What’s Wrong With This Picture?
Notice any difference? Check out the decor between the presidents… What are we missing? What’s the message? It’s pretty clear to me!
Ground Zero Imam a Taxpayer-Subsidized Slumlord
by Connie Hair
The elitist, media-generated grand illusion of the Ground Zero mosque imam has begun to collapse under scrutiny.
New reports from The Record out of Hackensack, N.J., reveal Feisal Abdul Rauf, the would-be Ground Zero imam, owns taxpayer-subsidized apartment buildings in Hudson County where the tenants have made municipal health complaints including rat, roach and bedbug infestations, seeping toilets, leaks, urine-soaked hallways, no heat and no hot water.
Despite millions of dollars in government subsidies, Rauf has trouble maintaining several small apartment buildings in North Bergen, Palisades Park and Union City.
From the NewJersey.com report:
Page after page of municipal health records examined by The Record show repeated complaints ranging from failure to pick up garbage, to rat and bedbug infestations and no heat and hot water.
Cynthia Balko, 48, of Union City — a longtime tenant of Rauf’s — said she’s had to live with rats, leaks and no heat: “I don’t have anything nice to say about the man.”
Despite having received over $2 million in public funding for renovations, Rauf’s tenants were forced to file municipal health complaints to seek relief. One such single mother living in a Rauf-owned apartment in Union City said Rauf has not answered complaints.
From an additional story in The Record:
To understand her perspective, you need to go to a forlorn corner on the Jersey side — to 22nd Street in Union City and a four-story apartment building owned by Rauf. The locks on a front door are broken and the hallway leading to [Melba] Lopez’s two-bedroom apartment smells of urine.
Looking east on 22nd Street — back across the Hudson — the Empire State building pokes the sky. On that side of the river, New York’s mayor speaks of Rauf as a symbol of religious freedom and last week invited the Imam’s wife, Daisy Khan, to dinner at Gracie Mansion to honor the Islamic celebration of Ramadan.
But in Union City, Lopez, a single mother, has another way of describing the man who has time to promote the so-called Ground Zero mosque, but does not seem to have time to answer her complaints about leaks in her toilet.
Lopez said in the report she has never met the would-be Ground Zero mosque imam but she says she has met Rauf’s wife Khan.
Lopez said she remembers Khan telling her that she and her husband did not have enough money to fix her leak and other problems in the building. What Lopez did not know was that at the same time, Rauf and Khan were trying to raise money for their mosque project on the other side of the Hudson.
According to the new reports, Rauf has a long history of taxpayer subsidies and grants for slum properties. There’s even a new revelation of a lawsuit settled in June over what the report terms a suit alleging fraud.
[T]he suit alleged Rauf and Khan transferred ownership to another firm they owned and then obtained a $650,000 mortgage on the same building from a bank. After the building was damaged by fire in February 2008, Rauf and Khan stopped making mortgage payments to Cockinos, a former key executive at Daibes’ Mariner’s Bank. When Cockinos tried to foreclose, he discovered Rauf and Khan had switched ownership and filed suit alleging “fraud.”
The case was settled shortly before a June 28 trial, with Rauf and Khan agreeing to pay off the mortgage to Cockinos within the next few years, said the couple’s lawyer, Richard Rosa of Hackensack.
There is much more on Rauf and Khan’s current financial woes at the link.
The New York Post reported the site’s developers owe hundreds of thousands in back taxes:
The mosque developers are tax deadbeats.
Sharif El-Gamal, the leading organizer behind the mosque and community center near Ground Zero, owes $224,270.77 in back property tax on the site, city records show.
El-Gamal’s company, 45 Park Place Partners, failed to pay its half-yearly bills in January and July, according to the city Finance Department.
Sounds like a good time to raise $100 million for a mosque.
Reuters is reporting New York is considering granting the group a reported $70 million in public funding.
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Conservatives Should Applaud Australia’s Abbott
by John Gizzi
As the final results from Australia’s recent national election trickle in, leaders of both major parties will sit down and, in a few days, decide who runs the next government in Canberra.
At this point, the race is a genuine standoff: The opposition Liberal Party has 73 seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives, the ruling Labor Party has 72, and there is one Green Party member (who is expected to back Labor), and four independents (three of whom are considered to the right of center).
While a lot can happen, the simple mathematics of the election outcome is that Prime Minister Julia Guillard will be headed to the opposition benches and Liberal leader Tony Abbott will be the new prime minister.
If so, then conservatives in many countries have reason to cheer and keep their eye on a “Prime Minister Abbott.” At a time when right-of-center politicians in the U.S. and European countries increasingly seem to soften their conservative rhetoric and in some cases moderate their issue stands, the 52-year-old Abbott offers unabashed, true-blue conservatism on issuesranging from global warming to spending.
Simply put, Tony Abbott is the “real deal” for the right.
When foreign right-of-center leaders such as British Prime Minister David Cameron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are strong believers in global warming and proponents of a carbon tax, Australia’s Abbott takes the same view as U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R.-Okla.): The issue is bogus. Indeed, Abbott’s no-nonsense criticism of global warming and the science behind it is considered pivotal to his election as Liberal leader last year over the incumbent who said it was time to deal with the issue of climate change.
Of former Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (who was ousted by his party in favor of Guillard earlier this year) and his support for a carbon tax, Abbott said that Rudd “wants to create at $15 billion-a-year market in carbon dioxide but that market depends on the non-delivery of an invisible product to no one.”
Abbott denounced the Labor government’s stimulus package which created a $30 billion-plus deficit in a single year as “the biggest spend-a-thon in Australia’s history.” He also took a hard-line on illegal immigration, and vowed to “stop the boats” (illegal immigrants seeking asylum in Australia).
A one-time seminarian who once planned to become a priest, Abbott makes no secret of his strong Roman Catholic faith and belief in prayer.
It goes without saying that left-of-center opponents and the press dismissed Abbott’s conservatism and belittled him as “the mad monk” (an obvious reference to his days in the seminary).
But the upbeat and enthusiastic Liberal Party (actually the conservative party in Australian politics) leader came off more as a positive politician in the mold of the late Jack Kemp. He boiled his message down to a manifesto for his country paying off debts, avoiding any new taxes, drawing the line on illegal immigration, and offering fresh opportunity for young families.
And it worked. Where Labor dropped 5.4% in the popular vote from the last general election, the Liberal Party and its coalition partner gained 1.4% of the vote. Now Tony Abbott is perhaps one week and three seats from becoming his country’s prime minister.
Perhaps he won’t achieve power this time. But Abbott’s coming as far as he did without compromising on a single conservative stand is worth watching—and for conservatives in the U.S. and other countries, obviously worth emulating.
Obama’s EPA to Regulate Hunters and Fisherman
Posted by Brian Darling
August 27, 2010
The Obama Administration is considering using the vast power of the federal government to ban the sale of certain types of ammunition. This administrative ban would increase cost for hunters and fisherman dramatically. If implemented, this ban would go against the will of the American people. Furthermore, this action is an inappropriate use of federal power.
U.S. News and World Report posted a story today indicating that President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is considering a ban on lead bullets and sinkers in the name of protecting the environment. This ban, if put into place, would dramatically increase the cost of ammunition for hunters and lead sinkers for anglers. If gun owners needed any more evidence that the Obama Administration is looking for creative ways to take away the Second Amendment rights of all Americans, they need to look no further than this new proposed rule.
This is an idea that would have absolutely no chance of passing in Congress, yet liberals in the Obama Administration clearly are looking for ways to implement a creative means to raise the prices of ammunition and infringe on hunter’s rights. The American people reject gun control, yet the EPA does not care about the will of the American people. Remember, this is the same Administration that nominated two anti-Second Amendment lawyers to the Supreme Court, Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
From the story:
The National Rifle Association, already on high alert over gun control rumors, has gone to battle stations to fight a new scheme before the Environmental Protection Agency to restrict hunters and anglers from using lead bullets, shot and sinkers.
John McCormack of the Weekly Standard has an excellent piece where he explains that this creative means to regulate gun ownership through doubling the cost of ammunition for deer hunters.
Several environmentalist groups led by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) are petitioning the EPA to ban lead bullets and shot (as well as lead sinkers for fishing) under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Although EPA is barred by statute from controlling ammunition, CBD is seeking to work farther back along the manufacturing chain and have EPA ban the use of lead in bullets and shot because non-lead alternatives are available. But here’s the catch: the alternatives to lead bullets are more expensive. A ban on the sale of lead ammunition would force hunters and sport shooters to buy non-lead ammunition that is often double the cost of traditional lead ammunition. A box of deer hunting bullets in a popular caliber could be upwards of $55.
The National Rifle Association (NRA) Executive Director Chris Cox has written a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson urging the EPA to stand down, because the EPA does not have authority under existing law to ban a certain type of ammunition.
We are writing to urge you to reject a petition filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and others asking the EPA to ban lead shot and bullets under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Simply put, the Act does not grant the EPA the authority to regulate ammunition of any composition.
Hunters and fisherman need to keep a close eye on environmental bureaucrats to make sure that they don’t ban lead fishing sinkers and ammunition under the pre-text of protecting the environment.
UPDATE: The Obama Administration has backed away from banning lead in bullets, but may allow a ban on lead fishing sinkers. From U.S. News and World Report:
In a swift and unexpected decision, the Environmental Protection Agency today rejected a petition from environmental groups to ban the use of lead in bullets and shotgun shells, claiming it doesn’t have jurisdiction to weigh on the controversial Second Amendment issue. The decision came just hours after the Drudge Report posted stories from Washington Whispers and the Weekly Standard about how gun groups were fighting the lead bullet ban.
Economic growth slows to 1.6 pct. in the spring
By CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER
Friday, August 27, 2010
WASHINGTON — The economy grew at a much slower pace this spring than previously estimated, mostly due to the largest surge in imports in 26 years and a slowdown in companies’ restocking of goods.
The nation’s gross domestic product – the broadest measure of the economy’s output – grew at a 1.6 percent annual rate in the April-to-June period, the Commerce Department said Friday. That’s down from an initial estimate of 2.4 percent last month and much slower than the first quarter’s 3.7 percent pace.
The revision follows a week of disappointing economic reports. The housing sector is slumping badly after the expiration of a government homebuyer tax credit. And business spending on big-ticket manufactured items such as machinery and software, an important source of growth earlier this year, is also tapering off.
As a result, most analysts expect the economy will grow at a similarly weak pace for the rest of this year.
“We seem to be in the early stages of what might be called a ‘growth recession’,” said Ethan Harris, an economist at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch. The economy is likely to keep expanding, but at a snail’s pace and without creating many more jobs. Harris expects the nation’s output will grow at about a 2 percent pace in the second half of this year. As a result, the jobless rate could rise from its current level of 9.5 percent.
That’s “very disappointing relative to a normal business cycle,” he said. “Usually you get a bigger bounce back.”
Still, stock futures rose modestly after the announcement as investors appeared relieved the estimate wasn’t lower as some economist had forecast.
Investors will now turn their attention to a speech by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, scheduled for 10 a.m., that will address what the Fed may do in response to the weakening economy.
The widening trade deficit subtracted nearly 3.4 percentage points from second quarter growth, the largest hit from a trade imbalance since 1947, the government said.
The economy has grown for four straight quarters, but that growth has averaged only 2.9 percent, a weak pace after such a steep recession. The economy needs to expand at about 3 percent just to keep the unemployment rate from rising.
Business investment in new machinery, computers and software drove much of the growth last quarter, increasing nearly 25 percent.
But much of that spending involved the purchase of imported goods. Imports surged 32.4 percent, the most since 1984. That overwhelmed a 9.1 percent increase in exports.
Consumers spent a bit more in the second quarter than previously calculated. Their spending rose at a 2 percent annual rate, above the 1.6 percent estimated last month and slightly higher than the first quarter’s 1.9 percent. The revised estimate was largely due to higher electricity and natural gas usage, the Commerce Department said.
Economists expect many other supports for economic growth to fade. Federal government spending and the housing sector bolstered the economy last quarter, but housing has slumped again and will likely drag growth down in the third quarter. The impact of the federal government’s $862 billion stimulus package is also projected to taper off this year.
There are few other signs of strength. Even business investment is expected to drop, as a report earlier this week showed that business orders for capital goods fell in July.
The government’s GDP report measures the economy’s output of goods and services and covers everything from autos to haircuts. Friday’s report is the second of three estimates the government makes each quarter.
Just How Badly Has the NRSC Screwed Up? Worse Than You Think
by Erick Erickson
August 26, 2010
17,000 of the 24,000 absentee ballots in Alaska will probably be counted Monday. Given Joe Miller’s late surge, it may not help him. However, I am told by a number of people that given where those absentee ballots came from and his overall support in the areas, the odds remain in joe Miller’s favor.
But word is coming out of Washington that the National Republican Senatorial Committee, already in “cover their butts” mode, is intervening in Alaska to help Lisa Murkowski.
John Cornyn, Chairman of the NRSC, has been upfront that the NRSC will help incumbent Republicans being challenged. But there is a problem with Murkowski. I have confirmed through multiple sources that Lisa Murkowski has already approached the Alaska Libertarian Party. In exchange for putting her on the Libertarian ticket in November, Murkowski will hand the Libertarians a sizable chunk of her +$1 million war chest.
The Libertarian Party Chairman, Scot Kohlhaas, is denying direct talks with Murkowski, and says it probably won’t happen, but I can confirm conversations are still happening regarding this.
I am willing to bet that John Cornyn is sending Murkowski help without first getting a promise from her that she will not run third party if she loses.
What’s more, the NRSC, in “cover their butts” mode, is telling every reporter who will listen that Lisa Murkowski did not take the NRSC’s advice and attack Joe Miller. In fact, the NRSC gave the same advice to Sue Lowden, Jane Norton, Charlie Crist, Trey Grayson and other NRSC losers.
The advice is simple — attack the opponent for being fiscally responsible, i.e. opposed to earmarks and being a real fiscal conservative.
Joe Miller is speaking out on this and accusing the NRSC of meddling in the election. If and when he gets to Washington, the number of people opposed to the present GOP leadership will have one more.
It’s as if Rob Jesmer, the NRSC’s Executive Director, is a Tea Party saboteur, intentionally destroying the NRSC. On the bright side, because of Rob Jesmer’s incompetence, the GOP has one of the most conservative batches of candidates in a long time: Angle, Buck, Lee, Paul, Rubio, and Toomey — all opposed by the NRSC and supported by Jim DeMint.
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Talking Points Memo denies role in Carnahan firebombing
by Moe Lane
August 26, 2010
For those not following this story: last week a campaign office of Russ Carnahan* (D, MO-03) was firebombed by an officially unknown assailant. A suspect was arrested and subsequently quickly released. This development, coupled with the odious nature of the attack itself, led to both widespread concern and widespread condemnation among the right-side of the blogosphere (including RedState)… but, curiously, not notably among the left-side.
Given that the attack appeared to be an act of domestic terrorism, the reaction of the latter seemed incongruous. It was later discovered that the person arrested and released was Chris Powers, a former campaign staffer of Russ Carnahan’s – one with apparently a longer history with the campaign than the ‘one week’ that Carnahan has claimed – who was also a diarist (under an assumed name**) for Talking Points Memo, which is an influential blog and website among Democratic and progressive political operatives and bloggers.
Today, Talking Points Memo finally released an article on the affair, in which it reported both that Powers denied any involvement in the original attack, as well as implicitly denying any relationship between TPM and Powers beyond the latter’s ability to post diaries at TPM:
As several blogs have reported, Powers wrote a reader blog at TPMCafe under the name Ripper McCord. (Any TPM reader can create a blog and comment on the site, and Powers is not affiliated with TPM.)
No explanation was offered as to why TPM declined to cover for almost a week the firebombing of a Democratic Congressman’s campaign office; a firebombing which featured at one point a TPM diarist as prime suspect.
No further arrests have been made in the case as of the time of this article.
Moe Lane
*Not to be confused with his sister Robin Carnahan, who is currently losing the Missouri Senate race to Roy Blunt.
**A common practice in the online community, and thus not necessarily a sign of nefarious intent.
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Obama admin gives illegal aliens backdoor amnesty
by Dan Spencer
Wednesday, August 25th, 2010
The so-called backdoor amnesty for illegal aliens is no longer merely another bad idea from the Obama administration. According to the Houston Chronicle, the Department of Homeland Security is trying to dismiss thousands of deportation cases against “suspected illegal immigrants.”
The Chronicle reports the Obama amnesty effort began “about a month ago” in Houston, where the Department of Homeland Security now has five attorneys working full-time on this backdoor amnesty for illegal aliens. The amnesty program is expected to be rolled out nationwide soon.
Senator John Cornyn blasted the Obama amnesty:
This situation is just another side effect of President Obama’s failure to deliver on his campaign promise to make immigration reform a priority in his first year. Until he does, state and local authorities are left with no choice but to pick up the slack for prosecuting and detaining criminal aliens.
Earlier this year, President Obama affirmed his support for the Schumer/Graham immigration legislation outline.
Obama ran for president promising secure borders, increased number of legal immigrants, to remove incentives for illegal immigration, and to allow undocumented immigrants who are in good standing to pay a fine, learn English, and go to the back of the line for the opportunity to become citizens.
President Obama promised to make immigration reform a top priority of the first year of his presidency. When Obama backed away from that promise, Politifact rated his promise stalled.
As I have said before, Amnesty for illegal, whether it is backdoor or contained in a comprehensive reform bill, sends a simple message – get into the United States anyway you can because eventually you will be legalized. That message will be heard loud and clear just as it was with the adoption of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (”IRCA”). That “immigration reform” legalized four million illegal aliens. IRCA was a monumental failure. Twenty-odd years later there millions of new illegal aliens to legalize.
A Round-Up Of News To Make Your Blood Boil
by Melissa Clouthier
August 26, 2010
Do you find it galling that after all this time being called “radical, violent, right-wing extremists”, we now have multiple examples in one day of psychotic liberals going cuckoo?
Yeah, so Russ Carnahan’s office was burned. Tea Partier? Nope! TPM blogger and Carnahan staffer.
The Department of Homeland Security, you know, the dudes are taking our civil liberties away to keep us safe..yeah them, released around 500 illegal aliens from terrorist nations. Trust them!
Attorney General Eric Holder is going after (terrorists? please, please, please say yes) pro-life protesters.
The Department of Education is targeting conservative-led New Jersey on clerical errors to deny them money for education. Get rid of that vile agency, I say.
Hypocritical, unprincipled Democrats are re-thinking that whole “get rid of the filibuster” deal–just in time to get their as#$%* kicked.
And for some reason, this story irritates me the worst. The moderates, independents, libertarians, RINOs, and trend-followers (but I repeat myself) who voted for Barack Obama are wiggling around like live bugs pinned to card-board. The latest entre is from someone I respect, but her latest post is really hard to take. Megan McArdle absolves President Obama saying, essentially, that there’s nothing he can do or could have done to help the economy. Au contraire. Nothing is something he could have done and would have better than what he did do.
Instead, the great meddler, the Man Who Knows Everything, well, he’s made everything worse. And it is going to get worse. You do not rape the private sector, leaving her terrified and shivering in the corner, and expect her to enjoy the company of men again and start cranking out babies any time soon. The private sector is paralyzed. They see taxation looming and cower. They see huge new commitments to workers and tremble. And that was the President’s doing. His. And the leftist loons in Congress. But hey, credit where credit is due.
Say it with me lefties and weak middle of the roaders: It’s Obama’s Fault. Get used to it, because his actions are going to harm us for a long time.
Oh, I was going to end with that, but the new day is young and it looks to be craptastic.
The media is getting stupider.
Freedom Works is moving headquarters because of death threats by LIBERAL CRAZIES.
Democrats are starting to get it. People hate you. They really hate you.
Oh, and Ken Mehlman is gay. Big Deal! Everyone already knew that. I don’t care. WHO DOES? Why the liberals this elite clown is helping, that’s who cares. So another Republican know-better-than-you-elitist-inside-the-beltway-smartypants jerk is going to help create a wedge issue for his own party. This has nothing to do with who he’s screwing–wait yes it does. He’s screwing his party and the base. Well done.
Finally, and only because I’m exhausted, David “Genius” Broder gives John McCain advice about how to screw his party lead (via @Allahpundit of HotAir). As IF John McCain needs any advice about that.
Sorry to ruin your breakfast.
Democrats Privately Fear House Slipping Away
“Top Democrats are growing markedly more pessimistic about holding the House, privately conceding that the summertime economic and political recovery they were banking on will not likely materialize by Election Day,” Politico reports.
“In conversations with more than two dozen party insiders, most of whom requested anonymity to speak candidly about the state of play, Democrats in and out of Washington say they are increasingly alarmed about the economic and polling data they have seen in recent weeks.”
Meanwhile, the latest CQ-Roll Call survey of the political landscape “finds an environment that continues to worsen for Democrats and new race ratings to reflect Republicans on the ascent.”
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