South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford told the Associated Press today that he met his Argentine lover, Maria Chapur, more than five times over the past year–more encounters than he had confessed to in his previous press conference. Two of the occasions were multi-night stays in New York.

As WORLD’s Jamie Dean reports, Sanford also used the interview to admit that he had “crossed lines” with other women in the past, though not to the point of adultery.

After his his affair was discovered earlier this year, Sanford’s wife reportedly agreed to allow him to meet Chapur in New York and end the relationship face-to-face, with a spiritual advisor present to chaperone. Instead of allowing the relationship to end there, however, Sanford took the now infamous trip to Argentina without his wife’s knowledge.

Today a sorrowful Sanford revealed that he still has deep feelings for Chapur, who he called his soul mate:

“This was a whole lot more than a simple affair. This was a love story. A forbidden one, a tragic one, but a love story at the end of the day.”

The new revelations during more than three hours of interviews have led the state’s attorney general to launch an investigation into the governor’s travels. Sanford says he will pay back an undetermined amount of the $8,000 of taxpayers funds used during his latest trip, but claims no other taxpayers funds were used to fund his romantic encounters.

Mashable has put together a social media timeline of Iranian protests. It tracks news accounts, wikipedia posts, and posts from YouTube, Twitter and Facebook in chronological order. I’m hoping they will add to it—right now it’s a little thin but the basic story of the last 2 weeks is there—because this it will one day be a valuable tool for historians, and this day gives insiders and outsiders pause at the momentous events in Iran beginning June 12. We have seen the stories of the masses but have yet to hear the stories of many of the individuals who took photos and videos—who captured a country in crisis perhaps like it’s never been captured before.

Without interviewing the Alaskan governor, Vanity Fair’s Todd Purdum did an extensive profile on Sarah Palin, a woman he calls the “sexiest and the riskiest brand in the Republican party.”

Here are the questions Purdum asks rhetorically in his piece titled “It Came from Wasilla”:

What does it say about the nature of modern American politics that a public official who often seems proud of what she does not know is not only accepted but applauded? What does her prominence say about the importance of having (or lacking) a record of achievement in public life? Why did so many skilled veterans of the Republican Party—long regarded as the more adroit team in presidential politics—keep loyally working for her election even after they privately realized she was casual about the truth and totally unfit for the vice-presidency? Perhaps most painful, how could John McCain, one of the cagiest survivors in contemporary politics—with a fine appreciation of life’s injustices and absurdities, a love for the sweep of history, and an overdeveloped sense of his own integrity and honor—ever have picked a person whose utter shortage of qualification for her proposed job all but disqualified him for his?

His points – that Palin clashed with staff of the McCain campaign, that she is something of a diva – are not groundbreaking. Here’s his assessment of the campaign:

It is the story of a political novice with an intuitive feel for the temper of her times, a woman who saw her opportunities and coolly seized them. In every job, she surrounded herself with an insular coterie of trusted friends, took disagreements personally, discarded people who were no longer useful, and swiftly dealt vengeance on enemies, real or perceived.

The author puts another question to his readers that is perhaps more serious: Palin has complained of the media’s treatment of her and her family – should she be more open to giving interviews for pieces like this?

Update 4:30 p.m. – The Washington Times has two McCain staffers going on the record about the Vanity Fair piece:

Jason Recher, who worked closely with Mrs. Palin as a vice presidential candidate, said “The mean tone of this article is completely false, this is not the Sarah Palin I knew and spent two and a half months with.”  He also said he was tired of reporters using information about Mrs. Palin from people unwilling to go on the record.

And another said something similar:

David Welch, deputy research director for the McCain-Palin ticket, said he was “shocked to read the Vanity Fair article about Governor Palin and the allegations made against her by former staffers” and complained “significant parts of the story are based on half truths and gossip from staffers who refused to go on the record.”

The Kent School District blocked the formation of a Bible club in a Washington high school, and the Supreme Court has decided not to hear the case, letting the ban of the club continue.

The club is not allowed to become an official school club without being chartered by the Associated Student Body Council. Back in 2001, the club applied for a charter and was put on hold because the Council wasn’t sure about its plan to decorate the school once a month or broadcast Scripture over the school loudspeaker.

In 2003, the club threatened litigation, dropped the plan to decorate the school and broadcast Scripture and decided to restrict voting membership to professing Christians. The Council still voted against it, so the club proposed a third charter. This one divided members up into three categories: attendees, non-voting members, and voting members (who have to sign a statement of faith). The council voted 19 to 0 not to approve the charter.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the students and the Supreme Court has not heard the case, letting the court’s opinion stand.

Even with this outcome, says the winning attorney, the Bible club can still exist in the school and meet on school property. It just can’t become an official student organization and have access to student government money.

This raises a question: Since the Bible club could still meet without being an official student club, why or why not is it important for the club to seek to become an official student organization? And was the Circuit Court of Appeals right or wrong?

If the governor of your state called you into his or her office and asked you how to address a massive budget shortfall, what would you suggest? Would you cut spending, raise taxes, or try to find new sources of revenue? Your answer, like those in elected office, will be a faith-based solution.

California has a gaping $11 billion budget deficit and lawmakers there recently voted down spending cuts to balance their budget. Pennsylvania’s governor just completed a bus tour promoting a 16 percent personal income tax increase to help with its $3.2 billion shortfall. To his credit, a few days after the bus tour he proposed $500 million in budget cuts. Some of the commonwealth’s legislators want to allow poker and craps tables at Keystone State casinos, in addition to the 61,000 slot machines they approved, to increase state tax revenue. Clearly, legislators in California and Pennsylvania legislators have faith in big government.

“Many thinkers throughout the ages have noted that we face a choice between holding a robust faith in God or putting faith in man and institutions such as the state,” said the Rev. Robert Sirico of the Michigan-based Acton Institute last May.

When referring to “man,” Sirico was talking about government officials and central planners.

Continuing his message, Sirico cited Nobel laureate economist Friedrich Hayek, who was gravely concerned about politicians who believe they can gather enough information to manage complex structures like state and national economies. Think about it: Is it possible for legislators and bureaucrats to gather, and accurately process and analyze, the information behind the billions of economic decisions that individuals in a state or nation make every day?

• Is it time to buy a new vehicle or fix the old one?
• Hybrid, diesel, or gasoline engine?
• Which box of cereal should I buy?
• Chablis or cabernet?
• Which detergent works best for my family?
• Which replacement windows are best for my home?
• Cable TV or a digital antenna?
• Should I invest in real estate, stocks, bonds annuities, or commodities?
• Remodel the bathroom, build a deck, or save for a rainy day?
• Take on a part-time job to make ends meet or go to school in the evening?
• Buy or rent office space?

Faith in government to manage economies well seems misplaced, doesn’t it?

If the governor of your state called you into his or her office, would you suggest more taxes or trimming the budget in areas where the private sector has a better track record? Would you place your faith in citizens to spend and invest their money based on their knowledge of what is best for them, thereby generating real wealth and . . . increased tax receipts for their governments?

I know that I’m stating this simplistically. Government does have a proper and moral role in society, which is to enforce the rule of law thereby promoting societal order. And yes, this costs money.

But governments like those in Washington, D.C., and in California and Pennsylvania go way beyond their area of expertise when they try to manage and stimulate economies. And we misplace our faith in them when we expect them to do a good job.

So where does God figure in all of this as the Rev. Sirico suggests? If you believe in God, you’re likely to believe that God created mankind in His image. And you’ll recall that God gave mankind dominion over the earth and charged us to be fruitful and multiply. Government’s role from an economic perspective is to use its power, given to it by its people, to create and enforce laws so that individuals can use their talents to the fullest to create a thriving society. Do you have enough faith in God to believe this is the best plan?

Take another look at Washington, D.C., California, and Pennsylvania before you respond to the governor.

Triple Canopy’s Joseph Clarke compares megachurches and corporations in a brief presentation called “Infrastructure for Souls.” His thesis:

Successful megachurches are like well-run companies, with intricate corporate structures devised to keep each member personally engaged; their pastors are like chief executives, maximizing the productivity of laborers in the evangelism enterprise. Jumbotron notwithstanding, the architectural and organizational tropes of the megachurch are best compared to those of the modern white-collar workplace.

He goes back to the roots of the megachurch in 19th century Protestantism, camp meetings and revivals. He looks at the paralell developments in church and corporate architecture, and the reasons behind the changes. In his ending comparison, he says that the corporate metaphor of a “body” is nothing new. It should sound familiar to the church:

In the corporate world, even in the midst of today’s layoff campaigns, companies strive to maintain an image of caring, and human-resources departments cultivate the psychological well-being of their employees by providing depression and anxiety counseling, online databases of relationship and parenting advice, and referrals to life coaches. Modern-day management acts as an organizational superego, struggling to order the behavior of employees and keep existential terror at bay.

The corporation achieved the status of legal personhood more than a century ago (and enjoys this benefit without having to suffer the frailties of the human body). But the underlying corporeal metaphor for an all-pervasive organizational infrastructure had been established long before the advent of modern companies. As Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians says: “No man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.”

Take a look at his view of the architecture and the worldview behind it. It’s true that megachurches have a distinctive kind of architecture and it’s interesting to reflect on the reasoning behind it.

It’s just about impossible to keep up with the mess in the New York State Senate, where the defection of two Democrats led to GOP control, and then the redefection of one of them left the Senate split 31-31 with both parties claiming control. Now the squabble has gone to the courts while key bills wait for debate.

The latest solution some exasperated people are proposing? Abolish the New York State Senate. Rick Lazio, a potential candidate for governor, proposed this recently, calling Albany a “national embarrassment.”

Of course, a bicameral legislature exists to create checks and balances and it seems foolish to throw out the system because a few leaders, who can be thrown out of office, are making the system temporarily unworkable. However, the blog Rochester Turning says many of the arguments for the U.S. Senate don’t apply in New York, where “the Senate is simply a mini-version of the Assembly” because the districts are based on population. I think that’s the case in my home state of New Mexico, too, and maybe other states as well.

Still, whether it’s based on population or not, it seems like a good check and balance to have a bill pass through the scrutiny of two bodies instead of one.

What do you think about state senates creating checks and balances? Nebraska is the only state with a unicameral legislature. Can any Nebraskans comment on how it works?

I got a letter from an inmate a few days after Father’s Day. Normally a guy who likes to stay as busy as possible in the prison—painting, reading the Bible, helping other guys—that Sunday he took six naps and still felt wiped out. He said he figured on Father’s Day there would be more than the normal number of Sunday visits. He described the scene, a scene most of us will never see:

“You can (we can) hear the phone ring up at the desk when the front office calls for somebody for a visit. But in the mornings, after 8:30, often a phone ring precedes the C.O. getting on the intercom and calling up for a visit. So every time the phone rang this morning you could see guys (actually feel it more than see it) kind of pause in whatever they were doing to listen for their name. Maybe. But as I say, only a few guys ended up getting called. At least from this unit. I think only three. At least that’s all I heard.”

Someone else dear to me (call him “C”) was released from county jail last Monday. When he was first admitted, he was hard pressed to prune the number of names of close friends and relatives down to the six that the jail would allow on his visitor’s list. As time went by, and authorized people never came, he would resubmit the list with new names of people who assured him they would come. Over time, expectations were increasingly lowered. In the end, he may as well have had only me and my mother on his list.

Now C has been released and a few friends have come around to welcome him and hang around. I remember when he was in jail that he had said he would have a long memory for who were his real friends—and who weren’t—when he got out. But if he ever asks me about it, I will suggest he go easy on the no-shows. I remember this postscript to the story of Job’s lonely sojourn in the valley of the shadow of death:

“And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job. . . . And the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. Then came to him all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and ate bread with him in his house. And they showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him . . .” (Job 42:11).

I suppose you can do one of two things with this if you are Job—or C. You can kick the bums out and say, “Where were you when I needed you?” Or you can smile and privately chalk one up to human nature and say, “Come on in, friends—let’s celebrate.”

To hear commentaries by Andrée Seu, click here.

After the House of Representatives voted Friday to pass the controversial cap and trade bill, all eyes have turned to the Senate where Democrats still lack the 60 votes they need to overcome a filibuster.

To start, there are 45 senators in the “yes” or “probably yes” camp, including Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Maine Republicans Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe.

There are 23 fence sitters. Alaska’s Mark Begich (D) and Lisa Murkowski (R) need to keep their home state’s oil and gas interests in mind, while Ohio’s Sherrod Brown (D) and Michigan Democrats Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow are pressing for provisions that help agriculture and their state’s ailing manufacturing and auto industries.

There are also 32 Republicans who are unlikely to vote for a climate bill of the shape and size that Obama and congressional Democratic leaders envision, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Missouri Sen. Kit Bond and Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, an outspoken skeptic about the link between man-made greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.

Although the bill isn’t expected to come up for consideration until the fall, Democrats will use the next few months to begin heavily courting the fence sitters–particularly “moderate Democrats from the Midwest, Rust Belt and West who say the climate debate so far has not taken their interests into account.”

Over at the Heritage Foundation are extensive materials highlighting the concerns surrounding this legislation, including economic impact by congressional district and the financial impact on average American households.

Good morning!

Today’s quote is from an American president:

“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”

Welcome to our daily (except Sundays) open thread, where you, the commenters, choose the topics of conversation.