Election 2012

Family Research Council president Tony Perkins today appeared on the American Family Association’s Financial Issues with Dan Celia, where he said that President Obama’s eventual Republican opponent must try to “dial back the decay” in the culture. Perkins, who has claimed in the past that Obama has a “disdain for Christianity” and demanded Christian supporters of the president “repent,” said that the administration has pushed “anti-family, anti-religious, anti-Christian policies,” most notably the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, which overturned the military’s ban on openly gay service members.

Perkins said Obama is “forcing open homosexuality on the military” which he said would lead to “not only cultural impacts upon this nation but from a national security standpoint it’s going to undermine our military.” While military leaders, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, endorsed the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, Perkins claimed that they actually opposed the repeal. Maybe Perkins was confusing real military leaders with himself, who said that the elected officials who voted to repeal the policy would have blood on their hands.

Watch:

Perkins: When we look historically at what has happened in elections we see that like in this administration where the push of anti-family, anti-religious, anti-Christian policies from this administration, and I know people are criticized for saying that, but the evidence is there. Historically what happens is when the Republicans are elected on the heels of an administration like this we see them babysitting the decline and not going back and retaking territory that has been lost in the culture.

For instance, let me talk about very solid issues here, the issue of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, forcing open homosexuality on the military, that is going to have very significant not only cultural impacts upon this nation but from a national security standpoint it’s going to undermine our military. That’s what the military leaders testified before Congress, that didn’t matter to Congress, they were pushing this through in the wee hours of the lame duck session of Congress. I guarantee you, normally, the Republicans when they’re re-elected, if they were to recapture the White House, they wouldn’t touch that, they would just say ‘we wouldn’t advance that anymore.’ I’m telling you we’re at a point where we got to dial back the decay, we’ve got have somebody that’s bold enough to come in and undo some of these radical policies from this administration.

Rick Santorum raised eyebrows last week for making claims that he has been making for years, including his criticism of public schools. As the Los Angeles Times reported, Santorum called public schools “anachronistic” and compared them to factories:

In his remarks to the Ohio Christian Alliance, however, Santorum went further, seeming to attack the very idea of public education.

In the nation’s past, he said, “Most presidents homeschooled their children in the White House.…

Parents educated their children because it was their responsibility.”

“Yes, the government can help,” he continued, “but the idea that the federal government should be running schools, frankly much less that the state government should be running schools, is anachronistic.”

He said it is an artifact of the Industrial Revolution, “when people came off the farms where they did homeschool or had a little neighborhood school, and into these big factories … called public schools.”

While industry has evolved, public schools remain stuck in the factory era, he said, “back in the age of Henry Ford. You get what we give you. One color, two models. It wouldn’t work for Henry Ford today, and it won’t work for America today.

Santorum has long opposed public education and in his 2005 book It Takes a Family marveled how “so many kids turn out to be fairly normal, considering the weird socialization they get in public schools.” In fact, public schools are consistently in the crosshairs of Religious Right activists, as seen in this anti-public education film made by Truth in Action Ministries:

While Santorum is an unapologetic opponent of public schools, or as he calls them, “government-run schools,” he has no problem making taxpayers cover the tab for his homeschooling. While a U.S. Senator, Santorum moved his family to Virginia but still stuck Pennsylvania taxpayers with the bill for his decision to have his children attend a cyber-school:

The Republican senator owns a home in Penn Hills, but lives in Leesburg, Va.

Penn Hills School District is paying $38,000 this year for five Santorum children to attend Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School based in Midland, Beaver County. The district has paid an additional $62,000 for his children to attend the school since 2001.

…

Penn Hills School District, which is required by state law to pay cyber charter tuition costs for students living in the district, is investigating whether Santorum is actually a resident.

A statement issued by Santorum's press office on Tuesday (yesterday) stated he had been in contact with the school district officials and is awaiting questions from them that he will answer to clarify his residency and the education of his children.

…

Santorum and his wife, Karen Garver Santorum, have owned the house at 111 Stephens Lane since 1997. They pay about $2,000 annually in property taxes to the district.

But records at the Allegheny County Election Office also show that the couple are not the only people claiming the home as their residence.

Bart and Alyssa DeLuca, both 25, are registered voters listed for the same address. They are not related to Penn Hills Mayor Anthony DeLuca or his father, state Rep. Tony DeLuca.

Alyssa, Karen Garver Santorum's niece, registered as a voter living at the Santorum house in September 2000. Then Bart registered with the election office in June 2001 by using the same address.

While speaking at Oral Roberts University earlier this month, Rick Santorum argued that the left is bringing about “the death of reason.” Santorum used the example of the Ninth Circuit Court’s recent decision that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional because, like in Romer v. Evans, the referendum’s only practical effect was to “single out a certain class of citizens for disfavored legal status.” But Santorum said that the court found that “the only reason you could possibly have to believe marriage should only be between men and women is because you are a bigot and you are a hater,” saying that people on the left “won’t sit and reason” and only want to “discard” their opponents. “They won’t reason,” Santorum said, “The left is really about the death of reason.”

Watch:

;

Santorum: The Ninth Circuit this week ruled that there is no rational basis, no rational basis for anyone to believe that marriage should just be between a man and a woman, there is no rational basis. Do you understand what that means? That means you are completely irrational if you think that marriage should be between, you have no reason, this is what they said, the only reason you could possibly have to believe marriage should only be between men and women is because you are a bigot and you are a hater, that’s what they said, read the case, and by the way they’re not the first ones to have said it. So again, where is the tolerance? Where’s the tolerance that says if you have a different point of view you can be rational, no, they can’t allow you because if you’re rational then they have to deal with you so they discard you, they just say ‘well it’s beyond the realm of reason, you’re obviously just haters and we’re not even going to talk to you.’ This is the way the left operates; they won’t sit and reason, they can’t listen to all of the reasons marriage has been between a man and a woman for centuries and why it has an intrinsic good to society, they dismiss those arguments as purely puff to hide your bigotry, that’s what they believe. They won’t reason. The left is really about the death of reason. They always say it’s about reason but it’s not, it’s about the death of reason.

In January of 2010 televangelist Pat Robertson notoriously blamed the deadly earthquake in Haiti on the country’s supposed “pact to the Devil.”

While Robertson’s remarks sparked outrage, the televangelist refused to back down and even found support from Rev. Joe Ellison of the Virginia Pastors Coalition, who claimed Robertson spoke the “truth” and the practice of voodoo among Haitians was responsible for the earthquake:

Today, the Washington Post reports that Ellison has been paid close to $25,000 in consulting fees from George Allen’s campaign to return to the U.S. Senate. Ironically, the delegate Ellison was introducing in the video where he endorsed Robertson’s remarks, Bob Marshall, is now running against Allen in the GOP primary:

Former governor and senator George Allen (R) is amending his campaign disclosure forms filed with the Federal Elections Commission to indicate that Richmond minister Joseph Ellison has been added to the payroll of his U.S. Senate campaign for clergy outreach.

Allen’s campaign originally wrote that it hired Ellison as a “fundraising consultant’’ but spokesman Bill Riggs said that was a “mistake” and as soon as staff learned about it they began working to fix it.

Ellison was paid $22,500 last year, according to the documents. He also received nearly $2,000 for mileage reimbursement, meals and lodging.

…

“Twenty five thousand dollars is a huge chunk of campaign cash, and George Allen needs to explain exactly what that money paid for,’’ said Matt Thornton, spokesman for American Bridge 21st Century. “But with his long history of not answering even the most basic questions like who his consulting clients are, Virginians shouldn’t hold their breath waiting.”

Ellison has appeared with other Republicans, including Gov. Bob McDonnell and Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, and has been a long time supporter of Allen’s when he ran for governor and senator. He attended Allen’s 2006 victory party and organized a group of local black ministers to meet with Allen.

Since Allen is trying to repair the damage from his ‘macaca’ outburst in 2006, paying a pastor who believes that Haitians suffered as a result of divine punishment may not be the best way to start his 2012 campaign.

The main themes from this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference were not terribly surprising to anyone paying attention to the GOP presidential primary.  According to CPAC speakers, President Obama is a “socialist, Marxist president” bent on destroying the country and the Constitution, and the nation will not survive if he is re-elected.  “Compromise” is a four-letter word. Health care reform is tyranny. Contraception is tyranny. TSA searches are tyranny.  You get the idea.

But there were also moments of insight into aspects of the conservative movement, often coming from smaller rooms and panels, like actor Stephen Baldwin’s declaration that “separation of church and state can kiss my ass” and the anti-multicultural, anti-diversity discussion which featured the founder of a white-nationalist website. Here are a few additions to the excellent RWW coverage of CPAC by Kyle and Brian.

Screw the Vote

As we have reported, Republicans are waging aggressive voter suppression campaigns across the country, including voter ID laws and voter registration restrictions supposedly needed to prevent “voting fraud.”  At CPAC, Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton hosted a press conference to talk about the group’s  “Election Integrity Project,” which is suing states that Judicial Watch says have not done enough to clean up their voter registration lists.  Panelists claimed that “rampant election fraud” took place in the last two election cycles – there’s no real evidence to back up that claim – and complained that the Obama administration’s Justice Department is selectively enforcing the Voting Rights Act.  Fitton said that having the DOJ meet with representatives from Project Vote and ACORN is “like having the mafia running the FBI.” Another speaker represented True the Vote, an outgrowth of Houston Tea Party group King Street Patriots, which hosted a fundraising event last year with a speaker who believes:

Registering [poor people] to vote is like handing out burglary tools to criminals.  It is profoundly antisocial and un-American to empower the nonproductive segments of the population to destroy the country — which is precisely why Barack Obama zealously supports registering welfare recipients to vote.

True the Vote is backing states whose voter ID laws have been challenged by the Justice Department and recruiting volunteers to challenge signatures gathered by those seeking to recall Wisconsin’s anti-labor governor Scott Walker.

The Federal Government’s War on Clean Underwear

It is an article of faith among many right-wing activists and candidates that health, safety, and environmental regulations are oten unconstitutional and are destroying the American economy.  Americans for Tax Reform and its affiliate Cost of Government Center sponsored a panel dubbed “The Red Tape War: How the Regulatory Burden and Growing Nanny State Threaten Prosperity.” The group’s Mattie Duppler described regulation as an ongoing “war on consumers and taxpayers.”  Sam Kazman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute said that energy efficiency regulations had caused a steep decline in the quality of top-loading washing machines, and talked about a campaign his group had run to have people send virtual underwear to the undersecretary of the Department of Energy. (Turns out that campaign was in 2007 during the George W. Bush administration)

Beyond Obstructionism to Nullification

One Newt Gingrich campaign theme has been pledging that as president he would ignore Supreme Court decisions he disagrees with and abolish the jobs of federal judges who don’t share his view of the Constitution.  A couple of groups at CPAC – the Tenth Amendment Center and the Foundation for a Free Society – held a series of events to promote nullification, the idea that the states should similarly ignore federal laws that they believe are unconstitutional.  In fact, they want to go far beyond ignoring such laws.  Speakers introducing a documentary on nullification praised an Arizona bill that would not only declare the federal health care law null and void in the state, but would also make any agent of the government who tries to enforce the law guilty of a felony.  The documentary featured state legislators as well as speakers from the Oath Keepers and the John Birch Society.

Here Sharia Comes!

Pamela Geller hosted a panel on Sharia, at which speakers complained about the room they were given and about their supposed mistreatment at the hands of CPAC – though other panels met in the same room and the “Islamic Law” panel was listed in the conference program.   Geller and fellow panelist Robert Spencer attacked panelists from a previous, more thoughtful, panel on religious liberty which defended the religious rights of American Muslims.  Also speaking was North Carolina congressional candidate Ilario Pantano, who said he was once charged with murder for killing terrorists in Iraq [charges were dropped] and who denounced “political correctness run amok.” Pantano praised discredited “historian” David Barton for telling the “truth” about America’s founding and called the misnamed “Ground Zero Mosque” a “desecration of an American holy site and an American national battlefield.”

Civics Education = David Barton, the Bible, and American Exceptionalism

In a panel on civics education, Matthew Spalding, VP for American Studies at Heritage Foundation praised the battle over textbook standards in Texas, in which David Barton and other Religious Right activists pushed to infuse far-right ideology into social science books.  

Those are the battles that matter, especially big states because they control the textbooks. Texas had a great battle, and the media hated it, the left went crazy, but it’s an extremely reasonable curriculum improvement, and they focus on very good things. It’s a solid, good model….Civic education is not just in the classroom. You must understand the effect that public discussion about these questions, about history and about the meaning of our country affect politics, politics affects elections, elections affects state boards and things that make the curriculum.

Another panelist, Larry Schweikart, author of Patriot’s History of the United States, argued that civics education must be grounded in “American exceptionalism.”

All of the founders understood that the bible and biblical virtues were necessary to a good education, and a civic order. So once again it comes down to those four pillars of American exceptionism: common law, a predominantly Christian religion, property rights, and free markets.

 Limit Government, Not Campaign Speeches

One of the final sessions before Sarah Palin’s closing remarks was intended to give a number of congressional candidates challenging Republican incumbents the chance to make 5-minute speeches.  A couple candidates were shortchanged by the fact that Indiana Treasurer Richard Mourdock, running to unseat Sen. Richard Lugar, took about twice as much as his allotted time and Ted Cruz, running against Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst in the GOP Senate primary, ran even longer. 

Mourdock devoted his speech to the need for conservatives to “conquer”  - conquer the media, educators, advocates of reproductive choice, big-spenders, anyone who thinks America is just an “average” nation, and all who “wish to crush our traditional American values,” presumably including 35-year Senate incumbent Lugar.  Repeated Mourdock again and again, “Conquer we must!”

Cruz, who was also given time at last year’s Awakening Conference at Liberty University, argued that liberty is under assault like never before, that President Barack Obama is the “most radical president this country has ever seen,” and that the U.S. Senate is the key battleground.  Cruz, who hopes to follow in the electoral footsteps of Florida’s Marco Rubio, is like Rubio the child of Cubans who came to the U.S. in the 1950s.  Cruz brags that he is the only candidate this year supported by all four of his favorite senators: Jim DeMint, Mike Lee, Rand Paul, and Pat Toomey, and called his primary “ground zero” in the battle between the Tea Party and the GOP’s “moderate establishment.”

Speaking at the "Pray for America" rally in Nevada on Friday night, Newt Gingrich called for passage of legislation requiring all schools and universities to teach the Declaration of Independence so that every student would learn that there is a Creator who has endowed us with certain unalienable rights and realize that government exists to serve the people, unlike President Obama who thinks the people exist to serve him:

We are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights. This is really central to all of America. God gives every one of you personally sovereignty. Your rights come from God. You loan some of that to the state in a document called the Constitution, which begins "we the people." Doesn't say "we the lawyers, we the politicians, we the bureaucrats, we the judges" ... it says "we the people."

Now, that means in America, you are a citizen and you loan power to the government, which is your servant. In Europe, you are a subject and government tells you what to do. And this is, candidly, the central issue with Barack Obama: he thinks he's a European politician who should be teaching us what to do so he's happy.

At the American Heartland Forum in Columbia, Missouri before the upcoming presidential primary in the state (which is non-binding and awards zero delegates), Rick Santorum joined Focus on the Family founder James Dobson to push the myth that the recently passed health care reform law would lead to ‘death panels.’ Santorum has made criticism of the law a chief aspect of his campaign and during the event repeated James Dobson’s claim, which he says he learned from a caller on a talk radio show, that stroke patients over the age of 70 “will not be granted treatment,” a charge the Health and Human Services Department called “absolutely false.” Challenging health care reform with debunked smears, unfortunately, is not new from either talk radio or Republican presidential candidates. 

To bolster this claim, Santorum rehashed another myth about the dangers of government involvement in healthcare by maintaining that euthanasia represents “10% of all deaths in the Netherlands,” and “ObamaCare” will surely lead the U.S. down a similar path. However, a recent study shows that just 1.8% of all deaths in the Netherlands, where euthanasia is legal, are a result of physician-assisted suicide, and the rate is going down.

Santorum also seemed to express nostalgia for the days of back alley abortions when abortion was a crime and “people who did abortions were in the shadows, people who were considered really bad doctors.” 

Watch:

The Associated Press reported from the event on the ‘death panels’ claim:

Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum on Friday backed prominent conservative James Dobson's claim that President Barack Obama's administration would block medical treatment for stroke patients over age 70. Professional medical groups have called such statements bogus.

During a forum inside a church, Dobson cited an anonymous caller to a conservative radio show who said "for patients over 70 years of age, that advanced neurosurgical care was not generally indicated." The caller claimed that patients would be offered "comfort care" unless a panel of bureaucrats approved more significant treatment.

"That's called 'death panels.' Sarah Palin was right. That means death to that person," said Dobson, founder of the conservative group Focus on the Family.

Palin, the GOP's vice presidential nominee in 2008, coined the term "death panel" in response to the administration's health care law, although her argument was roundly criticized as inaccurate.

Santorum seemed to go along with Dobson, arguing that government-run health care would result in limits on care. He brought Obama's health and human services secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, into the argument.

"When you become a cost, then the government starts to allocate resources," Santorum said. "Well, who should we be allocating these resources to? We shouldn't be allocating it to 70-year-old of people who have strokes, according to Kathleen Sebelius."

The regulation does not exist, medical professionals said.

The American Association of Neurological Surgeons and the Congress of Neurological Surgeons said in a joint statement they were "unaware of any federal government document directing that advanced neurosurgery for patients over 70 years of age will not be indicated and only supportive care treatment will be provided."

…

The Health and Human Services Department also rejected the allegation. "These claims are absolutely false and the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and the Congress of Neurological Surgeons have both gone on the record to denounce these false rumors as well," spokeswoman Erin Shields said in a statement.

Dobson, who has endorsed Santorum's candidacy and has joined him at campaign-style appearances, seemed unaware of the disputed statement.

"Secretary Sebelius in the Obama administration, within the Obamacare plan, decreed a few weeks ago that as of January first of next year, if you are over 60 years of age — I beg your pardon — if you're over 70 years of age and you have a cranial bleed — blood is running into your brain, which is a horrible condition, it destroys the brain tissue, if you survive it, you will never the same again — they decreed that you will not be granted treatment," Dobson said.

We have written several posts in the past about how Newt Gingrich's leading Religious Right supporter, Jim Garlow, manages to straddle the increasingly thin line between the more traditional Religious Right movement and the growing New Apostolic Reformation spiritual warfare movement.

It was at a Cindy Jacobs' conference in 2010 that we first learned that Gingrich had tapped Garlow to run his Renewing American Leadership organization.  It was Garlow who brought Lou Engle in to lead the prayer and fasting as they pressed for passage of Prop 8, which might explain how Gingrich ended up in Virginia in 2009 being prayed over by none other than Engle himself:

Garlow is deeply tied to various leaders within the New Apostolic Reformation, promotes their agenda, and has worked tirelessly to bring them into the wider Religious Right movement.

Tonight, Garlow will be introducing Gingrich at a "Pray for America" event at a church in Nevada; an event that is also being promoted by Cindy Jacobs' US Reformation Prayer Network:

On Friday, February 3, 2012, 7pm – 8:30pm, there will be a Pray for America prayer meeting at International Church of Las Vegas (ICLV) hosted by Pastor Paul Goulet. Many local leaders and media are expected to be attending. Also, Newt Gingrich has confirmed his attendance at the prayer meeting.

So it will, of course, come as no surprise to learn that Paul Goulet is himself a member of the International Coalition of Apostles and affiliated as a North America sphere leader with the C. Peter Wagner-founded, Chuck Pierce-run Global Spheres organization:

Lead Pastor, Summerlin Campus Pastors Paul and Denise Goulet are the senior leaders of International Church of Las Vegas. With decades of shared experience in ministry, this dynamic couple has a desire to change Las Vegas and the world. With a strong apostolic anointing, Pastor Paul has made it his mission in life to impart the power of the Holy Spirit into leaders worldwide. He travels extensively and has established an international network of churches, Bible schools and pastors, with the ultimate goal of building 2000 churches by the year 2020. As Senior Pastor of ICLV, the host of a weekly television program, and the author of many books, Pastor Paul's messages of vision and destiny are heard by tens of thousands around the world.