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<DIV>Wayne,</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>It is time that these extreme right wing churches pay taxes. They want to
become politically involved so OK but lose your tax exempt status. I heard some
conservative preacher a couple weeks ago going on and on about the judicial
nominees and how it was up to them to get these people confirmed. Bush is so
stupid he re-nominates judges who have already been rejected by the Democrats
amd cries around about them not being confirmed. What is the score, I believe
205 judges confirmed and 10 rejected. In any mans terms 95% confirmation is
excellent. Republicans are a bunch of whiney assed cry babies!</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Dick Schmidt</DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=deco@moscow.com href="mailto:deco@moscow.com">Art Deco</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=vision2020@moscow.com
href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com">Vision 2020</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Monday, May 16, 2005 12:27 PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> [Vision2020] What would Jesus
do?</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>05-16-05 CNN:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>
<H1>The Posse in the Pulpit</H1>
<H3></H3>
<P>By DANIEL EISENBERG<BR><SPAN class=cnnStoryTime><!-- date -->
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<FONT size=1>Monday, May 16, 2005 Posted: 2:31 PM EDT (1831 GMT) </FONT><!-- /date --><BR></SPAN></P></FONT></DIV>
<DIV>
<P><B style="FONT-SIZE: 14px">Ever since he witnessed an AIDS-awareness
presentation at a Houston-area high school that went into explicit detail
about how condoms could prevent the spread of the disease, the Rev. Rick
Scarborough has been the kind of dedicated activist the G.O.P. has to thank
for much of its current dominance. </B></P>
<P>Since that day in 1992, Scarborough, 55, has believed that "Christians have
a moral responsibility in this country to be involved in politics." For most
of the past decade, the outspoken Baptist minister from Texas has used his
pulpit to help elect conservative judges and politicians. </P>
<P>Along the way, his organization, Vision America, has recruited 3,000 to
4,000 "patriot pastors" in parts of the South and Midwest to help get out the
evangelical-Christian vote.</P>
<P>That turned out to be such a success that Scarborough has turned his focus
to the one branch of the Federal Government that Republicans don't fully
control: the judiciary. </P>
<P>Although seven of the nine Supreme Court Justices were appointed by
Republicans, and G.O.P. appointees account for the majority of judges on 10 of
the 13 federal appeals courts, Scarborough and others believe the bench is the
last bastion of liberalism. </P>
<P>Like so many of his preaching peers--from D. James Kennedy in Fort
Lauderdale, Florida, to Rod Parsley near Columbus, Ohio--Scarborough believes
that "activist" judges have imposed their personal beliefs by creating new
rights on abortion, gay marriage and pornography that aren't expressly stated
in the Constitution. </P>
<P>They say those same judges have also restricted freedom of religion by, for
example, ordering the removal of a Ten Commandments monument from the grounds
of the Alabama state supreme court. Last week's federal-court decision
overturning Nebraska's gay-marriage ban has only added fuel to the right's
fire. </P>
<P>Thus, Scarborough is spending most of his time these days working to beat
back Democrats' attempts to block several of President Bush's judicial
nominees. </P>
<P>"It takes two-thirds of Congress, the President's signature and
three-fourths of the states to change the Constitution--or one judge," says
Scarborough, sitting beneath the mounted head of a whitetail deer in his east
Texas office. "And believe me, the left learned that a long time ago."</P>
<P>But for all the value of evangelical activists to the G.O.P., this may be a
moment when their conviction is as much a headache as a help. They are
refusing to accept anything but total victory--namely, up or down majority
votes in the Senate for all the nominees, which would almost certainly
guarantee their confirmation. </P>
<P>That position is making it very difficult for the two parties to achieve a
face-saving compromise. Unless Democrats agree to allow floor votes on all the
White House's nominees, Senate majority leader Bill Frist has threatened to
use the Republican majority to prohibit judicial filibusters.</P>
<P>Often referred to as the "nuclear option," the move would change a Senate
tradition that lets the minority party drag on debate unless the majority can
muster 60 votes to stop it. </P>
<P>In response, Democrats, who point out that Republicans used other
procedural tricks to block more of President Bill Clinton's judicial nominees
than Democrats have blocked of Bush's, have vowed to tie up the Senate in
other ways. </P>
<P>The Senate could be headed for this historic showdown in part because it
anticipates an inevitable one down the line: a full-blown confirmation brawl
over the next Supreme Court nominee.</P>
<P>For now, neither party really wants to be here, and apparently not many
Americans want to either. In a new TIME poll, close to 40% of respondents said
courts have too much power, but almost 60% said the judicial filibuster should
not be eliminated. </P>
<P>Nevertheless, activists like Scarborough are on a mission to give "courage"
to G.O.P. Senators like John McCain, Olympia Snowe and Lincoln Chafee, who are
against changing Senate rules. </P>
<P>Senator Susan Collins has been the target of TV ads in her home state of
Maine, and her office has been deluged with thousands of calls on the issue.
</P>
<P>Much of the direction for the antifilibuster campaign has come from the
Arlington Group, a loose coalition of religious-right leaders that includes
Scarborough, James Dobson of Focus on the Family and Richard Land of the
Southern Baptists.</P>
<P>Frist's chief of staff, Eric Ueland, insists the idea that the filibuster
fracas is tied to pressure from the religious right is "wrong-headed
speculation." But last week, after a series of attempts at a deal with
Democrats to allow votes on just a few of Bush's nominees fell apart, Frist
staff members held a conference call with leaders of the Christian right to
allay concerns that the majority leader might be losing the stomach for the
fight. </P>
<P>Given his well-known ambitions to run for President in 2008, Frist has to
be especially careful not to alienate the evangelical supporters he will
surely need. </P>
<P>His counterpart, Senate minority leader Harry Reid, of course has his
liberal groups, like People for the American Way, holding his feet to the
fire; their barrage of TV ads has even targeted moderate Republicans like
Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.</P>
<P>Dealing with nominations is only part of the Christian right's growing
judicial reform agenda. Some House conservatives have talked openly about
effectively shutting down certain courts and judges by tightening the
judiciary's purse strings. </P>
<P>House Judiciary Committee chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. recently
floated the idea of establishing an inspector general for the federal
judiciary to monitor how money is being spent. He also repeated his support
for a House measure that would divide into three separate circuits the San
Francisco-- based Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, derided by conservatives for
decisions like its 2002 ruling that the words "one nation under God" in the
Pledge of Allegiance are unconstitutional.</P>
<P>Over the past year, other House members have introduced bills to remove the
federal courts' jurisdiction over certain hot-button issues, such as school
prayer and gay marriage, putting such matters in the hands of state and local
judges who are often elected and can be held accountable. </P>
<P>In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling that outlawed capital punishment
for juveniles--one of the cases that has caused some activists to call for
Justice Anthony Kennedy's impeachment--some members have pushed for
legislation forbidding federal judges to base their rulings on foreign cases.
</P>
<P>"In terms of the relationship between the judiciary and the Congress, this
is the most poisonous atmosphere in some 40 years," says Stephen Burbank, a
professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.</P>
<P>That doesn't seem to be a worry for Scarborough. Neither does the fact that
there are many evangelical churches, even conservative ones, that think the
involvement of pastors in the filibuster fight is an inappropriate mixing of
church and state. </P>
<P>Scarborough is intent on saving the U.S. from "judicial tyranny"--so
intent, in fact, that he once ran his massive Dodge pickup off a country road
because he was distracted by the e-mails he was checking on his BlackBerry.
</P>
<P>If he doesn't succeed, he insists, the consequences will be terrible,
especially for people of faith. "Where we are headed right now with separation
of church and state is that Christians will no longer be eligible to be
involved in political debate," he says. </P>
<P>Judging by his and other evangelical pastors' roles in the war over the
judiciary, the country is in no danger of getting there anytime soon.
</P></DIV>
<P>
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