It’s a well known fact that the Democrat and Chronicle’s OPINION page has a liberal bias and that they’ve been Obama sycophants since the 2008 election.

Today’s editorial, Don’t repeal health reform law; improve it instead took the cake though. It started right out of the gate:

The House Republicans are having a good ol’ time this week with their symbolic yet time-wasting moves such as organizing a reading of the U.S. Constitution.

Imagine that, it’s a waste of time for the House of Representatives to read the Constitution, the law of the land.

This is yet again another example of the foresightedness of the Founders for providing us with the First Amendment, that guarantees that the D&C and their fellow progressive Democrats the right to put their collective feet in their mouths, letting us know how they really feel about the Constitution!

The “progressives” and unionistas that took part in the SEIU co-sponsored One Nation Rally, absolutely trashed the WWII Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial and the Arlington Bridge. Check out the following videos for the evidence.

Here’s the mess they left behind at the WWII Memorial:

Here’s a video of the mess that the One Nation ralliers left behond at the Lincoln Memorial:

There’s much that can be concluded by the actions of the One Nation ralliers, but the main observation is that the progressives and union people who took part in the rally demonstrated that they have no respect for our Nation’s Memorials. That alone says enough…

Update: 10/5/2010

Here’s a video of a Park Ranger, offering his observation of the trash left behind by the “One Nation” Rally participants versus the “Restoring Honor” Rally, where participants policed up after themselves.

BTW, the the “Restoring Honor” Rally had 300,000 to 400,000 people in attendance, including 3 busloads carrying 168 people from the Rochester area, whereas the “One Nation” Rally was sparsely attended. Here’s photos that show a comparison of the crowds:

I titled the above photos, “Grass Roots vs. Astroturf”. RV

Anyone with a pulse and their wits about them has heard through the Old Media that a mosque has been proposed for Lower Manhattan, mere feet from Ground Zero. While this is certainly controversial, and brings to the surface emotions perhaps some have not had in some time, there’s quite a bit in Imam Rauf’s background which should give even the most casual observers, even supporters of the mosque, some pause.

Imam Rauf has close ties with the Obama Admin., in fact he recently boasted about writing President Obama’s Cairo speech, and he’s traveled on State Dept. junkets across the world, all paid for by we, the taxpayers. Essentially, he’s your typical, smooth-talking type who loves to lecture others about perceived “insensitivity”, particularly when it pertains to the West and its dealings with the Muslim World. Basically, political-correctness, Islam-style, with a soft, candy-assed shell.

Hat tip to 5TownsJewishTimes for cluing folks into a Human Events article about the taxpayer-subsidized Slumlord Imam:

Ground Zero Imam a Taxpayer-Subsidized Slumlord

by Connie Hair

08/30/2010

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.

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.

Reuters is reporting New York is considering granting the group a reported $70 million in public funding.

So, there ya have it. A smooth-talking imam, not unlike any other smooth-talking type who is not a real holy man, just another shyster who seeks to bilk millions out of the taxpayers’ pockets, both for his slum properties and a mosque/”community center” mere feet from Ground Zero. Same as any other dime store shakedown artist who hides behind his religion. I’d bet dollars to donuts he and his people, to include the deadbeat owner of the property, made all this noise so they could get more private funding. The fact that Bloomberg supports this is a shame, and a slap in the face to the survivors and victims’ families of the September, 11th, terrorist attacks.

Thanks go out to my friend in Montreal who sent me one of the articles.

Sorry that I haven’t posted anything in a while. I had family business to attend to and I also needed a break from blogging to recharge my batteries.

What a story though, to break my recent “blogger’s block”, than Nancy Pelosi’s latest baring of what she really thinks of we “unwashed masses”. Check out this video:

Yeah, you heard that right, rather than call for an investigation on where the Cordoba Institute is obtaining the funding for their proposed Ground Zero Mosque, she has the unmitigated audacity to call for an investigation of the Mosque opponents! In a recent CNN Poll, nearly 70% of Americans oppose the proposed Ground Zero Mosque. Also, there’s strong opposition against this Mosque, from the families of the 9/11 victims.

Haven’t the families of the 9/11 victims suffered enough with the loss of their loved ones to Islamic extremists? Nancy Pelosi wishes to further persecute the 9/11 victims families by investigating them because they oppose a Mosque that celebrates their loved ones deaths.

Nancy Pelosi is warped beyond help. So is the American Left for their unquestioning compliance, acting as enablers and apologists for radical Islam! David Horowitz wrote about this in his book, “Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left”, and the actions by the left and their strangely sudden defense of religious freedom concerning the Ground Zero Mosque, bares out Horowitz’s claims.

During my break from blogging, I spent time on the D&C OPINION page, debating the Ground Zero Mosque issue. Every single one of the leftists that post there see no problem with the building of this Mosque and call opponents of the Mosque, bigots and Islamophobes. A couple have even speculated that the families of the 9/11 victims are bigots for opposing the Ground Zero Mosque!

Nobody who opposes the Ground Zero Mosque is challenging the builders under Constitutional grounds. We are challenging the builders concerning their offending the 9/11 victims families and the nearly 70% of Americans who don’t want a Mosque built near the site of an atrocity, the deliberate murder of innocent civilians, committed in the name of Islam, as well as the intentions of the builders. When presented with evidence that Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who’s sponsoring this Mosque, is a radical Islamist in sheeps clothing, the leftists on the D&C either ignore it or call it propaganda.

If Imam Feisal were truly the moderate Muslim that he’s trying to portray himself as, why would he:

Blame the US for 9/11 on a “60 Minutes” interview, 19 days after the attacks!

Would a moderate Muslims do that?

His organization who’s sponsoring the Ground Zero Mosque, the Cordoba Institute, has close ties with CAIR and their parent organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, whose aim it is to make Sharia the law of the land in the US!

Do moderate Muslims want this?

Imam Rauf was quoted on an Arab language website at the University of Cairo, saying “I don’t believe in religious dialogue”!

I thought moderate Muslims welcomed religious dialogue.

He refuses to call Hamas a terrorist group!

Do moderate Muslims believe that Hamas is not a terrorist group?

Imam Rauf blames the West for bringing on jihad!

Wasn’t jihad initiated by the Muslims after the inception of Islam, when the Arabian Peninsula was conquered by Mohammed, by the sword?

Imam Rauf claims to be building bridges but he deliberately burned those bridges by refusing Gov. Paterson’s offer of an alternative site, further away from Ground Zero, puposely ignoring the sensitivities of the families of the 9/11 victims. Imam Rauf showed that he cares NOT for the sensitivities of the families or for nearly 70% of Americans who are against this Mosque!

Fellow Muslims have called out Rauf on his real intentions behind the building of this Mosque.

From the commentary, “The Mosque at Ground Zero, a Muslim View: Planting a Flag on an Islamic Conquest”, by Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury in the Hudson New York:

“Rauf calls himself a Sufi, evoking among non-Muslims a “peace and love” image. But that’s not the whole picture. Sufism has many sides to it, including the Koranic injunction to spread Islam one way or another, and it has a rich history of waging war, too. Could it be that one of the frequently used tools of war, lying to the enemy, explains the contradiction between Rauf’s image as reconciler of religions and his sympathies and associations with terrorists?

From the commentary, “We Muslims know the Ground Zero mosque is meant to be a deliberate provocation”, Raheel Raza and Tarek Fatah in the Ottawa Citizen:

New York currently boasts at least 30 mosques so it’s not as if there is pressing need to find space for worshippers. The fact we Muslims know the idea behind the Ground Zero mosque is meant to be a deliberate provocation to thumb our noses at the infidel. The proposal has been made in bad faith and in Islamic parlance, such an act is referred to as “Fitna,” meaning “mischief-making” that is clearly forbidden in the Koran.

The Koran commands Muslims to, “Be considerate when you debate with the People of the Book” — i.e., Jews and Christians. Building an exclusive place of worship for Muslims at the place where Muslims killed thousands of New Yorkers is not being considerate or sensitive, it is undoubtedly an act of “fitna”

Despite all of the evidence that Imam Rauf is not the moderate Muslim he’s trying to portray himself as and the warnings from fellow Muslims that Rauf’s true intentions behind the Ground Zero Mosque are not good, the left continues to cover for and apologize for Imam Rauf! Nancy Pelosi wants to rub salt in the wounds of the 9/11 victims families and the majority of Americans by investigating them!

Pelosi’s call to investigate the 9/11 victims families and the nearly 70% of Americans who oppose the Ground Zero Mosque proves that she would persecute Americans in order to cover for and defend the enemies of America and the left is complicit in this as well!

Cordoba Initiative Chairman, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, rejected Gov. David Paterson’s offer for an alternative site for Feisal’s controversial Mosque. From FOX News:

“The developers of the so-called Ground Zero mosque rejected New York Gov. David Paterson’s offer to provide state property if the project is moved farther away from where the twin towers once stood.

“I think they would like to stay where they are, and I certainly respect that and I certainly respect them,” Paterson said. “Having said that, how much more foresighted would it have been if the imam who is the developer of the project had been willing to hear what we are actually talking about?”

In the spirit of understanding and outreach, Rauf could have taken Paterson up on his offer and the whole controversy would have been diffused. Rauf would have gained my respect for taking that route.

Instead, Rauf rejected it outright, without even discussing this with Paterson, making even Paterson wonder, “how much more foresighted would it have been if the imam who is the developer of the project had been willing to hear what we are actually talking about?”

At least things are out in the open now, unless you’re a Ground Zero Mosque supporter and apologist. As many of us had a hunch, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is intent upon building this Mosque as a symbol, a monument to radical Islam’s greatest victory over Western Civilization. Rauf could have diffused the situation, but instead he’s inflaming it!

One more thing, the State Department is sending none other than Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf on a trip to the Middle East on our dime! From LiveShots:

WASHINGTON– State Department officials on Monday confirmed Feisal Abdul Rauf, the Imam of the so-called Ground Zero Mosque, will soon be going on a trip of the Middle East and the U.S. government will be picking up the tab.

Even though Rauf is supposedly forbidden for fund raising for the Ground Zero Mosque on this trip, behind closed doors, that’s exactly what he’s going to do and WE are paying for the trip!

rochesterconserative.com member, HowardRoarke, tipped me off to an article on the New Zeal Blogspot about Journolist members connections to Marxist and far left organizations as well as having ties to the Obama campaign. From the New Zeal Blogspot:

Many “JournoListas” were involved with Marxist based based organizations such as Democratic Socialists of America, or the far left Institute for Policy Studies.

Some, like Robert Kuttner of The American Prospect, had close ties to the Obama campaign and Administration.

An overlapping group of “JournoListas” , at least eight strong were centered on another organization, which has close ties to the three highly influential power centers – financier and “change agent” George Soros’ , internet giant Google and DC based non profit Free Press – accused by its opponents of aiding Obama Administration attempts to censor and manipulate information on the internet.

The organization in question, the Washington DC based New America Foundation has close ties to the Obama Administration, stretching back to Obama’s alma mater Occidental College in the early 1980s.

Marxist journalists shilling in their publications for Obama, who admitted in his book, “Dreams From My Father”, his interest in Marxism:

To avoid being mistaken for a sellout,I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students.The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist Professors and the structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets.

Birds of a feather flocking together for the “Hope and Change” to fundamentally transform America into a European style socialist democracy.

“JournoListas” connections to the New America Foundation that’s supported by George Soros, weaves a web of collusion where details of Obama’s radical past were suppressed by compliant, “fellow traveler” journalists. This is truly what Congressman A. S. Herlong Jr described as Communist Goals to the House of Representatives back on January 10, 1963:

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

Rep. Herlong Jr also listed this:

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

The Democratic Party is now controlled by progressives (aka socialists).

Although the conservative blogsphere suspected all of this, the proof that a Marxist was elected as President of the US with the assistance of a compliant MSM and the Democratic Party is chilling.

A Federal Judge overturned California’s Proposition 8, the ban on homosexual marriage. This is the second time a Judge has overturned legislation that was voted in by the people of California. The first was back in May of 2008, when the California Supreme Court struck down Proposition 22, which was voted in back in March 2000. It passed by a margin of 61.4% to 38%. Proposition 8 passed back on November 2008 by a margin of 52.2% to 47.8%.

Charles Donovan, Senior Research Fellow with the Heritage Foundation had this to say. From The Orange County Register:

Today’s decision by a federal district judge in San Francisco striking down state constitutional protections for marriage and inventing a spurious federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage is an example of extreme judicial activism. Moreover, it is an affront to the millions of California voters who approved Proposition 8 in 2008 after months of vigorous public debate.

Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. The people of California, and the United States, have made clear in numerous ways that they have not consented to the redefinition of marriage. For the past two decades they have considered the arguments advanced by some for overturning marriage as it has been understood in our country. In state after state – 45 in all – they have chosen to reaffirm the meaning of marriage as the union of one man and one woman. They have done so because they understand that establishing same-sex marriage would transform the institution into a set of private interests rather than buttress it as a multi-generational reality binding mothers, fathers and their children biologically, socially and legally.

Again, this is the second time the judiciary has overturned the will of the people of California, judicial tyranny at its worst!

The New York Times met with the Obama Administration and reviewed the Afghan War information they obtained from WikiLeaks. I didn’t know about this until RC Forums member SMZ brought this up yesterday and tired_of_it provided the link to the salon.com article on it. Times Washington bureau chief Dean Baquet reports:

I did in fact go the White House and lay out for them what we had,” Baquet said. “We did it to give them the opportunity to comment and react. They did. They also praised us for the way we handled it, for giving them a chance to discuss it, and for handling the information with care. And for being responsible.

I do give the NYT credit for disclosing what they had to the Obama Administration. What I found upsetting about this was the reported reaction of the Obama Administration.

The Times redacted some information in the name of “national security” and protecting the safety of individual soldiers, but the White House doesn’t seem to have told the Times that publishing stories based on these documents would in any real way harm our troops.

If this in fact was the true, “behind the scenes” reaction of the Obama Administration, they are at the least, naive to believe that the leak of these documents will not harm our troops and/or at the worst, they are complicit for not being more forceful in preventing the secret documents from being published.

We’ll see in the coming days what sort of stories come out of the WikiLeaks Afghan War documents but I don’t see anything good coming from this. Hard decisions are made by our troops in combat situations and sometimes wrong targets are hit and civilians end up getting killed. This is especially true when fighting Islamic Jihadists, whose cowardly tactics include using civilians as human shields. When trying to root the Jihadists out, civilian casualties are inevitable due to those tactics. Will our brave troops be depicted as blood thirsty baby killers as the liberal MSM painted them during the Vietnam War? If so, I’ll hold WikiLeaks, the NYT and the other MSM outlets who received the documents and also the Obama Administration, for their non-action, responsible for repeating the sins of the past and allowing our troops to be maligned and vilified!

Rush Limbaugh was all over Clinton appointee, Judge Susan Bolton’s ruling that ripped the guts out of the Arizona immigration law sb1070. From RushLimbaugh.com:

The Associated Press, partisan political operatives, and the Democrats are just doing handstands. They are ecstatic. Susan Bolton, the judge, “has blocked the most controversial sections of Arizona’s new immigration law from taking effect tomorrow, which is a major victory to opponents of the crackdown. The law is still gonna take effect but without many of the provisions that angered the opponents, including sections that require officers to check a person’s immigration status while enforcing other laws.” The cops cannot do that now. Why not? Now, this is just until the courts resolve the issues. This is a temporary injunction, pending a trial to have final adjudication on this. But this is just flat-out amazing. Who is going to enforce immigration law if the Feds are not going to do it?

I mean, there are states that already do this, cops that already determine this. What about raids in states that are hiring illegals and they’re found and they’re deported? “Yeah, Rush, but those are federal agents doing that.” No, not entirely. Local police in Rhode Island are enforcing federal immigration law, but now a judge has said that that cannot happen in Arizona, pending the results of a trial. By the way, if this gets all the way to the appellate court that’s the Ninth Circus Court of Appeals that will decide this, which is to say they will uphold her. So if this ends up as far as they go there’s going to be a trial with this and be after that then it will get to the Ninth Circus. So local cops will no longer be able to go after kidnappers. I mean, that’s a federal offense. This is absurd. This is patently absurd, and I’m going to tell you something.

All of you Democrats, all you liberals, you think you’ve won something here. This is just gonna add to your defeat, the size of your defeat come November.

Polls are showing that 55% of Americans support Arizona sb1070. That’s a similar percentage that was opposed to the Health Care Reform (NOT!) Bill that was shoved down our throats. You can be sure that Obama ordered Holder to file this lawsuit that goes against the will of the American people and the people of Arizona and lackey Judge Susan Bolton followed the party line with her ruling that yet again went against the will of the American people and enforcement of the rule of law.

Americans will Remember in November!