after a long series of horrific revelations about decades of abuse of children entrusted to the church’s care by a reverential populace.
While similar disclosures have tarnished the Vatican’s image in other countries, perhaps nowhere have they shaken a whole society so thoroughly or so intensely as in Ireland. And so when the normally mild-mannered prime minister, Enda Kenny, unexpectedly took the floor in Parliament this summer to criticize the church, he was giving voice not just to his own pent-up feelings, but to those of a nation.
His remarks were a ringing declaration of the supremacy of state over church, in words of outrage and indignation that had never before been used publicly by an Irish leader.
“For the first time in Ireland, a report into child sexual abuse exposed an attempt by the Holy See to frustrate an inquiry into a sovereign, democratic republic as little as three years ago, not three decades ago,” Mr. Kenny said, referring to the Cloyne Report, which detailed abuse and cover-ups by church officials in southern Ireland through 2009.
Reiterating the report’s claim that the church had encouraged bishops to ignore child-protection guidelines the bishops themselves had adopted, the prime minister attacked “the dysfunction, the disconnection, the elitism” that he said “dominate the culture of the Vatican.”
He continued: “The rape and torture of children were downplayed, or ‘managed,’ to uphold instead the primacy of the institution — its power, its standing and its reputation.” Instead of listening with humility to the heartbreaking evidence of “humiliation and betrayal,” he said, “the Vatican’s response was to parse and analyze it with the gimlet eye of a canon lawyer.”
A MUST READ IN ITS ENTIRETY: CLICK ON LINK
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/world/europe/ireland-recalibrates-ties-to-roman-catholic-church.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntemail1=y
I bumped into Levi Aron's defense attorney Pierre Bazile in the courthouse. Pretty much everyone with a yarmulka gets into a cold staring match with him. It's amazing what the ferd will do for a little recognition, commuting from Suffolk County to Manhattan.
ReplyDeleteThe judge recently yelled at him and his co-counsel Jennifer McCann telling them they are so incompetent that were they not privately retained he would order them removed from the case.
http://daattorah.blogspot.com/2011/09/g-d-does-miracles-even-for-irreligious.html
ReplyDeleteR' Yaakov initially agrees with the Satmar Rov, then retracts.
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2011/09/14/2011-09-14_excorrection_dept_rabbi_leib_glanz_nabbed_for_tenant_fraud_pocketing_200k_in_fed.html?print=1&page=all
ReplyDeleteLeib Glanz and his brother Menashe have been arrested after a rival reportedly massered on them for running a fraudulent scheme through Satmar yeshiva UTA.
Do they deserve it? Bear in mind that 2 days after the gay vote in Albany, NYC Council Speaker, openly gay Christine Quinn, funneled millions of dollars to various chassidishe groups who were conspicuously silent after complaining during the run up to the vote.
Shmarya's theater of the bizarre:
ReplyDeleteEveryone knows that Obama threw Israel under the bus. Congressman Bob Turner's election victory over David Weprin is only one small example of public outrage over that.
Shmarya who is in the running to outdo J Street's self hating Jews on political affairs, is providing the strangest interpretation yet from pundits in the radical Left camp. He spins it as Orthodox Jews getting together with the gay Ed Koch to throw Weprin under the bus because Obama has Black skin.
Shmarya warns that this "dirty trick" will haunt Jews for years to come because no one else will want to be Israel's best friend anymore after they saw Jews throw Obama under the bus. Shmarya didn't have the guts to explicitly promote his delusional belief that Obama is Israel's best friend so he said it in a roundabout way. It's also a scream how Shmarya is trying to say that homosexuals older than a certain age like Koch can also be racist against Blacks.
Does anyone know what kind of psychotropic meds might help allieviate Shmarya's illness?
YNet/Reuters
ReplyDelete"US tax probe turns to Israeli banks
Justice Department eyes Leumi, Hapoalim and Mizrahi-Tefahot over suspicions their Swiss outposts helped American clients evade taxes
Published: 09.17.11/
Israel Business
The US pursuit of offshore tax evaders is widening to include Israel, where US authorities are scrutinizing three of Israel's largest banks over suspicions their Swiss outposts helped American clients evade taxes, people briefed on the matter said.
The banks under scrutiny by the US Justice Department's criminal tax division are Bank Hapoalim, Bank Leumi le-Israel BM and Mizrahi-Tefahot, the sources said.
The shift to Israel from Switzerland, for years the main focus of the Justice Department's campaign against offshore private banking secrecy, signals the broadening of a landmark probe by the agency that began in 2007 with UBS AG, Switzerland's largest bank.
The shift also opens up a potential sore spot in the historically close relationship between the United States and Israel, a key diplomatic and military ally in the Middle East that is the biggest recipient of US aid – $3.1 billion last year.
US-Israeli relations have come under strain in the past year, after US President Barack Obama's drive to relaunch direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians collapsed, although both sides say their decades-old alliance remains unshaken.
The scrutiny of the three Swiss branches of the Israeli banks is at an early stage and has not reached the level of that of Credit Suisse, which received a target letter from the Justice Department in July, or of HSBC Holdings, a major European bank, and Basler Kantonalbank, a Swiss cantonal bank, said the people briefed on the matter.
US-Swiss arrangement cited
Aviram Cohen, a spokesman for Bank Leumi in Tel Aviv, wrote in an e-mailed statement on Thursday that "the request was for general statistical data. It appears that this data was to serve as a basis for a comprehensive arrangement between the Swiss and American Authorities. Obviously, Bank Leumi Switzerland is cooperating fully with the Authorities, in accordance with Swiss Law and under legal advisement."
[Read on...]
Obama Calls for $1.5 Trillion in Taxes on Wealthy
ReplyDeleteWall Street Journal
SEPTEMBER 20, 2011
Obama Yokes Benefit Cuts to New Taxes
President Barack Obama threatened Monday to veto any bill that cuts Medicare benefits without increasing taxes on corporations or the wealthy, setting his sharpest boundaries yet in negotiations over reducing the federal deficit.
Mr. Obama's position, laid out as he announced a new plan to cut deficits by $3.6 trillion over 10 years, increases the challenges for a congressional supercommittee to reach a deficit-cutting deal by Thanksgiving because Republican leaders have ruled out tax increases. But it rallied the Democratic base ahead of the president's re-election battle next year.
"We are not going to have a one-sided deal that hurts the folks who are most vulnerable," Mr. Obama said in remarks at the White House.
Republican leaders said that Mr. Obama's inclusion of $1.5 trillion in tax increases in his deficit-reduction plan was a bad idea both politically and economically. "Veto threats, a massive tax hike, phantom savings and punting on entitlement reform is not a recipe for economic or job growth, or even meaningful deficit reduction," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.).
Mr. Obama left himself negotiating room in discussions with Republicans by stopping short of saying he would veto any bill that doesn't include a tax increase. But as a whole, his deficit-reduction plan offers further evidence that he is finished trying to position himself as a moderating voice in the fiscal debate, a stance he took in deficit and debt-ceiling talks this year as he tried to appeal to centrist and independent voters. Instead, he has moved to the left at the start of the next phase of the debate.
Mr. Obama's plan wouldn't leave Medicare untouched. Changes to that program and Medicaid—in large part coming from cuts in payments to drug companies and long-term care providers—are part of $580 billion in proposed cuts to mandatory spending programs. The plan also counts about $1.1 trillion in presumed savings from winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and $430 billion from interest savings, and seeks $1.5 trillion in tax increases, with more than half coming from letting the Bush-era tax cuts expire for higher-income Americans....
[Read on...]"
Kings Civil Supreme
ReplyDeleteIndex Number: 006077/2011
Case Name: GARAN,DANIEL vs. YESHIVA TORAH VODAATH
Case Type: Other Torts Negligence
Track: Standard
RJI Filed: 08/03/2011
Date NOI Due:
NOI Filed:
Disposition Date:
Calendar Number:
Jury Status:
Justice Name: ARTHUR M. SCHACK (PT. 27)
Attorney/Firm For Plaintiff:
YURIY PRAKHIN, ESQ. Attorney Type: Attorney Of Record Atty. Status: Active
1883 86TH STREET, 2ND FL.
BROOKLYN, NY 11214
718-946-5099
Attorney/Firm For Defendant:
AHMUTY,DEMERS & MCMANUS, ESQ. Attorney Type: Attorney Of Record Atty. Status: Active
200 I.U. WILLETS ROAD
ALBERTSON, NEW YORK 11507
516 294-5433
Kings County Civil Court
ReplyDeleteIndex Number: CV-044839-11/KI
Case Name: Chazon, Shlomo vs. Yeshiva of Kings Bay Klor, Dave Klor, Simcha Klor, Yaakov
Case Type: Civil
Classification: General
Filing Date: 06/17/2011
Disposition Date:
Calendar Number:
Jury Demand: No
Judge Name:
Attorney/Firm(s) For Plaintiff - Shlomo Chazon:
Self-Represented Litigant
Attorney/Firm(s) For Defendant - Yeshiva of Kings Bay:
BERWISH LAW Attorney Type: Firm
228 Park Avenue South - Suite 30780
New York, New York 10003
Does UOJ know anything about this? Someone is accusing a rov in Lawrence of being skirt chaser and worse.
ReplyDeletehttp://yudelstake.blogspot.com/2011/09/heter-mayah-v-miahgein-kosher-n-yosher.html
I'm surprised that Yudel is allowing the comments on his blog here when he usually censors much more benign accusations. Does he know something that we don't?
I would be surprised if it's true as this have never surfaced on any blog before and this rov is a huge marbitz Torah.
rabbi shain seems to be in agreement that 'lawrence' weinberger is begeder kala delo passik
ReplyDeletehttp://lukeford.net/Images/photos/belsky.pdf
ReplyDeleteSomeone forgot to tell disgraced ex rabbi Leib Tropper that his "career" is over because lately someone opened and posted some flattering stuff about him on some PR-type blogs.
ReplyDeleteNo mention of his disgraced forced resignation from his former Yeshiva Kil Yaakov! No mention either of the shutting down of EJF because Tropper was caught fornicating in bed ("Tal-mood for love: Sex-tape rabbi tries to 'share' hottie" NY Post, December 20, 2009) with his wife and Shannon Orand an employee of EJF who was also a candidate for conversion. And no mention of the pillaging of the "Lillian Jean Kaplan Foundation" by Tropper and his buddy Nochum Norman Eisenstein. No mention either that his fellow Monsey, NY rabbis decreed that he leave Monsey which he has ignored, to date.
This is one desperate wounded animal and it is so sad to read how he or someone close to him is plotzing for just a teeny-weeny bit of attention, and as usual Tropper turns to the Internet which his ultra frum buddies never cease to condemn and ban. This is just sickening:
"rabbileibtropper.wordpress.com/about/
Leib Tropper's Site
About Leib Tropper
An accomplished educational professional in the halachic tradition of Judaism, Rabbi Leib Tropper delivered speeches across the world. As Director of the Yeshiva Kol Yaakov, founded in 1981, Rabbi Tropper led the efforts in creating a program called Horizons. An outreach program targeting secular Jews who are unaffiliated with the religion, Rabbi Tropper visited Paris, London, and Berlin, among others, where he delivered speeches and lectured at colleges with the goal of inspiring his brethren to explore the Torah, and live in greater concert with Talmudic teachings. The Horizons program also led Rabbi Tropper to rural American towns and remote cities. Through the school itself, open for almost 30 years, he connected with talmid around the world. As a religious educator, he has lectured at Oxford and Cambridge in London, and at Stanford, Yale, and other American universities. Additionally, Rabbi Leib Tropper taught subjects such as Jewish law and philosophy in Brooklyn and Manhattan at no charge to the institution...."
Kings County Civil Court
ReplyDeleteIndex Number: CV-105946-10/KI
Case Name: TOURO COLLEGE vs. TROPPER, BAILA
Case Type: Civil
Classification: General
Filing Date: 11/23/2010
Something fishy is definitely going on with ex rabbi Leib Tropper as new positive-spin "intros" about him pop up on various blogs.
ReplyDeleteWhile it seems that he has partially succeeded in scrubbing the web by getting YouTube to take down the videos and voice recordings of him fornicating with his then mistress Shannon Orand whom he was blackmailing for phone sex and threesomes with him and his wife Leba and for kinky sex with his buddies in exchange for a conversion. Tropper has not been able to get Tablet magazine to take down its recordings and articles featuring him having phone sex with his cutie-pie Shannon, "Tale of the Tapes: Orand's dirty phone calls with the man she says is Tropper (Tablet, January 14, 2010)< so this is quite pathetic:
"leibtropper.businesscard2.com/
Leib Tropper
Rabbi
Home » Religious & Spiritual » Jewish
Let's Do Business
Rabbi Leib Troppers family background and educational path reflect a deep respect for the traditions and practices of Orthodox Judaism. Born in 1950 in New York Citys Lower East Side, Leib Tropper grew up in a neighborhood steeped in Jewish lore. The neighborhood itself was the location many Jews immigrated to, and today still contains many landmarks and synagogues important to the culture. His father was a well-respected mechanech at Yeshivas Rabbeinu Yaakov Yosef Elementary School. His maternal grandfather was HaGaon HaRav Leib Forer ztl, known as the Valbolneker Iluy. His early education took place in the Lower East Side, at the same Yeshivas Rabbeinu Yaakov Yosef where his father worked.
Shortly before his 13th birthday, Leib Tropper began attending the Rabbi Jacob Joseph School, Philadelphias Talmudical yeshiva. After a brief time there, he moved to Cleveland, Ohio where he continued his Orthodox education at Telshe Yeshiva. Almost 15 years old, Leib Tropper moved from Cleveland to Jerusalem to attend the Yeshivas Torah Ore and receive tutelage as a talmid from Rabbi Chaim Pinchus Scheinberg. At Torah Ore for over five years, Tropper strengthened his command of halachic teachings. The guidance provided by the schools Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Scheinberg, would lay the foundation in Hashkafa and Chinuch that would later lead to professional success.
After completing his time as a talmid, Rabbi Leib Tropper entered the professional world as an educator and religious guide for baalei teshuva. He used halachic traditions as inspiration for the secular Jewish students seeking closer ties with the Torah and their religious heritage. Eventually Rabbi Leib Tropper founded a school focused on teaching uninitiated Jews the ways of the Torah. As part of his role, he has traveled the world, speaking in synagogues and colleges.
Leib Tropper's Experience
Lecturer, Writer, Researcher
Leib Tropper's Contact Info
Rabbi
Monsey [sic], NY 10952"
Financial Times:
ReplyDelete"September 21, 2011 6:50 pm
Moody’s downgrades three US banks
By Shannon Bond in New York
Moody’s downgraded the credit ratings of Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo, three of the biggest US banks, over concerns that the US government would be less likely to rescue the lenders if they faced failure.
“Moody’s believes that the government is likely to continue to provide some level of support to systemically important financial institutions. However, it is also more likely now than during the financial crisis to allow a large bank to fail should it become financially troubled, as the risks of contagion become less acute,” the ratings agency wrote on Wednesday.
Bank of America, the largest US bank by assets, had its long-term senior debt cut from A2 to Baa1 and its short-term debt cut from Prime 1 to Prime 2. The downgrades “do not reflect a weakening of the intrinsic credit quality” of the bank, Moody’s said, but warned that the bank continued to face risks from its mortgage holdings.
The short-term rating of Citigroup, the third-biggest US bank, was also cut from Prime 1 to Prime 2, but its long-term rating was held at A3. Moody’s said the downgrade was “not a reflection of Citigroup’s liquidity profile, which strengthened significantly in the past two years and is robust.”
Senior debt at Wells Fargo, the largest US mortgage lender, was downgraded from A1 to A2, but Moody’s affirmed its Prime 1 rating on the bank’s short-term debt.
On Wednesday afternoon in New York trading, BofA’s shares fell 3.3 per cent to $6.68 and Citi’s stock was down 0.1 per cent at $26.90, while Wells Fargo shares shook off an initial fall following the announcement and were up 0.7 per cent to $24.84.
The ratings agency said the outlook on all three banks’ senior ratings remains negative, suggesting that further downgrades were possible. The move followed notice that the banks were placed under review in June.
The negative outlook “reflects the possibility it may further reduce its systemic support assumptions in the future as a consequence of the process set in motion by the enactment of the Dodd-Frank Act”, Moody’s said. “The orderly liquidation authority included in Dodd-Frank demonstrates a clear intent to impose losses on bondholders in the event that a systemically important bank ... was nearing failure.”
Moody’s said that because measures to reduce systemic risk, including resolution plans and reforms to the over-the-counter derivatives market, were still pending, it believed it would be “very difficult” for the US government to wind down a failing bank “without a disruption of the marketplace and the broader economy”."
http://www.chron.com/news/article/Appeals-court-says-no-new-trial-for-Rubashkin-2174154.php
ReplyDeleteThe Agudah and Pinny will want you to open your wallets nuch a mul.
Rubashkin's lawyers are now preparing to file an appeal with SCOTUS, the United States Supreme Court.
Nat Lewin will be able to keep lining his pockets for a while. If that fails there is also the World Court in The Hague, Netherlands.
http://www.app.com/article/20110921/NJNEWS/309210060/Feds-Revoke-alleged-Lakewood-Ponzi-schemer-s-bail
ReplyDeleteAlleged Ponzi schemer Eliyahu Weinstein should have his bail revoked because he has continued to swindle people out of money and has committed other violations of his bail, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in court papers filed this week.
The Lakewood real estate developer has been free on $10 million bond since August 2010. Weinstein was charged with one count each of bank fraud and wire fraud and allegedly cheated his victims out of more than $200 million.
A number of conditions were attached to that bail, including that Weinstein was to have no contact with his alleged victims or potential witnesses, and he was not to commit any more crimes.
But in a Sept. 20 filing in U.S. Federal Court in Newark, Assistant U.S. Attorney Gurbir Grewal alleged that Weinstein lied to court officials about meetings with his attorney in New York City and attempted to cheat at least two people in financial deals.
A hearing is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Friday in Federal Court in Newark.
Leo Kimmel is the "frum" lawyer known for representing haymishe molesters and whose law firm defends al Qaeda terrorists jailed at Guantanamo.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.liherald.com/stories/A-classic-caper-WH-Internet-vendor-who-allegedly-stole-5-million-is-charged-with-wire-fraud,35524
If you've ever bought anything from the now-defunct Internet vendor Classic Closeouts LLC, double check your credit card charges: owner Daniel Greenberg was charged this month with defrauding customers of his West Hempstead-based company of more than $5 million.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office arrested Greenberg on Sept. 2 & charged him with wire fraud after it discovered that he had allegedly charged victims’ credit cards or debited their bank accounts on more than 70,000 occasions without authorization. According to the criminal complaint, without customers’ knowledge, Greenberg retained their information from purchases & continued to charge the cards from June 2008 through at least December of that year.
The U.S. Department of Justice said when victims disputed unauthorized charges with their credit cards & banks, Greenberg asserted the charges were valid because customers enrolled in a “frequent shopper club” that required a one-time charge. As a result, some credit cards & banks declined to issue credits & victims were pressured into paying the fraudulent charges, plus late fees & interest.
“1000s of unsuspecting customers were victimized,” said Loretta Lynch, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. “With this arrest, the Closeout scheme has now been closed down.”
Lynch went on to thank the Federal Trade Commission, which brought the matter to the U.S. Attorney’s Office after filing a parallel civil action, and assisted in the 18-month investigation.
According to IDG News, the FTC reached a settlement with Greenberg in January, banning him from owning any businesses that handle credit or debit accounts, and imposing a $2.1 million judgement, even though Greenberg had filed for bankruptcy before the settlement.
The article went on to say it is uncommon for the DOJ to bring criminal charges after the FTC settles a civil case. It quoted Greenberg’s lawyer, Leo Kimmel, that his client “denies having defrauded anyone.”
Greenberg appeared in Brooklyn federal court on Sept. 2, but his bail hearing was postponed for the following week.
If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
http://articles.cnn.com/2011-09-03/world/bolivia.american.imprisoned_1_drug-trafficker-brazilian-prison-money-laundering
ReplyDeleteFrom his cell in the notorious Palmasola prison in the eastern Bolivian city of Santa Cruz, New Yorker Jacob Ostreicher counts down the days to Rosh Hashanah.
Maybe his nightmare will end by then, he thinks.
An Orthodox Jew from Brooklyn, Ostreicher can't imagine spending the Jewish New Year anywhere else but with his family in the United States. But he knows he is caught up in a stranger-than-fiction drama whose ending remains uncertain.
Ostreicher, 52, is charged with money laundering. Bolivian prosecutors accuse him of being in cahoots with a ruthless drug trafficker.
Ostreicher says he is simply an innocent businessman whose investment in Bolivian agriculture reaped more than he bargained for. He is a victim of a shakedown by prosecutors who would like to seize money and goods, he says.
The story begins in 2008, when a group of investors found what they saw as a lucrative opportunity in growing rice in eastern Bolivia. Land was cheap, labor was cheap and returns looked favorable.
"On paper it was an incredible deal," Ostreicher told CNN.
Ostreicher, a flooring contractor in New York, was an acquaintance of one of the principal investors, a Swiss man named Andre Zolty. More than $20 million were put into the project, but he personally didn't put in a lot of money, Ostreicher's wife, Miriam Ungar, told CNN.
But he immersed himself in everything there was to know about rice and Bolivia and began traveling there to check on his investment.
"He's like that by nature. He didn't just want to go in blind," Ungar said.
He was also concerned about actions of the woman who Zolty hired to manage the operations in Bolivia. Claudia Liliana Rodriguez Espitia was being secretive when it came to showing records for the work being carried out. When pressed for accountability, she would become defensive and threaten to quit, Ostreicher said.
"When I got here, I discovered a total nightmare," Ostreicher said.
Rodriguez was hired to buy land, deforest land and plant rice. According to Ungar, this is what her husband found: Only one-third of the land had been deforested, machinery had been bought on credit while she allegedly pocketed the cash, and she persuaded investors to buy another tract of land that she began making improvements on but did not pay for. This last tract of land would become the most troubling to everyone involved.
Rabbi Dovid Weinberger in Lawrence is the grandson of Rav Scheinberg and the cousin of Weiner who was arrested for incidents at Camp Mogen Avrohom.
ReplyDeleteThe new "in" yeshivish town of Inwood, NY, is completely under the control of the Weinberger-Scheinberg clan. It's the in place despite being surrounded on three sides by shvartzas, massive oil & gas tanks and polluted water full of jet fuel from JFK.
The rov is Pinchos Weinberger, the Brisker son of Dovid Weinberger. The rosh yeshiva is Rav Scheinberg's nephew or grandson Rabbi Bajnon.
Even Yudi Kolko's son is in charge of the yeshiva's sports program on motzaei Shabbos.
http://yudelstake.blogspot.com/2011/09/heter-mayah-v-miahgein-kosher-n-yosher.html
They now say at Yudel Shain's website that the major posek R' Simcha Bunim Cohen warns men to keep their wives away
http://grainom.blogspot.com/2011/09/forget-meaningless-haskamos.html
ReplyDeletehttp://yudelstake.blogspot.com/2011/09/unnamed-moisdois-in-unnamed-town.html
ReplyDelete