In God we Trust...

[Johnny Coli]

Back on March 7th of this year, Bush signed a new Executive Order, setting up the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, to fall under the Department of Homeland Security.

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in order to help the Federal Government coordinate a national effort to expand opportunities for faith-based and other community organizations and to strengthen their capacity to better meet America's social and community needs, it is hereby ordered as follows:

 

Section 1. Establishment of a Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives at the Department of Homeland Security.

 

All right. Well, for what purpose?

 

Sec. 2. Purpose of Center. The purpose of the Center shall be to coordinate agency efforts to eliminate regulatory, contracting, and other programmatic obstacles to the participation of faith-based and other community organizations in the provision of social and community services.

 

Huh? What obstacles? The Bush administration is already funneling billions of dollars to religious charities.

In the budget year that ended Sept. 30, religious charities received $2.15 billion in federal grants to administer a range of social service programs for the needy. That represented 10.9 percent of the total grants from the seven federal agencies such charities were eligible to apply to in fiscal 2005, according to a White House report obtained by The Associated Press.

 

Wow, seems like they are already feeding from the trough. In fact, since December 12, 2002, when Bush signed this Executive Order they can even take federal money and still retain the right to hire and fire employees based on religious beliefs.

 

Doesn’t seem to be many obstacles, does there?

 

Well, Johnny, who cares? Religious charities do outstanding community work. Why so skeptical?

 

Well, you see, it’s not like the Bush administration has been handing this money out equally to charities from different faiths.

 

Back in the aftermath of Katrina, FEMA listed a group of charities to give money to. Number one on the list was, of course, the Red Cross. Care to guess who the second one was? It was Operation Blessing.

Operation Blessing is the charity founded and still chaired by Pat Robertson, the politically well-connected television evangelist, who recently called for the assassination of Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we've never had anything like this," Robertson told his audience. "Let's rally together and do what we can."

 

It should be noted that Pat Robertson is also the chairman of the Christian Broadcasting Network. Who cares? Well, you should. Operation Blessing has a history of funneling donated cash to CBN.

According to its most recent filing with the Internal Revenue Service, Operation Blessing gave more than half of its yearly allocation of cash donations -- $885,000 -- to the Christian Broadcasting Network, or CBN, of which Robertson is also the chairman.

 

Want to know how much money the Bush administration hands to Operation Blessing each year?

In two years, the group’s annual revenue from government grants has ballooned from $108,000 to $14.4 million.

 

Holy Cow! Well, that’s just an isolated incident, right Johnny? There’s no way an administration would be involved in a widespread give-away of federal money to religious groups that support it's agenda, would it?

 

That’s an excellent question that was just answered by an article this week in the Washington Post.

Grants flow to Bush allies on social issues; Federal programs direct at least $157 million to conservative groups

Millions of dollars in taxpayer funds have flowed to groups that support President Bush's agenda on abortion and other social issues.

Under the auspices of its religion-based initiatives and other federal programs, the administration has funneled at least $157 million in grants to organizations run by political and ideological allies, according to federal grant documents and interviews.

 

No way!

 

Way! And it gets better. You see, once they get the money, they can funnel it to yet another group.

The Compassion Capital Fund has disbursed many multiyear grants of $1.5 million to $7.5 million to groups designated as "intermediary organizations" empowered, according to the White House to "issue sub-awards directly to qualified faith- and community-based organizations."

 

Well, what is the administration saying about the accusation of patronizing and funneling federal money to the Christian Right, the very groups that got him elected twice? Do they deny it?

 

Kind of, but not really.

"If what you are asking is, has George Bush as president of the United States established priorities in spending for his administration? The answer is yes," said Wade F. Horn, who as assistant secretary for children and families at HHS oversees much of the spending going to conservative groups. "That is a prerogative that presidents have."

 

What does the director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives have to say?

H. James Towey, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, said politics plays no role in grant-making decisions. "We don't have that kind of calculation," he said.

 

Want to know where Jim Towey was one day after Bush’s most recent Faith-based executive order was signed? Why, giving an exclusive interview to the Christian Broadcasting Network, of course.

CBN News conducted an exclusive interview with the director of the President's faith-based initiative, Jim Towey. Towey told CBN News that the President's agenda is to motivate the troops in his “armies of compassion.”

 

Armies of Compassion, huh? Onward Christian soldiers…straight to the ballot box.

[Alaska Darin]

Ooh, big party politicians are giving money away to their constituancy without regard to the Constitution? Shocking.