My wife likes to say that slapping a yellow ribbon on your car is supporting the troops not one little bit when compared to asking hard questions of our government officials. That one is a no-brainer. But some people give their hard-earned cash to veterans organizations, thinking that is supporting our troops. Today’s report from ABCNews’ Brian Ross and Rhonda Schwartz shows that it just ain’t so. Many of those “charities” that claim to support veterans of the Iraq War are spending as little as two pecent of the funds they raise on their mission. From ABCNews:

In the last two years, generous Americans answering appeals to help wounded and paralyzed veterans have given more than $464 million to charities that have been given an F in a new report card from a leading charity watchdog group.

Those failing charities include the National Veterans Services Fund, of Darien, Conn., which took in more than $6 million in contributions last year supposedly to help veterans’ families.

It got a report grade of F from the American Institute of Philanthropy, which says the charity gave out only two percent of its money for charity.

“Veterans deserve better from America’s charities,” said Daniel Borochoff, the institute’s president and ABC News consultant, who compiled his group’s report card based on his analysis of the charity’s financial data. While the charities’ activities are not illegal, Borochoff says, “spending under 35 percent of your budget on actual bona fide charitable programs will get you an F grade.”

Of the 27 military and veterans’ charities reviewed by Borochoff’s group, 13 were rated F, including the Amvets National Service Foundation, the Army Emergency Relief Fund, Freedom Alliance, the National Veterans Services Fund, the Military Order of the Purple Heart Services Foundation and the Paralyzed Veterans of America.

Now, here’s the con job, and I’m thinking something should be done. This guy is promising help to our veterans, and all he’s accomplishing is the lining of his pockets.

But it has meant six-figure salaries and prosperous lifestyles for some of the people running the F-rated charities.

As the founder of a charity called Help Hospitalized Veterans, which distributes craft kits to veterans’ hospitals, Roger Chapin of San Diego pays himself and his wife more than half a million dollars a year in salary.

Charity is his business. Over the last three decades, Chapin has created more than a dozen different charities for cancer, kids and veterans.

“He’s a charity entrepreneur,” Borochoff says. “He’s very good at setting up charities that don’t do so much charitable but bring in lots, lots of money.”

I’m thinking we ought to put some names to these organizations and start identifying the con men that are fleecing Americans while pretending to help our soldiers, who are coming home from George Bush’s failed Iraq adventure with very real needs. So I want to hear from Thomas Kilgallen of the Freedom Alliance. How much freedom is this guy dishing out to our veterans? I want to hear from E. C. Meyer of the Army Emergency Relief Fund about why the money he is raising is going, largely, nowhere near veterans who need it. This guy’s a retired General, and he’s conning America while using injured veterans to raise money. I want to hear from all of these guys, up front and center in a Congressional hearing. This is a scandal. This is sick, preying on American sympathies for our soldiers.

And I want to see every Republican connection to these conmen.