Mike Huckabee

A few months ago, we noted that Mike Huckabee would be receiving the "National Hero of Faith Award" from self-proclaimed "Christocrat" Rick Scarborough at the Vision America Gala, but then we totally forgot about it ... until today when we noticed this photo posted on the VA website which I am reposting here just because this seems like something that might come in handy in the future:

State Representative Charlie Howard, Mike Huckabee and Rick Scarborough at the Heroes of the Faith Gala.

• Rep. Mike Pence won the Values Voter Straw Poll.
• The Religious Right is confident that its issues will be included in the forthcoming House GOP Contract with America.
• Mike Huckabee says "contrary to published reports I believe that there is a way to cover people with pre-existing conditions" and says they "should be covered and can be covered by individual states creating pools that provide coverage for people in high-risk categories."
• Bryan Fischer continues to pen column after column rooted entirely in his own ignorance, declaring with finality that "we have won the global warming debate."
• Apparently, Christine O'Donnell's past statements are too much for even CWA to defend, leaving them to simply attack the media and conservative men. 
• Quote of the day from Peter Sprigg opposing repeal of DADT on the grounds that it'll force the US taxpayers to support all those soldiers who get AIDS: "This creates a financial problem, since taxpayers will have to pay for the health care of HIV-infected service members for the rest of their lives through the military and veterans’ health programs."
• The AFA's Don Wildom received the James C. Dobson Vision and Leadership Award at the Values Voter Summit - here is the intro video they produced:

• The American Family Association will be webcasting the Values Voter Summit live - you can watch it here.
• Several Religious Right groups have "delivered 20,000 petitions from Americans to the Republican leadership in Congress demanding that it feature family values in its soon-to-be-released legislative agenda."
• Some rare good news: people don't think that Glenn Beck should be in a position as a religious leader.
• The insanity regarding Texas textbooks just never stops.
• Mike Huckabee has endorsed Rand Paul.
• Rob Schenck and Pat Mahoney secured all the copies of the Koran that Terry Jones intended to burn and transported them back to Washington, DC for safe-keeping.
• The Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation has changed its name to the "Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network."
• Marco Rubio teams up with David Barton.
• The new head of the Idaho Values Alliance doesn't want to talk about Bryan Fischer.
• Finally, I have to say that all of the revelations about Christine O'Donnell that are coming out are not really all that surprising.  After all, what do you expect from someone who worked at Concerned Women for America, which was founded by a woman who believes that "Christian values should dominate our government. The test of those values is the Bible. Politicians who do not use the Bible to guide their public and private lives do not belong in office."

As if he's trying to prove the point that I made earlier that he's a viciously anti-Muslim bigot, the AFA's Bryan Fischer unleashes his latest attack, writing a post based on the claims of Danish psychologist Nicolai Sennels in which he claims that Muslims are dangerous, violent, and stupid because of rampant inbreeding:

Lowered intellectual capacity is another devastating consequence of Muslim marriage patterns. According to Sennels, research shows that children of consanguinous marriages lose 10-16 points off their IQ and that social abilities develop much slower in inbred babies.

The risk of having an IQ lower than 70, the official demarcation for being classified as “retarded,” increases by an astonishing 400 percent among children of cousin marriages.

In Denmark, non-Western immigrants are more than 300 percent more likely to fail the intelligence test required for entrance into the Danish army.

Sennels says that “the ability to enjoy and produce knowledge and abstract thinking is simply lower in the Islamic world.” He points out that the Arab world translates just 330 books every year, about 20% of what Greece alone does.

In the last 1,200 years years of Islam, just 100,000 books have been translated into Arabic, about what Spain does in a single year. Seven out of 10 Turks have never even read a book.

Sennels points out the difficulties this creates for Muslims seeking to succeed in the West. “A lower IQ, together with a religion that denounces critical thinking, surely makes it harder for many Muslims to have success in our high-tech knowledge societies.”

Only nine Muslims have every won the Nobel Prize, and five of those were for the “Peace Prize.” According to Nature magazine, Muslim countries produce just 10 percent of the world average when it comes to scientific research (measured by articles per million inhabitants).

In Denmark, Sennels’ native country, Muslim children are grossly overrepresented among children with special needs. One-third of the budget for Danish schools is consumed by special education, and anywhere from 51% to 70% of retarded children with physical handicaps in Copenhagen have an immigrant background.

Learning ability is severely affected as well. Studies indicated that 64% of school children with Arabic parents are still illiterate after 10 years in the Danish school system. The immigrant drop-out rate in Danish high schools is twice that of the native-born.

Mental illness is also a product. The closer the blood relative, the higher the risk of schizophrenic illness. The increased risk of insanity may explain why more than 40% of the patients in Denmark’s biggest ward for clinically insane criminals have an immigrant background.

The U.S. is not immune. According to Sennels, “One study based on 300,000 Americans shows that the majority of Muslims in the USA have a lower income, are less educated, and have worse jobs than the population as a whole.”

...

Bottom line: Islam is not simply a benign and morally equivalent alternative to the Judeo-Christian tradition. As Sennels points out, the first and biggest victims of Islam are Muslims. Simple Christian compassion for Muslims and a common-sense desire to protect Western civilization from the ravages of Islam dictate a vigorous opposition to the spread of this dark and dangerous religion. These stark realities must be taken into account when we establish public polices dealing with immigration from Muslim countries and the building of mosques in the U.S.

Let’s hope America wakes up before a blind naivete about the reality of Islam destroys what remains of our Christian culture and our domestic tranquility.

So let me ask again why conservative leaders like Newt Gingrich, Bob McDonnell, and Mike Huckabee are so willing to share the stage with a viciously anti-Muslim bigot like Bryan Fischer at the upcoming Values Voter Summit?

Ever since Barack Obama started running for the White House, we've seen occasional pieces wondering if he was the Antichrist. In December 2008, Mat Staver of the Liberty Counsel said he did not think that Obama was, in fact, the Antichrist but that it was entirely understandable that people were worried that he was:

No wonder, then, that Obama triggers such fear in the hearts of America's millennialist Christians. Mat Staver, dean of Liberty University's law school, says he does not believe Obama is the Antichrist, but he can see how others might. Obama's own use of religious rhetoric belies his liberal positions on abortion and traditional marriage, Staver says, positions that "religious conservatives believe will threaten their freedom." The people who believe Obama is the Antichrist are perhaps jumping to conclusions, but they're not nuts: "They are expressing a concern and a fear that is widely shared," Staver says.

I wonder if Staver's views have changed since then because it sure sounds like he's convinced that Obama is out to make himself some sort of global dictator because today he and Matt Barber, LC's Director of Cultural Affairs, dedicated their radio program to explaining how Obama, from the very beginning, has been focused on systemically weakening America so that he could ultimately position himself to take over the entire world:

Staver: When President Barack Obama was running for president, when we became president, I've long since stated that his end game has and is not President of the United States of America; that he has a broader worldwide agenda. And that's why he's to go to places around the world and down the United States of America, because he thinks that's going to gain him popularity in some of the other foreign areas. And that's really where I think his eyes are focused, not on [being] President of the United States.

Barber: Now here's the scary thing, I believe that that is true, but in order to have a post-American world, you have to have a post-America. And that's why his policies are pushing us into a post-American world. He is destroying American exceptionalism and is trying to do away with our free market system here in the United States. He's trying to create the climate where we have a post-American world.

Staver: Well, because America is always going to be, or at least it has been up until now, world player. And for him to be on the world scene, he's going to have to bring America down to the level of some of the European and some other countries with regards to commonality. And America always had the exceptionalism and you can't really have worldwide influence if you've got the America exceptional nation because you're going to have to have them all basically on the same level.

So for him to go into this national, or global, leadership - which he wants to do - it's no wonder why he wants to make America's economy like the European economy; it's no wonder why he wants to downplay Christianity so he can up-play Islam.

This man does not respect America. He never has.

Liberty Counsel is, of course, on of the main co-sponsors of the upcoming Values Voter Summit at which Staver is confirmed as a speaker, along with Rep. Michele Bachmann, Gov. Bob McDonnell, and Mike Huckabee (and it should be noted that Huck and Staver have a close personal relationship that goes back years.)

• Gov. Bob McDonnell has now been confirmed as a speaker at the Values Voter Summit.
• Tony Perkins again warns the GOP not to abandon social issues.
• Shockingly, people on the Right are not happy about the revelation that Keh Mehlman is gay.
• Bryan Fischer says ... well, it's Bryan Fischer, so you know what he says.
• Mike Huckabee asks you to join him in thanking Ken Cuccinelli for fighting health care reform.
• Newt Gingrich is listed on this new list of confirmed speakers for Ralph Reed's Faith and Freedom conference.
• You know what America needs?  A new documentary featuring Bryan Fischer, Janet Porter, Wendy Wright, Phyllis Schlafly, Cliff Kincaid and others explaining how Obama is turning this nation into a Communist state:

Last week we noted that the FRC's Tony Perkins has joined other Religious Right leaders ranging from Mat Staver and Tim Wildmon to Gordon and Pat Robertson who had recorded videos encouraging supporters to attend Lou Engle's 10th Anniversary The Call prayer rally in Sacramento over Labor Day weekend.

To that ever-growing list we can now add Mike Huckabee as well, who explains that "with Judge Walker reversing the votes of millions of people concerning traditional marriage, this is a perfect time to gather for a solemn assembly to fast and pray and stand for the most critical issues of our day."  Christians must gather, Huckabee says, to "cry out for mercy" and "turn this nation back to God as Jesus is our only hope":

• Mike Huckabee endorses Bill McCollum for Governor of Florida.
• A gaggle of right-wing groups are holding a press conference to "voice opposition to the Obama administration's use of narrow discretionary powers to effect de facto amnesty on a broad scale."
• TD Jakes, Samuel Rodriguez, Myles Munroe, and others are going to teach you how to be a man.
• NOM's Brian Brown lays out his weak case for opposing marriage equality in Human Events.
• Liberty Counsel continues to blast the Alliance Defense Fund for losing the Prop 8 trial.
• And sadly, Bryan Fischer's "good friend" Raul Labrador is trailing badly in his race for Congress.

• The group responsible for last week's ridiculous list of 25 worst Americans in history will now be sponsoring GOProud's Homocon 2010.
• CBN's David Brody says President Obama's apparent support of the right of Muslims to build a facility near Ground Zero "may be the fatal blow" in making him a one-term president.
• Remember Steven L. Anderson?
• For some reason, the LA Times decided to give space to the AFA's Tim Wildmon to complain about the Prop 8 ruling.
• Mike Huckabee continues to lead in Iowa polls.
• Charles Colson and the Manhattan Declaration will be featured at the 2010 New Mexico Biblical World View Conference.
• Finally, the quote of the day from Richard Land, vowing never to give in to gay marriage: “Let me spell it out for you, If they say that telling what the Bible says about homosexuality is hate speech, and cannot be allowed -- we will be arrested in our pulpits. We will obey God rather than man."