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Porter Brings Religious Right Leaders, Dominionists And Prophets Together For Israel

Submitted by Brian Tashman on May 18, 2011 - 3:16pm

Janet Porter of Faith2Action has started a new website, IsraelYoureNotAlone.com, and has managed to gather a whole host of names for a Wall Street Journal ad condemning President Obama’s handling of the Israeli-Palestinian crisis.

Porter, who last week blamed the deadly tornadoes in the South on Obama’s approach to Israel and legal abortion, garnered signatures from Religious Right luminaries like Mike Huckabee, James Dobson, Lou Sheldon, Mat Staver, Tim Wildmon, and Roy Moore, along with dominionists like herself such as Jerry Boykin and Rick Scarborough, and New Apostolic Reformation ‘prophets’ like Rick Joyner, Che Ahn, Mike Bickle, and Chuck Pierce. Other prominent Religious Right signatories include Gordon Klingenschmitt, Don Feder, Rob Shenck and Paul Blair.

Many Christian Right leaders believe that Israel must refuse territorial compromise and a two-state solution in order to accelerate the End Times. The ad warns, “We believe Israel's ancient prophets who warned of dire consequences to any nation who would divide your land.”

Porter sent Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 10,000 yellow roses to protest Obama’s “horrendous treatment” of Netanyahu, and Glenn Beck recently announced that he will hold a rally in Jerusalem to fight against the two-state solution.

View the ad here [pdf]:

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More Right-Wing Fear Mongering About Don't Ask Don't Tell Repeal

Submitted by Brian Tashman on March 8, 2011 - 3:59pm

As the military begins to implement the repeal of the discriminatory Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy, repeal opponents continue to argue that allowing gay service members to serve openly will bring about the collapse of the military. Don Feder of the ultraconservative World Congress of Families spoke to Jerry Newcombe of Coral Ridge Ministries about how the repeal will devastate the military:

Newcombe: And it’s interesting when you were talking earlier about how sometimes the homosexual activists will engage in intimidation process, I think that same thing’s happened in the military. Where now, the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy has been rescinded and we have yet to see what’s going to happen, but I know this is not going to be good for chaplains, for example, who believe in conservative, traditional values as found in the Bible.

Feder: Well, it’s not just chaplains. Jerry, if you look at people who’ve made a career of the armed forces, they tend to come from conservative backgrounds. They tend to share our values, not just patriotism but right across the board, including family values. I think what you’re going to see is a very quiet, long-term attrition. People aren’t necessarily going to resign but when they’re reenlistment is up, they’re simply going to choose not to reenlist. In fact, in a number of surveys, people who’ve made a career of the armed forces have said just that. Last fall, before all of this went down they said if Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was repealed they’d be far more likely not to reenlist.

However, there is simply no evidence to back up Feder’s assertion. The Defense Department’s own study into the impact of repeal concluded that the “risk of repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell to the retention of enlisted personnel is LOW, and the risk to retention of officers is higher, in the range of LOW–MODERATE.” The Palm Center similarly found that retention rates will not be affected if gays are allowed to serve openly. Despite such overwhelming evidence, many right-wing activists continue to employ such scare tactics in order to push the Republican campaign to block implementation of the repeal.

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Religious Right Channels Reagan to Condemn CPAC

Submitted by Brian Tashman on February 8, 2011 - 11:19am

CPAC boycotters, angered over the upcoming event’s inclusion of the gay conservative group GOProud, have taken out a full page ad in the right-wing Washington Times to ask, “What would Ronald Reagan think of CPAC today?”

Rick Scarborough’s Vision America was behind the ad which accused CPAC of “betraying conservative principles and threatening conservative unity by creating the false impression that gay activism is somehow compatible with conservativism” by allowing GOProud to be a participating organization:

The self-proclaimed gay Republicans support hate crime laws (which will be used to bludgeon the church) and oppose the Federal Defense of Marriage Amendment, without which judges will ultimately legislate homosexual “marriage”—making the natural family an endangered species.

Last year, GOProud advocated for homosexuals serving openly in the military, which will devastate our armed forced and sacrifice unit cohesion on the altar of “inclusiveness.”

Ask yourself: Would CPAC allow participation by the Democratic Socialists of America? Why is the free market an inviolable conservative principle, but not family values?

Would organizers invite George Soros to address the gathering? Then why associate with groups who share his worldview?

What does it profit us to gain tax cuts and lose the family—the foundation of a free society?

…

President Reagan used to say that he didn’t leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left him. Sadly, that’s the way many conservatives increasingly feel about CPAC’s current direction.

…

In the war on the family, Judeo-Christian morality and authentic conservative principles, neutrality is impossible. We call for a return to first principles.

While the boycott movement has had some notable successes by pushing Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) to decline to attend the conference, other Religious Right luminaries like Rick Santorum, Timothy Goeglein, Tom Minnery, and Phyllis Schlafly are still slated to address CPAC. In fact, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) is giving the conference’s keynote address.

Notably, some of the most prominent groups boycotting CPAC have not signed on to Scarborough’s letter, including the Heritage Foundation, the Family Research Council, Concerned Women For America, and the Media Research Center. The signatories include:

Mark Andrews, (Casino Watch)
Pastor Paul Blair, (Reclaiming America for Christ)
Susan Carleson, (American Civil Rights Union)
Brian Camenker, (MassResistance)
Mandi Campbell, (Liberty Center for Law and Policy)
Frank Cannon, (American Principles Project)
Chris Carmouche, (GrassTopsUSA)
Joseph Farah, (WorldNetDaily.com)
Don Feder, (Don Feder Associates)
Diane Gramley, (American Family Association of Pennsylvania)
Bishop EW Jackson Sr., (STAND America PAC)
Phillip Jauregui, (Judicial Action Group)
Gordon James Klingenschmitt, (Pray In Jesus Name)
Robert Knight, (American Civil Rights Union)
Mike and Cris Kurtz, (The USA Patriots)
Peter LaBarbera, (Americans For Truth About Homosexuality)
Shelli and David Manuel, (Resurrect America Project)
William J. Murray, (Religious Freedom Coalition)
Rev. Rick Scarborough, (Vision America)
Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, (Traditional Values Coalition)
Sharon Slater, (Family Watch International)
Mat Staver, (Liberty Counsel)
Mike Valerio and Helen Valerio, Americans
Tim Wildmon, (American Family Association)

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Feder: Norquist Is a "One-Man Fifth Column" Working To Undermine Conservative Movement

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on February 4, 2011 - 4:43pm

Don Feder is not happy with the state of things as CPAC and he knows just who is to blame: Grover Norquist:

The trouble with CPAC (the annual Conservative Political Action Conference) can be summed up in six words – gays, Grover, knee-jerk libertarianism and Islamist connections.

That is actually eight words and gives you a sense of the overall "accuracy" of Feder's rant in which he also claims that GOProud is participating "for the third year in a row," which is impressive considering the group didn't even exist until April 2009, and that Mike Hucakbee is among those boycotting CPAC because of GOProud, which is not true either as Huckabee has been skipping CPAC because he considers it pointless and corrupt.

Anyway, aside from all that, Feder is sure that the real culprit behind it all is Grover Norquist, who he calls a "one-man fifth column" out to destroy conservatism:

Antonio Gramsci would have been tickled pink (or red) by the “conservatism” of Keene and Grover Norquist. An Italian Marxist who died in one of Mussolini’s prisons in the 1930s, Gramsci lived through the Bolshevik revolution and the aborted communist regimes in Central Europe.

The Marxist theorist was one of the first to ask why workers didn’t follow their class interests and shrug off their capitalist chains. He answered it was because they had been conditioned by family and church to accept the prevailing order. Thus, said the forerunner of Saul Alinsky, the revolution won’t triumph until these institutions are subverted, co-opted and eventually destroyed.

Enter Grover Norquist – Harvard MBA, founder and president of Americans for Tax Reform, friend of Newt and Rove, and one of the most powerful members of the ACU Board. If there was ever a mole, burrowing away at the core of the conservative movement, it’s the diminutive, bearded Bay State native.

I met Grover in 1977, when we both were part of the anti-tax movement. For almost 25 years, we were friends and colleagues. That’s when his libertarian gene was recessive and he still had most of his brain intact. Today, Norquist is a one-man fifth column, working to deconstruct the movement with which he’s ostensibly aligned.

...

Grover’s message is Taxes-Taxes-Taxes, Spending-Spending-Spending – and don’t be diverted by the illegals pouring over our broken border, the jihadists undermining our republic with Sharia, or the gay lobby taking a sledgehammer to society’s foundation.

If Norquist had his way, the conservative movement would look like a pot party at a bathhouse, located next to an Islamic cultural center.

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Camenker's Inclusion In Tea Party Rally Again Causes Strife

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on August 27, 2010 - 1:26pm

A few weeks back we noted that Brian Camenker of MassResistance was still smarting over the fact that his participation in a scheduled Tea Party rally had lead all the other speakers to withdraw, causing the event to collapse.

Shortly thereafter Camenker was crowing that he'd been invited to speak at another Tea Party rally featuring Don Feder and praising organizers for their willingness to include him even if its angered RINOs and the Left.

Well, according to the latest email from MassResistance, it turns out that Feder dropped out after being informed that Camenker was going to be participating and Camenker is absolutely livid: 

Like so many other destructive trends, Massachusetts is a harbinger of things to come (or already happening) across the country. RINOs ("Republicans In Name Only") who demand that "social" and moral issues be purged from ALL Tea Party events managed to shut down the Lexington Tea Party on July 25. And now they've been at it again.

When it was announced that Don Feder would be the keynote speaker at the Fort Independence Tea Party, it got immediate attention across the state. Don is a well-known writer, lecturer and pro-family leader going back over 20 years.

But a few days later Don said that he had been contacted by Christen Varley regarding his appearance at the event. Varley was primarily responsible for the shutting down of the Lexington Tea Party, and her outrageous actions prompted the organizers to do this one. Don told us that unless we could guarantee that no speaker at the event would say anything bad about Varley, he'd have to cancel his appearance. We told him we didn't think anyone had any intention of mentioning her, but we weren't going to explicitly ban speakers from saying anything. So Don said he'd have to pull out.

...

In many ways this represents a far worse threat than the radical Left. If Republican candidates are told by people they trust that the homosexual agenda in the schools and other "social issues" are "toxic" and will cause them to lose elections, what do you think will happen when they get elected? They'll continue to stay away from these issues -- and cave in to the other side faster than ever. And of course, even more taxpayer money than ever will flow into those programs.

This is extremely serious. Elections are the best time to raise these issues and hold politicians' feet to the fire. But instead, anyone who talks about it is being demonized -- by supposed "conservatives". And as a result, this gives the left and the media an open door to pile on even more and make the pro-family position appear "fringe" -- exactly what the radical left wants!

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Scarborough Unveils Yet Another Right Wing Coalition and Declaration

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on February 12, 2010 - 11:42am

Devin Burghart of the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights attended the National Tea Party Convention and notes that Rick Scarborough used his address at the event to unveil a new coalition called "Mandate to Save America":

A workshop by Dr. Rick Scarborough indicated a shift taking place at the convention, transforming the focus from bailouts and deficits to the culture war. Scarborough is a former Southern Baptist pastor from Pearland, Texas, and a he heads up a corporate constellation including Vision America, Vision America Action and the Judeo-Christian Council for Constitutional Restoration. He has been fixture on the Christian Right for several years (Jerry Falwell published his first book).

After showing an eight minute video cataloguing his many television appearances, the jovial Scarborough told a packed room of around 215 people that the gap between “fiscal and social conservatives has got to cease.” In addition to attacking the Obama administration for its commitment to ending Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and supporting the inclusion of gays and lesbians into federal hate crimes protections, Scarborough warned that we "now have a government of thieves" and that we are moving towards a “collectivist” society. We have a Godly duty to defend “American exceptionalism,” he said.

Scarborough used much of his speech to launch a new campaign, called the Mandate to Save America, a project of the S.T.O.P. Obama Tyranny National Coalition.

The pamphlet he distributed read, “We, the undersigned, and millions of other American patriots, including many who comprise the growing TEA Party movement, are no less determined than patriots of the past, who fought for our freedom. We will make any sacrifice, endure any hardship, and confront any foe to keep the flame of freedom burning bright; so help us God.”

The list of signers reads like a who’s who of the Christian Right: Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, Tim Wildmon of the American Family Association, Gary Bauer of American Values, Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America, and many more. The ten campaign demands marked an overt attempt to fuse Tea Party desires with the broader agenda of the Christian Right into a more potent form of Christian nationalism.

Scarborough worked up the crowd in the room, and got a standing ovation when he demanded, “enough is enough!” When he finished, an older woman in the front row stood up and stated, “What we need is revival and revolt!” which also brought enthusiastic cheers from the audience.

And sure enough, Mandate to Save America has a website carrying this declaration:

So far the list of signers includes Gary Bauer, Tom DeLay, Janet Porter, Tony Perkins, Phyllis Schlafly, Mat Staver, Tim Wildmon, Wendy Wright, Richard Viguerie, and several others.

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Muslim Prayer Rally Sets Off a Full-Blown Right Wing Crusade

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on September 24, 2009 - 10:31am

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."

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Right Wing Leftovers

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on January 12, 2009 - 5:21pm
  • Mike Huckabee welcomed Ann Coulter to his television program and things got a little tense, with Huckabee demanding to know if she though he was stupid before Huckabee was humiliatingly reduced to defending his conservative credentials by proclaiming that he is "definitely not pro-sodomy"

  • The Catholic League is not happy that Eugene Robinson has been chosen to participate in inaugural events.
  • Steve Benen catches Elaine Donnelly fundamentally misunderstanding the meaning of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
  • Joseph Farah warns that "America is being judged" because there is a "lack of discernment about the eternal and unchanging laws of God" and that "this path leads only to destruction."
  • The National Review calls upon Barack Obama to re-nominate some Bush judges as an act of bipartisanship and Quin Hillyer sees it as evidence of a "groundswell."
  • Don Feder lists the "Best and Worst Developments Affecting the Family in 2008." The worst development? "The Election of Barack Obama." The best? "Sarah Palin, Pro-life Woman Is Vice Presidential Nominee."
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AIM's Self-Defeating Boycott

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on December 16, 2008 - 3:18pm

Back in October, Accuracy In Media announced the formation of its "Boycott The New York Times" Campaign, a project that was to be run by B-list right-wing pundit Don Feder.

Though initially launched to combat what it saw as the paper's "persistent leftist bias" during the election, it appears as if the campaign and its accompanying website are still in operation and yesterday Feder penned an attack on the "paper’s moral relativism applied to the war on terrorism" and proclaimed that the Times has a lot in common with terrorists around the world:

[W]hile The Times may be appalled by terrorists’ acts, it frequently agrees with their goals.

Like Al-Qaeda, it believes there should be no U.S. presence in the Middle East. Like Hamas, it believes Israel is illegally occupying Palestinian land. Like jihadists around the world, it believes we brought 9/11 on ourselves by our arrogance and cultural insensitivity, and an imperialist foreign policy.

Some acts of terrorism are committed with bombs and bullets, others with newsprint and ink.

Ignoring the inanity of that claim for a minute, what struck me was a much more basic question:  why is Don Feder reading the New York Times?  As the head of the "Boycott The New York Times" project, Feder doesn't seem to be doing a very good job of actually boycotting the paper.

After all, the purpose of any boycott is to, you know, actually boycott the product/organization in question and is, in fact, AIM's stated goal for its project:

[O]ur goal is to expose The Times and to rally the public against it through a boycott. In so doing, we seek to progressively limit its influence ... those who sign our petition are putting The New York Times and its advertisers on notice that they won’t subscribe to The Times, buy the paper or visit its website.

Presumably, Feder has signed his own petition which leads one to wonder just how he manages to find articles to complain about on a regular basis, considering that he's pledged not to read or buy the paper or visit its website. 

It just seems a little odd that Feder is dedicated to running a website committed to getting people not to read the New York Times - a website that just happens to consist entirely of content derived from that paper and which regularly provides links to its articles. 

Highlighting NYT articles and driving traffic to its website just doesn't seem like a particularly effective boycott strategy if your goal is to get people to stop reading the NYT and visiting its website.

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Left “Deserves To Be Hated”

Submitted by Anonymous on June 24, 2008 - 1:14pm

Don Feder, angry that Scott McClellan has called for an end to the “venom and hatred” in Washington, responds with this rant: “But the left deserves to be hated; it merits our derision and scorn…Two possibilities arise. Liberals are unbelievably stupid -- so dumb that they need help tying their shoes and not walking into walls -- or they're malicious malcontents consumed by envy and animated by a lust for power -- in a word, evil. You don't compromise with evil, negotiate with it, sign truces with it, or look for a middle way. You expose it and oppose it.”

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