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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (36709)	7/21/2004 10:43:21 AM
From: Skywatcher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 81568

The CHRISTIAN CRUSADE against the Constitution continues Wrapping the Cross in the Flag By Julia Scott, AlterNet. Posted July 20, 2004. Jerry Falwell is using his ministry to help re-elect George W. Bush, possibly violating the law. Does he really believe in the separation of Last week's endorsement of George W. Bush by the Rev. Jerry Falwell in a newsletter published by Jerry Falwell Ministries,(OR IS THAT INDUSTRIES?)))a charitable organization, has resurrected questions about the unholy alliance between politics and religion in a particularly combative election year. It comes on the heels of news about Bush campaign attempts to distribute voter materials in "friendly congregations," putting the churches' tax-exempt status in jeopardy. An open letter from Americans United for Separation of Church and State to the IRS last Thursday accused Jerry Falwell Ministries, a tax-exempt non-profit, of unlawful partisan political activities as defined by federal tax law. In a July 1 newsletter to supporters, Falwell wrote: "For conservative people of faith, voting for principle this year means voting for the re-election of George W. Bush. The alternative, in my mind, is simply unthinkable. "To the pro-life, pro-family, pro-traditional marriage, pro-America voters in this nation, we must determine that President Bush is the man with our interests at heart. It is that simple." Further on, Falwell urged readers to consider donating up to $5,000 to the Campaign for Working Families, a political action committee headed by Gary Bauer, calling it "the organization that I believe can have the greatest impact in re-electing Mr. Bush to the Oval Office." He also provided a web link to the PAC. As a tax-exempt organization under section 501 c (3) of federal tax law, Falwell Ministries is prohibited from engaging in political lobbying, endorsing candidates, or cooperating with any organization whose express goal is the election or defeat of candidates. A common punishment for an organization deemed to have violated the rules is an excise tax, and possibly a revocation of tax-exempt status. "Falwell is thumbing his nose at the IRS," says Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United. "He must not be permitted to use a tax-exempt ministry to engage in partisan politics. The vast majority of America's religious institutions play by the rules. He should too." Falwell claims he was writing in his personal capacity and not on behalf of the organization, although there is no standard disclaimer to that effect anywhere in the newsletter "Falwell Confidential," which is distributed by Jerry Falwell Ministries. Falwell also asserted that the entire web site is owned by an affiliated lobbying group, Liberty Alliance, of which no record exists there or on the website of the Thomas Road Baptist Church, Falwell's religious headquarters in Lynchburg, VA. Lobbying groups such as Liberty Alliance may engage in widespread electioneering but may not endorse candidates to the general public. Regardless, Falwell told The New York Times that the group "doesn't support candidates or endorse them." Allegations of partisan politicking have dogged the Reverend for years, raising questions about whether he really believes in the separation of church and state. In 1993, the IRS fined Falwell's group $50,000 for donating money raised for charitable purposes by his nationally syndicated television show, "The Old Time Gospel Hour," to a PAC. The event is a matter of record; Falwell denies it ever happened. In February 2000, Americans United called for an IRS investigation into Falwell's "People of Faith 2000" voter registration initiative, which targeted religious conservatives by distributing pertinent materials to pastors and congregants. Lynn called the project "highly partisan," referring to comments the televangelist made in reference to the initiative. "It is my experience that most people of faith in this country vote pro-family, pro-life, and that will mean George W. Bush," Falwell was quoted as saying. From the days of his rise to prominence as a key player in the 1980 election to his conspicuous presence behind President Bush as he signed the partial-birth abortion ban into law, Falwell has straddled the low wall of separation between church and state, leveraging his ability to rally Christian fundamentalists to the polls in exchange for influence in Washington. Falwell has been careful to pledge allegiance to the religious rights protected by the First Amendment (tempered once by the assertion that he believed in separation of church and state but not "God and state"). "I never wrap the cross in the flag," he has said. Falwell founded Moral Majority in 1979 to activate the religious right, influence elections at all levels and lobby. It met with success early on, registering at least two million conservative voters before the election the following year. Falwell went on record announcing his intention to vote for Ronald Reagan but claimed this did not amount to an endorsement. He also downplayed his influence. He went on "Meet the Press" and denied that Moral Majority had enough power to provide decisive support for conservative candidates like Reagan. "If Moral Majority got so strong it could elect a president or a Congress I would disband it," he vowed on another occasion. But later on he called Reagan's 1980 election "my finest hour." By 1981, President Reagan was seeking the preacher's opinion about his plan to nominate Sandra Day O'Connor to the Supreme Court. (Falwell had publicly expressed concerns about the Justice's record on feminism and abortion). In 1984 Moral Majority spent three times more money than in the previous presidential election. Working in nearly every state, it set up voter registration tables at houses of worship and sponsored training seminars on "get out the vote" and other political techniques for pastors. (Such operations are legal if done in a nonpartisan manner). In 1987, the Jim and Tammy Bakker financial and sex scandals touched off a series of IRS audits of other TV ministries, such as Falwell's Liberty University and "The Old Time Gospel Hour," and of operations led by evangelists Oral Roberts and Pat Robertson. The Moral Majority was officially disbanded in 1989 following years of declining membership and sliding financial support. Falwell shuttered his national television network, the deed to his Thomas Road Baptist Church was seized by the government and Liberty University fell $73 million in debt, according to the Associated Press. Critics predicted the demise of Falwell's influence following his post-September 11 comments blaming the ACLU, "abortionists," pagans, gays and lesbians and calling Prophet Muhammad "a terrorist" (all of which he apologized for). Evidently, monitoring groups continue to maintain an interest in his activities, and will be watching for the outcome of this new legal challenge to Jerry Falwell Ministries. "We vehemently oppose any violation of the separation of church and state," Falwell told the press in 1980. Visitors to the website of his Thomas Road Baptist Church receive a different message altogether: "The phrase 'separation of church and state' does not appear anywhere in the Constitution...If anything, Congress should stay out of the way, as should the courts, for they are specifically instructed to do so...the time has come to put the record straight." Julia Scott is a San Francisco-based freelance writer and associate editor at NewsDesk.org.

To: American Spirit who wrote (36709)	7/21/2004 10:49:33 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 81568

Senator Byrd's indictment ____________________________ By Jules Witcover Columnist The Baltimore Sun July 21, 2004 WASHINGTON -- Democratic Sen. Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, routinely dismissed by his colleagues as if he were some embarrassing old uncle hidden in the attic, has broken loose again. The 86-year-old part-time country fiddler has written a scorching appraisal of President Bush and his pre-emptive invasion of Iraq titled Losing America: Confronting a Reckless and Arrogant Presidency. It confirms the old tiger as Congress' staunchest and most outspoken defender of the Constitution. Mr. Byrd's book embellishes the familiar scolding he administered to the president in the run-up to the war. Then he would wave the little volume of the Constitution in his breast pocket as he spoke and reminded the Senate of Article I, Section 8, empowering Congress (and nobody else) to "declare war." At the outset of his new book, Mr. Byrd quotes the 2000 candidate Bush: "Let us reject the blinders of isolationism, just as we refuse the crown of empire. Let us not dominate others with our power -- or betray them with our indifference. And let us have an American foreign policy that reflects American character. The modesty of true strength. The humility of real greatness. This is the strong heart of America. And this will be the spirit of my administration." Then Mr. Byrd observes: "It is hard to believe that the man who said those words is the same man who now sits in the White House." As the Senate's constitutional expert, Mr. Byrd nags at other members of Congress for rolling over for Mr. Bush's resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq. Beyond that, he chastises them for swallowing whole the president's doctrine of pre-emption, which has escaped any serious congressional review to date. After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Mr. Byrd writes, "stark and sweeping, the new 'Bush Doctrine' turned the heat up in an already nervous world, taking us straight to the 'doctrine of pre-emption,' and that was swampy soil indeed." And in setting the nation on the course of what he called "a monumental struggle of good vs. evil," Mr. Byrd writes, "Bush's draconian 'them' vs. 'us,' 'good' and 'evil,' serves little purpose other than to divide and inflame. This is not the stuff of statecraft." As for Mr. Bush's characterization of Iraq, Iran and North Korea as an "axis of evil," Mr. Byrd asks: "Did this administration know nothing of history? Could it not gauge the power of that word?" In casting the United States as "world supercop," the senator observes, "I do not recall anyone putting that question before the American people." Mr. Byrd adds: "This doctrine of pre-emption claimed by Bush should have incited a major debate in the Congress and across the country. Radical, having no basis in existing law, this new foreign policy was dangerous in the extreme. ... This green and arrogant president had made a U-turn on our tradition of working with allies and exhausting diplomatic efforts. ... Our metamorphosis on the world stage from powerful, peaceful giant to swaggering Wild West bully, with little regard for cooperative agreements, sensitivities or diplomacy in general, means a different kind of world in years to come." Mr. Bush's war resolution, he writes, "amounted to a complete evisceration of the congressional prerogative to declare war, and an outrageous abdication of responsibility to hand such unfettered discretion to this callow and reckless president. Never, in my view, had America been led by such a dangerous head of state." As a result, Mr. Byrd says, "the power of Congress to declare war ... now lies in a tepid or dormant state." His own Senate, Mr. Byrd says, "having handed Bush carte blanche by passing the Iraq war resolution ... wanted no more to do with the matter. It had washed its hands and taken an aspirin." Mr. Byrd was one of only 23 senators who voted against the resolution. Before writing this book, the senior West Virginian made more than 60 speeches on the Senate floor protesting Mr. Bush's war and was regarded by many of his colleagues as a bothersome crank. His book may well be similarly received, though he more than any of them can now say: I told you so. ________________________________ Jules Witcover writes from The Sun's Washington bureau. His column appears Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Copyright © 2004, The Baltimore Sun baltimoresun.com

To: American Spirit who wrote (36709)	7/21/2004 2:08:31 PM
From: zonkie	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 81568

Steven Cambone has not received the bad press that he deserves. _________________________ The Fog of Advisers Bureaucrats tend to look after their own interests -- even when they conflict with our national security. It’s too bad George W. Bush can’t tell the difference between good advice and bad. By Matthew Yglesias Web Exclusive: 07.20.04 The proposal forthcoming from the 9-11 Commission to create a Director of National Intelligence (DNI) to oversee all of the federal government's intelligence activities will be no panacea to solve all the problems that have plagued the American intelligence community for years. Surely, though, it will be a step in the right direction. That the community's work should be coordinated, rather than confused and riven by interagency rivalries, is obvious. Indeed, it's so obvious that the legislation setting up the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Council, and other key pillars of the American national security apparatus in the wake of World War II envisioned just that. The CIA chief is intended to be not only the top man at one agency, but also a true Director of Central Intelligence -- the president and the National Security Council's adviser on all things intelligence, including those matters that fall outside the CIA's purview. The reality, over the decades, has proven to be quite different. He who controls the budget controls the bureaucracy, and the bulk of the intelligence money in the current setup is controlled not by the CIA but by the Secretary of Defense. This includes not only each military's service's own intelligence arm, but also the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and the National Reconnaissance Office, many of which do tasks that go far beyond the sort of battlefield intelligence that is the Pentagon's proper purview. Proposals to change this system are always controversial within the executive-branch bureaucracy, since fixing it through the creation of a DNI to oversee it all would necessarily take a lot of power away from the Secretary of Defense and some from the CIA Director. But there's no reason to think the controversy should take a particularly partisan cast, as witnessed by the bipartisan 9-11 Commission's recent embrace of the idea; indeed, a previous bipartisan congressional inquiry into September 11 also reached the same conclusion. According to all reports, meanwhile, a special presidential advisory panel set up several years ago under former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft recommended something very similar. Despite this, the dispute has somehow become a partisan one. The Democratic members of the House Intelligence Committee unanimously introduced legislation to make the change and there's been no action. The minority staff of the House Committee on Homeland Security produced a "comprehensive plan" for winning the war on terrorism that was broken down into helpful component elements, including the intelligence reform proposal, and there was no action. The president, after asking for the Scowcroft Commission's advice, chose not to take that advice. Instead, he had the report classified. John Kerry, meanwhile, has followed his colleagues in the House and embraced the DNI proposal as the centerpiece of his intelligence-reform plan. So what's the Bush administration's problem with this? They don't claim that every independent inquiry into the situation is getting things wrong. Instead, action is always premature. The administration needs more time. The Scowcroft Commission's recommendations are still under review. For months they said they wanted to wait for the official release of the 9-11 Commission's recommendations before doing anything, even though everyone who follows the issue already knew exactly what they would say about it. Now White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan says the president is "open to additional ideas that build upon the reforms we are already implementing." But what's taking so long? What more urgent priorities has the wartime president had than to deal with than a recommendation that's been issued again and again by everyone charged with studying the topic? As for the reforms they're already implementing, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, meanwhile, doesn't feel the need to wait before taking action -- he went ahead and made things worse. His idea of centralizing and rationalizing the intelligence community is was to create an Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, who oversees all of the Defense Department's various intelligence activities. Steven Cambone is on the job as we speak. The upshot of the action is to make a confused situation that much more confused. Cambone now has the specific job of running 70 percent of the nation's intelligence budget, while George Tenet's successor is supposed to somehow be the country's top intelligence officer. It's a recipe for chaos and conflict, but if it forestalls the creation of a DNI it will preserve the Pentagon's power and, indeed, might centralize enough power in Cambone's office to make him the key player in intelligence debates, essentially ensuring that no independent scrutiny will be given to Defense Department views on important questions. There's no justification for this plan -- partisan, ideological, or otherwise -- which is why it finds precisely zero support from Republican members of independent inquiries. It's something Rumsfeld likes, something Rumsfeld's employees like, and something Rumsfeld's friends -- like his old buddy the Vice President of the United States -- like. That Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney should take this attitude is disappointing, but hardly surprising. Self-serving advisers and bureaucrats are a fact of life in any administration, not something new. What is new is that the United States now has a president who can't understand the policy arguments that would let him cut through his advisers' fog. Under normal circumstances, the sort of games Rumsfeld is playing only work on relatively low-profile issues. When a president really wants to focus on an issue of national importance, he normally consults widely and figures out the difference between genuine advice and bureaucratic self-promotion. Now, though, we have a president who proclaims that he doesn't read newspapers, who values loyalty above all else, and who is, to use the current euphemism, rather intellectually uncurious relative to his predecessors. The result is that when key advisers don't want something to change, it doesn't change, even though reform would be both in the country's interest and the president's. So reports pile on top of reports -- but if no one in the Oval Office reads them, they make no sound and lead to no reforms. And the situation won't change until the country has a president with the wherewithal to lead where the country needs to go, whether or not his advisers like it. Matthew Yglesias is a Prospect writing fellow. His column on politics and the media appears every Tuesday. prospect.org