Anti-Semitism reared its ugly head at the Ground Zero Mosque (GZM) counter protest. Daniel Halper from the Weekly Standard reports:

At Sunday’s Ground Zero mosque protest, I spoke to one man who had been with the counter-protesters, Joey “Boots” Bassolino, immediately after the police pulled him out from the crowd. What happened, I asked? “There was a guy standing up, a Pakistani guy, who had identified himself as a Pakistani, and he said: ‘We’re not going to sit there and back these Zionist Jews,’” Bassolino recounted, still clearly a little shaken up.

“And I’m like, whoa, wait a minute. What’s up with the racism? And they’re like, ‘what’s racist about that?’” The guy behind Bassolino yelled “f*** you,” reached forward, grabbing his camera and hitting it. “So I kicked him in the shin,” Bassolino said. Bassolino, a disabled U.S. army veteran, claims that he’s an “objective” observer and was in the group of counter-protesters to “document what was going on.”

“These are people that are supposedly protesting racism, yet you get people standing up there on a soap box yelling about ‘Zionist Jews.’ What the hell is that? That’s racism to me, man,” Bassolino explained to me.

Here’s the video that Joey Bassolino took and the incident took place 3:55 minutes into the video:

So much for religious tolerance and bridge building that the GZM supporters are touting.

In the meantime, Gov. Paterson is meeting with NY Archbishop Timothy Dolan today (8/24/2010) to discuss the GZM. From WENY-TV News:

NEW YORK (AP) — Gov. David Paterson says he’ll meet the Archbishop of New York City to discuss the mosque planned for two blocks from Ground Zero.

The private meeting is scheduled for Tuesday at the governor’s Manhattan office.

Opponents and protesters say the mosque should be moved farther away from where Islamic extremists destroyed the World Trade Center in 2001. Supporters say religious freedom should be protected.

Paterson has renewed his offer of state assistance to the project’s developers if they want to move.

I wonder if Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf will make an effort to even listen to Paterson’s offer? We’ll soon see…

Hat tip to Harry Riley for the heads-up on this!

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!

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!

There was a good article on townhall.com by Brian Walsh about Dan Maffei and Ann Marie Buerkle and the NY 25th Congressional race:

Excerpt from: 2010 Race of the Day: Democrats’ Maffei Problem

Highlighting the growing concern over Maffei’s left-wing voting record and Republican candidate Ann Marie Buerkle’s broad appeal, Buerkle was endorsed by the Independence Party this week, strengthening her bid to take this seat in November. Her campaign theme is “Jobs are Job Number One” and it has resonated loud and clear among central New Yorkers. Having united Independents and Republicans of all stripes, Buerkle faces no primary and will be the only candidate on the ballot in November under the Republican line, the Conservative line, and the Independence line.

Incumbent Rep. Maffei has voted with Nancy Pelosi 96.5% of the time over the past two years, which has made his constituents, and most notably independents in the 25th District, tired of the same old Washington politics. A former aide to the corrupt Congressman Charlie Rangel, Maffei has only voted against his party’s agenda a handful of times. He voted for the stimulus, healthcare reform, and now the costly financial overhaul bill, supporting the current Administration’s out-of-control spending and disregard for America’s future. In the past two years, all Maffei has proven is that he’s just another unimpressive Pelosi puppet, one who holds his party’s agenda above his constituents’ interests.

Click here to read the full article

Incumbent Rep. Maffei has voted with Nancy Pelosi 96.5% of the time over the past two years

A former aide to the corrupt Congressman Charlie Rangel

If I had input into Ann Marie Buerkle’s campaign, I’d be running with the above factoids, both Ann Marie herself bringing them up while on the campaign trail and also in ads. The ratings for Pelosi’s Congress are at 21.8% according to the RealClearPolitics Poll Average. That’s even lower than W’s ratings at the end of his presidency. Rangel’s corruption case is front and center now and as a former aide, how could Maffei not have known what a crook Rangel is! Heck, Rangel helped Maffei get elected.

Shout Maffei’s voting record and ties to Charlie Rangel from the roof tops, Ann Marie!

Here’s a video of Ann Marie at the 2010 Tax Day Rochester Tea Party

Remember in November!

Black Tea Party participants were quick to respond in condemnation of the NAACP’s bogus resolution of racism. From Andy Barr of Politico.com:

Some African-American tea party candidates are displeased by a resolution that the NAACP approved on Tuesday calling the grass-roots conservative movement “racist.”

“I have not experienced the charges of racism that the NAACP is touting,” Vernon Parker, an African-American tea party congressional candidate in Arizona, told POLITICO.

Parker, former mayor of Paradise Valley, said that he has never felt out of place at a tea party rally because of the color of his skin.

“When I go to tea party events, people don’t look at me any differently,” he said. “They didn’t judge me on the color of my skin, quite frankly, they judged me on my principles.”

“The NAACP should be concerned about bringing jobs to people in depressed areas,” he added, “not the tea party.”

Tim Scott, a GOP congressional nominee in South Carolina, echoed Parker’s sentiments in a statement.

“I believe that the NAACP is making a grave mistake in stereotyping a diverse group of Americans who care deeply about their country and who contribute their time, energy and resources to make a difference,” Scott said.

“As I campaign in South Carolina, I participate in numerous events sponsored by the tea party, 9/12, Patriot, and other like-minded groups, and I have had the opportunity to get to know many of the men and women who make up these energetic grass-roots organizations,” Scott added.

Deneen Borelli who is an occasional guest author here on rochesterconservative.com had this to say. From BigGovernment.com:

I condemn the NAACP. Instead of criticizing tea parties, the NAACP would be better served denouncing the racist comments made by a member of the New Black Panther Party and its voter intimidation outside a Philadelphia polling place in the last presidential election. As a frequent speaker at tea party rallies around the country, I can assure the NAACP that the tea party movement’s concerns are about President Obama’s policies and not his race.

I’m deeply concerned that the NAACP is being used as a political tool to do the dirty work of the progressive movement. I urge blacks concerned about the tea parties to read the Contract from America — a list of policy objectives for Congress that was developed by tea party members nationwide. These objectives are clearly about limited government and liberty. In fact, the NAACP should be very concerned Obama’s cap-and-trade energy policy will lead to higher energy prices and higher unemployment – particularly among poor and minority households.

I agree with Deneen, that the NAACP is being used as a political tool by the progressives and that Obama’s cap and tax policy will hurt everyone in this country, particularly the black community.

I do believe that this campaign against the Tea Party Movement is being orchestrated from the top and blessed by the Democratic Party. Remember in November and vote the race baiters out!

The NAACP is holding their annual national convention and approved a resolution condemning bigotry within the Tea Party Movement. From Yahoo News:

We felt the time had come to stand up and say, ‘It’s time for the tea party to be responsible members of this democracy and make sure they don’t tolerate bigots or bigotry among their members,’” NAACP President Ben Jealous said ahead of the debate. “We don’t have a problem with the tea party’s existence. We have an issue with their acceptance and welcoming of white supremacists into their organizations.”

Tea party activist Alex Poulter, who co-founded a Kansas City-area group called Political Chips, disputed the allegations. He said the movement is made up of a “diverse group of folks who are upset with what is going on with this country.”

Poulter said he has seen no evidence of racism within the movement.

“It’s unfounded but people are running with these accusations like they are true,” he said.

The Tea Party Movement is not racist and the NAACP is basing their bogus resolution on a manufactured incident where U.S. Reps. John Lewis, Andre Carson and Emanuel Cleaver purposely walked through Tea Partiers who were protesting the Health Care Reform (NOT!) Bill and claimed racial epithets were hurled at them and Cleaver claims he was spat upon. We carried the story here on rochesterconservative.com on Andrew Breitbart’s $100,000 Challenge, with several videos that prove that no racial epithets were uttered and nobody spat upon Emanuel Cleaver. Nobody has stepped forward to accept Breitbart’s challenge to provide evidence that the “N” word was used.

I’ve helped organize and participated in all four of the Rochester Tea Parties and there was no racism diplayed. We welcome people of all races to participate in the Rochester Tea Party Movement and we do not tolerate racism or violence. African American people have spoken at all of our Tea Parties. I’ve been in contact with Tea Party organizers across the country and they all report the same thing, that they have witnessed no racism at their Tea Parties nor do they tolerate it.

Here’s what the person who introduced the resolution gave as a reason for it:

“They are pulling people together and focusing on the negative, and then it’s hard to make anything positive out of that,” said Anita L. Russell, president of the Kansas City, Mo., branch of the NAACP, which introduced the resolution. “And then these groups, these extremist groups, are looking for something, and they are latching on to this. The thing is going to grow and grow out of control.”

Where is Ms. Russell getting her information from? The Tea Parties have been positive and uplifting experiences. We don’t have extremist groups participating, we have regular working class folks, most of whom who have never participated in protests and marches.

I conclude that the resolution by the NAACP is yet another example of the bogus vilification of the Tea Party Movement that’s being orchestrated in the MSM. The racists are not in the Tea Party Party Movement, they are the ones who are making the baseless accusations.

We all have heard from the lefty “history according to Howard Zinn” crowd in this country and from other countries, that America is a racist and imperialist country. Although mistakes have been made by Americans, we’ve tried to learn from those mistakes and we are the beacon of hope and freedom to the rest of the world! RV

By Edward Bernard Glick
The Oregonian

Much of the outside world and some Americans claim that the United States is racist and imperialistic. The claim is false.

If America is racist why are two Jews sitting on the Supreme Court and 45 Jews serving in Congress? Why are a Hispanic woman and a black man siting on the high court as well? Why are 42 African Americans serving in Congress?

If America is racist, why did it fight a bloody civil war to save the Union and remove the stench and stain of slavery? If America is racist, why is it the only white-majority nation that has made amends for slavery and its aftermath through constitutional amendments, congressional legislation, Executive Branch actions and political correctness?

If America is racist why did it elect its first black president? Why did two of Barack Obama’s predecessors appoint the first black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the first black national security advisor, and the first black secretary of state?

If America is racist, why are so many foreigners flocking to U.S. embassies and consulates begging for visas? If it is still so Eurocentric, why has it let millions of people of all colors, races and creeds, and from all corners of the globe, become citizens and make their contributions to the American Dream?

As for imperialism, it is true that America took lands from indigenous peoples. But so did the French, the British and the Canadians. So, too, did the Spaniards and the Portuguese. So, too, did the Australians and the New Zealanders. So, too, did the Chinese, the Japanese and the Russians.

The United States, influenced by the sea-power and national-security theories of Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan, went to war with Spain in 1898 and acquired Cuba, the Philippines and Puerto Rico. But it gave up control of Cuba in 1934 and granted Filipinos their independence in 1946. It has promised independence or statehood to the Puerto Ricans whenever they decide to abandon their present status.

It is true that President Theodore Roosevelt, taking advantage of a revolt against Colombia, acquired France’s Panama Canal concession in 1903. But it is also true that America finished the canal in 1914 and that President Jimmy Carter returned both the canal and the U.S.-run canal zone to Panama in 1977.

Because he believed that an invasion of Japan would produce a million American casualties, President Harry Truman ordered that atom bombs be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, thus ending Japan’s role in World War II. For a few years, the United States was the only nuclear power on the planet. Yet it blackmailed no one. Nor did it take land from its erstwhile enemies. By contrast, the Soviet Union incorporated huge swaths of Poland and Germany.

If one looks at history through the prisms of contrast and context — the only way one should look at it — and compares the United States to Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, Greece, Rome, and Turkey, or to Spain, Portugal, Japan, Russia, Britain, and France, one has to conclude that America was and is the least imperialistic major world power ever known.

The people of this country have very little to be ashamed of. They have even less to apologize for. Whatever its faults — and all countries have them — the United States has brought more freedom, well-being and wealth to more people for longer periods of time than any other nation in history.

In the words of President Abraham Lincoln, who emancipated the slaves from what he called their unfreedom, America is still “the last best hope of earth.”

Edward Bernard Glick of Northwest Portland is a professor emeritus of political science at Temple University in Philadelphia

For over 25 years we’ve had various administrations and various legislatures promulgate regulations. It’s made a lot of lawyers rich and the state hasn’t collected a nickel,” said Syracuse attorney Joseph Heath, who represents the Onondaga Nation.

Non-Indian convenience stores, health-related organizations, state legislators and even major cigarette companies all support the latest effort to collect taxes on Indian cigarette sales to non-Indians. Their arguments include the need to create a “level playing field,” provide financial incentives that discourage smoking and generate much-needed tax revenue.

The Seneca Nation of Indians is leading the campaign against the effort, citing federal treaties that arguably prohibit the collection of state taxes on Indian lands.

“We have our treaties with the United States that guarantee us certain rights. It doesn’t matter whether a treaty was made in 1842 or 1794, or New York state is $8 billion in the hole,” said Seneca, who is a member of the Seneca Nation’s council and the son of a former Seneca Nation president. “It doesn’t say in the treaty ‘until New York state needs money from you.’”

The Seneca Nation alone is already paying the state more than $500 million a year from its gambling operations, Seneca noted. “For them to say we have to pay our fair share — it’s insulting and ridiculous.”

Yet again, Albany will try to break treaties with the Senecas that have been in existence for hundreds of years, in order to shake down the Senecas for taxes on cigarettes. I remember the last time Albany tried it, in the late 1990’s when Pataki, a Republican, was governor. Now we have another governor, David Paterson, a Democrat, trying to break treaties and extort taxes from the Senecas. Party lines make no difference when it comes to the greed and corruption of Albany!

I felt like standing with the Senecas that last time that Albany tried to tax them. At the time, I smoked cigarettes. I’ve since quit, but that doesn’t change my opinion that Albany needs to back off and honor the treaties and leave the Senecas alone. As one of the founders of the Rochester Tea Party Movement, I’d like to float the idea that we stand in solidarity with the Senecas on this issue.

What do you think?