Faith based programs v. People in SCOTUS

I have mixed emotions about this, and that is a bad way look at this. It should not be looked at emotionally but Constitutionally. What does the Constitution say?

Well, President Thomas Jefferson used Federal dollars to buy Bibles to teach the Indians our Language and culture. Culture used to be known as Christianity. They were intertwined. Starting with President Washington, the Bible was the first and only text available for a long time.

It was important for a person to learn to read and write, and this was the purpose of using the Bible. (Aside from the fact that most people were Christians.) An educated society was a virtuous society. So it was in those days. lol.

Yesterday we had President Bush’ faith-based program being heard in the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS). If they would teach the Bill of Rights correctly, we would all understand that the freedom of religion was included so as to protect the Church, the Synogogue, and the Mosque from the weight of the Federal government. Not the other way around.

I have received an e-mail from the ACLJ (Justice) attorneys. They have included a short video:

This morning, as I walked the sacred halls of our nation’s highest court, I was reminded of the extreme importance of your solid support of the ACLJ. It is why I am at the Supreme Court today. It is why our team of lawyers worked diligently to ensure our amicus brief was filed under an expedited deadline in this critical case.

Aggressive secularist groups, such as the one in this case (called ”Freedom From Religion Foundation”), are on the warpath. This group goes so far as publishing warning stickers that they encourage to be placed on Bibles in hotel rooms. They take an extreme view of separation of church and state and have challenged the President’s faith-based office.
As a faithful member of the American Center for Law and Justice, I wanted to report to you immediately.

Please take just a moment to view this video report from outside the Supreme Court of the United States. I prepared it for you just moments after oral arguments were heard in Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation, a highly pivotal case in the fight to protect President Bush’s faith-based initiatives.

This is an imperative case! Defending religious freedom is a matter of great urgency. I encourage you to…read our amicus brief that was filed in this critical case, also.

Thank you for your firm stand alongside us. Thank you for your solid support of our efforts. You make it possible for us to fight in the highest court of our land today for liberty.

Thank you!

They have also asked for our help, if you would like to keep religion in its’ rightful place in our Country.

Your online gift today will help to propel us forward on this and other important cases nationwide that matter to you, your children, and future generations.

Thank you for taking the time read my article. I still feel uneasy toward the federal government getting mixed up in our business. I do not know. I rather like having the power over them, although I understand the complaint.

What is the complaint? Faith based programs work better than anything this government-made of men could ever do. Programs such as helping the needing, clothing the poor, feeding the hungry, etc.

You do know, I hope, that just because the government has interveved does NOT relieve you of your Godly obligations! All religions do much more effecient and helpful service than any government agency ever could.

Knowing this, we should try to eliminate the programs rather than allow the feds into our door. It doesn’t matter how noble the cause.

Remember, Jesus got very angry when He saw the money-changers in His temple outer area…

Ex-leader of Liberia charged with stealing $1.3 million

Source: CNN.

MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) -- The former president has been charged with stealing more than $1 million from Liberia's coffers while in office, government officials said Wednesday.

Gyude Bryant, who led the interim government from October 2003 until current President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf took office in January 2006, had previously been accused of embezzlement in a report issued by the Economic Community of West African States.

Police had questioned Bryant in recent months as part of a wide anticorruption campaign, and government officials said they finally had enough information to issue charges.

"Mr. Bryant has been formally charged with theft of property," Information Minister Laurence Bropleh said, adding the figure of $1.3 million "could go higher."

Bryant took office as the country emerged from civil war and totalitarian rule by Charles Taylor, who fled into exile in Nigeria in August 2003 and is awaiting trial for war crimes in a U.N.-backed court for atrocities committed by his forces in neighboring Sierra Leone.

Liberia is still recovering from more than a decade of war and unrest, with limited electricity even in the capital, poor roads and wrecked industries. Sirleaf has spent much of her first year in office leading a crackdown on government corruption that Liberians have applauded.

Bryant declined to comment on the charges. One of his lawyers said they were awaiting the government's proof.

"If you make a charge, make sure you can support the charge," Samuel Clark said. "It is just not fair to make allegations when you have no proofs of those allegations."

Bryant had said earlier that he believed he would be protected by immunity given to sitting heads of state.

Bropleh said the former president would be held accountable.

"Unfortunately, when the action is criminal and you are former transitional head of state, you don't have that immunity. You have to account for your actions especially when it has to do with theft of government's resources," Bropleh said.

Bropleh said a court date has yet to be set for Bryant's case.

Drudge Report on suicide attack during VP's visit: Bagram 2/27/2007

'I HEARD A LOUD BOOM' VP POOL REPORT
Tue Feb 2007 11:19:01 ET
Filed By Mark Silva, White House Correspondent
Chicago Tribune

The vice president left Kabul wearing a black suit and shiny dark cordovan cowboy boots - having just become the highest-level Bush administration official to have spent the night in a war zone - the unscheduled overnighter at Bagram Air Force Base. The vice president spoke on the record with the pool about the attack -- speaking, seated on a desk, in his Airstream, silver-skinned on the outside and leather-seated and wood-paneled on the inside, cabin set up inside the C-17 military cargo transport that had ferried him to Pakistan and Afghanistan and out as well.

He suggested that he never felt threatened, and that no policy of the US ought to be affected by such actions aimed at shaking the stability of the Pakistani govt.

There will be a transcript. The following is from my tape, but I caution that it was loud inside that C-17 - we sat out in the cargo bay with the rest of the administration, military and Service - so I've related the comments from tape and notes I feel most certain about, which is all of the substance of it:

"I was provided quarters overnight," he said of his Bagram stay. "It seems to me it was 10 occlock in the morning. I heard a loud boom... The Secret Service came in and told me there had been an attack on the main gate."

He was moved "for a brief period of time" to one of the base bomb shelters near his quarters, the VP said. "As the situation settled down and they had a better sense of what was going on, I went back to my room."

Asked about Taliban claims of responsibilty, he asked who said that, what did they say. Told that a Taliban was quoted by name as saying Cheney was the target, and asked what this sort of activity says of the overall situation there - and if it might be a way of playing to Taliban tactics of bolstering its own standing among the people, the vice president said, slowly, and calmly: "I think they clearly try to find ways to question the authority of the central government" there. "Striking at the Bagram (base) with a suicide bomber, I suppose, is one way to do that... It shouldn't affect our behavior."

Pooler's notes:

For whatever claims the Taliban spokesman may be making about having targeted the VP with the bombing at the gate at Bagram, the VP and his retinue were a long way from that gate, well inside that massive base. Take that for whatever it's worth.

The first we heard of the attack was the sirens of the base fire trucks leaving from their station, which was pretty close to the hub of the VP's activities there, including the military transport that he had used to fly in and out of Islamabad and Afghanistan - see the special-edition commemorative pool report on "The Spirit of Strom Thurmond."

The VP was preparing to leave Bagram this morning when the attack occurred, and the Service certainly picked up its step on our staging and sweeps as the base went to code red after attack.

On the flight out of Kabul, a senior administration official spoke to the pool insisting upon anonymity but allowing tapes - and there will be a transcript of that as well.

The president wanted the VP to make this trip because of "the continuing threat that exists in this part of the world," the sao said.

"I've seen some press reports that Cheney went in to beat up" on Karzai, the sao said. "That"s not so." The idea of going in and threatening someone "isn't valid."

There have been successes, more al Qaeda killed in Afghanistan and Pakistan than anywhere else.

"That doesn't mean there's no threat. That doesn't mean a rosy scenario. There's a lot of work to be done."

At Cheney's luncheon with Karzai, the Afghan leader told a story of meeting with tribal leaders and trying to get them to cooperate. "The only question they wanted to ask me, was, 'Is the United States with you?" Karzai said, according to this account.

People are concerned about the US commitment to the region, and Democrats in DC talking about withdrawal from Iraq make them concerned - though that debate back home had no bearing on the VP's decision to come here, sao said. "That would have devastating consequences to what we're trying to do" in this part of the world.

Karzai was reportedly "upbeat" - with all the money and troops that the US is committing to Afghanistan, the sao said, "It's all taken as a sign" of commitment.

"They worry about that... If they see weakness on the part of the US... They worry about our commitment."

The proposals of people in the US to withdraw from Iraq have "consequences in this part of the world," the official said. "The al Qaeda strategy is based on the notion that they can break the will of the American people."

Asked about Cheney's suggestions that talk of withdrawal lend comfort to the terrorists, in the context of his comments last week in the Pacific and his remarks about Speaker Pelosi, the official said no, what was meant was, "It would validate the al Qaeda strategy." Not aid and comfort them.

It was an 18-minute flight from Bagram to Kabul, landing there at 12:19 pm, and the VP was there for a little over two hours. See the Kabul pool, but we had been told the VP would meet with Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai for about an hour - and it seemed to last a little longer, though we were outside holding.

At 2:13 pm local, the armored dust-covered motorcade of the VP left the grounds of the palace and sped through the slalom of cement and sandbag barricades that line the approach, and he boarded the C-17 under partly sunny skies.

END

Liberian official resigns in 'Knucklegate' sex scandal

Source: CNN.

MONROVIA, Liberia (Reuters) -- Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf accepted the resignation of her chief of staff, Willie Knuckles, after he was photographed having sex with two women, tarnishing a government campaign for moral probity.

Johnson-Sirleaf, a longtime campaigner for women's rights, said Knuckles had not broken the law but the scandal threatened to derail efforts to combat sexual abuse and raise standards in Liberia's public life after a brutal 1989-2003 civil war.

Knuckles, who is also minister of state for presidential affairs and is married with children, has accused opposition lawmakers of trying to use the photographs to blackmail him.

"The behavior of Minister Knuckles, while not illegal, is improper and inappropriate for a public servant," Johnson-Sirleaf said in a televised address late Monday.

"I accepted his resignation. ... Those who sought to use this unfortunate situation for blackmail should probably review their own moral probity," she said.

Liberia's irreverent media have had a field day with the "Knucklegate" scandal, piling pressure on Johnson-Sirleaf to enforce the high moral standards preached by her government.

Johnson-Sirleaf, who took office as Africa's first elected female president last year, has launched a fight against widespread prostitution and sexual abuse in the impoverished West African state.

Rape became a weapon of war during Liberia's civil war, which devastated the infrastructure of Africa's oldest independent republic. More than 200,000 people were killed as roaming gangs of drugged child soldiers terrorized the country.

Knuckles, a prominent Liberian businessman, has accused a female opposition legislator married to former parliamentary Speaker Edwin Snowe of circulating the photos. He has denied the two women involved in the threesome were prostitutes.

Snowe, former son-in-law of ex-dictator Charles Taylor, was forced to resign as speaker this month after a majority of legislators opposed his tenure. Snowe had tried to blackmail Knuckles into supporting him in office, the ex-minister said.

Knuckles has publicly apologized to his wife of 37 years, his family and friends, and his pastor and fellow churchgoers. He said he did not know how the graphic photographs were obtained.

North Korea probe turns to banks

Source: CNN.

HONG KONG, China (AP) -- A U.S. Treasury Department delegation worked Monday to resolve sanctions against a Macau bank accused of helping North Korea launder money -- a key condition in the North's agreement to give up its nuclear weapons program.

The meeting with Macau officials came about two weeks after North Korea agreed in six-nation talks to take initial steps to abandon its nuclear weapons program in return for aid. Washington agreed on the meeting's sidelines to settle the financial sanctions by mid-March.

On Monday, Dale Kreisher, spokesman at the U.S. Consulate General in Hong Kong, declined to say whether Washington was ready to lift the sanctions on Banco Delta Asia, accused of helping North Korea's money laundering and counterfeiting.

But Kreisher, whose office is responsible for Macau, told The Associated Press, "Discussions (with North Korea) along with the U.S. investigation have brought Treasury to the point where they think they can begin taking steps to resolve the BDA matter."

Washington slapped restrictions on Banco Delta Asia in 2005 and put it on a money-laundering blacklist. This prompted Macau to freeze about US$24 million at the bank. Consequently, banks worldwide shunned North Korean business for fears of losing access to American markets.

Many believe the sanctions dealt a severe blow to cash-strapped North Korea, which denied the allegations and boycotted the six-nation nuclear talks over the issue for a year.

Banco Delta Asia has said that money might have been laundered at the bank, but added there is no evidence the institution was aware of it. The bank said it is small, family-owned, and didn't have the technology to check big batches of U.S. currency for fake bills.

The bank also said it used a dated computer system and that it didn't pay enough attention to maintaining its own books. It has also said the bank didn't have adequate written anti-money-laundering policies for its staff.

Macau was a Portuguese enclave before it returned to Chinese rule in 1999. The territory -- the only place in China where casinos are legal -- recently displaced the Las Vegas Strip as the world's most lucrative gaming center.