Breaking – Holder: Pakistan Taliban Behind Times Square Attack

May 9th, 2010 Posted By Pat Dollard.

Jake Tapper’s Political Punch:

In his first Sunday morning interview, Attorney General Eric Holder revealed that the Pakistani Taliban was behind Faisal Shahzad’s attempted bombing of Times Square last week.

“We’ve now developed evidence that shows that the Pakistani Taliban was behind the attack,” Holder said on “This Week.”

“We know that they helped facilitate it. We know that they probably helped finance it. And that he was working at their direction.”

Los Moochers

By Michelle Malkin  •  May 5, 2010 11:30 AM

You know about the open-borders sympathizing Phoenix Suns and their “Los Suns” uniform stunt.

They’ve got the support of both the basketball and baseball players associations:

The National Basketball Players Association said in a statement yesterday that the Arizona immigration law is “disappointing and disturbing” and called for its repeal or modification. The players’ union also praised the Suns.

“We applaud the actions of Phoenix Suns players and management and join them in taking a stand against the misguided efforts of Arizona lawmakers,” said the statement by NBPA Executive Director Billy Hunter.

Last week, the Major League Baseball Players Association also criticized the Arizona law and said the union “will consider additional steps necessary to protect the rights and interests of our members.”

And basketball and baseball fans who support immigration enforcement, national security, and the rule of law should consider taking the proper steps to protect their rights and interests — by voting with their feet and refusing to do business with open-borders sports organizations.

Perhaps Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver should stop shoving politics down his ticket-buyers’ throats, mind his own business — and stop using our taxpayers dollars to keep him afloat. A reminder from the Phoenix New Times:

Forget the expensive business conferences: The greatest example of government bailout excess may just be Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver, whose banks have taken $140 million in Troubled Asset Relief Program funds.

Yeah, it must be nice to be the CEO of a couple of banks that need massive public assistance and still be able to afford your own a basketball team.

“Afford” being a relative term. With trade rumors raging, Sarver’s reportedly seeking to shed $40 million from his team’s payroll in order to make ends meet. In other words, you’re helping Sarver keep his banks even as he short-changes your team.

New uniform proposal: Los Moochers. If the shirt fits…

The Gospel According to Pelosi

Ann Kane

Did Pope Benedict XVI give up his post as head of the Catholic Church, and make Nancy Pelosi the new pope?  By all indications from a speech on immigration reform she gave on May 6 at a progressive Catholic forum sponsored by Trinity Washington University and National Catholic Reporter — two of many liberal adjuncts to the American Catholic Church — she has taken on her new role as supreme pontifette with gusto.

In her sanctimonious manner, she commanded:

The cardinals, the archbishops, the bishops that come to me and say, ‘We want you to pass immigration reform,’ and I said, ‘I want you to speak about it from the pulpit. I want you to instruct your’ — whatever the communication is,” said Pelosi, who is Catholic, speaking at the Nation’s Catholic Community conference sponsored by Trinity Washington University and the National Catholic Reporter. [snip]

“The people, some (who) oppose immigration reform, are sitting in those pews, and you have to tell them that this is a manifestation of our living the gospels,” she said. [snip]

Pelosi said the church “has an important role to play” in teaching about dignity and respect, and “as a practical matter” it’s not possible to tell 12 million illegal immigrants to “go back to wherever you came from or go to jail.” 

Pro-choice Pelosi should be the last person the bishops turn to for advice.  Instead, the church leaders should be consulting their Shepherd in Chief over in Rome if they have difficulties in their dioceses. Immigration reform has been a hot button issue for the bishops in America since a large percentage of illegal aliens have Catholic roots.  

The strangest aspect of Pelosi’s instruction, however, is her desire to coalesce church and state.  For the past fifty years, pastors and bishops have been on guard about preaching politics from the pulpit in fear of jeopardizing their tax exempt status.

As recently as the 2008 elections, many Catholics rejected any clergy who spoke during a homily about why parishioners should choose one candidate over another.  Progressives inside the church cried foul whenever the church tried to step into the political arena.

Pelosi’s a clever woman.  She has a two-fold game plan going on here.  She makes it look like the government is softening its stance on that pesky separation of church and state issue, while she speaks in a commanding voice to church officials, thereby subordinating the church to the state.  In Marxist movements, the state must either do away with religion or control it; either way the bishops lose.

Obama bemoans ‘diversions’ of IPod, Xbox era He doesn’t have a clue

Obama bemoans ‘diversions’ of IPod, Xbox era

(AFP) – 4 hours ago

HAMPTON, Virginia — US President Barack Obama lamented Sunday that in the iPad and Xbox era, information had become a diversion that was imposing new strains on democracy, in his latest critique of modern media.

Obama, who often chides journalists and cable news outlets for obsessing with political horse race coverage rather than serious issues, told a class of graduating university students that education was the key to progress.

“You’re coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don’t always rank all that high on the truth meter,” Obama said at Hampton University, Virginia.

“With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations, — none of which I know how to work — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation,” Obama said.

 

He bemoaned the fact that “some of the craziest claims can quickly claim traction,” in the clamor of certain blogs and talk radio outlets.

“All of this is not only putting new pressures on you, it is putting new pressures on our country and on our democracy.”

Obama, who uses the handful of Commencement addresses that he delivers each year to meditate on societal developments broader than the minutiae of everyday politics, warned the world was at a moment of “breathtaking change.”

“We can’t stop these changes… but we can adapt to them,” Obama said, adding that US workers were in a battle with well-educated foreign workers.

“Education… can fortify you, as it did earlier generations, to meet the tests of your own time,” he said.

Hampton University is a historically black college, and Obama noted the huge disparity in educational achievement between African Americans and other racial groups in the United States and the world.

But he urged the graduates to take inspiration from the example of Dorothy Height, a civil and women’s rights icon who died, aged 98, last month, who fought racial prejudice to secure a college education.

“A black woman, in 1929, refusing to be denied her dream of a college education,” Obama said, reprising Height’s life story.

“Refusing to be denied her rights, refusing to be denied her dignity, refusing to be denied… her piece of America’s promise.”

Obama argued that from the days of the pioneer politicians who founded the United States, until the modern day, education and knowledge had been the key to progress and US democracy.

He drew a line between Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, and today’s challenges.

“What Jefferson recognized… that in the long run, their improbable experiment — called America — wouldn’t work if its citizens were uninformed, if its citizens were apathetic, if its citizens checked out, and left democracy to those who didn’t have the best interests of all the people at heart.

“It could only work if each of us stayed informed and engaged, if we held our government accountable, if we fulfilled the obligations of citizenship.”

Mosque to go up near New York’s ground zero

By Nicole Bliman, CNN

May 7, 2010 3:19 a.m. EDT

The mosque project has gotten mixed reviews from families and friends of 9/11 victims.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Project includes 15-story community center, a mosque, performance art center
• Community Board of lower Manhattan voted unanimously to support the project
• Project gets mixed reviews from families and friends of 9/11 victims
• After funds raised, center to be completed in three to five years

RELATED TOPICS

• September 11 Attacks
• Islam
• Manhattan
• New York City

New York (CNN) — Plans to build a mosque two blocks away from ground zero have set off an emotional debate among area residents and relatives of victims of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.

Cordoba House project calls for a 15-story community center including a mosque, performance art center, gym, swimming pool and other public spaces.

The project is a collaboration between the American Society for Muslim Advancement and the Cordoba Initiative, both of which work to improve relations with followers of the religion.

The two groups presented their vision to part of the Community Board of lower Manhattan on Wednesday night.

Ro Sheffe, a board member who attended the meeting, said the project did not need to get the board’s approval.

“They own the land, and their plans don’t have any zoning changes,” Sheffe said. “They came to us for our opinions and to let us know their plans. It was purely voluntary on their part.”

The 12 members who were at the meeting voted unanimously to support the project. Community board members are appointed by the borough president and serve as advisers to the borough president and the mayor’s office.

Daisy Khan, executive director of the Muslim society, described her vision of a center led by Muslims, but serving the community as a whole.

“It will have a real community feel, to celebrate the pluralism in the United States, as well as in the Islamic religion,” Khan said. “It will also serve as a major platform for amplifying the silent voice of the majority of Muslims who have nothing to do with extremist ideologies. It will counter the extremist momentum.” [NOTE: This is pure eyewash. All religious Moslems have very much to do with “extremist ideologies” because the supremacist, hateful, violent ideology of Islam is part and parcel of the Koran and the sayings of Muhammad. No religious Moslems will dare to critize those passages which justify Islamic terrorism.]

The need for the center is twofold, Khan said, because it will support the needs of the growing Muslim community.

“The time for a center like this has come because Islam is an American religion,” Khan said. [NOTE: Islam is an American religion only in the sense that Moslems live in America. In terms of values and teachings, Islam is NOT an American religion. Not even close.] “We need to take the 9/11 tragedy and turn it into something very positive.”

Sheffe said a community center for lower Manhattan residents is “desperately needed.” The area was mostly commercial, Sheffe said, but as more people move downtown, the lack of residential amenities is a problem.

The project got mixed reviews from families and friends of September 11 victims.

“I think it’s the right thing to do,” said Marvin Bethea, who was a paramedic at ground zero. “I lost 16 friends down there. But Muslims also got killed on 9/11. It would be a good sign of faith that we’re not condemning all Muslims and that the Muslims who did this happened to be extremists. As a black man, I know what it’s like to be discriminated against when you haven’t done anything.” [NOTE: Typical bait and switch. At first we are talking about Islam, the religious belief system. Then they switch to talk about Muslims. Some Moslems take the doctrines of Islam seriously; some don’t. We are legitimately concerned about those Moslems who do take the Islamic doctrines seriously,]

Herbert Ouida, whose son was killed in the attacks, supports the project as a way to bridge cultural divide.

“I understand the anger, the bitterness and hatred, but it only generates more hatred,” Ouida said. “Such a large part of the world has this faith, and to say anyone who has this faith is a terrorist, it’s terrible.” [NOTE: Again, the bait and switch. Nobody says that all Moslems are terrorists. The correct argument is that the doctrines of Islam motivate many Moslem to become terrorists — and also non-terrorist supremacists and silent jihadists.]

Others decried the idea of building a mosque so close to where their relatives died.

“Lower Manhattan should be made into a shrine for the people who died there,” said Michael Valentin, a retired city detective who worked at ground zero. “It breaks my heart for the families who have to put up with this. I understand they’re [building] it in a respectful way, but it just shouldn’t be down there.”

Others such as Barry Zelman said the site’s location will be a painful reminder.

“[The 9/11 terrorists] did this in the name of Islam,” Zelman said. “It’s a sacred ground where these people died, where my brother was murdered, and to be in the shadows of that religion, it’s just hypocritical and sacrilegious. ”

However, Khan emphasized that the attacks killed Muslims, too. [NOTE: This is irrelevant. The memorial to the victims includes the Moslem victims. The fact that there were Moslem victims says nothing about the violent, jihadist doctrines of Islam which caused the 9/11 Moslem terrorists to do what they did.]

“Three hundred of the victims were Muslim, that’s 10 percent of the victims,” she said. “We are Americans too. The 9/11 tragedy hurt everybody including the Muslim community. We are all in this together and together we have to fight against extremism and terrorism.” [NOTE: Such fakery! If they want to fight against “extremism”, then let them teach their children that the violent, intolerant, hateful, warlike passages in the Koran and the sayings of Muhammad are no longer valid. That is the only way they can fight against Islamic “extremism” and terrorism.

Cordoba House is still in its early stages of development. The American Society for Muslim Advancement is hoping to raise funds for the center to be completed in three to five years. [NOTE: Let’s watch where these funds come from. Saudi Arabia? Dubai?]