Arrest of Pedophile Polanski Angers the Cultural Elite!

On February 13, 1977 Roman Polanski visited the residence of Samantha Gailey, a 13 year old, who lived with her mother in Woodland Hills, California.

Mr. Polanski showed Samantha a copy of Vogue Magazine and asked her if she would be interested in being photographed like the models in the magazine. Samantha indicated that she would like to photographed..

One week later Mr. Polanski returned to Samantha’s home and drove her a short distance where they parked and walked up a hill and Mr. Polanski told 13 year old Samantha Gailey to remove her shirt and bra and he took several photographs of her.

On March 10, 1977 Mr. Polanski again returned to the Gailey residence and took Samantha to a his friend Jack Nicholson’s friends house (Mr. Nicholson was away at the time) where he served her champagne and drugs and then after photographing her in the nude proceeded to have oral sex as well as vaginal and anal intercourse with the 13 year old girl.

Of course the 43 year old Mr. Polanski asked Samantha not to mention their illicit activities to her mother but you know that she did.

Polanski was arrested shortly thereafter and charged with six criminal counts:

1. rape of a minor

2. rape by use of a drug

3. committing a lewd act upon a person less than 14 years of age

4. oral copulation

5. Sodomy

6. furnishing drugs to a minor

The director pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse in 1978 with a 13-year-old girl. Prior to sentencing he had served 42 days but then he learned that the judge might reject the plea bargain and on the day of his sentencing in 1978, aware the judge might  sentence him to more prison time, Polanski fled to France. He has never been back to the United States since.

With Polanski’s recent arrest in Switzerland the French cultural intelligentsia and our Hollywood elite are now crying foul, arguing that is unfair to now attempt to bring this 76 year old man man to justice for a crime that is over 30 years old.

Right here at home, Tom O'Neill, the senior editor of In Touch Weekly. On September 28, during a CNN interview, O'Neill first claimed that Polanski "seduced" the young girl when it's obvious after reading her grand jury testimony that she was raped. Also, during that same interview, O'Neil argued that Polanski shouldn't be extradited to the U.S. for a trial, saying:

“It's mind boggling why they're still pursuing this. I thought back in 2003 this was pretty much resolved when he was trying to get to Hollywood for the Oscars; his, uh, victim publicly went on Larry King and forgave him. It looked like a deal may have even been worked out with the courts behind the scenes, but he didn't pursue it. Then in 2005 an international warrant for his arrest was issued, which is different than just an American-based one. And we found out this case is still going on. And now this arrest at, uh, Zurich. It just seems that the prosecutors in Los Angeles won't let go these many years later.”

O'Neill, immersed in the world of celebrity gossip, can't believe the law would hold a celebrity to the same standards as regular people. But Polanski is finally facing the consequences of raping a young girl. All his fame, his Oscars and his wealth don't override the law. Nor do the intervening decades or his victim's reported forgiveness.

Peter J. Mahon

NY TIMES Blames Slow Coverage of ACORN on "Insufficient Tuned-In-Ness"

On September 26, 2009, Clark Hoyt, the Public Editor for the New York Times published a piece entitled Tuning In Too Late, in which the public editor attempts to explains the paper's failure to pick up and report on the ACORN controvesry that stated with the release of the first of several undercover videos by Mr. James O'Keefe and his partner, Hannah Giles.

Mr. Clark wrote that:

"It was an intriguing story: employees of a controversial outfit, long criticized by Republicans as corrupt, appearing to engage in outrageous, if not illegal, behavior. An Acorn worker in Baltimore was shown telling the “prostitute” that she could describe herself to tax authorities as an “independent artist” and claim 15-year-old prostitutes, supposedly illegal immigrants, as dependents.

But for days, as more videos were posted and government authorities rushed to distance themselves from Acorn, The Times stood still. Its slow reflexes — closely following its slow response to a controversy that forced the resignation of Van Jones, a White House adviser — suggested that it has trouble dealing with stories arising from the polemical world of talk radio, cable television and partisan blogs. Some stories, lacking facts, never catch fire. But others do, and a newspaper like The Times needs to be alert to them or wind up looking clueless or, worse, partisan itself.

Jill Abramson, the managing editor for news, agreed with me that the paper was “slow off the mark,” and blamed “insufficient tuned-in-ness to the issues that are dominating Fox News and talk radio.” She and Bill Keller, the executive editor, said last week that they would now assign an editor to monitor opinion media and brief them frequently on bubbling controversies."

"Insufficient Tuned-In-Ness"? 

What the hell is that -  another politically correct NY Times definition to explain the Old Gray Lady's complete lack of journalistic integrity and ethics?

And now the NY Times has assigned  "...an editor to monitor opinion media and brief them frequently on bubbling controversies."    What does that mean, having somebody sitting in front of a television watching the Fox News Channel and monitoring the Drudge Report on their computer?

At first glance, Mr. Clark's piece appears to be a sincere mea-culpa for the paper's obvious failures to provide coverage of those stories which may reflect badly on their liberal progressive friends, but it will take much more than some printed words in a column by the paper's public editor and a promise to start watching and reading other news sites to save this lethargic aging elephant which is quickly stumbling towards the tar pits of irrelevancy.

Peter J. Mahon

Jay Leno and ACORN

Congress and ACORN

As much as I would like to extend my appreciation to Congress for its recent  in attempting to stop federal funding of the ACORN disgrace I cannot.

If it were not for the widespread, non mainstream media, coverage this organization has received as a result of the O'Keefe and Giles videos, nothing would have been done.

This widespread antipathy towards transgression on the part of the liberal left is made apparent by the fact that the United States House of Representatives Committee on Government Oversight and Reform issued a staff report entitled “Is ACORN Intentionally Structured as a Criminal Enterprise?” on July 23, 2009.

In the reports executive summary, the Committee states:

“The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) has repeatedly and deliberately engaged in systemic fraud. Both structurally and operationally, ACORN hides behind a paper wall of non-profit corporate protections to conceal a criminal conspiracy on the part of its Directors, to launder federal money in order to pursue a partisan political agenda and to manipulate the American electorate."

The report cites five documented instances of criminal activity on the part of ACORN.

First:

ACORN has evaded taxes, obstructed justice, engaged in self dealing, and aided and abetted a cover up of embezzlement by Dale Rathke, the brother of ACORN founder Wade Rathke.

Second:

ACORN has committed investment fraud, deprived the public of its right to honest services and engaged in a racketeering enterprise affecting interstate commerce.

Third:

ACORN has committed a conspiracy to defraud the United States by using taxpayer funds for partisan political activities.

Fourth:

ACORN has submitted false filings to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Department of Labor in addition to violating the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

Fifth:

ACORN falsified and concealed facts concerning an illegal transaction between related parties in violation of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA).

Now keep in mind that this Congressional report was issued prior to the release of the recent ACORN videos by James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles.

In light of the damning information contained in this report which was prepared by Congress – I am at a loss to exlain that organizations inactions. What the hell were they waiting for?

This is what drives me nuts. Our elected representatives document the corruption within the ACORN organization, issue a report on it, and then they sit back on their political butts and allow our tax dollars to continue to flow into this criminal enterprise doing nothing about it until James O'Keefe buys a pair of ridiculously oversized sunglasses and borrows his grandmothers fur jacket and his partner, Hannah Giles, wears "short-shorts" and both of them go and knock on ACORN office doors.

For those of you interested in reading the entire Congressional report you can link to it below.

Peter J. Mahon

Kanye West: Idiot, Racist, or perhaps both?

I am sure that most of you have seen the video of last week at MTV’s Video Music Awards show,where rapper/song artist Kanye West interrupted Country Singer Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech for best video by grabbing the microphone from her hand an announcing to the crowd that singer Beyonce actually had the best video!

What you probably didn’t see or hear was West’s outburst back stage when Taylor Swift was announced as the winner. (See video below.)



Sure, he was roundly criticized in the media, but we’re in an age when hidden motivations are attributed to every interracial interaction, so it’s interesting that few dared to discuss a racial angle to the Kanye West/Taylor Swift confrontation.

Now this is the same Kanye West who back in 2006 was being interviewed by Mike Meyers for a Katrina benefit stated that the National Guard troops assisting the hurricane victims “were given permission to shoot the people”, and that “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” (see video below)




OK, I've set the stage so now I am going to ask you all to imagine for a momenet that this incident took place with the racial roles reversed....

It’s the Country Music Awards. A black female performer is accepting her first-ever award. She’s happy and a bit surprised; her style of music doesn’t usually win Country Music Awards. Halfway through her emotional acceptance speech, a white male country music singer who had previously stated that President Obama doesn’t care about white people gets drunk, start screaming give a white a chance and then runs up on stage, grabs the microphone from her, and announces that another woman should have won, a white woman–a “real” country singer–instead of the underdog black woman.

Do you think the mainstream media would have reported the story differently?

I sure as hell do!

The New York Times and Maureen Dowd would have been screaming about all the red neck, NASCAR loving, gun toting, bible hugging, racist hillbilly's at the awards and that this racist outburst was indicative of the nation's conservative racist views towards their new black President and his policies.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that Kanye West is a racist, although he is an idiot, but my point is that the liberal left and their accomplices in the mainsteam media as well as our former Presidient Jimmy Carter, will abandon rational discourse and resort to the playing race card when it furthers their own political agendas.

Peter J. Mahon

U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Funded ACORN

It was several years ago when Bishop Nicolas Nicholas DiMarzio of the Archdiocese of Brooklyn and his Vicar of Education, Monsignor Michael J. Hardiman, ordered the closure of our little wooden school house on Noel Road, the Saint Virgilius Parish School here in Broad Channel.

Even though a small group of concerned student parents had worked tirelessly and had actually managed to initially avoid closure for one school year by financing the school’s operating expenses themselves, Bishop DiMarzio nonetheless finally closed the school citing “a dwindling student enrollment and accompanying diocese budget constraints” as the cause of death for our small town’s school.

Although the closure of our Saint Virgilius Parish School by the Bishop was a hard pill to swallow, I have, until now, accepted the Bishop’s explanation that the Catholic Church was facing difficult economic times regarding a dwindling Catholic school enrollment and that the Church had to manage its funds frugally.

As I was researching the 2008 voter registration fraud allegations surrounding ACORN I found that the Catholic Church had been funneling millions of dollars in donations to ACORN for years until 2008 when the donations were stopped because of the notoriety ACORN was receiving regarding voter fraud and embezzlement.

For a long time, Catholics attending Mass the Sunday after Thanksgiving have been met with a second offertory collection for the “Catholic Campaign for Human Development” (CCHD). This is an arm of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), essentially a trade association for the 200 or so diocesan bishops in the U.S.

This collection is divided so that 25% of funds go to the local, diocesan CCHD offfice, and the other 75% are kicked upstairs to the head CCHD office at the USCCB. So, the local bishop has a profit-sharing incentive to push the collection. Parish pastors, even if they’re uncomfortable with where CCHD monies ultimately end up, don’t feel as if they can ruffle feathers with their boss to whom they have pledged a lifetime of obedience, the bishop. As it turns out, CCHD officials were funding ACORN with these contributions.

According to Ralph McCloud, executive director of CCHD, the U.S. Bishops' domestic anti-poverty and social justice program. CCHD funding was suspended for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, popularly known as ACORN, in 2008, because of ACORN’s financial irregularities. The suspension covered all 40 ACORN affiliates nationwide that had been approved for $1.13 million in grants for the funding cycle that started July 1, 2008.

McCloud said the 2008 suspension came soon after his office learned that ACORN disclosed that Dale Rathke, the brother of ACORN founder Wade Rathke, had embezzled nearly $1 million from the organization and its affiliates in 1999 and 2000. Dale Rathke stepped down from his position with the organization in June when the matter became public; no charges were filed against him. Wade Rathke stepped down as the group's lead organizer at the same time but remains chief organizer for ACORN International LLC.

McCloud released information showing that CCHD funded more than 320 ACORN projects with grants totaling more than $7.3 million during the last 10 years. He said the community organization also had received funds since early in CCHD's history.

To sum this up, it appears that the Catholic Church was using parishioners donations to their drive to fund a group (ACORN) which then used that money to commit voter fraud with the inetent of electing liberal, left wing, pro-abortion candidates.

The only thing good I have to say about the Catholic Church in this matter is that, unlike our elected representatives in Congress, the Church immediately discerned the proverbial writing on the wall and quietly severed ties to ACORN last year when it first became clear that the organization was a criminal enterprise.

Nonetheless, the image of Bishop DiMarzio closing St. Virgilius with his right hand while donating parish contributions to ACORN via CCHD with his left is one that will be with me for a long time.

Itt is hard to wrap yur head around the extent to which ACORN has embedded itself into the very fabric of our society but I certainly was not expecting the Catholic Church to surface as a financial enabler of this criminal organization.

Peter J. Mahon

Oh Those Rascally Liberals!

Earlier this week MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow asked her guest, Frank Schaeffer, “Do you think that calling the president a Nazi, calling the president Hitler is an implicit call for politically motivated violence?...Is there a coded message in these type of protests to incite violence against the President?”

Mr. Schaeffer responded by stating…

“Yes I do…I honestly think that there is a type of white, middle aged American male who has had a kind of mental collapse. Misinformed, right wing, white people. Not terribly bright people. There is a coded message here. And their coded message to their own lunatic fringe is very simple. And that is go for broke. When you start comparing a democratically elected President, who is not only our first black President, but a moderate progressive to Adolph Hitler you have arrived at a point where you are literally leaving a loaded gin on the table and saying the first person who comes along and wants to use this go ahead, be our guest! Now all these people, when something bad happens will raise their holy hands in horror and say of course we didn’t mean that. We were just talking about being American, because its American to protest. BS…they know exactly what’s out there..now we haev crossed a a line where hate and vitriol has gone to a point where it is anti-democratic and un-American. These people do not want America to succeed. They want to see our system go down rather than have a President, someone with different political views. And we have arrived at a point where enough is enough. These people are hate mongers, leaving a loaded gun on a table. They’re calling our President Hitler. They’re spreading this rhetoric. They’re spreading these lies. It isn’t a question of being bad journalists anymore, these are bad Americans and they are putting us all at risk.”

With this in mind, Paul Williams created a marvelous video essay using the audio of Maddow's program that day with an overlay of pictures and footage of demonstrations when George W. Bush was president. The result is an extraordinarily powerful demonstration of how hypocritical the current liberal media position is concerning this matter .

Now, I want all of you white, middle aged, mentally collapsed, holy handed, not terribly bright, anti-democratic, hate mongers to enjoy Paul Wliiams’ video below.

Peter J. Mahon

I Can Fly - You Can't!

Sometimes movies can be quite educational. In the case of the docu-drama, The Age of Stupid, we learned quite a lot but not about global warming which the producers intended. Instead we got quite an education at the movie's premiere which gave us a front row seat into blatant liberal hypocrisy.

Despite the fact that this film attacks the idea of flying in airplanes because the producers believe that air travel is the worst contributor to global warming, guess how most of the promoters and producers of this film arrived at the Manhattan premiere?

The answer is wonderfully provided in this video featuring Phelim McAleer.

Peter J. Mahon

Harry Reid: Don't bother me about ACORN, I'm busy!

Despite all this evidence and a request in writing by 28 GOP senators -- and despite the fact the U.S. Senate voted 83-7 on Sept. 14 to block ACORN from bidding for any more federal grant money -- Senate Democrat Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is refusing to hold a Senate hearing on ACORN's activities.

Mr. Reid stated additional investigations might distract lawmakers from addressing more important matters, including health care and economic recovery.

[Note - translation of Harry Reid's Political Speak: "If we ignore the ACORN issue long enough, hopefully it will go away!"]

Of course Good Old Harry is fully suportive of the Attorney General's criminal investigation of the CIA regarding the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" on those terrorists hell bent on destroying our country even though the prsent and six former CIA heads have strongly recommended the investigation be dropped for easons of national security.

Atta boy Harry! You make me proud to be an American.

Peter J. Mahon

Partisan Switchboard?

Let’s say you want to call your Congressman or Senator in Washington D.C. to express your opinion on a political issue of interest to you.

No problem. You can simply call 1-800-828-0496 which is the main switchboard number for the entire Congress, the Senate and the House of Representatives and asked to be connected to your elected official’s office.

The last thing you should be expecting is to call this number and receive a partisan message supporting a proposed political policy that is currently being debated across the nation, right?

Unfortunately, prior to being transferred to an operator, all callers to this general number receive the following message.

“Thank you for calling your Representatives and Senators, Please urge them to vote YES on Health Insurance Reform, because the American people can no longer wait for more choices, lower costs and coverage we can count on.”

Keep in mind that this is the phone number for all of Congress, not an some partisan activist's number to promote policy.

I wonder how many citizens may have called their elected officials using this number to urge their representative or senator to vote against the present health care policy being pushed by President Obama and then hung up in disgust upon hearing this partisan message in support of same. If you are hearing this message before even speaking to your representative, you have to figure you are simply wasting your time.

If the Republicans had used a similar message to push for Social Security reform during the previous administration, the mainstream media would have been screaming to the high heavens decrying the violation of the non-partisan requirement regarding the use of federal (taxpayer) funds!

Of course that was then and this is now. You won’t hear a thing about this misuse of federal funds from our liberal media.

This Health Care promotional message has been on the Congressional switchboard for several days now; however, I expect it will be quietly removed before the weekend is over.

(Note: I called this number this morning at 6:30 am and, after listening to this partisan advertisement, I left a message for Congressman Anthony Weiner and Senators Chuck Schumer and Kristin Gillibrand asking for an explanation as to how this message came to be posted on the Congressional main switchboard with an accompanying request that they remove it immediately.)

Peter J. Mahon

Obama's Health Care...Buy it Or Else!

Did you know that under the President’s Health Care Plan you will be required to purchase health insurance. Further, should you fail to purchase the insurance you will be fined and could actually go to jail.

Critics of the plan (including myself) argue that legislation requiring fines for failure to purchase health care is just a pretense of adding yet another tax on the American people. After all, a “tax” is defined as "a charge, usually of money, imposed by authority on persons or property for public purposes."

This past Sunday on during an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos the President was asked, “Under this mandate, the government is forcing people to spend money, fining you if you don't. How is that not a tax?” Obama responded,

“No. That's not true, George. The -- for us to say that you've got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. What it's saying is, is that we're not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore than the fact that right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance. Nobody considers that a tax increase…. My critics say everything is a tax increase. My critics say that I'm taking over every sector of the economy. You know that.”

Stephanopoulos concluded by asking, “…But you reject that it's a tax increase?” and Obama responded. “I absolutely reject that notion.”

Later during the week on Thursday, Thomas Batrthold, the Chief of Staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation told Senator John Ensign of Nevada that Americans who fail to pay the penalty for not buying insurance would face legal action from the Internal Revenue Service. Barthold said the IRS would "take you to court and undertake normal collection proceedings" to collect the individual mandate penalty which could cost as much as $1,900.

Senator Ensign asked Mr. Narthold if he could be more specific about the IRS’s involvement in this health insurance penalty. Shortly therafter Mr. Barthold provided Senator Ensign with the below signed, handwritten note on letterhead from the Joint Committee on Taxation of the Congress of the United States.

Dear Senator Ensign,

Sec 7203 of the code provides that if there is a willful failure to file, pay, maintain appropriate rcords and the like that the taxpayer may be charfed with a misdemeanor with a penalty of up to $25,000 and not more than year in jail. Felony tax evasion provides for restitution and a fine of up to $100,000 for an individual and up to five years in jail.

Sincerely,

Thomas A, Barthold

This is one reason why President Obama is rapidly losing his credibility with the American people.

You remember the American people don’t you, they’re those “misinformed, right wing, not terribly bright white people.”
Obama appears on every television show that will have him to push his health care policy and when asked if this penalty actually constitutes yet another new tax, he looks at the cameras with a straight face and states “I absolutely reject that notion”, yet at the same time he has charged the IRS as the collection agent for assessed penalties for those Americans who choose not to purchase health Care?

Not to mention the fact that the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, is doing her best to ram this health care bill through the Congress for a vote as quickly as possible. That way, by the time we all actually discover what's hidden in the midst of this massive bill, it will be too late to do anything about.
I am still attemting to read the entire house version of their health care plan but it is becoming almost imossible as now many members of congress are trying their add their individual member items ("pork") to the bill which makes the task ornerous.

Peter J. Mahon

Making New Friends and Influencing Dictators!

Although you wouldn't know it from reading the NY Times, during his long-winded speech to the United Nations on Wednesday, Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi proclaimed...

"We are content and happy if Obama can stay forever as the president of the United States of America...The American presidents used to say to us, they shall terrorize us....What our son Obama said is completely different today."

"Our son Obama?" I'm not touching that one!

The NY Times also forgot to mention another new friend who popped up at the United Nations the other day...

In a rambling speech this past Wednesday at the U.N. General Assembly, Venezulean Dictator Hugo Chavez spoke highly of current President Obama, saying he is an "intelligent man" and comparing him to President John F. Kennedy.

"I hope God will protect Obama from the bullets that killed Kennedy," he said. "I hope Obama will be able to look and see, genuinely see, what has to be seen and bring about a change."

Three years ago, Chavez spoke at the gathering the day after Bush spoke, and said the lectern "still smells of sulfur.", comparing the Presdent of the United States to Satan.

But on Thursday he looked around the podium and said, "It doesn't smell of sulfur. It's gone. No, it smells of something else. It smells of hope."

So Hugo, if Bush was Satan than I guess Obama is ....

Nahhhhh! I'm not gonna touch that on either!

Let's be optimistic! I guess our administration is making new friends across the globe after all!

Nevetheless, I am always reminded of my mother's constant admonition - "With friends like these, you don't need any enemies."

Peter J. Mahon