

The Lynchburg News & Advance is reporting that Jonathan Falwell, who took over as Pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church after his father Jerry died in 2007, has been invited by Rep. Bob Goodlatte to deliver the opening prayer in the House of Representatives tomorrow morning:

Rev. Jonathan Falwell will deliver the opening prayer on Wednesday for the U.S. House of Representatives, an opportunity that he called “an incredible honor.”

Falwell, pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church, said Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-6th District, invited him to fill the guest chaplain role. The invitation was issued through the House of Representatives chaplain’s office.

Goodlatte will deliver a short speech welcoming Falwell to the House.

The events can be viewed on C-SPAN starting about 9:55 a.m.

His day in Washington will include visits with Rep. Tom Perriello, D-5th District, and several other members of Congress, Falwell said.

Falwell said he expected to pray for wise leadership and protection for the country.

“Certainly, in that place, wisdom is something to be prayed for on a daily basis,” Falwell said.

“The Bible tells us to pray for our leaders,” Falwell said. “And I’ll pray for protection for our country, thanking God for what he has already done to bless our country in so many ways.

“And also for those who protect us overseas, our men and women overseas,” he said.

A get-together with Liberty University students and graduates who are working on Capitol Hill also was being arranged, Falwell said.

“A lot of them are working as interns and summer staffers,” he said.

Falwell said this would be his first time delivering the opening prayer in Washington.

Falwell said he didn’t know whether his father, Rev. Jerry Falwell, ever delivered the opening prayer for the House of Representatives. “Certainly it is an honor he would have deserved,” Falwell said.

“It is an incredible honor for me, and a privilege to be able to do it,” he said.

• Alan Colmes: Look at all these horrible lefties with dark skin and strange names who “must be stopped."
• Did Egypt move recently? 
• You know what the GOP's problem is?  According to Sen. George Voinovich, it's all these Southerners who "get on TV and go 'errrr, errrrr.'"
• Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) joined radical conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on his radio talk show for an interview where he stated that Obama's health plan will "absolutely kill senior citizens."
• Good As You says that perhaps the Southern Poverty Law Center was a little too quick to remove the Illinois Family Institute from its list of anti-gay hate groups.
• Amie Newman: The Dutch "abortion boat" run by the organization Women on Waves (WoW) has announced it will anchor, possibly permanently.
• Salon: The Birthers in Congress.
• Media Matters: Fear Of A Black President.
• Finally, Glenn Beck says Barack Obama is a racist: "This president has exposed himself as a guy, over and over and over again, who has a deep-seated hatred for white people, or the white culture, I don't know what it is."

With Sonia Sotomayor's nomination having been voted out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on a vote of 13-6, she is scheduled to get a floor vote next week where it is expected that she will be easily confirmed.

Resigned to the inevitable, right-wing are doing all they can to spin this as a victory that will pay huge dividends in future elections:

"Republicans can reap significant political benefits by voting against her confirmation and making her an issue in key races next year," conservative activist Ralph Reed told his supporters in a memo.

Voters will remember that "it is a gun vote, and this was not a judge vote. It was a racial quota vote. She is for quotas," added Grover Norquist, a leading conservative activist, in an interview.

...

Norquist said conservatives can paint Sotomayor as a dangerous liberal just like President Barack Obama.

"She tarnishes him a little bit," said Norquist, who is president of Americans for Tax Reform and a member of the NRA board of directors.

In the Washington Independent, David Weigel provides more insight into this effort:

“The Republican senators did much better than I expected,” said Manny Miranda, the chairman of the Third Branch Conference, a judicial conservative umbrella group that opposed Sotomayor’s nomination largely behind the scenes.

In early June, Miranda had been bearish on the Republican conference, doubtful that it would put up a fight. He called Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell “limp-wristed” and organized 145 conservative activists to campaign for a filibuster of Sotomayor, which they’re not going to get. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), in announcing his opposition to the nominee, admitted that her confirmation was probably inevitable. Yet they feel like the debate over Sotomayor was as much as a conservative success as it could have possibly been, and they see a chance to give the nominee the lowest level of support from the opposition party since the bruising 1991 fight over Clarence Thomas.

“When we started, I didn’t expect more than 16 ‘no’ votes,” said Miranda. “Now I think we may go as high as 29 votes. We’ve achieved quite a lot.”

...

“The NRA’s decision to score the vote is a huge statement,” said Curt Levey, director of the Committee for Justice. “They were hesitant to get involved. Even if Sotomayor is eventually confirmed, the fact that the NRA came to realize the importance of Supreme Court nominations in protecting gun rights is a very big deal. The grassroots have been activated.”

Sotomayor is widely expected to be confirmed next week and you'll notice that all of Miranda's strident demands that Republicans lead a filibuster against her seem to have disappeared, as have his repeated assertions that any vote on her nomination before the August recess would be glaring failure of Republican leadership:

The mark of failed Republican leadership -- already strong-armed by Democrats on hearing scheduling -- will certainly be allowing a confirmation vote before the August recess that denies time to senators and to the American people. Republican leaders will fail too if their only goal is to mirror the 22-22 Democrat vote for Judge Roberts and simply deliver 20 Republicans for and 20 against.

Miranda and company had one demand of Senate Republicans: Under no circumstances allow a vote on Sotomayor's nomination before the August recess. Yet that is exactly what is going to happen and, instead of blasting them for their failure, Miranda is praising them for a job well done because their token opposition will be slightly bigger than he initially imagined.

Why is the Right suddenly so forgiving?  Maybe because they knew all along that their efforts weren't going to stop Sotomayor and they were just trying to pick a fight and look important, which is essentially what Curt Levey admitted to Weigel:

“The goal isn’t to defeat Sotomayor,” explained Levey. “It’s to send enough of a warning shot that future nominees won’t be as hostile to the Constitution.”

The Committee for Justice, for example, developed five ads formatted for television and newspapers, one of which compared Sotomayor’s work for the Puerto Rican Defense Fund to President Obama’s friendship with reformed Weather Underground member Bill Ayers. It got plenty of attention; people clicked through to the committee’s site, and some donated. But TV viewers won’t see that particular attack on their screens. “I don’t think the ad was effective,” Levey admitted. “We’ll run some ads in the final week, but I don’t think we’ll run that ad.”

I am speechless:

You can read the article here [PDF].

• Gordon Klingenschmitt is on a crusade [PDF] to keep the F-22 in the Defense appropriation bill in order to get President Obama to veto it and thereby veto hate crimes legislation.
• In announcing that he would not be seeking re-election, Sen. Jim Bunning blasted "leaders of the Republican Party in the Senate [who] have done everything in their power to dry up my fundraising."
• Bill Keller says that Ann Coulter is a bad Christian for having supported Mitt Romney.
• Orly Taitz seems pretty excited that she has made "friends" with various members of the GOP on Facebook.
• Next month, the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute will be honoring Phyllis Schlafly at a "Lifetime Achievement Luncheon."
• Finally, a note to Faith 2 Action:  You had Manny Miranda on your program today talking about Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court - this is Miranda:



This man is an insurance agent:



They are not the same person:

Over the weekend, the New York Times ran a lengthy piece on the late George Tiller, who was gunned down by an anti-abortion zealot while attending church in May.  The piece focused on Tiller's resolution to continue provided badly-needed services to women in the face of relentless protests, lawsuits, threats of violence, and assassination attempts from anti-abortion activists, most notably Operation Rescue:

“His is the only abortion clinic we’ve never been able to close,” Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue, said in an interview.

,,,

There seemed an endless supply of fresh accusations.

“Wichita shoppers unknowingly sprinkled with the burnt ash of fetal remains,” declared one news release, referring to the clinic’s crematorium.

“If I can’t document it, I don’t say it,” Mr. Newman of Operation Rescue said, moments before suggesting without any proof that Dr. Tiller had bought off the local district attorney, Nola T. Foulston, by giving her a baby for adoption. He referred a reporter to a Web site that vaguely asserted that Dr. Tiller “may have delivered the ultimate bribe to Nola Foulston.” A spokeswoman for Ms. Foulston declined to discuss the accusation.

Anti-abortion activists routinely portrayed Dr. Tiller’s campaign contributions as “blood money” that co-opted politicians. “He owned the attorney general’s office,” Mr. Newman said. “He owned the governor’s office. He owned the district attorney’s office.”

The article notes that Operation Rescue and Newman eventually changed tactics and began relying on an "obscure Kansas statute allowing residents to petition for grand jury investigations" and then gathered thousands of signatures to convene two grand juries against him. Both times the juries refused to indict him.

Eventually, Tiller was charged with 19 misdemeanor violations of state's late-term abortion law and was acquitted after the jury deliberated for a mere thirty minutes:

It was an enormous victory, but Dr. Tiller’s supporters feared a backlash. Anti-abortion activists who had attended court sessions were disgusted. Mr. Newman remembered one new face among the regulars in court — Scott Roeder, who told other protesters that the trial was a “sham” and had argued in years past that homicide was justifiable to stop abortions.

Roeder is the man charged with murdering Tiller, which brings us to this article in the Kansas City Star in which Roeder disputes Newman's repeated assertions that he was never a member or supporter of Operation Rescue, insisting that he was, in fact, both:

The Kansas City Star interviewed Roeder three times in recent weeks, including once at the Sedgwick County Jail.

In a phone interview Friday, Roeder said he was upset at the president of Operation Rescue, Troy Newman, who had condemned the killing and said his organization had nothing to do with Roeder.

“He said that I never was a member and I never contributed any money,” Roeder said. “Well, my gosh, I’ve got probably a thousand dollars worth of receipts, at least, from the money I’ve donated to him.”

Roeder said he wrote Newman a letter from jail.

“I told him, ‘You better get your story straight because my lawyer said it’d be good for me to show that I was supporting a pro-life organization.’”

For his part, Newman continues to insist that they have no record of Roeder making donations to his organization in their database.

• The Religious Right's healthcare webcast was held last night and you can listen to the audio here. It was apparently such a success that the Family Research Council has decided to hold its own webcast next week.
• Boy, it seems like Republicans can't even send around racist emails about President Obama any more with getting into loads of trouble.  What is this world coming to?
• Al Mohler explains why the Southern Baptists aren't going to be changing their stance on the role of women in the faith any time soon: "Ultimately, I'm not so fearful that the times will judge us as I'm aware that God will judge us, and I hope with all my heart that he will find our church is faithful to his word."
• Alan Chambers talks to Focus on the Family about his new book Leaving Homosexuality: "The key thought here is the opposite of homosexuality isn’t heterosexuality. It’s holiness. There are people who are conflicted with their sexuality, involved with homosexuality, and there is a way out for those who want it. But it doesn’t say that they’re going into heterosexuality, because that’s not the point. The point is that people can leave whatever it is that God calls less than His best and move into something that is His best, becoming more like He is."

The Washington Post released a poll today that it says shows that "as Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin prepares for the next stage of her political career, a majority of Americans hold an unfavorable view of her, and there is broad public doubt about her leadership skills and understanding of complex issues."

Alex Koppelman disputes that assessment but what I find most interesting is the poll result that shows that Mike Huckabee leading the way among potential 2012 GOP nominees:

27. (ASKED OF REPUBLICANS AND GOP-LEANING INDEPENDENTS) If the 2012 Republican presidential primary or caucus in your state were being held today, and the candidates were (READ LIST) for whom would you vote?

Mike Huckabee 26%
Mitt Romney 21%
Sarah Palin 19%
Newt Gingrich 10%
Tim Pawlenty 4%
Jeb Bush 3%
Haley Barbour 1%
Bobby Jindal (vol.) 2%
Charlie Crist (vol.) *
Other/None of these/Would not vote/No opinion 14%

Obviously, polls conducted more than three years before the next presidential election are not particularly reliable or meaningful, but that hasn't stopped Huck's Army from proclaiming that it "shows strong support for Gov. Huckabee if he decides to build on his second place finish in the 2008 Republican Primary."

But taking this poll for what it is worth, allow me to semi-misleadingly exploit it in order to declare "LEADING GOP PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE TO ATTEND BIRTHER CONFERENCE!" to just try and hammer home the fact that Huckabee is headlining the How To Take Back America Conference which is being hosted by at least three bona fide Birthers: Janet Porter, Joseph Farah, and Rick Scarborough.

As I have said before:

Just about every insane right-wing conspiracy theory currently in circulation has been embraced by one or more of the organizers of this event, all of whom have actively worked to spread the fear that Obama and the Democrats are out to destroy Christianity and turn America into a socialist hellhole.

And Mike Huckabee, instead of trying to distance himself from the lunacy of his former supporters, openly and willingly continues to associate with them.

And now this man is currently leading the field of future GOP presidential nominees.

If that doesn't terrify you, I don't know what will.

• Bill Donohue says Randall Terry’s threat not to pay taxes is a "recipe for anarchy."
• Al Mohler is not impressed by Jimmy Carter's decision to sever his ties with the Southern Baptist Convention.
• Focus on the Family really seems to be getting behind The Civility Project.
• Oral Roberts University has signed an agreement with the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference that will position ORU as the exclusive educational strategic partner for the NHCLC.
• The Alliance Defense Fund has filed suit against Wisconsin's Domestic Partnetship law, claiming it violates the marriage amendment passed in 2006.
• You just can't win against WorldNetDaily: "The announcements of Barack Obama's birth printed by two Hawaii newspapers in 1961 do not provide solid proof of a birth in the Aloha State."
• Finally, Jesse Lee Peterson weighs in on the arrest of Henry Louis Gates:

"Henry Gates and Al Sharpton are abusing police while black," said Rev. Peterson. "Their false allegations say to young blacks that they too can abuse police and cry racism. Gates was abusive and disorderly and the police dealt with him accordingly--where's the racism? This is a case of black males gone wild."

...

Rev. Peterson said, "What's regrettable is that the city of Cambridge and the police have allowed themselves to be intimidated by a race hustler like Al 'The Riot King' Sharpton. The race card has once again been used to unjustly smear law enforcement and thwart justice. This is Tawana Brawley all over again!"

Alan Colmes interviewed Randall Terry on his radio program the other day to discuss his predictions that the passage of any healthcare reform legislation that would "force Americans to pay for the murder of the unborn" would set off "violent convulsions" and possibly even a civil war.

Terry repeated many of the predictions that he made during his recent press conference about what would happen if such legislation were to pass, claiming that many would refuse to pay their taxes and engage in acts of civil disobedience, while some would go further and begin to target facilities through vandalism and people through acts of violence.

Terry said he "starts to cringe" when protesters cross over into the latter categories, but said he wouldn't condemn acts of vandalism, though he insists the he does not condone them either.  After some pressing by Colmes to use his authority within the movement to make clear that it does not accept acts of violence, Terry said he has already done so several times, but that the point he is trying to make is there are people out there who believe that abortion is murder and will react violently if they believe they are being forced to participate in it via their tax dollars.  In short, Terry's goal is to get members of Congress to "step back" and consider "we might not want to push people that far and that hard."

In essence, Terry's point is that Democrats in Congress will be responsible for the bloodshed that might result from any such legislation.

Toward the end of the segment, Colmes asked Terry about his assertion that Dr. George Tiller was a "mass-murderer" who reaped what he sowed, which Terry defended by stating that Tiller was a victim of his own karma and likened him to a crack dealer who gets "wacked by another crack dealer":

Of course, the key difference between said crack deal and Tiller was that the latter was a law-abiding doctor engaged in legal activity who was shot to death in church by an anti-abortion zealot.

In a move that nobody could have ever predicted, 150+ right-wing activists have signed on to a letter to the Senate opposing the confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court:

156 conservative and constitutional cause leaders and citizens have signed a letter to members of the U.S. Senate expressing opposition to the confirmation of President Obama's nominee to be an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge Sonia Sotomayor.

One of the letter's signers, Richard A. Viguerie, said, "The media and Republicans aren't defining President Obama as an extremist politically and constitutionally; therefore, it is up to us conservatives. It is also important that a message be sent that, while Republicans may not be unified in opposing Obama's dangerous and unconstitutional agenda, conservatives and other constitutionalists are united."

"President Obama has nominated a radical judicial activist who apparently feels the need to mask her outrageous statements, rulings and writings over the years with the soothing words of a constitutionalist," said Kay Daly, president of the Coalition for a Fair Judiciary. "Perhaps the Left has discovered that the American people most certainly do not want the Constitution to be radically altered on the whims of empathy. Sotomayor's extremist actions throughout the years speak far more loudly than the pretty words she spoke at her confirmation hearing. A 'no' vote for Sotomayor is a 'yes' vote for the Constitution," Daly said.

...

Among the 156 who signed the letter are: Curt Levey of the Committee for Justice and Manny Miranda of Third Branch; plus: Gary Aldrich, Bob Barr, Morton Blackwell, Brent Bozell, Floyd Brown, KellyAnne Conway, Janice Shaw Crouse, Marjorie Dannenfelser, Elaine Donnelly, Joseph Farah, Alan Gottlieb, Colin Hanna, Andrea Lafferty, Jeffrey Mazzella, Chuck Muth, Tony Perkins, Larry Pratt, William Redpath, Al Regnery, David Ridenour, Ron Robinson, Ilya Shapiro, Rev. Lou Sheldon, Matt Staver, Herb Titus and Wendy Wright.

The letter itself can be found here [PDF]:

We urge the Senate to reject Judge Sotomayor. Judge Sotomayor should remain a judge on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals where her decisions would be subject to the check of the Supreme Court.

President Obama should nominate another candidate whose views of judicial power are demonstrably consistent with Article III of the Constitution. That means the next nominee’s views of the judiciary should be demonstrably inconsistent with the President’s, whose views are not consistent with Article III, even before that nominee’s confirmation hearings.

Given that Manuel Miranda is involved and that this letter is very much in keeping with how he operates, one is inclined to assume that this is another Third Branch Conference effort, though it may not be as neither the letter nor the press release list Miranda or the Conference as organizers, as is normally the case.

Perhaps it is some joint effort among various groups, which seems likely given that Richard Viguerie, Curt Levey of the Committee for Justice, and Kay Daly of the Coalition for a Fair Judicary are all featured and listed as contacts on the press release.

Noticeably, once again nobody from the Judicial Confirmation Network has signed on to the letter, which suggests that JCN either refused to join these activists or continues to be being shunned by them (Miranda recently dismissed them as "an arm of [the] Republican leadership.")

So despite the fact that, out of every right-wing group trying to rally opposition to Sotomayor, the JCN was by far the most tenacious and high-profile, nobody in this coalition seems to view them as a legitimate force.  Instead they align themselves with the likes of Kay Daly and her phony Coalition for a Fair Judiciary, which has been utterly AWOL and did, quite literally, nothing during the entire Sotomayor nomination.

Interesting strategy.

• Apparently, Fox News' Neil Cavuto thinks that the new Surgeon General nominee, Dr. Regina M. Benjamin, is "too fat" for the post.
• Think Progress reports that, a day before Gov. Bobby Jindal declared the Economic Recovery Act a failure, he was handing out jumbo-sized checks backed by money that came directly from the Recovery Act.
• Box Turtle Bulletin: "Grove City College professor Warren Throckmorton has learned that Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX) will no longer be affiliated with Exodus International."
• Yesterday, Michelangelo Signorile interviewed Leroy Swailes. You remember him, don't you?
• Finally, lots of Birther stuff: David Weigel was on Rachel Maddow discussing them; Chris Matthews had to struggle mightly to get Rep. John Campbell to acknowledge that he does believe President Obama is a natural-born citizen; Liz Cheney has now thrown in with them; Lou Dobbs is getting shamed and refuted by just about everyone for his Birther talk, and finally, Rick Scarborough has now joined the movement as well, bringing the number of verified Birthers on the How To Take Back America Conference hosting committee to three.

With the Religious Right's influence its lowest levels in several years, Tony Perkins has penned a rallying cry for the movement called "Never give in - Values Voters at the Summit" that, not surprisingly, proclaims his organization's upcoming Values Voter Summit the key to turning it all around:

We believe that in a representative democracy, citizens have not just the ability, but the duty to participate in the political process. For too long decisions about the fate of millions have been made "at the summit" by a handful of leaders and those decisions have too often disregarded deeply held beliefs about the sanctity of human life, the importance of marriage, and the bedrock principles of religious liberty – beliefs held dearly by the very people those leaders are supposed to represent.

That's why we instituted the Values Voters Summits several years ago. These are Washington gatherings at which we invite important national figures to address us, to encourage us, and to share essential information about decisions made in Washington that have a direct bearing on all our lives.

Perkins decries the "'inside-the-Beltway' mindset" whereby those in positions of political authority oppose certain grassroots efforts out of fear that they will undermine their agenda, but declares that such "leaders" have it exactly backwards, as it is the grassroots efforts that will lead to the movement's resurrection. And then, somewhat oddly, Perkins points to their recent string of failures as proof that it is working: 

For example, when pro-life citizens in South Dakota and Colorado sought to put measures on their state ballots to protect unborn children, the smart money here said: "Don't do it. You might fail. And that would be bad for the cause."

Those grassroots pro-lifers could not be restrained. They did put those measures on the ballot. They did fail. But look what we see in the latest Gallup Poll: For the first time in the history of Gallup, more Americans regard themselves as pro-life than those favoring legalized abortion.

More than that, the Gallup organization confirms that all the grassroots agitation over the heinous partial-birth abortion bans moved public opinion in the pro-life direction. Not only did the people strongly reject this cruel and unjust procedure, they began to focus more on all unborn children menaced by every abortion.

How can that be, you might ask -- didn't President Bill Clinton twice veto those bans? And weren't his vetoes sustained in Congress? Yes, he did and they were. But all the talk about partial-birth abortion reached deeper into Americans' hearts than we knew.

Perkins then proceeds to dust off a point that we haven't seen him make in months, namely that the economic problems we face as a nation are really rooted in abortion and the "breakdown in the family":

We know that no nation, especially one with the rich spiritual heritage ours enjoys, can truly prosper if it destroys its own future through abortion-on-demand ... In other words, this recession is in reality a reflection of the government-aided breakdown in the family. When government encourages out-of-wedlock sexual activity through billions of dollars in subsidies to Planned Parenthood and their ilk, that government guarantees economic harm as well as distress to families.

He closes by declaring that it is incumbent upon Christians to come together to save this nation and to "never give in," no matter what:

In order to meet your responsibilities, we must unite for concerted action. We have the right, and in our representative form of government, we have the duty to combine for the sake of the family. No one else can do it for us. That's what we seek to do at the Values Voters Summits ... We have been defeated many times, but we have not given in. When pundits and pols count us down and out, we keep coming back. I pray that we will never forget that the battle is the Lord's; our task is but to remain wise and faithful. And never give in.

We have been collecting everything that the Religious Right has been saying about efforts to pass health care reform for an upcoming Right Wing Watch In Focus report and, in doing so, quickly noticed that their primary focus was on claiming that any such plan would lead to public financing of abortion.

Until recently, activists and organization had been primarily making this case individually, but now it looks like several of them have decided to team-up for a nationwide webcast tomorrow evening:

Pro-life groups, including Focus on the Family, are hosting a webcast Thursday at 9 p.m. EDT to educate and mobilize pro-lifers against President Obama's healthcare reform bill, which currently mandates public and private insurance coverage of abortion.

The healthcare reform has hit a roadblock in the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Fiscally conservative Democrats, known as Blue Dogs, have balked at the cost of the plan.

Pro-life advocates are hoping the delay allows them to marshal support for amendments that would take the federal funding of abortions out of the bill.

"We are advocating amendments that would simply remove any mandates for abortion, remove any federal subsidies for abortion," said Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life.

Others agree that this is a watershed event for the pro-life movement.

Marjorie Dannenfelser of the Susan B. Anthony List said: "It is without question the biggest event since Roe v. Wade when it comes to the pro-life issue."

Participants include James Dobson, Charmaine Yoest, Tony Perkins, Frank Pavone, Marjorie Dannenfelser, Wendy Wright, Tom Minnery, Rep. Chris Smith, Richard Land, Day Gardner, and several others, including Mike Huckabee, according to Dan Gilgoff.

Politico has more on their effort:

A coalition of anti-abortion groups is set to open a new front against Democrats’ efforts to restructure American health care, claiming the plans open a back door to publicly financed abortions.

The groups, which are launching a broad campaign on the issue this week, claim that existing health care proposals constitute a stealth “abortion mandate” that will spend taxpayer money on abortions and require insurance companies to cover abortions — allegations that health care reform supporters call misleading.

“President Obama keeps on talking about common ground, and there is really, really common ground on funding issues,” said Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life, the group organizing the planned three-week campaign on the issue. “Almost no one wants to fund abortion, regardless of their position on abortion as a whole.”

Yoest’s group plans to release a letter to Barack Obama on Thursday in which it cites, according to its reading of proposed legislation, “our belief that the bills are intended to include abortion.”

The noisy, contentious health care debate — which has grown pointedly acrimonious in recent days — has proceeded largely without reference to abortion. But the decision of these high-profile conservative groups to launch the new campaign under the rubric “Stop the Abortion Mandate” may change that and provide a new obstacle to the reform legislation.

The leaders involved include Christian conservatives such as James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family; Family Research Council President Tony Perkins; and the Southern Baptist Convention’s Dr. Richard Land, who will be launching the push in a webcast Thursday evening.

“We just realized how urgent the situation was, what was at stake,” said David Bereit, the national director of 40 Days for Life, another group involved in the campaign, which will focus on generating pressure on members of Congress to insist on an explicit ban on abortion within the legislation.

• Think Progress: Former President Jimmy Carter, who in 2000 officially severed ties with the Southern Baptist Convention after the SBC declared its opposition to female pastors and reiterated its calls “for wives to be submissive to their husbands,” condemned the mistreatment of women by religious leaders, writing that “the words of God do not justify cruelty to women.”
• RH Reality Check's Lindsay Beyerstein asks if George Tiller's assassin should be charged as a domestic terrorist.
• Good As You takes a look at the latest from the Maine Family Policy Council and reminds us: "This group is not some separate entity from the larger marriage fight. They are connected with Focus on the Family/Family Research Council. In fact, it was just this past February that FRC head Tony Perkins spoke at the groups' banquet. So it's not like this is a fringe story that's detached form Maine's "people's veto." THIS is the fight. THESE are the people. THIS is how they think of us: As innately immoral beings who are linked by unsavoriness."
• Joe My God points to The Lost Ogle catching the Baptist Messenger photoshopping Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry’s signature on to Rep. Sally Kern's “Proclamation for Morality" and placing the text of proclamation onto Executive Department letterhead while forging the signature of Secretary of State M. Susan Savage next to the state seal of Oklahoma in order to make it appear legitimate.
• Finally, Steve Benen asks just what House Minority Whip Eric Cantor's proposed "Judeo-Christian" foreign policy would look like.

Despite the fact that we had apparently written about him a few times, I was not familiar with Ted Pike until today.  We had apparently mentioned him back in 2006 when he signed on to some letter with a bunch of other right-wing activists like Paul Weyrich, Sandy Rios, Robert Knight, Dr. Paul Cameron, Peter LaBarbera, Gary Glenn, and Brian Camenker calling on then-Governor Mitt Romney "to declare immediately that homosexual “marriage” licenses issued in violation of the law are illegal and to issue an order to all state and local officials to cease violating the law."

And we mentioned him again not long after that when he said that hate crimes legislation was “the most dangerous legislation ever to come before Congress,” claiming that it would “lead inexorably to the end of free speech.”

But that was about it, until I stumbled across this post he wrote on his National Prayer Network website complaining about how his right-wing allies don't want to be seen as having anything to do with him:

For the past seven months, I have repeatedly seen the religious right ignore vital information about the hate bill threat and opportunities to defeat it for only one possible reason: they didn't want to be seen as influenced by me.

After Janet Porter, head of Faith2Action, informed me that conservative witnesses were being turned away by Sen. Leahy’s Senate Judiciary Committee, I immediately quoted her, mounting a national campaign of protest. She called back to tell me that Andrea Lafferty of Traditional Values Coalition and some of her radio listeners had “reamed her out" for even talking to me! She warned me that if ever again I mentioned publicly that I had talked to her, she would never answer any call from me -- even concerning an imminent hate bill threat!

Now why would Janet Porter get "reamed out" by Andrea Lafferty for talking to Pike?

Maybe this is why:

Ted Pike, the national director of the Oregon-based National Prayer Network, has for years engaged in an anti-Semitic campaign that denigrates the Jewish religion, as well as what he perceives as Jewish-controlled organizations and leaders. Through a series of Web-based articles, Internet radio interviews, videotapes, and books, Pike constantly claims Jewish control over the government and media and asserts Jewish hatred of Christians and the alleged desire of "evil" Jewish leaders and organizations to control what Christian Americans do and say.

To promote his virulent anti-Semitic ideology, Pike often works under the guise of opposing federal hate crimes legislation and upholding free speech and Christian values. He gives interviews to extremist cable TV and Internet radio shows to further disseminate his anti-Semitic views and also links from his organization's Website to various anti-Semitic sites. Similarly, a variety of extremists, including neo-Nazis, post Pike's columns to their own hate sites, where they praise Pike's anti-Semitic invective.

It should be pointed out that Porter had Pike on her radio show on both May 4 and April 28 of this year and that, at least according to Pike, she didn't say that she was going to stop talking to him, merely that she would stop taking his calls only if he mentioned publicly that they were in contact.

I've often wondered just what someone would have to do in order to be shunned by the likes of Janet Porter, considering that she apparently knows no limits herself.  Now we know: promote virulent anti-Semitic ideology ... and only then will they be cut off if they make their connection to Porter known. 

Have I mentioned that Porter is going to be co-hosting the upcoming How To Take Back America Conference featuring Mike Huckabee and Michelle Bachmann and served as co-chair of Huckabee's Faith and Family Values Coalition during his presidential campaign?  Just wanted to point that out.

Jeff Sharlet, author of "The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power" is an expert on "The Family" and his expertise has become even more valuable in recent weeks as the various infidelities of Gov. Mark Sanford, Sen. John Ensign, and former Rep. Chip Pickering have exploded in the news, as all have deep ties to the organization and its house on C Street.

Today, he has a piece in Salon about these men and numerous other powerful political figures and their ties to this secretive organization:

Today's roll call is just as impressive: Men under the Family's religio-political counsel include, in addition to Ensign, Coburn and Pickering, Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Jim DeMint and Lindsey Graham, both R-S.C.; James Inhofe, R-Okla., John Thune, R-S.D., and recent senators and high officials such as John Ashcroft, Ed Meese, Pete Domenici and Don Nickles. Over in the House there's Joe Pitts, R-Penn., Frank Wolf, R-Va., Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., Ander Crenshaw, R-Fla., Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan., Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., Jo Ann Emerson, R-Mo., and John R. Carter, R-Texas. Historically, the Family has been strongly Republican, but it includes Democrats, too. There's Mike McIntyre of North Carolina, for instance, a vocal defender of putting the Ten Commandments in public places, and Sen. Mark Pryor, the pro-war Arkansas Democrat responsible for scuttling Obama's labor agenda. Sen. Pryor explained to me the meaning of bipartisanship he'd learned through the Family: "Jesus didn't come to take sides. He came to take over." And by Jesus, the Family means the Family.

... I met the younger Coe when I lived for several weeks as a member of the Family. He's a surprising source of counsel, spiritual or otherwise. Attempting to explain what it means to be chosen for leadership like King David was -- or Mark Sanford, according to his own estimate -- he asked a young man who'd put himself, body and soul, under the Family's authority, "Let's say I hear you raped three little girls. What would I think of you?" The man guessed that Coe would probably think that he was a monster. "No," answered Coe, "I wouldn't." Why? Because, as a member of the Family, he's among what Family leaders refer to as the "new chosen." If you're chosen, the normal rules don't apply.

The entire thing is fascinating and worth reading, but I was particularly interested in Sharlet's explanation of how the organization regularly funds junkets overseas for its members that are, in essence, missionary trips:

M]ost of the trips sponsored by the Family aren't pleasure junkets. They're missionary work. Only the Family missionaries aren't representing the United States. They're representing "Jesus plus nothing," as Doug Coe puts it ... when they arrive in other countries, on trips paid for by the Family, at the behest of the Family, they are still traveling under official government auspices, on official business, with the pomp and circumstance -- and access -- of their taxpayer-funded, elected positions.

Considering that Sen. Jim Inhofe is reportedly a member of the organization as well, this goes a long way toward explaining this video we posted earlier this year in which he bragged to Faith and Action's Rob Schenck about this missionary trips through which he uses his standing as a US Senator to bring people to Jesus:

In fact, in this video posted today by Faith and Action’s Rob Schenck, it sounds an awful like Inhofe is using these trips for exactly that purpose, as he relates how, before his first trip to Africa, he found out that his daughter was also going to be there doing missionary work and told her that “if you go with me, it’s free.” He also explains that the trips are part of the “politics of Jesus” whereby Christians are instructed to take the name of Jesus to the kings. Being a US Senator, Inhofe says, means Africans think he is important and so he can always get in to see the kings, where he can tell them that he has come “in the spirit of Jesus.” Inhofe even holds up a copy of the Oklahoman featuring the above-mentioned article to defend himself, saying the article is an example of “persecution” and insisting that he is doing this work as a private citizen before trumpeting the fact that, through his work, he has managed to bring entire African villages to Jesus.

Despite the fact that it has only been a few weeks since Ralph Reed announced the formation of his new Faith and Freedom Coalition and that the effort appears to consist entirely of a bare-bones website, he is getting lots of attention and is seemingly succeeding in resurrecting his reputation and re-establishing himself as a bona fide leader of the Religious Right.

Today, Reed was interviewed by Newsmax where he gave his thoughts on Sonia Sotomayor, the Obama administration, and the 2012 GOP presidential primary, as well as explaining just what role his new Faith and Freedom Coalition will play in it all:

"It is a coalition of grassroots citizens, conservatives — both fiscal and social conservatives — people of faith, and others who are concerned about the direction of our country," Reed said.

"Look at what's happening in Washington today, with the overreach on healthcare, rationing healthcare, dramatically raising taxes, crushing small business, the cap-and-tax energy plan, the failed stimulus package, liberal judicial nominees, a weakening of our defense, sending signals in my view of timidity in prosecuting the war on terrorism.

"The Faith and Freedom Coalition is designed not only to oppose the Obama agenda in Washington, but to offer conservative constructive alternatives.

"We need to get this economy moving again. We need to create jobs. We believe the way to do that is lower taxes, limited government, fiscal discipline, stronger families, and the growth of small business."

Reed said one priority of the Faith and Freedom Coalition is to bring younger people into the conservative ranks. The organization intends to have a strong presence on college campuses, and to employ Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites that young people use to communicate.

"We need to be hipper, more technology savvy," he said. "This is where the culture is going and we need to be there if we're going to compete."

He also said the coalition plans to have chapters in every key county in the country, in all 50 states, and virtual chapters on line.

Newsmax also has the nine minute audio of the interview posted as well, which I am not embedding here because it annoyingly starts automatically playing as soon as it loads.

Though Reed continues to insist that "this isn't your daddy's Christian Coalition," I have to say that the more I hear about it, the more it sounds exactly like the Christian Coalition, only with the addition of social networking.

So I am going to make a bold prediction: spreading the age-old Religious Right agenda on Twitter and Facebook is not going to make it any "hipper."

Alliance Defense Fund President has sent a letter [PDF] to Attorney General Eric Holder requesting a meeting to discuss how to Obama Administration plans "to fight illegal, obscene pornography on a national level":

Since the advent of the Internet, illegal pornography has flooded homes, businesses, public libraries, and even schools. The results have been devastating to America. Pornography addiction is now common among men, women, and even many children. Children are creating cell phone child pornography, in a new trend called, "sexting." Pornography use is now a significant factor in divorce. Hotels. motels, cable and satellite companies, and other businesses are making tremendous profits by offering illegal, obscene pornography. America is becoming a "pornified culture," as author and Time magazine writer Pamela Paul has stated.

We are compelled to write to you and ask for an expansion of the Administration's efforts against the scourge of pornography. To discuss this issue further, we respectfully request to meet with you at the earliest opportunity.

This isn't really that much of a surprise as fighting pornography has always been one of the Religious Right's pet issues and one on which they regularly faulted the Bush Administration for failing to adequately pursue.

In fact, the only reason I am even mentioning this particular letter is because it has been signed by seemingly every Religious Right activst in the country.  ADF reports that it secured the signatures of "nearly 400 other pro-family advocates [from] across the nation" and while the letter itself runs about a page, it is followed by thirteen pages of signatures and has been joined by dozens of well known figures like Tony Perkins, Gary Bauer, Tom Minnery, Rod Parsley, Don Wildmon, Wendy Wright, Jan LaRue, Mat Staver, Kelly Shackelford, Matt Barber, and Peter LaBarbera, it has also been signed by hundreds of local leaders as well as dozens of attorneys and people who just seem to be concerned citizens.

I realize that they are trying to demonstrate that the Religious Right really cares about this issue, but doesn't this seem to be a bit of overkill?

• Several progressive groups have joined a letter voicing opposition to several amendments offered by Senator Jeff Sessions to the hate crimes legislation.
• Lou Dobbs sure does seem to be dedicating a lot of time to the Birthers and their claims.
• On a related note, David Weigel continues his excellent coverage of the issue, pointing out how it is starting to dog Republicans.
• Chris Rodda takes up Rep. Randy Forbes' challenge to debate his "spiritual heritage week" resolution.
• Steve Benen notes that Gov. Mark Sanford wants to make it known that he is really, really sorry for going AWOL for several days and having an affair.
• Alan Colmes: Free Republic Founder Calls For Peaceful Overthrow Of US Government.
• Finally, Jim Burroway reports that Lou Engle and Charlotte, North Carolina-based pastor Michael Brown are teaming up to bring in thousands of volunteers to overwhelm this year's Charlotte Pride event.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has an Executive Business Meeting for tomorrow at which Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court will be on the schedule.  It is widely expected that Committee Republicans will seek a one-week delay on the vote, pushing it back until July 28th.

President Obama has made it clear that he wants to see a confirmation vote in the Senate before it leaves for its August recess, which is scheduled to begin on August 10th.

That would leave the Senate with a little more than a week to bring her nomination to the floor for a vote and it is assumed that efforts to get her confirmed before the recess will be successful ... and that is, predictably, angering right-wing groups who hope to use the August recess to try and build a campaign to oppose her nomination:

Republicans had their own political pressures as well. With seven GOP men on the Judiciary Committee, they did not want to appear overly aggressive with Sotomayor, who would become just the third female justice. And given that they lack enough votes to sustain a filibuster, even if they wanted to, attempting to delay the seating of a nominee who will almost certainly be confirmed would likely cost them support from Latinos, a fast-growing constituency that is already voting heavily Democratic. As a result, they're backing down on earlier demands to delay a final vote until September.

"In any case, conservatives will not be happy if the GOP rolls over with regard to Obama's politically motivated goal of getting Sotomayor confirmed before the August recess," said Curt Levey, head of the conservative group Committee for Justice.

While some conservatives say that GOP senators effectively laid out inconsistencies in her testimony, activists want the slow-news month of August - when Congress is on recess – to build a campaign opposing her nomination.

Charmaine Yoest, head of the anti-abortion group Americans United for Life who testified against Sotomayor, said that an extra month would be helpful to her cause.

"The more time we have to educate people, the more we would continue to emphasize to people that a vote for her is a vote for abortion on demand without any restrictions whatsoever," Yoest said.

Presumably, as the August deadline approaches, we'll be hearing a lot more from Manuel Miranda and his Third Branch Coalition, which has made delaying Sotomayor's confirmation vote until September a test of loyalty  for GOP senators and been consistently urging the use of a filibuster in order to achieve the desired delay.

Whether or not Republicans in the Senate bow to the Right's demands remains to be seen.

Last week, in announcing that he would be hosting yet another press conference at the National Press Club, this time "to discuss what he and other pro-life leaders will and will not do if healthcare passes and includes paying for child-killing," Randall Terry declared that Congress would be responsible for any violence that occurred as a result:

It is clear that many elements in the pro-abortion congress and White House want to force Americans to pay for the murder of the unborn in their "healthcare" program.

If that happens, it is tantamount to the government putting a gun to taxpayers' heads to pay for the brutal murder of an innocent child. This is tyranny and evil of the highest order.

"Please understand: neither I, nor any thinking person wants the convulsions that would inevitably come from such a government policy -- the decision to force Americans to pay for the murder of their neighbor.

"Nevertheless, the sheer horror and frustration of such an evil policy will lead some people to absolutely refuse to pay their taxes. And I believe -- if my reading of history from America and around the world is correct -- that there are others who will be tempted to acts of violence.

"If the government of this country tramples the faith and values of its citizens, history will hold those in power responsible for the violent convulsions that follow."

Today, Terry issued another press release announcing those who would be joining him at the conference, which consists largely of people of whom we have never heard, plus "a Catholic Priest [and] a leader from the 'tea party movement'" and warned that passage of any such measure would cause people to snap, leading to "horrific consequences" unlike any this nation has seen "since the Civil War":

If Congress votes to fund the murder of babies by abortion in any "health care" bill -- either explicitly or implicitly -- there could be horrific consequences.

Pelosi and Co. cannot expect millions of Americans to betray God, and to pay for the murder of their neighbor without something snapping. They must not delude themselves: Congress runs the real risk of national convulsions that have not been seen since the 60s, or perhaps since the civil war if they try to compel Americans to pay for the murder of the innocent.

If they attempt to fund abortion, it is tantamount to the government putting a gun to taxpayers' heads to pay for the brutal murder of an innocent child. There are many of us who will not comply.

• I, for one, am growing increasingly weary of Randall Terry's need for attention.
• Gov. Mark Sanford's spokesperson has apparently had enough of trying to defend his boss.
• Gov. Rick Perry is now "asking the federal government for a loan to cover the very expenses the rejected stimulus money would have paid for."
• Gary Bauer explains why Democrats don't like Sarah Palin: they hate Trig.
• Ralph Reed offers his brilliant insights on how "Republicans can reap significant political benefits by voting against [Sonia Sotomayor's] confirmation and making her an issue in key races next year."
• The Liberty Counsel comments on the hate crimes legislation, warning that Democrats "will not be able to continue their efforts to undermine moral values, socialize the economy, and trash American pride and heritage. The people will not remain silent forever."
• Finally, a newspaper in Indiana is coming under fire from the Religious Right for posting an engagement of a gay couple planning to wed in Iowa and offers a very clear response:

Same-sex marriage is legal in Iowa, where the couple lives and plans to marry. Since one of the young men is originally from Elkhart and his family still lives here, we did the same thing we’d do for any other local family with a child getting married — we published the couple’s engagement announcement.