Yesterday, a Maine tea party blog posted some handy advice for activists coming to Washington Saturday to attend Fox News host Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally. Among warnings about how to deal with “African immigrants” — do not “assume they are African Americans” and “especially do not…guess they are from a neighboring country” — the guide advised rally-goers to stay out of the vast majority of the city, and cautioned which portions of Metrorail system are safe. While the entire Green and Yellow lines are off limits, the guide allowed for travel on the Blue and Orange lines, as long as attendees do not stray West of the Eastern Market stop. As for areas outside this tiny safety zone: “you should not explore them.”

Unfortunately, the only official parking location for group buses is two stops beyond the last safe stop on the Blue and Orange line at RFK stadium, deep in the forbidden zone:

Buses will not be permitted to drop anywhere near the Lincoln Memorial.[...]

Bus parking is available at RFK Stadium for groups. RFK Stadium is adjacent to the Stadium Armory Metro Rail station on the Orange & Blue Rail lines. Walking distance from the bus parking area to this Metro is approximately 0.7 miles. The RFK Stadium Armory station connects to the Smithsonian Metro Rail Station, approximately 1 mile from the Lincoln Memorial event site.

DCist created a map illustrating the guide’s recommendations, which ThinkProgress has modified to demonstrate the danger facing the rally’s attendees when they unload from their buses to find themselves far in the unsafe zone:

Earlier today, the Huffington Post’s Amanda Terkel reported that Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele “distanced the Republican Party from SB-1070″ in an interview with Univision. Steele attempted to reassure Latino viewers that Arizona’s new immigration law is not “a reflection of an entire country, nor is it a reflection of an entire political party.” Wonk Room observed that, over the past week, at least two other Republicans have appeared on Spanish-language television echoing Steele’s remarks: Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) and Florida senatorial candidate Marco Rubio (R).

Watch this week’s Spanish-language interviews:

Despite shying away from it in English-language press a couple weeks ago, Rubio took to the Spanish-language airwaves to unambiguously affirm that he does not support gubernatorial candidate Bill McCollum’s (R-FL) efforts to bring SB-1070 to the state of Florida. Diaz-Balart also frowned on McCollum’s Arizona copycat bill in an interview with Al Punto’s Jorge Ramos. However, Diaz-Balart insisted that such efforts have “bipartisan support.” More specifically, Diaz-Balart stated outright that Sink has said she is in favor of SB-1070 and, that as governor, she and McCollum would be pretty similar on the issue. However, Wonk Room could only find evidence that suggests otherwise.

This Saturday in Washington, DC, Fox News host Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally will take place at the Lincoln Memorial on the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech. Beck has claimed that the rally — meant “to recognize our First Amendment rights and honor the service members who fight to protect those freedoms” — is “going to be one for the history books” and will be “a turning point in America.”

Beck has been a fervent supporter of the Tea Party, having previously promoted its events and rallies and even provided a forum for various Tea Party factions to work out their differences. While many local Tea Party chapters are helping to turn out attendees for the rally, some Tea Party leaders aren’t interested in helping Beck:

At least one tea party group rejected Beck’s entreaties to assist with the march, concluding he was offering little in return for its organizational know-how and credibility, while giving preferential treatment to FreedomWorks, which is paying to sponsor Beck’s radio show. The group’s leader, who requested anonymity to avoid antagonizing Beck, said, “All he’s doing is trying to use us to promote himself.” [...]

“I call it ‘Beckaplooza,’ because it seems to be all about Beck,” said Andrew Ian Dodge, the Maine state coordinator for Tea Party Patriots, a coalition of local groups that has helped stage several big rallies. … [W]hen the Patriots were deciding whether to help with Saturday’s rally, Dodge said there was internal queasiness over the M.L.K. link and Beck’s inflammatory rhetoric, including his blasting of Obama as a racist. … “Beck takes it outside of the realm of fiscal conservatism into issues that are more emotional and make you wonder if we really want to be associated with this guy,” [Dodge said].

RedState.com’s Erick Erickson said Beck is going to have to “be careful” or his gimmicks are “going to start becoming a punchline.”

Fox executive Bill Shine told Politico that “there is no organized promotion planned for the rally on Fox News and the network has nothing to do with it.” But as Media Matters notes, Fox has in fact been the “unofficial corporate sponsor” of Beck’s event. Perhaps that’s why Beck is expecting such a high turnout, recently suggesting that it will be similar in size to President Obama’s inauguration. “This will be a thing that your children will remember,” he has said. “I expect a miracle on 8/28.” Organizers are anticipating 300,000 participants. The country anxiously awaits.

Yesterday, Judge Royce Lamberth, a Reagan-appointed trial judge in DC, suspended all federal funding for embryonic stem cell (ESC) research — a decision which limits such research in a way that even President George W. Bush found untenable. But yesterday’s decision did not occur in a vacuum. It is the product of many right-wing activists working very, very hard for a very long time.

Indeed, as Michael Tomasky explains in the Guardian, the road to yesterday’s deeply radical decision was paved by Bush-era fights over the judiciary:

This case was not only about the new NIH guidelines, but about the legal standing of the plaintiffs, who were representatives of conservative Christian advocacy groups and research agencies that opposed the Obama NIH proposals. The plaintiff Alliance Defense Fund has a history of anti-gay activism. The group’s standing to sue was in question. In fact, on a previous occasion, Lamberth tossed the suit, arguing that the plaintiffs lacked standing.

That was appealed, and the question of standing was returned to a three-judge panel on the DC Circuit. This is the most important federal circuit court in the country. On June 25, a three-judge panel overturned Lamberth’s earlier decision and ruled that the plaintiffs did have standing. . . .  Now, here’s the question. Who sat on this three-judge panel? They were: Janice Rogers-Brown, Brett Kavanaugh and Douglas Ginsburg. All Republicans. The first two very ideological Republicans. Rogers-Brown, whose nomination was contentious in 2005 and blocked by Democrats for a time until a deal was brokered . . . .

Brett Kavanaugh was an associate counsel for Ken Starr’s Whitewater investigation. He then joined Starr’s firm. He was also active for Bush-Cheney 2000, and was rewarded with this plum assignment.

If anything, Tomasky understates just how deeply ideological these three judges are.  Judge Brown, who was a central figure in 2005′s nuclear war over the filibuster, once compared liberalism to “slavery” and Social Security to a “socialist revolution.”  Judge Ginsburg is a leading “tenther” who once called for America to return to a discredited era when child labor laws were considered unconstitutional.  Judge Kavanaugh’s career of right-wing legal activism speaks for itself.

Nor is yesterday’s decision an isolated incident.  Earlier this month, a Bush-appointed judge in Richmond threw an unnecessary lifeline to right-wing activists challenging President Obama’s single greatest accomplishment — health reform.  Although the law is quite clear that this judge should have dismissed the case, the right is clearly hoping that it has stacked the courts enough to dismantle Obama’s entire legacy.

These decisions, and others like them, need to be a wake-up call to progressives.  For decades, the right has manipulated the Senate rules and thrown their full political support behind deeply radical judicial nominees, while progressives been far less engaged in this fight.  Is it any wonder, then, that the Senate has only confirmed half as many of Obama’s judicial nominees as it did for all other recent presidents?

This weekend, Glenn Beck will hold a rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial that is being billed as a “non-political event that pays tribute to America’s service personnel and other upstanding citizens who embody our nation’s founding principles of integrity, truth and honor.” The “Restoring Honor” rally will feature speeches from Beck and Sarah Palin, but Beck has repeatedly stressed that it’s “not a political event.” Last Thursday, Beck told Bill O’Reilly — who openly questioned how an event featuring Sarah Palin couldn’t be political — that “[t]his isn’t political. This is about restoring honor in our own selves. We will never fix our country unless we stand in the shadows of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington.”

Despite Beck’s claims, however, it is clear that right-wing groups and politicians are helping organize, promote and subsidize the event. Adele Stan at Alternet reported last week that the Koch-funded front group Americans for Prosperity (AFP), which advocates for a number of conservative causes, is subsidizing bus and hotel packages for attendees of Beck’s rally, though not specifically advertising the rates as being for Beck’s event.

A search of the Restoring Honor website, however, shows that AFP is organizing buses for the event. A section on the website allows potential attendees to see if a bus is leaving from their area, and displays contact information for the bus organizer. In Georgia, there are three different buses with the contact Joel Foster, who is the grassroots organizer for AFP’s Georgia chapter. (He even lists his AFP e-mail address). A bus leaving from Raleigh, NC, and another in Baltimore County, Maryland, both appear to be organized by local AFP chapters.

In addition, several other right-wing groups are promoting the event and organizing travel. Among them:

– Grassfire.org, a conservative “grassroots” group with ties to the powerful Republican public relations firm Shirley & Banister, is an approved travel coordinator for the event, and has agreements with 30 area hotels.

– The American Family Association, Kentucky Chapter is running a bus to the event.

– Americans Against Immigration Amnesty advertises a bus, hotel, and event transportation package.

The map of bus organizers also belies Beck’s claim that “[t]he Restoring Honor Rally is neither a 9/12 nor a Tea Party rally.” A vast majority of the buses heading to DC appear to have been organized by local Tea Party chapters; for example, of the 51 bus pickups in Pennsylvania, over 30 are organized by either a Tea Party or 9/12 group. In Georgia, every bus stop but one is organized by either AFP or a local tea party group.

Beck’s insistence that “Restoring Honor” isn’t political is not simply a public relations effort. Funding for the event is provided by an organization called the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, which is a 501 (c)(3) tax-exempt, federally registered charity. In order for that charity to preserve its tax-exempt status, the “Restoring Honor” rally must be non-political. Perhaps Beck’s message this weekend will not be political — but the right-wing is clearly coordinating the rally.