Kyle Mantyla's blog

Janet Porter has pulled out all the stops in her effort to pass her radical anti-choice "Heartbeat Bill" in Ohio.  Over the last year, she has filled the Ohio House with heart-shaped red balloons, re-written the lyrics to an 80's pop tune, brought in prophets and apostles to push for passage, and even had multiple fetuses "testify" in favor of the legislation.

But still her bill remains stuck in the Ohio Senate, which is why she held another press conference yesterday to push for its passage; this one featuring children with teddy bears advocating on its behalf:

Christian Harrington didn't mince words during his moment at the Statehouse Tuesday.

The 8-year-old wants the Ohio Senate to take action on the Heartbeat Bill, legislation that would ban abortions within weeks of conception.

"I'm here to save babies with beating hearts," Christian, barely tall enough to peer over a podium, told a packed committee hearing room. "And I want to tell the senators to pass the Heartbeat Bill right now. And when I mean right now, I mean right now."

The youngster was one of more than 50 children who were in Columbus Tuesday as part of the latest attempt by backers of the Heartbeat Bill to convince lawmakers to pass the legislation.

They had a press conference with reporters, held a faux committee hearing showing lawmakers how to vote in favor of the bill and delivered Teddy bears, complete with real heartbeat sound chip, to all 33 Ohio senators.

"Do not believe the stuff the people tell you at the abortion clinic," said 11-year-old Sydney McCauley. "The just say it's a blob of tissue, and that is not the truth. That blob of tissue is actually forming into a baby."

Porter posted video of the event on her website yesterday where she explained that legislators had already heard from babies, national and local anti-abortion leaders, and the residents of Ohio ... so now it was time to hear from the children, like Noah who Porter held up to the microphone so he could explain that "I am 4 and I have a heartbeat":

• PFAW: PFAW Applauds President for Appointing Cordray; Recess Appointment a Necessary and Proper Response to GOP Obstruction.
• John Gehring @ Faith In Public Life Action: The Catholic Case Against Rick Santorum.
• Barry Lynn @ On Faith: I predict Pat Robertson is wrong.
• Igor Volsky @ Think Progress LGBT: Rick Santorum’s Top 10 Most Outrageous Campaign Statements.
• Towleroad: Proposed Bill Would Permit Christian Students to Bully Gays in Tennessee.

• Mitt Romney eked out an eight vote win in last night's Iowa Caucuses.
• Newt Gingrich appears furious about his fourth place finish.
• Michele Bachmann's dismal showing in the vote prompted her to end her presidential bid.
• But Rick Perry, who didn't do much better, is vowing to stay in the race.
• And Bryan Fischer is holding out hope that Perry will still emerge the victor.
• Finally, Ralph Reed admits that if Mitt Romney wins the nomination, the Religious Right will fall into line and support him.

Remember back in 2009 when the entire Religious Right movement began falsely claiming that the Obama administration was targeting conservatives by labeling them potential domestic terrorists based solely on a footnote in a Department of Homeland Security report ... a report that was written during the Bush administration by a gun-owning, anti-choice Republican Mormon?

This ridiculous claim has long been an established belief among the Religious Right, so it was only a matter of time before they started warning that National Defense Authorization Act is really a way for Obama to round-up anti-abortion activists and imprison them indefinitely without trial:

Constitutional experts warn a new law that allows the president to permanently detain U.S. citizens without trial could be used against pro-life activists, who have already been defined as potential terrorists in documents by some government agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security.

“This law can apply to pro-lifers, yes,” said John W. Whitehead, a constitutional attorney and founder of The Rutherford Institute. Whitehead told LifeSiteNews.com the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 (NDAA) “would allow the military to show up at your door if you’re a ‘potential terrorist,’ and put you in military detention where seeing a lawyer is difficult.”

...

[Dana Cody, president and executive director of Life Legal Defense Foundation] who told LifeSiteNews.com her organization is currently studying the NDAA, added that the law states “enemy territory is anywhere.” The Senate rejected an amendment from Dianne Feinstein limiting permanent detention to those captured “abroad.”

“If it’s within the discretion of the government under the National Defense Authorization Act, of course it will be used by the government to intimidate and silence pro-life people, especially those who are in the public forum,” Cody said.

It really should come as no surprise that there is no depth to which Bryan Fischer will not sink in his relentless assault against all things gay, as he is now openly promoting the idea that the HIV virus is not the cause of AIDS.

Fisher dedicated two segments on his program yesterday to interviewing Peter Duesberg, author of "Inventing the AIDS Virus," who asserts that the idea that HIV causes AIDS was a scheme concocted by scientists in order to get research grants and that the symptoms attributed to AIDS are really caused by massive recreational drug use among gay men.

And it is a theory which Fischer wholeheartedly endorses:

You can watch the entire interview below:

Last summer, James Robison convened a meeting of dozens of leading Religious Right activists for the purpose of unifying the movement behind a Republican candidate that could defeat President Obama, presumably Rick Perry.

But following last night's vote in Iowa in which Perry finished a distant fifth, causing him to return to Texas to "assess" the future of his campaign, activists will be meeting again next weekend to plot how to stop Mitt Romney:

A group of movement conservatives has called an emergency meeting in Texas next weekend to find a "consensus" Republican presidential hopeful, POLITICO has learned.

"You and your spouse are cordially invited to a private meeting with national conservative leaders of faith at the ranch of Paul and Nancy Pressler near Brenham, Texas, with the purpose of attempting to unite and to come to a consensus on which Republican Presidential candidate or candidates to support, or which not to support," read an invitation that is making its way into in-boxes this morning.

The meeting is being hosted by such right-leaning figures as James Dobson, Don Wildmon and Gary Bauer. Many of the individuals on the host list attended a previous closed-door session with Rick Perry this summer.

Movement conservatives are concerned that a vote split between Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum among base voters could enable Mitt Romney.

A source who shared the invitation said the meeting was about how to avoid such a possibility.

Given that Michele Bachmann will reportedly be dropping out and Newt Gingrich's campaign is floundering after his dramatic failing in Iowa, it looks like it will only be a matter of time before the Religious Right finally begins to unify behind Rick Santorum. 

• Igor Volsky @ Think Progress Health: Santorum: States Should Have The Right To Outlaw Birth Control.
• Michelle Goldberg @ The Daily Beast: Ron Paul's Christian Reconstructionist Roots.
• Andy Kroll @ Mother Jones: 10 Extreme Claims in Ron Paul's Controversial Newsletters.
• Kevin Drum: Crackpots Do Not Make Good Messengers.
• Frances Martel @ Mediaite: Santorum Gives Non-Denial Denial On Alleged ‘Black People’ Comment: ‘I Condemn All Racism.'
• Viveca Novak @ The American Prospect: Citizen Bopp.
• Towleroad: Michele Bachmann Balks At 'Gotcha' Question On Anti-Gay Comments.
  

• Liberty University insists that the ads it is running in Iowa featuring Newt Gingrich should not constitute any sort of endorsement of his presidential campaign.
• We have to say that the DefendChristians.org list of "the top ten anti-Christian acts of 2011 in the U.S." is pretty pathetic.
• The Pacific Justice Institute offers "7 Bold Predictions for Constitutional Liberty in 2012."
• Laurie Higgins of the Illinois Family Institute writes that "the virulent hatred many homosexual activists have for Catholic (and Protestant) orthodoxy is fully comparable to the virulent hatred that members of the KKK had."
• Finally, it is Janet Porter's New Year's resolution to "spend one hour every day of 2012 in prayer for God’s intervention, mercy, and power for our families, our churches, our nation, and our world."

Yesterday, Alan Colmes and Rich Lowry had a rather contentious spat on Fox News after Lowry took offense to Colmes' assertion that voters would sour on Rick Santorum's candidacy once they "get a load of some of the crazy things he’s said and done, like taking his two-hour-old baby who died right after childbirth home and played with it for a couple of hours so his other children would know that the child was real."  Lowry took offense to Colmes' characterization of the incident and the two engaged in a tense argument about it ... and hours later, Colmes announced that he had contacted Santorum directly and apologized for his remarks.

But just because Rick Santorum has accepted Colmes' apology, that isn't going to stop the American Family Association from swinging into action and demanding that Fox News fire Colmes immediately:

Fox News radio host and political commentator Alan Colmes went so far beyond the line of decency yesterday that he should immediately be terminated by Fox.

Rick Santorum's wife gave birth to a boy who died just two hours after his premature birth. The Santorums brought the body of the infant home so that their other children could see him, hold him and recognize the precious worth of every life.

...

Colmes has since apologized in private to the Santorums for his "hurtful comment." But his comment goes way beyond hurtful. It is uncaring, callous, deeply offensive and beneath contempt. He owes the entire viewing audience of Fox News an on-air apology followed immediately by his resignation, whether forced or voluntary.

He may have made things right with the Santorums, but he has not made things right with America. He is unfit to serve any longer on Fox.

Bryan Fischer, Colmes' frequent sparring partner, discussed the issue on his radio program today, insisting that Colmes' remarks were "inexcusable" and utterly "beyond the pale":

So there's Alan Colmes, first of all, just showing complete callous indifference - I mean, this is cold. Remember, this is somebody who fancies himself a prince of compassion. Alan Colmes would see himself as the very paragon of tolerance, the very paragon on compassion, everybody in America ought to be as passionate as Alan Colmes. Shows absolutely callous disregard for the Santorums, for their feelings, for how they process the death of a son, for the way they handled it. Just inexcusable, beyond the pale.

We've sent an action alert out today ... let Fox News know how your feel about the fact that they are paying Alan Colmes beau-coup dollars to host a radio program and to be a political analyst on their cable news outlets; that's what he was doing yesterday, offering some kind of expert political commentary. We think he ought to be fire;, I think he ought to be fired; I think this is so far beyond the pale that Fox needs to do something about this,

That's just unbelievable to me, that is just so far beyond any boundary or any standard of common decency that Fox has just got to do something about that. But you just see in Alan Colmes, in his body language, just the arrogance of those that consider themselves the elite in our culture and I think something needs to be done about that and something needs to be done about that right now.

The irony, of course, is that the AFA is a bona-fide hate group and Fischer himself is one of the Religious Right most consistent purveyors of unmitigated bigotry who regularly complains that any attempt to hold him accountable for his statements is literally a hate crime.

Last week, Cindy Jacobs was at Chuck Pierce's church in Texas "giving the word for 2012" where she related several other miracles that she has performed, much like how she once reversed a hysterectomy.

Speaking last week, Jacobs warned that while God had urged them to prepare for crisis, God will also provide them with all the provisions that they need and recounted, for example, the time that she, Chuck Pierce, and Dutch Sheets managed to feed three thousand people with just three loaves of bread and still have bread left over. 

She then related a more recent example where she and her husband Mike when to the bank to deposit $13,000, which miraculously increased by $5,000 when it was counted by the tellers:

As Brian noted last week, Jacobs latest project is a prayer and mobilization effort aimed at electing "pro-biblical value candidates." She is currently in Washington, DC to kick off this effort where she will be joined tonight by representatives of the Family Research Council, including FRC president Tony Perkins: