Faith Tradition or Tax-Exempt Pyramid Scheme

When I read this the first thing that popped into my mind was: "This sounds like Amway!" And while the government has yet to prove Amway is a pyramid scheme, anyone who has ever been involved with it sure sees all the signs. One person brings in another, and the only ones getting rich are the people at the top!

Kenneth Copland Ministries seems to have that same undercurrent -- only the only people who ever get to be on top are "family."

The Associated Press reports:

Here in the gentle hills of north Texas, televangelist Kenneth Copeland has built a religious empire teaching that God wants his followers to prosper.

Over the years, a circle of Copeland's relatives and friends have done just that, The Associated Press has found. They include the brother-in-law with a lucrative deal to broker Copeland's television time, the son who acquired church-owned land for his ranching business and saw it more than quadruple in value, and board members who together have been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for speaking at church events.

Church officials say no one improperly benefits through ties to Copeland's vast evangelical ministry, which claims more than 600,000 subscribers in 134 countries to its flagship "Believer's Voice of Victory" magazine. The board of directors signs off on important matters, they say. Yet church bylaws give Copeland veto power over board decisions.

While Copeland insists that his ministry complies with the law, independent tax experts who reviewed information obtained by the AP through interviews, church documents and public records have their doubts. The web of companies and non-profits tied to the televangelist calls the ministry's integrity into question, they say.

You really need to read the entire article to get the full impact.

There are some who think religious organizations are getting too many tax breaks in the country. I think it fair that their house of worship, and any services directed toward helping those in need are fair exemptions -- like any other 501(c)(3) organization would receive. But it appears that everything Copeland's group is involved in has been placed under the umbrella of the church -- including things like the ministry's $17.5 million jet (and other aircraft), a private airstrip, and a $6 million church-owned lakefront mansion. And did I mention oil?

All revenue from the church's business interests — including an oil and natural gas company it owns — go into the church ... Security Petrol Inc., a wholly owned — and for-profit — subsidiary of the church created in 1997 ... Security Petrol was established to protect the church from the liability risk of oil and gas production and to minimize interference with the church's religious activities.

No company officials — including John Copeland, its president — has received compensation or profits from the company, and all revenue goes to the church for general operations, [spokesperson Lawrence] Swicegood said. Reserves from gas wells in the church's name were valued at $23 million last year, county records show.

Nice work, if you can get it!

Kenneth Copeland Ministries is a 500-employee operation, with a budget estimated in the tens of millions of dollars.

Kenneth Copeland Ministries is organized under the tax code as a church, so it gets a layer of privacy not afforded large secular and religious nonprofit groups that must disclose budgets and salaries. Pastors' pay must be "reasonable" under the federal tax code, a term that gives churches wide latitude.

Copeland's current salary is not made public by his ministry. However, the church disclosed in a property-tax exemption application that his wages were $364,577 in 1995; Copeland's wife, Gloria, earned $292,593. It's not clear whether those figures include other earnings, such as special offerings for guest preaching or book royalties. Another 13 Copeland relatives were on the church's payroll that year.

Some might argue that Copeland is protected through 'truth in advertising' ... after all, he bills his ministry as one that believes God wants his followers to prosper. From all appearances some are "prospering" a little bit more than others!

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Gonzales: What, me worry?

The question remains as to why Democrats don't seem to ever want anything to be binding? First there was a non-binding vote on the troop increase, and now an attempt at a non-binding vote of no confidence in Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales. Both attempts failed.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports:

Gonzales again vowed to stay in office through the remainder of President Bush's term, despite intense congressional scrutiny of the prosecutor firings and alleged politicization of other divisions in the Justice Department on his watch.

Calling it an attempt by Dems at a "gotcha" :30 sound bite, Sen. Arlen Spector (PA) was joined by Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), John E. Sununu (N.H.), Chuck Hagel (Neb.), Gordon Smith (Ore.), Norm Coleman (Minn.) and Olympia J. Snowe (Maine) in supporting the resolution.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) attacked Schumer's role as chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, citing its fundraising missives that have highlighted the investigation into the prosecutor firings as evidence of Democratic politicization of the probe.

I guess McConnell forgot about the 9/11 photo Bush used in fundraising for his re-election campaign.

And is anyone surprised that Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) voted against debating the resolution?

Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty, who has said that top Gonzales aides did not provide him full information before he delivered misleading testimony to the Senate in February, is now slated to testify publicly before a House Judiciary subcommittee on June 19, an aide said yesterday.

Last month, Monica M. Goodling, Gonzales's former counsel, testified that McNulty was not "fully candid" in private remarks about his knowledge of White House involvement in the firings.

More than 20 current and former officials from the White House and the Justice Department have been subpoenaed in the investigations, with Bush refusing to allow his West Wing advisers to testify or to turn over any internal documents.

It's going to be a long two years.

On Wolfowitz: Reading between the lines

The Washington Post reports that Paul Wolfowitz is blaming the media for his demise as World Bank president. The real story, however, might be found by reading between the lines.

LONDON -- Departing World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz in a radio interview broadcast Monday blamed an overheated atmosphere at the bank and in the media for forcing him to resign.

Or maybe it was the overheated atmosphere in Wolfowitz's pants.

Wolfowitz, who has announced he will step down June 30, denied suggestions that his decision to leave was influenced by an apparent lack of support from the bank's employees. "I think it tells us more about the media than about the bank and I'll leave it at that," he told the British Broadcasting Corp. "People were reacting to a whole string of inaccurate statements and by the time we got to anything approximating accuracy the passions were around the bend."

Clearly Wolfowitz is suffering from "Bush Syndrome" ... which is to never accept the obvious as fact.

Wolfowitz said that he was pleased the bank's board accepted that he had acted ethically, and in good faith in his handling of a generous compensation package for his girlfriend and bank employee Shaha Riza in 2005.

The board knows he's buy-sexual, but were forced to accept a gag order imposed by bullies in the Bush administration.

"I accept the fact that by the time we got around to that, emotions here were so overheated that I don't think I could have accomplished what I wanted to accomplish for the people I really care about," he said.

"My trousers were overheated, but Shaha wasn't going to sleep with me again unless I could promise another salary increase ... and the damn media made THAT impossible."

By tradition, the United States _ the bank's biggest financial contributor _ names an American to run the institution.

And decides what the board can say to the press.

Wolfowitz's departure ends a two-year run at the development bank that was marked by controversy from the start, given his previous role as a major architect of the Iraq war when he served as the No. 2 official at the Pentagon.

And we all know how well THAT is going.

Wolfowitz would be wise to simply take his $400,000 severance package and go quietly into the night. Who knows, with that kind of pocket change he might be able to buy a Saturday night date for the rest of the year.

More on why isn't Bush in jail ...

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, here is yet another blogger voicing some of the same concerns I have. The blog post, written by Eric Alterman and circulated by Center for American Progress, points out the media's culpability in what is merely the latest Bush administration scandal.

The most important line in his piece follows, what Alterman calls "a mainstream media mea culpa that is both welcome and instructive":

This admission once again blames the Bush administration for “poorly executed acts” rather than its standard operating procedure, which is deliberate deception in the service of ideological obsession. (emphasis mine)

I understand why the broadcast and cable media behave the way they do -- greed. The five CEO's who profit when there is an administration like Bush & Company have no vested interest in serving the public interest. The tax breaks and other incentives given to them by this administration have made the CEO'S of these corporations very wealthy. Bush calls them his base.

And I'm certain this is exactly what Ronald Regan had in mind when he deregulated the broadcast industry back in the 1980's.

Whatever its final outcome, I suppose the Bushites should congratulate themselves for getting away with it this long, and the rest of us who care about the continued functioning of our democracy should be grateful that we still have newspapers and we now have blogs. Because if all we had were television stations, well—as the playwright Tom Stoppard has written, “No matter how imperfect things are, if you’ve got a free press, everything is correctable. Without it, everything is concealable.” (emphasis mine)

But a free press only works if the press itself works. And altogether too often, broadcast and cable prefer to look the other way.

There is a protection mechanism written into our Constitution to protect "We the people" from this -- impeachment. I fear, however, that it will take more courage than our current leaders possess.