Pickering "Affair" Is Getting Really Creepy

The Pickering lawsuit was first broken by Ipse Blogit, who has done an outstanding job of following through on what was an initial piece of good luck. As I read more about the case, I became intrigued with "C Street" - the place where Pickering lived while in Congress.

Initially, it seemed C Street was a place where like minded Congressmen shared a residence - no big deal. Then it came out they were all Christians. Aside from the hypocrisy of family values Christians committing adultery, still no big deal.

Then it was revealed that C Street was in fact legally a church and tax exempt. Hmmm - the tax payers are paying for these politicians to have a place to stay? Didn't seem right to me.

But it gets worse - much worse. C Street is owned by a group called The Family - a secret religious organization whose goal is to control the world. Now they've got my attention! Who are these guys?

It turns out that we know a lot more about The Family than they would like us to - thanks to a religious scholar and writer named Jeff Sharlet. Because of his interest in religion, he was invited in 2002 by a friend to join The Family - and out of intellectual curiosity, he decided to give it a try. He moved into one of their houses where they train new members. It's fair to say he was shocked by what he learned while he was there. When he left after several weeks, he wrote an exceptionally well researched book entitled The Family, which was published in 2008 and is now out in paperback. I haven't read it yet, but I've ordered it.

However, he wrote an article for Harper's that gives an idea of this group - and sends shivers up your spine. Or if you want a quick summary, look up The Family in Wikipedia - which also give you a long list of references. Because of the association of the adulterous members of Congress (Ensign, Sanford, Pickering, Vitter) with C Street, the media is beginning to pay attention.

Here are just a few glimpses of the horror: Members refer to Manhattan's Ground Zero as "the ruins of secularism". A leader tells a dozen men living there, "You guys are here to learn how to rule the world". This same leader repeatedly urges a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that he compares to the blind devotion that Adolph Hitler demanded from his followers. Some of the other heroes are Genghis Khan, Stalin, Osama bin Laden, and others who know how to control people. The Family urges the US government to establish close ties to cruel dictators around the world, who are also members of the group. It goes on and on. It's just horrible beyond words.

But here's the worst part - at least to me. They do not think they can do anything wrong - because they are the "Chosen". Morality is for the rest of us - not for them. One of their leaders, David Coe, in one of the training sessions said: "King David liked to do really, really bad things. Here's this guy who slept with another man's wife — Bathsheba, right? — and then basically murdered her husband. And this guy is one of our heroes. I mean, Jiminy Christmas, God likes this guy! What is that all about?" The answer: "Because he was chosen." He even gives the example of someone who has raped three little girls. Is this unbelievable? At least we can understand why all these so called Christian members of Congress associated with this group think they can commit adultery without any problem.

The Family is a super secret group that's been around since the 1930s. The members are all rich or powerful or both, and they meet in secret cells all over the world. They're all men - women's only role in their world is to serve them. Remember that their goal is "to rule the world" - and they've been doing a pretty good job of it. Now that a spotlight has been cast on this group, the question is whether the rest of us will do anything about it. I'm not optimistic.