Replies to post #97821 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

F6, Thank you for another library .. before delving ..



this i felt was important ..

The Graham imbroglio may now prompt journalists and others to take a closer look and wonder why the Pentagon and other government agencies have joined forces with extremist social conservatives. (In 2008, James Dobson accused Barack Obama, the future commander-in-chief, of "distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible," and he claimed that if Obama were elected, there would be pornography on prime-time television, terrorist attacks across the United States, complete economic catastrophe, and a nuclear attack on Israel.) Moreover, is a National Day of Prayer necessary? Especially at the Pentagon? I assume the guys and gals in the foxholes don't need reminders to pray.

UPDATE: Sarah Palin--of course ..

Nice to some more the wisdom, greater strategic thinking, more caring, coming from the Pentagon. Enlightenment in the military, is always welcome. Scrapping of the Christian missives on weapons, in reply to this of your links .. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=45634866 .. was another positive move.

When a guy like, Mikey Weinstein ..

"“I never thought, coming from a conservative military Republican family filled with [US Air Force] Academy graduates and people that have been in so much combat, that at this point in my life, after being a White House lawyer, a lawyer for a Texas billionaire, a businessman, that I’d suddenly become this political activist”?" .. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=45592650

feels to speak up there is real reason for concern. This one also directly deals with the bold above ..

"Not only that but the military is becoming increasingly Christianized. Very scary people"
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=32537671

This one carries a plea for sanity ..

"Christian Right's Emerging Deadly Worldview: Kill Muslims to Purify the Earth

By Chris Hedges, Truthdig
Posted on February 12, 2008, Printed on February 12, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/76686/

Walid Shoebat, Kamal Saleem and Zachariah Anani are the three stooges of the Christian right. [...] spew racist filth about Islam on behalf of groups such as Focus on the Family. It is a clever tactic. Curly, Larry and Mo, who all say they are born-again Christians, engage in hate speech and assure us it comes from personal experience. [...] These men are frauds, but this is not the point. They are part of a dark and frightening war by the Christian right against tolerance that, in the moment of another catastrophic terrorist attack on American soil, would make it acceptable to target and persecute all Muslims, including the some 6 million Muslims who live in the United States. These men stoke these irrational fears. They defend the perpetual war unleashed by the Bush administration and championed by Sen. John McCain. McCain frequently reminds listeners that "the greatest danger facing the world is Islamic terrorism," as does Mike Huckabee, who says that "Islamofascism" is "the greatest threat this country [has] ever faced." [...]

"These three jokers are as much former Islamic terrorists as 'Star Trek's' Capt. James T. Kirk was a real Starship captain," said Mikey Weinstein, the head of the watchdog group The Military Religious Freedom Foundation. [...]"
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=26772965

Seriously, MOST ordinary Australians are amazed to hear ..

"Antichrist politics .. For many fervent Christians, support for Israel has less to do with Ariel Sharon than preparing for Armageddon."
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=6130196

Oh, almost forgot ..

UPDATE: Sarah Palin--of course ..

The Pentagon Dobson link is a worry. Thank goodness the base, i think i
read again somewhere in that sub-library of yours, lol, is only about 16%.

I wonder if Sarah has had a "sleepover' at "The Family"'s house, yet?

[F6]

Sarah Palin: American Law Should Be 'Based On The God Of The Bible And The Ten Commandments'



First Posted: 05-10-10 11:15 AM | Updated: 05-10-10 03:03 PM

Sarah Palin joined Fox News's Bill O'Reilly recently to condemn the critics of the National Day of Prayer, saying that the Judeo-Christian belief was the basis for American law and should continue to be used as a guiding force for creating future legislation.

According to Palin, the recent backlash against the National Day of Prayer [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/15/national-day-of-prayer-ru_n_539549.html ] is proof that some people are trying to enact a "fundamental transformation of America" and to "revisit and rewrite history" in order to shift the Christian nation away from its spiritual roots.

Palins's advice: "Go back to what our founders and our founding documents meant -- they're quite clear -- that we would create law based on the God of the bible and the ten commandments.

"What in hell scares people about talking about America's foundation of faith?" Palin continued. "It is that world view that involves some people being afraid of being able to discuss our foundation, being able to discuss God in the public square, that's the only thing I can attribute it to."

Palin had also recently criticized the decision to dis-invite the Rev. Franklin Graham from a Pentagon prayer service over concerns about his past inflammatory rhetoric about Islam, saying it was driven by a desire to be overly politically correct.

WATCH the interview:

[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4KSAW9RkzY (with{!} comments) (embedded)]

Copyright © 2010 HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/10/sarah-palin-american-law_n_569922.html [with(!) comments]


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and see in particular (items linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=43961719 , and http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=41688113 and preceding and following (especially http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=32639759 [and preceding and following])

[F6]

Professor Newt's Distorted History Lesson



written by Got Medieval at Monday, August 02, 2010

There are any number of reasons why an American might oppose the Cordoba House, the planned $100 million Muslim-financed community center that has come to be known in the press as the "Ground Zero mosque." I don't think any of them are particularly good reasons, but the universe of potential justification is much broader than the narrow scope of this humble blog. There is one justification being floated around, however, that is both within this blog's purview and completely and totally bogus. Indeed, this particular justification is such an egregious and purposeful misreading of medieval history that I feel I must speak up.

Last week,* Newt Gingrich released a Newt Direct [ http://www.newt.org/newt-direct/ ] statement [ http://www.newt.org/newt-direct/newt-gingrich-statement-proposed-mosqueislamic-community-center-near-ground-zero ] at Newt.org [ http://www.newt.org/ ] concerning the project. As you may have heard, he's somewhat opposed to it. And to explain why, he offered this history lesson:

The proposed "Cordoba House" overlooking the World Trade Center site – where a group of jihadists killed over 3000 Americans and destroyed one of our most famous landmarks - is a test of the timidity, passivity and historic ignorance of American elites. For example, most of them don’t understand that “Cordoba House” is a deliberately insulting term. It refers to Cordoba, Spain – the capital of Muslim conquerors who symbolized their victory over the Christian Spaniards by transforming a church there into the world’s third-largest mosque complex. [...I]n fact, every Islamist in the world recognizes Cordoba as a symbol of Islamic conquest. It is a sign of their contempt for Americans and their confidence in our historic ignorance that they would deliberately insult us this way. [emphasis mine]

It's that appositive phrase there buried in the middle of my quote that is the problem. In these twenty-five words, Newt offers the final word on medieval Cordoba: "the capital of Muslim conquerors who symbolized their victory over Christian Spaniards by transforming a church there into the world's third-largest mosque complex." This fact, the transformation of a church into a mosque, is the only thing we should think of when we hear a modern Muslim use the word "Cordoba," according to Mr. Gingrich.

Notice how carefully he's phrased his claim to give the impression that during the medieval conquest of Spain the Muslims charged into Cordoba and declared it the capital of a new Muslim empire, and in order to add insult to injury seized control of a Christian church and built the biggest mosque they could, right there in front of the Christians they'd just conquered, a big Muslim middle finger in the heart of medieval Christendom. Essentially, they've done it before, they'll do it again, right there at Ground Zero, if all good Christians don't band together to stop them.

The problem is, in order to give that impression of immediacy, Newt elides three hundred years of Christian and Muslim history. Three hundred years. The Muslims conquered Cordoba in 712. The Christian church that was later transformed into the Great Mosque of Cordoba apparently** continued hosting Christian worship for at least a generation after that. Work on the Mosque didn't actually begin until seventy-odd years later in 784, and the mosque only became "the world's third-largest" late in the tenth century, after a series of expansions by much later rulers, probably around 987 or so.

Then there's the matter of the two odd verbs in Newt's summation of Cordoba's history: "transformed" and "symbolized". Surely, a mosque as great as The Great Mosque of Cordoba, has symbolized a lot of things to a lot of people over the years. But Muslim historians writing about the Great Mosque don't point to it as a symbol of Muslim triumph over Christians; rather, they treat it primarily as a symbol of Muslim victory over other Muslims.

Keep in mind that when ground was broken on the Great Mosque, the vast majority of the men who had been personally responsible for conquering the Iberian peninsula were long dead and most of their sons were dead, too. Sure, a few extremely ancient grey beards might have been present as very, young men, and a few older men might have been able to talk about what their fathers had done during the Conquest, but Muslim control of Spain was simply a fact of life for them, not something they felt they had to justify the Christians.

The mosque was indeed begun in the wake of a Muslim conquest--just not the conquest of the Christians. Rather, it was ordered built by the Umayyad emir Abd-ar-Ramman I, probably in part to commemorate his successful conquest of Cordoba in the 750's, fought against other Muslim chieftains loyal to the rival Abbasid Caliphate, and his successful repulsion of subsequent Abbasid attempts to dislodge him by force throughout the 760's.*** This is, incidentally, probably why the Great Mosque--unlike almost every other Mosque in the Muslim world--is built facing south. Usually, Mosques are built facing Mecca, as Muslims are meant to pray towards the holy city. But the Great Mosque is oriented as if it were actually built in Damascus, the original capital of the Umayyads and the city from which abd-ar-Ramman had had to flee in exile when it was conquered by the Abbasids. Damascus is north of Mecca, while Cordoba is much further west. By pointing his Mosque south, Abd-ar-Ramman I was telling his Muslim rivals, "This exile to Iberia is a temporary thing; you may hold Damascus for now, but in the eyes of our god, my family still controls it."

Still, the Muslims did "transform" a Christian church, didn't they? Possibly, but only in a very qualified sense. Most standard histories of Cordoba will note that the Great Mosque is built on the site of the Basilica of St Vincent, Martyr, a Visigothic church that was itself built on the ruins of a Roman pagan temple. And archaeological work has confirmed that the present site of the Mosque did at one time belong to some sort of Christian church. There's no indication that the present-day structure included any elements from that church, though, and exactly when it was razed and under what circumstances is unclear.

Muslim historians of the late tenth century tell that Abd-ar-Ramman bought the church from the Christian congregation after sharing it with them for fifty years "following the example of Abu Ubayda and Khalid, according to the judgement of Caliph Umar in partitioning Christian churches like that of Damascus and other [cities] that were taken of peaceful accord".**** The Christians, we're told, took their money and relocated their church to the outskirts of Cordoba. Now obviously, these are Muslim historians writing two-to-three-hundred years after the events they describe, so we must always take their accounts with a grain of salt (as we would with any historian's work, Muslim or not) and consider the political motivations responsible for their histories.

These tenth-century historians were writing to please the ears of the Cordoban caliphs, Abd-ar-Ramman III and his successors, in the wake of yet another victory of Muslim over Muslim. Abd-ar-Ramman III, after all, is the one who declared Cordoba to be an independent caliphate, not just an Umayyad emirate. In rewriting the history of the Mosque of Cordoba, these historians were writing imperial justifications for their patron, explaining why Cordoba deserved to be the capital of its own caliphate, held up as the equal to Damascus, site of the Great Mosque of the Umayyads, and even Mecca, the holiest of cities, which was still under Abbasid control.

This is the important fact that Newt hopes those who read his polemic will be ignorant of: for a ruler to be legitimate in Muslim eyes in the tenth century, during the time when the Great Mosque was being expanded into its present-day dimensions, it was important to emphasize the peaceful succession of Islam from the other religions in the area. A caliph was expected to have arrived at an accord with the Christians and Jews over which he ruled.****** Far from "symboliz[ing] their victory" the Mosque was held up by Muslim historians a symbol of peaceful coexistence with the Christians--however messier the actual relations of Christians and Muslims were at the time.*******

So what should modern Christians think when they hear a Muslim use the word "Cordoba"? Well, I know that Newt hasn't been a Catholic for very long now, but maybe his priest ought to direct him to read a little thing called "The Catholic Encyclopedia [ http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/ ]". Allow me to quote from the 1917 edition (which has the virtue of being in the public domain and easily searchable) and its entry on Cordoba [ http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04359b.htm ]:

In 786 the Arab caliph, Abd-er Rahman I, began the construction of the great mosque of Cordova, now the cathedral, and compelled many Christians to take part in the preparation of the site and foundations. Though they suffered many vexations, the Christians continued to enjoy freedom of worship, and this tolerant attitude of the ameers seduced not a few Christians from their original allegiance. Both Christians and Arabs co-operated at this time to make Cordova a flourishing city, the elegant refinement of which was unequalled in Europe.

The article then discusses the persecution of the Christians under Abd-ar-Ramman II, which included the martyrdom of St. Eulogius. Then it continues with the rule of those rulers who expanded the Mosque:

In 962 Abd-er Rahman III was succeeded by his son Al-Hakim. Owing to the peace which the Christians of Cordova then enjoyed [...] the citizens of Cordova, Arabs, Christians, and Jews, enjoyed so high a degree of literary culture that the city was known as the New Athens. From all quarters came students eager to drink at its founts of knowledge. Among the men afterwards famous who studied at Cordova were the scholarly monk Gerbert, destined to sit on the Chair of Peter as Sylvester II (999-1003), the Jewish rabbis Moses and Maimonides, and the famous Spanish-Arabian commentator on Aristotle, Averroes.

So it's easy to see why a group of Muslims creating a community center in the heart of a majority Christian country in a city known for its large Jewish population might name it "The Cordoba House" They're not, as Gingrich hopes we would believe, discreetly laughing at us because "Cordoba" is some double-secret Islamist code for "conquest"; rather, they're hoping to associate themselves with a particular time in medieval history when the largest library in Western Europe was to be found in Cordoba, a city in which scholars of all three major Abrahamic religions were free to study side-by-side.

--

*While I was away in Italy. Suspicious? I think so.

**This is a loaded "apparently" for reasons that will become clear later in this post.

***If your eyes glaze over at the sea of Abds, Umayyads, and Abbasids, let me put it another way. If it's legitimate for Newt Gingrich to say the Great Mosque of Cordoba was built by Muslim Conquerors in their capital city wishing to symbolize their victory over the Christians, then it'd be just as legitimate to describe the Statue of Liberty as being built by English conquerors in their capital of New York to symbolize their victory over the Dutch.

****Idhari, al-Bayan 2, pp. 341-342. Cited in Nuha N. N. Khoury, "The Meaning of the Great Mosque of Cordoba in the Tenth Century" Muqarnas, 13 (1996), pp. 80-98.

*****Sorry, I know, using a footnote to cite an actual source isn't really what you expect from me. Those who traveled down here in search of a joke--maybe some sort of pun on those weird Muslim names--my deepest apologies.

******Again, see Khoury for this, in particular, pp. 83-85.

*******Earlier histories don't mention the church of St. Vincent at all. Instead, they refer to the site of the new mosque as a place where the previous ruling Muslim dynasty had mercilessly executed several Muslim martyrs. So by this reading in creating the mosque, Abd-ab-Ramman I was consecrating the memory of Muslims killed by Muslims, not desecrating the memory of Christians killed by Muslims.

Copyright 2010 Carl Pyrdum (emphasis in original)

http://gotmedieval.blogspot.com/2010/08/professor-newts-distorted-history.html [with comments]


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http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=52553515

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=52831494 and following

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=52877912 and following

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=52805415 (and preceding and following)

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=37001096 (and preceding)

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=52940113 and following

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=52960534 and following

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=45429142 and preceding and following

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=39273398 and preceding and following

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=50286070 and preceding and following

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=52106430 and preceding and following

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=53074206

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=53075020 and preceding and following

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=49619667 and preceding and following

[StephanieVanbryce]

Franklin Graham's Nascent McCarthyism

Bill Berkowitz Fri Mar 25, 2011 at 12:28:44 PM EST

The head of Samaritan's Purse is collecting aid for the people of Japan devastated by the earthquake and tsunami, while at the same time hurling McCarthyist charges accusing the Obama administration of being in league with the Muslim Brotherhood.

He's the son of the Rev. Billy Graham and he'd love to inherit his father's unofficial mantle as "America's Pastor." The organizations he heads have relief projects galore, aimed at both helping those in need and proselytizing the suffering and vulnerable. He sees Christians as victims, and he appears to be flirting with a twenty-first century brand of McCarthyism, epitomized by claims that the Obama administration has been infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Is Franklin Graham delusional or is he merely uninformed?

A man of constant controversy

He heads up Samaritan's Purse (http://www.samaritanspurse.org/) and is the president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (http://www.billygraham.org/). Samaritan's Purse does important charity work around the world. These days, the organization is gathering and delivering relief supplies to the people of Japan devastated by the massive earthquake and tsunami which destroyed a good chunk of the northeastern part of the country several weeks back.

In addition to his significant charitable work, Graham delivers controversial comments pretty regularly. For example, in August 2010, he told CNN's John King that he thought "the president's problem" stems from the fact that "he was born a Muslim, his father was a Muslim. The seed of Islam is passed through the father like the seed of Judaism is passed through the mother. He was born a Muslim, his father gave him an Islamic name."

Graham added that "the president has renounced the prophet Mohammed and he has renounced Islam and he has accepted Jesus Christ. That is what he says he has done, I cannot say that he hasn't. So I just have to believe that the president is what he has said."

The Obama administration and the Muslim Brotherhood

In a recent interview with the conservative website Newsmax.com (http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/franklin-graham-christians-mus lims/2011/03/18/id/389992) Graham pulled a page from Senator Joseph McCarthy's playbook and accused the Obama administration of being in cahoots with the Muslim Brotherhood: "The Muslim Brotherhood is very strong and active here in our country," Graham said. "It's infiltrated every level of our government. Right now we have many of these people that are advising the US military and State Department on how to respond in the Middle East, and it's like asking a fox, like a farmer asking a fox, 'How do I protect my hen house?' We've brought in Muslims to tell us how to make policy toward Muslim countries. And many of these people we've brought in, I'm afraid, are under the Muslim Brotherhood."

Asked if President Barack Obama was doing enough to protect Christians at home and abroad, Graham said, "No. If anything it's the opposite."

"Muslims are protected more in this country than Christians," he said. "The president has made many statements but he doesn't back them up. We have to do more to protect the Christians in the Muslim world. Their lives are in danger."

Graham has been ticked off at Obama since he claimed that the administration played a role in revoking his invitation to speak at the Pentagon's National Day of Prayer event last year.

In the Newsmax interview, Graham also praised the leadership of former Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Hussein, saying that under their rule "Christians had been protected."

'Gospel message at the core' of relief work, says Graham

Graham recently told students at John Brown University -- a private Christian university in Siloam Springs, Ark. -- "to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ in spite of persecution and challenges," the Christian Post reported.

According to the Christian Post, Graham "shared about his ministry's relief response in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake, telling the audience that the Gospel message has always been at the core of their work. He said that they prayed with every patient before an operation and gave a Bible to every patient."

"I don't care how much good work you do. If you fail to prepare a person to stand before eternity, if you fail to prepare a person to stand before God, you're just wasting your time. So we take every opportunity to tell a person about Jesus," he said.

Franklin Graham plays the Christian victim card to the max. He told the students that, "Even in our government today, you can't pray to Jesus in many public meetings. You can pray to God or a god. You can mention Buddha or the name of Muhammad but you can't pray to Jesus Christ." Graham was "once disinvited from a National Day of Prayer event at the Pentagon over his comments on Islam."

Graham added: "We know that we are going to be persecuted for standing up for the name of Christ."

He also complained about the way the memorial service for those killed in Tucson, Arizona was handled; it wasn't Christy enough for Graham. "There was no call for God to put His loving arms around those who were hurting," he observed. "Why did they leave him out? They scoff at the name of Jesus Christ."

Graham then delivered the coup de grace: his take on the anti-Christ. "The spirit of anti-Christ is everywhere," stated Graham. "We're being secularized so quickly. Anything that has to do with Christian faith is slowly being taking out of society."

The Christian Post recently reported that Samaritan's Purse "chartered a Boeing 747 that airlifted 93 tons of aid, which arrived in Yokota Air Base near Tokyo on Saturday. The emergency airlift included 1,000 rolls of heavy-duty plastic, 16,860 blankets, 14,304 hygiene kits, 21,408 bars of soap, 1,111 buckets, and 18,432 jerry cans. Upon the 747's arrival in Japan, the U.S. military and the Japan Self-Defense Force assisted with offloading the emergency supplies."

Graham recently told NewsMax TV that the Japanese disaster could be a signal of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. "Maybe this is it, I don't know. We should pray and be vigilant," Graham said. "The Bible teaches us Jesus is going to return someday. Many of us we believe that day is sooner rather than later."

In a piece called "God's Ambulance Chasers Rush To Japan's Aid, But Lady Gaga May Have Gotten There First," Rev. Dan Vojir recently wrote that a few years back he coined the term "God's Ambulance Chasers," which referred to those religious organizations, that after a disaster, rush to help the needy with food and clothing in one hand and Bibles in the other.

"Disasters. They really do bring out the best in people, in humanity. But rushing to evangelize after a tragedy can be akin to circling vultures. It's no secret that I'm against proselytizing, but inundating people who have been devastated by a cataclysm, a people who are of a different faith, with pleas to convert is ...wrong," Vojir wrote in mid-March.

http://www.talk2action.org/story/2011/3/25/122844/702/Dominionism_in_the_military/Franklin_Graham_s_Nascent_McCarthyism

[F6]

Pentagon Prayer Breakfast To Feature Discredited Pastor Ray Giunta


The Military Religious Freedom Foundation is protesting the invitation of discredited pastor Ray Giunta to speak at a Pentagon prayer breakfast.
(STAFF/AFP/Getty Images)

By Amanda Terkel
Posted: 11/26/2012 4:55 pm EST Updated: 11/27/2012 10:53 am EST

WASHINGTON -- Ray Giunta has been publicly called out [ http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/jun/02/degrees-were-fake-good-enough/ ] for illegally taking $10,200 from a cemetery board, falsely claiming to have advanced degrees and diagnosing young people as having mental disorders despite not being a doctor. But on Wednesday, he will get a coveted perch at the Pentagon, as a guest speaker at the Defense Department's prayer breakfast.

"Arming a well known Christian fundamentalist scam-artist like Giunta with an homage so profound as to be the designated special guest speaker at this highly visible Pentagon religious event is simply beyond the pale of acceptability and literally strains credulity," said Michael Weinstein, the founder and president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation [ http://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org/ ], which is calling on the Pentagon to revoke Giunta's invitation.

Giunta is scheduled to address the Pentagon's Prayer Breakfast at 7:00 a.m. on Wednesday, according to a flier [ http://www.docstoc.com/docs/document-preview.aspx?doc_id=137018335 ] for the event.

Giunta's official bio [ http://www.ambassadorspeakers.com/ACP/speakers.aspx?speaker=399 ] with Ambassador Christian Motivational Speakers says he is a co-founder and chaplain of We Care Ministries, as well as encouragement pastor at Central Christian Church in Las Vegas. Central Christian Church told The Huffington Post Giunta has not been affiliated with them since 2006.

In 2008, the Las Vegas Sun did an extensive article on Giunta [ http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/jun/02/degrees-were-fake-good-enough/ ], who was a respected member of the local community and known as "Dr. Ray." A church sent him on medical mission trips and county officials gave him a contract to provide drug and alcohol counseling to teens.

But Giunta wasn't a doctor; he purchased a Ph.D. for a few hundred dollars online, and he occasionally wore a lab coat and stethoscope, the Sun reported.

In the mid-1990s, Giunta served as director of the California Cemetery Board. As the Sun reported, a state audit found that he "took more than $10,200 in cemetery trust funds intended for graveyard upkeep from the owner of a cemetery that he regulated. Giunta opened a bank account with the money and wrote more than $5,800 worth of checks to his wife, Cathy, credit card companies, a child care provider, a dry cleaner, the phone company and We Care Ministries."

Giunta responded that the money was intended as payment for repairs that We Care Ministries made at the cemetery, but said he shouldn't have mixed the money with personal funds.

In 2005, Giunta volunteered with a group aimed at helping young pyromaniacs, sponsored by the Fire Prevention Association of Nevada. Giunta, according to the Sun, went far beyond the usual counseling, diagnosing children with mental disorders and recommending treatment -- despite his lack of any advanced degree.

Weinstein and MRFF, which is dedicated to protecting military members' religious freedoms, first became aware of Giunta's speaking slot when the group's clients stationed at the Pentagon complained about the event. MRFF, on behalf of these 211 members of the armed forces, is demanding that the Pentagon revoke its invitation to Giunta. Of MRFF's clients, 189 are practicing Protestants or Roman Catholics.

Further, MRFF wants an investigation into who was involved in inviting Giunta and how the event came about.

A major who works on the Army staff at the Pentagon and is one of MRFF's clients told The Huffington Post he was deeply disturbed by Giunta's planned appearance, for the harm it could do to the Defense Department and the larger message it conveyed. He requested anonymity for fear of repercussions.

"My concern is that we're going to ruin the Pentagon's reputation, the DOD reputation, for the sake of this guy," said the major. "With the way things are with budget cuts and everything else going on, we can't afford to sully our reputation -- certainly not by associating with folks like this."

He added that he was worried that Giunta's appearance was part of a larger effort by some people in the military to turn members of the armed forces into "warriors for God."

"That's not our mission," he added. "We have a constitutional mission, not a religious mission."

In January, MRFF claimed victory when Lt. Gen. William Boykin, famous for his strident anti-Muslim speeches, pulled out [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/31/william-boykin-west-point-speech-muslims_n_1244968.html ] of a planned Feb. 8 appearance at West Point as part of the National Day of Prayer. MRFF, VoteVets.org and other groups called for the cancellation of his speech.

A speakers bureau formerly associated with Giunta, when contacted for comment, said it no longer represents him.

When asked by The Huffington Post about the decision to bring in Giunta and MRFF's demand that his invitation be withdrawn, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon responded, "The Office of the Pentagon Chaplain supports the free exercise of religion of all faith groups represented by Pentagon personnel and regularly invites speakers from diverse faith groups to speak about their experiences and perspectives to Pentagon employees."

View Pentagon Prayer Breakfast Flyer:

[embedded scribd-style]

Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/26/pentagon-prayer-breakfast-ray-giunta_n_2193051.html [with embedded video report, and comments]

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http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=58462365 and following

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=58591558 and preceding (and any future following)

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=66576447 (and any future following)

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=67193242 and preceding and following; also, for that matter,
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81841796 and preceding and following,
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81883759 and preceding and following, and
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=76270058 (this theme, last item; and in general) and preceding and following

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78789956 and preceding (and any future following)

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81122451 and preceding and following