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April Marciszewski, The Tulsa World, October 27, 2007

Attorneys for Oral Roberts University, President Richard Roberts and three other administrators alleged Friday in court filings that three former ORU professors are trying their lawsuit in the media.

ORU and the administrators said in their legal motion that publicity allegedly manipulated by the professors and their attorneys could lower the possibility of a fair trial. They want the professors and their attorneys barred from talking about the case outside of court.

The court filings Friday were the first made by ORU and the administrators since the professors sued them Oct. 2 for allegedly wrongfully firing them or forcing them to resign.

“Plaintiffs and their counsel are abusing the judicial process by using it as a basis for press conferences and publicity,” the motion states. “. . . The barrage of news coverage is especially damaging” because the professors and their attorneys have included unsubstantiated, detailed allegations of misconduct with their lawsuit “when even plaintiffs admit they do not know if those statements are true.”

The motion refers to a report allegedly compiled by Roberts’ sister-in-law, Stephanie Cantees, that Roberts has said consists of false rumors. The professors claim they were fired or forced to resign because they turned over the report to ORU’s board of regents.

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Randall Mikkelsen, Reuters, October 26, 2007

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The main U.S. disaster-response agency apologized on Friday for having its employees pose as reporters in a news briefing on California’s wildfires that no journalists attended.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, still struggling to restore its image after the bungled handling of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, issued the apology after The Washington Post published details of the Tuesday briefing.

“We can and must do better, and apologize for this error in judgment,” FEMA deputy administrator Harvey Johnson, who conducted the briefing, said in a statement. “Our intent was to provide useful information and be responsive to the many questions we have received.”

No actual reporter attended the hastily called news conference in person, although some camera crews arrived late to film incidental shots, officials said.

A spokeswoman for Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who has authority over FEMA, called the incident “inexcusable and offensive to the secretary.”

“We have made it clear that stunts such as this will not be tolerated or repeated,” spokeswoman Laura Keehner said. She said the department was considering reprimands.

The White House said: “It was just a bad way to handle it.” The Bush administration has faced criticism previously over accusations it masked public relations efforts as journalism.

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Michael Cooper, The New York Times, October 25, 2007

DAVENPORT, Iowa – At a town hall meeting here last night, Rudolph W. Giuliani expanded upon his views of torture. Here is a transcript of the exchange.

Linda Gustitus, who is the president of a group called the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, began her question by saying that President Bush’s nominee for attorney general, Michael B. Mukasey (who happens to be an old friend of Mr. Giuliani’s) had “fudged” on the question of whether waterboarding is toture.

“I wanted to ask you two questions,’’ she said. “One, do you think waterboarding is torture? And two, do you think the president can order something like waterboarding even though it’s against U.S. and international law?’’

Mr. Giuliani responded: “Okay. First of all, I don’t believe the attorney general designate in any way was unclear on torture. I think Democrats said that; I don’t think he was.’’

Ms. Gustitus said: “He said he didn’t know if waterboarding is torture.”

Mr. Giuliani said: “Well, I’m not sure it is either. I’m not sure it is either. It depends on how it’s done. It depends on the circumstances. It depends on who does it. I think the way it’s been defined in the media, it shouldn’t be done. The way in which they have described it, particularly in the liberal media. So I would say, if that’s the description of it, then I can agree, that it shouldn’t be done. But I have to see what the real description of it is. Because I’ve learned something being in public life as long as I have. And I hate to shock anybody with this, but the newspapers don’t always describe it accurately.”

(Applause)

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Justin Juozapavicius, The Associated Press, October 24, 2007

TULSA, Okla. — Oral Roberts University, which has been engulfed in accusations of lavish spending by its president, faces a crippling debt load, the evangelical school’s board of regents chairman disclosed Wednesday.

Regents Chairman George Pearsons told The Associated Press that ongoing maintenance costs and low financial support from donors have put Oral Roberts University $55 million in debt. University spokesman Jeremy Burton said Wednesday evening the actual debt figure is actually $52.5 million.

“Honestly, we’ve been struggling financially,” Pearsons said. “Really my goal  and it’s a big one  my goal is to obliterate the debt.

“It is the desire of the board to be able to manage our finances in such a way that we can start chopping off debt here and there.”

University president Richard Roberts has taken a temporary leave of absence while fighting a lawsuit claiming out-of-control spending, and his father, Oral Roberts, has returned to Oklahoma from California to take a greater role in guiding the school he founded in 1963.

The 5,700-student university is a product of Oral Roberts’ ministry, which grew from Southern tent revivals to one of the most successful evangelical empires in the country.

The university reported nearly $76 million in revenue in 2005, according to the Internal Revenue Service, and one former regent said its endowment once approached $60 million. Its endowment today exceeds $34 million, a university spokesman said. Its operating budget for 2007-2008 was more than $82 million.

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What do you do if you are a Michigan Republican’t who’s concerned that your long-time comfortably incumbent Congresscritter appears to be headed for a tough election?

Why, you harrass his potential opponents:

MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. – A politically conservative student armed with a video camera and a Web site is trying to force a Democratic congressional candidate out of his teaching job at Central Michigan University.

Dennis Lennox, a 23-year-old junior, has posted videos on YouTube of himself questioning assistant professor Gary Peters about campaigning for office while holding a prestigious position at the university.

Some say Lennox is persistent. Others accuse him of pandering for attention.

(more…)

Brian Ross and Avni Patel, ABC News, October 23, 2007

Presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani hired a Catholic priest to work in his consulting firm months after the priest was accused of sexually molesting two former students and an altar boy and told by the church to stop performing his priestly duties.

The priest, Monsignor Alan Placa, a longtime friend of Giuliani and the priest who officiated at his second wedding to Donna Hanover, continues to work at Giuliani Partners in New York, to the outrage of some of his accusers and victims’ groups, which have begun to protest at Giuliani campaign events.

“This man did unjust things, and he’s being protected and employed and taken care of. It’s not a good thing,” said one of the accusers, Richard Tollner, who says Placa molested him repeatedly when he was a student at a Long Island, N.Y. Catholic boys high school in 1975.

At a campaign appearance in Milwaukee last week, Giuliani continued to defend Placa, who he described to reporters as a close friend for 39 years.

“I know the man; I know who he is, so I support him,” Giuliani said. “We give some of the worst people in our society the presumption of innocence and benefit of the doubt,” he said. “And, of course, I’m going to give that to one of my closest friends.”

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Kelly Kerr, The Tulsa World, October 22, 2007

Oral Roberts came to his namesake university for the first time in three years on Monday and told students and employees in a chapel service “the devil is not going to steal ORU.”

He said all allegations made in a lawsuit and an attached report are false. And he said Richard Roberts, who took a leave of absence as the school’s president last week, eventually will return to his position.

Oral Roberts also said he has moved back to Tulsa. The crowd gave him multiple standing ovations during the chapel service.

He said the university will begin mediation this week with the three former professors who sued them for allegedly wrongfully terminating them or forcing them to resign.

In the meantime, Oral Roberts said he is serving as co-interim president with Victory Christian Center pastor and ORU alumnus Billy Joe Daugherty.

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John Christoffersen, The Associated Press, October 21, 2007

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has a 15-cent price tag stuck to his Yale law degree, blaming the school’s affirmative action policies in the 1970s for his difficulty finding a job after he graduated.

Some of his black classmates say Thomas needs to get over his grudge because Yale opened the door to extraordinary opportunities.

Thomas’ new autobiography, “My Grandfather’s Son,” shows how the second black justice on the Supreme Court came to oppose affirmative action after his law school experience. He was one of about 10 blacks in a class of 160 who had arrived at Yale after the unrest of the 1960s, which culminated in a Black Panther Party trial in New Haven that nearly caused a large-scale riot.

The conservative justice says he initially considered his admission to Yale a dream, but soon felt he was there because of his race. He says he loaded up on tough courses to prove he was not inferior to his white classmates but considers the effort futile. He says he was repeatedly turned down in job interviews at law firms after his 1974 graduation.

“I learned the hard way that a law degree from Yale meant one thing for white graduates and another for blacks, no matter how much any one denied it,” Thomas writes. “I’d graduated from one of America’s top law schools, but racial preference had robbed my achievement of its true value.”

Thomas says he stores his Yale Law degree in his basement with a 15-cent sticker from a cigar package on the frame.

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Melinda Deslatte, The Associated Press, October 20, 2007

BATON ROUGE, La. — U.S. Rep. Bobby Jindal won the Louisiana governor’s race Saturday, becoming the nation’s youngest governor and the first non-white to hold the state’s post since Reconstruction.

Jindal, the Republican 36-year-old son of Indian immigrants, carried more than half the vote against 11 opponents. With about 92 percent of the vote in, Jindal had 53 percent with 625,036 votes – more than enough to win outright and avoid a Nov. 17 runoff.

“Let’s give our homeland, the great state of Louisiana, a fresh start,” Jindal said to cheers and applause from a crowd that began chanting his name at his victory party.

His nearest competitors: Democrat Walter Boasso with 208,690 votes or 18 percent; Independent John Georges had 1167,477 votes or 14 percent; Democrat Foster Campbell had 151,101 or 13 percent. Eight candidates divided the rest.

“I’m asking all of our supporters to get behind our new governor,” Georges said in a concession speech.

The Oxford-educated Jindal had lost the governor’s race four years ago to Gov. Kathleen Blanco. He won a congressional seat in conservative suburban New Orleans a year later but was widely believed to have his eye on the governor’s mansion.

Blanco opted not to run for re-election after she was widely blamed for the state’s slow response to hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.

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April Marciszewski, The Tulsa World, October 18, 2007

Oral Roberts University President Richard Roberts issued a written statement Wednesday saying he is taking a leave of absence following intense scrutiny spawned by financial, political and other allegations raised in a lawsuit.

Roberts will continue to live in his university-provided house and be paid his $228,000 salary, ORU board of regents Chairman George Pearsons said.

The board will decide when and if Roberts returns to the job, based on the outcome of its own and an independent auditor’s investigations into the allegations.

Roberts and Pearsons said Roberts asked the board for the leave of absence. Roberts will continue to work as chairman and CEO of Oral Roberts Ministries, stick with his television work, keep teaching and preaching, and continue to write letters and books.

The decision was in “the best interest of my family and the university,” Roberts said.

“I pray and believe that in God’s timing, and when the board feels that it is appropriate, I will be back at my post as president.”

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Susan Davis, The Wall Street Journal, October 17, 2007

A circus clown, diet guru, exotic dancer, monetary architect and slacker in chief: These are some of the folks that help make Rep. Ron Paul’s presidential campaign the choice of individualistic voters.
Paul

Paul’s third-quarter financial disclosure report is sprinkled with supporters whose self-descriptions of their occupations are unusual, to say the least. Wade Talkington of Panama City, Fla., who donated $1,000 to Paul, lists his occupation as “tax slave to the Federal Govt.” Erik Hovden of Olalla, Wash., is the “Head slacker in Chg” at Simpson LLC, and housewife Pamela Schuberg of Moorpark, Calif., a $2,300 donor, lists her employer as “our children.”

Donald Cowles lists himself as self-employed and his occupation as simply “Capitalist.” On the opposite end, David Cameron of San Jose, Calif., lists his employer as “Looking for Work” and his job as “Unemployed.” Still, Cameron has given a total of $1,900 to the campaign.

Griswold Draz of Wellfleet, Mass., a $500 donor, is a self-described “curmudgeon,” and Andrew Maul of Pittsburgh, Pa., is a “Citizen Fighting Tyranny.” Others are more coy. James Harper of Vancouver, Wash., a $600 donor, offered “guess? ;)” as his occupation.

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April Marciszewski, The Tulsa World, October 14, 2007

Oral Roberts University and its president’s wife, Lindsay Roberts, issued written statements Saturday saying that claims and accusations added to a lawsuit Friday are untrue.

A report attached to the lawsuit Friday contains allegations that Roberts, 51, spent a great deal of time with an underage male.

“I live my life in a morally upright manner and throughout my marriage have never, ever engaged in any sexual behavior with any man outside of my marriage as the accusations imply,” Roberts said in her statement.

“Allegations against me in a lawsuit yesterday are not true. They sicken me to my soul,” she said.

The lawsuit, as amended Friday, also added ORU’s board of regents as a defendant and contained a new legal claim that the board had neglected to oversee, authorize and supervise the conduct of the defendants ORU, President Richard Roberts and university administrators Mark Lewandowski, Wendy Shirk and Jeff Ogle, as evidenced by those parties allegedly
allowing a “convicted sexual deviant unrestricted access to the students of the university” as a “mentor” hired by Richard Roberts to work with students.

A written statement attributed to the university says, “The allegations that the university employed a sexual deviant are untrue.”

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Michael Wyke, The Tulsa World, October 12, 2007

Three former Oral Roberts University professors have amended their lawsuit against the school, and have included an internal report detailing allegations against ORU President Richard Roberts, his wife and others.

The new suit adds a new defendant to the case — the ORU regents — and two new allegation, negligence and civil conspiracy.
Oral Roberts University officials, including President Richard Roberts, declined to comment afterhours on Friday because they had not seen the amended lawsuit, a spokesman said.

The new suit includes a new allegation that Richard Roberts and ORU gave ”a convicted sexual deviant unrestricted access to the students of the university.”

The suit doesn’t identify the person, but says that prior to his association with the school he had confessed to crimes in Tulsa, Tulsa County and Payne County.

”All three allegations of sexually-deviant conduct resulted in convictions,” the suit says.

The person was hired at the direct personal instruction and under the supervision of Richard Roberts, the suit says.

The person, identified as a ”Mentor” for ORU students, ”confessed to the facts regarding exposing himself to a fifteen year old boy in a school locker room,” the suit says.

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