A very good and long overdue article on the right-wing witch-hunt against CAIR.

The conspiracies and vilification of CAIR have been incessant over the years. For instance, in 2009, Newsweek labeled the idea that “CAIR was sending Muslim spy interns into the halls of Congress” one of the wackiest conspiracy theories of 2009!

The Vilification of CAIR

By Rabia Chaudry (AltMuslim)

The is the first in a two-part series on the vilification of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and how the American Muslim community has responded.

There is only one national organization in the United States whose primary mission is protecting the civil liberties of American Muslims, and that is the Council on American-Islamic Relations, commonly referred to as CAIR.  Since its inception in 1994, CAIR has battled countless smears and attacks against its work and reputation, which intensified after being named an unindicted co-conspirator in the notorious Holy Land Foundation case in 2007.

In the past five years, this designation has resulted in witch-hunts on Capitol Hill — a repeated talking point for Islamophobes — and most significantly, the severing of ties by the FBI.  A concerted effort to marginalize CAIR by certain right-wing groups and individuals, built on the meaningless label of “unindicted co-conspirator,” has resulted not only in the FBI distancing itself from CAIR, but other Muslim organizations doing so as well. The ongoing campaign against the group has succeeded; CAIR has
effectively been turned into the black sheep of American Muslims organizations.

At the root of allegations against CAIR is its inclusion in a list of almost 250 other organizations designated as unindicted co-conspirators by the Department of Justice in a case against the Holy Land Foundation (HLF).  What exactly is an unindicted co-conspirator?  For all intents and purposes, this title is used to identify parties to an indictment for the purpose of immunity or evidentiary concerns, but its use is heavily criticized and warned against by the U.S. Attorney’s Manual itself.

An unindicted co-conspirator has not been charged with any criminal misconduct, and the common legal practice is to keep such identification under seal with the court. Making these identifications public raises serious due process concerns, since it effectively destroys the reputation of an individual or group that has not been charged with any crime, without providing it a forum to defend itself like someone who has actually been charged with a crime. In the HFL case, this list of 250 unindicted co-conspirators, including CAIR, was made public when it should have kept under seal.

CAIR and other groups appearing as unindicted co-conspirators in the HLF case petitioned the court to remove its name from that list, but failed.  The stigma of this label continues to haunt CAIR as the lynchpin to a widely propagated narrative that CAIR is the domestic front to foreign terror groups.

It is a talking point that will not die. Recently when Best Buy sponsored a CAIR event, an avalanche of petitions and protests erupted, and the Muslim darling of the Islamophobe industry, Zuhdi Jasser, promptly appeared on Fox news to reiterate the litany of smears associated with CAIR.  The investigation of CAIR interns in Congress, the Peter King hearings, and even statements from pundits like former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who recently spoke at an ABA Homeland Security Conference (at which I was personally present),  continue to keep the narrative alive.

At the homeland security conference, I took the opportunity to ask Mr. Mukasey, since he spoke at length about CAIR being a front for Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, how a terrorist group could openly continue to operate in the U.S. If his allegations held any merit, why hadn’t the FBI shut them down yet?  Did Mr. Mukasey have evidence the FBI didn’t?

The response, although vague, did point out that the FBI still bars any official engagement with CAIR, which is the larger problem. The FBI’s stance on CAIR, which feeds into the right-wing conspiracy about the organization, has badly damaged CAIR’s reputation and driven away supporters, stripped CAIR of due process, impaired American Muslims’ access to civil liberties advocacy, and harmed the work of the FBI itself by creating distrust from American Muslims.

The greatest irony of this debacle is that not only does CAIR continue to work with other federal, state, and local governments and agencies, but they also continue to work with the FBI in an unofficial capacity. The FBI is routinely engaged by CAIR when hate crimes against Muslims arise, the two groups appear at events together, and on a local level across the country, FBI agents have expressed their hope to Muslim leaders that the official FBI policy towards CAIR will eventually be resolvedso they can continue to work together.

Although the FBI’s official ban of engaging with CAIR has not impeded the organization’s work in any meaningful way (they continue to strongly advocate and litigate civil rights issues), plenty of damage has been done. The group has lost a tremendous number of members and donors, Islamophobes continue to use this point to validate their smears, and other Muslim organizations have been forced to choose whether to align with CAIR and risk their own reputations and legitimacy, or abandon CAIR to be able to continue their own work.

Read the Rest…

AlJazeera uncovered another “anti-Islam” class in the US military. The class seems to have been lifted directly from the talking points of extremists such as Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer:

US Military Under Fire for ‘Anti-Islam Class’

(AlJazeera)

The United States military has called for a review of all its training classes after receiving criticism for a course taught to senior officers that allegedly encouraged war against Islam.

The controversial class presented slides that accused dozens of Islamic groups, many widely recognised as mainstream advocacy groups, of infiltrating the US media, education system, government and military.

One slide titled “The Muslim Brotherhood and Violence” showed a photo of an al-Qaeda beheading, erroneously conflating the two groups.

Through the slides and other presentations, the course created a picture of a US government co-opted by subversive Muslim elements.

Al Jazeera’s Josh Rushing reports from Washington.

Parents, and Adults attend a Hillsborough School Board Meeting

Hillsboroughbilly County, Florida–

In November 2011, a Tampa, Fla., high school invited a Muslim lecturer, Hassan Shibly to speak about Islamic history and tradition to college level advanced placement students. When anti-Muslim extremists David Caton and Terry Kemple found out, they brought dozens of Islamophobes to spread lies, fear and hatred against Islam and Muslims at school board meetings (H/T: A. Lessirey):

David Caton was described in a Tampa Bay Times column as a “theo thug,” and a “Biblical bully” with a history of anti-Muslim activism:

Perhaps the best way to get your hands around this latest example of theo-thugs gone wild is to think of local sanctimonious mouth foamer David Caton as the North Korea of faux piety.

For whenever Caton feels he’s fallen off the publicity-hound radar and isn’t being paid enough attention, the vicar of vituperativeness feels compelled to engage in some really daffy behavior as if to reassure the world he’s just as loopy as ever.

Well, brother and sisters — he’s back! It was this man of fleece who just a few weeks ago managed to persuade Lowe’s, a Fortune 500 company, to drop its sponsorship of All-American Muslim on TLC.

Caton got his sackcloth in a wad because the series revealed Muslims in America are quite capable of living just as stultifyingly boring, law-abiding lives as Protestants, rather than spending their days assembling car bombs.

And Lowe’s fell for it, acquiescing to the Islamaphobic demands of a single illiterate hate-monger who should have about as much influence on the affairs of the day as the defense minister of Groucho Marx’s Freedonia.

Now, fresh off his Florida Family Association campaign to make Lowe’s look like corporate America’s answer to a cowering puppy that just piddled on the kitchen floor, Caton, the Ernst Blofeld of the Bible, has set his myopic sights on Kelly Miliziano, a history teacher at Steinbrenner High School, who committed the unpardonable, unforgiveable sin of (dare it be said) educating her students.

For several years Miliziano has invited speakers representing various faiths to meet with her classes. The idea here is to expose students to a range of ideas and beliefs, which in the end will serve to make them better informed, discerning, well-rounded, independent-thinking, educated members of society.

Miliziano obviously posed a threat to Caton’s recruitment efforts. After all, if these kids learn stuff, well, the next thing you know, they’ll figure out obtuse gasbags like Caton are full of hooey. And that’s bad for the bigotry business, which needs a steady stream of lemmings to keep the flames of malevolence burning.

Another Tampa Bay Times article described the school board meeting as one of “did-I-just-hear-that” intolerance. It went on to criticize Caton and Kemple, saying,

What’s not good is wrapping your hands around the eyes and ears of kids out of fear. What’s not good is assuming a local Muslim leader, a young lawyer raising a family here, comes not to educate but to indoctrinate and steal young minds — and that teachers are either in on it or too clueless to care.

Such rhetoric is unhelpful and it seems that students who actually participated in the class don’t think it was a big deal.

But for those who believe they are on a Crusade against Islam, such as Caton and Kemple the Muslim speaker’s presentation represents the apocalypse!

Fearmonger does little to improve conversation on terrorism

by John L. Smith

For Steve Emerson, the danger is very clear and very present: A surprising number of American officials and institutions are in the tank to Islamic extremists and their handmaidens.

Emerson accuses the Obama administration of being infiltrated by radical followers of Islam inside our own country and throughout the world.

That’s right. Infiltrated.

Emerson, the executive director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, spent an hour last week with the Review-Journal editorial board and was accompanied by Elliot Karp, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Las Vegas. In the short time Emerson spent at the newspaper, he managed to indict a number of law enforcement institutions and officers as patsies for the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic extremists in our midst.

For one, there’s the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Emerson said the FBI is so focused not offending Islamist and Arabic groups with allegiances to Hamas and Hezbollah that it’s getting in the way of anti-terrorism investigations.

“The agents on the ground understand exactly what’s going on,” Emerson says cryptically of the bureau’s political atmosphere. When asked to elaborate, he replies, “I have to protect my sources.”

Forgive me, but I thought the FBI was doing a pretty good job on the terrorism front. Turns out they’re falling down on the job.

It’s OK, though. Emerson has confidence in his own ability to spot the terrorists among us. He brags that his sources are “sometimes even better than the bureau.”

He adds that his field intelligence was superior to the FBI’s in part because “informants are more likely to work for us.”

That’s not all. He also has the sneaking suspicion that a talk he was scheduled to give to a group of CIA operatives was derailed by the Obama administration. Who knew President Barack Obama had enough hours in the day to dispatch CIA Director David Petraeus to teach Emerson a lesson?

Then there’s Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca. In 2010, Baca was honored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which has been linked to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. CAIR also actively challenges Muslim stereotypes and presents the Islamic side of issues.

“He believes CAIR is a wonderful organization,” Emerson says sarcastically. ” … I’m not calling him evil, or fundamentally stupid, but he is in bed with the bad guys.”

Obviously, Emerson isn’t shy about pointing fingers. Nor is he simply a sign-waving conspiracy theorist. His allies on the right consider him a Cassandra who warns us about the dangers of Islamic extremism at home and abroad, and especially as it affects Israel. He pens op-ed pieces in major newspapers, is often quoted on television and radio talk shows, is cheered on the speaking circuit, and has a loyal following on his website. He is a leading firebrand from the school of thought that goes something like, “Not all Muslims are plotting terrorist acts, just most of them.”

He claims he is the victim of “a fatwa by NPR” largely because National Public Radio officials don’t invite him on their programs these days. But you can still catch plenty of Emerson’s opinions in a variety of media and networks.

Lest you think he’s just a right-wing extremist out to frighten people, Emerson repeats often that his work is dangerous and he has received many threats. He says things like “I’ve got to look over my shoulder every day,” and “If I had a wife and kids, I couldn’t do this.”

Certainly not. He made it sound a little dangerous just sitting in the room with him.

That’s Emerson’s problem whether you believe he’s full of facts or fudge. His hyperbolic rhetoric plays well on the fundraising circuit, but it does nothing to forward the understanding of complex issues.

The Middle East is a political tinderbox. There’s heated talk of possible U.S. and Israeli military intervention in Iran to halt its development of nuclear technology.

At the risk of becoming part of a vast conspiracy to silence Steve Emerson, that complex conversation isn’t improved by his shouts of conspiracy at the highest levels of our government.

John L. Smith’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. Email him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call 702-383-0295. He also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/smith.

Update on the ‘anti-Sharia’ legislation, this time from Minnesota:

Anti-Sharia Bill Dropped In Minnesota

(RadianceWeekly)

The Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MN) on Mar 5 announced that a lawmaker in that state’s legislature will drop a proposed “anti-Sharia” bill written using a template provided by an anti-Islam extremist. That announcement came following a news conference CAIR-MN held on Mar 5 with interfaith leaders to challenge the threat to religious freedom posed by the bill. In announcing his decision to drop the bill, Republican State Senator Dave Thompson said: “It was never my intent to introduce legislation that was being targeted to any one group.”

“We thank Senator Thompson for dropping this discriminatory bill and hope his responsible decision sends a message to all those elected officials in other states who are supporting similarly unconstitutional legislation,” said CAIR-MN Civil Rights Coordinator MunazzaHumayun.

According to media reports, Thompson’s anti-Islam bill (S2281) was a “boilerplate copy-pasted verbatim from a far right policy group.” Last week, CAIR’s national office released a community toolkit designed to assist those seeking to preserve America’s ideal of religious pluralism in the face of similar unconstitutional anti-Sharia bills that have been introduced in more than 20 states nationwide.CAIR’s toolkit includes background on David Yerushalmi, the anti-Islam extremist who authored the template for the anti-Sharia bills.

(H/T: BBK)

Garry McCarthy, Chicago Police Chief, Pledges No NYPD-Esque Spying On Muslims

(The HuffingtonPost)

OAK BROOK TERRACE, Ill. — For the first time in public, Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy promised his department will never conduct blanket surveillance of Muslims like the New York Police Department did in Newark, N.J., when he was chief there.

McCarthy addressed hundreds of Muslims on Saturday at the annual banquet of the Council on American-Islamic Relations-Chicago, a civil rights organization. He said police would follow leads in criminal cases, but the department “does not and will not conduct blanket surveillance and profiling of any community in the city of Chicago.”

“We are deeply committed to respecting the civil rights of all Chicagoans,” McCarthy said.

McCarthy and Mayor Rahm Emanuel have tried to reassure Chicago-area Muslims since The Associated Press revealed the NYPD’s spying in Newark. The AP reported last month that in 2007, the NYPD’s secretive Demographics Unit fanned out across Newark, photographing mosques and eavesdropping on Muslim businesses. Earlier, the AP reported that the department was conducting similar surveillance in New York, building databases showing where Muslims live, shop and pray.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has vigorously defended the operations, saying police only follow up on allegations. But civil rights advocates and other critics say the NYPD’s 60-page report on the Newark operations showed Muslims were targeted solely because of their religion.

McCarthy, who was also a top officer in the NYPD at one point, told the AP that his former colleagues in New York notified him as a courtesy that they were sending plainclothes officers to Newark, but none of his officers participated in the operation. New York police say Newark leaders cooperated with the effort.

New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly defended his department’s operations again Saturday in a speech at Fordham Law School, as about 60 protesters marched outside. Addressing New Jersey officials’ complaints that the NYPD overstepped its bounds by not fully informing them of officers’ activities, Kelly noted 746 Garden State residents were killed in the 9/11 attacks.

“If terrorists aren’t limited by borders and boundaries, we can’t be either,” Kelly said. “It is entirely legal for the Police Department to conduct investigations outside of city limits, and we maintain very close relationships with local authorities.”

McCarthy met privately last week with community leaders in Chicago to discuss the issue, but he hadn’t stated publicly whether he supported the NYPD’s tactics.

He was warmly received at Saturday’s banquet, held in a Chicago suburb. CAIR Executive Director Ahmed Rehab praised McCarthy for his “heartfelt” sincerity and taking the initiative to attend, and the audience applauded when the chief said police need to work with the city’s communities to prevent crime and terrorism.

“We are focused on our mission of making Chicago the safest city for every resident in every neighborhood, but we can’t do it alone,” McCarthy said. “We must have a positive relationship with the wonderfully diverse communities that comprise Chicago and that make this great country of America as strong as it is today.”

U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, a Chicago Democrat and immigration advocate, also addressed the group, lashing out at the NYPD’s spying methods.

“It makes no sense and is not sensible law enforcement,” Gutierrez said.

McCarthy wrapped up his remarks by saying he is a 9/11 survivor, who was in a command post near the World Trade Center until the towers fell. He told the audience that 13 of the 23 officers lost by the NYPD were personal friends.

“And I want to tell you this,” he said. “In the 10-plus years since that horrific event, which has affected me to my core, I have never once thought ill of the religion of Islam.”

I’m sure the loon Eric Allen Bell will either join or support this group at some point and further extend his stay in the JihadWatch Twilight Zone:

Murfreesboro: Right-Wing Islamophobe Trains Deputies

MURFREESBORO, TN — A group that states on their website that the “Islamic Movement” is a “threat to our civil liberties” is training deputies in Rutherford County this week.

Deputies from the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Department are getting three days of training from Strategic Engagement Group, a Washington-based nonprofit that says its purpose is to counter the Unified Islamic movement in the United States.

The debate concerning construction of an Islamic Center in Rutherford County has been the subject of much debate over the last few years. The project’s faced a court fight, vandalism and arson. Tennessee Freedom Coalition, which openly opposed the new mosque, hired the Washington-based nonprofit.

On Monday, Strategic Engagement Group held a free seminar for the community, but Channel 4′s cameras were not welcome. John Guandolo, the vice president of the Strategic Engagement Group, spoke at the event and pushed a Channel 4 camera that attempted to record the seminar.

Channel 4 was allowed to listen to him speak but could not record it. Guandolo talked about Hamas and its plan to destroy Western civilization from within, and spoke of Islamic centers as potential military compounds.

The local sheriff’s department would not talk on camera about its decision to train deputies using this company. Deputies are able to use the training toward their Post Commission required annual training.

Monday’s event was held at the World Outreach Church in Murfreesboro, which has been a vocal opponent of the new Islamic Center being built in Rutherford County.

Channel 4 checked with the Post Commission, which develops and enforces training and standards for all police officers in Tennessee. According to the Post, they allow individual law enforcement agencies to determine what training can count for the yearly minimums required of every officer.

WSMV, 14 Februrary 2012

See also “Company claims Islamic insurgency underway in U.S.”,WMOT, 14 February 2012

And “Rutherford sheriff hires mosque foe to train deputies”, The Tennessean, 14 February 2012

Guandolo takes the view that in the US ”the major threat does not come from terrorist attacks. It comes from the Muslim Brotherhood”.

Update:  See “CAIR asks Tenn. to drop anti-Muslim law enforcement trainer”, CAIR press release, 14 February 2012

Update 2:  See Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion, 15 February 2012

Images of the vandalism at the Sterling Heights Sikh temple

Sikh Temple Vandalized–but were Muslims the Intended Target?

By Sarah Cwiek

Vandals targeted a Sikh house of worship in suburban Detroit this week. But there are signs they intended to target Muslims.

According to the Sikh Society of Michigan, the Sikh temple (known as a Gurdwara) in Sterling Heights has been under construction for several years, without any incidents or controversy.

That changed when someone vandalized the building sometime on Sunday night.

The vandals spray painted “don’t builed” [sic] on an outside wall. They also left images of a cross, a gun, and a misspelled version of the name “Mohammed.”

Muslims revere Mohammed as a prophet, but it has nothing to do with the Sikh religion. The word leads many to believe to believe the vandals thought they were targeting Muslims.

Dawud Walid, executive director for the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), calls the vandalism a hate crime.

“We joined the Sikh community in calling for local and federal law enforcement to use their full resources to investigate this recent hate crime,” Walid said.

The US Justice Department in Detroit says the incident is on their radar. They’ve met with members of the Sikh community about it.

But a DOJ spokeswoman says it’s yet how they’ll be involved in the investigation, or any potential prosecution. Anyone with information about the incident should contact Sterling Heights Police.

Walid also suggests the incident could stem from politicians’ “fanning the flames” of xenophobia and anti-Muslim sentiment in an election year.

“We hope that they will be a little more responsible,” Walid said. “They should understand that their statements and ads may push people over the edge, and they do have consequences.”

The US Sikh community has fallen victim to anti-Muslim sentiment before. A Sikh man was murdered in Arizona soon after the September 11th attacks. The killer thought he was Arab or Muslim.

A mosque in Fairfax County suffered thousands of dollars in damage. News4's Megan McGrath has the story.

$60,000 in damage! An attack on any religious establishment is an attack on all religious establishments.

Mosque in Fairfax County Vandalized

View more videos at: http://nbcwashington.com.

By Megan McGrath

Construction crews should be putting the finishing touches on the Mubarak Blessed Mosque in Chantilly. Instead, they are repairing the work of vandals.

Sometime between Sunday evening and 6 a.m. Monday morning, the mosque was pelted with stones and masonry blocks. Nearly all the custom made windows and glass doors on the first floor were shattered.  Damage has been estimated at $60,000.

Investigators found beer and liquor bottles in the woods behind the mosque, and they believe teenagers may be responsible.

“It is very sad,” said the mosque’s general secretary, Usman Ghumman.  “But at the same time, our community is very resilient.  We have asked our community members to fervently pray that we are able to overcome this hurdle.”

Mubarak Blessed Mosque has been under construction for a year, and was scheduled to open in just weeks.

Jerrold Foltz, pastor at the Wellspring United Church of Christ, said acts like this are an affront to area’s entire religious community.  “Its an insult to the whole religious establishment,” Foltz said, “whether its a church or a mosque or a synagogue.”

Investigators say there is no evidence that it is a hate crime – nothing was taken and no graffiti was left behind.  However, because of the extent of the damage, those responsible face felony charges.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has asked the FBI to investigate the possibility of a bias motive in the incident.

Virginia Anti-Shari`ah Bill Irks Muslims

RICHMOND – A leading American civil rights group has criticized a new proposed Virginia bill to ban courts from considering any religious codes in litigation, confirming that the bill was a new step towards effort to stigmatize Muslims and undermine their religious traditions.

“Bigotry needs to be repudiated, not legitimized through the introduction of a bill that has such hate-filled and un-American origins,” Gadier Abbas, staff attorney at the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said in a press release on Friday, January 20.

Titled Morris’ HB631, the new bill was introduced by Virginia General Assembly Delegate Rick L. Morris (R-House District 64) on January 11.

The anti-Shari`ah new proposed law would ban courts from applying religious traditions to proceedings, such as the execution of a will among Muslims.

Not only the religious Muslim code, the new bill would also prohibit the application of the Catholic equivalent, canon law, and other religious guidelines.

The suddenly controversial bill is scheduled to be heard by a Virginia legislature House subcommittee next Monday.

In Islam, Shari`ah governs all issues in Muslims’ lives from daily prayers to fasting and from, marriage and inheritance to financial disputes.

The Islamic rulings, however, do not apply on non-Muslims, even if in a dispute with non-Muslims.

In US courts, judges can refer to Shari`ah law in Muslim litigation involving cases about divorce and custody proceedings or in commercial litigation.

Defended

Sponsoring the bill, Morris said that he aimed at enforcing US laws only.

“It’s definitely not an anti-Muslim bill,” Morris told the Virginian-Pilot in a brief phone interview Friday.

He said his goal is to make it clear that Virginia judges can rely only on state and federal law in their rulings.

However, CAIR confirmed that the bill was drafted by anti-Islam activist David Yerushalmi.

Yerushalmi, a 56-year-old Hasidic Jew with a history of controversial statements about race, immigration and Islam, managed to gain the support of prominent Washington figures.

He is head of the anti-Islam hate group Society of Americans for National Existence (SANE), which on its now password-protected website offered a policy proposal that would make “adherence to Islam” punishable by 20 years in prison.

The proposed Virginia legislation is just one of more than 20 similar bills that have been introduced in state legislatures nationwide in the past year.

Over the past few years, lawmakers in at least two dozen states have introduced proposals last year forbidding local judges from considering Shari`ah when rendering verdicts on issues of divorces and marital disputes.

The statutes have been enacted in three states so far.

Earlier this January, a US federal court upheld an injection on a proposed ban on Islamic Shari`ah in the state of Oklahoma, saying the drive was unconstitutional and discriminates against religion.

———————————————————————————————————————

Alabama Anti-Shariah Bill Penned by Key Islamophobe

An Alabama state senator plans to introduce a constitutional amendment that would ban state courts from looking to Islamic Shariah law in adjudicating cases, Hatewatch has learned.

Republican Senator Cam Ward pre-filed the “American and Alabama Laws for Alabama Courts Amendment” with the state Senate Judiciary Committee on Jan. 4.

The amendment’s language is clearly drawn from model legislation drafted by anti-Muslim lawyer David Yerushalmi, who equates Shariah with Islamic radicalism so totally that he advocates criminalizing virtually any personal practice that is compliant with Shariah. His “American Laws for American Courts” initiative enjoys support from Muslim-hating blogger Pam Geller, who plumbed new depths of foulness this week by expressing her “love” for the U.S. marines who were videotaped urinating on dead Taliban combatants.

Yerushalmi, who says the “War on Terror” should be a war against Islam “and all Muslim faithful,” has also proposed to outlaw Islam and deport Muslims and other “non-Western, non-Christian” people to protect the United States’ “national character.”

Ward, who could not be reached for comment, apparently shares Yerushalmi’s dislike of immigrants. The Alabama lawmaker is a member of State Legislators for Legal Immigration (SLLI), a national coalition that attributes to “illegal aliens” what it describes as “[i]ncreasingly documented incidences of homicide, identity theft, property theft, serious infectious diseases, drug running, gang violence, human trafficking, terrorism and growing cost to taxpayers.”

Since its founding in 2007, SLLI has taken a leading role in fostering xenophobic intolerance in statehouses across the nation. The group works hand-in-glove with the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), an anti-immigrant hate group whose legal arm devised the draconian immigration laws in Arizona and Alabama, portions of which have been enjoined by courts concerned about their constitutionality. Though Ward did not introduce Alabama’s immigration enforcement law, he has been a vocal supporter of the measure, which is widely viewed as the harshest of its kind.

Ward is not the first Alabama lawmaker to introduce an anti-Shariah measure. In 2011, Republican state Senator Gerald Allen sponsored SB 62, a virtual replica of Oklahoma’s notorious anti-Shariah “Save Our State” amendment, which was struck down on Tuesday by the 10^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Allen’s proposal, which singled out Shariah law as its principle target, was not taken up for consideration before last year’s legislative session ended.

Ward may stand a better chance of success. According to the Public Policy Alliance, which hired Yerushalmi to write the “American Laws for American Courts” model legislation, versions of the law have already been passed in Tennessee, Louisiana and Arizona. Unlike Oklahoma’s amendment, none were immediately enjoined. The Public Policy Alliance describes its creation in explicitly anti-Muslim terms, claiming on its website, “we are preserving individual liberties and freedoms which become eroded by the encroachment of foreign laws and foreign legal doctrines, such as Shariah.” But the legislation itself does not contain any reference to Shariah law or Islam, thus avoiding the issue that immediately flagged Oklahoma’s legislation as unconstitutional.

Ward has not commented publicly about his proposal, so it is impossible to know what inspired him to think that Alabama needs to worry about Shariah law in the first place. The various state proposals banning Shariah, in effect, attack a problem that does not exist and will not under the U.S. Constitution.

According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, less than 1% of Alabamans are Muslim. And of all the states in the union, Alabama has unique insight into what happens when theocrats get it into their minds to bring their religion into the courts.

In August 2001, Roy Moore – then-chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court – hauled under cover of night a 5,280-pound granite monument to the Ten Commandments into the building that houses the state’s appellate courts and law library. A coalition of civil rights organizations, including the Southern Poverty Law Center (which publishes Hatewatch), sued, leading U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson to rule that the monument created “a religious sanctuary within the walls of a courthouse” and had to be removed. The 11^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the decision on July 1, 2003. When a defiant Moore refused to comply with the order, he was removed from office for ethics violations, and that was that for Alabama courts’ experiment with mingling secular and religious law.

The monument went too. It now resides at a church in Moore’s hometown of Gadsden, Ala.

Rick Santorum

Santorum: Equality ‘doesn’t come from Islam’ but from ‘God of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob’

by Madeleine Morgenstern

Republican presidential contender Rick Santorum provoked an angry response from the Council on American-Islamic Relations Saturday for saying equality “doesn’t come from Islam“ but ”from the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”

“I get a kick out of folks who call for equality now, the people on the left, ‘Well, equality, we want equality.’ Where do you think this concept of equality comes from?” Santorum said during a South Carolina campaign stop Friday, ABC News reported. “It doesn’t come from Islam. It doesn’t come from the East and Eastern religions, where does it come from? It comes from the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that’s where it comes from.”

The former Pennsylvania senator, a Catholic, has spoken openly about faith on the campaign trail.

“So don’t claim his rights, don’t claim equality as that gift from God and then go around and say, ‘Well, we don’t have to pay attention to what God wants us to do. We don’t have to pay attention to God’s moral laws.’ If your rights come from God, then you have an obligation to live responsibly in conforming with God’s laws, and our founders said so, right?” Santorum asked.

In a statement, CAIR communications director Ibrahim Hooper called Santorum’s remarks “inaccurate and offensive,“ and said the organization was sending the candidate a copy of the Quran so he could ”educate himself.”

“The Quran, Islam’s revealed text, is the best refutation of Mr. Santorum’s inaccurate and offensive remarks, which are unbecoming of anyone who hopes to hold our nation’s highest office. Christians, Jews and Muslims all worship the same God and share religious traditions that promote justice and equality,” Hooper said. “We suggest that Mr. Santorum educate himself about Islam and the American Muslim community by reading the Quran that we will send to his campaign headquarters next week.”

Two stories coming out of Ohio related to Islamophobia. The first is still being investigated for a possible hate crime, and the second story shows that even within the prison system there is a double standard when it comes to Muslims.

Authorities investigate arson at Islamic scholar’s former home

By  Randy Ludlow

A deliberately set fire at the Hilliard home of the son of a controversial Islamic scholar is being investigated as a possible hate crime.

The arson fire heavily damaged a house at 4907 Britton Farms Dr. once occupied by Salah Soltan, but now the home of his 24-year-old son, Mohamed, authorities said.

The younger Soltan and a friend escaped the fire without injury after it was reported to Norwich Township firefighters at 5:24 a.m. Monday.

Firefighters arrived to find flames coming from the rear of the $290,000 house, which sustained extensive damage, said Fire Chief Dave Long.

The house was painted with anti-Islamic slurs a couple of months ago, authorities said.

The elder Soltan, who now lives abroad, is a native of Egypt and formerly was a professor at Cairo University and president of Islamic American University in suburban Detroit.

Some conservative critics have accused Soltan of being sympathetic to terrorist causes. He has said while he supports Palestinian rights, he condemns terrorism as a violation of Islamic law.

The Ohio chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations yesterday called on the FBI to assist in the investigation of the motive behind the fire.

The FBI is working with Hilliard police in investigating the circumstances of the fire, said Special Agent Harry Trombitas, spokesman for the Columbus field office.

Hilliard police called in state fire marshal investigators yesterday to assist in the probe and determined it was arson.

*******************************************************************

Ohio Muslim inmates settle meal preparation suit

By ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS, AP Legal Affairs Writer

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A Muslim death row inmate has settled a lawsuit that accused the Ohio prison system of denying him meals prepared according to Islamic law while providing kosher meals to Jewish prisoners.

Ohio had previously decided to remove all pork products from prison menus in response to the lawsuit, though inmates weren’t seeking a ban on pork.

Details of the settlement announced Wednesday afternoon weren’t released. Neither the inmate’s lawyer or the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction would comment.

The state argued as recently as last month that providing the meals, known as halal, could bankrupt the state’s food service system because thousands of inmates have declared themselves Muslim.

Attorneys for Abdul Awkal (ab-DUHL’ AW’-kuhl) and a second inmate argued that the state was exaggerating the cost.

Copyright © 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

For those who don’t know, the Constitution is the law of the land. Just making sure!

Court: Oklahoma ban on Islamic law unconstitutional

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — An amendment that would ban Oklahoma courts from considering international or Islamic law discriminates against religions and a Muslim community leader has the right to challenge its constitutionality, a federal appeals court said Tuesday.

The court in Denver upheld U.S. District Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange‘s order blocking implementation of the amendment shortly after it was approved by 70 percent of Oklahoma voters in November 2010.

Muneer Awad, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Oklahoma, sued to block the law from taking effect, arguing that the Save Our State Amendment violated his First Amendment rights.

The amendment read, in part: “The courts shall not look to the legal precepts of other nations or cultures. Specifically, the courts shall not consider international law or Sharia law.”

Backers argued that the amendment intended to ban all religious laws, that Islamic law was merely named as an example and that it wasn’t meant as a specific attack on Muslims. The court disagreed.

“That argument conflicts with the amendment’s plain language, which mentions Sharia law in two places,” the appeals court opinion said.

The court also noted that the backers of the amendment admitted they did not know of any instance when an Oklahoma court applied Sharia law or used the legal precepts of other countries.

Awad argued that the ban on Islamic law would likely affect every aspect of his life as well as the execution of his will after his death. The appeals court pointed out that Awad made a “strong showing” of potential harm.

“When the law that voters wish to enact is likely unconstitutional, their interests do not outweigh Mr. Awad’s in having his constitutional rights protected,” the court said.

“Judenrat Jon” Stewart

by: David Harris-Gershon on January 7th, 2012

Pamela Geller: Muslims Firebombed Their Own Mosque in Queens

by Charles Johnson

In yet another disgusting post filled with typos, hate group leader Pamela Geller makes excuses for terrorism by saying that Muslims in Queens probably firebombed their own mosque.

Yes, really.

HMEDIA FOCUSES ON MOSQUE FIREBOMBED IN QUEENS, IGNORES MULTI-PRONGED FIREBOMBING AGAINST HINDUS, CHRISTIANS, HOMES!!!!! – Atlas Shrugs

“Hmedia?”

Color me skeptical. We find time and time again, in the rare instances when a mosque has graffit [sic] or some prank, the perp is Muslim. More times than not.

Here’s the a [sic] sketch of the perp, looks like a CAIR member.

It’s amazing and sickening how much Geller’s smears of Muslims resemble antisemitic libels of Jews.

We don’t not support censorship unlike the hypocrites in the Islamophobesphere who for instance advocate bans on the Qur’an. However, when you cross the line into open calls for genocide and violence against another group of people you have entered very murky water. WordPress for instance has guidelines against such things and that is the reason the genocidal hate site BareNakedIslam was pulled down, they violated WordPress’ guidelines. Now they are crying victim and martyrdom for Free Speech, something they want to strip away from Muslims. Expect Robert Spencer to come to their aid once again.

WordPress Removes Hate Blog

by Yusuf Khan, Islamic Examiner

A hate site hosted on WordPress.com has been pulled down by the popular blog host, reported CAIR yesterday.

The vicious blog had hitherto featured a number of violent threats against mosques and Muslim American citizens, including the words “I want (Muslim) blood on my hands!”

WordPress took notice that the Islamophobic site violated a number of its stipulated terms of service, including blogs that “contain threats or incite violence towards indiviudals or entities” and took appropriate action.

Last year, a similar blog was taken down by WordPress that shamelessly advocated burning mosques, calling in fake bomb threats implicating Muslims, desecrating Muslim cemeteries, and recommending “the proper way to shoot a Muslim.”

Roy Egan

Roy Egan was fired due to violating the TSA code of conduct.

O’Hare TSA Employee Fired Over Racist, Homphobic, Anti-Muslim Facebook Posts

Sun-Times Media Wire

“If you are an Islamophobe, and even Tea Party Politicians don’t want to hang out with you, you are in trouble.”

We live in the age of organized Islamophobia. Anti-Muslims coalesced after 9/11 and created, in effect, an industry that sought to influence public officials, government bodies and the masses across the United States and Europe. While the forces involved may come from different backgrounds in terms of ideology, faith and political persuasion they are united in their efforts to demonize Islam and Muslims.

Anti-Muslim Islamophobes have created a structure of Islamophobia that cuts across many levels. They hope that in people’s minds Islam will become the new Nazism and Communism combined or worse, because at least the former two enemies of humanity were “Western” and had some “rationality,” whereas Islam is the incomprehensible beast from the East.

Reza Aslan explains it well:

Simply put, Islam in the United States has become otherized. It has become a receptacle into which can be tossed all the angst and apprehension people feel about the faltering economy, about the new and unfamiliar political order, about the shifting cultural, racial, and religious landscapes that have fundamentally altered the world. Across Europe and North America, whatever is fearful, whatever is foreign, whatever is alien and unsafe is being tagged with the label ‘Islam.’ (No god but God)

Islamophobes work assiduously to push their agenda. They have boosted the profiles of (fake)ex-Muslims, (fake)scholars, and created a network of think tanks, foundations, “terror experts,” bloggers that have produced hate groups such as ACT! for America and SIOA amongst others.

Their activism is strong and they won’t stop anytime soon because that is what they get paid to do!

For some time American Muslims must have felt alone in fighting the scourge of bigotry and hatred that was aimed at them, however efforts such as ours here show that decent people from all walks of life can come together to fight the menace of fear-mongering and prejudice.

It is through the efforts of loonwatchers that we have agitated the SPLC and even the ADL to take firm stands against the Islamophobia movement. Loonwatchers were also instrumental in first booting Geller from the Hyatt Place in Sugarland, Texas and then evicting her crew from the Hutton Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee where they planned a “Sharia Conference” that was really more of a love-in for the vanguard of Islamophobia.

Now, according to several reports, another victory, both Sen. Marco Rubio and Gov. Rick Scott, Republicans from Florida say they will not participate in a Tea Party Convention where they would have shared the stage with Pamela Geller and another Islamophobe:

Rubio and Scott are listed as “confirmed speakers” at the convention, but representatives of their respective offices told CAIR-FL that the event is not on the senator’s nor the governor’s official schedule.

Before we published our article asking loonwatchers to contact both Rubio and Scott the two were still confirmed speakers at the Tea Party Convention. It is not out of the realm of possibility that Rubio and Scott may end up showing up for the convention, they are after all Republicans, but if this stands it is another strong rebuke to Geller, Spencer and the rest of the anti-Muslim Islamophobia movement.

Daniel Tutt writes that Islamophobes have noted that there is push back against them, and they are none too happy about it, this is why it is an opportune moment to point out that we have to continue to hound the Islamophobes. An elected official should never share the same podium as a Pamela Geller, the FBI should never allow its employees to be instructed or lectured by a Robert Spencer, universities should never invite a Nonie Darwish to their campus to deliver speeches on “Islam,” or “Sharia.”

We shouldn’t rest on our laurels! Loonwatchers should capitalize on the momentum and actively campaign, using fliers, letters, phone calls, organizing protests and rallies where ever and when ever Islamophobes attempt to gain legitimacy. We will do our part by exposing them for the frauds they are and giving you the ammunition to shed light on their hatred.

The Sugar Land Tea Party is going to have to move its hate fest from the Hyatt Place Houston to a community center. It looks like the word spread about how loony and bigoted Pamela Geller is and the Hyatt administration took notice.

Kate Shellnutt, the author of the article below alerted us to this fact with her tweet:

a visit by one of the biggest names in islamophobia has caused drama for the tea party in sugar land http://t.co/CZLjGdM4

Shellnutt’s article gives Pamela Geller too much credit by calling Geller a critic of “radical Islam.” Geller is not a critic of “radical Islam.” She is a far right-wing nut job who hates Islam and Muslims, thinks the USA is under imminent threat of Islamic takeover, thinks Obama is a “Mooslim” anti-Semite and radical Jihadist who is working in league with the Iranians to bring about Islamic rule. And those are some of her more tame ideas!

Anyway here is Shellnutt’s article:

The Sugar Land Tea Party was forced to move an event featuring a prominent critic of radical Islam after Hyatt Place learned of opponents’ plans to protest it.

The hotel, where activist Pamela Geller was going to address the crowd and sign copies of her new book Stop the Islamization of America, cancelled their meeting space, forcing the Tea Party to reserve a nearby community center.

“In light of the business disruptions affiliated with this event, it has been moved to an alternate location,” said a Hyatt Place manager, who declined to give further details on the decision.

Geller is known for her views on Islam, including strong opposition to the Ground Zero Mosque (which she is said to have nicknamed), dismissal of liberal politicians for “giving in” to American Muslims and continued belief that President Barack Obama was not born in the U.S.

On her right-wing blog Atlas Shrugs, Geller urged readers to boycott the hotel for cancelling the event, calling it a setback to free speech and “a stunning surrender to Islamic supremacism.”

The Sugar Land Democrats Club announced their protest on Sunday and still plans to hold a peaceful demonstration at the event’s new location, the Sugar Land Community Center.

“Let’s send a message to the fear mongers and haters in Sugar Land and Fort Bend County that the likes of Ms. Pamela Geller and her bigoted ideology are not welcome here in the 4th most racially diverse county in the USA,” residents Deron Patterson and Q Imam said in a press release.

The community center can be rented out for public or private events, like tonight’s book signing, said Doug Adolph, Sugar Land city spokesman.

All attendees and protestors must follow the law, but the community center does not place any further restrictions on First Amendment rights, he said.

Like Geller, two-thirds of Americans who identify with the Tea Party movement say that Islam is at odds with the American way of life, according to a survey by the Public Religion Research Institute. The survey also showed Tea Party members are nearly twice as likely as the general public to believe that American Muslims want to establish sharia law. They are less comfortable with  mosques in their communities, Muslims praying in airports and Muslim women wearing niqab.

The Sugar Land Tea Party event isn’t the first time Geller has come to the Houston area. The local chapter of Act! For America hosted Geller and fellow anti-Jihadist Robert Spencer in June, when they showed their film, The Ground Zero Mosque: Second Wave of the 911 Attacks.

“We believe presentations such as this also provide an opportunity for citizens to learn more about how Islamic Law (Sharia) contradicts the U.S. Constitution– an excellent example of which we are seeing played out right before us at this event, in that Shariah Law prohibits Freedom of Speech if the speech can be considered to be ‘offensive’ to Muslims,” said Susan Watts, of Act! For America Houston, by email.

Fear, Inc. – a recent report by the Center for American Progress—labels Geller one of the main players in the country’s Islamophobia network and says her blog incites Muslim fear-mongering among the right-wing blogosphere, including some politically conservative Christians.

“She writes about Muslims in the most reductive and offensive way imaginable,” said Matt Duss, an analyst on national security policy at the center. Geller, he said, has been able to strike an emotional chord with her readers and followers by orchestrating controversy and fear over Islam, as she did with the Ground Zero mosque incident.

Geller and Spencer’s organization – Stop Islamization of America—was founded in 2010 to fight radical Islam and terrorism, but their opponents insist the organization’s scope extends far beyond that.

The Anti-Defamation League wrote Sugar Land city officials and religious leaders ahead of the upcoming event, warning them of Geller’s vilification of Islam. The ADL said her group “promotes a conspiratorial anti-Muslim agenda,” and the Southern Poverty Law Association has labeled it a hate group.

Geller’s supporters, who continue to see radical Islam as a dangerous, real and urgent threat, disagree with these characterizations.

“We see value in presentations like (hers) as one of the tools available in learning more about the creep of Sharia Law and it’s customs, as well as an opportunity to understand the impact of Cultural (or Stealth) Jihad which is usually aided by a complicit media paralyzed by Political Correctness,” Watts said.

MEK-Terror Linked/Terrorist inspirer Robert Spencer is already calling Hyatt officials “dhimmis” and blaming CAIR and the “world wide Muslim conspiracy” for this cancellation. He is also asking his shock troops of Spencerites to flood the Hyatt with calls and emails about how they don’t appreciate the hate event being canceled:

Wherever they succeed in intimidating a group or venue into dropping a talk by a freedom fighter, we have to bring just as much pressure to bear for the cause of justice, and let that group or venue know that we do not appreciate their failure to stand up for Constitutional principles when challenged. So please contact the Hyatt Place in Houston and tell them that since they canceled the Geller event, you will be staying elsewhere:

Hyatt Place Houston/Sugar Land
16730 Creek Bend Drive
Sugar Land, TX 77478, USA
Phone: +1 281 491 0300 Fax: +1 281 491 0325
Farley Kern
Vice President, Corporate Communications
Tel: +1 312 780 5506
farley.kern@hyatt.com

The stakes are very high. If we don’t resist this Islamic supremacist thuggery, the Islamic supremacists will succeed in stamping out all discussion of the truth about Islam and jihad, thereby rendering us mute and defenseless before its advance. That’s why we have to resist now, at every step, before it’s too late. Contact the Hyatt. But don’t just complain: host a counter-jihadist in your area. Stand for freedom.

Spencer believes in Freedom just as much as Kim Jong Il does, that much is clear when you visit Robert Spencer Watch. I think loonwatchers should contact Hyatt Place Houston and let them know how much you appreciate the fact that they won’t allow their venue to be used as a place of hate.

Tom Trento believes the Muslim Brotherhood is behind “Occupy Orlando.” Just watch him in the video below stretching and trying to grasp at anything to come up with his absurd conspiracy theory.

Trento and his friends seem like stalkers. It’s also quite funny how he passes off the “Rifqa Bary” case as a victory when in fact none of the objectives that he and his friends, Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer wished to achieve were actualized. The whole Rifqa Bary episode was a colossal and humiliating defeat for the Islamophobes.

Hasner ally says Muslim Brotherhood is behind Occupy Orlando

In a video clip and blog post published today, a right-wing activist with ties to GOP Senate candidate Adam Hasner alleges that Occupy Orlando, a Central Florida group that has sprung up in solidarity with the New York-based Occupy Wall Street movement, has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Occupy Orlando held its first event this past weekend, beginning its “occupation” at Senator Beth Johnson Park, outside of the Orlando Chamber of Commerce, at 8 a.m. Saturday.

In a recent post on the website for The United West, an anti-”Shariah Islam” organization, the group’s director, Tom Trento claims that his team found what they consider evidence that the Occupy Wall Street-inspired group in Orlando is part of a “move by a Muslim activist to take over control of ‘Occupy Orlando,’ in the ‘spirit of the Arab Spring.’”

Trento writes:

For those with eyes to see, ears to hear and a wee bit of cranial activity, the jury is in, the facts are known and the words “Arab Spring,” are synonyms for “Muslim Brotherhood.” Though there is strong evidence for the Ikhwan’s involvement initiating the various revolutions in Egypt and the northern Maghreb, it is indisputable that the Brothers are exploiting the incoherent chaos in these countries and taking a leadership role either overtly or through compliant proxies to move toward a shariah-compliant state. In the spirit of Rahm Emanuel, the Muslim Brotherhood will never let a good crisis go to waste.

…

As The United West video teams circulated (overtly and covertly) through hundreds of protestors at “Occupy Orlando, “ I was informed that a Muslim activist lawyer with whom  we had confrontations in the past, was at this demonstration. Though it has been two years, we could never forget the easily-agitated, Mr. Shayan Elahi. Yes, Orlando, this is the same Muslim who lost a race in 2010 to become a Judge.

…

After Elahi’s second try at “intimidating” us (yes, it was comical) it became obvious to us that he was not just an observer at this event but a participant…and then it all came together. Shaya Elahi is the leader (of the leaderless) Occupy Orlando! It turns out that he is the “official” legal counsel for this movement and indeed one of the key people, if not the main person calling the shots!

Once we watched Shayan Elahi in action, running around, signing up speakers, providing direction, telling people what to do, we started to connect the dots to the stated Face Book Mission Statement of “Occupy Orlando,” which reads, “…we plan to use the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic of mass occupation to restore democracy in America.”

In his post, Trento asks United West supporters if they think Elahi “is looking for a place to mark up his first win by coopting a incoherent movement primarily made up of ‘hippies and anarchists’ so that he can build a political base for his Islamic goals?”

Groups that have sprung up in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street have, for the most part, been leaderless — much like the original movement. Occupy Orlando’s Facebook page describes itself as a “leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions.”

A recent press release from Occupy Orlando states that there were “approximately 200 speakers and more than 1,500 participants spanning across many political and generational spectrums gathered to share dialogues ranging from pro-life to dismantling the federal reserve” at the event.

As Trento mentioned, he and Elahi have had run-ins in the past. Elahi was an attorney for Rifqa Bary’s parents after she separated herself from her Muslim parents in Ohio as a minor when she converted to Christianity. Trento, along with other anti-Islam activists in Florida, fought in the legal battle to keep Bary in the state and away from her parents.

During an interview in Trento’s video, Elahi pulls aside one of the frustrated protesters Trento is talking to and tells her, “He is one of the biggest bigots in town.” Elahi also turns to Trento and calls him a “racist bigot.”

GOP Senate hopeful Adam Hasner has called Trento a “good friend” and was among the group of Florida activists that tried to keep Bary in Florida. He and Trento founded the Florida Security Council together in 2008; that group eventually expanded to become The United West.

Watch Trento’s “investigation” for yourself:

There is a troubling track record on the Right-Wing of nominating hatemongerers, bigots and now potential associates to war crimes to key positions in their cabinets. Is it willful ignorance, stupidity, or purposeful?

We reported last on Walid Phares when Rep. Peter King announced he was going to call Phares to testify at his “Muslim American radicalization hearings.” King eventually walked back that announcement due to pressure. For God sake, Walid Phares joined an organization whose slogan was, “Kill a Palestinian and you Shall Enter Paradise.”

Mitt’s Muslim Problem

(Daily Beast)

After a prominent Baptist minister proclaimed last week that Mormonism is a non-Christian “cult” that would ideally disqualify adherents from the White House, Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney enjoyed a full-throated defense from people all over the political spectrum who considered the pastor’s remarks an ugly example of religious bigotry. But Romney, a practicing Mormon, may soon find himself facing allegations of intolerance from another religious minority: American Muslims.

Yet Phares is a divisive figure in the minds of some leading U.S. Muslims. To admirers, Phares is a well-regarded scholar who has testified before the Defense and State departments, and has worked as a terrorism expert for professional news outlets such as NBC and, most recently, Fox News.

When he emigrated to the United States in the 1990s, Phares positioned himself as an expert on Islam and Middle East relations, allying himself with conservative think tanks and appearing frequently on television. Throughout his career as a pundit, he has warned that some Muslims are plotting a secret takeover of American institutions with the end goal of imposing Sharia.

Rep. Allen West is well known to us as the anti-Muslims’ favorite politician. His alliance with terrorist inspirers and MEK terror-linked hate activists Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer is common knowledge. He is also supported by the likes of the long-time stalker of Muslims Joe “Nuke ‘em” Kaufman and loon Reverend O’Neal Dozier.

We reported a few weeks ago about a letter sent by Nezar Hamze of CAIR South Florida, a constituent of Allen West’s district, expressing his concern at West’s anti-Muslim rhetoric and associations with extremists and hatemongers. West responded to Hamze’s letter with a one word reply, “NUTS!”:

In attempting to explain what the Miami New Times called possibly the “dumbest thing ever written on congressional stationery,” some have latched on to the likelihood that he is “channeling a famous line by an American general fighting the Nazis during World War II. During a battle with German troops in Western Europe, Gen. Anthony McAuliffe was told that the Germans wanted his men to surrender. He replied, ‘Us surrender? Aw, nuts!’”

Instead of condemning the radical company that he has been keeping, Rep. Allen West decided to tell Hamze to ‘go to hell.’ West implies Islam is akin to Nazism and that Muslims are modern day Nazis.  This aligns well with the Islamophobic belief that Islam is not a religion but rather a totalitarian political ideology that seeks to conquer and subjugate the entire world. To say this dehumanizes Muslims would be an understatement.

West and his supporters, perhaps smarting from the blow of this latest PR disaster decided to hold a town hall on “terrorism” as well as a rally against Nezar Hamze and CAIR:

Rep. West to screen controversial film on ‘Ground Zero mosque’

By Jordy Yager - 08/02/11 11:22 AM ET

Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) is planning to screen a controversial film on Capitol Hill about attempts to build an Islamic center near Ground Zero in Manhattan.

The film, “Sacrificed Survivors: The Untold Story of the Ground Zero Mosque,” was produced by the conservative Christian Action Network (CAN) and has begun to garner criticism from such groups as the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR).

The 45-minute film is largely focused around a series of interviews conducted with survivors of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and members of their family. The interviews, according to CAN’s website, delve into the feelings they experienced last summer when a group proposed building an Islamic center blocks away from where the World Trade Center towers once stood.

Efforts to build the Islamic center, which was set to include a swimming pool and a mosque among other amenities, were the focus of nearly every news agency last summer and brought a slew of politically charged arguments from members of Congress.

CAN attempted to get permission to show the film in New York City parks over the week leading up to the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, but it was denied out of concern for the content.

According to CAN’s website, West plans to host the event during the week Congress returns from recess, on Sept. 8 in the Rayburn House Office Building.

This will not be the first time a controversial film about Muslims has been shown on Capitol Hill. In 2009, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) hosted the controversial Dutch filmmaker Geert Wilders and showed his movie, “Fitna,” which many Muslims have designated anti-Islamic. Following an anti-screening campaign by the Congressional Muslim Staffers Association, no members of Congress reportedly showed up to watch the film.

West came under fire last year for commenting during a conference that terrorists were fulfilling mandates laid out by the Quran.

A spokeswoman for West did not immediately return a request for comment.

The expose on the fraud known as Shoebat continues on CNN:

Robert Spencer, watch out you’re next.

I wanted to find out what the kerfluffle over “creeping Shariah” was all about. After all, this is a Republican worry in thirteen states which have introduced anti-shariah laws. And apparently it’s more serious than even a global economic Depression.

So I went to a blog by the promising name of “Creeping Shariah” and its matching Twitter feed for some hard answers.

The website promised to easily locate the numerous recent cases of jihad being waged on our very shores. In Massachusetts alone there were forty incidents of jihad, as those sly Mahometans managed to finesse a Muslim holiday in Cambridge, plotted to build a cemetery in Belchertown, and the Muslim Brotherhood had apparently consulted with Whitey Bulger to get governor Duval Patrick to build a mega-mosque in Bah-stahn.

Those armed-and-dangerous ladies from Code Pink were raising money for Hamas, CAIR was at it again, trying to help out some headscarf-toting Muslim terrorists at a Boston pharmacy school, Yale University was cozying up to faculty jihadis by not re-inviting an Islamophobe to come back for a conference, and some crazy Mooslim women troublemakers in Kansas City wanted to wear Islamic-style bathing gear in a pool. The fate of our pools, our children, and our very nation were at stake. And all this trouble from a bunch of Muslim women, no less.

Beside the fact that New Haven and Kansas City are not exactly in Massachusetts, most of the other “incidents” reported were endlessly-recycled hate blurbs from people like Pamela Geller and Rick Santorum — which, I will grant you — do constitute a sort of domestic terror. But most of the postings were over a year old. Maybe getting all that “news” onto his website was just too overwhelming for him. HTML can be so wordy.

But now I was really curious. Incidents of creeping shariah and jihad were obviously so numerous, so dangerous, and so troubling that perhaps a Twitter feed could provide better real-time coverage of the onslaught. And surely the feed would corroborate a pattern of Islamification of our beloved heterosexual, fetus-friendly, pro-capitalist, White-loving, brown-skin-hating, Ayn Randophilic, Judeo-Christian-based culture! I went online looking for more answers.

And answers I found. More attacks on Keith Ellison, indignation at a Toronto school which tried to accommodate a Muslim student who wanted to pray quietly in a corner of its library, and the unmitigated gall of the town of Farmington, Michigan, to sell an unused school to an Islamic cultural association. Truly disturbing stuff, indeed!

Elsewhere in the tweets were some on a Republican congressman (Wolf, R-VA) going after CAIR via the IRS, Judicial Watch going after CAIR, and disappointment that CAIR could sue a former intern who stole tens of thousands of documents for his Islamophobe father, Paul David Gaubatz.

There was also a speech by Geert Wilders at the Cornerstone Church in Nashville, part of his “Warning to America” event, which concluded with the words:

You and I, Americans and Europeans, we belong to a common Western culture. We share the ideas and ideals of our common Judeo-Christian heritage. In order to pass this heritage on to our children and grandchildren, we must stand together, side by side, in our struggle against Islamic barbarism. That, my friends, is why I am here. I am here to forge an alliance. Our international freedom alliance. We must stand together for the Judeo-Christian West. We will not allow islam to overrun Israel and Europe, the cradle of the judeo-Christian civilization.

Wow. Now I get it. Only Leni Riefenstahl was missing from the picture. Or was that Hermann Goering?

I mean, thank goodness I’m a Jew! It wasn’t that long ago that Nordic types like Wilders were saying the same thing about my people. Now with the cool kids expanded to “European Judeo-Christians” and not just Christians anymore, I could join a select club and kick around Muslims if I wanted to — rather than just being a Yid whose faith and culture was once characterized by Nazis exactly as Wilders paints Islam at churches and synagogues today.

I’d get with his program, but all I’d have to do is stop trying to be a mensch. That and the stench Wilder’s words would leave in my mouth.

Torgerson says Rep. Ellison doesn’t see the U.S. Constitution as ‘supreme’

By Paul Schmelzer

MSNBC’s The Ed Show on MSNBC turned its focus on Minnesota’s Fifth Congressional District race as candidate Lynne Torgerson spoke with Rev. Al Sharpton about incumbent Rep. Keith Ellison last night. The contentious back and forth centered on Torgerson’s claim that Ellison, a Muslim, doesn’t hold the U.S. Constitution “supreme” over Shariah law. Her beef: Ellison said the U.S. Constitution is the “bedrock” of American law, but didn’t say it was “supreme.”

Torgerson announced her candidacy last week on the Tea Party Nation website, where she called Ellison a “radical Islamist” who “fails to oppose banning Islamic Sharia law in the United States.”  Ellison responded, stating in an email to supporters that “Torgerson intends to run a campaign based on hate, division, and fear. Just like in 2010, we’re not going to let our opponent’s divisive rhetoric set the tone of this campaign.”

On The Ed Show, Sharpton asked Torgerson, “What evidence do you have that he’s not committed to the Constitution?”

Torgerson replied, stating that she’s “not anti-Muslim in any way, shape or form,” before going on to say, “Mr. Congressman Ellison has been long been associated with the most extremist groups around. He has close ties to CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic relations, which was a named co-conspirator to funding terrorism in the Holy Land Foundation trial—”

Sharpton interrupted her to again ask her whether she has evidence to back her claim that the congressman doesn’t hold the Constitution “supreme” or whether she’s “fearmongering and demagoguing to get votes.”

She says Ellison “refused” to answer the question, but Sharpton noted that in a clip played on the show and credited to Torgerson’s campaign Ellison answers it.

“I believe that the United States Constitution, which has been amended well over 25 times, is the bedrock of American law,” Ellison said in the clip. “This whole movement to ban Shariah — bills like this have been introduced in 22 states — in my view is a very thinly disguised effort at religious persecution of people that are Muslim.”

To that, Torgerson said, “Actually, what he said is the U.S. Constitution is the bedrock of American law. That does not answer the question of what should be supreme currently… Mr. Ellison actually evaded the question.”

Ellison’s office sent a statement to The Ed Show underscoring his stance and taking Torgerson to task for her “extreme” and “intolerant” rhetoric:

I took an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees freedom of religion for all Americans. Religious acceptance is a deeply rooted American value, and regardless of political persuasion, it’s a value we must protect.

It’s too bad that someone can obtain so much attention based on their intolerant rhetoric, especially when unemployment is above 9 percent. On the other hand,  the nation will be able to see how extreme the rhetoric has become. I call on all Americans to reject religious intolerance and embrace our constitution which upholds the promise of liberty and justice for all people.

One other question Sharpton asked: Since Ellison got 68 percent of the vote in 2010, compared to Torgerson’s nearly 4 percent, “Is 68 percent of your district radical Islamic sympathizers?”

“No sir, I wouldn’t say so,” she said. Asked why so many people voted for Ellison, she answered, “I don’t believe people yet know what his associations and his actual agenda is.”

Torgerson, who ran as an independent against Ellison in 2010, tells Roll Call that this time around she’ll be running as a Republican.

Here’s the exchange, via Chris Steller at Patch.com Fridley:

Woman weightlifter fights to compete in hijab

by Liz Goodwin

A 35-year-old weightlifter is battling to be able to compete in the sport she loves while wearing a hijab instead of the body-hugging uniform that’s required.

Kulsoom Abdullah, who was born in the United States to Pakistani parents, discovered weightlifting at her gym, Crossfit, in Atlanta in 2008. She entered her first open competition last year, and was thrilled to find out that she was actually pretty good in the competitive sport. She can lift 70 kilos (about 154 pounds) to her shoulders, and 60 kilos (or about 132 pounds) over her head, in a move called the “clean-and-jerk.” Last December, she qualified for the American Open Weightlifting Championships, which would have been her first national competition.

But when her coaches asked whether she would be able to wear her modified uniform–which covers everything but her face, hands, and feet–the organizers told told them no.

Abdullah talked to some lawyer friends, who told her that other athletes had won their bids to wear different clothing for religious reasons. So she tried again, this time personally writing to USA Weightlifting with her request, and asking the group if it could compromise on a uniform.

Officials with the group wrote back and said they had to follow the rules of the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF), which mandates collarless uniforms and doesn’t allow exceptions.

“I was really disappointed because I was really looking forward to it,” she told The Lookout. “I had never thought I would qualify at the national level.”

“It is like saying, if you are different, you can not compete,” she wrote on her web site. “I am not asking people to change, I am just asking to participate and be able to dress the way I do.”

Now, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim advocacy group, is taking up Abdullah’s cause, and trying to lobby weightlifting organizations to revise their rules in time for her to compete in a July national competition. CAIR officials are arguing that USA Weightlifting is in violation of the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act, which forbids sports bodies from discriminating based on “race, color, religion, sex, age, or national origin.” Not allowing Abdullah to wear her hijab is discrimination, CAIR maintains.

USA Weightlifting told The Lookout in a statement that “uniforms must not cover either the knees or the elbows because the judges must be able to see that the lifter has locked out his or her knees and elbows in order for the lift to be deemed completed.” The IWF will discuss Abdullah’s request at a June 26 meeting in Penang, Malaysia. United States Olympic Committee spokesman Mark Jones says the group is committed to being “inclusive” but that it’s up to the IWF to decide if the modified uniform would provide a “competitive advantage.”

While the weightlifting powers-that-be have decided against her for now, Abdullah says she never feels out of place when training six days a week or when in open competitions with other lifters.

“They’re very encouraging,” she says of her fellow weightlifters, who are mostly men. “They’re really nice people and they’re very welcoming.”

As female competitor, “you’re always going to feel a little different,” she said of the traditionally male-dominated sport.

She says her family, who she lives with, is also supportive. “I mean, it is different, so they were [hesitant] … but they said as long as you don’t get hurt that’s fine. Sometimes it’s a little bit scary for my mom but I think she’s used to it now.”

Abdullah has a PhD in electrical computer engineering from Georgia Tech, and still does research at the university. She said what she likes about lifting is ”there’s a lot of technique involved. Someone could be very strong and not be able to lift as much.”

Excelling at lifting “gave me confidence,” she said, adding that she hopes more women will join up if they hear about their story.

Abdullah’s problem is not unique in the world of sports. The Iranian woman’s soccer team showed up to a Olympic qualifying match against Jordan wearing hijabs on Sunday, and officials with the global soccer governing body, FIFA, promptly disqualified them. FIFA banned the headscarves in 2007, citing choking hazards.

This is what a standard weighlifting uniform looks like, as modeled by Mabel Mosquera at the 2004 Olympics:

Sheriff Lee Baca, a Republican,  made LoonWatch’s 2010 list of anti-Loons and is in one of the leaders for 2011. Here he is still doing a tremendous job.

In Muslim community, Baca wins support through conversation, not confrontation

The L.A. County sheriff, a Republican with a strong reputation as a crime fighter, believes in building trust within minority communities. He reads the Koran and shuns hard-line tactics.

By Robert Faturechi, Los Angeles Times

April 19, 2011

Reporting from New York— Three young women, all wearing delicate hijabs, are gathered outside a TriBeCa lecture hall in eager anticipation. It’s not an actor or a pop star they’re waiting for. The object of their giddiness is Sheriff Lee Baca, in town for just one night.

It might be unusual for a lawman anywhere to have fans, let alone one a continent away from his jurisdiction. But such is the life of Los Angeles County’s chief law enforcement officer since his outspoken support of American Muslims vaulted him into the national spotlight.

“I just want to meet you and thank you,” one young woman blurts out after catching Baca outside a recent speaking engagement on Muslim outreach. “You gave us a voice.”

In an only-Nixon-could-go-to-China kind of way, Baca, a former Marine reservist and registered Republican, has been largely immune to the innuendo that has caused other politicians to distance themselves from Muslims post 9/11. He has bucked the hard-line law enforcement approach of security checks and surveillance in favor of outreach and cooperation.

His law-and-order credentials have made him an irresistible ally for Muslim advocates, earning him shout-outs on national TV shows, including “The Colbert Report” and invitations to the halls of Congress. On more than one occasion he’s been the only law enforcement official willing to mix it up with Republican lawmakers on the issue.

In New York, where Baca preached the benefits of Muslim outreach on a panel about national security, the sheriff seemed energized by his warm reception. “Did you see those girls? Do they look like terrorists to you?” he said of the gaggle of young Muslim women who greeted him. “They’re not terrorists. I know my public.”

Reading the Koran

The events of 9/11 quickly took Baca in an unusual direction. When many politicians chose an arms-length approach to Muslims, Baca chose the Koran — literally. In the black sedan that ferried him from one engagement to another, he pored over the book, reading it from front to back, memorizing passages.

Within days of the terrorist attack, Baca met with local Muslim leaders, promising them protection. Responding to reports that Pakistani store owners were being hassled, Baca ordered his deputies “to go by the 7-Elevens and offer support.”

His empathy for a persecuted minority, he says, isn’t rooted in any sort of shared experience as a Mexican American but in an unusual childhood.

The son of a seamstress who had to care for three children on her own, Baca was sent as a boy to live with his pensioner grandparents in East L.A. His developmentally challenged uncle, then in his 30s, still lived at the home.

“He was a pound and a half at birth,” Baca said. “Couldn’t read, write, speak sentences. My uncle had no faculty, no capacity.”

With no household car, 7-year-old Leroy, his uncle and his grandmother traversed the city by bus. Those rides had a lasting effect.

“People would sneer at my uncle, laugh at him, make fun of him, and I believe that’s wrong,” Baca recalled. “We’re not bothering anyone. So how about just leaving us alone? Is that asking too much?”

His affinity for minority communities had political benefits. A long-shot candidate for sheriff in 1998, Baca got creative in his campaigning, tapping ethnic groups other candidates ignored.

“I had to have other bases of support outside the traditional realms,” he said. Among them were Iranians, Lebanese and other groups with large Muslim populations.

But his decision to intensify those ties post 9/11, he says, wasn’t political. Lapses on the federal level exposed by the attacks put a newfound pressure on local law enforcement. “All of our lives have been changed by 9/11,” Baca said. “We’re the ones who will get slammed if something falls through the cracks.”

Thousands of tips flooded law enforcement agencies after 9/11. Even leads that seemed silly had to be followed. “The one you don’t follow will end up being the one that matters,” Baca said. In one instance, a local group of Muslim men frequenting paintball facilities were investigated as potential terrorist snipers. They turned out to be “a buncha guys who just liked paintballing,” Baca said. “What are you gonna do? Ignore it?”

To pinpoint legitimate concerns, Baca needed his deputies inside Muslim communities. His focus on homegrown terror grew after the 2005 London Underground bombings, when four men, all living and working in England for years, killed 52.

“I realized we didn’t have a strategy for homegrown terrorism,” Baca said. “Cops are not gonna be invited into an extremist plot. That’s rule No. 1…. But if you get people to tell you something that’s troubling them, that’s the first sign of success.”

To build enough trust to be tipped off to extremist plots, Baca needed his deputies to become hyper-responsive to the Muslim community’s more routine crime concerns.

Less upfront tactics have at times backfired on other agencies. In Orange County, the FBI is still suffering from the fallout of a 2006 operation in which a paid informant posing as a Muslim convert infiltrated mosques.

The mole, equipped with a microphone keychain and a hidden camera, was outed soon after his talk of violent jihad became so extreme that one mosque was granted a restraining order. Many Muslims still point to the incident as proof that they’re too often treated by law enforcement as suspects, not partners.

Baca is reluctant to criticize the FBI, but his disdain for its style of covert intelligence gathering shows.

“I think they learned on their own what the plusses and minuses are. I believe terror plots are more sophisticated. I’m more of a chess player,” he said. “There are so few Muslim extremists in America. You can’t burn all the hay to find the needle, because the people are the hay.”

After initial struggles to make inroads, Baca’s Muslim community affairs unit, which staffs two deputies fulltime, has well-attended community exchanges and receives regular calls from Muslims with concerns that are terrorism-related and other issues. Baca’s personal involvement has softened up many of the community’s older, more reluctant leaders. The department employs about a dozen Muslim deputies and half that many Arabic speakers.

“They want to be able to say ‘I know the sheriff,’” said Sgt. Mike Abdeen, who leads the unit. “They like to go back to the community and say I know so and so, I’m a man of influence.”

Baca has been quick to accept their invitations — and fully participates when he does. At a Pakistan Day celebration, he wore traditional garb. With Iranians, he’ll throw in some Farsi; with Pakistanis, a bit of Urdu. He keeps a Koran in his office and another at home and is known to quote passages from memory. Inside mosques, he removes his shoes and during prayers, he joins in, going to his knees and pressing his forehead to the ground.

“He might not understand what he’s doing,” said Deputy Sherif Morsi, the other officer in the unit. “But the point is he’s letting people know ‘I’m your sheriff, I support you.’”

That commitment has taken Baca to more than a dozen Middle Eastern countries since 9/11. The tangible benefits of the trips aren’t always clear, but Baca maintains they give him a unique window into Muslim cultures and to counterterrorism where the fight’s the fiercest.

In Saudi Arabia, he watched hundreds of police recruits march as he and other officials sat in “very elegant seats as if we were heads of state.” Afterwards, they sat on rugs in police headquarters and feasted on a barbequed lamb. “They ripped out the choicest pieces of meat for us with their hands,” Baca raved.

In Egypt, he chatted with the national police chief about his “surgical” approach to beating back the Muslim Brotherhood on the Sinai Peninsula. In Pakistan, then-President Pervez Musharraf agreed to have Baca briefed on two assassination attempts. In one, Pakistani authorities used an Israeli cellphone scrambler to halt a remote bomb detonation. When Baca returned home, the Sheriff’s Department purchased its own.

“I met the police chief of Mecca and I understand who he is. I’m on the street, you don’t learn these things in your office,” Baca said.

Baca’s effort has not been without criticism.

Far right-wing websites have derisively described Baca as an “international” lawman, and a “Hamas-affiliated CAIR” sheriff, referring to the Council on American Islamic Relations, a Muslim group Baca defends. Last year, the innuendo followed Baca to Washington, D.C. One congressman seemed to surprise the sheriff by accusing him at a hearing of cozying up to CAIR despite the group’s “radical” speech. “You’ve been 10 times to [its] fundraisers,” the congressman said.

“And I’ll be there 10 more times,” Baca shouted back.

CAIR is generally considered a moderate, if aggressive, Muslim civil rights group. Attacks against it haven’t dissuaded Baca. Hussam Ayloush, director of CAIR’s regional branch, said Baca is one of the few public officials who have asked for his organization’s side of the story.

“Most politicians I’ve worked with would have avoided the headache. It’s not about the truth, it’s about perception, and they don’t want to touch it,” Ayloush said.

Naive? That’s OK

On a recent evening, Baca strolled along a seedy street in Manhattan’s Chinatown. It was his second East Coast trip in as many weeks, both times to speak on Muslim outreach.

Street vendors, unaware that the stick-thin man before them was a major law enforcement figure, tried one after another to sell him knock-off purses and wallets. “How are you?” Baca greeted them, smiling wide.

Pulling in close as if to share a secret, Baca said he knew his post-9/11 stance has been attacked. Even among friends he’s been warned of being naive. He’s OK with it.

“I’m not endorsing Muslim groups. I’m defending them. ‘Oh he’s a Muslim lover, he’s a Jew lover.’ I don’t pay attention to bigots.

“I know I’m a little naive. I know I am overly trusting. That’s who I choose to be. If you’re uncomfortable with others, you’re not in a position to lead. I’ve created somewhat of a palace in my mind because, if you don’t, this world is your prison…. I can take the attacks. Attack me! Am I going to change who I am? No. Because it works.”

robert.faturechi@latimes.com

Contrary to the “testimony” of one witness at the Peter King Hearings and Islamophobes who continuously bash Muslims and the Somali community as uncooperative, FBI director Mueller states that they have been “very cooperative.”

Mueller said members of the Minnesota Somali-American community have been “very cooperative” with the FBI in its efforts to root out terrorism.

He also said that we have a “very good relationship” with the Muslim community. That’s interesting isn’t it? Especially considering that the FBI is being sued by the ACLU and CAIR for its entrapment and agent provocateur methods.

Read more at MainJustice.

House Republican: Hypothetically, Let’s Say CAIR Is A Terrorist Organization … (VIDEO)

Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-MN) continued on the theme that Reps. Peter King (R-NY) Frank Wolf (R-VA) started on earlier today at King’s hearings on the “Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and that Community’s Response” by attacking the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

But Cravaack upped the rhetorical ante a bit, referring to CAIR as “basically… a terrorist organization” and asking Los Angeles County Sheriff Leroy Baca — hypothetically — if he would continue to work with CAIR if he “knew that CAIR was a terrorist organization sponsored by Hamas.”

“Let me answer this way,” Baca said in response to the accusations, “if the FBI has something to charge CAIR with, bring those charges forward and try them in court and deal with it that way.”

“There is a reality that in my culture as a police officer that you have facts and you have a crime, deal with it,” said Baca, who was called as a witness by Democrats on the committee.

“We don’t play around with criminals in my world,” Baca said. “If CAIR is an organization that’s a, quote, ‘criminal organization,’ prosecute them, hold them accountable, and bring them to trial.”

Originally posted at Spencerwatch

(hat tip: As’ad)

Christina Abraham, a Civil Rights attorney and Director at CAIR-Chicago was on the Eric Bolling hosted Fox Business News show Follow the Money (which is like Fox 2.0, I didn’t know rednecks cared all that much about business?) debating professional anti-Freedom, anti-Muslim bigot Robert Spencer. She essentially tore him a new *you know what* and also mentioned LoonWatch and Spencerwatch!

Before we get to the debate I want to mention that Eric Bolling’s show is not only a right-wing propaganda show, not only is it a circus but it is also racist. The previous night Abraham was on the show debating Frank Gaffney, before she came on Bolling spoke with Zuhdi Jasser about the Peter King Hearings. The intro into the discussion displayed these words on the bottom of the screen, “The New Arab Threat.” If that weren’t bad enough Bolling also said,

“Don’t we have the right to protect ourselves from the Arabs among us who want to do us harm?”

Freudian slip anyone, or was it pre-meditated?

I haven’t been able to find video online of the screen display anymore but you can clearly hear what Bolling says (@ 0.58 seconds) in the video below,

The above debate is well worth the watch as Abraham makes short work of the libelous charges that Gaffney attempts to bring up to “deflect” from the actual debate on the so-called “Radicalization of Muslim American Hearings.”

The debate with Spencer was interesting. It exposed Spencer’s M.O. of innuendo, citation of spurious sources, resort to conspiracy theory and his hypocritical double standards when facing an opponent who is not a push over.

Bolling attempted to accuse Abraham of urging Muslims not to cooperate with the FBI by showing a video in which Abraham warns the community of FBI “fishing expeditions” (a well documented fact) and urges them to exercise their right to an attorney anytime they speak with law enforcement.

This is clear propaganda from Bolling, attempting to take what is a legal Constitutional Right and throw it out the window when it comes to Muslims. It seems Bolling does not know that everyone, including Muslims have a right to an attorney. Rep. Loretta Sanchez challenged this exact Right-wing talking point during the hearings when she questioned Zuhdi “native informant” Jasser,

“The right to have an attorney present when speaking to law enforcement is a specific principle of American civil liberty,” Ms. Sanchez said sharply, adding, “So by what legal principle do you assert that any minority in America should waive that American principle?”

Spencer jumped in and rambled for a good while with non-sequiturs about CAIR, saying it wants “Islamic governance” and is a “subversive organization,” etc. Abraham corrected him and told him that what he was saying was “not the truth,” and that he was only “spreading misinformation and lies.” Spencer seemed a little flustered by this and went onto try to accuse Abraham of victimizing him and not letting him speak.

When Abraham’s turn came to respond to Spencer, he immediately began interrupting her. I believe that is the definition of Chutzpah. He accuses her of interrupting him and then goes on to interrupt her during the complete amount of time she is responding to him. Luckily enough Abraham still puts Spencer in his place, drilling him with facts and also pointing out (@8:18):

“It is no surprise to me Mr. Spencer that a person like you who has websites such as Loonwatch.com and Spencerwatch.com, that are devoted to talking about the crazy things that you say would come around and criticize people for educating their community about their Civil Rights and Constitutional Rights, it’s people like you who are un-American because you advocate for criminalizing an entire group of people and organization without giving them due process.”

Can you say “slammed?”

Bolling then strangely showed a PSA from Iraq that is part of a campaign against the prevalent phenomena of “suicide bombing” there. Last I checked there aren’t many of those in the USA. However, Spencer attempted to use this as an opportunity to go after American Muslims and to use discredited reports from anti-Muslims, neo-Cons and White supremacists to further the conspiracy theory that “85% of Mosques are run by radicals.”

He cites Mapping Sharia, a project undertaken by the racist organization SANE (Society of Americans for National Existence) and David Gaubatz. Good going Spencer.

Toward the end Abraham quoted Spencer saying, “there is no distinction in the American Muslim community between peaceful Muslims and Jihadists” and rightly described the statement as one made by an “insane person.”

On his site, Spencer licked his wounds and attempted to declare victory:

Pamela Geller and I were on Fox Business’s “Follow the Money” tonight, discussing the Peter King hearings. First I “debated” a spokesperson for Hamas-linked CAIR, Christina Abraham, who was following Muhammad’s “war is deceit” principle, and then Pamela appeared on Bolling’s panel refuting politically correct falsehoods. She comments on the proceedings here.

“War is deceit” principle? Conspiracy-much? Pamela’s take on it might give us a clue as to what Spencer means:

You’ll enjoy this. Robert Spencer and I were on Eric Bolling’s show on Fox Business. This is the first time we have appeared together on the same show. Very cool. Un-indicted co-conspirator, Hamas-linked CAIR joined also and “debated” Spencer, if you can call lies, deceit and ad hominem attacks a “debate.” As CAIR tried out another spokesperson, this one was a beaut. Literally. Nihad Awad was so creepy they had to find a better face. Ibrahim Hooper must have been tending his bees. They once trotted out a very American, vanilla-type convert, Corey Saylor, Director of Government Affairs for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, but methinks he wasn’t vicious enough for the wolf pack.

Today’s CAIR spokersperson was a doozy. Going by the name “Christina Abraham” (got that? looks like she’s got the Christians and the Jews covered with that name), an uncovered Western-looking woman unleashed her fury on Robert. Apparently she is a devout Muslim, because in undercover footage of her urging Muslims not to co-coperate with law enforcement, she is in full Muslim garb. Muhammad said, “war is deceit.” Indeed. Watch the video — there is nothing she doesn’t twist or lie about. She tried one lie after another. She denied this, too. Kudos to Spencer for not standing down.

I follow on the panel to debunk the lies and discuss the King hearings.

Geller seems much enamored by Christina Abraham who she terms “a beaut,” perhaps seeing someone not botox-filled brings on envy or something? Supposedly, Abraham was in “war is deceit” mode and only took off the hijab for this encounter so as to appear more…American? That is the ridiculous import of what Geller intends to say. Does she not consider that Abraham has a mind of her own? Or that may be she was at a mosque speaking to Muslims, kinda like when Hillary Clinton or Laura Bush would don hijabs while entering mosques?

Oh well, nuance and facts aren’t Geller’s or Spencer’s strongest points but bigotry and hate still are.

We have done our fair share of coverage of the loony House representative from Florida, Allen West, but this guy is just amazing sometimes in the nonsense he spits out. West has made some seriously Islamophobic remarks in the past, arguing in point blank statements that Islam is not a religion, but an ideology:

“We already have a 5th column that is already infiltrating into our colleges, into our universities, into our high schools, into our religious aspect, our cultural aspect, our financial, our political systems in this country. And that enemy represents something called Islam and Islam is a totalitarian theocratic political ideology, it is not a religion. It has not been a religion since 622 AD, and we need to have individuals that stand up and say that.”

So said West back then, in the company of other right-wing loons, that “Islam is a totalitarian theocratic political ideology, it is not a religion.” It seems pretty clear to anyone with half a brain that he was not trying to say “radical Islam” is wrong, or that he is against “extremist” versions of Islam, or “Islamism” or anything else. He makes it very clear in that speech he is against Islam, period. He also makes it clear that he does not think Islam is a religion.

In early February 2011, West was contacted by religious leaders who became aware of West’s rhetoric against Rep. Keith Ellison, one of two Muslim Congressmen in the House of Representatives. West said that Ellison represented “the antithesis of the principles upon which this country was established”:

Several religious leaders told South Florida Congressman Allen West on Wednesday they have “deep concern” over his recent comments about a Muslim colleague in Congress and about “your tendency to offer intemperate comments about Islam.”

In contrast to the blunt comments about Islam he made during the right-wing program mentioned above, West changed his tune:

“It is the extremist, radical element that has hijacked Islam that presents a dangerous threat to both our country and our allies throughout the world,” West said in a return letter. “This radical jihadist movement has no place in the United States of America or anywhere on earth.”

So now it was the “extremist, radical element” that had “hijacked Islam” that West was concerned about. I would like to offer a more cogent and intellectual analysis of West’s statements, but let’s be real here folks. It isn’t required. He is changing his tune because he does not want to appear to be the bigot that he clearly is. West was speaking from his heart to his like minded loons last year at that right-wing program where he said that “Islam is a totalitarian theocratic political ideology.” But when respected religious leaders contacted him after his verbal attack on Rep. Ellison, West backtracked to save face. West, it could be argued, is practicing the definition of “taqiyya” that so many anti-Muslim loons claim that Muslims practice. West is hiding his true beliefs about Islam from civil society because he knows it can only serve to make him look like a bigot. Meanwhile, the Congressman ramps up the anti-Islam rhetoric once he’s in front of his fellow Muslim-bashing compatriots.

However, West’s true face was shown once again when he felt pushed into a corner about his views on Islam. On Monday, Feb. 21, West got into a heated exchange with the director of CAIR Florida, Nezar Hamze. Hamze had the audacity to question West’s knowledge about Islam. How dare he! It’s quite obvious that someone of West’s stature, being a Congressman and all, would have the requisite knowledge to speak about Islamic theology and history. I mean, don’t most U.S. Congressmen and Congresswomen know a whole lot about Islamic theology and history? Isn’t that why they are elected to Congress – because they know a lot about Islam?

Well, of course not. But, Hamze stood before the bigoted Congressman and asked West to point out where in the Qur’an it says to attack Americans or innocent people. This gave West the opportunity to show how prolific his knowledge of Islamic history was (and how big of a wise guy he is). West told the lowly Muslim that of course there’s no mention of attacking Americans in the Qur’an because America was not even around when the Qur’an was written.

Duh, you stupid Muslim!

West then made mention of certain battles in early Islamic history. LoonWatch is currently working on a lengthy response to West’s dubious claims, one that he and other Islamophobes constantly refer to in order to argue that Islam is violent. Stay tuned for that response – it will be posted soon. However, make no mistake that West’s alleged understanding of Islamic law and history is way off base, as is his understanding of the Muslim American community today.

In response to the question Hamze asked, West alleged that Maj. Nidal Hasan shouted “Allahu Akbar” when he killed those innocent people at Fort Hood and that the 9-11 hijackers also yelled “Allahu Akbar” when they flew planes into the Twin Towers, as if to show that these people represent Islam. Of course, West is attempting to link all Muslims to what Nidal Hasan and the 9-11 terrorists did through the use of common Islamic terms. Just because some extremists shouted out a religious term when committing acts of violence against innocent people does not mean that others who also use those religious terms share in the guilt of those atrocities or that Islam somehow would condone these actions because these murderers attempted to “Islamicize” these heinous actions. West is treading on a slippery slope. One that will make him fall on his face. Which brings us to his final statement at the town hall event that fateful evening.

Hamze told West that he was ashamed that West was attacking his religion, whereupon West burst out and yelled “You attacked us! You attacked us!”

Wow.

This is a United States Congressman? This is not only an absurd statement to make, because for one Hamze obviously had nothing to do with the 9-11 attacks, but two, West is essentially laying guilt for 9-11 on every single Muslim American. By saying “You attacked us,” West is telling us what he truly believes. That Muslim Americans, like Nezar Hamze, are co-conspirators in the 9-11 attacks. That Muslim Americans are guilty people (sounds like West is applying Robert Spencer’s definition of dhimmi on Muslim Americans).

And you know what that means. It means West’s followers will associate every Muslim living in America with terrorism and make them worthy of ridicule, contempt, distrust, and then eventually this type of thinking will lead to violence against innocent Muslims in America. You can already see the type of vitriol that is being practiced against Muslim Americans when viewing the anti-Muslim protest in Orange County, CA.

This is disgusting behavior on the part of a U.S. Congressman. West is not clever. He’s not smart. He doesn’t know squat about Islam or Islamic history. He’s the worst of what America has to offer. He is a disgrace to his constituents and a danger to law-abiding Muslim Americans who simply want to live a normal life in America. He is simply an un-American fake tough guy who loses his temper when questioned about things he knows nothing about. The fact that this jerk is a U.S. Congressman speaks volumes about the state of Islamophobia in America today. He’s also clearly practicing “taqiyya” by saying one thing to his right-wing constituents about Islam and then saying another thing to religious leadership in order to hide his bigoted views of Islam and Muslims. But never fear, Loon Watch is here – to expose loony frauds like Allen West and put them in their rightful place of shame.

Will it be illegal to be a Muslim in Tennessee soon?

American-Islamic group, others to ask TN lawmakers to drop anti-Shariah bill

(The Tennessean)

The Council on American-Islamic Relations will hold a media conference at noon Tuesday at the Tennessee Capitol, with support from the American Civil Liberties Union, the Interfaith Alliance and the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition.

Representatives will ask lawmakers to drop an anti-Shariah bill that would criminalize the support of that Islamic code.

The bills supporters are calling it an anti-terrorist measure that protects the constitution, but Muslims say Shariah a set of rules for living, like the Catholic canon or Jewish religious law, not anything that conflicts with the state for U.S. constitutions.

“This clearly unconstitutional and un-American legislation would make it illegal to be a Muslim in the state of Tennessee,” CAIR staff attorney Gadeir Abbas said in a media release this morning.

“Consideration of this legislation, which completely disregards equality before the law, would send the unfortunate message that Tennessee is an intolerant state.”

One commenter summed it up best, FBI means “Famous but Incompetent.”

Suit Claims FBI Told Mosque Informant To Get Dirt On Sex Lives, Drug Use Of Worshipers

(TPMuckracker)

The FBI allegedly told an informant who infiltrated a California mosque to dig up dirt on the immigration status, sexual activities, business problems and drug use of members of the community. A discrimination lawsuit filed against the Bureau this week charges that they hoped to use the information to convince those members to become FBI informants.

Craig Monteilh, whose aggressive tactics as an informant in 2006 led worshipers at the Islamic Center of Irvine to file a restraining order against him, is now cooperating with the plaintiffs in a lawsuit that accuses FBI agents of violating the constitutional rights of hundreds of Muslims.

The lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) on behalf of three Muslim plaintiffs, claims that the FBI violated the constitutional rights of Muslims by targeting them indiscriminately because of their religion. It requests unspecified damages and a court order to return or destroy all the information that Monteilh gathered.

“The trust within the community has been broken,” Ameena Mirza Qazi, a lawyer from CAIR representing the plaintiffs told TPM in an interview. “The community feels under psychological siege at this time.”

Qazi said she hoped the lawsuit would shine a spotlight on how the FBI spies on the Muslim community. “The overall scenario is not unique to Southern California,” she said. ‘What is unique is that in this case we have confirmation of what went on, because of the informant.”

“We want a court to say that it’s wrong to target a community because of religious affiliation when there is no link to criminal activity,” she said.

The lawsuit says FBI Special Agent Kevin Armstrong and FBI Special Agent Paul Allen of talked with Monteilh about obtaining dirt on members of the Muslim community — “immigration issues, sexual activity, business problems, or crimes like drug use” — that could be used to convince them to become informants.

“Agents Armstrong and Allen instructed Monteilh to pay attention to people’s problems, to talk about and record them, including marital problems, business problems, and petty criminal issue,” the suit says.

“Agents Armstrong and Allen on several occasions talked about different individuals that they believed might be susceptible to rumors about their sexual orientation, so that they could be persuaded to become informants through the threat of such rumors being started,” the lawsuit claims.

Monteilth also “attended religion classes given in Arabic even when he did not speak Arabic, and questioned 17 and 18 year olds about religious doctrine and politics,” according to the suit.

One of the plaintiffs in the suit is a well-known Imam in the area; the other two are worshippers who were tasked with teaching Monteilh about the Islam faith.

An ex-con, Monteilh began working for the FBI in 2003. In 2006, he was asked to infiltrate the popular Islamic Center of Irvine, where he started attended prayers five times a day and donning an Islamic robe.

In May 2007, Monteilh recorded a conversation in a car with two worshipers, in which Monteilh suggested blowing up buildings. In the tape, one man agrees with Monteilh. But a few days after the conversation, the two worshipers contacted the Los Angeles chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and reported Monteilh as a potential terrorist. Other worshippers told mosque leaders that they were scared of Monteilh and felt as though he was trying to entrap them. In June 2007, the mosque obtained a restraining order against the informant.

His relationship with the FBI deteriorated shortly afterwards and, after threatening to go public, Monteilh says he signed a non-disclosure agreement in exchange for $25,000. In December 2007, Monteilh was arrested on a grand-theft charge and went to jail for 16 months.

Schlussel's Gained a few pounds

Update on the eccentric has-been’s trademark infringement trial.

Blogger Schlussel renames organization after CAIR lawsuit

By DAVID ASHENFELTER
Free Press Staff Writer

The Council on American-Islamic Relations has won a partial victory in its trademark infringement lawsuit against lawyer and conservative blogger Debbie Schlussel.

During the weekend, Schlussel renamed the identically named organization she created last year to Council of American-Israel Relations to head off a legal battle with CAIR, the nation’s largest Islamic civil rights group.

Because of that, U.S. District Judge Avern Cohn declined Monday to formally order Schlussel to stop using CAIR’s full name. He also refused to prevent her from using CAIR’s acronym in Internet domain names she created.

He said he would review that issue in the coming weeks if CAIR pursues it.

“We largely got what we wanted,” CAIR attorney Gadeir Abbas said after the hearing in federal court in Detroit. He said he would file court papers within 10 days in hopes of stopping Schlussel from using CAIR in her Internet domain names.

Schlussel’s lawyer also claimed victory.

“They didn’t get anything they wanted,” said attorney Andrew Kochanowski. “They wanted a restraining order and they didn’t get it.”

CAIR sued Schlussel last week, saying she stole the group’s name and trademark last year by creating identically named organizations in Michigan.

It accused her of using the name to cause confusion among CAIR supporters and to siphon off its charitable donations.

Schlussel countered that CAIR gave up its right to the name by failing since 2001 to file legally required reports with the State of Michigan.

Schlussel told one of her Web site followers that she registered CAIR’s name and named herself executive director “to drive the Muslims crazy.”

CAIR says Schlussel spews anti-Islamic hatred on her Web site, www.debbieschlussel.com . She says she exposes the intolerance of Islam and how it infringes on the American way of life.

Contact David Ashenfelter: dashenfelter@freepress.com

Once on the opinion scene, Debbie Schlussel has spat and snorted her way into irrelevance. No one really cares about her over-the-top rantings anymore. Today, she’s widely seen as an irrelevant foul-mouthed hatemonger who thinks that she’s important just because she was on FOX a couple of times. Desperate for attention, Schlussel has become increasingly erratic and extreme hoping to shock her way into the realm of public attention. But like a flasher lurking in an overall at dark corners of the park, when she strikes, it’s only cause for more people to be turned off. So much for “shock” therapy.

Recently, she posted a diatribe applauding a terror attack against innocent Christian victims at an Alexandria church, saying she’s happy they were killed and that she hopes more of them get blown up. The reason for her raving mad commentary? That they are not pro-Israel enough for her liking.

Schlussel’s hatred and bitterness seems to be mostly driven by her personal inadequacies and insecurities. Jealous of Oprah’s success, the unsuccessful Schlussel routinely refers to her as HO-prah; jealous of Rima Fakih’s charm (Miss USA), the not-so-charming Schlussel refers to her as “Hezbollah’s Sharmuta” (whore), Elizabeth Hasselbeck gets called “hag,” and Kentucky Fried Chicken can’t escape her wrath getting labeled “Kentucky Fried Sleaze.” Even her old pal and now a frequent target of her ire, Pamela Geller is called Scamela Geller (not without merit in this case at least).

Recently, Schlussel’s actions have become more eccentric (bordering on delirium);

CAIR sues Debbie Schlussel over name

(Detroit Free Press)

The Council on American-Islamic Relations has sued controversial Southfield lawyer Debbie Schlussel in federal court for trademark infringement, saying Schlussel incorporated several similarly-named groups to confuse its donors.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday, urges U.S. District Judge Avern Cohn, to stop her from using the names she incorporated.

“There are people in our community who contacted our office thinking she actually was named executive director of CAIR Michigan,” the group’s executive director, Dawud Walid, said today. He said he fears supporters of his group are making charitable contributions to Schlussel, believing she runs the real CAIR organization.

Schlussel countered that CAIR abandoned its name in Michigan by failing to file annual reports to the state of Michigan beginning in 2004. She said she filed articles of incorporation last year, at the behest of a client who she wouldn’t identify.

“They abandoned it,” Schlussel said. “The state of Michigan sent them notices, but they never once responded.”

Walid says Schlussel spews anti-Muslim hatred on her website. Schlussel counters that she seeks to point out the intolerance of Islam.

A hearing on the case is set for 9 a.m. Friday.

Schlussel’s blog piece on her latest lunatic move is a laughable cry of victimization, faux claim at free speech and most reprehensible of all asking for money to support it.

Schlussel Appointed Executive Director of CAIR Michigan; How You Can Help Our Efforts (to Expose Islam)

I have some important information to share with you. I was recently appointed the Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations Michigan a/k/a CAIR Michigan, Inc. CAIR Michigan is and will continue to be educating residents of Michigan–through various activities, in the courts, in the media, and everywhere you can imagine–about Islam and the true state of “American-Islamic relations.”  Check out our website, which is in development.  (Thanks to Fred Taub of Boycott Watch for his help in that endeavor.)  We have a lot of projects in store, in terms of educating the public about Islam in America and elsewhere.  We will be mixing things up.  We are applying for tax-deductible status and are in the process of filing all of the official paperwork to raise money as a non-profit.

Until that process is complete, you can help me in this and my other endeavors in exposing the real Islam and stopping it from further changing the American way of life by donating to these efforts.  Donating even just $5-$20/month can really add up to significant support in the ongoing operation and expansion of these activities. You can either use the yellow Paypal buttons on the upper left hand side of the site, or you can prevent the PayPal fees by going to PayPal and sending it directly to: writedebbie@gmail.com.  Any amount is appreciated, and we can really use your help to make a bang as the new year approaches.

My first official act as CAIR-Michigan Executive Director was the letter below to the Michigan Attorney General’s office in opposition to a federal appellate lawsuit filed by an imposter group of Muslims using our name to fight a Michigan judge who asked a woman, Raneen Al-Baghdady–to remove her Muslim headscarf in court. And a few weeks ago, the appeal lost. The judge was upheld in asking the woman to remove her Muslim headscarf.

Can it get any more creepy and pathetic than that?

Dawud Walid, the Executive Director of the real “CAIR-Michigan” has an excellent blog piece on this farce as well as some hilarious broadsides at the comedic and goofy character of Debbie Schlussel:

Schlussel makes classic ‘straw man’ argument today

For years, the Muslim community, its leaders including myself and the organization which I lead have been subjected to fallacious allegations, distortions and smears from “xenophobic loon” Deborah (Debbie) K. Schlussel. Despite her incessantly bigoted blogging, we have virtually ignored this “know-nothing nut”, and I haven’t really blogged about her over the years because she is frankly an irrelevant, fringe in my book.  In other words, she’s simply been a Class A, minor league annoyance unlike major league Islamophobes that can cause serious harm to civil liberties.

In regards to the current complaint that has been made against Schlussel for her commandeering the name Council on American-Islamic Relations – Michigan, she is trying to frame her bogus argument that the legal complaint against her is to silence her freedom to criticize Muslims.  This, however, is a classic straw man argument.  Our complaint against her, though it mentions that she is an anti-Muslim blogger in showing her motive, focuses on her attempt to represent herself as the director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in the state of Michigan, an organization devoted to protecting the civil rights of Muslims and challenging Islamophobia.  This is the issue at hand, not her bigotry.

If Schlussel wishes to state that President Obama is an uncover Muslim who can’t be trusted, let her do so.  If she chooses to continue to mislabel Dearborn as “Dearbonistan” (Arabs, by the way, don’t use “stan” behind their lands; those are Central Asians  ), she is free to do so.  If she even chooses to state that Christian Arabs such as Coptics deserve to be bombed because of their “anti-Semitism” (Arabs are Semites too by the way  ), she can also say such.

It appears in this situation that her disdain for Muslims caused her to make some crucial lapses in her attempt to “drive the Muslims crazy.” (To DS: We have the entire blog saved, so no need in trying to erase the post now.  :))  And like any organization or business with a trademark and name recognition which has offices or stores in other regions, we signed an affiliation agreement to use the trademark with our national office kind of like how franchisees sign a contract with Burger King for instance with its corporate office to use the name Burger King.  Burger King would never allow its trademark to be used by a store that is strictly vegetarian and against selling hamburgers in America, nor would a civil rights organization such as CAIR allow an anti-Muslim, anti-Arab bigot to use its name in any state, be it Alaska, Colorado or Michigan.  Even my 9 year old son grasps this simple logic.

Anyway, I have bigger fish to fry for now.  I have talks to give at area mosques today and tomorrow as well as have official business with government officials to conduct.  This will all work itself out in court.

Cut & paste below to view complaint filed against Schlussel:

http://www.4shared.com/document/4Ls80IjM/Final_Filing.html

Update: The website for Schlussel’s “CAIR-Michigan” no longer stands for “Council on American Islamic Relations” if you visit it now it reads “Council on American Israeli Relations.” A fitting description perhaps. Maybe Schlussel started feeling the heat?

AlJazeera News has begun to air for one hour on KPFT, a prominent Texas Radio Station. It has received threats and hate mail since.

Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange has strongly stated that the so called “anti-Sharia” measure is an affront to the Constitution. A sad day for fear-mongerers like Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller and others who wished to foster hate of Muslims. Special shame on the politicians who attempted to ride the wave of Islam-bashing to populist success.

Judge rules in favor of Muslim man on State Question 755; Injunction filed

BY NOLAN CLAY

A federal judge today issued a preliminary injunction that keeps a restriction against Islamic Sharia law out of the Oklahoma Constitution for now.

In a 15-page order, U.S. District Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange ruled in favor of an Oklahoma City Muslim who complained the new constitutional amendment would violate his religious freedom.

Oklahomans on Nov. 2 approved the amendment — in State Question 755 — with more than 70 percent of the vote. The amendment forbids state courts from using or considering international law or Islamic Sharia law in making decisions.

Muneer Awad, 27, quickly challenged the amendment, saying it demonizes his faith. Awad is executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Oklahoma.

The judge on Nov. 8 agreed to a temporary restraining order barring the state Election Board from certifying the SQ 755 results. Her order today means the Election Board is barred indefinitely from certifying the results.

In today’s order, the judge wrote that Awad “has made a strong showing that State Question 755′s amendment’s primary effect inhibits religion and that the amendment fosters an excessive government entanglement with religion.”

The judge also wrote: “This order addresses issues that go to the very foundation of our country, our (U.S.) Constitution, and particularly, the Bill of Rights. Throughout the course of our country’s history, the will of the ‘majority’ has on occasion conflicted with the constitutional rights of individuals, an occurrence which our founders foresaw and provided for through the Bill of Rights.”

Read more: http://newsok.com/judge-rules-in-favor-of-muslim-man-on-state-question-755-injunction-filed/article/3519080#ixzz16hxM0T35

Make sure to read my article on Spencerwatch showing more of Robert Spencer’s “scholarly techniques.”

“Scholar” Robert Spencer seemed to be shocked that any sort of violence would be the end result of his constant barrage that Islam is associated with violence and terror. In a recent post, Spencer claims:

There was just one problem with all this: the attacker was a Leftist employee of an organization that has gone on record as favoring the mosque. So whatever may have been his motivation in attacking this cab driver, one thing that almost certainly wasn’t motivating him was rage over the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero.

And even if he were motivated by rage against the mosque, what would that have to do with us? Absolutely nothing. We are working on peaceful protests against the mosque, and trying to raise awareness among the American people about who is behind this effort and what its significance is. We have never advocated or condoned any violence or vigilantism — unlike the mosque’s own leader Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who refuses to condemn the bloodthirsty jihad terror group Hamas. We are not responsible by any conceivable stretch of the imagination for everything any given opponent of the mosque does.

Robert Spencer claims he has never “advocated or condoned any violence or vigilantism.” Yet, he promoted a genocidal video on his website, produced by a group responsible for ethnic violence against Muslims. He has also supported the call for the annihilation of Pakistan. In addition, Spencer wrote in his book on p.224:

The situation in Europe has grown quite grave, and something must be done. It may be that the world needs a new Crusade, though of a kind different from those led by Richard the Lionhearted and Godfrey of Bouillon. We have seen in this book that the Crusades were primarily an act of defense against the encroachment of Islam. In that sense a new Crusade is not only possible but desirable.

You remember the Crusades: where Raymond d’Aguiliers wrote:

Piles of heads, hands, and feet were to be seen in the streets of the city. It was necessary to pick one’s way over the bodies of men and horses. But these were small matters compared to what happened at the Temple of Solomon, a place where religious services are ordinarily chanted. What happened there? If I tell the truth, it will exceed your powers of belief. So let it suffice to say this much, at least, that in the Temple and porch of Solomon, men rode in blood up to their knees and bridle reins. Indeed, it was a just and splendid judgment of God that this place should be filled with the blood of the unbelievers, since it had suffered so long from their blasphemies.

And all the while, Spencer has constantly asserted that Islam and Muslims are all about “jihad,” war, terror, and violence. And anyone who says otherwise is lying to you. Look at what he said to Mark Jacobson:

“Muslims are the first immigrant group that has ever come to this country with a ready-made model of society and government they believe to be superior to what we have here,” Spencer told me. The thinking was clear to anyone who took the trouble to study the plan, the blogger and author of Stealth Jihad contended. “Muhammad said, ‘When you meet the unbelievers, invite them to accept Islam; if they refuse, offer them the dhimma—second-class status—and, if they refuse that, go to war with them.’ That’s it. Conversion, subjugation, or war. Three steps. Conversion, subjugation, or war … That’s what Muhammad said. And in chapter 33, verse 21 of the Koran, it says Muhammad is the excellent example for the Muslim, you ask any Muslim and they’ll tell you that: That is nonnegotiable, what Muhammad said goes, and that’s not some hijacker extremist Islam, that’s mainstream … This is how it is, you don’t need a bomb. I don’t think Feisal is ever going to blow anything up, because that’s not his game; his game is a societal, cultural penetration … ”

Notice that he lumps all Muslims together. No nuance; no qualification; no recognition of the reality of the world. No. “Muslims” in general. And if you keep saying things like this over, and over, and over, and over – like Spencer does – then eventually someone is going to put 1 and 1 together.

That is exactly what 21-year-old Michael Enright did. He took matters into his own hands. Read this:

On late August 24th he hailed Sharif’s cab. Enright greeted Sharif with “Assalamu Alaikum.” A flattered Sharif responded. Enright asked Sharif how his Ramadan was going, and a compliant Sharif explained it was going well. Enright then gave Sharif a hint of what was coming by proceeding to ridicule Sharif’s faith.

At the end of the ride, before stepping out of the cab, Enright then left Sharif a little piece of “freedom fighting:”

“This is the checkpoint motherfucker” and “I have to bring you down motherfucker,” shouted Enright. The New York Times reports that Enright then “withdrew a Leatherman knife and reaching through the opening in the plastic divider, slashed Mr. Sharif’s throat. When Mr. Sharif turned, he said, Mr. Enright stabbed him in his face, on his arm and on his thumbs.” Mr. Sharif pleaded: “I beg of you, don’t kill me. I worked so hard, I have a family.”

Now, of course, Mr. Enright did not say, “Robert Spencer made me do it,” and so Spencer can innocently deny that he has anything to do with this and another acts of anti-Muslim violence. Yet it interesting that Robert Spencer doesn’t distance Islam as he distances himself from anti-Muslim violence. He continually searches for bad news about Muslims and then ties it to all of Islam, using his “cut and paste scholarship” to do it. Yet, he is shocked to find that people will logically link anti-Muslim violence to his rhetoric. Are you kidding, Mr. Spencer?

What’s worse, he seems to suggest that the attack on the Muslim cabbie was somehow “made up”:

Was this attack on a Muslim cab driver in New York yet another faked hate crime designed to tar opponents of Islamic supremacism as bigoted people who are fomenting hate? It cannot be ruled out. I hope that New York investigators are honest enough and brave enough to say so if that turns out to be the case.

Are you kidding, Mr. Spencer? So, this whole attack was a fabrication? The Muslim cabbie and Michael Enright got together and conspired to fake this attack? Including the numerous injuries to his neck, fingers, throat, and shoulder? His pleas to the attacker to spare his life a sham? Was this also “taqiyya”?

How low can Robert Spencer stoop?

Zahra Billoo, program director for the Santa Clara chapter of CAIR.

To think that this happened not in hickville USA but in one of the most liberal and tolerant areas of the country…

Notice also the link between Antisemitism and Islamophobia:

Sunnyvale: Man attacked for being Muslim, public safety officers say

By Lisa Fernandez

6/14/2010

Sunnyvale public safety officers are trying to track down two young men who struck someone in the face on a busy street, apparently simply for being a Muslim man who was wearing a black cap and holding a Koran.

He might be the third victim in Santa Clara County this year to fall victim to a reported anti-Muslim crime, according to the county’s Office of Human Relations. Last year there were none.

“They asked him if he was Jewish, and when he said, “No, I’m a Muslim,’ they told him that was worse, you must be a terrorist,” said Capt. Dave Verbrugge, a Sunnyvale Public Safety Department spokesman.

Some Jewish men wear a skull cap called a yarmulke or kippah, and some Muslim men customarily wear a cap called a kufi or taqiyah.

The attackers approached the 40-something man on El Camino Real at Sycamore Terrace on Friday. He was waiting for a ride to pick him up and take him to a 1:30 p.m. prayer service, called a Juma’ah, according to Zahra Billoo, program director at the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Santa Clara.

Billoo talked to the victim by the phone, and helped notify the FBI about the attack. She believes he may have been trying to get to the Muslim Community Association, the Bay Area’s largest mosque, on Scott Boulevard in Santa Clara.

One of the young attackers, described as having blond hair and either in his late teens or early 20s, struck the man “three or four times with the open heel” of his hand, Verbrugge said. The man fell to the ground, walked home and called for help 20 minutes later. He reported some facial cuts and bruises, but Verbrugge said he declined any medical treatment.Public safety officers say this attack was unprovoked.

“If this was a regular attack, it would be classified as a simply battery,” Verbrugge said. “But because of what they said, our officers wrote it up as a hate crime.”

The victim, who has asked to remain anonymous, texted a statement Monday to a Council on American-Islamic Relations spokeswoman, which read in part: “The night it happened, I was up most of the night looking out the window making sure I was not followed home. It’s sad we can’t worship God openly. Out of fear, we have to hide it.”

An annual survey by the council found anti-Muslim reported incidents dropped to 116 in 2008 from 135 in 2007 nationwide, a decrease of 14 percent. Those are the most recent numbers available.

In addition to Friday’s Sunnyvale beating, Delorme McKee-Stovall, manager for the Santa Clara County Office of Human Relations, said there were two other anti-Muslim reports so far this year.

She cited an April incident at Luther Burbank Elementary School, where a Muslim teacher was called a terrorist, and her room was vandalized; and a March 31 incident at the As-Safa Academy on Latimer Avenue in San Jose, where a woman made derogatory statements and assaulted two Muslim teachers, and was later arrested…

Is this the back of some neo-Nazi's truck, or the cover of Robert Spencer's next book?

Everyone please welcome Rousseau, the newest addition to LoonWatch.  He will be a powerful addition to our already stellar team.  This is his first piece…

Robert Spencer, arguably the lead loon of the loon universe, has been caught defending a neo-Nazi. The whole ruckus started when the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) complained to the Virginia Department of Transportation about the license plate of Douglas Story. Story had a mural made on his truck of the World Trade Centers burning after the 9-11 attack, with the words “Everything I ever needed to know about Islam I learned on 9/11.”

CAIR picked up on this loony truck driver’s mural and then apparently noticed his license plate number, which read “14CV88.” Ibrahim Hooper, communications director of CAIR, argued that this number was code for neo-Nazi white supremacist ideas; Hooper explained: “…Among neo-Nazis, 88 refers to ‘Heil Hitler,’ because H is the eighth letter of the alphabet. White supremacists sometimes use the number 14 as shorthand for the 14-word motto, ‘We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.’”

But Story shot back and claimed that the numbers were in honor of his favorite NASCAR drivers: Tony Stewart (who drives car No. 14) and Dale Earnhardt Jr. (who drives car No. 88).

Story’s story wasn’t finished there. He went on to say that: “There is absolutely no way I’d have anything to do with Hitler or Nazis.” Story even argued that it would be outright crazy to call him a white supremacist or neo-Nazi, invoking the old “I-can’t-be-racist-because-I-have-a-Jewish/black/Muslim-friend” routine, saying: “My sister-in-law and my niece are Jewish. I went to my niece’s bar mitzvah when she turned 13 three years ago. Does that sound like something an anti-Semite would do?”

Robert Spencer demanded Ibrahim Hooper to issue an apology, saying:

Hamas-linked CAIR smears anti-jihad Virginia driver as Neo-Nazi

…CAIR’s whole story was false in the first place: the driver in question, Douglas Story, is not a neo-Nazi at all, but a racing fan. The alleged code numbers for neo-Nazi slogans were actually favorite race car drivers’ numbers.

Will Honest Ibe Hooper apologize to Douglas Story? Come on, Ibe! It would be the decent thing to do!

Spencer also argued the entire episode was a ploy by CAIR to link “anti-jihadists” like Spencer to neo-Nazi white supremacists:

The implication of the story, of course, was that anti-jihadists are neo-Nazis — which, despite the febrile fantasies of libelblogger Charles Johnson and his cohort, CAIR’s amiable stomach-stapled beekeeper Honest Ibe Hooper, flies in the face of the facts…

Facts?  Here are the facts, sir.  It looks like CAIR got the story right after all.  The Washington Post’s Brigid Schulte reported just a couple of days later that Douglas Story’s Facebook page was replete with white supremacist associations:

Arguing that his license plate was purely about NASCAR and had nothing to do with race, Story told me that he had a Jewish sister-in-law and had attended his niece’s bat mitzvah. He denied being anti-Semitic.

But here’s how he describes himself on Facebook:

“100% WHITE MAN, 100% ARYAN, 100% PRO-LIFE (Children are innocent), 100% PRO DEATH PENALTY (Criminal Scum aren’t innocent).
Over the past 28 years; I, like David Duke, have had an Awakening.”

Note to self: In these days of social media, Twitter and personal oversharing on the web, always check Facebook…

When I called Story to ask about the Facebook page, he continued to maintain that his license plate message had nothing to with racism. He stuck by his NASCAR story. “Southern white men. Southern white sport. What else needs to be said?” he said.

Story acknowledged that he thinks of himself as 100 percent Aryan. “Aryan is a Sanskrit word that means noble,” he said, “no matter what spin the liberal media tries to put on it as being a racist, hate word.”

He said he is an admirer of David Duke, who, he said was “reamed by the media because of his Klan affiliations.” “I am a white nationalist,” Story said. “I am in favor of the whites having their own homeland.” When I asked him where that homeland would be, he said he didn’t know. “The Pacific Northwest maybe. Alaska. Denmark. Greenland. Iceland.”

I asked if he really thought that the Holocaust was a hoax. “I don’t know what to think,” he said.

Well, well, Mr. Spencer. It seems you bit off more than you could chew by coming to the aid of this neo-Nazi white supremacist.  The facts seem to lend support to CAIR’s “febrile fantasies” that there is a relationship between so-called “anti-jihadists” and the neo-Nazi crowd.  (Did the Confederate flag painted on Story’s back window not alert Robert Spencer!?)

This is not the first time that Facebook has exposed Robert Spencer.  Remember when Spencer was caught joining a genocidal Facebook group?  And how many times will we catch Robert Spencer et al. associating with neo-Nazis and fascists!?  The connection is certainly there.  While we’re not equating the “anti-jihadists” and neo-Nazis, we are saying that they hang out in the same circles, something altogether unsurprising considering that both groups are fueled by bigotry and hatred towards “the other.”  Is it not interesting that “anti-jihadists” and neo-Nazis can agree on so much?  Certainly, the rhetoric of the “anti-jihadists” mirrors that of neo-Nazis and fascists.

In any case, will Robert Spencer eat his own words now?  The ferocious Spencer bellowed:

Will Honest Ibe Hooper apologize to Douglas Story? Come on, Ibe! It would be the decent thing to do!

Will Spencer have the decency to apologize to Ibrahim Hooper of CAIR? Will he post a correction to his anti-Islam hate blog about these developments to this story? Will Spencer do anything meaningful and respectful at all? Ever?

I, for one, am not holding my breath.

Brigitte Gabriel

ACT! for America has a problem. Its first problem is that it was founded by Brigitte Gabriel. Yes, the same Brigitte Gabriel the New York Times called a “radical Islamophobe” and who in the past has made statements like “Arabs have no soul,” and “Arabs are barbarians.” She might be novel eye candy for some (which I’m guessing is the reason Bill Maher had her on his show) but it is clear that Brigitte Gabriel is a whacked out fundamentalist with a seething rage against Muslims and a determination on the one hand to destroy Islam and on the other to make as much profit in the process.

The other problem with ACT! is that it is an organization filled with the types of people we see at Tea Party rallies. You know the ones who dress up in late 18th century regalia a la George Washington or carry around posters about Obama being a Kenyan, or Hitler, or Joker or a Marxist Mooslim anti-Christ coming to change America from a Christian nation into the Soviet Union.

The ACT! for America scheme essentially boils down to an organization masquerading as a “defender of Western Civilization” akin to the claims of other Islamophobes such as Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller. They have a binary view of the world, the Bush mantra of “you’re either with us or against us.”

Brigitte Gabriel pretentiously declares on the ACT! site, “I founded this organization to give Americans their voice back…” Brigitte, Americans never lost their “voice,” unless the “voice” you want to give back is the Jim Crow voice that unleashed the dogs and water hoses on Southern blacks fighting for civil rights and against White racism because that is the historical parallel which fits into your rhetoric.

Those White racists were saying the same thing Brigitte is saying today, that we need to “defend Western civilization.” To the White racists of the South, Western civilization equaled White and Christian. Today Brigitte claims a bigger tent though it is bigoted just the same, to her Western Civilization equals Judeo-Christian and de facto excludes any Muslim.

ACT! is an organization shot through and through with Christian fundamentalists. That is why at many of their events one will see a Christian missionary preaching the Gospel while other ACT! custodians will be passing out anti-Islam literature.

In this video a representative for a Florida Chapter of ACT! for America spews his hate filled beliefs about Islam. He brags about using the Quran as toilet paper and urinating in Muslim ablution sinks (starts at 45 seconds):

I guess that is defending Western Civilization for you. The original user (an ACT! member) who put up the above video on YouTube has removed it. Obviously realizing that it hurts their credibility, but luckily someone else downloaded it.

Also in Florida where they seem to be the most active, ACT! for America chapters were angered at the appointment of Parvez Ahmed to Jacksonville’s Human Rights Commission. They couldn’t countenance a Muslim being appointed to anything in an official capacity (even though 90% of them probably believe that Barack Obama is a Mooslim). So they began a campaign to smear Parvez, saying he was filled with Taqiyyah, that he was a terrorist, a terrorist supporter, etc. To do so they brought up his time as an employee with CAIR. ACT! members falsely held the belief that they could shout “CAIR!” and it would be enough to stop the train and ruin someones career and reputation.

Anti-Muslim group opposes professor’s appointment to Jacksonville Commission

By Tia Mitchell

An anti-Muslim organization is lobbying Jacksonville City Council members to vote against confirming a University of North Florida professor to the city’s Human Rights Commission.

Parvez Ahmed, who is Muslim, was appointed to the voluntary advisory board by Mayor John Peyton and recommended for confirmation by the council Rules Committee. A vote on his confirmation is scheduled to occur at Tuesday’s council meeting.

The group ACT! for America caught wind of his appointment last week and e-mailed a 20-page report Friday accusing Ahmed of having ties to extremist groups through his service on the board of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

“When it comes to a human rights commissioner, Jacksonville can do better than this nomination,” said Randy McDaniels, leader of ACT’s Jacksonville chapter.

The mayor’s office and some City Council members dispute the organizations’ claims and said there is no proof Ahmed has radical ties. Deputy General Counsel Cindy Laquidara will attend Tuesday’s council meeting to answer questions about Ahmed’s background.

Councilman John Crescimbeni, who initially suggested Ahmed to the mayor’s office for a nomination, said the group and its last-minute claims against the professor have no credibility.

“In fact, I checked out some of those allegations made in the original e-mail that came out last Friday,” Crescimbeni said. “It looked like a cut and paste job. It’s pure hate on their part.”

Crescimbeni said Ahmed, who is a Fulbright Scholar with decades of public service under his belt, would be an asset to the Human Rights Commission.

“I can’t think of a better person to serve on that commission than him,” he said. “He is the guy that’s all about peace, and he’s all about getting along.”

Council President Richard Clark said Ahmed’s appointment is currently included on the consent agenda for Tuesday’s meeting, meaning it would be approved quickly with several other items. However, he said, any council member can request that it be taken off the consent agenda and discussed separately.

“I have no intention of pulling it,” Clark said. “If people felt that strongly about it, they should have spoken up long before the confirmation process at Rules.”

McDaniels said ACT learned of Ahmed’s nomination after media reports surfaced about the Rules Committee vote and Councilman Clay Yarborough’s questioning of the professor’s opinion on separation of church and state and gay marriage.

Yarborough voted to recommend the professor after receiving responses he considered satisfactory, but he now says the ACT report has given him pause. He said he wants to know more about its claims before deciding whether he will vote for Ahmed’s confirmation.

“If need be, I will adamantly oppose confirmation of his appointment on the floor tomorrow if there are established links here that are of concern,” Yarborough said Monday.

The ACT report ties Council on American-Islamic Relations to extremists because it was listed as one of 300 unindicted co-conspirators in a Department of Justice terrorism financing trial. That matter ended in mistrial, and CAIR was never accused of wrongdoing.

McDaniels’ group offered no evidence that Ahmed had directly attempted to support terrorist groups.

The mayor’s office is standing by its decision to nominate Ahmed to the Human Rights Commission, saying it conducted the same criminal background and reference checks as all other nominees to a board or commission.

Ahmed said the scrutiny he has experienced in recent days has not deterred him from wanting to serve on the commission, but he worries about the message it is sending.

“I am afraid other qualified individuals may be discouraged to pursue public service,” he said. “Hate groups like ACT do not belong in our Democratic process.”

Councilman Art Shad, who is chairman of the Rules Committee, expressed the same concern and said the next two weeks will be important for the City Council as Ahmed and two others come up for confirmation to the Human Rights Commission.

“We want to be very careful in how we act because we need to set the example of being level-headed, although we want to be thorough in our view,” Shad said.

He said any council member has a right to ask questions of nominees, but he hopes there is an air of respect to the process and to those who want to volunteer their time.

tia.mitchell@jacksonville.com
(904) 359-4425

Unfortunately for ACT! people aren’t buying into the conspiracies anymore, and their cries about CAIR are falling on unsympathetic ears.

Jacksonville panel votes again to recommend Ahmed for commission

After nearly two weeks of controversy, the City Council Rules Committee voted 4-1 today to recommend University of North Florida professor Pervez Ahmed as a member of the city’s Human Rights Commission.

The nomination now goes to the full council for approval.

Only Councilman Clay Yarborough voted against Ahmed. He had voted to approve Ahmed at the last Rules meeting.

Mark Woods: Jacksonville councilman Clay Yarborough takes turn at answering questions

“I have too much of a reasonable doubt based on the research I’ve done over the last week and a half,” Yarborough said.

Voting in favor were Art Shad, John Crescimbeni, Denise Lee and Bill Bishop. Council Vice President Jack Webb left the room before the vote was taken; he told The Times-Union he stepped out to get a soft drink and was surprised that the vote came so soon.

The meeting was interrupted by shouting and several people walked out.

Ahmed said of the vote, “It’s a vindication for the City of Jacksonville more than for me … The city needed an outcome that demonstrated courage, that demonstrated moral clarity.”

Ahmed’s nomination was opposed by ACT! for America, an anti-Islamist group. Randy McDaniels, head of the group’s Jacksonville chapter, said, “It is surprising that so many people are pushing this individual and I would ask why.”

This story isn’t over but it is clear that the days of maligning Muslims for standing up for their civil rights will not get a free pass. However, the dogged persistence of hate groups such as ACT! for America means Americans of all stripes will have to be vigilante and work hard to fight hate.

ACT! for America maybe more properly known as Hate! for America because that is what they represent, as is evident by the bigotry of their founder Brigitte Gabriel, the witch hunt against Parvez Ahmed and the video of the hate filled ACT! for America representative make plain.

Spencer and Geller's proposed banner

Crossposted with permission from Omer Subhani’s blog

Robert Spencer and Pam Geller are part of an organization called Stop Islamization of America (SIOA). SIOA just announced a bus ad campaign on Tuesday, April 13 in Miami-Dade County, FL designed to thwart the supposedly “misleading” bus ad campaign created by the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) and CAIR to promote the shared commonalities of Islam with Christianity and Judaism.

SIOA’s bus ad campaign had the following remarks on the 10 or so buses running their ads:

Fatwa on your head?

Is your family or community threatening you?

LEAVING ISLAM?

This ad was apparently designed for the purpose of promoting freedom of religion. Obviously, the purpose is a bit more sinister once you start to dig deeper into what Spencer and Geller are promoting here.

The ad includes an address to a website: refugefromislam.com. Go ahead and check out that web site. What do you find there? A web site dedicated to slandering Islam and promoting the views of Spencer and Geller.

Here’s a fair and poignant remark from this web site:

Muslims like you who have seen the falsity of Islam and have made the difficult decision to be free.

Oh sure, that’s just speaking the hard truth. Islam is false and Spencer and Geller want all Muslim apostates to know they got their back in saying so.

Well, it’s Friday, April 16 now, and guess what? The Miami Herald is reporting that the Miami-Dade transit authority took a look at the ads after they were posted on some buses and decided to remove them because they “may be offensive to Islam.” Ya think?

Of course, there’s a freedom of speech issue here. Certainly, Spencer, Geller and their lunatic fringe can spew their hatred on their blogs, but once they take their trashy bigotry outside of their internet cesspool into civil society it only goes to show you that normal, civilized people aren’t going to go along with the whole freedom of speech defense these bigots might use.

Do you think the Miami-Dade transit folks would be okay with posting up ads for the KKK or for some neo-Nazi group? Of course not. So why should ads smearing Islam and manufacturing propaganda against Muslims be tolerated? It shouldn’t, and it isn’t. Kudos to Miami-Dade County for standing up and doing the right thing here.

This entire ad campaign being led by Spencer and Geller is not about freedom of religion anyway, but is about their agenda of smearing Islam and Muslims.

There may in fact be Muslims out there who want to change their faith and fear doing so, but this ad campaign is nothing but propaganda designed to smear Islam and scare ignorant Americans into believing there is a genuine problem with Muslim apostates fearing for their safety. There is no such problem.

The real problem is the double standard Spencer and Geller hold when it comes to Muslim Americans exercising their First Amendment rights.

So for example, Spencer and Geller argue for the freedom of apostates to leave Islam. But what about Muslims who want to be able to practice their faith here in the United States?

Such Muslims don’t get any love from Spencer and Geller. In fact, they only get scorn and vitriol.

For example, recently a Muslim woman in Michigan was refused a position with McDonald’s because she wore the hijab or Muslim headscarf. Spencer accused Muslims of wanting America to conform to their “Islamic sensibilities.” No mention of freedom of religion there. Of course not, because freedom of religion doesn’t apply to Muslims, according to Spencer. The EEOC was quoted in the article Spencer referenced as saying that it had issued new guidelines for accommodating religious practices and beliefs in the workplace. The EEOC must also be a part of this whole Islamic sensibilities campaign, too.

Applying Spencer’s logic to other faiths would mean that a Sikh man shouldn’t complain if he is not given a job at McDonald’s either, or an orthodox Jew. They simply want to impose their “sensibilities” on the rest of us real Americans. Freedom of religion? Pssh.

After saying things like that, Spencer has got a lot of gall to be talking about freedom of religion. The Miami-Dade County transit folks aren’t buying his and Geller’s propaganda, and neither should anyone else.

Addendum by Danios:

The astute law student Omer Subhani has pointed out that this has nothing to do with freedom of speech, as nobody is stopping Spencer et al. from posting his profuse vitriol on his website.  However, he does not own the buses and therefore has no right to dictate what goes on them, as I do not have the right to dictate what ads run on JihadWatch.  Hypocritically, these Islamophobic elements supported the removal of the WhyIslam.org banners on metro stations, but now they seem to be struck with partial amnesia, claiming that it is a violation of their rights to remove their Islamophobic ads.  Apparently, freedom of speech to them is the freedom for them to voice their views and silence those of their opponents.   The issue is made exceedingly clear by the example given above, namely that nobody would expect the buses to put up ads supporting the KKK or some neo-Nazi group.  Alternatively, one can hardly imagine Usama bin Ladin being allowed to promote his message on these buses.

This is less of an issue about freedom of speech, but more about common human decency.  It revolves around Spencer and Geller’s departure from the bounds of reasonableness and entrance into the realms of fringe fanaticism.  (A reader of ours noted: “The word ‘departure’ implies that there was a time they were ever within the bounds of reasonableness.” Good point!) Their ad campaign reflects their juvenile behavior.  One can hardly expect better from Geller, but shouldn’t Spencer have at least some standards so he can continue to uphold his false claim to scholarship?  Bravo, Spencer.  You continue to expose yourself as the lunatic you are.  Please continue, so we can show the world what a raving lunatic you truly are.

Tariq Ramadan

As you know, Dr. Tariq Ramadan – Muslim scholar, writer, and thinker – has had his visa to enter the country reinstated, and he used this to his advantage: speaking at various engagements across the United States. We here at LoonWatch alerted our fellow citizens of the arrival of the “stealth jihadist,” coining the terminology of Robert Spencer. Yet, we didn’t want to stop just there. We wanted to report on what this man was saying.

So, we were able to secure a confidential LW operative to infiltrate the CAIR-Chicago Annual Banquet, his first public speaking engagement since being allowed to come to the U.S., to report on his speech. This operative approached us initially, telling us that he would be attending Dr. Ramadan’s speech.  He posed as a regular member of the Muslim community and took clandestine notes and reported them back to us. This was a unique opportunity as Dr. Ramadan was speaking to an audience largely composed of Muslims, and so he can “let loose” and not show his “taqqiya,” as he would if he were speaking to non-Muslims. We could not pass this up.

In the beginning of his speech, he thanked those who helped him come back to the United States, such as the ACLU and others, and he said that he was blocked from coming to the United States because he spoke his mind, especially about the war in Iraq (on which, it turns out, he was correct). He said that people cannot confuse a government with its people.

He mentioned that there was one Islam: unified in its principles and beliefs, but many different cultures, interpretations, and schools of thought. It is an accepted diversity in Islam’s application. At the same time, however, he noted that there was a crisis in the understanding of Islam among Muslims, and that there were many challenges within the Muslim community that needed to be addressed. The main problem with Muslims is psychological in his opinion: he affirmed the need of Muslims to examine what is wrong with themselves, but they should also acknowledge the enormous strides Muslims – especially those in the West – have made in the last 30-50 years.

He urged Muslims to become more involved in their communities and differentitate between victimhood and having a “victim mentality.” He urged his listeners to struggle (aka “jihad”…dah dah daaaaaaah!!!!) against the victim mentality. He reminded the audience that whenever you work for justice, you will be opposed. Whenever you talk about love, he said, people will respond with hate.

Dr. Ramadan also touched upon spirituality, which is more than just praying. It is being strong from within. He quoted the verse about the parable of a good word:

Are you not aware how God sets forth the parable of a good word? [It is] like a good tree, firmly rooted, [reaching out] with its branches towards the sky, yielding its fruit at all times by its Lord’s permission. And [thus it is that] God propounds parables unto men so that they might bethink themselves [of the truth]. (14:24-25)

The roots of the tree are your heart, and the fruits of the tree are your actions, he said. An activist without spirituality is an agitated man, he said. He then gave advice about how to speak to fellow Americans: speak to them softly, and he advised the audience to behave like the “The Servants of the Most Merciful”:

And the servants of the Most Merciful are those who walk on the earth with humility, and when the ignorant address them, they say, “Peace!” (25:63)

God is Beautiful, and He loves beauty, Dr. Ramadan said. Muslims’ mantra must be this: By serving the people, I serve Him. He also said that he does not like defining Islam as “submission.” In his understanding, Islam is entering into God’s peace, as the verse proclaims:

O you who believe! Enter into Islam ["peace"] whole-heartedly, and follow not the footsteps of Satan, for he is to you an avowed enemy. (2:208)

One of the first things the Prophet Muhammad said, he reminded the audience, when he entered Medinah is, “Spread peace.” That is what Muslims should do. No Muslim should say that you can’t love your neighbor if he is not Muslim. This is your home, he told the American Muslim audience. Americans are your people; you cannot call fellow Americans as “them.” When American Muslims say “we,” it must be an inclusive “we,” including all Americans. Spreading peace, justice, and ethics is the purpose of Muslims in America, not to convert non-Muslim Americans to Islam. Muslims are here to make society better; the hearts of the people are not their concern. That is the realm of God.

Now comes the “smoking gun” (pun intended): Dr. Ramadan spoke of Jihad! (dah dah daaaaaaah!!!)
Jihad, he said, did not start with fighting, or qital. The first act of Jihad in the Qur’an was knowing how to use the Qur’an against those who opposed the message:

Hence, do not defer to [the likes and dislikes of] those who deny the truth, but strive hard against them, by means of this [divine writ], with utmost striving. (25:52)

He then ended his speech by turning a critical eye toward the Muslim community itself, which, he said, is very important. He bemoaned the many divisions in the Muslim community: divisions along ethnic lines, cultural lines, class lines, and economic lines. He said that there should be “Americans” in the mosques: people from all cultures. Muslims from different cultures should mix together, he said. He pointed out that many African-American Muslims feel like they are second class Muslims, and many converts feel they have to Arabize, and he criticized both phenomena. Muslims must also improve in their treatment of women, as well. If you want America to be better, he said, then Muslims must start in their own communities.

His final words were this: Never forget that you Muslims are American. He urged them to speak about Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine, and do so as Americans, not Muslims. Moreover, Muslims need to institutionalize their presence in America: Muslims need institutions, and they must work with all people. The key is confidence and humility: be confident about your position, but be humble at the same time.

There you have it, folks. Those were the words (paraphrased by our operative) of Dr. Ramadan at his speech to the CAIR-Chicago banquet. As you can see, it was full of intolerance, hatred, Islamism, and Jihadism. What was the American government thinking when it let him in?

Manya Brachear

The Seeker, Manya Brachear’s blog about religion on the Chicago Tribune website has a post, Chicago welcomes once-banned Muslim Scholar, about the upcoming trip of Islamic scholar/reformer and Oxford professor Tariq Ramadan to the United States (hat tip: iSherif).

You may remember that Tariq Ramadan had his visa revoked by the Bush administration, ostensibly because he donated money to a charity organization that it was later charged had links to Hamas. The charge was clearly fallacious as the organization was not listed as a banned charity in America at the time that Tariq Ramadan made his contribution.

The real reason seems to be that Tariq Ramadan was banned by Bush due to a policy of ideological exclusion and Ramadan’s fierce opposition to the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This was further confirmed when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordered Ramadan’s visa to be reinstated.

Unfortunately the blog post quoted Robert Spencer, one of the leading Islamophobes in the West today.

But author Robert Spencer says that popularity is dangerous. In interviews, he has criticized Clinton for making an exception to U.S. law that prohibits supports of terrorist groups from entering the country. Spencer said Ramadan should still be barred for donating money to a group that funds Hamas.

Spencer contends that the scholar has the same goals as Osama bin Laden–to impose Shariah law in the West. While Ramadan paints himself as a moderate intellectual, Spencer said, he is actually a “stealth jihadist.”

It is a severe lapse in judgement for Brachear to quote Spencer’s claims since they are false on their head. It is an attempt on Spencer’s part to “poison the wells.” The fact is Ramadan has never supported Hamas or terrorism, in fact he has been one of the most outspoken critics of both. “Stealth Jihad” is just paranoid new speak that serves bigots who wish to cast normal, law abiding Muslims as evil villains who are secretly working behind the scenes to take over the West. It is in fact the new “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

Our website has copiously dissected many of Robert Spencer’s blog posts exposing his unsavory associations, pseudo-scholarship and blatant bigotry against Muslims and Islam. One of our premiere contributors, Danios has gone through whole chapters in Spencer’s books and revealed how shoddy and inaccurate a lot of his work has been. To quote Robert Spencer on Muslims and Islam is equivalent to quoting David Duke on Judaism or Jews.

One instructive point in regards to all of this is that one of Spencer’s closest friends and a co-founder with Spencer of The Freedom Defense Initiative, Pamela Geller has gone to the extreme (and insane) level of calling Tariq Ramadan, “a cold blooded Jihadists.” An exercise in hyperbole that the worst enemies and strongest critics of Ramadan won’t even engage in. However, one must ask Spencer if he agrees with that characterization by his friend Geller who he cross-posts from regularly? It also seriously puts into doubt the objectiveness of Spencer and whether he should ever be quoted by mainstream media.

I urge our readers to contact Manya and to politely express their disappointment at the inclusion of a bigot such as Spencer on a professional blog such as hers.

Contact: mbrachear@tribune.com

Here is some information that may be helpful to share with Manya (remember to be polite and topical):

The fact is Spencer is not taken seriously by academia especially in the field of Islam: He has been repudiated over and over. Take a glance at our archives:

Academics and members of the American Library Association condemn Spencer and his work: Robert Spencer Rejected by Academics, still Supports Geert Wilders

DePaul Law Professor M. Cherif Bassiouni condemns Spencer

His former friend and ally Charles Johnson has also condemned Robert Spencer as an “Anti-Islamic Bigot:”

Robert Spencer goes postal on Charles Johnson

Spencer’s association and fervent support for anti-Muslim European neo-Fascists and supremacists also disqualifies him from being mentioned as a true neutral observer and commenter on Islam or radical Islam:

Robert Spencer Teams up with Euro-Supremacists Again

Spencer has also joined a genocidal Facebook group which called for the extermination of Turks:

Robert Spencer: Wanna be Conquistador

Robert Spencer’s arguments have been shown to be filled with errors and excessive prejudice:

The Church’s Doctrine of Perpetual Servitude worse than Dhimmitude

Robert Spencer Misrepresents Facts — Again

Robert Spencer Worried about ticking ‘Muslim Demographic Time Bomb’

There is more information exposing the bigotry and anti-Muslim motive that mars the work of Robert Spencer in our archives, if Manya Brachear truly cares about the information she wishes to present to readers then she should take a serious look at who she chooses to quote as an expert.

Christian Stealth Jihad?

A favorite theme of the right-wing nutjob community in the US is to fantasize about the threat of an Islaimc Shariah takeover of the United States.

They accuse every effective Muslim leader and every successful Muslim organization in one way or another of scheming to institute Islamic law (Shariah) as the official law of our government.

The pictures they paint in their books, radio shows, and blogs range from Muslims conspiring for a hostile takeover (through violent Jihad) to Muslims conspiring for a peaceful takeover of the United States (through perfectly legal means).  The latter is what the sages of the nutjob community – yes I am aware that’s an oxymoron – are terming stealth Jihad.

Stealth Jihad of course is the take over from within, the slow and gradual but forced transformation of American government from our current constitution to Shariah (Islamic law), a process to be achieved through the system, in the light of day, in a perfectly legal and peaceful manner.

There are many problems with this old wife’s tale of which the following are a few:

• - Muslims constitute less than 3 million people according to the Pew Research Center, that’s less than 1% of the United States. So whatever effort they are going to invest in, it had better subdue more than 99% of the American people, that’s 297 million free, discerning, intelligent people.
• - If Muslims indeed are working on a peaceful takeover of the country, what does that assume about the 3 million, that they have superhuman ability to influence and brainwash everyone else? And what does it assume about the 297 million others, that they are hapless, helpless, gullible morons that can easily be brainwashed?
• - There is in fact not a single Muslim organization of note that has as its mission “the Islamization of our legal system” or anything even close to suggesting replacing the US constitution with the Shariah. Not ISNA, not CAIR, not MPAC, not MAS, not MSA. The claim originates from lifelong detractors of American Muslim organizations and leaders and their efforts to enfranchise their minority communities, never from the mission statements of Muslims themselves. (I challenge any of those detractors to point LoonWatch to any of the mission statements of the above organizations that would prove us wrong.)

So far so good.

Well so what about working to replace our secular constitution that separates between Church and State with some religious canonical rules and regulations that does not? Are there any organizations out there that in fact claim such a thing as their mission?

The answer is yes.

One such organization is a radical group by the name of Reclaim Oklahoma For Christ (reclaimoklahoma.org). Here is the mission statement from their website:

To educate our pastors, legislators, educators, students and all citizens as to the truth about America’s Christian Heritage and the role of fundamental, Biblical Christianity in the establishment and function of our legal, legislative and educational systems; and to work towards the successful reestablishment of these values in our society today.

Hmm, America’s Christian Heritage? So America only has one heritage? There are no Jewish Americans, Muslim Americans, Buddhist Americans, Atheist Americans, etc? We are all one big homogeneous group with a single religious heritage determined for us by this group. If you are anything but Christian, tough luck for you, drop your heritage and get in line to assume THE American heritage as this group sees it.

More importantly, notice the explicit language involved in the phrase: the role of fundamental, Biblical Christianity in the establishment and function of our legal, legislative systems.

So basically, the goal of this group is not just see the US government, schools, universities and society at large dominated with their religion and it’s holy book, the Bible, but with a “fundamental” interpretation thereof.

So, here’s a pop quiz, what does one call working to subject America – its “legal, legislative, and educational systems”, as well as “all citizens” to the “fundamental” teachings of someone’s religious holy book, its values, rules, etc? Oh yes, “working to dominate America with Sharia via a stealth Jihad!”

That’s right folks, there is an ongoing stealth Christian Jihad out there for Christian Shariah to dominate US government and society.

Mind you, unlike with the Muslims, it’s not a mother population of 3 million mostly struggling immigrants we are talking about here, but a mother population of 70 million linguistically native, religiously fervent, politically savvy mainstream looking citizens. Talk about stealth.

And guess what? The “reclaiming America for Jesus” bible-thumping bunch ARE in fact in full “infiltration” (to use a favorite Spencer term) of our government, our educational system, and society at large. It’s a population that does not just have 2 members in congress like with the Muslims, but dozens in congress and the senate, not to mention the sprawling mega-churches, the business tycoons, media conglomerates, universities, and well-funded lobby groups. Their tangible effect can be seen from changing tax-payer funded school curricula and student history books in Texas to affecting our federal laws on abortion, to influencing our foreign policy (including the push for misguided wars in the Middle East some of which have occurred like Iraq and others for which they are still pushing).

Hutaare (Christian Warriors) Militia

And guess what, it turns out it’s not all stealth. There are pockets of this population that is willing to go the violent terrorist route to reclaim America for Jesus!

Where is the excitable hairball known as Robert Spencer? Why the silence, Bob? This is totally up your ally if indeed your beef is with “stealth jihad” and “religious shariah” taking over the US, and not necessarily Muslims per se as you often claim? Do you see why people think you are a blabbering hypocrite?

And where are the screeching wails of your foul-mouthed sidekick, Pamela Geller? Cat got your tongue Pam?

Where is Brigitte Gabriel, and Nonie Darwish and Wafa Sultan and the other sweaty cheerleaders of the big cry against the imminent “Islamic takeover”? No good book deals here for you ladies? No speaking tours opening up where you get cash bags and back pats from your ringmasters?

Where are the monitoring websites, and the blog craze, and the concerned members of congress, and the warnings of the expert talking heads, and the tell-all books? No money in this business? Thank God for the Muslims!

The loons love to cast themselves as the defenders of freedom and the vanguards of enlightenment against the dark forces of Islam. A self-image we have shattered over and over by hurling facts and exposing their ignorance and hateful hypocrisy.

A lot of these right wingers’ invective revolves around castigating the largest Muslim civil rights organization in America, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) because it is a strong and influential voice against bigotry and discrimination against Muslims and that just irks the Islamophobes. They have come up with all sorts of conspiracies revolving around CAIR including one that made Newsweek’s ‘Top Conspiracies of 2009.”

However it seems like they didn’t bargain for an encounter with Sheriff Lee Baca.

L.A. County Sheriff Defends Himself, Muslims after Attack by Indiana Governor

If L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca was feisty last week when he tangled with a Republican congressman in Washington, D.C., he was even more impassioned Tuesday while discussing it.

A week ago, Rep. Mark Souder (R-Ind.) impugned Baca during a House Homeland Security subcommittee meeting, saying the sheriff had allied himself with a Muslim American group that engaged in “radical” speech by going to its fundraisers. Baca not only attacked that description of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, but he also told Souder he would be fine with going to more fundraisers for the group.

“If he thinks I’m afraid of what he said, I will go to 10 fundraisers because he said it,” Baca declared Tuesday afternoon, just a few hours before a town hall meeting with the Muslim American community.

Actually, Baca said, he’s been to only two fundraisers for the organization in four years, but that, he added, is not the point. What rankled Baca — aside from what he took as Souder personally challenging the sheriff’s patriotism — was what he saw as the congressman’s inaccurate assessment of the group.

“In other words, he’s an amateur intelligence officer,” Baca said.

Several times a year, the Muslim American Homeland Security Congress — an independent group set up to advise Baca and forge a partnership between the department and Muslim Americans — and the Sheriff’s Department’s Muslim Community Affairs Unit hold forums to discuss issues. The one Tuesday night was scheduled before the dust-up in Washington offered a charged topic for discussion.

When Baca spoke at the Tuesday event, he was given a standing ovation by the 75 or so people at the Omar ibn Al-Khattab Foundation near USC.

Baca called Souder’s comments “scary” and said they were an affront to all Muslim Americans. “When you attack CAIR,” he said, “you attack virtually every Muslim in America.”

Baca’s response to Souder was a statement in defense of democracy, said Maher Hathout, spokesman for the Islamic Center of Southern California. “And they will not vanish,” he said. “They are on the record and they are a landmark on the road of our democracy.”

Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles, hailed Baca as a hero. “Sheriff Baca is our champion and is our hero in defending us against McCarthyism in this era,” Al-Marayati said.

Although CAIR, a national Muslim civil liberties group, has its critics, Baca said the local offices represent average Muslim Americans “very committed to the safety of the U.S. It is not an organization that supports or promotes terrorism.” He added that the group supported a proposed half-cent sales tax hike for law enforcement. “I think CAIR’s support for public safety is unequivocal,” he said.

Baca said he believes strongly in a connection between public safety and religious understanding. The Sheriff’s Department’s interfaith council, he said, has been working for a decade on projects such as passing out food baskets to the homeless and counseling drug addicts. “We have all faiths represented — Jewish, Muslim, Scientology is even involved.”

The Muslim American Homeland Security Congress was set up in the wake of “this constant uninformed chatter about religion being a factor in terrorism,” he said. “I’m saying — because I’ve read the Koran and been involved with Muslim Americans for years — this is not correct. God has nothing to do with mentally ill people committing terrorist acts. If a mentally ill person is using Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Scientology to say ‘This is part of why I’m doing this,’ I say, ‘Well, guess what, don’t act like you’re God, you don’t have God’s authority.’ ”

Baca is Catholic. “I’m a weak Catholic; I’m not suggesting I’m doing my best at it,” he said. “I respect Catholicism and I respect all faiths.”

Without them, he said, “our crime would be outrageous. We would not be a civilized world.”

carla.hall@latimes.com

raja.abdulrahim@latimes.com

Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times

The Foreign Policy Research Institute and Mason Crest Publishers  have come out with a 10 volume series of textbooks titled “World of Islam” which is littered with fearmongering, anti-Muslim sentiment, inaccuracy and bias.

Muslim Group Condemns Book Series

The Pennsylvania chapter of a Muslim-rights group accused a Philadelphia think tank and its Broomall publisher yesterday of “fearmongering,” inaccuracy, and bias in a 10-volume series of textbooks titled World of Islam.

The 64-page volumes, produced and edited by the Foreign Policy Research Institute and Mason Crest Publishers, are aimed at middle and high school students.

At a news conference at its Center City office, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-PA) cited passages it deemed inflammatory. Among them: “Muslims began immigrating to the United States in order to transform American society, sometimes through the use of terrorism.”

The group contended that such language obscured the reality that most people, Muslims included, come to America simply for better lives.

“When you finish reading these books you walk away with the impression that Muslims are inherently violent, that Islam is a second-rate religion, and that one should be wary of Muslims in any society,” said Moein Khawaja, civil rights director of CAIR-PA.

Alan Luxenberg, vice president of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, said that the allegations were “without basis” and that CAIR had “misconstrued the intended meaning of the books.” Founded in 1955, the nonprofit institute conducts research and education on international affairs.

No one from the publishing house was immediately available for comment, although the company has offered to send complimentary copies for review “to any journalist on request.”

Khawaja said he did not know which, if any, school districts had bought the series. But he said complaints from other CAIR chapters suggested the books were in public and academic libraries in more than 20 states.

“The Free Library of Philadelphia” has a set, he said, “and we thought it better to speak out now” before the series gets wider distribution.

Khawaja urged schools and libraries that have the books to replace them with another 10-part series, Introducing Islam, which is also published by Mason Crest. That series, he said, “does what a schoolbook is supposed to do: educate.”

Khawaja said he would donate a set of that series to the Free Library.

Library administrators were not immediately available for comment.

---

Contact staff writer Michael Matza at 215-854-2541 or mmatza@phillynews.com.

Newsweek had an article on some of the trendiest, bizarre, and most trafficked conspiracy theories of 2009. The Muslim spy intern conspiracy made it to #9 and it had ole’ Robert Spencer in a fit. He railed against it with all the ineptitude, innuendo and verbal diarrhea we are used to from his clownish ways. Calling it “journalistic irresponsibility” and “bias,” etc.

What has him in a uproar:

Guide to Conspiracy: Know your Conspiracy

9. The Council on American-Islamic Relations is trying to infiltrate Capitol Hill and spread jihad.
Author Dave Gaubatz alleges that the mainstream group is both connected to Islamist terrorists and international jihad and is working to infiltrate the American government by placing interns on Capitol Hill.
Proponents: Dave Gaubatz, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Rep. Sue Myrick (R-N.C.), Joseph Farah.
Kernel of Truth? CAIR has tried to place interns on Capitol Hill, but as it points out, that’s standard practice for advocacy groups of all types and allegiances. There’s no proof of sinister motives or an effort to encourage international jihad.

The conspiracy theories swerving around Barack Obama continue, now right-wingers are claiming Obama and MoveOn are working with CAIR to harm America. A book needs to be written about all these conspiracy theories.

Obama, MoveOn working with CAIR

Joe Kaufman

Joe Kaufman, a Kahanist inspired anti-Muslim crusader against “evil” CAIR has been outed by Susan Starkey, Council woman in Davie Town, Florida. This whole drama began when Kaufman’s hate organization (which is him and three other people) became offended that CAIR and some “Mooslims” had participated in a program to pick up litter from the streets. In their insane folly Kaufman and company accused Starkey of being an “Anti-Semite” and a supporter of “terrorism.”

Susan Starkey Responds to Anti-Semitism Allegations

Davie Town Council member Susan Starkey says she never said “Jews try to convert everyone,” as alleged by activist Joe Kaufman, of the Coral Springs-based Americans Against Hate.

The exchange occurred December 18 between Starkey and Jeff Rubinoff, at the holiday party of the Davie / Cooper Republican Club, of which Rubinoff is chairman. He wanted Starkey to take down an adopt-a-street sign that recognized the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim group attacked by conservatives for ties to Hamas. The sign is near the intersection of College Avenue and Southwest 39th Avenue.

In an email, Starkey told Juice:

The statement he alleged ” Jews try to convert everyone”. I am stunned by and offended by the comments and written statements such as this made by Jeff Rubinoff and further perpetuated by Joe Kaufman. I would not say such statements that would offend anyone in this way.

There was at no time any “Anti-Semitic rant” made by me. Mr. Rubinoff is a member of the same activist group as Mr. Kaufman. Many statements made by Mr. Kaufman are hateful, prejudice and outright lies. I have had a wonderful opportunity to serve the town’s diverse population of 92,000 residents as well as a colleges and university professors and students within the town. I had promoted, supported and voted for a $18 Million dollar bond for which the town co-signed with the Broward Jewish Federation, and Davie JCC and Soref no other city in Broward stepped up to help. I have attended at invitation of my Jewish Community many events and functions. I supported Rabbi Pinny’s congregation in the Town of Davie and in fact meet with him and a friend today for guidance on this matter.

We should also note, for the record, that the Jewish faith is not one for proselytizing. In fact, it’s a mighty big hassle to convert to Judaism, at least compared to the ease with which you can become a Christian.

In an email yesterday to Starkey, I asked her to characterize her discussion with Rubinoff.

I would describe the holiday conversation on Dec. 18th a little out of the ordinary in the fact that Mr. Rubinoff was upset that Broward County and the Town of Davie had not immediately removed a sign that he and Mr. Kaufman insisted be removed. He demanded answers and I explained that we were looking into the matter. I have since learned that the sign in question is a part of the Broward County “Adopt a Street” Program to clean up litter on the streets and they are handled administratively by the County and Town Staff. No action is required of the County Commission or the Town Council. This is a volunteer program by organizations to pick up litter.

In yesterday’s post, I ventured a theory that the rupture between the two Republicans, Starkey and Rubinoff, was an illustration of larger statewide trend of conflict between the party’s moderates and its more conservative wing. Starkey’s environmental activism would seem to put her among the party’s moderates, while Rubinoff’s suspicions about CAIR suggests he’s in the more conservative crowd. Starkey responded:

Yes, I am a registered Republican but do not belong to any “clubs”. Municipal government is non-partisan. I consider myself a fiscal conservative environmentalist. I believe in strong family values, community, honesty and integrity and treating everyone fairly as I would like to be treated.I have know that both the Republicans and Democrats have divisions with extreme views sometimes on both sides. I prefer to stay involved with my issues within the town that are important to my residents and stay out of the fray, there is more than enough to keep us busy in trying to provide adequate quality services in these tough economic times.

Kaufman, who admits he didn’t witness the argument between Starkey and Rubinoff, rejects the idea that it was related to any trends of Republican Party tension. In an email responding to yesterday’s post he said:

Mr. Rubinoff’s interaction with Councilmember Starkey had absolutely nothing to do with any type of infighting between members of a political party, and it had absolutely nothing to do with any political issues. Rubinoff did what’s right, and he should be commended for it.

Your spin has absolutely no basis in fact whatsoever.

So there you have it.

Joe Kaufman

We haven’t written much on Joe Kaufman recently, but that doesn’t mean he has fallen off our radar. Kaufman is in the same league of Islamophobic kookieness as Pamela Geller, and his radical if comical beliefs expose him as a somewhat dangerous if bumbling joker.

Recently, Kaufman went haywire over the participation of CAIR in the Broward County “adopt-a-street” program, a program where a group takes the initiative to “adopt” a street and clear it of litter. Kaufman was incensed and accused the county of giving into terrorism.

Adam Horowitz, of Mondoweiss, has an excellent piece on the goofy antics that make up Joe Kaufman’s crusade against the “adopt-a-street” program.

If this street gets cleaned the terrorists win

The South Florida Sun Sentinel is reporting that right-wing Jewish extremist, and one time vice-chairman of the Republican Jewish Coalition of South Florida, Joe Kaufman is leading the charge against one of this country’s greatest security threats: the Adopt-A-Street program in Florida’s Broward County. Kaufman is incensed that the county had the short sightedness to allow the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) to participate in its “adopt a street” program. And he’s not taking it lying down.

The Sun Sentinel explains:

A small group of demonstrators led by Americans Against Hate Chairman Joe Kaufman last Friday accused Broward County and the Town of Davie of supporting an organization with ties to Islamic terrorists.

A street sign in Davie sparked the anger of the demonstrators who protested in front of the Broward County Governmental Center in Fort Lauderdale on a rainy Friday afternoon.

The sign, at the southwest corner of College Avenue and Nova Drive, credits the Miami office of the Council on American Islamic Relations ( CAIR-FL) for its participation in a Broward County program to clear litter from an “adopted” street.

Kaufman said when he complained about the sign, a spokesman for the Town of Davie told him it would not be removed because CAIR had a Constitutional right to free speech.

“Freedom of speech is a poor excuse,” Kaufman said to the demonstrators. “This is not about free speech. It’s about terrorism.”(Emphasis added)

Let us interject here for a moment, as there is something very revealing in the comments from Kaufman. When he was told that this is a matter of free speech, and that CAIR (which has never been convicted of or charged with terrorism) has the right to participate in this program, Kaufman replied by saying that “this is not about free speech.” All of a sudden free speech no longer matters when “Mooslims” are involved. Kaufman, seems to believe free speech is only valuable when criticizing or defaming/hating Islam and Muslims but when it is extended to everyone it is “a poor excuse.”

This also reveals the wider hypocrisy in the Islamophobic movement, we hear the constant refrain from Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller, Wafa Sultan, etc. that Mooslims are trying to muzzle their voices, that Mooslims are “against free speech,” but as we have shown time and again when they are challenged and exposed they cry about being “libeled,” “intimidated,” “shocked” even calling for retractions and “apologies.” It seems to be a case of what’s good for the goose is not good for the gander, and Kaufman’s Freudian slip illustrates this very well.

Adam Horowitz continues,

The Sun Sentinel says that Muhammad Malik, the civil rights director of CAIR’s South Florida branch, responded by explaining, “the organization wanted to bring out people to pick up litter from the street, like any other group.”

If there was ever any doubt that segments of the Jewish community have totally lost touch with reality just check out this quote from Kaufman on the press release for the protest explaining why it was being held on Hanukkah:

“On Hanukkah, millions of people around the world celebrate the triumph of the Jewish people over those who wished to destroy them. We want Broward County to recognize the fact that those involved with Hamas, like the Greeks 2000 years before them, have a similar goal to destroy the Jews. And we want Broward County to know that it allowed a sign to be ‘adopted’ by a group connected to Hamas.”

And so Joe, you’re saying the Greeks also tried to destroy the Jews by cleaning their streets? That is almost as shocking as some of Americans Against Hate’s merchandise (and be sure to not miss this).

Is Kaufman’s war against CAIR picking up litter from the streets a surprise? No, it is a hilarious inside into the extremist character of Kaufman, moulded by the thoughts of Meir Kahane. Everything is Jihad and terror, cleaning up the streets is equal to destroying America. It would have been sad if it wasn’t so funny.

Who is he?:

Joe Kaufman, has been on the Anti-Muslim scene for quite a while now and is dubbed by the far Right-Wing FrontPageMag as, you guessed it…another one of their ”Investigative Journalists.”  That he has been influenced by Meir Kahane and the Kahanist ideology is well documented, as is his love and angst for Kahane.

In the past he has been accused of contributing to the terrorist organization founded by Kahane known as JDL (Jewish Defense League) while others accuse Kaufman of at the very least holding views that parallel JDL positions.

Kaufman’s unsavory associations and views are quite real and they are only dangerous to America if you’re stupid enough to swallow his conspiracy theories but other than that he is simply a half-baked paranoid conspiracy theorist, some what along the lines of the “9/11 Truthers.”

In every nook and cranny there is a “Mooslim”…hiding and ready to get ya…so beware and be afraid. Be veryyyy afraid goes his story.

In this special LoonWatch series we will detail the exploits and punchlines that Krazy Kaufman throws out there and attempts to pass on as serious journalism, commentary and investigation.

Under Fire Islamophobe Turns on the Nasty

[Catch up on PART I and PART II of this series]

OK, grab your popcorn and grab a seat. The Robert Spencer freak circus continues to unravel with comical twists and turns.

Spencer first attempted to lay low on the latest revelation that LoonWatch broke out on the blogosphere concerning two hateful URLs, “f**kislam.com” and “f**kallah.com” redirecting to his trashy website, JihadWatch.org.

The redirection magically disappeared hours after LoonWatch busted JihadWatch without a peep from Spencer.

It seems now after LoonWatch turned on the pressure with a follow up piece, Spencer has finally broken his silence with an exegesis in logic that is bound to put the vulgar associations he hopes to absolve himself from beyond any reasonable doubt.

Are you ready?

Drum Roll!

“F**k CAIR.”

That’s right, you read correctly.

Now, you tell me, why would anyone in their right mind think of associating this charming man with vulgarities like “f**kislam.com and “f**kallah.com”?

“I have never engaged in such tactics and do not approve of them,” says Spencer with a straight face in the SAME post whose headline is “F**k CAIR.”

Let us take a moment of silence as we bask in the irony.

…

Ok, moving on.

In this latest JihadWatch rant, Spencer pops a cap whining about libel while simultaneously flinging baseless accusations and obscenities at his critics.

Ok sorry, let us take another moment of silence as we bask in this irony.

…

Ok.

Spencer seems to have buckled under pressure and has come out of character. Gone is the cool-calm-objective-scholar act, and out pops the bottled anger and potty-mouthed vengefulness bubbling beneath the phony surface. He goes on to showcase the slimy tactics he employs in his treatment of all things Muslims. Exhibit A: lying…

(CAIR) has claimed in its “American Muslim News Briefs” email that I own the domains f***allah.com and f***islam.com and have redirected them to Jihad Watch.

That’s a flat out lie,  one of many lies Spencer tries to slip to his unsuspecting readers who are accustomed to drinking from the cusp of his hands.

In fact, CAIR claimed no such thing. CAIR did not even opine on the issue any which way. CAIR simply carried a story from LoonWatch – without edit or commentary - as it does from hundreds of other websites across the World Wide Web based on what it perceives to be relevance to its mostly Muslim leadership.

Now I do not agree with everything CAIR says, but I have respect for CAIR.

They do a lot of great work to fight hatred and Islamophobia, but let’s not give them undue credit on this one, Mr. Spencer.

It was LoonWatch – proudly so – who broke the story in which it shared the undisputed fact that indeed those sites do redirect to Spencer’s JihadWatch.org and then proceeded to raise the obvious questions that any sane person remotely familiar with Spencer’s work would ask as a direct result of this revelation.

LoonWatch questioned the possibilities including, but not limited to, the possibility that Spencer is knowingly involved in the scheme. But it also raised the possibility that a third party (term used was “vandal”) redirected the URL’s. Of those possibilities, I gave my opinion which I am entitled to do. I then called on Spencer to speak out and lay all doubts to rest and – if as far removed from the scheme as he is likely to claim – then to do the honorable thing, to disavow and apologize for those redirections.

(Notice despite his rant, that is something he has yet to do.)

How that translates to libel, let alone from CAIR, is a question that can only be answered in the deranged mind of trigger-happy Robert Spencer.

The notion that he would claim to have no connection to the URL’s and moreover play the victim is no surprise to me.

What remains suspicious is his continued refusal to do the honorable thing most civilized folk in his situation would do, express shock and dismay at the linkage, and distance himself from the hate message of the URLs.

Mr. Spencer, O’ Objective scholar of Islam, Why the reluctance to come out and condemn those URL’s as vile, vulgar, and hateful to Islam and Muslims?

Instead, Spencer misdirects his rage at the whistleblowers and anyone else who dared to question the linkage. As if, given Spencer’s long history of rabid hatemongering against Islam and Muslims, questioning his involvement in such a scheme is a far-fetched proposition.

What is amusing about the whole episode is Spencer’s feigned outrage that a Muslim organization – whose stated mission mind you is to battle Islamophobia – would carry an article scrutinizing the shady affairs of one of America’s leading Islamophobes.

Shocking!

Why, Muslim organizations fighting Islamophobia should be carrying stories about Irish Leprechauns, Amish quilts, and Danish Cookies. But Islamophobia? Why would they think to do that?

In Spencer’s objective scholarly mind, such action only proves that CAIR is “a desperate, dishonest, and pathetic Hamas-linked unindicted conspirator Islamic supremacist thug.”

Can you see it? Come on now, it’s pretty obvious guys, can’t you connect the dots like a spinster can?

No? Well then pray for the drones out there who are duped into believing that this guy is an unbiased source of information on Islam and Muslims.

As for LoonWatch, disclosing the fact that Spencer is anything but an objective scholar of Islam earns us the title “leftist pro-jihad hate” website.

Ok, what’s wrong with leftist, does Spencer submit to a fascist agenda that prefers that all Americans be on one side of the political spectrum – say, the right?

And pro-Jihad? Does our great scholar of Islam engage in schoolboy fumbling of the definition of Jihad, a most basic Islamic concept? Does he not understand that for Muslims, Jihad is not defined the way he intends it as a slur? That it is defined as a struggle towards greater good, not violence and extremism as both the crazy loons at Al Qaeda and the crazy loons at JihadWatch define it?

As for hate, that is a term usually applied in a mass context, in other words to describe sentiment towards a class of people not an individual, i.e. the KKK’s hate against Blacks, the Nazi hate against Jews, the JihadWatch hate against Muslims, etc. For Spencer to call us a hate site for criticizing his individual work is absurd and self-absorbed. We do not hate you Spencer, we think you are funny.

Meanwhile, in another deep dark corner of the Islamophobic blogosphere, certified loon Pamela Geller, one of Spencer’s last remaining friends (visible in the above photo), has come to his rescue. In a wonderful display of reactionary shrill, she went ahead and registered fuckcair.com and redirected it to her gem of a website, Atlas shrugs. Ah, we love it when the loons get caught up in their own absurdity!

A final word:

The ultimate irony in this whole crazy episode is the realization that those who often propose racist and absurd generalizations about Muslims under the pretense of Freedom of Speech (read: Robert Spencer, Michael Savage, etc) are quick to whine and cry about others excercizing their own right to Freedom of Speech to expose and criticize their fraudulence. They are then quick to shriek “bloody libel” and threaten their critics.

As such, their trumping up of themselves as some kind of “defenders of freedom” is as hollow and absurd as the intellectually-bankrupt commentary they spew forth for a living – and a handsomely-paid one at that.

Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz., Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga., Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., and Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz

TPM, which has been all over the story about the GOP pushing an anti-Muslim witch hunt based on a book by loons, David Gaubatz and Paul Sperry has reported that the lawmakers have still not contacted the Sergeant of Arms for an investigation into this “threat to our national security.” They also haven’t given a reason as to the delay.

GOP Lawmakers “Dawdle”

Four Republican lawmakers have not submitted a request to the House sergeant at arms to investigate a threat that one of the four described as a terrorist-linked group possibly “running influence operations or planting spies in key national security-related offices.”

A spokesperson for the sergeant at arms told TPMmuckraker this morning that the office was aware of the charge by GOP members at a press conference Wednesday that the Council on American-Islamic Relations planted Muslim intern spies on the Hill for purposes of subversion. But, says spokesperson Kerri Hanley, the office hasn’t received a request for an investigation, and it wouldn’t launch any probe until such a request is made.

“We don’t have any information to form any kind of opinion to decide whether an investigation is warranted,” Hanley says.

The charges made by Reps. Paul Broun (R-GA), John Shadegg (R-AZ), Sue Myrick (R-NC), and Trent Franks (R-AZ), are based on the new book Muslim Mafia, which is co-authored by a man who has labeled President Obama “Muslim.”

They demanded that the sergeant at arms investigate the possibility of a security breach by Muslim intern spies.

As Franks put it at the press conference five days ago:

“We live in a post-9/11 world where the coincidence of nuclear proliferation and Islamic terrorism pose a very dangerous combination and real threat to America’s national security. … . I take the charges levied against CAIR and laid out in this book very seriously because they affect our national security.”

Myrick’s office told TPMmuckraker Friday it would be submitting requests for investigations in the next few days, but did not explain the delay.

The offices of three of the four Republicans did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the national security risk of waiting to launch an investigation.

Sara Mueller, deputy press secretary for Shadegg, told us: “Unfortunately, the congressman can’t comment on that at this time. “

Meanwhile, the (supposed) cabal of Muslim intern spies can continue to ply their trade in still more sinister (but as yet undefined) ways.

Sue Myrick wrote the foreward for Muslim Mafia

Dave Gaubatz, who we reported on previously while covering a story on Tawfiq Hamid has surfaced again. This time teaming up with Paul Sperry (another Islamophobe) to write a book, Muslim Mafia which claims to uncover the secret, nefarious plot by CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) to supposedly “Islamize America.” This conspiracy theory is related to the kooky Eurabia theory which we debunked, and is another clear manifestation of anti-Muslim Islamophobia.

This time a few far right-wing GOP lawmakers (Sue Myrick, John Shadegg, Paul Broun, and Trent Franks) have used the book to call for a McCarthyist inquisition into Muslims who worked as interns in the Capitol to find out  if they were “planted” by CAIR. They rely on a CAIR memo obtained by Gaubatz’s son who claimed to convert to Islam and then interned with CAIR. The memo doesn’t say anything extraordinary but rather lays out a pretty straightforward PR and advocacy agenda. The key portion that is ringing the Islamophobia bell is, “we will develop national initiatives such as a lobby day and placing Muslim interns in Congressional offices.” So what’s wrong with that you may ask, isn’t that what every advocacy group does in Washingtion DC? Well, the message from the GOP lawmakers seems to be it’s okay as long as you’re not Muslim.

This hysterical McCarthyist drama is being fed to these lawmakers by Dave Gaubatz and Paul Sperry. These two make Orly Taitz of the Birther movement look like a paragon of rationality and senility. Gaubatz claims to have uncovered WMD’s in Iraq, calls Obama our “Muslim leader,” a “crack head,” he was also a member of SANE which stands for Society of Americans for National Existence and is in fact a supremacist organization which has stated amongst other things that “blacks are predisposed to violence,” and that “adherence to Islam as a Muslim is prima facie evidence of an act in support of the overthrow of the US.”

Some lawmakers have already condemned this most recent disgusting, hysterical and kooky initiative from the GOP. John Conyers, Loretta Sanchez and Andre Carson have all condemned this Islamophobic attack on American Muslims. Hopefully many more, including the leaders of both parties will speak out.

This video from Rachel Maddow’s show breaks the issues down pretty clearly:

Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com gives a very good analysis of exactly who and what is behind this “despicable” political event.

This might actually be the most despicable domestic political event of the year:

A group of House Republicans is calling for an investigation into whether a leading American Muslim advocacy group tried to “spy” on congressional offices by placing interns on key security committees.

Rep. Sue Myrick, North Carolina Republican, cited an internal January 2007 memo in which the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) discussed placing Muslim interns on Capitol Hill to “focus on influencing congressmen responsible for policy that directly impacts the American Muslim community.”

CAIR said it had a particular interest in influencing the judiciary, intelligence and homeland security committees. . . . Mrs. Myrick and Republican Reps. John Shadegg of Arizona, Paul Broun of Georgia and Trent Franks of Arizona called Wednesday for an investigation by the House sergeant-at-arms into whether CAIR was successful in planting congressional interns.

“If an organization that is connected to or supports terrorists is running influence operations or planting spies in key national security-related congressional offices, I think this needs to be made known,” Mr. Broun said.

CAIR is a non-profit organization of American citizens who are Muslim and their “mission is to enhance understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.”  They stand accused of plotting to influence members of Congress and trying to help interns obtain positions in Congress in order to advance their political agenda.  That’s consistent with what virtually every political advocacy group in the nation does; it’s normally called activism and democracy.  But because, in this case, it’s a group of Muslims who are doing this, these House Republicans are depicting it as some sort of nefarious espionage plot against the U.S. that demands a criminal investigation.  The Fox News headline screams:

All that from an “internal memo” they uncovered which discusses how CAIR can help Muslim-Americans obtain internship positions with Congressional committees (click to enlarge):

“Muslim interns in Congressional offices” – frightening!  Look at this repulsive innuendo, from Rep. Franks:

While the Republicans said they did not know of specific legislation that CAIR had affected, Franks, a Judiciary Committee member, said he wouldn’t be surprised if it was trying to amend the Patriot Act.

“One of the target policies that they might be concerned about is the Patriot Act itself — those things that give us the greatest tools to be able to surveil those conversations outside of this country . . .  and I think organizations like CAIR would like to diminish that.”

Patriot Act reforms have long been advocated by what The New York Times called “an unlikely coalition of liberal civil-rights advocates, conservative libertarians, gun-rights supporters and medical privacy advocates.”  Several Senators — including the Democrats’ second-highest ranking member, Dick Durbin — just voted (unsuccessfully) to impose new limits on that law.  But when “America’s largest Islamic civil liberties group” takes the same position, these crazed, blatantly bigoted House Republicans spit out McCarthyite smears trying to imply that they’re working from within to help Terrorists attack America.  It’s nothing less than an attempt to criminalize organized political activity by and on behalf of American Muslims.

Just to underscore how extremist the House GOP caucus is, this hysteria is all based on a new book entitled ”Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That’s Conspiring to Islamize America.”  That’s the source which these House members are using.  In fact, one of the GOP House members, Rep. Sue Myrick of North Carolina, wrote the foreword to the book.  One of the two authors of that book, Dave Gaubatz, maintains this website, where he’s hocking the book through Paypal.  Here’s his mission statement at the top of the page:

The donations will assist in exposing Islamic terrorist operations in America. The goal of the organizations: An Islamic Ummah (Nation) Worldwide, Under Islamic Sharia Law. These goals are widely distributed across America, yet ignored by most of our politicians and the Department of Homeland Security.

The entire site is filled with the most extreme and repugnant anti-Muslim paranoia imaginable, claiming that “CAIR represents the ideology of terrorist groups”; warning that “CAIR places ‘insiders’ into Congressional offices in order to push the CAIR and Islamic terrorist agendas“; displaying a photograph of Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim-American elected to Congress, with this caption:  ”One of your leading elected officials (supporter of CAIR) with researcher Chris Gaubatz.  How much information do we have on Carson and Congressman Keith Ellison?; and warning that “Young Muslim children are being taught across America to engage in violence against non Muslims and Muslims who do not uphold Sharia law.”  It warns:

Unless we change the concerns I mentioned, our country will soon evolve into a Socialist country, Sharia law will continue to ‘creep’ into our society, Islamic based terrorist supporting organizations will continue the implementation of achieving the final objective of an Islamic Ummah in America and worldwide.

The website is filled with illiterate and unhinged rants like this:

Mr. Obama was a self admitted cocaine user, alcohol, and chose friends (Reverend Wright) who hated America and were terrorists (Bill Ayers). Note: More could be named. Based on this and this alone, this is not the role model we want our children to follow, nor to watch on TV at school. But why do leading media from the right and left never speak of Obama’s drug days? Because many of them have had their own drug days. . . .

It is time leaders in our country begin speaking out and simply telling the American people the basic truth why Obama and his friends are not repeted [sic] and American parents do not consider him to be a role model for our children. His primary method of resolving national and internatonal [sic] disputes he as generated) is to invite offended parties to the White House to conume [sic] alcoholic beverages. Again, not the method most parents would use to resolve serious situations and not what we want our children to view as an appropriate method. Dave G.

He previously called Obama a “crack head” and wrote that ”a vote for Hussein Obama is a vote for Sharia Law.”

Gaubatz — a civilian agent who worked for The U.S. Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations — was also the source for the “bombshell story” from supreme Muslim-hater Melanie Phillips, who wrote a 2007 piece for the British Spectator with this screaming headline, immediately promoted by leading right-wing blogs:  ”I found Saddam’s WMD Bunker!”  It details how Gaubatz personally found bunkers where Saddam’s WMDs were kept in Iraq, but “the [Bush] administration failed to act on his information, ‘lost’ his classified reports and is now doing everything it can to prevent disclosure of the terrible fact that, through its own incompetence, it allowed Saddam’s WMD to end up in the hands of the very terrorist states against whom it is so controversially at war.”  As a result, Saddam’s WMD are now in the hands of Syria, and the world has been fooled into believing that he had none.

In 2006, Gaubatz created a project called “Mapping Sharia in America”, the purpose of which was to create a comprehensive map of every mosque and Islamic school in the U.S. This is what he wrote:

It is our task to conduct an extensive mapping of all the Islamic day schools, mosques, and other identifiable organizations in the US and to determine which ones teach or preach Islamic law, Sharib.

This investigation will also map the leadership of these Muslim organizations and their other affiliations. We will also attempt to uncover any related businesses used or run by the organizations as fronts for money laundering and other illicit activities.

Finally, we will examine and map any potential targets situated near these organizations, such as city, county, and federal government buildings, schools and universities, US military installations, major utility or infrastructure sites (i.e., nuclear installations, pipelines, water supply, etc.), and transportation hubs.

Back in 2007, the libertarian Jim Henley detailed more facts demonstrating that Gaubatz is a “paranoid, racist loon.”  Just read some of that.  Or this.

This is the ranting, insane hatemonger who House Republicans are now using as their expert source to demand an investigation into CAIR’s villainous plot to place interns on Congressional committees.  It would be darkly humorous if it weren’t so ugly and dangerous.  These House members highlight CAIR’s status as an unindicted co-conspirator in a Muslim charity case without noting that one of the most powerful groups in Congress has actually been directly involved in an espionage case against the U.S., while numerous other corporations which receive substantial largesse from Congress have been convicted of all sorts of serious wrongdoing.

This is the precise rank fear-mongering and compulsive need for an Internal Enemy that has driven American policy and political culture for the entire decade.  Brave Congressional Democrats love to spend their time formally condemning people.  If anything merits formal condemnation, it’s this foul Republican witch hunt.

UPDATE:  As sphodros notes in comments, here’s a chart reflecting the religious affiliation of members of the current Congress:

89.3 percent of the members of Congress are Christian, 8.4% are Jewish, and a grand total of 2 members (.4%) are Muslim.  Their representation on the chart (the green section) is so small they’re practically invisible.  Muslims comprise .6% of the American population.  Yet these people are running around screaming about the imminent “Islamization of America” and imposition of Sharia law and calling for criminal investigations because a few interns on Congressional Committees – American citizens — might be Muslim and are therefore “spies.”  These are members of the U.S. House of Representatives doing that.   And they’re not alone:

In another conversation, [Joe Lieberman] told me that he was reading “America Alone,” a book by the conservative commentator Mark Steyn, which argues that Europe is succumbing, demographically and culturally, to an onslaught by Islam, leaving America friendless in its confrontation with Islamic extremism [GG: that book also flirts with explicit advocacy of anti-Muslim genocide].

“The thing I quote most from it is the power of demographics, in Europe particularly,” Lieberman said. “That’s what struck me the most. But the other part is a kind of confirmation of what I know and what I’ve read elsewhere, which is that Islamist extremism has an ideology, and it’s expansionist, it’s an aggressive ideology. And the title I took to mean that we Americans will have ultimate responsibility for stopping this expansionism.”

They’re breeding like rabbits, want to take over everything (through the power of interns on Congressional Committees), and we must stop them.  It’s the solemn challenge of our generation.

Further reading:

Richard Silverstein: Republicans Gone Wild Muslim Spies on Capitol Hill

Raw Story: Muslim Spies

Media Matters Coverage

Andrew Bostom and "Islamic Scholar" Robert Spencer

The Right-Wing anti-Muslim loonocracy and its minions in the blogosphere have secured a new cause to rally around, ironically enough it once again involves a Muslim minor, and in this regard, the anti-Muslim blogosphere really doesn’t have a good track record.  As recent history has proved, the last time the anti-Muslim blogosphere got this riled up about Muslim minors they turned up with egg on their faces.

After viewing a picture online of a wedding in Gaza, with grooms holding the hands of their young female cousins and nieces, the Islamophobia hit epic proportions with accusations of pedophilia being flung about wily-nily without nary a fact check. Tim Marshall, who reported on the wedding wrote about the Islamophobic response to the wedding,

Our report on this put it into context saying that it took place just a mile from the Israeli border and was a message from Hamas about its strength confidence and future fighters. Oh and that the brides were elsewhere. Pretty straightforward.

It never struck me for a moment that the little girls might later be described in the bloggersphere as the brides! How naive I am.

Dozens, and I mean dozens, of websites took the video of the event and wrote lurid stories about Hamas mass paedophilia with headlines about ‘450 child brides’, and endless copy about how disgusting this was, how it showed how depraved Islam is, et al, ad infinitum. Site after site jumped on the story, linking from one totally wrong load of rubbish to the next.

Robert Spencer was amongst the bloggers that falsely reported the incident as an instance of pedophilia.

The Fatimah Rifqa Bary Case

This time the case involves 17 year old Fatimah Rifqa Bary the daughter of Sri Lankan immigrants who came to America in 2000 seeking treatment for her vision problems. And before you could say “expediency,” the typical hordes of vultures started cycling, not so much out of interest for the girl’s welfare or the facts of the story, but as what they saw as a golden opportunity to reaffirm their caricature of Islam and Muslims as a dangerous cancer lurking within an otherwise good and pure Western civilization.

Fatimah, a cheerleader at New Albany High School ran away from her Columbus, Ohio home and ended up at the home of a pastor in Florida named Blake Lorenz. The details on how she ended up in Florida are still murky but what is clear is that she is leveling some very serious allegations against her family, including that she will be killed if she is returned to Ohio. The Columbus Dispatch reports in a story titled Girl Brainwashed, Parents say:

With Lorenz holding his arm tightly around her, Rifqa told WFTV-TV in Florida on Monday that she would be killed if she came home.

“They love God more than me; they have to do this,” she said. “I’m fighting for my life. You guys don’t understand.”

The family disputes these allegations and believes their daughter has been brainwashed. They state quite categorically that she is free to practice whatever faith she wants,

“We love her, we want her back, she is free to practice her religion, whatever she believes in, that’s OK,” her father, Mohamed Bary, said yesterday.

“What these people are trying to do is not right — I don’t think any religion will teach to separate the kids from their parents,” he said.

The family is not the only ones questioning the young girls allegations, Sgt. Jerry Cupp, the Chief of the Columbus Police Missing-Persons Bureau has said that Mohamed Bary (the father) “comes across to me as a loving, caring, worried father about the whereabouts and the health of his daughter.”

Robert Spencer, however, without knowing anything about the family — or the complete facts of the case — believes there is a slow motion honor killing in the making.  Starting from the pre-set conclusion that he derives from his personal study of Islam, he states that Islam requires the death penalty for apostates, and that it is a dead letter only “if no one cares or is able to enforce it in a particular case.” He writes this in response to Muslim scholar M. Cherif Bassiouni, a distinguished Law professor at DePaul University and President of the International Human Rights Law Institute, who wrote in 2006 that “a Muslim’s conversion to Christianity is not a crime punishable by death under Islamic law.”

Professor Bassiouni wrote this in 2006 when a man in Afghanistan was under the penalty of death for converting to Christianity. He wrote it as part of a document that was submitted to the court in Kabul. It has also been professor Bassiouni’s opinion as early as 1983. Professor Bassiouni responded to Spencer stating,

My position on apostasy has been expressed as early as 1983, namely that at the time of the Prophet it was not considered as only changing one’s mind but that it was the equivalent of joining the enemy and thus constituting high treason. In fact, at one time the Prophet had an agreement with the people in Makkah to return to Makkah all those who came from there, who wished to return after they had converted to Islam. I and a number of other distinguished Muslim scholars have long criticized the views of the four traditional Sunni schools…It is amazing to me how apparently little good faith and intellectual honesty you are displaying in your attack upon Islam and Muslims.

Professor Bassiouni’s position is pretty straight forward, he disagrees with those Muslims and non-Muslims who believe Islam legislates death for apostates and that his and many other distinguished Muslim scholars’ opinion is that it doesn’t. This is not so hard to grasp as LoonWatch contributor Barbel notes directly addressing Spencer,

In an obvious attempt to categorically associate this situation with all Muslims you wrote:

If she is sent back to her family, she could be killed, in accord with the death penalty that is prescribed by all Muslim sects and schools for those who leave Islam.

Surely, as a “scholar” you must be aware of this verse from the Muslim holy book, the Quran:

Those who believe, then reject Faith, then believe (again) and (again) reject Faith, and go on increasing in Unbelief,- God will not forgive them nor guide them on the Way.

How would it be possible to reject faith twice or go on increasing in unbelief if one was suppose to have been killed after the first rejection?  Furthermore, what purpose would withholding guidance have if the person had a death sentence anyway?

Robert, regardless of what you might want us to believe, Islamic scholars are NOT in consensus nor have they ever been in consensus over the apostasy issue.  Historically, the sentence of death was only applied to people who converted from the religion AND committed espionage. Consider what the 10th century scholar Shams al-Din al-Sarakhsi had to say:

The prescribed penalties are generally not suspended because of repentance, especially when they are reported and become known to the head of state.  The punishment of highway robbery, for instance, is not suspended because of repentance; it is suspended only by the return of property to the owner prior to arrest. … Renunciation of the faith and conversion to disbelief is admittedly the greatest of offenses, yet it is a matter between man and his Creator, and its punishment is postponed to the day of judgment. Punishments that are enforced in this life are those which protect the people’s interests, such as just retaliation, which is designed to protect life.

More recently, the contemporary Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan (a man you have repeatedly tried to defame) had this to say:

I have been criticized about this in many countries.  My view is the same as that of Sufyan Al-Thawri, an 8th-century scholar of Islam, who argued that the Koran does not prescribe death for someone because he or she is changing religion. Neither did the Prophet himself ever perform such an act. Many around the Prophet changed religions. But he never did anything against them.  There was an early Muslim, Ubaydallah ibn Jahsh, who went with the first emigrants from Mecca to Abyssinia.  He converted to Christianity and stayed, but remained close to Muslims.  He divorced his wife, but he was not killed.

I know this is probably still not enough for you, so here are over a hundred more Islamic scholars who are against the death penalty for apostasy.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that this girl (or many others who are in similar situations) isn’t at serious risk.  She very may well be.  All it means is that the straw man version of Islam that you have created only serves to ignite more hatred and promote your own personal ideological agenda.

This highlights the absurdity that is Robert Spencer, an absurdity that projects an ominous pre-set conclusion on any heated situation that arises dealing with Muslims and castigates “all Islam” in the process without acknowledging the polyvalent interpretations that exist or the context.

Robert Spencer’s Hypocrisy on Religious Freedom

What further makes the Fatimah Rifqah Bary case one which exposes Spencer and his cronies is the hypocrisy of it all. This is being painted as a freedom of religion case, specifically the freedom to change one’s religion, but it seems in this department Spencer sounds like the pot calling the kettle black since he supports those who would restrict the freedom of religion of Muslims.

As we have written on extensively before, one of the close comrades of Spencer is neo-fascist European politician Geert Wilders. Spencer is on the record stating his admiration for Wilders who he sees as the only European politician standing up for Western Civilization.

"Under his wing": Geert Wilders & Robert Spencer

Wilders is by all accounts an odious individual who calls for the out right denial of religious freedom to Muslims. He has called for the banning of the Quran which he compares to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, he has also stated that, “Freedom of Religion should not apply to Islam.” He is also working to end Muslim immigration and strip Muslims in Dutch society of their citizenship.

This is Spencers friend. Spencer has also participated in forums with Wilders, conferences, writes articles about him, has interviewed him and cites him often. In one article Spencer wrote in response to CAIR‘s Ibrahim Hooper he says,

I didn’t actually have anything to do with that conference in Florida, but Hoop could just say straight out that I support Wilders. And so should anyone who holds dear the Western values that are threatened by Islamic supremacists.

So is the Fatimah Rifqah Bary case another instance of Robert Spencer jumping the gun or is her life legitimately under threat? The courts will resolve that question, but Spencer has shot his credibility in this department with a track record of obfuscation, innuendo and misrepresentation and is wholly unreliable.

Will Spencer also back track on his position that “all Muslim sects and schools of thought” legislates the death penalty for apostates and concede that there is a valid counter opinion such as the one articulated by Professor Bassiouni? Finally, will Spencer quit the charade that he is a democrat that cares for Freedom of Religion when in fact his position is to support those who would deny religious freedom?

It seems that per his practice, Spencer seized on this case to further his well-oiled agenda that Islam is evil and Muslims are backward. As the story of Fatimah Rifqah Bary plays out we will see more clearly that the anti-Muslims are not motivated by her welfare but rather to confirm their warped hatred of Islam and Muslims.

Islamophobes Inc., Robert Spencer and Geert Wilders

Recently the American Library Association & the Ethnic & Multicultural Information Exchange Roundtable was to hold a discussion around the topic of Perspectives on Islam: Beyond the Stereotyping. For all intents and purposes the forthcoming discussion seemed very promising. It would confront and discuss the important issue of stereotypical portrayals of Islam and all that is associated with it such as myths and smears.

The program ran into trouble when without the knowledge of the other panelists, and seemingly without any sort of vetting, the ALA invited a well known anti-Islam and anti-Muslim blogger and writer — Robert Spencer. To say the least this made more than a few people scratch their heads. How could a reputable organization invite a well known Islamophobe who traffics in perpetuating stereotypes to speak at an event that is supposed to go beyond stereotypes?

To understand just how strange this was just imagine if the ALA had invited David Duke as a speaker on matters of race, say on a panel discussing the topic Perspectives on Race: Beyond Stereotyping. Does anyone believe he would be invited?

This was the very reason that a group of librarians, scholars and individuals sent a letter to the ALA protesting the inclusion of Robert Spencer on the panel. In it they detail their reasons and their apprehension at the severe lapse of judgment and error on the part of the ALA,

Even the most cursory overview of Mr. Spencer’s oeuvre makes it clear that in fact he has no place on a panel whose aim is to dispel stereotypes about Islam. Indeed, we, as librarians, scholars, and individuals are deeply concerned by ALA & EMIERT’s choice of Mr. Spencer for such a panel: Mr. Spencer espouses a view of Islam as a system of belief which is essentially violent, undemocratic, totalitarian, exclusive and at war with all non-Muslims. Mr. Spencer in fact goes as far as to equate Islam with fascism. According to him,

The misbegotten term “Islamo-fascism” is wholly redundant: Islam itself is a kind of fascism that achieves its full and proper form only when it assumes the powers of the state.” (www.jihadwatch.com/islam101)

Hence a question arises as to the justification for inviting a speaker who cannot see anything positive about Islamic beliefs, cultures, societies, histories, etc. to talk to an audience in order to dispel negative views of Islam. We are indeed saddened and puzzled by ALA’s choice for their panel, especially in that this appears to be a rare opportunity to educate people about Islam against the backdrop of an overwhelming atmosphere of ignorance, and negative stereotyping.

The open letter to the ALA resulted in the other three panelists withdrawing their participation in protest against the inclusion of Robert Spencer who they only learned was going to be a part of the panel a few days ago. This resulted eventually in the ALA canceling the event.

This cancellation served as a continuing repudiation of Spencer by scholars and his growing inability to cross over into the mainstream. Increasingly, Spencer’s voice is limited to the echo chamber that is the cottage industry of Islam-bashing which contains such “luminaries” as Debbie Schlussel, Brigitte Gabriel, and Andrew Bostom (!).

In response to being outed by the academics and librarians Spencer wrote a usual shrill diatribe in which he attacked his former friend Charles Johnson, CAIR and accused the ALA of “caving-in” to pressure. Yet by responding it seems Spencer has just dug himself further in a hole that leaves him wide open to further accusations, of at the very least, brazenly supporting loony anti-Muslimism and Islamophobia.

This is all the more revealing in light of a recent comment on Loonwatch from an obvious Spencer fan by the name of John Jackson on a post about Debbie Schlussel. In it Jackson agrees with another commenter Sami and says, “You do a great disservice to Robert Spencer by lumping him in with Debbie Schlussel as ‘Islamophobes’. Schlussel goes off the deep end frequently. I have never seen Spencer do the same.”

It may be true (though I don’t think so) that Spencer doesn’t go off the deep end “frequently” but he does go off the deep end — a lot. Also he takes issue with Spencer being lumped in with the likes of Schlussel, but why not? The only difference between Debbie Schlussel and Robert Spencer is that Debbie doesn’t hide her hate and vitriol against Muslims or Islam nor does she attempt to couch it in an air of objectivity. Furthermore, it wasn’t Loonwatch that first lumped Spencer in with Schlussel but the excellent report produced by FAIR titled Smearcasters.

In Spencer’s response to ALA’s cancellation he lashed out against Smearcasters and to the chagrin of John Jackson he didn’t qualify his attack by saying that some of the profiled such as Debbie Schlussel go off the “deep end frequently” or that Debbie was a “retard” as Sami wrote,  instead he defended them saying, “In reality, the “Smearcasters” report was a political hit piece on an array of the opponents of CAIR and its allied groups.”

For Spencer those profiled by Smearcasters were the victims of a “hit piece” on mere “opponents of CAIR and its allied groups.” Yes, nothing to do with their hate and bigotry Spencer! This is nothing less than an indirect endorsement of all those in the report, and so it is not us lumping in Spencer with what Spencer supporter Sami called “retards” but Spencer himself.

In the same response Spencer further goes after CAIR and defends his alliance with Geert Wilders, the controversial and fascist European politician stating,

CAIR’s Honest Ibe Hooper doesn’t have to resort to such circumlocutions. I didn’t actually have anything to do with that conference in Florida, but Hoop could just say straight out that I support Wilders. And so should anyone who holds dear the Western values that are threatened by Islamic supremacists — notably, as I said above, the freedom of speech, the freedom of conscience, the equality of rights of all people before the law.

There it is straight from his pen and that’s why Spencer keeps digging himself a hole. His support for Geert Wilders is his downfall because any objective and thorough understanding of Geert Wilders, what he has said and what he represents will prove the lie to the claim made by Spencer that he cares about Democratic freedoms and Rights because if he did he wouldn’t support Wilders and company.

Wilders is on record stating that religious freedom, a cornerstone of the foundation of modern democracies everywhere should not apply to Muslims,

Islam is not a religion… the Quran is a book that calls for hatred, that calls for violence, for murder, for terrorism, for war, and submission…We should also stop pretending that Islam is a religion…the right to religious freedom should not apply to Islam.

This is not the only place that Wilders has made this statement he has repeated it to roaring applause at Synagogues and conferences.

It is unbelievable that Spencer would now attempt to posit himself as an objective academic researching and writing on Islam when he unabashedly “supports” odious and reprehensible individuals such as Geert Wilders. Who can take Spencer’s grandiose claim seriously that he is fighting for the freedom of speech, freedom of conscious, indeed for Western civilization itself against “Islamic supremacism” when he supports and calls on us to support one who would infringe on the right of individuals to freely practice their faith.

What can you expect though from one who joined a group that aimed for a reconquista of modern day Turkey, forcibly replacing its Muslim population with a Christian one?

Also Read Svend’s take: Joke of the Day: Robert Spencer as Bridge-Builder

Rabbi Brad Hirschfield

Rabbi Brad Hirschfield seems to be a good guy. But in his response to fellow Beliefnet blogger Aziz Poonwalla’s on-point criticism of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s bizarre decision to screen the anti-Muslim hate film, The Third Jihad, he chases his tail and ends up adding unnecessary nuance to a clear-cut situation.

For example, while he acknowledges that the Wiesenthal Center is dead wrong for its support of this pathetic piece of hate propaganda, he turns around and criticizes CAIR for objecting, strangely implying that by objecting to a purported center of tolerance effectively promoting hate material, CAIR is “crying wolf.”

Huh?

In doing so, he comes off as apologetic for the Wiesenthal’s center cynical act, one that he seemed to condemn just sentences before.

Hirschfield suggests that his problem with CAIR is that it is focusing exclusively on Islamophobia. But what does he expect a press release challenging the promotion of the most vile brand of Islamophobia to focus on? Of course, he neglects to mention that CAIR, in its press releases condemning terrorism, focuses exclusively on terrorism, and so on. He uses technicalities to diminish from the topic of the hour: an insiduously anti-Muslim propaganda film being promoted by a Jewish center “for tolerance.”

Moreover, a comment that appeared on Rabbi Hirschfield’s blog calling him out on his double-speak seemed to have miraculously disappeared the next day. The comment did not include any foul language or hateful material, but logically argued the case against Rabbi Hirschfield’s whitewashing of the situation from the perspective of that user.

This of course raises questions about Rabbi Hirschfield’s own approach to freedom of speech, when it does not go his way. Why was a comment that delivered an opposing view removed?

Even more hypocrytical is the fact that a comment posted by the Clarion Fund, the makers of this hate film, was allowed to stay. This comment was little more than the company’s verbatim press release promoting the film, thereby using the Rabbi’s blog as a platform for the free promotion of hate material.

Here’s the text of the original comment posted by Motamer:

Motamer

May 19, 2009 5:17 PM

Rabbi Hirschfield,

You assume the role of the neutral sage who sends everybody to their room without regard to partisanship, but you don’t play that role too well and your biases quickly ooze through.

On the one hand you scurry to offer homage to the Weisenthal Center as a “large and influential” organization, But then you turn around and strip CAIR from the same – though it also be a “large and influential” organization. In fact, you explicitly cast your own aspersions on CAIR by entertaining the cynical and preposterous fantasy that CAIR may possibly accept that the Elders of Protocols of Zion is partially true.

This is neither fair nor honest on your part. CAIR has never said anything to lead you to believe that, indeed it has explicitly stated the very opposite. So your brand of humor, probing, or whatever that was completely backfired and only displayed your double standard in showing respect to established Jewish organizations while working to undermine respect for established Muslim organizations.

This sort of antagonism and display of contempt and disdain for Muslim enfranchisement that you – hopefully inadvertently – infuse in your piece, is in turn carried out explicitly in this film. A film whose hypocritical and deceptive nature you apologize for by pointing out that it has “elements of truth” in it. What are those elements of truth? That Muslims have a radical minority? Is that a revelation missed upon us? Do we need a new film for that? CAIR is the first to acknowledge and condemn violent and radicalized tendencies among Muslims.

Oh but that’s not even it.

You see the film is not so much concerned with “that” minority, the radical minority, the real threat. You, like the film, befuddle the tiny fact that the minority targeted in 3rd Jihad is a whole other minority, it’s the religious minority of American Muslims in the US – a minority vis-a-vis Christians, but mainstream American nonetheless – living and working through honor, hard work, and fair opportunity to represent the underrepresented.

The Third Jihad is about casting suspicion on the mainstream American Muslim establishment as some sort of fifth column conspiratorial, massively deceptive insurgency that is out to take over America. There is zero truth in this claim. That precisely invites a comparison to the Elders of Zion, and missing that on your part does not say much for your actual familiarity with the film.

Here are snapshots showing Hirschfield’s blog including the comment as it originally appeared and then after it was removed:

Motamer's Comment Showing up as Hirschfield's first comment

Click here for full screen shot.

The full comment showing up on Hirschfield's blog

Click here for full screen shot.

Motamer's comment removed and Robert R's comment now showing up first with Clarion's PR following it

Douglas Farah

In a blog entry titled, “The MB Inroads Into the Obama Administration,” Douglas Farah, yet another so-called “investigative” consultant, sets out to link American Muslim organizations to planet Zorbex, that global superpower which is able to operate in perfect coordination yet secrecy toward “sneaking in” an evil empire in the United States — Zorbex is also known as the Muslim Brotherhood, or affectionately as MB.

Douglas Farah throws a few punches around at the usual American Muslim organizations, but hones his venom in this piece at Prof. John “the architect” Esposito, and Dalia “the insider” Mogahed.

Let’s start with Esposito:

Farah: “The architect is Dr. John Esposito, a long time defender of the MB and the head of the Saudi-financed Georgetown University Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at the Walsh School of Foreign Service.”

Why is Douglas Farah threatened by the concept of Muslim-Christian Understanding?

Because it actually gets people talking to each other, rather than secluding from each other and retiring to wild speculation and demagoguery about one another. The latter is what the Douglas Farah’s, Daniel Pipes’, and Steven Emerson’s of the world desperately need in order to stay in business.

For most people, universities, especially well-established and credible top institutions like Georgetown University are a service to society. Not so to the conspiracy loons like Douglas Farah. He is willing to argue that Georgetown with all of its gargantuan bureaucracy and what that may include in checks and balances is but one sweeping front for the Muslim Brotherhood. In a similar vein, all of the national American Muslim organizations (Farah’s blog piece mentions CAIR, MPAC, and CSID by name) are but one sweeping secretive front for that same ominous superpower, that struggling Egyptian party, the Muslim Brotherhood.

But hey, Douglas Farah is no dummy. He is sure to provide proof for his arguments. You ready? Georgetown, presumably like those orgs, is….. “Saudi-financed!”

Who is he talking about? Well, Prince Al Waleed bin Talal. Who is Prince Al Waleed bin Talal, that prince of darkness and anti-Americanism? Well, we’ll get to that in the last of three points that explain the major problems with Douglas Farah’s argument:

1. The much larger picture. Has he ever heard of philanthropy? That thing that tends to be a long and strong legacy in the United States. How does he think most US private institutions receive a good chunk of their assets? There are hundreds of examples of wealthy financiers of US academic institutions both American and foreign. Does he pin an agenda on each depending on where they were born or the faith they espouse? For example, does he look at a Jewish Hungarian philanthropist who donates to an Ivy league school and scream “Zionist agenda?” Not only does he not do so, but if others did, he would be blogging about anti-Semitism. Good, but then why does he engage in the reverse?

 

2. The slightly larger picture. Georgetown is Saudi-financed? As in Georgetown exclusively? How about the United States is Saudi-financed? Try on the order of $860 billion in Saudi investments to the U.S. economy. Now one may legitimately have an issue with that. It’s a good debate to have. But Douglas Farah is being hypocritical when he cherry picks Georgetown for criticism on that point.

 

3. The full picture. Much has been made about Prince Al Waleed bin Talal’s donations to Georgetown and American Muslim organizations. The donations are made out to be some sort of dubious evil secretive Wahhabi endeavor. But again, anyone familiar with reality can see through the bull. The conspiracy theorists happen to neglect a few small facts that may give an entirely different picture. Georgetown and these American Muslim organizations are in the same league with AOL, Apple Inc., Worldcom, Motorola, News Corporation Ltd, the Four Seasons hotel chain and the Plaza Hotel in New York, London’s Savoy Hotel, Monaco’s Monte Carlo Grand Hotel, Euro Disney SCA, Fairmont Hotels – and yes, President George H. W. Bush. Al-Waleed who is a major investor in all of these companies donated $500,000 to the George Herbert Walker Bush Scholarship Fund, established by Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, to honor the former President.Or how about the epitome of Western intelligensia: Harvard University. Al-Waleed donated $20 million to Harvard, one of its 25 largest donations. Al-Waleed donated $10 million to Cornell University to study complex genomic and cellular systems as they relate to medicine and biology by using mathematical models, physics and high-speed computing. Al-Waleed donated $20 million to the Louvre Museum in Paris, the World’s top temple of art, its largest gift ever.Now if Al-Waleed is part of an undercover Wahhabi front to establish a caliphate in the West, he is one dumb bastard. I mean that would be one heck of an expensive route with way too much irreversible contradictions on the way. Here’s a whopping $30 million in financing for “Western” halmarks like liberalism, art, and genomes — oh but then here’s a tiny fraction of that amount given to the evil Muslim organizations that will trump all of that – and some – with their impending anti-Western Caliphate. It’s fool proof. Ingenious! Nihohaha.

Next is Dalia Mogahed:

There is no need to even get into Doug’s off-point hate there. Hussein Ibish hit it on the head in a comment on the same blog:

OK, so let’s review, then, the case against Dalia Mogahed:

1. Born in Egypt
2. Worked for Gallup
3. Wrote a book with a Georgetown professor
4. Had a co-worker who used to work for MPAC
5. Used to work for a mosque in which one person lost a security clearance and another person has immigration issues
6. Father is associated with a different mosque, whose website links to American Muslim organizations
7. That mosque was headed by a guy who now has a job with one of those groups.

Egypt, Gallup, Georgetown, a former coworker, some guy’s immigration problems, a mosque’s website, some other guy’s new job. Wow. Case closed. She is definitely an operative of the Muslim Brotherhood. Another brilliant piece of reporting, Doug!

— Hussein Ibish Apr 14, 03:27 #

As you seem to not know, the MB is a web of relationships, including and particularly Georgetown and Esposito. Sorry that was lost on you.

— Douglas Farah Apr 14, 09:07 #

oooh. Doug got you there Hussein! How can the web be lost on you? How can anyone with a name like Hussein be trusted to get it right anyway…

The serious question though is, why does Douglas Farah, an investigative consultant (whatever that means) fail to “investigate” and disclose the full facts to his readers? Why does he do the sloppy cut-and-paste thing, giving a tiny portion of the facts, and then filling in the rest with conspiracy theories?

Because that is the modus operandi of the Loons. And that’s why there’s a loonwatch.

Like Steven Emerson and Daniel Pipes, Farah is not interested in uncovering the real terrorist threat, he is committed to a different agenda: delegitimizing credible and mainstream Muslims, under the guise of fighting terror while taking advantage of everyone else’s genuine concerns about real terror.

While these “investigative” loons are busy with their politicization and keeping others busy with them, real terrorists will slip by as they have in the past.