Thank You for Donating to Air America!

Hello Thinkers!

I wish I could take credit for the following gem of wisdom, but I cannot - and I honestly cannot remember where I heard it from, but here it is. As a general rule, when you spend your money on yourself, you watch how much you spend and how effectively you spend it (a.k.a. getting your money's worth). When you spend someone else's money on yourself, you care less about how much you spend, but you want to be sure it is spent effectively. When you spend your money on somebody else, you care more about how much you spend and less about how effectively it is spent (just hang on to the receipt in case they don't like it). But when you spend someone else's money on somebody other than you, you care neither about how much you spend, nor how effectively it is spent.

Why the prologue? It helps explain in plain English why I cannot stand tax-and-spend liberals and their socialist agenda. The latest spectacle of hypocrisy comes courtesy of the liberal talk radio network Air America and the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club. I love stories like this. This one was highlighted on Michelle Malkin's blog.

http://michellemalkin.com/archives/003117.htm

You remember Air America, right? They are the collection of liberal fools that were supposed to crush the plethora of conservative talk radio voices that no doubt transmitted subliminal messages tricking the otherwise sane residents of Ohio and Florida to vote for Bush. It never ceases to escape me how anyone can believe advertisers will flock to a radio talk show that tells their listeners that pay too little in taxes, need to be softer on criminals, and if they are white males - are lower than whale crap. Well it seems that Air America may have found a way out of their recent money issues. The problem is their solution, described later, is illegal.

So you know about Air America, what is the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club?

Since 1977, Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club has been helping youth from tough Bronx neighborhoods stay out of trouble, stay in school and succeed in life. Serving nearly 15,000 young people each year at 32 locations (elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, public housing facilities and community centers) in the Bronx.

We Provide

- A safe place to learn and grow...
- Ongoing relationships with caring, adult professionals...
- Life-enhancing programs and character development experiences...
- Hope and opportunity.

http://www.gloriawise.org/bgcabout.html

Sounds like a dreamy utopian oasis in the gray, dreary, slave labor camps of Halliburton, Inc. huh? The Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club even runs "Camp Air America" in Harriman State Park, 40 miles from New York City. However, the connections between Gloria Wise and Air America appear to be more than just coincidental. Interestingly, NY Daily News reports the loss of funds for the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club with vigor:

A Bronx congressman yesterday praised the smooth takeover of dozens of programs serving thousands of youngsters and seniors across the borough after the city yanked funding from two sponsoring agencies that have come under a cloud.

The nonprofit Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club and its affiliate Pathways for Youth found their city contracts, running into the millions of dollars, abruptly ended last month by the city Department of Investigation.

But only buried at the end of the story is a weak connection made with Air America to the scandal:

According to published reports, the allegations involve Charles Rosen, the founder of Gloria Wise who has stepped down as executive director, investing city contract funds in Air America Radio, the liberal talk radio network. Evan Cohen, Air America's former chairman, had served as Gloria Wise's director of development.

Funny how this story isn't getting on the AP or Reuters news wire. Somehow I have to believe that if you replaced "Air America" with "Rush Limbaugh" or "Sean Hannity," the press would be all over this story like Semtex on a Palestinian. You have to go to a local paper, The Bronx News for the real juicy story:

The Bronx News has learned, through informed sources, that the diversion of hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club in Co-op City to the liberal Air America Radio is at the center of the city's probe of corruption at the local club. The money, which was reportedly paid to Air America as a loan, was supposed to be paid back with interest, two unidentified informed sources told the News. One source added that Air America officials, led by an official of the Gloria Wise Club, agreed to help the local club by publicizing its activities.

It gets better:

At the center of the investigation, in addition to Charles Rosen, the charismatic leader of the local club for the last 15 years, is Evan Cohen, who resigned, under fire, as chairman of Air America Radio shortly after its start as an alternative to conservative talk radio. Cohen, at the time the alleged transfers of funds from the Gloria Wise Club to Air America took place, was also the director of Development for the local boys and girls Club, the News has learned. One source told the News that $480,000 in funds from the Gloria Wise Club is involved in the city's investigation of illegal transfer of funds from the local club.

http://www.gothamgazette.com/community/12/news/1733

So basically, screw the kids and old people with Alzheimer's, so long as Al 'Hear the Pin Drop' Franken and Janeane 'The Pig' Garafolo get their chauffeur driven limousine. But hey, their hearts are in the right place - so what if your tax money isn't? Very often I am chided because I believe that virtually all government funding for social programs like Gloria Wise, and other "entitlement" programs should be scrapped (with the exception of programs for veterans, police, firemen, the incapacitated, etc.) and be restructured to what they were originally - charity. I firmly believe that for every dollar these programs lose by returning revenue to the taxpayers, a dollar (or more) in savings can be realized by the removal of bloated government overhead run by people who cannot be fired. If you recall in the Dicken's classic, "A Christmas Carol," Scrooge stunned the two men who came to him on Christmas Eve asking for donations by denying them alms. In years past, charitable donations of 10% of your income were commonplace. Today, the ability to select where the majority of your donations go, or even withholding them during times of your own financial crisis is gone. Now the lion's share of most of our "donations" go into the black box of taxation to be distributed as the government sees fit. And that is fine as long as you enjoy going to an art museum to view "Piss Christ" or listen to NPR rant on about global warming.

Apparently now we can add Air America to our list of compulsory charitable "donations."