The Get into College for a ransom scandal

It is a scandal involving rich celebs yes, but it’s much bigger. . .those we know about in today’s stories  “conspired with others known and unknown”. Before it rolls into history (came out on March 13—there’s little being said today) there will be hundreds, and probably a few college presidents.  Someone will be squeezed to tell all.

“American higher education, from the ivy covered walls of Yale and Georgetown to the sun drenched campuses of USC and Stanford, was rocked Tuesday by a federal racketeering case that alleges celebrities and other wealthy parents funneled millions through an Orange County non-profit foundation in return for fraudulent entrance test scores and college admission facilitated by corrupt coaches and athletic department administrators.” https://www.pe.com/2019/03/12/newport-beach-is-at-the-center-of-nationwide-bribery-for-admissions-scandal/

I think the whole College Board/SAT/ACT is a scandal—so many kids get special tutoring, and it’s not illegal, those are valid, incorporated legal companies that do this, but many cannot afford it, and I’m sure some can be bought and stand-ins are used.  https://www.sfgate.com/education/article/sat-act-cheating-scandal-huffman-test-students-13682741.php

And how about the “volunteer” requirement that high schools have and colleges request—supposedly to even the playing field so less academically qualified have something to show.  Ha.  The “best” students also garner that area and need that to get into the Ivy League or the California system.  If it’s “volunteer” why is it required? And the lower or middle class kids who need to work can’t afford to take “free” internships.   What about those students who are shy or have poor social skills, but are good in academics—they can flunk “volunteering.”

And the whole athletic business.  That was one of the biggest outrages in this current scandal, but how many others have done this not connected to this particular named crook William Singer, owner of the Edge College & Career Network and CEO of the Key Worldwide Foundation.  Photoshopping faces onto someone else’s body!  Coaches heads are rolling.

In this scandal, millions of dollars changed hands, but what about the kids who can’t attend out of state colleges because it’s too expensive, but illegals can attend? What about those who claim they are 1/32 black or Indian and are bumped ahead of the poor white teen from Appalachia?  This scandal involves people who can afford  to drop $100,000 to get kiddo into Yale or Harvard or Dartmouth, but we have all sorts of “jump ahead in line” from illegal immigration, to “who do you know who can drop your name to  HR” to donating to your alma mater a few years before junior wants to enroll. 

And what about colleges/universities using rich Nigerian and Egyptian foreign students to claim on their “diversity” quota or recruiting black students who could do well at OSU-Marion campus but will flunk out with debt at Yale, just so the school doesn’t get in hot water with government regulations. 

The money game of the higher education system  is a whole lot bigger than this scandal.

Those named:

“The following were charged in a criminal complaint with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud:

Gregory Abbott, 68, of New York, founder and chairman of International Dispensing Corp., a food and beverage packaging company.

Marcia Abbott, 59, of New York.

Gamal Abdelaziz, 62, of Las Vegas, the former senior executive of resort and casino operator of Wynn Macau resort in Macau, China.

Diane Blake, 55, of San Francisco, an executive at a retail merchandising firm.

Todd Blake, 53, of San Francisco, an entrepreneur and investor.

Jane Buckingham, 50, of Beverly Hills, California, founder and CEO of Trendera boutique marketing company.

Gordon Caplan, 52, of Greenwich, Connecticut, co-chairman of New York-based Willkie Farr & Gallagher, an international law firm.

I-Hin “Joey” Chen, 64, of Newport Beach, California, operates a provider of warehousing and related services for the shipping industry.

Amy Colburn, 59, of Palo Alto, California.

Gregory Colburn, 61, of Palo Alto, California.

Robert Flaxman, 62, of Laguna Beach, California, founder and CEO of real estate development firm Crown Realty & Development.

Mossimo Giannulli, 55, of Los Angeles, fashion designer and founder of Mossimo fashion company (also married to Lori Loughlin).

Elizabeth Henriquez, 56, of Atherton, California.

Manuel Henriquez, 55, of Atherton, California, founder, chairman and CEO of Hercules Technology Growth Capital, a publicly traded specialty finance company.

Douglas Hodge, 61, of Laguna Beach, California, former CEO of investment management company Pacific Investment Management Co.

Felicity Huffman, 56, of Los Angeles, actress.

Agustin Huneeus Jr., 53, of San Francisco, owner of wine vineyards in Napa Valley and listed as co-founder of the Quintessa vineyard estate.

Bruce Isackson, 61, of Hillsborough, California, president of a real estate development firm WP Investments.

Davina Isackson, 55, of Hillsborough, California.

Michelle Janavs, 48, of Newport Coast, California, former executive of a large food manufacturer.

Elisabeth Kimmel, 54, of Las Vegas, owner and president of First Busey, a media company.

Marjorie Klapper, 50, of Menlo Park, California, co-owner of jewelry business.

Lori Loughlin, 54, of Los Angeles, actress.

Toby MacFarlane, 56, of Del Mar, California, former senior executive at a title insurance company.

William McGlashan Jr., 55, of Mill Valley, California, senior executive at a global equity firm TPG Capital.

Marci Palatella, 63, of Healdsburg, California, CEO of a liquor distribution company.

Peter Jan Sartorio, 53, of Menlo Park, California, president and co-founder of Elena's Food Specialties.

Stephen Semprevivo, 53, of Los Angeles, executive at Cydcor, a privately held provider of outsourced sales teams.

Devin Sloane, 53, of Los Angeles, founder and CEO of aquaTECTURE LLC, a provider of drinking and wastewater systems.

John Wilson, 59, of Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, founder and CEO of private equity and real estate development firm.

Homayoun Zadeh, 57, of Calabasas, California, an associate professor of dentistry.

Robert Zangrillo, 52, of Miami, founder and CEO of private investment firm Dragon Global.”

Athletics

According to Sports Illustrated, “Among coaches indicted are Stanford's sailing coach John Vandemoer, former Yale women's soccer coach Rudy Meredith, former Georgetown tennis coach Gordie Ernst, current Texas men's tennis coach Michael Center and current UCLA men's soccer coach Jorge Salcedo. Ernst, who is accused of taking multiple six-figure cash bribes to admit fake recruits, resigned without explanation from Georgetown last summer. He is now coaching at Rhode Island. . . Wake Forest volleyball coach William "Bill" Ferguson was indicted in the scheme on the same charges as Vandemoer.”

“Four USC athletics staff members were also charged including the Trojans former women's soccer head coach Ali Khosroshahin, former women's soccer assistant coach Laura Janke and current USC Senior Associate Athletic Director Donna Heinel and water polo head coach Jovan Vavic. Heinel and Vavic were fired as a result.

Mark Riddell, the Director of College Entrance Exam Preparation at IMG Academy, a private college preparatory school and sports academy in Bradenton, Fla., has been charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud alongside charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering.” https://www.si.com/more-sports/2019/03/12/college-admissions-recruiting-bribery-scheme-indictments-felicity-huffman-lori-loughlin

The Mercury News reports: “In April 2016, Giannulli and Laughlin expressed concerns about their older daughter’s “academic qualifications” for USC after meeting with a college counselor, as detailed in a 204-page federal complaint

But Heinel presented their daughter as a prospective member of USC’s women’s crew team in a meeting with the university’s subcommittee for athletic admissions later that fall.

The daughter posed for a photo on an ergometer, a rowing machine, as part of an elaborate effort to demonstrate her participation in the sport despite no experience.

Giannulli sent Heinel $50,000 days later, and she was admitted.

The following year, Giannulli and Laughlin made a similar effort for their younger daughters. In this instance, they presented her as a crew coxswain for the L.A. Marina Club team and also had a photo taken of her on an ergometer.

In exchange for her admittance, Giannulli again sent Heinel $50,000.” https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/03/13/four-connected-to-usc-athletics-indicted-in-college-admissions-scandal/

If only CNN had been on the job then

A few years ago (Dec. 2015) the Blaze published an expose about Muslims in the Obama White House, but the link gave me the dreaded 404 message. But I found it at one of those archive sites.

https://whatyouthoughtiwentaway.wordpress.com/2015/12/18/a-detailed-look-at-the-purge-of-u-s-counter-terrorism-training-by-the-obama-administration/?

But no scandals for Obama; not a one.

"Purges, blacklists, book banning, mandatory “re-education” and punishment would otherwise sound like a program by the Khmer Rouge, not so-called U.S. “civil rights” organizations. But these events of “Black October” would set in motion a radical shift in our nation’s national security and counter-terrorism policies."

If we just had had a free press during the Obama years. . . Like a CNN watchdog over the presidency like we have now.

The PR spin on the sex abuse scandal

http://www.ncregister.com/blog/dan-burke/must-watch-video-how-to-recognize-judas-in-your-midst

An excellent sermon, but I don’t think many are listening.

Leaking? That depends on your ideology

I  get the giggles when  friends on the left say there were no leaks or scandals in the Obama terms? Well, yes, but some were reported as "inadvertant disclosures." However, if you search you can find something about Edward Snowden, or exposing foreign informants who were then killed, or the freeze that got some editors fired as a warning to others in the media, or Obama's criminal investigation into leaks that worried him, or FBI agent Donald Sachtleben, or attacks on Wikileaks insiders, or revelations of federal employees keeping tabs on each other not only in the National Security bureaucracy, but the Department of Education, USDA, NOAA, etc. 

Of course, whenever these snooper dooper stories appeared during the Obama years, the reporters to be safe and not anger the powers in DC quickly added any similar stories from the Bush administration all the way back to Judas betraying Jesus, just to make sure they didn't paint Obama too black. Not to beat a dead horse in Benghazi, but that was really about illegal gun running to the rebels in Syria, a plan that went badly for our ambassador and resulted in a cover up by Susan Rice obediently lying to the American people on behalf of Hillary Clinton and President Obama

No there there in the Trump stories

So the stories from women who allege they were groped by Donald Trump are falling apart. One woman's cousin has come forward to say that she is accusing him because she is angry that he did not visit her restaurant when she emailed him an invitation in April of this year. Why would anybody invite a man who groped her to visit her restaurant?

The woman on the plane said she was on a Braniff 707 in first class. Braniff didn't fly 707s on her route the year she claimed she was groped. She claims Mr. Trump raised the armrest to grope her, but armrests in first class cannot be raised. Now there is a man who was sitting across the aisle from her who says it never happened, that she was actually coming on to Mr. Trump. Will the Hillary campaign stop at nothing?  (Anna L. M.)

Who are the Nazis in this campaign?

There are just too many people out there on the internet, Facebook, Twitter, etc.  who don't have a clue what the political ideology of National Socialism (Nazis) is. It means state control, i.e. it's statism. The only difference between it and Communism is scope. That's Hillary Clinton's style and ideology. She's always been in public office and capable of passing laws, regulations and accepting money from rich friends in banking and foreign governments for political purposes. That's not Donald Trump who has been a business man and has no political power at all, and almost no political power within the federal government. 

The broadcast media, from which up to 24 million get their news, are supporting Mrs. Clinton 23:1 in coverage of various scandals which they both bring to the election--his are sexual, hers international. This is a precursor of what you will get if you elect her. Once a politician owns the media, the entertainment industry, and academe, it's all over. That's statism, that's Mrs. Clinton, not someone on twitter saying silly things.

Good Golly Miss Molly--don't they learn anything in school these days? (Or my day, since many of you are over 60.)

Lie, deny, revise, claim not to remember specifics, stall for time. It's her M.O.

PEGGY NOONAN: "They were in shock. So were members of the press, who knew Mr. Dale [Billy Dale who had worked at the White House for 30 years] and his colleagues as honest and professional. A firestorm ensued.

Under criticism the White House changed its story. They said that they were just trying to cut unneeded staff and save money. Then they said they were trying to impose a competitive bidding process. They tried a new explanation—the travel office shake-up was connected to Vice President Al Gore’s National Performance Review. (Alm...ost immediately Mr. Gore said that was not true.) The White House then said it was connected to a campaign pledge to cut the White House staff by 25%. Finally they claimed the workers hadn’t been fired at all but placed on indefinite “administrative leave.”

Why so many stories? Because the real one wasn’t pretty." All along Mrs. Clinton publicly insisted she had no knowledge of the firings. Then it became barely any knowledge, then barely any involvement. When the story blew up she said under oath that she had “no role in the decision to terminate the employees.” She did not “direct that any action be taken by anyone.” In a deposition she denied having had a role in the firings, and said she was unable to remember conversations with various staffers with any specificity. So—that was the Clintons’ first big Washington scandal. It showed what has now become the Clinton Scandal Ritual: lie, deny, revise, claim not to remember specifics, stall for time. When it passes, call the story “old news” full of questions that have already been answered. “As I’ve repeatedly said . . .” More scandals would follow. 

They all showed poor judgment on the part of the president, and usually Mrs. Clinton. They all included a startling willingness—and ability—to dissemble.

People watched and got a poor impression.The point is it didn’t start the past few years, it started almost a quarter-century ago. You have to wonder, what are the chances it will change?"