Election 2012

Focus on the Family president Jim Daly hosted conservative pastor Tony Evans to discuss the importance of voting yesterday, which Daly kicked off by claiming that just a single vote brought Texas into the Union, would have stopped Hitler from coming to power, made German a second language in the US and defeated John F. Kennedy. While of course every vote is important, unfortunately, Daly’s list is entirely false and based on urban legends.

Daly made sure to keep the program nominally nonpartisan but did discuss why evangelical voters should prefer a conservative non-Christian candidate over a left-leaning Christian and lamented the supposed tendency of African Americans to only vote only according to race. While it was already clear who Daly and Evans wanted listeners to support, they made their pitch more apparent when the two asserted that the current administration is quashing freedom and attacking Christians. Daly warned that government keeps getting “bigger and bigger and wants to take away more and more of our freedoms” and Evans maintained that there is an attempt “to remove God from government” by increasing its size and weakening freedom.

Daly: Going back to this idea when government gets bigger, our liberties tend to get smaller. The Founding Fathers were uniquely geared to understanding corrupt government and what happens when tyranny occurs. How do we guard against that in this modern day? It seems like nothing new under the sun is occurring and as government in the US gets bigger and bigger and wants to take away more and more of our freedoms, how do we actually respond?

Evans: I think the church of Jesus Christ has to rise up as a unit and say it is unacceptable to remove God from government, it is unhistorical, it is certainly biblio-centrically unacceptable and therefore we’re going to as responsible citizens raise up godly people to run for office; we are going to vote for people who have biblical value system to get into office; we are going to on the various levels of government make our voices heard; we are going to register our people to vote on Sunday after church; we are going to make a comprehensive statement that we are not to be denied as Christians our freedoms in America and we can argue clearly from the Bible on small government. You know 1 Samuel 8, He says if you elect a government of me it will expand, it is going to overtax you and it will take, take, take, take, take, and you will lose the freedom that I intended for you. That’s what is happening in America and that is why God’s people have got to vote for the right government.

Adding a dose of pseudo-history, Daly argued that the Founders established the US government according to the Bible and Evans said that the US is modeled after biblical Israel and the Garden of Eden.

Daly: Tony, as we look at the mandate in the Bible to vote there is so much there and the Founding Fathers again were brilliant in understanding God’s design for things and the Scripture is pretty clear and really the Founding Fathers in creating a Republic based it on their biblical understanding of God’s ordination of government, didn’t they?

Evans: Absolutely, they went right to Exodus 18, how Israel was organized as a representative government, and used that as a pattern for the government of the United States. The principles and the freedom which dominates the uniqueness of the United States is drawn right from Scripture, in fact freedom started with God in the Garden, ‘from every tree of the Garden you may freely eat,’ there was broad freedom, limited regulations and dire consequences, that’s how government is supposed to work, so whenever government gets too big it gets unbiblical.

Operation Rescue founder and presidential candidate Randall Terry has announced another campaign, Operation Throw Obama Out, to run candidates for office so they can run graphic ads against abortion rights. According to the statement, Terry hopes to run ads that will be seen in swing states such as Colorado, Iowa, Florida, Virginia, North Carolina and Ohio.

Seven federal campaigns are poised to run withering ads against Obama in 21 states and the District of Columbia, including 7 vital swing states: Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, and Colorado.

The TV ads show babies murdered by abortion, and Christians and Jews who have been murdered by Muslims -- Muslims who have received direct or indirect funding from Obama. The ads put the blame of this slaughter squarely on Obama.

Obama won in 2008 with 55% of the Catholic vote, and 35% of the evangelical vote.

Since that time, he has crossed swords with Catholic bishops and evangelical leaders by promoting the killing of unborn babies, forcing the Church to pay for drugs that kill the unborn, supporting "homosexual marriage," and funding Islamic terrorists that persecute Christians in the Middle East.

One of those House candidates is Andrew Beacham, an anti-Muslim tea party activist who heckled Obama during his address at Notre Dame, who is running a campaign ad (warning: graphic) in Kentucky and Indiana comparing Obama to Adolf Hitler and other notorious killers. “Obama gives your money to Planned Parenthood to murder babies and to the Muslim Brotherhood who murders Christians and Jews,” Beachem says while holding a cigar, “if you vote for Obama, the real question is, what are you smoking?”

Religious Right activist William Murray, who leads both the Religious Freedom Coalition and the Government Is Not God Political Action Committee (GING-PAC), is using GING-PAC to post advertisements in newspapers across swing states. According to Murray, “Barack Hussein Obama and Hillary Clinton love the Muslim Brotherhood” and “Obama is carrying on what amounts to a Jihad against non-Islamic religious groups – both Jews and Christians.” “Obama is waging a war on religious liberty,” Murray writes, “but he’s stopped waging a war on Islamic terrorism here and around the globe.”

In a fundraising solicitation for the newspaper advertisements [PDF], which warn that Obama will force chaplains to perform same-sex marriages and bring Sharia law and the Muslim Brotherhood into government, Murray claims that Obama will use “voter fraud so they can stay in power” and pursue “his unrestrained support for radical Islam.” Murray calls Obama a “dangerous racist” and the “most racially divisive” president in American history who is out to destroy the country.

GING-PAC needs your help to stop him from winning another four years in the White House – where he will continue his aggressive assault on religious liberty – and his unrestrained support for radical Islam – both here in the U.S. and around the globe.

You can help us run newspaper advertisements in key states to defeat Barack Obama’s anti-religious, pro-Islamist agenda in November!

We are less than 90 days before the most important election in the history of our nation since 1865! A lot is at stake! And I’m sure you understand the severity of what we are facing!

Clearly, Obama is the most dangerous racist, pro-abortion, pro-gay, pro-Islam and anti-capitalist president who has ever occupied the White House – and he’ll try any dirty trick in the book to win this November’s election. That’s why he’s got Attorney General Eric Holder suing states that are trying to implement voter ID laws. Obama and Holder want voter fraud so they can stay in power.

Holder is suing states trying to have honest elections – but he dropped the serious case of voter intimidation against members of the New Black Panther party who were intimidating white voters in Philadelphia during the 2008 election!

Obama is not only the most viciously anti-religious president in history, but he’s turning out to be the most racially divisive one as well. In fact, he seems to deliberately try to provoke racial animosity. When he was running for office in 2008, he claimed to be a post-racial candidate. He lied.

Once he’s back in office, he’ll be totally unrestrained in his plans to bring our nation to moral and economic ruin. He’s already done a pretty good job. Imagine what he’ll do in four more years.

• Brad Plumer @ WonkBlog: Mitt Romney is paying… too much in taxes?
• Zack Ford @ Think Progress: Washington Archbishop Claims ‘Human Society Would Be Harmed Beyond Repair’ By Marriage Equality.
• Crooks & Liars: AARP Repeatedly Boos Ryan for Vowing to Repeal 'Obamacare.'
• Kevin Drum @ Mother Jones: Another Conservative Conspiracy Theory Bites the Dust.
• Emily Arrowood & Chelsea Rudman @ Media Matters: Fox Conspiracy Theory: Obama Admin. Is Engaged In "Cover-Up" Of Libya Consulate Attacks.
• Steve Benen @ The Maddow Blog: Worst. Surrogates. Ever.

Harry Jackson appeared on CBN this morning to tell African Americans who might be torn between voting for Mormon like Mitt Romney and President Obama, who supports an "anti-God, anti-church agenda," that they cannot simply stay home and not vote. Instead, Jackson declared, they must support the candidate "whose values line up with clear Biblical mandates," saying sarcastically that "if you can vote for abortion and you can vote for the redefinition of marriage; you want to vote for two men marrying, or open the door for two women and three men and all kinds of crazy stuff - if you can do that and the Holy Spirit can be with out in the ballot box, more power to you":  

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Back in July, it was Mike Huckabee who birthed the idea for "Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day" to encourage people to patronize local Chick-fil-A restaurants to show support for the company amid the controversy over CEO Dan Cathy's anti-gay statements and "affirm a business that operates on Christian principles and whose executives are willing to take a stand for the Godly values we espouse."

Now Huckabee is looking to recapture that magic with a new effort being promoted by Champion The Vote that seeks to mobilize the masses for the election in November:

Over the last four years, we've stagnated into an economy that has taken hope right down the slope and has left millions without jobs. Our neighbors have been forced out of their homes by foreclosure and herded into dependency.

We cannot be silent when the traditional definition of marriage is threatened, when human life is considered disposable and expendable, and when people of faith are told that they have to bow their knees to the God of government and violate their faith and conscience.

You joined with me on August 1 for "Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day." We grew an idea into an event where the silent majority came forward and stood together in support of free speech. Today, I am asking that these same Americans, and their friends and family, rally together once again for America. The goal is simple: Let's stand together and vote together on November 6th. We stood in line for a chicken sandwich. Now we need to stand in line to vote and keep this country from falling further toward collectivism.

Like we did on August 1st, let us rally together using social media. A website/Facebook page has been created at www.OurVoteDecides.com. I will promote this address through all of my information channels and ask every committed voter to RSVP. I hope you will join me and use your Twitter account, Facebook page, pulpit, or printed word to share this simple message with your friends, family, and followers:

Let us stand together with one voice to determine the future of the Republic. Our Vote Decides! 

Texas governor Rick Perry spoke today on a conference call with extremist pastor Rick Scarborough as part of his “40 Days to Save America” campaign to motivate and organize Religious Right voters. Perry said that the separation of church and state, which he dismissed as a myth, is being used to drive “people of faith from the public arena.” Perry said that he believes Satan is using the “untruth” of the separation of church and state to remove Christians from public life: “The idea that we should be sent to the sidelines I would suggest to you is very driven by those who are not truthful, Satan runs across the world with his doubt and with his untruths and what have you and one of the untruths out there is driven—is that people of faith should not be involved in the public arena.”

This separation of church and state, which has been driven by the secularists to remove those people of faith from the public arena, there is nothing farther from the truth. When you think about our founding fathers, they created this country, our Constitution, the foundation of America upon Judeo-Christian values, biblical values and this narrative that has been going on, particularly since the ’60s, that somehow or another there’s this steel wall, this iron curtain or whatever you want to call it between the church and people of faith and this separation of church and state is just false on its face. We have a biblical responsibility to be involved in the public arena proclaiming God’s truth. You know, are we going to get up and say ‘you are going to vote for X’? No, but we’re going to talk about Christian values. When you think about the issue of life and protecting life, it’s so important that we as Christians put legislation into place, that we elect women that defend life. The idea that we should be sent to the sidelines I would suggest to you is very driven by those who are not truthful, Satan runs across the world with his doubt and with his untruths and what have you and one of the untruths out there is driven—is that people of faith should not be involved in the public arena.

Perry said that America is undergoing “spiritual warfare” and Religious Right activists who “truly are Christian warriors, Christian soldiers” need to stand up to “activist courts” and “President Obama and his cronies” whom he said are making “efforts to remove any trace of religion from American life.” He called on listeners to use such spiritual warfare against the “growing tide of secularism and atheism” that “preach[es] tolerance and diversity while they engage in oppression and bullying tactics.”

You think about what has gone here in the last few days around the world and never has there been a time that I think we need more spiritual courage, that we need more moral fiber if you will. The American family is under seize, traditional values are somehow exclusionary, a simple prayer in our public schools is the basis for these secular attacks; you think about this spiritual warfare that’s going on and [inaudible] going strong as President Obama and his cronies in Washington continue their efforts to remove any trace of religion from American life. It falls on us, we truly are Christian warriors, Christian soldiers, and for us as Americans to stand our ground and to firmly send a message to Washington that our nation is about more than just some secular laws. Activist courts, we see them chipping away from our values and remove so much that is very special and unique about the United States. I don’t want to get too far off course here but when you think about what’s going on in the Middle East and the president stood up in Cairo in 09 and either incredible naïve or very unschooled in the ways of these radical Islamists, and four American lives were lost in Libya. It is our founding fathers knew and understood the importance of the role of our Creator in public discourse and they didn’t shy away from referencing Him, using the values he brought and the message of his son Jesus Christ to build the system that we as a society have e enjoyed for more than 200 years. Securing that system, rebuilding our nation is what these 40 Days to Save America is really all about. It’s about saving our nation, it’s about preserving the values that make us special, about rejecting the concept that freedom of religion means freedom from religion, about turning away from this growing tide of secularism and atheism, the way they preach tolerance and diversity while they engage in oppression and bullying tactics.

Embattled Missouri congressman and Republican senate nominee Todd Akin appeared on WallBuilders Live today with David Barton, where the two showered each other with praise. Barton recently appeared with Mike Huckabee on a Missouri Baptist Convention teleconference trumpeting Akin’s candidacy and compared him to biblical figures, just as in an earlier radio show Barton likened Akin to the Founding Fathers. Many called on Akin to drop out of the Senate race after he said, while explaining his opposition to abortion rights in cases of rape, that “legitimate rape” rarely leads to pregnancies as “the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

Akin told Barton and co-host Rick Green that there has been a “concerted effort to shoot him out of the saddle” by groups like Planned Parenthood, and that he is “looking forward to moving ahead with this race and seeing a great victory in November.”

I really appreciate your prayers and the tremendous encouragement that’s come from all across our country, and this has become in a way a national race. It’s not uncommon when somebody who is a strong conservative gets in a position to run for a different seat that there will be a pretty concerted effort to shoot him out of the saddle. We know who our enemies are, Planned Parenthood has put me on their “Toxic Ten” list and there are other kinds of liberal groups likewise that if you don’t trust the conservative ratings look what the liberals are saying. I really appreciate both of you, you both have been really great patriots, always stood for a good, balanced understanding of freedom, we’re looking forward to moving ahead with this race and seeing a great victory in November.

Barton said “party bosses” despise Akin because of his conservative voting record, and Green maintained that Akin only gets in trouble because he’s an “uncompromising, absolutely solid conservative” and “the kind of guy everybody says they want in Congress, we want that consistent conservative, but it does make it harder on the campaign trail sometimes.”

Barton attempted to explain that “missteps” like Akin’s “legitimate rape” comments are inevitable and therefore people should “blow that off,” and even used the fact that we at Right Wing Watch on a regular basis write about Barton’s dishonest and bizarre statements as an example. He said that Akin’s comments don’t reflect his time in Congress and shouldn’t concern people, however, Akin’s views on rape and abortion clearly reflect on his congressional record and a larger Religious Right worldview.

One of the things that I’ve been pointing out to people that have been asking about Todd and what happened in Missouri is he made a misstep, he said something that shouldn’t of been said, that’s been taken care of, he apologized, asked forgiveness, we move on from that. That misstep would bother me if this was a pattern of behavior and it’s not, it would also bother me if his voting record showed that he had any inclination toward what he said, which it clearly doesn’t. So we say we made a mistake. You and I get quoted all the time by Right Wing Watch for what they call our mistakes, anyone who talks is going to make mistakes and you blow that off especially if you got a record. So the response is: hey let’s not get distracted with this because what happened is liberals in the Republican party and liberals in Democrat party [sic] would love for people to focus on that misstep that Todd said and that way they don’t have to talk about the contrast between him and his opponent, Claire McCaskill.

If Barton is making the case that Akin’s assertion would only bother him “if this was a pattern of behavior,” then maybe Barton should be troubled by his own career as a self-proclaimed historian as his latest book was pulled from publication over its inaccuracies, and as Barton himself notes, has to be frequently called out on this blog (and others) for making clearly false and absurd claims.