March 3, 2010 | 1:55 am

Financial nightmare presidential ticket

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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Can you imagine? Bernard Madoff and Phil Gramm together? Sounds like a recipe for economic disaster.

March 1, 2010 | 6:17 pm

Farrakhan: Blame the Jews!

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

My reaction when I saw a headline saying Farrakhan blames the Jews for Obama’s problems: well ... duh.

In a 3 1/2-hour speech marking Saviours’ Day, a Nation of Islam holiday, the movement’s leader told 20,000 followers in Chicago’s United Center that Obama’s political difficulties came after he stood up to the Jewish lobby at an Oval Office meeting.

“When they left the White House, his problems began,” the Chicago Sun-Times quoted Farrakhan as saying.

Obama’s meeting last summer with leaders of Jewish groups was mostly friendly, but there were differences over his administration’s tone in dealing with Israel’s Netanyahu government. All sides since then—the White House, the organized Jewish leadership and the Israeli government—have tried to tamp down public criticism.

“The Zionists are in control of Congress,” Farrakhan said Sunday as he listed off a slew of Jewish economic advisers, adding that the “bloodsuckers of the poor” were rewarded with a bailout.

Classic, just like the Rev. Wright’s comments about “them Jews” influencing Obama. Read the rest here.

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March 1, 2010 | 12:44 pm

What’s wrong with video poker?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I’m watching “High Stakes Poker” right now, so I am admittedly biased on the subject of poker and piety. But as I ghostwrote on God’s Blog before:

Show Me one place in My holy book where I forbid gambling. (Also not in the Bible, promises that if you give your SS check to a televangelist, I will reward you with a new Cadillac.) My ministers will say you should be a good steward of what you’re given and should not attempt to get rich quick or fall in love money. And these words of wisdom are very true. Compulsive gambling, pseudo-professional gambling, these are behaviors I can’t approve. But gambling as affordable entertainment—to rip the industry’s motto—that’s something I would, er, bet on.

And I, obviously, would agree. Which is why my immediate reaction to a headline from The Seeker asking “Is video poker a sin?” was a resounding no. But then I thought about how different video poker was from the kind of poker I play and I wasn’t so certain.

Because this is a true game of chance, one in which no skill is involved, it seemed more rife for exploiting those who can’t help themselves. But then, if there was sin involved, wouldn’t it be the video poker operator’s and not the persons playing?

That seems to be what the Rev. Philip Blackwell of First United Methodist Chicago Temple was telling Manya Brachear when the Chicago City Council hinted that it might lift a ban on video poker machines to raise revenue:

“The machines are intentionally designed to play ‘til you’re broke or die, Blackwell said. “Whatever you put into that machine you’re not putting into food, beverages or merchandise or putting it in the plate on Sundays. You’re being played for a loser to start.”

Blackwell feels the same contempt for slot machines and the lottery, which was launched by the state decades ago to cover shortfalls in education. He points out that it’s easier to find and buy a lottery ticket in the Englewood neighborhood than Winnetka, demonstrating how the game targets minorities and impoverished neighborhoods. He also points out that the lottery didn’t add to education coffers. It simply freed education funds to go elsewhere.

“Society should be a little smarter after having the lottery,” he said. “This isn’t the fantasy people were promised.”

Read the rest here.

I’ve written a handful of stories poker over the years. There was my article about 2006 World Series of Poker champ Jamie Gold and my profile of homeless poker pro Ellix Powers (my favorite).

Before that, before I left my first paper, I wrote an article about what religious leaders thought about the good and bad of poker playing. Unfortunately, due to that paper’s awful archiving system, this story never made it into the paper’s archive and also slipped by Lexis Nexis and can only be found in a box in my garage.

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March 1, 2010 | 12:37 pm

Boxing match at my bar mitzvah

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Yuri Foreman is blowing up. First a boxing title, then Jewlicious, now Yankee Stadium:

The Yankees said Friday they’ve agreed to accommodate a family that scheduled a bar mitzvah for June 5, the date that Top Rank promoter Bob Arum wants to stage Yuri Foreman’s junior middleweight title defense against Miguel Cotto at the opulent ballpark. It wasn’t clear what accommodations were made, although the bar mitzvah for Scott Ballan is still scheduled.

Ballan is the son of Jon Ballan, the lead bond lawyer for the financing of the $1.5 billion stadium. As part of the bar mitzvah, the Yankees had promised the family use of the Legends Suite Club and videoboard in center field, which would have prevented its use during the fight card.

“We want to thank Jon Ballan and his family for their graciousness, understanding and good will in helping to accommodate the Yankees,” the team said in a statement to The Associated Press. “We will now meet with Bob Arum and his organization to continue discussions to bring this fight to Yankee Stadium.”

The promoters plan to meet with Yankees officials next week.

While the contracts for the fight have yet to be signed, Foreman said he was thrilled about the possibility of fighting in one of the most hallowed venues in sports.

“It’s a tremendous opportunity. It’s something I’ve never ever dreamed,” he said Friday. “It’s where Joe Louis fought Max Schmeling, you know? For me to be fighting in Yankee Stadium is historical, being part of the history.”

Read the rest here.

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February 28, 2010 | 11:09 pm

Our man in Hamas

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I think Graham Greene would have liked that headline. But did the Haaretz story about Mosab Yousef, the son of a Hamas founder who spied for Israel, live up to the hype? I’d say so.

If nothing else, it looks like Yousef lived up to his billing as a crucial source of intelligence:

During that period he prevented dozens of suicide-bombing attempts and uncovered terrorist cells - including those planning to assassinate senior Israeli figures, such as Shimon Peres, then foreign minister, and Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. The Shin Bet considered Yousef the most reliable and most senior agent it had succeeded in running at the top levels of Hamas. Within the organization he was known as the “Green Prince”: “prince,” because he was the son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, one of the people who founded Hamas and one of its leaders in the West Bank, and “green” for the color of the Islamist organization’s flag.

During the grimmest period of the second intifada, Yousef brought about the arrest of the most wanted terrorists on Israel’s list, those who are mentioned repeatedly in the headlines - among them Ibrahim Hamed and Marwan Barghouti. He even agreed to the arrest of his father, who is still in jail today, to prevent his assassination by Israel. This is the story of an intelligent young man who acts courageously against the movement in which he was raised in an effort to save lives, and manages to persuade the Shin Bet to arrest wanted individuals instead of killing them.

“Captain Loai” - as Yousef’s handler in the Shin Bet was known at the time - makes no secret of his admiration for his “source”: “So many people owe him their lives and don’t even know it,” he says. “People who did a lot less were awarded the Israel Security Prize. He certainly deserves it. I knew him for six years, as a coordinator and as a district director. And I tell you, that if we had X number of intelligence coordinators in the region, thanks to him we had X+1. He was the extra coordinator. You know what? He was better than most of us - no offense to anyone.”

(skip)

Yousef said he had not planned to become an informer and did not make the decision all of a sudden: “I was taken to the detention facility, [which we call] the ‘Muskobiya,’ where I underwent harsh torture and was beaten repeatedly in the interrogation. My hands were tightly bound. Then this Shin Bet man arrived and suggested that I work with him. I did not ask for money, as my financial situation was good. I thought of telling him that I would accept the offer, and then become a double agent and take revenge on the Shin Bet and on Israel for arresting me and for the things that were done to my father.

“My plan,” he continues, “was to collect information about the Shin Bet from within and use it against Israel. I knew that it was a dark, evil organization run by evil people who were doing terrible things, like forcing people to become collaborators. After I agreed, I was kept in jail for 16 months, because if I were released too quickly it might stir suspicion that I had become a Shin Bet agent.” In prison he saw appalling things.

“I was in jail with Hamas people, with senior figures in the organization who ran an apparatus called Majad, a kind of internal security body of Hamas aimed at uncovering Israeli agents. They tortured prisoners, most of them from Hamas, whom they suspected of collaboration. My job was to write down the confessions and testimonies. As the sheikh’s son, I was trusted. It was there that I lost my faith in Hamas. They killed people for no reason. While everyone was warning me about the Shin Bet, for the first time in my life I saw Hamas people torturing their comrades, members of their nation, with exceptional cruelty. The truth was of no interest to them. If they so much as suspected someone, that was the end of him. They tortured people brutally, burned them, jabbed them with needles, put out cigarettes on them.”

There’s a lot more from reporter Avi Issacharoff’s conversations with Yousef. Read it here.

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