Obama Drug Czar Pick Tied to Abusive Christian Rehab

[BonnieJW]

What can Obama be thinking??? Some of his staff are not doing their jobs if this creep got through.



The Huffington PostDecember 10, 2008

If his opposition to needle exchange and maintenance treatment for addictions isn't enough to convince you that Jim Ramstad isn't qualified to serve in Obama's cabinet as "drug czar," how about an earmark funding a Christian addiction "program" that uses outdated and abusive tactics and tries to "complete" Jews? Now add a connection between that program and a man who is charged with swindling investors out of $3.5 billion dollars.

That's right. Jim Ramstad was the sole sponsor of an earmark providing $235,000 to Minnesota Teen Challenge, a branch of a national anti-addiction group which believes that recruiting people into the Assemblies of God ministry will cure their addiction.

Yes, this is the same Teen Challenge that prompted George W. Bush to de-regulate faith-based addiction treatment in Texas in 1997. The program couldn't meet basic education standards required for qualified counselors, but Bush wanted it kept open.

After he became President, Texas actually re-regulated faith-based programs when the predicted spate of abuse and maltreatment that comes with unregulated facilities rapidly materialized.

Back then, Bush praised Teen Challenge for its practices, saying that while inside, "if you don't work, you don't eat." That's right: the program uses unpaid, forced labor backed by the threat of food deprivation as "addiction treatment."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maia-szalavitz/drug-czar-pick-earmarks-c_b_149614.html?view=print

[FrenchieCat]

1. Has he been picked?

I didn't know that.

[w4rma]

2. Rahm probably picked the idiot. (nt)

[FrenchieCat]

4. The Idiot has not been picked.

The headline on this OP is misleading at best, unless there is a link in reference to this guy actually being selected. I couldn't locate such information when I googled his name, and Barack Obama's....only speculation that his name was out there.

[KoKo]

11. Hopefully the guy floated his own name and this info will "unfloat it."

:shrug:

[leftynyc]

12. Rahm picking someone who

is tied to something that's trying to "complete Jews" sounds unlikely.

[w4rma]

13. Good point. (nt)

[ClarkUSA]

3. Link to where it definitively says this guy is Obama's "pick"?

:shrug:

[Connie_Corleone]

5. I'm getting tired of these headlines declaring Obama picked someone when he hasn't yet.

What's so hard with putting the words "Possible Pick" or "Considering Picking" in the headline?

This is not directed at the OP.

[bluestateguy]

6. Can we please stop with the jumping on rumors and then creating a shit storm?

This has been going on for weeks. A bunch of bored media establishmentarians run a bunch of speculative news stories, lacking in any real evidence, beyond anonymous quotes from "sources", who purport to know who Obama will appoint to some position.

Then of course the blogs and sites like this one have their predictable shit-fits, and the crybaby interest groups chime in with their usual whining.

And then of course, we later learn that Mr. or Mrs. So and So was never on the list to be considered for Whatever Open Position we were talking about in the first place.

It's all very Matt Drudgish.

[rvablue]

7. Your title OP is false....he is not Obama's pick, his name is merely being bandied about

and there has been a lot of protest regarding him being under consideration.

[Thrill]

8. When did Obama announce this pick? Sounds like more fake outrage

before something even happens.

[EFerrari]

9. Sourcewatch listing for the curious:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Jim_Ramstad#Gay_rights.2Fmarriage

[noonwitch]

10. Teen Challenge shouldn't receive government money

There are other christian or church-based agencies that should, who understand the separation of church and state issues, and offer the religious programs as voluntary for the residents.

I know that Teen Challenge was founded by the guy who wrote The Cross And The Switchblade. It's not just a christian agency, it's also a pentecostal group.

Then there's New Horizon Youth Ministries, the place where you can send your kid off to a hellhole in the Dominican Republic and have people force religion down the kids' throats. Jesus Land, a book by Julia Scheeres, documents it pretty well.