Posted on 09/30/2005 10:20:14 AM PDT by Sam Hill
Mother Sheehan fans will recall that as hurricane Katrina threatened to remove her grieving visage from the front page of the nation's newspapers, Cindy got together with her pals, the Veterans For Peace, to start a Katrina relief effort.
The self-designated worthy being, Michael Moore, began vouching and shilling for the VFP's Katrina relief program.
As discussed previously, the VFP asked for donations that they claimed would be used to "support" the Red Cross. The VFP later falsely claimed that the Red Cross had designated them "the best shelter" doing Katrina relief. (The VFP never opened any kind of shelter.)
Meanwhile, the VFP were accusing the Red Cross of gross incompetence and bragging about how they were looting Red Cross supplies and passing them out to the victims themselves.
Soon, however, the Red Cross and the local authorities were made aware of the VFP's claims. The VFP were quickly chased out of the school, then their storage facility, and then even the public campground. In each instance the VFP had lied to those in charge, falsely claiming to be with the Red Cross.
Eventually, the VFP scrubbed its sites of most references to their "support" of the Red Cross, but not before collecting untold hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations, as well as supplies and equipment.
As of this writing, the local police, the Red Cross, the Louisiana Attorney General's Office and the US Department of Justice are all conducting investigations into the VFP's Katrina activities.
Despite their overwhelming success at fundraising, where they claimed to be collecting more than $100K a day, the VFP have apparently thus far spent little or no money helping the victims of Katrina. (Apart from delivering possibly pilfered supplies to the racist Moslem felony ex-con former Black Panther, Malik Rahim.)
The Veterans For Peace have long since fled Covington, Louisiana, which was their Katrina relief center. They have even closed down their message board and reportedly fired all the moderators there. Though they still have plenty of sites still asking for donations for their Katrina relief program.
Lastly, the VFP's own lawyers accused them of malfeasance, and the VFP in turn fired said lawyers.
Here is a recent update from an insider, Paul V. He alleges that no VFP money has been spent on hurricane relief. But he says the VFP did try to use their money to buy $17,000 worth of "media equipment."
This should sound very familiar to those who have been following this story, since we have been saying all along this would happen.
Here is Paul V's post, from a forum (ironically named to mock our incompetent and crooked President) Brainshrub:
Rumor control about Katrina direct-aid and Veterans for Peace
Last night rumors started popping up about the mishandling of funds meant for direct-aid for the victims of hurricane victims by Veterans for Peace and/or the Spell family. As someone who has spent some time with most of the individuals involved in this controversy, I decided to look into these allegations myself. This is my report after talking with Buddy and Annie Spell this morning on the phone.
After Hurricane Katrina, Buddy & Annie Spell set up a kitchen at a park near their home in a suburb of New Orleans. Veterans For Peace (VFP) set up camp in the Spell's damaged house to man the kitchen and manage the logistics for the disaster. Michael Moore, seeing how incompetent the Feds were at helping the victims of the Katrina, helped raise approximately $300,000 - $500,000 for VFP to be used as direct-aid for hurricane victims. (As of the writing of this post, I do not have an exact number as to the amount raised.)
Apparently, VFP hasn't used most of the money that was donated to them for Hurricane relief yet. The reason for this is unclear, but I suspect in all the confusion over the past few weeks, no one felt they were authorized to start shepherding the paperwork for the direct-aid account.
On Friday, September 17th, when local hurricane victims started to ask where the direct-aid money was getting spent, Annie Spell was put in charge of the direct-aid account. The next day she was asked by VFP to cut a check for $17,000 for equipment to document the reconstruction, and use, of the donated funds.
When the request for the media equipment came, most volunteers thought that there should have been at least $100,000 in the direct-aid account. (After all, it had been almost 3 weeks since the funds had been promised.) However, when Mrs. Spell looked at the books, she saw that the funds had not transfered yet and there was only $3000 available for immediate use. She cut a check for $1000 to bring potable water to the city of Bogalusa, but refused to authorize the spending for the media equipment because the account didn't have the money at the time.
Apparently, the refusal of Annie Spell to authorize the $17,000 upset the VFP leadership. They took her name off the direct-aid account and drove to DC for the huge protest coming this weekend... neglecting to explain to the volunteers still in Louisiana what was going on.
In my option, there is no scandal here: It's an unfortunate spat between the Spell family and VFP. Charity transactions like this take time to fully process, and the VFP people didn't understand how important it was to follow through with the authorization process. Everyone involved has been under a tremendous amount of pressure, and at this point the volunteers are exhausted.
The controversy has taken a lot out of the Spell family, and they are disassociating themselves from VFP and the peace movement. I pray that the wounds caused from all this will heal quickly.
Posted by Paul V. -- Tue, 09/20/2005 – 2:19pm
Again, we have suspected all along that the VFP only wanted these donations for themselves. The donations requested for Katrina relief have always been laughably screwy -- except for when we go to the bottom of their list, which was remarkable for its precise detail.
Here is an example of their request list from a page (since disappeared) that predates the Katrina relief grift, since the VFP were asking for it for their Support The Terrorists bus tour:
Mobile Multi Media & Internet Access Bus
Here is the needs list for the bus!
(1) Satelite Mobile Internet Unit = $5,000
(1) Apple iMac G5 Computer 20" Monitor = $3,000
(1) 500 Gigabyte Firewire Harddrive = $500
(1) Canon XL2 Digital Video Camera = $4,500
(1) Digital Projector (3000 lunens) =$1000
(2) Apple iPods with recording mics = $600
(1) Canon Printer = $200
(40) Mini DV Tape = $200
(40) DVD Blanks = $200=$15,000.00
Monthly Satelite Access Fee = $200 pr/mo
Website Hosting = $50 pr/moWe are asking you to help us get the word out to the world that there are veterans who beleave we did not have the right to invade Iraq. We want to help them express how they feal when they come home. We want to let them know that we care! And since we are veterans of WWII, Korea, Viet Nam, Afganistan and Iraq. We are trusted to present them in a respectfull light.
Donations for our traveling multi media equipment will keep our guest speakers and support staff press, sponsors, members, in touch through via email, web, blogs, and teleconferencing.
In order to insure our message get out the way we want it, we most maintain control of the message content as well as the context.
As we said all along, this equipment request had nothing to do with "supporting" the Red Cross or helping Katrina victims. The VFP just wanted the equipment to promulgate their hate America agit-prop.
It's still not yet clear whether they actually got the equipment or not. You can't go by the lack of coverage of their participation of last weekend's Support The Terrorists rally in DC, since the VFP have shown they can't even operate cell phones or chat forums.
But it's President Bush and the American Red Cross Cindy Sheehan and the VFP say are incompetent and dishonest.
Hilariously, the taxpayer-supported Communists at Radio Pacifica have recently awarded Mother Sheehan with their prestigious "Unvarnished Truth Award."
Perhaps this will impress the judge at her trial, should she been prosecuted by any of the ongoing investigations.
Here is the needs list for the bus!
(1) Satelite Mobile Internet Unit = $5,000
(1) Apple iMac G5 Computer 20" Monitor = $3,000
(1) 500 Gigabyte Firewire Harddrive = $500
(1) Canon XL2 Digital Video Camera = $4,500
(1) Digital Projector (3000 lunens) =$1000
(2) Apple iPods with recording mics = $600
(1) Canon Printer = $200
(40) Mini DV Tape = $200
(40) DVD Blanks = $200
=$15,000.00
Funny, it sounds a lot like the needs list for my Living Room.
Or maybe Cindy's living room!
"...they claimed to be collecting more than $100K a day..."
OH, so that's how 'slamo-Cindy can roam around the country and not hold a paying job!
Put all these bozos in jail!!
I love how quickly and easily they make so many excuses for themselves -- we're tired, overworked, etc. -- the federal government is supposed to be able to instantly transform a severely damaged area the size of Great Britain, but these jokers can't even manage to properly handle amounts in the thousands, not billions.
She looks like a man!
Did anyone hear that "speech" she gave that went (something like) "If he said that, I would say 'bullcrap Mr. President'"? She is a WEIRDO with a seemingly 10th grade education.
You missed Afganistan.
That is all, carry on.
Community service cleaning all the state bathrooms,
(Harps playing softly in the background).
You can take that to the bank.
Leni
A stoned 10th grader. During her last speech at that televised rally, my husband asked what kind of medication she was on. I thought she sounded kind of drunk...slurring her words. But then, she was grinning like a fool. So, I guess maybe high is the right word.
Did you see what Dolphy and I were talking about on the FR Exclusive thread in regards to sheltering?
Dolphy, look at this one and remember the ping I gave you before about the volunteers and billing FEMA.
Kinda like Air America.........
Agreed, better than Jail , I am sure they left quite a smelly pile of S**t at the ditches in Crawford that need to be cleaned up.
Matbe there will be enough money left over to replace her brave sons coffin after all the damage she has done by using it as her personel soapbox.
"Charge her with fraud and make sure everybody hears it over and over, find her guilty and then sentence her to probation. Throwing her in jail would just make her a "martyr"."
If she has committed a crime, giving her probation would just encourage more people to commit fraud and think they can get away with it if they are public figures.
Prosecute her to the fullest possible extent of the law, and push for the maximum sentence.
They'll claim she's a martyr in either case. However, the other frauds in their movement won't be stealing money from hurricane victims out of fear of getting a similar sentence.
BTTT - for later reading.
Sam Hill - you post amazing articles with clickable links. Good job!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
