Peter Waldron has long been deeply involved in explicitly theocratic elements of the Religious Right, here and abroad.  And so it was no big surprise when he turned up last summer, working as a faith outreach aide to Michele Bachmann, focusing on Iowa and South Carolina.  He is credited with playing a key role in organizing Bachmann's success in the Iowa straw poll.

But Waldron's recent appearance on a prominent conservative radio show, (written up by Warren Throckmorton) added further intrigue regarding what God is up to this election year, since no less than four candidates for the GOP presidential nomination have claimed to have received a divine nudge.

Waldron said that the Holy Ghost led him to Bachmann.

 Robert Finn, the militant Opus Dei bishop and head of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Missouri who was recently indicted by a Jackson County Grand Jury on misdemeanor charges of failing to report child abuse has cut a deal with prosecutors in nearby Clay County in order to avoid similar charges.

Nevertheless, ubiquitous Catholic Rightist leader, Bill Donohue, is defending the bishop and his indefensible behavior.

Last summer, elements of the mainstream media were flummoxed by how to report on the religio-political views of Rep. Michelle Bachmann and Gov. Rick Perry who were involved with dominionism and dominionists.   Those who had reported on this were accused of, among other things, lumping all evangelicals together and of grossly exaggerating the depth and breadth of the concerns.  There was even a bit of Jew-baiting thrown-in for good measure.  The false accusations soon extended to everyone who has ever written about dominionism, the claims variously being that its a made-up term, that hardly anyone believes it anyway, and that lefty writers are politically motivated in raising these things.  An AP story reported on the controversy rather than the issue -- effectively pooh poohing the entire matter.  

Then, just when her campaign was all but dead, Michele Bachmann rolled-out a new book titled Core of Conviction:  My Story.  The book description states:  

Michele Bachmann is one of the most compelling leaders in America. But despite all the magazine covers and cable television stories, most people don't know who she really is, where she comes from, or what she believes. So she decided to tell her own story and let the reader decide.

But when Christianity Today, the flagship magazine of evangelicalism, gave Bachmann the opportunity to to clarify her core convictions -- and to set the record strait regarding her relationship with the world of dominionism -- she dodged the question.

Does Republican presidential candidate and Former Speaker of the US House of Representative Newt Gingrich believe that the United States Constitution is based on the Old Testament?

At an October 20th to 21st, 2011 meeting* at an Orlando, Florida hotel, Republican presidential hopefuls Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry gathered, along with hundreds of pastors brought in for a secretive "Pastors Policy Briefing" meeting (which excluded the press), and listened as Christian history revisionist David Barton, former Vice Chair of the Texas GOP, explained (link to video clip of Barton) that key concepts in the United States Constitution were derived from Old Testament scripture, including from the books of Deuteronomy and Leviticus.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wayne Besen at Truth Wins Out summed up his conclusions of TheCall Detroit in a report titled The CallDetroit - A Slick Political Rally Disguised as a Religious Revival.  Besen went to TheCall expecting overt Muslim and gay-bashing.  What he discovered was a subtle but "brilliant display of political subterfuge."  The event was held on 11/11/11 but provides a look at a current model of efforts to draw African American and Hispanic communities into right-wing politics.  Also see Talk2action.org articles on TheCall Detroit.

JTA reports on the Zionists of America (ZOA) annual dinner  headlined by Glenn Beck and Michele Bachmann. ZOA has not been deterred by Glenn Beck's promotion of anti-Semitic memes and writers like Elizabeth Dilling and Eustace Mullins, and also appears totally unconcerned about the ramifications of alienating the vast majority of American Jews.

Newt Gingrich has been pandering to the Religious Right for decades. Sarah Posner at Religion Dispatches posted a must-see blast from the past - a full-page ad for the American Coalition for Traditional Values conference on "How to Win An Election," from a September 1985 issue of Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority Report.  

I spent two hours Saturday evening in front of my computer watching the Religious Right's "Thanksgiving Family Forum." The event, which took place at First Federated Church, a large fundamentalist congregation in Des Moines, featured six of the leading Republican presidential candidates - U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, former U.S senator Rick Santorum, Gov. Rick Perry, businessman Herman Cain and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. (Mitt Romney begged off.)

The event was jointly sponsored by an Iowa group called The Family Leader, the National Organization for Marriage and CitizenLink, the overtly political arm of Focus on the Family. The discussion targeted issues like same-sex marriage, abortion and the role of religion in politics. Moderator Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster, gave each candidate a chance to explain his or her Christian faith.

Occupy Springfield (MA) morphed into "Occupy Hate" on Friday in a protest outside of the evangelical coffee house ministry of anti-gay activist Scott Lively.  

Lively, who has had a long career as an anti-gay activist, notably in Oregon, California, and recently in Uganda, where he rallied support for the national legislation that would make homosexuality a capital offense, claims that his Springfield ministry has nothing to do with his ongoing anti-gay activism around the world.

As if they can be separated.

The alleged shooter charged with attempting to assassinate President Obama, Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez, apparently thinks our Commander in Chief is an agent of Satan in an End Times war. Sarah Posner has explained the basics in an article "'Obama the Antichrist' and end-times doctrine." 

I warned about the possibility of the demonization of Obama leading to more violence in a book chapter published in 2010 "The Roots of Anti-Obama Rhetoric." Many individuals who act out in violence in the early stages of a demonization campaign are struggling with emotional or psychological issues. Their choice of target, however, indicates a larger group of individuals are weighing the need for action "before time runs out--the classic apocalyptic timetable. Below is a slightly revised version of what I wrote:

Neoconservative New York Times columnist David Brooks recently illuminated an important dimension of the neo-conservative alliance with the Religious Right.  His column about the Penn State sex abuse scandal suggests a gnawing sense of desperation in light of a certain bitter truth: The same lack of accountability and abuse of authority in the Catholic Church exposed by the priest sex abuse scandal is also being exposed in the iconic football program at Penn State, and it is natural and inevitable to make this comparison.  This bodes poorly for the neocons and their Religious Right allies.

Therefore Brooks, in his desperation, wants to direct our attention elsewhere.

A new reader of Talk to Action's work has written to me and challenged me to make a clearer argument in support of the charge that Samuel Rodriguez has been blatantly inconsistent in his views on environmental legislation. This reader and others who I have spoken with wonder if I am being unfair in my criticism of him in this regard. I want to take up these criticisms not only because the importance of the environmental issue that is in question, but also because it fits into a broader debate taking place at Right Wing Watch over Rodriguez's ability to be "both a radical Religious Right activist while enjoying a reputation as a moderate who is regularly invited to the White House and to presidential events."

TheCall Detroit drew only a fraction of the anticipated participants and, despite extensive outreach to African Americans, the audience was predominately Caucasian.  TheCall Detroit is still significant, because it was a showcase of the religio-political message and methods that are being used to recruit minority groups in preparation for the 2012 election.  This includes "Identificational Repentance and Reconciliation"  ceremonies, a technique that is being used around the country, often combined with David Barton's revisionist history.  Near the end of TheCall Detroit, a segment of the film Maafa 21 was shown, which builds on a narrative claiming that Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood are part of a genocidal effort by liberals to eradicate minority populations.

The fallout from TheCall Detroit is spreading across evangelical media in surprising and significant ways. Jim Wallis' influential "God's Politics Blog" is up with a post from Aaron Taylor, a writer who I interviewed for a recent piece at Talk to Action. Taylor's post is notable for its sharp rebuke of TheCall's disturbing theology of racial reconciliation and for its emphasis on TheCall's role in the larger New Apostolic Reformation-style dominionism and Christian Zionism.