Gimme That Ole Time Corruption: Pat Robertson in the Schemes of Jay Sekulow and Donald Trump

Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power. - George Bernard Shaw

The Three Self-Dealers: Another Unholy Trinity Formed Around Trump?

President Trump solidified his ties to the Christian Right by appointing Jay Sekulow as his lawyer to handle the Trump-Russia-Collusion-Obstruction problem. Came highly recommended from the likes of Pat Robertson. And for several reasons:

1. Sekulow is chief attorney for the ACLJ - the Christian Right legal defense team founded by Pat Robertson

2. Sekulow's web of self-run non-profits funnel money to Pat Robertson's shadowy Advocacy Services

3. Sekulow is just as corrupt as both Robertson and Trump (primarily in his self-dealings and family-filled "non-profits") and and is just as much of a showman.

Washington Post

Since 2013, CASE [Sekulow's Christian Advocates Serving Evangelism] has forwarded $500,000 each year to a small charity called the Law and Justice Institute that has no employees and relies almost exclusively on CASE for its revenue,tax filings show. Sekulow is president of the Law and Justice Institute. The Law and Justice Institute, in turn, has paid $500,000 each year to Advocacy Services. Robertson is president of that firm, according to Virginia state records. Robertson’s spokesman did not address written questions about the payments from The Post. [emphasis mine]

And he's as bombastic and tenacious towards his enemies as Trump is:

First, Sekulow is at home in the spotlight. He hosts a daily radio show that airs nationally and online. He has been a regular contributor and on-air guest at Fox News. And his bombastic personality has stood out to several other attorneys in the Christian legal movement – asking to remain anonymous, one lawyer told me Sekulow “spends an inordinate amount of time tooting his own horn.” Judging by his past, appearing on various Sunday morning shows to defend Trump is a natural act for Sekulow.

What is Sekulow getting out of all of this? It's possible Trump may not pay Sekulow: he has a history of not paying legal fees (unless they're paid by the Trump Foundation). In fact, one of his former legal teams has liens against his properties.* It's possible that Sekulow - ever the media hound - has an agenda involving power over the media.

Trump is certainly no stranger to self-dealing and eager to appease the Christian Right via Pat Robertson, so again, Sekulow is a perfect match. Robertson has also defended Trump:

Lest there be any doubt that Christian televangelist Pat Robertson supports President Donald Trump, the longtime host of the 700 Club declared that God put Trump “in this office.”“He’s God’s man for the job,” Robertson said this week, as Right Wing Watch reported.

Pat Robertson was really angry with FBI Director James Comey, this morning: "Once again that clown that is in charge of whatever you call those people, FBI, is in charge of the headlines."

This last statement is ironic, since both Comey and Mueller came to the aid of Robertson's good friend and spiritual colleague John Ashcroft when he was in the hospital being besieged by Bush's White House staff.

About the only real difference Robertson has with Sekulow and Trump is that he really, really hates Russia.*

RECIPROCITY


Note: pictured above with Trump, Robertson and 

Sekulow is Gary Marx, leader of the Faith and

 Freedom Coalition - the entity involved in the 

Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. Birds of a feather...

So dirty money and favors flow between these three seemingly opportunistic con men. In Pat Robertson's world, it's called "reciprocity," but without the God factor.

God has little to do with this trio of corruption.


Reciprocity. Corruption. Perhaps the best depiction of the two intertwined is in this scene from "Chicago."

*USA Today:

One law firm that fought contractors over payments and other issues for Trump — New York City’s Morrison Cohen LLP — ended up on the other side of a similar battle with the mogul in 2008. Trump didn’t like that its lawyers were using his name in press releases touting its representation of Trump in a lawsuit against a construction contractor that Trump claimed overcharged him for work on a luxury golf club.

As Trump now turned his ire on his former lawyers, however, Morrison Cohen counter-sued. In court records, the law firm alleged Trump didn’t pay nearly a half million dollars in legal fees. Trump and his ex-lawyers settled their disputes out of court, confidentially, in 2009.

In 2012, Virginia-based law firm Cook, Heyward, Lee, Hopper & Feehan filed a lawsuit against the Trump Organization for $94,511 for legal fees and costs. The case was eventually settled out of court. But as the case unfolded, court records detail how Trump's senior deputies attacked the attorneys' quality of work in the local and trade press, leading the firm to make claims of defamation that a judge ultimately rejected on free speech grounds.

*Again, Irony:
Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill I apparently agrees with U.S. preacher Pat Robertson that Haitians brought the earthquake on themselves:
Kirill, speaking during a weekend visit to Kazakhstan, said the Haitian people bore responsibility for the calamity because they had turned away from God.

It's Religious Freedom, Stupid! The Christian Right Relies On Congress To Push It's Latest Strategy.

”This Republican Party of Lincoln has become a party of theocracy,” former Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., a supporter of marriage equality, told The New York Times in 2005.

The Frontiersmedia.com article nails it on the head: in Religious Right Poised For Greater Power in 2015, it quotes People For The American Way's President Michael Keenan as saying ...

"... the GOP is still relying on the Religious Right and the ties between GOP elected officials and radical Religious Right figures are closer than they have ever been. An example of clout—if you’re a Republican who wants to be president, you’re all but obligated to show up at the Values Voter Summit, an annual convention of anti-gay extremists hosted by the FRC and AFA. And they do it in spite of the inherent risks."

In the wake of LGBT marriage victories, progressives are preening while the Christian Right is plotting, strategizing: while they've moved their anti-LGBT machinations to foreign soil, their defense has shifted into an offense in America. It's not "we're not discriminating" or "we really LOVE gays, but ...", it's now "religious freedom MUST be protected" and "we're the ones being discriminated against." Some even portray the LGBT community as the "REAL Terrorists"!!

Pat Robertson: “They are trying to force people who are Christians to marry them or else face jail, to make cakes honoring them or else go to jail, and give their sermons over and divulge their innermost thoughts or go to jail. Now that’s the kind of thing we’re dealing with. These people are terrorists, they’re radicals, and they’re extremists.

Erick Erickson: "And so they did the only thing they could do, the only thing they knew to do," he continued. "They went to the mayor of Atlanta and demanded he fire the chief of the fire department for daring to mock them." (Comparing the LGBT community to terrorists responsible for Charlie Hebdo attack.)

In Virginia, things are brewing that may give the CR more power than ever - it's called a "conscience clause".

The Slate:

[State rep.] Marshall’s measure would attach a “conscience clause” to any “license, registration, or certificate” obtained from the commonwealth, whether by a private business or a government agency. This clause would allow all workers to refuse to “perform, assist, consent to, or participate in any action” that would “violate the religious or moral conviction of such person with respect to same-sex ‘marriage’ or homosexual behavior."

What To Expect in 2015




I've always maintained that the Christian Right can - and will - act like a wounded tiger when it comes to gay rights. The marriage equality victories have enraged it so much that it is calling on Congress (certainly not the courts) to avenge the insult to its vanity. "Protecting religious freedom" is an offensive measure, not a defensive one.

A Few Good Reads

In Why We Can't Get Religious Freedom Right, Rob Donaldson (a former Mormon Church Leader) states says that the Christian Right has a definition of religious freedom that goes beyond the freedom to believe what you want to believe:

Conservative Christians aren’t persuaded. They believe (with no Biblical foundation I can find) that to provide the cake, or take the pictures, or do anything else in support of that gay wedding, taints the baker or photographer with the sin of approving a “sinful” act and relationship.

In writing about the involvement of the new Congress, Donaldson sites Frank Bruni (Your God, My Dignity, oped NYT)

“This is the new wave, the new frame,” James Esseks, a lawyer with the A.C.L.U., told me. He said that last year, more than 10 states considered legislation that, to varying degree, blessed discrimination based on sexual orientation by people claiming that it was a right, a matter of religious liberty. Only one of those states, Mississippi, passed such a law, but efforts elsewhere persist. A Virginia lawmaker introduced this sort of legislation just a few weeks ago.

Another good source of thought on the subject is Rob Boston's Taking Liberties: Why Religious Freedom Doesn't Give You The Right To Tell Other People What To Do.

The term religious freedom means the right to make decisions about theology about yourself. It's the right to worship God - or not to worship at all - as you see fit. It's the right to share your faith and join in worship with a community of like-minded believers. It's the right to pass that faith onto your children.

And what it is not: "... the right to use the power of government to impose your theology on anyone else."

With the election of "Religious Freedom Republicans" the Christian Right is doing just that.

Why I Hate Duck Dynasty. (As If It Matters)

“They’re full of murder, envy, strife, hatred. They are insolent, arrogant God-haters. They are heartless. They are faithless. They are senseless. They are truthless. They invent ways of doing evil.”

The "Duck Dynasty" flap has made me angry, and not for the usual reasons.

First of all, I'm angry because I have to write about it.

Don't get me wrong. I absolutely love exposing hypocrisy - even in myself. But the hypocrisy embedded in Duck Dynasty's Robertson clan as well as A&E and it's critics is so obvious, there is no exposing it. But I have to write about it because, hey, people EXPECT me to.

Secondly, I'm angry because I have to deal with an icon (of sorts) who is perhaps the shallowest of persons - and few will believe me.

I have not seen Duck Dynasty. That is my hypocrisy - criticizing something that I have not fully experienced. I have no desire to see Duck Dynasty just as I have no desire to see reruns of the Beverly Hillbillies, nor to meet Fred Phelps. Yes, this aspect of my animosity makes me look just as hypocritical as Pat Robertson expounding on the homosexuality he knows nothing about, but I cannot help it.

I viewed the other Phil Robertson tape. The one I posted on OpEdNews last week. The one in which Phil Robertson said that gays "invent ways of doing evil."

A&E:

"While reiterating that Robertson’s views are not those of the channel, A&E noted Friday that he has publicly said he would “never incite or encourage hate.” The show itself is more than one man’s views, it added.

“It resonates with a large audience because it is a show about family, a family that America has come to love. As you might have seen in many episodes, they come together to reflect and pray for unity, tolerance and forgiveness,” A&E said.

      “They’re full of murder, envy, strife, hatred. They are insolent, arrogant God-haters. They are heartless. They are faithless. They are senseless. They are truthless. They invent ways of doing evil.”

"...never incite or encourage hate." "pray for unity tolerance and forgiveness." All of this seems to be on the surface: just what does he pronounce to his offspring off camera? What has he instilled in them all these years that is not evident and open to the public? Could the family of such a patriarch call him a hypocrite - and get away with it?

Is it possible that the family "America has come to love" is really the family America loves to hate, but with long beards? Is it the Phelps/Westboro Baptist family in disguise?

America is so easy to deceive.

The End Of An Era? Praise The Lord! Televangelist Paul Crouch Dies And Leaves Behind A Life Of Decadence Beyond Belief.

It may be sinful to speak ill of the recently deceased, but if it is, then a host of writers and journalists on religion are indeed very, very sinful (including myself).

Paul Crouch was an inveterate con man who preyed upon the religiously gullible for profit, and he (and his infamously cotton-candy-haired wife, Jan) showed his contempt for his "flock" by openly living a life so garish, so lavish, that Jesus would have wept when His name was intoned.

And He would have wept constantly for the last forty years.

But They Needed It ALL!

It was a scene that America thought it had left with the tragic soap opera of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker: over-the-top spending by ministry moguls frought with sex scandals: Paul and Jan Crouch agonized over which of their many mansions to live in at the same time. You see, they hadn't lived together for years. They just sang together and swindled together - in the name of God.

But they needed those houses, the private jets - and even the 100k mobile home for the dogs, you see, because they'd been given a mission from God to obtain the most ridiculous accumulation of televangelist wealth in history.

Sarah Posner (Religion Dispatches):

Crouch built the network from one station in the 1970s to a global empire featuring a 24-hour menu of health and wealth gospel, preying on the gullible to turn their money over to televangelists to receive God's blessing.

[Douglas] Wead, who developed an extensive list of influential evangelicals with whom he wanted 1988 Bush presidential primary campaign to connect, had first-hand knowledge of the Crouches' world. Yet he recognized the potential downside of Bush being seen with Crouch, whom he described as an "exaggeration of the most bizarre manifestation of the peculiar evangelical subculture." He advised the vice-president not to appear for a televised interview with Crouch. But he staged such an interview himself, using the tagline "correspondent Doug Wead," coaxing Bush to exhibit his faith in Jesus Christ for the TBN audience.

Hey, That Cotton Candy Do Costs A Lot!

The list of the Crouch family mega-mansions is too long to list here, but suffice it to say that their total worth could feed Sierra Leone for a year. Add to that TWO jets and salaries neighboring in the millions, well, you get the picture. During most of his tenure at TBN, Paul Crouch sat on what looked to the viewers to be a gold throne befitting an emperor of Christian broadcasting.

And according to granddaughter, Brittany Koper (also TBN's former finance director), the regal lifestyle extended to:

• Mr. and Mrs. Crouch have his-and-her mansions one street apart in a gated community here, provided by the network using viewer donations and tax-free earnings. 
• Mrs. Crouch, 74, mostly lives in a large company house near Orlando, Fla., where she runs a side business, theHoly Land Experience theme park. Mr. Crouch, 78, has an adjacent home there too, but rarely visits. Its occupant is often a security guard who doubles as Mrs. Crouch’s chauffeur.” 
• One $4m jet and another $48 jet. 
• Matching homes for son Matt's children that included an indoor basketball court. 

Besides the "outing" of his financial chicanery and lavish overspending, Crouch had the ubiquitous scandal concerning sexual harassment of a male TBN employee. It was "settled out of court" for about $450k.

Ironically, the most notable "tributes" to Crouch after his passing came from prosperity preachers and scam artists Creflo Dollar and Benny Hinn as well as "mega-ministry preachers" from all over the country.

He was, after all, their gold standard.

The Week Certifiably Batsh*t Crazy Conservatives Came Out To Play

There is crazy, and then there is batshit crazy.* America is full of batshit crazy people, but social conservatives seem to have cornered the market. Maybe it's heady, vainglorious sense of righteousness, or maybe it's just the steady, hypnotic beat of the bible thumpers, but social conservatives (actually the Christian Right as it likes to be known - a crazy, almost oxymoronic concept in itself) seem to have more than their share of the ridiculous and unreasoning. 

Yes, they are entertaining in their quest for an audience (which is why most people quote them), but their wild fantasies, dire proclamations, bizarre reasoning and horrendous use of metaphors are oddly disturbing: do they live on another planet? Do they pay attention at all to what people are saying about them? Do they care what people are thinking about them? Maybe it is their profound sense of displacement that entertains people. Who knows?

'Prophet' Cindy Jacobs Binds Demons On Airplane Passengers

Yes, Cindy Jacobs helps rid fellow airplane passengers while they are sleeping by "binding" together demons and literally casting them out into the abyss - or down to Orlando, FL (the place that missed Pat Robertson's meteor).

Muslims To Remotely Change All Of Your Car Radio Presets To ShariaRock Top 40 Stations. Then Kill You.

"Cyber terrorism expert" Morgan Wright explained to Jenna Lee of FOX News that some day, all the little computers installed in your car may be hacked by Al Queda and send you careening into a Taco Bell. The Firedog Lake take on the interview is indeed outrageous, but not as outrageous as the actual clip (see below) nor as unbelievable as Jenna Lee's sincerity.

Bachmann Puts Black Leather On, Talks About 'Spanking' Obama

Spanking POTUS is not mentioned in James Dobson's pseudo-seminal work on child-rearing, Dare To Discpiline, but since Bachmann says that Obama has a "magic wand" when it comes to getting what he wants (out of what?), we can see where here fantasies lie.

Pat Robertson: Zimmerman Was Right To Follow Trayvon Martin Because ‘Criminals Wear These Hoods’

Straight from Planet Vomit, Pat Robertson once again shows just how little he knows about racial profiling - or about America's taste in apparel.

Bryan Fischer, Anti-Gay Spokesperson: Claims Army Overrun By 'Hypermasculine Homosexuals'

The leader of all things bigoted, Bryan Fischer has switched from portraying gays as effete, effeminate (but highly effective) lobbyists, to Teutonic Rambos on steriods bent on destroying the U.S. military. That's what Hitler did, didn't he?

Rick Wiles: 'Raw Satanic Sewage Coming Up Out Of Hell' Ran Through The Streets Of Austin During Abortion Legislation Protests 

Rick Wiles went over-the-top in describing protests to the draconian anti-abortion legislation then heating up in the Texas legislature.

"These demons weren't hiding behind bushes, they were out in the street; they were in the streets possessing the people who were demanding the right to murder babies...The sewer pipes of Hell have broken open and this is raw hate against Jesus Christ, against God, against the Bible, against righteous men and women, against life, against anything that is good and decent."

Scatological references from a man of God! What is this world turning into? Batshit maybe?

DL Foster: Pro-Gay Christians 'Just Like Slave Owners' and 'Jim Crow Racists' 

"Ex-homosexual Abolitionist" Foster has also had the temerity (or stupidity) to depict himself over a Harriet Tubman "wanted poster." Foster's stance as an "ex-gay" has (unfortunately) always been in question since it has been posited that he was never gay in the first place. His righteous indignation towards gays is anything but compassionate.

The batshit crazies seemed to be out in full force last week, but hold on - they may continue:

Cindy Jacobs: God Told Me He's Going To Punish America For Gay Marriage

The Lord spoke to Cindy Jacobs and told her that there was "goin' to be a whole lotta shakin' goin' on": in response to "criticism" for Jacobs' "doom and gloom" prophecies, Jacobs stated yesterday that as a prophet, she must tell people what she sees and what the lord has told her. She did not say that the "criticism" was actually a summons to the Batshit Crazy Hall of Fame.

*Urban Dictionary:
A person who is batshit crazy is certifiably nuts. The phrase has origins in the old fashioned term "bats in the belfry." Old churches had a structure at the top called a belfry, which housed the bells. Bats are extremely sensitive to sound and would never inhabit a belfry of an active church where the bell was rung frequently. Occasionally, when a church was abandoned and many years passed without the bell being rung, bats would eventually come and inhabit the belfry. So, when somebody said that an individual had "bats in the belfry" it meant that there was "nothing going on upstairs" (as in that person's brain). To be BATSHIT CRAZY is to take this even a step further. A person who is batshit crazy is so nuts that not only is their belfry full of bats, but so many bats have been there for so long that the belfry is coated in batshit. Hence, the craziest of crazy people are BATSHIT CRAZY.

Prepping For Sodom and Gomorrah (San Francisco) - With Rhinestones, Brimstone and Pat Robertson

"So ladies and gentlemen, your liberties are in danger because read the Bible about Sodom and Gomorrah. That's where the term comes from, Sodom."
"Look what happened to Sodom. After a while, there wasn't any other way, and God did something pretty drastic."

Pat Robertson, responding to SCOTUS marriage equality rulings.

Prepping for Gay Pride in San Francisco could be angst-ridden if it weren't for the anticipation of seeing hundreds of thousands of joyous people. What to wear, for example: should we go "trashy" or camouflaged in rainbow colors (in rhinestones, of course, to please the tourists)? Should we bake in the hot sun at the start of the parade down at San Francisco's Embarcadero or should we cool it in the shade of Civic Center buildings? We'll have to wrap up quarters in dollar bills, of course - to thrown onto the rainbow flag for the AIDS Emergency Fund. And we'll have to arm ourselves with cameras for pics of those poor hunks on the floats. (I've been in the parade on a float several times and can tell you that it isn't exactly the joy ride people think it because it can be exhausting waving, smiling, bumping, grinding for up to three hours. Many of the people on the floats just want to go home afterwards.)

But it's not the floats, nor the music, nor the slogans that make the parade, but the people (OK, and the hunks): they are the most fun-loving, joyous, considerate people ever congregated to celebrate freedom and diversity.

And this year there may be an epic turnout: it may reach over one million joyous people.

All because of SCOTUS ... and Pat Robertson.

San Francisco has always been considered the Sodom of America - Castro Street being it's REAL center - so it's natural to relate San Francisco to Pat Robertson's latest comment about the SCOTUS rulings to SF and its annual love fest. Now we have to figure out what kind of outfit goes with fire and brimstone.*

And there will be a great many people this year: estimates range up to one million - numbers energized by SCOTUS' rulings and people wanting to see the great F&B light show Pat Robertson is so hoping will happen. Of course, there are other people and organizations that have chimed in about forthcoming the catastrophic results: hundreds have wailed to the tune of "This is the end of civilization." Prayer rallies to counteract the rulings and pray that Obama will not throw dissenting Christians in jail are all the rage this weekend.

And In The "You've Got To Be Kidding" Category ...

The Family Research just released their new ad for a prayer rally this Sunday (during the parade) to counteract the SCOTUS rulings. The phraseology and symbolism is so lost on the FRC, that it is going viral for laughs. It could actually be a great Pride Sunday poster: just as good as hot, muscular, hairy, sweaty dancing men, it promises a good fellatio time for all:

The most unfortunate anti-gay logo and slogan in the history of politics - Americablog
WTF? Who thought this was a good idea? Are there secretly pro-gay people, maybe clever queens in their midst undermining their anti-LGBTQ message? I only ask because the last hater push using catchy interwebs slang was from NOM and called 2M4M – meaning, “two million for marriage.” Except 2M4M is actually personal ad-speak for a gay couple looking for a menage-a-trois! Ooh la-la! - Firedog Lake

Now, sexually charged print errors have been made in the past,** but this is not a print error. It's still on the FRC site.
Pertinent anecdote: about 50 years ago, there was an ad in the Montgomery Ward catalogue for a toy that would form a Tootsie Roll into a whistle you could blow. The dimwitted buyer thought it was the greatest thing since hula hoops, so he had the catalogue copy (monster two-page spread, of course!) read:

Make It! Blow It! Eat It!

It became a legend in the catalogue industry. 50 years ago and even the mid-century sexual dullards (minus one) knew a sexual connotation when they saw it.

The creator of FRC's campaign ad should certainly be on his knees - begging forgiveness for such a piece of viral humiliation.

So as San Francisco burn with happiness and love, some hearts will burn with righteous indignation (while on their knees, of course) and supplication for America's sinfulness. Both scenes are fitting to a glorious Pride month.

Hope you had a good one.



* It's quite possible that more people went to Disney World's Gay Day after Pat Robertson warned Orlando to expect a meteor.
**Let's not forget the smiling face of female realtor in the blurb for one ranch style house: "It's a wonderfully large house, with a big dick for entertaining."

First, The Righteous Indignation

Then, the sexy joyfulness (courtesy Colossus)

My War Against Pat Robertson and Why It Matters

I've had to take a break from blogging. Other things intruded. Personal lives are like that, aren't they? One could arguing that this blog is personal, but it really isn't, since it goes out there to so very many people whom I don't know. It's PUBLIC.

Anyway, I 've been delving into the issues published today (the new Pope, marriage equality) with an atypical languor simply because everyone else has been writing about them and there is nothing new under the sun about them to write about. And there's the intensity the subjects create, which is wearing on a writer, especially one as snarky as I am.

So I'm turning to an old subject with which I am familiar and which oddly energizes me: Pat Robertson, that senile, Christofascist and abysmally insipid piece of "eye pudding" (as Stephen Colbert so aptly put it). Robertson's stomach-churning displays of "wisdom" are legion, but today's latest entry struck me as the core reason of my war against this incredible slab of hypocrisy, because it's been at the core of his "ministry" from day one: money.

His video profile of a family who "turned to God" (and, of course, The 700 Club) after losing it all is the stuff of sitcoms, or at the very least a good SNL sketch. It is also a great ad for the prosperity gospel, although Robertson has eschewed the term for "reciprocity" when dealing with the Lord. His throw-away line is "You can't out-give God," but you CAN give the 700 Club $20 a month which may give you back 20, 30, 60-fold. The featured family did so, and look where they're living now!! 

The idiocy of the video lies in the last shots: the denouement supposedly comes from the family realizing that money isn't everything, that material goods should not be placed before God, but the house (and wealth) they garnered after giving Pat their money was definitely worth more than the one they lost! It looks twice the size! These people lived in a million-dollar home, incurred $5 million in debt, lost the home, went bankrupt, then gave Pat Robertson $20 a month for several years and now live in a whopping mansion! 

This is a picture of Pat Robertson's home - the ONLY house the $20-per-month tithe ever generated:

It's modeled on the opulent Governor's Palace of Colonial Williamburg, VA and a tribute to Robertson's father, Senator Absolom Willis Robertson, the quintessential Dixiecrat (a "Byrd Democrat" devoted to segregation). It houses the televangelist (worth an estimated $1.5 billion) in dignified comfort, an additional tribute to God's "reciprocity." 

Sh*t Matters

Scam artists like Pat Roberton never die. They just fade away, dragging their unearned billions behind them, inspiring others to do the same. That's why a war, any war against the likes of Pat Robertson is so important: it prevents future Pat Robertsons, or at least dwindles their numbers down to an irrelevant few.  

Additional note:  during the last part of the donor drive, Robertson offers a book about people who have had have near-death experiences. Notice the author: Gordon Robertson, Pat's son.

"Reciprocity." It's all in the family.

Is Pat Robertson The Ultimate Hypocrite? Environmental Religious Fanatics? Really?

It would seem so with this video.

Pat Robertson, as everyone knows, has been blathering on blissfully, enraptured by his own senility this past decade. His "wisdom" has focused on demonic Halloween candy and clothes from Good Will, slatternly wives being the greatest cause of divorce and the assassination of Hugo Chavez (the death of whom, yesterday, must have been bittersweet - Chavez didn't die the want Robertson would have liked). His righteous arrogance may be cloaked in pudding-faced humility, but it oozes out of his pores just the same.

It is the kind of righteous arrogance that helps him make statements like the one in the video below

He calls environmentalists "crazy" and calls their goal to "destroy everything they think is polluting ..." a religion. Watch it.

And while you're at it, picture the bulk of his followers: little old ladies in nursing homes touching their TV screens in hopes that Pat Robertson will cure their hemorrhoids.

Foreclosing On The Prosperity Gospelers: Are They Really Christian?

The Good News: Financial problems are plaguing America's prosperity megachurches.
The Bad News: It's not happening fast enough.

     MUNSTER | While the Family Christian Center was spending millions of dollars annually on leadership compensation, travel, meals and jet fuel, it was falling behind on its mortgage payments and racking up a list of past-due bills, a Times investigation found.

We could forgive prosperity gospel ministries if it weren't for the awful architecture. And the gaudy showmanship. And the cult-like congregations. 

And the un-Christianlike greed.

There are millions of Americans who are in need of money, struggling Americans who still manage to help their friends as best they can, still helping others to survive. They do not gamble on the Lord providing future wealth or prosperity. For flights of fantasy, they occasionally buy lottery tickets. After all, the results are just as good as any prosperity cult, maybe even better, since prosperity preachers take in everything and return very, very little. 

       According to mortgageorb.com, Pastor Munsey only informed his congregation of the 2011 lawsuit last summer, explaining that he never told them earlier because he "really didn't know what to do but trust God."

Foreclosing On The Prosperity Gospel

Although Senator Chuck Grassley (IA - R) helped focus on the excesses of prosperity gospel preachers in 2007, he didn't go far enough:

       According to the report, only two of the six ministries – Joyce Meyer Ministries and Benny Hinn's World Healing Center Church – fully cooperated with the investigation and even implemented financial reforms.

The other four ministries, meanwhile, did not provide responses or provided incomplete ones to inquiries made by the Senate Finance Committee. These groups include Creflo Dollar's World Changers Church International, Eddie Long's New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, Kenneth Copeland Ministries, and Without Walls International Church – formerly pastored by both Randy and Paula White, who are now divorced. The Florida megachurch is currently being led by Paula White.
Despite their lack of cooperation, no penalties were handed out.

And why not? 

Capitalism Is As Capitalism Does

America, as a capitalist society, must come to terms with capitalist leaders of capitalist religious cults. We have the freedom of religion - religion that panders to the greed of the 1%. Although his political positions have been helter-skelter (to say the least) on many issues, Grassley's dedication to capitalism cannot be stressed enough. Then there is his link to The Family, the controversial, covert quasi-religious operation, and his 100% approval rating by such organizations as the Family Research Council. In order to keep those good graces, it may have been necessary for him to back off on the prosperity preachers.

Meanwhile, Back At the Scandal Trough...

There is no denying that Eddie Long has a cult on his hands: despite financial and sexual scandals, people still keep going to his church and witnessing a outpouring of ego which is over-the-top, even by today's televangelist standards. Now Long is embroiled in a new lawsuit:

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

        Bishop Eddie Long has been sued by former New Birth Missionary Baptist members who say the megachurch pastor encouraged them to invest money with a company despite being told the investor was running a $3 million capital deficit.

Too Big To Fail?

While not a prosperity megachurch per se, the enabler of prosperity churches nationwide is Trinity Broadcasting Network, owned almost exclusively by Paul and Jan Crouch. With revenues of over $95 million per year and proposed expansion of satellite venues into countries such as Russia complementing its formidable presence in Latin and South America, Trinity Broadcasting Network is the largest Christian media in existence today. 

According to a whistleblower granddaughter, however, the entire media empire of the Crouches could come tumbling down because of the Crouches' lavish lifestyle and the diversion of as much as $50 million into their private accounts in the last ten years.

Catholic Online:

       The Trinity Broadcasting Network, self-proclaimed as the world's largest Christian network is currently embroiled in a legal battle. Some of allegations of massive financial involve the purported purchase of a $100,000 motor home for dogs.

How much does Trinity Broadcasting Network actually donate to other charitable causes? Actually, no one knows: the network lacks transparency. Additional ministries that lack transparency: Creflo Dollar Ministries, "Bishop" T.D. Jakes Ministries, Benny Hinn, Paul White, Ken Copeland, and, of course, "Bishop" Eddie Long.

From Ministry Watch:

       However, how can a “Christian Ministry” “glorify God” if they are not open? Are not organizations that hide things characterized as cults? Should not Christian ministries lead by example? Besides being characterized as a steward, Christians can be characterized as ambassadors and as light because God is light. Just these few summary ideas indicate that Christian ministries should be open and transparent. In addition, responsibility to God is linked to responsibility to government and mankind.

The Final Judgment

Prosperity megachurches will definitely be the products of their own undoing: the excesses are toppling ministries and their lack of social justice are eroding their reputations. In effect, they are forcing their own foreclosures. The question that remains, however, is how long will it take them to fade into the abyss of religious cults? It can be argued that as long as their are people desperate and gullible enough to rely on false promises, prosperity gospel churches will always exist, but we can only hope that they will be recognized for the facetious cults they really are. 

Cast Those Demons Out Of Your Clothes From Good Will!

Perennially senile Christofascist Pat Robertson nails it right on the head: he dimly remembers a vague story about a witch in some Thai or Asian (whatever) backwater who put her spirit into a ring and a girl who bought it, well, "all hell broke lose!" 

He laughs at the practice of casting out demons form every Goodwill item, but his is a "better safe than sorry" attitude that is patently ridiculous. Of course, tell that to the little old ladies who were, at the time of the broadcast, placing their hands on the TV screens hoping Pat would cure their hemorrhoids. 

Dear Black Hole Of Texas: Keep Your Glenn Becks, Your Revisonsaries, Your Paranoid Patriots And SECEDE ALREADY!

Think of it: a nation filled with Glenn Becks, Rick Perrys, Pat Robertsons, Cindy Jacobses, Wayne LaPierres, the American Family Association ... and ALL of the NRA. Then think of the rest of our nation...

without them.

In a love-fest ostensibly to demean the nomination of Chuck Hagel as Defense Secretary, Glenn Beck and Ted Cruz tipped their hands in their hatred of everyone and everything even slightly liberal. Buried in the total annihilation of Hagel ("In the Middle East, he is on the wrong side!...almost un-American"), Cruz admitted that he had invited Bank of America, Luger and Smith and Wessen to Texas, ostensibly since Chicago mayor Rahm Immanuel asked Bank of America not to deal with the arms manufacturers. The idea of Texas as a fortified country harboring gun manufacturers moneyed by profiteering banks evidently never crossed their minds.

But it was not lost on the rest of America.

They also joked that all people coming from California should take an entrance exam upon entering Texas, since they should understand that Texas has different ideas about "freedom" and what it really means" This is the last bastion of real freedom ...We don't want to turn it into California." They also joked about a wall between the two and lack of security from liberals and their socialist agendas.

Glennbeckistan: aka Independence USA





Glenn Beck has been fostering national paranoia for years - the kind of paranoia that enabled Rowan Williams in his thoughts about righteous assassination of workers at the ACLU and the Tides Foundation. His latest proposal, however, is a self-sustaining Texas enclave called Independence, USA. According to Beck, Independence, USA will be a bastion of freedom - of the marketplace as well as education, parenting, etc. He also states (counterintuatively) that the GAP and Ann Taylor will not be welcome. What he does not state is that various groups will not be welcome either since the Christian Right will reign supreme: in other words, no homosexuals, no welfare moms,and no progressive Christians (especially those who do not carry guns).

In proposing Independence, USA, Glenn Beck is advancing the causes of Texas secession and gun control paranoia.

A Welcome Secession

Unfortunately, the love fest (which also trumpeted an increase in low-paying jobs) did not include the number of people who would be ecstatic if Texas seceded from the Union. The video below may seem like an absurd parody, but it's undeniable that people would be happy to do without: guns, a high execution rate, a lower rate of literacy, televangelists, Southern Baptists ...

and the Texas School Board.

Review for The Revisionaries:

     "Just wow. Watching these whacko Texans rewrite their textbooks led by a guy who refuses to believe in evolution because it's crazy talk, but believes that humans hung out with dinosaurs is spellbinding. This might be the best horror film of the year. The best part is that the director simply filmed these fine folks and let them make fools of themselves for two hours. The worst part is that they really did change the textbooks in Texas."

And while new laws have been passed that have weakened the power of the Texas School Board, the damage to Texas as a state within the bounds of reason has been serious: Rick Perry continued the insanity with his Prayer Rally, inviting the likes of Cindy Jacobs and demonstrating an acute disdain for anyone not adhering to radical, creationist Fundamentalism.





Texas secession: it would usher in a wave of asking other states to secede.

Tennessee, what's keeping you?

Looking Forward To The Hate: Getting Back To Work In 2013. Will Christian Right Hate Finally Implode?

THE HOPES AND DREAMS OF

25 FAITH-BASED HATE GROUPS

Dealing With The Past To Combat The Future

In the Bring-It-On fashion of Pat Robertson during his "700 Club" broadcasts, bloggers on religion and politics like myself have to gird ourselves for the intense and the ridiculous. Unlike Pat Robertson, however, we can't afford to be righteously arrogant in our dealings with hypocrisy.

Nor can we afford to be senile.

It would be a relief to think that Robertson represents the "social conservative" movement: a doddering mass of self-righteousness, hypocrisy and delusions of grandeur bestowed by God on his way out of the mainstream, but the moment we think that, we've lost a battle with a ferocious tiger that's been wounded but is not dead by any means.

And when one looks at the ferocity of the Christian Right's attacks on America's progressive society in 2012, any wounds inflicted on it come off as minimal: from Pastor Dennis Terry's famous exhortation to "Get Out!" to Pastor Gary Cass' canon law of "You can't be a Christian and not own a gun," animosity and aggression were rampant. Pitiful cries of persecution coming from broadcasters and news henchmen who fulminated against the building of mosques, supported the idea of "legitimate rape", railed against same-sex marriage as the downfall of civilization, and called President Obama the Anti-Christ brought WTF's from the more rational and reality-based among us.

But they persisted ... and grew. 

The Hopes and Dreams of Hate Groups for 2013

The number of hate groups rose in 2013 as well as the number of crimes ... and hate crime enablers. And to view the intensity - the worst of the worst - we must look at some of the largest groups who concentrate on hating one of the smaller groups in society: faith-based organizations and their fixation on all things homosexual.

According to the SPLC, the follwing groups are faith-based anti-gay hate groups The wikipedia entries are accompanied by their website links and - if applicable - their own "One Man Hate Group" designee)

Abiding Truth Ministries - One Man Hate Group: Scott Lively. After building a minor reputation as a debunked author/researcher, Lively's continuing focus is on inculcating foreign (nee third world) countries. He was instrumental in Uganda's "Kill The Gays" bill.

American Family Association (website) - One Man Hate Group: Bryan Fischer. The AFA is joined at the hip to the Family Research Council and between the two, garner over $50 million of donations per year.

American Vision (website)- One Man Hate Group: Gary DeMar. While actively touting creation science (Adam and Eve cavorted dinosaurs, Pebbles and Bam Bam), it also strenuously promotes the death penalty for all homosexuals.

Americans for Truth About Homosexuality (website) - One Man Hate Group: Matt Barber - "Countering The Truth About The Homosexual Activist Agenda" is a study in convoluted reasoning and interviews with other hate group leaders. Another One Man Hate Group, Peter LaBarbera (aka "Porno Pete"***) is linked to other organizations.

Bethesda Christian Institute (website) - a pseudo intellectual church run by a pseudo-rational thinker, J.V. Foster.

Chalcedon Foundation (website) - For a while, the Chalcedon Foundation was the most dreaded affiliate because of its Reconstructionist views: absolutely no one wanted to be connected with it. Founded by the "Father of Reconstructionism" R.J Rushdooney, the concept of Reconstructionism (as Dominionism or Seven Mountains Theology) is making a comeback and is probably the most theocratic organization of the bunch.

Dove World Outreach Center (website) - One Man Hate Group: Terry Jones. Too much publicity has been given to the Quran-burning pastor who was kicked out of Germany by his own cult. And that publicity has been deadly.

Faithful Word Baptist Church (website) - One Man Hate Group (literally, since there are not many who follow his strip mall church): Pastor Steven Anderson

Family Research Council (website) - One Man Hate Group: Tony Perkins. Even with ties to white separatists, this group (Founded by Focus On Th Family) continues to influence politics with its anti-gay political hate-fest, the Values Voters Summit.

Family Research Institute (website) - One Man Hate Group: Paul Cameron. Being debunked and kicked out of professional institutions on a regular basis has never stopped Cameron from spreading the lies that are used by the likes of the Family Research Council. E.G: according to Cameron, I'm a medical wonder, since I'm over 65 and the average age of homosexuals (according to his "research"**) is 42.

Heterosexuals Organized for a Moral Environment (website) - Besides having the dumbest looking website featuring animated doves, this organization with it's "peace" symbolism is probably the most disingenuous.

Illinois Family Institute (website) - Connected with American Family Association and Americans For Truth About Homosexuality. Enough said.

Jewish Political Action Committee (website - inactive)

MassResistance (website) - Rabidly "pro-family" and rabidly anti-gay, their site takes an "American Patriot" stance and looks to be connected with the Patriot Movement itself but supposedly is not.

Mission: America (website) - One Man Hate Group: Linda Harvey. Harvey's main target is parents: children must not be exposed to homosexuality, gay teachers oir doctors.

Parents Action League (website) - Concentrating on the Anoka-Hennepin School District in Minnesota, the irony of which is not lost to people following gay teen suicides and bullying.

National Organization for Marriage (website) - Along with American Family Association and One Million Moms (not designated a hate group but decidedly anti-gay), this organization's campaign against same-sex marriage has exploded with boycotts of retailers across the country. It's boycott of Starbuck's attempted to go global but fizzled within the first weeks.

Public Advocate of the United States (website) - One Man Hate Group: Eugene Delgaudio.

SaveCalifornia.com (website) - This organization attempts to save California children from "Sexual Brainwashing"


Sons of Thundr (Faith Baptist Church) (website) - With graphic depictions of aborted fetuses and auto accidents (due to alcoholism), you don't want to see what they think of gays and AIDS.

Tom Brown Ministries (website)

Traditional Values Coalition (website) - One Man Hate Group: Lou Sheldon. This organization and its founder can best be termed as the granddaddy of anti-gay faith-based hate groups, going back to 1984. Although tarnished considerably during the Jack Abramoff scandal, it continues to tout over 43,000 affiliated churches.

True Light Pentecost Church (website) - When you don't believe in Christmas or Easter and dress like a demented Mennonite or Mother Theresa you're a cult.

United Families International (website)

Westboro Baptist Church (website) - One Man Hate Group: Fred Phelps. Volumes have been written about the Man Addicted To Hate who catapulted to the Hate Hall of Fame by picketing Matthew Sheperd's Funeral.

Windsor Hills Baptist Church (website)

You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International (website) - One Man Hate Group: Bradlee Dean. When you play rock hate music at school assemblies under the guise of "education" you are a fraud. When you state that "on average, they [homosexuals] molest 117 people before they’re found out" you're a hate group.
As you can see, the groups run from the highly organized (Family Research Council), to the hopelessly inept (Faithful Word Baptist Church*) and just plain weird (True Light Pentecostal), but it is their intensity across the board that provoke discrimination, violence, bullying and suicide. All in the name of God, of course.

Reading their websites can be a confusing amalgam of "we-hate-them-but-we-love-them" platitudes, faulty (if not outwardly fake) research, junk science, cherry-picked quotes from Scripture, rages against a "Homosexual Agenda" that never was, and ubiquitous family portraits (sometimes unintentionally hilarious) Some tout a great deal of books (inspirational or otherwise) by their pastors and spiritual leaders, few published by any mainstream publisher.

But confusing as they might seem, the hopes and dreams of their hate groups can be read between the lines:

Family Research Council:

     "To make matters worse, President Obama's fiscal cliff deal would impose a marriage penalty on many American families. For real, long term solutions to our nation's fiscal problems, the government should not be working to further dissuade couples from getting married."

IOW (In other words): we're losing the battle for same-sex marriage, but we will continue to attack Obama, if even from an oddly tangential standpoint. Our 2013 goal will be to go after the legislators who even think of giving in to the dreaded :homosexual agenda."

Linda Harvey, Mission America:

"Our hearts should be torn apart by the schoolroom lies that spawn callous disregard for God and each other, embedded in lessons on evolution (“you are just a higher animal”), lessons covering every loony worldview except Western civilization (“white male racism and patriarchy”) and “anti-bullying” programs that are often hijacked as vehicles for children to embrace or applaud homosexuality."

IOW: Since schools are evil spawns of secular humanist homosexuals our goal in 2013 (barring home schooling) is to root them out and sack them. They are un-Christian and certainly un-American. Note: Linda Harvey has said previously that there is no "proof that homosexuals exist."Other One Man Hate Groups To Watch Out For

Being listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center has, for some, become a badge of honor - and indication that they are true Christian Right zealots and proud of it. And while some others have not made the grade, they are certainly worth mentioning as One Man Hate Groups (links to related articles)

David Barton

Cindy Japan-Is Shaped like A Dragon Jacobs

Martin Ssempe, the "Eat Da Poo-Poo Pastor"

Ken Hutcherson

Franklin Graham

San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone

Shattering Those Hopes And Dreams: Back To The Wounded Tiger

Although hate is on the rise, and enablers are on the attack, many people have been lulled into a sense of complacency: after all, marriage equality is making strides and given time ... The problem is that such complacency masks what is currently happening and will continue: organizations such as the Family Research Council will continue to demonize gays to the point of suicide (esp. gay teen suicide****). Pastors will continue to make inane comments about putting homosexuals behind barbed wire fences. Christian broadcasters will continue to excoriate gays as Nazi-driven perverts.

And Pat Robertson will continue to maintain that gays are demonically possessed.

The Hopes and Dreams of Hate Groups are ready to reap the benefits of the intensity. But they will be shattered if we counter that intensity with these weapons:

Vigilance   Determination   Education   Activism

*Pastor Anderson's claim to fame, you will recall, was praying for the death of Obama. In statements that would make a rock look intelligent, he said that homosexuals recruit through molestation and should be executed.
** Cameron still sticks to his research - which was garnered during the Age of AIDS from reading gay newspaper obituaries.
*** LaBarbera is known to attend events such as the Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco in order to take pictures and collect "material" (note: his collection of sex toys is said to be FABULOUS!
**** Or as Dan Savage put it: "Tony Perkins sits every day on a pile of dead gay kids ... and h,e calls himself a Christian."