March 2010

AFA's Fischer: Fed. Gov't Should Be Shot for Trespassing On States' Rights

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Monday, 3/22/2010 12:04 pm

The American Family Association's Bryan Fischer had not yet weighed in on the House's passage of health care reform legislation when I put together my round-up of right-wing reactions earlier this morning.

And that turned out to be a good thing, because his response deserves its own post, as he declares  4:07 p.m. on March 7, 2010 to be the exact moment that the United States died:

Rep. Bart Stupak will go down in history as a man who will live in infamy. And March 7, 2010 will go down in history likewise as a day that will live in infamy.

It is a rare thing when a nation can point to one specific moment in time in which its tragic destiny was sealed. That moment came today at 4:07 Eastern time.

For at 4:07 p.m. on March 10, 2010, Bart Stupak announced that his pro-life convictions had collapsed like a cheap tent in a slight breeze. As a result, the America we knew and loved is gone, gone, gone.

Fischer followed that post up a short time later with a new post calling on the states to resist Congress and "stand up against the tyranny of the central government" while comparing the government to trespassers and squatters who should be shot and warning that only the 10th Amendment can save this nation from bloodshed: 

Thus what Congress did yesterday in passing the monstrous MussoliniCare bill, will not only bankrupt America, it is flatly and unequivocally unconstitutional and is hated by a majority of the American people. Something is being crammed down our throats that makes us gag and vomit.

The last remedy left - other than bloodshed - is the 10th Amendment, which reserves to the states any power not delegated to the federal government. The central government is exercising a power that it does not have, and can only exercise by usurping that power from the states.

State governments can legitimately and constitutionally decide not to cooperate with the central government on the legal ground that Congress has transgressed the boundaries marked out in our founding document. The central government is trespassing on the sovereign territory of the states, and the states have every right to throw them off their property.

Trespassers can be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Squatters can be evicted. If they won't leave, they can be tossed. And in the worst case scenario, if they won't surrender peacefully, they can be shot.

Do I need to point out that just last week, Fischer was featured on the Family Research Council's anti-health care reform webcast along with Rep. Tom Price, (R-GA), Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), and Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN)?

Liberty U Out To Elect a City Council That Will Do Its Bidding

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Monday, 3/22/2010 11:32 am

In 2008, Liberty University Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. declared it his hope that Liberty U would "go down in history as the college that elected a president."

That dream died when John McCain lost the election, but Falwell has been hard at work making the most of LU's political power in Lynchburg by running campus-wide voter registration drives, busing students to the polls, and then taking credit for delivering a state House seat for a Republican candidate.

Sensing its growing importance in the area, Liberty recently demanded that the Lynchburg City Council move the polling places used by LU students right on to campus for their convenience; a move which the City Council rejected, much to LU's outrage. 

Well, now a Liberty U student has announced that he is running for a seat on the Lynchburg City Council ... and, wouldn't you know it, LU is sending out thousands of letters urging everyone to vote in the election in May:

Liberty University continues its push to register voters for Lynchburg's May City Council elections with a mass mailing.

Earlier this week, donors and the university sent out 10,000 letters to alumni, supporters, and online students urging them to register.

The letter doesn’t go as far as to endorse any candidates, but it expresses Liberty's desire to grow with fewer restrictions.

Liberty co-founder Dr. Elmer Towns wrote it and writes in it that the city council election is critical in making that happen.

The letter says "Lynchburg City Council will cost LU great amounts of money as they grow," referring to millions of dollars in infrastructure projects when the university hits 12,000 on-campus students.

"Which is absolutely crazy for the city to mandate those types of things that Liberty has to do in order to grow," Liberty University official Lee Beaumont said.

The city says LU agreed to these improvements in a conditional-use permit in June 2008. Beaumont says those projects would increase tuition and affect growth, and the LU community needs to be aware.

...

The letter is a call to elect members to city council who will set favorable development policies for Liberty ... "I say get out there and vote. Get off your butt, register, make sure you're registered and show up for a city council election," [Beaumont] said.

House Passes Health Care Reform; Religious Right Melts Down

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Monday, 3/22/2010 9:37 am

Last night, the House of Representatives voted to pass the Senate's version of health care reform legislation, making it the latest step in what has been a long and bitter process to overhaul the nation's health care system. 

And given how vehemently opposed the Right has been to this effort, it doesn't come as much of a surprise to see that their response to this development has been nothing short of apoplectic, starting with the Susan B. Anthony List which had been planning on giving Rep. Bart Stupak its "Defender of Life" Award but has now publicly rescinded the offer: 

In response to Rep. Bart Stupak's announcement that he and other self-labeled "pro-life" Democrats will vote in favor of Healthcare reform legislation with the addition of an Executive Order from the White House to address concerns about abortion funding, Susan B. Anthony List Candidate Fund President Marjorie Dannenfelser offered the following statement:

"This Wednesday night is our third annual Campaign for Life Gala, where we were planning to honor Congressman Stupak for his efforts to keep abortion-funding out of health care reform-we will no longer be doing so. By accepting this deal from the most pro-abortion President in American history, Stupak has not only failed to stand strong for unborn children, but also for his constituents and pro-life voters across the country.

"Let me be clear: any representative, including Rep. Stupak, who votes for this healthcare bill can no longer call themselves 'pro-life.' The Susan B. Anthony List Candidate Fund will not endorse, or support in any capacity, any Member of Congress who votes for this bill in any future election. Now through Election Day 2010, these representatives will learn that votes have consequences. The SBA List Candidate Fund will work tirelessly to help defeat Members who support this legislation and make sure their constituents know exactly how they voted. We will actively seek out true pro-life candidates to oppose Members who vote 'yes' on this bill, whether it be in general or primary elections. For these Members, it will be a quick downhill slide to defeat in November.

That sort of over-the-top response was, frankly, the typical response from the Right, with the American Center for Law and Justice promising to file suit and everyone else vowing to vote the Democrats out of office in November:

Family Research Council:

"Passage of this partisan government takeover of health care with all of its Medicare cuts, tax increases, a continued marriage penalty, individual mandates, and abortion funding shows the extreme leftist orientation of this Congress.

"The American people, regardless of their view of its legality, should not be forced to pay for someone's abortion. Those who voted for this legislation cannot legitimately claim to be even neutral on the issue of abortion. This legislation accomplishes this abortion mandate in spades.

...

"The President's disregard for the unborn is no surprise. It is the betrayal from those who have fought for life within his party that is the biggest shock. Especially Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) who had fought so valiantly in this debate, but folded when it really mattered.

"FRC Action will seek to defeat many of the Members from majority pro-life districts who voted wrong today, and they will have plenty of free time to realize the grave mistake they have committed on the unborn today with their vote."

Eagle Forum:

"Any formerly pro-life Democrat who voted ‘Yes' on the Senate health care bill tonight will be forever remembered as being among the deciding votes which facilitated the largest expansion of abortion services since Roe v. Wade."

"Mr. Stupak and his Democrat followers have now clarified that you cannot be pro-life and be a Democrat. If abortion was truly their biggest issue, they wouldn't willfully align themselves with the Party of Death."

"This vote has exposed the myth of the ‘pro-life Democrat.' With this single vote, the Democratic Party has divided our nation into the Democrat Party of Death and the Republican Party of Life, and future elections will never be the same."

Americans United for Life Action:

"This deal to pass the largest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade is a tragedy for America. We believe that Mr. Stupak's choice to succumb to the intense pressure of the last week has resulted in his endorsement of a charade that does not even begin to address the anti-life provisions in this legislation. The American people do not support taxpayer funding of abortion and Speaker Pelosi and the President have undermined representative democracy by working to pass this legislation with this unprecedented contortion of the legislative process."

Operation Rescue:

"Operation Rescue supports efforts to oppose this ill-conceived abortion-funding scheme in the streets through peaceful protest, in the courts, and at the ballot box," said Newman. "We are taking notes, and will let it be known that a vote for this health care bill is a vote for abortion. It is certain that in spite of the outcome of today's political shenanigans, this is not over yet."

Christian Defense Coalition:

"We are confident this will have a powerful impact on Catholic and Evangelical voters this November.

"After the defeat of the Alamo, a powerful cry was heard across the nation which has inspired Americans for generations. That cry was, 'Remember the Alamo!'

"From the ashes of this defeat, another powerful cry will be heard. 'Remember March 21!' We believe as Americans understand what happened today they will work with unprecedented passion to ensure this bill is reversed and human rights and social justice are once again embraced in this country."

Catholic Advocate:

"Today's vote will go down in history as one of the greatest expansions of abortion since Roe v. Wade," said Catholic Advocate President Deal Hudson. "On November 2, American Catholics need to hold members of the House accountable for this betrayal."

"History has shown no executive order can trump the law of the land passed by Congress. Do the un-born have a champion in the Senate willing to fix the bill and truly stop federal funding for abortion?" asked Catholic Advocate Vice President Matt Smith. "Senator Ben Nelson and others who claim to carry the pro-life mantle now have an opportunity to return their pieces of silver from December."

Concerned Women for America:

"We are not fooled," said Concerned Women for America (CWA) CEO Penny Nance. "This is the biggest expansion of abortion funding since Roe v. Wade. And a flimsy promise of an executive order from the President may make it more comfortable for "pro-life" Democrats like Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Michigan) to vote for the bill, but in the end, such an illusory promise is not even worth the paper on which it's written. Backroom deals and compromises will not soften the blow of this attack on life and liberty as we know and enjoy it. Americans will not forget those Members of Congress who refused to listen to them. They will make their voices heard in November."

Mike Huckabee:

With this vote, Congress decided what kind of health care you have access to and how much it will cost.

They also decided not to respect us and take us for fools.

I am frustrated and I know you are as well. Ten days ago I launched a website called CallCongressNow.com and asked voters to call their representatives and Senators and tell them to vote no. Over 151,000 people visited the website and spent almost 4,000 hours on making calls pleading with their leaders in Washington to vote no. This time Congress listened more to party bosses than to you.

Now there is something else you can and must do: Get personally involved to dump them. Let’s replace this Congress with Republicans that will listen to the people.

Right Wing Round-Up

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Friday, 3/19/2010 6:00 pm
  • PFAW Statement: Texas Board of Education Rewrites History.

  • Media Matters: Rep. Paul Broun Compares Health Care Reform To "The Great War Of Yankee Aggression."

  • Justin Elliot: California Bar Now Investigating Orly Taitz.

  • David Weigel: Sarah Palin: The Series.

  • Timothy Kincaid: Another Baptist church not anti-gay enough for Texas.

  • Finally, Good As You digs deeper into this weird CWA nutritional drink partnership/fundraising scheme and it just gets weirder.

Right Wing Leftovers

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Friday, 3/19/2010 5:49 pm
  • Peter LaBarbera declares victory, citing MassResistance's fundamentally misleading claims.

  • "Looking Forward on the 5th Anniversary of Terri's [Schiavo's] Death"? That's a really bad title for a FRC event.

  • Her group just launched, but Virginia Thomas' Liberty Central is already breaking the law.

  • Phyllis Schlafly will be a featured speaker at Tax Day Tea Party rally in Michigan.

  • Glenn Beck calls Jim Wallis "Jeremiah Wright on sedatives."  I call Glenn Beck "Joseph McCarthy without the acute hepatitis."

  • Speaking of Glenn Beck, it just so happens that I've been reading a biography of Joseph Smith, founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, called "Rough Stone Rolling" and I came across a section that seemed rather interesting, given Beck's Mormon faith and obsession with Socialism

    • The revelation put forward the arresting doctrine that the economies of earth and heaven must correspond: "If ye are not equal in earthly things, ye cannot be equal in obtaining heavenly things." The leveling of property introduced the Saints to the heavenly order. "For if you will that I give unto you a place in the celestial world, you must prepare yourselves by doing the things which I have commanded you."

    One cannot tell if Joseph Smith understood how much he was asking of his followers in requiring the consecration of property. Questions about self-interest and obstinacy were not ones he entertained. The revelation said everyone was entitled to draw on the storehouse of common property, that "every man may improve upon his talent, that every man may gain other talents, yea, even an hundred fold." Afterwards, whatever surplus was acquired was to "be cast into the Lord's storehouse, to become the common property of the whole church." The Saints were to work hard for each other. That asked a lot of individualistic farmers and artisans in the expanding market economy of nineteenth-century America. Nothing was more sacrosanct in American ideology than the individual's right to the fruits of his labor. Equalizing wealth required each person to be "seeking the interest of his neighbor, and doing all things with an eye single to the glory of God." Could they? The little band of Saints had no prior experience with equality of property. Equality had always meant equality of rank in political society and equality before the law. Not even the most radical voices in the Revolution had called for the leveling of wealth. Only a few utopians like the Shakers had experimented with the redistribution of property. Joseph expected people to sacrifice personal advantage for the good of the whole in a society long devoted to private gain.

Rick Scarborough's Blatant Hijacking of the Tea Party Movement

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Friday, 3/19/2010 5:31 pm

Frankly, we have never really understood how Vision America's Rick Scarborough managed to get himself associated with the Tea Party movement ... and now it makes even less sense.

A few weeks ago we mentioned that even though he had been a featured speaker at the National Tea Party Convention, he was now launching his own Religious Right version of the Tea Party movement, changing the TEA Party's "Taxed Enough Already" acronym to "Truth Exalts America" and unveiling something he called the "Patriot Pastors' Tea Party."

Now Scarborough is announcing the group's first gathering, and it sounds a lot more like the standard Religious Right prayer rally than it does any sort of Tea Party gathering: 

A National Call to Pastors: Pastors across America are coming to San Antonio, Texas, on July 7th, for a Patriot Pastors’ T.E.A. Party in San Antonio, Texas, July 7, 2010. We urge Pastors to come to the Seventh largest city in America on the Seventh Day of the Seventh month for Seven hours of rallying and education, followed by Seventeen weeks of commitment concluding on Election Day. The prayerful goal of this effort is that we might experience a II Chronicles 7:14 revival in America.

Rationale: When Elijah became dismayed over the state of his nation and cried out to the Lord that he was the only prophet left who cared about God’s honor, God rebuked him and informed him He had 7,000 more who had not bowed to Baal.

There are thousands of Pastors in America who have not surrendered to the Baals of our culture and who faithfully proclaim the truth of God’s Word without compromise every day. We are calling them to join us in San Antonio for one day during which we will repent of our sin of complicity in the moral meltdown of America, and we will call upon our gracious God to restore our nation.

Many Pastors would have difficulty affording a trip to Washington DC and absorbing the cost of food and lodging there. We have chosen city in the central part of America where Pastors can take a stand for Christ and participate in an effort to call the 70 million Evangelicals in this country seek God for national renewal and revival.

The National Patriot Pastors’ T.E.A. Party will meet on the Plaza of the Alamo where 180 courageous “Texicans” made the ultimate sacrifice to confront tyranny and to gain their freedom. The Alamo holds profound symbolism for all Pastors and Christians in America. We too, must be willing lay it all on the line for Christ and for revival.

The rally will take place in the morning before heat is a problem. We will then reconvene in the afternoon in a church or civic auditorium (TBA) for training and strategy. The afternoon meeting is being arranged and the location will be announced here soon.

Mission: To experience genuine revival, so that Pastors may once again provide spiritual guidance for the Nation.

I have a sneaking suspicion that when the Tea Party movement first emerged, Christian prayer rallies calling for revival in America carried out by people who liken themselves to the prophet Elijah and the nation to Baal was probably not at all what they had envisioned.

Cuccinelli: Gay "Acts" Are a Detriment to Society

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Friday, 3/19/2010 4:19 pm

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli sat down for an interview with CBS 6 reporter Mark Holmberg where he discussed everything from his threat to sue the federal government if health care reform passes to his letter to state universities informing them not to grant anti-discrimination protections to gay employees to his statement that questions about President Obama's place of birth are not "beyond the realm of possibility."

Cuccinelli dismissed the Birther question as a far-fetched wild goose chase, but when the question turned to whether or not he believes "the practice of homosexuality is a detriment to our culture," he was far less dismissive, saying "the acts are" because it is best when everyone is "integrated into society":

 

Janet Porter Goes 9 for 9

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Friday, 3/19/2010 2:13 pm

You know how yesterday I was marveling at the fact that there it was seemingly impossible for any right-wing activist to be considered so radical that Republican members of Congress would refuse to be seen anywhere near them? 

Allow me to follow that up with this simple observation that, over her last nine radio program, Faith 2 Action's Janet Porter's has had nine different Republican members on Congress on as quests:

March 9 - Guest: U.S. Senator Mike Johanns (R-Nebraska)

March 10 - Guests: Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyoming)

March 16 - Guests: Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio)

March 17 - Guests: U.S. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas)

March 18 - Guests: U.S. Rep. Todd Akin (R-Missouri) and U.S. Rep. Trent Franks (R-Arizona)

March 19 - Guests: U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minnesota) and Rep. Tom Price (R-Georgia)

Do I really need to recount all of the crazy things Porter has said?

And yet multiple Republican members of Congress have been making time to appear on her radio program on a regular basis. 

Straight Out of the Right-Wing Playbook

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Friday, 3/19/2010 12:00 pm

Yesterday when we posted the link to our new Right Wing Watch In Focus on the Right's playbook for stopping immigration reform, one of the strategies we highlighted was the effort to "Portray Immigrants and Their Supporters as Invaders, Conquerors, Enemies of the U.S."

Today, NPR ran a story about the immigration reform rally taking place in Washington, DC this weekend which featured exactly that sort of attack

Republican state Sen. Russell Pearce defends Arizona's reputation as one of the most unwelcoming spots for undocumented workers in the U.S. He says those headed to the nation's capital are promoting anarchy.

"These folks who march with no respect for the law, have no regard for the victims of crime and the damage and cost to America," Pearce said. "Shame on them. Shame on them! They're as treasonous and as un-American as anyone I know."

Lesbian Bishops Get Africans Killed

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Friday, 3/19/2010 11:25 am

Back in 2004, Chuck Colson warned that failing to pass the Federal Marriage Amendment would lead to more terrorism by "inflaming radical Islam" and "handing moral weapons of mass destruction to those who use America's decadence to recruit more snipers and hijackers and suicide bombers."

That seems to be the sort of logic at work here as Jeff Walton of The Institute on Religion and Democracy warns that the Episcopal Church's election of a lesbian bishop, Mary Glasspool, will endanger the lives on Christians in Africa:

According to Jeff Walton with the Institute on Religion & Democracy (IRD), Glasspool's election will make it tough for Christians in certain countries.

"Last week there were over 500 people who were killed in three villages surrounding Jos Nigeria," he shares. "These Christian villagers were killed for their faith. The people who attacked them were yelling 'God is great' in Arabic, and one of the charges against the Christians was that they were immoral."

Walton explains the rationale behind that accusation. "When a Muslim sees the newspaper headline, 'Anglican elects partnered lesbian bishop,' they don't draw a distinction between African Christians and European or American Christians," he says.