Conservatives turned out on Capitol Hill today for a “Code Red Rally” to “kill” health care reform legislation, organized by groups such as the right-wing Americans for Prosperity (AFP). The Tax Day Tea Party website promoted the event by appealing to Americans to make a “sacrifice” right before Christmas and promised plans for a controversial “die-in“:

We call this plan “Government Waiting Rooms”. The intention is to go inside the Senate offices and hallways, and play out the role of patients waiting for treatment in government controlled medical facilities. As the day goes on some of us will pretend to die from our untreated illnesses and collapse on the floor. [...]

We know it’s a sacrifice to do this right before Christmas. But throughout history American Patriots have made far greater sacrifices than this to protect our liberty. Now the burden (and the honor) falls on us.

ThinkProgress attended the rally and the subsequent dispersal to Senate offices, and we observed no die-ins. One activist we spoke with confirmed that the original die-in strategy wasn’t going on, but didn’t seem to know what had happened. However, the events of the day did take up the mantle of co-opting Christmas as the season to “kill the bill.”

At a small gathering this morning in Upper Senate Park, Tea Party activists sang The 12 Days of Christmas, refashioned with lyrics about the problems under President Obama. Later on at a larger gathering organized by AFP, both Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and conservative radio host Laura Ingraham invoked Christmas as a reason to defeat reform. Watch it:

In the morning, there was also a vehicle driving around Capitol Hill with a large “Kill the Bill” sign and a “Merry Christmas” banner (as well as a crossed-out photograph of two men kissing). At the rally, there were several Christmas-themed signs, including one saying that “Obama Claus” was going to “redistribute your presents,” placed next to pictures of Obama as socialist and fascist figures:

AFP staffers were also handing out a list called “The 12 Days of Christmas: Health Care Edition” about what Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) gave the country, including “a doctor shortage” and “what women don’t want” (view a larger image here):

During today’s AFP-sponsored “Code Red” anti-health reform rally on Capitol Hill, one of the speakers — former House Majority Leader and current corporate defender Dick Armey — derided MSNBC host Rachel Maddow. Armey was prepared to introduce Sen. Tom Coburn (whom he bizarrely referred to as “Doc Colbin” a couple of times), but Coburn wasn’t there yet. So instead, he told a story that was a shot at Maddow:

ARMEY: The last time [Coburn] and I were together, I had the amazing opportunity to watch him receive a lecture on health care from a woman named, uh, uh, uh, “Maddox.” A television personality. Who I’m told has a Ph.D. in something that doesn’t matter. Who knew she was qualified to lecture the good physician on health care in America because she had actually gone to a doctor once.

Watch it:

For the record, Maddow is a Rhodes scholar and an Oxford Ph.D. in political science. Her doctoral thesis was titled, “HIV/AIDS and Health Care Reform in British and American Prisons.” (Armey has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Oklahoma.) Armey is apparently referring to a Meet the Press roundtable that he sat on with Maddow and Coburn this past August. During that segment, Maddow took Coburn and Armey to task for condoning the “threats of violence” in the course of the heated health care debate.

Earlier this year, the Rev. Miguel Rivera, chairman of the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders, began encouraging a full-out boycott of the U.S. Census on behalf of the Latino and immigrant community in protest of the failure to enact immigration reform. Rivera’s efforts have been widely perceived as damaging to the Latino and immigrant community he claims to be empowering. In response, the National Association of Latino Elected Officials (NALEO) has started using the Bible to target religious Latinos with a different message: What would Jesus do?

NALEO is handing out posters that illustrate the arrival of Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem. NALEO explains that the Gospel of Luke indicates that the reason Jesus was born in Bethlehem is because Joseph and Mary were fulfilling their civic duty by returning to the town to be counted by the Roman census. A poster printed by NALEO reads: “This is how Jesus was born, Joseph and Mary participated in the Census.” Nick Kimball, spokesman at the Commerce Department (which oversees the Census Bureau), said that the government played no role in creating the posters.

However, Rivera calls NALEO’s new campaign a “blasphemous” “assault against our Christian faith” and accuses the group of violating “the concept of separation of church and state.” Rivera, who has been using his position as an influential religious leader to promote his boycott, seems to be missing the irony. A lot of Rivera’s own critics have quietly accused him of staging a personal publicity stunt at the expense of his own community. Publicly, they have described him as a “misguided figure who could cause the loss of billions of federal dollars to Latino neighborhoods that need it most.” Even Latino pastors have affirmed that “a man of the cloth should not be pushing Latinos to do something that will ultimately hurt their community.”

Whether the poster is in poor taste or not, NALEO is responding to Rivera on his own turf by making an explicit religious appeal. The Pew Hispanic Research Center estimates that one in every six Latinos belongs to an evangelical church. Undocumented immigrants are among the least likely to participate in the Census and the Drum Major Institute warns that their non-participation could lead to inaccurate demographic information and result in costly mistakes in infrastructure, education, health care planning, and representation.