Kerry Voters To Be Excommunicated? Cheney Remains Untouchable.

Well, God DID Choose Bush To Be President, Didn't HE?

Our first story of the day deals with the continuing efforts of the extreme right to eliminate what few barriers remain between church and state.

ABC News excerpt:

WAYNESVILLE, N.C., May 9, 2005 For many residents of this hamlet nestled in the Smoky Mountains, nothing is as important as church. That's why nine longtime members of East Waynesville Baptist Church are so devastated after being kicked out of the congregation for, they say, supporting Democrat John Kerry's presidential bid. They say the Rev. Chan Chandler led a charge to boot them from the church because they supported the Massachusetts senator's 2004 campaign.

Edith Nichols, who was ousted from the congregation along with her husband, said the pastor's instructions were clear: "Those that did not support Bush needed to leave, that they were sinners that believed in abortion and all the wrong things."

Lewis Inman, a deacon for 20 years, said being thrown out of his church was worse than when he was laid off from his job of 30 years. "I'm very, very sad. This has been our church home, our church family," Inman said, his voice trembling. "It's the only church I've ever been in."

Chandler would not speak on the record to ABC News. But in an audiotape of a sermon from last October, he said God had urged him to endorse President Bush as the only truly Christian candidate.

"Now, friend, you know and I know abortion is wrong, there's no way around it. But the question then comes in, in the Baptist Church, how do I vote? Let me just say this right now: If you vote for John Kerry this year, you need to repent or resign," Chandler said on the tape, obtained from the church library by ABC affiliate WLOS in Asheville.

"You have been holding back God's church way too long," he said on the tape. "And I know I may get in trouble for saying that, but just pour it on."

Full story: http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Politics/story?id=742265&page=1

It seems that the IRS should go after Rev. Chandler and remove the tax-exempt status his church enjoys. Not that there is a chance that anything like that will ever happen to a Bush-friendly member of the clergy. I feel sad for people like Mr. Inman. The poor man has apparently led most of his life to please the church, as the quote in the excerpt suggests, and he had the naivete to think he could vote for someone like John Kerry to be President without his pastor putting the fork to him. Maybe the idiots in Kansas who want to eliminate evolution from their public schools are right, at least in Rev. Chandler's case anyway.


The "Because We Say So" Defense Holds Up

The federal courts have ruled that U.S. citizens are mere serfs, and that the wise leadership of President Bungler and Vice-President Potty Mouth is not to be questioned. This story, from Yahoo News, details the latest failed lawsuit filed against the Veep that attempted to get him to spill the beans about how much of a stooge he was for the energy lobby.

Excerpt:

WASHINGTON - A lawsuit seeking to force Vice President Dick Cheney to reveal details about the energy policy task force he headed and the pro-industry recommendations it made was scuttled Tuesday by a federal appeals court.

The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously found that two private groups that sued Cheney failed to establish that the federal government had a legal duty to produce documents detailing the White House's contacts with business executives and lobbyists.
The lawsuit, filed by the Sierra Club and Judicial Watch, alleged that energy industry officials effectively became members of the task force, while environmental groups and others were shut out of the meetings. It also argued that the task force was a federal advisory committee with an obligation to publicly disclose its operations.

The appeals court disagreed. "There is nothing to indicate that nonfederal employees had a right to vote on committee matters or exercise a veto over committee proposals," it said. The court ordered a lower court to dismiss the case.

Cheney's energy task force was not an advisory committee and "it follows that the government owed the plaintiffs no duty, let alone a clear and indisputable or compelling one," said the opinion by Judge A. Raymond Randolph.

Cheney's task force met for several months in 2001 and issued a report that favored opening more public lands to oil and gas drilling and proposed a range of other steps supported by industry. The recommendations formed the basis of the energy legislation now before Congress.

Full story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/cheney_energy

Indeed. The same legislation that passed in the House of Representatives and that will soon be on review in the Senate. So why all the secrecy? And does anyone notice a pattern? The energy lobby writes energy legislation. The pharmaceutical lobby writes legislation that makes it nearly impossible to buy cheaper prescription drugs from Canada. The banking industry writes legislation that allows credit card companies to gouge people more deeply than ever while making it nearly impossible to declare personal bankruptcy. How many more examples of this crap do we need to see before people wake up to the fact that this administration is the most corrupt we've ever had? What's next, the Foot Fetishist Liberation Front writing legislation demanding that people go barefoot all the time?