Our Republican friends in Congress missed a great opportunity to demonstrate that they are filled with a bipartisan spirit. If not on political policy, at least we all can agree that donating over $1M to help the poor is a noble gesture? OK, I guess not.
Witness the latest MSM reporting of the Republican attack on the Boys & Girls Club. The Google search yields well over 19 pages of media reports on the topic. Can't let the President have his due, all good deeds must be punished? The media shows how little they practice journalism in favor of parroting the words of their masters.
It gets better below the fold, you be the judge:
If the Republican leadership really wanted to focus on abuse by charity organizations, they have plenty in their own ranks. Trying to control the news cycle, to suppress any positive news about the President, is so transparent. So, Progressives are going to storm the media, point out the Republican hypocrisy and political motives?
What hypocrisy you ask? Me suspects the Republicans doth protest to much? Where's the outrage over the salaries for so called non-profit health care providers? Where's the outrage over Beck's plan to donate $1M to a military charity, then insist the first $1M be earmarked for a political rally? Is someone upset over Dkos' own angelajean's recent reporting, and outrage over the obvious attempt to politicize our military by the Special Operations Warrior Foundation?
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://money.cnn.com/...
These nonprofit CEOs are getting raises
Median salary for these executives climbed 7% in 2008 -- and one had his compensation nearly double.
The nation's highest earning nonprofit CEO is J. Mongan, chief executive of Partners HealthCare Systems in Boston. He got a 99% pay bump in 2008, meaning he took home $2.7 million, including nearly $1.3 million in deferred compensation. He also received nearly $700,000 in benefits, which pushed his total compensation above $3 million. Nonprofit hospitals have the highest median CEO pay at more than $830,000.
A real HCR reform bill, if the goal was really to control costs, would include caps on salaries for executives. Then again, if your campaign donors, and lobbyists in the industry don't want us to focus on this inconvenient truth, just put out a story for your media machine to play 24/7, repeat loop, drown the truth in propaganda?
I wonder if Joe Conason feels like the lone warrior today? America's Foundation, Rick Santorum's PAC has ties to the so called charity Operation Good Neighbor. Investigating this would require a real journalist, with a measure of curiosity.
http://www.salon.com/...
GOP finance chief's background in dubious "charity"
Rob Bickhart, the finance chief whose weird anti-Obama PowerPoint embarrassed the GOP, has a strange resume
By Joe Conason
...and now they are facing questions about the GOP's exorbitant payments to Rob Bickhart, the Republican National Committee finance director responsible for this fiasco. It seems that party chairman Michael Steele (and whoever else was responsible for hiring Bickhart) failed to adequately vet the consultant before bringing him on staff last year. Back home in Pennsylvania, where he worked closely with Rick Santorum and the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign, his ethical record was splotched.
Specifically, Bickhart oversaw a "charitable" foundation set up by Santorum, known as Operation Good Neighbor, which shared both staff and space with Santorum's own Senate political action committee, confusingly called America's Foundation.
What was the outcome of the FBI and IRS investigation of Angel Food Ministries? Inquiring minds would like to know the status. Perhaps the current status is buried somewhere in the Google search?
http://www.onlineathens.com/...
Officers of a Monroe-based charity that is under investigation by federal authorities donated nearly $50,000 to conservative candidates and causes in recent years, Federal Elections Commission records show.
Angel Food Ministries Inc., a nonprofit that supplies cut-rate groceries to families nationwide, is under scrutiny by the FBI and the IRS.
So talk among yourselves, if you so desire, or feel inclined to comment. Hit and run diaries are not favored in this community, I hear ya. As always, I regret being unable to stick around. I do read and respond to every comment directed my way. Thanks for listening.