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The Wounded Warriors Project (WWP) pays millions of dollars for commercials showing injured service members. Many were forced to sign non-disclosure agreements (Why?). I have talked to many Veterans who were promised many things from WWP and did not receive anything in return for the use of their likeness in commercials and print ads. The commercials do not mention anything WWP does to help the injured service members. Listen closely to the commercials as they parade an injured veteran around like an injured animal. They pay famous actors and musicians to pull on the nation’s heart strings. Fox News takes...

In an update to a CBS News investigation of the country's largest veterans charity, Wounded Warrior Project, the board has fired the Chief Executive Officer and the Chief Operating Officer. The CBS News investigation raised questions about how the charity spends the millions of dollars it receives in donations each year. Wounded Warrior Project's CEO, Steven Nardizzi, and COO, Al Giordano, were fired after criticisms from more than 40 employees about how it spends its more than $800 million raised in donations in the past four years. The allegations include lavish spending by the charity at staff retreats, and other...

The Trump campaign said the event raised $6 million for different veterans groups, with Trump himself contributing $1 million, but details released by the campaign Thursday show only about half of that money has been dispersed so far. The campaign did not provide specifics earlier this week, but after a CNN report aired Thursday morning questioning the contributions, a spokeswoman shared a list in the afternoon showing 27 veterans organizations that have received a total of $2.9 million to date.

Robert Lupton's book is ruffling some feathers. In Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help (And How to Reverse It) (HarperOne), the 40-year veteran urban minister "takes the gloves off" and argues that much of Americans' charitable giving "is either wasted or actually harms the people it is targeted to help. "Years of charitable giving at home and abroad, Lupton contends, have made barely a dent in reducing poverty and often encourage dependency. Toxic Charity offers some statistics, but more stories, as evidence that both our philosophy and practice of charity are frequently misguided. Lupton grieves that...

Justice Scalia's Great HeartMay God rest his soul Jeffrey Tucker Saturday, February 13, 2016 Some of Justice Antonin Scalia's decisions I agreed with and some I disagreed with. But I've never once doubted the sincerity of his beliefs. Now that he is gone from this earth, I can tell a story I've held inside for many years, a scene that touched me deeply and profoundly. I cannot think of him without remembering this moment. It was a spring afternoon some years ago, and he was attending church services, sitting in a back pew, holding his prayer book in his hands....

Donald Trump announced Friday he raised $6 million for veterans at his fundraiser in Iowa the night before. Iowa was amazing last night. The event could not have worked out better. We raised $6,000,000 for our great vets. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) > But this would appear a significant increase from what he's given to the cause before, according to some reports which questioned whether the billionaire businessman has been a consistent donor to vet groups. Showbiz 411 reports that the Donald J. Trump Foundation gave a total of $2.6 million in charitable donations in the last three years,...

When a devastating earthquake leveled Haiti in 2010, millions of people donated to the American Red Cross. The charity raised almost half a billion dollars. It was one of its most successful fundraising efforts ever. The American Red Cross vowed to help Haitians rebuild, but after five years the Red Cross' legacy in Haiti is not new roads, or schools, or hundreds of new homes. It's difficult to know where all the money went. NPR and ProPublica went in search of the nearly $500 million and found a string of poorly managed projects, questionable spending and dubious claims of success,...

Vietnam vets memorial at NYC brings tears, embraces, outrage By RANDALL HACKLEY Associated Press Writer NEW YORK 1AP r -- 1885 Thousands of Vietnam veterans who returned home to indifference or worse gathered in wheelchairs, military fatigues and business suits to help dedicate the ci-ty's memonal to these who fought in Southeast Asia Today. an estimated 20.000 veterans will get the homecoming they never received a decade ago when the last Americans left Vietnam A tickettape parade is planned across the Brooklyn Bndge into the -Canyon of Heroes" in Wall Street About A 000 Vietnam veterans came together Monday night...

The charity for wounded veterans, the Wounded Warrior Project, is facing accusations of using donor money toward excessive spending on conferences and parties instead of on recovery programs, according to a CBS News report.

As I've mentioned in previous blogs, some of the church fathers saw the giving of charity as a financial transaction which put God in debt to us (see for example my blog: Christmas: Give a Coat, Receive Immortality). No doubt the imagery was used as an incentive to get people to give to charity. The idea was based on interpreting particular passages of the Gospel. Below is a quote from St. John Chrysostom in which he portrays giving your goods to charity as a way to transfer them to heaven. When you arrive in heaven, you will be able...

HSBC bank cuts off services to Muslim charityMove against Islamic Relief is latest to affect Muslim groups in the UK but the bank denies motives are religious. Banking giant HSBC has stopped offering financial services to the charity Islamic Relief, which becomes the latest Muslim organisation to have its ties with the company cut. Islamic Relief UK was told by HSBC its activities in "high-risk jurisdictions" posed a challenge to the bank due to pressure from US authorities to deal with money laundering, according to a statement published on the charity's website on Monday.

Texans cherish the memory of Davy Crockett's heroic death at the Alamo in 1836 but few know what led him there or why he fought so valiantly. Throughout his life, Davy Crockett was renowned for his love of liberty and fierce loyalty to the Constitution. Originally a Democrat, Crockett found he could no longer identify with the party's positions which he believed were straying from our country's founding principles. As a man who believed in individual liberty and the principle of congressional restraint this shift was unacceptable to him. He left the party in 1833 and joined the Whig party...

How miserly is The Donald? From 1990 through 2009, Trump has personally donated a total of just $3.7 million to his foundation, which was incorporated in 1987. In fact, the billionaire is not even the largest contributor to his own charitable organization. Tax returns show that World Wrestling Entertainment has given Trump’s foundation a total of $5 million in return for the developer’s assistance in working a couple of televised angles along with WWE boss Vince McMahon. The WWE gave Trump’s foundation $4 million in 2007 for his help in promoting that year’s WrestleMania festivities, and another $1 million in...

Founded in 2006, The Eric Trump Foundation (ETF) is dedicated to raising money for children battling life-threatening diseases at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. To date, ETF has donated and pledged nearly $30 million dollars to St. Jude. By using Trump-owned facilities, full-time volunteers and donated goods and services, The Eric Trump Foundation maintains one of the lowest expense ratios of any foundation in the country.

A southeastern Idaho cafeteria worker said she was fired for giving a student a free meal costing $1.70, but the school district offered her the job back after a national outcry. Dalene Bowden received a termination letter from the Pocatello School District last week after she gave a tray of food to a 12-year-old student who said she didn't have money for the meal.

What's the difference between a charitable transaction (like giving a hitchhiker a ride or giving a beggar your spare change) and an ordinary market transaction (such as paying for a bus ride or paying a kid to shine your shoes)?

Earlier this month I was reading an article from Ester Bloom at The Atlantic dealing with the burgeoning trend of crowdfunding which raises some perplexing questions. She starts out by noting that there’s been something of a cultural shift in America on the subject of money. There was a time when asking for money was a rather uncomfortable subject and people generally only fell back on that approach as a last resort. It was not that long ago that people were squeamish about asking each other for money. Bringing up the subject of personal finances at all used to be...

Are kids from more religious families more or less altruistic than their peers from less-religious families? That's what a high-profile new study from University of Chicago neuroscientist Jean Decety and a global crew of collaborators sought to determine... (snip) In their study, Decety and his colleagues gave the sticker test to 1,170 kids at schools in six cities--Amman, Cape Town, Chicago, Guangzhou, Istanbul, and Toronto...The researchers also gave the kids another test, in which they watched videos of people hurting other people, and then judged (a) how mean the bullies were, and (b) how much punishment the bullies deserved. (snip)...

MIAMI (CBSMIami) – It’s a celebration that’s become a pre-holiday tradition in little Havana… People lining up and camping out for a bit of holiday help, many waiting since Thanksgiving Day, dancing and playing dominos to pass the time hoping to snatch up one of 3,000 vouchers for a hot meal. For 50 years CAMACOL, the Latin chamber of commerce has handed out Christmas gift baskets, packed with turkey and all the trimmings. “It’s really good,” said Anna Duquerne, one of the many people waiting in line. “They help us a lot when they give this out.”(continued)

There was a time in my life twenty years ago when I was driving a cab for a living. It was a cowboy's life, a gambler's life, a life for someone who wanted no boss, constant movement and the thrill of a dice roll every time a new passenger got into the cab. What I didn't count on when I took the job was that it was also a ministry. Because I drove the night shift, my cab became a rolling confessional. Passengers would climb in, sit behind me in total anonymity and tell me of their lives. We were...