You know the type! You talk to them until you're blue in the face --- and nothing! That dumb look - glassy-eyed - deer in the headlights - the imbecilic non-response!
The Agudath Israel hoodlums had to be chained to the back of a Borough Park Lincoln Navigator and dragged through the muck - to get them to agree - to what any sane person should understand; mandatory fingerprinting and background checks on people who work around children - is not optional. Any lowly job in government --- any employer who deals in "precious jewels" - does background checks.
Yet, these unrepentant idiots had to be shamed into agreeing with this most logical, sensible, humane requirement.
Why?
It began with Moshe Sherer's brand of narcissism. Sherer understood too well - you did not need substance to succeed in the political arena. He was the prime example of that --- the Elvis --- the king of bling!
Surround yourself with respected rabbis initially - manipulate the heck out of these tired senior citizens - wear them down and overwhelm them with your linguistic chicanery - take their words and thoughts and twist them until they mean nothing. Throw parties and conventions - put these rabbis on display at the dais - and poof - they are viewed by the gullible masses as endorsing Moshe Sherer!
Moshe Sherer, the Obama-like master manipulator of people, had the gift of charisma - was a superb orator --- but was a man obsessed with himself; his welfare, his agenda, he was totally devoid of substance, and only promoted what was good for Moshe Sherer.
He was the consummate "community organizer" and the Agudath Israel was his ACORN! Lie, cheat, manipulate, create facts out of lies, raise all kinds of money from all kinds of people.... Surround yourself with yes-men - who, if had the ability to think on their own - you got rid of --- or never hired them in the first place.
It is no wonder that Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz ztvk"l threw him out of Yeshiva Torah Vodaath and warned Rabbi Ruderman z"l of Ner Israel, that "Sherer needs to be carefully watched."
It is little wonder to me that Rabbi Yaakov Kaminetzky ztvk"l, said about Sherer --- "he has a "chezkas shakran."
For a period of about one year, I interacted with Moshe Sherer on a weekly basis. To describe him as an eloquent huckster is way too kind....And that was the legacy he left to Bloom, Zwiebel and Gertzulin. (I happen to like Gertzulin)
Therefore, it is no surprise to me that the Agudath Israel is - what it is - nothing!
Then you add some bargain basement 99 Cents Stores interior decorating; Shmuel Kaminetzky, Yaakov Perlow, Aron Schechter, Aron Feldman, A.C. Levin....and voila --- you got the Playboy Mansion, without the playboy!
But the hookers remained!
*
ADDED NOVEMBER 11, 2008
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EFF Urges Court to Block Dragnet Subpoenas Targeting Online Commenters
CLICK! For the full motion to quash: http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/hersh_v_cohen/UOJ-motiontoquashmemo.pdf
191 comments:
It is my understanding that the Yeshiva world does not respect Agudas Yisroel.
However, there is no question that on the national scene, Agudas Yisroel definitely plays a major role, and their power is derived from the masses who are supposedly part of the organization. The Agudah has definitely helped the orthodox community in Washington and in Albany. It is very possible that the rabbis are helping this specific purpose.
Again, my understanding from my friends in Lakewood is that the yeshiva world does not respect Agudas Yisroel at all.
http://www.borderfirereport.net/john-w.-lillpop/world-starved-for-change-and-obama-leads-with-rahm-emanuel.html
World Starved for CHANGE, and Obama Leads With Rahm Emanuel?
Thursday, 06 November 2008 08:04
With a righteous wind at his back and not-so-righteous ACORN fraud engineers at his side, President-elect Barack Obama graciously accepted the verdict of the American people and set out to deliver on his many campaign promises.
Mindful of the fact that the overarching theme of his entire campaign was CHANGE, Obama began his historic administration by naming Rahm Emanuel Chief of Staff.
Rahm Emanuel?
Is he not the fellow who has been slithering around in the shadows of the Democrat party since 1984, including stints with Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and in the Clinton White House?
The Emanuel who choreographed the famous 1993 handshake between Israel Prime Minister Rabbi and PLO President Arafat in the Rose Garden, while the president of the United States shared a celebration cigar with intern Monica Lewinsky in that little back room off the Oval Office?
The Emanuel who has been in the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Illinois, since 2003?
THAT Emanuel is supposed to be in charge of Change?
Good heavens, President-elect Obama, we were expecting real change, the kind that America desperately needs!
For example, why not name Eddie Murphy Chief of Staff?
Of course, Murphy has no experience whatsoever; however, that makes him the perfect match for a senior post in the Obama administration!
What better way to bring about change than by bringing in someone who has no idea about the traditional, "old school" ways of Washington?
Or better still, why not leave the future of the civilized world in the capable hands of basketball superstar Allen Iverson, now playing for the Detroit Pistons?
Iverson may not know squat about politics or government, but he could challenge the president to some one-on-one hoops to relieve the stress of dealing with snotty Republicans!
All in all, the selection of Rahm Emanuel is a major disappointment to those of us looking forward to monumental, earth shattering change.
Perhaps the only change that the new president will actually deliver on is abandonment of all those exaggerated campaign promises concerning CHANGE?
http://hamptonroads.com/2008/11/suspect-wextrust-fraud-case-again-seeks-bail
By Tom Shean
The Virginian-Pilot
© November 7, 2008
A Norfolk resident detained since August on criminal charges of securities fraud has renewed his effort to be released on bail.
Joseph Shereshevsky, the part-owner and former chief operating officer of investment company WexTrust Capital, is asking a judge in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan to reduce the $10 million bail that another judge imposed in September.
The U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and the Securities and Exchange Commission contend in separate suits that Shereshevsky and others defrauded almost 1,200 investors by diverting $100 million to unauthorized purposes. The SEC alleges that Shereshevsky and other defendants used a Ponzi-like scheme by paying the early investors in WexTrust projects with money collected from later investors.
Shereshevsky's attorney, John Meringolo, could not be reached for comment Thursday on the status of his client's request to reduce bail. Shereshevsky, who is being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, has denied any wrongdoing.
Shereshevsky hasn't been able to line up 10 financially qualified individuals who together can satisfy the bond amount if he failed to appear at trial, according to an Oct. 31 letter to U.S. District Judge Henry Pitman. Shereshevsky, according to the letter, nominated 14 co-signers to provide security for his bail. Only one, his brother-in-law Ruven Verschleisser, has been approved by the U.S. attorney's office, and eight others have been rejected, the letter said.
At a hearing on Sept. 4, U.S. District Judge Gerald Lynch said Shereshevsky could be released if 10 individuals co-signed for his $10 million bail and each provided property with $1 million of equity as security. Each of the 10 also had to provide cash security of $5,000. No more than five co-signers could be related to the defendant, the court said.
The Oct. 31 letter said that Shereshevsky's father-in-law, Alan Verschleisser, agreed to put up $1.2 million of property to meet the court's $1 million security requirement.
If released on bail, Shereshevsky could leave home only for religious services or medical and legal consultations, Lynch said in September. And when he leaves, Shereshevsky would have to be accompanied by security personnel approved by the government and paid for by the defendant, the judge said.
During a detention hearing following his arrest in Norfolk, the government said that Shereshevsky was carrying a plane ticket for Israel and then to England but had no ticket for a return flight. Federal Magistrate Tommy Miller determined during the hearing that Shereshevsky might flee the country and ordered that he remain in custody.
Shereshevsky's attempt to gain release has been complicated by a court-imposed freeze on his assets and those of his wife. Their assets were frozen in response to the SEC's fraud suit against Shereshevsky, WexTrust and WexTrust chairman and majority-owner Steven Byers. The suit is being heard in federal court in Manhattan.
Shereshevsky and Byers have yet to be indicted by the U.S. attorney's office. The court recently extended the deadline for Shereshevsky's indictment to Nov. 21.
Tom Shean, (757) 446-2379, tom.shean@pilotonline.com
WASHINGTON – Among the offices Barack Obama has yet to fill, one has a special importance to his family: first dog.
At his first postelection news conference on Friday, the president-elect called choosing a dog a "major issue" in the Obama household and a hot topic on his Web site.
"We have two criteria that have to be reconciled. One is that Malia is allergic, so it has to be hypoallergenic," he said. "On the other hand, our preference would be to get a shelter dog, but a lot of shelter dogs are mutts like me."
Add to that the strain of the inevitable attention that comes to a cute pup in the White House. On Thursday, President Bush's normally docile Scottish terrier Barney bit a Reuters reporter on the right index finger.
So, how to choose?
Thieves caught in Hungary with 12 pigs in car
BUDAPEST (Reuters) – Two thieves were caught in southern Hungary with 12 pigs stuffed in their small van during a routine traffic check, Hungarian police said on Thursday.
Police stopped two men in a Renault Kangoo near the town of Szigetvar, about 220 km (137 miles) south of Budapest, as they attempted to drive off.
"The pigs weighed about 25-30 kg (55-66 lb) each -- they were really squashed into the car very tightly," a spokesman said.
Police said the pigs came from a nearby farm, where 35 pigs have gone missing in recent days.
(Reporting by Krisztina Than; Editing by Catherine Bosley)
Naked Japan major nabbed with women's underwear
TOKYO (Reuters) – A male Japanese air force major caught naked while shopping for women's underwear has been suspended from his duties for 10 days, a spokeswoman at his base said on Friday.
The man, on his way home from a late-night farewell party for a colleague in early September, stripped off his clothes behind a convenience store before going in and buying panties and pantyhose.
"He had just his wallet and his shoes on him," said the spokeswoman from the Matsushima air base in Miyagi, northern Japan.
"He thought it would be funny if he went into the store stark naked, that it would surprise people."
There was no one else in the store but the store clerk, who called the police shortly after the man left the store. Papers were filed against him on suspicion of indecent exposure.
The incident follows a series of scandals for Japan's military. The air force's top general was sacked last week for saying Japan was not an aggressor in World War Two, angering China and South Korea where bitter memories remain over Tokyo's past military aggression.
Obama Wins, Economy's Doomed
Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital and author of 'The Little Book of Bull Moves in Bear Markets,' says a big-government Obama administration will lead to an economic collapse on par with the Great Depression.
Trump Files Suit Against Lenders
Developer Seeks to Extend $640 Million Loan on a Chicago
Donald Trump filed suit against the lenders on his unfinished Chicago skyscraper, plunging the project into legal turmoil and highlighting the credit crunch's pervasive effects on real estate.
Mr. Trump is suing to extend a $640million senior construction loan on the 92-story Trump International Hotel & Tower from a group of lenders led by Deutsche Bank AG and including a unit of Merrill Lynch & Co., Union Labor Life Insurance Co., iStar Financial Inc., a publicly traded real-estate investment trust, and Highland Funds, a unit of Highland Capital Management LP.
The tower, which contains 339 hotel rooms and 486 condominiums, will be the second-tallest building in the U.S. behind Chicago's Sears Tower and is expected to be completed in mid-2009. The hotel, on the lower floors, opened earlier this year. But sales of both the hotel rooms and the condominiums have come in below original estimates and the project's current projected revenue remains short by nearly $100 million needed to pay off the senior lenders.
The lawsuit, filed in New York State supreme court in Queens, is a further indication of the dysfunction in the real-estate lending markets as borrowers and lenders struggle to resolve troubled projects. People familiar with the matter say the lender group, which is made up of more than a dozen institutions, was unable to agree on the extension.
The suit demands -- among other things -- that an extension provision in the original loan agreement be triggered because of the "unprecedented financial crisis in the credit markets now prevailing, in part due to acts Deutsche Bank itself participated in." This so-called force majeure provision is common in contracts and can be applied to acts of war and natural disasters. Mr. Trump already extended the loan once in May.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23583545-details/Did+Abramovich+steal+a+%C2%A31.2+bn+stake+in+oilfield/article.do
Did Abramovich steal a £1.2 billion stake in oilfield?
http://jta.org/news/article/2008/11/07/1000837/cantor-moving-up-in-house
The only Jewish GOPer in the U.S. House of Representatives is poised to become its second-highest ranking Republican.
Rep. Eric Cantor (r-Va.) is likely to ascend to the minority whip position in the House, after another GOP lawmaker , Roy Blunt of Missouri, stepped down from the post on Thursday. Cantor, 45, has served as chief deputy whip for the last six years and he has been considered a rising star in the Republican Party pretty much ever since his election to the House in 2000.
As someone who could appeal to two key constituencies—Jews and conservatives—Cantor’s name was even floated this summer as a possible vice-presidential pick for John McCain, although it does not appear that he was seriously considered for the position. He also played a key role in negotiations over an economic bailout bill earlier this fall, offering conservative alternatives to the package originally proposed by the Bush administration.
Representing a district that includes parts of Richmond and its suburbs as well as rural areas to the north, Cantor’s political philosophy is one of a traditional Republican conservative on both economic and social issues. Newsweek described the “Cantor Brand” this week as an emphasis on "fiscal discipline, lowering taxes and government accountability." He also is pro-gun, anti-abortion and has backed Bush administration secrecy policies.
This has led Jewish Democrats to argue that while he may be Jewish, his views are “out of step” with the mainstream of the community – at least on domestic matters.
On Middle East-related issues, he has been on the front lines for his party in advocating for the Jewish state and charging Democrats with being insufficiently committed to Israel. On the latter point, he’s been accused of distorting Democratic positions. For instance, in May, he released a statement misquoting Barack Obama as saying Israel was a “constant sore” in the Middle East. In fact, Obama was speaking of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, not the Jewish state; Cantor never corrected the statement.
Cantor has been an effective representative of Jewish concerns to the Republican caucus. William Daroff, the vice-president for public policy of the United Jewish Communities and the head of the group’s Washington office, credited Cantor with helping this summer to stave off efforts to limit tax exemptions for non-profits.
Blunt stressed the importance of Cantor’s religion, in a July interview..“The fact that Eric’s the only Jewish Republican member of the House creates an entry into the community,” said the outgoing whip.
Cantor also played a key role in convincing his former Republican colleagues in the Virginia House of Delegates – where he served eight years – to back Iran divestment legislation. “Eric was involved quietly trying to persuade people,” said Ron Halber, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington.
Cantor was raised as a Conservative Jew and in a 2001 interview with Washington Jewish Week said he does his best to keep kosher. He said avoiding non-kosher meat can be a complication as a politician when he attends an event and someone wants him to try their barbecue, but his hosts usually understand. Cantor has strong roots in the Richmond Jewish community, having co-chaired the federation’s young leadership division and served on the Richmond Jewish Community Center board.
Known and lauded in his party for his prodigious fundraising skills, Cantor did run into problems caused by a fundraiser he held at a kosher deli in 2003. His campaign didn’t pay the bill for the event at disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s delicatessen, Stacks; but when the problem became public, Cantor apologized, paid the bill and was not sanctioned. He also received $30,000 in campaign contributions from entities affiliated with Abramoff. After the lobbyist pleaded guilty to fraud and corruption charges, Cantor gave $10,000 of the money to charity.
http://cdobs.com/archive/our-columns/the-fate-of-patrick-fitzgerald%2C2033/
Fitzgerald, 47, is the U..S. attorney for the northern district of Illinois, who, ever since his appointment in 2001, has been giving fits to Daley Democrats and “moderate” Republicans who bed down with the Dems. No sooner was Pat Fitzgerald named by George W. Bush than he launched an investigation of GOP Governor George Ryan with close ties to the White House.
Ryan, an apostate ex-prolifer who turned pro-abort and who commuted the death sentences to all inmates of death row to life in order to ingratiate himself with what he figured would be a liberal black jury-a close confidant of Mayor Daley and non-ideological pragmatic Republicans in Washington including members of President Bush’s staff and then House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert-was found guilty on all 18 counts against him. He got a sentence of 6–1/2 years. So powerful was Ryan that James R. (Big Jim) Thompson, 72, a liberal Republican former governor who is the state’s most clout-heavy lobbyist, devoted years at his blue-chip law firm on a pro-bono basis to getting Ryan sprung on successive appeals which went all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. Thompson spent more than $20 million of the firm’s money using its top defense counsel defending Ryan which cut into his and his partners’ bonuses for which in pique they replaced him as managing partner.
Being demoted didn’t bother Thompson, a multi-millionaire and former federal prosecutor who discarded a rosy career to hustle for big bucks clients in Springfield and Washington, D. C.. He has bigger things to worry about. For years he was a man driven to spend whatever it cost his law firm to get his former lieutenant governor off the hook…reportedly petrified that if angered Ryan would spill some costly beans about Thompson and others in the rarified world of Republi-crat back-scratching.
So solicitous was Thompson after Ryan’s conviction that he had Ryan driven to the federal prison in his own law firm’s limousine while he sat in the back seat comforting Ryan while Ryan’s wife sobbed. Thompson is supposed to have said he’d work overtime to get George W. Bush to pardon the bulbous-nosed old ex-governor whose licenses for bribes corruption as secretary of state contributed to aliens getting commercial licenses who could not understand English. One such illegal contributed to an accident that burned five children alive-a grisly act for which Ryan refused to apologize.
Having convicted Ryan, Fitzgerald started to move on the Great Untouchable in Chicago politics-Mayor Richard M. Daley. In 2005 his office indicted a number of top aides to Daley on charges of mail fraud, alleging numerous instances of corruption in hiring practices at City Hall. Despite a federal decision allegedly removing hiring as reward for continued political service, it seems Mayor Daley had turned a blind eye to its operation. Fitzgerald found that a Daley top aide fielded requests for promotions from taxpayer-paid civil workers in recompense for political work they performed-including flooding the neighborhoods with canvassers in the 5th district which cuts an oddly-shaped swath across the city’s north side…in behalf of Rahm Emanuel.
Emanuel is a lean and hungry Cassius…a former ballet dancer but who is definitely not a girly man…a brash and profane son of an Israeli immigrant (he uses the “f” word in almost every sentence), who owes his soul to Mayor Daley and who had become (a) political director of the Clinton White House where he regularly defended the 42nd president in the media vis-à-vis the Monica Lewinsky affair and (b) a multi-millionaire by learning first-hand from those close to ex-treasury secretary Robert Rubin how to make money in the investment banking business by using his old political connections. He became independently wealthy…$16 million net worth… managing a merger involving Chicago’s major utility, Com Ed which as a novice he managed by hanging on the phone and following orders dictated by Rubin associates. He was on the board of Freddie Mac, never mentioned in a laudatory “New York Times” bio, Freddie Mac having been fined $50 million during the time of his service for serious ethical impropriety). He ran for Congress in the 5th district (Dan Rostenkowski’s old district) and when a senile worker for Emanuel’s Democratic opponent claimed Emanuel had duel citizenship (here and Israel) Emanuel raised a stink, claimed his opponent was anti-Semitic and got the nomination, tantamount to election.
Still and all, his election ground game was run largely by patronage workers from the city water department, for which its recruiter, Don Tomczak, went to jail-a matter Fitzgerald is still looking at. Once in the House, Emanuel proceeded apace, is a member of Ways and Means and is now chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. He has just been appointed as Obama’s chief of staff in the White House. But needless to say, Emanuel will never forgive Fitzgerald for prosecuting the man who mobilized city water department employees into a political army that elected him and others.
Then Fitzgerald moved to the scandal-plagued program in the city that involved hiring private trucks to do city work. Daley-connected truck owners waited patiently in line to sign up their vehicles and drivers so that they could stand idle and collect money for doing nothing in a $40 million program. Daley’s kid brother sold insurance to three major trucking companies which understood that if their vehicles were to be hired by the city it would be prudent to have John Daley write the insurance. Twenty-five percent of all hired truck companies happened to come from the 11th ward, ancestral home of the Daleys where John serves as Democratic committeeman (in addition to commissioner of Cook county where he is ensconced as chairman of its finance committee). In return more than $105,000 in campaign donations flowed to the mayor from companies in the program.
In February, 2005 Daley, his cheeks aflame addressed the hired trucks scandal by shouting-reminiscent of his late father, Richard I [1902–76] (although with better syntax)-“Anyone who believes that my interest in public life is enriching my family, friends or political supporters doesn’t know or understand me at all.. My reputation and the well-being of this city are more important to me than any election.” The press corps which still retains its honor could hardly keep a straight face. Sure enough, in February, 2006 a close relative pleaded guilty to taking at least $5,400 to steer hired truck work to a trucking company.
Following this, Fitzgerald prosecuted the former city clerk, Democrat pro-abort James Laski with taking bribes and obstructing justice after the feds caught him on tape urging witnesses to lie to a grand jury and deny they gave him $500 to $1,000 a week each in cash bribes to keep getting business in the hired truck program. Also his predecessor was convicted in a ghost payroll scheme with taxpayers shelling out more than $400,000 in salaries to six politicians who didn’t show over a dozen years. In addition Fitzgerald discovered that tons of asphalt paid by the city were stolen by truck drivers in the hired trucks program and used on private jobs.
All the while Big Jim Thompson was defending George Ryan pro-bono, Fitzgerald launched an investigation against the pompous CEO of Hollinger newspapers, which owned a string of publications including The Chicago Sun-Times, Conrad Black. He charged Black with criminal fraud, violations of fiduciary obligations and running “a corporate kleptocracy.” The indictment came perilously close to the patriarch of let’s-cut-a-deal bipartisanship in Illinois, Thompson who was chairman of the newspaper’s audit committee. Big Jimbo so relished serving on a board that included Henry Kissinger and neo-con Richard Perle that he personally and without examination signed off on outlandish expenditures by Black to ingratiate himself with management. As result Thompson was investigated by the SEC for wanton carelessness, agreeing to expenses by Black that were not remotely connected to the newspaper-and very narrowly missed being indicted for malfeasance by Fitzgerald. Black was convicted last year and sentenced to 78 months in federal prison, required to pay the newspaper $6.1 million in restitution and a fine of $125,000. Thompson escaped federal indictment by a hair’s breath and there is no doubt that he is gunning for Fitzgerald to be replaced.
Although liberal Democrat Gov. Rod Blagojevich was elected (Serbian Orthodox) on a pledge to end corruption in Illinois government, Fitzgerald moved swiftly on first report of play for pay dealings in state government where big contributors were rewarded with cushy contracts and other favors. Republican Thompson’s law firm was Blagojevich’s general counsel on “ethics” (believe it or not) and Thompson raised campaign money for Blagojevich. Now Blagojevich has been widely rumored to be the unnamed “Public Official A” in the indictment of Antonin “Tony” Rezko, who has been a major fund-raiser and patron for Barack Obama’s career who has aided Blagojevich in at least one alleged extortion attempt.
Rezko was convicted by Fitzgerald on 16 of 24 counts against him. Sent to prison where he could well spend decades, he so dislikes solitary confinement that he has agreed to talk to prosecutors. The danger for Blagojevich…and a host of pols of both parties—and possibly for Obama——is not inconsiderable. The first indication of Rezko’s information came last week when a big power-broker in the Republi-crat combine was indicted, Catholic Bill Cellini, close to Ryan, Thompson and a host of Dems, who has been playing bipartisan deals in this state since 1969. The feds also are looking seriously at Mrs. Blagojevich, daughter of a highly placed Catholic multi-millionaire Democratic pro-abort alderman who started the man known as “Blago” on his way…and who has been estranged from the governor and the fact that Patricia Mell Blagojevich, a licensed real estate broker, earned $113,000 in commissions from the owners of a company that won a no-bid contract with the state.
But now it gets really interesting since Fitzgerald has done years of digging that may finally tie the Presidential Swami of Hope, Obama to dirty deals in the filthiest municipal tag team match of corruption extant in the nation, a process that John Kass of the Tribune, the only major columnist not supinely craven to Obama, calls “the Chicago Way.”
Because Pat Fitzgerald is such a straight arrow, pols here don’t know how to deal with him. Regarded as an instinctive Democrat due to his Irish heritage as the son of a hotel doorman, born in Brooklyn, Fitzgerald has nevertheless been fearless in prosecuting close-up allies of Mayor Richard II and will likely indict a second governor, Democrat Blagojevich with rumors that this will be done before Thanksgiving.
Not only that, with jailbird Antonin Rezko chirping like a canary in order to get his sentence reduced, what happens to the entire Democratic structure of power if bad things surface in his tales about Barack Obama who is regarded by so many media idolaters as a distant relative of the Deity? Like pro-abort Catholic MSNBC commentator Chris Matthews they feel collectively “a tingle” up their leg when Obama walks into a room. But the facts are there and this Demo-publican combine town is pathologically worried Fitzgerald will uncover more.
What is known is toxic bad p.r. for Obama (but never played up by deferential local and national media). Rezko rehabbed a 31-unit building here eleven years ago with a loan from Chicago taxpayers. They couldn’t find the money to restore the heat in a winter season but they did dig up enough dough to give $1,000 to the newly elected state senator whose district included the rehabbed building.
Obama, then a young operator on the make, took donations from Rezko while Rezko’s low-income housing empire was collapsing, leaving many black families in buildings with squalid conditions, lack of heat, filled with drug dealers and squatters. In all, 11 buildings Rezko rehabbed were in Obama’s legislative district. There is no evidence that Obama lifted a finger to help ease conditions caused by Rezko’s company; instead, he gratefully accepted Rezko’s dough and patronage. Moreover as a lawyer, Obama helped Rezko’s company get more than $43 million in government funding to rehab 15 buildings “for the poor.” Many had code violations; hundreds of apartments were vacant; taxpayers have been stuck with millions of dollars in unpaid loans; at least a dozen times, the city of Chicago had to sue Rezko for failure to heat the buildings.
And that’s not all. What might interest Fitzgerald is that Obama teamed with Rezko in a cushy deal to improve his own living conditions. With money from his autobiography which through media hype became a best-seller, Obama then a U.S. senator paid less than the asking price for the home. He wanted to acquire a lot next door for a garden.
Then Rezko’s wife…who was earning only $30,000 in salary…paid the full price for the lot next door and Obama bought part of the lot from her for $104,000-a transaction Obama later apologized for as “a boneheaded mistake,” acknowledging people might think he benefited from this gift from Rezko. The U.S. Senate’s ethics violations take such benefits seriously as we’ve learned from the case of Alaska’s Ted Stevens, found guilty of seven felonious counts of accepting gifts without reporting them. Rumor is consummate digger Fitzgerald is finding further business dealings between Obama and Rezko.
John McCain announced that if elected president he would keep Fitzgerald on the job in Illinois. Obama has been less definite but in his smooth way expressed support for the prosecutor. Yet behind the scenes, there is much consternation in Democratic circles here. One pol close to Obama told me “it’s important we ditch this guy but do it the right way.” Meaning kicking him upstairs in Justice. But there Fitzgerald might still influence a probe. So the entire Illinois Demo-publican combine starting with the president-elect and centering on Richard II is uneasy.
http://theseoultimes.com/ST/?url=/ST/db/read.php?idx=7528
The Russian Mob and America
Our Economy Caught in The Midst of Organized Fraud
By Thomas Emmon Pisano
ST Columnist
Illegal sex, drugs, and undeclared money are a few of the contraband items the 'Mob' supplies to the decadent people here and around the world, because some of the people in the United States are addicted to the pleasures brought about by the 'black market.'
There is, as well, the trafficking of human flesh, the slave labor trade, mail order brides, every aspect of pornography, also extortion, and of course, the classic protection rackets, which are all under the banner of these organized crime syndicates. This slave trade has its world headquarters based in Israel according to many accounts. All the human vices are pandered to by these opportunistic vampires.
They have descended upon us like a swarm of invisible locusts; the Russian Mob has invaded the shores of America. Included in this invasion of our borders is the mention (this I have read in two different articles) of a submarine purchased by the ‘Mob.' Is a Russian (Soviet-era) submarine being used to smuggle drugs into our country? The plan was to purchase this vessel in 1997 for the meager sum of five million dollars. Did that purchase ever take place? Are the smugglers in possession of a Russian submarine? I have read these things and I want to know what is really going on concerning this criminal activity and the use of a submarine.
If the enemies of the United States can smuggle drugs by using this kind of technology, they can also smuggle weapons of mass destruction into America as easily. The magnitude of this thing is overwhelming. Is the State Department involved in the investigation of such things? Then the F.B.I. and the military should be alerted to the fact that the enemies of our society are using secret technology to invade our borders. There are 200 Russian crime syndicates operating in the United States according to the statistics I gleaned from The F.B.I., State Department and other law enforcement agencies; how can we ignore these people and their destructive activities?
They are the Red Mafia referred to in the media and popular culture as the Russian Mafia or Russian Mob as they are sometimes called in other venues, but they have a unique name in their Russian language and culture. They are the vory or the thieves in law, as they call themselves. This worldwide organization is also involved with the Jewish Mafia, which operates out of Israel, a major center for the trafficking of slaves and abducted women for sexual prostitution. I had no idea what I was about to discover. This thing is insidious in its global scope; it may embrace every country in the world today with strong holds in Amsterdam, the Flemish States, Israel, Russia, Columbia, The United States, Canada, and every place where it is profitable to do something illegal for easy money. The international ‘black market' is part of a ‘shadow economy' that the organized crime people use to fuel their massive organization. Money laundering, as a matter of fact, is a very important part of this secret organism's life's blood.
I started digging further and low what did I find; a second thing that needed to be shown to the light of day? I found instance after instance of logged documentation concerning the Jewish Mob in America, their illegal activities and their involvement with the Russian crime syndicates. Accounts documenting serious crimes, such as; drug smuggling, murder for hire, and money laundering for the people who are selling the Heroine and Cocaine to the addicts in our culture. Much of this money winds up in the hands of our enemies who use this undocumented cash for their terrorist endeavors here and overseas. The trail of this money winds up around the world and accounts for a large portion of the finances, which is used against the United States in our fight for freedom abroad. There are a few other miscellaneous type crimes that complete this circle of behavior, which is less than honorable for a people who are purported to be so spiritually pious.
These conspiracies exist and the Russian / Jewish Mob, and their counterparts exist. There are too many pieces, which fit together too nicely for there not to be a secret plan by organized crime to take over America or at the very least, destroy our wonderful country and our way of life.
Look at this; there was a period in recent Russian history, after the fall of the old Soviet Union, in which many of the banks in Russia were taken over through a series of murders involving their executives, according to reliable accounts 95 of these executives died over a very short period of time. I don't have to document these facts for the reader; these are facts I pulled from reliable sources. You can look up these facts and find out for yourself what is happening behind our backs concerning this silent war being waged right here in our homeland. I am telling you what I have found as a reporter. Are our banks at risk from fraudulent people who have expert knowledge of our banking system and can use that technical knowledge to pilfer our money from our banks?
It was very convenient, the United States opening its arms to refugees fleeing the former Soviet bloc countries. Did the Russians empty their prisons, by sending us members of their organized crime syndicates and other hardened criminals? Immigrants escaping the Soviet Union's tyranny, oppression, and hunger were readily taken in by our government. During the Soviet Era, we accepted refugees on nothing more than face value when it came to the matter of political oppression and asylum.
All through the nineties Soviet and ex-Soviet government employees and some military personnel, highly placed of course, went into the profiteering business, the 'black-market', and other such related enterprises; this meant they controlled the goods flowing in and out of their new found federation. These organized criminals, through sheer force, then gained control of the banking system in the now newly formed Russian Federation. What the Russian Mafia did to the Russian banking system between 1993 and 1998 was horrid. I would like to demonstrate the extremes that these mobsters go to, to gain control of a financial organization so I am reiterating the facts. The vory traffics in illegal drugs, prostitutes, human slavery, murder for hire, kidnapping, extortion, and money laundering, just to mention a few of the ‘criminal businesses' participated in by the Russian Mob in America and around the world for that matter.
They are a stronghold for the preservation of our funds, our dreams, and a hedge against inflation that is our American banking system. Our banks are the strongest and most regulated of any institution in the nation. For the most part our banking system is hard to defraud, but some have and could.
The one thing these criminal organizations undertook and became specialized in was gaining control of the banks and financial institutions in the new Russian Federation. They were no longer content with just depositing their ill-gotten funds in those banks. The Russian Mob went after total control of the banks and seized their assets through violent force, brutality, and guile in most cases. They wanted the banks to use for their various illegal schemes, including the most profitable scheme of all, money laundering for the world's drug trade.
The taken banks, depleted of their assets, soon fell into disreputable standing, their value deflated to the point that they could not be used. So consequently, these banks failed to be reliable for legal transactions. They failed, as a matter of fact, so they were only good for the receivership of 'black market' funds to be diverted elsewhere.
Now that the Russian Mob has moved into the suburbs of America, you cannot help but wonder… has bank failure come to the United States by-way of organized crime? It did happen to the Russian Federation; why not here?
In the past eight years, we have seen the failure of more than 40 banks insured by the F.D.I.C. Many of these banks have failed from nothing more than mismanagement in the form of bad loans to people who could not afford those loans. Now in 2008 the failure of America's financial institutions is epidemic in its scale. Our government has thrown more of our capital into this problem to feed this endless money pit that is still hemorrhaging our hard-earned funds. I believe that this 'bail out' money will go the way of the money already lost by said institutions, and into the pockets of the unscrupulous and the fraudulent who perpetrated this problem from the onset.
Recently, some of these institutional failures have been earmarked as fraud. Suspicions have been raised by several investigative organizations including the F.D.I.C., the F.B.I., and the Attorney General of the United States and those investigations are at present ongoing. One of the problems is sorting through the data it takes a lot of time and is very tedious and costly. This is one of the other things these gangsters are skilled at, the 'paper chase.' Remember the 1997 gasoline tax fraud scheme; that was a 'blizzard of paper' one investigator said, it cost the American taxpayer 17 million dollars and was perpetrated by Russian organized criminals. Meanwhile, more financial institutions fail and the endless investigative process continues. We all hope it will not be too late before the true cause of these failures comes to the light of day.
Fraud — this label is consistent with the philosophy of the Russian / American organized crime groups; they take over a banking institution and destroy it from within. This activity is classic and holds true to form for many of the places where the Russian Mob has resided in Europe.
The number of Russians who have immigrated to America since 1990 is close to 200,000. The State Department suspects the Russian government sent us their hardened criminals who were incarcerated in their prisons, first, then their political offenders next and so forth. The U.S. government, through F.B.I. sources has estimated 200 Russian crime organizations have been established in America. They have been unified into a network of powerful evil here in our country. There may be nothing to the Russian Mob and any suspicious ties to the failing banking institutions here in our country, but still we need to keep our eyes on the wolves when they are near the door.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1035409.html
Jewish and conservative, New Zealand's elected PM promises change
By Sefi Krupsky and The Associated Press
New Zealanders chose a multimillionaire former foreign currency trader on Saturday to lead them through the global financial meltdown, handing longserving left-wing Prime Minister Helen Clark a crushing election defeat.
New Zealand victorious National Party leader John Key
Key, like Obama, is 47 years old and belongs to a minority group in his country. Key's mother, Ruth Lazar, is a Jewish immigrant from Austria and is considered an active member of New Zealand's Jewish community of about 5,000.
Key has been less than forthcoming about his positions regarding Israel, but stresses in interviews that he is a friend of Israel and wants to visit Jerusalem. Members of the Kiwi Jewish community point out that Key took part in Israel's 60th anniversary celebrations, and has donated to Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1035430.html
'Treasury acted as stealthy thieves in handling of Holocaust victims' property'
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1035666.html
Israeli police rushed into one of Christianity's holiest churches Sunday and arrested two clergyman after an argument between monks erupted into a brawl next to the site of Jesus' tomb.
The clash broke out between Armenian and Greek Orthodox monks in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, revered as the site of Jesus' crucifixion, burial and resurrection.
It began as Armenian clergymen marched in an annual procession commemorating the 4th-century discovery of the cross believed to have been used to crucify Jesus. It ended with the arrival of dozens of riot policemen who separated the sides, seizing a bearded Armenian monk in a red-and-pink robe and a black-clad Greek Orthodox monk with a bloody gash on his forehead. Both men were taken away in handcuffs.
On Palm Sunday earlier this year, dozens of Greek and Armenian priests and worshippers exchanged blows at the very site and pummeled police with palm fronds when they tried to break up the brawl.
http://yudelstake.blogspot.com/2008/11/how-to-solve-meat-shortage.html
Till a few years back the OU certified Glatt and Non-Glatt as well. If the OU goes back to that same system ..... THE SHORTAGE IS SOLVED!
Not everyone needs, requires, etc Glatt meat. And we don't want to have the GLATT purveyors certifiers lowering their standards and calling it שעת הדחק
Arthur seems to have missed the Chazal that someone who has rachmonus on achzorim will end up being an achzar on rachmonim.
There may be SOME innocent victims in Postville, but you have to even question the rebbeim in the Postville cheder where two molesters were abusing the boys.
To: blogger imitating me:
Chris Rock who would have been the best choice for Chief of Hatchet. Laughs a minute.
What "spirit of bi-partisanship" is Rahm Emmenuval? It's a shame that Tony Blair didn't wring this little punks neck.
And train your sights on this developing story: Joe Lieberman has been asked by the Dem Leadership to give up his Chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee. Hey Joe, this is Democrat Bi-Partisan Gratitude for everything you have done for them? Your time with these low-lives is up. Listen to Mike McConnell and come over to us before they shove the Louima all the up your Hmm, Hmm, Hmm.
Bobby Joondal in 2012 and get Newt G. back in as RNC National Chairman, pronto.
anonymous 11:52 said
"Arthur seems to have missed the Chazal that someone who has rachmonus on achzorim will end up being an achzar on rachmonim."
I highly doubt that the shochtim,bodkim and mashgichim are "achzorim". My appeal was for them.Some say that they are at fault ,for they see the avles going on and have said nothing. I doubt that but even if it were true Chazal also say Al todin.....Many of these shochtim etc.have large families that they have to support and are afraid of losing their jobs. They are afraid to bite the hands that feed them.It's very easy for us to sit in judgment of these individuals.The illegals and the under aged certainly are aware of their own illegal actions and yet we all cry it's a rachmonus on them and we must help them financially and otherwise. We scream about the animal cruelty and tzar bal hachayim being perpetrated against the livestock. Is it to much to ask that we treat the shochtim etc. in the same manner that we ask the illegals and animals to be treated? Yes the Rubashkins have created a chillul Hashem.No question.
I know I will get a lot of flack for writing this but this is not a question of kashrus but of business ethics.The OU,Rav Weissmandel,Young Israel and even KAJ all conspired together to be machsir neveiles and treifus? And who is the source of most if not all of our information ? The infallible ,great,all knowing (I mean in size)one from Minneapolis.A lo yutzlech who was pulled out of the mud by Lubavitch but has been crusading against Chabad for years because the Lubavitcher Rebbe supposedly did not agree with his agenda.
A self admitting kofer bikkur who needs our pity, not our admiration,who is quoted so often on this blog and others,has become the posek Hador.What are we a bunch of Chelmer Chachomim to believe most of the nonsense he spouts without question and yet have accused Rabbomim from all sectors of Yiddishkiet of conspiracy?
http://www.newstimes.com/ci_10935551
(Israel) Dresner, who has been called the most-arrested rabbi in American history
Dresner grew up in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, N.Y. in the 1930s and '40s.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/11062008/news/regionalnews/scammer_is_a_100m_gal_137344.htm
The Upper West Side woman at the center of an alleged plot to scam millions from Fortune 500 firms has at least $100 million in personal assets, with $6.5 million of it liquid, prosecutors claimed in court papers yesterday.
There's also an art collection valued at $35 million and seven homes, one of them newly purchased - in Jerusalem.
Add that to her dozens of bank accounts and a missing, expired passport, and it adds up to a very substantial flight risk, according to the feds.
The astonishing wealth of Dina Wein-Reis, 44, had Indiana prosecutors arguing that she should be kept locked up until she can be transferred to the Hoosier State, where she'd been indicted on charges of bilking as much as $20 million from consumer-products companies.
But a Manhattan federal judge thought otherwise, and on Tuesday, sprung Wein-Reis - stunning the Indiana authorities.
In a "very unusual" move, Judge Shira Scheindlin reversed a colleague, who ordered last Thursday that Wein-Reis be detained until she was shipped to Indiana.
In the first ruling, Magistrate Judge Michael Dolinger said he didn't have "sufficient assurance" that bail would ensure Wein-Reis' return to face the charges.
But Scheindlin flipped the ruling on Tuesday - and let her go after relatives put up a $10 million bond and three homes.
Indiana prosecutors raced to file a motion to stay her release, and a judge there signed papers at around 5:30 p.m.
They got to Manhattan 15 minutes later, but Wein-Reis, who faces up to 17½ years in jail, was already out.
The Election Day move - conducted while the court was closed to the public - was described as "very peculiar" by a legal expert, who added that Scheindlin's actions were "very unusual."
"Since the case is from another jurisdiction, it would make sense for the entire matter to be brought to that jurisdiction and for the court there to make all the decisions," said the expert, a former prosecutor who teaches law.
"It's almost like [Scheindlin is] pre-empting the court and the prosecutors out there.
"[Scheindlin] is acting in contravention of what the Indiana prosecutors want and the Indiana judge wants, and that's not a good situation."
Wein-Reis showed up in Indy yesterday - arriving before dawn with her husband, David Reis. After a brief court appearance, at which she offered just two words - "Yes, sir" - as a judge read the charges, she was ordered to return today.
She's expected to argue that the New York decision should keep Indiana from locking her up.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/11062008/photos/new0s.jpg
Dina Wein-Reis, with hubby David Reis, looks carefree yesterday at the fed court in Indianapolis.
YTT RANSACKED:
Friday night, Yeshiva & Mesivta Torah Temimah was broken into and seriously vandalized. The yeshiva building, located at 555 Ocean Parkway in Kensington, Brooklyn, houses the pre-school, elementary school, and ninth and tenth grades of the mesivta. The perpetrators destroyed desks, smashed the windows in doors throughout the building, and overturned offices, wreaking havoc throughout the yeshiva building. Thankfully, the bais medrash building of the yeshiva, located down the block at the corner of Ocean Parkway and Ditmas Avenue, was not touched.
Detectives at the New York City Police Department are conducting an investigating into the vandalism. Sources say that this was not the first break-in in recent months. It is not clear who committed this heinous crime or what the motive may have been.
{Dovid Bernstein-Matzav.com Newscenter}
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122585552642900301.html
Market Is Softening, But Analysts Think Worst Is Yet to Come
By MAURA WEBBER SADOVI | SPECIAL TO THE WSJ
As more building owners feel the pinch of declining rents and falling values, brokers are now watching the horizon for a potential increase in foreclosures on office properties, though there has been no such rise yet, says J.C. Casillas, assistant vice president for Grubb & Ellis Co.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/06/nyregion/06budget.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&ref=nyregion&pagewanted=print
15% income tax increase
3% sales tax increase
7% property tax increase + cancelling the rebate
5 cents on every plastic bag at stores
And on top of all the budget cuts, less police & firefighters
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2008/11/08/2008-11-08_meatshop_mob_guy_will_never_loin-2.html
Saturday, November 8th 2008, 11:16 PM
Call these Bonanno gangsters a bunch of beef jerkies for getting caught on a government bug planted in a Staten Island meat market.
The feds are breaking the gangsters' chops over incriminating conversations picked up on the listening device that targeted recently deceased Bonanno soldier Joseph (Junior) Chilli, who was a fixture in Belfiore Meats on Victory Blvd. along with the sausage, chopped meat and steaks.
SEE: COURT CONVICTS BONANNO WISEGUY
"He [Chilli] sat in a chair right next to the Lotto machine in the front," a source told the Daily News. "The place was like his headquarters."
Investigators from the Queens district attorney's office, working a gambling case along with the feds, secretly placed a listening device next to the Lotto machine and another in the office of the butcher shop two years ago and let the wiseguys gab.
I don't mean to give Boog more heartburn but tax cheat Charlie Rangel is being kept on by Pelosi & Obama as the powerful head of the Ways & Means Committee to make sure Americans don't cheat on their taxes.
Regarding the first question if the laws of mesirah apply to a person who is a rodef, and pikuach nefesh is involved:
Issues of Pikuach Nefesh the laws of mesirah are inapplicable. The safety and security of the intended victim, as well as the wider community are at stake. Cases involving violent criminal activity and sexual abuse are matters of Pikuach Nefesh.
Furthermore, the Torah states explicitly regarding the issue of “Im Bamachteres” Jewish law permits self defense. One is not required to find out the intentions of the perpetrator. At the first sign of criminal activity (i.e. criminal trespass, etc.) one can assume the intent of the perpetrator, and need not ascertain if they have a weapon to cause bodily injury, the victim may kill the perpetrator in self defense. Similarly, one may take the required steps against a sexually deviant individual’s advances prior to knowing how far they intend to go.
Regarding the second question about mesirah on a person who doesn’t commit the crime itself, but hires, encourages or aids the commission of a violent or depraved crime:
The Torah allows no place in Yiddishkeit for such a person. The Torah discusses premeditated murder, and instructs that if the murderer is a Cohen, “From my mizbeiach you must remove him, and kill him”. There is zero tolerance for a person to hunt down another person for the commission of any violent or depraved act. The laws of mesirah do not apply to such a person.
One is permitted to inform the authorities in these cases of violent criminal activity because they are considered a menace to society. This applies even if this leads to criminal charges for other non-violent activities, (i.e. fraud, tax evasion, etc). There is no heter to ruin another business based on non-violent activities.
Now You Can Say It President-Elect Obama: So What If I Am a Muslim?
Bim Bama calls for additional 61 Billion stimulus package to be passed immediately by Nancy (The Pearl) Pelosi.
Package includes 15 Bill for Medicare and 3 Bill for Food stamps.
And a Bailout for inept GM/Chrysler.
Arthur,
Put a sock in it already. It's over! There will be no more chillul hashem emanating from Postville anyomore. As for the kashrus, all admit that Weissmandl was the only one in charge and that the OU (the KAJ also up until last year)were affixing their logo based on his say so. As for Weissmandl himself, he admitted to the WSJ that he had no control over the shipping and labeling. So the only "mashgiach" of the labeling was Sholom Rubashkin, bichvodo uvatzmo. If that was good enough for you, I hope you enjoyed the taaroves neveilos utreifos that you were fed. As for myself and other more discriminating kosher consumers, Rubashkin's say so and the crimes and chillul hashem that you yourself admit to, renders all their products unkosher.
As for Shmarya, stop attacking the messenger. His problem with Rubashkin was more the criminal activity than the actual kashrus issues. If he had anything to do with the downfall of Rubashkin, he has done all of us a tremendous service. The one who has been outspoken about the kashrus (or the tarfus) of Rubashkin was Rav Yudel Shain who has been protesting their lack of standards (not only the labeling issues, but a slew of other issues) for at least fifteen years now. Rav Yudel was also the only rabbi who spoke out against Finkel, eight years before that scandal was finally exposed. So, yes, once that den of horrors in Postville is officially padlocked, it will certainly be a cause for celebration for all Jewish people and all of humanity for that matter.
As for the shochtim and mashgichim, as in any business, you have to know what you're getting into and have to be aware of the status of your employer. When they were forced to sign that employment contract by Weissmandl which in effect muzzled them, they should have known right then and there that not everything was on the up and up with this company. If these shochtim are not meshichists and they are talented, they will certainly have no trouble finding gainful employment in the near future. Empire and other companies are looking to get into the meat business and there will be employment opportunities. In the meantime, they are not any worse off than the millions of Americans that are currently unemployed, victims of this depressed economy. The only difference is that in their case, they should have known better. And you, Arthur, should also know better. Let it go already.
President Barack Hussein-TELL ME HAVE WE GONE INSANE???
Don't blame Charlie (I got the Ways To Get My Means) Rangel. He claims innocence because the Real Estate leases were drawn in Spanish and no te comprende espanol.
BTW, in the spirit of Bim Bam and Rahm Emmenuvals call for bi-partisanship I propose that Senator Stevens of Alaska get a pass and retain his Senate seat.
Can't we (Goose and Gander)all get along?
… CHICAGO – President-elect Obama is putting hope on hold.
In two appearances since he was elected, Obama has emphasized the monumental challenges the country faces and warned against expectations that he will bring a quick fix. The change he promised on the campaign trail will come, he told an eager nation, but it will take some time.
If people want Kosher meat there are plenty of processors who would love to have the business. It wouldn't take long to send in the rabbis and get them up to speed. If there's a shortage after a couple months it's only because of a bottle-neck at the rabbinical end. If that's the case, and if it's OU in particular that is dragging its feet, it will be because of their relationship with Agri Processors.
And don't forget that existing processors seek to exclude Tyson and other big processors from entering the kosher meat business. That is also part of the bottleneck thanks to collaboration by the OU and other hashgochos on this end too.
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081106/NEWS02/811060462
Woman accused of fraud bilked Roche of $20M, lawsuit says
"No two sophisticated fraud schemes are exactly alike," said Tim Morrison, acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Indiana. "People's capacity to invent schemes" is pretty amazing.
Roche's suit says one of Wein-Reis' firms paid $1.7 million for products worth nearly $12 million in 2006. Another firm then offered to sell 90 percent of the haul to Walgreens for $4.6 million, prompting the drugstore chain to alert Roche.
Roche Diagnostics has about 2,700 employees, most of them on its large Northeastside campus. It specializes in making diagnostics kits for diabetes, HIV and other ailments.
The company, whose lawsuit cited $10 million in losses, resolved the case through a confidential settlement that barred a spokeswoman from commenting on its terms.
"That was a substantial amount of money as fraud cases go," said Wendy Baker-Stein, Roche's vice president of communication.
Prosecutors say Wein-Reis honed the scheme over eight years, but the Roche suit claimed her frauds began in the 1990s.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2008/11/05/2008-11-05_letters_of_support_pile_up_for_suspect_i-2.html
Letters of support pile up for suspect in charity scam
BY THOMAS ZAMBITO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Wednesday, November 5th 2008, 9:51 PM
Whitney Museum curator Barbara Haskell is the latest upper-crust pal of Dina Wein-Reis urging a judge to go easy on the mother of three, who's accused of swindling Fortune 500 companies.
"I have always regarded Dina as a person who cared about others," Haskell wrote in a letter to Manhattan Federal Judge Shira Scheindlin. "She certainly has cared about me. I am prepared to stand as a character witness should it be helpful to her."
Wein-Reis, 44, was indicted by federal prosecutors in Indiana last week on fraud charges. She and five others are accused of duping companies into selling them discounted items by claiming they'd be going to charities.
Instead, prosecutors say, the goods were resold for millions in profit.
Scheindlin agreed to release Wein-Reis late Tuesday after her lawyer brother Hershel Wein agreed to post a $10 million bond. She flew to Indiana, where she's scheduled to appear in court Friday.
"Our three boys - Joshua, 18; Jacob 14, and Joseph, 8 - are falling apart by the day," Wein-Reis' husband, David Reis, wrote Scheindlin. "Dina is a great woman; she has helped the sick, needy and less fortunate."
Haskell has been a Whitney curator since the mid-1970s and has written books and monologues on Joseph Stella, Georgia O'Keeffe and Charles Demuth.
Prosecutors are looking to seize dozens of paintings from Wein Reis' W. 75th St. mansion, including an Andy Warhol portrait of Truman Capote.
Wein-Reis' parents, Solomon and Vivian, appeared in court Wednesday to deliver property records to support the bond. Wein-Reis' lawyer John Meringolo urged reporters to respect the family's privacy.
I should add that only ones responsible for all the former Agri employees are the Rubashkins. Don't tell me that they're bankrupt. Morally bankrupt, yes, but not financially. They have money socked away somewhere in Switzerland or in the Cayman Islands. Just trace the money that Jacobowitz from Allou gave his buddy Sholom M. for "safekeeping", and you will find the bank where their fortune is hidden. The bankruptcy filing was just a way of getting out of paying legitimate creditors and forestalling a bank foreclosure. They want to stay in business and plead poverty at the same time so that the community should bail them out. Pathetic.
The only thing Twerski knows about art are a couple of finger paintings that Margo smuggled out of Romania.
http://www.deweyleboeuf.com/hershel_wein/
Hershel Wein
Partner
Hershel Wein's practice includes transactions involving the taxation of partnerships, real estate investment trusts and other pass-through entities, and advising financial institutions in structuring and implementing structured financing and derivatives transactions. He represents a number of large pension funds and other tax-exempt entities in their investment activities and has a vast experience representing both the sponsors of and investors in all types of private investment vehicles. He has advised clients with respect to numerous real estate transactions, corporate joint ventures, project finance transactions, partnership restructurings and workouts, and cross-border financings and investments.
Education
Columbia University Law School, 1985, J.D. City University of New York, Brooklyn College, 1981, B.S.
I didn't know Truman wore a kapote.
http://www.riverreporter.com/issues/08-11-06/head2-losses.html
Five seniors lose life savings
Monticello broker sued
By FRITZ MAYER
MONTICELLO, NY — Another lawsuit has been filed against Monticello broker Lloyd Barriger and other companies and individuals connected with the Gaffken-Barriger Fund.
A lawsuit filed on October 31 in federal court in White Plains alleges that Barriger and his associates committed fraud against five investors who live in the region or previously lived here. The total investments from the individuals is nearly $600,000 and, according to the complaint, those investments are now worthless. Attorney Ron Litchman, who has offices in Liberty and New York City, filed the complaint.
The Gaffken-Barriger Fund took money from investors and promised a return of at least eight percent. The fund also borrowed money from Textron Financial Corporation. In turn, the fund loaned money to commercial real estate developers and charged them much higher interest rates?about 16 percent. As the real estate market collapsed, the fund came into serious trouble.
Among the various charges contained in the complaint is one that alleges that fund managers “…held out to plaintiffs the fund was a safe, secure, liquid, fully collateralized and secured interest-paying investment; whereas, in fact, to the contrary, [the] defendants managed the fund as a highly-leveraged arbitraging enterprise....”
The complaint also alleges, “As a direct result of [the] defendants’ wrongful conduct, the plaintiffs, each of whom is retired or on the eve of their planned-for retirement, has lost all or most of their entire life savings.”
In a series of letters to investors through the period of 2005 through March 2008, when the fund was frozen and interest payments to investors were halted, according to the complaint, communications to investors indicated that the fund was in good shape and that there was no hint of trouble on the horizon.
In March 2008, when the fund was frozen, a letter from Barriger explained that the fund was caught up with the same financial woes that were sending shock waves through the financial industry. “While we do not make the following comparisons as an excuse, we point out that the fund shares the same problems as many on Wall Street have faced lately, such as Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, UBS, Lehman Brothers, Citibank, the State of Florida, local government investment pools and many leveraged real estate funds….”
The complaint alleges that the value of the investment of all five investors is now zero.
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2008/11/spencer_tunick_got_a_bunch_of.html
Spencer Tunick Got a Bunch of People Naked in Brooklyn the Other Night
Drudge Report News Flash:
NYT MONDAY: SECRET ORDER LETS U.S. RAID AL-QAIDA IN MANY COUNTRIES... Dozen previously undisclosed attacks against al-Qaida and other militants in Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere...Developing...
AIG reportedly near deal on new government bailout
Sunday November 9, 8:24 pm
WSJ says insurer AIG near pact on revised government bailout package to make terms easier
NEW YORK (AP) -- American International Group Inc. late Sunday was reportedly near a deal for a revised bailout package from the U.S. government that would make borrowing terms easier for the troubled insurer.
A proposed $123 billion bailout package would be replaced with a new $150 billion package, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Details of the arrangement could be announced as early as Monday, when AIG is scheduled to report its third-quarter results, the Journal said. The plan reportedly would replace an $85 billion two-year loan with a $60 billion five-year loan at a lower interest rate.
The government also reportedly would inject $40 billion into AIG in exchange for preferred stock.
AIG representatives were not immediately available for comment.
The government had earmarked $85 billion in September for AIG's rescue. Another $37.8 billion was made available in October.
Is this Wein_Reis related to the West Side Reis that was convicted several years ago for laundering Columbia cartel cocaina?
Whether or not the Rubashkins will be found guilty of any crimes, it's clear they're a bunch of sleazeballs who don't give a rat's patootie about their employees or the surrounding community. Why would I want to support them?
The OU / Agudah argument that Jews are entitled to kosher meat under the 1st amendment is a joke, and shame on lawyer Nat Lewin who advances it. All the 1A guarantees is that the federal government can't prevent me from producing or eating kosher meat just b/c it's kosher; but if my plant doesn't meet federal requirements for all employers generally and the meat industry in particular, then the feds can shut me down. The 1A isn't a shield against illegal behavior.
I believe Rav Pam ztl once said that people should worry about being Glatt Yosher more than about being Glatt Kosher.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/06/AR2008110603828_pf.html
Jewish Law's Meaning of Death Nears Court Fight
Parents Reject Doctors' Stand On Boy With Brain Tumor
By Theola Labbé-DeBose, David Brown and Keith L. Alexander
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, November 7, 2008; B01
The struggle between Children's National Medical Center and the parents of a 12-year-old boy with brain cancer yesterday drew national attention and once again brought to the forefront the emotional debate over the meaning of life and death.
Yesterday, Motl Brody remained in a bed in the Northwest Washington hospital's intensive-care unit while lawyers prepared for a D.C. Superior Court hearing Monday to determine whether doctors can take him off life-sustaining equipment.
In court papers, the hospital says treating him is "offensive to good medical ethics" because, unlike the highly publicized cases of Terri Schiavo and Karen Ann Quinlan, the boy has no brain activity. His parents, Orthodox Jews from Brooklyn, say their faith does not define death in that way, and they reject the hospital's pronouncements that their son has been dead since Tuesday.
The hospital received nearly 200 e-mails and phone calls yesterday, mostly from New York residents, pleading to keep the youth on the ventilator and the intravenous drugs that are powering his respiratory and circulatory systems. Yet the Brody case is far different from that of either Schiavo or Quinlan, women who lived for years in vegetative states while courts considered their fates.
Schiavo died in 2005 after being comatose for 15 years. Quinlan died in 1985 after 10 years in a coma. Despite being profoundly brain damaged, however, both were able to control such functions as breathing and maintenance of blood pressure and blood volume.
Those activities are controlled by the brainstem, which connects the spinal cord to the brain. Doctors at Children's performed various tests on Motl to see whether that structure is working.
The tests included briefly removing the boy from the ventilator. Normally, the brainstem stimulates breathing, even if the efforts are inadequate, as carbon dioxide builds up in the blood. But according to papers filed by the hospital in Superior Court, the child made no respiratory efforts even when his carbon dioxide was double the normal concentration.
Doctors are also giving the boy intravenous drugs to keep up his blood pressure, action that is also controlled by unconscious, primitive parts of the brain.
John Votto, president of the Hospital for Special Care in New Britain, Conn., said that based on the description in the court filing, the boy appears to be too ill to ever be moved out of an intensive-care unit.
"This would not be an appropriate patient to place in a long-term care facility," said Votto, who is also a doctor and lung specialist. "We wouldn't take this child, because there really would not be a chance for long-term improvement," he added.
According to experts in Orthodox Jewish law, there is no consensus within the faith on the definition of death. However, some Orthodox Jews reject the lack of brain activity as a certainty that life has ended, said Edward Reichman, a rabbi, doctor and professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University.
Children's wants the court to uphold its position that it can disconnect the equipment, even over the parents' objections, because the boy's brain does not show any more signs of activity. Under D.C. law, doctors can declare patients dead if there is no brain activity.
The hospital said it was unable to find another medical facility that would take the boy. Cost of care is not their chief concern, hospital attorneys stated in legal papers. They noted that Children's has 32 beds in its intensive-care unit, with all but 12 in use. By keeping the boy there, the hospital is putting other children at risk, the attorneys said, adding, "While our thoughts and prayers are with the family in this hour, we cannot continue to provide the resources they are demanding."
The parents, Eluzer and Miriam Brody, have enlisted the help of Jeffrey I. Zuckerman, a lawyer with the firm of Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle, who took on the case for free. Yesterday, he filed court papers saying that the family's position on death is supported by their rabbi, Chaim Jacob Tauber, chief rabbinical judge of the Bobov Hasidic community in Brooklyn.
The parents have declined to comment. Motl's maternal uncle, Yitzchak Halberstam, speaking by phone yesterday from his New Jersey home, shared some personal details about the boy at the center of the emotional dispute.
Motl's name is the shortened version of Mordechai, a cousin of Queen Esther's in the Old Testament. He is the third-oldest of seven siblings. He talked about studying to become a rabbi -- like his father -- and his favorite book in the Bible is Psalms. He often wrote Hebrew poems that he performed at family gatherings, singing in his soprano voice. He had been looking forward to his bar mitzvah and learned many of the prayers.
The boy became ill six months ago and was found to have an aggressive brain tumor. He underwent surgery and other treatment in hopes of prolonging his life. Halberstam said his sister and brother-in-law have faithfully remained at their son's hospital bedside.
"This has been a very traumatic time for both of his parents," Halberstam said. "We all want him to live his natural life and not have it terminated prematurely."
Reichman, the rabbi and doctor at Albert Einstein College, said that in Orthodox Jewish law, death is defined as the moment when the soul leaves the body. "Obviously, no physician or human being is capable of determining when that happens, so we have to have a medical definition," he said.
And that's where the debate begins, he said. Some Orthodox Jews base the definition on brain activity, while others base it on a heartbeat.
As Reichman put it: "The child may not be conscious, may not be interactive, but that doesn't mean that in the eyes of Jewish law, the value of that life is any less."
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1225715342174&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Nov. 4, 2008
Judy Siegel-Itzkovich , THE JERUSALEM POST
The Knesset Children's Rights Committee heard serious complaints by Israel Neonatology Society doctors on Tuesday about seriously inadequate manpower in the country's neonatal units, which has resulted in relatively high mortality rates among premature babies, the smallest of whom weigh only a few hundred grams.
The society, headed by Prof. Michael Schimmel of Shaare Zedek Medical Center's neonatology department, said that today, the average neonatology unit nurse takes care or five or six - and even eight - tiny babies at a time instead of the four infants recommended by a committee of experts.
The experts also recommend a ratio of one nurse to 1.5 babies in the neonatal intensive care units, but the average rate in Israel is also higher. He was backed up by Dr. Yitzhak Kadman, head of the Israel Council for the Child, in his complaints.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hw2kDqvbHeD2R_b3XvAw6kywW81gD94B4UR00
Motl's mother and father, Eluzer and Miriam Brody, haven't been to the hospital since July. The medical center says its requests to speak directly with them have been rebuffed, and in recent days, hospital employees "have been inundated with harassing and threatening calls" regarding the case.
A substantial delay in resolving the disagreement may render it moot. The hospital suggested in legal filings that the boy's remaining body functions will cease within weeks, if not days.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1225910056606&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter
As the financial crisis continues, haredim tighten their belts
Nov. 6, 2008
Abe Selig , THE JERUSALEM POST
On a recent Wednesday night in Romema, a traditionally big night for grocery shopping in one of Jerusalem's up-and-coming haredi neighborhoods, shopping carts inside the local supermarket were filled to the brim.
Bamba, Bisli, and cardboard cases of RC Cola were among the more popular items, along with bulk packages of sugar, flour and rolls of paper towels.
As men in black hats and modestly clad women made their way through the aisles, crossing off items from their lists and scanning the shelves for bargains, it was hard to tell that the haredi community was in the middle of a financial crisis.
But, hit hard by the global economic meltdown, members of the haredi world say they're feeling the crunch.
The High Holy Day season - from Rosh Hashana to the end of Succot - is usually a time when large donations arrive from abroad, but the recent holiday season, tainted by the nosedive on Wall Street, proved less than satisfactory.
That, combined with uncertainties over the places of Shas and United Torah Judaism in a future government, has the haredi world low on cash and worried about the future.
"We're definitely cutting back," one haredi woman told The Jerusalem Post. "Every year I buy my kids new clothes before Succot, and this year we decided that was an unnecessary expense."
The woman, who preferred to remain anonymous, said she wasn't surprised that grocery shopping had yet to be affected by the pinch, but that overall, members of the haredi community were monitoring their expenses and cutting back on things that weren't essential.
"We're still going to eat," she said. "Of course I'm going to buy my kids snacks and the food they like, but fancy things that we don't absolutely need - those aren't coming into the picture right now. But it's also not such a huge shift - the haredi community is one that already lives modestly, so out of all the different groups, I think we know how to cut back quite effectively."
Still, others said the financial situation was worse than some were letting on.
"Look around," Yaakov, a haredi man, said as he browsed the aisles on Wednesday night. "This used to be the biggest night of the week for groceries - you had to stand in line outside just for a shopping cart. But now look: It's relatively empty compared to what used to go on here. If that's not a good indication of the current situation, I don't know what is. People are cutting back, they're buying less, and they're relying more on others."
A staple of the haredi world, the gimilut hasadim (good works) or G'mach organizations - which provide families with a number of free or discounted services in times of need - concurred. Many G'machim are bearing the brunt of the current economic atmosphere, and some say they're struggling to meet demands.
"With the increase in the price of food and an increase in requests, we're finding it almost impossible to keep up," a spokesman from Yad Eliezer, one of Israel's largest G'mach organizations, said. "We've had requests for shoes, heaters, books, you name it. We're working very hard, and we've even had to cut back in some areas, but we're still raising some money," he said. "We just have to work harder."
Other G'machim gave similar accounts. "We've had two requests this month for tefillin for bar mitzvas," one G'mach spokesman said. "That is not common at all, and I expect there to be more requests for other expenses as well. People are feeling the crisis in the haredi world - we're all tightening our belts."
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1225910056659&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter
Economic pressures are forcing haredi men into the working world
Nov. 6, 2008
Matthew Wagner , THE JERUSALEM POST
Tuvia, 20, is working the night-shift this week at Teva Pharmaceuticals. While many of his peers are in the middle of three years of mandatory army service, Tuvia operates a drug-packaging machine to make ends meet.
"Right after I got married I knew I had to find a job," said Tuvia. "I did not want to wind up like my brother who fell into $40,000 debt. My mother-in-law didn't like the idea. She threatened to stop paying our rent if I went out and got a job. But I was determined."
Tuvia, a Breslav Hassid from Mea She'arim, is one of a growing number of young haredi men who are leaving the yeshiva world earlier due to economic pressures.
"Even if I received it every month on time - which I didn't - the stipend I was getting from the kollel was not enough to raise a family," he explained. "Besides, I was paid in dollars. So what I took home became worth less and less in shekels terms."
Tuvia's main obstacle to joining the labor market was the army. In a country with mandatory conscription, all healthy males aged 18 are expected to enlist for three years.
Haredim, some of whom are opposed to army service for a variety of religious and ideological reasons, are permitted to postpone service as long as they devote themselves to fulltime Torah studies in one of dozens of Kollelim [study halls for married men] located in haredi neighborhoods. But as soon as they abandon Torah study, haredi males become candidates for enlistment.
"I told the IDF psychologist that I hate Arabs and want to kill them," he said. Tuvia said that his interview took place shortly after Eden Natan Zada, 19, killed four and wounded a dozen in a shooting attack on a bus full of Israeli Arabs in Shfaram in August, 2005. "They did not want to take any chances with me," said Tuvia.
The financial crisis which has rocked the world has the donor-dependent yeshiva world reeling. Jewish businessmen in the US, Britain and elsewhere are either unwilling or unable to provide as much philanthropic support as in the past to the dozens of Israeli kollelim that pay Torah scholars to learn.
This week, leaders of Israel's largest kollelim held an emergency meeting to discuss what they called a crisis of catastrophic dimensions.
"Fund-raisers who regularly travel to the US and receive donations of tens of thousands of dollars are barely able to cover their air fare," said Rabbi Ya'acov Segal, who is spearheading a special fundraising campaign to bail out cash-strapped study halls.
"This month kollel heads were forced to take out loans to pay monthly stipends. Next month I don't know what is going to happen."
Segal, director-general of the haredi Eitz Hada'at school system, said that he has taken leave from his work to devote all his energies to salvaging the yeshiva world from imminent financial collapse.
The message being sent out by Segal and the rabbis he represents to wealthy American Jews is that there is a symbiotic relationship between those who learn Torah and those who make money.
"All the heavenly merits accrued by a Torah scholar who sits and learns go to the wealthy man that supports him," said Segal.
"Rabbi Haim Kanyevsky [a Bnei Brak-based spiritual leader] promised that anyone who gives generously to supporting the yeshiva world will not hurt by the financial crisis," added Segal, who said that all the major Israeli rabbis are praying for Jewish donors.
Segal estimated that the economic collapse would not force the hardcore of "about 32,000" Torah scholars who learn in kollelim to abandon their studies and join the workforce. But he admitted that many students who were planning to get a job at some point in the future would cut short their kollel stint.
Chaim Guggenheim, Business Development Manager at the Jerusalem branch of Manpower Bereshit, a subsidiary of the international placement company that specializes in the haredi market, expects a rise in haredim men and women looking for jobs.
"We are definitely going to see a rise in haredi job seekers as the US financial crisis affects the haredi society as a whole and haredi philanthropy in particular. This is a process that we already witness," he said.
In September and October 2008, a total of 478 haredi men and women registered in one of Manpower Bereshit's Bnei Brak, Jerusalem, El Ad and Haifa offices, up from 305 in the same period last year.
Tzvi Holtzer, head of the Employment Service office in Bnei Brak, one of the nation's largest haredi towns with a population of 150,000, said that in September there were a total of 3,100 job seekers compared to 2,800 in August.
Part of the rise is a result of more haredi women looking for work after the children go back to school. But Holtzer said that the financial crisis hitting the yeshiva world was also a major factor.
"I hear people talking about their economic difficulties," said Holtzer. "And there is an increase in the demand for job-search training courses that we offer."
Even before the present global financial crisis there has been a steady rise in the number of haredi men who have joined the workforce.
According to Central Bureau of Statistics figures, for the first time in at least a decade there are more haredi men working than haredi women. Fifty three percent of haredi men between 20 and 54 are officially a part of the labor market, compared to 51% of haredi women.
This is still much lower than the percentage of secular Israelis in the same age group (93% men, 86% women), but higher than the 2002 level of 42% for men.
Some haredi sources claim that there has not been a rise in the number of haredi men who work, but rather that there are now more haredi men who left the black market and are now legitimately employed.
"More haredim want social benefits and fewer are hiding from the IDF. So it makes no sense to get paid under the table," said the source.
Guggenheim said that recently Manpower Bereshit organized six focus groups in major haredi towns to learn more about haredi employment.
"We discovered just how difficult the decision is for a haredi man to work. They have been taught their whole lives that Torah study is the most important thing that a man can do. When they finally do decide to leave the yeshiva world, they often have unrealistic expectations. Everyone wants to start in a managerial position, everyone expects to receive a company car and everyone expects to rake in the cash."
However, the vast majority of haredi men lack professional skills, and most haredi men and women get their first job in customer service, says Guggenheim. Insurance, telecommunications and banks are all willing to hire haredim.
Guggenheim estimates that these fields will also be less affected by an economic slowdown.
Back at Teva, Tuvia admits that he is not crazy about his work there. "But it is better than living in poverty and debt," he says. "I prefer operating a machine to that any day."
http://chabad.info/index_old.php?url=article_en&id=12823
Agriprocessors, Inc., has filed for bankruptcy
Citra
i dont understand how the rebbe mhm is allowing this to happen. ad mosay
http://www.rightpundits.com/?p=2326
Watch the video.
U.S. Army soldier discharged over beating of Jewish trainee
By The Associated Press
The Army has kicked out a soldier for beating a Jewish trainee who complained about religious harassment in their basic training unit, a spokesman said Monday.
Citing federal privacy laws, the Army had previously refused to discuss how it punished the attacker of Pvt. Michael Handman, 20, other than to say the case had been handled as an administrative matter rather than as a crime.
That changed after the southeast director of the Anti-Defamation League met officials Friday. Col. Charles Durr, chief of staff at Georgia's Fort Benning, told the ADL's Bill Nigut the assailant had been discharged.
The soldier that was punished for the assault on Pvt. Handman has been processed for discharge from the Army, Fort Benning spokesman Bob Purtiman confirmed Monday.
http://www.greenwichtime.com/ci_10862628
Jonathan Greenstein, founder of the J. Greenstein & Co. Auction House.
The J. Greenstein & Co. Auction House has a religious following.
"We don't do art or furniture. ... We are the only auction house specially devoted to antique Judaica. Sotheby's has had antique Judaica but they do not have a department devoted to it," says Jonathan Greenstein, the New York City firm's founder.
Greenstein says his clients hail from around the country. "I have a ton of clients in Greenwich, the Upper West Side of Manhattan and California ... wherever there are Jews of means, they're our clients."
The 41-year-old Greenstein began collecting as a teen. "At 14 years of age, I was thrown out of Yeshiva High School because I was a bad kid. I had to go to public school and my father wanted me to get a job ..." So he landed a job at a shop "in a predominately Jewish neighborhood in the late '80s when silver was $500 an ounce and every little old Jewish lady was bringing her Kiddush cup in."
He was intrigued by the intricate designs, the history, and, of course, the great deals. "Besides, it was better than going to OTB with my father. I was going to flea markets like a nerd."
He started buying antique ritual Jewish art. His involvement in auctions was the result "of a hip branch of Judiasm asking me to do an antique auction for them. I raised a lot of money selling antique Judaica from collector friends and dealer friends. It was such a success, I said, 'Great; let me turn this into a business.' This will be our eighth auction.
"I do them twice a year and we sell $750,000 to $1 million in items," Greenstein says of his sales, which on Nov. 10 will be held at the Radisson Martinique Hotel in New York City.
Among the highlights of the auction, according to Greenstein, are "a megillah, a scroll that we read on the holiday of Purim that was made in Poland in 1840 that should sell for about $75,000; a silver spice tower that was made in Halberstadt in 1720, which also should sell for $75,000; and we have pieces from a major collection from the Janger family which includes a Hanukkah lamp from 1780 that was made in Poland that should sell for about $100,000."
When he's not organizing semi-annual auctions, Greenstein gives lectures at congregations and museums where members are encouraged to bring in Judaica for evaluation.
Greenstein says he maintains a small portion of the collection he amassed as a teen but doesn't buy any more. "I felt that I didn't want to compete with my clientele."
He cautions that with today's technology, buyers of ritualistic art should be wary of reproduction fakes and forgeries produced overseas. "That's why you go with an expert ... It's an unfortunate reality of the antiques markets."
The Judaica can be viewed at www.jgreenstein.com, where catalogs also can be ordered.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/07222008/gossip/pagesix/back_on_track_120976.htm
July 22, 2008 --
THE romance between Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner is back on. The handsome couple split in April after a year of dating. Some say Kushner, whose Jewish family is Orthodox, was catching flak for dating a shiksa. But the two have reconciled with the plan that if things get really serious, Ivanka will convert to Judaism before they marry. "It's a possibility, but that's way down the line," a friend of Ivanka told us. "For now, they're back together and very happy." Kushner, whose father made a pile in real estate before buying The New York Observer, made up for lost time by taking Ivanka to see "The Dark Knight" on Sunday.
Boog,
The Reis from the Upper West Side is a Columbian ger formerly known as Ruiz.
Circuit City files for Chapter 11 protection, will stay open
America's second-biggest electronics retailer, filed for bankruptcy protection Monday, but said it will stay open for business as the holidays approach.
It filed under Chapter 11 of the bankruptcy code, which will allow it to hold off creditors and continue operating while it develops a financial reorganization plan.
The retailer, based in Richomond, Va., has been struggling as nervous consumers spend less and credit has become tighter. The announcement came a week after it said it would close 20% of its stores and lay off thousands of employees.
The company said it decided to file because it was facing pressure from vendors who threatened to withhold products during the busy holiday shopping season.
Circuit City said it has secured $1.1 billion in loans to provide working capital while it is in bankruptcy.
The word around town is that the vandals at YTT erased all the files on the computers.
Applegrad is going to get clobbered if he didn't have a backup.
"The word around town is that the vandals at YTT erased all the files on the computers."
*
This was an inside job - designed by Margo to make certain that the IRS and the police can't get their hands on the criminal activities evidence that was an integral part of TT's operations - There were no "vandals".
Interesting that he went to the police - Belsky and Epstein were more than willing to convene a bais din to investigate these crimes.
Figures that Margo would arrange the cover up on Shabbos.
Molesting leads to chilul Shabbos.
I hope Margo figured out a way to frame Feivy, Ben and Eli Greenwald.
Hard drives can be restored.
Misnagid:
It's a davar poshut --- the buffoon thinks he can outsmart the Feds!
New York - The Chutzpa of Hope - And Why Klal Yisroel Needs Its Own Obama
Published on: November 10th, 2008 at 08:24 AM
News Source: Editorial By the Chief Editor Of VIN News
New York - The dust hasn’t even begun settling, but the pundits are already dissecting why Barack Obama won the election. Was it the man or the machine? The method or the magic? The movement or the myth?
Much of the comment dwells on the once-in-a-generation avalanche of altruism triggered and repeatedly stoked by a silver-tongued, ferociously gifted young Senator from Chicago by way of Hawaii and Indonesia .
Barack roused America ’s youth, they say. And he did. He also galvanized a fractious left, a dispirited party and a demoralized minority.
They talk about what he did. We’d like to talk about what he is. But first, where he did it: America , only America .
Only in America can a child of two races and three cultures scale the towers of commerce and academia. Only in America can a son of a Kenyan goat herder rise to become her captain. Only in America can anyone become anything if they will it.
Yet relentless will alone leads not to America ’s greatest treasures. Men as ruthless as they were relentless died as bloodily as they lived. Our Creator forged a universe rigged to counteract like with like, such that the fruits of pride, greed, lust, cynicism and falsity are short-lived in their sweetness and exact too high a toll on those who surround such hearts.
This same universe, when prodded by that same will but coupled with a sincere heart and honest mind, counteracts with blessings of astounding amplitude.
The physics of this spiritual mechanism are nowhere more readily evidenced than in the life of America ’s President-elect, Barack Hussein Obama.
Here is the rare man who genuinely seeks friendship with every human being. Here is the product of a broken home, a boy with every reason to hate the world becoming the man who now leads the world. For here is not just relentless will. Here is relentless will coupled with infinite optimism, unimpeachable confidence and courage and, above all, a brazen, clinging faith in the power of hope—plus a Harvard law degree, a continuing career in public service, a beautiful family, and shortly, the Oval Office. All achieved with nary a negative thing.
Whatever the opposite of “recipe for disaster” is, it surely lives in the heart of Barack Obama.
But where is our Barack Obama? Surely if a Barack Obama could go so far on the audacity of hope, so can any ordinary Jew. We ask: Should not we be fired by the chutzpa of hope?
Should we not tap into the power of positive thinking, of love, of giving, of embracing, rather than negative thinking, hate, restriction and rejection, when it comes to meeting the problems of our community?
Do we not believe that our Torah way of life is a beautiful, healthy and positive thing? Do our lives evince this belief? Or are we weighted down by cynicism and bitterness?
In leading our Torah lives and addressing the problems in our Torah communities, it the Obama campaign of all things, with its seemingly naïve refrain “Yes we can!”, that conveys Hashem’s mussar haskel that it’s high time for a change in attitude.
We are beset by at-risk teens, crumbling families and concomitant abuses, and worse. But our typically negative responses—laughable bans and ineffective if not outright ridiculous kol korehs—have only exacerbated the symptoms, not counteracted the causes.
So, out with the old attitude, in with the new "Yes We Can".
We need to go positive, go optimistic, go confident, and then to just go. We need to start embracing our dropouts. We need to show them, our families and ourselves that Yiddishkeit means love.
And we need someone positive, optimistic, and confident to lead us in doing so.
Someone to get up and say we need change—positive, optimistic and healthy change. Someone to speak the truth. And it doesn’t matter who. He doesn’t need to be a Rosh Yeshivah. He doesn’t need to be a Rebbe. He doesn’t need to be a Gadol.
He just needs to be one thing: a frum Barack Obama.
Whoever he may be—and whether he shows up at all—remains to be seen. In the interim, one thing is for sure: each of us has an inner Barack Obama—a wellspring of hope that can never run dry.
There’s a time in our lives, individually and collectively, to tap into that wellspring. We can—yes, we can—tap into that wellspring. We must. And that time is now.
Boog:
Welcome home - we missed you!
The main genaiveshe computers were removed from YTT - right after the Herman lawsuit!
The other computers that remained were doctored with phony information - to mislead and and send the Feds and the police on wild goose chases.
Margo's group missed some very important and incriminating evidence!
Kool aid drinking freind of Arthur said
"i dont understand how the rebbe mhm is allowing this to happen. ad mosay"
I assume that that your above post is intended to be humorous.It definitely isn't.The blog site you got it from and the your quote are tragedies.The chilul Hashem precipitaded by the entire Agri story is a tragedy.The employees Jewish and otherwise at Agri that have't been paid in weeks is a tragedy.The prices that all of us will have to pay for meat as a result of this mess is a tragedy.Last but not least of the tragedies is the callouseness towards this entire episode shown by idiots like you.May Hashem grant you a refuah shleimo bekorov.
Boog,
I know hard drives can be restored, that's why my computer hard drives were completely destroyed before FBI agents took them for the Whitewater & Craig Livingston scandals.
As I have said repeatedly - there are so many healthy options for the kosher consumer!
Poultry, fish, fruit, vegetables, some dairy products, the legumes family....Why people think they can't live without meat, is beyond my comprehension. In addition, it will add years to your life.
"The other computers that remained were doctored with phony information - to mislead and and send the Feds and the police on wild goose chases."
The police would have to have a warrant to seize the computers. Why was this not reported in the press?
UOJ is just trying to put Chevrah Chazerim out of business. He knows if there's no meat carving stations, the fressers have no reason to go away for Pesach!
Thanks, UOJ.
BTW, Hillary, your advisor back in the White House, Jim what's his name. How did he really wind up dead in the park?
Letter to the Edtior
Sad Statistics
The Southampton Press - November 6, 2008
http://74.205.125.148/Default/Skins/SouthamptonEast/Client.asp?Skin=SouthamptonEast&Daily=SPE&AW=1226338207250&AppName=1
I personally want to thank Jessica DiNapoli for writing the story about Edward Tellez, who was charged with third-degree sexual abuse ["Authorities Arrest Gymnastic Coach, October 30].
Those who molest children are often attracted to careers in which they can have easy access to those they prey upon. All too often we only hear stories of Catholic priests who molest. The reality is that only 2 percent of clergy (of all faiths) molest. Recent research suggests that 42 percent of all reported cases involve incest. The remaining 64 percent are perpetrated by teachers, babysitters, doctors, therapists, Boy/Girl Scout leaders, camp counselors and coaches -- like in the case of Edward Tellez.
We all need to do our best to protect our children and help those who have already been victimized. The majority of those who were sexually violated as children are unaware of how the offenses affected their lives until they have lived them. The majority of survivors don't come forward until theya re in their 40s, 50s or beyond.
Please help us learn the names of those who abused children in the past by getting involved with upcoming legislation that will allow a civil window, allowing those who have been abused the opportunity to file a civil suit against their offenders. Please contact Joseph P. Byrnes, New York City Metro Chair of SNAP (Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests), at jospbyrnes@optonline.net
Vicki Polin
Founder and CEO
(The International Jewish Coalition Against Sexual Abuse/Assault)
Baltimore, Maryland
Greenspan: Clearly in Severe Recession
Friday, November 7, 2008
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Friday there is no doubt the world economy is in a very severe recession and that U.S. gross domestic product will decline significantly in the last three months of the year.
Speaking at a business lunch in Toronto, Greenspan said the economy is not quite in a free fall but something close to it.
"That we are in a recession, very severe, there's no question," Greenspan said. "Gross domestic product in the United States in the fourth quarter is going to be down significantly."
The former Fed chairman said early data for October show the GDP in a severe contraction that could top a 3 percent annual rate of decline.
"We know we are going down and there's very little we can do about that," Greenspan said.
U.S. home prices and stock prices are critical, he noted. Housing values might have another 5 to 10 percent to decline before they bottom, which could come sometime in the first half of next year, he said.
"It's important to recognize we are not in quite a free fall but something close to it," Greenspan said. "This economy, and indeed the world economy, has tilted over and is moving down fairly aggressively, pretty much across the board."
Greenspan, who was the head of the U.S. central bank for 18 1/2 years before stepping down in 2006, said stock prices are important because higher prices increase equity and improve balance sheets.
"If the value of equity goes up, that amount of capital is available to be disbursed most any where," he said. "Stock prices tend to lead to recovery. There comes a point where the market gets exhausted on the downside and that to me is going to be a very critical variable as to when we actually turn it around. There's no way of preventing what's going on now. That was caused by the shock of the financial system a couple of months ago."
Greenspan, 82, described it as a once-in-a-century event.
He said the current pattern has all the characteristics of a market bottom.
"All bottoms look like what we're looking at now, but it doesn't follow that this bottom always leads to a recovery," he said. "It may just be another stage before you go down again, and I'm not going to forecast where we are going because I frankly don't have a clue."
In his testimony before the U.S. House Oversight Committee last month, Greenspan acknowledged that the crisis has exposed flaws in his thinking and in the workings of the free-market system.
He said then that his belief that banks would be more prudent in their lending practices because of the need to protect their stockholders had been proven wrong by the current crisis. He called this a "mistake" in his views and said he had been shocked by that.
Since Ivana Trump is rich, I'll bet Tropper will be falling all over himself to "convert" her regardless of how modern or questionable her observance will be. Too bad he doesn't have the same enthusiasm for real people who actually care about Jews and Judaism.
Goldman, Citi Caught in the Vortex as Financial Follies Resume
Posted Nov 10, 2008 12:46pm EST by Aaron Task
Lost in the early-morning excitement of overseas gains following China's big stimulus was another round of grim news from the financial sector, including:
The government's revised bailout package for AIG. The news gave AIG shares a boost but points to the firm's ongoing vulnerability, as evinced by AIG's huge loss and "going concern" warning in its SEC filing Monday.
Fannie Mae's $29 billion loss and HSBC setting aside $4.3 billion in loan losses reserves.
Weakness in smaller names like Allied Capital, which posted a $318 million loss, and American Capital, which posted a loss and suspended its dividend, as Marketwatch reports.
Meanwhile, shares of Goldman Sachs continue to tumble amid rumors the firm will issue another secondary offering of stocks, just six weeks after Warren Buffett took a big (and dilutive) stake in the firm.
Goldman continues to be buffeted by losses at its internal hedge funds and additional rumors it may consider going private again, or closing its proprietary trading desk, a once hugely profitable unit.
Citigroup shares also slipped further Monday following a WSJ report the bank is seeking an acquisition, most likely a large regional bank. As Henry and I discuss in the accompanying video, Citi is not pursuing deals from a position of strength, but rather as an ongoing effort to short up its deposit base as it faces continued losses.
How is pinchus doing? I heard he was rushed to the hospital, and is not well.
By GEORGE FREY | AP Business Writer
10:25 AM EST, November 10, 2008
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) _ Deutsche Post AG will close all of its DHL Express service centers in the U.S., cut 9,500 jobs there and eliminate U.S.-only domestic express shipping by land and air, the company said Monday, citing heavy losses and fierce competition.
The Bonn-based company said the new round of cuts are on top of another 5,400 job cuts it already announced and blamed heavy losses at the unit, which competes with rivals UPS Inc. and FedEx Corp.
We are curing him with 48 inch enemas
hey doctor, can you fill those enemas with "drain-o".
UOJ - on a completely unrelated note, some months ago you asked for prayers for an 11 month old child who was in a coma. Do you know what ever happened with the child? Thanks.
It began with Moshe Sherer's brand of narcissism. Sherer understood too well - you did not need substance to succeed in the political arena. He was the prime example of that --- the Elvis --- the king of bling!
The tragedy of Elvis Presley was not that he had no substance. He had loads of talent but it was tragically wasted, first by his myopic manager Col. Parker making deals with RCA and later movie studios, and then by his own sloth and hedonist desires. The sides he recorded for Sam Phillips at Sun Records are about as vital as rock n' roll can get. Young Elvis had a great tenor voice and pretty good taste in music when left to his own devices.
If you want to see what Elvis could do when he put it all on the line, check out his "comeback" concert from 1968. "Modern" rock of the 1960s, the Beatles, Stones, Dylan, Byrds, etc. had made a lot of 1950s artists seem dated and irrelevant and Elvis had to prove that he still had it and didn't just belong on oldies stations.
Elvis has entered the building.
Ahavah:
The child is with his Creator. Boruch Dayan Ha'emet!
Your concern reflects on the quality person you must be.
Just in case some of you young whippersnappers (& some older ones)
didn't know this. It's easy to check out, if you don't believe it. Be sure and show it to your kids. They need a little history lesson on what's what and it doesn't matter whether you are Democrat of Republican. Facts are Facts!!!
Our Social Security
Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat, introduced the Social Security (FICA) Program. He promised:
1.) That participation in the Program would be Completely voluntary,
2.) That the participants would only have to pay 1% of the first $1,400 of their annual Incomes into the Program,
3.) That the money participants elected to put into the Program would be deductible from their income for tax purposes each year,
4.) That the money participants put into the independent "Trust Fund" rather than into the general operating fund, and therefore, would only be used to fund the Social Security Retirement Program, and no other Government program, and,
5.) That the annuity payments to the retirees would never be taxed as income.
Since many of us have paid into FICA for years and are now receiving a Social Security check every month -- and then finding that we are getting taxed on 85% of
the money we paid to the Federal government to "put away" -- you may be interested in the following:
Q: Which Political Party took Social Security from the independent "Trust Fund" and put it into the general fund so that Congress could spend it?
A: It was Lyndon Johnson and the democratically controlled House and Senate.
Q: Which Political Party eliminated the income tax deduction for Social Security (FICA) withholding?
A: The Democratic Party.
Q: Which Political Party started taxing Social Security annuities?
A: The Democratic Party, with Al Gore casting the "tie-breaking" deciding vote as President of the
Senate, while he was VP
Q: Which Political Party decided to start giving annuity payments to immigrants?
MY FAVORITE:
A: That's right!
Jimmy Carter and the Democratic Party.
Immigrants moved to this country, and at age 65, began to receive Social Security payments! The
Democratic Party gave these payments to them, even though they never paid a dime into it!
Then, after violating the original contract (FICA), the Democrats turn
around and tell you that the Republicans want to take your Social Security away!
And the worst part about it is uninformed citizens believe it!
If enough people receive this, maybe a seed of awareness will be planted and maybe changes will
evolve. Maybe not, some Democrats are awfully sure of what isn't so.
But it's worth a try. How many people can YOU send this to?
Actions speak louder than bumper stickers.
AND CONGRESS GIVES THEMSELVES 100% RETIREMENT FOR ONLY SERVING ONE TERM!!!
A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong
enough to take everything you have.
-Thomas Jefferson
Elvis/Sherer both had talent - but were weak human beings - to say the least.
GM says GMAC mortgage unit may not survive
DETROIT – Bad news kept piling up for General Motors Corp. on Monday as its shares plunged to their lowest point in 60 years and the company said in a government filing that the mortgage unit of its finance arm may not survive.
GM also said that Delphi Corp., its former parts operation that was spun off as a separate company in 1999, may not be able to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Jimmy, shove some peanuts up your nostrils.
FYI, former VP Dan Quayle is one of Ezra Merkin's partners at Cerberus.
Why not contact Children's National Hospital in Washington, DC, as well as Washington DC media (eg www.washingtonpost.com) and respectfully defend the religious freedom of the Brody family of Boro Park, which is fighting to keep the hospital from pulling the plug on their brain damaged chassidish son.
The hospital has taken the family to court!
While it is easy to criticize Agudath Israel, what other organization has done anything to help this family?
If the UOJ World acts on this, the family can prevail.
Why not work together for the sake of this boy?
"shove some peanuts up your nostrils"
Son of Boog, that's still preferable to the treatment I got.
http://lamrot-hakol.blogspot.com/2006/01/tragedy-of-jofa.html
A little over a week ago, JOFA had a conference here in Chicago. Now, I'm definitely a supporter of women's davening groups (so long as they're done according to halakha), but JOFA stands for a lot more than that. The Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance was founded by Blu Greenberg (of "Where there's a rabbinic will, there's a halakhic way" fame), wife of Yitz Greenberg (founder of CLAL, and the ostensibly Orthodox rabbi who publically declared that due to Hashem permitting the Holocaust, His commandments are no longer binding on us).
I attended part of this conference. Why? Well, my first reaction was that of course I wasn't going to go. Why on earth would I add one more person to the headcount so that they could claim to be representative of Orthodox Jewish women?
Well, someone very close to me was going. And I knew she was going to have all sorts of things to say afterwards, and I decided that it'd be a lot better if I could hear what the people actually said, rather than a second-hand account.
This was a Very Bad Idea.
The conference took place at Anshe Shalom Bnei Israel synagogue. When I was a kid, my family wasn't observant, and we used to drive down there on the High Holidays, because my grandparents belonged there. My aunt was actually the first woman to be shul president there. I hadn't been in the building for something like 15-20 years. It hasn't changed at all.
The rabbi there is Rabbi Asher Lopatin. I knew Asher when he was an undergrad at Boston University. He was active in the Mechitza Minyan at the Hillel House there, and ran the Israel Action Committee. Until I moved back to Chicago, I had no idea how far to the left he was, socially and ideologically. But you know, as a lesbian couple, we must have heard a dozen people telling us we should try Asher Lopatin's shul. Which, I suppose, should have given us an idea of where he stands now.
When we got there Sunday morning, we heard a talk by Sara Hurwitz, the madricha ruchanit of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, which is an ostensibly Orthodox synagogue in New York. Her position, as we were told, was pretty much that of an assistant rabbi, in all but title. She spoke to us about ordaining women as rabbis. She told us all about how she'd gone and studied for years, learning all the things that men learn to become rabbis, and how when she graduated, she was crushed to find that there were no jobs available for her to use her skills.
I'm sure many of you have heard this joke. "A guy goes into a doctor's office and says: Doc! It hurts when I do this. The doctor looks at him and says: Nu, so don't do that!" That was all I could think of while I listened to her sad story.
The speakers there all seemed to have a problem distinguishing between women as shul presidents and women as rabbis. Between women learning texts and women being ordained. One mark of extremism is attempting to blur the line between the acceptable and the unacceptable.
I recognize that I'm an extremist as well. It's not extremism, per se, that I have a problem with. It's wrong extremism. And it's extremism on the part of those who decry extremism.
At one point in her talk, Ms. Hurwitz mentioned that many friends of hers had asked her why she didn't just go to JTS or HUC and get ordained. I hadn't realized until that moment how much I really wanted them to prove me wrong about JOFA. How much I wanted to find a way to defend them. Because the thought that ran though my mind was, "Please, please, please. Say it's because they're wrong. Or at the very least, that their ideas are not yours." Over and over.
She didn't. She said that her response was, "That's not my community." Ghah. And it's not as though I didn't already know this. I know that people like the Greenbergs, David Hartman, Steve Greenberg, and so on, only continue to claim that they are Orthodox for social reasons. Well, that, and because it gives them the ability to try and move us to the left from within. I remember when Alice Shalvi "came out" as Conservative. She'd been the same as those I mentioned above, but she finally decided to be honest about where she stood.
But even though I knew it, it was still incredibly disappointing to hear her say it. And even more disappointing to note not a single negative reaction from the audience, the other speakers, or from Asher Lopatin.
A friend of mine went up to Asher's wife Rachel later, and asked her what she thought the difference was between Orthodoxy and the Conservative movement. Rachel Tessler Lopatin has a masters in Judaic Studies from JTS, so her response wouldn't have surprised me. But it certainly surprised my friend. The rebbetzin told her that there isn't much of a difference. That there are Conservative Jews who are more observant, and ostensibly Orthodox Jews who are less observant. She clearly did not see any ideological difference between them.
The reason she didn't see any ideological difference between them is because there is no difference between the ideology of her version of Orthodoxy and the ideology of the Conservative movement. The only differences seen by the leftist extreme "Modern Orthodox" are ritual and social. They've completely lost the "dox" in "Orthodox".
The Conservative movement was born when a group of Reform Jews felt that the Reform movement had gone too far and too fast in its abandonment of Judaism. That, incidentally, is why it's called "the Conservative movement". Because they were conservative in relation to the Reform movement. Those who broke away joined up with the far left fringe among self-identified Orthodox Jews and created the Conservative movement.
Today, it honestly looks as though we're about ready for another such split. The Conservative movement has been drifting pretty steadily leftwards for its entire history. Yet there is a small "right-wing" presence among them which feels uncomfortable with it. Some of those broke away years ago when the Conservative movement began ordaining women (savor the irony) and created the Union for Traditional Judaism [sic]. There is already considerable overlap between the Edah/CLAL/JOFA leftists and the folks at UTJ. I think it's only a matter of time before these groups merge into a new movement.
Boog,
The guy you're thinking of is Vincent Foster. While you're at it, ask Hillary what happened to Ron Brown.
Georgia congressman warns of Obama dictatorship
By BEN EVANS – 2 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Republican congressman from Georgia said Monday he fears that President-elect Obama will establish a Gestapo-like security force to impose a Marxist or fascist dictatorship.
"It may sound a bit crazy and off base, but the thing is, he's the one who proposed this national security force," Rep. Paul Broun said of Obama in an interview Monday with The Associated Press. "I'm just trying to bring attention to the fact that we may — may not, I hope not — but we may have a problem with that type of philosophy of radical socialism or Marxism."
Broun cited a July speech by Obama that has circulated on the Internet in which the then-Democratic presidential candidate called for a civilian force to take some of the national security burden off the military.
"That's exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it's exactly what the Soviet Union did," Broun said. "When he's proposing to have a national security force that's answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he's showing me signs of being Marxist."
Obama's comments about a national security force came during a speech in Colorado about building a new civil service corps. Among other things, he called for expanding the nation's foreign service and doubling the size of the Peace Corps "to renew our diplomacy."
"We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set," Obama said in July. "We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."
Broun said he also believes Obama likely will move to ban gun ownership if he does build a national police force.
Obama has said he respects the Second Amendment right to bear arms and favors "common sense" gun laws. Gun rights advocates interpret that as meaning he'll at least enact curbs on ownership of assault weapons and concealed weapons. As an Illinois state lawmaker, Obama supported a ban on semiautomatic weapons and tighter restrictions on firearms generally.
"We can't be lulled into complacency," Broun said. "You have to remember that Adolf Hitler was elected in a democratic Germany. I'm not comparing him to Adolf Hitler. What I'm saying is there is the potential."
Obama's transition office did not respond immediately to Broun's remarks.
http://www.thejewishstar.com/JewishStar.pdf
As the following true story reveals, it is never too late.
In a prison in the Southwest languished a middle aged Jewish man, serving a long sentence for committing an unspeakable deed upon one of his sons. His wife divorced him but he refused to give her a get as required by Jewish law. Without the get, she would be prohibited from remarrying. She would in effect be as “imprisoned” as he was. After a few years, in an apparent change of heart, he contacted a Rabbi who agreed to drive a few hundred miles to write a get. When the Rabbi arrived that Sunday afternoon, the prisoner laughed
and informed him, “I changed my
mind.”
The Rabbi returned to his car and
motored the few hundred miles home.
A few months later this Rabbi once
again was contacted by the prisoner
who told him, “I am ready to give the get.” The Rabbi said “fine, I’ll see you Sunday afternoon.”
“Why do you trust me?” remarked
the prisoner. “Why don’t you believe I’ll pull the wool over your eyes again?” “I don’t believe you,” said the Rabbi, “rather I believe in you.” The prisoner began to cry and said “Rabbi, you’re the first person in my life to say that they believed in me. I promise, I promise not to let you down. I’ll see you Sunday afternoon and I give you my word, Rabbi, I’ll set my wife free.”
The Rabbi packed his briefcase
once again and drove to the penitentiary. Upon his arrival, he was stunned to find that the prisoner had died of a heart attack earlier that morning. The
Rabbi turned his car around and was in his house for but a few hours when his home phone rang. It was the surviving sons of the prisoner, who relayed the following to the Rabbi. “We understand you are our father’s Rabbi and we were just informed about his death. We aren’t observant but know that when a parent dies we must sit shiva. But we swore years ago that as a result of what our father did to our brother, that when he died, we wouldn’t sit shiva for him. We swore that the only way we would sit shiva for him was if he gave our mother a get. That would be the only way our father would be able to redeem himself at least partially in our eyes. We know he is dead, Rabbi, but we made a promise and he didn’t fulfill it. He had the chance to give our mother a get as she wanted, but he didn’t. Tell us Rabbi, because we don’t believe it. Did he really intend on giving her a get?”
The Rabbi assured them that now that their father had passed, their
mother was free to remarry. “That’s not the point,” replied the sons. “We need to know if his heart changed before it stopped!” If that’s the case,” said the Rabbi, “sit shiva. Cry, mourn and weep for your father for I can testify that his heart had changed.”
And so it was. They sat shiva
together, mother and sons mourning a man who they detested all their lives but who had earned their warmth in his final hours.
David Seidemann is a partner with the law firm of Seidemann & Mermelstein. He can be reached at (718) 692-1013 and at ds@lawofficesm.com.
UOJ,
What is your opinion of Rabbi Lopatin who gave Rahm Emmanuel a heter on Rosh Hashana to use his cellphone to "save" the economic bailout package, because he deemed it "pikuach nefashos"? This was a day after his congressional cohorts had already voted it down.
http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2008/11/guest-post-rabb.html
http://www.hamptons.com/detail.ihtml?id=5443&apid=11087&sid=27&cid=54&hm=1&iv=1&townflag=
We just want to remind everyone that we are still waiting in the wings with that big phony Marci Hamilton to sue any of you frummie Jews who try to use an eruv in the Hamptons.
Steve:
Keep this between us --- Emanuel is a nice traditional Jew - he is not a shomer Torah u'mitzvos. The whole issue is a non-starter.
Al pi halacha - there is no heter whatsoever to violate the Shabbos unless a "life" is at stake or potentially at risk.
While the "bailout" will ultimately hurt millions of people, this was a political decision and not a halachic " life threatening" one. The rabbi is dead wrong according to traditional halacha.
But what do I know?
Or how Rabbi Lopatin hints that Rahm Emanuel's wife is not even Jewish but that it's ok for a guy married to a shiksa with a Conservative "giyur" to be active in his shul and be oleh laTorah.
Rabbi Lopatin then uses his guest post on Failed Messiah as an excuse to launch into a speech praising radical Liberal rabbis like Marc Angel & Mike Broyde for liberalizing gerus against halacha.
Marc Angel has been at the forefront of blasting YU for being too frum on preserving the sanctity of the Jewish people. While Broyde is not as outspoken, he is a big backer of Avi Weiss & YCT.
The YCT position is nutty in that they believe that Reform & Conservative rabbis are just as good as Orthodox ones.
UOJ,
My thoughts exactly as I expressed them on Shmarya's blog. Yasher Koach!
Steve;
Thanks for the mnemonic assistance.
Yup; Vince Foster and Ron Brown; both met a very suspicious and untimely end. Too much info in the right hands can be a dangerous thing.
BTW; I hear that Emmenuval has many more dead fish ready for mailing.
All in line with the the new "Fairness" Doctorine.
Steve:
You're a "great Jewish-American"
*
Paulson should be locked up!
Fed's bailout for AIG swells to more than $150B- AP
Fannie posts $29B 3Q loss, $100B may not be enough- AP
PLEASE SOMEONE TELL ME THIS IS A JOKE!
--------------------------
AmEx OK'd to Be Bank Holding Company
11/10/08 - 07:15 PM
The Associated Press
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER
The Federal Reserve on Monday granted a request by American Express(AXP Quote - to become a bank holding company, opening the door for the credit card giant to accept deposits and permanently access financing from the Fed.
The Fed said it had approved the application for American Express and a related company, American Express Travel Related Services, to become bank holding companies.
The approval represented the latest reshaping of the financial services industry, which is undergoing its worst credit crisis in decades.
In announcing the action, the Fed cited "emergency conditions."
The Fed's approval for American Express was similar to the decision it made in September to transform the country's two biggest investment banks, Goldman Sachs(GS Quote - Cramer on GS - Stock Picks) and Morgan Stanley(MS Quote - Cramer on MS - Stock Picks), into bank holding companies.
That move bolstered the two institutions after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, which became the largest bankruptcy filing in U.S. history. Like American Express, Goldman and Morgan Stanley gained the ability to borrow federal money and build a base of deposits in hopes of reassuring investors and other banks.
AmEx last month reported that its profit fell 24 percent in the third quarter as cardholders restrained their spending and had more trouble paying off debt.
Last month, it announced plans to cut 10 percent of its global work force and painted a bleak economic picture, saying it did not expect to meet its financial targets until business conditions improved.
In its quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Oct. 31, the company said it expected write-offs in its credit card portfolio to continue to increase in the fourth quarter and into next year.
Hey I publish Michael Broyde's books to make a buck.
Why not? It's assur yet necessary!
I just noticed Chaim Dovid Zweibel tell the Satmar Putz at VIN that UOJ is promoting a "libelous misconception" about the Agudah stand on criminal background checks.
This is like if the Agudah decides to throw Kolko and Margo under the bus and then say that UOJ never understood that they were on the same side all the while.
http://allafrica.com/stories/printable/200811110421.html
Is Obama a Blackman?
This Day (Lagos, Nigeria)
COLUMN
11 November 2008
Ecstatic, overjoyed Africans are dancing on cloud nine and popping champagne because a brother (as African-Americans call themselves) is going to occupy the most powerful office in the world. Why not? Success has many fathers, as Africans say. But pray, is Barack Obama an African, a Blackman? Considering that African leaders are failures, is it not a bad omen to wish that he is an African?
And shame to African leaders who were falling on one another to congratulate the President-elect. How many Obamas have they produced in their countries? Do they know that Barack repaid his student loan only four years ago after signing his book deal? African leaders make you want to cry. The hands of most of them are dripping with the blood of many Obamas they have killed, and their conscience heavy with guilt over the many potential Obamas they have suppressed with misrule, poverty and unbearable living conditions.
Obama owes so much to America that it is becoming difficult to credit his ascendency to Africa. For nine months, he was nurtured in the womb of a white woman, Ann Dunham, and raised in his formative years by his grandmother, a white woman. He has lived all his adult life in the United States of America, from where he is going to superintend over the rest of the world.
True. Obama's father was a Kenyan who went to Hawaii on a US-sponsored scholarship. Once he was enrolled in school there, Barack Obama Sr. married an 18-year-old white student named Ann, to whom Barack Obama Jr. was born in August, 1961. Two years later, Barack Sr. left Ann and the baby when he was accepted to Harvard. While he claims the marriage was broken up by racism, it actually dissolved when Ann discovered the inconvenient truth that he already had another wife.
This line of discussion launches the heredity and environment, or nature, nurture debate, which dates back to the 13th Century. Some scientists argue that people behave as they do according to genetic predispositions or even "animal instincts." Other scientists believe that people think and behave in certain ways because they are taught by their environment to do so. Without trivializing the issue, it is right, as most scientists agree, to say that they play complementary roles.
Perhaps, we should not overstretch the debate, but the role of US in moulding a world beater in Obama is unmistakable. I believe that African and Caucasian bloods have their respective strengths and weaknesses. And I am persuaded by the successes of former Ghanaian President Jerry Rawlings, who transformed Ghana and Obama's to think that a mix of Caucasian and African blood removes or tones down greed. Raw, primitive greed is the fundamental cause of failed leadership in Africa. Rawlings's father is a Whiteman and I will tell his story I saw playout before my very eyes another time. But careful, please. This blood thing is for now an unscientific observation.
Going back to Kenya, I really don't understand what the government there meant by declaring a public holiday over Obama's victory. At best that was hypocritical. At his age, if he was born in Kenya, he would have lived his formative years during the regimes of the founding president and liberation struggle icon Jomo Kenyatta, who led the country from independence in 1963 until his death in 1978, and President Daniel Toroitich arap Moi who ruled the country for 24 years. Twenty four years! He performed so poorly that he has asked for forgiveness for acts of misrule during his regime.
Although Kenya is the communications and finance hub of East Africa, if Barack lived there he would have been a victim of the plundered country's economic decline. The decline started in 1974 and worsened between 1991 and 1993. Growth in GDP stagnated, and inflation reached a record 100 per cent. Bilateral and multilateral donors suspended programme aid to Kenya, insisting that the country should fight corruption.
And who knows, whether Obama would have been alive today in a country with an infant mortality rate of 56 deaths/1,000 live births. Many more die at birth. And most of these deaths, like in the rest of Africa, are avoidable.
Who also knows if Barack would have survived the post-election "tribal war" last year? According to a report, tribalism in Kenya had been fed venom by decades of Kenyatta and Moi's corrupt misrule. Both governments stole so much that they left Kenya in poverty. While Kenyatta favoured Kikuyu tribe with patronage, Moi favoured his Kalenjin people. They left most of the country in appallingly slums or decrepit villages. The result was seething resentment which manifested itself in terrible cases of violence and mob justice. The outbreak of a major crisis was only a matter of time. It did break in two months of violence from December 2007 after the re-election of President Mwai Kibaki, and over 1,500 people were hacked to death in bizarre vampire manner.
Barack may have survived it like his half brother, George. In this scenario of comparing Barack and George, Kenya, as the environment, is held as a constant. Same father, but there are variations in their heredity because they are half brothers.
George told Vanity Fair, "Last January during the elections there was rioting and six people were hacked to death. The police don't even arrest you they just shoot you. I have seen two of my friends killed. I have scars from defending myself with my fists. I am good with my fists."
George Hussein Onyango Obama, Barack's youngest half brother, lives in a hut in a ramshackle town of Huruma on the outskirts of Nairobi."No-one knows who I am," he told the magazine, before claiming: "I live here on less than a dollar a month . I live like a recluse, no-one knows I exist If anyone says something about my surname, I say we are not related. I am ashamed." George added he was no longer in contact with his mother and said:"I have had to learn to live and take what I need."
So could Barack also have been a victim of polygamy if he lived in Kenya with his Dad? He has eight half-siblings by four other marriages or relationships of his parents. His father had four children by a woman he married in Kenya before his 1960 marriage to Obama's mother in Hawaii. Two of those children - son Abongo (Roy) and daughter Auma - were born before Barack Obama Jr. After Obama Sr. divorced Obama's mother in 1963, he married another American woman he brought to Kenya and had two more sons - Mark and David, who was killed in a motorcycle accident. That marriage ended in a divorce, after Obama Sr. resumed his relationship with his first wife. He had two other sons - Abo and Bernard - by his first wife, though Obama wrote in his memoirs that there is some question whether another man actually fathered Bernard. Obama Sr. later had another son, George, by a woman he was involved with but apparently did not marry. Tragically, Obama Sr. died in a drunken automobile crash when Obama was 21.
Things You May Not Know...
- He is left-handed - the sixth post-war president to be left-handed
- He has read every Harry Potter book
- He owns a set of red boxing gloves autographed by Muhammad Ali
- He ate dog meat, snake meat, and roasted grasshopper while living in Indonesia
- He can speak Spanish
- While on the campaign trail he refused to watch CNN and had sports channels on instead
- He promised Michelle he would quit smoking before running for president - he didn't
- His favourite book is Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
- His favourite music includes Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, Bach and The Fugees
- He enjoys playing Scrabble and poker
- He doesn't drink coffee and rarely drinks alcohol
- As a teenager he took drugs including marijuana and cocaine
- He says his worst habit is constantly checking his BlackBerry
- He wears $1,500 (£952) Hart Schaffner Marx suits
- He owns four identical pairs of black size 11 shoes
- Source: Daily Telegraph
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/falkenberg/6105693.html
''My president is black," read the T-shirts sported by Texas Southern University students in a photo on the cover of the City and State section last week.
It is, or will be soon, a statement of fact, but it also seems to express other sentiments: pride, joy and, perhaps, astonishment.
For one reader, though, it was enough to prompt a disapproving letter to the paper suggesting we might all just as well wear "My president is white" shirts for the rest of George W. Bush's tenure.
That would be fitting, if, just before the word "white," you add the phrase "always has been."
Some of my fellow whites apparently are feeling a bit confused, disturbed and even threatened by all the smiling, chest-puffing, Obama T-shirt-wearing black folks strutting around like they run the country or something.
Well, finally, for the first time in our nation's history, someone who looks like them will be running the country. Can we blame them for celebrating?
Yes, apparently, we can. Where some of us see pride, and share in it, others see divisiveness.
"Unfortunately, all these good black Americans see is the color of a man's skin," read one comment under my column last week featuring the perspectives of 1960s freedom fighters.
"I thought this election was not about race, but that's pretty much all I've heard since the result was declared final," wrote another, who went on to lament how Jesse Jackson wept openly, Condoleezza Rice "could barely contain herself" and a "usually composed Colin Powell was unabashedly happy that a black man was now our president."
Typical of Muslim culture
http://allafrica.com/stories/200811100753.html
The United Nations envoy tasked with advocating for children caught up in armed conflict today voiced her horror at last week's stoning to death of a 13-year-old Somali girl who was a victim of rape.
Aisha Duhulow was stoned to death in a stadium full of spectators in the southern port city of Kismayo on 27 October after authorities found her guilty of adultery.
But reports indicate that she had been raped by three men while walking to visit her grandmother in the capital Mogadishu. After the attack, Aisha asked for protection from prosecutors, who in turn accused her of adultery and sentenced her to death.
According to media reports, Aisha pleaded for her life before she was forced into a hole, buried up to her neck and then pelted with stones by some 50 men until she died in front of more than 1,000 people.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/11/business/11home.html?em=&pagewanted=print
MOUNTAIN HOUSE, Calif. — This town, 59 feet above sea level, is the most underwater community in America.
Because of plunging home values, almost 90 percent of homeowners here owe more on their mortgages than their houses are worth, according to figures released Monday. That is the highest percentage in the country. The average homeowner in Mountain House is “underwater,” as it is known, by $122,000.
First American CoreLogic, a real estate data company, has calculated that 7.6 million properties in the country were underwater as of Sept. 30, while another 2.1 million were in striking distance. That is nearly a quarter of all homes with mortgages.
At Cribs, Kids and Teens, Jason Heinemann says his business is also down 50 percent. He opened the store in early 2006; last month was his worst ever. “Grandparents are big buyers of kids’ furniture, but when their 401(k)’s are dropping $10,000 and $20,000 a week, they don’t come in,” he said.
The Martinezes bought their house in early 2005 for $630,000. It is now worth about $420,000. They have an interest-only mortgage, a popular loan during the boom that allows owners to forgo principal payments for a time.
But these loans eventually become unmanageable. In 2015, Mr. Martinez said, his monthly payments will be $12,000 a month. He laughed and shook his head at the absurdity of it.
They fear the future, so they stay home. They rent movies. They play board games. (But not Monopoly — with its real estate theme, it reminds them too much of real life.)
U.S. economy expected to contract in 2009
Blue Chip forecast sees deeper and longer recession
By Rex Nutting, MarketWatch
Last update: 10:03 a.m. EST Nov. 10, 2008
The economists also believe the Federal Reserve will cut the overnight target rate to 0.5% during the central bank's December monetary-policy meeting as a further measure to prop up the economy.
GM fell 23% yesterday and another 9% so far today.
It's trading at $3 down from the recent high of $32.
Ronnie is with me. He's incoherent, talking about a circuit BROAD that was burnt out by UOJ and his gang. Anybody know what that means?
Mamash no rochmunes on Ronnie
By JEFF COX, CNBC.com
There appears to be little immediate benefit to buying stocks of companies that will benefit from bailout money, primarily because their primary debt obligation will be to the government.
Deutsche Bank on Monday cut GM's price target to nothing, something Kresh says he has never seen before, and indicated that if the company does survive it will trade as if it is bankrupt, leaving no value to shareholders.
http://www.koshertoday.com/newproducts.asp
While spot shortages for beef persist in many parts of the nation, a glatt kosher purveyor is making Kosher "Kobe" available for the very first time. A.D. Rosenblatt Glatt Kosher Meats has partnered with Strube Ranch to produce the first ever Glatt Kosher Wagyu ("Kobe") beef for the Kosher consumer. The product is certified Glatt Kosher by the Orthodox Union and the Chicago Rabbinical Council and is accepted by rabbinical organizations from coast to coast.
Wagyu, a Japanese breed of cattle, is extremely tasty and tender with a concentration of flavor that arguably exceeds other breeds. Beef producers know that that the ability of the Wagyu to marble is genetic. Strube Ranch cattle are raised without hormones or antibiotics. There are no animal by-products in their cattle feed, ever. The cattle are raised in an all-natural environment – wide open pastures, lush green grass, fresh water and free-choice minerals. Strube cattle are fed for 350-400 days in an all-natural, sheltered and low-stress environment. "It is another sign of the expanding options for the selective and sensitive Glatt Kosher consumer," said Yaakov Rosenblatt of A.D. Rosenblatt Meats."We are pleased to be part of this initiative." The product is available at fine stores and restaurants in New York City and will soon be available cost to coast. For more information, please contact call 347-244-1357 or 469-682-3282 (e-mail jacob@premiumkosherbeef.com).
How much do you want to bet that haymishe operations will not lower prices to match market costs?
http://www.gourmetretailer.com/gourmetretailer/content_display/news/e3i2d029babe3f1f02e8e315d5bbb601cdf
Despite discussion of a possible reorganization of Agri, meat cases in stores all over the country were empty this week.
"This past Shabbos was the first in a long time that my wife made a pareve cholent," one rabbi in the West told KosherToday.
Meanwhile, prices continued to rise in markets where the meat was available, as did the price of poultry nationwide. Kosher food prices in general have been on the increase, as have prices for all foods. Higher feed costs for chickens, hogs and cattle will lift U.S. food prices 7 percent in 2009, according to economists from the National Chicken Council and the consultancy Farm Econ.
On the upside for consumers, lower fuel prices and a reduction in shipping costs may mitigate some of these increases. Wegmans said that it was anticipating slashing prices on hundreds of dairy, meat, produce, frozen and bakery items in anticipation of lower food and shipping costs in 2009.
GM down 18% to $2.76 !!!!
Rubashkin owes him money but he probably figures this ridiculous screed is good for his business.
http://www.koshertoday.com/sixthsense.asp#menachem
Notable Absence - November 10th
When Kosherfest ’08 opens tomorrow at the Meadowlands Exposition Center, visitors will no doubt notice the absence of Agriprocessors. The embattled and now bankrupt kosher meat producer has been put out of business for the moment, creating a critical shortage of glatt kosher meat. I purposely held my fire for a week (which prompted several e-mails inquiring why I chose to ignore the story in my column last week) to assess the impact on the market and it turned out exactly as I had feared. Supermarkets throughout the country with empty kosher meat shelves, kosher caterers scrambling to find meat, prices on the rise, Jewish communities without meat for Shabbos, Jews who proudly switched to kosher meat opting instead for treife meat (as one rabbi reported from the Midwest).
So I have finally come to grips with the fact that while the clock was turned back about two decades for Jewish communities throughout America in terms of the supply of kosher meat, the events in Postville led to a much larger human tragedy. An entire community has been devastated economically, cattle suppliers and others who did business with Agri were severely impacted, hundreds are out of jobs, unable to pay their bills, entire families have been separated, and so it goes. Just when the reports of severe kosher meat shortages were coming in, I pulled out an old e-mail of the many I received since the infamous PETA video, which many consider the turning point that led to the demise of the Rubashkin empire: “Stop creating this hysteria. It won’t take a day and the market will take care of itself.” Several blogs insisted that they were certain that the market would ultimately fill the void. At this juncture, I too chose to be hopeful although not as optimistic as some of these anti-Agri forces. Ironically, those who led the charge against Agriprocessors, will not be victims of the shortage. Neither the unions, animal rights activists, left wing Jews, or even those leading the charge for a new kosher certification (Hekhsher Tzedek) eat glatt kosher meat (or any meat for some). In an ironic twist, those reporters who relentlessly attacked Agriprocessors for its alleged practices were now covering the shortages of kosher meat.
Agriprocessors was in large measure responsible for the huge expansion of supermarkets offering full kosher sections. With fresh meat, bakery, and fish, the kosher store within a store became a major attraction and contributed to the explosion of kosher. There are many rumors about a reorganization of Agri under different owners, new initiatives by investors, and even expansion into glatt kosher meat by existing kosher food companies. It is difficult to see how anyone will fill the void in the short term, but I certainly hope that the supermarkets will continue to provide the vital service and that ultimately somehow someday they will once again be able to offer kosher meat as well.
Agudah: Predictable.
Throwing everyone under the Bus, taking credit, and indulging in revisionist history.
GM shares hit 65-year low
By Shawn Langlois
Last update: 10:13 a.m. EST Nov. 11, 2008
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- General Motors Corp. shares fell as much as 17% in early trades Tuesday, touching levels last seen in 1943 a day after Deutsche Bank analyst Rod Lache downgraded the Dow component to sell with a price target of $0 a share. GM could run out of enough cash to run its business as early as this year unless the automaker succeeds in convincing the federal government to pitch in with billions of dollars in financial aid.
GM will go BK - Their stock will go to ZERO - unless Hanky Panky throws billions at them - then they'll go BK next week!
LOCK PAULSON UP BEFORE HE DOES MORE DAMAGE! HE'S NUTS!
Missing Kosherfest can be costly - October 27th, 2008
The kosher community will gather in Secaucus next week for the 20th annual Kosherfest. An advanced glimpse at the floor plan gives every indication that this year’s show will be one of the best in terms of the mix of exhibitors and products. I am also very excited about the return to the Meadowlands Exposition Center, which always projected more than just a trade show. It was, as many people told me, “a happening.” The entire building was filled with Kosherfest exhibitors and visitors. Indeed, the surrounding hotels also became part of the happening.
While the show is sold out, I have heard of people who are planning to skip the show for a variety of reasons. “Same as last year!” Not so. Nearly a third of this year's show will be made up of new exhibitors and upward of 300 new products. For exhibitors not returning, they will miss several hundred new buyers including many from many large discount stores. “Not in New York City!” Less than 15 minutes from the Lincoln Tunnel, it is faster to get to Secaucus than going across town in Manhattan. Hotels are significantly less expensive and you can still enjoy the Big Apple. “Bad Economy!” True, but kosher continues to grow, witnesses the many new products, stores and foodservice venues in just the last few months. “So what if I skip a year!” If you’re in the kosher food industry that’s an awful long time to give up. One exhibitor who has been coming for many years told me: “The show is not doing it for me anymore.” What he meant was that he wasn’t picking up any new business. Strange, but someone just down the aisle picked up more than a dozen new accounts. Bottom line: If you’re in the food industry and kosher is important to you, staying home can be costly!
Starbucks Profit Drops 97 Percent
By LAUREN SHEPHERD, AP
posted: 15 HOURS 33 MINUTES AGO
Anybody understand WTF Lubinsky is saying?
Another front-runner who sticks his middle finger up to the wind to see which way it's blowing.
Blowhard.
Nobody says it like Boog!
http://money.aol.com/news/articles/_a/bbdp/aides-obama-suggested-more-help-for-auto/242665?cid=5
WASHINGTON (Nov. 11) - President-elect Obama suggested to President Bush that the administration immediately help struggling U.S. automakers, aides to the Democrat say, in the first face-to-face meeting the pair had since Obama's election victory.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid asked the administration over the weekend to consider expanding the $700 billion bailout for financial firms to include car companies. At a news conference last Friday, Obama said he hoped the Bush administration would "do everything it can to accelerate the retooling assistance that Congress has already enacted." He also said that helping the auto industry was a high priority for his transition team.
The White House did not reject such an idea. Presidential spokeswoman Dana Perino said Bush would listen to lawmakers if, when they come back for a post-election session, "they decide to try to do something more on the auto industry."
What the Putz is saying is that he was right along with his position on Rubashkin and all you guys being critical are mashchisim who created a meat shortage.
Yesterday's Wall Street Journal said that GM CEO Rick Wagoner is the problem as the company lost billions under him even in good times and that it makes no sense to pour taxpayer money into a dysfunctional company.
Wagoner is imitating the Moetzes in refusing to resign. He is so arrogant that he will not even accept a deal to resign in exchange for a bailout.
Government to Announce New Loan Aid Effort- AP
The federal government and the mortgage industry are announcing a new effort Tuesday afternoon to streamline the process of modifying loans held by mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The Federal Housing Finance Agency, which seized control of the two companies in September, scheduled a press conference for 2 p.m. EST.
Don't just blame me. Label Steinhardt & Kaminetsky were covering up too!
http://www.theawarenesscenter.org/weiner_yaakov.html
By Stephanie Saul - Staff Writer
Newsday - May 26, 2003, 8:10 PM EDT
http://www.nynewsday.com/news/local/crime/nyc-rabbi0527,0,3810252.story?coll=nyc-manheadlines-crime
Civil authorities who seek to act against rabbinic abuse often become frustrated by the reluctance of witnesses to testify.
Prosecutors in Sullivan County complained during the case that their witnesses faced pressure when they tried to prosecute Rabbi Pinchos Scheinberg's nephew, Yaakov Weiner, the teaching rabbi acquitted in the Mogen Avraham case.
"It was a bitter pill for me," remembers Tom Cawley, the former Sullivan County assistant district attorney who prosecuted the Mogen Avraham case. "They sent their kid to camp up here in Bethel and thought he'd be taken care of. Someone was taken care of, all right, but it wasn't him."
Weiner, who has taught in several yeshivas throughout the metropolitan area, consistently denied the charges. Attempts to reach him through one of his lawyers were unsuccessful.
The boy's mother and father, a rabbi himself, would not discuss the case with Newsday. But camp and State Health Department records filed in court indicate that the parents were not told of the alleged abuse until nearly 48 hours after the boy spoke of it, while the 36-year-old Weiner's father, a rabbi well-known in the Queens Orthodox community, was notified sooner.
Contacted recently, the camp's current executive director, Moshe Wein, defended the camp's handling of the accusation, saying, "There's no evidence to indicate that an incident took place." He added, "This may be one of those cases in which a child lied."
One of the boys reversed his story between the time he spoke to police and the trial several months later, Cawley said in court.
"We believe that there was pressure placed on the victim and children's families to get them not to testify," said Sullivan County District Attorney Stephen Lungen in a recent telephone interview. "There was a child who could have substantiated what was said, and that family would not cooperate."
The entire matter left Sullivan County Judge Frank Labuda confused.
"It is clear in the evening hours of August 8 and the morning of August 9, two years ago, something happened at bunk 3 Gimel bunk... " he said in his January 2000 ruling. But Labuda concluded that trial testimony "does not create a clear picture for this court of exactly what happened in Gimel bunk nor who did it."
Shrecklich! Even if GM survives it looks like their parts division Delphi is going under.
How am I supposed to chug around Lakewood with my old clunker if there are no parts available?
http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2008/11/10/are-retailers-trying-to-boost-sales-by-being-nice-to-customers/
Are retailers trying to boost sales by being nice to customers?
Oh man! CRUDE oil just sank to $59 a barrel. I thought CRUDE would never lose it's value.
http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2008/11/11/aig-party-watch-this-time-a-resort-in-phoenix/
Nov 11th 2008 at 11:00AM
Filed under: Ripoffs and Scams, Tax
AIG executives may not be making better business decisions while they're asking the federal government for more money, but at least they're getting sneakier! An ABC News investigation has revealed that a conference last week at the Pointe Hilton Squaw Peak Resort in Phoenix was another chance for AIG executives to frolic (on the taxpayers' dime).
The conference was called the Asset Management Conference, and hotel personnel were ordered to not mention AIG either verbally or on signage. An AIG spokesperson told ABC News that there was no AIG signage because they wanted to lower the company's profile. As consumers, I think we're a little too smart to believe that. Something tells me that the company executives knew they'd get heat for another luxury trip.
There were 150 independent financial planners present at the conference, in addition to several top AIG executives. Yet hidden cameras caught top executives not attending sessions, and also captured images of limousines, fancy cocktail parties, and expensive dinners out.
Probably the biggest financial faux pas was booking former NFL quarterback Terry Bradshaw to speak at the event, at a fee of $40,000. AIG says that a sponsor was paying the fee, but they canceled his appearance. In total, AIG has said that the conference was to cost $343,000, with $320,000 of that covered by sponsor fees.
I understand the sponsorship dollars, and the attendance of the independent agents (who aren't on AIG's payroll, but are independents who only get paid when they sell something), and the continuing education aspect (many professions required continuing education). I just can't help but feel that these events at expensive resorts are in poor taste... Especially as the federal money demanded by AIG has almost doubled since the original $85 billion plan was announced. The tab for AIG bailout dollars is now up to $150 billion.
http://www.abc15.com/content/news/investigators/story.aspx?content_id=d84dfd07-dd97-49f7-af14-3714d80b9107
AIG-Agudah Fresser Conference Sponsors
(as seen on a board in one of the conference rooms)
-AIG SunAmerica Mutual Funds
-OppenheimerFunds
-Russell Investments
-Brinker Capital
-Investment Advisory Services
-Curian Capital
-Dimensional Fund Advisors
-eMoney Advisor
-Financial Guidance
-Genworth Financial
-Hanlon Investment Management
-Invesco AIM
-Icon Advisers
-IAS
-iShares
-John Hancock
-Lockwood Advisors
-Morningstar
-Rochdale Investment Management
Can UOJ embed the video from Vicky Polin / Shmarya?
Attempted murder of R' Nuchem Rosenberg.
He was shot in the head by an assailant in a moving vehicle but survived.
http://jewishwhistleblower.blogspot.com/2005/05/chicago-rogers-park-jcc-1984-mass.html
Unfortunately the predators have many enablers, protectors and silencers in the community.
Any advocate for the vulnerable in the Orthodox community is well aware of the extremes the enablers, protectors and silencers will go to take away our ability to speak out.
I've been threatened countless times.
I've had a price put on my head by Tendler supporter Rabbi Harlan Kilstein in an ad in the Jewish Voice (a pro-Tendler newspaper printed by Susie "smear" Rosenbluth).
I've watched as "din rodef" was publicly utilized against me and others by Gafni supporter Rabbi Arthur Green with THE FULL KNOWLEDGE AND SILENCE OF THE JEWISH RENEWAL MOVEMENT.
I've watched as days after a watergate-style break-in into the the office of the Awareness Center and a file regarding Rabbi Hershy Worch was stolen, the publisher/editor of a minor NY publication publishes unknowable details from same file on his personal blog (google Yorigate).
I've watched as journalist and publisher of Ben Yehudah Press Larry Yudelson "Reb Yudel" (also of Jewschool)was caught by SIW on the Canonist blog posting as me in an attempt to try to discredit me.
Why is Ben Yehudah Press allowing Yori Yanover to promote Rabbi Worch with his new book when they all know about this: http://www.theage.com.au/national/sex-and-the-synagogue-20081001-4s4z.html
It is because they are enablers.
Yudelson was silent on Lanner. He was silent on Gafni and he continues to be silent except to allow his publishing company to promote Rabbi Hershy Worch.
Those who wish to know the truth about Ms. Polin and the Awareness Center are welcome to contact Rabbi Blau at YU.
He is well aware of the campaign to discredit Ms. Polin by enablers and supporters of Rabbis Tendler, Worch and Gafni. Rabbi Blau was also the focus of similar campaigns by these people.
R' Nuchem Rosenberg's children have also been threatened.
And thugs showed up at the office of Bentzion Twerski warning him he would be harmed if he did not stop treating sexual abuse victims.
The name of the Illinois Inspector General who bungled the sex abuse cases in Chicago / Rogers Park:
Jeremy Margolis
Police detain former president of Taiwan
International Herald Tribune - 1 hour ago
By David Barboza SHANGHAI:
Chen Shui-bian, the former president of Taiwan, was detained by the police in Taipei on Tuesday after prosecutors sought his formal arrest on corruption and money laundering charges, according to Taipei television.
I've had experts in law enforcement examine the photo of Rabbi Rosenberg - purportedly with a "gunshot" wound.
Their opinion - that it is not a wound caused by a gun.
Therefore - I will not post the video.
Perhaps it was a wound from something else - but I'm convinced (they convinced me) it is not from a gunshot!
Could the wound be caused by a non-lethal pellet from say an air gun? An air gun could possibly kill at close range. R' Nochum says the fast moving vehicle was about 40 feet away.
Rosenberg claims he was "shot" from 40 feet away from a "moving vehicle."
Lee Harvey Oswald would not have been able to hit him exactly in the forehead - I'm not buying it.
That's not to say that Rosenberg and Vicki have not done excellent work!
What about a bullet grazing his forehead at an angle?
Bill Ackman, manager of the Pershing Square Capital Management LP hedge fund in New York, said GM shouldn't take government money because ``it has been hamstrung for years because it has too much debt and it has contracts that are uneconomic.''
Ackman, who said he doesn't have a position in GM securities, said yesterday on the Charlie Rose show the automaker should file for a so-called prepackaged bankruptcy with financing to keep operating while in court protection.
That may be difficult. Those debtor-in-possession loans have ``all but shut down,'' CreditSights Inc. said yesterday in a report. The loans, which are paid off when companies exit bankruptcy, aren't being made as lenders become more averse to risk, wrote Chris Taggert, a New York-based analyst.
GM would have no choice but to shut down, said Maryann Keller, an independent auto analyst and consultant based in Greenwich, Connecticut. A GM failure that stops production would cost 2.5 million jobs in the U.S. in the first year, according to the Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Center for Automotive Research.
``In this world, you don't go Chapter 11 reorganization,'' Keller said in an interview. ``You go Chapter 7 liquidation.''
UOJ, I don't know of any law enforcement official who would make a determination if someone was shot from a photograph.
I saw Rabbi Rosenberg in person and I can't imagine how he got his wound any other way. Watch him talk about his experience. It's very real. I saw the flyers that were posted around his community.
Rabbi Rosenberg's life was threatened. We all have a responsibility to protect him and encourage the police to find his assailant.
Those who wish to know the truth about Ms. Polin and the Awareness Center are welcome to contact Rabbi Blau at YU.
I've asked Rabbi Blau about Vicki Polin.
He considers her a nut case.
And if you ask Mrs. Blau about Vicki Polin, she gets really upset. She thinks Vicki is deranged.
You invited us to ask...
I did.
Posted by: Anonymous | November 11, 2008 at 11:50 AM
GM dropped for a fifth straight day, losing as much as 18 percent to $2.75, the lowest price since December 1942, according to Global Financial Data in Los Angeles. The largest U.S. automaker, burning cash as U.S. sales slide, is being pushed closer to bankruptcy as it waits to learn whether the auto industry will win a new round of government loans.
`Huge Deal'
``If GM disappears or goes into bankruptcy, I think politically and psychologically it's a huge deal,'' said Stephen Wood, who helps manage $181 billion as a senior portfolio strategist at Russell Investments in New York. ``Worrying about earnings is a luxury right now. We're worried about survivorship.''
``We're going to see a lot of corporate grief,'' Harvey Pitt, former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission and chief executive officer of Kalorama Partners, said in an interview on Bloomberg Radio. ``We'll see companies laying off a lot of people and the market reflecting a lack of confidence in a lot of companies' values.''
Interesting that on Shmarya's blog this morning, Vicky admitted for the first time that she was the mystery guest on Oprah.
Vicki:
I've been to an actual crime lab, you can't believe what they are able to do.
Maybe Rosenberg "thinks" he was shot - I don't know - but the experts claim this is NOT a gunshot wound.
The National Federation of Independent Businesses sees just one silver lining: Businesses are becoming desensitized to bad news.
UOJ, I also have been to an actual crime lab and in the past have worked with law enforcement on various cases.
One would need more then a photograph to make such a determination. They would also need to be at the crime scene, take and take photographs of the area and other measurements to make a determination. Just curious if your friends had access to that information too?
I also was hoping you can share the names of the experts you consulted with? I think that would be helpful.
Susan Roberts can design you a gorgeous living room or a charming kitchen, but don't call her an "interior designer" - she could be fined $500 and spend a year in jail. Why? Because the state of Connecticut hasn't licensed her to adopt that moniker.
Recently Roberts received a warning call from the state's Department of Consumer Protection. In order to obtain an interior designer's license, the 20-year design veteran would need to pass a $720 standardized exam that tests designers on technical knowledge acquired during six years of combined higher education and work experience. Roberts could be grandfathered for a license because she began practicing before the state licensing law went into effect, but she objects on principle to paying the $150-a-year renewal fee.
"I've always felt that this was just another invention to solicit funds for the state," says Roberts, 66.
In September she joined a group of designers who sued the state to have the nearly three-decade-old law overturned. The plaintiffs are working with the Institute for Justice, a public-interest law firm based in Washington, D.C., that plans to fight "titling" laws in five states. So far, the firm has been successful in overturning a law in New Mexico and is filing another suit this month.
"This is what happens when a particular group tries to lobby for laws to keep out other people who are making their living the same way," says IFJ attorney Clark Neily.
Oil just sank to $58 and the average price of gas in one state is now $1.78 a gallon.
http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/smallbusiness/0811/gallery.victims_of_the_crash.smb/7.html
Victims of the crash
The New York Sun
Founded: 2001
Closed: Sept. 30, 2008
When longtime Wall Street Journal editor Seth Lipsky founded the New York Sun in late 2001, his goal was to offer a more conservative alternative to the left-leaning New York Times. The broadsheet daily garnered a base of 150,000 readers and national acclaim for its arts coverage, but it never turned a profit: New York Magazine reported in October that the Sun was losing more than $1.5 million a month.
The first week of September, Lipsky informed his staff that he had three weeks to find $10 million, the amount needed to match what his five primary investors were willing to put in. "As costs rise and the advertising market for newspapers generally tightens, keeping the Sun alive will require broadening the base of investors," he wrote in an editorial. "There is no assurance that any of our discussions will be successful, but we are hopeful."
The Sun held out hope until the evening hours of September's last day, but no new funding could be found. After six years of daily publication, the Sun set for good.
Vicki:
It would be certainly a good idea for Rosenberg to post a copy of the police report that he certainly would have filed, and the emergency room record of admissions that he went to after he was "shot"!
Embattled mall operator General Growth Properties Inc. saw its stock price fall sharply Tuesday after the Chicago company warned it could file for bankruptcy protection if it doesn't raise more capital to pay down its hefty debt load.
General Growth's share price was down 60% in recent trading.
http://theawarenesscenter.blogspot.com/2008/11/rabbi-nachum-rosenberg-victim-advocate.html
Two more video installments.
R' Nuchim says the NYPD is trying to cover up the incident and are refusing to protect him.
If this is true, UOJ should notify the Inspector General at the Justice Dept.
R' Nuchim goes on to say that the 66th in Boro Park completely destroys abuse reports.
He then went to DA Charlie Hynes who passed him off to his hoyz maidel, the Lubavitcher Chana White from Canarsie who gives everyone the runaround.
The FBI told him they can only help with organized crime issues.
The "Mishmeres Hatznius" is said to take payoffs from molesters to keep things quiet, including in the case where a heimishe baal habos raped a girl working for him.
Dr. Pelcovitz says at a public meeting that he "doesn't know" where victims should complain that they were being molested. He hints that he can't talk about it because Torah Umesorah already banned him from their events for speaking about it.
Uncle Sam's Credit Line Running Out?
By RANDALL W. FORSYTH - BARRONS
The yield curve and credit default swaps tell the same story: the U.S. can't borrow trillions without paying a price.
WHAT ONCE WAS UNTHINKABLE has come to pass this year: massive bailouts by the Treasury and the Federal Reserve, with the extension of billions of the taxpayers' and the central bank's credit in so many new and untested schemes that you can't tell your acronyms or abbreviations without a scorecard.
Even more unbelievable is that some of the recipients of staggering sums are coming back for a second round. Or that the queue of petitioners grows by the day.
But what happens if the requests begin to strain the credit line of the world's most creditworthy borrower, the U.S. government itself? Unthinkable?
American International Group (ticker: AIG), which originally had to borrow what was a stunning $85 billion from the Fed to keep it from cratering in September, upped the total Sunday to $150 billion.
Monday, Fannie Mae (FNM) reported a $29 billion third-quarter loss, far in excess of forecasts, raising the specter that the mortgage giant may need more money after the Treasury pledged to inject $100 billion in preferred stock financing in September.
Meanwhile, American Express (AXP) received Fed approval to convert to a bank holding company, joining the likes of Morgan Stanley (MS) and Goldman Sachs (GS), that have a direct pipeline to borrow from the Fed or the Treasury's TARP, the $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Fund.
And, of course, Detroit is looking for a credit line from Washington. General Motors (GM) Friday warned it could run out of cash next year without a government loan. GM plunged another 23% Monday, to 3.36, as several analysts helpfully recommended selling shares of the beleaguered automaker that already had lost more than 85% of their value.
Visiting the White House Monday, President-elect Obama pressed President Bush to support emergency aid for GM and other automakers. The prospect for federal aid for GM ironically weighed on its shares as one bearish analyst said the price of the bailout could be a wipeout of common holders.
Be that as it may, it's all adding up. If the late Sen. Everett Dirkson were around today, he might comment that a trillion here, a trillion there and pretty soon you're talking about real money.
Trillions are no hyperbole. The Treasury is set to borrow $550 billion in the current quarter alone and $368 billion in the first quarter of 2009. "Near-term pressures on Treasury finances are much more intense than we had thought," Goldman Sachs economists commented when the government announced its borrowing projections last week.
It may finally be catching up with Uncle Sam. That's what the yield curve may be whispering. But some economists are too deaf, or dumb, to get it.
Well, at least some birdbrains are useful and work for UOJ.
http://news.aol.com/article/talking-parrot-saves-toddlers-life/243378
Talking Parrot Saves Toddler's Life
Most in AP poll confident Obama will fix economy
AP
posted: ONE MINUTE AGO
From the Washington post,
Secret Service Officer in Sex Sting
Monday, November 10, 2008; B03
A Secret Service sergeant was arrested early Saturday after he allegedly tried to solicit sex from a D.C. police officer working undercover as a prostitute, authorities said.
The sergeant, driving his Secret Service vehicle and in uniform, encountered the undercover officer about 12:50 a.m. near 11th and K streets NW, said Inspector Brian Bray, commander of the District's narcotics and special investigations division.
After bantering about prices and services, Bray said, the woman agreed to perform oral sex for $20 and told the sergeant to meet her around the corner. He was arrested there by D.C. police officers, Bray said.
The sergeant, whose name was withheld by police, was cited for soliciting a prostitute, which carries a maximum 180-day jail sentence, Bray said. He was released.
The Secret Service said the man will be placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation and will also face an internal investigation.
-- Matt Zapotosky
Anyone wondering why I don't identify the rapist rabbi?
http://web.archive.org/web/20020208153950/http://www.jewsweek.com/society/080.htm
...
At its convention this year, the Rabbinical Council of America, which represents 1,100 mainstream Orthodox rabbis, held an open and detailed discussion about sexual abuse led by Dr. Susan Shulman, a pediatrician who served on the O.U.'s commission investigating the Lanner scandal and lectures frequently about sexual abuse.
...
In her RCA speech, Shulman told of an anonymous rabbi who impregnated a student while he was principal of a school for Jewish girls with learning disabilities. When he was fired, he moved to another community where he is "still a prominent rabbi."
WILL SOMEONE PLEASE LOCK PAULSON UP! MARGO - MAKE HIM FIRST GRADE REBBE
----------------------
AmEx shares tumble on approval to take deposits
Tuesday November 11, 12:56 pm ET
By Sara Lepro, AP Business Writer
American Express shares tumble after credit card lender gets approval to take deposits
NEW YORK (AP) -- American Express Co. shares tumbled Tuesday after the credit card giant said it received government approval to begin taking deposits -- a stark sign the lender is facing difficulty funding its operations amid the credit crisis.
Shares plunged $1.56, or 6.5 percent, to $22.42 in early afternoon trading. Shares have traded from $20.50 to $60 in the past 12 months.
Late Monday, American Express said it received approval from the Federal Reserve to become a bank holding company, a structure similar to most commercial banks. The change allows American Express to create a large deposit base and have permanent access to financing from the Fed.
The change also allows the credit card company to take part in recent programs initiated by the government to help reduce the current turmoil in the global credit markets, including the Treasury Department's program to directly invest in banks.
"This was the right move for the company, given the uncertain economic climate and still extreme financial market volatility and illiquidity," said Fox-Pitt Kelton analyst Howard Shapiro in a note to clients late Monday. "Although currently well capitalized, the company did indicate to us it would consider a capital investment from Treasury."
Much of American Express' funding comes from packaging credit card receivables and selling them as securities to investors. The market for those securities has dried up in recent months as investors have shied away from purchasing all but the safest forms of debt.
Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co. analyst Scott Valentin reiterated an "Underperform" rating on American Express shares, adding that he viewed the move to become a bank holding company as a "modest positive."
While the decision was prudent in the sense that it opens up additional and potentially cheaper sources of funding, it also underscores Valentin's belief that American Express is experiencing significant funding stress.
Valentin is also concerned that competition for deposits among banks remains intense and that the company lacks the branch presence to be competitive.
American Express joins investment banks Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley in becoming bank holding companies. Goldman and Morgan Stanley received approval in late September amid worries that stand-alone investment banks were no longer viable after Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed for bankruptcy protection and Merrill Lynch & Co. was sold to Bank of America Corp.
"The credit markets are still not working. The only way that funds can flow into these companies is by getting deposits," said Reena Aggarwal, professor of finance at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business in an interview with The Associated Press. "That is seen as a safe business these days."
American Express said late last month that it would cut 7,000 jobs, or about 10 percent of its work force, in an effort to slash costs by $1.8 billion in 2009.
The company also said it expects write-offs in its credit card portfolio to continue to increase in the fourth quarter and into next year, as an increasing number of consumers struggle to pay off debt and reduce their spending amid a worsening economic downturn.
UOJ You said
"As I have said repeatedly - there are so many healthy options for the kosher consumer!
Poultry, fish, fruit, vegetables, some dairy products, the legumes family....Why people think they can't live without meat, is beyond my comprehension. In addition, it will add years to your life"
Shades of Marie Antoinette who allegedly (she really never did)said "let them eat bread".Just kidding.
About poultry,I don't know what the situation is in your area but there is a shortage of kosher poultry,David Eliot,in my neck of the woods and for the little that is available the price is exorbitant.
Couple arrested for 'having sex' on crowded train
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 10:48 AM on 11th November 2008
Add to My Stories
A couple have been arrested for allegedly having sex in a crowded train carriage.
Other passengers en route from Liverpool to London appear to have sat in embarrassed silence as the 41-year-old woman allegedly committed a sex act on her male partner.
The pair were arrested by police on arrival at Euston station. Officers are believed to have been called after a guard on the Virgin intercity train spotted the couple on CCTV.
A man has been charged and a woman bailed for allegedly having sex on a crowded Virgin train, like this one
Businessman Gregory Sim, 49, has been charged with unacceptable behaviour while the unnamed woman, from Essex, has been bailed while inquiries continue.
A spokesman for British Transport Police said the session took place on Wednesday, October 22, at 2.45pm.
'The man, Gregory Sim, from Richmond, Surrey, has been charged with unacceptable behaviour on a train and is due to appear at City of Westminster magistrates on November 16,' he added.
Quizzed by reporters last night, Mr Sim confirmed his arrest but refused to give any more details.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/reagonomics-hides-sleeper-cells-harboring/story.aspx?guid=%7BA1408383%2D3517%2D40A0%2D8363%2DDBD03829CEA1%7D&dist=TNMostRead
Listen closely folks: You and your government are and will continue being conned out of trillions. Better that we should have taken care of ourselves first and cleaned house, not bailed out Wall Street financiers -- let them pay for their sins and feel the pain.
Unfortunately, while you were distracted by the election, Wall Street gained control of our Treasury using a Trojan Horse, Hank Paulson, who filled Treasury with Goldman Sachs alums and pulled off one of the greatest inside heists in the history of the world.
While you were distracted, Wall Street privatized the U.S. Treasury, got the keys to Fort Knox and will be stealing trillions for years to come, through a secret "sleeper cell," a "virus" installed in the $700 billion Wall Street bailout. They're laughing: All you got was a heavily discounted paper IOU for you, your kids and generations to pay off. The winners: Paulson, Goldman, Wall Street banks and Reaganomics. The losers: America.
Wall Street and its buddies in Washington (all those politicians bankrolled by 41,000 lobbyists) know two things the voters never, never learn: that no matter how incompetent they are -- how greedy, how stupid and how destructive -- America's naive voters will always bail them out of a crisis
The American taxpayer is being royally screwed by the Wall Street bailout giveaway. According to Klein, they're adding insult to injury, rubbing salt in our wounds:
"Many of the banks appear to have no intention of wasting the money on loans."
Merrill CEO John Thain said "it's just going to be a cushion."
Citigroup CFO Gary Crittenden "hinted that his company would use its share of the cash, $25 billion, to buy up competitors and swell even bigger," giving them the "possibility of taking advantage of opportunities that might otherwise be closed to us."
And my old colleagues at Morgan Stanley are "planning to pay themselves $10.7 billion this year, much of it in bonuses." So screw the taxpayers and Main Street homeowners.
It gets even worse: The day after Paulson's nine-bank deal, he announced his selection of Bank of New York Mellon as the "master custodian" coordinating all phases of the Wall Street bank bailout. BNYM's role as "the contractor of contractors" is to the $700 billion bailout what Vice President Dick Cheney's old firm Halliburton was to all the mercenary and private contractor operations in Iraq. Plus the new president's locked into a three-year contract.
BNYM's boss can outsource to friendly Wall Street "subcontractors," handing out billions of taxpayer money with little oversight much as Halliburton did in Iraq. They will "purchase toxic debts from Wall Street, service them and auction them off in the future." BNYM's boss called this plum "the ultimate outsourcing." An opportunity for his bank, because there's "a lot of new business that's going on even in this chaotic marketplace."
Main Street's suffering because of Wall Street's "sins," and Wall Street sees our pain as just an "opportunity" for them. That's textbook "disaster capitalism."
So now you know the truth: The Treasury did not nationalize America's banks. The fact is, Wall Street privatized the U.S. Treasury with a $700 billion rescue plan being controlled by the very banks that created the mess. You were distracted by the election, hoping for a savior, while Wall Street was turning defeat into victory using a classic "disaster capitalism" strategy.
That's right, Wall Street's Trojan Horse, Hank Paulson, operated quietly inside Treasury, protecting his old Wall Street buddies before they'd go bankrupt. He pulled the classic "disaster capitalism" stunt relieving the banks of the pain of their "sins." Ironically, that only leads to more "sinning," faster, bigger, sooner.
That's classic "moral hazard" and with Wall Street's new "business as usual" attitudes about mergers, bonuses, CEO pay and cash cushions, you just know those Reaganomics "financial WMDs" that Paulson's leaving behind in the bailout funds "sleeper cell" will ultimately trigger an even bigger financial meltdown soon, by 2011.
http://www.007.com/#/about-the-film/story
It's time UOJ agents gave the enablers a taste of their own medicine.
Let's identify some of the more active molestation cover ups in progress and deal with the pro-molester perps.
Who runs the Mishmeres Hatzniyus? Bombard their phones lines at work & home.
Harass Margo when he zhlobs up & down Ocean Pkwy.
And ask Rabbi Gissinger and the machers in his Lakewood shul why Kolko is allowed to daven there.
Stores see surge in applicants for holiday help
By ANNE D'INNOCENZIO, AP
posted: 18 MINUTES AGO
The odds of landing a part-time job at department store operator Bealls Outlet Stores Inc. this holiday season are slimmer than getting into Harvard: It's one out of every 45.
Don't think the chances are any better at 7-Eleven. One California store received more than 100 applicants in a week and a half for jobs that pay $8.50 per hour — and the retailer doesn't even usually hire holiday workers.
From department stores and convenience chains to call centers, managers who only a year ago had to scramble to fill holiday jobs are seeing a surge in the number of seasoned applicants — many of them laid off in other sectors and desperate for a way to pay the bills.
The flood of jobseekers comes even as the retail industry drastically cuts back on holiday hiring because of the drop-off in consumer spending, and the applicants — who differ from the usual pool, teens or stay-at-home moms looking for extra spending money — reflect the nation's fast-deteriorating job market.
"I thought it was going to be pretty easy, but I am not the only one looking for a job. There are thousands of us going for the same thing," said Kimberly Caparo of Chesterfield, Mich., who has applied for part-time jobs at Toys "R" Us Inc., Home Depot Inc. and Lowe's Cos. Inc. in recent weeks since she and her husband were laid off by American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings Inc.
At UPS Inc., which is just starting to ramp up its holiday hiring, as much as 30 percent of the seasonal hires in the Northeast are coming from the ranks of the recently laid off, said spokeswoman Ronna Charles Branch. In the past, she said, applicants for holiday jobs at the world's biggest shipping carrier were largely students.
Jean Telfort, a 41-year-old Army veteran, has applied for dozens of part-time jobs, including at Macy's and Nordstrom Inc., with no success. He needs money to help pay the rent and to pay down his $60,000 credit card bill, which includes his college tuition charges.
"I am looking for anything to carry me over," said the Freeport, N.Y., who returned full-time to Hofstra University where he's pursuing a degree in public relations after he served 11 years in the Army. He expects to graduate in May.
Since the financial meltdown intensified in September, leading to massive layoffs across several industries, a growing number of the unemployed have been turning to lower-paying jobs in the retail sector, which they thought could help them get by until they found full-time work in their specialized fields or retrain in other areas.
"It would be money coming in even if it's a little bit," said Caparo, 32, who's finishing up a college degree in business administration and does not plan to go back to the battered auto industry. "It's money that I don't have to take out."
But given the shakiness of the retailing industry amid a series of bankruptcies, store closings and liquidations, laid-off workers are even having a hard time finding any jobs. The situation got even tougher Monday, when consumer electronics chain Circuit City Stores Inc. filed for bankruptcy and said it would be laying off more people than previously announced.
John Challenger, chief executive of Chicago-based outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, noted that holiday hiring will fall significantly below last year's total, which was the lowest since 2003. And those with pink slips shouldn't count on new job opportunities even after the holidays, since even more retailers are expected to file for bankruptcy.
The U.S. retail industry alone shed 38,100 jobs in October, bringing the total since January to 297,000, according to Michael P. Niemira, chief economist at the International Council of Shopping Centers. That accounts for 25 percent of the 1.2 million jobs lost in the U.S. so far this year. Yet retail employment only accounted for about 11 percent of total payroll employment — meaning the retail industry is losing a higher proportion of its jobs.
Such retail losses have helped push the nation's unemployment rate to a 14-year high of 6.5 percent in October as another 240,000 jobs overall were cut last month, according to government data released Friday. And many economists believe the unemployment rate will climb to 8 percent or 8.5 percent by the end of next year.
As far back as September, Bealls Outlet Stores — which operates most of its 450 stores in Florida — was being flooded with up to 40 to 50 applicants a week, said Conrad Szymanski, president of the Bradenton, Fla.-based chain. A year ago, they saw one or two applicants a week per store. Each store hires about 10 part-time holiday workers — meaning that about 450 applicants are competing for 10 jobs per store. Those are tougher odds than Harvard, which accepted about 7 percent of all applicants for the class of 2012.
"What we are seeing is a profound increase," particularly in Florida, California, and Arizona, where the real estate market has been hit hard, said Szymanski.
What's so striking, store executives say, is how desperate the applicants are.
Rob Duncan, chief operating officer of Alpine Access, a "virtual" call center provider with 7,500 employees working from their homes across the country, estimated a 10 to 15 percent rise in applicants from a year ago. In the past, they were mostly stay-at-home moms looking for part-time work. Now the company, which handles customer service for stores like J. Crew as well as tech support, debt collection and financial services, is seeing more men and more midlevel managers looking for at least 35 hours of work.
"They are looking for replacement income; instead of supplemental income," Duncan said.
David Ortega, a training store manager at the 7-Eleven in Citrus Heights, Calif., that got more than 100 applications, noted that many applicants have management experience — including those who even owned their own construction business.
The store in a suburb of Sacramento, which has been hard hit by the housing slump, usually saw candidates who came straight out of high school, he said.
Ortega also noted that job candidates are doing more follow-ups. One applicant — a former manager in cosmetics at Macy's — even wrote him a thank you note for discussing the $8.50 per hour job.
"You expect to see that for a higher-level position, like an executive," he said.
Bail-Outrage: Misuse of Funds, Lack of Transparency a National Disgrace
Posted Nov 11, 2008 03:37pm EST by Aaron Task
Many Americans are understandably outraged by the bailout fever that has gripped Washington this year. But even those who believe the bailouts are a "necessary evil" would have a hard time defending some of the bailout-related items that have come to light in recent days, including:
Financial institutions using TARP bailout money to pay executive bonuses. The firms, of course, say it's "different" money and bonuses are key to retaining top employees. But if you need to come to the government for a handout, shouldn't your executives forgo a bonus? Or shouldn't the government make canceling bonuses a condition of getting aid, as is the case in Europe?
The Fed refusing to reveal who received almost $2 trillion in non-TARP loans, or what collateral it has accepted from "emergency" loans made to struggling firms, as Bloomberg reports.
The Treasury Department providing a tax break to banks involved in acquisitions that could amount to $140 billion. The Washington Post reveals the change to the tax code was issued on Sept. 30, while Congress was debating the $700 billion TARP bill.
The bailouts are bad enough. But this kind of chicanery and lack of transparency makes me recall a line from another time when fear and deceit dominated Washington: Have they no shame, at long last?
Upcoming events under Bim Bam:
Bailouts galore, increased expenditure for Food stamps, Medicaid, nationalized (socialism) health insurance, increased confiscatory taxes ("redistribution")
significant decreases in military spending, Fairness doctrine to control free speech, speak loudly with our enemies and carry a limp stick...
USA can not be defeated militarily but its Institutions can be destroyed from within.
Is Bim Bam a sleeper agent?
The Bim Bam Identity.
Las Vegas Sands prices stock offer, shares fall
Tuesday November 11, 4:45 pm ET
By Mark McSherry
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Troubled casino company Las Vegas Sands Corp (NYSE:LVS - News) said on Tuesday it priced a public offering of 181.8 million common shares at $5.50 per share, which would raise about $1 billion to shore up its finances.
Sands' shares, which have plummeted from above $122 last December, fell about 33 percent on Tuesday to $5.34.
Sands, one of the casino companies hardest hit by an economic slowdown that has savaged the gambling industry, also said it will sell preferred stock and warrants to the family of Chief Executive Sheldon Adelson.
Guys, you are missing the obvious reason why Rahm Emanuel might have wanted to be in on the call. Maybe Emanuel's own investments had been put at risk by the Lehman Brothers Bankruptcy. Was the issue pikuach nefesh or pikuach dollar? Inquiring minds should ask. What did R. Lopatin know before he gave permission?
http://eaazi.blogspot.com/2008/11/haredim-stacey-cohen-amy-rule.html
Not only does Rabbi Asher Lopatin's letter posted by Shmarya Rosenberg at the FailedMessiah blog discuss both Amy Rule's conversion and Rahm Emanuel's recent desecration of the Sabbath with total casuistry, but it indicates quite well exactly how low Orthodox Judaism has sunk even by its own meager ethical standards.
Arthur, how much do you pay per pound for David Elliott chicken?
Our daughter attends a high priced pre-school that draws from the entire spectrum of frum and not-frum, modern and haymish. It's the only real option in our area.
There are a number of special programs that are supposed to be covered by the exorbitant tuition.
There was supposed to be a dinner for all the kids and parents in the rov's sukkah. (He has a shul nearby with a very large one).
At the last minute, the dinner was cancelled and they told everyone to come instead for hakafos on leil Simchas Torah.
Most people do not live within any reasonable walking distance.
This means according to R' Moishe Feinstein's psak, they were oveir on a D'Orayseh of meyses umeydiach for the frey people who drove (ok, for Yom Tov Acharon it's derabonon unless someone drove before tzeis). I am not aware if any other poskim are mattir this.
What about the money we were forced to pay whether we wanted it or not for this fresser dinner that never was?
Democracy at work:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/128344
Coming soon to the USA.
I didn't know Acorn had a branch in Jerusalem.
I have information that the ominous-sounding "'War' on kosher" (from sonei Yisroel) will be the centerpiece agenda of the Agudah "Fresser Convention" slated for later this month in a fancy Connecticut hotel.
When they tried to carpetbomb UOJ a couple of years ago it didn't work. Let's see what happens this time.
The Fannie-Freddie plan today is just a bailout of all the shmucks. We have to pay for the homes they don't deserve to live in.
Obama will be even worse than Bush.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi sought legislation on Tuesday to bail out failing automakers, saying she was confident an emergency measure would be approved next week.
http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/hotproperty/archives/2008/11/modifying_mortg.html
Modifying mortgages is just a band-aid
I'm going to look into whether politics played a role in Kosherfest's move to the Meadowlands from the Jacob Javits Center.
Lubinsky and his overlords got a lot of flack for the JJC set up adjacent to a treif food show that they also controlled. There were no adequate safeguards which led the gluttons to stuff their faces on both sides thinking everying is geven kusher.
The hashgochos were afraid to make noise because of all the free perks they get but there was a group affiliated with UOJ that worked behind the scenes to stop that scandal.
Lubinsky was scared that the fat katchkas wouldn't want to venture the few miles outside of NY so he posted a tortured plea for the fressers to come in his newsletter arguing it's more convenient to travel to Jersey than to ramble around Manhattan.
“Think of the grandiosity in schizophrenia, how some people think that they are Jesus, or Napoleon, or omnipotent,” Dr. Crespi said
NEW YORK (CNN) -- A key Democratic lawmaker called Tuesday for the resignation of American International Group's CEO after the troubled insurer held a financial planners conference last week at a posh Arizona resort.
The company responded that the event cost AIG very little and was aimed at boosting income.
AIG had come under sharp criticism for sending executives on a lavish English partridge hunt and a weeklong retreat at a California resort after accepting an $85 billion bailout -- since grown to $150 billion -- from the federal government in September.
"These guys, they don't get it," Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Maryland, said on CNN's "American Morning." "They came to us basically saying 'we are on the critical list, and we need a respirator,' and we bail them out, and the next thing we know, we turn around and they are going out partying and spending the taxpayers' dollars. And it's kind of -- it's very upsetting."
I am an ehrlich yid, the gerer rebbe said vote for barkat so i did. you see how heilig the rebbe is, porush lost the election in jerusalem.
EDITED FOR BREVITY
*
The following article has lots of good information in it yet has a somewhat strange slant. It begins with the first things being that the pedophiles are sick and can't help it. It goes on to talk about how they won't go to therapy because they are afraid of retribution. I think the reality is they don't want to be arrested and face possible prison time.
There is also a problem with the statistic of offenders being mostly male. The article states "95 percent are male." According to more recent research crimes committed by women are rarely reported, let alone arrested or charged with the crimes. From working in the field for almost 25 years, I personally believe it's an even 50-50 split of the percentage male and female sex offenders (See below you will find several links that will provide you with more information about female sex offenders).
The article closes with information 'about the perp.' The last item talks about the need to send sex offender to the police -- almost as if that is an afterthought.
I personal feel this article should have started off discussing the need to report all alleged sex crimes to the police. It's sad to say that Mandel, Pelcovitz and Schulman do not focus on the fact that child molestation is a heinous crime and should be looked upon as one. Those who have been sexually victimized are crime victims.
We all must be asking if Mandel, Pelcovitz and Schulman would be writing an article about an assailant who robbed a victim at gunpoint or a victim of an attempted murder -- would they be so kind when writing about the offender? It's time we stop sugar coating the reality when talking about those who commit sex crimes.
It is nice to know that people are finally taking notice of the sexual abuse in our community. But what about the verbal and emotional abuse? Most people do not consider that as "abuse", and therefore nothing is done about it. However, the scars can be just as bad.
I'm referring to spouse and children of abusive parent/spouse.
We have plenty of these. (my parents)
Help!
Yisroel Belsky - The - # 1 - Most Dangerous Person To Klal Yisroel!
Different Hat - Same Terrorist!
HE is the brother in law of MOSHE BARKIN, WHO IS LEADING THE MACHLOKES IN CLEVELAND OHIO AGAINST TELSHE YESHIVA
A former accountant for retailer American Apparel Inc. has filed a wrongful termination suit against the company alleging that he was fired after refusing requests from Chief Executive Dov Charney to inflate figures on the company's balance sheet.
The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court last week, is the latest in a string of cases against the retailer and its top executive. The company has recently faced five sexual harassment cases that have been settled, dismissed or placed in arbitration.
It can't happen here in our Goldene Medina, or can it?
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2008/11/11/2008-11-11_georgia_congressman_paul_broun_warns_of_.html
From Shmayra's blog
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
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