The government Loan to GM has been "paid back" with other government loaned money - and they dare BOAST about this accounting trick?
Is EVERYTHING happening around and about Obama SIMPLY a lie after lie, fraud after fraud, smoke and mirrors to hide the truth of Obama's incompetence and destruction of America? Good grief!
General Motors lost $3.4 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009 and is still struggling to reorganize so the company can try to eke out a profit. This grim reality didn't stop GM from making hay last week for supposedly paying back a $6.7 billion government loan five years ahead of schedule. What was left unsaid was that the automaker used another kitty of taxpayer cash to pay off the earlier government loan. This is an accounting shell game, not progress.
Previously unreleased documents supplied to The Washington Times reveal that GM specifically used funds it received from the Troubled Asset Relief Program to pay off the government loan. According to Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for TARP, $4.7 billion of $6.7 billion - 70 percent - of what GM paid back came from TARP money the company received. "The one thing a lot of people overlook with this is where they got the money to pay the loan," Mr. Barofsky told Fox News' Neil Cavuto on Wednesday. "It isn't from earnings." The numbers are based on a quarterly report Mr. Barofsky's office provided to Congress last week.
Jared Bernstein, chief economist and economic policy adviser to Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., disputes the special inspector general's findings. "That is not correct, I don't think that is correct," Mr. Bernstein told The Washington Times. "[General Motors] repaid with funds from their own cash accounts, from their own earnings." The cash used by GM to pay back the loan "is the property of General Motors, there is no question about that," he insisted. Some of the money used to pay off the loans may have originated from TARP funds, but "it is really hard to know," he equivocated, because the funds are mixed together and "it is like trying to put an omelet back together again."
The Treasury Department's press office also disagreed with Mr. Barofsky's characterization that GM paid off one credit line with another credit line. The watchdog, however, won't budge. When asked how to tell whether the $4.7 billion used to pay off the government loan came from TARP funds and not some other source, a spokesman for the Special Inspector General's Office explained: "We have a letter from General Motors requesting that they take the money out of escrow and pay the other debt down. And the money in the escrow was clearly TARP funding." That letter has been released by the Special Inspector General's Office.
Despite misleadingly rosy propaganda fed to the press, the sad saga of General Motors' transformation into Government Motors continues. As a ward of the state, GM has to do the bidding of its Washington masters and stay in lock step with the Democrats' claims about the company's condition. The truth is that GM's condition remains poor.
The only reason the company has been able to pay off its government loan is because the Obama administration has given GM more money than it has been able to spend. Hence, proceeds from one loan are sitting around to be used to pay down another loan. That's hardly evidence that GM has been a good investment. To the contrary, the shell game makes clear that the Obama administration is wasting billions of taxpayer dollars on a carmaker that is careening toward a cliff.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Sunday, April 18, 2010
WAKE UP OR BOW OBSEQUIOUSLY TO SHARIA LAWS AND CUSTOMS
With ten times the birth rate of the original populations, militant Moslems are taking over Western cultures and ruining them for the original Western populations.
UNLESS YOU WAKE UP, THIS INFILTRATION IN LONDONISTAN, EURABIA, IS COMING TO A NEIGHBORHOOD NEAR YOU IN THE USA AIDED AND ABETTED BY OBA-HUSSEIN-KHOMEINI
The bare upper torso self-flagellating demonstrators are Iranian Shias for the most part, perhaps totally. The various "groups" of Arabs, Pakistanis and other Moslem entities have become a privileged "special" class who cannot be confronted by the British born who have lived there for centuries.
Long before the recent Mohammaden invasion of what is now Eurabistan, which abuses and misuses the freedoms in their host countries to take over in a less than peaceful fashion.
Note the old couple fearful of living in their own house. Note how Moslem pressure groups have emptied neigborhoods in many cities in Londonistan (formerly England) by harrqssing the ownersw and renters till they leave.
Harrrassment includes personal threats in the streets and repeated lobbed bricks through their windows requiring repeated repairs and the costs of these.
Note the police woman being told that because they are Moslems, the marchers MUST not be filed. She promptly carries out their instruction but has no idea undermwhich wuthrity or law or rule the photogrrapher loses their right to film a public gathering.
UNLESS YOU WAKE UP, THIS INFILTRATION IN LONDONISTAN, EURABIA, IS COMING TO A NEIGHBORHOOD NEAR YOU IN THE USA AIDED AND ABETTED BY OBA-HUSSEIN-KHOMEINI
The bare upper torso self-flagellating demonstrators are Iranian Shias for the most part, perhaps totally. The various "groups" of Arabs, Pakistanis and other Moslem entities have become a privileged "special" class who cannot be confronted by the British born who have lived there for centuries.
Long before the recent Mohammaden invasion of what is now Eurabistan, which abuses and misuses the freedoms in their host countries to take over in a less than peaceful fashion.
Note the old couple fearful of living in their own house. Note how Moslem pressure groups have emptied neigborhoods in many cities in Londonistan (formerly England) by harrqssing the ownersw and renters till they leave.
Harrrassment includes personal threats in the streets and repeated lobbed bricks through their windows requiring repeated repairs and the costs of these.
Note the police woman being told that because they are Moslems, the marchers MUST not be filed. She promptly carries out their instruction but has no idea undermwhich wuthrity or law or rule the photogrrapher loses their right to film a public gathering.
Thursday, April 01, 2010
OBAMA TARGETS ISRAEL - SUPPORTS AMERICA'S ENEMIES
By Jamie Glazov
Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Kenneth Levin, a clinical instructor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, a Princeton-trained historian, and a commentator on Israeli politics. He is the author of The Oslo Syndrome: Delusions of a People Under Siege.
FP: Kenneth Levin, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
I would like to talk to you today about the Obama administration waging war on Israel. Tell us the ingredients of this war and why it is being waged.
Levin: Let’s first consider the elements of policy that are evidence of Obama’s anti-Israel animus. Virtually his first step in Arab-Israeli diplomacy was to demand a total freeze of all Jewish construction beyond the pre-1967 cease-fire lines. This is something which no previous American administration has ever demanded. In addition, it has never been a pre-condition to previous Israeli-Palestinian talks, nor has it ever been undertaken or agreed upon by any previous Israeli government. At the same time, the Obama administration made no comparable demands of the Palestinians or their Arab supporters.
Somewhat as an afterthought, and with much less fanfare, the Administration did suggest the Palestinians ought to refrain from anti-Israel incitement and that Arab states ought to make some gestures of openness towards Israel. The former request was ignored and the latter was explicitly rejected, but the Administration remained focused on pressuring Israel.
Noteworthy in this regard was Jackson Diehl’s article in the Washington Post on an interview with PA prime minister Mahmoud Abbas in Washington at the time of Abbas’s first meeting with President Obama after the president’s inauguration. Abbas conveyed to Diehl that he did not feel the need to make any gestures towards Israel to advance the search for “peace”; that, for example, the Palestinian Authority’s anti-Israel incitement and rejection of compromise on key issues were not problems he had to address. Rather, he could wait until sufficient Israeli concessions were delivered to him. The impression was clearly that this stance derived from what Abbas learned of the Administration’s attitudes: The pressure was going to be focused on Israel and nothing of significance was expected of the Palestinians. Indeed, this was Diehl’s explicit conclusion: “[President Obama] has revived a long-dormant Palestinian fantasy: that the United States will simply force Israel to make critical concessions, whether or not its democratic government agrees, while Arabs passively watch and applaud.”
When, in his Bar Ilan University speech last June, Prime Minister Netanyahu expressed a preparedness to recognize a demilitarized Palestinian state, there was some acknowledgment within the Administration that this was a positive step, but it hardly led to any turning to the other side for any reciprocal move. For example, the original UN resolution of 1947 calling for creation of a Jewish state and a Palestinian state within the area west of the Jordan then administered by Britain was accepted by the Jews, rejected by the Arabs. Benjamin Netanyahu, representing the major party most skeptical of Palestinian willingness to live in peace alongside a Jewish state, was now expressing his preparedness to accede to Palestinian sovereignty in a neighbor nation carved out of the West Bank and Gaza. Yet no Palestinian leader has ever expressed a comparable willingness to tolerate a Jewish state, and Mahmoud Abbas has explicitly refused to do so. But this has failed to elicit from the Administration any criticism or insistence that Abbas and the Palestinians change their stance and mirror Netanyahu’s gesture.
On the contrary, Obama has chosen to continue pressuring only Israel.
That the Administration sees its role as accommodating Arab demands and dismissing Israeli interests was further demonstrated when Prime Minister Netanyahu acceded to a ten-month freeze in Israeli construction in the West Bank – something to which no previous prime minister of any Israeli political party had ever agreed. Initially the move was praised as a major, courageous step by Israel – as in Secretary of State Clinton’s immediate response to announcement of the Israeli concession. But within days, as the PA and Arab states made clear they were not satisfied with the Israeli move, the Administration, including Hillary Clinton, changed its tune and insisted that, of course, it too was not satisfied with the Israeli concession but wanted the freeze extended to Jerusalem as well.
The most recent illustration of anti-Israel animus on Obama’s part should hardly then have come as a surprise to anyone. This was, of course, the Administration’s cynical, histrionic, defamatory response to the announcement – during a visit to Israel by Vice President Biden – of one of a long series of bureaucratic steps involving the approval of construction of additional housing units in a long-established Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem beyond the pre-1967 cease-fire lines. Prime Minister Netanyahu did not know of the move beforehand – a fact no one in the Administration has challenged – and he immediately apologized to the vice president over its timing. Biden left Israel having seemingly accepted the apology, but the president decided to clamp onto it as the pretext for a vitriolic anti-Israel campaign, using Secretary Clinton and even his advisor David Axelrod to accuse the Jewish state of somehow insulting and demeaning America by its daring to build homes for Jews in territory the Palestinians want as their own.
FP: And all this time, the Obama Administration is simply doing nothing about Palestinian provocations?
Levin: Indeed, the Administration has ignored, and continues to ignore, PA provocations. As has been noted by some in the media, during the Biden visit, the Palestinians dedicated a square in a Palestinian municipality to a terrorist who participated in one of the worst terror massacres Israel has suffered, the murder of 37 civilians, about half of them children. In her AIPAC speech, Secretary Clinton spoke of the dedication having taken place in a town run by Hamas, was silent on Abbas and the PA’s involvement in the affair, and had only words of commendation for Abbas. In fact, Abbas has repeatedly praised the terrorist, Dalai Mughrabi, defended the naming of the square in her honor, ordered and arranged PA participation in the ceremony, and he and his PA colleagues, not Hamas, were the major driving force behind the dedication. Yet the Secretary of State intentionally omitted this background and exonerated Abbas and the PA as she sought to render Israeli construction of Jewish housing the major obstacle to progress towards peace.
FP: Obama is actually violating key principles and previously recognized international understandings and agreements, right?
Levin: Absolutely.
Beyond the obvious absurdity of the Administration’s anti-Israel invective, and the transparent animosity that underlay it, lie Administration betrayals of international understandings regarding the territories, international law, and prior American commitments.
First, the cornerstone of negotiation over the territories remains UN Security Council Resolution 242, passed in the wake of the 1967 war. The authors of 242 explicitly stated that it did not call for Israel to return to the pre-war lines and that they believed Israel should not do so as those lines were no more than armistice lines and, in addition, a return to the status quo ante would only invite future aggression against Israel.
In the context of 242, the areas beyond those lines are disputed territory. Moreover, under international law, by virtue of UN charter references to the status of the area and to the continued standing of League of Nations directives pertaining to the area, by virtue of there having been no internationally recognized sovereign power in the territories after Arab rejection of the 1947 partition plan, and by virtue of the territories having been lost to Israel as a result of aggression undertaken against her, Israel has legitimate claims in the territories and her presence there has international standing.
Furthermore, this standing, and the legitimacy of Israel’s claims to defensible borders
which will entail retaining parts of the territories in any settlement, have been recognized by various American presidents. Israel created most of its settlements – certainly those where the vast majority of “settlers” live – to reinforce its claims to strategically sensitive areas, such as those crucial to the defense of Jerusalem, heights that dominate the coastal plain that is home to most of Israel’s population, and the Jordan Valley and the heights above it, which control approaches to Israel’s interior.
Consistent with all of this, there have been earlier presidents who have suggested that at least some settlements might complicate the search for an Arab-Israeli agreement, but none other than Jimmy Carter claimed the settlements were illegal. Obama has come closest to emulating Carter, calling them “illegitimate.”
The Administration has argued as well that Israeli construction in Jerusalem and the West Bank is also intolerable because it is prejudicial to ultimate arrangements. This is certainly Israel’s intent – again, it has used settlements to lay claim to strategically sensitive areas. But the Palestinians have done the same. Aided by large infusions of money from Arab states, particularly Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, and also by European funds, they have built extensively, for example, in previously empty areas in and around Jerusalem. They have done so because they are no less aware of what is strategically sensitive territory than is Israel, and while Israel wants to defend areas within its pre-1967 lines, the Palestinian leadership and their Arab allies want to establish positions that will again render those areas strategically vulnerable.
The Administration’s characterization of Israeli building as prejudicial to a final settlement and its vituperative demands for an end to all such construction, coupled with its silence and implicit support of large-scale Arab building and establishment of “facts on the ground” in disputed territories, is itself an expression of anti-Israel bias.
FP: So what’s going on here? Why is the Obama Administration bullying Israel?
Levin: As to what is motivating the Obama Administration’s war against Israel, a number of possibilities have been suggested. Some have pointed out the president’s long association with people who harbor, and peddle, deep enmity towards Israel, including Bill Ayres, Reverend Wright, Rashid Khalidi, Samantha Power and others. It is suggested that he shares much of these associates’ world view, including their attitude towards the Jewish state.
It is, of course, difficult to weigh how much this history figures in his policies as president vis-à-vis Israel. More clearly open to assessment are broad elements of his approach to foreign policy since his inauguration and how they relate to Israel. He declared as a candidate, and has pursued as president, a policy of seeking to ingratiate himself with hostile states and hostile populations. This has led, for example, to repeated apologies for supposed American “misbehavior” in the past and to other self-effacing blandishments towards such parties. Inevitably, this seeking to make nice to those hostile to America will all too often entail backing away from friends who are likewise viewed with hostility by those the Administration is trying to appease.
FP: And Obama is trying to mend fences with the Muslim world, right?
Levin: Well, this is how it is seen, but it is not quite true; Obama is seeking to mend fences primarily with America’s enemies in the Muslim world, and – to the degree that picking fights with Israel derives from this agenda – Israel is not the only victim. We’ve seen the Administration’s slowness to voice any support for those engaged in the popular uprising in Iran. The Iranian people are perhaps the most pro-American population of any Muslim country; but Obama has been seeking to engage the regime, and so he initially gave Muslim friends struggling for their freedom the back of his hand in order not to offend Iran’s theocrats. To some degree, he continues to do so.
Similarly, the genocide being perpetrated by the Sudanese government against the Muslims of Darfur continues virtually unabated. But Sudan, whose president won the support of the entire Arab League following his indictment for genocide by the International Criminal Court, is another enemy the Administration is seeking to placate, and so the Muslims of Darfur – despite Obama’s campaign promises to make their plight a priority for his presidency – are given short shrift.
The same pattern can be seen in the Administration’s actions vis-a-vis Honduras when its former president sought to subvert the nation’s democratic constitution in order to stay in power, in the manner of his friend Hugo Chaves’s subversion of Venezuela’s democracy. Honduras’s independent judiciary backed the constitution, refused to acquiesce in its violation and ordered that President Zelaya’s attempts at what was, in effect, a coup, be stopped. The Obama administration’s response was to back Zelaya and impose sanctions on this fellow democracy – apparently to win favor with Chavez and his circle of like-minded anti-American leaders in Central and South America who, of course, also sided with Zelaya and against Honduras’s democratic institutions.
Beyond perhaps a longstanding anti-Israel animus, and the role of this seeking to ingratiate himself with those hostile to America, as explanations for Obama’s “war” against Israel, there also undoubtedly looms large his embrace of claims – long popular among those hostile to Israel in Washington – that American closeness to Israel and failure to force upon Israel concessions that would satisfy the Palestinians and the Arab world more broadly, make it difficult for America’s Arab allies to cooperate with the United States vis-à-vis Iran, or Iraq or in other arenas where such cooperation would be useful.
FP: How legitimate are these claims?
Levin: There are many obvious flaws with these anti-Israel arguments. First, as was seen at the 2000 Camp David summit, and again in the negotiations between Prime Minister Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas, no amount of Israeli concessions that allows for Israel’s continued existence will satisfy Palestinian leaders or most of the Arab world.
In addition, Arab nations are less solicitous of the Palestinians than hostile to the Israelis, and one would be hard-pressed to find any instance in which Arab leaders have, for the sake of the Palestinians, foregone pursuit of policies they have seen as in their own national interests. If, for example, particular Arab states feel sufficiently threatened by Iran and compelled to take action against Iran, they will do so no matter what is happening between Israel and the Palestinians. And if they feel too intimidated by Iran to take any action against her, or – as seems likely at the present time – are too untrusting of the American commitment to contain Iran and prevent its acquiring nuclear weapons; too untrusting, in effect, of American backing, to dare take strong steps of their own against Iran; they will refrain from such steps no matter what concessions Israel makes to the Palestinians.
No doubt, when pressed by the United States to take positions they find unpalatable, America’s Arab “allies” will at times assert that American support for Israel has rendered America so unpopular among their people as to present an unbridgeable obstacle to the desired cooperation. But to the degree that Israel is venomously, murderously hated in the Arab world, that hatred derives primarily from the campaign of anti-Israel, and anti-Jewish, defamation and demonization which is spewed by government controlled media, mosques and schools in virtually every Arab state. For Arab leaders to then assert that they must be excused from helping America because their people so resent the American alliance with Israel is rather like someone killing his parents and then pleading for the mercy of the court because he’s an orphan.
An additional explanation that has been offered by some for Obama’s recent attacks on Israel is that he has no intention of stopping Iran’s development of nuclear weapons and is positioning himself to blame Israel for his failure. Certainly, Obama gives little indication of feeling any urgency to exert substantive pressure on Iran. He promised punishing sanctions if Iran did not agree to international proposals regarding its weapons program by September, 2009, and six months later no such sanctions are on the horizon. He has fought the recent Congressional push for effective sanctions. And he has hardly indicated any willingness to resort to military means to stop Iran. The argument by those who see his attitude toward Iran as key to his recent attacks on Israel is that Obama will claim that Israel’s failure to take sufficient steps to accommodate Palestinian demands and those of the international community, particularly regarding settlements, undermined the Administration’s ability to build the coalition necessary for the imposition of effective sanctions on Iran.
Of course, Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons would not only present an existential threat to Israel but would unleash a nuclear arms race among other Middle East nations, could result in nuclear weapons being given to Iran-sponsored terrorist groups, and would endanger America and its international interests in myriad ways. With regard to Iran, as with regard to so many other issues in the Middle East and beyond, Israel and America’s interests coincide, and that is why the alliance between the two nations has been so strong for so many decades.
But this last point may actually touch on the key to much of Obama’s apparent hostility towards Israel. Among much of the European Left, for whom belief in America’s negative role in the world is clung to virtually as a religious conviction, Israel’s greatest crime has been its close alliance with the United States. Obama is likewise convinced that America’s behavior in international affairs has been largely negative – a conviction that underlies, of course, his repeated apologies to international audiences for his nation’s past actions – and as he seeks to reshape America his model is primarily that offered by the European Left. For Obama, as for many of those Europeans, Israel’s greatest sin may be that – both through the Cold War and in the ongoing confrontation with Islamic fascism – it has been such a close, valuable and trustworthy ally of the United States.
FP: Kenneth Levin, thank you for joining us.
http://frontpagemag.com/2010/04/01/target-israel/
Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Kenneth Levin, a clinical instructor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, a Princeton-trained historian, and a commentator on Israeli politics. He is the author of The Oslo Syndrome: Delusions of a People Under Siege.
FP: Kenneth Levin, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
I would like to talk to you today about the Obama administration waging war on Israel. Tell us the ingredients of this war and why it is being waged.
Levin: Let’s first consider the elements of policy that are evidence of Obama’s anti-Israel animus. Virtually his first step in Arab-Israeli diplomacy was to demand a total freeze of all Jewish construction beyond the pre-1967 cease-fire lines. This is something which no previous American administration has ever demanded. In addition, it has never been a pre-condition to previous Israeli-Palestinian talks, nor has it ever been undertaken or agreed upon by any previous Israeli government. At the same time, the Obama administration made no comparable demands of the Palestinians or their Arab supporters.
Somewhat as an afterthought, and with much less fanfare, the Administration did suggest the Palestinians ought to refrain from anti-Israel incitement and that Arab states ought to make some gestures of openness towards Israel. The former request was ignored and the latter was explicitly rejected, but the Administration remained focused on pressuring Israel.
Noteworthy in this regard was Jackson Diehl’s article in the Washington Post on an interview with PA prime minister Mahmoud Abbas in Washington at the time of Abbas’s first meeting with President Obama after the president’s inauguration. Abbas conveyed to Diehl that he did not feel the need to make any gestures towards Israel to advance the search for “peace”; that, for example, the Palestinian Authority’s anti-Israel incitement and rejection of compromise on key issues were not problems he had to address. Rather, he could wait until sufficient Israeli concessions were delivered to him. The impression was clearly that this stance derived from what Abbas learned of the Administration’s attitudes: The pressure was going to be focused on Israel and nothing of significance was expected of the Palestinians. Indeed, this was Diehl’s explicit conclusion: “[President Obama] has revived a long-dormant Palestinian fantasy: that the United States will simply force Israel to make critical concessions, whether or not its democratic government agrees, while Arabs passively watch and applaud.”
When, in his Bar Ilan University speech last June, Prime Minister Netanyahu expressed a preparedness to recognize a demilitarized Palestinian state, there was some acknowledgment within the Administration that this was a positive step, but it hardly led to any turning to the other side for any reciprocal move. For example, the original UN resolution of 1947 calling for creation of a Jewish state and a Palestinian state within the area west of the Jordan then administered by Britain was accepted by the Jews, rejected by the Arabs. Benjamin Netanyahu, representing the major party most skeptical of Palestinian willingness to live in peace alongside a Jewish state, was now expressing his preparedness to accede to Palestinian sovereignty in a neighbor nation carved out of the West Bank and Gaza. Yet no Palestinian leader has ever expressed a comparable willingness to tolerate a Jewish state, and Mahmoud Abbas has explicitly refused to do so. But this has failed to elicit from the Administration any criticism or insistence that Abbas and the Palestinians change their stance and mirror Netanyahu’s gesture.
On the contrary, Obama has chosen to continue pressuring only Israel.
That the Administration sees its role as accommodating Arab demands and dismissing Israeli interests was further demonstrated when Prime Minister Netanyahu acceded to a ten-month freeze in Israeli construction in the West Bank – something to which no previous prime minister of any Israeli political party had ever agreed. Initially the move was praised as a major, courageous step by Israel – as in Secretary of State Clinton’s immediate response to announcement of the Israeli concession. But within days, as the PA and Arab states made clear they were not satisfied with the Israeli move, the Administration, including Hillary Clinton, changed its tune and insisted that, of course, it too was not satisfied with the Israeli concession but wanted the freeze extended to Jerusalem as well.
The most recent illustration of anti-Israel animus on Obama’s part should hardly then have come as a surprise to anyone. This was, of course, the Administration’s cynical, histrionic, defamatory response to the announcement – during a visit to Israel by Vice President Biden – of one of a long series of bureaucratic steps involving the approval of construction of additional housing units in a long-established Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem beyond the pre-1967 cease-fire lines. Prime Minister Netanyahu did not know of the move beforehand – a fact no one in the Administration has challenged – and he immediately apologized to the vice president over its timing. Biden left Israel having seemingly accepted the apology, but the president decided to clamp onto it as the pretext for a vitriolic anti-Israel campaign, using Secretary Clinton and even his advisor David Axelrod to accuse the Jewish state of somehow insulting and demeaning America by its daring to build homes for Jews in territory the Palestinians want as their own.
FP: And all this time, the Obama Administration is simply doing nothing about Palestinian provocations?
Levin: Indeed, the Administration has ignored, and continues to ignore, PA provocations. As has been noted by some in the media, during the Biden visit, the Palestinians dedicated a square in a Palestinian municipality to a terrorist who participated in one of the worst terror massacres Israel has suffered, the murder of 37 civilians, about half of them children. In her AIPAC speech, Secretary Clinton spoke of the dedication having taken place in a town run by Hamas, was silent on Abbas and the PA’s involvement in the affair, and had only words of commendation for Abbas. In fact, Abbas has repeatedly praised the terrorist, Dalai Mughrabi, defended the naming of the square in her honor, ordered and arranged PA participation in the ceremony, and he and his PA colleagues, not Hamas, were the major driving force behind the dedication. Yet the Secretary of State intentionally omitted this background and exonerated Abbas and the PA as she sought to render Israeli construction of Jewish housing the major obstacle to progress towards peace.
FP: Obama is actually violating key principles and previously recognized international understandings and agreements, right?
Levin: Absolutely.
Beyond the obvious absurdity of the Administration’s anti-Israel invective, and the transparent animosity that underlay it, lie Administration betrayals of international understandings regarding the territories, international law, and prior American commitments.
First, the cornerstone of negotiation over the territories remains UN Security Council Resolution 242, passed in the wake of the 1967 war. The authors of 242 explicitly stated that it did not call for Israel to return to the pre-war lines and that they believed Israel should not do so as those lines were no more than armistice lines and, in addition, a return to the status quo ante would only invite future aggression against Israel.
In the context of 242, the areas beyond those lines are disputed territory. Moreover, under international law, by virtue of UN charter references to the status of the area and to the continued standing of League of Nations directives pertaining to the area, by virtue of there having been no internationally recognized sovereign power in the territories after Arab rejection of the 1947 partition plan, and by virtue of the territories having been lost to Israel as a result of aggression undertaken against her, Israel has legitimate claims in the territories and her presence there has international standing.
Furthermore, this standing, and the legitimacy of Israel’s claims to defensible borders
which will entail retaining parts of the territories in any settlement, have been recognized by various American presidents. Israel created most of its settlements – certainly those where the vast majority of “settlers” live – to reinforce its claims to strategically sensitive areas, such as those crucial to the defense of Jerusalem, heights that dominate the coastal plain that is home to most of Israel’s population, and the Jordan Valley and the heights above it, which control approaches to Israel’s interior.
Consistent with all of this, there have been earlier presidents who have suggested that at least some settlements might complicate the search for an Arab-Israeli agreement, but none other than Jimmy Carter claimed the settlements were illegal. Obama has come closest to emulating Carter, calling them “illegitimate.”
The Administration has argued as well that Israeli construction in Jerusalem and the West Bank is also intolerable because it is prejudicial to ultimate arrangements. This is certainly Israel’s intent – again, it has used settlements to lay claim to strategically sensitive areas. But the Palestinians have done the same. Aided by large infusions of money from Arab states, particularly Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, and also by European funds, they have built extensively, for example, in previously empty areas in and around Jerusalem. They have done so because they are no less aware of what is strategically sensitive territory than is Israel, and while Israel wants to defend areas within its pre-1967 lines, the Palestinian leadership and their Arab allies want to establish positions that will again render those areas strategically vulnerable.
The Administration’s characterization of Israeli building as prejudicial to a final settlement and its vituperative demands for an end to all such construction, coupled with its silence and implicit support of large-scale Arab building and establishment of “facts on the ground” in disputed territories, is itself an expression of anti-Israel bias.
FP: So what’s going on here? Why is the Obama Administration bullying Israel?
Levin: As to what is motivating the Obama Administration’s war against Israel, a number of possibilities have been suggested. Some have pointed out the president’s long association with people who harbor, and peddle, deep enmity towards Israel, including Bill Ayres, Reverend Wright, Rashid Khalidi, Samantha Power and others. It is suggested that he shares much of these associates’ world view, including their attitude towards the Jewish state.
It is, of course, difficult to weigh how much this history figures in his policies as president vis-à-vis Israel. More clearly open to assessment are broad elements of his approach to foreign policy since his inauguration and how they relate to Israel. He declared as a candidate, and has pursued as president, a policy of seeking to ingratiate himself with hostile states and hostile populations. This has led, for example, to repeated apologies for supposed American “misbehavior” in the past and to other self-effacing blandishments towards such parties. Inevitably, this seeking to make nice to those hostile to America will all too often entail backing away from friends who are likewise viewed with hostility by those the Administration is trying to appease.
FP: And Obama is trying to mend fences with the Muslim world, right?
Levin: Well, this is how it is seen, but it is not quite true; Obama is seeking to mend fences primarily with America’s enemies in the Muslim world, and – to the degree that picking fights with Israel derives from this agenda – Israel is not the only victim. We’ve seen the Administration’s slowness to voice any support for those engaged in the popular uprising in Iran. The Iranian people are perhaps the most pro-American population of any Muslim country; but Obama has been seeking to engage the regime, and so he initially gave Muslim friends struggling for their freedom the back of his hand in order not to offend Iran’s theocrats. To some degree, he continues to do so.
Similarly, the genocide being perpetrated by the Sudanese government against the Muslims of Darfur continues virtually unabated. But Sudan, whose president won the support of the entire Arab League following his indictment for genocide by the International Criminal Court, is another enemy the Administration is seeking to placate, and so the Muslims of Darfur – despite Obama’s campaign promises to make their plight a priority for his presidency – are given short shrift.
The same pattern can be seen in the Administration’s actions vis-a-vis Honduras when its former president sought to subvert the nation’s democratic constitution in order to stay in power, in the manner of his friend Hugo Chaves’s subversion of Venezuela’s democracy. Honduras’s independent judiciary backed the constitution, refused to acquiesce in its violation and ordered that President Zelaya’s attempts at what was, in effect, a coup, be stopped. The Obama administration’s response was to back Zelaya and impose sanctions on this fellow democracy – apparently to win favor with Chavez and his circle of like-minded anti-American leaders in Central and South America who, of course, also sided with Zelaya and against Honduras’s democratic institutions.
Beyond perhaps a longstanding anti-Israel animus, and the role of this seeking to ingratiate himself with those hostile to America, as explanations for Obama’s “war” against Israel, there also undoubtedly looms large his embrace of claims – long popular among those hostile to Israel in Washington – that American closeness to Israel and failure to force upon Israel concessions that would satisfy the Palestinians and the Arab world more broadly, make it difficult for America’s Arab allies to cooperate with the United States vis-à-vis Iran, or Iraq or in other arenas where such cooperation would be useful.
FP: How legitimate are these claims?
Levin: There are many obvious flaws with these anti-Israel arguments. First, as was seen at the 2000 Camp David summit, and again in the negotiations between Prime Minister Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas, no amount of Israeli concessions that allows for Israel’s continued existence will satisfy Palestinian leaders or most of the Arab world.
In addition, Arab nations are less solicitous of the Palestinians than hostile to the Israelis, and one would be hard-pressed to find any instance in which Arab leaders have, for the sake of the Palestinians, foregone pursuit of policies they have seen as in their own national interests. If, for example, particular Arab states feel sufficiently threatened by Iran and compelled to take action against Iran, they will do so no matter what is happening between Israel and the Palestinians. And if they feel too intimidated by Iran to take any action against her, or – as seems likely at the present time – are too untrusting of the American commitment to contain Iran and prevent its acquiring nuclear weapons; too untrusting, in effect, of American backing, to dare take strong steps of their own against Iran; they will refrain from such steps no matter what concessions Israel makes to the Palestinians.
No doubt, when pressed by the United States to take positions they find unpalatable, America’s Arab “allies” will at times assert that American support for Israel has rendered America so unpopular among their people as to present an unbridgeable obstacle to the desired cooperation. But to the degree that Israel is venomously, murderously hated in the Arab world, that hatred derives primarily from the campaign of anti-Israel, and anti-Jewish, defamation and demonization which is spewed by government controlled media, mosques and schools in virtually every Arab state. For Arab leaders to then assert that they must be excused from helping America because their people so resent the American alliance with Israel is rather like someone killing his parents and then pleading for the mercy of the court because he’s an orphan.
An additional explanation that has been offered by some for Obama’s recent attacks on Israel is that he has no intention of stopping Iran’s development of nuclear weapons and is positioning himself to blame Israel for his failure. Certainly, Obama gives little indication of feeling any urgency to exert substantive pressure on Iran. He promised punishing sanctions if Iran did not agree to international proposals regarding its weapons program by September, 2009, and six months later no such sanctions are on the horizon. He has fought the recent Congressional push for effective sanctions. And he has hardly indicated any willingness to resort to military means to stop Iran. The argument by those who see his attitude toward Iran as key to his recent attacks on Israel is that Obama will claim that Israel’s failure to take sufficient steps to accommodate Palestinian demands and those of the international community, particularly regarding settlements, undermined the Administration’s ability to build the coalition necessary for the imposition of effective sanctions on Iran.
Of course, Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons would not only present an existential threat to Israel but would unleash a nuclear arms race among other Middle East nations, could result in nuclear weapons being given to Iran-sponsored terrorist groups, and would endanger America and its international interests in myriad ways. With regard to Iran, as with regard to so many other issues in the Middle East and beyond, Israel and America’s interests coincide, and that is why the alliance between the two nations has been so strong for so many decades.
But this last point may actually touch on the key to much of Obama’s apparent hostility towards Israel. Among much of the European Left, for whom belief in America’s negative role in the world is clung to virtually as a religious conviction, Israel’s greatest crime has been its close alliance with the United States. Obama is likewise convinced that America’s behavior in international affairs has been largely negative – a conviction that underlies, of course, his repeated apologies to international audiences for his nation’s past actions – and as he seeks to reshape America his model is primarily that offered by the European Left. For Obama, as for many of those Europeans, Israel’s greatest sin may be that – both through the Cold War and in the ongoing confrontation with Islamic fascism – it has been such a close, valuable and trustworthy ally of the United States.
FP: Kenneth Levin, thank you for joining us.
http://frontpagemag.com/2010/04/01/target-israel/
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
RUSSIAN PRAVDA (PERSONALLY EXPERIENCED) SEES IT - AMERICANS BLINDLY IGNORE IT
Obama: I won, I win! America loses? Who cares.
My Marxist-Islamist policies and upbringing win! Long live "taghiyeh"!
Oppose me and you are racist!
FORGET I'm equally half white - can't use that to my personal advantage.
Christian or Moslem? Or atheist like my mother? Or Voodoon?
My personal narcissistic "Holy Trilolgy" prevails!
"Me, Myself and I"
I won, you lost, so OBEY ME, your Messiah!
Or I will sic (pun intended) my MILLION man Civilian Defense Forces on you.
(See how well you argue with my ARMED recruits, who swear allegiance TO ME not the Constitution like the real military!
Union thugs or former ACORN organizers militants, Black Panthers and Palestinians and Moslems I import from Islamic areas and embed here at YOUR cost. Yes, I pay their travel costs, their food and shelter and provide them monthly money.
AND raise their Moslem brothers into ever higher positions of my TYRRANY! In ever greater numbers with politically correct PROTECTION cutting down any resistance.
It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American descent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.
True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.
Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.
First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas than the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their "right" to choke down a McDonalds burger or a Burger King burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our "democracy". Pride blind the foolish.
Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different "branches and denominations" were for the most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more than happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the "winning" side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the "winning" side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America.
The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America's short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more than another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Weimar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.
These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, losses, and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more then ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?
These men, of course, are not an elected panel but made up of appointees picked from the very financial oligarchs and their henchmen who are now gorging themselves on trillions of American dollars, in one bailout after another. They are also usurping the rights, duties, and powers of the American congress (parliament). Again, congress has put up little more than a whimper to their masters.
Then came Barack Obama's command that GM's (General Motors) president step down from leadership of his company. That is correct, dear reader, in the land of "pure" free markets, the American president now has the power, the self-given power, to fire CEOs and we can assume other employees of private companies, at will. Come hither, go dither, the centurion commands his minions.
So it should be no surprise that the American president has followed this up with a "bold" move of declaring that he and another group of unelected, chosen stooges will now redesign the entire automotive industry and will even be the guarantee of automobile policies. I am sure that if given the chance, they would happily try and redesign it for the whole of the world, too. Prime Minister Putin, less then two months ago, warned Obama and UK's Blair, not to follow the path to Marxism, it only leads to disaster. Apparently, even though we suffered 70 years of this Western sponsored horror show, we know nothing, as foolish, drunken Russians, and so let our "wise" Anglo-Saxon fools find out the folly of their own pride.
Again, the American public has taken this with barely a whimper...but a "free man" whimper.
So, should it be any surprise to discover that the Democratically controlled Congress of America is working on passing a new regulation that would give the American Treasury department the power to set "fair" maximum salaries, evaluate performance, and control how private companies give out pay raises and bonuses? Senator Barney Frank, a social pervert basking in his homosexuality (of course, amongst the modern, enlightened American societal norm, as well as that of the general West, homosexuality is not only not a looked down upon life choice, but is often praised as a virtue) and his Marxist enlightenment, has led this effort. He stresses that this only affects companies that receive government monies, but it is retroactive and taken to a logical extreme, this would include any company or industry that has ever received a tax break or incentive.
The Russian owners of American companies and industries should look thoughtfully at this and the option of closing their facilities down and fleeing the land of the Red as fast as possible. In other words, divest while there is still value left.
The proud American will go down into his slavery without a fight, beating his chest, and proclaiming to the world, how free he really is. The world will only snicker.
Stanislav Mishin© 1999-2009... PRAVDA.Ru. When reproducing our materials in whole or in part, hyperlink to PRAVDA.Ru should be made. The opinions and views of the authors do not always coincide with the point of view of PRAVDA.Ru's editors.
My Marxist-Islamist policies and upbringing win! Long live "taghiyeh"!
Oppose me and you are racist!
FORGET I'm equally half white - can't use that to my personal advantage.
Christian or Moslem? Or atheist like my mother? Or Voodoon?
My personal narcissistic "Holy Trilolgy" prevails!
"Me, Myself and I"
I won, you lost, so OBEY ME, your Messiah!
Or I will sic (pun intended) my MILLION man Civilian Defense Forces on you.
(See how well you argue with my ARMED recruits, who swear allegiance TO ME not the Constitution like the real military!
Union thugs or former ACORN organizers militants, Black Panthers and Palestinians and Moslems I import from Islamic areas and embed here at YOUR cost. Yes, I pay their travel costs, their food and shelter and provide them monthly money.
AND raise their Moslem brothers into ever higher positions of my TYRRANY! In ever greater numbers with politically correct PROTECTION cutting down any resistance.
You are made miserable by all this? WHO CARES?
SEE HOW HAPPY ALL THIS MAKES ME?
It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American descent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.
True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.
Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.
First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas than the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their "right" to choke down a McDonalds burger or a Burger King burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our "democracy". Pride blind the foolish.
Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different "branches and denominations" were for the most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more than happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the "winning" side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the "winning" side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America.
The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America's short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more than another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Weimar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.
These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, losses, and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more then ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?
These men, of course, are not an elected panel but made up of appointees picked from the very financial oligarchs and their henchmen who are now gorging themselves on trillions of American dollars, in one bailout after another. They are also usurping the rights, duties, and powers of the American congress (parliament). Again, congress has put up little more than a whimper to their masters.
Then came Barack Obama's command that GM's (General Motors) president step down from leadership of his company. That is correct, dear reader, in the land of "pure" free markets, the American president now has the power, the self-given power, to fire CEOs and we can assume other employees of private companies, at will. Come hither, go dither, the centurion commands his minions.
So it should be no surprise that the American president has followed this up with a "bold" move of declaring that he and another group of unelected, chosen stooges will now redesign the entire automotive industry and will even be the guarantee of automobile policies. I am sure that if given the chance, they would happily try and redesign it for the whole of the world, too. Prime Minister Putin, less then two months ago, warned Obama and UK's Blair, not to follow the path to Marxism, it only leads to disaster. Apparently, even though we suffered 70 years of this Western sponsored horror show, we know nothing, as foolish, drunken Russians, and so let our "wise" Anglo-Saxon fools find out the folly of their own pride.
Again, the American public has taken this with barely a whimper...but a "free man" whimper.
So, should it be any surprise to discover that the Democratically controlled Congress of America is working on passing a new regulation that would give the American Treasury department the power to set "fair" maximum salaries, evaluate performance, and control how private companies give out pay raises and bonuses? Senator Barney Frank, a social pervert basking in his homosexuality (of course, amongst the modern, enlightened American societal norm, as well as that of the general West, homosexuality is not only not a looked down upon life choice, but is often praised as a virtue) and his Marxist enlightenment, has led this effort. He stresses that this only affects companies that receive government monies, but it is retroactive and taken to a logical extreme, this would include any company or industry that has ever received a tax break or incentive.
The Russian owners of American companies and industries should look thoughtfully at this and the option of closing their facilities down and fleeing the land of the Red as fast as possible. In other words, divest while there is still value left.
The proud American will go down into his slavery without a fight, beating his chest, and proclaiming to the world, how free he really is. The world will only snicker.
Stanislav Mishin© 1999-2009... PRAVDA.Ru. When reproducing our materials in whole or in part, hyperlink to PRAVDA.Ru should be made. The opinions and views of the authors do not always coincide with the point of view of PRAVDA.Ru's editors.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
OBAHUSSEIN TO NEW YORK - DROP DEAD!
Updated: Sun., Mar. 28, 2010, 4:25 AM
Obama vs. New York City
By KYLE SMITH
Here’s a headline that should never have appeared in any newspaper: “Ford to City: Drop Dead.”
Here’s one that should have: “Obama to City: Drop Dead.”
The first headline, which famously appeared on a 1975 front page of a now-irrelevant city paper, was right on the trees but completely wrong on the forest. Then-President Jerry Ford’s denial of a bailout to a hapless city then being held hostage by unions and criminals actually was a tremendous boost to Gotham in the long run.
Told by the bartender to hit the bricks as it begged to continue its drunken spending spree, New York was scared into sobering up (a little). The city avoided a catastrophic default on its debt. (Though Congress did help out by agreeing to guarantee New York City securities.)
Fast forward to 2010: Mayor Bloomberg isn’t asking for a lifeline. So Obama throws him an anvil.
The president continues to think that “boost the economy” means “rag on Wall Street.” But before the financial meltdown, taxation of Wall Street salaries and profits provided 20% of the state’s tax revenue and 9% of the city’s. Obama to Wall Street: Drop Dead.
Much of Obama’s anti-banking jawboning is meaningless drivel meant to excite the rubes, but his intermittent success in driving down the Street’s bonus packages is an anti-stimulus. Those checks trickle down through the luxury apartment sales and four-star meals all the way to catering firms, tailors, shoeshine boys.
Obama to Sandwich Makers: Drop Dead.
Administration policies are often meant to (clumsily) address nationwide or even global problems, but as Michael Keaton’s newspaper editor put it so aptly in the movie “The Paper,” “I don’t f - - - ing live in the f - - - ing world. I live in f - - - ing New York City.”
The real estate crash that led to Obama’s propping up the housing market took place mainly in places like Florida, Nevada and California, not here. Roughly 70% of New Yorkers rent, and many are hoping to buy if prices come down.
Obama to Tenants: Drop Dead.
New Yorkers don’t need ObamaCare because we already had much of it. Two of its central elements have been on the books in New York state since 1993. There’s a requirement that insurance companies have to offer coverage and there are limits on what they can charge based on your health history.
(Predictably, all this has bent the cost curve upward, leading to increases in both premiums and government payouts, but that’s another story.)
How does Obama plan to pay for it? With a few pennies from tanning-booth taxes? No, by shaking down “the rich” and taking a bite from the fruits of capital
But New Yorkers, and the tri-state area in general, have lots of high earners who aren’t necessarily rich. We also derive more of our income from dividends, interest and other so-called “unearned income” (as if you got this money from playing the slots).
New Yorkers will be out $5 billion paying for the new payroll and investment taxes, plus another $1.5 billion in “Cadillac taxes” on those with the best insurance.
About 10% of the country lives in the tri-state area and we earn about 14% of the national income — so naturally it’s completely fair to stick us with 20% of these new taxes by 2016. (These numbers are from a preliminary estimate by the Manhattan Institute.)
Obama has vowed to target his tax hikes at “rich” individuals making over $200,000 a year (and couples making $250,000 a year). That’s rich in Manhattan, Kansas. Here a couple earning $250K is middle class. Eleven of the 50 most expensive ZIP codes for real estate are in Manhattan and nine others are in the suburbs.
Moreover, if you run a small business you technically have a lot of income (if not a lot of profit). Many such business people file as individuals — yet are taxed as though they were Goldman Sachs veeps.
As for ObamaCare’s impact on employers, the Business Council of New York State notes that the law does nothing to control costs, places employers at risk for new taxes and fines and adds costs “by requiring much more reporting to the federal government on the value of their benefits to each employee and revising benefit plans to avoid both fines and excise taxes.”
Obama to Mom-and-Pop Bodega Owners: Drop Dead.
The new law also doesn’t make it any easier for illegal immigrants to get insurance, and these prototypical New Yorkers are a big factor in local health costs when they use E.R.s as their primary care physicians.
Obama to Illegal Immigrants and Those Who Pay Their Health Bills: Drop Dead.
Oh, you thought Obama was one of us, a Columbia grad and urban sophisticate? You’re like a dependent spouse. Every fresh bruise just proves how much he loves you.
Obama vs. New York City
By KYLE SMITH
Here’s a headline that should never have appeared in any newspaper: “Ford to City: Drop Dead.”
Here’s one that should have: “Obama to City: Drop Dead.”
The first headline, which famously appeared on a 1975 front page of a now-irrelevant city paper, was right on the trees but completely wrong on the forest. Then-President Jerry Ford’s denial of a bailout to a hapless city then being held hostage by unions and criminals actually was a tremendous boost to Gotham in the long run.
Told by the bartender to hit the bricks as it begged to continue its drunken spending spree, New York was scared into sobering up (a little). The city avoided a catastrophic default on its debt. (Though Congress did help out by agreeing to guarantee New York City securities.)
Fast forward to 2010: Mayor Bloomberg isn’t asking for a lifeline. So Obama throws him an anvil.
The president continues to think that “boost the economy” means “rag on Wall Street.” But before the financial meltdown, taxation of Wall Street salaries and profits provided 20% of the state’s tax revenue and 9% of the city’s. Obama to Wall Street: Drop Dead.
Much of Obama’s anti-banking jawboning is meaningless drivel meant to excite the rubes, but his intermittent success in driving down the Street’s bonus packages is an anti-stimulus. Those checks trickle down through the luxury apartment sales and four-star meals all the way to catering firms, tailors, shoeshine boys.
Obama to Sandwich Makers: Drop Dead.
Administration policies are often meant to (clumsily) address nationwide or even global problems, but as Michael Keaton’s newspaper editor put it so aptly in the movie “The Paper,” “I don’t f - - - ing live in the f - - - ing world. I live in f - - - ing New York City.”
The real estate crash that led to Obama’s propping up the housing market took place mainly in places like Florida, Nevada and California, not here. Roughly 70% of New Yorkers rent, and many are hoping to buy if prices come down.
Obama to Tenants: Drop Dead.
New Yorkers don’t need ObamaCare because we already had much of it. Two of its central elements have been on the books in New York state since 1993. There’s a requirement that insurance companies have to offer coverage and there are limits on what they can charge based on your health history.
(Predictably, all this has bent the cost curve upward, leading to increases in both premiums and government payouts, but that’s another story.)
How does Obama plan to pay for it? With a few pennies from tanning-booth taxes? No, by shaking down “the rich” and taking a bite from the fruits of capital
But New Yorkers, and the tri-state area in general, have lots of high earners who aren’t necessarily rich. We also derive more of our income from dividends, interest and other so-called “unearned income” (as if you got this money from playing the slots).
New Yorkers will be out $5 billion paying for the new payroll and investment taxes, plus another $1.5 billion in “Cadillac taxes” on those with the best insurance.
About 10% of the country lives in the tri-state area and we earn about 14% of the national income — so naturally it’s completely fair to stick us with 20% of these new taxes by 2016. (These numbers are from a preliminary estimate by the Manhattan Institute.)
Obama has vowed to target his tax hikes at “rich” individuals making over $200,000 a year (and couples making $250,000 a year). That’s rich in Manhattan, Kansas. Here a couple earning $250K is middle class. Eleven of the 50 most expensive ZIP codes for real estate are in Manhattan and nine others are in the suburbs.
Moreover, if you run a small business you technically have a lot of income (if not a lot of profit). Many such business people file as individuals — yet are taxed as though they were Goldman Sachs veeps.
As for ObamaCare’s impact on employers, the Business Council of New York State notes that the law does nothing to control costs, places employers at risk for new taxes and fines and adds costs “by requiring much more reporting to the federal government on the value of their benefits to each employee and revising benefit plans to avoid both fines and excise taxes.”
Obama to Mom-and-Pop Bodega Owners: Drop Dead.
The new law also doesn’t make it any easier for illegal immigrants to get insurance, and these prototypical New Yorkers are a big factor in local health costs when they use E.R.s as their primary care physicians.
Obama to Illegal Immigrants and Those Who Pay Their Health Bills: Drop Dead.
Oh, you thought Obama was one of us, a Columbia grad and urban sophisticate? You’re like a dependent spouse. Every fresh bruise just proves how much he loves you.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
NAMAZEE-KHAH AND NAMAZI BOTH CHEAT IN MULTI-MILLLIONS
In Los Angeles, the unpopular, now former head of the Iman (Faith) - Iranian Moslem Association of North America - Organization - Dr. M.S. Namazi-Khah - has just been sentenced to 19-years in prison for theft and fraud on a scale almost in the league of the Hassan Namazi, New York case, also shown below. The similarity of names provides a wry smile.
As a center of Mullah operations in Los Angeles, the Iman center, an Iranian Islamic set-up operated to spread Sharia Islam in southern California and act as a clearing house for Iranian regime operations in southern California.
Namazikhah would visit Iran regularly and return with large amounts of money, used mostly to corrupt or buy support from both Iranians and Americans and try to convert them to Islam and to potential Dhimmitude (apologists for Islam).
He allegedly began to siphon off large amounts of Iman Center money and from Moslem adherents and was trying to leave the country with a huge amount of money when he was apparently stopped at the airport by the police.
The above sentencing is a breaking story.
MEANWHILE....
Obama, Clinton fundraiser admits $292 million fraud
ByGrant McCool
NEW YORK
Related NewsGrand jury indicts ex-Madoff programmers
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A wealthy businessman who raised money for leading Democratic Party politicians, including Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, pleaded guilty on Thursday to defrauding three major banks out of $292.2 million in loan transactions.
Hassan Namazee, 60, who once ran a private equity firm, admitted in Manhattan federal court to defrauding Bank of America Corp of more than $142 million, Citigroup Inc of $74.9 million and HSBC Holdings Plc of $74.9 million to pay his debt to Citigroup.
During the plea proceeding, Iranian-born Namazee, who owned several multimillion dollar properties and had interests in various companies and hedge funds, said he had tried to get out of financial difficulty starting in the 1990s.
"It was my intention to repay ... but the hole that I dug was larger and I borrowed more," said the gray-haired, dapper Nemazee, who appeared embarrassed and contrite.
"I am deeply ashamed of my conduct, for the harm that I inflicted on the banks and most especially my family," he told U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein in a somber voice as family members sat in court.
Namazee, a former member of the board of the Iranian American Political Action Committee, was a U.S. citizen whose family left Iran after the revolution there in 1979.
The committee contributes to candidates for public office in the United States regardless of party affiliation and works to support Iranian American candidates and issues important to that community, such as immigration.
Namazee admitted to three charges of bank fraud and one charge of wire fraud. Prosecutors said he had obtained hundreds of millions of dollars in loans from the banks and used fake documents to show supposed ownership of collateral.
CONTRIBUTIONS BUNDLER
Namazee was listed as one of the top "bundlers" of contributions to Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, according to OpenSecrets.org, a website run by the Center for Responsive Politics.
He typically donated more than $100,000 annually to Democratic Party political candidates, including Obama and now-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Namazee faces forfeiture of $292.2 million and restitution of $217.3 million. He agreed to forfeit interests in properties, corporate entities, hedge funds, securities accounts, bank accounts, a 2008 Maserati Quattroporte and a 2007 Cessna aircraft.
The judge allowed Nemazee to remain free on $25 million bail but under house arrest with electronic monitoring in his Manhattan apartment.
His lawyer, Paul Shechtman, successfully argued that his client was not a flight risk, but out of concern that he had property overseas and perhaps tens of millions of dollars to his name, he was ordered to surrender on April 30.
The judge said that would give him time to get his affairs in order before sentencing on June 30.
Prosecutors said the fraud took place from 1998 until Nemazee's arrest in August 2009 as he was about to make a trip overseas.
The office of Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara and the FBI said Namazee had used proceeds from his scheme to make donations to election campaigns of federal, state and local candidates, political action committees and charities.
They said he also bought property in Italy and paid for maintenance on two properties in New York.
The Democratic National Committee declined to comment, but an official said it had been previously announced that the affected donations would go to charity.
The offenses call for a maximum possible prison term of 30 years but the judge said that under federal guidelines following his guilty plea, Namazee faced a sentence of between 15 years, eight months and 19 years, seven months.
U.S. prosecutor Daniel Levy told the court the government had committed considerable resources to tracking down Nemazee's wealth and believed he was still worth millions.
"There is a big hole of money we have just not been able to find," Levy said.
The case is USA v Nemazee, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York No. 09-902.
As a center of Mullah operations in Los Angeles, the Iman center, an Iranian Islamic set-up operated to spread Sharia Islam in southern California and act as a clearing house for Iranian regime operations in southern California.
Namazikhah would visit Iran regularly and return with large amounts of money, used mostly to corrupt or buy support from both Iranians and Americans and try to convert them to Islam and to potential Dhimmitude (apologists for Islam).
He allegedly began to siphon off large amounts of Iman Center money and from Moslem adherents and was trying to leave the country with a huge amount of money when he was apparently stopped at the airport by the police.
The above sentencing is a breaking story.
MEANWHILE....
Obama, Clinton fundraiser admits $292 million fraud
ByGrant McCool
NEW YORK
Related NewsGrand jury indicts ex-Madoff programmers
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A wealthy businessman who raised money for leading Democratic Party politicians, including Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, pleaded guilty on Thursday to defrauding three major banks out of $292.2 million in loan transactions.
Hassan Namazee, 60, who once ran a private equity firm, admitted in Manhattan federal court to defrauding Bank of America Corp of more than $142 million, Citigroup Inc of $74.9 million and HSBC Holdings Plc of $74.9 million to pay his debt to Citigroup.
During the plea proceeding, Iranian-born Namazee, who owned several multimillion dollar properties and had interests in various companies and hedge funds, said he had tried to get out of financial difficulty starting in the 1990s.
"It was my intention to repay ... but the hole that I dug was larger and I borrowed more," said the gray-haired, dapper Nemazee, who appeared embarrassed and contrite.
"I am deeply ashamed of my conduct, for the harm that I inflicted on the banks and most especially my family," he told U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein in a somber voice as family members sat in court.
Namazee, a former member of the board of the Iranian American Political Action Committee, was a U.S. citizen whose family left Iran after the revolution there in 1979.
The committee contributes to candidates for public office in the United States regardless of party affiliation and works to support Iranian American candidates and issues important to that community, such as immigration.
Namazee admitted to three charges of bank fraud and one charge of wire fraud. Prosecutors said he had obtained hundreds of millions of dollars in loans from the banks and used fake documents to show supposed ownership of collateral.
CONTRIBUTIONS BUNDLER
Namazee was listed as one of the top "bundlers" of contributions to Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, according to OpenSecrets.org, a website run by the Center for Responsive Politics.
He typically donated more than $100,000 annually to Democratic Party political candidates, including Obama and now-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Namazee faces forfeiture of $292.2 million and restitution of $217.3 million. He agreed to forfeit interests in properties, corporate entities, hedge funds, securities accounts, bank accounts, a 2008 Maserati Quattroporte and a 2007 Cessna aircraft.
The judge allowed Nemazee to remain free on $25 million bail but under house arrest with electronic monitoring in his Manhattan apartment.
His lawyer, Paul Shechtman, successfully argued that his client was not a flight risk, but out of concern that he had property overseas and perhaps tens of millions of dollars to his name, he was ordered to surrender on April 30.
The judge said that would give him time to get his affairs in order before sentencing on June 30.
Prosecutors said the fraud took place from 1998 until Nemazee's arrest in August 2009 as he was about to make a trip overseas.
The office of Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara and the FBI said Namazee had used proceeds from his scheme to make donations to election campaigns of federal, state and local candidates, political action committees and charities.
They said he also bought property in Italy and paid for maintenance on two properties in New York.
The Democratic National Committee declined to comment, but an official said it had been previously announced that the affected donations would go to charity.
The offenses call for a maximum possible prison term of 30 years but the judge said that under federal guidelines following his guilty plea, Namazee faced a sentence of between 15 years, eight months and 19 years, seven months.
U.S. prosecutor Daniel Levy told the court the government had committed considerable resources to tracking down Nemazee's wealth and believed he was still worth millions.
"There is a big hole of money we have just not been able to find," Levy said.
The case is USA v Nemazee, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York No. 09-902.
Friday, March 19, 2010
SEAN HANNITY SCAMMING AMERICANS
Sean Hannity’s Freedom CONcert Scam: Almost None of Charity’s $ Went to Injured Troops, Kids of Fallen Troops; G5s for Vanity?
By Debbie Schlussel
For the last several years, Sean Hannity and the Freedom Alliance “charity” have conducted “Freedom Concerts” across America. They’ve told you that they are raising money to pay for the college tuition of the children of fallen soldiers and to pay severely wounded war vets. And on Friday Night, Hannity will be honored with an award for this “Outstanding Community Service by a Radio Talk Show Host” at Talkers Magazine’s convention.
But it’s all a huge scam.
In fact, less than 20%–and in two recent years, less than 7% and 4%, respectively–of the money raised by Freedom Alliance went to these causes, while millions of dollars went to expenses, including consultants and apparently to ferret the Hannity posse of family and friends in high style. And, despite Hannity’s statements to the contrary on his nationally syndicated radio show, few of the children of fallen soldiers got more than $1,000-$2,000, with apparently none getting more than $6,000, while Freedom Alliance spent tens of thousands of dollars for a private planes.
Moreover, despite written assurances to donors that all money raised would go directly to scholarships for kids of the fallen heroes and not to expenses, has begun charging expenses of nearly $500,000 to give out just over $800,000 in scholarships.
In February 2009, a well-known conservative writer sent me this, about a friend at FOX News:
The guy went on to tell me about Hannity’s “Freedom Concerts,” which are staged across the country with the proceeds going to children of slain soldiers. Of course, as the guy tells it, there’d be a lot more money every concert to go to the cause if Hannity didn’t demand–and get–use of a Gulfstream 5 plane to fly him and his family/entourage to the concerts; a “fleet” (that’s the word the guy used) of either Cadillac or Lincoln SUVs for him and his family/entourage; and several suites at really expensive hotels for him and his family/entourage.
The promoter apparently values Hannity’s star demands at well over $200,000 per event. The source says he heard that Oliver North pulled Hannity aside at one of the concerts and told him that this had to stop. But that may mean that, from now on, Hannity has to fly on a G4 instead of a G5, gets only a few luxury SUVs, and two or three suites.
North is the founder and honorary chairman of Freedom Alliance.
I began investigating these claims, and lo and behold, I discovered that Freedom Alliance gives very little money to the children of slain troops to pay for college and even less to wounded troops. The stories of injuries to troops and how much Freedom Alliance gives them–$200 for a soldier from a poor neighborhood who lost three limbs–is heartbreaking. Soldiers with traumatic brain injuries, severe wounds to the face from disfiguring burns and explosions, and multiple amputations got $1,000 or less, with only a handful of exceptions.
The tax forms available to the public for the Freedom Alliance–for the years 2006-2008–paint a tragic story, a story of a charity that makes gazillions and spends very little for the purposes it claims, a charity that spends millions more on its small staff and crony consultants than it ever gives in scholarships to the children of the fallen or severely injured troops or in aid to the injured troops themselves. While Hannity’s Freedom Concerts take in millions, only a few hundred thousand go to the claimed intended recipients.
Over a year ago, when I began looking into this story, I contacted both Sean Hannity and the
Freedom Alliance seeking comment and an accounting for where the money went. Both declined to answer any of my questions. Hannity refused to respond to an inquiry I sent to his personal private e-mail address asking him about the lavish expenses described in the e-mail above.
Freedom Alliance press secretary Alan Moore scheduled an interview for me with Freedom Alliance president Thomas Kilgannon, who in the past used Freedom Alliance resources to promote a book he wrote on the United Nations. But when Moore asked me what the interview would be about and I answered truthfully, the interview was not granted, and my calls to him were never returned thereafter. I told him I’d be asking Mr. Kilgannon about the expenses paid for Hannity and about the paltry percentage of Freedom Alliance funds actually going to the kids of fallen troops, to severely injured troops, and to anything other than expenses, consultants, and printing. I wanted to know why Freedom Alliance had spent $60,000 for “aviation services” in 2006.
Keep in mind that a charity is considered reputable if no more than 25% of its revenue goes to expenses and no less than 75% of it goes to the intended charity recipients. Given that, Freedom Alliance’s balance sheets are embarrassing in their shamelessness.
According to its 2006 tax returns, Freedom Alliance reported revenue of $10, 822, 785, but only $397,900–or a beyond-measly 3.68%–of that was given to the children of fallen troops as scholarships or as aid to severely injured soldiers.
On the other hand, 62% of the money went to “expenses,” including $979,485 for “consultants” and an “advisor.” Yes, consultant/advisors got more than double what injured troops and the kids of fallen troops got. The tax forms show that “New World Aviation” got paid $60,601 for “air travel.” Was that for Hannity’s G5? Like I said, neither the charity nor Hannity is talking.
And finally, that year, Freedom Alliance spent $1,730,816 on postage and shipping and $1,414,215 on printing, for a total of $3,145,031, nearly half the revenue the charity spent that year and about eight times what the injured troops and the children of fallen ones received.
That’s especially heartbreaking when you compare the hundreds of thousands consultants got and the millions spent on printing and postage to the outrageously small amounts given to wounded soldiers. In 2006, Freedom Alliance gave only $1,000 to a soldier from Bay City, Michigan, whom the charity says was in the following condition:
Face was blown up and lost sign in one eye.
And that $1,000 was relatively generous, when you consider this soldier from Romulus, Michigan, whom Freedom Alliance only gave $200:
SM [serviceman] was involved in roadside bomb incident in Iraq, which caused loss of both legs and left arm.
Romulus is mostly Black Detroit suburb, which is one of the poorest cities in Michigan and in America. Freedom Alliance gave this brave soldier rougly $67 per limb. That’s sickening.
So is the fact that this soldier, from Alexandria, Virginia, also only got $200 from Freedom Alliance:
SM was wounded in Iraq by an IED explosion. Lost right arm and severe shrapnel wounds to upper body and face.
Also appalling is the fact that in each year’s tax returns soldiers described as having brain trauma injuries, multiple amputated limbs, and severe burns over most of their bodies get a few hundred bucks each from Freedom Alliance and in almost every case, no more than $1,000.
That year, while fat-cat consultants and expenses took millions of Freedom Alliance’s money, seriously wounded troops to whom Freedom Alliance donated received a pathetic average of $785 each and the college student kids of the fallen got a paltry average of $2,943 toward tuition.
Yes, out of millions raised that year by Sean Hannity at his Freedom Concerts, only $309,000 was given out in scholarships to 105 students, and only $110,703.82 was given to the wounded soldiers.
Freedom Alliance’s 2007 tax returns aren’t much better. Out of $12,459,317 it raised that year, only $895,347–or just 7%–went to seriously wounded troops and scholarships for fallen troops. 53% went to expenses, including $1,464,627 in postage and $1,151,428 in printing. $604,995 went to “professional fees” and “consultants.”
Out of millions paid for Freedom Concert tickets and raised in fundraisers by Hannity listeners, only $596,500 went to college scholarships for soldiers who died in battle, and only $299,897 went to horribly injured troops. 208 student children of the fallen got an average of $2,868 apiece for tuition, though many got only $1,000 or less. 382 soldiers with serious injuries got an average of $785 each.
And, again, that year, the amounts given to soldiers with such grave injuries is despicably tiny. This soldier, from Killeen, Texas, got only $500 from Freedom Alliance:
SM was wounded in Iraq on June 18, 2007 in Digula Province, Baquba, Iraq. An IED exploded on the truck, he took shrapnel to the face, which cut off a piece of his nose. Also had shrapnel in throat and cheeks, which cut open his face and the inside of his throat.
This soldier, from Brady, Texas, also received just $500 from Freedom Alliance:
While serving in Baghdad Iraq, SM was hit with an IED blast. Sustained disfigurement, blindness, and superficial burns on face, hearing loss to right ear, TBI, peppered shrapnel to the face and right upper extremity.
And then, there are the 2008 Freedom Alliance tax forms, which were signed in November 2009 and filed only recently. That year, Freedom Alliance took in $8,781,431 in revenue and gave $1,060,275.57 total–or just 12%–to seriously wounded soldiers and for scholarships to kids of the fallen.
Remember, this is well below the 75% required to be considered a legitimate charity. And after claiming in written letters to donors that 100% of the money donated, via the Freedom Concerts or otherwise, to the scholarships would go directly to the scholarships and not to expenses, the Freedom Alliance decided to do the contrary and charge expenses anyway–charging a whopping $436,386 to give out $802, 250 in scholarships.
That means that 35% of the $1,238,636–all of which was supposed to go to scholarships for these kids of the fallen–went to Freedom Alliance.
Freedom Alliance spent $5,375,654–or 61% of its total revenue earned in 2008–on expenses, but actually 80% of the total revenue spent and given out for that year. That includes $1,055,791 spent on postage and $925,392 on printing. It spent $157,041 on travel. Is this the item that includes the money for the alleged Sean Hannity Gulfstream flights? Like I said, neither the charity nor Hannity will answer questions.
Meanwhile, 167 students got an average of just $4,803.89 each in tuition. With the amount this charity raises, these kids should all be getting a free ride paid for by Freedom Alliance.
And 299 very seriously injured soldiers got an average of just $805.21 each for very grave injuries. And the heartbreak of their stories and the disgustingly low amount donated to them continues.
This soldier, from Laurel, MD, got just $1,000:
SM lost both legs and one arm, below elbow, due to IED blast. SM also lost hearing in both ears on April 21, 2008.
Wow, while Sean Hannity and his friends at Freedom Alliance are paying their crony consultants hundreds of thousands of dollars, they’re giving this soldier $200 per limb lost or rendered useless.
This soldier, from Fort Sam Houston, Texas (where my own father was first sent when he was drafted during Vietnam), fared even worse in Freedom Alliance’s “generosity,” receiving only $165:
SM is a bilateral amputee with 30% facial burns sustained during IED blast, 31 May 2008, OEF.
Just $165 for that? Pathetic. And so very tragic.
Since Sean Hannity is always bragging about his phony “investigations” (stuff he just rips off from others) and “investigative” skills, you’d think he could figure out how to read a tax return and bother to look at Freedom Alliance’s. But you would be wrong. He has neither the skills nor the desire. He knows better and is well aware that they waste money on him and his luxe accommodations and travel. But this isn’t about that or truly about helping the troops and the kids of our war dead. It’s about promoting himself, the same way Angelina Jolie and Madonna get the press to film them in Africa.
To make matters worse, Hannity deliberately lied to his radio audience about how much money was going to the kids of the fallen American soldiers. On May 28th of last year, Hannity told his listeners, “Our new sponsor, Boca Java, just pledged $30,000 to the Freedom Concerts. That will provide a full one-year college scholarship for a kid of a fallen soldier.”
In fact, Freedom Alliance’s tax forms indicate it has never given any student more than $6,000 in a school year, and usually it’s been far less. Many students only get $1,000, which will barely cover anything at most colleges, today. A Boca Java spokeswoman told me that last year was the coffee purveyor’s last one sponsoring the Freedom Concerts, as it now donates directly to the troops, sending them free coffee and through sales of it’s Brew of Bravery.
A friend of mine was one of the artists who performed in Hannity’s Freedom Concerts and was shocked when I showed him the tax forms and the expenses. He no longer performs at the concerts because he was tired of the egomania. Now, he’s just angry. “We paid our own way and for all of our costs and expenses to perform because we thought we were helping the troops and their families and that all the money was going to them.”
In investigating Freedom Alliance and its tax forms, I learned that the organizations which evaluate charities are entirely worthless. Freedom Alliance is certified as “Best in America” by the “Independent Charities of America.” It is also rated a “Four Star Charity” by “Charity Navigator.” Both of these “ratings” are posted prominently on Freedom Alliance’s website, misleading donors into believing they are donating to a worthy cause, when in fact they are mostly donating to a black hole of expenses. Even Charity Navigator notes in its strange, illogical, and mostly inaccurate Four Star rating that Freedom Alliance has a fund-raising “efficiency” of only nine cents on the dollar.
And I’m not the only one who noticed. The comments on Charity Navigator’s Freedom Alliance page are indicative that those who checked this charity’s tax forms also note the scam.
“Wonkling” wrote:
If you look at the actual 990, it breaks down its program expenses. They actually spent more money this past year on postage than they did over the past 4 years on scholarships. They paid 60k to an air company, millions to consultants, marketing, fundraising. Their actual expenditures on funds for children of killed/disabled veterans is far less than what they paid themselves or their consultants. Having a large capacity (4 stars) should not overshadow a cumbersome efficiency rating (2 stars).
“Chickenbone” wrote:
Since 2003 Freedom Alliance has collected in cash $48,241,571! Since 2003 they have spent on the Wounded and Dead Veterans and their Families $1,781,782 or .036 cents on the dollar, according to their own IRS 990’s!
Yes, the Sean Hannity’s Freedom Concerts are just a giant con.
His gushing lumpenconservatariat fans and listeners actually believe he’s doing good, while he travels in style around the country feeding his ego. It’s a win-win for him. But it’s a lose-lose for the donors (who are mostly hard-working, Middle Americans who want to help our troops and their families and bought concert tickets and held other fundraisers) and mostly a loser for the kids of the fallen troops and the troops, themselves, who survived with very serious injuries.
You’ve heard the saying, “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” I love patriotism, but in this case, Sean Hannity’s “Freedom Concerts” and the Freedom Alliance are Exhibit A of that saying. But they’re not really patriots. Not even close. Their only patriotism is to the faces they see in their mirrors. Hey, Sean, you’re a “Great American.”
Sadly, the real great Americans–the ones who gave their lives and the ones who survived but gave their limbs and their skin for this country–are getting ripped off.
By Debbie Schlussel
For the last several years, Sean Hannity and the Freedom Alliance “charity” have conducted “Freedom Concerts” across America. They’ve told you that they are raising money to pay for the college tuition of the children of fallen soldiers and to pay severely wounded war vets. And on Friday Night, Hannity will be honored with an award for this “Outstanding Community Service by a Radio Talk Show Host” at Talkers Magazine’s convention.
But it’s all a huge scam.
In fact, less than 20%–and in two recent years, less than 7% and 4%, respectively–of the money raised by Freedom Alliance went to these causes, while millions of dollars went to expenses, including consultants and apparently to ferret the Hannity posse of family and friends in high style. And, despite Hannity’s statements to the contrary on his nationally syndicated radio show, few of the children of fallen soldiers got more than $1,000-$2,000, with apparently none getting more than $6,000, while Freedom Alliance spent tens of thousands of dollars for a private planes.
Moreover, despite written assurances to donors that all money raised would go directly to scholarships for kids of the fallen heroes and not to expenses, has begun charging expenses of nearly $500,000 to give out just over $800,000 in scholarships.
In February 2009, a well-known conservative writer sent me this, about a friend at FOX News:
The guy went on to tell me about Hannity’s “Freedom Concerts,” which are staged across the country with the proceeds going to children of slain soldiers. Of course, as the guy tells it, there’d be a lot more money every concert to go to the cause if Hannity didn’t demand–and get–use of a Gulfstream 5 plane to fly him and his family/entourage to the concerts; a “fleet” (that’s the word the guy used) of either Cadillac or Lincoln SUVs for him and his family/entourage; and several suites at really expensive hotels for him and his family/entourage.
The promoter apparently values Hannity’s star demands at well over $200,000 per event. The source says he heard that Oliver North pulled Hannity aside at one of the concerts and told him that this had to stop. But that may mean that, from now on, Hannity has to fly on a G4 instead of a G5, gets only a few luxury SUVs, and two or three suites.
North is the founder and honorary chairman of Freedom Alliance.
I began investigating these claims, and lo and behold, I discovered that Freedom Alliance gives very little money to the children of slain troops to pay for college and even less to wounded troops. The stories of injuries to troops and how much Freedom Alliance gives them–$200 for a soldier from a poor neighborhood who lost three limbs–is heartbreaking. Soldiers with traumatic brain injuries, severe wounds to the face from disfiguring burns and explosions, and multiple amputations got $1,000 or less, with only a handful of exceptions.
The tax forms available to the public for the Freedom Alliance–for the years 2006-2008–paint a tragic story, a story of a charity that makes gazillions and spends very little for the purposes it claims, a charity that spends millions more on its small staff and crony consultants than it ever gives in scholarships to the children of the fallen or severely injured troops or in aid to the injured troops themselves. While Hannity’s Freedom Concerts take in millions, only a few hundred thousand go to the claimed intended recipients.
Over a year ago, when I began looking into this story, I contacted both Sean Hannity and the
Freedom Alliance seeking comment and an accounting for where the money went. Both declined to answer any of my questions. Hannity refused to respond to an inquiry I sent to his personal private e-mail address asking him about the lavish expenses described in the e-mail above.
Freedom Alliance press secretary Alan Moore scheduled an interview for me with Freedom Alliance president Thomas Kilgannon, who in the past used Freedom Alliance resources to promote a book he wrote on the United Nations. But when Moore asked me what the interview would be about and I answered truthfully, the interview was not granted, and my calls to him were never returned thereafter. I told him I’d be asking Mr. Kilgannon about the expenses paid for Hannity and about the paltry percentage of Freedom Alliance funds actually going to the kids of fallen troops, to severely injured troops, and to anything other than expenses, consultants, and printing. I wanted to know why Freedom Alliance had spent $60,000 for “aviation services” in 2006.
Keep in mind that a charity is considered reputable if no more than 25% of its revenue goes to expenses and no less than 75% of it goes to the intended charity recipients. Given that, Freedom Alliance’s balance sheets are embarrassing in their shamelessness.
According to its 2006 tax returns, Freedom Alliance reported revenue of $10, 822, 785, but only $397,900–or a beyond-measly 3.68%–of that was given to the children of fallen troops as scholarships or as aid to severely injured soldiers.
On the other hand, 62% of the money went to “expenses,” including $979,485 for “consultants” and an “advisor.” Yes, consultant/advisors got more than double what injured troops and the kids of fallen troops got. The tax forms show that “New World Aviation” got paid $60,601 for “air travel.” Was that for Hannity’s G5? Like I said, neither the charity nor Hannity is talking.
And finally, that year, Freedom Alliance spent $1,730,816 on postage and shipping and $1,414,215 on printing, for a total of $3,145,031, nearly half the revenue the charity spent that year and about eight times what the injured troops and the children of fallen ones received.
That’s especially heartbreaking when you compare the hundreds of thousands consultants got and the millions spent on printing and postage to the outrageously small amounts given to wounded soldiers. In 2006, Freedom Alliance gave only $1,000 to a soldier from Bay City, Michigan, whom the charity says was in the following condition:
Face was blown up and lost sign in one eye.
And that $1,000 was relatively generous, when you consider this soldier from Romulus, Michigan, whom Freedom Alliance only gave $200:
SM [serviceman] was involved in roadside bomb incident in Iraq, which caused loss of both legs and left arm.
Romulus is mostly Black Detroit suburb, which is one of the poorest cities in Michigan and in America. Freedom Alliance gave this brave soldier rougly $67 per limb. That’s sickening.
So is the fact that this soldier, from Alexandria, Virginia, also only got $200 from Freedom Alliance:
SM was wounded in Iraq by an IED explosion. Lost right arm and severe shrapnel wounds to upper body and face.
Also appalling is the fact that in each year’s tax returns soldiers described as having brain trauma injuries, multiple amputated limbs, and severe burns over most of their bodies get a few hundred bucks each from Freedom Alliance and in almost every case, no more than $1,000.
That year, while fat-cat consultants and expenses took millions of Freedom Alliance’s money, seriously wounded troops to whom Freedom Alliance donated received a pathetic average of $785 each and the college student kids of the fallen got a paltry average of $2,943 toward tuition.
Yes, out of millions raised that year by Sean Hannity at his Freedom Concerts, only $309,000 was given out in scholarships to 105 students, and only $110,703.82 was given to the wounded soldiers.
Freedom Alliance’s 2007 tax returns aren’t much better. Out of $12,459,317 it raised that year, only $895,347–or just 7%–went to seriously wounded troops and scholarships for fallen troops. 53% went to expenses, including $1,464,627 in postage and $1,151,428 in printing. $604,995 went to “professional fees” and “consultants.”
Out of millions paid for Freedom Concert tickets and raised in fundraisers by Hannity listeners, only $596,500 went to college scholarships for soldiers who died in battle, and only $299,897 went to horribly injured troops. 208 student children of the fallen got an average of $2,868 apiece for tuition, though many got only $1,000 or less. 382 soldiers with serious injuries got an average of $785 each.
And, again, that year, the amounts given to soldiers with such grave injuries is despicably tiny. This soldier, from Killeen, Texas, got only $500 from Freedom Alliance:
SM was wounded in Iraq on June 18, 2007 in Digula Province, Baquba, Iraq. An IED exploded on the truck, he took shrapnel to the face, which cut off a piece of his nose. Also had shrapnel in throat and cheeks, which cut open his face and the inside of his throat.
This soldier, from Brady, Texas, also received just $500 from Freedom Alliance:
While serving in Baghdad Iraq, SM was hit with an IED blast. Sustained disfigurement, blindness, and superficial burns on face, hearing loss to right ear, TBI, peppered shrapnel to the face and right upper extremity.
And then, there are the 2008 Freedom Alliance tax forms, which were signed in November 2009 and filed only recently. That year, Freedom Alliance took in $8,781,431 in revenue and gave $1,060,275.57 total–or just 12%–to seriously wounded soldiers and for scholarships to kids of the fallen.
Remember, this is well below the 75% required to be considered a legitimate charity. And after claiming in written letters to donors that 100% of the money donated, via the Freedom Concerts or otherwise, to the scholarships would go directly to the scholarships and not to expenses, the Freedom Alliance decided to do the contrary and charge expenses anyway–charging a whopping $436,386 to give out $802, 250 in scholarships.
That means that 35% of the $1,238,636–all of which was supposed to go to scholarships for these kids of the fallen–went to Freedom Alliance.
Freedom Alliance spent $5,375,654–or 61% of its total revenue earned in 2008–on expenses, but actually 80% of the total revenue spent and given out for that year. That includes $1,055,791 spent on postage and $925,392 on printing. It spent $157,041 on travel. Is this the item that includes the money for the alleged Sean Hannity Gulfstream flights? Like I said, neither the charity nor Hannity will answer questions.
Meanwhile, 167 students got an average of just $4,803.89 each in tuition. With the amount this charity raises, these kids should all be getting a free ride paid for by Freedom Alliance.
And 299 very seriously injured soldiers got an average of just $805.21 each for very grave injuries. And the heartbreak of their stories and the disgustingly low amount donated to them continues.
This soldier, from Laurel, MD, got just $1,000:
SM lost both legs and one arm, below elbow, due to IED blast. SM also lost hearing in both ears on April 21, 2008.
Wow, while Sean Hannity and his friends at Freedom Alliance are paying their crony consultants hundreds of thousands of dollars, they’re giving this soldier $200 per limb lost or rendered useless.
This soldier, from Fort Sam Houston, Texas (where my own father was first sent when he was drafted during Vietnam), fared even worse in Freedom Alliance’s “generosity,” receiving only $165:
SM is a bilateral amputee with 30% facial burns sustained during IED blast, 31 May 2008, OEF.
Just $165 for that? Pathetic. And so very tragic.
Since Sean Hannity is always bragging about his phony “investigations” (stuff he just rips off from others) and “investigative” skills, you’d think he could figure out how to read a tax return and bother to look at Freedom Alliance’s. But you would be wrong. He has neither the skills nor the desire. He knows better and is well aware that they waste money on him and his luxe accommodations and travel. But this isn’t about that or truly about helping the troops and the kids of our war dead. It’s about promoting himself, the same way Angelina Jolie and Madonna get the press to film them in Africa.
To make matters worse, Hannity deliberately lied to his radio audience about how much money was going to the kids of the fallen American soldiers. On May 28th of last year, Hannity told his listeners, “Our new sponsor, Boca Java, just pledged $30,000 to the Freedom Concerts. That will provide a full one-year college scholarship for a kid of a fallen soldier.”
In fact, Freedom Alliance’s tax forms indicate it has never given any student more than $6,000 in a school year, and usually it’s been far less. Many students only get $1,000, which will barely cover anything at most colleges, today. A Boca Java spokeswoman told me that last year was the coffee purveyor’s last one sponsoring the Freedom Concerts, as it now donates directly to the troops, sending them free coffee and through sales of it’s Brew of Bravery.
A friend of mine was one of the artists who performed in Hannity’s Freedom Concerts and was shocked when I showed him the tax forms and the expenses. He no longer performs at the concerts because he was tired of the egomania. Now, he’s just angry. “We paid our own way and for all of our costs and expenses to perform because we thought we were helping the troops and their families and that all the money was going to them.”
In investigating Freedom Alliance and its tax forms, I learned that the organizations which evaluate charities are entirely worthless. Freedom Alliance is certified as “Best in America” by the “Independent Charities of America.” It is also rated a “Four Star Charity” by “Charity Navigator.” Both of these “ratings” are posted prominently on Freedom Alliance’s website, misleading donors into believing they are donating to a worthy cause, when in fact they are mostly donating to a black hole of expenses. Even Charity Navigator notes in its strange, illogical, and mostly inaccurate Four Star rating that Freedom Alliance has a fund-raising “efficiency” of only nine cents on the dollar.
And I’m not the only one who noticed. The comments on Charity Navigator’s Freedom Alliance page are indicative that those who checked this charity’s tax forms also note the scam.
“Wonkling” wrote:
If you look at the actual 990, it breaks down its program expenses. They actually spent more money this past year on postage than they did over the past 4 years on scholarships. They paid 60k to an air company, millions to consultants, marketing, fundraising. Their actual expenditures on funds for children of killed/disabled veterans is far less than what they paid themselves or their consultants. Having a large capacity (4 stars) should not overshadow a cumbersome efficiency rating (2 stars).
“Chickenbone” wrote:
Since 2003 Freedom Alliance has collected in cash $48,241,571! Since 2003 they have spent on the Wounded and Dead Veterans and their Families $1,781,782 or .036 cents on the dollar, according to their own IRS 990’s!
Yes, the Sean Hannity’s Freedom Concerts are just a giant con.
His gushing lumpenconservatariat fans and listeners actually believe he’s doing good, while he travels in style around the country feeding his ego. It’s a win-win for him. But it’s a lose-lose for the donors (who are mostly hard-working, Middle Americans who want to help our troops and their families and bought concert tickets and held other fundraisers) and mostly a loser for the kids of the fallen troops and the troops, themselves, who survived with very serious injuries.
You’ve heard the saying, “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” I love patriotism, but in this case, Sean Hannity’s “Freedom Concerts” and the Freedom Alliance are Exhibit A of that saying. But they’re not really patriots. Not even close. Their only patriotism is to the faces they see in their mirrors. Hey, Sean, you’re a “Great American.”
Sadly, the real great Americans–the ones who gave their lives and the ones who survived but gave their limbs and their skin for this country–are getting ripped off.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
DOJ: DEPARTMENT OF JIHAD!
DOJ: Department Of Jihad
Investors.com says the Justice Department employs nine lawyers previously involved in the defense of terrorist detainees. This is a colossal conflict of interest. Just whose side are they on?
From the dropping of a voter-intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party to the decision to try 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Muhammed in a civilian court within blocks of where the World Trade Center once stood, the actions and attitudes of the Justice Department and Attorney General Eric Holder toward the thugs and terrorists who threaten us has grown curiouser and curiouser.
We may now have a clue as to why. Last November, Sen. Charles Grassley, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, asked the Justice Department how many of its lawyers had defended terrorist detainees over whom the department holds sway.
Grassley knew from earlier press reports of two such lawyers who worked on behalf of detainees at the liberal organization Human Rights Watch. He wanted to know how many more there were. Last Friday, Holder answered nine.
"To the best of our knowledge, during their employment prior to joining the government, only five of the lawyers who serve as political appointees in those components represented detainees," Holder said in a letter dated Feb. 18. "Four others contributed to amicus briefs in detainee-related cases involved in advocacy on behalf of detainees."
So the decision to Mirandize the Crotch Bomber, Umar Abdulmutallab, and to quickly get him lawyered up was made by a department populated by leftist lawyers who believe terror is a law enforcement matter and who have tried to get off those actively trying to kill us.
We still have no official answer to what the Justice Department would do if Osama bin Laden were captured.
"It's like they're bringing al-Qaida lawyers inside the Department of Justice," said Debra Burlingame, whose brother was the pilot of the plane driven by terrorists into the Pentagon, following KSM's plan.
We still have not been told all the lawyers' names. Like the detainees they represented, presumably they have the right to remain silent. So much for transparency.
Lawyers in private practice are free to choose their clients and their reasons for defending them. But these lawyers are in the employ of the American people and have the task of prosecuting those who try to kill them. Some chose to defend enemies who are making war on America. We have a right to know who they are, who their clients were and why they defended them.
Investors.com says the Justice Department employs nine lawyers previously involved in the defense of terrorist detainees. This is a colossal conflict of interest. Just whose side are they on?
From the dropping of a voter-intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party to the decision to try 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Muhammed in a civilian court within blocks of where the World Trade Center once stood, the actions and attitudes of the Justice Department and Attorney General Eric Holder toward the thugs and terrorists who threaten us has grown curiouser and curiouser.
We may now have a clue as to why. Last November, Sen. Charles Grassley, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, asked the Justice Department how many of its lawyers had defended terrorist detainees over whom the department holds sway.
Grassley knew from earlier press reports of two such lawyers who worked on behalf of detainees at the liberal organization Human Rights Watch. He wanted to know how many more there were. Last Friday, Holder answered nine.
"To the best of our knowledge, during their employment prior to joining the government, only five of the lawyers who serve as political appointees in those components represented detainees," Holder said in a letter dated Feb. 18. "Four others contributed to amicus briefs in detainee-related cases involved in advocacy on behalf of detainees."
So the decision to Mirandize the Crotch Bomber, Umar Abdulmutallab, and to quickly get him lawyered up was made by a department populated by leftist lawyers who believe terror is a law enforcement matter and who have tried to get off those actively trying to kill us.
We still have no official answer to what the Justice Department would do if Osama bin Laden were captured.
"It's like they're bringing al-Qaida lawyers inside the Department of Justice," said Debra Burlingame, whose brother was the pilot of the plane driven by terrorists into the Pentagon, following KSM's plan.
We still have not been told all the lawyers' names. Like the detainees they represented, presumably they have the right to remain silent. So much for transparency.
Lawyers in private practice are free to choose their clients and their reasons for defending them. But these lawyers are in the employ of the American people and have the task of prosecuting those who try to kill them. Some chose to defend enemies who are making war on America. We have a right to know who they are, who their clients were and why they defended them.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
"CAPTURE" OF MULLAH BARADAR
IN AN EFFORT TO CLAIM SUCCESS ON THE WORLD STAGE, THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TAKES DOWN AN EASY, LONG TIME AVAILABLE, IN-PLAIN-SIGHT, COOPERATIVE TARGET AND HAS SABOTAGED ANY CHANCE OF TALIBAN NEGOTIATION AND TRUST.
The Strange Case of Mullah Baradar [Dana M. Perino and Bill Burck]
Yesterday, the New York Times broke the story that one of the Taliban’s top military commanders, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, had been captured in Karachi during a joint raid by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the CIA. Baradar is reportedly second only to Mullah Omar in the Taliban’s loose hierarchy. The Times reported this as a huge victory, and the Obama administration took a few well-deserved bows.
At first blush, and based solely on the Times’s reporting and the administration’s reaction, this did indeed appear to be a major achievement. We noticed something odd with the triumphant tone, however. The article published yesterday noted that Baradar had been one of the Taliban’s “most approachable leaders” and one of the few Taliban commanders willing to negotiate with President Karzai's government.
This struck us as discordant with the dramatic raid, capture, and interrogation of Baradar initially described by the Times. Baradar was not captured in a spider hole, like Saddam Hussein was, or hiding out in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was. Instead, it appeared that his location was not much of a secret at all.
At first we wrote this off as more evidence of the on-again/off-again “cooperation” we receive from the Pakistani intelligence service, and Baradar’s capture was a good sign it was on again. But, according to new reporting by the Times today, the reality is far more complicated.
Today, the Times is reporting that the real story behind Baradar’s capture is that Pakistan wanted to gain a place at the table in negotiations between the U.S. and Karzai and the Taliban.
Specifically, Baradar, it turns out, was one of Karzai’s main contacts with the Taliban for years, and he was at the center of efforts to negotiate a peace with the Taliban. Pakistan was frustrated at being excluded from the talks, so it snatched up Baradar to gain an advantage.
The Times quotes an unnamed American intelligence official: “I know that our people had been in touch with people around [Baradar] and were negotiating with him. So it doesn’t make sense why we bite the hand that is feeding us. And now the Taliban will have no reason to negotiate with us; they will not believe anything we will offer or say.” If this is true, then the capture of Baradar is not exactly what it first appeared. And if Baradar was as central to Karzai’s and America’s efforts to negotiate with the Taliban as the article suggests, then there appears to be significant costs to the capture. Perhaps it was even unhelpful to Karzai and the U.S.
Does capturing Baradar really further U.S. strategy? (Perhaps the administration did not view him as a valuable contact and thought he would be more useful in custody and subject to interrogation.) Or does it actually harm U.S. strategy? Was it forced on the Obama administration by the Pakistanis? If so, does the administration’s triumphant tone reflect its true feelings about the importance of capturing Baradar, or is it a smokescreen?
The fact that the New York Times, not known for its strength of objectivity in covering the Obama administration, is reporting this suggests to us that there’s a better-than-even chance that the administration is trying to turn a lemon into lemonade.
Its public messaging is that the capture of Baradar is a huge win in the ongoing war with the Taliban. But is the administration concealing the downsides of the capture? We hope not. And we certainly hope the administration is not crowing about capturing Baradar in Pakistan in order to distract from the difficulties it has had on the home front with the KSM trial and Mirandizing the Christmas bomber. But if the Times story is accurate, the evidence is beginning to tilt in the wrong direction.
— Dana M. Perino is former press secretary to Pres. George W. Bush. Bill Burck is a former federal prosecutor and deputy counsel to President Bush.
What a bunch of narcissistic, showoff-only, acting-"Present" MORONS!
The Strange Case of Mullah Baradar [Dana M. Perino and Bill Burck]
Yesterday, the New York Times broke the story that one of the Taliban’s top military commanders, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, had been captured in Karachi during a joint raid by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the CIA. Baradar is reportedly second only to Mullah Omar in the Taliban’s loose hierarchy. The Times reported this as a huge victory, and the Obama administration took a few well-deserved bows.
At first blush, and based solely on the Times’s reporting and the administration’s reaction, this did indeed appear to be a major achievement. We noticed something odd with the triumphant tone, however. The article published yesterday noted that Baradar had been one of the Taliban’s “most approachable leaders” and one of the few Taliban commanders willing to negotiate with President Karzai's government.
This struck us as discordant with the dramatic raid, capture, and interrogation of Baradar initially described by the Times. Baradar was not captured in a spider hole, like Saddam Hussein was, or hiding out in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was. Instead, it appeared that his location was not much of a secret at all.
At first we wrote this off as more evidence of the on-again/off-again “cooperation” we receive from the Pakistani intelligence service, and Baradar’s capture was a good sign it was on again. But, according to new reporting by the Times today, the reality is far more complicated.
Today, the Times is reporting that the real story behind Baradar’s capture is that Pakistan wanted to gain a place at the table in negotiations between the U.S. and Karzai and the Taliban.
Specifically, Baradar, it turns out, was one of Karzai’s main contacts with the Taliban for years, and he was at the center of efforts to negotiate a peace with the Taliban. Pakistan was frustrated at being excluded from the talks, so it snatched up Baradar to gain an advantage.
The Times quotes an unnamed American intelligence official: “I know that our people had been in touch with people around [Baradar] and were negotiating with him. So it doesn’t make sense why we bite the hand that is feeding us. And now the Taliban will have no reason to negotiate with us; they will not believe anything we will offer or say.” If this is true, then the capture of Baradar is not exactly what it first appeared. And if Baradar was as central to Karzai’s and America’s efforts to negotiate with the Taliban as the article suggests, then there appears to be significant costs to the capture. Perhaps it was even unhelpful to Karzai and the U.S.
Does capturing Baradar really further U.S. strategy? (Perhaps the administration did not view him as a valuable contact and thought he would be more useful in custody and subject to interrogation.) Or does it actually harm U.S. strategy? Was it forced on the Obama administration by the Pakistanis? If so, does the administration’s triumphant tone reflect its true feelings about the importance of capturing Baradar, or is it a smokescreen?
The fact that the New York Times, not known for its strength of objectivity in covering the Obama administration, is reporting this suggests to us that there’s a better-than-even chance that the administration is trying to turn a lemon into lemonade.
Its public messaging is that the capture of Baradar is a huge win in the ongoing war with the Taliban. But is the administration concealing the downsides of the capture? We hope not. And we certainly hope the administration is not crowing about capturing Baradar in Pakistan in order to distract from the difficulties it has had on the home front with the KSM trial and Mirandizing the Christmas bomber. But if the Times story is accurate, the evidence is beginning to tilt in the wrong direction.
— Dana M. Perino is former press secretary to Pres. George W. Bush. Bill Burck is a former federal prosecutor and deputy counsel to President Bush.
Monday, February 15, 2010
IMPORTANT DRUG RECALL
Subject: FW: Drug Recall - Very Serious *** Send to friends & family
Date: Wednesday, February 10, 2010, 10:39 PM
Drug Recall - Very Serious *** Send to friends & family
CONFIRMED BY: SNOPES.COM & FDA
All drugs containing PHENYLPROPANOLAMINE are being recalled..
STOP TAKING anything containing this ingredient. It has been linked to increased hemorrhagic stroke (bleeding in brain)
among women ages 18-49 in the three days after starting use of medication The FDA recommended that everyone (even children) seek alternative medicine.
The following medications contain Phenylpropanolamine:
Acutrim Diet Gum Appetite Suppressant
Acutrim Plus Dietary Supplements
Acutrim Maximum Strength Appetite Control
Alka-Seltzer Plus Children's Cold Medicine Effervescent
Alka-Seltzer Plus Cold medicine (cherry or orange)
Alka-Seltzer Plus Cold Medicine Original
Alka-Seltzer Plus Cold & Cough Medicine Effervescent
Alka-Seltzer Plus Cold & Flu Medicine
Alka-Seltzer Plus Cold & Sinus Effervescent
Alka-Seltzer Plus Night-Time Cold Medicine
BC Allergy Sinus Cold Powder
BC Sinus Cold Powder
Comtrex Flu Therapy & Fever Relief
Day & Night Contac 12-Hour Cold Capsules
Contac 12 Hour Caplets
Coricidin D Cold, Flu & Sinus
Dexatrim Caffeine Free
Dexatrim Extended Duration
Dexatrim Gelcaps
Dexatrim Vitamin C/Caffeine Free
Dimetapp Cold & Allergy Chewable Tablets
Dimetapp Cold & Cough Liqui-Gels
Dimetapp DM Cold & Cough Elixir
Dimetapp Elixir
Dimetapp 4 Hour Liquid Gels
Dimetapp 4 Hour Tablets
Dimetapp 12 Hour Extendtabs Tablets
Naldecon DX Pediatric Drops
Permathene Mega-16
Robitussin CF
Tavist-D 12 Hour Relief of Sinus & Nasal Congestion
Triaminic DM Cough Relief
Triaminic Expectorant Chest & Head
Triaminic Syrup Cold & Allergy
Triaminic Triaminicol Cold & Cough
I just found out and called the 800# on the container for Triaminic and they informed me that they are voluntarily recalling the following medicines because of a certain ingredient that is causing strokes and seizures in children
Orange3D Cold & Allergy Cherry (Pink)
3D Cold & Cough Berry
3D Cough Relief Yellow 3D Expectorant
They are asking you to call them at 800-548-3708 800-548-3708 with the lot number on the box so they can send you postage for you to send it back to them, and they will also issue you a refund. If you know of anyone else with small children,
PLEASE PASS THIS ON.. THIS IS SERIOUS STUFF!
DO PASS ALONG TO ALL ON YOUR MAILING LIST so people are informed. They can then pass it along to their families.
To confirm these findings please take time to check the following:
http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/infopage/ppa/
PLEASE PASS THIS ON TO YOUR CHILDREN IN CASE THEY GIVE IT TO THEIR CHILDREN OR TO FRIENDS WHO HAVE CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN
Date: Wednesday, February 10, 2010, 10:39 PM
Drug Recall - Very Serious *** Send to friends & family
CONFIRMED BY: SNOPES.COM & FDA
All drugs containing PHENYLPROPANOLAMINE are being recalled..
STOP TAKING anything containing this ingredient. It has been linked to increased hemorrhagic stroke (bleeding in brain)
among women ages 18-49 in the three days after starting use of medication The FDA recommended that everyone (even children) seek alternative medicine.
The following medications contain Phenylpropanolamine:
Acutrim Diet Gum Appetite Suppressant
Acutrim Plus Dietary Supplements
Acutrim Maximum Strength Appetite Control
Alka-Seltzer Plus Children's Cold Medicine Effervescent
Alka-Seltzer Plus Cold medicine (cherry or orange)
Alka-Seltzer Plus Cold Medicine Original
Alka-Seltzer Plus Cold & Cough Medicine Effervescent
Alka-Seltzer Plus Cold & Flu Medicine
Alka-Seltzer Plus Cold & Sinus Effervescent
Alka-Seltzer Plus Night-Time Cold Medicine
BC Allergy Sinus Cold Powder
BC Sinus Cold Powder
Comtrex Flu Therapy & Fever Relief
Day & Night Contac 12-Hour Cold Capsules
Contac 12 Hour Caplets
Coricidin D Cold, Flu & Sinus
Dexatrim Caffeine Free
Dexatrim Extended Duration
Dexatrim Gelcaps
Dexatrim Vitamin C/Caffeine Free
Dimetapp Cold & Allergy Chewable Tablets
Dimetapp Cold & Cough Liqui-Gels
Dimetapp DM Cold & Cough Elixir
Dimetapp Elixir
Dimetapp 4 Hour Liquid Gels
Dimetapp 4 Hour Tablets
Dimetapp 12 Hour Extendtabs Tablets
Naldecon DX Pediatric Drops
Permathene Mega-16
Robitussin CF
Tavist-D 12 Hour Relief of Sinus & Nasal Congestion
Triaminic DM Cough Relief
Triaminic Expectorant Chest & Head
Triaminic Syrup Cold & Allergy
Triaminic Triaminicol Cold & Cough
I just found out and called the 800# on the container for Triaminic and they informed me that they are voluntarily recalling the following medicines because of a certain ingredient that is causing strokes and seizures in children
Orange3D Cold & Allergy Cherry (Pink)
3D Cold & Cough Berry
3D Cough Relief Yellow 3D Expectorant
They are asking you to call them at 800-548-3708 800-548-3708 with the lot number on the box so they can send you postage for you to send it back to them, and they will also issue you a refund. If you know of anyone else with small children,
PLEASE PASS THIS ON.. THIS IS SERIOUS STUFF!
DO PASS ALONG TO ALL ON YOUR MAILING LIST so people are informed. They can then pass it along to their families.
To confirm these findings please take time to check the following:
http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/infopage/ppa/
PLEASE PASS THIS ON TO YOUR CHILDREN IN CASE THEY GIVE IT TO THEIR CHILDREN OR TO FRIENDS WHO HAVE CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN
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