Yes, Wyclef Jean’s Haiti “Charity” is a Self-Serving Rip-Off

This is an interesting post from www.debbieschlussel.com about the telethon that was on many of the networks on Friday night.
As we have noted here, there are plenty of good places to send charity to help the Haitian earthquake victims.
However,this post here shows the possibilty that many Haitians may end up fleeing or being relocated to the United States.An interesting book which showed a similar result is called Camp of the Saints which you can get from Amazon by clicking here or your library here.
For more interesting stories like this click here to follow this blog.


Yes, Wyclef Jean’s Haiti “Charity” is a Self-Serving Rip-Off
By Debbie Schlussel
Pop singer and native Haitian Wyclef Jean came under fire for his Wyclef Jean Foundation, Inc. a/k/a the Yele Haiti Foundation. Yesterday, Jean held a press conference to defend himself against charges made by The Smoking Gun. And Rush Limbaugh defended him on his nationally syndicated radio show.
Wyclef Jean & His “Charity”: Pimpin’ Out the People of Haiti
While I agree with Rush on most issues, he’s completely wrong on Jean. I’ve looked at his foundation’s tax forms for 2005, 2006, and 2007, and there is not only a lot of self-dealing, but not enough of the money he raised actually goes to charity in Haiti. In fact, the vast majority of the money goes to pay consultants and himself.
And, frankly, TSG was soft on Jean and his charity. Here’s my analysis:
Normally, a charity is considered to be an illegitimate charity if more than 25% of the money raised goes to expenses. That’s the standard guideline. But more than 50% of Jean’s charity’s money goes to pay consultants and caterers at parties, etc. In fact, only 47% of the money went to charity at most. In 2007, the last year for which taxes were filed (in summer 2009), the charity spent $569,050, and only $270,000 of it went to “program services” in Haiti. In 2006, it’s even worse, with the charity spending $1,038,528 in total, and only $324,500 going to charity in Haiti. That means that only 31%–or less than a third–of the money spent that year went to charity.
But the biggest joke is 2005, in which only $1,281 (a tiny fraction of one percent) went to charity in Haiti, out of $549,991 spent on “expenses”–consultants, catering, travel, office expenses, etc. A “hurricane relief benefit” held that year in New York raised $50,000, but cost $40,301 to put on, netting less than $10,000 in revenue for the charity.
And you wonder–since Jean has had a lot of fundraisers attended by the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow and other movie stars–how much of the $79,126 the charity raised in 2007 was contributed by him. Even if he contributed the whole thing, it’s peanuts, since the foundation pays him and his partner, Jerry DuPlessis –they are both officers of the charity–$31,200 in rent, each year, in 2006 and 2007, for using office space in a building they own through their company, Platinum Sound, which owns and operates recording studios. Their excuse is that they are renting the offices “below market value.” But why aren’t they donating that space–you know, the same way they are asking all of us, who aren’t wealthy pop stars, to donate to Haiti?
And, then, there’s an additional $100,000 paid to Platinum Sound in 2006, which isn’t explained at all. Add to that the $250,000 Jean’s foundation paid to Telemax, S.A., in which, the 2006 tax form says, Jean and his partner DuPlessis own a controlling interest, to buy airtime and production services. If you add it all up, Jean and his partner made more money from the charity in 2006–a total of $381,200–than the actual intended recipients (the people of Haiti) did–or $324,500. Again, they use the excuse that the price paid was “below market value.” Uh-huh. Sadly, that excuse doesn’t hold water when, in fact, 37% of the money spent by the charity that year went to line Wyclef Jean’s and his partner, Jerry DuPlessis’ pockets.
Oh, and by the way, in each of those three years for which tax forms were available online, a good deal of the money spent on “charity” went to “Hip Hop En Sante – Hip Hop Musicians Promoting HIV/AIDS Awareness to Rural Youth.” Hmm . . . how helpful do you think that was in a country where their houses were so fragile, they pancaked upon an earthquake?
Clearly, Mr. Jean’s “charity” is a scam and a waste of money. Best to give elsewhere if you’re planning to donate to Haiti relief. And sometimes, even radio hosts with the best of intentions and who are usually right on target, are misinformed.
Look at a charity’s tax forms and get the information for yourself. You don’t need to be a forensic accountant to figure it out, and all it takes about 15 minutes on a site like Guidestar.
By the way, if you think this is bad, you should see the paltry amount of money Sean Vannity and his Freedom Concerts give to their intended recipients. Vannity makes Wyclef Jean look more generous than Santa Claus. Stay tuned.

Camp of the Saints? Part II

As we have noted here, there are plenty of good places to send charity to help the Haitian earthquake victims.

However, in Part I of this series here shows the possibilty that many Haitians may end up fleeing or being relocated to the United States.
An interesting book which showed a similar result is called Camp of the Saints which you can get from Amazon by clicking here or your library here.

The Prophet as Leper,
By Lloyd A. Conway (Detroit) - See all my reviews

This book is so politically incorrect that I admire Amazon.com for actually carrying it. Written in the early 1970s, this book looks beyond the cold war to a North-South confrontation in which European civilization is unilaterally morally disarmed. The thesis is simple: suppose a million starving people from the Ganges actually took Western rhetoric of compassion, explotiation, etc., to heart, and comandeered, en masse, shipping, with the intention of moving to the shores of France? (Raspail, of course, is French.) Would anyone stop them? The imagery employed is interesting.

The title comes from Revelation, Chapter 20, and refers to the forces of evil laying seige to the camp of the saints, here meant to be the nations of the West. "The thousand years are over..." is chanted from Third World lips, harking to the millenial reign of Christ, as well as to the millenial domination of Europe over the globe. Raspail has the Vatican, World Council of Churches, and other organs of what he saw as Western liberal compassion try to feed the Armada, as it sails around the Cape. The bodies of their would-be benefactors are cast into the sea. The characters who oppose, with violence, the Armada are named with names like Constantine Drasages and Luke Notaras, namesakes of the last Byzantine Emperor and Admiral. They are portrayed as villans in the media; one of the more thoughtful leftists, fashionably in support of opening up France's shores, but cynical enough to see the potential results, reflects on the parallels between Byzantium's fate and that of the West. The author's point is that any who dare to say that 'white' civilization has a right to exist are branded racists and cast out of the pale of polite society. The narrative is set up as a flashback. The Armada is about to disgorge its human cargo in Provence as we begin. An old man, M. Calgues, awaits them, Mozart playing in the background, after setting what he expects to be his last supper among the living. From there, we go back to the beginning, in India, as a Western cleric preaches quasi-liberation theology to the masses. Along the way, as the news spreads over the world, we digress, looking at Manhattenites holing up in skyscrapers as the spectre of race riots beckon, and at Russian troops on the Manchurian border contemplating the human waves gathering to wash over them. The central question of the book is this: will the West (including Russia - more properly, the North), when (not if) confronted with de facto occupation of national territories by Third World people, coming to live, but not to assimilate, use violence to save itself? Is there left in Euro-American civilization a will to live that is strong enough to pull a trigger? The stark question is answered in one of two possible ways by the concluding chapter. This astringent book, whether you agree with Raspail's views or not, demands thoughtful attention to the questions posed. How will we deal with population/immagration issues? Is our culture and way of life worth fighting for? -Lloyd A. Conway

Camp of the Saints? DHS/DOD Tell Haitians Not To Flee To US

As we have noted here, there are plenty of good places to send charity to help the Haitian earthquake victims. However, the article below from http://www.sweetness-light.com/ shows the possibilty that many Haitians may end up fleeing to the United States.

An interesting book which showed a similar result is called Camp of the Saints which you can get from Amazon by clicking here or your library here. The book says to "suppose a million starving people from the Ganges actually took Western rhetoric of compassion, explotiation, etc., to heart, and comandeered, en masse, shipping, with the intention of moving to the shores of France? (Raspail, of course, is French.) Would anyone stop them?"

DHS/DOD Tell Haitians Not To Flee To US
From an obviously outraged New York Times:
Homeless Haitians Told Not to Flee to U.S.

By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
MIAMI — America has a message for the millions of Haitians left homeless and destitute by last week’s earthquake: Do not try to come to the United States.
Every day, a United States Air Force cargo plane specially equipped with radio transmitters flies for five hours over the devastated country, broadcasting news and a recorded message from Raymond Joseph, Haiti’s ambassador in Washington.
“Listen, don’t rush on boats to leave the country,” Mr. Joseph says in Creole, according to a transcript released by the Pentagon. “If you do that, we’ll all have even worse problems. Because, I’ll be honest with you: If you think you will reach the U.S. and all the doors will be wide open to you, that’s not at all the case. And they will intercept you right on the water and send you back home where you came from.”
Homeland Security and Defense Department officials say they are taking a hard line to avert a mass exodus from the island that could lead to deaths at sea or a refugee crisis in South Florida. Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, is about 700 miles from Miami.

312,000 illegal aliens from El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras have been allowed to stay ‘temporarily’ in the US after Hurricane Mitch, which occurred more than ten years ago.
And, as we have previously noted, last Friday Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano granted similar ‘temporary protected status’ to 200,000 Haitians who are currently residing in the US.

Continue this story here