The Right Tries to Suspend the First Amendment (But Just for Muslims, Naturally)

motorfirebox said:
It's official: the US is not the most anti-Muslim western nation, not by a long shot.

Who's up for some freedom fries?

French people back the ban by a margin of more than four to one, the Pew Global Attitudes Project found in a survey earlier this year.

motorfirebox said:
It's official: the US is not the most anti-Muslim western nation, not by a long shot.

Who's up for some freedom fries?

Sometime in 1999, a construction electrician received a new work assignment from his union. The man, Sinclair Hejazi Abdus-Salaam, was told to report to 2 World Trade Center, the southern of the twin towers.

In the union locker room on the 51st floor, Mr. Abdus-Salaam went through a construction worker’s version of due diligence. In the case of an emergency in the building, he asked his foreman and crew, where was he supposed to reassemble? The answer was the corner of Broadway and Vesey.

Over the next few days, noticing some fellow Muslims on the job, Mr. Abdus-Salaam voiced an equally essential question: “So where do you pray at?” And so he learned about the Muslim prayer room on the 17th floor of the south tower.

He went there regularly in the months to come, first doing the ablution known as wudu in a washroom fitted for cleansing hands, face and feet, and then facing toward Mecca to intone the salat prayer.

On any given day, Mr. Abdus-Salaam’s companions in the prayer room might include financial analysts, carpenters, receptionists, secretaries and ironworkers. There were American natives, immigrants who had earned citizenship, visitors conducting international business — the whole Muslim spectrum of nationality and race.

Leaping down the stairs on Sept. 11, 2001, when he had been installing ceiling speakers for a reinsurance company on the 49th floor, Mr. Abdus-Salaam had a brief, panicked thought. He didn’t see any of the Muslims he recognized from the prayer room. Where were they? Had they managed to evacuate?

He staggered out to the gathering place at Broadway and Vesey. From that corner, he watched the south tower collapse, to be followed soon by the north one. Somewhere in the smoking, burning mountain of rubble lay whatever remained of the prayer room, and also of some of the Muslims who had used it.

Admiral_Pants said:
Found out on Fark that apparently the cultural center is apparently going to be really ugly.

You’re not getting the point. All those holes are a memorial to all the explosions Islam did or wants to do.

Admiral_Pants said:
Found out on Fark that apparently the cultural center is apparently going to be really ugly.

motorfirebox said:
They're putting secret codes into the holes. If you decrypt them, they spell out 'Be sure to drink your Ovaltine.'

ReAct said:
Wow, that is one ugly building.

Fix'd.

-ReAct
"A crummy commercial...!?"

One of Fox News' affiliates, WNYW, sent out a reporter named Charles Leaf to conduct an "investigation" of the "money trail" in the patented Fox Ambush Squad style, and yesterday the results ran a couple of times on Fox itself: First Megyn Kelly carried it on her morning "news" show, then Laura Ingraham featured it on The O'Reilly Factor, including an interview with Leaf, who tried to pretend that what he was doing was real journalism.

What's peculiar about this report is that it zeroes in on a few minor functionaries in the financial chain behind the construction of the mosque -- loan guarantors and the like. Leaf invades their homes, follows them into foyers, and tries to run after them in parking lots. All this, ostensibly, to follow the "money trail" behind the mosque.

Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli tonight confirmed that two-time Emmy award-winning FOX 5 reporter Charles Leaf is formally accused of digitally penetrating a minor and masturbating in front of the youngster several times in recent weeks.

Leaf, who joined Fox 5 News in July 2006, was arrested today in connection with the alleged incidents in Wyckoff. He is formally charged with aggravated sexual assault. He's being held on $250,000 bail at the Bergen County Jail in Hackensack, according to Sheriff Leo McGuire.

"Of course" Muslims should be able to build the Cordoba House Islamic cultural center in New York City, Margie J. Phelps told TPMMuckraker in an interview Thursday. She said it would be hypocritical for the United States to not allow construction to proceed, and called opponents of the mosque un-American.

Note from Richard L. Connor, Sept 19, 2010:
Our coverage of the conclusion of the local Ramadan observance was excellent and we are proud of it. We did not adequately cover 9/11 on the 9/11 anniversary, which also should have been front-page news, in my opinion. Please see this week's column for additional commentary on this topic.
We made a news decision on Friday that offended many readers and we sincerely apologize for it.

Many saw Saturday's front-page story and photo regarding the local observance of the end of Ramadan as offensive, particularly on the day, September 11, when our nation and the world were paying tribute to those who died in the 9/11 terrorist attacks nine years ago.

We have acknowledged that we erred by at least not offering balance to the story and its prominent position on the front page. (Emphasis original)

1. Mosques are new to this country. - One of the first mosques in North American history was on Kent Island, Md.: Between 1731 and 1733, African
2. Mosques try to spread sharia law in the United States. - Muslims do not agree on what sharia says; there is no one sharia book of laws. Most mosques in America do not teach Islamic law for a simple reason: It's too complicated for the average believer and even for some imams.
3. Most people attending U.S. mosques are of Middle Eastern descent. - A 2009 Gallup poll found that African Americans accounted for 35 percent of all Muslim Americans, making them the largest racial-ethnic group of Muslims in the nation. It is unclear whether Arab Americans or South Asian Americans (mostly Pakistanis and Indians) are the second-largest. (Idgas note: most populous Islamic nation is Indonesia)
4. Mosques are funded by groups and governments unfriendly to the United States. -

5. Mosques lead to homegrown terrorism. -