Check out the latwst outrage
Right after the Fourth of July, I broke the story of Natalie Nichols, a newly elected county clerk in Texas, who questioned a rogue court that actually voted to remove the Pledge of Allegiance and an opening prayer from the court’s official records. She refused to do it, and made it her official stance. She now faces charges.
After my story, “An unholy war in Texas,” ran on July 6 over at World Net Daily, Bowie County Clerk Natalie Nichols found herself facing Grand Jury charges and possible prison time.
As county clerk, Nichols keeps the minutes of the proceedings of the Commissioners Court,  which are held before an audience and begin with a prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance. While Nichols was away attending a county clerk training conference on June 13, the Commissioners Court voted to remove the invocation from the minutes of a previous meeting. Why? Nichols said that County Judge Sterling Lacy told her that he “didn’t want some group like the ACLU to come in and sue.” They removed the Pledge of Allegiance from the minutes also.
According to Red Flame Wire, last Monday Lacy tried to spin the removal of the Pledge and the prayer from the minutes to lessen his own responsibility for their removal, whereupon Nichols got angry and interrupted, telling him: “But you’re lying.” And he was. “It was Lacy,” says Red Flame Wire, “and three other members of the court who voted to remove the Pledge and Prayer from the records from a June 13th meeting in which Nichols was out of town. Nichols refused to do so. There is one problem for Lacy, it was caught on tape.”
Nichols immediately apologized to Lacy for interrupting him, but not for her version of events, which was entirely accurate. After my story broke, Judge Lacy demanded, according to the Texarkana Gazette, that Bowie County Sheriff James Prince “investigate whether actions by Clerk Natalie Nichols at Monday’s meeting constitute disrupting a public meeting.” If she is found guilty, Natalie Nichols could face six months in jail and be fined $2,000. She would also be removed immediately from the office of county clerk.
Natalie’s husband told me, “Is this what we are to now expect when we dare take a stand? Directed toward a public official, no less? Retribution for some trumped-up mess? Prayers, please! Right now, she is alone in this here.”
Nichols is not going to back down, no matter how much pressure they put on her: ““I wasn’t about to compromise my values to get into office, and I will not compromise them now that I am in office. I ran as a Christian conservative and I am a Christian conservative.”
Judge Lacy has even threatened her obliquely, saying: “What she hasn’t thought through are the unintended consequences” of her stance. But Nichols is ready for the challenge: “Contrary to what Judge Lacy seems to understand, I have thought through the unintended consequences of being a party to removing an official record of saying the prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance. I have thought through the impact it will have on my grandchildren to read the history of our county and errantly think that our customs were such that we didn’t proudly proclaim a love of God and Country.”
Read the rest here.
They would sooner kill these baby girls than give them up for adoption. Are the Islamic adoption laws that the child must be raised Muslim adhered to in other Muslim countries (like Morocco) enforced in Pakistan as well?
And even that is not halal. There is no adoption in Islam. Muhammad wanted to marry his beautiful daughter-in-law. His adopted son divorced her, but people still talked -- saying Muhammad was overcome by lust. So he got a revelation: adoption was illegitimate. The adopted son (Zaid) was never his son at all, and should stop calling himself Zaid bin Muhammad -- he went back to being Zaid bin Haritha, the name of his birth father.
PAKISTAN: More than 1200 newborn baby girls killed and dumped in the garbage last year (hat tip Bare Naked Islam)
Karachi, Pakistan (CNN) -- At a morgue in Pakistan's largest city, five linen pouches -- each the size of a loaf of bread -- line the shelf of a walk-in freezer.
Wrapped inside each small sack is the corpse of an infant.
The babies are victims of what one relief agency calls Pakistan's worst unfolding tragedy: the killing and dumping of newborns.
"Sometimes they hang them, and sometimes they kill by the knife, and sometimes we find bodies which have been burned," said Anwar Kazmi, a manager at Edhi Foundation, Pakistan's largest privately run social service and relief agency.
Records at Edhi Foundation show that more than 1,200 newborns were killed and dumped in Pakistan last year, an increase of about 200 from the previous year.
Families view many of these children as illegitimate in a [Islamic] culture that condemns those born outside of marriage.
Statistics show that roughly nine out of 10 are baby girls, which families may consider too costly to keep in a country where women frequently are not allowed to work.
The babies are usually just days old. Their corpses are often dumped in Karachi's sprawling garbage dumps, where they're sometimes mutilated by street animals, Kazmi said. He estimates that hundreds of baby corpses are never found.
[..]
The killing of newborns gets little attention in Pakistan, and rarely are they investigated by a police force that's often poorly trained, lacks resources and stays focused on what's perceived to be more important crimes.
Check out my interview with Craig Silverman tonight on KHOW, the "Caplis and Silverman Show," at 6:03 PM ET. They are doing an Ayn Rand-themed show tomorrow, so they'll be getting my thoughts on her and talking about the Herman Cain Muslim Brotherhood mosque threats.
And the hits just keep on coming. More poisonous fruit from Obama's suicidal foreign policies. This comes fresh on the heels of the news that Obama has recognized Libya's rebel al qaeda government, "the Transitional National Council," as the “legitimate” government in Libya, ensuring that the jihad group could get access to American taxpayer funds and international funds. Now we discover that weapons are being smuggled through Libya to Hamas/the Muslim Brotherhood in the terror statelet, Gaza.
From Yahoo: (hat tip Choi)
While the sea blockade remains enforced, the Israeli official said weapons from Libya are making their way into Gaza through Egypt's Sinai desert.
"There is now a new route of weapons smuggled from Libya," he said, adding that smugglers are taking advantage of the chaos prompted by that country's civil war.
He stopped short of providing details about the types or quantities of weapons Israel claims are moving into Gaza from Libya.
New York Times, July 18, 2011:
LONDON — Abu Sohaib spends most of his time online these days, following the news from his native Libya. He is in constant contact with friends on the ground there, helping them map out strategy to fight the rule of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.
“I would like to be there myself; I tried to go,” he said, pausing to look at the car keys in front of him. “But Tunisia and Egypt wouldn’t let me in even after their revolution.”
Abu Sohaib, his nom de guerre, is on a watch list for suspected terrorists not only in Libya and its neighboring countries, but also in some European countries. He is a senior commander of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a former militant organization that once was aligned with Al Qaeda. The New York Times is withholding his real name because he said he fears for his safety.
Today, members of the group have renounced Al Qaeda and are part of the mosaic of rebel fighters united under the umbrella of the Transitional National Council, the opposition leadership that the United States formally recognized as Libya’s legitimate government on Friday.
Al qaeda says they have renounced al qaeda? Well, that's good enough for me!
American, European and Arab intelligence services acknowledge that they are worried about the influence that the former group’s members might exert over Libya after Colonel Qaddafi is gone, and they are trying to assess their influence and any lingering links to Al Qaeda.
The group, whose fighters number more than 500 men, including many with combat experience in Iraq or Afghanistan, was part of the social fabric of eastern Libya, its leaders say. Its members’ relatives are in Benghazi, the wellhead of opposition to the government in Tripoli. Its fighters opposed Colonel Qaddafi in the 1990s, were captured and died in Abu Salim prison in Tripoli. They hid from Qaddafi security forces in the caves in Darnah until the Libyan revolution. In short, many Libyans say, the men are seen not as an alien, pernicious force but as patriots.
They killed our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, and now we are giving them Libya.
One man's beheader is another Muslim's patriot. How the Times twists this into digestible grub is beyond me.
Libyans have held positions in the Qaeda ranks in the past, with the most prominent men being Abu Laith al-Libi and Abu Yahya al-Libi. “It is easy to change a name and say, ‘We are not part of Al Qaeda,’ but the question is if they have changed their ideology and I doubt it,” said a senior Arab intelligence official.
Ya think?
An American intelligence official who follows North Africa said that dozens of the former group’s members trained and fought alongside militants in Pakistan’s lawless tribal region.
Abu Sohaib insists that he and his brethren have severed ties to Al Qaeda and have warned the terrorist group it is not welcome in Libya. “It has been made very clear to them, that it is better for them to stay out of the country,” he said....
The formal American recognition of the rebel leadership allows the rebel government access to $30 billion in Libyan assets held in the United States. Of that, however, only about $3.5 billion is in liquid funds, and the rest in real estate and other Libyan government investments, State Department officials say. It is unclear how and when the money will be distributed to the transitional government, and what oversight mechanism will be placed to monitor it....
The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group was formed in 1995 with the goal of ousting Colonel Qaddafi. Driven into the mountains or exile by Libyan security forces, the group’s members were among the first to join the fight against Qaddafi security forces, although the new transitional leadership has sought to distance itself from the fighters because of their past ties to Al Qaeda. “We wanted to live in a country in which we can live and promote Islam the way it should be,” said Abu Sohaib. “We are sure Islam is good for everyone.”
Now there's a money quote.
Abu Sohaib is a soft-spoken man in his mid-40s, well built and well trained, as his biceps show under his checkered chemise. He has lived for many years in Britain; before that he had been to Saudi Arabia and also Afghanistan and Pakistan. “There was a time when the British wanted to hand us over to Muammar el-Qaddafi , though they knew we would be tortured,” he said, staring at his hands.
That distrust of the West still gnaws at other members of the group. A 36-year-old Libyan associated with the fighting group who goes by the nom de guerre Abu Salah and who travels between Europe and Libya said: “We start to question the true intentions of the West in Libya. If they would have wanted to kill Muammar el-Qaddafi, they could have done it several times. I guess this is about making as much money with oil and weapons deals as possible.”...
Uh, you're welcome!
“Isn’t it interesting how they were hunting us for years and were working with Muammar el-Qaddafi?” said Abu Sohaib, referring to the United States, which after Libya disbanded its unconventional weapons program in 2003 worked closely with Libyan authorities to combat terrorism. “Now we are cooperating with NATO and the West, those who used to put us in jail.”
A real knee slapper, I tell ya. America, duck!
And this from JRB, OT but related: Why is Obama giving Libya to the Russians? John Bolton
The Obama Administration’s weakness, exemplified in its Libya miscalculation, is generating close scrutiny in Russia and in the wider world. Sadly, America’s European friends are also exhibiting a profound fatigue and weakness in Libya and beyond. Some speculated, for example, that France, cozying up to Moscow, welcomed Russia’s mediation in order to foil Germany’s efforts to make itself Russia’s principal Western European partner.
How troubling and dangerous it is to see NATO members drifting toward Russia after largely waging and winning the Cold War in Europe precisely to keep it out of Moscow’s clutches. Now some are not only apparently seeking Moscow’s embrace, but the Obama Administration, in cases like Libya, is actively abetting Russia’s efforts.
The Kremlin will rightly see Obama’s welcoming of its Libya mediation ploy as yet another telling sign of American weakness and retreat. Similarly, America’s other international adversaries will take Obama’s mistake as opening even more opportunities for them that should deeply concern us. These adversaries, like Iran and North Korea, will perceive even less concern about U.S. efforts to constrain their nuclear and ballistic missile programs, thus accelerating the ongoing risk of even broader proliferation.
Political commentators routinely opine that Americans are not interested in national security issues. But if confronted with the dangers of a further sixteen months of Obama, compounded enormously by the prospect of four additional years, Americans should be far more sensible than the prognosticators give them credit for.
Bat Ye'or's extraordinary summation of the historic Geert Wilders verdict in the trial of the century. Sharia law vs. Western law in Europe and beyond. Bat Ye'or is an international treasure, the most brilliant and  clear voice of reason in the West.
On Geert Wilders's Acquittal by Bat Ye'or July 5, 2011
The acquittal of Geert Wilders has deeper meanings for Europe's future than it appears at first glance. As Geert Wilders said: it is a victory for truth. But what does truth mean in international policy? Do we not see that in Eurabia the words 'justice and peace' are travesties for submission to injustice and terrorism? Here one needs to know the extensive system of lies spread at every political and cultural level in Eurabia, to understand the Copernican revolution achieved by Geert Wilders. A victory performed by a single unarmed man, constantly threatened by death and whose only defence was his courageous and unbending commitment to say the truth. A truth buried by the whole Eurabian transnational and international system created since the 1970s.
Imposed on Europeans by controlling networks such a system emanates from the European Commission whose masters are no other than the political leaders of the European governments. The EU, a mastodon Kafkaesque structure, consuming astronomical sums, often enables European leaders to implement an authoritarian policy escaping people's awareness. Rivalries for power, ambitions, ideology, oppose Eurocrats to those they disdainfully call "racist, populist, xenophobic" opponents to their globalist Islamophile ideology. Yet there is more than usual policy into these clashes. There is what Wilders calls: the truth, a human moral element.
To understand the tremendous revolution achieved by Geert Wilders, one has to realise that the foundational stone of the Eurabian mind consists of two principles stated in article 22 of the 1990 Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam:
a. Everyone shall have the right to express his opinion freely in such manner as would not be contrary to the principles of the Shari'a.
b. Everyone shall have the right to advocate what is right, and propagate what is good, and warn against what is wrong and evil according to the norms of Islamic Shari'a.
Europe, while claiming to defend human rights has, in effect, adopted these principles and obeys a fundamental law of dhimmitude: dhimmis are forbidden on pain of death to propagate ideas considered hostile to Islam. Qadi 'Iyad (d. 1149), the famous Andalusian Imam, prolific author and scholar, described explicitly blasphemy. It consists in cursing Muhammad, blaming him or attributing imperfection to him, to his religion, whether in the form of a curse, contempt or belittling him or maligning him. He stated that any Jew or Christian who reviled the Prophet should be beheaded or burned, unless he converts. Under the pressure of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, Eurabia has adopted these Islamic blasphemy rules.
The dhimmi attitude that has developed among European intellectuals, politicians, and the clergy requires the Western public to conform to one of the basic rules of dhimmitude: the express prohibition on Christians and Jews to criticize Islamic history and doctrine. This means that shari'a law has been imposed on Europeans by their own dhimmi leaders in their outreach to Islam. No wonder that since the 1970s Eurocrats censor any criticism of jihad and incriminate Israel's right to exist as an aggression, triggering wars and terrorism. The denial of the jihadist current trend by Europe, its compliance to shari'a laws by prosecuting and punishing its own citizens for criticizing them, constitute the basic issues of Wilders trial. By exposing them, he has overturned EU's policy.
In this tremendous fight for truth, Wilders is not alone. Many sacrificed their position and reputation, many despaired such as the sociologist Jacques Ellul (d. 1994) who saw the return of Nazism in a machinery disguising its Fascist authoritarianism and antisemitism with the words 'peace, justice, love, human rights'.
Can Wilders and his courageous supporters – each fighting in his own country against their dhimmi leaders – succeed in bringing some morality into a sordid policy of lies, corruption, hate and cowardice? Or could this success for truth be just a moment of light and hope before being crushed? Will Muslims themselves take this opportunity offered by the sacrifices of Wilders and the young anti-racist militants for freedom of speech, to ponder upon their own history of a long genocidal jihad over four continents with its trail of enslavement and dispossession of people? We are waiting to hear them acknowledging that jihadist ideology is criminal and that dhimmitude is a dehumanising oppression.
Now, the world sees the fanatical and revolting persecution of Copts and other Christians in Islamic countries, and the jihadist genocidal hatred against Israel. And Now, Jews, Christians, Hindus and others victims of Islamic wars, who suffered dispossession, apartheid, deportations, humiliations, child abductions – crimes perpetrated altogether within the context of dhimmitude – are hoping for a reconciliation that can only come with Muslim acknowledgement of a criminal supremacist ideology and its rejection.
One of the leading (if not the leading) scholars on Islam, Ibn Warraq, has published part 9 of his ground breaking historical analysis of the religious origins of Islam over at Jihadwatch. Of course, Islam is much more than a religion, it is a complete system: military, legal, political, social, cultural, dietary, etc. But it's the religious aspect that separates Islam from your everyday run of the mill totalitarian system of governance, subjugation, and oppression. The religious aspect renders it ........untouchable, despite the abject inhumanity of the sharia and its bloody history.
The irony of Islam's Judeo-Christian origins is that Islam falsifies Judaism and Christianity. The whole premise of Islam is that Judaism and Christianity were merely the warm-up acts for Islam, and that we are all Muslims (everyone of use, from Abraham to Moses to Jesus).
Part 1 here; part 2 here; part 3 here; part 4 here; part 5 here, part 6 here, part 7 here, part 8 here.
The Judeo-Christian Origins of Islam
by Ibn Warraq
Part 9
CC go on to argue that the town we now know as Mecca in central Arabia (Hijaz) could not have been the theater of the momentous events so beloved of Muslim tradition. Apart from the lack of any early non- Muslim references to Mecca, we do have the startling fact that the direction in which the early Muslims prayed (the qibla) was northwest Arabia. The evidence comes from the alignment of certain early mosques, and the literary evidence of Christian sources. In other words, Mecca, as the Muslim sanctuary, was only chosen much later, by the Muslims, in order to relocate their early history within Arabia, to complete their break with Judaism, and finally establish their separate religious identity.
There are many obscure passages in the Koran that can only be elucidated by reference to the Pentateuch or Psalms. Without going into the recondite philology of his arguments [for the details, see Michael Schub, The Secret Identity of Dhu l’Kifl, in ed Ibn Warraq, What the Koran Really Says, pp. 394-395], we can mention Michael Schub’s identification of the term “Dhu l’Kif”, which has puzzled commentators for centuries, with Melchizedeq mentioned in Genesis 14:16, Hebrews [NT] Chapters V and VII, Psalms CX. Melchizedeq is the one of who gets his share, who receives one-tenth of Abraham’s spoils, and who is to be ranked above the Levites, whose primary function under the Law was to collect the tithes, and that is precisely the sense of the Arabic Dhu l’Kifl.
Even more startling is the following example:
Surah III. 95-96; “Certainly the first house appointed for men is the one at Bakkah, blessed and a guidance for the nations. In it are clear signs: (it is) the Place of Abraham; and whoever enters it is safe; and pilgrimage to the House is a duty which men owe to Allah -- whoever can find a way to it. And whoever disbelieves, surely Allah is above the need of the worlds.”
Many translations simply add in brackets after Bakkah (Mecca), without a word of explanation. Modern Western commentators may add a footnote saying Bakkah was an alternative spelling of Mecca, as does the Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. The classical Arabic commentary known as Tafsir al-Jalalayn completed approximately in 1467 C.E says, “The use of Bakkah rather than Mecca reflects a Meccan dialect; it is called that because it bears down (bakka) on the neck of tyrants. The angels built it before the creation of Adam whereas al-Aqsa in Jerusalem was built after that.” Here is one Muslim translator’s comments, “Bakkah is the same as Makkah [Mecca] [referrring the reader to Al-Isfahani’s Dictionary of the Qur’an] from tabakk meaning the crowding together of men [ Commentary of Fakhr al-Din Razi]. Others say it is from a root meaning the breaking of the neck, and the name is given to it because whenever a tyrant forced his way to it, his neck was broken [Razi]. Some think that Bakkah is the name of the mosque or the House itself that is in Makkah [Mecca]. The Jews and Christians are told that the Temple at Jerusalem was erected long after Abraham, while the Holy House at Makkah [Mecca] was there even before Abraham, and was in fact, the first House on earth for the worship of the Divine Being.” In other words, the Muslim commentators really do not have a clue as to its meaning.
Another day of heavy losses in the war against jihad.
SGT Brian K. Mowery, 49, of Halifax, PA, died July 18 in Ghazni province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his convoy with an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 131st Transportation Company, 213th Area Support Group, Williamstown, PA.
SGT Edward W. Koehler, 47, of Lebanon, PA, died July 18 in Ghazni province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his convoy with an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 131st Transportation Company, 213th Area Support Group, Williamstown, PA.
SFC Kenneth R. Vangiesen, 30, of Erie, PA, died July 18 in Ghazni province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his convoy with an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 131st Transportation Company, 213th Area Support Group, Williamstown, PA.
CPL Raphael R. Arruda, 21, of Ogden, UT, died July 16 in Kunar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 416th Theater Engineer Command, Ogden, UT.
The others.
Join Bev Perlson, The Band of Mothers at their Stand in Support Of Our Troops, Cannon Bldg Corner, Washington, DC, July 25th, 26th & 27th. Take a stand against Obama's fatla rules of engagement.
Support the troops but beware fake military charity scams -- go here. Please vet your charities. There are so many good ones. Some of them are Wounded Warrior, Troopathon, Florida5Troops Soldiers' Angels - Project Valour,etc.
UPDATE: Just in: The Department of Defense announced today the deaths of two soldiers who were supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.They died July 19 in Kunar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked their vehicle with an improvised explosive device. They were assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii.
Killed were:
Staff Sgt. James M. Christen, 29, of Loomis, CA, died July 19 in Kunar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked their vehicle with an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, Schofield Barracks, HI.
Sgt. Jacob Molina, 27, of Houston, TX, died July 19 in Kunar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked their vehicle with an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, Schofield Barracks, HI.
Cpl. Raphael R. Arruda, 21, of Ogden, Utah, died July 16 in Kunar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 416th Theater Engineer Command, Ogden, Utah.
UPDATE: The Department of Defense announced today the deaths of three soldiers who were supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.
They died July 18 in Ghazni province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked their convoy with an improvised explosive device. They were assigned to the 131st Transportation Company, 213th Area Support Group, Williamstown, Pa.
Killed were:
Staff Sgt. Kenneth R. Vangiesen, 30, of Erie, Pa.
Sgt. Edward W. Koehler, 47, of Lebanon, Pa.
Sgt. Brian K. Mowery, 49, of Halifax, Pa.
This will make your blood boil. Read my piece in today's American Thinker and book your travel for our 911 Freedom Rally to protest the rush to build the Ground Zero mosquestrosity, a fifteen-story middle finger to America. And stand against the obstruction and the endless red tape that the 95-year-old St. Nicholas church has suffered in its 10-year-long sisyphean battle to rebuild that magnificent icon which stood at the base of the Towers and was destroyed by Muslim terrorists.
Islamic Supremacism Trumps Christianity at Ground Zero Pamela Geller, American Thinker
While New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg works in anxious haste to build the cultural obscenity that is the Ground Zero mosque, the iconic St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, which was built in 1916 and destroyed in the attack on the World Trade Center towers by Muslim terrorists, remains vanquished, unable to rebuild.
Bloomberg is lobbying for 9/11 taxpayer funds for the Islamic supremacist grifters behind the Ground Zero mosque, but St. Nicholas Church is in purgatory ten years after the worst day in  modern American history.
Perhaps St. Nicholas Church should claim that it is a mosque -- then Bloomberg and New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn would probably pour the cement for its foundation. Remember: the New York Daily News reported last December that "Mayor Bloomberg's top deputies went to great lengths to help those trying to build a mosque at Ground Zero -- even drafting a letter to the community board for them."
After a Freedom of Information Act request from Judicial Watch, New York City officials released "a flurry of emails between its brass and Feisal Abdul Rauf, the imam pushing to build a mosque near the sensitive site, and his supporters." It was worse than we imagined. The release of these documents, emails, and various exchanges between Mayor Bloomberg's office and the radical Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and his motley crew of Islamic supremacists showed evidence of collusion, inappropriate political support for the Ground Zero mega-mosque, and favoritism given to the project.
Rauf is an open proponent of Islamic law, Sharia, with its oppression of women, stonings, and amputations. He is a prominent member of the Perdana organization, a leading funder of the jihad flotilla launched against Israel last year by the genocidal Islamic terror group, IHH. And he's a slumlord and grifter: Rauf snagged more than $2 million in public financing to renovate low-income apartments. He took the money, never did the renovations, and forced good people to live with vermin and dilapidation.
So why did the mayor apparently break ethical rules for a slumlord with radical ties, whose buildings were placed in receivership? And why isn't he working just as energetically for the rebuilding of St. Nicholas Church? Technically, he has no jurisdiction over the Port Authority, which is blocking the rebuilding of the church, but he could speak out more energetically for it -- and meanwhile, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver could do a great deal to help the church's cause -- but in sharp contrast to Bloomberg's work for the mosque, they haven't done a thing for the church.
Cuomo could order Port Authority Executive Director Chris Ward to stop blocking the church's reconstruction. He hasn't. Silver hasn't done a thing, either. Yet if they support the Ground Zero mosque, they should at least extend the same level of support to this church that was on the site for 85 years.
I spoke with Evan C. Lambrou, who is a former editor of the National Herald, the country's oldest and largest Greek-American newspaper, and a distinguished graduate of Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Boston. He explained that it was "wrong for the Port Authority to take the church's original property for its purposes, in exchange for another parcel nearby; extract the church's good faith by promising to actually deliver the promised new parcel; and then not make good on that promise. In short, the Port Authority got the church to do something it didn't really want to do by promising the church something else instead, and then refused to give what was promised. That's just not right. It's morally reprehensible, in fact."
Yes, it is, and it gets worse. Lambrou continued: "It's very disgraceful that the Port Authority has compelled the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese to file a federal lawsuit just to rebuild one of our churches. And it's simply astounding that people work themselves into such a frenzy about Park 51; that so many elected officials have rushed to defend development of an Islamic community center two blocks away from Ground Zero; and that virtually no one cares about the Port Authority's plans to exclude a Christian church from Ground Zero altogether."
Lambrou skewered the double standard: "This country was founded on Judeo-Christian ethics and principles, so if elected officials are going to support religious freedom for Muslims in America, they should do the same for one of this country's Christian minorities."
"That's why I'm disappointed," Lambrou said, "in Governor Cuomo and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver." He sent them both letters and emails, but their response "wasn't even lukewarm." He received "one feel-good call from a press officer at the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation assuring me that the "Cuomo Administration cares." And as for Silver, one of his aides told Lambrou that he was "concerned" about the church. That was it. Lambrou sent them both information from the American Center for Law and Justice that pointed out that in refusing to rebuild the church, the Port Authority had violated three constitutional amendments. Nonetheless, Lammbrou said, "neither Mr. Cuomo nor Mr. Silver have voiced their support for the church publicly. I have urged them to do so several times, and they still haven't yet."
Lambrou told me: "This is both a moral and a Constitutional matter. Is it really that difficult for them to release a substantive public statement of support for rebuilding this church? Is it really so hard for them to tell the Port Authority to do the right thing for the church?" When I asked him if the lawsuit that the church had filed against various New York officials might be causing the silence, he responded: "This is a no-brainer, and the lawsuit is no excuse. Anyway, the lack of response to my concerns has been deeply disheartening. Orthodox Christian rights are being violated by a powerful public entity under their watch, and the people who should be defending us are doing nothing about it."
Read the rest.
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