August 2009

From The New York Times:

Senator Jim DeMint, the South Carolina Republican who predicted that President Obama’s effort to overhaul the health care system would become his “Waterloo,” is doing his best to make that happen.

Taking questions from a friendly crowd of 500 people here the other day, Mr. DeMint did little to correct their misimpressions about health care legislation but rather reinforced their worst fears.

When one man said the major House bill would give the government electronic access to bank accounts, Mr. DeMint told him the bill was never about health care. “This is about more government control,” he declared. “If it was about health care, we could get it done in a couple of weeks.”

And why does he keep lying about it? Because it is good for his politics:

More recently, in mid-July, he crystallized what Democrats said was the Republicans’ true goal in the health care debate.

“If we’re able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo,” he said in a conference call with conservative activists, according to Politico.com. “It will break him.”

Now, with Congress set to return to Washington on Sept. 8, polls show that support for health care legislation has indeed eroded, and Mr. DeMint takes partial credit.

“We’ve definitely got him on the run,” he said in an interview.

He said that stopping the overhaul “has the potential of changing the whole political dynamic in this country,” both by halting other Obama policies, like the cap-and-trade approach to limiting emissions of the heat-trapping gases that cause global warming, and by reviving the Republicans in next year’s elections.

...

But Mr. DeMint distances himself from both parties. As he put it, “None of us wants the people who ran cash for clunkers or who cleaned up after Katrina to be between us and our doctors.”

From the Washington Post:

Bishop Harry Jackson is refusing to relent from his campaign to stop same-sex marriage in the District, despite the drubbing he took before the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics this summer.

Jackson sent out a statement Monday stating that he and other opponents of same-sex marriages will file an initiative request with the elections board Tuesday.

If approved by the board, the initiative will give District residents an opportunity to vote sometime next year on whether to legalize same-sex marriage in the District. Jackson, who believes that most city voters oppose same-sex marriage, is hoping his proposal will slow efforts in the D.C. Council to legalize those marriages.

Last week, Sam Stein caught Mike Huckabee declaring that Sen. Ted Kennedy would have been told to go home and die under President Obama's healthcare reform plan:

The 2008 Republican presidential candidate suggested during his radio show, "The Huckabee Report," on Thursday that, under President Obama's health care plan, Kennedy would have been told to "go home to take pain pills and die" during his last year of life.

"[I]t was President Obama himself who suggested that seniors who don't have as long to live might want to consider just taking a pain pill instead of getting an expensive operation to cure them," said Huckabee. "Yet when Sen. Kennedy was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer at 77, did he give up on life and go home to take pain pills and die? Of course not. He freely did what most of us would do. He choose an expensive operation and painful follow up treatments. He saw his work as vitally important and so he fought for every minute he could stay on this earth doing it. He would be a very fortunate man if his heroic last few months were what future generations remember him most for."

Where is he getting his misinformation? From Mat Staver?

On a related note, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review conducted an interview with Huckabee recently in which he laid out his own plan for healthcare reform, but bitterly lamented that nobody takes his recommendations seriously "because people still think I'm an idiot":

HUCKABEE: The real issue is the uninsured. Identify the people who are truly uninsurable. ... I've said for a long time that they misidentified it. The issue is not who's uninsured but who's uninsurable. Some people are uninsured because they choose to be. They either don't fill out the paperwork for the government programs they already qualify for ... or they're young, healthy, virile, indestructible 20-something-year-olds.

I think there ought to be a high-risk insurance pool ... for people who have a debilitating long-term disease -- maybe a child who's hydrocephalic or simply autistic or has severe developmental disabilities. It would work a lot like TEFRA (the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act) begun in 1982 under Reagan. Only about 18 states participate, but Arkansas was one of them and so that's why I'm very familiar with it.

We went through a process of revamping it. ... The basic idea is that, historically, families would have to impoverish themselves in order to qualify for the assistance that was necessary to keep their child at home. What this did was allow them to get services that they really needed. ... We put in a sliding-scale copay. We had parents making $300,000 a year in combined income, so they certainly weren't qualified for Medicaid. But on the other hand, if they had to suddenly start absorbing $100,000 in medical expenses it would kill them. So they ended up paying a portion of it.

Q: Has anybody approached you or tried to follow Arkansas' lead on that?

HUCKABEE: No, because people still think I'm an idiot. I think I could walk across the Atlantic Ocean to Paris and, you know, they would come along and say that Huckabee can't swim.

Every fall for the last several years, the Family Research Council and allied groups like Focus on the Family and American Values have hosted the Values Voter Summit to which Republican presidential candidates have come seeking the support of Religious Right activists while right-wing speakers have warned that the Antichrist is gay and exhorted the audience to use words like"faggot" and "sissy" as a statement of principle.

This year things look to be a little different as organizers seek to get in on all the right-wing activism that is the rage at the moment, tweaking what has traditionally been known as the "Values Voter Summit" so that it is now being billed as the "Values Voter Town Hall":

Like the upcoming How To Take Back America Conference, this event is offering a variety of exciting and informative workshops and break-out sessions as well:

I am particularly intrigued by the panel entitled "The New Masculinity" and really look forward to hearing what Senator Tom Coburn's Chief of Staff has to say about it:

THE NEW MASCULINITY
Dr. Pat Fagan, Senior Fellow and Director, Center for Family and Religion, FRC; Michael Schwartz, Chief of Staff, Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.); Dr. Matthew Spalding, Director, B. Kenneth Simon Center for Studies, The Heritage Foundation

Feminism has wreaked havoc on marriage, women, children and men. It is time to redress the disorder it has wrought and that must start with getting the principles and ideals for a new "masculinism" right. Such a "masculinism" will have its dovetailing counterpart in a new "feminism" for they mutually define each other and, in nature, are meant to be complimentary. This panel will begin this exploration.

I've written a lot of posts recently (and not so recently) about the sorts of right-wing figures that Mike Huckabee regularly associates with, especially in light of his upcoming appearance at the How To Take Back America Conference which is being hosted by a gaggle of radical right-wingers such as Rick Scarborough, Janet Porter, Phyllis Schlafly, Don Wildmon, and others.

One of those others is Mat Staver, who is the founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, the group that was selling the "proud to be a right-wing extremist" cards earlier this year, and who recently declared that gay marriage would lead to an entire generation of violent criminals and also blasted the state of Vermont for granting marrige equality, saying "if [elected officials] can't understand this basic human relationship between a man and a woman, then they absolutely are not competent for public office" and warning that "what we are seeing in America is literally the beginnings of another revolution" from the "silent majority" who will draw a line in the sand, leading to "another American Revolution."

Staver also served on Huckabee's Faith and Family Values Coalition during his presidential campaign. But it seems as if Huck's relationship with Staver is not limited purely to domestic political needs because, via Marc Ambinder, we see that the two of them are heading off to Israel together:

This February I am headed back again [with] my wife Janet, Mat Staver of the Liberty Counsel and Congressman Bob McEwen and anyone interested in seeing the Holy Land. This will be one of the most unique trips I have ever put together as it will not only include the biblical points of interests, but it also will provide a unique insight on the political and governmental aspects of the State of Israel, including an international town hall with government officials from Israel.

Staver has also been deeply involved in the Religious Right's efforts to scuttle any healthcare reform, both through the Freedom Federation and through his own group, Liberty Counsel.

Which brings us to this new FactCheck.org piece which took a look an email analyzing healthcare reform legislation that has been rocketing around conservative websites and inboxes for the last few weeks that FactCheck says is almost entirely false:

Our inbox has been overrun with messages asking us to weigh in on a mammoth list of claims about the House health care bill. The chain e-mail purports to give "a few highlights" from the first half of the bill, but the list of 48 assertions is filled with falsehoods, exaggerations and misinterpretations. We examined each of the e-mail’s claims, finding 26 of them to be false and 18 to be misleading, only partly true or half true. Only four are accurate.

...

We can trace the origins of this collection of claims to a conservative blogger who issued his instant and mostly mistaken analyses as brief "tweets" sent via Twitter as he was paging through the 1,017-page bill. The claims have been embraced as true and posted on hundreds of Web sites, and forwarded in the form of chain e-mails countless times. But there’s hardly any truth in them.

The conservative blogger to which FactCheck points is Peter Fleckenstein and his "Common Sense from a Common Man" blog at http://blog.flecksoflife.com.

As I was reading through the list of false claims that FactCheck examined, they seemed very familiar ... and in fact, they were.  And that is because Liberty Counsel recently released is own "analysis" of the healthcare reform legislation called "Obama Administration’s Health Care Plan." And just take a guess as to where most of the claims came from?

And, of course, once Liberty posted it's piece, that gave the false claims added "legitimacy" and so it became a "source" for others on the Religious Right looking to spread them.

So says Rev. Michael P. Orsi, a Research Fellow in Law and Religion at Ave Maria School of Law:

On Wednesday the Church further diminished her credibility when it was announced that a Mass of Christian Burial would be celebrated for Senator Edward M. Kennedy at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica. It was also announced that President Barack Obama would be the eulogist.

...

A Mass of Christian Burial is a privilege -- not a right. It is for those who have lived a Christian life. Senator Kennedy’s scandalous disregard of his Church’s teaching and the destruction of human life that may be attributed to his voting record make his funeral celebration quite dubious. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “Scandal is an attitude or behavior which leads another to evil… and that it takes on a particular gravity by reason of the authority of those who cause it”(n. 2284-85). For such a person the Code of Canon Law says, “Church funeral rites are to be denied to the following (unless they gave some sign of repentance before death): manifest sinners to whom a Church funeral could not be granted without public scandal to the faithful” (c. 1184.3). How many Catholics have been led astray by Senator Kennedy and other prominent pro-choice Catholics? And, finally, how many other Catholic politicians will be emboldened to emulate his behavior because the honor the Church is extending to him?

Some will argue that the Church, by its very nature, always gives the benefit of the doubt to the sinner. Yet, even such an act of charity calls for a pastoral solution so as not to mislead others and cause greater harm. In this case, a subdued funeral service should be offered for the repose of Senator Kennedy’s soul. It should be made clear that, as it is the purpose of every Catholic funeral, the Mass is being celebrated to beg God’s mercy for the deceased. But, then even this solution would be meaningless when the nation’s most pro-choice president ever is permitted to eulogize his ideological soul mate in the Church’s sanctuary.

• Is there anything that Religious Right groups can't find a way to complain about?  Apparently not.
• Hey, what do you know? The Freedom Federation finally set up a website.
• Washington Times: South Carolina Republican lawmakers are on the verge of calling a special legislative session that could impeach and remove embattled GOP Gov. Mark Sanford by the end of the year.
• Sen. David Vitter gets a challenger.
• Want to listen to the American Family Association's Tim Wildmon talk about college football?  Well, you are in luck.
• Institute for Creation Research announced the first of its 2009 "Demand the Evidence" conferences, to be held in Jacksonville, Florida on October 9-10 where "attendees will learn biblical and scientific evidences for the accuracy and authority of Genesis, the complex design of the human body, the facts that support recent creation, the flaws in Darwin's theory of evolution, and much more."

As David Weigel reported a few weeks ago, during one of Grover Norquist’s weekly breakfast meetings, some participants hit up the idea of launching a pledge for members of Congress to take vowing not to vote on healthcare reform legislation unless they’d read the entire bill.

A short time later, Let Freedom Ring announced its "Responsible Healthcare Reform Pledge" which has, to date, secured several dozen congressional commitments to do just that.

But one name that is not on the list is Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe, and for good reason:

At a town hall meeting Wednesday Sen. Jim Inhofe told Chickasha residents he does not need to read the 1,000 page health care reform bill, he will simply vote against it.

“I don’t have to read it, or know what’s in it. I’m going to oppose it anyways,” he said.

Back in June he similarly decided that he didn't even need to bother meeting with Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor because he wasn't going to vote for her anyway:

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) is dead set on voting against Sonia Sotomayor's nomination. In fact, he's so certain of his position that he refuses to even meet with her.

Sotomayor has been meeting privately with Senators over the last few weeks, but when it was Inhofe's turn, he declined.

Inhofe's spokesman explained that since the Senator has already decided to vote against the nomination, there's no reason to waste time on a sit-down discussion.

It sure must make the job of being a senator easier when you just decide in advance that you aren't going to support something and thereby can avoid the tedious task of actually understanding an issue so that you can cast an informed vote on it.

I have never really understood the Religious Right's love of Sarah Palin, especially in light of the fact that she repeatedly stiffs them.

Within days of bursting onto the national scene as John McCain's running mate, Palin backed out of her scheduled appearance at the Republican National Coalition for Life's reception during the Republican National Convention, a move that enraged event organizer Phyllis Schlafly.

While Palin's need to back out of that particular event could be justified by the fact that, having suddenly become a vice presidential nominee, she obviously had bigger priorities than attending Schalfly's luncheon, in retrospect it turns out that it was actually just the first in a long series of such snubs.

As the Anchorage Daily News reports, Palin has now done it again:

Organizers of an Anchorage event that has been billing Sarah Palin for weeks as a star speaker were left scrambling Wednesday after learning that the former governor won't be there for tonight's event and claims to have never been asked.

It would be at least the fourth time in recent months that an anticipated Palin speech has fallen through after Palin and her camp disputed they had ever confirmed it. That includes the brouhaha over whether she'd speak at the annual congressional Republican fundraising dinner in Washington, D.C., this summer.

This time it's an event promoting an Alaska ballot measure aimed at making it illegal for teens to get an abortion without telling their parents. The Alaska Family Council has been advertising that Palin would give a speech and become the first official signer of the ballot petition tonight at ChangePoint, the Anchorage megachurch.

Palin spokeswoman Meg Stapleton said Wednesday, in response to inquiries from the Daily News about tonight's event, that "this is the first we have ever heard of a speech." She said Palin is out of state and won't be there.

Stapleton declined to provide details on where Palin is and what she is doing.

Alaska Family Council President Jim Minnery said it was news to him when a reporter told him that Stapleton was saying Palin had no knowledge of the speech, which his group has been promoting. He said organizers have been talking to Palin "contacts" for weeks about it.

"All we can do is take people at their word that we've worked with in the past," Minnery said. "We've been working for several weeks on the event, promoting it very heavily. It would be a grave disappointment if she doesn't show up but the show will still go on."

I know we probably shouldn't expect much for a governor who can't even bother to finish her one-term in office, but Palin's seeming inability to honor even her most basic commitments is truly laughable.

Last year we wrote about a provision inserted into legislation by Kentucky State Rep. Tom Riner requiring the state's Office of Homeland Security to openly and repeatedly stress “the dependence on Almighty God as being vital to the security of the Commonwealth" and thank God for keeping the state safe. The provision has now been ruled unconstitutional:

A judge on Wednesday struck down a 2006 state law that required the Kentucky Office of Homeland Security to stress “dependence on Almighty God as being vital to the security of the commonwealth.”

Franklin Circuit Judge Thomas Wingate ruled that the law violated the First Amendment’s protection against the establishment of a state religion. Homeland Security officials have been required for three years to credit “Almighty God” in their official reports and post a plaque with similar language at the state’s Emergency Operations Center in Frankfort.

“Even assuming that most of this nation’s citizens have historically depended upon God by choice for their protection, this does not give the General Assembly the right to force citizens to do so now,” Wingate wrote.

“This is the very reason the Establishment Clause was created: to protect the minority from the oppression of the majority,” he wrote. “The commonwealth’s history does not exclude God from the statutes, but it had never permitted the General Assembly to demand that its citizens depend on Almighty God.”

State Rep. Tom Riner, D-Louisville, a Southern Baptist minister, placed the “Almighty God” language into a homeland security bill without much notice.

Riner said Wednesday that he is unhappy with the judge’s ruling. The way he wrote the law, he said, it did not mandate that Kentuckians depend on God for their safety, it simply acknowledged that government without God cannot protect its citizens.

“The decision would have shocked and disappointed Thomas Jefferson, who penned the words that the General Assembly paraphrased in this legislation,” Riner said.

Would you expect anything else? 

I know there's an old adage that one shouldn't speak ill of the dead.

But I don't subscribe to the idea that when evil and foolish people die we should pretend they were something other than evil and foolish.

And Ted Kennedy was evil and foolish.

He wasn't just a politician with whom I disagreed.

He was a rotten man – a wicked man.

...

Over four decades he has served as a kind of "enemy within" the American political system – attempting to elicit the support of the Soviet Union against President Reagan's policies in the 1980s, ignoring the tax-cutting prescription of his elder brother, failing to learn the real lessons of Vietnam, failing even to learn the lessons of his own brother's errors of appeasement in the Bay of Pigs, practicing his own unique brand of plantation racism and blaming America for all the problems of the world. That's Ted Kennedy.

That even one of the 50 states would deem him worthy of serving in the U.S. Senate for most of his life is something of a national disgrace.

Have I mentioned that, next month, Mike Huckabee will be headlining an event that Farah is co-hosting?

• Joseph Farah wants Sean Hannity to run for president.
• South Carolina's Lt. Governor called on Gov. Mark Sanford to resign. Sanford says he won't.
• Due to the controversy last year, the Washington state Department of General Administration has announced an interim policy that does not permit the public to place displays and exhibits inside capitol buildings.
• Is there any bogus right-wing outrage that the ACLJ won't jump on?  Obviously not.
• Mat Staver accuses Americans United of wanting to throw the needy out on the street.  Of course, Staver is lying.
• Gary Bauer is upset because President Obama does not hate Islam enough.
• Finally, Randy Thomasson of SaveCalifornia.com responds to news that Harvey Milk will be inducted into the California Hall of Fame:

"Harvey Milk was a notorious sexual predator, advocated multiple sexual relationships at the same time, was a public liar, and is in no way a good role model for children," said Randy Thomasson, president of SaveCalifornia.com. "It's sad and disappointing that the Governor and First Lady are honoring this man who did many dishonorable deeds."

Earlier today The Freedom Federation held its press conference demanding "explicit exclusion" for abortion coverage in any legislation as well as protections "for those with debilitating or terminal illness and the elderly."

That was too be expected ... as was this sort of crassly moronic attempt to use Sen. Ted Kennedy's passing to bolster their case, I suppose:

“When [Kennedy] faced a serious health problem he did not go to England, he did not go to Canada, he did not go to a country that has a government plan. He sought treatment in the country that he believed had the best treatment available, and that is America,” said Wendy Wright, President of Concerned Women For America, during a news briefing at the National Press Club. “That is a lesson that we can take from Ted Kennedy.”

Of course, nobody is arguing that our healthcare treatments are not excellent; they are arguing that our method of getting people access to those treatments is in need of reform.  Those are two completely different issues.

On a semi-related note, Frank Pavone of Priests for Life has announced the creation of what it calls "Political Responsibility Teams" that will be dedicated to getting churches to "speak out" on political issues and "educate and activate citizens to exercise their responsibility to participate in the electoral process."

Again that is not particularly surprising, considering that new right-wing organization seems to be popping up every other week.  But I don't even know what to make of this statement: 

Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life, the Catholic Church's largest pro-life ministry, stated today, "The reason for the mess we are in with the health care reform debate is the elections of 2008, and the way out of the mess will be the elections of 2010 and 2012."

I honestly have no idea that that is even supposed to mean.  Is he suggesting that if Barack Obama had not become President and Democrats had not taken control of Congress last year, the healthcare reform debate would be just swimming along all nice and peaceful like?  

If you want to know what is really causing the "mess" in the healthcare reform debate, these sorts of inane statements from Religious Right groups pretty much exemplify it.

It didn't work for Mike Huckabee, but maybe Roy Moore will have better luck:

Chuck Norris, internationally known martial arts expert, actor, and media personality has endorsed Judge Roy Moore for Governor of Alabama. Norris believes Judge Moore is the strongest, best qualified candidate in the race for Alabama's gubernatorial leader, the person who can best lead the state forward in the difficult times ahead.

Judge Moore and Chuck Norris have much in common in addition to their strong conservative beliefs, including their martial arts skills and their service in our nation's armed forces. Mr. Norris has won numerous martial arts tournaments around the world. As described in Judge Moore's book, So Help Me God. Jude Moore fought professionally as a kick-boxer in both the U.S. and Australia, and is known for his strong leadership as a judge and as an Army company commander in Vietnam.

Judge Moore's campaign is based on his defense of our individual rights, his plan for creating new jobs through the proven economic principles of Supply Side economics ("Reaganomics") which brought our nation and state out of a severe recession in the 1980's-by cutting taxes and reducing the size of government. He also has a strong plan to eliminate waste and corruption in state government. Judge Moore is well known for keeping his promises.

Moore, for those who may not remember, was tossed off the Alabama Supreme Court back in 2003 for defying a federal judge's order to move a Ten Commandments monument from the state Supreme Court building.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post noting that some of Randall Terry's allies had suddenly started bad mouthing Troy Newman ahead of an anticipated Los Angeles Times article about the war between the two over ownership of the name "Operation Rescue."

That article was published today and, frankly, neither man comes out looking particularly good:

Years ago, Randall Terry and Troy Newman were brothers in arms in the struggle against legal abortion.

"Troy was my son in the movement," said Terry, 50, a onetime used-car salesman from upstate New York who founded Operation Rescue in 1986. Terry rose to fame leading clinic blockades until lawsuits, jail terms and finally a stunning 1998 legal settlement forced him to abandon his militant tactics, and he faded from the forefront of the struggle.

Newman, meanwhile, was an up-and-coming activist in San Diego and a spokesman for Operation Rescue there. He admired Terry's energy, charisma and rhetoric. "Randall was the first guy to say, 'If abortion is murder, then act like it,' " said Newman, now 43, who became president of Operation Rescue West in 1999. "A lot of us concur that God used him at a certain time for certain projects. For a time."

But today, the two abortion foes are locked in an increasingly nasty battle over ownership of the Operation Rescue name, which Newman trademarked in 2006.

Terry has called his former protege a weasel. Newman has branded Terry a charlatan.

Operation Rescue is a name worth fighting for: Whoever controls it benefits from its unquestionable ability to raise money from those who oppose abortion.

"Why does Troy need my name? What does he get from stealing another man's heritage? Money and media," said Terry in a telephone interview from Falls Church, Va. He moved to the Washington suburb from Florida last year in an effort to reestablish himself as a national leader in the antiabortion fight, which has heated up with Democrats in control of the White House and Congress.

Newman, for his part, has accused Terry of being a dilettante and financial failure who hopes to recapture Operation Rescue because it is "the goose that's laid the golden egg."

"Randall is articulate and convincing," Newman said from Wichita, Kan. "But so are used-car salesmen and cult leaders. He is not a true believer but a charlatan, and a manipulator. . . . He shows up at a national event, makes a flamboyant speech, gets everyone within earshot rattled and then passes the collection plate and moves on."

Patrick Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition announces that they are heading up to Martha's Vineyard to conduct protests during President Obama's vacation:

The activists will be holding large banners saying "Abortion is Not Health Care" and "President Obama human rights begin in the womb... Protect America's children."

The events on Martha's Vineyard are part of a national campaign called "Abortion is Not Health Care" sponsored by the Christian Defense Coalition, Operation Rescue, Expectant Mother Care and the Coalition for Life.

Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney, Director of the Christian Defense Coalition, states,

"We are traveling to Martha's Vineyard to publicly remind the President that abortion is not health care and not one penny of public monies should be spent on paying for abortions.

"We think it is important during this national debate on health care, that President Obama embrace social justice and human rights for all. We do not want the President to turn health care, which is supposed to heal and bring comfort to those in need, into something that destroys and diminishes innocent human life.

"Our activities will remind President Obama there is no vacation from human rights, social justice and the truth.

• The Family Research Council is demanding that "President Obama support a ban on all federal abortion funding in health reform" legislation.
• The Hill: The Club for Growth is sending a letter to each of Utah's delegates to the state Republican convention and running an ad hitting Sen. Bob Bennett for advocating “government-run healthcare.”
• The Pacific Justice Institute is launching its new Center for Public Policy, a 501(c)(4) organization, this week in an effort to assist California legislators to enact laws benefiting all Californians.
• Sarah Palin and Star Parker, together at last.
• I assume that we'll be seeing lots of "horror stories" from this book from the Center for Public Policy Research cropping up in right-wing talking points in coming weeks.
• Finally, the Media Research Center says that the Center for American Progress is bad, bad, bad:

"The Center for American Progress is very anti-free speech, very anti-free market. All things that made this country great irk them tremendously," [Seton Motley, the director of communications at the Media Research Center] notes. "So yes, they are a pretty bad organization."

When I saw an article covering a forum hosted by the Alabama Christian Coalition with candidates running for governor, I have to admit that I did not expect this:

Five Republicans and one Democrat running for governor showed up tonight at Taylor Road Baptist Church in Montgomery for a forum sponsored by the Alabama Christian Coalition.

But this was not your typical Christian Coalition forum, at least not compared to what has typically been the focus of political get-togethers sponsored by the group before it underwent a split several years ago and then came back under new leadership, leadership that many Republicans in the state now believe is nowhere near as conservative as the group once was.

Evidence of that was everywhere Monday. For starters, the panel asking questions featured some moderate Democrats along with some Republicans.

The real indication that maybe the focus of the group is not what it once was came when the questions were asked of the candidates. In a two-hour event, not one question was asked about their views on same-sex marriage, abortion, school prayer or even their views on taxes.

Some candidates, such as Republican Bill Johnson, had to seemingly go out of their way to say they were for traditional marriage and against abortion.

Other candidates, such as Republican Bradley Byrne and Democrat Artur Davis, occasionally referred to the Bible when making points. Former Chief Justice Roy Moore, who was the darling of the group as it existed in 2006 when he ran for the GOP nomination for governor, received at best polite applause but not the kind of thunderous ovations he saw three years ago.

Instead of plenty of questions about abortion, prayer and sin, Monday night's forum was filled with questions about health care, the economy, education and yes, some moral issues. But those took the form of what to do about crowded prisons, the candidates pledging not to play the race card -- Davis is black -- and whether gambling should be made legal and taxed.

The Christian Coalition of Alabama has undergone some confusing changes in recent years.  Back in 2006, then-president John Giles announced that they were breaking from the national Christian Coalition and reforming under the name Christian Action Alabama.  The Christian Coalition of Alabama subsequently tapped Randy Brinson as president and the two organizations then got into a legal battle over assets.

Brinson, who was a key backer of Mike Huckabee's presidential campaign, and his organization also made news last year when they attacked Freedom's Watch over ads it ran in the state because Sheldon Adelson, the man behind the organization, had made his fortune in the gambling industry and the even blasted the National Republican Congressional Committee for ads it ran attacking Democratic Congressional Candidate Parker Griffith, claiming the NRCC ad intentionally misrepresented some of Griffith's statements "to cast aspersions on his character, patriotism and even Christian commitment."

Interestingly, Giles left his new organization shortly after it broke with the Christian Coalition and now the organization appears defunct.  Meanwhile, the Christian Coalition of Alabama has been branching out and taking stances one would never have expected from this sort of group:

The Christian Coalition of Alabama teamed up with a Democratic lawmaker on Tuesday to call for better health care for the state's uninsured.

The event may defy con ventional wisdom about Christian Coalition priorities and partnerships, but it is only the latest example of what the group's leader says is an effort to expand its focus.

"Yes, we're ardently pro-life. Yes, we're ardently for marriage," said Dr. Randy Brinson, chairman of the state Christian Coalition. "But beyond just that, there's other moral failings that are having (an) impact. ... Not enough emphasis is put on that."

One such problem is the number of people who lack medical care because they are uninsured or underinsured, said Brinson, a Montgomery physician and lifelong Republican, during a news conference with state Sen. Linda Coleman, D-Birmingham.

Brinson and Coleman said the rising cost of gas and food exacerbate the plight of the uninsured, forcing them to choose between transportation, sustenance and basic medical care.

Yesterday I noted that the right-wing supergroup The Freedom Federation had taken its first public position on a policy issue by announcing its "opposition to health care policies that either fund abortion or ration care based on treating life as a mere cost-benefit commodity" and justified its position by citing standard right-wing lies about rationing care and killing grandmothers.

Tomorrow, the group is holding a press conference, presumably so that they can spread these sorts of lies even further:

The Freedom Federation, a cross-section of multi-ethnic and transgenerational Evangelical groups, will hold a press conference to address the impact of health care reform on issues of human life and liberty.

The press conference will be held Wednesday, August 26, at 10:00 a.m. at the National Press Club.

Wendy Wright, President of Concerned Women for America, stated:

"Doctors have earned patients' trust because they've taken an oath to 'do no harm.' Politicians have lost Americans' trust because their health care legislation would harm unborn babies, the elderly, and disabled. What this debate comes down to is that people do not trust the government with their health care decisions."

So says Al Mohler:

The president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary says at least two-thirds of Southern Baptist youths are leaving the church between adolescence and adulthood.

In a speech at the seminary in Louisville, Ky., the Reverend R. Albert Mohler warned that the Southern Baptist Convention will die out unless that trend is reversed.

The problem, he said, is that many of today's young people have reduced Christianity to a vague belief that God just wants them "to do well, and to do right and to be happy." Mohler said Southern Baptists have an image problem, coming across as "cranky" instead of joyful.

But he added, "If we stand by the Scriptures, we are going to have to say hard things to a culture around us that will consider us backward, unloving, intolerant."

Until just last month, the Illinois Family Institute had been listed as an anti-gay hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.  Just days after the organization was removed from the SPLC list, IFI's Laurie Higgins penned a piece entitled "Church Should Fight Homosexuality Like It Did Nazism" (see this updated post for Higgins' explanation about why she was not responsible for this title and insisted that it be changed): 

We reassure ourselves that if we had lived during the age of slavery or in Germany during the rise of Nazism or during the post-Civil War era when virulent racism still poisoned American life, we would never have stood idly by and done nothing, but I'm not so sure. Look at the church's actions today when homosexuality and gender confusion are affirmed to and in our nation's children through our public schools using our hard-earned money. Where is the church? Where is the outrage? Where are the church leaders who rejoice in being persecuted?

I've asked this question before and I will ask it again: How depraved does the behavior have to be and how young the victims before the church, starting with those who have freely chosen to assume the mantle of pastor or priest, will both feel and express outrage at the indecent, cruel, and evil practice of using public money to affirm body and soul-destroying ideas to children?

In October, IFI is holding its "Family, Faith and Freedom Banquet" and guess who has been tapped as the keynote speaker:

Family, Faith and Freedom Banquet

Crowne Plaza O'Hare
5440 N. River Road
Rosemont, Illinois

Tuesday, October 6 at 6:30 p.m.

Dinner tickets are $100 each.
Tickets for dinner and a private reception with Gov. Mike Huckabee are $250.

Jeremy has the audio of the announcement in which Huckabee urges activists to attend because "I've got a lot to tell you about what I see happening as I travel across this nation and how, together, we can bring back the values that we all share: family, faith, and freedom. More importantly, by attending this banquet, you'll be helping the Illinois Family Institute continue to stand strong in promoting pro-family values across this great state. More than ever, we need to support organizations like IFI who boldly stand for the sanctity of life, religious freedom, and natural marriage."

This event comes just days after Huckabee is scheduled to appear at the How To Take Back America Conference, which features another SPLC hate group, MassResistance, and raises anew the question of just how radical an organization has to be before Huckabee will refuse to be seen with them.  At this point, there is seemingly no limit.

• Carrie Prejean says losing the Miss USA pageant and later her state crown was part of God's plan.
• The Hill: An aide to former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas), was indicted Friday on public corruption charges related to the wide-ranging case involving Jack Abramoff.
• Personhood Colorado announces that it is launching an effort to get its "personhood" amendment back on the ballot after its humiliating defeat last year, saying they are "seeing incremental advances for the personhood rights of the preborn."
• Gary Dull and his Faith and Freedom Institute announce that they will be conducting a "Patriotic Prayer Rally" at Lafayette Park in Washington, DC tomorrow.
• Janet Porter and gang will be hosting yet another web conference early next month highlighting the upcoming How To Take Back America Conference.
• Finally, Roy Moore came in second at the straw poll conducted by the St. Clair County [Alabama] Republican Party after a gubernatorial forum featuring all six Republican candidates seeking the party's nomination next year.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about a survey conducted by the Military Officers Association of America that purportedly showed that members of the military overwhelming oppose efforts to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

Elaine Donnelly immediately seized on it as "proof" that repealing DADT would destroy the US military because huge numbers of service members would leave the armed services.

The only problem was that the MOAA quickly repudiated the "resuts" of the survey, saying its "results were too skimpy and unreliable to be of any validity ... and therefore not a reliable indicator of how a population feels about an issue."

At the time, I said that "I highly doubt that will stop Donnelly from continuing to cite it as 'proof' in her campaign to protect the military from the scourge of homosexuality." And guess what? She's still citing it and claiming that the survey's findings were, in fact, valid:

The Military Officers Association of America, a large and influential veterans group, has even stifled such voices. In 2008, the association correctly anticipated efforts to repeal the 1993 law regarding homosexuals in the military, which frequently is mislabeled “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

The association invited readers of its magazine, Military Officer, to participate in an online opinion survey on gays in the military. The professionally designed survey tabulated the ages and military background of respondents, as well as their answers to three questions about professed gays in the military and attitudes toward homosexuality in general

Survey results did not make news until July, when Washington Times Base News Editor Grace Vuoto reported that they revealed strong support for current policy (16 percent) or an even stronger law excluding homosexuals from the military (52 percent).

The same combined percentage, 68 percent, expressed the belief that repeal of the 1993 law would have a very negative effect (48 percent) or a moderately negative effect (20 percent) on troop morale and military readiness.

Contrary to stereotypes about the views of younger men and women, the survey of 1,664 respondents included a significant number of younger, active duty, or drilling reserve/guard personnel who were largely tolerant of homosexuality in other situations.

Vuoto included in the story a statement from a Military Officers Association of America official expressing concerns about military readiness, but deferring to “senior military leadership” on pending legislation to repeal the 1993 law. A few days later, association officials issued a new statement describing the survey as “statistically invalid” because there were only 500 responses in the first 11 days, and “some non-members” may have passed the survey around to friends in order to “skew results.”

All data was erased from the Web site mentioned in the original Washington Times story, bringing to mind an Andy Rooney aphorism, “To ignore the facts does not change the facts.” The survey was not invalid, but it was inconvenient.

MOAA yanked the survey because the response rate was low and utterly unreliable, as well as out of suspicion that "some non-members were passing the survey around to their friends in an effort to skew the results," yet Donnelly is still citing it as proof of her position, despite the fact that MOAA itself says the survey is meaningless.

It is not MOAA that is ignoring the facts about this survey because they are inconvenient, it is Donnelly.

Since the launch of the Religious Right supergroup "The Freedom Federation" back in June, we have heard very little from them.  In fact, this piece from OneNewsNow is actually one of the first articles we've seen quoting any spokesperson for the organization taking a particular stand on a policy issue:

A coalition of major faith-based organizations called the Freedom Federation has been formed to affirm their commitment to protect life from the moment of conception to natural death.

The group is also committed to fighting against any healthcare reform measures that provide for tax-funded abortions or rationing of healthcare based on treating life as a mere cost-benefit commodity. Mat Staver is a spokesman for Freedom Federation.

"We know, for example, that Dr. Ezekiel Manuel, the president's healthcare advisor, recently wrote an article in January of 2009 where he talked about the so-called 'complete lives approach.' In that, he says that you need to essentially look at life and treatment as a cost-benefit analysis, meaning that you ration care away from the elderly or the ill to the younger generation," Staver points out.

"And the younger generation he's talking about [are the] adolescents and young adults, because we've invested in them and they have the opportunity to live a complete life, but you move [the care] away from infants."

First of all, I have no idea who "Dr. Ezekiel Manuel" is, but I know who Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel" is ... and I've already written about this entirely bogus claim that he wants to kill your grandmother and your child. 

As I noted before, these false claims about his views stem from a paper he co-authored entitled "Principles for Allocation of Scarce Medical Interventions" [PDF] which focused on the allocation of "very scarce medical interventions such as organs and vaccines" of which there is very clearly a finite and limited number. It is not talking about limiting healthcare treatment to kill grandparents and babies, but rather focuses on how best to allocate finite medical resources.

And even then, the article was primarily an examination of the various ways currently used in deciding the allocation of such resources, looking at the pluses and minuses of the various methods which concluded by offering its own system, which it called "the complete lives system":

[T]he complete lives system combines four morally relevant principles: youngest-first, prognosis, lottery, and saving the most lives. In pandemic situations, it also allocates scarce interventions to people instrumental in realising these four principles. Importantly, it is not an algorithm, but a framework that expresses widely affirmed values: priority to the worst-off, maximising benefits, and treating people equally. To achieve a just allocation of scarce medical interventions, society must embrace the challenge of implementing a coherent multiprinciple framework rather than relying on simple principles or retreating to the status quo.

The paper was not about "rationing" care to the elderly, but an examination of how best to allocate scarce medical resources, like kidneys for transplant or medical care in a pandemic or emergency situation. But to the Right, it means that Emanuel wants to implement wholesale healthcare reform in order to deny medical care to the elderly and infants.

In short, the very first position taken by the Freedom Federation is based, not surprisingly, entirely on a lie.

They are off to a great start.

I willingly admit that I have no idea what an Electro-Magnetic Pulse is or how big of a threat it poses to the United States. But it apparently is a big enough threat to warrant the existence of a group called EMPACT America Inc that has people like Rep. Trent Franks and former Congressman Curt Weldon on its Board of Advisors, which ought to at least give you some sense of what they are all about:

EMPACT America works with local citizenry, civic-minded companies, and grassroots activists to help prepare communities in New York and across America to prepare for an EMP attack. Working with local city governments and first responders, EMPACT America provides for coordination, education, and consulting services, helping to create a growing grassroots movement focused on EMP preparedness and recovery.

Next month, EMPACT America is hosting a conference entitled "Protecting America Against Permanent Continental Shutdown From Electromagnetic Pulse" at which both Mike Huckabee and Newt Gingrich will be speaking [PDF]:

Mike Huckabee will be joining our conference as a keynote speaker on Thursday, September 10 ... EMPACT America is conducting a national conference bringing in the most knowledgeable minds in the world about EMP. Scheduled speakers include U.S. Congressional leaders, Department of Defense experts, and many other experts on EMP. In addition, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich will deliver an exclusive video address on EMP prepared specifically for this conference.

It looks like Huckabee's schedule for September is rapidly filling up with speaking engagements at right-wing conferences - first its this EMPACT, then he's off to the Values Voter Summit, before winding up at the How To Take Back America Conference.

Is Rep. Trent Franks really considering filing a lawsuit to demand that President Obama release his birth certificate?  According to the Mohave Daily News, the answer is yes:

The other main issue dealt with numerous speakers questioning Obama's birth certificate and why there wasn't an investigation into whether he is a naturalized citizen. One woman said a newspaper announcement of his birth in Hawaii was not sufficient. Another asked how he could have a passport without a birth certificate.

Franks said there was not enough evidence that Obama is not an American citizen. He did say there was a lot of conflicting evidence of Obama's citizenship and that he was considering filing a lawsuit, the only congressman to do so. Franks asked why the president did not simply produce a birth certificate.

David Weigel has more.

And on a related note, there is just something hilarious about Joseph Farah complaining that Ann Coulter's attack on the Birthers is "much less informed than is her usual standard": 

Coulter committed what many see as the unpardonable sin of attacking "birthers" – those "nuts" and "fruitloops" like me who actually want to see Barack Obama release his birth certificate and other documents he is so clearly hiding from the American public – documents crucial to knowing who our president really is and whether he is constitutionally eligible to hold office.

The attacks from friends, which I consider Ann to be, always hurt much more than attacks from adversaries. My skin is thick. It has to be in this business. Coulter's comments were scathing, and she painted with a broad brush. I was grateful she didn't make it personal in her comments on TV and in her WND column – the place where more people read Coulter than anywhere else. Nevertheless, I noted that her statements on this subject were much less informed than is her usual standard.

But the real hurt came when some WND readers began forwarding me Coulter's personal responses to their questions. They included what I consider to be scathing personal indictments of me and the company I direct ... Then came the vicious personal attack: "not one known conservative public figure or publication believes this – except WND, which I believe is pushing it to get website hits, bc no sane person could believe it – but the MSM keeps interviewing the nuts to make all conservatives look crazy and to distract from the serious problems with obama."

It really grieves me that Ann Coulter dismisses the one real investigative news agency's work and relies on warmed-over pabulum from the American Spectator and an unknown blog. There's a reason the American Spectator is named as such. It is a spectator when it comes to news. It is simply untrue that the Spectator found the birth announcements during the campaign. The first known source of the newspaper birth announcements was a pro-Hillary Clinton blogger in the summer of 2008.

Coulter's problem seems to be her contempt for real reporting – unless it is conducted by a pedigreed "conservative" source. Unfortunately for Coulter, as a lifelong journalist involved in investigative reporting for 30 years, I can tell you there is no such animal as a pedigreed "conservative" news outlet that does real investigative reporting. Apparently WND is just too "independent" for Coulter's trust.

From the Atlanta Journal Constitution:

More than 1,000 people gathered in Gwinnett County Saturday to wear red, white and blue and listen to Fox News commentator Sean Hannity and conservative organizer Ralph Reed.

The crowd waved flags, prayed and sang “I’m proud to be an American.”

Reed spoke about his new grassroots Faith and Freedom Coalition, which he launched this summer to organize conservatives to get out the vote in 2010. He encouraged the crowd to each call 25 friends to create local chapters.

It’s something of a comeback for Reed, the former head of the Christian Coalition, who has kept a low profile on the political scene after losing a bid in the 2006 primary to be Georgia’s Republican candidate for lieutenant governor.

But Reed worked the crowd into a cheering frenzy when he explained that while he’s not perfect, God called him anyway.

“God doesn’t call perfect people,” Reed said, to a huge, “Amen!” from the crowd. “He calls humble and contrite people.”

Reed spoke against President Barack Obama’s health care plan, the economic stimulus package and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, all three of which elicited strong boos from the crowd.

“We are going to stop the Obama agenda dead in its tracks,” Reed said.

Many in the crowd, including Reed, planned to attend Hannity’s sold-out Freedom Concert at the Arena at Gwinnett Center afterward. The concert series raises money for children whose parents died in military service.

The meeting at the Atlanta Marriott Gwinnett Place was a combination political rally, old-time revival and celebrity entertainment.

In addition to Hannity and Reed, speakers included Lt. Col. Oliver North, actor Jon Voight and six Republican candidates for governor.

Videos clips of the event via YouTube:

Sean Hannity

Jon Voight

Oliver North

• Jon Stewart took on noted healthcare hack Betsy McCaughey on last night's "Daily Show" in an extended interview which revealed that McCaughey doesn't really know what she is talking about.
• Iowa Independent: The National Organization for Marriage has purchased $86,060 worth of television and radio ads to support Stephen Burgmeier, the Republican candidate in the special election in Iowa House District 90.
• On a related note, Pam has the video of NOM's Maggie Gallagher's appearance on Lou Dobbs last night.
• Bill Berkowitz: Black Conservatives in the Age of Obama.
• Did Glenn Beck suddenly get sent on vacation because his television show's sponsors were dropping like fles?
• Finally, the Congressional Town Hall ruckus, as explained by Edgar Allen Poe.

Public Policy Polling released a poll yesterday showing that among possible 2012 GOP presidential contenders, Mike Huckabee is currently faring the best in a possible match-up against President Obama:

Our fifth monthly national survey matching up Barack Obama against some possible 2012 opponents comes to the same two primary conclusions as the other four:

1) Obama leads all comers

2) Mike Huckabee, at least at this early stage, is the strongest GOP candidate

In this particular iteration of the poll, Huckabee comes the closest to Obama that he has yet, trailing just 47-44. That's tightened since the President led 48-42 a month ago.

Huckabee also has the best overall favorability rating of the Republican quartet we tested, at 45/28.

Obviously, polls conducted three years before the next election don't mean very much, but the results are still interesting nonetheless, especially in light of another poll PPP recently released on just who the "Birthers" are and what they seem to believe.  Today, PPP broke out the numbers a bit and found out that, among the Birthers, Sarah Palin is their favorite candidate, followed by Huckabee:

The birthers love them some Sarah Palin. She's the most popular politician in the mix with them at 66% favorability. Next is Mike Huckabee at 58%, followed by Newt Gingrich at 46%, and Mitt Romney at 43%.

In a follow-up post, PPP's Tom Jensen says that non-Birther Republicans tend to like Huckabee most:

60% of those folks (the reasonable wing of the party?) have a favorable opinion of Mike Huckabee, 58% have one of Sarah Palin, 57% have one of Mitt Romney, and 52% have one of Newt Gingrich.

Since Huckabee appears to have a 58% favorability rating among Birthers and a 60% favorability rating among non-birthers, it'll be interesting to see what happens to his ratings after he appears at the How To Take Back America Conference next month, which is being hosted by three bona fide birthers, foremost among them conference co-host Janet Porter who has recently been obsessed with spreading claims about how government internment camps and mass evacuation buses are part of a nefarious plot by the government to kill millions of Americans under the guise of providing flu vaccines.

You know, somebody really ought to ask Huckabee whether or not he agrees with the insanity being spread by the hosts of this event at which he is scheduled to be a keynote speaker, seeing as there have been a couple of polls recently sugesting that he just might be the GOP front-runner in 2012.

I spend a lot of time here mocking Religious Right groups and activists for their views of homosexuality, but as Jeremy says about these audio clips he posted the other day, "this 'culture war' is all fun and games until someone wants to execute you."

And he's not joking. Just listen to these rants from Steven L. Anderson of Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, AZ, explaining to his audience how gays are out to rape their children in order to recruit them and says that the only way to stop them is to kill them:

You want to know who the biggest hypocrite in the world is? The biggest hypocrite in the world is the person who believes in the death penalty for murderers and not for homosexuals. Hypocrite. The same God who instituted the death penalty for murderers is the same God who instituted the death penalty for rapists and for homosexuals - sodomites, queers! That's what it was instituted for, okay? That's God, he hasn't changed. Oh, God doesn't feel that way in the New Testament ... God never "felt" anything about it, he commanded it and said they should be taken out and killed.

You know why God wanted the sodomites in the Old Testament to be killed? You know why every good king of Israel, the Bible says they got rid of the sodomites in the land? You know, the good kings that came after the bad kings who had allowed the sodomites to infest their land, they had infiltrated ... King Asa got the sodomites out of the land, Jehoshaphat exterminated the sodomites that were left from the days of his father, Asa. Why? Because the sodomites are infectious, that's why. Because they're not reproducers, that goes without saying, they're recruiters.

How are they multiplying? Do you not see that they're multiplying? Are you that blind? Have you noticed that there's more than there were last year and the year before, and the year before that? How are they multiplying? They're reproducing right? No, here's a biology lesson: they're not reproducers, they're recruiters! And you know who they're after? Your children. Remember you dropped off your kids last week? That's who they're after. You drop them off as some daycare, you drop them off as some school somewhere, you don't know where they're at. I'll tell you where they're at: they're being recruited by the sodomites. They're being molested by the sodomites. I can tell you so many stories about people that I know being molested and recruited by the sodomites.

They recruit through rape. They recruit through molestation. They recruit through violation. They are infecting our society. They are spreading their disease. It's not a physical disease, it's a sin disease , it's a wicked, filthy sin disease and it's spreading on a rampage. Can't you see that it's spreading on a rampage? I mean, can you not see that? Can you not see that it's just exploding in growth? Why? Because each sodomite recruits far more than one other sodomite because his whole life is about recruiting other sodomites, his whole life is about violating and hurting people and molesting 'em.

So how many sodomites is one sodomite going to produce? A lot, and that's why it's just exploding. The only way to stop it, you say "how do we stop it?" ... You want to know why sodomites are recruiting? Because they have no natural predators.

Amazingly, that is the more sane of the two clips Jeremy posted - I'm not even going to bother transcribing this second clip in which Anderson screams about the "faggots running this country" because you simply have to listen to it: 

Pam's House Blend has more.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in American has been meeting at the Minneapolis Convention Center all week for its 2009 Churchwide Assembly. And today, those in attendance are scheduled to participate in a key decision:

Following the Methodists, Presbyterians and Episcopalians into one of the thorniest social debates of contemporary Protestantism, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is to decide today whether to allow sexually active gays and lesbians to serve as pastors.

Meeting this week in Minneapolis for its biennial convention, the nation's seventh-largest denomination is considering a policy that would allow its 10,000 congregations to hire as pastor any properly ordained person "in a lifelong, committed, monogamous, same-gender relationship."

And apparently God is not happy with this effort, which is why, according to John Piper, he sent a tornado earlier in the week to let them know:

A day after tornados and storms slammed the Midwest, John Piper, a prolific author and preaching pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, called an out-of-the-blue tornado that struck downtown Minneapolis Aug. 19 a "warning" from God to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, whose delegates were meeting there to debate a liberalized policy on homosexuality.

The tornado tore off part of a 90-year-old steeple of the Central Lutheran Church and ripped apart large outdoor tents set up to serve breakfast to the delegates to the ECLA convention which has been holding its meetings this week next door at the convention center. Some meetings also are taking place at the church. The tornado also damaged the convention center, where delegates were at the time.

...

Piper then listed six points and accompanying texts as to why he thinks the tornado was providential:

1. "The unrepentant practice of homosexual behavior (like other sins) will exclude a person from the kingdom of God. 'The unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.' (1 Corinthians 6:9-10).

2. "The church has always embraced those who forsake sexual sin but who still struggle with homosexual desires, rejoicing with them that all our fallen, sinful, disordered lives (all of us, no exceptions) are forgiven if we turn to Christ in faith. 'Such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.' (1 Corinthians 6:11).

3. "Therefore, official church pronouncements that condone the very sins that keep people out of the kingdom of God are evil. They dishonor God, contradict Scripture and implicitly promote damnation where salvation is freely offered.

4. "Jesus Christ controls the wind, including all tornados. 'Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?' (Mark 4:41).

5. "When asked about a seemingly random calamity near Jerusalem where 18 people were killed, Jesus answered in general terms -- an answer that would cover calamities in Minneapolis, Taiwan or Baghdad. God's message is repent, because none of us will otherwise escape God's judgment. Jesus: 'Those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.' (Luke 13:4-5)

6. "Conclusion: The tornado in Minneapolis was a gentle but firm warning to the ELCA and all of us: Turn from the approval of sin. Turn from the promotion of behaviors that lead to destruction. Reaffirm the great Lutheran heritage of allegiance to the truth and authority of Scripture. Turn back from distorting the grace of God into sensuality. Rejoice in the pardon of the cross of Christ and its power to transform left and right wing sinners."

Interestingly, tornadoes also reportedly hit parts of Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana on Wednesday as well, but Piper has not yet clued us in to what message God was trying to send to the people in those areas who had their homes and businesses destroyed.

• Orly Taitz says "You know I never ran for office, but I would not exclude this as a possibility." If she does, I will immediately demand to see proof of her eligibility.
• Joe.My.God has video of Harry Jackson at the recent "Genocide is not Health Care" press conference.
• After calling high-speed rail projects "wasteful spending," Gov. Bobby Jindal is now asking the federal government for $300 million to build one in Louisiana.
• SPLC: Minuteman Civil Defense Corps president Carmen Mercer has been called out by her state’s chief prosecutor for allegedly participating in a mail fraud conspiracy.
• Greg Sargent: A new poll that finds a majority of Republicans believe the health care reform bill will force old people to decide in advance how and when they meet their maker.
• Finally, check out the cover of Glenn Beck's forthcoming book:

Brad Pitt appeared on "Real Time with Bill Maher" last week where he shared some opinions that have, surprisingly, not gone over well with the Religious Right.

It is well known that Pitt and his partner, Angelina Jolie, have publicly declared that they will not get married until gay couples are granted that same right and he reiterated that point on last week's program, much to the dismay of Focus on the Family:

A part of the reason they haven’t married is political. Pitt declared that they would not marry until marriage is redefined for same-sex couples. He recently repeated his support for same-sex marriage on the Bill Maher show.

Pitt’s political statement is surely appreciated by the would-be redefiners of marriage although they gain nothing tangible. But his children really lose out. They lose the stability of a married mother and father and all the good things that go with it.

It’s sad that a father devoted to his children would put a political ideology before their needs, but I think this example speaks to extremes in liberal ideology. Children are too often an afterthought.

Even though Pitt and Jolie are engaged in a seemingly stable and committed relationship, that apparently doesn't count because it's not "marriage" and, as such, their children are, and will remain, in danger until they officially get married.

But that's nothing compared to Gary Cass of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission who declares that Pitt is not only leading his family straight to hell, but is doing the same to millions of his fans as well:

Pity Brad Pitt. If this were not so serious we could laugh it off as another vain attempt by those who hate Christ and relish the fact that Christ will have the final say. But Brad Pitt is in eternal danger. He has a moral duty to repent and believe the Gospel of Christ and to love God and neighbor with all his heart. As a father, he is not just leading himself to hell, he is taking his whole family with him. How much more horrific will it be to be in hell with your whole family knowing you were supposed to be the spiritual leader of your home?

To whom much is given much is required. As an international celebrity he is also corrupting his fans with his infernal beliefs. Multiplied millions of people will rise up in hell to condemn Brad Pitt because although he was raised in the truth he would not share it while he had the chance. Pray that he turns to Christ and is saved and uses his incredible influence to glorify God. No amount of pleasure, fame and fortune in this life can compensate for an eternity under the just wrath of a Holy God in the next.

• Is Rick Santorum contemplating a presidential run in 2012?  We can only hope so.
• Focus on the Family is facing a budget shortfall and handing off its "Love Won Out" conferences to Exodus International.
• Charisma profiles Alveda King.
• Time profiles Marco Rubio.
• The Right is quite unhappy that Harvey Milk is being posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
• The Family Research Council is hosting several right-wing events in the coming months in New Jersey, California, and Maine.
• The ACLJ is apparently so concerned that Democrats are trying to "intimidate and silence critics of President Obama’s policies" that it felt the need to release a report reminding lawmakers "that this nation has a long history of Americans exercising free speech to comment on important social issues of the day."
• Finally, I am going to be on vacation until Thursday, August 20.  Hopefully, the Right will have gotten all of the crazy out of its system by the time I get back.

As I mentioned earlier, Janet Porter had Jane Burgermeister on her program today so that Burgermeister could lay out her case that the Obama White House, FBI, WHO, UN, Federal Reserve, NATO and various international figures are all conspiring to unleash a massive flu pandemic on America and commit mass genocide against the US population for the benefit of pharmaceutical companies who are producing the flu virus vaccine.

Frankly, the entire program read like a paranoid fan fiction version of "V for Vendetta" without the cool masks.

The one thing that struck me about the conversation was Porter's repeated insistence that this all sounded crazy and that she doesn't want to believe that such a plan would be in the works, but she just can't discount it because recent developments prove that anything is possible.

And the developments to which she pointed were the National Guard job listings for "Internment/Resettlement Specialists," which I debunked yesterday, as well as some video purportedly uncovering a "FEMA mass evacuation bus." 

I had no idea what she was talking about regarding the bus, but sure enough, a quick Google search turns up this:

OMG!!!!! What could that be?  Maybe I should do another simple Google search: