Bloodthirsty Liberal

The Palestinians toil and sweat and bleed and cry for statehood—but they never seem to get any closer.

I wonder why?

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has surrounded himself with many of the corrupt officials who used to work for his predecessor, Yasser Arafat, and that’s why Hamas will one day take control of the West Bank, Fahmi Shabaneh, who was appointed by Abbas four years ago to root out corruption in the Palestinian Authority, said on Thursday.

In an exclusive interview with The Jerusalem Post, Shabaneh, who until recently was in charge of the Anti-Corruption Department in the PA’s General Intelligence Service (GIS), warned that what happened in the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2007, when Hamas managed to overthrow the Fatah-controlled regime, is likely to recur in the West Bank.

“Had it not been for the presence of the Israeli authorities in the West Bank, Hamas would have done what they did in the Gaza Strip,” Shabaneh told the Post. “It’s hard to find people in the West Bank who support the Palestinian Authority. People are fed up with the financial corruption and mismanagement of the Palestinian Authority.”

You mean it’s not all about the settlements???

In fact, the only thing keeping the West Bank from becoming a fetid swamp of Islamist hatred (rather, a more fetid swamp of Islamist hatred) is Israel’s presence?

Huh.

Why the big secret? Everybody is telling us Israel has to get out of here and leave there and don’t even think of looking at anywhere. When the truth is that Israel is the only peaceful influence in the region. Is there an ulterior motive, I wonder?

But hey, how bad could the corruption be? I mean, the aspirations of liberty and self-determination must keep the Palestinian heart fairly pure, no?

Shabaneh cited several specific cases of alleged corruption within Fatah and the PA in the course of the interview, including asserting that Fatah personnel stole much of a $3.2 million donation given by the US to Fatah ahead of the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary election, won by Hamas, which had been intended to improve Fatah’s image and boost its chances of winning.

…

“Some of the most senior Palestinian officials didn’t have even $3,000 in their pocket when they arrived [after the signing of the Oslo Accords],” Shabaneh said. “Yet we discovered that some of them had tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars in their bank accounts.

Until today we didn’t hear about one official who was brought to trial for stealing money from the PA, although we had transferred many of the cases to the Palestinian prosecutor-general.”

Questioned as to why he had decided to go public now, Shabaneh said: “I’m not criticizing the Palestinian Authority simply because I like to criticize, but because I want to see a state of law, one with no room for corruption. I was offered $100,000 not to expose the last sex scandal, but I chose not to accept the bribe. I’m the one who resigned after my arrest, because after all that I’ve seen I no longer believe that Abbas’s authority can be reformed.

Oh, sure it can. It’s just that $3.2 million wasn’t enough. How ’bout another five million—or ten? Can you guys last the weekend on ten million?

I’m sure Suha Arafat can lend you a few bucks in a pinch. That bitch is loaded.

UPDATE
Corruption comes in all varieties, I would note:

The following are excerpts from an interview with Muhammad Dahlan, former PA security chief in Gaza, which aired on Palestinian Authority TV on January 4, 2010.

I was astounded by what Hamas did, even on the human and moral level. They summoned Fatah girls, and violated their honor in prison, during the interrogation, using words that even the Israelis wouldn’t use. I’m sad to say this. I don’t understand how Ismail Haniya can sit at home, and not feel ashamed of the things done by Hamas. I am not talking about the political conflict, or about the disagreement over the national issues. I am talking about human conduct and about Palestinian conduct.

Once, in 1982-1983, we wanted to incite against Israel, so we spread a false story, which we fabricated, that the Israelis had attacked a Palestinian girl, and thus, demonstrations and rallies ensued. Hamas cannot continue to employ this logic. They should not try the patience of the Fatah activists towards Hamas. If they think Fatah is not capable of doing anything, they are mistaken. Sabotage is the easiest thing to do. I have tried this. I tried this in the resistance against the occupation, and I tried it when I was in the PA, and was responsible for maintaining law and order. I am not making threats, but I advise them not to put the patience of Fatah activists to the test.

Whatever. Palestine is a lie, based on lies, told by liars who lie all the time. Could I be any clearer?

Which cases did Martha Coakley decline to prosecute?

The Journal’s Dorothy Rabinowitz describes how Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley “fought so relentlessly” to maintain a case against the Amirault family. Yet the Democratic Senate candidate was far from relentless when investigating fellow politicians.

Paul Kix of Boston magazine recently profiled the woman vying to fill the people’s seat formerly occupied by Ted Kennedy.

Mr. Kix reports that “the three biggest public-corruption cases of the past three years—the only three that anyone remembers—saw her sitting on the sidelines.”

The author notes that indictments of former Massachusetts House Speaker Sal DiMasi, state Senator Dianne Wilkerson and Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner were all brought by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, not Ms. Coakley. The feds charged Mr. DiMasi with allegedly taking payments for advancing state software contracts, and made a bribery case against the others.

Writes Mr. Kix, “The FBI had video proof of Wilkerson stuffing bribe money into her bra. Coakley did nothing. The [Boston] Globe and Secretary of State William Galvin hammered DiMasi and his (allegedly) shady friends for 14 months. And the best Coakley could do was indict DiMasi’s golfing buddy Richard Vitale? On misdemeanor charges?”

“Coakley has done an intricate little dance these past few years,” adds the author. “When the big-name prey wields statewide political clout (DiMasi), or represents a key minority group (Wilkerson), Coakley defers, staying popular at the State House in the process. Today more than 80 state legislators have lent her their full support.”

A Brown win tomorrow will be so sweet. I’m seeing images of the Berlin Wall falling, people dancing in the streets. We in Bloodthirstan will certainly be at the party.

- Aggie

I think I’ve figured out why our public servants here in Massachusetts are so deranged. We’re stoned out of our minds:

Disgraced state Sen. Anthony D. Galluccio is facing another brush with jail time today after he failed several Breathalyzer tests while under house arrest, blaming the high readings on his toothpaste.

The Cambridge Democrat is being hauled back into court to determine if he should be locked up to serve out his one-year sentence after pleading guilty last week to a hit-and-run crash.

Galluccio, 42, said he flunked several breath tests while in court-ordered home confinement Monday. He blamed the positive readings on his Colgate Total Whitening and Sensodyne toothpaste, which contain the sugar alcohol sorbitol.

Everybody knows you don’t mix Colgate and Sensodyne, unless you want a wicked headache the next day. I got blitzed on Macleans and Gleem one Saturday night in college, and woke up the next day in bed with the Dean of Students and a giant stuffed panda. I’d tell you more, but I don’t remember.

But he is more to be pitied than censured—much like this local Democratic hack:

A sordid drug scandal is reaching deep inside City Hall, where a key operative of Mayor Thomas M. Menino was taped hashing out a deal to sell powerful prescription painkillers to a federal mole while offering to score him a city job, a DEA agent revealed yesterday.

Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent James Doyle dropped the bombshell of the troublesome May 5 tete-a-tete while testifying at the arraignment of John M. Forbes - Menino’s $49,500-a-year liaison in East Boston - on drug dealing charges in U.S. District Court.

“It’s very clear Mr. Forbes was living two different lives here,” public corruption prosecutor Jeffrey Cohen told Magistrate Judge Marianne B. Bowler.

And drawing a public salary in both of them, no doubt.

But perhaps the Herald is enjoying the story too much:

The baby-faced Forbes is a “close associate” of Anthony Cristallo, a convicted killer from Eastie who was weighing ways to intimidate or even whack a witness against him in a pending Suffolk drug case, according to the DEA. Doyle said the DEA’s informant - the same one in Forbes’ office - offered his muscle to Cristallo through Taylor for everything from “flattening tires” to “possibly setting the person’s house on fire … up to and potentially including the murder of that witness.”

Not exactly out of the New York Times stylebook—a good thing, I’d say.

Another detail:

The Herald has learned that Forbes, 30, used his City Hall clout to go to bat on a May 2008 liquor license bid by Cristallo’s cousin by marriage, Joseph J. D’Amelio, 39, of East Boston. D’Amelio, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology cop, was pinched in March in a state drug probe that resulted in both men being charged with OxyContin trafficking.

…

The process of obtaining liquor licenses in Boston has come under scrutiny since the October 2008 arrest of former state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson after she allegedly accepted a bribe from an informant cooperating with the FBI in exchange for securing a license for a proposed nightclub.

You don’t know how good I feel writing about corruption among our white elected officials, after so many stories of local black public servants stuffing payoffs in their bras (like Wilkerson above) or taking rolls of cash literally under the table (see Chuck Turner, allegedly). It’s been, what, almost a year since our last Speaker of the House resigned in a corruption scandal. Too long.

I suppose everything’s already been covered, but this story was made for Howie Carr’s acidic commentary:

A jailbird emeritus has learned the basics - you flee before the indictment, so they can’t get you for flight, plus you don’t forfeit bail money because you haven’t posted any. You never carry a lot of cash with you when the cops are closing in, because everything is forfeited after they arrest you.

This is all very basic Hoodlum 101 stuff. But the baby-faced “Forbes” did everything wrong.

…

By the way, isn’t the perp’s name “John Forbes” a knee-slapper - two-thirds of the moniker of the senior senator, who served in Vietnam. Brings to mind Eddie McCormack’s line about Ted Kennedy: “If your name were Edward Moore, your candidacy would be a joke.”

…

And now we find out that Forbes was cruising Ward 1 with a convicted murderer who was allegedly looking for someone to burn down the rat’s house. Now that’s old East Boston. Joe Barboza always dreamed of burning down somebody’s house, and then shooting the rat as he tried to escape through the front door. Alas, the Office nixed it.

I would say this story has legs, but somebody would just come along with a baseball bat and break them.

If you don’t find your state on this list of recipients of socialized medicine swag, demand a recall of your congressman.

Everyone’s getting well (financially, if not medically); why not you?

1. Sen. Ben Nelson’s “Cornhusker Kickback.” The CBO says the Nebraska Democrat sellout’s special Medicaid expansion subsidy will initially cost an estimated $100 million. The Hill reports that while Nelson credited Nebraska’s governor for giving him the idea to lobby for the government preference, Nebraska’s governor assailed the payoff:

“Nebraskans did not ask for a special deal, only a fair deal,” Heineman said in a statement Sunday. In response, Nelson fired off a letter Sunday to Heineman saying he’s prepared to ask that the provision covering Nebraska’s Medicaid share “be removed from the amendment in conference, if it is your desire.”

2. New England’s Special Syrup. Vermont and Massachusetts will get similar (though less generous) special treatment by the feds in covering Medicaid expansion costs. Combined with Nebraska’s tab, the exclusive clique’s payoffs will cost taxpayers $1.2 billion over 10 years. At least.

3. Corruptocrat Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd’s Christmas wish. He’s plunging in the polls and in need of a little bacon to bring home.

Yes, but which home, and who gave him the mortgage? Oh, sorry, wrong scandal.

7. Bernie Sanders’ socialized medicine sop. He wanted a public option. Instead, he got socialized medicine satellite clinics funded to the tune of at least $10 billion. In his remarks early this morning before the cloture vote, he gloated about the funding as a crucial step toward universal care.

…

8. Fla.-Pa.-NY Protectionism. Via Politico: “Three states – Pennsylvania, New York and Florida – all won protections for their Medicare Advantage beneficiaries at a time when the program is facing cuts nationwide.”

“Nationwide”? Now, is it time to discuss Chris Dodd’s corruption? Huh? Is it?

This is our Congress. I haven’t seen this many rent boys walking around since the Christopher Street IRT subway stop in Greenwich Village in the late 70s. (I was going to the movies, if you must know. No, not that kind of movie. A Hitchcock double-feature, knowing my predilections. Hitchcock, the English director… oh please, grow up.)

Hardly a shock that a country’s corruption index and its poverty level are directly proportional.

Take a look at the Middle East:

Transparency International issued its 2009 Corruption Index, which rates 180 countries on a scale of corruption from 0 (highest) to 10 (lowest).

The following is the rating of the Middle East countries by rank and score:

22 Qatar 7.0

32 Israel 6.1

39 Oman 5.5

46 Bahrain 5.1

49 Jordan 5.0

61 Turkey 4.4

63 Saudi Arabia 4.3

65 Tunisia 4.2

66 Kuwait 4.1

89 Morocco 3.3

111 Algeria 2.8 [same rating as Egypt]

126 Syria 2.6

130 Libya 2.5

150 Yemen 2.1

168 Iran 1.8

176 Iraq 1.5

176 Sudan 1.5

179 Afghanistan 1.3

180 Somalia 1.1

Good job, Qatar, for placing first in the region. Israel has nothing to be ashamed of, either.

But did you check out the bottom of the table? Below Libya, below Iran, below Syria—below even Sudan—is Afghanistan, just above Somalia. And those two were the worst in the world, btw, not just the region. Even Myanmar, Haiti, Uzbekistan, and Chad rated higher.

Good luck building a nation out of goat s**t, Mr. President.

PS: You’ve got more than just corruption on your hands:

Rape in Afghanistan is under-reported, concealed and a human rights problem of “profound proportions,” the United Nations said on Monday.

Norah Niland, the United Nations’ human rights representative in Afghanistan, said field research conducted late last year and early this year found rape affected all parts of Afghanistan, across all communities and social groups.

“Women and girls are at risk of rape in their homes, in their villages and in detention facilities,” Niland said at a news conference in Kabul, as part of a 16-day activism campaign against gender violence.

“It is a human rights problem of profound proportions.”

Niland said feelings such as shame exacerbate the problem and are often attached to victims rather than perpetrator.

Rape occurs within the family and beyond and victims are often prosecuted for committing adultery, she said.

I remember how proud I felt when I learned how we had brought liberty to those poor people enslaved under the Taliban, especially the women. Now, I can’t even remember what that feeling felt like. I still believe liberty can be brought, but whether it takes root or not is up to the people themselves.

There may still be Afghanis worthy of our pity, but for pete’s sake, they live in a s**t-hole. Meet us halfway, and maybe we’ll give you a hand.

What’s the matter, BTL? How come you’re not crowing about the drubbing President Obama took in the elections yesterday? Republican governors winning in Virginia and… wait for it… New Jersey.

Where’s the victory dance?

No victory dance here. More like a funeral march. Not just because our clown of a mayor won his fifth term (a likable clown, I admit), but because a corrupt city councilor, caught on film accepting a bribe, won reelection with 60% of the vote:

Councilor Chuck Turner has said for months that voters would look past his federal indictment and grant him another term, and last night the five-term Roxbury councilor got his vindication: a 20-point blowout over challenger Carlos “Tony’’ Henriquez.

“It’s significant that I was reelected, but the real significance is that our community did not fall for the hype,’’ Turner, standing on a chair, told a crowd of about 50 campaign supporters who gathered at his district office in Dudley Square and chanted “Chuck! Chuck! Chuck!’’

He then ticked off a series of news media endorsements for Henriquez - from the Globe, the Herald, the Phoenix, and the South End News - as he proclaimed, to broad applause, “The people of Roxbury said, ‘The hell with you!’ ’’

…

Turner, 69, was indicted last year on charges that he accepted $1,000 in cash in exchange for helping a nightclub win a liquor license. Turner has strongly denied the charges, pointing to his beat-up Mazda and his modest home as evidence that he does not live a high-end lifestyle.

…

A dozen voters interviewed yesterday afternoon at the Orchard Gardens Community Center in Roxbury were almost evenly divided between Turner and Henriquez. Those who supported Turner either did not believe the charges against him, did not care about them, or thought they should be overlooked.

…

In his speech at his district office, Turner cited the victories of other City Council candidates of color as an indication of a new direction in Boston. “Martin [Luther King Jr.] said I’m not going to be there with you, but I know you’re going to get to the mountaintop,’’ he said. “I don’t think this is arrogant, but I think we’re on the mountaintop.’’

Why, because there’s a pot of gold there?

Is there anything sicker and sadder than a corrupt, slimy, opportunist wrapping himself in the mantle of a hero? Has the legacy of MLK really been so degraded that a crooked hack can celebrate a meaningless election by exploiting the historic and resonant words King spoke prophesying his own death?

Enjoy, citizens of Virginia and New Jersey, you have much to celebrate. Me, I’m going to drape my house with black bunting.

Sometimes we’re more serious than others when we employ the Liberal Fascism category.

This time we’re deadly serious:

[A] police officer recognized gangbangers, who discovered him and threatened him after discovering where he lived.

…

How would you like to be a New Jersey police officer and look out your window and see several known criminals, including a man you arrested several weeks ago and another who had just been released from prison for shooting a cop? And then find out that the men were sent into the neighborhood by the Democratic Party for GOTV operations – complete with lists of voters names, addresses and phones numbers!

That is what happened Sunday on a quiet street in Morris Township. The officer, who’s name we are with holding, specifically heard the men discussing that he was a police officer and that they now know where he lives. The officer confronted the men and they took off. He contacted the local police who responded and caught up with them and about a dozen other men a few blocks away. According to the police report, the men were known criminals and when asked why they were in the neighborhood they stated they were “campaigning for the Democratic Party.”

My question in the title is entirely serious. Why use cop-shooters and other known criminals to break in—knock on doors, when the New Black Panthers are just down the road in Philly?

They know all about poll monitoring, and the precedent is all set: they won’t be charged.

Oops! Who let the greedy, slimy, shady cat out of the bag?

House ethics investigators have been scrutinizing the activities of more than 30 lawmakers and several aides in inquiries about issues including defense lobbying and corporate influence peddling, according to a confidential House ethics committee report prepared in July.

…

– Ethics committee staff members have interviewed House Ways and Means Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) about one element of the complex investigation of his personal finances, as well as the lawmaker’s top aide and his son.

…

– The Justice Department has told the ethics panel to suspend a probe of Rep. Alan B. Mollohan (D-W.Va.), whose personal finances federal investigators began reviewing in early 2006 after complaints from a conservative group that he was not fully revealing his real estate holdings. There has been no public action on that inquiry for several years. But the department’s request in early July to the committee suggests that the case continues to draw the attention of federal investigators, who often ask that the House and Senate ethics panels refrain from taking action against members whom the department is already investigating.

…

– The committee on June 9 authorized issuance of subpoenas to the Justice Department, the National Security Agency and the FBI for “certain intercepted communications” regarding Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.). As was reported earlier this year, Harman was heard in a 2005 conversation agreeing to an Israeli operative’s request to try to obtain leniency for two pro-Israel lobbyists in exchange for the agent’s help in lobbying House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to name her chairman of the intelligence committee. The department, a former U.S. official said, declined to respond to the subpoena. [Okay, so they’re not all corrupt. Ed.]

…

Because of the secretive nature of the ethics committee, it was difficult to assess the current status of the investigations cited in the July document. The panel said Thursday, however, that it is ending a probe of Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.) after finding no ethical violations, and that it is investigating the financial connections of two California Democrats.

The committee did not detail the two newly disclosed investigations. However, according to the July document, Rep. Maxine Waters, a high-ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, came under scrutiny because of activities involving OneUnited Bank of Massachusetts, in which her husband owns at least $250,000 in stock.

Waters arranged a September 2008 meeting at the Treasury Department where OneUnited executives asked for government money. In December, Treasury selected OneUnited as an early participant in the bank bailout program, injecting $12.1 million.

The other, Rep. Laura Richardson, may have failed to mention property, income and liabilities on financial disclosure forms.

Of all the bad luck! How did so many Democrats get nabbed?

How come it’s okay to be crooked if you’re a black Democrat? Is it the Democrat part that excuses you, or the black part? (Neither helped William Jefferson, so I’m sure he’d like to know.)

Charlie Rangel doesn’t pay taxes (though he does write the tax code):

House Republicans on Wednesday attempted to pass a resolution to remove Rangel from his chairmanship following the reading of a long and stinging list of alleged wrongdoing. The measure stemmed from a major ethics probe into Rangel’s alleged failure to pay his taxes and disclose income on multiple properties — as much as $1.3 million.

But House Democrats were quick to strike down the measure to oust Rangel, who represents New York’s Harlem district. House Republicans refused to accept defeat of the resolution, and asked for a second recorded vote following the first. The reading of the resolution was interrupted several times, and at one point was challenged by Democrats before being put to a vote.

Wednesday’s vote came as reports emerge that Rangel funneled a $3 million earmark — included in the massive Defense Appropriations Bill — to City College of New York to fund research on materials used to protect Army vehicles from attack.

Critics charge that the powerful chairman of the tax-writing committee — arguably the most influential in Congress — should step down amid growing allegations and investigations into possible ethics violations.

Locally, City Councilman Chuck Turner, caught with his hand in the cookie jar, easily won his primary:

Ten months after his arrest on corruption charges, Chuck Turner is charging toward reelection.

The Boston city councilor, whose image was splashed across the news last November in what the FBI said was a picture of Turner accepting a cash bribe, easily won a four-way preliminary election Sept. 22, with nearly 53 percent of the vote. Under indictment, Turner still got more than twice the votes of his nearest challenger. He called it “a resounding mandate.’’

“This, to me, was them saying, ‘Chuck, we know you’re innocent,’ ’’ Turner said in an interview in his office last week, sitting beneath a portrait of Malcolm X and a hand-scrawled sign marking the months until his federal corruption trial.

The councilor, who said his arrest was a calculated effort to “take down a black politician,’’ is seeking vindication on two fronts: at the ballot box on Nov. 3 and in a federal courtroom in March.

As an equal opportunity blogger, I wish to point out that neither Turner nor Rangel, is a two-time convicted drunk driver, now an accused (and confessed) hit-and-run driver, like State Senator Anthony Galluccio:

State Senator Anthony D. Galluccio apologized yesterday for rear-ending a family of four on Sunday afternoon and fleeing the scene, an accident that left one person with minor injuries, a Cambridge neighborhood shaken by his actions, and questions about what prompted his lapses behind the wheel.

It is the latest chapter in Galluccio’s checkered driving history: The 42-year-old senator has had repeated problems, including at least two previous accidents involving alcohol. In an interview yesterday, Galluccio refused to say whether he had been drinking alcohol before Sunday’s incident.

The Cambridge Democrat hit the family’s car with enough force that he left an imprint of his license plate on their van, which helped police track and cite him Monday with leaving the scene of an accident.

That’s pretty funny, you have to admit. Why don’t you stick to graft, Anthony, so nobody gets hurt?

Anybody want to bet that all three of the above win their reelection campaigns? I didn’t think so.

Our journalists are clowns:

And our clowns are journalists:

What do you want to bet that this was the first most of Jay’s audience had heard about the story?

I bet our national media would omit reporting the deaths of millions if it suited their political purposes. Oh wait, that already happened.

Bet’s off.