Rick Perry’s Jeremiah Wright: White People Gave Black People Rights; Civil Rights Leaders Deserve No Credit

By stopthemadness aka ABL/Angry Black Lady Chronicles 

When my head stops exploding, I’ll let you know.

Rick Perry is skipping this weekend’s celebration and unveiling of the new MLK memorial in Washington, D.C. (No surprise there.)

Instead, Perry will be heading to Fredericksburg, Texas to attend a “call to action” retreat/fundraiser, where he will hobknob with religious nutbag and self-styled historian David Barton.

From Joy-Ann Reid at The Grio:

Barton was among a group of Texas conservatives who in 2010 sought to revise that state’s textbooks to promote their view that the notion of a constitutional separation of church and state is a myth, and that students should be taught a version of American history that blends theology with themes of a constant clash of civilizations between Christians and Muslims.

According to a Washington Monthly article in January 2010, Barton, the former head of the Texas Republican Party, and Peter Marshall, who the article described as “a Massachusetts-based preacher who has argued that California wildfires and Hurricane Katrina were God’s punishment for tolerating gays,” had even more ideas in mind when they testified before the Texas Education Assembly. Per the Washington Monthly:

Barton and Peter Marshall initially tried to purge the standards of key figures of the civil rights era, such as César Chávez and Thurgood Marshall, though they were forced to back down amid a deafening public uproar. They have since resorted to a more subtle tack; while they concede that people like Martin Luther King Jr. deserve a place in history, they argue that they shouldn’t be given credit for advancing the rights of minorities.

As Barton put it, “Only majorities can expand political rights in America’s constitutional society.” Ergo, any rights people of color have were handed to them by whites–in his view, mostly white Republican men.

(read the rest)

I just watched Joy Reid make an excellent point on Al Sharpton’s show, and that is (in my words): If right-wing nutbags are going to keep pounding the Jeremiah Wright/”Goddamn America!” drum (and you know they will, even though they can’t explain how Barack Obama is simultaneously a secret Muslim and an America-hating Christian), then Democrats need to make sure that Rick Perry is held accountable for the racist and utterly absurd views of his BFF, David Barton.

This is your Republican party, people.

Drink it in.  Let the crazy wash over you.

My head is still exploding.

Bachmann Invites Sean Hannity And Two Radical Tenthers To Teach Lawmakers About The Constitution

By Ian Millhiser Earlier this week, Rep. Michele Bachmann announced her new Tea Party Caucus would host classes on the Constitution for Members of Congress taught by leading right-wingers. Yet, while Bachmann initially floated Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas as possible faculty, she now appears to be setting her sights a whole lot lower:

If tea party darling Michele Bachmann gets her way, conservative broadcaster Sean Hannity, Fox legal analyst Andrew Napolitano and David Barton, a Christian evangelist who has said church-state separation is “a myth,” will make up the faculty roster when the first classes of her new constitutional conservative caucus convene in the next Congress. . . .

“Professor Barton” is a regular lecturer at [Glenn] Beck’s “university.” He has a bachelor’s degree in Christian education from Oral Roberts University and is best known for his conservative group WallBuilders, which teaches that America was founded as a Christian nation.

“Scholars such as David Barton, members of the media who cherish [the founding] principles such as Sean Hannity, honorable commentators such as Judge Napolitano, honorable judges and justices, and leading legal minds will and have been invited to speak,” Brooke Bialke, Bachmann’s deputy chief of staff, said in an e-mail. “Topics ranging from the commerce clause to the intersection of constitutional principles with daily concerns such as Medicare will be covered.”

Of the three “scholars” named, only Napolitano, a former New Jersey judge who hosts “Freedom Watch” on Fox Business News, is a lawyer. Hannity is a college dropout.

Bachmann’s endorsement of Sean Hannity as a constitutional scholar is self-evidently ridiculous, but the sad truth is that Hannity may be the least radical of Bachmann’s three proposed instructors.

Napolitano is Fox News’ in house tenther, and he is a radical even by the tenther movement’s standards. Among other things, Napolitano believes that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a “swindler” who created an unconstitutional program called Social Security. He also believes that the United States Census is unconstitutional, and he even once claimed that “the 17th Amendment is the only part of the Constitution that is unconstitutional.”

Barton is an even bigger crank. Although Barton is best known as one of the right-wing “experts” behind the effort to replace Texas’ textbook standards with conservative propaganda, he is also a leading proponent of tentherism who once claimed that the entire federal highway system is unconstitutional. Barton called for states to place more “controls” on the press. He supported an Iowa gubernatorial candidate who promised to defy the Iowa Supreme Court’s marriage equality decision. And he once advised preachers to violate their tax exempt status, falsely claiming that the Constitution would protect them if they did so.

So it’s clear that Bachmann has no interest whatsoever in teaching lawmakers about what’s actually in the Constitution. Napolitano and Barton are firm believers in the notion that the Constitution means whatever they want it to mean, but they clearly have no genuine expertise on the document. It’s unclear if Bachmann will be able to follow through on her plan, now that she has lost her bid for a spot on the GOP leadership.