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While most families place a candle or light bulb in their carved-out pumpkins, J.R. Hildebrandt can fit a chair and small heater in his. The Wisconsin resident has carved a canoe out of a pumpkin and is taking the 760-pound gourd to the water where he plans to paddle 150 miles for charity. Hildebrandt will row his orange veggie down the Wisconsin River to raise money for Tri City Children’s Dream Foundation, a group that gives special-needs children memorable trips. "We've sent children to Disney Land, or Disney World. We've sent them to NASCAR races, we've even sent one little...

So, what do "the rich" pay in federal income taxes? Nothing, right? That, at least, is what most people think. And Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama wants to raise the top marginal rate for "the rich" -- known in some quarters as "job creators." A recent poll commissioned by Investor's Business Daily asked, in effect, "What share do you think the rich pay?" Their findings? Most people are completely clueless about the amount the rich actually do pay. First, the data. The top 5 percent (those making more than $153,542 -- the group whose taxes Obama seeks to raise) pay...

Just go this page http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com once you click it shows you a page of ads, and says: Thank You — your click has been counted! You've given the value of .6 bowls of food to rescued animals. The ads below make The Animal Rescue Site possible. Thats it! No strings attached

Biden the cheapskate vs. Sarah Palin & The first Dude. Who is more Charitable. It ain’t Joe. The Palins made considerably less than Joe Biden in the last two years according to their tax returns yet they gave more to charity than Biden did in 8 years. So much for the generosity of the liberal Dems.

Media vultures are now poring over Sarah and Todd Palin's tax returns. The Associated Press article insinuates that it's possible the Palins may have underpaid the IRS by $2,000. Yet while they zealously seek to manufacture another fake scandal for the Palins, mainstream media outlets are ignoring, perhaps conveniently, the fact that Joe Biden, wealthy in his own right, has given less than pennies on the dollar to charity over the last decade.

Believing in God makes people nicer, a major study has concluded. After analysing three decades of research, scientists say religion encourages individuals to be more helpful, honest and generous. But believers acting for the greater good may be doing so to enhance their own reputation among friends and acquaintances, according to the review published today in the journal Science. Dr Ara Norenzayan, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia, Canada, said the debate over whether religion improves behaviour has too often been driven by opinion and anecdote. 'We wanted to look at the hard scientific evidence,' he said. Published...

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin made considerably less money than rival Sen. Joe Biden, but the Palin family gave more to charity in the last two years than Biden has in the last eight combined, according to Palin's tax records released Friday afternoon. Palin, the running mate of presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), and her husband Todd reported meager earnings from 2006 and 2007, at least by presidential-politics standards. In 2006, the Palins paid $11,944 in taxes on $127,869 in income. In 2007, they paid $24,738 on $166,080. But in 2006, they donated $4,880 to charity, and in 2007, they...

Twelve Republicans used the excuse of an inflammatory speech by the House Speaker, Congressperson Nancy Pelosi, to vote "no" whereas previously they had indicated a "yes". We heard parts of the speech, and inflammatory it was; though all the facts were correct as to how President Bush had wrecked the US budget over 8 years. But if she sought to blame the mess on President Bush, that would definitely be a no-no: this nonsense started during President Clinton's time, and strange as it may seem, there are Democratic Wall Street people as much as Republican Wall Street people. The Democrats...

Democratic vice-presidential nominee, Senator Joe Biden (Del), castigated Republican economic policies for making it difficult for most middle class families to afford toasters. “People are forced to eat cold sandwiches or settle for untoasted bagels with their eggs because of Bush’s mismanagement of the economy,” Biden claimed. Biden said this problem will be corrected in an Obama/Biden administration by a tax hike on the wealthy. “Not only will we put a toaster on every kitchen counter,” Biden boasted, “but we’ll be forcing the rich to do their patriotic duty to support those less well-off than themselves.” In related news, Biden...

So isn't it interesting that we keep hearing about Sarah Palin's peccadilloes while the major media continues to ignore the George Obama scandal? Here is a guy living in Third World poverty and his half-brother is the leading candidate to become the next president of the United States. Are the networks and major newspapers so exhilarated at the prospect of an African American president that they have become cheerleaders for the Obama campaign? Fortunately the McCain campaign is making the media an issue, and I hope the American people are smart enough to see through the news charade. Here are...

So isn't it interesting that we keep hearing about Sarah Palin's peccadilloes while the major media continues to ignore the George Obama scandal? Here is a guy living in Third World poverty and his half-brother is the leading candidate to become the next president of the United States. Are the networks and major newspapers so exhilarated at the prospect of an African American president that they have become cheerleaders for the Obama campaign? Fortunately the McCain campaign is making the media an issue, and I hope the American people are smart enough to see through the news charade. Here are...

Abandoned as a baby, this executive wouldn't have survived without help from others. Now he's returning the favor James McElya was abandoned, at six weeks old, on the doorstep of the Salvation Army in West Chester, Pa. A succession of 11 families took him in until he was old enough to fend for himself. "These were poor people trying to raise their own families," McElya, now 61, recalls about the informal network of foster homes. "They were not getting paid to take me in. I was the last thing they needed. They kept me for as long as they could,...

Snippets (you really have to read the whole thing): On Thursday at the [French] embassy, a contemporary mansion on Reservoir Road, the white marble floors, soaring ceilings and skylights helped make castoffs look chic... After they sipped wine and nibbled on salmon in champagne sauce, the crowd settled in for the fashion show..... "That's Goodwill?!" one woman gasped as a model wearing an impeccably tailored French wool suit peacocked down the runway. The chocolate-colored, satin sheath gown! That velvet, midnight-blue suit! The mink, oh, that MINK! Eschewing any facade of fashion ennui, members of the crowd cheered and whistled and...

Oprah Winfrey has been proclaimed the world's biggest giver -- again. For the seoncd year running, the day-time host topped a list of the 30 most generous celebrities for giving $50.2 million US last year through the Oprah Winfrey Foundation and Oprah's Angel Network, which fund education, health care and advocacy for women and children. The list, now in its second year, was compiled by The Giving Back Fund, a charity that aims to encourage philanthropy. Claiming the No. 2 spot was trumpeter Herb Alpert, who gave $13 million for education, including music lessons, through the Herb Alpert Foundation. Three...

Rather stark for a US Senator who can afford a family compound, who has one son who has been enriched by having a Senator as a father, and by having the drop-dead gorgeous wife who happens to be a Doctor. This miserly amount is all he can give as charity? Despite income ranging from $210,432 - $321,379 over the ten-year period, the Bidens have given only $120 - $995 per year to charity, which amounts to 0.06% - 0.31% of their income. Don't so many on the left denigrate Americans as being cheap? Well, at least one Senator seems to...

WASHINGTON - Calling Joe Biden the cheap veep would be charitable. Biden, Barack Obama's vice presidential pick, relased 10 years of tax returns Friday in hopes of forcing GOP rival Sarah Palin to do the same. But the filings reveal the Delaware Democrat doesn't dig very deep into his wallet for charities. Biden reported a total income of $2.2 million over the last 10 years, but donated a scant $3,690 in money and gifts. His philanthropy hit a peak last year - while he was running for President - when he earned $320,000. He gave $995 to charity - and...

Sen. Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, have given an average of $369 per year to charities during the past decade, according to tax returns posted today to Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign Web site. Senator Biden, the Democratic nominee for vice president, claimed $995 in charitable gifts in 2007 on the joint return with his wife. That figure is 0.3 percent of the couple’s claimed income of nearly $320,000. The 2007 contributions were significantly higher than the couple’s gifts in previous years, which ranged from $120 to $380. By comparison, Sen. John McCain, the Republican Presidential nominee, in 2007 reported...

Two Saudi actors and a Kuwaiti singer faced an awkward situation at a charity event for orphans when the organization manager refused to accept their donations under the pretext that their job is forbidden by religion. The two comedians Hussein Useiri and Fayez al-Malki and Kuwaiti singer Abadi al-Gohar received an invitation from the Saudi magazine Sayedati to attend an iftar, the sundown meal that breaks the day-long Ramadan fast. With more than 80 kids expected to attend the iftar hosted by the Prince Thamer bin Abdul-Aziz Charity Organization, the three entertainers came several hours in advance to hand out...

Obama wants to be generous to poor people in Africa - with YOUR money, while his own half brother lives on $12 a YEAR. He is very stingy with his own. Despite making well over $1,000,000 in family income from 2000 to 2004, the Obamas listed less than $11,000 in charitable contributions for all five years combinedClick here for proof If you think the Obamas just didn't want to claim their legal deductions, they had no problem in 2005 and 2006. Also note that the year Obama became senator his income jumped 700% from $200,000 to over $1.6 MILLION. No...

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- More than $2 million -- that's what the United Way of the Central Carolinas has agreed to pay into the retirement plan of its chief executive officer. The payments are spelled out in tax returns known as the IRS form 990, filed annually by non-profit agencies like the United Way and available to the public. The returns show the local United Way agency has already paid more than $1 million into the employee benefit plan of CEO Gloria Pace King. Board members tell WCNC they've committed to pay more than $1 million more over the next three...

Coburn is a medical doctor who continues to deliver about 400 babies a year. When told that it would be a violation of Senate rules to earn such outside income, Coburn stopped collecting money. He actually loses money for delivering the babies since he pays for malpractice insurance out of his own pocket. The latest Rasmussen Reports survey found that 77% of voters say such conduct is appropriate for a senator while only 8% disagree. But, according to Politico.com that’s not good enough for the six senators on the ethics committee, three from each party. They have ordered Coburn to...

Peter Schweizer, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, has a new book out that is sure to drive the loony left, well, even loonier. In the new book Makers and Takers, Schweizer tells us "why conservatives work harder, feel happier, have closer families, take fewer drugs, give more generously, value honesty more, are less materialistic" than lefties in America. This from his website: Seventy-one percent of conservatives say you have an obligation to care for a seriously injured spouse or parent versus less than half (46 percent) of liberals. Conservatives have a better work ethic and are much less...

California's largest union local and a related charity have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to firms owned by the wife and mother-in-law of the labor organization's president, documents and interviews show. The Los Angeles-based union, which represents low-wage caregivers, also spent nearly $300,000 last year on a Four Seasons Resorts golf tournament, a Beverly Hills cigar club, restaurants such as Morton's steakhouse and a consulting contract with the William Morris Agency, the Hollywood talent shop, records show. In addition, the union paid six figures to a video firm whose principals include a former union employee. And a now-defunct minor...

Two weeks after federal agents raided the largest Iranian charity in Oregon, employees at Child Foundation have regained possession of their seized cell phones and fax machines. But the feds are still holding the charity’s computers and remaining silent about the reasons behind a raid that’s alarmed Iranians locally and on the Internet after bloggers published WW’s account of the raid (see “Mystery Raid,” WW, July 23, 2008). Online comments ranged from fear of an Orwellian crackdown on Iranian-Americans to speculation about whether Child Foundation was violating tightened U.S. economic sanctions against Iran. “I would like the Iranian-American community…to follow...

By Michelle Malkin  •  July 30, 2008 11:07 AM How afraid is the Democrat leadership of truly maverick conservative GOP Sen. Tom Coburn, who is waging war with Hapless Harry Reid over binge spending and secrecy? They’re so afraid of his effectiveness that they are trying to kneecap him with bogus Ethics Committee complaints about his practice of not charging for delivering babies at the Muskogee Regional Medical Center. Coburn continues to serve as an OB/GYN in Oklahoma.Jill Stanek read my mind: If Sen. Coburn were aborting babies for free instead of delivering them, he’d be getting awards instead of ethics...

You are welcome here. That's the message that Denver officials say they hope to convey to its homeless community as the Democratic National Convention approaches. No one will be swept or bused out of the city in an effort to "clean up" Denver during the event. But some homeless advocates say that a city program makes the homeless feel particularly unwelcome in public parks, and that the city plans to empty parks of the homeless before the convention. Called Come On In, the program, which was launched in 2006, urges charities that serve outdoor meals to the homeless to move...

An unnamed charity could be £5m better off today after the birth of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's twins. The bidding war has already begun for the first photos of Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline who were born on Saturday night at a French hospital. French papers have reported that an American magazine has already offered $10m (£5m) for the exclusive images of the new babies - with all the money going to a worthy cause.

Faced with legislation that would require them to disclose their ethnic composition and detail grants awarded to minority organizations, 10 of California's largest foundations agreed Monday to a multimillion-dollar, multiyear investment in minority communities. In return, Assemblyman Joe Coto, D-San Jose, dropped a bill that opponents said was an effort to impose racial diversity on charities and threatened to drive donors out of California. Many foundations enjoy tax-exempt status. But according to a 2006 study by the Berkeley-based Greenlining Institute, which sponsored Coto's legislation, only 3.6 percent of grant dollars from the nation's top 24 private foundations went to minority-led...

Just six more days ’til the awesome event I told you about over Memorial Day weekend. “From the Frontlines” is a joint project of Melanie Morgan’s Move America Forward, UStream.TV, and Hot Air. On June 26, from 4pm Eastern/1pm Pacific to 12midnight Eastern/9pm Pacific, Melanie and I will be anchoring a livestreamed, 8-hour fund-raising “web-a-thon” to send the largest number of care packages to our troops overseas in U.S. history. We’ve got a star-studded line-up participating in this effort to support our military, including Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Laura Ingraham, Dr Laura Schlessinger, Ollie North, Monica Crowley, Ann...

DES MOINES, Iowa - The American Red Cross said on Monday that its Disaster Relief Fund is wiped out and it's being forced to borrow money to help flood victims throughout the Midwest. Jeff Towers, the organization's chief development officer, said the balance for domestic disaster relief efforts is zero. He said the American Red Cross would borrow to keep workers and volunteers in the field helping flood victims. "The Red Cross remains committed to providing the scale of services that people expect of the Red Cross when disaster strikes, and the way that we are doing that right now...

"You will always have the poor among you..." In those words Jesus stated a simple fact that has held true through the centuries. In every society, no matter how rich and bountiful, there have always been impoverished people. These people evoke our concern and sympathy. We want to help them, but how? No society has ever overcome poverty. In the US today, the question of how to help the poor is particularly controversial, with two partisan sides struggling vigorously to promote their own answers. The liberal camp argues that government is the best entity to help the poor at home...

Zimbabwe faces worst harvest on record as Robert Mugabe stops charity food handouts Peta Thornycroft in HarareLast Updated: 2:33PM BST 07/06/2008 Hours after Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe told foreign charities to stop distributing food, the United States warned that Zimbabwe faced its worst ever harvest. The Famine Early Warning Systems Network, an American government agency, said the crop of maize - the country's main staple - was the smallest on record, 60 per cent lower than normal. Mr Mugabe has told aid organisations to abandon their work in the country, which includes emergency distribution of food and medicines such as...

- Snip = Barack Obama ... consistently gave 1 percent of his income to charity. Al Gore has been famously stingy when it comes to actually giving his own money to charities. In 1998 he was embarrassed when his tax returns revealed that he gave just $353 to charity. - Snip - Senator John Kerry likewise has a poor record. In 1995 he gave zero to charity, but did spend $500,000 to buy a half stake in a seventeenth century painting. In 1993, he gave $175 to the needy. - Snip - [Ted] Kennedy's tax returns are obviously a closely...

RUSH Limbaugh is much more charitable than Nancy Pelosi. According to Peter Schweizer in "Movers and Takers: Why Conservatives Work Harder, Feel Happier, Have Closer Families, Take Fewer Drugs, Give More Generously, Value Honesty More, Are Less Materialistic and Envious, Whine Less . . . And Even Hug Their Children More than Liberals" (Doubleday), the most recent tax records show Limbaugh gave money to "various individuals in need of assistance mainly due to family illnesses" ($109,716), "children's case management organizations" ($52,898) and "Alzheimer's community care" ($35,100). And Pelosi's contributions? The list includes the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art ($36,500)...

Excerpt: Friends of New Orleans, a charity formed to help that city recover from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, is paying for the party, and for a concert with New Orleans-style food at the Fillmore Auditorium afterward for the 6,000 delegates and their guests on Aug. 24, the Sunday before the convention opens.

Excerpt: Friends of New Orleans, a charity formed to help that city recover from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, is paying for the party, and for a concert with New Orleans-style food at the Fillmore Auditorium afterward for the 6,000 delegates and their guests on Aug. 24, the Sunday before the convention opens.

A bill purporting to encourage diversity among nonprofits has passed the California Assembly and faces a key vote in the state senate in early June. While little attention has been paid to this bill, it poses an enormous threat to private philanthropy in this country. The Foundation Diversity and Transparency Act requires California foundations with $250 million in assets to report the composition by ethnicity and gender orientation of their boards and staffs, the boards and staffs of the charities they support, and the degree to which they are run by or support certain minorities. The bill has been rightly...

Americans are hearing so much these days about how bad we are that we're starting to believe it. In a recent Gallup Poll, 68 percent said they are "dissatisfied with the position of the United States in the world today," and 55 percent said they think that the rest of the world views us unfavorably. However, as I page through a publication called the Index of Global Philanthropy, which is produced annually by the Center for Global Prosperity at the Hudson Institute in Washington, it becomes obvious that these American feelings of self-deprecation are misguided. This is the just released...

Bo (woof) In Commentary: It’s always good to see humans returning the favor of our unending loyalty and support to them. This story about “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” warms my heart, much like the pacemaker she just received warms hers. (COLUMBIA, Mo. - After years of helping authorities look for murder victims and survivors of natural disasters, a search-and-rescue dog named Molly has been rescued herself. Surgeons at the University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine on Thursday installed a pacemaker in the 5-year-old chocolate Labrador retriever’s heart. She needed the surgery after being diagnosed with a complete electrical heart...

`Disaster fatigue' leads to drop in giving NEW YORK (AP) — The numbers are almost too large to fathom, so many Americans stop trying. As bodies pile up in disaster after global disaster, even the most sympathetic souls can turn away.Charities know this as "donor fatigue," but it might be more accurately described as disaster fatigue — the sense that these events are never-ending, uncontrollable and overwhelming. Experts say it is one reason Americans have contributed relatively little so far to victims of the Myanmar cyclone and China's earthquake.Ironically, the more bad news there is, the less likely people may...

But there is a third way: social entrepreneurship. We are at a stage in human development when we’ve tried varying degrees of socialism — systems that have been discredited at each degree. So why can’t we get government out of the poverty business? Why can’t we turn our concern for others to a vibrant philanthropic sector that would be as powerful and prolific as any other industry if we simply took that virtual monopoly away from the state? What I’m suggesting is not altogether new. Before the New Deal put mutual aid societies and “friendly societies” out of business, America...

Chris Jardine gingerly reached out with his fingerless hands to touch the new wheelchair he was just given. He lifted his body into the new chair, but after a moment he pulled himself out and went back into his old wheelchair. “I want to wait and get up Christmas morning and have this be my Christmas gift,” Jardine said in his 10-by-10 room located in an old hospital in Mahaica, Guyana. Jardine was in dire need of a new wheelchair. His old one had loose and broken wheels, making transportation especially dangerous and difficult. The new chair would be more...

Being able to see properly is an important part of health. Unfortunately not everyone can afford to buy themselves proper glasses. Just like used clothes or sneakers, you can donate your used glasses. LensCrafters, Pearle Vision, Sears, Target, Sunglass Hut, and BJ's Optical all donate used glasses to Give the Gift of Sight, a program that gives glasses to underprivileged people in North America and developing countries. All you have to do is drop your old glasses off at one of the locations and the program collects, cleans, repairs, and catalogs them into a computer system so they'll be properly...

All, Mission To The World, the PCA's international ministry, has issued an appeal for funds to aid in the relief of Myanmar cyclone victims. I know that most of us have heard stories about countries and large relief agencies having their hands tied, but God will provide a way for His church to break through manmade barriers. _________________________________________________________________ Horrifying and harrowing stories are emerging in the aftermath of the catastrophic tropical cyclone that devastated much of already poverty-striken Myanmar. Reuters News is reporting as many as one million people left homeless. No one really knows how high the death toll...

Feeling the need to "get out and around", I attended a Wednesday night supper,sponsored by a church I sometimes attend...and saw a modern version of the Miracle of Loaves and Fishes.

Many Americans were startled to learn that the Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, whose campaign is built on an uplifting message of national unity and racial reconciliation, belongs to a church in Chicago where a very different view of America is preached by its longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Mr. Wright, who just retired after decades in the pulpit, has argued that the "United States of White America" is still sharply divided between an oppressive white power structure and oppressed African-Americans, that God should "damn America for treating our citizens as less than human," and that the 2001 terrorist...

Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr is known in America for heading the Mahdi Army militia, but his followers also see him as someone who can provide them with things their government can't. BAGHDAD -- When Ali Ateya was killed last month at the age of 23 -- a victim of an American airstrike on a block of concrete tenements in Baghdad's Sadr City slum, according to his family -- there was no money for his burial. Within days, two officials from Sadr City's main humanitarian organization showed up at the family home. Unsolicited, they offered to pay for Ateya's Shiite...

Good evening. Tonight the scripture passages "As ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me" (Matthew 25:40) and "Remember in all things the poor and the needy" (D&C 52:40) take on special meaning as we review highlights of humanitarian endeavors during the past year. A briefing on humanitarian assistance was recently given to the General Welfare Committee of the Church. The committee chair, then President Gordon B. Hinckley, expressed profound gratitude for the generosity of members and those not of our faith who have made this outreach possible. In...

STUART — In an effort to bring in more donations, longtime Martin County charity Jesus House of Hope decided to drop the word Jesus from its name. Patrick Slattery, executive director of the 24-year-old nonprofit, said the change will help the organization fulfill what Jesus commanded in the Gospel of Matthew: Help the needy. Slattery said many private foundations could not donate to the charity because it includes Jesus in the name, and people are often reluctant to give to what appears to be a house of worship if they already donate to their own church. So the organization’s board...

The United States dollar took another pounding on German, French and British exchanges this morning, hitting the lowest point ever known in West Germany. It has declined there by 41% since 1971 and this Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the least-appreciated people in all the world. As long as sixty years ago, when I first started to read newspapers, I read of floods on the Yellow River and the Yangtse. Well, Who rushed in with men and money to help? The Americans did, that's who. They have helped...