Santorum charity for the poor spent most of its money on management, political friends

[Faux pas]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/santorum-charity-for-the-poor-spent-most-of-its-money-on-management-political-friends/2012/01/11/gIQAGDKVwP_story.html?wpisrc=nl_pmpolitics

What a fine example of 'christian' values.

[warrior1]

1. wow

really not surprised. A republican stealing from the poor. Fox news will probably give him a metal.

[shraby]

3. I hate to be a nanny, but

the word Metal is what you make keys out of.
Medal is a prize for doing right.

So many people have made this mistake, it's time to clarify it.

[RZM]

5. Why must you meddle?

[shraby]

7. Because I have the metal to do it.

[RZM]

8. Don't you mean mettle?

[shraby]

12. Yup..I'm guilty too.

[xtraxritical]

25. Heavy dude.

[blue neen]

22. Actually, Fox News probably will give him a metal, and it will be a precious one.

Gold comes to mind. Silver, platinum, anything that transfers to cash for Slick Rick.

[WCGreen]

2. I am shocked I tell you, shocked....

[Angry Dragon]

4. Follow the Money

Theives

[LiberalFighter]

6. How much wild monkey sex did he have with his political benefactors?

[provis99]

9. well, Santorum is consistent...

was rated one of the three most corrupt Senators in 2006:
http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/santorum-named-one-of-three-most-corrupt-senators-in-2006/politics/2012/01/07/32863

[jsmirman]

10. This is what they mean

when those assholes tell us that "charity" will take care of everything, and is what a society should rely on to help those in need.

I guess they get all confused and start thinking, "in need of what, exactly?"

[nxylas]

26. And don't forget that conservatives give more to charity than liberals

As they never tire of reminding us, even though it's hard to see how paying to have opera houses named after themselves benefits most of us.

[jsmirman]

30. What a crazy concept - being charitable

and believing in social responsibility. Do they really think that we don't give to charity, too?

[Zoeisright]

11. Typical fucking repukes.

I hate them all.

[The Second Stone]

13. Right wing charities appear to have a pattern of

despicabilities. It's about using poor people to get rich by taking money meant for poor people to further enrich themselves.

[The Wizard]

14. From the same folks

who always say the government can't do anything right because of waste.

[malaise]

15. Duh!!

ReTHUG in name and nature

[PA Democrat]

17. He also used his PAC "American's Foundation" as a personal slush fund.

So what was the PAC spending its money on? A category that America's Foundation called "other federal expenditures." According to the Prospect, some of the items charged to Santorum's PAC between 2001 and 2005 include:


-66 visits to various Starbucks, totaling $558.65
-$380 worth of coffee from HMS Host of Bethesda, MD
-A $175.05 meal at Smith and Wollensky's steakhouse in Philadelphia, PA
-11 Arby's meals totaling $118.25
-Four meals at various Burger Kings, totaling $50.36
-A $29 meal at TGI Friday's in Pittsburgh
-Two meals at Giovanni's New York Pizzaria in Leesburg, VA, totaling $21.73
-Several meals at Great Wall Express in Alexandria, VA, including one for just $5.74
-A $4.48 ice cream purchase at Ben & Jerry's and a $3.71 purchase at Goodnoe Farms ice cream store
-A $2.49 purchase at an Auntie Anne's pretzel store

Clearly, no charge was too small for Santorum's PAC to bust out the company credit card. The committee also paid for several more expensive items, including hundreds of dollars of office supplies and tens of thousands of dollars in travel expenses.

http://www.nationalmemo.com/article/strange-true-rick-santorums-pac-spent-thousands-coffee-fast-food

Santorum is s scam artist. He also scammed PA taxpayers when he enrolled his children who lived in Virginia in a PA cyber school.

[d_r]

24. Clearly he was feeding the hungry

one meal at a time.

[Faux pas]

31. He has no shame and no morals obviously.

In my experience, the harder/louder the bible thumping the bigger the crook/liar/cheat etc, etc.
Thanks for posting this.

[AzDar]

18. K & R

[flexnor]

19. not to excuse santorum in any way, but many charities are notorious

for heavy handed hounding of funds from ordinary people, that get $howered on their top management, and fundrai$ing buddies

i know someone who made a rule of not giving to any charity that paid their ceo more than obama (400k), and you wouldnt beleive how many charities that cut off

(the total amount given didnt change, it was just diverted to under 400k ceo charities)

[Alcibiades]

20. There's an aristocratic sense of entitlement

Much like Karen Handel, who said publicly that she had dedicated her life to fighting cancer, when in fact she was being paid $500,000 a year to do whatever it was that she was doing. They treat these jobs like titles of nobility, so of course they must be compensated royally, as befits their station as well-connected GOP insiders.

They have also imported some bad habits from the private sector. Many businesspeople I know, particularly conservatives, treat their businesses as a personal entitlement. Why pay for your own coffee when you can put it on the company expense account, where it suddenly also becomes a tax deductible expense? Using your employees as personal servants, using a company vehicle for personal use and then deducting 100% of the milage, describing your den with a computer in it as a "home office," claiming personal furnishings as tax-deductible business expenses, using the company postage account to send out personal packages, even using company money for personal trips to Las Vegas or Atlantic City. Quite naturally, people such as this cannot understand what it is like for normal people who earn $40,000, $20,000 or less and try to support a family. These folks don't even pay for their own coffee if they can get out of it.

The positions at places such as Santorum's "charity" also create a stipend for conservative activists who are able to be relied upon when the time arises, so they can do things such as participate in the "Brooks Brothers riot."

[jwirr]

21. A lot of those rw charities are for show and so that someone other than the needy can profit. I do

not give to any of them.

[blue neen]

23. This is no surprise to those of us in Pennsylvania, who voted him out in 2006 by 18 points.

It's good to see now that the rest of the country gets to see what a sanctimonious jerk Ricky Santorum really is.

[Faux pas]

32. Kudos for getting rid of him. LOL now he

wants to be a problem for all of us.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

27. Google Santorum.

From six years ago:

http://www.parentadvocates.org/nicecontent/dsp_printable.cfm?articleID=6774

Capitol Hillbillies
Santorum aides live large off charity payroll
By KIMBERLY HEFLING
Feb 25, 2006, 02:11

LINK (http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_8199.shtml)

Sen. Rick Santorum's charity donated about 40 percent of the $1.25 million it spent during a four-year period, well below Better Business Bureau standards -- paying out the rest for overhead, including several hundred thousand dollars to campaign aides on the charity payroll.

The charity, Operation Good Neighbor (http://operationgoodneighbor.net/FoundersLetter.html), is described on its Web site as an organization promoting "compassionate conservatism" by providing grants to small nonprofit groups, many of them religious.

The Better Business Bureau's Wise Giving Alliance (http://www.give.org/) says charitable organizations should spend at least 65 percent of their total expenses on program activities.

Operation Good Neighbor is based at the same address as Pennsylvania Sen. Santorum's campaign office in suburban Philadelphia, and some of the same people who have worked on his campaign are working for his charity and collecting money from it, records show.
....

From 2001 through 2004, filings show Operation Good Neighbor took in a total of $1.6 million and spent about $1.25 million. Of that amount, just over $501,000 was awarded in grants, helping people from the homeless to AIDS patients. The charity has not yet reported 2005 figures.

Its IRS filings are signed by Bonfiglio. Its secretary is listed as Mark Rodgers, Santorum's former chief of staff and now staff director at the Senate Republican Conference, where Santorum is chairman.

[bayareaboy]

28. Do you folks realize how much ...

sweater vests are. Go to a nice store and price them out. They are just as much a regular sweater. This is totally unfair and when I Rick Santorium, become President this Nov. I will have the congress, which will rightly be GOP bagmen, submit a bill that takes all the sex out of marriage, but also standardizes prices for sweater vests to 1/2 the cost of sweaters with sleeves.

Sorry, I got carried away, being Rick!

[beac]

29. bayareaboy, the

Rick "Role" is so 2008!

[Quantess]

33. What a creep.