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But an open records request by The Awl found that Palin, once again, failed to apply for a license to fish in Alaska this season. The request follows our report from earlier this year that revealed that Palin had only secured commercial fishing licenses for fewer than half of all the years she's claimed to have been in the business.

Palin will continue to pass herself off as a hardcore commercial fisher despite clear evidence to the contrary. But for some time now, profiles and criticism of Palin have become far more about the profiler and the audience than Mama Grizzly herself. Then again, as Palin herself once wrote, "Never hurts to rumormonger."

Hitting what few bookshelves are left in America today is The Rogue: Searching For The Real Sarah Palin. What new information the book offers is not in its title as, currently, Amazon lists five other books about Palin with "rogue" in the title, not even including Palin's own Going Rogue: An American Life. Sure, Joe McGinniss' The Rogue is a hatchet job, but it's performed with a high quality Alaskan made-in-the-USA hatchet—built to last. For those whose own happiness comes from despising both Palin and her variety of unintellectual flyover dope, the book offers a wealth of fossil fuels. Drill baby, drill.

The Rogue is mean. Mean and uncivil and ruthless. In that sense, it is the biography Sarah Palin deserves, but it won't hurt her. The former governor has now passed into a realm where those who despise her will do so for life, and where her most ardent fans have invested so much, and believed so hard, it's now necessary to go to the grave on her side.

To those whose first presidential memories are of George Bush Part 1, that voting Americans once got their knickers in a bunch over the one-time marijuana use of Bill Clinton must seem like it's from an era with separate drinking fountains for blacks, suffrage, or when men had those separate collars they slipped onto their shirt-necks. But the Clinton episode was just 19 years ago.

Just how fast did popular opinion on presidential drug use change? Every commander in chief since Clinton has at least tried cocaine, and nobody cares. That The Rogue reveals that Palin did as well will surprise nobody.

The more subtle condemnation The Rogue makes in its coke revelation is that she did it off an overturned oil drum, an act so stereotypically Alaskan hillbilly that if it weren't real, "South Park" would have to do a sketch on it.

And when it comes to the more raunchy details, everyone has focused on Palin sleeping naked, or the affair, or the Glen Rice fling. But the most damningly redneck revelation is how Sarah's future husband saw himself. Todd, the book claims, wooed women with lines about a "great heart-shaped ass," a come-on he probably lifted from Mickey Rourke, whose character used it to describe Kim Basinger in 9½ Weeks back in 1986.

This all misses the point that conservative voters just don't care about youthful transgressions, largely because the reborn social conservative of today is vastly different from the permanently repressed social conservative of just 20 years ago (when Bill Clinton "didn't inhale"). Nowhere is this better represented than in the Episcopalian subscription of George H. W. Bush and the evangelical faith of his son, George W. Bush.

Social conservatives today have no problem supporting candidates with sordid histories because those candidates are simply echoes of the voters themselves. It's hard to be pure and young in America today. But just because you had a young and wild life doesn't mean you can't grow up to "recover" from (and then be hypocritically self-righteous against) the life you once led. It's something that began when evangelicals realized they could write new rules for who is and who is not allowed to be a legitimate politician when they took a recovering alcoholic and all-around basket case and said, "Him. Yeah, that guy!"

In essence, the electorate looked at conventional wisdom on politicians and drew themselves into the picture. Overnight, they turned politicians from a group of guys nothing at all like their own reformed deadbeat asses to a group of guys just like their own reformed deadbeat asses. A look at the current slate of banner-carrying hard right darlings and dynamos proves that "recovery" is practically a resume requirement.

• Rick Perry worked not just for any Democrat, but for GOP boogeyman Al Gore (not to mention he was a state secessionist who is now running for President).

• Michele Bachmann campaigned for Jimmy Carter and today spins her former service to (what the Tea Party considers) the most evil organization imaginable, the IRS, as "know thy enemy."

• Propaganda minister Andrew Breitbart? Former Democrat.

• Mike Huckabee has called himself a "recovering foodaholic" and made his struggles with food a core appeal of his personality.

• In Wisconsin's recent recalls, it was revealed that evangelical Tea Party candidate Kim Simac had engaged in some kind of wife (husband?) swapping arrangement with another couple, but her base did not care. (What they did care about was that she had not been paying her taxes.)

• And Newt Gingrich's 237 previous wives don't hurt him with the GOP's new base; his unwillingness to debase himself about it does. (See also: Rudy Giuliani.) He only needs to pull up his flimsy metal folding chair and say, "I am Newt Gingrich and I am a wifeaholic." His poll numbers would jump 15 points overnight, a night which he would probably spend sleeping on the couch. (But, Newt, do you want to win or be liked by your family?)

At the CNN-Tea Party debate, Perry's ability to loudly admit his own former policies were "a mistake," and to look confident and macho doing so: this was a thing not possible for a Republican presidential candidate 20 years ago. This is a demographic that gold sellers carefully looked at, and then chose as a trustworthy advertising spokesman G. Gordon Liddy. (G. Gordon Liddy!)

Further revelations about Palin, no matter how leering or vile, will do her no harm. She's born again. She needn't even address the most recent accusations, because her followers all understand. They too all once snorted cocaine off some overturned oil drum with a bunch of drunk guys playing grab-ass with them, and they too wanted more for themselves, something better. What are you gonna do at the age of 22 in goddamn Alaska?

Meanwhile, The Rogue shares much in common with Nick Broomfield's documentary, You Betcha!, due in limited release Sept 30th.

Both insert the journalists as characters in a pursuit of the Palin truth. Each make the trials of getting the scoop on her both a part of the story and a sly indictment against her—as if all other politicians were open books constantly inviting "journalists" to diary-reading parties in their Capitol Hill bedrooms. The cover of McGinniss' book even features his name in larger type than Palin's, as if it was another Tom Clancy novel. A former Seal of some kind from Worcester, Mass., whose best days are behind him, has to use his wiles and cunning to track down intelligence on an elusive domestic terrorist. But will he publish the truth, and cash in, before she becomes culturally irrelevant? You won't be able to put it down… without also taking a shower.

For Broomfield's part, what he brings to bear on Mama Grizzly might be considered the third installment of his American Women trilogy, joining his films Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer and Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam.

But what's the point? McGinniss has gone on record that 90% of what he learned isn't even in the book, which makes the author both the world's greatest receptacle of Palin trivia and its most potentially insufferable dinner guest. McGinniss says he decided what was true and what was questionable simply based on decades of journalism (and meetings in Starbucks with bloggers). Known technically in the industry as "winging it," this approach to fact checking is often used by seasoned journalists, including legends like Dan Rather.

Why not? Everyone's winging it. Publishing his own book on the same day as McGinniss, Levi Johnston says he fell into "an unintended role in America's most delicious drama." There are compensations, however. Palin's daughter Bristol has also already cashed in. Willow and Track cannot be far behind.

Meanwhile, America continues to idly wonder if Palin will run for something or other. She's caught between a rock and hard rat race. If she doesn't run, she risks irrelevance. But a Palin campaign could be even more damaging, as she would face her own party—a foe against which almost none of her rhetorical weapons will work.

Worst of all, though, would be a Palin campaign victory of some kind, where she would face the personal disaster of governing—an unwelcome fate that has, of late, eaten everyone attempting it.

But right now, in the eyes of her core supporters, Palin remains beautiful, meaningful, worthy. Listening to Palin's supporters at a rally or touring her Facebook page's comments is to wander into a world so free from reality and doubt it that can probably only be compared with North Korea.

In a few years though, when Palin's Dorian Gray lurches into the sitting room and looks at those closest to her, she's likely to find the devastating picture of spiritual and familial disfigurement, as rendered by projects like The Rogue. But by then it will be too late.

Abe Sauer can be reached at abesauer at gmail dot com. He is on Twitter.

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As she posed for pictures with fairgoers, Palin insisted to the dozens of reporters jockeying for position around her that she was not there to steal the spotlight—nevermind the fact that she had arrived on the same day that most of the GOP presidential candidates (and thus much of the national political press) were at the fairgrounds. By some miracle, I was jostled into a spot right next to her. I asked if she ever wished she could walk through a state fair unmolested. She didn’t bite, offering only a rote response about how much she values the chance to meet all these good, hardworking Americans. (When I asked Todd Palin the same question, he was more introspective: “This,” he said, “is the life we chose.”)

In Ames the next day, minutes after she had been declared the victor of the Iowa straw poll, Rep. Michele Bachmann's campaign bus stopped next to the outdoor tent where Mike Huckabee was shooting a “special edition” of his Fox News show. As Bachmann made her way over to the tent, Huckabee was explaining to his Fox News viewers why Iowa deserved its exalted place in the presidential process.

Iowans, he said, were not star-struck by the parade of politicians who sought their votes every four years. This was the most shameless kind of pandering: Huckabee had been swarmed all day as he worked the straw poll. In case the adoring crowds weren't enough to demonstrate his rock-star status, he had played bass guitar onstage at three of the candidates' tents (Herman Cain, Rick Santorum and Tim Pawlenty). Now as Bachmann approached, straw poll voters stood on tiptoes around the rope barriers, shooting camera phone pictures and shouting, "We're praying for you!" at Bachmann.

Bachmann's greeting for Huckabee was warm but efficient, that of a cocktail party veteran with a hundred dear friends in the room. Over the course of two segments, Huckabee served her up a stream of deferential softballs, never once acknowledging what he surely knows: That the straw poll is a sham. In 2007, Mitt Romney spent lavishly to beat Huckabee here, busing in supporters, paying their entry fees and giving them free food and entertainment. Huckabee went on to embarrass the free-spending Romney in the caucuses, which can’t be bought so easily.

The story was much the same this year: Bachmann, Pawlenty and Ron Paul each spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy a few thousand votes. (Bachmann even brought in Randy Travis.) Their campaigns knew that the political media, desperate for a hook on which to hang a new narrative, would inflate the results—even as they dismissed them privately. Unfortunately for Pawlenty, that cuts both ways: The day after he came in third place—he got 2,293 votes, while Bachmann got all of 4,823—he dropped out of the race.

As Bachmann began to leave the stage, Don Lemon, the CNN anchor, was standing in front of me. He was holding up his phone, showing his cameraman a Gawker post about his claim that Bachmann’s security detail (and her husband Marcus) had shoved him earlier in the day.

Lemon was now clearly itching for a repeat incident. A Bachmann staffer had asked reporters to stay behind a rope barrier erected to give Bachmann a path back to her bus; Lemon told his cameraman to start rolling, and then promptly stepped under it. The staffer tried to physically restrain Lemon, who stated that he was on public property, asked sarcastically, “Are you a police officer?” Eventually, an actual police officer came over and stood in front of Lemon. Bachmann and her security detail passed by in a blur, the candidate ignoring Lemon’s shouted questions.

Then came Marcus Bachmann. As he walked by, Bachmann turned toward Lemon and gave him a taunting look. “Oh, yes, you’re the one who elbowed me before,” he said. Lemon asked Bachmann if he wanted to talk about the incident. Bachmann turned his head away and kept walking, leaving Lemon clutching his microphone, his arm extended over the police officer’s shoulder.

Once the Bachmann entourage was safely aboard the bus, the candidate came to the door to bid goodbye to her supporters. A screamer during her rallies, Bachmann is a model of clipped efficiency offstage, her warmness edging toward the perfunctory. She spoke briefly, offering promises to her supporters that she’d be back soon. As the door started to close you could just briefly see her smile drop as she turned to walk back into the bus, her face a mask of steely determination.

Brian Montopoli last wrote for the Awl about porn valley and Mormon temples.

Photo courtesy of IowaPolitics.com.

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In December, after an episode of "Sarah Palin's Alaska," The Awl, along with many in America's hunting community, asked some questions about the former Governor's longstanding claim of being an avid and experienced hunter.

At some point, all hunters are inexperienced, and even experienced ones are often unsafe, but being unlicensed is more than just illegal, it's detrimental to natural resource efforts. Palin herself believes this, writing in 2010's America by Heart that "…it's important that we're managing our fish and wildlife resources for abundance in the Last Frontier."

Curious if Palin was licensed for her 2010 on-air caribou adventure, or, for that matter, any of her "lifetime of hunting" trips, we submitted an open records request to Alaska's Dept. of Fish & Game. Our request covered the years 1980 to 2010, from Palin's teenage years as "Sarah Heath" to today.

It turns out, Palin has pulled a number of licenses in the last 30 years. There are 12 of them, though not all of them strictly for hunting.

Our records request revealed that the former Governor has pulled one type AA-02 permit ("Resident Hunt") and five type AA-04 permits ("Resident Sport Fish and Hunt"). Since Alaska keeps its kill reports anonymous for some reason, it is unknown what she took or if the Hunting & Fishing-type licenses, the vast majority of Palin's permits, were used for sport fishing or for hunting.

Here is the entire report.

1994, 008469, AA-02, Resident Hunting, 03/11/1994
2004, 4338956, AA-02, Resident Hunting, 08/13/2004

1991, 153987, AA-02, Resident Sport Fish & Hunt, 03/15/1991
1992, 184424, AA-01, Resident Sport Fishing, 06/19/1992
1993, 059460, AA-04, Resident Sport Fish & Hunt, 01/05/1993
1993, 497733, AA-04, Resident Sport Fish & Hunt, 08/24/1993
2000, 0287171, AA-01, Resident Sport Fishing, 06/30/2000
2002, 2226528, AA-04, Resident Sport Fish & Hunt, 07/12/2002
2003, 3027590, AA-04, Resident Sport Fish & Hunt, 07/06/2003
2006, 6018936, AA-04, Resident Sport Fish & Hunt, 05/03/2006
2007, 7005664, AA-04, Resident Sport Fish & Hunt, 09/01/2007
2010, 0114858, AA-04, Resident Sport Fish & Hunt, 07/02/2010

That Palin had no fishing or hunting permits until she was into her late 20s, well after she was married to Todd, calls into question her claims about being a lifelong hunter, or her father's claims about having properly taught her to hunt.

But far more interesting is the number of commercial-type BB "Resident Crewmember" licenses Palin has pulled, just 10 in her lifetime. These are the licenses required for going on board a commercial fishing boat for those who are not Alaska Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission entry permit holders. (That's the kind of permit that Todd Palin purchased from his grandfather.)

1988, 783835, BB-30, Resident Crewmember, 06/25/1988
1989, 714790, BB-30, Resident Crewmember, 06/25/1989
1995, 36017, BB-30, Resident Crewmember, 06/27/1995
1996, 6035224, BB-30, Resident Crewmember, 07/01/1996
2003, 3031601, BB-30, Resident Crewmember, 07/07/2003
2004, 4024098, BB-30, Resident Crewmember, 06/30/2004
2006, 6018417, BB-36, Resident 7-Day Crewmember, 07/06/2006
2007, 7022744, BB-30, Resident Crewmember, 07/04/2007
2009, 9030122, BB-30, Resident Crewmember, 07/05/2009
2010, 0033118, BB-30, Resident Crewmember, 06/30/2010

Part of Palin's image is not just that she and her husband own a commercial fishing business, but that Palin gets her hands dirty out on the boat, hauling in the catch. When her candidacy was announced in 2008, a great deal of myth-making took place, painting Palin as a rough and rouged commercial fisher, braving the high seas and earning her keep with tough physical labor.

There is good reason Palin probably wouldn't be out on a commercial fishing vessel much after those two times in the late 1980s. In 1989 she gave birth to the couple's first child and for the next decade had three more (1990, 1994, 2001), while at the same time running for numerous offices.

In an MSNBC documentary during the 2008 election, Palin friend Bob Lester said, "Todd is a commercial fisherman and Sarah spends hours out in his boat, helping haul in hundreds of pounds of salmon, something they still do."

In that same documentary, Palin biograher Kaylene Johnson said, "Todd and Sarah both share a love for the outdoors.  And they share a love for the Alaskan way of life.  And they commercial fish together, every summer."

In a 2008 People interview, Todd said, "When she's working for me out there in my fishing boat, she's pretty vulnerable. It's my element." To which Palin responded: "He's the boss out there on the boat while we commercial fish. Yeah. That's a different story then."

Also in 2008, a Ledger profile of the "rugged" Palins noted that Todd was often accompanied by Sarah, "along to help with the rugged work aboard a 32-foot fishing boat."

Palin has played the part, giving numerous press conferences from the deck of a boat.

ABC's "why she resigned" interview was done from the deck of a commercial fishing boat "dressed in a white T-shirt and overall waders... all the while plucking salmon from the family fishing nets aboard a boat..."

In July 2009, Palin told reporters gathered for a press event that she has been helping her husband Todd, a licensed commercial fisherman, "for decades." That press op was on July 7, 2009. Palin's crewmember permit was from two days previous.

Last year, Politics Daily reinforced the image, writing, "Palin said she wrote the post on a commercial fishing boat in Alaska where she's 'working my butt off for my own business, merely asking the Democrat politicos and their liberal friends in the media: 'What's the plan, man?'"

There is even stock footage of Sarah Palin commercial fishing for sale. ("Approx: 30 min. DV-CAM Tape (B Roll) Cost: $2000.00; We can also provide shorter clips. Cost: $40.00 per second").

In the book Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska's Political Establishment Upside Down, Kaylene Johnson writes, "During the summers after graduation and throughout college, Sarah helped Todd fish commercially in Bristol Bay. They fished from a twenty-six-foot skiff with no cabin… it was the most physical and dangerous work Sarah had ever undertaken."

Johnson goes on to tell of Palin breaking her hand and immediately returning to work, toughing out 100-mile-per-hour winds, and even how Palin would take the boat out herself to fish while Todd was working his oilfield job.

Palin graduated from the University of Idaho in 1987, and did pull commercial fishing permits in 1988 and 1989. She did not, however, have any permits for any period "throughout college."

Todd himself has lent credence to the "every year" myth, telling Fox News' Greta Von Susteren in September, 2008, "We've commercial fished all the years that Sarah and I were married and then for many years before our marriage. And that's about a four-week season, and so we adjust our schedules to do commercial fishing."

In that same interview, Todd tells Van Susteren that, yes, that year, 2008, "we" had again commercially fished their spot, the one that Todd's family had long fished. Palin had no license in 2008.

The genealogy of the Palin family's fishing tradition is on display thanks to a 1999 appeal filed by Todd's mother, Blanche Kallstrom, claiming sufficient "points" for a 1977 Bristol Bay Drift Gill Net Entry Permit. The state denied Kallstrom her permit (two decades later) in part because "prior to 1973" she "had no documented participation in the Bristol Bay drift gill net fishery."

In the denial letter, the state of Alaska repeatedly points out that Sarah's in-laws had little respect for licensing, noting, "Except for [Todd's maternal grandfather], none of the applicant’s family held a gear license in the drift net fishery for 1967" and that "Participation in a fishery without a required license is unlawful and generally not entitled to credit toward an entry permit." Kallstrom's defense: "I didn't know I needed one." (This final appeal denial came three years before the Alaska Supreme Court ruled, on an appeal, that Kallstrom had no claim against the government for emotional distress she had suffered after she accidentally poisoned a child with lye at an alcohol abuse transitional care facility dance in 1993.)

Probably the most interesting detail of the 20-years-in-the-making report: "Blanche Kallstrom has renewed her interim-use permit and fished each year through 1995. Beginning in 1996 the applicant has emergency transferred her permit each year due to a chronic medical condition."

The report is a lot of legal mumbo jumbo and Alaskan fishing licensing minutia, but for those interested in the "decades-long" Palin family's fishing history that the former Governor brags about all the time, including (and especially) transcribed testimony from Todd's grandfather Al, it's a page turner. PDF here.

* * *

Palin's office did not respond to an inquiry about her licensing history, but in her bestseller "Going Rogue" Palin includes several pictures of herself hunting and fishing (with no dates), including this shot, the caption of which suggests that she is on the boat every summer (and is yet worded so that it doesn't technically claim that).

Palin has run afoul of Alaskan permitting rules. In 1993, the future Governor pleaded no contest to the charge of failing to register as a set gill net permit holder (which is a technical way of saying commercial fishing without a license). Mistakenly noting it as a felony, The Anchorage Daily wrote of the incident:

"Palin explained the fishing violation by saying that she had been a crew member but took over the permit for that season from her sister-in-law. Palin then forgot to switch her registration from that of a crew member to a permit holder, she said.

But according to the records from Alaska, Palin actually had no crewmember license for 1993. She had not had one since 1989 and would not again have one until 1995—the year she was running for reelection to the Wasilla City Council.

That six of Palin's ten total lifetime commercial fishing licenses have come in the last seven years, while she was running for high office, unravels the story that Palin is some kind of old ocean hand. Four of the total ten permits came during or after her campaigns for governor and vice-president.

There is certainly a lot more to a commercial fishing business than pulling fish into a boat. There's no doubt that Palin has assisted with her family's business, even when not legally at sea. She certainly has not wholly concocted some fairy tale about her outdoorsmanship. But what Palin's licenses do seem to paint is a picture of a candidate who has used a few experiences to justify an image makeover that appealed to a political demographic. In other words, the same thing that every politician has done since time immemorial.

Abe Sauer can be reached at abesauer at gmail dot com.

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Never mind, for starters, that the protests—and the Mubarak regime’s ineffectual crackdowns on the mass dissident movement—aren’t yielding a great deal of reliable information to anyone, inside or outside Egypt. Never mind, as well, that Republican presidents going back to Eisenhower were very much devoted to standing by, with, for, around and about the Muslim Brotherhood. And never mind that even the great GOP power savant Dick Cheney, speaking at the same Young Americans for Freedom lovefest marking the centenary of Ronald Reagan’s birth, insisted that this is far from a ripe moment for public disclosure of U.S. objectives.

“There’s a reason why a lot of diplomacy is conducted in secret,” the former vice president said, before reminding the Gipper faithful, in an uncharacteristic note of realism and restraint, that the “the bottom line is, in the end, whatever comes next in Egypt is going to be determined by the people of Egypt.” Asked what he thought was going to happen in Egypt, the onetime architect of a U.S.-engineered new order in the Middle East replied simply, “I don’t know.”

But such empirical cautions are impermeable to Palin, for the simple reason that any political pronouncement by Sarah Palin is first and foremost a pronouncement about Sarah Palin. This became quite apparent when the interview with CBN reporter David Brody turned to matters of faith proper—a turn that Palin herself introduced, tellingly, when Brody asked her how she handled criticism from the mainstream press. “You know,” she replied...

I’m reminded so often of 2 Timothy 1:7 knowing that God does not give us a spirit of timidity or of fear, but he gives us a spirit of power and love and a sound mind. A sound mind so that we can keep things in perspective. We can stay grounded, we can know what is real, we can know truth, so just calling on that verse, reminding myself over and over again what’s God promises, that gets me through the tough times.

OK, then. First off, replying to putative detractors in the American media by citing the authority of the imprisoned Apostle Paul, in the last epistle he penned from jail in Rome prior to his death, is by itself far from compelling evidence of the ability to “keep things in perspective.”

More to the point, sophronismos, the Greek phrase Paul uses here to characterize the mental outlook of the convicted Christian, and rendered as “sound mind,” more accurately translates as “discipline” or “self-control.” Its intended meaning is conveyed more sharply by its opposite term, akrasia, or self-indulgence. This, in other words, would be strike two in Palin’s gloss on Paul, since by the account of Vanity Fair’s Michael Joseph Gross, one of her most common rebukes to staffers is “I have the power to ruin you.”

As for the finding of truth, well, Palin pretty much has the inductive logic of Paul’s directive backwards here. He’s exhorting the believer—in this case Timothy, the young bishop of the Ephesians—to trust in the pre-existing truth of God, imprinted upon the faithful by the fact of their conversion. The idea here is not so much to employ divine grace to seek out truth as to draw upon the inward character of God’s truth as a repository of strength amid the early Church’s many afflictions and institutional quandaries. Nor does this point involve any recondite with biblical Greek; it’s right there in the preceding verse, 2 Timothy, 1:6 (KJV): “Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands.”

But, as is quite oddly plain in Palin’s later description of her devotional routine to Brody, she’s not in the habit of relying on divinely sanctioned truth to curb the deceptive dictates of the human ego. Rather, the disciplinary strictures of scripture seem chiefly to serve in Palin’s world as an ever-encouraging set of offstage prompts, goading the persecuted media victim into ever-greater acts of self-assertion. Indeed, as is the case with her critique of the media, reading the Bible’s word is pretty much a given, something she can airily stipulate as fait accompli—or as she curiously puts it here, something she intends to start doing, in that same vague future in which her remarks on Egypt policy might also make sense:

]Time is our most precious resource. How we choose to spend time I think is a reflection on what’s most important to us. I am going to read my Bible every day. I am going to dig in there and seek God’s wisdom and direction in every step that I take so I prioritize time to make sure that that daily devotion is available. And I will participate in that. But it’s not just carving some time out of the day to read the Word and to journal what you know, I believe I am gaining from the Word, but it is ongoing minute by minute asking God for the strength, for the direction for, He says we can ask for favor, I ask for favor in situations so that I can continue down the path. And it’s the most important thing in my life, my faith, so I prioritize to make sure that I’m spending the time that I need to stay all geared up.

This, to put things mildly, is a weirdly cursory approach to “the most important thing in my life.” Note, first of all, the persistent recourse to the future tense in her reply : “I am going to read my Bible...”; “I am going to dig in there....”; “I will participate....”

Then, more crucially, there’s the appeal to a divine authority beyond the word—the notion of an experiential awareness of God’s “favor” more commonly associated with prophecy than with the routines of daily observance and fellowship. The rhetoric of prophecy is indeed where the action is—at least for any leader of Palin’s national ambition who also needs to galvanize a base of evangelical supporters. It is, first of all, a kind of faith that the exponent can define largely as she sees fit—hewn in a deeply personalized vision of God’s favor, long on individuality (“ongoing minute by minute asking God”), and short on public accountability. Prophets are also, far from incidentally, among the most persecuted and misunderstood emissaries of God’s will, in both the Old Testament and the New. So the mantle of prophecy permits Palin to continue pursuing her own lusty brand of culture warfare on her own preferred Sarah-centric terms. This, remember, is the person who thought the appropriation of the term “blood libel” was an appropriate and measured response to the charge that she had infected American political discourse with violent imagery.

Oddly enough, later in 2 Timothy, Paul advises his young charge to guard against “profane and vain babbling” (2:16) as both Paul’s own captivity winds down and the last judgment approaches. The trick, Paul writes, is to “continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of .... And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Jesus Christ.” (3:14-15) What’s more, he intimates that the distinction that Palin seeks to draw between the written Word and God’s personal favor is largely illusory: “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” (3: 16-17) We can only hope that, someday, Sarah Palin may find time in her busy schedule to get around to journaling that.

Chris Lehmann is our religion columnist.

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Now, proving that the left hand of the politically-active religious right doesn't know what the right hand is doing, over 160 Republicans in the House have endorsed defunding USAID.

From Foreign Policy:

The Republican Study Committee (RSC), a loose conglomeration of 165 self-identified conservative GOP House members, unveiled their plan Thursday that they argue could save $2.5 trillion in federal spending over ten years. The proposal is centered around legislation that would eliminate federal funding for USAID, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the U.S. Trade Development Agency, the Woodrow Wilson Center, the USDA Sugar Program, economic assistance to Egypt, and many other programs.

This would-be massacre is being led by Jim Jordan (R-OH), and Scott Garrett (R-NJ).

Those two nincompoops can be forgiven for still believing their pre-election Tea Party promises actually need to be honored anymore.

Jim DeMint, meanwhile, as the Senator who will reportedly chaperone the bill, and who supports not just school prayer but also barring gays from teaching in schools, should know better.

DeMint, a senatorial suppository inserted during the Bush II-era, should be fully aware that during Bush's administration, USAID funding for faith-based organizations doubled, accounting for around 20% of the agency's total awards. A Boston Globe report found that about 98% of the "faiths" that received that USAID money were Christian. Barack Obama's orders on USAID funding to faith-based organizations basically reiterated Bush's, giving the green light to an ever-increasing income stream for U.S.-based Christian organizations.

Cutting USAID funding would rob Christian aid groups of somewhere just south of $2 billion.

The South Carolina Senator has tried this before. In 2008, he moved to cut a funding expansion of Bush's worldwide AIDS program, a goodly share of which was granted to Christian organizations. (USAID was sued in 2010 by the ACLU for refusing to release documents regarding USAID's support for abstinence-only AIDS programs in Africa that included Bible teachings.)

Why does Jim DeMint hate Christian charities?

Millions of those USAID dollars go to Billy Graham's charities (in Haiti and elsewhere), while Franklin Graham has partnered with Sarah Palin in anticipation of the next election—going so far as to defend her from the terrible slander following the Arizona shooting.

Not to mention Greta Van Susteren, who just went to Haiti with Palin to do an hour of (exclusive!) Fox News tragedy porn for Graham's fundraising efforts at his USAID-funded Samaritan's Purse clinics. Susteren called their work there "inspired." Why is the GOP trying to undermine Fox News and Sarah Palin? Cut USAID? It's almost like they need a Karl Rove to run strategy again.

Also, just a bit of advice to the GOP: don't tell North Dakotan beet farmers about murdering the USDA Sugar Program until after you pick up Kent Conrad's Senate seat in 2012.

Abe Sauer can be reached at abesauer [at] gmail.com.

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In November, 2010, Lewis Lucke, a former U.S. ambassador to Swaziland and former USAID official in Haiti, filed suit against Haiti Recovery Group Ltd. for some $500,000 in unpaid fees for the tens of millions of dollars in contracts Lucke secured for the group in the days after the earthquake. After leaving his USAID position, Lucke immediately signed a $30,000 a month "consulting" contract with the Haiti Recovery Group, a conglomerate formed by several American contractors with the specific goal of securing U.S. funding. Lucke used the contacts developed while at USAID to score the conglomerate over $20 million in contracts. Then it canned him. Sucker.

Lucke's take is typical of a Haiti that's become a massively swelled teat on which NGOs profitably suckle. Overall, Haiti has become one of the greatest money laundering operations in history, an island engine turning public funds into private profits.

What's more, U.S. taxpayer dollars are, against Presidential directive, being funneled from the United States Agency for International Development to Billy Graham's charities for use in Christian proselytizing—all while building Sarah Palin's 2012 campaign army.

An Army for God
"At that time, they were not open to the Gospel, and now they are," said "Festival of Hope" director Sherman Barnette, of the difference in Haiti before and after the earthquake. The festival was held on January 9, in Haiti's National Soccer Stadium. It was put on by Franklin Graham in cooperation with his Samaritan's Purse charity and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Franklin—William Franklin Graham III—has been head of the Association for ten years. He is the successor to his father, who is now 92, and who has appeared infrequently in public these last few years.

A month before the event, Sarah Palin had appeared in Haiti beside Graham, urging followers to help "those less fortunate" by contributing to Samaritan's Purse. "It is still here doing the tough work," Palin said. She was gone less than 48 hours later.

Exactly what the tough work Palin spoke of depends on who you're talking about. It could be raising millions more dollars that Haitians will never see. Or, in the case of Samaritan's Purse, whose Haiti work is being heavily funded by the taxpayer-funded USAID, it could be to “take back their country from voodoo, despair, and sin," one of the charity's stated goals for the "Festival of Hope." As Graham said of Haiti in his address at the Festival, "…the biggest need is the spiritual need." (Graham and his crew are especially obsessed with the elimination of voodoo, as it comes up again and again in Purse literature. A recent personal update on work in Haiti from Franklin Graham himself reads, "Through our partnership, the three original churches have been able to establish 28 more—including one in a village that was infamous for voodoo....") Video of the heavily promoted fundraising event has been erased from the Samaritan's Purse website as a result of our questions to USAID.

Somewhere around 10,000 NGOs now operate in Haiti, without any organization. Much of the money that was raised in the nation's name has not been spent. In some cases, it seems this is intentional.

The Disaster Accountability Project estimates that a year after nearly $11 billion was raised or pledged ("Text HAITI! to donate $10!), only half has been spent. In some cases, not even that. By November, Catholic Relief Charities had reported spending just 32 percent of the $192 million it raised for Haiti.

Many NGOs say the reason they are reluctant to spend more is that it may be wasted. But as DAP's Ben Smilowitz discovered in his investigation with the Red Cross, the organization is treating the interest generated on the $500+ million "trust fund" it raised (and has not yet spent) for Haiti relief as "unrestricted revenue."

A report on U.S. contracts for reconstruction found that only $1.60 of every $100 awarded goes to Haitian firms, essentially meaning that the brunt of Haiti funding actually functions as stimulus for economies elsewhere. An audit by USAID’s Inspector General found that 70% of the cash awarded to the two largest U.S. contractors was spent on equipment and materials (bought outside of Haiti), meaning just 8,000 Haitians a day were hired instead of the promised 25,000 a day.

Where One Corporation Saw Opportunity
Meanwhile, American corporations see the push to rejuvenate rural Haitian agriculture as a chance to, literally, sow the seeds of future profits. No matter that Haiti is broke, and will be broke for a long time. Monsanto has rigged it so that you, the taxpayer, will be underwriting those profits.

Monsanto donated tons of corn and vegetable seed to Haitian farmers and has committed to donating hundreds of tons more in the coming months. But these seeds are hybrids, engineered not only so that they cannot naturally reproduce, but to assure Haitian farmers remain in hock to Monsanto in the future. Of this donation, Monsanto had the unbelievable balls to claim “There are no contractual obligations between Haitian farmers and Monsanto since this is a donation." Responding to whether or not the donated seeds will force farmers to need "additional inputs" (i.e., trademarked Monsanto products), the company said "technically, it can be planted without any additional inputs."

Pressed about why Monsanto didn't just provide open pollinating seed, a spokesperson said, "Open pollinated seeds would be a great option if they produced as much crop as a hybrid seed." That's like saying, nobody should bother driving a Honda Civic because it doesn't perform like a Maserati.

But here's the best part. Monsanto added that it contacted NGOs in Haiti and that those organizations will "support farmers with recommendations and resources [including] helping farmers decide whether to use additional inputs (including fertilizer and herbicides)." Two of the NGOs Monsanto identified are the WINNER organization and World Vision, both heavily funded by USAID. This means your tax dollars will be used to purchase any "additional inputs" from Monsanto.

To understand where the Haitians are headed, just look to Malawi, which Monsanto itself points to as a goal for Haiti. In 2005, droughts devastated Malwai. Monsanto donated hybrid seeds. Today Malwai has achieved food security. But It turns out, what Malwai did was recreate the American model by subsidizing farmers to use Monsanto hybrid fertilized seeds. Malawi's farmers have now converted to a one-crop, undiversified, exporting agriculture model that is dependent on its government to subsidize production—by buying from Monsanto. Today Monsanto's market share in Malawi is 50%. No wonder it holds up Malwai when speaking of Haiti.

(Of course, Haiti needs to be a corn-producing nation now, since its former rice economy was obliterated by Bill Clinton, whose subsidies for U.S. rice farmers destroyed Haiti's rice industry. As an Oxfam report notes, the total of U.S. aid to Haiti is nearly $80 million less than the $434 million annual subsidies for U.S. rice production. That's rice that taxpayer-funded NGOs now buy to help feed starving Haitians, in what is maybe the darkest joke of all time following Clinton's appointment as co-chair of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission.)

The U.N.
Even the U.N. is in on the profiteering. The U.N.'s role in Haiti is partially clear: employment. Haiti is essentially a giant jobs program for foreign militaries. The U.N.'s statement on peacekeeper pay states, "Countries volunteering uniformed personnel to peacekeeping operations are reimbursed by the U.N. at a flat rate of a little over US$1,000 per soldier per month. The U.N. also reimburses countries for equipment." In 2010, the ongoing U.N. peacekeeping mission increased its budget to $732 million, two-thirds of which was accounted for by salary and personal costs of the 12,000 troops now stationed there. Less than 5% of the U.N.'s total Haiti budget goes to "national staff."

That $1,000 per month per troop to the U.N.-serving nations does not stay in Haiti. It goes back to be invested in the economies of the nations themselves. While the U.N. acknowledges that "the greatest burden in the form of troops is borne by a core group of developing countries"—where $1,000 per soldier per month in salary probably represents a profit.

The United States footed just under one-third of this total in 2010, meaning that Haiti exists as another way for the America to underwrite the expenses our military allies.

(Our U.N. funding in Haiti is first and foremost a regional defense strategy. One revelation of the Wikileak's barfing up of diplomatic communications is a 2007 cable from the Embassy in Santiago to the Secretary of State, assessing the U.N. mission in Haiti as valuable because " participation in international and regional peacekeeping operations..." "completely excludes Chavez, and isolates Venezuela among the militaries and security forces of the region." The cable adds that to further neutralize Chavez, the U.S. "should explore using the mechanism that the region's contributors to MINUSTAH (Haiti) have established to discuss ways of increasing peacekeeping cooperation on a broader scale.")

But the profiteering isn't entirely economic, it's also spiritual.

Salvation in Action

The minute George W. Bush got into office, the floodgate of taxpayer-funded federal grants to faith-based aid organizations exploded. But the USAID still maintained rules about use of this funding.

But our research into the hush-hush tag team efforts of the Billy Graham Evangelical Association and Samaritan's Purse found millions of USAID dollars going to Samaritan's Purse aid stations in Haiti. Their mission: a coordinated effort by BGEA chaplains to evangelize to and convert the trapped, weak and suffering.

"The nurse explained to her God’s plan of salvation through His son, Jesus Christ, and that someday we would all die but God’s gift to us was eternal life through faith in Christ. After much discussion and praying, the lady’s head dropped and she said she wanted to accept Jesus. I am told she left the clinic still looking downward, remorseful for her ways in voodoo but with the real joy that can only come through the Lord."

That is an entry from Dr. Dick Furman's Haiti "Surgeon's Journal," published by Samaritan's Purse.

Furman's journal is just one bit of evidence of a vigorous drive in (USAID-funded) Samaritan's Purse clinics' Christian conversion plan.

In a later passage, Furman basically testifies about how Samaritan's Purse is breaking USAID rules:

"The volunteer doctor and nurses and pharmacist were excited at their numbers. Today, they had seen 97 patients and led 14 to the Lord… Today, at the clinic with his mom, he looked like a normal 8-year-old boy. One of the nurses asked the mother if she were a believer and she said no. The nurse explained to her God’s plan of salvation through His son, Jesus Christ, and that someday we would all die but God’s gift to us was eternal life through faith in Christ."

First Samoa, Then Haiti: Proselytizing with Tax Dollars
Samaritan's Purse has received at least $500,000 from USAID to distribute non-food relief and recovery non-food items to those in Samoa displaced by the 2009 tsunami, the latest grant coming last year.

Given the organization's (and its leader's) explicitly stated goals and intentions, is it reasonable to believe the "relief" it was paid to distribute with USAID money did not come with… extras? No, it is not.

In an annual letter to Samaritan's Purse donors and followers, Franklin Graham wrote "Most recently, we launched a massive relief effort in response to a series of major disasters that struck the Asia-Pacific region— typhoons in the Philippines, earthquakes in Indonesia, and a tsunami in the Samoan islands. Some 100,000 survivors have received emergency food and other aid in the Name of Jesus Christ." They may have received it in the name of Jesus Christ, but you better believe it was paid for by you.

But the Samoa money is chickenfeed compared to the USAID gravy pipeline that Samaritan's Purse has hooked itself up with in Haiti.

A December, 2010, USAID memo outlining Financial Year 2011 expenditures for "Humanitarian Assistance to Haiti for Cholera" lists Samaritan's Purse as a grantee to the tune of $2,869,431. That's 15% of the total ($19,143,098) budgeted by the USAID Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance. And that's in addition to $1 million budget for Samaritan's Purse in 2010 for "Economic Recovery and Market Systems, Health, WASH."

During a November 2008 USAID conference session ("USAID Partnership 101"), Terri Hasdorff, USAID director of community and faith-based initiatives, said in the very first part of her address, "First and foremost, the government can fund compassion, but cannot fund conversion. No witnessing or actually proselytizing." Later at the event, Heather MacLean, USAID senior advisor for faith-based initiatives, reiterated, "Any religious activities, which can take place, but they must take place in a separate time or place from U.S. government funded activities and they must be voluntary on part of the beneficiary. The beneficiary shouldn’t feel any pressure to participate."

Hasdorff used a perfect "salad verses cake" metaphor to describe USAID's rules:

"If your organization is like a salad, where you can separate out the lettuce and the tomatoes and the carrots—in other words, you can separate out portions of your program to provide specific services—you have a food program; you have a homeless program; you have a program where you work with orphans or vulnerable children—and you can separate that out in such a way so that there’s not an overtly religious aspect to it—there’s no conversion aspect to it—then that would be an excellent program to target federal funding for.

If your organization is more like a cake, where the flour and the sugar and the eggs are so grafted together that you can’t separate them out—in other words, you have such an overtly religious component to your program that there’s no way that you feel like you could do your program without having that component to it, then you do not want to go after federal funds."

Nearly all of Samaritan's Purse's literature describes its mission as cake-like.

One of the ways that Samaritan's Purse is able to skirt attention for hard core evangelizing with federal funds is by splitting duties. Samaritan's Purse is the aid arm. It applies for USAID loans and providing tents and medical equipment and the like. Meanwhile, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association maintains a "Rapid Response Team" of chaplains that go into Samaritan's Purse aid stations and set upon converting the weak and needy. In this arrangement, Samaritan's Purse can technically say it manages no organized proselytizing agency.

A recent BGEA newsletter itself admits to this arrangement:

I saw this in action as I spent time with Rapid Response Team chaplains when they visited the Samaritan's Purse cholera clinic in Cité Soleil (one of the poorest areas of Haiti). I first talked with team leaders Phil and Pam Rhodes. The Rhodes have been in Haiti multiple times since last year. Pam shared that she sees the Lord moving in ways here that you rarely see back home. Perhaps because the need is greater here, but she also observed that their prayers here have a greater depth and sense of urgency. Phil noted that, as their ministry has transitioned into meeting with cholera patients, they've seen 'Lazuruses and Lazurites: men and women who are on the verge of death, brought back to life through medical care and fervent prayer.'

If that's not cake, what the hell is?

Franklin Graham, Millionaire
The Festival of Hope fundraising event also featured a video of the BGEA's Phil and Pam Rhodes ministering to needy Haitians in Samaritan Purse cholera clinics. (Remember, USAID has budgeted nearly $3 million for Samaritan's Purse clinics.)

Above: Screenshot from the a video shown during the Festival of Hope event showing BGEA Chaplain Pam Rhodes ministering to a patient at a Samaritan's Purse clinic. Note USAID logo in the background. Video since deleted from SP site.

The Samaritan's Purse-BGEA arrangement is so poorly hidden that the unwillingness to address it has to be willful ignorance. The best summary of this relationship comes from BGEA "Internet writer" Jeremy Hunt, who wrote a weeklong blog from Haiti:

The picture that’s forming of the complementary efforts of the BGEA and Samaritan’s Purse working together is really quite powerful. The two combined contribute different aspects of the calling of Jesus to minister to the widowed and the orphaned in their distress. While SP efforts focus on meeting the physical needs, the RRT chaplains counsel survivors and victims on the spiritual side of things.

Even with Jesus (or maybe especially so), one need just follow the money for proof. Franklin Graham serves as president and CEO of both organizations. Samaritain's Purse pays Franklin Graham $616,665 a year. Apparently, Jesus approves of Graham's work as, despite an economic implosion, that is an increase from the $416,987 he received in 2008. That also does not count Graham's pay from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, which puts the man of God's income well over $1 million a year. He recently received a 21% increase in compensation, even as his charity laid off 10% of its workforce. (It's assumed Jesus will provide for them.)

Further evidence of how taxpayer money is going to fund proselytizing efforts in direct defiance of the Establishment Clause is this January 2011 Haiti report from BGEA:

"Two RRT chaplains were ministering at the Samaritan’s Purse Cite Soleil cholera treatment center when one of the Samaritan’s Purse nurses pointed out a woman holding a lethargic baby who had an IV in her tiny arm. The nurse indicated that the baby had been sobbing for nearly two days. As the frustrated woman gently shook the baby, the chaplains introduced themselves and asked if it was her baby. She said her name was Day and that it was her sister's baby. She went on to say that she was watching the baby until her sister returned from an errand. As the baby continued to cry, the chaplains reached out to pray for the baby. Noticing Day's tired and hopeless face, however, they asked her, "Do you have Jesus in your heart?" She replied, "No. I'm waiting for you to tell me." Surprised by her answer, the chaplains told her about the love of Jesus, and how He came to set us free from sin. They shared the Gospel message with Day, and asked if she would like to receive Jesus into her heart. Day answered, "Very much so!" Bowing to lead her in prayer, the chaplain noticed that the baby was now quiet. As Day repeated the prayer, calm came over both of them, and afterward Day laid her sleeping niece on the bed. The chaplains gave Day some spiritual growth literature and urged her to share what God had done for her and the baby with her sister. When the chaplains returned the next day, the baby was awake and smiling. Day's sister was there, and she said that Day shared with her what had happened. She also wanted to hear more about Jesus, and later received Christ as her Lord and Savior."

That story without a doubt is a violation of November, 2010's Executive Order 13559 regarding federal aid.

We called Keith Stiles, Billy Graham Evangelistic Association's deployment manager for the Rapid Response Team of chaplains, and asked him about the BGEA and Samaritan's Purse. Stiles said that BGEA chaplains work in "close cooperation" with Samaritan's Purse personnel. As he defined it, the chaplains acted as the "spiritual support staff" in (USAID-funded) Samaritan's Purse clinics. Stiles then broke down the data on the nearly 2,000 Haitians that had "come to Christ," including 1,500 "first time salvations" and 154 "re-dedications for Christ."

Stiles confirmed that many in this count were within Samaritan's Purse clinics.

"Not an Activity Sanctioned by the U.S. Government"
USAID is completely aware of Samaritan's Purse's misuse of funds. A 2009 report by the Inspector General identified Samaritan's Purse as having received $3,249,557 in USAID funding in 2006 and 2007 despite "deficiencies in partner notification of the requirements of title 22 Code of Federal Regulations, part 205." The IG report provided recommendations on how USAID should control future grants, recommendations it seems to have ignored. Why would USAID fund Samaritan's Purse in Haiti if it had already been identified as an organization with a proven unconstitutional use of funds? Ken Isaacs probably knows.

Ken Isaacs is the organization's vice president of programs and government relations. His job is ensuring the USAID taxpayer money spigot stays unclogged for Samaritan's Purse. Isaacs worked for ten years for Samaritan's Purse before becoming the director of the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) for USAID—before resigning to then again work for Samaritan's Purse. Is it then any surprise that Samaritan's Purse just happens to employ a former top level USAID executive while remaining one of USAID's top grantees despite outright breaking its rules?

Above: Screenshot from Festival of Hope event featuring former USAID exec, and current Samaritan's Purse executive, Ken Isaacs with BGEA hosts. Video since removed from site.

We contacted The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to ask specifically about cholera clinics and "cake."

"USAID takes seriously any allegation of improper use of U.S. taxpayer funding, including allegations of U.S. government funding being used for religious worship, instruction or proselytization. Upon hearing that a USAID-funded partner helping treat cholera patients in Haiti may have crossed the line, USAID immediately looked in to the situation."

There appears to have been an instance where a chaplain was praying for religious conversion with a Haitian male while in a USAID-funded cholera treatment facility. This was not—and is not—an activity sanctioned by the U.S. Government. USAID partners must comply with Executive Order 13559, which, among other things, requires that organizations that engage in explicitly religious activities perform such activities."

USAID then noted of one of the Samaritan's Purse videos I had pointed them to showing the breaking of USAID rules: "With respect to the video you sent to us, the NGO partner in question has removed the video for their website and is working to re-educate their staff about regulations pertaining to religious activities."

See, it's not a problem anymore because the proof of it has been removed. (Indeed, the video archive of the Festival of Hope event was scrubbed from the Samaritan's Purse site within days of my inquiry to USAID, a move that does not at all admit wrongdoing.)

When I supplied proof that Samaritan's Purse was regularly breaking federal rules well beyond "an instance," the reply I received was "Our statement will have to stand, as is, at this time."

Does USAID, which itself admits organizational challenges in Haiti are extremely difficult at best, expect anyone to believe that they changed the fundamental operating policy of Samaritan's Purse and the BGEA with one call about one video on a website? Absolutely not. USAID was also not at all interested in speaking with us about Ken Isaacs.

Christians Only Need Apply
While Samaritan's Purse might be the most overtly evangelistic organization getting unconstitutionally fat on the taxpayer dime, it's hardly the only such organization that's doing so. World Vision proudly states that it only hire Christians. In an August 25, 2010 letter to Harry Reid, World Vision President Richard Steans wrote:

We respectfully urge you to oppose any effort to amend the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (“RFRA”), to amend Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, or otherwise to dilute the right of faith-based social service organizations to stay faith-based through their hiring, including when awarded a federal grant… We want to continue to serve the poor and victims of injustice [including] earthquake victims in Haiti… We intend to continue working effectively with government in a constitutionally-sound and proven manner, but only if we can stay faith-based in mission, which means remaining faith-based in those we hire.

Hear that, Haitians? Better convert if you want part of the $11.5 million USAID gave World Vision for shelter building, rubble clearing and salvaging work in Haiti. Of course, Franklin Graham signed the letter as well. A journalist I spoke with, who is currently in Haiti, told me about a Haitian pastor who directs much of Samaritan's Purse work in Grand Goâve. He just built a new beach house, where he hosts Samaritan's Purse missionaries.

An ominous look at this horseshit in action comes from another January, 2011 report from BGEA:

"…two RRT chaplains were assigned a Haitian translator, named Gilbert, to assist them in their ministry. Over the next weeks and months, Gilbert went on many missions with the chaplains since the earthquake in Haiti. He would often talk to the chaplains about his family, and even asked if they could help his father get a job with Samaritan’s Purse. The chaplains explained the hiring process and the need to present the request to God through prayer and trust Him for the results. Gilbert shared that his father was not a believer, and the chaplains prayed with him for his father's Salvation and his employment need over several months. Gilbert shared the Gospel with his Dad at home but he was not interested. Recently, the chaplains had given the morning devotion at the Samaritan's Purse compound. On that day, Gilbert’s father’s heart was stirred and he made his way to the podium to publicly receive Christ. Gilbert and his father asked the chaplains to lead him in prayer as he asked Jesus to forgive his sin and be his Savior."

Palin Fundraising for Jesus
The 48 hours that Palin spent in Haiti was actually just about the only foundation-building being done in Haiti. Palin's hearty and seemingly out of nowhere endorsement of Graham's Haiti operation is meant to lock up Graham's support for either herself, or her endorsed candidate, in 2012. Palin's handlers are aware that Graham delivered the faithful to the polls for Bush II, instructing his flock in 2004 to "back God-fearing candidates" and warning that if Bush were not reelected that the media would basically start broadcasting pornography.

Graham has already communicated that he'll gladly Bo Peep his sheep against Obama. Last year, after expressing doubt that Obama is indeed a Christian, he said of the 2012 election that "churches all across America will sign up women and men to vote, not to tell them how to vote, but to sign them up, register them to vote. Because I believe the church of Jesus Christ can make a huge difference…"

Actually, no, that isn't the best part. The best part is that your tax dollars are paying for a bunch of unconstitutional evangelized aid, for which Billy Graham's son is publicly taking credit along with a potential 2012 Presidential candidate, whose support to raise private money for his organization will be rewarded by the delivering of votes, should they be needed.

Naturally, stringent defender of the Constitution Sarah Palin is uninterested in the details of the (USAID-confirmed) unconstitutional behavior of the organization she endorses. And Palin, Graham and supporters should note that not only is this an illegal use of taxpayer money as defined by Communist Jesus-hating secret Muslim Barack Obama. Because George W. Bush's Executive Order 13279, “Equal Protection of the Laws for Faith-Based and Community Organizations," clearly states, "organizations that engage in inherently religious activities, such as worship, religious instruction, and proselytization, must offer those services separately in time or location from any programs or services supported with direct Federal financial assistance…"

But wait, really, here's the best part: there's nothing anyone can do about it.

Samaritan's Purse's infrastructure is too entrenched in the USAID grant-giving process and USAID is too interested in being able to point to the results its grants get through the Purse so that everyone can move up the ladder. Those with nothing to eat or emergency medical needs do not have the luxury to complain. When the decision is an evangelical ministry's life-saving support or nothing, even the most ardent of anti-proselytizers would accept the support. The ones who wouldn't are liars. It's like being angry that big box retailers destroyed your downtown businesses and undermined the local social fabric—so then what are you going to do when you need toilet paper? You just keep wiping and try not to think about it too much.

A Global Operation
But the danger posed by Samaritan's Purse abusing your tax dollars is more than a constitutional concern, it's one of national security. Samaritan's Purse is heavily involved in Afghanistan and Sudan and Islamic nations, where it is almost certainly pulling the same shenanigans with federal funding that it is in Haiti, proselytizing for Christ in the name of the U.S. government, all the while undermining other (also taxpayer funded) efforts aimed at national stabilization. Ironically, it's in the financial (and spiritual) interest of Samaritan's Purse, and Graham's next huge pay increase, for these problems to never really be solved.

But again, the main priorities of USAID and its enablers are not constitutionality, the abuse of your tax dollars, or even Haiti. It's to ultimately be in the position, as Lewis Lucke now is, to sue some corporation formed just to take advantage of U.S. grants for unpaid finders fees for funneling them those grants.

The Wikileaks cables also include a message sent from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton just eight days after the earthquake. Clinton wrote:

I am deeply concerned by instances of inaccurate and unfavorable international media coverage of America's role and intentions in Haiti… I direct you as Chief of Mission to personally contact media organizations at the highest possible level—owners, publishers, or others, as appropriate—to push back and insist on informed and responsible coverage of our actions and intentions.... This is a personal priority for me… I thank you for your personal attention to this very important matter.

A 2010 report from International Action Ties carries a title that doesn't mince words: "'WE BECAME GARBAGE TO THEM.'" The report chronicles the "prioritization of profit-making and political interests over the basic needs and physical protection of IDPs." Likewise, the group Refugees International has basically declared an abandonment of duty in Haiti by all involved. They wrote:

Camp inhabitants are protesting against their living conditions and threats of evictions and objecting to the arbitrarily appointed or completely absent camp managers. Gang leaders or land-owners are intimidating the displaced. Sexual, domestic, and gang violence in and around the camps is rising.

Abe Sauer can be reached at abesauer [at] gmail.com.

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