As they say on TV, “Breaking News!” The blogosphere is all abuzz about the diversion of funds from the Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club in the Bronx, New York, to Air America, the Left’s own radio network. Not talking about pocket change either, the funds in question miss being half-a-million dollars by only a couple of tens of thousands. Called a loan, with interest, it makes you wonder how anyone at Air America ever thought that they could pay back the Boys & Girls Club when they can’t even secure enough advertising revenue to pay their bills. But hey, keeping fat and rich liberals like Al Franken fat & rich sure is more important than programs for inner-city kids and those afflicted with Alzheimer’s, right?

Like I said, many are discussing this, including Hugh Hewitt here & here:

Wow, and wow again. Where is Elliot Spitzer. What did Al Franken know and when did he know it?

Michelle Malkin as always has tons of links and a great quote:

Second, given that Gloria Wise is now closed, how will the money now be repaid? Isn’t this a handy loophole for Air America to jump through? “Gosh, we’d really like to repay them – in fact, we agreed to repay them, but due to some unforeseen circumstance, they went under. Weird. Oh well, nothing to be done now.”

Captain Ed has this for Al Franken:

I doubt that Franken will ever comment on this story in his role as on-air personality. If he decides to run for office here in Minnesota as rumored, however, we should ask him about this scandal and what he did to correct it once it became known. Voters should shun candidates who manage to demonstrate a callous disregard for spending government money without even being in office.

Brian Maloney, The Radio Equalizer puts it this way:

What happens when the mainstream media, after years of seething over conservative talk radio’s success, discover its alternative got diverted public funds, earmarked instead for inner-city youth and seniors?

The answer, with one key exception: they pretend it didn’t happen.

Yes, only because of a New York Daily News tidbit do we know that Bronx-based Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club nearly shut down major programs recently, because almost $500,000 in governmental grant money was instead diverted to Air America’s liberal radio network.

It’s taken a mad scramble by area politicians, including Rep. Joe Crowley (D-Bronx) to find a way to keep several programs for disadvantaged children and seniors from disappearing.

From the Bronx News Community Gazette for District 12 on July 5:

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.
To date, no indictments have been handed down in the New York City Department of Investigation’s ongoing probe of the Gloria Wise Club’s reported transfer of funds to Air America.

The New York Daily News reported on the 26th that the programs in peril were rescued by the city finding replacement funding from outside agencies:

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.

The city quickly brought in outside agencies on one-year contracts to run the programs, including the Jewish Association for Seniors for Aged and the Police Athletic League, with in-place workers kept on the job pending individual evaluations.

Hopefully this story will not remain buried by the MSM. As pressure is put on it via the center-right blogs and talk-radio the likelihood of the networks and major papers having to address it goes up, otherwise they will once again look like the fools that they usually are. Don’t think that I’ll try holding my breath until our local Los Angeles Times prints a story about it! Might p.o. Al and Jeanine . . . (db)

This entry was posted on Friday, July 29th, 2005 at 6:57 pm and is filed under Fever Swamp Madness, Media Issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.  |   Print This Post  |   Email This Post

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