Last November, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) announced an investigation of six major evangelical ministries. Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, wanted to probe the finances of several churches to see if they were misusing donations to pay for their leaders’ opulent lifestyles. Even back then, the whole operation seemed a little sketchy, but now it’s really starting to stink.

Apparently, one of the lead investigators on Grassley’s staff (hired last May) is a man by the name of Paul Thacker. Why is the relevant? Well, Mr. Thacker seems to have both a liberal record and a grudge against Evangelicalism. A source familiar with the investigation tells me that Thacker is a “left wing pit bull” and was overheard at a cocktail party "bragging about how much he hates evangelicals and what a great job he has now.”

Mr. Thacker, an investigative reporter, does have a record of publicly criticizing the Bush Administration on environmental issues. He has also written for liberal publications such as The New Republic and contributed left-leaning articles to Environmental Science and Technology.  So, while I don’t want to leap to too many conclusions, I do think it is a little weird that this guy is being paid tens of thousands of dollars by a Republican Senator. Perhaps it has something to do with a shared distaste for certain denominations of Christianity?   

This type of zealous investigation being pushed by Sen. Grassley against … his own team so to speak … is just one reason why conservative leaders are now discussing his removal as ranking GOP member of the Senate Finance committee.

Update:  As I noted above, a reliable source confirms that Paul Thacker was overheard recently at a cocktail party bragging about his job and his dislike of Evangelicals.  It should also be noted that Sen. Grassley's office contacted me today to dispute the notion that Thacker was involved in this particular investigation.  

Here is their statement -- you decide who's right:

"... the tax-exempt oversight and investigations are handled at the staff level by Senator Grassley’s tax counsel Theresa Pattara.  Before her it was Dean Zerbe, another tax counsel.  Paul Thacker has never been involved in the investigations of the ministries or other tax-exempt organizations.

In addition, there is no basis for labeling Paul Thacker as “a left-winger.”  In fact, his current work for Senator Grassley is focused on the National Institutes of Health failing to safeguard $24 billion in federal research dollars it grants each year, which is pretty important work, as you can tell by the news over the weekend."

- Jill Kozeny, spokeswoman for Senator Grassley

Monetary donations- The Bank of Elk River is accepting monetary donations. Please make checks payable to "ER Fire Victims." You may also mail your donations to Hope Filled Hands, PO Box 150, Elk River, MN 55330. The Red Cross is also accepting donations.

Food donations - CAER is in high need for food donations. You may drop them off at 19279 Watson Street NW, Elk River. You may also drop off food donations at Alliance Church, between the hours of 1 p.m. and 8 p.m. The church is located at 829 School Street, Elk River.

According to a new Baylor University survey on religion, 55% of all adults say they’ve been “protected from harm by a guardian angel.”  

This number surprised the study’s authors, and  includes 66% of evangelical Protestants, 57% of Catholics, 49% of “other religions” and even 20% of those who say they have “no religion"!  Among American Jews, however, only 10% cited angelic protection. That’s  an odd finding considering that religious Jewish homes everywhere greet each Sabbath singing a beloved hymn welcoming “angels of peace” to guard the home on the holy day.  

At a time of communal self reflection with the approach of the Jewish New Year, it’s appropriate to wonder why so many Jews remain disconnected from our own tradition – and in the process also stand apart from the spirituality and reverence that continue to characterize the nation at large.

Of course I am not going to defend John McCain's affair, but it is not comparable to John Edwards's. First off, McCain's affair has been vetted and discussed for many years now. In the interim he's proved himself to be a reliable family man once again. When he discovered he was in love with another woman (Cindy) he rightfully asked his first wife for a divorce and they departed on, reportedly, amicable terms. It's not perfect, or ideal, but it's nothing like John Edwards who lied about cheating on his wife as a presidential candidate, made his staff lie for him, may have paid his mistress "hush money" and worst of all, could be denying his daughter of her rightful father.

McCain also doesn't make himself out to be the moral crusader Edwards proclaimed to be. I think that makes a difference, too. And, I agree with Hannity's point. McCain's affair began after he returned from war and it's a sad fact that war changes people. Once again, it doesn't excuse the affair, but it does make McCain's love life more complicated than John Edwards.

Those are the things I wanted to say if I was able to answer the question Colmes asked me. Many of the lefty bloggers writing about this have accused me of "dodging the question." Not true. I was just trying to be a good guest and wait for my turn to speak and avoid the clamor of people talking over each other. I think that's frustrated to watch.  I guess that's what I get for trying to be polite and courteous. Sigh.

Thanks for letting me get that off my chest. 

After Israel unified Jerusalem in the Six Day War of 1967, the government foolishly granted Islamic authorities—the Waqf—exclusive control of the Temple Mount . This means that when Jewish or Christian visitors want to connect with the holiest spot of Jewish history, where both Temples once stood, they must submit to the rules of radical Islam.

When my listener tour recently toured the Temple Mount , “minders” from the Waqf followed our every move, confiscating hymnals, Bibles, even notebooks, and warning visitors of potential arrest if they dared to pray or recite scriptural verses.

It’s possible to visit Christian cathedrals and offer prayers from other traditions, or enter Jewish synagogues and pray or meditate according to your conscience. Only Islamic authorities, even at a Jewish holy site, feel profoundly threatened even by quiet prayers they don’t control.

Appalled by frightening rates of teen pregnancy, abortion, and sexually transmitted diseases, in 1993 a Nashville-based ministry of the Southern Baptist Convention launched an ambitious new program called “True Love Waits.” Participating youngsters took a public pledge, and signed a card, making “a commitment to God, myself, my family, my friends, my future mate and my future children to a lifetime of purity including sexual abstinence from this day until the day I enter a biblical marriage relationship.” Within a year, more than a hundred thousand young people took the pledge, often in ecstatic and joyful public gatherings. A 2008 study by the RAND Corporation published in the Journal of Adolescent Health showed that those adolescents who joined the TLW program, or committed themselves to similar virginity pledges, “were less likely to be sexually active over the three-year study period than other youth who were similar to them, but who did not make a virginity pledge.” While other researchers questioned the efficacy of such public commitments, the author of the RAND study, psychologist Steven Martino, said that his research showed the impact of pledges: “If it’s your intention as a teen to not have sex, it’s perhaps a good idea to make a pledge because you’re more likely to delay sex if you do so and not more likely to engage in other sexual behaviors as a substitute.”  The report in the Journal of Adolescent Health suggested a surprisingly significant percentage of adolescents had taken virginity pledges: among all Americans between the ages of 12 and 17, an impressive 23% of females and 16% of males made public commitments to avoid sex before marriage.  

"Believing that true love waits, I make a commitment to God, myself, my family, my friends, my future mate, and my future children to a lifetime of purity including sexual abstinence from this day until the day I enter a biblical marriage relationship."

The “Townhall of Fame” department in the August issue of Townhall Magazine features John Croyle, founder of Big Oak Ranch, a home comprised of two separate boys’ and girls’ ranches for neglected and abused children. Croyle’s caring spirit roused him to begin the Ranch that so many call home and he does it all without any government funding. Croyle keeps the Ranch going with donations and refuses to be indebted to the feds. Now, that’s a man to respect!

Read more about Big Oak Ranch’s mission in Townhall by subscribing today! Click here to get your 12-month subscription and a free copy of Over a Barrel by Raymond J. Learsy and discover Croyle’s story as well as other’s in the pages on Townhall every month!

Do you know someone like Croyle who deserves recognition for putting their conservative beliefs into action? E-mail feedback@townhall.com to nominate someone you know!

American culture likes to celebrate the petulant outcast, the smart-aleck with the contempt for everything and faith in nothing. Snarky mavericks. The problem is these guys are losers. They have signed up for an impossible mission. Because they’ve decided they’re going to create all the meaning in their lives. They’ve either decided that no moral law exists or they will be the creator, the author of those laws. Now one road leads to complete and total anarchy. Life is solitary, nasty, brutish and short. The other is to insanity, since it requires playing God. We know in our hearts, intuitively, from our first years as children, that the universe unfolds with a discernable order and that moral laws, far from being convenient social conventions, are firm and unalterable. They predate us, they will survive us.