Thursday, October 15, 2009

“GOP House members call for investigation of Muslim political activity - Salon” plus 4 more

“GOP House members call for investigation of Muslim political activity - Salon” plus 4 more


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GOP House members call for investigation of Muslim political activity - Salon

Posted: 15 Oct 2009 08:01 PM PDT

(updated below - Update II)

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 hawking 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.

 

UPDATE II:  Here's what Rep. Sue Myrick said in 2003 about the internal Terrorist threat:

In remarks about domestic security threats, Rep. Sue Myrick of Charlotte said, "Look at who runs all the convenience stores across the country". . .

Myrick's comments came during a speech to the conservative Heritage Foundation last week about what she called Americans' lack of readiness to deal with future terrorist attacks. During a question-and-answer session, she spoke about danger within the country.

"You know, and this can be misconstrued, but honest to goodness (husband) Ed and I for years, for 20 years, have been saying, 'You know, look at who runs all the convenience stores across the country.'  Every little town you go into, you know?" . . .

But Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, said such comments are part of "a very disturbing trend" of bigotry.

"Now we've got people saying everybody who works at the 7-Eleven who has a swarthy complexion is a potential threat," he said.

And now, Myrick is insisting that "CAIR [is] trying to infiltrate the offices of members of Congress by placing interns in the offices."  Infiltrate -- she's talking about American citizens.  The U.S. Congress and the country belong to CAIR members every bit as much as they belong to Myrick and her constituents.  CAIR is going to impose Sharia law on the U.S. by activating its sleeper-interns on Congressional Committees.  It's really hard to overstate how repugnant so many of the people in Congress are.

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Gov. David Paterson proposes steep cuts in aid for Central New York ... - Syracuse Post-Standard

Posted: 15 Oct 2009 08:01 PM PDT

By Delen Goldberg / The Post-Standard

October 15, 2009, 7:24PM

    State_Budget_NYMG104.JPGAP Photo / Mike GrollNew York Gov. David Paterson proposes to cut $3 billion in state spending, including millions for Central New York school districts and municipalities, to close a budget gap on Wednesday in Albany. Syracuse, NY - Gov. David Paterson's proposed $480 million midyear cuts to education could force the Syracuse school district to lay off 150 employees.

His push to slash $471 million in healthcare spending could mean fewer doctors and nurses locally and fewer services for sick New Yorkers.

And his recommended $67 million reduction in aid to municipalities would likely trickle down to Central New York taxpayers, in the form of higher property taxes.

"Our local community is going to have to absorb some of this from the state," Onondaga County Executive Joanie Mahoney said. "I'm happy at first blush to see that the cuts announced (Thursday) aren't simply passing from the state to the counties. But if they're passing from the state to local municipalities or school districts, I'd have the same concerns."

"My message to the state is: we recognize you have to cut. We had to do it, too. But we didn't simply just pass those cuts onto someone else," Mahoney said.

Paterson on Thursday outlined his plan to trim $3 billion from the current state budget. The cuts would close this year's deficit and provide $2 billion in savings for next year, when the state's budget gap is expected to balloon to $5 billion.

Cutting aid to schools, hospitals, social services organizations, environmental programs and dozens of state agencies that provide services to taxpayers "is pain that is indescribable," Paterson said. "But it is the only way to keep this state afloat."

Paterson's cuts would mean a loss of roughly $4.9 million, or 1.9 percent, in state aid to the Syracuse school district, likely resulting in the layoff of 150 people, district Chief Financial Officer Suzanne Slack said. The district has about 4,400 full and part-time employees.

110405 Board3cw.JPGC.W. McKeen / The Post-StandardSyracuse Schools Superintendent Daniel LowengardTeachers make up the bulk of employees, so most of the layoffs would have to come from among their ranks, Superintendent Dan Lowengard said.

When cuts come before the school year begins, there's a chance to shed some of the jobs through attrition, Lowengard said. But not midyear.

"When you cut now, those are real bodies," said Lowengard, who called the potential layoffs "devastating."

The Syracuse district relies on state aid for 75 percent of its general operating budget because it has relatively low local wealth. Higher wealth districts receive much less state aid.

Lowengard would like to see Paterson make the cuts on a per-pupil basis, as opposed to cutting a percentage from districts. That would ease the burden on Syracuse and other poorer districts, he said.

But wealthier school districts will have a bigger percentage of aid cut under Paterson's plan. The Fayetteville-Manlius school district, for example, would lose $1.5 million, or 9 percent, of its budgeted aid. Paterson said he hoped wealthier districts could pull from their reserves to cover the cuts.

"It's so incredibly difficult to make midyear cuts," said Liverpool Superintendent of Schools Richard N. Johns, whose district would lose $2.3 million, or 4.4 percent, of its aid.

Local municipalities face the same uncertainty as school districts. Paterson proposed cutting $67 million in aid to municipalities statewide.

Madison County Administrator Paul Miller called the reductions "alarming." Cayuga County interim Manager Dominick Mazza said the cutbacks will hurt taxpayers and crimp municipal services.

"Certainly, it will force all of us to do less," Mazza said.

Syracuse would lose more than $6 million, or 8 percent, of its state aid. So would Auburn, amounting to a $418,224 hit. Both cities currently are working off budgets that included that funding.

"It's pretty substantial," Auburn Comptroller Lisa Green said. "We would have to dip into our reserve funds to offset that."

Auburn funnels state aid into its operating budget to run the city. Syracuse uses the money to support police and fire operations, public works and other basic city functions, said Ken Mokrzycki, city director of administration.

"There's no question that under the proposal released (Thursday) both the city and the school district would have a severe, significant hit to their operating budgets," Mokrzycki said.

Even seemingly small cuts will have an impact. Consider Home Aides of Central New York, which faces a $7,000 hit to its respite program, which helps local families care for elderly relatives at home. Less money would mean fewer clients.

"The problem with this is these are programs that are cost effective," president Sandra Martin said. "They prevent increased Medicaid costs."

The agency recently conducted a study that found that for every $1 spent on respite care, $6 was saved on nursing home costs.

"If you don't spend the $1 on the front end, you'll spend the $6 on the back end," Martin said.
 Paterson's proposal also includes cutting $28 million from social services, $125 million from transportation and $62 million from higher education.

Slashing $26.2 million from the state's Tuition Assistance Program would amount to a $120 reduction in aid for every student receiving TAP, said Fran Clark, of the New York Public Interest Research Group. Community colleges and the City University of New York would lose $33.6 million, likely forcing administrators to raise tuition, shrink course offerings or eliminate certain majors, he said.

Paterson's plan includes no tax or fee hikes, but he wants to sweep money from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, Environmental Protection Fund and Dormitory Authority into state coffers to cover the budget gap. He also proposed creating a pension tier with lower benefits for newer state workers and a tax amnesty program, as well as instituting a spending cap.

"We are trying as best we can not only to manage this budget shortfall but to holistically change the culture of spending in Albany," Paterson said.

Still, while he promised that all New Yorkers will share the current financial burden, Paterson failed to push for cuts to legislative salaries, elimination of member items or state layoffs or furloughs.

It's now up to members of the Legislature to evaluate Paterson's plan and adjust it if they choose. The full Legislature must approve of budget cuts for them to take effect. Both the Senate and Assembly have scheduled budget hearings in the coming weeks. Paterson said he hoped to call a special session by the end of the month, possibly Oct. 27.

"We don't have any further time to waste," Paterson said.

Staff writers Sarah Moses, Scott Rapp and Debra Groom contributed to this report. Delen Goldberg can be reached at dgoldberg@syracuse.com or 470-2274.

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Posted: 15 Oct 2009 08:08 PM PDT
 

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YouTube official: Web can counter narco culture - CNBC

Posted: 15 Oct 2009 08:30 PM PDT

MEXICO CITY - The best way for Mexico to counter gangs who use popular Web sites to glorify drug trafficking is for the government to step up its own online presence, a top YouTube official said Thursday.

Steve Grove, YouTube's head of news and politics, said video posts of Mexican "narcocorridos," ballads glorifying drug traffickers, were "troubling."

But he said such posts should not be censored. Instead, he said they show that government officials and anti-crime activists should use social networking sites to get their own messages out first.

"It's not enough to just react when these things take place ... public officials and the civil sector should be on the platform in the first place, so that the conversation is already happening and there's an answer to it," he said at a U.S. State Department-sponsored summit for social activists from around the world.

While the Alliance of Youth Movements Summit did not focus on Mexico, many speakers mentioned the country's battle against drug cartels.

More than 13,800 people have died in unprecedented drug violence in Mexico since President Felipe Calderon launched a nationwide crackdown on cartels in 2006.

Elias Kuri, a Mexican activist who organized a large anti-violence march last year, said he hopes to help create an online system for users to easily provide authorities with information about crimes.

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey said Web sites should search for ways to protect the anonymity of people who tip off authorities online.

The same topic came up Wednesday at a meeting between Dorsey, Mexican government officials, billionaire Carlos Slim and nongovernment organizations, said Alec Ross, the State Department's senior adviser for innovation.

The group discussed "how technology can be a tool to reduce drug-related violence," Ross told The Associated Press. "We're trying to get these really smart, young innovators to be part of the solution."

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Ex-Muslim teen ordered back to Ohio - BP News

Posted: 15 Oct 2009 07:18 PM PDT

Posted on Oct 15, 2009 | by Staff

ORLANDO, Fla. (BP)--Rifqa Bary, a 17-year-old girl who fled her family's home after converting from Islam to Christianity, has been ordered to return to Ohio where she will be in the custody of a local children's services agency.

The decision, announced Oct. 13, reportedly was supported both by her lawyers and attorneys for her parents, natives of Sri Lanka who now reside in the Columbus area, according to a report by the Orlando Sentinel.

In July, Bary sought refuge in Orlando after saying that her father threatened her life. In August, Florida's Department of Children and Families took emergency protective custody of her and placed her with foster parents.

Bary claims to have been a Christian for four years, a development she attempted to hide from her devout Muslim parents. She reportedly hid a copy of the Bible in their home and secretly attended Christian meetings.

In an affidavit filed in August, Bary said in 2007 her father Mohamed Bary, a jeweler, found a copy of "The Purpose Driven Life" by Rick Warren hidden in her bedroom. He had a serious talk with her about retaining the Islamic bloodline in their family, she said, adding that she didn't admit her conversion.

After receiving e-mails and phone calls from the family's mosque, the Noor Islamic Cultural Center, urging him to "deal with this matter immediately," Bary's father asked her if she had converted to Christianity.

"In a fit of anger that I had never seen before in my life, he picked up my laptop, waved it over my head as if to strike me with it and said, 'If you have this Jesus in your heart, you are dead to me! You are no longer my daughter,'" Bary said in the affidavit, according to the Florida Baptist Witness newspaper.

"I continued to remain silent and then he said to me even more angry than before, 'I will kill you! Tell me the truth!" Bary said.

In July, Bary's mother found another Christian book she had hidden in her bedroom and in tears told her daughter she would have to be sent back to Sri Lanka "to be dealt with," the affidavit said.

Bary's father, meanwhile, claims his daughter has been brainwashed by the Orlando co-pastors she contacted shortly after arriving in town. She reportedly became acquainted with Blake and Beverly Lorenz of Global Revolution Church through a prayer group on Facebook. They gave her temporary shelter before she was transferred to a foster home, the Witness said.

"This is a cult group who kidnapped my daughter and took her away," Mohamed Bary told an Orlando television station.

The petition filed on the daughter's behalf in Florida said she faced imminent harm not only from her family but from the extreme radical Muslim community in her hometown of Columbus.

Bary's attorney, a well-known pro-family lawyer in Florida, filed an Investigation and Intelligence Memorandum outlining four primary concerns about the Noor Center. The leader of the mosque previously was an imam for another area mosque at the same time the largest known al-Qaida cell in the U.S. since 9/11 was operating out of the mosque, the memorandum said, according to the Witness.

Also, a former Islamic scholar associated with the Noor Center has been photographed with men designated by the U.S. government as terrorist leaders, and he has appeared on television inciting violence against Jews.

The Noor Center, the memorandum said, has hosted a number of extremist speakers who have made statements in support of violence and terrorism, including one who has ties to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

And the center has been directly tied to an ongoing nationwide investigation into Somali-American youths who have trained in camps operated by a terror organization linked to al-Qaida, the memorandum said.

Even so, a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation found in September no credible evidence that Bary was endangered by her Muslim parents. FDLE interviewed her parents at their home while two officials with the Council on American-Islamic Relations were present.

Mohamed Bary told investigators he didn't threaten his daughter but he did pick up the laptop and start to throw it before changing his mind due to the computer's cost, the Witness reported. He also said he intends to raise his daughter as a Muslim, and as an adult she will be free to worship as she pleases.

Ergun Caner, president of Liberty Theological Seminary in Virginia, was raised in the Columbus mosque out of which the Bary family's mosque was started. He converted to Christianity at age 16 and was disowned by his father, and now he serves as an apologist for the Christian faith.

Caner told the Witness that the FDLE report finding no evidence of a threat is an example of political correctness that could endanger Bary's life.

"Her blood, which is almost certain to be shed if returned, is on their hands," Caner told the newspaper before the Oct. 13 announcement. "The police and judicial branch in Florida were her last hope."

Caner explained that Bary brings dishonor on her Muslim family by converting to Christianity, and death for apostasy from Islam is firmly rooted in the most sacred Muslim texts. He also criticized the FDLE for allowing CAIR representatives to be present during the interview of the Bary family.

In a compromise, Bary now will be turned over to Ohio foster care after her immigration records are properly filed and she receives assurance that she can continue classes with an online school system in Florida, the Witness said. A judge has set an Oct. 23 hearing to address details of the transfer of custody.
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Compiled by Baptist Press staff writer Erin Roach.

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