project blitz
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">blank 7/18 see barton</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> =</font></p><p><a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2019/08/23/convention-states-fires-up-base-for-push-to-rewrite-u-s-constitution"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2019/08/23/convention-states-fires-up-base-for-push-to-rewrite-u-s-constitution</font></a></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">david a cmd</font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Convention of States Action (COS) kicked off its first “<a href="https://www.cosleadershipsummit.com/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Leadership Summit</a>” in Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia today. <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Convention_of_States_Action" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">COS</a>, a project of Mark Meckler and Eric O’Keefe’s Citizens for <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Citizens_for_Self-Governance" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Self-Governance</a>,</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> claims that “hundreds” of activists, state directors, and coordinators from all 50 states will attend to get inspired and learn strategies for passing COS resolutions in the states calling for a constitutional convention to rewrite the U.S. Constitution.</span></font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fifteen states have passed the group’s applications so far, with 17 more states considering the resolution this year, according to COS. Wisconsin recently introduced a COS <a href="https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2019/related/proposals/ajr77" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">resolution</a>, which would bump the number up to 18.</font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A constitutional convention has never been held since the Constitution was adopted, and COS will need 34 states to file applications in order for it to occur. If that happens, COS plans to move an array of sweeping amendments to redefine key parts of the Constitution and radically weaken the federal government.</font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>COS has ties to the <a href="https://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">American Legislative Exchange Council</a> (ALEC), the National Rifle Association, the right-wing militia group Three Percenters, and the Christian nationalist group <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/WallBuilders" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">WallBuilders</a>.</b></font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">More than 200 civil rights and public interest groups, including the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), signed a <a href="https://www.commoncause.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/ConCon-Opposition-Letter-Feb-2018.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">letter</a> last year denouncing such constitutional convention calls as “a threat to every American’s constitutional rights and civil liberties.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">”</span></font></p><h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Right-Wing Extremists to Speak</font></h2><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Fox News anchor</span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Pete </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Hegseth, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">from Trump’s beloved Fox & Friends, </span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">addressed the crowd this morning, telling them that the Left hates the Constitution, the founding fathers understood that the word of “Jesus Christ our savior” is the guiding force for our country, and that there “is no other freedom-loving bastion in the world that values the individual with God-endowed rights.”</span></font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">And,</font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> referencing the Three Percenters likely in attendance, </font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Hegseth said, “it has always been the one percent or two percent or three percent of people that get it, that are willing to buck the comfiness of their moment and the established norms that everyone is comfortable with, willing to be defiant, willing to stand — be accused of being radical about things that are not radical at all.”</font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Recently, Hegseth has made some radical comments himself, saying that Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (MI-D) has a “<a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-news-host-pete-hegseth-accuses-rep-rashida-tlaib-of-having-a-hamas-agenda" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Hamas agenda</a>,” implying that she works with a U.S. designated terrorist organization.</font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hegseth has also <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/pete-hegseth/foxs-pete-hegseth-defends-blackwater-contractors-convicted-murdering-iraqi-civilians" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">publicly defended</a> Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’s brother Erik Prince’s Blackwater contractors, who were convicted of murdering Iraqi citizens, and <a href="https://www.salon.com/2019/08/13/fox-friends-co-host-climate-change-is-a-religion-that-allows-democrats-to-control-people/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">has called</a> climate change a “religion” that Democrats use to “control” people.</font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>David Barton</b> warmed up the crowd with a history lecture on the Constitution’s basis in fixed moral standards based on natural law and scripture, and drew applause with his claim that the federal government has “emasculated the states.”</font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A Christian nationalist with strong anti-LGBT views. Barton once <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/david-barton" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">said</a>,</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 40px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“There’s a passage that I love in Romans 1. … [I]t talks about homosexuality and it says that they will receive in their bodies the penalties of their behavior. … The Bible [is] right every time … and that’s why AIDS has been something they haven’t discovered a cure for or a vaccine for. … And that goes to what God says, ‘Hey you’re going to bear in your body the consequences of this homosexual behavior.'”</font></p></blockquote><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Barton founded the group <b>WallBuilders,</b> which has worked with <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Focus_on_the_Family" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Focus on the Family</a> and the <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Family_Policy_Alliance" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Family Policy Alliance</a> to influence judicial elections and selection rules in states across the country, the Center for Media and Democracy <a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Conquering_the_courts_report-FINAL-WEB05-10-18.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">detailed</a>.</font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">WallBuilders also works with the Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation to push out Christian-Right model legislation in the mold of ALEC to state lawmakers under the name <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Project_Blitz" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Project Blitz</a>.</font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Also in line to speak at the Summit is one of the NRA’s top attorneys, Charles Cooper</b>. Cooper will speak on, “The Real Threat to Gun Rights.” In an email to COS activists, Cooper is quoted as saying:</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 40px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The real threat to our constitutional rights today is posed not by an Article V Convention of States, but by an out-of-control federal government, exercising powers that it does not have and abusing powers that it does.”</font></p></blockquote><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">COS materials in recent years have argued that a constitutional convention could be used to rewrite the Second Amendment in order to make it Supreme-Court-proof.</font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Others on the agenda to speak include founding board member <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Eric_O%27Keefe" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Eric O’Keefe</a>, former professor <a href="https://missoulian.com/news/local/former-um-law-professor-natelson-denied-emeritus-status-by-faculty/article_8e69e26c-97cb-11e0-9613-001cc4c002e0.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Rob Natelson</a>, former U.S. Senator and COS Senior Advisor Tom Coburn, and the right-wing author of Liberty Amendments Mark Levin.</font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But the stars of the summit are likely to be the actors COS will have play the founding fathers Patrick Henry, James Madison, and George Washington.</font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stay tuned to <a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">ExposedbyCMD.org</a> for more on the right-wing’s effort to rewrite the Constitution.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/here-are-5-craziest-christian-fundamentalist-sects-cults-or-movements-feel-0"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/here-are-5-craziest-christian-fundamentalist-sects-cults-or-movements-feel-0</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">5 of the Craziest Christian Fundamentalist Sects, Cults or Movements That Feel Empowered in the Trump Era</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Extremist groups are coming out of the woodwork.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Alex Henderson / AlterNet July 19, 2018, 8:30 AM GMT</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Evangelist Frank Amedia, leader of POTUS Shield</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Photo Credit: The Jim Bakker Show</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">President Donald Trump—despite his alleged sexual activity with porn star Stormy Daniels, two divorces, lack of Biblical knowledge and a reputation for having a very foul mouth at times—has, ironically, become an icon of the Christian Right in the United States. His predecessor at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Barack Obama, actually has a long history of going to church and clearly possesses a greater knowledge of the Bible. Regardless, the Christian Right considers Obama an enemy and Trump a staunch ally—and with Trump in office, extremist groups are coming out of the woodwork more and more.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Here are some of the craziest far-right sects, organizations or Christian fundamentalist movements that are feeling empowered in the Trump era.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1. POTUS Shield</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Led by television evangelist Frank Amedia, POTUS Shield is a new organization of far-right Christian fundamentalists that describes itself as “warriors, worshippers and watchmen”—and the one they are watching out for, through prayer, is Trump (POTUS stands for “President of the United States). Amedia insists that before Trump’s inauguration, God paid him a visit in the middle of the night and asked him to help form a protective shield of prayer around Trump—who the group believes was sent by God to promote a Christian fundamentalist takeover of government. Others active in POTUS Shield include Jerry Boykin, executive vice president of the Family Research Council, and Lou Engle (known for his large anti-abortion, anti-gay and pro-Republican prayer rallies).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2. People of Praise</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement from the U.S. Supreme Court, one of the people on Trump’s “short list” of possible nominees for a replacement was Amy Coney Barrett—a 46-year-old federal appellate judge who, the New York Times reported in 2017, was involved in a group called People of Praise (Brett Kavanaugh, not Barrett, eventually received Trump’s nomination). And given People of Praise’s beliefs, Barrett shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the High Court.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">People of Praise is a predominantly Catholic group, although it has some non-Catholic members and incorporates Pentecostal practices (speaking in tongues, for example). Considered a cult within mainstream Catholicism, People of Praise require members to swear an oath of loyalty to the group and teach that while women can have some leadership positions, they must ultimately submit to male authority. In the past, People of Praise used the terms “handmaid” and “handmaiden” to describe women—which is downright chilling if one is familiar with Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel “The Handmaid’s Tale” or the 1990 film and 2017/2018 television that were based on the book. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3. Quiverfull</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Christian Right’s hatred of reproductive freedom goes way beyond its opposition to abortion; some fundamentalists are equally opposed to all forms of contraception. And this anti-contraception ideology is exemplified by the looney Quiverfull movement. Quiverfull is a not a sect or denomination per se, but a movement within fundamentalist Protestant Christianity—and those who embrace it could be anything from Pentecostal to Calvinist. Quiverfull ideology asserts that it is a sin for Christian couples to do anything that might prevent a pregnancy; therefore, birth control pills and IUDs for women or condoms and vasectomies for men are considered tools of the Devil. And according to Quiverfull, Christian wives must have as many babies as possible while remaining totally submissive to their husbands. Other Quiverfull rules: wives cannot have their own bank accounts or e-mail addresses without their husbands’ permission, and they must always be sexually available to their husbands whether they’re in the mood for sex or not. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>4. Project Blitz</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Project Blitz </b>is not a Christian fundamentalist church or sect, but rather, a coalition of Christian fundamentalist activists with a political agenda: to make sure that state legislatures are flooded with as many theocratic bills as possible. Working with Republicans who are sympathetic to their dominionist views—anti gay, anti-abortion, anti-contraception—Project Blitz believes that it is important for bills to be introduced regardless of how far they get. The more bills that are introduced, Project Blitz believes, the more likely they are to achieve some home runs eventually. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>5. WallBuilders </b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In Texas, David Barton</b> has been very active in both Republican politics and far-right fundamentalist Christianity. In addition to being a former vice chairman of the Texas Republican Party and serving as director of <b>Keep the Promise PAC—a political action committee that supported Sen. Ted Cruz’ </b>presidential campaign in 2016—Barton founded WallBuilders, which has taught through books and videos that the<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> separation of church and state is not constitutional and that the government should be run according to strict Biblical law. And Barton has been active in the Providence Foundation, another group with dominionist views.</span></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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