Free Republic

One watches with dismay as Democratic candidate Barack Obama manages to hide the truth on his longstanding, if indirect ties to two institutions: the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), listed by the US government in 2007 as an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas-funding trial; and the Nation of Islam (NoI), condemned by the Anti-Defamation League for its "consistent record of racism and anti-Semitism." First, Obama's ties to Islamists: • The Khalid al-Mansour connection: According to former Manhattan Borough president Percy Sutton, Mansour "was raising money for" Obama's expenses at Harvard Law School. Mansour, a black American (né Don Warden), became...

WASHINGTON (AP) — An attorney who volunteered to help Barack Obama improve his relationship with Muslim and Arab-Americans has resigned from the campaign amid questions about his connection to a fundamentalist imam.

PALOS HILLS, Ill. (AP) A local bank has closed a mosque's account after it donated money to an Islamic charity under federal investigation for allegedly helping terrorists. Family Bank and Trust Co. closed the account of the Mosque Foundation in Bridgeview after the mosque wrote two checks to the Islamic American Relief Agency, according to the mosque's imam, Sheikh Jamal Said. Mosque Foundation president Oussama Jamal said the mosque made its donations in August and September, before the federal government froze the charity's assets and raided its Missouri offices in October. The Treasury Department alleged Islamic American Relief was part...

Sheik Jamal Said stood before the packed mosque and worked the crowd like an auctioneer. Speaking Arabic, the prayer leader asked for a donation of $10,000. No one responded. He asked for $5,000, and three men raised their hands. < SNIP> The recipient of the worshipers' generosity was Sami Al-Arian, a Palestinian activist accused by the U.S. government of aiding terrorists. And the prayer leader's passionate appeal is a reflection of the ascendancy of Muslim hard-liners at the mosque, one of the most outspoken and embattled in the U.S. The mosque did not become this way without a struggle. Relying...