Responding to charges a professor engaged in Mideast politics on the taxpayer dime, San Francisco State University officials offered bland reassurances that the school investigates “any allegations that a member of the University community misused state funds.”

Palestinian guerrilla Leila Khaled was praised by San Francisco State University professor Rabab Abdulhadi, who received more than ,000 from SFSU to fly to Jordan, the West Bank and Israel.

According to a California Public Records Act inquiry requested by the nonprofit group AMCHA Initiative, “Professor Rabab Abdulhadi received more than ,000 from SFSU to fly to Jordan, the West Bank and Israel to meet with members of known terrorist organizations.”

Abdulhadi did not respond to email and telephone requests for comments. In a recording, she said the trip was aimed at “collaborating with academic institutions, especially with academic institutions in Palestine.”

Abdulhadi was scheduled to present a paper at a Jan. 11 – 14 Conference of the Center for American Studies and Research at the American University in Lebanon. After receiving university approval to attend at the school’s expense, Abdulhadi sent an email to the SFSU Risk Management Office advising that her “name was dropped from the Beirut conference.”

Despite that change, she made the Mideast trip, along with SFSU ethnic studies professor Joanne Barker and Jaime Veve, who is Abdulhadi’s husband.

Critics allege the trip was always political rather than academic. They point to a March 6 event, during which Abdulhadi called the trip a “political solidarity tour.” Captured on an audio recording, she clearly expresses her admiration for Palestinian terrorist Leila Khaled, calling her “an icon in the liberation movement and she is an icon for women’s liberation.”

The Franklin Center is Watchdog's parent organization. From their mission, they say they are:

not partisan or political, but we always ask these questions when reporting on events: What does this mean for taxpayers? Will it advance or restrict individual freedom? - See more at: http://franklincenterhq.org/about/mission/#sthash.f29ZUoYo.dpuf

"Taxpayers" is code language for the upper class, as they are the people who pay taxes that cover the poor.

"Individual freedom" is code language for the freedom of businesses to be free of regulations. This is in contrast to leftist language like "community liberation", or "people's liberation", or simply "freedom", which can mean different things.

The stress on the individual is a away to atomize people so they don't feel "free" to join together based on a shared community, shared condition, or some other quality. Collective action to gain political change takes not only individual initiative, but a sense of group identity to foster a willingness to act as a team and a movement.

The former leader of the Franklin Center, Steven Greenhut writes for Reason, the Cato Institute's website.

Rabab Abdulhadi is a Palestinian who teaches in Ethnic Studies at SF State.

http://ethnicstudies.sfsu.edu/faculty1

They went to visit Leila Khaled, who is a PLFP freedom fighter and hero. Terrorist, yes in the past, but also a leader, today.

http://mondoweiss.net/2014/04/palestine-paradise-interview.html

As a taxpayer, my money, along with billions are sent to help Israel's racist government. As a taxpayer, I'm also okay with having people on the state payroll who are allies of Palestine. Billions versus thousands of dollars.

Why a janitor ends up with a higher tax rate than a millionaire, and seven more charts that show how the richest Americans beat the IRS.

"We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes," billionaire hotelier Leona Helmsley famously (and allegedly) sniffed.

Tax rates for the wealthy have fallen substantially since they peaked in the 1940s. During the past 30 years, they have been cut at a much faster rate than middle- and low-income taxpayers'.



Just how much of a windfall are tax cuts for the wealthy? The extension of the Bush tax cuts passed last year will provide 6,000 in annual tax savings, on average, to each of the wealthiest 0.1% of Americans.

The superrich get an additional boost from relatively low tax rates on capital gains. Income from long-term investments, which makes up a larger portion of wealthier taxpayers' incomes than middle- and low-income taxpayers', is taxed at lower rates than wages.

Payroll taxes (deductions for Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment insurance) are mostly paid by the bottom 90 percent of earners. When they're factored in on top of income tax, the gap between the tax rates at the very top and everyone else shrinks even more—so much that the effective tax rate for people earning more than 0,000 is nearly the same as for those earning between ,000 and ,000 a year.

Payroll taxes now make up nearly as much of federal tax revenue as individual income tax. Meanwhile, revenues from corporate taxes have decreased significantly over the past 50 years.

Corporations exploit various loopholes and tax breaks to reduce their IRS bills—perhaps none more notoriously than General Electric. Though the corporate tax rate is 35%, GE has paid nothing near that for nearly a decade.



As Martin A. Sullivan of Tax.com recently calculated, a New York janitor making slightly more than ,000 a year pays an effective tax rate of nearly 25%. And the effective tax rate for a resident of the Park Avenue building named after Helmsley, earning an average of .2 million annually? A cool 14.7%.

Sources

Share of taxes: Tax Policy Center

Top 400 taxpayers: IRS (PDF)

Falling tax rates: Remapping Debate

Bush tax cuts: Tax Policy Center (PDF)

Income vs. capital gains: IRS: Income tax rates (PDF); capital gains tax rates

Effective tax rates: Tax Policy Center

Source of tax revenues: Senate Joint Committee on Taxation (PDF)

GE taxes: ProPublica

Janitor vs. millionaire: Tax.com