Is aclj.org Safe?

Great show. Looks at current events through a Christian point of view. Oh, and to ababa, since when is it a crime to make a decent salary in America? Give me a break. I hate when people use people's salary to make successful people look like criminals just because they are successful.

WHAT A SCAM! When you pick up, the caller asks could you please listen to Joe ??(couldn't catch the last name) message about a group that is trying to get the courts to take "under God" out of the Pledge of Allegiance and other government-related documents and places. They ask you to hold on after the message to add your name to the petition to preserve our national heritage and the foundation upon which our country was built. I listened to the message and then a different person picked up and asked me could I help the American Center for Law and Justice with their cause by contributing $100 or $250. When I told them I don't do contributions to telemarketers but if they sent some literature on their organization so I could research their group first, the telemarketer just hung up without getting any additional information for their petition.

Legal Times reporter Tony Mauro has just written a fascinating and eye-opening piece about Jay Sekulow, TV preacher Pat Robertson’s top lawyer. Sekulow, an increasingly powerful ally of the Bush administration, has led the Religious Right’s charge to remake the U.S. Constitution in the far right’s image. Through his American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), Sekulow has worked assiduously to erode the wall of separation between church and state and bring religion and government closer together. The article reveals a side of Sekulow that has received much less attention: the personal financial empire he has built. As Mauro explains, Sekulow told Legal Times in June that his salary was $275,000 a year. But Mauro discovered that did not include compensation from another group Sekulow runs. Added together, the salary figure was far higher, and Sekulow later conceded his salary now exceeds $600,000 yearly. Sekulow was making so much money that he arranged to work for the ACLJ (which is a non-profit organization) as an independent contractor, so that his salary does not have to be publicly reported on financial disclosure forms. Sekulow has also spread the wealth among family members. As Legal Times reported, “At various times in recent years, Sekulow’s wife, brother, sister-in-law, and two sons have been on the boards or payrolls of organizations under his control or have received generous payments as contractors. Sekulow’s brother Gary is the chief financial officer of both nonprofit organizations that fund his activities, a fact that detractors say diminishes accountability for his spending.” The article goes on to note, “According to documents filed with the Internal Revenue Service, funds from his nonprofits have also been used to lease a private jet from companies under his family’s control.” Sekulow’s use of non-profits to enrich himself and his family does not sit well with some of his associates. One anonymous former employee told Legal Times, “Some of us truly believed God told us to serve Jay, but not to help him live like Louis XIV. We are coming forward because we need to believe there is fairness in this world.”