Petraeus scandal: Jill Kelley ran a bogus cancer charity

Tampa military socialite and Petraeus scandal figure Jill Kelley ran the "Doctor Kelley Cancer Foundation," which claimed on its tax forms that it "shall be operated exclusively to conduct cancer research and to grant wishes to terminally ill adult cancer patients." Huffington Post:

From the records, it appears that the charity fell far short of its mission. While the origins of the seed money used to start the charity in 2007 are unclear, financial records reviewed by The Huffington Post reveal that the group spent all of its money not on research, but on parties, entertainment, travel and attorney fees.

More at HuffPo.

Mrs. Kelley also made 911 calls to Tampa police this week about trespassing reporters, and claims her property is considered diplomatic soil. "I'm the honorary consul general so they should not be on my property," Kelley said. "I don't know if you want to get diplomatic protection involved as well."

Consul general of what? CrazyVaginaStan?

(Thanks, Antinous)

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_e_jones/ Stefan Jones

Well, if your wish was to attend a swell party . . . they could handle that!
BarBarSeven

Have we gotten to the point where she was found taking a sack of the cutest kittens in the world & smashed them against a wall just for kicks?

Seriously, sounds like the kind of genius who would receive 20,000-30,000 documents via e-mail, decide to upgrade her computer & just sell or toss her old machine with 20,000-30,000 documents without erasing the hard drive.
grimc

She’s an honorary consul of South Korea.
- http://glitch.tl/ Michael Smith
  
  Oh wow Jill Kelley is a little United Nations all on her own. And I thought model airplanes were an exciting hobby to have.
  - RJ
    
    Nah. Testors doesn’t sell what got stuck in her hair.
    - http://horseisahorse.myopenid.com/ HorseIsAHorse
      
      They do sell the stuff that, if you sniff enough of it, makes your brain that way.
- John Maple
  
  I owe you dude. Thanks.
- http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
  
  Something tells me that was a precoital promise that was never really delivered.
- billstreeter
  
  Yes and the “honorary” part was completely lost on her. She thought she actually had diplomatic privilege. That’s kinda like thinking that an honorary doctorate means you can practice medicine.
voiceinthedistance

Consul General of Skankistan. I’m sure she has flags that fly from her front bumper, too. Poor thing just has a sweet spot for parties and four star generals.
https://me.yahoo.com/yesthatkarim#810d6 Julian Assange

There’s a CrazyVaginaStan? Great. Why the hell did I pick *Ecuador.*
- http://glitch.tl/ Michael Smith
  
  More to the point, why did you pick England?
  - https://me.yahoo.com/yesthatkarim#810d6 Julian Assange
    
    The delicious cuisine and the glorious weather?
    
    But seriously, the bit I’m standing on now, isn’t technically England.
    - acerplatanoides
      
      You really do like thumbing your nose. Well, right on. My thumb is with yours. (karim?)
- cdh1971
  
  Be careful for what you wish brother…
  
  Ecuador is a decent place to be an expat, though myself, I’m leaning towards Columbia.
  
  In Ecuador, if you venture in to the wild bush, the worst than can happen to you is a poison arrow, or dart, or perhaps snakebite, disembowelment by wild animals or death from exposure.
  
  CrazyVaginaStan, you risk your rabbit, your dick or your rod or your Johnson.
Mitchell Glaser

Maybe we should hand her over to the Taliban. No, on second thought she’d probably become their queen inside of a week.
That_Anonymous_Coward

Billions spent on monitoring citizens, sneaking around peoples rights…
And they managed to miss what is happening right under their noses with their own people.
https://twitter.com/misterjayem MrJM

Once again, the American security state doesn’t hold up to even cursory inspection.
- fuzzyfuzzyfungus
  
  Hey, the Security Theater has a champagne room… It’s just that you have to be this crazy to be invited.
  - John Maple
    
    I’m plenty crazy but no one said anything. I must not be on the “No Fly” list.
Rebecca Dominguez

I’m appalled that your slur was both ablest and sexist. Given your excellent grasp of English surely you could have come up with something inventive that was not ablest or sexist.
- anneymarie
  
  My thoughts exactly.
- acerplatanoides
  
  Perhaps you could offer an alternative slur? I know I would like to learn a few that fit that metric.
  - blueelm
    
    Frauduconistan?
    - http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy
      
      Good one, damn close, but speakers of farsi can feel free to be offended at your usage.
      - blueelm
        
        Frauduconilonia!
      - http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy
        
        You’ve got it! Frauds, cons and descendants of latin-speakers can try to be offended, but they would fail!
- blueelm
  
  Is “crazy” ablest?
  
  (I’m not trying to argue that making fun of the mentally ill is fine. I, myself, am mentally ill and just plain old regular ill as well. In fact, I don’t know the difference between the two being that the mind is a part of the body.)
  
  The only reason I ask is that crazy literally just means socially non-functional, acting in an inappropriate way, etc.
  
  The origin of “crazy” as far as I know was never to actually diagnose anyone. It had to do with cracks in ceramics. It was always applied as an insult to people.Like how “cracked up” can mean both “had a psychotic break” and also “laughed my ass off” depending on the context.It’s always been an insult, not just to mentally ill people, but to anyone whose behavior the speaker dislikes. So is it ablest, or just an insult that mentally ill people get so much more often than others that they’ve come to just accept it?
  
  It’s rude to call mentally ill people crazy, but is it a poor reflection of the mentally ill to call people you find socially dysfunctional crazy?
  
  I guess my question becomes “who says the mentally ill are crazy?”
  
  (BTW crazed/crazy is still used in ceramics. It’s not obsolete, but the insult has become much more common than the technical use.)
  
  Full disclosure: I have at times similar conflict about the word “bitch” which has become an insult because it implies “woman” just owing to the fact it was used to insult women for so long. I’m never sure what to really think of it. While I support people’s right to complain about the word, and would never deny it is used to insult women, I find the fact that words used to discriminate against a group of people are damaging to EVERYONE within that group by association with them more frightening.
  
  It seems different than using “gay” as an insult to me. Gay people are gay, they don’t want to be used as an insult. But without being used as an insult the word is then neutral.
  
  Bitch and Crazy are not the same way. They have always been insults.
  
  But women aren’t bitches and the mentally ill aren’t crazy, so it seems like until the stigma on the PEOPLE is lifted any word that associates to them would continue to hurt the group because enough people hate women and mentally ill people.
  
  Does changing the word change that? Or do other things have to change?
  - http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy
    
    All slurs that have entries in any thesaurus are offensive to one or more societal segments for a variety of reasons based in origin or usage.
    
    If you want to avoid being labelled as someone who did something X-est you must choose between duct tape over the mouth or talk to your doctor about Pollyannastica*, a helpful chemical assist in these troubled times.
    
    *side effects include singing, dancing and falling off of mountains.
    
    (I try to stick to body parts we all have or substances we all excrete, the only playing it safe I have found., but then again I’ve never posted on anatomical or scatological discussion boards)
    - acerplatanoides
      
      I’ve long found cholostomy-bag to be a great substitution for other -bags I might refer to.
    - cdh1971
      
      Right on. Spot on.
      
      Prozac! Prozac for everyone!
  - cdh1971
    
    The humourless will find offence everywhere because they crave the high…it’s like a disease.
    - wysinwyg
      
      Always interesting to me that people who dislike the lowest-brow and least funny types of comedy are “humourless”. Presumably Daniel Tosh fans have the greatest and most refined senses of humor on the planet.
      - cdh1971
        
        Yes, I agree that not liking low-brow crap ‘comedy’ can get a person labelled as humourless, but how does this relate to my comment?
        
        I don’t think disagreeing with R. Dominguez accusing Xeni of being ableist and sexist because she called this Jill Kelly character ‘crazy’ somehow makes me a fan of ”…the lowest-brow and least funny types of comedy…” or of Daniel Tosh.
        
        In fact, I had to look up Tosh before I replied because I’m not too familiar.
        
        Please help me understand your reasoning.
      - RedShirt77
        
        One could argue that refined and dignified humor is the least funny.
      - cdh1971
        
        Your comment brings to mind the “Filthy Speech Movement”, which was a part of the Free Speech Movement.
        
        (My reply here, is late to the party, however, while cleaning out the zombie tabs, I read your comment, felt moved to reply.)
  - RevelryByNight
    
    I’ve wondered about the same thing. I’m a queer, progressive blogger-type who spends too much time on tumblr, where people tend to get pretty riled up about casual slurs. “Lame” is the one that strikes me the most right now.
    
    Because I’m able-bodied, I have no right to tell people what they should and shouldn’t find offensive. However, it’s pretty amazing at how pissed people get at words like “lame” which I don’t think has been used to describe anything but horses since the 19th century.
    (see also: “dumb”)
    
    I’ve heard similar arguments about derogatory words that refer to the “intellectually inferior.” Retarded is the most obvious, but I’ve seen people get pretty annoyed at the casual use of the words “stupid” “weak” “dense” “derp” etc. etc. etc.
    
    My question, which you’re addressing blueelm, is why not redefine our relationships to the words, instead of forbidding their usage? Crazy means illogical and unaware of potential outcomes, which seems like a perfectly cromulent word.
    
    (And for the record, queer means “weird” and I’m totally cool with that.)
- http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy
  
  Hystericistan?
  
  Florida?
- grimc
  
  Of course it was ablest. Xeni always gives her best.
- http://burntheflag.ca Jardine
  
  Xeni has a vagina, so it’s cool.
- cdh1971
  
  Well, your post sure sounds like a plate full…
nixiebunny

I’ve always wondered what a cancer charity that doesn’t do any work for cancer looks like. Now I know.
rocketpjs

Remember though, nothing is immoral if it is committed by a rich person or a Republican. Double immunity if she is both.
DevinC

Dear BoingBoing,

Last I saw the Petraeus scandal, it was a cute little tyke with a big grin and a THEY SHAKE ME bib. I blink and now it’s this hulking teenager who’s thrown out my vinyl prog rock collection to make room for his nu metal CDs and has a funny odor coming from his room. It’s got hair in places I didn’t know scandals could even get hair, and its knuckles are getting callouses from scraping the floor. I can’t keep up with it.
What is an enlightened dad supposed to do?

Yours truly,
Scandal In Gmailia
Snig

More on diplomatic privilige, very NSFW:
http://www.oglaf.com/sanctuary/
arbitraryaardvark

Being an honorary consul is a good gig, especially if you like going to parties with generals. I met a guy who was a consul to Colorado from one of the Scandinavian countries. It’s one of the items on my to do list, to become an honorary consul for one of those tiny sinking pacific island nations. It doesn’t pay and confers no powers, but you do get a cool license plate.
Halloween_Jack

I’m getting the feeling that she’s on the same order of the famous-for-fifteen-minutes White House party crashers.
http://profiles.google.com/marc.k.mielke Marc Mielke

What a terrible person! Now I really don’t blame Paula Broadwell — I’d be insulted too if THAT was my romantic rival!
Cowicide

I’m so glad we send so much of our money to these types of folks in the military instead having a single payer system for health care in this country. Fantastic.
- awjt
  
  Or actually teach kids how to learn, rather than cookie-cutter enforce school districts to make 51% of them pass a standardized, multiple choice exam.
http://twitter.com/tueksta Andreas Beer

Con artist.
TooGoodToCheck

If this is what Petraeus & Allen do for fun, they must find Afghan tribal politics positively serene by comparison
RedShirt77

It is really amazing where sleeping with generals will get you. I wonder how many women were in the harem.
http://twitter.com/dustyj dustyj

CrazyVaginaStan is really nice in the Spring but come winter, watch out!
blueworld

Another vote against “CrazyVaginaStan.” If she was a dude, what would we say? “CrazyPenisStan” just doesn’t work, and that raises a red flag for me. Does her vagina cause her unbalanced actions?
- regeya
  
  Let’s not go into hysterics.