Lady Gaga"s Charity Spends Millions, But Hold Your Applause...

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Lady Gaga"s Charity Spends Millions, But Hold Your Applause...

Charity criticises police over Taser use

theguardian.com
January 17, 2014

A police force that almost doubled its use of Tasers last year has been criticised by Amnesty International UK. Thames Valley police revealed that its officers deployed electric stun guns 119 times in 2013, compared with 61 occasions in 2012.

The figures for last year include several instances of “drive stun” usage, when a Taser is directly applied to a person’s clothes or body. In January 2013 the force announced it would increase the number of officers equipped with Tasers from 280 to 485.

Amnesty International UK has called for the use of the weapons to be restricted to officers trained to the standard of specialist firearms personnel.

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This article was posted: Friday, January 17, 2014 at 1:36 pm

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Infowars

Charity criticises police over Taser use

When Charity Begins at Home (Particularly the Homes of the Wealthy)

It’s charity time, and not just because the holiday season reminds us to be charitable. As the tax year draws to a close, the charitable tax deduction beckons.

America’s wealthy are its largest beneficiaries. According to the Congressional Budget Office, $ 33 billion of last year’s $ 39 billion in total charitable deductions went to the richest 20 percent of Americans, of whom the richest 1 percent reaped the lion’s share.

The generosity of the super-rich is sometimes proffered as evidence they’re contributing as much to the nation’s well-being as they did decades ago when they paid a much larger share of their earnings in taxes. Think again.

Undoubtedly, super-rich family foundations, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, are doing a lot of good. Wealthy philanthropic giving is on the rise, paralleling the rise in super-rich giving that characterized the late nineteenth century, when magnates (some called them “robber barons”) like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller established philanthropic institutions that survive today.

But a large portion of the charitable deductions now claimed by America’s wealthy are for donations to culture palaces – operas, art museums, symphonies, and theaters – where they spend their leisure time hobnobbing with other wealthy benefactors.

Another portion is for contributions to the elite prep schools and universities they once attended or want their children to attend. (Such institutions typically give preference in admissions, a kind of affirmative action, to applicants and “legacies” whose parents have been notably generous.)

Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and the rest of the Ivy League are worthy institutions, to be sure, but they’re not known for educating large numbers of poor young people. (The University of California at Berkeley, where I teach, has more poor students eligible for Pell Grants than the entire Ivy League put together.) And they’re less likely to graduate aspiring social workers and legal defense attorneys than aspiring investment bankers and corporate lawyers.

I’m all in favor of supporting fancy museums and elite schools, but face it: These aren’t really charities as most people understand the term. They’re often investments in the life-styles the wealthy already enjoy and want their children to have as well. Increasingly, being rich in America means not having to come across anyone who’s not.

They’re also investments in prestige – especially if they result in the family name engraved on a new wing of an art museum, symphony hall, or ivied dorm.

It’s their business how they donate their money, of course. But not entirely. As with all tax deductions, the government has to match the charitable deduction with additional tax revenues or spending cuts; otherwise, the budget deficit widens.

In economic terms, a tax deduction is exactly the same as government spending. Which means the government will, in effect, hand out $ 40 billion this year for “charity” that’s going largely to wealthy people who use much of it to enhance their lifestyles.

To put this in perspective, $ 40 billion is more than the federal government will spend this year on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (what’s left of welfare), school lunches for poor kids, and Head Start, put together.

Which raises the question of what the adjective “charitable” should mean. I can see why a taxpayer’s contribution to, say, the Salvation Army should be eligible for a charitable tax deduction. But why, exactly, should a contribution to the Guggenheim Museum or to Harvard Business School?

A while ago, New York’s Lincoln Center held a fund-raising gala supported by the charitable contributions of hedge fund industry leaders, some of whom take home $ 1 billion a year. I may be missing something but this doesn’t strike me as charity, either. Poor New Yorkers rarely attend concerts at Lincoln Center.

What portion of charitable giving actually goes to the poor? The Washington Post’s Dylan Matthews looked into this, and the best he could come up with was a 2005 analysis by Google and Indiana University’s Center for Philanthropy showing that even under the most generous assumptions only about a third of “charitable” donations were targeted to helping the poor.

At a time in our nation’s history when the number of poor Americans continues to rise, when government doesn’t have the money to do what’s needed, and when America’s very rich are richer than ever, this doesn’t seem right.

If Congress ever gets around to revising the tax code, it might consider limiting the charitable deduction to real charities.

ROBERT B. REICH, Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including the best sellers “Aftershock” and “The Work of Nations.” His film, “Inequality for All,” will be out in September. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause. Watch the trailer for his new film, Inequality for All:

Follow Robert Reich on Twitter: www.twitter.com/RBReich

Robert Reich

When Charity Begins at Home (Particularly the Homes of the Wealthy)

Franklin Graham Continues Charity Work Despite Fears for Father"s Health

Franklin Graham is pushing on with Operation Christmas Child to aid children in the Philippines despite fears for his father, Rev. Billy Graham. The well-known evangelist “hasn’t got his strength back” after contracting an infection days after his 95th birthday last month, Graham said about his father.

“He’s not doing real well. He celebrated his 95th birthday on November 7th. About a week later, he got an infection, was in the hospital for a few days, came home. But, he just hasn’t got his strength back,” Graham told “Fox & Friends” Thursday.

Story continues below video.

Though not in pain, Graham said his father is “just very weak,” and asked for prayers for his health.

“I know he would appreciate your prayers. The family would, I know that. His vitals are good,” Graham said. “He is comfortable and strong.”

Graham explained the goal of Operation Christmas Child was to provide shoeboxes packed by volunteers and filled with supplies for children in need. He said this year the program filled 10 million shoeboxes, and 60,000 shipped Thursday to children in the Typhoon ravaged Philippines.

“We’re going to focus now on the kids. These people lost everything,” Graham said.
The boxes are packed by individual families, Graham said, with each one blessed by prayer by those who packed the box for the child who receives it.

“I don’t know who will get it, but God does. And, we know God is going to hear the prayer of one righteous person. Can you imagine ten million people praying for ten million children?” Graham asked.

“Every box is like snowflakes, no two are the same. Kids pack them. And, we’re teaching kids to give. And, that’s important, that another generation learns how to give,” Graham said.

“I want every child who gets a box to know about the true meaning of Christmas.”

Related Stories:
Franklin Graham: Father Never Changed His Message
Billy Graham ‘Extremely Weak’: Son Asks for Prayers

© 2013 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

Newsmax – America

Franklin Graham Continues Charity Work Despite Fears for Father"s Health

Is Your Favorite Charity Paying For A CEO’s Mansion?

Posted by Andrew Meyer on December 6, 2013

The $ 500,000 question of the day is …

How much do charities actually give toward their “cause”?

The CEO of the American Red Cross makes $ 500,000 a year and after collecting $ 564 million in the wake of 9/11, the American Red Cross had only distributed $ 154 million in the months after the event.

After three years of collecting $ 360 million for the 11 Asian countries devastated by the tsunami of Dec. 26, 2004, the Canadian Red Cross still had not spent $ 200 million of the donations they collected and there are similar allegations of the Red Cross withholding donations after many more disasters including the 1995 bombing in Oklahoma City and the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.

Several other popular charities have reported CEO salaries ranging from $ 600,000 to $ 1.2 million including the March of Dimes, United Way, Unicef, and the American Cancer Society.

Cancer charities are frequently cited as paying exorbitant CEO salaries. For example, the recently released tax records of the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s CEO revealed her yearly salary to be $ 684,000. Records also revealed that the Komen Foundation spent a mere 15 percent of the funds it received on breast cancer research in 2011.

In 2009, the American Cancer Society (ACS) spent $ 149 million on cancer research after raising over $ 455 million in Relay for Life events. They spent over $ 499 million on salary, employee benefits, payroll taxes and another $ 152 million on supplies, telephone bills, postage, shipping, meetings and travel expenses.

Even more distressing, ACS reportedly has close financial ties to the makers of mammography equipment and cancer drugs. They also receive financial support from the pesticide, petrochemical, biotech, cosmetics, and junk food industries – products which are primary contributors to cancer.

ACS’s board of trustees has even included an executive from the American Cyanamid Company, which made chemical fertilizers and heribicides before producing anti-cancer drugs. On the receiving end of cancer research money, researchers have been frequently caught fabricating positive findings with the end goal of producing more drugs.

To find out which charities are sharing the highest percentage of donations received, many donors turn to a charity rating service. Like the charities they rate, not all charity rating sites are created equally.

Charity Navigator, a popular charity rater, lists Red Cross as giving 90% of donations to programs. According to Charity Watch, while charities often claim that “90% of donations are spent on programs,” the programs can include many activities that “most donors would not consider to be the bona-fide programs they are intending to support.” Charity Watch’s articles bluntly assess the actions of charities and ferret out waste, but Charity Watch also gives the American Red Cross an A- rating. Another charity rater, Give Well , doesn’t print harsh reviews, but does highlight the charities it finds highly effective.

All three services have a list of their most effective charities, the tops of which are mostly occupied by groups doing work in the poorest countries, where dollars go the farthest. For those looking to help the Philippines, Action Against Hunger, American Refugee Committee, International Rescue Committee, Project Concern, and Save the Children are highly rated alternatives to the Red Cross with reports from aid workers on the ground.

Effective charity lets donors know they made a difference in the world. Abolish Slavery is a group whose founder the author has met personally. Aaron Cohen spent years freeing modern day slaves, and has presently turned his attention to freeing people from debt slavery. Strike Debt! is an organization buying medical debt, housing debt and more for pennies on the dollar, and tearing up the debt. The author’s personal favorite charity, Kids Creating Peace, brings Israeli and Palestinian children together to learn how to love one another and overcome reactive behavior.

Andrew Meyer

WeAreChange

We Are Change

Is Your Favorite Charity Paying For A CEO’s Mansion?

VIDEO: Victoria Beckham dona colección de zapatos para ayudar las víctimas del Typhoon en Las Filipinas

Victoria y David Beckham están donando cajas de sus pertenencias para levantar finanzas y ayudar las víctimas del Typhoon Haiyan en Las Filipinas.

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VIDEO: Can Wines Taste Good, and Do Good?

It’s harder to find a wine company that contributes to a good cause and makes super wine. Lettie Teague scanned the charitable offerings and joins Lunch Break with samplings of wines that do good, and taste good. Photo: The Wall Street Journal.

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Breast Squeezing for Charity (learn from japan)

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Breast Squeezing for Charity (learn from japan)

VIDEO: Donald Trump Slaps Bill Maher with Silly Lawsuit

According to reports, Donald Trump just sued Bill Maher for $5 million.

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