News Cut: January 30, 2008 Archive

Politicians and the pastors

Posted at 6:29 AM on January 30, 2008 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)

Who are televangelists responsible to? Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, has started an investigation into the televangelists, like Kenneth Copeland, who has, according to CBS News, told Grassley that his operation is only accountable to the IRS. Grassley's investigation hinges on the suspicion that a half dozen televangelists are engaging in fraud by getting rich off the donations of the faithful.

A Christian organization that monitors the financial dealings of ministries, Ministry Watch, told the network that they're frustrated at the inability to get Copeland, or any of the other ministries being investigated by Grassley, to submit financials.

“Our position is though, that if there is nothing illegal going on, why not disclose it?” asks Warren Smith of Ministry Watch in an interview with CBS News. “If there is nothing to hide, why are you hiding it?”

Next to Grassley, some of the most dogged work in examining televangelists has been done by Minneapolis writer Charles Quimby, who authors the blog, Across the Great Divide. For months Quimby has been looking at Copeland's operation, and its links locally, including to megachurch pastor Mac Hammond.

Most of the investigated televangelists — and scores of imitators or active partners — make use of a holding company-like structure they call a "ministry." The ministry operates a variety of ventures that produce earned and contributed revenue streams. It may also serve as a master brand that endorses the individual operations, but the farther the businesses stray from the organization's churchly purpose, the more likely they are named and structured to blur the financial connection.

Quimby's work has made clear just how difficult it will be for Grassley's investigation to untangle the operations of Copeland and his subsidiaries.

A two-month investigation by CBS News appears to have reached a similar stage:

From across the main road it was easy to see parts of his sprawling religious empire – the low-lying Eagle Mountain International Church and shiny new ministry headquarters. To the right the framework of a $10 million “children’s building” is on the rise; far, far beyond, we are told, is the Copeland’s 18,000 square-foot lake-front parsonage where Copeland and wife Gloria often lay their head at night. To the left is the ministry’s private airport and planes; just beyond, cattle stand grazing. Somewhere beyond sight are the gas and oil wells.

And Copeland appears ready for a fight according to the Washington newspaper Roll Call (subscription required)

In a Jan. 22 closed-circuit broadcast of his 2008 Ministers’ Conference obtained by Roll Call, Copeland pledges a holy war against “Brother Grassley” and the Senate for attempting to get a look at the controversial ministry’s finances. Grassley wrote a Nov. 6 letter to Copeland and five other prominent ministers requesting a variety of financial information.

“You render unto the government what belongs to the government. And you render unto God what belongs to God,” Copeland loudly intones to approving murmurs from the crowd of 1,000 ministers and their guests.

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Ken Dahlberg's story

Posted at 1:17 PM on January 30, 2008 by Bob Collins (7 Comments)

Isn't life the darnedest thing? You're a poor kid in Minnesota who moved at a young age to Wisconsin (Listen) and grew up on the family farm, with the two-hole outhouse and the Sears catalog for toilet paper. You get drafted and sent to war, become a fighter pilot and a triple ace, are shot down three times, spending the final months of the war in a prison camp. You come back to Minnesota, start a company that makes hearing aids, and you make a fortune. You accept golf bags full of money as the Midwest finance director for President Nixon, and provide the smoking gun for one of the biggest political scandals in the nation's history when a campaign contribution check with your signature on it turns up in the hands of a Watergate burglar. You stonewall FBI efforts to get you to say where the money came from, and go on to become a venture capitalist, making another fortune as the money behind the Buffalo Wild Wings franchise.

How does that life story not end up as a movie? It has ended up as a book and today, about 100 friends of Ken Dahlberg gathered at an airplane hangar in Eden Prairie to buy a copy, the proceeds of which Dahlberg is giving to the Minnesotans' Military Appreciation Fund.

Dahlberg retains his conservative roots, noting why there are fewer rags-to-riches stories anymore. "Democracy seems to have an Achilles' heel," he said. "In order to get elected you have to promise people more for producing less. And if you think you can have more for producing less, then my discussion is over. We learned on the farm the process of producing. You had to till the ground, you had to plant the seed, you had to cultivate, and you had to harvest. You had to go through a process in order to have a better life. In the political world, no matter which party you belong to, if you promised more to get elected, we knew it wasn't so." (Listen)

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Eau de ethanol

Posted at 2:51 PM on January 30, 2008 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

Two stories about water jumped out of the news this week, one possibly as a solution to the other if anyone makes the connection.

On Monday, Tom Meersman at the Star Tribune reported that the wave of ethanol plants in Minnesota may suck up groundwater at an alarming rate.

The issue was brought into focus last year in Granite Falls, where an ethanol plant in its first year of operations depleted the groundwater so much that it had to begin pumping water from the Minnesota River.

It takes between four and five gallons of water to produce a gallon of ethanol at a biofuel plant, and with 17 ethanol plants now operating in the state, six under construction and 10 more proposed or in the planning stages, the threat of more drains on underground water are rising.

That story came just a few days after this one from Slate Magazine: The dedication of The Groundwater Replenishment System in Orange County, Calif., which takes toilet water, cleans it up, and pipes it to lakes, where it seeps through the ground, only to end up coming out of the tap again.

It's a smart idea, one of the most reliable and affordable hedges against water shortages, and it's not new. For decades, cities throughout the United States have used recycled wastewater for nonpotable needs, like agriculture and landscaping; because the technology already exists, the move to potable uses seems a no-brainer. But the Orange County project is the exception. Studies show that the public hasn't yet warmed to the notion of indirect potable reuse (IPR)—or "toilet-to-tap," as its opponents would have it.

You folks with septic systems may recognize the process, described in even greater detail last November by the New York Times.

The article says a similar plan for Los Angeles was shut down because people said they didn't want to drink toilet water.

(Photo by Ian Waldie/Getty Images)

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Cloutless in Minnesota

Posted at 3:54 PM on January 30, 2008 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)

Last year, when Minnesota's political parties were considering moving their caucuses (which most Minnesotans never bothered attending) to Super Tuesday, one of the goals was to make Minnesota matter more, to be a player, to get some notice.

"It'll give us a chance to be in the ballgame instead of sitting in the stands," said GOP spokesman Mark Drake. "We were in danger of being left behind again, so this certainly gives us a chance to play a much bigger role."

"It'll boost our importance," said DFL boss Brian Melendez.

So, how's that worked out? Not so well.

Here's the presidential field back around the time the move was being considered.

And here's the field today...

In 2004, 7 Democrats were involved in the Minnesota Democratic caucus; this year there'll be 3. Of course, in '04 there was only one Republican on the ballot. We had more visits early on from presidential contenders than this year. And, yes, I'm including Tuesday night's John Edwards rally in St. Paul, which he held despite already deciding to drop out of the race.

Says DFL analyst Blois Olson:

"The front-end-loaded system has also meant that it took a lot more money to be competitive. The idea that two candidates have already raised over $100 million on the Democratic side, and few candidates on either side is still eligible for public financing. People simply ran out of money, and the long campaign cycle meant they ran out of any mojo.

"Being relevant to many means getting candidate visits. We seem to be getting those. It may also mean that the outline of Minnesota is highlighted on all the stations next week. We should have moved to a Feb 5th primary, then...candidates would still be on the ballot and more than 2 percent of eligible voters would show up."

FYI, here's your caucus finder.

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