'Intelligent Design' Comedy or Tragedy?

Christian right funding of conservative political agendas

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LAKELAND, Fla. -- Todd Bentley has a long night ahead of him, resurrecting the dead, healing the blind, and exploding cancerous tumors. Since April 3, the 32-year-old, heavily tattooed, body-pierced, shaved-head Canadian preacher has been leading a continuous "supernatural healing revival" in central Florida. To contain the 10,000-plus crowds flocking from around the globe, Bentley has rented baseball stadiums, arenas and airport hangars at a cost of up to $15,000 a day. Many in attendance are church pastors themselves who believe Bentley to be a prophet and don't bat an eye when he tells them he's seen King David and spoken with the Apostle Paul in heaven. "He was looking very Jewish," Bentley notes.

Tattooed across his sternum are military dog tags that read "Joel's Army." They're evidence of Bentley's generalship in a rapidly growing apocalyptic movement that's gone largely unnoticed by watchdogs of the theocratic right. According to Bentley and a handful of other "hyper-charismatic" preachers advancing the same agenda, Joel's Army is prophesied to become an Armageddon-ready military force of young people with a divine mandate to physically impose Christian "dominion" on non-believers.

"An end-time army has one common purpose -- to aggressively take ground for the kingdom of God under the authority of Jesus Christ, the Dread Champion," Bentley declares on the website for his ministry school in British Columbia, Canada. "The trumpet is sounding, calling on-fire, revolutionary believers to enlist in Joel's Army. ... Many are now ready to be mobilized to establish and advance God's kingdom on earth."

Joel's Army followers, many of them teenagers and young adults who believe they're members of the final generation to come of age before the end of the world, are breaking away in droves from mainline Pentecostal churches. Numbering in the tens of thousands, they base their beliefs on an esoteric reading of the second chapter of the Old Testament Book of Joel, in which an avenging swarm of locusts attacks Israel. In their view, the locusts are a metaphor for Joel's Army.

Despite their overt militancy, there's no evidence Joel's Army followers have committed any acts of violence. But critics warn that actual bloodletting may only be a matter of time for a movement that casts itself as God's avenging army.

Those sounding the alarm about Joel's Army are not secular foes of the Christian Right, few of whom are even aware of the movement or how widespread it's become in the past decade. Instead, Joel's Army critics are mostly conservative Christians, either neo-Pentecostals who left the movement in disgust or evangelical Christians who fear that Joel's Army preachers are stealing their flocks, even sending spies to infiltrate their own congregations and sway their young people to heresy. And they say the movement is becoming frightening.

"The pitch and intensity of the military rhetoric of this branch of the global Dominionist movement has substantially increased since the beginning of 2008," writes The Discernment Research Group, a Christian watchdog group that tracks what they call heresies or cults within Christianity. "One can only wonder how long before this transforms into real warfare with actual warriors."

'Snorting Religion'

Joel's Army believers are hard-core Christian dominionists, meaning they believe that America, along with the rest of the world, should be governed by conservative Christians and a conservative Christian interpretation of biblical law. There is no room in their doctrine for democracy or pluralism.

Dominionism's original branch is Christian Reconstructionism, a grim, Calvinist call to theocracy that, as Reconstructionist writer Gary North describes, wants to "get busy in constructing a Bible-based social, political and religious order which finally denies the religious liberty of the enemies of God."

Notorious for endorsing the public execution by stoning of homosexuals and adulterers, the Christian Reconstructionist movement is far better known in secular America than Joel's Army. That's largely because Reconstructionists have made several serious forays into mainstream politics and received a fair amount of negative publicity as a result. Joel's Army followers eschew the political system, believing the path to world domination lies in taking over churches, not election to public office.

Another key difference between the two branches of dominionism, which maintain a testy, arms-length relationship with one another, is Christian Reconstructionism's buttoned-down image and heavy emphasis on Bible study, which contrasts sharply with Joel's Army anti-intellectual distrust of biblical scholars and its unruly style.

"Some people snort cocaine, others snort religions," Joel's Army Pastor Roy said while ministering a morning program at Todd Bentley's Lakeland, Fla., revival in late May.

As this article went to press, Bentley's "Florida Outpouring" had been running for more than 100 days straight. Many attendees came in search of spontaneous physical healing and a desire to be part of a mystical community marked by dancing, shouting, gyrating, speaking in tongues and other forms of ecstatic release.

Snide jabs at traditional church services are fairly common at Bentley's revivals. In fact, what takes place onstage at the Florida Outpouring looks more like a pro wrestling extravaganza than church. On stage, Bentley and his team of pastors, yell, chant, and scream "Fire!" and "Bam!" while anointing followers.

The audience members behave as if they are at a psychedelic counterculture festival. One couple jumps up and down twirling red and silver metallic flags. Dyed-haired teenagers pulled in by the revival's presence on Facebook and MySpace wander around looking dazed. Women lay facedown on the floor, convulsing and howling. Fathers wail in tongues as their confused children look on. Strangers lay hands on those who fail to produce tongues or gyrate wildly enough, pressuring them to "let it out."

Bentley is considered a prophet both by his followers and by other leaders of the Joel's Army movement, whose adherents claim to be reviving a "five-fold ministry" of prophets, apostles, elders, pastors and teachers, as outlined in the Book of Ephesians. Not every five-fold ministry is connected to the Joel's Army movement, but the movement has spurred an interest in modern-day apostles and prophets that's troubling to the Assemblies of God, the world's largest Pentecostal church, which has officially disavowed the Joel's Army movement.

In a 2001 position paper, Assemblies of God leaders wrote that they do not recognize modern-day apostles or prophets and worried that "such leaders prefer more authoritarian structures where their own word or decrees are unchallenged." They are right to worry. Joel's Army followers believe that once democratic institutions are overthrown, their hierarchy of apostles and prophets will rule over the earth, with one church per city.

Warrior Nation

According to Joel's Army doctrine, the enforcers of the five-fold ministry will be members of the final generation, for whom the landmark Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade constituted a new Passover.

"Everyone born after abortion's legalization can consider their birth a personal invitation to take part in this great army," writes John Crowder, another prominent Joel's Army pastor, who bills his 2006 book, The New Mystics: How to Become Part of the Supernatural Generation, as a literal how-to guide for joining Joel's Army.

Both Bentley and Crowder are enormously popular on Elijah's List, an online watering hole for a broad spectrum of Joel's Army enlistees, from lightweight believers who merely share an affection for military rhetoric and pastors who dress in army camouflage (several Joel's Army pastors are addressed by their congregants as "commandant" or "commander") to hardliners who believe the church is called to have an active military role in end-times that have already begun. Elijah's List currently has more than 125,000 subscribers on its electronic mailing list.

Rick Joyner, a pastor whose books, The Harvest and The Call, helped popularize Joel's Army theology by selling more than a million copies each, goes the furthest on Elijah's List in pushing the hardliner approach. In 2006, he posted a sermon called "The Warrior Nation -- The New Sound of the Church," in which he claimed that a last-day army is now gathering and called believers "freedom fighters."

"As the church begins to take on this resolve, they [Joel's Army churches] will start to be thought of more as military bases, and they will begin to take on the characteristics of military bases for training, equipping, and deploying effective spiritual forces," Joyner wrote. "In time, the church will actually be organized more as a military force with an army, navy, air force, etc."

In a sort of disclaimer, Joyner writes at one point that God's army "will bring love, peace and stability wherever they go." But several of his books narrate with glee what he describes as "a coming civil war within the church." In his 1997 book The Harvest he writes: "Some pastors and leaders who continue to resist this tide of unity will be removed from their place. Some will become so hardened they will become opposers and resist God to the end."

Two years later, in his book The Final Quest, Joyner described a vision (taken as prophecy in the Joel's Army world, where Joyner is considered an "apostle") of the coming Christian Civil War in which demon-possessed Christian soldiers enslave other, weaker Christians who resist them. He also describes how the hero of the novel -- himself -- ascends a "Holy Mountain" in order to learn new truths and to acquire new, magic weapons.

Kids on Fire

Bentley, who claims to be a supernatural healer, is no less over the top, playing his biker-punk appearance and heavy metal theatrics to the hilt. On YouTube, where clips of his most dramatic healings have been condensed into a three-minute highlight reel, Bentley describes God ordering him to kick an elderly lady in the face: "I am thinking, 'God, why is the power of God not moving?' And He said, 'It is because you haven't kicked that women in the face.' And there was, like, this older lady worshipping right in front of the platform and the Holy Spirit spoke to me and the gift of faith came on me. He said, 'Kick her in the face ... with your biker boot.' I inched closer and I went like this [makes kicking motion]: Bam! And just as my boot made contact with her nose, she fell under the power of God."

The atmosphere is less charged with violence at "The Call," a 12-hour revival of up to 20,000 youths led by Joel's Army pastor Lou Engle and held every summer in a major American city (this year's event was scheduled for Washington, D.C. in August).

Attendees are called upon to fast and pray for 40 days and take up culture-war pledges to lead abstinent lives, reject pornography and fight abortion. They're further asked to perform "identificational repentance," lugging along family trees and genealogies to see where one of their ancestors may have enslaved or oppressed another so that they can make amends. (Many in the Joel's Army movement believe in generational curses that must be broken by the current generation).

As even his critics note, Engle is a sweet, humble and gentle man whose persona is difficult to reconcile with his belief in an end-time army of invincible young Christian warriors. Yet while Engle is careful to avoid deploying explicit Joel's Army rhetoric at high-profile events like The Call, when he's speaking in smaller hyper-charismatic circles to avowed Joel's Army followers, he can venture into bloodlust.

This March, at a "Passion for Jesus" conference in Kansas City sponsored by the International House of Prayer, or IHOP, a ministry for teenagers from the heavy metal, punk and goth scenes, Engle called on his audience for vengeance.

"I believe we're headed to an Elijah/Jezebel showdown on the Earth, not just in America but all over the globe, and the main warriors will be the prophets of Baal versus the prophets of God, and there will be no middle ground," said Engle. He was referring to the Baal of the Old Testament, a pagan idol whose followers were slaughtered under orders from the prophet Elijah.

"There's an Elijah generation that's going to be the forerunners for the coming of Jesus, a generation marked not by their niceness but by the intensity of their passion," Engle continued. "The kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force. Such force demands an equal response, and Jesus is going to make war on everything that hinders love, with his eyes blazing fire."

Although Joel's Army theology is mainly directed at people in their teens and early 20s via events like The Call and ministries like IHOP, sometimes the target audience is even younger. In some of the most arresting images in Jesus Camp, a 2006 documentary about the Kids on Fire bible camp in North Dakota, grade school-aged kids dressed in army fatigues wield swords and conduct military field maneuvers. "A lot of people die for God and they're not afraid," one camper told ABC News reporters in a follow-up segment.

"We're kinda being trained to be warriors," added another, "only in a funner way."

Cain and the Intellectuals

Both Christian and secular critics assailed the makers of Jesus Camp for referring to the camp's extremist, militant Christianity as "evangelical." There is a name, however, that describes Kids on Fire's agenda, if you're familiar with their theology: Joel's Army. Pastor Becky Fischer, who runs the camp, said that a third of the kids at her camp were under 6 years old because they are "more in touch in the supernatural" and proclaimed them to be "soldiers for God's Army." Her camp's blend of end-times militancy and supernaturalism is perfectly emblematic of the Joel's Army movement, whose adherents believe their cause is prophesied in the Old Testament chapter titled "An Army of Locusts."

The stark, evocative passages of that chapter describe a locust swarm that lays waste to Israel (to this day, the region suffers periodic locust invasions): "Like dawn spreading across the mountains a large and mighty army comes, such as never was of old nor ever will be in ages to come." As remarkable as the language is, most biblical scholars agree that it is a literal description of a locust invasion and resulting famine that occurred sometime between the 9th and 5th centuries B.C.E.

In the Book of Joel, the locust invasion is described as an omen that an Assyrian army to the north may attack Israel if it fails to repent as a nation. But nowhere is the invasion described as an army of God. According to an Assemblies of God position paper: "It is a complete misinterpretation of Scripture to find in Joel's army of locusts a militant, victorious force attacking society and a non-cooperating Church to prepare the earth for Christ's millennial reign."

The story of how an ancient insect invasion came to be a rallying flag for 21st-century dominonists begins just after World War II in Canada. Out of a small town in Saskatchewan, a Pentecostal preacher named William Branham spearheaded a 1948 revival in which he claimed that his followers lived in a new biblical time of "Latter Rain."

The most sinless and ardent of his flock would be called "Manifest Sons of God." By the next year, the movement was so strong -- and seemed so subversive to some -- that the Assemblies of God banned it as a heretic cult. But Branham remained a controversial figure with a loyal following; many of his followers believed him to be the end-times prophet Elijah.

Michael Barkun, a leading scholar of radical religion, notes that in 1958, Branham began teaching "Serpent Seed" doctrine, the belief that Satan had sex with Eve, resulting in Cain and his descendants. "Through Cain came all the smart, educated people down to the antediluvian flood -- the intellectuals, bible colleges," Branham wrote in the kind of anti-mainstream religion, anti-intellectual spirit that pervades the Joel's Army movement to this day. "They know all their creeds but know nothing about God."

The Gates of Hell

Branham was killed in a car accident in 1965, but his Manifest Sons of God movement, the direct predecessor of Joel's Army, lived on within a cluster of hyper-charismatic churches. In the 1980s, Branham's teachings took on new life at the Kansas City Fellowship (KCF), a group of popular self-styled apostles and prophets who used the Missouri church as a launching pad for national careers promoting outright Joel's Army theology.

Ernie Gruen, a local pastor who initially promoted and gave citywide credibility to KCF pastors in the early 1980s, cut his connections in 1990. Concerned about KCF's plans to push its teachings worldwide, Gruen published a 132-page insider's account, based on taped sermons and conversations and interviews with parents who had enrolled their kids in KCF's Dominion school.

According to Gruen's report, students at the school were taught that they were a "super-race" of the "elected seed" of all the best bloodlines of all generations -- foreknown, predestined, and hand-selected from billions of others to be part of the "end-time Omega generation."

Though he'd once promoted these doctrines himself, Gruen became convinced that the movement was turning into an end-times cult, marked by what he summarized as "spiritual threats, fears, and warnings of death," "warning followers to beware of other Christians" and exhibiting "a 'super-race' mentality toward the training of their children."

When contacted by the Intelligence Report, Gruen's spokesman said that Gruen stands by everything he published in the report but no longer grants media interviews.

The Kansas City Fellowship remains in operation and has served as a farm team for many of the all-stars of the Joel's Army movement. Those larger-than-life figures include John Wimber, the founder of a California megachurch, The Vineyard, who, before his death in 1997, proclaimed that Joel's Army would not only conquer the earth but defeat death itself. Lou Engle founded The Call based on the Joel's Army visions that KCF "prophet" Bob Jones (not to be confused with Bob Jones III of Bob Jones University) received while at KCF. Mike Bickle, another KCF member, stayed in Kansas City to form the International House of Prayer.

IHOP members and other Joel's Army adherents are well aware of how their movement is perceived by other conservative Christians.

"Today, you can type 'Joel's Army' into a search engine and a thousand heresy hunter websites pop up, decrying the very mention of it," writes John Crowder in The New Mystics. Crowder doesn't exactly allay critic's fears. "This is truly warfare," he writes. "This battle is not a game. They [Joel's Army warriors] will not be on the defense; they will be on the offense -- and the gates of hell will not be able to hold up against them."

So far, few members of the secular media have taken notice of Joel's Army, even as they report on Protestant dominionists like Pat Robertson or the more outrageous calls for the stoning of gays and lesbians emanating from Reconstructionist circles. There are exceptions, however. On the DailyKos, a well-read, politically liberal blog, a diarist has been blogging for two years about her experiences as a walkaway from a Joel's Army church. She writes under a pseudonym out of fear of physical reprisals.

She may have real cause for concern. As Wimber, the late founder of The Vineyard, put it in one of his most famous and fiery sermons, one that is still frequently cited by Joel's Army followers: "Those in this army will have His kind of power. ... Anyone who wants to harm them must die."

Stop IRD

• Details on funding of right wing political / religious agendas
• Scaiffe, Anschutz funding information
• Media Transparency  on "The IRD board members operate and have access to conservative publications and media such as First Things, Good News, Christianity Today, Washington Times, The Weekly Standard and Fox News. IRD also has the same group of benefactors that regularly contribute to radical-right causes such as the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation, the California billionaire Howard Ahmanson and the Sarah Scaife Foundation (Blumenthal, 2004; Cooperman, 2003; Howell, 1995)."
• MORE on Page 7

  And does the GOP have a problem with little boys ... maybe it goes back to the Spartans and the Greek civilization?  hmmm  ... Clinton problems were with women ...though  see Barney Frank / Larry Craig 

Why are Fundies so easy to fool.  If Bush / Rove could trick ya...anybody could.  .... or did they trick Bush into starting a war against Islam?  Apocalypse? Go to: Creation Museum Jokes

• Media Transparency for information on Christian right funding of Neocon political agenda by anti-Bush, anti War, Christians
•  
• see for Christian Research on Bush / Neocons / for information on Christian right funding of Neocon political agenda 
• Seek God

Stop the drive to theocracy by Bush and the Christian right, military industrial complex

Up to 80% of Evangelical Christians voted for Bush and support the invasion / occupation of Iraq.

• Details on funding of right wing political / religious agendas
• Scaiffe, Anschutz funding information
• Media Transparency  on "The IRD board members operate and have access to conservative publications and media such as First Things, Good News, Christianity Today, Washington Times, The Weekly Standard and Fox News. IRD also has the same group of benefactors that regularly contribute to radical-right causes such as the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation, the California billionaire Howard Ahmanson and the Sarah Scaife Foundation (Blumenthal, 2004; Cooperman, 2003; Howell, 1995)."

• Christian dispensationalism? MEMRI, WINEP, A Clean Break: A New Strategy for the Realm,

• Tempo Interacive  New Zionist World Order? search: "Cherney Foundation" "Discovery Institute" file

• Discovery Institute / Hudson Institute / OSP, Cheney, Libby, Rove.
• Meyrav Wurmser   
• David Wurmser is married to Meyrav Wurmser, director of Middle East programs at the right-wing Hudson Institute. She was listed as a co-author of "A Clean Break." She had also co-founded, with a former colonel in Israeli military intelligence, the MEMRI translation service, which cherry-picks Arabic newspapers for the more outrageous articles and political cartoons, and translates them into English for the purpose of creating a negative view of the Arab world. Truthout
•  Antiwar: Justin Raimondo Scooter's Motive "....The problem with Maguire's analysis, at this point, is that he segues too easily into the "Jewish cabal" theme. Kaus rightly disdains this as a canard. As we have seen in the Larry Franklin spy case, you don't have to be Jewish to put Israel first. Franklin, a devout Catholic, and also a devout neocon, didn't need much prompting to hand over [.pdf] vitally important intelligence to AIPAC operatives Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, who then passed it on to their Israeli controllers. Aside from that, you have only to listen to Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, or one of their brain-dead followers, to see the extent to which the contemporary conservative movement is imbued with the same loyalty to Israel as the Communists used to feel toward the Soviet Union. Neoconservatism, like Christian dispensationalism, is as much a theology as it is an ideology, in style if not in substance. Such a strongly held belief could easily lead anyone, no matter their particular ethno-religious identity, to break the law, betray their country – and worse.

  Cheney's office, it is quite true, is permeated through and through with officials formerly associated with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), a think tank set up by AIPAC. As Middle East scholar Juan Cole points out: "WINEP wields enormous influence, to the point where it almost functions as a governmental entity." Former Secretary of State Warren Christopher once remarked, according to Cole, that "the State Department owes WINEP a finder's fee for providing it with key personnel," and this is doubly true these days when it comes to the Office of the Vice President. John Hannah, former WINEP director, is Cheney's chief Middle East expert (although he doesn't speak Arabic, and, like so many neocons, his area of expertise is really Sovietology).

  David Wurmser, another WINEP alumni, also figures prominently in Cheney's national security team. Wurmser has the added distinction of being a co-author, along with Douglas Feith (former deputy secretary of defense for policy), and Richard Perle, and others, of a now-famous policy paper, "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for the Realm," written in 1996 for Israel's then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The theme of the paper was that Israel had been backed into a corner and needed to break out of its isolation by going on the offensive and changing the strategic balance of the region. With the ultimate goal of destroying Syria and moving back into Lebanon, the authors of "A Clean Break" averred that the road to Damascus had to go through Baghdad. This paper, as Joe Wilson pointed out in a talk (transcript here) given before the publication of his Times op-ed piece, underscored the real source of the administration's war fever: ....."

  see Plame / Wilson / Cheney ---Plamegate

about: The Religious Wing of the U.S. Military Congressional Industrial Complex

• from a Christian organization opposed to Bush and the Iraq War.

The following information is not designed to provoke anger or resistance to evil. This is strictly prohibited in Scripture. It is to shed light on activities by those who would deceive the elect by devious methods and systematic plans."

and a partial list of CNP organizations.  source SEEK GOD

•Acton Institute

Alpha & Omega Ministries [EMNR member]

•American Family Foundation & old CAN/Cult Awareness Network

•Apologia/AR-talk/Apologetics Index [EMNR member]

•Association of Theological Schools/ATS—Rockefeller affiliated/The Fund

•Canadian Institute of Theology, Law and Public Policy

•Campus Crusade for Christ [Bill Bright, CNP]

•Campus Crusade for Christ Leadership U

•Campus Crusade for Christ, Int’l School of Theology/ISOT [Rockefeller-affiliated Assn. of Theological Schools member]

•Council for Christian Colleges & Universities/CCCU––CUGN/Christian University GlobalNet –– Hanegraaff’s Equip University is affiliated to CUGN

•Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood

•CAPO/Center for the Advancement of Paleo Orthodoxy

•Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity/CBHD

•Christian Action Council/CAC [O.J. Harold Brown & C. Everett Koop]

•Christianity Today

•Christianity Today International Institute

•Coalition on Revival/COR

•Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood

•Discovery Institute, Center for Renewal of Science & Culture Fellows

[Hudson Institute/ RAND Corporation/Council on Foreign Relations/CFR/John Templeton Foundation affiliations]

•English Standard Version/ESV Translation Committee

•Eternity Magazine

•European Centre for Law and Justice/ECLJ––affiliate of ACLJ [Pat Robertson/CNP, John Warwick Montgomery]

•Evangelical Theological Society/ETS

•Evangelicals & Catholics Together II

•Family Research Council

•Focus on the Family

•Fuller Theological Seminary [Rockefeller-affiliated Assn. of Theological Schools member]

•Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary—Walter Martin on advisory board with Billy Graham and Harold Ockenga

   [Rockefeller-affiliated Assn. of Theological Schools member]

•

ICA/Institute for Christian Apologetics

•International Academy of Apologetics, Evangelism & Human Rights, Strasbourg, France—

     interfaces with the United Nations––U.N. human rights experts teach in the seminars

•International Fellowship of Evangelical Students [John Stott & Lindsay Brown]

•International Institute of Christian Studies/IICS—associate member of the World Evangelical Fellowship/WEF

•International Students, Inc. [Tom Phillips––Billy Graham Evangelistic Assn.]

•InterVarsity Press/IVP

•Lausanne Consultation

•Jesus Film––a project of Campus Crusade as promo for Lausanne

•John Ankerberg Theological Institute [member of the secret CNP]

•National Association of Evangelicals/NAE [organ of WEF/World Evangelical Fellowship—NGO of the United Nations] 

•Nevada Policy Research Institute––Heritage Foundation state affiliate http://www.npri.org/

•Personal Freedom Outreach/PFO [EMNR member]

•Probe Ministries––affiliated with Campus Crusade

•Reformed Theological Seminary [member of Rockefeller-affiliated Assn. of Theological Schools member] 

•Rockford Conference on Discernment and Evangelism, 1989

•Rockford Institute>>Howard Center>>World Congress of Families—NGO of the United Nations  [influenced by Hudson Institute, Brigham Young University/BYU and Focus on the Family; an alliance with other world religions––Mormons, Buddhists, Muslims et al]

•Society of Christian Philosophers

•Southern Evangelical Seminary [Norman Geisler]

•Spiritual Counterfeits Project

•Summit Ministries Conference and Curriculum [David Noebel, CNP]

•Summit's Worldview Weekends [Brandon Howse]

•Trinity Evangelical Divinity Schools/TEDS [Rockefeller-affiliated Assn. of Theological Schools member

•Trinity Int'l University Graduate School

•Trinity Law School [one of 3 Trinity Int'l University/TIU campuses; Trinity Evangelical Divinity School/TEDS is a member of the Rockefeller-affiliated Assn. of Theological Schools/ATS]

•Wilberforce Forum

•World Journalism Institute/WJI [with CATO Institute, Sun Myung Moon’s Washington Times et al]

•World Vision—NGO of the United Nations 

•Worldwide Church of God [Joseph Tkach]

   CRI personnel acted as apologists on behalf of the WCG––Hanegraaff, Paul Carden, Passantinos, Alan Gomes

•Zondervan Publishers [publishers of the New International Version/NIV]

Subliminal  S-E-X...?, Chronicles of Narnia, Anschutz, Disney, Discovery Insititute, phallic symbol?

• Richard Gephardt: Air National Guard, 1965-71.
• * David Bonior: Staff Sgt., Air Force 1968-72.
• * Tom Daschle: 1st Lt., Air Force SAC 1969-72.
• * Al Gore: enlisted Aug. 1969; sent to Vietnam Jan. 1971 as an army journalist in 20th Engineer Brigade.
• * Bob Kerrey: Lt. j.g. Navy 1966-69; Medal of Honor, Vietnam.
• * Daniel Inouye: Army 1943-47; Medal of Honor, WWII.
• * John Kerry: Lt., Navy 1966-70; Silver Star, Bronze Star with Combat V, Purple Hearts.
• * Charles Rangel: Staff Sgt., Army 1948-52; Bronze Star, Korea.
• * Max Cleland: Captain, Army 1965-68; Silver Star ! & Bronze Star, Vietnam.
• Paraplegic from war injuries. Served in Congress.
  * Ted Kennedy: Army, 1951-53.
• * Tom Harkin: Lt., Navy, 1962-67; Naval Reserve, 1968-74.
• * Jack Reed: Army Ranger, 1971-1979; Captain, Army Reserve 1979-91.
• * Fritz Hollings: Army officer in WWII; Bronze Star and seven campaign ribbons.
• * Leonard Boswell: Lt. Col., Army 1956-76; Vietnam, DFCs, Bronze Stars,and Soldier's Medal.
• * Pete Peterson: Air Force Captain, POW. Purple Heart, Silver Star and Legion of Merit.
• * Mike Thompson: Staff sergeant, 173rd Airborne, Purple Heart.
• * Bill McBride: Candidate for Fla.. Governor. Marine in Vietnam; Bronze Star with Combat V.
• * Gray Davis: Army Captain in Vietnam, Bronze Star.
  * Pete Stark: Air Force 1955-57
• * Chuck Robb: Vietnam
• * Howell Heflin: Silver Star
• * George McGovern: Silver Star & DFC during WWI I.
  * Bill Clinton: Did not serve. Student deferments.. Entered draft but received #311.
• * Jimmy Carter: Seven years in the Navy.
• * Walter Mondale: Army 1951-1953
• * John Glenn: WWII and Korea; six DFCs and AirMedal with 18 Clusters.
• * Tom Lantos: Served in Hungarian underground in WWII. Saved by Raoul Wallenberg.
• 
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• * Dick Cheney: did not serve. Several deferments, the last by marriage.
• * Dennis Hastert: did not serve.
• * Tom Delay: did not serve.
• * Roy Blunt: did not serve.
• * Bill Frist: did not serve.
• * Mitch McConnell: did not serve.
  * Rick Santorum: did not serve.
• * Trent Lott: did not serve.
  * John Ashcroft: did not serve. Seven deferments to teach business.
• * ! Jeb Bush: did not serve.
• * Karl Rove: did not serve.
• * Saxby Chambliss: did not serve. "Bad knee." The man who attacked Max Cleland's patriotism.
• * Paul Wolfowitz: did not serve.
• * Vin Weber: did not serve.
• * Richard Perle: did not serve.
• * Douglas Feith: did not serve.
• * Eliot Abrams: did not serve.
• * Richard Shelby: did not serve.
• * Jon! Kyl: did not serve.
• * Tim Hutchison: did not serve.
• * Christopher Cox: did not serve.
• * Newt Gingrich: did not serve.
  * Don Rumsfeld: served in Navy (1954-57) as flight instructor.
• * George W. Bush: failed to complete his six-year National Guard; got assigned to Alabama so he could campaign for family friend running for U.S. Senate; failed to show up for required medical exam, disappeared from duty.
• * Ronald Reagan: due to poor eyesight, served in a non- combat role making movies.
• * B-1 Bob Dornan: Consciously enlisted after fighting was over in Korea.
• * Phil Gramm: did not serve.
• * John McCain: Vietnam POW, Silver Star, Bronze Star, Legion of Merit, Purple Heart and Distinguished Flying Cross.
• * Dana Rohrabacher: did not serve.
• * John M. McHugh: did not serve.
• * JC Watts: did not serve.
• * Jack Kemp: did not serve. "Knee problem, " although continued in NFL for 8 years as quarterback.
• * Dan Quayle: Journalism unit of the Indiana National Guard.
• * Rudy Giuliani: did not serve.
• * George Pataki: did not serve.
• * Spencer Abraham: did not serve.
• * John Engler: did not serve.
  * Lindsey Graham: National Guard lawyer.
• * Arnold Schwarzenegger: AWOL from Austrian army base.
• .
•  
• Pundits & Preachers
• * Sean Hannity: did not serve.
• * Rush Limbaugh: did not serve (4-F with a 'pilonidal cyst.')
• * Bill O'Reilly: did not serve
• * Michael Savage: did not serve.
• * George Will: did not serve.
• * Chris Matthews: did not serve.
• * Paul Gigot: did not serve.
• * Bill Bennett: did not serve.
• * Pat Buchanan: did not serve.
• * John Wayne: did not serve.
• * Bill Kristol: did not serve.
• * Kenneth Starr: did not serve.
• * Antonin Scalia: did not serve.
• * Clarence Thomas: did not serve.
• * Ralph Reed: did not serve.
• * Michael Medved: did not serve.
• * Charlie Daniels: did not serve.
• * Ted Nugent: did not serve (He only shoots at things that don't shoot back.)

Ad Majorem Dei Dogiam...To the Greater Glory of Dog" honoring George Bush's own Barney and Miss Beazley  or see AMDG

Increasingly, investigative writers seeking an explanation have looked to Diebold’s history for clues. The electronic voting industry is dominated by only a few corporations – Diebold, Election Systems & Software (ES&S) and Sequoia. Diebold and ES&S combined count an estimated 80% of U.S. black box electronic votes.

In the early 1980s, brothers Bob and Todd Urosevich founded ES&S’s originator, Data Mark. The brothers Urosevich obtained financing from the far-Right Ahmanson family in 1984, which purchased a 68% ownership stake, according to the Omaha World Herald. After brothers William and Robert Ahmanson infused Data Mark with new capital, the name was changed to American Information Systems (AIS). California newspapers have long documented the Ahmanson family’s ties to right-wing evangelical Christian and Republican circles.

In 2001, the Los Angeles Times reported, “. . . primarily funded by evangelical Christians – particularly the wealthy Ahmanson family of Irvine – the [Discovery] institute’s $1-million annual program has produced 25 books, a stream of conferences and more than 100 fellowships for doctoral and postdoctoral research.” The chief philanthropists of the Discovery Institute, that pushes creationist science and education in California, are Howard and Roberta Ahmanson.

According to Group Watch, in the 1980s Howard F. Ahmanson, Jr. was a member of the highly secretive far-Right Council for National Policy, an organization that included Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, Major General John K. Singlaub and other Iran-Contra scandal notables, as well as former Klan members like Richard Shoff. Ahmanson, heir to a savings and loan fortune, is little reported on in the mainstream U.S. press. But, English papers like The Independent are a bit more forthcoming on Ahmanson’s politics.

“On the right, figures such as Richard Mellon Scaife and Howard Ahmanson have given hundreds of millions of dollars over several decades to political projects both high (setting up the Heritage Foundation think-tank, the driving engine of the Reagan presidency) and low (bankrolling investigations into President Clinton’s sexual indiscretions and the suicide of the White House insider Vincent Foster),” wrote The Independent last November.

The Sunday Mail described an individual as, “. . . a fundamentalist Christian more in the mould of U.S. multi-millionaire Howard Ahmanson, Jr., who uses his fortune to promote so-called traditional family values . . . by waving fortunes under their noses, Ahmanson has the ability to cajole candidates into backing his right-wing Christian agenda.

Ahmanson is also a chief contributor to the Chalcedon Institute that supports the Christian reconstruction movement. The movement’s philosophy advocates, among other things, “mandating the death penalty for homosexuals and drunkards.”

The Ahmanson family sold their shares in American Information Systems to the McCarthy Group and the World Herald Company, Inc. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel disclosed in public documents that he was the Chairman of American Information Systems and claimed between a $1 to 5 million investment in the McCarthy Group. In 1997, American Information Systems purchased Business Records Corp. (BRC), formerly Texas-based election company Cronus Industries, to become ES&S. One of the BRC owners was Carolyn Hunt of the right-wing Hunt oil family, which supplied much of the original money for the Council on National Policy.

In 1996, Hagel became the first elected Republican Nebraska senator in 24 years when he did surprisingly well in an election where the votes were verified by the company he served as chairman and maintained a financial investment. In both the 1996 and 2002 elections, Hagel’s ES&S counted an estimated 80% of his winning votes. Due to the contracting out of services, confidentiality agreements between the State of Nebraska and the company kept this matter out of the public eye. Hagel’s first election victory was described as a “stunning upset” by one Nebraska newspaper.

Hagel’s official biography states, “Prior to his election to the U.S. Senate, Hagel worked in the private sector as the President of McCarthy and Company, an investment banking firm based in Omaha, Nebraska and served as Chairman of the Board of American Information Systems.” During the first Bush presidency, Hagel served as Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer of the 1990 Economic Summit of Industrialized Nations (G-7 Summit).

Bob Urosevich was the Programmer and CEO at AIS, before being replaced by Hagel. Bob now heads Diebold Election Systems and his brother Todd is a top executive at ES&S. Bob created Diebold’s original electronic voting machine software. Thus, the brothers Urosevich, originally funded by the far Right, figure in the counting of approximately 80% of electronic voting in the United States.

Like Ohio, the State of Maryland was disturbed by the potential for massive electronic voter fraud. The voters of that state were reassured when the state hired SAIC to monitor Diebold’s system. SAIC’s former CEO is Admiral Bill Owens. Owens served as a military aide to both Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci, who now works with George H.W. Bush at the controversial Carlyle Group. Robert Gates, former CIA Director and close friend of the Bush family, also served on the SAIC Board.

Diebold’s track record

Wherever Diebold and ES&S go, irregularities and historic Republican upsets follow. Alastair Thompson, writing for scoop.co of New Zealand, explored whether or not the 2002 U.S. mid-term elections were “fixed by electronic voting machines supplied by Republican-affiliated companies.” The scoop investigation concluded that: “The state where the biggest upset occurred, Georgia, is also the state that ran its election with the most electronic voting machines.” Those machines were supplied by Diebold.

Wired News reported that “. . . a former worker in Diebold’s Georgia warehouse says the company installed patches on its machine before the state’s 2002 gubernatorial election that were never certified by independent testing authorities or cleared with Georgia election officials.” Questions were raised in Texas when three Republican candidates in Comal County each received exactly the same number of votes – 18,181.

Following the 2003 California election, an audit of the company revealed that Diebold Election Systems voting machines installed uncertified software in all 17 counties using its equipment.

Former CIA Station Chief John Stockwell writes that one of the favorite tactics of the CIA during the Reagan-Bush administration in the 1980s was to control countries by manipulating the election process. “CIA apologists leap up and say, ‘Well, most of these things are not so bloody.’ And that’s true. You’re giving politicians some money so he’ll throw his party in this direction or that one, or make false speeches on your behalf, or something like that. It may be non-violent, but it’s still illegal intervention in other country’s affairs, raising the question of whether or not we’re going to have a world in which laws, rules of behavior are respected,” Stockwell wrote. Documents illustrate that the Reagan and Bush administration supported computer manipulation in both Noriega’s rise to power in Panama and in Marcos’ attempt to retain power in the Philippines. Many of the Reagan administration’s staunchest supporters were members of the Council on National Policy.

The perfect solution

Ohio Senator Fedor continues to fight valiantly for Senate Bill 167 and the Holy Grail of the “voter verified paper audit trail.” Proponents of a paper trail were emboldened when Athan Gibbs, President and CEO of TruVote International, demonstrated a voting machine at a vendor’s fair in Columbus that provides two separate voting receipts.

The first paper receipt displays the voter’s touch screen selection under plexiglass that falls into a lockbox after the voter approves. Also, the TruVote system provides the voter with a receipt that includes a unique voter ID and pin number which can be used to call in to a voter audit internet connection to make sure the vote cast was actually counted.

Brooks Thomas, Coordinator of Elections in Tennessee, stated, “I’ve not seen anything that compares to the Gibbs’ TruVote validation system. . . .” The Assistant Secretary of State of Georgia, Terrel L. Slayton, Jr., claimed Gibbs had come up with the “perfect solution.”

Still, there remains opposition from Ohio Secretary of State Blackwell. His spokesperson Carlo LoParo recently pointed out that federal mandates under HAVA do not require a paper trail: “. . . if Congress changes the federal law to require it [a paper trail], we’ll certainly make that a requirement of our efforts.” LoParo went on to accuse advocates of a paper trail of attempting to “derail” voting reform.

U.S. Representative Rush Holt introduced HR 2239, The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003, that would require electronic voting machines to produce a paper trail so that voters may verify that their screen touches match their actual vote. Election officials would also have a paper trail for recounts.

As Blackwell pressures the Ohio legislature to adopt electronic voting machines without a paper trail, Athan Gibbs wonders, “Why would you buy a voting machine from a company like Diebold which provides a paper trail for every single machine it makes except its voting machines? And then, when you ask it to verify its numbers, it hides behind ‘trade secrets.’”

Maybe the Diebold decision makes sense, if you believe, to paraphrase Henry Kissinger, that democracy is too important to leave up to the votes of the people.

• Council for National Policy   Jack Abramoff, Howard Ahmanson Council for National Policy, (Sourcewatch)
• 
• Above: from Britain's Channel 4, release of a fictional British movie drama:, Death of a President, a made-for-tv film depicting a Bush assassination, all creating headaches for the National Security Agency in their trolling of the internet and phone conversations.  Channel Four is planning on another Blair fictional war crimes movie also. 
• NewsFollowUp.com guests:  August 2006 Amer Israel Public Affairs Com Chinanet Jiangsu Province Network) Jiangsu, Jiangsu, China, fwbg2bibae01-vlan3501.woo (Wanadoo-portails-bagnolet) France Uninet S.a. De C.v) Distrito Federal, Mexico, Mexico Arabian Advanced Systems) Makkah, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia ip-89-102-144-234.karneval.cz (Karneval Media Brno 3 - Public) Czech Republic Ministerio De Defensa) Spain CBL217-132-82-214.bb.netvision.net.il (Bb-hfa) Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel Chinanet Shanghai Province Network) Shanghai, Shanghai, China The John D & Catherine T. Macarthur Foundation) Illinois, Chicago mrc210324.mtroyal.ca (Mount Royal College) Alberta, Calgary, Canada gwanc00.legis.state.ak.us (State Of Alaska) Alaska, Anchorage asoc11.soc.mil (Dod Network Information Center) North Carolina, Fayetteville Boehringer Mannheim Gmbh Mannheim) Germany no-dns-yet.demon.co.uk (Midlothian Council) England, London 89-138-110-210.bb.netvision.net.il (Netvision) Israel Camara Oficial De Comercio E Industria Y Navegacion De Valencia) Puerto Plata, Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic China United Telecommunications Corporation) China Continental Teves Ag & Co.ohg) Germany Adamsmith College Fife) United Kingdom biolantro.unipv.it (Universita' Degli Studi Di Pavia) Lombardia, Pavia, Italy Salomon Inc) New York, New York Salomon Inc) Booz Allen And Hamilton) Virginia, Oakton

  September 2006 Cncgroup Tianjin Province Network) Guangdong, Tianjin, China 82-168-108-209.dsl.ip.tiscali.nl (Tiscali-tdsln) Zuid-holland, The Hague, Netherlands mail.buecherhallen.de (Stiftung Hamburger Oeffentliche Buecherhallen) Hamburg 216.49.181.128.ldschurch.org (The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter Day Saints) Iowa, Ames mm525.acad.cai.cam.ac.uk (University Of Cambridge) England, London sa82d3a79.dhs.state.tx.us (State Of Texas General Services Commission) Texas, gw.reyrey.net (Reynolds And Reynolds)Ohio, Dayton Beijing Language And Culture University) Beijing, Beijing, China Lan Of Rockwell) Zuid-holland, The Hague, Netherlands U.s. Immigration And Naturalization Service) District Of Columbia, Washington Chinanet Jilin Province Network) Jilin, Jilin, China Oriental Cable Network Co. Ltd) Jiangsu, Nanjing, China prm1.azg.nl (Academisch Ziekenhuis Groningen) Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands res00.cip.uni-regensburg.de (Universitaet Regensburg; Rechenzentrum) Bayern, Regensburg, Germany museum10.biol.ucl.ac.uk (University College London) England, London auab-n.auab.aorcentaf.af.mil (Uscentaf/scm) South Carolina, Shaw A F B Amdocs Inc) California, El Dorado Hills cits-bc2.region1.ang.af.mil (Norton Air Force Base) Maryland, Andrews Arlington County Government) Virginia, Falls Church warlock.dstl.gov.uk (Royal Signals And Radar Establishment)England, London sherman.state.gov (U.s. Department Of State) District Of Columbia, Washington unknown (Preston Gates Ellis Llp) Washington, Seattle Ny St. Div. Of Criminal Justice Services) New York, Albany SG800-1830-2.polk.army.mil (Commander Army Information Systems Command) Louisiana, Ft. Polk godzilla.hood.army.mil (1114th Signal Battalion) Texas, Killeen ip12-156-194-3.ita.doc.gov (Doc-international Trade Admin) District Of Columbia, Washington cits-pr.nellis.af.mil (99th Communications Squadron) proxy8.monmouth.army.mil (Usaisc-cecom) New Jersey, Lakewood sgzero.llnl.gov (Lawrence Livermore Laboratory) California, San Francisco citspr.tyndall.af.mil (325cs/scsn) Pennsylvania, West Mifflin Red Del Ministerio De Fomento) Spain legion.dera.gov.uk (Uk Defence Science And Technology Laboratory) United Kingdom net2.dss.mil (Dod Network Information Center) United States techtrack.gov (Gray Hawk Systems/doj-fbi) Virginia, Arlington, web-proxy.beale.af.mil (9th Communications Squadron) California, Beale; U.s. Senate Sergeant At Arms, District of Columbia; pr2.charleston.af.mil (437 Cs/sc) New York, Glen Cove; 

  October 2006: ce.ansbach.army.mil (Hq 5th Signal Command), lak-proxy-02.lackland.af.mil (Air Force Logistics Command), contentengine.eustis.army.mil (Directorate Of Information Management), Rothschild-et-cie-banque Ile-de-france, Paris, asab-n.salem.af.mil (Uscentaf/scm South Carolina, Shaw AFB