Friday, September 3, 2010

Barker's Newsbites: Friday, September 3, 2010


Let's open today's "Newsbites" with a happy song...

(*WINK*)
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3 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/sketchy_tax_break_for_gz_imam_prayer_4DtxTQNfOotrzkJ3FFrPWJ

The leader of the Ground Zero mosque got hugely valuable tax-exempt status for a Muslim organization he founded after claiming as many as 500 of its members prayed daily in a small, one-bedroom Upper West Side apartment also listed as his wife's residence...

(*SMIRK*)

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf sought "church status" -- an official IRS term for a house of worship of any religion -- for the American Sufi Muslim Association, or ASMA, in 1998. The feds granted the request.

"Church status" is more than just an exemption -- it means never having to pay taxes, file returns or reveal the sources of a congregation's money or how it's spent, according to the Washington-based Investigative Project on Terrorism, which discovered the group's startling claims on the IRS form it filed seeking the special status.

On that form, the organization said it held services at 201 W. 85th St.

That's a 17-story apartment building with no public space big enough to accommodate the 450 to 500 worshippers the group claimed regularly showed up five times a day to pray.

There's no indication ASMA or any of its officers rented space in the building other than the apartment, which the Investigative Project says is only 800 square feet.

A year earlier, the imam's wife, Daisy Kahn, had been named as an ASMA director in incorporation papers.

In those papers, she stated the 10th-floor apartment was her legal residence.

* HMM... SOUNDS TO ME THAT THE IMAM - AND HIS WIFE - HAVE SOME EXPLAINING TO DO!

ASMA is still in existence -- with the same tax exemption and the same initials, but a brand new name, the American Society for Muslim Advancement.

Since February 2008, it has given its address on federal forms as 475 Riverside Drive.

That's an interfaith center which is home to many religious groups.

When ASMA was formed in 1997, its address was on 78th Street in North Bergen, NJ.

That was also Rauf's official residence.

* AND LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT... NEITHER MAYOR BLOOMBERG NOR DEMOCRAT CANDIDATE FOR (NY) GOVERNOR ANDREW CUOMO BELIEVE THAT RAUF SHOULD BE INVESTIGATED...???

Forms show the organization switching its address several times among the Upper West Side and New Jersey buildings.

On its Web site, ASMA states that it has given money to the Cordoba Initiative, founded by Rauf, which supports the mosque near Ground Zero.

* CAN YOU SAY P*O*S*S*I*B*L*E M*O*N*E*Y L*A*U*N*D*E*R*I*N*G...???

September 3, 2010 at 10:58 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/more_mosque_revelations_yMtNnRzphiKKAGJQAksoQN

So now it transpires that a key moneyman behind the proposed Ground Zero mosque is a one-time supporter of a group shut down by the feds because it was a front for Hamas.

In 1999, [Hisham Elzanaty - an Egyptian-born businessman from Long Island] donated thousands to the Holy Land Foundation, later shuttered by the feds because of its Hamas ties.

It was reported last night that...Elzanaty...provided a big chunk of the $4.8 million needed to buy the building that will be demolished to make way for the mosque.

(Among other things, Elzanaty runs a Bronx-based medical supply company that had to refund more than $300,000 in Medicaid payments in 2004-2005.)

September 3, 2010 at 10:58 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/09/03/morning-bell-the-audacity-of-failure/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell

In April [of this year], while campaigning in Pennsylvania, Vice President Joe Biden promised the American people “I’m here to tell you, some time in the next couple of months, we’re going to be creating between 250,000 jobs a month and 500,000 jobs a month.

[T]he U.S. economy lost 125,000 jobs in June and then the August report found another 131,000 jobs were lost in July.

Today the Labor Department released the September jobs report showing non-farm payrolls decreased again by 54,000 and...the nation’s unemployment rate rose to 9.6%.

By every objective measure, President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus package has been a complete failure.

When President Obama was selling his stimulus plan to the American people, he promised it would save or create 3.5 million jobs by the end of 2010. At the time, employment stood at about 134.3 million, according to the Labor Department’s most commonly used measure. That established an Obama jobs target for December 2010 at 137.8 million.

* WAIT FOR IT... WAIT FOR IT...

According to the latest jobs report, total U.S. employment stood at 130.3 million in August, which means...

September 3, 2010 at 12:17 PM

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