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1. Pat Robertson Blames Atheists And Those Who Hate God For Wisconsin Temple Shooting
   

   Huffington Post‎ - 18 hours ago

   On the morning after the tragedy in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, The 700 Club's Pat Robertson placed the blame for the shooting at the Sikh Temple ...

Diamonds are Robertson's best friend

Thirty-five years ago, Pat Robertson founded the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), which laid the foundation for his financial empire. Using CBN resources, Robertson launched numerous other business ventures, including.

The Family Channel, designed to distribute "The 700 Club," which became International Family Entertainment in 1990; Northstar Entertainment; Broadcast Equities; CBN Travel; American Sales Corporation; International Charter Jet; Kalo-Vita; and the Founders Inn and Conference Center.

Under International Family Entertainment, a for-profit organization, Chairman Robertson and his son, Tim, received over $1.1 million in salaries and bonuses in 1993 alone. According to Robertson, his close relationship with God has given him the insider's scoop on successfully using what he calls "God's marvelous system of money management". With so many projects to run, Robertson seems to have his hands full (with cash, that is).

Although the financial success of CBN is well-known, one of Robertson's lesser known organizations is his African Development Company (ADC). ADC is a private venture that invests in various land-based operations in Africa, such as mining and agriculture, with the stated goal of redirecting profits toward humanitarian projects. In Zaire, the ADC operates a diamond-mining project in the center of Zaire's prime diamond mines and forestry concessions.

Zaire is a country with a population of approximately 43 million, most of whom live in poverty. At the same time, Zaire's head of government, Mobutu Sese Seko, a dictator who has plundered the wealth of his nation for over thirty years, is able to live luxuriously surrounded by the comforts of vacation homes, yachts, and champagne. Corruption, health concerns, and human rights abuses in Zaire have long been an international concern, causing many countries, including the U.S., to turn a diplomatic cold shoulder toward Mobutu.

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Demagogue much?

In the wake of the shooting at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin in which 7 people (including the gunman, Wade Michael Page) were killed, Robertson was his usual deranged perceptive self when he proclaimed that the gunman (a known white supremacist^[4]) attacked the temple because "people who are atheists, they hate God".^[5]

[edit] Charity money used wrongly

From here, however, Robertson's crazy preacher mentality starts to take a more sinister turn. The 700 Club runs a charity called Operation Blessing which supposedly helps people in need in Third World countries. But it has been shown that Robertson uses it as a front group to push his own nefarious financial doings in Africa. One terrible example was in the mid 90's when Robertson ran a telethon to pay for planes for Operation Blessing to remove refugees from camps in Rwanda. Instead, it was later discovered by a reporter from The Virginian-Pilot that Operation Blessing's planes were transporting diamond-mining equipment for the Robertson-owned African Development Corporation, a venture Robertson had established in cooperation with Zaire's then-dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko, whom Robertson had befriended earlier in 1993. According to Operation Blessing documents, Robertson personally owned the planes used for Operation Blessing airlifts.

[edit] Financial entanglement with dictators

Another examples is his use of the the CBN propaganda wing to secure his financial entanglements with dictators. Robertson repeatedly supported former President of Liberia Charles Taylor in various episodes of his 700 Club program during the United States involvement in the Liberian Civil War in June and July of 2003. Robertson accuses the U.S. State Department of giving Bush bad advice in supporting Taylor's ousting as president, and of trying "as hard as they can to destabilize Liberia."^[6]

Robertson was criticized for failing to mention in his broadcasts his $8,000,000 (USD) investment in a Liberian gold mine.^[7] Taylor had been indicted by the United Nations for war crimes at the time of Robertson's support.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Pat_Robertson#Charity_money_used_wrongly