Legion of Angels News Archive

As the words to the Christian rock song fade from the giant screens at Mountain Springs church, Pastor Steve Holt steps forward to speak to his congregation. These are perilous times, he says, but he urges them not to despair.

“There are still two weeks before the election,” he says, before announcing a week of fasting and prayer in the run-up to polling day.

For conservative Christians, such as Holt and his congregation, the prospect of a Democratic victory represents sheer calamity. Yet Evangelicals have not been natural supporters of John McCain, doubting the Republican’s commitment to banning abortion and gay marriage.

But conservative Christians believe a Barack Obama presidency would roll back a generation of political gains which culminated with their privileged position in George Bush’s White House.

“I don’t think we are going to have any influence with Barack Obama in the White House,” Holt told the Guardian.

The election represented a paradigm shift for the US as well as for evangelicals. “I think there is a backlash against Bush because of the economy and I think frankly because of a lack of leadership,” Holt said. “There is a sense we are in a position of weakness right now.”

A political forum at the church saw bewilderment and frustration among members of Holt’s flock as they tried to come to terms with Obama’s widening lead over McCain - and the potential loss of their power in Washington.

“Has Obama through mass hypnosis figured out a way to bypass the critical faculties of all Americans?” asked Brian Sherman, a church volunteer.

Mark Andre, a commodities trader, said he had not started out a supporter of McCain - though the senator was well liked by his Democratic friends before the campaign. “It’s almost like Democrats became hateful of McCain. Has it been Sarah Palin and her stance, or is it just Obama and his ideology? What happened to all the Democrats who loved McCain?”

Political soul-searching is under way at conservative churches across the US - but nowhere more so than Colorado Springs, a town known locally as the “evangelical mecca”.

Local government officials lured conservative Christian groups here with tax breaks in the 1980s. Colorado Springs is now headquarters for the most powerful Christian organisations in the US.

The town and surrounding areas remain defiantly conservative in a state that has been leaning Democratic in state elections for the last four years since voting Bush in 2000 and 2004. John Morris, the chairman of the county Democratic party, called the town “a black hole of Republican extremism”.

Colorado is now emerging as a key battleground state, and Republicans are counting on the evangelicals to help McCain hang on. The party has sent emissaries to 400 churches over the past few days to recruit volunteers for “evangelical-to-evangelical” phone banks. It has also used the churches to generate excitement about Palin’s rally schedule yesterday, handing out tickets after morning services on Sunday.

In an ordinary election that grassroots organisation would make a difference. Evangelicals consider it a “Christian duty” to vote. Past elections have seen high turnouts among conservative voters - especially if there were ballots on gay marriage or abortion.

In an attempt to bring out the faithful this year conservatives in Colorado drafted a ballot measure that confers human rights on a fertilised egg from the moment of conception.

Church leaders have also tried to impress on their followers that - even if they are still cool towards McCain - conservatives cannot afford to have Obama in the White House.

But with election officials predicting unprecedented turnout across Colorado - up to 90% in heavily Democratic Denver and Boulder -the tested Republican strategy of winning elections by getting out the evangelical vote is unlikely to work. That vote would be simply swamped by a very high turnout.

There are also signs that evangelical power over the ballot box could be waning - even in Colorado Springs.

Recent years have seen more Democrats in the area. There have also been signs of an internal revolt against local conservative Republican politicians.

Over the years, the influx of evangelicals to Colorado Springs shifted the local party establishment to the right. Party politics increasingly revolved around the emotive issues such as abortion. That alienated more traditional Republicans who wanted their officials to focus on the economy and infrastructure.

Last month, Jan Martin, a lifelong Republican and an elected city council official, announced she was supporting Obama because she believed the party had moved too far to the right.

“I think Bush has been too extreme, and he has catered to this black-and-white extreme view of conservative Christian thinking. The leadership of the local party is still very conservative and still very much us against them.”

A number of evangelical leaders have also begun asking whether their movement has drifted too far to the right. Some church leaders in Colorado Springs have called for the evangelical focus to be broadened beyond abortion and gay marriage and address issues such as climate change and poverty.

Few are willing to publicly write off McCain and the current brand of Republicanism. But in the political forum at Mountain Springs, local Republican elected officials were already discussing how they would operate under an Obama administration.

“God forbid, but if it comes about we are going to have to be speaking out like never before,” said Doug Lamborn, the local Republican member of Congress.

Republicans needed to update their methods of communications by launching more conservative blogs, added Amy Stephens, a local state representative.

Holt was also now moving to reconcile himself to defeat. “This could be the best thing that ever happened to the evangelical cause,” he said. “We’re used to being against the tide.”

Source — Guardian

NEW YORK - Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama made ground zero their common ground for one rare day, free of politics and infused with memory. Putting their partisan contest on a respectful hold, they walked together Thursday into the great pit where the World Trade Center towers once stood and, as one, honored the dead from the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

They walked down a long ramp flanked with the flags of countries, chatting at times, silent other times, and sharing a quick laugh at one point. Right behind them, Cindy McCain clutched Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s arm — Michelle Obama was with her daughters in Chicago.

At the bottom of the ramp, the two rivals stopped to talk with a small group of relatives of the attacks’ victims of seven years ago. They laid flowers at the pit’s commemorative reflecting pool — a pink rose from Obama, a yellow rose from McCain — bowed their heads and walked off to speak with fire and police personnel. There were no speeches.

“Thanks, we’ll see ya,” McCain told Obama as the Democrat patted the Republican’s back and they shook hands and parted.

Earlier, McCain spoke briefly at a simple ceremony in remote, rural western Pennsylvania, held on a large hilly field close to where United Airlines Flight 93, the third of four airliners commandeered by terrorists, crashed. Investigators believe some of the 40 passengers and crew rushed the cockpit and thwarted terrorists’ plans to use that plane as a weapon like the ones that hit the World Trade Center and Pentagon. All aboard all planes died.

The Arizona senator said those on the flight might have saved his own life, as some believe the terrorists wanted to slam that plane into the U.S. Capitol. He said the only way to thank those who died on the flight is to “be as good an American as they were.”

“We might fall well short of their standard, but there’s honor in the effort,” McCain said.

Obama, in a statement, said that on Sept. 11, 2001, “Americans across our great country came together to stand with the families of the victims, to donate blood, to give to charity, and to say a prayer for our country. Let us renew that.”

The Illinois senator added: “Let us remember that the terrorists responsible for 9/11 are still at large, and must be brought to justice.”

Left unsaid by both was their sharp disagreement over the Iraq war, which McCain supported and Obama opposed as a distraction from the Afghanistan war and broader fight against terrorism.

It was not a day for spelling out differences but rather a respectful time-out in an otherwise heated campaign with 54 days to go. Both agreed to suspend TV ads critical of each other.

In Pennsylvania, grieving family members and a few dignitaries sat in front of a chain-link fence adorned with flags and mementos that serves as a temporary memorial while a permanent one is built. Bells were rung as each victim’s name was read. McCain and others laid wreaths at the foot of two flagpoles and a large wooden cross.

The political truce was evident in remarks thanking McCain for traveling to Shanksville by Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democrat who occasionally speaks against the Republican nominee as an Obama campaign surrogate. “It’s an honor to have him here, not just as a presidential candidate but as a great American patriot,” Rendell said.

Another display came near the ground zero pit, as McCain adviser Mark Salter huddled with Obama spokeswoman Linda Douglass, a former ABC News correspondent, to discuss Sarah Palin’s interview Thursday with the network.

Obama and McCain were intersecting again later, at a Columbia University forum on public service in the evening. Their sessions at the forum were separate, joined only by a handshake.

At the Twin Towers site, Bloomberg told them time was running out to touch the bedrock at the base of the pit. “This is the last year because the ramp goes away for the rebuilding,” he said.

Officials said the family members Obama and McCain talked with were Mary Fetchet, whose son Brad worked on the 89th floor of the South Tower; Michael Henry, brother of firefighter Joseph Henry; Joanne Langone, widow of policeman Tom Langone; and Maggie Lemagne, sister of Port Authority officer David Lemagne. Brian Cichetti, a World Trade Center site safety manager who is working on construction of the memorial and museum, also was with them.

At the top of the ramp on the way out, McCain and Obama shook hands with police officers.

“Appreciate everything you do,” Obama said. “God bless you all. We think about you this day and every day.”

Obama’s running mate, Joe Biden, visited an American Legion post in suburban Cleveland for an invitation-only gathering of area police, firefighters and other first responders.

“Part of today is reminding Americans that every single day there are acts that are both ordinary and profound,” Biden said in recalling the attacks. “You suit up, head out on that vehicle not knowing what you’re going to find. If, God forbid, anything remotely close to that happens, it’s going to be you guys trying to save all of us.”

Palin, the Republican vice presidential candidate, was in her home state of Alaska to attend an Army ceremony to send her eldest son, Track, off to duty in Iraq.

Obama and McCain last appeared together in August when they shook hands at minister Rick Warren’s megachurch in Orange County, Calif., and spoke separately about faith and values. In June, they attended the funeral of NBC newsman Tim Russert, sitting next to each other at the family’s request.

Source — Yahoo!

Democrats will augment their slender U.S. Senate majority in an election year in which CQ Politics rates nine seats held by Republicans among the 10 most vulnerable to takeover by the challenging party. But that raises the stakes in the one exception: conservative-leaning Louisiana, where two-term Democratic Sen. Mary L. Landrieu is facing a competitive challenge.

CQ Politics currently applies a rating of Leans Democratic to the long-anticipated race between Landrieu and state Treasurer John Kennedy, a longtime Democrat who switched to the Republican Party as he launched his Senate bid. Landrieu is unopposed and Kennedy will face one minor opponent for the Sept. 6 primary, according to a list of candidate filings posted by the Louisiana Secretary of State’s office Friday afternoon at the close of the state’s three-day candidate qualifying period.

The Senate race will compete for attention over the next few weeks with what will be a high-profile contest in the New Orleans-based 2nd Congressional District, where seven Democratic candidates filed to challenge nine-term Rep. William J. Jefferson in the primary. Jefferson is seeking re-election despite his indictment and pending trial on federal charges of accepting bribes.

The Senate race will, however, be the marquee congressional race this fall, when there also will be competitive House races in the 4th District, left open by retiring Republican Rep. Jim McCrery; the 6th District, where Democrat Don Cazayoux faces a tough fight to hold the formerly Republican seat he just captured in a May 3 special election; and probably the 7th District, where Democrats are waging a longshot battle to unseat Republican Rep. Charles Boustany Jr.

Landrieu has the early edge in the Senate contest, in part because she has good approval ratings in polls and is running in what appears a strong Democratic year nationally. She is emphasizing the benefits of her Senate seniority to a state, battered by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, that has seen the retirements of several veteran members of Congress in recent years.

“In the end, this election is about delivering for Louisiana, and the people of this state know that she has not only fought but won her fights and delivered for the state,” said Landrieu campaign manager Jay Howser, noting as one example the senator’s work to secure federal funding for Louisiana.

Matt Miller, a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the political arm of the Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate, said that Landrieu has support from independent and moderate voters and also is doing well in fundraising and early polling.

“By every standard you can measure, she looks extremely strong right now,” Miller said.

Kennedy is no stranger to Senate politics, though he made his previous attempt in 2004 as a Democrat. That bid did not go well, as Kennedy finished third with 15 percent behind two House incumbents: Republican David Vitter, who took 51 percent to win the seat outright in what technically was an all-party primary, and Democrat Chris John, who took 29 percent. This year’s elections are the first under a change in Louisiana election law that implemented a system used in most states, with the parties holding separate primaries to nominate candidates for general elections held on the national Election Day.

Kennedy, in his campaign against Landrieu, has been emphasizing issues such as increased transparency in how the government spends taxpayers’ money. Kennedy campaign communications director Leonardo Alcivar described this as “a change year” and “a change election,” in which Kennedy’s self-portrayal as a Washington outsider will trump Landrieu’s experience in Congress.

“This is probably not the year that voters want to hear about clout and seniority in Washington, because they don’t feel that Washington is meeting the needs of people,” said Alcivar, who spoke as Kennedy was embarking on a bus tour of the state.

Though the National Republican Senatorial Committee understandably panned Kennedy’s 2004 Democratic campaign for the Senate, it is backing his bid as a Republican to topple Landrieu. Kennedy is heavily favored to win the GOP primary against J. Jacques Boudreaux, about whom information was not readily available.

In the House races, the scandal clouding Jefferson’s future will undoubtedly draw national attention to his primary contest.

The seven Democrats challenging Jefferson are James Carter, a New Orleans city councilman; Troy Carter, a former state representative and former New Orleans city councilman who ran against Jefferson in 2006, taking 12 percent to finish fifth overall (and fourth among Democrats) in that year’s open-ballot primary; Jimmy Fahrenholtz, a member of the New Orleans school board; Byron L. Lee, a councilman in Jefferson Parish (county); Helena Moreno, a former television journalist; state Rep. Cedric Richmond; and Kenya J.H. Smith, a former aide to New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin.

The seriousness of the charges facing Jefferson — related to his business dealings with companies seeking contracts in Africa — likely would have brought resignation or defeat to most any other member of Congress. But Jefferson, one of the senior African-American members of Congress, proved resilient in 2006, winning re-election in the black-majority 2nd District while he was under federal investigation but before he was formally indicted. After taking 30 percent of the vote in the crowded first-round vote that November, he easily defeated Democratic state Rep. Karen Carter, 57 percent to 43 percent, in the December runoff election.

The lone Republican candidate in the 2nd, which includes the bulk of New Orleans, is Anh “Joseph” Cao, a political unknown. This is a reflection of the daunting partisan odds in the Democratic Party stronghold, where presidential challenger John Kerry received 75 percent of the vote in 2004.

Among the most competitive general election contests, the best opportunity for Democrats to gain a seat is in the 4th District, with includes Shreveport in the northwestern part of the state. McCrery, who holds a prestigious position as ranking Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, is nonetheless leaving open the seat he has held for more than 20 years.

The candidate preferred by Democratic officials is Willie Banks; Artis “Doc” Cash, a losing Democratic candidate for the seat in 2006; and John Milkovich, who lost overwhelmingly to McCrery as the sole Democratic candidate in 2002.

Republicans plan to put up a strong defense of the seat behind the winner of a three-candidate primary featuring Jeff Thompson, a lawyer who is backed by McCrery and some House Republican leaders; John Fleming, a physician; and Chris Gorman, a trucking company executive.

CQ Politics currently rates the race as Leans Republican because of the district’s conservative lean. But this race surely will become a tossup if Carmouche wins the primary, as is widely expected, and especially if the Republicans need a runoff election on Oct. 4 to choose a nominee barely four weeks before the November election.

Two independent candidates are in the race. They are Chester T. Kelley, a restaurateur who took 12 percent of the vote in the 2006 all-party primary on a platform of opposing illegal immigration, and Gerard J. Bowen Jr.

The Republicans, meanwhile, are trying to reclaim the Baton Rouge-based 6th District, newly held by Democrat Cazayoux, which favored Bush with 59 percent in 2004. Cazayoux won in May to succeed 11-term Republican Richard H. Baker, a long-dominant figure in the district who resigned in February to head the trade association representing hedge funds.

Cazayoux will now be running as an incumbent in what is shaping up to be a good Democratic year, so he might be expected to be in even better political shape than he was in May when he defeated Republican former state Rep. Woody Jenkins by 49 percent to 46 percent. But Cazayoux has drawn a serious Republican opponent in state Sen. Bill Cassidy, who is unopposed in the GOP primary. Complicating Cazayoux’ prospects even further is the independent candidacy of state Rep. Michael Jackson, an African-American who lost to Cazayoux in the race for the Democratic nomination in the special election. Blacks, an overwhelmingly Democratic-leaning constituency, make up a third of the district’s population.

CQ Politics currently rates the 6th District race as No Clear Favorite.

A competitive race may yet develop in the southwestern 7th District, where state Sen. Donald Cravins Jr. is challenging Republican incumbent Boustany Jr. Cravins entered the race, currently rated Safe Republican, just a couple of weeks ago.

The Louisiana delegation is rounded out by Republicans Steve Scalise of the southeastern 1st District and Rodney Alexander of the northeastern 5th District and Democrat Charlie Melancon of the south-central 3rd District. All are politically secure.

Scalise was elected in a May 3 special election in what is easily Louisiana’s most Republican-leaning district to succeed Republican Bobby Jindal, who resigned to take the office of governor that he won in last fall’s state election. Scalise will face the winner of a Democratic primary that includes businessman Jim Harlan and frequent candidate M.V. “Vinny” Mendoza.

Melancon’s district is conservative-leaning, but he is a center-right Democrat who trounced a Republican state senator in 2006. No Republican filed to challenge Melancon.

Alexander — who was elected to the House in 2002 as a Democrat, then switched without prior notice to the Republican Party in the final hours of the 2004 candidate filing period — faces Andrew Clack in the Sept. 6 primary. Democrats, despite their lingering anger over Alexander’s party switch, not did field a candidate against him this year.

Source — Yahoo!

WASHINGTON (CNN) – The FBI continued in 2006 to badly mishandle letters that it uses to obtain personal records without a court order, according to a Justice Department report released Thursday.

The new report cites “issuance of NSLs [national security letters] without proper authorization, improper requests and unauthorized collection of telephone or Internet e-mail records due to FBI errors or mistakes made by NSL recipients.”

But a top department official said significant progress has been made in the past year toward correcting those errors.

Inspector General Glenn Fine said it’s too soon to tell if the problems will be eliminated.

Thursday’s report came a year after Fine’s first report on national security letters, which the FBI issues to third parties to get information on individuals — such as telephone, e-mail and financial records — in connection with terrorism or spy investigations.

The original report, which covered 2004 and 2005, found serious systematic failures by the bureau in its use of the letters.

Fine said it is no surprise that the latest report found continued violations in 2006, since that was before he issued last year’s stinging appraisal.

“The FBI and DOJ [Department of Justice] have made significant progress in implementing the recommendations contained in our first report and in adopting additional corrective measures to address the serious problems,” Fine said.

“However, several of the FBI’s and the department’s corrective measures are not yet fully implemented and it is too early to determine whether these measures will eliminate the problems with the use of these authorities,” he said.

 The Justice Department and FBI were quick to latch onto Fine’s comments and praise the FBI for doing a much better job, but Democratic lawmakers were just as fast to pounce on the report as evidence of continued FBI failings.

“We are pleased with the Office of Inspector General’s positive assessment of the many actions taken by the Justice Department and FBI to improve oversight of the use of national security letters,” said spokesman Dean Boyd of the Justice Department’s National Security Division.

 ”Despite the low error rate we continue to strive for zero errors and we believe that the measures we have put in place will help ensure that,” an FBI statement said.

But Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, promised to hold a hearing on the issue. The report, he said, “outlines more abuses and what appears to be the improper use of national security letters for years in a systemic failure throughout the FBI.”

And House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Michigan, said, “At the same time the administration is trying to intimidate the Congress into giving it additional spying power, we find out yet again that it has abused its authority to pry into the lives of law-abiding Americans.”

The new report shows the FBI continued in 2006 to increase its use of the secret letters. The 49,425 requests represented a 4.7 percent increase over 2005.

In an accompanying report the inspector general said the FBI made 47 requests to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for warrants to pursue business records. All requests were approved.

The report, however, singled out one classified case in which the FBI was turned down by the FISA court, and pursued the matter anyway. Although the details were blacked out in the report, the inspector general said Congress was provided a classified version of the report, which contains the information.

Source — CNN