National Jewish leaders plan to hold a rally Monday afternoon at the Dubuque County Jail, in support of imprisoned businessman Sholom Rubashkin. They say Rubashkin is not a flight risk and that his imprisonment is unnecessary, excessive and discriminatory to all Jewish Americans.
Rubashkin was the CEO of Agriprocessors in Postville at the time of the immigration raid in May of last year. In September, he was charged with more than 9,000 violations of child labor laws. He's also charged with bank fraud and federal conspiracy charges of harboring illegal immigrants and aiding and abetting aggravated identity theft.
And that's net even mentioning the meth lab found on the premises or the fact that two of Rubashkin's associates have vanished and are presumed out of the country.
And still the Jewish leaders flock to defend this guy, screaming "discrimination, discrimination!"
Time to remind everyone just how the ADL came into existence.
In 1913, a man named Leo Frank ran a pencil factory. After having his advances towards a 12 year old girl rebuffed, he raped and murdered her, then planned to dispose of the body in the factory furnace. But a watchman found the body, and a witness, a handy man, came forward. Leo Frank was tried before a jury of his peers and based on the witnesses, coupled with allegations of prior sex crimes and drug abuse, convicted and sentenced to death.
Frank's lawyers claimed anti-Semitism and appealed the case all the way to the United States Supreme Court. When the USSC rejected the appeal, Governor John Slaton (whose law partners were Frank's defense lawyers) was bribed to commute the death sentence to life in Prison, and Franks was moved to a private room at Milledgewillve prison, right next to the Warden's quarters and noticeably far more comfortable accommodations that those enjoyed by lesser prisoners. Frank enjoyed a comfortable existence at Milledgewillve until his throat was slashed by another prisoner who claimed Franks had tried to sodomize him.
One month later, a group of 25 men calling themselves the Knights of Mary Phagan broke into the prison and grabbed Franks. Two days later his body was found hanging from a tree.
The Franks case prompted the formation of the ADL, the Anti-Defamation League, whose avowed purpose was to protect Jewish people from punishment by claiming such punishment was always due to anti-Semitism. To this very day the ADL insists Franks was actually innocent and considers him a martyr to their cause.
We are seeing a repeat of that with the support shown Rubashkin and Madoff.