CAIR SILENT ON EX-BOARD MEMBER'S DEPORTATION

Ibrahim Hooper is chief Spin-meister for the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and not only is he conspicuously silent with respect to the deportation of one-time CAIR Board member Nabil Sadoun but so is the attorney for Sadoun that Hooper referred Dallas Morning News reporter Brooks Egerton to.

Quoting from Egerton's report at DMN:

When I asked national CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper for an interview, he responded with this e-mail: "Peace. Perhaps speak to his attorney. She is the best source of information on the case." Hooper did not respond when I followed up with written questions about CAIR's view of the deportation case and its relationship with Sadoun.

Sadoun's attorney, Kimberly Kinser of Richardson, didn't respond to my phone call and e-mail.

It may be a little early to celebrate media courage but CAIR seems to be increasingly on defense lately. It is still claiming that it was unfairly tied to the Holy Land Foundation trial as an unindicted co-conspirator. I blogged about this here. Egerton points out that Sadoun helped found a group with ties to Hamas.

Federal authorities say Sadoun, when applying for an immigrant visa in 1993, failed to disclose his role in founding the United Association for Studies and Research, my Dallas Morning News colleague Jason Trahan reports. The FBI says the UASR, based in a suburb of Washington, D.C., and now defunct, was formed to benefit Hamas.

The U.S. later designated Hamas a terrorist organization because of its support for suicide bombings against Israel.

Former leaders of UASR include a top Hamas official, Mousa Abu Marzook, who is wanted on terrorism charges in the U.S. and believed to be in Syria; and Abdurahman Alamoudi, who is imprisoned in this country on a 2004 terrorism financing conviction related to a Libyan plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia's crown prince.

For more on the UASR, click here.

Read the entire DMN piece too.

CURIOUS WHITE HOUSE WEBSITE ERROR

Politico has been all over the Obama administration's response to the controversy surrounding its appointment of Rashad Hussain to the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). Hussain was quoted in the Washington Report on Middle Eastern Affairs (WRMEA) in 2004 as having made sympathetic remarks about convicted terrorist Sami al-Arian.

According the WRMEA editor Delinda Hanley, the quotes were extracted from the article on February 5th, 2009, eight days after Hussain took a job as associate counsel inside Obama's Department of Justice. Hanley also said that she was told that the quotes were mis-attributed to Hussain and that they were actually the words of al-Arian's daughter Laila.

On Friday, February 19th, Politico broke the story that after presenting the White House with an actual recording of the event, Hussain backtracked and admitted to making the comments.

Today, Josh Gerstein reported that Robert Gibbs - speaking on behalf of the White House - defended Rashad Hussain. The following is taken from the transcript of Gibbs' February 22nd press briefing:

Q On another issue, on Friday Rashad Hussain said, "I made statements to the panel" -- in '04 the White House has defended his appearance at -- "that I now recognize were ill-conceived, not well-formulated," this in reference to a man convicted of supporting -- or raising money for a terrorist organization. Were you misled? Do you maintain confidence in this man the President wants to be his delegate to the Islamic conference?

MR. GIBBS: We continue to have confidence. The statement says that the judicial process has concluded and that he has full faith in the outcome of that judicial process. This is an individual that has written extensively on why you have -- why some have used religious devices like the Quran to justify this, and why that is absolutely wrong, and has garnered support from both the left and the right. So we continue to obviously have confidence.

Ok, now for the curious part. When I went to the video of the February 22nd press conference in order to pull the aforementioned audio for my radio show, I discovered that the link pulled up the February 17th press briefing.

Here is a screen shot of the video. Note how the banner on the video at the bottom says, "February 17th" while the box in the top right says, "February 22nd".

DISCLAIMER: I am not accusing the White House of anything untoward. I am simply pointing this out because the story is one of the biggest un-reported stories out there. I am also bitter that I was unable to pull the audio for my show.

VIDEO: VALERIE JARRETT IMPLIES TEA PARTIERS UNINTELLIGENT

Known as the other half of Obama's brain, she provides a glimpse into the thinking. Not only does she openly admit that the Tea Party movement is "extreme" but actually has the gall to say the movement is attempting to "scare people" when they're already scared and "angry". This woman is out of her skull, which would be explained by the fact she's in Obama's brain.

Sheer arrogance and projection.



h/t to Hot Air

VIDEO: BACKGROUND ON BREITBART'S CPAC CONFRONTATIONS

Making the rounds this weekend were some videos of Andrew Breitbart confronting and fending off far left Alinsky-ites but if you didn't know what it was about, you'd only catch the theater without the context.

Thanks to Big Journalism, that context is provided here. Once viewing this video, the two I've posted below it will make more sense. I've always liked Breitbart but his stock is definitely rising. He's a true patriot.

Worth watching..



Here is the exchange between Breitbart and Blumenthal at CPAC. While Blumenthal's comments are inaudible, Breitbart's disgust with him is palpable. Frankly, Larry O'Connor gets the better of Blumenthal at the end of this clip anyway.



Also while at CPAC, Breitbart had to deal with another fine upstanding gentleman from Salon magazine who, after losing the argument came back at Breitbart with the tired, worn out, yet increasingly popular "racist" accusation which is as good as waving the white flag. Yes, I said "white flag". Does that make me racist?



h/t to Hot Air Pundit for the CPAC videos.

EXPLOSIVE: IS WHITE HOUSE BRIBING CANDIDATES TO DROP OUT?

At some point, this saga has got to play out in the form of Republican talking points this election year. There is strong evidence that two candidates for political office - one former and one current - were offered jobs in the Obama administration in return for dropping out of their respective races. One of them, Joe Sestak, who is running against Democrat Senator Arlen Specter in the Pennsylvania primary didn't take the gig and is making the claim strongly and publicly.

When these instances are lumped in with the Louisiana Purchase, the Cornhusker Kickback, and Gator-Aid - not to mention the Blago scandal - we have quite the Chicago-style trend going on. The central question involves the degree and blatancy of its illegality.

Courtesy of the American Spectator:

For the second time in five months, the Obama White House is being accused -- by Democrats -- of offering high ranking government jobs in return for political favors. What no one is reporting is that this is a violation of federal law that can lead to prison time, a fine or both, according to Title 18, Chapter 11, Section 211 of the United States Code.

The jobs in question? Secretary of the Navy and a position within the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The favor requested in return? Withdrawal from Senate challenges to two sitting United States Senators, both Democrats supported by President Obama. The Senators are Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania and Michael Bennet in Colorado.

Interestingly, Joe Sestak is coming forward about being asked to drop out of his race with Specter and Andrew Romanoff is not commenting one way or the other about being approached, though he did drop out of his race as well.

Sestak is standing by his story. Romanoff refused to discuss it with the Denver paper. In both instances the White House has denied the offers took place. The Sestak story in the Philadelphia Inquirer, reported by Thomas Fitzgerald, can be found here, While the Denver Post story, reported by Michael Riley, from September 27, 2009, can be read here.

Isn't it logical to ask what Sestak would have to gain by making such a claim if it weren't true? Similarly, why wouldn't Romanoff roundly deny such an accusation if it were slanderous? Someone is lying and with this president's track record, it should be obvious what is most likely.

Be sure to read it all, paying attention to the list of Watergate-like questions that the White House may have to answer.

American Spectator

WHITE HOUSE STANDS BY ISLAMIC ENVOY

I'd say this is the most outrageously under-reported story of the year but there have been so many, it's easy to lose track. Rashad Hussain was quoted at a 2004 Muslim Student's Association (MSA) event saying things sympathetic to Sami al-Arian, convicted terrorist fundraiser for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). However, the quotes attributed to him mysteriously disappeared from the report.

When the editor was asked about why, she said someone told her the quotes were not uttered by Hussain but by al-Arian's daughter, Laila. Delinda Hanley couldn't remember who told her, nor did she have an answer for why the quotes were removed instead of being re-attributed to al-Arian.

Then on Friday, February 19th, Hussain had to admit that he did, in fact, say those kind words about Sami in 2004 because Politico presented a recording of the event to the White House. Now that you're up to speed, here's the latest news. Surely, Hussain is going to be fired, right? Not quite.

Politico reports that on the contrary, the White House is standing by him:

The White House is expressing its confidence in a White House counsel’s office attorney President Barack Obama recently named as U.S. envoy to the Islamic Conference, Rashad Hussain, despite his concession last week that he made ill-considered statements in 2004 about Bush-era terrorism prosecutions.

“Were you misled? Do you maintain confidence in this man the president wants to be his delegate to the Islamic Conference?” Fox News’s Wendell Goler asked White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs at the daily briefing Monday afternoon.

“We continue to have confidence,” Gibbs said. “This is an individual that has written extensively on why some have used religious devices like the Qur'an to justify this [terrorism] and why that is absolutely wrong. And has garnered support from both the left and the right so we obviously have confidence.”

Notice Gibbs never answered the question about whether the White House was misled. If they were misled, it would seem to me that they would have NO CONFIDENCE in Hussain. If the White House knew about this or was in any way involved in having the quotes removed from the Washington Report on Middle Eastern Affairs (WRMEA) publication, it would rise to the level of a conspiracy.

I am struck personally by the fact that this man was not only caught in a lie but has admitted to approaching WRMEA about the quotes and asked them to be removed. If the White House had no knowledge of that and was presented with an audio recording from Politico that clearly showed Hussain said those words, wouldn't one think there would be absolutely NO CONFIDENCE in Hussain from the Obama administration?

Of the incident, Hussain said:

“I made statements on that panel that I now recognize were ill-conceived or not well-formulated,” Hussain said.

There are so many problems with this that I'm losing count. He only admitted to making "ill-conceived" comments after he was caught via the recording. Prior to that, he went to WRMEA of his own volition and got them to remove quotes that were accurately and correctly attributed to him, instead saying that they were said by al-Arian's daughter.

Not only does the editor of WRMEA, Delinda Hanley, come off as looking bad but worse yet, how about the woman who actually wrote the article and was accused by her own editor - incorrectly - of dereliction of duty by misquoting someone? Here is what Politico reported about that on February 16th:

....the author of the article, Shereen Kandil, said Tuesday that she stood by her original report.

"When I worked as a reporter, I understood how important it was to quote the right person, and accurately," Kandil wrote in response to an e-mailed query from POLITICO asking about the possibility of a misquotation.

"I have never mixed my sources and wouldn't have quoted Rashad Hussain if it came from Laila Al-Arian. If the editors from WRMEA felt they wanted to remove Rashad Hussain from the article, my assumption is that they did it for reasons other than what you're saying," said Kandil, who also works in the Obama administration as a program analyst for the Middle East in the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of International Affairs.

So far, I have not seen or heard of any apology to Kandil from either the White House, Hussain, or her own former editor, Hanley.

Speaking of Hanley, here is the text of a note she sent to Politico after they first reported on this story:

Our Web master thinks the change was made on Feb. 5, 2009, but that change could have been when our Web site began an ongoing redesign. We cannot find an e-mail paper trail and we have spent a long time checking on this. I probably asked for the change but I honestly can't recall who asked me to make it. As I mentioned, I had assumed it was the author. You have taught me a lesson: make a paper trail. The other lesson is that our magazine often has the only reporter at an event and we'd better get our article absolutely right!

Take note of the date of February 5th, 2009. That is somewhat relevant because Hussain was named Deputy Associate Counsel to the President only days earlier on January 28th. If Hanley is correct, that means that from 2004 - Early 2009, Hussain's quotes remained in the WRMEA piece and were not removed until he was tied directly to the president in the form of a position at the DOJ.

What are the odds the White House knew NOTHING about Hussain's comments in 2004? Again, if they didn't know about them or Hussain's attempt to cover them up, he should have been fired by now. This is disturbing on so many levels.

h/t to GMBDR