Religion • IRS Targeted Billy Graham
Franklin Graham: IRS targeted us, too
Graham said the IRS story threatens to engulf all manner of non-profits. | AP Photo
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By REID J. EPSTEIN | 5/14/13 5:08 PM EDT
The IRS came after Billy Graham, too, his son charged Tuesday in a letter to President Barack Obama.
Franklin Graham, the president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and the family’s international humanitarian organization Samaritan’s Purse, said that the IRS notified the organizations in September that it was conducting a “review” of their activities for tax year 2010.
With the IRS admitting it gave extra scrutiny to conservative political organizations, Graham says he now believes that the review was part of an Obama administration effort of “targeting and attempting to intimidate us.”
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The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association urging of voters to back “candidates who base their decisions on biblical principles and support the nation of Israel” during last year’s presidential race was the reason why IRS agents visited the North Carolina offices of both Graham groups, the letter accuses.
“While these audits not only wasted taxpayer money, they wasted money contributed by donors for ministry purposes as we had to spend precious resources servicing the IRS agents in our offices,” Graham wrote in the letter, which was shared with POLITICO. “I believe that someone in the administration was targeting and attempting to intimidate us. This is morally wrong and unethical – indeed some would call it ‘un-American.”
Graham said that “in light” of the IRS admission that it targeted tea party groups for added scrutiny, “I do not believe that the IRS audit of our two organizations last year is a coincidence – or justifiable.”
(Also on POLITICO: IRS head: ‘Mistakes were made’)
Graham was not available to comment Tuesday because he was traveling, a spokesman said. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. An IRS spokesman said that he had not seen the letter and could not comment.
The Graham organizations kept their federal income tax exemptions after the audit — but were not told they’d be able to until after the November election, he wrote.
Graham, who last week attended a White House meeting for religious leaders to discuss gun control, said the IRS story threatens to engulf all manner of non-profit organizations.
“Mr. President, the IRS has already publicly acknowledged it operated in a less than neutral and non-partisan way,” Graham wrote. “We also now know that the target of their improper actions was much wider than political or Tea Party organizations. Will you take some immediate action to reassure Americans we are not in a new chapter of American history – repressive government rule?”
The IRS review, which Graham wrote involved an IRS agent visiting the two agencies last October, followed the Billy Graham ministry publishing newspaper ads in North Carolina backing a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. The amendment passed in May.
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/05/f … 91362.html
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Tue May 14, 2013 5:52 pm
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Religion • Egypt mob lynches teenage son of an Islamist leader
Egypt mob lynches teenage son of an Islamist leader
AFP – An angry Egyptian mob has lynched the teenage son of a Muslim Brotherhood leader, accusing him of killing a man over Facebook comments critical of the Islamist movement, security sources said Saturday.
The violence that took place on Thursday in the Nile Delta was the latest in a spate of vigilante killings in the region amid growing lawlessness since the 2011 revolution that toppled former president Hosni Mubarak.
Yussef Rabie Abdessalam, 16, pulled out a gun and opened fire indiscriminately, killing a passerby and wounding another after a heated argument with a man who had openly criticised the influential Brotherhood on the Internet, the sources said.
His action sparked fury in Qattawiya, a village in the Nile Delta province of Sharqiya, where Yussef’s father, Rabie Abdessalam is an official at the local branch of the Justice and Freedom Party, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood of President Mohamed Morsi.
An angry mob surrounded the Abdessalam house seeking revenge, but the family refused to give Yussef up and hurled stones from inside the residence at the protesters.
A man outside the house was fatally wounded.
Police tried in vain to contain the violence and attempted to evacuate the Abdessalam family but the mob set fire to the house and in the confusion grabbed Yussef and lynched him.
The mob beat him up "and dragged him across 500 metres (yards) to his death," the Freedom and Justice Party said on its Facebook page.
"This is not a political incident," the Islamist party said, calling on all sides to show restraint.
But a security source and local media said the violence was triggered after comments hostile to the Muslim Brotherhood were posted on Facebook.
There have been several reports of lynchings in Egypt in recent months.
In March, villagers in Sharqiya province beat up a man and then lynched him, accusing him of car theft days after residents of another town strung up two men accused of kidnapping a girl.
Crime rates have increased across Egypt since the uprising and a police officer reported in March that at least 17 lynchings had taken place in Sharqiya since 2011.
http://www.france24.com/en/20130504-egy … ist-leader
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Sun May 05, 2013 2:39 am
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Religion • Egypt mob lynches teenage son of an Islamist leader
Egypt mob lynches teenage son of an Islamist leader
AFP – An angry Egyptian mob has lynched the teenage son of a Muslim Brotherhood leader, accusing him of killing a man over Facebook comments critical of the Islamist movement, security sources said Saturday.
The violence that took place on Thursday in the Nile Delta was the latest in a spate of vigilante killings in the region amid growing lawlessness since the 2011 revolution that toppled former president Hosni Mubarak.
Yussef Rabie Abdessalam, 16, pulled out a gun and opened fire indiscriminately, killing a passerby and wounding another after a heated argument with a man who had openly criticised the influential Brotherhood on the Internet, the sources said.
His action sparked fury in Qattawiya, a village in the Nile Delta province of Sharqiya, where Yussef’s father, Rabie Abdessalam is an official at the local branch of the Justice and Freedom Party, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood of President Mohamed Morsi.
An angry mob surrounded the Abdessalam house seeking revenge, but the family refused to give Yussef up and hurled stones from inside the residence at the protesters.
A man outside the house was fatally wounded.
Police tried in vain to contain the violence and attempted to evacuate the Abdessalam family but the mob set fire to the house and in the confusion grabbed Yussef and lynched him.
The mob beat him up "and dragged him across 500 metres (yards) to his death," the Freedom and Justice Party said on its Facebook page.
"This is not a political incident," the Islamist party said, calling on all sides to show restraint.
But a security source and local media said the violence was triggered after comments hostile to the Muslim Brotherhood were posted on Facebook.
There have been several reports of lynchings in Egypt in recent months.
In March, villagers in Sharqiya province beat up a man and then lynched him, accusing him of car theft days after residents of another town strung up two men accused of kidnapping a girl.
Crime rates have increased across Egypt since the uprising and a police officer reported in March that at least 17 lynchings had taken place in Sharqiya since 2011.
http://www.france24.com/en/20130504-egy … ist-leader
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Sun May 05, 2013 2:39 am
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Religion • Mormon Church to accept gay Boy Scouts
Mormon Church to accept gay Boy Scouts
In a major step regarding openness in the Boy Scouts of America, Mormon Church officials have approved the scout organization’s acceptance of gay scouts. Still, the new ruling remains controversial because it bans gay scout leaders.
By Mark Trumbull, Staff writer / April 27, 2013
The proposed policy by the Boy Scouts, announced recently, is to welcome youths into the organization, regardless of sexual orientation, but to maintain a ban on gay adults serving in the organization. The proposal must be approved by the Scouts’National Council at a meeting in Texas the week of May 20.
It’s an effort to quell rising controversy, but it comes with its own ability to stir passionate arguments.
On the one hand, an important ally of the Boy Scouts, the Mormon church, has given an important welcome to the move. Important because of the reiligion’s large involvement in Scouts, along with other churches.
On the other hand, many groups and individual Americans are voicing criticism of the Scouts’ proposal as not going far enough. If a young man earns his way to be an Eagle Scout, they ask, is it fair to bar him from becoming a troop leader later in life, based on sexual orientation?
The Boy Scouts of America is walking a line more difficult than many a woodland ropes course: Any position it takes will come in for significant criticism.
Among Boy Scouts members in the heavily Mormon Great Salt Lake Council, some 4 in 5 Scout leaders and parents said they’re opposed to lifting the ban on gays, the Associated Press reported. Nearly half of some 4,700 respondents to the survey said they would quit the Scouts if the ban on gays is lifted.
But the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said Thursday that “while the Church has not launched any campaign either to effect or prevent a policy change, we have followed the discussion and are satisfied that BSA has made a thoughtful, good-faith effort to address issues that, as they have said, remain ‘among the most complex and challenging issues facing the BSA and society today.’
The statement is significant, because of the strong role that Mormon churches and families nationwide play in sponsoring scout groups. The church sponsors 25 percent of all local Cub Scout and Boy Scout groups, and accounts for 15 percent of the Boys Scouts’ total membership of 2.7 million, according to a Saturday news report in the New York Times.
The Boy Scouts of America, defending its proposed policy, said in a recent statement that “while perspectives and opinions vary significantly, parents, adults in the Scouting community, and teens alike tend to agree that youth should not be denied the benefits of Scouting.”
At the same time, many people involved in scouting nationwide are reluctant to change the current policy on adults in the group. The group’s current policy is that “While the BSA does not proactively inquire about sexual orientation of employees, volunteers, or members, we do not grant membership to individuals who are open or avowed homosexuals or who engage in behavior that would become a distraction to the mission of the BSA.”
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2013/0427/ … ryNineItem
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Sat Apr 27, 2013 6:22 pm
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Religion • Christianity is losing ground in America.
Christianity is losing ground in America.
Onward, Christian Ninjas!?
- Erik Rush
Friday, April 12, 2013
“…I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. So be as cunning as serpents and as innocent as doves.”—Matthew 10:16
I wouldn’t waste much time arguing the equality of all humankind in the eyes of God with a white guy whom I’d heard declare “I hate niggers,” or with a member of the New Black Panther Party, who harbor similar sentiments against whites. Similarly, you won’t see me trying to convert those who demonstrate themselves to be part of the rising tide of Christophobes and anti-theists in our society – and I do hear from quite a few of those.
It isn’t much of a mystery why we have a rapidly-increasing number of people who hold antipathy for religion, Christianity in particular; it was part of the design of the political left to de-emphasize God and elevate the state. Playing to the natural self-seeking, baser will of human beings, they accomplished this rather successfully, particularly among certain demographics. Consequently, many younger people in the West eschew religion (at least in the traditional sense).
As we have also observed, factions within the Church have been corrupted by aspects of Social Justice, consequently, they perceive other church bodies as being their enemies. In addition to this, misplaced feelings of sympathy and solidarity have been cultivated among Americans for Islamists, which serves to further alienate people from Christianity, and of course, Judaism.
A highly insightful column by Craig Groeschel addresses some of the reasons that Christianity is losing ground in America. In general, these have to do with churches and Christians in general failing to adapt to more mundane but significant changes in our culture, of being timid, pretentious, or lukewarm in their faith.
While I find agreement with much of what Groeschel says, like much of what is typically communicated about the church by Christian scholars, it’s preaching to the choir. I’m not much into apologetics (or even the connotation of the term), but it occurs to me that a lot of Christians don’t have the slightest idea of how to reconcile the attacks of militant unbelievers within their own minds.
For example, our detractors simply adore pointing out how personally flawed we are. To me, this is a no-brainer: Of course we’re flawed – why do you think we follow Christ, you idiot? That’s probably not the most loving response in the world, but such an attack evidences a fundamental ignorance of Christianity to start with. The logic of the response is singularly accurate and should be disarming in practice, were it practiced.
Then there’s the charge that’s beyond pity in its decrepitude: all of the evil that’s been done by Christians over the centuries, some of it in the very name of Christ. Again, a no-brainer: Didn’t I just acknowledge that we were flawed? Were you not listening? Of course we’re going to pervert the message sometimes… And while I would never attempt to justify atrocities committed by Christians, I never hesitate to cite the alternative philosophies invariably espoused by these people – like the number of people enslaved and murdered by socialists and communists in the last century alone far outstripping those enslaved and murdered by Christians throughout the history of Christianity. I am also quick to point out that the New Testament doesn’t actually instruct us to behead nonbelievers or sexually mutilate pubescent girls.
In his column, Groeschel (who is the pastor of a very large church) discusses the concept of Christianity encompassing a personal relationship with Jesus Christ rather than being a religion. I realize that to the initiated, and certainly to a pastor, this is a given – but to the nonbeliever or agnostic, it is just more church-speak. Such statements typically say nothing about the nature of such a relationship, how it might be achieved, or what that means to the believer, other than it renders them able to regurgitate church-speak.
Christians whom I respect, and the more spiritual people I know very seldom wear it on their sleeve. When I meet a Christian and he shoots his hand toward me with the words “And how are yew today, brother?” I get the distinct feeling I am in danger of being raped. I know I’m not alone in this, because many so-called Christians have used their ostensible faith in order to take advantage of others. On this subject alone, volumes could be written.
But sincere Christians can’t do much about the insincere ones, and we can’t do much to sway the detractors. I tend to avoid the militant variety; when I can’t, I’m not overly concerned with appearing the hypocrite by eviscerating them (in the figurative sense, of course). “Playing nice” never works with bullies, which is why diplomacy is garbage.
Though it doesn’t make much of a difference in the practical sense, I would admonish fellow Christians, whatever their religious interpretation is, to realize that our more hostile detractors are, in effect, spiritually sick. It is easy to see that despite its imperfections, our society was far less dysfunctional 60 years ago than it is now. As secularism took hold, society became progressively (no pun intended) more dysfunctional in the aggregate, manifesting in more and more dysfunctional individuals. The charges of militant anti-Christians which exude astonishing levels of hatred and vitriol (and which frequently describe bizarre methods of torture) ought to be ample confirmation of this fact.
Predominantly Christian nations like the United States did not rise and endure as a result of their submissiveness. America’s founders certainly weren’t wimps. The stereotype of the pathologically passive Christian, in my opinion, takes the Gospel out of context and is perpetuated in order to render Christians confused and vulnerable. In the times that are coming, it is more than likely that Christians in America will be called upon to act with extreme prejudice against some of their opponents – that is, if they intend to remain counted among the living.
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/54434
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Fri Apr 12, 2013 9:35 am
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Religion • The Dhimmitude of American Jewry
The Dhimmitude of American Jewry
Andrew G. Bostom
October 20, 2002, Bat Ye’or (Gisele Littman), the great historian of dhimmitude — the humiliating, liberty-crushing, non-citizen pariah status "afforded" non-Muslims who survived the violent jihad conquests of their indigenous homelands by Muslim invaders — spoke to a group of (predominantly, as it turned out) Muslim, and Jewish students at Georgetown University about the living historical legacy of jihad war, and its corollary, uniquely Islamic institution, dhimmitude. Bat Ye’or was accompanied that day by her late husband, David Littman (d. May, 2012), another gifted and courageous historian, who addressed the modern human rights depredations Islamic law (Sharia) wrought based upon his vast experience as an advocate making regular presentations at the United Nations Human Rights Council.
Then National Review writer and columnist Rod Dreher, who attended the 10/20/02 seminar, wrote a series of blogs (here, here, here) and an essay describing what occurred.
A coalition of Jewish and Christian student groups at Georgetown invited the historian and her husband, historian David Littman, to deliver a lecture…on the stated topic of "Ideology of Jihad, Dhimmitude and Human Rights" — which was the title of the speech, according to flyers the event organizers produced….
[David] Littman says he decided to present a version of a talk he had given at the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, and provided a copy to the organizers. For her part, Bat Ye’or says it is impossible for her to believe that she would have been invited to speak by students who were unfamiliar with her work.
Of her lecture, Bat Ye’or says, "I explained the roots of jihad according to Muslim theologians and jurists, its aim, strategy, tactics and rules. This was followed by a short description of the jihad war of conquest on three continents over a millennium: from Portugal to India, from Budapest to Sudan, as those war operations, victories and conquests were described in Muslim and Christian chronicles. Dhimmitude is the direct consequence of jihad. It embodied all the Islamic laws and customs applied over a millennium on the vanquished population, Jews and Christians, living in the countries conquered by jihad and therefore Islamized. Then I spoke of the return of the jihad ideology since the 1960s, and of some dhimmitude practices in Muslim countries applying the sharia [Islamic] law, or inspired by it. I stressed the incompatibility between the concept of tolerance as expressed by the jihad-dhimmitude ideology, and the concept of human rights based on the equality of all human beings and the inalienability of their rights."
The Littmans found the rude reaction of the Muslims student audience unacceptable, but worse still the craven, dhimmi-like behavior of the Jewish students who had invited them to speak.
Bat Ye’or was stunned to see how far the self-dhimmitization of Americans has already progressed, at least on elite American college campuses…[S]he said about three-quarters of the students who turned up to hear her speech were Muslims, and they responded abusively. All they could say was that she was defaming Islam; they couldn’t argue the facts with her. But that didn’t surprise her. Said her husband, David Littman, who was there to speak on human rights under Islam, "The amazing thing is the local Jewish group [at the university] had become dhimmis. Their leader was absolutely panicked when he saw the shouting of the Muslims. He told me he’d rather I not speak. I refused."
David Littman confided to me shortly after these events that in exasperation he stated plainly, in private, to one of the Georgetown Jewish students who had tacitly accepted the dhimmi mindset, "If you continue to behave this way, you’ll perish!"
Fast forward to the evening of April 10, 2013, some 11.5 years after the "Georgetown affair," when it was announced that The Great Neck Synagogue in Nassau County, NY, cancelled a talk scheduled for Sunday, April 14, 2013, by writer-activist Pamela Geller, entitled, "The Imposition of Sharia in America." The fearful cancellation announcement by the synagogue — a consequence of relentless, defamatory pressure, and frank intimidation by the same alliance of dhimmi Jews and mainstream Sharia-promoting Muslims evident at Georgetown in October, 2002 — is pathognomonic of the abject dhimmitude now pervasive across the American Jewish community, which extends well beyond university campuses:
"As the notoriety and media exposure of the planned program this Sunday have increased, so has the legal liability and potential security exposure of our institution and it’s [sic] member families. In an era of heightened security concerns it is irresponsible to jeopardize the safety of those who call Great Neck Synagogue home, especially our children, even at the risk of diverting attention from a potentially important voice in the ongoing debate. Accordingly, the Great Neck Synagogue Men’s Club will no longer be sponsoring the appearance of Pamela Geller this coming Sunday, and no event will be taking place in our facility." Executive Board Great Neck Synagogue
Over 850 years ago, elaborating on the depth of Muslim hatred for the Jews in his era, Maimonides (in ~ 1172 C.E.) made this profound observation regarding the Jewish predilection for denial, a feature that he insists will hasten their destruction.
We have acquiesced, both old and young, to inure ourselves to humiliation…All this notwithstanding, we do not escape this continued maltreatment [by Muslims] which well nigh crushes us. No matter how much we suffer and elect to remain at peace with them, they stir up strife and sedition.
The Jews and their communal leaders like Maimonides living under Islamic rule in the Middle Ages — vanquished by jihad, isolated, and well-nigh defenseless under the repressive system of dhimmitude — can be excused for their submissive denial. There is no such excuse in our era given the existence of an autonomous Jewish State of Israel, and a thriving Western Jewish diaspora, particularly here in the United States, living under the blanket of hard won protections for their religious freedom, physical security, and dignity.
Instead of kowtowing to Islamic supremacism, Jews and their leadership — religious, political, and intellectual — must demand from their Muslim counterparts acknowledgment and wrenching reform of the sacralized jihadism, dhimmitude, and Islamic Jew hatred which is still being taught and promoted in Islamic schools, religious institutions, and even on US university campuses. Speaking as a Jew, let us demonstrate as Jews that we are no longer content living with Maimonides’ 12th century expectations of Muslims, otherwise they will oblige us.
Pamela Geller was slated to be introduced at the Sunday, March 14th talk by Greg Buckley, whose 20 year old son, Lance Cpl. Greg Buckley, Jr., was one of three U.S. Marines murdered in a so-called "Green on Blue" Afghan Muslim jihadist insider attack on a military base in Helmand province, Afghanistan, on Aug 10, 2012.
An alternative synagogue venue for both Ms. Geller and Greg Buckley must be arranged immediately.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/201 … jewry.html
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Thu Apr 11, 2013 10:20 am
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Religion • Jeremiah Wright’s daughter charged with money laundering
Daughter of Obama’s former pastor charged with fraud
By Mary Wisniewski
CHICAGO | Wed Apr 10, 2013 10:36pm EDT
(Reuters) – The daughter of President Barack Obama’s controversial former pastor was indicted on Wednesday on charges of money laundering and lying to federal authorities, a Justice Department spokeswoman said.
Jeri L. Wright, 47, the daughter of Jeremiah Wright, was accused of participating in a fraud scheme led by a former suburban police chief and the chief’s husband that involved a $1.25 million state grant, according to the Attorney’s office for the Central District of Illinois in Springfield.
Wright, of the Chicago suburb of Hazel Crest, was charged with two counts of money laundering, two counts of making false statements to federal officers, and seven counts of giving false testimony to a grand jury.
The state grant was for a not-for-profit work and education program called We Are Our Brother’s Keeper, owned by Regina Evans, former police chief of Country Club Hills, and her husband, Ronald W. Evans, Jr.
According to the indictment, Wright, a close friend of the couple, received three checks in 2009 worth about $28,000 that were supposed to be for work related to the grant. About $20,000 of that was allegedly deposited back into accounts controlled by the Evanses.
Jeremiah Wright was the Chicago pastor whose inflammatory church sermons, which often condemned U.S. attitudes on race, poverty, the Iraq War and other issues, became a focus during the 2008 presidential campaign.
Obama quieted the controversy with a speech putting the quotes in the context of race relations.
The money laundering count Jeri Wright faces carries a maximum penalty of up to 20 years in prison, while the other charges carry penalties of up to five years in prison.
Jeri Wright could not be reached for comment. Prosecutor’s office spokeswoman Sharon Paul did not know if she had yet retained a lawyer.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/ … 2420130411
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Thu Apr 11, 2013 12:25 am
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Religion • Lawsuit Launched Against Former Lethbridge Pastor
Half-billion dollar lawsuit launched by investors
Former Lethbridge pastor faces legal action
BY JASON VAN RASSEL, CALGARY HERALD APRIL 4, 2013
“Most of these people are in the nature of mom-and-pop retail investors,” lawyer Blair Yorke-Slader of Bennett Jones LLP in Calgary said in an interview.
Investors have launched a class-action lawsuit seeking to recover $500 million they put into a series of beleaguered real estate companies and related ventures promoted by a former Lethbridge pastor.
A statement of claim filed in Court of Queen’s Bench on Wednesday alleges hundreds of people invested their savings in a scheme that improperly siphoned millions of dollars to Ronald James Aitkens and seven other people named in the suit.
“Most of these people are in the nature of mom-and-pop retail investors,” lawyer Blair Yorke-Slader of Bennett Jones LLP in Calgary said in an interview.
The suit alleges Aitkens created a series of entities called the Harvest Group of Companies, which raised $500 million for 16 ventures in real estate development, resource development and financial investment since 2001.
However, the suit claims none of the projects were viable; it alleges they were bait used to solicit money from investors that wound up in the pockets of Aitken and other Harvest Group principals.
“Each (project) was merely a shell, sham or captive company formed and/or incorporated with the purpose of obscuring this common purpose and organization,” reads the statement of claim.
“Although ostensibly in the business of providing legitimate real estate investments and developments, the Harvest Group of Companies was really in the business of improperly enriching the personal defendants.”
Aitken’s lawyer couldn’t be reached for comment on the lawsuit’s claims, which haven’t been proven in court.
The statement of claim names 11 plaintiffs who have stepped forward on behalf of hundreds of investors allegedly victimized by the defendants.
The precise number of investors eligible to join the suit isn’t yet known.
The suit said Harvest raised its money with a network of agents who sold shares and bonds in its ventures, often through word-of-mouth and free seminars.
The agents themselves were misled into providing false information to investors by the defendants, the suit alleges.
Although the plaintiffs don’t claim to know the exact role each of the seven defendants allegedly played, the suit describes Aitkens as the “directing or controlling mind” of the companies involved.
“Aitkens personally moved the scheme forward, made misrepresentations as described above to the investors and received benefit from investors’ funds. Aitkens was the ‘face’ of the Harvest Group of Companies and of the investment scheme,” the statement of claim said.
The suit claims the defendants enriched themselves mainly through “nonsensical management fees” and by transferring investors’ money out of the projects and into separate, but related, companies they also controlled.
In the case of a proposed industrial park in the town of Millet, south of Edmonton, the defendants raised $35 million from investors.
The suit alleges $22.7 million was used to buy the land “at an inflated and improvident value” from another Harvest Group company.
The defendants “improperly paid themselves” $9.1 million in management fees and made $2 million in payments to “affiliated entities and unknown parties,” according to the statement of claim.
Yet despite raising $35 million in capital, “few if any development activities have taken place with respect to the Railside Industrial Park project,” the claim said.
Some of the other projects Harvest raised money for include an office complex in downtown Calgary, as well as residential developments in southwest Calgary, Airdrie and Rocky View County.
The suit alleges not only have the projects never been built, investors’ bonds were never redeemed either.
Investors also put money into a Harvest Group company, Foundation Mortgage, that claimed to offer financing to other real estate development companies.
The suit alleges the money was used instead to make improper loans to other Harvest Group ventures.
“By either fraudulent design or extraordinary incompetence, the defendants, or certain of them, thereby ensured that bondholders would never be repaid,” the claim says.
Initially, some Foundation bondholders did receive a return on their investment — but the suit claims they were paid with money improperly taken from elsewhere.
“In truth, (Foundation) paid investors with money from other investors, sometimes even from other projects, in a Ponzi-like fashion,” the suit says.
The suit must be certified by a judge before it can proceed.
In addition to $500 million restitution, the suit also seeks unspecified damages for breach of contract, misrepresentation, breach of trust, breach of fiduciary duty, unjust enrichment and other alleged torts.
The suit also seeks a freeze on the defendants’ assets, as well as the appointment of a receiver or supervisor to oversee the sale of the real estate held by the Harvest companies with any proceeds going to the plaintiffs.
The case is scheduled to be heard in Calgary.
http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/alber … story.html
Statistics: Posted by yoda — Fri Apr 05, 2013 10:14 am
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Art, Religion, and Taxpayer Funding
David Boaz
In Germany enrolled members of a church must pay a tax for the support of the church. I’m sure a lot of American churches would like to have such a revenue source. How’s it working out in Germany? Well, Marketplace radio reports:
Christians – Protestants and Catholics combined – are leaving their churches at a rate of about 300,000 people a year.
No doubt tax avoidance isn’t the only reason for that. But really, if you simply become less interested in religion, why bother to formally renounce your membership? The tax saving is an obvious reason. Marketplace’s John Laurenson talks to one ex-church member:
Stefan, though, no longer pays the church tax that used to gobble up four percent of his salary.
Was it really the money, I ask. Or was it loss of faith? No, he says, it was the money.
Back in April 2000 I attended a lecture at the Smithsonian Institution by Richard Dawkins. Afterward I wrote this to him:
I was struck by your answer to one question. A member of the audience asked why the United States has a stronger movement for religious fundamentalism than other countries even though it has separation of church and state. You replied that you didn’t know; it might be just a coincidence. I was surprised that you didn’t offer what I think is the clear “Darwinian” answer: competition makes individuals and enterprises stronger, while subsidies and protection make them weaker. As I wrote in Libertarianism: A Primer, “businesses coddled behind subsidies and tariffs will be weak and uncompetitive, and so will churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples. Religions that are protected from political interference but are otherwise on their own are likely to be stronger and more vigorous than a church that draws its support from government.”
And indeed scholars of religion often comment that American churches tend to be more vibrant and more robust than European churches, with far more Americans actually in church on Sunday morning than Europeans. Perhaps a guaranteed source of income isn’t all that helpful in the long run.
I was particularly amused by this comment in the Marketplace report, from a businessman who
travels quite a bit in the U.S. and doesn’t much like what he’s seen of the way they fund churches there.
In the States you see churches that sometimes “look a little like they have too much of a consumer orientation,” says Wendland. “Where they play rock music and do all sorts of crazy stuff. I have nothing against rock music but I would (prefer) a church that is doing the right thing for the community and for God but not do stuff to attract a sort of clientele.”
It strikes me that that’s just the argument made on behalf of tax funding for the arts. We have more arts in America than in any country in history. But much of it is labeled “entertainment” and disdained by those who “have nothing against rock music but would prefer arts organizations that are doing the right for the community” rather than having “too much of a consumer orientation.”
Which is why my argument that “Because art is just as spiritual, just as meaningful, just as powerful as religion, it is time to grant art the same independence and respect that religion has. It is time to establish the separation of art and state” seems entirely on point here.
View full post on Cato @ Liberty
Religion • Cypriot archbishop urges finance minister to quit
Cypriot archbishop urges finance minister to quit
The head of Cyprus’ influential Orthodox Church has dealt a hammer blow to the island’s economic leaders by becoming the first major figure to call for their resignations.
Archbishop Chrysostomas II offered the government the entire wealth of the Church in a bid to prevent a raid on Cypriot bank deposits. 7:33PM BST 31 Mar 2013
Archbishop Chrysostomos II, who had urged for eurozone exit over an onerous bail-out, declared on Sunday that finance minister Michalis Sarris and central bank governor Panicos Demetriades should step down after allowing the EU-IMF lenders to devastate the island’s banking sector in return for a €10bn (£8.4bn) loan.
The missive is the latest public criticism to come from the island’s religious leader since his failed bid to avert a raid on Cypriot savings by offering the church’s entire wealth to shore up the struggling economy.
His call emerged a day after the central bank unveiled much worse than feared measures on uninsured deposits – those over €100,000 – in the island’s largest lender, Bank of Cyprus.
In an arrangement which will see more than €100m wiped off the Cypriot Orthodox Church’s assets, up to 60pc could be slashed from uninsured savings in the Bank of Cyprus, while large depositors in the island’s other major lender Laiki Bank stand to lose 80pc of anything over €100,000 as it is broken up and wound down.
“If I was satisfied, I would not have called on them the other day to resign and leave, because they have the same views as the troika [of international lenders],” said the archbishop.
Meanwhile pressure is mounting on the British government which has yet to clinch a deal to protect savers in Laiki’s four UK branches, where uninsured deposits remain frozen in a so-called ‘bad bank’ as part of the lender’s wind-down.
Chancellor George Osborne vowed last week to try to protect Laiki’s UK branches, which are set to be subject to the same heavy losses as those in Cyprus, from being “sucked into the Cypriot resolution process”.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/fina … -quit.html
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