Bribery in Academe and in Politics

Columbia, Rutgers on Iran-Controlled Foundation's Gift List (New York Post) Isabel Vincent -
Anti-Israel, pro-Iran university professors are being funded by a shadowy multimillion-dollar Islamic charity that the feds charge is an illegal front for the repressive Iranian regime. The Alavi Foundation has given away hundreds of thousands of dollars to Columbia University and Rutgers University for Middle Eastern and Persian studies programs that employ professors sympathetic to the Iranian dictatorship. "We found evidence that the government of Iran really controlled everything about the foundation," said Adam Kaufmann, investigations chief at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. Federal law-enforcement authorities are in the midst of seizing up to $650 million in assets from the Alavi Foundation, which they charge funnels money to Iran-supported Islamic schools in the U.S. and to a syndicate of Iranian spies based in Europe. The foundation donated $100,000 to Columbia University after the school agreed to host Iranian leader and Holocaust denier Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, according to the foundation's 2007 tax filings. Rutgers professor Hooshang Amirahmadi, former head of the school's Center for Middle Eastern Studies and president of the American-Iranian Council, unabashedly has touted Hizbullah and Hamas as legitimate organizations and not terrorists.//
The Louisiana Purchase
The vote of Louisiana's Senator Landrieu was bought for $300M in appropriations for Louisiana specially provided in the Senate HEALTHCARE bill. Neither Landrieu nor Lousiana is mentioned in the few pages of legislative gibberish from which it was determined that a special appropriation for Louisiana had been provided. Senator Landrieu, when outed about this, proudly declaimed that the bribe was $300M for Louisiana ( and, presumably, something about which she could boast in her re-election campaign.) The money, of course, comes from the taxpayers of all 50 states as does the rest of Senate Democratic Leader Reid's "largesse." Whether other Senators will appear at the trough in the garden of porcine delights has yet to be seen.