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ORIGINAL RESEARCHBill Berkowitz FEMA Finds Faith in the Aftermath of Hurricane KatrinaThe Federal Emergency Management Agency's decision to reimburse faith-based organizations for services rendered in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina signals another triumph for the president's faith-based initiativeDuring an early-October trip to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Jim Towey, an assistant to President Bush and the director of the White House Office for "People displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita should not be subjected to unwanted, high-pressure religious coercion as the price of getting help from their own government" Towey's acknowledgements appear to fit well with a decision by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to use taxpayer money to reimburse faith-based organizations that provided relief services after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast and New Orleans. "Religious organizations would be eligible for payments ... if they operated emergency shelters, food distribution centers or medical facilities at the request of state or local governments in the three states that have declared emergencies -- Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama," FEMA officials declared. "A wide range of costs would be available for reimbursement, including labor costs incurred in excess of normal operations, rent for the facility and delivery of essential needs like food and water," FEMA spokesperson Eugene Kinerney told the Washington Post in an e-mail. "We want to make sure that every group, religious or nonreligious, which opens its doors and opens its arms to shelter evacuees from this storm is able to get compensated for its generosity," Kinerney said. Even before FEMA made its decision, faith-based groups were lobbying Congress. The American Atheists' FlashLine reported that in congressional hearings that were not well publicized, "Lobbyists and officials from several religious groups testified in front of the Senate Finance Social Security and Family Policy Subcommittee chaired by Rick Santorum (R-PA) to increase indirect government aid to charitable outreaches, but reject provisions of a bill that would strengthen financial accountability. The groups warned that such changes would 'increase administrative burdens.'" "If the president really wants to put his money where his mouth is on the faith-based initiative, now is the time," declared Rev. Rick Warren the founding pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California and the author of the mega-best-selling book "The Purpose Driven Life." "Long after the Red Cross pulls out and FEMA pulls out, the churches are still going to be there," Warren said. FEMA's Controversial DecisionApplauded by supporters of President Bush's faith-based initiative, FEMA's reimbursement decision was also criticized by separation of church and state activists. "I believe it's appropriate for the federal government to assist the faith community because of the scale and scope of the effort and how long it's lasting," Joe Becker, senior vice president for preparedness and response with the Red Cross, told the Washington Post. The Rev. Flip Benham, director of Operation Save America, an antiabortion group formerly known as Operation Rescue, told the Washington Post that, "Separation of church and state means nothing in a time of disaster; you see immediately what a farce it is." Along with food and clothing, Benham acknowledged that, "Bibles and tracts go out with everything we put out." Benham also stated that he would not accept money from the federal government: "The people have been so generous to give that for us to ask for reimbursement would be like gouging for gas. That would be a crime against heaven." In a post-hurricane column entitled "Three Winners and Three Losers in the Katrina and Rita Aftermath," Marvin Olasky, Editor in Chief of World magazine, an evangelical weekly, maintained that religious organizations were one of the clear-cut winners in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Olasky, who according to a bio posted at TownHall.com "is considered the father of compassionate conservatism," has been an advisor to Bush on faith-based matters since the president's days as governor of Texas. While acknowledging that most religious groups would likely not want to avail themselves of the government money because they "are working out of love for God (and also want to avoid political entanglements and preserve their volunteer donor base)," nevertheless, "it's good that religious groups have the same choice that secular groups possess," Olasky maintained. "FEMA's decision was likely driven by politics," Rob Boston, the assistant director of communications for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, told me from his Washington, DC office. "It seems like a crass effort by the Bush Administration to take advantage of a tragic situation by placating his conservative constituency." "After FEMA's ineptitude in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, it's distressing to see the Bush administration making even more blunders," the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United, pointed out. "We've never complained about using a religious organization as a distribution point for food or clothing or anything else," Lynn said. But "direct cash reimbursements would be unprecedented. "Before you turn over millions of taxpayer dollars to churches, there must be strict accountability and safeguards to protect the civil and religious liberty rights of those who need help," Lynn added. In light of President Bush's inept response to the catastrophe, the lack of effective pre-hurricane planning by state and local government, and FEMA's failure to provide timely assistance to the victims, the faith-based community mobilized quickly. Thousands of vigorous and enthusiastic volunteers who were affiliated with a broad assortment of religious groups stepped up to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, and serve the needy in countless ways. While acknowledging the "instrumental" role faith-based organizations played in hurricane relief, Jim Towey reiterated the Bush Administration's commitment to guaranteeing that "there is a level playing field so faith-based groups are not discriminated against," in a recent interview with Christianity Today magazine. Towey added that the administration "want[s] to give the poor a choice in programs ... want[s] to see vouchers expanded to other areas of social services ... and want[s] to work with governors and mayors." While recognizing that most churches would not receive FEMA money, during his Baton Rouge visit Towey encouraged faith-based groups that were operating a shelter to register with FEMA and to notify agency leaders of any plans to close. In some cases, FEMA might want to contract with churches to stay open or to reopen, Towey pointed out. 'Leveling the Playing field'In his column, Olasky applauded FEMA for giving faith-based groups "the same choice that secular groups possess." Since President Bush announced his faith-based initiative in January 2001, "leveling the playing field," or removing so-called barriers excluding faith-based groups from competing with secular groups for government grants to provide social services has been a major focus. Shortly after his first inauguration, Bush introduced his faith-based initiative by issuing two Executive Orders: One established the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, while the other instructed the Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, Justice, Education and Housing and Urban Development to set up Centers for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives within their agencies. (Eight federal agencies and the US Agency for International Development and the Small Business Administration currently have faith-based offices.) The latter executive order charged each Center with conducting a comprehensive survey aimed at identifying "all existing barriers to the participation of faith-based and other community organizations in the delivery of social services by the department." Departments were to look at "regulations, rules, orders, procurement, and other internal policies and practices, and outreach activities that either facially discriminate against or otherwise discourage or disadvantage the participation of faith-based and other community organizations in Federal programs." Results of the audit were published in "Unlevel Playing Field: Barriers to Participation by Faith-Based and Community Organizations in Federal Social Service Programs." The report found "widespread bias against faith- and community-based organizations in Federal social service programs." "Leveling the playing field" became the Bush Administration's mantra as it claimed that laws needed to change so that faith-based organizations could receive government money but still maintain their religious character. Keeping their "religious character," opponents charged, would open the door to discriminatory hiring practices. However, "leveling the playing field" was not a new concept. It had previously surfaced in Texas while Bush was Governor. "In the name of 'leveling the playing field' for faith-based programs in Texas ... Bush passed laws relaxing regulations over these [social service] programs, including fully exempting faith-based drug treatment centers and children's homes from state licensing and oversight," Samantha Smoot, the then-Executive Director of the Texas Freedom Network, pointed out in a August 2001 Institute for Public Accuracy press release. Gov. Bush "explicitly directed that office to 'eliminate unnecessary legislative, regulatory and other bureaucratic barriers that impede effective faith-based and other community efforts to solve social problems,'" Smoot said. The Rev. Jim Dickerson, the founder and pastor of the New Community Church, a highly active, interracial congregation in Washington, DC's inner city, told columnist Neal Pierce that talk of "leveling the playing field" was disingenuous. "Every social program I've been part of these past 40 years had been explicitly 'faith-based' in one form or another and used government money. We've never been discriminated against because of our faith," the Rev. Dickerson said. In November 2003, Melissa Rogers, a lawyer and scholar on the Constitution and religious liberties, told the Boston Globe that the Bush administration had made "very significant" policy changes. "They set out to make certain changes that were very controversial, and they are doing that," said Rogers, professor of religion and public policy at the Divinity School at Wake Forest University. "It's creating a lot of concern that they have gone too far in leveling the playing field and are undoing some healthy church-state rules that protect both religion and the government and its citizens." Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-founder of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, which filed a successful suit against the Bush administration over the president's faith-based initiative -- pointed out that the administration was not "leveling the playing field." Instead, it was "cajoling religious organizations" into coming "to them and telling them how to fill out the forms and giving untried groups money." Advancing Bush's Faith-Based InitiativeBush's faith-based project has yet to result in a major legislative initiative, mainly due to objections that government money could go to religious organizations aiming to skirt existing civil rights laws, discriminate in hiring practices, and use taxpayer money for religious proselytization. However, as Jim Towey acknowledged to Christianity Today, the Bush Administration has handed out more than $2 billion dollars to faith-based groups in the last year alone, and more is on the way. On March 2, Representative Mark Green (R-WI), introduced H.R. 1054, The Tools for Community Initiatives Act, which would make the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, and other federal agencies with faith-based centers, "a permanent part of the federal government." Since Bush's faith-based initiative was set up through executive orders, H.R. 1054 provides a safeguard against it being rescinded by a future administration. According to OMB Watch, the bill would "establish the offices and outlines their responsibilities. It does not include portions of current regulations that address how religious groups handle federal grants. Instead, these issues are included in a non-binding 'Sense of Congress' section, which does not address the issue of hiring on the basis of religion for federally funded jobs." The provisions of H.R. 1054 would exist "until Congress acted to eliminate them." And recently, the House of Representatives voted 220-196 to provide religious groups with an exemption from civil rights statutes in operating portions of the Head Start program, which has a $7 billion budget. "Some religious organizations are openly using the hurricane relief efforts to win new converts," Americans United's Barry Lynn said. "If these groups can't separate their evangelism from their relief work, they should not be eligible for public funding. People displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita should not be subjected to unwanted, high-pressure religious coercion as the price of getting help from their own government." While recognizing that faith-based organizations provided extraordinary service in the aftermath of the hurricanes, Rob Boston also noted that FEMA's reimbursement directive contains no oversight provisions or limitations as to how the money will be used. "In the wake of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, it would be difficult to oppose these types of measures," Boston added. Boston expects Team Bush to continue pushing its faith-based initiative despite not having passed any comprehensive legislation on the matter: "It's up and running full throttle simply due to executive orders and regulatory changes," said Boston, "and I expect them to continue operating in that manner." "Is there a fashionable media-driven 'consensus' that, somehow, churches and other faith-based groups were 'first on the ground,' providing an enormous scale of relief to the hurricane victims while federal and secular agencies fumbled and lagged behind? The American Atheists' FlashLine asked. "The claim is unsubstantiated, of course, and neither Congress nor other watch-dog groups are anywhere near able to do a thorough, objective assessment of the emergency response to Hurricane Katrina (or Hurricane Rita) so close to the actual event," FlashLine argued. During a late-September talk at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Camden, NJ., Jim Towey gushed: "Hurricane Katrina showed us faith-based organizations doing superb work and being way ahead of government." In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, FEMA failed miserably under the leadership of the woefully ill-equipped Michael Brown. Now that it has decided to reimburse faith-based organizations for its post-hurricane relief services, one can only hope that some standards and safeguards have been put in place to assure that millions of dollars will not be shoved down a faith-based rabbit hole. sign in, or register to email stories or comment on them.
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MORE ORIGINAL RESEARCHBill Berkowitz PERC receives Templeton Freedom Award for promoting 'enviropreneurs'Right Wing foundation-funded anti-environmental think tank grabbing a wider audience for 'free market environmentalism' On the 15th anniversary of Terry Anderson and Donald Leal's book "Free Market Environmentalism" -- the seminal book on the subject -- Anderson, the Executive Director of the Bozeman, Montana-based Property and Environment Research Center (PERC - formerly known as the Political Economy Research Center) spoke in late-January at an event sponsored by Squaw Valley Institute at the Resort at Squaw Creek in California. While it may have been just another opportunity to speak on "free market environmentalism" and not the kickoff of a "victory tour," nevertheless it comes at a time when PERC's ideas are taking root.
Bill Berkowitz Neil Bush of Saudi ArabiaDuring recent visit, President’s brother describes the country as a 'kind of tribal democracy' In late February, only a few days after Saudi Arabia beheaded four Sri Lankan robbers and then left their headless bodies on public display in the capital of Riyadh, Neil Bush, for the fourth time in the past six years, showed up for the country's Jeddah Economic Forum. The Guardian reported that Human Rights Watch "said the four men had no lawyers during their trial and sentencing, and were denied other basic legal rights." In an interview with Arab News, the Saudi English language paper, Bush described the country as "a kind of tribal democracy."
Bill Berkowitz Newt Gingrich's back door to the White HouseAmerican Enterprise Institute "Scholar" and former House Speaker blames media for poll showing 64 percent of the American people wouldn't vote for him under any circumstances Whatever it is that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has come to represent in American politics, the guy is nothing less than fascinating. One day he's espousing populist rhetoric about the need to cut the costs of college tuition and the next day he's talking World War III. One day he's claiming that the "war on terror" may force the abridgement of fundamental first amendment rights and the next he's advancing a twenty-first century version of his Contract with America. At the same time he's publicly proclaiming how "stupid" it is that the race for the presidency has already started you know that he's trying to figure out how to out finesse Rudy, McCain and Romney for the nomination. And last week, when Fox News' Chris Wallace cited a poll showing that 64 percent of the public would never vote for him, he was quick to blame those results on how unfairly he was treated by the mainstream media back in the day.
Bill Berkowitz American Enterprise Institute takes lead in agitating against IranDespite wrongheaded predictions about the war on Iraq, neocons are on the frontlines advocating military conflict with Iran After doing such a bang up job with their advice and predictions about the outcome of the war on Iraq, would it surprise you to learn that America's neoconservatives are still in business? While at this time we are not yet seeing the same intense neocon invasion of our living rooms -- via cable television's news networks -- that we saw during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, nevertheless, a host of policy analysts at conservative think tanks -- most notably the American Enterprise Institute -- are being heeded on Iran by those who count - folks inside the Bush Administration.
Bill Berkowitz After six years, opposition gaining on George W. Bush's Faith Based InitiativeUnmentioned in the president's State of the Union speech, the program nevertheless continues to recruit religious participants and hand out taxpayer money to religious groups With several domestic policy proposals unceremoniously folded into President Bush's recent State of the Union address, two pretty significant items failed to make the cut. Despite the president's egregiously tardy response to the event itself, it was nevertheless surprising that he didn't even mention Hurricane Katrina: He didn't offer up a progress report, words of hope to the victims, or come up with a proposal for moving the sluggish rebuilding effort forward. There were no "armies of compassion" ready to be unleashed, although it should be said that many in the religious community responded to the disaster much quicker than the Bush Administration. In the State of the Union address, however, there was no "compassionate conservatism" for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Bill Berkowitz Frank Luntz calls Republican leadership in Washington 'One giant whining windbag'On the outs with the GOP, legendary degrader of discourse is moving to California He doesn't make great art; nothing he does elevates the human spirit; he doesn't illuminate, he bamboozles. He has become expert in subterfuge, hidden meanings, word play and manipulation. Frank Luntz has been so good at what he does that those paying close attention gave it its own name: "Luntzspeak."
Bill Berkowitz Spooked by MoveOn.org, conservative movement seeks to emulate liberal powerhouseFueled with Silicon Valley money, TheVanguard.org will have Richard Poe, former editor of David Horowitz's FrontPage magazine as its editorial and creative director As Paul Weyrich, a founding father of the modern conservative movement and still a prominent actor in it, likes to say, he learned a great deal about movement building by closely observing what liberals were up to in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Bill Berkowitz Ward Connerly's anti-affirmative action jihadFounder and Chair of the American Civil Rights Institute scouting five to nine states for new anti-affirmative action initiatives Fresh from his most recent victory -- in Michigan this past November -- Ward Connerly, the Black California-based maven of anti-affirmative action initiatives, appears to be preparing to take his jihad on the road. According to a mid-December report in the San Francisco Chronicle, Connerly said that he was "exploring moves into nine other states."
Bill Berkowitz Tom Tancredo's missionThe Republican congressman from Colorado will try to woo GOP voters with anti-immigration rhetoric and a boatload of Christian right politics These days, probably the most recognizable name in anti-immigration politics is Colorado Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo. Over the past year, Tancredo has gone from a little known congressman to a highly visible anti-immigration spokesperson. "Tancredo has thoroughly enmeshed himself in the anti-immigration movement and with the help of CNN talk show host Lou Dobbs, he has been given a national megaphone," Devin Burghart, the program director of the Building Democracy Initiative at the Center for New Community, a Chicago-based civil rights group, told Media Transparency.
Bill Berkowitz Institute on Religion and Democracy slams 'Leftist' National Council of ChurchesNew report from conservative foundation-funded IRD charges the NCC with being a political surrogate for MoveOn.org, People for the American Way and other liberal organizations If you prefer your religious battles sprinkled with demagoguery, sanctimoniousness, and simplistic attacks, the Institute on Religion and Democracy's (IRD) latest broadside against the National Council of Churches (NCC) certainly fits the bill.
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