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Originally Posted by politicophile
Host, if you are planning on making all of us read through your ridiculously long quotations, I respectfully ask that you read through them before posting and make some very basic effort to verify their authenticity. This quotation is so obviously fraudulant that I can't possibly believe you actually read the article.
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Please accept my sincere apology, politicophile, and everyone else who read the deceptive, fake, "news" release from the satirical site, whitehouse.org that I led with in the first quote box of my last post on this thread.
Since I initiated the topic of this thread, I recognize that I have more of a responsibility to post information that I sincerely believe is accurate, than everyone else here, does. I posted what I believed to be an archive press release from the official white house website. I do thoroughly read every quote that I post, and I did not do so, in this instance.
The following is a fact based article that describes a "pay back" to Pat Robertson's CBN, by the republican congressional majority, in the recently passed "transportation bill". The question I have, is...."pay back" to the Robertson organization....for what?
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http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories...0216&ran=85493
$10.8 million in Congress bill goes to Beach link
By TOM HOLDEN, The Virginian-Pilot
© August 5, 2005
Rep. Thelma Drake said Thursday that she supports putting $10.8 million into a new interchange along Interstate 64 – in spite of the fact that the connector hasn’t been a priority for state and regional road planners – because she believes it’s a project that can quickly ease congestion........
...The interchange is not on the region’s list of priority interstate projects, nor is it in the Virginia Department of Transportation’s six-year spending plan. No road exists that would connect to the interchange, though a development executive hired by CBN has said plans call for building one with private money. That road would cut through the development to Centerville Turnpike.
CBN also is waiting on results of a study into whether federal highway safety guidelines would allow the interchange. The Federal Highway Administration is among regulators and planning agencies that would have to approve the project.
The interchange appeared as a $1 million line item in a version of the transportation bill approved earlier this year by the House of Representatives.
By the time it emerged from a House-Senate conference committee early last week, the amount had risen to $10.8 million.
“I can’t explain how it got to be $10.8 million,” Drake said. She said she had no role in the increase.
Lowell W. Morse, a real estate executive hired by CBN, said Wednesday that Drake, Rep. J. Randy Forbes and Sens. John W. Warner and George Allen supported the ministry’s project as the transportation bill made its way through Congress. All four lawmakers are Republicans.
But Christy Boardman, press aide to Forbes, wrote in an e-mail Thursday that the congressman had no role in submitting the request for an interchange near CBN.
CBN officials met with Forbes’ staff to discuss the project in January 2004 , she said.
But, she said, their request for help in securing federal money for the interchange was denied because “the project isn’t in our district and there are many other high-
priority projects throughout the 4th District that were much more deserving.”
Calls to Allen’s press office about the interchange weren’t returned Wednesday or Thursday.
John Ullyot, a spokesman for Warner, said Wednesday that the senator supported federal money for the interchange after learning that a “significant private contribution” would be made to help build it.
Morse said Wednesday that developers are expected to help pay for the interchange, the total price of which he said could range between $30 million and $40 million. Typically, most of the cost of interchanges is paid for with federal tax dollars, with some contribution from the state.
Morse’s company, Morse and Associates Inc., is helping CBN advance its long-held plans to develop about 500 acres located along I-64 and straddling the Chesapeake and Virginia Beach city lines.
Morse said the project would include housing, retail and commercial space that could have a value of up to $300 million when completed. No timetable for the development has been released.
Drake said she has seen CBN’s plan for its undeveloped land.
She called it “an incredible economic development project” that will bring housing and jobs to the region.
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The article is an example of "corporate welfare", if the highway interchange is primarily necessary to increase the value/development potential of CBN's real estate holdings. With the newly emerging "energy crisis", is the best use of deficict enhancing federal spending, construction of a new highway interchange that was <b>"not on the region’s list of priority interstate projects, nor is it in the Virginia Department of Transportation’s six-year spending plan" ?</b>
This federal appropriation indicates that Robertson and CBN still have the ability to influence federal legislators directly, possibly for their mutual financial benefit, since CBN did not appear to work through conventional local and state transportation agencies to get the funding. This is disturbing. It is also extremely alarming, that, with motor fuel headed towards the $3.00 per gallon level, and possibly beyond, that a transportation bill that funds the expansion of automobile dependent, urban sprawl, and tax breaks for the oil industry, funds these counterproductive provisions at the cost of more federal borrowing and further neglect of mass transit infrastructure and an emphasis on new development in urban centers that will become more attractive because of the effects of high fuel prices on public attitudes and pocketbooks.
The 2004 election cemented the political power and influence of politicians from predominantly non-urban states. These are people who come from places where the automobile is the only practical means of transport. They promote policies and funding that are all about insuring plentiful oil without a signifigant plan for efficiency or conservation. It is ironic to observe the political "hit" that they are just beginning to experience from their constituents as the fossil fuel availability that drives their policy goals becomes increasingly inaffordable, even as the rising price and their rising deficit gnaws away at the stability of U.S. currency.
Do not discount the fact that Pat Robertson founded and financed the ACLJ with the goal of countering the perceived "liberal" influence of the ACLU. Pat's "foresight" and investment seem to be bringing a return, lately. Pat hired the ACLJ's director. Pat is neither an irrelevant force, nor one that "mainstream" republican leaders can distance themselves from. He has his own "bully pulpit", too much money and fund raising ability, and the same political base that Rove has so methodically cultivated for Bush. I believe that Bush and Cheney share Pat's sentiment about Chavez. They are taking us back to Pre-Castro, "Batista" style, U.S. imperialism, always a great climate for white European Spanish and American business investors, but terribly tragic for the "brown", impoversihed masses..........
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http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1120208726476
Choosing a Justice: Bush's Key Players
Legal Times
07-05-2005
First, President George W. Bush and the White House must choose the nominee to the Supreme Court to replace the departing Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Then comes the battle to see that nominee confirmed by the Senate. Informing that process in a variety of ways will be a handful of players, both inside and outside of government, whose influence is felt within the Bush administration and on Capitol Hill. Here's a look at some of those who'll be working -- sometimes publicly, oftentimes quietly -- on behalf of the Bush administration.
.....Name: Jay Sekulow
Position: Chief Counsel for the American Center for Law & Justice
Background: A leading Supreme Court advocate, particularly on church-state issues; <b>faculty member for DOJ's Office of Legal Education.
Role: One of the so-called "four horsemen" who met last week at the White House to discuss high court strategy (the others being Gray, Leo, and Meese) Sekulow will help coordinate the Republican outreach.</b> With his nationally broadcast radio show and organization's close ties to the Christian right (it was founded by television evangelist Pat Robertson), Sekulow will play a key role in galvanizing support for one of Bush's key constituencies. He has already met with officials at the White House and Justice Department. On July 1, he sent e-mails to 850,000 supporters and spoke on his daily radio show. "Now the focus is on the base," Sekulow says. "Once the president makes a decision we want to make sure that we get a confirmation." .......
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http://www.aclj.org/About/default.aspx?Section=10
HISTORY OF ACLJ
......The ACLJ began its operations in Virginia Beach, Virginia – where the ACLJ was founded by Dr. Pat Robertson, a Yale Law School graduate. Over the years, the ACLJ has expanded its work and reach with the creation of the European Centre for Law and Justice, based in Strasbourg, France and the Slavic Centre for Law and Justice, based in Moscow, Russia. Today, the ACLJ has a network of attorneys nationwide and its national headquarters is located in Washington, D.C. – just steps away from the Supreme Court and Congress.
In addition to its religious liberties work, the ACLJ also specializes in constitutional law involving the issues of national security, human life, marriage, judicial nominations, pornography, and protecting patriotic expression including our national motto and the Pledge of Allegiance.........
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The Robertson, ACLJ "Op", in and of itself, coupled with the Rove/RNC perversion of the thinking of the members of the Christian "Right" convinces me that "mullah" is the approriate title for Robertson and a number of others who manipulate "JAY-sus" as an opiate for the masses who are duped into supporting their power and wealth grab. The Chavez "rant" is icing on the cake because it will prompt some of you here and elsewhere in the U.S. to focus some attention on the Rove/Delay/Frist/Dobson orchestration that makes the Bush/Cheney attack on the sensibilities, security, and constitutionally guaranteed "rights" of informed Americans, even possible......