Saturday, September 04, 2004

 

Letter to Michael Getler, WaPo ombudsman

Karl Vick's article "12 Nepalese Hostages are slain in Iraq" gave only 7 brief paragraphs to the murder of the 12 Nepalese hostages. There was a great deal more that could have been said, and that needed to be said.

Vick simply reports what the "Jordanian employer" (unnamed) says: that the Nepalese were "cooks and cleaners." This was then reinforced the following day when the Post ran a Reuters article "Nepalese riot after killings in Iraq."

A radical group said Tuesday that it had killed the 12 Nepalese hostages who had gone to Iraq to work as cooks and cleaners for a Jordanian firm.

Were these articles meant to inform or to disinform? The slightest bit of research on the internet would have revealed that these Nepalese could not possibly be "cooks and cleaners." They were mercenaries hired to help the private security forces, unless cooks and cleaners in Iraq are now being paid $2500 a month.

In terms of informing the public, this is a very important distinction. The public is being misled into believing that the situation on the ground in Iraq is much better than it is, and that, somehow, reconstruction is ongoing. This perception was reinforced by the ending of the standoff in Najaf. The press was so focussed on this single situation that it has obscured all the other "situations" that are ongoing in Iraq.

Misleading the public as to progress in Iraq is also to mislead the public on a matter that may affect a number of people's votes in November.

I have posted a blog on the Nepalese at http://simplyappalling.blogspot.com/2004/09/about-those-nepalese-workers-killed-in.html. Please pass it along to Mr. Vick.

 

Hurricane blackout

I just wanted to alert Simply Appalling readers that I'll probably be unable to post for a few days because of Hurricane Frances. We will probably lose power, telephone and ISP. Damn! Blogging a hurricane would be a lot more interesting than covering either political convention.

Friday, September 03, 2004

 

Whatever happened to the Valerie Plame affair?

Discovery of the "out-ers" of a CIA agent—unlike so many other matters before the Justice Department—has had to be put on a back burner while due process is observed. Mark Kleiman is now betting against indictments before November. And his reasoning makes sense to me.
 

Blogger has been impossible today

I don't know what's going on, but it took over an hour to get that last post up. Maybe it'll be better tomorrow.
 

Right-wing takeover of the judiciary in the fall?

Terry Eastland of the right-wing Daily Standard reports that he has been told by an aide to a GOP Senator that it's likely the Republican leadership will try to press to end the filibuster rule for judicial nominees this fall.

Such a rule change would, indeed, be disastrous, since it has only been by Democratic application of the filibuster that some of George Bush's kooks have been kept off the courts. My only complaint is that it hasn't been applied often enough.

But for once, Eastland and I agree. He's skeptical that Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island will go along with the madness. I very much doubt they will, though what he doesn't mention is that "Democrat" Zell Miller of Georgia will probably support anything the Republithugs want. And it's certainly not beyond the bounds of imagination that other Democratic Senators could be bought off.

In any case, it's going to be one more distraction that the Republicans can pull off at the height of the campaign season. Keep your eye on this one!

Thursday, September 02, 2004

 

The way it was

Blogger software comes with this site, and I use it, since neither my computer nor my funds can handle anything better. And considering that it's free, it's damned good.

But it has, what to me is, a quirk. It dates the posts, not by when you actually post, but by when you first began the post. This is not "desired behavior," so I try to watch out for it. But yesterday it escaped me.

Hence, the post on the Nepalese was dated the 1st when it should have been dated the 2nd. And here I was, going around all day thinking I could relax because I got one good post in for the day. Only late this evening did a friend mention that she wondered what had happened to me.

So I have changed the date on the post to make it "conform." And I promise never to do it again until next time.

 

Quote of the Day

On framing an issue,

You should show respect, know your values, always reframe, and say what you believe. The important thing is not to accept their framing of the issues, nor just negate their framing — that just reinforces it. Simply confronting them with facts won't help. Frames trump facts. The facts alone will not set you free. You have to reframe the issues before the facts can become meaningful and powerful.
—George Lakoff, professor of cognitive linguistics, UC Berkeley

 

About those Nepalese workers killed in Iraq...

Something must be said about the twelve Nepalese workers murdered in Iraq. In fact, a great deal should be said that probably won't be—except here.

The Washington Post reports,

The men, kidnapped in August while traveling overland from Jordan to jobs in Iraq, were described by their Jordanian employer as cooks and cleaners. Nepal has no troops in Iraq, but the kidnappers had demanded that it stop sending contract workers to the country, according to the BBC. The executions appeared intended to frighten off the many foreigners who come to Iraq to work for U.S.-led forces. [emphasis added]

According to the Post, a Sunni group is claiming responsibility for the killings. And "experts" believe the group is associated with the al-Qaeda group that was occupying parts of American-protected Kurdish Iraq prior to our invasion.

The Post gives this quote from the group's website:

We have carried out the sentence of God against 12 Nepalis who came from their country to fight the Muslims and to serve the Jews and the Christians ... believing in Buddha1 as their God.

This is the greatest number of hostages killed at one time. And what the people back home in Nepal find even more horrifying is that the murderers made no demands, proposed no conditions by which the hostages might have been released. The killings seem simply to have been a warning that other workers must not come.

Another sad irony is that, as CNEWS reports,

Nepal, which has no troops in Iraq, has long banned its citizens from working in the country because of security concerns. However, many people from the poor Asian country take jobs abroad and 17,000 Nepalese are believed to have slipped into Iraq, with many working as armed security guards for foreign contractors.

When this Canadian news source speaks of "armed security guards," they're speaking of the gurkhas, a dynastic Nepalese clan that have been hiring themselves out as mercenaries since at least the early 19th century.

But according to the Post, the Jordanian employer says they're "cooks and cleaners."

ABCNews gives more details of the earlier website video that announced the kidnappings,

The two-minute, 40-second video showed a seated man draped in an American flag and reading from a paper. He said the group came to Iraq under a deal between their company in Nepal and American forces, brokered by a Jordanian company.

The unidentified man spoke in broken English, mostly inaudible. Arabic subtitles were provided.

"We are not the only ones who were cheated by America's promises to work with them," he said, surrounded by the 11 other hostages who were holding their passports.
....

The speaker said each of the 12 men were offered $2,500 a month to work in Iraq. "The Americans assured us that the situation in Iraq is stable and not dangerous," he said. "America lied to us. ... The situation here is not under American control."

Now, if they truly are cooks and cleaners, the situation in Iraq is even graver than I had thought. Imagine! Unlike the United States, Iraq doesn't have an outsourcing problem—it apparently has an insourcing problem. With an Iraqi unemployment rate of 70% and an average salary of about $100 per month, it must be worse than watching Mexicans slip over the border to see all those Nepalese coming in and snapping up all the good cleaning jobs—and at $2500 per month.

Could this really be so? Nah... These guys were hired to be mercenaries.

But isn't it great the way the Post reports it? You'd never guess, would you? In fact, the author, Karl Vick, only devoted seven short paragraphs to the Nepalese before turning his attention, for the bulk of the article, to the plight of the two kidnapped French journalists.

And then there's one of those dog-that-didn't-bark thingies. Like, what is the name of the Jordanian company for which they were working?

By digging in foreign press reports, you can find out: Morning Star, which seems to be sort of an international Manpower, Inc., hired the Nepalese. They were taken to Jordan. Morning Star then leased them to Basharat and Partners, "which enlists workers for employment, mainly in the construction sector in Iraq."

In the same report we read,

Mansoor [director-general of Morning Star] declined to say what his company was doing to ensure the safe return of the Nepalese workers. He said the workers' immediate supervisor was another Jordan-based firm, called Besharat and Partners, which enlists workers for employment, mainly in the construction sector in Iraq.

Repeated attempts to reach Besharat and Partners failed on Monday. Company officials did not answer their telephones.

Mansoor said Besharat had subcontracted 67 Nepalese workers for construction in Iraq through Morning Star, which enlists Nepalese laborers through the Nepal-based Moonlight Company to work in factories in Jordan.

He said of the 67, who left for neighboring Iraq from Jordan overland on Thursday, 12 Nepalese traveling in two cars disappeared near the western Iraqi city of Ramadi. He declined to elaborate or say where his information came from.

So which is it—were these guys cooks, construction workers, or mercenaries?

The pieces are beginning to fall into place. The Nepalese were mercenaries, which explains why there were no demands from the insurgents that might have effected their release. They never intended to release them. The Nepalese were not executed as workers, but as foreign agents. And the media are assisting in keeping that under wraps.

Now why would the media do such a thing?

The Nepalese kidnappings and executions are very different from the kidnapping of the French journalists, which has received almost universal condemnation—by Arab governments, Muslim scholars and the French Muslims in whose name the kidnappings were supposedly perpetrated. You can't pick up a newspaper or listen to NPR without coming upon the story of the journalists. And besides, the media have a vested interest in attempting to secure the release of the French hostages. But the kidnapping of the French journalists was tactically stupid—to put it mildly—and the propaganda effect is solidly against the insurgents.

But if the Nepalese are exposed as mercenaries, there is perhaps an equally potent propaganda value for the insurgents. The world doesn't view the execution of mercenaries in quite the same way as it does the execution of cooks. Then there's the matter that if they were working for the American government, through one of its private subsidiaries, little was reported of any efforts to try to secure the release of the Nepalese.

Can it be true that the U.S. government did less for these employees than did the owners of Turkish trucking companies? Well, of course, it is. Turkish trucking companies can agree to just pick up and leave in exchange for their hostages. The U.S. government can't—or won't.

So the tack taken by the media is to publish the barest of facts about the Nepalese, then turn the reader's or listener's attention to the French situation. Check it out. Article after article bearing a headline about the Nepalese quickly ends up being about the French.

Well, that's the view from the First World. Meanwhile, back in Nepal, things have turned ugly.

Upon hearing the news of the deaths, Nepalese citizens of the capital, Katmandu, did as so many others have done before them—they promptly burned the only mosque in town, then shut the city down. Later, students and others went on a rampage, and the government has put the city under an indefinite curfew.

Now Bloomberg.com says,

Nepal's government said it will evacuate its citizens working in Iraq....

The government is arranging a plane to bring Nepalese back from the country, said Raghuji Pant, Nepal's minister for Labor and Transport, according to the government's Web site. He didn't say how many Nepalese are working in Iraq.

An estimated 17,000 Nepalese may be in the country, many working as armed guards for international companies, the Associated Press reported yesterday....

It looks as if they're going to need more than one plane.

Isn't it just spiffy what the Iraq invasion has done for the world? Only a man with the mental acuity of George Bush could have engineered such a "catastrophic success."

Related posts:
Will kidnappings alter the Iraqi employment situation? (updated)
Turkish hostage executed
More Turkish companies vamoosing from Iraq
Where's the ice cream truck?
Iraqi insurgents now extending their targets
Mud-wrestling: Dyncorp vs. Aegis (Updated)
Letter to Michael Getler, WaPo ombudsman

Footnotes

1 Like any bigot, the murderers could not distinguish a Hindu from a Buddhist. We have that problem here at home. Sikhs have been harrassed and murdered in this country, just because our home-grown bigots can't tell the difference between an Arab and a Sikh. [back]

Tuesday, August 31, 2004

 

The Republican party's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy (updated)

The ending of Ed Schrock's political career was heartily deserved—make no mistake about it. As a member of the House Armed Services Committee, Schrock was about as anti-gay as they come.

In 2000, the Virginian-Pilot said of Schrock that he favored ending the Clinton administration's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays in the military. He supported asking enlistees whether they have had homosexual experiences in an effort to try to keep gays from serving. [emphasis added]

Maybe he was just trying to find a date.

"You're in the showers with them, you're in the bunk room with them, you're in staterooms with them," Schrock told the Virginian-Pilot. "You just hope no harm would come by folks who are of that persuasion. It's a discipline thing."

Schrock makes it sound as if the military were facing a pest-control problem. Something like chiggers.

But what struck me in the Republican reaction was this—

Mark L. McKinney, chairman of the Virginia Beach Republican Committee, said he had not talked directly to Schrock. "It's a shame that he had to resign because of a Web site that is trying to push a point of view ... but ... I have to believe that this was the reason why he stepped down."

Well, excuse me, but if anyone was trying to "push a point of view," it was Congressman Ed Schrock. And the reason he is stepping down is that he was exposed as the hypocrite that he is.

But this remark also reveals a more fundamental truth about the Republicans—they actually don't give a damn whether someone is gay. It is the agenda that matters to them, and sexual politics is only one of their many "wedge" issues, which they exploit at their convenience.

In Florida, such behavior has been on display in full feather. Yesterday's state primary election saw Mel Martinez defeat Bill McCollum for the Republican nomination for the Senate seat made vacant by the retirement of Democrat Bob Graham.

[Martinez] was widely criticized for an ad that suggested his leading opponent, retired congressman Bill McCollum, was a supporter of gay rights because McCollum favored federal hate-crime laws that had bipartisan approval. Martinez, who resigned as secretary of housing and urban development to run for the Senate, also sent out a flier that said McCollum was "the new darling of homosexual extremists."

Martinez collected 45 percent of the vote, with 84 percent of precincts reported, easily outdistancing McCollum, who received 31 percent.

Now both these guys are nasty pieces of work. During the Clinton impeachment proceedings, Bill McCollum acted as one of Clinton's prosecutors. When election time came around, the voters threw him out, which is as rare for a sitting Congressman as a thought in Bush's head.

As the campaigns neared the finish line, the two Republican contenders got down to the business of outing each other's employees. The Tampa Tribune reported on a conference call with Martinez supporters:

During the call, in which the Martinez backers assailed what they called the "gay agenda," a journalist asked about reports - published in alternative newspapers and circulated widely among Florida Christian conservatives via email - that two Martinez campaign staffers are gay.

"Whether he has people working for him, as long as they're not doing anything to promote that agenda, it's none of our business," replied Michael Bowman, executive director of the Concerned Women for America Political Action Committee.

Stemberger, the Florida Family Focus leader, tried to counter by saying McCollum has employed a political consultant who is gay.

So the Republican policy of "don't ask, don't tell" with regard to their own officeholders, candidates and staff is the very policy in the military against which they have contended so mightily.


After reading this post, an alert reader sent in this little gem from today's Democracy Now show:
AMY GOODMAN: Yes, Barbara and Jenna Bush make their national television debut at the Republican National Convention last night in New York. Their plans for September 11? Well, according to some reports, they will be at their beautician's wedding. He's been with his partner for many years though the twins' spokesperson has not confirmed or refused to confirm or deny that they would be at the wedding of a gay couple.
 

Simply embarrassing: The Bush-McCain embrace

An appalled reader emailed me last week to say "I was surprised to see Cheney come out against a gay marriage ban, and then, when I saw McCain and Bush together campaigning, it occurred to me that Bush intends to announce that Cheney will step down, health or whatever and McCain will take his place."

First about Cheney: Taking a position of "Let's leave gay marriage to the states" is about as good as it gets. He can't take a position that runs counter to the interests of his own gay daughter, especially with her working in his campaign. That would leave him open to charges of family disloyalty. And a states' rights position is at least consistent with what conservatism used to be about. Also, the pre-convention timing of the statement may have been deliberate. This is, after all, the moment where Republicans want to put on their "moderate" face.

But McCain is something else. I've written earlier on his reasons
Simply embarrassing
for supporting Bush, and I think, looking back, that I only presented one side of the coin—the side in which Bush wins the election.

But politicians—successful politicians—try to cover all bases, so I should have also looked at what McCain's support means if Bush loses. And that side of the coin looks even better for McCain.

If Bush should win, McCain is truly going to have to pull off a miracle within this next administration to have the slightest chance of winning the Presidency in 2008. But if Bush loses, the Republicans will be raring to go in 2008, and he has a good chance of securing the Repug nomination for that year.

But McCain has been criticized as a "maverick," verging on disloyalty to the Republican agenda. Campaigning for Bush is his chance to show his party loyalty—and at a very cheap price. Slobbering all over Bush is pretty damned cheap.

As for McCain's accepting the candidacy for Vice President, that's about as likely as Simply Appalling voting Republican. It's a real career-ender.

Related post:
A prediction concerning John McCain

 

How public campaign financing works in California

Tom McClintock, state senator and right-wing challenger to the Arnold, writes,
[A]n investigation by the San Francisco Chronicle revealed that as Assembly Majority Leader, [Secretary of State] Shelley had sponsored a $500,000 grant to a non-profit foundation run by Shelley political associates for the construction of a community center in San Francisco that was never built. That foundation made payments for highly questionable purposes to certain individuals whom within days made uniform $25,000 contributions to the Shelley for Secretary of State campaign in 2002.

Shelley has returned the $125,000 (5 x $25,000) to the State of California, put another $80,000 in escrow pending investigation of two other contributions, sworn to "get to the bottom of this" and gone on vacation.

Bev Harris of BlackboxVoting is understandably upset. Of all the states, California—through Secretary of State Shelley—has been the toughest on Diebold, maker of touchscreen voting machines. Harris fears there is an orchestrated attempt to discredit Shelley.

The charges against Shelley are significant (some of them, anyway; others seem ridiculous, and the onslaught does seem somewhat orchestrated)....

The motives to discredit and hobble Shelley ... are staggering: In financial terms, Shelley's groundbreaking reforms put the entire e-voting industry at risk. According to GSA estimates, there is $2.3 billion at stake nationally in HAVA-reimbursed voting machine purchases, just for FY 2003 and 2004. Another HAVA bonanza is expected in 2005-06.

If real voting reforms are implemented — especially auditing procedures — voting machine inaccuracy may be exposed, putting all four major vendors at risk for consumer lawsuits if their machines fail to count accurately, exposed by the beefed-up audits Shelley wants to require.

Monday, August 30, 2004

 

Congressman Ed Schrock "abruptly" retires

BlogActive.com's campaign to out Congressman Ed Schrock has succeeded. The AP reports this evening:
Republican U.S. Rep. Edward L. Schrock abruptly announced Monday that he will not seek a third term, citing unspecified allegations that have "called into question" his ability to serve.

Schrock said in a five-paragraph statement that he has "come to the realization that these allegations will not allow my campaign to focus on the real issues facing our nation."

The release said he would not comment further on his decision, nor did he comment specifically on the allegations.

BlogActive has a link to the audio file where you may hear Congressman Ed for yourself. Modesty prevents Simply Appalling from providing the link itself.

Related posts:
Another Republican hypocrite outed
Congressman Ed Schrock's closet door swinging wider
Media are about to break story on Ed Schrock

 

The art of insinuation

From the New York Daily News quoting Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert:
On "Fox News Sunday," the Illinois Republican insinuated that billionaire financier George Soros, who's funding an independent media campaign to dislodge President Bush, is getting his big bucks from shady sources. "You know, I don't know where George Soros gets his money. I don't know where - if it comes overseas or from drug groups or where it comes from," Hastert mused. An astonished Chris Wallace asked: "Excuse me?" The Speaker went on: "Well, that's what he's been for a number years - George Soros has been for legalizing drugs in this country. So, I mean, he's got a lot of ancillary interests out there." Wallace: "You think he may be getting money from the drug cartel?" Hastert: "I'm saying I don't know where groups - could be people who support this type of thing. I'm saying we don't know."

And I for one don't know where Dennis Hastert is getting his ideas. They could be coming from the Communist Manifesto, Mein Kampf, The Prince or The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. I'm just saying I don't know.

 

Quote of the Day

Any resort to war—to any kind of war—is a resort to means that are inherently criminal. War inevitably is a course of killings, assaults, deprivations of liberty, and destruction of property. An honestly defensive war is, of course, legal, and saves those conducting it from criminality. But inherently criminal acts cannot be defended by showing that those who committed them were engaged in a war, when war itself is illegal.
—U.S. Chief Justice Robert H. Jackson, speaking as chief U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials in 1945, as noted in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
 

Iraqi insurgents now extending their targets

I've been trying, as a lone individual, to keep one thread of the Iraqi tangle visible: the status of the underpinnings of Iraqi reconstruction—or rather, since there is essentially no reconstruction going on, the maintenance of the status quo. I have no more access to first-hand knowledge than you do, which is to say that I rely on news reports. But the reports, almost never tied together by the media, keep coming.

The insurgents have primarily used two methods to defeat Anglo-American efforts: sabotage and hostage-taking. I suspect that even the insurgents are surprised at how effective they've been.

Sabotage has been adeptly applied to the oil fields, with striking results. Last Wednesday some 20-odd pipelines were attacked in Southern Iraq, followed by successful attacks on Friday and Saturday. Iraqi oil exports have been cut in half, from 1.8 million to 900,000 barrels a day. Aside from the U.S. donation, oil is the only souce of funds that this regime can expect to see.

But it is the effect of hostage-taking that is going largely unnoticed. And if anything, it must be having the greater effect. After all, it doesn't really matter how much money the government has if the supplies and personnel aren't available. Another unremarked aspect of this effort is that it is aimed at corporations, not governments.

To date, I've noted the decline in overland truck shipments, first from Turkey, then from Jordan as insurgents have put trucking firms on notice that truck-driving in a war zone is dangerous to their employees' health.

Now two more Turkish hostages have been released—not truckers this time.

On Wednesday a Turkish television channel aired footage showing two Turks held hostage in Iraq by armed militants who threatened to execute them unless their company withdraws from the country within 72 hours.

They were identified as Ozdemir and Daskin, two engineers kidnapped from their worksite in Iraq.

The employer of the two men — the Ankara-based Usluer-Sa/Ra joint venture which was repairing electricity networks in Iraq — announced the same day that it was ending its operations in the war-torn country. [emphasis added]

This suggests that the insurgents, having successfully constricted the overland supply route, may now be turning their attention to reducing the importation of technological expertise.

Meanwhile, Anglo-U.S. troops have all they can do to protect themselves and government officials. The U.S. has unwisely contracted out the security for reconstruction efforts to private firms, to be overseen by Aegis.

Related posts:
Will kidnappings alter the Iraqi employment situation? (updated)
Turkish hostage executed
More Turkish companies vamoosing from Iraq
Where's the ice cream truck?
Mud-wrestling: Dyncorp vs. Aegis (Updated)

Sunday, August 29, 2004

 

Has the "Convention Bounce" begun for Bush?

Rasmussen Reports has just come out with their latest Electoral College projection. Their poll, as of yesterday, has Bush ahead for the first time this year. Their current projection: Bush 213, Kerry 207, Toss-up 118.

Here are the changes since the 27th: Arkansas (6), Missouri (11) and Virginia (13) moved from "Toss-up" to Bush. Kerry's Iowa (7) became a Toss-up, but Maine (4) and Michigan (17) have moved into the Kerry camp. The big shift here is in the number of Toss-up votes, which has dropped from 162 to 118 in two days. Previously, 14 states were rated a Toss-up; now they're down to 10. Rasmussen considers anything less than a 5% difference a Toss-up.

 

The descent of the Holy Ghost—the lucrative Crusade

Just because I bring up the name Tim d'Annunzio, you may think I'm about to write about his being a minor funder of the Swift Boat Veterans Disinformation Squad, or maybe that his company, which makes $4,000 body armor, has had significant government contracts and has benefitted greatly from the war in Afghanistan (and maybe Iraq—who cares?). But, no. The thought hadn't crossed my mind.

It's the name of his company that caught my attention: Paraclete Armor & Equipment.

For those of you who skipped your Confirmation classes, the Greek word "parakletos," which occurs in the Greek Bible only in the Gospel of John, was left untranslated in many versions of the Bible and was anglicized into "Paraclete." The Church decided long ago that what John was talking about was none other than the Holy Ghost, a member of the Christian triumvirate—the Holy Trinity—which is God. Yep, the Paraclete is coequal with God the Father and God the Son.

(There is also a derivative sense of the word (uncapitalized): an advocate; one called to aid or support; hence, the Consoler, Comforter, or Intercessor. Personally, I've never seen it used.)

So when I saw that Mr. d'Annunzio was the head of Paraclete Armor & Equipment, I was a bit surprised. Little had I suspected that when the Apostle Paul spoke of putting on the "armor of God," he had a $4,000 bullet-proof vest in mind.

A magazine called Business North Carolina has this:

In a former textile mill in St. Pauls, south of Fayetteville, women cut and stitch a miracle fiber that’s stronger than steel. Paraclete Armor & Equipment makes $4,000 vests that can stop .44-caliber slugs. Marines, Special Forces troops and Delta Force commandos from North Carolina bases wear them. In the wood-paneled lobby is a grainy photo of Special Ops soldiers waving in front of Kandahar Airport. They are covert, so their faces are blacked out. But each wears body armor made at Paraclete.

“The Army’s just not prepared for the Iraq war,” President Tim D’Annunzio says as he walks along the production floor. “We’re filling a big void.” This year, he says, he’ll add 300 workers to the nearly 200 he says are already on his payroll. When wars and rumors are the gospel truth, business is good. [emphasis added]

Can you say "Amen!"? Did you note the phrase "gospel truth"?

The mainstream churches don't use that word "Paraclete" much anymore. But it's very fashionable among some Pentacostalist sects such as the Assemblies of God. Whacha wanna bet there's a connection here?

Paraclete doesn't just make vests. They also make an armored groin protector. Could that have been a Paraclete codpiece that George Bush was wearing on his day of triumph aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln? It surely does look like one.

The descent of the Paraclete was welcomed by the early Christians, but who knew it would descend to this?

Related post: Dominionism and the Yurica Report

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