Firing Blanks in the “War On Christmas” part ii

And for an even bigger donation …

Our Story So Far … In yesterday’s thrilling installment, we learned that the Rightie Blogosmear™ — using their finely honed instincts and keenly developed sense of smell — went into full-on smear mode to attack the Oklahoma Attorney General for supposedly issuing a fatwah against any mention of Christmas at the gigantic learning institution, Southwest Oklahoma State University. But then, “Captain Ed” took an odd moment to “confirm” the attack after making it, and sheepishly retracted the story as false.

The “Hall of Fame” and Heritage Foundation fellow, er … ‘reporter,’ Mark Tapscott of the freebie Rightie Washington Examiner (who broke the story) claimed that it wasn’t his fault he was smearing the Oklahoma AG, because the Oklahoma AG had indicted poor innocent convicted felon Paul Jacob, The World’s Dumbest Felon™ for illegally attempting to amend the Oklahoma constitution, even though Jacob never has lived in Oklahoma, but, instead, it was “LIBERTY COUNSEL’s” fault for sending out a press release that he quoted verbatim without bothering to check whether anything in it was true.

The ‘Liberty Counsel’ press release is quoted verbatim below, as we attempt to “divine” Who is “Liberty Counsel”?

ii. Under God, with liberty and moolah for some

So, he’s the Dean of the Liberty University Law School. Probably hand-picked by the late Dr. Jerry Falwell. Why, look: it’s a LIBERTY COUNSEL ALERT!

November 3, 2005
Dr. Jerry Falwell Urges Thousands of Churches to Join Liberty Counsel’s “Friend or Foe Christmas Campaign”

Orlando, FL – Dr. Jerry Falwell announced today that he is urging thousands of pastors and churches to join Liberty Counsel’s “Friend or Foe Christmas Campaign.” For the past 50 years, Dr. Falwell has been the pastor of the 24,000 member Thomas Road Baptist Church. He is also Chancellor of Liberty University, the largest evangelical university in the world. [...]

But wait! There’s MORE …

Mathew D. Staver, President and General Counsel of Liberty Counsel, commented: “I am thrilled to see so many pastors and churches promoting the Christmas Campaign. For too many years we have remained silent while the ACLU and others like them have played the role of the Grinch. We will no longer remain silent. We have no intention of letting misinformation chase our religious liberty or our religious heritage from the public marketplace. It’s time to set the record straight – Christmas is constitutional.” [...]

But wait, there’s STILL more …

Eternal Vigilance — Knowing and Protecting Your Religious Freedom

You cannot protect your religious freedom if you don’t know your rights. You can get the informative 572-page book, Eternal Vigilance, for a donation of only $24.99 plus shipping and handling. To order, call 800-671-1776 or go to our online store.

Do you begin to notice something about the “alert”?

The tag, the culmination, no matter how noble or ig- the sentiment, was the money pitch. It’s a commercial. Profit in a non-profit is still a profit. When was the last time that you donated $24.99 (plus shipping and handling — why won’t they tell you what it REALLY costs?) to anything? Donations are typically $25 or $30. Commercial Sales are typically $24.99 (plus shipping and handling). Perhaps Liberty University, the largest evangelical university in the world, got that way by having the best ‘non-profit’ marketing in the world. $24.99 (plus shipping and handling) does not exactly bespeak spirituality.

Nor some of its famous alumni. But we are concerned with the “charitable” “Liberty Counsel” organization. A United States Federal Tax Code 501(c)3 charity, contributions to which are completely tax-deductible to the full extent of the law.

But, alas, Jerry Falwell died, and now “Liberty Counsel” is on its own.

Falwell’s Life Insurance Pays off Liberty’s Debts
August 20, 2007

The Lynchburg News & Advance explains: “Liberty University recently announced that it was able to pay off its debt through $29 million in life insurance policies taken out on the Rev. Jerry Falwell, who died May 15 at the age of 73. Falwell’s son, Jerry Falwell Jr., said Liberty solicited several insurance providers in 2003 in order to do just that. Coupled with existing plans, the school was able to come away with a single $21 million policy with a $1 million annual premium. Falwell left a total of $34 million to Liberty University and Thomas Road Baptist Church. His son said Falwell had purchased six to eight insurance policies through three or four insurance companies.”

Not to worry, though, Founder and Chairman Mathew D. Staver has a day job: He’s the dean of the Liberty University Law School.

As a matter of fact, he has an HONORARY Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) degree from Liberty University:

Mathew D. Staver
Dean
Director, Liberty Center for Law and Policy
Professor of Law
LL.D., Liberty University, honoris causa
J.D., University of Kentucky
M.A., first in class, Religion, Andrews University
B.A., cum laude, Theology, Southern Missionary College

Here was the “Press Release” that started the all the Rightie dominoes a-falling, the “smoking candy cane” as it were, that caused Assmonkey McDouchebag to end up with “eggnog on his face”:

Liberty Alert

December 20, 2007
Southwestern Oklahoma State University Bans The Word “Christmas”
www.LC.org

Southwestern Oklahoma State University in Weatherford has issued a disturbing directive forbidding employees to use the word “Christmas.” This directive was given by the University upon legal advice of the Oklahoma Attorney General, W.A. Drew Edmondson. Liberty Counsel sent a demand letter to the University following a complaint from a University affiliate.

The controversy began when the University’s Director of Human Resources recently visited various departments and said that decorations featuring the word “Christ” or Christmas” in any areas of the University must be immediately removed.

He also instructed the employees not so use the word “Christmas” in emails. Read our News Release for more details.

The University web site says “Happy Holidays” although it is adorned with red and green and decorated Christmas trees.

We need your help today!

Tell the University’s president to help save Christmas from the censors! He needs to hear from thousands of Americans who can point out the absurdity of banning the word “Christmas.” After all, Christmas is a state and federal legal holiday!

Contact information for University President John M. Hays: Telephone (580) 774-3766, Fax (580) 774-7101, email president@swosu.edu

Please be kind and respectful when you call or email.

We want to continue to keep you informed about current events and issues involving religious freedom, the sanctity of human life and the traditional family. We need your help in meeting our end-of-year goal of raising an additional $300,000 in December above our regular budget. You can be a part of meeting this challenge by donating online at www.LC.org or calling 1-800-671-1776.

Give a tax-deductible end-of-year online donation to Liberty Counsel.

Praise God for the friends of Liberty Counsel who sponsored this Liberty Alert during 2007:

TMA Inc. International – Valdosta, GA
TMA is a team of Christ-centered design professionals
committed to excellence in architecture, planning and service from
concept through occupancy for JESUS’ sake. Hebrews 11:1
For a free CD about TMA, call 1-800-932-6124 or Email:info@tmaincintl.com

Since only a cad would suggest that in return for designing the “press release” webpage, the Design Company gets a free “ad” at the bottom of the page, we’ll move on. If we were dealing with a profit-making concern, this would be understandable, but this is a religious “charity.”

And, Liberty Counsel declared their war on the War On Christmas in October:

October 30, 2007
Liberty Counsel Launches Fifth Annual Friend or Foe Christmas Campaign
www.LC.org
Liberty Counsel is launching our fifth annual Friend or Foe Christmas Campaign in anticipation of another active season defending attacks on Christmas celebrations. [Note: and, evidently, if there are none, you drum up a phony press release claiming that there are -- HW]

Liberty Counsel pledges to be a “Friend” to those entities which do not censor Christmas and a “Foe” to those that do. ABC’s Good Morning America observed that Liberty Counsel’s Friend or Foe Christmas Campaign in past years had ignited a “movement.”

Last year Liberty Counsel successfully handled scores of situation in defense of Christmas.

On our web site, www.LC.org, we offer a Help Save Christmas™ action pack, which includes educational legal memoranda to educate government officials, teachers, parents, students, private businesses, employees and others that it is legal to celebrate Christmas.The action pack also includes an “I [heart] CHRISTmas™” button, an “I Helped Save Christmas” bumper sticker and button, and sample ads for use in local newspapers to promote Christmas….

Liberty Counsel, Inc.’s tax returns are avilable for public inspection and the past three paint an interesting portrait of this “Christian” charity. [I've put up the 2005 return .pdf HERE]

The Liberty Counsel’s President, according to the 2005 tax return (the latest year available), is Anita L. Staver. As such, she was compensated $80,721. According to Statement 8 (page 20), she worked an AVERAGE of 55 hours per week, so clearly she wasn’t overpaid for her efforts. That would be 750 hours of overtime above a 40-hour work week 50 months a year. As an attorney, that would work out to 2750 hours of work, or $29.35 an hour, which is slave wages for an attorney.

Her husband, founder and Chairman, Mathew D. Staver worked (sworn under penalty of perjury) 65 hours a week on average and was paid $107,628. Or $33.12 an hour (3250 hours of work).

What’s truly amazing is that he ALSO had time to act as dean of the Law School and teach. One wonders where he found the time to sleep! Especially when the 990 tax return for 2005 notes in STATEMENT 1 (on page 16):

The Chairman of the Organization [Mathew Staver] is on the Board of Trustees of Liberty University, and serves as Vice President of Law and Policy for the University and Interim Dean of Liberty University School of Law.

It does not note when he finds the time, in between his 65 hours a week as Chairman of Liberty Counsel, Inc. of Orlando, Florida.

It seems to be very important to the Stavers, who received $188,349 from Liberty Counsel, Inc. in 2005, to explain that they’re not overpaid in receiving 13.7% of the total raised ($1,375,867) although the “charity” spent more than it raised in 2005, — $1,523,960 for a deficit of $148,093. (Maybe it was their salaries?)

The last page of the tax return is a statement that reads as follows:

Neither Mathew nor Anita Staver received pay increases during this fiscal year. Compensation for Mathew and Anita Staver, who are both attorneys for Liberty Counsel, is independently set on an annual basis by the Board of Directors. Neither Mathew nor Anita Staver have ever participated in any vote on their salaries. 2005 was the first year since October 2000 that Mathew and Anita Staver accepted any salary increase. [What??! They just said they didn't!!?!] The increases were instituted after the Board evaluated comparative data regarding compensation for similar positions, including a review of salary information from the IRS form 990 of other nonprofit legal organizations for the years of 2002 and 2003. The Board found a salary range [...] Notably, some non-profit legal organization leaders are paid by several separately incorporated entities, while others maintain separate for-profit legal practices for additional personal revenue. The Board has noted in its salary review process that Mathew and Anita Staver are major contributors to Liberty Counsel.

Why the tax return is so insistent on EXPLAINING what the Stavers were paid is a mystery that isn’t answered by the biblical injunction “The wicked flee when no man pursueth” (Proverbs 28:1).

How the Stavers managed to live in Virginia, while the charity is registered out of a Post Office box in Orlando, Florida is another one of those mysteries that we must also pass over.

No, what’s rather interesting is how the ‘charity’ makes its (non-) profits:

(Statement 10 page 22):

• Courts award fees for work performed by attorneys in litigation to defend First Amendment rights.
• Revenue from donations for religious t-shirts
• Revenue from donations for various religious items
• Revenue from donations for books and bookets that provide education regarding religious liberties.
• Honorarium revenue from speaking engagements on the topic of religious freedom

So, what do we really have?

A “charitable” group at Christmas, who spent a bit more than they took in on that 2005 tax return, touting their “War On Christmas” (remember, they DECLARED it in October, just like all those commercial ventures that have moved Christmas ads up from Thanksgiving to Halloween) as a … fundraiser? Some non-profit publicity keeps those $24.99 donations (plus shipping and handling) rolling in, after all. And don’t forget your Help Save Christmas™ action pack!

Isn’t there something distinctly UN-Christian about TRADEMARKING “Help Save Christmas™” and “I [heart] CHRIST mas™”? At a minimum, the only reason you’d do it would be to … make sure it was exclusively YOURS for making Jesus money.

Not exactly the Widow’s Mite™, is it? (Mark 12:41-44)

There’s more to this than just a fake “blogswarm alert” gone horribly wrong. We conclude today’s Christmas™ sermonette™ with a Bible™ verse™:

Matthew 7:20-24 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock … (KJV™ emphasis added)

iii. UNDER GOD, get it? UNDER God you damned heathens

The Monica Goodling story highlighted just how many Regent University and Liberty University “lawyers” had been infiltrated into the Department of Justice …

[go to PART III!]

Courage. And, oh yeah, Merry Christmas™.

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