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!

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.

A Rasmussen Poll that was published yesterday showed that 56% of New Yorkers support repeal of the Health Care Reform Bill.

Fifty-six percent (56%) of New York voters favor repeal of the new national health care bill, according to a new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the state.

Considering that New York is a pretty liberal state (due to Downstate dominance), I was surprised at the percentage of people that favored repeal. According to Rasmussen, the percentage of people who favor repeal has risen by 6% since April. People are finding out what’s actually in the bill and are finding out that it really doesn’t reform, but does add mandates and more government regulations that will end up costing us, not only in the wallet, but also our liberties.

The mandate that forces people to buy health insurance in the Health Care Reform (NOT!) Bill is un-Constitutional and violates the Commerce Clause. Fourteen States are suing the Federal Government to block the bill.

Nationally, Rasmussen reports that 58% of Americans support repeal of the Health Care Reform (NOT!) Bill.

Remember in November and vote out everyone in the House and Senate who voted for the Health Care Reform (NOT!) Bill!

Continuing today on the subject of Journolist, one of the people targeted was Fred Barnes who is the executive editor of the Weekly Standard and a commentator on Fox News Channel. From theDaily Caller:

In one instance, Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent urged his colleagues to deflect attention from Obama’s relationship with Wright by changing the subject. Pick one of Obama’s conservative critics, Ackerman wrote, “Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists.”

Here’s Barnes’ take on the Journolist issue and the liberal biased MSM in general. From the Wall Street Journal:

My response has usually been to say, yes, there’s liberal bias in the media, but there’s no conspiracy. The liberal tilt is an accident of nature. The media disproportionately attracts people from a liberal arts background who tend, quite innocently, to be politically liberal. If they came from West Point or engineering school, this wouldn’t be the case.

Now, after learning I’d been targeted for a smear attack by a member of an online clique of liberal journalists, I’m inclined to amend my response. Not to say there’s a media conspiracy, but at least to note that hundreds of journalists have gotten together, on an online listserv called JournoList, to promote liberalism and liberal politicians at the expense of traditional journalism.

My guess is that this and other revelations about JournoList will deepen the distrust of the national press. True, participants in the online clubhouse appear to hail chiefly from the media’s self-identified left wing. But its founder, Ezra Klein, is a prominent writer for the Washington Post. Mr. Klein shut down JournoList last month—a wise decision.

We here at rochesterconservative.com know of this liberal bias first hand because as pioneers of the Tea Party Movement, we’ve been targeted by it in a seemingly organized fashion that seems like those journalists colluded with each other.

Fred Barnes brought up a good point, that the members of Journolist promoted “liberalism and liberal politicians at the expense of traditional journalism”. IMO, most of the MSM has voluntarily acted as the propaganda arm for Obama’s campaign in 2008 and for him and his administration after they helped him win the election.

This sort of collusion of the MSM actively promoting and covering for political candidates and elected officials brings to mind Rep. A. S. Herlong, JR. of Florida reading of the Communist Goals on the House Floor on January 10 1963. Two of those goals concern the MSM:

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.

We’re there right now. This is exactly what got Obama elected, a complicit MSM. Far left ideologues have infiltrated the MSM and are voluntarily pushing this agenda and promoting politicians who are also believes in this world socialist (aka communist) revolution. Our country is being pushed away from being a Constitutional Republic towards a European style socialist democracy. We all know what the evils of government run socialism can bring, over 100 million deaths of innocent civilians during the 20th Century. I cannot understand why these supposedly educated people in the MSM would actively work to push our country in this direction. Utopia is unattainable and ends up being deadly for those living in countries trying to attain it.

HowardRoarke posted the following video to the RC Forums yesterday. Breitbart TV released these videos in response to the NAACP’s resolution of racism in the Tea Party Movement. Check out this video taken at the NAACP Freedom Fund dinner in Georgia.

Unbelievable! And the NAACP has the nerve to call the Tea Party racist! They basically awarded racism in the above video.

This thrust of this piece is not for the patriot, the American that is vigilant of government, the individual that is actively working to restore our constitutional republic, or the man or woman that clearly views a threat to American freedom and liberty in our nation today.

Then who should learn about this rant? Every American that each of us can contact through our email lists, blogs, letters to editors, organizations we belong, candidate forums, et al., with the warning that America’s future is precarious if “we the people” ignore our responsibility and right to vote November 2, 2010 or make wrong choices.

There can be no doubt all America is aware, but may not comprehend, the bizarre and potentially fatal method the Obama Administration and Congress is governing America .

From ruling by czars, radicals in government, to fiscal insanity involving bail-outs, bank takeovers, fascist automobile industry interference, to socializing healthcare, encouraging immorality, demonizing America abroad, 2nd Amendment threats, ignoring sovereignty issues, suing a State Governor for taking measures to protect her citizens, condoning voter intimidation, encouraging racial confrontation in America, attempting to degrade the United States military, putting two wars on the back burner, to name a few serious issues. When viewed together, a destructive path emerges for America , if not peacefully reversed quickly.

If….the millions of Americans who are not registered to vote do not get registered; the millions who are registered and rarely vote, fail to vote in November; those that have been complacent with the attitude “let someone else do it” , fail to get energized to vote; those that excuse their duty to vote with a “my vote won’t count” and fail to seriously evaluate the threat to America and come to realize how critical every vote is; and if “we the people” do not ensure a free ballot box, the result will be America reflecting an attitude of surrender.

Our prayer must be that a free people will still have a choice and the courage in November 2010 to make right decisions. To reverse the threat to America we must select conservative, constitutional committed, Founding Father visioned, morally courageous candidates, with unwavering support for principles embedded in our Declaration of Independence, United States Constitution, and Bill of Rights.

Failure of Americans of every color, race, ethnic background, political persuasion, gender, religion, to peacefully vote for right principles November 2, 2010 will signal continuation to those of the Marxist/socialist/communist ideology who are presently destroying over 200 years of freedom and liberty in America .

If the above failure occurs, I believe it will generate a massive, painful, bloody revolt in America . The overwhelming majority of Americans understand and abhor the thought of conflict in our beautiful land…but blood will flow before surrender to a dictator or socialist, communist regime. God help us keep our knees bent to Him, not a dictator.

The Heritage Foundation is reporting that peoples dependence on the government has jumped. This from Waterbury Republican-American:

The Heritage Foundation has released its annual estimate of how much people in the United States have come to rely on government. In 2009, the index rose from 239 to 272, an increase of 13.6 percent. It was the largest percentage gain since 1975, and the largest increase in index value on record.

Heritage looks at five aspects of people’s lives — housing; health and welfare; retirement; education; and rural and agricultural services — to derive its Index of Dependence. The calculation uses 1980 as a base year, when the index equaled 100, and interpolates to 1962 when the index stood at about 19.

It’s really no surprise hearing of this. We have a President that believes “when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody” a super majority Democratic Congress that believes in the same thing and a sycophant MSM that acts as his propaganda arm.

The editorial from the Waterbury Republican-American goes on to say:

Last year’s rapid rise calls to mind the story of what caused New Haven native Al Capp, famed as the creator of the Lil’ Abner comic strip, to revise his political outlook late in the 1960s.

Until then, Capp was a liberal icon, routinely applauded and honored by the liberal establishment. He lived in Metro Boston and said that one day, a “Liberal Lady” came to him with some photographs she had taken.

She said she could get them published if he would write captions for them. He agreed, and they worked together amiably until she showed him what she described as the most poignant of the batch, a photo that she said would break his heart. As Capp remembered years later:

“It was mid-afternoon, the sun was shining. Garbage cans were tipped on the sidewalk. Bottles lined the gutters. On a porch sprawled a half-dozen teenagers, drinking and smoking. The caption, I said, should be ‘Get up off your (butts) and clean up your street!’”

Capp said the Liberal Lady was outraged. She stormed out, and “I guess that was when I began leaving what liberalism had become. … What began to bother me, privately, was that, as things grew better, the empire of the needy seemed to grow larger. Somehow they became entitled to government gifts other people couldn’t get, such as people who worked.”

Bingo!

It’s my hope that more people are waking up, as Al Capp did and recognize the folly that the liberal “progressives” (aka socialists) are foisting on our country. It’s been a full court press for the last 50 years and its origins go back to FDR’s New Deal. We can’t keep going down this path and need to cut government spending because it’s unsustainable:

Heritage further notes the International Monetary Fund “predicts financial devastation for the U.S. by 2015 unless drastic cuts are made in the deficit immediately. …. An impending tipping point for the structure of American government and civil society is tangible.”

Remember in November and vote for fiscal and political conservatives who will cut government spending and pare down the size of government to its Constitutional limits!

It’s looking like the mid-term elections this coming November could be a disaster for the Democrats. Tea Party activists have made “Remember in November” the battle cry for the upcoming elections and are backing political and economic conservative candidates to turn the tide of big government socialism that’s been brought on during the Obama era.

Many people are suspecting that Obama and the Democrats have something up their sleeves in order to stay in power, an “October surprise” that will hurt America. Pamela Geller speculated on the suspected “October surprise” in American Thinker:

The October Surprise. We all know it’s coming. In what shape, idea, form — who’s to say? Evil always surprises. Its goals are constant, the ultimate objective never changes, but inevitably it manifests itself as the savior of the day, the savior of man. The 2008 Democrat October Surprise that ushered in the first hardcore radical post-American president in American history was the “economic collapse.” Oh yes, that was a beaut.

The time before that, the moochers and the looters tried to fake Bush documents — except that the conservative blogosphere caught them red-handed, so they missed their mark.

But the party of haters, infiltrators, anti-capitalists, the party that is anti-freedom and anti-individual rights, is going to have to pull off something really catastrophic to stay in power this November. And they will, because it is abundantly clear now that they despise the premise of America and they mean to replace it with statism, the source of untold, incomprehensible human misery for centuries.

Pamela Geller’s description of our opposition is on the money. If you want to experience the attitudes of the “progressives” first-hand, mosey on over to the Democrat and Chronicle Opinion page and participate in some of the discussions on the editorials there. I’ve participated on and off for almost 5 years now and I’m still amazed at the number of anti-American, anti free enterprise, big government statists that post there and their justifications for stealing the wealth of others to give to the entitlement class (aka socialist wealth redistribution). They are the first to get nasty and personally attack conservatives and it happens on a regular basis and the D&C will allow the perpetrators to keep on posting while they arbitrarily ban conservative posters for their ideals. This is what we’re up against folks, a stacked deck where the rules favor the radicals

Pamela Geller writes:

We have a long and terrible fight in front of us. The fight is as big as the idea, the foundation, the being of this great nation, the fight for America. Yes, it’s as big as all that, and the enemy is ruthless, unscrupulous, and evil — and willing to do whatever it takes to assume absolute control. They build nothing, produce nothing, create nothing, invent nothing. They steal. They demand. They demoralize. They are destroyers.

What will October’s Surprise be? Political analyst Jack Wheeler has an idea. “A Second Great Depression,” he says, “is the Democrat Party’s path to power”:

Our country is faced with an impending economic catastrophe, a Second Great Depression. It is being brought about on purpose by a political party that cares only for keeping and expanding its power, and looks upon prosperity as a threat to that power.

There’s been a lot of speculation that we may be on the verge of another Great Depression. So far, Obama and the Democrats have been implementing the Cloward-Piven Strategy to a “T”. Don’t be surprised if this all comes down this coming October.