PLEASE EXPRESS YOUR OUTRAGE AT ASSEMBLYMAN VITO LOPEZ’S ATTEMPT TO SNEAK HIS PREVIOUSLY DEFEATED BILL NUMBER A.05708A THROUGH THE ASSEMBLY CODES COMMITTEE.
OUR COMMUNITY IS IN SHOCK OVER SEXUAL ABUSE CASES NOW BEING MADE PUBLIC ON AN ALMOST DAILY BASIS. UNFORTUNATELY LAWS CURRENTLY ON THE BOOKS PROTECT CHILD MOLESTERS.
THANKFULLY, ASSEMBLYWOMAN MARGARET MARKEY HAS SPONSORED ASSEMBLY BILL NUMBER A2596. THE “CHILD VICTIMS’ ACT OF NEW YORK” WHICH OPENS UP A “WINDOW” TO ALLOW VICTIMS OF SEXUAL ABUSE TO EXPOSE THEIR ATTACKERS AND BRING THEM TO JUSTICE. THE MARKEY BILL PASSED A CRUCIAL VOTE IN THE ASSEMBLY CODES COMMITTEE ON MARCH 17, 2009. MARKEY’S BILL WILL BE UP FOR A VOTE BEFORE THE ASSEMBLY IN THE COMING WEEKS AND HAS THE OVERWHELMING SUPPORT OF THE ASSEMBLY. IT IS EXPECTED TO PASS.
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND A FEW ORTHODOX JEWISH ORGANIZATIONS, ESPECIALLY THE GEDOLIM AT THE AGUDATH ISRAEL WHO HAVE BEEN PROTECTING PEDOPHILES FOR MANY DECADES, ARE DESPERATELY TRYING TO PREVENT THE PASSAGE OF MARKEY’S BILL. THEY HAVE PERSUADED ASSEMBLYMAN VITO LOPEZ TO SPONSOR A COMPETING BILL, THE “LOPEZ BILL,” WHICH PROTECTS PEDOPHILES AT THE EXPENSE OF OUR INNOCENT CHILDREN.
ASSEMBLYMAN VITO LOPEZ’S BILL A.05708A IS BEING VOTED ON IN THE ASSEMBLY CODES COMMITTEE, TODAY, ON MARCH 31, 2009 AT 11:00. VITO LOPEZ’S BILL PROTECTS PEDOPHILES AND MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO PASS
PLEASE CALL AND E-MAIL ALL OF THE ASSEMBLY CODES COMMITTEE MEMBERS AND TELL THEM THAT YOU ARE AN ORTHODOX JEW WHO OPPOSES ASSEMBLYMAN VITO LOPEZ’S BILL A.05708A AND THAT THEY MUST DO EVERYTHING IN THEIR POWER TO BLOCK THE LOPEZ BILL NUMBER A.05708A AND MAKE SURE IT IS NOT PASSED OUT OF COMMITTEE.
15 MINUTES OF YOUR TIME TODAY WILL HELP SAVE THE LIFE OF AN INNOCENT CHILD TOMORROW.
THE TIME TO ACT IS EARLY THIS MORNING. YOUR VOICE COUNTS MORE THAN YOU CAN POSSIBLY IMAGINE. EVERY SINGLE CALL AND E-MAIL COUNTS. PLEASE CALL AND E-MAIL AND ASK YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY TO DO THE SAME.
EVERY SIGNATURE MATTERS - THIS BILL MUST PASS!
CLICK - GOAL - 100,000 NEW SIGNATURES! 75,000 SIGNATURES HAVE ALREADY BEEN SUBMITTED TO GOVERNOR CUOMO!
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
17 comments:
Clergy sex abuse expert warned Catholic bishops in 1950s to keep abusers out of parishes
RACHEL ZOLL | AP Religion Writer
5:10 PM CDT, March 30, 2009
The founder of a religious order that treats Roman Catholic priests who molest children concluded in the 1950s that offenders were unlikely to change and should not be returned to ministry, according to his letters, which were obtained by plaintiffs' lawyers.
The Rev. Gerald Fitzgerald, founder of the Servants of the Paraclete, was so sure of the priests' inability to control themselves that he tried to buy an island to isolate them.
Fitzgerald discussed the issue with Pope Paul VI and in correspondence with several bishops, according to the National Catholic Reporter, an independent newspaper that reported the full content of the letters Monday.
The documents challenge recent statements by U.S. bishops that before the clergy sex abuse scandal erupted in the 1980s and again in 2002, they were unaware of the risks of moving predators among parishes.
"I myself would be inclined to favor laicization for any priest, upon objective evidence, for tampering with the virtue of the young, my argument being, from this point onward the charity to the Mystical Body should take precedence over charity to the individual," Fitzgerald wrote in a 1952 letter to Bishop Robert Dwyer of Reno, Nev.
"Moreover, in practice, real conversions will be found to be extremely rare," he continued. "Hence, leaving them on duty or wandering from diocese to diocese is contributing to scandal or at least to the approximate danger of scandal."
The Los Angeles law firm Kiesel, Boucher & Larson, which has brought many abuse cases against California dioceses, persuaded a judge in New Mexico to unseal the letters in 2007, according to Helen Zukin, an attorney at the firm.
The attorneys then verified that the documents were authentic during depositions with Fitzgerald's successor as the Paracletes servant general, the Rev. Joseph McNamara, Zukin said.
Leaders of the Servants of the Paraclete could not be reached for comment Monday.
Fitzgerald set up the Paraclete treatment center in the late 1940s in Jemez Springs, N.M., mainly to help clergy struggling with alcoholism and emotional troubles. Soon, bishops began sending him priests who had molested young people or could not keep their celibacy vows.
In a 1957 letter to Bishop Matthew Brady of Manchester, N.H., Fitzgerald wrote that abusive priests only pretended to repent and change "to be again in a position where they can continue their wonted activity." He said eventually the church would have to establish "a uniform code of discipline and of penalties" to protect the priesthood.
More than four decades later, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops did just that. It created a national discipline and child protection policy after news reports and court files unsealed in 2002 showed that many bishops had moved guilty priests from assignment to assignment without notifying parents or police.
Under the new plan, offenders are barred from church work or ousted from the priesthood altogether. American dioceses have paid more than $2.6 billion in abuse-related costs since 1950, according studies commissioned by the U.S. bishops.
By the 1960s, Fitzgerald was losing control over the direction of the religious order, and medical and psychological professionals began working at the center — a change he had resisted. Those experts said some abusers could return to ministry.
The New Mexico treatment center closed in the 1990s in the face of lawsuits over priests who had molested children while staying at the Jemez Springs site or after being treated there.
I don't think Mark Weprin is still frum but his brother is. David Weprin, who davens at Young Israel of Jamaica Estates, is a City Councilman who is running for NYC Comptroller.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/31/nyregion/31silver.html
March 31, 2009
Albany’s Big 3 Is Cut to One as Silver Flexes Might
By DANNY HAKIM
ALBANY — It’s Sheldon Silver’s Albany now.
Mr. Silver, the powerful and cagey Assembly speaker, achieved what he wanted in the budget that emerged from the shadows of the statehouse this weekend, cementing his newfound role as the capital’s center of gravity.
He won the policy fight, forcing Gov. David A. Paterson to raise taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers, an idea that the governor decried as potentially disastrous three weeks ago. The $131.8 billion budget, which could hardly be called austere, is largely a reflection of the liberal tilt of Mr. Silver, and the Assembly’s predilection for big spending on social programs, no matter the economic climate.
Mr. Silver also dictated the process, turning back the clock to the most secretive budget negotiations the capital has seen in years, casting aside the open government that Mr. Paterson and other Democrats once said would follow the party’s sweeping victories in recent state elections. He argued that technicalities in recently passed budget reform legislation allowed the Legislature to circumvent requirements for open meetings among those negotiating the spending plan.
And the speaker preserved the Legislature’s cherished spending on pet projects, pushing successfully for $170 million for members to dole out in district spending, leaving that pool of money essentially untouched, despite the fiscal crisis.
He argued that “nonprofit organizations throughout the state have been devastated by the economic downturn,” but lawmakers appropriated money for gun clubs, churches, a yoga foundation and the Wantagh American Legion Pipe Band, among thousands of other projects.
Critics say Mr. Silver, a Democrat from the Lower East Side who has been speaker for the last 15 years, is the symbol of all that is broken in state government, a man who long ago forsook principle for power. They also say that he lacks the fiscal discipline to prudently manage the state’s escalating future deficits.
Allies say he is the only senior Democrat in state government fielding a competent staff with the expertise to lead the state, and that he will usher in a more activist left-leaning agenda on important policy issues, like the recent agreement among state leaders to eliminate many of the remaining stringent Rockefeller era penalties for drug offenses.
Certainly, he is more influential than ever, a master negotiator who finds his counterparts diminished in stature. Mr. Paterson has dismal poll numbers and a staff in constant flux; even some of his supporters worry about his ability to be elected next year. In the Senate, Democrats are still learning to work the levers of power after more than 40 years in the minority, and Senator Malcolm A. Smith, the majority leader, is consumed with keeping his fractious caucus together.
“I don’t feel like I prevailed,” Mr. Silver said of the budget in an interview Sunday night. “I don’t consider that a great goal.”
“We went into this budget saying over and over again that the sacrifices will be shared, that the wealthiest New Yorkers would be asked to pay more, that we wouldn’t decimate education and health care to balance the budget,” he added.
He conceded his experience gave him some inherent advantages.
“Clearly we have a good staff and the Senate is still relatively new,” Mr. Silver said, adding of the Paterson administration: “Clearly they’re finding out how the process works. A lot of the staff is new.”
Opposing Mr. Silver has proven futile, even for billionaire antagonists like Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, whose plans to charge drivers entering Manhattan and to bring a football stadium to the West Side were scuttled by Mr. Silver.
Mr. Paterson, who no longer has a discernable ideology, is being increasingly marginalized. When he was laboring in obscurity as Senate minority leader, he was a champion of open government; as governor, he has been a sharp critic of the concept.
Mr. Paterson had a liberal voting record during his more than two decades in the Senate, but as governor he has sought to reinvent himself as a champion of fiscal conservatism. His own budget plan, which he retooled earlier this month, outlined roughly $8 billion in spending cuts and $4.5 billion in new or increased taxes and fees, when one includes his plan to eliminate property tax rebate checks that were part of the state’s School Tax Relief program.
But the final budget favored taxes over spending cuts, with Democratic leaders signing off on approximately $7 billion in new or increased taxes and fees, including the canceled rebate checks.
Republicans, who were not meaningfully involved in the negotiations, pointed out that the tax hikes and other actions ran to more than $8 billion when one included moves like using tuition increases at state universities to balance the budget.
Even without federal stimulus funds, state spending growth exceeds the rate of inflation.
The $4 billion in income tax increases on the wealthy and the upper middle class, with increases starting for single filers earning $200,000, had been a priority for Mr. Silver, and initially opposed by the governor and Mr. Smith. Mr. Paterson warned of the risks of such a move earlier this month: “When we have raised taxes on the wealthy in the past, we have seen a loss of job growth almost immediately,” he said.
Mr. Silver also reversed cuts to education proposed by the governor, including $185 million in cuts to pre-K special education programs as well as cuts to tuition assistance for public university students. He restored a cost-of-living increase to supplemental Social Security income checks that the governor had proposed to freeze, and moved up a plan to increase welfare grants to begin in June instead of next January.
Where the governor did prevail, on proposals like an expansion of the state’s nickel bottle deposits to include bottled water, it was often on issues that were already Assembly priorities.
“I can’t see what the governor got out of it, or what the Senate majority leader got out of it,” said Kenneth Adams, the chief executive of the Business Council of New York State. “If it’s done by three people and two of them didn’t get much out of it, it certainly sounds like the third person gets the spoils.”
Still, even some who criticized the process acknowledge that some of Mr. Silver’s moves restored funding for worthy programs, especially in these hard times. At the same time, the state’s main financial engine, Wall Street, is undergoing a profound transformation and unlikely to soon produce the tax revenues of its heyday. Some wonder if an Albany led mainly by Mr. Silver will be willing to confront that reality.
“The message hasn’t hit home yet that the state is in an enormous fiscal crisis,” said Elizabeth Lynam, the deputy research director of the Citizens Budget Commission, adding of the new budget: “It’s a disgrace.”
It's Hukind's fault. He's the one pushing the Lopez bill because he's against the one year window. He admits that he's in agreement with the ACLU on this issue. He tells you that he's in favor of the Markey bill on the one hand, and then he tells you that he's against the one year window. The Lopez bill is no compromise. It is ZERO. All it does is give the church and the Satmars a way out and keeps things status quo. If the Lopez bill passes, it will be a disaster. It will mean more decades of silence, coverups and enabling of child molesters. It's time to raise hell in Albany and to get the Markey/Duane bill passed.
Is this Setton Farms under OK hashgocho?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/31/business/31nuts.html
March 31, 2009
Salmonella in Pistachios Spurs Recall
By ANDREW MARTIN and MICHAEL MOSS
Barely two months after a huge recall of peanut-related products, federal officials said late Monday that a California processor would recall about one million pounds of pistachio products because of concerns about salmonella contamination.
The company, Setton Pistachio of Terra Bella, based in Terra Bella, Calif., decided to recall its 2008 crop after one of its customers, Kraft Foods, found several types of salmonella during routine analysis of the product. Kraft Foods alerted the Food and Drug Administration of its findings on March 24.
So far, no illnesses have been tied to the contaminated pistachios, though authorities were investigating at least two consumer complaints. F.D.A. officials warned consumers not to eat pistachios until the scope of the contamination was clear.
The pistachios were sent in 1,000- or 2,000-pound bags to about three dozen wholesalers, who repackaged them and resold them to other customers, said Dr. David Acheson, the F.D.A.’s associate commissioner for foods. As a result, authorities said the recall was likely to expand as the pistachios were traced to processed foods like ice cream and cake mixes.
The salmonella contamination of pistachios is not related to the recent salmonella outbreak tied to peanut products, which sickened hundreds and led to the recall of more than 3,800 products.
A spokesman for Setton declined to comment, saying the company’s own inquiry into the cause of the contamination was continuing. Setton says on its Web site that the California plant is the second-largest pistachio processor in the United States.
Kraft Foods said its inspectors visited the California plant where the pistachios were processed, and found that the plant was not keeping its roasted pistachios separate from the incoming flow of raw nuts. Like other nuts, raw pistachios can carry pathogens that are killed in the roasting process.
I am all in favor of dealing with the child abuse issue in a forthright way. But it is important to understand pederasty is the tip of the iceberg and other issues will in all likelihood follow. Issues like wife beating and other forms of spousal abuse, non sexual child abuse, hitting- on women employees, money laundering to name a few. Just talk to people who serve on these hot lines where people in dire stress call in for help, or to mental health professionals dealing with an Orthodox clientele and you will find the stories they tell very disturbing. There is no end to scandal. How to handle such cases has yet to be decided. What do you tell a woman who calls a hotline saying she was beaten but can’t leave because of her children? What should an accountant do when he finds his client the frum mosad is breaking the law?
In Orthodoxy, lives that violate commonly accepted moral norms, messy lives, are supposed to be the rare exception. People have worked so hard to create a safe protected space where they need not confront the vulgarities and cruelties that can be found in the world. Once we become a culture where unacceptable activities are shown to be not uncommon, an important charmed element of Orthodoxy disappears.We are becoming desensitized to scandal, and we are losing the natural ability to be shocked. What I am saying is that when scandal becomes publicized and common, the wholeness and innocence of Orthodox life begins to fade. And that is a bad thing, even if the innocence was an illusion all along.
Congress says they are looking into this Bernard Madoff scandal. So, the guy that made $50 billion disappear is being investigated by the people who made $750 billion disappear.
The economy is so bad:
CEO's are now playing miniature golf.
Even people who have nothing to do with the Obama administration aren't paying their taxes.
Hotwheels and Matchbox stocks are trading higher than GM.
Obama met with small businesses to discuss the Stimulus Package: GE, Pfeizer and Citigroup.
PETA serves chicken wings at their meetings
McDonalds is selling the 1/4- ouncer.
People in Beverly Hills fired their nannies and learned their children's
names.
A truck of Americans got caught sneaking into Mexico ..
The most highly-paid job is now jury duty.
Dick Cheney took his stockbroker hunting.
People in Africa are donating money to Americans.
Mothers in Ethiopia are telling their kids, "finish your plate, do you know how many kids are starving in the US ?"
Motel Six wont leave the light on.
The Mafia is laying off judges.
http://www.samhsa.gov/economy/
Is that Mendel Epstein's kid who opened the new shul on Ave S in the East 30s?
How "original" to steal the name "Bnei Torah" from Schiffenbauer who was first in the same neighborhood.
Hey pistachio fresser,
Mr. Setton learned in Mirrer yeshiva Brooklyn.
Rav Yudel Shain and some of the heimish hashgochos reportedly don't trust him because of labeling issues with the multitude of products he sells.
There goes the neighborhood.
This is what "Bnei Toyreh" means?
Schiffy is a Yudi Kolko supporter who heads Margo's farce "Vaad hahorim".
Yoni ben Mendel Epstein is involved with the shakedowns at Iggud Haganovim where he pretends to be a neutral toyen whose father doesn't control the joint with Belsky.
Great line from the movie "Betrayed" with Dennis Berenguer. The FBI was trying to figure out how one criminal was popping up in different locales. One agent said it's poshut because shit floats.
There's one major putz who keeps getting his picture in the NY Jewish newspapers as some big askan involved in parlor meetings, etc. I remember this guy from yeshiva. He was always really obnoxious and annoying to the point where the high school teachers gave him bad grades just because they couldn't stand him.
I was wondering what he was doing in NY all of a sudden, unmarried, when I thought he was living out of town. I Googled him and saw that he was in hot water for securities fraud and had to cough up over $400,000 in restitution. His wife was also a defendant so I guess she left him.
I wonder if all these rabbonim know just who is posing for the camera with them.
Lopez bill made it this time by a vote of 18 - 1. This is a day that will live in infamy for all children of New York State.
As for Dov Hikind...how could you Dov? We backed you. We believed in you. We gave you time. We gave you a chance. We even looked the other way when you backed out of your promise to help Joel get rid of Reichman and save innocent Satmar kids. We should have listened to Pearl Engelman about you.
And you sell us out to the Agudah, Satmar and the Catholic Church? You deny those of us who were abused as children the right to sue our abusers? You won't do anything to stop them. You won't do anything to help us. But at least allow us to defend ourselves. It is like the Nazis not allowing jews to have guns. You have taken away the one potential way that innocent children can get justice for what has been perpetrated on them by your friends Dov. Why?
Shame on you. You are neither a "frum" jew nor a caring person. You are "nuch" a politician, and we will not forget what you have done.
Shame on you and your whole family. Shame, shame shame. How can you look any Jewish child in the face now? Knowing that for the sake of "getting along with Satmar and Agudah and the Cathlic church" you took away the only weapon given to a victim of abuse by the United States government? You took away their chance to have their day in court. The victims of Mondrowitz and Kolko and all the rest will never forget and never forgive.
That piece of shit at the parlor meetings sounds like many of us guys who go running to the fresser convention and will do ANYTHING to get fame for hosting a breakfast for some yeshiva or mosad.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/31/sebelius-corrects-tax-errors/
By Robert Pear
Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, President Obama’s nominee for secretary of health and human services, said Tuesday that she and her husband had paid $7,040 in back taxes and $878 in interest after discovering “unintentional errors” in their tax returns for 2005-7.
Ms. Sebelius said she had erroneously taken tax deductions for certain mortgage interest and several charitable contributions. In a letter to the Senate Finance Committee, Ms. Sebelius said: “In July of 2006, my husband and I sold our home for an amount less than the outstanding balance on our mortgage. We continued paying off the loan, including interest we mistakenly believed continued to be deductible.”
Ms. Sebelius said she had been unable to locate records needed to document three of the 49 charitable contributions she and her husband, Gary Sebelius, had made. She is the latest of several Obama nominees to acknowledge underpaying taxes. Mr. Obama’s first choice for health secretary, Tom Daschle, withdrew after paying $128,203 in back taxes and $11,964 in interest, arising in part from the use of a luxury car and driver.
Senate Minority Leader Dean Skelos, a Nassau County Republican, said on the Senate floor. "In the past, we broke the cycle of late budgets by reforming the process."
He then accused Gov. David Paterson, Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith, and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver _ "three Democrats from New York City" _ of "turning back the clock to three men in a room and the result is a disastrous budget that taxes too much, spends too much and will cost thousands of jobs."
Hey, is that shtick dreck just in some moderne newspaper like the Jewish Fress or Larry Gordon's 5 Towns Jewish Slime or is he one of the "noted" askonim in the Yated?
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