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Israel Pitches In With Disaster Relief After Hurricane SandyMembers of various NGOs put Israeli knowhow to work, getting food, fuel and other supplies to emergency workers and victims.New York --- When ISRAEL21c spoke with Israel relief volunteer Joel Leyden in New York yesterday, he had just received a phone call from the Nassau County Office of Emergency Management on New York’s Long Island. “They confirmed that there is a police escort waiting to bring in Israel Flying Aid’s delivery of fuel, which will go to county hospitals to be dispensed to doctors and nurses so they will be able to...

Israel Flying Aid Gives Food, Generators, Gas To Hurricane Sandy New York, New Jersey Victims(photo) Roger Parrott, Jacob Parrott and Joel Leyden deliver a generator and gas to a Hurricane Sandy New York victim. Photo: Rebecca McCann / INA By Karen Levy Israel News AgencyNew York, NY --- November 4, 2012 ... Israel Flying Aid, the Israeli global humanitarian organization which was first to land in Haiti following the 2010 earthquake, has been distributing large supplies of gas to hospitals, food, batteries and generators to Hurricane Sandy victims. "We have many years of disaster relief experience," said Israel Flying Aid...

Living near the coast in the Northeast, I see the devastation wrought by Hurricane Sandy firsthand. Many have been without power for days; there are long lines at gas stations; some supermarket shelves are bare; and, more to the point here, some in vulnerable areas lost their homes. And because the storm is such a horrible, high-profile disaster, government aid to rebuild is in the offing. But should it be? This question may seem heartless. And, don't worry, you won't hear a politician asking it anytime soon, as doing so might very well cost him the next election. But political...

Rena McCarter of Kenner, La., pleaded guilty Friday, Oct. 26, to wrongly taking $8,600 in disaster relief funds from the federal government after Hurricane Katrina. She was residing in Minnesota when the storm hit. McCarter, 62, admitted in her plea deal that in 2005, she told the Federal Emergency Management Agency that her apartment and personal property had been damaged by the disaster in Louisiana, and that she needed emergency help for housing, food and clothing. In fact, McCarter was living in housing subsidized by the Metropolitan Council from October 2004 through September 2009, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office...

Before the bailout of General Motors, it was well understood that the world’s largest automaker was losing huge amounts of money in the US and was staying afloat thanks to stronger performance in overseas markets. Since the bailout, however, that dynamic has been turned on its head. Thanks to a leaner manufacturing footprint, debt eliminations and steadily recovering sales, GM’s US operations have generated the lion’s share of the company’s profit since the bailout. And now, as the rest of the world economy slows, GM is spending more and more of its taxpayer-enhanced cash pile to shore up its faltering...

By waiving provisions of Kerry-Lugar-Berman Act to provide Pakistan full financial assistance, the Obama Administration has erred gravely According to a newspaper report, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a message to the US Congress on September 13 said she was waiving provisions of the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act 2009, also known as the Kerry-Lugar-Berman Act, that would have blocked the $2 billion in US economic and military assistance to Pakistan. Disbursing the funds, she reportedly told Congress that it was “important to the national security interests of the United States”. Without the message, the State Department would...

An Army lieutenant colonel who was on the fast track until Muslim groups complained about a course he taught on radical Islam has a legal foundation in his foxhole. Attorneys for Lt. Col Matthew Dooley, a West Point graduate and highly-decorated combat veteran, was an instructor at the Joint Forces Staff College at the National Defense University, where by most accounts he won praise from students and faculty alike. But when Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey excoriated Dooley during a Pentagon press conference in May, characterizing his course, “Perspectives on Islam and Islamic Radicalism” as objectionable,...

I just watched Romney's speech at the Global Initiative Conference and I was blown away. Foreign aid should be tied to getting people employment. All free enterprise - all the time. It was impressive. He even got a few digs in about Obama. It is a must see.

Americans strongly believe that there is too much government dependency in the country today. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 64% of Adults think there are too many Americans dependent on the government for financial aid. Just 10% think not enough Americans are dependent on the government, while 16% say the level of dependency is about right. The survey of 1,000 Adults was conducted on September 18-19, 2012 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.

Suspicions by Pakistan's powerful army that the country's civilian leadership is growing too close to the United States are fueling a political crisis that analysts here believe threatens the survival of the government and could divert attention from the battle against Islamic extremists. Military officials believe that secretly taped conversations between Pakistani President Asif Zardari and his ambassador in Washington, prove that it was at Zardari's insistence that a $1.5 billion U.S. aid package passed by Congress in September contained several provisions that angered the Pakistani military. The military publicly protested the aid package last month. "The reaction (from the...

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas received Quartet representative Tony Blair in Ramallah on Tuesday and called to support the PA financially. The PA-based WAFA news agency reported that Abbas briefed Blair on the latest political developments and the dilemma the peace process is facing, due to what he termed the Israeli government’s intransigence and refusal to abide by the international law. The report said that Abbas insisted on the importance of providing financial support to PA, especially during the critical financial situation it is going through. .....

President Barack Obama erroneously exaggerated the amount of money his administration has provided to an Israeli missile defense program Friday while signing a bill meant to boost U.S.-Israeli security ties. Obama, who has been criticized for weakening the U.S.-Israel alliance, was attempting to tout his administration’s commitment to the Jewish state when he incorrectly stated that Israel will receive “$70 billion dollars” for its missile defense program. “I’m very pleased that this week we are going to be able to announce $70 million spending…$70 billion, excuse me, in additional spending for Iron Dome,” Obama said, inflating the actual dollar amount...

Washington, DC - The US House of Representatives has passed an amendment unanimously that cuts down $650 million in military aid to Pakistan as Republicans sought to tamp down demands for still deeper reductions. Congressman Ted Poe had demanded a $1.3 billion cut, but later settled for the 650 million cut. "Pakistan is the 'Benedict Arnold' to America in the war on terror. They are disloyal, deceptive and a danger to the United States," Poe, who had moved the amendment, said. "This so-called ally continues to take billions in US aid, while funding the militants who attack us. And we've...

America's newest veterans are filing for disability benefits at a historic rate, claiming to be the most medically and mentally troubled generation of former troops the nation has ever seen. A staggering 45 percent of the 1.6 million veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are now seeking compensation for injuries they say are service-related. That is more than double the estimate of 21 percent who filed such claims after the Gulf War in the early 1990s, top government officials said. What's more, these new veterans are claiming eight to nine ailments on average, and the most recent ones...

Higher education is meant to be the path to success, but that conventional wisdom may not be entirely true. According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, between 2007 and 2010, the percentage of people with a graduate degree who were on food stamps or were receiving another kind of federal aid more than doubled, reaching 360,000. In 2007, 9,776 people with PhD’s were receiving some kind of aid. In 2010, that number had more than tripled to 33,655. For people with master’s degrees, the number spiked from 101,683 to 293,029. Austin Nichols of the Urban Institute crunched those numbers for...

New research shows how federal spending on higher education can backfire.Federal aid for students has increased 164% over the past decade, adjusted for inflation, according to the College Board. Yet three-quarters of Americans and even a majority of college presidents see college as unaffordable for most, and that sentiment has been steadily spreading, the Pew Research Center reports. Two new studies offer clues on why. One measures the degree to which some colleges reduce their own aid in response to increased federal aid. The other suggests federal aid is helping to push college costs higher.Recipients of federal Pell Grants have,...

Dear Friend, In this video commentary, I discuss how Obama ordered the release of $192 million to the Palestinian Authority after Congress said NO. Tune in!

Nearly a year ago, as Japan struggled with the devastation wrought by the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami, the United States military launched “Operation Tomodachi,” a major humanitarian aid mission, to help the Japanese government respond to the crisis. The effort made a strong impression on the Japanese people – ratings for the U.S. reached sky-high levels following the American mission.

Rush Limbaugh caused a bit of a stir recently when he asked the question: “What do you think has fed more mouths, greed or charity?” The question seemed particularly untoward given that Christmas was right around the corner. Who besides Gordon Gekko might ask such a ludicrous question? Rush, obviously… and it turns out that it’s not such a ludicrous question after all. Of course when he says greed, what he is really referring to – and he says as much – is self interest. Basically what he is arguing is that while giving charity to someone may make...

The United States is poised to announce a significant donation of food aid to North Korea this week, the first definite accomplishment after months of diplomatic contacts behind the scenes. An agreement by North Korea to suspend its uranium enrichment programme will most likely follow within days. Discussions have been taking place since summer in New York, Geneva and Beijing. They have already yielded agreements by North Korea to suspend nuclear and ballistic missile testing, readmit international nuclear inspectors expelled in 2009, and resume a dialogue between North and South Korea, according to US diplomats.