This past evening, I attended a Candidates forum in the Bay Terrace area of Queens. Each candidate was able to speak for 3 minutes. Then they were asked questions by the audience for several minutes. Then they had a chance to have 1 minute closing remarks comments. There were many State Senate and State Assembly candidates from that area who spoke. U.S. Senate Candidate Gary Berntsen was the only U.S. Senate or Governor Candidate from either political party to attend.
The reason I attended was to hear the NY 5th Congressional District Candidates speak and possibly ask a question to a couple of the candidates. Since hearing Republicans Liz Berney and Dr. James Milano at a Candidates Forum on Israel and Foreign Policy back on July 29th, the 5th Congressional Race has been of great interest to me. Especially when contrasting the very good positions of Liz Berney and James Milano to Gary Ackerman's horrific positions and overall hideous agenda. Unlike at the Candidates Forum back in July and last August at a Town Hall on the ObamaCare debate, this time Ackerman finally showed up.
After Liz Berney spoke and a representative of the Bay Terrace Community Alliance asked her a question, I was the first one in the audience to ask her a question. Knowing that Liz Berney is very knowledgable about Israel, I asked her about the situation in Israel regarding the upcoming so called peace talks and the dangers of Israel giving up land. This after mentioning that the Muslim Terrorist Attack in the Hebron / Kiryat Arba area that happened earlier in the day. Liz Berney knew about that. To Liz's credit, after I mentioned the weak ' leadership' of Benjamin Netanyahu as a major concern, especially with the heavy pressure applied by Barack Hussein Obama ( yes, I did say Barack Hussein Obama in front of the audience. ), Liz stated herself that Netanyahu is displaying weak leadership. One thing that was re-affirmed was Liz having the position that the Settlements should remain.
Eventually, Gary Ackerman spoke. His introduction was more about re-affirming history in the District, his family, and other stuff that didn't have much substance.
Fortunately, I had the opportunity to ask Ackerman a question. I picked my spots about who to ask questions to, as there was plenty of people who wanted to ask various candidates questions. Hence, I only asked two questions.
My question to Gary Ackerman was brief. Basically asking him do you support the Ground Zero Mosque? I mentioned that I haven't heard him state his position on the issue. To the best of my knowledge, no media source mentioned Ackerman's position on the Ground Zero Mosque.
Gary Ackerman's response to me was clearly combative. Probably in part because of my question to Liz Berney which indirectly was going after Ackerman who supports the so called peace process and that he's very against the heroic Settlers of Judea and Samaria. Probably in part because I was wearing a PALIN 2012 cap. Probably in part because this is Ackerman's nature in general.
Gary Ackerman in a combative tone mentioned the Constitution and the history of the founding fathers and mothers of the country as his reasons why he believes a Mosque at Ground Zero shouldn't be opposed. He even mentioned the Jews of the early U.S. having the opportunity to build houses of worship. It was a pathetic answer! I hope someone in the media in the audience reports on Ackerman's position on the Ground Zero Mosque
Ackerman also defended ObamaCare, after someone else asked him about it . He was VERY condescending on this issue, to Tea Party Members who challenged him in the audience, and to someone who had a family issue in which he thought Ackerman handled poorly. He also defiantly defended his Jewish/ Israel support credentals mentioning his support from the vast majority of the Jews in Congress and Israeli Knesset members. The first thing I thought of was Chaim and JTF were right again! What was sickening was many self hating Jews and whites were applauding Ackerman after many of his comments. Including after his response to me about the Mosque. All this did was increase my resolve.
Unlike the other 5th Congressional District candidates, Gary Ackerman didn't stay to the end of the event. Not surprising!
I had the pleasure of speaking to Liz Berney and Dr. James Milano ( and his son ) after the event. And to Democrat Challenger Patricia Maher and her Mom. All were a delight to speak to. All class acts! In essence, the antithesis of Ackerman. Patricia Maher asked me if I knew of an organization ( I believe she even mentioned Jewish organization ) that opposed Ackerman. I told her about JTF. While it's certain that she will have significant differences with many JTF positions, she seemed interested in knowing more about JTF . I mentioned to her the JTF website address, Chaim, and the ' Real Gary Ackerman' video that Irish Zionist uploaded on ZooTube.
Topic: Gary Ackerman admits that he supports the Mosque being built at Ground Zero (Read 981 times)