Nothing the Clintons can do is really “surprising” anymore, as much as it is interesting to know. The NY Senator was able to secure over $1 Million in federal funding, via the omnibus bill, for a Harlem-based non-profit. The leader just happened to endorse her last weekend.

Clinton — who is aggressively competing for the black vote 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 Schumer 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 Harlem.

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.

Not surprisingly, CAGW found that, of all of the presidential candidates in the Senate, Clinton had the most earkmarks last year.

Last weekend Butts endorsed Clinton. It seems Butts has an interesting history.

He is on the board of advisors for the controversial Khalil Gibran International Academy, an Arab culture school that opened last fall in Brooklyn. Many New York City residents feared the public school would teach Islamic values.

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…

As chairman of the board of the development corporation, Butts does not collect a salary from the Abyssinian Development Corporation. But the organization’s president and CEO, Sheena Wright, earns more than $115,000 per year. Wright donated $2,000 to Democratic nominee John Kerry’s presidential campaign in 2004, and $1,000 to Democratic Party organizations last year.

Via Ace.