Did You Know Gertrude Stein Nominated Adolf Hitler for a Nobel Prize in 1938? It Gets Worse.

An otherwise extraordinary art exhibit at San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art, is marred by leaving out some salient, but disquieting historical facts, namely: Prior to World War II, Gertrude Stein nominated Adolf Hitler for the Nobel Peace Prize; and, she survived the Nazi occupation of France and the Vichy puppet government thanks to at least one well-known French anti-Semite with close ties to the Vichy and Nazi regimes. Some details are still not clear, but the evidence of de facto tacit "collaboration" is.

The late pastor Kenneth Chaffin wrote  about the religious right and stated some folks cannot tell the difference between the fireman and arsonist.  The common temptation is to blame both sides when there is an argument.  We don't take the time to examine who might have started it or what is at stake.  The simplistic position is to blame both parties.  Those who report on the religious right are often accused of being part of the conflict. The old Rodney King quote is often brought up, "Can't we all just get along?"  

"Perry might never have been governor - nor now be a presidential candidate - but for James Leininger" -- "Rick Perry's Heavenly Host"

These days, the emergence of Texas Governor Rick Perry as the frontrunner for the Republican Party's presidential nomination must be warming the cockles of Dr. James Leininger's heart.  

Who is Dr. James Leininger, and why is he considered one of the Texas Governor's "most stalwart helpmates"?

Outside of Texas, Leininger is a relatively unknown multi-millionaire. Inside the second-largest U.S. state by both size and population, however, Leininger is known as the "Sugar Daddy" of the religious right.

He's been dubbed the "stealth media mogul," labeled "America's greediest executive," by Fortune magazine, and was added to "The 12 Most Powerful Christians in Hollywood" list on Beliefnet. He has also been described as "secretive" and "reclusive," given that he reportedly hasn't spoken on the record to the press since 1974. Nevertheless, he is identified as an active supporter of Christian and conservative causes.

He may not be directly tied to the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), but he appears to be single-handedly accomplishing at least one of the goals of NAR's "Seven Mountains Mandate": taking control of the "mountain" of entertainment.

He's Phillip Anschutz, one of the wealthiest men in America that most Americans have never heard of, and he clearly desires it that way.

It was a little over a month ago that the Norwegian Islamophobic Christian fundamentalist Anders Behring Breivik, wreaked havoc in Norway, killing 77 and injuring many more, and more than seven months since a bomb planted along the route of a march honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was discovered.

After the initial flurry of reportage, analysis, commentary and punditry, for all intents and purposes the Breivik story has disappeared into the ether that is the American mainstream media.

Maybe it is thus because it happened in far off Norway, maybe it is because our attention span is disastrously truncated, maybe it is because - like in so many of these cases -- he has been too easily dismissed as a madman acting alone.

Perhaps, too, the connective tissue between Breivik and homegrown Islamophobes is too hot to handle.

Marvin Olasky, the 'godfather of compassionate conservatism' claims that Gingrich went soft during President Bill Clinton's impeachment hearings in order to save his own hide.

He was once dubbed the "godfather of compassionate conservatism," which, while heavy on the conservatism, wasn't all that compassionate. Now, instead of dropping Norquistian-type bombs on a tattered social safety net that he helped rip to shreds, Marvin Olasky has decided play hardball with Newt Gingrich's presidential ambitions.

In the June 18 edition of World magazine, Olasky added the triple exclamation point to the revolting developments that have surrounded Gingrich's run for the presidency -- by rehashing the story of Gingrich's shrinking role during Bill Clinton's impeachment hearings.

In recent weeks, he's been called "the most visible mouthpiece and muse of the lower-taxes, less-government troops that have played a major role in the debt crisis," an "anti-tax zealot," and "an immensely well-connected player in the conservative establishment, a compatriot of the disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and a magnet for corporate support."

Whatever one might think about Grover G. Norquist, one thing is clear; he has a set of strong core beliefs and he will use every means in his arsenal to achieve them.

While pursuing those beliefs with breakneck speed these days, he recently took some time for post debt-ceiling agreement analysis: "It's a wonderful step in the right direction ... much better than anything we've been doing for the last 20 years." Norquist also said that, "We will never again walk into a budget deal with taxes on the table. Congress will never again raise the debt ceiling without cutting spending by the same amount that the debt ceiling goes up."

If you're planning to attend, or tune in and watch the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, Gangwon Province, South Korea in 2018, be aware that one of the biggest financial beneficiaries of those games will be the Rev. Sun Myung Moon and his Unification Church, although it is fair to say that the Reverend, now 91, may not be around to reel in the profits.

One long-time Moon watcher told me in an email that "Moon doesn't do anything that is not tied to the rest of the plan," and in the case of the 2018 Olympics, it is clear that "all the profits that accrue to Tongil Business [Group] goes to support church activities i.e. support the promotion of Moon in his role as the Messiah."

Last month, I was at a friend's home for lunch and sushi dominated the takeout fare. Not particularly liking sushi, and being the party pooper that I am, I mentioned the fact that the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church was heavily involved in the world sushi market.

"Who," the well-educated younger folks seated around the table wanted to know, "is Rev. Moon?"

For a number of years, Patrick J. Buchanan was considered "The Man" in the conservative movement; he took a back seat to no one. He ran for the GOP's presidential nomination and attracted a large following; he hosted and appeared on several cable news shows, including being one of the original co-hosts of CNN's "Crossfire"; his books have been bestsellers; and, perhaps most famously of all, Buchanan's "Culture War Speech" at the 1992 Republican Party convention both enthralled his followers and chilled a good part of the rest of the nation.

In a recent column about the events in Norway, after a perfunctory condemnation of the bombing and murder spree unleashed by Anders Behring Breivik, Buchanan was classic Buchanan, suggesting that "Breivik may be right."

Christians United for Israel, which claims some 700,000 members, and whose executive director says "represents the soul of the Tea Party," recently concluded its sixth annual summit, which featured a satellite address by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and an energetic and spirited Glenn Beck.

In what can only be considered a disastrous choice of words to sell a message of unwavering support for Israel, Pastor John Hagee, the founder of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), and the head of a multi-million dollar ministry, paraphrased Alabama's segregationist Governor George C. Wallace when he told the assemblage of more than 5,000 at the close of the recent CUFI summit in Washington, D.C. that, "We gathered here with one message. Israel today, Israel tomorrow, and Israel forever."

Friday, July 22 was an unimaginable dark day for the people of Norway. A horrible bombing in Oslo was followed later in the day by a murderous shooting spree at a Labor Party youth camp on the island of Utoya.  All told, the death toll may reach as high as 100. The bombing was an apparent attempt on the life of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg.

Initially, few dared speculate who might be responsible for the attacks, but there is no doubt that many thought it was the work of Al Qaeda or an Al Qaeda-related organization. Apparently, according to Benjamin Doherty writing at The Electronic Intifada, such respected news outlets as BBC, the New York Times, The Guardian and The Washington Post were using information supplied to them by so-called terrorism expert Will McCants, whose posts early on insisted that there very well could be an Islamist connection to the atrocities (http://electronicintifada.net/blog/benjamin-doherty/how-clueless- terrorism-expert-set-media-suspicion-muslims-after-oslo-horror).

As more information rolled in, however, it soon became apparent that the terrorist appeared to be a homegrown right-wing extremist.

If either Texas Governor Rick Perry, an initiator of the upcoming Christian event, "The Response," (and, who has also not yet declared his candidacy), or Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann manages to snare the Republican Party's presidential nomination, it will be in large part because a portion of the Tea Party movement has joined together with the Religious Right to plant themselves firmly upon the conservative movement's three-legged stool, recognizing that the combination of social, economic and national security issues are the way to the White House.