Re: The Religious Right

At 08:03 AM 4/24/2006, RFaussette@aol.com wrote:
>In a message dated 4/23/2006 11:31:56 PM Eastern
>Standard Time, janmatch@earthlink.net writes:
>Having said that, though, in writing the First
>Amendment and the non-establishment clause, they
>did not have in view this current idea of
>separation--that the state is thoroughly secular
>and not informed at all by religious values, especially Christian.
>This view that is popular now was completely
>foreign, not just to the Founders, but to the
>first 150 years of American political thought.
>It's absolutely clear that the Fathers did not
>try to excise every vestige of Christian
>religion, Christian thought, and Christian
>values from all facets of public life.
>In fact, they were friendly to religion in
>general, and to Christianity in particular, and
>encouraged its education and expression. .."
>
>This is correct.
>
>The reason Christians seem to be losing in the
>political arena despite being a majority is that
>they have forgotten their civic responsibilities.
>Jews have not forgotten their religious and civic duties vis a vis the state:
>
>"Religious discipline generates tremendous
>political leverage when orthodox communities
>like New Square in New York transact with
>political entities such as Bill and Hilary
>Clinton. One thousand four hundred residents of
>the New Square community voted for Hilary
>Clinton. Twelve did not. Only a religiously
>committed population can deliver that kind of
>phenomenal bloc vote, but they do, and when they
>do, the synagogue is the state." Reported in
>the Portsmouth Herald, New Hampshire, Wednesday
>August 29, 2001 by Stephen Frothingham of Associated Press
>
> From Race and Religion: A Catholic View in Sam
> Francis's Race and the American Prospect,
> Occidental Press, 2006 ~ rich faussette

@ New Square was "religiously committed" and
engaging in their "civic responsibilities" when
they bribed Clintooon?????????? Now THAT is
rich! (no pun intended). ~ Janice

The Clinton Gang: Criminals to the End Neal Boortz Friday, Jan. 26, 2001
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/1/26/92108.shtml

"...And now we have this sleazy pardon controversy.

Clinton pardoned people who lied to save his
sorry ass. He pardoned people who refused a
lawful order to testify in one of the many
corruption cases against him. He pardoned big
campaign contributors. He pardoned people who
stole money from the taxpayers of the United
States and never paid a penny back.

Let’s start this tale with three Hasidic Jewish
communities in New York State. All three of these
communities are in Rockland County. The three
communities are named Kiryas Joel, Kaser and New Square.

How did these communities vote in the New York
senatorial election? Well, the villages of Kiryas
Joel and Kaser went for Rick Lazio, by a total of
3,480 vote to just 152 for Queen Hillary.

But what about New Square? Well, things were
different there. New Square went for Hillary by a vote of 1,359 to 10.

Something just a bit weird here, wouldn’t you say?

Maybe these communities aren’t so alike after
all, you say. You’re right. They aren’t exactly alike.

In 1999 one of these communities lost four of its
local leaders, Jacob Elbaum, Kalmen Stern,
Benjamin Berger and David Goldstein to a federal
prison because they were convicted of stealing
about $40 million dollars from the taxpayers of
the United States. The money was from federal
student loan, business and housing funds. Did
they do it? Yeah! They freely admit they did, but
they say they did it to benefit the community,
not for their own personal benefit.

The leaders of this particular Hasidic community
invited New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani to visit
while his senatorial candidacy was alive. They
promised Giuliani their complete support in the
upcoming election if he would do something to get
their four pals out of federal prison.

Giuliani said no and declined the invitation for a visit.

A short time later, who do you think shows up in
this community? None other than Mrs. Bill
Clinton, meeting with the community leaders and
promising she’d mention their felons to her husband, the president.

And then, lo and behold, what do you suppose
happens in the actual final hours of the Clinton
presidency? Oddly enough, Elbaum, Stern, Berger
and Goldstein, the New Branch Four, the men who
stole $40 million from the taxpayers of the
United States, received their pardon. The
sentences were commuted. Convicted only a little
over a year ago. No restitution. No real time
served. No real punishment for bilking the U.S.
taxpayers. Just open the cell door and out they go.

Surprise! The request for the pardons didn’t go
through regular Justice Department channels. It
went straight to and from Clinton’s office.

Bear in mind, folks, this is only the fourth time
in this century that a pardon has come out of the
president’s office without Justice Department
involvement. One of the others was Nixon. Another
was Weinberger. Can’t remember the fourth.

We all know what happened here, don’t we? A
promise was made. Vote for my wife and I’ll turn
your felons loose. Pardons for votes. Votes
bought with taxpayer money. Let’s see, 1,359
votes for – say – $40,000,000. That works out to about $30,000 a vote.

Your tax money at work. Your tax money at work in
the hands of the most corrupt man ever to hold the highest office in our land.

*
Copyright 2001 by United Press International. All rights reserved.
U.S. Attorney Probes Pardon-Hillary Connection Saturday, Feb. 24, 2001
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/2/23/190239.shtml

NEW YORK (UPI) – The U.S. attorney's probe of the
pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich has
expanded to the four presidential pardons of four
Jewish men convicted of stealing $40 million from taxpayers for a fake school.

Mary Jo White, U.S. attorney for the Southern
District of New York, is investigating a possible
link between the last-minute pardon by former
President Bill Clinton of four New Yorkers and
votes for Hillary Clinton's Senate election last November.

Kalmen Stern, David Goldstein, Benjamin Berger
and Jacob Elbaum were serving prison sentences of
up to 6.5 years for bilking $40 million worth of
student Pell grants and loans from government
sources for a phony school in the Hasidic community of New Square, N.Y.

Sen. Clinton said that although she attended a
White House meeting in which the pardon issue was
raised, "I never made any view known."

Last month, she refused to talk about the
controversial pardons of the four New York
Hasidic Jews by her husband. New Square voted
1359-10 for the first lady – although other
nearby Hasidic enclaves voted 3480-152 for
Clinton's GOP opponent, former Rep. Rick Lazio.

Outspoken Hillary Suddenly Has No Opinions

"I have no opinion. I had no opinion before. I
had no opinion at the time," Clinton said at a
New York City news conference on Jan. 29. "I have no opinion now."

Both Clintons met with Rabbi David Twersky on
Dec. 22 in the White House, where the pardons
were discussed as well as other issues concerning
the Hasidic enclave in New Square, 20 miles from New York City.

The pardon proponents claimed that the four
deserved clemency because they didn't steal the
money for themselves but for the Hasidic community.

Last week, White announced that her office and
the FBI "have opened an investigation to
determine whether there have been any violations
of federal law" in the pardons of Rich and his
partner, Pincus Green. Bill Clinton has denied
that the pardons of Rich and Green – which White
opposed – had anything to do with the money
donated to Democrats by Rich's ex-wife, Denise Rich.

"Any suggestion that improper factors, including
fund raising for the party or my library, had
anything to do with the decision are absolutely
false," Clinton has said in a statement. "I look
forward to cooperating with any appropriate inquiry."

Denise Rich donated more than $1 million to the
Democratic Party, $450,000 to Clinton's Arkansas
presidential library and about $100,000 to the
Senate campaign of Hillary Clinton.

A federal grand jury in Manhattan has subpoenaed
records detailing contributions to the Clinton
presidential library as part of an investigation
into the pardon of Rich as well as all government
documents concerning the Rich pardon, it was
reported by CNN Thursday. Through his lawyer,
David Kendall, Clinton rejected a subpoena from
the House Government Reform Committee for the
names of all donors of more than $5,000 to the Arkansas presidential library.

Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., the committee chairman,
threatened to issue a contempt of Congress citation.

The head of the largest Jewish denomination in
the United States criticized last week the
pardons of the four Hasidic Jews and Rich that
former Clinton made on his last day in office.

"President Clinton was a good friend of the Jews,
but many of his last-minute pardons were simply
outrageous," Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of
Reform Judaism's Union of American Hebrew
Congregations, wrote in an op-ed piece in Jewish
Week. "Among the most indefensible were those granted to Jews."

The president pardoned four Hasidim from the
Skverer sect in New Square, convicted of robbing
the government of millions by setting up a
fictitious yeshiva to receive federal student aid
money, wrote Yoffie. "Hasidic leaders and lawyers
for the men, with no apparent irony, have
justified the commutations on the grounds that
many other yeshivas were doing the same thing and
that the funds were channeled back into their
community rather than being used for personal
gain," said Yoffie. "For Jews, this is not simply
another case of fraud and embezzlement. This is a
case of religious people inventing an imaginary
Torah institution to steal from the government."

Roger Clinton's Pardon Promises

Meanwhile, more controversy swirled around the
presidential pardons sought by Clinton's brother, Roger.

Roger Clinton said Friday in an exclusive
interview with the Los Angeles Times that he
promised a half-dozen of his closest friends,
including people he had served time with in
prison, that his brother would pardon them.

Insisting that he never solicited money or
accepted any, the former president's brother said
he compiled a list of six names and wrote down
reasons why they should be pardoned, the Times
reported. "I put it into a stack of papers on a
table in the White House where he would see it,"
Roger Clinton. "I put the names on it. I put down
their relationship to me. And I said they had all
gone through the Justice Department and they were deserving."

Shortly before Bill Clinton left office, Roger
Clinton said he asked his brother about the
pardons, which he said Bill Clinton told him he would "look into."

On Jan. 21, Roger Clinton said he learned from
the newspapers that none of his friends were
pardoned and that it caused a "rift" between the two men.

"I couldn't understand why none of my requests
for pardons for my friends were granted," Roger
Clinton said. "I thought they all deserved it."

He said he worked with his friends to fill out
the proper paperwork and go through channels of
the U.S. Justice Department before he approached his brother on the pardons.

Roger Clinton would not identify the friends for
whom he sought pardons. A spokeswoman for Bill
Clinton said that the Roger Clinton list of
pardon requests was sent to the Justice
Department for review and the federal government recommended against pardons.

Roger Clinton told the Times that that he told
his brother that he would forgo a pardon himself
if the president would grant clemency to his friends.

Bill Clinton pardoned his brother, who pleaded
guilty in 1985 to conspiracy to distribute
cocaine. He served more than one year in prison.

"It was so important to me that these people on
the list, that they get it and not me," he said. "I guess he didn't think so."
Received on Mon Apr 24 08:52:21 2006