Mike the Mad Biologist

Who woulda thunk it? It’s already well-established that the good souls of the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives had a ‘No Jews need apply’ policy*. Now it turns out that, like so many bigots, they’re also corrupt (italics mine):

A former top official in the White House’s faith-based office was awarded a lucrative Department of Justice grant under pressure from two senior Bush administration appointees, according to current and former DOJ staff members and a review of internal DOJ documents and emails.

The $1.2 million grant was jointly awarded to a consulting firm run by Lisa Trevino Cummins who previously headed Hispanic outreach efforts for the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, and a California evangelical group, Victory Outreach.

The grant was awarded over the strong objections of career DOJ staff who did not believe that Victory Outreach was qualified for the grant and that too great an amount of the funds was going to Cummins’ consulting company instead of being spent on services for children….

Cummins’ said in the application that she planned to have one of her senior employees oversee Victory Outreach’s use of the federal funds, even though that employee, Kelly Cowles, had mismanaged funds according to Ohio state investigators.

The proposal said that Cowles was qualified because as president of her own consulting company she had designed and implemented “a two-year statewide $22 million” faith-based initiative for the Ohio Governor’s Office.

Ohio’s governor terminated that contract for mismanagement in March 2007.

An investigation by the Ohio Inspector General in September 2007 questioned more than $125,000 in payments to Cowles’ firm, concluding that “there was no documentation of what work was performed, services provided, or actual days worked.” Cowles’ company filed for bankruptcy protection in June of that year….

One thing to remember about the conservative Uruk-hai base is that they’re not particularly smart, but they are, politically anyway, sociopathic, in that they will do anything without any sense of restraint.

*Of course, there shouldn’t be a governmental faith-based office to begin with.

Comments

#1 Orac
July 1, 2008

You realize, of course, that Barack Obama has promised to expand the Office of Faith-based Initiatives if elected:

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/07/01/obama-expand-faith-prog/

He is even saying that he supports funding organizations that base their employment decisions on religion. I kid you not.
#2 SLC
July 1, 2008

Re Orac

I would be a little cautious about anything reported on the fascist news channel as their record for veracity is not something to bet the ranch on.
#3 Orac
July 1, 2008

It’s an AP report republished on Fox and other news outlets. Are you saying I should doubt the AP?
#4 Orac
July 1, 2008

Here it is on MSNBC if you prefer:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25473529/
#5 kevin
July 1, 2008

Orac – do you have any information about this from Obama directly, or from his campaign?

The msnbc story you linked has, right in paragraph 2, a big disclaimer that the Obama campaign specifically denies the meat of the story, namely that Obama “supports funding organizations that base their employment decisions on religion.”

The AP says they won’t change their story (they changed “supports” to “some”, and seem peeved that the Obama campaign still objects), but gives only the scantest evidence of such an assertion (from, as expected, an anonymous source). The quotes they give from Obama himself seemed pretty benign, and in line with what he has said before — religious people need to be “part of the solution”.

I’m also a bit disturbed that you would even bother to cite fox news in the first place. They have less than zero credibility in my mind — about the same as linking an Obama story from world nut daily.

-Kevin
#6 6EQUJ5
July 1, 2008

9/11 was a faith-based initiative.
#7 Bee
July 1, 2008

Staring in frequently wide-eyed disbelief from North of the Border, it appears to me that all USoA political leaders are operating on the edge of lunacy when it comes to religion, and Obama, I think, is no exception.

That he appears otherwise sane and honest is certainly in his favour, but it would be less scary looking South if you lovely neighbours could do a little better in the church/state separation business. We have a God-bothering PM ourselves at the moment, but it has been mostly a negative in the polls for his minority party, and will continue to be so.
#8 SLC
July 1, 2008

USA Today is reporting that the following clarification has been issued by the Obama compaign.

“”Obama does not believe that faith-based groups are an alternative to government or secular nonprofits, or that they�re better at lifting people but. But what he does believe is that we all have to work together to meet the challenges of the 21st Century. Obama’s Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships will help empower grassroots faith-based and community groups to help meet these challenges. …

“The new partnership will not endanger the separation of church and state, so long as a few basic principles are followed. First, if an organization gets a federal grant, it will not be permitted to use that grant money to proselytize to the people it serves, and the group will forbidden to discriminate against them on the basis of their religion. And groups will be required to comply with federal anti-discrimination laws in their hiring practices�including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

“Second, federal dollars that go directly to churches, temples, and mosques will only be allowed to go toward secular programs. And Obama will ensure that taxpayer dollars only go to those programs that actually work.” ”

This would seem to indicate that the Fox news report was, as I suspected, somewhat overwrought. However, be that as it may, based on the experience with the current administration, I would greatly prefer, as apparently would Dr. Orac, that the program be terminated by the next president, regardless of his political affiliation.

In fairness to Senator Obama, he appears to be focusing his pandering towards the less nutty of the fundamentalist churches, unlike Senator McCain who courts the Hagees, Parsons, Robertsons, Sheltons, Dobsons, and Franklin Grahams of the world .
#9 khefera
July 1, 2008

oh noes! teh *elite* jooz are coming!!1! until you can offer anything more intelligent than barfed up talking points, FOAD you ignorant aryan pussy.
#10 Paul Murray
July 1, 2008

“Jews are the most elitist racist group on earth.”

What about the Zoroastrians?

“oh noes! teh *elite* jooz are coming!!”

Nevertheless, the poster does have a point – the Nazis weren’t the first to have the idea that their particular ethnic group was a chosen people of God.