Jill Stanek, longtime anti-abortion activist and Obama antagonist headlines tour

In 2008, the anti-abortion crowd, led by an Illinois-based 527 organization called Born Alive Truth, launched a campaign it was certain would mobilize the base and turn undecided voters toward the McCain-Palin ticket. The campaign would spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in key swing states on advertisements branding then-Senator Barack Obama as a supporter of infanticide. When the group registered with the Internal Revenue Service that year, it claimed that its mission was, "informing the public of Barack Obama's support of infanticide" (a statement it later amended). 



This time around, Students for Life of America -- another anti-abortion organization -- has come up with a different idea. It is taking the battle over abortion rights to college campuses in several swing states.

Dump radioactive waste, from airplanes, on our heads? Mix it in our drinking water? If Muslims had proposed this, it would be terrorism, and probably a fast-track to a waterboarding station in Guatanamo. But fortunately, it's not terrorism - it's science, which would conveniently help big business dispose of its garbage by dumping it on our heads or putting it in our water, but scientifically.  

If Mitt Romney exemplifies the depth of elite contempt for average Americans, we can see the logical extension of this in the Koch brothers-backed candidacy of Arthur B. Robinson, running to represent Oregon's Fourth District in Congress.

It wasn't all that surprising - given that they had no other place to go - that after months and months of "soul-searching," Mitt Romney finally has received his official acceptance letter from conservative Christian leaders. And although the letter, which was delivered Friday September 7, is focused mainly on support for the Republican Party's platform (titled "We Believe in America"), it should also be read as the Religious Right giving Romney its seal of approval.

Focus on the Family's citizenlink.com pointed out that, "Though some have been quick to criticize Romney for his Mormon faith," the letter put that controversy aside: "It is time to remind ourselves that civil government is not about a particular theology but rather about public policy, and the question we ask is this one: What are the policy principles that will govern your administration should you prevail on Election Day," the letter stated.

"In terms of its bloodthirsty and intolerant passages, the Bible raises considerably more issues than does the Qur'an. Some Bible passages justify genocide and multigenerational race war; the Qur'an has nothing comparable. While many Qur'anic texts undoubtedly call for warfare or bloodshed, these are hedged around with more restrictions than their biblical equivalents, with more opportunities for the defeated to make peace and survive. Furthermore, any of the defenses that can be offered for biblical violence--for instance, that these passages are unrepresentative of the overall message of the text--apply equally to the Qur-an." - Philip Jenkins, author of Laying Down The Sword: Why We Can't Ignore The Bible's Violent Verses

For the Islamophobia industry* there are two main lines of rhetorical attack against Islam. One challenges the character of the Prophet Mohammad. The other claims that Islam is a uniquely violent or even a terrorist religion due to the nature of scripture found in the Koran.

I spent Friday and Saturday observing the Values Voter Summit (VVS), an annual Religious Right gathering in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the Family Research Council, the American Family Association, the Heritage Foundation, Liberty University and other groups.

I attend every year. It's educational! Here are some things I learned this year:

One of the stock characters in American public life is the political/religious convert who becomes the expert on the evil he once was. Pick your era or locality of evil, and you'll find `em. And while there are certainly authentic converts from totalist or criminal societies who have truths to tell, for others it becomes a confidence game of ever newly found or escalating evil.

The latest such character to take to the stage of history is Kamal Saleem, who was a featured and wildly popular speaker at the just-concluded Value Voters Summit. And yet he has been repeatedly exposed as a fraud whose story of being an ex-terrorist doesn't add up.

I was struck by how through his story of being a big time terrorist for hire for the likes of Arafat, Assad, and Sadaam Hussein, he sought to contrast this with the kindness and compassion of Christians, such as those who nursed him back to health after a car crash in the U.S. While we knew he had converted to evangelical Christianity, Saleem is a good story teller and so I couldn't tell where his story was going. I was surprised when we got there and he roared, "Allah and Jehovah are not the same god!"

And the crowd of some 1200 Values Voters went wild.

[image, right: Joseph Nassralla Abdelmasih, whose nonprofit Media For Christ produced [see 1, 2, 3] the inflammatory anti-Muhammad video trailer "Innocence of the Muslims", and anti-Islamic activist Pamela Geller, whose popular blog Atlas Shrugs published, in February 2012, a financial solicitation for an anti-Muhammad movie]

Yesterday, while compiling evidence for a report demonstrating conclusively that the 501(c)(3) nonprofit Media For Christ was the most significant force behind the production of the anti-Islamic trailer video "Innocence of the Muslims" which, after being posted on Youtube, has helped incite riots throughout the Islamic world, I came upon the following February 12, 2012 post, on the website of Atlas Shrugs -- the blog of Pamela Geller, the anti-Islamic activist who cofounded the group Stop Islamization of Nations and helped incite and organize the nationally-notorious June 6, 2010 protest against the building of a mosque in lower Manhattan (one of the speakers at the protest was Joseph Nassralla Abdelmasih, head of Media For Christ.)  

Titled "A Movie about Muhammad: An Idea whose Time Has Come", the Geller post contained a solicitation for funding for a movie about Muhammad.

As the annual Values Voter Summit in Washington, DC draws to a close, it is clear that the strategy of the Christian Right for the upcoming Presidential election is to appeal to the baser bigoted instincts of their sizable base. Usually the most inflammatory rhetoric is highlighted the year before an election campaign, while the year of the campaign the nastiest rhetoric is somewhat muted.

To be sure, in past election year Values Voter Summits it was common to hear the vivid and vilifying references to liberals, godless secularists, Muslims, gay people, and "baby-killing" feminists. The speakers, however, were usually people of color who the overwhelmingly White audience expected to be uncivilized, at least in the rhetorical sense.

This year's Values Voters Summit (VVS) will be a shock to all who have claimed that the Christian Right is dead or about to breathe its last. Several thousand registrants are jamming into the Omni Shoreham hotel in Washington, D.C. this weekend for the annual political conference of the Christian Right hosted by, among others, the Family Research Council (FRC) Action, American Family Association (AFA) Action, and the Heritage Foundation. As the movement emerges from a period of transition following the passing, retirement, or semi-retirement of the founding generation of the Christian Right, I see a movement that is is increasingly focused, vibrant and angry.

According to the New York Times, the Press-Telegram of Long Beach, California, and MercuryNews.com in Silicon Valley, the production organization that received the permit for the movie now known as "Innocence of Muslims" is Media for Christ. Media for Christ  (website offline at posting) was founded and is led by Joseph Nasralla Abdelmasih, an Egyptian Coptic Christian who has been promoted by many of the country's most vocal anti-Muslim agitators.

Nasralla has spoken at rallies organized by Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer (hugging Nasralla in photo at right) and has partnered in projects with Steve Klein and Gary Cass, including the 911 Defend Our Students Campaign.  Cass  is founder of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission, an anti-gay and anti-Muslim organization that includes a who's who of Religious Right luminaries on its advisory board.  Media for Christ includes a production house for "The Way," a Christian satellite television program in English and Arabic launched in 2010.

[Authors Note: Many outlets are linking to the website www.mediaforchrist.org, which has no relationship with Joseph Nasralla's organization. Nasralla's websites are www.atvsat.com and www.mediaforchrist.net. ]

Two things happened on September 11 this year - I turned 50 and became officially old, and I got the first installment of my debunking of David Barton's The Jefferson Lies done.

At some point as I was writing what I intended to be a single book debunking Barton's Jefferson book, I said to myself that you could write a whole book on each one of his seven chapters, which he calls "Lie #1," "Lie #2," "Lie #3," etc., so that's what I decided to do - a series of seven short books, one debunking each of his chapters. This seemed like a much better idea than cutting stuff out to try to cram it all into one volume. There are just far too many lies in Barton's book to debunk them all in a single volume with any degree of thoroughness, and anyone familiar with my other work debunking this crap knows how I like to be thorough and leave no stone unturned.

Rick Scarborough is leading a breakout session at the 2012 Voter Values Summit.  He will retell his more than a decade old story of how he had an impact at Pearland, Texas.  Rick is to lead a session named, "Debunking the Myth of Separation."  Scarborough's legendary story of his activism in Texas has been shared from coast to coast.  I have heard it over three times myself.  According to the legend, Rick turned the tide and changed the region as Tom DeLay used to say.