Proving once again that the sexually-obsessed Islamists have no concept about what constitutes “hallowed ground,” the fast-diminishing Imam Rauf clearly doesn’t understand that the clubs and businesses in lower Manhattan he finds objectionable anteceded 9/11 — which in any case was not perpetrated by pole dancers acting in the name of ecdysiasm.

Just don’t expect the mosque-rooting Mayor and the New York Times to point this out.

Michael Bloomberg has had a busy summer.

The NYC Mayor has been waging a pitched battle against the 71% of New Yorkers who want the Cordoba House mosque moved from its present site.  That event has gotten plenty of media coverage.

But that fight may be nothing more than a part of a second, larger contest between Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg LP — a private company of which Mayor Bloomberg controls 85% — over control of financial news reporting  in the world of Islamic finance.

The stakes in the Bloomberg-Reuters Middle East Islamic Finance war: The nearly 300 Islamic banks and financial institutions worldwide whose assets are predicted to grow to $1 trillion by 2013.

“We have an aspiration at Bloomberg to become the most influential news organisation in the world.”

Peter T. Grauer, Chairman and CEO of Bloomberg, July 31, 2010

“…. the growth of Islamic finance has been phenomenal in spite of the current difficulties that seem to be indicative of the situation visa vi the international economic community, the financial world seems to be turning its attention to Islamic finance.”

Former Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia Tun Musa Hitam, Chairman of the World Islamic Economic Forum Foundation, CNBC interview, August 18, 2010

(more…)

Call us cynical but we wonder whether Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s passionate backing of the building of a controversial mosque near Ground Zero stems as much from Bloomberg’s belief in America’s “freedom of faith” as it might from the Mayor’s belief in the “virtues of Islamic finance?”

Does the Mayor’s unshakable support have anything to do with The Bloomberg (company) becoming a ‘single provider of information that caters to the Islamic business market’?  A Bloomberg five-year business plan for an Islamic finance portal via a Bloomberg hub at the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) is already a reality.

Michael Bloomberg, has become a staunch supporter of the Cordoba House (Park51) Ground Zero Mosque.  In the process, the Mayor has lectured opponents on “religious liberty” and, by extension, implied that opposition to the mosque is largely based on bigotry.

Lately, Bloomberg has become so insistent on the mosque’s being built at its planned location that The New York Post has labeled him Pro-Mosque Mike.”

A defiant Mayor Bloomberg, saying there should be no compromise, insisted last night that a mosque be built near Ground Zero, declaring, “We must do what is right, not what is easy.

While Bloomberg hasn’t been shy about questioning the motives of those opposed to the mosque’s location, the media has shied away from the Mayor‘s motivations.  But what of the Mayor’s motives? What might they be? Does a strong passion for religious liberty explain all?

Some of Bloomberg LP’s officials may hold some clues. (more…)

Stop the presses! This just in: The Associated Press “standards center” has issued a “staff advisory” on covering what is to be known from here on out as “the New York City mosque.” From now on, the AP “staff” – and, therefore, everybody who still actually reads newspapers that still actually use the wire service’s copy – is supposed to conform to what amounts to the Muslim Brotherhood narrative about the Islamic cultural center formerly known as the “Ground Zero mosque.”

AP’s Deputy Managing Editor for Standards and Production, Tom Kent, sent this “guidance” out to his colleagues, with inputs from Chad Roedemeier in the New York bureau and Terry Hunt in Washington: “We should continue to avoid the phrase ‘Ground Zero mosque’ or ‘mosque at Ground Zero’ on all platforms. (We’ve very rarely used this wording, except in slugs, though we sometimes see other news sources using the term.) The site of the proposed Islamic center and mosque is not at Ground Zero, but two blocks away in a busy commercial area. We should continue to say it’s “near” Ground Zero, or two blocks away.”

Interestingly, among those who formerly used the now-proscribed descriptor “Ground Zero mosque” is none other than Feisal Abdul Rauf, its imam and chief promoter. He called it that even though the proposed venue has always been two blocks away from the World Trade Center site.

Perhaps Rauf used this moniker because his planned location for the mosque was part of the real estate attacked and damaged on 9/11 – the home of the Burlington Coat Factory until it was struck by a landing gear from a plane that struck one of the Twin Towers. Perhaps he used that term to brand his “Cordoba House” because body parts from the victims of those attacks have been found all over Lower Manhattan, including the old Burlington factory area, making it part of the hallowed ground.

Or perhaps, Imam Rauf called his project the Ground Zero mosque because he wanted to associate his 15-story, $100 million complex as closely as possible to the location where nearly 3,000 Americans and other innocent people – precisely because they were murdered there by people who wanted, as he does, to “bring shariah to America.” (more…)

Reporters may think they’re being objective and balanced when they first report and then write a story, but those of us who know the racket can spot a rigged stuss game every time.  It’s not just a matter of what you put in and what you leave out, whom you talk to and whom you don’t bother to ask for comment.

It’s also the way the story is structured, and the little semiotic signals the writer (and/or editor) send to the reader that say this is what is important.  This is whom you should believe.

For Exhibit A of this process, please consider the following story:

Across Nation, Mosque Projects Meet Opposition

Given that this is the New York Times, you know the paper disapproves of this phenomenon, just like its nasty little lifestyle-fascist mayor, Mike Bloomberg, a Boston-born billionaire who finagled his way around term limits in order keep a hold on Gracie Mansion. It’s Bloomberg who’s been helping to fast-track the Ground Zero mosque and therefore who, in part, is responsible for the national backlash the Times now chronicles:

In all of the recent conflicts, opponents have said their problem is Islam itself. They quote passages from the Koran and argue that even the most Americanized Muslim secretly wants to replace the Constitution with Islamic Shariah law.

These local skirmishes make clear that there is now widespread debate about whether the best way to uphold America’s democratic values is to allow Muslims the same religious freedom enjoyed by other Americans, or to pull away the welcome mat from a faith seen as a singular threat.

Threat? Where would anybody get that idea?

(more…)

Just as the MSM rushed to distance the murderous Army Major Nidal Hassan from his Muslim roots and deny any possible connections with a radical cleric, we are seeing a similar effort to soften the story around the suspected Times Square bomber.

Yesterday on CNN’s lowly-rated “American Morning” a neighbor of the suspect had nothing bad to say about the man or his family and even shared the tragic news of the would-be bomber’s CT home going into foreclosure.  The anchors speculated on just how awful that must have made this (attempted killer) man feel… Losing a home is stressful and emotionally painful.

And then I thought to myself, “Wait a second, in this latest recession there have been millions of home loans that defaulted and properties in foreclosure – how many of those homeowners have allegedly tried to blow up Times Square?” If you guessed zero – you were correct.

MSNBC.com’s website has a headline story that leads with the statement, “Suspect in bomb plot lost home to foreclosure” – as if a foreclosure was the inspiration for this attempted homicide bombing in Times Square?  If so, why did he choose this location? Was it next to the JP Morgan Chase headquarters? After all, Faisal Shahzad defaulted on a loan made by Chase Home Mortgage.  Nope – not near a Chase branch.  The car was parked close to the Viacom Headquarters… Viacom, the people who own Comedy Central and “South Park.” (more…)

On May 3, CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric had a brief interview with Mayor Mike Bloomberg in the “situation room.” In that interview, CBS so sliced up the cuts that it is impossible to tell whether or not Couric was leading Mayor Bloomberg in her responses or whether she was responding to a previous conversation that was omitted from the aired portion of the interview:

COURIC VOICE OVER: Law enforcement officials don’t know who left the Nissan Pathfinder behind, but at this point the Mayor believes the suspect acted alone.

BLOOMBERG: If I had to guess, twenty five cents, this would be exactly that-

COURIC: A homegrown…

BLOOMBERG: Homegrown, maybe a mentally deranged person or someone with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health care bill or something. It could be anything.

By the voiceover we are to presume that “that” person Mayor Bloomberg is talking about is someone who acted alone. Couric, however, immediately fires the ‘homegrown’ narrative into the ring. Any normal thinking person would not assume that just because a person is “working alone” that they are a “homegrown” citizen of the United States. A terrorist from another country could be “working alone” as well. (more…)

KATIE COURIC:  Thank you, Mayor Bloomberg, for sitting down with us.  The other day, sir, you guessed that the Times Square bomber was “homegrown,” and now authorities have arrested a Connecticut man in connection with the case.  Can you tell us anything about this naturalized American citizen person, whose identity we won’t mention because we don’t want our audience to think “Muslim,” even though part of his last name is “Shah” and his first name is “Faisal?”

MAYOR BLOOMBERG:  He’s from Connecticut.  I’m from Boston.  How am I supposed to know?  Especially since the Feds never tell me anything.  After all, I’m a Republican… right?

COURIC: Yes, sir, but you’re also the Mayor of the City of New York.  So let me get to the most important question: Yankees or Red Sox?

BLOOMBERG: As you know, Katie, I’m the mayor of all the people of this great city, including the ones in boroughs I’ve never been to.  So that question’s above my pay grade, even though I’m a billionaire.  Ha ha. Therefore, let me address your first question. Several of Mr. What’s-his-name’s neighbors in Bridgeport say he often complained that property taxes were too high — and, what’s worse, that he might have been recently foreclosed on.  In Bridgeport, where you can buy a house for less than the price of a loaf of bread! (more…)