Seriously now, remember when we hardly knew each other -- like two years ago, when I respectfully asked for an invitation to address the urgent issue of child sex-abuse in the Orthodox Jewish community --- at the Agudah Convention? Sheesh...those were the good old days Avi. You were the "big macher" --- I was the "lunatic blogger". My, oh my --- seemingly our nicknames have switched owners. Dats life --- one day you're a macher --- the next day you're a lunatic!
So bubele ---- let me try again. You seem to be headlining the Convention with the "Kashruth" theme. I understand you will be having cows in every room (not the ones from Borough Park - those are behaimas) - nice twist instead of the Agudah yarmulkes --- ya know with the embroidered picture of a Catholic priest in heat.
I know a few things about kashruth and behaimas myself. Not as much as say - Nat Lewin - but enough to fake it and be entertaining at the same time. Whaddya say Avi --- we bury the mohel's hatchet, kiss and make-up, naa bad idea -- just let's make-up, send me an invite to speak, and let by-gones be by-gones. You may even get to like me if you gave yourself a chance. I'll even lay off the pummelling of you for a week or so.
I'll give you back your title as "big macher"... in truth - you truly deserve that honor - because Gertzulin tells me you've been walking around with full pants since we "met"..... Give me enough notice so I can stop off at Bencraft for a new hat.
Hope to hear from you --- regards to the boyz!
UOJ
STEVE RAGES:
"Personally, I'm looking forward to the fressfest. I can't wait to see who they trot out there to defend the Rubashkins and cry out "ant-semitism, nazism, blood libel, etc." This line of defense and excuses would be so laughable if not for the tragic state that Orthodox Judaism is in. Between the kashrus scandals, the child sexual abuse plague, "frum" white-collar crime, OTD teens, lack of formal education in yeshivos, the abuse of the kollel system, the geirus industry, political in-fighting, modesty patrols and ridiculous bans, you would think that this self-appointed representative organization of Orthodox Jews would have more important things on their agenda than trying to resurrect a totally corrupt meat business. Not just any corrupt meat business, but a family business that was deceiving unwitting kosher consumers for over twenty years and showing a total disregard for both religious and secular law. WHY???
The answer is simple, just like it was two years ago when they dedicated their plenary session to UOJ: HEF$EID MERUBAH!!!! Too many chashuva families and companies were benefiting from the Rubashkins. From the rav hamachshil, to the meshichist shochtim, to the muzzled and blindfolded "mashgichim", to the licensing, er, kashrus agencies, to the PR firms, to the heilige lawyers, to the yeshivos who received "charity" in return for lucrative contracts, and last but not least, the Pesach hotel-type fressers who care more about their stomachs than the massive chillul hashem and their own timtum halev. To the Agudah, this is an emergency situation! MI YAACHILEINU BASSAR??? Or better yet, MI YAACHILEINU MAMON??? First amendment rights! Meat shortages! Vayishman Yeshurun Vayivaat Shamanta Avita Kasita! We need twenty more years of Rubashkin abuses, chillul hashem and treifos!
Two years ago, after UOJ exposed the child sexual abuse plague and coverup in our midst, instead of planning an emergency session to deal with this scourge, they decided to attack the messenger. WHY??? They need to protect the status quo!!! HEF$EID MERUBAH!!! Who will come to our next dinner if the truth is exposed? What if we get sued and have to pay a settlement? What if some yeshivos get sued? Oy vey! This is their only concern. Not the children, not the community, not kashrus, not Torah, not chillul hashem, not education, not peace and tranquility, not ahavas yisroel, NO!!! MONEY!! That's all that matters. Elokei Kessef Veelokei Zahav! That's what's on the agenda. Pass the pastrami."
Anonymous Adds!
The NY Times and The Jewish Week stories...Hikind subpoena...Yudi and Lipa, look at what you have wrought. Think back a couple of years to UOJ's offer...Yudi leaves YTT and everything goes away...sounds like a pretty good offer now, doesn't it? Stupidity and Gaiva...what a price to pay.
CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE:
161 comments:
Dear Mr. Jew,
First of all I only check in 35 times a day, not 40. And I'm not interested in reading your biased speeches. I only check to see if you have new cartoons on the sidebar.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/11/11/acevedo.pow/index.html
This is a must read.
Sounds like another suspicious gerus.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/11102008/news/regionalnews/inside_scam_that_made_her_100m_woman_137990.htm?page=0
November 10, 2008
She wasn't born rich, but the Upper West Side socialite sure knew how to make money.
Too bad it was through alleged illegal schemes.
Dina Wein-Reis' purported plot was simple at its base - convince Fortune 500 firms to sell their products to her at rock-bottom prices as part of a marketing ploy. She would then divert the goods to retail outlets, allowing her to pocket tens of millions in profit.
Carrying off the plan demanded breathtaking chutzpah and dizzying choreography.
But with an innate flair for theatrics, Wein-Reis, 44, harnessed both, according to more than a decade's worth of lawsuits and former colleagues who spoke with The Post.
One former worker recounted how Wein-Reis - who goes by more than a dozen aliases - went so far as to set up fake retail shops and change the nameplates outside her Midtown office between appointments.
"It got confusing for me sometimes, keeping up with it," said the ex-employee. "But she pulled it off. It was perfect theater."
According to federal prosecutors - who last month indicted and arrested Wein-Reis on fraud and conspiracy charges - the maneuvering paid off handsomely, catapulting her to a staggering $100 million in personal wealth and a lavish lifestyle far outreaching her modest Brooklyn upbringing.
Freed on bail last week against prosecutors' wishes, Wein-Reis is now confined to her opulent, $30 million Riverside Drive mansion - which, along with a $35 million art collection and six other homes, represents part of the spoils of her multistate fraud scheme, according to the feds.
Wein-Reis grew up in middle-class Borough Park, the youngest of three kids of Vivian and Solomon Wein, an apparel manufacturer.
Childhood pal Suri Drucker - in a letter penned last week to the court pleading for Wein-Reis to be released on bail - recalled that even as a girl, her friend of 35 years was "glamorous, flamboyant, boastful [and] over-the-top."
By her early 20s, Dina Wein's outgoing personality had caught the attention of David Ruiz, a dashing Colombian from a working-class, immigrant family.
"She said it was love at first sight," a former Wein-Reis colleague recalled.
The two married, with Ruiz converting to Judaism and changing his name to Reis. They soon started a family; their three sons are now 18, 14, and 8.
By the early 1990s, Wein-Reis was in business, courting well-known consumer-goods firms in an effort to get them to sell their products to her on the cheap.
But by the time her middle son was born, Wein-Reis had set off warning bells at Hershey Foods, Golden Grain/Quaker Oats, and Warner Lambert, all of which smacked her with lawsuits in 1995.
At least five more suits - by Beech Nut, Hanover Foods, 8 O'Clock Coffee, Unilever and Roche - soon followed, accusing Wein-Reis of misdeeds that included fraud, diversion and racketeering.
According to one suit, Wein-Reis scammed "54 companies in 18 states."
She has allegedly targeted as many as 500 companies over the years, including Revlon, Bausch & Lomb, Pfizer, Bayer, Campbell Soup, Colgate-Palmolive, Eastman Kodak, Jergens, Kellogg's, Heinz, Melitta, 3M, Kimberly-Clark, Kraft, Schering-Plough, Tom's of Maine, and Swarovski Crystal.
The firms charged that Wein-Reis and her cohorts would encourage top executives to participate in her "sampling" program, in which Wein-Reis would purchase a company's product at about an 85 percent discount, with the understanding it would be distributed it to schools, nursing homes, ethnic organizations and charities.
If reaction to the products was favorable, the targeted firms said, they were told that they'd be "invited" to sell their goods to Wein-Reis' "exclusive network" of as many as 6,500 retailers.
Reis enticed top firm execs to participate by pretending she wanted to hire them, at high salaries, to work for her, according to court papers and ex-colleagues.
"She'd wine and dine them with first-class airline tickets, nights at the Waldorf, limousines, tickets to Broadway shows," a former colleague told The Post. "Then, finally, there would be the trip to her house, which was just wildly impressive with the butler and the staff and all the artwork."
"Of course, there never really was a job on the table," the ex-colleague added. "It was all a big ruse."
Still, the companies bit. Once they'd shipped the heavily discounted goods, most never heard from Wein-Reis again.
By Tom Shean
The Virginian-Pilot
© November 11, 2008
Two co-owners of investment firm WexTrust Capital, Joseph Shereshevsky and Steven Byers, have been indicted by a federal grand jury in New York on charges of conspiring to defraud real estate investors out of $9.2 million, according to the Bloomberg News service.
Shereshevsky, a Norfolk resident and former chief operating officer of WexTrust, and Steven Byers, the company’s founder and chairman, were arrested in August on charges of bilking investors out of millions of dollars in an array of investment schemes.
The indictment in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan focuses on $9.2 million that WexTrust raised from investors who were told that their funds would be used to buy and operate seven office buildings. WexTrust told the investors that the buildings would be leased to the federal government’s General Services Administration, but WexTrust never bought the buildings and diverted the money to other uses, according to the government’s charges.
Shershevsky is being held at a federal detention center in Brooklyn.
“We’re confident the defendant will ultimately be vindicated,” his lawyer, Martin Siegel, told Bloomberg after the indictment was returned.
Byers, of Oak Brook, Ill., was released after posting a $4 million bond. His lawyer, Pery Krinsky, didn’t return a call, Bloomberg said.
The indictment, which charges the pair with conspiracy and securities fraud, seeks forfeiture of $9.2 million.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SPITZER_PROSTITUTION?SITE=WIJAN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
NEW YORK (AP) -- Federal prosecutors said Thursday that they will not bring criminal charges against Eliot Spitzer for his role in a prostitution scandal, removing a legal cloud that has surrounded the former New York governor since his epic downfall eight months ago.
U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia said investigators found no evidence that Spitzer or his office misused public or campaign funds for prostitution. Investigators found that Spitzer solicited high-priced call girls, but federal prosecutors typically do not prosecute clients of prostitution rings.
"After a thorough investigation, this office has uncovered no evidence of misuse of public or campaign funds," Garcia said. "We have concluded that the public interest would not be further advanced by filing criminal charges in this matter."
Authorities could have charged Spitzer with violating the Mann Act, a federal law that bans carrying women or girls across state lines for "prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose." But the legal experts say the law is rarely used to prosecute johns.
Another former federal prosecutor, Brad Simon, said other factors, including lobbying by Spitzers' attorneys, might have influenced the decision.
Prosecutors "have discretion, and they used it," Simon said.
Four people pleaded guilty in recent months to running the prostitution operation that led to Spitzer's political demise.
Michael C. Farkas, the lawyer one of the escort service's booking agents, blasted the decision not to prosecute Spitzer. His client, 36-year-old Tanya Hollander, pleaded guilty and admitted to helping run the ring, and she is scheduled to be sentenced this month.
"She still faces a jail sentence, while some other more infamous actors in this matter do not. It would be a sad injustice if that were to occur," Farkas said.
The Putz-Thief Congressman thought his mattress was too obvious so his the money in the freezer.
http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2008/11/rep_william_jeffersons_corrupt.html
Corruption trial of Rep. William Jefferson likely delayed again
Best Buy, the world's largest electronics retailer, fell 12 percent after citing a ``rapid, seismic'' slowdown in consumer spending.
YNet reports:
A recent criminal affair threatens to cause a great shortage in kosher meat in the United States, as Agriprocessors, the country's number one kosher meat provider filed for bankruptcy last week and is expected to shut down.
The Iowa-based slaughterhouse, which have been run by a family of Lubavitch hassidism for many years, was raided last month by immigration police, who allege the owners 80-year-old Aaron Rubashkin, and his son Sholom (49) were personally involved in the large scale forgery of identification cards for hundreds of illegal workers in the factory.
The company provides some 60% of American Jews' kosher meat and in many small communities is the sole meat provider.
An investigation revealed that the Rubashkins employed over 400 illegal immigrants from Guatemala, and a production line manager at the factory told detectives that he received cash from Rubashkin that he distributed among a few dozen workers to purchase their fake IDs.
It was also revealed that the Rubashkins illegally employed minors in abusive conditions including excessive hours and poor wages. The under-age workers were allegedly exposed to dangerous chemicals and were required to operate dangerous machinery without the proper protection.[...]
The Agriprocessors affair has not only left American Jews with a damaged image, but could also pose a threat to many isolated Jewish communities that depended solely on the factory for their kosher meat, and will now have to do without.
Rabbis across the United States warned that if the factory closes, hundreds of thousands of traditional Jews will be left without a meat supply.
The state of Iowa has already given the company a $10 million fine for illegally employing under-age workers, and barring any last minute changes, the factory will go bankrupt and shut down.
If Sholom Rubashkin is convicted of the line of offenses he has been charged with, he is expected to spend up to 22 years in prison.
Zillow: A third of home sellers are losing money
If you bought your home at the peak of the market in the last couple of years, you could be down "anywhere from five to, in areas of California, 30 or 40 percent off the value of your home." So says Amy Bohutinsky, the V-P for communications at Zillow.com. She tells Steve Potisk that has many people in "negative equity right now," or owing more on the mortgage than the house is worth.
That means a third of Americans who sold their home in the past year lost money, according to a Zillow survey. The downward trend is expected to continue. Bohutinsky says of the 163 metro areas they surveyed, "only a handful of markets showed appreciation year over year."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/opinion/12friedman.html
How to Fix a Flat
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Last September, I was in a hotel room watching CNBC early one morning. They were interviewing Bob Nardelli, the C.E.O. of Chrysler, and he was explaining why the auto industry, at that time, needed $25 billion in loan guarantees. It wasn’t a bailout, he said. It was a way to enable the car companies to retool for innovation. I could not help but shout back at the TV screen: “We have to subsidize Detroit so that it will innovate? What business were you people in other than innovation?” If we give you another $25 billion, will you also do accounting?
How could these companies be so bad for so long? Clearly the combination of a very un-innovative business culture, visionless management and overly generous labor contracts explains a lot of it. It led to a situation whereby General Motors could make money only by selling big, gas-guzzling S.U.V.’s and trucks. Therefore, instead of focusing on making money by innovating around fuel efficiency, productivity and design, G.M. threw way too much energy into lobbying and maneuvering to protect its gas guzzlers.
This included striking special deals with Congress that allowed the Detroit automakers to count the mileage of gas guzzlers as being less than they really were — provided they made some cars flex-fuel capable for ethanol. It included special offers of $1.99-a-gallon gasoline for a year to any customer who purchased a gas guzzler. And it included endless lobbying to block Congress from raising the miles-per-gallon requirements. The result was an industry that became brain dead.
Nothing typified this more than statements like those of Bob Lutz, G.M.’s vice chairman. He has been quoted as saying that hybrids like the Toyota Prius “make no economic sense.” And, in February, D Magazine of Dallas quoted him as saying that global warming “is a total crock of [expletive].”
These are the guys taxpayers are being asked to bail out.
And please, spare me the alligator tears about G.M.’s health care costs. Sure, they are outrageous. “But then why did G.M. refuse to lift a finger to support a national health care program when Hillary Clinton was pushing for it?” asks Dan Becker, a top environmental lobbyist.
Not every automaker is at death’s door. Look at this article that ran two weeks ago on autochannel.com: “ALLISTON, Ontario, Canada — Honda of Canada Mfg. officially opened its newest investment in Canada — a state-of-the art $154 million engine plant. The new facility will produce 200,000 fuel-efficient four-cylinder engines annually for Civic production in response to growing North American demand for vehicles that provide excellent fuel economy.”
The blame for this travesty not only belongs to the auto executives, but must be shared equally with the entire Michigan delegation in the House and Senate, virtually all of whom, year after year, voted however the Detroit automakers and unions instructed them to vote. That shielded General Motors, Ford and Chrysler from environmental concerns, mileage concerns and the full impact of global competition that could have forced Detroit to adapt long ago.
Indeed, if and when they do have to bury Detroit, I hope that all the current and past representatives and senators from Michigan have to serve as pallbearers. And no one has earned the “honor” of chief pallbearer more than the Michigan Representative John Dingell, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee who is more responsible for protecting Detroit to death than any single legislator.
O.K., now that I have all that off my chest, what do we do? I am as terrified as anyone of the domino effect on industry and workers if G.M. were to collapse. But if we are going to use taxpayer money to rescue Detroit, then it should be done along the lines proposed in The Wall Street Journal on Monday by Paul Ingrassia, a former Detroit bureau chief for that paper.
“In return for any direct government aid,” he wrote, “the board and the management [of G.M.] should go. Shareholders should lose their paltry remaining equity. And a government-appointed receiver — someone hard-nosed and nonpolitical — should have broad power to revamp G.M. with a viable business plan and return it to a private operation as soon as possible. That will mean tearing up existing contracts with unions, dealers and suppliers, closing some operations and selling others and downsizing the company ... Giving G.M. a blank check — which the company and the United Auto Workers union badly want, and which Washington will be tempted to grant — would be an enormous mistake.”
I would add other conditions: Any car company that gets taxpayer money must demonstrate a plan for transforming every vehicle in its fleet to a hybrid-electric engine with flex-fuel capability, so its entire fleet can also run on next generation cellulosic ethanol.
Lastly, somebody ought to call Steve Jobs, who doesn’t need to be bribed to do innovation, and ask him if he’d like to do national service and run a car company for a year. I’d bet it wouldn’t take him much longer than that to come up with the G.M. iCar.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3621836,00.html
"According to testimonies, some of the minors were even beaten by shift managers if they failed to meet the required production quota.
American media estimate that the allegations that have been uncovered so far are just the tip of the iceberg"
Paulson to give update today on financial bailout
Arthur, shkoyich!
http://www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=17742250
Lobbyists swarm the U.S. Treasury for a helping of bailout pie
By Mark Landler and David D. Kirkpatrick
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3620717,00.html
Jews wants Mormons to stop proxy baptisms
New York-based group meet with leaders from Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to protest ongoing posthumous baptism of Holocaust victims. 'We do not ask for, or want your love,' says chairman of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors
MACY'S REPORTS LESS THAN EXPECTED LOSS!
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Department store operator Macy's Inc (NYSE:M - News) reported a quarterly loss on Wednesday as shoppers curbed spending and avoided all but the most crucial of purchases amid an expanding financial crisis.
The company, which runs both its namesake department stores and the upscale Bloomingdale's chain, reported a loss of ONLY $44 million, or 10 cents per share, for the third quarter that ended November 1, compared with net income of $33 million, or 8 cents per share, a year earlier.
It's less of a problem at frum law firms.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/business/12law.html?em=&pagewanted=print
You know things are bad when even lawyers are getting laid off.
In downturns of years past, law firms exploited corporate failures and bitter, protracted lawsuits to keep busy and keep billing. But in this still-unfolding crisis, the embittered and the bankrupt have been relatively slow to appear, at least in court.
Law firms in turn are feeling the strain. Thelen and Heller Ehrman, two firms whose deep San Francisco roots extend back decades, have collapsed outright, in part because of the business slowdown. Each firm left several hundred lawyers out in the cold. Many others, including Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal and Katten Muchin Rosenman, two Chicago firms ranked among the nation’s hundred most profitable by American Lawyer magazine, and the international giant Clifford Chance have jettisoned dozens of associates.
Still others, like Powell Goldstein, a firm based in Atlanta with more than 200 lawyers, are merging with larger rivals in deals that may be bids for stability. Over all, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday that the legal services industry lost more than 1,000 jobs in October.
This is not how it is supposed to work; businesses are supposed to need lawyers in good times and bad alike.
UOJ is going to love this one.
General Electric is considering applying to become a holding bank.
I'm not kidding!
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2008/11/12/business/12leonhardt.graphix.ready.html
http://www.timesdaily.com/article/20081108/ARTICLES/811080301/1004?Title=Beating_spirits_with_spirituality
Rabbi Yisrael Pinson expanded on Alcoholics Anonymous' tactic of beating substance abuse spiritually by tailoring a program for Jews about six years ago. The Michigan-based Jewish Recovery Community has blossomed to Los Angeles, Miami, Manhattan, Philadelphia and Montreal.
The idea is to fuse spirituality and recovery. "Their recovery community is not outside their regular community," Pinson said.
Chances of staying in recovery increase if people thrive and recover in their day-to-day environment, he added. To solidify spiritual community culture, people meet for Jewish traditions and study religious text. A Web site, jewishrecovery.org, unites recovering addicts from all over the world. Pinson hopes to add a spcial netowrking component before the emd of the year.
Even Jews who seek help from AA or other recovery programs attend the religious gatherings. Shabbat dinner each Friday is popular.
"That's a magnet. People come religiously," Pinson said. When other group members complained to him that Jews outside the program were freeloading at Shabbat, he replied that if that's what keeps them on the path to recovery, then it's OK.
http://www.cjnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=15685&Itemid=86
TORONTO — The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has stripped a Jewish organization of its charitable status after finding its primary purpose was to serve as part of a tax-avoidance scheme.
In a letter to the Choson Kallah Fund of Toronto, Terry de March, director general of the CRA’s charities directorate, stated that the organization’s charitable status will be revoked, preventing it from issuing official donation receipts. Choson Kallah is no longer exempt from paying tax, unless it qualifies as a non-profit organization, and it may be taxed on its remaining assets, CRA stated.
“It remains our view that the charity has willingly lent its name and tax-receipting privileges to the tax shelter in exchange for monetary compensation. In our view, the charity has participated in a program designed to abuse the charitable gifts incentive provisions of the Income Tax Act,” stated a CRA document outlining the reasons behind the revocation.
“Between 2004 and 2005, the charity issued receipts in excess of $177 million, or 90 per cent of the charity’s total income, for donations of pharmaceuticals earmarked for international programs… In 2006 alone… the charity issued receipts totalling over $131 million,” far above the charity’s previous average of between $4 million to $6 million per year, the CRA said.
In receiving the pharmaceuticals and issuing tax receipts “the charity was merely operating as the receipting agent in this arrangement – issuing receipts for property it did not see, need or want and passing this property to a third-party organization,”the CRA said.
In exchange, Choson Kallah received a little more than one per cent of the value receipted, from which it paid a fee to an administrator, the letter stated. The charity did not attempt to independently verify the values of the donations for which it issued receipts, the agency said.
The CRA noted the charity netted only .05 per cent of the value of the donation receipts after expenses, and it failed to maintain the documentation necessary to prove recipients of allocated funds met the definition of charity required by law. Some recipients were not suffering poverty, but received money for wedding assistance, fertility treatments and to pay private debts.
Rabbi Eli Gross, president of Choson Kallah Fund, said the decision will be appealed.
“Right now, I don’t think I will be able to continue our good works,” Rabbi Gross is quoted as telling the Toronto Star. “I don’t know the mechanics of the tax fund, the legality of it or how it works.”
He told the Star that Choson Kallah has been operating for more than 20 years. It started as a small operation that helped people get married, but grew to provide $4 million in poverty relief, mostly to Israel.
Choson Kallah did not return calls from The CJN.
The CRA stated it is “reviewing all tax shelter-related donation arrangements (for example, schemes that typically promise donors tax receipts worth more than the actual amount of the donation)” and it “plans to audit every participating charity, promoter and investor.”
In the past few months, the International Charity Association Network and the Banyan Tree Foundation were stripped of their charitable status. Last week, the CRA stated in a news release it had “revoked the status of the Canadian Amateur Football Association as a registered Canadian amateur athletic association,” with the power to issue tax receipts for gifts or donations.
BBC DRESDEN, Germany – The highly rated Russian team led by former world champion Vladimir Kramnik will enter the 38th Chess Olympiad in Dresden as the clear favorite, but one American grandmaster says the U.S. is fielding its strongest ever team.
The 13-day tournament starting Thursday includes 154 teams in the open division — often referred to as the men's division although it includes a few women — and 116 in a separate women's division.
Ukraine is ranked second behind Russia in the open division, with China third, Azerbaijan fourth and Hungary fifth. The next five teams are, in order, Bulgaria, France, Israel, Armenia, and the United States.
Yet some believe the U.S.'s No. 10 ranking is misleading and the open division team — almost identical to the one that took the bronze behind Armenia and China at the last Olympiad, in Turin, Italy, in 2006 — is actually much stronger.
American grandmaster Yasser Seirawan called the U.S. open team "the strongest team that America has ever fielded."
While he did not favor them for a medal, Seirawan said that first board Gata Kamsky of Brooklyn, New York, and second board 20-year-old Hikaru Nakamura of White Plains, New York, "are brimming with confidence and are dangerous players who can beat anyone on a given day."
American grandmaster Larry Christiansen said the "Americans are underrated in general compared to the Europeans. If they avoid jet lag, they can finish in the top five."
The Russian team is led by former world champion Kramnik and is the highest-rated team ever to participate in an Olympiad.
Seirawan predicted that Russia would win the Olympiad, with Armenia and Azerbaijan taking silver and bronze.
On the women's side, Russia is also seeded first, and Ukraine and China are tied for second and third place.
A number of changes have been introduced for this Olympiad. The number of rounds has been reduced from 14 to 11; the number of reserves on each team has been reduced from two to one; and it will be scored by match points instead of game points.
The World Chess Federation will also hold its annual congress during the Olympiad.
Isn't it great that my employees are pushing for faygelach to get "married" by stating every view EXCEPT Orthodox Judaism?
http://religionblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2008/11/texas-faith-religious-liberty.html
The recent victory in California of Proposition 8, which overturned the state Supreme Court's legalization of same-sex marriage, has revived one of the most contentious cultural and religious issues in American politics. Legal scholars on both sides of the gay marriage issue foresee and irreconcilable clash between the civil rights claims of homosexuals, and the religious liberty claims of traditionalist churches, synagogues, mosques and other religious institutions.
Lillian Pinkus, community volunteer, Anti Defamation League activist (Jewish):
The first part of this week's question asked if a compromise between religious liberty and gay civil rights regarding marriage was possible. The answer is both yes and no. To me it seems the central issues in this week's question pivot around tolerance and adaptation. To the degree a faith belief can tolerate differences and be able to interpret its scriptures in modern times, without sacrificing its core values, than compromise is possible.
The more fundamental denominations any faith are least likely to be able to accept compromise. Yet, some religious denominations have already dealt with the issue of gay civil rights regarding marriage. Reform Judaism, the largest branch of Judaism in the United States, has allowed its rabbis to perform same-sex commitment ceremonies since 2000. The Conservative Movement, the second largest branch of Judaism in the United States, in 2006, in a contested decision, voted to give individual rabbis the option of sanctioning same-sex unions. I believe this is compromise. Although stopping short of endorsing same-sex marriage, the rabbis wanted to allow commitment ceremonies because in Jewish sexual ethics, promiscuity is not acceptable either by heterosexuals or by homosexuals. As Rabbi Elliot Dorff, one of the authors of the change said, "we do in fact have both a Jewish and a social and a medical need to try to confirm those unions".
The United States is not defined by a religion. We, Americans, are defined by belief in ideals such as individual liberty and civil rights, within the bounds of the law. If there is a clash between religious civil liberty and gay civil rights, in my opinion, gay civil rights needs to prevail. Otherwise, how are we different from those countries that demean and curtail the rights of others, both within and outside of their faith, in the name of religion.
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/10/31/18547622.php
In a landmark decision of immense national significance, the US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a RICO claim brought by injured workers against their employer, insurance carrier and employer medical expert could proceed. Several injured workers brought the Federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and their employer, Crawford & Company and Dr. Saul Margules.
The allegations included that, ".....Cassens and Crawford deliberately selected and paid unqualified doctors, including Margules, to give fraudulent medical opinions that would support the denial of worker’s compensation benefits, and that defendants ignored other medical evidence in denying them benefits. The plaintiffs claimed that the defendants made fraudulent communications amongst themselves and to the plaintiffs by mail and wire in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341, 1343, which serve as the predicate acts for their RICO claims."
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/11/state_probes_fraud_at_adult_da.html
State investigators suspect nearly one-third of New Jersey's adult day care centers have committed Medicaid fraud and recently revoked 41 operators' authority to determine if senior citizens are eligible for the program.
The Department of Health and Senior Services, which licenses the centers, will also impose a year-long moratorium on licensing new adult day care centers beginning Monday, officials said.
The department identified 41 day care providers suspected of "grossly abusing" their authority to evaluate seniors, according to state officials and a health department memo obtained by The Star-Ledger.
SHLOMO CARLEBACH. That guitar-strumming fake Tzaddik (whom I loved as a child) committed adultery with the wife of one of my teachers. Shlomo seduced her and she became one of his many married lovers. The good rabbi then convinced her to leave my teacher. She did. She ran away with Shlomo to Modin and divorced my teacher. (By the way, she was pregnant at the time.) Shlomo was a pimp and a homewrecker and he ruined my teacher's life.
At the time in the mid 1970's the story was all over the Jewish papers, and the late R' Mordechai Gifter of the Telshe Yeshiva of Cleveland came out and publicly supported my teacher. Rav Moshe was asked about the affair and said, "I know that Shlomo is a Kal Daas" (one who is uncircumspect in his actions).
Years later, my teacher was down on the Lower East Side to buy Arba Minim before Sukkos. He saw Shlomo there with his new wife (not my rebbe's ex). He confronted the bearded, bloated ball of gas and asked him how he could do such things. Shlomo answered, "Who are you? You're a conservative rabbi!" Shlomo's loudmouth vixen then began shouting at my good teacher, "How dare you talk to my husband this way. When he dies, the angels will carry him into Heaven!"
Quantum of Solace,
One can start by sending David Mandel's Baltimore remarks to the NYC Dept. of Human services--chid wefare division.i just sent a video from online to them & requested a special investigation of Ohel's practices of reporting child abuse--hopefully they'll bring rav dovid cohen & let's see if he lies to them or covers up
Hey Abe Foxman;
You're a disgrace!
You want feygele marriage? Go up to Rikers.
ask carelbach's underage victims & how they feel about all his tuneful niggunim popping up in every shul,while their lives are forever effected by this man.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/nov/04/fbi-asked-questions-on-rezko-land-deal/
FBI investigation of Obama
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/amex-asks-us-35-billion/story.aspx?guid=%7B6146688B%2DA69F%2D4E87%2DBFF4%2D41C683FF2365%7D&dist=TNMostRead
AmEx asks U.S. for $3.5 billion: WSJ
Day after converting to bank-holding company, credit card giant looks for government help
http://www.indystar.com/article/20081111/BUSINESS/811110325
An Indianapolis man was sentenced to 16 months in prison Monday after pleading guilty to embezzling more than $600,000 to buy car parts for his fledgling engine-making company, Chaos Drag Racing.
Robert Rosenberg, 41, was a purchasing manager at Sealed Air Corp. in Indianapolis and charged about $613,000 in personal purchases to his corporate credit card, prosecutors said.
Anonymous Arthur edited out the most damaging part said...
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3621836,00.html
"According to testimonies, some of the minors were even beaten by shift managers if they failed to meet the required production quota."
I've been accused of a number of "crimes" on UOJ but this one I am completely innocent of.I cut and pasted directly from another blog site without editing anything.So sorry to disappoint.
http://www.minyanville.com/articles/AXP-fre-fnm-aig-gm-fannie/index/a/19940
Five Things You Need to Know: Last Chance to Stop the Bailouts
Kevin Depew Nov 11, 2008
American Express became the latest company to "convert" to a TARP-eligible commercial bank, just so it can gain emergency access to government funds. And then, moments later, I read in the Wall Street Journal that of the first half of the $700 billion bailout allotment, only $60 billion remains.
Distressed companies from General Motors (GM) -- ostensibly an auto manufacturer -- to General Growth Properties (GGP) -- a shopping-mall REIT -- are desperately trying to elbow their way up to the trough. Even worse, the companies that received the initial bailout money, AIG (AIG) and Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE), are finding they underestimated how much money they need. They're back for more.
The Journal says that this rush to belly up to the bar now makes it likely Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson will be forced to go back before Congress and ask for still more bailout money. And so here it is. This is it. Congress has a chance. The last chance to do the right thing and stop the bailouts.
What if Congress stops the bailout, even going so far as to patriotically refuse to authorize the second half of the original $350 billion? We will see a terrifying and dramatic drop in financial markets. Stocks will likely plunge 30% or so from present levels. There will be bankruptcies and layoffs. Times will be tough. Very tough.
What if Congress approves still more bailout money? That money will be quickly absorbed by a financial system staggering under the weight of unprecedented levels of debt. We will see a continued decline in the velocity of money and business activity. Stocks may slowly fall 30% or so from present levels. There will be bankruptcies and layoffs. Times will be tough. Very tough.
Then what's the difference?
The difference is that without more bailouts, within a decade - give or take a few years - we will emerge as a healthier, stronger economy with companies that operate as if they are deeply responsible for their own business decisions. With continued bailouts we will emerge from a lost decade with an economy and society crippled by the cost of bailng out businesses that operated with irresponsibility and a near total disregard for not just taxpayers but for their very own shareholders.
This is it. The last chance to do the right thing.
But you and I already know how this story ends. The right thing will not be done. There will be more bailouts. And then more bailouts. Meanwhile, even as we continue writing checks to failed businesses, once-healthy businesses are facing doom, victimized by zombie companies absorbing dollars that, if freely spent, would be rightly theirs.
USA Today this morning ran a piece on Crestor, an expensive drug that when given to those with normal cholesterol resulted in 54% fewer heart attacks and 48% fewer strokes. Unfortunately, using Crestor in healthy people to save lives would add $10 billion to the nation's healthcare bill.
But so what? See, that money is already earmarked for banks and for those who would pretend to be banks. The great irony in this nationlaization of the finance industry is that chief among those now feeeding from the public trough are the very same pigs that were first in line to denounce other "anti-free market" industrial nationalization platforms that have been proposed over the past two decades; industries such as health care.
Make no mistake, it is not that I think healthcare should be nationalized. I do not. But if I had to choose between paying taxes to subsidize Wall Street failures and paying taxes to subsidize healthcare policies, I would choose healthcare.
Many decades from now, when looking back, this generation of politicians and "financeers" will forever be remembered as those who, when faced with the choice, opted for nationalized finance over healthcare. Congratulations. We've got one; we can't afford both.
It's exciting that the world is so excited about Barack Obama. I'm excited, too. That he achieved the presidency says something good about America.
But the excitement also frightens me. It reinforces the worst impulse of the media and political class: the assumption that all progress comes from Washington. In a free society, with constitutionally limited government, the president would be a mere executive who sees to it that predictable and understandable laws are enforced. But sadly, the prestige and power of the presidency have grown, and liberty has contracted. That is not something to celebrate.
The infatuated chattering classes now demand "action" on the economy. They use positive words like "bold steps." The insufferable New York Times suggests the choice is "between a big-bang strategy of pressing aggressively on multiple fronts versus a more pragmatic, step-by-step approach .... " There is endless talk about how FDR ended the Great Depression and how Obama will apply similar "stimulus."
Please. FDR's "bold" moves didn't end the Depression. They prolonged it by discouraging capital investment. Hoover and Roosevelt turned what might have been a brief downturn into 10 years of double-digit unemployment.
Now Obama says, "we don't have a moment to lose," and he and the Democrats insist that government must unionize most of America by passing "card check" and taxpayers must throw even more money at American automakers.
This is the conceit of what Thomas Sowell calls "the anointed" (http://tinyurl.com/6me8d4). The politicians know best how our money should be spent. The "road to serfdom" is paved with such good intentions.
Obama promises:
"We will change the world ... There is nothing we can't do, nothing we can't accomplish if we are unified."
Who is this "we" politicians always cite?
We can change the world for the better if "we" means hundreds of millions of free people pursuing their interests, inventing, building, parenting, helping.
But the politicians' "we" is different. It means government. "We" will take your money by force and order you about. A democracy can become the tyranny of the majority. That's no way to create prosperity.... Continued on page 2
I didn't mean any harm but nobody wants to buy my seforim anymore.
http://lohud.com/article/20081108/NEWS03/811080371/-1/SPORTS
MONSEY - A suitcase abandoned near a shopping center yesterday led authorities to close part of the area until the bomb squad arrived.
But all that was inside the suitcase was Jewish literature, Ramapo police said.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/11112008/news/regionalnews/unions_fight_govs_cutting_remark_138082.htm
November 11, 2008
ALBANY - Gov. Paterson's plan to slash state spending by $2 billion next week came under pre-emptive attack yesterday from public-employee unions, hospital workers and the hospital industry itself.
The critics claimed Paterson, who has yet to detail the cuts he'll seek at an "emergency" legislative session next Tuesday, should cut state spending in other areas, raise taxes, or look for a federal bailout.
Where the hell does BMG get this kind $$ from? I'm going to quote this article the next time they call me for a donation, and return a copy of it on the next mailing.
From Voos IZ Nais
Lakewood, NJ - More than seven months after accepting Beth Medrash Govoha’s $6.5 million offer to buy the Princeton Avenue administration building, the school district and the yeshiva have completed the deal.
“We weren’t sure we would be able to close (on the sale) this early, but when BMG contacted us saying they could do it now, we weren’t about to say no,” said Robert S. Finger, school district business administrator.
The district also signed a five-year lease for a new home for administrative offices on the site of the former Jamesway Department Store on Route 9 near County Line Road, and hopes to move in by July or August.
The site is owned by the yeshiva and operated by the recently opened Center for Health Education, Medicine and Dentistry.
The $6.518 million check for the sale of the school should relieve the district considerably of financial strain that has often caused cash-flow problems.
In September, the Board of Education was compelled to ask the Township Committee for a $500,000 advance of school taxes to cover capital projects because the school sale money was not coming when expected.
Mayor Raymond G. Coles said now that the sale money has arrived, he will discuss with the board if such an advance is still necessary, and if not, whether the committee should rescind all but the $166,000 it already forwarded last month.
Some $1.13 million of the sale money will be spent over the next five years on rent for the administration’s new location, which is about 17,000 square feet on property shared with the Center for Health Education.
The yeshiva is allowing the district to remain at the Princeton Avenue building as long as it pays rent on the Route 9 location starting this month, Finger said.
Yeshiva CEO Aaron Kotler said the Princeton Avenue building will continue to be used for educational purposes.
Beth Medrash Govoha currently subleases space it leased from the district to the private Tashbar elementary school. Tashbar head Meir Hertz said he was assured his school would be able to stay for another three years.
Obama is an extraordinarily talented man. But there is one thing he can't successfully do: ignore the laws of economics. No one can do that. That's why we call them "laws."
Ludwig von Mises wrote that once the science of economics emerged in the late Eighteenth Century, people began to realize "there is something operative which power and force are unable to alter and to which they must adjust themselves if they hope to achieve success, in precisely the same way as they must take into account the laws of nature. This realization ... led to the program and policies of [classical] liberalism and thus unleashed human powers that, under capitalism, have transformed the world."
The resulting abundance, which so many people take for granted without understanding its source, allows them to believe that a new president can "stimulate" us out of recession.
But we cannot raise wages or create jobs or eliminate poverty by executive order. We can do so by freeing people to save and invest and accumulate capital. We can't make medical care universal and inexpensive by legislative fiat. But we can approach that goal by permitting a free market in medicine to work.
Government is force, not eloquence. And force is an attempt to defy economic logic. The consequences are often opposite of those intended. "A subsidy for medical insurance increases the demand for services and raises prices. A price ceiling makes those services less available. A floor under wages makes jobs for unskilled workers more scarce, as employers find it a losing proposition to hire them. A subsidy to production means too much produced relative to something else consumers want. A trade restriction lowers living standards at home and abroad," writes Sheldon Richman on the Foundation for Economic Education website.
What will happen when the unintended consequences hit? F.A. Hayek warned that a government serious about enacting its economic plan must be prepared to use heavy-handed measures. Is that what we want?
I fear that today's "forceful actions" will not only be a painful assault on our freedom, they will exacerbate whatever economic troubles we face.
I'm such a tough talker that when the vendors I stole from tell me the collection agencies will be calling, I say bring them on.
I tell everyone I have a lawyer on staff who can deal with pesky collection agents.
(Pretty good for some hole in the wall operation that has almost no employees.)
Why is it a problem if BMG is buying real estate to expand?
They also have billionaire donors who could earmark those kinds of funds for a specific purpose.
Treasury backs away from plan to buy bad assets
1 hour, 5 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Wednesday said he was backing away from buying troubled mortgage assets using a $700 billion bailout fund, instead favoring a second round of capital injections into financial institutions that would match private funds.
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1993/11/blow.html
November/December 1993 Issue
Rahm Emanuel doesn't want this story to be written. If he can't prevent that, he'd rather you didn't read it. "Can't I talk you out of this?" he pleads.
He worries that his White House colleagues don't appreciate the attention he's been getting. The Wall Street Journal and SPY magazine have recently published unflattering profiles about him. All articles, especially negative ones, are distractions, and Emanuel just wants to do his job--and keep his job.
So he sits uneasily in his boxy White House office, stretching a rubber band until it breaks, at which point he starts snapping it like a tiny whip. On the table in front of him is a file labeled "GOP Attacks." On one wall hangs a picture of Rahm bonding with President Clinton.
Emanuel sighs, sounding older than his thirty-three years. "Another story is not what I need." There are touches of gray in his curly black hair.
Not long ago, Rahm Emanuel seemed untouchable. In 1992, he was Bill Clinton's campaign-finance director, garnering the lion's share of the credit for the $71 million the campaign raised. After election day, Emanuel staged Clinton's inaugural, a week-long party and logistical nightmare. And when Clinton took the oath of office, Emanuel followed him into the White House as political director.
Over the course of his rapid rise, Emanuel earned a reputation. Two reputations, actually. His critics think him arrogant, rash, and power-hungry. They remember how Emanuel once sent a rotting fish to a former coworker with whom he had parted ways. "Nobody says he's dumb, but everyone says he's an asshole," says another former coworker.
If Rahm Emanuel's story were simply a morality play about the comeuppance of an arrogant young man intoxicated with power, it would be neither important nor singular. But it, and Emanuel, are more complicated, and his story matters not only because of what it says about Emanuel, but because of what it reveals about the Clinton administration's style of governing.
His critics claim that Emanuel's mistakes contributed to the administration's early failures.
At other times Emanuel's mix of ambition and the desire to get things done caused him to make promises he couldn't keep--which created more detractors.
The best example came during the battle over the stimulus package. Emanuel and DNC chair David Wilhelm were charged with drumming up public support for the spending bill. Inside-the-Beltway critics say the result of Emanuel and Wilhelm's work was a deafening silence, allowing Republicans to define the stimulus as more pork than Oscar Mayer makes in a year.
"I had my part in screwing up the stimulus, though I don't think I screwed it up alone," is all Emanuel will say.
http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2007/05/08/rahm_emanuel/print.html
Rahm Emanuel was elected to Congress. A former Clinton whiz kid who'd gotten his start as a fundraiser for Mayor Richard M. Daley, Emanuel was connected -- in the three years after leaving the White House (where he'd helped push through NAFTA), he earned $16 million putting together Wall Street mergers. He was also zealously partisan. He had once owned a consulting business devoted to finding skeletons in Republican closets. At a Clinton victory dinner in Little Rock in 1992, Emanuel celebrated by reciting a hoped-for necrology of Democrats who had "f***ed" the president-elect. After every name, he stabbed a steak knife into a table and screamed, "Dead man!"
It's hard to imagine Tom Daschle carrying on like that. His strongest epithet was "I'm very disappointed." As it turned out, Emanuel was just the kind of shameless a**hole the Democrats needed to win back power. As head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, he raised millions of dollars by browbeating donors and candidates with cellphone calls that invariably ended, "F*** you. I love you." Emanuel was so effective that not only did his party win back Congress, he was able to get a Chicago Tribune reporter to write a book giving him most of the credit. Naftali Bendavid, the Tribune's deputy Washington bureau chief, was given "insider access" to Emanuel's operation, expecting to write a newspaper article. When the Democrats triumphed, he expanded it into "The Thumpin': How Rahm Emanuel and the Democrats Learned to Be Ruthless and Ended the Republican Revolution." It's a 218-page celebration of Rahm, as interesting for its look at how he has built his political persona as how he managed the Democrats' campaign. Emanuel comes off as one of the most colorful, driven and profane Washington characters since Lyndon Johnson. "The Jewish LBJ," political scientist Larry Sabato calls him, not only for his ambition but also for his reputation as an amoral political animal focused only on power.
Freed from the constraints of his stuffy newspaper, Bendavid is able to ratchet up the parental guidance rating from G to R, which is essential to any well-rounded profile of Emanuel. As they said about Buddy Hackett in Vegas, Emanuel works blue. "F***" is one of the most versatile words in English, but he seems to have discovered new grammatical and linguistic uses for it. Washington is "F***nutsville." A Republican congressman is a "knucklef***." As with his liberal politics, he seems to have inherited his gift for invective from his mother, who is quoted as playfully calling him a "little s***head." The Emanuels -- who hail from the upper-middle-class suburb of Wilmette -- are an intense, competitive family. Emanuel's father and brother are surgeons, another brother is a Hollywood agent who inspired the Ari Gold character on "Entourage." Too tightly wound to stop at politics, Emanuel also races in triathlons.
In early 2005, Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi asked Emanuel to head the party's congressional campaign, attracted by his fundraising skills and his reputation as "tireless, aggressive and pushy."
When Emanuel and Sen. Charles Schumer of New York met with Dean to ask him to shift money to congressional races, Emanuel mocked the former Vermont governor as a political lightweight from a tiny, rural, homogenous state. "No disrespect, but some of us are arrogant enough, we come from Chicago, we think we know what it means to knock on a door," Bendavid quotes Emanuel as telling Dean. Emanuel "slammed his hand on the table," then continued his tirade: "Look, Chuck comes from Brooklyn. I come from Chicago. It ain't Burlington, Vermont.
Emanuel left the room vowing not to be seen with Dean if the Democrats lost on Election Day. When Dean eventually offered $20,000 a race, Emanuel told him to f*** off.
On Election Night, 10 minutes after CNN called the House for the Democrats, Emanuel climbed up on a table in DCCC headquarters and addressed his cheering, victory-starved staff, celebrating the party's biggest win since 1992. He wanted to wrap up the campaign with a message for the Republicans.
"Since my kids are gone, I can say it," he shouted. "They can go f*** themselves!"
Breaking News!!!!!!!
Agudah is applying for a bailout from the US Treasury. Citing hardship in dealing with UOJ and resultant sudden downturn of consumer confidence Avi Shafran is requesting of Paulson that Agudah be permitted to function as a bona fide bank. Margo has submitted to the Moetzes that he recommends the new bank be called The Sperm Bank. A well known Doctor of Kiddy Science is being considered for the top position to replace Perlow. The doctor has indicated that he is weighing the benefits package and the difference in the quality of life he has now in jerusalem and what he will experience in the Rikers Mansion being offered him as his new residence should he accept the offfer. Colmer and Weingarten are "heading up" the welcome commitee.
Regarding the Agudah bailout, I don't know if Shmuel Bloom's boych has yet been approved as a holding company.
Has Scheinerman ever stabbed a steak knife into the bima during a derosho?
Considering all the Rubashkin steaks and other good food that Bloom has gulped down at Agudah Fresser events, approving his boych as a holding bank would only be a formality.
Bloom has an honorable boych.
Aretha Franklin greatest singer in rock era: poll
11/11/2008 3:00 PM, Reuters
She's already the Queen of Soul, but now Aretha Franklin has been named the greatest singer of the rock era in a poll conducted by Rolling Stone magazine.
Franklin, 66, came in ahead of Ray Charles at No. 2, Elvis Presley at No. 3, Sam Cooke at No. 4 and John Lennon at No. 5, according to the magazine's survey of 179 musicians, producers, Rolling Stone editors, and other music-industry insiders.
The 100-strong list will be published on Friday, when Rolling Stone hits the newsstands with four different covers.
The issue includes testimonials from musicians. R&B singer Mary J. Blige, for example, writes that Franklin is "the reason why women want to sing." Former Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant, who was No. 15 on the list, describes Presley's voice as "confident, insinuating and taking no prisoners."
Besides Franklin, the only other living people in the top 10 were Bob Dylan at No. 7 and Stevie Wonder at No. 9. Marvin Gaye was No. 6, Otis Redding No. 8, and James Brown No. 10.
Other notables included Paul McCartney at No. 11, one place ahead of his idol, Little Richard; and Mick Jagger at No. 16, also one ahead of a key influence, Tina Turner. Among the top 25, 50-year-old Michael Jackson was the youngest, coming in at No. 25.
Voters included Metallica frontman James Hetfield, folk singers David Crosby and Yusuf Islam, Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, punk rock veteran Iggy Pop and English pop star James Blunt. They each submitted their top 20 choices, and an accounting firm tabulated the results.
(Reporting by Dean Goodman; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)
If you ask Potye Lipshitz, he's convinced that he's the greatest singer of all time.
I don't know about the bima but Scheinerman tried to throw a knife at Rav Halberstam and his mikvah.
After an assifah of 40 rabbonim got together to make a point that Scheinerman is full of it, his lapdog Eckstein still won't take down the garbage on Yeshiva World that is motzee shem ra on the mikvah.
Mendelsohn: Total panic setting in
"There's just total panic setting into the market." That's the view of Paul Mendelsohn, the chief investment strategist at Windham Financial services. He tells Steve Potisk, "the problem this morning was Best Buy sort of shocked us into reality here, by indicating we're seeing a seismic event." he adds that "we're still going through this argument in terms of General Motors, Ford and the auto industry as to whether the government's going to bail them out or not." So Mendelsohn says there's still "a lot of uncertainty" there. As for the market outlook, Mendelsohn says while he would "use some of the dips" to buy cautiously. But he warns that "if we take out the last previous lows, then all bets are off."
Bailout Price Tag: $3.5T So Far, But 'Real' Cost May Be Much Higher
Posted Nov 12, 2008 by Aaron Task
While the government is clearly spending a lot of taxpayers' money to bail out financial firms, the tally is even bigger than most Americans (economists and pundits included) are probably aware or willing to admit.
The bailout bonanza has gotten so big and happened so fast it's the true cost often gets lost in the discussion. Maybe Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke prefer it that way because the tally so far is nearly $3.5 trillion, and that's before a likely handout for the auto industry.
Yes, $3.45 trillion has already been spent, as Bailoutsleuth.com details:
$2T Emergency Fed Loans (the ones the Fed won't discuss, as detailed here)
$700B TARP (designed to buy bad debt, the fund is rapidly transforming as we'll discuss in an upcoming segment)
$300B Hope Now (the government's year-old attempt at mortgage workouts)
$200B Fannie/Freddie
$140B Tax Breaks for Banks (WaPo has the details)
$110B: AIG (with it's new deal this week, the big insurer got $40B of TARP money, plus $110B in other relief)
Tallying up the "true" cost of the bailout is difficult, and won't be known for months if not years. But considering $3.5 trillion is about 25% of the U.S. economy ($13.8 trillion in 2007) and the U.S. deficit may hit $1 trillion in fiscal 2009, hyperinflation and/or sharply higher interest rates seem likely outcomes down the road.
At the very least, the possibility of the U.S. losing its vaunted Aaa credit rating -- which determines the Treasury's borrowing costs -- cannot be discounted.
Moody's has already said it's not in jeopardy of being lowered. But we really can't put much stock in what Moody's -- or S&P or Fitch -- say after the subprime debacle, can we? More importantly, the price of credit default swaps on U.S. government debt has been on the rise since the bailout train got rolling, as Barron's reports.
http://rischandioraysa.blogspot.com/
Please check out this kiddush Hashem at Telshe Yeshiva, this is all true!
Hikind Subpoenaed On Sex-Abuse Information
11/12/2008
http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c36_a14004News/New_York.html
Is the data he has amassed privileged?
by Hella Winston
Special To The Jewish Week
State Assembly member Dov Hikind was subpoenaed Monday to provide testimony and files he has compiled about rabbis and yeshiva employees who have allegedly sexually abused children under their charge, and rabbinic leaders who may have protected the abusers.
The Brooklyn Democrat says he has assembled detailed dossiers on “hundreds” of such cases. But he said he would “go to jail for 10 years” rather than reveal the names of the alleged victims, whom he has guaranteed anonymity.
Michael Dowd, the attorney who served the subpoena on behalf of several clients allegedly molested by their yeshiva teacher as children, said he was willing to keep the names of the alleged victims from becoming public. He is representing his clients in a civil suit against Yeshiva Torah Temimah in Flatbush and its longtime teacher, Yehuda Kolko, who was convicted of child endangerment last April.
“I’m willing to try to work with him in a way that protects the sources yet exposes the villains,” said Dowd of Hikind. “I am not at all seeking to do harm or impair his progress, but I have a responsibility to my clients.”
Hikind also faced new pressure this week over his effort — publicized on a recent edition of his radio show — to work with a chasidic man who has come to him acknowledging he has repeatedly molested children, and confesses to one incident as recently as two months ago. Hikind says he has gotten the man into therapy with a “top person in the field” and has declined to disclose his name or tell law enforcement authorities about what he knows.
On Tuesday, Marci Hamilton, a Yeshiva University law professor and national expert on child sexual abuse, said Hikind’s holding back of this information “is outrageous. At this point he’s engaged in obstruction of justice. Is there any indication that [the abuser] has taken anyone over state lines? It seems to me if local prosecutors won’t do it, the FBI should be called.”
A New York police department source with long experience in sex crimes said that even in cases where therapy might help repeat sex offenders, it is essential that the process be overseen through the legal system. Otherwise, she said, there is no way to ensure the offender’s continuing participation and no way to identify him so as to protect the public in case of relapse.
Bill Josephson, a senior partner at Fried Frank and Harris who served as a top lawyer to former Attorney General Eliot Spitzer also asked, “Why aren’t they convening a grand jury?” Given Hikind’s public acknowledgement that he has gathered a virtual mountain of first-hand testimony of sexual wrongdoing, “Why can’t you empanel a grand jury and then subpoena Dov? Josephson asked. “He can’t hide from [a criminal] subpoena. That’s a very powerful instrument.”
Asked if Hikind’s collection of evidence might move him to empanel a grand jury to investigate what is happening within the Orthodox community on this issue, a spokesperson for Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes said only, “If Dov Hikind has evidence of wrongdoing or criminality, we are open to hear it. I can’t say we will empanel a grand jury.”
Access by prosecutors to the most recent victim of Hikind’s self-confessed chasidic abuser might enable state authorities to prosecute him. If the victim is a minor, as the abuser’s past prey have been, he would fall within the state’s narrow statute of limitations for such criminal prosecution.
But Hikind said, “He has many victims. None of those will come forward. That’s part of the story.
“The therapists say that if you don’t stop one of these people they will have a hundred victims,” Hikind said. “Believe it. Just this guy started listing to us a lengthy list of his own victims from the past 10 years.”
The developments marked a new twist in Hikind’s campaign to get the Orthodox community to address a problem he has come to view as much more widespread than he ever imagined, one in which he says he is trying to do the right thing.
Last April, after the conviction of Rabbi Yehuda Kolko of Yeshiva Torah Temimah for child endangerment, Hikind began addressing the issue bluntly on his weekly call-in radio program. He invited members of the Orthodox community who had been molested as children to come to him with details about their experience and about rabbis, teachers or others in the community who were responsible.
Stunned by the massive response, the state lawmaker now says he has assembled testimony and information detailing at least 1,000 cases of childhood sexual abuse.
In the Rabbi Kolko case and others, victims who were ultimately willing to come forward publicly say that they told school administrators about what their teachers were doing to them but that the administrators did nothing, or even tried to keep them silent. Some report receiving threats and pressure when they do speak out or seek to go to the authorities.
In the ultra-traditional Orthodox community overall, there is a widely acknowledged taboo about going to secular authorities to prosecute such crimes. And in Brooklyn, some victims who have come forward complain that the D.A.’s office does not prosecute such cases vigorously. They cite Rabbi Kolko’s ultimate sentence.
Hynes negotiated a controversial plea bargain that reduced the felony sexual molestation charge to misdemeanor that did not require Rabbi Kolko to serve prison time or register as a sex offender.
At the same time, Hikind and other observers say the community’s own rabbinic leaders have failed to deal with the problem internally.
Many of his informants are now adults over the age of 23 — the state’s deadline for allowing criminal prosecution of a child sexual abuser and for most civil suits, as well. But even those who are not, says Hikind, are not willing to go to secular law enforcement authorities.
Some have criticized Hikind for making this determination on his own. In the Rabbi Kolko case, a determined detective produced victims willing to come forward by obtaining class lists of hundreds of students taught by Kolko over the years and going from door to door seeking victims who would work with her. Some who initially refused were, in the end, eager to testify.
Hikind says he believes strongly that victims should go to law enforcement authorities and that he encourages them to do so. But given the reality of community reluctance, he says he will use the information he has amassed to go to rabbinic leaders and get them to deal with the situation internally. He hopes to secure their cooperation in establishing a communal registry that would list the names of teachers removed from schools due to abusive behavior.
But apparently recognizing that many schools are often reluctant to dismiss such teachers in the first place, Hikind has at times appeared to envision forming some sort of rabbinic panel with a more ambitious, quasi-judicial function.
“It’s sort of hard to investigate yourself,” Hikind admitted in an interview last September. “There’s got to be a system where trusted people, respected leaders, who are not directly a part of that particular organization examine everything. We have to make judgments. We do that all the time.”
Last August, Hikind threatened to reveal the names of abusers publicly if communal rabbinic leaders failed to act. This week, Hikind said it would take “another two months” to finish his “current phase.” He said that Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) had recently allocated money for him to hire a staff person for the project.
Survivors for Justice, a new group of self-described childhood victims of sexual abuse in the New York Orthodox community and their advocates, dismissed the willingness and ability of rabbinic leaders to play the role Hikind envisions.
“We applaud Dov Hikind’s efforts, but we believe it is crucial that any information [he] has be brought directly to the police,” the group said in a statement. “It’s crucial in an effort to prevent sexual abuse from continuing that all perpetrators be brought to justice. We are dealing with sex offenders, and they need to be arrested, prosecuted and registered in order to protect our children.”
Dowd, who is representing alleged victims of Rabbi Kolko in their suit against him, the school and its administrator, said, “With all due respect to his intellect, skill and ability, [Hikind] can’t be the arbiter of what is useful to my case. The lawyers representing those who are abused are in the best position to do that. Therefore, I have to depose him, question him under oath.”
Dowd stressed, “I mean no harm. We are both pointed in the same direction.” He said he was willing to agree to “reasonable constraints” on his use of Hikind’s material. But he added: “I fully intend to use any information that proves the case.”
Hikind said he had turned Dowd’s subpoena over to “a lawyer for the Assembly” who will determine to what extent he is required to cooperate as a state legislator. But regardless of the lawyer’s determination, expected Wednesday, “Hell would have to freeze over for me to disclose any of the private things to anybody,” he said.
Some legal experts said that Hikind might find a successful argument against having to comply with Dowd’s subpoena by citing the state constitution’s speech and debate clause — a provision that grants privileges and immunities to lawmakers in connection with information they gather for the purpose of legislating. A few said he might also be able to resist the subpoena under the state’s shield law for journalists since he used his radio program to gather some of the information.
Hamilton, the Yeshiva University legal expert, was unfamiliar with the state constitutional provision. But under the federal constitution’s speech and debate clause, “The activity must be related to his role as a member of the state legislature,” she said. “Here, it is hard to argue he was engaged in a legislative issue, because he was restricting his interest to his own religious sect. In any event, speech and debate only goes to words, not to illegal acts.”
Anon 2:37 PM
This Bailout is rapidly spiraling out of control. Paulson again reversed course this morning. He's clueless.
Big-3 going to get a 25 Bill Bail per todays briefing by Barney (Feigele) Frank. That's right, reward incompetence and schlockly manufactured cars. And after that bail will you be convinced to buy a GM car? Not likely when it costs GM $75/hr to manufacture a car compared to Honda or Toyota at $48/hr. Let 'em sink and let AIG sink too.
Anon,
Nothing at all. Absolutely nothing.
But I don't beleive for *one instant* that some rich guy(s) forked over 6.5 million bucks.
Nag them for operational money, not me.
Tomorrow is the day of prayer in Israel and Chicago.
We pray that our community will return to the values of our founding families to pursue righteousness, kindness and respect for each person’s unique perspective.
No individual is such a "special asset" to a city that they have the right to criminally pursue an innocent person.
We hope that peace and blessing will dwell again in our midst as in the previous years. May God remove baseless hatred from our community, and those who pursue others.
Can someone please explain to me what exactly happened in the elections with Porush and Gerrer Rebbe? What exactly was the fight, and who else had an axe to grind against Porush (even though officially everyone else other than Ger supported Porush)?
No hate, or propaganda please.
Just the facts in detail. Thank you.
Assemblyman Hikind Subpoenaed To Reveal Abuse Files.
http://www.vosizneias.com/22455/
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/1112082follieri1.html
NOVEMBER 12--Conditions at a Brooklyn federal jail are not agreeing with Raffaello Follieri, the con man who once shared a Trump Tower duplex with actress Anne Hathaway, his former girlfriend. In a November 10 letter, a copy of which you'll find below, Follieri's lawyer asks Judge John Koeltl to order Follieri's transfer back to the Manhattan lockup where he was jailed following his June arrest. Since Follieri's October 27 transfer to Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC), Flora Edwards claims her client's health has "deteriorated significantly" due to the "unspeakably harsh conditions at the MDC." Edwards cites overcrowding, "unspeakably unsanitary" toilet and shower facilities, and an "intolerable" stench. Rats, Edwards added, are "roaming freely" and there is "excrement in the shower." As a result, Follieri, 30, has supposedly been left "debilitated," with blood in his urine, glassy eyes, and intestinal problems. On Monday, Koeltl asked federal officials to provide a report on Follieri's medical condition and his care at the MDC "as soon as possible." In October, Follieri was sentenced to 54 months in prison for conspiracy, fraud, and money laundering.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27670119/
Catholic bishops cut off ACORN funding
Decision made following claims that nearly $1 million was embezzled
http://www.silive.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/base/national-112/1226536163164890.xml&storylist=national
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — Disgraced evangelical pastor Ted Haggard says he was sexually abused as a child and that the experience "started to rage in my mind and in my heart" when he was caught up in a sex scandal involving a male prostitute.
Haggard made the remarks in two recent sermons in Morrison, Ill., ABC's "Good Morning America" reported Wednesday.
Haggard said one of his father's employees "had a sexual experience with me" when Haggard was 7, according to audio recordings of the sermons posted on the ABC News Web site.
Haggard said he later became "a conservative Republican, loving the word of God, an evangelical, born-again, spirit-filled, charismatic, all those things.
"But some of the things that were buried in the depths of the sea from when I was in the second grade started to rage in my mind and in my heart," he said.
In 2006, Haggard was fired as pastor of the 14,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs when a former male prostitute alleged they had a cash-for-sex relationship. The man also said he saw Haggard use methamphetamine. Haggard also stepped down as president of the National Association of Evangelicals.
He has said some of the allegations were exaggerated but he has never offered specifics.
Haggard, who is starting an insurance agency in Colorado Springs, did not immediately return a phone message left by The Associated Press.
Haggard previously had confessed to undisclosed "sexual immorality," and on the new audio he said: "I really did sin."
Haggard said his family suffered severely for his actions.
Haggard said he became suicidal but eventually emerged with a stronger Christian faith and marriage than he'd ever had.
Haggard said church leaders missed an opportunity to use his scandal to "communicate the gospel worldwide through secular media."
"We consistently blow it" when those opportunities arise, he said.
http://www.silive.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/base/business-88/1226536743183510.xml&storylist=business
Bahamas' Atlantis resort lays off 800 employees
11/12/2008
http://www.silive.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/base/entertainment-11/122653225745350.xml&storylist=entertainment
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The artistic director at California's largest nonprofit musical theater company resigned Wednesday amid protests over his donation to a campaign to ban gay marriage in the state.
Scott Eckern stepped down from his job at the California Musical Theater in Sacramento after some gay activists called for a theater boycott.
The boycott calls — led by artists including "Hairspray" composer Marc Shaiman — began after activists learned Eckern contributed $1,000 to the Yes on 8 campaign. Last week, voters approved Proposition 8, which changes the constitution to ban same-sex marriage.
Sorry but I couldn't resist commenting on this. How is this "derogatory / racist" if they recently used to call themselves by this description?
About every 10 years they decide they want to be called something else and the old word becomes forbidden.
Soon you won't be able to call them African-Americans anymore.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,450347,00.html
Lindsay Lohan used a derogatory term for African Americans most commonly used by racist character Archie Bunker in the 1970s sitcom "All In the Family."
"It's an amazing feeling. It's our first, you know, colored president," the 22-year-old actress said in response to a question from Maria Menounos on "Access Hollywood" about her reaction to Obama's win in the 2008 presidential race.
http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2008/11/holloway_suspect_trafficks_in.php
Friday 07 November 2008
Joran van der Sloot, the young man believed to be involved the disappearance of American teenager Natalee Holloway on Aruba, is now involved in selling Thai women into prostitution, claims tv crime reporter Peter R de Vries.
De Vries won an Emmy for his tv report earlier this year in which Van der Sloot is caught on hidden camera talking about Natalee's body was dumped at sea. Holloway disappeared in 2005 and the case has never been officially solved.
Now De Vries has made a second report based on an undercover operation in Thailand, reports Friday’s Telefgraaf. The paper has seen a rough cut of the programme which is due to be shown on tv on Sunday night.
According to this latest exposé, Van der Sloot makes €10,000 for every girl he delivers to the Dutch prostitution market. The girls will work for ‘just 300 dollars a month’ he is reported as saying on camera.
During conversations taped in a hotel in Bangkok, Van der Sloot tells a man posing as a Dutch sex industry boss that he can organise visas and passports for the girls, who think they are going to the Netherlands to work as dancers.
De Vries tells the Telegraaf: ‘The pictures show how little respect this 21-year-old has for the lives of others. The fact that he goes into the trafficking of women after the disappearance of Natalee is typical of him… Making preparations for people smuggling is a crime. It could land him into big problems in Thailand.’
http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2008/11/thailand_wants_transcript_of_v.php
Monday 10 November 2008
The Thai authorities have asked for a copy of last night’s tv programme in which Joran van der Sloot, the chief suspect in the disappearance of American teenager Natalee Holloway, said he could get Thai girls for the Dutch sex industry, the Telegraaf reports.
http://www.nrc.nl/international/Features/article2052260.ece/Shady_dealings_by_the_world_s_first_multinational_kept_it_going
Murky financial dealings are as old as business itself as many an out-of-work Wall Street banker can confirm. But did the world’s first multinational, the Dutch East India Company (VOC), really fail because of corruption among its employees?
Historian Chris Nierstrasz who presented his thesis on the topic at Leiden University on Wednesday, maintains that, on the contrary, the thirst for personal fortune helped to keep the company afloat during its final days. Nierstrasz puts forward his unconventional theory on the downfall of the company in his book In the Shadow of the Company.
The VOC was the biggest trading and shipping company of the 17th and 18th centuries in the world. It had a monopoly on spices from the East Indies and apart from pepper, cloves and nutmeg, it traded in more than a hundred other Asian products.
The company employed thousands of people and had over thirty outposts in Asia as well as six co-called chambers in the main port cities and a fleet of more than a hundred ships. At the end of the 18th century, the VOC went bankrupt. In 1799, it was nationalised by the French run Batavian Republic (1795-1801) which covered most of what is the Netherlands.
Corruption
Much has been written about why this happened. In the second half of the 18th century, the company began to lose increasingly more money. It had developed from a trading company into a pseudo state, owning considerable amounts of land and burdened by ever increasing running costs.
At the same time, profits started to fall due to competition from other European countries and a change in European consumer patterns away from the profitable spices to cheaper mass-produced goods.
It is said that the company lost a considerable amount of money because of corruption among its employees who were eager to make their fortunes by circumventing the company’s monopoly and trading for their own profit.
Personally, I'm looking forward to the fressfest. I can't wait to see who they trot out there to defend the Rubashkins and cry out "ant-semitism, nazism, blood libel, etc." This line of defense and excuses would be so laughable if not for the tragic state that Orthodox Judaism is in. Between the kashrus scandals, the child sexual abuse plague, "frum" white-collar crime, OTD teens, lack of formal education in yeshivos, the abuse of the kollel system, the geirus industry, political in-fighting, modesty patrols and ridiculous bans, you would think that this self-appointed representative organization of Orthodox Jews would have more important things on their agenda than trying to resurrect a totally corrupt meat business. Not just any corrupt meat business, but a family business that was deceiving unwitting kosher consumers for over twenty years and showing a total disregard for both religious and secular law. WHY???
The answer is simple, just like it was two years ago when they dedicated their plenary session to UOJ: HEF$EID MERUBAH!!!! Too many chashuva families and companies were benefiting from the Rubashkins. From the rav hamachshil, to the meshichist shochtim, to the muzzled and blindfolded "mashgichim", to the licensing, er, kashrus agencies, to the PR firms, to the heilige lawyers, to the yeshivos who received "charity" in return for lucrative contracts, and last but not least, the Pesach hotel-type fressers who care more about their stomachs than the massive chillul hashem and their own timtum halev. To the Agudah, this is an emergency situation! MI YAACHILEINU BASSAR??? Or better yet, MI YAACHILEINU MAMON??? First amendment rights! Meat shortages! Vayishman Yeshurun Vayivaat Shamanta Avita Kasita! We need twenty more years of Rubashkin abuses, chillul hashem and treifos!
Two years ago, after UOJ exposed the child sexual abuse plague and coverup in our midst, instead of planning an emergency session to deal with this scourge, they decided to attack the messenger. WHY??? They need to protect the status quo!!! HEF$EID MERUBAH!!! Who will come to our next dinner if the truth is exposed? What if we get sued and have to pay a settlement? What if some yeshivos get sued? Oy vey! This is their only concern. Not the children, not the community, not kashrus, not Torah, not chillul hashem, not education, not peace and tranquility, not ahavas yisroel, NO!!! MONEY!! That's all that matters. Elokei Kessef Veelokei Zahav! That's what's on the agenda. Pass the pastrami.
A very important message from the mother of a victim at the hands of a Satmar mechanech:
Dear Friends,
Perhaps by now you've all seen the Jewish Week article describing Dov's subpoena by Attorney Dowd in re to the T/T case. Lest Dov become a MARTYR/HERO to the cause, I'd like to share with you my experience with him in reference to my son's (Joel Engelman) case.
To refresh your memories, Dov Hikind, on his radio program Motzei Shabbos, August 2nd, upon hearing from me Joel's story of molestation by his Menahel in Satmar at 8 1/2, the failed lie detector test of the Menahel, now Rebbi, and the subsequent firing of this pedophile (but only until Joel's statute of limitations ran out) then rehiring him in the summer as Menahel/Rebbi in Satmar Bungalows, declared loudly and vehemently "I PROMISE THIS REBBI WILL NOT BE BACK IN SEPTEMBER. IF I HAVE TO I WILL HOLD A PRESS CONVERENCE IN FRONT OF THE SCHOOL".
Remember also the article in the Jewish Week: "Second Victim Comes Forward......." to Dov - the father of the 19 yr old victim of the same Rebbi, now publicly known as Avrohom Reichman, who came to Dov with his son's story of molestation by this same Rebbi?
Remember also Dov's eloquent speech to us at the conference on Sept 21st at Young Israel?
Dov was also privy to the new discovery of a molestation incident with this same Rebbi last year - repeat, last year - not 13 years ago. At the conference I gave some of you the details of of an 8 yr old boy whom Reichman found standing in the school hallway because his "English" teacher had punished him. Reichman took the child into an unoccupied room (not an empty classroom, an unused room) placed the child on his lap, removed the child's belt and gave him 2 slaps with the belt. When this boy found out at the beginning of Sept that Reichman would be his Rebbi for the new zman (after Succos) he began crying and begging his mother and told her how he feared Reichman. Immediately the mother called the school, and at first they were horrifed, then called her back to say her son would not have to be in Reichman's class. She insisted that Reichman was unfit to be any child's Rebbi, but they would not agree, saying only that they were having meetings........
In view of all of the above, on Oct 6th Dov Hikind met with 2 representatives of Satmar: David Niederman and Shulem Deutsch. It was everyone's understanding that Dov would let Satmar know in no uncertain terms that Reichman must leave - children were at terrible risk from this sneaky, insiduous pedophile even now.
To my shock and horror, Dov came away from the meeting completely neutralized! Nay, not neutral - he is actually helping Satmar cover up and keep Reichman in the system! He said to me "Well, I know Niederman for 25 years......(I guess they need each other politically) .....need I say more?????
So no, Dov Hikind is no hero! In my book he is an accomplice, because at the very least, if he was not successful in getting Satmar to remove Reichman, it was his great responsibility to innocent children, to have let the parents, who are being kept in the dark by the school, know that Reichman is a great danger to all children in the school, even those not in his classroom as was the 8 year old made to stand in the hallway. Instead Dov helps Satmar cover up for the school!
As fellow participants in the conference, I ask you, can we just ignore this outrageous cover-up by one who represents himself as the champion of the cause?
This is about "Lo Saamod al Dam Reiacha". The plain and simple truth is that Reichman is a real and known danger to the children, and all adults, especially those committed to protecting them, cannot stand idly by and do nothing. Hikind knows how real the danger is, but he's given in to the machinations of Satmar who want to keep Reichman in the system at all costs. When did Dov sell his soul to the devil? This was a test for him - it was the first Moissed he met with - he had the most damning information - and he simply folded. Because he's buddies with Niederman for 25 years? We cannot just sit idly by and wait - or we are all as guilty as the people we condemn.
Respectully yours,
Pearl Englman
Hikind says; "IT STOPS HERE. IT STOPS NOW."
Sent in by Assemblyman Dov Hikind's office
There was a time when ignorance was blissful for me, when I did not see the parents whose shoulders were stooped from the weight of the suffering their son endured at the hands of a teacher. I did not see the grandfather who shudders for his teenage grandson who is being stalked by two men, scions of noble families, who want to continue to use him as their sexual plaything. I did not see the young woman who was repeatedly violated in shul by one of the gabboim when she was seven years old. I did not see when at thirteen she tried to obliterate her pain with drugs.
But ignorance is the refuge of the molestor. The clinicians are clear on this: Molestors who are not caught cannot control their urges, their sick need for children, and will destroy the lives of as many as 100 children.
Who will speak for the victims? Who will provide the balm for their interminable suffering? Will you? Will anyone stand up? I will messenger them my files, and they can collate, file and label the atrocities visited on our children. I will stand down….if someone takes the lead….I won’t speak about sexual abuse in our communities on my radio show. You take over. You deal with it in an effective way. I offered this proposal to a prominent head of a well known organization; he didn’t jump at the chance. There are no takers. And so I am left fending for the myriad victims, whom I continue to urge to come forward and call my office at 718-853-9616 and talk to me in the strictest confidence.
The work is laborious and exhausting, but I am committed to making a serious difference in the psychological landscape of sexual abuse in our communities. We are preparing dossiers to take to leading rabbis to brief them on the status of victims and molestors, to create a protective protocol for our children. I have formed a sexual abuse task force, with clinical specialists in the field to create new procedural imperatives.
The full article appears in this week's Jewish Press
Fox news reported
Holocaust survivors said Monday they are through trying to negotiate with the Mormon church over posthumous baptisms of Jews killed in Nazi concentration camps, saying the church has repeatedly violated a13-year-old agreement barring the practice.
Leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints say they are making changes to their massive genealogical database that will make it more difficult for names of Holocaust victims to be entered for posthumous baptism by proxy, a rite that has been a common Mormon practice for more than a century.
But Ernest Michel, honorary chairman of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors, said that is not enough. At a news conference in New York City on Monday, he said the church also must "implement a mechanism to undo what you have done."
"Baptism of a Jewish Holocaust victim and then merely removing that name from the database is just not acceptable," said Michel, whose parents died at Auschwitz. He spoke on the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the Nazi-incited riots against Jews.
"We ask you to respect us and our Judaism just as we respect your religion," Michel said in a statement released ahead of the news conference. "We ask you to leave our six million Jews, all victims of the Holocaust, alone, they suffered enough."
Michel said talks with Mormon leaders, held as recently as last week, have ended. He said his group will not sue, and that "the only thing left, therefore, is to turn to the court of public opinion."
In 1995, Mormons and Jews inked an agreement to limit the circumstances that allow for the proxy baptisms of Holocaust victims.Ending the practice outright was not part of the agreement and would essentially be asking Mormons to alter their beliefs, church Elder Lance B. Wickman said Monday in an interview with reporters in Salt Lake City.
"We don't think any faith group has the right to ask another to change its doctrines," Wickman said. "If our work for the dead is properly understood ... it should not be a source of friction to anyone. It's merely a freewill offering."
Michel's decision to unilaterally end discussion of the issue through a news conference leaves the church uncertain about how to proceed, Wickman said.
Baptism by proxy allows faithful Mormons to have their ancestors baptized into the 178-year-old church, which they believe reunites families in the afterlife.
Using genealogy records, the church also baptizes people who have died from all over the world and from different religions. Mormons stand in as proxies for the person being baptized and immerse themselves in a baptismal pool.
Only the Jews have an agreement with the church limiting who can be baptized, though the agreement covers only Holocaust victims, not all Jewish people. Jews are particularly offended by baptisms of Holocaust victims because they were murdered specifically because of their religion.
Michel suggested that posthumous baptisms of Holocaust victims play into the hands of Holocaust deniers.
"They tell me, that my parents' Jewishness has not been altered but... 100 years from now, how will they be able to guarantee that my mother and father of blessed memory who lived as Jews and were slaughtered by Hitler for no other reason than they were Jews, will someday not be identified as Mormon victims of the Holocaust?" Michel said Monday.
Wickman said the practice in no way impinges upon a person's "Jewishness, or their ethnicity, or their background."
Under the agreement with the Holocaust group, Mormons could enter the names of only those Holocaust victims to whom they were directly related. The church also agreed to remove the names of Holocaust victims already entered into its massive genealogical database.
Church spokesman Otterson said the church kept its part of the agreement by removing more than 260,000 names from the genealogical index.
But since 2005, ongoing monitoring of the database by an independent Salt Lake City-based researcher shows both resubmissions and new entries of names of Dutch, Greek, Polish and Italian Jews.
The researcher, Helen Radkey, who has done contract work for the Holocaust group, said her research suggests that lists of Holocaust victims obtained from camp and government records are being dumped into the database. She said she has seen and recorded a sampling of several thousand entries that indicate baptisms had been conducted for Holocaust victims as recently as July.
Wickman said lists of names have been entered into the database by as mall number of well-meaning members who were acting "outside of policy." He said that church monitors have identified and removed42,000 names from the database on their own, and that the church welcomes research from others.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. –
Disgraced evangelical pastor Ted Haggard says he was sexually abused as a child and that the experience "started to rage in my mind and in my heart" when he was caught up in a sex scandal involving a male prostitute. Haggard made the remarks in two recent sermons in Morrison, Ill., ABC's "Good Morning America" reported Wednesday.
Haggard said one of his father's employees "had a sexual experience with me" when Haggard was 7, according to audio recordings of the sermons posted on the ABC News Web site.
Haggard said he later became "a conservative Republican, loving the word of God, an evangelical, born-again, spirit-filled, charismatic, all those things.
"But some of the things that were buried in the depths of the sea from when I was in the second grade started to rage in my mind and in my heart," he said.
In 2006, Haggard was fired as pastor of the 14,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs when a former male prostitute alleged they had a cash-for-sex relationship. The man also said he saw Haggard use methamphetamine. Haggard also stepped down as president of the National Association of Evangelicals.
He has said some of the allegations were exaggerated but he has never offered specifics.
Haggard, who is starting an insurance agency in Colorado Springs, did not immediately return a phone message left by The Associated Press.
Haggard previously had confessed to undisclosed "sexual immorality," and on the new audio he said: "I really did sin."
Haggard said his family suffered severely for his actions.
"My wife — all my sin and shame fell on her. People treated her as if she had fallen," he said. "And my children — they all went through carrying my shame. And I am so sorry that I did that to my family."
Haggard said he became suicidal but eventually emerged with a stronger Christian faith and marriage than he'd ever had.
Haggard said church leaders missed an opportunity to use his scandal to "communicate the gospel worldwide through secular media."
"We consistently blow it" when those opportunities arise, he said.
"A congressman in trouble, that's the time. A family member gets himself in horrible trouble, that's the time. A preacher gets himself in awful trouble, that's the time," he said, his voice rising to a near-shout.
Audio of Haggard's Illinois sermons were posted on http://tedhaggard.com, but the Web site was unavailable late Wednesday, carrying only the message, "Website Is Being Rebuilt."
___
Steve:
You blew me away with your last post!
Shkoyach!
Steve said
"From the rav hamachshil, to the meshichist shochtim, to the muzzled and blindfolded mashgichim"
Come on Steve.Your prejudice is beginning to show.You wanna condemn Agri and Rudashkin,that I can understand and to a point agree with but when you start throwing around terms like "meshichist shochtim" you really show your true colors.I now understand why you are the only one that condemned my appeal for the shochtim who haven't gotten paid in weeks, with a number of reasons which at the time seemed quite reasonable but now seems to be a bunch of BS.The fact is that at least fifty percent of the shochtim are not Lubavitcher and those that are Lubavitcher are for the most part definitely not meshichistim.I know this for a fact because I happen to know these guys since we were kids and went to yeshiva together.So stop the holier then thou righteousness.
What it really boils down to in your case is whopping amount of hatred for Chabad.
Steve
PS to my above post to you.As you once replied to me so succinctly reply to "put a sock over it".I suggest you take your own advice.
Now that Rubashkin is history who will step up and provide the "Slov"?
Is it time to declare these precincts an "Ihr Haneedachas" and seek "Change"?
The NY Times and The Jewish Week stories...Hikind subpoena...Yudi and Lipa, look at what you have wrought. Think back a couple of years to UOJ's offer...Yudi leaves YTT and everything goes away...sounds like a pretty good offer now, doesn't it? Stupidity and Gaiva...what a price to pay.
Paulson Credibility Takes Hit With Rescue-Plan Shift (Update1)
By Rebecca Christie and Matthew Benjamin
Nov. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Henry Paulson became Treasury secretary 28 months ago, when he was at the top of the financial world: Wall Street's best-paid chief executive officer, capping his career with a high-profile sojourn in public service.
Today, two months before he leaves office, some say Paulson is a reduced figure, damaged by the financial-market meltdown that happened on his watch and by the government's struggles to respond to it.
Like many others who have served in President George W. Bush's administration -- among them former Secretary of State Colin Powell and former Treasury chief Paul O'Neill -- Paulson, 62, will leave office casting a smaller shadow than when he arrived.
``Paulson's credibility has certainly been substantially diminished,'' said Peter Wallison, who was general counsel at the Treasury under former President Ronald Reagan and is now a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. ``There has been a lot of shifting back and forth and he clearly hasn't thought through much of these policies. He has lost a lot of confidence from the market from all of this.''
The latest blow was his announcement yesterday that the Treasury is abandoning his plan to buy devalued mortgage assets - - the one he unveiled dramatically just eight weeks ago, and defended against congressional and market skeptics.
`A Flip-Flop'
``This is a flip-flop, but on the other hand, when they first proposed the thing, they didn't really know what they were doing,'' said Bill Fleckenstein, president of Fleckenstein Capital Inc. in Seattle and author of the book ``Greenspan's Bubbles.'' Paulson has pushed some ``cockamamie schemes,'' he said. ``So one has to ask, does he have any clue?''
``This is not something he's going to be proud to put on his resume,'' said James Cox, a law professor at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, who has testified on securities regulation before Congress and served on legal advisory panels for the New York Stock Exchange and National Association of Securities Dealers. ``It does tarnish Paulson's image, because it shows that a lot of political capital was spent on something that most of us thought was not a good idea to begin with.''
Only history will render a final verdict on Paulson's handling of this year's cascading economic crises. But he surely couldn't have wanted to spend his final days in office this way: spearheading the massive government intervention in the banking, insurance and mortgage industries; fielding requests to bail out automakers General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co., and Chrysler LLC, and even heating-oil retailers.
No Sunset Ride-off
``He's ended up really in kind of a hair-on-fire thing,'' said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at RBS Greenwich Capital. ``Particularly in his position, of somebody who was going to be a government official for a very short time and then ride off into the sunset, it's been very different from what he had in mind.''
The Treasury chief yesterday said he had no regrets over reversing his plans for the bailout program.
``I will never apologize for changing a strategy or an approach if the facts change,'' Paulson said at a press briefing in Washington.
When Paulson took office in July 2006, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was near a six-year high and Goldman was selling at $149 a share, making the former CEO's stake worth about $485 million. Today the Dow is down by more than a third for the year. Goldman, which weathered the crisis far better than Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co., and Bear Stearns Cos., trades more than 70 percent below its October 2007 peak of $250.70.
Original Goals
Paulson came into office determined to use his credibility and reputation to advance an agenda that included easing regulation of Wall Street -- citing concern that too-stringent oversight would drive investors to other markets like London and Hong Kong -- and an overhaul of Social Security to allow for taxpayer-funded private accounts.
But Bush's falling political fortunes -- anger over the botched response to Hurricane Katrina, voter weariness over the Iraq War, the Republicans' loss of congressional control -- stymied much of that agenda. Then came the credit crisis of summer 2007 -- and the subsequent market and economic meltdown that have overtaken the Bush presidency.
Paulson's defenders say he's the victim of the worst financial crisis in seven decades, and has helped prevent a deeper collapse by using his knowledge and contacts on Wall Street.
History to Judge
``He's been in a trial by fire,'' said Allan Hubbard, former director of Bush's White House National Economic Council. ``History, looking back'' will say Paulson ``responded as well as one could hope'' under the circumstances, he said.
When Paulson in mid-September unveiled plans for a broad market rescue that went beyond ad-hoc interventions in troubled companies, he was hailed by some, including Democrats, for willingness to take bold action. Former Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Alan Blinder called it a ``giant step toward a cure'' for the crisis. Paulson's expertise in finance also distinguished him from his Bush administration predecessors, who had headed industrial companies.
Paulson proposed an unprecedented $700 billion package to purchase distressed mortgage assets, aiming to unfreeze credit markets hobbled by losses stemming from record foreclosures. The Dow soared 7.3 percent in two days as officials prepared their plan Sept. 18-19.
Paulson's star waned again when he shifted the bailout program's focus in a matter of weeks.
Debating Lawmakers
At first, Paulson rebuffed calls from some lawmakers to buy stakes in financial companies as a more direct way of getting capital to lenders. He told lawmakers at a Sept. 23 Senate Banking Committee hearing ``that's what you do when you have failures, you know?'' Instead, it was better to rely on ``market mechanisms,'' holding auctions for devalued assets, he said.
Less than a month after his initial plan, he agreed to use the first $250 billion of bailout funds for capital injections. Yesterday he officially abandoned any intention of holding auctions for distressed investments.
The Dow fell as investor confidence weakened. The average yesterday closed 27 percent lower than on Sept. 19, when Paulson unveiled his plan.
``Paulson's very public and frantic panic of a few short weeks ago, along with his current state of bewilderment and indecisiveness, is most likely the single greatest explanation for the persistent doldrums in the markets,'' said Richard Armey, 60, the former House Republican leader who is now a senior policy adviser at the DLA Piper law firm in Washington.
New Focus
Now, the Treasury plans to aid the markets for automobile purchases, student loans and credit-card debt. Consumer financing has been throttled by the crisis, with issuance of student-loan and car-loan securities drying up in October.
The U-turn on the Troubled Asset Relief Program isn't Paulson's first. In July, he asked Congress for authority to provide a federal backstop for mortgage financers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, saying that granting the power would shore up investor confidence and that he didn't plan to use it. Less than two months later, he engineered the government seizure of the two companies.
Paulson has also been criticized for ruling out a government rescue of Lehman in September, when he argued that the industry was long aware of the investment bank's problems and should have been prepared. Lehman's downfall precipitated a worsening in the credit crisis and contributed to the near-collapse of American International Group Inc. that month.
`Decisive Mistake'
``That was the worst and, in fact, the decisive mistake on the part of the administration,'' Mortimer Zuckerman, billionaire chairman of Boston Properties Inc., said in an interview earlier this month, referring to letting Lehman go. ``When financial historians write about this, they are going to say that was the disaster.''
So far, taxpayers have provided about $1 trillion for rescues of private companies, which Paulson has called ``terribly objectionable'' to his belief in free markets.
``The Treasury is advocating things in the name of damage control that one would never have thought a Republican administration, or any administration, would have been actively seeking,'' said Alice Rivlin, former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve and former budget director under President Bill Clinton.
New measures are likely under incoming President Barack Obama, who with other Democrats have called for action to stem foreclosures and ease falling home prices.
``If you want to stop this next year of rather terrible pressure on the housing market, you have to intervene in some way,'' said Thomas Zimmerman, a UBS AG mortgage market analyst in New York.
To contact the reporters on this story: Rebecca Christie in Washington at Rchristie4@bloomberg.net; Matthew Benjamin in Washington at mbenjamin2@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: November 13, 2008 07:53 EST
It was so obvious from the start that Paulson knew not what he was doing and his motivations were suspect.
He will ride off into the sunset with his wealth created by fraudulent securites aka derivatives, and the American taxpayers will pay for this inept/criminal's lifelong "AIG" party!
If the incoming AG has any guts at all - he would investigate Paulson's tenure at Goldman Sachs!
My gut tells me - he saw this coming - was an integral part of the fraud and cover-up - and saved Goldman Sachs from bankruptcy to avoid intense scrutiny from the federal bankruptcy court!
Steve, from now on you are required the minimum of one rant a week, you were great!!
UOJ
Don't hold your breath that Bim Bam's appointees will do any better than paulie. This meltdown will accelerate under Bim Bams confiscatory monetary policies.
Fasten your seatbelts.
Oil closed at a new low of $55 yesterday.
Why are the chazirs so slow to lower gas prices and the food & goods vendors so slow to lower prices they raised due to transport & heating costs?
This is a crime and they should be made to pay.
http://iowaindependent.com/8300/zieman-is-first-political-casualty-of-postville
Iowa Senate Minority Whip Mark Zieman lost his re-election bid to Mary Jo Wilhelm, a relatively unknown Democratic upstart. The defeat came amid whispers and campaign mailers about the immigration concerns surrounding Agriprocessors in Postville, Zieman’s hometown.
Zieman, owner of a trucking company that does business with Agriprocessors and one of the few sitting Iowa politicians who had taken campaign donations from executives at the plant, had to realize the political ramifications on the day of the raid. Perhaps he believed his standing as something of a political legacy — his father also represented the area in the Iowa Senate — or as a hometown prodigy would insulate him from direct attacks related to the issue of immigration.
If so, he could not have been more wrong.
Midwest Enterprise Group, a 527 advocacy group with Democratic ties, targeted Zieman with a mailer that highlighted Zieman’s own words in the Des Moines Register about the situation at the Postville Agriprocessors plant. As Iowa Workforce Development and the U.S. Department of Labor investigated allegations of child labor law violations and immigration documenation fraud at the plant, Zieman said he’d like the government agencies to point out plant deficiencies to Agriprocessors’ managers, to make sure such problems are corrected and “then leave them alone.”
In 2000 and 2002 Zieman accepted a $1,000 campaign contribution from former Agriprocessors executive Sholom M. Rubashkin. Rubashkin, a son of company founder A. Aaron Rubashkin, has been arrested by federal authorities and released on bail while awaiting trail on charges that he conspired to harbor undocumented immigrants for profit, aided and abetted document fraud, and aided and abetted aggravated identity theft.
Although the Rubashkin family and Agriprocessors have given numerous campaign contributions to Iowa politicians, Zieman is the only current member of the Iowa legislature that had accepted such money. Former Iowa House Republicans Chuck Gipp and Leigh Rokow accepted $2,250 and $2,100 in campaign donations, respectively. The Republican Party of Iowa has also been a benefactor of the Rubashkin family, garnering $7,550 between 2000 and 2004.
Many other Republicans in Iowa, most of them candidates or sitting members of the U.S. Congress, accepted campaign contributions from either plant executives or the Rubashkin family:
Bill Dix, U.S. House candidate — $1,500
Chuck Grassley, U.S. Senate — $14,000
Tom Latham, U.S. House — $2,000
Stan Thompson, U.S. House candidate — $8,500
Doug Gross, Iowa governor — $10,000
Jim Nussle, U.S. House and Iowa governor — $32,500
In addition, a contribution of $5,000 was given in 2005 to a 527 group called Progress for Iowa. The group sought to influence local legislative elections for the purpose of electing more Republicans.
In early October Portfolio magazine published a profile of Agriprocessors that contained a photograph of family patriarch Aaron Rubashkin at his Brooklyn, N.Y., butcher shop. On the wall behind the desk there, according to the article, there is a photo of Aaron Rubashkin with Sen. Chuck Grassley. Grassley’s office is not aware of when or where this photograph was taken.
On the Democratic side, the Rubashkin family and the plant have donated a total of $18,000 between 2005 and 2007. Upon launching her unsuccessful bid for governor, Patty Judge was given $10,000 by Sholom Rubashkin and his wife, Leah. When her campaign merged with that of Chet Culver, the joint venture received $3,000 from Sholom. Culver has since taken $3,000 from his campaign fund and donated it to charity.
A corporate donation of $5,000 was also given to the Democratic Governors Association in February 2007.
U.S. Rep. Tom Latham, who was the only other politician with ties to Agriprocessors or the Rubashkin family that appeared on the November ballot, had little difficulty being re-elected to his seat. Agriprocessors sits in the far northeastern corner of Latham’s district — Iowa’s second largest with 28 counties.
If there is more political hay to be harvested in connection with Agriprocessors, it is likely to come during the next election cycle when Culver and Judge will again face the voters. There is little doubt that it will be a hotly contested race as Republicans seek to take control of Terrace Hill. The amount of impact Agriprocessors will have on the contest will most likely depend on the amount of headlines the immigration raid aftermath continues to make at that time.
Barring any new developments coming to light, Grassley, who hasn’t faced a significant opponent since John Culver in 1980, might suffer at worst the political equivalent of a mosquito bite — a nuisance, but far from a fatal blow.
http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c36_a14011/News/New_York.html
Rubashkin must have lost his booth at KosherFest because Lubinsky knew better than to let him in without getting paid upfront.
George "Tzores" is currently testifying on Capitol Hill about hedge funds.
His nauseating Hungarian accent sounds like Margo with a pitchfork up his tuchess.
No wonder the Dow is down 50 points after falling 411 yesterday.
Al Franken in Minnesota is on the brink of stealing his way into the senate (they're Acorning for 210 more votes locked in someones car trunk) and Stevens in Alaska isthisclose to losing his seat which will give the Bim Bams 60 seats and a fillibuster-proof majority.
The Fish stinks from its head.
The Bim Bam Identity.
Margo would be too scared to come out of his house if a bunch of UOJ agents stood on the sidewalk with pitchforks.
UOJ and Shmayra are like the Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig of jewish bloggers.
Although UOJ gets much of the "applause" and hits longer home runs, Shmayra is the RBI king, and of course has more of his share of "home runs".
Just like Gehrig, he is also the "Iron Horse". Always blogging on crucial items every day (knocking in runs) and never taking any vacation.
When people showed up outside Chaim Shaulson's house in Boro Park calling him "Humun Harushe" and challenging him tze "kim araus" like a man to face his critics, the shivering coward called the cops.
Margo had no problem by the way with this lowlife's kids in YTT as long as the smut paid the bills.
Soros says deep recession inevitable, depression possible
Thursday November 13, 11:01 am ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - George Soros, chairman of Soros Fund Management, testified at a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on Thursday. Highlights:
* Said "a deep recession is now inevitable and the possibility of a depression cannot be ruled out."
* Said hedge funds were an integral part of the financial market bubble which now has burst.
* Said hedge funds will be "decimated" by the current financial crisis and forced to shrink their portfolios by 50-75 percent.
* Said Fed, Treasury Department and the SEC must accept responsibility to prevent market bubbles from growing too big in future.
Said impossible to prevent market bubbles from forming, but they can be kept within "tolerable bounds."
* Said financial engineering should be regulated and new products approved by regulators, and that such regulation should be a high priority of the new Obama administration.
* Said a recent IMF credit facility not large enough to stabilize markets.
Between big servings of moose chili and self-servings of blather, Governor Sarah Palin has yet to explain the disturbing message that our 49th state sent to the Outside with last week’s election. Nearly half the voters want to send a felon back to the United States Senate -- you go, crook!
Mazel Tov!
THE FORWARD 50
Shmarya Rosenberg
It's hard to believe now, but when Shmarya Rosenberg started his blog, FailedMessiah.com, he was an observant, Orthodox Jew. When the blog got him into hot water with the local Orthodox Jewish community, Rosenberg chose his blog and left his observance behind. In his blog, Rosenberg turns an obsessive and hostile eye on the Orthodox world. Day after day and night after night, Rosenberg, 50, trolls the Internet, digging up new stories of pedophilia, financial chicanery, political extremism and more in the Orthodox world. He has been a particularly harsh — and thorough — chronicler of the many failings of kosher meat giant Agriprocessors. One of Rosenberg's biggest moments came in July, when he nailed public relations firm 5W PR for posting comments on blogs under other people's names as part of its defense of client Agriprocessors. 5W furiously denied the charges — then confessed. As the dozens of comments that appear after each posting on his blog show, Rosenberg has provided an unusual online gathering place for a whole community.
The Forward obviously has no inkling or appreciation of what UOJ has done to stop child molesters and other corrupt individuals and groups.
OBAMAWATCH
Obama’s Road to Damascus
AS EXPECTED, ROBERT MALLEY, OBAMA'S ANTI-ISRAEL MID-EAST ADVISER WHO PUBLICLY SEVERED TIES WITH THE CAMPAIGN WHEN IT WAS REVEALED HE'D MEETING WITH HAMAS, WAS REHIRED BY OBAMA WITHIN HOURS OF THE ELECTION AND SENT TO SYRIA
By John Perazzo
FrontPageMagazine.com | 11/11/2008
History will record that Barack Obama’s first act of diplomacy as America’s president-elect took place two days after his election victory, when he dispatched his senior foreign-policy adviser, Robert Malley, to meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad—to outline for them the forthcoming administration’s Mideast policy vis-à-vis those nations.
An aide to Malley reports, “The tenor of the messages was that the Obama administration would take into greater account Egyptian and Syrian interests” than has President Bush. The Bush administration, it should be noted, has rightly recognized Syria to be not only a chief supporter of the al Qaeda
insurgency in Iraq, but also the headquarters of the terrorist organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad
and the longtime sponsor of Hamas
—the terrorist army whose founding charter is irrevocably committed to the annihilation of Israel
. Yet unlike President Bush, Obama and Malley have called for Israel to engage in peace negotiations with Syria.
A Harvard-trained lawyer and Rhodes Scholar
, Robert Malley is no newcomer to the Obama team. In 2007, Obama selected him as a foreign policy adviser
to his campaign. At the time, Malley was (and still is today) the Middle East and North Africa Program Director for the International Crisis Group
(ICG), which receives funding from the Open Society Institute
of George Soros
(who, incidentally, serves on the ICG Executive Committee
).
In his capacity with ICG, Malley directs
a number of analysts who focus their attention most heavily
on the Arab-Israeli conflict, the political and military developments in Iraq, and Islamist movements across the Middle East. Prior to joining ICG, Malley served as President Bill Clinton’s Special Assistant for Arab-Israeli Affairs (1998-2001), and as National Security Adviser Sandy Berger
’s Executive Assistant (1996-1998).
Robert Malley was raised in France
. His lineage is noteworthy. His father, Simon Malley
(1923-2006), was a key figure
in the Egyptian Communist Party. A passionate hater of Israel
, the elder Malley was a close friend
and confidante of the late PLO terrorist Yasser Arafat
; an inveterate critic of “Western imperialism”
; a supporter
of various revolutionary “liberation movements,” particularly the Palestinian cause; a beneficiary of Soviet funding
; and a supporter of the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. According to American Thinker
news editor Ed Lasky, Simon Malley “participated in the wave of anti-imperialist and nationalist ideology that was sweeping the Third World [and] … wrote thousands of words in support of struggle against Western nations.”
In a July 2001 op-ed
which Malley penned for the New York Times
, he alleged that Israeli—not Palestinian—inflexibility had caused the previous year’s Camp David peace talks (brokered by Bill Clinton) to fall apart. This was one of several controversial articles
Malley has written—some he co-authored with Hussein Agha, a former adviser to Arafat—blaming Israel and exonerating Arafat
(the most prolific Jew-killer since Adolph Hitler) for the failure of the peace process.
Malley’s identification of Israel as the cause of the Camp David impasse has been widely embraced
by Palestinian and Arab activists around the world, by Holocaust deniers like Norman Finkelstein
, and by anti-Israel publications
such as Counterpunch
. It should be noted that Malley’s account of the Camp David negotiations is entirely inconsistent with the recollections of the key figures who participated in those talks—specifically, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, then-U.S. President Bill Clinton, and then-U.S. Ambassador Dennis Ross (Clinton’s Middle East envoy).
Malley also has written numerous op-eds urging the U.S. to disengage from Israel to some degree, and recommending that America reach out to negotiate with its traditional Arab enemies such as Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah
(a creature of Iran dedicated to the extermination of the Jews and death to America), and Muqtada al-Sadr
(the Shiite terrorist leader in Iraq).
In addition, Malley has advised
nations around the world to establish relationships with, and to send financial aid to, the Hamas-led Palestinian government in Gaza. In Malley’s calculus, the electoral victory that swept Hamas into power in January 2006 was a manifestation of legitimate Palestinian “anger at years of humiliation and loss of self-respect because of Israeli settlement expansion, Arafat’s imprisonment, Israel’s incursions, [and] Western lecturing …”
Moreover, Malley contends
that it is both unreasonable and unrealistic for Israel or Western nations to demand that Syria sever its ties with Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, or Iran. Rather, he suggests that if Israel were to return the Golan Heights (which it captured in the 1967 Six Day War, and again in the 1973 Yom Kippur War—two conflicts sparked by Arab aggression which sought so permanently wipe the Jewish state off the face of the earth) to Syrian control, Damascus would be inclined to pursue peace with Israel.
Malley has criticized
the U.S. for allegedly remaining “on the sidelines” and being a “no-show” in the overall effort to bring peace to the nations of the Middle East. Exhorting the Bush administration to change its policy of refusing to engage diplomatically with terrorists and their sponsoring states, Malley wrote
in July 2006: “Today the U.S. does not talk to Iran, Syria, Hamas, the elected Palestinian government or Hezbollah…. The result has been a policy with all the appeal of a moral principle and all the effectiveness of a tired harangue.”
This inclination to negotiate with any and all enemies of the U.S. and Israel—an impulse which Malley has outlined clearly and consistently—has had a powerful influence on Barack Obama.
It is notable that six months ago the Obama campaign and Malley hastily severed ties with one another
after the Times of London reported that Malley had been meeting privately with Hamas leaders on a regular basis—something Obama had publicly pledged never to do. At the time, Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt minimized the significance of this monumentally embarrassing revelation, saying
: “Rob Malley has, like hundreds of other experts, provided informal advice to the campaign in the past. He has no formal role in the campaign and he will not play any role in the future.”
But indeed, within hours after Obama’s election victory, Malley was back as a key player in the president-elect’s team of advisors—on his way to Syria. Mr. Obama, meanwhile, received a most friendly communication from Hamas, congratulating him on his “historic victory
.”
There is no way they would cherish UOJ as much as FailedJew.
UOJ often mentions great Orthodox leaders from earlier times in America and earlier in a positive light.
A guy who can't even let the dead rest in peace is much more interesting.
Why honor mixed emotions when you can honor raw, unadulterated anger?
The Shidduch Crisis
by Chaya Sara SchlusselI
Ich zug dir, I'm really suffering from the shidduch crisis. Finding one's bashert in today's society is just SO hard! I make hundreds of phone calls to shadchanim, begging everyone not to forget about me - but so many of them tend to brush me off with silly excuses like they have no time for me, they can't think of anyone for me, they're too busy with other things Even when they do find a few free moments to 'red' me a shidduch, they just never come up with anything decent! It's a shanda, I tell you.
No, don't be ridiculous - of course I'm not a 19-year-old girl!
I'm not a 24-year-old bochur, either.
I'm the MOTHER of a shidduch-age yingel - and he's the best boy in the yeshiva!
Oy, I hate krechtzing in public, but the truth is, it's a shrekliche matziv out there for us future mother in laws.
I asked my son a few months ago what kind of girl he's looking for. You know what he answered me? He said, "Ma, I just want a good girl." Ha! What does he know? So I'm making it my business to find him what I know he really needs. In fact, a shadchan called me just last week:
"Hello, Mrs. Vichtigmacher? I have a great girl for your son."
"You do? Terrific. What size is she?"
"Huh?"
"I asked, what size is she? My son doesn't want to go out with anyone bigger than a 2. A size nothing - an absolute 0 - would be perfect."
"Oh, well I don't know "
"And how tall is she?"
"Oh, she's average hei-"
"What do you mean by 'average?' My son doesn't want to go out with anyone shorter than 5'3, but of course he won't consider anyone taller than 5'5. She might make him look small and stumpy, especially if she wears heels. So this girl needs to fall within a three-inch radius for her to be acceptable."
"Ok. I just-"
"What does she look like?"
"What? Oh, she' a really nice looking girl."
"Nice looking? That's it? A new pair of shoes is 'nice looking.' A matching pocketbook is 'nice looking.' A good haircut is 'nice looking.' The girl my son is going to marry has to be more than just 'nice looking!'"
"This girl is pretty."
"Pretty - but not beautiful or stunning or gorgeous or extraordinary?"
"Yes, she's very-"
"How old is she? Anyone under age 19 is most likely too immature for my Gemarakup. Marrying someone that young would almost be like cradle snatching! 20 is just right. In my opinion - and I'm right about just about everything - any girl over 21 is already too settled in her ways to make a good spouse. My son won't be able to mould her personality anymore. He won't be able to properly train her to have a five course supper ready on the table by 5pm, or else. Or to iron and starch and fold his cashmere socks into perfect little 4-inch squares. You understand?"
"No, I'm not sure I-"
"And how many years can this girl's parents support my boy in kollel? My son doesn't want to go out with anyone who can't support him for at least the first decade. I mean, after all, a boy who sits and shvitzes and hureves in kollel deserves to get everything he wants, doesn't he? My son simply refuses to go out with anyone who doesn't come along with a house. And he's partial to BMW's."
"Oh. I didn't-"
"How many kids are in the family? My son doesn't want to go out with anyone who's the oldest in a large family, because then the girl is already burned out and overstressed by the time she gets married. The youngest in a large family is usually way too spoiled, so forget about that. And a middle child, nebach, a middle child is usually neglected. On the other hand, an ONLY child never learns to share with others or build sibling relationships, so my son would never consider that either. If this girl is, say, the third child in a family of 12 - that would be perfect."
"Actually, she's-"
"Oh. Very important. What does her father do for a living? My son would never go out with a girl whose father or grandfather, up to four generations back, worked in a butcher shop or a fish store. Anyone who can stand to witness the sight of that much blood obviously has no midas harachamim. And we won't take any truck drivers or used car salesmen either."
"Mrs. Vichtigmacher, I think-"
"Now hold on, I know exactly what you're going to say."
"You do?"
"Uh huh. You're going to tell me that this girl is everything I could possibly hope for in a girl. And that may be true. But I'm not finished getting information from you yet. I forgot to ask: On Shabbos, does her family eat on fine China or on paper plates?"
"Why does that matter?"
"Well, it's obvious. If they eat on fine China, they're probably feinshmekkers. On the other hand, if they eat on paper plates, they're probably practical people, down to earth, but they don't respect the kedusha of Shabbos as much as they should."
"Well then, what should they eat on?"
"Good question. And there's something else I need to know. Is the girl quiet, or is she loud?"
"She's not too quiet"
"Aha! She's not too quiet, you say! I know your shadchan euphemisms. That's a very subtle way of saying she has no eidelkeit. She's brash, loud, and way out of control, right? Her teachers probably couldn't handle her all throughout her 12 years of school. Her parents are probably desperate to get her married, just so she can settle down, right? Tell me the truth."
"No! The truth is that she's really pretty quiet, but-"
"She's quiet? You mean she's timid, shy, tzurikgeshtannen? Doesn't she have any friends? What are you redding my son, a mouse?!"
"Of course not, she's-"
"What will she wear on her head?"
"Excuse me?"
"On her head. A snood, a pony sheitel, a fall, a custom, a hat, a shpitzel? Which is it?"
"Um. I assume she'll just wear a regular-"
"Regula r? There's no such thing as 'regular.' What a woman wears on her head tells a lot about what's going on INSIDE her head. Is she 'modern,' 'yeshivish,' litvish,' 'chassidish' or 'Meah Shearimdig?' Is she a rebel or a rebbetzin?"
"She's a frum, wonderful, tzniusdige young lady! A really great baalas middos tovos, with a kind heart and derech eretz! Mrs. Vichtigmacher, she's just a good gir-"
"Did she go to camp?"
"Huh? Yes. She went to camp for a few summers, and some summers she stayed home."
"She stayed home? Why? Are her parents too poor to afford camp? Is she too attached to her mommy to leave home for a couple of weeks? Does she have some embarrassing problem that she doesn't want her bunkmates or counsellors to know? Does she snore or drool in her sleep? My son will never go out with a girl who hasn't been to camp."
"I told you. She went to camp. Just not every sum-"
"Did she go to seminary in Israel? You know, girls just don't come out right these days unless they go to seminary in Israel. My son won't go out with any girl who hasn't been to-"
"I get the point. You know what? I don't think this shidduch is going to work out after all. I don't have the time for you, I can't think o f anyone for you, and I'm too busy with other things. Good luck marrying off your son."
Oy, it's a shanda, I tell you. Vey iz mir! How I suffer from the shidduch crisis!
My friend's baby is very sick with a heart condition. Please beg Hashem for Rachamim for:
Uriel ben Yehudis
May we share good news only.
Our World: From Tel Aviv to Teheran, with love
Nov. 10, 2008
Caroline Glick , THE JERUSALEM POST
Two weeks ago, the Palestinians and their anti-Zionist Israeli and
international partners finally produced a smoking gun. They had a videotape
of evil settlers brutally attacking poor, defenseless Palestinians as they
innocently picked olives with their enlightened supporters in a grove by the
Tel Rumeida neighborhood in Hebron.
The local media went into a feeding frenzy. The footage led the television
news broadcasts. Photos taken from the video were plastered across the front
pages of the newspapers. Radio talk show hosts denounced the criminal
settlers and celebrated the guileless Palestinians and their heroic Israeli
supporters. The Olmert-Livni-Barak government was quick to weigh in,
promising stiff punishment for the Jewish fascists involved and a
curtailment of their supporters' civil rights.
In the weeks that have followed, and with elections looming, Foreign
Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have stepped up their
attacks on the evil right-wing extremists. At Saturday night's memorial
ceremony/political rally for slain prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in Tel Aviv,
Barak called right-wing activists "cancers." He claimed that they are a
"threat to democracy." And he pledged, "We will uproot this evil from within
us."
The crowd loved Barak's statement. The few audience members who might have
booed him had already been beaten and arrested by police for disturbing the
peace. A handful of anti-leftist activists from the student group Im Tirtzu
came to Rabin Square carrying signs decrying leftist demonization of the
Right. The police beat them and carted them off before the rally began.
If it were true that settlers are marauding around Judea and Samaria beating
innocent Palestinians, perhaps it would be possible to understand this
assault against the Right. But as it works out, the videotape that was
supposed to be the definitive proof that settlers are violent criminals was
a fabrication. It was simply the latest anti-Israel snuff film brought to us
by our friends at Pallywood Productions. These are the same creative
filmmakers whose previous credits include the fabricated IDF shooting of
Muhammad al-Dura, the Jenin massacre that wasn't, the Kafr Kana massacre
that wasn't and a host of other notable blood libels.
The inconvenient truth that these activists remain liars was exposed at the
remand hearings of the settlers accused of beating the Palestinian olive
harvesters. As the NFC news Web site reported exclusively on Sunday, the
Palestinians showed their film as evidence against the arrested offenders in
two separate hearings before two different judges at the Jerusalem
Magistrate's Court. And at each hearing, after viewing the film the judges
concluded that through heavy editing, the video had inverted reality. Both
stated that it was impossible to know who began the fight - the Palestinians
and their Israeli and foreign supporters who beat the settlers, or the
settlers who walked to the grove on Shabbat carrying nothing but their
prayer shawls and hit them back.
The judges also noted that one of the Palestinians threw a large rock at the
back of one of the settlers after he and his friends had disengaged from the
fight. The judges expressed anger and amazement at the police for failing to
arrest the Palestinian who had clearly attacked the Jewish defendant without
provocation.
IT GOES without saying that the local media have chosen to ignore the
court's exposure of the latest hoax. The truth doesn't fit their
anti-right-wing narrative and so it isn't being covered.
What the local media and politicians such as Barak and Livni who seek to
criminalize the Right for political gain refuse to acknowledge is that their
embrace of these lies not only harms the settlers, it harms the country as a
whole.
Although from the rap they've gotten from the political Left and its
supporters in the media, it seems like right-wing extremists are both
numerous and powerful, the fact of the matter is that the number of
right-wingers who reject the authority of the state or would take the law
into their own hands is tiny. And they are politically isolated both at home
and abroad and have no money.
In stark contrast, the anti-Zionist, Israeli Left is an integral part of a
well-funded international movement actively engaged in waging political
warfare not against the settlers, but against Israel as a whole. The end of
this political war is Israel's destruction. The anti-Zionist Israeli Left
advances this destruction both by directly assisting terror groups and by
indirectly assisting terror groups through activities aimed at
delegitimizing Israel's right to defend itself.
The clear collusion between both Israeli and international anti-Israel
leftist activists with terrorist groups like Hamas is nowhere more evident
than in the terror-supporting International Solidarity Movement's newest
spin-off, the Free Gaza campaign. On Saturday, this group broke the IDF's
sea blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gazan coast for the third time in
recent months by sailing a ship filled with rabidly pro-jihadist and
anti-Israel European politicians from Cyprus to Gaza.
According to a credible source with close ties to the operation, the Free
Gaza campaign works closely with Israeli far-left groups including
Anarchists against the Wall, Gush Shalom, Gisha, Machsom Watch, New Profile
and Women in Black. These organizations are generously funded by the
US-based New Israel Fund, by European governments and by anti-Israel church
groups like the Quakers. The Free Gaza campaign's first ship, which arrived
in Gaza in late August, was led by Israeli anti-Zionist activist and former
lecturer at Ben-Gurion University Jeff Halper.
The Free Gaza campaign is a clear assault on Israel's national security.
Under the banner of "human rights," this new ferry service between Cyprus
and Gaza is meant to compromise the country's ability to combat terror
operations and to provide political support for Hamas. Crew members and
passengers on board these boats meet with Hamas terror commanders in Gaza
and coordinate future missions.
Their newest campaign is to prevent the navy from interdicting fishing
boats. Hamas and other terror groups make wide use of fishing boats to
import weapons and transport terror personnel from abroad into Gaza. By
demonizing the navy for interdicting fishing boats, and in open collusion
with Hamas, the activists provide political cover for weapons transfers and
jihadist maritime traffic into and out of Gaza.
To date, Israel has chosen not to intercept the Free Gaza campaign's boats
out of concern that taking such necessary action will prove a public
relations disaster both at home and abroad. And this concern is reasonable.
But by taking no diplomatic or military steps to prevent this
terror-supporting traffic from continuing and expanding, the government
allows these Israeli and European terror supporters to strengthen Hamas's
war machine and legitimize Hamas's objective of destroying Israel.
Official Israel's failure to act against this breach of its security is
directly related to its support of Israeli anti-Zionist groups when they
direct their guns at the Israeli Right - rather than Israel as a whole. As a
practical matter, it is difficult for the government to show that the Free
Gaza campaign actively supports the war against Israel when it willingly
embraces the bona fides of the Free Gaza campaign's supporters when they
attack settlers, or when the government adopts these organizations' false
assertion that the Right is the greatest threat to the country.
By the same token, it is difficult for the government to discredit films
purporting to demonstrate the human rights plight of Gazans as Pallywood
propaganda flicks when the government accepts these films as accurate when
their culprits are right-wing activists.
BUT WHILE the domestic Left sees a distinction between its right-wing
opponents and the country as a whole, the international community sees no
distinction between the two. Indeed, the international community has used
the cover that official Israel provides anti-Zionist activists for their
settler vilifying activities in order to advance the cause of criminalizing
Israel as a whole.
Case in point is what has become known as the Durban II conference in
Geneva. Durban I, it will be recalled, was the UN's 2001 "anti-racism"
conference in Durban, South Africa. The conference, which took place the
week before the jihadist attacks on the US, was an anti-Semitic hate-fest.
The American and Israeli delegations walked out as Israel and the Jewish
people were castigated as the greatest human rights abusers, genocide
committers, apartheid propagators and general all purpose bad guys in the
entire world.
The Nazi-like propaganda emanating from the conference led to violent
attacks against Jews all over the world. Durban I's resolutions also
provided the policy blueprint for much of political warfare that has been
waged against Israel by so-called human rights groups ever since. These
include the violent demonstrations against the security fence organized by
anti-Zionist Israeli groups, the Free Gaza campaign they support, and the
international boycotts against Israeli exports and academics they advocate.
Today, the UN is busily organizing its follow-up conference that will be
held next year in Geneva. As the watchdog group Eye on the UN reported over
the weekend, the conference's organizing committee just met and approved
most of the resolutions it is set to adopt at Geneva. These resolutions
again castigate Israel as the chief violator of human rights in the world.
Israel is accused of committing genocide, crimes against humanity and being
an apartheid state. It is also condemned as the most serious threat to
international peace and security.
But of course, what starts with Israel doesn't end with Israel. The
conference organizers have used the basic unanimity about Israel's criminal
nature to launch an assault against the foundations of Western civilization.
In addition to the numerous and repetitious attacks against Israel and Jews,
the conference organizers passed multiple resolutions calling for the
abrogation of freedom of expression and the criminalization of political
speech in order to outlaw discussion of Islamic terrorism and block
counterterror efforts in the West.
Among the conference's chief organizers are Iran, Libya, Egypt and Cuba.
Iran is the vice-chairman of the executive committee responsible for
planning Durban II. Much of the language in the proposed resolutions is
taken directly from resolutions passed at a planning session last year in
Teheran.
Israel had no hand in organizing this conference, which, following Canada,
it announced it will boycott. But over the years, it could have taken
actions that might have tempered or weakened the international coalition
arrayed against it.
If the government had outlawed anti-Israel groups like Machsom Watch, New
Profile, Gisha, Gush Shalom, Women in Black and Anarchists against the Wall,
rather than tolerate them on account of their activities against settlers,
it could at least have weakened their efforts. Had they been disbanded, they
would have had less capacity to legitimize and assist Palestinians and
Europeans who engage in political warfare against Israel on the ground.
By refusing to recognize the international consequences of their domestic
battle against their political opponents on the Right, the
Olmert-Livni-Barak government and the local media have strengthened Israel's
enemies in their battle to destroy the country.
caroline@carolineglick.com
Quote of the day:
'The financial situation at the moment is so bad that Jewish women are now marrying for love'
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/11/13/The_lost_tribe_of_Barack_Obama_surfaces/UPI-92641226593359/
BIR AL-MAKSOUR, Israel, Nov. 13 (UPI) -- As many as 8,000 Bedouin tribesmen in northern Israel claim to be the lost tribe of Barack Obama, a spokesman says.
A sheik in Galilee says he has evidence that he and his family are linked by blood to the new U.S. president.
"We knew about it years ago but we were afraid to talk about it because we didn't want to influence the election," Abdul Rahman Sheik Abdullah, a 53-year-old local council member, told The Times of London in the small village of Bir al-Maksour in the Israeli region of Galilee.
"We wrote a letter to him explaining the family connection," he said, undismayed that he received no answer.
Abdullah told The Times that he has papers and pictures to back up his claim but has promised his mother not to divulge them until he has presented them to Obama, hopefully in the White House.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/article3330446.ece
Palestinians toil for Barack Obama win
By Carolynne Wheeler in Nusseirat refugee camp, Gaza
31 Oct 2008
For months, Ibrahim Abu Jayyab and his friends have been working through the night, calling Americans at random to plead for support for their favourite candidate.
Except that most of the people Mr Abu Jayyab calls don't even know where the Gaza Strip is, much less understand why this man with heavily accented English crackling down the phone line should care about the American presidential race at all.
The young student, who works out of a single, sparsely furnished room an ocean away, is taking quiet satisfaction in his success.
"Obama is the best candidate. He has leadership qualities, he is charismatic. Once he said the Palestinian people are suffering most in the world," he said, his eyes heavy after another late night, but already back at the computer that is his pride and joy in a life otherwise dominated by poverty.
A media student at Gaza's al-Aqsa University, Mr Abu Jayyab, 23, has chafed at the strict religious rule enforced since the Islamist Hamas organisation took control 17 months ago. A heavy economic embargo, imposed by the international community following Hamas's refusal to recognise Israel and renounce violence, has helped Gaza's economy to collapse and destroyed Mr Abu Jayyab's hope of finding a decent job after graduation.
Like most in Gaza and across the Arab world, he blames President George W. Bush for the mess, in part for his unwavering support of Israel. So when a young, black American senator emerged as the frontrunner in the US Democratic primaries, he took notice.
Mr Abu Jayyab, who speaks little English and at first left only a practised message on telephone answering machines, has since enlisted the help of 15 friends to use computer VOIP programmes including iCall to randomly call US telephone numbers.
Of the dozens of calls they make each night between midnight and 4 am – early evening in most of the United States – Mr Abu Jayyab and his friends say they may only speak to one out of every 10 households. Many times they are simply hung up on by people impatient with their Arabic-accented English.
But as the election nears they have intensified their campaign and are now selecting area codes to target the swing states of Ohio and Pennsylvania.
"We think if Barack Obama wins, maybe he will make a difference here for the better," said Omar Tawil, 25, a computer science student who set up the programmes necessary for calling via the Internet.
However, their efforts – entirely volunteer and unsanctioned by the Obama campaign – may well be doing as much harm as good. Mr Obama's campaign team has publicly distanced themselves from these campaign calls, following John McCain's charges that Hamas supports Mr Obama.
His fears are real: Mr Obama landed himself in hot water with the powerful American Jewish lobby last year when he told a small Iowa audience that "nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people."
Since then he has worked hard to court the pro-Israel vote.
Still, when he was selected as the Democratic candidate, a panel of Israeli authors, professors and former diplomats known as The Israel Factor ranked him last of all possible presidential candidates, scoring at 5.12 out of a perfect 10. John McCain, the Republican candidate, was given a respectable 7.75.
Mr Abu Jayyab and his friends are nonetheless determined to continue their efforts until election day.
"We are feeling confident that Obama is gaining," Mr Abu Jayyab said.
http://www.jewishtimes.com/index.php/jewishtimes/news/jt/local_news/kosher_meat_shortage_coming/8775
Fishman suggested that kosher consumers should stock up on meat. He said one never knows about the possibility of a domino effect, and he believes that the national shortage could last at least until Passover.
Mr. Fishman also said customers could have difficulty obtaining turkeys for Thanksgiving since Agriprocessors supplied most of those birds.
So Bim Bam has an extended 8,000 strong mish-puka in the Bedouins to go along with his illegal immigrant Aunt Zeitouny who lived in Boston public housing over the last 4 years and his Uncle Honga in Kenya living in a mud hut on $12.00 a year. I guess this is what he means by all of us having to look out for each other and "sacrifice" for the common good while wifey Michelle lunches on Cavier and Champagne at the Waldorf.
The Bim Bam Identity. (With apologies to Jason Bourne).
http://www.insidebayarea.com/ci_10969166?source%253Dmost_emailed.26978592730A3B8C7F471EACE0DA4EF2.html
Thirteen East Bay priests, rabbis and ministers asked Congressional leaders from California on Wednesday to urge President-elect Barack Obama to ban the use of torture by U.S. agencies as one of his first acts in office.
Meeting with the top staff of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Dianne Feinstein in San Francisco, the group of pastors also asked them to form a Select Committee of Congress to investigate the use of torture by the U.S. government during the past seven years. "It's with that sense of new possibility with the new administration coming in," said the Rev. Karen Stokes of Montclair Presbyterian Church in Oakland, that religious leaders decided now is the time to ask for a ban on torture. The local effort was part of a "National Day of Witness" in which clergy nationwide called for a presidential executive order to ban torture.
Obama spoke during his presidential campaign against the use of torture on U.S. war prisoners and, since the election, has indicated he is considering closing down Guantanamo Bay prison where torture is suspected to have occurred.
"From the religious perspective, it is all about the image of God in each human being. Every time we torture someone, we are defacing God," said Rabbi Roberto Graetz of Temple Isaiah in Lafayette.
"It doesn't matter where you are on the religious spectrum, from progressive to fundamental evangelical, we are all agreed that torture is a moral issue," he said. Graetz presented a declaration of principles from the group.
But as Rabbi Graetz said, the group may have been "preaching to the choir" in talking to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, and U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein staff members. Both legislators have been actively trying to stop the use of torture by the U.S. government by supporting legislation that would put an end to it. Pelosi tried to defeat a bill that stripped federal courts of the permission to try habeas corpus cases.
Boog, I think Obama's fetter in Kenya is named Booga Booga, not Honga.
http://europenews.dk/en/node/15104
Hamas Cleric: Annihilation of the Jews is the Most Splendid Blessing
Agudath Israel supports fingerprinting bill
Local attorney champions the cause By Michael Orbach
Issue of Nov. 14, 2008 / 17 Cheshvan 5769
Elliot Pasik, a local lawyer, celebrated a minor victory this past week as Agudath Israel of America announced they will actively support a bill that would require non-public schools to fingerprint and perform background checks on prospective employees. Pasik and his organization, Jewish Advisory Board for Children, have been working towards getting the same legislation available for children’s protection in public schools –– finger-printing, background checks, teachers as mandated reporting — in the non-public school system.
The change by Agudah was somewhat inadvertent and brought about by a combination of factors. Heightened awareness of the dangers of sexual abuse inside the Jewish community focused media attention on the issue and the Rabbinical leadership’s response to it. In September, The Jewish Week erroneously reported that Agudah was against mandatory fingerprinting, a charge that was corrected in the following week, but to some extent the charge reverberated and led to an officially change in policy.
According to Rabbi Dovid Zweibel, Agudah’s executive vice president of Government Affairs, Agudah’s Rabbinical leadership was never opposed to the mandatory fingerprinting bill, but before supporting it they wanted to see how the voluntary version of the bill was enacted.
“It was never out of a sense that this is a bad idea and we don’t want our schools to do it,” Zweibel told The Jewish Star.
At a meeting convened two weeks ago, Agudah’s leadership decided, despite their hesitations, to support the mandatory fingerprinting bill.
“We’d be happier if there was some experience [with the voluntary bill],” Zweibel said, “but it’s not worth allowing our position to be distorted as being in some ways not supportive of finger printing.”
“Fingerprinting happens to be a tool among a larger array of things that need to be done and frankly it’s not the most powerful tool.” Zweibel continued. “It’s being used by the rest of society and there’s good reason why we ought to use the tool for whatever it’s worth.”
Zweibel also stressed that Agudah had been active in combating sexual abuse in the Jewish community, like creating their own teacher registry for their Torah U’Mesorah schools.
New York public schools have mandated fingerprinting and background checks since 2001 and have successfully screened out 1400 employees with criminal histories. Ohio became the 12th state to require fingerprinting for non-public school employees.
Speaking about the negative attention the Agudah’s response to the sexual abuse scandal received from blogs, Zweibel was remarkably candid:
“[Sexual abuse] is an issue which has come out of the closet in a certain sense and is engaging the attention of our community and its leadership and that’s ultimately a good thing. That’s why it’s hard for me to be totally annoyed with some of the excesses of the blogword. Their outrage, anger, and sometimes excessive advocacy and negativity towards the establishment, it’s a terrible thing, but at the same time, I know that their hearts are in the right place and it is stuff to be very upset about. Is Agudah a fair target? I think we could always use a healthy dose of introspection and honest assessment of how well we as a society have performed in this area and lots of other areas.”
Pasik said Agudah’s decision was equally significant to the Rabbinical Council of America resolution he helped draft in May 2005 that supported mandatory finger-printing. Though for the Agudah, which traditionally represents a more right-wing population than the RCA, and has historically avoided government intervention, the move is a strong one.
“It reflects a desire to remove whatever shadow of ambiguity may be placed over the thinking of the rabbis on the topic,” Zweibel asserted. “In other contexts where that is not an issue, our preference would be to do the right thing, because it’s the right thing to do, not because the government forces you to.”
Pasik views fingerprinting as the norm.
“Mandatory fingerprinting is as basic as putting fire extinguishers in classrooms,” he said. “I’m glad that the ultra-orthodox group has acknowledged the times that we live in.”
Despite Agudah’s support, passage of the bill is by no means guaranteed. The bill passed in the senate by 60-1, but Speaker Sheldon Silver twice prevented it from coming to the floor in the Assembly. When asked for comment, Judy Rapfogel, a spokesperson for the Speaker remained non-committal.
“We were very proud to pass the [voluntary] fingerprinting bill to make it available for yeshivot to utilize that avenue,” Rapfogel said.
The Jewish Star originally reported that Silver was pressured from parents and yeshvia principles to oppose the bill. With Agudah support that may not occur again.
Pasik assured The Jewish Star that the news is a welcome development, though he was quick to add that there were still other measures that needed to be taken in the non-public school system like mandatory reporting and mandatory abuse prevention, as well as extending the mandatory bill to include current employees. The pen that Governor Pataki used to sign the first voluntary finger-printing bill is framed on his office wall.
“It’s another stepping stone. It’s a victory when the governor signs the bill,” Pasik said. “This is like winning the first-round of the playoffs, but we’ve got two more rounds and the World Series. It’s like winning the primary in Ohio.”
"Zweibel also stressed that Agudah had been active in combating sexual abuse in the Jewish community, like creating their own teacher registry for their Torah U’Mesorah schools."
SCREAM AT THE TOP OF YOUR LUNGS!
What the hell is wrong with Zweibel?
Fingerprinting? Registries? Cooperating with Pasik?
Doesn't he know that the CLIMATE still isn't right???
Besides, Zweibel is TOO OLD to get involved in these affairs.
Zweibel, azendeme, duzey provinoss sfacim!
Have their ever been molestation incidents with Agudah Pirchei leaders?
You talking to me?
"Zweibel also stressed that Agudah had been active in combating sexual abuse in the Jewish community, like creating their own teacher registry for their Torah U’Mesorah schools."
____________________________________
Why can't I stop laughing! How predictable!
Periodically the Agudah takes their index finger out of their collective Tuchases and sticks it up in the air to gauge the wind currents of public opinion. The wind, publicity, and impetus for the implementation for the registration of employees working with our children has gained strength due in great measure to UOJ and this Blog.
Now they come to reap the credit which just highlights the moral rot and turpitude of the individuals that run this organization who by their silence, hindrance, and complicity in multitudes of coverups and the Acorning of our elected representatives like Charlie (The Black Yarmulke) Hynes, have forever ruined the lives of precious Yiddeshe neshomas ( some leading to suicide) and thus have literal blood on their hands.
The good to be taken out of the Agudah's current reversal on this
matter is that Yiddeshe Kinderlich will now be afforded greater protection from Predators.
This pathetic blood-stained Agudah is what passes for Torah true and authentic leadership today in our times.
Pnei Hador, K'Pnei HaKelev.
The Boog is back --- Long live the Boog!
Heshy Nussbaum,
the question was regarding Pirchei groups on Shabbos run by yeshiva bochurim, not Pirchei boys choirs.
I was a Pirchei leader as a bochur. Man did I have a good time.
I look at the Belsky hazmana and wonder what the hell is he still doing in Torah V'daas?
Mr. Torontonian:
Why assume it's only the Pirchei leader bochurim that have issues? What about kollel dudes who run the branches?
UOJ and LVF,
Thanks. UOJ, you are the master ranter and I try to take after you.
Arthur,
I would love to stop commenting on Rubashkin. Unfortunately, sometimes an event or a comment is made that forces me to respond. Just like the Agudah drew UOJ out of his "retirement" two years ago by dedicating a convention to him, the rumor that they will be focusing on kashrus at this convention got me all riled up. Furthermore, my anger was not directed so much at Agriprocessors, a"h, but at the Agudah and their priorities.
It's almost two years now that I've been discussing Rubashkin on the various blogs. If you paid any attention to my comments, I rarely mentioned the meshichist shochtim, which is only a tiny fraction of the kashrus issues there, and an even smaller fraction when you consider all the other abuses. So, no, it has nothing to do with the Chabad issue. "Hate" is a very strong word and I do not hate any Jews. I pray that those that practice Chabadism and its various offshoots would return to authentic Judaism. It's not only me saying this, but several leading poskim, both publicly and privately. They have publicly assered their shechita, their wines and their matzos. Someone who is a devout meshichist is certainly an idolator, no ifs, ands or buts. As for Rubashkin shochtim, I am fully aware that not all were meshichists, and therefore there are lenient opinions that you could have relied on rov and not assered the meat outright because of the shechita. However, as I mentioned, there were several other kashrus issues, not the least of which was the lack of control over the labeling. Again, I do not want to get into anymore debates over the Rubashkin scandal and would prefer at this point to let the situation play itself out. My listing of the meshichist shochtim was just to illustrate all those that were unethically deriving financial benefit from Rubashkin. I did not mention the legitimate shochtim and the hard workers.
There is no question that the Agudah is gearing up to present "The War on Kashrus" propaganda. It's already mentioned in promotional material. The only question is if they are going to completely lose it and send fanatics like Wachsman up to the podium to scream that Doomsday is near if we don't start writing checks for Rubashkin.
By the way, the feeling I get is that at least Pesach Lerner and some RCA figures have been burned by all the bad publicity and will not be joining the Agudah this time, at least not with a public show of defiance.
Take note please:
Association of Advanced Rabbinical & Talmudic Schools, the all inclusive accrediting organization of which Satmar Lubavich Agudah and all ultradoxs are members, is responsible for accrediting schools as colleger.
They are complicit in the sex scandals and coverups going on. Please call these fuckin liars cheats and windbags at 212-363-1991 or fax to 212-533-5335 and let them know that if they don't pull the accreditation from satmar willy or other schools who sheltered molesters, then we go to th US Dept. of Education to remove the accrediting license of the organization.
Michael Goldstein is the attorney for AARTS.
Steve
I thank you for your civil and well put response to my post.
I am however puzzled by your following statement "I pray that those that practice Chabadism and its various offshoots would return to authentic Judaism."
What in heavens name is "Chabadisim" and "authentic Judaisim"?
Is this some new Chabad offshoot that I am unaware of? Are you referring to all of Lubavitch,the meshchistin or who knows what? Am I and most of my acquaintances who are erliche,poshete Yidden who are not Meshichisten but Lubavitcher chassidim part of this "sect" called "Chabadisim"?.Who,pray tell, determines who is part of "authentic Judaisim" when you and others on this blog (and me to) have rightfully and sometimes wrongly,written of most of the so called Gedolim, Litvish,Yeshivish,Chassidish and MO? What about all the rabbinical organizations that we make light of,The RCA,The non existent Agudas Harabonim,The Moetses,Agudas Yisroel.Are they the ones who issue credentials to those that are part of "authentic Judaism"?Is it you or me or UOJ that makes this determination? Perhaps it's Shmaria of notorious fame.I await your answer and I'm not being factious.
The Chicago crazies come onto the world stage!
Obama the "Judaeophile", even as he lauds Rev Wright (only from Chicago) who damns America and Father Pfleger (from Chicago, of course) who defends Farrakhan (from Chicago, naturally)? How crazy is all that?
As the saying goes: Politics makes for some odd bedfellows (especially in Chicago)!
The first note that something unusual was brewing in the post-election Obama camp concerning Jews and Judaism was his rush to appoint the Jewish/Israeli Rahm Emanuel (from Chicago) as his "chief of staff" in waiting.
Then Rahm's father (from Chicago) blows it by insulting the Arabs, forcing Rahm to apologize http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE4AC99K20081113 for his father's mean remark about Arabs.
[Above:] Emanuel's father, Dr. Benjamin Emanuel.
"In an interview with Ma'ariv, Emanuel's father, Dr. Benjamin Emanuel, said he was convinced that his son's appointment would be good for Israel. "Obviously he will influence the president to be pro-Israel," he was quoted as saying. "Why wouldn't he be? What is he, an Arab? He's not going to clean the floors of the White House." http://www.vosizneias.com/22512/2008/11/13/washington-rahm-emanuels-apologizes-for-arab-remark-made-by-his-father/
Then an interview surfaces of Obama (from Chicago) claiming: "And I’d say, probably, intellectually I’ve drawn as much from Judaism as any other faith" (Obama's [2004] Fascinating Interview with Cathleen Falsani http://blog.beliefnet.com/stevenwaldman/2008/11/obamas-interview-with-cathleen.html )
And rounding it all off is a statement from the Haredi Agudath Israel of America http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agudath_Israel_of_America American Council of Torah Sages (one of them, Rabbi Avraham Chaim Levin is in Chicago) calling on Orthodox Jews to bury the hatchet and that those who supported Senator John McCain now need to unite behind Obama: http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/article.php?p=25913
"Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah Statement on Presidential Elections
November 13, 2008
15 Cheshvan 5769
November 13, 2008
Throughout the long years of our Golus, Jews have always been loyal citizens of the countries in which they have resided. Gedolei Yisroel through the generations have emphasized the importance of showing hakoras hatov to our host nations and according honor to their leaders. This is particularly so when those nations have provided a hospitable environment for the growth and development of the Jewish community.
Perhaps no nation in the history of humankind has shown greater friendship to the Jewish people than the country in which we reside, the United States of America. America has proven itself to be a medinah shel chesed, a land that has been good and kind to Jews both within its borders and beyond.
The American people have voted to elect a new president, Senator Barack Obama, who is pledged to continue this great tradition of chesed. It is incumbent upon all Jews, even those of us who may have supported the candidacy of Senator John McCain, to show President-elect Obama the proper dignity and honor due to the leader of our country – and, it goes without saying, to distance ourselves from any intemperate rhetoric that demeans the office of the presidency.
We take this opportunity to offer congratulations and best wishes to President-elect Obama, with whom we look forward to a warm and productive relationship. May Hashem, in Whose hand the hearts of all earthly leaders reside, guide America’s new president to succeed in carrying out his awesome responsibilities in a manner that will bring great blessing to the Jewish people, to America, and to all of humankind.
Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of America"
"Chicago, IL - Obama In 2004 Interview Cited Judaism as Part Of His Influence" http://www.vosizneias.com/22498/2008/11/13/chicago-il-obama-in-2004-interview-cited-judaism-as-his influence/
[When Obama ran for senator in 2004 he visited a local Chabad rabbi (in Chicago). Caption reads:] "8/20/04 Rabbi Yossi Brackman, Director of the Chabad Jewish Center had the opportunity to meet Democratic Senate candidate Barack Obama. Mr. Obama expressed his admiration for the work of the Chabad Jewish Center and looks forward to visiting in the fall after the election."
And in case anyone forget, this is what Rev Wright (who is wrong) said in his notorious sermons: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mk3LXvVlsI4 and what Father Pfleger who defends both Wright (who is wrong) AND the Jew-hater Farrakhan as in this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjJlsGrlbUs
Note, that Obama's political guru and the mastermind behind his election is the Jewish David Axelrod (who is from Chicago, where else).
Oh yeah, and now they are talking of the one and only Senator Hillary Clinton (another Chicagoan) for Secretary of State even though Hillary now represents the Jews of New York, she had no problem kissing Suha Arafat once upon a time: (photo).
Al Capone, eat your heart out!
Man accused of urinating on arresting officer
A man faces charges after allegedly driving drunk and then urinating in the back of a squad car and on the arresting officer. A criminal complaint said the man was pulled over early Wednesday after an officer saw him driving erratically and striking a pole at a gas station.
The complaint said the man failed field sobriety tests and when he was being taken to the police station, urinated in the back of the squad car and sprayed the officer, hitting him in the back of the head.
The man is facing four felony charges and two misdemeanors. He faces a maximum of 15 years in prison if convicted.
The misdemeanors include a fourth-offense operating while intoxicated.
Association of Advanced Ra-banim & Talmudic Schools or AARTS.
In the 1980s, a slimy AARTS agent showed up at the St Louis yeshiva and was in cahoots with the rosh yeshiva to dupe bais medrash & high school bochurim into signing for student loans. When they had to, they used all kinds of deception or in some cases I heard they resorted to threats and intimidation.
Whoever got duped, whether they paid tuition or not is on the hook for life. Student loans do not even go away after declaring bankruptcy.
The rosh yeshiva also scammed as many people and businesses that he could before being forced to skip the country. The creditors then took the building and campus which was a modern former JCC. He also ate like a fresser while the rebbeyim were unpaid and starving. His favorite was Shmulka Bernstein's Roumanian pastrami.
UOJ should try hard not to laugh but when the toilets backed up once, Roto Rooter refused to come until he paid old deadbeat invoices.
http://www.forward.com/articles/14566/
With Meat in Short Supply, Anxiety Abounds at Kosher Convention
By Anthony Weiss
Thu. Nov 13, 2008
Secaucus, N.J. — At first glance, the crowded exhibition hall of Kosherfest 2008 seemed to have everything a kosher consumer could want, from candy to blintzes to Jewish-themed toilet covers. But perhaps the most notable item at this year’s annual kosher food industry trade show was one that, on closer inspection, was distinctly lacking — kosher meat.
In past years, one of the anchor slots at Kosherfest, the annual convention for industry insiders, was occupied by Agriprocessors, the kosher meat giant that was, until this year, the largest supplier of kosher meat in the United States. Just a week before Kosherfest, however, Agriprocessors filed for bankruptcy amid a torrent of legal and financial troubles at the company’s flagship slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa. The lack of meat coming from Agriprocessors, combined with financial troubles at one of the main slaughterhouses for Alle Processing, the company that recently took Agriprocessors’ standing as the largest supplier of kosher beef, has left a gaping void in the kosher meat market.
As a result, this year’s Kosherfest was marked by a sense of panic, as people throughout the kosher industry, from suppliers to producers to rabbinical authorities, scrambled to find ways to fill the void.
At the booth for West Side Foods, one of the few meat suppliers to have a presence at the convention, vice president Jerry Abramowitz said that he was being deluged with far more visitors than he had seen at conventions past, all looking to secure meat.
“People are saying, ‘How can you take care of me?’” Abramowitz said. “It’s almost like a fear factor.”
All over the convention hall, there were signs of the anxiety: Rabbis from certification agencies huddled with slaughterhouse owners to gauge their output; owners of kosher meat markets pleaded with distributors to provide them with more meat. Other food producers reassured customers that their supplies were holding steady.
Asher Amar, proprietor of 5th Street Deli and Market in Tucson, Ariz., roamed the convention floor chatting with suppliers, collecting phone numbers and placing calls, all in an effort to secure meat for his customers. Amar said that he had placed an order the previous week for 20 cases of kosher meat, but when the order arrived, there was only one case.
“Right now, if I can get meat anywhere, I want to get it, just to make my customers happy,” Amar said.
Smaller meat suppliers say they are stepping in to fill the void as quickly as they can. One West Coast meat distributor, who asked not to be identified for fear of angering suppliers, said it was looking into setting up its own slaughtering operations. Ilan Parente, owner of Noah’s Ark slaughterhouse in Dawson, Minn., said he had stepped up his production and expected to increase it further. But he also said that contracting for new cattle to slaughter would take time, and besides, the demand for meat was far beyond what his firm could provide.
“We could double and quadruple [production] and still not provide enough product,” Parente said.
Where meat supply cannot be found, other kosher food producers were talking about finding substitutes for meat, ranging from fish to poultry to soy products. Robert Friedman, a manufacturer of beef jerky, said he was thinking of expanding his lines of turkey and soy jerky. Food providers and caterers said they were replacing beef meals with chicken and fish.
But the problems with meat supply are extending out beyond the question of supply and demand, as other kosher food producers worry that the lack of meat could damage the kosher industry overall.
“It’s devastating,” pickle manufacturer Stephen Leibowitz said. “If a kosher deli can’t get enough veal chops, corned beef and pastrami because of what the government’s doing in Iowa, my pickle consumption is down. No one’s going into the restaurants.”
Others worried about the damage that Agriprocessors’ highly publicized troubles would cause to the reputation of the kosher industry.
“It’s very hurtful to the industry,” said Henry Ender, CEO of Israeli food products distributor Foodfest International. “The trust itself, the perception of kosher, the perception of the higher authority — we all have to digest it and heal it again, basically.”
In general, people from the kosher food industry said they expected that the problems with the meat supply would be worked out in the next few months to a year, but many were bracing for more trouble in the short term.
“They’ve been an institution, Agriprocessors,” said Sondra Richmond of Duso Food Distributors, a New York-based company that provides meals to nursing homes, hospitals and other institutions. “It’s very, very scary for our industry.”
Kolko, Margo and the Rubashkins were very interested in this. They thought that orange was the only color option.
http://www.forward.com/articles/14565/
After Jail, Agriprocessors Workers Face a Difficult Journey
Postville, Iowa — When Gabriel Calicio was released from prison, five months after being arrested on immigration charges at the nation’s largest kosher slaughterhouse, his only possession was the prison-issued blue jumpsuit he was wearing.
another corrupt soon to be investigated Lubavitch kosher business says--“They’ve been an institution, Agriprocessors,” said Sondra Richmond of Duso Food Distributors, a New York-based company that provides meals to nursing homes, hospitals and other institutions. “It’s very, very scary for our industry.”
AARTS FARCE also sends roshei yeshiva to different yeshivos to evaluate the level of learning for a report submitted to the government. The rosh yeshiva will sit in on a shiur and ask kashyos mittin shiur to make sure the subject rosh yeshiva and lomdus are up to snuff.
When AARTS sent R' Avrohom Chaim Levin of Telshe-Chicago to the Mir, he made the big mistake of trying to question R' Shmuel Berenbaum. I wasn't there that day but the raid around yeshiva was that R' Shmuel explained how his kashya wasn't a kashya.
Hey Mirrer, what's your point? O Machlokes Haposkim!
Btw, if you think nobody's gonna find any molestation cases in Mir Yeshiva, watch out.... your turn is coming!
It was not a machlokes. R' Shmuel ztl was right.
Kolko was the dorm councillor in the Mir 40 years ago but his victims didn't complain at that time that anyone should know about it.
When R' Shmuel heard rumors that Colmer was touching boys he immediately banned him from the buiding and people called the cops.
R' Shmuel couldn't control Lazer Ginzeberg and some other family branches that have a say over there.
And by the way, genius, Avrohom Chaim Levin who has his own history, is Ginzeberg's brother in law.
From the: "Bim Bam Change is coming up your Ass Dept".
VP Elect Joe (J-O-B-S is a 3-letter word) Biden has named a Clinton retread to be his Chief of Staff.
Frickin Fonies.
What "cases", Telzer?
Either put up or shut up.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=376A8A3B-62DD-407F-8D48-F38B2A63B96E
Obama’s Road to Damascus
By John Perazzo
FrontPageMagazine.com |
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
History will record that Barack Obama’s first act of diplomacy as America’s president-elect took place two days after his election victory, when he dispatched his senior foreign-policy adviser, Robert Malley, to meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad—to outline for them the forthcoming administration’s Mideast policy vis-à-vis those nations. An aide to Malley reports, “The tenor of the messages was that the Obama administration would take into greater account Egyptian and Syrian interests” than has President Bush. The Bush administration, it should be noted, has rightly recognized Syria to be not only a chief supporter of the al Qaeda insurgency in Iraq, but also the headquarters of the terrorist organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the longtime sponsor of Hamas—the terrorist army whose founding charter is irrevocably committed to the annihilation of Israel. Yet unlike President Bush, Obama and Malley have called for Israel to engage in peace negotiations with Syria.
A Harvard-trained lawyer and Rhodes Scholar, Robert Malley is no newcomer to the Obama team. In 2007, Obama selected him as a foreign policy adviser to his campaign. At the time, Malley was (and still is today) the Middle East and North Africa Program Director for the International Crisis Group (ICG), which receives funding from the Open Society Institute of George Soros (who, incidentally, serves on the ICG Executive Committee).
In his capacity with ICG, Malley directs a number of analysts who focus their attention most heavily on the Arab-Israeli conflict, the political and military developments in Iraq, and Islamist movements across the Middle East. Prior to joining ICG, Malley served as President Bill Clinton’s Special Assistant for Arab-Israeli Affairs (1998-2001), and as National Security Adviser Sandy Berger’s Executive Assistant (1996-1998).
Robert Malley was raised in France. His lineage is noteworthy. His father, Simon Malley (1923-2006), was a key figure in the Egyptian Communist Party. A passionate hater of Israel, the elder Malley was a close friend and confidante of the late PLO terrorist Yasser Arafat; an inveterate critic of “Western imperialism”; a supporter of various revolutionary “liberation movements,” particularly the Palestinian cause; a beneficiary of Soviet funding; and a supporter of the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. According to American Thinker news editor Ed Lasky, Simon Malley “participated in the wave of anti-imperialist and nationalist ideology that was sweeping the Third World [and] … wrote thousands of words in support of struggle against Western nations.”
In a July 2001 op-ed which Malley penned for the New York Times, he alleged that Israeli—not Palestinian—inflexibility had caused the previous year’s Camp David peace talks (brokered by Bill Clinton) to fall apart. This was one of several controversial articles Malley has written—some he co-authored with Hussein Agha, a former adviser to Arafat—blaming Israel and exonerating Arafat (the most prolific Jew-killer since Adolph Hitler) for the failure of the peace process.
Malley’s identification of Israel as the cause of the Camp David impasse has been widely embraced by Palestinian and Arab activists around the world, by Holocaust deniers like Norman Finkelstein, and by anti-Israel publications such as Counterpunch. It should be noted that Malley’s account of the Camp David negotiations is entirely inconsistent with the recollections of the key figures who participated in those talks—specifically, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, then-U.S. President Bill Clinton, and then-U.S. Ambassador Dennis Ross (Clinton’s Middle East envoy).
Malley also has written numerous op-eds urging the U.S. to disengage from Israel to some degree, and recommending that America reach out to negotiate with its traditional Arab enemies such as Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah (a creature of Iran dedicated to the extermination of the Jews and death to America), and Muqtada al-Sadr (the Shiite terrorist leader in Iraq).
In addition, Malley has advised nations around the world to establish relationships with, and to send financial aid to, the Hamas-led Palestinian government in Gaza. In Malley’s calculus, the electoral victory that swept Hamas into power in January 2006 was a manifestation of legitimate Palestinian “anger at years of humiliation and loss of self-respect because of Israeli settlement expansion, Arafat’s imprisonment, Israel’s incursions, [and] Western lecturing …”
Moreover, Malley contends that it is both unreasonable and unrealistic for Israel or Western nations to demand that Syria sever its ties with Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, or Iran. Rather, he suggests that if Israel were to return the Golan Heights (which it captured in the 1967 Six Day War, and again in the 1973 Yom Kippur War—two conflicts sparked by Arab aggression which sought so permanently wipe the Jewish state off the face of the earth) to Syrian control, Damascus would be inclined to pursue peace with Israel.
Malley has criticized the U.S. for allegedly remaining “on the sidelines” and being a “no-show” in the overall effort to bring peace to the nations of the Middle East. Exhorting the Bush administration to change its policy of refusing to engage diplomatically with terrorists and their sponsoring states, Malley wrote in July 2006: “Today the U.S. does not talk to Iran, Syria, Hamas, the elected Palestinian government or Hezbollah…. The result has been a policy with all the appeal of a moral principle and all the effectiveness of a tired harangue.”
This inclination to negotiate with any and all enemies of the U.S. and Israel—an impulse which Malley has outlined clearly and consistently—has had a powerful influence on Barack Obama.
It is notable that six months ago the Obama campaign and Malley hastily severed ties with one another after the Times of London reported that Malley had been meeting privately with Hamas leaders on a regular basis—something Obama had publicly pledged never to do. At the time, Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt minimized the significance of this monumentally embarrassing revelation, saying: “Rob Malley has, like hundreds of other experts, provided informal advice to the campaign in the past. He has no formal role in the campaign and he will not play any role in the future.”
But indeed, within hours after Obama’s election victory, Malley was back as a key player in the president-elect’s team of advisors—on his way to Syria. Mr. Obama, meanwhile, received a most friendly communication from Hamas, congratulating him on his “historic victory.”
Very funny email in Yiddish making the rounds with a picture caption of Pres & VP elect.
Joe Biden = Veiss President
Barack Obama = Shvartz President
Suggestion Rabbosai:
It's healthy to joke around and to vent - and I certainly encourage that - big time!
Let's leave out the name calling - atleast for now, in respect for the "office of the presidency".
I'm no fan of Obama - farkert - but let's give him a chance to get it right - or not!
Certainly, the references to the color of his skin is most definitely inappropriate!
Whaddya say?
Arthur,
What I mean by "chabadism" is the belief that Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson is coming back as the mashiach and/or was the embodiment of HKBH (R"L). I know that some Lubavitchers totally reject these notions, and my post was not directed at them. I directed my comments to those that believe in this false messianism, either privately or publicly. I am not the only one who has condemned such beliefs, as you well know that they have been condemned by many poskei hador (some privately, others publicly). By offshoots, I mean those that go even further and say that Hashem came down to earth in the lvush of Schneerson's body. I debated one of these lunatics once on Shmarya's blog. Both the messhichists and eloikists are a separate cult (even Belsky admits to this) outside the pale of authentic Judaism and are idolators in respect to shechita, wine and matzos (the eloikists are idolators in every respect). UOJ holds that ALL of chassidism is not Judaism. I do not go that far. Please do not try to defend the beliefs of the meshichists with the usual "you cannot say that he's not the mashiach" b.s. They deserve to be condemned in the strongest sense, just like the early Christians were, those that "only" believed that JC was the messiah and not god.
Just my opinion.
Respect is something that is earned. Bill Clinton was called all kinds of names like Slick Willie and Liar-in-Chief because he disgraced the office of the Presidency.
Liberals called George W. Bush "the chimp" before he was guilty of anything yet they demand that no one call Obama any names despite his long history of Marxist-Islamist associations.
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/p_137008.html
They are running out of meat in these here parts.
UOJ holds that ALL of chassidism is not Judaism.
----------------
Some claification needed here:
1- Chassidim are Jews if they were born to a Jewish mother and/or had an appropriate gerus.
2 - Singing songs "instead" of learning or performing mitzvot - is outside the pale of Judaism
3 - If somebody is wasting time at a rebbe's tish - when he could be learning with his kids or himself - is beyond the pale....
4 - Getting brachot for the sake of a "rebbe" having a better shot at God - or expecting Divine intevention because of the rebbe - is Christianity.
5 - All the nonsense minhagim - are just that!
6 - A rebbe may have wisdom and life experience - but is in no better position than any other smart Jew to offer advice.
I'm certain there's more....
Archie:
Hey...bash his affiliations, positions, choices for his Cabinet all you want - I'm just saying that it makes sense NOT to make comments that could be construed as racist.
An awful lot of all kinds of people monitor this blog...
Hamaven yaven!
UOJ, agreed. But only on items that are actually racist, items that should not be said even in private.
What I mean is that the Liberal PC Police (PC is for politically correct) have taken it upon themselves to "decide" that a whole host of innocuous words & tones are "racist".
This may sound funny coming from "Archie Bunker" of all people. I only picked this moniker as a dig to my philosophical opponent Shmarya over at Failed Messiah who has made it his mission to misconstrue every move we make as racist.
One common example is the word in German / Yiddish for "Black". It could be uttered in a nasty tone that is racist but the word itself is not racist unless you give in to the wishes of the Liberal blowhards.
Agriprocessors' former leader arrested again
BY TONY LEYS
The former leader of a controversial meatpacking plant has been arrested again, this
time on a federal bank-fraud charge.
Sholom Rubashkin, 49, who ran the Agriprocessors Inc. plant for years, was arrested in Postville this morning, said Bob Teig, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office.
Agriprocessors was the site of a huge immigration raid in May. Nearly 400 workers, most of whom were from Guatemala, were arrested and accused of being in the country illegally. The plant already was under investigation for alleged labor violations.
The company, which had been the nation’s largest supplier of kosher meat, filed for bankruptcy earlier this month. That action came shortly after a lawsuit filed by First Bank, which said Agriprocessors defaulted on a $35 million line of credit and overstated how much money it had available.
According to prosecution documents filed in federal court today, an accounting employee at Agriprocessors gave authorities a detailed recounting of how Rubashkin moved money around.
All corporate income was supposed to go to a Decorah bank account that First Bank could tap for repayment of its line of credit. But the employee said Rubashkin ordered that millions of dollars of income be diverted to other accounts at different banks.
Prosecutors said the actions included the diversion of $10.6 million in Agriprocessors income through an account for Kosher Community Grocery, a small Postville store of which Rubashkin is a part owner, prosecutors said. It also allegedly included diversion of $5.8 million through a “Torah education” fund, which helped pay for schooling of Jewish students in the area. According to court documents, the accounting employee said roughly equivalent amounts of money eventually would be put into the main account. But by temporarily hiding corporate income, the maneuvers allegedly let Agriprocessors inflate how much it was owed by customers, which allowed it to draw extra money from the First Bank line of credit.
The employee said Rubashkin ordered all of these transactions recorded on a separate, portable computer drive. The employee said Rubashkin took that drive last month.
http://www.cleveland.com/living/index.ssf/2008/11/meat_processor_raid_pinches_cl.html
Don't mind my Telzer friend from this morning. There's a shortage of meat of Cleveland and he feels dizzy from lack of protein.
I guess Uncle Milty wasn't kidding about the interest in prison jump suit fashion.
This week we read the story of Sarah banishing Yishmael from her home. The story is very troubling, How could the righteous matriarch Sarah do such a cruel thing to her husband’s child? Where is her compassion for children? No commentators mention any debate or second thoughts on her part, how could this be possible?
The answer is, this was the greatness of Sarah. She saw evil, recognized it for what it was, and removed it from her family before it festers and destroys the fabric of her family. We find similarly with the treatment of Amalek.
"Remember what Amalek did to you... Blot out entirely the memory of Amalek; do not forget!" We do not believe in forgiving or forgetting Amalek. On the contrary, we believe in retributive justice - "blot out entirely the memory of Amalek...."
The above theme is carried out in practice in devastating words and action by the Prophet Samuel after King Saul successfully fought Amalek but then violated God's command to destroy the entire people, instead saving the women, the cattle, and the King - Agag. After severely criticizing the delinquent King and telling him that he would be stripped of his kingship which would be given to somebody better than he, Samuel said "Bring before me Agag, the King of Amalek. And Agag came toward him haltingly, saying (to himself) surely the bitterness of death has passed (i.e., Samuel will forgive and forget). And Samuel said, 'As your sword has made women childless, so your mother shall be childless among women.'
Samuel hacked Agag into pieces, imitating God. God forgives - we speak of God in our Selichot services as "forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin" but we add venakeh lo yenakeh - "He does not exonerate or wipe away" the heinous crime of the guilty, indicating that there are some sins which God wipes away but others which are too horrible to be forgiven or forgotten.
Certain crimes are not only not forgiven, but the perpetrator of such crimes must be both punished and disgraced. In Chapter 9 of the Megillah, after we recite the names of the ten sons of Haman, we say "They killed them." Two sentences later, Esther goes before the King and the King asks her what he could do for her further. Her answer was very clear: "And Esther said, 'If it pleases the King, let us be given tomorrow for the Jews in Shushan to do the same as we did today (because all of the enemies had not been eliminated in one day; there were too many of them), and let the bodies of the ten sons of Haman be hanged on trees.'" The perpetrators of devastating crimes not only had to be punished; they had to be disgraced.
It is true that the Bible says "You shall not hate your brother in your heart," but sometimes a person's behavior is so immoral as to cause him to forfeit his status as a brother. The Talmud is quite clear about certain types of evil people: "It is a mitzvah to hate them!"
Many in our community participated in a day of prayer this Thursday. They were acting like our matriarch Sarah, and Queen Esther who look at evil, and took actions to uproot it from our community. May good fortune and blessings be shined upon all who pursue kindness to others. Peace and tranquility should fill our homes. Hashem who created happiness, joy and jubilation should hear our prayers, and remove pursuers from our city. By removing baseless hatred, we should all merit seeing the complete redemption.
Amen!
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2008/11/12/2008-11-12_iran_testfires_new_more_accurate_missile.html
Iran test-fires new, more accurate missile that could reach Israel, Southern Europe
Steve you said
"Please do not try to defend the beliefs of the meshichists with the usual "you cannot say that he's not the mashiach" b.s.
"What I mean by "chabadism" is the belief that Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson is coming back as the mashiach and/or was the embodiment of HKBH (R"L)."
I never defended the meshichistim as you stated above so I don't know why your mentioning this at all.There is no "elokist" movement.Yes there may be be a few nuts out there and they were condemned by every single Chabad rov.There are not enough of them to be called a movement and those that do exist are considered lunatics even by the most extreme of the meshichistim.
By referring to the meshichitim as "Chabadisim" you do exhibit an antipathy to Chabad in general which you have a right to do even though you deny it.Are you adding this to the list of "isims" that the Minchas Elozer railed against?
You still have not described "main stream Judaisim" to me.Are the Satmer,Aide Hachreidus,Neturei Karte,the Conservative movement,the Peirushim (Talmidei Hagra) who have their own queer minhagim as do the Brisker ,the Breslever and many others to numerous to mention, part of "main stream Judaism"?
Who gives you the right to declare who is or is not part of "main stream Judaism"?
An opinion is one thing but when you declare it as if you were anointed by Hashem to pass Judgment on tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of Yidden and condemn them in the way you and UOJ ,who I agree with on most issues brought up on this blog and have the greatest respect for, you certainly have breite pleitzes.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/11/14/2008-11-14_al_sharpton_got_500g_in_illegal_cash_dur.html
Al Sharpton got $500G in illegal cash during White House run, audit says
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/15/business/15bush.html
Words Fly, but No Aid for Detroit
UOJ holds that ALL of chassidism is not Judaism.
----------------
Some claification needed here:
1- Chassidim are Jews if they were born to a Jewish mother and/or had an appropriate gerus.
-- True of Agudahniks, Litvaks, NCSY alumni, Young Israelites, and Israelis.
2 - Singing songs "instead" of learning or performing mitzvot - is outside the pale of Judaism
Actually, niggunim has been used to augment learning, hence the Gemara niggun and the Mishnah niggun to retain and focus the learning in the mind. Music has been shown to improve memory and retention when learning, providing it's music and not white noise.
3 - If somebody is wasting time at a rebbe's tish - when he could be learning with his kids or himself - is beyond the pale....
Bring the kids if they are old enough to appreciate the varmkeit and the yachdus. In the days of the shetel, it was unheard of to have tischen of 1000's. Like everything else this has been inflated in importance. The deveykus to Hashem is what is the ikkur of a tisch not the showmanship of the gabboim or the Rebbe.
4 - Getting brachot for the sake of a "rebbe" having a better shot at God - or expecting Divine intevention because of the rebbe - is Christianity.
Avrohom Avinu was given the permission to bless and that permission has never been rescinded. It is in every Yid's power to bless his fellow Yid.
5 - All the nonsense minhagim - are just that!
Three day conventions, political contributions, stammering excuses for inaction regarding terrible inyonim, Botei Dinim that are hamstrung by unscrupulous louts. Sorry, Chassidim don't have the monopoly on phony minhagim.
6 - A rebbe may have wisdom and life experience - but is in no better position than any other smart Jew to offer advice.
See previous response to Berachos. The major difference is not in wisdom or life experience but in discernment and reading the questions behind the questions. There are many "Roshei Yeshivos" who can't give advice worth a perutah. It's an unenviable position to be in when a naar asks you what to do and you know that every answer is beyond his ken. People have been conditioned to not use their brains anymore and to be blind followers. It's no surprise that there are many who will take advantage of this kind of situation. But it exists in secular society too, they are called mental health professionals and they admit that they are not helping anyone but just holding back the water from going over the dam. Ask yourself, what's the difference between a schnapps with the Rebbe and Wellbutrin from the psych pharmacologist? None. Both will make you temporarily feel good. The long term affect of a Rebbe is, providing he is involved, as a sounding board. Why Rebbe's as opposed to your mikvah buddies? Because the mikvah buddies are in the same sorry state that you are in and can't extricate themselves why should you use them. The Rebbe, you don't know that he is a messed up as you are or worse; but he doesn't let on to that in the mikvah.
I'm certain there's more....
On all sides of the spectrum you will find the heaven and hell sent.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122661765227326251.html
Very interesting read for UOJ & friends.
To UOJ
With all due respect and admiration for you and your peulos I am shocked and disappointed by some of your above statements about Chassidus and Chassidim.
Would you say that Rav Meir Shapiro,a Chortkever Chosid,The Ragitcover,a Lubavitcher Chosid,Rav Menachem Zemba HY"D,a Gerrer Chosid,My uncle for whom you expressed such love and admiration for and the thousands of Tzaddikim and Geonei Hatorah of the prewar generation,who were Chassidim ,to be be considered ....tions Chas vechollila a thousand times over?Are the hundreds of thousands of Chassidim HY"D in addition to all the other Yidden who perished al kiddush Hashem Hashem ,with the words "...af al pi kain ani maamin" on their lips, to be considered Kofrim C"V.
"All the nonsense minhagim - are just that!"
Who determines what are "nonsense minhagim",you,me,or some other joe shmoe?
Are the bizarre minhagim of the talmedei Hagra,the Peirushim,the strange minhagim of Brisk and so many other branches of"authentic Judaism" to be considered "nonsense minhagim"?
Again I say this as a friend and admirer, neither you nor I or any one else can take upon ourselves the awesome responsibility of making such allegations.That is unless you consider yourself to be a "Chasidishe Rebbe"LOL.
Cross burnings. Schoolchildren chanting "Assassinate Obama."
Black figures hung from nooses. Racial epithets scrawled on homes and cars.Incidents around the country referring to President-elect Barack Obama are dampening the postelection glow of racial progress and harmony, highlighting the stubborn racism that remains in America.From California to Maine, police have documented a range of alleged crimes, from vandalism and vague threats to at least one physical attack. Insults and taunts have been delivered by adults, college students and second-graders.There have been "hundreds" of incidents since the election, many more than usual, said Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate crimes.One was in Snellville, Ga., where Denene Millner said a boy on the school bus told her 9-year-old daughter the day after the election: "I hope Obama gets assassinated."
That night, someone trashed her sister-in-law's front lawn, mangled the Obama lawn signs, and left two pizza boxes filled with human feces outside the front door, Millner said.She described her emotions as a combination of anger and fear."I can't say that every white person in Snellville is evil and anti-Obama and willing to desecrate my property because one or two idiots did it," said Millner, who is black. "But it definitely makes you look a little different at the people who you live with, and makes you wonder what they're capable of and what they're really thinking."Potok, who is white, said he believes there is "a large subset of white people in this country who feel that they are losing everything they know, that the country their forefathers built has somehow been stolen from them."Grant Griffin, a 46-year-old white Georgia native, expressed similar sentiments: "I believe our nation is ruined and has been for several decades and the election of Obama is merely the culmination of the change."If you had real change it would involve all the members of (Obama's) church being deported," he said.
Change in whatever form does not come easy, and a black president is "the most profound change in the field of race this country has experienced since the Civil War," said William Ferris, senior associate director of the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina. "It's shaking the foundations on which the country has existed for centuries.""Someone once said racism is like cancer," Ferris said. "It's never totally wiped out, it's in remission."If so, America's remission lasted until the morning of Nov. 5.The day after the vote hailed as a sign of a nation changed, black high school student Barbara Tyler of Marietta, Ga., said she heard hateful Obama comments from white students, and that teachers cut off discussion about Obama's victory.Tyler spoke at a press conference by the Georgia chapter of the NAACP calling for a town hall meeting to address complaints from across the state about hostility and resentment. Another student, from a Covington middle school, said he was suspended for wearing an Obama shirt to school Nov. 5 after the principal told students not to wear political paraphernalia.
The student's mother, Eshe Riviears, said the principal told her: "Whether you like it or not, we're in the South, and there are a lot of people who are not happy with this decision."Other incidents include:_Four North Carolina State University students admitted writing anti-Obama comments in a tunnel designated for free speech expression, including one that said: "Let's shoot that (N-word) in the head." Obama has received more threats than any other president-elect, authorities say. _At Standish, Maine, a sign inside the Oak Hill General Store read: "Osama Obama Shotgun Pool." Customers could sign up to bet $1 on a date when Obama would be killed. "Stabbing, shooting, roadside bombs, they all count," the sign said. At the bottom of the marker board was written "Let's hope someone wins." _Racist graffiti was found in places including New York's Long Island, where two dozen cars were spray-painted; Kilgore, Texas, where the local high school and skate park were defaced; and the Los Angeles area, where swastikas, racial slurs and "Go Back To Africa" were spray painted on sidewalks, houses and cars. _Second- and third-grade students on a school bus in Rexburg, Idaho, chanted "assassinate Obama," a district official said.
_University of Alabama professor Marsha L. Houston said a poster of the Obama family was ripped off her office door. A replacement poster was defaced with a death threat and a racial slur. "It seems the election brought the racist rats out of the woodwork," Houston said. _Black figures were hanged by nooses from trees on Mount Desert Island, Maine, the Bangor Daily News reported. The president of Baylor University in Waco, Texas said a rope found hanging from a campus tree was apparently an abandoned swing and not a noose. _Crosses were burned in yards of Obama supporters in Hardwick, N.J., and Apolacan Township, Pa. _A black teenager in New York City said he was attacked with a bat on election night by four white men who shouted 'Obama.' _In the Pittsburgh suburb of Forest Hills, a black man said he found a note with a racial slur on his car windshield, saying "now that you voted for Obama, just watch out for your house." Emotions are often raw after a hard-fought political campaign, but now those on the losing side have an easy target for their anger. "The principle is very simple," said BJ Gallagher, a sociologist and co-author of the diversity book "A Peacock in the Land of Penguins." "If I can't hurt the person I'm angry at, then I'll vent my anger on a substitute, i.e., someone of the same race." "We saw the same thing happen after the 9-11 attacks, as a wave of anti-Muslim violence swept the country. We saw it happen after the Rodney King verdict, when Los Angeles blacks erupted in rage at the injustice perpetrated by 'the white man.'" "It's as stupid and ineffectual as kicking your dog when you've had a bad day at the office," Gallagher said. "But it happens a lot." ___ Associated Press writers Errin Haines, Jerry Harkavy, Jay Reeves, Johnny Taylor and researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed to this report.
Arthur and Boruch - your points are noted!
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/nyregion/14rangel.html
Representative Charles B. Rangel announced on Thursday that he had hired a forensic accounting firm to determine whether there were additional errors and omissions on his tax returns and public disclosure forms.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/nyregion/14diabetes.html
A former official of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation led a false invoicing scheme that resulted in the theft of more than $1 million from the organization, Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan district attorney, said on Thursday.
The ex-official, Jonathan Stenger, 35, who was director of communications and publications, enlisted the help of four friends to bill the foundation for paper and other supplies he never actually ordered, Mr. Morgenthau said.
Mr. Stenger and his friends were indicted in State Supreme Court in Manhattan on Thursday on several counts, including grand larceny, money laundering, forgery and filing false business records. The other men charged were Harold Chayefsky, 54, a print broker for Wintry Press and Mill River Press; Robert Krueger, 40, an assistant professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute; James Wawrzewski, 51, the president of Cobalt Design Group; and Justin Sias, 35.
The indictment also charged Mr. Chayefsky’s and Mr. Wawrzewski’s companies, as well as the Merriweather Group and the Crowcombe Group, companies started by Mr. Stenger and Mr. Krueger to carry out the scheme, Mr. Morgenthau said. The men are accused of stealing $1.2 million from the foundation, Mr. Morgenthau said.
All five defendants pleaded not guilty before Justice Arlene R. Silverman. Mr. Krueger, Mr. Wawrzewski and Mr. Sias were released without bail. Bail was set at $100,000 for Mr. Stenger and at $72,000 for Mr. Chayefsky. Both men remained in custody on Thursday night, according to the district attorney’s office.
Mr. Stenger’s lawyer, Andrea Likwornik Weiss, asked Justice Silverman to order that Mr. Stenger be put under suicide watch. Justice Silverman agreed. If convicted on the top count in his indictment, Mr. Stenger could face up to 25 years in prison.
Mr. Stenger was also charged with inflating his travel expenses, including forging $4,658.17 in hotel receipts, Mr. Morgenthau said.
The foundation, a leading diabetes fund-raising organization whose public face is its international chairwoman, Mary Tyler Moore, discovered fraudulent travel expenses from Mr. Stenger during a routine audit and fired him in December 2007, Mr. Morgenthau said. That led to a deeper investigation that uncovered the fake invoicing, Mr. Morgenthau said. Mr. Stenger and his friends are accused of running the scheme from 2004 to 2007.
Mr. Chayefsky submitted 16 false invoices totaling $920,588.50 that was supposed to be for commercial paper to publish Countdown, a magazine produced by the foundation, Mr. Morgenthau said. Wintry Press is a legitimate publishing company, Mr. Morgenthau said, that has done work for some of the city’s most prominent law firms and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Mr. Krueger submitted $153,939.69 in fake invoices, also for paper, the district attorney said.
Mr. Wawrzewski submitted a $15,000 invoice for the design and production of an online ordering system for the foundation that was never provided, Mr. Morgenthau said. Mr. Sias billed the foundation for design templates for Countdown that he never produced, the district attorney said.
The men kicked back much of the money to Mr. Stenger, who kept roughly $900,000, Mr. Morgenthau said.
The foundation has received about $600,000 in restitution, Mr. Morgenthau said, and the rest of the money should be covered by insurance. Since 1970, the foundation has awarded more than $1.3 billion to diabetes research.
Mr. Stenger spent the money he stole on a variety of things including taxes, renovations to his Manhattan apartment, student loans and a college fund for his daughter, Mr. Morgenthau said.
It isn't limited to Agriprocessors...
http://www.siouxcityjournal.com/articles/2009/06/26/news/south_dakota/d7f7d29291912714862575e10012c77c.txt
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