[update: for some additional perspective, see my story The Tea Party Plan To Shatter the American Republic, The Far-Right Christian Movement Driving the Debt Default by Deborah Caldwell and my story Ted Cruz Worked With Religious Right Founder Paul Weyrich, To Elect George W. Bush]

"The pastor [Huch] referred to Proverbs 13:22, a little while ago, which says that the wealth of the wicked is stored for the righteous. And it is through the kings, anointed to take dominion, that that transfer of wealth is going to occur." - Rafael Cruz, August 26, 2012

In a sermon last year at an Irving, Texas, megachurch that helped elect Ted Cruz to the United States Senate, Cruz' father Rafael Cruz indicated that his son was among the evangelical Christians who are anointed as "kings" to take control of all sectors of society, an agenda commonly referred to as the "Seven Mountains" mandate, and "bring the spoils of war to the priests", thus helping to bring about a prophesied "great transfer of wealth", from the "wicked" to righteous gentile believers.

On Monday my colleague Simon Brown offered some thoughts on the Religious Right's  Values Voter Summit, which he attended this weekend.

I was there for part of it as well. One thing that struck me was the constant use of the word "tyranny." To supporters of the Religious Right, any attempt to stop them from running the lives of others or expecting them to obey the same laws that the rest of us must follow is tyranny.

In recent years we have seen the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops become not only increasingly political, but increasingly politically aggressive. Led by Conference president, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, many bishops have even joined in common cause with the leaders of the Protestant evangelical Christian Right in ways that would have been unthinkable not long ago.  What's more, the generation of bishops appointed by Popes John Paul II and Benedict, have been aggressive in their enforcement of orthodoxy and shutting down of dissent and of reasoned discussion and debate, especially at church-controlled universities.

The spectacle of Roman Catholic leaders denouncing the 2009 decision of the University of Notre Dame to give president Barack Obama an honorary degree and allowing him to speak, illustrated just how extreme the bishops had become. The president ultimately received his honorary doctorate and was allowed to speak -- but the point had been made.

It was not always like this.   There was a time, for example, when Democratic Governor Mario Cuomo of New York spoke to an audience at Notre Dame -- and ultimately to the nation -- and said:  

The American people need no course in philosophy or political science or church history to know that God should not be made into a celestial party chairman.

This article examines - within the context of the religious right's increasing influence over state-level politics, especially since the 2010 election - racist content in Oregon GOP chairman Arthur B. Robinson's Christian fundamentalist home schooling curriculum, as well as his ties to top leaders in the movement on the theocratic Christian right known as Christian Reconstructionism.

On Saturday August 10, 2013, Oregon biochemist and global warming skeptic-turned Republican politician Art Robinson was elected head of the Oregon Republican Party.

[above: anointing of Ted Cruz & Rand Paul, short version]

In the video, Tea Party potentate Ted Cruz is blessed by pastors who claim the Constitution is based on the Old Testament, appear to endorse biblical slavery, depict gay marriage as a socialist plot against the traditional family, and call for a Christian war on secular society.

A few days ago, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) issued a press release urging members of Congress not to attend the Family Research Council's annual "Values Voter Summit," which kicks off today.

The SPLC noted that the FRC and the American Family Association (AFA), which co-sponsors the Summit, "have long records of vilifying the LGBT community and spreading other forms of bigotry."

Part one

How Ted Cruz helped insert a carved image of a horned-Moses carrying a tablet with Hebrew letters that read "Thou shall commit murder, Thou shall commit adultery, Thou shall steal" into Supreme Court case law

In 1999, Bush for President campaign aide Ted Cruz helped lock down the Christian conservative vote for Bush, by arranging a meeting between his friend Paul Weyrich, a  key architect of the religious right and new right -- who co-founded the Moral Majority, the Heritage Foundation, and ALEC -- and Bush campaign member Timothy Goeglein, who went on to serve in the presidential administration of George W. Bush.

"We are talking about Christianizing America. We are talking about simply spreading the gospel in a political context." -- U.S. Senator Ted Cruz' late friend Paul Weyrich, in a 1980 Dallas speech to fundamentalist ministers. Weyrich is widely credited as one of the top architects of the new right and the religious right.

While a September 8, 2013 Politico story from Stephanie Simon documented U.S. Senator Ted Cruz' ties to pseudo-historian David Barton (one of the more influential national middle-aged leaders on the Christian right), Cruz' ties to the politicized religious right are far more profound than that.

Journalist Mark Ames has an important story -- about the roots of much of modern libertarianism in Holocaust denial -- adding a further disturbing dimension to the neo-confederate movement of our time.

His article appears on nsfwcorp, a magazine that sometimes temporarily drops its pay wall on selected stories to show us what we are all missing. (And if Ames's piece is any indication, those of us who don't subscribe are missing a lot.  At this writing, the story is available for free for another 19 hours.)  

Ames traces the ideology of Charles Koch and his "libertarian empire" (seems like an oxymoron, doesn't it?) to "the rise of the Holocaust denial industry."  Using the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's Holocaust Denial Timeline as a guide, Ames shows how Koch funded and led elements of this industry as a young man, in much the way he underwrote and created the government shutdown industry of today.  Among the notable figures with roots in the Koch-funded Holocaust denial industry are economists Ludwig von Mises and Milton Friedman, as well as Christian theocratic theorist and Ron Paul business partner & political adviser, Gary North.

William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, achieved the seemingly impossible in a recent interview with CNN's Chris Cuomo -- a new low.

Like every other Catholic of any prominence, Donohue was asked about his views on the surprising comments by Pope Francis regarding LGTB Catholics. When the conversation turned to the ongoing priestly pedophilia scandal, he not only failed to embrace the new spirit emanating from the throne of St. Peter -- he continued to attack gay people and as is his wont, he blamed the sex abuses committed by priests on the victims.

The point of this essay is not to unpack the origins of the Tea Party, a co-creation of Ron Paul and the Koch brothers which reorganized and re-energized the activist cadres of the religious right, who dominate the movement, and who swept in to take Congress in 2010.

Rather, my intent is to draw attention to an elaborate plan, hatched by strategists of the religious right, to take advantage of the economic chaos that would likely ensue if the current budget impasse is not resolved by mid-October 2013.

[UPDATE: MRFF researcher Chris Rodda breaks new angle - Pentagon Leaders Met with Collaborator of Preacher who Proposed "Military Takeover" of the Government]

[For embedded video of the evangelist calling for a "military takeover" and "martial law", scroll 1/3 through article. Also, this story concerns one particular stream of heavily political, charismatic Christianity that's coming to dominate the Protestant Religious right and also strongly supports the Tea Party agenda: the New Apostolic Reformation. For some articles on the NAR, see 1, 2, 3 - the first two are from the NPR show "Fresh Air", the third is from the Texas Observer.]

"We estimate that between 28% and 34% of officers and NCOs (non-commissioned officers) in the U.S. military would either back or be extremely sympathetic to Joyner" - Mikey Weinstein, founder and head of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation

Amidst chaos in Washington, while Republicans in Congress are accused of holding the "full faith and credit" of the United States hostage through the current government shutdown, a leader of the newly emerging, reorganized religious right who has ties to prominent Tea Party Republicans has just called for a "military takeover".