Friday, September 09, 2005
Pat Robertson a federally-funded looter? And other good stuff.
DemocracyNow has a particularly interesting show
[U]p to 3.7 million gallons of crude oil has leaked into the Mississippi ...Officials estimate the spill is about one-third the size of the huge oil spill caused by the Exxon Valdez ...
[Republican 9/11 Commission Chair and former Governor] Thomas Kean said "The same mistakes made on 9/11 were made over again, in some cases worse...
A grand jury has indicted a political action committee formed by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay ...
In Iraq, the U.S. military is threatening to wage an all-out assault on the town of Tal Afar...
From New Orleans
Reporters Without Borders issued a warning about police violence against journalists working in New Orleans. ... photographer from the Toronto Star was detained by police and his photos taken from him when police realized that he had snapped photos of a clash between them and citizens
JACQUIE SOOHEN: I saw very little looting in the areas I was in, to be honest. In the Ninth Ward, which I was surprised -- I had thought I would see—in fact, the resident we went with expected to find his house looted, and he came back and everything was perfectly intact in there, and his neighborhood similarly hadn't been looted at all. It was very much the community was staying there. So, I think perhaps it depends on block to block. The things that seem to be looted were the shopping centers downtown and that sort of a thing. More than anything, talking to other residents, it seems like a lot of these things are being used as scare tactics amongst the residents themselves.
And best of all, we discover that Pat Robertson is a looter, doing it with the Administration's blessing, so to speak:
REPORTER: FEMA has three charities listed on the press release they sent out. One of them is Operation Blessing. Can you tell me why that charity is on the list and who put it there?
MICHAEL BROWN: I'm sure the staff did, and it's there because they’ve offered to help and are doing good work.
REPORTER: Operation Blessing is a Pat Robertson organization. Should that be on there?
MICHAEL BROWN: If they're willing to work, if they're willing to help, we're not turning help away, we're not turning away help from anybody.
...
MAX BLUMENTHAL: Well, with respect to the case that Juan was talking about, which was in 1994 when Robertson bilked Operation Blessing donors out of money to ferry mining equipment into Zaire, which was a direct partnership with Mobutu Sese Seko, he was actually -- this scheme was actually exposed by a reporter from a small paper in Virginia, and Virginia’s Office of Consumer Affairs initiated an investigation and determined that Robertson “willfully induced contributions from the public through the use of misleading statements and other implications.” That's a direct quote. So, they determined that he bilked his donors, and the Attorney General at the time, a guy named Mark Earley, agreed, but he overruled the Office of Consumer Affair's recommendation for Robertson's criminal prosecution. This might have put Robertson in jail and ended the whole -- ended his entire ministry. So, who is Mark Earley? Mark Earley, during his campaign for Attorney General, was essentially bought off by Pat Robertson. Pat Robertson donated $35,000 to his campaign. That was his largest contribution. Now, today Mark Earley is the head of Prison Fellowship Ministries. He was appointed by former Richard Nixon dirty trickster, Chuck Colson, and Prison Fellowship Ministries is very similar to Operation Blessing....
So we're seeing groups like -- I mean there are only two secular groups on FEMA's list, and currently, I think there's scores of secular groups doing relief work. Pat Robertson's group, Operation Blessing, is not doing relief work in Louisiana.
Well, maybe they're collecting money for Trent Lott's porch.
So, there you have it. Which item on the following list is different than the rest?
1. Collecting money
2. Using the federal governnment to act as a collection agency
3. Said money being collected under the false premise that it will help Katrina real victims
4. Impeachable offense
5. Jesus Christ
Trick question. They all belong on the list. After I read the first four, you can bet I said #5.
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