Residents of the C Street Christian fellowship house will no longer benefit from a loophole that had allowed the house’s owners to avoid paying property taxes. Previously, the house — despite being home to numerous lawmakers — had been tax exempt, because it was classified as a church. That arrangement had allowed the building’s owner, the secretive international Christian organization The Family, to charge significantly below market rents to its residents. In recent year, Senators John Ensign (R-NV), Tom Coburn (R-OK), Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Jim DeMint (R-SC), and Reps. Zach Wamp (R-TN), Bart Stupak (D-MI) and Mike Doyle (D-PA) have all reportedly called C Street home [add Chip Pickering (R-MS) and Mark Sanford (R-SC)].
Natalie Wilson, a spokeswoman for the Office of Tax and Revenue for Washington D.C., told TPMmuckraker that her office inspected the house this summer. "It was determined that portions of it were being rented out for private residential purposes," she said. As a result, the tax exempt status was partially revoked. Sixty-six percent of the value of the property is now subject to taxation. According to online records, the total taxable assessment is $1,834,500. The building’s owner last month paid taxes of $1714.70 on the property…
Dr. James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family and an influential voice for Christian conservatives, is about to depart from the organization he created and is starting a radio program that will give him greater leeway to hold forth on politics. Beginning in March, Dr. Dobson, 73, will co-host the radio show with his son, Ryan, 39, a tattooed surfer and skateboarder who wrote a book called “Be Intolerant” and who has honed an identity preaching to youths.
“Our nation is facing a crisis that threatens its very existence,” Dr. Dobson said on Dec. 29 in announcing his new venture on his Facebook page. “We are in a moral decline of shocking dimensions. I have asked myself how can I sit and watch the world go by without trying to help if I can. That is what motivates me at this time.” Dr. Dobson, a psychologist, founded Focus on the Family 33 years ago to offer advice on parenting, but he has increasingly used his substantial following among evangelicals to influence policy debates and elections. He is wooed by Republican candidates, and he conducted a sympathetic interview with Sarah Palin, then a vice-presidential candidate, after she stumbled badly in national television interviews…
The real reason for Dr. Dobson’s new venture may have been his son. A Focus board member who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that because Ryan Dobson has been divorced, it would be against the board’s policy for him to serve as the voice for Focus, which counsels people on marriage and child-rearing…
Pat Robertson, the evangelical Christian who once suggested God was punishing Americans with Hurricane Katrina, says a "pact to the devil" brought on the devastating earthquake in Haiti. Officials fear more than 100,000 people have died as a result of Tuesday’s 7.0-magnitude earthquake in Haiti. Robertson, the host of the "700 Club," blamed the tragedy on something that "happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it."
The Haitians "were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III and whatever," Robertson said on his broadcast Wednesday. "And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, ‘We will serve you if you will get us free from the French.’ True story. And so, the devil said, ‘OK, it’s a deal.’" Native Haitians defeated French colonists in 1804 and declared independence.
"You know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other." Robertson has previously linked natural disasters and terrorist attacks to legalized abortion in the United States. Soon after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast, killing more than 1,800 and wreaking unprecedented devastation on New Orleans, Louisiana, Robertson weighed in with his own theory.
"We have killed over 40 million unborn babies in America," Robertson said on his September 12, 2005, broadcast of "700 Club." "I was reading, yesterday, a book that was very interesting about what God has to say in the Old Testament about those who shed innocent blood. And he [the author] used the term that those who do this, ‘the land will vomit you out.’ … But have we found we are unable somehow to defend ourselves against some of the attacks that are coming against us, either by terrorists or now by natural disaster? Could they be connected in some way?"…
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