For weeks, Republican presidential candidates have been a running a gauntlet of ever-more draconian pledges put forth by party purists. Grover Norquist's anti-tax oath, the Susan B. Anthony List anti-abortion manifesto , the "Marriage Vow" and the "Cut, Cap and Balance" pledge are just some of the multiplying litmus tests now demanded by social and economic conservatives alike.

But as the 2012 primaries approach, another de facto requirement for GOP White House hopefuls is emerging. That is, candidates must not only (a) proclaim that they have been called on God to seek the presidency, but (b) declare that divine intervention is the cure for what ails America. Call it the Divine Right Pledge. And so far, it's one most of the GOP field seems more than willing to take.

Of course, the GOP has long been parodied as "God's Own Party." But now, the Party of Lincoln is rapidly turning Honest Abe's mantra ("My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side.") on its head.

Texas Governor and possible instant GOP frontrunner Rick Perry provides a case in point, with check marks in both columns of the God Pledge. As he explained his likely White House run:

"I'm not ready to tell you that I'm ready to announce that I'm in. But I'm getting more and more comfortable every day that this is what I've been called to do. This is what America needs."

If the Lord is calling on Rick Perry to lead the United States, Perry plans to call Him back when it's time to actually run it.

On August 6th in Houston, Governor Perry will tunnel under the wall separating church and state to lead The Response, an evangelical day of prayer and fasting seeking divine intervention for America. As Perry put it:

"I sincerely hope you'll join me in Houston on August 6th and take your place in Reliant Stadium with praying people asking God's forgiveness, wisdom and provision for our state and nation. There is hope for America. It lies in heaven, and we will find it on our knees."

Perry, whose faith-based policy like the governors of Georgia and Oklahoma includes asking residents to pray for rain for their drought-stricken state, later explained that the solutions to America's woes are above his pay grade:

"I think it's time for us to just hand it over to God and say, 'God, You're going to have to fix this.'

(That Perry may now skip the August 6 event in Houston may just be confirmation that God wants him in Washington DC instead.)

Rep. Michele Bachmann may not know much about history, but she does know that God is on her side. The self-proclaimed "fool for Christ," who in 2006 warned that "we are in the End of Days" and counseled "wives, you are to be submissive to your husbands," has been also called on by God.

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This story is a few days old, but I had to get it out here on C&L. We've seen the religious right infiltrate the military over the years, but this is getting very nutty.

Putting Bible codes on weapons is actually a smear of Christianity. Maybe not for these freaks.

"It allows the Mujahedeen, the Taliban, al Qaeda and the insurrectionists and jihadists to claim they're being shot by Jesus rifles," he said.

Weinstein, an attorney and former Air Force officer, said many members of his group who currently serve in the military have complained about the markings on the sights. He also claims they've told him that commanders have referred to weapons with the sights as "spiritually transformed firearm[s] of Jesus Christ."

He said coded biblical inscriptions play into the hands of "those who are calling this a Crusade."

According to a government contracting watchdog group, fedspending.org, Trijicon had more than $100 million in government contracts in fiscal year 2008. The Michigan company won a $33 million Pentagon contract in July, 2009 for a new machine gun optic, according to Defense Industry Daily. The company's earnings from the U.S. military jumped significantly after 2005, when it won a $660 million long-term contract to supply the Marine Corps with sights.

"This is probably the best example of violation of the separation of church and state in this country," said Weinstein. "It's literally pushing fundamentalist Christianity at the point of a gun against the people that we're fighting. We're emboldening an enemy."

As usual Brent Bozo's MRC operation took offense to ABC's report because the company that makes this garbage (Trijicon) wasn't included in his report. "ABC's Brian Ross Hyperventilates Over 'Secret Bible Codes' on Military Guns"

Sure, he hyperventilated. Scott Whitlock doesn't seem to understand this type of insane circus clown logic when applied to weapons is seriously deluded.

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Following the brutal slaying of Dr. George Tiller, Operation Rescue released this statement:

“We are shocked at this morning’s disturbing news that Mr. Tiller was gunned down. Operation Rescue has worked for years through peaceful, legal means, and through the proper channels to see him brought to justice. We denounce vigilantism and the cowardly act that took place this morning. We pray for Mr. Tiller’s family that they will find comfort and healing that can only be found in Jesus Christ.”

And now the group's leader, Randall Terry has released this Rally the troops video to all anti-choice advocates. In the above video he calls President Obama and pro-choice politicians child killers, and proclaims Dr. Tiller to be a mass murderer, who "reaped what he sowed," but voices regrets that the slain doctor wasn't able to "get things right with his maker" and that it was unfortunate that he didn't get a "trial of a jury of his peers and to have a proper execution."

This is one sick, twisted individual. To deny that hateful propaganda like this could incite someone to violence, is just plain dilusional.

Max Blumenthal in The Nation

Of all the right-wing figures who have promoted Mike Huckabee's extraordinary political rise from a backwater church to the national pulpit of a presidential campaign--and there are many--perhaps none know the former Arkansas governor and current Republican presidential front-runner better than Jay Cole. A Baptist minister based in Fayetteville, Arkansas, with a right-wing radio talk show of his own, Cole has been instrumental in inspiring Huckabee's rise over more than two decades. Indeed, when Huckabee was the governor of Arkansas, it was Cole who persuaded him to arrange the release from prison of a convicted rapist, Wayne Dumond, who had become a born-again evangelical in prison--the most controversial act of Huckabee's career, which still dogs him on the campaign trail.

I spoke to Cole by telephone a week before Huckabee's surprise victory in the Iowa caucuses on January 3. He was supremely confident that his saintly friend would prevail over the hosts of darkness. "Mike is one of the finest and most gracious individuals God has ever placed on Earth," Cole told me in his thick Southern drawl. "Not only does he have speaking ability, he has the Lord looking over him."[..]

(T)he Huckabee Cole has known and loved for decades contrasts sharply with the sunny figure the media's leading lights have conjured up. According to Cole, Huckabee has connected with voters--specifically, evangelical voters--not simply because he is a charismatic speaker, but also because he shares their apocalyptic world view. As Cole told me, "To date there's well over 139 prophecies that have come to pass exactly as the Lord says. Mike believes those things. Anyone with any Bible knowledge would have to say that this looks like the time. We're so close to the Lord's return."

During the period when Huckabee rose through the ranks of the Arkansas Republican Party to the governor's mansion, Cole became one of the state's most popular right-wing radio personalities. Cole volunteered to me the sectarian views that made his radio show a favorite of Arkansas's far-right fringe. Taking a potshot at Mitt Romney, who is a Mormon, Cole compared the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to the Ku Klux Klan. "As you know from history, their original intent--[Mormon founding fathers Joseph] Smith and Brigham Young--was to take over the United States of America," he said. "They weren't just far behind the KKK in their efforts."

Cole was no more kind to Muslims. "If you think communism's bad, just think what the Islamics are doing," Cole warned. "Those people have no--they're just not human. They're just not human."

I can't think of anything to say to this except that it really, really scares me.

If anyone from Bush’s inner circle is going to defend Mike Huckabee’s Christian-centered presidential campaign, you’d think it would be Peter Wehner. Not only is Wehner, the former White House director of strategic initiatives, a self-described evangelical Christian conservative, but he also helped oversee Bush’s faith-based office. It’s not like the separation of church and state would be high on Wehner’s priority list.

And yet, in an interesting WaPo op-ed today, Wehner said Huckabee’s emphasis on religion is giving him a “queasy feeling,” because the former governor’s tack is “disturbing.”

After noting a litany of recent examples — the “Christian leader” ad, the talk of being God’s anointed candidate, the theological shots at Mormons, and the “birth of Christ” ad — Wehner suggests Huckabee is confused about his goals.

This is a man who, in 1998, when explaining to a Baptist pastors conference why he got involved in politics, answered, “I got into politics because I knew government didn’t have the real answers, that the real answers lie in accepting Jesus Christ into our lives. . . . I hope we answer the alarm clock and take this nation back for Christ.”

Now isn’t that odd — a former pastor who leaves his ministry so he can get involved in politics because he “knew government didn’t have the real answers.”

Well, sure, when you put it that way, it is odd.

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Reed: The only way and let me stress that, the only way that I believe that me, or this community has been able to endure the trauma that has been thrust upon us is through the prayers of the Christian people who have sent them up in this community. (loud applause) I firmly believe and am confident of the fact that had it not been for the direct intervention of the Lord Jesus Christ last Thursday, a disaster would have happened. You can quote me on that!

There was a "press conference" today with the Jena 6 prosecutor DA Reed Walters. Or there was supposed to be a press conference but instead Walters played host for a gathering which sounded more like a revivalist tent meeting. ,While reporters noted they had never before been allowed to bring cameras into the courtroom, Walters had quite a show set up complete with about 60 local residents - described as "white supporters of the DA" on CNN who broke into applause when he appeared. I guess they had loved his performance back in 2006 when Black students protested the hanging of nooses in the "white tree." Then Walters arrived at the school with a group of police and warned the peaceful student protest that “I could end your lives with the stroke of a pen.” This is the same Walters who consistently claimed "This case is not and never has been about race" and who "credits the 'imaginations' of African-Americans for the heightened racial tensions around the case." Today, his words were less overtly threatening but the racist message was just as clear.

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AP Via Yahoo:

An aide to GOP presidential candidate Sam Brownback has been reprimanded for sending e-mail to Iowa Republican leaders in an apparent attempt to draw unfavorable scrutiny to rival Mitt Romney's Mormonism.

Emma Nemecek, the southeastern Iowa field director for Brownback's presidential campaign and a former state representative candidate, violated campaign policy when she forwarded the June 6 e-mail from an interest group raising the questions, the Brownback campaign said Sunday.

The e-mail requested help in fact-checking a series of statements about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Among the statements: "Theologically, the only thing Christianity and the LDS church has in common is the name of Jesus Christ, and the LDS Jesus is not the same Jesus of the Christian faith" and "The LDS church has never been accepted by the Christian Council of Churches." Read more...

NavyTimes:

Navy veteran David Miller said that when he checked into the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Iowa City, he didn't realize he would get a hard sell for Christian fundamentalism along with treatment for his kidney stones.

Miller, 46, an Orthodox Jew, said he was repeatedly proselytized by hospital chaplains and staff in attempts to convert him to Christianity during three hospitalizations over the past two years.

He said he went hungry each time because the hospital wouldn't serve him kosher food, and the staff refused to contact his rabbi, who could have brought him something to eat.[..]

He described the Iowa City facility as an institution permeated by government sponsorship of fundamentalist Christianity and unconstitutional discrimination against Jews.[..]

The hospital's chaplains and staff, Miller said, have the attitude that you either accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior and you are saved, or you are damned.

He said he has tried to resolve the problems with the hospital's administration without success.

Unfogged: Explaining the Iranian political structure--and its contradictions

DownWithTyranny! Opposition to a Bush library builds at Southern Methodist University: "He's about as far away from the fundamental teachings of Jesus Christ as you can get."

uggabugga: Blame America firster, Dinesh D'Sousa, defends his dishonesty in the WaPo

ANNALS OF LAW: A single, unnamed judge, eh?...At ease, Mr. President...The Bush Imperium now claims the authority to kill anyone earth...The pressure in this case came from paranoid fantasizing about The Clenis...Airport security? How 'bout Superbowl security?...New Schools or New Prisons?...Should Cheney be the direct target of a Congressional investigation?...The PlameGate CIA Leak Resource Center features all the latest breaking news, key legal documents, detailed timelines and more surrounding the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame and the Bush White House effort to discredit Ambassador Joseph Wilson.

Bob Geiger: Editorial cartoon extravaganza!

OFF THE BEATEN PATH: Out of My Head...This Old Broad...earthfamilyalpha...Hightower Lowdown

Don't miss FRIENDS OF GOD: A ROAD TRIP WITH ALEXANDRA PELOSI: A look at evangelical Christians, who have become a formidable social and political force in America

On Thursday, we learned that Rep. Robin Hayes (R-N.C.) articulated a rather unique vision for resolving the crisis in the Middle East. According to an account in a local paper in Hayes' hometown, the lawmaker said:

"Stability in Iraq ultimately depends on spreading the message of Jesus Christ, the message of peace on earth, good will towards men. Everything depends on everyone learning about the birth of the Savior."

It sounded rather Coulter-esque, considering her opinion that the only effective way to respond to Middle Eastern terrorists is to "invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."

Of course, Hayes' comments aren't exactly helpful in winning over "hearts and minds" in the Middle East, so reporters started calling the lawmaker's office yesterday for an explanation.

Apparently, the controversy is our fault.