Rick Green

‘Historian’ Barton Cites Michele Bachmann, Gets Her Made-Up Facts Wrong

Submitted by Miranda Blue on Monday, 1/9/2012 5:08 pm

Lest we need any more proof that David Barton is not a real historian, or even someone with a vague grasp of current affairs, in the latest installment of WallBuilders Live he cites the research of well-known fact fabricator Michele Bachmann – and gets her fabricated facts wrong.

Discussing with co-host Rick Green the relationship between increasing secularism and the economic collapse, Barton pulls out one heck of a Bachmann whopper. Citing Bachmann as his source, Barton asserts that before the Bush administration’s financial industry bailouts and the Obama administration’s auto industry bailout, “100 percent of the American economy” was privately owned. Now, he says, that total is 33 percent:

Barton: One of the things we’re starting to see is that as the economic system is shutting down, it is corresponding to the time that we’ve become increasingly secular. As we have had an upturn in, “Hey we want less of God, we want less religion, keep it to yourself, don’t let it get out, don’t talk about it, separation of church and state,” as we’ve gone in a more secular direction, guess what? Spending’s gone through the roof, economic policies have gone away. As Michele Bachmann pointed out, before that government bailout and takeover of the various entities, what was it, now three and a half years ago, but that’s when the government stepped in and took over insurance, took over AIG, took over GM. At that point, we had 100 percent of the American economy still being free, private, privately owned. It is now down, by her calculations, to less than 33 percent of the market is still free owned and free run

Green: Is it fair to say, “Less God, more government”?

Barton: You bet it is. It is. And that’s economically as well. You lose your economic freedom, you lose your religious freedom, you lose your civil freedoms. This stuff all ties together.
 

Bachmann, as it turns out, did claim after President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act in March 2010 that “100 percent of our economy was private prior to September of 2008, but as of Tuesday, the federal government has now taken ownership or control of 51 percent of the private economy." Both of those numbers were, of course, completely made up. Barton not only cites Bachmann’s ludicrous claim that the U.S. economy was free of government spending before 2008, but exaggerates Bachmann’s already exaggerated figure of the federal government’s economic control.

Later in the program, Barton brought his revisionist history to Europe, claiming that labor unions were responsible for the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Soviet Union -- and will put America on a similar path. Commenting on on Green’s interview with business professor Steve Pejovich, a native of Yugoslavia, Barton said:

Barton: He made a statement I don’t think I’ve heard anybody else have the guts to say. He said, “Investing in labor unions is the way to destroy the best economy in the world.” I mean, that’s a profound statement. Now, he understands unions, because that was a lot of what brought Hitler in, that’s a lot of what happened with the Soviet Union afterward, they had all these workers’ unions. And there’s a guy who’s seen what’s happened with unions, and he’s watching what’s happening over here with the rise of unions and unionism and all the stuff that Obama’s doing to promote unions and unionism, he knows where it will take us.

Gingrich Intends to Pack Courts with Judges from Regent and Liberty University, Federalist Society

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Wednesday, 12/28/2011 12:20 pm

Newt Gingrich appeared on Monday’s program of WallBuilders Live with David Barton and Rick Green, where Gingrich once again praised Barton’s right-wing pseudo-history and activism. In fact, Gingrich gave Barton credit for helping him develop his plan to assault the “judicial dictatorship” if elected president. He told Barton and Green that his plan is sending shockwaves through the “the secular left, which has been using the courts to replace the America we grew up in” by legalizing abortion, “driving God out of public life” and making same-sex marriages become “legitimized as if they were the same between traditional marriage between a man and a woman.”

Gingrich added that he would appoint judges in the mold of Robert George, the chairman of the National Organization for Marriage and a drafter of the Manhattan Declaration who has called people to defy Supreme Court decisions on issues like marriage that they disagree with, and graduates of Regent University and Liberty University, the schools founded by the far-right televangelists Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, respectively. Regent University absorbed the Oral Roberts University law program and teaches conservative Christian interpretations of the law, and the Liberty University School of Law even pressured students to disobey U.S. law if it conflicts with what they believe is “God’s law” in situations such as the Lisa Miller kidnapping case. Gingrich also pointed to the right-wing Federalist Society as a source for judicial appointments

Gingrich: What you have is, the secular left, which has been using the courts to replace the America we grew up in, the secular left which is desperately committed to Roe v. Wade and abortion, desperately committed to marriage between same-sex couples becoming legitimized as if they were the same between traditional marriage between a man and a woman, desperately committed to driving God out of public life, and they are suddenly faced with the possibility that we the people are going to take back our authority, that we are going to take back our rights, that we are going to redress the balance. The level of hysteria, I predict, will grow as they come to realize at the American Bar Association and elsewhere that this really is an effort to limit the power of lawyers to redesign America.

Green: Should you become president, is there a crop of attorneys and judges out there that understand history and understand originalism that you would have to choose from, in other words it’s got to be more than just you and Congress, what about good judges?

Gingrich: You start looking at people of the caliber of Robbie George of Princeton, you look at Regent University, you look at Liberty University, you start looking around and realizing there is a whole crop - Vince Haley of University of Virginia graduate who is a deeply, deeply committed Christian who clearly understands these kinds of issues - I think people would be surprised that the Federalist Society has many members who agree that we need a balance of power between the three, not a judicial dictatorship.

Daniel Lapin Says Gays Should Have Been Quarantined During AIDS Crisis

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Monday, 12/19/2011 5:45 pm

Daniel Lapin of Toward Tradition has emerged as the Religious Right’s favorite rabbi whose rants against government and gays have kept his image among conservatives untarnished despite his close ties to the Jack Abramoff scandal involving Indian gambling companies. Today on WallBuilders Live, Lapin not only tried to say that gay rights derived from the collapse of morality but also argued that it was “insane” that gays weren’t quarantined during the AIDS pandemic the 1980s.

Lapin told co-hosts Rick Green and David Barton, who has previously called for the government regulation of homosexuality, that health institutions should have tried to “impose quarantine” against the “homosexual-related disease” but “nobody had the moral will to do it simply because it reeked of bigotry and selective oppression and so on.”

Listen:

Lapin: Look, you’ll remember when the AIDS epidemic began, if that was anything other than a homosexual-related disease, which it obviously was, particularly at the outset, any public health organization that did not impose quarantine would have literally been tried before a court, it’s insane.

Green: So they ignored from what a health perspective they should have done.

Lapin: Yes, yes of course. If it was an outbreak of cholera or if it was an outbreak of the same severity as the early days of the AIDS epidemic in the ’80s, yes, yes of course they should have been quarantining but nobody had the moral will to do it simply because it reeked of bigotry and selective oppression and so on.

Barton Blames Disney Movies for Making Us Believe Animals Feel and Think

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Monday, 12/19/2011 5:19 pm

Rabbi Daniel Lapin was the guest on today's edition of "WallBuilders Live," which was dedicated primarily to dismissing the concept of animal rights.

As usual, David Barton and Rick Green kicked off the discussion, with Barton blaming Disney movies for making us wrongly believe that animals think and feel:

Barton: I love Disney, I’ve got all of the collections of Disney, but Disney’s the first one to make animals seem human, and that’s what animation does. Bambi seems human, "Lady and the Tramp," a nice romantic dinner for dogs over at an Italian restaurant—I don’t think so—"Beauty and the Beast." And I love these stories but what they do is they elevate animals to mankind’s status ...

Green: Yeah, it start's making you think that they feel and they think ...

Barton: And they don’t.

Later in the program, Lapin sought to explain the rise of animal rights issues by asserting that the movement is rooted in the loss of Judge-Christian morality which leads to the belief that homosexuality is okay "because we’re nothing other than baboons with a little less hair":

Lapin: Over the last fifty years, little by little America has obliterated the role of the Judeo-Christian biblical worldview as a fundamental guide to morality and ethics. What happens is the uncertainty stimulates philosophical experimentation. Animal rights is particularly attractive because frankly there is something very appealing about establishing the doctrine that you and I are nothing more than sophisticated baboons. Because what it does is it strips away the uncomfortable conscience that bothers us at odd moments, it completely exculpates any concerns we have about morality because once we are nothing but sophisticated baboons then our entire moral system becomes extremely simple. So for instance the fact that baboons practice homosexuality obviously legitimatizes it for human beings too because we’re nothing other than baboons with a little less hair.

David Barton and Rick Green: WallBuilders' Lawsuit Happy Duo

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Thursday, 12/8/2011 4:41 pm

Back in September, David Barton of WallBuilders revealed that he had filed defamation lawsuits against several individuals; specifically against two Democratic Texas State Board of Education candidates over a YouTube video that asserted that Barton was "known for speaking at white supremacist rallies" and an Examiner.com writer who asserted that Barton is "an admitted liar."

Last night, while searching around to see if there had been any recent updates on any of these lawsuits, we stumbled across a report that, in April of this year, Barton's "WallBuilders Live" co-host , Rick Green, had filed libel lawsuits against seven defendants stemming from his failed run for a seat on the Texas Supreme Court in 2010:

Former Republican Texas Supreme Court candidate Rick Green has filed a libel suit against several defendants alleging he lost the GOP 2010 primary because political activists in his own party and media members “crossed the line” in attacking his character during the course of his campaign. In his April 11 original petition, filed in Hays County’s 207th District Court, Green names seven defendants including former Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Phillips, who now is a partner in Baker Botts in Austin; Dr. John R. Coppedge; the Texas Tribune; and the Texas Association of Realtors. Among other things, Green alleges in the petition that Phillips and a political action committee run by Coppedge distributed a letter that accused Green, a former member of the Texas House of Representatives, of “several disturbing ethical lapses and lack of judgment” including that he “drew censure” from legislative colleagues for filming a nutritional supplement infomercial in his Capitol office. In the petition, Green disputes that he drew censure and writes that he “gave a short videotaped interview which was later used in an infomercial” in his office. Green alleges the Texas Tribune defamed him by publishing an article on its website that referenced Green as being “baggage-laden” and having a “questionable history,” among other things. Green also alleges the Texas Association of Realtors distributed an e-mail critical of him that contained false information.

It is truly amazing that men like Barton and Green, who seemingly do nothing but spread misinformation which they blatantly refuse to retract, have the gall to collectively sue multiple people on the grounds that criticism of them and their work constitutes libel and defamation.

Fired Ohio Science Teacher Plays The Victim On WallBuilders

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Wednesday, 11/30/2011 3:51 pm

The more we listen to David Barton and investigate the assertions that he makes individually and through his organization WallBuilders, the more obvious it becomes that he has absolutely no qualms about flagrantly misrepresenting issues in order to promote his Religious Right agenda.

Several months back, Barton and co-host Rick Green welcomed a former FBI agent onto their "WallBuilders Live" radio program under the guise that he had lost his job because he had discovered that the Muslim Brotherhood had been infiltrating the agency.  The truth, not surprisingly, was quite different.

Today, Barton and Green featured former Ohio science teacher John Freshwater on the program and portrayed him as a victim of religious intolerance who lost his job for questioning evolution and keeping a Bible on his desk:

Freshwater: When the 2007/2008 school year came along, there was a new principal, a new Superintendent, and three new school board members and what took place that year was they wanted me to removed my Bible from my desk. And I felt I have academic freedoms and I thought I had the right to have my Bible on my desk, so I left it on my desk in 2007/2008 school year and they told me to remove it and that was when they suspended me - April 16, 2008 - they suspended me without pay and I've been in litigation since then, the last four years.

Green: What's their complaint about having a Bible on your desk? I thought teachers were allowed to do that?

Freshwater: You know what? I thought so too, but they said I needed to remove it from my desk. Here is what it comes down to Rick, and it's this: there is a lot of fear in public school teachers, especially Christian public school teachers. They put fear into them and they keep them ignorant; they don't teach them, they don't train them on it, so what a teacher does is they take off their religious beliefs, they take their hat off before they walk into a public school building because they don't want to lose their job. They really don't have a good understanding of this whole thing called religious belief and separation of church and state, it has been convoluted, it has been putting fear in the people and it is sad, it's very sad for a public school teacher in a public school in America today.

Of course, a quick Google search reveals dozens of articles reporting that Freshwater was actually fired for allegedly burning a cross onto the arms of two of his students and using his classroom to teach creationism, attack gays, and promote his religion. And just last month, his firing was upheld in court.

But you would never have learned this from listening to "WallBuilders Live" where Freshwater was portrayed simply as a man who has been relentlessly persecuted because of his Christian faith. 

As we have said before, Barton's success is largely rooted in the fact that his intended audience generally doesn't question anything he says or bother to check to see if his claims are accurate or true, and this is just the latest example of how he uses that power to routinely mislead them in order to create false narratives that support his own political and religious agenda.

American History 101 With Professor Kirk Cameron

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Friday, 10/28/2011 3:00 pm

Yesterday WallBuilders' Rick Green, the poor man's David Barton, appeared as a guest on TBN's "Praise The Lord" program to promote and share the patented brand of Religious Right pseudo-history with which WallBuilders is synonymous.

And Green had some stiff competition in the regard as host Kirk Cameron - yes, that one - tried to stump the audience with a trick question by asking if they knew the difference between the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence and which one contained the phrase "four score and seven years ago." 

The answer, of course, is that neither document contains that phrase, which Cameron admitted ... before mistakenly claiming that it appeared in the Emancipation Proclamation when, in actuality, is was the opening line of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address:

In David Barton's Alternative Reality, Americans Love Don't Ask Don't Tell

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Wednesday, 10/12/2011 4:45 pm

Republican pseudo-historian David Barton says that he, like Jesus, has never been legitimately critiqued, and is even suing two Democratic politicians in Texas and a blogger who have criticized him. While Right Wing Watch, among others, reports on Barton’s incessant dishonesty on a regular basis, he continues to tell falsehoods even when he is directly confronted about it.

Today on his program WallBuilders Live, Barton and his co-host Rick Green discussed the 9th Circuit Court’s decision on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. While they originally found the policy unconstitutional, the court recently vacated the ruling following the policy’s official repeal. Barton argued that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and the Defense of Marriage Act are “still overwhelmingly popular” among Americans:

Barton: The president’s going to follow the 9th's decision, that’s just what happens when you get a president—

Green: You’re gonna have to choose a Commander and Chief that—

Barton: You’re gonna have to choose a president who’s going to enforce laws that the rest of us think are important. Now he’s choosing to enforce the laws and not enforce the laws he thinks are important, and it’s not where the nation is. You know overwhelmingly we still want DOMA, the ban on homosexuals in the military that’s still overwhelmingly popular, he’s just not going there.

Of course, Barton is flat out wrong.

A CBS News poll released October 4 found that “68 percent of Americans said they support gay and lesbians’ rights to serve openly,” and that 48% of Republicans favored the repeal of the ban on openly gay soldiers, more than the 41% who opposed repeal.

On marriage, polls from Gallup, CNN, ABC, AP/Roper and the Public Religion Research Institute all found that a majority of Americans support marriage equality for gays and lesbians. Moreover, a Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research poll found that 51% of voters oppose DOMA and just 34% support the law, which is still being enforced.

But David Barton, naturally, would not let actual polling data stand in the way of his claim that Americans are still hostile to the rights of gays and lesbians.

Barton, Kern Stoke Fears That Gays And Lesbians Threaten Lives Of Critics

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Tuesday, 10/11/2011 10:46 am

Yesterday, David Barton and Rick Green hosted Oklahoma State Representative Sally Kern on WallBuilders Live to discuss her new book, The Stoning of Sally Kern, and caution listeners about the dangers of saying “something disparaging about homosexuality.” Kern’s book details her political activism and the fallout of her claim that the “homosexual agenda is destroying this nation ... it’s the biggest threat that our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam,” a sentiment she recently repeated, telling anti-gay activist Peter LaBarbera that homosexuality is “more dangerous” than terrorism.

Barton said, “If you touch homosexuality, be prepared to pay a price,” warning that it “may cost your life.” Later in the interview, Green said Kern must have experienced a “physical fear” of the “militant” gay-rights activists, and Kern told her story of how she was prepared to lose her life over the issue.

Listen:

Barton: With all of the protection we have for free speech, there’s still a number of areas where you’re not free to speak out on certain things. If you touch homosexuality, be prepared to pay a price, not just attacks, it’s gonna cost you economically, other things as well, may cost your life. This is, the way people respond to what you say about homosexuality if you criticize it and we got Sally Kern today, State Rep from Oklahoma who experienced that first time, what happens if you exercise your right of free speech and happen to say something disparaging about homosexuality.

…

Kern: I have to be honest with you Rick, when I was sitting there in my car that day and when she told me that those emails were coming from homosexuals, honestly, fear gripped by whole body, because I was very aware of the homosexual lobbyists and the power that they have. And people say, ‘oh you’re so brave, so heroic,’ but I’m not, I’m just a sinner saved by grace and I was gripped with fear that day. I just said, ‘Lord, what have I done?’

Green: And not just I would think not just fear, not a political fear, physical fear; there’s a militant agenda out there as well.

Kern: It entered our mind but honestly, and I mentioned this in the book, the Saturday night when my husband and I sit down and really talked about this and prayed about it, when we asked ourselves the question, are we willing to even lose our lives over this? I can’t tell you, Rick, how liberating that was, it really was.

Barton Refuses To Retract Bogus Claim That Schools "Force" Students Into Homosexuality

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Wednesday, 10/5/2011 2:30 pm

In August, David Barton misleadingly claimed that “the leading pediatric association in America” sent a letter to schools cautioning them against programs that try to prevent anti-gay bullying, asserting that pediatricians agree that young people will “end up being heterosexual unless you force them to be homosexual.”

As it turned out, Barton and his co-host Rick Green were citing the work of the American College of Pediatricians, an exceptionally small, right-wing splinter group of the significantly larger and more reputable American Academy of Pediatricians. In fact, the ACP broke away from the mainstream AAP because of the ACP’s vehement opposition to gay rights.

Warren Throckmorton of Grove City College pointed out at the time that while the ACP has “probably less than 200” members, the AAP has around 60,000. Professor Throckmorton tried to reach out to the AAP and WallBuilders, and the AAP said that Barton’s claims were demonstrably false. After AAP spokeswoman sent WallBuilders a letter asking for a retraction, Barton’s group replied:

Hi Debora (sic),

Thank you for your email to WallBuilders Live, I apologize for the delay in response but I hope I can address your concerns! After airing the episode about ACP David and Rick were informed that the news source they quoted during the episode was mistaken. David and Rick sent a letter to the news source addressing the mistaken information in the story. We apologize for the mix up and appreciate your notification as well.

If you have any further question or concerns please feel free to contact us. Many blessings!

Caroline Henry

wallbuilderslive.com

WallBuilders admitted to the AAP that their earlier assertion was demonstrably false and apologized. But that is not the story that was told on today’s episode of WallBuilders Live where Barton and Green contradicted the letter sent to Henry and refused to issue a retraction or back down from their discredited claims and even criticized the AAP for having the gall to attack them. Barton, who recently likened himself to Jesus and said that his critics are just like Jesus’ persecutors, chastised the AAP but altered his original claim to say that the ACP is now “a leading” organization:

Green: Actually David I got a—actually it’s not a retraction at all actually—we got a letter that wanted a retraction. Remember when we did the show? There was a great paper that was put out by the American Academy—I mean the American College of Pediatricians, and they were saying look some of this stuff you’re doing on homosexuality in schools is dangerous for kids, this homosexual agenda is not a good idea and bringing it into the classroom and that sort of thing. We did a whole program on this. In the program we talked about hey this is one of the leading pediatric associations in the nation, and we got a letter from one of the other pediatric associations, let’s see the American Academy of Pediatrics, which has more members and has been around a little longer and they I guess took offense to that so they sent us a letter and they said they wanted to make sure we knew that the ACP was not the leading pediatric association in America and they put some of their papers in here and there position is a little different I would say—

Barton: Oh yeah, oh yeah.

Green: Much more liberal on this. As we pointed out to them directly and we’ll put it out here on the show: leading does not mean largest, leading means, sometimes it takes a newer, leaner more responsive organization—

Barton: And they are one of the leading organizations. Now the fact that this other organization may not like them and may disagree with them doesn’t mean they’re not a leading organization. They are a credentialed organization made up of credentialed people and the fact that they don’t agree with them doesn’t make them less than leading. And if they’re expecting a retraction, sorry, ain’t happening!

Barton: If The Dogcatcher Is Not Good On Sharia, Keep 'Em Out Of Office

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Monday, 10/3/2011 3:51 pm

Jerry Boykin brought his anti-Islam activism to "Wallbuilders Live" and made a real impression on David Barton, who urged listeners to find out where every candidate running for office stands on the issue of Sharia, even the dogcatchers:

David Barton: You got to elect people who will preserve the culture of the United States and not change the culture.

Rick Green: Which means asking tough questions o the candidates and not just the ones that are going to Congress, or the president, but the local guys too because they're going to deal with some of these issues ...

Barton: Well, that's the farm team. We need to ask the dogcatcher what he thinks about Islamic stuff because he may become the mayor, which may become the state rep, who may become the state senator, who may become the US rep who becomes the US senator who becomes the governor who becomes the president.

I mean, take care of these guys at the lowest level. Talk to every local official, I don't care what they are, get their position and find out where they are and, if they're wrong on it, keep them out of office.

Barton: Congress Should Impeach Judges For Rulings It Doesn't Like

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Thursday, 9/22/2011 4:43 pm

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!

Why The Religious Right Opposes Government Assistance For The Poor

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Monday, 9/19/2011 4:12 pm

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.

Barton's Show Dropped By Christian Radio Station Over Ties To Glenn Beck

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Wednesday, 9/14/2011 10:39 am

Wow, things do not seem to be going very well for David Barton at the moment.  First he's reduced to filing lawsuits against Texas Board of Education candidates and a blogger and now comes news, via Warren Throckmorton, that Barton's radio show has been dropped due to his on-going defense of Glenn Beck:

The Moody Broadcast Network station in East Texas, KBJS-FM canceled David Barton’s Wallbuilders Live radio program during the show yesterday while Barton was discussing Glenn Beck’s religious beliefs. Randy Featherstone, KBJS manager, said the show was dropped due to Barton’s failure to distinguish between Mormon theology and Christianity.

“When David Barton said it doesn’t matter whether you are a Mormon or a Baptist or a Methodist, we felt we had to do something,” Featherstone explained.

On the Tuesday program, Barton played audio of Glenn Beck saying that “the Lord Jesus Christ is my Savior and my Redeemer.” Then Barton said he believed that Beck was a Christian based on his statement of belief and “his fruits,” meaning his good deeds. Based on Beck’s statements, Barton then asked co-host Rick Green, “Glenn says he’s Mormon. Ok, that’s fine. Based on what you heard, if you heard a Baptist say that or if you heard a Methodist say that…what would you say?” After Green answered that Beck’s testimony indicated a real conversion, Barton responded, “Why is it not a real conversion because of the label he wears?”

Throughout the program, Barton dismissed Beck’s Mormonism, saying at one point, “I don’t care what label Beck wears. I don’t care what Glenn thinks Mormon means.” Barton also asserted that Beck uses the same Bible, but added, “Now he may use the Book of Mormon, we never talked about the Book of Mormon.”

Featherstone added that the station received many calls during the broadcast with callers who objected to Barton’s views. All but two callers supported the decision of the station to drop the show.

Some callers also complained that Barton misuses history and “takes facts out of context” to create a false impression about the Constitution and founding of the nation, according to Featherstone.

Featherstone said the station did not take the action lightly, saying “I like a lot of what Barton has to say, but we don’t want to confuse listeners into thinking that Mormon doctrine and Christianity are the same.”

As Throckmorton notes, Barton dedicated most of yesterday's program to pushing back against criticism from people like Brannon Howse that Barton has been working with Beck to promote the latter's spiritual endeavors despite the fact that Beck is a Mormon. 

Barton has long insisted that even though Beck calls himself a Mormon, he is really a Christian and he even posted a long defense of this on his Facebook page yesterday asserting that regardless of what label Beck wears, he is a Christian in his heart.

But apparently the folks running KBJS aren't buying that defense and decided to stop carrying Barton's daily radio program.

Barton Threatens Defamation Lawsuits Over Allegations He Spoke To Anti-Semitic Groups

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Tuesday, 9/13/2011 2:21 pm

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.

O'Donnell Credits David Barton For Inspiring Her "Political Longing"

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Wednesday, 8/31/2011 4:14 pm

Christine O'Donnell was the guest on "Wallbuilders Live" today where she spent most of the program complaining about how mean everyone was.  But before getting to that, she revealed that it was a presentation that David Barton delivered to her church that inspired her to get involved in politics:

O'Donnell: Thank you for having me, Rick. And I just want to know what an influence Wallbuilders have played in my own life. In the early nineties, when I first returned to the church, returned to the Lord, David Barton came to speak at the church I was attending and ti was just such an inspirational message and it really helped me know that this political longing, these leanings, that I was beginning to experience were in the right direction. So ...

Rick Green: I love it.

O'Donnell: You guys are doing amazing work and I thank you for that.

Barton has also been a huge inspiration to Michele Bachmann as well.

Barton: Gay Rights Are "Impossible," People Are Poor Because They're Not Religious

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Friday, 8/19/2011 3:36 pm

Today on WallBuilders Live, David Barton and co-host Rick Green trumpeted their opposition to gay rights and reproductive rights, as Barton previously argued that God will hold you accountable if you vote for a pro-equality or pro-choice candidate. During the program, Barton tried to distinguish calls for LGBT rights from the abolitionist and civil rights movement. He contends that while the opposition to slavery and segregation was based in the Bible, simplifying a complicated history of racism in America as defenders of slavery and segregation frequently cited the Bible, advocates of LGBT equality are actually violating the laws of God. “I’m sorry, you’re sexual choice is not a God-given right,” Barton said, “You’re talking about a choice and you’re talking about elevating a choice to an inalienable right, which is impossible, you can’t, not under the definition of American documents.”

Barton goes on to say that because there is no species composed entirely of homosexuals that can survive, homosexuality is not a natural right: “When you find homosexuality in nature, it is an aberration, there is no homosexual group in nature that survives, it can’t, it simply can’t, in nature it happens but it’s always an aberration. What is normal is heterosexual, and that is a law of nature and it’s a law of nature’s God.”

Barton later asserts that poverty doesn’t contribute to a higher abortion rate, asking, “is it not the attitude that leads to poverty that also allows abortion and everything else? Is it poverty that causes abortion or is it an attitude?” He claims that there is a “spiritual solution” to poverty and abortion because people of faith do not “choose to live in poverty.” Barton contends that once poor people change their humanistic attitude that tolerates abortion, poverty will end:

If you choose not to advance your life, not to work your tail off, work three or four or five jobs or whatever it takes, if you choose to stay in that lifestyle is that not an indication of an attitude and therefore an attitude, ‘I don’t care about life I don’t care about anything but me, I’m the only thing I care about,’ and that’s why you stay in poverty. Therefore, it’s not a matter that if you eliminate poverty you’re going to eliminate abortion, you got to eliminate the attitude that keeps somebody in poverty and that goes back to a spiritual solution.

The Religious Right's Spin On Science

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Wednesday, 8/17/2011 5:50 pm

The mainstream scientific community rejects the Religious Right’s assertion that gays and lesbians can change their sexual orientation to become heterosexual: the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Association of Social Workers and the American Psychiatric Association all deny the effectiveness, safety and ethics of ‘ex-gay’ reparative therapy.

But that doesn’t stop right-wing activists from citing and exaggerating the claims of small, fringe organizations in order to bolster their support of reparative therapy and claim that such “therapy” has extensive backing in the medical community.

Today, Liberty Counsel heads Mat Staver and Matt Barber, who according to their official biographies have no background in psychology, dedicated their Faith & Freedom radio show to assailing the American Psychological Association, arguing that they have more psychological expertise than the APA. Staver pointed to a small, Christians-only psychological group has “the most definitive, most recent research that’s come out that says change is possible” for gays and lesbians:

Liberty Counsel even declared that the American Association of Christian Counselors is “larger than American Psychological Assn”:

 

In reality, the AACC has just one-third of the membership of the APA, which has 154,000 members.

Staver and Barber are far from the only anti-gay figures to promote the findings of tiny, religious groups over the claims of more reputable and mainstream organizations.

As reported on RWW, David Barton on WallBuilders Live last week falsely described the American College of Pediatricians as “the leading pediatric association in America” as he cited a memo from the group claiming that “most students will ultimately adopt a heterosexual orientation if not otherwise encouraged.” Barton used the ACP’s memo as evidence to show that all children will “end up being heterosexual unless [schools] force them to be homosexual”:

The ACP is not “the leading pediatric association in America,” but a far-right offshoot of the real leading pediatric group, the American Academy of Pediatricians, which vigorously condemned the ACP’s memo. Barton’s co-host Rick Green tried to defend his dishonest representation of the ACP, but as Warren Throckmorton points out, while the ACP has “probably less than 200” members, the AAP has around 60,000.

Moreover, Focus on the Family, Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America frequently cite the National Association of Research and Therapy of Homosexuality as a reliable source of information on reparative therapy despite the group’s history of fraud and promotion of anti-gay and racist views.

The argument over the efficacy of ‘ex-gay’ reparative therapy mirrors the fight over teaching Creationism and Creationist-influenced Intelligent Design in public schools. Religious Right figures have a tendency to call any study from a leading and mainstream scientific associations biased if it doesn’t reflect their views, and then find (or create) small, non-credible organizations to reflect their viewpoints. Desperate to reject the consensus of the scientific community, like clockwork Religious Right activists try to pass off these tiny groups as large, credible, and legitimate institutions in an effort to lend authority to their foundering arguments.

Right Wing Round-Up

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Monday, 8/15/2011 5:54 pm

Barton: "Hang These Four Republican Scalps Over The Senate Rail" For Supporting Marriage Equality

Submitted by Brian Tashman on Tuesday, 8/9/2011 4:03 pm

Today on WallBuilders Live, David Barton and co-host Rick Green had the National Organization for Marriage’s Maggie Gallagher as a guest to discuss NOM’s efforts to defeat senators that voted for the marriage equality law in New York, especially the law’s four Republican supporters. Following Gallagher’s interview, Barton lauded NOM’s campaign and warned that unless those Republicans are defeated, “Ken Mehlman,” the former head of the Republican National Committee and Bush campaign chief who recently came out as gay, “and his kind [will] come in and start rewarding these guys for going against pro-family stuff.” Barton went on to say that “this is where you hang a bloody scalp over the gallery rail,” to intimidate other Republicans who consider supporting equal rights for gays and lesbians:

Barton: If you allow the Ken Mehlman kind of Republicans to come in, and Melhman’s the guy who ran the Republican National Convention, he’s the guy who came out, who’s openly homosexual, trained with Karl Rove and was an understudy to Karl, if you allow those guys to be able to facilitate the Republicans to turn on these issues and other squishy Republicans across the country will say, ‘hey I can take on these pro-family people,’ they’ll start doing the same thing. Then you’ll lose your opportunity to have at least one party that still has the ability to allow people to talk about biblical, moral issues. You just cannot let this happen. Here I sit in Texas, I’ll contribute to the campaign to take these guys out, I’ll send money from Texas to New York.

Green: It’s kind of like the Iowa deal, going after judges up there and the necessity to defeat them.

Barton: Hey, you think that didn’t scare a bunch of judges straight in other states? You bet it did. And I want to see pro-family guys scared straight that are squishy on this issue, and if we can’t take out these four Republicans and the Majority Leader in New York, we will have opened a huge door for Melhman and his kind to come in and start rewarding these guys for going against pro-family stuff, and you just can’t let that happen.

…

Barton: No disrespect to our Native American friends, but this is where you hang a bloody scalp over the gallery rail. You hang these four Republican scalps over the Senate rail and every other Republican senator looks up and sees those scalps and says, ‘my gosh, I’ll be hanging up there beside them if I don’t stay with this pro-family stuff.’ And that’s exactly what has to happen.
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Rick Green Posts Archive

David Barton Can't Avoid Growing Criticism of his Pseudo-History
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Wednesday 08/15/2012, 1:00pm
David Barton usually dismisses the daily Right Wing Watch blog posts and two reports on his sham history and litany of patently false and absurd assertions by calling us “radical left social guys” who don’t like America. Barton, who is not a historian and does not submit his work to peer review, says that academics who criticize his “scholarship” are simply elitists who are jealous of his popularity. But as Barton’s unraveling continues, he has now lashed out at his critics by attacking one of his critic’s religious beliefs and insisting that an... MORE >
Another Conservative Denounces David Barton's 'Prevarications' while Rick Green Compares Criticism of Barton to the Holocaust
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Tuesday 08/14/2012, 5:10pm
As Kyle pointed out, David Barton is trying to salvage his collapsing support by yet again attacking the religious and political views of his critics, joining American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer today in smearing Warren Throckmorton as a tool of the left. Unfortunately for Barton, more and more conservatives are denouncing his right-wing pseudo-history on the heels of a scathing NPR report and the news that Thomas Nelson has yanked his latest book, “The Jefferson Lies,” from publication. Now, the former dean of Regent University’s Robertson School of Government... MORE >
Top Five Books Thomas Nelson Found More Credible Than David Barton's 'The Jefferson Lies'
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Monday 08/13/2012, 2:20pm
The world’s largest Christian publisher Thomas Nelson has pulled David Barton’s book “The Jefferson Lies” because of Barton’s “unsupportable” claims regarding the third president’s views on religion. Barton’s deputy Rick Green accused academic “elitists” of acting like Adolf Hitler to smear Barton, while Barton ironically defended his book by insisting that a group of anonymous academics endorsed his work. Now that Thomas Nelson has recalled Barton’s book and removed all mention of it from its website, we wanted to see... MORE >
Rick Green, We Gladly Accept Your Challenge!
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Monday 08/13/2012, 10:28am
Last week, we noted how odd it was that seemingly nobody was coming to David Barton's defense after his shoddy scholarship was exposed by NPR and then Barton's publisher announced that it had "lost confidence" in his work and was ceasing publication and distribution of his book.   Late on Friday night, WallBuilders finally issued a statement defending Barton's work and announcing that his "book has already been picked up by a much larger national publisher and distributor" and would soon be in publication again.  Given Barton's, shall we say, lack of credibility... MORE >
Barton: The Concept of Adolescence is an Unbiblical 'Progressive Liberal Phenomenon'
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Wednesday 08/01/2012, 2:23pm
On today's episode of "WallBuilders Live," David Barton and Rick Green hosted Kay Wyma, author of the book "Cleaning House: A Mom's Twelve-Month Experiment to Rid Her Home of Youth Entitlement" to discuss how to raise more responsible children. Barton, for his part, declared that the entire concept of adolescence is unbiblical and was utterly foreign to the Founding Fathers since it is nothing but a modern, progressive liberal phenomenon: Green: Isn't that the difference between the Founding Era and ours today in terms of expectations? They expected you to do a lot... MORE >
David Barton likens Same-Sex Marriage to Horse, Dog Marriage
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Tashman, Tuesday 07/24/2012, 3:00pm
Right-wing pseudo-historian David Barton, who compares homosexuality to smoking and celebrates the fact that there isn’t a cure for AIDS, said today on WallBuilders Live! with co-host Rick Green that same-sex marriage is much like letting people marry horses or dogs. Discussing the Defense of Marriage Act, Barton warned that marriage equality proponents may try to “evangelize” their belief that “marriage shouldn’t be between a man and a woman” since “that’s unfair for two men who want to be together, or two women, or a horse and a dog, or... MORE >
Barton, Green & Barber Agree: Not Voting for Romney is a Sin
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Thursday 07/19/2012, 9:19am
A few months ago, David Barton and Rick Green invited early Mitt Romney supporter Jordan Sekulow onto their "WallBuilders Live" program to make the case why Religious Right votes can and should be excited about supporting Romney in the general election.  Sekulow made the case that Romney would nominate good judges, especially to the Supreme Court , and while that certainly appealed to Barton and Green, the fact of the matter is that regardless of how unexcited they might be about a candidate like Romney, their vehement opposition to President Obama meant that they were... MORE >
Even While Giving Us a Mocking Shout-Out, Barton Cannot Stop Lying
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Monday 07/16/2012, 2:05pm
It is no secret that we regularly listen to "WallBuilders Live" as part of our monitoring, and we do so because that is where we learn interesting things from David Barton like how people are on welfare because they are not reading the Bible, how prayer stopped the BP oil spill in the Gulf, and that there are no grocery stores in the city of Detroit. But not every episode contains these sort of informative nuggets because sometimes Barton and co-host Rick Green dedicate the program to talking with our nation's veterans about their harrowing experiences fighting in past... MORE >