OT: Pat Robertson's Katrina Cash
- From: "Jack Strickland" <strick@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 08 Sep 2005 14:32:19 GMT
[You'll recall that Pat ascribed the 1995 Kobe earthquake, which killed
thousands, to god's anger over the Japan/US trade deficit. Maybe god did
Katrina to New Orleans as a way of laundering money to Pat's ministry.]
Pat Robertson's Katrina Cash, by Max Blumenthal, THE NATION
Every cloud has a silver lining. Hurricane Katrina has devastated New
Orleans, leaving thousands dead and hundreds of thousands homeless, and
plunging the entire city into chaos. In the hurricane's wake, the Federal
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and its director, Michael Brown, forced
out of his former job at the International Arabian Horse Association, with
no credentials in disaster relief, have become targets of withering
criticism. Yet FEMA's relief efforts have brought considerable assistance to
at least one man who stands to benefit from Hurricane Katrina perhaps more
than any other individual: Pat Robertson.
With the Bush Administration's approval, Robertson's $66 million relief
organization, Operation Blessing, has been prominently featured on FEMA's
list of charitable groups accepting donations for hurricane relief. Dozens
of media outlets, including the New York Times, CNN and the Associated
Press, duly reprinted FEMA's list, unwittingly acting as agents soliciting
cash for Robertson. "How in the heck did that happen?" Richard Walden,
president of the disaster-relief group Operation USA, asked of Operation
Blessing's inclusion on FEMA's list. "That gives Pat Robertson millions of
extra dollars."
Though Operation USA has conducted disaster relief for more than twenty-five
years on five continents, like scores of other secular relief groups
currently helping victims of Hurricane Katrina, it was omitted from FEMA's
list. In fact, only two non-"faith-based" organizations were included. (One
of them, the American Red Cross, is being blocked from entering New Orleans
by FEMA's parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security.) FEMA,
meanwhile, has reportedly turned away Wal-Mart trucks carrying food and
water to the stricken city, teams of firemen from Maryland and Texas,
volunteer morticians and a convoy of 1,000 boat owners offering to help
rescue stranded flood victims. While relief efforts falter in the face of
colossal bureaucratic incompetence, the Bush Administration's promotion of
Operation Blessing has ensured that the floodwaters swallowing New Orleans
will be a rising tide lifting Robertson's boat.
.
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