http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2947
By Fred Lucas
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) secured more than $1 million in federal funding last year for a Harlem-based non-profit whose leader gave her presidential campaign a major endorsement last weekend.
Clinton — who is aggressively competing for the http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3102 with her chief rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) — touted the endorsement of Rev. Calvin O. Butts III, a prominent black leader and pastor of one of the oldest black churches in America, the Abyssinian Baptist Church of Harlem.
The $555-billion FY 2008 omnibus spending bill approved last month by Congress included 11 appropriations bills with almost 1,000 earmarks. Clinton teamed with senior New York Sen. Charles http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2436 and New York Rep. Charles Rangel, both Democrats, to provide three earmarks for the Abyssinian Development Corporation (ADC).
The ADC is a separate non-profit community development organization chaired by Butts that focuses on increasing quality housing, delivering social services, and boosting economic and educational opportunities in http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2979. Clinton backed an $839,000 earmark to the development corporation’s programs for at-risk youth; $446,500 for the organization to expand youth after-school programs; and $146,000 for the group’s social service work.
…As he endorsed Clinton Sunday, Butts remarked he is “confident that Sen. Hillary Clinton is the candidate best suited to be the Democratic presidential nominee and the next president of the United States.”
“In her current position as United States senator from New York, she has also been very supportive of the Abyssinian Baptist Church’s development work in Harlem,” Butts said. “Thus I have seen first-hand the wisdom, insight, and concern she brings in her approach to community development, education, and developmental opportunities for youth and economic revitalization, as well as tirelessly advocating for families, promoting health care reform and fighting global HIV/AIDS.”
…Butts reportedly told a gathering at the United Nations conference on “Islamophobia” in 2005 that, “whether Muslims like it or not, Muslims are labeled people of color in the racist U.S … they won’t label you by calling you a ni****, but they’ll call you a terrorist.”
In 1996, Butts told a South Carolina gathering that “the church is more responsible for racism than any other institution in America” and that “racism is built on a Christian foundation.”
At that same South Carolina speech to the National Council of Churches, Butts said a statue of former President Theodore Roosevelt should be torn down.
“Right in New York City, outside the Museum of National History, there is a statue of Teddy Roosevelt riding a horse with a Native American clinging to his boot on one side and an African-American on the other,” Butts told the group. “What we should do is rent two tow trucks, loop a steel cable over the statue and pull it down.”
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/viewstory.asp?Page=/Politics/archive/200801/POL20080124d.html