Video: Pamela Geller interview cut short when she discussed CAIR

I know this may be a day or so late but we had technical difficulties with the blog yesterday and thought this too important not to post (there is also a new development anyway).

People in the media business know the downsides and pitfalls of recorded interviews. They can be edited to distort or alter context or, in some cases, relevant material omitted altogether, which is what happened with an interview between CNN's Erin Burnett and Pamela Geller.

First of all, evidence of CNN running interference for the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) is not new. They were caught red-handed in 2011 collaborating with CAIR according to a man who was the target of a CNN smear levied by Anderson Cooper and Drew Griffin, a proven liar.

On the September 20th, the cable propaganda network aired an interview between Burnett and Geller that had been pre-recorded. The subject of the interview was a judge's ruling to allow Geller's anti-Jihad ads to be posted in the New York City subways. The full-length interview was somewhere between 12 - 14 minutes. However, CNN only aired the first nine minutes of the interview. One might be inclined to say it was for the sake of time and that a programming decision was made to allow for the airing of other content.

That might seem legitimate to some but it was indeed interesting that the interview that aired was cut off at precisely the time when Geller referred to CAIR and the group's involvement in the Holy Land Foundation trial - CAIR's biggest soft spot. The other red flag is the degree to which Burnett is willing to take the opposing view. There is a clear line between playing devil's advocate and being in the tank. Burnett crossed it in this interview.

Geller posted a YouTube on 9/21 that included the entire interview. After the point when CNN cut off what aired live, you only hear the audio, which was recorded by a separate source.

Via Atlas Shrugs:



Later on the 21st, as Geller points out, CNN did post the entire interview.

Report: Maxine Waters expresses support for Sharia Law, Muslim Brotherhood

She is  a registered member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) caucus and now, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) is apparently on record as expressing support for sharia law. She did so while attending a town hall meeting at the Islamic Society of Orange County (ISOC), which is led by a man who used to be president of a Muslim Brotherhood front group in the United States.

Via One News Now:

A town hall meeting at the Islamic Society of Orange County earlier this year declared there is no conflict between sharia law, the U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Several lawmakers and officials in The Golden State -- including Democratic U.S. Congresswomen Maxine Waters and Loretta Sanchez; Los Angeles Police Department Deputy Chief Michael Downing; and Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca -- urged support for sharia law. In several recently released videos from the event, officials said that sharia is not a threat to the United States.

In case you're wondering if there's any connection between the ISOC and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the short answer is, yes. The Religious Director of ISOC is a man named Dr. Muzammil H. Siddiqi, who was the president of ISNA at the time of 9/11.

Here is his bio from the ISOC website:

Dr. Siddiqi worked with many Islamic organizations in Switzerland, England and the United States. He was Chairman of the Religious Affairs Committee of the Muslim Students Association in US and Canada. Siddiqi also served as Director of the Islamic Center of Washington, D.C. He served two terms (1997-2001) as President of the Islamic Society of North America with Headquarters in Indiana. Since 1981, he is serving as the Director of the Islamic Society of Orange County in Garden Grove, California. He also served as the Chairman of the Shura Council of Southern California, an organization representing the Islamic centers, masajid and organizations in Southern California. He is the Chairman of the Fiqh (Islamic Law) Council of North America. He is a founding member of the Council of Mosques in US and Canada.

As the president of the ISNA, Siddiqi led a group that has pledged the destruction of the United States from within - through people like Waters and Sanchez. Here is the relevant excerpt from a document known as "An Explanatory Memorandum" that was introduced into evidence at the Holy Land Foundation trial:

The Ikhwan (Muslim Brotherhood) must understand that their work in America is 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.

Logically, "their hands" refers to people like Waters and Sanchez and the "hands of the believers" refers to people like Siddiqi, who led one of 29 like-minded groups (ISNA) identified in that Explanatory Memorandum, which was penned in 1991. Five leaders of HLF were convicted on all counts in 2008, related to funding Hamas.

Yet, Waters and Sanchez are standing shoulder to shoulder with a man who led the ISNA; they continue to get reelected; ISNA continues to gain access to power; and very few seem all that interested  in calling these congresswomen out.

Democrats are not the only ones to have had these head-scratching encounters. Here is George W. Bush with Siddiqi just 15 days after 9/11:

Ok, some might say, it's unfair to point this out based on the gift of hindsight, that Bush didn't know. Simply not possible. Ask yourselves how much access to intelligence the Bush administration had after 9/11. It was an all-hands-on-deck time. Are we to believe his administration did not know about Siddiqi's background?

Not buying it.

Another reason given by some for Bush's coziness with then ISNA president is the "keep your friends close and your enemies closer" credo. Even if we give the Bush administration the benefit of the doubt on that, it begs one very simple question:

How's that working out?