Free Republic

Gainesville -- Officials at Mar-Jac Poultry said they were shocked to find out Thursday that federal officials suspect the company might have ties to terrorist funding. Company Vice President Doug Carnes said at least a half-dozen U.S. Customs agents spent all day Wednesday gathering financial records and charitable contribution files. They were "real nice, professional and complimentary," he said, but they didn't disclose the nature of their visit. It was only on Thursday that Carnes was alerted by company officials in Virginia as to what the agents were looking for. "I'm shocked. I'm in disbelief. I've worked for them for...

Alec "the Bloviator" Baldwin has a new bosom buddy: Beltway Republican strategist Grover Norquist. The Bush-bashing actor-turned-activist and the Muslim vote-courting political organizer joined together at a Washington, D.C.-area conference last weekend to perpetuate bald lies about the Patriot Act and to oppose the "repressive" War on Terror (repressing terrorist suspects apparently being a bad thing). Baldwin and Norquist's panel, titled "Strange Bedfellows," was sponsored by the ultraliberal group People For the American Way. When PFAW head and panel participant Ralph Neas ranted about the lack of judicial and congressional oversight of the Justice Department's terror investigations, the audience...

A jury found former Bush administration official David Safavian guilty Tuesday of covering up his dealings with Republican influence-peddler Jack Abramoff. Safavian was convicted on four of five felony counts of lying and obstruction. He had resigned from his White House post last year as the federal government's chief procurement officer. The trial consumed eight days of testimony about Safavian's assistance to Abramoff regarding government-owned real estate and a weeklong golfing excursion the lobbyist organized to the famed St. Andrews golf course in Scotland and London. Safavian went on the trans-Atlantic trip while he was chief of staff at the...

WASHINGTON: Two Muslim-American doctors involved in fundraising for charities that help Muslims and Palestinians have accused the US government of targeting Muslim charities after September 11. The doctors claim that several Muslim charities have been closed down without any evidence of their involvement in any terrorist activity. Laila al-Marayati and Basil Abdelkarim, who are on the board of a an Ohio-based charity ‘KinderAmerica’, writing in the Washigton Post on Sunday accused the US Treasury Department of “playing target practice” with American Muslim charities. They reported that Treasury agents last month seized the assets and froze operations of the charity ‘KindHearts’,...

The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is an institution. Now in its 32nd year, CPAC is the largest annual gathering of grassroots activists on the right. But when it comes to co-sponsors, CPAC and its parent group, the American Conservative Union, are keeping strange company. CPAC always has a lustrous lineup of speakers. Ann Coulter, Oliver North, George Will, Sen. Rick Santorum (R.-Pa.) and Vice President Cheney all addressed this year’s conference. For the most part, the panel discussions and workshops were informative. Increasingly, CPAC is becoming a youth conference -- demonstrating the movement’s vitality. Of the 3,500 or so...

U.S. allows Muslim 'fox in the henhouse' Guest panelist threatened America, openly supported terror groups Posted: March 20, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern Editor's note: WorldNetDaily is pleased to have a content-sharing agreement with Insight magazine, the bold Washington publication not afraid to ruffle establishment feathers. Subscribe to Insight at WorldNetDaily's online store and save 71 percent off the cover price. By Kenneth R. Timmerman © 2004 Insight/News World Communications Inc. The congressionally funded United States Institute of Peace hosted an event yesterday in Washington on reforming Islam, with a guest panelist who has threatened the United States and openly supported...

The New Yorker, a house organ of the left, recently published a fawning – yea, fatuous – article about Grover Norquist, a prominent conservative activist who heads Americans for Tax Reform and is one of the movement's most visible, serial bashers of its leftist partisan foes. What's going on? The most benign explanation is that the article is a deserved, if grudging, admission by the left of the effectiveness of the man it calls the right's "ringleader [who] keeps the conservative movement together." This proposition is bolstered by a comment made by the author, John Cassidy, in an online interview...

If a Hollywood studio were to release a film resembling Abdurahman Alamoudi's life, it would likely be picketed as yet another example of the prejudice Muslims endure in post-9/11 America. Prominent Washington socialite and founder of the American Muslim Council (AMC) turned terrorist financier? Surely the story of such a double life must be relegated to the pages of pulp fiction spy novels, scarcely memorable and shipped to your local book store by the dozen. Yet, in the story told by a recent affidavit filed by U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agent Brett Gentrup, Alamoudi resembles the very sort of...

What do the Clinton State Department, Republican activist Grover Norquist, Bush FBI director William Mueller, Senator Joseph Lieberman, the Washington Post, and the National Conference of Catholic Bishops have in common? They all fell, in one way or another, for Abdurahman Alamoudi, a Muslim-American leader who turns out, according to a federal indictment, to have been in league with the terrorists. Call him the fifth-columnist who duped the Beltway establishment. Alamoudi was an invited guest at a 1998 State Department religious freedom event. He gave $10,000 in 1999 to an Islamic free-market institute on whose board Norquist sat. Mueller spoke...

WHAT SAY YOU NOW, GROVER NORQUIST? By Michelle Malkin   ·   July 30, 2004 08:46 AM The Washington Post reports that Abdurahman Alamoudi, once embraced as a "mainstream" and "moderate" Muslim activist who courted both the Clinton and Bush administrations, will plead guilty today to accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars from Libya in violation of U.S. law and attempting to hide it from the government: Abdurahman Alamoudi has agreed to admit guilt to three counts, including one related to the mysterious movement of $340,000 he allegedly received in a London hotel room from a charity funded by the Libyan government,...

Why is an associate of groups sympathetic to radical Islamists a policy director at the Department for Homeland Security? Readers of this e-zine may recall a troubling warning issued on these pages last November by David Horowitz and me (an editorial entitled “Why We Are Publishing This Article” that accompanied a long essay entitled “A Troubling Influence”). What made the warning so troubling was not just that its subject -- a political influence operation being mounted during wartime by Islamist organizations against the Bush Administration and U.S. government. Of particular concern was the help it documented that such entities have...

Insight on the News - National Issue: 03/02/04 Special Report Saffuri's Ties to Terror Suspects By Kenneth R. Timmerman The rise of Khaled Saffuri to political prominence within the U.S. Muslim community has all the ingredients of a Horatio Alger success story. Brought up as a stateless exile in Kuwait, Saffuri came to America as a student in 1982, went to college in San Diego, and soon gravitated into the world of Muslim activism. A talented fund-raiser and behind-the-scenes power broker, Saffuri built bridges to politicians in both parties by generously contributing to their election campaigns, from California libertarian Rep....

Special ReportSaffuri's Ties to Terror Suspects Posted Feb. 23, 2004 By Kenneth R. Timmerman Saffuri (above) has formed relationships with several questionable allies, including Sami al-Arian, who was arrested last year. The rise of Khaled Saffuri to political prominence within the U.S. Muslim community has all the ingredients of a Horatio Alger success story. Brought up as a stateless exile in Kuwait, Saffuri came to America as a student in 1982, went to college in San Diego, and soon gravitated into the world of Muslim activism. A talented fund-raiser and behind-the-scenes power broker, Saffuri built bridges to politicians in both...

Rep. Bob Dornan says Rohrabacher's views on Israel and terrorism are the reason he's running to unseat him. Congressman's Disturbing Turn on the Middle EastBy Dena BunisOrange County Register | February 9, 2004 Rep. Dana Rohrabacher says he always knew that if ever he got involved in Middle East politics, his views would get him in trouble. He was right.Rohrabacher is facing a primary challenge next month from former Rep. Robert K. Dornan. These two Republicans were once comrades in arms in promoting conservative principles. But the Middle East is the one major issue on which Dornan stayed with mainstream...

<p>The first time I saw Bob Dornan in person was in Iowa in 1995 when he was running for the GOP presidential nomination. Assorted activists were invited to a small-group gathering at a downtown Des Moines hotel to hear this renowned conservative firebrand.</p>

Friends in high places WASHINGTON -- The rumpled, balding figure was spotted darting into the offices of Republican power broker Grover Norquist last July. When Sami Al-Arian emerged more than two hours later, someone was waiting for him. Conservative activist Frank Gaffney, whose think tank on national security issues has offices on the same floor, was eager to confirm a tip that the suspected Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative was next door. Best known for his high-profile campaign for a "Star Wars" national missile defense system, Gaffney for months had been quietly pursuing another project: trying to convince the Bush administration...

WASHINGTON -- Nine days after the federal government raided their homes and businesses, leaders of an alleged terror financing operation were given the opportunity to question the agency investigating them. The meeting on March 29, 2002, in the office of Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) is an example of the political clout of what the government calls the "Safa Group," a web of companies and nonprofits based in northern Virginia. One week later, former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill met with Muslim leaders with connections to the Safa Group to hear complaints about the raids. The leaders are suspected of running more...

Why We Are Publishing This Article by David HorowitzThe article you are about to read is the most disturbing that we at frontpagemag.com have ever published. As an Internet magazine, with a wide circulation, we have been in the forefront of the effort to expose the radical Fifth Column in this country, whose agendas are at odds with the nation’s security, and whose purposes are hostile to its own. In his first address to Congress after 9/11, the President noted that we are facing the same totalitarian enemies we faced in the preceding century. It is not surprising that their...

Basing the discussion on Frank Gaffney's article on Frontpagemag.com, an issue people have been wondering about for a while is being confronted now on the Hugh Hewitt show: What is Grover Norquist's deal?

For Immediate Release February 28, 2003 Washington D.C. FBI National Press Office FBI Director Mueller Meets with Muslim, Sikh, and Arab-American Organization Leaders to Reinforce Commitment to Protecting Civil Rights FBI Director Robert S. Mueller met today with key leaders of national Arab-American, Muslim, and Sikh organizations. The meeting built on earlier discussions on a number of issues -- ranging from vigilante attacks and other hate crimes to the value of continuing assistance from the Arab-American, Muslim, and Sikh communities. "Protecting the civil rights of all Americans remains a top priority for the FBI," said Mueller. "I'm vitally concerned that...

Headline Story | Islamist 'enabler' threatens 'grave harm to Bush presidency,' Gaffney warns > Norquist's group took seed money from an avowed supporter of Hezbollah, the terrorist group that killed 241 US Marines in a 1983 Beirut bombing. A prominent conservative leader who allegedly has used undeclared foreign money and top political connections to promote terrorist sympathizers is an 'enabler' who threatens 'to do grave harm to the Bush presidency.' Center for Security Policy President Frank Gaffney issued the warning in a letter to Grover Norquist, founding chairman of the Islamic Institute, after Norquist publicly accused Gaffney of 'racism...

What considerations, political or otherwise, prompted members of Mr. Bush's staff to believe that Al-Arian was the kind of person they wanted on their team? Who bears responsibility for making those calculations? And are they continuing to do so with respect to other individuals and organizations that could, at the very least, embarrass Mr. Bush and, at worst, seriously undermine his efforts in the war on terror? What are we to make of the fact that a Muslim extremist (or "Islamist") named Dr. Sami Al-Arian was arrested and indicted last week on 50 counts, among them conspiracy to finance terrorist...

For George W. Bush, it was just another campaign stop. But for Sami Al-Arian, a University of South Florida engineering professor, it was a golden opportunity. When Bush appeared at Tampa’s Strawberry Festival in March 2000, Al-Arian sidled up to the candidate and had his picture taken. < -snip- > Al-Arian’s politics took on a decidedly darker cast last week when federal agents arrested him at his home in south Florida and charged him with being a top leader of one of the world’s most violent terrorist organizations: Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). < -snip- > Al-Arian certainly didn’t act like...

Debbie Schlussel Why are Muslim and Arab "civil rights" groups the only ones protesting new FBI rules to fight terrorism?Why aren't mainstream Christian and Jewish groups protesting the new guidelines handed down by Attorney General John Ashcroft and his Justice Department? Or Hispanic groups? Maybe because Muslim, mostly Arab, terrorists — including at least two 9/11 hijackers — deliberately used U.S. mosques to fundraise for and plan terrorist attacks. Maybe because they knew that, under the old rules, it had been difficult for FBI counterterrorism operatives to surveil terrorists once they stepped into the mosques. And they, the terrorists...