Everybody Wants to Be a Soprano

I didn't think $10,000 could buy that much these days, but I guess I was wrong.

Troopergate et al in Wasila, Blagojevich gets caught selling a Senate seat, Sanford is busted hypocritically lying about an affair, California goes bankrupt trying to please every special interest around, now it's New Jersey's turn for a black eye.

The surprising thing is not that several mayors and state officials were guilty of rampant corruption--I'm no babe in the suburbs here--and not even that they had the rare luck to get caught and indicted for it, but rather that we are talking about such paltry sums.

Ten grand? I know those piles start to add up (I hear), but still...bold. And stupid. Congratulations, assholes!


My two favorite parts of the story:

Levy-Izhak Rosenbaum of Brooklyn, was accused of enticing vulnerable people to give up a kidney for $10,000 and then selling the organ for $160,000.

Is 'ten grand' some kind of religious hocus pocus that gets people to do anything a rabbi wants him to? Who the hell would sell a kidney for $10,000? How often did this work? Why am I not in this line of work?

Also:

The timing of the investigation dovetails with the timing of bank fraud charges against Solomon Dwek, son of the founders of the Deal Yeshiva, a religious school that teaches children in the Sephardic Jewish tradition. Mr. Dwek passed a $25 million bad check at a PNC Bank branch in 2006, according to The Asbury Park Press.

What? Who the hell tries to pass off a bad check for TWENTY-FIVE MILLION dollars? How does one find the courage to attempt such a daring feat?

"No, don't worry about it--it's reverse psychology, man--it's SO much money that they will be LESS suspicious than if it's just for some little skidmark like $10,000. Cuz, like, who would ever have the balls for such a thing? Right? Trust me."
"Well, okay--but we should definitely have the rabbi take it in, just to be safe, so we can have religion on our side..."
"Oh, of course--I was thinking the same thing."

The next day, at a PNC Bank in the ghetto...

"Alright, I just need to call in to check on this and then we'll be all set."
"Oh, you don't need to call it in--it's real."
"We're talking about $25 million here--I need to check with the account holder."
"Come on, you can trust me--I'm a rabbi!"
"I don't trust anybody--I'm a banker. Excuse me."

Ha, ha, ha--what an idiot, right? It's good to laugh.


And it's okay, too, because--as the article notes three times--the Jews involved were not the average, everyday Jews you know and love, the kind that only go to temple for high holidays and often remind you of the Holocaust neither of you were around for, but never of the fact that their unnecessary (and not universally beloved) land theft to create Israel is one of the main reasons the United States/Nations is involved in an endless war on terrorism; the kind that it is NOT okay to have a laugh at, ever, in light of their eternal suffering, yadda yadda.

These were Syrian Jews, so, you know, they might as well be straight-up towelheads, right? Where is Syria on a map, right? No big surprise to John Q. Public that they are a corrupt and devious fringe branch of the Jewish faith--the shock is the absence of a sensational, Rove/Cheney/Murdoch-planted mention of a potential link to Al-Qaeda in the article.


In other news, a Catholic priest just confessed to raping 1000 little boys over the last 40 years and repeatedly lying about it in court. He was sentenced to ten Hail Marys and transferred to a different parish to end his days in peace and pleasure.

Thank God for confession, right? Heaven will be so sweet...

_