RALPH REED: "USURY" IS JUST "JESUS" SPELLED SIDEWAYS

Well, I see that Jack Abramoff isn't the only sleazy God-botherer with ties to Ralph Reed, the former Christian Coalition head who wants to be Georgia's lieutenant governor. The Atlanta Progressive News reports:

Ralph Reed's largest campaign financial supporters, members of Georgia's Hanna family, are major owners of CompuCredit -- the company which issues the highly usurious "credit rebuilding" Aspire Visa Card....

Aspire Visa is notorious for extremely high annual fees, monthly fees, account opening fees, credit line increase fees, and finance charges, in addition to awful customer service. CompuCredit, which runs Aspire Visa, targets individuals with past credit problems who are unlikely to receive a credit offer from any other company....

What kinds of fees are we talking about? David Lazarus explained last year in the San Francisco Chronicle:

Now let's look closer at the Aspire Visa card's terms.

It offers $300 in credit. To get that, however, cardholders agree to pay an annual fee of $150, an account opening fee of $29 and a monthly maintenance fee of $6.50.

That means $300 in credit will cost you $257 in cash the first year and $228 every year thereafter. (The $150 annual fee, $29 opening fee and initial $6.50 monthly fee are all due as of your first bill.) ...

It gets worse....

If you miss a couple of payments for something purchased with the card, the rate jumps [from 19.75 percent] to a minimum 25.5 percent. If you miss a couple of payments for a cash advance, the rate soars to a minimum 31.5 percent.

On top of that, insult to injury, a $35 late fee is levied for all overdue payments.

Let's pause for a moment and turn to Exodus 22:25:

If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as an usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon him usury.

Various members of the Hanna family have given a total of $51,000 to Reed's campaign for lieutenant governor, including David Hanna (CompuCredit's president and CEO) and his brother Frank, who controls CompuCredit along with David.

Atlanta Progressive News tells us a bit more about Frank:

Like Reed and the Christian Coalition, Frank J. Hanna III is associated with the right-wing Legion of Christ, a multinational group of "orthodox" Catholic clergy known for fund-raising successes and an affinity for evangelizing the rich and powerful....

The Wall St. Journal ran an article on January 23, 2006, noting critics who argue that the Legion's "focus on the wealthy reinforces the sharp class divides that have long held Latin America back socially and economically. They say the Legion fosters intolerance and social climbing rather than devotion to Christ's gospel. Some in Mexico, instead of referring to the order's followers as Legionnaires of Christ, call them the 'Millionaires of Christ.'"

...Here in Atlanta, the Legion made front page news when they took control of the Donnellan School in Buckhead (now known as Holy Spirit Prep) by having police escort the Principal and two other administrators out of the building in the middle of a school day and in full view of horrified and weeping elementary school students....

You can read more about that incident and the Legion in this National Catholic Reporter story from 2000:

...In its literature, the order makes it clear that its structure is rigidly militaristic and that unity is prized. Wherever the order has put down roots in the United States, it has introduced into the Catholic parochial culture a highly authoritarian approach that brooks no challenges from underlings....

... A former Donnellan principal, Angela Naples, said that two school officials, Hopkins, the Legionary priest, and Dillon, the school's president, held her against her will for hours on Sept. 5 trying to persuade her to sign a confidential loyalty pledge. She described it as a modification of her contract that would have required her to resign at the end of the school year and to report to school officials anything negative said by employees or parents against the Legionaries. According to Diane Stinger, former guidance counselor, Hopkins ordered her to report on confidential conversations she had with students....

Legionaries have been accused of breaking up families by persuading boys as young as 12 to enter their "apostolic schools" in Centre Harbor, N.H., and Edgerton, Wis., to prepare to become priests....

Theresa Murray ... enrolled her third-grade daughter at Pinecrest Academy, another Legionary-affiliated school in the Atlanta suburb of Cumming.... The final straw came one day when her daughter, who was 8, came home and said "she wanted to commit suicide so she could see Jesus." Murray enrolled her child elsewhere....

By the way, Frank Hanna was also named co-chairman of the White House Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans by the Bush administration.

Jesus wept.

(APN story also available here.)