On a recent appearance on Sean Hannity's radio program, Frank Luntz told the radio talk show host's audience that he was surprised how quickly Newt Gingrich had risen in Republican Party polls over the past few weeks. He pointed out that the former Speaker of the House has an "intellect" and a "vision" and knows how to "change things." Luntz added: "It is almost as if he is the ultimate anti-Obama candidate. Obama is about words, and Gingrich is about ideas."

It is more than interesting that the man who for nearly two decades has helped poison the political debate, consistently using words to deflect and destroy ideas, would make that statement.

After nearly two decades of producing books - most notably, Words that Work: It's Not What You Say it's What People Hear -- and dozens of strategic memos for the GOP, organizing who knows how many focus groups, making countless appearances on Fox News, being named by Time magazine as one of "50 of America's most promising leaders aged 40 and under" (he's older than that now) and named one of the four "Top Research Minds" by Business Week, does Frank Luntz have anything new to say?

Some in the pro-choice community are certainly breathing a deep sigh of relief as Mississippi's Personhood Amendment, which would have defined life as beginning at conception, was soundly defeated on Tuesday, November 8. With nearly 60 percent of the state's voters rejecting Initiative 26, there is no doubt that a celebration is in order.

But, before anyone gets too euphoric about the results of Mississippi's Constitution, it should be noted that sponsors of personhood amendments in Mississippi and other states are vowing to soldier on.

In case you've been on another planet, holed up in an Occupy tent somewhere, or just plain too stubborn to care, Dr. Conrad Murray has been found guilty of manslaughter in the death of Michael Jackson.

And one of the more interesting pieces of information that surfaced during the trial was the role played by Christian conservative billionaire Philip Anschutz, the head of the Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), the company that was chiefly responsible for setting up Jackson's comeback tour.

Over the years, the use of the term 'racial reconciliation' by the Religious Right has never been meant to promote social justice, advance the cause of civil rights or strengthen America's tattered social safety net. Instead, 'racial reconciliation' was incorporated into the agendas of various right wing religious/political organization as a marketing tool; an attempt to recruit African Americans to conservative politics.

As researcher and writer Rachel Tabachnick recently pointed out at Talk To Action, the New Apostolic Reformation's use of Reconciliation ceremonies "are not about pluralism, but about proselytizing - for both charismatic evangelical belief and right wing politics."

During their halcyon days of the late 1990s, the Promise Keepers men's movement made 'racial reconciliation' a focal point. These days, Lou Engle, a prominent player in the New Apostolic Reformation, is using 'racial reconciliation' to promote rallies that TheCall is organizing.

In Quentin Tarantino's film "Pulp Fiction," Harvey Keitel plays Winston Wolf, an underworld problem solver. When two hit men, Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules Winfield (Samuel L. Jackson) accidentally shoot their informant Marvin in the face while driving, "The Wolf" is called in take charge of the situation. Under "The Wolf's" direction, the car is meticulously cleaned, the body is hidden in the trunk, and their bloody clothes are disposed of. "The Wolf" has taken care of everything in a timely manner.

While there's no murder scene to be cleansed, Texas Governor Rick Perry's campaign is shot full of holes. His poll numbers are down, his debate performances have been wretched, his credibility is shot, and his re-birthing of the birther card displayed continued poor judgment. His newly unveiled economic plan is a Forbesian rehash. For Team Perry, his billionaire backers and chums on the religious right, it's time to call in the big guns.

And that's where Joe Allbaugh, who, according to Karen Hughes' book Ten Minutes from Normal dubbed the Texas Bush team of Karl Rove, himself, and Karen Hughes, "the brain, the brawn and the bite," comes in.

During an Occupy LA protest, Patricia McAllister, a substitute teacher with the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), told Reason TV that "the Zionist Jews who are running these big banks and our federal reserve -- which is not run by the federal government -- they need to be run out of this country." In a later interview with Fox11, she said "Jews have been run out of 109 countries throughout history, and we need to run them out of this one."

Whatever else she may be, McAllister, who was not a speaker at the rally and who was subsequently fired by the District for her comments, has become the poster child for the right; proof positive that the Occupy Movement is brimming with anti-Semites.

Are there a significant number of participants in the Occupy Movement engaged in anti-Semitic behavior? Where is the anti-Semitism coming from? How does a "leaderless" movement deal with its outliers?

It has just concluded what it's calling the most successful Values Voter Summit in its history, and is now getting ready to launch a year long Values Voter Bus Tour aimed at influencing both the Republican Party's presidential primaries and the 2012 presidential election.

It is a 12-million dollar a year operation run by a very capable leader who rides the airwaves - the 24/7 cable news networks and conservative talk radio - like a veteran broncobuster. It has outlasted a number of other religious right groups (think Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition), and is outpacing the financially troubled, and once mighty, Focus on the Family.

It is one of the most outspokenly - and outrageously -- anti-gay organizations in the country.

Welcome to the world of Tony Perkins' Family Research Council (FRC), where the definition of family is circumscribed, and the research is suspect.    

It was a fabulous opening weekend for Courageous, the Kendrick brothers' new "action-dramedy" movie. While Dolphin Tale, Brad Pitts' Moneyball, and Lion King 3D battled it out for the top three spots nationally, Courageous and 50/50 were basically tied for fourth and fifth place.

In fact, the Orlando Sentinel's Roger Moore pointed out, the pre-premiere outreach "aimed at churches" paid off. As fandango.com reported, Courageous led in the "pre-sales race" for this past "weekend's new openings," selling more than $2 million in tickets.

And, in Kinston, North Carolina, where the Kendrick brothers' marketing strategy worked like a charm, the Bethel Free Will Baptist Church bought over 1,000 tickets, guaranteeing 5 sell-outs for the film.

"As the nation gears up for the 2012 presidential election," Ari Berman recently wrote in Rolling Stone magazine, "Republican officials have launched an unprecedented, centrally coordinated campaign to suppress the elements of the Democratic vote that elected Barack Obama in 2008."

Amongst the barriers being put forward in Republican-controlled state houses across the country are initiatives making registering to vote a much more difficult and laborious process.

These barriers, however, do not appear to be of particular concern to the folks running United in Purpose, a newly-minted conservative organization that claims to be non-partisan, and which aims to register tens of millions of conservative Christian voters in time for the 2012 elections.

While it's not as big a kerfuffle as Rupert Murdoch's hacking scandal, and doesn't measure up to the hubbub over whether the nude photos of Scarlett Johansson that recently appeared on the Internet are actually Scarlett Johansson, nevertheless there's a political sideshow in development involving Republican Party presidential candidates and their right-wing religious allies.

The essence of the matter is this: A number of conservative writers and political pundits have taken to attacking left-wing investigative reporters, researchers and journalists over their reporting about Dominionism, Christian Reconstructionism and the New Apostolic Reformation - three little-known theological and ideological movements gaining ground on the Christian Right.

The subtext of a recent contribution to this newly minted genre appears to be a not-so-subtle message to Jewish writers, researchers and critics of the Religious Right: "Don't rock the boat."

It didn't last very long and, to be honest, it never was quite as robust as its supporters claimed it was. There was no official obituary, no eulogies rendered, no elegies written, no Requiem Mass held, and no panegyric was delivered on television or to a joint session of Congress. In the end, "compassionate conservatism" passed with a whimper, not a bang.

In the late nineties, and in the early part of this century, "compassionate conservatism" became a bellwether term for conservatives. Some on the right criticized the use of the phrase, arguing that conservatism is by its very nature compassionate and therefore there was no need to put any modifier in front of it. Others - especially those running the presidential campaign of George W. Bush -- saw the phrase as political gold.

"Casting [Gibson] as a director or perhaps as the star of Judah Maccabee is like casting [Bernie] Madoff to be the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, or a white supremacist as trying to portray Martin Luther King Jr.," says Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of Los Angeles's Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum of Tolerance.

Earlier this year, Mel Gibson and Jodie Foster appeared hand in hand on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France. They were attending the premiere of The Beaver, a film directed by Foster, starring both her and Gibson. In the movie Gibson plays a depressed toy manufacturer who, after failing to commit suicide, winds up communicating through a hand puppet. This was supposed to be his return to Hollywood stardom after having spent a few years fending off questions about his sexist, anti-gay, racist and anti-Semitic rants. The Beaver was a box office dud; it cost $21 million to make and it reeled in far less than that, both domestically and internationally.

To get his sinking Mojo back, Gibson is going to have to do better.

So what's a Gibson to do?

If you answered, "Make another biopic featuring a Jew," consider yourself brilliant!