Israeli Education Ministry Approves New ‘Whites-Only’ Settlement School

open quoteSeveral months ago, a religious school in the illegal Israeli settlement of Immanuel was criticized for segregating white Jewish students from non-white Jewish students in classes.

Originally, the school was fined for this policy of racial segregation, because the school was state funded. Now, the Israeli education ministry has agreed with the white parents’ request to allow the school to continue with its racial discrimination under private funding.close quote (Read more)

Former Army Reserve Captain Sentenced to 120 Months in Prison for Soliciting $1.3 Million in Bribes and Conspiring to Traffic Heroin

My comments below.

open quote(DoJ) – WASHINGTON – September 23, 2011 – A former captain in the U.S. Army Reserve stationed in Afghanistan was sentenced today to 120 months in prison for soliciting $1.3 million in bribes from contractors involved in U.S.-funded reconstruction efforts and participating in a conspiracy to traffic heroin from Southeast Asia.

The sentence was announced by Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Neil H. MacBride for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Sidharth Handa, 32, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Anthony J. Trenga in the Eastern District of Virginia. Handa was also ordered to pay $315,000 in restitution. Handa, of Charlotte, N.C., pleaded guilty on June 21, 2011, to soliciting and accepting bribes while serving as a public official and to conspiring to distribute a kilogram of heroin.

“Mr. Handa used his official position assisting the United States’ reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan to line his pockets,” said Assistant Attorney General Breuer. “He promised multi-million dollar contracts to Afghan businessmen in exchange for cash. He was so meticulous about collecting his bribes that he kept track of them on a spreadsheet. We will not tolerate this kind of fraud and abuse. Today’s sentence reflects the disgracefulness of Mr. Handa’s conduct.”

“This case is the largest bribery prosecution to date from our mission in Afghanistan,” said U.S. Attorney MacBride. “From the day he stepped foot in Afghanistan, Mr. Handa negotiated a staggering amount of bribes from contractors in a blatant breach of the trust our military put in him. His actions brought shame to our mission, harmed our reconstruction efforts, and defrauded American taxpayers who funded the contracts he looted.”

According to court records, Handa was stationed in Afghanistan from March through November 2008 and served as the liaison to the local governor and engineers on the Kunar Province Reconstruction Team (PRT). In that position, Handa assisted in awarding reconstruction project contracts funded by the U.S. government to local contractors through a competitive bidding process. Handa admitted that almost immediately upon his arrival in Afghanistan, he became engaged in a scheme to secure bribes from contractors who sought to secure large PRT construction projects. With the help of an Afghan interpreter, Handa typically solicited bribes equal to 10 percent of the overall contract value, though the actual bribe payment was negotiated based on the contractor’s ability to pay. The total value of bribes contractors agreed to pay amounted to $1,323,000, and Handa and the interpreter collected $315,000, which they split evenly.

Handa admitted that after leaving Afghanistan, he tried to collect over $1 million in bribe money that contractors had pledged to pay. A cooperating witness (CW) offered to help Handa collect the money, and through 2010 and early 2011 Handa provided the CW with details of outstanding bribes and other relevant facts to help secure the promised bribes. During the course of these conversations with the CW, Handa indicated that he knew people in the drug business and he and the CW developed plans to sell kilogram quantities of Southeast Asian heroin to Handa’s drug contacts.

According to court documents, on April 7, 2011, Handa met with the CW and an undercover officer in a northern Virginia hotel, where Handa received what he believed was $500,000 in collected bribe payments and acknowledged that he knew the right people to receive the kilogram of heroin the undercover officer showed him. Law enforcement arrested Handa as he was leaving the hotel with the bribe money, a loaded handgun and a spreadsheet detailing specific bribe amounts paid and outstanding.

This case was investigated jointly by member agencies of the International Contract Corruption Task Force, including the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, the FBI’s Washington Field Office and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, and also by the Drug Enforcement Administration. The case is being prosecuted by Senor Trial Attorney David Bybee of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kosta Stojilkovic and Dennis Fitzpatrick of the Eastern District of Virginia. close quote (Read more from mssparky.com)

Close to home for me. Here’s my take on the whole mission:

www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/10/e-mail-from-afghanistan/7103/

I think the whole thing is a crime and a fraud. Handa’s mistake was participating in the illegal variety of crime and fraud.

But even limiting my observation to that, my sense is that he’s just the one who got caught.

Also reported here: blogs.wsj.com/corruption-currents/2011/09/23/former-army-reserve-captain-sentenced-to-10-years-for-bribery/

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Edit: Ha! Look at the comments on mssparky.com.

Fixa says:
September 25th 2011 at 5:42 pm
I was stationed to and I think its fucked up he couldn’t hook me up with any money I think SH3 Simmons snitched on him. Karma is a bitch shouldve shared the wealth sucka.

bryan says:
September 25th 2011 at 6:59 pm

Simmon’s problably did snitch, but he Honda was always a moron. Endangering our lives, his paycheck was more than enough income to make an easy life. Sadly our society has gotten greedy and always wants more. Thank you Fixa for sharing the link, and to think Camp you lost your clearance so this ass could scrap thousands from our tax dollars.

Roman says:
September 25th 2011 at 10:19 pm

@ bryan — yeah. It sounds like they didn’t need a snitch. He might have gotten busted trying to traffic heroine, and the spreadsheet of bribes led to the PRT corruption.

The Revolt against Rationalism

open quoteThe most remarkable fact in the history of our age is the revolt against rationalism, economics, and utilitarian social philosophy; it is at the same time a revolt against freedom, democracy, and representative government. It is usual to distinguish within this movement a left wing and a right wing. The distinction is spurious. The proof is that it is impossible to classify in either of these groups the great leaders of the movement.

Was Hegel a man of the Left or of the Right? Both the left-wing and the right-wing Hegelians were undoubtedly correct in referring to Hegel as their master. Was George Sorel a Leftist or a Rightist? Both Lenin and Mussolini were his intellectual disciples. Bismarck is commonly regarded as a reactionary. But his social-security scheme is the acme of present-day progressivism. If Ferdinand Lassalle had not been the son of Jewish parents, the Nazis would call him the first German labor leader and the founder of the German socialist party, one of their greatest men. From the point of view of true liberalism, all the supporters of the conflict doctrine form one homogeneous party.

The main weapon applied by both the right- and the left-wing antiliberals is calling their adversaries names. Rationalism is called superficial and unhistoric. Utilitarianism is branded as a mean system of stockjobber ethics. In the non–Anglo-Saxon countries it is, besides, qualified as a product of British “peddler mentality” and of American “dollar philosophy.” Economics is scorned as “orthodox,” “reactionary,” “economic royalism,” and “Wall Street ideology.”

It is a sad fact that most of our contemporaries are not familiar with economics. All the great issues of present-day political controversies are economic. Even if we were to leave out of account the fundamental problem of capitalism and socialism, we must realize that the topics daily discussed on the political scene can be understood only by means of economic reasoning. But people, even the civic leaders, politicians, and editors, shun any serious occupation with economic studies. They are proud of their ignorance. They are afraid that a familiarity with economics might interfere with the naïve self-confidence and complacency with which they repeat slogans picked up by the way.close quote Read more from mises.org

The Attack on Accidental Americans

open quoteWhen Julie Veilleux discovered she was American, she went to the nearest US embassy to renounce her citizenship. Having lived in Canada since she was a young child, the 48-year-old had no idea she carried the burden of dual citizenship. But the renunciation will not clear away the past ten years of penalties with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).[1]

Born to American parents living in Canada, Kerry Knoll’s two teenaged daughters had no clue they became dual citizens at birth. (An American parent confers such status on Canadian-born children.[2] ) Now the IRS wants to grab at money they earned in Canada from summer jobs; the girls had hoped to use their RESPs (registered education savings plans) for college.[3]

The IRS is making a worldwide push to squeeze money from Americans living abroad and from anyone who holds dual citizenship, whether they know it or not. It doesn’t matter if the “duals” want US status, have never set foot on US soil, or never conducted business with an American. It doesn’t matter if those targeted owe a single cent to the IRS. Unlike almost every other nation in the world, the United States requires citizens living abroad to file tax forms on the money they do not owe as well as to report foreign bank accounts or holdings such as stocks or RSSPs. The possible penalty for not reporting is $10,000 per “disclosed asset” per year.

Thus, Americans and dual citizens living in Canada (or elsewhere) who do not disclose their local checking account — now labeled by the IRS as “an illegal offshore account” — are liable for fines that stretch back ten years and might amount to $100,000. A family, like the Knolls, in which there are two American parents and two dual-citizen children, might be collectively liable for $400,000.

Approximately 7 million Americans live abroad. According to the IRS, they received upwards of 400,000 tax returns from expatriates last year — a compliance rate of approximately 6 percent. Presumably the compliance of dual-citizen children is far lower. Customs and Immigration is now sharing information with the IRS and, should any of 94 percent expats or their accidentally American offspring set foot on US soil, they are vulnerable to arrest.

. . . .

They can renounce their American citizenship but that is an imperfect solution. For one thing, it does not immunize them from the past ten years of nonreporting. For another, following the United States’ “exit” sign takes many people directly through the Treasury Department where they may be required to pay a brutal one-time exit tax. Basically, for those with more than $2 million dollars in assets, the tax comes to $600,000.

Moreover, renunciation is a difficult process. The Globe and Mail is one of many Canadian newspapers now explaining to readers how they can renounce American citizenship. G&M states,

Renouncing your U.S. citizenship starts with a hefty fee — $450 (U.S.), just for the chance to appear in front of a consular official. Need it done in a hurry? Forget about it. It can take about two years to get an appointment.[9]

The true hope lies in a worldwide refusal to comply.close quote Read more from mises.org

Amish Men Arrested for using Reflective Tape instead of Plastic Triangles

open quoteIn Kentucky, eight Amish men were sent to jail this week (for 3 to 10 days) over their refusal to comply with a local safety regulation.

According to The Blaze, they say that the mandate, which would require them to post a bright orange triangle on their horse-drawn buggies, violates their modesty code. They use reflective tape instead, but that’s not good enough for local authorities.

Study the look on the faces of these men. It is a look you will likely see more often in America, in corners far from the modest lands of the Amish, decent men being treated as criminals for failing to follow the dictates of the ever more totalitarian state.close quote (Read more from economic policy journal)