truesee's Blog

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/01/what-a-week-the-walnut-shrimp-edition.html

Mailman 'clipped' coupons

Stole & sold 'em: cops

 

SELIM ALGAR

Last Updated: 6:51 AM, January 29, 2011

Posted: 1:02 AM, January 29, 2011

 

Citing pressure from an impending foreclosure, a Queens postal worker stole thousands of retail-store coupons before they were mailed out -- and sold them at a discount on eBay, cops said yesterday.

Thomas Tang, 38, of Baldwin, Long Island, allegedly pilfered more than 7,000 coupons from JCPenney, Kohl's and Lowe's and sold them in batches on the Internet auction site.

Working out of the Corona branch, Tang told investigators that he netted roughly $35,000 from the sale of JCPenney coupons between October 2009 and January of this year.

The father of two advertised batches of mailers that offered $10 dollars off JCPenney merchandise and sold them at steep discounts online, according to court papers. Authorities are investigating how much he netted from the similar sale of other store coupons from outlets like Kohl's and Lowe's.

Dennis Clark

ROUTE & WRONG: Queens postman Thomas Tang allegedly hoarded coupons (left) he was supposed to deliver on his route.

"I have two small children, and my wife is pregnant," he told cops, according to court documents. "I also have a mortgage, and I have to pay cash for my chil dren's baby sitter. I did not want this to happen, but it was the only way I could avoid having my house fore closed on."

With his tearful wife looking on, the 13-year veteran of the postal service pleaded not guilty yesterday to felony grand larceny and was held on $10,000 bail.

"I just got back from the hospital," his wife said as she left court. "I'm really tired right now. I can't say anything."

Nassau police busted Tang after being approached by JCPenney loss-prevention officials and postal-service investigators, who uncovered his unusual scheme.

Tang, who allegedly pilfered coupons from the Corona office and stacks he dispersed on his route, told investigators that he sold them through his wife's eBay account but that she was ignorant of the crime.

His lawyer, Robert Parker, said at his arraignment that Tang had a spotless record prior to his arrest. "I'm not going to minimize it," he said of the scheme, ". . . but it's certainly not your typical crime."

Parker added that Tang never tampered with first-class mail.

But prosecutor Matthew Lafargue asked the judge for substantial bail and said that stealing from a federal institution and profiting from the proceeds was a serious felony offense.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/queens/mailman_clipped_coupons_gaxEtlqyggJqIq1pVvu3dK#ixzz1COzumk4y

http://www.ajc.com/business/in-future-cars-might-819065.html

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/0104/Could-you-pass-a-US-citizenship-test/Who-signs-bills

Tuition breaks for illegal immigrants? Montgomery College faces lawsuit.

 

Montgomery College recently formalized a policy of granting its lowest tuition rates to a group that includes some undocumented students. A lawsuit claims the policy violates federal and state laws.

 

Stacy Teicher Khadaroo 

Christian Science Monitor 

Staff writer

January 28, 2011

 

Montgomery College in Maryland is the latest stage for the wider debate over tuition breaks for illegals  The community college recently formalized a longstanding policy of granting its lowest tuition rates to anyone who has graduated from a Montgomery County high school in the past three years. It does not require proof of legal residency.

A lawsuit filed on behalf of county taxpayers this week claims the policy violates federal and state laws that disallow various benefits for illegal aliens.

Supporters of the college’s policy say there’s no good basis for the lawsuit. Helping undocumented high school graduates afford higher education, they say, provides both social and economic benefits to the county.

The federal DREAM Act, which didn’t make it to the finish line in Congress last year, would have created a path to citizenship for students brought to the United States illegally as minors if they met certain criteria. Instead, such students are subject to a wide variety of state laws on enrollment and tuition at public colleges.

Ten states have laws extending in-state tuition benefits to undocumented students – California, Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wisconsin. An 11th, Oklahoma, allows its university system’s governing board to do so, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL).

Three states ban in-state tuition for such students – Arizona, Colorado, and Georgia. And South Carolina bans illegal immigrants from enrolling altogether at public colleges and universities.

In a typical year, 30 to 50 bills on either side of the tuition issue are introduced in the states, says Brenda Bautsch, an NCSL education-policy specialist in Denver.

Already this year, lawmakers in California, Nebraska, and Oklahoma have launched efforts to repeal tuition-break laws.

In Maryland, lawmakers have been squaring off. Democratic state Sens. Victor Ramirez and Richard Madaleno are proposing to make some undocumented students eligible for tuition benefits. Republican Patrick McDonough, a Maryland state delegate who encouraged the suit against Montgomery College, is proposing ways to tighten immigration enforcement.

The lawsuit against Montgomery College “is a political maneuver to flare tensions around the topic of immigration, and it has really struck a chord,” says Rosa Lozano, a graduate of the college and a youth organizer who supports the DREAM Act. She hopes the lawsuit will just “push people who felt they were neutral to really stand in support of in-state tuition this year.”

Even without broader measures that would help these students pursue careers once they graduate, she says, access to college is important because “young people who see that they have a future are less likely to fall into the pitfalls of teen pregnancy, drug abuse, or gang violence.”

But opponents of tuition benefits see it differently. Such benefits are part of a broader problem of states and institutions “putting giant welcome signs over their communities” for illegal immigrants, says Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group that filed the Montgomery lawsuit on behalf of several local taxpayers.

The lawsuit, filed Jan. 20 in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County, alleges that by granting in-county tuition rates to students who do not show legal residency, the college lost $5.8 million dollars it should have collected from those students between 2006 and 2009 – money that could have been used to offset state and county taxpayer expenditures.

In a statement this week, Montgomery College countered that the complaint “contains various misrepresentations about College operations and misapplications of law.” The college, which has multiple campuses where about 60,000 students are enrolled a year, defended itself as a contributor to the local economy, not a drain on it.

A 1996 federal immigration law says illegal aliens cannot gain higher-education benefits “on the basis of residence” unless such benefits are also extended to US citizens. States that have passed tuition-benefits laws say they are based on high school attendance or graduation, not residence. Opponents of such laws say that’s a de facto form of residency and therefore violate the federal law.

A recent California Supreme Court ruling upheld California’s in-state tuition benefit for undocumented students. Although other state courts could rule differently, it’s the highest-level court decision on the issue so far. “It could give more confidence to states instituting such laws,” says Ms. Bautsch of NCSL.

Murder, extortion? No, Waterfront Commission probing theft of $2 dollar bottle of iced tea, sausage

 

 

 

 

A suspect swiped a $2 bottle of iced tea and used it to wash down a stolen piece of sausage.

On the mobbed-up docks of Bayonne the six-month probe was known as Operation Missing Link.

Its target: A suspect who swiped a $2 bottle of iced tea and used it to wash down a stolen 50-cent piece of sausage - the lost link that left a bad taste in everybody's mouth, sources told the Daily News.

An investigation of the penny-ante heist was ordered by the Waterfront Commission, the agency charged with policing the docks for mob corruption, drug smuggling and other major crimes, the sources said.

The investigation included scores of interviews over countless hours dating to last August, sources said - even though the victim was reluctant to press charges.

"It's like Capt. Queeg and the strawberries," said New Jersey state Sen. Raymond Lesniak, a harsh critic of the bistate commission.

"It's a $2.50 ongoing investigation."

One of the sources was more blunt: "The whole investigation is bull----. It's a waste of manpower, money and resources."

Waterfront Commission General Counsel Phoebe Soriel, while declining to address specifics, said the case was more complex than it appeared.

"While the commission does not comment on pending investigations, it takes any theft in the port seriously - especially theft involving extortion," she said without going into detail.

The reported value of the stolen goods - a handful of change - is a microfraction of the $200 billion that moves annually through the ports of New York and New Jersey.

The overkill began when the commission received an anonymous tip that someone filched the drink and the sausage from a food truck catering to dock workers.

According to two sources, the case was quickly wrapped up: The thief confessed to the crime, and the victim said an arrest was unnecessary.

The victim "didn't want to see him behind bars...just wanted him to stop," one source said.

But top commission officials, convinced its investigators mishandled the case, ordered a second probe with every possible witness reinterviewed, the sources said.

Investigators from the 58-year-old agency returned to the docks and conducted about 80 second interviews, all the while cranking out piles of paperwork, the sources said.

The commission was blasted in August 2009 - one year before the sausage investigation was launched - as home to corrupt execs barely better than the waterfront's notorious mobsters.

Officials were accused in a ing 60-page report of misusing Homeland Security money, keeping a convicted crook in business and surfing the Internet for porn.

The iced-tea-and-sausage probe - which has yet to wrap up - is considered an embarrassment among investigators and dock workers.

"They snicker about it," one of the sources said.

WARNING

 

"EXTREMELY GRAPHIC"

 

 

 

LINK TO VIDEO:

http://www.freep.com/article/20110129/NEWS01/101290414/Detroit-police-release-video-ambush-station?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

WARNING

 

VIDEO IS VERY GRAPHIC

 

 

LINK TO STORY AND VIDEO:

http://www.wbal.com/absolutenm/templates/story.aspx?articleid=66532&zoneid=2

Americans won't buy the tea party's free market snake oil

 

11:30 AM EST, January 26, 2011

 

 

In the topsy-turvy, Alice-in-Wonderland alternative universe of the tea party and its Republican toadies, small-government and free-market economic policy will save the nation from disaster. In fact, as thinking Americans know full well, the current economic crisis is largely due to the unmitigated greed of Wall Street banks and American homeowners, abetted for years by the "free market" nonsense that Reps. Paul Ryan and Michelle Bachmann continue to foist on the public. When the history of this era is written, it will be clear that the Obama administration's aggressive action saved the nation from a fate far worse than the current recession.

 

B. Krueger

Ellicott City, Maryland 

 

The Baltimore Sun

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2011-01-28-egypt-unrest_N.htm

Man arrested more than 250 times is in custody again

Suspect accused of criminal trespass at O'Hare

Chicago Tribune 

8:05 PM CST, January 27, 2011

Sam Stein

Huffington Post

Jay Carney To Be Next White House Press Secretary

 

First Posted: 01/27/11 03:27 PM  Updated: 01/27/11 05:58 PM

 

Jay Carney, Vice President Joe Biden's top spokesman, is taking over the post of White House Press Secretary, multiple Democratic sources confirmed to The Huffington Post.

Carney will be taking over the position being vacated by Robert Gibbs at a time when much of the original inner Obama circle is either leaving the White House or heading to Chicago to help with the re-election campaign.

CNN's Ed Henry first reported the news.

Carney was chosen from a candidate pool of roughly five, including several current members of the White House's communications team. One of those individuals, former DNC Communications Director Karen Finney (a paid contributor to MSNBC) praised the decision. "Jay will be great, he's well respected, in addition to his background as a journalist, his work with the Vice President on domestic and foreign policy issues will be a huge asset," she said.

In private, it was widely expected that Carney would end up at the post.

The choice caused a bit of rancor. Carney, who is known as being a bit more brass-knuckled than Gibbs and the other contenders, is, nevertheless, a creature of D.C., having previously served as TIME magazine's Washington bureau chief. In that regard, he is no different than many of the other administration hires. But that was still enough to cause some eye rolls.

"Most of us thought that hiring someone from the outside was likely 'too much' change," said one top Democratic strategist.

From the C-SPAN archives comes this 2006 quote from Carney -- then the Washington bureau chief of Time Magazine -- discussing the difficulties of the position he is set to assume.

"The best press secretaries were very deft at serving both their boss, the president, the White House, the administration, and the press. It's a tricky job. I'm sure I wouldn't be any good at it."

UPDATE: White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley sent the following email to staffers announcing Carney's new position, as well as thirteen other people taking on new roles:

Today, I am pleased to announce a number of important White House personnel decisions. I believe these decisions will bring greater clarity to our structure and roles and will enhance coordination and collaboration among us. I am excited about these changes and I look forward to working with all of you - those in existing roles as well as those filling new roles - in the weeks and months ahead. We have a great team.

I want to thank Pete Rouse for his counsel and leadership in this effort. My mission is to get the most out of the great talent that President Obama has brought to the White House so that we can all help him effectively serve and lead the American people.

Below are the names and titles of those assuming new roles:

- Ron Bloom, Assistant to the President for Manufacturing Policy (National Economic Council)

- Jay Carney, Assistant to the President and Press Secretary

- Stephanie Cutter, Assistant to the President and Deputy Senior Advisor

- Nancy-Ann DeParle, Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy

- David Lane, Assistant to the President and Counselor to the Chief of Staff

- Alyssa Mastromonaco, Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations

- Rob Nabors, Assistant to the President and Director of Legislative Affairs

- Emmett Beliveau, Deputy Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff to the Chief of Staff

- Jon Carson, Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of the Office of Public Engagement

- Danielle Crutchfield, Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Scheduling and Advance

- David Cusack, Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Advance

- Mike Strautmanis, Deputy Assistant to the President and Counselor for Strategic Engagement to the Senior Advisor

- Jessica Wright, Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Scheduling

- Brian Deese, Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of the National Economic Council

Some of you may have heard that Phil Schiliro's intention was to leave the White House at the end of the last Congress. Phil has made extraordinary contributions to the President's success, and I've asked him to slow his departure in order to lend his wise counsel and guidance in the transition period ahead.

I am looking forward to collaborating with all of you. Effective collaboration requires a clear understanding of roles and responsibilities, so that we can hold each other accountable for the duties we've each undertaken. In coming days, I hope to clarify further the roles each of our offices needs to play, so we can continue to work together in the highly productive way the that we must.

I want to thank each of you for your hard work and for your commitment to serving the President and American people. We've got a lot of important work ahead of us.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/2011/01/ronald-reagan-true-believer-who-caught-destinys-eye

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/galleries/american_idol_where_are_they_now/american_idol_where_are_they_now.html