September 2009

• Pam's House Blend: Washington Times publishes ugly hit piece on Kevin Jennings.
• Truth Wins Out: Focus on the Family Seeks to Exempt Alabama Gays from Antibullying Protection.
• Rob Boston: At the Values Voter Summit, Wing-Nut Christian Right Plots Its Comeback.
• Texas Freedom Network: David Barton Promotes Oklahoma Extremist Sally Kern.
• Amanda Hess: Ex-Gay Group Calls Hate Crime Laws “Anti-Ex-Gay.”
• Wow, Hitler and Obama really do have a lot in common.
• Finally, I'll be out for the rest of the week.  See you Monday.

Last week while I was listening to the right-wing anti-Islam conference call, I was caught completely off-guard when Rifqa Bary suddenly joined the call, recounted her story, and then led the group in prayer.

Apparently I wasn't the only one caught off-guard because, according to the Orlando Sentinel, the Florida Department of Children and Families is now investigating how she ended up on the call:

The Department of Children and Families is trying to figure out who arranged for Fathima Rifqa Bary to join-in on a conference call with "thousands" of people and on which the 17-year-old delivered her testimony and a frenzied prayer.

...

On Monday, DCF spokeswoman Carrie Hoeppner said the state agency "had no knowledge of this until it surfaced. Although she is 17, she remains in protective custody. Neither the Department nor do we believe her parents, gave permission for her participation in this call with strangers, which is of concern to us."

"Right now, we are working to get more background on the video such as when it posted and who arranged it."

David Weigel has been posting lots of excellent stuff from the How To Take Back America Conference, but I particularly liked his interview with Rick Scarborough:

At the How to Take Back America conference this past weekend in St. Louis, I heard Rev. Rick Scarborough, a conservative pastor and author who endorsed Mike Huckabee’s 2008 presidential campaign, express outrage at a video of New Jersey schoolchildren singing a song praising President Obama. After his speech, I asked him what had disturbed him about the video.

“Whether he is spawning these things or people are spawning them, it’s a kind of human worship which I believe is dangerous,” said Scarborough. “You go back through history, every dictatorship — when we conquered Iraq, what’d we do? We tore down statues all over the place of Saddam Hussein. These dictators are all, in the absence of worshiping the true God, they almost insert themselves as if they were God. You turn to me and I’ll be all you need.”

Scarborough also suggested that Obama was using his middle name “Hussein” more often now to “reach out to Muslims worldwide.”

“I think it’s a dangerous trend,” he said.

And, on a related note, I also wanted to point out this great video of Phyllis Schlafly from Think Progress:

Phyllis Schlafly, the anti-Equal Rights Amendment activist who heads the Eagle Forum, hosted the right-wing conference How To Take Back America last weekend. Several GOP members of Congress attended the conference, and each paid their respects to Schlafly for her leadership in the conservative movement. Schlafly delivered several speeches and led a discussion advocating traditional roles for women as well as warning about the dangers of feminism and blasting single mothers:

I submit to you that the feminist movement is the most dangerous, destructive force in our society today. [...] My analysis is that the gays are about 5% of the attack on marriage in this country, and the feminists are about 95%. [...] I’m talking about drugs, sex, illegitimacy, drop outs, poor grades, run away, suicide, you name it, every social ill comes out of the fatherless home.

To follow-up on our last post about Rep. Trent Franks calling President Obama an "enemy of humanity," a spokesperson for his office attempts to clarify:

Trent Franks of Arizona said in a speech to conservatives Saturday in St. Louis that given Obama's decision to fund international family planning organizations that support legal abortion, "we shouldn't be shocked that he does all these other insane things."

"A president that has lost his way that badly, that has no ability to see the image of God in these little fellow human beings, if he can't do that right, then he has no place in any station of government and we need to realize that he is an enemy of humanity," Franks said to the "How to Take Back America" conference.

Bethany Haley, spokeswoman for Franks, said the congressman was referring to "unborn humanity" and should have clarified his statement. She also said that Franks meant to say that Obama's abortion-related policies have no place in government, rather than that Obama has no place in government.

Haley said she spoke to Franks early Tuesday before he boarded a plane from Arizona to Washington.

"He was just referring to the way President Obama has set himself up as the most pro-abortion president in America's history," Haley said. She ticked off a list of the president's policies and appointments she said were favorable to abortion rights.

"It's a trend — it's not just one or two things. Ever since his days in the Illinois Senate, President Obama has been radical on the issue of abortion," Haley said.

Glad they cleared that up.

Speaking at the recent How To Take Back America Conference, Rep. Trent Franks declared that nobody should be shocked that President Obama does all sorts of "insane things" because he is an "enemy of humanity":

Obama's first act as president of any consequence, in the middle of a financial meltdown, was to send taxpayers' money overseas to pay for the killing of unborn children in other countries...there's almost nothing that you should be surprised at after that. We shouldn't be shocked that he does all these other insane things. A president that has lost his way that badly, that has no ability to see the image of God in these little fellow human beings, if he can't do that right, then he has no place in any station of government and we need to realize that he is an enemy of humanity.

For the last several weeks, we've been watching the fight taking place at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the church founded by the late D. James Kennedy where an effort led by Kennedy's daughter, Jennifer Kennedy Cassidy of Coral Ridge Ministries, to remove Tullian Tchividjian from his position as Kennedy's replacement recently failed.

Tchividjian attributed the removal effort to the fact that he doesn't "preach politics from the pulpit" like Kennedy did and that has apparently upset Kennedy's daughter and others in the church, who are now breaking away entirely and forming their own church, complete with sermons from Gary Cass of the ultra-right-wing Christian Anti-Defamation Commission:

A new congregation may be in the birthing by dissident members of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church who failed to oust Pastor Tullian Tchividjian last week.

The dissidents, who lost a congregational vote Sept. 20 to fire Tchividjian from the Fort Lauderdale church, held a worship service in Coconut Creek on Sunday, drawing a reported 400-plus people. Among them were Coral Ridge's choir leader and organist, both of whom resigned last week.

"This is definitely a breakaway church," said Ronald Boender, a former Coral Ridge supporter and founder of Butterfly World, where the service was held. "There is absolutely no going back."

With the working name of The Church -- members will choose a formal name later -- the group has already applied for 501(c)3 nonprofit status, said Jim Filosa, one of the leaders. He said the group plans a closed meeting of an "organizational committee" tonight.

The service followed the resignation last week of Samuel Metzger, Coral Ridge's organist, and choir director John Wilson. Also last week, the church fired Carol Wilson from her volunteer job as director of its concert series.

John Wilson and Metzger helped conduct the Sunday service, packing a building at Butterfly World. Wilson directed a 65-singer choir, many of whom left the Coral Ridge choir last week. Metzger traded his spot at Coral Ridge's five-keyboard pipe organ for an organ synthesizer at the service.

...

Preaching the sermon was the Rev. Gary Cass, founder of the California-based Christian Anti-Defamation Commission. Cass was executive director of Coral Ridge Ministries' Center for Reclaiming America from 2004 until 2007, when it closed.

• The LA Times takes a look at the "personhood" efforts, which is now coming to Missouri as well.
• Al Mohler declares that "liberal theology is taking God's name in vain."
• Ralph Reed's Faith and Freedom Coalition is now setting up state-based affiliates, with its first one getting off the ground in Florida.
• Why is it that the more right-wing someone is, the more they seem to love Mike Huckabee?
• Finally, the Pacific Justice Institute has filed suit against a school district over it anti-bullying efforts, claiming it is really a effort to indoctrinate school children into the gay lifestyle.

We are working out way through the hours of footage we gathered at the How To Take Back America Conference and editing it down for easier consumption.

Below is audio from the workshop called "How to Stop Socialism in Health Care," featuring Larry Huntoon, former president of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, Frank Rosenbloom of Oregon Right to Life, and Dr. Allen Unruh. 

Huntoon, representing the AAPS (which bills itself as a conservative alternative to the AMA), argued that any governmental “interference” in the practice of health case is unconstitutional, and that the Obama administration is really only interested in power. “Just like the fraud and deception of socialism itself,” he said, proposals for reform have more to do with government gaining control over the lives of individuals than of health care.

Dr. Allen Unruh, whose speech was largely a series of quotes and quips, warned that “we either live in freedom or in servitude, there is no middle ground" and claimed that Obama's health care plans would result in dismantling the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 9th, 10th, and 13th amendments, stating that it would turn all doctors into “slaves of the state” and result in "slavery reenacted by our first black president."

For his part, Rosenbloom lashed out at President Obama’s policies and at suggestions that opposition to his administration reflected racism, oddly joking that even though his wife was not white, he loved her anyway. Obama, he said, is a supporter of Planned Parenthood and therefore responsible for genocide against black children. “Liberals are the true racists in this society,” he proclaimed. But he was just warming up. Rosenbloom compared Obama to Adolf Hitler, saying “fascism is happening here and now.” Recalling President Obama’s statement that if his daughter mistakenly became pregnant, he would not want her to be punished with a baby, Rosenbloom said that is the sort of “moral sewage that is running our country.”

Among Rosenbloom’s other statements:

• For President Obama, he said, “it’s not about health care, it’s about subjugation and control.”
• “Obama’s not stupid. I’m sorry, but he’s just evil.”
• “He is a statist. He believes in control by government and its dear leaders, fascism by any other name.”

Rosenbloom called for an end to Medicare and Medicaid, saying that people could be provided for through tax subsidies for buying insurance. “We must oppose this diabolical change for government of the people, by the people and for the people will perish from the face of the earth.”

Finally, during the Q & A, an audience member asked what they could to do prevent the government from setting up quarantines or forcing vaccinations in order to try and stem a swine flu epidemic, to which the panelists suggested "maybe the Second Amendment is a good thing to think about:

The organizers of the How to Take Back America conference kicked off the event on Friday afternoon with a press conference, and they hit a lot of the highlights we can expect to revisit this weekend:  America is either following the classic model of a Marxist takeover on its way to being an eastern bloc country, or it's on the verge of a Nazi-like dictatorship, or both.  Health care reform is about rationing, euthanasia, and pushing the elderly and vets off a cliff.  The "radical homosexual activist movement" is the biggest threat to religious liberty, and ENDA is a bid to "criminalize Christianity."  Legalized abortion is "black genocide."

• Why am I not surprised that the ACORN-hounding fake-prostitute Hannah Giles is being represented by Kelly Shackelford and the Liberty Legal Institute.
• The Liberty Counsel urges you to "Adopt a Liberal."
• David Hart reports that NOM is desperately trying to connect the fight over marriage equality to ACORN.
• Media Matters chronicles the on-going right-wing crusade against Kevin Jennings.
• Finally, in Birther news, Orly Taitz continues to embarrass herself and lost support, while her chief rival, Gary Kreep, is part of a new Birther infomercial.

For weeks we have been covering the run-up to the How To Take Back America Conference, writing about the fringe Religious Right activists who are hosting it and the Republican leaders like Mike Huckabee and Michele Bachmann who will be addressing it, asking just how radical one has to be before they find themselves shunned by the GOP.

Earlier this week, we released a report on the organizers and participants which chronicled the various right-wing conspiracy theories and inflammatory rhetoric they have spewed over the years and, given that their long records of firey fringe activism are well-known, nobody can feign surprise when these activists got up to the podium and spewed those same rabidly fringe views at the conference.

Case in point: Rick Scarborugh of Vision America.

Scarborough, who served on Mike Huckabee's Faith and Values Committee during the latter's presidential campaign, unleashed a fiery sermon more befitting a Sunday sermon than a political gathering. But since the two are essentially one in the same for Scarborough and the other participants, his proclamations that he is neither a Republican nor a Democrat but rather a "Christocrat" who will support only candidates who proudly stand up on the campaign trail and say "yes, there's a God" and who realizes that the Constitution is a godly document designed to guide this nation by Christian principles, just as the Bible is designed to guide the lives of all of mankind. He then rails against Republican failures to defund the Department of Education and Planned Parenthood before turning his attention to President Obama and "his minions" who are intent on giving civil rights to "sodomites" while banning the Bible and putting Christians in jail. Eventually he turns to the "shadow government" constructed by President Obama filled with "well-financed, well-heeled, and highly-staffed professional infidels who have dedicated their life" to destroying America.

Last night we posted audio of Rifqa Bary's surprise appearance on the National Day of Prayer Task Force's effort to mobilize its Christian warriors to counter the "dark spiritual content" of the scheduled Muslim prayer rally in Washington, DC, which, as we've seen over the last several days, and continue to see, seems to be causing the Religious Right to completely freak out:

Robert Knight is a senior fellow at the American Civil Rights Union and a senior writer for Coral Ridge Ministries. He says having 50,000 Muslims on Capitol Hill paints a very potent picture for Muslims around the world.

"It's adding up to a picture that the United States may not want to paint because there are a lot of Muslims who will be inspired, perhaps, to get more militant if they think the United States is falling into Muslim hands, basically," he points out.

According to Knight, many Muslims believe they have a sympathetic ear in President Barack Obama. "Obama held no National Day of Prayer events at the White House this year, but gave a very positive eloquent speech about Ramadan," he recalls. "And he also has said some very interesting things overseas about the emergence of Islam."

Organizers say it was President Obama's inauguration speech in January and his speech broadcast from Egypt in June that inspired them to hold Friday's event, scheduled to begin at 1:00 p.m. Eastern.

At least one pro-family organization has expressed deep concern about the individuals who have organized the gathering and who are scheduled to speak. In an Action Alert to its constituents, the American Family Association has described those individuals as "men who harbor both anti-Semitic and fundamentally anti-American views." And like Knight, AFA notes President Obama's refusal to participate in the National Day of Prayer in May -- in contrast to his hosting of a White House dinner celebrating what Obama called "the Holy Month of Ramadan."

Meanwhile, Christians alarmed at today's scheduled gathering of tens of thousands of Muslims outside the U.S. Capitol have prayed together in a national conference call. Shirley Dobson, who heads the National Day of Prayer Task Force, said she and other Christians "are so troubled at what we see going on in our nation -- we're watching the foundations crumble."

Associated Press says Christian leaders in last night's conference call were unconvinced the gathering will be a time for Muslims to pray together, read the Quran, and celebrate America's religious freedom -- as its organizers insist. Family Research Council president Tony Perkins wondered if the Muslims would be "praying for the well-being of our nation."

Perkins called the Muslim gathering "a wake-up call for the church" and a warning that if Christians do not "fill the void that's in this nation with the truth, it will be filled with something else."

We've put together this clip featuring some of the highlights from the call itself, featuring Dobson saying the effort was designed to "put a shield of prayer around the United States of American and our world, while just praying for God's intervention." She was followed by Perkins, who insisted that it was not a question of whether Muslims had a right to gather to pray but rather "the focus of their prayers, are they praying for the well-being of our nation," saying that the Islamic community has been silent when acts of terrorism have been committed against America and has been equally silent on the "threats" facing Rifqa Bary and, as such, "we have reason to be suspicious about the motives this community has for the well-being of this country. Perkins then introduced his "good friend" Lou Engle, who proceeded to warn that Americans did not "understand the spiritual implications of what is taking place" with this Muslim rally, saying they were "taking the spiritual power of 40 days Ramadan and then channeling it like an arrow right into the White House."  Eventually, others began to pray as well, asking God for a "great turning in education, a great turning in the political arena, [and to] turn the media in America over to your son" at which point Engle took over again asking God to help them win "the challenge in the spirit realm" and defeat "every demonic ideology [and] every spirit of darkness":

For the last few days, I've been covering the right-wing effort to mobilize it own Christian forces to counter the "dark spiritual content" of the upcoming Muslim prayer rally.  Tonight, activists gathered for a conference call/prayer rally hosted by the National Day of Prayer Task Force, headed by Shirely Dobson, wife of Focus on the Family's James Dobson, Lou Engle of The Call, and featuring other activists like Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and Cindy Jacobs.

Tonight, this effort revealed itself to be part of the much larger Religious Right battle against Islam in America when the Religious Right's latest cause célèbre, Rifqa Bary, joined the conference call.

At the beginning of the clip, Lou Engle is told by one of the other participants that "their little sister" is on the line, at which point Engle introduces Rifqa Bary to the conference call participants and asks her to share her story.  Bary, sounding like a somewhat nervous but otherwise perfectly average teenager, recounts her conversion to Christianity and her decision to flee from the home of her Muslim parents in Ohio.  Following that, Engle declared Bary to be "an Esther for such a time as this" and asks her to lead the call in prayer, which she agrees to do, at which point she becomes seemingly hysterical and rather incoherent while sobbing and praying, making it nearly impossible to understand what she is saying outside of her repeated cries to Jesus.

And then, just like that, she stops, seemingly catching the other participants off guard until Engle then chimes in with his own fervent prayers to God to "use Rifqa to be an Esther." Soon Engle is joined by various others, all of whom pray for this modern day Esther who will lead Muslims out of Islam and into Christianity while asking God to spread Rifqa's "so that the testimony of Jesus will go out to CNN, will go out to talk shows and use this little story so that all across America the Gospel will be preached" and to "expose the hidden darkness that is rolling into the nation through these ideologies."

Eventually, Engle unmutes the conference call's participants and asks them all to pray for Rifqa, at which point the call the descends into little more than chaos and static:

• Randall Terry and company are now targeting the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
• The Freedom Foundation of Texas has received Focus on the Family Action's "Family Champion Award."
• Tullian Tchividjian says members of D. James Kennedy's church tried to oust him because he wasn't talking about politics enough from the pulpit.
• Do you remember the brothers responsible for Huck's Army? The are now working to save thousands from wasting their youth.
• The Alliance Defense Fund has announced its second Pulpit Freedom Sunday, to be held on September 27 in order to challenge IRS restrictions on what pastors and priests can say.

In my last post, I noted that the upcoming Muslim prayer rally has, over the last few days, suddenly become a full-fledged Religious Right crusade to save America from the Islam's "dark spiritual intent" and that activists are vowing to "storm the gates of hell to defeat the false god of Islam."

It seems that with every hour that passes, more and more Religious Right leaders are getting involved, to the point that this is now pretty much a full-blown holy war between the right-wing Christian activists and the organizers of this Muslim prayer rally.

The latest development is this press release highlighting a letter signed by a variety of Religious Right leaders under a newly formed group called The Ad Hoc Committee of Americans for Transparency and Honesty in Religion demanding that organizers of rally to denounce acts of terrorism:

Muslim Americans assure us that Islam categorically rejects terrorism and that the concept of "jihad" refers to a "spiritual struggle," and has nothing whatsoever to do with "holy war."

However, the Letter notes that, "Around the world, the overwhelming number of terrorist acts are carried out by Muslims, that many Muslim-American groups have terrorist ties and that justification for acts of violence against 'infidels' is found in the Koran."

Signers of the letter ask rally organizers to disavow the following acts of terrorism, "committed by Muslims, in the name of Islam":

• The 9/11 attacks (more than 3,000 dead)

• The 2002 bombing of a hotel in Netanya, Israel (30 killed)

• The 2002 Bali bombings (202 dead)

• The 2007 plot to murder soldiers at Ft. Dix

• The 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India (173 dead)

• The 2009 conspiracy to bomb a synagogue and Jewish community center in the Bronx

The letter asks recipients if they are "willing to join millions of other people of faith in America and denounce these and similar acts of terrorism?"

The letter can be found here [PDF] and appears to have been organized by Rick Scarborough of Vision America, as his is the only name listed on the above press release while the letter itself is hosted on his organization's website. Below is the list of signers:

Ted Baehr – Christian Film and Television Commission
Brian Camenker – President, Mass Resistance
Christopher Carmouche – Chairman, GrassTopsUSA
Joseph Farah – Editor and CEO, WorldNetDaily
Don Feder -- former syndicated columnist, Don Feder Associates
William J. Federer -- American Minute
Linda Harvey – President, Mission America
Bishop E.W. Jackson -- Exodus Faith Ministries
Phillip Jauregui – President, Judicial Action Group
Rabbi Daniel Lapin – President, American Alliance of Jews and Christians
William J. Murray – Chairman, Religious Freedom Coalition
C. Preston Noell – President, Tradition, Family and Property
Tony Perkins – President, Family Research Council
Dr. Kevin Roberts – Executive Director, Catholic Families of America
Rick Scarborough -- Vision America Action
Mat Staver – founder and Chairman, Liberty Counsel
Mike Valerio – Mike and Helen Valerio Foundation
Richard Viguerie – Conservative HQ.com
Herb Zweibon – Chairman, Americans for A Safe Israel

In fairness, I feel I ought to point out that not all Religious Right leaders are joining in this effort to wage a holy war against Islam, as earlier this week Rob Schenck and Patrick Mahoney issued a statement welcoming the prayer vigil:

Rev. Rob Schenck, President of the National Clergy Council, comments,

"With over 1.5 billion Muslims in the world, it is important that Christians have an open dialogue with the Islamic community. The church must never be timid in reaching out to peoples and groups with differing beliefs and traditions. Too much is at stake for future generations not to begin this historic conversation. This is an opportunity that we cannot afford to miss."

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

"The heart of Christ is to reach out and build bridges to all peoples regardless of what their faith traditions or beliefs might be. Several years ago the Christian Defense Coalition began reaching out to the Muslim world which resulted in a prayer delegation going to Baghdad to pray for the nation of Iraq and Prime Minister Maliki (see photo).

"Since then we have had many conversations and discussions with Islamic leaders in Washington, D.C. and around the world. This news conference gives us another chance to dialogue and share with our Islamic neighbors.

"It also gives us the platform to celebrate the greatness of America where everyone is allowed to practice their faith tradition in the public square free from government interference of harassment. The prayer vigil on the lawn of the Capitol this Friday highlights that timeless truth.

"Since 9/11, the church should not run from Muslims in America but begin reaching out with God's love."

Earlier today I wrote about the fact that Lou Engle, David Barton, and the Family Research Council were raising warning flags about the Muslim prayer rally in Washington, DC on Friday and urging their own activists to hold their own prayer rallies in an effort to convent Muslims to Christianity and fight the elevation of Islam in America.

Now, these forces are teaming up with the National Day of Prayer Task Force to mobilize their own Christian forces for a rival prayer rally/conference call:

It is critical that the church in America understands the times and what needs to be done now. The natural things speak of the invisible. Natural happenings on the earth are revealing something that is going on in the spiritual realm. There is a great spiritual conflict with a rising tide of Islamic boldness being manifested.

Our President has recently honored the Muslim holy days of prayer and fasting called Ramadan. Interestingly at the same time a major Christian leader of the Emergent Church called for forty days of fasting and prayer in the same Ramadan period with the goal that the church will better understand our Muslim friends. We advocate for understanding, but we must have spiritual discernment as to the spiritual dark powers that are being invoked into our nation.

At the same time, on the 25th of September, Muslims are calling for a Muslim Day of Prayer in Washington DC (http://www.islamoncapitolhill.com/). They are calling for 50,000 Muslims to gather and pray on the DC Mall. This is the exact word of one of the Sheikhs who is leading this historic gathering, "Muslims should march on the White House. We are going to the White House so that Islam will be victorious, Allah willing, and the White House will become into a Muslim house." These are not empty words. They speak of a dark spiritual intent and a coming day of great trouble to America.

Therefore we are calling Christians all over America to join Lou Engle, Shirley Dobson, Tony Perkins, David Barton, and many other major leaders in America to a national conference call to pray for America. Please join us on Thursday, September 24th from 7:30PM to 9:00PM Eastern Time for possibly one of the greatest moments in American history.

Call: 712-338-8100
Alternate Dial in Numbers: 218-486-1400, 507-726-3200
Participant Passcode: 637# (NDP#)

Time Zones:
7:30 - 9 pm EASTERN
6:30 - 8 pm CENTRAL
5:30 - 7 pm MOUNTAIN
4:30 - 6 pm PACIFIC

• The Alliance Defense Fund is partnering with Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort in their anti-evolution efforts.
• Meg Whitman has formally declared her candidacy for governor of California and potential U.S. Senate candidate Carly Fiorina launched a web site ahead of this weekend's California Republican Party convention.
• WorldNetDaily latest columnist? John Stossel.
• Speaking of WND, check out their latest "outrage." It's rather pathetic.
• Finally, be sure to check out the lovely necklace Phyllis Schlafly wore to her award ceremony at the Values Voter Summit.

Talking Points Memo has a good profile of former FBI agent John Guandolo:

An FBI agent who worked on the corruption case of former Louisiana Congressman William Jefferson resigned after superiors found a list he wrote of his sexual conquests with agents and a confidential source, according to court documents.

The same agent, John Guandolo, who is married and who unsuccessfully solicited a $75,000 donation for an anti-terrorism group from a wealthy witness in the Jefferson case with whom he was having an affair, resigned from the FBI and appears to have landed on his feet on the speaking circuit playing up the threat of Islamic terrorism.

What does that have to do with what we write about here at RightWingWatch, you ask?  Well, it turns out that one of the ways in which he's been "playing up the threat of Islamic terrorism" is by injecting himself into the Rifqa Bary saga.

For instance, last week he penned a piece entitled "Florida Department of Law Enforcement earns an F" for the Center for Security Policy website, claiming that, in his "professional opinion," the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's investigation stating that there was no evidence to support the right-wing allegations against Bary's parents was false, due to "negligence-- and willful blindness" on the part of Florida authorities:

The significant errors and omissions that Mr. Guandolo and other experts have found in this FDLE investigation show a failure in FDLE’s professional responsibility in handling the Rifqa Bary case. Governor Crist and FDLE management need to get new investigators on the job, start over, and this time do it right.

He recently reiterated those claims in a piece in Human Events, and his "expert opinion" is now being cited by groups like the Family Research Council and activists like Robert Knight who are supporting Rifqa in their battle against Islam.

Here we go again.

The right-wing campaign against Kevin Jennings is now getting picked up by the "mainstream media" ... if one can consider Fox News to be a part of the MSM.  Either way, Fox has now posted this long article on Jennings that is basically a collection of the greatest hits of right-wing attacks against him and features quotes from the likes of Peter LaBarbera and Peter Sprigg:

Social conservatives are up in arms about yet another White House czar. This time it's Kevin Jennings, President Obama's director of the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools (OSDFS).

Jennings was appointed to the position largely because of his longtime record of working to end bullying and discrimination in schools. In 1990, as a teacher in Massachusetts, he founded the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), which now has over 40 chapters at schools nationwide. He has also published six books on gay rights and education, including one that describes his own experiences as a closeted gay student.

But critics say Jennings is too radical for the job, citing what they say is his promotion of homosexuality in schools, his writings about his past drug abuse, his onetime contempt for religion and an incident in 1998 in which he did not report an underage student who told him he was having sex with older men.

...

"Jennings was obviously chosen for this job because of the safe schools aspect... defining 'safe schools' narrowly in terms of 'safe for homosexuality'," Peter Sprigg, a senior fellow at the Family Research Council, told FOXNews.com.

"But at least half of the job involves creating drug-free schools, and we've not been offered any evidence about what qualifications Jennings has for promoting drug-free schools."

...

Sprigg countered that nobody has adequately answered the questions that are being raised about Jennings.

Speaking of Jennings' job, he said: "I think it's unfortunate that [it] is a position that did not require any sort of confirmation process, because there are a lot of serious questions about Jennings and there has not been any forum in which Jennings has been required to answer the questions."

Catholic San Francisco reviews Bill Donohue's latest book, "Secular Sabotage: How Liberals Are Destroying Religion and Culture in America" and I have to say there is a sense of pride in finding out that we rank among the groups and people that he hates:

About saboteurs, for whom he uses “extremists,” “radicals” and “nihilists” as synonyms, Donohue writes, “The goal is not reform: it is an attempt to gut core beliefs and practices. And to a disturbing extent, the secularists have succeeded in turning things upside down and inside out.”

Among those he views as “the radical secular activists out to disable America” are the American Civil Liberties Union, Anti-Defamation League, People for the American Way, National Abortion Rights Defense League, Catholics for Choice and the Democratic Party. Lawyers and Hollywood are named, too. Regarding the latter, he uses films such as “Priest,” “Dogma,” “The Golden Compass” and “The Da Vinci Code,” and refers to the short-lived 1997 TV show “Nothing Sacred.” That chapter also includes an examination of the controversy that surrounded “The Passion of the Christ.”

• David Weigel was on Rachel Maddow's show discussing the Values Voter Summit last night.
• Adele Stan: Overshadowed by Tea Party Movement, the Christian Right Scrambles to Claim It Isn't Racist.
• Chip Berlet: The Roots of Right-Wing Populist Rage-Christian Right.
• Nate Silver: Gay Marriage Is Fading as 'Values' Focal Point.
• Media Matters: Rep. Tiahrt Sent Abortion-Related Campaign Letter To Dr. Tiller's Accused Killer.
• Box Turtle Bulletin: Maine Marriage Equality Opponents: Yeah, We’re Lying.
• Finally, a word of warning: once watched, this cannot be unwatched and once seen, this cannot be unseen.

I'm guessing that if, say, the Washington Post teamed up with a progressive group to create a new website called TheLiberals.com, right-wing activists and media critics would have a complete meltdown.

I'm likewise guessing that we will see no such meltdown about this:

Conservatives and citizen journalists have a new interactive community destination that showcases breaking news, opinion and culture with stunning technology, patriotic layout and ideological muscle.

TheConservatives.com -- a joint online media venture from The Washington Times and the Heritage Foundation -- is a tool to "reinvent the right" and steer the public discourse. It is up and running as of Tuesday and geared to those who are not content to sit on the sidelines.

"TheConservatives.com creates a cutting-edge new marriage between the social publishing world of bloggers and the social networking world of Twitter, Facebook and the like. Most opinion sites today enable thought-leaders to talk down to the masses. But TheConservatives.com empowers users to change the direction of that dialogue, allowing the Joe the Plumbers of the world to speak up to major thinkers, like Newt Gingrich," said John Solomon, executive editor and vice president for content of The Times.

"It is convenient. It is groundbreaking. And we believe it will transform grass-roots communications, enabling a two-way dialogue. The best ideas can grow up from the netroots, reaching like-minded opinion leaders. It is a technology and a concept that can be adapted by thinkers on the right, the left and the center," Mr. Solomon said.

A few weeks back, Jeremy noticed that Mike Heath of the Maine Family Policy Council had been unceremoniously dumped from the Religious Right's "Yes on 1" mobilization efforts in the state, presumably because of the rabidly anti-gay insanity he'd been spreading recently.

Now, via Pam, it looks like Heath took the slight personally and saw the writing on the wall and so has now announced that he is leaving the organization:

Mike Heath, the longtime leader of the Christian Civic League of Maine, announced today that he is moving on. Expressing appreciation for the League, Heath said that it has been a great honor to serve.

The Christian Civic League of Maine was formed in 1897.

Heath came to the League in 1989 on October 16th as the Administrative Assistant. On January 1, 1994 he was appointed Executive Director.

His first test came on the issue of casino gambling. When the dust settled he was credited by his adversaries with having stopped a casino from being built in Calais. Heath went on from there to tackle the most difficult and contentious social issue of our time, gay rights. In 1998 he was on the leadership team of the first successful People's Veto of gay rights. In 2001 he joined once again with Paul Madore and Paul Volle to lead a successful statewide campaign against homosexuality. Since the early 1990s Heath and the League have expressed serious concerns with the prospect of so-called same sex marriage. Everyone laughed back then. Maine will vote on the issue this November.

No stranger to controversy, Heath is often described as a "lightning rod."

The board accepted Heath's resignation yesterday during a meeting at the League headquarters building in Augusta. They expressed unanimous and strong support for the forty-eight year old leader. Heath pledged his full support to the League.

Rifqa Bary was back in court yesterday as her parents tried to get the case moved from Florida, where she fled, back to Ohio and filed a complaint against the couple who harbored her after she ran-away:

Rifqa's father stepped up a strategy to bring his daughter back to Ohio. Mohamed Bary filed a criminal complaint against the Orlando pastors who helped shelter Rifqa for more than two weeks before the state intervened.

Lawyer Shayan Elahi told the Orange County court that Rifqa's parents, Mohamed and Aysha Bary, filed a complaint about Blake and Beverly Lorenz with law-enforcement officials.

A letter sent to Orlando police by Mohamed Bary claimed Rifqa was "indoctrinated and coerced" by representatives of Global Revolution Church and "was hidden" by the Lorenzes. Orlando police said they are not investigating.

A Florida Department of Law Enforcement spokeswoman confirmed the agency received a complaint against the Lorenzes, but she could not comment further.

...

Mat Staver, the Lorenzes' lawyer and longtime friend, said there is "no solid basis for the complaint" filed against them.

He said the Lorenzes did what any person would do given the circumstances. Staver said the Lorenzes took multiple steps to notify authorities.

Given the deepening involvement of Staver in this case, it is not surprising to see that Bary's case is rapidly becoming a cause for moer and more Religious Right groups and activists, like Lou Engle, who see it as a call to battle against Islam:

Four years ago, while living in a very devout and radical Muslim home, Rifqa met Jesus in a powerful way as her savior. She hid her conversion, began praying secretly, and began hiding her bible from her parents. Then, on Facebook, her love for Jesus was exposed to the radical Muslim community in Ohio. Rifqa’s father demanded that she renounce Jesus or he would kill her as is commanded by the Koran. As a radiant believer in Jesus she refused to renounce her Lord and fled to Orlando where she was taken in and cared for by a Christian Church and family. Now, the father is appealing to the courts to bring her back under his custody. Major television networks have already covered her story. How must the Church of America respond in this moment for our sister who is a part of the Body of Christ?

This convergence, I believe, is urgently summoning us in the midst of the rising tide of Islamic influence in America to recognize that our God is above every god and that if we return to Him with all of our hearts and call upon Him with fasting and prayer then God could use what the enemy meant for evil to bring about a great day of salvation for Muslims in America, of which Rifqa is but a major sign.

First of all, we cannot be passive as a Church to let these kinds of developments go on without being challenged in the spirit. Our fight is not against Muslims, it is against principalities, powers, and forces of darkness. We are calling the Church of America at the end of Ramadan, from September 21st through 25th, to five days of concerted prayer. On Monday, we must pray that God would grant supernatural wisdom to the courts so that the testimony of Jesus would be proclaimed and that the best situation for Rifqa and her family would take place. We must pray for Rifqa to be bold in proclaiming Jesus that even thousands of Muslims would hear and be awakened to the love of Christ. She has already said that this is not about her but about many Muslims coming to Jesus. We must pray for her lawyers who are being bullied, threatened, and challenged on every side. On Friday, Sept. 25, the Muslim Day of Prayer, we are calling the Church of America to fast and pray that Muslims would be moved by the Holy Spirit, convicted by the testimony of Christ, and even be visited by Jesus in dreams. We must pray that God would restrain the spiritual powers behind Islam and grant us the great awakening that we desperately need for America.

Even the Family Research Council is getting involved, picking up on Engle's call to prayer and sending out its own urgent prayer request:

This prayer request is extremely urgent! Please pray and forward it to praying people within your sphere of influence!

The fate of Rifqa Bary may be decided today. In July, in fear for her life, the radiant 17 year-old fled her parent's Ohio home to seek refuge with the family of an Orlando, Florida pastor. Florida attorney and pro-family leader John Stemberger took up Rifqa's case and is fighting to save her life.

...

Pastor Lou Engle, a longtime leader in the national prayer movement, is asking Christians everywhere to pray September 21-25, and to fast on Friday, September 25th when fifty thousand Muslims will meet on the Washington Mall to "pray for America."

* Please Pray for Rifqa and her attorney, that God will give them wisdom and victory in their legal effort. May God protect Rifqa, keeping her safe, even as He uses her to minister Christ to the Christian and Muslim worlds (Ps 91: all; 121: all; Eph 6:10-20).

* May America's pastors and churches awaken to the challenge that the Muslim faith and activist political agenda poses to our nation and Christian heritage. May believers arise to pray and may Biblical truth and the power of the Holy Spirit mightily prevail as those with competing religious views vie for our nation's soul. May the advance of Islam be used of God to stir believers to ever greater faithfulness to Christ and may the Church learn how to love and effectively minister to those in the Muslim and other religious communities! (Ex 20:2-5; Ps 96:5; Acts 4:12; Gal 2:4-5; Mt 28:19-20; Mk 16:15).

Thank you for your prayers over these critically important matters!

• Sarah Posner files this report from the Values Voter Summit.
• And David Weigel files a report of his own.
• While Talking Points Memo provides this photo gallery from the event.
• Bill O'Reilly kept the media out of his address where he received the “Media Courage Award,” but couldn't stop the coverage of it.
• Things are not going well for Orly Taitz as of late.
• Finally, Michael Schwartz, the chief of staff for Sen. Tom Coburn, participated in a panel on "The New Masculinity" at the Summit where he declared that "all pornography is homosexual pornography."

This call for healthcare reform to provide coverage to those who may be in the country illegally is quite interesting:

America's largest Hispanic Christian Organization, The National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (NHCLC), The Hispanic National Association of Evangelicals, expressed disappointment and warned of continued polarization as a result of the recent incorporation of anti-immigrant rhetoric within the current Health Care debate.

"The Hispanic National Association of Evangelicals believes our nation needs Health Care Reform that reconciles affordability and accessibility with the protection of life, conscience, personal and religious liberties. We encourage all members of Congress to debate this issue with integrity, humility, and respect. Health Care reform is a matter of Social Justice driven by a moral imperative that is undeniable. The fact that millions of Americans lack health care coverage is unacceptable", declared Dr. Gilbert Velez, NHCLC Chairman and President of the Hispanic Mega Church Association.

Hispanic Evangelicals are reacting to rhetoric recently incorporated by both parties declaring that a proof of citizenship requirement will be included in Heath Care Reform proposals prohibiting undocumented families access to coverage.

"Correspondingly, we find it to be both morally and politically disadvantageous not to include coverage for all those currently residing in our nation. To require immigrants to prove citizenship in order to purchase Health Care coverage stands as a defacto endorsement of racial profiling and continues to exacerbate the anti-immigrant sentiment currently embedded within the immigration reform debate", explained Rev. Nick Garza, Conference Chief Operating Officer.

"To exclude the opportunity for working families to purchase coverage will place over 12 million homes in a precarious situation. This is deportation via attrition or better yet, some may label the scheme as Xenophobic Health Care Reform. We call upon all the White House, Congress and faith advocates to respectfully address this matter from the platform of Leviticus 19 as we are admonished to treat the strangers among us as one of our own", added Garza.

The reason it is so interesting is that the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference also happens to be a member of the new right-wing supergroup The Freedom Federation, which has recently begun speaking out on the issue of healthcare reform.

To date, the Federation has not publicly taken a position on the issue of coverage for illegal immigrants, but given that this idea is a fundamental non-starter for most conservative and right-wing groups, it'll be interesting to see how the coalition tries to finesse this issue ... especially considering that the Eagle Forum is likewise a member:

Eagle Forum, a conservative public policy organization founded by Phyllis Schlafly, encourages town hall meeting attendees to be more vocal about the deliberately-placed loopholes in both the House and Senate health care bills which will allow illegal immigrants to apply for and receive health insurance coverage. ... Eagle Forum continues to encourage American citizens to attend their district and state town hall meetings and to urge their elected officials to oppose any attempts at a stealth health care amnesty for illegal immigrants.

I have to say that I really don't understand what Rick Warren's role is when it comes to politics ... or rather, I don't understand what Rick Warren thinks his role is when it comes to politics because he surfaced recently to insist to USA Today's Cathy Lynn Grossman that he doesn't get involved in political or policy questions:

Warren has no plans to burst back into politically-fired headlines, however. When politicians call him, he says,

I never get involved in policy. Never. But I'll talk to guys (like Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain and a host more) about their family, their stress and stuff like that....

Most people don't realize, I really have no faith in politics. I'm not a politician. If I thought you could change human hearts by laws, I would but I don't. Law is downstream from culture. By the time you make a law about something, you're reacting, not acting. I'd rather shape the culture.

This has always been Warren's stance, however it hasn't kept him out of hot water. Friday, he took a moment to clarify some of last winter's headline moments.

In December's interview with Steven Waldman of Beliefnet, did he really mean to equate gay marriage with pedophilia and incest? No, he says, he simply blew the question, and the followup, too. He has no such views of gay couples, he just wants to reserve the word "marriage" for the Biblical one-man-one-woman model.

Did he really campaign against gay marriage during the lead up to the Proposition 8 vote that overturned it's legalization in California? That would depend, evidently on how you define "campaign." He preached against it to his congregation but in Warren's opinion that's not campaigning, that's just a pastor sharing Scripture with his flock, even if his comments went worldwide on line.

Warren can claim that he "never gets involved in policy" or politics all he wants, but it won't change the fact that he most certainly does:

The election’s coming just in a couple of weeks, and I hope you’re praying about your vote. One of the propositions, of course, that I want to mention is Proposition 8, which is the proposition that had to be instituted because the courts threw out the will of the people. And a court of four guys actually voted to change a definition of Christian … uh, marriage that has been going for 5,000 years.

Now let me just say this really clearly: we support Proposition 8. And if you believe what the Bible says about marriage, you need to support Proposition 8. I never support a candidate, but on moral issues I come out very clear.

This is one thing, friends, that all politicians tend to agree on. Both Barack Obama and John McCain, I flat-out asked both of them: what is your definition of marriage? And they both said the same thing — it is the traditional, historic, universal definition of marriage: one man and one woman, for life. And every culture for 5,000 years, and every religion for 5,000 years, has said the definition of marriage is between one man and a woman.

Now here’s an interesting thing: there are about two percent of Americans [who] are homosexual or gay/lesbian people. We should not let two percent of the population determine … to change a definition of marriage that has been supported by every single culture and every single religion for 5,000 years.

This is not even just a Christian issue, it’s a humanitarian and human issue that God created marriage for the purpose of family, love, and procreation.

So I urge you to support Proposition 8, and pass that word on. I’m going to be sending out a note to pastors on what I believe about this. But everybody knows what I believe about it. They heard me at the Civil Forum when I asked both Obama and McCain on their views.

Last month we noted that Jennifer Kennedy Cassidy, the daughter of D. James Kennedy, had been banned from Coral Ridge Church, which was founded by her father. Cassidy, along with several others, had been banned due to their opposition to Kennedy's replacement, Tullian Tchividjian, the grandson of Billy Graham.

Cassidy, who still works for Coral Ridge Ministries, the right-wing political arm of her father's Religious Right empire, and the others were apparently angry that Tchividjian had begun moving the church away from her father's right-wing political activism and sought to have him removed.

Over the weekend, church members voted on the question of whether to remove him and Tchividjian retained his position with overwhelming support:

Members of the influential Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church voted overwhelmingly Sunday to keep W. Tullian Tchividjian, grandson of the evangelist Billy Graham, as their spiritual leader.

Tchividjian was named senior pastor of the Fort Lauderdale mega-church six months ago. He has come under scrutiny ever since he vowed to the set the church on a different path from that charted by his predecessor, D. James Kennedy, who built Coral Ridge into a religious and political powerhouse on a bedrock of Christian conservatism.

Church members cast ballots at a closed 11 a.m. meeting, and backed Tchividjian by a vote of 940-422, a margin of about 69 percent to 31 percent.

Tchividjian, 37, doesn't preach politics. He is more apt to focus on specific Biblical passages than on the news du jour, prefers drum sets to an organ, and has chosen podcasting over broadcasting.

His approach alarmed some members of the church, who preferred Kennedy's traditional services and his willingness to tackle topics such as same-sex marriage and abortion. Six church members, including Kennedy's daughter, Jennifer Kennedy Cassidy, were banned from the premises in August after they distributed fliers criticizing the new pastor on church grounds.

By Sept. 9, more than 400 members had petitioned for Tchividjian's removal. It was then that a group of church elders called for Sunday's meeting.

They brought in a member of the national governing body of Presbyterian churches to moderate the members-only meeting. Coral Ridge has about 2,000 active members.

Ten spoke for Tchividjian's removal, according to spokesman Mark DeMoss. They faulted him for not maintaining the legacy of Kennedy and for altering traditions, such as calling for visitors to come to Jesus at the end of every sermon.

Ten spoke in favor of keeping Tchividjian, noting that church membership is increasing and that the congregation should stay united.

...

Tchividjian's predecessor launched Coral Ridge in 1959, and built it into a sprawling campus in the 5500 block of North Federal Highway that now holds a school, a seminary and an international outreach ministry known as Evangelism Explosion International.

He was also a co-founder of the Christian lobby known as the Moral Majority and declared he wanted to ``reclaim America for Christ.''

The Coral Ridge Hour, a television and radio ministry, reached three million viewers in 200 countries at its peak.

Tchividjian pulled the plug on the TV show, which irked some longtime members. He also merged the church with his former congregation, a youthful troupe of 500 that formed the New City Church in Margate.

Bishop Harry Jackson, the Religious Right’s favorite African American preacher, asked the mostly white participants at the Values Voter Summit to tone down their anti-Obama rhetoric. He knew they weren’t racists, he explained, but the fact that some people were sounding like racists made it even harder on him as a conservative trying to get other black clergy to join his anti-gay organizing in D.C.
While asking summit participants to be less offensive, Jackson’s Saturday afternoon speech may have actually reached some new personal lows of offensive rhetoric. Let’s review:

1) Gays and liberal Christians are enemies of God who deserve to be struck down. Jackson cited verses from Psalm 68 saying “let God arise, let his enemies be scattered….let the wicked perish at the presence of God.” He described God striking dead a person who wasn’t following instructions about how the Ark of the Covenant should be moved. Who are the wicked? Gays, certainly, but also “folk who are Christians in name only” but are just asking to be struck dead by God for not following His ways.

2) Jackson said repeatedly of people who don’t support his agenda that “there are people in our culture who are easily led.” Do you remember the outcry from the Religious Right when the Washington Post said the same thing about them? But nobody batted an eye when Jackson suggested that African Americans who don’t support him are “in an ideological plantation” and “easily led” to believe the worst “character assassination” about white conservative evangelicals. That’s why, he said, right-wing activists need to tone down their attacks on Obama. In the fight to keep same-sex couples from getting married, he said, he “can’t win if my own black brothers see me as a traitor.”

3) Jackson utterly ignored the existence of African American LGBT people and their leadership in the pro-equality movement in the District of Columbia. He portrayed the battle over marriage equality in DC as a battle pitting rich gay lawyers against black clergy and poor single mothers. Jackson’s litany was a perfect example of the race- and class-baiting he is using to rouse opposition to marriage equality in the District. “Many of our gay people,” he said, are professionals, disproportionately educated, make a lot of money, are living in DC’s fancy new condos. Jackson said a “K Street lawyer who decides to come out and call himself gay” cannot understand the plight of a single mother in Washington, DC raising two kids without a father. This seems to be from his new gays-vs-blacks talking points. Hey, Rev. Jackson, what about all the LGBT people in DC who aren’t rich lawyers, who are people of color, who are raising kids without the legal protections of marriage? Maybe he hasn’t spent enough time in his new hometown to meet any of them yet.

4) Jackson cited his father’s experiences of racism to credential himself for an attack the notion that the gay rights movement is a civil rights movement. “Their movement is a handful of privileged people,” he said, who are “intolerant of anybody with another idea” and who want to “oppress and suppress truth in the name of freedom.”

5) The tea party movement, on the other hand, “is a movement that God is in the background stirring up.”

Jackson, who borrowed a line from fellow Religious Right figure Rick Scarborough to say, “I’m not a Republican or a Democrat, I’m a Christocrat,” ended his speech by leading the crowd in chanting
“Let God arise and his enemies be scattered.”

Saturday morning’s speech by Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association may be the most valuable moment of this conference. It’s not often that Americans get an unambiguous look at the Religious Right’s extremely dangerous definition of religious liberty.
Religious liberty is of course a core American value, protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution. And it’s the separation of church and state that protects the right of every American to worship or not as they choose, and protects all Americans from the government using its power to coerce religious belief or worship. It’s one of the constitutional principles that define this country.

Fischer basically attributed the idea of church-state separation to Adolf Hitler, who he said was the inspiration for the forces of “secular fundamentalism” who are bent on “castrating” the church and bringing America a “bleak, dark, vicious, tyrannical” future. Invoking Hitler is practically commonplace name-calling from the right these days. But it was not the most important or provocative point of his remarks.

Today Fischer went a good bit further than televangelist Pat Robertson, who notably called church-state separation a “lie of the left.” According to Fischer’s interpretation of the First Amendment, here’s what religious liberty means: Congress has the liberty to promote religion in any way, as long as it does not single out one Christian sect or denomination and make it the nation’s official religion. That’s it.

According to Fischer, “the only entity that is restrained by the First Amendment is the Congress of the United States.” Thus, he says, it is “constitutionally impossible” for governors, mayors, city councilmembers, or school administrators to violate the First Amendment. Fischer said the “incorporation doctrine” – the idea that the Fourteenth Amendment applied First Amendment protections against state governments, is the “most egregious” example of judicial activism.

So by his definition, a state legislature could declare itself an officially Christian state. Or an officially Baptist or Mormon state. Presumably any public school, city council or state government could require students to attend Christian worship or profess certain religious belief.

Fischer isn’t the only Religious Right leader who holds this radically extreme definition of religious liberty. In their 2008 book, “Personal Faith, Public Policy,” Religious Right leaders Tony Perkins and Harry Jackson said that a 1961 Supreme Court decision, which held that the state of Maryland could not require applicants for public office to swear that they believe in the existence of God, one of “the major assaults that have been successfully launched against the Christian faith in the last forty to fifty years.”

So, to these prominent Religious Right leaders, preventing a state from demanding that its employees swear to certain religious beliefs is an attack on Christianity. And any court that tries to stop a state from imposing religious beliefs on its citizens is judicial activism.

It’s disturbing to note that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is among those who believe the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment does not apply to the states. In a 2004 concurring opinion, Thomas wrote:

Quite simply, the Establishment Clause is best understood as a federalism provision — it protects state establishments from federal interference but does not protect any individual rights. . . . .
[E]ven assuming that the Establishment Clause precludes the Federal Government from establishing a national religion, it does not follow that the Clause created or protects any individual right. . . . it is more likely that States and only States were the direct beneficiaries. Moreover, incorporation of this putative individual right leads to a particular outcome: It would prohibit precisely what the Establishment Clause was intended to protect — state establishments of religion.

Americans deserve to know whether the parade of top GOP officials who engaged in this weekend’s mutual love-fest with Religious Right leaders have the same narrow, distorted view of the First Amendment.

From TPM:

While reporting this afternoon from the floor of the Values Voter Summit, MSNBC reporter Brian Mooar was heckled by several audience members who said he was being rude and disrespectful.

Mooar was giving a live broadcast as Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO) was speaking to a crowd of about 2,000. A woman in white gets up and yells something at him, which is inaudible.

"Somebody here is not liking what we're talking about," Mooar said as he was about to sign off.

Then, a man came up to him. "You're being rude," he said.

Mooar countered: "We were invited guests."

"Too bad," the audience member said. "You're being rude."

Then another man came over.

"Would you mind? This is about the rudest thing you can do," he said, trying to take Mooar's microphone. "You are rude to do this in front of the public."

At that point several security guards came over and escorted the man out, but left the woman, who continued asking Mooar to leave. "I came here to listen, not to be disrupted," she said.

Even after someone was escorted out, another angry attendee came up and said something to Mooar that the mic didn't pick up.

The summit officials "didn't organize it very well," said anchor Norah O'Donnell, "because they didn't seem to put the press in a way that you could do reporting on what's going on and not be harassed."

The same thing happened to Fox News:

Carrie Prejean addressed the Values Voter Summit today and we have uploaded her entire address in two YouTube videos below, but for those who don't want to sit through her the entire fifteen minutes of her self-pity, defiance, martyrdom, and egotism, here is an edited version in which she declares that she was called by God during the pageant to stand for truth and so "even though I didn't win the crown that night, I know that the Lord has so much of a bigger crown in Heaven for me":

See her entire address below the jump.

Rep. Mike Pence addresses the Values Voter Summit, declaring that for all his power, nothing is more important that his relationship with Christ before proclaiming that, starting now, Washington is a "no czar zone":

The year's Values Voter Summit is just getting underway and, thanks to the American Family Association, you can watch it on-line, while CSPAN is also webcasting it, as is FRC itself.

On a related note, the Washington Times reports that Gov. Rick Perry, whose name originally appeared on the Summit's Presidential Straw Poll, has asked that his name be removed and that, in an effort to prevent the accusations of ballot stuffing that plagued the 2007 straw poll, organizers have decided that only in-person voting will be allowed this year:

Mr. Perry, who will address the summit at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in person, asked that his name be removed from the ballot, Family Research Council spokesman J.P. Duffy confirmed.

...

Summiteers will get to witness an in-person rematch of the 2007 grudge match between fellow former Republican Govs. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and Mike Huckabee of Arkansas.

At the 2007 summit, Mr. Romney beat Mr. Huckabee by 1,595 to 1,565 in combined Internet and in-person votes, with some Huckabee partisans grumbling Mr. Romney used his immense personal wealth to generate Internet support. This year, only in-person voting will be permitted.

• Raw Story: Rush Limbaugh says we need to return to segregated buses.
• Adam Serwer: Why Can't Tom Perez Get Confirmed?
• David Neiwert: Newt Gingrich and Sean Hannity agree that the bashing of Bush was much worse than attacks on Obama
• Think Progress: Michael Steele Criticizes Democrats For Playing The Race Card, While He Plays The Race Card.
• Finally, from the "you couldn't make this up" file: Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas sent a letter to Washington's Metro system complaining that the taxpayer-funded subway system was unable to properly transport 9/12 protesters to the rally to protest government spending and expansion. Added bonus: Brady Brady voted against the stimulus package. It provided millions upon millions of dollars for all manner of improvements to … the D.C. Metro.

Following up on the post from earlier today regarding Michelle Malkin's appearance on James Dobson's radio program, it turned out that most of the discussion revolved around Obama, taxes, healthcare, czars, and every other right-wing talking point.  But there was one interesting revelation regarding Malkin's recent move to Colorado Springs, CO from the "swamp" that is Washington, DC.

Malkin revealed that the move had been made for the benefit of her family and that, as a result, she had had to give up some of her more high-profile television opportunities, at which point Dobson chimed in to note that she is still doing a lot of television appearances and that, when she does, she utilizes the studios at Focus on the Family headquarters:

Dobson: You're still on television a lot, aren't you?

Malkin: Yes.

Dobson: And you do some of that right here from this ministry.

Malkin: Yes, it is such a blessing ...

Dobson: So when you're seen now on Fox News, you're probably broadcasting uplink from one of our studios.

Malkin: That's exactly right. And you have a wonderful staff here and, it's just, I feel at home.

You may recall Brad Dacus of the Pacific Justice Institute for his activism on Prop 8 in California and especially for this video in which he proclaimed that failure to pass the measure was akin to failing to stop the Nazis:

Well, Rin Kelly profiles Dacus and PJI, which has opened a new satellite office in Oakland, for the East Bay Express:

The Oakland office represents an expansion of the institute's efforts to fight what Dacus calls "intolerance" in the region. "The increase in requests for assistance that continue to come into our office is such that a Bay Area office we found was very warranted and needed," he said in an interview. This could mean increased headaches for school districts — a favorite target in Dacus's war for "parents' rights" — and more lawsuits like the ongoing case in which the institute's client, Faith Fellowship Church, alleges that the city of San Leandro is breaking the law by not rezoning to accommodate church expansion plans.

Religious convictions have compelled Dacus to take on such cases as a fight to allow Bakersfield students to opt out of a homosexual teacher's class, a tussle with a Utah public school that he claims was peddling a book "promoting witchcraft" via the Scholastic Book Club catalog, and — while employed by the conservative Rutherford Institute — the defense of the family of a teenage Nebraska boy who, with his parents' help, had his girlfriend arrested for seeking an abortion. For the courts to find in favor of the girl, Dacus told Time in 1994, would have had "a chilling effect" on free speech.

...

Such issues are of special interest to the institute and Dacus, who with his wife Susanne is the author of a book informing public-school teachers, students, and parents of "strategies to practically and legally evangelize your school." Titled Reclaim Your School, the book calls separation of church and state "the big lie" and covers everything from pastor visitations to special school-hours Bible study through which, Dacus writes, "a large number of students ... make commitments to receive Christ by the end of the year." Another passage states, "because public school employees are cautious not to display their faith inappropriately or in a manner that might violate the law, it may take a few visits or conversations before you can determine the religious or non-religious views of the staff at your public school."

Dacus is a man with strong religious convictions. "I'm a Christian," he said in an interview. "My wife was in full-time youth ministry for ten years working with high-school kids. That book goes right along with my personal convictions and desire not just for religious freedom but ideally for people, for kids, to be able to come to Christ. So it's evangelical. It's a book with a definite evangelical perspective. I don't have to apologize for that because we have a society where we have religious freedom."

Kelly asked Dacus about his infamous "Nazi" statement, to which he replied that instead of criticizing him, the Anti-Defamation League ought to be thanking him for it: 

One group that has recently taken notice of the institute is the Anti-Defamation League, which released a statement last year condemning the Third Reich analogy he used in his Proposition 8 speech. "We are outraged and deeply offended that a spokesman for the Pacific Justice Institute has chosen to invoke images of Hitler and Nazi Germany as part of that organization's campaign on behalf of Proposition 8," read the press release.

Asked about his comments, Dacus told the Express, "Obviously I wasn't trying to infer that anyone in the San Francisco Bay Area was akin to the Third Reich or in favor of any cause of the Nazis. That would be a ludicrous understanding of the point that was being made." Instead, he argued, the speech was an exhortation that today's church not be "silent on an issue they had a strong theological and moral conviction about." But he added: "If the purpose of that organization is to stand up to anti-Semitism, they should be glad that I was once again reminding people of the importance of people to stand up to tyranny."

For the last several weeks, the Liberty Counsel has been busy turning Florida Principal Frank Lay and Athletic Director Robert Freeman into a Religious Right heroes and martyrs in anticipation of their upcoming court date.  The right-wing narrative is that Lay and Freeman are being persecuted for exercising their First Amendment rights and sharing their Christian faith, and now LC has gotten more than 60 members of Congress to sign on to a letter in support of the two men as they head into court today:

Tomorrow, Liberty Counsel will be in federal District Court in Pensacola representing the Principal of Pace High School, Frank Lay and Athletic Director Robert Freeman as they face criminal contempt charges for a prayer over a meal. Ironically, tomorrow is National Constitution Day.

During a luncheon to honor those who contributed toward the school's athletic Field House, Principal Lay asked Mr. Freeman to offer a blessing for the meal. Students were not present at the time of the blessing. Lay and Freeman thought nothing of the matter nor did those being honored. But the ACLU ran to court, claiming both men should be held in criminal contempt. Lay and Freeman have a combined 70 years of public school service. If convicted, they face up to $5,000 in fines, six months in jail, and they may lose their retirement benefits.

...

Yesterday, Cong. Randy Forbes, the Chair of the bipartisan Congressional Prayer Caucus, Cong. Mike McIntyre, Co-Chair, and Cong. Jeff Taylor, whose district includes Santa Rosa County, along with over 61 members of the Caucus, sent a letter of support [PDF] to Lay, Freeman and Winkler. The letter states the members "are standing with you in prayer and support as you face your trial on Thursday because of offering a prayer." Members of Congress voted to authorize a Chaplain to offer a prayer at the first session of Congress. The letter concludes: "The tradition of offering prayer in America has become so interwoven into our nation's spiritual heritage, that to charge someone criminally for engaging in such an innocent practice would astonish the men who founded this country on religious freedom." Last night members of Congress, including Cong. Forbes and Cong. Jeff Miller, made speeches on the House floor in support of Lay, Freeman, and Winkler, while pointing out the sad irony that they are being tried on National Constitution Day.

If you just read the right-wing spin on this, you'd think that Lay and Freeman were just a couple of innocent victims of the never-ending "war on Christians."  Of course, there is more to the story, as David Waters explains:

It seems that Principal Frank Lay has been trying to use his freedom of religion to turn Pace High School into a sort of Sunday school. According to court documents, the Pace High Teacher Handbook required school personnel to "embrace every opportunity to inculcate, by precept and example, the practice of every Christian virtue." School and district officials "often led or directed students in prayer at extracurricular and athletic events, arranged for prayer during graduation ceremonies, proselytized students during and outside of class, and sponsored religious baccalaureate services. One teacher displayed a waist-high white cross in her classroom."

Pace hasn't tried to hide his evangelical tendencies. "This country is founded on Judeo-Christian principles, there is no doubt about that," he told a congregation last year. "I walk up and down the halls everyday and I see tons of kids that aren't saved. They have hollow eyes. They are void of a spirit. They need Jesus."

Last year, the ACLU represented two students who filed suit against the school board, claiming that school officials were violating their freedom from religion. Lay and district officials admitted liability. Last January, the federal judge ordered Lay and district officials to stop promoting, advancing, aiding, facilitating, endorsing, or causing religious prayers or devotionals during school-sponsored events."

Nine days later, Principal Lay asked athletic director Robert Freeman to lead a prayer at the beginning of a luncheon at Pace High School. "I did it primarily out of habit. It's just something we've always done," Lay told the Florida Baptist Witness. "I have been painted here as somewhat of a rebel. I don't consider myself that, nor do I want to be. I am a Christian. I am not ashamed of my faith."

Unfortunately for Lay, the federal judge didn't accuse him of being ashamed of his faith. He accused him of violating a court order not to promote his personal faith as a government official at a government function.

Lay and school officials admitted that they had been improperly using school functions to proselytize and agreed to stop doing so ... and then, nine days later, did it again, so now they are facing contempt charges for violating the court order.

That is a little different than the right-wing claim that they are being charged for merely "engaging in such an innocent practice" as praying before a meal.

UPDATE: Lay and Freeman were found not guilty.

The other day, we posted on a Washington Post article highlighting a recent fund-raising letter from Operation Rescue warning that it was on the verge of shutting its doors if it didn't get donations and financial help soon.

Now, OR's Troy Newman is complaining that the letter "is being misreported by the media":

Media obtained a copy of the letter and then started placing stories indicating Operation Rescue "is very close to shutting down unless emergency help arrives soon" (Associated Press). That report quotes Operation Rescue's Troy Newman as saying: "We're so broke (as the saying goes), we can't even pay attention."

But Newman tells OneNewsNow that report is an exaggeration. "Rumors of Operation Rescue's demise are grossly overrated -- and it's something that the liberal left-wing media loves to salivate over," he states.

One report theorized the pro-life group suffered financially because of its long campaign against late-term abortionist George Tiller, who was murdered in May. AP refers to the murder as "a public relations nightmare" for the group. But Newman says that is not true.

"The real impact upon us and all non-profits is that the economic crisis, the recession that we're in that began late last year, has impacted everybody, across the board, 30-40% down in their giving -- and Operation Rescue is no different," he adds.

Newman says there have been good and bad times during his 20 years of ministry, but they rely first on the Lord and secondly on donors. The end result, he shares, is that no bills have gone unpaid.

Really?  Because if you read the letter Newman sent out it seems as if the media reports were entirely accurate.  After all, how else are you supposed to interpret Newman's assertions that the organization was "now so broke (as the saying goes), we can't even pay attention," admissions that "we struggle to pay every bill [and] had to borrow money just to send you this letter," and warnings that "we're completely out of money" and that "we're getting very close to the point of shutting everything down if emergency help doesn't arrive soon"?:

Dear Friend of Operation Rescue,

I need you to please stop whatever you're doing right now and read this letter. It's that urgent.

At this moment, I'm writing this from a closed abortion mill.

It's the one in Wichita, Kansas, where more than 50,000 innocent babies were brutally murdered from 1983 to 2006, until we at Operation Rescue bought the building and kicked the baby-killers out!

The abortion staff who worked here never re-opened. They are permanently out of business. And babies are thereby saved.

We "exorcised" this building and turned it into our national headquarters. So now, babies are being saved in this building! And I firmly believe that the souls of the 50,000 babies killed here are cheering me on.

I sure hope so. Because right now, I need cheering on.

You see, this summer has been brutal for Operation Rescue. Not only did George Tiller's death throw everybody in the pro-life movement for a loop (and especially us), but the economic crisis our nation is suffering from has brought our financial support to nearly a halt.

We're now so broke (as the saying goes), we can't even pay attention.

Seriously. We struggle to pay every bill. I had to borrow money just to send you this letter, in hopes that you will come to our rescue so that we can continue to rescue babies.

And, what's really frustrating is that this crisis couldn't have come at a worse time.

Why?

Because, in the next 30 days, we're planning to launch the most ambitious and most significant project in our entire history.

It's something that's going to devastate the abortion cartel. It could even help end abortion in America once and for all.

Basically, it centers around our unique ability to close abortion mills.

And although I can't go into detail about it -- because we need to take the abortion cartel by surprise -- I can tell you that it will be a totally NEW phase in the pro-life fight.

We've been working on it all summer. And we were planning to launch it in the next 30 days.

However, now that we're completely out of money, I'm afraid we won't even be able to launch it... ever!

And that would be the worst defeat imaginable.

The only thing that can save this project is EMERGENCY FUNDING -- and EMERGENCY PRAYERS -- so that we can move forward as planned.

Because when abortion mills get closed, babies are saved.

It's just that simple.

For instance, here at the closed abortion mill that's now my office, we recently had a young woman knock on our door.

She came for an abortion, because she thought this was still an abortion mill. The same one where she had an abortion as a teenager years ago.

What she got instead was about an hour of much-needed counseling from our staff, plus an armload of educational materials.

And, praise God, she's decided to keep her baby!

With our new project, we can continue to close abortion mills around the country -- faster and easier than ever before.

Why, just last year, we were instrumental in closing at least 10 mills!

And as you'll see on the enclosed yellow sheet of paper, we've closed more than 40 abortion mills over the years!!

Right now, there are only about 729 mills left in the United States -- down significantly from the 2,126 mills that were killing babies back in 1991...!!

Our new project can get rid of those 729 mills -- one at a time -- peacefully and legally.

No violence. No threats. Just super-effective activism that we've learned and perfected over the last 20 years.

I'll tell you all about this new project in my next letter to you. Revealing the details now would be counter-productive.

However, I can't even move forward on it unless we get out of this financial crisis immediately.

That's why I urge you to take a look at the enclosed yellow sheet with the list of closed abortion mills. You'll be pleasantly shocked.

And then I beseech you to rush a life-saving gift -- of any amount -- so that we can get back on our feet and move forward with this exciting new project.

Without your help -- and your prayers and God's grace -- this project will go nowhere.

And that means all those abortion mills will stay OPEN and continue killing the innocent little babies like the ones that were killed in this building I'm sitting in.

50,000 of them--in one abortion mill alone.

We know how to close abortion mills. And this new project is how we'll get the job done.

But we can't even get it started without your utmost help at this time.

Frankly, we're getting very close to the point of shutting everything down if emergency help doesn't arrive soon.

That would be a devastating blow -- especially at this time when we're actually WINNING the pro-life fight.

More people (a majority of Americans, in fact) identify themselves as opposed to abortion, especially younger Americans. The number of abortion mills has been cut by two-thirds since 1991. The total number of abortions is down by 400,000 per year! The abortion cartel can't find new abortionists, and the average age of the existing abortionists is 72. All this adds up to VICTORY for the babies and for our country -- but ONLY if we can keep moving forward.

And that, unfortunately, takes money.

So please prayerfully consider what size gift you can afford to send to us right away.

There's no time to lose.

I thank you for being there for us in the past.

And I thank you in advance for helping us now.

God bless you.

For the Babies,

Troy Newman

President, Operation RescueP.S. I can't emphasize this enough...

This is the worst financial crisis we have ever faced. And it's hit us at the worst time possible.

Without emergency help from our loyal supporters like you, I hate to think what kind of situation we'll be forced into.

But let me tell you: Our enemies in the abortion cartel would rejoice. And the angels would weep.

Please don't let that happen. Please send your emergency gift TODAY.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Others have already pointed out that the whole Glenn Beck/Fox News/right-wing crusade against President Obama's "czars" is totally bogus.  Now, even CBN's David Brody is weighing in to set the record straight, calling the whole right-wing campaign misleading:

The Brody File has been researching this topic for an upcoming story to air on The 700 Club and here's a simple fact: The Czar list compiled by Fox News and other outlets is just not fully accurate. They are listing people like Cass Sunstein, John Holdren and a few others as Czars but these folks have been confirmed by the Senate. That is significant because the main contention here is that these Czars run around unchecked and unaccountable to Congress. Their list shouldn't include them. If you want to make the argument that Sunstein and Holdren shouldn't be nominated by President Obama because of things they've either said or done in the past then fine but to add them to the Czar total is really misleading.

Look, you can make the argument that the Obama administration has increased the number of so called Czars and it has even concerned liberals like Senator Russ Feingold and Senator Robert Byrd. Still, if you want to bring credibility to your argument you need to get your facts straight. Conservative media outlets hurt themselves when the information they provide isn't the total picture. It may play well with Obama's staunch critics but doesn't the full truth matter? Conservative media complain about the mainstream media ignoring them (and they have a point) but if Czar lists are inaccurate then is it no wonder that the MSM may question the factual credibility of future stories?

• Will this become the new Religious Right cause célèbre?  We'll have to wait and see.
• The full text of the frantic Operation Rescue fund-raising letter warning that they are about to go out of business.
• Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee wants to know when "will media expose duplicitous tone of the president?"
• Laurie Higgins of the Illinois Family Institute warns that bullying and harassment prevention programs are "one of the central ways to get pro-homosexual information and resources into public schools."
• Pastor Phil Magnan of Biblical Family Advocates: "I have come to realize that the reason why the homosexual and the abortion movements remain strong; is that the church of Jesus Christ has lost most of its true saltiness, its desire to suffer loss for Christ and its reverence for the Word. We have lost that weeping, passionate cry of the soul to abide in Christ daily and reach out to those headed for hell. We have instead embraced a weak, lazy view of our faith and our Lord."

The day after President Obama delivered his healthcare address to a joint session of Congress, the Family Research Council hosted its own healthcare webcast featuring Congressional Republicans like Senator Jim DeMint and Rep. Chris Smith along with right-wing activists like Ken Blackwell, Harry Jackson, and Mat Staver.

FRC has now released a short video featuring the highlights of that event during which participants worked to spread the right-wing lies about healthcare reform leading to rationing (aka "death panels"), with Rep. Smith saying it would be devastating to those who are "fragile, frail, elderly, or chronically ill."

The video is capped off by House Republican Leader John Boehner telling FRC's right-wing activists to "keep it up," saying that "we've got to keep the American people engaged in this. I will guarantee that if the American people stay engaged in this fight, they will win":

It is presumably no accident that Randall Terry will be protesting outside of Sidwell Friends School in Washington, DC, where President Obama's daughters are enrolled, in order to "show pictures of aborted and healthy babies -- the same pictures [anti-choice activist] Jim Pouillon was showing when he was gunned down" in Michigan last week:

One protest will occur at Sidwell Friends School in Washington DC, where many high powered politicos send their children.

"We will not be intimidated into silence. We will continue to show images of aborted babies at high schools, no matter what the cost.

"We hope that other pro-life groups will set aside differences and turf wars, and will do as I have done - follow the urging of Baltimore area pro-life leader, Kurt Linnemann, who wrote me urging me to help promote this. (See copy of letter below.)

"President Obama condemned Jim Pouillon's murder - which is good - but he said nothing about protecting pro-lifers. At least by going to Sidwell Friends School, we know we will have police protection. " Randall Terry, Director, Operation Rescue Insurrecta Nex.

Protests will be held on Thursday from Noon to 1:00 in DC and Baltimore, and the following Schools.

Sidwell Friends School
3825 Wisconsin Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20016

Baltimore Polytecnic Institute
1400 W. Cold Spring Lane
Baltimore, MD 21209

Protests are also scheduled in the following cities:
Hanford West High School
1150 W. Lacey Boulevard
Hanford, CA 93230

William Penn High School
713 East Basin Road
New Castle, DE 19720

St. Louis (Granite City) MO
Dallas TX
Buffalo NY

• Politico reports the shocking news that right-wingers don't think the media is covering their right-wing stories enough and dedicates 1600 words to exposing it.
• "Balance, Cut, Save": That is Mike Huckabee's simple solution for saving America.
• Steve Deace demands to know why the "Friendly Neighborhood American Christian Conservative Super-Lawyers" are not stepping in to save Iowa from the horrors of marriage equality.
• Tony Perkins delivered a pre-Values Voter Summit pep talk to conservative bloggers and online activists today.
• Peter LaBarbera is advising conservative activists to take advantage of the wave of support for the TEA Party movement by billing ENDA as "big government liberalism."

On September 9th, President Obama delivered his healthcare address to a joint session of Congress. Not surprisingly, security around the Capitol was pretty tight ... but to Janice Shaw Crouse of Concerned Women for America, this sizable security presence wasn't there to protect the President or members of Congress; it was really an effort by "the Left" to intimidate conservatives:

Everything was on hand in preparation for an assault. But by whom?

Were they mobilizing for an attack by jihadists bent on acts of terrorism? No, the State Department has decreed that the bad old days of the Bush Administration’s preoccupation with the Axis of Evil and the War on Terror are over.

Then it came to me.

They are there to ensure that those evil right-wing terrorists who have been running amuck at TEA Parties and town halls all over the country don’t get the idea that they can weaken the grip of Pelosi and company by mounting a disruptive demonstration prior to, during, or after Obama’s health care reform address to Congress. Can’t allow those wicked conservatives to take a page out of Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals! Can’t allow those wicked conservatives to behave like ACORN or the Black Panthers! It just wouldn’t do.

...

If the left — with its majorities in both the House and the Senate — has everything nailed down as solidly as “I’ve-got-the-votes” Pelosi claims, why all the frustration, anger, fear, and hysteria that we’re seeing? That much is not merely theatre. Those emotions are real and very hard to hide. You can see them in the eyes and body language and hear them in the tone of voice.

No. What we are seeing is something very real. And it certainly isn’t pretty.

Last week, LifeSiteNews reported that former Sen. Rick Santorum had been speaking to a room full of prominent US Catholic leaders when he was challenged to run for the Republican Presidential nomination in 2012.  Santorum responded that, six months ago his anwer would have been "no way," but given that President Obama is destroying our nation, he is indeed "thinking about it" making his own run for the GOP nomination.

Today, Santorum was on a RNC conference call and reiterated that he is considering such a run:

Rick Santorum affirmed on an RNC conference call -- aimed at attacking Arlen Specter -- that he's considering a run for president in 2012 -- because, he said, the Obama presidency is "injurious to America."

"The dynamic has changed," Santorum said. "A lot of folks who might not have thought about running against an incumbent president" are now considering it.

He cited Obama's lower poll numbers and his failure to "transform" and unify the country.

"A lot of people are going to take a look and see wht they can do to try to confront this presidency, which many of us -- as you're seeing from the tea parties and the like -- which many of us believe is injurious to America," Santorum said, saying the 2012 race is "something that I think I would consider."

I always assumed that getting routed in your re-election bid for Congressional office pretty much doomed any hope a candidate had for seeking higher office, but apparently not.

Joel Vaughan was a high-ranking staffer during the heyday of the Christian Coalition and its inexorable decline into obscurity. He eventually left the organization and now serves as special assistant to Focus on the Family President Jim Daly, and has written a book called "The Rise and Fall of the Christian Coalition: The Inside Story." 

Recently, he appeared on a Christian radio program called "The Georgene Rice Show" to promote the book and provided a fascinating insider's view on the group's rise and decline following the departure of Ralph Reed.

But, Vaughan says, what ultimate doomed the Christian Coalition was Pat Roberston's decision to abandon the impeachment effort against President Clinton: 

Georgene: We know that the Christian Coalition was a bi-word to the media that tended toward the left, and that anything that was accomplished there was lauded as not positive. But let’s talk about the fall of the Christian Coalition and what ultimately left the organization in utter obscurity. Talk about the high point and then the slide downward.

Vaughan: There were three main things: finances, mission and staffing. The high point was after the 1994 elections, all through 1995 and leading up to 1996. But when Dole lost to Clinton in 1996, we immediately began experiencing a cash crunch. When it didn’t pick back up in 1997, we started to accumulate debt. Making matters worse, we were being hounded by the IRS and the Federal Elections Commission. And we were spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on those defenses. In April, Reed announced he was leaving to go into consulting full time, and his successors, Hodel and Randy Tate, weren’t announced until June. And during that period, money went into the tank, and the debt increased. Therefore, the debt was unmanageable by the first two or three months of the new administration. After about a year, they had kind of gotten things back on an even keel. Hodel and Robertson both put in their own money to keep the Coalition afloat and to help meet payroll. Direct mail was getting back up. Things were on a good line until the Clinton impeachment in 1998 over his then alleged affair with intern Monica Lewinsky.

All the conservative groups were fighting hard to get Clinton impeached, and he was impeached, and his trial was set for January, 1999. Then Clinton made his State of the Union address right before the trial. He did such a good job. It was a true Clintonian performance. There is no one better before a camera. He doesn’t even need the teleprompters that our current President needs. He did such a good job that Robertson went on the 700 Club the next day and said Clinton did such a great job, and this impeachment thing is over, and as far as he was concerned, we should get on with something else. Well the Christian Coalition supporters across America didn’t agree. They thought we should keep fighting and keep working and, even if we were going to lose the impeachment trial, we should still hold Clinton’s feet to the fire and stay based on the matter of fighting for principal……Robertson thought it was more expedient to get on with a battle we could win……Finally, Hodel told Robertson that we needed to apologize to the grass roots. Pat didn’t feel like that was something he wanted to do…So Hodel decided to leave and return to Colorado where he could return to his private pursuits.

Robertson made a decision to bring in one of the state directors [Roberta Combs] from South Carolina to take over the organization. She did a good job running the Coalition in South Carolina, but bless her heart, she wasn’t ready to run a national organization. She was in over her head from day one. The staff didn’t want her there. She didn’t want any of the staff there. She questioned their loyalty. People started leaving in mass. She started firing a few people. Before you know it, the thing was just gone. By the end of the year, it was only a vapor.

Outside right-wing interest groups have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Stand for Marriage Maine's campaign which have accounted for more than 99% of all its donations.

So what is Stand for Marrige Maine doing with all that money? I have no idea, but they certainly don't appear to be spending it on ads, judging by this truly awful frist attempt:

Good As You has more on the "substance" of the ad's claims.

• Adele M. Stan: Make no mistake; the Tea Party movement is the new religious right. The megaphone of Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network and James Dobson's Focus on the Family media empire has been replaced by FOX News Channel and the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal.
• How many people showed up at the 9/12 rally?  Millions? Not quite.
• For those who couldn't attend, view photos from the rally here and here.
• Rick Santorum: running for president?
• Think Progress: Neal Boortz compares President Obama to a child molester.
• Bob McDonnell tries to stem the damage from his Regent thesis with a new ad.
• Karen Ocamb: The Religious Right is Swiftboating Same Sex Marriage in Maine.

We don't call Harry Jackson the "point man for the wedge strategy" for nothing:

The truth is that the gay community has “manipulated” the political process through extravagant campaign contributions and strategically infiltrating the city’s Democratic Party’s hierarchy over the last five years. DC council members have ironically participated in the suppression of the citizens’ right to vote in order to advance a privileged minority’s pet issue. This has been done in the name of “civil rights.”

If anybody knows what civil rights are, it would have been my father, who was threatened at gunpoint by a state trooper for his participation in voting registration efforts in the South. The officer who threatened him actually discharged his weapon in an attempt to make it clear that if my father spoke up again, he would be killed. My father could speak about civil rights because as a teenager he saw lifeless bodies hanging from lynching trees as part of the “strange fruit of the South” while taking shortcuts to deliver papers on several mornings. My father understood about civil rights as he heard the stories of an African-American man in his town who was brutally beaten, mutilated, set on fire, and dragged through the town square of the city.

But my father is not the only one who understood civil rights. The unwed black mother, living on public assistance, understands true discrimination. She understands that there are privileged people in our culture and institutional barriers that prohibit whole segments of our society from experiencing the American dream. In DC, gay activists enjoy better education, better jobs, better housing, greater access to the system, and now – legislative power. Something is wrong when the privileged feign that they are the persecuted, when the powerful posture themselves as victims. In this strategic period of American history, when many major issues are being decided, the least the city council could do would be to slow down and allow liberty to have her voice.

The Los Angeles Times reports that organizers of next year's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) have rejected a request by WorldNetDaily to host a panel on the Birther issue:

In one symbolic development, organizers of next year's Conservative Political Action Conference -- the country's biggest annual meeting of activists on the right -- said last week that they had rejected a request to schedule a panel on whether Obama was a native-born U.S. citizen.

"It would fill a room," said event director Lisa De Pasquale. "But so would a two-headed monkey. There really are so many more important issues, and it's only a three-day conference."

CPAC officials said WorldNetDaily's [Joseph] Farah asked the group to hold the panel.

Yeah, CPAC certainly wouldn't want to associate with the lunacy spouted by the likes of Farah or WND now would it?

Joseph Farah addressing CPAC in 2008.

Last year, a Metrolink commuter train collided with a Union Pacific Corp. freight train in Los Angeles, causing several fatalities.

Over the weekend, William J. Murray, chairman of the Religious Freedom Coalition, had a column in WorldNetDaily complaining that there has been no coverage of the fact that the crash was due to the fact, literally, that the engineer gay:

The engineer, Robert M. Sanchez, 46, was a homosexual, and he was sending a text message to a teenage boy when he blew through a red light, crashing head-on into an oncoming freight train. Because being "gay" is a media cause in America, and particularly in California, virtually no gay crime is reported. Domestic violence involving gays is rarely if ever reported in California newspapers despite the fact that it represents a disproportionate number of police calls. Simply put, the minute the individual who caused the train crash was identified as being homosexual, reporting on the disaster came to a virtual stop.

On Sept. 21, 2008, the New York Times did publish a 40-paragraph, sympathetic story about the killer engineer, Robert Sanchez, which centered on his diabetes and the suicide of his "partner" in 2003. The dead and injured passengers were not mentioned. In paragraph one of the story, titled "Several Portraits Emerge of Engineer in Crash," it is mentioned that he was sending a text message to a teenage boy at the time of the accident, saying, "He encouraged teenagers who showed their own enthusiasm for the rails. ..." Later, in paragraph five, the Times article mentions that he suffered "grief" over the death of his partner in 2003, the first indication that he was gay. Near the end of the article, in paragraph 39, an individual is quoted as saying, "If he was texting those teenagers, he'd have to have loved his job and wanted to share it with people."

There are lots of older men and women who are "rail" enthusiasts. In fact, there are numerous magazines published for railroad and model railroad buffs. At age 63, I continue to build a model train layout that is slowly taking over the basement of my home. The average subscriber to Model Railroader magazine is by no means a teenager.

Yet in none of the articles is it mentioned that Sanchez sent text messages to mature rail enthusiasts, or that he belonged to any model rail clubs. It seems his only interest was in "sharing the rails" with teenage boys. Let's get real: Bob Sanchez was using his position as a railroad engineer to pick up teenage boys who had an interest in railroads. In his excitement in communicating with a teenage boy by text message he took his eyes off the rails in front of him and killed himself and 24 others while leaving dozens with permanent injuries, some crippled for life.

Murray seemingly has absolutely nothing on which to base his allegation that "Sanchez was using his position as a railroad engineer to pick up teenage boys" ... other than the "known fact" among Religuious Right groups that all gays are pedophiles.

And that was apparently good enough for WND.

The AP is now reporting that the man who allegedly killed an anti-abortion activist in Michigan apparently had a "grudge" against his protests and that he was just one of three people he targeted during his killing spree, all for individual reasons:

A man carrying grudges against several people in town set off on a shooting spree Friday morning, authorities said, killing an abortion protester outside a school because he didn't like that the activist carried a sign with graphic images of a fetus in front of students.

Before he was done, the gunman drove to a gravel pit and shot and killed the owner, apparently for different reasons, police said. Authorities believe they stopped a third killing by catching up with him before he could pull the trigger.

''The defendant had ill will toward these three individuals -- not for the same reason necessarily, but had a grudge,'' said Shiawassee County Prosecutor Randy Colbry.

It started around 7:20 a.m. across the street at the high school, where James Pouillon stood with a sign that pictured a chubby-cheeked baby with the word ''LIFE'' on one side and an image of an aborted fetus with the word ''ABORTION'' on the other. Pouillon was a well-known activist in the town of 15,000, who often had one-man demonstrations outside area schools and city hall.

Harlan James Drake, 33, drove by the school Friday and gunned Pouillon down in front of horrified students and parents, Colbry said.

It was Pouillon's presence outside the high school that seemed to drive Drake to kill, said assistant prosecutor Sara Edwards.

That ''seemed to bother him .... the fact that he was outside the high school with his signs in front of children going to school,'' Edwards said.

Prosecutors said they didn't know if Drake knew Pouillon personally or if only by reputation as a local protester.

• The right-wing healthcare webcast from last night is now available on-line.
• David Brody: Domestic Policy Council Director Melody Barnes and White House Director for Public Liaison Tina Tchen will meet with Dr. Charmaine Yoest, President and CEO of Americans United for Life Action, next Thursday.
• Carrie Prejean will be a keynote speaker at the North Carolina Conservative Leadership Conference.
• Conservative HQ: Longtime conservative Richard A. Viguerie, Chairman of ConservativeHQ.com, provided training to about 120 Tea Party leaders at a seminar he held in conjunction with the group's march on Washington, D.C.
• Joseph Farah says that President Obama should be impeached for the "audacious plot of the White House to harvest personal e-mail addresses from Facebook, MySpace and other social networking sites for political purposes." Of course, none of that is true.
• Finally, the effort to place a "Personhood Amendment" on the Florida ballot would likely end up outlawing birth control.

I have been diligently following the developments in the shooting death of anti-abortion activist James Pouillon in Michigan since the news broke this morning and based on the little information and few details that are available, it is impossible to know why Pouilon was killed.

Reports indicated that Pouilon was gunned down from a moving car early this morning.  A witness got the car's license plate and police arrested someone an hour later.  At that point, the suspect reportedly informed the police that he had committed another murder earlier in the morning and police were soon informed that the body of Mike Fouss, the owner of a local gravel pit, had been discovered, shot multiple times in his office:

Fuoss knew the suspected shooter, according to Shiawassee County Sheriff George Braidwood. Braidwood said it appeared he was shot at close range.

Subsequent reports indicate that the suspect in custody had some sort of personal connection to Fuoss:

Fuoss’ brother-in-law, Glen Merkel, told the Free Press that Fuoss was found shot dead in his office around 7:30 a.m. by an employee. He said Fuoss was seen alive perhaps 20 minutes earlier when another truck driver for his company came to pick up a load of gravel.

Merkel said the suspect in the shootings is the son of a former Fuoss Gravel employee, but said he did not know any reason for Fuoss’ slaying.

In short, at this point, it’s far, far too soon to say what the motive in either of these crimes actually was.

But none of that seems to matter to right-wing groups and individuals like Randall Terry, all of whom are releasing statements and holding press conferences demanding political action.

From Concerned Women for America:

Wendy Wright, President of Concerned Women for America (CWA), stated, "We are shocked at this senseless violence against a peaceful man. Jim Pouillon sincerely lived out his belief that babies have the right to be born. He dedicated his life to convincing others to reject the violence of abortion. It is a tragedy upon tragedy that a peaceful man who tried to end violence was himself violently killed.

"We hope Attorney General Holder will as vigorously denounce the murder of Jim Pouillon, who tried to save babies from violence, as he did the murder of George Tiller, the late-term abortionist."

CWA President Wendy Wright will speak at a press conference today, September 11, along with pro-life leaders Troy Newman, Patrick Mahoney and Rob Schenck. The press conference will be held at 2:30 outside the Department of Justice (950 Pennsylvania Ave, NW, Washington, D.C.).

From the Pro-Life Action League:

"We are shocked to learn of the killing of pro-life activist Jim Pouillon, a man who day after day stood as a witness to the violence of abortion. Now he himself is a victim of violence," said Joseph M. Scheidler, national director of the Chicago-based Pro-Life Action League, "Just last month at a clinic on the north side of Chicago a man shouted to one of our counselors, 'I'll get my gun and shoot you through the head.' On a number of occasions, our 'Face the Truth Tour' was threatened with deadly weapons."

"When the late term abortionist, Dr. George Tiller, was murdered, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney's Office launched a federal investigation into federal crimes in connection with the murder, and the Civil Rights Division convened a meeting of the National Task Force on Violence Against Reproductive Health Care Providers," commented Scheidler. "Now the Pro-Life Action League is calling on those government agencies to investigate this murder and established a task force to protect pro-life advocates."

Let me say this again: at this point, nobody knows why Pouillon was killed.  He may have been targeted for his activism, or it may have just been random, but nobody knows.  Perhaps it would behoove these right wing groups to hold off until some facts are actually known about this case before they start issuing statements and making all sorts of demands.

And maybe media outlets like the New York Times ought to hold off on running articles carrying headlines like "Man Killed Over Anti-Abortion Stance" until that has actually been established:

Details regarding the shooting of a Michigan are still hard to come by, but early reports seem to suggest that the shooting of anti-abortion activist James Pouillon may have been part of a killing spree that began with a murder earlier in the day:

Mike Fuoss, 61, owner of Fuoss Gravel Pit, 777 Busha Road in Owosso Township, has been identified as the second homicide victim in Shiawassee County this morning.

Fuoss also owned Arrow Construction, an asphalt and excavating company, and started Indan Rock Subdivision and Fuoss Brothers Apartments. Fuoss graduated from Corunna High School in 1966.

In a press conference, Owosso police Chief Michael Compeau said James L. Pouillon was staging an anti-abortion protest in front of Owosso High School at 7:20 a.m. Friday when witnesses heard 4-10 shots fired from a passing vehicle, killing Pouillon.

All the shots were fired from the moving vehicle toward the opposite side of the street, away from the school, police said.

...

A witness provided a license plate number and about an hour later, Owosso police arrested a 33-year-old Owosso man at his home.

When he was arrested, the man told police that he had been involved in another homicide in Shiawassee County today.

About 8:17 a.m., an hour after Pouillon was killed, a worker at Fuoss Gravel Pit called 911 to report that he had found the owner of the business dead in the office. Police found Mike Fuoss, 61, shot multiple times in the office.

Fuoss knew the suspected shooter, according to Shiawassee County Sheriff George Braidwood. Braidwood said it appeared he was shot at close range.

It is unknown if the suspect knew Pouillon. Police said it's too early to assign any motive to either shooting. Detectives are interviewing the suspect right now.

But Randall Terry is not waiting around to see what the investigation uncovers before seeking to capitalize on Pouillon's murder:

Abortion Wars, Pro-Life's First Martyr - Jim Pouillon: Randall Terry, DC Area Pro-life Leaders to Hold Press Conference. Rev. Rusty Thomas, Missy Smith Hold Press Conference Re: Today's Shooting in Mich.

Press Conference Today, September 11, 1:30 P.M., National Press Club. Randall Terry States: "I've known known Jim for nearly 20 years. He was dedicated, articulate, and courageous. And he gave his life in the service of the babies he sought to defend. We grieve his death, and we will not stop using ANY of the tactics that cost him his life.

"He was known affectionately as 'Jim the Sign Guy.' May God grant him a Martyrs Crown."

Mr. Terry and other DC pro-life leaders will discuss Mr. Pouillon's murder, and how this will effect pro-life activism in the future.

Mr. Terry will discuss Mr. Pouillon's murder in relation to Dr. Tiller's killing.

They will also discuss the Obama Administration's response and the response of the child-killing movement.

Mr. Terry will announce further plans for support of Jim's community.

Press Conference: National Press Club

Where: 529 14th Street Northwest DC 20045 inside the Murrow Room

Time: 1:30 P.M., September 11

Contact: Catherine Veritas, 904-687-9804

That is what Jordan Sekulow, Director of International Operations at the American Center for Law and Justice, says: 

I understand why Congressman Wilson shouted at President Obama and if I had the guts he did, I'd hope I would have done the same thing. Was it a distraction that hurt the fight against government run health care? We'll see. Was it the "right" thing to do? Probably not. But, do I like the fact that he stood up to the President just like thousands of Americans who stood up to their representatives during the August recess? You bet I did. Why? I was enraged when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called President Bush a "loser" and when Democrats booed President Bush during his 2005 State of the Union address. President Obama is getting a taste of the tactics used by the DNC, Organizing for America, and ACORN. The gloves have come off and the fight is real. Conservatives can beat this regime at its own game and the President is sweating.

President Obama, you should apologize to the American people for the lies and deceptions you and your party continue to preach.

It sure didn't take WorldNetDaily long to start hawking these:

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Or receiving and printing erudite letters to the editor about the outburst:

I'm unsure what constitutes a letter to the editor, but I know what I think and feel concerning the mind-control diatribe called a presidential speech Wednesday evening.

It is my opinion what Rep. Joe Wilson did and said was necessary. It was necessary for God to disrupt the demonic subliminal communication that manifests from Obama and his entourage and shake the 111th United States Congress from their complacency (and probable altered states of consciousness).

To me, it gave new meaning to: "The voice of one crying in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord; Make His paths straight.'" And I do believe that in the moment "You lie!" came forth from Wilson's mouth, judgment was declared upon the chosen man, the pawn who constitutionally should not be the president of the United States.

Further, I believe the holy "ripple effect" of the outburst will bring forth good fruit in the days to come. (May the Lord God of Hosts protect this congressman and show him truth.)

I'm reminded of the New American's fairly comprehensive narrative concerning the formation of the Illuminati. According to the article, many years ago, a courier on horseback carried documents purported to progress the development and growth of global governance in Europe. At some point during the journey, the courier was struck by lightning. His body and the documents were found and the plot exposed.

Wednesday night's outburst wasn't quite as good as that, yet the outworking of God's power may just change my stated opinion.

May the Lord God of Israel give you exactly what you need to fulfill the works that have been preordained for you to accomplish, Mr. Farah.

• Richard Viguerie proclaims that President Obama's effort at reforming our health care system is "is re-launching the conservative movement" and helping Republicans remember their conservative principles.
• The Freedom Federation says it "supports heathcare reform but opposes government-run healthcare that funds abortion, violates conscience, rations care, or limits freedom."
• The Susan B. Anthony list launches a "Void the Abortion Mandate" campaign.
• Personhood Florida will be hosting a press conference announcing its submission of a "Personhood Amendment" to the Florida State Constitution on Friday.
• Finally, the Christian Defense Coalition, Pro-Life Unity, The Family Research Council, and others are "gathering on the West Lawn of the United States Capitol for 27 hours of intercession and worship. Believers will be crying out for God to intervene in the national health care debate and ensure that taxpayer funds and not used to pay for abortions."