“Every day, including the past two weeks spent representing my country on a State Department tour in the Middle East, I have been struck by how the controversy has riveted the attention of Americans, as well as nearly everyone I met in my travels.” Glad he brought this up. So, while he was observing from a great distance the raw feelings he’d stirred up in the U.S., who were these people he was meeting with abroad? We know Rauf dallied with the United Arab Emirates General Authority for Islamic Affairs and Endowments, as well as sundry other UAE moneyed types. But his 15-day, $16,000 taxpayer-funded, State Department-sponsored tour was just the tail end of more than two months he spent abroad, most of that shrouded in mystery. Why the secrets? Who else was he meeting? And while we’re on the subject, why won’t he or his wife answer any questions about the financing of the Cordoba Initiative’s Malaysian office? Why has material on their Malaysian operation, including the address, and a photo showing Rauf meeting in Malaysia with an Iranian official, Mohammad Javad Larijani, disappeared in recent weeks from the Cordoba Initiative web site?
“I know there will be interest in our financing, and so we will clearly identify all of our financial backers.” There’s been interest for months in their financial backers, going back to the 1990s, and extending to places like Saudi Arabia and Malaysia. We’re still waiting for answers. Or hasn’t he noticed?
“How better to commemorate 9/11 than to urge our fellow Muslims, fellow Christians and fellow Jews to follow the fundamental common impulse of our great faith traditions?” And what impulse would that be? The impulse to anoint the self-exalting Feisal Abdul Rauf and the America-denouncing Daisy Khan as the Triborough Bridge Toll Collectors of religion in America? It’s quite possible by now that the greatest service Rauf could do his fellow Muslims would be — as some Muslims have said – to stop posturing as their mouthpiece, and drop the stunt of enlisting the site of the Sept. 11 Islamist attacks as the stage set for his self-aggrandizing projects. For Rauf, that would be a dandy way to commemorate Sept. 11. And for the rest of us – all those many Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Mormons, Agnostics, Atheists and other ordinary Americans whose views he appears to disdain – I suspect that Rauf bowing out of the Sept. 11 commemoration business would come as a blessed relief.
According to Reynolds V. US , 1878, the act of promoting Sharia Law for the United States is illegal.
That’s an interesting tidbit. Any record of that decision being overturned?
The case is how religion is not a defense for criminal activity. Specifically about bigamy and Mormons.
“According to Reynolds V. US , 1878, the act of promoting Sharia Law for the United States is illegal.”
really…hmmm… i didn’t know about this…thanks for sharing
Definition of islamophobic- ANY questions or criticism of islam – countries guilty of islamophobia include France, Belgium, Denmark, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, the United States. Theses countries are also guilty of being secular democracies. Does anyone else see a trend here?
What about the muslims that came to America to escape Sharia law and Islamic fundamentalists? Are they Islamophobic as well?
Well, the hour is drawing late, so I’d recommend they hastily and openly stand up against CAIR and the hundreds of other Muslim Wahhabi front groups that are operating on their behalf; that would be a good start. I’ve seen a lot of lawyering up, a huge amount of doublespeak, and equivocation and a lot of water muddying, (and the endless, “we are being persecuted” rubbish), but not much to be actually done by the Muslims you claim are here trying to get away from their radical brethren. When push comes to shove (and it it coming to that, people are seriously fed up) the decent, liberal Muslims had better be tossing out the Imams and radical clerics, informing on their fellows who are not here to support western liberalism, and otherwise going out of their way to convince the rest of us that they are behind the common project. Hirsi Ali is one such ex-Muslim, how is she being received by Muslims in the West?
Well if they attend the mosques set up by Saudi Arabia (they have spent billions since the 1970s to establish their Whahabbi faith in the Western countries, and converting thousands in Western jails) then they are certainly not escaping sharia and if the insist on living in Muslim majority areas then they are certainly not escaping the sharia police and their goons.
Can anyone find me one newspaper article showing anyone trying to establish Sharia Law anywhere in the United States? If not you should check the crazy.
Brian, about twenty years ago, in England, people said exactly the same thing about Sharia. Are you in doubt that there is widespread talk among radical Muslims across Europe, whose populations are skyrocketing while native-born Europeans decline, about laws for Muslims and laws for the rest of the nation they live in? Wait until they are closer to 50% in many of those nations, and we’ll see what gets said more openly in Europe about special Sharia zones in largely Muslim parts of the country. I guarantee this one, Brian. And even where it is not de jure, it will be de facto in the large, almost entirely Muslim parts of the country where the Christians dare not step foot.
We’re not going to hear anything in America about Sharia because we are not going to allow large groups of Muslims to continue to arrive on our shores.
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/09/02/the-real-impact-of-sharia-law-in-america/
http://www.anorak.co.uk/180828/twitterings/islamic-law-applied-in-us-courts.html
http://creepingsharia.wordpress.com/2009/03/30/obamas-top-legal-pick-sharia-law-could-appy-in-us-courts/
http://creepingsharia.wordpress.com/2010/08/07/new-jersey-judge-rules-islamic-sharia-law-trumps-u-s-law/
do you need more to get your head out of the sand?
I don’t find any “bombast” in the Iman’s well written op-ed piece in the Times; what I do find is a huge amount of straining to pick a fight in Claudia Rosette’s bombastic diatribe. She also seems to dislike the fact that Rauf travels the world at the behest of our own state department, attempting to spread good will about the US and our democracy.
Rauf and his spouse Daisy Kahn are exactly the sorts of citizens whom we desperately need more of! As a New Yorker, I am totally behind their life long work on behalf of interreligious understanding, and this controversy shows exactly how important that work is.
Your statements are jokes, right?
They must be. I laughed so hard my sides are aching.
The thing we urgently need from this couple are answers about financial matters. If you can read a spreadsheet, you will find this clear.
They have not raised the 100 million for the community center yet. If you can show me the financing they have I would then be very impressed. Please show me where the 100 mil is coming from. Showing me does not include your crazy conspiracy theory.
I’m sure that you can provide reliable translated transcriptions of the speeches he made on the trip where he praises the US and its government.
Please do so. And note the qualifier “reliable.” Reports from obviously slanted sites will be disregarded.
I expect that you’re more likely to just ignore this request, spin furiously, or call me names. Of course, doing any of those would be proof that you have no evidence for your statement.
You seem to be a nice guy, but woefully naive.
“Rauf travels the world at the behest of our own state department, attempting to spread good will about the US and our democracy.”
Maybe what Rauf really wants is to become the next Chair of NASA.
NASA!!
Henderson
I am not sure what “Democracy” you might live in but I live in a Representative Republic governed by a much revered Constitution designed by Representatives of “WE — The People” to inform our Government of it’s limited powers.
Rauf wants to build the Mosque for the very same reason ecery conquistador who ever landed here wanted to plant a flag of their homeland and their religion. Ask The American Tribes how well that promoted “Understanding” between the two peoples.
He is a snake of a con-man. You should be ashamed of your rediculous diatribe!
Ruff and his spouse Daisy Chain are exactly the sorts of citizens whom we desperately, urgently, absolutely need more of! We in fact need millions more of them to bring us together in a massive love clutch. As a Left-Wing, Moonbat, New Yorker (pardon my double redundancy), I am totally behind their life-long work on behalf of harmonious interreligious understanding that a pesky and tiny number of clingers (a mere 70% of the population) simply don’t understand because they are hillbillies and rubes who don’t live in New York, and this controversy shows exactly how important, vital, and vituperative that holy work is.
Mr. Cenderson, can you please tell me where I can get a job as an organizer of harmonious interreligious understanding. I am a recent grad and am very interested in worldwide travel (and paid travel expenses). It seems that this position offers a very good salary program, allowing one and one’s spouse to live in expensive Manhattan, and good chances for advancement. Thank you. Fred.
Charles,
I think it’s starting to become quite clear that it was a mistake for the State Dept, even under Bush, to trust this man who’s primary purpose is to facilitate the insertion of some of Islam’s more repugnant aspects (i.e. Shariah) into the social legal lexicon of American society. He is also a triumphalist Muslim currying the favor of other rich Muslims who can make his, and their, Islamic dreams come true. If he wasn’t he would do the decent thing of moving the Mosque. America is not Shariah compliant and never will be. We did not bring 9/11 upon ourselves. And Hamas is still a terrorist organization no matter what Rauf refuses to say about it.
My God, man, pull your head out and smell something other than the politically correct BS you’re spewing! Remember the world trade center? Muslim jihadists attacked it twice before their glorious victory that now demands the construction of a victory mosque. The Fort Riley massacre ring a bell? Maybe the attempted attack on the New Jersey Army Base? How about the attempted Time Squire bombing? Maybe the gas in the subway or all the airliners murderous “holy warriors” have actually succeeded or attempted to blow out of the sky for the last 20 years or so; Lockerbie, Scotland sound familiar? Maybe the Marine barracks or the Air Force one or even the embassies blown up make you think it might be open hostilities. How about the nightclubs around the world blown up? Maybe the trains in Spain and England slipped your mind? We are already at war; the total kind for world domination where no law but Shariah law is permitted and no “god” but Allah can be prayed to and where handing out bibles is an executable offence. Islam has been waging it for over 1400 years but now the loose borders and easy intercontinental travel has made it more exportable.
Theoden: “I will not risk open war.”
Aragorn: “Open war is upon you, whether you would risk it or not.” – J. R. R. Tolkien’s, Lord of the Rings
Be afraid, be very afraid. Islam has been spread at the point of the sward for over 1400 years.
The guy is an extortionist(Duh,who could imagine?)-do what he wants, where he wants,or Americans,and their interests, will be attacked.
That is exactly what all those who oppose this victory mosque have been saying from the get-go and Rauf just validated their suspicions.
It’s the same old play book, and they wonder why we just can’t go along to get along.
Has the imam gotten around to increasing our understanding of these Islamic core beliefs:
Death for apostates?
Death for infidels who don’t submit, convert or leave the country?
Death for person who engage in “innovation” in interpreting the Koran?
Death for homosexuals?
Death for Jews?
Death for people eating pizza in a restaurant?
Death for working in a N.Y. office building?
Shariah only for the U.S. and all the world and, thus, a world ruled by Muslim priests?
Understanding of these matters is something we can ALL get behind.
While he’s beavering away at his great instructional work, let’s have him shed some light on why Muslims have murdered some 16,000+ (and counting) people around the world since 9/11.
As with all people who light candles to “understanding” you assume all that the unwashed lack is an understanding of the common humanity and decency of the “other.” Actually, a lot of us understand only too well the horrors of Islam and the backward, oppressive societies that it breeds. Apparently, we don’t understand how to persuade people like yourself to recognize that your civilization is in a fight to the death with people who are motivated by a bad cosmic joke played on them 1,400 years ago.
To put it in terms you will understand, imagine the George W. Bush founded a religions 1,400 years ago and Republicans were today agitating for the imposition of that religion on the entire world. Would you be so happy now if Pastor Mordechai T. Witherspoon were working hard to increase our understanding of the basic humanity of the members of the Church of the One World?
We came to “understand” the Japs after Pearl Harbor very well. We weren’t interested in some kind of academic understanding we could write term papers about. We craved the kind of understanding that forever eliminated the doctrines and leadership class of WWII Japan from the face of the earth. What part of “mortal enemy” don’t you get about Islam?
these are the nazis all over again. it took us a long time to understand the depths of that enemy and that it can happen here. up to that point, there were nazis crawling all over the place and being welcomed everywhere in america.
the only reason we have this enemy here is obama. no other reason. it is his objective. his crazy talk about how they built america, how america is a muslim nation and the other remarks, plus his speeches in cairo and his bowing and we can’t seem to get rid of him. impeaching him would be good. because if he goes, they go.
i don’t want their mosques anywhere, i don’t want their deranged students intimidating and harrassing jewish students, and i specifically don’t want my tax money to support these activities.
these protests in black and immigrant poor neighborhoods against our police is the incitement from these muslim crappers.
trouble has come. and, there’s more trouble to come.
I profiled Rauf, and it appears to me he is the enemy.
If I am correct, and I believe I am, why does the CFR State Department support him with my tax money? Treason?
what can clinton and obama be thinking? are they both deranged and unable to assess the mood of the american people. islam and its bullsh*t is unacceptable to us, indeed it is creepy and vile, and has no place here. it is not congruent with american principles and core beliefs. someone has promised these muslim ideologues something big and now the muslims are having a tantrum seeing that it is not going to happen.
none of it is going to happen.
Ah, yes, but Reynolds V. US was about a Mormon being charged criminally and convicted for violating state bigamy laws, having more than one wife. The court found no first amendment rights to practice a religion that exempted the Mormon from the criminal code. However, now a hundred years later when marriage is being redefined, who knows? If same sex marriage is now OK, then certainly the principle the more the merrier cannot be readily dismissed from being a right to privacy. The court ruled: “Congress was deprived of all legislative power over mere opinion, but was left free to reach actions which were in violation of social duties or subversive of good order.”
Even the ideas of “social duties” and “good order” have changed over the years as more and more of those “actions” are subsumed under “mere opinion” and arbitrary social constructs–executions and shooting looters on sight is a no no but sodomy is now OK, for example. Harems may be the future order of the day, a sort of new style hippie commune where the women get to do most of the, well. women’s work for the man. Hum, maybe that’s what the imam means by the U.S. being sharia compliant? We do have a living constitution and for the left all politics is personal—which is kind of an Islamic point of view.
Imam Feisal is just another foreign devil from the land of Islam. If he goes away they’ll be ten more just like him to carry on the mischief. The real villain in the Jihad Victory Mosque at Ground-Zero matter is Mayor Bloomberg. He has been Mayor of NYC since 2002 and there’s still a gaping hole where the Twin Towers once stood. If he had been a patriot instead of a dhimmi rat, he would have done something towards rebuiling the World Trade Center.
oh Lordy, I hope these constant scenes of mosque-buildin and flag-burnin on TV don’t radicalize y’alls young NASCAR-lovin scots-irish kiddies
Be sennnssssidive, Rauf
My you come back in your next life as General Lee on Dukes of Hazzard.
HEEEEEEEEEEEAAEWWWWWWWWW!!!
10 years ago, a smooth operator like our dear peek-a-boo Imam would not have triggered any detectable reaction. One of these days, we will routinely confront those who commit affronts as obscene as Imam Feisal Rauf’s in-your-face promotion of harmony. Late is better than never. If we react with proportional firmness, American Muslims will join the effort, as some of them already have. There is no dialogue to be had whatsoever with a self-appointed pioneer of inter-faith understanding until he demonstrates his authenticity by unequivocally repudiating the Muslim Brotherhood in general and Hamas in particular. He is not going to back off until we completely reveal his duplicity, which is only a matter of popular determination.
Roughly 200 years ago, The expeditionary force launched by President Jefferson, which later became known as the US Marines, soundly defeated the Muslim pirates on the southern mediterranean coast, and put an end to the Barbary wars, which allowed the American merchant ships to sail unmolested. Significantly, last year, President Obama authorized the shooting of the three Somali pirates who had taken the American cargo ship captain hostage. It was a well administrated and timely reminder.
Insults such as the Cordoba house have to be challenged, regardless of their brick-and-mortar legality. We already have thousands of mosques in the US, whereas countries such as the kingdom of Saud is sufficiently afraid of the Bible to banish it! If anything, they should learn tolerance from us, not presume to teach it to anyone.
How long are we going to tolerate upside-down morality?
Excellent Post Professor. Thank you.
“brick and mortar right”
I would like to hear from someone with zoning board experience. Even opponents of GZM admit Rauf and co. “have the right to build”. What does that mean. Legal right? Constitutional right? Moral right? Aesthetic right? I suppose Donald Trump has has the “right” to build just about anything anywhere. That doesn’t mean the zoning board will approve. As far as I know a zoning board can refuse on all sorts appropriate/inappropriate grounds and demand that the builders conform to all sorts of standards.
The real question is why is he receiving money from the American taxpayer via the State Department. Hilary Clinton is his patron and the leader of the Leftist democrat party. Why do democrats in America want Sharia law established here? why do democrats always ally themselves with the enemies of America? Why do democrats always portray themselves as so morally superiour to everyone else? Maybe the real problem is to be found with the democrat operatives in our country. They really want to destroy everything that keeps us a free country.
Progressives and their useful idiots fall for the “bridge for sale” line over and over and over and . . .
Just one minor correstion. The Progressives ARE the useful idiots.
the funniest thing is watching the libs get so het up about religious freedom. these are the same people who will go to court to make sure no American schoolchild will ever sing another Christmas carol…yet if the religion is Islam, suddenly they’re all for it.
the fact is there is no good reason why this mosque MUST be built at that site, and there are several very good reasons why it shouldn’t. bridge building is clearly not happening: Rauf should pack it in. and Hillary needs to distance herself too, especially if she’s really running in 2012!
Judy NYC, I’m with you. WTF is going on in America? Just finished watching Imam Rauf on Larry King, couldn’t stand to watch the whole thing, but he said something interesting. He said something to the effect that “we can’t not build the mosque because it will really anger the radical muslims, they will feel islam is under attack and who knows what they’ll do..” it was something like that. Something that sounded rather veiled-ey threaten-y. It was most bizarre, and makes me wonder if this Imam dude knows anything about America. Thinking that we give a ____ about what radical extremists think. Another thought was, if the mosque is built apparently this will send a message to the “radical islamo fascists” that the Ground Zero mosque is a Victory Mosque and will also embolden the “radical extremeists”. I mean what is it with this tiresome Islamo fascist people? We just can’t win. Darned if we do darned if we don’t.
If I were a member of the normal muslims in America, the peace loving etc., ones we keep hearing about, I would be quite upset with Mr. Rauf as he is doing none of them a favor with this ground Zero mosque stunt.
Since it seems that whatever we do will anger the Muslims, I suggest that we do what we want. What will be the threat when Muslims want us to be more Sharia-compliant? Will the Arab Street have another ‘spontaneous demonstration’ because they are not getting their way? Imam Rauf was quoted in an article this morning that he personally was in favor of moving the mosque. Why don’t we send him back to the M.E. [at his own expense] to argue that point of view?
“we can’t not build the mosque because it will really anger the radical muslims, they will feel islam is under attack and who knows what they’ll do..”
Now you are witnessing the two step they dance. First they intimidate the infidel and then they incite their own to violence.
Did you know that the Danish cartoons were published during Ramadan and no Muslims did anything until a few months later when the Danish Imam went traveling to incite against them that the Muslim world erupted?
Hey Claudia….you spelled bomb blast wrong.
Fareed Zakaria: America’s Resident Muslim Quisling
(The first part of this article is an excerpt from “An Immodest Proposal for Ending and Winning the War on Terror.” It directly relates to recent comments and actions by Fareed Zakaria.)
“An immigrant from Mumbai, India, Fareed Zakaria is well-credentialed: editor of Newsweek International, bestselling author, television commentator, regular contributor to The New Republic and to the webzine Slate, and host of a weekly PBS program. A truly impressive resume’ indeed.
Zakaria is also a Muslim although that doesn’t seem to cast any doubt on his objectivity involving a war between the West and Islam even if he has repeatedly exhibited pro-Muslim sentiments.
Zakaria outlined his beliefs in an article, ‘Beyond Bush, What the World Needs Is an Open Confident America,’ He believes that wiretapping mosques in the United States would jeopardize the assimilation of Muslims. He derided Rep. Tom Tancredo’s idea that in the event Islamic terrorists strike the United States we ‘take out’ Mecca. He lauded then-Senator Obama’s approach that if we suffer nuclear attacks we should consult an emergency response manual and try to assemble a coalition to respond. Most astoundingly, he supported a policy of ‘resilience’ which presupposes nuclear attacks on our soil after which we can ‘bounce back from a disruption’ : http://tiny.cc/yw5yz
He also believes America “over-reacted” to 9/11: http://tiny.cc/iv0h2
Fareed Zakaria should be sat down and tutored in a few basic truths, however mean-spirited they may seem. First, Americans value human life, unlike Calcuttans, and Mumbains, and Muslims. Second, response delayed is no response at all and pausing to assemble a coalition following nuclear strikes on our soil would be an open invitation to repeated attacks. Third, a nuclear attack is not simply a ‘disruption’ such as a work stoppage by New York City or Mumbain taxi drivers.
Mr. Zakaria may be an excellent journalist but, if he truly believes all he writes, he hasn’t learned much about his adoptive country.
Barbarians can be very nasty people. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1887)
He believes that wiretapping mosques in the United States would jeopardize the assimilation of Muslims.
Especially the assimilation of Muslims attending Saudi Arabia’s financed mosques. You know the ones that follow the Whahabbi faith.
Dear Americans,do you know that Rauf’s
smooth talk is broadcasted WORLDWIDE by
CNN?
When Imam Rauf was making the rounds in money land I thought he would be told to back off from his project because it is causing too much scutiny of the money trail. But apparently he must have gotten the go-ahead because as soon as he stepped of the plane he immediately went into the attack mode with his taqiyya saturated editorial in the New York Tmes. That was followed with the TV interview where he played the extortion card by predicting that if we reject the mosque the Muslim world will erupt in violence. In other words if we don’t surrender peaceably we will pay the price.
Dear Ms Rosett:
Do you feel it yet? I’m speaking of the palpable and growing RAGE Americans are begining to feel for all things muslim. Oh and how welcome and about time it is! My message to Islam is, “get out now while you still have a chance”. Just so you know, we hate you more than you can possibly know. And just you wait ’till you rouse the “American street”……
– I suspect that Rauf bowing out of the Sept. 11 commemoration business would come as a blessed relief.
Best “interfaith” move I can imagine.
Thank you Ms. Rosett for staying on the tail of this dissembling, transparent guy and his wifeperson.
Even his attempts at taqiyya are lousy.
The absence of journalism at the NYT, and CNN, was made crystal clear by giving Rauf the stage when he does not even own the building site.
I wish CNN had not ignored Rauf’s months at home in Malaysia so blatantly. Or let Rauf block every attempt Soledad made to mention the damage from the airplane on 9/11 to the 45 Park Place building.
Meanwhile, AP’s David Caruso reported that Hisham Elzanaty wants to make some money off his investment with El-Gamal. I assume Elzanaty also wants to avoid any more Medicaid fraud investigations…
The other story that is not getting echo is why the Pomerantz estate sold at such a low price, then re-invested with El-Gamal. Maybe Claudia Rossett should follow the linkage between Melvin N. Pomerantz and the Chautauqua Foundation, an early supporter of Rauf and his Cordoba ‘vision’.
For a re-fresher on Rauf-ie’s dissembling talents…to contrast with the BS in his recent NYTimes interview…
Whoever is behind the bombings in London and Madrid (gee, haven’t a clue!)…randomly killing citizens on trains and subways amounts to “targeted political objectives”
(building a Victory Mosque to 911′s 19 Martyrs qualifies as another of those “target political objectives”)
What’s innit in Paradise for women ? Well…whatever your heart desires.
we were just given an ultimatum by the imam;either you submit to the will of sharia compliant islam.stay silent while we build a shrine honoring sharia law,and the 9/11 hijackers,or we’ll rise up and murder,rape,and terrorize you;sponsored by the american state department,and hillary”where’s my birka”clinton;who has also proclaimed that the american people under the rule the of the ununited nations of dictators,murderers,rapist,child molesters,terrorist,the godless,the lawless,the corrupt.new world dis-order;president barack”i don’t believe in any god because i think i’m god”obama;and his liberal elite predatorial,and deadbeat thugs.intentionally committing economic,human life,and liberty,terrorism against america.to force america to be subservient,to the ununited nations,and the muslim world;the same method of madness,agreements that adolph hitler made with the muslim world,and the league of nations;to rid the world of all they saw as inconvienient,to their goals;once again the same progressive liberal elite,like “neville chamberlain;except this time president barack obama,our state department,our liberal media,entertainment industry,academia,and all who believe in “lucifer’s law”which is that either,we the people put the religious beliefs,of progressive liberalism,political correctness,sharia compliant islam,marxist communism/socialism,and lawlessness.above god,humanity,and law;or you don’t have the right to exist;all these religious beliefs are identical,basically demanding you either submit to them,molesting,stealing,extorting,, murdering ,raping,what has been endowed to you by your god;or if you are inconvienient to them in any manner that offends them;such as;the least of us;those who are denied their right to exist”the unborn”to satisfy the self serving bloodlust,of those predatorial,and deadbeat,activist,such as planned deadbeat parenthood,and the national organization of predatorial,and deadbeat women;all are at war with jehova god ,and his perfect son.”yeshua”jesus christ;because life comes with consequences,self reliance,and personal responsibility,and not guarantee’s.to show that i am an equal opportunity basher;here’s a warning,to those who wonder what political leader in the gop.will lie,and represent the progressive liberal movement,against the constitution,and your bill of rights;they are those who i call selective constitutionalist.here’s the signs to look for;anyone who proclaims we need a bigger party,and not a purer party;thats political code spin,for; character shouldn’t matter;anyone who proclaims they want to only talk about the issues,and not political attacks on their votes,and their character;that’s fear; the american people will learn the truth,about their betrayal of their oath to the constitution,and to those who trusted,and voted for them.finally anyone who says vote for me and i’ll end the bi-partisanship,and incivility.thats code words for as soon as i’m elected i’ll sell america and the constitution down the drain,cross the aisle and become a maverick sell-out for the opposition,to buy,and sell votes to guarantee prosperity,and power for myself;so i can steal enough money,and power;maybe i can build idols unto myself in my district.jimmy joe.”the liarfryer”
The next thing you know, it will be worship Hubal, or die you bunch of Infidels.
Thanks, Claudia. The multi-point takedown of Imam Rauf, along with Geller, Spencer and more, is an excellent blow to the forces of the Ummah.
Laura Ingraham said it best on O’Reilly tonight, “We’re getting lectured on tolerance by someone who belongs to the religion that wrote the book on intolerance?”
Daisy & Lil’Raufner are caught between a rock and living in luxury. They’ve got a great life here – driving a Lexus, wearing Armani suits, being slumlords, but . . . . . they must simultaneously appease the nutjob radical Islamists, who live to kill infidels, especially Western infidels. They’re not going to do a whole lot to jeopardize their fabulous lifestyle.
Get it straight. We should be paying Faisal Rauf. He has brought the issue of Islamist triumphalism (along with his tactics of dissembling, cloaked criticism and implied threats) to mainstream American attention. Consider this a vaccine: It hurts, but will help protect against an all out occurence of the disease.
I’m seeing this as a blessing in disguise.
.
What is Islam? Is Islam a religion or is Islam a political totalitarian ideology? The answer is it is both. Islam is a theo-political totalitarian ideology that seeks to subjugate all unbelievers, all religions, and all governments via the imposition of Sharia as its main goal, and to understand this you must understand how Islam evolved.
For 13 years Muhammad preached Islam in Mecca and in all that time he attracted only around a mere 150 followers. However, after the Hijra, Muhammad’s migration from Mecca to Medina in 622 CE, Muhammad turned to jihad and politics and that is when Islam really began to take off. Hence, when Islam was just a religion alone, it was almost a dismal failure. However, when Muhammad turned to jihad and politics then all of a sudden Islam became wildly successful.
Further, the first day of the Islamic calendar begins on the first day of the Hijra to mark the specific time when Islam made its miraculous transformation from the realm of religion to the realm of politics. Therefore, it is clear that if it weren’t for politics and jihad Islam would have been a dismal failure that never would have survived the life of Muhammad. Thus, Islam today is far more a theo-political totalitarian ideology than it is a religion, and anyone who claims otherwise clearly doesn’t know what he or she are talking about.
Hence, since Islam is a theo-political totalitarian ideology that seeks to subjugate the world via the imposition of Sharia as its main goal, it is clear that Islam isn’t protected by the free exercise clause of the first amendment of the constitution. Therefore, not only should the GZM be stopped, but also Islam in America should be outlawed altogether.
Furthermore, during the Cold War we didn’t allow millions of communists to immigrate and infiltrate our country because that would have been suicidal. Hence, because the Global Jihad is the Cold War of the 21st century, we shouldn’t be allowing millions of Muslims to immigrate and infiltrate our country today because it is likewise suicidal.
Rauf should not be trusted – he speaks out of both sides of his mouth (like many of them do). These Islamic leaders look for weakness in the enemy. We are naive to think we are not the enemy, and our ‘weakness is our tolerance’.
Our leaders, Mr O ‘bowing’ to UAE Kings and Princes?? He!! what does THAT SAY to them? It is to our peril not to stand up against those who are our enemy. Now this Rauf is ‘throwing threats’ out there IF THE MOSQUE IS ‘NOT BUILT’!! If he stood by America, like he says he does he would repudiate this comment and threats from ‘the other side’ of the Atlantic! He didn’t. Beware wolves in sheeps clothing…
According to some reports, there are 2000 Mosques in the United States why does this have to be “2001″?
We need to get off our dependence of Oil and very soon!
Most of the Middle Eastern people cannot read or write (thanks to their own enemy within the taliban and whatever other bullies are in oppressive charge). This is a weapon the Imams and Clerics use against us. They are able to Spread Propaganda to the masses through that machine.
So, why are there so many (Islamic) schools in other countries, and in the US (funded by saudi arabia? and various so called Islamic charities?) for Islamic/Muslims? Why not put these schools in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the many other Middle eastern countries? Why do they choose ‘not’ to do this? Surely they ‘hate’ western culture and westerners’ so why put your schools here??? Do they even teach ‘real world’ lessons or just koran day in and day out?
What does the Islam/Muslims contribute to American Society anyway? What is their Productivity level in America and any other country? France has a huge ‘slum’ problem? Will this be our future problem? Are many of them even here Legally? Do they pledge allegiance to America? Their words and actions don’t show it!?
Beware of wolves in sheeps clothing…
I say if they are all so afraid of American Violence toward them. They should go the hell home and don’t let the door hit you in the backside. Why be somewhere where you (are perceived) to be hated yourselves?
It is Islam/Muslim leaders fault if westerners and other countries are “suspicious” of them. Their Al Quida and Taliban brethern have given them the reputation this political cult now has. Not Me, Not you. The Imams, Clerics and Many other Islamics/Muslims need to repudiate this reputation and denounce very loudly Radical Islam and they have not! That is the way ‘you build bridges’!! We do not need ‘their war’ here! Americans will not tolerate it. As crazy as he comes off, or may be, Mr Jones is the only one standing up to these radicals!
Would our Founding Fathers have ‘worried’ England would ‘get mad’? 75% of American people are furious about what is happening – why won’t our Weak Knee elite leaders stand with us? They are putting all of us in grave peril.
Mr Bloomberg is selling out America for his own financial gain!!!
Apparently we rubes and bigots do not appreciate when a representative
from the most “advanced” faith tries to enlighten us.
Why can’t we see that he is trying to uplift us!
*gag*
Isn’t this the source of his hubris though? He is looking down on us backward non-Muslims and trying to teach us a lesson whether we like it or not for our own good. He mustn’t back down because he needs to school us ignorant children.
In addition, he will not back down because his own handlers will turn on him. You just don’t give in to the dhimmi.
I have posted this comment on another thread on PM, but I posting it again here becasue it seems very relevant to this thread, too.:
I happened to see an interview with Imam Rauf last night, and this tool basically threatened us “unbelievers” here in the U.S., by saying that, since he and his Muslim backers have proposed building a Mosque at/near Ground Zero, any action taken by us here in the U.S. to stop its building would now cause a violent reaction by Islamists, violence directed both at our troops abroad and us here at home.
In other words, “do what we say or you’ll get hurt.”
Thinly veiled threats like this may work today in Spain, or France or England, but I doubt that they will work here just yet.
Yet another news flash on the whereabouts of the self-described “bridge-building” couple behind the Ground Zero mosque:
Last week, Daisy Khan was poised to travel to the Middle East, planning a $12,000 taxpayer-funded jaunt to join her husband, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, in the United Arab Emirates, Aug. 29-Sept. 2, courtesy of the State Department.
But she didn’t go. According to a staffer at the Manhattan office shared by Khan and Rauf’s Cordoba Initiative and American Society for Muslim Advancement, Khan is still in New York, though when I called she was unavailable for questions because she was “in a meeting.” The U.S. Embassy in the UAE capital of Abu Dhabi now has a statement posted on its web site, dated Aug. 27: “Speaker Program Postponed.” The wording suggests it was Khan herself who called off the trip: “Daisy Khan, who was scheduled to visit the UAE on a speaker program as part of the U.S. Embassy’s 2010 observation of the month of Ramadan, has postponed her visit.”
What’s going on? In the best case, one might hope that even the State Department finally woke up to the perversity of using taxpayer money to send to the Middle East, as a messenger of the American people, a Kashmiri-born emigre who — while availing herself of the many benefits of life in America (including the prerogative to denigrate Americans while cynically arranging to cash in on Ground Zero) – has been busy denouncing Americans en masse as bigots, and on national TV Aug. 22 called America a place “beyond Islamophobia.”
But crediting State for wise decisions on this front is a long shot. There are some good folks buried here and there within the Foggy Bottom bureaucracy — officials who place American national interests ahead of the worship of political correctness – but I have the strong impression that they make their views known at considerable peril to their careers.
Another possibility is that Khan has her hands so full right now with damage control that she’s run out of time for travel. News continues to emerge — thanks in big part to the reporting efforts of the NY Post (most other major newspapers seem unwilling to dirty their hands with real reporting) — about the past dealings of the public troika behind the Ground Zero mosque project: Khan, Rauf and their real-estate partner, Sharif El-Gamal. There is by now a welter of information concerning not only disturbing comments blaming America for Sept. 11 and refusing to condemn the terrorists of Hamas, but also a growing list of nitty-gritty items involving alleged unpaid back taxes, unhappy tenants of the Lexus-loving imam and his wife, misreported fund-raising and so on. Is it possible that spinning non-responses, or at least diverting the media with accusations of “Islamophobia,” has cut into the time Khan had allocated for her “bridge-building” State Department junket to the UAE?
Or is there some later trip now in the works? Khan herself told me in a brief phone interview last month that her husband’s State Department tour originally included Saudi Arabia, along with Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE. When I then asked the State Department for confirmation, State took days to answer anything on the record, and when an answer finally came, the Saudi leg had disappeared — but according to both Khan and an internal State Department memo, it had not been scrapped entirely. It was merely postponed. Now Khan’s trip to the UAE has been “postponed.” Is this a diplomatically polite way of saying it won’t happen? Or should we brace for news that State is arranging yet more taxpayer-funded “outreach” trips for this Cordoba couple, as they proceed with fund-raising for the $100 million Cordoba House, a.k.a. Park51?
Creeping Sharia in the United States
In some ways, it speaks of the goodness of America that we have had such difficulty coming to grips with the challenge of radical Islamists. It is our very commitment to religious liberty that makes us uncomfortable with defining our enemies in a way that appears linked with religious belief.
However, America’s commitment to religious liberty has given radical Islamists a potent rhetorical weapon in their pursuit of sharia supremacy. In a deliberately dishonest campaign exploiting our belief in religious liberty, radical Islamists are actively engaged in a public relations campaign to try and browbeat and guilt Americans (and other Western countries) to accept the imposition of sharia in certain communities, no matter how deeply sharia law is in conflict with the protections afforded by the civil law and the democratic values undergirding our constitutional system.
The problem of creeping sharia is most visibly on display in France and in the United Kingdom, where there are Muslim enclaves in which the police have surrendered authority and sharia reigns. However, worrisome cases are starting to emerge in the United States that show sharia is coming here. Andy McCarthy’s writings, including his new book The Grand Jihad, have been invaluable in tracking instances in which the American government and major public institutions have been unwilling to assert the protections of American law and American values over sharia’s religious code. Some examples include:
In June 2009, a New Jersey state judge rejected an allegation that a Muslim man who punished his wife with pain for hours and then raped her repeatedly was guilty of criminal sexual assault, citing his religious beliefs as proof that he did not believe he was acting in a criminal matter. “This court believes that he was operating under his belief that it is, as the husband, his desire to have sex when and whether he wanted to, was something that was consistent with his practices and it was something that was not prohibited.” Thankfully, this ruling was reversed in an appellate court.
In May 2008, a disabled student at a public college being assisted by a dog was threatened by Muslim members of the student body, who were reluctant to touch the animal by the prescription of sharia. The school, St. Cloud State, chose not to engage the Muslim community, but simply gave the student credit without actually fulfilling the class hours so as to avoid conflict.
In a similar instance in November 2009, a high school senior in Owatonna, Minn., was suspended in order to protect him from the threat of violence by radical Islamists when he wrote an essay about the special privileges afforded his Somali Muslim counterparts in the school environment.
In order to accommodate sharia’s prohibition of interest payments in financial transactions, the state of Minnesota buys homes from realtors and re-sells them to Muslims at an up-front price. It is simply not the function of government to use tax money to create financial transactions that correspond to a religious code. Moreover, it is a strategy to create a precedent for legal recognition of sharia within U.S. law.
Amazingly, there are strong allegations that the United States now owns the largest provider of sharia financing in the world: AIG.
Last month, police in Dearborn, Mich., which has a large Muslim population, arrested Christian missionaries for handing out copies of the Gospel of St. John on charges of “disturbing the peace.” They were doing so on a public street outside an Arab festival in a way that is completely permissible by law, but, of course, forbidden by sharia’s rules on proselytizing. This is a clear case of freedom of speech and the exercise of religious freedom being sacrificed in deference to sharia’s intolerance against the preaching of religions other than Islam.
Shockingly, sharia honor killings-in which Muslim women are murdered by their husbands, brothers or other male family members for dishonoring their family-are also on the rise in America but do not receive national attention because they are considered “domestic disturbances.” (A recent article in Marie Claire Magazine highlights recent cases and the efforts to bring national attention to this horrifying trend.)
Cases like this will become all the more common as radical Islamists grow more and more aggressive in the United States.
One of our biggest mistakes in the aftermath of 9/11 was naming our response to the attacks “the war on terror” instead of accurately identifying radical Islamists (and the underlying ideology of radical Islamism) as the target of our campaign. This mistake has led to endless confusion about the nature of the ideological and material threat facing the civilized world and the scale of the response that is appropriate.
Radical Islamism is more than simply a religious belief. It is a comprehensive political, economic, and religious movement that seeks to impose sharia–Islamic law–upon all aspects of global society.
Many Muslims see sharia as simply a reference point for their personal code of conduct. They recognize the distinction between their personal beliefs and the laws that govern all people of all faiths.
For the radical Islamist, however, this distinction does not exist. Radical Islamists see politics and religion as inseparable in a way it is difficult for Americans to understand. Radical Islamists assert sharia’s supremacy over the freely legislated laws and values of the countries they live in and see it as their sacred duty to achieve this totalitarian supremacy in practice.
Some radical Islamists use terrorism as a tactic to impose sharia but others use non-violent methods–a cultural, political, and legal jihad that seeks the same totalitarian goal even while claiming to repudiate violence. Thus, the term “war on terrorism” is far too narrow a framework in which to think about the war in which we are engaged against the radical Islamists.
Sharia law is used in many Muslim countries to justify shocking acts of barbarity including stoning, the execution of homosexuals, and the subjugation of women. Sharia does not permit freedom of conscience; it prohibits Muslims from renouncing their Islamic faith or converting to another religion. Sharia does not support religious liberty; it treats non-Muslims as inferior and does not accord them the same protections as Muslims. In these and other instances, sharia is explicitly at odds with core American and Western values. It is an explicit repudiation of freedom of conscience and religious liberty as well as the premise that citizens are equal under the law.
Thus, the radical Islamist effort to impose sharia worldwide is a direct threat to all those who believe in the freedoms maintained by our constitutional system.
Speaker Pelosi: Stand Up for Muslim Women, Not Islamists Like Rauf!
An open letter from the founder and president of the Alliance of Iranian Women.
September 5, 2010 – by Manda Zand Ervin
Honorable Speaker Pelosi:
I heard you say that the people who oppose the construction of the Ground Zero mosque should be investigated.
Investigate me. I oppose the construction of that mosque.
This mosque, built in such close proximity to Ground Zero, is intended to send a message to America and another message to the Muslims who are gravitating toward human rights laws and secularism. We are sure that this mosque will cause nothing but division and justified ill will towards Muslims in this country.
I came to America as a political refugee, fleeing from the Islamic rule in Iran that subsumed a secular, woman-respecting government. As a human, woman, and a mother, I could not live under nor subject my daughter to such brutal, barbarian tyranny. What I see now occurring in my new home, America, is Islamists forcing their policies in bits and pieces, here and there. It is terribly disconcerting, not only to me but to all Iranian Americans and the large majority of Muslims who came to America to live in peace, freedom, and prosperity.
Madam Speaker: The Islamists are using the laws of this greatest of democracies to implement their ideology in any way they can — whether by propaganda, intimidation, the misuse of political correctness or anti-discrimination policies, or the minority status that this society puts at their disposal. Plus the most powerful of all tools, the money — the limitless petrodollars coming from foreign Islamist dictators with anti-democratic agendas.
Because the American Constitution calls for the separation of religion and government, the Justice Department, the ACLU, and others constantly minimize the influence Christianity and Judaism have on American secular society. What we, American Muslims, wonder: why is there an exception for Islam from the rules applied to others, even though the Islamic human rights record is deeply problematic and contrary to all the civil rights and individual rights laws of this great republic?
Why is Islam given a pass that is not given to Christianity or Judaism?
Madam Speaker: You are a powerful woman in the world, but you don’t care much about the human rights of hundreds of millions of women and children who need the support of the people like you to gain their individual freedom. You claim to be for the women’s right to choose, but then you ignore the right of women and children to have human dignity!
A large majority of America’s Muslims, women and girls, are living under sharia laws. Stripped of their human dignity.
You support the construction of the mosque but you don’t support the women and girls who are forced to wear hijabs against their will. Muslim women and girls live in seclusion, on the fringes of society, without recourse because of their families’ religion. In the name of religious freedom, political correctness in America only pleases the patriarchal hierarchy of the Muslim world. In the name of religious freedom, America permits Muslim communities to run a state within a state, perpetuating the patriarchal crimes against helpless women and children who should have their constitutional rights defended.
When “Muslim men” are given extra privileges that are definitely not granted to those of other religions, my Muslim sisters and I see this as the gravest discrimination committed in America.
Madam Speaker: We came to America to live in peace and harmony with Americans. We don’t want to be identified by our religion. We want to be identified by our cultures and the content of our characters. We want to be Americans, not Muslim-Americans.
We don’t want our girls forced by their fathers to wear hijabs, and to be embarrassed among their peers in American schools. We want to be free to practice — or not practice — our religion. We also want to be free to “choose.”
Unfortunately, politicians like you have chosen to cater to the worst among us — the Muslim dictators and the so-called community leaders. Ignoring the rest of us, Muslim women and children, as if we don’t exist.
The Islamists will not stop until Islam rules the world. Ayatollah Khomeini declared that Iran was a platform toward a Muslim world.
All of us American Muslims know that this is the most democratic country on Earth, and we are well aware of the Constitution and the meaning of freedom of religion in America. We luxuriate in that freedom, and we celebrate it, and we defend it.
You know well that the question here is not freedom of religion, or respect for Muslims! This is nothing but pure politics — sacrificing humanity in the name of religion for the sake of ideological politics.
We want America to treat Islam like it treats Christianity and Judaism, and to stop exempting Muslims from requirements imposed on others. We want Islam to be challenged by the same questioning, criticism, and control that is applied to other religions. Please stop pampering Islam to appease the terrorists and dictators.
Madam Speaker: The Age of Enlightenment changed the face of Judaism and Christianity, but Islam remains trapped in the 6th century. Here we have the Constitution and law. Apply it evenly to all — no exceptions for Islam. Support freedom from religion for the women and children suffering under Islamic law in America.
Manda Zand Ervin is the founder and the president of the Alliance of Iranian women. She was the U.S. delegate to the UN Commission on the Status of Women in 2008.
Islam Tax Dollars for Muslims
by Connie Hair / 09/02/2010
The Obama Administration reportedly held a special workshop this week to help leaders of controversial Muslim groups acquire “direct access” to taxpayer funding for their activities.
The event’s main organizer, the Coordinating Council of Muslim Organizations (CCMO) has long-established ties to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, which fostered many Islamist terror groups. Some of CCMO’s member groups were unindicted co-conspirators in the successfully prosecuted terrorist funding trial against the Holy Land Foundation (HLF). Event organizers said they would dedicate themselves to “cutting through red tape” to provide “direct access” to U.S. taxpayer funding for these terrorist funding-related groups.
An email announcement was sent out August 27 by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), a group long associated with Muslim Brotherhood and an unindicted co-conspirator in the HLF trial. The ISNA email said: “The Workshop: So what exactly is this workshop, you may ask. Leaders from Muslim organizations around the nation, particularly social service organizations, are invited to a workshop with representatives from the DOA, Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, Health and Human Services, the White House, Department of Education, the Department of Homeland Security, and more. Twenty-five to thirty Muslim leaders representing 20 Muslim organizations are expected to attend the workshop. “According to a representative of CCMO, this workshop is designed to clarify how Muslim nonprofits, mosques, Islamic centers, and social service organizations can strengthen their communities through more direct access to opportunities provided to social service agencies at the federal level. ‘It will hopefully help cut through some of the red tape and shine light on the many opportunities for funding, government assistance, and resources that we just don’t know about at the local level,’ said Elsanousi.”
The Obama Administration has not disclosed which CCMO groups attended the “direct access” to taxpayer funding workshop. The Department of Agriculture (DOA) referenced in the email as a sponsoring group did not respond to requests for information on the event.
Christine Brim on the website Big Peace has provided in-depth research into the CCMO and member groups. As Brim notes in her piece, the CCMO website has been scrubbed of a great deal of information on its Muslim Brotherhood ties, yet the Wayback Machine offers prior versions of the group’s website (2004-2008) that include more information on the groups ties to Muslim Brotherhood.
One such member list found on the CCMO’s 2007 website reads like a who’s who of Muslim Brotherhood organizations.
Brim compiles background information on several unindicted co-conspirator groups (information from the Investigative Project on Terrorism) listed among the CCMO member organizations and terror-funding linked organizations advertising on the CCMO website:
• The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism finance trial, and the source of Friday’s email promoting this CCMO/Department of Agriculture Event.
• The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) , shunned by the FBI, several of its leaders indicted or convicted for terrorism, a possible violator of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, sued for fraud by Muslim, Hispanic and African-American families, named as an unindicted co-conspirator (CAIR fundraiser advertised at the CCMO site) in HLF trial.
• The International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), the “think tank” of the Muslim Brotherhood according to The Grand Jihad author and former prosecutor Andrew McCarthy. One of the current and longest-serving officers of CCMO is Imam Johari Abdul-Malik, founder of the educational arm of IIIT, the Fairfax Institute and the director of outreach for the Dar-ul Hijrah “Terror” Mosque.
• The Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC), exposed in IPT report for their defense of terrorists and terrorist financers. MPAC advertised here at the CCMO site for an event co-sponsored by Islamic Free Market Institute, the latter described in Paul Sperry’s book Infiltration)
• The Dar al Hijrah Mosque (known as the “Terror Mosque” in Northern Virginia for its links to imprisoned, indicted or wanted terrorists as vividly described by Frank Gaffney), advertised here at the CCMO site.
• The Muslim American Society “Freedom Foundation” (MASFF) run by three-time felon Mahdi Bray (MASFF fundraiser advertised at the CCMO site). The Muslim American Society was originally founded as the U.S. branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. MAS leader Mahdi Bray was elected on September 7, 2003 to the Executive Committee by over 40 CCMO member organizations.
The justice presiding over the HLF trial, U.S. District Judge Jorge A. Solis, was so concerned about the significance of the ongoing threat to America and that so many unindicted co-conspirators remained to be prosecuted, he ordered the documents submitted as evidence be put on the uscourts.gov web site.
For a broad offering of documents submitted in this trial, see the court documentation on the NEFA Foundation website.
When a party is designated as an unindicted co-conspirator in a trial it essentially means that the government could have indicted and prosecuted that party with the same evidence they are using to prosecute the conspirators actually indicted.
The sheer volume of Muslim groups listed as part of the terrorist funding schemes deterred simultaneous prosecutions so they were compiled in an unindicted co-conspirator list.
Two of the groups, ISNA and the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), unsuccessfully petitioned to have their names removed from the HLF unindicted co-conspirator list. The prosecution blocked the groups’ removal through a filing in federal court in Dallas stating: “During last year’s trial, numerous exhibits were entered into evidence establishing both ISNA’s and NAIT’s intimate relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood, the Palestine Committee, and the defendants in this case,” the prosecutors wrote. “They were intimately connected with the HLF and its assigned task of providing financial support to HAMAS…. That ISNA and NAIT appeared in these documents and share a common history with these defendants is a reflection of the evidence, not any attempt to ‘disparage’ or ‘vilify.’”
Politico’s Josh Gerstein this week reported ISNA and NAIT are again attempting to have their names removed from the HLF list. In a highly controversial move, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has sealed all of the filings and moved the proceedings behind closed doors.
Gee, I guess we all no longer need to wonder whether Barry Hussein is a Christian or a Muslim?
Ground Zero Imam a Taxpayer-Subsidized Slumlord
The elitist, media-generated grand illusion of the Ground Zero mosque imam has begun to collapse under scrutiny.
New reports from The Record out of Hackensack, N.J., reveal Feisal Abdul Rauf, the would-be Ground Zero imam, owns taxpayer-subsidized apartment buildings in Hudson County where the tenants have made municipal health complaints including rat, roach and bedbug infestations, seeping toilets, leaks, urine-soaked hallways, no heat and no hot water.
Despite millions of dollars in government subsidies, Rauf has trouble maintaining several small apartment buildings in North Bergen, Palisades Park and Union City.
Despite having received over $2 million in public funding for renovations, Rauf’s tenants were forced to file municipal health complaints to seek relief. One such single mother living in a Rauf-owned apartment in Union City said Rauf has not answered complaints.
According to the new reports, Rauf has a long history of taxpayer subsidies and grants for slum properties. There’s even a new revelation of a lawsuit settled in June over what the report terms a suit alleging fraud.
The New York Post reported the site’s developers owe hundreds of thousands in back taxes: The mosque developers are tax deadbeats.
Sharif El-Gamal, the leading organizer behind the mosque and community center near Ground Zero, owes $224,270.77 in back property tax on the site, city records show.
El-Gamal’s company, 45 Park Place Partners, failed to pay its half-yearly bills in January and July, according to the city Finance Department.
Sounds like a good time to raise $100 million for a mosque.
From the NewJersey.com report:
Page after page of municipal health records examined by The Record show repeated complaints ranging from failure to pick up garbage, to rat and bedbug infestations and no heat and hot water.
Cynthia Balko, 48, of Union City — a longtime tenant of Rauf’s — said she’s had to live with rats, leaks and no heat: “I don’t have anything nice to say about the man.”
Despite having received over $2 million in public funding for renovations, Rauf’s tenants were forced to file municipal health complaints to seek relief. One such single mother living in a Rauf-owned apartment in Union City said Rauf has not answered complaints.
From an additional story in The Record:
To understand her perspective, you need to go to a forlorn corner on the Jersey side — to 22nd Street in Union City and a four-story apartment building owned by Rauf. The locks on a front door are broken and the hallway leading to [Melba] Lopez’s two-bedroom apartment smells of urine.
Looking east on 22nd Street — back across the Hudson — the Empire State building pokes the sky. On that side of the river, New York’s mayor speaks of Rauf as a symbol of religious freedom and last week invited the Imam’s wife, Daisy Khan, to dinner at Gracie Mansion to honor the Islamic celebration of Ramadan.
But in Union City, Lopez, a single mother, has another way of describing the man who has time to promote the so-called Ground Zero mosque, but does not seem to have time to answer her complaints about leaks in her toilet.
Lopez said in the report she has never met the would-be Ground Zero mosque imam but she says she has met Rauf’s wife Khan.
Lopez said she remembers Khan telling her that she and her husband did not have enough money to fix her leak and other problems in the building. What Lopez did not know was that at the same time, Rauf and Khan were trying to raise money for their mosque project on the other side of the Hudson.
According to the new reports, Rauf has a long history of taxpayer subsidies and grants for slum properties. There’s even a new revelation of a lawsuit settled in June over what the report terms a suit alleging fraud.
From the link:
[T]he suit alleged Rauf and Khan transferred ownership to another firm they owned and then obtained a $650,000 mortgage on the same building from a bank. After the building was damaged by fire in February 2008, Rauf and Khan stopped making mortgage payments to Cockinos, a former key executive at Daibes’ Mariner’s Bank. When Cockinos tried to foreclose, he discovered Rauf and Khan had switched ownership and filed suit alleging “fraud.”
The case was settled shortly before a June 28 trial, with Rauf and Khan agreeing to pay off the mortgage to Cockinos within the next few years, said the couple’s lawyer, Richard Rosa of Hackensack.
There is much more on Rauf and Khan’s current financial woes at the link.
The New York Post reported the site’s developers owe hundreds of thousands in back taxes:
The mosque developers are tax deadbeats.
Sharif El-Gamal, the leading organizer behind the mosque and community center near Ground Zero, owes $224,270.77 in back property tax on the site, city records show.
El-Gamal’s company, 45 Park Place Partners, failed to pay its half-yearly bills in January and July, according to the city Finance Department.
Sounds like a good time to raise $100 million for a mosque.
Oh, by the way. Isn’t one of Barry Hussein’s “Advisors” Valerie Jarrett a former slumlord from Chicago? How Sweet? Maybe they could have lunch?
Exposing Radical Islamist Hypocrisy at Ground Zero
There are many reasons to doubt the stated intentions of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the man behind the Ground Zero mosque. After 9/11 he did not hesitate to condemn the United States as an “accessory” to the attacks but more recently refused to condemn Hamas as a terrorist organization. This is unsurprising considering he has well-established ties to U.S. branches of the Muslim Brotherhood. He has also refused to reveal the sources of funding for the mosque project, which is projected to cost $100 million.
More importantly, he is an apologist for sharia supremacy. In a recent op-ed, Rauf actually compared sharia law with the Declaration of Independence. This isn’t mere dishonesty; it is an Orwellian attempt to cause moral confusion about the nature of radical Islamism.
The true intentions of Rauf are also revealed by the name initially proposed for the Ground Zero mosque–”Cordoba House”–which is named for a city in Spain where a conquering Muslim army replaced a church with a mosque. This name is a very direct historical indication that the Ground Zero mosque is all about conquest and thus an assertion of Islamist triumphalism which we should not tolerate.
They say they’re interfaith, but they didn’t propose the building of a mosque, church and synagogue. Instead they proposed a 13-story mosque and community center that will extol the glories of Islamic tolerance for people of other faiths, all while overlooking the site where radical Islamists killed almost 3,000 people in a shocking act of hatred.
Building this structure on the edge of the battlefield created by radical Islamists is not a celebration of religious pluralism and mutual tolerance; it is a political statement of shocking arrogance and hypocrisy.
We need to have the moral courage to denounce it. It is simply grotesque to erect a mosque at the site of the most visible and powerful symbol of the horrible consequences of radical Islamist ideology. Well-meaning Muslims, with common human sensitivity to the victims’ families, realize they have plenty of other places to gather and worship. But for radical Islamists, the mosque would become an icon of triumph, encouraging them in their challenge to our civilization.
Apologists for radical Islamist hypocrisy are trying to argue that we have to allow the construction of this mosque in order to prove America’s commitment to religious liberty. They say this despite the fact that there are already over 100 mosques in New York City.
In fact, they’re partially correct-this is a test of our commitment to religious liberty. It is a test to see if we have the resolve to face down an ideology that aims to destroy religious liberty in America, and every other freedom we hold dear.
The Political left screech be tolerant of Muslims and tolerant of Islam, so we remain silent whilst they honour kill in the name of Allah. We remain silent when they ship their little girls abroad to marry some blood relative. We remain silent whilst they practice polygamy and get multiple welfare payments. We remain silent when the enforce Sharia Law down our throats via legal jihad. How is Sharia Law being shoved down our throats, allowing them to practice polygamy, allowing them to refuse to admit guide dogs in taxis, universities or other places Muslims deem off limits to dogs, allowing enforced blood marrages I can continue?
Drip drip for nine years we’ve been screamed at by Liberal Media to tolerate Islam, well you know what I’m not tolerating the intolerable anymore. We have two choices embrace absolute tolerance of Islamic Supremacists’ dogma and inferior cultural “Diversity” practices or we embrace liberty. I’m embracing Liberty, I’ve had enough of that intolerant hateful, violence prone religion. Threaten us Imam and you’ll find we don’t grovel at the Islamists’ feet like Obama does, you can clean your own shoes with your own tongue evil little man.
Next time you view Liberal Media’s fawning attempts to portray Islam as a tolerant religion note the news coverage of Mosques? The Mosque pictures are devoid of the presense of women. The women are either in the basement, or on the filthy sidewalks outside praying because men can’t control their lust so women are banned from Islamic places of worship. See yet another symbol of how intolerant and misogynistic Islam is in the West.
Roof roof and Con should be forced to live in the slum dwellings they own. They should be forced to pay the back taxes they owe or go to jail until they do. The law should come down on these pigs.They should not be allowed to build the Ram-it-down our throats mask on the sacred area known as Ground Zero.
As a slum landlord renting to infidels, are you surprised?
Ames F. Tiedeman
Islam is the largest totalitarian regime the world has ever known. The West should stop importing these people and start deporting them. I am sick and tired of hearing all the liberals speak of America being the land of freedom for all religions. Last I checked we didn’t much like the religions of the American Indian. In fact we forced them to take Christian names and when this didn’t work in their conversion process we put them on reservations or worse, we sent in the U.S. Cavalry. Do you think Islam would have been accepted in Jamestown in 1629? Would William Penn have appreciated Islam? What would William Bradford think of a religion that advocated the killing of non believers? America does not have to accept Islam any more than is had to accept Communism. In fact Islam is a greater threat t to the survival or American Civilization as we know it than the USSR every was. Russia was not going to go to war with America over religion. The Russians were rational. They were not Islamic mad men. The Cold War was a giant chess match with rules. Dealing with Islam is mess with no rules. Why do we even engage these people? They should be isolated and blocked from humanity. Do you want to see women in the obscene Berka at your local mall? Our women wear skirts, not the Berka! Islam is not my civilization. The reason we have countries and boudaries and borders is so we do not have to live with people, countries, and civilizations that we do not respect nor want to be associated with. Islam and the West do not mesh. Go study the Battle of Vienna and the Surge of Vienna. We already went down this road to a degree. It didn’t work. I hate re-runs and this is the greatest re-run of all time. I read today that Prince Harry is under threat. When does Britain wake up. Why not deport every Muslim from England right now. Why wait for London to be hit or Prince Harry to be harmed. Get on with it. Get Islam out of Western Civilization….