Fighting the Right

LaPierre: Obama and Media Planning a 'Siege on the Second Amendment in This Country Like We've Never Seen Before'

During halftime of Sunday night’s NFL football game, NBC sportscaster Bob Costas weighed in on the recent murder-suicide carried out by Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher, noting that the prevalence of guns in our culture is making such tragedies more common.

This commentary has, predictably, outraged the Right, most notably NRA President Wayne LaPierre, who appeared on Glenn Beck's television program to frantically warn that "the media in this country hates the Second Amendment rights of American citizens and they'll do anything to try and take that freedom away from average citizens" by teaming up with the Obama Administration to carry out a wholesale "siege on the Second Amendment in this country like we've never seen before":

Kyle Mantyla's blog

Inhofe Claims Obama and Liberals Hope to Disband the Military

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) appeared on conspiracy theorist Frank Gaffney’s show yesterday where they railed against President Obama over his speech at the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Symposium. Gaffney claimed that Obama was practicing “national security fraud” and is “misleading the American people” by heralding new efforts to curtail the proliferation of nuclear weapons, while Inhofe said that the dream of Obama and the far-left is to disband the military altogether. “The far-left doesn’t think we need a military to start with, they really don’t,” Inhofe told Gaffney, “They would never say that but they do believe that.”

Listen:

Gaffney: I just have to ask you about this. President Obama made a statement yesterday that just is stunning. He said to a group of nuclear disarmament enthusiasts: ‘We’re moving closer to the future we seek. A future where these weapons never threaten our children again. A future where we know the security and peace of a world without nuclear weapons.’ Senator, I suggest to you that represents national security fraud. I just wonder, knowing what you do about the proliferation of nuclear weapons not just in Iran but the buildup by the Chinese that have just tested a new long-range missile from mobile launchers capable of reaching this country, what on earth is the president doing misleading the American people?

Inhofe: I think that you and I have a problem. We don’t stop and realize that we are dealing with people—the far-left doesn’t think we need a military to start with, they really don’t. You’ve heard me say this before, they really believe if all countries would just stand in a circle and unilaterally disarm and hold hands then all threats would go away, they believe that. They would never say that but they do believe that.
Brian Tashman's blog

Conservative Activists Condemn APA for Declassifying Transgender Identity as a Mental Disorder

Janet Mefferd hosted Peter LaBarbera of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality yesterday on her radio show to criticize the American Psychiatric Association for its decision to remove “gender identity disorder” from their manual on mental health. Mefferd even wondered if the APA’s reasoning behind the move might “give pedophiles moral cover.”

According to LaBarbera, “these professional bodies have all been infiltrated by LGBT activists” and have “politicized” science. After lamenting that now schools will have to provide protections for transgender students, he said that sex reassignment surgeries should be made illegal.

One of the things they’re going to do, we all know it, these professional bodies have all been infiltrated by LGBT activists, homosexuals, bisexuals, transgenders, and they are going to set down these guidelines for these poor children who we’ve seen you know with ‘the little Johnny wants to go to second grade in a dress,’ and people who still have common sense in our society say that’s ridiculous, that’s preposterous, that has an effect on all the other kids in school, but we’re going to get these guidelines that say ‘go with that.’

A lot of people go by science, even though science has been very politicized as we’re discussing here, and they go by science and they say ‘well maybe Johnny wasn’t mean to be a boy, he was meant to be a girl.’ We already see parents doing that with their gender-confused children. The importance of this saying it’s no longer a disorder means basically it will propel this radical transgender movement forward. The transgender movement, there’s a whole bunch of variations, some are people who just want to live as another gender without getting the so-called sex-change operation, at its extreme it’s getting these awful , disfiguring sex-change operations which I believe shouldn’t even be legal.

The two agreed that schools should be able to discriminate against homosexual and transgender teachers and warned that a lesbian teacher may try to put a picture of her partner on her desk!

Later, LaBarbera made a completely incoherent argument where he claimed that schools must discriminate against transgender students because if they don’t then “the majority loses its right to guide their children morally and spiritually to the school.” “Law used to be to restrain sin, that’s the biblical purpose,” LaBarbera said, “but now it is flipped in American society and law is encouraging sin.”

Mefferd: One of the fears about ENDA was that if you couldn’t discriminate for example against a transgender teacher, then your kid is stuck with a transgender teacher. Is that something as a potential implication of this news?

LaBarbera: Absolutely. Because you have to see unequal things as equal under the law, that’s the whole point. Same thing with an openly homosexual, what if you had a homosexual activist teacher? What if you had a lesbian teacher for second grade students and she is in a state with a sexual orientation or gender identity law on the books, she wants to put a picture of her lesbian lover on the desk, you can’t stop that. It’s the same with this gender identity.

…

Mefferd: That does become really troubling when you think about whether or not this will cause, as you mentioned before, a little boy who likes to dress up in girls’ clothing, the school not being able to tell them you can’t wear it. I guess it has yet to be established whether or not a school would have the right to say ‘a little boy has to dress like a little boy’ but it sure does open the question now.

LaBarbera: You know where the ACLU and the gay lobby wants to take it, the trans lobby, they want to say no, the school would not have the right. So the majority loses its right to guide their children morally and spiritually to the school, that’s what’s happening, which is why a lot of people are pulling out of the public school. If gender identity becomes a right, then who is school to trample on the rights? That’s why we see men in female restrooms because they have been given so-called rights to act on their perceived gender identity. It comes back to: what is the purpose of law? Law used to be to restrain sin, that’s the biblical purpose, but now it is flipped in American society and law is encouraging sin.

Mefferd: Of course, that’s the brave new world we’re all living in.
Brian Tashman's blog

Influential Religious Right Organizer David Lane Admits 'I'm Actually a Political Operative'

Not many people know the name of David Lane, but he carries a lot of influence within the Religious Right thanks to his role as a behind-the-scenes organizer responsible for a variety of events aimed at mobilizing conservative Christian voters.  Lane has played a key role in organizing several high-profile Religious Right events in recent years, ranging from Gov. Rick Perry's "The Response" prayer rally to a series of "Rediscover God in America" events aimed at political local mobilizing pastors by connecting them with speakers like David Barton, Mike Huckabee, and Michele Bachmann.

Traditionally, Lane has been rather media-shy, preferring to remain behind-the-scenes instead of giving interviews, so it was interesting when he suddenly showed up on Glenn Beck's television program last week to speak with guest host David Brody.  And it was even more interesting when Lane openly admitted that "I'm actually a political operative," not a pastor ... which seems to confirm what we have said all along about these conferences and rallies being political events masquerading as "spiritual" gatherings: 

Kyle Mantyla's blog

Restrictions on Early Voting and Voter Registration Used for Partisan Gain

Tue, 12/04/2012 - 5:19pm — Harrison
Florida members of the African American Ministers Leadership Council said they were "appalled but not surprised" by the report and the claims that the restrictions exclusively targeted minority voters.
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How Not to Lobby Legislators on Immigration

Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC) is urging activists to contact members of the Illinois State Senate to oppose legislation that will allow undocumented immigrants to obtain drivers licenses. But ALIPAC’s strategy may not be the best, as it is telling members to “yell” at Illinois officials and begin “asking them if they have lost their minds.” “Be careful with your wording and be prepared for a liberal illegal alien supporter to claim you were too threatening,” the group noted. Maybe this isn’t so much a surprise from a group whose head floated the possibility of armed revolution and an anti-Obama coup.

You need to yell at these politicians today before they do something stupid The Illinois State Senate is poised to pass a bill granting a new form of drivers' licenses to approximately 250,000 illegal aliens!

77% of American adults are opposed to making drivers' licenses available to people who are in the country illegally, according to Rasmussen polls conducted in November of 2007. A local group called Safer Families Coalition is protesting at the Illinois legislature today against this bill and they need our support.

Regular calls are not enough. We need you to make emphatic calls, raise your voice a little, don't go over the top, but start calling as many of these numbers and asking them if they have lost their minds. Call as many as you can to make a big impact today!

Sample messages

"Have Illinois state lawmakers lost their minds? Why in the world would you even be considering a bill that does something 77% of Americans oppose like giving aid and licenses to illegal aliens? Why are you focused on helping illegal aliens instead of helping the Americans you are supposed to serve?"

"I just read that you are considering a bill to give licenses to illegal aliens, is that true? I want to know if Senator _________ supports giving licenses to illegal aliens to help them work jobs it is illegal for them to steal from Americans? What other taxpayer benefits for illegal aliens does Senator _____ support? Is Senator _____ aware that three out of four of his/her constituents oppose licenses for illegal aliens?"

We need to really let them have it today. By this afternoon, we need the Illinois Senate offices grumbling and complaining about the large volume of angry calls they received opposing licenses for illegal aliens.

Be careful with your wording and be prepared for a liberal illegal alien supporter to claim you were too threatening.

UPDATE: Apparently all that yelling did not work, as the State Senate approved the measure by a 41-14 vote, making ALIPAC even angrier:

GOP lawmakers in Illinois caved. The biased media and Associated Press are using two major lies to advance the invasion. They are making the false claim that most Americans support a path to citizenship for illegals to justify giving illegals licenses. We know from accurate polling data that at least 66% of Americans wisely oppose a path to citizenship for illegals and more than 77% oppose licenses for illegal aliens.

The other thing that is allowing the invasion to succeed is American apathy and those who failed to take just a few minutes to call the Illinois Senate yesterday despite the best efforts of those of us who were fighting contributed to the loss.

We need all of you to pick up the nearest phone RIGHT NOW and click on this link to pull up the contact numbers for the IL State House...

Make a commitment to call a minimum of 5 numbers at random. Call more if you can spare the time.

Call and tell staff or leave voice messages modeled after our sample message....

"I just heard the ridiculous news that the IL Senate is trying to give licenses to illegal aliens even though 77% of your constituents oppose such a measure. Please argue against and defeat this bill to give licenses to illegal aliens. Giving licenses to illegal aliens will help them to break other laws, take American jobs, take taxpayer resources all to remain in the US unlawfully. Don't let Illinois become the first state in America to grant licenses to illegal aliens when 46 other states have all acted to STOP illegals from getting licenses!"
Brian Tashman's blog

Penny Nance Likens Obama to Tarzan for Defending Susan Rice

Concerned Women for America president Penny Nance is getting herself in the involved debate over UN Ambassador Susan Rice’s potential nomination to be Secretary of State. Nance has attempted to paint President Obama as somehow anti-woman by claiming his campaign is “misogynistic” and views women as “a bunch of cheap floozies.” She even mocked Obama supporter Sandra Fluke by saying she and her colleagues couldn’t afford birth control because they spent too much money on beer, while refusing to defend her from Rush Limbaugh’s sexist attacks. Nance’s group launched the SheVotes campaign to energize conservative women and during an Election Day interview with VCY America’s Jim Schneider, she insisted that polling data shows Obama’s efforts to reach out to women voters were a “disaster.”

Of course, Obama carried women voters by eleven points, but being completely wrong about the women’s vote in the election hasn’t stopped Nance from claiming that women across the country are appalled by his purported sexism.

How is he acting like a sexist now? By defending Rice from baseless Republican attacks.

Nance writes that Obama is acting like Tarzan and even threw out the debunked claim that the White House practices paycheck discrimination. She says that instead of speaking out in favor of Rice, he should be defending people like Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter and Michele Bachmann from “his own misogynistic attack dogs.” Speaking out against the attacks against Rice, Nance explains, is effectively “an admission that left-leaning women aren’t nearly as savvy and strong as conservative women and, therefore, need a little extra protection.”

Basically, if Obama doesn’t defend women like Palin, Coulter and Bachmann, it is sexist, and if he speaks out on behalf of a Democratic official like Rice, it is sexist and a sign that liberal women are weak. Get it?

It’s absurd to think Obama would similarly defend his male subordinates. Such statements made by the president would undermine their authority and insult their professional capabilities.

But maybe public displays of “Me Tarzan, You Jane” are just one of the perks you get when you’re part of an administration that pays its women an average of 18 percent less than their male counterparts.

Or maybe it’s finally an admission that left-leaning women aren’t nearly as savvy and strong as conservative women and, therefore, need a little extra protection. Heaven knows there were plenty of times (a la Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter, Michele Bachmann, etc., etc., etc.) when the president could have — and should have — called off his own misogynistic attack dogs. Those were full-on, unbridled, unrestrained, vicious attacks on conservative women. But honest-to-goodness, hard-but-relevant questions pointed at a female, Obama administration mouthpiece is what finally gets the president in an uproar?
Brian Tashman's blog

Wildmon: Obama Wouldn't Have Been Re-Elected if He Was White

The American Spectator's founder, R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., was a guest on the American Family Association's "Today's Issues" broadcast this morning to explain how the thesis of his recent book, "The Death of Liberalism," was still valid despite the recent election results on the grounds that President Obama is not a liberal but rather a socialist. 

In Tyrrell's view, Obama's win was just a demonstration of the fact that conservatism has big victories but then reaches a plateau before going on to even greater victories.  So while the 2010 midterm elections were proof that America is a conservative nation, the 2012 election results were just a temporary plateau before the 2014 midterms, which will be another blowout win for conservatives.

But AFA's Tim Wildmon had a simpler explanation of why President Obama was re-elected:  because he is black.

Kyle Mantyla's blog

How Unhinged Rhetoric Sank a Disabilities Rights Treaty in the Senate

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities failed to capture the 2/3 vote needed for ratification in the U.S. Senate today due to fierce Republican opposition. Many Republicans and their allies in the conservative movement claimed that the treaty codifies abortion into law, even though that preposterous claim was rejected by the National Right to Life Committee and Sen. John McCain. Along with the false charges about abortion, opponents of the treaty claimed it will undermine U.S. sovereignty and harm children. Critics like Rick Santorum warned that the treaty may kill his disabled daughter; Glenn Beck said it could create a “fascistic” government and Sen. Jim Inhofe alleged the treaty would help groups with “anti-American biases.”

One of the lesser-known but extremely active opponents of the bill was homeschooling activist Michael Farris.

During an interview with Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, he claimed that the treaty will prompt the United Nations to ‘get control’ of children with glasses or ADHD and remove them from their families.

Farris: They’re called living documents, just like the disgraced living Constitution theory, which means the treaty doesn’t mean today what it’s going to mean tomorrow what it’s going to mean ten years from now. So you never know what you’re signing up for, that by itself is a good enough reason to leave it alone and to never enter into one of these things. But in particular, you hit the nail on the head Tony, the definition of disability is not defined in the treaty. My kid wears glasses, now they’re disabled, now the UN gets control over them; my child’s got a mild case of ADHD, now you’re under control of the UN treaty. There’s no definitional standard, it can change over time, and the UN, not American policymakers, are the ones who get it decided.

While speaking with the American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer, the two warned that the treaty could lead to the deaths of disabled children, all the while admitting they have no evidence it would do such beyond their pure speculation.

Fischer: Disabled newborn babies in the UK are being put, oftentimes overriding the wishes of parents, on this death pathway where no matter what the parents want the doctors say this kid cannot live, severely disabled, too many congenital deformities, we think the best thing for this kid is just to be starved and dehydrated to death. It seems to me that although that’s not specifically contemplated in this treaty that could be an outcome.

Farris: Whether they thought about it or not, that’s exactly what Rick Santorum said in our press conference. He was holding his daughter Bella and she’s of the category of child that in Britain they would take that position because her official diagnosis is ‘incompatible with life.’ So when the doctor gets to decide, the doctor empowered by the government—these doctors aren’t doing it on their own, they are doing it because the government says they have the power to do it—the doctor/government deciding what they think is best for the child. It goes to the point of deciding whether the child lives or dies, it is that crazy. If we want to live in a Brave New World like that where the bureaucrats and the government and the UN all tell us what to do, fine, but this is the beginning of the end of American self-government if we go here, it’s just crazy, we cannot let this happen.

After warning that the treaty will kill children, Farris told conservative talk show host Steve Deace that the treaty will create a “cradle-to-grave care for the disabled” and said if the U.S. ratifies it “signing up to be an official socialist nation.” Farris claimed that the treaty will treat the parents of disabled children like child abusers in order to grow government power and implement “coercive socialism.”

“Everybody in America will be living under is socialism as an international entitlement” if the treaty passes, Farris maintained, “it’s a way to make the socialist, liberal, amoral element a permanent feature of our law.” Deace agreed and said the treaty will “due in freedom and liberty.”

Farris: Every parent with a disabled child is going to be in the same legal position as if they’d been convicted of child abuse. We are taking away parental decision-making power in that area. The other thing that everybody in America will be living under is socialism as an international entitlement. The United States resisted all the UN treaties of a certain category that began being proliferated in the 1960s; the first was the International Covenant on Economic and Social Rights. Our country said no that is coercive socialism, we’re not going to do that. So we rejected all those treaties ever since 1966. Yet we’re signing up now for our first economic, social and cultural treaty which means as a matter of international binding law that goes to the supremacy clause level in our Constitution, we’re signing up to be an official socialist nation, cradle-to-grave care for the disabled. Maybe Americans want to do that, but I think we’d want to do it as a matter of domestic law, not as a matter of international law. I personally don’t think that’s any business of Congress to do that sort of thing but I certainly don’t want to be doing it when the United Nations tells us to do it. So those are two big ways it will affect every American and there are more.

Deace: Michael Farris is here with us from Patrick Henry College, also from the Home School Legal Defense Association, talking about another attempt to usurp American sovereignty, to essentially do an end-run around the Constitution and then of course due in freedom and liberty through an effort through the United Nations.

…

Farris: If they can get this one through, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, CEDAW, which is the women’s treaty with all kinds of junk in that one, and then a whole host of other UN treaties that the Obama administration wants to send our way, it’s a way to make the socialist, liberal, amoral element a permanent feature of our law through the use of treaties and they are going to do a full-force attack. We’ve got to stop them now. It’s not like just the camel nose in the tent, it is that too, but we don’t want a camel’s nose in our constitutional system, that’s what we don’t want.
Brian Tashman's blog

The Ten Most Absurd Stories at Rick Santorum's New Home, WorldNetDaily

Angling for another presidential run in 2016, Rick Santorum’s decision to join WorldNetDaily, the organization best known for promoting birther conspiracy theories, may not be the worst idea as birthers were projected to be a majority of Republican voters.

Finding the ten most absurd stories at a website which publishes multiple outlandish articles each and every day is a Herculean task, but here is a good start:

1. The Bible Code Forecasts a Romney Victory

WND’s “award-winning” executive news director Joe Kovacs just before the election wrote an article based on a YouTube video he saw about how the “Bible Code” prophesizes “bad news for Barack Obama” as apparently the “hidden texts in the Holy Bible indicate Mitt Romney will be America’s next president.” Not only would Romney win, but the Bible Code even predicted Romney will be a “fitting president” who has God’s favor.

2. Romney Can Still Win Despite Election Defeat

Tea Party Nation head Judson Phillips also works as a WND columnist, where he has argued that if enough states boycott the Electoral College, then the House of Representatives will get to pick the President and give Romney one last shot. “That is how we can still pull this election out and make Mitt Romney president in January,” he writes. “We need this concept shared with every tea party, liberty and patriotic group throughout the country.” Of course his proposal is completely without merit, but that didn’t stop at least one Republican state legislator from hopping on board.

3. Obama Building ‘FEMA Concentration Camps’
WND commentator and Faith 2 Action president Janet Porter wondered if President Obama was using the fears about the Swine flu to “round up American citizens” and put them into “FEMA concentration camps.” Porter has also used her WND column to push fears that Obama would enact “jail sentences for those who seek treatment outside the socialized health care system” and create a massive “food shortage” so opponents will be “starved to death.”

4. Obama Plans Negotiations with Osama Bin Laden
Porter in WND predicted that Obama bin Laden will be overjoyed by Obama’s election as President and will even be able to meet with him personally. Like most other predictions in WND, this one turned out to be false.

5. Obama is a Gay, Secret Muslim, Foreign-Born Imposter

The group’s most well-known “reporter,” Jerome Corsi, believes that President Obama wears a Muslim ring (confusing a loop-like pattern with Arabic), was married to his male Muslim roommate, orchestrated the murder of his gay ex-lovers, was born somewhere outside the United States and his father may be Frank Marshall Davis.

6. Gays Behind the Holocaust and Preparing to Lead the Next One

WND columnist Scott Lively, who is best known for his work in shaping Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill, is the author of the book, The Pink Swastika, about how gays were behind Nazism and the Holocaust in order to have “vengeance against the people whose moral laws had relegated pagan homo-occultism to obscurity and ignominy.” WND Super Store sells his bizarre book and WND editor Joseph Farah eagerly endorsed Lively’s claim while warning that the gay rights movement may bring Nazism to America. Another WND columnist, Erik Rush, even maintained that gays are planning a Holocaust against Christians, and WND commentator Judith Reisman argued that gay-straight alliances are modeled after the Hitler Youth. WND’s Molotov Mitchell has also praised Uganda for making homosexuality a capital offense because the founders would’ve agreed.

7. Obama is Orchestrating the Next Holocaust
If gay people don’t do it first, then President Obama must be the one behind the next holocaust. Farah claimed that he discovered proof that Obama wants a new Holocaust in a speech he delivered at Buchenwald where he used the line, “We are here today because we know this work is not yet finished.” Farah admitted that he is taking the line, which was about the need to combat Holocaust denialism, out of context. But since Obama has a tendency of “speaking in code” to Muslim audiences, Farah explained, then he must be sending a secret message to Muslims to kill Jews: “So, I ask you, am I really taking Obama’s words at Buchenwald out of context? Or am I the only one seeing them in context?

8. Secession Now
WND is extremely sympathetic to the secessionist movement, they only differ on the reasons. Farah believes that America may be forced to “literally…break-up” the nation if states continue to legalize same-sex marriage and WND columnist Vox Day called for a white supremacist secession movement to repel the “African, Asian and Aztec cultures” and “immigrants from various non-European nations.” Mitchell even released a video criticizing Abraham Lincoln for his stance against secession.

9. Norway Terrorist Attacks a ‘Fabrication’ by the Victims
After far-right activist Anders Breivik targeted the left-wing Labour Party’s youth group and the Norwegian government in deadly terrorist attacks, naturally, WND suggested that the attack was a “cover-up” and a “fabrication of the Labour Party,” blaming the left’s policies for apparently encouraging Breivik’s radicalism. WND also is the home of Pamela Geller, who said that Muslims were behind the attacks and tried to justify Breivik’s actions.

10. Soy Turns Kids Gay
Yes, WND ran a six part series about how soy in children’s formula leads to “sexual confusion and homosexuality.” We only hope that WND commentator Victoria Jackson writes a column about her new idea that genetically modified food is “making more men gay these days.”

BONUS: Just today, Kovacs wondered if the Obama administration will construct the Death Star.

Brian Tashman's blog

Joel Gilbert Faults Karl Rove For Focusing on Economy Rather Than Obama's 'Real Father'

Karl Rove, whose American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS spent hundreds of millions of dollars attacking President Obama’s economic record without avail, has become something of a punching bag for a defeated and embittered Religious Right. Shortly after the election, Gary Bauer faulted Rove for focusing on the economy rather than on abortion rights and marriage equality and radio host Janet Mefferd expressed concern that “we didn’t even talk much about radical Islam.” A few days later, the American Family Association’s Sandy Rios even accused Rove of moderating the GOP’s previous focus on anti-gay policies.

Today, Joel Gilbert, director of the widely distributed anti-Obama movie “Dreams From My Real Father,” joined the pile-on. In an interview with Renew America’s Cliff Kincaid, Gilbert argued that Rove made a fatal mistake by focusing his attacks on the economy rather than on Gilbert’s theory that the president’s real father was communist organizer Frank Marshall Davis. "If Republicans had made Obama's Marxist agenda and personal background the main issues of the campaign, Americans would have had a much clearer understanding of the choice between American values and Marxism,” Gilbert said.


"I heard complaints from Rove's conservative donors four weeks in advance of the election," filmmaker Joel Gilbert told Accuracy in Media. "They kept asking, 'where is the money being spent?'" The questions intensified after Obama's victory and the Democrats achieved a larger 55-45 majority in the Senate.

Gilbert, who directed the documentary "Dreams from My Real Father," about Obama's Marxist roots, notes that Rove had argued to conservative donors that the winning strategy for Republicans was to place ads focusing on the poor economy.

Gilbert's film, which was distributed to millions of voters and argued that Obama's real biological and ideological father was Communist Party USA propagandist Frank Marshall Davis, attempted to expose Obama's character and background. But Rove, Romney and Republican leaders did not want to raise these issues. In fact, Rove had argued that calling Obama a socialist or left-winger would backfire.

Gilbert argued that Obama was a pop-culture phenomenon with a high "likability" factor and that "Voters perceived Obama as a nice man with an inspiring family story." The right strategy, he says, was to expose Obama's Marxist views, the role of Frank Marshall Davis in molding Obama's political philosophy, and Obama's questionable statements about his own upbringing.

Gilbert says, "If Republicans had made Obama's Marxist agenda and personal background the main issues of the campaign, Americans would have had a much clearer understanding of the choice between American values and Marxism."

Gilbert’s film, meanwhile, is on record as having “revolted” focus groups of swing voters and disgusted at least one Florida voter so much that he decided to vote for the president.

Miranda Blue's blog

Brownback Declares Saturday to be a 'Day of Restoration'

In August of last year, Texas Governor Rick Perry organized and hosted a large public prayer rally featuring a host of Religious Right activists along with various self-proclaimed "prophets" of the New Apostolic Reformation.  For the most part, other elected leaders stayed away from the event, with the notable exception of Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, who spoke and delivered a prayer from the stage.

It was no surprise that Brownback would have no qualms about sharing the stage with these sorts of modern-day prophets, as he had a long history of working closely them and speaking at their events back when he was serving in the US Senate and even lived with Lou Engle for several months. In fact, Brownback's close ties to Engle became a bit of an issue when he was running for Governor in 2010.

And just as it was no surprise that Brownback would appear at "The Response," it is also not surprising that he has now publicly endorsed a similar prayer event that is taking place in Topeka, Kansas this weekend called Reign Down, organized by a group that began "in July of 2005, [when] God woke up a 31-year old stay-at-home mom to give her a vision" of then-President George W. Bush "repenting on behalf of the nation, culminating in a movement of God's hand across America to bring healing, restoration and unprecedented unity and prosperity."

When Reign Down organized a prayer event on the National Mall in 2008, severe thunderstorms threatened to cancel it ... until their prayers held them off: 

Leading up to the four-hour event, a massive storm with life-threatening tornadoes, heavy rain and winds, and lightning was heading straight towards the gathering at the National Mall in D.C. The National Park Service issued one warning, saying that after three warnings—or the first bolt of lightning—they were going to pull the plug and the event would not happen. Realizing it was beyond their control, with less than an hour until the event was to start, ReignDown USA's leaders and intercessors knelt behind the stage and cried out for God to divert the storm to the North and the South. They called upon the power of the Holy Spirit for the winds to shift from the West to the East and blow the storm away. As they cried out on their knees and begged God to move…He did! The wind shifted! The Park Service, watching the weather radar, said that somehow the storm cell was shifting its course and heading to the North.

And this weekend, Reign Down - which has partnerships with groups and leaders like Lou Engle, The Call, Cindy Jacobs, GodTV, the Congressional Prayer Caucus, and Rep. Trent Franks - will host a prayer rally in Kansas that will be simulcast across the country, and Gov. Brownback has not only filmed a video announcing his participation and support but issued a proclamation calling on citizens to "collectively repent of distancing ourselves from God and ask for His mercy on us" and declaring Saturday to be a "day of restoration":

TO THE PEOPLE OF KANSAS, GREETINGS:

WHEREAS, the State of Kansas will host the national simulcast of REIGNDOWN USA in Topeka on December 8, 2012, bringing thousands here from across the country; and

WHEREAS, people from across America will join the millions from around the world on TV simulcast live from MacLennan Park, in the heart of America; and

WHEREAS, the first REIGNDOWN celebration was held 2008 in Washington DC, on the Capitol Grounds, introduced by proclamation of the President of the United States of America, with millions participating on site, on TV, and by computer; and

WHEREAS, regional REIGNDOWN events continued until the need was seen for the gathering to be held in the heart of our Nation; and

WHEREAS, many of our families have slid into poverty, endangering out next generation of citizens, our lands are parched by drought, our quality jobs are scarce, business and industry are struggling to expand, and many of our people have fallen into despair; and

WHEREAS, our Nation’s greatest leaders have called on a merciful God for favor during troubled times, such as:

“We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God.” - Abraham Lincoln, 1863.

“The propitious [favorable] smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained.” - George Washington, 1789.

“I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.” - Thomas Jefferson, 1787; and

WHEREAS, we collectively repent of distancing ourselves from God and ask for His mercy on us:

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Sam Brownback, GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF KANSAS, do hereby proclaim December 8th 2012, as a

Day of Restoration

in Kansas and ask every citizen of our state to join in asking a Holy God to bring healing and restoration – help in mending broken lives, bringing peace to our families, our communities, and this land.

DONE: At the Capitol in Topeka
under the Great Seal of the
State this 23rd day of
November, A.D. 2012

BY THE GOVERNOR: Samuel Brownback

Kyle Mantyla's blog

Far-Right Leaders Still Condemning "Intrinsically Disordered" Gays and Lesbians While The Rest of the Country Moves Forward

Mon, 12/03/2012 - 5:49pm — Layne

It has been hard to keep up with all of the historic wins for marriage equality in the past few months. Three states passed ballot measures in support of marriage equality, and one rejected a state constitutional amendment banning it. A new CBS News Poll found – consistent with other recent national polls – that a majority of Americans support same-sex marriage. The Supreme Court could announce any day whether it will hear cases related to the Defense of Marriage Act and California’s Proposition 8. It is not hard to see that the tide is turning in our country.

But some people, it seems, are still not getting the memo.

Case in point: Mission America leader Linda Harvey. PFAW’s Right Wing Watch tuned in to Harvey’s daily radio show today and reported on her tired – but disturbing – opinions about what she views as “unnatural” behavior. “Homosexual marriage is wrong because two men together or two women is intrinsically disordered,” Harvey said. “The behavior is unnatural.”

Not to be outdone, televangelist Pat Robertson also shared some homophobic remarks today as he weighed in on the news that two women were married in West Point’s Cadet Chapel. After proclaiming that General Douglas MacArthur, Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee must each be “rolling over in his grave,” he asked: “What have they done to our cherished institution?”

But I have a different question. With the country seeing progress for LGBT communities in cities and states across the country, and with more and more Americans supporting marriage equality, the real question is when these far-right leaders are going to realize that they are on the very wrong side of a losing battle.

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PFAW

Wilson: Courts may 'Force Christians to Not Be Able to Celebrate Christmas'

Buster Wilson of the American Family Association as of late has dedicated his radio program to fighting the so-called “War on Christmas,” railing against municipalities that don’t erect Nativity Scenes and stores that say “Happy Holidays.” Of course, Chick-fil-A has so far escaped his wrath even though the company easily fails the AFA’s “War on Christmas” test.

Last week, Wilson made the absurd argument that not having a Nativity Scene on public property is direct a violation of his First Amendment rights of freedom of religion and his God-given rights.

There are people who can put nativity scenes on their front lawns, it’s their private property and if they want to do that, they can do that, why do you have to have the public square as well? Here’s the reason why that’s a problem. The reason why we rebel against that is that the First Amendment of the Constitution gives every individual American the freedom of worship without any possibility of interference from the government. We don’t want the government saying you can do it here. The Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, we declare that these rights are God-given; they are our unalienable rights from our Creator. They are not privileges granted by our government. If they are a privilege granted by the government then the government can number one, regulate it, or number two, take it away, we have unalienable rights.

However, nativity scenes and other religious symbols are allowed on public lands as long as they are part of a larger secular display and do not convey the state sponsorship of religion, something even the conservative American Center for Law and Justice admits:

In Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668 (1984), the Supreme Court addressed the constitutionality of a government-erected crèche. Significantly, the Lynch Court upheld the constitutionality of the holiday display in that case because the crèche was a part of a larger holiday display in which there were a variety of secular symbols.

Today he took it a step further by saying that the courts are actually going to literally prevent people from “celebrating Christmas,” asserting that those pushing the “War on Christmas” are “using the court system of this country to force Christians to not be able to celebrate Christmas at Christmastime.”

He even suggested that President Obama’s attendance at Ramadan fast-breaking dinners shows that Christians are being slighted and Christmas marginalized.

I don’t understand, ‘you’re not the majority anymore, this is not a Christian nation and you’ve guys have got to quit trying to cram everything down people’s throats,’ nobody’s trying to cram—look, it is the folks who don’t want us celebrating Christmas that are cramming that view down our throats and using the courts to do it. So if we don’t want to start cramming things down people’s throats, then why don’t the folks who are opposed to us celebrating Christmas, why don’t they be quiet for a while because they are the ones that are using the court system of this country to force Christians to not be able to celebrate Christmas at Christmastime. I don’t understand it…I don’t get it, you know if you want to celebrate Ramadan, you celebrate Ramadan. The President of the United States of America has a Ramadan dinner with Muslims in the White House of the United States of America and celebrates Islam with those Muslims.
Brian Tashman's blog

Beck: UN Convention on Rights of the Disabled Sounds Like Something 'Fascistic From the Nazi Days'

As Brian noted last week, the Religious Right is in the middle of making a full-court press on the Senate in an effort to prevent ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities by doing what they always do:  lying about what the convention says and means.

Today, Rick Santorum, who has been leading the fight against ratification, appeared on Glenn Beck's radio program when Beck ominously cited language from the convention proclaiming that "children with disabilities shall be registered immediately after birth" to suggest that something "really Orwellian or, quite honestly, fascistic from the Nazi days" was going on; an assessment with which Santorum heartily agreed:

The most amazing thing about this, and the subsequent discussion in which Beck and his co-hosts wildly speculated about what this and other provisions within the convention "really" mean, is the extent to which their complete ignorance about the actual meaning and intent of such provisions in no way hinders their willingness to boldly make declarations about them. 

Article 18, Section 2 of the Convention the Rights of Persons with Disabilities says that "children with disabilities shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name, the right to acquire a nationality and, as far as possible, the right to know and be cared for by their parents."  

While Beck and his cronies were busy laughing about the aburd assertion that children have a right to a name and to acquire a nationality, a bit of research would have taught them that such language is rooted in Article 24 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which entered into force in 1976: 

1. Every child shall have, without any discrimination as to race, colour, sex, language, religion, national or social origin, property or birth, the right to such measures of protection as are required by his status as a minor, on the part of his family, society and the State.

2. Every child shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have a name.

3. Every child has the right to acquire a nationality.

The main purpose of such rights is to "reduce the danger of abduction, sale of or traffic in children" and "ensure that every child has a nationality when born." 

And here is a news flash for Beck, who seems to thinks that there is something sinister about having the US ratify a document containing such language: as noted above, the provision that every child shall be registered upon birth was first set out in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ... which the United States ratified in 1992.

So the United States has already ratified a UN convention containing the very language that Beck is now warning is "fascistic" and Naziesque.

Kyle Mantyla's blog

Joni Lamb and Janet Boynes describe Homosexuality as Satan's Trap

Televangelist Joni Lamb of Daystar last week hosted Janet Boynes, an ardent ex-gay activist who has made a career telling Religious Right audiences about the Satanic and “ugly” nature of homosexuality. Boynes is also a favorite author of Rep. Michele Bachmann and her book was on display at Marcus Bachmann’s pseudo-clinic.

Lamb opened the program by maintaining that the “thousands” of people “who have come out of homosexuality” and “may be the most discriminated people in the world today.” She went on claim that homosexuality is “ungodly” and “God cannot bless you and you cannot fulfill your destiny while you are operating within the realm of homosexuality.”

The two went on to agree that homosexuality a “trap that the Enemy has set,” and Boynes claimed that gays and lesbians are “walking right into the Enemy’s trap.”

Watch:

Brian Tashman's blog

Saleem: Gays and Liberals have 'Unholy Alliances' with the Islamic 'Shadow Government'

Phony ex-terrorist Kamal Saleem last week promoted his discredited book, The Blood of Lambs, on pastor Rick Joyner’s show Prophetic Perspectives on Current Events, where he said that the left and an Islamic “shadow government” have formed an “unholy alliance” against him. Saleem has a tendency to accuse his detractors of working on behalf of radical Islamists, even accusing a Christian professor at Calvin College who has debunked his work of being a Muslim Brotherhood agent. Indeed, Saleem believes that Hillary Clinton, college professors, generals in the U.S. military and Obama’s babysitter are all aiding Islamic extremists.

He claimed that major Muslim-American political and affinity groups “are fronts of the Muslim Brotherhood and operate government places linked together to create a shadow government inside the United States of America.”

“Today we the enemy of Islam, the liberal movement, the socialist movement, the communist movement, the women movement, Cod Pink, all of them are coming against me, the Occupy, all of these are coming against me,” he later told Joyner. “They have unholy alliances together with Islam, whether it’s homosexual or baby-killer, all these have unholy alliances.”

Watch:

Brian Tashman's blog

Robertson on Same-Sex Weddings at West Point: 'What Have They Done to our Cherished Institution?'

Televangelist Pat Robertson mourned the news that a same-sex couple had their wedding at West Point’s Cadet Chapel, asking, “what have they done to our cherished institution?” After the 700 Club’s Lee Webb reported on the story and called it a “sad day,” Robertson said that General Douglas MacArthur, Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee must each be “rolling over in his grave” over the wedding.

Watch:

Brian Tashman's blog

Harvey: 'Homosexual Marriage is Wrong Because Homosexuality is Wrong'

Today on her daily radio commentary, Linda Harvey sought to understand and explain why marriage equality won at the polls for the first time in last month's election, and the best she could come up with was that gay rights activists are skilled at misleading people while anti-gay activists just haven't been blunt enough about the threat that homosexuality poses to our society through encouraging kids to become gay ... or something:

The homosexual lobby is skillful at manipulating public sympathy by tugging on heartstrings while not telling the whole story. Our side sometimes plays right into their hands by also not telling the whole story, even when we get the chance.

...

Until we deal with the core issue - the behavior of homosexuality - it was probably only a matter of time before our side would lose a few races. We need to get to the real problem. Homosexual marriage is wrong because two men together or two women is intrinsically disordered, the behavior is unnatural. These aren't activities that are beneficial or healthy. Homosexual marriage is wrong because homosexuality is wrong.

There's significant dangers to our youth in this. One thing our culture does not want if it wants to survive is to have its youth corrupted and this is happening in oh so many ways now, and homosexuality is one more.  And here's how it works with homosexuality: since no pregnancy threat exists, some people think there's no reason to prohibit behavior in the young, even the very young. Those who acknowledge no authority from God, who find innocence threatening, are targeting our youth with these messages for some reason.

When are we conservatives going to get serious about making a case to prevent the corruption of kids? And that's one of the big reasons why homosexual marriage is wrong: because the young are raised on the mores and traditions of the adults and if same-sex marriage is accepted, then children will begin to consider dating and forming relationship in these very different ways; ways that will be very destabilizing to many of them and to our society.

Kyle Mantyla's blog

WND Columnist Floats Whites-Only Secessionist Movement

Yesterday, WorldNetDaily announced that Rick Santorum will become a regular commentator for the conspiratorial “news” site. And now, the former U.S. Senator and presidential candidate will get to share space with other commentators like Vox Day, who today uses his column to call for a new secessionist political party to resist the growing numbers of racial minorities.

Day was writing about British Prime Minister David Cameron’s resistance to attempts by the Scottish National Party (SNP) for Scotland to leave the UK and a campaign by the UK Independence Party (UKIP) for the country to exit the European Union. He writes that the SNP and UKIP can serve as a model for “white Americans who still hold to traditional values” to start a new country and leave the U.S. He claims that whites have every reason to secede as the “English people and the Scottish people have far more in common than Americans do with the tens of millions of post-1965 immigrants from various non-European nations around the world,” whom he says are ruining America.

There can be little doubt that Cameron’s opinion of UKIP is but a pale shadow of the U.S. bifactional ruling party’s hatred and contempt for white Americans who still hold to traditional values, believe in their constitutional liberties and derive their sense of identity from historical America. They mock the secessionist petitioners in Texas and other states, celebrate the infestation of even the smallest American heartland towns by African, Asian and Aztec cultures, and engage in ruthless doublethink as they worship at the altar of a false and entirely nonexistent equality.

And yet, they are afraid and they threaten every American who dares to think the unthinkable and speak the unspeakable. Why? Because they know time, history and socionomics are not on their side.

Is the secession of several American states truly unthinkable? Is the breakup of the United States of America really outside the boundaries of historically reasonable possibility?

Some would point to the amount of time that has passed since the Civil War, when the question was last considered. It has been 147 years since Americans attempted to exert their right to self-determination and leave the United States. However, it has been 305 years since the Scottish Parliament passed the Union with England Act in 1707, and even if Scotland does not vote to break up the Union in the referendum tentatively scheduled for 2014, the fact that the Scottish people are seriously considering an exit from a Union that is twice as old as the forcible one imposed by Abraham Lincoln should suffice to prove that the age of the U.S. does not render a potential breakup theoretically or practically impossible.

This is especially true given that the English people and the Scottish people have far more in common than Americans do with the tens of millions of post-1965 immigrants from various non-European nations around the world, or their urban enablers. The fact that the future citizens of Aztlán are presently content to continue collecting tribute in the form of state and federal largesse does not mean that they will refrain from exerting the political muscle that their growing demographic weight provides them once the contracting economy brings the gravy train to an end.

It also seems unlikely that the millions of Americans who have moved away from declining school systems, who have retreated from an increasingly vibrant communities, and who have fled from high-tax jurisdictions will continue to retreat as the people who destroyed their schools, their communities and their state budgets attempt to follow them.

They will not because they cannot. The frontiers are closed. There is nowhere else to go.
Brian Tashman's blog
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