Free Republic

CAIR Exposed: Part 1 As IAP Offshoot, CAIR Followed Pro-Hamas Agenda From the Start by Steven Emerson IPT News March 24, 2008FEATURE STORY   From the Hamas ties of its founders in 1994 to its solicitous stance toward accused terrorists today, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has demonstrated that its actual mission is far removed from the civil rights advocacy it claims to pursue. Still standing as perhaps the clearest evidence of CAIR's insidious role, two key leaders of the group attended a 1993 meeting in Philadelphia called by Hamas members and supporters to devise a strategy for torpedoing...

Judge sides with CAIR against Michael Savage (Talk Radio) March 11, 2008 © 2008 WorldNetDaily Michael Savage A Clinton-appointed judge in California is siding with the Council on Islamic-American Relations in a lawsuit by radio talk-show host Michael Savage. Judge Susan Illston has issued a terse one-page ruling in the case in which she "granted" a defense motion for judgment on the pleadings with "leave to amend." Although it was released only today, it was dated Friday, apparently finalized shortly after she held a hearing on the issues at hand. It was posted on Michael Savage's website, under the headline...

CH-UH library postpones ‘anti-Israel’ documentary BY: DOUGLAS J. GUTH Senior Staff Reporter The Cleveland Heights-University Heights Public Library has postponed a three-part series on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict amid concerns from Jewish residents that the program would be biased against

Americans worked a median of 52 hours last year without pay. They’re called volunteers. Many organizations can’t survive without unpaid labor, and many people are glad to provide it. Sadly, though, data released Wednesday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show that both the number of volunteers and the volunteer rate — the percentage of the population that volunteers — declined in 2007 from 2006. Volunteering also had fallen in 2006 from 2005. About 60.8 million Americans, age 16 and up, volunteered in 2007, compared with a high of 65.3 million in 2005. The proportion of that population that...

When Mike Huckabee became lieutenant governor of Arkansas in 1993, he complained of being burdened by college tuition bills for his son, the expenses of two residences — one in Texarkana and the other in Little Rock — and the cost of commuting between the two. With an annual salary of $25,452, he said he was falling short in covering the bills. “It was costing me money to be lieutenant governor,” Mr. Huckabee recalled in a 1997 newspaper interview. To bridge the gap between his income and his expenses, Mr. Huckabee and a few close political advisers came up with...

Congressional committees, state attorneys general and now the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) are placing nonprofit organizations under scrutiny and sending them scrambling for legal advice on sound governance practices. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 heightened awareness about governance at all kinds of organizations, from the public companies at which it was directed, to private firms and nonprofit groups. Subsequent scandals involving financial practices at nonprofits prompted government agencies increasingly to view such organizations with skepticism. A 2003 media expose of the Nature Conservancy's governance, executive compensation and land sale practices ... The finance committee also catalyzed change at the American...

Health advocates wrote to the governor, lobbied legislators and worked closely with the New Jersey League of Municipalities. And their efforts have paid off. Earlier this summer, a 7 percent state tax on gym memberships and health clubs was repealed by the state Legislature -- giving a sigh of relief to health clubs around the state. Rick Gorab, president and CEO of the Metropolitan YMCAs of the Oranges -- which has branches in Livingston, Maplewood, East Orange and Sussex County -- said 44 YMCAs banded together statewide to repeal the tax, which was passed last October. "We are a charitably-based...

The last time I looked at the salaries of NPR hosts and executives, as listed on the radio news outlet's IRS 990 forms, was back in November 2004. Sure, the compensation packages and salaries were very generous, and I'm not the least bit surprised the NPR folks have increased their pay. Although seeing rather enormous salaries and packages in the nonprofit news radio world gives me reason to consider how high the compensation must be at for-profit private radio news stations. Here are the figures from the latest IRS 990 form for National Public Radio, FY 2005, just for the...

ST. PAUL - Most nonprofits have to compete for state money, but Let's Go Fishing of Minnesota got its $325,000 grant directly from lawmakers who wrote the Willmar-based group into a big education bill. Also written into law were grants for Hunger Solutions, a statewide coalition of foodshelves, and the Living at Home/Block Nurse Program, which helps seniors get support services and health care to stay in their homes. Legislative Auditor James Nobles said Friday it's time for lawmakers to quit hand-picking which groups get state grants.

Federal authorities have subpoenaed bank records from a Chevy Chase nonprofit group over questions about its financial reporting for work performed for NASA, including the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Maryland has sought financial records from the Alliance for Competitive Technology as part of a federal probe into whether the group made false claims to NASA, court records show. The Justice Department and the attorney's office filed papers in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt June 30 on behalf of NASA's Office of Inspector General based at Goddard. The papers say the nonprofit group refused...

Were The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation a public company, it would rank among the entire world's 400 largest by asset size--before getting a single dime of Warren Buffett's promised money. But the $35 billion of assets listed on the foundation's latest financial statement, as of Dec. 31, is only one measure of its gargantuan magnitude. An active, aggressive player in financial markets, the foundation turns over the equivalent of its entire asset base on average about every two months. During 2005, the cash-flow statement shows, it purchased a staggering $250.7 billion of investments while selling $251.2 billion. Turnover at...

Apollo Group is the biggest of the ForPro education groups. It owns the University of Phoenix. Yesterday its stock fell 2 percent after reporting lower third-quarter profits because of higher costs. Corinthian Colleges is another of the big players. It, too, reported a loss of 3 cents/share. DeVry lost 15 cents, and Educational Services lost 3 cents/share as well. Everybody's trading down, albeit down very little. Does this mean that the quality of education provided by these groups has also dipped? Are students losing out 2% on their classes? or 3 cents/dollar they spend on their tuition? Hardly. One of...

Good overview on how the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) turns a blind eye to massive corruption and fraud in programs designed to create "affordable" housing. The result? Inflated housing costs in poor neigborhoods and financial ruin for poor and working class people who are ripped off by politically connected "nonprofits" and corrupt local governments. Who cleans up the mess? You guessed it -- the taxpayer.

Schools want regional accreditation. Fopros also want regional accreditation. It gives them status, recognition, and confidence with their students, who might want to take their class units and transfer them to a four-year or other institution. Fopros will go to extremes to get this accreditation. In order to get accreditation, schools must meet a number of standards - course offerings, financial stability, library facilities, and a certain quota of full-time faculty to name a few. Nowhere does it say the schools must actually be carrying out their objective of student learning - interesting, eh? There is also a waiting period,...

The American Council on Education is a coordinating body for higher education. Recently it released some interesting statistics - interesting to people who care about higher education, non-profit and fopro alike. Just one in six of the undergraduates in college are the "typical" 18-year-old who lives on campus and gets a BA by cramming 4 years into five. Students who are 25 years old and up account for almost 40 percent of undergraduates. More than half of all the older students attend a community college - 29 percent are in private schools, and 12 percent attend fopros. Most of the...

With so many adult students, opinions are flying everywhere on how they might be served best and what is needed most. Gary Berg, author of Lessons From the Edge, offers up these four main pressures: 1. Diminishing financial support 2. The call to serve adult learners and first-generation college students 3. A need to balance liberal-arts and applied curricula 4. A subsequent necessity of maintaing an evolving institutional mission. Fopros are in a position to address these pressures. Like them or love them, many experts credit the University of Phoenix with being the most innovative of the higher-education bunch. UoP...

UPPER MARLBORO — Republican Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.’s wooing of African-American voters seemed to be on the upswing — until his attempt six years ago to challenge the nonprofit status of the NAACP came to light last week. On May 17, Ehrlich was the toast of Prince George’s County as he was honored by an influential charity for his contributions to faith-based organizations. The following morning, The (Baltimore) Sun reported that Ehrlich’s chief fund-raiser questioned the NAACP’s tax-exempt status because of the organization’s political activity, drawing strong rebukes from the governor’s political enemies. ‘‘Just because he received that award...

To all those of you who proclaimed the California Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives Dead on Arrival in it’s first committee; I am happy to inform you that you were wrong! Read More...

Hi ya'll - I'm new here so correct me if I am out of line with posting this here. I invite you to please visit our website (very easy one - only one page plus one additional page for a February newsletter update) to see what it is we are doing. Basically we purchase basic laptops and add webcams with mics on them so they can stay in contact with their family and friends, play games, etc. Also accept PC games and original playstation games as a lady in Georgia packed up her family's playstation and sent it to me...

"On Church and State", by Lores Rizkalla, Freeper 'JustaWoman' Billy Graham said that "bad politicians are elected by good people who don't vote." I think the same is true of "bad propositions" passing because good people decide to stay home on election day. This Tuesday, California (among many other states) has a special election. Statistics say that an average of 5% of registered voters get out to vote in an off-year election. What's worse is the truth so beautifully, yet sadly, written by William Butler Yeats': "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity." Where...

A lot of non-profit firms had contracts, campaigns, events, speeches, emails, mail drops and the like all set up to deal with the certain fight over a Supreme Court nomination. We didn't need it for Roberts but we thought for sure the fight would be on for the next one. read more

In the morning of March 11, 2004, Susan Lindauer woke to find five F.B.I. agents at her front door. After reading her her rights, the agents took Lindauer from her home in Takoma Park, Md., to the F.B.I. field office in Baltimore, where she was charged with having acted as an unregistered agent of Saddam Hussein's Iraqi government and otherwise having elevated the interests of a foreign country above her allegiance to the United States. ''The only visible sign of stress is that I'm chain-smoking,'' she said when I met with her recently. Forty-one and free on bail, she wore...

Many tax-exempt animal rights organizations like PeTA deceive the public, endorse violence and fund terrorism. If you think groups like PeTA should lose their tax status, sign our petition! Since the mid 1990's, NAIA has been prodding government to do its job and protect the public from corrupt charities that receive tax breaks while violating their exempt purpose, committing crimes and supporting terrorism. Read some of our previous action alerts and press releases and then sign our petition calling for IRS review of 'charities' that operate like mobsters Sign Petition

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...

Days after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced his support for an effort to break up the LAUSD, Superintendent Roy Romer quietly created a nonprofit organization that has raised nearly $150,000 to tout the school district's accomplishments, the Daily News has learned. Despite having the district's nearly $1 million public-relations operation at his disposal, Romer founded Friends of L.A. Schools -- with himself as CEO -- to counter criticism by Schwarzenegger and then-mayoral challenger Bob Hertzberg that the Los Angeles Unified School District was too large and inefficient. "This began in February when there was a lot of criticism of the district,...

University presidents often blame rising tuition costs on stagnant state funding or lagging private support following the 2000-01 recession and stock market decline. But actually, tuition increases have exceeded inflation for at least four decades, including in periods when state funding and private support were rapidly growing. The real reasons tuition has risen sharply are two-fold: a steady increase in demand for higher education and a lack of market discipline by colleges and universities, most of which are non-profits. Demand for higher education has grown because of rising incomes and population as well as the higher salaries college graduates earn....

Never let it be said that crime doesn’t pay. It surely paid for one crooked politician. You Might remember Tom D’Alessio. He was one of New Jersey’s most powerful Democrat politicians until he was caught in an extortion, bribery and embezzling scandal. Well it looks like he’s up to his old tricks. The New Jersey Star Ledger Reports: Two months after he was released from federal prison after serving time for political corruption charges in 1998, the former Essex County Executive set up a charitable foundation.D'Alessio called it the Evergreen Fund and has bankrolled it with more than $1.8 million...

CONCORD (AP) — The Internal Revenue Service is auditing St. Paul's School, an elite private boarding school which agreed last year to greater state scrutiny of its finances. The IRS requested tax information for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2002, the New York Times reported Saturday. "The IRS has requested information from St. Paul's School related to the 2001-2002 tax year," said Michele Clark, a school spokeswoman. "The business office has cooperated fully and provided the information requested." The Times reported that it learned of the IRS request from an alumnus who recently received a copy of a November...

Americans for Prosperity launched a website entitled "Social Security for All" at CPAC that will work to create a network of grassroots activists to push for real reform of the Social Security system. If you want to get involved check out www.SocialSecurityForAll.com!

Subject: Save public broadcasting On NPR's Morning Edition, Nina Totenberg said that if the Supreme Court supports Congress, it will, in effect, be the end of the National Public Radio (NPR), National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) & the Public Broadcasting System (PBS). PBS, NPR and the arts are facing major cutbacks in funding. In spite of the efforts of each station to reduce spending costs and streamline their services, some government officials believe that the funding currently going to these programs is too large a portion of funding for something which is seen as not worthwhile. This is message...

Tax-Exempt Hospitals' Practices Challenged46 Lawsuits Allege That Uninsured Pay the Most TUPELO, Miss. -- When Tim Gardner was born at the hospital here 53 years ago, it was just "one little building on the hill" in a town best known as Elvis Presley's birthplace. From those humble beginnings, North Mississippi Medical Center has grown into the largest non-metropolitan hospital in the country, a booming enterprise with a complex of glass and marble buildings and 40 satellite clinics stretching into Alabama and Tennessee. The company, incorporated in Delaware, has nearly $300 million in the bank and "exceptional profitability," according to one...

SACRAMENTO - A private nonprofit corporation organized by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to help support his political interests has spent close to $500,000 so far this year without disclosing who donated the money or exactly how it was spent. Records filed with the state show the California Recovery Team received nearly $250,000 in support between July and October from one of Schwarzenegger's own political action committees to pay for public rallies and phone banks aimed at urging voters to contact lawmakers on budget issues. But although Schwarzenegger has said one of his main goals is more open government, the report doesn't...

A San Francisco nonprofit group that touts its ties to Secretary of State Kevin Shelley, Assemblyman Leland Yee and other well-known politicians made thousands of dollars in illegal campaign donations during the past three years, state and local records show. Campaign finance reports show that America Education Foundation International, a corporate-funded charity set up to help low-income schools and students, made $3,665 in banned political donations from November 2001 to September 2004. The donations include $500 to former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown; $800 to Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante; $500 to San Francisco Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier; $500 to San Francisco...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - State Attorney General Bill Lockyer filed suit Friday to shut down a nonprofit group accused of illegally funneling taxpayer money into Secretary of State Kevin Shelley's campaign coffers. The lawsuit, filed in San Francisco County Superior Court, seeks to dissolve the San Francisco Neighbors Resource Center. It claims the group improperly diverted at least $168,750 in charitable funds to make $125,000 in donations to Shelley's campaign in 2001 and 2002. When Shelley was majority leader of the state Assembly in 2000, he helped arrange a $500,000 state grant for the center, which was founded in 1999...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A medical research analyst for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation has resigned. She is upset that the group denies the link between abortion and breast cancer and has sent large grants to Planned Parenthood. When confronted with data showing Komen made donations to Planned Parenthood, the information didn't sit well with Komen analyst Eve Sanchez Silver. "The Foundation has done so much for so many women through its programs and research grants," Sanchez Silver told LifeNews.com. "But this revelation about Planned Parenthood and [Komen], indicates a well thought out funding strategy." According to former...

Alyn Libman won a $15,000-a-year scholarship to the University of California at Berkeley with a resume that showed more than just Libman's athletic achievement and academic potential. It also showed years of ridicule, beatings and threats, along with Libman's decision to become a boy in 11th grade. "It felt amazing to actually be embraced by someone who didn't just dismiss me for being different," said Libman, a 19-year-old aspiring civil rights lawyer and the first transgendered person to win a scholarship from The Point Foundation, a Chicago nonprofit organization that has awarded more than $1 million to college-bound gays since...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Amid evidence that a local nonprofit organization may have funneled grant money into illegal political campaign contributions, Mayor Gavin Newsom asked the city controller Thursday to conduct an audit to determine how the organization used city grant money. Newsom made his request after a San Francisco Chronicle investigation discovered the Neighborhood Resources Center, a nonprofit founded to assist Asian immigrants, had received nearly $200,000 in city funds to provide multilingual services but that few services had actually been provided. Newsom asked that the city controller and the city attorney's office investigate "the validity of the allegations"...

A nonprofit charity that solicits donations for the Statue of Liberty pays its executives excessively high salaries, has done a poor job overseeing the millions of dollars it collects and has tried to undermine the efforts of other organizations to raise money for the preservation and operation of the national monument, according to Congressional investigators. The Senate Finance Committee began examining the work of the charity, the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, in April after news reports, including articles in The New York Times, raised questions about the organization's role in efforts to partially reopen the statue after it was...

Insight on the News - National Issue: 03/02/04 Special Report Saffuri's Ties to Terror Suspects By Kenneth R. Timmerman The rise of Khaled Saffuri to political prominence within the U.S. Muslim community has all the ingredients of a Horatio Alger success story. Brought up as a stateless exile in Kuwait, Saffuri came to America as a student in 1982, went to college in San Diego, and soon gravitated into the world of Muslim activism. A talented fund-raiser and behind-the-scenes power broker, Saffuri built bridges to politicians in both parties by generously contributing to their election campaigns, from California libertarian Rep....

Special ReportSaffuri's Ties to Terror Suspects Posted Feb. 23, 2004 By Kenneth R. Timmerman Saffuri (above) has formed relationships with several questionable allies, including Sami al-Arian, who was arrested last year. The rise of Khaled Saffuri to political prominence within the U.S. Muslim community has all the ingredients of a Horatio Alger success story. Brought up as a stateless exile in Kuwait, Saffuri came to America as a student in 1982, went to college in San Diego, and soon gravitated into the world of Muslim activism. A talented fund-raiser and behind-the-scenes power broker, Saffuri built bridges to politicians in both...

We´ve all grown pretty callused – too callused, in fact – to the daily reports that another dozen jobs, or hundred jobs, or thousand jobs have been lost to overseas employers who pay their workers less and expect more from them than we do here in the States. But those calluses aren´t too thick to keep us from feeling something through them on occasion. One such occasion was Tuesday , with the news that about 160 mentally and physically disabled people, and the 42 staffers who support their work, will lose their jobs when the Tidewater Occupational Center in Suffolk...

Around 50 retired US diplomats have written to US President George Bush to complain about America's policy towards the Middle East. The letter is similar to one written by 52 former British diplomats to UK Prime Minister Tony Blair last week. The former US diplomats complained that President Bush's approach is losing the US "credibility, prestige and friends". They criticised what they say is Washington's unabashed support for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. The American diplomats said they were deeply concerned by Mr Bush's endorsement last month of Mr Sharon's plan to withdraw unilaterally from Gaza. 'Great danger' They were...

The Navy secretary backs Arkansas as the Hoga's new home Arkansas, not Hawaii, will be the home of one of the last survivors of the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the tugboat USS Hoga, Navy Secretary Gordon England has decided. The Navy said a nonprofit organization in North Little Rock, Ark., wants to display the Hoga as a Navy memorial. More than $400,000 has been pledged by the project, which has the backing of the city of North Little Rock. The decision by the Naval Seas Systems Command dashes the hopes of a local group that has been...

<p>TRENTON -- A dental company, founded by a gubernatorial fund-raiser who has received a federal document request in a pay-to-play probe in Philadelphia, is pushing for a state-funded dental plan for New Jersey seniors that would be worth hundreds of thousands in state contracts.</p>

<p>At a time when efforts to reform the corporate world are getting all of the attention, there is another group of chief executives who remain insulated from the effects of scandals at Tyco, WorldCom and the like. They are America's not-for-profit profiteers: the executives who cash in at universities, foundations and other tax-exempt organizations.</p>

Homestead racked up thousands in travel 2-5-04 By Lex Alexander, Staff Writer News & Record Posted 7:30 a.m. GREENSBORO — More than a dozen cruises, with expenses topping $112,000, were paid for with credit cards belonging to nonprofit home builder Project Homestead between 1997 and 2001, city records show. The records, compiled during the city’s recent audit of Homestead and released this week, also document other non-cruise travel purchases for places such as St. Thomas and the Bahamas with corporate credit cards issued to senior employees of the nonprofit. Some of the travel paid for by Homestead involved people who...

The president of two San Diego-based Somalian organizations pleaded not guilty yesterday to lying about taking money from a group linked to terrorists. Community leaders and his family said they were mystified by the charges. Omar Abdi Mohammed, 41, a teacher's assistant in a San Diego elementary school, was described by prosecutors in federal court as a shadowy figure who collected more than $351,000 from a group accused of financing international terrorism. Prosecutors have refused to say what they believe Mohammed did with the money, but they said in court that, in addition to the $351,000, he also received $1,700...

A team of IRS examiners will move into the global headquarters of the Nature Conservancy in Arlington to begin auditing the charity, the world's largest environmental organization. A letter sent to the Conservancy by the Internal Revenue Service last month indicates that the audit will be of uncommon scope for a charity, tax specialists said. The memorandum proposes a preliminary meeting between four IRS examiners and the Conservancy's chief financial officer to discuss logistics, communications, telephone access, equipment and accommodations. The IRS will examine 2002 tax returns, the letter said. "It is unusual," said former IRS commissioner Donald C. Alexander,...

Traverse City, MI (LifeNews.com) -- Planned Parenthood Northern Michigan received a $10,000 grant from Rotary Charities of Traverse City in the organization's fall grant cycle. The non-profit Rotary awarded $289,100 to 10 groups, including a center for homeless youths, a conservancy group, and the restoration of a historic ship. The abortion business was given the money to fund so-called abstinence education programs. Officials from Rotary Charities of Traverse City were unavailable for comment, despite repeated requests from LifeNews.com. The donation doesn't go over well with pro-life advocates. "Abstinence educational programs can positively impact our young people, but I have serious...

By ELIZABETH WOLFE, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - Forget about soccer moms. The prized voter of next year's presidential election could be single women, according to a new study. But they need to get to the polls. Using census and other voting data analyzed by two Democratic polling firms , the study released Tuesday found there would have been 6 million more ballots to count in 2000 if single women had voted at the same rate as their married counterparts. The study, the first phase of a project designed to help get single women to the polls, showed that they...