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Will Obama Triangulate by Hiring Daley?

There have been reports – here, here, and here– that Barack Obama has approached William M. Daley about becoming the White House Chief of Staff.  If true, these reports are very interesting, indeed.

You see: Bill Daley has a history. On Christmas Eve, 2009 – a few hours after the Democrats in the US Senate shoved through a version of Obamacare adorned with colorful provisions nicknamed the Cornhusker Kickback, the Louisiana Purchase, the Connecticut Compromise, and Gatorade (sometimes called the Florida Flim-Flam) – the gentleman in question published an op-ed in The Washington Post, warning his fellow Democrats that they were in danger of bringing about a realignment in favor of the Republicans.

After alluding to the announced retirements of four centrist Democrats in the House and to Parker Griffith’s switch to the Republican side, Daley argued that “the Democratic Party — my lifelong political home — has a critical decision to make: Either we plot a more moderate, centrist course or risk electoral disaster not just in the upcoming midterms but in many elections to come.”

The political dangers of this situation could not be clearer.

Witness the losses in New Jersey and Virginia in this year’s off-year elections. In those gubernatorial contests, the margin of victory was provided to Republicans by independents — many of whom had voted for Obama. Just one year later, they had crossed back to the Republicans by 2-to-1 margins.

Witness the drumbeat of ominous poll results. Obama’s approval rating has fallen below 49 percent overall and is even lower — 41 percent — among independents. On the question of which party is best suited to manage the economy, there has been a 30-point swing toward Republicans since November 2008, according to Ipsos. Gallup’s generic congressional ballot shows Republicans leading Democrats. There is not a hint of silver lining in these numbers. They are the quantitative expression of the swing bloc of American politics slipping away.

Griffith and the Democrats who have decided to retire are, Daley said, “the truest canaries in the coal mine.”

In drawing attention to this in a piece posted later that morning, I remarked, “Bill Daley is a man well worth listening to. His father was a legendary machine politician and longtime mayor in Chicago; and his brother has for sometime held that office. Bill Daley is himself the man behind the curtain. He was Clinton’s Secretary of Commerce, he chaired Al Gore’s presidential campaign back in 2000, and, as is widely acknowledged, he is the brains behind today’s Chicago machine. He is also a leading Catholic layman, and he knows just how explosive the abortion question could be. He would not have written this op-ed had he not been profoundly worried.”

Of course, as I pointed out, Daley thought that the Democrats could head off disaster in the long run by changing course. “It may be too late,” he observed, “to avoid some losses in 2010, it is not too late to avoid the kind of rout that redraws the political map.” All that his party had to do was to “to acknowledge that the agenda of the party’s most liberal supporters has not won the support of a majority of Americans — and, based on that recognition, to steer a more moderate course on the key issues of the day, from health care to the economy to the environment to Afghanistan.” The Democrats need not, he added, abandon their radical agenda. They needed only take the polling data “as a sign that they must continue the hard work of slowly and steadily persuading their fellow citizens to embrace their perspective.”

I opined that Daley’s “tactical advice” was sound. But I thought it “too little and too late.” With “the Senate’s passage of Harry Reid’s version of the healthcare bill in the wee hours this morning,” I wrote, “the die is cast.”

Whether my judgment was correct we will never know – for Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid did not take Daley’s advice. Even after Scott Brown’s remarkable victory over Martha Coakley in the race for Ted Kennedy’s seat in the Senate – a race that turned on Obamacare – the Democratic Party’s unholy trinity pressed on, getting the commanding Democratic majority in the House of Representatives to hold its nose and pass the Senate version of Obamacare.

What is certainly clear by now is that Daley’s warning was apt. As political scientist James W. Ceaser points out in the current issue of The Claremont Review of Books, the Democratic Party this past November “the greatest midterm defeat following a new president’s election since 1922.” It was, he adds, and election that

changed the landscape of American politics. In viewing the national electoral map of House seats, it is as if someone came in overnight and redid the whole canvas, changing huge swaths of blue to red, especially in the vast area between the coasts and-adding to the impression of Republican dominance-in non-urban districts, which cover much larger geographic areas. Republicans have their largest majority in the House since 1948. And the political reality is even redder than it looks, since a number of the blue dogs who did survive, having observed their colleagues’ cruel fate, will now be less likely to sit and stay at the president’s command. In the Senate, one new Democrat, West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, was elected by firing a shot in a campaign commercial at President Obama’s cap-and-trade policy, and a large number of the 23 Democratic senators up for re-election in 2012, especially those who come from redder states, have taken note. Although the House Democrats come January will be a more progressive lot, with a small but helpless contingent of surviving blue dogs, the Senate is apt to be very different. Some Democrats may look to “do business” with Republicans, although there appear to be too few moderate Democrats to mount a sustained opposition against Obama from the center. If the president faces pressure from within his party, it is more likely to come from progressive intellectuals and bloggers outside of Congress. Given where the center of American politics now is located, such posturing will be of no real significance.

From this, we can draw, I think, the following conclusion. If Obama asks Daley to serve and if he agrees to resign the well-remunerated position that he now occupies at JPMorgan Chase and come on board, he will serve as Obama’s Dave Gergen, and David Axelrod, who is leaving the White House to run the President’s re-election campaign, will turn into something hard to distinguish from Dick Morris. And this means that, at least for a time, the President will try to alter his image as a radical by doing considerable business with Mitch McConnell and John Boehner. If, however, Daley is not asked to serve or demurs when asked, that, too, will be a sign.

Stay tuned.

Source: "Big Government" via Glen in Google Reader

American Idol Season 10: Confirmed Changes

As the nation prepares for the return of its favorite TV show, there has been constant speculation about the state of American Idol.

Just what changes are actually in store? Will the show actually make like Big Brother? Will there be a round of 24? Entertainment Weekly spoke to producers of the competition and can confirm the following facts about season 10.

Will there be a music video challenge? No.

Must contestants sing songs from various genres? Yes. Says Nigel Lythgoe: "If you do Motown, then I’m not sure [how] you’re going to sing an R&B song and give it your country flavor... it’s not going to be like that. They’ve got to be clever with it.”

Will voting move online? No.

How will the show replace the top 24 round? With a sudden death Top 20 round. In Hollywood, it will narrow the contestants down to 20 crooners, and then will viewers vote in a round that will select the finalists from among two groups of ten.

How many finalists will there be? 10 or 12.

Will there still be gender parity? No. Says Ken Warwick: "If I’ve got six fantastic boys and four average girls, I’m certainly not going to throw out a fantastic boy to put in another average girl, or vise versa."

Source: The Hollywood Gossip

Singing Showdown: Worst of the Worst!

Late last week, Kim Kardashian destroyed every eardrum in Las Vegas with the first rendition of her single "Tune It Up." It was seriously atrocious stuff.

But was it the worst song ever unleashed? That remains to be decided.

Kim has serious competition from an assortment of other reality stars who were convinced the public needed to do more than just watch them recite scripted lines on television. Below, starting with Kardashian's foray into the industry, we've compiled a quintet of truly awful tunes. Listen to each and then vote on the worst of the worst...

Kim Kardashian - Turn It Up (Live in Vegas)

Kim Zolciak - Tardy for the Party

Angelina Pivarnick: I'm Hot (Full, Terrible Song)

Paris Hilton - Stars are Blind

Danielle Staub Sings

Who is responsible for the worst song of all-time?

Source: The Hollywood Gossip

Holder Uses New York Times to Tamper with New Black Panther Investigation

Attorney General Eric Holder recently made statements to the New York Times so detached from reality that they could have been written by scheming Republican operatives for fun.  In particular, Holder tells the Times that the lawless dismissal of voter intimidation charges against the New Black Panthers is “a made up controversy.”  I have written about Holder’s accelerating detachment from reality in the interview, along with Jen Rubin.

Putting aside the fact video exists of the armed uniformed thugs in Philadelphia, Holder did something even worse than flirt with kooky conspiratorial characterizations of the fallout from the Black Panther dismissal.  When Holder announced to the New York Times that there “is no there there,” he let the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) know what he believes the outcome of their ongoing investigation into the dismissal should be.   In other words, he tampered with their investigation.

Holder’s close friend Deputy Attorney General James Cole will have the power to veto any critical conclusions by OPR.

Multiple attorneys, including me, have testified under oath that the Obama Civil Rights Division will not enforce civil rights laws in a race-neutral fashion.  Numerous attorneys still at the Justice Department have confirmed the substance of our testimony to the Washington Post. Numerous other attorneys no longer at the Justice Department have also confirmed our testimony.

Holder’s response to the New York Times?  It’s a “made up controversy.”

Holder’s performance to the New York Times is more than simply ludicrous, it is meddlesome.  When Holder made these partisan campaign-style attacks, he meddled with two ongoing investigations in a way that previous Attorney Generals would never do.

The DOJ OPR is currently investigating whether or not Steve Rosenbaum, Loretta King, and other DOJ political appointees used improper considerations when they ordered the dismissal of the New Black Panther case.  The problem is that Eric Holder sits atop the chain of command for every OPR attorney working on the investigation.  Eric Holder, and his newly recess-appointed Deputy Attorney General James Cole, oversee OPR.  They have the power to fire, and as was recently exercised, hire the head of OPR.  The incoming head of OPR, Robin Ashton, was just named by Holder.  Ashton will have the power to tamper with any findings in the New Black Panther investigation, and bring them more in line with Eric Holder’s pronouncements to the New York Times.

When Holder made wild assertions about the dismissal of the New Black Panther case to the New York Times, you can be sure every single person working down the chain of command on the investigation took note.  For them to reach a finding contrary to Holder’s statements guarantees a bureaucratic headwind from the highest levels of the DOJ.  That’s a career killer inside Justice.  Few can be expected to have the courage to confront the falsehoods of an Attorney General from within the bureaucracy.  There aren’t many with the courage of DOJ lawyer Christopher Coates.

The DOJ Inspector General is also investigating the circumstances surrounding the dismissal of the New Black Panther case and hostility toward racially equal enforcement of civil rights laws under Eric Holder.  I have already given lengthy interviews with the IG about this hostility, as have many others.

Yet Eric Holder has announced his opinion of the investigation in the interview.  The IG is just looking into “a made up controversy,” he says.

America might soon long for the good old days of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.  When the DOJ OPR and IG were investigating conduct during his tenure, he had the sense and integrity to withhold comment.  Instead of telegraphing his views to the investigative authorities as Holder did, Gonzales made it clear it wouldn’t be appropriate to comment while an investigation was ongoing.

Holder doesn’t care even about the appearance of impropriety.  He plainly let the investigators inside OPR and the IG know what he thinks they should conclude.

Worse, Holder almost taunts the majority of Americans who believe men wielding weapons at the entrance to a poll and hurling racial slurs is a serious matter, no matter the race of the perpetrators.  All “made up,” he shockingly concludes, providing sanctuary to armed thugs from the highest levels of our government.

Source: "Big Government" via Glen in Google Reader

Lindsay Lohan Wasted: A Tribute in Drunken Pictures

Now that Lindsay Lohan's officially out of rehab, all we can do is wish her well ... and pay tribute to the wild times that landed her there in the first place.

And the second place, and the third place, and ...

You get the idea. As much as we hope she's gotten it together for good, one can't help but think the newest addition to this gallery of Lindsay Lohan pictures, compiled over several years now, is just one crazy night away ...

Source: The Hollywood Gossip

Holder Uses the New York Times to Tamper with New Black Panther Investigation

Attorney General Eric Holder recently made statements to the New York Times so detached from reality that they could have been written by scheming Republican operatives for fun.  In particular, Holder tells the Times that the lawless dismissal of voter intimidation charges against the New Black Panthers is “a made up controversy.”  I have written about Holder’s accelerating detachment from reality in the interview, along with Jen Rubin.

Putting aside the fact video exists of the armed uniformed thugs in Philadelphia, Holder did something even worse than flirt with kooky conspiratorial characterizations of the fallout from the Black Panther dismissal.  When Holder announced to the New York Times that there “is no there there,” he let the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) know what he believes the outcome of their ongoing investigation into the dismissal should be.   In other words, he tampered with their investigation.

Holder’s close friend Deputy Attorney General James Cole will have the power to veto any critical conclusions by OPR.

Multiple attorneys, including me, have testified under oath that the Obama Civil Rights Division will not enforce civil rights laws in a race-neutral fashion.  Numerous attorneys still at the Justice Department have confirmed the substance of our testimony to the Washington Post. Numerous other attorneys no longer at the Justice Department have also confirmed our testimony.

Holder’s response to the New York Times?  It’s a “made up controversy.”

Holder’s performance to the New York Times is more than simply ludicrous, it is meddlesome.  When Holder made these partisan campaign-style attacks, he meddled with two ongoing investigations in a way that previous Attorney Generals would never do.

The DOJ OPR is currently investigating whether or not Steve Rosenbaum, Loretta King, and other DOJ political appointees used improper considerations when they ordered the dismissal of the New Black Panther case.  The problem is that Eric Holder sits atop the chain of command for every OPR attorney working on the investigation.  Eric Holder, and his newly recess-appointed Deputy Attorney General James Cole, oversee OPR.  They have the power to fire, and as was recently exercised, hire the head of OPR.  The incoming head of OPR, Robin Ashton, was just named by Holder.  Ashton will have the power to tamper with any findings in the New Black Panther investigation, and bring them more in line with Eric Holder’s pronouncements to the New York Times.

When Holder made wild assertions about the dismissal of the New Black Panther case to the New York Times, you can be sure every single person working down the chain of command on the investigation took note.  For them to reach a finding contrary to Holder’s statements guarantees a bureaucratic headwind from the highest levels of the DOJ.  That’s a career killer inside Justice.  Few can be expected to have the courage to confront the falsehoods of an Attorney General from within the bureaucracy.  There aren’t many with the courage of DOJ lawyer Christopher Coates.

The DOJ Inspector General is also investigating the circumstances surrounding the dismissal of the New Black Panther case and hostility toward racially equal enforcement of civil rights laws under Eric Holder.  I have already given lengthy interviews with the IG about this hostility, as have many others.

Yet Eric Holder has announced his opinion of the investigation in the interview.  The IG is just looking into “a made up controversy,” he says.

America might soon long for the good old days of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.  When the DOJ OPR and IG were investigating conduct during his tenure, he had the sense and integrity to withhold comment.  Instead of telegraphing his views to the investigative authorities as Holder did, Gonzales made it clear it wouldn’t be appropriate to comment while an investigation was ongoing.

Holder doesn’t care even about the appearance of impropriety.  He plainly let the investigators inside OPR and the IG know what he thinks they should conclude.

Worse, Holder almost taunts the majority of Americans who believe men wielding weapons at the entrance to a poll and hurling racial slurs is a serious matter, no matter the race of the perpetrators.  All “made up,” he shockingly concludes, providing sanctuary to armed thugs from the highest levels of our government.

Source: "Big Government" via Glen in Google Reader

Celebrity Hair Affair: Jasmine Villegas

Jasmine Villegas has become a wild girl. Sort of.

The young singer and former kissing partner of Justin Bieber is featured in the latest issue of Teen Vogue, looking different than usual.

Inside the magazine, Villegas speaks on her fashion taste ("I’m curvy, so I wear fitted jeans to highlight that."), but we're more focused on what's on top of the artist's head. Contrast her two looks below and choose your favorite:

Source: The Hollywood Gossip

Willow Smith Remixes Whip My Hair: Listen Now!

Willow Smith is continuing to whip her hair back and forth.

Following her appearance on ABC's New Year's Rockin Eve, the young artist has remixed her famous single, "Whip My Hair." She's joined by rapper Tinie Tempah in the video below. What do you think of this version?

Listen to it now and sound off!

Willow Smith - Whip My Hair (Remix, ft. Tinie Tempah)

Source: The Hollywood Gossip

The Do-Anything Congress

Inside the Beltway, Democrats are touting the achievements of the outgoing Congress.  Historian Alan Brinkley asserted that this is the most productive Congress since the Great Society.  These congratulatory assessments stand in stark contrast to the fact that Democrats, for all their labors, suffered a defeat of such historic proportions that it gave rise to a new word: “refudiation.”  What explains this paradox?

First, much of the legislation passed in the 111^th Congress is not really legislation at all.  For all of its verbosity, and for all the outrage surrounding provisions like the individual mandate, the health care legislation enacted in 2010 makes precious few decisions.  Instead, vast discretionary authority is vested in dozens of different agencies and officials, in particular the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

When confronted with tough decisions, Congress prefers to let someone else make laws.  Congressmen can then claim credit for providing Americans with health care, while evading blame for increased costs and premiums, poorer quality of care, rationing, massive uncertainty, and higher wait times.  The rules that led to those unfortunate consequences were made by regulators, who will give shape to legislation, and who would bear the brunt of public ire.

Second, Washington insiders tend to subscribe to the belief that what Americans expect of Congress is that it produce a certain quantity of legislation.  Outgoing House Rules Committee chairman Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) captured this belief when she lamented that “what we did was work, and our reward was, ‘Get out of here.’”  The volume of legislation produced by the Democratic 111^th Congress should have been reason enough for voters to sustain Democrats in office.

This view confuses the quantity of legislation enacted with the quality of that legislation in the eyes of voters.  It ignores the fact that large portions of this Congress’ work remain deeply unpopular with the electorate.  Congressional Democrats seem to have grown to believe their own talking points: that support for key legislation would increase as people came to understand what Congress had achieved.  At the very least, public animosity would subside as Americans became reconciled to their fate.

The opposite has proven to be true.  Support for health care reform is at an all-time low, according to a December 2010 ABC News/Washington Post poll.  The more people learn about health care reform, the less they like it.  While Congress avoided making many decisions, the decisions they did make allowed voters to make judgments about the fruits of Congress’ labors.  Americans were dissatisfied with the substance of their work, and voted accordingly.

Third, the initiatives this Congress pursued reflected the priorities of the Democratic leadership.  In the past two years Americans expected the federal government to focus on jobs and the economy.  Democrats responded with a $787 billion “stimulus” bill, which most Americans now perceive as a failure that greatly increased the federal debt. Much of the money went to protect unionized public sector, automobile manufacturing, and construction jobs, making the stimulus a taxpayer-funded payoff to key Democratic constituencies.

Congress then spent eight months attempting to engineer the government takeover of health care, a century-old progressive pipedream, while the economy continued to deteriorate.  They passed cap-and-trade in the House, which would have imposed confiscatory taxes and strangling regulations on every activity of the American economy.  Democrats attempted to impose amnesty for illegal aliens, repealed “don’t ask, don’t tell”, took over federal students loans, and in general sought to gratify a wish list of liberal priorities decades in the making.

These goals were inconsistent with the priorities of many Americans, and were not the basis upon which President Obama and congressional Democrats were elected.  Americans were frustrated with two wars, angered by Republican corruption and profligacy, and worried about the economy.  Obama campaigned as a post-partisan moderate, who would heal old divisions and forge broad political coalitions.  Instead, Democrats signaled that they would cater to the desires of their progressive liberal base, without regard for the broader electorate.

Pursuing these priorities compelled Democrats to neglect others.  In 2006, Rep. John Spratt (D-S.C.), attacking the then-Republican Congress, stated that any majority that could not pass all required budget legislation did not deserve to remain in the majority.  The 111^th Congress, with Spratt as House Budget Committee chairman, failed to pass any budget legislation.  Moreover, Speaker Nancy Pelosi preferred to adjourn the House prior to the November elections, rather than resolve the problem of the impending expiration of the “Bush tax cuts.”  Tax increases were only averted when President Obama negotiated a deal with Republicans.

Rather than being the most productive Congress in decades, the 111^th Congress was the Congress that would do anything to achieve cherished progressive goals.  Many, including the President, claimed that it would be better to achieve these goals than to secure re-election, and now they are getting their wish.  The outstanding question is whether constitutional government can survive the 111^th Congress.

Source: "Big Government" via Glen in Google Reader

Kenny Ortega to Testify About Dr. Conrad Murray Drugging Michael Jackson at Hearing

Kenny Ortega, director and producer of Michael Jackson's "This Is It," will be a star witness in prosecutors' bid to convict Dr. Conrad Murray of manslaughter.

Ortega's testimony is crucial, because - to make a long story short - he will help the prosecution argue that MJ was fine before Murray began drugging him.

A week before MJ died, he was too weak to perform, so rehearsals for This Is It (later made into a film, which you can see the trailer for below) were canceled.

The next day (June 20, 2009), an emergency meeting was held at Michael's home with Jackson, Ortega, Murray, officials from AEG and Dr. Murray present.

The meeting was "intense, loud and argumentative," with Kenny reading Michael the riot act, imploring him to take care of himself with the tour imminent. 

Ortega will testify that at the meeting, Dr. Murray said "terrible things," showing a lack of concern and respect for MJ. Right now, it's unclear specifically.

Rehearsals were canceled June 21-22 so MJ could rest. When rehearsals resumed on June 23-24, Michael wowed Ortega and others with revived energy.

The next day, he passed away due to a lethal Propofol injection. Enough said? Murray is expected to argue that Jackson killed himself, albeit by mistake.

Jackson's former lawyer says that putting Michael on trial might be the defense's only tactic to save their guilty client from a conviction. Do you agree?

Here's the trailer for This Is It, which Ortega directed, and which eerily contains footage from some of the Michael Jackson rehearsals in question ...

Michael Jackson - This is It (Full Trailer)

Source: The Hollywood Gossip

This Season on The Bachelor ...

Monday on The Bachelor season premiere, Brad Womack convinced us all, over and over and over again, that he is a changed man ready to fall in love.

But what if the woman of his dreams isn't ready to fall for him?!

The preview airing at the end of last night's episode hints at amazing times for Brad, but also potential heartbreak, emotional turmoil and black eyes.

Crazy psycho girls. Watch the incredible Bachelor promo below:

The Bachelor Preview: Coming Up This Season

A couple of additional thoughts:

• Wow, Seal. How's the career going? Then again ... Heidi Klum.
• Sorry, Seal. Forget we said that. Still a hilarious clip though.
• What/who do you think Brad's so upset about at the end?
• Read The Bachelor spoilers here for more information.

Source: The Hollywood Gossip

Mayor Bloomberg’s Office Spearheaded Drive for Ground Zero Mosque, New Docs Show

In July 2010, Mayor Bloomberg outrageously told reporters it was “un-American” to investigate the individuals behind the Ground Zero Mosque. Now we know why he wanted no one to look into the controversy.

Judicial Watch just obtained a new batch of documents from New York City Mayor Bloomberg’s office that show his office was instrumental in helping radical anti-American Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, his wife Daisy Khan and their partner Sharif el-Gamal obtain approval for a 13-story massive mosque and “community center” to be built in the shadow of Ground Zero, the site of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

These documents, which we obtained through open records requests and a related lawsuit, earned widespread press coverage in New York and around the country. (Here’s the New York Observer’s take to give just one example.) They included email correspondence between top officials inside the Mayor’s office and supporters of the Ground Zero Mosque, a project spearheaded by the Rauf-led Cordoba Initiative. The documents were made available to us on December 23. This unseemly Christmas dump is a well-known ploy by politicians to use the holidays to release bad news in the hopes that it will go unnoticed. (It didn’t work this time.)

Here are some of the documents’ key highlights:

• A May 10, 2010, email from Daisy Khan, listed as Executive Director of the American Society for Muslim Advancement, to Fatima Shama, Commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs: “Is there a good time to chat tomorrow. We need some guidance on how to tackle the opposition.”
• A letter supporting the Ground Zero Mosque drafted by Nazi Parvizi, Commissioner of the Mayor’s Community Affairs Unit, to Julie Menin, Chairman of Manhattan’s Community Board 1, which had considered a resolution supporting the mosque. Parvizi crafted the letter for Daisy Khan’s signature, asking the board to temporarily withdraw the mosque resolution due to public outrage over the project. Parvizi described the purpose of the letter in a May 15, 2010, email: “What the letter will do, I hope, is get the media’s attention off everyone’s backs and give you guys time to regroup on your strategy as discussed…”
• A legal review of the Menin letter sent to the Mayor’s office by Rauf on May 15, 2010. The letter contemplates the impact that withdrawing the Community Board 1 resolution could have on the effort to de-designate the mosque site as a historical landmark at a June 22, 2010 Landmark Commission meeting, thus allowing the project to move forward:
  

  “The Borough President (and Councilmember Chin) have a firm policy at speaking up at public agencies only after the community board has taken a position on an item. So withdrawing the resolution may affect their thinking about how helpful they can be on June 22. That in itself may not be fatal to getting [the site] de-designated but I do know that [Landmark Commission] Chairman Tierney was looking forward to having the ‘political cover’ their support would bring him.” The Landmark Commission ultimately decided to de-designate the property.

• A May 7, 2010, congratulations email from Shama to Rauf, Khan and el-Gamal after the Community Board 1 finance subcommittee expressed support for the Ground Zero Mosque project: “Again-congratulations!!! This is very exciting for all of you and the community at large! Daisy, as always – you were AMAZING last night – thank you!”
• A May 7, 2010, email from Khan to Rauf, el-Gamal and Shama after the finance subcommittee vote: “Just spoke with Commissioner Nazli Parvizi. She will call Julie Mennon [sic] to thank them for passing the resolution and ask how she can assist.”
• A January 2010 email exchange documenting Shama’s successful attempt to expedite a temporary public assembly permit so supporters of the Ground Zero Mosque could conduct prayers at the site.
• A series of email exchanges regarding a September 18, 2009, meeting between Shama, Rauf, el-Gamal, Khan and others from the Ground Zero Mosque project. A September 22, 2009, follow-up email summarized the meeting: “It was wonderful to be with everyone…on Friday night…Fatima mentioned that there are a number of concrete next steps that need to be undertaken re: the Cordoba House. In terms of a point person and centralized contact, please advise Fatima as to whom she should be in direct contact with on these and all other Cordoba House matters moving forward.”
• An April 22, 2010, email from Khan to Shama asking Shama to sign a letter of support for the Ground Zero Mosque project. “We have been honored to have developed a relationship with you over the last years…we consider you amongst our closest allies and friends.” The email included a draft letter for Shama to sign.

On August 9, 2010, Judicial Watch filed Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests with the Mayor’s office, seeking contacts between city officials and Rauf and controversial Muslim organizations. (Click here to review my opinion of  these so-called “mainstream” Muslim organizations.)

After we received no response from Mayor Bloomberg’s office to our request and a subsequent administrative appeal, we filed a lawsuit in the New York State Supreme Court on November 4, 2010 to compel the Mayor’s office to comply with the open records requests. Our petition apparently got their attention.

Now there is no doubt. Mayor Bloomberg’s office was working hand-in-glove with the Muslim activists driving the unpopular Ground Zero mosque project. Now we know what the Mayor was trying to hide and why his office did not bother to comply with the Freedom of Information Law. But it shouldn’t have taken a lawsuit to get the details. New Yorkers want honesty and transparency from their Mayor, not obfuscation. They deserve to know the truth about this mosque.

And just to give you a sense of the close “allies and friends” of Mayor Bloomberg’s staff…

Feisal Abdul Rauf is well known for making a number of radical and controversial statements regarding Islamic extremism, particularly the terrorist attacks of 9/11. For example, during a 60 Minutes interview about the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Rauf said: “I wouldn’t say that the United States deserved what happened. But the United States’ policies were an accessory to the crime that happened…we have been an accessory to a lot of innocent lives dying in the world. In fact, in the most direct sense, Osama bin Laden is made in the USA.”

Now Rauf wants to build a Muslim complex adjacent to the spot where Muslim radicals murdered 3,000 innocents. And thanks to Mayor Bloomberg and his staff, it looks like he may get his wish.

Source: "Big Government" via Glen in Google Reader