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This is rich. C-Street Family member Tom Coburn who along with his fellow Family members have been doing their best to inject religion into the health care debate, uses a quote by Thomas Jefferson about separation of church and state, and takes it out of context.

h/t jenyum at Daily KOS who has more -- Dear Senator Coburn: Liberals Can Quote Jefferson, Too:

During today's Senate health care bill debate, Senator Tom Coburn held up a big graphic displaying a quote from Thomas Jefferson:

To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical

This quote resided in the background while Coburn went on and an about earmarks, and abortion, and waste and fraud in the federal government. If Senator Coburn had actually read the original source of the quote, however, I don't think he'd be so quick to use it.

Jefferson's actual words originated in the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom:

to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical

The Statute goes on to say...

our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry, that therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence, by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages, to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right, that it tends only to corrupt the principles of that very Religion it is meant to encourage.

Obviously among other things too long to list, Tom Coburn's irony alert button is broken. He'd better hope he doesn't wind up in trouble for his part in his buddy John Ensign's affair that the press has been giving him a pass on. As jenyum noted:

Jefferson's words when not taken out of context are hardly a rallying cry for a party that opposes health care reform on religious grounds.

Couldn't have said it any better myself.

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Rachel follows up on her interview with Jeff Sharlet where they discussed C-Street Family member David Bahati's role in introducing anti-gay legislation in Uganda. Jeff Sharlet reports that the Ugandan MP did not as many thought first get the idea for the legislation at the conference held in Kampala Uganda in March of 2009, but instead was discussing it at a private meeting at the 2008 Ugandan National Prayer Breakfast hosted by The Family.

Rachel asks Sharlet if there were any American’s at the 2008 Ugandan National Prayer Breakfast where the idea for executing gays in Uganda was floated. Sharlet says there were a number of Americans at the breakfast and possibly present, but they haven’t been able to confirm it yet, Sen. James Inhofe. Sharlet talked about a rift within The Family over supporting this legislation although as Rachel noted, none of them have been willing to come out publicly and say anything against it.

The last really disgusting item they talked about is the possibility of the Ugandan politicians who are promoting the kill-the-gays bill coming to America to speak at the National Prayer Breakfast next February and President Obama being scheduled to speak there as well. As Rachel notes:

Maddow: And if not there’s the prospect of an American president speaking at an event before an invited audience that includes the guy who promoted—who introduced legislation to execute people for being gay in his country with the support and encouragement of American quacks like ex-gay therapists. Wow.

Wow indeed.

Rachel Maddow takes on this shyster who claims he can 'cure' homosexuality and confronts him about the way his book has been used to spread anti-gay propoganda around the world -- in particular by the members of C-Street pushing the kill-the-gays bill in Uganda. Rachel made sure to point out that Richard Cohen is not licensed by any accrediting body and when he cited his marriage as proof he'd been cured of his homosexuality, let viewers know that Mr. Cohen continued to have sex with men after being married.

Cohen defended himself saying that they don't think they can 'cure' or 'pray away the gay' and said they don't use those words. They just offering 'counseling' for those with 'unwanted same sex attraction'.

MADDOW: The subject of the interview tonight is the head of a group called the International Healing Foundation, and all reporting on a proposed law to execute people for being gay in Uganda. We turned up evidence of strong links between conservative U.S. politicians who are part of the secretive religious group, The Family, a.k.a. C Street, and people in Uganda who introduced and are pushing the kill-the-gays bill.

But we also turned up more direct connections between the kill-the-gays bill and other American activists. In March, the International Healing Foundation, which is based in Maryland, sent one of its staffers to Uganda to speak to parliament there and to speak at a conference organized by the main promoter of the kill-the-gays bill.

His message was that gay people are gay by choice and a gay person who wants to be straight can be straight. That speech to parliament and the anti-gay conference took place in March of this year.

After the conference in April, the conference organizer arranged for an anti-homosexuality petition to be delivered to the Ugandan parliament. And within a month, on April 29th, the kill-the-gays bill had been introduced with the anti-gay conference organizer sitting in the gallery for that occasion.

Here is that conference organizer and the lead proponent of the kill-the-gays bill, Stephen Langa, praising the influence and authority of our next guest.

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Rachel Maddow and Jeff Sharlet discuss the ties between C-Street, Pastor Rick Warren and an anti-gay bill in Uganda. Good for Rachel for bringing some attention to this truly horrific story, unlike her cohort at MSNBC David Gregory who forgot to mention Uganda during the softball interview he gave Rick Warren on Meet the Press.

MADDOW: The government of Uganda is considering passing a law to execute gay people. Execute as in by hanging a, quote, “serial offender” or an HIV-positive person who commits same sex act. If enacted, this law would also impose a three-year prison sentence on anyone who knows of a gay person in the country but doesn‘t report that gay person to the government within 24 hours.

Who is supporting and promoting this legislation? Well, one of the proponents is a minister named Pastor Martin Ssempa. He was a familiar face to American conservative Evangelicals, because Mr. Ssempa has been a frequent guest of Pastor Rick Warren at One Saddleback Church in California.

Do you remember Rick Warren? Him being selected to deliver the invocation at Barack Obama‘s inauguration was the little black cloud that crawled inside the silver lining that day for a lot of Americans who support gay rights.

Given with Rick Warren‘s deep involvement with Pastor Ssempa on matters including gay rights and AIDS issues in Uganda, “Newsweek” magazine asked Pastor Rick Warren his opinion of this proposed “kill the gays” law in Uganda.

Mr. Warren responded by distancing himself from Martin Ssempa, but also by refusing to condemn the proposal saying, quote, “It is not my personal calling as a pastor in America to comment or interfere in the political process of other nations.”

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darkblack: Like, totally bogey

The Existentialist Cowboy: Obama's green energy plan is infinitely superior to that wingnut plan to turn over Social Security - the only government program to have ever run a surplus - to robber barons, speculators and fast buck artists on Wall Street.

Open Left: The Puke Funnel is trying to disrupt Copenhagen: The CRU Hack story continues

Words of Power: Jobs? Afghanistan? Healthcare? Climate? Where and when will something turn in our favor? It better be here and now.

Pensito Review: The Family: DC's C Street Group tied to proposed death penalty for gays in Uganda

OFF THE BEATEN PATH: The Angry Arab, angry asian man, AngryBlackBitch

November 23, 2009 ABC NIGHTLINE

Part 1

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Part 2

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In the "Nightline" interview, Hampton provides astonishing new details about the affair and its many repercussions, including the end of a close 20-year friendship between the two families and the loss of the Hamptons' jobs.

"Lost my job. Lost my best friend. Nearly lost my wife," he said on the ripple effect of Ensign's affair.

Hampton makes allegations of hypocrisy, hubris -- cover-ups and maybe even crimes -- that have destroyed lives and could destroy Ensign's political career.

"It's hard to comprehend what's still taking place, what's going on this moment, with regards to the unraveling of the choices and the decisions that John's made," Hampton said.

Hampton said he's finally speaking out because he wants Ensign held accountable.

"I think there are missing pieces to what's been reported," he said. "Important for people to understand what the senator has done. ... The truth needs to come out."

Ensign Once the Rising GOP Star

Ensign was a rising star in the Republican Party. During his second term, there were already rumblings that the junior senator from Nevada might be the party's next best hope for president.

Ensign was an attractive candidate: good-looking, from a wealthy Las Vegas family, with impeccable conservative credentials. "Born again" in college, Ensign was a loud and leading voice for lawmakers adhering to strict Christian family values. He argued passionately for the Federal Marriage Amendment and publicly condemned President Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal and Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, when he was accused of propositioning another man in a public restroom.

Read more at NIGHTLINE

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Boy, this is some hard-hitting journalism by George Stephanopoulos here isn't it? Anyone think Tom Coburn would have gotten this type of softball from Rachel Maddow?

Shorter George Stephanopoulos:

STEPHANOPOULOS: So Senator, is there anything else we should know about you arranging a bribe for your C-Street buddy that you can tell us in ten seconds or less?

COBURN: Nope.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Okay, nothing to see here. Move along. Thanks for coming in everybody.

Let's hope his network's interview with Doug Hampton yields just a tad more information than Georgie-boy decided to try to elicit from Coburn on This Week. Really pathetic George.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I'm going to have to -- I'm going to have to stop this right now. And, Senator, before you go -- and I know this is your least favorite subject -- but Doug Hampton, Senator Ensign's chief of staff, has given an interview to "Nightline" which is going to air tomorrow night, where he says that you were an intermediary between him and Senator Ensign, and I want to show that for a second.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HAMPTON: Tom Coburn said, "What I would do, Doug, if I was you is I would have them buy your home, give you $1 million bucks so you could get started over, and that's what I'm willing to help you negotiate."

(UNKNOWN): And what happened?

HAMPTON: John said, "No can do. Not going to happen."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Is he telling the truth?

COBURN: No.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Flat no?

COBURN: No.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You did not serve as an intermediary?

COBURN: Oh, I did. No, there's no question. Look, my whole goal in this thing was to bring two families to a closure of a very painful episode. And there's no question that Doug called me and said, "Will you talk to John about solving a problem?" And so I called John Ensign and said, "Do you want me to talk to him?" He said, "Yes."

But, you know, the -- the question that's worrisome is, what is the motivation now for -- for this? Doug obviously asked to have some remuneration for the injury that he had. And on private sector, that happens all the time. But there -- there was no negotiation. There was, "I'll pass it along," or, "Yes, I won't."

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator, thanks very much.

Thank you all very much.

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November 15, 2009 FOX Wanda Sykes Show
In a hilarious monologue on her second installment of The Wanda Sykes Show, Wanda takes on the Health Care Reform fear mongers and republicans in general... "The only way Republicans will read the Health Care Bill is to rest it on the back of the hooker they're banging down at C Street House!"

Via Huffington Post, the latest from Bart Stupak, clearly under the loving spiritual guidance of his C Street family:

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) is warning fellow Democrats not to mess with his restrictive anti-abortion amendment.

Pro-choice outrage was sparked by the inclusion of a provision in the House health care bill making it harder for private insurers to cover abortion. President Obama himself suggested that the language disrupted the status quo and should be taken out of the final legislation. Abortion rights supporters in Congress requested a meeting with the president next week to discuss the issue.

Now Stupak is saying he won't go easily.

"We won because [the Democrats] need us," Stupak said. "If they are going to summarily dismiss us by taking the pen to that language, there will be hell to pay. I don't say it as a threat, but if they double-cross us, there will be 40 people who won't vote with them the next time they need us -- and that could be the final version of this bill."

There's no questioning the historic nature of the vote. What the Democrats did to get there is pretty ugly (I can't believe we cut a deal with anti-woman C-Street true believer Bart Stupak), but we did get there, and most people will see some real improvements in their lives as a result. Now it's on to the Senate, where hopefully women's rights won't be treated as peripheral to the political process.

And in the meantime, John Boehner warns us that the bill "will dim the light of freedom." Uh huh.

Hours after President Obama exhorted Democratic lawmakers to "answer the call of history," the House hit an unprecedented milestone on the path to health-care reform, approving a trillion-dollar package late Saturday that seeks to overhaul private insurance practices and guarantee comprehensive and affordable coverage to almost every American.

After months of acrimonious partisanship, Democrats closed ranks on a 220-215 vote that included 39 defections, mostly from the party's conservative ranks. But the bill attracted a surprise Republican convert: Rep. Anh "Joseph" Cao of Louisiana, who represents the Democratic-leaning district of New Orleans and had been the target of a last-minute White House lobbying campaign. GOP House leaders had predicted their members would unanimously oppose the bill.

Democrats have sought for decades to provide universal health care, but not since the 1965 passage of Medicare and Medicaid has a chamber of Congress approved such a vast expansion of coverage. Action now shifts to the Senate, which could spend the rest of the year debating its version of the health-care overhaul. Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) hopes to bring a measure to the floor before Thanksgiving, but legislation may not reach Obama's desk before the new year.

At the Capitol, Obama urged the few Democrats who were still wavering on Saturday afternoon to put aside their political fears and embrace the bill's ambitious objectives. "Opportunities like this come around maybe once in a generation," he said afterward. "This is our moment to live up to the trust that the American people have placed in us. Even when it's hard. Especially when it's hard. This is our moment to deliver."

The House legislation would for the first time require every individual to obtain insurance, and would require all but the smallest employers to provide coverage to their workers. It would vastly expand Medicaid and create a new marketplace where people could obtain federal subsidies to buy insurance from private companies or from a new government-run insurance plan.

Though some people would receive no benefits -- including about 6 million illegal immigrants, according to congressional estimates -- the bill would virtually close the coverage gap for people who do not have access to health-care coverage through their jobs.

The problems of poverty keep getting pushed from one place to another (literally). We have so many people out of work and losing their homes. What, exactly, are we going to do about it? Other than criminalize poverty, I mean:

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) ―A local attorney opened up his private property for homeless campers to have a place to stay, but authorities are already warning they will have to shut it down.

Attorney Mark Merin is leasing his property on 13th Street and C Street in Sacramento to about three dozen homeless men and women for one dollar a year, which is meant to give them the legal rights of lessees and property renters.

"It's a matter of human dignity, and it's life and death," said Greg Bunker, executive director of Francis House in Sacramento.

According to Sacramento police, it isn't legal to live in a tent anywhere in the city for longer than 24 hours. The department wouldn't say when, but did say that they would soon enforce the city ordinance and kick the homeless persons out of the property.

The lot is located in a mostly industrial area, with only one home backing up to the property, but the city has received complaints about the campers from nearby residents.

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Rachel Maddow talks to Jeff Sharlet about the lastest shoe to drop for the secretive C-Street Family. World Magazine formerly dismissed Jeff Sharlet's work as conspiracy theories, but now has published an article exposing The Family: All in the family. Maddow and Sharlet discuss their findings.

Bruce Wilson at Alternet has more on this story-- MSNBC's Maddow Show Propels Growing Scandal Over Washington's "Christian Mafia":

In a new August 17, 2009 Maddow show segment [link to MSNBC page with viewable show segment], Rachel Maddow and Jeff Sharlet discuss, among many new revelations, the disturbing fact that the "Christian Embassy" scandal, propelled by a complaint to the Department of Defense from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, was investigated by a Pentagon Inspector General who is in fact a Family member.The Family, also known as "The Fellowship", is a secretive fundamentalist Washington DC ministry which runs the National Prayer Breakfast and Bible study groups attended by numerous US Senators and Congress members, wields global influence, and celebrates the leadership lessons of Hitler, Lenin, and Mao.

[.....]

Now, bypassing most mainstream news organizations, Christian media is getting into the act. As covered on the latest Raddow Maddow The Family/C Street House segment, a conservative Christian news magazine, World Magazine, has not only covered the Family/C Street saga but also advanced the story in important ways.

In All In The Family, Emily Belz and Eric Lee Pitts do what is sorely lacking in much of mainstream journalism - they investigate, dig that is, and uncover new information on the welter of Family-owned properties located in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington DC as well as on the financial dealings of The International Foundation, the Family's central nonprofit entity which finances international travel.

You can read the entire article here.

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Chris Matthews carries water for the C-Street house members and asks Jeff Sharlet if some of them are living there because they just want a cheap place to stay. This is after having Jeff Sharlet fully explain to him what type of activities are going on there.

Matthews also seems to think that he has "outed" these members. Not hardly Chris. You're only almost a month and a mound of interviews behind your co-worker Rachel Maddow with your interview of Jeff Sharlet. Matthews appears to be a whole lot more worried about the reaction he's going to get from the Congress members for this interview than reporting the truth about them.

Matthews just can't seem to wrap his brain around the idea that Irish Catholics or Jews might be staying at the C-Street House as well and that not all of them are "fundamentalists".

Matthews: Let me ask you about what's wrong here. So what? My favorite question. So what if a bunch of these guys go to prayer breakfast and all live together. I see some guys here like Irish Catholic Mike Doyle, Bart Stupak, he's not a fundamentalist. I know what Zach Wamp is. John Ensign, you mentioned him, Tom Coburn is probably a fundamentalist. What, people have their own religion, they go to prayer breakfast, I don't know that culture very well, but what's so harmful about it?

Sharlet: Absolutely nothing going to a prayer group or you want to pray with some folks, you want to get support. The issue is when you have an organization that is not registered like a lobby that's acting like a lobby...

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Politicians of both parties routinely paraphrase Abraham Lincoln's mantra that "my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side." But in fighting his own civil war to hold onto office, disgraced South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford has turned Lincoln's maxim on its head. Proclaiming in an opinion piece Sunday that He will make him "a better and more effective leader," Sanford in essence declared God is on his side.

Sanford's misappropriation of the Almighty was featured prominently is his latest apology to Palmetto State residents. Among the lowlights:

"It is true that I did wrong and failed at the largest of levels, but equally true is the fact that God can make good of our respective wrongs in life. In this vein, while none of us has the chance to attend our own funeral, in many ways I feel like I was at my own in the past weeks, and surprisingly I am thankful for the perspective it has afforded...

It's in the spirit of making good from bad that I am committing to you and the larger family of South Carolinians to use this experience to both trust God in his larger work of changing me, and from my end, to work to becoming a better and more effective leader."

By "changing me," Mark Sanford does not mean steering clear of the C Street residence in Washington, an apparent den of iniquity which produced fellow Republican adulterers John Ensign and Chip Pickering. Instead, he seems to suggest God apparently will provide the playbook for Sanford's political survival.

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