On Thursday, Capitol Hill will be host to pregnant women who will undergo public sonograms, in part a plug for an anti-abortion-rights bill (PDF) recently introduced by presidential contender Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), which would mandate sonograms for women seeking abortions. The ultrasound event, called “Voices From the Womb,” sponsored by the Christian Defense Coalition, is scheduled to take place in the Congressional Auditorium and will feature live ultrasounds on women in their second and third trimesters of pregnancy.

“[F]or the first time in history the ‘voice’ of these children will be loudly heard in our nation’s capital!” reads the campaign website.

On Friday, the House is scheduled to debate on House Resolution 358, or the “Protect Life Act,” according to The Washington Post. HR 358, introduced by Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.) in January, would amend the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) to prohibit federal funds from going toward any health care plan that covers abortion services, in addition to blocking funding from being withheld from institutions opposed to providing abortions.

Star Parker, president and founder of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education (CURE), who has previously made vitriolic statements about abortion and same-sex marriage, was among the many speakers at this weekend’s summit to demand 2012 GOP presidential and congressional candidates promise to try to make abortion illegal in the U.S. Parker followed Bachmann’s address at Value Voters Friday night with a speech that, in part, compared abortion to slavery and the Holocaust.

“And as with slavery, when he turned the history clock on, we saw pictures and we said, ‘What happened? We were founded on such principles. The founding fathers prayed. How did we go 80 years, 600,000 dead later, to answer a simple question.’ That was just unlawful in God’s eyes.  The protection of innocent life, to give that life that liberty and the opportunity to pursue their personal property and happiness. We saw it again in the Holocaust … and we said, ‘How did this happen? … How did the churches that were there just turn their music up and sing a little louder?’ Well, he’s gonna turn the history clock on today. He’s going to turn the history clock on because one day he is going to answer these questions. He’s going to answer the question of abortion, and he’s gonna answer the question of marriage.

He already defined marriage, and God is true and man is the liar.”

Watch Parker speaking at Values Voter Summit:

The three-day Frederick Douglass Foundation ‘s 2011 Leadership Summit, which began Thursday in Washington, D.C., featured a panel Friday hosted by Care Net Vice President Dean Nelson, who told the audience: “It was more likely for a child in slavery to be born in an intact community than it is for the black family today.”

The other panelists -– the Rev. Michael Faulkner, pastor of New York City’s New Horizon Church; Pat Funderburk Ware, president and CEO of PFW Consultants who formerly worked for the Department of Health and Human Service’s Office of Adolescent Health; Bishop Harry Jackson Jr., president of the High Impact Leadership Coalition; and Gerard Henry, former Black Entertainment Television -– agreed that Christianity, abstinence and the preservation of heterosexual marriage should be at the top of the black political agenda.

Bishop Jackson suggested that a policy be created to force a man who impregnates a woman to marry her.

The Rev. Faulkner, Ware and Henry all admitted to having sex before marriage -– before they were “saved.” Ware admitted to having a divorce. And Henry, who argued that people should not even kiss before marriage, said when he was in high school he would “mess with girls in the stairway” before he found Christ.

The panelists were united on the idea that African-Americans have lost the traditional values they harbored before the Civil Rights Movement.

“Desegregation was one of the worst things that happened to African-Americans in this country,” Ware said, who elaborated that African-Americans lost their sense of community and who their leaders were.

“We lost our moral values,” she said. “Back then we didn’t talk about sex because we didn’t have to. If a girl got pregnant in my school, she had to drop out, and the boy who got her pregnant dropped out too, because he had to get a J-O-B.”

At that point, many members of audience nodded in agreement: “That’s right!”

In response to an audience question asking why more people are not outraged about Planned Parenthood wanting to wipe out the black community as has been frequently suggested by anti-abortion rights advocates, Ware said that many pro-abortion rights advocates believe that abortion is a right that should be available to all women. She explained abortion advocates argue that more emphasis should be put on improving the health and well-being of black women and on working to prevent unwanted pregnancy through policy and education.

“Or at least that’s one way to look at it,” Ware said.

Ireland native Pat Fagan, director of the Marriage & Religion Institute — a project of the Family Research Council — gave a presentation preceding the panel discussion, rapidly going through data that he said proves that marriage is the only answer for everything that’s going wrong in African-American communities and in the country as a whole.

He specified that he was referring to marriage between a man and a woman.

“We need to stop calling ourselves a family organization,” said Fagan, speaking at Friday’s panel titled “Pulpits Addressing Promiscuity: The Future of the Black Family and Church.” “Everyone’s for the family: Mao Zedong was for the family; Stalin was for the family; Hitler was for the family. What we’re for is marriage.”

Fagan, who began his professional career as a grade-school teacher before becoming a clinical psychologist, breezed through a PowerPoint presentation with graphs and charts taken largely from Adolescent Health Surveys and American Community Surveys showing that children who come from “intact” homes have higher GPAs and are less likely to go to jail or wind up in poverty than children who come from “broken” homes. He referred to children of divorce as products of “rejection.”

“The feminists have it totally wrong,” Fagan said. “A patriarchal family is the safest place for women and children. … Social policy has been a total failure; the government is going after things it can’t deliver.”

Fagan ended his presentation with a cautionary note: “What the Civil Rights Movement did was fantastic, but the breakdown of marriage is wiping out all of the gains. … If African-Americans can learn to rebuild marriage, they can become the elite leaders of the U.S. and lead us out of this crisis. Then the descendants of slavery will become the cultural leaders of this great society.”

“What I’m believing is, I think, the truth of where we are in the country,” Bachmann said.

Bachmann, who is openly mulling a run for the Republican presidential nomination, continually discussed her doubts that the U.S. would continue as a great nation under the policies of the current government.

Bachmann spoke before a crowd of around 150 at the downtown Des Moines Marriott Hotel, and often quoted Abraham Lincoln and discussed her family’s history and US history.

She said the underlying struggle of America 150 years ago during the Civil War was the issue of slavery and the question of whether all men are created equal. Bachmann described how Americans killed other Americans during the Civil War.

“Fortunately today we don’t face the prospect of an armed violent civil war, but instead we face the question of whether our nation will live to the latest generation is equally great. It’s an underlying issue in the struggle of our time is a slavery of a different kind,” Bachmann said to the crowd, before predicting her slavery comments would be misconstrued by the media.

“Because it is a slavery. It is a slavery that is a bondage to debt and a bondage to decline,” Bachmann went on. “That’s what that slavery entails. It’s the subservience of a sovereign people — we are a sovereign people — to a failed self selected elite. That would be our fate.”

She repeatedly asked the crowd whether the next generation will see a standard of living as high as as the current generations enjoy.

“My faith is with you, the ordinary Iowa citizens,” Bachmann said. “Because for my money, I take ordinary any day of the week over the self-anointed elite.”

Bachmann said the spirit of 1776 woke up for the the 2010 elections.

“You saw what happened right here in Iowa — winning your governor’s seat, winning your Iowa House back, ousting three Supreme Court justices,” Bachmann proclaimed to massive applause from the room. “And don’t think for a moment a lot of justices around this country can’t feel the hot seat now in their own seat because of what Iowa did.”

She chastized the bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler, as well the large financial institutions, eventually criticizing the reform of the federally subsidized student loan program by falsely claiming the “government completely runs the student loan industry.”

The student loan reform involved the ending of insuring loans made by private banks and instead increasing the loans the government delivers through its direct loan programs. Banks and credit unions still run private student loan programs the same as before. The Congressional Budget Office says student loan reform will save $62 billion over the next decade.

“We saw the passage of socialized medicine,” Bachmann said, later adding it’s “stunning what has occurred in just two years time.”

After her speech, Bachmann was asked by The Iowa Independent to elaborate how health care reform legislation was “socialized medicine,” given the legislation included no government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers.

“Ultimately the way the program is built, we’ll see a collapse of the private insurance industry,” Bachmann responded. “That’s very important to the Des Moines area because this is a Mecca of insurance industries.”

Indeed, Des Moines does play host to many insurance companies, and is ranked as one of the top insurance centers in the world along with Hartford, Conn. and London, England.

Contrary to her claim, however, more people will get private health coverage thanks to the Democratic reforms. The law sets up “exchanges” where private insurers will compete to provide coverage to people who don’t have it. The law also gives tax credits to people who have difficulty affording insurance, an approach that relies on a free market, not socialized medicine.

But she went on in her response to claim health insurance costs are already rising because of the Affordable Care Act.

Larry Levitt, vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, told Minnesota Public Radio that claim is a stretch. Levitt said there have been reports recently of insurers raising premiums significantly, but that’s due to the increase in the cost of health care and the effects of the economic downturn.

Bachmann predicted health care reform, along with the nation’s debt, will remain signifficant issues in 2012, as they were in 2010.

“If we want to kill ‘Obamacare,’ if we want to end socialized medicine it must be done in the next election,” Bachmann said. “It will be our charge to repeal Obama [and to] repeal a very liberal Senate.”

Bachmann also noted the debt under Obama’s tenure is more than the accumulated debt of all 43 previous presidencies.

The truth on that statement is complicated. When U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said Obama’s budget would add more to the debt than the outstanding debt of all previous presidents, the Pulitzer-Prize winning website PolitiFact rated it true. However, when Republican state Sen. Chip Rogers of Georgia said the U.S. had accumulated more debt since Obama took office than the total amount of debt accumulated during the first 200 years of the United States existence, it was given a “barely true” rating.

PolitiFact clarified the difference being whether one focused on publicly held debt instead of spending and not limiting the timeline to two years from Obama taking office.

Despite any accuracy of her statements, the crowd was largely impressed with the Minnesota Republican.

Ed Failor Jr., president of Iowans for Tax Relief, said Bachmann had a track record of putting people first, calling her the kind of leader the country needs.

“I’m certain there’s a new breath out there of fresh air that is lead by someone like Congresswoman Bachmann,” Failor said.

Ankeny resident Judy McBee said she liked what she heard in Bachmann’s speech and was familiar with Bachmann before the event.

McBee said what she’s heard before about the Congresswoman depended on the source, as McBee felt the national television media would make her seem extreme or a “big mouth.” She admitted sometimes it can get her riled up to get behind politicians like Bachmann when it seemed the media was attacking her.

“We can pretty well recognize who we’re in agreement with and so we will probably support anyway,” McBee said. “But yeah, you might feel more determined, but we kind of do that anyway to those we’re in agreement with.”

“I don’t believe for one second that he intends to insult anyone,” says Stark. “I don’t think he sees the racism (or paternalism) in what he’s saying.” I agree. Franks has been a huge proponent of this argument, going so far as to show the documentary “Mafaa 21: Black Genocide in 21st Century America” to his House colleagues. That film argues, as some black conservatives argue, that legal abortion came about as a plot by white eugenicists to destroy black America. So that’s where Franks is coming from.

“If President Obama had any courage he would demand Reid step down as Senate Majority Leader, and discontinue any support for his Senate reelection,” says West. “Notice I said ‘if.’ I am quite sure the Soros money which elevated Obama to the position of President has bought his servitude.”

Read the whole statement, and remember: West is one of the NRCC’s supported candidates, and a video of him talking about his  beliefs has, under-the-radar, gotten well over a million YouTube views. His appeal to the conservative base is reminiscent of the appeal someone like Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) has to liberals — fiery rhetoric, with the promise of more if he gets to Congress. If West was in Congress today, there’s no doubt he’d be drawing media attention for comments like these.

Greetings,

The revelation of Senator Harry Reid’s comments referencing “negro talk” is just indicative of the true sentiment elitist liberals, and indeed the Democratic party, have toward black Americans. The history of the Democrat party is one of slavery, secession, segregation, and now socialism. It is this new aged socialism born from the Johnson Great Society programs that have castigated blacks as victims needing government dependency. One need only to look upon the city of Detroit to ascertain what liberal social welfare policies have produced for the inner city… the new plantation for black Americans.

The Ku Klux Klan was birthed by the Democrats as a terrorist wing to intimidate blacks, and whites, who sought to promote economic and education independence and social justice for blacks. What was once overt has just morphed and become covert, yet still exists.

One can only imagine the insanity and media outrage if Reid’s quote had come from a member of the Republican party. I look forward to hearing from Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton on Reid’s comments… or has liberal hush money paid for the silence of these proprietors of poverty and victimization theory. Actually, if President Obama had any courage he would demand Reid step down as Senate Majority Leader, and discontinue any support for his Senate reelection… notice I said “if”. I am quite sure the Soros money which elevated Obama to the position of President has bought his servitude.

Why am I running for US Congress as a Republican? Simple. I would rather stand proudly and be called “an Uncle Tom and a sellout” than lose my self-esteem and be considered an inferior by liberals. I understand the legacy of the GOP and the black community… not the revisionist history espoused by liberal educators. I am not, shall never be, and will not raise my daughters to be a part of the liberal 21st century plantation. I am not just some articulate, clean, well spoken negro. I am an American warrior, Congressional candidate, and shall never submit to the collective progressive ideal of inferiority.

Senator Harry Reid’s comments are disgusting, despicable, and unacceptable. They are representative of how intellectual elite liberals do indeed speak of black Americans in their closed private spaces. Next week I have been invited to NYC to address the Hudson Institute, a conservative organization, conference on “Reclaiming American Liberty”. That invite came to me because I took advantage of the opportunities this great Republic offered. I followed the guidance of my parents and set my standards above all others around me. I speak well and have impeccable communicative skills because my Father and Mother prioritized that quality.

I shiver to think what my future could have been if I listened to the insidious rhetoric of charlatans such as Harry Reid, and the ambassadors of affirmative action who reside in the Congressional Black Caucus.

Sure, the “stuck on stupid” blacks are going to address me in derogatory names, but I possess something which they lack; Honor, Integrity, and Character. To them I say, continue to be slaves to the liberals for your vote… and in a year you will be calling me Congressman West.

Steadfast and Loyal,
LTC(R) Allen B West

After the ResistNet listerv promoted “Liberty Concerts” to be held by TeaParty.org, a source passed on this photo of Robertson, after the jump.

Update: Josh Parker of the Houston Tea Party Society tells me that Robertson was booted out of the event for this sign.

Houston Tea Party

I emailed Robertson’s group for comment, but haven’t heard back yet. Here’s the email that was sent from ResistNet to members of its list.

Tea Party Taking The Next Step

“We are setting the tone for taking back America with Liberty Concerts. We are not waiting until the first quarter of the year, we have already begun.” Dale Robertson, President and Founder of the Tea Party – TeaParty.org

‘Liberty Concerts’ is a venue designed to be the key to create a model for our Nation to Take Back America. The Tea Party does not intend to waste their time simply rallying. The Plan is to optimize the events, they will be fun and Citizens will be asked to run for office, with the focus of Restoring America, and thus, putting it on the Conservative track.

The goal is to shift attendees from being merely a presence at a rally, into involved Patriots recognizing the need to be engaged in the process of Self-Governance.

The Tea Party is gearing up for action. Robertson has a developing strategy to bring the Republic back under the control of ‘We The People.’ He is asking for thousands of Patriots across America, to run for office.

Robertson stated: “Even though the likelihood of their success is diminished by the lack of experience or financial support; the knowledge will be invaluable for the next election cycle and a point of pride for the American People.”

The Tea Party’s number one imperative, is to have candidates on the ballot. The second priority is to get out the vote, especially in Texas where Robertson lives and the home of over 800,000 members of the Tea Party……….

Robertson is molding the Tea Party events to empower Citizens so they will make a difference in the November 2010 elections. The ongoing tactics are to prioritize States, creating a durable model for ballot access, voter eligibility, precinct chair/county chairs, and candidate awareness. The Tea Party is actively seeking candidates that represent Conservative Constitutional Values. It appears the Major Parties can’t get in step with such a complex idea as Conservative Constitutional Values; therefore, the Tea Party will make it easy for the Independent Parties to break the glass ceiling and get on the ballot.

The ‘Liberty Concerts’ event taking place in Stafford, Texas is a developing prototype, which when successful, will allow the Tea Party to create a thriving event not in months but days. We will be quick on the draw, sure fired and ready to rock in a matter of only a few days. This Tea Party formula will work against incredible odds and will be nothing short of a miracle, but Robertson believes with all his heart all the pieces will fall into place.

Does the Tea Party really believe it can make a difference in November? “Some say, “talk is cheap” but 2 years ago when I started the modern day Tea Party no one believed it could work now 7 million strong, the world is listening and America is hoping, we will not fail.” Dale Robertson – TeaParty.org

When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said ‘slow down, it’s too early, things aren’t bad enough.

Today, the Republican National Committee sent out an email memo on its health care polling, and RNC Chairman Michael Steele spun Reid’s comments like this:

On the say anything front — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid made it clear this week that any American who opposes Trillion dollar legislation that raises taxes, cuts Medicare, and increases your health care premiums – is a racist.

That’s quite an interpretation of Reid’s remark.

“They’ve made it really clear that the president right now is not supportive of a public commission of inquiry,” Killmer said in a phone conversation this morning.

Killmer has had better luck in Congress, where at least some Representatives support creating a House Select Committee to investigate torture. Although that would be more political than an independent commission, he said, at least it’s something. “There are a significant number of members of the House who know this isn’t done,” says Killmer, whose group has had more than 60 meetings with House members on the issue since June.

The religious campaign has made some headway on related issues, working with Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.), chair of the House Select Intelligence Oversight panel, to convince Congress to pass a bill that would require the taping of all interrogations of detainees in U.S. military custody. The House passed the bill last week as part of the 2010 Defense Authorization Act. It could be voted on by the full Congress next week.”Our constituents understand the need for videotaping interrogations,” says Kilmer, “and the videotapes have to be protected so they’re an ongoing part of our history. It’s one way of making sure it doesn’t happen again.”

The religious groups also hope to achieve a codification of the terms of President Obama’s executive order mandating that all interrogations follow the rules of the Army Field Manual, and that the U.S. basically follows the “Golden Rule” when it comes to interrogations: we don’t do to others what we wouldn’t want them to do to our soldiers.

Still, Killmer said, codifying this for the future isn’t enough. After all, we had a Convention Against Torture and that still didn’t stop the U.S. government from torturing people.

In addition to a commission that would expose everything that happened and why, Killmer and other religious leaders are exploring the possibility of asking the government for an apology.”I think it’s extremely important,” says Killmer. Other countries have taken that step, such as Canada, which apologized — and paid $10 million – to Canadian citizen Maher Arar who, with the help of bad intelligence from Canada, was sent by U.S. authorities to Syria for interrogation under torture.

“This was wrong behavior,” says Killmer of the entire U.S. “enhanced interrogation” practice. And an apology “would help grow the moral consensus that torture is wrong,” he says, something he assumed existed before 2001, but now isn’t sure.

“Dick Cheney gets more credence than I would have imagined,” says Killmer. “The American people are still wrestling with this stuff.”

Killmer and his colleagues were dismayed when a Pew Research Center poll last spring found that a majority of Catholics and even evangelicals believe that torture is sometimes necessary. “That says we have a lot to do,” says Killmer. His group has put together this short interfaith video on U.S.-sponsored torture which they plan to show at churches, synagogues and mosques across the country, in part to explain that yes, torture really is a violation of all the dominant religions in the United States, and to encourage believers to join the anti-torture campaign.

Whether religious support is ever going to be strong enough to get that official apology is another matter. Although the U.S. has apologized for some things in the past — the Japanese internment during WWII, and slavery — in both cases, it came many decades after the deed. Killmer is cautiously hopeful: “It would be terrific if this could happen much more quickly.”

The Senate has unanimously passed a resolution apologizing for slavery and racial segregation and sent the measure to the House.

Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin first introduced the measure years ago but wanted it passed Thursday on the eve of Juneteenth – a day of celebration commemorating the end of the Civil War and the release of African Americans from slavery. He said the House is to take it up soon and that a formal celebration will be held next month in the Capitol Rotunda.

I guess that when compared to the four centuries that passed before the Roman Catholic Church saw fit to apologize for the persecution of Galileo, today’s resolution — just 144 years after the end of slavery in the United States — seems downright expeditious.

“The ethical heirs of slavery are the child-killers and their proponents here today,” Terry said, and anti-abortion activists will succeed if they follow the same strategy pursued by abolitionists after Nat Turner’s Rebellion.

At this moment in time the abolitionists did not blink.  They did not blink.  They said, “Slavery is kidnapping. It is a crime against God and man.”  They said, “It is an abomination.”  They said the slave owners were kidnappers and man-stealers.  They railed against the slave power.  They railed against the politicians of the deep south and in the U.S. Congress that sustained slavery.  They did not flinch. And if we in the pro-life movement are going to prevail, we have got to take the lesson of the abolitionists.

Before the event was over, Terry managed to plug his book, CD, upcoming TV show and training sessions, to be held this weekend in Arlington, Va., to teach “a new generation of heroes to bring child-killing to an end.”