Rav Chaim Soloveichik zt"l, the Brisker Rav said the following about rabbanus:
The function of a rabbi is to address the grievances of those who are abandoned and alone, to protect the dignity of the poor, and to save the oppressed from the hands of his oppressor.
Yeyasher koach to all true rabbis who walk into the "line of fire" to help those in need. Yeyasher koach to all the true rabbis who understand that a fancy shteller and long coat is not the totality of their Rabbinic duty.
Ashreichem Mah Tov Chelkeichem Uma Naim Goraleichem. They should all be gebentched with arichas yamim veshanim tovim in good health and happiness bain beruchniyus u'bain begashmiyus. They should have more Siyata D'Shmaya to do their Avodas Hakodesh without fanfare, as the unsung heroes they truly are.
Thank you UOJ for standing true to your zeide's principles and never waivering regardless of the pressure. You have done much to raise the awareness and community response to the issues facing Judaism.
Every city has at least one unsung hero. Yagata Umatzata Taamin.
WHAT do you get when you combine the worst economic downturn since the Depression with the first black president? A surge of white racial resentment, loosely disguised as a populist revolt. An article on the Fox News Web site has put forth the theory that health reform is a stealth version of reparations for slavery: whites will foot the bill and, by some undisclosed mechanism, blacks will get all the care. President Obama, in such fantasies, is a dictator and, in one image circulated among the anti-tax, anti-health reform “tea parties,” he is depicted as a befeathered African witch doctor with little tusks coming out of his nostrils. When you’re going down, as the white middle class has been doing for several years now, it’s all too easy to imagine that it’s because someone else is climbing up over your back.
Despite the sense of white grievance, though, blacks are the ones who are taking the brunt of the recession, with disproportionately high levels of foreclosures and unemployment. And they weren’t doing so well to begin with. At the start of the recession, 33 percent of the black middle class was already in danger of falling to a lower economic level, according to a study by the Institute on Assets and Social Policy at Brandeis University
At Wells Fargo, Elizabeth Jacobson, a former loan officer at the company, recently revealed — in an affidavit in a lawsuit by the City of Baltimore — that salesmen were encouraged to try to persuade black preachers to hold “wealth-building seminars” in their churches. For every loan that resulted from these seminars, whether to buy a new home or refinance one, Wells Fargo promised to donate $350 to the customer’s favorite charity, usually the church. (Wells Fargo denied any effort to market subprime loans specifically to blacks.) Another former loan officer, Tony Paschal, reported that at the same time cynicism was rampant within Wells Fargo, with some employees referring to subprimes as “ghetto loans” and to minority customers as “mud people.”
Still, in certain cases, Batei Din have decided sex abuse cases and have sent victims and alleged offenders to therapy, most often at the Ohel Treatment Center in Brooklyn. However, less than two years ago, community leaders requested that Ohel no longer be the sole operator in Lakewood, which now has another, in-house center — the Lakewood Community Services Corp. — to treat its own victims and offenders, said Rabbi Moshe Zev Weisberg, the center's president.
New York City - Mike Bloomberg wanted to be president, and came close to launching a billion-dollar campaign, but his plans were dashed by Barack Obama's surge in popularity, according to a new book.
"MIKE BLOOMBERG: Money, Power, Politics,” by veteran reporter Joyce Purnick, paints a picture of the Big Apple mayor downplaying his White House aspirations even as his closest aides fanned the flames of his candidacy with his blessing. The hype started the day after Bloomberg won reelection by a landslide in 2005, when his key adviser Kevin Sheekey, told a stunned cable TV interviewer the Bloomberg for President campaign was ready to roll.
Bloomberg repeatedly denied having any interest in being commander in chief, once wondering aloud what chance does a "short, Jewish, divorced billionaire" have. But meanwhile, his people were organizing a stealth campaign complete with a website and national network. As another aide wrote a book about the need for a third party in America, Bloomberg, a Democrat-turned-Republican, declared himself an Independent.
MEMPHIS — A Congressional race in Tennessee has become freighted with racial overtones almost a year before the election, with a prominent black politician saying the white incumbent cannot properly represent black voters.
The black candidate, former Mayor Willie W. Herenton of Memphis, has argued that Tennessee needs a black voice in its currently all-white delegation. He is running a blistering campaign against Representative Steve Cohen, a fellow Democrat with a precarious hold on the majority black district.
“To know Steve Cohen is to know that he really does not think very much of African-Americans,” Mr. Herenton said in a recent radio interview on KWAM. “He’s played the black community well.”
The Herenton campaign argues that Mr. Cohen is an anomaly.
“This seat was set aside for people who look like me,” said Mr. Herenton’s campaign manager, Sidney Chism, a black county commissioner. “It wasn’t set aside for a Jew or a Christian. It was set aside so that blacks could have representation.”
Mr. Cohen, 60, is a well-known Memphis liberal who considered joining the Congressional Black Caucus, wrote a national apology for slavery and the Jim Crow laws, and received an “A” rating from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
“I vote like a 45-year-old black woman,” he said in an interview. “I don’t know the black experience, but I know about being a minority and being discriminated against because of religion.”
But his unusual identity — as one of only two white members of Congress from majority black districts — makes him vulnerable politically. In the last election, his opponent ran a much-vilified advertisement that tried to link Mr. Cohen to the Ku Klux Klan. It juxtaposed Mr. Cohen with an image of a hooded Klansman
Herenton faces potential legal problems. For more than a year, a grand jury has been investigating accusations that Mr. Herenton benefited from his private real estate business while mayor. His real estate company allegedly received $91,000 in 2006 for the development of a downtown Greyhound station that he supported. He has denied wrongdoing in the case.
Mr. Herenton could not be reached for comment for this article, but he has lashed out at Mr. Cohen in local news interviews. He has referred to Mr. Cohen by a vulgar term to a newspaper reporter and has argued that Mr. Cohen is privately demeaning to blacks. Mr. Herenton claims that Mr. Cohen made personally derisive, racially insensitive remarks to him during a recent airplane flight — an accusation that Mr. Cohen denies.
“This Congressional race, you know what it’s going to be about?” Mr. Herenton said in a radio interview. “It’s going to be about race, representation and power.”
Black voters in the district are divided by this argument. The Rev. Ralph White, a black minister at the Bloomfield Full Gospel Baptist Church in Memphis, said congregants were still choosing their candidates.
“There are those who come up to me and say, ‘Even though I love Steve, this is a very important seat to the African-American community,’ ” Mr. White said. “It’s a very sticky, touchy situation.”
When developer Shaya Boymelgreen co-founded LibertyPointe Bank four years ago, he aimed to use his real estate expertise to help the bank become an industry specialist. That part of the plan, at least, worked. Today, 92% of the bank's loans are related to real estate.
The problem is that so many of those credits have soured that last month the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. stepped in and slapped LibertyPointe with a cease and desist order to stop its risky loan policies.
And that may be the least of Mr. Boymelgreen's mounting troubles. He is saddled with stalled projects, including a planned residential tower in Chelsea. Meanwhile, he is facing a tide of lawsuits alleging everything from failure to repay loans to fraud, negligence and breach of contract related to the construction and sale of two condominium projects.
“He rose with such alacrity and speed,” says Steven Sladkus, an attorney who has filed two lawsuits against Mr. Boymelgreen over two different condo projects. “He is falling with even more speed.”
Although Mr. Boymelgreen's involvement in real estate investing dates back to the mid-1990s, it wasn't until 2002, when he formed a partnership with billionaire Lev Leviev, that his star soared. The two deeply religious orthodox Jews had met on a Caribbean cruise a year earlier, according to published reports. Together, Messrs. Boymelgreen and Leviev went on a buying spree that reached as far as Las Vegas and Miami. Their New York projects included converting office buildings into condos, constructing new condos and rental properties, and buying up raw land in Brooklyn. The partnership broke up in 2007, when the two men were no longer able to agree on what projects to pursue, sources say. As the owner of 65% of the partnership, Mr. Leviev walked away with most of the holdings.
Mr. Boymelgreen's legal woes are growing. TD Bank sued him earlier this year for failing to pay principal on a $3 million loan. And Aristone Capital Funding sued him over a $3.2 million loan for 20 Pine St., which is now controlled by Mr. Leviev.
And then there are the problems at LibertyPointe, the bank whose board Mr. Boymelgreen still chairs. The bank is under fire from the FDIC for numerous infractions, including operating with too many bad loans and inadequate loan loss reserves The FDIC also says the board of directors failed to supervise policy sufficiently. Mr. Boymelgreen's staff didn't return calls for comment.
Yair Levy declares Upper West Side project bankrupt
End for 95-unit Park Columbus is latest of series of setbacks for developer who hit partner with ice bucket.
Beleaguered real estate developer Yair Levy, a partner in the failed condo conversion of the Sheffield57 in midtown, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on another one of his projects—Park Columbus, an Upper West Side condo conversion. YL West 87th Holdings, which is part of Mr. Levy's YL Real Estate Developers, owes $20 million to its creditor, Manhattan-based Garrison Investment Group, according to a recent filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court Southern District of New York. Gary Kushner, an attorney at the law firm of Forchelli, Curto, Deegan, Schwartz, who represented Mr. Levy in the filing, confirmed that the developer has filed bankruptcy on the property, but could not elaborate immediately. YL Real Estate and Garrison could not be reached immediately for comment. Park Columbus, formerly a rental building known as Columbus Green located at 101 W. 87th St., was a 95-unit condo conversion. Earlier this year, the project's construction stalled and shortly afterward the New York state' Attorney General's office declared the Park Columbus' offering plan ineffective, according to sources. In addition, Halstead Property, which was retained by YL to market the condo units, sued the developer for $75,000 in outstanding fees and expenses. The status of that lawsuit could not be determined immediately. Halstead declined to comment. This Upper West Side conversion is the latest of a string of failed projects for Mr. Levy, who several months ago was charged with assaulting his business partner Kent Swig with an ice bucket. Earlier this month, Anglo Irish Bank moved forward with its plans to foreclose on Mr. Levy's Battery Park City condo conversion at 225 Rector Square. Mr. Levy reportedly defaulted on a $165 million mortgage loan to convert that 304-unit rental building.
It’s not every party boss who shows up to lunch days before a critical election wielding a copy of A Populist Manifesto. Or who launches into a soliloquy on the virtues of social democracy before the waiter even has a chance to take his order. “I was just getting a head of steam up,” laments Working Families Party Executive Director Dan Cantor, as the server interrupts. Then again, Mr. Cantor isn’t your typical politico. Known for his dirty shirts and ratty shoes, the 54-yearold unabashedly expects politicians who ride into office on his organization’s back to support measures such as those that raise the minimum wage, preserve affordable housing, or mandate paid sick days instead of creating patronage jobs for his pals. Mixing big ideas with what he calls “a little bit of oomph to get them noticed” (think knocking on nearly 1 million doors per year), has helped the party champion a leftwing agenda the likes of which has not been seen in New York state since the 1920s. “We actually believe that you can use the power of the state to mitigate some of the inequalities inherent in a market society,” Mr. Cantor says. In recent years, the labor-backed group has leveraged those state powers more effectively than party officials ever imagined possible, campaigning to propel Democrats into control of the Senate, boost the minimum wage, reform the Rockefeller Drug Laws, and champion a so-called millionaires tax.
This was a default judgement where Tropper did not even bother to answer.
Rockland Civil Supreme Index Number: 005316/1987 Case Name: TROPPER, LEAH R. M. vs. TROPPER, RABBI L. Case Type: Uncontested Matrimonial Track: Unknown RJI Filed: 08/18/1987
Why was Tropper sued by this company? The trial was ongoing for 4 and a half years.
Rockland Civil Supreme Index Number: 005395/1991 Case Name: SECURITY PACIFIC NAT'L vs. TROPPER, LEIB, ET AL. Case Type: Other ("Not One Of The Above") Track: Unknown RJI Filed: 01/13/1992
Rockland Civil Supreme Index Number: 002255/1987 Case Name: KOL YAAKOV TORAH CENTER vs. WEBERMAN, JUDAH & ABIGAIL Case Type: Contract Track: Unknown RJI Filed: 04/13/1987 Date NOI Due: NOI Filed: Disposition Deadline: Disposition Date: 05/15/1987 Calendar Number: Jury Status: Justice Name: ROBERT J. STOLARIK
Attorney/Firm For Plaintiff: GLICKMAN & MCALEVEY Attorney Type: Attorney Of Record Atty. Status: Active 120 NORTH MAIN STREET NEW CITY, NEW YORK 10956 914-634-8884
Rockland Civil Supreme Index Number: 003902/1987 Case Name: GLATZER, ABRAHAM B. vs. KOL YAAKOV TORAH CENTER Case Type: Other Torts Track: Unknown RJI Filed: 06/24/1987 Date NOI Due: 06/07/1988 NOI Filed: Disposition Deadline: Disposition Date: 10/26/1988 Calendar Number: Jury Status: Justice Name: ROBERT R. MEEHAN
Attorney/Firm For Plaintiff: ERIC OLE THORSEN Attorney Type: Attorney Of Record Atty. Status: Active 254 S. MAIN STREET/SUIT 300 NEW CITY, N.Y. 10956 914/638-2726
Attorney/Firm For Defendant: ABADY &B JAFFE, ESQS. Attorney Type: Attorney Of Record Atty. Status: Active 500 5TH AVENUE NEW YORK, N.Y. 10110 212/921-8800
Rockland Civil Supreme Index Number: 001848/1989 Case Name: RAMAPO, TOWN OF vs. KOL YAAKOV TORAH CENTER,ET AL Case Type: Other ("Not One Of The Above") Track: Unknown RJI Filed: 04/25/1989
Rockland Civil Supreme Index Number: 000689/1992 Case Name: COPELCO CREDIT CORP. vs. KOL YAAKOV TORAH CNTR. INC. Case Type: Miscellaneous Exparte Track: Unknown RJI Filed: 05/29/1992
New York County Civil Court Index Number: CV-001745-95/NY Case Name: TOTALTEL USA vs. KOL YAAKOV TORAN CENTER INC Case Type: Civil Classification: Filing Date: 01/17/1995
I was contacted recently by one of R' Tropper's former students who lamented that R'Tropper is his own worse enemy. He said he had fond memories of many Torah insights he heard from R' Tropper but he was devastated by the constant personal attacks on him when he was suspected of not respecting R Tropper. He said R' Tropper can not handle any criticism (or perceived criticism) and this severely damages relations with people who are genuinely supportive and he simply drives them away.
Guma is charging that R' Tropper has embezzeled millions of dollars that he had earmared for specific charities. Something Guma had told me months ago.
Guma is serious in demanding that R' Tropper answer these charges of embezzelment and he clearly has the resources to bring about a trial. The gemora in Berachos about Chana says that if person is suspected of wrong doing he needs to deny the charges.
R' Tropper needs to take the fact that he has been accused of a major crime a bit more seriously. This charge should be easily clarified since it depends on clear documentation of a charitable fund. Did R' Tropper receive the money? Did the designated charities receive the money? He should also keep in mind that Guma won the first round in this issue.
It doesn't really matter whether R' Tropper likes Guma. It doesn't matter whether Guma wears Rabbeinu Tam tefilin not does it matter whether R' Tropper feels he has violated halacha. Guma has rabbis who support him. In a secular court of law Guma clearly has the upper hand.
Mishlei (16:18) Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. R' Tropper needs to take the situation a bit more seriously
Tropper and Tom Kaplan took Guma to court, seemingly b'issur. Unless they can offer a halachik justification. Simply calling Guma a mumar doesn't work, as the above cited Sh"A states clearly that even if they are rashaim we do not take them to secular court.
Tropper is not a rosh yeshiva in the conventional sense. He is the self-described rosh yeshiva of his own very small Yeshiva Kol Ya'akov that caters to newly-minted ba'alei teshuvah.
No one considers the self-described roshei yeshiva of any ba'al teshuva yeshiva, be it Ohr Somayach, Aish HaTorah or any others, to be the same as roshei yeshiva of what are universally called "mainstream yeshivas" like the Lakewood Yeshiva, Mirrer Yeshiva, Ponevez Yeshiva and so on.
It is in a way a "professional courtesy" and the turning of the blind eye from the established mainstream regular yeshivas that they do not kick up a fuss when a rabbi decides to open a yeshiva for ba'alei teshuva and "automtically" gives himself the title of a "rosh yeshiva" while no one would dream of calling the Principal or Menahel of a Jewish Day School or Mesivta that has the same or even a much higher level of Torah and Talmudic learening than all ba'al teshuva yeshivas, as a "rosh yeshiva" but they do it and the world just yawns and ignores them.
So while Rabbi Tropper may refer to himself as a self-described rosh yeshiva and will never let anyone forget it as he demands to be called by that illustreous title and puts it into his press releases for the world to know about it, it does not in any way therefore somehow automatically mean that he is in fact a regular a rosh yeshiva like Rav Shmuel Birnbaum or the roshei yeshiva of the Mir, Brisk, Chevron and the like.
Fort Lauderdale, FL - American-Israeli businessman and philanthropist Guma Aguiar was cleared of embezzlement charges, brought before a Florida court by his uncle, who claims he misused funds because he believed he was the messiah. Aguiar, who recently made a name for himself by donating several million dollars to Nefesh B'Nefesh and other Jewish organizations, denies believing he is the messiah, calling his uncle's accusations absurd. Aguiar, 31, who was born in Brazil but commutes between the U.S. and Jerusalem, is the founder and chairman of the Lillian Jean Kaplan Foundation, to which his uncle, Thomas S. Kaplan, claims to have donated "tens of millions of dollars," according to official court documents. In the lawsuit, Kaplan challenged Aguiar's ability and right to manage the foundation, but the judge, Robert Rosenberg of the 17th Judicial Circuit Court in Broward County, Florida, threw out the case, finding Kaplan's claims had no merit.
Kaplan objected to the more than $7 million he says his nephew spent in 2008 to advance what the lawsuit called his "claim that he is the Messiah and to promote his messianic mission," according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, which reported about the lawsuit when it was filed in January, (and as was reported here by VIN News at that time). According to the paper, the family feud is likely rooted in a separate lawsuit involving the two. The second case involves the company the two founded, Leor Exploration & Production, which was sold for about $2.5 billion after discovering vast natural gas reserves in Texas, and which is the foundation of Aguiar's newfound wealth. "Justice has been done in Florida, the impact of which will be felt globally as Guma Kaplan Aguiar continues to support vital programs in the U.S., Israel and throughout the world," Charley Levine, Aguiar's spokesman in Jerusalem, said about the decision. He added that while the second lawsuit is still ongoing, "we have all the reason to believe it will end with similar results."
The Ksav Sofer poskens that we may not bypass beis din to sue an avaryan, even a mechalel Shabbos and oychel treifos. The only exception is for a great sinner who we know for a fact will not heed a din Torah. Guma has shyachus to the Vaad Harabbonim of Flatbush and Chabad among others. Rabbonim in Eretz Yisroel were shown evidence that he brought and they are in agreement with him unless Tropper can come up with a suitable explanation to account for the millions of dollars in question.
While Guma's wife may have had a suspicious gerus, he does not seem like someone who we know for a fact will not come to beis din.
What happened to universal standards, Rabbi Tropper? Is there one rule for you and another for everyone else?
Schedule of Court Proceedings for the Brooklyn 19. The Brooklyn 19 refer to 19 felony sexual assault cases pending by the Brooklyn District Attorney in the Orthodox community. Yona Weinberg has an additional court proceedings at this time. In addition to the charges related to child sexual abuse he has been convicted on, Weinberg has been charged with criminal contempt. Jerry Brauner has been charged with new sexual abuse offences of May 9, 2009 and was arrested June 24, 2009.
The confirmed Brooklyn 19 to date: 1) Yona Weinberg (found guilty, awaiting sentencing) 2) Emanuel Yegutkin (trial scheduled) 3) Rabbi Avrohom Mondrowitz (extradition proceedings in Israel) 4) Stephen Colmer (pled guilty and incarcerated - parole hearing 01/2010 ) 5) Yakov Kramer (?) 6) Arye Ickovits (pled guilty, awaiting sentencing) 7) Arthur Samet (pled guilty Aug19-09, awaiting sentencing) 8) Moshe Spitzer (trial scheduled) 9) Bernard Mutterperl (convicted and incarcerated - parole hearing 10/2017 ) 10) Rabbi Jerry Brauner (has been charged with new sexual abuse offences) 11) Michael Sabo (pending) 12) Martin Vegh AKA Boorich Mordechai Vegg (convicted and incarcerated - parole hearing 07/2014 )
The unconfirmed: 13) Rabbi Avrohom Reichman (only civil case, is he part of the list?) 14) Rabbi Avraham M. Leizerowitz (only civil case, is he part of the list?) 15) Rabbi Yehuda Kolko (only civil case, criminal case settled with plea agreement, is he part of the list?) 16) The unnamed "well-known" storeowner in Brooklyn who took a kid upstairs for years to his office. The victim, now an adult, was interviewed on Hikind's show.(Is he part of the list?)
3) September 17, 2009 Emanuel Yegutkin Kings Supreme Court Docket: 00902-2009 Criminal Justice Tracking Number: 63379546L NYSID Number: 1601530K Arrest Number: K09607822 Judge: Gary, M Trial scheduled. Has pled not guilty
4) September 23, 2009 Yona Weinberg b. Kings Supreme Court Docket 04589-2008 Judge: Reichbach, G Tried and found guilty. Temporary order of protection issued and bail continued. Sentencing shortly.
5) October 5, 2009 Michael Sabo Kings Supreme Court Case # 03880-2009 Criminal Justice Tracking Number: 63565996P NYSID Number: 8360640J Judge: Walsh, John P. Trial scheduled. Has pled not guilty
6) October 14, 2009 Moshe Spitzer Kings Criminal Court Docket: 2009KN018094 Criminal Justice Tracking Number: 63449911L NYSID Number: 6889436J Arrest Number: K09621762 Judge: Mullen, C. Trial scheduled. Has pled not guilty.
7) October 21, 2009 Arthur Samet Kings Criminal Court Docket: 2008KN080814 Criminal Justice Tracking Number: 63248172R NYSID Number: 9737574P Arrest Number: K08695605 Judge: Hong, G. Tried and found guilty. Temporary order of protection issued and bail continued. Sentencing shortly.
8) October 29, 2009 - sentencing Arye Ickovits Kings Criminal Court Docket: 2008KN089893 Criminal Justice Tracking Number: 63302771K NYSID Number: 179569K Arrest Number: K08706105 Pled guilty July 21, 2009 to the PL 130.60 02 a misdemeanor, Sx Abse:sx Cntct W/ind<14 Temporary order of protection issued and bail continued. Psychiatric exam was ordered. Sentencing shortly. Judge: Laporte, E.
2) Incarcerated Bernard Mutterperl Kings Supreme Court Docket 04570-2007 Criminal Justice Tracking Number: 59078829P NYSID Number: 2582374H Arrest Number: K07643253 Judge: Dimango, P - convicted Parole Eligibility Date: 10/2017 Conditional Release Date: 12/27/2017 Maximum Expiration Date: 06/03/2019
3) Yakov Kramer New York Criminal Court Docket: 2008NY084614 Criminal Justice Tracking Number: 63273183R NYSID Number: 302829M Arrest Number: M08696814 No proceedings scheduled. Anyone know the status of this?
Any other information as to the remaining names on this list?
Update to your current sidebar article: How The Orthodox Jews Deal [NOT] With Child Sex-Abuse! http://www.app.com/article/20090912/NEWS/909120323/1070/NEWS02
Levi Danziger of Monroe, NY pled guilty to violation of probation on September 11, 2009 and was released on recognizance. Sentencing is scheduled November 9, 2009 before Judge J. Berry. NY Orange County Court, Case # 07027V
Phillip Garrido had grown a scruffy, white beard since his last court appearance Aug. 28. The right side of his nose was bandaged where a cluster of black mole-looking bumps was evident before. Authorities would not comment on why the bandage was there, citing medical privacy rules, but sources said he had recently undergone surgery to have the bumps removed.
Tens of thousands of protesters fed up with government spending marched to the U.S. Capitol on Saturday, showing their disdain for the president's health care plan with slogans such as "Obamacare makes me sick" and "I'm not your ATM."
The line of protesters clogged several blocks near the Capitol, according to the D.C. Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency. Demonstrators chanted "enough, enough" and "We the People." Others yelled "You lie, you lie!" and "Pelosi has to go," referring to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
Throngs of people waved U.S. flags and held signs reading "Go Green Recycle Congress" and "Obama Bin Lyin.'" Men wore colonial costumes as they listened to speakers who warned of "judgment day" — Election Day 2010.
Other signs — reflecting the growing intensity of the health care debate — depicted President Barack Obama with the signature mustache of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. Many referred to Obama as a socialist or communist, and another imposed his face on that of the villainous Joker from "Batman."
Richard Brigle, 57, a Vietnam War veteran and former Teamster, came from Paw Paw, Mich. He said health care needs to be reformed — but not according to Obama's plan.
"My grandkids are going to be paying for this. It's going to cost too much money that we don't have," he said while marching, bracing himself with a wooden cane as he walked.
FreedomWorks Foundation, a conservative organization led by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, organized several groups from across the country for what they billed as a "March on Washington."
Organizers say they built on momentum from the April "tea party" demonstrations held nationwide to protest tax policies, along with growing resentment over the economic stimulus packages and bank bailouts.
Armey and other speakers directed their ire at Pelosi — Armey took a photo, telling the crowd he wanted to be able to prove to her they were there.
"If it's necessary, we'll come back here next year," he said.
Many protesters said they paid their own way to the event — an ethic they believe should be applied to the government. They say unchecked spending on things like a government-run health insurance option could increase inflation and lead to economic ruin.
"I'm outraged prominent black politicians use the race card" to cover up their failed policies, said Deneen Borelli of New York.
One woman held a sign with images of Martin Luther King Jr. and Obama, with the words printed alongside: "He had a dream, we got a nightmare."
"Orthodox community deals with sex abuse," read the page 1 headline in Sunday's Asbury Park Press. But just how the Orthodox community in Lakewood deals with the problem in its midst is disturbing.
Far too often, cases of sexual abuse are handled internally through a rabbinical tribunal that routinely handles civil disputes but deals with possible cases of sexual abuse as well. The Orthodox community lacks the investigative and judicial powers to issue sentences, weed out false accusations and monitor offenders.
The most the rabbinic tribunals can accomplish is to urge therapy for the abuser. That's not justice for the victim. And it may be against the law. A therapist in Brooklyn's Orthodox community for more than eight years who has treated sex offenders referred by Lakewood religious authorities said he could not recall one instance when a rabbi referred a case to law enforcement officials.
Religious authorities say they do what is necessary to rid the community of sex offenders swiftly, but it is typically done outside the framework of secular law. The rabbinic leaders must send an unequivocal message to the Orthodox community that incidents of sexual abuse must be reported to the appropriate authorities. And that point must be reinforced by the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office.
First Amendment freedoms to practice one's faith are not absolute, particularly when it puts the most vulnerable citizens at risk for irreparable physical and emotional harm. One would think that a community dedicated to Torah law would recognize the limits of that law in dealing with criminal matters and welcome the legal means to get child sexual abusers out of their communities and into the arms of the law.
State law requires anyone with "reasonable" suspicions to report acts of child abuse to the police or the state Division of Youth and Family Services. That law runs up against a different law, the Cleric-Penitent Privilege, which requires clerics such as rabbis to keep privileged any communication made in confidence unless both he and the person who did the confiding agree to release it or the information pertains to a future criminal act.
Given the rate of recidivism among sex offenders, a single confessed incident of abuse can reasonably hint at an ongoing pattern of abuse with a widening circle of victims. This sounds remarkably similar to Catholic priest scandals, where pedophile priests were counseled and transferred without ever facing the law.
If, as Job says, it is God who "reveals the deep things of darkness and brings deep shadows into the light," then those who believe in him must do the same work of bringing light out of the shadows. Secular law has the means to do just that and the rabbinic leadership needs to encourage members of the community to speak up without fear.
If the Orthodox community believes that playing cases of sexual abuse so close to the vest is a proper response, that's beyond troubling.
Did anyone catch the hypocrisy of Harry Reid making a big positive shpiel over Young Israel's Yitzchok Wynn quoting Chumash?
Reid and the rest of the extreme Left of the Democratic Party will demonize Mike Huckabee and anyone else quoting Biblical verse. All of a sudden it's kosher when in support of False Messiah Obama's Socialist medicine plan.
And shame on you Rabbi Wynn. Saying that the Torah hakedosha backs Obama is like Tropper claiming his gerus fraud is al pi R' Moshe Feinstein.
The battle between Leib Tropper and Guma Aguiar will go down as probably one of the most titanic struggles between a rabbi and his one-time disciple who's a billionaire and balebaos lay supporter. One for the epics and worthy of a hollywood movie in its fascinating deatils.
The struggling Haredi world will not be amused with Tropper that while many of them are starving and their institutions are broke, when they read that Tropper is being accused of stealing ten million dollars, as in Chedrei Chareidim: "מאיים ברצח או גואל עניים?
המריבה המתוקשרת בין הרב לייב טרופר לאיש העסקים גומא אגאייר, מגיעה למחלקת החקירות במשטרה. הרב טרופר: "אגאייר איים עלי ברצח". אגאייר: "הוא גנב לי כספי צדקה" • כל הפרטים
with Guma photographed with R S Auerbach yet!
and Kikar HaShabbat (now pulled) and as translated care of Vos Iz Neias: "Aguiar Rebuts Rabbi Tropper’s Accusations: “Between the years 2003 and 2008 Guma Aguiar provided Mr. Tropper approximately $10 million to be distributed among rabbonim, kehilos, social organizations and medical institutions in Israel. The funds were transferred along with a precise list of all of the names of people and institutions the money was intended for and to which the sums were supposed to reach in precise detail.
“Based on an in-depth inquiry conducted last year it was found that most of the organizations the funds were supposed to reach did not receive the money earmarked for them.
“On Rosh Chodesh Sivan, Guma Aguiar encountered Mr. Tropper unexpectedly at the hotel where he was staying. This took place after a long time period during which Mr. Tropper had avoided giving explanations of where the money had gone to.
“Mr. Aguiar expressed his displeasure and even posed piercing questions in order to find out why the money had yet to reach its intended destination. Mr. Aguiar, in keeping with his ways, did not use a single untoward word.
“Tropper’s attempts to obscure his shameful acts through slander and disseminating lies should be denounced. Tropper must return all of the money taken from Guma Aguiar and transfer it immediately to the institutions and organizations that are so sorely in need of donations and support during these difficult times.
“Guma Aguiar expresses his hopes that the legal authorities will act quickly to compel him to return the money for the sake of the needy and prays that no undue outcome results through his endeavors.
Tropper's luck finally runs out as Guma Aguiar calls his bluff.
How many rabbis can claim that they have supporters willing to back them to the tune of at least ten million dollars in a space of less that five years since the Eternal Jewish Family (EJF) plot was concocted? That's a rate of a donation of at least two million dollars a year.
During the first three years of EJF's short life Tropper was evidently more than happy to take Guma along for the ride of his life.
It seems that behind the scenes Guma was involved with his Brazilian gal-pal, it's not known if she was legally his wife or not, who was having his kids and who was refusing to go along with Tropper's "dictates" of a "universally accepted" conversion and instead Guma and Jamie dumped Tropper and got an Orthodox conversion for her under the supervision of Rabbi Herbert Bomzer from Brooklyn, about two years ago.
The news did not leek out right away about the split between Tropper and Guma and the EJF website was still carrying the name of Guma even after Guma had left Tropper and EJF.
The reasons are not clear, it would clearly have blown EJF out of the water if the rabbis knew that Guma the lay head of EJF was himself living with a non-Jewish woman even as he underwote their free rides. Not just this, but Tropper in the course of his long rambling self-justifications as "Roni" on the "Daat Torah" blog claimed that R Reuven Feinstein was well aware of this but kept his mouth shut.
But now it's known why because sources close to all the parties have heard from Guma himself that three million dollars from Guma went into R Reuven Feinstein's own pocket that meant that none of the rabbis at the hot and heavy anti RCA conventions of EJF would be distracted by R Reuven Feinstein's public posturing with Tropper and the that the rest would not find out about the Guma and Jamie living together scandal until Guma and Jamie were way gone and Tropper could open his broadside against them at a safe distance of Rabbi Eidensohn's blog and in US courts where Tropper would help Kaplan come up with the claim that Guma thought he was the "messiah" something Tropper should know a lot about by now himself>
So probably it must have had something to do with money, especially the key funding of the millions coming through the Lillian Jean Kaplan Foundation that Guma controlled together with his mother Ellen Aguiar, Tom Kaplan's sister, who like her son Guma were previously a long-time christian evangelical missionary apostates who then recently returned to Judaism, exactly how and by who is in dispute.
It's not 100% clear why they kept their rift under wraps. Guma may have been just taking a deep breath and figuring out his next moves and moving to Israel to fund newer projects like Nefesh BeNefesh and the March of the Living to the tune of many millions, while Tropper must have been figuring out what to do when the guy who signs the checks you depend on walks out on you and foils your attempts to brainwash him and his stubborn wife.
Another mystery is why Guma and his mother Ellen Kaplan Aguiar were the ones to set up the Lillian Jean Kaplan Foundation in Florida in the first place without their brother and uncle Tom Kaplan?
Tropper is hanging by one straw and its name is the mysterious Tom Kaplan.
Certainly everyone thought that it was Tom Kaplan running the show alone as he and Tropper tried to project this image to the world. Guma was never presented to anyone as being the guy in charge if not the go to guy in the whole EJF operation.
All this was picked up by one man, Rabbi D. Eidensohn on his "Daat Torah" blog who had been after Tropper to provide official letters from any rabbis that they approve of his new efforts through EJF which he hasn't been able to get to this day. In the course of posting about Tropper and Kaplan questions began to surface about Guma's role in EJF. From Leor Energy's and EJF's web sites it turned out that not only had Guma founded EJF equally with Tom Kaplan and Tropper but that he was also running the show and that Kaplan left it all to him while he went on his art-hunting and mineral exploration expeditions all over the world.
But once Guma left Tropper for good, Tropper went to the "Daat Torah" blog calling himself "Roni" and set about trying to destroy the name of Guma, his wife Jamie, and top of all Rabbi Bomzer. This went on for well over a year, until Guma had enough, and in a famous episode called up Rabbi Eidensohn and told him to take down all the damaging posts especially all the ones that had the smears that "Roni" alias Tropper had posted there.
Guma was enraged that Tropper the ingrate could do this to him to call his wife vile names and the rabbi who converted her the lowest of the low most disgraceful and vicious names. In addition, Tropper and Kaplan launched their now futile effort to smear Guma in US courts and gain control of the Lillian Jean Kaplan Foundation which they lost when a US court ruled in favor of Guma's side.
With Guma now confirmed by the court as the legal owner of the vaunted foundation that ahd funded EJF and all of Tropper's pet projects from kol yaakov yeshiva, horizons outreach and luxurious personal expenses for globetrotting everywhere to yell at other rabbis preaching the new doctrines of his EJF aspiring cult, Guma was in full position and exercising his legal rights to ask for an accounting from Tropper what he did with the at least ten million dollars he was supposed to give to many other institutions and not just Tropper's picks, and failing that, to give it all back or face the consequences.
Another interesting fact to emerge is that Tom Kaplan is not known to be a shomer Torah observant Jew. He gets away with it by acting quietly. He is very elusive and the opposite of Tropper who is showy and doesn't stop bragging about his own greatness. Kaplan is a disciple of Tropper that is where his Judaism begins and ends. It's a very weird situation, but then again all Scientology like situations are very weird from the point of view of outsiders. But very reliable reports from people who know him and Tropper have been surfacing that all is not well between Tropper and Tom Kaplan either. How could they be when Kaplan sees all this stuff going on, fighting with his own family because Tropper set them up to it, losing money and influence and the loss of his "own" foundation and maybe even his Leor business too, dragging things out in courts, with Tropper losing his credibility day by day and his luck running out. No one wants to be on the losing side of history. When ships start to sink even the rats jump overboard in desperation.
Tropper knowing that this could happen, and it now has, has been thrown back against the ropes fighting for his life like a mortally wounded tiger and draining the dregs of his tattered reputation and future as he now grabs at straws by running to the hated police in Israel and getting restraining orders in the secualr US courts with no sign whatsoever of even bothering going to a bait din of any kind against Guma, but it does not protect Tropper from looming legal actions that an emboldened and rightfully furious Guma will now rain down on Tropper's head.
Plaintiffs: Leor Exploration & Production LLC, Pardus Petroleum L.P., Pardus Petroleum LLC and William Natbony Defendants: Guma Aguiar
Case Number: 0:2009cv60136 Filed: January 26, 2009
Court: Florida Southern District Court Office: Contract: Other Office [ Court Info ] County: Broward Presiding Judge: Judge Paul C. Huck Presiding Judge: Judge Patricia A. Seitz
Nature of Suit: Contract - Other Contract Cause: Diversity Jurisdiction: Diversity Jury Demanded By: 28:1332 Diversity
it would clearly have blown EJF out of the water if the rabbis knew that Guma the lay head of EJF was himself living with a non-Jewish woman even as he underwote their free rides
//////////////////
Rav Bloch and Yossi Izrael have been publicizing this for years.
(CNN) -- A Johns Hopkins University student killed an apparent burglar with a samurai sword after discovering the man in his garage, police said Tuesday.
Baltimore, Maryland, police received a phone call shortly before 1:30 a.m. Tuesday about a suspicious person, and an off-duty officer arrived at the scene with campus security, city police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said.
When authorities arrived, they heard calls for help and for police, he said. They discovered a suspected burglar with a severed left hand and severe lacerations to his upper body, Guglielmi said.
The suspect died at the scene, he said.
The man had entered a home where several Johns Hopkins students lived, Guglielmi said. Four students, one armed with a samurai sword, had confronted the suspect in the garage.
The man "lunged" at the students, and the student with the sword defended himself, severing the man's left hand and cutting his upper body, Guglielmi said.
Police did not release the name of the suspect, who Guglielmi said had a long criminal history, or that of the student.
WASHINGTON, Sept 14 (Reuters) - Democratic leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives plan to condemn the Republican who yelled "You lie!" at President Barack Obama during a speech to Congress last week, a Democratic aide said on Monday.
The Democrats agreed to introduce a formal resolution of disapproval of the heckler, Representative Joe Wilson, on Tuesday, the aide said.
They initially said they planned to take no action against Wilson, but made an about-face after the South Carolina Republican emerged as an overnight hero among at least some conservatives.
Wilson shouted "You lie!" at Obama on Wednesday during his address to a joint session of Congress on healthcare reform.
NEW YORK/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Wells Fargo & Co has fired a senior vice president after investigating reports she held lavish parties at a foreclosed beachfront Malibu house owned by the bank.
The fourth-largest U.S. bank said in a statement on Monday that it had terminated one employee, senior vice president Cheronda Guyton, who it found had violated its policies.
"We deeply regret the activities that have taken place as they do not reflect the conduct we expect of our team members," the bank said in the statement.
Wells Fargo, which received $25 billion in government bailout money last October, was criticized earlier this year for planning events at upscale Las Vegas hotels for top mortgage employees. It said in February that it did not plan any more of these "recognition events" this year.
NEW YORK, Sept 14 (Reuters) - New York City police and the FBI raided homes in the borough of Queens early on Monday as part of an investigation into suspected terrorism, focusing on one man who has been under surveillance, officials said.
Authorities searched at least two apartments including one shared by five Afghan men, taking some of them in for questioning, said one man who was questioned.
A neighbor said she saw FBI agents armed with what she called machine guns storm the apartment building, and that one of them emerged carrying a box.
"It was scary. I wasn't going to stop the FBI and ask them what was going on," said Melissa Khan, 28.
The New York Times, citing an unnamed senior law enforcement official, said authorities had uncovered a small group of people who espoused a militant ideology aligned with al Qaeda.
Kanye West hijacked teen country star Taylor Swift’s moment in the spotlight at the MTV award show, and was booed loudly when he leaped on stage and grabbed the microphone from Swift, 19, as she was accepting the trophy for best female pop video.
President Barack Obama reportedly didn’t approve of rapper Kanye West’s antics at the MTV Video Music Awards.
We may never know the full details — Obama’s remarks were off the record — but the word “jackass” evidently came into play.
The president discussed the incident while being taped for a CNBC interview on Monday. ABC correspondent Terry Moran was allowed to review the president’s remarks.
He then wrote on Twitter:
Pres. Obama just called Kanye West a “jackass” for his outburst at VMAs when Taylor Swift won. Now THAT’S presidential.
The Twitter comment has since been deleted, but Politico has a screenshot.
ABC told Politico: “In the process of reporting on remarks by President Obama that were made during a CNBC interview, ABC News employees prematurely tweeted a portion of those remarks that turned out to be from an off-the-record portion of the interview. This was done before our editorial process had been completed. That was wrong. We apologize to the White House and CNBC and are taking steps to ensure that it will not happen again.”
Rep. Joe Wilson's outburst last week is drawing new recriminations from his colleagues, with a member of the Congressional Black Caucus suggesting that a failure to rebuke the South Carolina Republican is tantamount to supporting the most blatant form of organized racism in American history.
In an obvious reference to the Ku Klux Klan, Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., said Tuesday that people will put on "white hoods and ride through the countryside" if emerging racist attitudes, which he says were subtly supported by Wilson, are not rebuked. He said Wilson must be disciplined as an example.
The charged comments come as the House is preparing to take further action against Wiilson. House Democratic leaders decided to formally discipline him Tuesday afternoon for jeering President Obama during last week's joint session of Congress.
Wilson bellowed "You lie!" as Obama delivered his address.
The punishment is expected take the form of a "resolution of disapproval," which is a milder version of other more traditional means of congressional discipline. Wilson can avoid the slap on the wrist by apologizing to his colleagues on the House floor, but Wilson -- who already apologized directly to the White House -- has said that's not going to happen.
While he has been widely condemned by colleagues on both sides of the aisle for breaching protocol, some have gone a step further and accused Wilson of being racially motivated.
New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote in her column Sunday that Wilson's outburst convinced her that racial angst is the underlying motive among Obama critics like Wilson.
The White House has a message to the tens of thousands of protesters who railed against big government during a rally in Washington Saturday: You're wrong.
White House senior adviser David Axelrod said Sunday that the protesters, part of the "tea party" movement, do not represent the views of the broader public when it comes to health care reform.
"I don't think it's indicative of the nation's mood," Axelrod said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "You know, I don't think we ought to be distracted by that. My message to them is, they're wrong."
The independent filmmaker whose hidden-camera videos prompted the firing of four ACORN workers is demanding an apology from ACORN for calling his work a fabricated "scam" and daring the activist group to take legal action against him.
"Bring it on," filmmaker James O'Keefe said Sunday on FOX News.
That was after ACORN lashed out at O'Keefe, who with his friend Hannah Giles posed as a pimp and prostitute looking to evade the IRS and apply for an illegal housing loan for a brothel. The sting operation caught four ACORN workers in the Baltimore and Washington, D.C., offices appearing to offer their help.
Those workers were subsequently fired, and the U.S. Census Bureau severed ties with ACORN in the wake of the controversy. But ACORN chief organizer Bertha Lewis issued a written statement Saturday saying that while she cannot defend the actions of the workers who were terminated, O'Keefe may have committed a "felony" with his operation. She also threatened legal action against FOX News, which aired the videos but did not produce them.
"It is clear that the videos are doctored, edited, and in no way the result of the fabricated story being portrayed by conservative activist 'filmmaker' O'Keefe and his partner in crime. And, in fact, a crime it was -- our lawyers believe a felony -- and we will be taking legal action against Fox and their co-conspirators," she said.
In an interview with FOX News senior correspondent Eric Shawn, O'Keefe said he wants an apology from those media outlets "covering for ACORN" as well as from ACORN itself. He said he doubts ACORN will file suit.
"They don't have any leg to stand on, so they're saying I dubbed in my voice which is completely absurd," he said. "When the truth comes out in the end, they're going to be apologizing to us."
O'Keefe said he was "just trying to hold these organizations accountable."
Lewis said in her statement that O'Keefe's "scam" was attempted in several other cities but had "failed for months."
O'Keefe declined to comment on the allegedly unsuccessful attempts, but said it's a "lie" to claim that any ACORN offices "kicked us out."
The push for more government revenue during the crisis has fueled what experts describe as the most serious global effort to root out wealthy tax evaders in recent history. The campaign began in earnest in April with threats to "name and shame" governments that act as tax havens. But it is now poised to markedly escalate, with G-20 leaders in Pittsburgh, according to sources close to the talks, set to take the further step of imposing sanctions on tax havens such as Uruguay and Panama if they do not move to cease shielding tax dodgers by March.
That our inaction in protecting our own children in a "seycheldik - common sense" way would explode in our faces. And the worst is yet to come. There are several documentaries being developed about the scandalous coverups of child sexual abuse in the Orthodox community, with at least one being produced in contract with a major cable television station, a New York Times journalist is researching the problem to publicize it and attempt to effect change, and the Federal Government has begun investigating us as well. (They are becoming more and more familiar with our "Torah true lifestyle," and its "culture clash" with the laws and norms of society.) How much more desecration of G-d's name will it take before we will finally awake to our calling, and begin to fulfill our duty? Do we really need arrests of leading rabbis for obstructing justice and tampering with witnesses by pressuring parents of child abuse victims not to do their civil and moral duty of reporting to the authorities? Recently, after the parents of one young victim did report to the police, it took the Ocean County prosecutor's office intervention and threat of prosecution to stop a prominent rabbi from sending out a letter publicly attacking the family as "crazy and evil people."
This particular Rabbi, who is a Rosh Yeshiva and a Posek of the OU, was written about last week in the NY Post, after using a similar smear campaign to attempt to wrest custody from a Jewish mother of her children becasue her husband was "more religious". My friends, why is this charlatan allowed to even get an aliyah, let alone be a respected rabbi in our community?
Asher, the Rabbinic Intimidation and Corruption Organization (RICO) will be brought down this year. Mr. Holder is ready to tear down the walls of the Temple of Doom, the Torah Umesorah/Agudath Israel machine.
If this lady in this Wall St Journal article is Shvartz, I'm sure Shmarya will invite her to come live in his mother's basement:
Sunday's New York Times featured an excerpt from a Times reporter's book on the economic crisis, a truly awful bureaucratic nightmare:
One afternoon in November 2006, a policeman spotted an expired license plate on Dorothy Thomas's 10-year-old Toyota Corolla as she drove through San Jose, Calif. He ordered her to pull over.
Struggling under the weight of thousands of dollars in credit card bills, Ms. Thomas was perpetually short of cash. She had not bought a $10 auto registration sticker. The officer checked his database and recognized that she had already been ticketed once before for the same thing. He arranged to have her car towed away.
"I got down on my knees and begged that officer," Ms. Thomas recalled. As she watched her car being hauled off, she sensed that this was the beginning of a descent into a crisis from which she might not easily escape. Without money to pay the towing and storage fees, she could not extract her car from the lot, and the tab soon grew to $1,600. Without a car, she could not reach the hospital where she worked in the administrative offices, so she lost her $16-an-hour job. Without a paycheck, she could no longer pay the rent on her modest home. She moved to Oakland, where a friend lived in a beaten-down, rented house on a street they called Crack Avenue. By year's end, Ms. Thomas, then 49, was occupying a bunk at a homeless shelter, searching in vain for a job in an economy plagued by unemployment.
It's not clear what this has to do with the economic crisis, since it happened in 2006, almost two years before the financial panic hit, and at a time when, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment was 4.5% nationwide and 4.8% in California. But whatever. Our main thought is: If Dorothy Thomas thinks bureaucracy is a nightmare now, just wait till Barack Obama tries to force her to buy health insurance.
Events are fast pushing Israel toward a pre-emptive military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, probably by next spring. That strike could well fail. Or it could succeed at the price of oil at $300 a barrel, a Middle East war, and American servicemen caught in between. So why is the Obama administration doing everything it can to speed the war process along?
At July's G-8 summit in Italy, Iran was given a September deadline to start negotiations over its nuclear programs. Last week, Iran gave its answer: No.
Instead, what Tehran offered was a five-page document that was the diplomatic equivalent of a giant kiss-off. Conspicuously absent from the document is any mention of Iran's nuclear program, now at the so-called breakout point, which both Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his boss Ali Khamenei insist is not up for discussion.
What's an American president to do in the face of this nonstarter of a document? What else, but pretend it isn't a nonstarter. Talks begin Oct. 1.
All this only helps persuade Israel's skittish leadership that when President Obama calls a nuclear-armed Iran "unacceptable," he means it approximately in the same way a parent does when fecklessly reprimanding his misbehaving teenager. That impression is strengthened by Mr. Obama's decision to drop Iran from the agenda when he chairs a meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Sept. 24; by Defense Secretary Robert Gates publicly opposing military strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities; and by Russia's announcement that it will not support any further sanctions on Iran.
In sum, the conclusion among Israelis is that the Obama administration won't lift a finger to stop Iran, much less will the "international community." So Israel has pursued a different strategy, in effect seeking to goad the U.S. into stopping, or at least delaying, an Israeli attack by imposing stiff sanctions and perhaps even launching military strikes of its own.
Thus, unlike Israel's air strike against Iraq's reactor in 1981 or Syria's in 2007, both of which were planned in the utmost secrecy, the Israelis have gone out of their way to advertise their fears, purposes and capabilities. They have sent warships through the Suez Canal in broad daylight and conducted widely publicized air-combat exercises at long range. They have also been unusually forthcoming in their briefings with reporters, expressing confidence at every turn that Israel can get the job done.
Actually, there were those of us as early as July of 2005 who were starting to see twinges in the stats and figures for various things and knew the handwriting was on the wall for the debt-based economy. Several of us blogged about it even slightly before then. In August of 2005 I put my house on the market immediately after seeing some very bad swings that were not reported in the mainstream media and downsized us to a place we could better afford. So her situation could very well have to do with the economic downturn, because what they are "officially" calling the "start" of the Recession is in reality well after it actually started.
The problem, however, is that the administration isn't taking the bait, and one has to wonder why. Perhaps it thinks that it can talk the Israelis out of attacking. Alternatively, it might actually want Israel to attack without inviting the perception that it has colluded with it. Or maybe it isn't really paying attention.
But Israel is paying attention. And the longer the U.S. delays playing hardball with Iran, the sooner Israel is likely to strike. A report published today by the Bipartisan Policy Center, and signed by Democrat Chuck Robb, Republican Dan Coats, and retired Gen. Charles Ward, notes that by next year Iran will "be able to produce a weapon's worth of highly enriched uranium . . . in less than two months." No less critical in determining Israel's timetable is the anticipated delivery to Iran of Russian S-300 anti-aircraft batteries: Israel will almost certainly strike before those deliveries are made, no matter whether an Iranian bomb is two months or two years away.
Such a strike may well be in Israel's best interests, though that depends entirely on whether the strike succeeds. It is certainly in America's supreme interest that Iran not acquire a genuine nuclear capability, whether of the actual or break-out variety. That goes also for the Middle East generally, which doesn't need the nuclear arms race an Iranian capability would inevitably provoke.
Then again, it is not in the U.S. interest that Israel be the instrument of Iran's disarmament. For starters, its ability to do so is iffy: Israeli strategists are quietly putting it about that even a successful attack may have to be repeated a few years down the road as Iran reconstitutes its capacity. For another thing, Iran could respond to such a strike not only against Israel itself, but also U.S targets in Iraq and the Persian Gulf.
But most importantly, it is an abdication of a superpower's responsibility to outsource matters of war and peace to another state, however closely allied. President Obama has now ceded the driver's seat on Iran policy to Prime Minister Netanyahu. He would do better to take the wheel again, keeping in mind that Iran is beyond the reach of his eloquence
A leading human rights group has suspended its senior military analyst following revelations that he is an avid collector of Nazi memorabilia.
The group, Human Rights Watch, had initially thrown its full support behind the analyst, Marc Garlasco, when the news of his hobby came out last week. On Monday night, the group shifted course and suspended him with pay, “pending an investigation,” said Carroll Bogert, the group’s associate director.
The suspension comes at a time of heightened tension between, on one side, the new Israeli government and its allies on the right, and the other side, human rights organizations that have been critical of Israel. In recent months, the government has pledged an aggressive approach toward the groups to discredit what they argue is bias and error.
Injected suddenly into that heated conflict, word of Mr. Garlasco’s interest seemed startling to many. The disclosure ricocheted across the Internet: Mr. Garlasco, an American, was not only a collector, he has written a book, more than 400 pages long, about Nazi-era medals. His hobby, inspired he said by a German grandfather conscripted into Hitler’s army, was revealed on a pro-Israel blog, Mere Rhetoric, which quoted his enthusiastic postings on collector sites under the pseudonym “Flak88” — including, “That is so cool! The leather SS jacket makes my blood go cold it is so COOL!”
It was a Rorschach moment in the conflict between Israel and its critics. The revelations were, depending on who is talking, either incontrovertible proof of bias or an irrelevant smear.
The Mere Rhetoric posting said Mr. Garlasco’s interests explained “anti-Israel biases.”
The administration of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also weighed in, but its views on groups like Human Rights Watch were already clear. Mr. Netanyahu’s policy director, Ron Dermer, told The Jerusalem Post in July, “We are going to dedicate time and manpower to combating these groups; we are not going to be sitting ducks in a pond for the human rights groups to shoot at us with impunity.”
Garlasco is almost certainly a closet neo-Nazi and it's surprising the NY Times missed such a glaring clue in his ID of Flak88. "88" is often used by neo-Nazis as H is the 8th letter of the alphabet. In other words, "88" stands for Heil Hitler.
And is Mere Rhetoric another nom de guerre for UOJ?
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Authorities on Tuesday returned to the Northern California home where kidnap victim Jaycee Dugard was held for 18 years, searching the grounds for evidence that could link her suspected abductors to two girls missing since the late 1980s.
Investigators from two nearby towns said they were looking for anything that could tie Phillip and Nancy Garrido, the married couple charged with snatching 11-year-old Dugard from a street near her home in 1991, to the kidnappings of 9-year-old Michaela Garecht or 13-year-old Ilene Misheloff.
Police say Garecht, who was grabbed in front of the Rainbow Market in the town of Hayward on November 18, 1988, bore a striking resemblance to Dugard and that a sketch of the suspect had been likened to Phillip Garrido.
Misheloff vanished on January 30, 1989, and a car found on the Garrido property appears to fit the description of a sedan she was seen getting into on the day she disappeared, police said.
"Our aim is to very methodically, systematically search the property with our cases in mind," Hayward Police Lieutenant Christine Orrey told reporters, adding: "This is one of the strongest leads we have pursued so far."
(Reuters) - James McDonald, a prominent adviser to wealthy families as chief executive of investment management group Rockefeller & Co, died in an apparent suicide,
on Sunday, local authorities said on Tuesday.
McDonald, 56, was found with a single gunshot wound in his car near a strip mall in Dartmouth, Massachusetts on Sunday afternoon. Police are still investigating.
McDonald was credited with growing Rockefeller & Co, the New York-based family office established by oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller in 1882 to manage the dynasty's assets, into a broader investment management company with roughly $28 billion in assets.
A spokesman at the Securities and Exchange Commission declined to comment on whether McDonald or the firm was facing any inquiries.
McDonald was married with a son and daughter and had homes on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan and in Boston.
The Respect for Marriage Act, unveiled by Reps. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., and Jared Polis, D-Colo, has the support of more than 90 lawmakers.
By Megan Whittemore FOXNews.com Tuesday, September 15, 2009
A group of House Democrats introduced legislation Tuesday that would overturn a federal marriage law that denies recognition of gay marriage and gives states the right to refuse recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.
HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. — Four men were arrested and a fifth is being sought in connection with the campus gang rape of an 18-year-old female Hofstra University student.
In March, several Hofstra University students were arrested on drug and weapons charges after a showdown over cocaine in a school dorm room.
This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," September 14, 2009. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: And this is a FOX News alert. The massive scandal involving ACORN continues to spread tonight. Law enforcement sources have confirmed to FOX News that the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office has launched an investigation into the ACORN offices in Brooklyn.
Cops are on the hunt for Yale University lab technician Raymond Clark III who has been identified as a person of interest in the Annie Le murder, sources said Tuesday.
Clark, 24, works as an animal tech in the lab where Le was found dead on Sunday.
Police found the 24-year-old pharmacology student's body stuffed in a wall in the lab on Sunday - what would have been her wedding day.
Police are looking for Clark, who was not home Tuesday as swarms of cops descended on his apartment about 20 miles from Yale's campus.
Clark did not show up for work - and neither did his sister, brother-in-law or fiance, all of whom work for Yale, the Yale Daily News reports.
Police zeroed in on the lab tech several days ago, after he failed lie detector tests and had scratch marks on his chest that suggest he was in a struggle.
Cops and FBI agents interviewed Clark several times. At one point he stopped answering questions and asked for a lawyer, the New Haven Register reported.
Police set up road blocks along Route 15 in the nearby town of Hamden. They stopped cars to look at passenger's faces.
Neighbors said authorities in unmarked cars arrived Monday afternoon and frequently followed and pulled over drivers in the complex.
Neighbors say they saw Clark and his girlfriend, Jennifer Hromadka, leaving with suitcases on Sunday around the time cops found Le's body.
"I saw them leaving this weekend with travel bags like they were in a hurry," said a 35-year-old neighbor who lives in the same Middletown apartment building.
She and another neighbor said the couple climbed in the back seat of a Ford that had two adults in the front. "I thought they were going on vacation," the neighbor said.
A woman who knew Clark when he lived in New Haven last year said he "looked like he could snap" at any moment, screamed at children and was "very controlling" of his girlfriend.
"He looked like he could go postal," said Anne Marie Goodwin, 40. "Something was wrong in his eyes. He looked disturbed."
The ousted head of Long Island University's Hillwood Museum has been charged with stealing ancient Egyptian artifacts from the school and trying to auction them at Christie's.
Barry Stern, 61, has admitted he took the nine pieces - each more than 2,000 years old - and is to surrender to authorities Wednesday.
A preliminary search of the museum's collection found other pieces missing. An audit of its entire inventory of thousands of anitquities is underway, a criminal complaint filed in Long Island Federal Court charges.
The stolen artifacts turned up in Christie's auction catalogue in June -- 10 months after Stern's contract was terminated.
A worker at the museum became suspicious after the auction house faxed an purchase offer to Stern at his old office. Eight of the objects sold for a total of $51,500.
FBI agent James Wynne said Stern delivered the objects to Christie's for inspection and claimed his parents had acquired them in 1955.
After taking the objects, Stern deleted scriptions of the antiquities from the museum's database, authorities said.
Only one question was supposed to be on the mind of would-be groom Jonathan Widawsky on Sunday.
Do you take this woman to be your wife?
Instead, the 24-year-old is faced with much darker questions about his fiancée, Annie Le, who was last seen alive Tuesday morning in her lab at Yale Medical School.
Cantor Sandra Sherry, who would have presided over today’s ceremony, immediately feared foul play, saying Le, 24, would never skip out on her wedding day.
“I never thought that it was anything like ‘cold feet,’” said Sherry, of Temple Beth El in Huntington, L.I.
“Her smile was effervescent when she spoke about the wedding,” said Sherry. “She embroidered her own veil, which says to me that she was looking forward to this occasion.”
Some 160 guests were to arrive at the North Ritz Club in Syosset at 11 a.m. for the ceremony, set on a gazebo overlooking a pond.
Acorn's allies in Congress have long stopped every move to rein it in. Rep. Steve King (R., Iowa), for example, has tried six times to get House floor votes restricting Acorn's access to federal funds but has been blocked by Speaker Nancy Pelosi's hand-picked Rules Committee members. Some Democrats have grumbled. Michigan's John Conyers, chair of the Judiciary Committee, urged a hearing be held on Acorn abuses in March, but later told the Washington Times "the powers that be decided against it."
There is a chance the latest scandals will convince Democrats that Acorn is too toxic a political partner. And President Barack Obama, who once ran a voter-registration program for an Acorn partner (Project Vote) and then worked for Acorn as a lawyer on key cases, has every incentive to distance himself further from the organization.
Former Acorn board members tell me the group has always been confident it will be protected. After the Nevada voter-registration fraud indictment last May, Bonnie Greathouse, Acorn's chief organizer in the state, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that "we've had bad publicity before" and survived. "People always come forward to our defense. We're just community organizers, just like the president used to be."
For those who were inspired by the first video of this post by our dearest UOJ, the singer is the great one, Chaim Yisrael. His CDs are readily available at judaica stores worldwide. I got hooked a long time. Best party, he aint a kool-ade drinking moron.
UOJ, where would I be today without your help and what u did for me b'prat and for the tzibbur b'klal. Oh to meet you and Steve, Boog, LVF and the rest of the "Chevra Kiddusha" and the "Bais Din".
Rock On! Hope lives as long as we hope!
One more thought: "90% of everything is crap...except for crap, because crap is 100% crap."
HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. — Four men were arrested and a fifth is being sought in connection with the campus gang rape of an 18-year-old female Hofstra University student.
The alert Yudel Shain is being mefarsem on me for stealing the name of the Lakewood Badatz to merge with my dubious Vaad Hadayonim. He also says the heter I gave for Bassman to go to court is phony.
New Haven police said they would restrict information even more in coming days after an NBC producer was injured Tuesday as reporters outside the police department pushed to surround a spokesman during a briefing.
He is aware of large numbers of yeshiva bochurim buying pornographic magazines (the real kind as opposed to the Avi Shafran definition). He says that one yeshiva rebbe was driven to molest kids because he too was buying porno mags.
The Rebbe says the underlying problem is because yeshivos suppress all information about znus which is wrong. Instead of pretending it doesn't exist, yeshivos should teach preventative sex ed about the chomer issurim. Otherwise he says that the yetzer hara alein becomes the melamed in the vacuum.
I went to speak to a rov after davening. A macher from Torah Umesorah was present who stuck his nose in to ask me a rude, yentish question that was none of his business in front of the crowd. I was then cut off because a woman was standing outside the beis medrash pleading that she has an emergency and needs to speak to the rov immediately. When the rov came back in, the TU fresser hijacked him by the door. When I walked over to continue my shayla, the fresser told me to get lost until he is finished.
The fresser spent the next hour ranting to the rov about goings on at Torah Umesorah meetings that he is unhappy about. He was very loud and you could hear what he was saying throughout the building.
According to the fresser:
- Agudah / TU hierarchy are not machshev rabbonim who learned in Chofetz Chaim including the current roshei yeshiva
- Chaim Berlin tries to steamroll everyone else with their "my way or the highway" approach
- Day schools across the country need an emergency bailout to keep operating. Fruchthandler offered to give $1 million a year until the economy stabilizes. He says that divided among the schools, it's enough "to buy door knobs for toilet stalls"
- Abe Biederman estimates that there are between 40 to 50 frum but karga billionaires who are giving nothing to chinuch.
- Pinny Lipschutz had a sweetheart monopoly for the Yated. The Moetzes and several other rabbonim had to be lobbied to make Hamodia acceptable.
- R' Zelig was skeptical that TU could get important things done
- When lobbying, you go to everyone except a brick wall named Aron Schechter
- TU charges mechanchim too much money to come to their assifos
Would You Buy That Mattress Again? Tuesday, September 15, 2009 provided by Israel Belsky
Buying a bed is no picnic. Comparison shopping is almost impossible because different retailers rarely call a model by the same name. And you're apt to make that expensive decision after trying out a bed for just a few minutes in the store.
But our new survey might help. We found real differences when we asked 17,444 online subscribers who bought a bed in the past few years about their satisfaction with the brand and the store.
Forty-one percent said they'd definitely buy the mattress brand they currently own if they had to do it over. Forty-three percent said they'd probably buy it again. An unhappy 16 percent said they'd probably or definitely pick something else. Here are the details:
Some Brands Were Better
Respondents who bought Tempur-Pedic, Original Mattress Factory brand, and Select Comfort mattresses were much more satisfied than those who bought Spring Air and Stearns & Foster models. They were significantly more likely to say they would definitely buy those brands again.
Any New Mattress Beats an Old One
Seventy-two percent of readers said their new bed improved their sleep. If yours is uncomfortable, consider replacing it even if it's only five or so years old.
Satisfaction at What Price?
Seventy-eight percent of those who spent more than $4,000 said they were highly satisfied with their purchase. But 66 percent of those who spent less than $1,000 were also highly satisfied.
Problem Sleepers Had a Preference
Among those who said they had problems sleeping, 78 percent said that a new bed, any new bed, improved their ability to get a good night's rest; 42 percent said the new mattress greatly improved their sleep.
Problem sleepers said Tempur-Pedic (made of memory foam) and Select Comfort (a line of adjustable air mattresses) provided the most relief. More than 60 percent of long-suffering sleepers who bought either of the two brands said their sleep was very much improved. Conversely, Stearns & Foster and Spring Air disproportionately aggravated the difficulties of problem sleepers, worsening the condition of about 10 percent of those who bought them.
An In-Store Tryout Is a Good Idea
Seventy-two percent of those who invested at least 10 minutes (for instance, lying down on each side, back, and stomach) were highly satisfied with their mattress purchase compared with 62 percent who didn't. A rest test isn't foolproof -- 12 percent of those surveyed were at least somewhat dissatisfied with their new mattress even if they tried it first, but at least it gives you a fighting chance.
Don't Pay Full Price
The suggested retail price of a mattress is pure fiction. Discounts of 50 percent or more are common. In our survey, only 36 percent of respondents tried haggling. Among those who tried, 72 percent got a lower price.
Threaten the store owner to lower the price or Mendel Epstein will drop in to "see him".
WASHINGTON — Representative Joe Wilson was formally rebuked by the House on Tuesday for his outburst during President Obama’s health care address. The vote came after a Congressional clash over civility that showcased the deep partisan divisions in the House.
In a mainly party line vote of 240 to 179, the House held that by shouting “You lie” during the president’s speech Mr. Wilson, a South Carolina Republican, committed a “breach of decorum and degraded the proceedings of the joint session, to the discredit of the House.”
Roy Langbord had guessed that someone in his family might have hidden away a great treasure decades before, but not until his mother had him check a long-neglected safe-deposit box did he realize just how great it was.
Inside the box, opened in 2003, he found an incredibly rare coin, wrapped in a delicate paper sleeve. It was a gold $20 piece with Lady Liberty on one side, a bald eagle flying across the other and, at Liberty’s left, the four digits that made it so valuable: 1933.
The famous “double eagles” from that year were never officially released by the government. Only a few had ever made their way out of federal vaults, and only one had ever been sold publicly, in 2002. The price: $7.6 million.
And there were nine more of them in the safe-deposit box.
But after the Langbord family took the coins to the United States Mint to be authenticated in 2004, they got a rude surprise. The Mint said the coins were genuine and kept them.
The government claims that they are government property stolen from the Mint, most likely in the 1930s, by Mr. Langbord’s grandfather, Israel Switt, a Philadelphia jewelry dealer.
The Langbords went to court and recently won an important ruling. A United States District Court judge has given the government until the end of the month either to give back the coins or go back to court to prove that they were in fact stolen by Mr. Switt, a daunting task after three-quarters of a century.
Nearly a half-million 1933 double eagles were minted before President Franklin D. Roosevelt, shifting the nation away from the gold standard, issued an executive order that made owning large amounts of gold bullion and coins illegal. Two of the coins went to the Smithsonian Institution, and almost all the rest were melted down.
Some, however, escaped that fate, including the coin sold in 2002, which had made its way into the collection of King Farouk of Egypt and later the hands of a British dealer. The government had seized that coin, too, and arrested the dealer, Stephen Fenton. But Mr. Fenton’s lawyer, Barry H. Berke, reached a settlement that allowed that single coin to be issued officially and sold at auction, with the government taking half of the proceeds.
The Secret Service, which polices currency crimes, has argued that all of the double eagles that escaped government control passed through the hands of Mr. Switt, working with a corrupt cashier at the Mint.
According to a history of the coins by Alison Frankel, a journalist with The American Lawyer, a United States attorney decided not to prosecute Mr. Switt in the mid-1940s, saying the statute of limitations had passed.
Ms. Frankel wrote in her 2006 book “Double Eagle: The Epic Story of the World’s Most Valuable Coin” that Mr. Switt was “a thoroughly nasty piece of work,” and that a dealer who traded with him called him a “gold coin bootlegger” who continued to sell gold coins long after the practice had been prohibited. The book details the government’s contention that Mr. Switt worked with a corrupt Mint cashier.
The Langbords insist that Mr. Switt, who died in 1990, acquired the coins legitimately before the ban, most likely through a gold-for-gold exchange process used by the Mint in those days.
In fact, Mr. Berke said, Mr. Switt was a frequent visitor to the Mint, had plenty of gold to trade for gold coins and probably did so. Proving otherwise will be extremely difficult, he said. “There’s really nobody with contemporary knowledge from the Mint who’s still living,” he said, having sought out former Mint employees for the earlier litigation.
In an interview, Ms. Frankel called Mr. Berke’s success in persuading the judge to shift the burden of proof onto the government in the case “quite an amazing accomplishment” that forces the government “to prove a negative — that the coins could not have gotten out legally.”
No one can know exactly what Finn Caspersen, prominent philanthropist & heir to the Beneficial Corp fortune, was thinking when he decided to take his life on Labor Day. Although Mr. Caspersen, 67, was battling cancer, his suicide shocked his family & friends.
But Mr. Caspersen, a patron of Harvard & Princeton who gave away tens of millions to charity, apparently harbored a secret: He was suspected of dodging many millions in taxes. The authorities were closing in.
At the time of his death, investigators were building a case against Mr. Caspersen on suspicion of using secret offshore bank accounts to evade taxes.
The authorities had asserted he might have owed as much as $100 million in back taxes & fines or, possibly even have faced prison.
Whispers of tax trouble went through the crowd at Mr. Caspersen’s funeral on Tuesday. About 800 people attended the service in Morristown, N.J.
Mr. Caspersen, a longtime fixture in New Jersey political circles, had been swept up in a broad federal crackdown on the use of offshore bank accounts by wealthy Americans. UBS, the big Swiss bank, divulged the names of nearly 300 American clients & agreed to hand over several thousand more last month.
One wealthy UBS client, Igor Olenicoff, hid an estimated $200 million in Switzerland & Liechtenstein. In 2008, he pleaded guilty to a single felony & paid $52 million in back taxes & penalties. More recently, several other UBS clients, among them a Florida yacht broker, admitted to tax evasion.
As the inquiries continue, the names of more well-to-do people are likely to come to light. Those who have hidden money offshore face a difficult choice: They have a week to turn themselves over to the Internal Revenue Service or gamble that they will not be caught. The I.R.S. is offering amnesty to those who disclose their offshore holdings by Sept. 23. After that, offenders could face criminal prosecution.
The I.R.S. learned that Mr. Caspersen held an account at LGT, the private bank controlled with Liechtenstein’s royal family. Liechtenstein pledged last December to disclose the names of some wealthy Americans with bank accounts there, but it was unclear if Mr. Caspersen’s name was among them or how the I.R.S. learned of any account in his name.
His family was associated with Beneficial, the consumer lending giant, for most of the 20th century. Mr. Caspersen ran the company for 20 years before selling it to Household International in 1998 for $8.6 billion.
Mr. Caspersen established Knickerbocker, which he named after the men-only Knickerbocker Club, on the Upper East Side, to which he belonged.
According to the person familiar with the investigation, federal authorities recently placed liens on the personal trusts of Mr. Caspersen’s four sons.
Like Mr. Caspersen, his sons are graduates of Harvard Law School, where the Caspersen Room houses rare books, documents & art. Last year, Mr. Caspersen pledged $30 million to Harvard Law, the largest single donation in the school’s history.
Shortly before his death, Mr. Caspersen placed his estate in Westerly on the market for $10.9 million & began to step back from philanthropic efforts.
He unexpectedly resigned from the Dean’s Advisory Council at Harvard Law School — he was class of 1966 — and quit as chairman of the board of the Peddie prep school in Hightstown, N.J.
He also resigned from the town commission in Jupiter Island, Fla., where he lived & stepped down as chairman of the Hodson Trust, a foundation that has awarded $210 million in scholarships & was established by his ancestor Clarence Hodson
13 percent. That’s the share of family income that the Baucus plan envisions middle-class American families having to pay in health insurance premiums before co-payments, deductibles and other cost-sharing.
And senators in both parties are questioning whether, at the end of the day, insurance will be affordable to the people who need it most — perhaps the single most crucial question for all of the health care overhaul proposals.
The Baucus bill seeks to extend health coverage to more than 30 million uninsured American citizens. To do so, it would broadly expand Medicaid, the state-federal insurance program for the poor, and provide government subsidies to modest-income individuals and families to help them buy coverage.
Politicians and researchers have predicted for nearly four decades that a cure for cancer is near, but cancer death rates have hardly budged and most new cancer drugs cost a fortune while giving patients few, if any, added weeks of life. For this collective failure, the man atop the nation’s regulatory agency for new cancer drugs increasingly — and supporters say unfairly — gets the blame: Dr. Richard Pazdur.
Patient advocates have called Dr. Pazdur, director of the Food and Drug Administration’s cancer drug office, a murderer, conservative pundits have vilified him as an obstructionist bureaucrat, and guards are now posted at the agency’s public cancer advisory meetings to protect him and other committee members.
“The industry is not producing that many good drugs, so now they’re looking for scapegoats in Rick Pazdur and the F.D.A.,” said Ira S. Loss, who follows the drug industry for Washington Analysis, a service for investors.
In 10 years at the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Pazdur, 57, has helped to loosen approval standards for cancer medicines and made it easier for dying patients to get experimental drugs. But he demands that drug makers prove with near certainty that their products are beneficial, a requirement that he repeated at a public advisory hearing on Sept. 1 in the slow, loud tones of someone disciplining a dog. After he spoke, the committee of experts voted to reject both drugs.
Critics say that Dr. Pazdur’s resolve has cost thousands of lives and set back the pace of discoveries.
In July, President Obama met for 45 minutes with leaders of American Jewish organizations. All presidents meet with Israel’s advocates. Obama, however, had taken his time, and powerhouse figures of the Jewish community were grumbling; Obama’s coolness seemed to be of a piece with his willingness to publicly pressure Israel to freeze the growth of its settlements and with what was deemed his excessive solicitude toward the plight of the Palestinians. During the July meeting, held in the Roosevelt Room, Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, told Obama that “public disharmony between Israel and the U.S. is beneficial to neither” and that differences “should be dealt with directly by the parties.” The president, according to Hoenlein, leaned back in his chair and said: “I disagree. We had eight years of no daylight” — between George W. Bush and successive Israeli governments — “and no progress.”
It is safe to say that at least one participant in the meeting enjoyed this exchange immensely: Jeremy Ben-Ami, the founder and executive director of J Street, a year-old lobbying group with progressive views on Israel. Some of the mainstream groups vehemently protested the White House decision to invite J Street, which they regard as a marginal organization located well beyond the consensus that they themselves seek to enforce. But J Street shares the Obama administration’s agenda, and the invitation stayed.
J Street knows exactly where it stands. “Our No. 1 agenda item,” Ben-Ami said to me, “is to do whatever we can in Congress to act as the president’s blocking back.”
The idea that there is an “Israel lobby,” with its undertones of dual loyalty, is a controversial notion. It has been around since the early 1970s at least, but it became a topic of wide discussion only after the publication of a notorious article in The London Review of Books in 2006 by the political scientists John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt. The article, which was expanded into a book, infuriated many readers by its air of conspiratorial hugger-mugger; by its insistence that Jewish neoconservatives had persuaded President Bush to go to war in Iraq in order to protect Israel; and by the authors’ apparent ignorance of the deep sense of identification many Americans — Jewish and gentile — feel toward Israel. But the authors made one claim that struck many knowledgeable people as very close to the mark: The Israel lobby had succeeded in ruling almost any criticism of Israel out of bounds, especially in Congress. “The bottom line,” Mearsheimer and Walt wrote, “is that Aipac, a de facto agent for a foreign government, has a stranglehold on Congress, with the result that U.S. policy is not debated there, even though that policy has important consequences for the entire world.” Mearsheimer and Walt also wrote that Aipac and other groups succeeded in installing officials who were deemed “pro-Israel” into senior positions. This is, of course, what effective lobbies do. The Cuba lobby, for example, long operated in the same way.
Ben-Ami is a political junkie who, at age 14, handed out leaflets for Jimmy Carter. He has worked in New York City government and politics; he served as deputy domestic-policy adviser in Bill Clinton’s first term and national policy director on Howard Dean’s presidential campaign. But he also benefits from an unusual Israeli pedigree. His great-grandparents joined the first group of Russian Jews to make aliyah — to move to the Holy Land — in 1882. His grandparents were among the 66 families that in 1909 drew seashells from a hat — the legendary Seashell Lottery — to parcel out sandy lots in what was to become Israel. His father served as a commander for Betar, the youth arm affiliated with Irgun, the fervent nationalist movement that fought the British to gain Israel’s independence. Ben-Ami’s father was tasked with purchasing the Altalena, a naval vessel left over from World War II that was then filled with arms and was on its way to Palestine when David Ben-Gurion declared the independent state of Israel and ordered all fighters to accept the authority of the state. After Menachem Begin, the head of Irgun, refused to turn back the Altalena, it was sunk by Ben-Gurion’s forces, led by Yitzhak Rabin. Ben-Ami, who was born in New York, says, “I grew up with my father spending his entire life arguing with his friends about the Altalena and Ben-Gurion and what a schmuck he was and how could Begin give back the Sinai.”
This is the world that shaped the mainstream American Jewish groups. Abraham Foxman, the head of the Anti-Defamation League, was born in Poland in 1940, and he often sounds as if only eternal vigilance will ward off the Holocaust in the offing. Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, was born in a camp for displaced persons, to parents who were Holocaust survivors. The prophetic voice comes naturally to such men. So does the sense of besetting peril. Important Jewish organizations are normally reached through a series of locked doors presided over by glassed-in functionaries. The peril may be real. But it can also feel like a marketing device. “You know what these guys are afraid of?” says M. J. Rosenberg, Washington director of the Israel Policy Forum. “Their generation is disappearing. All the old Jewish people in senior-citizen homes speaking Yiddish are dying — and they’re being replaced by 60-year-old Woodstock types.”
Ben-Ami speaks for, and to, this post-Holocaust generation. “They’re all intermarried,” he says. “They’re all doing Buddhist seders.” They are, he adds, baffled by the notion of “Israel as the place you can always count on when they come to get you.”
Meanwhile, Ben-Ami was beginning to build up a network of local supporters who could give legislators a piece of their mind — just as Aipac has (only much smaller). He is bringing highly placed Israeli peaceniks to spread their alternative message in Washington and beyond. And J Street’s new corps of lobbyists will soon be fanning out into the wilds of Congress, there to sit down with legislators and staff who have never heard of, much less met with, liberal advocates on Israel.
After child rapist Garrido was arrested, he complained that the moles on his nose were a hazard to his health that he never bothered to take care of because it's expensive.
A plastic surgeon was brought in to the prison to remove them at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars to taxpayers.
STORMVILLE, N.Y. (JTA) -- On a breezy summer afternoon at the maximum-security prison that dominates the landscape here, inmates gather around a stocky bearded man as he prepares to blow a shofar.
Philip Drelich sounds one long blast and then the crowd disperses, off to their daily routine.
Just like many of their coreligionists on the outside, the Jews at this person, the Green Haven Correctional Facility in upstate New York, are mindful of the daily shofar-blowing ritual during the Jewish month of Elul signaling the upcoming High Holidays.
"I certainly became more aware of religion here in jail," says Lewis Scharff, a convicted murderer at Green Haven who spoke to JTA at the prison synagogue, just opposite the Catholic chapel. "We have two people who found teshuvah during their time here,” he said, using the Hebrew word for repentance.
Walking down the long, bleak corridors of Green Haven, which are kept immaculately clean by an army of inmates constantly mopping the floors, a number of convicts wearing yarmulkes and tzitzit are visible. Every morning and on Shabbat, about 12 regulars show up for prayer services at the prison synagogue; more than double that number are expected for the High Holidays. On Passover, inmates lead the seders.
On Sukkot, says Drelich, who is at Green Haven serving a life sentence for murder, the prison will have two sukkahs: “One for those in solitary confinement, and the other in the general quarters.”
"A Yid is a Yid, a Jew is a Jew," says Rabbi Zvi Boyarsky, who visits Green Haven frequently to minister to inmates. "The soul remains pure.”
Maximum-security prisons in the United States have relatively few Jewish inmates, according to the Aleph Institute, a Chabad-affiliated organization that reaches out to Jews behind bars. Most Jews in the prison system usually end up at lower-security facilities for crimes such as fraud or tax evasion.
But Green Haven has enough Jewish inmates that it is the only prison in New York with a hot kosher kitchen, where kosher food is prepared on site rather than being brought in pre-cooked from the outside. Of the 1,984 inmates there, 150 are listed as Jewish. About 70 are on the kosher meal plan.
Boyarsky says he doesn't think of the crimes committed by the inmates to whom he offers help.
Jewish inmates at Green Haven have a synagogue and a rabbi who works part-time five days a week. And as at all prisons in New York State, the inmates are permitted to keep tefillin in their cells.
The hub of Jewish life at Green Haven is the kosher kitchen, which dishes out three meals a day. The kosher supervisor, Rony Berkoviz, an Israeli-born inmate jailed for a sex offense, proudly displays the separate dairy, meat and parve sets of dishes and cutlery and explains how the kitchen works.
A class-action lawsuit filed against Service Corporation International (SCI) and Eden Memorial Park has sparked outrage and disbelief among the Jewish community of the greater Los Angeles area.
The claim, filed in Los Angeles this week, alleges that employees of Eden Memorial Park, located in Mission Hills, knowingly disinterred remains and desecrated gravesites at the large memorial park just south of Santa Clarita.
Though the exact scope of the alleged activities is unknown, the lead attorney in the case estimates it could affect more than 500 gravesites at the cemetery.
Jewish caskets are made from simple pine and held together with wood glue, making the entire casket biodegradable. The casket decomposes with the body. Since the casket is not completely intact for long, any damage can result in remains being dislodged from the structure. When this occurred, the complaint alleges, said remains were then disposed of by Eden Memorial Park employees.
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and a handful of other Democratic Assembly members combined to give ACORN $175,0000 in grants for low income people to register for housing and health insurance programs.
Fearful of a Madrid-style subway train bombing, authorities are poised to make more raids to seize bomb-making materials at locations in Queens, sources said Wednesday.
The FBI's elite Hostage Rescue Team arrived in New York in anticipation of the offensive to thwart a Denver-based terror cell with ties to Al Qaeda, police sources told the Daily News.
Another source said an earlier raid uncovered nine backpacks and cell phones, raising memories of the March 2004 bombings in Madrid. A series of terrorist bombs detonated aboard commuter trains killed 191 people.
The source said authorities feared a potential attack on the city subway, with its 5.2 million daily riders.
Najibullah Zazi, the Colorado man who triggered a rash of Queens raids Monday, was identified through e-mail, wire taps and a confidential informant as part of the plot, the source said. Zazi, 25, told The News he had nothing to do with any terrorist activity.
"No. Of course, I'm not a terrorist," the 25-year-old Afghan national said Tuesday.
A source said Zazi, tipped while visiting Manhattan last weekend that he was under surveillance, fled back to suburban Denver. Even as Zazi, of Aurora, Colo., professed his innocence, counterterrorism agents eyed him as part of the first suspected Al Qaeda cell they've uncovered in the U.S. since 9/11.
A bearded and barefoot Zazi, standing in the doorway of his apartment, said he's a hard-working airport shuttle driver who is married and lives with his elderly parents in the Denver suburb.
"I didn't know anything about who was following me," Zazi said of reports he is under surveillance by the FBI.
He confirmed driving to New York last week to visit friends, but denied involvement in any Al Qaeda bomb plot or terror cell. Zazi was stopped at the George Washington Bridge on his way into the city, sources told The News.
Authorities later seized his rental car from a Queens street, sources said. In the car, sources said the feds found documents and papers about bomb-making and bombs.
"I didn't know what he was up to," said mosque President Abdulrahman Jalili, 58, after he was contacted by the FBI about Zazi. "Islam is against terrorism. It is a religion of peace."
Michael Mineo just can't seem to stay out of trouble.
The tattoo artist who said cops sodomized him with a baton at a Brooklyn train station and who was slashed in a street fight was busted Monday for sitting in a playground.
"I wasn't doing nothing," Mineo complained Tuesday after spending the night in jail. "I was just sitting on the park bench talking to a friend. They knew who I was. Of course they did."
Mineo, 24, was in a playground on Glenwood Road and E. 101st St. near his Brooklyn home when two squad cars rolled up, he said.
Cops arrested him after they found a summons for community service Mineo never finished for an April 2008 assault at the tattoo parlor where he had worked.
"Michael had completed community service, but got the dates mixed up and didn't bring [the certificate] in to show a judge last week," said Mineo's lawyer, Stephen Jackson.
He said Mineo showed cops proof he had completed his community service.
The three cops facing charges in the Oct. 15, 2008, attack at a Prospect Park station are from the 71st Precinct. The cops who arrested Mineo at the playground are from the 69th Precinct.
Still, Jackson says cops are out to get Mineo.
"Of course they knew who he was," Jackson said. "I think two squad cars shows premeditation."
Mineo - who was stabbed in July after getting into a shouting match with a man who jostled his girlfriend - has sued the city for $220 million over the alleged sodomy attack.
A police spokesman said it is up to a judge, not police, to determine whether someone completed community service.
"The lawyer's assertions are false," Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne said.
"Mineo was in a section of a park reserved for children with their parents or guardian. ... He was asked to leave the area. Only after he refused to leave and the warrant popped was he arrested."
A Long Island woman says meatballs at a Queens supermarket improperly stacked a shaky sales display that left her buried under an avalanche of spaghetti sauce.
Patricia Samaroo, 55, claims in a Queens Supreme Court suit that she was left with permanent injuries in the grocery spill.
"It was on sale," Samaroo said of the jar she reached for at an Ozone Park Pathmark on Jan. 19. "And then it collapsed. I was in shock when it happened."
"All I know is that I was covered in spaghetti sauce," Samaroo told the Daily News Tuesday night.
Dozens of jars of sauce rained down on her head, leaving her hospitalized with permanent head and spine injuries, she charged.
"It shouldn't be that high," Samaroo said of the display. "They should know what they're doing with a display like that."
"It happened so fast," Samaroo added.
"I still have pain in my neck. I use painkillers all because of this.
Samaroo said in court papers the incident left her with bulging discs and nerve damage, rendering her "sick, lame, sore and disabled."
The woman's lawyer, James Kiley, said the supermarket chain's managers were negligent for failing to "determine if jars were likely to topple and fall."
Pathmark officials did not return calls for comment
UOJ and all those onboard should see the fruits of your labors in this year 5770.
Tehe Shnas Anavah! May all those who haughtily decide that their SPECIAL ASSETS are worth more than Yiddishe Neshamos, quickly learn some HUMILITY.
************************************ The gedolei rabbonim in Eretz Yisroel asked us to remind the klal of the gravity of harming other people.
They said the following:
1] EVERY MACHLOKES CAUSES HUNDREDS OF JOBS TO BE LOST. BUT, IF THE MACHLOKES CAUSED ANOTHER PERSON TO LOSE HIS PARNASSAH AS A RESULT OF HATRED, THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE ARE AFFECTED.
2] ONI CHASHUV KEMAIS, THEREFORE IF A PERSON CAUSES ANOTHER JEW TO LOSE THEIR JOB THEY ARE MURDERERS. IT IS IMPORTANT TO NOT MASSER ON SOMEONE UNLESS [A] THE BEHAVIOR IS CAUSING HARM TO ANOTHER PERSON, OR [B] IF THAT IS THE ONLY WAY TO STOP THE PERSON FROM ACTING AGAINST ANOTHER PERSON.
3] IN SITUATION [B] SINCE IT MAY AFFECT PARTNERS NOT INVOLVED IN THE REDIFAH, IT IS MERITORIOUS TO CONVINCE THE PARTNER TO TERMINATE THE BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP. IF THE PARTNER IS UNWILLING OR UNABLE TO TERMINATE THE RELATIONSHIP, IT IS OKAY TO MASSER ON THE RODEF AND WHATEVER HAPPENS TO THE PARTNER, HAPPENS. OY LERASHA OY LESHCHAYNOY EXISTS FOR A REASON.
They added a special Birkas Kesiva Vechasima Tovah to all those people that are involved in protecting others from the rodfim in America. "These yechidei segulah, are really the ainai hoaidah in America".
WASHINGTON — The Interior Department is ending the oil and gas royalty program that ignited a major scandal last year when it was revealed that federal employees had engaged in corruption, drug use and sexual misconduct with industry officials.
Gov. David A. Paterson has continually said he plans to run next year to keep the job he assumed after Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s resignation. But first he will have to improve his standing with the public.
A Marist poll released Wednesday showed his approval rating at a dismal 20 percent. That is a point lower from a survey conducted by Marist in June, which had Mr. Paterson’s approval rating at 21 percent.
Seventy percent of those polled said Mr. Paterson should not even run next year.
“Most don’t want him to run for governor in 2010, including two-thirds of Democrats,” said Lee M. Miringoff, the director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion. “His own party, right now, wants him out of the picture.”
In England, former London deputy mayor Ian Clement was charged Aug. 4 with fraud in connection with alleged misuse of a corporate credit card, The Guardian reports. Clement resigned from his post in June following allegations about his card use.
Also in the U.K., the Morning Star reports former anti-terrorist officer Matthew Washington -- who improperly used a credit card meant for work-related expenses -- has walked free from court. Washington, who was given a six-month prison sentence suspended for a year, made charges with the plastic for clothes from his favorite retailer and "sexual accoutrements" at an adult toy store.
The Salt Lake Tribune reports that Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff received $30,000 in donations from the company behind Google Money Tree, a program federal regulators and state authorities in Utah and Texas say ran an unlawful scam. Google Money Tree -- which has no affiliation with the popular search engine -- advertised a program enabling participants to earn thousands of dollars working from home, but it instead resulted, in some cases, in monthly service charges of $72.21 on participants' credit cards. Federal lawyers say those charges were not made clear in the company's service agreements.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Postal Service is expanding its Holiday Celebrations Series with a new stamp highlighting the Muslim holiday of Eid.
The 34-cent Eid stamp will be issued on Sept. 1 at the annual Islamic Society of North America's convention at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, 5555 North River Road, Des Plaines, Ill, at 11:45 a.m. The stamp will be available at the convention and at post offices nationwide on Sept. 1.
"This is a proud moment for the Postal Service, the Muslim community, and Americans in general as we issue a postage stamp to honor and commemorate two important Islamic celebrations," said Azeezaly S. Jaffer, Vice President, Public Affairs and Communications for the Postal Service, who will dedicate the stamp. "The Eid stamp will help us highlight the business, educational and social contributions of the estimated six to seven million Muslims in this country whose cultural heritage has become an integral part of the fabric of this great nation."
(7 million is a phony inflated figure offered by Muslims that is double the real one to give themselves more prominence)
Eid al-Adha comes at the end of the hajj—the annual period of pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca—and commemorates Ibrahim's willingness to sacrifice his son Ismail. (This is the Muslim account of the Judeo-Christian story of Abraham and Isaac.)
--------------------
REMEMBER the MUSLIM attack on 9/11/2001 !
REMEMBER all the AMERICAN lives that were lost in other vicious MUSLIM attacks!
Now Obama has directed the United States Postal Service to REMEMBER and HONOR the EID MUSLIM holiday season with a new commemorative 42 Cent First Class Holiday Postage Stamp.
REMEMBER to adamantly & vocally BOYCOTT this stamp, when you are purchasing your stamps at the post office.
All you have to say is "No thank you, I do not want that Muslim Stamp on my letters!"
To use this stamp would be a slap in the face to all those AMERICANS who died at the hands of those whom this stamp honors.
Is this the giraffe that the OU was going to pay $25,000 to shecht for their yearly $500 a plate exotic fresser banquet? They backed out in the end because they felt the giraffe was too old.
ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) -- A former Kmart Corp. CEO says he made mistakes while leading the discount retailer but didn't profit from its collapse into bankruptcy.
Charles Conaway testified in federal court Wednesday in Ann Arbor as part of an effort to avoid millions of dollars in penalties for misleading investors about Kmart's financial health in 2001.
He said he tried to act in Kmart's best interests.
The Securities and Exchange Commission accused Conaway of failing to disclose Kmart was delaying payments to suppliers to save cash, months before the bankruptcy filing. In June, a federal jury in Ann Arbor found him liable in a civil trial.
The hearing on the trial's penalty phase resumes Thursday.
Duh! That USPS announcement is from 2001 and the stamp was scheduled to go into circulation ten days before the attacks happened. If you have a link to the article where Obama wants to issue a similar stamp then post it.
Rabbi Jay Kenneth Wagner Indicted For “Continuing Theft”
Phil Jacobs • Baltimore Jewish Times
Baltimore City State’s Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy announced today that the Baltimore City Grand Jury indicted Rabbi Jay Kenneth Wagner, 32, of the 3400 block of Labyrinth Road for continuing theft. The indictment was filed on Sept. 10.
Court documents allege that between January 2007 and May 2009 Rabbi Wagner stole over $13,000 from Yeshivat Rambam. Mr. Wagner worked as an assistant principal at the school. It is also alleged that the theft was discovered by the school and involved a series of school checks taken by the defendant which were either cashed or deposited into the defendant’s account.
An indictment is not a finding of guilt. An individual charged by indictment is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty at some later criminal proceeding.
An arraignment is scheduled for Oct. 19, 2009 before Judge Charles G. Bernstein at the Mitchell Courthouse.
Mr. Wagner was released on his own recognizance.
In an e-mail to parents, school officials wrote:
“Several months ago, through our normal internal controls and procedures, it became clear that our school had experienced some financial irregularities and, in addition, that school funds were missing. Our bank and the State Attorney’s office thoroughly investigated the incident. With the help of our financial institutions, we have every expectation that we will fully recover all misappropriated funds; the vast majority of missing funds have, in fact, already been recovered.
“The investigative process, conducted by the State’s Attorney’s office, has led to the indictment of Rabbi Jay Wagner, a former assistant principal of our elementary school.
“On the advice of counsel, and in the hope of a happier resolution, we remained silent during the investigative phase of this situation. While we are deeply saddened by this turn of events, we are confident that this matter will be resolved in a fair, impartial and judicious manner.
“In closing, Yeshivat Rambam remains a financially strong and vibrant institution, committed to providing the Baltimore Jewish community with excellence in education, both Judaic and secular.”
Federal marshals were beefing up security Wednesday at the former Montauk home of imprisoned con man Bernard Madoff after the theft of a 4-foot-tall rusted steel sculpture off the front porch.
The flat metal sculpture, valued at $300, was the smallest in a group of three by the entrance and "an Aztec replica of some kind," said East Hampton Town Police Chief Todd Sarris.
It was among household possessions at the oceanfront property at 216 Old Montauk Hwy. that was seized by the federal government in July, along with Madoff's Manhattan penthouse and Palm Beach, Fla., estate.
The four-bedroom shingled contemporary house is on the market for $8.75 million, with proceeds from the sale of homes and possessions to compensate victims of Madoff's $50 billion Ponzi scheme.
"The real problem with people stealing from the Madoff property is that they're stealing from the Madoff victims," said Rick Hoffman, regional senior vice president, Corcoran East End, the real estate company that is handling the sale of the property.
The property's longtime caretaker, Robert Schorr, a retired police officer, reported the sculpture missing after checking the house at 11 a.m. Saturday. He told police he'd last seen it two days earlier.
Access to the property, which has 182 feet of oceanfront, a pool and a 3,000-square-foot house, was fairly open, Sarris said. Now that may change.
connections Central Intelligence Agency Barack Obama George W. Bush Osama bin Laden Federal Bureau of Investigation "There's no restriction or gate or anything like that," he said Wednesday. "The [U.S.] marshals are back down there as we speak, making sure the house is more secure."
The sculpture's theft wasn't the first at a former property of the disgraced financier. Late last year, Madoff's Palm Beach housekeeper reported the disappearance of a $10,000 copper outdoor sculpture.
It was soon found near the grounds of the Palm Beach Country Club, where Madoff had been a member and recruited numerous investors. Attached was a note reading: "Bernie the Swindler, Lesson: Return Stolen Property to rightful owners. Signed by - The Educators."
(As noted by the Palm Beach Post at the time, the signature bore a similarity to a 2004 German film, "The Edukators," in which anti-capitalist activists break into the homes of rich people, move furniture around and leave notes that say "the days of plenty are over.")
They were well-dressed when they knocked on the door of a Huntington home last month and said they had information about President Barack Obama's health care plan.
That's how they got inside to commit a violent home invasion on Aug. 29, a Suffolk prosecutor said Monday.
Benjamin Thompson had a stethoscope around his neck and Natalie Desir carried a clipboard with pamphlets, Assistant District Attorney Glenn Kurtzrock said after their arraignments in Riverhead.
A woman who lives at the house answered the door and said she would take one of the pamphlets. That's when Thompson, 31, of Brooklyn and Desir, 26, of Nyack forced their way inside, Kurtzrock said.
He gave the following account:
Another man, Vance Jackson, had been hiding outside and also forced his way into the home. Jackson, 46, of Yonkers took the woman's boyfriend upstairs and shot him in the neck, chased him downstairs and shot him several more times.
Thompson shot the female resident in the foot while she was sitting next to her 2-year-old daughter and also pistol-whipped the woman's mother, injuring her head.
The three fled with about $4,000 in cash in a getaway car driven by Theodore Briggs, 40, of the Bronx. A fifth suspect who was outside is still at large.
Thompson, whose previous convictions include attempted robbery and rape, and Jackson, whose convictions include robbery and criminal possession of a weapon, met in prison, Kurtzrock said.
He said the two hatched the home invasion plan while waiting to meet with their parole officers in the Bronx.
Because of their previous convictions, they face potential life sentences, Kurtzrock said.
All of the money was later found in Jackson's and Thompson's pockets, he said.
Please take a moment to read the newspaper editorial of today's Asbury Park Press copied below. This follows on the heels of yesterday's expose' in the same paper about child sexual abuse in the frum community of Lakewood.
This is so sad. Does anyone think that Reb Ahron Kotler, Z"TL could possibly have envisioned it coming to this, when he realized his dream of a community whose existence is based soleley on studying Torah "Lishmah - for its own sake"? That the behavior of the Jewish community in Lakewood would cause the local paper to be forced to take a moral position in order to stand up for the protection of its Jewish children? And to have to teach proper Torah values to the community of Torah?
Of course the first thing that our community will likely focus on, in its tried and true reactionary fashion is the obvious "anti-semitism" of a secular paper daring to criticize our behavior, rachmana litzlan, Heaven forfend such a Chutzpah. But after that initial outrage, could we as a Torah society of faith possibly learn to see this as a sign from Hashem? Even if we assume that they are antisemites, which is much less likely than that they honestly care about anyone openly breaking the law and hurting children, haven't antisemites tought us much throughout our history about ourselves? Do we not say the "Mah Tovu" every morning that came from the prophecy of one of the greatest enemies of the Jews, Bilaam? Was not Haman's antisemitic complaining about our being "mefuzar umeforad - spread out and scattered," a reminder us that we needed to band together in unity?
And lets face it: Deep down each and everyone of of us knew that it was a matter of time before this would happen. That our inaction in protecting our own children in a "seycheldik - common sense" way would explode in our faces. And the worst is yet to come. There are several documentaries being developed about the scandalous coverups of child sexual abuse in the Orthodox community, with at least one being produced in contract with a major cable television station, a New York Times journalist is researching the problem to publicize it and attempt to effect change, and the Federal Government has begun investigating us as well. (They are becoming more and more familiar with our "Torah true lifestyle," and its "culture clash" with the laws and norms of society.) How much more desecration of G-d's name will it take before we will finally awake to our calling, and begin to fulfill our duty? Do we really need arrests of leading rabbis for obstructing justice and tampering with witnesses by pressuring parents of child abuse victims not to do their civil and moral duty of reporting to the authorities? Recently, after the parents of one young victims did report to the police, it took the Ocean County prosecutor's office intervention and threat of prosecution to stop a prominent rabbi from sending out a letter publicly attacking the family as "crazy and evil people."
This particular Rabbi, who is a Rosh Yeshiva and a Posek of the OU, was written about last week in the NY Post, after using a similar smear campaign to attempt to wrest custody from a Jewish mother of her children becasue her husband was "more religious". My friends, why is this charlattan allowed to even get an aliyah, let alone be a respected rabbi in our community? One privilege and responsibilty we are each given by the Torah that is unlike any other religion, lehavdil, is the choice of which leaders to follow. Now that there is no longer prophecy, it is incumbent on each and every one of us to show great care and thought in which rabbis we choose as role models. "If the rabbi is like an angel of the L-rd of Hosts, learn from him, and if not do not learn from him" says the Talmud.
How much more are we going to take? Until recently, our leaders tried to tell us that they were unaware of the problem of abuse. This excuse stretches the bounds of believability and boggles the mind, but let us be fair on Erev Rosh Hashana and try to judge them favorably. Ok, so they did not know. But.... now they do! And now EVERYONE knows too. As is happening to our community in many areas of our behavior, we can no longer sweep our problems under the carpet due to technological advances in both crime prevention and law enforcement as well as the information superhighway in which everyone knows everything. So the secret is out. What will we do about it? The Chofetz Chaim said that one of the reasons Hashem gave humanity the discovery of telecommunications and recording devices was to make it easier for us to imagine that whatever we do or say is all recorded and we can never feel that nobody can know what we are doing. How much more so today when with the internet, blogs and twitter, whatever one does can be displayed instantly for the whole world live and in high definition, must we realize that the days of childishly pretending "we are all scholarly, understanding and righteuos" no longer exist.
Some of the rabbis in the APP article continue to maintain that handling abuse "internally" is the best way to go. What have we learned from the past 40 years of "handling" abuse internally, if not that it is completely ineffective and alslo against halacha as paskened by Rav Elyashiv, Reb Shlomo Zalman Aeurbach, Rav Waldneberg, Z'TL, and Yibadel, Reb Moshe Sternbuch and Rav Asher Weiss? However, on Assemblyman Dov Hikind's radio show the president of Agudas Yisroel recently promoted the idea of having MORE Batei Din established as opposed to encouraging people to use the secular courts!
This, at a time in which, unbeknownst to the writer of the APP, the same Lakewood Beis Din that referred sex offenders to me and to my colleagues at Ohel for "treatment", has been closed down, because the approach has been shown to have devastatingly destructive effects on all levels of communal functioning. But nobody knew of its existence and now that it is public, nobody knows of its non-existence. As the rabbinic leaders of Lakewood have told Mrs. Finklestien about who continues to try to find those responsible in the community for the torching of her house, "all is still hush-hush, for now".
While still hush-hush, in fact, the good news is that in isolated incidents, our rabbinic leaders have taken baby steps in following the halacha and told some individuals who were abused or whose children were abused that they are "allowed" to go to the police. However, they continue to keep quiet about this even if it means that individuals who do go to the police are attacked mercilessly as "Moysrim" by those who continue to have the mafia-like code of Omerta, implanted in their brains, in which children being molested is a lesser crime than involving the "bad goyim".
In a recent editorial in the Jewish Week, I beseeched the Rabbis in the name of all survivors that one important way for them to show survivors of abuse that they actually do care (despite their publicly fighting to protect yeshivas that have harbored molesters from lawsuits) would be to unequivocally and publicly support survivors going to the police to stop their molesters.
A young woman in from Lakewood who is a survivor of familial rape who was a patient of mine called me today crying, after reading the article in the paper. At the age when most frum girls her age are focusing on shidduchim and starting families, she is trying to cope with both what happened to her and with the community's rejection and abandonment of her need for help. She felt strongly that the article made little headway in changing anyone's attitude, and that the focus of our community needs to be on helping young people who have been abused, so that nobody shuold ever fall into the mental health problems and substance abuse that cost Shua Finkelstien his life. She pointed to the hundreds of teenagers and young jews who have dropped out of yeshivas and are "rejects" in Lakewood and in all frum communities. She would like me to set up a meeting with Rabbanim of the Moetzes for her to beg and cajole them to help survivors of abuse. Of course I said I would try. Again. I have been told by friends of mine in Aguda that while I asked for meeting with the Roshei Yeshiva Shlita, that they were not open to meeting with me about this issue. But I must try again. I believe we all should try, in whatever way we can to communicate with those in real power in our community, to beg them to do the right thing.
Of course, the timing of today's news is not a coincident. It is Erev Rosh Hashana, The Aseres Ymei Tshuvah. The Ten Days of Repentance. In Sefer Yonah we read one of the all time greatest stories of a community doing Tshuvah. Unfortunatley is was not a Jewish community, but nevertheless it has been chosen as an eternal example for us to follow. When we cry and pray on Rosh Hashana, should we not also remember what Chazal have elucidated for us from the prophecy says about Tshuva? That Hashem did NOT respond or acknowledge the fasting and the prayers of the people of Ninveh. No, G-d ONLY forgave them and spared them because of the massive change in behavior. The true sign of a change of heart is only in our actions, not in our words. As Rabeynu Yonah (not to be confused with the prophet Yonah) explains, one who confesses and regrets his sinful actions, but does not change is like a person who "immerses in the Mikva (ritual bath) while simultaneously holding a dead rodent (that makes him impure) in his hand;" e.g., an excercise in futility.
I would like to anounce that on Motzei Shabbos Shuva, Yom Kippur Eve, September 26, in Passaic, New Jersey, there will G-d willing be a gathering at the shul Ahavas Torah of Rabbi Yitzchak Eisenman entitled "Al Cheyt Shechatanu Lfanecha Bgiluy Arayos - For the sin we commited before You with illicit sexual relations." Incidently, there is also an article by Bracha Goetz of the Jewish Board of Advocates for Children that will soon be published on Aish.com by the same name.
The rabbi has seen, due in part to his personal involvement with and great assistance provided to survivors of abuse, that there is a need at this time and at such a holy special occasion to give the floor to survivors of abuse to tell their stories and their thoughts and feelings of how the community can help end abuse, and he is leading all of us with compassion and wisdom by putting together a historic event in the Charedi community. (There already was one such event, a tremedous success, in a Modern Orthodox shul in Manhattan in March, run by Rabbi Allen Shwartz of the JBAC.) With the openess and awareness that these events create about the problem, true solutions become possible and answers become clear.
What the leadership of Rabbi Eisenman shows, above all else, is that it can be done. "Lo Bashamayim Hi...Bficha Uvilvavcha Lasoso - It is not in Heaven....it is in your mouths and your hearts to do it." Lets all do it.
A Kseeva V'Chasima Tova, a Gut Gebentched Yor to all. May this be the year when we find true healing for those who suffer both from the effects of abuse and from the sickness of pedophilia, and an end to Jewish children being abused. If as a people we can accomplish this with Hashem's help, then we will truly live up to our mission as a "Kingdom of priests and a holy nation," and all other people will see it and be inspired by us and eventually come to recognize that indeed "Hashem, is the only G-d."
No exemptions for sex abuse ASBURY PARK PRESS EDITORIAL • SEPTEMBER 14, 2009 http://www.app.com/article/20090914/OPINION01/909150305/1029/OPINION/No+exemptions+for+sex+abuse
"Orthodox community deals with sex abuse," read the page 1 headline in Sunday's Asbury Park Press. But just how the Orthodox community in Lakewood deals with the problem in its midst is disturbing. Far too often, cases of sexual abuse are handled internally through a rabbinical tribunal that routinely handles civil disputes but deals with possible cases of sexual abuse as well. The Orthodox community lacks the investigative and judicial powers to issue sentences, weed out false accusations and monitor offenders.
The most the rabbinic tribunals can accomplish is to urge therapy for the abuser. That's not justice for the victim. And it may be against the law. A therapist in Brooklyn's Orthodox community for more than eight years who has treated sex offenders referred by Lakewood religious authorities said he could not recall one instance when a rabbi referred a case to law enforcement officials.
Religious authorities say they do what is necessary to rid the community of sex offenders swiftly, but it is typically done outside the framework of secular law. The rabbinic leaders must send an unequivocal message to the Orthodox community that incidents of sexual abuse must be reported to the appropriate authorities. And that point must be reinforced by the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office.
First Amendment freedoms to practice one's faith are not absolute, particularly when it puts the most vulnerable citizens at risk for irreparable physical and emotional harm. One would think that a community dedicated to Torah law would recognize the limits of that law in dealing with criminal matters and welcome the legal means to get child sexual abusers out of their communities and into the arms of the law.
State law requires anyone with "reasonable" suspicions to report acts of child abuse to the police or the state Division of Youth and Family Services. That law runs up against a different law, the Cleric-Penitent Privilege, which requires clerics such as rabbis to keep privileged any communication made in confidence unless both he and the person who did the confiding agree to release it or the information pertains to a future criminal act.
Given the rate of recidivism among sex offenders, a single confessed incident of abuse can reasonably hint at an ongoing pattern of abuse with a widening circle of victims. This sounds remarkably similar to Catholic priest scandals, where pedophile priests were counseled and transferred without ever facing the law.
If, as Job says, it is God who "reveals the deep things of darkness and brings deep shadows into the light," then those who believe in him must do the same work of bringing light out of the shadows. Secular law has the means to do just that and the rabbinic leadership needs to encourage members of the community to speak up without fear.
If the Orthodox community believes that playing cases of sexual abuse so close to the vest is a proper response, that's beyond troubling.=
Guma Aguiar is a fascinating person. It's amazing to think that Leib Tropper thought he could brainwash and control this guy for long.
See Guma filmed by his chosen rabbi Tovia Singer, of Jews for Judaism on these short YouTube clips, and oh yeah, you can hear blowing his shofar in both, what a guy, with shtik like that Tropper didn't stand a chance:
Tovia is really putting on the shmaltz for Guma because Guma must be shmeering him deluxe. But then again, Guma claims that it was Tovia who got him to abandon being a christian missionary, even though Tropper wants to claim credit for that too himself. Let's hope that Guma hasn't taken Tropper and Tovia for the rides of their lives either.
Guma was intimately connected with his uncle Dr. Tom Kaplan (not a medical doctor, but a PhD thinker type) in many aspects. Guma's mother moved to Brazil before Guma was born and married a Brazilian gentile, Otto who subsequently clained to come from Marranos. These kind of claims are hard to determine given that the Jews became Marranos 500 years ago. Otto is successful and works behind the scenes with his son Guma and he has his philanthropic foundation too, and while in Brazil, both Ellen and Otto became serious christian evangelicals and this was the home and tradition that Guma was born in to for a very long time.
When Guma was a young boy, his parents moved to the USA. It's not clear what connection Tom Kaplan had with his sister Ellen and her husband Otto and with their christian evagelicalism, he may have been one himself.
Nothing is known about the christian evangelical roots of Ellen, Otto, Tom and Guma and serious questions have not been answered. But one thing is known for sure, they were still not fully disconncted from their avowed christian evangelicalism when they got involved with Tropper yet this did not stop Tropper from seeing the riches of these people before his eyes he can spot that easily so they were to become Tropper's prime and sole supporters for the last five years at least pumping tens of millions into Tropper's pockets, organizations and all of them together forged ahead to create the EJF scheme with its component of active reaching out to non-Jews, the way christian evangelicals reach out to Jews, but only now it would be EJF that would reach out actively to gentiles by luring them to luxurious seminars at the fanciest hotels with the fanciest of speakers and getting everything on a golden platter from soup to nuts. Guess that EJF learbed something from the Hebrew Christians and the Jews for J, don't be cheap like the Orthodox are, put on the grand welcoming act because that's the way to win over converts to your side. With Kapaln and Guma rearing to go, TRopper was all set and EJF took off with a bang, until it started self-destructing almost from the outset as the nuveau scehem clashed with the archaic notions of the haredi rabbis, like Tropper's ally Rabbi Nachum Eisenstein in Israel who wants to destroy anything that is not a Haredi conversion, who almost destroyed the fisrt EJF conventions for rabbis when he told them off that they are not fit to be dayanim because they wear colored jackets and believe that the world may be older than 6000 lietral years, music to Tropper's kill Slifkin ears.
Never in the history of outreach by a haredi rabbi had such an elaborate scheme been hatched like the EJF plot to ensnare limitless numbers of gentiles to convert on the basis that they may be married to Jews. If this sounds harebrained, it is. Kaplan left the details and the running of the EJF operation to his nephew Guma and his sister Ellen Kaplan Aguiar and he was happy to slink away behind the scenes as he still does today.
When Harry/Tropper met Sally/Guma, or Crossing Delancey as a metaphor for Tropper getting in over his head with BTs and the PR/Billionaire types.
Outwardly, Tropper and Guma are different people, but in many ways on the level of raw human energy and ego they are equals, and that is why Tropper is terrified feeling hunted down and Guma has the smirk of the hunter on his face.
There is raw magnetism and charisma to both. They both share a brawny and threatening rugged approach to life. They are believers in the onging practice of the school of hard knocks. Perhaps that is why the shy and intellectual Tom Kaplan left the everyday running of both his business and phinthropy to his hard-driving nephew and why he leaves the running of the show to Tropper. But now the two go to tough guys, Tropper and Guma are at war with each other as they try to scratch each other's eyes out or rip out each other's throats whatever will come quicker.
Two maniacs going at each other. It was not always so. Tropper waisted a great opportunity in not fully mekareving Guma the right way and an even greater one in the way Tropper enraged Guma's Brazilian veibel Jamie, never get on the wrong side of a man's right hand man kind of wife, as many foes of Ronald Reagan found out when they were axed by Nancy Reagan.
Jamie Aguiar's story is also not known yet. Where she came from and how it happens to be that Guma did like his mother and found a gentile Brazilian to marry. Is she to a christian evangelical maybe. How could Tropper imagine that he could handle all these kinds of complicated human issues that would take a team of therapists to untangle and manage, yet Tropper assumed that because he was naturally a "gadol" he could do it all alone.
Guma was no dope. He was trained as a christian evangelical and went to church for most of his life like agood christian and he could see through shtik and phoniness and it did not take him too long to see through Tropper's.
One can see Guma in action and one can see that he talks a lot like Tropper, at this meeting he hosted: Guma Aguiar at the Jerusalem Conference 2009, in this video he tells a lot about his story. He calls himself "a servant of Hashem" no less, he admits that he was raised as an evangelical christian and it's what helped to make him into a "good Zionist" and only when he was 26, now he's 31 or so, he spoke with Tovia Singer who changed his life and got him to think. Guma knows his scriptures, better than most yeshiva bochurim it seems.
Well, he doesn't mention Tropper but the hitorical record shows that Tropper got hold of him and then milked him for all he was worth until all hell broke loose over the very issue they were both supposed to be fighting for, conversion.
Lately, a new video has surfaced of Guma and his wife and kids playing tennis in Israel: Guma Aguiar on Sports and Politics in Jerusalem. Yup, that's him in the yellow cap, but hey wait, who's that blond he walks up with, and then the brunette later on? Looks like the one he's playing tennis with is his wife and there are his kids. She's the Jamie in the short revealing tennis dress, gulp. These were Tropper's buddies and he never said a word that they were the ones writing the checks for the hundreds of haredi rabbis at his EJF conventions for three years or more until it slowly got out that Tropper had a falling out with Guma and that Guma had dumped him and went off to Israel. Tennis anyone? Mickey Mouse would be proud of all this, well, err, mickey mouse.
The poor Israeli interviewer is totally bamboozled by these new types of Orthodox Jews, and Israel will be in for lots more surprises.
Guma is capable of being tough, he is the ultimate jock, and frum one yet on a mission, and who knows what he will reveal about his relationship with Tropper and EJF in court.
Digging deeper into Tropper's relationship with Guma Aguiar and vice versa.
They say you can tell the character of a person by the company he keeps. If so, what does the relationship between Tropper and Guma reveal about both of them? Rabbi Dr. D. Eidensohn on his "Daat Torah" blog tried to get into the question and posted a number of penetrating posts, but eventually Guma sent his Israeli lawyer to threaten Rabbi Eidensohn to take down those key posts posted in Israel.
But astute observers have recorded the key post that led to Guma blowing his stack and of course all the issues are tied in directly with Tropper and EJF, as if they were struggling symbiotic twins. Here is that main post that led to Guma's lawyer's warning to Rabbi Eidensohn in Israel:
"SEVEN QUESTIONS FOR GUMA AGUIAR! (May 7, 2009)
Before the questions, here is an some important reason and rationale for the questions themselves:
From the time Guma Aguiar and his uncle Tom Kaplan met Rabbi Tropper who brought them into his own personal megalomaniacal vortex and got them involved with funding EJF to the tune of tens of millions of dollars, and since so many hudreds of the world's leading rabbonim got dragged into this saga willy-nilly, and since this entire matter touches on the vital interests of the Jewish People today involving as it does public campaigns to promote mass proselytizaions, therefore neither Guma Aguiar nor his uncle Tom Kaplan nor Rabbi Tropper can claim that they deserve "privacy" and non-scrutiny of their actions that are aimed at nothing less than revolutionzing the entire Jewish People (if not the world) with campaigns to enlist millions of gentiles hitched to Jews into becoming EJF-style converts to ultra-Haredi Judaism as Modern Orthodoxy and its RCA rabbinate is crushed in full public display by Rabbis Tropper and Eisenstein, while Guma continues massive financial involvement with new projects now that he is on the outs with Rabbis Tropper and Eisenstein.
So here are the legitimate unresolved questions:
(1) Has Guma Aguiar totally, truthfully and verifiably renounced his not-so-long-ago Christian Evangelicalism, which would have made him an apostate (meshumad)? If yes, how has this been verified and by whom?
(2) What was the true nature of Guma's relationship with Rabbi Tropper and what really happened between them that led to Guma no longer associating with Tropper and Tropper denouncing the conversion of Guma's wife so brutally in public, via this blog yet resorting to a forged document with forged signatures of prominent rabbis? Aside from giving millions away, how can Guma reassure the rest of us who do not get a penny from him, and are not looking for it either, that Roni/Tropper's concerns can be put in their correct context and not hang like a sword over Jamie Aguiar's converion and over Guma's crediblity head? Additinally, how come it was never revealed during all the years that Guma was co-founding and co-chairing EJF that he was living with Jamie who was not only not Jewish but also refused to go along with Rabbi Tropper and Rabbi Reuven Feinstein to convert and why was this kept a secret by all at the head of EJF and not told to more of the great rabbis whose names were involved with EJF over time, like Rabbi Eliashiv who surly would not have condoned a situation that a person who was living with a gentile and having children with her should be creating and making policy and disbursing millions of dollars to hundreds of leading rabbis to lure them to concerts and to pay them off by donating to their institutions for a supposed international Charedi new-fangled organization like EJF?
I Let Malinowitz know what's waiting for him if he did that.
Send in photos of this cockroach Malinowitz from ArtScroll, I have a special septic tank for roaches of this sort. It's called the "UOJ Roach Motel", once you check in, there's no way to get out!
On My Mind Healing Service by Phil Jacobs - editor Baltimore Jewish Times
It was in May of 2006 that about 20 survivors of sexual molestation met in a side room of the Ohel Yaakov synagogue on Glen Avenue. Almost all in attendance were Orthodox. The gender ratio was equally divided. Three community leaders were there to share, witness and support. They included Rabbi Peretz Dinovitz, Rabbi Shmuel Silber and Mrs. Zipora Schorr. The event was organized by one of the survivors who shared his story that day. One by one the survivors would say what they could say. Some told their stories publicly for the first time. For others, their molestation story is the root of their recovery story, one that was shared many times in various 12-step programs. For some it was daunting to see friends and neighbors there that we never knew shared this common bond. ...
Last Sunday, the Baltimore Board of Rabbis teamed up with Associated agencies such as JCS, CHANA and Shofar, and offered trauma survivors an opportunity to hear one another speak their pain. They offered an environment of safety, of spirituality and most of all of validity. There were well over 200 people in the room. There were 15-20 rabbis and community leaders. Associated President Marc Terrill was there. Some in attendance I’m sure were survivors who I hope felt empowered by the experience. ...
An intelligent letter in an unintelligent newspaper.
http://www.jewishpress.com/pageroute.do/40800
Discouraging Behavior I just want to say thank you for Rabbi Mordechai Weiss's Sept. 11 "Observations" column. As a ba'al teshuvah, I admit I've become somewhat disillusioned by such things as sexual abuse cover-ups and financial improprieties on the part of rabbis. Advertisement
But the camel's back was almost broken a week and a half ago when I saw videos on the Internet of some roshei yeshiva dancing and making speeches at a special seudah hoda'ah for a man who had served jail time for cheating non-Jewish Eastern Europeans out of millions of dollars.
My emunas "gedolim" has definitely waned in recent times, but Baruch Hashem I've been with Yiddishkeit long enough now to know this is considered truly despicable behavior by the Torah.
Melvin Simon, who helped create the shape of suburbia by developing shopping malls, eventually owning more of them than anybody else in the world, died Wednesday in Carmel, Ind., a suburb of Indianapolis. He was 82.
Simon Property — which is publicly held but controlled by Mr. Simon and his brother, Herbert — owns 386 properties in North America, Europe and Asia, comprising 244 million square feet. It is the largest mall operator in the United States, with 2.8 billion shopper visits each year and sales in excess of $60 billion.
It is the nation’s largest retail real estate investment trust as measured by market capitalization.
Mr. Simon was one of the first to attract movie theaters into shopping centers, after noting that huge parking lots were largely vacant in the evening. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, he ventured into movie production himself. By far his most financially successful effort was “Porky’s” (1982), a raunchy adolescent classic.
In 1983, Mel and Herb Simon bought the Indiana Pacers professional basketball team, which city leaders feared would move to Sacramento.
Melvin Simon was born in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn on Oct. 21, 1926. When he was a young boy, his father, a tailor who had emigrated from Central Europe, moved the family to the Bronx, where Mel grew up.
Mr. Simon had a reputation for flamboyance. He favored tomato-colored suits, and an often told story depicts his throwing a shoe at Herb during a business meeting.
The State of Ohio plans to try again next week to execute a convicted rapist-murderer, after a team of technicians spent two hours on Tuesday in an unsuccessful effort to inject him with lethal drugs.
Toyota said Tuesday it will order all dealers to inspect their cars for mismatched floor mats after a mat was suspected of snagging a gas pedal on a runaway Lexus, ending with a fiery crash that killed four family members in San Diego County.
Toyota Motor Sales, USA Inc. planned to issue an order Wednesday to about 1,400 Toyota and Lexus dealers nationwide to make sure each of their new, used and loaner vehicles had the proper floor mats and that the mats were properly secured, said Brian Lyons, a spokesman for the Torrance-based company.
CINCINNATI (Sept. 16) — Police say a woman has been arrested for allegedly spanking another person's 2-year-old son in a Cincinnati store.
Gloria Ballard was due in a Hamilton County on Wednesday to face an assault charge. Cincinnati police say the toddler said something that apparently annoyed Ballard inside a Salvation Army store on Tuesday. Police say she then told the boy's mother she didn't know how to take care of her son, put him over her knee, and spanked him three times.
Police say the two women didn't know each other and that the 44-year-old Ballard wasn't given permission to touch the child.
Hasidic Jew bites Ukrainian policeman in kosher food row DPA / Earth Times
Kiev - A Hasidic Jewish pilgrim bit a Ukrainian policeman while other pilgrims smashed a television camera in a row over kosher food, Channel 5 television reported Thursday. The incident took place in the central Ukrainian city Uman', a pilgrimage site for one of the nine main branches of Hasidic Judaism.
The conflict began after Uman' police attempted to shut down a group of kiosks operated by the pilgrims, according to the report citing Svetlana Lipinska, an Uman' city official.
The owner-operators said they were providing kosher food acceptable to Hasidic teachings, unavailable elsewhere in Uman'.
The Ukrainian law enforcers alleged the kiosks were not registered businesses, violated city health codes, and should be shut down.
One kiosk operator bit a policeman's finger, and others smashed a camera operated by a local television station, as law enforcers moved to dismantle the kiosks.
Police intervention came after city officials consulted with pilgrimage organizers, and according to a Unian news agency report were told by Daniel Dayan, a leader of Uman's Hasidic community, that the kiosk operators were engaged in business outside normal pilgrimage activities.
The central Ukrainian city Uman' is the site of an annual pilgrimage by some 25,000 members of the Hasidic branch of the Jewish faith during Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.
One of the leading early activists of the Hasidic movement, Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, is buried in Uman'. A visit to his grave is the highpoint of a pilgrimage to the city.
Rochel Krishevsky was niftar this week at 99, leaving behind 1400 ayneklach. Shmarya posted the obit knowing full well the sharks that swim with him would launch a bloody feeding frenzy.
Shmarya groupies attack the nifteres with the following criticisms:
this is the height of selfishness. we live on a planet with limited resources which can only support a finite number of humans and animals. while a brief period post holocaust of jewish replenishment is defendable, the concept of 2 people flooding the earth with 1400 variants of their DNA in a mere 100 years is greed of the greatest magnitude. if every inhabitant of our home did the same, earth's ability to sustain us all would be surpassed in a very short span of time. maybe even in the lifetime of one of her descendants. only in the fun-house mirror that is religion does this appear to be a laudable act.
Posted by: ah-pee-chorus | September 17, 2009 at 07:14 AM
How many of those 1400 are on welfare? How many of them married each other?
Posted by: WoolSilkCotton | September 17, 2009 at 08:04 AM
Most non-haredi Jews are not on welfare. They work and contribute wonderfully to society.
Most haredi Jews ARE on welfare, and are leeches on the rest of Jewry and society at large.
Posted by: WoolSilkCotton | September 17, 2009 at 09:06 AM
Now, you know a word has lost all meaning when Jimmy Carter finally gets around to saying it. America's angriest has-been just had to weigh in on the Joe Wilson affair, linking it to inherent racism
The Acorn scandal continues to mushroom. Yesterday BigGovernment.com published videos from a fourth Acorn office visit by freelance investigators James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles. As Johnny Carson used to say, it's weird, wild stuff. The woman manning the Acorn office in San Bernardino, Calif., Tresa Kaelke, responds to the pair's requests for help setting up a child-prostitution ring by claiming to be an ex-prostitute herself. "Heidi Fleiss is my hero!" she exclaims.
When Giles claims her former pimp abused her, Kaelke tells of having been abused by an ex-husband--then confesses to his premeditated murder. San Bernardino's finest are looking into the claim: "Investigators have been in contact with the involved party's known former husbands, who are alive and well." Thus her claims "do not appear to be factual."
Government officials continue responding to the Acorn revelations. The New York Post reports that Andrew Cuomo, New York's state attorney general, "yesterday launched an investigation into pork-barrel grants given to ACORN by state lawmakers, as City Council Speaker Christine Quinn froze all city funding earmarked for the scandal-scared [sic] community-activism organization"--this in response to the third released set of videos, from Acorn's Brooklyn office.
The Wall Street Journal urges the U.S. Justice Department to undertake a criminal investigation of Acorn. This column echoes that call, although we wonder if the Obama administration is compromised here. The president, who as a candidate touted his background as a "community organizer," has extensive ties to Acorn.
And in August 2008, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported that the Obama campaign paid more than $800,000 to an Acorn "offshoot" for "get out the vote" projects.
Obama worked for Acorn and Acorn worked for Obama. That doesn't mean the president is implicated in any wrongdoing, but it suggests at least that the worse things get for Acorn, the more embarrassing it is for him. If the Justice Department fails to prosecute, it invariably would raise suspicions of political favoritism. This column does not care for special prosecutors, but the case for appointing one would seem to be stronger here than usual.
A Republican senator is calling for the White House to suspend a new project that asks members of the public to flag “fishy” claims about President Obama’s health care plans, arguing that it raises privacy concerns and will serve to chill free speech.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, is sending a letter to the White House today asking the president to “cease this program immediately” -- or to explain how Americans’ privacy will be protected if e-mails are forwarded to the White House as requested.
“I am not aware of any precedent for a President asking American citizens to report their fellow citizens to the White House for pure political speech that is deemed ‘fishy’ or otherwise inimical to the White House’s political interests,” Cornyn writes
“I can only imagine the level of justifiable outrage had your predecessor asked Americans to forward emails critical of his policies to the White House. I suspect that you would have been leading the charge in condemning such a program -- and I would have been at your side denouncing such heavy-handed government action.”
Yesterday, White House director of new media Macon Phillips wrote a blog posting urging readers to flag questionable claims about health care proposals.
Timothy L. Lantz was sentenced today to 15 years in prison for transporting child pornography in interstate commerce and failing to update his sex offender registration in violation of the Adam Walsh Act.
Lantz, 57, was also sentenced by U.S. District Judge George C. Smith in Columbus, Ohio, to lifetime supervised release following his prison term, and was ordered to pay a $10,000 fine. Lantz pleaded guilty to the charges on May 4, 2009.
According to his plea agreement, Lantz, a convicted sex offender, fled the Columbus area in January 2007, days after members of the FBI Cybercrime Task Force searched his West Columbus apartment and seized multiple computers, hard drives and other media. Forensic analysis uncovered more than 9,000 images and 1,200 videos of child pornography on the computers and storage media.
An international search for Lantz ended in the Philippines in June 2008, when Philippine Immigration and Philippine National Police authorities arrested him without incident in the remote Kolambugan, Lanao Del Norte region. Philippine authorities turned Lantz over to the U.S. Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service in Manila, and Deputy U.S. Marshals returned him to the United States, where he has since been in custody.
The New York Times finally waddles in with a story on the Acorn scandal, though the paper frames it not as a scandal but a partisan squabble. It's amusingly titled "Conservatives Draw Blood From Acorn" and begins as follows:
"For months during last year's presidential race, conservatives sought to tar the Obama campaign with accusations of voter fraud and other transgressions by the national community organizing group Acorn, which had done some work for the campaign.
But it took amateur actors, posing as a prostitute and a pimp and recorded on hidden cameras in visits to Acorn offices, to send government officials scrambling in recent days to sever ties with the organization.
Conservative advocates and broadcasters were gleeful about the success of the tactics in exposing Acorn workers, who appeared to blithely encourage prostitution and tax evasion. It was, in effect, the latest scalp claimed by those on the right who have made no secret of their hope to weaken the Obama administration by attacking allies and appointees they view as leftist."
You've got to love that ". . . they view as leftist." The Times is able to identify the "right," but the "left" is a mystery to it. The Times quotes one guy it views as liberal:
"Robert L. Borosage, co-director of the liberal Campaign for America's Future, called the tactics used to go after [Van] Jones and Acorn "McCarthyite," and said the critics were harping on minor failings and distorting records that over all were admirable. "This is dangerous stuff," Mr. Borosage said. "I don't think progressives will sit back and let this gain momentum."
So now countenancing child prostitution is a "minor failing"? We shudder to think what these "progressives" want to progress toward.
Under New York State General Business Law section 518, no seller may impose a surcharge for customers who elect to pay via credit card in lieu of payment by cash, check or similar means. After receiving complaints from local consumers, the Attorney General’s Office conducted an immediate investigation into Suffolk County-based companies that were routinely charging illegal surcharges.
In Guma's relationship with Tropper, the remaining questions posed were:
"(3) What is the status of Jamie Aguiar, Guma's converted wife and their children born before she was converted or now that the conversion is disputed by Rabbis Tropper and Eisenstein? Is what poster Roni/Tropper alleged true and is there any way of knowing not just what happened, which seems to be controversial, but what has been or is being done to remedy the situation so that Jamie Aguiar be converted, not by EJF of course, but using their "rationales" perhaps so that controversy not surround Jamie Aguiar's conversion and that the matter can be resolved and finally put to rest to everyone's satisfaction?
(4) What is the status of the dispute between Guma and his uncle Tom that was openly reported in the press about the legal case that uncle Tom brought against Guma with accustions that Guma is suffering from a messiah complex and that Guma (presumably with his mother Ellen and maybe even his father Otto) wrongfully wrested control of the Lillian Jean Kaplan Foundation from uncle Tom (Ellen's brother)? Oh, and why is it only the Lillian Jean Kaplan Foundation, didn't "Lillian Jean" also have a husband, or was he also not Jewish or was something else wrong with him? Intelligent people notice all this stuff and they want to know to allay their worries given all the controversies surrounding EJF and the controversial events surrounding Jamie's and even Otto's conversion supposedly by Rabbi Herbert Bomzer that angered Tropper and was hotly disputed on this very blog so many times by poster Roni/Tropper!
(5) What is the present status of Guma's parents because Ellen Kaplan, Guma's mother was also an admitted Christian Evangelical (making her an apostate/meshumedes according to Jewish law) and she married Otto who was not Jewish. The question is relevant because Guma is giving philanthropy from the Lillian Jean Kaplan Foundation and it was Guma and his mother Ellen who officially signed as its founders and they presumabyly continue to control it. While we hear of Guma we don't hear of his mother Ellen but she must surely also be involved in the decision-making if she co-chairs the Lillian Jean Kaplan Foundation with her son Guma! Additionally, what is the status of Ellen's husband and Guma's father, Otto Aguiar's conversion and what is the level of religious observance of the senior Aguiar family? These are not random questions but are critical in order for all the Aguiar's to gain absolute legitimacy in the eyes of concerned Charedi and all Orthodox Jews and set at ease any lingering supicions that they are not just a well-honed fifth column of Christian Evangelicals trying to penetrate into the heart of the Orthodox world which can be very vulnerable."
"(6) What are Guma's criteria in choosing who he gives his philanthropy to? Such as, why has Guma chosen to fund organizations organizations like Nefesh BeNefesh and praising Shavei Israel that are promoted by Christian Evangelicals? Or organizations like EJF where he was very active that promotes proselytizations and conversions for millions of gentiles not in the manner or traditions or laws of Judaism for the last 2000 years or more?
(7) And finally, who are Guma's present spiritual guides? He had previously been under the spell of Tropper. The name of Rabbi Tovia Singer of Outreach Judaism keeps on being mentioned in connection with events that Guma sponsors. Guma and Jamie Aguiar have also been generous to the Chabad rabbis in Florida that they were close to. Poster Roni/Tropper alleged that Rabbi Bomzer received hefty pay-offs too from the Aguiars. So is any one of these their "rabbi"? Or do they have other rabbis now Israel that they have decided to follow? The question is important because choosing a rabbi is not just a key decision required by the classical rabbis who say "asy lecha rav" but it goes a lot deeper and as Guma's experience with Tropper should teach it has major ramifications. If Guma and Jamie do not have one single rabbi presently as their guide, the question is why not? They are not learned enough in Judaism to follow their hearts' desires which could lead them astray quite easily. They should have one, or at least a key known Torah scholar person who can guide them correctly."
A K'Sivah V'Chasima Tova to you and all your loved ones! May this coming year be one of health, joy, prosperity and accomplishment for all of us and klal yisroel, amen.
The Chicago Center for Torah and Chesed has met with Chicago and Lincolnwood police to discuss safety in the 24th and 17th districts. The Police Departments have assured us that during the upcoming ימים נוראים they will be paying special attention towards the safety of our community members. In addition to increased patrols, the police will also be visiting neighborhood shuls. We’d like to remind the community to always be vigilant of their surroundings.
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) -- Authorities have put out a statewide alert for a mentally ill killer who escaped during a hospital field trip to a county fair, leading to fears that he'll become more unstable and potentially dangerous the longer he is on the loose with no medication.
Sgt. Dave Reagan of the Spokane County sheriff's office says Phillip Arnold Paul remained at large Friday and officials believe he's headed to Sunnyside, the town where his parents live. Anyone spotting him should call 911 and not try to confront him.
Paul was committed after he was acquitted by reason of insanity in the 1987 slaying of an elderly woman in Sunnyside. He soaked the woman's body in gasoline to throw off search dogs and buried the remains in her flower garden. He reportedly said voices in his head told him she was a witch.
The 57-year-old Paul escaped Thursday during a supervised outing to the Spokane County Interstate Fair for patients from Eastern State Hospital. Thirty-one patients from the mental hospital were on the trip with 11 staff members.
Local officials and fairgoers said they were stunned that mental patients, including at least one with a criminal past, would be taken to the fair.
''I think it's wrong, it's totally wrong,'' said Jennifer Craig, who was visiting the fair with her husband and grandchildren. ''You're putting too many kids and old disabled people like me at risk.''
Patients must be cleared by a treatment team of six to 12 clinicians according to an extensive checklist before they can go on field trips to stores, parks, ball games, fairs and other sites, said hospital spokesman Jim Stevenson said. They wear street clothing and need not all stay together, but staff members are required to keep each patient within eyesight at all times.
''They have gone to the county fair in past years,'' said hospital spokesman Jim Stevenson.
Hospital CEO Harold E. Wilson, quoting David Mandel, told The Spokesman-Review Paul had been ''a fairly model patient.''
The escape led state Department of Social and Health Services Secretary Susan Dreyfus to order an indefinite halt to all outings involving criminally committed patients at the state's three mental institutions, fearing UOJ would initiate his own crackdown.
Dreyfus also instructed Eastern State to review the policy on patient outings and a plan to prevent similar problems.
''It's outrageous that security was so inept that a guy who's officially regarded as criminally insane was able to just slip away from the group,'' state Rep. Matt Shea of Spokane Valley told The Spokesman-Review.
It was the second escape for Paul. In 1991, he walked away from custody during a day trip in Medical Lake and was captured at Fishtrap on the western Spokane County line. He attacked a sheriff's deputy in the jail booking area, knocking him unconscious and separating his shoulder, and was convicted of first-degree escape and second-degree assault.
Paul, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia, was acquitted by reason of insanity after the 1987 killing and committed to Eastern State Hospital indefinitely.
Hospital officials told authorities that Paul hadn't exhibited violent behavior in years. They argued in the past that he should be released
Jewish leaders are calling on U.S. rabbis to emphasize the faith's ethical requirements in their sermons during Rosh Hashana in response to recent financial scandals involving its members, including Bernard Madoff. Jews have been embarrassed the past year by the arrest of former Wall Street tycoon Madoff, who is serving a 150-year prison sentence for defrauding investors out of billions of dollars, and several rabbis who were arrested in July on money laundering charges, said Richard Joel, president of Yeshiva University in New York. Widely distributed images showed them being led into the FBI building in Newark in rabbinical garb and handcuffs didn't help.
"It's troubling," said Rabbi Moshe Kletenik, president of the Rabbinical Council of America, which comprises about 1,000 rabbis in the U.S., Canada and Israel. "Ethical living is as significant a part of leading a religious life as ritual law."
The letter was sent to graduates of Yeshiva University, who serve as religious leaders for 85 percent of the nation's orthodox Jewish synagogues. It also was distributed to members of the Orthodox Union, which represents about 15 percent of U.S. Jews, and the Rabbinical Council. There are believed to be 5.3 million to 5.5 million Jews in the U.S.
"These crimes were extremely hurtful and disappointing," said Rabbi Steven Weil, executive vice president of the Orthodox Union. "Judaism has to be associated with the greatest degree of integrity, honesty and sincerity."
TORONTO, Canada - A protest over a Toronto International Film Festival spotlight on Tel Aviv cinema has galvanized the globe's creative community.
"We protest that TIFF, whether intentionally or not, has become complicit in the Israeli propaganda machine," said the Toronto Declaration, signed earlier this month by 65 artists, including actresses Jane Fonda and Julie Christie, musicians David Byrne (lead singer of Talking Heads) and Harry Belafonte and writers such as Alice Walker and Wallace Shawn. Since then, 1,500 have added their names to the document, including 60 Israelis. The letter denounces the TIFF focus on Tel Aviv as being subverted by "the Israeli propaganda machine."
The issue picked up steam a week before the festival opened, when writer Naomi Klein ("The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism"), publicized the Toronto Declaration which criticized the Tel Aviv spotlight. Writer and academic Noam Chomsky, actor Danny Glover and many Canadian and Israeli artists and filmmakers were among the 65 who signed. Actors Julie Christie and Viggo Mortensen (Lord of the Rings) fell into a category of those who signed the petition and still attended the festival.
The declaration spearheaded by Klein said that celebrating Tel Aviv was like celebrating Johannesburg during the height of apartheid and that Tel Aviv was "built on destroyed Arab villages." Dueling opinion pieces continued for days in local newspapers and Facebook discussions went practically viral.
Actor Jon Voight, who starred with Fonda years ago in "Coming Home," and has ties to the Orthodox Jewish Chabad network, issued a statement condemning Fonda.
Rabbi Marvin Hier, who founded the Los Angeles Simon Wiesenthal Center, compared the protesters to Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and those who seek to destroy Israel, since claiming that Tel Aviv is on Palestinian land implies a non-recognition of Israel.
A 78-year-old retired Brooklyn, N.Y. tax lawyer said Thursday he will continue to challenge state and federal rulings disallowing medical expense tax deductions he claimed for his spending on prostitutes and pornography.
"It's a holistic approach to medicine," William G. Halby told Forbes. He said he spent the money--more than $300,000 over five years--to fight depression: "I live alone. I have no regular sexual partner." A father of three adult children, Halby said he has been separated for eight years but hasn't filed for divorce because it would affect medical insurance for his spouse.
His appeal of the New York state decision--it found he owes tax of $18,000 plus interest--is pending before the State Tax Appeals Tribunal in Albany, an employee for that agency confirmed Thursday.
They may not be called taxes, but they'll hurt just the same.
The main revenue raiser in this plan is a tax beginning in 2013, on insurance coverage with a value that exceeds $21,000 for a family or $8,000 for an individual. The more you look at this provision, the more convoluted it appears and the worse the paperwork burden for business owners and their accountants. The employer must aggregate all the different health coverage (health, dental, vision, supplemental, etc.) provided to an individual and also include any coverage in the form of reimbursements from a Health Savings Account, or a Health Reimbursement Account, plus employer contributions to an HSA. The small business must then apportion those excess amounts among the different insurance providers, issue a W-2 that includes the values to the employee and also report all this to the Internal Revenue Service.
So just to be clear, let's say an insurance company issues an insurance policy to a family with a cost of $19,000. The family also has a contribution made on its behalf to an HSA and has dental and supplemental coverage. All these items together total $30,000. The employer figures this all out, pro rates the excess (over $21,000) amounts to each insurer (even though no single one is over $21,000), and the insurers pays the IRS a 35% tax on that pro-rated amount. Naturally, if the employer doesn't report correctly to the IRS, there will be a significant fine. No discussion by the Committee of the compliance cost this will impose on small-business owners.
These premium taxes are on top of $60 billion in new "fees" based on market share that are imposed on health insurers. My green eye-shade friends tell me that that this fee/tax will increase premiums by 2% to 4%.
Another hidden tax hike: Employers offer employees the chance to put pre-tax money into HSAs and flexible spending accounts to help them cover their growing share of health costs (deductibles, uncovered items, copays). The Committee is tightening significantly what HSA and FSA money can be used for. Only those medical costs that are currently allowed to be claimed as itemized deductions could be paid for with money from HSAs and FSAs. In addition, the Committee will specifically not allow the purchase of over-the-counter drugs to be covered by these accounts. Even more significant , the proposal would limit the amount put in an FSA to $2,000 a year. (An employee having extensive dental work can easily exceed that in a year.) It all means more taxes
Congress passed a law barring State Department officials from attending United Nations meetings presided over by terrorist nations, but the New York Times is reporting that the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel has advised that officials "may disregard" the law because it infringes on the president's foreign policy prerogatives.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The deadly fire at Angeles National Forest is renewing a push from California lawmakers for a national registry of convicted arsonists.
The current House bill states the registry would contain the Social Security number and address of the arsonist, his or her place of employment, a description of their vehicles, a photograph, a set of finger and palm prints as well a physical description and a description of the criminal offense.
First-time offenders would remain on the registry for five years, two-time offenders for 10 years and anyone convicted of three or more offenses would remain on the registry for life. Those required to be included on the database will have to verify their registration at least once a year.
The legislation makes the Justice Department responsible for maintaining a national arsonist and bomber Internet site.
Nationally, there were nearly 63,000 arsons in 2008
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The federal government and states are girding themselves for the next foreclosure crisis in the country's housing downturn: payment option adjustable rate mortgages that are beginning to reset.
"Payment option ARMs are about to explode," Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said after a Thursday meeting with members of President Barack Obama's administration to discuss ways to combat mortgage scams.
"That's the next round of potential foreclosures in our country," he said.
Option-ARMs are now considered among the riskiest offered during the recent housing boom and have left many borrowers owing more than their homes are worth. These "underwater" mortgages have been a driving force behind rising defaults and mounting foreclosures.
In Arizona, 128,000 of those mortgages will reset over the the next year and many have started to adjust this month, the state's attorney general, Terry Goddard, told Reuters after the meeting.
"It's the other shoe," he said. "I can't say it's waiting to drop. It's dropping now."
The mortgages differ from other ARMs by offering an option to pay only the interest each month or a low minimum payment that leads to a rising balance in the loan's principal.
When the balance of the loan reaches a certain level or the mortgage hits a specific date, the borrower must begin making full payments to cover the new amount. The loan's interest rate also may have been fixed at a low level for the first few years with a so-called teaser rate, but then reset to a higher level.
Because the new monthly payments can be five or 10 times what borrowers are accustomed to paying, they "threaten a much greater hit to the consumer than the subprimes," Goddard said, referring to the mortgages often extended to less credit-worthy borrowers that fed the first wave of the financial crisis.
Many economists say there is still a huge supply of unsold homes lingering on the market and that, coupled with a frenzy of more foreclosures ahead, should depress home prices for the rest of 2009.
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Friday the Holocaust was a "lie" and a pretext to create a Jewish state that Iranians had a religious duty to confront.
"The pretext Holocaust for the creation of the Zionist regime is false. It is a lie based on an unprovable and mythical claim," he told worshippers at Tehran University at the end of an annual anti-Israel "Qods (Jerusalem) Day" rally.
"Confronting the Zionist regime is a national and religious duty."
Since coming to power in 2005, Ahmadinejad has provoked international condemnation for saying the Holocaust was a "myth" and calling Israel a "tumor" in the Middle East.
His government held a conference in 2006 questioning the fact that Nazis used gas chambers to kill 6 million Jews in World War II.
The hardline president, who often rails against Israel and the West, warned leaders of Western-allied Arab and Muslim countries about dealing with Israel.
"This regime (Israel) will not last long. This regime has no future. Its life has come to an end," he said.
Israel, the United States and their European allies suspect Iran of trying to use its nuclear program to build an atomic bomb. Tehran insists its nuclear work is aimed at generating electricity.
Iran rejected any Middle East peace plan that did not guarantee the rights of the Palestinians.
The hardline leader played down the importance of any protests he may face in New York during his upcoming trip to attend the U.N. General Assembly.
"These futile actions have no political value. The Iranian nation will not blink an eye over your actions," he said to chants of "Death to Israel."
BROOKLYN (Reuters) - YTT's Leopold Margulies said on Friday that molestation was a "lie" and a pretext to create competition to the "best yeshiva" that Hungarians had a duty to confront. "The pretext is false. It is a lie based on an unprovable claim," he told worshippers at 555 Ocean Pkwy at the end of erev Rosh Hashana selichos. "Confronting UOJ is a Hungarian and Agudah duty." Since he drove a bus for Torah Vodaath, Margulies has provoked international controversy for saying molestation was a "myth" and calling UOJ a "tumor" in Klal Yisroel. His administration held a conference in 2006 with Twerski and Mandel questioning the fact that Kolko used the YTT boiler room & his private bathroom to molest little Jews. The hardline "rosh yeshiva", who often rails against UOJ and his supporters, warned rabbonim about dealing with UOJ. "This blog (UOJ) will not last long. This regime has no future. Its life has come to an end," he said. Rav Blau and other sensible rabbonim suspect Margulies of allowing YTT to be used as a den of iniquity. Margulies insists that there is only learning of Torah on the premesis. Margulies rejected any discussions of Kolko that did not guarantee his rights to tamper with the beis din. The Agudah's Jacob Perlow played down the importance of any protests outside the fresser convention. "These futile actions have no value. The "gedolim" will not blink an eye over your picketing and protests," he said to chants of "Down with UOJ."
When she cleans the rooms of patients with swine flu symptoms, Jana Newton, a housekeeper at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, has to suit up for her own protection in a mask, gloves, gown and hairnet.
But she still does not want the one thing that would give her a far better defense — a flu shot.
She is not alone.
Also, although the original intent was to protect the recipient and cut down on absenteeism, it slowly became clear that in hospitals, fewer flus in doctors and nurses meant fewer dead patients.
“I was an epidemiologist at San Francisco General in the early 1990s,” Dr. Gerberding said. “Among bone marrow transplant patients and others who were profoundly immune-suppressed, outbreaks of flu and other viruses could be very deadly. That changed the paradigm.”
HAMODIA 27 ELUL 5769 | COMMUNITY | SEPTEMBER 16, 2009 Special Feature | By Menachem Lubinsky (Pages:) C10 & C12
The Emerging Story of a Miracle in Odessa
[Lengthy two page article written by LUBICOM president, with a buried mention of EJF and its involvement with this project]:
“…Ohr Somayach became one of the first kiruv organizations to function here, they appointed Rabbi Shlomo Baksht, a young idealistic, energetic talmid chacham, to assume the task of bringing a semblance of Yiddishkeit to this spiritually ravaged seaport city. What he accomplished in the 17 years he has been here is nothing short of a miracle, an accomplishment few would have dared to dream of in a community that had been all but abandoned…
The occasion is a Shabbos in Elul designed to further strengthen the kiruv efforts of Nefesh Yehudi, funded by the Wolfson/Horn families and the anti-intermarriage programs of the Eternal Jewish family, funded by Tom Kaplan and led by Rabbi Leib Tropper, Rosh Yeshivah Kol Yaakov/Horizons…
At the opening session on Thursday evening, Rabbi Tropper’s plea to marry Jewish is carried on a huge screen in a nearby amphitheater. I amplify his thoughts with a reflection on the historic moment of making 70 years since the beginning of Churban Europe…
Rabbi Refoel Kruskal…built two chinuch institutions. But these are not the best of times for him or Rabbi Baksht. “We had to cut our budget from $11 million to $8 million as a result of the recession, when it became more difficult to raise funds.” That meant cutting out a newspaper that went to 10,000 homes, ceasing a media station that reached out to Ukrainian Jews…”
…Rabbi Baksht is frustrated at how much there is to do and the limited resources with which he has to work…”
The Jewish Press Friday, September 18, 2009 Page 71
“A Plea To Marry Jewish In Odessa
An amphitheater overflowing with Jewish students was the background for a plea “to preserve your ties with our eternal Jewish family and to Our Father” by Rabbi Leib Tropper, chairman of the rabbinic committee of the Eternal Jewish Family (EJF). Speaking via live hookup during the opening of a major shabbaton in Odessa, Ukraine, Rabbi Tropper received wide applause when he pleaded, “do not sever your ties to our glorious past and even more to what will be a glorious future.” The shabbaton was part of a major initiative by EJF to stem the tide of assimilation in intermarriages in Jewish communities around the world. It was sponsored in conjunction with Nefesh Yehudi and funded by the Wolfson and Horn Families and Tikva, a local kiruv organization.
Rabbi Tropper was followed by Menachem Lubinsky, president of LUBICOM Marketing Consulting and special consultant to EJF. Noting that it was the week marking the 70th anniversary of the beginning of the systematic destruction of eastern European Jewry by the Nazis, Lubinsky added, “What better time than now to reaffirm our commitment to Jewish eternity?”…
The session was introduced by Rabbi Shlomo Baksht, Odessa’s chief rabbi and architect of the remarkable resurgence of Jewish life in Odessa…
…More than 25 young frum couples have gone through Tikvah and Shma Yisroel (a network of Torah institutions) and will be the leaders of a new frum communty in Odessa for years to come.
EJF will be organizing similar events in America and Asia. EJF is funded by the Kaplan Foundation, and headed by Tom Kaplan its chairman.”
Embattled New York Governor David Paterson didn’t deny reports that the White House wants to him step aside, fearing his low approval ratings are beyond repair, but told the New York Post he was still running -- for now.
Sources have said Rep. Gregory Meeks has carried the message from President Obama, and Paterson Sunday didn’t deny having serious talks with the Queens Democrat, the New York Post reported.
"I mean I have had a number of conversations with a number of different people," Paterson told reporters at the African American Day Parade in Harlem.
"They were confidential. I’m not going to discuss them ... I’m not talking about any specific conversations. As I said, I am running for office. I’m not going to discuss confidential conversations."
A bill offered by Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., and expected to pass easily would provide 13 weeks of extended unemployment benefits for more than 300,000 jobless people who live in states with unemployment rates of at least 8.5 percent and who are scheduled to run out of benefits by the end of September.
The 13-week extension would supplement the 26 weeks of benefits most states offer and the federally funded extensions of up to 53 weeks that Congress approved in legislation last year and in the stimulus bill enacted last February.
Critics of unemployment insurance argue that it can be a disincentive to looking for work, and that extending benefits at a time the economy is showing signs of recovery could be counterproductive.
Stettner predicted that Congress will likely have to continue extending jobless benefits through 2011.
McDermott said his bill would extend for a year a federal unemployment tax of $14 per employee per year that employers have been paying for more than 30 years.
The Internal Revenue Service will announce on Monday that it is extending its amnesty program intended to root out those suspected of using offshore accounts to evade taxes. The move comes as a flood of wealthy Americans with secret accounts in Switzerland and elsewhere are coming forward to disclose their hidden assets.
The I.R.S. will give such account holders an additional 22 days, until Oct. 15, to reveal their accounts if they hope to escape stiffer penalties, a government official said late Sunday. After that, the government plans to prosecute those suspected of tax evasion whose identities it learns but who do not come forward.
The so-called voluntary disclosure program, which began in March as a way of luring American clients of the Swiss bank UBS out of the woodwork, has attracted 3,000 taxpayers so far, compared with just 80 last year, the official said. Some of the taxpayers are clients of other banks.
UBS is preparing to hand over 4,450 client names under a deal reached last month with the I.R.S. and the Justice Department, which is investigating the bank’s offshore services. In February, UBS admitted its criminal wrongdoing with the services and paid a $780 million fine.
The original deadline for the amnesty program was Wednesday.
Investors who come forward before Oct. 15 will be subject to a reduced penalty, of 5 to 20 percent, depending in part on whether their wealth was inherited.
They will also be hit with the penalty just once, on the highest balance in the accounts over the last six years, instead of for each of the six years, a level that can leave account holders owing more in taxes than they have.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — As the United States prepares to triple its aid package to Pakistan — to a proposed $1.5 billion over the next year — Obama administration officials are debating how much of the assistance should go directly to a government that has been widely accused of corruption, American and Pakistani officials say.
The idea, proposed last Wednesday by Senator Max Baucus, is to help raise money for the nation’s health care overhaul by placing a new excise tax on the most expensive health insurance policies, like the ones offered to partners at Goldman Sachs.
As it turns out, though, many smaller fish would get caught in Mr. Baucus’s tax net. The supposedly Cadillac insurance policies include ones that cover many of the nation’s firefighters and coal miners, employees at small businesses — a whole gamut that runs from union shops to Main Street entrepreneurs.
Under the Baucus plan, insurers selling a plan costing more than $8,000 for an individual and $21,000 for a family would have to pay a 35 percent excise tax on the excess amount.
Although the national average premium is currently $13,375 for a family policy, many are much higher than that — particularly in high-cost parts of the country.
People who live in high-cost areas, like the Northeast or California, would also have a greater risk that their insurance plans would set off the excise tax — not because the coverage is particularly generous, but because the price of their policies reflects the higher medical costs where they live. Massachusetts residents, for example, tend to pay more than a quarter more in premiums, on average, than people living in Idaho.
Bruce Hodson is a state employee in Maine and the president of Local 1989 of the Service Employees International Union, where the cost of a family plan is now running at about $20,500 a year. At the typical pace of health premium inflation, his policy could very likely set off the tax if it goes into effect in 2013, as the Baucus plan proposes.
Even if most employees around the nation might initially escape, experts say more people’s insurance plans would cross into the taxable range in future years. If the inflation rate in premiums continues its pace of the last 10 years, even the average cost of family coverage would probably cross the threshold within a few years of the tax’s going into effect.
“That number is going to grow and grow and grow,” said Marissa Milton, analyst for the HR Policy Association, which represents employers’ benefit managers.
Ms. Milton drew a comparison to the alternative minimum tax — modified in 1986, supposedly as a way to keep affluent people from using deductions to avoid paying taxes. In reality, it has ended up capturing more and more middle-class taxpayers, Ms. Milton said. Likewise, the insurance excise tax “is going to affect a lot of families,” she said.
By his own calculation, Robert Hansen, business professor at Dartmouth, is one of the Americans who might be considered to have luxurious coverage, because the cost of his benefits could easily top $25,000.
But that supposedly “gold-plated coverage,” he said, includes the cost of related benefits, like dental coverage and the money in his flexible spending account — all of which would be subject to the excise tax.
And who will pay the $1,450 in additional taxes Mr. Hansen would incur? “In the end, look in the mirror,” he said.
“It’s the worst kind of economic engineering,” he said. “You end up with something that looks like the I.R.S. code.”
Small employers would also be hit by the taxes — and, again, not because they offer overly generous coverage. Instead, small businesses tend to pay more for their insurance than bigger employers that can negotiate better premiums.
Post-apartheid South Africa is at grave risk of producing what one veteran commentator has called another lost generation, entrenching the racial and class divide rather than bridging it. Half the students never make it to 12th grade. Many who finish at rural and township schools are so ill educated that they qualify for little but menial labor or the ranks of the jobless, fueling the nation’s daunting rates of unemployment and crime.
Despite sharp increases in education spending since apartheid ended, South African children consistently score at or near rock bottom on international achievement tests, even measured against far poorer African countries. This bodes ill for South Africa’s ability to compete in a globalized economy, or to fill its yawning demand for skilled workers.
And the wrenching achievement gap between black and white students persists. Here in the Western Cape, only 2 out of 1,000 sixth graders in predominantly black schools passed a mathematics test at grade level in 2005, compared with almost 2 out of 3 children in schools once reserved for whites that are now integrated, but generally in more affluent neighborhoods.
“If you say 3 times 3, they will say 6,” said Patrine Makhele, a math teacher at Kwamfundo here in this overwhelmingly black township, echoing the complaint of colleagues who say children get to high school not knowing their multiplication tables.
Appearing on “Face the Nation” on CBS on Sunday, Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee and the first African-American to hold that position, criticized Mr. Obama.
“I found that to be stunning, that the White House would send word to one of only two black governors in the country not to run for re-election,” Mr. Steele said.
He also questioned why similar pressure was not exerted on Gov. Jon S. Corzine of New Jersey.
“I think Governor Paterson’s numbers are about the same as Governor Corzine’s numbers, and yet the president was with Governor Corzine,” Mr. Steele said.
Moody’s forecasts that some home prices may not return to their pre-recession levels until 2030. This means that hundreds of thousands of Americans may find it impossible to sell their houses without making payments to their banks to cover underwater home loans.
MarketWatch reports that a new Moody’ housing forecasts says that “It will take more than a decade to completely recover from the 40% peak-to-trough decline in national home prices.”
In many parts of the country, which include large states like New York and Illinois, home prices will not rebound to 2006 levels until 2018 to 2022. In the states where prices have fallen the most, particularly California and Florida, values may not rebound until 2024,
The prediction, if correct, means that Baby Boomers and even some of their older children may not be able to sell home to help finance retirements. The use of homes to get equity loans will be out of the question. Some homeowners will have to give banks money to get out from under their houses, default because they cannot afford to sell their homes at a loss, or stay in homes that they no longer need.
The housing crisis, it seems, still has at least fifteen years to go and for some older Americans that is a lifetime.
A Brooklyn man brought to Maimonides Medical Center with chest pains in July 2008 endured what his family now calls a tragedy of errors that led to his death.
Jacob Goldbrenner was sent to the Brooklyn hospital's cardiac catheterization lab so doctors could treat his ailing heart.
But they couldn't find the key to the lab.
They couldn't locate an anesthesiologist.
And then one doctor couldn't even find the lab itself, according to a lawsuit filed last week in Brooklyn Supreme Court.
Minutes turned to hours as the 52-year-old clothing salesman's condition worsened.
"We all felt a sense of desperation and frustration," said Baruch Goldbrenner, 27, who watched his father's health deteriorate.
"We were waiting for some sort of intervention. We were desperate and scared."
At one point, Baruch Goldbrenner said, he was aghast as he followed a first-year resident who didn't know how to get to the lab where doctors check blood flow and heart defects and perform angioplasty or other procedures.
"He just couldn't find it," the son said. "He was just utterly lost."
Jacob Goldbrenner, who had a stent put in years earlier, had a heart attack while he waited for nearly five hours, the lawsuit charges.
Goldbrenner's heart wasn't getting oxygen and doctors needed to intubate - place a tube into his lungs.
Instead, the tube went into his stomach by mistake, according to the family's lawyer Michael Schlesinger.
"From every point there were delays," Schlesinger said. "There was so much damage that the only way he could survive was with a heart transplant."
Doctors told relatives Goldbrenner could get a heart at Westchester Medical Center, and he was put in an ambulance and given a police escort.
"It was like, 'Hey, he has a second chance,'" his son said.
But at Westchester, there was no heart and no hope.
"It was just like someone stabbing a knife right into our collective hearts," Baruch Goldbrenner said.
Less than two weeks later, Jacob Goldbrenner was dead.
A Maimonides spokeswoman defended the hospital's cardiac care unit as one of the nation's best.
"Frustration, devastation, sadness. There's just no word for this," Baruch Goldbrenner said.
It's been a very long year without the man he described as "quiet, understated, happy-go-lucky and always greeting everyone he knew with a smile."
He added: "Heart attacks in this day and age are survivable. Things just took longer than necessary."
After a new report revealed that thousands of lifetime sex offenders currently reside in public housing, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is calling for stricter regulations to ensure the safety of all New Yorkers.
According to the State Office of the Inspector General, roughly 3,000 registered lifetime sex offenders reside in HUD-subsidized city housing. Although Congress passed legislation in 1997 that prohibits those dangerous individuals from receiving rental assistance, Schumer says lax enforcement has allowed them to go undetected.
“When it comes to the safety of our residents we cannot cut corners, but unfortunately the previous administration did not do nearly enough to root out sex offenders from enjoying the benefits of subsidized housing,” he said in a statement. “There is no reason why this rule should not be enforced fully and accurately.”
Schumer said he is particularly outraged because the inefficiencies not only endangers families, but wastes taxpayer money and reduces the amount of available affordable housing for those in need.
Although all individuals who apply to live in federally subsidized housing complexes are supposed to be subject to background checks, the senator said those are not always performed. Moreover, the number of years examined in an applicant’s past varies from authority to authority.
Once a person is living in public housing, Schumer wants them to be checked against the national sex offender registry every time they reapply for housing certification.
The periodic checks would be designed to ensure no one who commits a sex crime after moving into public housing can slip through the cracks and avoid eviction.
Schumer is also calling for all public housing authorities to create a uniformed system for conducting background checks — specifying the number of years to be investigated and checking each applicant against the national sex offender registry.
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. -A former IBM employee who was fired for visiting an adult chat room while at work is appealing a court decision against him.
The worker, 60-year-old James Pacenza, claims combat stress from Vietnam made him a sex-and-Internet addict who should have been treated, not dismissed.
He also says IBM used the chat-room visit as a pretext to fire him, while the real reasons were his symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and his age.
A federal judge ruled in April that Pacenza never told IBM about the stress disorder.
The judge also said others who violated IBM's Internet policy were treated similarly.
Pacenza's lawyer, Michael Diederich, said Monday the decision is being appealed.
Back in early August when the Minnesota apikoros attacked Birthright Israel's decision to hire the disgraced sockpuppet prone flackery 5WPR, Dan Sieradski (AKA blogger Mobius) launched a Twitter petition calling on Birthright to clean up its act and fire 5WPR.
Almost immediately someone began doing nasty edits to Mobius' Wikipedia page.
Then last week, Mobius wrote about visiting Birthright's offices and another edit was made to his Wikipedia page. This edit falsely portrayed him as anti-Israel.
All this is suspicious because of 5WPR's history of sockpuppetry. And, just like 5WPR once worked for Agriprocessors, it now works for Birthright.
The right-wing accusations against Barack Obama are true. He is a socialist, although he practices socialism for corporations. He is squandering the country's future with deficits that can never be repaid. He has retained and even bolstered our surveillance state to spy on Americans. He is forcing us to buy into a health care system that will enrich corporations and expand the abuse of our for-profit medical care. He will not stanch unemployment. He will not end our wars. He will not rebuild the nation. He is a tool of the corporate state.
The right wing is not wrong. It is not the problem. We are the problem. If we do not tap into the justifiable anger sweeping across the nation, if we do not militantly push back against corporate fraud and imperial wars that we cannot win or afford, the political vacuum we have created will be filled with right-wing lunatics and proto-fascists.
Gov. Paterson's former economic-development czar, Avi Schick, stepped down from his post at the helm of the Empire State Development Corp. in January -- but, astonishingly, continued to quietly draw his $213,000 annual salary for eight more months, The Post has learned.
Schick, who has close ties to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, managed to hang on to his full salary -- more than what the governor earns -- in return for advising Paterson on lower Manhattan issues, said ESDC spokesman Warner Johnston.
The ESDC revealed Schick's continuing compensation to The Post last week after more than a month of requests, and just days after he was removed from the payroll on Sept. 11 so that he could begin a new job with a law firm that began three days later.
It was unclear on what specific issues Schick advised Paterson.
He could not be reached for comment, and state officials would only say that he was asked to stay on during a leadership change at ESDC over the summer.
Paterson's decision to keep Schick on the payroll comes amid a state hiring freeze and a state budget deficit topping $2 billion.
Schick has remained as chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., a post that has never paid a salary.
Johnston insisted that Schick's salary, which he said included some unused vacation time, was not for his work at the LMDC, which already has a paid president, David Emil.
"Avi's position as LMDC Chairman is unpaid," said Johnston.
"However, he was on payroll for the work he conducted for the governor's office on lower Manhattan issues."
Schick's continuing state salary came as a surprise to some lower Manhattan officials.
"People assumed he wasn't paid because no other LMDC chairman had ever received a salary," said a well-placed lower Manhattan source.
"Total waste of taxpayer money," said another official familiar with Schick's work downtown, where his most significant project was the deconstruction of the Deutsche Bank building -- a project that cost two firefighters their lives and has taken years longer than anticipated.
Schick was appointed to oversee downstate economic development when Eliot Spitzer became governor in 2007.
Several months later, he became Spitzer's point man on lower Manhattan redevelopment, earning a reputation for his combative style.
A former deputy attorney general under then-Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, Schick's hiring by the law firm of Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal was announced last week.
Rav Chaim Soloveichik zt"l, the Brisker Rav said the following about rabbanus:
ReplyDeleteThe function of a rabbi is to address the grievances of those who are abandoned and alone, to protect the dignity of the poor, and to save the oppressed
from the hands of his oppressor.
Yeyasher koach to all true rabbis who walk into the "line of fire" to help those in need. Yeyasher koach to all the true rabbis who understand that a fancy shteller and long coat is not the totality of their Rabbinic duty.
Ashreichem Mah Tov Chelkeichem Uma Naim Goraleichem. They should all be gebentched with arichas yamim veshanim tovim in good health and happiness bain beruchniyus u'bain begashmiyus. They should have more Siyata D'Shmaya to do their Avodas Hakodesh without fanfare, as the unsung heroes they truly are.
Thank you UOJ for standing true to your zeide's principles and never waivering regardless of the pressure. You have done much to raise the awareness and community response to the issues facing Judaism.
Every city has at least one unsung hero. Yagata Umatzata Taamin.
Kesiva Vechasima Tovah!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/opinion/13ehrenreich.html?pagewanted=print
ReplyDeleteWHAT do you get when you combine the worst economic downturn since the Depression with the first black president? A surge of white racial resentment, loosely disguised as a populist revolt. An article on the Fox News Web site has put forth the theory that health reform is a stealth version of reparations for slavery: whites will foot the bill and, by some undisclosed mechanism, blacks will get all the care. President Obama, in such fantasies, is a dictator and, in one image circulated among the anti-tax, anti-health reform “tea parties,” he is depicted as a befeathered African witch doctor with little tusks coming out of his nostrils. When you’re going down, as the white middle class has been doing for several years now, it’s all too easy to imagine that it’s because someone else is climbing up over your back.
Despite the sense of white grievance, though, blacks are the ones who are taking the brunt of the recession, with disproportionately high levels of foreclosures and unemployment. And they weren’t doing so well to begin with. At the start of the recession, 33 percent of the black middle class was already in danger of falling to a lower economic level, according to a study by the Institute on Assets and Social Policy at Brandeis University
At Wells Fargo, Elizabeth Jacobson, a former loan officer at the company, recently revealed — in an affidavit in a lawsuit by the City of Baltimore — that salesmen were encouraged to try to persuade black preachers to hold “wealth-building seminars” in their churches. For every loan that resulted from these seminars, whether to buy a new home or refinance one, Wells Fargo promised to donate $350 to the customer’s favorite charity, usually the church. (Wells Fargo denied any effort to market subprime loans specifically to blacks.) Another former loan officer, Tony Paschal, reported that at the same time cynicism was rampant within Wells Fargo, with some employees referring to subprimes as “ghetto loans” and to minority customers as “mud people.”
http://www.app.com/article/20090912/NEWS/90913007/1070/NEWS02/Orthodox+community+in+Lakewood+uses+internal+tribunals+
ReplyDeleteStill, in certain cases, Batei Din have decided sex abuse cases and have sent victims and alleged offenders to therapy, most often at the Ohel Treatment Center in Brooklyn. However, less than two years ago, community leaders requested that Ohel no longer be the sole operator in Lakewood, which now has another, in-house center — the Lakewood Community Services Corp. — to treat its own victims and offenders, said Rabbi Moshe Zev Weisberg, the center's
president.
New York City - Mike Bloomberg wanted to be president, and came close to launching a billion-dollar campaign, but his plans were dashed by Barack Obama's surge in popularity, according to a new book.
ReplyDelete"MIKE BLOOMBERG: Money, Power, Politics,” by veteran reporter Joyce Purnick, paints a picture of the Big Apple mayor downplaying his White House aspirations even as his closest aides fanned the flames of his candidacy with his blessing. The hype started the day after Bloomberg won reelection by a landslide in 2005, when his key adviser Kevin Sheekey, told a stunned cable TV interviewer the Bloomberg for President campaign was ready to roll.
Bloomberg repeatedly denied having any interest in being commander in chief, once wondering aloud what chance does a "short, Jewish, divorced billionaire" have. But meanwhile, his people were organizing a stealth campaign complete with a website and national network. As another aide wrote a book about the need for a third party in America, Bloomberg, a Democrat-turned-Republican, declared himself an Independent.
Maybe Shmarya should consider that Blacks will eventually stab Jewish Liberals in the back.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/14/us/14memphis.html
MEMPHIS — A Congressional race in Tennessee has become freighted with racial overtones almost a year before the election, with a prominent black politician saying the white incumbent cannot properly represent black voters.
The black candidate, former Mayor Willie W. Herenton of Memphis, has argued that Tennessee needs a black voice in its currently all-white delegation. He is running a blistering campaign against Representative Steve Cohen, a fellow Democrat with a precarious hold on the majority black district.
“To know Steve Cohen is to know that he really does not think very much of African-Americans,” Mr. Herenton said in a recent radio interview on KWAM. “He’s played the black community well.”
The Herenton campaign argues that Mr. Cohen is an anomaly.
“This seat was set aside for people who look like me,” said Mr. Herenton’s campaign manager, Sidney Chism, a black county commissioner. “It wasn’t set aside for a Jew or a Christian. It was set aside so that blacks could have representation.”
Mr. Cohen, 60, is a well-known Memphis liberal who considered joining the Congressional Black Caucus, wrote a national apology for slavery and the Jim Crow laws, and received an “A” rating from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
“I vote like a 45-year-old black woman,” he said in an interview. “I don’t know the black experience, but I know about being a minority and being discriminated against because of religion.”
But his unusual identity — as one of only two white members of Congress from majority black districts — makes him vulnerable politically. In the last election, his opponent ran a much-vilified advertisement that tried to link Mr. Cohen to the Ku Klux Klan. It juxtaposed Mr. Cohen with an image of a hooded Klansman
Herenton faces potential legal problems. For more than a year, a grand jury has been investigating accusations that Mr. Herenton benefited from his private real estate business while mayor. His real estate company allegedly received $91,000 in 2006 for the development of a downtown Greyhound station that he supported. He has denied wrongdoing in the case.
Mr. Herenton could not be reached for comment for this article, but he has lashed out at Mr. Cohen in local news interviews. He has referred to Mr. Cohen by a vulgar term to a newspaper reporter and has argued that Mr. Cohen is privately demeaning to blacks. Mr. Herenton claims that Mr. Cohen made personally derisive, racially insensitive remarks to him during a recent airplane flight — an accusation that Mr. Cohen denies.
“This Congressional race, you know what it’s going to be about?” Mr. Herenton said in a radio interview. “It’s going to be about race, representation and power.”
Black voters in the district are divided by this argument. The Rev. Ralph White, a black minister at the Bloomfield Full Gospel Baptist Church in Memphis, said congregants were still choosing their candidates.
“There are those who come up to me and say, ‘Even though I love Steve, this is a very important seat to the African-American community,’ ” Mr. White said. “It’s a very sticky, touchy situation.”
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20090913/SMALLBIZ/309139998
ReplyDeleteWhen developer Shaya Boymelgreen co-founded LibertyPointe Bank four years ago, he aimed to use his real estate expertise to help the bank become an industry specialist. That part of the plan, at least, worked. Today, 92% of the bank's loans are related to real estate.
The problem is that so many of those credits have soured that last month the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. stepped in and slapped LibertyPointe with a cease and desist order to stop its risky loan policies.
And that may be the least of Mr. Boymelgreen's mounting troubles. He is saddled with stalled projects, including a planned residential tower in Chelsea. Meanwhile, he is facing a tide of lawsuits alleging everything from failure to repay loans to fraud, negligence and breach of contract related to the construction and sale of two condominium projects.
“He rose with such alacrity and speed,” says Steven Sladkus, an attorney who has filed two lawsuits against Mr. Boymelgreen over two different condo projects. “He is falling with even more speed.”
Although Mr. Boymelgreen's involvement in real estate investing dates back to the mid-1990s, it wasn't until 2002, when he formed a partnership with billionaire Lev Leviev, that his star soared. The two deeply religious orthodox Jews had met on a Caribbean cruise a year earlier, according to published reports.
Together, Messrs. Boymelgreen and Leviev went on a buying spree that reached as far as Las Vegas and Miami. Their New York projects included converting office buildings into condos, constructing new condos and rental properties, and buying up raw land in Brooklyn.
The partnership broke up in 2007, when the two men were no longer able to agree on what projects to pursue, sources say. As the owner of 65% of the partnership, Mr. Leviev walked away with most of the holdings.
Mr. Boymelgreen's legal woes are growing. TD Bank sued him earlier this year for failing to pay principal on a $3 million loan. And Aristone Capital Funding sued him over a $3.2 million loan for 20 Pine St., which is now controlled by Mr. Leviev.
And then there are the problems at LibertyPointe, the bank whose board Mr. Boymelgreen still chairs. The bank is under fire from the FDIC for numerous infractions, including operating with too many bad loans and inadequate loan loss reserves The FDIC also says the board of directors failed to supervise policy sufficiently. Mr. Boymelgreen's staff didn't return calls for comment.
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20090910/FREE/909109984
ReplyDeleteYair Levy declares Upper West Side project bankrupt
End for 95-unit Park Columbus is latest of series of setbacks for developer who hit partner with ice bucket.
Beleaguered real estate developer Yair Levy, a partner in the failed condo conversion of the Sheffield57 in midtown, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on another one of his projects—Park Columbus, an Upper West Side condo conversion.
YL West 87th Holdings, which is part of Mr. Levy's YL Real Estate Developers, owes $20 million to its creditor, Manhattan-based Garrison Investment Group, according to a recent filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court Southern District of New York. Gary Kushner, an attorney at the law firm of Forchelli, Curto, Deegan, Schwartz, who represented Mr. Levy in the filing, confirmed that the developer has filed bankruptcy on the property, but could not elaborate immediately. YL Real Estate and Garrison could not be reached immediately for comment.
Park Columbus, formerly a rental building known as Columbus Green located at 101 W. 87th St., was a 95-unit condo conversion. Earlier this year, the project's construction stalled and shortly afterward the New York state' Attorney General's office declared the Park Columbus' offering plan ineffective, according to sources. In addition, Halstead Property, which was retained by YL to market the condo units, sued the developer for $75,000 in outstanding fees and expenses. The status of that lawsuit could not be determined immediately. Halstead declined to comment.
This Upper West Side conversion is the latest of a string of failed projects for Mr. Levy, who several months ago was charged with assaulting his business partner Kent Swig with an ice bucket. Earlier this month, Anglo Irish Bank moved forward with its plans to foreclose on Mr. Levy's Battery Park City condo conversion at 225 Rector Square. Mr. Levy reportedly defaulted on a $165 million mortgage loan to convert that 304-unit rental building.
One key Democrat in Albany who has grown close to the WFP is Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who calls party leaders “exuberant, not extremist.”
ReplyDeletehttp://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20090913/FREE/909139997
It’s not every party boss who shows up to lunch days before a critical election wielding a copy of A Populist Manifesto. Or who launches into a soliloquy on the virtues of social democracy before the waiter even has a chance to take his order.
“I was just getting a head of steam up,” laments Working Families Party Executive Director Dan Cantor, as the server interrupts.
Then again, Mr. Cantor isn’t your typical politico. Known for his dirty shirts and ratty shoes, the 54-yearold unabashedly expects politicians who ride into office on his organization’s back to support measures such as those that raise the minimum wage, preserve affordable housing, or mandate paid sick days instead of creating patronage jobs for his pals. Mixing big ideas with what he calls “a little bit of oomph to get them noticed” (think knocking on nearly 1 million doors per year), has helped the party champion a leftwing agenda the likes of which has not been seen in New York state since the 1920s.
“We actually believe that you can use the power of the state to mitigate some of the inequalities inherent in a market society,” Mr. Cantor says. In recent years, the labor-backed group has leveraged those state powers more effectively than party officials ever imagined possible, campaigning to propel Democrats into control of the Senate, boost the minimum wage, reform the Rockefeller Drug Laws, and champion a so-called millionaires tax.
This was a default judgement where Tropper did not even bother to answer.
ReplyDeleteRockland Civil Supreme
Index Number: 005316/1987
Case Name: TROPPER, LEAH R. M. vs. TROPPER, RABBI L.
Case Type: Uncontested Matrimonial
Track: Unknown
RJI Filed: 08/18/1987
Why was Tropper sued by this company? The trial was ongoing for 4 and a half years.
ReplyDeleteRockland Civil Supreme
Index Number: 005395/1991
Case Name: SECURITY PACIFIC NAT'L vs. TROPPER, LEIB, ET AL.
Case Type: Other ("Not One Of The Above")
Track: Unknown
RJI Filed: 01/13/1992
Rockland Civil Supreme
ReplyDeleteIndex Number: 002255/1987
Case Name: KOL YAAKOV TORAH CENTER vs. WEBERMAN, JUDAH & ABIGAIL
Case Type: Contract
Track: Unknown
RJI Filed: 04/13/1987
Date NOI Due:
NOI Filed:
Disposition Deadline:
Disposition Date: 05/15/1987
Calendar Number:
Jury Status:
Justice Name: ROBERT J. STOLARIK
Attorney/Firm For Plaintiff:
GLICKMAN & MCALEVEY Attorney Type: Attorney Of Record Atty. Status: Active
120 NORTH MAIN STREET
NEW CITY, NEW YORK 10956
914-634-8884
Tropper settled after over a year at trial.
ReplyDeleteRockland Civil Supreme
Index Number: 003902/1987
Case Name: GLATZER, ABRAHAM B. vs. KOL YAAKOV TORAH CENTER
Case Type: Other Torts
Track: Unknown
RJI Filed: 06/24/1987
Date NOI Due: 06/07/1988
NOI Filed:
Disposition Deadline:
Disposition Date: 10/26/1988
Calendar Number:
Jury Status:
Justice Name: ROBERT R. MEEHAN
Attorney/Firm For Plaintiff:
ERIC OLE THORSEN Attorney Type: Attorney Of Record Atty. Status: Active
254 S. MAIN STREET/SUIT 300
NEW CITY, N.Y. 10956
914/638-2726
Attorney/Firm For Defendant:
ABADY &B JAFFE, ESQS. Attorney Type: Attorney Of Record Atty. Status: Active
500 5TH AVENUE
NEW YORK, N.Y. 10110
212/921-8800
Tropper settled after 3 years at trial.
ReplyDeleteRockland Civil Supreme
Index Number: 001848/1989
Case Name: RAMAPO, TOWN OF vs. KOL YAAKOV TORAH CENTER,ET AL
Case Type: Other ("Not One Of The Above")
Track: Unknown
RJI Filed: 04/25/1989
Rockland Civil Supreme
ReplyDeleteIndex Number: 000689/1992
Case Name: COPELCO CREDIT CORP. vs. KOL YAAKOV TORAH CNTR. INC.
Case Type: Miscellaneous Exparte
Track: Unknown
RJI Filed: 05/29/1992
Tropper doesn't pay his phone bill
ReplyDeleteNew York County Civil Court
Index Number: CV-001745-95/NY
Case Name: TOTALTEL USA
vs.
KOL YAAKOV TORAN CENTER INC
Case Type: Civil
Classification:
Filing Date: 01/17/1995
http://daattorah.blogspot.com/2009/09/going-to-secular-authorities-case-of-r.html
ReplyDeleteI was contacted recently by one of R' Tropper's former students who lamented that R'Tropper is his own worse enemy. He said he had fond memories of many Torah insights he heard from R' Tropper but he was devastated by the constant personal attacks on him when he was suspected of not respecting R Tropper. He said R' Tropper can not handle any criticism (or perceived criticism) and this severely damages relations with people who are genuinely supportive and he simply drives them away.
Guma is charging that R' Tropper has embezzeled millions of dollars that he had earmared for specific charities. Something Guma had told me months ago.
Guma is serious in demanding that R' Tropper answer these charges of embezzelment and he clearly has the resources to bring about a trial. The gemora in Berachos about Chana says that if person is suspected of wrong doing he needs to deny the charges.
R' Tropper needs to take the fact that he has been accused of a major crime a bit more seriously.
This charge should be easily clarified since it depends on clear documentation of a charitable fund. Did R' Tropper receive the money? Did the designated charities receive the money? He should also keep in mind that Guma won the first round in this issue.
It doesn't really matter whether R' Tropper likes Guma. It doesn't matter whether Guma wears Rabbeinu Tam tefilin not does it matter whether R' Tropper feels he has violated halacha. Guma has rabbis who support him. In a secular court of law Guma clearly has the upper hand.
Mishlei (16:18) Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. R' Tropper needs to take the situation a bit more seriously
Tropper and Tom Kaplan took Guma to court, seemingly b'issur. Unless they can offer a halachik justification. Simply calling Guma a mumar doesn't work, as the above cited Sh"A states clearly that even if they are rashaim we do not take them to secular court.
ReplyDeleteTropper is not a rosh yeshiva in the conventional sense. He is the self-described rosh yeshiva of his own very small Yeshiva Kol Ya'akov that caters to newly-minted ba'alei teshuvah.
ReplyDeleteNo one considers the self-described roshei yeshiva of any ba'al teshuva yeshiva, be it Ohr Somayach, Aish HaTorah or any others, to be the same as roshei yeshiva of what are universally called "mainstream yeshivas" like the Lakewood Yeshiva, Mirrer Yeshiva, Ponevez Yeshiva and so on.
It is in a way a "professional courtesy" and the turning of the blind eye from the established mainstream regular yeshivas that they do not kick up a fuss when a rabbi decides to open a yeshiva for ba'alei teshuva and "automtically" gives himself the title of a "rosh yeshiva" while no one would dream of calling the Principal or Menahel of a Jewish Day School or Mesivta that has the same or even a much higher level of Torah and Talmudic learening than all ba'al teshuva yeshivas, as a "rosh yeshiva" but they do it and the world just yawns and ignores them.
So while Rabbi Tropper may refer to himself as a self-described rosh yeshiva and will never let anyone forget it as he demands to be called by that illustreous title and puts it into his press releases for the world to know about it, it does not in any way therefore somehow automatically mean that he is in fact a regular a rosh yeshiva like Rav Shmuel Birnbaum or the roshei yeshiva of the Mir, Brisk, Chevron and the like.
http://www.vosizneias.com/34062/2009/06/25/fort-lauderdale-fl-lawsuit-claiming-man-promotes-him-self-as-messiah-tossed-by-judge/
ReplyDeleteFort Lauderdale, FL - American-Israeli businessman and philanthropist Guma Aguiar was cleared of embezzlement charges, brought before a Florida court by his uncle, who claims he misused funds because he believed he was the messiah.
Aguiar, who recently made a name for himself by donating several million dollars to Nefesh B'Nefesh and other Jewish organizations, denies believing he is the messiah, calling his uncle's accusations absurd.
Aguiar, 31, who was born in Brazil but commutes between the U.S. and Jerusalem, is the founder and chairman of the Lillian Jean Kaplan Foundation, to which his uncle, Thomas S. Kaplan, claims to have donated "tens of millions of dollars," according to official court documents.
In the lawsuit, Kaplan challenged Aguiar's ability and right to manage the foundation, but the judge, Robert Rosenberg of the 17th Judicial Circuit Court in Broward County, Florida, threw out the case, finding Kaplan's claims had no merit.
Kaplan objected to the more than $7 million he says his nephew spent in 2008 to advance what the lawsuit called his "claim that he is the Messiah and to promote his messianic mission," according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, which reported about the lawsuit when it was filed in January, (and as was reported here by VIN News at that time).
According to the paper, the family feud is likely rooted in a separate lawsuit involving the two. The second case involves the company the two founded, Leor Exploration & Production, which was sold for about $2.5 billion after discovering vast natural gas reserves in Texas, and which is the foundation of Aguiar's newfound wealth.
"Justice has been done in Florida, the impact of which will be felt globally as Guma Kaplan Aguiar continues to support vital programs in the U.S., Israel and throughout the world," Charley Levine, Aguiar's spokesman in Jerusalem, said about the decision. He added that while the second lawsuit is still ongoing, "we have all the reason to believe it will end with similar results."
What's wrong with Thomas Kaplan? How could he possibly launch that lawsuit when it is President Obama, not Aguiar, who is the Messiah?
ReplyDeletePhillip Garrido bail set at $30 million
ReplyDeleteSan Jose Mercury News - John Simerman, Robert Salonga - 22 minutes ago
The Ksav Sofer poskens that we may not bypass beis din to sue an avaryan, even a mechalel Shabbos and oychel treifos. The only exception is for a great sinner who we know for a fact will not heed a din Torah. Guma has shyachus to the Vaad Harabbonim of Flatbush and Chabad among others. Rabbonim in Eretz Yisroel were shown evidence that he brought and they are in agreement with him unless Tropper can come up with a suitable explanation to account for the millions of dollars in question.
ReplyDeleteWhile Guma's wife may have had a suspicious gerus, he does not seem like someone who we know for a fact will not come to beis din.
What happened to universal standards, Rabbi Tropper? Is there one rule for you and another for everyone else?
R' Yudel Shain is reporting that "Tevye's Ranch" beef coming from Uruguay under Weissmandel's hashgocho is a front for Rubashkin.
ReplyDeleteJWB says:
ReplyDeleteNew Year's Update
Schedule of Court Proceedings for the Brooklyn 19.
The Brooklyn 19 refer to 19 felony sexual assault cases pending by the Brooklyn District Attorney in the Orthodox community. Yona Weinberg has an additional court proceedings at this time. In addition to the charges related to child sexual abuse he has been convicted on, Weinberg has been charged with criminal contempt. Jerry Brauner has been charged with new sexual abuse offences of May 9, 2009 and was arrested June 24, 2009.
The confirmed Brooklyn 19 to date:
1) Yona Weinberg (found guilty, awaiting sentencing)
2) Emanuel Yegutkin (trial scheduled)
3) Rabbi Avrohom Mondrowitz (extradition proceedings in Israel)
4) Stephen Colmer (pled guilty and incarcerated - parole hearing 01/2010 )
5) Yakov Kramer (?)
6) Arye Ickovits (pled guilty, awaiting sentencing)
7) Arthur Samet (pled guilty Aug19-09, awaiting sentencing)
8) Moshe Spitzer (trial scheduled)
9) Bernard Mutterperl (convicted and incarcerated - parole hearing 10/2017 )
10) Rabbi Jerry Brauner (has been charged with new sexual abuse offences)
11) Michael Sabo (pending)
12) Martin Vegh AKA Boorich Mordechai Vegg (convicted and incarcerated - parole hearing 07/2014 )
The unconfirmed:
13) Rabbi Avrohom Reichman (only civil case, is he part of the list?)
14) Rabbi Avraham M. Leizerowitz (only civil case, is he part of the list?)
15) Rabbi Yehuda Kolko (only civil case, criminal case settled with plea agreement, is he part of the list?)
16) The unnamed "well-known" storeowner in Brooklyn who took a kid upstairs for years to his office. The victim, now an adult, was interviewed on Hikind's show.(Is he part of the list?)
JWB says:
ReplyDeleteSchedule
1) September 14, 2009
Jerry Brauner
Kings Supreme Court
Docket 01425-2005
Criminal Justice Tracking Number: 58659485K
NYSID Number: 9047326M
Arrest Number: K09659939
Judge: Laporte, E.
2) September 15, 2009
Yona Weinberg
a.Kings Criminal Court
Docket 2008KN044924
Criminal Justice Tracking Number: 63031782R
NYSID Number: 235728Z
Arrest Number: K08654460
Judge: Gubbay, J
3) September 17, 2009
Emanuel Yegutkin
Kings Supreme Court
Docket: 00902-2009
Criminal Justice Tracking Number: 63379546L
NYSID Number: 1601530K
Arrest Number: K09607822
Judge: Gary, M
Trial scheduled. Has pled not guilty
4) September 23, 2009
Yona Weinberg
b. Kings Supreme Court
Docket 04589-2008
Judge: Reichbach, G
Tried and found guilty. Temporary order of protection issued and bail continued. Sentencing shortly.
5) October 5, 2009
Michael Sabo
Kings Supreme Court
Case # 03880-2009
Criminal Justice Tracking Number: 63565996P
NYSID Number: 8360640J
Judge: Walsh, John P.
Trial scheduled. Has pled not guilty
6) October 14, 2009
Moshe Spitzer
Kings Criminal Court
Docket: 2009KN018094
Criminal Justice Tracking Number: 63449911L
NYSID Number: 6889436J
Arrest Number: K09621762
Judge: Mullen, C.
Trial scheduled. Has pled not guilty.
7) October 21, 2009
Arthur Samet
Kings Criminal Court
Docket: 2008KN080814
Criminal Justice Tracking Number: 63248172R
NYSID Number: 9737574P
Arrest Number: K08695605
Judge: Hong, G.
Tried and found guilty. Temporary order of protection issued and bail continued. Sentencing shortly.
8) October 29, 2009 - sentencing
Arye Ickovits
Kings Criminal Court
Docket: 2008KN089893
Criminal Justice Tracking Number: 63302771K
NYSID Number: 179569K
Arrest Number: K08706105
Pled guilty July 21, 2009 to the PL 130.60 02 a misdemeanor, Sx Abse:sx Cntct W/ind<14
Temporary order of protection issued and bail continued. Psychiatric exam was ordered. Sentencing shortly.
Judge: Laporte, E.
Additionally:
1) Incarcerated
Stefan Colmer
Kings Supreme Court
Docket: 04314-2007
Criminal Justice Tracking Number: 59766853Q
NYSID Number: 2696869K
Arrest Number: K08602074
Judge: MURPHY,MARTIN
- convicted
Parole Eligibility Date: 05/08/2010
Conditional Release Date: 09/08/2012
Maximum Expiration Date: 01/08/2015
2) Incarcerated
Bernard Mutterperl
Kings Supreme Court
Docket 04570-2007
Criminal Justice Tracking Number: 59078829P
NYSID Number: 2582374H
Arrest Number: K07643253
Judge: Dimango, P
- convicted
Parole Eligibility Date: 10/2017
Conditional Release Date: 12/27/2017
Maximum Expiration Date: 06/03/2019
3) Yakov Kramer
New York Criminal Court
Docket: 2008NY084614
Criminal Justice Tracking Number: 63273183R
NYSID Number: 302829M
Arrest Number: M08696814
No proceedings scheduled. Anyone know the status of this?
Any other information as to the remaining names on this list?
JWB says:
ReplyDeleteUpdate to your current sidebar article:
How The Orthodox Jews Deal [NOT] With Child Sex-Abuse!
http://www.app.com/article/20090912/NEWS/909120323/1070/NEWS02
Levi Danziger of Monroe, NY pled guilty to violation of probation on September 11, 2009 and was released on recognizance. Sentencing is scheduled November 9, 2009 before Judge J. Berry. NY Orange County Court, Case # 07027V
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/14/BAEU19N005.DTL
ReplyDeletePhillip Garrido had grown a scruffy, white beard since his last court appearance Aug. 28. The right side of his nose was bandaged where a cluster of black mole-looking bumps was evident before. Authorities would not comment on why the bandage was there, citing medical privacy rules, but sources said he had recently undergone surgery to have the bumps removed.
(09-12) 17:41 PDT WASHINGTON (AP) --
ReplyDeleteTens of thousands of protesters fed up with government spending marched to the U.S. Capitol on Saturday, showing their disdain for the president's health care plan with slogans such as "Obamacare makes me sick" and "I'm not your ATM."
The line of protesters clogged several blocks near the Capitol, according to the D.C. Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency. Demonstrators chanted "enough, enough" and "We the People." Others yelled "You lie, you lie!" and "Pelosi has to go," referring to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
Throngs of people waved U.S. flags and held signs reading "Go Green Recycle Congress" and "Obama Bin Lyin.'" Men wore colonial costumes as they listened to speakers who warned of "judgment day" — Election Day 2010.
Other signs — reflecting the growing intensity of the health care debate — depicted President Barack Obama with the signature mustache of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. Many referred to Obama as a socialist or communist, and another imposed his face on that of the villainous Joker from "Batman."
Richard Brigle, 57, a Vietnam War veteran and former Teamster, came from Paw Paw, Mich. He said health care needs to be reformed — but not according to Obama's plan.
"My grandkids are going to be paying for this. It's going to cost too much money that we don't have," he said while marching, bracing himself with a wooden cane as he walked.
FreedomWorks Foundation, a conservative organization led by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, organized several groups from across the country for what they billed as a "March on Washington."
Organizers say they built on momentum from the April "tea party" demonstrations held nationwide to protest tax policies, along with growing resentment over the economic stimulus packages and bank bailouts.
Armey and other speakers directed their ire at Pelosi — Armey took a photo, telling the crowd he wanted to be able to prove to her they were there.
"If it's necessary, we'll come back here next year," he said.
Many protesters said they paid their own way to the event — an ethic they believe should be applied to the government. They say unchecked spending on things like a government-run health insurance option could increase inflation and lead to economic ruin.
"I'm outraged prominent black politicians use the race card" to cover up their failed policies, said Deneen Borelli of New York.
One woman held a sign with images of Martin Luther King Jr. and Obama, with the words printed alongside: "He had a dream, we got a nightmare."
This is from an article in the St. Petersburg , FL Times Newspaper on Sunday.
ReplyDeleteThe Business Section asked readers for ideas on "How Would You Fix the Economy?"
I think this guy nailed it!
Dear Mr. President:
Please find below my suggestion for fixing America 's economy.
Instead of giving billions of dollars to companies that will squander the money on lavish parties and unearned bonuses, use the following plan.
You can call it the Patriotic Retirement Plan:
There are about 40 million people over 50 in the work force.
Pay them $1 million apiece severance for early retirement with the following stipulations:
1) They MUST retire. Forty million job openings -
Unemployment fixed.
2) They MUST buy a new American CAR. Forty million cars ordered-
Auto Industry fixed.
3) They MUST either buy a house or pay off their mortgage-
Housing Crisis fixed.
4) They MUST buy their own health insurance.
Health Plan for seniors just fixed!!!
It can't get any easier than that!
If more money is needed, have all members of Congress and their constituents pay their taxes...
If you think this would work, please forward to everyone you know.
If not, please disregard. Then shoot yourself!!!! 1 job opening
ASBURY PARK PRESS EDITORIAL • SEPTEMBER 14, 2009
ReplyDelete"Orthodox community deals with sex abuse," read the page 1 headline in Sunday's Asbury Park Press. But just how the Orthodox community in Lakewood deals with the problem in its midst is disturbing.
Far too often, cases of sexual abuse are handled internally through a rabbinical tribunal that routinely handles civil disputes but deals with possible cases of sexual abuse as well. The Orthodox community lacks the investigative and judicial powers to issue sentences, weed out false accusations and monitor offenders.
The most the rabbinic tribunals can accomplish is to urge therapy for the abuser. That's not justice for the victim. And it may be against the law. A therapist in Brooklyn's Orthodox community for more than eight years who has treated sex offenders referred by Lakewood religious authorities said he could not recall one instance when a rabbi referred a case to law enforcement officials.
Religious authorities say they do what is necessary to rid the community of sex offenders swiftly, but it is typically done outside the framework of secular law. The rabbinic leaders must send an unequivocal message to the Orthodox community that incidents of sexual abuse must be reported to the appropriate authorities. And that point must be reinforced by the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office.
First Amendment freedoms to practice one's faith are not absolute, particularly when it puts the most vulnerable citizens at risk for irreparable physical and emotional harm. One would think that a community dedicated to Torah law would recognize the limits of that law in dealing with criminal matters and welcome the legal means to get child sexual abusers out of their communities and into the arms of the law.
State law requires anyone with "reasonable" suspicions to report acts of child abuse to the police or the state Division of Youth and Family Services. That law runs up against a different law, the Cleric-Penitent Privilege, which requires clerics such as rabbis to keep privileged any communication made in confidence unless both he and the person who did the confiding agree to release it or the information pertains to a future criminal act.
Given the rate of recidivism among sex offenders, a single confessed incident of abuse can reasonably hint at an ongoing pattern of abuse with a widening circle of victims. This sounds remarkably similar to Catholic priest scandals, where pedophile priests were counseled and transferred without ever facing the law.
If, as Job says, it is God who "reveals the deep things of darkness and brings deep shadows into the light," then those who believe in him must do the same work of bringing light out of the shadows. Secular law has the means to do just that and the rabbinic leadership needs to encourage members of the community to speak up without fear.
If the Orthodox community believes that playing cases of sexual abuse so close to the vest is a proper response, that's beyond troubling.
Did anyone catch the hypocrisy of Harry Reid making a big positive shpiel over Young Israel's Yitzchok Wynn quoting Chumash?
ReplyDeleteReid and the rest of the extreme Left of the Democratic Party will demonize Mike Huckabee and anyone else quoting Biblical verse. All of a sudden it's kosher when in support of False Messiah Obama's Socialist medicine plan.
And shame on you Rabbi Wynn. Saying that the Torah hakedosha backs Obama is like Tropper claiming his gerus fraud is al pi R' Moshe Feinstein.
The battle between Leib Tropper and Guma Aguiar will go down as probably one of the most titanic struggles between a rabbi and his one-time disciple who's a billionaire and balebaos lay supporter. One for the epics and worthy of a hollywood movie in its fascinating deatils.
ReplyDeleteThe struggling Haredi world will not be amused with Tropper that while many of them are starving and their institutions are broke, when they read that Tropper is being accused of stealing ten million dollars, as in Chedrei Chareidim: "מאיים ברצח או גואל עניים?
המריבה המתוקשרת בין הרב לייב טרופר לאיש העסקים גומא אגאייר, מגיעה למחלקת החקירות במשטרה. הרב טרופר: "אגאייר איים עלי ברצח". אגאייר: "הוא גנב לי כספי צדקה" • כל הפרטים
with Guma photographed with R S Auerbach yet!
and Kikar HaShabbat (now pulled) and as translated care of Vos Iz Neias: "Aguiar Rebuts Rabbi Tropper’s Accusations: “Between the years 2003 and 2008 Guma Aguiar provided Mr. Tropper approximately $10 million to be distributed among rabbonim, kehilos, social organizations and medical institutions in Israel. The funds were transferred along with a precise list of all of the names of people and institutions the money was intended for and to which the sums were supposed to reach in precise detail.
“Based on an in-depth inquiry conducted last year it was found that most of the organizations the funds were supposed to reach did not receive the money earmarked for them.
“On Rosh Chodesh Sivan, Guma Aguiar encountered Mr. Tropper unexpectedly at the hotel where he was staying. This took place after a long time period during which Mr. Tropper had avoided giving explanations of where the money had gone to.
“Mr. Aguiar expressed his displeasure and even posed piercing questions in order to find out why the money had yet to reach its intended destination. Mr. Aguiar, in keeping with his ways, did not use a single untoward word.
“Tropper’s attempts to obscure his shameful acts through slander and disseminating lies should be denounced. Tropper must return all of the money taken from Guma Aguiar and transfer it immediately to the institutions and organizations that are so sorely in need of donations and support during these difficult times.
“Guma Aguiar expresses his hopes that the legal authorities will act quickly to compel him to return the money for the sake of the needy and prays that no undue outcome results through his endeavors.
Tropper's luck finally runs out as Guma Aguiar calls his bluff.
ReplyDeleteHow many rabbis can claim that they have supporters willing to back them to the tune of at least ten million dollars in a space of less that five years since the Eternal Jewish Family (EJF) plot was concocted? That's a rate of a donation of at least two million dollars a year.
During the first three years of EJF's short life Tropper was evidently more than happy to take Guma along for the ride of his life.
It seems that behind the scenes Guma was involved with his Brazilian gal-pal, it's not known if she was legally his wife or not, who was having his kids and who was refusing to go along with Tropper's "dictates" of a "universally accepted" conversion and instead Guma and Jamie dumped Tropper and got an Orthodox conversion for her under the supervision of Rabbi Herbert Bomzer from Brooklyn, about two years ago.
The news did not leek out right away about the split between Tropper and Guma and the EJF website was still carrying the name of Guma even after Guma had left Tropper and EJF.
The reasons are not clear, it would clearly have blown EJF out of the water if the rabbis knew that Guma the lay head of EJF was himself living with a non-Jewish woman even as he underwote their free rides. Not just this, but Tropper in the course of his long rambling self-justifications as "Roni" on the "Daat Torah" blog claimed that R Reuven Feinstein was well aware of this but kept his mouth shut.
But now it's known why because sources close to all the parties have heard from Guma himself that three million dollars from Guma went into R Reuven Feinstein's own pocket that meant that none of the rabbis at the hot and heavy anti RCA conventions of EJF would be distracted by R Reuven Feinstein's public posturing with Tropper and the that the rest would not find out about the Guma and Jamie living together scandal until Guma and Jamie were way gone and Tropper could open his broadside against them at a safe distance of Rabbi Eidensohn's blog and in US courts where Tropper would help Kaplan come up with the claim that Guma thought he was the "messiah" something Tropper should know a lot about by now himself>
So probably it must have had something to do with money, especially the key funding of the millions coming through the Lillian Jean Kaplan Foundation that Guma controlled together with his mother Ellen Aguiar, Tom Kaplan's sister, who like her son Guma were previously a long-time christian evangelical missionary apostates who then recently returned to Judaism, exactly how and by who is in dispute.
It's not 100% clear why they kept their rift under wraps. Guma may have been just taking a deep breath and figuring out his next moves and moving to Israel to fund newer projects like Nefesh BeNefesh and the March of the Living to the tune of many millions, while Tropper must have been figuring out what to do when the guy who signs the checks you depend on walks out on you and foils your attempts to brainwash him and his stubborn wife.
Another mystery is why Guma and his mother Ellen Kaplan Aguiar were the ones to set up the Lillian Jean Kaplan Foundation in Florida in the first place without their brother and uncle Tom Kaplan?
Tropper is hanging by one straw and its name is the mysterious Tom Kaplan.
ReplyDeleteCertainly everyone thought that it was Tom Kaplan running the show alone as he and Tropper tried to project this image to the world. Guma was never presented to anyone as being the guy in charge if not the go to guy in the whole EJF operation.
All this was picked up by one man, Rabbi D. Eidensohn on his "Daat Torah" blog who had been after Tropper to provide official letters from any rabbis that they approve of his new efforts through EJF which he hasn't been able to get to this day. In the course of posting about Tropper and Kaplan questions began to surface about Guma's role in EJF. From Leor Energy's and EJF's web sites it turned out that not only had Guma founded EJF equally with Tom Kaplan and Tropper but that he was also running the show and that Kaplan left it all to him while he went on his art-hunting and mineral exploration expeditions all over the world.
But once Guma left Tropper for good, Tropper went to the "Daat Torah" blog calling himself "Roni" and set about trying to destroy the name of Guma, his wife Jamie, and top of all Rabbi Bomzer. This went on for well over a year, until Guma had enough, and in a famous episode called up Rabbi Eidensohn and told him to take down all the damaging posts especially all the ones that had the smears that "Roni" alias Tropper had posted there.
Guma was enraged that Tropper the ingrate could do this to him to call his wife vile names and the rabbi who converted her the lowest of the low most disgraceful and vicious names. In addition, Tropper and Kaplan launched their now futile effort to smear Guma in US courts and gain control of the Lillian Jean Kaplan Foundation which they lost when a US court ruled in favor of Guma's side.
With Guma now confirmed by the court as the legal owner of the vaunted foundation that ahd funded EJF and all of Tropper's pet projects from kol yaakov yeshiva, horizons outreach and luxurious personal expenses for globetrotting everywhere to yell at other rabbis preaching the new doctrines of his EJF aspiring cult, Guma was in full position and exercising his legal rights to ask for an accounting from Tropper what he did with the at least ten million dollars he was supposed to give to many other institutions and not just Tropper's picks, and failing that, to give it all back or face the consequences.
Another interesting fact to emerge is that Tom Kaplan is not known to be a shomer Torah observant Jew. He gets away with it by acting quietly. He is very elusive and the opposite of Tropper who is showy and doesn't stop bragging about his own greatness. Kaplan is a disciple of Tropper that is where his Judaism begins and ends. It's a very weird situation, but then again all Scientology like situations are very weird from the point of view of outsiders. But very reliable reports from people who know him and Tropper have been surfacing that all is not well between Tropper and Tom Kaplan either. How could they be when Kaplan sees all this stuff going on, fighting with his own family because Tropper set them up to it, losing money and influence and the loss of his "own" foundation and maybe even his Leor business too, dragging things out in courts, with Tropper losing his credibility day by day and his luck running out. No one wants to be on the losing side of history. When ships start to sink even the rats jump overboard in desperation.
Tropper knowing that this could happen, and it now has, has been thrown back against the ropes fighting for his life like a mortally wounded tiger and draining the dregs of his tattered reputation and future as he now grabs at straws by running to the hated police in Israel and getting restraining orders in the secualr US courts with no sign whatsoever of even bothering going to a bait din of any kind against Guma, but it does not protect Tropper from looming legal actions that an emboldened and rightfully furious Guma will now rain down on Tropper's head.
http://www.lubicom.com/news/press_releases/major_conference_on_universally_accepted_conversions_in_intermarriage_opens/
ReplyDeleteHere is a press release from Lubinsky identifying some more jokers who were not previously known to be involved with Tropper.
Malcolm Ho Ho Hoenlein
Yankel Velvel Katz from Cleveland
Nathan Lewin
R' Boruch Mordche Ezrachi (Ateres Yisroel)
R' Simcha Hakohen Kook (Rechovot)
I would hope and expect that the last two rabbonim mentioned would have pulled out already.
http://dockets.justia.com/docket/court-flsdce/case_no-0:2009cv60683/case_id-335745/
ReplyDeleteAguiar v. Natbony et al
Plaintiff: Guma Aguiar
Defendant: William Natbony, Thomas Kaplan and Katten Muchin Rosenman, LLP.
Case Number: 0:2009cv60683
Filed: May 8, 2009
Court: Florida Southern District Court
Office: Fort Lauderdale Office [ Court Info ]
County: Broward
Presiding Judge: Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga
Presiding Judge: Judge Patricia A. Seitz
Nature of Suit: Torts - Property - Other Fraud
Cause: 28:1442 Notice of Removal
Jurisdiction: Federal Question
Jury Demanded By: Both
Leor Exploration & Production LLC et al v. Aguiar
ReplyDeletePlaintiffs: Leor Exploration & Production LLC, Pardus Petroleum L.P., Pardus Petroleum LLC and William Natbony
Defendants: Guma Aguiar
Case Number: 0:2009cv60136
Filed: January 26, 2009
Court: Florida Southern District Court
Office: Contract: Other Office [ Court Info ]
County: Broward
Presiding Judge: Judge Paul C. Huck
Presiding Judge: Judge Patricia A. Seitz
Nature of Suit: Contract - Other Contract
Cause: Diversity
Jurisdiction: Diversity
Jury Demanded By: 28:1332 Diversity
Aguiar v. Pardus Petroleum, LP et al
ReplyDeletePlaintiff: Guma Aguiar
Defendant: Pardus Petroleum, LP, Pardus Petroleum LLC and William Natbony
Case Number: 6:2009cv00005
Filed: January 8, 2009
Court: Texas Western District Court
Office: Waco Office [ Court Info ]
County: XX US, Outside State
Presiding Judge: Judge Walter S. Smith
Nature of Suit: Contract - Other Contract
Cause: 28:1332 Diversity-Other Contract
Jurisdiction: Diversity
Jury Demanded By: None
-------------------
Leor Exploration & Production LLC v. Aguiar
Plaintiff: Leor Exploration & Production LLC
Defendant: Guma Aguiar
Case Number: 0:2009cv60048
Filed: January 9, 2009
Court: Florida Southern District Court
Office: Fraud or Truth-In-Lending Office [ Court Info ]
County: Broward
Presiding Judge: Judge William J. Zloch
Nature of Suit: Torts - Property - Other Fraud
Cause: Federal Question
Jurisdiction: Federal Question
Jury Demanded By: no cause specified
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3776033,00.html
ReplyDeleteYou should have seen the time Tropper tried playing tennis with me, running around like a fat, out of breath katchka.
http://www.crownheights.info/index.php?itemid=21034
ReplyDeleteWhat has the Jewish world come to???
it would clearly have blown EJF out of the water if the rabbis knew that Guma the lay head of EJF was himself living with a non-Jewish woman even as he underwote their free rides
ReplyDelete//////////////////
Rav Bloch and Yossi Izrael have been publicizing this for years.
"When ships start to sink even the rats jump overboard in desperation."
ReplyDelete(CNN) -- A Johns Hopkins University student killed an apparent burglar with a samurai sword after discovering the man in his garage, police said Tuesday.
ReplyDeleteBaltimore, Maryland, police received a phone call shortly before 1:30 a.m. Tuesday about a suspicious person, and an off-duty officer arrived at the scene with campus security, city police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said.
When authorities arrived, they heard calls for help and for police, he said. They discovered a suspected burglar with a severed left hand and severe lacerations to his upper body, Guglielmi said.
The suspect died at the scene, he said.
The man had entered a home where several Johns Hopkins students lived, Guglielmi said. Four students, one armed with a samurai sword, had confronted the suspect in the garage.
The man "lunged" at the students, and the student with the sword defended himself, severing the man's left hand and cutting his upper body, Guglielmi said.
Police did not release the name of the suspect, who Guglielmi said had a long criminal history, or that of the student.
WASHINGTON, Sept 14 (Reuters) - Democratic leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives plan to condemn the Republican who yelled "You lie!" at President Barack Obama during a speech to Congress last week, a Democratic aide said on Monday.
ReplyDeleteThe Democrats agreed to introduce a formal resolution of disapproval of the heckler, Representative Joe Wilson, on Tuesday, the aide said.
They initially said they planned to take no action against Wilson, but made an about-face after the South Carolina Republican emerged as an overnight hero among at least some conservatives.
Wilson shouted "You lie!" at Obama on Wednesday during his address to a joint session of Congress on healthcare reform.
NEW YORK/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Wells Fargo & Co has fired a senior vice president after investigating reports she held lavish parties at a foreclosed beachfront Malibu house owned by the bank.
ReplyDeleteThe fourth-largest U.S. bank said in a statement on Monday that it had terminated one employee, senior vice president Cheronda Guyton, who it found had violated its policies.
"We deeply regret the activities that have taken place as they do not reflect the conduct we expect of our team members," the bank said in the statement.
Wells Fargo, which received $25 billion in government bailout money last October, was criticized earlier this year for planning events at upscale Las Vegas hotels for top mortgage employees. It said in February that it did not plan any more of these "recognition events" this year.
NEW YORK, Sept 14 (Reuters) - New York City police and the FBI raided homes in the borough of Queens early on Monday as part of an investigation into suspected terrorism, focusing on one man who has been under surveillance, officials said.
ReplyDeleteAuthorities searched at least two apartments including one shared by five Afghan men, taking some of them in for questioning, said one man who was questioned.
A neighbor said she saw FBI agents armed with what she called machine guns storm the apartment building, and that one of them emerged carrying a box.
"It was scary. I wasn't going to stop the FBI and ask them what was going on," said Melissa Khan, 28.
The New York Times, citing an unnamed senior law enforcement official, said authorities had uncovered a small group of people who espoused a militant ideology aligned with al Qaeda.
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE58D6CW20090914
ReplyDeleteSenate cuts off all Federal funding of ACORN!
http://blogs.reuters.com/frontrow/2009/09/15/obama-reportedly-calls-west-jackass-over-mtv-antics/
ReplyDeleteKanye West hijacked teen country star Taylor Swift’s moment in the spotlight at the MTV award show, and was booed loudly when he leaped on stage and grabbed the microphone from Swift, 19, as she was accepting the trophy for best female pop video.
President Barack Obama reportedly didn’t approve of rapper Kanye West’s antics at the MTV Video Music Awards.
We may never know the full details — Obama’s remarks were off the record — but the word “jackass” evidently came into play.
The president discussed the incident while being taped for a CNBC interview on Monday. ABC correspondent Terry Moran was allowed to review the president’s remarks.
He then wrote on Twitter:
Pres. Obama just called Kanye West a “jackass” for his outburst at VMAs when Taylor Swift won. Now THAT’S presidential.
The Twitter comment has since been deleted, but Politico has a screenshot.
ABC told Politico: “In the process of reporting on remarks by President Obama that were made during a CNBC interview, ABC News employees prematurely tweeted a portion of those remarks that turned out to be from an off-the-record portion of the interview. This was done before our editorial process had been completed. That was wrong. We apologize to the White House and CNBC and are taking steps to ensure that it will not happen again.”
Rep. Joe Wilson's outburst last week is drawing new recriminations from his colleagues, with a member of the Congressional Black Caucus suggesting that a failure to rebuke the South Carolina Republican is tantamount to supporting the most blatant form of organized racism in American history.
ReplyDeleteIn an obvious reference to the Ku Klux Klan, Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., said Tuesday that people will put on "white hoods and ride through the countryside" if emerging racist attitudes, which he says were subtly supported by Wilson, are not rebuked. He said Wilson must be disciplined as an example.
The charged comments come as the House is preparing to take further action against Wiilson. House Democratic leaders decided to formally discipline him Tuesday afternoon for jeering President Obama during last week's joint session of Congress.
Wilson bellowed "You lie!" as Obama delivered his address.
The punishment is expected take the form of a "resolution of disapproval," which is a milder version of other more traditional means of congressional discipline. Wilson can avoid the slap on the wrist by apologizing to his colleagues on the House floor, but Wilson -- who already apologized directly to the White House -- has said that's not going to happen.
While he has been widely condemned by colleagues on both sides of the aisle for breaching protocol, some have gone a step further and accused Wilson of being racially motivated.
New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote in her column Sunday that Wilson's outburst convinced her that racial angst is the underlying motive among Obama critics like Wilson.
The White House has a message to the tens of thousands of protesters who railed against big government during a rally in Washington Saturday: You're wrong.
ReplyDeleteWhite House senior adviser David Axelrod said Sunday that the protesters, part of the "tea party" movement, do not represent the views of the broader public when it comes to health care reform.
"I don't think it's indicative of the nation's mood," Axelrod said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "You know, I don't think we ought to be distracted by that. My message to them is, they're wrong."
The independent filmmaker whose hidden-camera videos prompted the firing of four ACORN workers is demanding an apology from ACORN for calling his work a fabricated "scam" and daring the activist group to take legal action against him.
ReplyDelete"Bring it on," filmmaker James O'Keefe said Sunday on FOX News.
That was after ACORN lashed out at O'Keefe, who with his friend Hannah Giles posed as a pimp and prostitute looking to evade the IRS and apply for an illegal housing loan for a brothel. The sting operation caught four ACORN workers in the Baltimore and Washington, D.C., offices appearing to offer their help.
Those workers were subsequently fired, and the U.S. Census Bureau severed ties with ACORN in the wake of the controversy. But ACORN chief organizer Bertha Lewis issued a written statement Saturday saying that while she cannot defend the actions of the workers who were terminated, O'Keefe may have committed a "felony" with his operation. She also threatened legal action against FOX News, which aired the videos but did not produce them.
"It is clear that the videos are doctored, edited, and in no way the result of the fabricated story being portrayed by conservative activist 'filmmaker' O'Keefe and his partner in crime. And, in fact, a crime it was -- our lawyers believe a felony -- and we will be taking legal action against Fox and their co-conspirators," she said.
In an interview with FOX News senior correspondent Eric Shawn, O'Keefe said he wants an apology from those media outlets "covering for ACORN" as well as from ACORN itself. He said he doubts ACORN will file suit.
"They don't have any leg to stand on, so they're saying I dubbed in my voice which is completely absurd," he said. "When the truth comes out in the end, they're going to be apologizing to us."
O'Keefe said he was "just trying to hold these organizations accountable."
Lewis said in her statement that O'Keefe's "scam" was attempted in several other cities but had "failed for months."
O'Keefe declined to comment on the allegedly unsuccessful attempts, but said it's a "lie" to claim that any ACORN offices "kicked us out."
Key Figure in Blagojevich Corruption Probe Found Dead
ReplyDeleteChristopher Kelly, 51, a key Blagojevich adviser was found dead at his home.
FOXNews.com
Saturday, September 12, 2009
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,549401,00.html
ReplyDeleteMan Punched So Hard He Loses Half His Skull
No wonder Rubashkin is schechting down there.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/14/AR2009091403519_2.html
The push for more government revenue during the crisis has fueled what experts describe as the most serious global effort to root out wealthy tax evaders in recent history. The campaign began in earnest in April with threats to "name and shame" governments that act as tax havens. But it is now poised to markedly escalate, with G-20 leaders in Pittsburgh, according to sources close to the talks, set to take the further step of imposing sanctions on tax havens such as Uruguay and Panama if they do not move to cease shielding tax dodgers by March.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zliqXbVT25Q
ReplyDeletehttps://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_flow&SESSION=OG0Wbi_vO6yQYIV4nlO1SJF3MPaeh9I5ScHtjAGAb0Abc5i3J2LuX_dq01u&dispatch=5885d80a13c0db1fca8cb0621aa94a5fc157eca86dc6e6ad6a70b60fab90381b
ReplyDeleteeven paypal thinks he's a fraud
here he claims to be tax exempt but isnt listed by guidestar..
ReplyDeletehttps://checkout.google.com/view/donations/buy?o=shoppingcart&shoppingcart=772825181047166
http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2009/09/auction-of-rubashkin-trucking-company-assets-today-345.html
ReplyDeleteAuction Of Rubashkin Trucking Company Assets Today
That our inaction in protecting our own children in a "seycheldik - common sense" way would explode in our faces. And the worst is yet to come. There are several documentaries being developed about the scandalous coverups of child sexual abuse in the Orthodox community, with at least one being produced in contract with a major cable television station, a New York Times journalist is researching the problem to publicize it and attempt to effect change, and the Federal Government has begun investigating us as well. (They are becoming more and more familiar with our "Torah true lifestyle," and its "culture clash" with the laws and norms of society.) How much more desecration of G-d's name will it take before we will finally awake to our calling, and begin to fulfill our duty? Do we really need arrests of leading rabbis for obstructing justice and tampering with witnesses by pressuring parents of child abuse victims not to do their civil and moral duty of reporting to the authorities? Recently, after the parents of one young victim did report to the police, it took the Ocean County prosecutor's office intervention and threat of prosecution to stop a prominent rabbi from sending out a letter publicly attacking the family as "crazy and evil people."
ReplyDeleteThis particular Rabbi, who is a Rosh Yeshiva and a Posek of the OU, was written about last week in the NY Post, after using a similar smear campaign to attempt to wrest custody from a Jewish mother of her children becasue her husband was "more religious". My friends, why is this charlatan allowed to even get an aliyah, let alone be a respected rabbi in our community?
http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2007/300/127/2007-300127083-047134f5-F.pdf
ReplyDeletetax return of the lillian jean kaplan founation
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125261934441101047.html
ReplyDeleteNew York City Braces for Risk of Higher Seas
Asher, the Rabbinic Intimidation and Corruption Organization (RICO) will be brought down this year. Mr. Holder is ready to tear down the walls of the Temple of Doom, the Torah Umesorah/Agudath Israel machine.
ReplyDeleteIf this lady in this Wall St Journal article is Shvartz, I'm sure Shmarya will invite her to come live in his mother's basement:
ReplyDeleteSunday's New York Times featured an excerpt from a Times reporter's book on the economic crisis, a truly awful bureaucratic nightmare:
One afternoon in November 2006, a policeman spotted an expired license plate on Dorothy Thomas's 10-year-old Toyota Corolla as she drove through San Jose, Calif. He ordered her to pull over.
Struggling under the weight of thousands of dollars in credit card bills, Ms. Thomas was perpetually short of cash. She had not bought a $10 auto registration sticker. The officer checked his database and recognized that she had already been ticketed once before for the same thing. He arranged to have her car towed away.
"I got down on my knees and begged that officer," Ms. Thomas recalled.
As she watched her car being hauled off, she sensed that this was the beginning of a descent into a crisis from which she might not easily escape. Without money to pay the towing and storage fees, she could not extract her car from the lot, and the tab soon grew to $1,600. Without a car, she could not reach the hospital where she worked in the administrative offices, so she lost her $16-an-hour job. Without a paycheck, she could no longer pay the rent on her modest home. She moved to Oakland, where a friend lived in a beaten-down, rented house on a street they called Crack Avenue. By year's end, Ms. Thomas, then 49, was occupying a bunk at a homeless shelter, searching in vain for a job in an economy plagued by unemployment.
It's not clear what this has to do with the economic crisis, since it happened in 2006, almost two years before the financial panic hit, and at a time when, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment was 4.5% nationwide and 4.8% in California. But whatever. Our main thought is: If Dorothy Thomas thinks bureaucracy is a nightmare now, just wait till Barack Obama tries to force her to buy health insurance.
Where is the entire Lipner piece on Belsky?
ReplyDeletehttp://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203917304574410672271269390.html
ReplyDeleteSEPTEMBER 15, 2009
Obama Is Pushing Israel Toward War
By BRET STEPHENS
Events are fast pushing Israel toward a pre-emptive military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, probably by next spring. That strike could well fail. Or it could succeed at the price of oil at $300 a barrel, a Middle East war, and American servicemen caught in between. So why is the Obama administration doing everything it can to speed the war process along?
At July's G-8 summit in Italy, Iran was given a September deadline to start negotiations over its nuclear programs. Last week, Iran gave its answer: No.
Instead, what Tehran offered was a five-page document that was the diplomatic equivalent of a giant kiss-off. Conspicuously absent from the document is any mention of Iran's nuclear program, now at the so-called breakout point, which both Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his boss Ali Khamenei insist is not up for discussion.
What's an American president to do in the face of this nonstarter of a document? What else, but pretend it isn't a nonstarter. Talks begin Oct. 1.
All this only helps persuade Israel's skittish leadership that when President Obama calls a nuclear-armed Iran "unacceptable," he means it approximately in the same way a parent does when fecklessly reprimanding his misbehaving teenager. That impression is strengthened by Mr. Obama's decision to drop Iran from the agenda when he chairs a meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Sept. 24; by Defense Secretary Robert Gates publicly opposing military strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities; and by Russia's announcement that it will not support any further sanctions on Iran.
In sum, the conclusion among Israelis is that the Obama administration won't lift a finger to stop Iran, much less will the "international community." So Israel has pursued a different strategy, in effect seeking to goad the U.S. into stopping, or at least delaying, an Israeli attack by imposing stiff sanctions and perhaps even launching military strikes of its own.
Thus, unlike Israel's air strike against Iraq's reactor in 1981 or Syria's in 2007, both of which were planned in the utmost secrecy, the Israelis have gone out of their way to advertise their fears, purposes and capabilities. They have sent warships through the Suez Canal in broad daylight and conducted widely publicized air-combat exercises at long range. They have also been unusually forthcoming in their briefings with reporters, expressing confidence at every turn that Israel can get the job done.
Politically Incorrect:
ReplyDeleteActually, there were those of us as early as July of 2005 who were starting to see twinges in the stats and figures for various things and knew the handwriting was on the wall for the debt-based economy. Several of us blogged about it even slightly before then. In August of 2005 I put my house on the market immediately after seeing some very bad swings that were not reported in the mainstream media and downsized us to a place we could better afford. So her situation could very well have to do with the economic downturn, because what they are "officially" calling the "start" of the Recession is in reality well after it actually started.
The problem, however, is that the administration isn't taking the bait, and one has to wonder why. Perhaps it thinks that it can talk the Israelis out of attacking. Alternatively, it might actually want Israel to attack without inviting the perception that it has colluded with it. Or maybe it isn't really paying attention.
ReplyDeleteBut Israel is paying attention. And the longer the U.S. delays playing hardball with Iran, the sooner Israel is likely to strike. A report published today by the Bipartisan Policy Center, and signed by Democrat Chuck Robb, Republican Dan Coats, and retired Gen. Charles Ward, notes that by next year Iran will "be able to produce a weapon's worth of highly enriched uranium . . . in less than two months." No less critical in determining Israel's timetable is the anticipated delivery to Iran of Russian S-300 anti-aircraft batteries: Israel will almost certainly strike before those deliveries are made, no matter whether an Iranian bomb is two months or two years away.
Such a strike may well be in Israel's best interests, though that depends entirely on whether the strike succeeds. It is certainly in America's supreme interest that Iran not acquire a genuine nuclear capability, whether of the actual or break-out variety. That goes also for the Middle East generally, which doesn't need the nuclear arms race an Iranian capability would inevitably provoke.
Then again, it is not in the U.S. interest that Israel be the instrument of Iran's disarmament. For starters, its ability to do so is iffy: Israeli strategists are quietly putting it about that even a successful attack may have to be repeated a few years down the road as Iran reconstitutes its capacity. For another thing, Iran could respond to such a strike not only against Israel itself, but also U.S targets in Iraq and the Persian Gulf.
But most importantly, it is an abdication of a superpower's responsibility to outsource matters of war and peace to another state, however closely allied. President Obama has now ceded the driver's seat on Iran policy to Prime Minister Netanyahu. He would do better to take the wheel again, keeping in mind that Iran is beyond the reach of his eloquence
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/15/world/middleeast/15nazi.html
ReplyDeleteA leading human rights group has suspended its senior military analyst following revelations that he is an avid collector of Nazi memorabilia.
The group, Human Rights Watch, had initially thrown its full support behind the analyst, Marc Garlasco, when the news of his hobby came out last week. On Monday night, the group shifted course and suspended him with pay, “pending an investigation,” said Carroll Bogert, the group’s associate director.
The suspension comes at a time of heightened tension between, on one side, the new Israeli government and its allies on the right, and the other side, human rights organizations that have been critical of Israel. In recent months, the government has pledged an aggressive approach toward the groups to discredit what they argue is bias and error.
Injected suddenly into that heated conflict, word of Mr. Garlasco’s interest seemed startling to many. The disclosure ricocheted across the Internet: Mr. Garlasco, an American, was not only a collector, he has written a book, more than 400 pages long, about Nazi-era medals. His hobby, inspired he said by a German grandfather conscripted into Hitler’s army, was revealed on a pro-Israel blog, Mere Rhetoric, which quoted his enthusiastic postings on collector sites under the pseudonym “Flak88” — including, “That is so cool! The leather SS jacket makes my blood go cold it is so COOL!”
It was a Rorschach moment in the conflict between Israel and its critics. The revelations were, depending on who is talking, either incontrovertible proof of bias or an irrelevant smear.
The Mere Rhetoric posting said Mr. Garlasco’s interests explained “anti-Israel biases.”
The administration of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also weighed in, but its views on groups like Human Rights Watch were already clear. Mr. Netanyahu’s policy director, Ron Dermer, told The Jerusalem Post in July, “We are going to dedicate time and manpower to combating these groups; we are not going to be sitting ducks in a pond for the human rights groups to shoot at us with impunity.”
Garlasco is almost certainly a closet neo-Nazi and it's surprising the NY Times missed such a glaring clue in his ID of Flak88. "88" is often used by neo-Nazis as H is the 8th letter of the alphabet. In other words, "88" stands for Heil Hitler.
ReplyDeleteAnd is Mere Rhetoric another nom de guerre for UOJ?
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Authorities on Tuesday returned to the Northern California home where kidnap victim Jaycee Dugard was held for 18 years, searching the grounds for evidence that could link her suspected abductors to two girls missing since the late 1980s.
ReplyDeleteInvestigators from two nearby towns said they were looking for anything that could tie Phillip and Nancy Garrido, the married couple charged with snatching 11-year-old Dugard from a street near her home in 1991, to the kidnappings of 9-year-old Michaela Garecht or 13-year-old Ilene Misheloff.
Police say Garecht, who was grabbed in front of the Rainbow Market in the town of Hayward on November 18, 1988, bore a striking resemblance to Dugard and that a sketch of the suspect had been likened to Phillip Garrido.
Misheloff vanished on January 30, 1989, and a car found on the Garrido property appears to fit the description of a sedan she was seen getting into on the day she disappeared, police said.
"Our aim is to very methodically, systematically search the property with our cases in mind," Hayward Police Lieutenant Christine Orrey told reporters, adding: "This is one of the strongest leads we have pursued so far."
"It was a Rorschach moment in the conflict between Israel and its critics."
ReplyDeleteThis sounds very interesting already ...
(Reuters) - James McDonald, a prominent adviser to wealthy families as chief executive of investment management group Rockefeller & Co, died in an apparent suicide,
ReplyDeleteon Sunday, local authorities said on Tuesday.
McDonald, 56, was found with a single gunshot wound in his car near a strip mall in Dartmouth, Massachusetts on Sunday afternoon. Police are still investigating.
McDonald was credited with growing Rockefeller & Co, the New York-based family office established by oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller in 1882 to manage the dynasty's assets, into a broader investment management company with roughly $28 billion in assets.
A spokesman at the Securities and Exchange Commission declined to comment on whether McDonald or the firm was facing any inquiries.
McDonald was married with a son and daughter and had homes on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan and in Boston.
Democrats Push to Repeal Federal Marriage Law
ReplyDeleteThe Respect for Marriage Act, unveiled by Reps. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., and Jared Polis, D-Colo, has the support of more than 90 lawmakers.
By Megan Whittemore
FOXNews.com
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
A group of House Democrats introduced legislation Tuesday that would overturn a federal marriage law that denies recognition of gay marriage and gives states the right to refuse recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,550341,00.html
ReplyDeleteHEMPSTEAD, N.Y. — Four men were arrested and a fifth is being sought in connection with the campus gang rape of an 18-year-old female Hofstra University student.
In March, several Hofstra University students were arrested on drug and weapons charges after a showdown over cocaine in a school dorm room.
This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," September 14, 2009. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
ReplyDeleteSEAN HANNITY, HOST: And this is a FOX News alert. The massive scandal involving ACORN continues to spread tonight. Law enforcement sources have confirmed to FOX News that the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office has launched an investigation into the ACORN offices in Brooklyn.
Cops are on the hunt for Yale University lab technician Raymond Clark III who has been identified as a person of interest in the Annie Le murder, sources said Tuesday.
ReplyDeleteClark, 24, works as an animal tech in the lab where Le was found dead on Sunday.
Police found the 24-year-old pharmacology student's body stuffed in a wall in the lab on Sunday - what would have been her wedding day.
Police are looking for Clark, who was not home Tuesday as swarms of cops descended on his apartment about 20 miles from Yale's campus.
Clark did not show up for work - and neither did his sister, brother-in-law or fiance, all of whom work for Yale, the Yale Daily News reports.
Police zeroed in on the lab tech several days ago, after he failed lie detector tests and had scratch marks on his chest that suggest he was in a struggle.
Cops and FBI agents interviewed Clark several times. At one point he stopped answering questions and asked for a lawyer, the New Haven Register reported.
Police set up road blocks along Route 15 in the nearby town of Hamden. They stopped cars to look at passenger's faces.
Neighbors said authorities in unmarked cars arrived Monday afternoon and frequently followed and pulled over drivers in the complex.
Neighbors say they saw Clark and his girlfriend, Jennifer Hromadka, leaving with suitcases on Sunday around the time cops found Le's body.
"I saw them leaving this weekend with travel bags like they were in a hurry," said a 35-year-old neighbor who lives in the same Middletown apartment building.
She and another neighbor said the couple climbed in the back seat of a Ford that had two adults in the front.
"I thought they were going on vacation," the neighbor said.
A woman who knew Clark when he lived in New Haven last year said he "looked like he could snap" at any moment, screamed at children and was "very controlling" of his girlfriend.
"He looked like he could go postal," said Anne Marie Goodwin, 40. "Something was wrong in his eyes. He looked disturbed."
The ousted head of Long Island University's Hillwood Museum has been charged with stealing ancient Egyptian artifacts from the school and trying to auction them at Christie's.
ReplyDeleteBarry Stern, 61, has admitted he took the nine pieces - each more than 2,000 years old - and is to surrender to authorities Wednesday.
A preliminary search of the museum's collection found other pieces missing. An audit of its entire inventory of thousands of anitquities is underway, a criminal complaint filed in Long Island Federal Court charges.
The stolen artifacts turned up in Christie's auction catalogue in June -- 10 months after Stern's contract was terminated.
A worker at the museum became suspicious after the auction house faxed an purchase offer to Stern at his old office. Eight of the objects sold for a total of $51,500.
FBI agent James Wynne said Stern delivered the objects to Christie's for inspection and claimed his parents had acquired them in 1955.
After taking the objects, Stern deleted scriptions of the antiquities from the museum's database, authorities said.
Even I'm upset. I missed out on this opportunity of this Jewish guy and his Vietnamese fiancee.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/09/13/2009-09-13_details_of_the_canceled_wedding_of_.html
Only one question was supposed to be on the mind of would-be groom Jonathan Widawsky on Sunday.
Do you take this woman to be your wife?
Instead, the 24-year-old is faced with much darker questions about his fiancée, Annie Le, who was last seen alive Tuesday morning in her lab at Yale Medical School.
Cantor Sandra Sherry, who would have presided over today’s ceremony, immediately feared foul play, saying Le, 24, would never skip out on her wedding day.
“I never thought that it was anything like ‘cold feet,’” said Sherry, of Temple Beth El in Huntington, L.I.
“Her smile was effervescent when she spoke about the wedding,” said Sherry. “She embroidered her own veil, which says to me that she was looking forward to this occasion.”
Some 160 guests were to arrive at the North Ritz Club in Syosset at 11 a.m. for the ceremony, set on a gazebo overlooking a pond.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203917304574412792287663918.html
ReplyDeleteAcorn's allies in Congress have long stopped every move to rein it in. Rep. Steve King (R., Iowa), for example, has tried six times to get House floor votes restricting Acorn's access to federal funds but has been blocked by Speaker Nancy Pelosi's hand-picked Rules Committee members. Some Democrats have grumbled. Michigan's John Conyers, chair of the Judiciary Committee, urged a hearing be held on Acorn abuses in March, but later told the Washington Times "the powers that be decided against it."
There is a chance the latest scandals will convince Democrats that Acorn is too toxic a political partner. And President Barack Obama, who once ran a voter-registration program for an Acorn partner (Project Vote) and then worked for Acorn as a lawyer on key cases, has every incentive to distance himself further from the organization.
Former Acorn board members tell me the group has always been confident it will be protected. After the Nevada voter-registration fraud indictment last May, Bonnie Greathouse, Acorn's chief organizer in the state, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that "we've had bad publicity before" and survived. "People always come forward to our defense. We're just community organizers, just like the president used to be."
For those who were inspired by the first video of this post by our dearest UOJ, the singer is the great one, Chaim Yisrael. His CDs are readily available at judaica stores worldwide. I got hooked a long time. Best party, he aint a kool-ade drinking moron.
ReplyDeleteUOJ, where would I be today without your help and what u did for me b'prat and for the tzibbur b'klal. Oh to meet you and Steve, Boog, LVF and the rest of the "Chevra Kiddusha" and the "Bais Din".
Rock On! Hope lives as long as we hope!
One more thought: "90% of everything is crap...except for crap, because crap is 100% crap."
MIDDLETOWN, Conn. (AP) Police: Search warrants executed on person of interest in Yale graduate student slaying.
ReplyDeleteHEMPSTEAD, N.Y. — Four men were arrested and a fifth is being sought in connection with the campus gang rape of an 18-year-old female Hofstra University student.
ReplyDeletehttp://1.bp.blogspot.com/_DCGOA_RlajQ/Sq_YaRLK9rI/AAAAAAAAD-Q/lZjkdKgVwn0/s1600-h/BASSMAN.bmp
ReplyDeleteThe alert Yudel Shain is being mefarsem on me for stealing the name of the Lakewood Badatz to merge with my dubious Vaad Hadayonim. He also says the heter I gave for Bassman to go to court is phony.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/09/16/us/AP-US-Yale-Killing.html
ReplyDeleteNew Haven police said they would restrict information even more in coming days after an NBC producer was injured Tuesday as reporters outside the police department pushed to surround a spokesman during a briefing.
http://daattorah.blogspot.com/2009/09/skulener-rebbe-need-for-sex-education.html
ReplyDeleteHe is aware of large numbers of yeshiva bochurim buying pornographic magazines (the real kind as opposed to the Avi Shafran definition). He says that one yeshiva rebbe was driven to molest kids because he too was buying porno mags.
The Rebbe says the underlying problem is because yeshivos suppress all information about znus which is wrong. Instead of pretending it doesn't exist, yeshivos should teach preventative sex ed about the chomer issurim. Otherwise he says that the yetzer hara alein becomes the melamed in the vacuum.
He says even the best learners are nichshol.
I went to speak to a rov after davening. A macher from Torah Umesorah was present who stuck his nose in to ask me a rude, yentish question that was none of his business in front of the crowd. I was then cut off because a woman was standing outside the beis medrash pleading that she has an emergency and needs to speak to the rov immediately. When the rov came back in, the TU fresser hijacked him by the door. When I walked over to continue my shayla, the fresser told me to get lost until he is finished.
ReplyDeleteThe fresser spent the next hour ranting to the rov about goings on at Torah Umesorah meetings that he is unhappy about. He was very loud and you could hear what he was saying throughout the building.
According to the fresser:
- Agudah / TU hierarchy are not machshev rabbonim who learned in Chofetz Chaim including the current roshei yeshiva
- Chaim Berlin tries to steamroll everyone else with their "my way or the highway" approach
- Day schools across the country need an emergency bailout to keep operating. Fruchthandler offered to give $1 million a year until the economy stabilizes. He says that divided among the schools, it's enough "to buy door knobs for toilet stalls"
- Abe Biederman estimates that there are between 40 to 50 frum but karga billionaires who are giving nothing to chinuch.
- Pinny Lipschutz had a sweetheart monopoly for the Yated. The Moetzes and several other rabbonim had to be lobbied to make Hamodia acceptable.
- R' Zelig was skeptical that TU could get important things done
- When lobbying, you go to everyone except a brick wall named Aron Schechter
- TU charges mechanchim too much money to come to their assifos
Would You Buy That Mattress Again?
ReplyDeleteTuesday, September 15, 2009
provided by Israel Belsky
Buying a bed is no picnic. Comparison shopping is almost impossible because different retailers rarely call a model by the same name. And you're apt to make that expensive decision after trying out a bed for just a few minutes in the store.
But our new survey might help. We found real differences when we asked 17,444 online subscribers who bought a bed in the past few years about their satisfaction with the brand and the store.
Forty-one percent said they'd definitely buy the mattress brand they currently own if they had to do it over. Forty-three percent said they'd probably buy it again. An unhappy 16 percent said they'd probably or definitely pick something else. Here are the details:
Some Brands Were Better
Respondents who bought Tempur-Pedic, Original Mattress Factory brand, and Select Comfort mattresses were much more satisfied than those who bought Spring Air and Stearns & Foster models. They were significantly more likely to say they would definitely buy those brands again.
Any New Mattress Beats an Old One
Seventy-two percent of readers said their new bed improved their sleep. If yours is uncomfortable, consider replacing it even if it's only five or so years old.
Satisfaction at What Price?
Seventy-eight percent of those who spent more than $4,000 said they were highly satisfied with their purchase. But 66 percent of those who spent less than $1,000 were also highly satisfied.
Problem Sleepers Had a Preference
Among those who said they had problems sleeping, 78 percent said that a new bed, any new bed, improved their ability to get a good night's rest; 42 percent said the new mattress greatly improved their sleep.
Problem sleepers said Tempur-Pedic (made of memory foam) and Select Comfort (a line of adjustable air mattresses) provided the most relief. More than 60 percent of long-suffering sleepers who bought either of the two brands said their sleep was very much improved. Conversely, Stearns & Foster and Spring Air disproportionately aggravated the difficulties of problem sleepers, worsening the condition of about 10 percent of those who bought them.
An In-Store Tryout Is a Good Idea
Seventy-two percent of those who invested at least 10 minutes (for instance, lying down on each side, back, and stomach) were highly satisfied with their mattress purchase compared with 62 percent who didn't. A rest test isn't foolproof -- 12 percent of those surveyed were at least somewhat dissatisfied with their new mattress even if they tried it first, but at least it gives you a fighting chance.
Don't Pay Full Price
The suggested retail price of a mattress is pure fiction. Discounts of 50 percent or more are common. In our survey, only 36 percent of respondents tried haggling. Among those who tried, 72 percent got a lower price.
Threaten the store owner to lower the price or Mendel Epstein will drop in to "see him".
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/16/us/politics/16wilson.html
ReplyDeleteWASHINGTON — Representative Joe Wilson was formally rebuked by the House on Tuesday for his outburst during President Obama’s health care address. The vote came after a Congressional clash over civility that showcased the deep partisan divisions in the House.
In a mainly party line vote of 240 to 179, the House held that by shouting “You lie” during the president’s speech Mr. Wilson, a South Carolina Republican, committed a “breach of decorum and degraded the proceedings of the joint session, to the discredit of the House.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/16/us/16coin.html
ReplyDeleteRare Coins: Family Treasure or Ill-Gotten Goods?
Roy Langbord had guessed that someone in his family might have hidden away a great treasure decades before, but not until his mother had him check a long-neglected safe-deposit box did he realize just how great it was.
Inside the box, opened in 2003, he found an incredibly rare coin, wrapped in a delicate paper sleeve. It was a gold $20 piece with Lady Liberty on one side, a bald eagle flying across the other and, at Liberty’s left, the four digits that made it so valuable: 1933.
The famous “double eagles” from that year were never officially released by the government. Only a few had ever made their way out of federal vaults, and only one had ever been sold publicly, in 2002. The price: $7.6 million.
And there were nine more of them in the safe-deposit box.
But after the Langbord family took the coins to the United States Mint to be authenticated in 2004, they got a rude surprise. The Mint said the coins were genuine and kept them.
The government claims that they are government property stolen from the Mint, most likely in the 1930s, by Mr. Langbord’s grandfather, Israel Switt, a Philadelphia jewelry dealer.
The Langbords went to court and recently won an important ruling. A United States District Court judge has given the government until the end of the month either to give back the coins or go back to court to prove that they were in fact stolen by Mr. Switt, a daunting task after three-quarters of a century.
Nearly a half-million 1933 double eagles were minted before President Franklin D. Roosevelt, shifting the nation away from the gold standard, issued an executive order that made owning large amounts of gold bullion and coins illegal. Two of the coins went to the Smithsonian Institution, and almost all the rest were melted down.
Some, however, escaped that fate, including the coin sold in 2002, which had made its way into the collection of King Farouk of Egypt and later the hands of a British dealer. The government had seized that coin, too, and arrested the dealer, Stephen Fenton. But Mr. Fenton’s lawyer, Barry H. Berke, reached a settlement that allowed that single coin to be issued officially and sold at auction, with the government taking half of the proceeds.
The Secret Service, which polices currency crimes, has argued that all of the double eagles that escaped government control passed through the hands of Mr. Switt, working with a corrupt cashier at the Mint.
According to a history of the coins by Alison Frankel, a journalist with The American Lawyer, a United States attorney decided not to prosecute Mr. Switt in the mid-1940s, saying the statute of limitations had passed.
Ms. Frankel wrote in her 2006 book “Double Eagle: The Epic Story of the World’s Most Valuable Coin” that Mr. Switt was “a thoroughly nasty piece of work,” and that a dealer who traded with him called him a “gold coin bootlegger” who continued to sell gold coins long after the practice had been prohibited. The book details the government’s contention that Mr. Switt worked with a corrupt Mint cashier.
The Langbords insist that Mr. Switt, who died in 1990, acquired the coins legitimately before the ban, most likely through a gold-for-gold exchange process used by the Mint in those days.
In fact, Mr. Berke said, Mr. Switt was a frequent visitor to the Mint, had plenty of gold to trade for gold coins and probably did so. Proving otherwise will be extremely difficult, he said. “There’s really nobody with contemporary knowledge from the Mint who’s still living,” he said, having sought out former Mint employees for the earlier litigation.
In an interview, Ms. Frankel called Mr. Berke’s success in persuading the judge to shift the burden of proof onto the government in the case “quite an amazing accomplishment” that forces the government “to prove a negative — that the coins could not have gotten out legally.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/16/business/16suicide.html
ReplyDeleteNo one can know exactly what Finn Caspersen, prominent philanthropist & heir to the Beneficial Corp fortune, was thinking when he decided to take his life on Labor Day. Although Mr. Caspersen, 67, was battling cancer, his suicide shocked his family & friends.
But Mr. Caspersen, a patron of Harvard & Princeton who gave away tens of millions to charity, apparently harbored a secret: He was suspected of dodging many millions in taxes. The authorities were closing in.
At the time of his death, investigators were building a case against Mr. Caspersen on suspicion of using secret offshore bank accounts to evade taxes.
The authorities had asserted he might have owed as much as $100 million in back taxes & fines or, possibly even have faced prison.
Whispers of tax trouble went through the crowd at Mr. Caspersen’s funeral on Tuesday. About 800 people attended the service in Morristown, N.J.
Mr. Caspersen, a longtime fixture in New Jersey political circles, had been swept up in a broad federal crackdown on the use of offshore bank accounts by wealthy Americans. UBS, the big Swiss bank, divulged the names of nearly 300 American clients & agreed to hand over several thousand more last month.
One wealthy UBS client, Igor Olenicoff, hid an estimated $200 million in Switzerland & Liechtenstein. In 2008, he pleaded guilty to a single felony & paid $52 million in back taxes & penalties. More recently, several other UBS clients, among them a Florida yacht broker, admitted to tax evasion.
As the inquiries continue, the names of more well-to-do people are likely to come to light. Those who have hidden money offshore face a difficult choice: They have a week to turn themselves over to the Internal Revenue Service or gamble that they will not be caught. The I.R.S. is offering amnesty to those who disclose their offshore holdings by Sept. 23. After that, offenders could face criminal prosecution.
The I.R.S. learned that Mr. Caspersen held an account at LGT, the private bank controlled with Liechtenstein’s royal family. Liechtenstein pledged last December to disclose the names of some wealthy Americans with bank accounts there, but it was unclear if Mr. Caspersen’s name was among them or how the I.R.S. learned of any account in his name.
His family was associated with Beneficial, the consumer lending giant, for most of the 20th century. Mr. Caspersen ran the company for 20 years before selling it to Household International in 1998 for $8.6 billion.
Mr. Caspersen established Knickerbocker, which he named after the men-only Knickerbocker Club, on the Upper East Side, to which he belonged.
According to the person familiar with the investigation, federal authorities recently placed liens on the personal trusts of Mr. Caspersen’s four sons.
Like Mr. Caspersen, his sons are graduates of Harvard Law School, where the Caspersen Room houses rare books, documents & art. Last year, Mr. Caspersen pledged $30 million to Harvard Law, the largest single donation in the school’s history.
Shortly before his death, Mr. Caspersen placed his estate in Westerly on the market for $10.9 million & began to step back from philanthropic efforts.
He unexpectedly resigned from the Dean’s Advisory Council at Harvard Law School — he was class of 1966 — and quit as chairman of the board of the Peddie prep school in Hightstown, N.J.
He also resigned from the town commission in Jupiter Island, Fla., where he lived & stepped down as chairman of the Hodson Trust, a foundation that has awarded $210 million in scholarships & was established by his ancestor Clarence Hodson
http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/16/baucus-releases-bipartisan-proposal/?hp
ReplyDelete13 percent. That’s the share of family income that the Baucus plan envisions middle-class American families having to pay in health insurance premiums before co-payments, deductibles and other cost-sharing.
And senators in both parties are questioning whether, at the end of the day, insurance will be affordable to the people who need it most — perhaps the single most crucial question for all of the health care overhaul proposals.
The Baucus bill seeks to extend health coverage to more than 30 million uninsured American citizens. To do so, it would broadly expand Medicaid, the state-federal insurance program for the poor, and provide government subsidies to modest-income individuals and families to help them buy coverage.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/16/health/policy/16cancer.html?hp=&pagewanted=print
ReplyDeletePoliticians and researchers have predicted for nearly four decades that a cure for cancer is near, but cancer death rates have hardly budged and most new cancer drugs cost a fortune while giving patients few, if any, added weeks of life. For this collective failure, the man atop the nation’s regulatory agency for new cancer drugs increasingly — and supporters say unfairly — gets the blame: Dr. Richard Pazdur.
Patient advocates have called Dr. Pazdur, director of the Food and Drug Administration’s cancer drug office, a murderer, conservative pundits have vilified him as an obstructionist bureaucrat, and guards are now posted at the agency’s public cancer advisory meetings to protect him and other committee members.
“The industry is not producing that many good drugs, so now they’re looking for scapegoats in Rick Pazdur and the F.D.A.,” said Ira S. Loss, who follows the drug industry for Washington Analysis, a service for investors.
In 10 years at the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Pazdur, 57, has helped to loosen approval standards for cancer medicines and made it easier for dying patients to get experimental drugs. But he demands that drug makers prove with near certainty that their products are beneficial, a requirement that he repeated at a public advisory hearing on Sept. 1 in the slow, loud tones of someone disciplining a dog. After he spoke, the committee of experts voted to reject both drugs.
Critics say that Dr. Pazdur’s resolve has cost thousands of lives and set back the pace of discoveries.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/magazine/13JStreet-t.html?em=&pagewanted=print
ReplyDeleteIn July, President Obama met for 45 minutes with leaders of American Jewish organizations. All presidents meet with Israel’s advocates. Obama, however, had taken his time, and powerhouse figures of the Jewish community were grumbling; Obama’s coolness seemed to be of a piece with his willingness to publicly pressure Israel to freeze the growth of its settlements and with what was deemed his excessive solicitude toward the plight of the Palestinians. During the July meeting, held in the Roosevelt Room, Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, told Obama that “public disharmony between Israel and the U.S. is beneficial to neither” and that differences “should be dealt with directly by the parties.” The president, according to Hoenlein, leaned back in his chair and said: “I disagree. We had eight years of no daylight” — between George W. Bush and successive Israeli governments — “and no progress.”
It is safe to say that at least one participant in the meeting enjoyed this exchange immensely: Jeremy Ben-Ami, the founder and executive director of J Street, a year-old lobbying group with progressive views on Israel. Some of the mainstream groups vehemently protested the White House decision to invite J Street, which they regard as a marginal organization located well beyond the consensus that they themselves seek to enforce. But J Street shares the Obama administration’s agenda, and the invitation stayed.
J Street knows exactly where it stands. “Our No. 1 agenda item,” Ben-Ami said to me, “is to do whatever we can in Congress to act as the president’s blocking back.”
The idea that there is an “Israel lobby,” with its undertones of dual loyalty, is a controversial notion. It has been around since the early 1970s at least, but it became a topic of wide discussion only after the publication of a notorious article in The London Review of Books in 2006 by the political scientists John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt. The article, which was expanded into a book, infuriated many readers by its air of conspiratorial hugger-mugger; by its insistence that Jewish neoconservatives had persuaded President Bush to go to war in Iraq in order to protect Israel; and by the authors’ apparent ignorance of the deep sense of identification many Americans — Jewish and gentile — feel toward Israel. But the authors made one claim that struck many knowledgeable people as very close to the mark: The Israel lobby had succeeded in ruling almost any criticism of Israel out of bounds, especially in Congress.
“The bottom line,” Mearsheimer and Walt wrote, “is that Aipac, a de facto agent for a foreign government, has a stranglehold on Congress, with the result that U.S. policy is not debated there, even though that policy has important consequences for the entire world.” Mearsheimer and Walt also wrote that Aipac and other groups succeeded in installing officials who were deemed “pro-Israel” into senior positions. This is, of course, what effective lobbies do. The Cuba lobby, for example, long operated in the same way.
Ben-Ami is a political junkie who, at age 14, handed out leaflets for Jimmy Carter. He has worked in New York City government and politics; he served as deputy domestic-policy adviser in Bill Clinton’s first term and national policy director on Howard Dean’s presidential campaign. But he also benefits from an unusual Israeli pedigree. His great-grandparents joined the first group of Russian Jews to make aliyah — to move to the Holy Land — in 1882. His grandparents were among the 66 families that in 1909 drew seashells from a hat — the legendary Seashell Lottery — to parcel out sandy lots in what was to become Israel. His father served as a commander for Betar, the youth arm affiliated with Irgun, the fervent nationalist movement that fought the British to gain Israel’s independence. Ben-Ami’s father was tasked with purchasing the Altalena, a naval vessel left over from World War II that was then filled with arms and was on its way to Palestine when David Ben-Gurion declared the independent state of Israel and ordered all fighters to accept the authority of the state. After Menachem Begin, the head of Irgun, refused to turn back the Altalena, it was sunk by Ben-Gurion’s forces, led by Yitzhak Rabin. Ben-Ami, who was born in New York, says, “I grew up with my father spending his entire life arguing with his friends about the Altalena and Ben-Gurion and what a schmuck he was and how could Begin give back the Sinai.”
ReplyDeleteThis is the world that shaped the mainstream American Jewish groups. Abraham Foxman, the head of the Anti-Defamation League, was born in Poland in 1940, and he often sounds as if only eternal vigilance will ward off the Holocaust in the offing. Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, was born in a camp for displaced persons, to parents who were Holocaust survivors. The prophetic voice comes naturally to such men. So does the sense of besetting peril. Important Jewish organizations are normally reached through a series of locked doors presided over by glassed-in functionaries. The peril may be real. But it can also feel like a marketing device. “You know what these guys are afraid of?” says M. J. Rosenberg, Washington director of the Israel Policy Forum. “Their generation is disappearing. All the old Jewish people in senior-citizen homes speaking Yiddish are dying — and they’re being replaced by 60-year-old Woodstock types.”
Ben-Ami speaks for, and to, this post-Holocaust generation. “They’re all intermarried,” he says. “They’re all doing Buddhist seders.” They are, he adds, baffled by the notion of “Israel as the place you can always count on when they come to get you.”
Meanwhile, Ben-Ami was beginning to build up a network of local supporters who could give legislators a piece of their mind — just as Aipac has (only much smaller). He is bringing highly placed Israeli peaceniks to spread their alternative message in Washington and beyond. And J Street’s new corps of lobbyists will soon be fanning out into the wilds of Congress, there to sit down with legislators and staff who have never heard of, much less met with, liberal advocates on Israel.
After child rapist Garrido was arrested, he complained that the moles on his nose were a hazard to his health that he never bothered to take care of because it's expensive.
ReplyDeleteA plastic surgeon was brought in to the prison to remove them at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars to taxpayers.
http://jta.org/news/article/2009/09/14/1007849/even-behind-bars-jewish-life-flourishes
ReplyDeleteSTORMVILLE, N.Y. (JTA) -- On a breezy summer afternoon at the maximum-security prison that dominates the landscape here, inmates gather around a stocky bearded man as he prepares to blow a shofar.
Philip Drelich sounds one long blast and then the crowd disperses, off to their daily routine.
Just like many of their coreligionists on the outside, the Jews at this person, the Green Haven Correctional Facility in upstate New York, are mindful of the daily shofar-blowing ritual during the Jewish month of Elul signaling the upcoming High Holidays.
"I certainly became more aware of religion here in jail," says Lewis Scharff, a convicted murderer at Green Haven who spoke to JTA at the prison synagogue, just opposite the Catholic chapel. "We have two people who found teshuvah during their time here,” he said, using the Hebrew word for repentance.
Walking down the long, bleak corridors of Green Haven, which are kept immaculately clean by an army of inmates constantly mopping the floors, a number of convicts wearing yarmulkes and tzitzit are visible. Every morning and on Shabbat, about 12 regulars show up for prayer services at the prison synagogue; more than double that number are expected for the High Holidays. On Passover, inmates lead the seders.
On Sukkot, says Drelich, who is at Green Haven serving a life sentence for murder, the prison will have two sukkahs: “One for those in solitary confinement, and the other in the general quarters.”
"A Yid is a Yid, a Jew is a Jew," says Rabbi Zvi Boyarsky, who visits Green Haven frequently to minister to inmates. "The soul remains pure.”
Maximum-security prisons in the United States have relatively few Jewish inmates, according to the Aleph Institute, a Chabad-affiliated organization that reaches out to Jews behind bars. Most Jews in the prison system usually end up at lower-security facilities for crimes such as fraud or tax evasion.
But Green Haven has enough Jewish inmates that it is the only prison in New York with a hot kosher kitchen, where kosher food is prepared on site rather than being brought in pre-cooked from the outside. Of the 1,984 inmates there, 150 are listed as Jewish. About 70 are on the kosher meal plan.
Boyarsky says he doesn't think of the crimes committed by the inmates to whom he offers help.
Jewish inmates at Green Haven have a synagogue and a rabbi who works part-time five days a week. And as at all prisons in New York State, the inmates are permitted to keep tefillin in their cells.
The hub of Jewish life at Green Haven is the kosher kitchen, which dishes out three meals a day. The kosher supervisor, Rony Berkoviz, an Israeli-born inmate jailed for a sex offense, proudly displays the separate dairy, meat and parve sets of dishes and cutlery and explains how the kitchen works.
http://hometownstation.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=17731:eden-desecration-clarita-2009-09-15-16-32&catid=26:local-news&Itemid=97
ReplyDeleteBy Robin Heinz Bratslavsky
Special to KHTS News
A class-action lawsuit filed against Service Corporation International (SCI) and Eden Memorial Park has sparked outrage and disbelief among the Jewish community of the greater Los Angeles area.
The claim, filed in Los Angeles this week, alleges that employees of Eden Memorial Park, located in Mission Hills, knowingly disinterred remains and desecrated gravesites at the large memorial park just south of Santa Clarita.
Though the exact scope of the alleged activities is unknown, the lead attorney in the case estimates it could affect more than 500 gravesites at the cemetery.
Jewish caskets are made from simple pine and held together with wood glue, making the entire casket biodegradable. The casket decomposes with the body. Since the casket is not completely intact for long, any damage can result in remains being dislodged from the structure. When this occurred, the complaint alleges, said remains were then disposed of by Eden Memorial Park employees.
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and a handful of other Democratic Assembly members combined to give ACORN $175,0000 in grants for low income people to register for housing and health insurance programs.
ReplyDeleteFearful of a Madrid-style subway train bombing, authorities are poised to make more raids to seize bomb-making materials at locations in Queens, sources said Wednesday.
ReplyDeleteThe FBI's elite Hostage Rescue Team arrived in New York in anticipation of the offensive to thwart a Denver-based terror cell with ties to Al Qaeda, police sources told the Daily News.
Another source said an earlier raid uncovered nine backpacks and cell phones, raising memories of the March 2004 bombings in Madrid. A series of terrorist bombs detonated aboard commuter trains killed 191 people.
The source said authorities feared a potential attack on the city subway, with its 5.2 million daily riders.
Najibullah Zazi, the Colorado man who triggered a rash of Queens raids Monday, was identified through e-mail, wire taps and a confidential informant as part of the plot, the source said. Zazi, 25, told The News he had nothing to do with any terrorist activity.
"No. Of course, I'm not a terrorist," the 25-year-old Afghan national said Tuesday.
A source said Zazi, tipped while visiting Manhattan last weekend that he was under surveillance, fled back to suburban Denver. Even as Zazi, of Aurora, Colo., professed his innocence, counterterrorism agents eyed him as part of the first suspected Al Qaeda cell they've uncovered in the U.S. since 9/11.
A bearded and barefoot Zazi, standing in the doorway of his apartment, said he's a hard-working airport shuttle driver who is married and lives with his elderly parents in the Denver suburb.
"I didn't know anything about who was following me," Zazi said of reports he is under surveillance by the FBI.
He confirmed driving to New York last week to visit friends, but denied involvement in any Al Qaeda bomb plot or terror cell. Zazi was stopped at the George Washington Bridge on his way into the city, sources told The News.
Authorities later seized his rental car from a Queens street, sources said. In the car, sources said the feds found documents and papers about bomb-making and bombs.
"I didn't know what he was up to," said mosque President Abdulrahman Jalili, 58, after he was contacted by the FBI about Zazi. "Islam is against terrorism. It is a religion of peace."
Michael Mineo just can't seem to stay out of trouble.
ReplyDeleteThe tattoo artist who said cops sodomized him with a baton at a Brooklyn train station and who was slashed in a street fight was busted Monday for sitting in a playground.
"I wasn't doing nothing," Mineo complained Tuesday after spending the night in jail. "I was just sitting on the park bench talking to a friend. They knew who I was. Of course they did."
Mineo, 24, was in a playground on Glenwood Road and E. 101st St. near his Brooklyn home when two squad cars rolled up, he said.
Cops arrested him after they found a summons for community service Mineo never finished for an April 2008 assault at the tattoo parlor where he had worked.
"Michael had completed community service, but got the dates mixed up and didn't bring [the certificate] in to show a judge last week," said Mineo's lawyer, Stephen Jackson.
He said Mineo showed cops proof he had completed his community service.
The three cops facing charges in the Oct. 15, 2008, attack at a Prospect Park station are from the 71st Precinct. The cops who arrested Mineo at the playground are from the 69th Precinct.
Still, Jackson says cops are out to get Mineo.
"Of course they knew who he was," Jackson said. "I think two squad cars shows premeditation."
Mineo - who was stabbed in July after getting into a shouting match with a man who jostled his girlfriend - has sued the city for $220 million over the alleged sodomy attack.
A police spokesman said it is up to a judge, not police, to determine whether someone completed community service.
"The lawyer's assertions are false," Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne said.
"Mineo was in a section of a park reserved for children with their parents or guardian. ... He was asked to leave the area. Only after he refused to leave and the warrant popped was he arrested."
A Long Island woman says meatballs at a Queens supermarket improperly stacked a shaky sales display that left her buried under an avalanche of spaghetti sauce.
ReplyDeletePatricia Samaroo, 55, claims in a Queens Supreme Court suit that she was left with permanent injuries in the grocery spill.
"It was on sale," Samaroo said of the jar she reached for at an Ozone Park Pathmark on Jan. 19. "And then it collapsed. I was in shock when it happened."
"All I know is that I was covered in spaghetti sauce," Samaroo told the Daily News Tuesday night.
Dozens of jars of sauce rained down on her head, leaving her hospitalized with permanent head and spine injuries, she charged.
"It shouldn't be that high," Samaroo said of the display. "They should know what they're doing with a display like that."
"It happened so fast," Samaroo added.
"I still have pain in my neck. I use painkillers all because of this.
Samaroo said in court papers the incident left her with bulging discs and nerve damage, rendering her "sick, lame, sore and disabled."
The woman's lawyer, James Kiley, said the supermarket chain's managers were negligent for failing to "determine if jars were likely to topple and fall."
Pathmark officials did not return calls for comment
Kesivah VeChasima Tovah.
ReplyDeleteUOJ and all those onboard should see the fruits of your labors in this year 5770.
Tehe Shnas Anavah! May all those who haughtily decide that their SPECIAL ASSETS are worth more than Yiddishe Neshamos, quickly learn some HUMILITY.
************************************
The gedolei rabbonim in Eretz Yisroel asked us to remind the klal of the gravity of harming other people.
They said the following:
1] EVERY MACHLOKES CAUSES HUNDREDS OF JOBS TO BE LOST. BUT, IF THE MACHLOKES CAUSED ANOTHER PERSON TO LOSE HIS PARNASSAH AS A RESULT OF HATRED, THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE ARE AFFECTED.
2] ONI CHASHUV KEMAIS, THEREFORE IF A PERSON CAUSES ANOTHER JEW TO LOSE THEIR JOB THEY ARE MURDERERS. IT IS IMPORTANT TO NOT MASSER ON SOMEONE UNLESS [A] THE BEHAVIOR IS CAUSING HARM TO ANOTHER PERSON, OR [B] IF THAT IS THE ONLY WAY TO STOP THE PERSON FROM ACTING AGAINST ANOTHER PERSON.
3] IN SITUATION [B] SINCE IT MAY AFFECT PARTNERS NOT INVOLVED IN THE REDIFAH, IT IS MERITORIOUS TO CONVINCE THE PARTNER TO TERMINATE THE BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP. IF THE PARTNER IS UNWILLING OR UNABLE TO TERMINATE THE RELATIONSHIP, IT IS OKAY TO MASSER ON THE RODEF AND WHATEVER HAPPENS TO THE PARTNER, HAPPENS. OY LERASHA OY LESHCHAYNOY EXISTS FOR A REASON.
They added a special Birkas Kesiva Vechasima Tovah to all those people that are involved in protecting others from the rodfim in America. "These yechidei segulah, are really the ainai hoaidah in America".
By JOHN M. BRODER
ReplyDeletePublished: September 16, 2009
WASHINGTON — The Interior Department is ending the oil and gas royalty program that ignited a major scandal last year when it was revealed that federal employees had engaged in corruption, drug use and sexual misconduct with industry officials.
Gov. David A. Paterson has continually said he plans to run next year to keep the job he assumed after Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s resignation. But first he will have to improve his standing with the public.
ReplyDeleteA Marist poll released Wednesday showed his approval rating at a dismal 20 percent. That is a point lower from a survey conducted by Marist in June, which had Mr. Paterson’s approval rating at 21 percent.
Seventy percent of those polled said Mr. Paterson should not even run next year.
“Most don’t want him to run for governor in 2010, including two-thirds of Democrats,” said Lee M. Miringoff, the director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion. “His own party, right now, wants him out of the picture.”
In England, former London deputy mayor Ian Clement was charged Aug. 4 with fraud in connection with alleged misuse of a corporate credit card, The Guardian reports. Clement resigned from his post in June following allegations about his card use.
ReplyDeleteAlso in the U.K., the Morning Star reports former anti-terrorist officer Matthew Washington -- who improperly used a credit card meant for work-related expenses -- has walked free from court. Washington, who was given a six-month prison sentence suspended for a year, made charges with the plastic for clothes from his favorite retailer and "sexual accoutrements" at an adult toy store.
The Salt Lake Tribune reports that Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff received $30,000 in donations from the company behind Google Money Tree, a program federal regulators and state authorities in Utah and Texas say ran an unlawful scam. Google Money Tree -- which has no affiliation with the popular search engine -- advertised a program enabling participants to earn thousands of dollars working from home, but it instead resulted, in some cases, in monthly service charges of $72.21 on participants' credit cards. Federal lawyers say those charges were not made clear in the company's service agreements.
ReplyDeleteDoes Asher Lipner still work for Ohel. And if so, why haven't they muzzled him?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.wwlp.com/dpp/news/national/south/nat_ap_dc_acorn_plans_internal_investigation_200909161503_2872358
ReplyDeleteACORN plans internal investigation
http://www.usps.com/news/2001/philatelic/sr01_054.htm
ReplyDeleteWASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Postal Service is expanding its Holiday Celebrations Series with a new stamp highlighting the Muslim holiday of Eid.
The 34-cent Eid stamp will be issued on Sept. 1 at the annual Islamic Society of North America's convention at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, 5555 North River Road, Des Plaines, Ill, at 11:45 a.m. The stamp will be available at the convention and at post offices nationwide on Sept. 1.
"This is a proud moment for the Postal Service, the Muslim community, and Americans in general as we issue a postage stamp to honor and commemorate two important Islamic celebrations," said Azeezaly S. Jaffer, Vice President, Public Affairs and Communications for the Postal Service, who will dedicate the stamp. "The Eid stamp will help us highlight the business, educational and social contributions of the estimated six to seven million Muslims in this country whose cultural heritage has become an integral part of the fabric of this great nation."
(7 million is a phony inflated figure offered by Muslims that is double the real one to give themselves more prominence)
Eid al-Adha comes at the end of the hajj—the annual period of pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca—and commemorates Ibrahim's willingness to sacrifice his son Ismail. (This is the Muslim account of the Judeo-Christian story of Abraham and Isaac.)
--------------------
REMEMBER the MUSLIM attack on 9/11/2001 !
REMEMBER all the AMERICAN lives that were lost in other vicious MUSLIM attacks!
Now Obama has directed the United States Postal Service to REMEMBER and HONOR the EID MUSLIM holiday season with a new commemorative 42 Cent First Class Holiday Postage Stamp.
REMEMBER to adamantly & vocally BOYCOTT this stamp, when you are purchasing your stamps at the post office.
All you have to say is "No thank you, I do not want that Muslim Stamp on my letters!"
To use this stamp would be a slap in the face to all those AMERICANS who died at the hands of those whom this stamp honors.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_DCGOA_RlajQ/SrFCG2ng9LI/AAAAAAAAD_Q/RXURWYi2iKg/s1600-h/shatnez-09.jpg
ReplyDeleteIs this another letter aimed at us?
http://www.pawnation.com/2009/09/16/tweet-the-giraffes-sudden-death-prompts-peta-to-instigate-fed/
ReplyDeleteIs this the giraffe that the OU was going to pay $25,000 to shecht for their yearly $500 a plate exotic fresser banquet? They backed out in the end because they felt the giraffe was too old.
AURORA, Colo. (AP) FBI searches home of Colorado man identified by law enforcement as having possible Aguda link.
ReplyDeleteFiled at 6:10 p.m. ET
ReplyDeleteANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) -- A former Kmart Corp. CEO says he made mistakes while leading the discount retailer but didn't profit from its collapse into bankruptcy.
Charles Conaway testified in federal court Wednesday in Ann Arbor as part of an effort to avoid millions of dollars in penalties for misleading investors about Kmart's financial health in 2001.
He said he tried to act in Kmart's best interests.
The Securities and Exchange Commission accused Conaway of failing to disclose Kmart was delaying payments to suppliers to save cash, months before the bankruptcy filing. In June, a federal jury in Ann Arbor found him liable in a civil trial.
The hearing on the trial's penalty phase resumes Thursday.
The 34-cent Eid stamp will be issued on Sept. 1
ReplyDeleteDuh! That USPS announcement is from 2001 and the stamp was scheduled to go into circulation ten days before the attacks happened. If you have a link to the article where Obama wants to issue a similar stamp then post it.
Boog criticizes Obama because he is racist against Blacks.
ReplyDeleteThe supposed excerpt from Asher Lipner appears to be bogus.
ReplyDeleteBut is it true that the Ocean County prosecutor warned Belsky to stop intimidating Yossi Kolko's victim?
Rabbi Jay Kenneth Wagner Indicted For “Continuing Theft”
ReplyDeletePhil Jacobs • Baltimore Jewish Times
Baltimore City State’s Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy announced today that the Baltimore City Grand Jury indicted Rabbi Jay Kenneth Wagner, 32, of the 3400 block of Labyrinth Road for continuing theft. The indictment was filed on Sept. 10.
Court documents allege that between January 2007 and May 2009 Rabbi Wagner stole over $13,000 from Yeshivat Rambam. Mr. Wagner worked as an assistant principal at the school. It is also alleged that the theft was discovered by the school and involved a series of school checks taken by the defendant which were either cashed or deposited into the defendant’s account.
An indictment is not a finding of guilt. An individual charged by indictment is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty at some later criminal proceeding.
An arraignment is scheduled for Oct. 19, 2009 before Judge Charles G. Bernstein at the Mitchell Courthouse.
Mr. Wagner was released on his own recognizance.
In an e-mail to parents, school officials wrote:
“Several months ago, through our normal internal controls and procedures, it became clear that our school had experienced some financial irregularities and, in addition, that school funds were missing. Our bank and the State Attorney’s office thoroughly investigated the incident. With the help of our financial institutions, we have every expectation that we will fully recover all misappropriated funds; the vast majority of missing funds have, in fact, already been recovered.
“The investigative process, conducted by the State’s Attorney’s office, has led to the indictment of Rabbi Jay Wagner, a former assistant principal of our elementary school.
“On the advice of counsel, and in the hope of a happier resolution, we remained silent during the investigative phase of this situation. While we are deeply saddened by this turn of events, we are confident that this matter will be resolved in a fair, impartial and judicious manner.
“In closing, Yeshivat Rambam remains a financially strong and vibrant institution, committed to providing the Baltimore Jewish community with excellence in education, both Judaic and secular.”
Federal marshals were beefing up security Wednesday at the former Montauk home of imprisoned con man Bernard Madoff after the theft of a 4-foot-tall rusted steel sculpture off the front porch.
ReplyDeleteThe flat metal sculpture, valued at $300, was the smallest in a group of three by the entrance and "an Aztec replica of some kind," said East Hampton Town Police Chief Todd Sarris.
It was among household possessions at the oceanfront property at 216 Old Montauk Hwy. that was seized by the federal government in July, along with Madoff's Manhattan penthouse and Palm Beach, Fla., estate.
The four-bedroom shingled contemporary house is on the market for $8.75 million, with proceeds from the sale of homes and possessions to compensate victims of Madoff's $50 billion Ponzi scheme.
"The real problem with people stealing from the Madoff property is that they're stealing from the Madoff victims," said Rick Hoffman, regional senior vice president, Corcoran East End, the real estate company that is handling the sale of the property.
The property's longtime caretaker, Robert Schorr, a retired police officer, reported the sculpture missing after checking the house at 11 a.m. Saturday. He told police he'd last seen it two days earlier.
Access to the property, which has 182 feet of oceanfront, a pool and a 3,000-square-foot house, was fairly open, Sarris said. Now that may change.
connections
Central Intelligence Agency
Barack Obama
George W. Bush
Osama bin Laden
Federal Bureau of Investigation
"There's no restriction or gate or anything like that," he said Wednesday. "The [U.S.] marshals are back down there as we speak, making sure the house is more secure."
The sculpture's theft wasn't the first at a former property of the disgraced financier. Late last year, Madoff's Palm Beach housekeeper reported the disappearance of a $10,000 copper outdoor sculpture.
It was soon found near the grounds of the Palm Beach Country Club, where Madoff had been a member and recruited numerous investors. Attached was a note reading: "Bernie the Swindler, Lesson: Return Stolen Property to rightful owners. Signed by - The Educators."
(As noted by the Palm Beach Post at the time, the signature bore a similarity to a 2004 German film, "The Edukators," in which anti-capitalist activists break into the homes of rich people, move furniture around and leave notes that say "the days of plenty are over.")
Can you guess what color these bandits are?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.newsday.com/long-island/suffolk/da-home-invaders-ruse-involved-obama-health-care-1.1447930
They were well-dressed when they knocked on the door of a Huntington home last month and said they had information about President Barack Obama's health care plan.
That's how they got inside to commit a violent home invasion on Aug. 29, a Suffolk prosecutor said Monday.
Benjamin Thompson had a stethoscope around his neck and Natalie Desir carried a clipboard with pamphlets, Assistant District Attorney Glenn Kurtzrock said after their arraignments in Riverhead.
A woman who lives at the house answered the door and said she would take one of the pamphlets. That's when Thompson, 31, of Brooklyn and Desir, 26, of Nyack forced their way inside, Kurtzrock said.
He gave the following account:
Another man, Vance Jackson, had been hiding outside and also forced his way into the home. Jackson, 46, of Yonkers took the woman's boyfriend upstairs and shot him in the neck, chased him downstairs and shot him several more times.
Thompson shot the female resident in the foot while she was sitting next to her 2-year-old daughter and also pistol-whipped the woman's mother, injuring her head.
The three fled with about $4,000 in cash in a getaway car driven by Theodore Briggs, 40, of the Bronx. A fifth suspect who was outside is still at large.
Thompson, whose previous convictions include attempted robbery and rape, and Jackson, whose convictions include robbery and criminal possession of a weapon, met in prison, Kurtzrock said.
He said the two hatched the home invasion plan while waiting to meet with their parole officers in the Bronx.
Because of their previous convictions, they face potential life sentences, Kurtzrock said.
All of the money was later found in Jackson's and Thompson's pockets, he said.
Please take a moment to read the newspaper editorial of today's Asbury Park Press copied below. This follows on the heels of yesterday's expose' in the same paper about child sexual abuse in the frum community of Lakewood.
ReplyDeleteThis is so sad. Does anyone think that Reb Ahron Kotler, Z"TL could possibly have envisioned it coming to this, when he realized his dream of a community whose existence is based soleley on studying Torah "Lishmah - for its own sake"? That the behavior of the Jewish community in Lakewood would cause the local paper to be forced to take a moral position in order to stand up for the protection of its Jewish children? And to have to teach proper Torah values to the community of Torah?
Of course the first thing that our community will likely focus on, in its tried and true reactionary fashion is the obvious "anti-semitism" of a secular paper daring to criticize our behavior, rachmana litzlan, Heaven forfend such a Chutzpah. But after that initial outrage, could we as a Torah society of faith possibly learn to see this as a sign from Hashem? Even if we assume that they are antisemites, which is much less likely than that they honestly care about anyone openly breaking the law and hurting children, haven't antisemites tought us much throughout our history about ourselves? Do we not say the "Mah Tovu" every morning that came from the prophecy of one of the greatest enemies of the Jews, Bilaam? Was not Haman's antisemitic complaining about our being "mefuzar umeforad - spread out and scattered," a reminder us that we needed to band together in unity?
And lets face it: Deep down each and everyone of of us knew that it was a matter of time before this would happen. That our inaction in protecting our own children in a "seycheldik - common sense" way would explode in our faces. And the worst is yet to come. There are several documentaries being developed about the scandalous coverups of child sexual abuse in the Orthodox community, with at least one being produced in contract with a major cable television station, a New York Times journalist is researching the problem to publicize it and attempt to effect change, and the Federal Government has begun investigating us as well. (They are becoming more and more familiar with our "Torah true lifestyle," and its "culture clash" with the laws and norms of society.) How much more desecration of G-d's name will it take before we will finally awake to our calling, and begin to fulfill our duty? Do we really need arrests of leading rabbis for obstructing justice and tampering with witnesses by pressuring parents of child abuse victims not to do their civil and moral duty of reporting to the authorities? Recently, after the parents of one young victims did report to the police, it took the Ocean County prosecutor's office intervention and threat of prosecution to stop a prominent rabbi from sending out a letter publicly attacking the family as "crazy and evil people."
This particular Rabbi, who is a Rosh Yeshiva and a Posek of the OU, was written about last week in the NY Post, after using a similar smear campaign to attempt to wrest custody from a Jewish mother of her children becasue her husband was "more religious". My friends, why is this charlattan allowed to even get an aliyah, let alone be a respected rabbi in our community? One privilege and responsibilty we are each given by the Torah that is unlike any other religion, lehavdil, is the choice of which leaders to follow. Now that there is no longer prophecy, it is incumbent on each and every one of us to show great care and thought in which rabbis we choose as role models. "If the rabbi is like an angel of the L-rd of Hosts, learn from him, and if not do not learn from him" says the Talmud.
ReplyDeleteHow much more are we going to take? Until recently, our leaders tried to tell us that they were unaware of the problem of abuse. This excuse stretches the bounds of believability and boggles the mind, but let us be fair on Erev Rosh Hashana and try to judge them favorably. Ok, so they did not know. But.... now they do! And now EVERYONE knows too. As is happening to our community in many areas of our behavior, we can no longer sweep our problems under the carpet due to technological advances in both crime prevention and law enforcement as well as the information superhighway in which everyone knows everything. So the secret is out. What will we do about it? The Chofetz Chaim said that one of the reasons Hashem gave humanity the discovery of telecommunications and recording devices was to make it easier for us to imagine that whatever we do or say is all recorded and we can never feel that nobody can know what we are doing. How much more so today when with the internet, blogs and twitter, whatever one does can be displayed instantly for the whole world live and in high definition, must we realize that the days of childishly pretending "we are all scholarly, understanding and righteuos" no longer exist.
Some of the rabbis in the APP article continue to maintain that handling abuse "internally" is the best way to go. What have we learned from the past 40 years of "handling" abuse internally, if not that it is completely ineffective and alslo against halacha as paskened by Rav Elyashiv, Reb Shlomo Zalman Aeurbach, Rav Waldneberg, Z'TL, and Yibadel, Reb Moshe Sternbuch and Rav Asher Weiss? However, on Assemblyman Dov Hikind's radio show the president of Agudas Yisroel recently promoted the idea of having MORE Batei Din established as opposed to encouraging people to use the secular courts!
This, at a time in which, unbeknownst to the writer of the APP, the same Lakewood Beis Din that referred sex offenders to me and to my colleagues at Ohel for "treatment", has been closed down, because the approach has been shown to have devastatingly destructive effects on all levels of communal functioning. But nobody knew of its existence and now that it is public, nobody knows of its non-existence. As the rabbinic leaders of Lakewood have told Mrs. Finklestien about who continues to try to find those responsible in the community for the torching of her house, "all is still hush-hush, for now".
While still hush-hush, in fact, the good news is that in isolated incidents, our rabbinic leaders have taken baby steps in following the halacha and told some individuals who were abused or whose children were abused that they are "allowed" to go to the police. However, they continue to keep quiet about this even if it means that individuals who do go to the police are attacked mercilessly as "Moysrim" by those who continue to have the mafia-like code of Omerta, implanted in their brains, in which children being molested is a lesser crime than involving the "bad goyim".
In a recent editorial in the Jewish Week, I beseeched the Rabbis in the name of all survivors that one important way for them to show survivors of abuse that they actually do care (despite their publicly fighting to protect yeshivas that have harbored molesters from lawsuits) would be to unequivocally and publicly support survivors going to the police to stop their molesters.
ReplyDeleteA young woman in from Lakewood who is a survivor of familial rape who was a patient of mine called me today crying, after reading the article in the paper. At the age when most frum girls her age are focusing on shidduchim and starting families, she is trying to cope with both what happened to her and with the community's rejection and abandonment of her need for help. She felt strongly that the article made little headway in changing anyone's attitude, and that the focus of our community needs to be on helping young people who have been abused, so that nobody shuold ever fall into the mental health problems and substance abuse that cost Shua Finkelstien his life. She pointed to the hundreds of teenagers and young jews who have dropped out of yeshivas and are "rejects" in Lakewood and in all frum communities. She would like me to set up a meeting with Rabbanim of the Moetzes for her to beg and cajole them to help survivors of abuse. Of course I said I would try. Again. I have been told by friends of mine in Aguda that while I asked for meeting with the Roshei Yeshiva Shlita, that they were not open to meeting with me about this issue. But I must try again. I believe we all should try, in whatever way we can to communicate with those in real power in our community, to beg them to do the right thing.
Of course, the timing of today's news is not a coincident. It is Erev Rosh Hashana, The Aseres Ymei Tshuvah. The Ten Days of Repentance. In Sefer Yonah we read one of the all time greatest stories of a community doing Tshuvah. Unfortunatley is was not a Jewish community, but nevertheless it has been chosen as an eternal example for us to follow. When we cry and pray on Rosh Hashana, should we not also remember what Chazal have elucidated for us from the prophecy says about Tshuva? That Hashem did NOT respond or acknowledge the fasting and the prayers of the people of Ninveh. No, G-d ONLY forgave them and spared them because of the massive change in behavior. The true sign of a change of heart is only in our actions, not in our words. As Rabeynu Yonah (not to be confused with the prophet Yonah) explains, one who confesses and regrets his sinful actions, but does not change is like a person who "immerses in the Mikva (ritual bath) while simultaneously holding a dead rodent (that makes him impure) in his hand;" e.g., an excercise in futility.
I would like to anounce that on Motzei Shabbos Shuva, Yom Kippur Eve, September 26, in Passaic, New Jersey, there will G-d willing be a gathering at the shul Ahavas Torah of Rabbi Yitzchak Eisenman entitled "Al Cheyt Shechatanu Lfanecha Bgiluy Arayos - For the sin we commited before You with illicit sexual relations." Incidently, there is also an article by Bracha Goetz of the Jewish Board of Advocates for Children that will soon be published on Aish.com by the same name.
ReplyDeleteThe rabbi has seen, due in part to his personal involvement with and great assistance provided to survivors of abuse, that there is a need at this time and at such a holy special occasion to give the floor to survivors of abuse to tell their stories and their thoughts and feelings of how the community can help end abuse, and he is leading all of us with compassion and wisdom by putting together a historic event in the Charedi community. (There already was one such event, a tremedous success, in a Modern Orthodox shul in Manhattan in March, run by Rabbi Allen Shwartz of the JBAC.) With the openess and awareness that these events create about the problem, true solutions become possible and answers become clear.
What the leadership of Rabbi Eisenman shows, above all else, is that it can be done. "Lo Bashamayim Hi...Bficha Uvilvavcha Lasoso - It is not in Heaven....it is in your mouths and your hearts to do it." Lets all do it.
A Kseeva V'Chasima Tova, a Gut Gebentched Yor to all. May this be the year when we find true healing for those who suffer both from the effects of abuse and from the sickness of pedophilia, and an end to Jewish children being abused. If as a people we can accomplish this with Hashem's help, then we will truly live up to our mission as a "Kingdom of priests and a holy nation," and all other people will see it and be inspired by us and eventually come to recognize that indeed "Hashem, is the only G-d."
No exemptions for sex abuse
ReplyDeleteASBURY PARK PRESS EDITORIAL • SEPTEMBER 14, 2009
http://www.app.com/article/20090914/OPINION01/909150305/1029/OPINION/No+exemptions+for+sex+abuse
"Orthodox community deals with sex abuse," read the page 1 headline in Sunday's Asbury Park Press. But just how the Orthodox community in Lakewood deals with the problem in its midst is disturbing.
Far too often, cases of sexual abuse are handled internally through a rabbinical tribunal that routinely handles civil disputes but deals with possible cases of sexual abuse as well. The Orthodox community lacks the investigative and judicial powers to issue sentences, weed out false accusations and monitor offenders.
The most the rabbinic tribunals can accomplish is to urge therapy for the abuser. That's not justice for the victim. And it may be against the law. A therapist in Brooklyn's Orthodox community for more than eight years who has treated sex offenders referred by Lakewood religious authorities said he could not recall one instance when a rabbi referred a case to law enforcement officials.
Religious authorities say they do what is necessary to rid the community of sex offenders swiftly, but it is typically done outside the framework of secular law. The rabbinic leaders must send an unequivocal message to the Orthodox community that incidents of sexual abuse must be reported to the appropriate authorities. And that point must be reinforced by the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office.
First Amendment freedoms to practice one's faith are not absolute, particularly when it puts the most vulnerable citizens at risk for irreparable physical and emotional harm. One would think that a community dedicated to Torah law would recognize the limits of that law in dealing with criminal matters and welcome the legal means to get child sexual abusers out of their communities and into the arms of the law.
State law requires anyone with "reasonable" suspicions to report acts of child abuse to the police or the state Division of Youth and Family Services. That law runs up against a different law, the Cleric-Penitent Privilege, which requires clerics such as rabbis to keep privileged any communication made in confidence unless both he and the person who did the confiding agree to release it or the information pertains to a future criminal act.
Given the rate of recidivism among sex offenders, a single confessed incident of abuse can reasonably hint at an ongoing pattern of abuse with a widening circle of victims. This sounds remarkably similar to Catholic priest scandals, where pedophile priests were counseled and transferred without ever facing the law.
If, as Job says, it is God who "reveals the deep things of darkness and brings deep shadows into the light," then those who believe in him must do the same work of bringing light out of the shadows. Secular law has the means to do just that and the rabbinic leadership needs to encourage members of the community to speak up without fear.
If the Orthodox community believes that playing cases of sexual abuse so close to the vest is a proper response, that's beyond troubling.=
Guma Aguiar is a fascinating person. It's amazing to think that Leib Tropper thought he could brainwash and control this guy for long.
ReplyDeleteSee Guma filmed by his chosen rabbi Tovia Singer, of Jews for Judaism on these short YouTube clips, and oh yeah, you can hear blowing his shofar in both, what a guy, with shtik like that Tropper didn't stand a chance:
Guma Aguiar lighting the torch on Lag B'Omer 2009 in Meron, Israel filmed by Tovia Singer and this one: Auschwitz and Treblinka filmed by Tovia Singer as Guma Aguiar Explores Horrific Death Camps
Tovia is really putting on the shmaltz for Guma because Guma must be shmeering him deluxe. But then again, Guma claims that it was Tovia who got him to abandon being a christian missionary, even though Tropper wants to claim credit for that too himself. Let's hope that Guma hasn't taken Tropper and Tovia for the rides of their lives either.
Guma was intimately connected with his uncle Dr. Tom Kaplan (not a medical doctor, but a PhD thinker type) in many aspects. Guma's mother moved to Brazil before Guma was born and married a Brazilian gentile, Otto who subsequently clained to come from Marranos. These kind of claims are hard to determine given that the Jews became Marranos 500 years ago. Otto is successful and works behind the scenes with his son Guma and he has his philanthropic foundation too, and while in Brazil, both Ellen and Otto became serious christian evangelicals and this was the home and tradition that Guma was born in to for a very long time.
When Guma was a young boy, his parents moved to the USA. It's not clear what connection Tom Kaplan had with his sister Ellen and her husband Otto and with their christian evagelicalism, he may have been one himself.
Nothing is known about the christian evangelical roots of Ellen, Otto, Tom and Guma and serious questions have not been answered. But one thing is known for sure, they were still not fully disconncted from their avowed christian evangelicalism when they got involved with Tropper yet this did not stop Tropper from seeing the riches of these people before his eyes he can spot that easily so they were to become Tropper's prime and sole supporters for the last five years at least pumping tens of millions into Tropper's pockets, organizations and all of them together forged ahead to create the EJF scheme with its component of active reaching out to non-Jews, the way christian evangelicals reach out to Jews, but only now it would be EJF that would reach out actively to gentiles by luring them to luxurious seminars at the fanciest hotels with the fanciest of speakers and getting everything on a golden platter from soup to nuts. Guess that EJF learbed something from the Hebrew Christians and the Jews for J, don't be cheap like the Orthodox are, put on the grand welcoming act because that's the way to win over converts to your side. With Kapaln and Guma rearing to go, TRopper was all set and EJF took off with a bang, until it started self-destructing almost from the outset as the nuveau scehem clashed with the archaic notions of the haredi rabbis, like Tropper's ally Rabbi Nachum Eisenstein in Israel who wants to destroy anything that is not a Haredi conversion, who almost destroyed the fisrt EJF conventions for rabbis when he told them off that they are not fit to be dayanim because they wear colored jackets and believe that the world may be older than 6000 lietral years, music to Tropper's kill Slifkin ears.
Never in the history of outreach by a haredi rabbi had such an elaborate scheme been hatched like the EJF plot to ensnare limitless numbers of gentiles to convert on the basis that they may be married to Jews. If this sounds harebrained, it is. Kaplan left the details and the running of the EJF operation to his nephew Guma and his sister Ellen Kaplan Aguiar and he was happy to slink away behind the scenes as he still does today.
When Harry/Tropper met Sally/Guma, or Crossing Delancey as a metaphor for Tropper getting in over his head with BTs and the PR/Billionaire types.
ReplyDeleteOutwardly, Tropper and Guma are different people, but in many ways on the level of raw human energy and ego they are equals, and that is why Tropper is terrified feeling hunted down and Guma has the smirk of the hunter on his face.
There is raw magnetism and charisma to both. They both share a brawny and threatening rugged approach to life. They are believers in the onging practice of the school of hard knocks. Perhaps that is why the shy and intellectual Tom Kaplan left the everyday running of both his business and phinthropy to his hard-driving nephew and why he leaves the running of the show to Tropper. But now the two go to tough guys, Tropper and Guma are at war with each other as they try to scratch each other's eyes out or rip out each other's throats whatever will come quicker.
Two maniacs going at each other. It was not always so. Tropper waisted a great opportunity in not fully mekareving Guma the right way and an even greater one in the way Tropper enraged Guma's Brazilian veibel Jamie, never get on the wrong side of a man's right hand man kind of wife, as many foes of Ronald Reagan found out when they were axed by Nancy Reagan.
Jamie Aguiar's story is also not known yet. Where she came from and how it happens to be that Guma did like his mother and found a gentile Brazilian to marry. Is she to a christian evangelical maybe. How could Tropper imagine that he could handle all these kinds of complicated human issues that would take a team of therapists to untangle and manage, yet Tropper assumed that because he was naturally a "gadol" he could do it all alone.
Guma was no dope. He was trained as a christian evangelical and went to church for most of his life like agood christian and he could see through shtik and phoniness and it did not take him too long to see through Tropper's.
One can see Guma in action and one can see that he talks a lot like Tropper, at this meeting he hosted: Guma Aguiar at the Jerusalem Conference 2009, in this video he tells a lot about his story. He calls himself "a servant of Hashem" no less, he admits that he was raised as an evangelical christian and it's what helped to make him into a "good Zionist" and only when he was 26, now he's 31 or so, he spoke with Tovia Singer who changed his life and got him to think. Guma knows his scriptures, better than most yeshiva bochurim it seems.
Well, he doesn't mention Tropper but the hitorical record shows that Tropper got hold of him and then milked him for all he was worth until all hell broke loose over the very issue they were both supposed to be fighting for, conversion.
Lately, a new video has surfaced of Guma and his wife and kids playing tennis in Israel: Guma Aguiar on Sports and Politics in Jerusalem. Yup, that's him in the yellow cap, but hey wait, who's that blond he walks up with, and then the brunette later on? Looks like the one he's playing tennis with is his wife and there are his kids. She's the Jamie in the short revealing tennis dress, gulp. These were Tropper's buddies and he never said a word that they were the ones writing the checks for the hundreds of haredi rabbis at his EJF conventions for three years or more until it slowly got out that Tropper had a falling out with Guma and that Guma had dumped him and went off to Israel. Tennis anyone? Mickey Mouse would be proud of all this, well, err, mickey mouse.
The poor Israeli interviewer is totally bamboozled by these new types of Orthodox Jews, and Israel will be in for lots more surprises.
Guma is capable of being tough, he is the ultimate jock, and frum one yet on a mission, and who knows what he will reveal about his relationship with Tropper and EJF in court.
Digging deeper into Tropper's relationship with Guma Aguiar and vice versa.
ReplyDeleteThey say you can tell the character of a person by the company he keeps. If so, what does the relationship between Tropper and Guma reveal about both of them? Rabbi Dr. D. Eidensohn on his "Daat Torah" blog tried to get into the question and posted a number of penetrating posts, but eventually Guma sent his Israeli lawyer to threaten Rabbi Eidensohn to take down those key posts posted in Israel.
But astute observers have recorded the key post that led to Guma blowing his stack and of course all the issues are tied in directly with Tropper and EJF, as if they were struggling symbiotic twins. Here is that main post that led to Guma's lawyer's warning to Rabbi Eidensohn in Israel:
"SEVEN QUESTIONS FOR GUMA AGUIAR! (May 7, 2009)
Before the questions, here is an some important reason and rationale for the questions themselves:
From the time Guma Aguiar and his uncle Tom Kaplan met Rabbi Tropper who brought them into his own personal megalomaniacal vortex and got them involved with funding EJF to the tune of tens of millions of dollars, and since so many hudreds of the world's leading rabbonim got dragged into this saga willy-nilly, and since this entire matter touches on the vital interests of the Jewish People today involving as it does public campaigns to promote mass proselytizaions, therefore neither Guma Aguiar nor his uncle Tom Kaplan nor Rabbi Tropper can claim that they deserve "privacy" and non-scrutiny of their actions that are aimed at nothing less than revolutionzing the entire Jewish People (if not the world) with campaigns to enlist millions of gentiles hitched to Jews into becoming EJF-style converts to ultra-Haredi Judaism as Modern Orthodoxy and its RCA rabbinate is crushed in full public display by Rabbis Tropper and Eisenstein, while Guma continues massive financial involvement with new projects now that he is on the outs with Rabbis Tropper and Eisenstein.
So here are the legitimate unresolved questions:
(1) Has Guma Aguiar totally, truthfully and verifiably renounced his not-so-long-ago Christian Evangelicalism, which would have made him an apostate (meshumad)? If yes, how has this been verified and by whom?
(2) What was the true nature of Guma's relationship with Rabbi Tropper and what really happened between them that led to Guma no longer associating with Tropper and Tropper denouncing the conversion of Guma's wife so brutally in public, via this blog yet resorting to a forged document with forged signatures of prominent rabbis? Aside from giving millions away, how can Guma reassure the rest of us who do not get a penny from him, and are not looking for it either, that Roni/Tropper's concerns can be put in their correct context and not hang like a sword over Jamie Aguiar's converion and over Guma's crediblity head? Additinally, how come it was never revealed during all the years that Guma was co-founding and co-chairing EJF that he was living with Jamie who was not only not Jewish but also refused to go along with Rabbi Tropper and Rabbi Reuven Feinstein to convert and why was this kept a secret by all at the head of EJF and not told to more of the great rabbis whose names were involved with EJF over time, like Rabbi Eliashiv who surly would not have condoned a situation that a person who was living with a gentile and having children with her should be creating and making policy and disbursing millions of dollars to hundreds of leading rabbis to lure them to concerts and to pay them off by donating to their institutions for a supposed international Charedi new-fangled organization like EJF?
UOJ,
ReplyDeleteWhy are you suddenly so silent about Malinowitz, Kornfeld and RBSA?
Malinowitz has banned Lema'an Achai from collecting in his shul and is doing everything in his power to silence David Morris.
Could it be that he has gotten to you as well?
I Let Malinowitz know what's waiting for him if he did that.
ReplyDeleteSend in photos of this cockroach Malinowitz from ArtScroll, I have a special septic tank for roaches of this sort. It's called the "UOJ Roach Motel", once you check in, there's no way to get out!
Open for business after the chagim.
JWB says:
ReplyDeleteCritical mass has still not been reached.
http://blogs.jewishtimes.com/index.php/jewishtimes/philjacobs/healing_service/
On My Mind
Healing Service
by Phil Jacobs - editor Baltimore Jewish Times
It was in May of 2006 that about 20 survivors of sexual molestation met in a side room of the Ohel Yaakov synagogue on Glen Avenue.
Almost all in attendance were Orthodox. The gender ratio was equally divided. Three community leaders were there to share, witness and support. They included Rabbi Peretz Dinovitz, Rabbi Shmuel Silber and Mrs. Zipora Schorr.
The event was organized by one of the survivors who shared his story that day. One by one the survivors would say what they could say. Some told their stories publicly for the first time. For others, their molestation story is the root of their recovery story, one that was shared many times in various 12-step programs.
For some it was daunting to see friends and neighbors there that we never knew shared this common bond.
...
Last Sunday, the Baltimore Board of Rabbis teamed up with Associated agencies such as JCS, CHANA and Shofar, and offered trauma survivors an opportunity to hear one another speak their pain. They offered an environment of safety, of spirituality and most of all of validity. There were well over 200 people in the room. There were 15-20 rabbis and community leaders. Associated President Marc Terrill was there. Some in attendance I’m sure were survivors who I hope felt empowered by the experience.
...
JWB says:
ReplyDeleteAn intelligent letter in an unintelligent newspaper.
http://www.jewishpress.com/pageroute.do/40800
Discouraging Behavior
I just want to say thank you for Rabbi Mordechai Weiss's Sept. 11 "Observations" column. As a ba'al teshuvah, I admit I've become somewhat disillusioned by such things as sexual abuse cover-ups and financial improprieties on the part of rabbis.
Advertisement
But the camel's back was almost broken a week and a half ago when I saw videos on the Internet of some roshei yeshiva dancing and making speeches at a special seudah hoda'ah for a man who had served jail time for cheating non-Jewish Eastern Europeans out of millions of dollars.
My emunas "gedolim" has definitely waned in recent times, but Baruch Hashem I've been with Yiddishkeit long enough now to know this is considered truly despicable behavior by the Torah.
Yisroel Rosenzweig
Kew Gardens, NY
JWB says Brooklyn 19 Updates:
ReplyDelete1)November 12, 2009 - next appearance
Jerry Brauner
Kings Supreme Court
Docket 01425-2005
Criminal Justice Tracking Number: 58659485K
NYSID Number: 9047326M
Arrest Number: K09659939
Judge: Laporte, E.
2) October 14, 2009 - next appearance on criminal contempt charges (sentencing on sexual abuse charges on September 23, 2009)
Yona Weinberg
a.Kings Criminal Court
Docket 2008KN044924
Criminal Justice Tracking Number: 63031782R
NYSID Number: 235728Z
Arrest Number: K08654460
Judge: Gubbay, J
Hey UOJ, is your roach motel like The Hotel California?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.lyrics007.com/Eagles%20Lyrics/Hotel%20California%20Lyrics.html
Check out the last line of the song
Hey! UOJ can;t just pick off all of my Fartscroll authors one by one. First Leib Pinter, then Moishe Eisemann and now Malinowitz.
ReplyDeleteWho does he think he is?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/17/business/17simon.html
ReplyDeleteMelvin Simon, who helped create the shape of suburbia by developing shopping malls, eventually owning more of them than anybody else in the world, died Wednesday in Carmel, Ind., a suburb of Indianapolis. He was 82.
Simon Property — which is publicly held but controlled by Mr. Simon and his brother, Herbert — owns 386 properties in North America, Europe and Asia, comprising 244 million square feet. It is the largest mall operator in the United States, with 2.8 billion shopper visits each year and sales in excess of $60 billion.
It is the nation’s largest retail real estate investment trust as measured by market capitalization.
Mr. Simon was one of the first to attract movie theaters into shopping centers, after noting that huge parking lots were largely vacant in the evening. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, he ventured into movie production himself. By far his most financially successful effort was “Porky’s” (1982), a raunchy adolescent classic.
In 1983, Mel and Herb Simon bought the Indiana Pacers professional basketball team, which city leaders feared would move to Sacramento.
Melvin Simon was born in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn on Oct. 21, 1926. When he was a young boy, his father, a tailor who had emigrated from Central Europe, moved the family to the Bronx, where Mel grew up.
Mr. Simon had a reputation for flamboyance. He favored tomato-colored suits, and an often told story depicts his throwing a shoe at Herb during a business meeting.
"and an often told story depicts his throwing a shoe at Herb during a business meeting"
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Mel Simon was at any of the old YTV board meetings in Willy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/17/us/17ohio.html
ReplyDeleteThe State of Ohio plans to try again next week to execute a convicted rapist-murderer, after a team of technicians spent two hours on Tuesday in an unsuccessful effort to inject him with lethal drugs.
He dreamed this up while digesting the chulent.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailyfinance.com/2009/09/16/converting-human-waste-to-energy-here-today-dung-farms-booming/
Converting human waste to energy, here today; dung farms booming tomorrow
Toyota said Tuesday it will order all dealers to inspect their cars for mismatched floor mats after a mat was suspected of snagging a gas pedal on a runaway Lexus, ending with a fiery crash that killed four family members in San Diego County.
ReplyDeleteToyota Motor Sales, USA Inc. planned to issue an order Wednesday to about 1,400 Toyota and Lexus dealers nationwide to make sure each of their new, used and loaner vehicles had the proper floor mats and that the mats were properly secured, said Brian Lyons, a spokesman for the Torrance-based company.
CINCINNATI (Sept. 16) — Police say a woman has been arrested for allegedly spanking another person's 2-year-old son in a Cincinnati store.
ReplyDeleteGloria Ballard was due in a Hamilton County on Wednesday to face an assault charge.
Cincinnati police say the toddler said something that apparently annoyed Ballard inside a Salvation Army store on Tuesday. Police say she then told the boy's mother she didn't know how to take care of her son, put him over her knee, and spanked him three times.
Police say the two women didn't know each other and that the 44-year-old Ballard wasn't given permission to touch the child.
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/286097,hasidic-jew-bites-ukrainian-policeman-in-kosher-food-row.html
ReplyDeleteHasidic Jew bites Ukrainian policeman in kosher food row
DPA / Earth Times
Kiev - A Hasidic Jewish pilgrim bit a Ukrainian policeman while other pilgrims smashed a television camera in a row over kosher food, Channel 5 television reported Thursday. The incident took place in the central Ukrainian city Uman', a pilgrimage site for one of the nine main branches of Hasidic Judaism.
The conflict began after Uman' police attempted to shut down a group of kiosks operated by the pilgrims, according to the report citing Svetlana Lipinska, an Uman' city official.
The owner-operators said they were providing kosher food acceptable to Hasidic teachings, unavailable elsewhere in Uman'.
The Ukrainian law enforcers alleged the kiosks were not registered businesses, violated city health codes, and should be shut down.
One kiosk operator bit a policeman's finger, and others smashed a camera operated by a local television station, as law enforcers moved to dismantle the kiosks.
Police intervention came after city officials consulted with pilgrimage organizers, and according to a Unian news agency report were told by Daniel Dayan, a leader of Uman's Hasidic community, that the kiosk operators were engaged in business outside normal pilgrimage activities.
The central Ukrainian city Uman' is the site of an annual pilgrimage by some 25,000 members of the Hasidic branch of the Jewish faith during Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.
One of the leading early activists of the Hasidic movement, Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, is buried in Uman'. A visit to his grave is the highpoint of a pilgrimage to the city.
Rochel Krishevsky was niftar this week at 99, leaving behind 1400 ayneklach. Shmarya posted the obit knowing full well the sharks that swim with him would launch a bloody feeding frenzy.
ReplyDeleteShmarya groupies attack the nifteres with the following criticisms:
this is the height of selfishness. we live on a planet with limited resources which can only support a finite number of humans and animals. while a brief period post holocaust of jewish replenishment is defendable, the concept of 2 people flooding the earth with 1400 variants of their DNA in a mere 100 years is greed of the greatest magnitude. if every inhabitant of our home did the same, earth's ability to sustain us all would be surpassed in a very short span of time. maybe even in the lifetime of one of her descendants. only in the fun-house mirror that is religion does this appear to be a laudable act.
Posted by: ah-pee-chorus | September 17, 2009 at 07:14 AM
How many of those 1400 are on welfare? How many of them married each other?
Posted by: WoolSilkCotton | September 17, 2009 at 08:04 AM
Most non-haredi Jews are not on welfare. They work and contribute wonderfully to society.
Most haredi Jews ARE on welfare, and are leeches on the rest of Jewry and society at large.
Posted by: WoolSilkCotton | September 17, 2009 at 09:06 AM
Left Concludes: We're All Racists
ReplyDeleteFOXNews - Greg Gutfeld - 1 hour ago
Now, you know a word has lost all meaning when Jimmy Carter finally gets around to saying it. America's angriest has-been just had to weigh in on the Joe Wilson affair, linking it to inherent racism
Obama and Acorn
ReplyDeleteIs there a case for a special prosecutor?
By JAMES TARANTO
The Acorn scandal continues to mushroom. Yesterday BigGovernment.com published videos from a fourth Acorn office visit by freelance investigators James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles. As Johnny Carson used to say, it's weird, wild stuff. The woman manning the Acorn office in San Bernardino, Calif., Tresa Kaelke, responds to the pair's requests for help setting up a child-prostitution ring by claiming to be an ex-prostitute herself. "Heidi Fleiss is my hero!" she exclaims.
When Giles claims her former pimp abused her, Kaelke tells of having been abused by an ex-husband--then confesses to his premeditated murder. San Bernardino's finest are looking into the claim: "Investigators have been in contact with the involved party's known former husbands, who are alive and well." Thus her claims "do not appear to be factual."
Government officials continue responding to the Acorn revelations. The New York Post reports that Andrew Cuomo, New York's state attorney general, "yesterday launched an investigation into pork-barrel grants given to ACORN by state lawmakers, as City Council Speaker Christine Quinn froze all city funding earmarked for the scandal-scared [sic] community-activism organization"--this in response to the third released set of videos, from Acorn's Brooklyn office.
The Wall Street Journal urges the U.S. Justice Department to undertake a criminal investigation of Acorn. This column echoes that call, although we wonder if the Obama administration is compromised here. The president, who as a candidate touted his background as a "community organizer," has extensive ties to Acorn.
And in August 2008, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported that the Obama campaign paid more than $800,000 to an Acorn "offshoot" for "get out the vote" projects.
Obama worked for Acorn and Acorn worked for Obama. That doesn't mean the president is implicated in any wrongdoing, but it suggests at least that the worse things get for Acorn, the more embarrassing it is for him. If the Justice Department fails to prosecute, it invariably would raise suspicions of political favoritism. This column does not care for special prosecutors, but the case for appointing one would seem to be stronger here than usual.
ABC News’ Rick Klein reports:
ReplyDeleteA Republican senator is calling for the White House to suspend a new project that asks members of the public to flag “fishy” claims about President Obama’s health care plans, arguing that it raises privacy concerns and will serve to chill free speech.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, is sending a letter to the White House today asking the president to “cease this program immediately” -- or to explain how Americans’ privacy will be protected if e-mails are forwarded to the White House as requested.
“I am not aware of any precedent for a President asking American citizens to report their fellow citizens to the White House for pure political speech that is deemed ‘fishy’ or otherwise inimical to the White House’s political interests,” Cornyn writes
“I can only imagine the level of justifiable outrage had your predecessor asked Americans to forward emails critical of his policies to the White House. I suspect that you would have been leading the charge in condemning such a program -- and I would have been at your side denouncing such heavy-handed government action.”
Yesterday, White House director of new media Macon Phillips wrote a blog posting urging readers to flag questionable claims about health care proposals.
Timothy L. Lantz was sentenced today to 15 years in prison for transporting child pornography in interstate commerce and failing to update his sex offender registration in violation of the Adam Walsh Act.
ReplyDeleteLantz, 57, was also sentenced by U.S. District Judge George C. Smith in Columbus, Ohio, to lifetime supervised release following his prison term, and was ordered to pay a $10,000 fine. Lantz pleaded guilty to the charges on May 4, 2009.
According to his plea agreement, Lantz, a convicted sex offender, fled the Columbus area in January 2007, days after members of the FBI Cybercrime Task Force searched his West Columbus apartment and seized multiple computers, hard drives and other media. Forensic analysis uncovered more than 9,000 images and 1,200 videos of child pornography on the computers and storage media.
An international search for Lantz ended in the Philippines in June 2008, when Philippine Immigration and Philippine National Police authorities arrested him without incident in the remote Kolambugan, Lanao Del Norte region. Philippine authorities turned Lantz over to the U.S. Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service in Manila, and Deputy U.S. Marshals returned him to the United States, where he has since been in custody.
Breaking News From Last Week
ReplyDeleteThe New York Times finally waddles in with a story on the Acorn scandal, though the paper frames it not as a scandal but a partisan squabble. It's amusingly titled "Conservatives Draw Blood From Acorn" and begins as follows:
"For months during last year's presidential race, conservatives sought to tar the Obama campaign with accusations of voter fraud and other transgressions by the national community organizing group Acorn, which had done some work for the campaign.
But it took amateur actors, posing as a prostitute and a pimp and recorded on hidden cameras in visits to Acorn offices, to send government officials scrambling in recent days to sever ties with the organization.
Conservative advocates and broadcasters were gleeful about the success of the tactics in exposing Acorn workers, who appeared to blithely encourage prostitution and tax evasion. It was, in effect, the latest scalp claimed by those on the right who have made no secret of their hope to weaken the Obama administration by attacking allies and appointees they view as leftist."
You've got to love that ". . . they view as leftist." The Times is able to identify the "right," but the "left" is a mystery to it. The Times quotes one guy it views as liberal:
"Robert L. Borosage, co-director of the liberal Campaign for America's Future, called the tactics used to go after [Van] Jones and Acorn "McCarthyite," and said the critics were harping on minor failings and distorting records that over all were admirable. "This is dangerous stuff," Mr. Borosage said. "I don't think progressives will sit back and let this gain momentum."
So now countenancing child prostitution is a "minor failing"? We shudder to think what these "progressives" want to progress toward.
http://www.northcountrygazette.org/2009/09/14/improper_surcharges/
ReplyDeleteUnder New York State General Business Law section 518, no seller may impose a surcharge for customers who elect to pay via credit card in lieu of payment by cash, check or similar means. After receiving complaints from local consumers, the Attorney General’s Office conducted an immediate investigation into Suffolk County-based companies that were routinely charging illegal surcharges.
I still don't see any link for Asher Lipner's commentary. What website is that from?
ReplyDeleteDr. Lipner sent that e-mail to friends and JBAC supporters.
ReplyDeleteIn Guma's relationship with Tropper, the remaining questions posed were:
ReplyDelete"(3) What is the status of Jamie Aguiar, Guma's converted wife and their children born before she was converted or now that the conversion is disputed by Rabbis Tropper and Eisenstein? Is what poster Roni/Tropper alleged true and is there any way of knowing not just what happened, which seems to be controversial, but what has been or is being done to remedy the situation so that Jamie Aguiar be converted, not by EJF of course, but using their "rationales" perhaps so that controversy not surround Jamie Aguiar's conversion and that the matter can be resolved and finally put to rest to everyone's satisfaction?
(4) What is the status of the dispute between Guma and his uncle Tom that was openly reported in the press about the legal case that uncle Tom brought against Guma with accustions that Guma is suffering from a messiah complex and that Guma (presumably with his mother Ellen and maybe even his father Otto) wrongfully wrested control of the Lillian Jean Kaplan Foundation from uncle Tom (Ellen's brother)? Oh, and why is it only the Lillian Jean Kaplan Foundation, didn't "Lillian Jean" also have a husband, or was he also not Jewish or was something else wrong with him? Intelligent people notice all this stuff and they want to know to allay their worries given all the controversies surrounding EJF and the controversial events surrounding Jamie's and even Otto's conversion supposedly by Rabbi Herbert Bomzer that angered Tropper and was hotly disputed on this very blog so many times by poster Roni/Tropper!
(5) What is the present status of Guma's parents because Ellen Kaplan, Guma's mother was also an admitted Christian Evangelical (making her an apostate/meshumedes according to Jewish law) and she married Otto who was not Jewish. The question is relevant because Guma is giving philanthropy from the Lillian Jean Kaplan Foundation and it was Guma and his mother Ellen who officially signed as its founders and they presumabyly continue to control it. While we hear of Guma we don't hear of his mother Ellen but she must surely also be involved in the decision-making if she co-chairs the Lillian Jean Kaplan Foundation with her son Guma! Additionally, what is the status of Ellen's husband and Guma's father, Otto Aguiar's conversion and what is the level of religious observance of the senior Aguiar family? These are not random questions but are critical in order for all the Aguiar's to gain absolute legitimacy in the eyes of concerned Charedi and all Orthodox Jews and set at ease any lingering supicions that they are not just a well-honed fifth column of Christian Evangelicals trying to penetrate into the heart of the Orthodox world which can be very vulnerable."
And then:
ReplyDelete"(6) What are Guma's criteria in choosing who he gives his philanthropy to? Such as, why has Guma chosen to fund organizations organizations like Nefesh BeNefesh and praising Shavei Israel that are promoted by Christian Evangelicals? Or organizations like EJF where he was very active that promotes proselytizations and conversions for millions of gentiles not in the manner or traditions or laws of Judaism for the last 2000 years or more?
(7) And finally, who are Guma's present spiritual guides? He had previously been under the spell of Tropper. The name of Rabbi Tovia Singer of Outreach Judaism keeps on being mentioned in connection with events that Guma sponsors. Guma and Jamie Aguiar have also been generous to the Chabad rabbis in Florida that they were close to. Poster Roni/Tropper alleged that Rabbi Bomzer received hefty pay-offs too from the Aguiars. So is any one of these their "rabbi"? Or do they have other rabbis now Israel that they have decided to follow? The question is important because choosing a rabbi is not just a key decision required by the classical rabbis who say "asy lecha rav" but it goes a lot deeper and as Guma's experience with Tropper should teach it has major ramifications. If Guma and Jamie do not have one single rabbi presently as their guide, the question is why not? They are not learned enough in Judaism to follow their hearts' desires which could lead them astray quite easily. They should have one, or at least a key known Torah scholar person who can guide them correctly."
To UOJ and friends:
ReplyDeleteA K'Sivah V'Chasima Tova to you and all your loved ones! May this coming year be one of health, joy, prosperity and accomplishment for all of us and klal yisroel, amen.
The Chicago Center for Torah and Chesed has met with Chicago and Lincolnwood police to discuss safety in the 24th and 17th districts. The Police Departments have assured us that during the upcoming ימים נוראים they will be paying special attention towards the safety of our community members. In addition to increased patrols, the police will also be visiting neighborhood shuls. We’d like to remind the community to always be vigilant of their surroundings.
ReplyDeleteHave a safe year.
Filed at 11:44 a.m. ET
ReplyDeleteSPOKANE, Wash. (AP) -- Authorities have put out a statewide alert for a mentally ill killer who escaped during a hospital field trip to a county fair, leading to fears that he'll become more unstable and potentially dangerous the longer he is on the loose with no medication.
Sgt. Dave Reagan of the Spokane County sheriff's office says Phillip Arnold Paul remained at large Friday and officials believe he's headed to Sunnyside, the town where his parents live. Anyone spotting him should call 911 and not try to confront him.
Paul was committed after he was acquitted by reason of insanity in the 1987 slaying of an elderly woman in Sunnyside. He soaked the woman's body in gasoline to throw off search dogs and buried the remains in her flower garden. He reportedly said voices in his head told him she was a witch.
The 57-year-old Paul escaped Thursday during a supervised outing to the Spokane County Interstate Fair for patients from Eastern State Hospital. Thirty-one patients from the mental hospital were on the trip with 11 staff members.
Local officials and fairgoers said they were stunned that mental patients, including at least one with a criminal past, would be taken to the fair.
''I think it's wrong, it's totally wrong,'' said Jennifer Craig, who was visiting the fair with her husband and grandchildren. ''You're putting too many kids and old disabled people like me at risk.''
Patients must be cleared by a treatment team of six to 12 clinicians according to an extensive checklist before they can go on field trips to stores, parks, ball games, fairs and other sites, said hospital spokesman Jim Stevenson said. They wear street clothing and need not all stay together, but staff members are required to keep each patient within eyesight at all times.
''They have gone to the county fair in past years,'' said hospital spokesman Jim Stevenson.
Hospital CEO Harold E. Wilson, quoting David Mandel, told The Spokesman-Review Paul had been ''a fairly model patient.''
The escape led state Department of Social and Health Services Secretary Susan Dreyfus to order an indefinite halt to all outings involving criminally committed patients at the state's three mental institutions, fearing UOJ would initiate his own crackdown.
Dreyfus also instructed Eastern State to review the policy on patient outings and a plan to prevent similar problems.
''It's outrageous that security was so inept that a guy who's officially regarded as criminally insane was able to just slip away from the group,'' state Rep. Matt Shea of Spokane Valley told The Spokesman-Review.
It was the second escape for Paul. In 1991, he walked away from custody during a day trip in Medical Lake and was captured at Fishtrap on the western Spokane County line. He attacked a sheriff's deputy in the jail booking area, knocking him unconscious and separating his shoulder, and was convicted of first-degree escape and second-degree assault.
Paul, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia, was acquitted by reason of insanity after the 1987 killing and committed to Eastern State Hospital indefinitely.
Hospital officials told authorities that Paul hadn't exhibited violent behavior in years. They argued in the past that he should be released
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/346/story/853277.html
ReplyDeleteJewish leaders are calling on U.S. rabbis to emphasize the faith's ethical requirements in their sermons during Rosh Hashana in response to recent financial scandals involving its members, including Bernard Madoff.
Jews have been embarrassed the past year by the arrest of former Wall Street tycoon Madoff, who is serving a 150-year prison sentence for defrauding investors out of billions of dollars, and several rabbis who were arrested in July on money laundering charges, said Richard Joel, president of Yeshiva University in New York.
Widely distributed images showed them being led into the FBI building in Newark in rabbinical garb and handcuffs didn't help.
"It's troubling," said Rabbi Moshe Kletenik, president of the Rabbinical Council of America, which comprises about 1,000 rabbis in the U.S., Canada and Israel. "Ethical living is as significant a part of leading a religious life as ritual law."
The letter was sent to graduates of Yeshiva University, who serve as religious leaders for 85 percent of the nation's orthodox Jewish synagogues. It also was distributed to members of the Orthodox Union, which represents about 15 percent of U.S. Jews, and the Rabbinical Council. There are believed to be 5.3 million to 5.5 million Jews in the U.S.
"These crimes were extremely hurtful and disappointing," said Rabbi Steven Weil, executive vice president of the Orthodox Union. "Judaism has to be associated with the greatest degree of integrity, honesty and sincerity."
Nomi Morris
ReplyDeleteGlobalPost
TORONTO, Canada - A protest over a Toronto International Film Festival spotlight on Tel Aviv cinema has galvanized the globe's creative community.
"We protest that TIFF, whether intentionally or not, has become complicit in the Israeli propaganda machine," said the Toronto Declaration, signed earlier this month by 65 artists, including actresses Jane Fonda and Julie Christie, musicians David Byrne (lead singer of Talking Heads) and Harry Belafonte and writers such as Alice Walker and Wallace Shawn.
Since then, 1,500 have added their names to the document, including 60 Israelis. The letter denounces the TIFF focus on Tel Aviv as being subverted by "the Israeli propaganda machine."
The issue picked up steam a week before the festival opened, when writer Naomi Klein ("The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism"), publicized the Toronto Declaration which criticized the Tel Aviv spotlight. Writer and academic Noam Chomsky, actor Danny Glover and many Canadian and Israeli artists and filmmakers were among the 65 who signed. Actors Julie Christie and Viggo Mortensen (Lord of the Rings) fell into a category of those who signed the petition and still attended the festival.
The declaration spearheaded by Klein said that celebrating Tel Aviv was like celebrating Johannesburg during the height of apartheid and that Tel Aviv was "built on destroyed Arab villages." Dueling opinion pieces continued for days in local newspapers and Facebook discussions went practically viral.
Actor Jon Voight, who starred with Fonda years ago in "Coming Home," and has ties to the Orthodox Jewish Chabad network, issued a statement condemning Fonda.
Rabbi Marvin Hier, who founded the Los Angeles Simon Wiesenthal Center, compared the protesters to Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and those who seek to destroy Israel, since claiming that Tel Aviv is on Palestinian land implies a non-recognition of Israel.
http://www.forbes.com/2009/09/17/prostitution-taxes-deductions-personal-finance-lawyer.html
ReplyDeleteA 78-year-old retired Brooklyn, N.Y. tax lawyer said Thursday he will continue to challenge state and federal rulings disallowing medical expense tax deductions he claimed for his spending on prostitutes and pornography.
"It's a holistic approach to medicine," William G. Halby told Forbes. He said he spent the money--more than $300,000 over five years--to fight depression: "I live alone. I have no regular sexual partner." A father of three adult children, Halby said he has been separated for eight years but hasn't filed for divorce because it would affect medical insurance for his spouse.
His appeal of the New York state decision--it found he owes tax of $18,000 plus interest--is pending before the State Tax Appeals Tribunal in Albany, an employee for that agency confirmed Thursday.
Harry Belafonte's brother was megayer and davens by R' Shlomo Miller's kollel.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.forbes.com/2009/09/16/health-reform-baucus-taxes-personal-finance-zerbe.html
ReplyDeleteSenate Finance Plan Disguises Taxes
Dean Zerbe, 09.16.09, 08:00 PM EDT
They may not be called taxes, but they'll hurt just the same.
The main revenue raiser in this plan is a tax beginning in 2013, on insurance coverage with a value that exceeds $21,000 for a family or $8,000 for an individual. The more you look at this provision, the more convoluted it appears and the worse the paperwork burden for business owners and their accountants. The employer must aggregate all the different health coverage (health, dental, vision, supplemental, etc.) provided to an individual and also include any coverage in the form of reimbursements from a Health Savings Account, or a Health Reimbursement Account, plus employer contributions to an HSA. The small business must then apportion those excess amounts among the different insurance providers, issue a W-2 that includes the values to the employee and also report all this to the Internal Revenue Service.
So just to be clear, let's say an insurance company issues an insurance policy to a family with a cost of $19,000. The family also has a contribution made on its behalf to an HSA and has dental and supplemental coverage. All these items together total $30,000. The employer figures this all out, pro rates the excess (over $21,000) amounts to each insurer (even though no single one is over $21,000), and the insurers pays the IRS a 35% tax on that pro-rated amount. Naturally, if the employer doesn't report correctly to the IRS, there will be a significant fine. No discussion by the Committee of the compliance cost this will impose on small-business owners.
These premium taxes are on top of $60 billion in new "fees" based on market share that are imposed on health insurers. My green eye-shade friends tell me that that this fee/tax will increase premiums by 2% to 4%.
Another hidden tax hike: Employers offer employees the chance to put pre-tax money into HSAs and flexible spending accounts to help them cover their growing share of health costs (deductibles, uncovered items, copays). The Committee is tightening significantly what HSA and FSA money can be used for. Only those medical costs that are currently allowed to be claimed as itemized deductions could be paid for with money from HSAs and FSAs. In addition, the Committee will specifically not allow the purchase of over-the-counter drugs to be covered by these accounts. Even more significant , the proposal would limit the amount put in an FSA to $2,000 a year. (An employee having extensive dental work can easily exceed that in a year.) It all means more taxes
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/16/us/politics/16justice.html
ReplyDeleteCongress passed a law barring State Department officials from attending United Nations meetings presided over by terrorist nations, but the New York Times is reporting that the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel has advised that officials "may disregard" the law because it infringes on the president's foreign policy prerogatives.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The deadly fire at Angeles National Forest is renewing a push from California lawmakers for a national registry of convicted arsonists.
ReplyDeleteThe current House bill states the registry would contain the Social Security number and address of the arsonist, his or her place of employment, a description of their vehicles, a photograph, a set of finger and palm prints as well a physical description and a description of the criminal offense.
First-time offenders would remain on the registry for five years, two-time offenders for 10 years and anyone convicted of three or more offenses would remain on the registry for life. Those required to be included on the database will have to verify their registration at least once a year.
The legislation makes the Justice Department responsible for maintaining a national arsonist and bomber Internet site.
Nationally, there were nearly 63,000 arsons in 2008
May you and yours be sealed for blessings for this coming year. L'Shana Tovah, and Shalom.
ReplyDeleteWASHINGTON (Reuters) - The federal government and states are girding themselves for the next foreclosure crisis in the country's housing downturn: payment option adjustable rate mortgages that are beginning to reset.
ReplyDelete"Payment option ARMs are about to explode," Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said after a Thursday meeting with members of President Barack Obama's administration to discuss ways to combat mortgage scams.
"That's the next round of potential foreclosures in our country," he said.
Option-ARMs are now considered among the riskiest offered during the recent housing boom and have left many borrowers owing more than their homes are worth. These "underwater" mortgages have been a driving force behind rising defaults and mounting foreclosures.
In Arizona, 128,000 of those mortgages will reset over the the next year and many have started to adjust this month, the state's attorney general, Terry Goddard, told Reuters after the meeting.
"It's the other shoe," he said. "I can't say it's waiting to drop. It's dropping now."
The mortgages differ from other ARMs by offering an option to pay only the interest each month or a low minimum payment that leads to a rising balance in the loan's principal.
When the balance of the loan reaches a certain level or the mortgage hits a specific date, the borrower must begin making full payments to cover the new amount. The loan's interest rate also may have been fixed at a low level for the first few years with a so-called teaser rate, but then reset to a higher level.
Because the new monthly payments can be five or 10 times what borrowers are accustomed to paying, they "threaten a much greater hit to the consumer than the subprimes," Goddard said, referring to the mortgages often extended to less credit-worthy borrowers that fed the first wave of the financial crisis.
Many economists say there is still a huge supply of unsold homes lingering on the market and that, coupled with a frenzy of more foreclosures ahead, should depress home prices for the rest of 2009.
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Friday the Holocaust was a "lie" and a pretext to create a Jewish state that Iranians had a religious duty to confront.
ReplyDelete"The pretext Holocaust for the creation of the Zionist regime is false. It is a lie based on an unprovable and mythical claim," he told worshippers at Tehran University at the end of an annual anti-Israel "Qods (Jerusalem) Day" rally.
"Confronting the Zionist regime is a national and religious duty."
Since coming to power in 2005, Ahmadinejad has provoked international condemnation for saying the Holocaust was a "myth" and calling Israel a "tumor" in the Middle East.
His government held a conference in 2006 questioning the fact that Nazis used gas chambers to kill 6 million Jews in World War II.
The hardline president, who often rails against Israel and the West, warned leaders of Western-allied Arab and Muslim countries about dealing with Israel.
"This regime (Israel) will not last long. This regime has no future. Its life has come to an end," he said.
Israel, the United States and their European allies suspect Iran of trying to use its nuclear program to build an atomic bomb. Tehran insists its nuclear work is aimed at generating electricity.
Iran rejected any Middle East peace plan that did not guarantee the rights of the Palestinians.
The hardline leader played down the importance of any protests he may face in New York during his upcoming trip to attend the U.N. General Assembly.
"These futile actions have no political value. The Iranian nation will not blink an eye over your actions," he said to chants of "Death to Israel."
BROOKLYN (Reuters) - YTT's Leopold Margulies said on Friday that molestation was a "lie" and a pretext to create competition to the "best yeshiva" that Hungarians had a duty to confront. "The pretext is false. It is a lie based on an unprovable claim," he told worshippers at 555 Ocean Pkwy at the end of erev Rosh Hashana selichos. "Confronting UOJ is a Hungarian and Agudah duty." Since he drove a bus for Torah Vodaath, Margulies has provoked international controversy for saying molestation was a "myth" and calling UOJ a "tumor" in Klal Yisroel. His administration held a conference in 2006 with Twerski and Mandel questioning the fact that Kolko used the YTT boiler room & his private bathroom to molest little Jews. The hardline "rosh yeshiva", who often rails against UOJ and his supporters, warned rabbonim about dealing with UOJ. "This blog (UOJ) will not last long. This regime has no future. Its life has come to an end," he said. Rav Blau and other sensible rabbonim suspect Margulies of allowing YTT to be used as a den of iniquity. Margulies insists that there is only learning of Torah on the premesis. Margulies rejected any discussions of Kolko that did not guarantee his rights to tamper with the beis din. The Agudah's Jacob Perlow played down the importance of any protests outside the fresser convention. "These futile actions have no value. The "gedolim" will not blink an eye over your picketing and protests," he said to chants of "Down with UOJ."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/21/nyregion/21vaccine.html
ReplyDeleteWhen she cleans the rooms of patients with swine flu symptoms, Jana Newton, a housekeeper at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, has to suit up for her own protection in a mask, gloves, gown and hairnet.
But she still does not want the one thing that would give her a far better defense — a flu shot.
She is not alone.
Also, although the original intent was to protect the recipient and cut down on absenteeism, it slowly became clear that in hospitals, fewer flus in doctors and nurses meant fewer dead patients.
“I was an epidemiologist at San Francisco General in the early 1990s,” Dr. Gerberding said. “Among bone marrow transplant patients and others who were profoundly immune-suppressed, outbreaks of flu and other viruses could be very deadly. That changed the paradigm.”
Still, many workers dislike them.
HAMODIA
ReplyDelete27 ELUL 5769 | COMMUNITY | SEPTEMBER 16, 2009
Special Feature | By Menachem Lubinsky
(Pages:) C10 & C12
The Emerging Story of a Miracle in Odessa
[Lengthy two page article written by LUBICOM president, with a buried mention of EJF and its involvement with this project]:
“…Ohr Somayach became one of the first kiruv organizations to function here, they appointed Rabbi Shlomo Baksht, a young idealistic, energetic talmid chacham, to assume the task of bringing a semblance of Yiddishkeit to this spiritually ravaged seaport city. What he accomplished in the 17 years he has been here is nothing short of a miracle, an accomplishment few would have dared to dream of in a community that had been all but abandoned…
The occasion is a Shabbos in Elul designed to further strengthen the kiruv efforts of Nefesh Yehudi, funded by the Wolfson/Horn families and the anti-intermarriage programs of the Eternal Jewish family, funded by Tom Kaplan and led by Rabbi Leib Tropper, Rosh Yeshivah Kol Yaakov/Horizons…
At the opening session on Thursday evening, Rabbi Tropper’s plea to marry Jewish is carried on a huge screen in a nearby amphitheater. I amplify his thoughts with a reflection on the historic moment of making 70 years since the beginning of Churban Europe…
Rabbi Refoel Kruskal…built two chinuch institutions. But these are not the best of times for him or Rabbi Baksht. “We had to cut our budget from $11 million to $8 million as a result of the recession, when it became more difficult to raise funds.” That meant cutting out a newspaper that went to 10,000 homes, ceasing a media station that reached out to Ukrainian Jews…”
…Rabbi Baksht is frustrated at how much there is to do and the limited resources with which he has to work…”
The Jewish Press
ReplyDeleteFriday, September 18, 2009
Page 71
“A Plea To Marry Jewish In Odessa
An amphitheater overflowing with Jewish students was the background for a plea “to preserve your ties with our eternal Jewish family and to Our Father” by Rabbi Leib Tropper, chairman of the rabbinic committee of the Eternal Jewish Family (EJF). Speaking via live hookup during the opening of a major shabbaton in Odessa, Ukraine, Rabbi Tropper received wide applause when he pleaded, “do not sever your ties to our glorious past and even more to what will be a glorious future.” The shabbaton was part of a major initiative by EJF to stem the tide of assimilation in intermarriages in Jewish communities around the world. It was sponsored in conjunction with Nefesh Yehudi and funded by the Wolfson and Horn Families and Tikva, a local kiruv organization.
Rabbi Tropper was followed by Menachem Lubinsky, president of LUBICOM Marketing Consulting and special consultant to EJF. Noting that it was the week marking the 70th anniversary of the beginning of the systematic destruction of eastern European Jewry by the Nazis, Lubinsky added, “What better time than now to reaffirm our commitment to Jewish eternity?”…
The session was introduced by Rabbi Shlomo Baksht, Odessa’s chief rabbi and architect of the remarkable resurgence of Jewish life in Odessa…
…More than 25 young frum couples have gone through Tikvah and Shma Yisroel (a network of Torah institutions) and will be the leaders of a new frum communty in Odessa for years to come.
EJF will be organizing similar events in America and Asia. EJF is funded by the Kaplan Foundation, and headed by Tom Kaplan its chairman.”
Embattled New York Governor David Paterson didn’t deny reports that the White House wants to him step aside, fearing his low approval ratings are beyond repair, but told the New York Post he was still running -- for now.
ReplyDeleteSources have said Rep. Gregory Meeks has carried the message from President Obama, and Paterson Sunday didn’t deny having serious talks with the Queens Democrat, the New York Post reported.
"I mean I have had a number of conversations with a number of different people," Paterson told reporters at the African American Day Parade in Harlem.
"They were confidential. I’m not going to discuss them ... I’m not talking about any specific conversations. As I said, I am running for office. I’m not going to discuss confidential conversations."
Paterson insisted he’s running in 2010
September 21, 2009
ReplyDeleteHouse Moves to Extend Unemployment Benefits
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 9:19 a.m. ET
A bill offered by Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., and expected to pass easily would provide 13 weeks of extended unemployment benefits for more than 300,000 jobless people who live in states with unemployment rates of at least 8.5 percent and who are scheduled to run out of benefits by the end of September.
The 13-week extension would supplement the 26 weeks of benefits most states offer and the federally funded extensions of up to 53 weeks that Congress approved in legislation last year and in the stimulus bill enacted last February.
Critics of unemployment insurance argue that it can be a disincentive to looking for work, and that extending benefits at a time the economy is showing signs of recovery could be counterproductive.
Stettner predicted that Congress will likely have to continue extending jobless benefits through 2011.
McDermott said his bill would extend for a year a federal unemployment tax of $14 per employee per year that employers have been paying for more than 30 years.
The Internal Revenue Service will announce on Monday that it is extending its amnesty program intended to root out those suspected of using offshore accounts to evade taxes. The move comes as a flood of wealthy Americans with secret accounts in Switzerland and elsewhere are coming forward to disclose their hidden assets.
ReplyDeleteThe I.R.S. will give such account holders an additional 22 days, until Oct. 15, to reveal their accounts if they hope to escape stiffer penalties, a government official said late Sunday. After that, the government plans to prosecute those suspected of tax evasion whose identities it learns but who do not come forward.
The so-called voluntary disclosure program, which began in March as a way of luring American clients of the Swiss bank UBS out of the woodwork, has attracted 3,000 taxpayers so far, compared with just 80 last year, the official said. Some of the taxpayers are clients of other banks.
UBS is preparing to hand over 4,450 client names under a deal reached last month with the I.R.S. and the Justice Department, which is investigating the bank’s offshore services. In February, UBS admitted its criminal wrongdoing with the services and paid a $780 million fine.
The original deadline for the amnesty program was Wednesday.
Investors who come forward before Oct. 15 will be subject to a reduced penalty, of 5 to 20 percent, depending in part on whether their wealth was inherited.
They will also be hit with the penalty just once, on the highest balance in the accounts over the last six years, instead of for each of the six years, a level that can leave account holders owing more in taxes than they have.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/21/world/asia/21aid.html
ReplyDeleteISLAMABAD, Pakistan — As the United States prepares to triple its aid package to Pakistan — to a proposed $1.5 billion over the next year — Obama administration officials are debating how much of the assistance should go directly to a government that has been widely accused of corruption, American and Pakistani officials say.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/21/health/policy/21obama.html
ReplyDeleteSeptember 21, 2009
Obama Insists That Insurance Will Be Affordable
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/21/health/policy/21insure.html
The idea, proposed last Wednesday by Senator Max Baucus, is to help raise money for the nation’s health care overhaul by placing a new excise tax on the most expensive health insurance policies, like the ones offered to partners at Goldman Sachs.
As it turns out, though, many smaller fish would get caught in Mr. Baucus’s tax net. The supposedly Cadillac insurance policies include ones that cover many of the nation’s firefighters and coal miners, employees at small businesses — a whole gamut that runs from union shops to Main Street entrepreneurs.
Under the Baucus plan, insurers selling a plan costing more than $8,000 for an individual and $21,000 for a family would have to pay a 35 percent excise tax on the excess amount.
Although the national average premium is currently $13,375 for a family policy, many are much higher than that — particularly in high-cost parts of the country.
People who live in high-cost areas, like the Northeast or California, would also have a greater risk that their insurance plans would set off the excise tax — not because the coverage is particularly generous, but because the price of their policies reflects the higher medical costs where they live. Massachusetts residents, for example, tend to pay more than a quarter more in premiums, on average, than people living in Idaho.
Bruce Hodson is a state employee in Maine and the president of Local 1989 of the Service Employees International Union, where the cost of a family plan is now running at about $20,500 a year. At the typical pace of health premium inflation, his policy could very likely set off the tax if it goes into effect in 2013, as the Baucus plan proposes.
Even if most employees around the nation might initially escape, experts say more people’s insurance plans would cross into the taxable range in future years. If the inflation rate in premiums continues its pace of the last 10 years, even the average cost of family coverage would probably cross the threshold within a few years of the tax’s going into effect.
“That number is going to grow and grow and grow,” said Marissa Milton, analyst for the HR Policy Association, which represents employers’ benefit managers.
Ms. Milton drew a comparison to the alternative minimum tax — modified in 1986, supposedly as a way to keep affluent people from using deductions to avoid paying taxes. In reality, it has ended up capturing more and more middle-class taxpayers, Ms. Milton said. Likewise, the insurance excise tax “is going to affect a lot of families,” she said.
By his own calculation, Robert Hansen, business professor at Dartmouth, is one of the Americans who might be considered to have luxurious coverage, because the cost of his benefits could easily top $25,000.
But that supposedly “gold-plated coverage,” he said, includes the cost of related benefits, like dental coverage and the money in his flexible spending account — all of which would be subject to the excise tax.
And who will pay the $1,450 in additional taxes Mr. Hansen would incur? “In the end, look in the mirror,” he said.
“It’s the worst kind of economic engineering,” he said. “You end up with something that looks like the I.R.S. code.”
Small employers would also be hit by the taxes — and, again, not because they offer overly generous coverage. Instead, small businesses tend to pay more for their insurance than bigger employers that can negotiate better premiums.
VIN has anounced it will shortly break a story of a massive "avla" being perpetrated on our communities.
ReplyDeleteThis is of course the fault of Orthodox Jews. The hatred they exude against Blacks creates a metaphysical mental block for Blacks to achieve.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/world/africa/20safrica.html?hpw=&pagewanted=print
Post-apartheid South Africa is at grave risk of producing what one veteran commentator has called another lost generation, entrenching the racial and class divide rather than bridging it. Half the students never make it to 12th grade. Many who finish at rural and township schools are so ill educated that they qualify for little but menial labor or the ranks of the jobless, fueling the nation’s daunting rates of unemployment and crime.
Despite sharp increases in education spending since apartheid ended, South African children consistently score at or near rock bottom on international achievement tests, even measured against far poorer African countries. This bodes ill for South Africa’s ability to compete in a globalized economy, or to fill its yawning demand for skilled workers.
And the wrenching achievement gap between black and white students persists. Here in the Western Cape, only 2 out of 1,000 sixth graders in predominantly black schools passed a mathematics test at grade level in 2005, compared with almost 2 out of 3 children in schools once reserved for whites that are now integrated, but generally in more affluent neighborhoods.
“If you say 3 times 3, they will say 6,” said Patrine Makhele, a math teacher at Kwamfundo here in this overwhelmingly black township, echoing the complaint of colleagues who say children get to high school not knowing their multiplication tables.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/21/nyregion/21paterson.html?hp
ReplyDeleteAppearing on “Face the Nation” on CBS on Sunday, Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee and the first African-American to hold that position, criticized Mr. Obama.
“I found that to be stunning, that the White House would send word to one of only two black governors in the country not to run for re-election,” Mr. Steele said.
He also questioned why similar pressure was not exerted on Gov. Jon S. Corzine of New Jersey.
“I think Governor Paterson’s numbers are about the same as Governor Corzine’s numbers, and yet the president was with Governor Corzine,” Mr. Steele said.
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2009/09/21/obama-says-hes-open-to-bailing-out-newspapers/
ReplyDeleteNewspaper bailout: Obama says he'd consider it, but should taxpayers?
http://247wallst.com/2009/09/19/moodys-some-home-price-wont-rebound-until-2030/
ReplyDeleteMoody’s forecasts that some home prices may not return to their pre-recession levels until 2030. This means that hundreds of thousands of Americans may find it impossible to sell their houses without making payments to their banks to cover underwater home loans.
MarketWatch reports that a new Moody’ housing forecasts says that “It will take more than a decade to completely recover from the 40% peak-to-trough decline in national home prices.”
In many parts of the country, which include large states like New York and Illinois, home prices will not rebound to 2006 levels until 2018 to 2022. In the states where prices have fallen the most, particularly California and Florida, values may not rebound until 2024,
The prediction, if correct, means that Baby Boomers and even some of their older children may not be able to sell home to help finance retirements. The use of homes to get equity loans will be out of the question. Some homeowners will have to give banks money to get out from under their houses, default because they cannot afford to sell their homes at a loss, or stay in homes that they no longer need.
The housing crisis, it seems, still has at least fifteen years to go and for some older Americans that is a lifetime.
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/brooklyn/2009/09/21/2009-09-21_hospital_errors_killed_my_dad_suit_says.html
ReplyDeleteA Brooklyn man brought to Maimonides Medical Center with chest pains in July 2008 endured what his family now calls a tragedy of errors that led to his death.
Jacob Goldbrenner was sent to the Brooklyn hospital's cardiac catheterization lab so doctors could treat his ailing heart.
But they couldn't find the key to the lab.
They couldn't locate an anesthesiologist.
And then one doctor couldn't even find the lab itself, according to a lawsuit filed last week in Brooklyn Supreme Court.
Minutes turned to hours as the 52-year-old clothing salesman's condition worsened.
"We all felt a sense of desperation and frustration," said Baruch Goldbrenner, 27, who watched his father's health deteriorate.
"We were waiting for some sort of intervention. We were desperate and scared."
At one point, Baruch Goldbrenner said, he was aghast as he followed a first-year resident who didn't know how to get to the lab where doctors check blood flow and heart defects and perform angioplasty or other procedures.
"He just couldn't find it," the son said. "He was just utterly lost."
Jacob Goldbrenner, who had a stent put in years earlier, had a heart attack while he waited for nearly five hours, the lawsuit charges.
Goldbrenner's heart wasn't getting oxygen and doctors needed to intubate - place a tube into his lungs.
Instead, the tube went into his stomach by mistake, according to the family's lawyer Michael Schlesinger.
"From every point there were delays," Schlesinger said. "There was so much damage that the only way he could survive was with a heart transplant."
Doctors told relatives Goldbrenner could get a heart at Westchester Medical Center, and he was put in an ambulance and given a police escort.
"It was like, 'Hey, he has a second chance,'" his son said.
But at Westchester, there was no heart and no hope.
"It was just like someone stabbing a knife right into our collective hearts," Baruch Goldbrenner said.
Less than two weeks later, Jacob Goldbrenner was dead.
A Maimonides spokeswoman defended the hospital's cardiac care unit as one of the nation's best.
"Frustration, devastation, sadness. There's just no word for this," Baruch Goldbrenner said.
It's been a very long year without the man he described as "quiet, understated, happy-go-lucky and always greeting everyone he knew with a smile."
He added: "Heart attacks in this day and age are survivable. Things just took longer than necessary."
sshifrel@nydailynews.com
http://www.zwire.com/site/printerFriendly.cfm?brd=2731&dept_id=575596&newsid=20370586
ReplyDeleteAfter a new report revealed that thousands of lifetime sex offenders currently reside in public housing, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is calling for stricter regulations to ensure the safety of all New Yorkers.
According to the State Office of the Inspector General, roughly 3,000 registered lifetime sex offenders reside in HUD-subsidized city housing. Although Congress passed legislation in 1997 that prohibits those dangerous individuals from receiving rental assistance, Schumer says lax enforcement has allowed them to go undetected.
“When it comes to the safety of our residents we cannot cut corners, but unfortunately the previous administration did not do nearly enough to root out sex offenders from enjoying the benefits of subsidized housing,” he said in a statement. “There is no reason why this rule should not be enforced fully and accurately.”
Schumer said he is particularly outraged because the inefficiencies not only endangers families, but wastes taxpayer money and reduces the amount of available affordable housing for those in need.
Although all individuals who apply to live in federally subsidized housing complexes are supposed to be subject to background checks, the senator said those are not always performed. Moreover, the number of years examined in an applicant’s past varies from authority to authority.
Once a person is living in public housing, Schumer wants them to be checked against the national sex offender registry every time they reapply for housing certification.
The periodic checks would be designed to ensure no one who commits a sex crime after moving into public housing can slip through the cracks and avoid eviction.
Schumer is also calling for all public housing authorities to create a uniformed system for conducting background checks — specifying the number of years to be investigated and checking each applicant against the national sex offender registry.
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. -A former IBM employee who was fired for visiting an adult chat room while at work is appealing a court decision against him.
ReplyDeleteThe worker, 60-year-old James Pacenza, claims combat stress from Vietnam made him a sex-and-Internet addict who should have been treated, not dismissed.
He also says IBM used the chat-room visit as a pretext to fire him, while the real reasons were his symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and his age.
A federal judge ruled in April that Pacenza never told IBM about the stress disorder.
The judge also said others who violated IBM's Internet policy were treated similarly.
Pacenza's lawyer, Michael Diederich, said Monday the decision is being appealed.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press
Back in early August when the Minnesota apikoros attacked Birthright Israel's decision to hire the disgraced sockpuppet prone flackery 5WPR, Dan Sieradski (AKA blogger Mobius) launched a Twitter petition calling on Birthright to clean up its act and fire 5WPR.
ReplyDeleteAlmost immediately someone began doing nasty edits to Mobius' Wikipedia page.
Then last week, Mobius wrote about visiting Birthright's offices and another edit was made to his Wikipedia page. This edit falsely portrayed him as anti-Israel.
All this is suspicious because of 5WPR's history of sockpuppetry. And, just like 5WPR once worked for Agriprocessors, it now works for Birthright.
What an amazing 'coincidence.'
The right-wing accusations against Barack Obama are true. He is a socialist, although he practices socialism for corporations. He is squandering the country's future with deficits that can never be repaid. He has retained and even bolstered our surveillance state to spy on Americans. He is forcing us to buy into a health care system that will enrich corporations and expand the abuse of our for-profit medical care. He will not stanch unemployment. He will not end our wars. He will not rebuild the nation. He is a tool of the corporate state.
ReplyDeleteThe right wing is not wrong. It is not the problem. We are the problem. If we do not tap into the justifiable anger sweeping across the nation, if we do not militantly push back against corporate fraud and imperial wars that we cannot win or afford, the political vacuum we have created will be filled with right-wing lunatics and proto-fascists.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/dave_crony_collects_money_for_nothing_IPzvDRMzPb0KtlN8NLIB2H
ReplyDeleteDave crony collects 'money for nothing'
By TOM TOPOUSIS • NY Post
Gov. Paterson's former economic-development czar, Avi Schick, stepped down from his post at the helm of the Empire State Development Corp. in January -- but, astonishingly, continued to quietly draw his $213,000 annual salary for eight more months, The Post has learned.
Schick, who has close ties to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, managed to hang on to his full salary -- more than what the governor earns -- in return for advising Paterson on lower Manhattan issues, said ESDC spokesman Warner Johnston.
The ESDC revealed Schick's continuing compensation to The Post last week after more than a month of requests, and just days after he was removed from the payroll on Sept. 11 so that he could begin a new job with a law firm that began three days later.
It was unclear on what specific issues Schick advised Paterson.
He could not be reached for comment, and state officials would only say that he was asked to stay on during a leadership change at ESDC over the summer.
Paterson's decision to keep Schick on the payroll comes amid a state hiring freeze and a state budget deficit topping $2 billion.
Schick has remained as chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., a post that has never paid a salary.
Johnston insisted that Schick's salary, which he said included some unused vacation time, was not for his work at the LMDC, which already has a paid president, David Emil.
"Avi's position as LMDC Chairman is unpaid," said Johnston.
"However, he was on payroll for the work he conducted for the governor's office on lower Manhattan issues."
Schick's continuing state salary came as a surprise to some lower Manhattan officials.
"People assumed he wasn't paid because no other LMDC chairman had ever received a salary," said a well-placed lower Manhattan source.
"Total waste of taxpayer money," said another official familiar with Schick's work downtown, where his most significant project was the deconstruction of the Deutsche Bank building -- a project that cost two firefighters their lives and has taken years longer than anticipated.
Schick was appointed to oversee downstate economic development when Eliot Spitzer became governor in 2007.
Several months later, he became Spitzer's point man on lower Manhattan redevelopment, earning a reputation for his combative style.
A former deputy attorney general under then-Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, Schick's hiring by the law firm of Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal was announced last week.