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Brad, That's odd...
I wonder why those endlessly promoting such tactics never mentioned the obvious?
LOL!
It's your choice...
Smarten up quick...
or go broke fast.
Have a good day. LOL!
Yahoo doesn't allow message boards for penny stocks and iHub fills the niche.
Really?
http://messages.finance.yahoo.com/mb/GSRE.PK
Absolutely hilarious...
How did the Feds learn about the "instant messages"? (PMs?)
...Unless P.D. or Olico rolled on Matt early in the investigation?
LOL!
j. On or about December 7, 2006, defendant BROWN communicated via instant message with P.D. regarding P.D.'s posting of messages concerning GH-3's stock on IHUB internet message boards.
k. On or about December 7, 2006, defendant BROWN communicated via instant message with P.D. regarding future GH3 press releases.
Ponzi scheme hits Kauai, feds report
By Nelson Daranciang
One prominent Hawaii psychologist invested $152,000. A Kauai physician and his wife invested $145,000. Another Kauai man invested $130,000, and members of a Kauai family invested $81,500. The U.S. attorney says all of these people invested their money in a Ponzi scheme operated by David E. Ruskjer, according to a forfeiture lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court.
INVESTORS SHAFTED, SUIT ALLEGES
According to a forfeiture lawsuit filed by the federal government, David E. Ruskjer of Kauai:
» Told potential investors he generates 5 percent to 5.5 percent profit monthly by buying and selling stock options.
» Promised monthly 3, 4 or 5 percent returns on investment.
» Directed investors to deposit their money into his bank account.
» Gave them a promissory note indicating the monthly guaranteed percentage of return.
Federal authorities say Ruskjer collected more than $13 million from so-called investors over three years by guaranteeing them 3, 4 and 5 percent returns on their money per month. But instead of investing their money, Ruskjer used deposits from new investors to pay off earlier investors, a federal prosecutor said. The government also says Ruskjer converted some of the money to his own use, including $528,457 to purchase a condominium in Koloa last October. It says the money he used to buy the condominium was proceeds obtained through wire fraud and money laundering.
However, there is no record that federal authorities arrested or filed criminal charges against him. Ruskjer did not respond to e-mail or telephone messages. The U.S. attorney has filed papers with the state Bureau of Conveyances to prevent the sale or transfer of the condominium and has initiated civil proceedings in federal court to have Ruskjer forfeit the property. According to the forfeiture lawsuit, the government says Ruskjer also took $646,395 of investor money in cash withdrawals and spent an additional $578,208 on airline tickets, restaurants and goods and services in Hawaii, the mainland and Asia. He spent $29,000 more of investor money for a car, $10,343 for two motorcycles and $176,000 with an online funds transfer system, according to court records.
On a Web site, in a craigslist.org posting and during live sales presentations, Ruskjer told potential investors that he generates 5 to 5.5 percent monthly profit buying and selling stock options. But because he is not a licensed stockbroker, he told them he cannot take their money to invest it for them. Ruskjer told potential investors they had to deposit their money into his bank account and he would give them a promissory note indicating what percentage of their investment they would receive per month, according to court papers.
By last August, early investors told potential new investors that new accounts would have to go through them because Ruskjer was no longer soliciting new investors. The money would still go into Ruskjer's account, but the early investors received a percentage as a finder's fee, according to the suit. The Internal Revenue Service began investigating Ruskjer last September after a Big Island woman contacted the state Securities Enforcement Branch and reported that she thought Ruskjer was acting as an unlicensed securities broker.
http://www.starbulletin.com/news/hawaiinews/20090217_Ponzi_scheme_hits_Kauai_feds_report.html#fullstory
SEC Complaint:
http://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2009/comp21062.pdf
http://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/2009/lr21062.htm
ROFLMAO!!!
GOOD ADVICE
Q: Doctor, I’ve heard that cardiovascular exercise can prolong life. Is this true?
A: Your heart is only good for so many beats, and that's it...don't waste them on exercise. Everything wears out eventually. Speeding up your heart will not make you live longer; that's like saying you can extend the life of your car by driving it faster. Want to live longer? Take a nap.
Q: Should I cut down on meat and eat more fruits and vegetables?
A: You must grasp logistical efficiencies. What does a cow eat? Hay and corn. And what are these? Vegetables. So a steak is nothing more than an efficient mechanism of delivering vegetables to your system. Need grain? Eat chicken. Beef is also a good source of field grass (green leafy vegetable). And a pork chop can give you 100% of your recommended daily allowance of vegetable products.
Q: Should I reduce my alcohol intake?
A: No, not at all. Wine is made from fruit. Brandy is distilled wine, that means they take the water out of the fruity bit so you get even more of the goodness that way. Beer is also made out of grain. Bottoms up!
Q: How can I calculate my body/fat ratio?
A: Well, if you have a body and you have fat, your ratio is one to one. If you have two bodies, your ratio is two to one, etc.
Q: What are some of the advantages of participating in a regular exercise program?
A: Can't think of a single one, sorry. My philosophy is: No Pain...Good!
Q: Aren't fried foods bad for you?
A: YOU'RE NOT LISTENING!!! Foods are fried these days in vegetable oil. In fact, they're permeated in it. How could getting more vegetables be bad for you?
Q: Will sit-ups help prevent me from getting a little soft around the middle?
A: Definitely not! When you exercise a muscle, it gets bigger. You should only be doing sit-ups if you want a bigger stomach.
Q: Is chocolate bad for me?
A: Are you crazy? HELLO Cocoa beans! Another vegetable!!! It's the best feel-good food around!
Q: Is swimming good for your figure?
A: If swimming is good for your figure, explain whales to me.
Q: Is getting in shape important for my lifestyle?
A: Hey! 'Round' is a shape!
Well, I hope this has cleared up any misconceptions you may have had about food and diets. And remember: 'Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways - Chardonnay in one hand - chocolate in the other - body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming 'WOO HOO, What a Ride'!
AND.....For those of you who watch what you eat, here's the final word on nutrition and health. It's a relief to know the truth after all those conflicting nutritional studies.
1. The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
2. The Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
3. The Chinese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
4. The Italians drink a lot of red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
5. The Germans drink a lot of beer and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
CONCLUSION...Eat and drink what you like. Speaking English is apparently what kills you.
bearluver, What is your...
suggestion that SLJB shareholders do other than hold what are apparently unsalable securities?
I often wonder why bagholders of SLJB keep holding those empty bags hoping against hope that the scammy stock will be resurrected. You would think they would learn from other scam experiences such as CMKX but that just isn't going to happen. Their misplaced faith is bolstered by hucksters like the guru of Elmira who spins fantastic scenarios at a frenetic pace.
Hope springs eternal I guess. Amelia Earhart is alive and well, Princess Anastasia is working at Macy's in New York and there really IS an Easter Bunny!
Beyond Tea Parties — A New Way for Taxpayers to Fight Back
By Jim Powell
Senior Fellow, The Cato Institute
In the more than 100 days since President Obama took office, citizens around the country are doing more to resist the administration’s plan for a massive expansion of government. Tea parties and ballot initiatives are among the best-known strategies. Now add independent citizen audits of local governments and public schools — (that account for as much as 85 percent of local spending — to the mix.
In Texas, journalist Peyton Wolcott launched the National School District Honor Roll Web site where schools can post their check registers. At last count 461 school districts in 31 states had signed on. To see if your local school district has posted its check register, click here. This is an vital step for greater transparency.
What exactly would one do with a public school’s check register? “It’s the most important financial document in local government,” explains Armand Fusco, a retired superintendent of public schools in Branford, Conn. and Hadley, Mass., who works through the Hartford-based Yankee Institute to train volunteers for independent citizen audits of local government and public schools.
The first town in America to conduct an independent citizen audit appears to have been Enfield, Conn. — a town of 45,000 north of Hartford. There a citizen audit committee identified about $750,000 of wasteful spending, and last week the town delivered the second consecutive budget without a tax increase. Now, 8 more Connecticut towns are in the process of establishing independent citizen audit committees. Out-of-state inquiries are also starting to come in.
These citizen audit committees, consisting of about 15 volunteers, must be independent of the government or school system being audited. When an audit committee was set up as a subcommittee of a school board, it was obliged to conduct all of its business in open meetings. They were packed with union hecklers who made it impossible to conduct business. An independent committee can control its work environment. Once the work has been completed then it goes public with a presentation explaining its findings and recommendations.
A check register shows every expenditure, large and small. Fusco says, “Many people think a budget is the most important financial document, but I analyzed one town’s public school budget that shows $115,000 was spent on heating oil during the year. I went through the check register, added up all the payments to the school’s heating oil vender, and the total was about $750,000. School boards rarely look at a check register, which is a reason why waste and embezzlement can go on for years.”
Would school budget cuts jeopardize the quality of education? To answer this question, Fusco explains, one needs to get a copy of the master teacher schedule that shows who teaches each class and how many students are enrolled. He cautions that the master teacher schedule is the most closely-guarded secret in public schools. It’s the hardest document to obtain, because it might reveal that payrolls are inflated.
Fusco cites the example of one school’s fifth grade math enrichment program. The master teacher schedule showed that there were three classes: one class had four students, the second class had six students and the third class had five students. The same school had a sixth grade math enrichment class with 25 students. Fusco wondered why the school didn’t consolidate the three small fifth grade classes into one class of 15 students. This would have made it possible to provide the same amount of teaching with fewer teachers and less cost.
Many schools around the country have increased the number of electives students can take by as much as 50 percent. Now, during the school day, students can take guitar lessons, pursue jewelry-making, study foreign films, the history of rock-and-roll, and do other things that used to be considered after-school activities. According to the Center on Reinventing Public Education, public schools spend more money on electives than on academic core courses. More experienced – and more highly paid – teachers tend to teach elective courses that aren’t subject to testing. More transparency about the number of electives offered by the school would allow electives could be cut — reducing school costs without affecting the basics.
Many high school advanced placement courses can also be done online. These courses enable students to take college-level courses even if a school doesn’t have qualified teachers for them. Reduced staffing for advanced placement courses would save $1,000 to $2,000 per student, according to Florida Virtual School Chief Learning Officer Pam Birtolo.
Shocked by an $11.2 embezzlement scandal at the Roslyn, N.Y. public school system (a scandal which ultimately sent superintendent Frank Tassone to jail) the state legislature passed a so-called “Five Point Plan” which requires that school officials and boards be more involved in audits. The five point plan thwarted the independence of an audit — the very thing which is essential for candor and transparency. Alan Hevesi, the New York Comptroller who pushed for the plan, later resigned from his post after having entered into a plea agreement for defrauding the government of $200,000.
Considering the huge amount of taxpayer money going into public schools, it shouldn’t be surprising that over the years districts across the country have had various scandals –- Bridgeport, Conn., Chicago, Cleveland, Hartford, Kansas City, Miami-Dade County, Newark, New York, Oakland, Philadelphia, Richmond and Washington, D.C. are just some of the cities that come to mind.
Is it any wonder then that independent citizen audits seem to offer great potential for taxpayers?
http://foxforum.blogs.foxnews.com/2009/05/28/powell_taxpayers_audit/
Janice, that's the problem...
Is he the unusually articulate wunderkinder with a near arcane grasp of game theory who innocently fell in with the wrong crowd?
Or...is he the Evil MachinMastre who issued me a one-year ban for getting frustrated and calling the_worm06 a 'freak' in reply to his below-the-belt harassment in June of '07?
Nobody knows who MB really is...so how do we separate the alleged youthful braggadocio from the obviously criminal intent to do harm?
He was joking. I doubt Matt's ever shorted a stock in his life.
Ya gots me by the azz...
I'm jest anudder wisher & hoper ya know.
earnie, are you finally...
admitting that naked shorting actually occurs?
I *WILL* be dipt!
Posted by: IH Admin [Matt] Date: Sunday, March 14, 2004 12:48:06 PM
In reply to: EVO who wrote msg# 6847 Post # of 27055
Not if I decide to short it. You ever seen me go after a stock I thought was a scam? I short it all the way into the ground. There isn't enough capital on this entire site to stop the free fall when I start pounding the bid with naked shares.
OK, enough of this. My daddy can beat up your daddy.
peepee...
Your childish little game of posting patently libelous allegations in hopes of goading someone into revealing some tidbit of info for you to profit from isn't working. Rather than continuing to set yourself up as a recipient of a tort action it might be better if you just sit back and wait like everyone else.
To see the possible consequences of your conduct you might consider monitoring...
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/board.aspx?board_id=15452
Have a good day.
Hint: Hide'n watch. em
VAT tax...
Once Considered Unthinkable, U.S. Sales Tax Gets Fresh Look
By Lori Montgomery
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
With budget deficits soaring and President Obama pushing a trillion-dollar-plus expansion of health coverage, some Washington policymakers are taking a fresh look at a money-making idea long considered politically taboo: a national sales tax. Common around the world, including in Europe, such a tax -- called a value-added tax, or VAT -- has not been seriously considered in the United States. But advocates say few other options can generate the kind of money the nation will need to avert fiscal calamity.
At a White House conference earlier this year on the government's budget problems, a roomful of tax experts pleaded with Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner to consider a VAT. A recent flurry of books and papers on the subject is attracting genuine, if furtive, interest in Congress. And last month, after wrestling with the White House over the massive deficits projected under Obama's policies, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee declared that a VAT should be part of the debate. "There is a growing awareness of the need for fundamental tax reform," Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) said in an interview. "I think a VAT and a high-end income tax have got to be on the table."
A VAT is a tax on the transfer of goods and services that ultimately is borne by the consumer. Highly visible, it would increase the cost of just about everything, from a carton of eggs to a visit with a lawyer. It is also hugely regressive, falling heavily on the poor. But VAT advocates say those negatives could be offset by using the proceeds to pay for health care for every American -- a tangible benefit that would be highly valuable to low-income families. Liberals dispute that notion. "You could pay for it regressively and have people at the bottom come out better off -- maybe. Or you could pay for it progressively and they'd come out a lot better off," said Bob McIntyre, director of the nonprofit Citizens for Tax Justice, which has a health financing plan that targets corporations and the rich.
A White House official said a VAT is "unlikely to be in the mix" as a means to pay for health-care reform. "While we do not want to rule any credible idea in or out as we discuss the way forward with Congress, the VAT tax, in particular, is popular with academics but highly controversial with policymakers," said Kenneth Baer, a spokesman for White House Budget Director Peter Orszag. Still, Orszag has hired a prominent VAT advocate to advise him on health care: Ezekiel Emanuel, brother of White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and author of the 2008 book "Health Care, Guaranteed." Meanwhile, former Federal Reserve chairman Paul A. Volcker, chairman of a task force Obama assigned to study the tax system, has expressed at least tentative support for a VAT. "Everybody who understands our long-term budget problems understands we're going to need a new source of revenue, and a VAT is an obvious candidate," said Leonard Burman, co-director of the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, who testified on Capitol Hill this month about his own VAT plan. "It's common to the rest of the world, and we don't have it."
The surge of interest in a VAT is testament to the extraordinary depth of the nation's money troubles. While some conservatives have long argued that a consumption tax would provide a simpler and more efficient alternative to the byzantine U.S. income tax code, this time it's all about the money. The federal budget deficit is projected to approach $1.3 trillion next year, the highest ever except for this year, when the deficit is forecast to exceed $1.8 trillion. The Treasury is borrowing 46 cents of every dollar it spends, largely from China and other foreign creditors, who are growing increasingly uneasy about the security of their investments. Unless Congress comes up with some serious cash, expanding the nation's health-care system will only add to the problem.
Obama wants to raise income taxes for high earners and impose new levies on business, but those moves would not generate enough cash to cover the cost of health care, much less balance the budget, and they have not been fully embraced by Congress. Obama's plan to tax greenhouse-gas emissions could raise trillions of dollars, but again, Congress is balking. Key lawmakers are considering other ways to pay for health reform, including new taxes on sugary soda, alcohol and employer-provided health insurance. The last proposal could raise a lot of money -- nearly $1 trillion over the next five years, according to White House budget documents. But options on the table would raise a fraction of that sum. And while it might pay for health care, it would barely dent deficits projected to total nearly $4 trillion over the next five years and to grow rapidly in the future, as baby boomers draw on Social Security and Medicare.
Enter the VAT, one of the world's most popular taxes, in use in more than 130 countries. Among industrialized nations, rates range from 5 percent in Japan to 25 percent in Hungary and in parts of Scandinavia. A 21 percent VAT has permitted Ireland to attract investment by lowering its corporate tax rate. The VAT has advantages: Because producers, wholesalers and retailers are each required to record their transactions and pay a portion of the VAT, the tax is hard to dodge. It punishes spending rather than savings, which the administration hopes to encourage. And the threat of a VAT could pull the country out of recession, some economists argue, by hurrying consumers to the mall before the tax hits.
What would it cost? Emanuel argues in his book that a 10 percent VAT would pay for every American not entitled to Medicare or Medicaid to enroll in a health plan with no deductibles and minimal copayments. In his 2008 book, "100 Million Unnecessary Returns," Yale law professor Michael J. Graetz estimates that a VAT of 10 to 14 percent would raise enough money to exempt families earning less than $100,000 -- about 90 percent of households -- from the income tax and would lower rates for everyone else. And in a paper published last month in the Virginia Tax Review, Burman suggests that a 25 percent VAT could do it all: Pay for health-care reform, balance the federal budget and exempt millions of families from the income tax while slashing the top rate to 25 percent. A gallon of milk would jump from $3.69 to $4.61, and a $5,000 bathroom renovation would suddenly cost $6,250, but the nation's debt would stabilize and everybody could see a doctor.
Burman, who helped House Democrats craft an unsuccessful 2007 plan to repeal the alternative minimum tax, said he's received a number of phone calls from lawmakers interested in his idea, though "they can't quite imagine how to make it happen politically." Burman said the 25 percent rate has caused some sticker shock, and he's trying to figure out how to bring it down. Graetz's proposal drew an endorsement from Volcker, who last year called it "a sensible plan for reform." (Volcker did not respond to a request for comment.) It also has piqued the interest of Conrad, the Senate Budget Committee chairman who argues that it could be modified to accommodate Obama's pledge not to raise taxes on families who make less than $200,000 a year.
"I think interest is quietly picking up," Graetz said. "People are beginning to recognize that the mathematics of the current system are just unsustainable. You have to do something. And a VAT has got to be on the table if you want to do something big and serious." Still, the Senate Finance Committee declined to include a VAT among the options it is considering to pay for health reform. And even VAT supporters doubt the tax will find a place among the tax-reform proposals the Volcker panel has been asked to produce by Dec. 4.
Though the nation's fiscal outlook is grim, Burman said "the situation will have to get more desperate" before lawmakers are likely to consider a new levy aimed directly at the pocketbooks of every one of their constituents. Most lawmakers are still looking for "a painless source of revenue" to overhaul the health-care system and dig the nation out of debt, Burman said. "Who knows?" he added. "Maybe the tooth fairy will bring that to them."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/26/AR2009052602909_pf.html
Interesting detail...
Look under 'Stock Board Partnerships'...
http://www.stockawarenessprofessionals.com/Our_Partners.php
IRS tax revenue falls along with taxpayers' income
By John Waggoner, USA TODAY
Federal tax revenue plunged $138 billion, or 34%, in April vs. a year ago — the biggest April drop since 1981, a study released Tuesday by the American Institute for Economic Research says. When the economy slumps, so does tax revenue, and this recession has been no different, says Kerry Lynch, senior fellow at the AIER and author of the study. "It illustrates how severe the recession has been." For example, 6 million people lost jobs in the 12 months ended in April — and that means far fewer dollars from income taxes. Income tax revenue dropped 44% from a year ago. "These are staggering numbers," Lynch says.
Big revenue losses mean that the U.S. budget deficit may be larger than predicted this year and in future years. "It's one of the drivers of the ongoing expansion of the federal budget deficit," says John Lonski, chief economist for Moody's Investors Service. The Congressional Budget Office projects a $1.7 trillion budget deficit for fiscal year 2009. The other deficit driver is government spending, which, the AIER's report says, is the main culprit for the federal budget deficit.
The White House thinks that tax revenue will increase in 2011, thanks in part to the stimulus package, says the report from AIER, an independent economic research institute. But it warns, "Even if that does happen, the administration also projects that government spending will be so much higher each year that large deficits will continue, and the national debt held by the public will double over the next 10 years."
The government may have a hard time trimming spending to reduce the deficit when the recession ends. The 77 million Baby Boomers— those born in 1946 through 1964 — will start tapping their federal retirement benefits soon, which means increased government outlays for Social Security and Medicare. "It will be doubly difficult for federal government to reduce expenditures and narrow the deficit as rapidly as they did following previous recessions," Lonski says. At the end of the last major recession, in 1981, Boomers were in their 30s. Their incomes were expanding, as was their appetite for goods and services.
The Boomers now are in their 50s and 60s and unlikely to keep increasing incomes for long, which means that revenue from income taxes could flatten in the next few years. Also, Lonski says, they are more likely to save for retirement than spend — and consumer spending is a big driver of the economy. "The American consumer led us out of previous recessions with some semblance of gusto," Lonski says. "They're too old to do it now."
http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/taxes/2009-05-26-irs-tax-revenue-down_N.htm
Russia fears Korea conflict could go nuclear
Wed May 27, 2009 4:48pm IST
By Oleg Shchedrov
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia is taking security measures as a precaution against the possibility tension over North Korea could escalate into nuclear war, news agencies quoted officials as saying on Wednesday. Interfax quoted an unnamed security source as saying a stand-off triggered by Pyongyang's nuclear test on Monday could affect the security of Russia's far eastern regions, which border North Korea. "The need has emerged for an appropriate package of precautionary measures," the source said. "We are not talking about stepping up military efforts but rather about measures in case a military conflict, perhaps with the use of nuclear weapons, flares up on the Korean Peninsula," he added. The official did not elaborate further.
North Korea has responded to international condemnation of its nuclear test and a threat of new U.N. sanctions by saying it is no longer bound by an armistice signed with South Korea at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War. Itar-Tass news agency quoted a Russian Foreign Ministry official as saying the "war of nerves" over North Korea should not be allowed to grow into a military conflict, a reference to Pyongyang's decision to drop out of the armistice deal. "We assume that a dangerous brinkmanship, a war of nerves, is under way, but it will not grow into a hot war," the official told Tass. "Restraint is needed." The Foreign Ministry often uses statements sourced to unnamed officials, released through official news agencies, to lay down its position on sensitive issues.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has condemned the North Korean tests but his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has warned the international community against hasty decisions. Russia is a veto-wielding permanent member of the U.N. Security Council which is preparing to discuss the latest stand-off over the peninsula. In the past, Moscow has been reluctant to support Western calls for sanctions. But Russian officials in the United Nations have said that this time the authority of the international body is at stake. Medvedev told South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who called him on Wednesday, that Russia was prepared to work with Seoul on a new U.N. Security Council resolution and to revive international talks on the North Korean nuclear issue.
"The heads of state noted that the nuclear test conducted by North Korea on Monday is a direct violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution and impedes international law," a Kremlin press release said.
http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-39913120090527?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0&sp=true
France declares war on Sect influence in the United Nations
By Michael Cosgrove.
Published May 20, 2009 by
A French Government report on sect deviance has denounced what it calls excessive sect activity in international institutions. Scientology and other groups are in its sights, and these groups are putting up fierce resistance. France has a government agency called the Miviludes, unique in Western countries, whose job it is to track and counter those religious and other groups it considers as being sects. Miviludes is an acronym of the French phrase ‘Mission interministérielle de vigilance et de lutte contre les dérives sectaires, i.e. ‘Interministerial Mission for Monitoring and Combating Cultic Deviancy.’
A sect is defined here as being any religious organisation which can be characterised as employing any of the following methods; Mental destabilisation, exorbitant financial demands, a rupture with members’ original environment, power in the hands of one person, the invasion of a person’s physical integrity, the recruitment of children, antisocial preaching and troubling public order, activities which lead it to be tried in a court of law, using parallel economic structures, attempts to infiltrate the workplace, schools, and public powers. There are around fifty religions or groups which are being tracked, the most commonly known of which are; Jehovah’s Witnesses, Scientology, Mormons, The Universal Church, Raelians and The Unification Church (Moon.)
Criticism of the Miviludes is fierce, and since the organisation began extending its activities to organisations outside of France it has also been attacked by foreign government agencies such as the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, which has in the past been highly sceptical about the motives of the Miviludes. Yesterday saw the release of their 199-page Annual Report, of which ten pages are consecrated to a stinging criticism of the activity of sects and their supporters in the UN and the OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.) The OSCE is the biggest security-oriented intergovernmental organisation on the planet. Its job is to surveille and uphold principles such as fair elections, press freedom and human rights. It is an ad-hoc UN Agency.
The report notably singles out NGO’s (Non-governmental organizations) which it says are attempting to legitimise sect activities under cover of the principles of religious freedom. They are said to be acting in concert to limit the influence of the Miviludes within the UN by using tactics such as official complaints and smear tactics. OSCE/UN services said to be particularly infiltrated are the Office of Democratic Institutions and that of Human Rights. Other major institutions said to be affected are the European Council and the US State Department and its Report on Religious Freedoms in the World. NGO’s said to be active in trying to destabilise the Mivilude’s work include Human Rights Without Frontiers, the Institute on Religion and Public Policy, the Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty and the Information and Advice Centre for New Spititualities.
These and other organisations are said to be acting as front organisations for various religions who do not have UN accredited presence. Most notable amongst them is the Church of Scientology, which has launched several attacks on the Miviludes, notably by using the US State Department’s clout at the UN. The Scientology Internet site logo looks very much like the UN logo and the Church presents itself as being ‘Associated with the UN Department of Public Information.’
One week ago the Paris offices of the Miviludes were visited by OSCE officials demanding to audit the report before release and check it for what it called any possible human and religious rights abuse. The staff present refused that any documents be taken away. The OSCE intervention was applauded by the Church of Scientology which had appealed to the UN and OSCE in order that they surveille the activities of the Miviludes.
The fact that France is a fiercely secular country provides a partial explanation for the existence of an organisation as unique and with as much influence as the Miviludes. It has been involved in long-running battles with various religious organisations, or sects as they call them. Now that this battle has moved onto the international stage the stakes have gone up and both sides are sharpening their knives.
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/272841
Who said he hasn't?...
Still layin' on the FUD, huh?
LOL!
Y R U belaboring the obvious?
earnie, I agree...mostly...
The SEC and Finra are even clamping down on some aspects of stock trading making it more difficult to promote and receive funds from promotion.
It's about time...I'd love to see stock promotion banned.
Steve simply does not have the aptitude or desire to trade stocks or be a pubco CEO. His first experience in that world has been BAD and he simply wants that chapter closed.
I wonder. SS has always been portrayed as an uneducated bumpkin but his apparent private biz success strongly belies such an assumption. Business is about only one thing...money. Changing the name of the shell is no biggee...likewise for placing his private biz in the shell to profit from the millions of shares he holds.
Doing so is logical & would be very profitable...therefore, it's certainly a possibility.
Jan, In all honesty...
I simply don't know. Although PV's scam is certainly most obvious, SS's complicity is still in official limbo. (NOT to me) Should SS's innocence actually be judged factual, the best way for him to prove it beyond doubt is for him to place his private co. under the SLJB umbrella...& make a pot of $$$$ in the process.
I know what he's told you, but no businessman in his right mind would pass up an opportunity like that.
Jon, surely you are not trying to hypothecate that just because Steve Sulja's privately owned corporation, International Trading, is doing business with the US Department of Defense, that SLJB could not be a scam nor Steve a participant.
Please tell me that is not your reasoning.
A possibility...
Does SS hold dual citizenship?
Oh, there's serious reality...
in Oklahoma. My only real question is this:
If SS & SLJB are a scam, how is it that he's allowed to supply services to a foreign government?
Canada's procedures & statutes on this are just as rigorous as ours...if not more so.
re; Matt Brown...
...40. In order to keep the price ofthe stock up while selling these shares, Dynkowski continued to engage in manipulative trading, and the company issued additional press releases. Indeed, at one point, Dynkowski instructed Brown to have the company issue a press release stating that the company had ordered a non-objecting beneficial owners (''NOBO'') list from its transfer agent. The purpose ofthe ''NOBO press release" was to mislead investors into believing that the massive selling of GH3 stock (for which Dynkowski was responsible) was attributable to short sellers. GH3 issued the misleading NOBO press release on December 8, 2006, just as Dynkowski was dumping the shares from Canceli's accounts.
41. Brown, Canceli, Dynkowski, Mangiapane, Riviello, the GH3 Nominee and GH3 (or its representatives) divided the illicit proceeds from the scheme. Brown, Mangiapane, and Riviello laundered a substantial portion ofthe money in order to pay Dynkowski.
*************
49. While Dynkowski and Brown were selling shares from the nominee accounts, Dynkowski instructed Brown on August 24, 2006 to have Asia Global issue a press release hyping the company's second quarter 2006 financial results. Dynkowski told Brown to "make it sound good... like AAGH [Asia Global] announces record revenue net profits [sic]" and suggested that the press release state that the company's profits had increased by at least 300%. Dynkowski urged Brown to "make it sound ENORMOUS." On September 1,2006, two days after Dynkowski and Brown began selling the 7.75 million shares in the nominee accounts, Asia Global issued a press release claiming that its net income for the second quarter of2006 had increased by 370% compared to its net income in the second quarter of2005 and that its profits for July 2006 were 745% greater than its profits for July 2005. Dynkowski timed his manipulative trading to coincide with the publication of this press release.
http://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2009/comp21053.pdf
So very sad...
U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Litigation Release No. 21053 / May 21, 2009
Securities and Exchange Commission v. Pawel P. Dynkowski, Matthew W. Brown, Jacob Canceli, Gerard J. D’Amaro, Joseph Mangiapane Jr., Nathan M. Michaud, Marc J. Riviello and Adam S. Rosengard, Civil Action No. 09-361 (D. Del.) (May 20, 2009)
SEC Charges Eight Participants in Penny Stock Manipulation Ring.
...The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Delaware also announced today felony criminal charges against Dynkowski, Brown, Canceli, D’Amaro, Mangiapane, and Riviello. MORE...
http://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/2009/lr21053.htm
Looks like Matt Brown finally got nailed.
*R*O*F*L*M*A*O*!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's working again.
GSRE site no workee.
No he isn't.....
That isn't proof that he is selling them. You are better than this crowin.
Who owns that hate site?...
WHOIS information for angelsfortruth.com:
Registrant:
Lisa Long's Creative Communications
PO BOX 369
HOLUALOA, HI 96725
US
Registrar: NAMESDIRECT
Domain Name: ANGELSFORTRUTH.COM
Created on: 11-MAY-06
Expires on: 12-MAY-10
Last Updated on: 11-DEC-07
Administrative, Technical Contact:
LONG, LISA llong@lisalong.com
Lisa Long's Creative Communications
PO BOX 369
HOLUALOA, HI 96725
US
(808) 329-7221
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.WEST-DATACENTER.NET
NS2.WEST-DATACENTER.NET
----------------------------------------------------------
Who is Lisa Long?
http://www.awakenedperceptions.com/
...and her partner, Michael McAvoy:
http://www.michaelmcavoy.com/
Wassamattuh thg, embarrassed by your source?...
here's the rest of it so all can perceive the true value of your 'source material':
...it was Ariel Sharon who boasted "We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it".
It isn't Muslims who fake phony "hate crimes" against themselves, such as vandalising their own cars or graves, or poisoning their dogs and defacing their houses with swastikas, or cutting their clothes and drawing swastikas on their stomachs; it is Zionists.
It wasn't Muslims who took control of The New York Times in 1896, or who indeed own and control much of the mainstream media today; it was and is Zionists.
It isn't a Muslim country that crushes peace protesters to death with bulldozers or shoots them, or shells a picnicking family on a beach (and then refuses to own up) when it wants to launch a war within the next three weeks, or warns civilians to flee after blowing up bridges so it can target them like sitting ducks, or shoots at Red Cross ambulances or UN observers after promising they would be safe, or bombs a power station so that more than ten thousand tonnes of crude oil leaks into the Mediterranean as a "collective punishment"; it is Israel.
It isn't Muslims who routinely employ weapons such as phosphorus shells to inflict grave and horrific injuries on civilians, and who deliberately fire more than a million cluster bomblets of which 40% fail to detonate on impact and 90% are employed in the final three days before a ceasefire so they can "get them all in while the going is good"; it is Israel.
It isn't a Muslim nation that holds the world record for defying UN resolutions; it is Israel.
It wasn't Muslims who ganged up on a handicapped Jew for hiking on his own land, beat him with clubs, dragged him along the ground, tied him to a power pole and continued to beat and kick him as Muslim soldiers did nothing to stop it and police merely advised the thugs to pour water on the victim's head to wash away the blood before journalists and photographers arrived; it was a gang of four cowardly, bigoted Jewish settlers who beat up a handicapped Palestinian with impunity, basking in the knowledge that Jewish soldiers and police would not act impartially, and even returning a week later to torment the neighbors, ransacking their home and destroying their few possessions.
It wasn't Muslim soldiers who beat up and killed a Jew with clubs and rifle butts and kicks to the head and then, after an 'investigation', concluded that the soldiers had "acted properly"; it was the Israeli "Defense" Forces who smashed three holes in a Palestinian teenager's skull killing him as he merely waited at a bus stop, continuing to beat him as he lay unconscious, then made up a story about him "pulling a knife" and suggested that he was "mentally unstable" in a case that is sadly all too typical of violence perpetrated by racist, bigoted right-wing extremist Jewish supremacists upon those whom they perceive as "animals in human form".
It wasn't Muslims who created a global organization named the "Anti Defamation League" in order to defend Muslim criminals by playing the race card and accusing their pursuers of being "racists" and "anti-Semites" who were guilty of "hate crimes"; it was Zionists who set up the Anti Defamation League of B'nai B'rith in response to the lynching of Leo Frank, president of the Atlanta chapter of the B'nai B'rith Jewish secret society who had been convicted of murdering 13-year-old Mary Phagan who worked at Frank's pencil factory, with the lynching of Frank being in response to the commuting of his death sentence to life imprisonment after organized Jewry had tried to cast doubt on Frank's conviction by shifting the blame to a black man even though ritual murder is a known Jewish tradition, the ADL being used thereafter to denounce anti-criminals as "anti-Semites" whenever the criminals happened to be Zionists.
It isn't Muslims who, for political and financial gain, demolished the World Trade Center with nano-thermite and crashed remote-controlled planes into it in order to set up a hoax about "Jewish kamikaze pilots" and then attempt to throw researchers off the scent by pretending to "investigate" the demolitions whilst 'accidentally' plumping for the wrong hypothesis (e.g. H-bombs rather than thermite), and then stubbornly refuse to change to a hypothesis that is in accordance with the evidence; it is Zionists who set up a hoax about "Muslim kamikaze pilots" and have their deliberately misleading 'work' about the demolitions hosted at sites that are owned and edited by Zionists.
It wasn't Muslims who practised pseudo-science by refusing to look for Iron Blue at Auschwitz or explosives at the World Trade Center, in order that their 'investigation' would come up with the required financially and politically motivated result; it was Jan Markiewicz, Wojciech Gubala, and Jerzy Labedz of the Jan Sehn Institute at Krakow (Auschwitz fraud), and "scientists" and "engineers" at NIST (WTC fraud).
It wasn't Muslims who took over the "investigation" of the World Trade Center collapses when FEMA were making a hash of the cover up, mixed up Figures 11-51 and 11-52 in NCSTAR1-9Vol2 on their WTC7 report which was published two days after the mysterious death of eyewitness Barry Jennings whose testimony of explosions in WTC7 before either Tower had collapsed - note he specifically says (4:43) "I was trapped in there when both buildings came down" - blew their politically motivated assumptions and conclusions apart, failed to spot their mistake in their accompanying description, assumed unrealistically high gas temperatures in order to derive their required unrealistically high steel temperatures, published a preposterous hypothesis of a "thermal-expansion"-based collapse with the logical conclusion that the 180 kip shear capacity of four bolts in a seated connection would be exceeded if the steel heated up from 20 C to 32 C making the force to completely resist the thermal expansion 191 kip, irrespective of the fact that no steel-framed high-rises had ever collapsed due to "fires" or "impacts" apart from the three that allegedly did so on 9/11, claimed inward bowing of the WTC1 perimeter columns between floors 94 to 100 peaking at 55 inches at column 316 on the 96th floor which could not be reconciled with the fact that the columns' moment of inertia or second moment of area was at least 342 ins^4 along the minor axis and a maximum deflection of 55 inches given fixed - fixed boundary conditions and a distributed load would have required the failure within 102 minutes of at least ten consecutive floors, many of which did not have any fireproofing 'dislodged' by a plane and did not even experience substantial fires; it was NIST, whose top scientists and engineers have extensive knowledge of nano-thermites, but said they had found "no evidence" of explosives at the WTC and later admitted that they had not bothered to look for any. The 9/11 perpetrators had to ensure those in charge of the "investigation" were aware of that which they must not find.
It wasn't a Muslim who announced on Sunday September 16, 2001 that a "hijacker's passport" (allegedly that of Satam al Suqami) had been found "several blocks from the ruins of the World Trade Center", with other reports asserting that the passport was found "in the vicinity of Vesey Street"; it was former Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik who was indicted November 2007 on multiple counts including lying, fraud and conspiracy, which is consistent with the fact that the laws of aerodynamics dictate that the passport should have been found in the vicinity of Liberty Street, the scriptwriter forgot that Suqami was supposed to be on Flight AA11 approaching from the north, and, of several attempts made by the authorities to guess where the passport should have been found, not one of them was correct!
It wasn't Muslims who had JFK killed; it was Zionists.
It wasn't Muslims who stole elections by exploiting electronic voting machines that biased the results such that the odds for several swing states to swing as much as they did from the exit polls was 250 million to one against; it was George W. Bush.
It isn't Muslims who exhibit traits of supremacist megalomaniacs by referring to their enemies as "grasshoppers", "beasts", "crocodiles" and "cockroaches"; it is Zionists.
It wasn't a Muslim who set up a Ponzi scheme that netted $50 billion; it was a Jew.
It wasn't Muslims who made a record about doing "The Wall Street Shuffle" and whose other songs included scatological references; it was Zionists.
It isn't Muslims who rule the world by proxy and get others to fight and die for them in wars; it is Zionists, whose modus operandi is to select rich host populations that will let them in, pose as their "ally" whilst draining them of hard-earned wealth, employ deception to trick the hosts into fighting poorer nations, and reap the spoils of war such as Afghan opium trafficking, missing Pentagon funds, looting of oil-for-food funds, etc, along with other opportunistic scams such as the $550 billion electronic run on the banks. Note: some reports incorrectly state Thursday September "15", 2008 for the latter; it should of course be September 11, the Thursday prior to September 15.
It isn't Muslims who have been expelled from countries on numerous occasions, it is Zionists who keep getting kicked out as soon as the host gets wise to the fact that Zionists' only loyalty is to their own tribe, rather than the host nation to whom Zionists pose as an "ally".
It wasn't Muslims who started a World War in 1914 in the hope that they could successfully launch a hoax about "six million" of their number being killed in order to obtain their own country and net a substantial fraction of global wealth in "reparations", failed, but also exploited the opportunity to annex and loot Russia and indulge in horrific blood-letting and oppression as a means of settling old scores with the Rus who had chased them westwards from former Khazaria; it was Khazar (fake) 'Zionists'.
It wasn't Muslims who blew up Francois Duprat's car killing him and maiming his wife, beat up Dr. Robert Faurisson at least ten times in which his jaw was broken / teeth knocked out / nearly killed several times / hospitalized for weeks and was persecuted in legal battles and had his home raided by police, tried to kill Ernst Zundel on at least three occasions in arson and pipe bomb attacks and had him and Germar Rudolf deported to Germany and jailed for years, beat Jurgen Rieger unconscious and blew up his car, beat up David Cole and threatened to kill him and his family, persecuted and beat Joseph Burg, attacked Frank Walus seven times and nearly killed him in an acid attack, forced Ivan Lagace to resign from his job as a crematory expert after endless threats from thugs claiming to be from the Jewish Defense League, perpetrated numerous terrorist attacks in France including sulfuric acid sprayed into faces / attacks with iron bars / baseball bats / gas sprayed / excrement strewn around, had historian David Irving spend 400 days in jail before being released on Appeal from a three year sentence which was for two speeches and a newspaper interview he gave 16 years earlier, had Dr. Frederick Toben jailed in Germany for ten months for using his Australian website to express his views, and who had dozens more jailed, fined, and financially ruined by character assassination and legal battles; it was Zionists attempting to prop up their idiosyncratic brand of "truth" which profited them handsomely for decades.
It wasn't Muslims who fabricated a hoax about "six million" of their people being "murdered" involving an evidence-free conspiracy theory about a plot to exterminate them in "gas chambers" which netted them - by way of a huge, illegitimate land grab - their own sovereign state, colossal profits in "reparations", hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign "aid" and "loan guarantees" and waiving / subsidizing of interest payments, etc, and now serves as their "sword and shield" to practice apartheid and kill and oppress their enemies with impunity; it was Zionists.
It wasn't Muslims who were caught red-handed forging fake "smoke" onto wartime photographs of Auschwitz; it was the Simon Wiesenthal Center, whose suitability as guardians of truth is comparable to a choice of Count Dracula as a maintainer of blood banks.
It isn't Muslim mathematics that holds that the sum of a set of variables a + b + c + d + e... remains constant, e.g. at "six million", when several variables fluctuate downwards by, say, nearly three million and about half of that, in the absence of any corresponding upwards revision; it is financially and politically motivated Jewish "mathematics".
It isn't Muslim physics and chemistry that holds that corpses may be rapidly and economically cremated with between a pound and a kilogram of coke per body when the firebricks of the cremation ovens are not even replaced after some 20,000 cremations (which is rather like expecting a Trabant to be capable of doing 100,000 miles non-stop at 100 mph on 100 gallons of gasoline and a couple of cans of motor oil); it is politically and financially motivated Jewish "physics" and Jewish "chemistry".
It wasn't Muslims - or even the "Russian police" - who behave as if they authored The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion; it is International Jewry, and if it hisses like a snake and rattle
Wrong coordinates...
Using decimal expression, those numbers are either near south central China or the middle of the Arctic Sea.
I'll bet you think that's funny.
Verify before you post, okay?
http://atlas.mapquest.com/maps/latlong.adp
A parable...
A boat docked in a tiny Mexican village. An American tourist complimented the Mexican fisherman on the quality of his fish
and asked how long it took him to catch them.
"Not very long," answered the Mexican.
"Well, then, why didn't you stay out longer and catch more?" asked the American.
The Mexican explained that his small catch was sufficient to meet his needs and those of his family.
The American asked, "But what do you do with the rest of your time?"
"I sleep late, play with my children and take a siesta with my wife. In the evenings, I go into the village to see my friends,
have a few drinks, play the guitar and sing a few songs. I have a full life."
The American interrupted, "I have an MBA from Harvard and I can help you. You should start by fishing longer every day. You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the extra revenue, you can buy a bigger boat. With the extra money the larger boat will bring, you can buy a second one and a third one and so on until you have an entire fleet of trawlers. Instead of selling your fish to a middle man, you can negotiate directly with the processing plants and maybe even open your own plant. You can then leave this little village and move to Mexico City, Los Angeles, or even New York City. From there you can direct your huge enterprise."
"How long would that take?" asked the Mexican.
"Twenty, perhaps twenty-five years," replied the American.
"And after that?"
"Afterwards? That's when it gets really interesting," answered the American, laughing. "When your business gets really big,
you can start selling stocks and make millions!"
"Millions? Really? And after that?"
"After that you'll be able to retire, live in a tiny village near the coast, sleep late, play with your children, take siestas with your wife and spend your evenings drinking and enjoying your friends."
THAT'S all U got to say???
Furtherfxxkingmore...
The Hawaiian Legislature is a %$^@ EMBARRASSMENT to America! What the hell gives them the right to pander to Islam by declaring a special day of recognition anyway???
Putting a bounty on the bastards would be more appropriate than giving them a $^%@ holiday! ...ESPECIALLY commemorating the horrendous loss of life America endured at their hands!
re; Hawaii Islam Day...
This is a fine example of the results of poor education. Hell...even *I'M* aware of the fascination math study has held for the various civilizations thruout antiquity in the M.E.
The REALLY diabolical aspect of this is that Hawaii can't just simply rescind it due to the obvious recriminations that would result, both legal and otherwise.
I'd say any hopes Hawaii had for tourism to eventually improve just got flushed...rightfully so, I might add.
Damn funny...
I post DD & the board dies. Why is that?
They never quit...
Reading, Writing, and Original Sin
Thursday, May 7, 2009
By Katherine Stewart
It was during recess at one of Santa Barbara’s adorable, sun-spangled elementary schools that Ashley*, a sprightly 6-year-old, approached her first-grade classmate Emma* near the swing sets and delivered the bad news. “You can’t go to heaven.” Ashley had already determined that Emma, the only Jewish girl in her class, did not believe in Jesus. Emma protested, but Ashley persisted. “If you don’t believe in Jesus, you are going to hell.” Their teacher overheard the increasingly heated exchange. When class resumed, she asked everyone to pay attention. People from different religious backgrounds, she explained, have very different perspectives on certain kinds of issues. Emma, feeling good that she had stood her ground, seemed content with the result. But Ashley was crushed. “You mean they lied to me right here in school?!” she began to cry. “Because that’s what they taught me here! How can they lie?”
It turns out that Ashley had reason to be confused. She is a student at one of four Santa Barbara public elementary schools, including Ellwood Elementary School, Hollister Elementary School, Foothill Elementary School, and the Vieja Valley School, that last year opened their doors to an afterschool program known as the “Good News Club.” The club aims to convert young children to their form of Christianity and to encourage them to spread the word to fellow students. The club generally holds its sessions in school facilities, in most cases immediately after regular classes end. I took an interest in the story of Ashley and Emma when I discovered that the Good News Club had been given permission to start another group, this one at the school my daughter attended, Cold Spring School.
Cold Spring School is one of those places that make Santa Barbara the envy of just about every sensible American to the east of Ojai. In fact, when my husband and I moved to Santa Barbara from New York four years ago, the prospect of sending our children to such a delightful, well-run, high-achieving neighborhood public school was at the top of the list of attractions. The school community turns out to be far more culturally diverse than one might guess from a glance at the winding, semi-rural roads or the intimidating local real estate listings. After school, the playing fields teem with the offspring of recovering hippies from Mountain Drive; of academics affiliated with Westmont College; of small-business pioneers; surf punks; and members of the Montecito social mafia. The parent body includes Catholics, Unitarians, agnostics, atheists, Jews, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Buddhists, Muslims, Episcopalians, and devotees of the jewel-like Vedanta Temple that graces a hillside not far the school. Somewhere between a quarter to a half of the parents would probably call themselves Evangelicals, though since no one keeps the statistics, no one really knows.
The diversity of the Cold Spring community, far from dividing the school, always seemed to me to be a source of strength. When the Tea Fire destroyed the homes of 16 Cold Spring families and three staff and seriously damaged those of another dozen-plus, it was no surprise to anyone that the community came together with quiet determination, organizing fundraising and volunteer shifts, sharing their homes, and working with children to help them cope with the trauma. But on the afternoon in January that I approached the school’s tiny administration office to find out more about the Good News Club program, the familiar scene on the playground suddenly started to seem alien. As I watched the girls perform their soccer drills, I began to wonder if I had been completely wrong about the place after all.
The afterschool world at Cold Spring had hitherto consisted of basketball, karate, dance, and other physical fitness activities. In this context, a sectarian religious group that seeks to recruit the very young stuck out like a barstool in a bunny cage. And so, I confess, I became just a little paranoid. Was a group of parents plotting to turn our public school into a religious school? A rumor that a teacher had volunteered her classroom for the group particularly disturbed me. Was she part of the plot? I had already discovered that at least some other parents shared my concerns. But the stories I heard back only made things worse. I learned that some kids had exchanged nasty, religious-themed emails, and that others had not been invited to certain birthday parties because they belonged to the “wrong” faith.
One parent, who belongs to a religious group that tends to receive unflattering press coverage, asked me, “Can you imagine if we tried to set up a similar program? It would be all over the national news.” Another parent lashed out at me for raising the issue in such a direct fashion. “Don’t be so Jewish,” she snapped — which I guess she felt she was allowed to say because she is Jewish, too. Another mom, an Evangelical Christian whom I count as a dear friend, said she thought that the Good News people “really, really mean well,” but that the group was “not right for our school.” The Good News Club, I was sure, was going to be bad news for the school. Our community, so recently united around the catastrophe of a fire, seemed poised to fall apart over its religious differences.
“The group is benign,” an administrator cheerily said when I arrived at the office. Was she part of the plot, too? I requested to speak with our principal, Dr. Bryan McCabe, but he wasn’t available. Tall and amiable, Dr. McCabe has guided the school judiciously and successfully with an avuncular, as opposed to patriarchal, style. When we spoke later by phone, I suggested that he should send out a letter to parents explaining the decision to start a Good News Club program at the school, which he promptly did. “Had we rejected [the Good News Club’s] application to use the facilities, we would have exposed ourselves to a potential lawsuit by the sponsoring organization,” he wrote. In subsequent conversations with him and other members of the school board, I found no one willing to say that they had invited the group into the school. Everyone assured me that the sole motivation for the decision to allow them in was, just as our principal indicated, the fear of litigation. But could this really be true? How exactly could things come to such a pass — that a 190-student public elementary school should tread with fear before a group that calls itself the Good News Club?
Other people drink tea or go jogging; I like to deal with my obsessions through research. In my research, I discovered that Good News Clubs are sponsored by the Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF), a worldwide organization founded in Warrenton, Missouri, more than 70 years ago. The declared mission of the CEF is to produce conversion experiences in very young children, and thus to equip them to “witness” for other children. “I was told that a child at five, if properly instructed, can as truly believe as anyone,” said Mr. J. Irvin Overholtzer, who founded CEF in 1937. “I saw that if there was any truth in this statement, there was a door of opportunity lying open before us.” As of 2008, according to CEF Vice President of U.S.A. Ministries Moises Esteves, there were approximately 3,410 Good News Clubs in public K-6 schools around the country. The CEF labels the Good News Club program as “Bible Study,” but the term “study” in this context is a euphemism for indoctrination in and practice of a particular religion. Once class begins, there is no pretense of analyzing the bible as a literary, cultural, or historical document. The program moves directly to the CEF’s stated purpose, which is “to evangelize boys and girls with the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, disciple them in the Word of God, and establish them in a Bible-believing church for Christian living.”
Because the Good News Club seeks to reach children who in many cases are not old enough to read, a centerpiece of its program is the “wordless book,” a simple picture book intended to convey different Evangelical doctrines. The “Gold Page,” with a picture of a church and a cross, accompanies a lesson about heaven. The “Dark Page,” depicting the Garden of Eden, teaches children that they are born sinners. The “Green Page” details the methods children can use for personal growth, which include prayer, studying the bible, and sharing their beliefs with other children. The Good News Club aims to use afterschool facilities as soon as possible after the bell rings. Aside from adding to the convenience for students and parents, this maximizes the possibility of contact with non-participating students. It also has the effect of making it difficult for very young children to distinguish between the Good News Club and the other classes they take in school.
The law currently prevents the group from holding classes during the school day, and it also requires that students obtain parental permission for participation. But the CEF has proved adept at finding ways to bend the rules around such restrictions. In one school, cheerful flyers announcing Good News Club-sponsored “parties” were posted three feet from the floor, at children’s eye-level. “There was a tremendous feeling of peer pressure to attend … and parents get that,” said a Wisconsin father. At Santa Barbara’s Foothill Elementary School, an administrator said, the Good News instructor was found approaching students and distributing leaflets just outside school grounds. Often, instructors arrive on campus before the bell rings. When young children exit their regular classrooms, they find the instructor outside the door bearing treats and trailing balloons. In Valencia, California, a parent of a kindergartener reported that the Good News Club actually started 15 minutes prior to the end of her child’s school day. The instructor, she said, would enter the classroom as kindergarten was winding down and perform a roll call — effectively segregating the children by religious affiliation.
The club’s best promoters, as the CEF well understands, are the children themselves. Participating students are instructed to invite their classmates to join the group, and prizes are often given to those who succeed. The group’s focus, indeed, is concentrated on the “un-churched” children more than it is on those already in the fold. “If every public elementary school student in the United Sates could join a Good News Club,” the CEF Web site states, “we could revolutionize our culture in one generation!” In short, the confusion Ashley evinced on the playground about just what her school was teaching her was no accident. It is built into the design of the Good News Club program. The average six-year-old cannot reliably distinguish between programs taught by his/her school and those taught in his/her school; and the CEF may be determined to make use of this fact in order to advance its religious aims.
The impression I had formed from my research on the CEF did not change with my first, indirect contacts with the group’s local representatives. When news of the kerfuffle among the parents at Cold Spring inevitably reached the CEF leaders in the Santa Barbara area, one parent told me, the group seemed to welcome the conflict. “That’s great publicity for us,” was the reaction of the woman responsible for the effort, or so I was told. When the Cold Spring School Board politely asked the CEF representatives whether they would be willing to hold their meetings at 4 p.m., instead of at 3 p.m., in order to avoid giving children the impression that the program was sponsored by the school, they refused. I was also told that when some Westmont-affiliated parents offered space for the group in the church right next door to the school, which was believed to be available and had better facilities, again the answer was no. Clearly, this was a group that knew what it wanted, and wasn’t going to shy away from a fight to get it.
Principal McCabe’s letter did not succeed in heading off the religious war that threatened to erupt at Cold Spring School. The emails began to fly. My husband sent out a long screed detailing his reasons for opposing the group and offering some lessons on the history of church-and-state separation. In several of the letters that went out to the principal, parents seemed to feel the need to state their own religious affiliations in a defensive way, as if they believed that their arguments couldn’t stand up on their own merits. Interestingly, many of the objections seemed to come from the very community of Evangelicals CEF claims to represent. Soon, it became clear that even taking a stand aroused many parents’ anxieties. One woman who expressed opposition to the group was berated by another family for “making a stink.” A neighbor said her exasperation over the issue tipped her decision to send her children to a private school.
The separation of religion and state in our little public school, I realized, is a matter of common sense. Without it, a peaceful community in the hills by the Pacific Ocean is liable to start looking like Germany in the 17th century: gearing up for the Thirty Years’ War. But, as my husband kept pointing out, the separation of religion and state isn’t just a matter of common sense; it is part of the U.S. Constitution. The 1st Amendment, after all, prohibits the government from establishing religion, thus creating “a wall of separation between Church and State,” to use Thomas Jefferson’s words. Here we had a program, the Good News Club, which seemed intent on giving young kids the impression that their public school endorsed a particular religion. The question that wouldn’t go away was: If the school approves of such a program, knowing quite well that it will likely be misperceived by children as a school-sponsored program, how is that not an attempt to establish religion?
The effect of the Milford decision on the ground goes well beyond merely granting the club and similar groups a right to freedom from discrimination in the afterschool world. In fact, it lifts them into a higher, privileged status against possible competitors for the afterschool pie. According to the Constitution, however, it is also true that there are only nine people in the world whose interpretation of that document makes any difference. In 2001, in Good News Club v. Milford Central School, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that to exclude the club on the grounds that it is a religious group is to discriminate against its particular religious viewpoint, in violation of 1st Amendment protections on the freedom of speech. The court also went out of its way to say that it could conceive of no basis for concern about a possible violation of the clause of the 1st Amendment that prohibits the establishment of religion. The author of the court’s majority opinion was Clarence Thomas. It is perhaps interesting to note, in that respect, that in a recent speech before a school group, Justice Thomas reminisced fondly about his own school days when he would see “a flag and a crucifix in each classroom.”
In order to give the court’s judgment in Milford some semblance of logical coherence, Thomas was compelled to re-imagine the activity of the Good News Club. The club, he said, was best viewed not as a religious group but as a discussion group engaged in speech about moral issues. Its exhortations on behalf of a particular morality, he reasoned, are no different from the encouragement to teamwork on the soccer field, for example. Justices Stevens, Ginsburg, and Souter, who all wrote dissenting opinions, found this logic preposterous. Of course the Good News Club teaches morals; but it also teaches doctrines, such as the notion that if you don’t believe in Jesus you will go to hell — the kind of thing that soccer teams tend not to teach. If taken seriously as a way to analyze religious cases, Souter concluded, the Milford decision “would stand for the remarkable proposition that any public school opened for civic meetings must be opened for use as a church, synagogue, or mosque.”
It soon became clear to me, however, that there was no point in arguing with the Supreme Court. “Milford is a bad decision,” a lawyer for Americans United for Separation of Church and State wrote to my husband. But it “is not going to be overturned right now. The lower courts will all follow it and the Supreme Court in its current configuration is not going to reverse itself on this issue.” The effect of the Milford decision on the ground goes well beyond merely granting the club and similar groups (if any) a right to freedom from discrimination in the afterschool world. In fact, it lifts them into a higher, privileged status against possible competitors for the afterschool pie. Schools routinely exclude from their programs entire categories of activity — dancing, martial arts, whatever — for a variety of compelling reasons. In the wake of Milford, however, the one category that cannot be excluded for fear of litigation is religion. In other words, if your school lets in a lacrosse group, it will see itself as practically bound to let in the Good News Club; but if it lets in the club, there is nothing to stop it from excluding lacrosse.
The CEF has been able to achieve this enviable result thanks to the support it receives from a team of aggressive lawyers. CEF is represented by the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), a powerful legal arm of the Evangelical movement. The ADF organization is extraordinarily active, interceding in the moral hot-button issues favored by the religious right. In the first three months of 2009, ADF was involved in more than 30 legal actions pertaining to its opposition to same-sex marriage and reproductive freedoms, its support for Christian groups and prayer in the schools, and other causes linked with a right-wing religious agenda. With ADF’s backing, the CEF has sued school districts in New York, Virginia, Pennsylvania, California, and other states, not only arguing for the right to assemble but also seeking, among other things, the right to send flyers home with students and to avoid paying usage fees. “CEF is very aggressive from a legal standpoint,” said Ira Lupu, professor of law at George Washington University. “I’ve been following this issue for 20 years, and I hear stories all the time. If they get turned down for something or if the school says ‘no’ to something, they talk to their lawyers right away, who write a letter and say, ‘We’ll give you 30 days to change your mind or else we’ll see you in court.’”
If the legal juggernaut of militant Evangelism makes the prospect of opposing the Good News Club daunting, the personal politics can be even more troubling for concerned parents. “I earn a living from my business in this community, and there are a lot of religious people here,” said the Wisconsin father who objects to the club’s activities in his school. “But I know that if I were to go public with my objections, I’d lose a lot of clients and my kids would get targeted.” A California mother added: “My kids are going to be in this school system for many years. I don’t want them getting blowback from their peers. And I don’t want them to be discriminated against by their teachers.” Another parent in New York said, “As a member of a religious minority, there is an additional sense of burden. You feel like your behavior is being scrutinized, you are worried about stereotyping. So you don’t speak up.” Even Emma’s parents wished to remain anonymous.
As I discussed the Milford decision with experts and friends, a question kept recurring: Why aren’t other religious groups pursuing this opportunity to advance their goals with the 6-year-old set? If, as Justice Souter observed, the Milford ruling implies that all schools with afterschool programs must now make themselves available to serve as churches, synagogues, and mosques, then where are the synagogues and mosques, not to mention the churches of other Christian denominations? I began calling around to various religious bodies in search of answers. Most of them seemed strangely accustomed to hanging out in left field with obsessive journalists.
“We don’t operate in the public schools because we don’t have a need for it,” said Kim Farah, a public relations representative for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. “We do have extensive youth programs, including sports, dances, and religious instruction, but we have plenty of chapels and church facilities to accommodate them.” Various Islamic organizations also left me empty-handed. “I know of a few people who do it on a personal level, but I don’t know of any organization that does it, no,” said Habiba Ali at the Islamic Society of North America. Next, I phoned the American Jewish Congress. “Many Jews, notwithstanding the Supreme Court decision and statute, believe that religion has no place in the public schools,” said Marc Stern, general counsel and acting executive director of the American Jewish Congress. “We therefore find it awkward to take advantage of legal authorities that would permit the operation of student groups in and around the public schools.”
The only other faith-based group I could find that sponsored programs in the public schools is the Kabbalah Centre International, the organization popularized in the media by Madonna and her former husband, Guy Ritchie. The programs, called “Spirituality for Kids,” are said to be nondenominational; last year, there were nine of them in the Los Angeles area, while CEF has more than 400 groups in the L.A. area, according to the Liberty Counsel, a legal defense organization with a right-wing agenda. Nevertheless, the presence of the Kabbalah Centre’s programs in the public schools has sparked widespread outrage, and was the subject of a front-page article in the L.A. Times last March.
What all faiths sometimes do take advantage of is a legal decision dating from 1914 known as “released time.” This provides means by which a student who would otherwise be deprived of an opportunity to receive religious instruction to leave during the school day to learn about their religion at an off-campus site. CEF alone has established more than 700 released-time programs. Muslim and Jewish children, as well as youths belonging to other Christian denominations, take advantage of released-time programs to learn about and practice their faiths. But school boards have discretion in the creation of released-time programs for their students. And in all such instances, the religious instruction takes place off-campus. As far as I could discern, it was basically the Evangelicals alone who organized religious groups in the public schools on a large scale. The question remained: Why?
To understand the issue of religion in the schools further, I turned to the experts. “During the last 20-30 years, Evangelical Christians have been interested in correcting what they believe is a wrong: the exclusion of religion from the public schools,” said Dr. Charles Haynes, senior scholar at the First Amendment Center, a nonpartisan forum established for the study and exploration of free-expression issues, including freedom of speech, of the press, and of religion. “They feel that court decisions in the early 1960s excluding school prayer and bible reading were wrong. So, in recent decades, they have organized to try to encourage more religious expression and evangelism in the schools.” The counterculture movement that began around the same time only exacerbated the sense among many Evangelicals that they were on the losing side of a major battle. The precursors of today’s religious right increasingly saw themselves as warriors in conflict with secular government and secular culture, trying to reclaim Christian America on behalf of “authentic” Americans. They believed they had been deprived of what was rightfully theirs by some arbitrary court rulings. They wanted to take history back to the 1950s or perhaps earlier, when religion — their religion — had a safe home in the public schools. Like the local CEF leader, or so I surmised, they believed that they were engaged in a long, defensive war against an aggressive, amoral foe.
Perhaps there is some truth to such an interpretation of history. Personally, I have my doubts. The Evangelical hegemony of America’s public schools first came under threat with the waves of Catholic immigrants and others who arrived on America’s shores in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The Scopes “Monkey” Trial, where the plan to teach creationism hit the wall of reality, took place in 1926. By the time of the Supreme Court decisions on school prayer, a very large part of the American public was committed to the idea that public schools were best reserved for secular values and science, and religion was to be practiced in the home and in houses of worship. In the microcosm of the Cold Spring School District, circa 2009, in any case, I was certain that any notion that the CEF was battling satanic forces of secularism was just plain false. The opposition to the Good News Club in our little town wasn’t coming from liberal government or activist judges. To the contrary, the club had Justices Thomas and Scalia, the ruling majority of the Supreme Court, and a phalanx of lawyers at their back. The Good News Club wasn’t defending itself in the context of an ongoing war. It had picked a fight right out of the clear blue sky of Santa Barbara. And the people with whom it picked that fight were the very people whom it claimed to represent. Just as our school board had realized at the outset, it was we who were powerless, and the CEF — notwithstanding its sense of victimhood — that could do as it wished.
On Friday, February 20, the Good News Club finally arrived at Cold Spring School. I decided that since I had made such a stink about their presence, it was my responsibility to understand better what they did. Uncertain of what to expect, I arrived at the auditorium shortly after the school day ended. Fifth-graders preparing for a musical performance finished their work and exited the room. A third-grader briefly stopped by to play a song on the piano, then he too left. I was the only person in the room when Si and Colleen Ishimaru made their entrance, accompanied by a cloud of cheerful balloons. The CEF leaders are a married couple, perhaps in their mid fifties, with four grown children of their own. They moved to Santa Barbara from the Los Angeles area several years ago, and have since spearheaded the CEF here. Colleen, wearing a pink V-neck sweater, was friendly and pleasant. I introduced myself as a Cold Spring parent and asked if I could look at her materials, which she shared with me. We chit-chatted for a while: kids, parenting, Santa Barbara. “If a child needs us,” Si said kindly, “we will be there.”
It turned out that the face of CEF was a sweet, somewhat hapless older couple who believed they were doing good works. As the minute hand advanced past the hour, the Ishimarus began to look visibly disappointed. No children had shown up yet. I continued to chat with Colleen about the program. Si went outside and stood next to the balloons, watching the dozens of children in the schoolyard playing happily in the sun. After 45 minutes, they decided to call it quits. Nobody showed. Not a single child. As I walked away from the Good News Club — from the Ishimarus with their wordless books and lonely balloons — I was surrounded by familiar sights and sounds. Children squealed as they gleefully chased one another through the play structures. A group of girls practiced their soccer moves on the field. There was the steady dribbling of a basketball on the blacktop.
I admit that I felt a quiet thrill of pride in my little school. We had come together after all, without lawyers, courts, or dictates. It wasn’t an activist judge or a secular conspiracy that caused the Good News Club to fail in this instance, but a community passionate about the welfare of its children and committed to goodwill among neighbors. We embodied the best of what I had been taught as a child is the essence of any religion worth the name: respect and love for one another.
http://www.independent.com/news/2009/may/07/reading-writing-and-original-sin/
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