Rep. Todd Akin's medieval and unscientific theory that "legitimate rapes" rarely result in pregnancy has been promoted by John "Jack" Willke, a Catholic octogenarian and former doctor, well known in anti-abortion activism. Willke's resumé includes:

-president of the National Right to Life Committee for a decade
-member of the secretive Council for National Policy
-founder of Life Issues Institute in Cincinnati and Ohio Right to Life
-co-founder and current president of the International Right to Life Federation*

He and his wife were on the cover of the Catholic magazine for business leaders, Legatus, in 2009 with the caption "Living Legends: Pro-Life Pioneers Dr. Jack and Barbara Willke," and he was profiled in a regional Catholic publication in March 2012. He has been featured with former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop (Reagan administration) in anti-abortion videos marketed across the nation, and Willke is described in Ohio's Heartbeat Bill media as the "Founder of the Right-to-Life Movement."  In 2007, the Mitt Romney campaign welcomed the endorsement of Dr. Willke, describing him as, "an important surrogate for Governor Romney's pro-life and pro-family agenda."

Within hours of the shooting at the Family Research Council in D.C., rightwing organizations were claiming that the episode was the result of "anti-Christian" and "radical homosexual" ideology.  Police arrested 28 year old Floyd Corkins, Jr., who had volunteered for several months at the front desk of an LGBT center.  But according to numerous press reports, Corkins attended Grace Brethren Christian School (GBCS) in Clinton, Maryland.  He would have graduated about ten years ago, but if the information about his educational background in the press is correct, Corkins spent his formative years in a conservative Christian school with a very strict anti-homosexual policy.

On Thursday's episode of Glenn Beck's web-based GBTV show, Beck's guest was none other than pseudo-historian David Barton, who, as everybody knows by now, just got his bestselling book The Jefferson Lies pulled by Christian publisher Thomas Nelson. Barton was on Beck's show to refute the critics and save face with his followers. (And Beck will be publishing the next edition of Barton's Jefferson book through his publishing arm.)

One of the lies that Barton has been telling for a very long time in his presentation and TV appearances is that Thomas Jefferson signed his presidential documents not just "in the year of our Lord," but "in the year of our Lord Christ."

For many years, Barton had claimed to have in his possession a document that proved that Jefferson signed his documents, but he had never revealed in his books or on his website exactly what this mysterious document was. I knew that it had to be some sort of document written by someone else that Jefferson had merely signed, but all I could do was guess at what it might be until October 2008, when I actually attended on of Barton's presentations. At that presentation, Barton showed a corner of the document on the big TV screen, but not enough to tell what it was.

The other day I wrote on AU's blog about the ongoing disgrace of the Louisiana school voucher program, which - among other bad outcomes - will soon be pouring millions in taxpayer funds into the coffers of fundamentalist Christian schools, some of which teach that dinosaurs might still be alive and the Great Depression wasn't so bad after all.

I have sometimes opined that Louisiana may be just about the worst state in the country when it comes to public education and church-state separation. But I may have to apologize to the residents of the Pelican State: The Commonwealth of Kentucky has decided to give Louisiana a run for that dubious title.

On Saturday, Mitt Romney plucked Paul Ryan out of the political closet. The Wisconsin congressman, who has described himself as not much of a political figure and being above the partisan fray, bounded onto the campaign trail. Although the Washington Post reported a while back that Ryan "has a level of disdain for the sort of rank political calculations required of people who want to climb the electoral ladder," and Politico noted that he has stated that partisan politics is not his "natural tendency," Ryan is as partisan as they come.

Watching Ryan, on the campaign trail with Romney, I couldn't help thinking that he bore a striking similitude to Ralph Reed.

Perhaps no politician dominated Southern politics as much as Huey Long the famous governor of Louisiana.  The Kingfish, as he was known, became a legend.  His life is the subject of novels and recent movies.  His noteworthy trademark was the movement known as Share the Wealth.

Update [2012-8-14 14:3:50 by Chris Rodda]: Rick Green has posted my comment!!!

I'm not sure how much background I even need to give here. By now everybody knows that David Barton's big best-seller The Jefferson Lies has been yanked by the publisher, Thomas Nelson, and most people know that as part of trying to save his face, Barton seems to be relying on his radio co-host Rick Green.

On Saturday, as part of his Barton face saving, Green posted a public challenge on his own website (rickgreen.com) for anyone to step up and prove that there are lies in Barton's book. I immediately attempted to accept this challenge in a comment on Green's post, but Green would not post my comment and acknowledge that I had accepted his challenge. Instead, after pressure from my "minions," Green posted a second post on his website -- a most un-Christian personal attack on me.

As all of this was going on, I was updating people on my blog over at FreethoughtBlogs. I want to post everything over here, too, since Talk2Action was the place where I first began blogging about Barton over five years ago. It appears that a showdown of sorts may be looming, and I can't not post about that here where it began!

So, below the fold are my four posts from Saturday night into Sunday morning that I should have posted here much sooner than this!

For the latest update, see today's article by my good friend (and "queen of the interwebs") Deborah Beeksma over at GodDiscussion.com, who has been working around the clock with me for the last few days in our attempt to force Rick Green to accept my acceptance of his challenge.

I originally  posted this piece back in May. With Paul Ryan being named to the GOP presidential ticket - and his "Catholic" credentials being touted, it's worth revisiting

This past week we learned that Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) has had an Aquinian epiphany of sorts. The former Ayn Rand acolyte has essentially thrown the controversial author and her philosophy of Objectivism under the bus because of  "her atheism."

But Ryan seems to have changed little except the  labels he uses to disguise his economic philosophy of miserliness.

Talk2action.org contributors have referenced or featured David Barton in over 250 articles, including detailed debunking of his revisionist histories by Chris Rodda and Rob Boston, and updates from both Frederick Clarkson and Bill Berkowitz this week. Following is my contribution to the discussion including links to the coverage of Barton over the last few days and a brief look at the religio-political figure that Glenn Beck calls "the most important man in America."

If you are paying any attention to Mitt Romney's choice for his running mate - and we'd all be better off spending our time doing something else - you certainly understand that there are contenders (shortlisters) and pretenders (long shots).

Amongst those on the short list are establishment-type Republicans Ohio Senator Rob Portman and former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty. The names of former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, and Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, a favorite amongst shut-down Medicare conservatives, have also been tossed around.

There's another name, however, that's being pushed by some conservative Christian leaders; Mike Huckabee, the Christian Right's hero of the Battle of Chick-fil-A. 


Father Shawn Ratigan of the diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, led by Bishop Robert Finn, has pleaded guilty in Federal Court to four counts of producing child pornography and one count of attempted production of child pornography.

Both Ratigan's and Bishop Finn's defenses (Finn is charged with failing to report it) had become a rallying point for some in the Catholic Right, particularly those having intersecting activity in Opus Dei, the Bill Donohue-led Catholic League and neoconservatism.  They further used the incident to try to destroy the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests  (SNAP).

But now that Ratigan has confessed to his pedophilia-related crimes -- what do these reactionaries who imagine themselves as defenders of the faith have to say for themselves?

Christian Nationalist author and longtime Republican operative David Barton has been much criticized over the years. Including by me. (See History is Powerful: Why the Christian Right Distorts History and Why it Matters.) And much more famously by Chris Rodda and Rob Boston, respectively. (Here are small recent examples from Chris and Rob respectively about the book at issue.)  Barton's work, while often described as coming from a Biblical Worldview, has even conservative Christian scholars rolling their eyes and publishing debunkings.  (See this story by Bill Berkowitz.)

Barton had been (and continues to be important) as providing an ideological vision of the Christian Nation intended by the Founding Fathers, and somehow taken away by an evil cabal of liberals, secularists, the ACLU and the Supreme Court (and more!)  And he has informed and been a close ally of leading Republican pols including Newt Gingrich and Michele Bachmann. Mike Huckabee went so far as to say that all Americans should be forced to learn from David Barton at gunpoint.  

I could go on (and on). But suffice to say that there has been a growing outcry about Barton's work in general and his latest book in particular, that his publisher has pulled it from further distribution -- and Barton now seems likely to get the kind of national attention he deserves.   (See the much much discussed diary by Christian Dem in NC at Daily Kos.)  Here is a press release from the always excellent Texas Freedom Network which has nicely explained the matter so I don't have to.