Yesterday, David Barton told his Wallbuilders’ Live audience that the Obama administration has not prosecuted a single case of child pornography. He said, “there has not been a single prosecution of child pornography under this administration. There were many under previous administrations; this administration just shut it down.”
I also pointed out that Barton has made this claim before. A quick review of the press releases for the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section of the DOJ’s website reveals numerous actions by the Obama administration to prosecute crimes involving children (see 2009, 2010,2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014).
Today, I asked the Justice Department’s Office of Public Affairs for the number of prosecutions during the Obama administration. Spokesman Peter Carr sent the figures for years 2009-2014 . The number of defendants per fiscal year are as follows:
2009 – 2,075
2010 – 2,058
2011 – 2,254
2012 – 2,012
2013 – 2,331
2014 – 2,129
The crimes involved are described by the Justice Department as:
18 U.S.C. § 2251- Sexual Exploitation of Children (Production of child pornography)
18 U.S.C. § 2251A- Selling and Buying of Children
18 U.S.C. § 2252- Certain activities relating to material involving the sexual exploitation of minors (Possession, distribution and receipt of child pornography)
18 U.S.C. § 2252A- certain activities relating to material constituting or containing child pornography
18 U.S.C. § 2260- Production of sexually explicit depictions of a minor for importation into the United States
Mr. Carr didn’t have figures for previous years but I did find this article also citing Mr. Carr in 2007. According to an article in the Washington Post, defendants prosecuted for child porn increased from 594 during President Clinton final year to 1,549 in FY 2006. I wasn’t able to quickly find how many prosecutions took place in 2007 and 2008, but I think the picture is plain enough.
One must try very hard to be as wrong as Barton is here. Barton says the Obama administration hasn’t prosecuted a single case; the Justice department says that nearly 13,000 cases have been prosecuted.
I believe Mr. Barton owes his audience and the hard working law enforcement professionals an apology.
Tag: david Barton
Ted Cruz and Bobby Jindal Headline David Barton's ProFamily Legislative Conference
Ted Cruz and Bobby Jindal will headline David Barton’s ProFamily Legislative Conference in early November. Cruz and Jindal are both running for the GOP’s presidential nomination.
In all seriousness, how can this be a good thing when the person sponsoring the conference can’t get his facts straight? Just in the last two days, Barton has made false claims about gender identity in the military and the Obama administration’s record on prosecution of child porn.
Watch this video to see if your state senator or representative endorses the conference.
[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/134212588[/vimeo]
David Barton Doubles Down on His Gender Identity Nonsense
Before you exclaim, “Not another David Barton post!” I want you to remember that at least two men running for the GOP presidential nomination (Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee) take Mr. Barton seriously and encourage others to do the same.
Recently, David Barton said on a Mission Radio podcast that churches had to hire pedophiles to run their nurseries because you can’t discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. Nearly everything he said about that topic was incorrect.
Now, Right Wing Watch discovered that Barton is telling evangelicals (click the link for the audio) that the military can’t discharge soldiers for bestiality and/or pedophilia.
“There’s 82 official gender identities now and they all have equal status and protection here,” Barton said, “so we’re talking pedophiles. If you’re a military member and you have an inclination for young children, you can’t be kicked out of the military for that anymore because that is your gender identity. If you are into having sex with animals, bestiality, that is one of the 82 gender identities, you cannot be kicked out for your lack of judgment and your very perverse taste on that.”
If Barton protests that he is only talking about inclinations, then he is making things up just to generate unfocused outrage. You never could be kicked out of somewhere for thinking something unknown to anyone but yourself.
The Uniform Code of Military Justice addresses these matters.
Media covering Cruz and Huckabee: When you have some down time and you are not talking about weighty matters like Iran and abortion, ask the candidates about their praise for a pundit who didn’t know that ENDA hasn’t passed yet and thinks that, by law, churches have to hire pedophiles. Oh, and ask them if the Constitution quotes the Bible verbatim. Ask if violent crime in the nation is going up or down. And how about asking if HIV/AIDS research is a pointless effort since God won’t allow an HIV vaccine.
David Barton Says Founders Took Bill of Rights from Genesis. What If They Did?
David Barton has lately started sounding like the Institute on the Constitution. Michael Peroutka tells people that the American view is based on the Declaration of Independence and proves that
“The American View” of government is that there is a God, the God of the Bible, our rights come from Him, and the purpose of civil government is to secure our rights.
Barton promoted those points on Glenn Beck’s show recently and added that the Bill of Rights came from Genesis 1-8. Watch (from Right Wing Watch):
[youtube]https://youtu.be/g8Z8sWQM3ig[/youtube]
At 1:42 into the clip above, Barton said:
And they held that all those came out of Genesis one through eight and that’s what they looked to, Genesis one through eight. They went through and said here’s the rights we see and that’s why governments exist.
I can’t remember ever hearing Barton cite the part of the Declaration in bold letters below:
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
Where do the powers come from? The consent of the governed. If the governed want something other than what Barton thinks the Bible teaches, then would Barton say the Declaration is wrong?
As usual Barton isn’t specific about which founders said what. I have pointed out several times on this blog that Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration, did not point to the Bible as a source for the document. Below is a segment from a previous post which cites Jefferson’s description of the influences on him as he wrote the Declaration:
When Jefferson wrote about the Declaration, he did not credit the Bible or Christianity.
First, to Henry Lee on May 8, 1825, Jefferson wrote:
But with respect to our rights, and the acts of the British government contravening those rights, there was but one opinion on this side of the water. All American whigs thought alike on these subjects. When forced, therefore, to resort to arms for redress an appeal to the tribunal of the world was deemed proper for our justification. This was the object of the Declaration of Independence. Not to find out new principles or new arguments never before thought of, not merely to say things which had never been said before: but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we are compelled to take. Neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular and previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the American mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion. All its authority rests then on the harmonizing sentiments of the day, whether expressed in conversation, in letters, printed essays, or in the elementary books of public right as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney, &c. The historical documents which you mention as in your possession ought all to be found, and I am persuaded you will find to be corroborative of the facts and principles advanced in that Declaration.
Who wrote the “elementary books of public right?” Moses? The Apostle Paul? No, Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney contributed to the “harmonizing sentiments of the day.” A case could be made that some of that harmonizing sentiment derived from religious sources with religious references, but Jefferson did not mention them or appeal to them as primary influences.
In 1823, Jefferson told James Madison (referring to Lee’s theories about the source of the Declaration):
Richard Henry Lee charged it as copied from Locke’s treatise on government. Otis’s pamphlet I never saw, and whether I had gathered my ideas from reading or reflection, I do not know. I know only that I turned to neither book nor pamphlet while writing it. I did not consider it as any part of my charge to invent new ideas altogether, and to offer no sentiment which had ever been expressed before.
According to Jefferson (and in contrast to what the authors of the Founders’ Bible want you to believe), he did not turn to the Bible when writing the Declaration of Independence. Christian historians Mark Noll, Nathan Hatch, and George Marsden got it right when they wrote in 1989:
Here then is the “historical error”: It is historically inaccurate and anachronistic to confuse, and virtually to equate, the thinking of the Declaration of Independence with a biblical world view, or with Reformation thinking, or with the idea of a Christian nation. (p. 130).
I will add that I can’t see how the Bill of Rights can be found in Genesis 1-8.
What If Genesis 1-8 Was the Source of Our Rights?
It did get me wondering what the Bill of Rights would look like if the founders had used Genesis 1-8.
The first amendment probably would not be the same since everybody would have to observe the Sabbath on the same day. Women would be ruled by men (well, that isn’t so far off from the founding era). Burnt offerings would be a right. Murder would not be a capital offense. As with Cain, a murderer would have the right to be banished with protection from retaliation and the ability to marry. Polygamy would be a right. Nephilim-human marriages would be protected.
I just don’t see anything about quartering soldiers, search and seizures, juries, or trials, etc.
During this clip, Beck asked Barton to bring in the Bible and point out where these things are found. I think that is a super idea that will probably never happen.
Historian Thomas Kidd on Why Mike Huckabee Won't Be the Evangelical Darling in 2016
Thomas Kidd nails it at the Washington Post.
Kidd finds several reasons why Huckabee isn’t catching fire among evangelicals. One reason Kidd identifies is Huckabee’s status as a former Fox News host. As an example, Kidd correctly points out Huckabee’s attachment to David Barton.
Fox’s cozy confines allow candidates to get into an insulated mindset, in which they are not used to having to face critical reporters or be accountable for outlandish statements. You knew something was going wrong with Huckabee in 2011 when, at a “Rediscover God in America” conference, he sang the praises of the widely discredited Christian history writer and Republican Party activist David Barton. Huckabee said that he “almost wished” that “all Americans would be forced — forced at gunpoint no less — to listen to every David Barton message.” A year later, a massive outcry led by evangelical and Catholic scholars forced an embarrassed Thomas Nelson Publishers to pull Barton’s book “The Jefferson Lies” from circulation.
Well said.
Note Kidd’s observation that “a massive outcry led by evangelical and Catholic scholars” led to Thomas Nelson’s actions. Barton claimed only four college professors had a problem with it. Hardly. Kidd is correct, Barton is not.
I wasn’t aware of Huckabee’s outrageous statement about Obama leading Jews to the oven door. That alone should end his campaign. Understandably, Jewish groups condemned it.
Go over and read Kidd’s article at the Post.