kelticwizard wrote:B) Guckert came up in reference to the mythical "liberal bias" of the media. Foxfyre brought up that subject, not myself. You didn't object to her bringing it up, so I expect no objection to my responding to it.
Ticomaya wrote:I didn't object to your bringing it up either.
No, you just objected to discussing it further after your post attempted to dismiss it.
Ticomaya wrote:But since there is a thread devoted to bashing the Bush Administration vis a vis G/G, your diatribe is better placed THERE.
It was brought up here, rightfully so, and it will be discussed here.
The acronym is pretentious, and it is the latest ploy used by the conservatives in their their never-ending campaign to sway the media even more in their direction by complaining that they are getting a raw deal.
And it is not even known to the general public anyway.
That's because you brought it up a second time in an effort to discuss it in detail. It's a non-story, which I tried to tell you the first time you brought it up.
"Rightfully so." As in, "I brought it up, and therefore it was rightfully brought up."
It's your choice, KW. You can debate me in all things G/G over THERE, or you can further spam this thread with your nonsense.
I'm sure you're aware that liberal posters on this forum have used this term recently: Cyclops, squinney, candidone1.
Ticomaya wrote:It's your choice, KW. You can debate me in all things G/G over THERE, or you can further spam this thread with your nonsense.
When somebody decides to discuss something that you have decided won't be discussed on the thread, they're spamming, right?
What is the "Air America thing"?
What is the "Air America thing"?
City funds yanked[/i][/u]
2 programs called 'nonresponsible'
BY BOB KAPPSTATTER
DAILY NEWS BRONX BUREAU CHIEF
Two affiliated Bronx community programs serving thousands of youths and seniors have had their city funding yanked and their records reportedly seized amid an ongoing investigation.
Officials confirmed yesterday that the nonprofit Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club Inc., and its affiliate, Pathways for Youth Boys & Girls Club, have been determined to be "nonresponsible city contractors" in connection with several recently submitted contract proposals.
The city Department of Youth and Community Development said in a press release issued by Investigation Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn that its determinations were based on an ongoing DOI probe. The probe is investigating allegations that officials of the long-established community programs "approved significant inappropriate transactions and falsified documents that were submitted to various city agencies."
Last week, DOI investigators reportedly seized records from the two programs' offices at Co-op City.
DOI spokeswoman Emily Gest issued a terse "no comment" yesterday when asked if records had been seized and whether the probe rose to the level of a criminal investigation.
Local city, state and federal legislators involved in funding the programs met Sunday at the offices of Democratic Rep. Joe Crowley to discuss the situation, said Assemblyman Michael Benedetto (D-East Bronx).
He said it was his understanding that the city has brought in other nonprofit agencies, such as the Police Athletic League, to take over the various programs run by the two suspect groups, which have received $9.7 million in 19 contracts and one outright grant.
Benedetto said that workers at Gloria Wise have already been notified their last official day of work will be Thursday.
Besides the city Education Department and the Youth and Community Development Department, the DOI release stated that the Department for the Aging is terminating its contracts with Gloria Wise, and the city Housing Authority is terminating a grant agreement with Pathways for Youth. The Department for the Aging, according to a source, has contracted with the Jewish Association for the Aged to take over the senior center programs, starting July 5.
Calls yesterday to Charles Rosen, executive director of the organization, were not returned as of deadline.
Youth funds diverted to liberal radio station
by Michael Horowitz
July 5, 2005
Bronx News
The Bronx News has learned, through informed sources, that the diversion of hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club in Co-op City to the liberal Air America Radio is at the center of the city's probe of corruption at the local club.
The money, which was reportedly paid to Air America as a loan, was supposed to be paid back with interest, two unidentified informed sources told the News. One source added that Air America officials, led by an official of the Gloria Wise Club, agreed to help the local club by publicizing its activities.
To date, no indictments have been handed down in the New York City Department of Investigation's ongoing probe of the Gloria Wise Club's reported transfer of funds to Air America.
Most of the Gloria Wise Club's programs are for the Co-op City community, but the club also runs after-school programs in the Baychester/Edenwald and Soundview areas.
At the center of the investigation, in addition to Charles Rosen, the charismatic leader of the local club for the last 15 years, is Evan Cohen, who resigned, under fire, as chairman of Air America Radio shortly after its start as an alternative to conservative talk radio.
Cohen, at the time the alleged transfers of funds from the Gloria Wise Club to Air America took place, was also the director of Development for the local boys' and girls' club, the News has learned.
One source told the News that $480,000 in funds from the Gloria Wise Club is involved in the city's investigation of illegal transfer of funds from the local club.
A second unidentified source stressed that Rosen never sought to profit personally from the reported loan that the Gloria Wise Club gave to Air America. The source emphasized that Rosen's sole motive, even if it was a bit naïve, was to benefit the Gloria Wise Club with the interest that Air America would pay for its loan from the local club.
The city's DOI is pursuing the probe because the Gloria Wise Club depends heavily on city funding for its operations. These funds are subject to extensive audits, as are funds received through the state and federal governments.
The Co-op City-based club, which Rosen has built into an empire in the Co-op City community, reportedly has 19 contracts and at least one grant with the city, worth a total of $9.7 million.
Over the last year, Rep. Joseph Crowley has secured two major federal grants for the Gloria Wise Club, one for a day-care program for Alzheimer's patients and their caregivers and the other for the community's NORC program for senior citizens. The grant for the program for Alzheimer's patients and their caregivers was for $250,000, while the grant for the NORC program was for $99,410.
In 2003, Crowley secured a $218,500 grant for a mentoring program that the Gloria Wise Club runs.
Cohen, who is reportedly at the center of the Gloria Wise probe, is a Guam-based investors who was reportedly a key principal in the start-up of Air America, which has been billed as the liberals' answer to conservative talk-show hosts like Rush Limbaugh, Shaun Hannity, Bob Grant, Michael Savage, and G. Gordon Liddy.
Key kids, senior programs saved
City steps in for troubled club
BY BOB KAPPSTATTER
DAILY NEWS BRONX BUREAU CHIEF
A Bronx congressman yesterday praised the smooth takeover of dozens of programs serving thousands of youngsters and seniors across the borough after the city yanked funding from two sponsoring agencies that have come under a cloud.
The nonprofit Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club and its affiliate Pathways for Youth found their city contracts, running into the millions of dollars, abruptly ended last month by the city Department of Investigation.
The city quickly brought in outside agencies on one-year contracts to run the programs, including the Jewish Association for Seniors for Aged and the Police Athletic League, with in-place workers kept on the job pending individual evaluations.
Rep. Joseph Crowley, who has secured more than $500,000 in federal funding for Gloria Wise programs in the the past few years, said he and his staff "have spent countless hours" working with the city, the Co-op City community where a number of the programs are based, other Bronx elected officials and the new contractors.
He praised the city for what he called "an apparently seamless transfer of contracts" that have kept all the programs up and running without interruption for an estimated 20,000 or so youngsters, handicapped individuals and seniors.
"What is paramount is that they are maintaining the programs," he said. "This is a work in progress."
Crowley (D-Bronx, Queens) said he was "totally shocked - shocked is an understatement" when news of the loss of funding first broke.
He said he and other elected officials are still in the dark over the exact nature of the probe.
In its initial announcement, the DOI said it was probing allegations that program officials "approved significant inappropriate transactions and falsified documents that were submitted to various city agencies."
According to published reports, the allegations involve Charles Rosen, the founder of Gloria Wise who has stepped down as executive director, investing city contract funds in Air America Radio, the liberal talk radio network.
Evan Cohen, Air America's former chairman, had served as Gloria Wise's director of development.
Air America listeners to the rescue?
Sunday, August 07, 2005
DAVID REINHARD
There's, like, a major corporate financial scandal goin' down, dude. Some greed-head wheeler-dealer took almost a million in government funds intended for children and Alzheimer's patients and put the money into a private start-up company. The money was supposed to be a loan, but the loan was never repaid, Now, the nonprofit is broke and under investigation for "significant inappropriate transaction and falsified documents." And, you know, like, the mainstream corporate media? They're paying no attention to the story, man. Children and Alzheimer's patients get the short end of the stick while fat-cat private interests line their pockets -- only in George Bush's America, right?
Wrong. Only in the Air America scandal that's unfolding. The recipient of $875,000-plus from the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club in New York City is Air America, the left-wing radio network designed to take on the talk-radio right.
Air America says it has nothing to do with the "mismanagement and corruption at Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club," and that the loan was made to the network's old owners. But Air America says it will repay the funds anyway. In fact, Air America's parent company said it had wanted to start repaying the loan immediately, but couldn't without the New York City Department of Investigation's go-ahead. Investigators, however, told the New York Post that there was nothing stopping Air America from paying up. "DOI has done nothing and given no instruction preventing payment of money owed to Gloria Wise," DOI's Keith Schwam said. "Any statements to the contrary are inaccurate."
This was not the only troubling element in a scandal that so far has been confined to the blogosphere -- Hugh Hewitt, Michelle Malkin, Free Republic, Captain's Quarters and other haunts. Air America's Al Franken recently told the New York Sun's David Lombino he only recently learned the details of the story, but that Air America's new owner, Piquant LLC, discovered the fund transfer in a forensic investigation of the previous owner. But if the company knew about the problem before the city started its probe, why didn't it notify the city?
In other words, what did Al Franken know, and when did he know it?
At least, that's how the question's phrased when the alleged culprit is Karl Rove or George W. Bush.
Surely, Air America's listeners must be scandalized by these Enronesque corporate shenanigans. Victimizing the children -- isn't that what Republicans do? Air America says it's ready to repay the principal to the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club.
I think the network's listeners should do more.
Liberals are always letting the rest of us know just how much sharper and more compassionate they are than the rest of us. Now it's time to prove it: Air America Needs You.
First, its listeners should unleash their "we know better" candlepower and their you-can't-fool-us cynicism to get to the bottom of the Air America's kids-for-kilowatts scandal. And, clearly, a scheme that hurts children and Alzheimer's patients to fund left-wing outreach should appeal to progressives' dark sense of irony.
Second, Air America's listeners should go beyond the network owners on the financial front. Simply repaying funds to club isn't enough. Really, how cover-your-assets corporatist is that? Leftist listeners need to really showcase that storied compassion of theirs. Yes, how about a radio-thon to raise funds for kids and Alzheimer's patients across this broad land? Lefty listeners could, well, "Give piece of change."
Better yet, progressive forces should do what they do best -- hold a rock concert. Franken probably could put the finger on some major talent. It's hard to imagine that the Dixie Chicks, Madonna, Sheryl Crow, Bruce Springsteen and Barbra Streisand wouldn't want to participate in a Live Air America-Aid concert. The guess here is that even stars who said they would leave the United States if Bush were elected or re-elected would return home to help the victims of this hideous corporate scandal.
Granted, Air America's overall rating have fallen in major markets. But here, the left-wing network is still going strong, particularly in the crucial male-ponytail demographic. A little advice for the network's Portland affiliate:
Think globally and act locally.
David Reinhard, associate editor, can be reached at 503-221-8152 or [email protected].
Finn, quick aside; do you really think Hillary has a shot at winning a nomination? I say no way. She'd no doubt have Bill in her corner and he'd no doubt do such an outstanding job of speaking on her behalf that no one would remember a word she said. While I've never been a Clinton fan, quite the opposite as you know, his incredible charisma would certainly leave her seeming ordinary, at best, to the uninformed masses that actually make such decisions. 2004 proved beyond a reasonable doubt that "I'm not Bush" doesn't get it done. That's before you even open the well stocked closet of skeletons the Clintons have left behind. Bill's surreal popularity (post-office) gave the likes of Kerry/Edwards a pass on that closet's damaging implications. Hillary could enjoy no such pass. I believe nominating Hillary would have the net effect of guaranteeing a republican successor. I believe the Dems next good shot will come with Obama or an embracing of Arnold with a crossover. Not being the Bush fan you are; I believe the Dems just proved they have no viable candidates. Of course that's just my opinion... I could be wrong.
Bronx Boys Club's Finances Investigated
Published: August 12, 2005
The state attorney general's office and the city's Department of Investigation are looking into whether a boys and girls club serving poor children and ailing elderly people in the Bronx had improper financial dealings, including loans to the Air America radio network, state and city officials said yesterday.
The separate investigations are trying to determine whether the Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club, run from an office in Co-op City in the Bronx, made improper loans of up to $875,000 to the radio network, known for its liberal programming and hosts like the comedian Al Franken, the officials said.
Investigators from the charities bureau of the attorney general's office, which oversees about 60,000 nonprofit agencies in the state, requested documents from the club last week but have yet to receive them, state officials said. Historically, the charities bureau has required nonprofit agencies caught up in financial improprieties to make compensation for any misspent money and to institute tighter fiscal controls.
The allegations of financial mismanagement at Gloria Wise came to light in June, when the Department of Investigation announced in a letter to the club that all city agencies were canceling their contracts with Gloria Wise and an affiliate, the Pathways for Youth Boys and Girls Club, because officials at the clubs had "approved significant inappropriate transactions and falsified documents that were submitted to various city agencies."
Emily Gest, a spokeswoman for the department, said that Gloria Wise and Pathways had 19 city contracts and one city grant - some with the Department of Youth and Community Development, the Department of Education, the Department for the Aging and the Housing Authority - worth a total of $9.7 million.
Jim Grossman, a spokesman for Gloria Wise, said the club had given Air America about $875,000, though he added that he did not know exactly how, or in what form, it had been given. He also said the club and the network had reached an agreement under which the money had been placed in escrow and would eventually be repaid to the club.
According to a statement posted last month on the network's Web site, the current owners of Air America, Piquant LLC, criticized "the allegations of mismanagement and corruption" at Gloria Wise as "disgraceful," but said Piquant was not responsible for the loans because they had been given to the radio network under the leadership of its previous owner, Progress Media.
"The current owners of Air America Radio have no obligation to Progress Media's business activities," the statement read. "We are very disturbed that Air America Radio's good name could be associated with a reduction in services for young people, which is why we agreed months ago to fully compensate the Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club as a result of this transaction."
Jaime Horn, a spokeswoman for Air America, said the loans had come to the network through its former chairman, Evan M. Cohen, a venture capitalist, who resigned from Air America in May 2004 under pressure from other company investors. Ms. Horn added that investigators recently told the network that Mr. Cohen had served simultaneously as the development director for Gloria Wise, although the network was not aware of that at the time.
Mr. Franken took up the issue on the air on Monday afternoon, telling his listeners that Mr. Cohen was "a crook" who had borrowed money from Gloria Wise.
"I don't know why he did it," Mr. Franken said, according to a transcript of the broadcast made by the Department of Investigation. "I don't know where the money went. I don't know if it was used for operations. I think he was borrowing from Peter to pay Paul."
Mr. Franken also said that the network's new owners "don't legally have to pay it back" - referring to the loans - "because we're a different company or something."
"But morally we do," he said.
Nonetheless, word of the investigations ignited a firestorm of criticism on the Internet, especially among conservative-leaning blogs that have essentially accused the network of robbing from the poor to pay its bills.
Meanwhile, three top officials at Gloria Wise have either quit or announced their resignations in the last few weeks. The first was Charles Rosen, the club's longtime executive director. Jeff Aulenbach, a deputy executive director, also quit the club, Mr. Grossman said, and another deputy executive director, Lorraine Corva, has announced that she will be leaving at the end of the month. The resignations were first reported in The New York Post.
Today, the Kips Bay Boys and Girls Club is expected to announce that it will officially assume responsibility for running the Pathways program, which serves more than 2,500 children and the elderly. According to a statement released by Kips Bay yesterday in advance of the announcement, it had taken control of the Pathways program at the request of the city Housing Authority and members of the community.