Ohio

Given that some polls are now showing Herman Cain leading the Republican presidential field, do you think that maybe someone in the media might be able to get around to asking him about his role in the 2006 radio ad campaign that the Bush administration called "inappropriate" and the RNC called "racist"? 

Here is a refresher:  Back in 2006, an organization called America's PAC was formed for the purpose of spending $1 million to get Black and Hispanic voters to support Republican candidates with absurdly over-the-top and offensive radio ads:

The group, America's Pac, began running ads last month in more than two dozen congressional districts.The campaign discusses issues ranging from warrantless wiretapping to school choice, but the most inflammatory spots pertain to abortion.

"Black babies are terminated at triple the rate of white babies," a female announcer in one of the ads says, as rain, thunder, and a crying infant are heard in the background. "The Democratic Party supports these abortion laws that are decimating our people, but the individual's right to life is protected in the Republican platform. Democrats say they want our vote.Why don't they want our lives?"

...

Another spot attempts to link Democrats to a white supremacist who served as a Republican in the Louisiana Legislature, David Duke.The ad makes reference to Duke's trip to Syria last year, where he spoke at an anti-war rally.

"I can understand why a Ku Klux Klan cracker like David Duke makes nice with the terrorists,"a male voice in the ad says. "What I want to know is why so many of the Democrat politicians I helped elect are on the same side of the Iraq war as David Duke."

According to the New York Sun, Herman Cain was the spokesperson for the group and personally voiced some of the radio ads:

The group referred calls from The New York Sun to a conservative, African-American talk show host who voiced some of the ads, Herman Cain.

"The main thing that America's Pac is up to is it basically is challenging the thesis or the belief on the part of the Republican Party that they cannot attract the black vote," Mr. Cain said. He said similar advertisements run in 2004 helped boost President Bush's share of the black vote in Ohio to 16%, from 9% in 2000.

"We don't believe that was an accident," Mr. Cain said. The IRS filing indicates that the ads are running this year in 10 battleground states, including Ohio, New Mexico, and Nevada.

Mr. Cain, who once managed the Godfather's Pizza chain and ran unsuccessfully for the Senate from Georgia in 2004, said he was not troubled that Mr. Rooney, who is white, is funding ads using black voices who claim to speak on behalf of the black community."You don't have a lot of black billionaires who would want to fund something like this," he said.

We managed to track down the audio of one of America's PAC's most infamous ads a while back and uploaded it to YouTube:

Is that Cain featured in the ad?  We don't know for sure - it kind of sounds like him, but it is entirely possible that it is not him ... but since nobody seems willing to ask Cain about the ads and his role with the organization, it is impossible to know.

It is known that Cain was a voice and spokesman for the America's PAC ad series, so even if he didn't voice this particular ad, it seems worth asking him which ads he did voice and whether he feels ads about a "Ku Klux Klan cracker" or snuffing the seed of "one of your hoes" are appropriate, especially since even the RNC denounced the ad's "racist or race-baiting in intent."

Earlier we reported that Personhood USA is hoping to place its extrememe personhood amendnt on the 2012 ballot in Ohio, hoping voters there will back the amendment outlawing all abortions along with certain forms of birth control, in-vitro fertilization and the treatment of ectopic pregnancies. The group’s state affiliate, Personhood Ohio, even opposes Janet Porter’s “Heartbeat bill” because it does not go far enough in criminalizing abortion. The group needs over 320,000 valid signatures to place the amendment on the ballot, and is telling Ohioans that the consequences of failure would be devastating, warning, “God’s wrath abides on Ohio for the innocent blood that has been shed in our state”:

The Bible is clear that God's curse resides upon the land where innocent people are killed without justice. (See Numbers 35:30-34, Jeremiah 18:7-10, Proverbs 6:16-17, Psalm 9:17, Jeremiah 7:5-7, Isaiah 1:15-17.) God is longsuffering, but sooner or later, judgment will fall on a land that sheds innocent blood.

Numbers 35:30-34 tells us that when innocent blood is shed in the land, the land is "defiled" and "polluted" and only justice can cleanse it. In Deuteronomy 21:1-9, we are taught that the curse of innocent blood falls upon the community nearest the crime. This curse can only be lifted through the dissemination of justice. It is the local community where the assault has been committed that is ultimately responsible for punishing assailants to protect the innocent.

Ultimately, Ohioans have no business pointing our fingers at the Supreme Court, the U.S. Congress, or the abortion advocates entrenched in political parties for the shedding of innocent blood that Ohio allows. The federal government's jurisdiction is limited by the Constitution, which only grants the feds jurisdiction over three crimes: piracy, counterfeiting, and treason. Criminal justice is a local matter. God's wrath abides on Ohio for the innocent blood that has been shed in our state, and God obligates Ohio to do justice to protect the innocent from assault and murder, and thereby purge our land from the guilt of innocent blood. Until there is justice for the preborn, there will be no lasting mercy for us.

In 1857, the Supreme Court declared that an African American slave named Dred Scott was not a man, but the property of his owner. Over two million slaves perished on the ships headed for American ports. Millions were brutalized under the American slave trade. What followed soon after the 1857 Supreme Court decision was a Civil War that resulted in the deaths of 620,000 American lives.

The Nuremberg Laws were passed in Germany in 1935, declaring Jews to be non-persons. By the end of World War 2 in 1945, 6.5 to 8.8 million German civilians and soldiers had been killed in combat.

When Israel began to sacrifice innocent children to idols under King Manasseh, God promised judgment was coming. God was longsuffering, but within four generations of Manasseh, judgment finally came. Assyria conquered the Jews, slaughtered most of them, and carried off the survivors in chains to a life of slavery. Isaiah told them why: "Your hands are full of blood" and their cities were full of "murderers" (Isaiah 1:15, 21). Jeremiah told them why: they filled their land with "the blood of innocents" (Jeremiah 2:24 & 19:4). Hosea told them why: they were "polluted with blood" (Hosea 6:8). Joel told them why: "They have shed innocent blood in their land" (Joel 3:19). Ezekiel told them why: "Thou art become guilty in the blood that thou hast shed (Ezekiel 22:24). They continued to "slay the souls that should not die, and to save the souls alive that should not live" (Ezekiel 13:19).

God promises judgment upon every nation that sins against him (Jeremiah 18:7-10; Psalm 9:17). For every two children conceived in Ohio, one is aborted. Almost half a million Ohioans have been slaughtered in Ohio's abortion clinics the first decade of this century.

Those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it.

Jim Garlow of Renewing America’s Leadership (ReAL), Newt Gingrich’s Religious Right group, told activists at Janet Porter’s Heartbeat Bill rally last week that the end of abortion in America will be remembered just like the end of the Holocaust. Garlow told the crowd that after abortion is criminalized, people will tour shuttered abortion clinics in the same way that people now tour concentration camps in Europe. Garlow, who has also been organizing the “Pulpit Initiative” to convince pastors to use more partisan political rhetoric from the pulpit, also threatened that pastors will call out any elected officials that do not support the Heartbeat Bill or other anti-choice legislation.

Watch:

And as prophets of God, any senator or any house of representative, or any legislative person, who would dare stand for abortion, will be exposed from the pulpits for exactly what they are: this is sin, we must call it what it is, it’s wrong and it must stop now. I’m the out-of-stater so I can get by with more than perhaps you can, but any senator that would dare stand on this platform and lecture us about the inappropriateness of a bill that will block ninety-five percent of abortions must go! This is not going to be tolerated, it is wrong! It is morally, biblically wrong!

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I have taken people on tours of the concentration camps in Germany on church history tours across Europe, and when I take them to Buchenwald, I say I want you to know that someday, someday in America, people are going to tour the abortuaries, and they’re gonna say: you’re not gonna believe what actually happened to other human beings in these places. And they’re gonna say, where was the church when this was going on? And we’re gonna say, we rose up, and we made a difference, and in Ohio we put a stop to it, this day!

Janet Porter continues to post videos from the Heartbeat Bill rally she organized earlier this week.  Yesterday it was Ducia Hamm of the Ashland Care Center who showed an ultrasound of a fetus waving to the crowd and today it is Julie Busby of Ohio Right To Life comparing the supporters of this legislation to Moses because they both have God on their side while those who don't support the bill are going to be judged by God:

And just like God was behind Moses to free his people, God is behind the people supporting this bill to stop the killing. How do I know that? Because God will never support a people or a nation that support the massacre of its children, okay? We've got fifty million children that have been legally murdered in this nation and the streets are crying out with their blood. We cannot be so arrogant as a nation to think we will not face the same fate as other nations that have cooperated with this type of evil.

This is what's going on, this is a reality, this is happening right now. We have a chance, in this moment in time, to stop the killing.

For those Senators who support this bill, you're already on the winning side. But those who don't, am I suggesting your fate is going to end up like Pharaoh? No, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is this: I have yet to see a man stand in the face of a hurricane and put up his hand and tell it to stop. If you do, you're a fool and not only are you a fool, but you are probably a dead fool. And when we thumb our noses at God and act like somehow we're beyond the reach of his judgement, it is like a man standing in the face of a hurricane and telling it to stop.

Janet Porter’s proposed “heartbeat bill” in Ohio, which would criminalize abortion in the vast majority of cases, is so extreme that the Ohio Right to Life Society refuses to back it, but for some anti-choice radicals, it does not go far enough. As we’ve previously reported, Personhood USA wants to put a personhood amendment on the Ohio ballot in 2012, and Personhood Ohio is no fan of Porter’s “heartbeat bill.”

While the personhood movement may appear to be a fringe group, since proponents oppose even draconian legislation like the “heartbeat bill,” the personhood movement is backed by Mike Huckabee, the American Family Association, Liberty Counsel and the Family Research Council. In fact, earlier this year personhood amendment advocates berated Porter on a conference call sponsored by The Oak Initiative’s Transformation Michigan, telling Porter that her bill was not anti-choice enough.

Writing today in WorldNetDaily, Personhood Ohio director Patrick Johnson condemns Porter’s bill for banning abortion in most instead of all cases, the goal of personhood amendments. Johnson is outraged that the bill has exceptions for cases where the life of the mother is at stake, which he says is “never justified,” and is angered that it doesn’t require the state to charge women with murder for having an abortion: “This bill specifically exempts the mother from prosecution. Why does the bill exempt accomplices?” Johnson writes:

The advocates of the Heartbeat Bill have proven their willingness to push one person out of the boat to try to save another. How? By way of the bill's exceptions, its inappropriate penalties, and its counterfeit moral standard.

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What is the moral standard that is invoked in the Heartbeat Bill? Is it the Constitution, which says that the government shall not deprive another of life or liberty without a trial by jury? No. Is it the law of God, which says "Do no murder" in Exodus 20 and mandates a public execution for convicted murderers? No, of course not.

In subsections H, I, and J, this bill specifically cites the federal judiciary as the standard of morality and justice. This bill prescribes into law the supremacy of the Supreme Court over both the law of God and the state and federal constitutions. This bill bows the knee to a counterfeit standard of morality at the altar of judicial tyranny. Thus, this bill is rotten to its very foundation. Its design is not to protect the preborn, not to give them justice and certainly not to please "the Father of the fatherless." God's Word is the standard for morality and justice, and His Word is supreme over the opinions of men, but the Heartbeat Bill gets on the wrong side of God's line in the sand.

Even if the Heartbeat Bill did overturn Roe v. Wade and return the issue back to the states, it would not protect preborn children in Ohio. It is our hope that the Ohio Personhood Amendment to the Ohio Constitution would protect the God-given rights of every Ohioan.

Last week it was announced that a "pro-life/Tea Party activist" named David Lewis would be launching a primary against John Boehner. Since then, most of the press coverage has focused on the "Tea Party" aspect of Lewis' campaign and ignored the "pro-life" part ... even though it is the anti-choice activism that is really driving the campaign.

Back in 2010, anti-choice zealot Randall Terry discovered that he could get graphic anti-abortion ads to air on television by exploiting a loophole that prohibits broadcasters from refusing to run or censor campaign ads.  As such, he has been recruiting other anti-choice candidates to run for office, not because they have a chance to win, but simply as a means to air grapich ads on television.  In fact, Terry himself is running his own primary challege against President Obama for the same purpose.

Lewis quit his job last year to become a full-time anti-choice activist and admits that he has no chance of actually beating Boehner ... in fact, he doesn't even live in the correct district.  

That is Lewis, on the far left in the yellow, particpating in Randall Terry's "sit-in" outside of Boehner's office earlier this year:

So Lewis is running simply in order to run graphic ads: 

Lewis, the father of a 2-year-old girl, says he plans on running on a single issue - Boehner's support of a federal budget that provides funding to Planned Parenthood, which he calls "the largest killer of unborn babies in America."

Lewis tells the newspaper that he plans on running graphic anti-abortion ads against Boehner. He says that people will not reject abortion until they see abortion.

Lewis already has three graphic ads up on his campaign website ... so it is pretty obvious that his candidacy is not really a "Tea Party" challenge to Boehner at all but is simply the latest step in Randall Terry's campaign to get graphic anti-choice ads aired on television.

Mississippi is set to vote this November on a patently unconstitutional personhood amendment that would criminalize abortion in their state, and ‘personhood’ advocates now strive to put a similar amendment on the ballot in Ohio in 2012. Personhood laws would not only prohibit abortion in all cases but also ban certain forms of birth control and the treatment of ectopic pregnancies by giving legal rights to zygotes. The anti-choice activists hope that Ohio will vote on it at the same time as the swing state’s closely contested presidential election. Right now Ohio is on the brink of passing Janet Porter’s ‘Heartbeat bill’ that would ban abortion in the vast majority of cases, but Porter has taken heat that her prized legislation doesn’t go as far as personhood laws.

The American Family Association, which is financing the personhood campaign in Mississippi, reports that Personhood Ohio, the state affiliate of Personhood USA, wants the amendment, if passed, enforced even if it is struck down by the courts. “There's a firm legal precedent that when the judiciary rules unconstitutionally and immorally, that we have no obligation to respect that law any more than if they would have ordered us to kill our wives,” said Patrick Johnston of Personhood Ohio, “We don't have to obey them:

A campaign is under way in Ohio to place a Personhood Amendment on the 2012 ballot.

Article 1, Section 1 of the Ohio Constitution currently reads: "All persons are, by nature, free and independent and have certain inalienable rights, among which are those of enjoying and defending life..." The Personhood Amendment would add that "the word 'person' or 'persons' applies to every human being at every stage of biological development of that human being or human organism, including fertilization."

The idea is to amend the state constitution to define that a person is a person when human life begins at conception or fertilization. Dr. Patrick Johnston of Zanesville, a family physician who heads the campaign, says the constitutional addition would protect all unborn babies in Ohio, without exception. Personhood Ohio volunteers must now obtain 380,000 signatures to call for the election.

"It's a good state to go directly to the voters to gather enough signatures, and then go to the voters and the ballot box and bypass the committees that end up corrupting good pro-life legislation in the House of Representatives and the Senate," Johnston explains.

That corruption, he sayts [sic], reaches the point where exceptions are made that result in abortions. But he believes Ohio's pro-life leaning is strong, so even if a court rules against it, it does not necessarily mean anything.

"There [are] several constitutional measures we can take," the physician asserts. "One is we can ignore it. There's a firm legal precedent that when the judiciary rules unconstitutionally and immorally, that we have no obligation to respect that law any more than if they would have ordered us to kill our wives. We don't have to obey them."

After passing the Ohio State House, Janet Porter’s ‘heartbeat bill’ is now poised to have a vote in the Republican-controlled State Senate. Porter, an avowed dominionist who thinks supporters of President Obama are destined to Hell and that legal abortion is responsible for tornadoes, has been leading the fight to pass the ‘heartbeat bill,’ a patently unconstitutional measure that would “ban abortion as early as 18 to 24 days after conception.” She told James Dobson yesterday on his program Family Talk that she thinks her bill will eventually lead to the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. “We are so close that I can see the end of abortion from here, that’s how close we are,” Porter said, “everything we have prayed is happening…God has been in this from the beginning.”

Porter has lost some allies along the way, as the Ohio Right to Life Society opposes her extreme bill and one of its chief proponents, State Rep. Jarrod Martin, who called for the bill’s passage to help the U.S. compete with Chinese children, currently faces charges of drunk driving and child endangerment.

But she has picked up one major endorsement: Texas Gov. Rick Perry. He joins other presidential candidates Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich and Roy Moore in backing Porter’s extreme legislation. According to the statement from Porter’s group Faith 2 Action, Perry announced his support at his meeting with Religious Right leaders at James Leininger’s ranch in Texas where he spoke “before a group of 250 pro-life and pro-family leaders”:

Texas Governor Rick Perry, who recently announced that he will seek the Republican nomination for President, has announced his support for the Heartbeat Bill. He joins three other Presidential candidates in support of the bill: Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, and former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore.

“We’re grateful to Governor Perry for his strong support of the Heartbeat Bill. I don’t think there’s a bill in America with more support,” declares Faith2Action President Janet (Folger) Porter. She adds, “Come to the Statehouse Atrium on September 20 and get a glimpse of the statewide support for the Heartbeat Bill!”

At a meeting in Texas, Governor Perry announced his support before a group of 250 pro-life and pro-family leaders. His response of support to a question about the Heartbeat Bill received an extended standing ovation.

The Austin Chronicle has begun tweeting links to old articles about Rick Perry, like this one from 2005 when Perry spoke at a "Texas Restoration Project" with a gaggle of anti-gay Religious Right activists:

A source who attended the event spoke to the Chronicle but requested anonymity because he serves in a local congregation and was sensitive to its politically diverse viewpoints. He recorded the event and provided the audiotape to the Texas Freedom Network, which in turn provided copies to the media.

Millionaire San Antonio conservative James Leininger was in attendance, as was East Texas chicken tycoon Bo Pilgrim, who introduced the governor. The two are among Perry's most generous campaign donors, most recently chipping in $50,000 apiece to the governor's re-election campaign, according to state Ethics Commission filings.

Though the audiotape is of poor quality, there is no mistaking the fever-pitched gay-bashing theme of most of the speeches. The group is fashioned after a similar evangelical organization in Ohio that worked to pass that state's marriage amendment in November and helped produce a narrow victory there for President Bush. Critics accuse the Ohio group of operating in tandem with the Bush presidential campaign, managed by Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, now running for Ohio governor in 2006. Blackwell was one of the featured speakers in Austin. Other guests who spoke in Austin included two key players in the Republican Party of Texas – Vice Chair David Barton, a self-described Christian nationalist, and former executive director Susan Weddington, who now heads Perry's faith-based initiatives program. Weddington called Perry "a spiritual giant."

Additionally, Ohio evangelical Pastor Rod Parsley lambasted the "homosexual agenda" and railed against Islam; Arlington minister Dwight McKissic – other than Blackwell, apparently the only African-American speaker at the event – delivered a hellfire condemnation of gays and lesbians, climaxing his address with the biblical story of the fire that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, and declaring, "God has another match!" The crowd roared. "He said the most horrible things," the attendee said. "He was the most difficult to listen to."

Kelly Shackelford, who heads the Plano-based Free Market Foundation, may have stolen Perry's thunder in being the first to announce the governor's choice to fill the vacancy on the Texas Supreme Court – Don Willett, who was seated in the audience. Shackelford introduced Willett as a "strong believer in Jesus Christ. … I have no doubt where this man stands on any issue." Shackelford urged pastors to start organizing support for the upcoming constitutional election. "The other side is very organized," he said of the "No Nonsense in November" campaign, which opposes the amendment. "They are out there working in your communities."

Perry steered clear of directly incendiary comments, but left no doubt where he stands on the referendum. "For the record," he said, "this is one Texan who's going to be voting to protect the family unit this November by voting to preserve the institution of marriage between one man and one woman." Afterward, someone asked the governor what they could do to help him – the closest anyone came to mentioning his re-election campaign. Perry thought a moment before responding.

"Pray for me."

If the names of the participants sound familiar, there is a reason for that:  many of them also endorsed Perry's recent prayer rally, including David Barton, Dwight McKissic, and Kelly Shackelford.

You may also recognize the name of Susan Weddington, who has been working wtih Barton and close Perry friend Alice Patterson, to get African Americans to support the Republican Party.

In fact, these Restoration Project events are organized by David Lane, who was not only responsible for the recent similar Rediscover God In America conference, but just so happened to also serve as the National Finance Chairman of Perry's The Response prayer rally.

Perry has been attending these distinctly political Restoration Project events for several years and then partnered with many of these very same activists in organizing his recent prayer rally ... all while bogusly insisting that the event was distinctly non-political.