Holy Fraud

A person I know attends a small church with about twenty members (total). The minister recently, during one of his two-hour long sermons, announced that all the church members were going to have to go to Chicago for a one-day training session on how to do counseling with alcoholics and drug users. After the one-day training, they will start counseling people with addiction problems at the church.

This looks like one more example of George Bush's "faith based" scam. The church members will, after one day of training, be able to counsel drug addicts; and then the church will bill the federal government for this high-quality counseling. I'm sure the guys in Chicago also submit a bill to the feds for the training of these counselors. All-in-all this is just one more example of the "faith based" scam that--thanks to the Boob-in-Chief in Washington--allows churches to raid the federal treasury with no accountability and no standards of care.

What's even more grotesque is that I know for a fact that this minister believes that all mental and emotional problems are the work of demons. He doesn't believe in mental illness or psychological counseling, so all this counseling is going to be people praying over alcoholics and drug addicts. These people are going to counsel the addicts to read the Bible and pray to Jesus.

Do they really need to go to Chicago to learn how to do that? Or is it all about getting the money?

more corruption and scandal

In my blogg of Monday, July 16, 2007 I suggested that many congressmen are not giving real value for our tax dollars. For example, disgraced Senator Vitter was found to have hired prostitutes, paying above $300 for single session. This seems extravagant, especially for someone from Louisianna who knows the $150 is typical for this kind of service (unless maybe he is just a really big tipper).

Now it seems we have another Republican politito, Coy Privette (R-NC), who actually gave his mistress a BLANK CHECK.

Yes, you heard it. He gave her a blank check for her services.

What was he thinking! It's not like he can use the excuse that, like Sen. David Vitter, R-La, he had developed bad habits after dealing with all those military contractors and no-bid construction contracts for Haliburton.

And this congressman was also, at one time, a minister! Did he ever see anyone throw a blank check into the collection plate? Not hardly.

Privette is 74 years old, a staunch social conservative and, until recently, President of the Christian Action League.

This is why you just can't trust Republicans with your tax dollars....