Unfortunately for him, he’s long since lost <\/em>any semblance of\u00a0credibility, thanks in part to his\u00a0researcher, Chris Rodda, who has had\u00a0some issues with this in the past.<\/p>\n Rodda once belittled supporters of a Christian group at USAFA<\/a>, claiming their support was a manufactured letter-writing campaign —\u00a0despite public evidence contradicting\u00a0her characterization.\u00a0 After her conduct was exposed here, she\u00a0“updated” her accusations (contrary to her prior claim she doesn’t “change something after [she] write[s] it”).\u00a0 However, had a local paper not written an article on the same topic, no one would have known Rodda had sensationalized her story <\/em>without any facts <\/em>to support her claims.\u00a0<\/p>\n This is a common trait for Rodda’s MRFF tales:\u00a0 She frequently makes accusations without any\u00a0supporting\u00a0evidence, as when she accused a military officer of being “in violation of military regulations” — without ever saying what or how any regulations were violated<\/a>.\u00a0 Those who take the time to actually read<\/em> the publicly available regulations may find her characterizations a bit…inaccurate.\u00a0<\/p>\n In another example, in June of 2008, Rodda went on a fundraising push claiming\u00a0a need for money so dire that Michael Weinstein, the\u00a0President of his own charity,\u00a0“doesn’t even pay himself a salary<\/a>.”\u00a0 Unfortunately for her, Weinstein’s publicly available\u00a0tax forms for that year show he not only did<\/em> pay himself a salary,\u00a0he paid himself a substantial <\/em>one:\u00a0 more than a quarter million dollars, or nearly half of what donors contributed to his “charity.”\u00a0<\/p>\n Despite making firm and confident statements,\u00a0Rodda has repeatedly misstated facts, even with easy-to-find public documents showing her factual errors.<\/p>\n Now, she’s done it again.\u00a0 Recently, an article here<\/a> made a reference to “former MRFF CIO Richard Baker…”\u00a0 Chris Rodda’s response<\/a>:<\/p>\n And, for the record, MRFF does not, and has never had, a position called \u201cCIO.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Now, if that were the case, why would anyone think they did<\/em>?\u00a0 Well,\u00a0if Rodda, as the MRFF researcher, had spent a few minutes researching her own organization, she would have seen that Michael Weinstein listed the “officers” in his “organization” this way:<\/p>\n So maybe Rodda is right, and Weinstein has never had a CIO.\u00a0 But if she is <\/em>right, Weinstein would have to be lying to the IRS.\u00a0 (This wouldn’t be the first time Rodda put her foot in her mouth<\/a> by second-guessing Weinstein’s IRS filings<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Alternatively, Chris Rodda may be wrong\u00a0— again — about information any person with a computer can verify in just a few minutes.\u00a0\u00a0Rodda’s attempt to play “gotcha” backfired in more ways than one.<\/p>\n But wait! There’s more:\u00a0 Rodda made a point of not only denying Baker’s role, but also saying the MRFF “has never had<\/em>” such a position.<\/p>\n Care to know how Weinstein described his own organization the year before <\/em>Rick Baker’s stint as the “non-CIO” of the MRFF?<\/p>\n Each year prior to that is the same, with David Antoon named the “CIO” of the MRFF.\u00a0 Contrary to Rodda’s authoritative statement the MRFF “has never had” a CIO, the MRFF has actually always <\/em>had a CIO, save its first month of existence in December 2005 when it had no <\/em>officers.<\/p>\n It doesn’t\u00a0matter one whit whether the MRFF had a CIO or not.\u00a0 What does <\/em>matter is Rodda’s inability to convey a simple fact accurately.\u00a0 Her actions appear to represent\u00a0either willful falsehood or gross incompetence.<\/p>\n If Rodda and the MRFF cannot be trusted to publish truthful <\/em>information when public documents <\/em>are available to show their misrepresentation or outright falsehood (especially<\/em> over such a benign issue as a staff title), how can they possibly be “trusted” to be truthful about the anonymous, secretive, or unsubstantiated accusations upon which they so often rely?<\/p>\n And they strongly<\/em> rely on such rhetoric.\u00a0 To be fair, Rodda is hardly the only member of the MRFF “group” to believe\u00a0people should just take her at her word.\u00a0\u00a0Frequent MRFF defender (and MRFF CIO, apparently) Rick Baker repeatedly asserts<\/a> the Navigators, Officers’ Christian Fellowship, Focus on the Family, etc, etc, are “dominionist,” but he provides no proof <\/em>to support his claim — just\u00a0his personal feelings.\u00a0\u00a0In just a single example, Michael Weinstein was once cited as categorically claiming a group of officers had ‘strong Christian beliefs<\/a>.’\u00a0 He provided no support <\/em>for that claim; in fact, he never even proved he knew those officers’ names<\/em>, never mind their religious affiliation or strength of religious conviction.<\/p>\n In a similar vein, Weinstein and his friends have even repeatedly made the claim Weinstein is a “registered Republican,” while neglecting to mention that public records <\/em>indicate he has financially supported Democratic candidates\u00a0since he fundraised against\u00a0his Republican representative in 2006.\u00a0 Even he admitted<\/a><\/p>\n I\u2019m a Republican but I\u2019m a Republican who voted for Clinton twice, Gore, Kerry and Obama.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n If that’s how he defines “Republican,” how can anyone “trust him” when he uses terms like…”Christian<\/a>?”<\/p>\n Rodda’s role in this is particularly ironic because she has made an extensive hobby of “correcting” others who may have played loose with the facts, from Christian historians to presidential candidate Michele Bachmann<\/a>.\u00a0 (Interestingly, the URL for Rodda’s article on Bachmann is “michele-bachmann-lies<\/em><\/span>-abo…”, though she never uses the word “lies” in her title or article.)\u00a0 \ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff<\/p>\n To the point, if Rodda isn’t truthful (or competent) in her rebuttals over\u00a0an issue as benign as officers in the MRFF, how can anyone trust her, Weinstein, Baker, or anyone else who claims to speak for the MRFF when they make sensational\u00a0accusations about religion in the US military?<\/p>\n In short, they can’t.<\/p>\n As the MRFF “group” has yet to learn, simply making a\u00a0statement, no matter how assertively, doesn’t make it true.\u00a0\u00a0Implying something is\u00a0true on its\u00a0face, failing to\u00a0provide evidence, or claiming\u00a0some secretive threat prevents publicizing the ‘smoking gun’ — all the while claiming their accusations are ‘good enough’ and should just be believed — leads to precisely where the MRFF has gone:\u00a0 They’re little more than fringe\u00a0conspiracy theorists.\u00a0 They don’t support most of their wild, Christians-are-taking-over-the-world accusations for a simple reason:\u00a0 They can’t<\/em>.<\/p>\n The Colorado Springs Gazette <\/em>once (accidentally) did an accurate job of describing the methodology of Weinstein’s group<\/a>:<\/p>\n [Conspiracy] theories revel in their vagueness \u2014 they often lack details about who did what, when and where. This makes them fundamentally difficult to disprove with evidence to the contrary \u2014 especially to true believers.<\/p>\n Oh sure, there is often copious evidence to counter any popular conspiracy theory, but because these theories are vague, a true-believer can always come up with a way to either discount that particular piece of evidence or \u2014 even more cleverly \u2014 to show that the counter-evidence is in fact proof of an even wider conspiracy to cover up the truth \u2014 your basic “conspiracy wrapped in a deep-fried cover-up.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.christianfighterpilot.com\/images\/cio2009a.jpg\")
\nThere are two possibilities:\u00a0either Michael Weinstein is wrong, or\u00a0Chris Rodda is wrong.\u00a0 As a paid staff member of the MRFF, Rodda may actually have the appropriate access to be telling the truth.\u00a0 Weinstein has consistently been the only paid officer of his “foundation” which, for the most part, seems to consist only of himself,\u00a0Chris\u00a0Rodda,\u00a0and a few volunteers.\u00a0 Michael Weinstein is the founder and\u00a0President of his own charity, and he pays only one officer:\u00a0 himself.\u00a0\u00a0He keeps the books himself, and appears to be the only staff member who lives anywhere near the MRFF\u00a0‘headquarters,’ which\u00a0seem to be his home office.\u00a0 Thus, the MRFF has never been portrayed as having an organizational officership structure — just\u00a0its President.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.christianfighterpilot.com\/images\/cio2008a.jpg\")
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