July 25, 2009 · 48 Comments

1. Back in 2005, poor Tad Rickman, writing for the Denver Daily News, made a typo for which he become infamous for a while. Here’s what he did.

“The Denver Daily News would like to offer a sincere apology for a typo in Wednesday’s Town Talk regarding New Jersey’s proposal to ban smoking in automobiles. It was not the author’s intention to call New Jersey ‘Jew Jersey.’”

I think now everyone owes Tad an apology.

The fact that evil assholes such as the folks below were nabbed in New Jersey should come as no surprise. The state is really not much more than a an  Israeli fort filled with all kinds of Israeli spies and criminals.

From the Daily Mail

Solomon Dwek, he's the informer and clearly an Islamofascist

Rabbi Saul Kassin, now out on bail

Gun toting organ stealer Rabbi Levy Rosenbaum.

First of all, let’s recall the 2004 case of former New Jersey governor, James McGreevey, who had a homosexual relationship with an Israeli named Golan Cipel.  He even made Cipel the head of security for the state of New Jersey. Imagine that, putting a foreign national in charge of security of the state.  Cipel must give good blow jobs or something. Anyway, McGreevey had to resign over the scandal. Cipel was no doubt a Mossad agent and had even served in the Israeli Consulate in New York.

But there’s much, much more.

First though, we have an announcement here at Mantiq al-Tayr. In doing some research for today’s post, the tuyuur here at Mantiq al-Tayr have discovered a great person – Laura Dawn Lewis – who is clearly a patriot and yes, like Katherine Albrecht, she is also a babe. Mish hayk?

Laura Dawn Lewis

So, now Mantiq al-Tayr has two babes, instead of just one. In Arabic I guess that would be babe-ain or something. But I digress.

More.............................

In a July 2009 report on government efforts to fix the financial system, Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for the TARP, says total government support has the potential to reach $23.7 trillion.

(Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images)

"The total potential federal government support could reach up to $23.7 trillion," says Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, in a report released today on the government's efforts to fix the financial system.

Yes, $23.7 trillion.

"The potential financial commitment the American taxpayers could be responsible for is of a size and scope that isn't even imaginable," said Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., ranking member on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

"If you spent a million dollars a day going back to the birth of Christ, that wouldn't even come close to just $1 trillion -- $23.7 trillion is a staggering figure."

To be sure, we aren't there yet.

The government has about 50 different programs to fight the current recession, including programs to bail out ailing banks and automakers, boost lending and beat back the housing crisis. So far they've cost taxpayers around $4 trillion.

The staggering $23.7 trillion estimate elicited concern from members of Congress and a sharp rebuke from the Treasury Department after the report was leaked late Monday.

Treasury spokesman Andrew Williams called the estimate "inflated," saying it "does not provide a useful framework for evaluating the potential cost of these programs."

He said utilization of the department's financial rescue programs has begun to decline, and some banks have already repaid $70 billion in TARP funds.

Other financial experts also questioned the significance of Barofsky's potential TARP price tag.

"I'm not sure how you could come up with a number like [$23.7 trillion] without lots of assumptions involved," said Kevin Petrasic, a private financial services lawyer with broad government experience.

"Throwing out a number you can't provide a tremendous amount of insight about: what's in that? You just get a headline. Why do we even need to know that this number, in a worst case scenario, is the number? What is gained from that?"

In his appearance before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today, Barofsky insisted his report provides a valuable accounting of taxpayer dollars.

"We take offense to [Treasury's] comments," he said. "These numbers are from the government."

He said the $23.7 trillion figure in his quarterly report was derived from publicly available data on allocations to the government's various bailout programs.

"We've explained the number does include some programs that have terminated… and it isn't that the taxpayer is on the hook for $23.7 trillion – we don't say it, we don't suggest it," Barofsky said. "The actual potential for losses," he says, "is likely to be lower."

“I am what you call a matchmaker,” Rosenbaum is quoted as saying at a July 13 meeting with the two undercover agents.

“I’m doing this a long time,” the complaint says Rosenbaum told the two agents. He then added: “Let me explain to you one thing. It’s illegal to buy or sell organs. … So you cannot buy it. What you do is, you’re giving a compensation for the time.”

As we learn from Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary Chris Huhne that “Britain is setting a shameful new record in anti-Semitic incidents this year,” we also happen to be informed by every press outlet about the massive New Jersey Corruption Sweep: A shocking tale of money-laundering and human organ trading led by a bunch of Rabbis.

The NY Times reports “It was replete with tales of the illegal sales of body parts; of furtive negotiations in diners, parking lots and boiler rooms”. In an article titled the “Jewish Launderette,” the Israeli Ynet takes it further providing the juicy details. “The FBI raided synagogues and arrested a few Rabbis. One of those who are held in custody is Rabbi Yitzchak Levi Rosenbaum of Brooklyn who is suspected of trading in body parts. He is charged with a decade-long activity selling kidneys, exploiting both ill and poor donators. He would convince a donator to sell his kidney for $10.000. Rabbi Levi Rosenbaum would then sell the kidney to the needy for $160.000.”
I may raise the inevitable question here, can you imagine your local priest or Imam trading in ‘body parts’? Can you think of a Muslim cleric or a pastor trying to buy your kidney or sell you one in a ‘parking lot’ or in a ‘diner’?

I do not think so.

Here is my suggestion to Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary and everyone else who happens to be ‘concerned’ with the ‘rise of anti-Semitism’.

In the light of Israeli brutality, the conviction of gross swindler Madoff and the latest images of Rabbis being taken away by FBI agents, it is about time we stop discussing the rise of anti-Semitism and start to elaborate on the rise of Jewish Crime.

Gilad Atzmon was born in Israel and served in the Israeli military. He lives in London, and is an editor at Palestine Think Tank, where this essay first appeared, and author of two novels: A Guide to the Perplexed and the recently released My One and Only Love. Atzmon is also one of the most accomplished jazz saxophonists in Europe. He can be reached at: atz@onetel.net.uk. Read other articles by Gilad, or visit Gilad's website.

Today, I’m going to explain the Federal Reserve System. Hey, where ya goin’?

First: It’s not really federal. Nor are there reserves. (Not many, anyway.) It is a system, however. (Well, a scam, actually, but those behind the 1913 Federal Reserve Act that birthed the Fed bypassed that identifier, for some reason.)

And, prey (that’s you), who backed the act?

Oh, just everyday folks with names like Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan and Rothschild who, a century ago, joined forces to saddle the U.S. with a central bank that, naturally, they’d control, in turn giving them control over the country’s money supply.

Alas! If only our nation’s framers had been smart enough to anticipate a ploy like this and thus guard against it in the Constitution.

Um, turns out they were. Fresh off the colonies’ disastrous experiences with non-stop printing presses churning out worthless currency both before and during the revolution, the founding fathers made sure to constitutionally preclude both Congress and the states from issuing “bills of credit.” In other words, paper money. Silver and/or gold-backed coinage was to be the name of the game.

Creating the Fed, which comprises twelve private banks spread regionally throughout the U.S., was an end run around that, with the sleight-of-hand working this way: Congress authorizes interest-bearing IOUs (bonds and notes) to be sold to the Fed, which in turn gives Congress oodles of paper money created from thin air and backed by nothing, an amazing alchemical process authorized by, well, Congress.

Though a dozen banks are involved in the con, er, system, the head bank is and always has been the Fed’s New York branch. (Isn’t it a remarkable coincidence it was mainly the obscenely wealthy Big Apple banking interests that pushed the Fed’s creation in the first place?)

It’s obvious what’s in it for the bankers, but how about Congress? Well, our “representatives” get money whenever they want for whatever they want. This comes in handy for buying votes back home, uh, I mean, for serving their constituents, like agribusiness, Big Pharma, weapons manufacturers, etc. Oh, and also those in the banking industry who, if they screw up the economy by being greedy little pigheads, can be duly punished by being given trillions more faux dough scot-free by, who else?, Congress.

Let’s hope this never happens.

Interest off bonds isn’t the only perk for the Fed (or bankers in general). But don’t even get me started on fractional-reserve banking. Otherwise I’d have to tell you how a few folks with a soft spot for things like usury will get a charter, start a bank, take deposits and then start loaning “money” at a nine-to-one ratio based on the total of those deposits (now redefined as “reserves,” ninety percent of which are dubbed “excess” and thus, abracadabra, available for lending). That’s right: they’re now loaning dollars that don’t exist. A few strokes on the ol’ keyboard and, voila, instant money!

It gets better. Once those loans are repaid and come back to the bank as deposits in other accounts, then that money is used as the basis to issue more nine-to-one loans. And so on. Can you say “pyramid scheme,” boys and girls? This is why what bankers fear most are bank runs, when lots of customers at one time are audacious enough to actually demand their account balances in cash, money that is nowhere to be found because the vast majority of it exists only in electronic ledgers. This is the very moment the magic of making money from nothing disappears — shazam! — and the locks and chains on bank doors materialize — sa-lam! — overnight.

Of course, those who created the Fed devised an ingenious way to guard against runs. It’s called the “lender of last resort.” Know who that is? It’s you!

This brainstorm was one of the main reasons for establishing the Fed in the first place. The rich and powerful bankers, tired of pesky competition from other banks and the distasteful specter of having to pay for good avarice gone bad, decided it would be much better to institutionalize an ironclad way to protect their profits. It took a few years and some political chicanery, but with a complicit president and a duped Congress (oh why does this sound so familiar?), they finally hit the jackpot by legislatively securing the mechanism by which they could place the taxpayer squarely on the hook, I’m sorry, more strongly underpin the economy.

Aren’t you thrilled to know you’re the one lending fabulously wealthy individuals even more money to tank the economy and put you out of a job? Just asking.

But how, exactly, during these times when things are a little tight and you’re considering the pragmatism of fattening up Fido, do you lend any money at all, let alone trillions? Why, through the insidious tax called inflation, of course. See, once the government, hand-in-hand with the Fed, goes nuts and sells bonds by the trainloads thereby resulting in untold un-backed dollars being pumped into the economy, inflation kicks in and the less those dollars are worth. If this is not apparent now, perhaps it will come to mind the next time you hook the oxen up to your cash-laden trailer to go buy a loaf of bread.

So, if the dollar has nothing to support it (and it doesn’t), just what keeps this fiat money afloat? Two things: a) our unshakeable, bedrock confidence in it (uh-huh) and b) because we have to. “Legal tender” laws ensure, under threat of imprisonment, that we’ll use dollars whether we like it or not.

When the government does something like this (puts money into circulation without backing), it’s called “monetary policy.” If we do it, it’s called “counterfeiting.”

OK, that’s enough misery for now. Who needs more gloom and doom anyway, especially these dire days? There is one possible silver lining, however, to the disaster that is our current economy: If enough pain manifests, perhaps a clamor will arise to throw the Fed and its worthless, debt-based system out on its money-changing ear, thereby precipitating a return to real money, backed by gold and silver, as codified by this country’s founders. A long shot, true, but stranger things have happened. For instance, who ever thought the Bush administration would actually leave the White House? (Now if we could just get Dick Cheney to go back to his home planet…)

By Mark Benjamin, Salon

July 22, 2009 Afghanistan massacre -- the convoy of death pt. 1   Afghanistan massacre -- the convoy of death pt. 2   Editor's note: Read an interview here with a detainee who claims he saw a "big, tall" American near the site of the massacre. It has long been known that soon after the American invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, hundreds or thousands of Taliban prisoners who had surrendered in the city of Kunduz were herded into metal containers and suffocated or shot, allegedly under orders from an Afghan warlord. As Newsweek reported in August 2002, the bodies were then piled into mass graves in Dasht-e-Leili, Afghanistan, near Shibarghan. Earlier this month, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter James Risen advanced the story, revealing that the United States had resisted any war crimes investigation into the massacre, despite learning from Dell Spry, the lead FBI agent at Guantánamo Bay following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, that many Afghan detainees were telling similar stories of a mass killing. Spry directed interviews of detainees by FBI agents at Guantánamo Bay, and compiled allegations made by the detainees. But what the Times did not report was that many of those same detainees also alleged to Spry's interviewers that U.S. personnel were present during the massacre, a potentially explosive allegation that, if true, might further explain American resistance to a war crimes probe of the deaths. In an exclusive interview, Spry  told Salon that he informed Risen about the additional allegation that U.S. forces were present. Risen confirmed to Salon that Spry told him of the allegations, but said he did not publish them, in part, because he didn't believe them. In late 2001, according to initial media reports on the massacre, Afghan warlord Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum ordered hundreds and perhaps thousands of Taliban prisoners who had surrendered in the city of Kunduz into metal shipping containers. They were given little food and water over a three-day period and transported to a prison outside Shibarghan. They licked perspiration off one another to stay alive. Many suffocated. Others died when guards fired pell-mell into the containers. Murder by metal shipping container is apparently the mass killing technique of choice among some warlords in Afghanistan. Risen's story in the Times earlier this month said the slaughter "may have been the most significant mass killing in Afghanistan after the 2001 American-led invasion." The Times added that American officials resisted a war crimes investigation because the warlord who allegedly orchestrated the mass killing, Dostum, was a paid CIA asset who had worked closely with U.S. Special Forces. At the time of the killings, Dostum was working hand-in-glove with soldiers from the Army's 5th Special Forces Group. During that phase of the war in Afghanistan, small numbers of Special Forces soldiers typically accompanied much larger numbers of U.S.-allied Northern Alliance forces on the battlefield. That article showed that Spry assembled accounts from roughly 10 prisoners who said they had survived the massacre and later ended up at Guantánamo. Those prisoners described being "stacked like cordwood" in the shipping containers while the mass killing occurred. The paper showed that Spry sent the information up his chain of command. A senior FBI official halted a subsequent investigation. The military also evinced little interest. Former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz apparently told another defense official at the time that the United States wasn't going to go after Dostum for the deaths, because he was a valuable asset. What the Times did not say was that these Guantánamo prisoners also said that U.S. personnel were present during the massacre. "The allegation was that U.S. forces were present while Dostum's troops were herding these people into these containers," Spry, now retired from the FBI and working as an FBI consultant, told Salon. "They were out rounding up alleged Taliban and insurgent folks." Spry said that at the time of the interviews not long after the invasion of Afghanistan he found the detainees' claims of a massacre "plausible," since the detainees separately told similar stories. Spry thought an investigation seemed warranted. He found the claims of the involvement of U.S. personnel, however, more specious, mostly because he doubted that Americans would participate in or stand by passively during a massacre. "I did not believe that then and I do not believe that now," he said about the alleged involvement of U.S. personnel. One of the reasons he pushed for an investigation of the alleged massacre, Spry said, was that the United States could both fulfill its obligations to look into war crimes and prove false any allegations of American involvement. Risen said he cut the allegations from his story because of space concerns, because he could not prove them, and because he did not believe them. That Spry did not believe them either contributed to his lack of confidence in the charges. "I just felt like the whole issue of potential U.S. involvement in the massacre could not be proven and was not conclusive. Frankly, I don’t believe it and it detracts from the rest of the story. It had been a stumbling block for this story for some time." The detainees told Spry's interviewers of a harrowing situation. One detainee described being moved by truck just prior to being stuffed into one of the shipping containers, according to an investigative document obtained by Salon (and published here). The truck stopped and he saw "one big, tall, caucasian, American looking man who was wearing blue jeans," the detainee reported, according to a U.S. Criminal Investigative Task Force report. "The man was taking pictures of the trucks and the occupants," the detainee added. The detainee, whose name is blacked out, said the truck drove for a while and then backed up to a shipping container and 100 men were forced inside. He described hearing screaming and banging on the sides of the container, blacking out from lack of air, and waking up next to a dead man with green foam on his mouth. People rubbed clothes against the ceiling to capture condensation. Around 24 hours later, he and roughly 20 other survivors were let out. The rest died. The detainee heard later that the dead and very weak were "put into a big hole and buried."  Meanwhile, Dostum's name surfaced this week in a video of Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl, the U.S. Army soldier taken hostage by the Taliban three weeks ago. A voice off-camera hammers Dostum, "who had hands in organized crime and lootings and mass murders in the north of Afghanistan." The voice then asks Bergdahl, "Does your government tell you that you support human rights criminals in Afghanistan and you spill your blood for these people?" "No," Bergdahl responds. "Our government does not inform us of any of these details."

Aljazeera.net

July 23, 2009   Photographs showing the abuse of inmates at Iraq's infamous Abu Ghraib prison by US prison guards have shocked the world. The latest one to be outraged is Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff. Mullen has voiced his disgust after seeing some of the withheld photographs of the abuse that the administration of Barack Obama, the US president, is seeking to keep classified. In a leaked memo obtained by the Fox News network, Mullen expressed his anger at the incidents of abuse and said he was "appalled" that someone in an American uniform would behave in such a way. "We haven't all absorbed or applied all the lessons of Abu Ghraib," Mullen said. But for Mahmood Khalil, an Iraqi television cameraman and former Abu Ghraib inmate, the pictures are more than just disturbing images - they are personal nightmares. Khalil told Al Jazeera that he was on his way to work when he was stopped at a US checkpoint in 2003, accused of being a terrorist, and led into the notorious prison, where he was held for more than three months. As Al Jazeera's Mosab Jasim reports, Khalil said he saw guards deliberately abusing and intimidating prisoners in full view of other inmates. "[One] detainee was tortured in front of my eyes, only three metres from my cell," Khalil said. "[He] was tortured by dogs to confess to a crime he never committed."

By Jennifer Urgilez for MIFTAH

by Hector Carreon
La Voz de Aztlan

Los Angeles, Alta California - 1-10-2002 - (ACN) On August 13, 1996, La Voz de Aztlan reported on horrifying rumors that a network of "Baby Organ Snatchers" was operating in various cities along the U.S./Mexico border. The report, "THE CORRUPTIVE INFLUENCE OF THE DOLLAR: The Shameful Trade in Mexican Baby Organs!" led our publication to investigate similar abuses that are taking place around the world including the harvesting of transplantable organs and tissues from inmates at both China and U.S. prisons.

Today we received a disturbing report from the Middle East that Israel is doing the same thing with Palestinian youths that they routinely arrest and kill at their detention camps. The Tehran Times published today a report alleging that Israel has tacitly admitted that doctors at the Israeli forensic institute at Abu Kabir had extracted the vital organs of three Palestinian teenage children killed by the Israeli Army nearly ten days ago. The report says that the Israeli Minister of Health, Nessim Dahhan, tacitly admitted to the horrific practice in an answer to Arab member of the Knesset Ahmed Teibi. Nessim Dahhan said in response to a question by Ahmed Teibi, on Tuesday, that he couldn't deny that organs of Palestinian youths and children killed by the Israeli forces were taken out for transplants or scientific research. Ahmed Teibi, according to the report, had received credible evidence proving that Israeli doctors at the forensic institute extracted such vital organs as the heart, kidneys,and liver from the bodies of Palestinian youths and children killed by the Israeli Army in Gaza and the West Bank.

The report explains that the Israeli Army killed three Palestinian boys, ages 14-15 near Khan Younison on December 30, 2001. The army issued conflicting reports on the killing, while Palestinian sources charged that Israeli troops murdered the three unarmed boys in cold blood. The bodies of the three boys were handed over to the Palestinians for burial on January 6, however, shortly before burial, Palestinian medical authorities examined the bodies and found out that the main vital organs were missing from the bodies.

La Voz de Aztlan believes that the harvesting by Israel of organs and tissues from dead Palestinian youths for transplants and research is a very distinct possibility that should be investigated by the World Organization Against Torture in Geneva as well as by United Nations agencies concerned with the well being of children. The harvesting of Palestinian organs may be related to the clandestine research being conducted at the super secret biological laboratory at Nes Ziona, Israel that is located near the MOSSAD headquarters in Tel-Aviv.

On November 15, 1998, the much respected London Sunday Times reported on the work at Nes Ziona to develop ethnically specific bio-weapons that would target Arab populations. The report quoted Dr. Vivienne Nathanson, British Medical Association Head of Health Policy Research warning that "gene therapy" might possibly be turned into "gene weapons" that could potentially be used to target certain gene groups possessed by certain groups of peoples. Dr. Nathanson warned that such weapons could be delivered to humans not only in the anticipated forms such as gas and aerosol but also might be introduced into water supplies. Backing off of any suggestion that such weapons might be capable of eliminating the majority of the world's population all at once, Dr. Nathanson suggested that the weapons might be used not only to induce death but to cause sterility and deformed births in the targeted groups. The result would be a slow but certain insidious genocide that would be virtually undetectable.

Attempting to engineer deadly micro-organisms that only attack DNA within the cells of victims with distinctive Arab genes is diabolical and demonic and should be opposed by the entire world because today the target group might be Arabs but tomorrow the target groups may include Afro-Americans, Mexicans and other people of color.

Israel preys on Palestinian children

RAMALLAH, Jan. 14 (IslamOnline & News agencies) – Israeli occupation forces not only kill Palestinian children but they also mutilate their bodies, and extract vital organs to use them as “spare parts”, Palestinian President, Yasser Arafat said in a televised interview Sunday.

Speaking to Qatari based Al Jazeera Satellite Arafat said that "the pictures that were shown on Al Jazeera television of the 6 Palestinian boys that Israeli occupation soldiers killed and mutilated were proof of Israel's crimes against humanity in every sense of the word."

On Wednesday, January 9, 2002, the Iranian news agency, IRNA, reported that doctors at L. Greenberg Institute of Forensic Medicine at Abu Kabir in south Tel Aviv, had stolen the vital organs of three Palestinian teenagers killed by the Israeli occupation army in December 2001.

In response to a question by Ahmad Tibi, an Arab member of the Israeli Knesset, Nissim Dahan, the Israeli Minister of Health said that he could not deny that the Palestinian children killed by the Israeli forces were mutilated and their vital organs extracted for transplants and scientific research, reported IRNA.

Dahan said he "couldn't say for sure that something like that

[extracting the organs] didn't happen."

Tibi stated that he had evidence that proved that Israeli doctors at Abu Kabir extracted organs such as the heart, kidneys, and liver from the bodies of

Palestinan youths and children killed in Gaza and the West Bank.

Israeli authorities routinely detain the bodies of Palestinians the occupation army killed for several days without any explanation, IRNA reported.

The Israeli occupation army killed the three Palestinian teenagers near Khan Younis December 30, 2001. However, the bodies of the boys were given to Abu Kabir institute and were not handed over to their families until January 6, 2002.

Palestinian medical authorities who examined the bodies stated that the main

vital organs of the boys were missing, IRNA said.

But this is not the first time the Institute has been involved in the theft of body parts.

Abu Kabir has been accused earlier by Israeli Hebrew-language daily newspaper, Yediot Aharonot for being involved in “organ sales”, Israeli daily newspaper, Jerusalem Post reported.

In December 2000, the newspaper stated that the institute, "headed for the last 13 years by chief pathologist Professor Yehuda Hiss, is involved in 'organ sales' involving body parts - legs, thighs, ovaries, breasts and testicles - removed from corpses and transferred to the institutes and for 'practice' by medical students," reported the Jerusalem Post.

• Posted by James aka adap2k on July 23, 2009 at 6:30pm

 
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NEWARK, N.J. - An investigation into the sale of black-market kidneys and fake Gucci handbags evolved into a sweeping probe of political corruption in New Jersey, ensnaring more than 40 people Thursday, including three mayors, two state lawmakers and several rabbis.

44 People Charged In Criminal Complaint

Three New Jersey mayors and several rabbis were arrested on Thursday in a sweeping federal investigation into political corruption that also uncovered human kidney sales and money laundering from Brooklyn to Israel


23 Jul 2009,

Here is the full list of names of those arrested on Thursday in a massive FBI corruption probe in New Jersey and New York and the charges they face.

Political Corruption

• Moshe Altman, 39, of Monsey, NY, charged with conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right & money laundering

• Charlie Ammon, 33, of Lakewood, NJ, charged with conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right
• Leona Beldini, 74, of Jersey City, charged with conspiracy to commit extortion under colorof official right
• Peter Cammarano III, 32, of Hoboken, NJ, charged with conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right
• Joseph Cardwell, 68, of Jersey City, NJ, charged with agreeing to offer bribe to public official
• Joseph Castagna, 53, of Jersey City, NJ, charged with conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right
• Guy Catrillo, 54, of Jersey City, NJ, charged with attempted extortion under color of official right
• Edward Cheatam, 61, of Jersey City, NJ, charged with conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right & attempted extortion
• Dennis Elwell, 64, of Secaucus, NJ, charged with conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right
• Itzak Friedlander, 41, of Union City, NJ, charged with money laundering conspiracy
• Richard Greene, 45, of Jersey City, NJ, charged with conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right
• John Guarini, 59, of Bayonne, NJ, charged with conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right
• Shimon Haber, 34, of Brooklyn, NY, charged with money laundering conspiracy
• Denis Jaslow, 46, of Wall, NJ, charged with conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right
• Maher A. Khalil, 39, of Jersey City, NJ, charged with conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right & attempted extortion
• James P. “Jimmy” King, 67, of Jersey City, NJ, charged with conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right
• Louis Manzo, 54, of Jersey City, NJ, charged with conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right
• Michael Manzo, 53, of Jersey City, NJ, charged with conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right
• Ronald Manzo, 65, of Bayonne, NJ, charged with conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right
• Michael Schaffer, 58, of Hoboken, NJ, charged with conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right
• Lori Serrano, 37, of Jersey City, NJ, charged with conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right
• Jack Shaw, 61, of Jersey City, NJ, charged with conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right
• L. Harvey Smith, 60, of Jersey City, NJ, charged with conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right
• Anthony R. Suarez, 42, of Ridgefield, NJ, charged with conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right
• Vincent Tabbachino, 68, of Fairview, NJ, charged with conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right & money laundering
• Daniel M. Van Pelt, 44, of Waretown, NJ, charged with attempted extortion under color of official right
• Mariano Vega, 59, of Jersey City, NJ, charged with conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right
• Lavern Webb-Washington, 60, of Jersey City, charged with conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right
• Jeffrey Williamson, 57, of Lakewood, NJ, charged with attempted extortion under color of official right

For the charge of conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right and/or attempted extortion under color of official right, the maximum statutory penalties are 20 years in federal prison and a maximum statutory fine of $250,000.


For the charge of agreeing to offer a bribe payment to a public official, the maximum statutory penalties are 10 years in Federal prison and a maximum statutory fine of $250,000.


Money Laundering/Illegal Money Remitting

• Eliahu Ben Haim, 58, of Long Branch, NJ, charged with money laundering.
• Schmulik Cohen, 35, of Brooklyn, NY, charged with money laundering and illegal money transmitting.
• Levi Deutsch, 37, of Brooklyn, NY, charged with money laundering.
• Yeshayahu Ehrental, 65, of Brooklyn, NY, charged with money laundering and illegal money transmitting.
• Mordchai Fish, 56, of Brooklyn, NY, charged with money laundering.
• Yolie Gertner, 30, of Brooklyn, NY, charged with money laundering.
• David S. Goldhirsh, 30, of Brooklyn, NY, charged with money laundering.
• Saul Kassin, 87, of Brooklyn, NY, charged with money laundering.
• Edmund Nahum, 56, of Deal, NJ, charged with money laundering.
• Abe Pollack, 40, of Brooklyn, NY, charged with money laundering.
• Lavel Schwartz, 57, of Brooklyn, NY, charged with money laundering.
• Binyomin Spira, 28, of Brooklyn, NY, charged with money laundering.
• Naftoly Weber, 40, of Brooklyn, NY, charged with money laundering.
• Arye Weiss, 34, of Brooklyn, NY, charged with money laundering and illegal money transmitting.


Human Organ Trafficking

• Levy-Izhak Rosenbaum, 58, of Brooklyn, NY, charged with conspiracy to transport human organs

For the charge of conspiring to commit money laundering, the maximum statutory penalties are 20 years in Federal prison and a maximum statutory fine of $250,000.

For the charge of conspiring to conduct an illegal money transmitting business, the maximum statutory penalties are 5 years in Federal prison and a maximum statutory fine of $250,000.

For the charge of conspiring to transport human organs, the maximum statutory penalties are 5 years in Federal prison and a maximum statutory fine of $250,000.
www.myfoxny.com



The "religious leaders"

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Mark Benjamin

July 23, 2009

Allegations of a massacre near Dasht-e-Leili, Afghanistan, by Taliban forces soon after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan began to surface during U.S. law enforcement interviews with detainees at Guantánamo. Roughly 10 detainees described similar stories of the mass killing in late 2001 by asphyxiation in shipping containers. Some detainees also alleged that U.S. forces stood by but did nothing to stop the massacre, though the number and specificity of those claims remains unclear. The document reprinted below, heavily redacted, records an interview with one detainee who reported seeing a "big, tall, caucasian [sic] American." The Criminal Investigative Task Force, or "CITF," named below refers to an investigative task force drawing on such agencies as the FBI, CID and NCIS.

By BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

July 23, 2009 Candidate Barack Obama told us to judge his first term by whether he delivers quality affordable health care for all Americans, including nearly fifty million uninsured. So why does his proposal not cover the uninsured till 2013, after the next presidential election when Medicare took only 11 months to cover its first 40million seniors? Why are corporate media pretending that no opinions exist to Obama's left? And why has the public option part of the Obama health care plan shrunk from covering 130 million to only 10 million, with 16 million left uninsured altogether? Is the Obama Health Care Plan Really Better Than Nothing? By BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon The health care debate inside and outside the matrix Like just about everything else, your take on the national health care debate depends on whether you're inside or outside the matrix. Within the bubble of fake reality blown by corporate media and bipartisan political establishment, the health care news is that the Obama Plan is at last making its way through Congress. It's being fought by greedy private insurance companies, by chambers of commerce, by Republican and some Democratic lawmakers. Under the Obama plan, we're told, employers will have to insure their employees or pay into a fund that does it for them. Individuals will be required under penalty of law to buy private insurance policies and for those that can't afford it or prefer not to use a private insurer there will be something called a "public option." This "public option, the story goes, is bitterly fought by the bad guys because it will make private insurers accountable by competing with them, forcing them to lower their costs. Both the president's backers and opponents agree that the whole thing will be fantastically expensive, and the president proposes to fund it with cuts in existing programs like Medicaid which pay for the care of the poorest Americans and a tax on those making more than $300,000, later raised to $1 million a year. The "public option" has that magic word "public" in it, and that's reassuring to progressives and to most of the American people. Taxing the rich is a popular idea too. So if you rely on corporate media, the administration, or some of the so-called progressive blogs to identify the players and keep the score, it seems a pretty clear case of President Obama on the side of the angels, battling the greedy insurance companies, Republicans and blue dog Democrats to bring us universal, affordable health care. That whole picture has about as much reality as the ones the same corporate media and most of the same politicians drew for us about Iraq, 9-11, weapons of mass destruction and some people over there who wanted us to free them. Iraq and the White House were and remain actual places, and there really is a problem called health care. But the places, problems and solutions are very different from the bubble of fake reality blown around them. What sustains this fake reality is the diligent suppression from public space of any viewpoints, observations or proposals to Obama's left. As long as the illusion that nobody has a better idea, that the only choice we have is Obama's way or the Republicans' way can be maintained, the crooked game can go on. But bubbles are delicate things. Keeping this one intact requires so many vital topics to be avoided, so many inquiring eyes to be averted, so many fruitful conversations to be squelched that it's hard to see how the president, the bipartisan establishment and the corporate media can pull it all off. The real Obama Plan: doesn't cover the uninsured till 2013, if then. The first clue that something is deeply wrong with the Obama health care proposal is its timeline. According to a copyrighted July 21 AP story by Ricardo Alfonso-Zaldivar, "President Lyndon Johnson signed the Medicare law on July 30, 1965, and 11 months later seniors were receiving coverage. But if President Barack Obama gets to sign a health care overhaul this fall, the uninsured won't be covered until 2013 — after the next presidential election. "In fact, a timeline of the 1,000-page health care bill crafted by House Democrats shows it would take the better part of a decade — from 2010-2018 — to get all the components of the far-reaching proposal up and running." According to a peer reviewed 2009 study in the American Journal of Medicine, 62% of the nation's 727,167 non-business bankruptcies were triggered by unpayable medical bills in 2007. Most of these had health insurance when they fell ill or were injured, but with loopholes, exclusions, high deductibles and co-payments, or were simply dropped when they got sick. In 2008 that figure was 66% of 934,000 personal bankruptcies and in 2009 it could approach 70% of 1.1 million bankruptcies. And 18,000 Americans die each year because medical care is unaffordable or unavailable. Waiting till 2013 means millions of families will be financially ruined and tens of thousands will die unnecessarily. If the Johnson administration with no computers back in the sixties could implement Medicare for 45 million seniors in under a year, why does it take three and a half years in the 21st century to cover some, but not all, of America's fifty million uninsured? And why does the Obama Plan make us wait till after the next presidential election? Politicians usually do popular things and run for election on the resulting wave of approval. Delaying what ought to be the good news of universal and affordable health care for all Americans till two elections down the road is a strong indication that they know the good news really ain't all that good. And it's not. Inside the matrix of TV, the corporate media and on much of the internet, discussion of the Obama plan's timeline, the human cost of another three years delay, and the comparison with Medicare’s 11 month rollout back in the days before computers are almost impossible to find. We can only wonder why. The Obama plan is about health insurance, not health care. As BAR has been reporting since January 2007, the Obama plan is not a health care plan at all, it is a health insurance plan. Based largely upon the failed model in place in Massachusetts since 2006, the Obama plan will require employers to provide coverage or pay a special tax. Everybody not covered by an employer will be required to purchase insurance under penalty of law, in much the same manner as you're currently required to buy car insurance. "In my state," testified Dr. Steffie Woolhandler of the Harvard Medical School last month before Congress, "beating your wife, communicating a terrorist threat and being uninsured all carry $1,000 fines." As in Massachusetts, the health insurance plans people are forced to buy will cost a lot and won't cover much. In a July 20 National Journal article Dr. David Himmelstein says, "Nearly every day that he is in the clinic, Himmelstein says, he sees a patient who has problems paying for care "despite this reform.' Some of them had free care before the 2006 law took effect but are now expected to handle co-payments. If you're not poor enough to get a subsidy, say you're making $30,000 a year, you're required to buy a policy that costs about $5,000 a year for the premium and has a $2,000 deductible before it pays for anything. For substantial numbers of people, it's effectively not coverage,' Himmelstein said. The policy he described is about the cheapest Massachusetts plan available, according to the Physicians for a National Health Program report, which Himmelstein co-wrote." A family of four making under $24,000 a year in Massachusetts gets its insurance premium free, but is still expected to cough up deductibles and co-payments and live with loopholes and exclusions that often deny care to those who need it. And in both the Massachusetts and Obama plans, funds to pay those premiums come out of the budgets of programs like Medicaid that already pay for care for the poorest Ameicans. The Obama plan's "public option" is a bait-and-switch scam