Free Republic

Washington Post. 10/19/2011. "Obama still flush with cash from financial sector despite frosty relations" Obama raked in $76,600 dollars from Bain Capital employees through September - to Romney's $34,000. Why is it then that the MSM won't call Obama on this? In that WaPo article, Obama has raked in $15.6 million (around $12 mil going to the Democratic Party, which can use it to help reelect Obama) to Romney's $7.9 million in the current election cycle. Add up all Wall Street donations to all GOP candidates combined, and it won't equal what Obama has pulled in. Where is Occupy Wall...

NEW YORK (AP) -- The developer of an Islamic cultural center that opened Wednesday evening near the site of the terrorist attacks that leveled the World Trade Center says the biggest error on the project was not involving the families of 9/11 victims from the start. People crowded into the center, where a small orchestra played traditional Middle Eastern instruments and a photo exhibit of New York children of different ethnicities lined the walls. The enthusiasm at the opening belied its troubled beginnings. snip He called opposition to the center - which prompted one of the most virulent national discussions...

September 21 at 6:30 PM, the Ground Zero Mosque will open its doors to show a photo exhibit in its community space. Park51 is hoping to discourage its opponents by declaring an early victory in spite of its recent embarrassments and setbacks. This grand opening does not mean that the fight is over. The project still has a long way to go until completion.

There has been a shakeup at the Cordoba Initiative/Park 51, the group behind the projected Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero. The deceitful pro-Sharia Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and his wife Daisy Khan are out, and an imam from Washington, D.C., Abdullah Adhami, is in. What does this mean? First, it means that we won. We are declaring victory. It seems clear that Rauf had to go because he had become a liability to the taqiyya project of the Ground Zero mosque. And that is because of the light we shed on his true beliefs and allegiances. Rauf snagged more...

The MSM continues to fawn over this outrage at Ground Zero to show us common folk how “progressive” they are…Via Pundit Press:NBC and its affiliates have been trounced in ratings over the last several years. With stations like MSNBC under their belt and liberals such as Matt Lauer and Keith Olbermann hosting programs, NBC is clearly disconnected with the average American. Another clear sign of their mismanagement: naming Sharif El-Gamal, developer of the Ground Zero Mosque, one of their “People of the Year.” In an interview set to air on Thanksgiving Day, Matt Lauer sat down with El-Gamal and discussed...

The developers behind the proposed Ground Zero mosque have applied for about $5 million in federal grant money set aside for redeveloping downtown Manhattan after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to a new report. The application was submitted as a "community and cultural enhancement" grant, which is a program run by the Lower Manhattan Redevelopment Corp. Developer Sharif El-Gamal discussed the grant proposal in recent closed-door meetings, according to The Daily Beast. The revelation that the developers have asked for this grant could reignite outrage about the mosque's proposed location.

SNIPMr. O’Reilly replied, “Because Muslims killed us on 9/11.” Ms. Goldberg uttered a phrase that was bleeped from the broadcast, and Ms. Behar said, “I don’t want to sit here now.” The two women walked off the set, but later returned to the show. YouTube video of incident.

This is over the Ground Zero mosque and who is responsible for 9/11, Barbara Walters then gets into a heated debate after Joy and Whoopi walk off the set (Video)

Presumed GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney came out Wednesday against the planned burning of the Quran by a Florida pastor, saying that doing so would endanger American troops. “Burning the Quran is wrong on every level,” the former Massachusetts governor said in a statement to POLITICO. “It puts troops in danger, and it violates a founding principle of our republic.” Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0910/41895.html#ixzz0yyeKLaDE

The Park51 mosque and community center near Ground Zero is not Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf’s first venture into real estate development. As The Record reports, beginning in the late 1970s, Rauf acquired five apartment buildings in Union City, North Bergen, and Palisades Park, all urban areas along the New Jersey bank of the Hudson River. He developed the properties with the help a series of government grants and loans totaling in the millions — including $384,000 in 1989 endorsed by Sen. Bob Menendez (D., N.J.), then mayor of Union City, and $1,295,000 underwritten by then Hudson County executive Robert C....

Imam Behind Park51 Ignores Low-Income Tenants Pleas, They SayThe Muslim imam who plans to build a controversial Islamic center near Ground Zero should first take on a smaller project, like ridding his New Jersey apartment buildings of rats and bedbugs, angry tenants told ABCNews.com. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf owns buildings across the Hudson River in several New Jersey cities, including Union City, North Bergen and Palisades Park, which he reportedly renovated with tax dollars. Residents, many of whom are immigrants and most of whom are working-class Hispanic Catholics, say they have complained about unsanitary conditions for years. The imam, however,...

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. The delinquency is a possible violation of El-Gamal's lease with Con Edison, which owns half of the proposed building site on Park Place. El-Gamal owns the other half but must pay taxes on the entire parcel.

VINEYARD HAVEN, Mass. — The White House says President Barack Obama will have no further comment on the mosque near Ground Zero in New York and the administration will not get involved in talks about relocating the controversial facility. Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton was asked about the issue Tuesday at a White House press briefing. He replied, "No, and no" to the questions of whether Obama would weigh in further, or whether the White House would have a role in discussions about moving the mosque.

In the video, Rauf said that Sharia provides the "right to freedom of religion". That's not the same as "protection of religion". It is in direct conflict with the US Constitution's 1st Amendment protection of speech and the press. We have seen how Muslims have silenced free speech in our own country through threats of violence as the country has begun to self-censor. Yesterday the cartoons, today the victory mosque. The vast majority of the media have thrown their freedoms to protect the government/Obama while we're being called bigots etc. Whose left to protect our freedoms - all 70% of...

President Obama busily continued his five-state cross-country political money collection tour today. But he took time out to declare that he has "no regrets" about his firm statement of support for a new mosque and social center near the site in New York City of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Shortly after, Gallup released a new overnight poll showing, however, that many Americans have regrets that their president made that statement. The new survey found that among the 57% of Americans with an opinion, 37% of Americans disapprove of the Democrat's mosque comments. Twenty percent support them. Another 41% said...

There's no shortage of opinions — or theatrics — at the site of a proposed Islamic center and mosque two blocks from where the World Trade Center stood before two hijacked jetliners crashed into its twin towers on Sept. 11, 2001 . It's a deliberate Muslim thumb in the eye to survivors of the terrorist attacks to build the facility on such hallowed ground, declared Andrew Sullivan , a star-spangled, red, white and blue hard-hat-wearing union worker as he stood outside the site one day this week. "The whole connotation of putting a mosque on conquered lands has overtones here,"...

The politically correct stupidity of the Left truly knows no bounds. Here is video of Democrat National Committee Chair Tim Kaine telling Andrea Mitchell that if it was a “synagogue or church” being build near Ground Zero, there would be no reaction. Kaine then righteously said no controversy can be made with Islam. He was reacting to former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s opposition to the Mosque at Ground Zero. Uh, Tim, you missed one tiny detail: The September 11 attacks were not committed in the name of Christianity or Judaism! They were committed by Islamic Jihadists who were expressly...

The Associated Press, one of world's most powerful news organizations, issued a memo today advising staff to avoid the phrase "Ground Zero mosque."

Yousef doesn’t mince words as he refers to Imam Rauf as a crazy person who is trying to put a ‘rock of division’ in the US that will cause lots of problems and violence. Yousef says that as a former x-Shin Bet officer he believes every mosque posses a danger to America. Wow.

The number of Americans who believe -- wrongly -- that President Obama is a Muslim has increased significantly since his inauguration and now account for nearly 20 percent of the nation's population. This Story Poll: 1 in 5 Americans thinks Obama is a Muslim The response to Islam from the write wing To N.Y. Muslims, more than a mosque Mosque near Ground Zero: Frequently asked questions Interactive graphic: The view from Ground Zero Obama: 'No regrets' over comments on NYC mosque Divine Impulses: Daisy Khan on the 'divine hand' at the mosque near Ground Zero The bloggers at the forefront...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Americans increasingly are convinced - incorrectly - that President Barack Obama is a Muslim, and a growing number are thoroughly confused about his religion. Nearly one in five people, or 18 percent, said they think Obama is Muslim, up from the 11 percent who said so in March 2009, according to a poll released Thursday. The proportion who correctly say he is a Christian is down to just 34 percent.

But not only has that fact not gotten through to many Americans, the percentage of adults who believe he is a Muslim has now risen sharply after holding steady for two years, according to a new Pew poll out today. For my money, though, the real headline--and the news that should be causing heartburn over at the White House right now--is that the percentage of Americans who can correctly identify Obama's religious faith as Christian has dropped by 14 points in the past year and a half. A plurality of Americans (43%) have no idea what religion he practices. I'm...

Should Muslims be allowed to build a mosque at Ground Zero? Merely posing the question is an act of deliberate distortion. As its defenders point out, the Community Center at Park51 will occupy not a solitary inch of the 16-block site on which the Twin Towers stood. Once built, the center will indeed house a mosque, "open and accessible to all" — but also a swimming pool, basketball court, auditorium, library, day care, restaurant and cooking school. The center is being built by a private organization on land it legally owns. Twenty-nine out of 30 Lower Manhattan community board members...

Here is video of Charles Krauthammer last night saying that Barack Obama, as President, should have appealed to Muslims not to build the Ground Zero Mosque. Krauthammer said that rather than endorsing the mosque, Obama should have told his Muslim audience that, “you ought to consider the decency and propriety of establishing a house of worship dedicated to Islam at a spot where people were murdered in the name of Islam.”As usual, Krauthammer says it about as well as it can be said.

Last Friday, at the start of Ramadan, President Obama presided over the White House's annual iftar dinner and made some rather bland remarks about religious freedom. The context, of course, was the controversy over the proposed mosque in Lower Manhattan, which is not, as Obama insisted, about freedom of religion but about religious tolerance. And then, having once again gotten high praise for so very little, he went to bed a panicked man and reached, trembling, some hours later, for a political morning-after pill to take back some of what he had said. Whew, for a moment there he was...

Mark Levin today slammed NJ Governor Chris Christie for his sanctimonious attitude that the controversy over the Mosque at ground Zero is "just politics" and "is being used as a political football by BOTH parties!" He says that this attempt By Christie to make the two positions on the mosque (pro and con) equivalent is nothing more than a naked effort to portray himself as "above it all" and look down his nose (so to speak) at those who have the courage to oppose this thing (most prominently former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin--although Levin does not mention her by name)....

The NY Times reported that Barack Obama "strongly" supports the building of a mosque at Ground Zero: Obama Strongly Backs Islam Center Near 9/11 Site WASHINGTON — President Obama delivered a strong defense on Friday night of a proposed Muslim community center and mosque near ground zero in Manhattan, using a White House dinner celebrating Ramadan to proclaim that “as a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country.” He understands “I understand the emotions that this issue engenders. Ground zero is, indeed, hallowed ground,” the...

For President Obama, there is no vacation from vacillation. By the time he got to the beach this weekend, the controversy over his Friday speech seemingly supporting the proposed mosque at the 9/11 site left him so rattled, he could hardly wait to put on his flip-flops. Even the hastily arranged Gulf vacation itself was more of a placation, as in placating those who complained his family time off had not included the BP-besieged Gulf shores, making his ringing words of support ring hollow. Soon after he arrived he hastened to hollow out his words from the evening before, at...

Dear Republican Party: Your moment is now. This weekend, President Obama defended the right of Muslims to build a community center and mosque two short blocks from Ground Zero, despite cries of insensitivity from some New Yorkers and accusations of mischief from some pundits. This finally gives you an opportunity to add a powerful national-security cudgel to the message of economic woe you have been pushing as the midterm election approaches. The political potency of the issue is obvious. Polls overwhelmingly show the President has put himself on the wrong side of public opinion. Opposition to the new facility arouses...

President Barack Obama's weekend remarks supporting the right to build a mosque near Ground Zero reverberated across the country, nationalizing a debate over the New York City project. "It will galvanize their desire for resistance to the mosque," he said. "It confirms in their minds the idea that Mr. Obama seems to be more accommodating to the Islamic world than he is for the Christian representation in America."

Sam Harris: Ground Zero mega-mosque will be seen "by many millions of Muslims as a victory--and as a sign that the liberal values of the West are synonymous with decadence and cowardice" In "What Obama Got Wrong About the Mosque," August 13, Sam Harris breaks with the Leftist pro-Islamic supremacism lockstep that usually prevails at the Daily Beast and offers some common sense about the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero: Should a 15-story mosque and Islamic cultural center be built two blocks from the site of the worst jihadist atrocity in living memory? Put this way, the question nearly...

President Barack Obama has backtracked over his enthusiastic support for the building of a mosque near Ground Zero in New York, saying he was "not commenting on the wisdom of making the decision". The decision to build an 15-storey Islamic centre in Manhattan, including a mosque, two blocks from the Ground Zero site of the September 11th terrorist attacks has incensed many Americans, with polls indicating that more than two-thirds oppose it. Speaking at an iftar dinner held at the White House on Friday to mark the breaking of the Ramadan fast, Mr Obama abandoned his administration's previous stance that...

President Obama, with his back-to-back statements on the proposed mosque at Ground Zero, has managed to get himself in a position where Sarah Palin has both the high ground and the practical route to progress. At the Iftar dinner at the White House, the president endorsed the constitutional rights of all religions in America to build houses of worship where they want to on private property. He spoke with his trademark eloquence, but he was off the point. So, as he toured the Gulf Coast, he took a powder, explaining that he was not commenting on what he called “the...

Last night something happened we were deeply hoping for, but never thought — not in a million years — the current “president” would be stupid enough to do. We knew he could never resist supporting the Ground Zero Victory Mosque when asked about it directly, but we assumed reporters would be smart enough to never ask him a question that would open a window for him to let more of his anti-American, West-hating true nature shine through. So, the fact that the current “president”, and leader of the Democrat Party, has come out in favor of building a symbol of...

The White House on Saturday struggled to tamp down the controversy over President Barack Obama’s statements about a mosque near Ground Zero — insisting Obama wasn’t backing off remarks Friday night where he offered support for a project that has infuriated some families whose loved ones died in the Sept. 11 attacks. Obama’s comments placed him in the middle of the controversy over a Muslim group’s plans for a mosque near the site of the 2001 attack — and in turn, transformed an emotion-laden local dispute in New York into a nationwide debate overnight. Republicans pounced, amid early signs that...

O'Reilly says that there is no way the 9/11 mosque will be able to raise 100 millions dollars. The statistics show otherwise.

After President Obama finished a speech in Panama City, Florida, he was called aside by reporters just off stage and asked what he thought of reaction to his comments yesterday about the plans to build a Muslim center -- including a prayer room -- near the site of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. “My intention was simply to let people know what I thought, which was that in this country we treat everybody equally and in accordance with the law, regardless of race, regardless of religion,” Obama told the reporters, referring to his comments at the annual...

The Muslim Call to Prayer is one of the Prettiest Sounds on Earth -Barack Obama Americans are aghast that the president approves of the construction of a Victory Mosque by a pro-terrorism imam six hundred feet from Ground Zero. Revolting, yes. Shocking, no. One thing we know about Barack Obama is that he is committed to ruling in direct opposition to three-fourths of the American people on all core issues. Reread his contemptible speech in Cairo, in which the president spouted flagrant falsehoods about the charms of Islam, while berating the United States for being a bit churlish about radical...

The Great Orator’s oratory is now spinning around like the handle on a shi&house door on this one: “Just to be clear,”

It was something he certainly didn't have to do. But he did it anyway. President Obama stepped into the fray of the single most divisive issue pertaining to terrorism, healing of hurt, religious disagreement, civil liberties, political fracturing, racism, and national security all in one step.

One day after President Obama defended the freedom of Muslims to build an Islamic complex near New York's Ground Zero, he offered a less forceful version of that position on Saturday: Yes, Muslims have that right, Obama said -- but that doesn't mean he believes it is the right thing for them to do... But he went on to explain that he was not endorsing the construction of the Islamic center. "I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there," he said. "I was commenting very specifically on...

Barack Obama has been hit by a furious backlash from victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks after he backed plans to build a mosque near Ground Zero. The proposed site for the 13-storey building is close to where almost 3,000 people died nine years ago after Muslim hijackers flew two jet airliners into the World Trade Center. Mr Obama expressed his support for the mosque, which will replace a building damaged by the attacks, at a White House meal celebrating Ramadan. He said: ‘Let me be clear: As a citizen and as President I believe that Muslims have the...

John Boehner, the Ohio Republican who is the House minority leader, said: ”The decision to build this mosque so close to the site of ground zero is deeply troubling, as is the president’s decision to endorse it.” “The American people certainly don’t support it,” Mr. Boehner said. Representative Peter King, a New York Republican, said that while the Muslim community has the right to build the mosque, doing so needlessly offends too many people. “President Obama is wrong,” Mr. King said. “It is insensitive and uncaring for the Muslim community to build a mosque in the shadow of ground zero....

Here is video of President Obama today trying to limit his endorsement of the Ground Zero Mosque by saying he only meant to say Muslims have “a right” to build. He said he was not commenting on “the wisdom” of building a mosque near Ground Zero. If that is what he meant, why didn’t he say that last night? Because he meant what he said last night, BEFORE he realized the firestorm he has created for himself and every Democrat candidate!

Now, that's not to say that religion is without controversy. Recently, attention has been focused on the construction of mosques in certain communities -- particularly New York. Now, we must all recognize and respect the sensitivities surrounding the development of Lower Manhattan. The 9/11 attacks were a deeply traumatic event for our country. And the pain and the experience of suffering by those who lost loved ones is just unimaginable. So I understand the emotions that this issue engenders. And Ground Zero is, indeed, hallowed ground. But let me be clear. As a citizen, and as President, I believe that...

Former presidential candidate Gary Bauer on Saturday said that President Obama's comments at a White House dinner in support of a mosque at Ground Zero was "proof positive" that he has lost touch with his fellow citizens and that his break from them can no longer be repaired. The president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families made the following statement: "Last night at a White House Iftar dinner in celebration of the Muslim holiday of Ramadan, President Obama chose to endorse the building of a mosque on the hallowed soil of Ground Zero. In doing...

I always find it repugnant when Barack Obama pretends to articulate and apply America’s moral values. As products of Saul Alinsky’s finishing school for Marxist protégés, Obama and his crew have no respect for the self-evident truths in which those values originate. It’s not that they have no use for them. On the contrary, they refer to them only when they are useful for ideological warfare. Obama’s reference yesterday to religious tolerance, and America’s respect for religious freedom, is a case in point. According to an AP report, he “is weighing in forcefully on the mosque near ground zero, saying...

PANAMA CITY, Florida (Reuters) – President Barack Obama on Saturday backed off remarks that appeared to endorse a proposed Muslim cultural center near the site of the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York City, saying he only supported the organizers' right to build it. At a White House event on Friday, Obama seemed to offer his support for the construction of Cordoba House near the site known as "Ground Zero" in lower Manhattan. U.S. conservatives and many New Yorkers object to the project. The 13-story building will include meeting rooms, a prayer space, an auditorium and a swimming pool....

Too late, Jack. Speaking to reporters today, President Obama drew a sharp line under his comments last night, insisting that his defense of the right to build a mosque does not mean he supports the project. “I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there. I was commenting very specifically on the right people have that dates back to our founding,” he said. Obama’s new stance is logically consistent with his words last night, if a bit less “clarion,” as Mike Bloomberg called the first remarks. And...

Good Saturday morning. It’s going to be one of the most memorable – and debated statements – of President Obama’s first two years in office. Remember how much attention was lavished on his remarks about the Cambridge cop-prof confrontation? Well, this is bigger -- whether you think it constitutes Obama delivering on his status as a breakthrough figure on American history, or whether you see it as a breathtaking act of elitist arrogance. PLAYBOOK FACTS OF LIFE: It’s either what you always hoped about Obama, or what you always suspected about Obama. In remarks the White House embargoed for 8:30...