The Political Enclave That Dare Not Speak Its Name »
Posted By Progressive 4 months, 3 weeks ago in Political NewsNo sign explains the prim and proper red brick house on C Street SE.
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There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating: people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing. -- Oscar Wilde
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hyperbola4 months, 3 weeks ago
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Actually, what is new about this story is that the WashPo is touching it. The "information" has been known for a long time and the WashPo article barely scratches the surface.
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Meet 'The Family'
Posted June 13, 2003.
http://www.alternet.org/story/16167
Q: The writer, who went undercover among America's secret theocrats, describes three bizarre weeks of 'man to man' interaction with the power elite.
It sounded like a reality show on the PAX network: Six conservative politicians living in a DC townhouse owned by a fundamentalist Christian organization. What happens when you stop being polite and start finding Jesus?
In April, the AP broke the story that six U.S. congressmen were paying the bargain rate of $600 a month each to live together in a swanky DC townhouse owned by a secretive fundamentalist Christian group known as the Fellowship or the Foundation. Many, understandably, were curious. Who is this organization, and what is its agenda?
The group, the AP reported, is best known for holding the annual National Prayer Breakfast at the White House, which offers scores of national and international heavy hitters the opportunity to praise God in close proximity to the President. In the article, the congressmen boarding at the house denied owing any allegiance to the group, and several professed ignorance of even the most basic facts about the organization. Little else was reported about the group's history, motives or backers.
There is a reason for that. The Fellowship is one of the most secretive, and most powerful, religious organizations in the country. Its connections reach to the highest levels of the U.S. government and include ties to the CIA and numerous current and past dictators around the world.
Last month, Harper's magazine published a rather extraordinary article by Jeffrey Sharlet, editor of the irreverent web site killingthebuddha.com and co-author of the upcoming "Killing the Buddha: A Heretic's Bible" (Free Press). The piece chronicled Sharlet's three-week semi-undercover stay at Ivanwald, the Fellowship's mansion:-
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hyperbola4 months, 3 weeks ago
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Ivanwald, which sits at the end of Twenty-fourth Street North in Arlington, Virginia, is known only to its residents and to the members and friends of the organization that sponsors it, a group of believers who refer to themselves as "the Family." The Family is, in its own words, an "invisible" association, though its membership has always consisted mostly of public men. Senators Don Nickles (R., Okla.), Charles Grassley (R., Iowa), Pete Domenici (R., N.Mex.), John Ensign (R., Nev.), James Inhofe (R., Okla.), Bill Nelson (D., Fla.), and Conrad Burns (R., Mont.) are referred to as "members," as are Representatives Jim DeMint (R., S.C.), Frank Wolf (R., Va.), Joseph Pitts (R., Pa.), Zach Wamp (R., Tenn.), and Bart Stupak (D., Mich.).
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Regular prayer groups have met in the Pentagon and at the Department of Defense, and the Family has traditionally fostered strong ties with businessmen in the oil and aerospace industries. The Family maintains a closely guarded database of its associates, but it issues no cards and collects no official dues. Members are asked not to speak about the group or its activities. The organization has operated under many guises, some active, some defunct: National Committee for Christian Leadership, International Christian Leadership, the National Leadership Council, Fellowship House, the Fellowship Foundation, the National Fellowship Council, the International Foundation. These groups are intended to draw attention away from the Family.....
...If this all sounds like something out of a conspiracy theorist's wet dream (or paranoid nightmare), you're right. Sharlet's account of his three weeks of "man to man" interaction can only be described as disturbing and downright bizarre. In fact, it was so creepy many accused him of making the whole thing up.
So what did Sharlet find?....
http://www.alternet.org/story/16167
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hyperbola4 months, 3 weeks ago
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AND, the list of GOP politicians involved and the type of activities is "whitewashed" in the WashPo (surprise).
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The GOP's Many Talons
... There are interesting connections between the White House credentialed Talon News Service, owned by Houston-based GOP activist Bobby Eberle, Jr., and two other “Talon” entities. One is investment and management company Talon LLC of Detroit, co-founded by Michael T. Timmis, a major contributor to conservative Republican causes. Talon Equity Partners LLC is an adjunct of Talon LLC. The other GOP-connected “Talon” firm is Talon LLC of Houston, a “special purpose entity” established by the now defunct GOP bankroller, Enron.
In April 2000, Enron and LJM2, a co-investment entity headed by Enron Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow, set up Talon LLC. Fastow was later indicted and found guilty of multiple counts of fraud. His boss at Enron, CEO Ken Lay, a close friend of and contributor to George W. Bush, was also indicted and is awaiting trial. The Talon entity experienced a 370% annualized return on an original investment of preferred Enron stock and made $ 41 million for LJM2. Investigators in Houston are still trying to determine what happened to Enron’s original profits before its stock tanked. There are suspicions that much of the money ended up in well protected and hidden Bush family and GOP coffers.
Timmis is a major contributor to The Fellowship Foundation, a powerful “Christian” fundamentalist operation headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. The Fellowship has interlocking relationships with the Leadership Institute, also of Arlington, Virginia, where Talon White House correspondent “Jeff Gannon,” a.k.a. James Dale Guckert, took a two-day course at the institute’s Broadcast School of Journalism. The Leadership Institute, headed by Virginia Republican official Morton Blackwell, counts such right-wing members of Congress as Tom DeLay, Frank Wolf, Sam Brownback, John Ensign, Todd Tiahrt, Charles Grassley, James Inhofe, Zach Wamp, and Joseph Pitts as members of its “bi-partisan” congressional Board of Advisors. The above Republican members of Congress are also core members of The Fellowship. Gannon has been linked to Fellowship members who are active in two northern Virginia churches heavily influenced by the Fellowship: Little Falls Presbyterian Church in Arlington and McLean Bible Church in nearby McLean. Gannon is also linked to Rev. Rob Schenk, the founder of Washington’s National Community Church, a Pentecostal congregation that counts John and Janet Ashcroft as members. It currently meets in a movie theater at Union Station in Washington, DC.
Companies with lucrative defense contracts with the Pentagon, many of which are based in northern Virginia, financially back the Fellowship. Some of these companies are involved with prisoner detention contracts in Iraq, Cuba, and Afghanistan.....
http://www.insider-magazine.com/Talons.htm -
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Jeboba4 months, 3 weeks ago
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What the GOP and the people involved with this dubious organization long for is a theocracy! Right! just what we need, government run by religious nuts, like Iran.
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But I digress, we had that for 8 years under Bush. Thank God for term limits and the people waking up to the grand plan of the GOP.
Keep your religion out of my government and I'll keep government out of your churches. The cons have violated both ends of this common sense agreement. They interjected their religion into government and their churches preached politics and financially supported the "Christian" attempted takeover of government.
It is now time to rid our government of all of this remaining 'cult' from the halls of congress. This can only be done by voting out all remaining repugs in 2010! -
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