Pamela Geller's Blog, page 983

Church Seized: Muslim Extremists Kidnap 50 Catholics, at Least 37 Dead

Misunderstanders of Islam strike again. Horrible. Expect the media to report it every which way but the truth. Jihad.

Ahmad Al-Rubaye  /  AFP - Getty Images file
Iraqi Chaladean Catholic Christians celebrate Easter mass at the church of Virgin Mary in central Baghdad's Al-Karrada neighborhood on March 23, 2008. The same church was the site of a four-hour seige on Sunday.
By Waleed Ibrahim and Muhanad Mohammed

Iraq: Dozens dead following Muslim standoff at Catholic church 

A siege by Iraqi security forces at one of Baghdad's largest Catholic churches ended on the night of October 31, leaving at least 37 people dead and twelve injured.

A group of gunmen wearing suicide vests walked into the Syrian Catholic Church of Our Lady of Salvation during Sunday Mass. They held more than 50 parishioners hostage for several hours and threatened to kill them if al Qaeda prisoners were not released.

The siege was finally broken on that evening when Iraqi security forces stormed the church. Iraqi spokesman Major General Qassim al-Moussawi claimed that five gunmen were killed during the rescue operation as well as one policeman a parishioner and one of the priests celebrating Mass.

The Christian community in Iraq has suffered persecution since the war. Many thousands have fled abroad. In this case it is still not known why the church was targeted. Some reports suggest that the gunmen had first planned to attack the nearby stock exchange.

Christian clergy and lay people have been kidnapped, murdered, and raped by Muslim terrorists and criminal gangs in Iraq, sparking the exodus of Christians from the country.

[...]

Iraq's Jews, who had lived in the region since the time of Abraham and during their Babylonian Captivity, were expelled in the 1940s and 1950s following the infamous pogrom known as The Farhud. Sparked by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, one of the lead Muslim religious men of the region, Muslims went on a killing spree in Baghdad and elsewhere during the Second World War having allied themselves with the genocidal Nazi war machine in the Mideast's version of the Holocaust.

More on Hitler's partner The Mufti of Jerusalem

Chicagoland Dirty Politics: Obama Stumping for Gangster Alexi Giannoulias

Anybody catch Obama stomping hard the past couple of days for  the mobster and Blagojevich racketeering Alexi Giannoulias running for Senate in Illinois. Obama has no shame so secure is he in the corruption of Illinois. How is the race betrween this thug and Mark Kirk even close?   Atlas readers know Giannoulias, Rezko conspirator here.

Here's more on Obama's mob tie sidekick -- Alexi Giannoulias, who became Illinois state treasurer last year after Obama vouched for him, has pledged to raise $100,000 for the senator's Oval Office bid. (hat tip Cathy)

"We believe Giannoulias' banking experience will help him bring creative money management ideas to the treasurer's office."

Obama's voice over on Giannoulias's website here.

Big story about to break, we are one step closer to Rezko giving Obama up to federal prosecutors

Barack Obama will serve a prison sentence in the next few years — because knowing Fitzgerald, there is no reason he would be going through all of this if that was not the targeted goal in the long term.

(1) Michael Sneed in her Sun Times column 10/10/08 had the following tidbit:

Sneed hears rumbles political fund-raiser/fixer Tony Rezko, who is now singing sweetly to the feds from his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, has been talking about his "dealings" with a Chicago bank, which has political connections.

(2) We just spoke with someone well-connected in Chicago politics who told us that the bank Sneed is talking about has to be Broadway Bank, which is owned by the politically-connected Giannoulias family. We were told that Sneed's column confirms rumblings people we know heard independently that Tony Rezko is giving up the Giannoulias family to Patrick Fitzgerald — Rezko and the Giannoulias family are as close and tied together as anyone in Chicago could be. If Rezko is turning on them, then Rezko is going to give up Governor Rod Blagojevich and Obama too.

We don't want to end up in cement shoes for implying anything here, but if you live in Chicago for any length of time, you hear rumors about Broadway Bank, the Giannoulias family, and insert Tony Soprano references here. Kapeech?

(3) So, Rezko is singing about the Giannoulias family and its longtime "business dealings" in Chicago, which would interest someone like Fitzgerald and the Justice Department, who have had a long ambition to crack Soprano-style business dealings in Chicago (the city known for Al Capone hasn't changed much, really). The next plate to drop in this will be Fitzgerald then leaning on the Giannoulias family to give up someone bigger than them, who Fitzgerald once discussed in terms of hoping "he has the morals to do the right thing", to paraphrase. We now believe that person Fitz was talking about is Barack Obama.

(4) The Giannoulias family was involved with Obama as far back as his first state senate campaign in 1996. It has been long rumored here in Chicago that Obama obtained a sweetheart deal on his first town home here in Chicago — which he could not have afforded otherwise — and guess who the financing came from for that house? We've been told it was Broadway Bank, the Giannoulias bank. Now, this sets up a scenario where the Giannoulias family helps Obama with his campaign finances and gets him deeper in their pocket with his sweetheart mortgage deal (for the first home he owned that he could not afford) – all in exchange for quid pro quo to be determined later.

(5) One favor political Chicago claims Obama did for the Giannoulias family was in 2006 when, out of the blue, 29 year old Alexi Giannoulias, with no experience, and without ever having voted before, decides to run for State Treasurer of Illinois. Also out of the blue, Barack Obama endorses Alexi Giannoulias for State Treasurer. This was a SHOCK to everyone in Chicago — and Giannoulias would have never become State Treasurer without Obama's help. In political circles here, it has always been believed that this endorsement was bought years ago with that sweetheart mortgage deal Broadway Bank arranged for Obama to buy his town house.

(6) So, the Tony Rezko sweetheart deal was not the first magic home loan Obama ever received to buy a house he could not afford.

There's more to this that looks like it will break soon.  We were STUNNED when we read Sneed's column because we never in a million years believed Fitz would actually be able to take down Obama.

We do not believe this will come out before the election, however, but we do believe Fitzgerald will continue his prosecution to the highest level, because that is what he does. Jean Valjean got off easy, compared to what it's like to be in the crosshairs of perhaps the greatest prosecutor this nation has had in a generation. Patrick Fitzgerald is a force of nature.

Sneed's clue can only mean Broadway Bank…we've now heard this from several people in Chicago. And Broadway Bank can only mean Giannoulias.  And Giannoulias leads to Obama through that town house home loan and the quid pro quo political endorsement several years later. And that home loan ties back to Rezko, in that it was the first of two shady home buys Obama made with quid pro quos attached to them.

Just thinking that last paragraph out, Obama's defense in the Rezko business was that he never did anything for Rezko so there was no quid pro quo.  What the Giannoulias and Broadway Bank stuff proves is that Obama sits in people's pockets for a while before the favor is given. He bought that town house sometime between 1997-2000 or so, since he lived there for a few years before trading up to the Obama Mansion with Rezko's help in 2005, after he was in the United States Senate. And it looks like the payback was not given to the Giannoulias family until 2006, with Obama's endorsement of Alexi Giannoulias for State Treasurer.

More Atlas on Alex here.

Boiling down a complex blog entry by P.U.M.A. pundit, Tony Rezko used Alexi Giannoulias bank to float $450,000 in bad checks, while campaigning for Alexi's brother Demetris to be placed on the Illinois Finance Authority Board.

Demetris Giannoulias was on the Board at the Crossroads Fund, a Chicago Based left wing organzation supported by Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn and Barack Obama, which made grants to such stellar organizations as ACORN and other affordable housing swindlers.

In 2002, Rezko borrowed $10.5 Million from Broadway Bank, the Giannoulias family bank, the same bank where Barack Obama kept his Senate campaign funds. In 2006, Sen. Obama endorsed Alexi Giannoulias for Illinois State Treasurer, and gives Sec. Giannoulias a slot to speak at the Democratic National Convention.

Glad to see all these upstanding folks able to work so well together, too bad that Rezko doesn't want to serve time, and holds quite a bit of information about the Chicago Political Establishment that may be interesting to the Feds.

Read More of Feds and Rezko Piecing together Ayers, Giannoulias, Obama off-site...

Saudi Arabia: Islamic Clerics endorse ban on female cashiers

I love when Muslimas in the West talk about how Islam empowers women.

Saudia Arabia Islamic Clerics endorse ban on female cashiers

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Saudi Arabia's top government-sanctioned board of senior Islamic clerics has endorsed a fatwa that calls for a ban on female vendors because it violates the kingdom's strict segregation of the sexes.

The powerful committee said in its ruling Sunday that the mixing of sexes is forbidden and women should not seek jobs where they could encounter men.

The decision comes after a conservative preacher was reprimanded in August for violating a government-mandated restriction on fatwas by calling for a boycott of supermarkets employing female cashiers.

Saudi King Abdullah has been trying to clamp down on ultraconservative ideology as part of his bid to modernize the kingdom. But his efforts appear to be challenged by the influential religious scholars, who play a key role in the monarch's legitimacy.

The Mark Steyn Interview on the "Preemptive Cringe" of Western Liberals

Talk show host, Roy Green, interviews Mark Steyn on his banning at the London Convention Centre, censorship, free speech, the perversion of "human rights" and the 2010 American Mid-Term Elections.

Part II here. hat tip

Obama's Strategic Partner, Yemen, Releases Bombing Suspect

The Muslima sent the bomb packages out of Yemen.

A man walks past the Yemen office of the FedEx company in Sanaa October 30, 2010.

Credit: Reuters/Khaled Abdullah

SANAA | Sun Oct 31, 2010 2:33pm EDT

SANAA (Reuters) - Yemen freed on Sunday a female suspect detained in connection with explosive packages sent from Yemen and bound for the United States on condition that she appears when summoned for questioning, a relative said.

Asked if the woman had been released, a family member who refused to be identified, replied: "Yes."

(Reporting by Mohamed Sudam, writing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

UPDATE: Thnaks to Tom in comments:

Latest on BBC TV news is that suspect Hanan Al Samawi has been released on bail after the shipping agent for the parcel company told police that she was not the person who checked in the parcel. Yemeni police considering it as possible identity theft.

Another interesting snippet is that the Fedex/Dubai device travelled on two passenger planes, Qatar Airways on the Sanaa (Yemen) to Doha (Qatar), then from Doha to Dubai, before being put on the cargo plane. Apparently the low volume of air cargo traffic from Yemen means that it often goes on scheduled passenger flights rather than on cargo planes.

Also, British Home Secretary reported as saying that the UPS/East Midlands package would not have been discoveredby security screening, and if it hadn't been for the intelligence tip-off passed on by the Saudi authorities to MI6 the package would have continued on its journey towards Chicago.

UPDATE: Remember that it was a Gay and Lesbian Jew Center in Chicago that was targeted. The FBI must follow up on the Chicago connection. Ahem points this out in the comment section:

One of the bombs was intended for a Gay/Lesbian Synagogue not far from me. Also not far from me is the Indo-Pak neighborhood where the garbage [Headley] who instigated the Mumbai massacre lived. Chicago is full of jihadis. If you want to see a woman dressed in black from head to toe, come to Chicago. No doubt one of them helped to target the synagogue.

Obama's Strategic Partner, Yemen, Release Bombing Suspect

The Muslima sent the bomb packages out of Yemen.

A man walks past the Yemen office of the FedEx company in Sanaa October 30, 2010.

Credit: Reuters/Khaled Abdullah

SANAA | Sun Oct 31, 2010 2:33pm EDT

SANAA (Reuters) - Yemen freed on Sunday a female suspect detained in connection with explosive packages sent from Yemen and bound for the United States on condition that she appears when summoned for questioning, a relative said.

Asked if the woman had been released, a family member who refused to be identified, replied: "Yes."

(Reporting by Mohamed Sudam, writing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

UPDATE: Thnaks to Tom in comments:

Latest on BBC TV news is that suspect Hanan Al Samawi has been released on bail after the shipping agent for the parcel company told police that she was not the person who checked in the parcel. Yemeni police considering it as possible identity theft.

Another interesting snippet is that the Fedex/Dubai device travelled on two passenger planes, Qatar Airways on the Sanaa (Yemen) to Doha (Qatar), then from Doha to Dubai, before being put on the cargo plane. Apparently the low volume of air cargo traffic from Yemen means that it often goes on scheduled passenger flights rather than on cargo planes.

Also, British Home Secretary reported as saying that the UPS/East Midlands package would not have been discoveredby security screening, and if it hadn't been for the intelligence tip-off passed on by the Saudi authorities to MI6 the package would have continued on its journey towards Chicago.

Slamming their Voter Base

Obama and Clinton have tried to get the Black candidate (Meek) to drop out and help the White candidate (the snake Crist) win against the Hispanic candidate (Rubio)  in Florida Senate race.

A twofer slam at their own voter base. (hat tip Political publisher)

The Democrats hold their constituency is abect contempt. Dumb them down (education) and on the dole (entitlements) .

And Crist is sa total snake.

Rubio Asks About the "Crist-Clinton-Obama Connection -"What specifically did the White House know about this deal?"

(CNN) – The St. Petersburg Times obtained a copy of a voicemail Republican-turned-independent Gov. Charlie Crist left before 5 a.m. Monday for Democratic Senate nominee Kendrick Meek.

According to the audio, Crist wanted to meet Meek later in the day to set up a situation where Meek would back out of the Florida Senate race. Meek later said no.
Last Sunday, the three candidates for Senate faced off in a CNN/St. Petersburg Times debate, and Crist spoke to Meek briefly after the debate.

Blacklisting Breitbart, "Words Fail"

It shouldn't be a big deal. In fact, we should not even be talking about it.

Andrew Breitbart, king of new media, the citizenry's best hope for the future of reportage and accurate news dissemination, is slated to provide commentary to ABC news on Election night. No biggie right? Wrong, not in the left's facist America. The Dems, commies, socialists, traitors and totalitarians are foaming at the mouth, rabid, that Breitbart was invited by ABC.

Look at the traitor Johnson (who is paying him is anyone's guess.) He threatens news orgs who want to have me or other conservatives on.  He accuses them of racism and white supremacy and like in Maos China they either comply or be also accused of the same. He is a witch hunter. (hat tip Armaros)

Despite Fraud, ABC News Hires Breitbart  Charles Johnson

Despite his role in one of the ugliest, most egregious journalistic frauds of the year, ABC News has hired Andrew Breitbart to provide commentary for their election night coverage.

Words fail.

How this lowlife sleeps at night is anyone's guess. But the Breibart firestorm is unlike anything I have seen. This is free speech. Plain and simple. And the truth is like the silver cross to these Draculas. They are terrified of accuracy and facts.

And while I doubt ABC can back away from this, it bodes ill for the future. This is a means to stop any other than hard left voices from the mainstream airwaves. Do you think any other alphabet network will do this again if ABC comes under whithering criticism? This is a tactic in the war of ideas.

I have never seen anything like it. This is how the left is systematically destroying America.My email box is full with Goebbel's propaganda like this:

   
Tell ABC News: Don't give Andrew Breitbart a platform to spread his lies.
Breitbart is a known liar and serial race-baiter.

Clicking here will add your name to this petition:
Don't give Andrew Breitbart a platform to spread his lies.

It's appalling that ABC News' election night coverage will include notorious propagandist and serial race-baiter Andrew Breitbart, who only months ago was publicly disgraced for falsely smearing Shirley Sherrod.

There are plenty of other conservatives who ABC News could turn to for analysis or commentary. By inviting someone like Breitbart to participate, ABC News is not only calling its own credibility into question, it is also serving to rehabilitate the credibility of Andrew Breitbart and legitimate more of his race-baiting lies.

I respectfully request that you rescind your offer inviting Andrew Breitbart to participate in your Election Day coverage.
 
Click here to add your name
Dear Pamela,
One of the most precious assets of a news organization is its credibility.
So it's appalling that ABC News' election night coverage on Tuesday will include notorious propagandist and serial race-baiter Andrew Breitbart, who only months ago was publicly disgraced for falsely smearing Shirley Sherrod.
We cannot let this go unchallenged. That is why CREDO is joining with our friends at Color of Change to put a stop to this and tell ABC to rescind its invitation to Breitbart.
There are plenty of other conservatives who ABC News could turn to for analysis or commentary. By inviting someone like Breitbart to participate, ABC News is not only calling its own credibility into question, it is also serving to rehabilitate the credibility of Andrew Breitbart and legitimate more of his race-baiting lies.
Tell ABC News: Don't give Andrew Breitbart a platform to spread his lies. Click here to automatically add your name to the petition.
The saga that led to Breitbart's very public identification as a liar who intentionally stokes racial animosity began when Breitbart released a heavily edited video of Sherrod, then an official with the USDA, which Breitbart claimed was "video evidence of racism coming from a federal appointee and NAACP award recipient."
In the hit piece Breitbart released, Sherrod (who is black) appears to be saying that she withheld aide to a white farmer because of his race. Breitbart's stated purpose for releasing the video was to defend the Tea Party from charges of racism leveled by the NAACP, and to further claim that the video showed that the NAACP, Democrats and the Obama administration were comfortable with black people discriminating against whites.
The only problem was that Breitbart lied about what Sherrod actually said.
The full video of her remarks clearly demonstrated that Sherrod not only aided the farmer, but was using the story to illustrate how viewing the situation through the narrow lens of race was the wrong thing to do.
As Mark Twain said, "A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." That's what happened here.
After Breitbart's post, the story gained steam as news organizations breathlessly hyped Breitbart's video before verifying the basic story.
In the time it took for the truth to get out about the anti-racist message Sherrod very clearly both said and intended to communicate, Sherrod was publicly vilified and was fired from her job.
Multiple news organizations apologized on air and in print for the egregiously bad way they handled the over-hyped Sherrod incident-all of which was based on Breitbart's horribly irresponsible video and the absolutely misleading ways he characterized it.
It is infuriating and absurd that a news organization, just a few months later, would give Breitbart another chance to spread his deceit.
Tell ABC News: Don't give Andrew Breitbart a platform to spread his lies. Click here to automatically sign the petition.
One of the most disturbing implications of Breitbart's participation is that it was his site that was the launching pad of the mendacious videos that ultimately led to the collapse of ACORN, an organization that helped register and turnout voters in poor communities and communities of color.
In the last couple of weeks, we have already seen Republicans and their conservative allies preemptively level wild-eyed accusations of voter fraud (much of which is laden with racial overtones). This not only serves to incite the intimidation and harassment of legitimate voters in communities of color by those who believe the voter fraud conspiracy theories, it also sets the stage for claims that Democrats "stole the election" if and when Republican candidates don't win.
ABC News has a positive duty to spread true information and fight the spreading of lies. And that's doubly true when the lies underscore the deeply harmful notion that people of color are somehow scheming on a massive scale to subvert our democracy.
Yet by including the likes of Andrew Breitbart, ABC News is failing this public duty in huge way.
By including Breitbart, ABC News is providing him the means to reach people he would otherwise not reach with a deceitful message that will seem much more trustworthy than Breitbart deserves.
Tell ABC News: Don't give Andrew Breitbart a platform to spread his lies. Click here to automatically sign the petition.
Thank you for working for a better world.
Becky Bond, Political Director
CREDO Action from Working Assets
P.S ABC has started to backpedal in the face of growing criticism. On Friday, David Ford of ABC News confirmed to Media Matters that Breitbart "will be one of many voices on our air" on election night. But yesterday, the network started to distance itself from Breitbart. Andrew Morse, executive producer for ABC News Digital, issued a clearly defensive statement explaining that "Mr. Breitbart will not be a part of the ABC News broadcast coverage" and that his contribution will only be aired online at ABCNews.com and Facebook.
ABC is clearly wavering. We need to put the pressure on so that they drop Breitbart entirely.

I strongly urge Atlas readers to contact ABC and congratulate them for presenting more than one state mandated position. Stand with Breitbart.

Search Widens in Muslim Terror Plot to Blow up Planes and Synagogues, Bombs "Expertly Constructed"

The bombs set to go off on passenger jets and synagogues my Muslim terrorists  "were expertly constructed."

Yemeni security forces have also launched a wider search for more suspects believed to be linked to the Yemeni branch of al Qaeda and the mail bombs, AFP reported, citing local media reports.

Investigations into bomb threat continue
Link suggested with recent plane crash
Student quizzed in Yemeni capital

Engineering student Hanan Al Samawi, 22, was detained along with her mother after being traced by a receipt for the packages which were found on freighter jets in Britain and Dubai in an alleged al Qaeda plot.

Two parcel bombs were found on the planes and a further 26 packages have been seized in Yemen's capital Sanaa since.

Officials said the two women were arrested as part of the hunt for a number of suspects believed to have used forged documents and ID cards that played a role in the plot.

Yemeni security forces have also launched a wider search for more suspects believed to be linked to the Yemeni branch of al Qaeda and the mail bombs, AFP reported, citing local media reports.

The Washington Post and Britain's Sunday Telegraph reported that investigators believed the mastermind behind the plot was a Saudi bomb-maker who last year sent his brother to his death in an effort to kill a Saudi prince.

Ibrahim Hassan al Asiri, a 28-year-old who is on Saudi Arabia's most-wanted list, introduced a bomb in a body cavity of his younger brother, Abdullah, who pretended to be turning himself in, The Post reported.

The bomb killed his brother and wounded a top counterterrorism official and Saudi royal.

Asiri, who is based in Yemen, is also believed to have built the underwear bomb of Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian man who was trained in Yemen and attempted to blow up a commercial aircraft approaching Detroit last December.

US President Barack Obama has made it clear he suspects the involvement of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) - the Yemen-based branch of Usama bin Laden's extremist network - and vowed to wipe out the organisation.

Teeming with Obama's GITMO releases.

Dubai police said the parcel bomb found there bore the "hallmarks of al Qaeda". It involved the high explosive pentaerythritol trinitrate (PETN) hidden inside a computer printer with a circuit board and mobile phone SIM card attached.

The New York Times reported that investigators said the bombs were expertly constructed.

CBS News Alaska Caught Conspiring to Destroy Joe Miller with Gross and Debased Slander

This is shocking, but it won't make frontpage news anywhere because big media is the problem.

For those diehards and numbskulls who still take the mainstream media at their word, shame on you. If this is not the final nail in the coffin, I don't know what would be. What is so unnerving about the following exchange is the casual, matter-of-fact tone of this obvious debased standard operating procedure.

Look, we know the media, CBS, NBC, ABC, and the pathetic cable news channels are in the tank for the leftists, Democrats, socialists, etc. This is not new and goes way back to sixties. But the idea -- to slander, defame and destroy people with the most heinous and vile accusations made out of whole cloth...........

That's criminal. That's mainstream media.

Find the blogs you trust. Those, like Atlas, that consistently give you accurate, unvarnished reportage. Tell your friends. It is of critical import who you choose to edit your news.

Against Alaska's GOP Senate Candidate Big Government

The following voice mail message was inadvertently left on the cell phone of Joe Miller campaign spokesperson Randy DeSoto.

The voices are believed to be those of the news director for CBS Anchorage affiliate KTVA, along with assignment editor Nick McDermott, and other reporters, openly discussing creating, if not fabricating, two stories about Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, Joe Miller.

The following is a transcript of a call recorded after CBS Alaska affiliate KTVA called Joe Miller's Senate campaign spokesperson. The call failed to disconnect properly. It was later authenticated by McDermott, who sent a text to Randy DeSoto stating, "Damn iPhone… I left you a long message. I thought I hung up. Sorry."

Audio KTVA -

Clearly the reporters were conspiring to set up some type of smear of Joe Miller. With glee, they even cite a recent controversy over an incident involving the Rand Paul campaign, while discussing how they would spread the story via social media after whatever incident they had in mind came off. It also brings to mind another recent episode that ended with Jerry Brown's California gubernatorial campaign being caught up in controversy when someone from Brown's camp called Brown's opponent, Republican Meg Whitman, a "whore."

This calls into serious question what type of campaign coverage CBS' KTVA has been providing Alaskans all along, given their reporters' willingness to conspire against Miller.

UUPDATE: Stacy has more here.