Category Archives: U.S.A.

1 in custody at Miami airport; 4 concourses shut

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Miami-Dade Police and Fire Rescue vehicles are shown at the arrival level at Miami International Airport in Miami, early morning Friday, Sept. 3, 2010 AP – Miami-Dade Police and Fire Rescue vehicles are shown at the arrival level at Miami International Airport …

Yahoo news:

MIAMI – Federal officials say a passenger has been taken into custody after screeners detected something suspicious in a checked bag at Miami International Airport.

A statement by the Transportation Security Administration says its investigators, a Miami-Dade police bomb squad and other law enforcement agencies were on the scene.

The federal statement says four of the six Miami airport termianals had been evacuated and airport roadways also were closed as a safety precaution.

The statement does not give further details about what a TSA screener found at about 9 p.m. Thursday.

Authorites say the evacuation continued early Friday and urge anyone with departures from Miami to check with their carrier.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

MIAMI (AP) — Federal officials say a passenger has been taken into custody after screeners detected something suspicious in a checked bag at Miami International Airport.

A statement by the Transportation Security Administration says its investigators, a Miami-Dade police bomb squad and other law enforcement agencies were on the scene.

The federal statement says four of the six Miami airport termianals had been evacuated and airport roadways also were closed as a safety precaution.

The statement does not give further details about what a TSA found at about 9 p.m. Thursday.

Authorites say the evacuation continued early Friday and urge anyone with departures from Miami to check with their carrier.

Two on United Flight Arrested on Terror Charges in Amsterdam

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H/T TL

Suspects Had Been Cleared Sunday by TSA in Chicago, Birmingham Despite Security Concerns


2 comments
By RICHARD ESPOSITO, CHRISTINE BROUWER and BRIAN ROSS
Aug. 30, 2010

Two men taken off a Chicago-to-Amsterdam United Airlines flight in the Netherlands have been charged by Dutch police with “preparation of a terrorist attack,” U.S. law enforcement officials tell ABC News.
Photo: Two on United Flight Arrested on Terror Charges in Amsterdam: Suspects Had Been Cleared Sunday by TSA in Chicago, Birmingham Despite Security Concerns

Ahmed Mohamed Nasser al Soofi, left, and Hezem al Murisi, were taken off a United Airlines flight in the Netherlands and have been charged by Dutch police with “preparation of a terrorist attack,” according to a U.S. law enforcement official.
(ABC News)
More Photos Continue Reading →

Coming August 31: ‘Direct Access’ Stimulus Grants for the Muslim Brotherhood

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From Christine Brimm @ Big Peace

Think of it as ACORN reborn, with a slice of Jihad on the side.

On August 31, this coming Tuesday, the Muslim Brotherhood-associated “Coordinating Council of Muslim Organizations” (CCMO) will bring 25-30 Muslim leaders of 20 national Muslim groups to attend a special workshop presented by the White House and U.S. Government agencies (Agriculture, Education, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services etc.) to provide the groups “funding, government assistance and resources.”  The workshop will apparently provide special access for these Muslim Brotherhood organizations: the organizers pledge to provide “direct access” and “cut through red tape.” Government and Muslim groups will hold an Iftar dinner (breaking the fast of Ramadan) after the workshop.

muslim brotherhood

The event was announced in an email newsletter sent August 27 by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism finance trial, long associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, the global Islamist network (great backgrounder here from Hudson Institute).   Here are three key paragraphs from the email (the entire article on the August 31 event from the ISNA email is pasted below this post as reference):

This year, a phenomenal next step has been made where government iftars become coupled with workshops to provide resources and benefit the Muslim community. The US Department of Agriculture (DOA) and the Coordinating Council of Muslim Organizations (CCMO) have paired the first of such events, scheduled for August 31, 2010.

…Leaders from Muslim organizations around the nation, particularly social service organizations, are invited to a workshop with representatives from the DOA, Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, Health and Human Services, the White House, Department of Education, the Department of Homeland Security, and more. Twenty five to thirty Muslim leaders representing 20 Muslim organizations are expected to attend the workshop.

According to a representative of CCMO, this workshop is designed to clarify how Muslim nonprofits, mosques, Islamic centers, and social service organizations can strengthen their communities through more direct access to opportunities provided to social service agencies at the Federal level. “It will hopefully help cut through some of the red tape and shine light on the many opportunities for funding, government assistance, and resources that we just don’t know about at the local level,” said Elsanousi. Continue Reading →

Imam Feisal Rauf and the Genocidal Hamas Covenant

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Thanks to Andrew Bostom for sending me this:

Imam Feisal Rauf and the Genocidal Hamas Covenant

August 25th, 2010 by Andrew Bostom |

From a Hamas poster glorifying the martyr who drowns the Zionists in blood (used as part of the cover art for Raphael Israeli’s seminal “Islamikaze”)

As reported by the New York Post’s Tom Topoussis on June 19, 2010, Imam Feisal Rauf repeatedly declined to acknowledge, unequivocally, that Hamas is a terrorist organization, despite its formal designation as such by the US State Department, in these words:

Hamas terrorists, especially those in the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, have conducted many attacks, including large-scale suicide bombings, against Israeli civilian and military targets

Asked by WABC radio interviewer Aaron Klein whether he agreed with the State Department’s assessment, Imam Rauf stated, “Look, I’m not a politician. The issue of terrorism is a very complex question.” When Klein persisted, asking Rauf again for his view on Hamas, the imam, now exasperated, still refused to agree openly with the State Department’s apt designation.

I contend that Rauf’s repeated refusal to acknowledge that Hamas is indeed a terrorist organization—jihad terror being Hamas’ specific abiding ideology—is entirely consistent with his own documented lionization of well-known fundamentalist Muslim jurists such as Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 1328), and the founder of modern Wahhabism, Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab (d. 1792). Moreover, Rauf praises the contemporary cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi—Spiritual Leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, immensely popular Al-Jazeera television savant on the Sharia, and in whose name the government of Qatar recently created the Al-Qaradawi Centre for Islamic Moderation—as “…probably the most well-known legal authority in the whole Muslim world today.” But perhaps most importantly, Rauf’s continued close association with, and nurturing by former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Muhammad, also comports with the imam’s  adamant refusal to acknowledge Hamas’ ethos of jihad terror. Continue Reading →

The Ground Zero Mosque Protest: What the MSM Chose to Ignore

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From the Hudson-NY.org

Approximately a thousand people turned up at Park Place on August 22, to demonstrate against the proposed construction of a 15-storey Islamic center to be located two blocks from Ground Zero. Packed tightly into little more than one street block, demonstrators waved American flags, held up pictures of loved-ones killed in the al-Qaeda attacks of 9/11/2001, and placards saying “No” to the “Ground Zero mosque” and “No” to Sharia Law. Now and again, throughout the day, these were joined by umbrellas as the hot, humid day broke into showers.

Speakers at the demonstration emphasized that freedom of religion was not at issue. The point of the demonstration was to protest the location, and to ask for sensitivity for those still grieving.

Undoubtedly the speakers did not fit the narrative the mainstream media wanted, and have been pressing home for the last couple of weeks: “Islamophobia” is rampant and dangerous. Daisy Kahn, one of the organizers of the proposed Islamic center, told ABC News recently that the backlash “is like a metastasized anti-Semitism. It’s not even Islamophobia, it’s beyond Islamophobia – it’s hate of Muslims.”

If the media really were concerned about a wave of anti-Muslim feeling, why not show the speakers, the majority of whom emphasized their solidarity with Muslims who love America, democracy, and liberty? Surely their voices, and their references to democracy-loving Muslims, would help to quash any “hate”. Continue Reading →

The Ground Zero Mosque: Which Muslims Is the US Supporting?

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From Hudson-NY.org

A civil war is raging in Islam; if the US is to be spared the social problems already shaking much of Europe, its politicians and media must take the more difficult course of engaging those Muslims who want to support democracy and liberty, while sidelining those who do not – or who want democracy so long it allows them to agitate for just a little more sharia, and a few more accommodations to hard-line views.

These thoughts, current after 9/11, seem to have quietly slipped from the debate over Islam and democracy, perhaps because the West’s self-appointed opinion-makers prefer to avoid unpleasant issues and hard truths concerning anything non-Western, and perhaps because this “civil war” is also being waged among those who claim to speak for Western civilization.

Increasingly since 9/11, many have seized on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to portray the US as the main obstacle to “peace” (meaning surrender). Nevertheless, if much of the European press, and the left-wing press in the US, repeatedly attempted to portray President George W. Bush as a man lacking subtlety of mind, and the “war on terror” as a war against Muslims or Islam, the president himself was always careful to stress that the enemy were those who rejected democracy in favor of a medieval legal system that regarded women as second class citizens, and included such barbaric practices as stoning. “Islamo-fascism” was articulated as a radical strain of Islam, rejected by “moderates,” who were, and are, regarded as apostates by the Islamo-fascists, and, as such, sentenced to death in absentia. Continue Reading →

CNN Vid on the Church planning to burn Koran

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What a shame neither of these men are very articulate on these issues. However the CNN fellow is hypocritical as well as ignorant. He is provocative and insulting to the pastor, because he feels the pastor is provocative and insulting. This is the kind of blatant hypocrisy we have all gotten used to from the left. The CNN fellow is exactly guilty of what he is accuses this poor shmoe pastor of doing, and the pastor, while he has some of his facts right, did not argue his own case very well at all.

He should have said, “If the Nazis had taken over 50 countries and were imposing strict Nazi laws and oppression on the people in those lands, then burning Mine Kampf would be a very rational symbolic resistance to that oppression” and he would be right, no matter how many Nazis it would have ‘offended’.

I should add that the delay on the remote interview tends to make the guest always look a little dim witted as there is a second to two added to each response. So the pastor may be sharper than it appears.

Daisy digs in her heels over Victory Mosque

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From The New York Post, courtesy TROP

Imam’s wife ‘won’t cave’ on Ground Zero mosque, blames GOP

By JENNIFER FERMINO

With Post Wire Services

Last Updated: 10:27 AM, August 20, 2010

Posted: 1:14 AM, August 20, 2010

The defiant wife of the cleric behind the planned mosque near Ground Zero vowed yesterday to go ahead with the project — calling it a “history-making moment” in the fight against “Islamophobia.”

Daisy Khan, who founded the project along with her husband, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, said the increasing opposition — which she blamed on Republicans — has only caused organizers to become more committed.

“There is too much at stake, constitutional rights, the development of the Muslims here, how the world is watching the United States. We tell people America upholds religious freedom. We should not compromise those values,” she said in an interview with The Washington Post.

Daisy Khan, wife of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the moving force behind the planned mosque near Ground Zero, had strong words about the project yesterday.

Daisy Khan, wife of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the moving force behind the planned mosque near Ground Zero, had strong words about the project yesterday.

WHITE HOUSE AGHAST OVER ‘SECRET MUSLIM’ POLL

LARRY TARGETED FOR $161M

DEAL NEAR FOR 9/11 CLEANERS

RUDY ASKS MOSQUE TO MOVE IN ‘HEAL’ APPEAL

VIDEO: MOSQUE DEBATE ON GOOD DAY NEW YORK

The furor surrounding the planned mosque and Islamic cultural center two blocks from Ground Zero has “only strengthened our supporters. None of them have caved. They are circling the wagons around us. They know they could be next.”

“We have too important a moment to back down. We have to take our opponents and transform them. We have to convince people that not all Muslims are extremists,” she said.

“We have to educate them on being able to distinguish between us and on the issue of Islamophobia.”

Khan spoke out about the mosque while her husband is in the Middle East on a goodwill trip sponsored by the US State Department.

Throughout the interview with columnist Sally Quinn, Khan repeatedly stressed the importance of moving forward with the project, which has stirred debate all over the country.

“What gives me strength [is that] we are in a history-making moment. Our ideals must prevail. We have to fight for a bigger society,” said Khan.

She said that she and her husband had received death threats and have informed the police.

Khan said the organizers “will have a dialogue” with the families of 9/11 victims, but added about the mosque site: “It is private property. To walk away without taking everything into consideration would be irresponsible.”

Instead of creating enemies, she said, she hopes this controversy will help people better understand Islam.

“We are debating about having a healing dialogue, building bridges, and this whole thing has turned into the opposite of what we have envisioned,” she said.

Khan said she is completely taken aback by the opposition.

She expressed surprise that “a community center for everyone in the neighborhood, to scale up and build up people of all religions, has become so skewed.”

The clamor around the mosque has become so deafening, she said, she’s afraid to turn on the TV.

“It’s hard to see yourself portrayed this way daily. But to me, it’s an indication that the post-9/11 controversy is not finished. It’s not over and neither is the healing. This is a teaching moment. A healing moment,” she said.

She blamed partisan strife for stirring up people’s emotions.

“It’s hard for us to imagine we are in the thick of a controversy like this. The Republicans are really going after us,” she said.

The uproar over the mosque, said Khan, shows that “there is still healing that needs to happen. There are bigger issues here and it’s also about how Muslims are perceived. When will Muslims be accepted as plain old Americans?”

“This is a bigger fight. This is a defining moment for us.”

Addressing one of the more controversial aspects of the project — who will pay the big bucks for its completion — she said that the fund-raising has not begun yet.

“On the advice of our attorneys, we wanted to clear the civic hurdles first,” she said.

Khan said that she and her husband have been talking to Muslims all over the United States about the project.

“It’s a major concern of the Muslim communities because it has sparked anti-Islam and anti-mosque feelings everywhere. Six mosques have already been prevented from being established. We have to be careful about every step we take. There are huge stakes in this,” she said.

She claimed that there has been little interest in her project from Muslims outside the United States, but said that might change since her husband began his tour of the Middle East.

A State Department spokesman said that Rauf might speak about the mosque during the tour.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he talks about the ongoing debate within the United States, as an example of our emphasis on religious tolerance and resolving questions that come up within the rule of law,” said department spokesman P.J. Crowley.

Rauf — who has been on several State Department tours, including two under former President George W. Bush — is not allowed to fund-raise on the trip.

je**************@****st.com

Sharia comes to Berkeley; first Muslim College Zaytuna, to open this fall

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Zaytuna to open this fall

Scholars Plan U.S.’ First Four-Year Accredited Islamic College

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Imam Zaid Shakir, a Muslim scholar and teacher, plans to soon open Zaytuna Institute, an American Muslim think-tank/educational institution.

The ultimate purpose of Zaytuna College is to become the bulwark for a wholly new construction of Islam, one firmly rooted in traditional Islamic teachings, yet uniquely and unapologetically American.

PLAINSBORO, N.J. —  A group of American Muslims, led by two prominent scholars, is moving closer to fulfilling a vision of founding the first four-year accredited Islamic college in the United States, what some are calling a “Muslim Georgetown.”

Advisers to the project have scheduled a June vote to decide whether the proposed Zaytuna College can open in the fall of next year, a major step toward developing the faith in America.

Imam Zaid Shakir and Sheik Hamza Yusuf of California have spent years planning the school, which will offer a liberal arts education and training in Islamic scholarship. Shakir, a California native, sees the school in the tradition of other religious groups that formed universities to educate leaders and carve a space in the mainstream of American life.

“As a faith community our needs aren’t any different than the needs of any other faith community,” Shakir told the Council for the Advancement of Muslim Professionals, as he sought donations at a recent conference near Princeton, N.J. “As Muslims, we need to develop institutions to allow us to perpetuate our values.” Continue Reading →

Muslim sues Disneyland over headscarf

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From The Telegraph U.K.

Muslim woman sues Disneyland over headscarf

A Muslim woman is suing Disneyland, accusing the company’s California theme park of discrimination for telling her she could not serve customers if she chose to wear a headscarf.

Published: 5:53PM BST 19 Aug 2010

Imane Boudal is now bringing Disney before the US Equal Opportunity Commission

Imane Boudal is now bringing Disney before the US Equal Opportunity Commission Photo: AP

Imane Boudal, 26, asked her employers at Disneyland’s Grand Californian Hotel several months ago whether they would permit her to wear a headcovering while working as a hostess, a spokesman for a worker’s union said.

But when no reply was forthcoming, she decided to don the headscarf anyway, timing her decision with the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Leigh Shelton, a spokesman for the Unite Here Local 11 union said.

“Disney told Boudlal that if she wanted to work as a hostess she had to remove her hijab because it did not comply with the ‘Disney Look,’” the spokesman said. Continue Reading →

Just the Facts, Imam

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Canada Free Press… Just the facts, Imam. A Muslim terrorist attack damaged a building, allowing Muslims to pick it up for a fraction of the price, in order to build a mosque on the spot. Some people might say that sort of thing is tacky. A little like coming by to make an offer on the house, after your cousin murdered the entire family who lived there. Sure, you might claim that you’re not responsible, but it just doesn’t look good. Especially once you start paling around with your cousin, and suggesting that maybe he was just misunderstood. And maybe that family brought it on themselves.

But the media still insists that Islam had nothing to do with 9/11. Or if it had anything to do with 9/11, it was those “other Muslims”, not these Muslims. The media isn’t really good at explaining the difference between these Muslims and those Muslims. Often the media insists that those Muslims are actually these Muslims. Sometimes they claim that those Muslims are actually not Muslims at all, but people who are upset about foreclosures and work related stress.

When Malik Hasan opened fire at Fort Hood, the media spent thousands of gallons of ink claiming that he was suffering from some airborne form of PTSD that he picked up from the soldiers he was abusing—all evidence to the contrary. When the Times Square Bomber tried to kill a few thousand New Yorkers, the media claimed that he was upset because his house had been foreclosed on. Inconveniently enough, he turned out to be a Muslim terrorist, complete with his very own Al Queda martyrdom video. Continue Reading →

Canada Free Press:

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Islam Means the End of Religious Freedom

By Daniel Greenfield  Sunday, August 15, 2010

image

At an Iftar dinner in the White House, Barack Hussein Obama proclaimed that he supports the building of the Ground Zero mosque as part of his “unshakable commitment to religious freedom”. Which of course sounds very noble and good, until you ask a single question, Where is the religious freedom in the Muslim world?

Obama has made the case for Islam in America, on the grounds that America’s religious diversity promotes the religious freedom of all. Islam no less than any other belief system. Yet if introducing Islam into America promotes religious freedom, then why is there no religious freedom in the Muslim world? Why are churches firebombed in Malaysia because Christians presumed to use the word Allah? Why are non-Muslims forbidden to enter the city of Mecca, from which Jews and Christians were ethnically cleansed by Mohammed? Why are Coptic Christians being oppressed and humiliated by the Egyptian government? Why are Muslims murdering Buddhist teachers in Thailand? There are a thousand examples, all of which add up to a single conclusion—Muslims demand religious freedom, yet are not willing to give it to others.

Jews are fleeing European cities in record numbers because of Muslim persecution

This has ominous implications for the prospects of religious freedom in America. Nor is this a theoretical issue. Jews are fleeing European cities in record numbers because of Muslim persecution. The recent case of Malmo, highlights the fact that Islam actually threatens religious diversity. Simply to protect themselves, Malmo’s 650 Jews were forced to spend half a million Kronor a year. The situation is much the same across Europe, as Jewish institutions are forced to become fortresses. What the Nazis did not succeed in accomplishing in Europe, the rise of Islam seems to be doing.

Nor are Christians safe, they are simply in the majority for now. But Christians and other religions were once in the majority in the Middle East. Until they were massacred and repressed by the tidal wave of Islam. Today the religions that were once a majority, whether it is Jews in Israel, Christians in Byzantium or Zoroastrians in Persia, have become oppressed minorities. Some may take comfort in the notion that “It can’t happen here.” But the fate of Europe’s Jews, shows that it can happen here. And that it is happening here.

Religious freedom requires that the religions which enjoy it, agree to tolerate each other. If they do not, instead of religious freedom, there is a religious war.

Looking at the religious map of the world today, Islam has grown in non-Muslim countries, while non-Muslims continue to dwindle in Muslim countries. And even the number of non-Muslim religious believers in non-Muslim countries dwindles, when Muslims are introduced into the equation. If Islam were a fish in a fish tank, it’s clear that it would be a piranha. If you put it into the fish tank, very soon you have a lot of Islamic piranhas and only a handful of other fish that survive, only because the piranhas need to keep some of them alive in order to feed on them. If you don’t like that picture, take an honest look at the Muslim world, with its dominant Muslim caste and inferior non-Muslims living in the cracks of their walls, and draw a better one.

Over and over again, the rise of Islam has meant the eradication of religious freedom Continue Reading →