Ohio

• The Eagle Forum is no longer calling judges "judicial activists": they are now "judicial reconstructionists."
• Former Virginia Congressman Virgil Goode has reportedly joined the Constitution Party.
• The AFA's Bryan Fischer claims that the fact that the White House didn't use the phrase "year of our Lord" in a proclamation declaring Jewish Heritage Month proves that the US is a Christian nation.
• The Susan B. Anthony List launched a $30,000 radio ad campaign targeting Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV) "on his retreat from his pro-life stance in the final hours of the healthcare debate."
• They may call them "love offerings," but the government calls it "tax evasion."
• Finally, the right-wing campaign against Kevin Jennings continues, leading to this dowright bizarre press release from Citizens for Community Values.

Dr. Ergun Caner, the president of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary, has been a rising star on the Religious Right, entertaining audiences at major Religious Right gatherings with his hip, irreverent stories about his upbringing as a radical Muslim and his conversion to Christianity. Just this week, his story was featured on Focus on the Family’s broadcast, “From Jihad to Jesus.”

Even though the Religious Right can get no love from the Tea Party movement when it comes to adopting even a small part of their social agenda, it seems that Religious Right leaders are just tripping over themselves to speak at Tea Party rallies whenever the chance arises.

For instance, WallBuilders' Rick Green is speaking at a rally in Texas, and the Eagle Forum's Phyllis Schlafly is addressing an event in Michigan, while Ralph Reed is joining Bob Barr and Virginia Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, for a Tea Party rally in Atlanta.

On top of that, the AFA's Bryan Fischer is speaking at an event in Mississippi and Alan Keyes was at one in Ohio, while Vision America's Rick Scarborugh is speaking at an event in Oklahoma where he will share the microphone with Oklahoma state Senator Randy Brogdon, who is trying to create Tea Party militia to defend the state's sovereignty from federal encroachment.

So I think it is safe to say that the supposed efforts by Tea Party organizers to salvage their reputation by distancing the movement from the crazies was, at best, an isolated incident.

You know how yesterday I was marveling at the fact that there it was seemingly impossible for any right-wing activist to be considered so radical that Republican members of Congress would refuse to be seen anywhere near them? 

Allow me to follow that up with this simple observation that, over her last nine radio program, Faith 2 Action's Janet Porter's has had nine different Republican members on Congress on as quests:

March 9 - Guest: U.S. Senator Mike Johanns (R-Nebraska)

March 10 - Guests: Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyoming)

March 16 - Guests: Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio)

March 17 - Guests: U.S. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas)

March 18 - Guests: U.S. Rep. Todd Akin (R-Missouri) and U.S. Rep. Trent Franks (R-Arizona)

March 19 - Guests: U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minnesota) and Rep. Tom Price (R-Georgia)

Do I really need to recount all of the crazy things Porter has said?

And yet multiple Republican members of Congress have been making time to appear on her radio program on a regular basis. 

• Tomorrow, a Vermont judge will decide whether to issue an arrest warrant for Lisa Miller if she continues to refuse to come out of hiding and hand over her daughter.
• Bishop Harry Jackson will reportedly be leading a rally on Wednesday at the Capitol Visitors Center to try to step up the pressure on Congress to intervene in his DC marriage battle.
• Hey, let's all take the AFA's Don't Ask, Don't Tell poll!
• Columbus, Ohio police are investigating whether anyone involved in helping Rifqa Bary flee to Florida may have broken the law.  The man who drove her to the bus station has already retained legal representation from the right-wing Thomas More Law Center.
• Finally, the Quote of the Day from Gary Bauer: "Here is the dirty secret the Left doesn’t want you to know. Joseph Stack’s 'philosophy,' to the extent he had one, was closer to the left-wing drivel at Daily Kos and moveon.org than it is to the patriots who are in the Tea Party movement. Joseph Stack printed his manifesto on his business web page yesterday as he took off to try to kill IRS employees. In it he rails at the wealthy, GM executives, drug companies and insurance companies. His rhetoric sounded like Obama style populism – heavy on class warfare ... No, Joe Stack wasn’t any conservative – he was a left-wing populist!

In yesterday's post on Rod Parsley's desperate plea for financial support, we mentioned that part of his financial crisis stemmed from the fact that he recently had to pay a $3.1 million settlement to the family of a young boy who was injured by a substitute teacher while attending day care at Parsley's World Harvest Church (WHC).

Parsley's claim that the settlement was part of a "demonically inspired financial attack" being carried out against him by the Devil becomes even more outrageous if you read the court decision in question.

As Richard Bartholomew pointed out, the court decision [PDF] makes for grim reading.

WHC had employed a man named Richard Vaughan to perform various tasks at the school and "although Vaughan was not a licensed teacher and never had a job that required him to work with young children, WHC assigned Vaughan the task of supervising young children, usually placing him in the 'Extended Care' program for children in Kindergarten through sixth grade."

In late October 2005, when Vaughan was alone and in charge of the "Cuddle Care" classroom, a three year-old boy suffered a skull fracture:

According to Z.C.'s mother, when she picked up Z.C. from the Cuddle Care classroom at approximately 6:00 p.m. on October 13, 2005, he was waiting anxiously for her at the classroom door with his left eye swollen shut, his nose draining, and his face red and puffy. Vaughan, the only adult in the room, was not consoling Z.C. and did not offer Z.C.'s mother any explanation regarding Z.C.'s condition. When Z.C.'s mother asked Vaughan what had happened to Z.C., Vaughan hesitantly told her another boy, E.Y., had pushed Z.C. She asked Vaughan if anyone had paperwork or documentation regarding the incident, but he replied "no." When she told Vaughan that she needed to take Z.C. to Children's Hospital, Vaughan told her repeatedly that Z.C. was "fine." Over Vaughan's protestations, she took Z.C. to Children's Hospital, where he was diagnosed with a fractured skull and concussion and was held overnight for observation.

The ruling stated that "Vaughan's trial testimony regarding the incident was inconsistent both with previous accounts he gave and with the testimony of other witnesses" and that nobody from WHC even inquired about any injuries supposedly suffered by the other child (E.Y.) and that "E.Y.'s father insisted his son had not collided with Z.C. and had not been injured in any incident with Z.C."

Importantly, that is not the incident that cost Parsley $3 million, but was rather cited in the case as proof of WHC's negligence and liability for the subsequent injuries to another child at Vaughan's hands a few months later:

WHC conducted no investigation of the incident, did not make further inquiries of Vaughan concerning the matter, did not provide him with further training to prevent serious injury from occurring to another child, and, most importantly, did not change how it supervised Vaughan after the incident. Approximately three months later, the very next time WHC permitted Vaughan to be alone with the young children in the Cuddle Care classroom, Vaughan physically abused A.F.

The situation involving A.F. is even more disturbing: 

Shortly before 6:00 p.m., Michael Faieta picked up his daughter and then picked up A.F. in their respective classrooms. A.F. was in the Cuddle Care classroom alone with Vaughan, who had taken over for the afternoon teacher sometime after 4:00 p.m. According to Mr. Faieta, A.F. was anxious and upset, his eyes were red, and he clung to his father's side as his belongings were gathered. Vaughan did not give Mr. Faieta any paperwork or say that A.F. had experienced any problems that day, and he did not indicate he had seen any sort of rash or other marks on A.F.'s body.

Upon their using the restroom on the way out of the building, Mr. Faieta observed the numerous fresh cuts, welts, and red marks on A.F.'s back, buttocks and thighs. The marks were linear and consistent with being hit with a ruler. In the car on the way home approximately an hour later, A.F. told his father that Vaughan had "spanked" him with a "knife." At home, upon being shown pictures of various objects, A.F. pointed to a ruler as the object used to "spank" him. After A.F.'s mother, Lacey Faieta, arrived home and looked at the marks on A.F., she spoke with their pediatrician and the police, who advised her to take A.F. to Children's Hospital. The emergency physicians at Children's Hospital found A.F.'s injuries to be consistent with physical abuse, and the matter was forwarded to Franklin County Children Services ("FCCS") and the Columbus Police Department ("CPD") for investigation.

When A.F's parents tried to find out what happened to their son, WHC threatened to have them arrested for tresspassing if they stepped foot on campus again: 

When, however, Lacey Faieta returned to WHC two days later and attempted to meet and discuss the matter with Jack Johnson, WHC's headmaster, he refused, telling her he had been advised not to speak with the Faietas. The next week WHC sent the Faietas a letter ordering them not to come on the property and threatening them with criminal prosecution for trespass if they returned to the school. The letter contained no exceptions and provided the Faietas with no means to schedule any further meetings with WHC personnel. The Faietas received no further communication from WHC.

This year, Parsley had to cut a check to the Faieta's for the injuries their child suffered at his World Harvest Church ... and Parsley cites it as proof that the Devil has released a "demonically inspired assault against us."

• Over 150,000 people have reportedly signed on to the Manhattan Declaration in the first week.
• Right-wing groups played a big role in the losing fight against gambling in Ohio.
• Catholic bishops are just like Martin Luther King.
• This is not the sort of thing you'd expect from someone who worked for Ralph Reed.
• Anti-Muslim blogger Pamela Geller says that Rifqa Bary is under "house arrest" and that "Ohio is effectively practicing Sharia law."
• Finally, a game that is fun for the entire right-wing family: "OBOZO’S AMERICA: Why Bother Working for a Living? is a fun fantasy board game based on the preposterous notion that a Marxist clown, running on the vague and shaky platform of hope and change, could become President of The United States."

One of the questions regarding the whole Rifqa Bary saga that has been lingering is how exactly she ever ended up becoming involved with Lou Engle and appearing on the prayer call he organized a few weeks back.

As it turns out, Bary had been involved with Engle's efforts back in Ohio before she even ran away, though her connection to Brian Williams, who not only baptized her but also drove her to the bus station when she ran away. 

As Bary explained during her interview with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement [PDF], she had met Williams through her activism with Engle's "Bound for Life" in Ohio. Eventually, Williams moved to Kansas City to go to work for Engle's International House of Prayer.

Below is a shortened version of the exchange during the FDLE interview in which Bary explains her ties to Williams and to Engle's right wing activism ["DL" is Daivd Lee, an FDLE agent and "FB" is Rifqa Bary]: 

DL: Who baptized you?

FB: Brian Williams

DL: Was he your minister?

FB: Yeah, basically. Yeah, well he's a good friend, Ohio State friend and is basically going into ministry ...

DL: Ohio State friend, so he's a student at Ohio State?

FB: Um, graduated already.

DL: Okay.

FB: Lives in Kansas City now, but yeah he was the one that baptized me ...

FB: You know how I even met Brian? It was through, it was last winter, we met. I heard about I'm Pro Life, you know.

DL: Okay.

FB: And um there was something called, he did a chapter leader for Columbus for Bound for Life. Have you guys ever heard of it?

DL: Bound for Life? No, I haven't

FB: Bound for Life is basically through an organization by Lou Engle, who started The Call, if you guys know of Lou Engle.

DL: I've heard the name.

FB: Lou Engle, yes he's like my hero. He really is and basically we do is, there's red tape and you write "life" on it in black letters and we just stand outside with it and pray. It's not a protesting, it's a prayer movement if anything.

DL: Um-hum.

FB: And we just stand outside in a circle, outside these clinics, we don't say anything to anyone, you know we're not allowed to talk to them, we just pray outside there.

DL: Um-hum.

FB: And he was a chapter leader there so I met him there and actually I was sneaking out to go hear that I even met him. And every time I talked to him all we did talk about was like my parents. And he was really afraid for me as well ...

DL: And you said Brian was the only one who was willing to really baptize you?

FB: Yeah, 'cause I mean if my parents found out they would get in trouble and their would be at stake and all that sort of thing.

DL: You say he's in Kansas City now?

FB: Kansas City. International House of Prayer. IHOP.

Rifqa Bary returned to Ohio today, three months after fleeing to Florida claiming that she feared for her life at the hands of her Muslim parents—an allegation that the Florida investigation determined was unsubstantiated. She will be staying in a foster home for the time being and the judge has restricted Bary's internet and phone access, presumably to keep her away from Facebook, where she first met many of the individuals involved in this saga, and people like Lou Engle.

From the Associated Press:

Rifqa Bary returned to circumstances far different than those she left: Instead of her home in New Albany, one of central Ohio's most well-off communities, she'll be in a foster home under state custody.

Bary, 17, will also have her phone and Internet use supervised by the Franklin County Children Service Agency, under a judge's order issued earlier Tuesday.

The children's services agency had blamed Bary's use of Facebook for her troubles, saying she went to Orlando, Fla., after talking to the Rev. Blake Lorenz, pastor of Global Revolution Church, in an online prayer group.

Bary disappeared July 19 and police used phone and computer records to track her to Lorenz.

"What we want to restrict is the other people, the other organizations, the other forces, that have interjected themselves into this case inappropriately, and has caused the additional problems that we've seen," said Jim Zorn, a children's services attorney, who had asked for tougher supervision that would have restricted Bary from using the Internet and her cell phone.

Bary's father has denied the girl's claims and a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation found no credible threats to the girl.

The girl's parents supported the restrictions, saying through their attorney they were concerned about her interacting with adults over the Internet.