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
214 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 214 of 214Some big name rov who learned in Telz had some mispalelim leave his shul over his disgraceful behavior. A rich dude who davens by him did some avlos that should preclude him from getting aliyos. The rov does nothing because the rich dude fork$ over enough ca$h.
Oy vey! Boog is going to have a field day over all these scandals with my alma mater Telz!
Don't forget that Yeshiva of Brooklyn is in the Telzer mold.
Kosher Gym, at least at one point, was using strong-armed tactics to enforce the time limit on exercise machines - literally! They were shutting off treadmills in use and causing women to fall. The yenta suspects that Chaim Berlin was behind it because the women were wearing sheitelach from that store across the street.
Scheinerman!! You shtink from Telzer gayve!!
Analysis: A new financial crisis at the worst time By TOM RAUM, Associated Press Writer
12 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - The last thing the Bush White House and the rest of the country needed in these economically trying times was another financial crisis. But they got one.
The Republican administration and Democratic-run Congress now are facing the possibility that mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, once staid and stable, could need a bailout or even go under.
Their default would send shock waves through already distressed financial markets, drive the U.S. economy further into recession territory and make it even harder for people to obtain mortgages or refinance their homes.
Under that dark cloud, politicians of both parties rallied behind the two companies Friday, expressing confidence and calling their role in the housing market essential.
Yet if their financial health continues to deteriorate, the government may have little choice but to take them over or bail them out. Or a combination of both.
The two government-chartered, shareholder-owned companies own or guarantee over $5 trillion of home loans — roughly half of all the mortgage debt that is outstanding in the United States. Their role has become even more crucial as home prices keep falling and mortgage defaults keep rising.
With stocks of the mortgage giants swooning, President Bush and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Friday sought to ease concerns that Fannie and Freddie were headed for insolvency or a government takeover.
"Today, our primary focus is supporting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in their current form as they carry out their important mission," Paulson said. "We are maintaining a dialogue with regulators and with the companies."
A short while later, Bush told reporters that Paulson had briefed him on financial markets and "assured me that he and (Federal Reserve Chairman) Ben Bernanke will be working this issue very hard."
"Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are very important institutions," Bush said.
Bush, the first U.S. president with an MBA degree, may have been assured, but investors apparently weren't. They dumped stocks in response to the woes of Freddie and Fanny, pushing the Dow Jones industrials at one point below the 11,000 mark for the first time in two years before recovering slightly.
The two companies' stocks are now at their lowest levels in 16 years, down 80 percent from just a year ago.
Congress set up the companies to ensure that money for home loans would be available. They buy mortgages, turn them into securities and sell them to investors. They also hold some mortgages in their own portfolios.
Because they were sponsored by the government and deemed to be nearly risk-free, they have been able to borrow money at slightly below-market rates.
"These are companies with a solid business plan. They are fundamentally well-run companies, but are the victims of the broad financial downturn. There's been a huge loss of value there," said Peter Morici, an economics professor at the University of Maryland and former chief economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission. "My feeling is that, as long as they can meet their obligation, they shouldn't be taken over."
Because they were deemed safe, stable and chartered by the government, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have less restrictive requirements for cash reserves than other financial institutions. They have no explicit government backing despite their charter, but there was always an assumption that the government would bail them out if necessary.
While most of the mortgages they hold are fixed-rate loans to borrowers with good credit, the housing downturn has been so severe that they have sustained gigantic losses in their loan portfolios due to foreclosures — about $11 billion over the past few months — pushing them closer to the financial brink.
And because their stock prices have plunged so far, they are hard pressed to raise fresh capital on their own.
Former St. Louis Fed President William Poole this week said Fannie and Freddie were already technically insolvent.
Under a 1992 law, if either becomes heavily undercapitalized, it can be placed into a "conservatorship," a partial federal takeover.
"There's no good news here for the housing market or for the broader economy," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com.
Zandi said he doesn't think the two mortgage companies are yet at the point of default. "Yet, the pessimism is so dark, it can become self-fulfilling."
There's a range of things the government can do short of a takeover. It could lend money to the two companies, it could buy their stock, it could make the implied government guarantee an explicit one with a big line of credit.
These are the kinds of things, presumably, Paulson and Bernanke will be exploring in the coming days in "working this issue very hard," as Bush said.
___
EDITOR'S NOTE — Tom Raum has covered Washington for The Associated Press since 1973, including five presidencies.
Picture of things to come:
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Office of Thrift Supervision shuts down IndyMac By ALEX VEIGA, AP Business Writer
30 minutes ago
LOS ANGELES - IndyMac Bank's assets were seized by federal regulators on Friday after succumbing to the pressures of tighter credit, tumbling home prices and rising foreclosures.
The Office of Thrift Supervision said it transferred IndyMac's operations to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation because it did not think the lender could meet its depositors' demands.
IndyMac customers with funds in the bank were limited to taking out money via automated teller machines over the weekend, debit card transactions or checks, regulators said.
Other bank services, such as online banking and phone banking were scheduled to be made available on Monday.
The bank is the largest regulated thrift to fail and the second largest financial institution to close in U.S. history, regulators said.
"This institution failed today due to a liquidity crisis," OTS Director John Reich said.
IndyMac had $32.01 billion in assets as of March 31.
Pasadena, Calif.-based IndyMac Bancorp Inc., the holding company for IndyMac Bank, has been struggling to raise capital as the housing slump deepens.
A spokesman for the lender did not immediately return an e-mail request for comment.
The banking regulator said it closed IndyMac after customers began a run on the lender following the June 26 release of a letter by Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., urging several bank regulatory agencies that they take steps to prevent IndyMac's collapse.
In the 11 days that followed the letter's release, depositors took out more than $1.3 billion, regulators said.
The FDIC planned to reopen the bank on Monday as IndyMac Federal Bank, FSB.
Engelmayer is a shtik dreck who seems to get all over.
http://yudelstake.blogspot.com/2008/07/new-rubashkin-ads-stay-tuned.html?showComment=1215746340000#c7741091082303260691
(Member of UOJ's Roto Rooter Brigade?) R' Yudel Shain is reporting that Juda Engelmayer was posting deceptive comments on his blog too:
"I flushed him out (pardon the intended pun)"
Reb UOJ
"I look at the entire vile and meaningless sect called Chassidim - for this I cry!"
I'm somewhat puzzled and perplexed by this statement.
You stated that you learned Tanya as a young yeshiva bochur in TV.You learned the Rav's Shulchon Aruch with Rav Rivkin ZY"A who was a Lubavitcher Chosid of the old style .I assume that someone of your stature must have leaned other Chasidesher sforim.Are you referring to the Behst vitalmidov,The great Magid of Mezritch vitalmidov,the great Rabeim of Poland,Galicia and Ungarin as being part of that"vile sect called Chassidim"?
I assumed that the battle of the Grah against Chassidim and Chassidus ended many years ago.As you point out quite often on your blog, their are vile people in all areas of the so called Chraideshe velt.Why have you singled out, with with one broad sweep of the brush, Chassidim as being a "vile sect"?
Am I missing something here?
I'm asking this in all honesty because I assumed that you're above this type of generalization.I hope that my assumption about you still holds strong.I know that you don't owe me any explanation for your beliefs.If you will tell me "gai faifen"I will understand.However if you will enlighten me I will understand even more.
Arthur,
Chalila - I would never tell you go faifen. I did an entire post on "Chassidism is not Judaism" - referring to today's group of hooligans.
I read oyur article explaning why you think what you think about Chassidus.
One of your main criticsm of 'Chsidus' and not of particular chiasidim is that the Zohar, and Kisvei Ari are not part of our mesora. Since CHaisuys focuses heavily on Zohar and Kisvei Ari - it is not part of our mesora.
But the fact remais that virtually all Torah authorities since the time of the Mechaber at least, have taken the Zohar and Kisvei Ari very seriously.
The Mechaber quotes the ZOhar extensively as an authentic work. The Mogen Avrohom quotes Kisvei Ari all of the time. The CHofetz Chiam as well. The VIlna Gaon himself and R' Chaim Volozhiner do too. This is just a small sampling.
The Maharam Alshaker and Abarbanel report that upon learnign about the Kabolla late in life, the Rambam recanted on all of what he said regarding philoso[hical speculation i.e.the Moreh nevuchim and much of what appears in Yesodei haTOrah and Deos etc. It was to late however to undo that which had already spread.
Are you to say that all othese universally accepted Paragons of Halocho are 'vile' and foolish?
One canot attack Zohar or Kisvei Ari w/o attacking the entire Mesora as it has developed over the past 600 years. If this is your best critiscm of Chasidus and as such allows you to use hysteric condemnations you really need to take a step back. It seems as if your hatred at evils commited has ruined your judgement to make distinctions.
Also, there are many references to the Toras haSod in classic sourcesin CHazal and Rishonim. This too was given at Sinai just not revelaed to anyone. See Chagiga the first Mishna of Ein Dorshin.
The Rashbi and the Arizal as well as the Besht were granted permission to reveal more of the Torah than was revealed previously.
If you are serious about understanding Kabblo and Zohar you should contact R' Yaakov Hillel of Yerusholayim.
Be Well,
A Breslover Chosid
A contractor named AER who shechts for Hebrew National – a ConAgra brand – in the Midwest allegedly engages in tax fraud, money laundering and worker abuse. And to top it all off, AER is allegedly cutting kashrus corners as well. A class action lawsuit has been filed.
http://www.ajwnews.com/archives/13634
Here's the lowdown, based on the story just posted by the American Jewish World:
• a shochet claims he was paid part of his salary in the US and the rest was paid to relatives in Israel by an Israeli AER rabbi (presumably in cash).
• shubim were sometimes forced to sleep four to a room in shoddy apartments on mattresses placed on the floor.
• shubim claim they have repeatedly complained about kashrus problems to Hebrew National's kosher supervisor, Triangle-K (headed by Rabbi Aryeh Ralbag, who lives in Flatbush but who is the outgoing chief rabbi of Amsterdam's modern orthodox kehillah). But, they claim, Ralbag ignored them.
• “[Ralbag and AER] did little or nothing to correct the transgressions. Rather, the persons making the complaints were terminated or otherwise threatened with adverse retaliation, such as job transfers to other facilities or States. In turn, non-kosher meat was delivered to ConAgra and packaged, labeled and sold to the public [including the plaintiffs in the lawsuit] as strictly 100% kosher,” a class action lawsuit filed in May against ConAgra doing business as Hebrew National reads. The suit says that ConAgra "is not living up to its self-proclaimed standard of kosher 'as defined by the most stringent Jews who follow Orthodox Jewish Law.'”
If any of this is true it means a return to the bad old days of 1980s and 90s non-glatt (and some glatt) shechita that was riddled with problems just like this.
Yeah!
http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/new-york-news/multiracial-jews-moving-beyond-isolation
Multiracial Jews Moving Beyond Isolation
Am very happy that to see your write in this post which so many read and comment here.
Best wishes from Maryland!
Moti
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