Angelqueen.org

[Tom]

Ave Maria University Donor: “… I’m pro-choice.”
AveWatch.com
» Thu, November 5th, 2009
Tom Monaghan secured a $4 million “investment” from a pro-choice billionaire for Ave Maria University’s new “Tom Golisano Field House”. Golisano is a major donor to Democrat campaigns and the founder of a political party with a pro-choice platform.

From the New York Times during one of Golisano’s campaigns for Governor (10/23/94):

“Where do you stand on abortion?” one woman asked him.

Mr. Golisano responded, “The country has been very clear that it wants choice, and I’m pro-choice.”

Make no mistake. It was Monaghan who solicited Golisano, hard. Naples Daily News (11/5/09; excerpts):

So the university’s founder contacted Golisano, and they set up a time for him to visit Ave Maria. “He did his basic sales work,” Golisano said. “You prospect, then you present and then you close.”

Video from the press conference shows Golisano saying:

He [Monaghan] also came and visited me two or three times in Rochester, New York… So, he did a lot of work.”

Ave Maria University would ban pro-choice President Obama from speaking on its campus. But, AMU is happy to actively go after $4 million from pro-choice Tom Golisano. Both ran for political office on a pro-choice platform.

Who was the first to give Golisano a standing ovation at the donation press conference? AMU Director of Campus Ministry, Fr. Robert Garrity (image courtesy Naples Daily News; left to right – Garrity, AMU President Nick Healy, Golisano, Monaghan):



Who is Tom Golisano? – Ave Maria University’s New Face

» Thu, November 5th, 2009
Early yesterday morning, AveWatch released the article “Who is Tom Golisano?” Later in the day, local rumblings started over a mystery donor to Ave Maria University.

Today, Tom Monaghan announced that a $4 million donation from Golisano will be used to build a new student recreation center at AMU. See: Reuters, Buffalo News, Naples Daily News.

Golisano’s powerful new involvement and influence at Ave Maria University has enormous implications. It is a fork in the road. In years to come, this will likely be the point at which many in the public start recognizing what is behind Ave Maria’s ideology, character, and management.

The fiscally conservative, socially liberal/tolerant Golisano…

•…is the founder of a political party that is content to tolerate abortion, serving as home to leftists such as Lenora Fulani
•…is a significant contributor to the political campaigns of pro-choice Democrats
•…is a significant contributor to the Bill Clinton Foundation
•…has a children’s hospital bearing his name, part of a facility where abortions are performed and local New York pro-lifers picket
•…is a thrice-divorced 67 year old dating a 35 year old woman
For the constant promotional talk given to how transcendent the Catholic Church’s teaching and marriage-centered pro-life values are for all that is Ave Maria, the pursuit of Golisano’s money by Tom Monaghan is dumbfounding.

Golisano ran three unsuccessful campaigns for Governor of New York under the abortion-tolerant Independence Party platform that he founded. He will find out soon enough that Tom Monaghan cannot deliver much of anything when it comes to Catholics and pro-lifers, including votes. Monaghan can’t even mobilize a crowd of protesters to the local abortion clinic.

Bottom line:
Political fiscal conservatism appears to be the last non-negotiable tenet to Ave Maria.

Who can still doubt the pretense that drives Tom Monaghan’s Ave Maria?

Who is Tom Golisano?

» Wed, November 4th, 2009
Billionaire Blase Thomas “Tom” Golisano is the founder of payroll service Paychex, owner of the Buffalo Sabres, co-founder of the Independence Party of New York State, and #289 on The Forbes 400 Richest Americans 2009. He fell short three times running for New York state governor under his Party. He recently made headlines for changing his primary residence from New York to Florida to avoid taxes. He has a house in Naples. In June the NY Post reported that 67 year old Golisano, who was divorced three times, is now dating 35 year old tennis Hall of Famer Monica Seles (excerpt):

He also brought Seles to a Sabres game, where the Tennis Hall of Famer sat with him and former President Bill Clinton. And, when asked in a Forbes.com article last fall what the coolest number in his cellphone was, Golisano crowed, ‘Monica Seles.’

According to the Albany Times Union, Golisano is near the top on a list of contributors to the Bill Clinton Foundation. Click below for more…


*****

The social position of Golisano’s Indepdendence Party (IP) platform clashes with the Catholic teaching that Tom Monaghan puts at the center of Ave Maria. From a press article by the Times Union and reprinted on Golisano’s IP website (February 2006):

Independence members often describe themselves as fiscally conservative and socially liberal, which could appeal to a wide range of voters and candidates. But Independence lacks a single defining issue, unlike the environmentally attuned Green Party, or the anti-abortion Right To Lie [sic] Party, or Working Families, which favors a higher minimum wage and living wage jobs.

“I think they’re seen as broad enough to not be a liability, unlike an endorsement from other third parties might be, like the Right To Life Party,” [Eliot Spitzer] said, adding that even the presence of controversial figures like Fulani is tempered by the diversity of Independence membership.”

Lenora Fulani is a far left political activist who calls Golisano’s IP her home. Golisano’s philanthropy goes to support both Democrats and Republicans in NY (see also).

New York Times, “Where the politics of abortion stand now” (11/20/02; full text):

Mr. Golisano mailed a flier to Right to Life [Party] voters in the days before the election, presenting himself as the candidate most opposed to abortion, a claim at odds with his usual public stance of favoring abortion rights.

From the New York Times (10/23/1994):

“Where do you stand on abortion?” one woman asked him.

Mr. Golisano responded, “The country has been very clear that it wants choice, and I’m pro-choice.”

Golisano, like Monaghan, also runs his own foundation. Yesterday, Golisano announced that he is making his largest donation yet to his own Golisano Foundation, much of which funds a Rochester, NY children’s hospital.

The Strong/Golisano Children’s Hospital is part of a hospital that offers abortions. From Rescue Rochester Pro-Life (May 6, 2009):

Strong/Golisano Childrens Hospital- It is a usual occurrence while we are holding our educational picket at this “revered” hospital and university medical center. “They do abortions here!?” It is hard to fathom that a hospital and teaching medical center will allow the abortionist within its walls to kill the same age child that other doctors are heroically laboring to save in another area of the hospital. [..] Strong is a behemoth. Now the largest employer in the Rochester area and a sponge that sucks up millions of dollars of NYS funds. Strong embraces the abortion mindset, has euthanasia advocates on the medical staff and seeks to pioneer embronic stem cell research in its state of the art Medical Research Wing.

Many news sources point to Golisano’s wallet and hardball tactics as being responsible for a well crafted June political power grab within the NY State Senate. His PAC is under investigation. Excerpt, Buffalo News (full text; see also):

Sources said planning for the coup began six weeks ago in an Albany bar called Red Square in a meeting involving Pigeon, other Golisano advisers, Skelos and Sen. Thomas Libous, a Binghamton Republican who led Monday’s floor fight.

Golisano, who recently moved his legal address to Florida, was in the Capitol to watch the drama.

“It was obvious to us they weren’t going to keep their commitment, and that was very bad for New York State,” Golisano said of Senate Democrats in an interview. He called Monday “a great day for New York,” and said his disappointment with his financial investment with the Senate Democrats helped force Monday’s coup. “It didn’t materialize,” Golisano said of his donations he thought would fuel change in Albany.

A person involved in the planning said Golisano became convinced six weeks ago after a meeting with Smith that things would not change. Smith kept fiddling with his BlackBerry during the meeting, which angered the billionaire and three-time gubernatorial candidate, the person said.

Governor Paterson bristled at Golisano’s role. “Wealthy donors walking around take credit for it moments after it happened, is that reform?” Paterson said.

Tom Golisano’s move from New York to Florida may be tantalizing to Tom Monaghan for its potential access to money and influence. From Golisano’s op-ed piece “Adios, New York” published earlier this year (NY Post, 5/20/09; full text)

Combined with spending 184 days a year outside New York, these simple procedures will save me over $5 million in New York taxes annually. By moving to Florida, I can spend that $5 million on worthy causes, like better hospitals, improving education or the Clinton Global Initiative.

It would be stunning if new local Floridian Tom Golisano got involved in Tom Monaghan’s struggling Ave Maria. But would Golisano’s social positions and heavy financial support for pro-choice Democrats sit well with Ave Maria donors, employees, and students?

[And now...]

[spasi i sochrani]

Assuming that this is a no-strings gift, I see no reason not to take the man's money.

[Tom]

[Tom]

[Land of the Irish]

[Dionysius]

Blood money.

[BinCrapper]

Not sure I believe it but I found this

"Golisano sent a letter to Monaghan, AMU's chancellor, dated December 3, 2009. In it, he claimed the New York Times misinterpreted him as being "pro-choice." "I am pro-life now and have always been pro-life," Golisano said. "I believe a woman's 'right to choose' ends when sexual activity results in pregnancy. Hence, I do not believe that a woman should have a right to an abortion.""

"Why Tom Golisano Believes in Ave Maria University"
by Deal W. Hudson
2/23/10

[TKGS]

[Tom]

Ave Maria and the Cardinal Newman Society Cheapen the Meaning of “Pro-Life”

» Mon, December 14th, 2009
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Address for this article: http://avewatch.com/?p=576
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If a billionaire politico said “I’m pro-life”, and did the following, what would you think?:

•gave millions to get 50 NARAL-endorsed politicians into office during last year’s elections
•gave $1 million for Barack Obama’s nomination convention last year
•was the major financier of the Clinton Global Initiative
•mocked married family life with three divorces
•ran for governor three times without any official platform outlining how he will fight for pro-life legislation
•financed and starred in TV advertisements for NARAL-endorsed candidates (i.e. Kathy Konst and Joe Mesi; NY Democrats, District 59 and 61, respectively)
AveWatch would call such a disconnect between saying “I’m pro-life”, and working so hard to get pro-abortion politicians into office, a ruse… a commonly employed political technique that cheapens the meaning of a consistent “pro-life” stance.

Over the weekend, the Cardinal Newman Society (CNS) and Ave Maria University made a significant contribution toward legitimizing just such a ruse.

Background: Three weeks ago, after reviewing the above list of activities and contributions, the CNS expressed its concern for Ave Maria’s honoring of billionaire political activist Tom Golisano with a campus building in his name. There was even a smoking gun memo from AMU’s PR consultant to university administration admitting that a strategy was needed to deflect “any and all questions regarding other entities that Mr. Golisano has contributed funds to in the past that may be contrary to the mission of Ave Maria (or any positions he has held politically).”

This past Friday, however, CNS released a new statement that now endorses AMU’s honoring of Golisano. Why? In a December 3 letter to AMU’s Tom Monaghan, Golisano said “I am pro-life now and have always been pro-life”.

Excerpt from the CNS response (full text):

Patrick J. Reilly, president of The Cardinal Newman Society, said in response to reading Golisano’s letter, “Having great hope for the future of Ave Maria University and sharing its commitment to faithful Catholic education, I am relieved and grateful that Mr. Golisano has publicly opposed legalized abortion. This is the best possible outcome of a situation that helps demonstrate the importance of Catholic institutions refusing honors for public opponents of fundamental Catholic teachings and avoiding even the appearance of compromising Catholic identity.”

How has Golisano “publicly opposed legalized abortion”, as Reilly claims?

•by refusing to give substantial support to pro-abortion politicians and programs? No.
•by clearly articulating his own agenda, as a gubernatorial candidate, to protect an infant’s life in law? No.
•by respecting the holy obligations of matrimony for stable family life? No.
For Reilly and Ave Maria, Golisano’s statement about his personal views was enough to completely erase his political record of actively and generously putting NARAL-endorsed candidates into office and the Clinton Global Initiative into developing countries. For Reilly, Golisano’s personal statement was enough to “avoid even the appearance of compromising Catholic identity” when it comes life. Wow.

There is a reason why Ave Maria and its defenders (i.e. Catholic.org) all fail to explicitly cite (or link to places that cite) Golisano’s very substantial support for people and programs that endorse abortion — because to know about that support makes honoring him indefensible.

Has Tom Golisano substantially supported politicians and programs that are contrary to AMU’s stated mission and/or the teachings of the Church? AMU’s own PR person even recognizes the answer.

Congratulations to Ave Maria, Patrick Reilly, and the Cardinal Newman Society for making “personally-opposed-but” the new standard for honors at a Catholic university. A gaggle of politicians are grateful.

Ave Maria and the Cardinal Newman Society have their credibility riding on what Tom Golisano does. We’ll be watching him.

[restorationist]

[Glornt]

I'm tired of seeing "pro-life" sources continue to accept the label "pro-choice" to describe those who are in favor of legalized murder. "Pro-choice" means I'm in favor of allowing people to super-size their Happy Meals -- a right that more and more of these left-wing baby killers would gladly deny us if given a chance, just as most of them also fight hard to deny parents choice when it comes to educating their non-aborted children. Choice is the last thing these people are about.

The "personally opposed but it should be legal" argument requires a complete lapse in logical thinking. Why would one be personally opposed to abortion other than that it is the taking of an innocent human life (which is murder)? Let them make the same claim about slavery and see how far that gets them. How about "I'm personally opposed to robbing banks, but I think it should be legal"? The only way this reasoning makes sense if it's applied to something that's a mere preference, such as "I personally wouldn't wear a pink shirt, but I think they should be legal"... although... if someone ran for office promising to ban pink shirts for men, I'd probably vote for him...

[creimann]

I'm pro-cheese!

[BinCrapper]

[Tom]

Tom Monaghan's Ave Maria complex descends further into the culture of death:

Jackson Laboratory’s “Hands-On Training” in the Manipulation of Human Embryonic Stem Cells

AveWatch
Tue, March 30th, 2010
http://avewatch.com/?p=794


[A biotechnology company that offers conferences, how-to courses, and product sales specifically for human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research is being lured near Ave Maria University. See "Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research Company Offered $50M to Relocate Near Ave Maria Univeristy."(http://avewatch.com/?p=763)]

Last year, the chair of Jackson Laboratory’s Board of Scientific Overseers, Terry Magnuson, PhD, was appointed to the 9-person National Institutes of Health (NIH) government panel that approves taxpayer-funds specifically for human embryonic stem cell experiments. Magnuson also has an appointment at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and sits on the board of PPD, Inc. (”a leading global contract research organization (CRO)” that has experimented with hESCs, such as kidney cells (HEK293; Xiaohu Wang and Biswajit Pati)).

From a Jackson Laboratory press release (see also the NIH announcement):



President Obama used an Executive Order to “remove barriers” in human embryonic stem cell research in 2009. From Obama’s Order (1, 2):

“For the past 8 years, the authority of the Department of Health and Human Services, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to fund and conduct human embryonic stem cell research has been limited by Presidential actions. The purpose of this order is to remove these limitations on scientific inquiry, to expand NIH support for the exploration of human stem cell research..”

In December, the NIH made 13 human embryonic stem cell lines eligible for federally funded research. There are 96 additional hESC lines awaiting approval. Thanks to these developments, the NIH started funding over 30 human ES cell experiments in 2009, totaling over $20 million approved through Dr. Magnuson’s NIH panel.

Jackson Laboratory’s involvement with NIH funding for hESC experiments goes beyond Magnuson’s participation on the hESC funding panel. Jackson Laboratory was the recipient of NIH Grant money from 2005-2008 that helped fund their international how-to courses in human ES cell experimental methods.

Has human embryonic stem cell manipulation taken place at Jackson Laboratory?

The following are excerpts taken directly from the NIH grants written by Jackson Laboratory that funded their aforementioned training courses in human embryonic stem cell techniques (see NIH project profiles for 2004, 2005, and 2008). Emphasis added by AveWatch.

The current major bottleneck to human ES cells becoming a ubiquitous research tool in the biomedical research community is the hands-on training necessary to learn how to culture these sensitive cells. The course proposed in this application, “Current Protocols in Stem Cell Biology”, will provide hands-on training for investigators to learn how to culture, manipulate, and differentiate human ES cells from in vitro. This course will bring together some of the leading experts on ES cell technology to train students in the successful culture, maintenance and manipulation of ES cells. A major long term goal for this course will be to share and improve standard protocols, and eventually to publish a technique manual…

This is a competing renewal requesting funds for the continuance of the short course “Methods in Human ES Cell Research” formerly known as “Current Protocols in Stem Cell Biology” which has been offered annually at The Jackson Laboratory since 2002. This course will continue to be held in The Jackson Laboratory’s Applied Genomics Training Center in early August of each year. The Course will utilize only human ES cell lines registered with the NIH, specifically UC06, WA09 and ES03.

The current major bottleneck to human ES cells becoming a ubiquitous research tool in the biomedical research community continues to be the scarcity of the hands-on training necessary to learn how to culture these sensitive cells. The course proposed in this application will continue to provide hands-on training for investigators in how to culture, manipulate, and differentiate human ES cells in vitro.

An example of their hands-on training course schedule from 2007 is here (PDF).

Jackson even organized and hosted a special “10th anniversary symposium” to “celebrate the isolation of human embryonic stem cells.” Symposium talks at the company’s Maine headquarters included “Human embryonic stem cells as a system to study human genetic disorders” and “Scaled production of high purity clinical grade motor neurons from human embryonic stem cells.”

Jackson’s leadership in promoting human embryonic stem cell experimentation extends beyond the U.S. border. Jackson was one of several international laboratories that contributed to the key scientific paper “Characterization of human embryonic stem cell lines by the International Stem Cell Initiative (ISCI)” that appeared in the journal Nature Biotechnology. According to the ISCI’s website, the organization is…

“… a worldwide collaborative effort to establish basic criteria and techniques that will underpin the eventual development of applications for human embryonic stem (hES) cells in human medicine.”

Many examples of Jackson scientist involvement in human ES cell studies can be offered. Example: From a 2009 paper in the journal Stem Cells by Jackson’s Leonard D. Shultz — “Bioluminescent imaging demonstrates that transplanted human embryonic stem cell-derived CD34 cells preferentially develop into endothelial cells” (excerpt):

To better understand mechanisms that enhance or limit the in vivo developmental potential of hESC-derived cells, we utilized hESCs that express firefly luciferase (luc) to allow noninvasive, real-time bioluminescent imaging of hESC-derived CD34+ cells transplanted into the liver of neonatal immunodeficient mice.

See also Shultz’s February 2010 hESC paper in Gene Therapy.

Clearly, Jackson Laboratory cooperates materially and directly in human embryonic stem cell research; it derives a profit doing so. In their own words, they want to see “human ES cells becoming a ubiquitous research tool in the biomedical research community.”

This is the company that is being heavily recruited toward Tom Monaghan’s Ave Maria Town and University.

UPDATE, 3/31/10 – Is the proposed site for Jackson inside Monaghan’s Ave Maria Town? GenomeWeb reports on an interview with Michael Hyde, Jackson Laboratory’s VP for External Relations (excerpt):

In an interview, Hyde said the facility would be built within part of a 700-acre section of the 4,000-acre Ave Maria, Fla., mixed-use, master-planned community. The land is now owned by Barron Collier Cos., which has co-developed Ave Maria with Domino’s Pizza founder Tom Monaghan.

UPDATE, 4/2/10 – Yesterday, the Florida House passed the state budget with the Jackson Laboratory money giveaway intact. Before the offer to Jackson is formalized, the state’s Office of Tourism, Trade, and Economic Development must specifically allocate $50M for Jackson from its $119M office budget.