People have vivid memories of certain tragic events in our history. It used to be common to hear folks ask, “Where were you when JFK was shot?” Or, “What were you doing when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated?” Tragedies etch themselves into our collective psyche and the things we were doing at the time we first heard the news, or witnessed events first-hand, help us to remember.

Such is the case with the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Not since Japan’s World War II attack on Pearl Harbor has the United States had its territorial sovereignty violated by such aggression. Everyone who was alive on 9/11/01 recalls today what they were doing, and how they reacted, felt, grieved, mourned, and prayed. For most Americans, that grief, sadness and prayer will never end.

Faith becomes more important to people when they are faced with the loss of loved ones. Religious ceremonies typically accompany the burial process, and the same holds true for memorial events like the upcoming September 11, 2011 ten-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks. Except that in the case of the ceremony to be held at the site of the World Trade Center– Ground Zero – Mayor Michael Bloomberg has put the kibosh on having religion be a part of it.

It is a decision that seems to defy all logic and commonsense, and it comes off as cruel, heartless, and suggests Hizzoner is out of touch with the people who elected him to be Mayor (not King) of New York City. It falls on the heels of another take-your-breath-away decision about the same event. In mid-August, Mayor Bloomberg nixed inviting first responders to the 10-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the WTC.

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From the Associated Press:

The minister of a Florida church said he has canceled plans to burn copies of the Quran because the leader of a much-opposed plan to build an Islamic Center near ground zero has agreed to move its location. The agreement couldn’t be immediately confirmed.

The Rev. Terry Jones said Thursday that Americans oppose the mosque being built at the location and that Muslims do not want the Quran burned. He said instead of his plan to burn the books on Saturday to mark the ninth anniversary of 9/11, he will be flying to New York to speak to Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf about moving the mosque.

“We are, of course, now against any other group burning Qurans,” Jones said during a news conference. We would right now ask no one to burn Qurans. We are absolutely strong on that. It is not the time to do it.” (more…)

Suddenly the American public is shocked.  Perhaps there is no economic recovery.  Perhaps the One really does favor Islam.

Democrats and Republicans shake their heads and wonder, how could our President pursue such divisive and unpopular policies?  What is the rationale for his decisions?  Is he incompetent?  Is he naive?

The answer is none of the above.

I have said before and I will say again, Barack Obama does not share the values of Americans.  His vision is completely anathema to an America based on individualism, private property rights and Judeo-Christian morality.

When one argues that Barack Obama is merely mistaken in his economic program, they completely discount the notion that he knows exactly what he is doing and that he has been 100% successful in achieving his policies and their intended ends, means and ends that any objective viewer would realize were insane.  After all, an economy is nothing more than the collection of mutually beneficial voluntary exchanges of labor and the fruits of labor.  Anything that impedes one’s labor, or the trading of its fruits is necessarily bad for the economy.  Hence, almost everything a government does to try to stimulate an economy, impeding the natural spontaneous harmony of such a system necessarily postpones any recovery.

We were in major trouble with unsustainable public and private debt prior to this President, coupled with a completely insolvent financial system, a destined to fail monetary system and numerous stagnant businesses sucking up economic resources.  A real financial restructuring would have taken significant time, and even the most “fiscally conservative” President and Congress would not have been able to move enough roadblocks out of the way to make this recovery painless or quick.  I question whether or not anything could change the direction of the economy in the long run, save for a collapse that would force us to let the free market work and liquidate the welfare state.  But this President ensures that there will not even be a chance for recovery for many many years, regardless of who the next President is.

And it is all by design.

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The Washington Times reports and provides audio that Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi supports the investigation into those who disagree with her:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, called for an investigation of those who are protesting building the Ground Zero Mosque on Tuesday. She told San Francisco’s KCBS radio:

“There is no question there is a concerted effort to make this a political issue by some. And I join those who have called for looking into how is this opposition to the mosque being funded,” she said. “How is this being ginned up that here we are talking about Treasure Island, something we’ve been working on for decades, something of great interest to our community as we go forward to an election about the future of our country and two of the first three questions are about a zoning issue in New York City.”

Calls to investigate the funding for those proposing the $100 million “Cordoba House” have fallen on deaf ears, though, as New York’s Mayor Mike Bloomberg has described such an investigation as “un-American.”

Is Pelosi referring to every day Americans, the families of the victims of 9/11, or her fellow Democrats–including Harry Reid–who have come out against the mosque?   She must also be endorsing that the only free speech in America is the speech where everyone agrees with her.  Remember when dissent was patriotic?

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UPDATE: A New York Daily News correspondent reports the Hareetz story is untrue:

UPDATE from our Sam Goldsmith, who’s been following this issue and just got off the phone with Sharif El-Gamal, the developer of the project:

“That’s complete misinformation. That’s crazy,” El-Gamal said.

“That’s totally totally wrong. This is more misinformation in this web of misinformation.”

“We’ve never even talked about this as an idea. Everything is on track and moving forward at the same location.”

*****

From Haaretz.com:

After weeks of heated debate over plans for an Islamic community center near Ground Zero – the site of the 9/11 attacks on New York – it seems Muslim leaders will soon back down, agreeing to move to a new site.

The decision follows a high-profile campaign against the project that included advertisements on New York buses showing images of the burning Twin Towers, an iconic landmark razed when al-Qaida terrorists flew packed passenger planes into them in 2001. The New York Republican party is also said to be planning a hostile television campaign.

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WASHINGTON (AP) – President Barack Obama on Friday forcefully endorsed building a mosque near ground zero, saying the country’s founding principles demanded no less.

“As a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country,” Obama said, weighing in for the first time on a controversy that has riven New York and the nation.

“That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances,” he said. “This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable.”

Obama made the comments at an annual dinner in the White House State Dining Room celebrating the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

The White House had not previously taken a stand on the mosque, which would be part of a $100 million Islamic center to be built in lower Manhattan two blocks from where nearly 3,000 people perished when hijacked jetliners slammed into the World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11, 2001. Press secretary Robert Gibbs had insisted it was a local matter. (more…)

The “Ground Zero” Mosque project should not go forward and let’s hope that Imam Feisel Abdul Rauf that is behind this $100 million project gets this message and backs off.

But given what he is hearing from the liberals in New York, including the city’s Mayor, the congressman in whose district Ground Zero sits, and the New York Times, it’s hard to be optimistic that he will change his mind.

Opposition to the Mosque is being portrayed, as the New York Times editorial page put it, as abandoning “the principles of freedom and tolerance.”  But the Times makes its own tenuous grasp of reality clear as it goes on in its editorial embracing the Mosque and Islamic Center to say that “The attacks of September 11 were not a religious event.”

We can only wonder what those at the Times think was motivating the young Muslims who, while embracing their Korans and chanting to Allah, committed suicide, taking 3000 innocent Americans to their deaths along with them.

The website for the project, the Cordoba Initiative, advertises itself as “Improving Muslim-West Relations”, and “steering the world back to the course of mutual recognition and respect and away from heightened tensions.”

But if Feisel Abdul Rauf is primarily motivated to “reduce heightened tensions,” why would he do something as obviously provocative as building a Mosque and Islamic Center a few feet away from 9/11 Ground Zero?

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Dear Imam Rauf and Daisy Khan,

The remains of another seventy-two people were discovered on Friday not far from where you plan to build a thirteen-story Islamic center and mosque. Here we are, close to ten years after the largest jihadist attack ever to take place on American soil, and bodies, corpses, are still being recovered. Who knows how many body parts were found in the Burlington Coat Factory building when the landing gear crashed through all five floors? Thousands were never recovered. Their cemetery, their burial ground, is the area in and around Ground Zero. not far from where you plan to build a thirteen-story Islamic center and mosque. Here we are, close to ten years after the largest jihadist attack ever to take place on American soil, and bodies, corpses, are still being recovered. Who knows how many body parts were found in the Burlington Coat Factory building when the landing gear crashed through all five floors? Thousands were never recovered. Their cemetery, their burial ground, is the area in and around Ground Zero.

Of course, as one of the leaders of the opposition to the painful and strangely thoughtless “Cordoba Initiative,” my group SIOA will be pursuing legal avenues to stop or at least dramatically slow down the building of this mosque on the site that many consider to be a war memorial, while also staging mega-protests and sit-ins if and when construction begins, etc. But must it come to that?

You and I are New Yorkers. We  are Americans, first. You, too, felt the devastating pain and anguish when the military arm of Islam (al qaeda) unleashed its attack on America on September 11th. The gaping hole at Ground Zero is a constant reminder of that terrible war.

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I am one of the featured speakers at the Inaugural statewide Tea Party Convention in Tennessee’s beautiful Smoky Mountains this weekend. But look at this: the unindicted co-conspirator, terror-tied Muslim Brotherhood front group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is trying to get the good, decent Americans of the Tennessee Tea Party to crush free speech by dropping me from the Tea Party convention this weekend.

Why is CAIR starting this campaign now? This is all about the mosque that Muslims are planning to build near Ground Zero. I spoke the truth about this supremacist initiative on the Sean Hannity radio show last week, in a debate with Islamic apologist Michael Ghouse. Who won the debate? Well, you be the judge:

The next day I was scheduled to be on the Mike Huckabee Show on Fox News along with a representative from the mosque, but at the last minute they decided not to send anyone. They sent Huckabee a written statement, which he read to me on the air. And now CAIR sends around this press release full of lies and distortions, trying to intimidate the Tennessee Tea Partiers into canceling me. The CAIR press release starts this way:

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today called on the organizers of the inaugural Tennessee Tea Party Convention to be held this weekend in Gatlinburg to drop an anti-Islam speaker who claims that ‘Hitler and the Nazis were inspired by Islam’ and that Islam ‘mandates’ lies and deception.

Sounds terrible, right? Except for one thing: it’s true. (more…)