Dear Assemblyman Hikind:
I address this open letter to you, with penitence and with hope, because I am moved by your commitment to fighting the evil of child sexual abuse in our community. From this perspective, I believe you will understand the mistake I made, many years ago – and also my need to rejoin you and the community in this noble campaign.
I sought your forgiveness three years ago. At the time you would not relent. But that was before you had begun to hear the stories of survivors – before you shared the pain of Jewish abuse victims who either bore their agony in silence, or suffered the double victimization of being disbelieved and ridiculed for speaking out.
Now I feel sure you will understand.
This is the season when all Jews do t’shuvah, and when all Jews should stand ready to accept those who sincerely return. During the yamim noraim I realized that my own time has come to return. Now I want to stand together with the community I once wronged, for the sake of the daughter whose fate darkened my life over 20 years ago.
A Child of the Community
You know who I am. My father, Rabbi Abraham Neustein, was a true Talmudic scholar and brilliant orator whose eulogy (September 6, 2002) was prominently featured in The Jewish Press. As for me, Irene Klass described my wedding in the same newspaper (“A Very Special Wedding,” June 22, 1979). Three years earlier, after doing volunteer work at Sha’arei Tzedek Hospital in Jerusalem (and fundraising for the hospital back in Brooklyn), I had been pictured atop the Sha’arei Tzedek float in the Israel Day Parade. My volunteer work included teaching ba’alei t’shuvah at Bais Chana in St. Paul, Minnesota. Like my parents, I was devoted to charity, to g’milus chasadim, and to the life of Torah.
The Earthquake
That life shattered in the fall of 1986. On the fourth day of Sukkos, my 6-year-old daughter was taken from me by family court officials who did not believe her report of having been sexually abused by my ex-husband. Our community turned against us both. Even confirmation from one of New York’s leading experts on child sexual abuse did not protect us. In those days – as you, Mr. Hikind, know all too well – reports of child sexual abuse were simply not tolerated among Orthodox Jews. My daughter was called a liar; for believing her, I was shunned.
Soon my daughter learned the harsh lesson of silence. But the reactions of her body were less easily controlled. Once in her father’s custody, she slipped into life-threatening anorexia. Several doctors later testified that she was virtually at death’s door when I took her for emergency-room treatment. But for that act of rescue – as you know – I was denied all contact with my daughter, then 8 years old.
My Desperation and My Offense
Desperate situations lead to desperate acts. In 1991, nearly three years since I had last seen my daughter – or even heard her voice – I learned that she was once again severely anorexic. When I sought the help of the city officials supposedly charged with my daughter’s welfare, even though my pleas were seconded by supporters like then-City Council President Andy Stein, the politicians refused to give her a medical examination. Instead, they referred her case to the Fatality Review Panel . . . as if she had already died! They would not even tell me that my beloved daughter was still living.
That was when I committed the act for which I now seek forgiveness. Misled by aides to Mayor David Dinkins, I came to believe that in exchange for public criticism of the Jewish community in the wake of the Crown Heights riot, Dinkins’ staff would see to it that the Child Welfare Administration would intervene to protect my daughter.
I did what I was told. I went on radio talk shows where cynical hosts were all too eager to present complaints against the Jewish community – from an Orthodox Jewish woman. Of course, I also reached out for help to anyone who seemed to care about my daughter’s life. Congressman Jerrold Nadler was so moved that he warned city officials at a press conference: “If this child dies, you will all be guilty of accessory to murder.” Yet in the end, Dinkins’ staff did nothing.
I had been manipulated by self-seeking bureaucrats. But in allowing myself to be used, I know that I offended you, and others like you, who have heard of my comments from those dark days and have held them against me ever since. Mr. Hikind, you heard my words – but you didn’t know my anguish. You didn’t know the desperation of watching your daughter’s very life threatened because, at 6 years old, she had spoken the unspeakable. You couldn’t know – because you had not yet listened to Orthodox abuse survivors telling you their stories of being silenced, ignored or threatened when they were children.
But now you know.
And that is why I believe you can finally accept my apology and my plea to rejoin you and the community, as we all work together to save the next generation of our children.
A Campaigner and a Mother
My daughter became an orphan of the family courts, and I became a “childless mother,” during Sukkos 22 years ago. Since then, I’ve organized press conferences dealing with the child abuse, put together legislative hearings in New York state and Congress on the issue, and helped draft legislation. I’m the co-author of From Madness to Mutiny: Why Mothers Are Running from the Family Courts – and What Can Be Done about It (Northeastern, 2005). In January 2006, I received the Woman of Valor: Lifetime Achievement Award at the Battered Mothers Custody Conference in Albany, New York. Early next year, Brandeis University Press will publish a book I edited on child sex abuse, containing important contributions by such prominent community figures as Rabbi Mark Dratch, Rabbi Martin Schloss, Dr. Erica Brown and Dr. Michelle Friedman, and Dr. Joy Silberg. What I couldn’t do for my own daughter, I’ve struggled for over twenty years to do for others.
But nothing can close the open wound where my daughter should be in my life. Nor have I been the only one injured. My mother, the rebbetzin, could never enter a sukkah without misty eyes and trembling hands, because she remembered all too well how her little granddaughter was taken from her, never to return, during that holiday. I do not think it was an accident that my mother’s own soul departed this life during Sukkos in 2001. You see, when rabbis refuse to hear a child say, “I was molested,” the damage spreads and spreads; many hearts are broken forever.
Mr. Hikind, you know all this. You have heard the wrenching stories of too many victims not to know it. And you know that this suffering must stop; that all caring Jews must unite to protect more victims from the torments of sexual abuse.
A new year has begun for all of us. I want to begin it right. Recently, you told the Forward, “If you’re a child molester, the best community to come to is Borough Park, Flatbush, Lakewood or Monroe . . . because people don’t press charges.” My daughter and I were casualties of that attitude. I need to help you change it – you and other brave Orthodox Jews who want to ensure that what happened to my daughter, and to so many others, will never happen again.
Please don’t bar the gates to my t’shuvah. Please forgive the errors of the past so that, together, we can prevent the tragedies of the future.
Sincerely,
Dr. Amy Neustein
The following people, having read this letter, wish to express their support:
Rabbi Aaron Reichel
Mo Therese Hannah, Ph.D.
Michael Lesher, Esq.
Joyanna Silberg, Ph.D.
*
UOJ RESPONDS TO CRITICS OF DR. AMY NEUSTEIN!
Seems you can't come forward with any story about child sex abuse in the Orthodox Jewish community without being pilloried as liar or a lunatic.
It's been years since the facts about the Neustein case (which began in 1986) were laid before the public. (Stories laying out the damning details have appeared in USA Today, the New York Post, The Village Voice and The Jewish Week, to name a few.) No one has published anything demonstrating a single factual inaccuracy in any of those articles. As a result, I think it can be confidently stated that, at the very least: 1) there was strong evidence of sexual abuse of Amy Neustein's 6-year-old daughter; 2) the case was egregiously mishandled by Brooklyn Family Court, Ohel, the Brooklyn Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and others; and 3) plenty of effort has been invested over the years into trying to suppress the story.
A few years ago, that effort culminated in a very belated and -- based on the information I have -- very inaccurate statement purportedly from the allegedly abused girl herself, then 24 years old. That statement has been copied onto this blog.
I've corresponded quite a bit with Amy Neustein and have come to know something of her record and character. I think it's a shame that her sincere and selfless efforts to support a critically important cause have earned her a run of public slander. Well, since it has come to that, let me take a few minutes to try setting the record straight.
I don't know who wrote the "Silent No Longer" piece supposedly authored by Sherry Orbach some three years ago. I have learned that its authenticity has been questioned (see below), and that it was written at a time when the judge who sent Sherry into her father's custody, against strong evidence of sex abuse by him, and his law clerk at the time -- Steve Mostofsky -- were under the impression that the Neustein/Lesher book From Madness to Mutiny, about the family courts, was primarily based on that case and were doing all they could to interfere with its publication. (Michael Lesher tells me that he got a call from David Pollock, a JCRC official motivated by Mostofsky, threatening legal action. Of course, nothing came of it.) When bluster didn't work, this column from "Sherry" suddenly appeared.
Michael Lesher -- who has done crucial work in cracking the Mondrowitz case -- was also one of the journalists who broke open the Neustein story, primarily in two articles published in 1996, one in The Village Voice and one in The Jewish Week. Those were strongly-worded articles that accused many people involved of having covered up substantial evidence of sex abuse. No one has ever pointed out any inaccuracies in those pieces.
Michael says the story was so horrific it inspired him to look into the issue of child sex abuse in Orthodox communities in general -- including the Mondrowitz case. He also ended up writing a book with Dr. Neustein about failures in the family court system. (The book has received many glowing reviews for its thoroughness and accuracy, among other things.)
Let me share with you some of the key problems Michael Lesher identifies in "Silent No Longer," which have convinced him that whoever wrote it simply did not know the facts of the case:
* The author says that Sherry lived with her grandmother "in upstate New York" and "rarely" saw her mother. That's false. The Neusteins did have a summer house in Ellenville. In fact, that is where her grandmother later testified she saw the girl being molested by her father. But the house was occupied infrequently, and Sherry never lived there over any extended period. Court records clearly show that she lived with her mother in Brooklyn.
* The author suggests that the sex abuse charge was Amy's invention. It wasn't. Court records make plain that Sherry herself reported having been sexually abused by her father to the BSPCC caseworkers and to Dr. Anne Meltzer, one of New York's leading experts on child sexual abuse. Dr. Meltzer stated in writing and on the record her "strong reason to believe" Sherry's father had indeed abused her. And Amy's mother gave eyewitness testimony to such an act. Not even Judge Deutsch, who awarded custody to the father, claimed that Amy had fabricated the abuse allegation.
* The author says specifically that the abuse allegation surfaced while she was in the "country house" (that is, in Ellenville), and when "my father had indicated he would be filing for custody." The actual chronology renders this impossible. According to all testimony, the incident witnessed by Amy's mother (not Amy, who was then out of town), occurred in Ellenville during a visit in the spring of 1986. Afterward, Amy's mother reported his conduct to the police. But Orbach (who had already been divorced for 3 years) did not seek custody until the late summer, AND SHERRY HAD BEEN IN BROOKLYN FOR MONTHS BY THAT TIME. In other words, she could not possibly remember discussions of her father's desire for custody while in "the country house." And since, when she WAS in Ellenville, there was no court action of any kind, nor even a threatened dispute over custody (Amy had had undisputed full custody for 3 years), how could Sherry remember being told what to say to to the judge in that setting? True, memories can be muddied over time, but this author says she remembers it "as if it were yesterday." Clearly, that's just not true.
* Court records belie the claim that Amy regularly "posed" Sherry for photographs, and in any event, pictures were not used in "the media" at least until Sherry was dangerously anorexic, and other people were publicly claiming she was not. Testimony indicates that Amy only tape recorded some of her conversations with Sherry after it was claimed that she was secretly maligning her ex-husband to Sherry. (That claim proved false.)
* The author claims that "research" shows that "false" allegations occur in as many as 60% of custody cases. That is simply untrue; there is no such research. Since Sherry Orbach is now a lawyer with a special interest in child welfare issues, it's hard to believe she would be ignorant of that fact.
* Michael says that no one he interviewed who knew the Neusteins had ever seen an antique silver hair brush in their house, and that they never used slipcovers. (He went to the house himself, interviewed guests, and reviewed court testimony of people who knew them well.) It's strange that the author should specifically stress sense memories that simply couldn't have been stimulated in the Neustein home.
* Plenty of journalists sought for years to get Sherry's comments, without success. Michael tried when she was 16, and despite being told by third parties (one of them a relative, one a friend of Dr. Orbach) about comments supposedly made by Sherry, he was rebuffed when he tried to talk to Sherry herself. The same thing happened to Susie Rosenbluth when she wrote about the story, when Sherry was nearly 25... certainly old enough to speak for herself. Yet Sherry kept silent, knowing full well what was being written about her case. The author of "Silent No Longer" rationalizes this silence by claiming, "My family [not all of it, obviously!] believed that my mother's publicity would fizzle out, and that it was best to avoid the media spotlight as much as possible." But that just isn't true.
Over the years, supporters of Dr. Orbach bombarded journalists who wrote about the story with violently worded comments -- all of which turned out to be false. The one thing they wouldn't do was to let any of the reporters talk to Sherry herself. This continued even when Sherry was clearly old enough to comment and when longer and more detailed stories about the case were appearing in the press. On the other hand, "Silent No Longer" appeared when Dr. Orbach's supporters believed that a forthcoming book would further expose what happened in the case, after remaining conspicuously silent as articles detailed the story in the press.
That's pretty much the story on "Silent No Longer." To quote Michael Lesher, it's a "sad hoax" that has been circulated to smear Amy Neustein, whose 20-year history of scholarship, advocacy and activism has earned her an impressive record of credibility. (The same can hardly be said of her detractors: one of them claimed in writing several years ago that Sherry had remained a member of the Orthodox community, only to be contradicted by an email purportedly from Sherry herself days later. Susie Rosenbluth pointed out this lie in print, and was never contradicted.)
And besides all this, there's actually plenty of evidence contained in public reports and records that Sherry, at the age of 6, was a victim of sexual abuse -- evidence that simply isn't mentioned in "Silent No Longer." As the articles and columns (except "Silent No Longer") show, in print and on the Internet, there's Sherry's own report to caseworkers of BSPCC. There's the written statement and testimony of Dr. Anne Meltzer and other psychologists who backed her up. There's the eyewitness testimony of Sherry's grandmother, who by all accounts had remained friendly with her ex-son in law until, as she testified, she saw him molesting the girl on the summer house floor.
There's Sherry's anorexia after being transferred to her father's custody (at such an early age, often a symptom of sexual abuse). And there's Sherry's ominous warning to her father after she was hospitalized for near starvation at Brookdale Hospital -- written down by a nurse there -- "You got me into this. If you don't get me out of here, I'm going to tell everything." Unless that nurse, too, was somehow controlled by Amy Neustein, it's hard to see how this can be seen as anything but independent and disturbing evidence.
And none of this has ever been explained away or refuted, though it's clear that Dr. Orbach's defenders have had plenty of opportunities. Even "Silent No Longer" ducks all the key points.
What gets my goat is that while these folks have never bothered trying to refute the detailed and careful work done by investigators into the case, and backed up by such people as Andy Stein, Jeremiah McKenna (former chief counsel to the New York State Senate's Committee on Crime), Congressman Major Owens and David Paterson -- yes, David Paterson has been quoted as calling the Neustein case “an intensely ferocious effort made by judges, social service and law guardian agencies, rabbis and elected officials to protect the father from an investigation . . . [so that] a heinous crime has been committed and is being covered up” (sound familiar?) -- these folks seem to have had plenty of time to circulate outrageously false claims about Amy Neustein.
What's even more suspicious, they intensified their efforts precisely when they thought they were in danger of exposure to a broad public. Just for instance, Steve Mostofsky (Judge Deutsch's former law clerk) took time out to threaten Susie Rosenbluth, Michael Lesher AND Amy with lawsuits about a story in which he himself was barely mentioned. And was it only coincidence that it was the lawyer for Young Israel (of which Mostofsky is president) who wrote threatening letters to Ms. Rosenbluth and to the publisher of Neustein and Lesher's book about the extent of family court dysfunction in abuse cases?
And while we're on the subject of child welfare, please note that David Pollock (an associate of Mostofsky and a subordinate of Judge Deutsch's wife Sylvia) told Michael Lesher that Sherry had been brought to meet with him in order to apply pressure on Michael in an attempt to interfere with the publication of the book. Why was this young woman being dragged into an effort to protect the reputations of Judge Deutsch and Steve Mostofsky? And why did "Silent No Longer" suddenly appear when it was clear that Neustein and Lesher would not buckle under threats?
What seems most likely to me is that Sherry was cynically manipulated by people whose interests are certainly not with her welfare. I mean, where were they when Sherry nearly starved to death in 1988-89 and again faced dangerous anorexia, three years after being deprived of all contact with her mother by Judge Deutsch's order (because she took her to a hospital for treatment), in 1991? At that time, it seems, they all supported silence. Now their modus operandi appears to be slander. Under the circumstances, both are reprehensible.
As for Sherry herself: I'm certainly not trying to be hard on anyone with her past. It is certainly possible that she no longer remembers the facts of her case. After all, she was banned from all contact with her mother when she was 8 years old, after being removed from her home two years earlier. Since then she's been surrounded by people who told her her mother was a liar, an anti-Semite and heaven knows what else. But what has any of that got to do with the demonstrable facts of the case? Hikind knows better. It's a shame that so many people who fight child sex abuse in our communities have to spend so much time defending themselves from slander. Hikind must know about that by now: look what happened to Benzion Twerski. So I don't see why he should be taken in by the slanderers this time around.
And we shouldn't be, either.
UOJ
*
Added Saturday evening - October 25, 2008 - by Susie Rosenbluth.
The situation regarding “Silent No Longer,” purportedly written by Sherry Orbach, is even worse than UOJ reports.
I was the first journalist to receive the piece, which came to me by email shortly after The Jewish Voice and Opinion published an article on Dr. Amy Neustein in March 2005.
When I received “Silent No Longer,” I told the author, who claimed to be Miss Orbach (Dr. Neustein’s estranged daughter), that, because she was a principal in the article I had written, I would gladly publish anything she had to say. However, I told her, because of the incendiary nature of her piece—and the, to be mild, wildly incomprehensible emails and phone calls I had received from people purporting to be her aunt and uncle (Martin and Frima Berger)—I wanted to make certain that “Silent No Longer,” was actually written by Sherry Orbach.
To do that, I told her, I would gladly meet her in any public place on the Columbia University campus (where she was a law student) so that she could hand me the piece in person. Possible venues I suggested were the cafeteria, library, dean’s office, or even the local police station, located just two blocks from the school’s main campus.
The person purporting to be Miss Orbach, then 24, flat out refused, even when I explained that, without my knowing from whom I was receiving the article, I could not possibly publish it.
When I related this story to Rabbi Moshe Faskowitz (whom I called because Mrs. Berger--Miss Orbach’s aunt--had told me he was her rabbinic adviser who had tried to help her reconcile with her estranged family), he told me that it was obvious the person who had sent me the article was not Sherry Orbach, with whom he was well acquainted.
A few weeks later, I spoke with Naomi Klass Mauer, associate publisher of the Brooklyn-based Jewish Press, who told me she, too, had received “Silent No Longer” by email. Mrs. Mauer informed me that she was inclined to publish it. I told her I did not blame her, because that is how I, too, felt when I first received it. However, I told Mrs. Mauer, once the author refused to give me the piece in person, I could not, in good conscience, print it.
Mrs. Mauer told me she agreed with me and that she, too, would insist on being given the piece in person by the person purporting to be the author before The Jewish Press would publish it.
One week later, “Silent No Longer” appeared in The Jewish Press. I called Mrs. Mauer to ask if she had met Miss Orbach. Mrs. Mauer told me she had not. Mrs. Mauer said she had spoken with someone on the phone who purported to be the author and who, in Mrs. Mauer’s words, “knew a great deal about Brooklyn.” Satisfied, Mrs. Mauer allowed the piece to be published.
When I expressed chagrin, Mrs. Mauer acknowledged that, in retrospect, she probably should have stuck to her guns and insisted on receiving the piece in person.
The point is, no one at The Jewish Press or anywhere else knows for certain who the author of “Silent No Longer” really is. Like Rabbi Faskowitz, attorney Michael Lesher, and UOJ, I have strong doubts that it was written by Miss Orbach, a young woman who, most assuredly, has been rendered a victim by everyone who is not encouraging her to reconcile with her mother.
Sherry, if you are reading this, it’s not too late. Your mother is waiting for your call, just as she has been ever since you were taken from her when you were eight years old. Please call her, sweetie. It’s a new year and you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Susie Rosenbluth
The Jewish Voice and Opinion
Englewood, NJ
201-569-2845
*
Dear Sherry,
I want to plead with you to let me assist you, in any way I can, in the reconcilitiation process with your mom. She loves you more than you can ever know, and there is no greater reward for yourself to have a relationship with this wonderful person - you can call mommy!
PLEASE e-mail me at:a_unorthodoxjew@yahoo.com - we'll take it from there.
Very Sincerely,
UOJ
EVERY SIGNATURE MATTERS - THIS BILL MUST PASS!
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EFF Urges Court to Block Dragnet Subpoenas Targeting Online Commenters
CLICK! For the full motion to quash: http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/hersh_v_cohen/UOJ-motiontoquashmemo.pdf
93 comments:
Silent No Longer
The Other Side Of Abuse Allegations
by Sherry Orbach
Editor's Note: In recent months The Jewish Press published two articles by Amy Neustein the first a ,feature piece in the Family Matters section, the second an op ed column in which she recounted her longstanding allegations that her ex husband abused their daughter. Ms. Neustein's daughter, Sherry Orbach, requested this opportunity to respond.
Although I have not seen my mother, Amy Neustein, in sixteen years, I remember her clearly. She claims the reason she repeatedly accused my father in the media of sexually abusing me was to gain custody rather than fame. Yet when she did have custody of me long before the legal battles began I remember her voluntarily sending me off to live with my grandmother in upstate New York, after which I rarely saw her.
I remember, on one of my rare visits to my mother's house in Brooklyn, watching her softly stroking her hair with an antique silver brush as she gazed at herself in her bedroom mirror and wondered out loud whether she was pretty enough to be famous.
I remember my mother sitting with me on the plastic covered couch in my grandmother's country home at age five as if it were yesterday. We had been rehearsing for hours. She would begin by telling me a sordid and false story about my father, such as a detailed account about how he had molested me or about how he had thrown me violently against a wall. She then instructed me to repeat the story word for word until she was satisfied with my rendition. At the time, my father had indicated he would be filing for custody. My mother warned that if I did not tell these lies to the judge, I would be taken from my grandmother.
After my mother lost legal custody, I visited her once a week. During these visits, my mother used to tape record me and pose me for pictures in order to gain material for her next media performance. I fought back in the only way I could. Once, I chased her around a table in an attempt to snatch her tape recorder.
For eighteen years (I am now 24); I was silent as my mother spun lie upon lie about my father and me. According to her story, she is the victim of a conspiracy involving my father, Brooklyn Family Court, federal and state appellate courts, the Legal Aid Society, the Brooklyn Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Ohel family services, and several leaders of the Jewish community. These co conspirators, my mother insists, punished her for revealing that my father had sexually abused me by taking me away from her.
The truth, however, is that my father never sexually abused me, and that reporters and alleged victims' advocates who supported my mother chose to retell her lies without adequately checking the facts.
The reason my family and I did not seek media attention to counter my mother's allegations is that we wished to maintain our privacy. My family believed that my mother's publicity would fizzle out, and that it was best to avoid the media spotlight as much as possible so that I could live a normal life. But my mother has been relentless in her exploitation of me. Recently she embarked on another media tirade, and has published her false allegations in this paper and others.
The worst article I have yet to see this year contains my full name as well as photos of me as a child and as an adult, along with sickening and absurd lies about my father and me. Even if the allegations were true (which they are not), it is a widely accepted principle of journalistic responsibility and of everyday morality that it is wrong to invade the privacy of victims (alleged or actual) by publishing their full names and photographs. Kal v'chomer (how much more so) when the allegations are false. Such deceptive reporting is so damaging and hurtful that I feel I no longer have any choice but to break my silence.
I do not hate my mother; I see her as troubled. Nor do I seek revenge. I am only speaking out to stop her, and her supporters who profess to care about me, from continuing to exploit and torment me. With no other recourse, my mother has tried to counter my denial of her allegations by claiming that I am being brainwashed and used by my father and other alleged members of the so called conspiracy who "desperately fear public scrutiny and government inquiry"
Anyone who knows me well will vouch that I am independent minded and not the weak character my mother makes me out to be. The only parent who tried to brainwash me is my mother. The only people who are using me to advance their own careers are my mother and her allies. I vividly remember my mother sitting me on the couch at age five and coaching me to lie about my father. These are my memories and not anyone else's.
I do not profess to know how typical my story is. I hope it is the exception and not the rule. However, the research involving allegations of child sexual abuse in court custody cases indicates that false allegations can occur in anywhere from 2 percent to 60 percent of such cases, and so it is far from an exact science. In these instances the accuser can often be the most vocal, the most sympathetic, and thus the most believable: But sometimes the real victim is the accused. And the one who pays the biggest price of all is the child. What I have learned from my case is that you can find "experts" to say anything, and that journalists are sometimes more interested in a good story and don't want to be confused by the facts.
The damage caused by the irresponsible reporting and advocacy of my mother and her supporters extends beyond my family. Not only have they stained the credibility of the victims' rights movement they claim to speak for, but they have diverted attention from the true needs of children in the family court and child welfare systems by misrepresenting what I, and similar children, required. What I did not require, contrary to my mother's claim, was for the family court to be opened to the media.
I, for one, owe my existence as a normal young adult to the family judges, Ohel foster care, and the Legal Aid Society attorney who helped me reunite with my father in the face of considerable opposition in the media.
Most of all, I am grateful to my father for the sacrifices he has made for me over the years.
http://theunorthodoxjew.blogspot.com/2008/04/steve-mostofskys-nasty-history-on-child.html
UOJ of course won't forget that I created a living Hell for Amy Neustein.
The publication Hedge Fund Research says 217 hedge funds have lost their capital and closed in the last 3 months.
http://www.27east.com/story_detail.cfm?id=175507
Marci Hamilton is trying to make a name for herself as an "expert" on child molestation but she is no friend of the Jewish people considering her twisted attempts to assist anti-Semites from stopping eruvin from being erected.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/10/21/2008-10-21_gov_paterson_advisor_charles_obyrne_ran_.html
ALBANY - Gov. Paterson's embattled top aide racked up $1,400 in questionable state credit card charges in the last two years, mostly for meals at restaurants, records show.
Charles O'Byrne, the powerful $178,500-a-year secretary to the governor, used his state card 11 times at New York City restaurants since early last year, records provided by the state controller's office show.
State employees can't use charge cards, which are for travel, in the city listed as their work station, controller's office spokesman Dennis Tompkins said.
New York City is the official work station for O'Byrne, who last week acknowledged having owed more than $200,000 after not paying his state and federal income taxes between 2001 and 2005.
His New York City meals came out to $935.19, including $180.10 at the Commerce restaurant in the West Village on July 15; $167 at Cookshop on 10th Ave. on July 7; and $133.24 at L'Entrecote on May 4, 2007.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2008/10/16/2008-10-16_cops_go_hightech_sneaky_in_scam_bust_at_-2.html
By Barbara Ross and Alison Gendar
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Thursday, October 16th 2008, 9:31 PM
Cops nabbed more alleged scammers in a Touro College cash-for-grades sting, using techniques straight out of "Mission: Impossible."
Armed with a "sneak-and-peek" search warrant, investigators from the NYPD computer crimes squad crept into Andrique Baron's admissions office at the school after hours.
Before dismantling Baron's computer and copying his hard drive, they took photos to ensure they could put everything back in place, down to the last framed picture, said Lt. Dennis Lane, commanding officer of the computer squad.
Information from the hard drive helped detail how Baron and two other Touro employees doctored grades in exchange for cash and sold phony degrees to 13 scamming students, cops said.
Baron, 35, Touro's former admissions director, and Mikhail Cherner, 51, director of Touro's Brooklyn computer center, were rearrested Thursday on additional charges of falsifying business records and receiving bribes. Both were arrested last year on similar charges.
Semyon Lev, 56, was arrested Wednesday and charged with selling grades after he took over for Cherner.
The three employees were among 21 arrested in the case, including students who bought grades and city public school teachers who bought phony master's degrees at about $4,000 each.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/10/23/2008-10-23_gov_paterson_orders_checks_on_staffers_a-2.html
ALBANY - Gov. Paterson ordered background checks for his entire staff on Thursday following disclosures that a top aide hadn't paid taxes for five years.
Paterson said he learned this week that nearly 60% of the employees in the executive chamber have not undergone complete background checks.
Neustein's daughter is an adult and has publicly claimed that Neustein spent hours training her to make false accusations. I have no idea who is right in this case, but, unless you know something the public does not, Amy Neustein does not seem to be a cause for you to take up.
http://www.thejewishstar.com/
Remember the frum soldier beaten nearly to death for wearing a yarmulka in the US Army dining hall? It was a shame when the freye Jewish chaplain blamed the victim. But it's even more shameful when other frum soldiers are doing the same thing in an interview here. When you click on the PDF link, it's the front page story "Jews in Green" that continues on page 11.
Azriel Peskowitz from Kew Gardens, you should be ashamed of yourself!
boruch lanner spoke in the boca synagougue and recieved an aliya over simchas torah
Anon at 10:50, victims sometimes identify with the persecutor. It is a condition known as the Stockholm Syndrome. Especially in the Neustein case where the daughter has not had contact with her mother and is no longer even orthodox, it is not surprising that she refuses to speak to her mother, even if the story is true.
http://www.wgrz.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=60976&provider=gnews
New York State Assemblyman Sam Hoyt has received his punished for an inappropriate relationship with an intern.
The Assembly Ethics Committee banned Hoyt from taking part in the internship and student mentoring program.
Hoyt was facing the possibility of losing his leadership position along with the $15,000 in earnings that comes with it.
http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/story/449151.html
Over the years, Albany has become quite familiar with legislators’ sexual indiscretions. The Assembly imposed the anti-fraternization rule after allegations that a member, Adam Clayton Powell IV, a Harlem Democrat, had spent time in an Albany motel with a 19-year-old intern and had provided her with alcohol.
The rule was applied for the first time when the Assembly censured Assemblyman Michael Cole, R-Alden, last year and stripped of his committee posts after spending the night in the apartment of an Albany intern.
http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/story/471550.html?imw=Y
Former member of polygamist sect recounts horrific abuse
Says abuse started at infancy and led to "organized rape"
By Barbara O'Brien
NEWS STAFF REPORTER
The soft-spoken woman from Nevada asked everyone in the Medaille College lecture hall to stand up.
That’s about how many people are in her family, Sara Hammon said Wednesday afternoon.
“There are 95 people in my family. Seventy-five children and 19 mothers and my father,” said the woman who ran away from a polygamist sect when she was 14. “We were nothing like the normal, average family.”
Not at all.
In this family, girls were abused from the time they were infants and forced into arranged marriages, sometimes with men 50 years older, and some boys were forced to leave when they were teenagers so they would not compete for the women and girls with the older men who ran the community.
Her father, a respected elder, was a known pedophile, she said. When he was dying at age 82, all his children were forced to go to his room individually to say goodbye to him. She took his hand in hers, and he moved his hand down her leg to reach under her skirt.
“On his deathbed, my dad tried to sexually abuse me,” she said.
Now 33, Hammon said she speaks out to publicize the abuse that is rampant in polygamy, leaving hundreds of victims while the government seems to look the other way. Her school, for example, which taught religious tenets, was supported by tax dollars, she said.
Hammon has told her story to ABC News’ Diane Sawyer, “Larry King Live” and “Anderson Cooper 360.” After the raid in Texas last April at the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, founded by Warren S. Jeffs, she explained what it is like to live in a polygamist community.
12:05 pm : World Markets Ravaged!
Things seemed as if they were about to turn from volatile to chaotic earlier this morning. A limit down was put in place to stop stock futures from making further declines ahead of the opening bell.
The Dow and S&P 500 quickly fell to their session lows, trading with losses of 5.8% and 6.1%, respectively. They resisted falling back to multiyear lows hit two weeks ago, though. The Nasdaq, on the other hand, plunged 6.9% to a new multiyear low.
The morning's heavy losses followed those in foreign markets. Asian markets saw the worst of it, declining 9.6% in Japan and 8.3% in China. Losses in Europe have been pared; France and Germany were down more than 8%, but are now down 3.9% and 5.4%, respectively. England's economy contracted during the third quarter and its primary index fell in excess of 8%, but is now down less than 6%.
Stocks the world over have been struggling as fears of a global recession take hold. That has pundits pricing in a 76% probability the FOMC will cut the fed funds target rate to 1.00% from 1.50% when it meets next week. Further interest rate cuts would complement the Fed's many efforts to stimulate the flow of capital in lending markets.
Despite the presumed cuts to interest rates, the dollar continues to appreciate against foreign currencies. The dollar index is up 0.7% Friday, and up 12% year-to-date. That is its best level in two years.
Despite the government's efforts and the relative attractiveness of the U.S., domestic companies remain cautious.
Greenspan's Fall: Mistakes Were Made, But Not Just by 'the Maestro'
Posted Oct 24, 2008
Amid the high drama on Wall Street, there was great theater in Washington D.C. this week as Alan Greenspan actually admitted the free-market, anti-regulation ideology that guided his tenure as Fed chairman was "flawed."
With financial institutions worldwide imploding amid what he called a "once-in-a-century credit tsunami,'' Greenspan was surprised to discover banks and brokers failed to regulate themselves.
"Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders' equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief," he told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
Greenspan's mea culpa failed, however, to address an even bigger failing: His continued argument that no one could have seen the housing bust and related credit crisis coming, when various and sundry pundits predicted it for years.
From his inability (or refusal) to identify and try to deflate bubbles in tech stocks and then housing, to his blind faith in deregulation and derivatives, as well as generally easy money policies, Alan Greenspan's mistakes as Fed chairman are legion.
We're all paying the price for Greenspan's mistakes and he's yet another "hallowed institution" that's crumbled in recent years.
But to blame Greenspan for everything is wrong. Whether it was Democratic support for Fannie/Freddie, Republican desire for deregulation, Wall Street greed, feckless rating agencies, predatory lenders or irresponsible borrowing by homeowners, there's plenty of blame to go around.
It takes a village to make a financial crisis of such epic proportions. Until policymakers and pundits stop pointing fingers at the "other side," it's unlikely we'll see a resolution of this mess anytime soon.
Larry Gordon is still promoting Tropper's scam at the 5 Towns Jewish Tripes and it's shocking to see which rabbonim are still aiding & abetting Tropper after the Badatz & other sensible rabbonim pull out and warned Tropper is a fraud.
http://www.5tjt.com/news/read.asp?Id=3258
A distinguished group of dayanim from Eretz Yisrael and Europe will participate in a two-day conference, November 2–4, at the Downtown Marriott in Philadelphia. The third Dayanim Conference is sponsored by the Eternal Jewish Family International and the Lillian Jean Kaplan Jewish Pride Through Education Project of Horizons, an internationally recognized kiruv and Torah education center based in Monsey, headed by Harav Leib Tropper, rosh yeshiva of Kol Yaakov.
The overseas guests will include Dayan Avrohom Sherman, chief dayan of Israel’s Supreme Rabbinical Court, Dayan Raphoel Eliyahu Aisherig (Chief Rabbinate, Israel), Dayan Chanoch Ehrentrau, chairman of the Conference of European Rabbis, and Dayan Menachem Gelley (UK). Some 40 dayanim and roshei yeshiva will participate in the conference, which will air some of the important emerging halachic issues that constantly come to the fore on universally accepted conversion standards in intermarriage. Almost all of the dayanim participating in the conference are part of a growing network of independent batei din in North America that have adopted the geirus standards of leading poskim, as is being promulgated by EJF International.
The conference will be opened by HaRav Shmuel Kaminetsky, rosh yeshiva of the Yeshiva of Philadelphia and a member of the Moetzes Gedolei Hatorah of Agudas Yisroel. Also addressing the conference will be HaRav Reuven Feinstein, rosh yeshiva of Mesivta of Staten Island and chairman of the halachic committee of EJF, HaRav Dovid Olewski, rosh yeshiva of the Gerer Mesivta (Brooklyn), HaRav Betzalel Tuvia Wettenstein (Belzer Dayan of Monsey), and Rabbi Eliyahu Levin (Lakewood).
Doctor Avraham Mondrowitz, languishing in a Jerusalem jail and awaitind extradition to the US to stand trial for repeated rapes of young boys, is currently sitting shiva over the death of his saintly father who passed away the first days of Succot at the age of 101. The deceased was recently informed of his sons incarceration.
If ever I knew of a sordid story and couldn't decypher who was saying the truth and who was lying, it would be the Neustein saga. What would Reb UOJ's opinion be on this matter?
Any truth to the rumor of Putye Lipshutz's arrest?
That's the last time I try to pee on Monsey fire hydrants. I ran for my life and barely got out of the way before this alter kacker plowed into it.
http://lohud.com/article/20081018/NEWS03/810190341/-1/SPORTS
October 18, 2008
Woman nearly impaled by fire hydrant
James Walsh
The Journal News
RAMAPO - A 92-year-old woman escaped serious injury today when her car flipped and was impaled on a fire hydrant, missing her by inches.
The Suffern woman, who was not identified by Ramapo police, was turning left onto Reigate Place from Campbell Avenue in the Suffern Park neighborhood, when the accident occurred about 12:39 p.m.
Her 1997 Saturn struck a 2008 Volkswagen Passat driven by a 50-year-old Suffern woman who was stopped and waiting to turn onto Campbell Avenue, police said.
The collision caused the Saturn to leave the roadway, strike a tree and then roll over onto the fire hydrant, which went through the roof, stopping in the space between the driver and the front passenger seat.
Emergency responders from Rockland Paramedics, Ramapo Valley Ambulance Corps, and the Tallman, Upper Saddle River, N.J., and Ramsey, N.J., fire departments worked to extricate the woman from the car.
http://www.lohud.com/article/20081024/NEWS03/810240385/1019/NEWS03
The school bus driver accused of quaffing a beer in the ShopRite supermarket's parking lot before driving a child home Wednesday has been fired, a manager for the bus company said.
Now that old rabbi Mondrowitz OB"M is deceased what would be R' Mier Silberstein, chief rav of gur in israel, reason for keeping Avraham Mondrowitz from standing trial in New York? That his mother might die of greif? But how many victims must die of grief before we right this wrong!?!
The Jewish Weak doesn't have a clue. There's at least one other kosher pantry in the 5 Towns.
http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c36_a13696/News/New_York.html
For L.I.’s only kosher food pantry, the need is up but donations are down.
A Monsey lawyer tells me he knows of Putz-chu Lipshitz's arrest & mega-bail and is trying to find the records.
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081024/NEWS/81024020/-1/NEWS
October 24, 2008
CALLICOON CENTER— The Callicoon Center postmaster has been charged with felony grand larceny for allegedly stealing $106,500 from an elderly man and sending the money to relatives.
Nancy Matrafailo, 58, was arrested Thursday after a state police investigation, with assistance from the U.S. Postal Service and the USPS Office of the Inspector General.
Police say she obtained power of attorney for an elderly man in the Callicoon Center area and wrote two checks from the man’s account, one for $105,000 and one for $1,500.
Matrafailo send the money to family members using the US Postal Service and US Postal Service money orders, authorities say.
She was arraigned in the town of Rockland Court and sent to the Sullivan County jail in lieu of $25,000 cash bail or $50,00 bond pending a future court date.
The investigation is continuing, state police say.
http://www.metronews.ca/ottawa/Local/article/129720
Truck driver charged after rush-hour collision
http://newyork.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel08/nyfo0102308a.htm
MORTGAGE BROKER PLEADS GUILTY IN MULTIMILLION DOLLAR MORTGAGE FRAUD SCHEME
I'm trying to find the Potyee Shitlips record but it's not easy.
First of all I don't know the exact spelling of his last name, Lipschutz, Lipschitz, Lipshutz, Lipshitz. And he has legally changed the spelling at least once, probably because of all his frauds and bankruptcies where he screwed people.
His first name is also tricky. His Hungarian name Potyee, Potche. His Yiddish name, Yankev Yitzchok I think. And his English name Eugene.
The following are at large and wanted:
http://www.co.rockland.ny.us/Sheriff/Most/webwanted.pdf
Last name, first name, date of birth, weight, height, sex, warrant type
ABIKZER ZOHAR 12/16/1988 135 5.08 M JUSTICE COURT BENCH
AVTZON LEIBEL 04/12/1948 240 5.1 M FAMILY COURT ARREST
COHEN ARON 02/05/1955 165 5.08 M COUNTY COURT ARREST
Also, child abusers could be arrested by any number of Federal, State and local agencies.
Roubini: Expect Emergency Market Shutdown
Thursday, October 23, 2008 5:10 PM
By: Elaine Barr
Former Clinton economic adviser Nouriel Roubini says hundreds of hedge funds will fail and that policymakers might have to shut down financial markets for a week or more in response.
"We've reached a situation of sheer panic. There will be massive dumping of assets," and "hundreds of hedge funds are going to go bust," said Roubini, a New York University professor. He was speaking to attendees at a hedge fund conference in London.
Roubini is known for his predictions. In July 2006 he said that the United States would enter an economic recession.
Earlier this year, he forecast a "catastrophic" financial meltdown that he said global central bankers would fail to prevent and would lead to the bankruptcy of large banks exposed to mortgages and a sharp drop in equities.
He warns, too, that the world is heading for a protracted recession that will end the financial dominance of the United States.
Roubini told CNBC that he believes the United States is going to have two years of negative economic growth, quite at odds with most predictions of quarter or two of recession ahead.
"The last two recessions lasted only eight months each. … This time around, this is going to be three times as long, three times as deep. This is going to be the worst recession the United States has experienced since the 1980s."
Emmanuel Roman of GLG Partners, a former division of Lehman Brothers Holdings, agreed with Roubini's dire prediction.
He told the Telegraph that 25 percent to 30 percent of the world's 8,000 hedge funds will disappear "in a Darwinian process," either by going bust or deciding that meager profits are not worth the effort.
"This will go down in the history books as one of the greatest fiascos of banking in 100 years. There needs to be some scapegoats, and the regulators are going to go hunt people. That will be good in the long run," Roman said.
Good job by Julie Oelbaum covering up all the warning signs that the Lipshits girl was abused by her own father.
Between all the screaming & yelling from that old bastard Putchie and the BIG BUCK$ that came rolling in from der reiche fetter Yussel Neiman from Viznitz, Julie Oelbaum preferred to keep things nice & quiet.
Never rock the boat at Machon.
CALLING ALL Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse, Family Members, Friends, Victim Advocates, Rabbis, Community Leaders
If you or someone you know was abused or is currently living in New York, attend an event at Cardozo School of Law
The Awareness Center is asking that all survivors of child sexual abuse and those who care about them to attend an event at Cardozo School.
It's time for everyone to join forces and remind all political candidates that we all must make it a top priority to eliminate the of Statutes of Limitations on cases of child sex abuse.
When: Wednesday Oct. 29, 2008
4:00 PM -6:00 PM
Where: Cardozo School of Law
55 Fifth Avenue, NY, NY 10003
For more information contact:
Marci A. Hamilton
Hamilton02@aol.com
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/police-investigate-allegation-of-brutality/
Brooklyn prosecutors and police internal affairs officers are investigating allegations that uniformed New York City police officers beat and sodomized a man in a Brooklyn subway station, officials and lawyers for the man said on Thursday.
The lawyers identified the man as Michael Mineo, 24, of Brooklyn, an employee at a Brooklyn tattoo parlor. He was issued a summons for disorderly conduct on Oct. 15, they said, after three officers pinned him to the ground and another repeatedly shoved an object — possibly a police radio or a baton — into his rectum.
On Thursday evening, Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, acknowledged that the department’s Internal Affairs Bureau was investigating the claims but said that the facts did not support the accusation.
What about Poti Lipshutz beating the hell out of his son Yossi and throwing him out of the house because he wanted to marry a girl who wasn't rich?
3:59 wow that sounds a lot like the Finkel family.
THE hock in Monsey is about Moish Finkel’s newlywed son who was apparently almost arrested for crossing state lines with his wife to commit a felony against his brother living in Chicago which is a federal crime. The brother from Chicago is known to be an extremely strong victim advocate and extremely outspoken against immorality. Lots of rumors are flying around town.
I'm against beating the hell out of children of any kind.
Hee hee! Has anyone seen the pathetic sight of Putz Lipschitz kissing my hand? He gets all worked up emotionally in the presence of your's truly der Rebbe like he has a romantic attachment to Munkacz or something.
http://www.ebar.com/arts/art_article.php?sec=dvd&article=238
Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon (TLA) reveals the many ways in which gay male porn stars helped father and advance the gay liberation movement. With witty interviews from porn-industry insiders and celebrity Wrangler fans, Jeffrey Schwartz's immensely entertaining doc tells the wildly improbable tale of a little blonde boy who grew up to be a porn star in order to please his Hollywood-producer daddy.
It's the story of little Jack Stillman, whose Beverly Hills family had shed its Jewish roots to become good, media-savvy Episcopalians.
http://www.workerscompensationinfo.com/press/articles/article.php?article_id=1575&printer=1
School Bus Driver Arrested For Workers' Comp Fraud
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/23/AR2008102302122.html?sub=AR
David Duchovny will sue Britain's Daily Mail for claiming he cheated with his 28-year-old tennis instructor, reports the N.Y. Daily News. A lawyer for the actor, just out of sex-addiction rehab, insists there was no affair of any kind.
To get a sense of how wild and dramatic the swings on Wall Street have been this week, think about this:
It was just one week ago that Warren Buffett said "buy stocks."
Buffett, known as the "Oracle of Omaha," was very specific about not calling a short-term bottom, which is fortunate considering the Dow fell 5.4% this week, while the S&P lost 6.8%, and the Nasdaq tumbled 9.3%.
Wild Swings, But No Crash
While the overall trend was certainly down, the market didn't move in a straight line. Amid reports of forced selling by hedge funds, the wild swings created nerve-wracking and gut-wrenching action - for pros and retail investors alike.
Seemingly anything can and did happen this week, although fears of an outright crash on Friday proved misplaced. The Dow fell more than 300 points but that felt relatively tame, which tells you something about how dramatic the recent weeks have been.
We Have Not Hit Bottom
Although many industry observers are waiting for a bottoming out of the markets, there’s no way to know what’s next. Many traders believe the market will go back to its lows of 2002 – around Dow 7400 – before this decline ends.
Another way to tell a bottom is near: When people stop asking "what should I buy?" and start wondering "what should I sell?" - or just tune out the market altogether.
So although it’s stressful to watch your 401(k) bob up and down, patience remains the order of the day for those who are truly in it for the long haul.
"Watch and wait for a more constructive market," is the advice from one trader. "We continue to do little [trading]. Anything can happen here. There's no blueprint [and] everybody's guessing."
The Ashlag Rebbe, Rav Simcha Ashlag, grandson of Rav Yehuda Leib Ashlag ZATZAL (the Baal HaSulam), will return this weekend to the partial detention he and his Gabbai received in February, in which the two are forbidden to leave Paris.
The sentence of partial detention was issued by a judge after a substantial quantity of illegal drugs - which the Rebbe and his Gabbai maintain they knew nothing about - was found in the travelers’ posession.
And the putz goes for a Hungarian noch after he's already married to a French shiksa?
http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN2526714520081025
WASHINGTON, Oct 25 (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund's board cleared Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn on Saturday of harassment, favoritism and abuse of power following an inquiry into his affair with a subordinate.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7681382.stm
International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn has apologised for having an affair with an employee, in an e-mail to staff.
He expressed regret over the affair and described it as "an error of judgement" but he again denied any abuse of power.
The IMF said on Saturday that an external lawyer would investigate.
It is alleged Mr Strauss-Kahn's former girlfriend, a senior economist named as Piroska Nagy, received a higher-than-usual severance package.
The controversy comes as the IMF deals with the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
'One-night stand'
In a staff memo after meeting with the IMF board on Monday, Mr Strauss-Kahn apologised to employees, Ms Nagy, and to his wife, French television personality Anne Sinclair.
"I want to apologise to the staff member concerned for my error in initiating this relationship," the former French Socialist government minister said.
"I acknowledge and regret the difficult situation this has created for her. I also apologise to my wife and family," the 59-year-old added.
His e-mail said he expected to be cleared by the inquiry and he added: "I firmly believe that I have not abused my position."
On her blog on Sunday, Mr Strauss-Kahn's wife said: "For my part, this one-night stand is now behind us; we have turned the page."
http://a810-bisweb.nyc.gov/bisweb/ECBQueryByNumberServlet?requestid=2&ecbin=34444987X
As the Putz host for Margo's parlor meeting, UOJ probably wouldn't be surprised that I'm a shady guy who had a stop work order for hazardous construction.
http://www.matzav.com/default.asp?sourceid=&smenu=181&twindow=&mad=&sdetail=2051&wpage=1&skeyword=&sidate=&ccat=&ccatm=&restate=&restatus=&reoption=&retype=&repmin=&repmax=&rebed=&rebath=&subname=&pform=&sc=2222&hn=matzav&he=.com
Augenstein, you should have mentioned the YTT parlor fresser event was in MY house.
But it's ok, we both get involved in enough things so that everyone thinks we're choshev.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_WC3VtDsRQjc/SNlbb8126_I/AAAAAAAACjU/zJsb2Lxsf2g/s1600-h/poster%2520tt%2520marine%2520park%5B1%5D.jpg
As member #1 of Margo's reception committee, let's see what my credentials are.
I'm CFO of Eastern Union Commercial Real Estate (started by Ira Zlotowitz from Fartscroll)
I'm treasurer by the shul of YTT crony Bentzi Schiffenbauer.
I'm active in the Bungalow Putz Baseball League.
http://mycrains.crainsnewyork.com/40under40/profiles/2005/203
I love the incentives that Zlotowitz gives to his brokers ...
Fressing Rubashkin steaks at The Prime Grill and Lexuses!
http://www.kleinsolomon.com/team4.php
Of course Margo could use a lawyer like me who specializes in litigation & bankruptcy, which is why I was on the fresser parlor committee.
http://www.kleinsolomon.com/team1.php
I'm the founding partner of Jaskiel's law firm who Margo has honored at the YTT dinner.
I wonder if our clients know about our affiliation with Kolko, Margo & Belsky:
http://www.kleinsolomon.com/clients.php
271 Madison Co. (Alpert family)
APF Properties, LLC
Armour-Swift-Eckrich, Inc. (National Foods)
Bank of Montreal
Churchill Corporate Services, Inc.
Empire State Equities, LLC
The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States
Federal Realty Investment Trust
Geri-Care Pharmaceutical, Inc.
Jamarco Realty, LLC
Jenel Management Corp.
John Hancock Life Insurance Company of America
Kipp-Stawski Management Group, Inc.
Kislak National Bank
LaSalle Partners
The Manes Organization
Manhattan Marketing Ensemble Inc.
Monday Properties (formerly Max Capital)
National Flag & Display Co., Inc.
Newmark & Company Real Estate, Inc.
Realex Capital Corporation
Saul N. Friedman & Co.
Schwimmer Development Group
Shiel Medical Lab
Shorenstein Company, LP
Sprint Recycling Waste Management Services
Tishman Speyer Properties
Washington Mutual Bank
Yale University Endowment Fund
I had pretty shvach criminal credentials to get on Margo's committee, but after I proved to him that I'm listed as a friend on the Facebook page of convicted fraudster Yossi Treff, I was allowed to participate.
Dov Hikind doin' 1 heck of a job on the radio right now. 570AM or talklinecommunications.com
HONG KONG (AP) — Excessive levels of the industrial chemical melamine in Chinese eggs might be traced to fertilizer fed to chickens, the Hong Kong government said.
In a statement late Saturday, the government said it found 4.7 parts per million of melamine in the eggs produced by a division of China's Dalian Hanwei Enterprise Group based in the northeastern port city Dalian.
The legal limit of melamine in Hong Kong is 2.5 ppm.
Hong Kong Secretary for Food and Health York Chow said the melamine may have come from fertilizer fed to chickens that laid the eggs. "The preliminary opinion experts have given us is that there is a problem with the fertilizer," Chow told reporters.
China has been caught in a food safety scandal over dairy products tainted with melamine. More than 3,600 children remain sick in China from contaminated milk, with three in serious condition, the Ministry of Health said last week. The deaths of four infants have been blamed on dairy products contaminated with melamine.
Calls to Dalian Hanwei Enterprise Group Saturday went unanswered.
Chow said Hong Kong officials will step up checks of eggs imported from China.
Melamine is used in the manufacturing of plastics, fertilizer, paint and adhesives. Health experts say ingesting a small amount poses no danger, but in larger doses, the chemical can cause kidney stones and lead to kidney failure. Infants are particularly vulnerable.
The Hong Kong government also said it found excessive amounts of melamine in Blueberry Cream Sandwich crackers made by Philippine company Croley Foods MFG. Corp.
Name as on his very own CDs: Yackov Yitzchok (Potyi) Lipschitz.
Now can anybody tell us for certain and with detailed facts what the hell is up with this octeganarion?!?!?!?!?!?!
does anyone know what is going on in Telz?
I know that the father of one kid from the chazzonus lessons went to the cops about a month ago.
There are a lot of skeletons in the Lipshits closet. The oldest boy in Monsey, Luzie, is an eidim by another meshigga alter Hungarian. Years ago he was living in LA when the shver threw him out of the apt he owned. Luzie's wife is very similar to Potyi's youngest daughter in that she also looks like an abuse victim.
http://www.northcountrygazette.org/2008/10/16/previous_encounters/
ALBANY — Former Assemblyman George “Chris” Ortloff has resigned from his $101,600 position as commissioner of the state Parole Board and remains in the Albany County Jail, accused of using the Internet to solicit sex with pre-teen girls.
Ortloff had been appointed to the parole board in 2006 by Gov. George Pataki for a six year term.
After prosecutors filed a motion for pre-trial detention, asking the court to deny Ortloff bail because they deemed him to be a threat to female minors, Ortloff’s attorney withdrew a bail request Wednesday.
Ortloff, 61, who allegedly told an undercover agent said that helped coach a youth soccer team comprised of girls aged 11-13, was arrested in the nude Monday by state police at a Colonie motel.
According to the federal complaint, Ortloff has been communicating with an undercover investigator with the New York State Police who he thought was the mother of the two young girls he was arranging to meet. The complaint further charges that during these communications, Ortloff indicated that he was interested in meeting in the Albany area for the purpose of engaging in various sexual acts with girls he believed to be 11 and 12 years old.
There are disturbing revelations made about Ortloff and the events leading up to the charges against him in the prosecutors’ filing with the court, indicating that he long led a double life as a public officer and a pedophile. He faces life in prison if convicted of the charges against him.
http://www.northcountrygazette.org/documents/ortloffcourtpapers.pdf
I think that in Hungarian, the proper spelling is Poti, but pronounced Potyi.
I also think that after the 5 bankruptcies where Shitlips took diamond dealer gems with no intention of paying, he legally changed his last name from LipschItz to LipschUtz.
I've seen the crook davening by Friedman at I & 26th. The miserable look on his face is like that of a rotzeyach.
I did find many civil lawsuits that the idiot filed against various insurance companies, jewelers, doctors and Lotus caterers from East 13th St. Never a dull moment with the litigious putz. Some lawsuits are filed by his late wife Chantchu or Hedy.
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/crime/ny-lidate245895519oct24,0,5634990.story
A Commack firm that was headed by former Suffolk GOP leader Anthony Noto pleaded guilty yesterday in Central Islip federal court to conspiracy to commit bribery in connection with the repair of the Manhattan pier at which the aircraft carrier Intrepid is docked, officials said.
The firm, American Composite Timber, supplied the plastic pilings for the pier repair. The company also served as the go-between in the passage of bribes from the Virginia manufacturer of the pilings to a city official who oversaw the repair, federal prosecutors said.
Officials of the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum were not involved in the scheme and Noto was not charged, according to the prosecutors.
The city official in charge of the repair work, Charles Kriss, has been sentenced to a year and a day in prison. Kriss, of Cedarhurst, was an engineer with the city Department of Citywide Administrative Services.
http://www.lohud.com/article/2008810260387
Rockland taxpayers have shelled out more than $661,000 to house a sex offender living at Summit Park Hospital in Ramapo, even though doctors cleared him to leave the psychiatric unit nearly 18 months ago.
But state regulations prevent the county facility from forcing Christopher Palma, 25, to leave - and end the burden on taxpayers - unless he has a place to live.
And a 2007 county law essentially blocks sex offenders from living in most neighborhoods in Rockland County.
Rockland's Pedophile-Free Child Safety Zone Act prohibits high-risk sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of schools, parks and other places where children congregate.
http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSTRE49N7W220081024?sp=true
Palin hair big with partygoers, NY's Orthodox Jews
Fri Oct 24, 2008
By Christine Kearney
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's hair, with its straight bangs, beehive top and cascading locks, is proving popular among Halloween partygoers and some Orthodox Jewish women.
As Americans gear up for Halloween and Election Day soon after, New Yorkers are snapping up Palin-style wigs and glasses regardless of their political leanings, costume shop owners say.
And in an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn, the look has become popular among some Orthodox Jewish women, who buy wigs to cover their hair for religious reasons. Made of human hair, the Palin-style wigs cost $695 or more.
In Brooklyn's Borough Park, an area heavily populated by Hasidic men wearing black hats and long beards and women dressed in long skirts and long-sleeved shirts, stylist Gail Rosenzweig said half of her Orthodox Jewish clients want Palin's style.
"It's a fashion statement," said Rosenzweig as she worked on a Palin wig. Even though Palin is a Christian from Alaska, where Jews make up less than 1 percent of the state's 670,000 population, Rosenzweig said her clients "like her classic look. It can be worn up or down."
Shlomo Klein, an Orthodox Jew and vice president of wig maker Georgie Wigs, said he sold more than 50 of the "Sarah P" wigs across America in recent weeks to women wanting wigs either for medical or religious reasons.
Married Orthodox Jewish women do not show their real hair in public for modesty reasons and can spend between a few hundred to several thousand dollars on wigs, he said.
The Palin look had replaced previous popular looks among Orthodox Jewish women such as Victoria Beckham's "Posh Spice" look and Jennifer Aniston's "Friends" cut, he said.
'LOOKS GOOD'
Esther Melamed said she paid more than $700 for the human hair Palin wig to wear for a recent Jewish holiday.
"I have some old wigs that I can wear, but I wanted a certain look and I really like that look," she said, adding she intends to vote for Palin.
Others in the Brooklyn community said if the Palin look appealed, it was not for religious or political reasons.
"She just looks good. I don't think it is anything political or religious. I think she just came across as self-possessed and self-assured and able to juggle," said Sarah Yavne, owner of Teen Boutique, which carries labels like French Connection for Orthodox Jewish teens.
The Palin locks have also proved popular with Halloween stores in New York, a state that predominantly votes Democratic.
"People are concentrating on her because she is new, she is a woman and she is a pretty lady," said Robert Pinzon of Abracadabra, which sells Palin wigs for $75.
Todd Kenig, CEO of Ricky's, a New York costume store, said he sold more than 150 Palin wigs priced at $49.99, and more than 600 Palin sashes that said "Miss Alaska" on the front and "Miss Vice President" on the back.
"It's all parody, I don't believe it's supporters," he said. "It's all people like Tina Fey types looking to knock her."
Comedian Fey's parody of Palin on the U.S. comedy show "Saturday Night Live," has giving the show its highest viewership in years.
Kenig said masks of Democratic presidential candidate and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama were selling briskly, while masks of Republican presidential candidate and Arizona Sen. John McCain were not selling so well. In recent days he sold dozens of the new "Joe The Plumber" costume -- a jumpsuit, bald cap and plunger.
Born a Catholic, Hill converted to Orthodox Judaism and adheres to many conservative rules. He wears a nearly gray full beard and a yarmulke and strictly observes the Shabbat, or Jewish day of rest, from sunset Fridays until three stars appear in the sky near dusk on Saturdays. He testified in court that the Shabbat is the only day he doesn't work.
http://www.caller.com/news/2008/oct/26/sam_hill/
Friend of children, enemy of the state
By Denise Malan
Sunday, October 26, 2008
CORPUS CHRISTI — The federal judge wanted to know how this case, a Medicaid fraud prosecution against a local child psychologist, made it this far.
Why did the government investigate Dr. Sam S. Hill III for nearly four years before bringing charges, he asked. And why didn't the government find a solution that didn't involve criminal prosecution?
"I'm concerned why we're handling this problem this way," U.S. District Judge Hayden Head told Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Rex Beasley during trial. "It's not exactly like these are the bad guys. They're there to provide, and are providing, a public service to their patients. So why can't you get it straight in the beginning about what the rule is?"
A rule in the state Medicaid manual prohibits psychologists from billing for services provided by licensed psychological associates, who are master's-level psychologists trained to conduct testing and licensed by the state. A federal jury in June found Hill guilty of scheming to defraud Medicaid by violating that rule, which exists only in Texas and Mississippi.
Hill's conviction has had a chilling effect on local psychologists. Most no longer accept Medicaid, the state-administered federal health care program for the poor, leaving a near vacuum of psychological services for indigent residents.
The government painted Hill as a doctor who made little money in his pediatric psychology practice and executed a years-long scheme to defraud Medicaid to recoup some of that money. Hill knew that what he was doing was illegal but continued because he disagreed with the rules, the prosecution said in a trial brief.
Supporters, including patients, students, colleagues and even a Nueces County prosecutor, say the Sam Hill they know is not the man described by the prosecution. In trial testimony and interviews with the Caller-Times, they describe a deeply religious and moral man who became a child psychologist to give back to his community, not to make money.
Many wondered aloud why the government prosecuted Hill, a decorated Vietnam War veteran widely respected as one of the top child psychologists in the area. Some theorized prosecutors were making an example of him.
"The man's a saint," said Rayman Kinman, executive director of The Open Arms Agency, which sends foster children to Hill for evaluation. "It breaks my heart to see him go through this. I think that's probably why they did it this way -- because of his status."
Spokesmen for the Texas Attorney General's Office and the FBI, which investigated the case, referred questions to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Houston. Officials with the U.S. Attorney's Office cannot comment on ongoing cases, a spokeswoman said.
The basic facts of the case are not in dispute: At his clinic in Driscoll Children's Hospital, Hill used licensed psychological associates to conduct testing. When investigators asked, Hill told them this was what he was doing.
Charges were brought based on a chapter in the state Medicaid provider manual that prohibits payment for services provided by licensed psychological associates, though the state will pay for some other licensed master's-level professionals.
Hill maintains that the government is taking that guideline out of context. He says he was operating under another chapter in the Medicaid manual that allows hospital practitioners to bill for tests performed by others. He also testified in court that he spends hours evaluating each test and writing reports, time for which he could not bill according to the Attorney General Office's interpretation.
The questions surrounding Hill's case don't stop there.
Head has delayed sentencing while the state debates changing the rules to make Hill's billing practices legal. It will be up to Head to decide what sentence a man deserves if the state initiates a rule change because of his case.
A federal grand jury indicted Hill in March on 15 counts of defrauding Medicaid and BlueCross BlueShield. Because Hill continued billing Medicaid, four more counts were added in June, about two weeks before trial.
Hill's defense attorneys, Gould and Jim Lucas, called character witnesses who testified that Hill performed pro-bono work for the county and wasn't interested in the money -- only the well-being of children.
One of those witnesses was Nueces County Assistant District Attorney Sandra Eastwood, who specializes in child sex abuse cases. She testified Hill trained her in the psychology of pedophiles, counseled victims and testified as an expert witness in trials.
He refused payment for years, until Eastwood persuaded him to take at least $250 per case, she testified.
"In fact, that was a real problem. He didn't want to charge for anything," Eastwood said on the stand. "I didn't like it. I didn't think it was fair."
Hill took the stand for several hours and testified that he was billing for his time interpreting test results. The testing, interpretation and report cannot be billed separately. He also testified that under Medicaid rules, psychologists in hospitals are allowed to bill for tests performed by associates.
Hill's attorneys also called state Human Health and Services officials Kane and Traylor, who testified they could find no problems with Hill's billings.
Prosecutors attacked their review of his records as insufficient to find possible fraud. They also said Kane was a friend of Hill, insinuating that Kane wanted to protect the doctor. Kane testified he knew Hill but wouldn't describe him as a friend.
No matter what happens to Hill at sentencing or with his license, his life already has changed. Medicaid placed him on temporary hold in May after a request from the Attorney General's Office.
He has been treating indigent patients for free at Driscoll Children's Hospital but is quitting this month, he says, at the request of A&M-Corpus Christi officials. His 16-year career there, he says, is "hanging on by a string."
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081025.wreward1025/BNStory/National/home?cid=al_gam_mostview
Microsoft doubles reward for missing Ontario boy
The Canadian Press
October 25, 2008 at 10:44 PM EDT
ORO-MEDONTE, Ont. — Rain, mud and chilly weather did not deter some 400 people from joining the ground search for missing Ontario boy Brandon Crisp.
The volunteers embarked Saturday on a second day of searching for the 15-year-old from Barrie, Ont., as software giant Microsoft doubled the reward money for information on his whereabouts to $50,000.
Public search organizer Charmaine Nolan, who works with Brandon's mother, said school bus loads of volunteers are scouring dense bush area and fields.
Barrie police, who are on day seven of their own search just southwest of the civilians, say no meaningful clues have turned up yet.
Sergeant Dave Goodbrand says people from Miami to British Columbia have offered assistance, including search and rescue expert Terry Grant, host of Canadian reality show Mantracker, who flew in to help.
The teen ran away from home Oct. 13 after fighting with his parents about his Microsoft Xbox game system, which they say he is addicted to. A blue-checkered jacket, tent, crackers and full bag of chips were all turned up Friday as a sprawling ground search got under way for a missing Ontario boy, but investigators aren't drawing any conclusions as to whether they're signs Brandon Crisp is still in the area.
The 15-year-old disappeared after leaving his Barrie, Ont., home Oct. 13 following an argument with his parents over his excessive use of his XBox video game system.
http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081026/NEWS01/810260346/1002/NEWS01
A Vermont Catholic Church misconduct case has reached the state Supreme Court. But will the child sex abuse scandal that has sparked more than 30 lawsuits in the past six years ever reach a conclusion?
The Vermont Supreme Court will hear an appeal Thursday in the case of James Turner, a 47-year-old Northeast Kingdom native who sued the statewide Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington for negligence because it employed a priest who molested him growing up.
http://www.cbs58.com/index.php?aid=4800
Letters are on the way to the parents of nearly 500 young girls in Racine after police found a list of the children's names in the home of a man already facing child porn charges.
39-year-old Steven Marcsis of Mount Pleasant was arrested on October 13th after Racine Police found him inside a dumpster at Jones Elementary School.
Police say he was taking pictures of his private parts next to discarded artwork.
The list was later found in Marcsis' home.
It was hand written in alphabetical order.
http://www.metnews.com/articles/2008/selj102408.htm
Friday, October 24, 2008
Page 1
Court Upholds Seizure at Shipping Facility as ‘Border” Search
By KENNETH OFGANG, Staff Writer
The seizure of child pornography and other evidence of an elderly man’s involvement in sex tourism from a FedEx shipping facility was valid as the equivalent of a border search, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled yesterday.
In a 10-1 en banc decision, with Chief Judge Alex Kozinski dissenting, the court affirmed John Seljan’s conviction and 20-year prison sentence for attempting to travel in interstate commerce to engage in illicit sexual conduct, using interstate facilities to entice a minor into engaging in criminal sexual activity, and possessing and producing child pornography.
He argued on appeal that Chief U.S. District Judge Alicemarie Stotler of the Central District of California should have suppressed the contents of the packages he attempted to ship to the Philippines. Seljan, now 90, also claimed that the sentence was excessive given his age.
Three Packages
Between 2002 and 2003, Seljan sent three FedEx packages to the Philippines. As required by the shipper, he signed a statement agreeing to conditions, including allowing FedEx to inspect the contents and an acknowledgment that the package had to “clear customs” before leaving the United States.
U.S. Custom Service inspectors later inspected all packages bound for the Philippines through FedEx’s Oakland hub as part of a currency interdiction operation. Seljan’s package was found to contain U.S. and Philippine currency, as well as a sexually suggestive letter to an 8-year-old girl.
A second package containing similar contents was intercepted eight months later. Inspectors allowed FedEx to deliver both packages.
Interviews with one of Seljan’s former neighbors and a former property manager revealed that he traveled to the Philippines, and that he said he did so to “have sex with kids.” He was shown to have traveled to the Philippines 42 times between 1992 and 2003.
Seljan was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport while attempting to board a flight to the Philippines. After signing a Miranda waiver, he said he had been “sexually educating” children for approximately 20 years.
After his arrest, a search warrant was executed at his residence, and pornography as well as business and travel documents were discovered.
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/pa/20081022_Penn_student_jailed_90_days_in_hacking_case.html
In a rare misdemeanor hacking case in federal court, a University of Pennsylvania bioengineering student was sentenced yesterday to 90 days in prison and five years' probation for crashing a school server in 2006. But the afternoon hearing was much more: It included tears from the defendant; outrage from the judge over what he called "unfair" justice; and instances of child pornography.
U.S. District Judge Michael Baylson also sentenced Ryan Goldstein, 22, of Ambler, to 90 days in a halfway house followed by 180 days of house arrest and ruled that the defendant, a senior at the university, may serve his sentence during a leave of absence from school or during the summer.
Goldstein, who told the judge he had suffered a "computer addiction" since he was 12, was also fined $30,000 and prohibited from using a computer for five years except for work or school activities.
In February, Goldstein admitted to a single misdemeanor count of aiding and abetting another hacker - Owen Thor Walker, a New Zealand teen known as AKILL - in gaining unauthorized access to a Penn computer server by using a botnet. A botnet is a network of computers - typically home PCs that have been commandeered secretly by hackers - that is programmed by the hackers to launch coordinated, massive "denial of service" attacks on other computers, crashing or immobilizing the targets.
Goldstein and Walker used Penn's computer system as a staging ground for a 50,000-computer attack. The system couldn't handle the flood, which Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Levy compared to "water coming from a fire hose."
After Goldstein was arrested, he began cooperating with authorities, and his information led to Walker, who installed malicious software on 1.3 million computers worldwide, investigators said. Walker cooperated with authorities in New Zealand and was fined about $11,000 in July, officials said.
Levy, who prosecutes about two computer-hacking cases a year, said that Goldstein's cooperation "in the online hacking world was very useful" and led to at least seven other arrests. The prosecution made no recommendation in court regarding sentencing.
Baylson, however, said he felt some jail time was necessary for Goldstein because the FBI also found more than 1,000 images of child pornography on his computer. Those victims, the judge said, were "unseen and unheard" in court yesterday.
The judge referred to the fact that prosecutors had decided not to charge Goldstein with child pornography in return for his cooperation.
But the judge said he found it tough to sentence another man, Derrick Williams, 32, of Philadelphia, to a heavy prison sentence the same day for the same crime.
"It seems very unfair. . . . I want to note for the record that Mr. Goldstein is white and Mr. Williams is African American and that adds to my discomfort," said Baylson. Both men had roughly 1,000 images of child pornography on their computers, the judge said.
"I just cannot do it," the judge said, and then sentenced both men one right after the other. Baylson sentenced Williams to two years, instead of the eight to 10 years recommended by sentencing guidelines.
Goldstein, who faced up to a year in prison, had been hoping for no prison time. His lawyer, Ronald Levine, had asked for no prison time, saying: "Ryan is filled with constant guilt and remorse."
After the sentence was handed down, Goldstein was initially stoic, but tears streamed down his face as he left the courtroom.
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/10/fed-blotter-ped.html
Considering all the sockpuppeting he was doing, they should look into if he was also working for Rubashkin.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,429503,00.html
INDIANAPOLIS — A convicted sex offender died Sunday during a struggle with a father who found the naked man in or near his 17-year-old daughter's bedroom, police said.
Police responding to a call from the city's northwest side about 3:20 a.m. found 64-year-old Robert McNally on the hallway floor with his arm around the neck of 52-year-old David T. Meyers, who was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police spokesman Sgt. Matthew Mount said Meyers had a heart condition and may have had a heart attack. An autopsy was planned.
Police said Meyers was naked except for a mask and latex gloves and had entered the home through a window near the girl's bedroom with rope, condoms and a knife. He was familiar with the home's layout because it belonged to a relative, police said.
The girl awoke and screamed when she saw the man in her room, police said. The father responded and struggled with the intruder while the girl's mother phoned 911.
Police did not anticipate any charges against McNally.
"If a person breaks into your home, you are justified in using deadly force in defending your family," said Mount. "In this situation, I don't think he was trying to kill him, he was trying to hold him down."
Why is the rov of this shul in Mill Basin, supporting Margo & YTT?
http://www.czrmf.org/
Congregation Zichron Rabbeinu Moshe Feinstein
6315 Strickland Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11234
Rabbi Pinchus Rappaport 718-968-0873
Who cares if I was in YTT & Ma-Na-Vu when Kolko was groping little baytzim? I'll still go running like a shoyteh to be mechabed Margo.
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/5375/PROFILE.HTM
As of May 16th, 1997 I began working (full time) for A&E Cable Television Networks as a Computer / Network Consultant in the Information Systems Department.
Elementary School - Yeshiva Ketanah: Yeshiva of Spring Valley, West Maple Ave. Monsey, N.Y. 10952
High School - Mesivta: Yeshivah Torah Temimah High School, 500 Ocean Parkway, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Kollel : I was learning in Rabbi Rosenblatt's Yeshiva Zichron Dovid, Ave. N. & E. 15th Street, for the year after I got married until I began working at A&E Television Networks.
Beis Medrash - Rabbinical College: Yeshiva Ner Israel Rabbinical College of Toronto, 8950 Bathurst Street, Thornhill Ontario, L4J-8A7
Beis Medrash - Rabbinical College: Yeshivah Ner Israel Rabbinical College of Baltimore, 400 Mt. Wilson Ln, Baltimore, MD. 21208 (I found an unofficial website created by someone a few months ago, but I lost the address. If anyone knows it please e-mail it to me so I can link to it
Secular College: While learning in Baltimore I also attended University of Maryland Baltimore County a few nights a week. I began majoring in Management / Information Sytems there, and I am continuing that major in Touro College of Flatbush.
Summer Camp: I spent my last 17 summers as a camper and staff member at Camp Ma-Na-Vu
Click here to see a picture of me (2nd from the left), with my bunk from a few years ago
Margo can always use a big shot accountant from Deloitte & Touche to help him count all that money.
Moshe Strimber,
"Touche" is my favorite French word. It's what I like to do to little boys.
Is Margo-supporter Yaakov Schockett, always known as Jerry Schockett, the co-owner with Mendy Bauman of Glatt Mart on Ave M?
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_WC3VtDsRQjc/SNlbb8126_I/AAAAAAAACjU/zJsb2Lxsf2g/s1600-h/poster%2520tt%2520marine%2520park%5B1%5D.jpg
You're probably wondering why Margo needs a pediatric dentist putz like me. It's because I pumped laughing gas into the room before Twerski told everyone he's an honorable man. We couldn't have anyone frowning.
If Yossi Lipshutz is the son who ran the driving school on Kings Highway, he's just as hotheaded as his father.
Obama lead drops to 5 points
Sun Oct 26, 6:54 am ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democrat Barack Obama's lead over Republican rival John McCain has dropped to 5 points, according to a Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll released on Sunday.
Obama leads McCain by 49 percent to 44 percent among likely U.S. voters in the daily tracking poll, which has a margin of error of 2.9 points. Obama's lead has dropped over the last three days after hitting a high of 12 points on Thursday.
"Things are trending back for McCain. His numbers are rising and Obama's are dropping on a daily basis. There seems to be a direct correlation between this and McCain talking about the economy," pollster John Zogby said.
Obama, 47, took the lead in most national polls in recent weeks as the financial crisis and plunging stock market seized center stage ahead of the November 4 election.
McCain, 72, appeared slow to respond to Obama's financial message but in recent days has ramped up the economic themes of his own campaign. On Saturday the Arizona Republican warned voters of the dangers of what he termed a Democratic take-over in both the White House and Congress.
Obama has countered by seeking to link McCain's proposals to the policies of outgoing Republican President George W. Bush, who fares very poorly in public approval surveys.
Obama's lead among voters making less than $35,000 per year remains substantial at a little over 70 percent. But McCain, who had previously scored well only with the highest income brackets, now holds slight leads among voters in all income groups starting at $35,000 and above.
"You've got to think that it is tax-and-spend that concerns them. Is McCain starting to connect with the middle class?" Zogby said.
Obama still had solid, if slightly diminished, leads among two important groups which could play pivotal roles in the November 4 election. Among independents he had a 14 point lead, down from a peak of 29 points. Women also still backed Obama by a 14-point margin, down from 20 points late last week.
McCain, who once had a 4-point deficit among male voters, now has a 4-point lead at 48-44 percent. And whites back McCain by a 12-point margin, up from 6 points on Friday.
Independent Ralph Nader and Libertarian Bob Barr both received support from 1 percent of those polled, a slight dip for Nader. Three percent of the people said they remained undecided in the race.
The rolling tracking poll surveyed 1,203 likely voters in the presidential election. In a tracking poll, the most recent day's results are added, while the oldest day's results are dropped to monitor changing momentum.
The president is determined by who wins the Electoral College, which has 538 members apportioned by population in each state and the District of Columbia. Electoral votes are allotted on a winner-take-all basis in all but two states, which divide them by congressional district.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_WC3VtDsRQjc/SNlbb8126_I/AAAAAAAACjU/zJsb2Lxsf2g/s1600-h/poster%2520tt%2520marine%2520park%5B1%5D.jpg
It was an honor to address the crowd at Margo's event. I felt a renewed geshmak from a few years ago when I started attacking Eli Greenwald & Ben Hirsch.
Just a theory: He's in hiding and preparing for an Israeli attack --- should Obama win on election day.
---------------------------
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — A close associate of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says the Iranian president has fallen ill under the strain of his position.
The official Iranian news agency has quoted Mohammad Ismail, a parliament member and close ally of the Iranian president, as saying Ahmadinejad was sick "but will eventually heal."
Kowsari, who made his comments early Sunday, accompanied the president on his September visit to the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York.
The Iranian president reportedly works a 20 hour day and has not appeared in public since Tuesday.
State television on Saturday said he participated in the funeral ceremony for recently discovered remains of soldiers from the 1980s Iran-Iraq war, but showed no images of him.
Israeli Attack...
Difficult situation...I've read that the Americans are not going to allow the IAF to use an air corridor through Iraq, I've heard that Americans are manning the new high tech radar in the Negev that can detect missile launches (from Iran) at much greater distances then the radar used in conjunction with the Arrow anti-ballistic missiles and that they may not pass along information to the IDF. It is obvious that W is not what he was and I don't know if he can be counted on when push comes to shove.
The Israeli political situation is muddled at best. Can these guys really get it together to at least address this problem? Who knows?
The worst thing they can do is nothing.
Any good news?
BY MILDNESS YOU WILL GAIN MORE THAN BY ALL THE AGGRESSIVENESS IN THE WORLD.
Parents, Teachers, and Rabbonim think that through aggressiveness, using threats, intimidation, coercion, and other means, they could make problems disappear. In the end the problems compound until they corrode the foundation of the family and the community. The children rebel against their parents, youngsters rebel against their teachers, and the community throws off the yoke placed upon them by the Rabbonim. Their Torah is despised, and their leadership is mocked.
Rav Chaim Volozhin
Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall....
-------------------
Financial crisis moves to Gulf Arab nations
Diana Elias And Tarek El-tablawy, Associated Press Writers
Kuwait moved Sunday to prop up the country's second-largest commercial bank and scrambled to protect depositors at other domestic banks, dashing hopes the oil-rich Arab Gulf would emerge largely unscathed from the global financial crisis.
The central bank halted trading in Gulf Bank shares because of high derivatives losses, just a day after Gulf finance ministers said the region's banks were insulated against the liquidity crisis that has rippled through the global banking industry.
"The halting of Gulf Bank shares spread panic in the bourse today because the government has been saying banks are safe from (global financial crisis) losses," investor Ahmed al-Fadhli said a telephone interview.
The Saudi stock exchange — the region's largest — fell by 8.7 percent Saturday and is down more than 50 percent since January. Saudi's benchmark Tadawul index closed down about 1.6 percent Sunday, while the Dubai Financial Market sank 4.7 percent, and Qatar's exchange closed down almost 9 percent. Kuwait's exchange was down 3.5 percent at closing.
The losses tracked most other major world market indices, which saw declines Friday.
Neither the government nor Gulf Bank revealed the size of the losses or their timeframe. But Ibrahim Dabdoub, the chief executive of the National Bank of Kuwait, told Al Arabiya television the losses were up to $742 million.
Because most of the region's banking sector is privately held, little is known about the institutions' true risk exposure.
The Gulf Bank news also appeared to have pushed the Kuwaiti government to take a step it has so far resisted — guaranteeing deposits. The country currently makes no deposit guarantees.
The central bank said it would propose an urgent bill to guarantee deposits at local Kuwaiti banks in an effort to "boost confidence in our banking sector."
The bank woes and nervous market highlighted problems the oil-rich states may still confront as they try to sustain massive spending and high economic growth rates amid falling oil prices and bank uncertainty.
Gulf Bank said in a statement it had advised the central bank Thursday some customers had incurred losses stemming from "the significant decline" in the exchange rate of the euro against the U.S. dollar. Louis Myers, the bank's chief executive, said the losses will "have no major effect on the soundness of the Bank's financial position."
Gulf countries had contended they are largely insulated from the global crisis, in part because of the financial cushion built during years of high oil prices.
In an emergency meeting Saturday, the six Gulf Cooperation Council ministers praised regulatory regimes they said protected them from the crisis.
But their draft agenda, obtained by reporters, said "unjustified fears" still could lead to a "hysteria" of bank runs in the Gulf. And, it voiced the very real fear that foreign investors may pull money from Gulf markets as developed countries' growth slows.
The International Monetary Fund says many of the countries still could see GDP growth of about 6 percent on a regional average.
But the property boom that has underpinned a sizable chunk of the growth could take a significant hit.
The Abu Dhabi-based newspaper The National reported Sunday real estate agents in the UAE capital and Dubai are starting to see a decline in prices for as-yet-unbuilt properties.
The UAE has been one of the more aggressive Gulf nations in tackling the crisis' impact. It has injected liquidity into the economy and cut rates in tandem with the U.S. Federal Reserve.
But in Kuwait, the government has taken a less hands-on approach, angering investors who sued without success to temporarily close the bourse.
On Sunday, traders walked off the floor of the bourse for the second time in less than a week.
Investor al-Fadhli said about 40 brokers left the exchange, walking to the nearby seaside Seif Palace, calling on the prime minister for more government intervention.
Oil prices are particularly important for Kuwait, which has a less diversified economy than Saudi Arabia or the booming UAE. That makes the Gulf Bank troubles even more of a concern in this tiny state, whose 1 million citizens enjoy a sweeping cradle-to-grave government security net.
The various Gulf nations have addressed the global crisis in different ways. Some have injected billions into the financial sector, despite assurances of adequate liquidity. Others have repeatedly cut interest rates or guaranteed deposits.
Saudi Arabia announced a $2.7 billion deposit into the Saudi Credit Bank that was ordered by King Abdullah, Al-Ektisadiyah newspaper reported Sunday. The money is to be used interest-free by lower-income Saudis.
Pleas were made to grubba ganav Moishe Kizelnik during Aseres Yemai Teshuva to either pay up or send back merchandise but the lowlife has no fear of Yom Hadin.
And as a clarification to some earlier comments by others, Kizelnik's rov, the "Shedlitzer" known as Rabbi Weissbloom, DID have a letter against him by R' Shlomo Miller, but that letter was later withdrawn. Currently, only Lakewood Dayan Gavriel Finkel is out to get him, what ever that is worth.
I hope this doesn't mean UOJ is starting a new round of surprise attacks on yeshivos harboring molesters. Bold moves tend to come in bunches.
http://cbs2.com/national/us.strike.syria.2.849036.html
Report: U.S. Strike On Syrian Border Town Kills 8
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) ― U.S. military helicopters launched an extremely rare attack Sunday on Syrian territory close to the border with Iraq, killing eight people in a strike the government in Damascus condemned as "serious aggression."
A U.S. military official said the raid by special forces targeted the foreign fighter network that travels through Syria into Iraq. The Americans have been unable to shut the network down in the area because Syria was out of the military's reach.
"We are taking matters into our own hands," the official told The Associated Press
http://www.torontosun.com/news/columnists/2008/10/26/7208641-sun.html
Earlier this summer, a house-warming message appeared on the online bulletin board of the Chabad@Flamingo synagogue in Thornhill, inviting the congregation to attend a Chanukat HaBayit at the new home of Moishe and Tanya Hutchens.
It is difficult to keep track of Moishe Hutchens.
Especially his aliases.
When he was finally arrested for fraud by Toronto cops back in 2002, he was a Baptist-raised, drug-pushing, scam-running paralegal named Sandy Hutchens, with a criminal record spanning 20 years.
By the time he was sentenced three years later to two years house arrest for bilking, among others, a wheelchair-bound cancer survivor out of $40,000, he had converted to Orthodox Judaism -- with Rabbi Mendel Kaplan, chaplain of the York Regional Police, and founder of Chabad@Flamingo, appearing as a character witness.
Superior Court Justice Harry LaForme called Rabbi Kaplan an "impressive witness," which more than half explains why Hutchens didn't receive the five years in jail that the Crown was seeking, and which many of his victims believed he richly deserved.
Since then, Sandy Hutchens has morphed into Moishe Hutchens and, when in business mode, he operates under the name Moishe Alexander.
There is no mixup. Sandy (Moishe) Hutchens and Moishe Alexander are one and the same.
Last Sunday, after receiving a flurry of e-mail about his alleged activities, I popped over to Moishe Hutchens' new home on Theodore Place in Thornhill where, according to neighbours he has being living since April with his three children and his wife, Tanya, a paralegal allegedly working under the registered name of Tatiana Brik.
No one answered the door bell. Newspapers were piled on the porch, and every blind was shut.
A business card was left in the door next to the mezuzah, with the message to "please call."
Hutchens called the next day, but referred all comments to his lawyers, one being Lou Strezos and the other being Alvin Meisels, a Toronto real-estate lawyer who also represents Hutchens, including being counsel in the case of Canadian Funding Corp. v Brooke Properties Inc., in which Sandy Hutchens appears as "Craig Hutchens."
Lou Strezos called that night, and an agreed-upon time was scheduled to discuss Sandy Hutchens and why, in particular, he was operating as Moishe Alexander.
Strezos cautioned, numerous times, that he was making notes of the conversation which I, in fact, was also taping.
"There's a very simple answer to it," said Strezos. "He formally converted to Orthodox Judaism and, a result of a committee of three ... a rabbinical court, in the colloquial sense, his Orthodox Jewish name is now Moishe Alexander.
"It is not uncommon. There is nothing wrong with that. He's got nothing to hide."
Then Strezos was asked this: Are Moishe Alexander's current business dealings on the up-and-up?
"Yes," Strezos replied. "If there are any accusations to be made, and I am not going to speak about what spurious allegations may be made on the Internet, if an allegation is rendered by anybody, he will answer it in due course.
"But I am not going to engage in a dialogue through the media on speculation on what you or other people may think," Strezos added. "So that's properly answered.
"If anyone has to bring a suit, or anything arises, we will answer it in due course."
Three years ago, a week after he was sentenced, I popped into Hutchens' then- and equally-upmarket Thornhill home -- again out of the blue, just like last Sunday.
He was home, of course, as per court order -- with conditions of his sentencing including two years of follow-up probation, random drug and alcohol tests, strict curfews, limited comings and goings, 50 hours of community work talking to groups about the scourge of drugs, and restitution of the entire $65,803 he had scammed from his victims.
INTERVIEW CUT SHORT
I am standing in the living room, waiting for Sandy Hutchens to come downstairs.
"You Jewish?" Tanya Hutchens suddenly asks.
"No," I reply.
It goes downhill from there, with Tanya Hutchens taking control of her husband's answers -- like how, for example, they planned to pay restitution.
"From our savings," she interjects.
And what Sandy Hutchens planned to do to make a living now that his scam artistry had been make public.
"He's self-employed," she replies.
And then I am asked to leave.
The Internet today is rife with allegations, none proven, that the now 49-year-old Sandy Hutchens -- a.k.a Moishe Hutchens, a.k.a Craig Hutchens, and a.k.a Moishe Alexander -- is up to old tricks in suspect multi-jurisdictional mortgage schemes here, and including as far away as Florida.
Alvin Meisels -- lawyer No. 2 -- called the allegations on the Internet "a smear campaign that is causing (Hutchens/Alexander) a lot of grief."
"He's gone a long way to rehabilitate himself and, contrary to suspicions (anyone) might have, I am satisfied myself that the fellow is genuine," said Meisels. "He's closed a multitude of financial deals (since being convicted of fraud)-- certainly more than 15, certainly more than a score -- and I am satisfied they are all legitimate.
"And those (financial deals) that did not close, did not close for legitimate reasons."
As for the Florida allegations, this was addressed by lawyer No. 3, noted Toronto civil litigation and libel attorney Julian Porter, who wrote a letter to Sun Media lawyer Tycho Manson in anticipation of a story being published.
"Mr. Alexander now has a good reputation as a private lender," Porter wrote. "In that position, he became involved with a transaction wherein financing was required relating to British purchasers of condominium units in Florida.
"The financing met with trouble through no fault whatsoever of Mr. Alexander.
"The proponents of the building transaction have, as Florida people are sometimes wont to do, decided they cannot meet their obligations," said Porter.
"But, in the meantime, they can easily trash Mr. Alexander on the Internet and exploit his conviction four years ago."
ACTIVE PROBE
While the RCMP will not confirm or deny, it is known that an investigation has been launched regarding complaints being levelled against Hutchens/Alex ander in Ontario through RECOL, the privacy-protected online tip conduit on economic crime backed by the Mounties and the OPP.
It is also known that at least one Toronto lawyer -- Ian Stuart Hennessey -- has been disbarred this year by the Law Society of Upper Canada for his past involvement in assisting Sandy Hutchens, through "knowingly (being) involved in fraudulent mortgage transaction."
"The fact that others have been deceived by Hutchens is not a defence," the adjudication panel ruled.
If Sandy Hutchens, as Moishe Alexander, is not above board, he is obviously not afraid to wave the flag regarding his supposed coups while still on probation for fraud, although that particular detail goes unmentioned.
On one of Moishe Alexander's websites, complete with photos of him posing with supposedly pleased clients -- although their faces are pixelated out and no surnames are provided -- he brags of closing some pretty sweet deals through his aforementioned firm, Canadian Funding Corp.
Some of the headlines read as follows:
- "Canadian Funding Corp. and Moishe Alexander funds builder for multi-home construction with total financing of $1.2 million."
- "Canadian Funding Corp. and Moishe Alexander close 120 deals in three years."
- "Canadian Funding Corp. and Moishe Alexander provide all funding for $14 million development in Northern Ontario."
- "Canadian Funding Corp. and Moishe Alexander provide full funding for $15.5 million condo development in Southern Ontario."
One testimonial, from a "Luc B. of Ontario" -- his face electronically blurred -- reads: "As a builder and developer, this ($1.2 million) funding provided by Canadian Funding Corp. and Moishe Alexander allows me to expand and continue my home building operation when nobody else would listen. Thanks Moishe."
Sandy Hutchens -- a.k.a Moishe Alexander -- was first introduced here in October 2002, when Toronto police in 32 Division's fraud squad had him pegged as a fly-by-nighter who professed to be a fighter for the underdog.
PARALEGAL CLAIMS
They had him running a bogus storefront paralegal operation in the city's north end, papering apartment buildings with flyers promising to fight rent hikes and landlord-tenant disputes, and boasting of his ability to arrange loans as well as broker the sale of commercial properties.
Det.-Const. Ed Malachowski, who retired from the force in February, worked the thick and complicated file that finally got Sandy Hutchens convicted of four counts of fraud and another count of drug trafficking in prescription painkillers.
"He was nothing but a cancer," said Malachowski. "And he was a cancer who had to be stopped. He couldn't have cared less about his victims.
"Once he had won their trust, they were done."
I have to Check Benanke's yichus - this putz didn't get it yet -
THE FED OVERNIGHT INTERBANK RATE HAS NO IMPACT ON THE RECESSIONARY ELEMENTS IN THIS CRISIS! HEY PUTZ - GET A LIFE!
----------------
With wreckage piling up, Fed eyes another rate cut
Sunday October 26, 2:08 pm ET
By Jeannine Aversa, AP Economics Writer
With economic wreckage piling up, Fed weighs another hefty rate reduction
WASHINGTON (AP) -- As the economic wreckage piles dangerously higher, the Federal Reserve is prepared to ratchet down interest rates -- perhaps to their lowest point in more than four years -- with the hope of relieving some of the pain felt by many Americans.
The convergence of a housing collapse and a lockup in lending has created the worst financial crisis in more than a half-century. Alan Greenspan, who ran the Fed for 18 1/2 years, called it a "once-in-a century credit tsunami," and conceded that he made mistakes that may have aggravated the economy's slump.
http://www.northcountrygazette.org/2008/10/20/dirty_feet/
A licensed podiatrist has been snared by “Operation Dirty Feet” for stealing samples of medication and selling them to an unscrupulous pharmacist.
Dr. Arthur Minkoff has pleaded guilty to stealing samples of medication from his Woodmere office and selling those medications to a South Shore pharmacist who would sell the pills to unsuspecting customers. Minkoff was promised a sentence of one year in jail in exchange for his pleas, and must forfeit $152,000 of criminal proceeds.
Minkoff, 54, of Woodmere, pleaded guilty to 10 counts, including third degree grand larceny, third degree criminal possession of stolen property, second degree criminal diversion of prescription medications and prescriptions, three counts of criminal diversion of prescription medications and prescriptions in the third degree, and four counts of fourth degree criminal diversion of prescription medications and prescriptions. He will be sentenced Dec. 19.
District attorney Kathleen Rice said that for the past eight years, Minkoff, a licensed podiatrist employed as a technician at a Woodmere medical office, would steal samples of medications one to two times each week. Minkoff would then take those samples and sell them to a pharmacist at a South Shore pharmacy. The pharmacist would gather the samples, put them into pill bottles and sell them to customers with no regard for sanitary conditions or the pills’ often-elapsed expiration dates.
Minkoff’s crimes were realized during a separate 2006 investigation by the District Attorney’s Office, Nassau County Police Department and the United States Department of Justice, Drug Enforcement Agency into the South Shore pharmacy and its pharmacist for selling controlled substances without prescriptions and for forging prescriptions. It was discovered that the pharmacist was also purchasing sample pills to refill prescription bottles. The sample pills were left in a box on the floor of the pharmacy, and workers would sift through the box looking for additional pills when supplies ran low.
The pharmacist pleaded guilty to fourth degree criminal sale of a controlled substance and second degree forgery. Prosecutors are withholding his identity pending his cooperation in additional criminal investigations.
Investigators traced the sample packs found at the pharmacy to the Woodmere medical office where Minkoff worked.
On March 9, hidden cameras were installed in the medical office, and revealed that Minkoff, who was not authorized to enter the prescription closet, entered the closet numerous times and stole large quantities of pills.
Rice said that between Feb. 7 and April 29, Minkoff stole approximately 9,000 pills treating ailments such as high cholesterol, diabetes, arthritis, heartburn, high blood pressure, erectile dysfunction, and other ailments.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration prohibits the purchase, sale, or trade of prescription drug samples.
“Mr. Minkoff’s actions placed unsanitary and potentially expired medication into the hands of sick and suffering people,” Rice said. “This is an egregious betrayal of the public trust. What’s sickening is that Mr. Minkoff and this pharmacist are sworn to help patients and they are in positions that treat people in moments of extreme vulnerability.”
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2008/07/25/2008-07-25_slain_dentists_sisterinlaw_acquitted.html
I'm Arthur Minkoff's lawyer, who like Ben Brafman, likes to defend all the filthy rotzchim and drug dealers out there, as long as they are high profile and have plenty of money to shell out for a retainer.
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20175371&BRD=1601&PAG=461&dept_id=479855&rfi=6
It's sickening how many of them in the 5 Towns are still intending to vote for Obama.
I'm UOJ and I approve this message!
------------------------
The Obama Temptation - by
Mark R. Levin
I've been thinking this for a while so I might as well air it here. I honestly never thought we'd see such a thing in our country - not yet anyway - but I sense what's occurring in this election is a recklessness and abandonment of rationality that has preceded the voluntary surrender of liberty and security in other places.
I can't help but observe that even some conservatives are caught in the moment as their attempts at explaining their support for Barack Obama are unpersuasive and even illogical. And the pull appears to be rather strong. Ken Adelman, Doug Kmiec, and others, reach for the usual platitudes in explaining themselves but are utterly incoherent.
Even non-conservatives with significant public policy and real world experiences, such as Colin Powell and Charles Fried, find Obama alluring but can't explain themselves in an intelligent way.
There is a cult-like atmosphere around Barack Obama, which his campaign has carefully and successfully fabricated, which concerns me. The messiah complex. Fainting audience members at rallies. Special Obama flags and an Obama presidential seal. A graphic with the portrayal of the globe and Obama's name on it, which adorns everything from Obama's plane to his street literature.
Young school children singing songs praising Obama. Teenagers wearing camouflage outfits and marching in military order chanting Obama's name and the professions he is going to open to them. An Obama world tour, culminating in a speech in Berlin where Obama proclaims we are all citizens of the world. I dare say, this is ominous stuff.
Even the media are drawn to the allure that is Obama. Yes, the media are liberal. Even so, it is obvious that this election is different. The media are open and brazen in their attempts to influence the outcome of this election. I've never seen anything like it. Virtually all evidence of Obama's past influences and radicalism — from Jeremiah Wright to William Ayers — have been raised by non-traditional news sources. The media's role has been to ignore it as long as possible, then mention it if they must, and finally dismiss it and those who raise it in the first place. It's as if the media use the Obama campaign's talking points — its preposterous assertions that Obama didn't hear Wright from the pulpit railing about black liberation, whites, Jews, etc., that Obama had no idea Ayers was a domestic terrorist despite their close political, social, and working relationship, etc. — to protect Obama from legitimate and routine scrutiny.
And because journalists have also become commentators, it is hard to miss their almost uniform admiration for Obama and excitement about an Obama presidency. So in the tank are the media for Obama that for months we've read news stories and opinion pieces insisting that if Obama is not elected president it will be due to white racism. And, of course, while experience is crucial in assessing Sarah Palin's qualifications for vice president, no such standard is applied to Obama's qualifications for president. (No longer is it acceptable to minimize the work of a community organizer.) Charles Gibson and Katie Couric sought to humiliate Palin. They would never and have never tried such an approach with Obama.
But beyond the elites and the media, my greatest concern is whether this election will show a majority of the voters susceptible to the appeal of a charismatic demagogue. This may seem a harsh term to some, and no doubt will to Obama supporters, but it is a perfectly appropriate characterization.
Obama's entire campaign is built on class warfare and human envy. The "change" he peddles is not new. We've seen it before.
It is change that diminishes individual liberty for the soft authoritarianism of socialism. It is a populist appeal that disguises government mandated wealth redistribution as tax cuts for the middle class, falsely blames capitalism for the social policies and government corruption (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) that led to the current turmoil in our financial markets, fuels contempt for commerce and trade by stigmatizing those who run successful small and large businesses, and exploits human imperfection as a justification for a massive expansion of centralized government.
Obama's appeal to the middle class is an appeal to the "the proletariat," as an infamous philosopher once described it, about which a mythology has been created. Rather than pursue the American Dream, he insists that the American Dream has arbitrary limits, limits Obama would set for the rest of us — today it's $250,000 for businesses and even less for individuals. If the individual dares to succeed beyond the limits set by Obama, he is punished for he's now officially "rich."
The value of his physical and intellectual labor must be confiscated in greater amounts for the good of the proletariat (the middle class). And so it is that the middle class, the birth-child of capitalism, is both celebrated and enslaved — for its own good and the greater good. The "hope" Obama represents, therefore, is not hope at all. It is the misery of his utopianism imposed on the individual.
Unlike past Democrat presidential candidates, Obama is a hardened ideologue. He's not interested in playing around the edges. He seeks "fundamental change," i.e., to remake society. And if the Democrats control Congress with super-majorities led by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, he will get much of what he demands.
The question is whether enough Americans understand what's at stake in this election and, if they do, whether they care. Is the allure of a charismatic demagogue so strong that the usually sober American people are willing to risk an Obama presidency? After all, it ensnared Adelman, Kmiec, Powell, Fried, and numerous others. And while America will certainly survive, it will do so, in many respects, as a different place.
UOJ and the other Great One, Mark Levin, speak the truth. America, you want to know how bad an Obama presidency will be? It will be like Jimmy Carter's...on steroids. Those of you who remember the late 70's know what a disaster those years were...those who are too young, do yourselves a favor and do some research.
What happens when an Obama administration installs the kind of judges on the Supreme Court and the lower courts that change our laws as they see fit? You know what happens? Things that you took for granted all your lives will change...things like the definition of marriage...How will you explain that one to the kids?
In 1980 Reagan rode in to rescue us. I hope there is a Reagan out there to step forward soon and plan the great American rescue of 2012. I only hope that Obama hasn't done too much damage in his 4 years. Newt, can you hear me?
I'm UOJ and I approve this message!
------------------------
The Obama Temptation - by
Mark R. Levin
I've been thinking this for a while so I might as well air it here. I honestly never thought we'd see such a thing in our country - not yet anyway - but I sense what's occurring in this election is a recklessness and abandonment of rationality that has preceded the voluntary surrender of liberty and security in other places.
I can't help but observe that even some conservatives are caught in the moment as their attempts at explaining their support for Barack Obama are unpersuasive and even illogical. And the pull appears to be rather strong. Ken Adelman, Doug Kmiec, and others, reach for the usual platitudes in explaining themselves but are utterly incoherent.
Even non-conservatives with significant public policy and real world experiences, such as Colin Powell and Charles Fried, find Obama alluring but can't explain themselves in an intelligent way.
There is a cult-like atmosphere around Barack Obama, which his campaign has carefully and successfully fabricated, which concerns me. The messiah complex. Fainting audience members at rallies. Special Obama flags and an Obama presidential seal. A graphic with the portrayal of the globe and Obama's name on it, which adorns everything from Obama's plane to his street literature.
Young school children singing songs praising Obama. Teenagers wearing camouflage outfits and marching in military order chanting Obama's name and the professions he is going to open to them. An Obama world tour, culminating in a speech in Berlin where Obama proclaims we are all citizens of the world. I dare say, this is ominous stuff.
Even the media are drawn to the allure that is Obama. Yes, the media are liberal. Even so, it is obvious that this election is different. The media are open and brazen in their attempts to influence the outcome of this election. I've never seen anything like it. Virtually all evidence of Obama's past influences and radicalism — from Jeremiah Wright to William Ayers — have been raised by non-traditional news sources. The media's role has been to ignore it as long as possible, then mention it if they must, and finally dismiss it and those who raise it in the first place. It's as if the media use the Obama campaign's talking points — its preposterous assertions that Obama didn't hear Wright from the pulpit railing about black liberation, whites, Jews, etc., that Obama had no idea Ayers was a domestic terrorist despite their close political, social, and working relationship, etc. — to protect Obama from legitimate and routine scrutiny.
And because journalists have also become commentators, it is hard to miss their almost uniform admiration for Obama and excitement about an Obama presidency. So in the tank are the media for Obama that for months we've read news stories and opinion pieces insisting that if Obama is not elected president it will be due to white racism. And, of course, while experience is crucial in assessing Sarah Palin's qualifications for vice president, no such standard is applied to Obama's qualifications for president. (No longer is it acceptable to minimize the work of a community organizer.) Charles Gibson and Katie Couric sought to humiliate Palin. They would never and have never tried such an approach with Obama.
But beyond the elites and the media, my greatest concern is whether this election will show a majority of the voters susceptible to the appeal of a charismatic demagogue. This may seem a harsh term to some, and no doubt will to Obama supporters, but it is a perfectly appropriate characterization.
Obama's entire campaign is built on class warfare and human envy. The "change" he peddles is not new. We've seen it before.
It is change that diminishes individual liberty for the soft authoritarianism of socialism. It is a populist appeal that disguises government mandated wealth redistribution as tax cuts for the middle class, falsely blames capitalism for the social policies and government corruption (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) that led to the current turmoil in our financial markets, fuels contempt for commerce and trade by stigmatizing those who run successful small and large businesses, and exploits human imperfection as a justification for a massive expansion of centralized government.
Obama's appeal to the middle class is an appeal to the "the proletariat," as an infamous philosopher once described it, about which a mythology has been created. Rather than pursue the American Dream, he insists that the American Dream has arbitrary limits, limits Obama would set for the rest of us — today it's $250,000 for businesses and even less for individuals. If the individual dares to succeed beyond the limits set by Obama, he is punished for he's now officially "rich."
The value of his physical and intellectual labor must be confiscated in greater amounts for the good of the proletariat (the middle class). And so it is that the middle class, the birth-child of capitalism, is both celebrated and enslaved — for its own good and the greater good. The "hope" Obama represents, therefore, is not hope at all. It is the misery of his utopianism imposed on the individual.
Unlike past Democrat presidential candidates, Obama is a hardened ideologue. He's not interested in playing around the edges. He seeks "fundamental change," i.e., to remake society. And if the Democrats control Congress with super-majorities led by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, he will get much of what he demands.
The question is whether enough Americans understand what's at stake in this election and, if they do, whether they care. Is the allure of a charismatic demagogue so strong that the usually sober American people are willing to risk an Obama presidency? After all, it ensnared Adelman, Kmiec, Powell, Fried, and numerous others. And while America will certainly survive, it will do so, in many respects, as a different place.
Attention all Yidden in New York City:
There is a major effort being undertaken these days in NYC which will affect our children. This effort is below the radar, and most of us will wake up one day to find out that our children have been undercut by our Mosdos and by Agudas Yisroel.
There is a national company called Catapult Learning which is slowly taking over the special education in our Yeshivos and Bais Yaakovs. One by one, schools are being pressured into agreeing to accept this company as the sole provider of special services to our kinderlach. The problem is that this company is known nationally for extremely underpaying their teachers.
What this means for our teachers: A special ed teacher who until now was getting $50-$60 an hour will now get $15-$20 an hour.
What this means for our kinderlach: The best teachers will simply leave the Yeshivos and Bais Yaakovs and work in the public school system. Our kinderlach will be left with second class teachers who cannot get jobs elsewhere. Our kinderlach will be the big losers.
Guys, this is serious. Ask any special ed teacher from Lakewood. Catapult Learning has taken over special ed in Lakewood, and all special ed teachers in Lakewood now receive $15-$20 per hour. We KNOW that Catapult has told prospective teachers in Brooklyn that they will receive $15-$20 per hour.
Many principals are aware of this, and are trying hard to resist the pressure from Agudas Yisroel. However most principals are not aware of the consequences of this decision. Please notify the principals of what may happen if this company will be allowed to monopolize jewish education in NYC the way they did in Lakewood.
Spread the word! Call principals! Call NYC BOARD OF ED!
Most of all, call Aguda at 212-797-9000 x328 and tell them to keep Catapult Learning out of NYC!
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