Posted tagged ‘CAIR’

« WarSclerotic home page
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Dr. Jasser joins Intelligence Report discussing the importance of identifying radical Islam

July 2, 2016

Dr. Jasser joins Intelligence Report discussing the importance of identifying radical Islam, AIFD and Fox News via YouTube, July 1, 2016

Categories: CAIR, Countering violent extremism, Islamic jihad, Islamic reformation, Islamic supremacy, Islamists in America, Obama administration, US Congress, Zuhdi Jasser
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 1 Comment

The Washington Post’s Chronic CAIRless Syndrome

June 30, 2016

The Washington Post’s Chronic CAIRless Syndrome, Camera.org, June 29, 2016

(Sad but hardly exceptional. The “legitimate” media rarely present facts to dispute the Obama administration’s propaganda machine. — DM)

Why do Washington Post reporters and editorial systematically keep relevant background about the Council on American Islamic Relations from readers?

CAMERA has questioned Post coverage of CAIR—an unindicted co-conspirator in the United States’ biggest terrorism funding trial to date—for years. No answer has been forthcoming, not even after CAMERA provided the newspaper’s last three ombudsmen with public record information casting doubt on CAIR’s self-portrait as a civil rights advocate for Muslim Americans.

The late Deborah Howell, Post ombudsman from 2005 to 2008, told CAMERA’s Washington office she had brought its complaint to the newsroom’s attention but, in essence, staffers rebuffed discussion of it. And The Post has continued citing CAIR as a credible source, virtually never telling readers that, among other things:

*In that 2009 federal case, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development retrial, five men were sentenced to prison for raising more than $12 million for Hamas. Hamas is the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, a U.S.-government designated terrorist organization. Receiving a 65-year term was Ghassan Elashi, co-founder of CAIR’s Texas chapter;

*In an out-of-court settlement of a suit it brought, the council reduced libel claims to omit contesting assertions it was founded by Hamas members, founded by Islamic terrorists and funded by Hamas supporters;

*Including Elashi, at least five former CAIR lay leaders or staffers have been arrested, convicted and/or deported on weapons or terrorism charges; and

*A council “media guide” to proper reporting of Islamic issues was “pure propaganda,” according to Investor’s Business Daily.

All this and more can be found in CAMERA’s 2009 Special Report, “The Council on American Islamic Relations: Civil Rights, or Extremism?” copies of which have been provided to Post staffers on numerous occasions.

Giving CAIR a pass. And another. And another

CAMERA has not urged The Post, or other news outlets, to ignore CAIR. Rather, it repeatedly has recommended that the newspaper and other media provide the minimum context necessary. Readers reasonably ought to be able to determine for themselves whether the council is, as it implies, a Muslim American version of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) or the ADL (Anti-Defamation League), or, as its history indicates, a Muslim Brotherhood derivative.

But no. When it comes to CAIR, The Post has its back. Among recent examples:

*“How the Trump campaign decided to target Muslims; Influenced by 9/11, candidate and aides focused on ‘radical Islam,’” June 22, 2016. CAIR’s Corey Saylor, director of its “department to monitor and combat Islamophobia” is quoted. No information about CAIR is included;

“After Orlando, anxiety fills Muslim congregations; Worshipers in nightclub shooter’s town, already enduring epithets, worry about what might come next,” June 19. This Post report cites “Omar Saleh, a lawyer with the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Florida chapter, which has offered free legal assistance to the Muslim community in which [Omar] Mateen [who committed the Orlando nightclub massacre] lived.” Again, no background on CAIR;

*“Trump’s broadside after massacre shakes Islamic group,” June 15. The feature leads with, and follows uncritically, CAIR’s claims of rising anti-Muslim sentiments and actions across the United States. Yet again, nothing in the article would flag the organization’s credibility for readers;

*“‘It could get a lot worse for Muslims in America’,” a May 4 Op-Ed by Post columnist Dana Milbank. Writing “[Presumptive Republican Party presidential nominee Donald] Trump can’t be blamed for everything his followers do. But his ascent has coincided with a rise in the number of anti-Muslim incidents to the highest level the Council on American-Islamic Relations has ever found.” Readers are not told that CAIR has a history of exaggerated claims about anti-Muslim activity. Nor are they reminded that, the council’s old and new warnings of “Islamophobia” notwithstanding, according to FBI hate crime statistics Jews still are members of the religious group most likely to be targeted. In 2014, for example, of more than 1,100 reported hate crimes based on religion, nearly 57 percent aimed at Jews, 16 percent at Muslims.

Coincidentally, while The Post repeatedly presented CAIR as a credible source, including reporting its post-Orlando offer of legal assistance, the U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the council should be tried for fraud. The case involves hundreds of people who had relied on CAIR for legal aid. See “CAIR to Stand Trial for Massive Fraud; The Council on American Islamic Relations is now charged with fraud and cover-up perpetrated against hundreds of Muslims,” The Clarion Project, June 22. The project is a non-profit organization that describes itself as “fighting extremism, promoting dialogue.”

If a tree falls on you in the forest

The Post does not appear to have covered the appeals verdict. A Nexis search indicates no U.S. newspapers did.

The Clarion Project, like CAMERA, like historian and publisher of Middle East Quarterly Daniel Pipes, The Investigative Project on Terrorism’s Steven Emerson and many others have been listed, or better, putatively black-listed, in a CAIR report. The council tars them as key players in an imagined national network fostering Islamophobia. The report, referred to obliquely by The Post in its June 15 article, is risible, slanderous and potentially libelous.

Asked about it by KPFA-FM radio, Berkeley, Cal., CAMERA replied, in part:

“CAIR’s self-described study of ‘Islamophobic networks’ alleges ‘CAMERA is pervasively inaccurate and disguises its anti-Muslim agenda by omitting important information.” ‘Pervasively inaccurate’ sweepingly implies a pattern of error. Yet the study appears to supply not one example. The allegation itself is not only pervasively inaccurate, it is slanderously and perhaps libelously so.

“As to our supposed camouflaged ‘anti-Muslim agenda,’ again, where are the examples? The one specific mention is of our ISNA [Islamic Society of North America] Special Report—but nothing in the report itself is quoted. Perhaps because it can’t be; CAIR attempts a weak smokescreen, confessing ‘unlike other Islamophobic organizations, CAMERA does not communicate obvious bigotry in their literature.’ (See CAMERA’s Special Report, “The Islamic Society of North America: Active, Influential and Rooted in the Muslim Brotherhood,” 2012)

“In fact, CAMERA does not communicate bigotry at all. But it’s our contention, which we believe the public record amply supports, that CAIR’s objective is not so much to fight anti-Muslim prejudice but to use the cry of ‘Islamophobia’ to censor discussion and analysis of Islamic extremism.”

FBI Director James Comey said that last year the bureau had more than 900 active cases, some in each of the 50 states, into suspected Islamic State sympathizers or other potential terrorists. George Washington University’s Program on Extremism noted the arrests in the United States in 2015 of 56 individuals on suspicion of plotting on behalf of or otherwise supporting the Islamic State. (See “Washington Times Notes Record Terror Levels,” CAMERA, Dec. 7, 2015.) Islamophobia, or newsworthy information?

Islamic extremism short of terrorist radicalization also would seem to be newsworthy, by definition. But not apparently to CAIR, which purports to find “Islamophobia” everywhere. As the Clarion Project notes, “CAIR wages an unrelenting campaign to discredit its critics as anti-Muslim bigots and moderate Muslims as puppets of an “Islamophobia network” (“Special Report: The Council on American Islamic Relations; Fact Sheet”. The paper covers some of the same material as CAMERA’s Special Report on CAIR, but extends the period under review through 2013.)

In relying uncritically on CAIR as a source, The Washington Post and other news media undercut themselves and short-change readers, listeners and viewers. The question is why? The answer would be newsworthy.

Categories: CAIR, Clarion Project, Fraud, Islamist organizations, Islamists and the media, Islamists in America, Islamophobia, Media, Muslim Brotherhood, Obama's America, Propaganda, Victimology, Washington Post
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

CAIR-Fuqra Official Announces Intention to Run for Governor

June 29, 2016

CAIR-Fuqra Official Announces Intention to Run for Governor, Clarion Project, Ryan Mauro, June 29, 2016

Tahirah-Amatul-Wadud-HPTahirah Amatul-Wadud (Photo: Facebook)

Tahirah Amatul-Wadud, an official with both the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Massachusetts chapter and the Muslims of the Americas (a rebranding of the Jamaat ul-Fuqra terrorist group), has announced her intention to run for governor.

She currently lives in Massachusetts, where Republican Governor Charlie Baker will be running for re-election in 2018. It is unclear if Wadud meant that that she’d run in the next cycle.

Amatul-Wadud is currently the general counsel for the Muslims of the Americas, whose spiritual leader is a radical cleric named SheikhMubarak Ali Gillani in Pakistan. The organization was previously known as Jamaat ul-Fuqra, when it carried out terrorist attacks in the 1980s and early 1990s.

The group is best known for its “Islamberg” headquarters in New York where guerilla training of women has occurred, as seen in this undated footage obtained by the Clarion Project from a law enforcement source. It claims to have 22 “Islamic villages” in 12 states. The Clarion Project identified one such “village” in Texas in 2014. We recently published the heartbreaking testimony of a woman who grew up in these villages in the 1980s.

A 2007 FBI report  obtained by the Clarion Project states “the documented propensity for violence by this organization supports the belief the leadership of the MOA extols membership to pursue a policy of jihad or holy war against individuals or groups it considers enemies of Islam, which includes the U.S. Government.”

It says “members of the MOA are encouraged to travel to Pakistan to receive religious and military/terrorist training from Gillani.” It warns that MOA “possess an infrastructure capable of planning and mounting terrorist campaigns overseas and within the U.S.” MOA has a history of terrorist and criminal activity.

Amatul-Wadud previously posted an article on her Facebook page by Gillani that touts 9/11 conspiracy theories and claims that ISIS is a front for British intelligence. It also claims that the U.S. was brought into World War Two by a Jewish conspiracy.

“There was no need for America to go to war against Hitler. Hitler was not the enemy of America or the American people. There was a mutual animosity between Hitler and the Jews. So, the American people paid a very heavy price for fighting someone else’s war,” Gillani wrote.

When Amatul-Wadud made her announcement, she immediately tweeted to Syeda Zainab Gillani, who praised her for the decision. Gillani’s twitter displays a photo of Sheikh Gillani and Hussain Adams, chief executive officer of MOA and son of convicted Fuqra terrorist, Barry Adams.

Amatul-Wadud is also a board member for the Massachusetts branch of CAIR, which the Justice Department has labeled an unindicted co-conspirator in a terrorism-financing trial. CAIR is also identified by the Justice Department as an entity of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood. The United Arab Emirates designated CAIR as a terrorist organization when it cracked down on Islamist extremism and banned the Muslim Brotherhood.

A 2007 court filing by federal prosecutors in another terrorism case reads:

“From its founding by Muslim Brotherhood leaders, CAIR conspired with other affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood to support terrorists … the conspirators agreed to use deception to conceal from the American public their connections to terrorists.”

Amatul-Wadud’s status as a joint CAIR/Fuqra official reflects growing ties between the two organizations.

Shockingly, Amatul-Wadud was invited to a White House event celebrating activists for religious pluralism in December. She is also on the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women, which interestingly doesn’t mention her connection to MOA/Fuqra (but does mention her status as a CAIR official).

The CAIR-MA website also doesn’t mention the connection, only saying that she is “general counsel for a New York Muslim congregation.” When I confronted a CAIR official on Newsmax TV about this link and Fuqra’s history (which includes showing pictures of the weapons found during a raid on a Fuqra camp in Colorado in 1992), his rebuttal was that terrorist networks haven’t existed in America since the 9/11 attacks.

Whenever Amatul-Wadud does run for governor, MOA/Fuqra, CAIR and their allies will try to drown out voices mentioning this information with shouts of “Islamophobia,” as those with Islamist extremist backgrounds always do. But, with this volume of incriminating information, no megaphone will be loud enough to stop the facts from being heard.

Categories: CAIR, Clash of civilizations, Islamic jihad, Islamic radicalization, Islamisation, Islamists in America, Islamophobia, U.S. politics
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Comments: 2 Comments

Hamas-Linked CAIR Lawyers-Up Orlando Terrorist’s Family, Mosque Suspects

June 23, 2016

Hamas-Linked CAIR Lawyers-Up Orlando Terrorist’s Family, Mosque Suspects, Counter Jihad Report, Paul Sperry, June 23, 2016

[B]ecause the Obama administration has scuttled the ongoing prosecution of CAIR, the group is now free to intervene in terrorism cases and effectively dictate the terms of the FBI’s terrorism investigations.

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

If you are a member of the media or even an investigator with the FBI seeking to question members of the Orlando terrorist’s family or mosque, you will now have to go through a federally listed terrorist front group — the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Calls to Omar Mateen’s father and other relatives are now redirected to a phone number for a CAIR attorney, and another CAIR lawyer is sitting in on FBI interviews with suspects at Mateen’s radical mosque in Fort Pierce, Fla. — even though the FBI has suspended formal ties to CAIR over the group’s association with terrorist groups.

CAIR lawyered up a suspect who was interviewed by two FBI agents at the mosque for about 30 minutes on Friday. The CAIR lawyer, Omar Saleh, also happens to be a longstanding member of that same mosque — the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce — as well as a friend of the Mateen family. Mateen’s sisters, who work at the mosque and own property on the same street, follow local CAIR coordinators on social media.

The small Islamic center has now graduated two deadly terrorists in the past two years, including a worshiper who became the first American suicide bomber in Syria. Local law enforcement authorities call it “a breeding ground” for terrorists.

Saleh, who isn’t charging mosque suspects for his legal help, is now in charge of fielding questions from investigators interested in questioning other suspects in the June 12 terrorist attack. In fact, CAIR is now offering free legal aid to the entire Muslim community in which Mateen lived.

What’s more, CAIR’s legal counsel and communications director for its Florida chapter is acting as the official spokesman for the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce. The CAIR official, Wilfredo Amr Ruiz, has minimized Mateen’s involvement in the mosque, claiming he was a fringe member who was quiet and kept to himself.

“He was very unusual,” Ruiz told the local press. “After Friday noon prayers, the older people stay and socialize. He did so very few times.”

CAIR’s Saleh agreed: “He was just a person who came in and out. Most people didn’t know him at all … There’s no way anyone would know” he sought to carry out violent jihad against fellow Americans.

But that doesn’t square with accounts from co-workers and classmates who describe Mateen as an opinionated loudmouth with violently anti-American and homophobic views. And Mateen was hardly on the fringes of the mosque community. As CounterJihad.com first reported, mosque records show his father helped lead the Islamic center as a top officer and board member.

Ruiz, who’s also worked for a Florida-based Islamist group that demonizes homosexuals, additionally claimed Mateen’s attendance at the mosque was “sporadic,” even though others said he regularly prayed there three to four times a week for the past 13 years. In fact, he was seen praying at the Islamic center the night before the attack one gay nightclub in Orlando.

Running interference in terrorism investigations is a familiar pattern for CAIR, which remains on a federal terrorist co-conspirators blacklist.

Last year, CAIR intervened on behalf of the family and mosque of the San Bernardino terrorists, even holding a press conference for family members to help spin their story before investigators had a chance to talk to them. Within hours of the attack, CAIR swooped in and lawyered up key witnesses and suspected co-conspirators in the plot, including relatives and friends of the shooters along with leaders of their mosque.

CAIR officials defended the parents of the lead shooter even as they were placed on a federal terrorist watchlist.

“Those family members would have been key (persons of interest) for those FBI agents and other law enforcement agencies to interview after the immediate fact, to try to find out what the motives were and why this attack took place,” former FBI agent Chad Jenkins said at the time. “Instead, they’re doing public appearances with that organization.”

CAIR officials characterized the San Bernardino terrorist attack as “workplace violence,” adding “This is not a Muslim problem.”

After it became clear that the attack was Islamic jihad, the CAIR official who organized the press conference — Hussam Ayloush of Los Angeles — claimed America was “partly responsible” because of its support of “oppressive regimes around the world that push people over on the edge.”

In a lesser known case, CAIR actually coached a Muslim leader of a Maryland mosque on how to mislead FBI agents interviewing him about suspicious activity related to terrorism at the mosque. The 2004 case was detailed in the book, “Muslim Mafia,” citing internal CAIR records marked “DO NOT RELEASE OUTSIDE CAIR.” As a result of CAIR’s obstruction, the witness withheld critical information from the agents, who were attached to the bureau’s Pittsburgh field office.

Though CAIR publicly claims to cooperate with law enforcement, it privately advises the Muslim community to clam up when FBI agents ask questions — and to even slam the door in their face. In 2011, a California chapter of CAIR distributed a poster to area Muslims advising them to “Build a Wall of Resistance; Don’t Talk to the FBI.” An accompanying graphic showed homeowners slamming the door on federal agents, who were depicted as evil spies.

The FBI says it will no longer conduct outreach with CAIR until “we can resolve whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and HAMAS,” a U.S.-designated terrorist group. In 2007, the Justice Department implicated CAIR and one of its co-founders in a Hamas fund-raising case. The courts have denied CAIR’s repeated motions for removal from the federal unindicted co-conspirators list.

When CAIR demanded the U.S. Justice Department remove it from the list, a federal judge wrote in an unsealed ruling: “The government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR … with Hamas.”  The case was sent to an appellate court which ruled unanimously to keep CAIR on the co-conspirator list because of the overwhelming evidence against it.

Washington-based CAIR is not “an appropriate liaison partner” for the FBI because of evidence linking the organization and its leaders to Hamas, an FBI assistant director said in a letter to the U.S. Senate.

“In light of that evidence, the FBI suspended all formal contacts between CAIR and the FBI,” Richard C. Powers, an assistant director in the FBI’s Office of Congressional Affairs, explained in the letter.

Yet because the Obama administration has scuttled the ongoing prosecution of CAIR, the group is now free to intervene in terrorism cases and effectively dictate the terms of the FBI’s terrorism investigations.

Categories: CAIR, FBI, Islamic radicalization, Islamic terrorism
Tags: , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

CAIR Hilarity: We Welcome “Significant, Healthy Debates” Among Muslims

June 23, 2016

CAIR Hilarity: We Welcome “Significant, Healthy Debates” Among Muslims, Investigative Project on Terrorism, June 23, 2016

“Our major holiday, Eid, is a topic of significant debate,” he said Monday. “When is it going to happen – because it’s based on a moon cycle? So if we can have these kinds of healthy debates we want all of those voices to be trained and go out and speak to the public at large.”

First, debate is limited to “simple practices of certain dietary requirements, or prayer or calendar issues,” Jasser said. “None of the diversity that they’re talking about is related to core issues of universal human rights.”

761 (2)

He might have been trying to be ironic. But Corey Saylor seemed to be playing it straight Monday when he claimed that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) wants “more empowered voices”in the future to “let the public at large see more of us talking about the full spectrum of views that exist within the Muslim community.”

We could hear the spit-take all the way from Arizona. That’s the home of Zuhdi Jasser, who founded the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) and the Muslim Reform Movement. Both groups embrace a “separation of mosque and state” and stand against the Islamist victimization agenda pushed by CAIR.

For that, CAIR repeatedly has called Jasser names in attempts to discredit and silence him. It tried to block his appointment to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom in 2012 and tried unsuccessfully to have him ousted two years later.

Saylor’s comments about embracing debate came during a news conference to unveil CAIR’s latest report on groups it says are pushing “Islamophobia” in the United States, along with their funders. The report includes the AIFD among organizations “whose primary reason for existence is to promote prejudice against or hatred of Islam and Muslims.”

While simultaneously calling for more empowered Muslim voices, CAIR accuses Jasser, a Muslim, of promoting hatred and prejudice against his faith because he disagrees with CAIR politically. For example, following terrorist attacks like the slaughter at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub, or last November’s multi-pronged attacks in Paris, Jasser will talk about the radical Islamist ideology that drives the violence. CAIR, on the other hand, insists it has nothing to do with religion.

Rather than welcoming “the full spectrum of views,” as Saylor claimed, CAIR wants to “marginalize debate,” Jasser said in an interview. “They simply want to continue their sense that Islam has a PR problem, and it’s not a reform issue, that it needs to happen in the separation of mosque and state. The Islamists don’t ever want to recognize they are Islamists or that they do try to collectivize our community into a political movement. Because once they did that, they’d have to recognize that there are diverse voices that reject Islamism and their Islamist platform.”

It happened to him again last week. Jasser spoke in Birmingham, Ala., about curbing Islamist extremism and the terrorism done in its name. “No, it’s not all Islam that’s the problem, but there’s a problem in the house of Islam that needs to be addressed,” Jasser said.

A local television station turned to CAIR and a local mosque for reaction. “They said he’s a part of the problem and is only spreading Islamophobia,” the story said.

CAIR’s report, done in collaboration with the University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Race and Gender, also includes the Investigative Project on Terrorism among 33 “inner core” organizations that, like AIFD, exist to gin up hatred of Muslims and Islam. IPT “claims to investigate the activities and finances of radical terrorist groups, but makes all of Islam culpable,” the report said.

No supporting evidence is provided.

It is a false claim. In fact, IPT frequently cites Muslims who oppose Islamism, ranging from liberal UK reformist Maajid Nawaz to Jasser, an American Navy veteran and physician. But we also have exposed many of CAIR’s skeletons and emphasized its roots in a Hamas-support network in the United States created by the Muslim Brotherhood. We also frequently showcase radicalism exhibited by CAIR officials.

Saylor’s statement about embracing debate echoes a recommendation in CAIR’s formal report: “Empowering a diverse range of legitimate voices to persuasively contribute, particularly in the news media, to the views of Islam and American Muslims within public dialogue.” [Emphasis added.]

CAIR, the statement implies, reserves the right to tell the public which voices qualify as “legitimate.” CAIR’s stated objective, therefore, is at odds with its own definition of how debate can occur.

Saylor’s full statement further exposes the shallow nature of the claim CAIR wants “more empowered voices.”

(Video at the link)

“Our major holiday, Eid, is a topic of significant debate,” he said Monday. “When is it going to happen – because it’s based on a moon cycle? So if we can have these kind of healthy debates we want all of those voices to be trained and go out and speak to the public at large.”

First, debate is limited to “simple practices of certain dietary requirements, or prayer or calendar issues,” Jasser said. “None of the diversity that they’re talking about is related to core issues of universal human rights.”

Second, CAIR must ensure those engaged in debate are “trained” to participate.

“That’s the hypocrisy,” Jasser said.

When CAIR officials speak of diversity, Jasser said, they’re referring to ethnic/national background. Muslim Americans come from all over the world, from the Middle East and Asia.

“Islam is an idea. It’s not a race,” he said, so true diversity includes different views about the faith and its application in modern life.

“When it comes to intellect diversity, they’re completely missing in action,” Jasser said.

CAIR equates criticism of scholars or certain Islamist dogma with hate, he said. “They, with self-righteous indignation, refuse to accept the fact that somebody can love the community and love their faith and still be very critical of what is normatively felt to be Islamic law. That is un-American. Imagine somebody telling someone them that they are not good Americans because they disagree with this policy or that policy.”

CAIR largely has ignored the Muslim Reform Movement and has not commented on the specific principles its members enumerated.

The Muslim Reform Movement issued a public Declaration of its principles. Among them:

We support the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by United Nations member states in 1948.

We reject interpretations of Islam that call for any violence, social injustice and politicized Islam. Facing the threat of terrorism, intolerance, and social injustice in the name of Islam, we have reflected on how we can transform our communities based on three principles: peace, human rights and secular governance.

…

We are for secular governance, democracy and liberty. We are against political movements in the name of religion. We separate mosque and state. We are loyal to the nations in which we live. We reject the idea of the Islamic state. There is no need for an Islamic caliphate. We oppose institutionalized sharia. Sharia is manmade.

To be true to its own call, CAIR needs to embrace these ideals or publicly explain why it will not. That might lead to an outcome Saylor said with a straight face that he wants – “More empowered voices” and “significant, healthy debates going on among ourselves every year, every day.”

Now that would be a news conference worth watching.

Categories: CAIR, Debate, Islamic reformation, Islamists in America, Islamists vs Islam, Islamophobia, Zuhdi Jasser
Tags: , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Dr .Jasser discusses CAIR’s Islamophobia list with the Mark Levin Show 06.21.2016

June 22, 2016

Dr .Jasser discusses CAIR’s Islamophobia list with the Mark Levin Show 06.21.2016 via YouTube

Categories: CAIR, Countering violent extremism, Hamas, Islam and homosexuals, Islamic reformation, Islamists in America, Islamists vs Islam, Islamophobia, Muslim Brotherhood, National secuity, Obama and Islamic terrorism, OIC, Orlando massacre, Radical Islam, Zuhdi Jasser
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Ted Cruz to Hold Hearing on Cover-up of Islamic Terror by Obama Administration

June 22, 2016

Ted Cruz to Hold Hearing on Cover-up of Islamic Terror by Obama Administration, Conservative Review, Daniel Horowitz, June 22, 2016

Senate Judiciary Committee member, Republican presidential candidate, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas questions Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, April 28, 2015, during the committee's hearing on oversight of the Homeland Security Department. (AP Photo/Lauren Victoria Burke)

Senate Judiciary Committee member, Republican presidential candidate, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.  Photo/Lauren Victoria Burke)

It’s been over a week since the largest terror attack on American soil in 15 years, yet nobody in Congress has successfully steered the discussion to the actual source of our perilous security situation. The Obama administration is covering up all connections of the Orlando shooter to known Islamic terrorists with the help of the Muslim Brotherhood advising DHS and the FBI.  Yet, all Republicans and Democrats want to discuss is guns. That is about to change.

Next Tuesday, June 28, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who chairs the Judiciary Subcommittee on Oversight, Agency Action, Federal Rights and Federal Courts, will conduct a hearing investigating the willful blindness on the part of the relevant law enforcement agencies to domestic Islamic terror networks.  The subject of the hearing is “Willful Blindness: Consequences of Agency Efforts To Deemphasize Radical Islam in Combating Terrorism.”

Senators on the committee now have an opportunity to expose the Muslim Brotherhood influence within DHS and the FBI, their invidious “Countering Violent Extremism” Agenda, and their hand in covering up counter-terrorism investigations.

Senator Cruz hinted at the agenda he plans to pursue at this hearing in an op-ed for Conservative Review earlier this week:

President Obama’s politically correct reluctance to attribute the terrorist threat we face with radical Islam hobbles our ability to combat it by discouraging counterterrorism agents from taking radical Islam into account when evaluating potential threats. The examples of Fort Hood, Boston, San Bernardino, and Orlando demonstrate the harmful consequences of this administration’s willful blindness.

 

Categories: CAIR, Combatting violent extremism, Department of Homeland Security, Islamic jihad, Islamists in America, Obama and Islamic terrorism, radical Islam, Ted Cruz
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

D.C. Circuit: CAIR Must Stand Trial for Massive Fraud

June 21, 2016

D.C. Circuit: CAIR Must Stand Trial for Massive Fraud, American Freedom Law Center, June 21, 2016

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit today unanimously reversed a trial court’s ruling dismissing a fraud case brought against the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).  The result of the appellate court’s ruling is that CAIR National, operating out of the District of Columbia, must stand trial and allow a jury to hear all of the evidence of the massive fraud and attempted cover up carried out by CAIR and perpetrated against hundreds of CAIR fraud victims.

In January of last year, Judge Paul Friedman, the federal judge presiding over a five-year old lawsuit alleging that CAIR defrauded hundreds of Muslim and non-Muslim clients, issued a shocking ruling when he summarily dismissed the lawsuit, which was brought in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Immediately, the American Freedom Law Center (AFLC) and the Law Offices of David Yerushalmi appealed, asking the D.C. Circuit to reverse Judge Friedman and reinstate the plaintiffs’ claims against CAIR.

The appellate court heard oral arguments in February of this year.  Judge Sri Srinivasan, often mentioned as one of the judge’s on the President’s short list to fill a slot on the U.S. Supreme Court, sat as Chief Judge for the 3-judge panel that also included Judge Robert Wilkins, who authored the unanimous decision, and Judge Douglas Ginsburg.

David Yerushalmi, lead counsel for the five plaintiffs in the two consolidated cases alleging that CAIR hired a fake lawyer who defrauded the CAIR clients, explained the decisiveness of the appellate court’s ruling:

“The Court of Appeals not only reversed the trial court, sending the case back for a jury trial, but it carefully went through each fact we argued Judge Friedman either dismissed out-of-hand or ignored completely to justify his clearly erroneous ruling, explaining further why each fact supports our claims against CAIR.”

CAIR, a self-described Muslim public interest law firm, was previously named as a Muslim Brotherhood-Hamas front group by the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the federal criminal trial and conviction of a terrorist funding cell organized around one of the largest Muslim charities, the Holy Land Foundation (HLF).  HLF raised funds for violent jihad on behalf of Hamas, and top CAIR officials were part of the conspiracy.  In addition, several of CAIR’s top executives have been convicted of terror-related crimes.  As a result, the FBI publicly announced that it has terminated any outreach activities with the national organization, which bills itself as “America’s largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization.”

The two lawsuits dismissed by Judge Friedman, which were consolidated by the court because they arose out of the same facts, follow an earlier lawsuit that had also alleged that CAIR’s fraudulent conduct amounted to racketeering, a federal RICO crime.  In that case, the court dismissed the RICO counts, concluding that CAIR’s conduct as alleged was fraudulent but not a technical violation of RICO.

The pending lawsuits allege that Morris Days, the “Resident Attorney” and “Manager for Civil Rights” at the now defunct CAIR-MD/VA chapter in Herndon, Virginia, was in fact not an attorney and that he failed to provide legal services for clients who came to CAIR for legal representation.  As alleged, CAIR knew of this fraud and purposefully conspired with Days to keep the CAIR clients from discovering that their legal matters were being mishandled or not handled at all.  Furthermore, the complaints allege that according to CAIR internal documents, there were hundreds of victims of the CAIR fraud scheme.

According to court documents, CAIR knew or should have known that Days was not a lawyer when it hired him.  But, like many criminal organizations, things got worse when CAIR officials were confronted with clear evidence of Days’ fraudulent conduct.  Rather than come clean and attempt to rectify past wrongs, CAIR conspired with its Virginia Chapter to conceal and further the fraud.

To this end, CAIR officials purposefully concealed the truth about Days from their clients, law enforcement, the Virginia and D.C. state bar associations, and the media.  When CAIR did get irate calls from clients about Days’ failure to provide competent legal services, CAIR fraudulently deceived their clients about Days’ relationship to CAIR, suggesting he was never actually employed by CAIR, and even concealing the fact that CAIR had fired him once some of the victims began threatening to sue.

While Judge Friedman agreed that Days and CAIR’s Virginia chapter were liable for fraud, he concluded, after improperly weighing the evidence, that CAIR National in D.C., the named defendant in the lawsuit, was not responsible for Days’ fraudulent conduct.  The appeals court, however, found that Judge Friedman was wrong on each and every fact raised by the plaintiffs, concluding, contrary to Judge Friedman, that each fact supports finding a direct relationship between CAIR National and Days.

David Yerushalmi, who is also AFLC’s co-founder and senior counsel, remarked:

“CAIR engaged in a massive criminal fraud in which literally hundreds of CAIR clients have been victimized.  In his ruling, Judge Friedman inexplicably ignored material facts that establish CAIR National’s liability and then engaged in a transparently disingenuous ‘weighing’ of the factual evidence he did address, which is patently improper when evaluating cross-motions for summary judgment.  We are thankful that the appeals court has rectified the trial court’s errors.  Now, at long last, our clients will go before a jury and get their day in court.”

Robert Muise, co-founder and senior counsel of AFLC, added,

“This ruling is a significant victory.  Not only does it reinstate our claims against CAIR, but it makes plain that we have an incredibly strong case to present to a jury.  In short, CAIR has no way out.  It is a fraudulent organization, and we will get a chance to prove that to a jury.”

Categories: CAIR, Fraud, U.S. courts
Tags: , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Post-Orlando, CAIR Issues New “Islamophobia” Report

June 21, 2016

Post-Orlando, CAIR Issues New “Islamophobia” Report, Front Page Magazine, Robert Spencer, June 21, 2016

(Please see also, Meet the ‘Islamophobes’. –DM)

AntiIslamophobia report

Instead of announcing a program to teach young Muslims why they should reject the understanding of Islam held by the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, and other jihad groups, the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) held a press conference Monday to unveil its latest cynical and deceptive report on “Islamophobia” in the U.S.

The whole “Islamophobia” enterprise is designed to intimidate people into thinking there is something wrong with opposing jihad terror, and this new report is no different. A few seconds of thought would expose the deceptiveness of it to anyone, but Hamas-linked CAIR is banking on the fact that most people, especially on the Left but not limited to it, will not give the report even that much thought, but will take it at face value, anxious to avoid being stigmatized themselves with the “Islamophobe” label.

For those willing to consider the facts, however, here are some of the problems with the new report:

1. According to an NBC report on CAIR’s latest “Islamophobia” salvo, “thirty-three Islamophobic groups had access to $205 million between 2008 and 2013 to spread fear and hatred of Muslims.” Are these groups part of one umbrella organization? No. Are they collaborators? Some are and some aren’t. Do they share funding? No. So $205 million (if that figure is even accurate, which it probably isn’t) over six years spread out among 33 different and quite disparate organizations actually averages out to a bit over a million a year per organization — a figure that is actually not a large operating budget for a major organization, and doubtless much smaller than that of Hamas-linked CAIR itself. (And for the record, Jihad Watch has never had anything close to a million dollars in any given year.)

2. “…to spread fear and hatred of Muslims.” That is not my objective, and I would venture to say it is not the objective of any of the other people or organizations mentioned in Hamas-linked CAIR’s report. CAIR’s entire premise is false: that to call attention to jihad terror activity, and to call for effective lawful responses to it, is tantamount to spreading “fear and hatred of Muslims.” Hamas-linked CAIR and its allies have spread this Big Lie so insistently for so many years that it has entered the American mainstream, but that doesn’t make it any more true than it was when they first advanced it. If Hamas-linked CAIR had ever provided even one example of a foe of jihad terror who was simultaneously not an “Islamophobe” in their eyes, this charge might have more credibility. But they never have. As far as Hamas-linked CAIR is concerned, any opposition to jihad terror at all is “Islamophobic” and spreading “fear and hatred of Muslims.”

3. “Attacks on mosques have increased, with 78 recorded incidents in 2015.” Have I or any of the others mentioned in this report ever called for attacks on mosques? No. Have any of the people who attacked mosques ever invoked any of us to explain why they attacked the mosques? No. Have Muslims faked “hate” attacks on mosques? Yes. Which is more likely: that any actual attack on a mosque by a non-Muslim vigilante idiot was provoked by our reporting about jihad terror, or by jihad terror itself, against which the mosques in the U.S. have not acted in any strong fashion? Hamas-linked CAIR would have you believe that this alleged cabal of “Islamophobic” individuals and groups is responsible for Americans’ suspicion and distrust of Muslims, when in reality the people who are responsible for any actual such suspicion and distrust are Omar Mateen, Syed Rizwan Farook, Tashfeen Malik, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Nidal Malik Hasan, etc.

5. In an introduction to the report itself, Hamas-linked CAIR’s Nihad Awad says: “This report makes a case that those who value constitutional ideals like equal protection, freedom of worship, or an absence of religious tests for those seeking public office no longer have the luxury of just opposing the U.S. Islamophobia network’s biased messaging.” But I don’t oppose “equal protection, freedom of worship, or an absence of religious tests for those seeking public office,” and again, I’d venture to say that none of the others mentioned in the report do, either. This is a straw man designed to demonize opponents of jihad terror, and opposition to it in general. In reality, we’re just trying to do all we can via legal means to stop jihad activity in the U.S. But Hamas-linked CAIR cannot acknowledge that, as to do so would reveal its actual agenda. So it has to mischaracterize our aims.

6. The report says: “Islamophobia is a contrived fear or prejudice fomented by the existing Eurocentric and Orientalist global power structure. It is directed at a perceived or real Muslim threat through the maintenance and extension of existing disparities in economic, political, social, and cultural relations, while rationalizing the necessity to deploy violence as a tool to achieve ‘civilizational rehab’ of the target communities (Muslim or otherwise).” Cut through this pseudo-academic gobbledegook and you will see that it is saying that “Islamophobia” as a “contrived fear or prejudice” fomented in response to a “real Muslim threat.” So Hamas-linked CAIR admits that there is a “real Muslim threat,” but claims that the “Islamophobic” individuals and groups in its report have a wrong response to it, and indeed are representatives of the “existing Eurocentric and Orientalist global power structure.”

The idea that the “global power structure” today is anything but fully in line with Hamas-linked CAIR’s point of view today is wildly absurd. But even aside from that, nowhere does Hamas-linked CAIR bother to explain what a proper response would be to this “real Muslim threat.” Apparently it would be nothing more or less than to surrender to it, since its “Islamophobia” report is designed to defame and discredit those who are standing against it, thereby clearing the field so that the jihad can advance unopposed and unimpeded.

Categories: CAIR, Hate groups, Islamic jihad, Islamic slaughter, Islamic State, Islamists in America, Islamophobia
Tags: , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Meet the ‘Islamophobes’

June 21, 2016

Meet the ‘Islamophobes’, Conservative Review, Nate Madden, June 20, 2016

(CAIR is Obama’s “go to” organization on how to deal with the Muslim community and for how best to combat “violent extremism.” — DM)

islamophobia banner

What do talk show host Bill Maher, author and Eagle Forum Founder Phyllis Schlafley and Conservative Review Editor-in-Chief Mark Levin all have in common? They’re all Islamophobes, according to a new report released by the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) on Tuesday.

“Confronting Fear: Islamophobia and its Impact on the U.S. 2013-2015” is a joint project of CAIR and the U.C. Berkeley Center for Race and Gender meant to outline the funding streams for, and cast aspersions on, what it calls “The U.S. Islamophobe Network.” This list boasts 33 “inner core” and 41 “outer core” groups, while offering “a four-point strategy designed to achieve a shared American understanding of Islam in which being Muslim carries a positive connotation.”

CAIR’s “inner core” consists of “[g]roups whose primary purpose is to promote prejudice against or hatred of Islam and Muslims and whose work regularly demonstrates Islamophobic themes,” while the “outer core” is made up of “[g]roups whose primary purpose does not appear to include promoting prejudice against or hatred of Islam and Muslims, but whose work regularly demonstrates or supports Islamophobic themes.”

Essentially, it’s a hit job on anyone who has ever dared say anything negative about radical Islam and has ever been willing to speak up against it. Such groups included on CAIR’s Islamophobe list include:

ACT! For America, American Islamic Forum for Democracy, Center for the Study of Political Islam, Clarion Project, David Horowitz Freedom Center, Florida Family Association (Fla.), Investigative Project on Terrorism, Jihad Watch, Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Tennessee Freedom Coalition (Tenn.), Adelson Family Foundation, American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), American Family Association, American Islamic Leadership Coalition, Christian Broadcasting Network, Concerned Women for America, Eagle, the Glenn Beck Program, HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, the Mark Levin Show, National Review, Really Big Coloring Books, Inc, The Washington Times, and WND.

Again, these are some. Not all.

But let’s not forget who’s throwing these labels around here.

We’re talking about CAIR. This is a group affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood and was an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2007 Holy Land Foundation case, in which the DOJ investigated and prosecuted a conspiracy to direct funding to Hamas. Ironically, or maybe not, this is also the same group that President Obama confers with on his “countering violent extremism” agenda.

So not only are critics of Jihadism to be labeled Islamophobes en masse, but they should also be delegitimized with the same scrutiny of the Ku Klux Klan.

Minor details, right?

So how does CAIR suggest that America combat these wretched hatemongers? Treat them like the Ku Klux Klan, of course. The report reads:

The Ku Klux Klan is the oldest of America’s hate groups, and in 1925 the white supremacist group could boast four million members and enormous political influence and popular support. Today, however, their numbers and resources are vastly diminished, their bigoted views are socially and politically marginalized, and they are virtually irrelevant within the national landscape. This progressive erosion of the Klan’s social acceptability serves as a model for CAIR’s strategy toward contemporary Islamophobic groups.

So not only are critics of Jihadism to be labeled Islamophobes en masse, but they should also be delegitimized with the same scrutiny of the Ku Klux Klan.

From a tactical perspective, the move is brilliant. This is the same thing that the social left used to silence and browbeat social conservatives for years on every single issue even remotely related to marriage and the family, and it all began with the Southern Poverty Law Center similarly designating every pro-traditional marriage organization in existence as a “hate group.”

Once that happened, it wasn’t too long before it no longer mattered to many how compelling the argument for conjugal, stable, permanent families was and still is. Now, if you hold the position, you’re labeled a hate-mongering bigot and are not to be trusted.

CAIR’s “network” looks similar in scope. It doesn’t matter that many of the groups listed in this report have clearly made the distinction between peaceful interpretations of Islam that don’t seek to subvert our way of life and Jihadism. They’ve been branded; Saul Alinsky would be proud.

“Let’s nudge ourselves from our Religion of Peace’ slumbers for a moment and consider Muslim Brotherhood ideology,” writes Andrew McCarthy, author of “The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America,” in National Review. According to McCarthy, a key memo obtained by the FBI outlines how the Muslim Brotherhood’s “American tentacles,” like CAIR, envision themselves as waging:

[A] kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.

However, the Muslim Brotherhood and its international affiliates aren’t like Al Qaeda (the Jihadist equivalent of Che Guevara) or ISIS (who operate more like Mao Zedong, both analogies courtesy of Dr. Sebastian Gorka). Rather, McCarthy explains, its vision of a “ground-up revolution” is one “in which the use of force plays a part but is just one aspect of a multi-faceted aggression arsenal.”

What’s one way to make this happen? Completely rid yourself of legitimate criticism. And if we’ve learned anything from the marriage debate that culminated in last year’s Obergefell decision, or even recent battles over Religious Freedom laws, the best way to do that is smear, smear, and smear.

 

Categories: CAIR, Islamists in America, Islamophobia
Tags: , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »