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When you listen to David Barton on a regular basis, you learn all sorts of interesting things - a lot of them happen to be false and/or terrifying, but interesting nonetheless. 

For instance, on "Wallbuilders Live" today he explained that federal judges are not appointed for life but simply "during good behavior,"  which means that any time any judge issues a ruling that Congress does not like, they simply have to convene a hearing, force the judge to defend the ruling, and then impeach them:

Rick Green: So where is the accountability if a judge is appointed for their whole life.

Barton: Well, the first part is they're not appointed for life. That's one of the things that people think today and this is one of the great judicial myths that's out there that's absolutely not accurate. If you go back and look at the Constitution, Article III deals with the judiciary; there's nothing in there about judges being appointed for life. They're not appointed for life.

What they did, and what they also did in the federal Constitution, when you read it it says federal judges are allowed to hold their appointments for the quote 'duration of good behavior.' That's not a lifetime appointment - that's as long as you act right you can stay there as a federal judge. But if you don't act right, we're going to take you out.

The best way to know is to go see the guys who wrote the clauses, see what they define as good behavior by who they throw off the court.

There was a federal judge thrown off the court because he cussed in the courtroom. Founding Fathers threw him off the court. Why'd they do that? Because the federal Constitution says "for the duration of good behavior," They said cussing in a courtroom is not good behavior for a judge, you're gone.

Another guy was thrown off the court because he got drunk in his private life. Whoa, it's his private life; had nothing to do with his job. No, it's not good behavior for a judge - you're gone.

Another guy got thrown off the court because he contradicted an act of Congress. Supreme Court does that all the time today. Congress pass something, ah we don't like that act, it's going to be unconstitutional. No, he did that - you're gone buddy.

...

There have been 97 impeachment investigations across history with judges; you've had 13 impeachments taken off the court. And the more often you have an impeachment investigation, the less often you have to remove a judge because, what Thomas Jefferson says, impeachment is a scarecrow - you sit out there in the middle of the field and that will scare them off.

Green: Because all the other judges are watching that, going 'I don't want that to be me.'

Barton: You betcha. For example, take the judge in California that says, oh no, having 'under God' in the Pledge of Allegiance, completely unconstitutional.

What you do is you convene a hearing in Washington DC, Congress says we want you to come appear before the judiciary committee and explain to us exactly what your thinking is that says we can't acknowledge God when that's in the Declaration and in the Constitution. What are you thinking?

And other judges see him getting called before Congress to be accountable and they go 'oh my gosh, we're not going to touch that.' Exactly!

Last month we noted that Rena Lindevaldsen, the attorney for Lisa Miller, had written a book all about Miller's saga ... or, at least most of it, since there is barely any mention of the fact that Miller ultimately kidnapped her daughter and fled the country, which is odd considering that Lindevaldsen is reportedly teaching young lawyers at Liberty University to recommend just this sort of "civil disobedience" to clients they believe are being ordered to violate "God's law."

The book itself was predictable and, frankly, rather dull but that didn't stop Mat Staver, Wendy Wright, Mike Huckabee, and Peter Sprigg from glowingly endorsing it ... and now we can add Tony Perkins to the list of those endorsing the book:

Every parent's nightmare is losing a child--and Lisa Miller couldn't face the prospect of losing hers. Hello, I'm Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. Lisa Miller's child wasn't at risk from a dreaded disease. Or from violence. Or even from kidnapping. No, believe it or not, Lisa faced the prospect of losing her biological daughter because the courts ordered her to turn the child over to another woman. Why? Because she and the other woman were lesbian partners in Vermont when Lisa's daughter was born. The women are no longer together, and their civil union was dissolved. In fact, Lisa's now an ex-lesbian, who's renounced homosexuality and accepted Christ. So instead of giving up her daughter, she disappeared. Rena Lindevaldsen of Liberty Counsel was Lisa's lawyer through all the court battles--but she also became her friend. She's telling Lisa's story in a new book called, Only One Mommy. Anyone concerned about parental rights, the homosexual agenda, and religious liberty should read this book--Only One Mommy, available on Amazon.com.

It is amazing that Perkins says that it is every parent's nightmare to lose a child and then actually mentions the threat of kidnapping in an effort to portray Miller as the victim when it was Miller who literally kidnapped her daughter and fled the country in order to defy multiple court orders and escape law enforcement. 

I guess we probably should not hold our breath waiting for any Religious Right leader to actually step up and suggest that maybe Miller ought to have obeyed the law or, at this point, turn herself in to authorities.

On today's episode of "Wallbuilders Live," David Barton explained that one of the things that makes America so exceptional is that we, as a nation, recognize that there is an objective moral law and that this law can be found both in the Bible and in the laws of nature.

And since these objective moral laws can be found in both places, he doesn't actually need to even cite the Bible to prove that things like abortion and homosexuality are immoral because the laws of nature have already proven it:

There are absolute rights and wrongs That moral law, in the Declaration [of Independence], we call it the laws of nature and of nature's god. There are moral absolutes. You can either find them in the Scripture, which is the law of nature's god, or you can find them in nature itself.

I've talked before, I don't have to have the Bible to show abortion is wrong, because there is no species in nature that kills its young while it is still in the womb. That violates the laws of nature.

I don't have to have the Bible to show that homosexuality is wrong. I can show that when it does exist in nature, it is always an aberration. There is part of nature that exists on homosexuality - it's always an aberration, it violates the laws of nature.

There is a moral absolute established in nature and in the laws of nature and nature's God.

Recently we have been seeing more and more Religious Right activists like David Barton asserting that the government should play no role in assisting those in poverty.  We had been chalking that idea up to the general right-wing hatred of the government and desire to drastically reduce its size and influence.

But on today's broadcast of "Wallbuilders Live," the American Center for Law and Justice's David French explained that the primary reason the Religious Right opposes government assistance to the poor is that it means those in poverty do not need to rely on churches for help:

French: The fact of the matter is that in many circumstances, particularly in this country, poverty is the result of an awful lot of bad choices. A lot of our poverty is the result of behaviors that often require heart-level repentance to change.

Medicare, Medicaid , and food stamps are not going to get you to turn away from behaviors that are destroying your life, but the Gospel will.

Rick Green: Doesn't it make them more dependent on government, which makes them less likely to come to the church that used to be the epicenter of the community where people would come and meet?

French: That's exactly right. It used to be that if you were hungry, if you needed help, you would go to the church and as the church was feeding you, as the church was providing you with the physical sustenance that you needed, it was providing you also with the much more important spiritual sustenance.

And right now what we're doing is we're saying you're going to be able to have the television, all the food you need, the roof over your head, everything that you need without any intervention from the church at all.

Robert Spencer joined Janet Mefferd on Friday to discuss a new pamphlet he co-authored with David Horowitz called Islamophobia: Thought Crime of the Totalitarian Future [pdf], which claims that “‘Islamophobia’ is a hoax comparable to The Protocols of The Elders of Zion.” While speaking with Mefferd, Spencer alleged that the term “Islamophobia” was created in order to criminalize any criticism of Muslims, and maintained that “the media is getting some money” to represent Muslims in a positive light and smear anti-Muslim activists like himself. Spencer’s ally Pamela Geller made a similar case to Mefferd last week, ranting that groups monitoring anti-Muslim activists are trying to make her into “a big ole cow.”

He also stressed that freedom of religion shouldn’t be “considered absolute,” arguing that Islam is both a religion and “a political ideology” and “the political ideology is what is dangerous to Americans.”

Listen:

So I don’t know why nowadays freedom of religion is considered absolute especially since, as you point out Janet, we’re talking about a political ideology here and the political ideology is what is dangerous to Americans because it impinges upon our freedoms, our freedom of speech, our freedom of conscience, the idea of equality of rights of all people before the law and so on. That is the only reason why anybody is concerned about Islamic law. So if those political aspects were restricted then there would be no problem. And I don’t think it would restrict the freedom of religion to restrict the political aspects of Islam.

…

See they had a big public relations disaster on 9/11. They’ve turned it around with amazing skill and I can’t help but think that maybe media is getting some money for this, maybe there’s some other explanation for why everyone is in the tank and has accepted this manipulation.

As we noted a few weeks ago, Jim Garlow has become the face and leading activist on behalf of the Alliance Defense Fund's "Pulpit Initiative," which encourages pastors to speak out on political issues and even endorse or oppose candidates during their sermons in a direct challenge to the IRS.

Yesterday, Garlow was a guest on James Dobson's radio program where he outlined just what sort of sermon he plans to preach on "Pulpit Freedom Sunday" to urge his congregation not to vote for candidates that do not share his values and then compared the effort to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian who resisted the Nazis and was ultimately put to death:

Garlow: But here's the kind of phrasing that I would likely use on that Sunday. I would say the following candidates have the following positions as ti relates to abortion, as it relates to the definition of marriage, as it relates to their view of that national debt - because the national debt is a moral issue, thou shall not steal from future generations. And, that being the case, here's the following candidates that hold these various views of these three and perhaps many other topics.

Having said that, here's what the Scripture teaches specifically about that. And, after I go through that, as fully-devoted followers of Jesus Christ, we would not want to elect individuals - given the fact that the Bible has a great deal to say about economic, or life principles, or the definition of marriage in a scriptural context - we would not want persons who are in defiance of God's will in positions of authority over us. What fully devoted follower of Christ would want to defy God's will for how national and community life is to be ordered according to the Scripture?

Dobson: It essentially comes down to "use it or lose it," right? we've had rights in the past and we were willing to allow the IRS and the government to silence us and we didn't complain. Or not enough complained. Or not enough defied the order, which is just unconscionable when you consider we're drawing our information for our understanding and interpretation of the Scripture and the somebody in Washington can tell me that I can't say that? That's what happened in Sweden, it's what's happening in Canada and in other parts of the country. This is a movement that threatens the very life of the church. And, man, I'm preaching it now Jim and I'm not even a pastor.

Garlow: April the ninth, 1945, a man was stripped of all his clothes, taken outside and hung by a piano wire. His name was Dietrich Bonhoeffer. We celebrate how great that man was and what an incredible human being he was and the martyr he became. Why do we celebrate his life? It is because he was a man of God who refused to succumb to the powers of the government that tried to control what he would do and say in the pulpit and in his ministerial and pastoral life. And so we're attempting to see, before it's too late, before it's too late in America, to raise up a generation of Dietrich Bonhoeffers.

Mission America’s Linda Harvey used her “Remembering 9/11” program to do what she does best: attack gays and lesbians, feminists, progressives and Muslims. Harvey, who once lauded radical Islamists for their fanatical anti-gay views, said on her radio show that progressives are “aligned” with Muslim extremists out of their shared hatred of “the West,” “freedom” and “Jesus Christ.” She went on to say that feminists and gays and lesbians have also allied with radical Muslims “because they all hate Jesus Christ and His followers.”

Listen:

Harvey: How in the world can the Left be aligned with these folks? Well there’s a real simple answer I think, in that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. They all hate the actual Judeo-Christian heritage and those who uphold it, they hate the West, and of course we are not perfect we can look around and see some of our own problems, but they hate the ideology, they hate the freedom. It’s a spiritual thing, they hate Jesus Christ. This is why you have the homosexual and pro-abortion feminists remaining silent or actually being apologists for radical Islam. Hello, they would be the first people that in an Islamic state that would come under some level of oppression, why wouldn’t they be afraid of these people? No, because they all hate Jesus Christ and His followers.

One thing that has dogged David Barton for years are allegations from the Anti-Defamation League that he had spoken at events hosted by racist and anti-Semitic groups:

On at least two occasions, Barton has delivered his revisionist presentation in the meeting halls of the racist and anti-Semitic extreme right. In July 1991, Barton addressed the Colorado summer retreat of Scriptures for America, the Identity Church group headed by firebrand Pete Peters. He was advertised as "a new and special speaker" who would "bring the following messages: America's Godly Heritage -- Was it the plan of our forefathers that America be the melting pot home of various religions and philosophies? ..." Barton's fellow-speakers at the retreat included the virulently anti-Semitic Virginia stockbroker-polemicist Richard Kelly Hoskins; "Bo" Gritz, the 1992 presidential nominee of the far-right Populist Party and a self-described "white separatist"; and Canadian Holocaust-denier Malcolm Ross.

On November 24, 1991, Barton appeared at another Identity gathering, presenting the second annual Thanksgiving message to Identity preacher Mike Watson's Kingdom Covenant College in Grants Pass, Oregon. In a subsequent edition of The Centinel [sic], Watson's publication, Barton was described as a "nationally acclaimed speaker" who "has introduced many Americans to their godly Christian heritage.

On today's episode of "Wallbuilders Live," Barton and Rick Green addressed these allegations, but did so in typically Barton-esque manner in which they didn't actually address the specific claims. 

Instead, Barton and Green asserted that there may have been people in the audience who held such views, but that there was no way that Barton could be held responsible for that and saying that Barton has been forced to file defamation suits to prevent people from spreading these claims:

Green: Just because you might have a crazy sitting in the audience at one of the events you've spoke at - and you've done, I don't know, ten thousand where you've spoken over the last twenty years - somehow that makes you associated to a Nazi. I could go find a nutcase in any audience in America anywhere.

Barton: And that's assuming that I knew they were there to start with. You know, I walk up and there's a crowd already sitting there, I talk to the crowd, I walk off, leave and go to the next event. I don't know who has the time to go through and find a nut somewhere that's a racist or anti-Semitic and say "oh, Barton spoke to an anti-Semite "... well, yeah, that's real possible. I don't know who else I spoke to either because I don't have an FBI background check on every person that comes to an event.

Green: And somehow they take that and extrapolate ...

Barton: And by the way, I'm not even sure they're accurate in that anyway. That's what they claim and I don't think it makes a difference whether it's truthful or not; that's designed to scare people off from us.

Green: And the only reason I assume there is someone like that in every audience is there's probably someone like that in every church audience.

Barton: That's human nature.

Green: But to take that and then label you with it, as if you're now the anti-Semite, you're the one that's a Nazi, you're the one that's a white supremacist, it's unbelievable.

Barton: I speak at white supremacist rallies, even.

Green: But I know why they do it. They do it because they know that by throwing out that label, now all of a sudden that supposedly puts you in this box and people won't listen to what you really believe and what you really say.

Barton: And that's one of the things where you do what to try to defend your reputation some ...

Green: And, in fact, you've had to do it. You've had to file defamation suits against people who are saying this stuff because it's so blatantly false.

Barton: And, by the way, I'm considered a public figure. I mean, we do this, I speak everywhere publicly, I'm seen on national TV, etc ... So for me to even think about doing a defamation suit is really way the heck over what most people would be able to do anyway.

Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs joined Janet Mefferd on Friday to promote her new book “Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide To The Resistance.” As a columnist for WorldNetDaily, which also published her book, Geller has publicized her ‘investigation’ into the “full extent of Muslim Brotherhood infiltration in the Department of Justice and its brazen pro-Muslim activities.” While speaking to Mefferd, Geller said that President Obama and the Department of Justice were both “aiding and abetting the restoring the universal caliphate”:

During her last appearance on Mefferd’s show Geller called herself a victim of a ‘blood libel,’ so it was no surprise that today she spent most of the program lashing out at her opponents. Geller told Mefferd that criticism of her is “the enforcing of the Sharia” and its “blasphemy laws.” “So while in Muslim countries you’re executed, non-Muslims are executed for blasphemy, here in America you’re not assassinated but you’re character is assassinated,” Geller said. “The people are cowed, cowed, that’s what they want you to be, they want you to be a big ole cow”:

In this book I address how you can fight the mosque-ing of your neighborhood, how you can fight the mosque-ing of your workplace, how you can fight the mosque-ing of your public school. You must speak up. You must not be cowed. And by the way when you speak up you will be called a ‘racist, Islamophobic, anti-Muslim bigot.’ And why is that? Because that is the enforcing of the Sharia. Under the Sharia if you speak candidly about Islam, if you speak critically about Islam, you are a ‘racist, Islamophobic, anti-Muslim bigot’ because it is blasphemy. These are blasphemy laws. Do not insult Islam, do not defame Islam, do not speak candidly about Islam. So while in Muslim countries you’re executed, non-Muslims are executed for blasphemy, here in America you’re not assassinated but you’re character is assassinated. This is how they shut people up. This is how they make—the people are cowed, cowed, that’s what they want you to be, they want you to be a big ole cow.

…

Anybody that speaks about these things gets criticized for it. look, I was on Fox & Friends yesterday for three minutes discussing my book and immediately the leftist shills and Islamic apologists like Media Matters, which is a Soros financed organization, went nuts that Fox is mainstreaming hate and radicalism because that’s the one thing they must achieve is a blackout. A blacklist of voices of freedom and voices of truth.