please assign carle campanile et al to get on it now
The Catholic Church raked in $1.4 billion in coronavirus loans while nassau otb's federal funding, if any, not made the nypost, because?
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The Catholic Church raked in at least $1.4 billion in taxpayer-backed loans meant to help small businesses survive the coronavirus pandemic, a new report says.
Catholic dioceses, parishes, schools and other entities made extensive use of a loophole in the feds’ Paycheck Protection Program to snag at least 3,500 forgivable loans as the pandemic scuttled worship services across the country, an Associated Press review found.
Some $200 million went to roughly 40 dioceses that have paid out hundreds of millions of dollars to victims of sexual abuse in recent years — including the Archdiocese of New York, which got at least $28 million for its executive offices while its iconic St. Patrick’s Cathedral received at least $1 million, according to the Friday report.
The so-called PPP loans were generally limited to businesses and nonprofits with fewer than 500 employees. But Catholic officials helped lobby the Trump administration to exempt religious groups from that rule, which would have disqualified many dioceses, the AP reported.
Data released this week indicate Catholic institutions may have bagged as much as $3.5 billion in forgivable loans that helped them retain at least 407,900 jobs — placing the church among the program’s largest beneficiaries, the news service found.
But the number is likely even higher — the Diocesan Fiscal Management Conference estimated that some 9,000 church entities got PPP money, almost triple the number the AP found in the federal data
, which did not identify applicants that got loans worth less than $150,000.
, which did not identify applicants that got loans worth less than $150,000.
“These loans are an essential lifeline to help faith-based organizations to stay afloat and continue serving those in need during this crisis,” Chieko Noguchi, a spokesperson for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, told the AP in a statement.
Nassau GOP chair intends to collect fat paychecks for 3 jobs
On the heels of pay-to-play corruption scandals that have tarnished the Long Island GOP, the Nassau County Republic Party has elected a one-time disbarred lawyer to be its new leader — and the retirement-age politico intends to collect fat paychecks from three different jobs simultaneously.
Joseph Cairo, 72, the new chairman of the Nassau County Republican Party, is also head of the Nassau County Off-Track Betting Corporation. He’s paid $198,000 at OTB.
The long-time No. 2 to former Nassau GOP boss Joe Mondello had his law license yanked in the 1990s for misusing client funds. His license was reinstated and the politically-connected lawyer now has an established law practice, GOP sources said.
He also has not ruled out collecting a third paycheck from the Nassau GOP.
Mondello, his predecessor, made more than $250,000 last year as GOP boss, and pulled in $1.5 million from his private law practice and real estate investments, records filed with the government show.
At one time, Mondello also simultaneously headed the Nassau GOP and OTB.
Cairo’s law office is in Valley Stream, his OTB’s corporate office is in Mineola and Nassau GOP headquarters is in Westbury.
A Post reporter found him at GOP headquarters.
Cairo said he was not relinquishing his OTB executive job or suspending his law practice after taking the reins of the GOP.
“I’ve been at OTB. This is a crucial time at OTB with possibly sports gambling coming so we’re deeply involved with that there now,” Cairo said.
“This is a political position. My attorneys tell me there is no conflict and I think having a position in a political party is such that it’s been done in the past by people on both sides of the aisle. And I think it’s currently done, too, in some other counties — their elected officials are also party chairmen,” he said.
But watchdogs have long complained that allowing people to simultaneously hold top positions in government and party leadership opens the door to conflicts of interests and potential corruption.
“It’s business as usual. This is an example of the rotten political system in Nassau County,” said George Marlin, who formerly served on the Nassau County Interim Finance Authority, a state agency set up to monitor the county’s shaky finances.
Marlin said the multiple paid gigs for Cairo is remarkable, especially after the Nassau Republicans lost the county executive’s race and the Town of Hempstead supervisor’s race last year amid concerns over corruption.
“They’ve learned nothing,” Marlin said. “They don’t care.”
Cairo chalked up the suspension of his law license to a mistake from the distant past.
“I think that’s something that happened — it was earlier than ‘95, that’s 25 years ago, and I think people who know me know the type of person I am,” he said.
With that, Cairo grabbed a suit jacket from a parked black Cadillac before jumping into the passenger seat of a Jaguar driven by a friend.
Cairo is right about one thing. On Long Island particularly, politicians simultaneously collecting hefty paychecks from top government and political party posts is a time-honored tradition.
The Post reported last week that Rich Schaffer is drawing down a combined $350,000 from three paychecks as head of the Suffolk County Democratic Party, as the full-time Town of Babylon Supervisor and from a law practice that includes representing plumbing contractors.
But Long Island Democrats have their scandals, too.
Gerard Terry, the former North Hempstead Democratic Party chairman, was convicted of tax evasion for failing to report his income that included payments from legal services provided to eight different local government agencies.
New Nassau County Executive Laura Curran, a Democrat who won the election on anti-corruption platform last year, passed executive orders barring county government officials from holding party positions or from accepting gifts.
New York City has a law that bars top government officials from serving as party bosses, following the municipal corruption scandals of the 1980s.
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