Muslim Prayer Day in DC Draws Sparse Crowd

This event was hyped up with claims up to 50,000 people would attend.

Yet a mere 1000 showed up, and that's probably being generous. Naturally, they blamed the mean old conservatives.

About 1,000 people gathered Friday morning on the west front lawn of the Capitol, with more streaming in via charter buses and Metro, for a day of Muslim unity that organizers said was about prayer, not protest.

"We are decent Muslims," said one of the organizers, Imam Ali Jaaher from Dar-ul-Islam mosque in Elizabeth, N. J. "We work, we pay taxes. We are Muslims who truly love this country."

Organizers had said they hoped 50,000 worshipers would show up for the traditional Muslim afternoon prayer at 1 p.m. But they said many people have been frightened away by the backlash against the event. Some conservative Christian groups and bloggers have been calling it anti-Christian and un-American.

Considering all the terrorism arrests in recent days, I'm surprised the capitol didn't clear out entirely.

Naturally CNN, which went out of their way to play down the hundreds of thousands who attended the 9/12 Tea Party, claims the paltry gathering attracted thousands.

Thousands of Muslims gathered Friday on Capitol Hill for a day of prayer that organizers said was intended to inspire American Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

They provide no evidence to support this claim.

Malik said attendees were traveling from all over the United States -- including Texas, Florida and Georgia -- as well as from other countries, such as Britain and Canada.

Sure.

Curiously one of the organizers is a lawyer who has defended terrorists in the past.

A major organizer of the prayer rally is attorney Hassen Abdellah, president of the Dar-ul-Islam mosque in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Abdellah represented several terrorists, including: Mahmoud Abouhalima, who was convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and is serving a life sentence in Florence, Colorado, and Mahamed el-Atriss, who was convicted of selling fake IDs to two of the Sept. 11 hijackers. On Oct. 25, 1993, New York Times reporter Richard Bernstein described Abdellah as “by far the most aggressively combative of the lawyers in the case.”

Tax Cuts For the Rich Newspapers

Why not a tax cut for all Washington residents and businesses? Since when are newspapers supposed to get preferential treatment?

Gov. Chris Gregoire has approved a tax break for the state's troubled newspaper industry.

The new law gives newspaper printers and publishers a 40 percent cut in the state's main business tax. The discounted rate mirrors breaks given in years past to the Boeing Co. and the timber industry.

Newspapers across the country have resorted to layoffs and other cost-cutting moves to deal with a wounded business model and a recession-fueled drop in advertising.

Notice they never mention media bias as a reason why the papers are in such trouble. Nothing like ignoring the obvious.

I Thought Democrats Were 'Pro-Choice'?

Sure, maybe just when involves abortion. As far as parents having a choice to save their kids from failed government schools?

Fuck you, they say.

The Senate effectively dealt a death blow to a federally funded District of Columbia voucher program that helps send poor and mostly minority DC kids to private schools.

By a 58-39 vote largely along party lines, the Democrat-controlled Senate rejected a Republican measure that would remove the requirement that Congress and the Washington City Council reauthorize the program in order to continue funding.

Supporters of the 6-year-old initiative say the requirement will kill the program, since the DC City Council is known to oppose it.

Some Democrats and teacher unions have battled such voucher programs, saying they divert money from the public-school system.

That's complete bullshit, and they know it. The SDC schools are drowning in money, with no measurable results to show for it. The Democrats are simply owned by the teacher's unions and this is a payoff.

Democrats pay lip service to caring about the children, but honestly, they just want them dumbed down and subservient to big government. Let's face it, they don't give a fat rat's ass about the children.

Speaking of public school teachers, you'll be happy to know they're now teaming up with the thugs from ACORN.

Trent Lott: Get Out of DC

This gives you a really safe feeling.

Capitol police step up security fearing terror attack in next six weeks

Without mentioning a specific threat to the Capitol, Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-Miss.) ominously advised Thursday that Congress needed to pass changes to terrorist surveillance laws before leaving for the August recess and warned that otherwise “the disaster could be on our doorstep.”

When asked if people should leave Washington, D.C., during the month of August, Lott responded, “I think it would be good to leave town in August, and it would probably be good to stay out until September the 12th.”

Man up, Trent, and show some stones.

Human Debris Descend on DC

Reuters gives a whitewashed account of the trash that befouled Washington today (Reuters photo).

Thousands of anti-war demonstrators, some carrying yellow and black signs reading "U.S. out of Iraq now!" marched on the Pentagon on Saturday, one of several protests worldwide to mark four years of war.

The march, on a cold, cloudy and windy St. Patrick's Day, comes just before the fourth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war on Tuesday and 40 years after a similar protest at the Pentagon over the Vietnam War.

On a stage in the Pentagon parking lot, speaker after speaker demanded the end of the war in Iraq and some called for President George W. Bush's impeachment. A flag-draped coffin was displayed near the stage bearing a picture of a young soldier killed in Iraq.

"We're here in the shadow of the war machine," peace activist Cindy Sheehan said. "We need to shut it down."

Wearing a black ski cap, Sheehan said soldiers like her son, Casey, who was killed in Iraq, were being sent "to die for nothing."

If you want a more accurate portrayal of the lunatics, check out Gateway Pundit here, here, and here.

UPDATE: Fortunately, Michelle Malkin was there to provide some sanity and provides some great photos.

It was a breath-taking, historic, and emotional day in Washington, D.C. You won't know it if you tune in to the usual MSM channels. But new media--bloggers, conservative documentarians, Internet activists, FReepers, citizen journalists, photojournalists, and talk radio hosts--turned out in full force to participate and cover the Gathering of Eagles counter-protest.

Others with coverage from DC: Blogmeister USA, Wake Up America, Mary Katherine Ham, Flopping Aces, Mike's America, Lifelike Pundits, Atlas, The Red Hunter, 7.62mm Justice, Old War Dogs.

Biggest Iraq Threat Lies in Washington

Amir Taheri has an excellent column in the New York Post today updating the situation in Iraq and noting the insurgents and Shiite militias are facing enormous problems. Realizing they cannot defeat us militarily, their strategy is to play the useful idiots in Washington, where, sadly, they have made great inroads. Read the whole piece, but the kicker is here.

The Iraqi version of the Taliban, plus al Qaeda and Shiite mischief-makers, can't win a military victory in Iraq just as their counterparts in Afghanistan failed to achieve victory.

With a combination of intelligence, patience and determination, Petraeus can win in Baghdad.

The battleground where his chances do not appear as good is Washington. The United States today has become home to a veritable industry of defeat - producing books, TV documentaries, research papers, intelligence analyses and feature movies destined for a growing market. Almost every day, some article assuming that the United States has already been defeated in Iraq, and recommend measures to deal with the consequences of defeat. And when the United States does something, it does it Big: The defeat industry is assuming a bewildering scale.