The Fast and Furious investigation started in early 2011. It has been both compelling and painfully slow to watch. Ever suspicious of congressional investigations that almost always lead nowhere - unless the subjects are not politicians - I often waffled between believing that Oversight Committee chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Senate Judiciary ranking member, Charles Grassley (R-IA) would give it all they have or succumb to the political pressure that demands little more than dog and pony shows that precede such investigations' fade into the abyss.
When I saw what was billed as the first of three reports to come out of the Oversight committee relative to its Fast and Furious investigation, I'll admit it was discouraging. It appeared that Holder had successfully coughed up his fall guys - five local ATF employees in Arizona. The letter from Issa's committee identified them as the responsible parties; DOJ leadership would escape.
Hang on just a minute. Issa still appears to be fighting despite having limited options. Sipsey Street calls it "three-dimensional chess".
The long anticipated DOJ Inspectors General report that every leader of consequence has deferred to whenever questions from Congress became too uncomfortable, is finally coming out and Rep. Issa is summoning the IG himself - Michael Horowitz - to testify in front of the Oversight Committee on September 11, 2012.
Congressman Darrell Issa, California Republican and House Oversight Committee Chairman, sent a letter on Friday to the Justice Department's Inspector General Michael Horowitz that summoned the IG inspector to a Capitol Hill hearing to testify before the House Oversight Committee on September 11.
According to Mr. Issa's letter, Horowitz already sent a draft of the eagerly awaited for Fast and Furious report to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) as well as Attorney General Eric Holder and the Office of the Deputy Attorney General on August 21.
Here is a copy of the letter. Note that in addition to calling Horowitz to testify, Issa is doing so prior to the 30-day window the IG has given for the report to be released after DOJ leadership has had a chance to review. Issa points out that 30 days is not customary; two weeks is. Perhaps that's why Issa has decided to split the difference and request Horowitz to appear three weeks after completion of the report.
Issa addresses this concern in the letter.
These committee members have got to be F-E-D U-P with the number of times they've heard testimony that included deferrals to the IG. On September 11th, they'll be grilling a guy that has no one to defer to.
I'm back to believing Issa has no interest in dog and pony shows.
As we demonstrated with The Abedin “Affairs” with Al Saud, there is a movement afoot in the West that seeks to transform Muslim minority lands into Muslim majority lands. And while the Right points fingers at the left on an array of issues, we need to seriously examine this movement’s spigot—Saudi Arabia and the Royal family.
Prince Alwaleed bin Talal is a member of that family. He acquired 5.46% of Fox News Channel's parent Company - Newscorp. - in 2005. He is also its second largest shareholder. It was Fox News that provided a platform for perhaps the most stinging rebuke of Rep. Michele Bachmann's questions about Muslim Brotherhood infiltration in general, and Huma Abedin's background in particular. Edward Rollins - Bachmann's former campaign chief - denounced Bachmann with a piece entitled, "Shame on you, Michele" while Fox provided no counter-balance to speak of.
The Fox News website also reported the rebukes of Bachmann by John McCain and Republican House Speaker John Boehner, yet Bachmann's position was all but ignored.
So much for “Fair and Balanced”.
Alwaleed has purchased significant influence at major U.S. Universities and has contributed to CAIR. How does this all work? Well, it was explained by Al-Walid himself. In an article that appeared on Accuracy in Media's website, Diana West quoted from an interview the Saudi Prince granted to Arab News:
“Arab countries can influence U.S. decision-making ‘if they unite through economic interests, not political,’ (Alwaleed) stressed. ‘We have to be logical and understand that the U.S. administration is subject to U.S. public opinion. We (Arabs) are not so active in this sphere (public opinion). And to bring the decision-maker on your side, you not only have to be active inside the U.S. Congress or the administration but also inside U.S. society.’”
Even the very liberal, Soros-backed Think Progress, reported on bin Talal's influence over the Fox News Channel. In 2005, during riots in France (and two months after bin Talal acquired 5.46% of Newscorp.), the banner being run on Fox said, “Muslim riots.” Think Progress quoted bin Talal as saying the following:
“I picked up the phone and called Murdoch… (and told him) these are not Muslim riots, these are riots out of poverty. Within 30 minutes, the title was changed from Muslim riots to civil riots.”
In 2001, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly interviewed Sami al-Arian and aggressively pursued al-Arian when the latter seemed to implicate himself as being involved in terror fundraising. Al-Arian was eventually convicted and O'Reilly's efforts played a key role. It would be O'Reilly's high water mark on such matters.
In an exchange with bin Talal in 2011, Fox News host Neil Cavuto made the pecking order quite obvious when he referred to the Saudi Prince as “Your Highness”.
Then, in May of 2012, conservative host Sean Hannity welcomed none other than Ground Zero mosque imam, Feisal Abdul Rauf to his program to... promote his book. To his credit, Hannity was not as deferential as Cavuto was with bin Talal but he did provide Rauf with the platform to market his book.
Why?
The Democratic Party is lost and it has gladly welcomed Islamists so why are there Islamists with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood registering with the Republican Party? Part of the answer is that the Republican establishment is allowing them in. It is the Tea Party, which predominantly understands the Islamic threat that rejects Brotherhood elements.
Let us look at some examples.
NEZAR HAMZE
CAIR's Executive Director for South Florida is a man named Nezar Hamze. As such, Hamze is furthering the cause of CAIR's leadership. The group's national Executive Director and co-founder is Nihad Awad, a man who has expressed support for Hamas; he denounced the convictions of Islamic fundamentalists found guilty of the 1993 WTC bombing and did so while expressing a belief that the Mossad was behind that bombing. Prior to that Awad was the Public Relations Director for a Hamas front group. Incidentally, Hamas seeks the elimination of Israel.
Another CAIR co-founder - Omar Ahmad - was actually quoted by the San Ramon Valley Herald on July 4, 1998 as saying something that should be considered antithetical to both political Parties in the United States:
“Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran…should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.”
If Hamze will not denounce the views of his group's leadership, he has no place in the Republican Party. Yet, Republican Party leadership will not denounce him.
MOIN "MOON" KHAN
When Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) made comments critical of CAIR and would not apologize, Moon Khan – a Muslim Republican who is a precinct committeeman and York Township board of trustees’ member – invited Walsh to his home for some 'dialogue' with some other members of the Muslim community. Walsh ultimately visited Khan's home and addressed more than 80 Muslims but did not apologize, though not for lack of trying on Khan's part.
SUHAIL KHAN
The son of Mahboob Khan, Suhail Khan, was born to a man who co-founded two Muslim Brotherhood groups in the United States – the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Muslim Students Association (MSA). Despite this undeniable truth, while at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in 2011, Suhail said on camera that, “there is no Muslim Brotherhood in the United States.” With that one sentence, Khan denied his father's work and obviously did so because he didn't want the truth about it revealed.
Besides founding two Muslim Brotherhood groups, Mahboob Khan was an anti-Semite who agreed with the primary goal of the Muslim Brotherhood in America – overthrow the United States from within. The elder Khan never hid his true colors. In fact, as Paul Sperry wrote in Front Page Magazine, his son Suhail pledged to carry on his “dear father's shining legacy”. Conversely, at CPAC, Suhail denied his father's work. Yet, of all the people the Republican Party goes out of its way to distance itself from, Suhail Khan gets a pass.
GROVER NORQUIST
Then we have Grover Norquist who is perhaps the most prominent Republican to avoid accountability for his Islamist ties. Norquist is founder of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), a conservative group formed at the behest of Ronald Reagan in 1985. Then, something happened circa 1998. Norquist began to be influenced by two men who would later be convicted on charges related to terrorism – Abdurahman Alamoudi and Sami Al-Arian. According to Center for Security Policy's Frank Gaffney, Alamoudi's deputy – Khaled Saffuri – co-founded an organization called the Islamic Free Market Institute (IFMI), with Norquist. In 2005, Gaffney reported that he made it known to Norquist that the ATR founder was consorting with Muslim leaders who had unseemly ties. Gaffney wrote at the time:
The idea that Norquist was unaware that he was aiding and abetting Islamists became untenable after I, among others, made known to him that his outreach effort was reaching out not to peaceable, tolerant, pro-American Muslims... but to those who are none of the above – i.e., adherents to an Islamofascist ideology and/or their sympathizers, financiers and apologists.
Less than two months after the 9/11 attacks, in a an article published by the New Republic, writer Franklin Foer wrote about how Saffuri, Norquist's co-founder at the Islamic Free Market Institute, began ushering Islamic leaders into the White House shortly after George W. Bush's inauguration nearly one year earlier with the help of none other than Suhail Khan, an administration advisor at the time whose job was to help with Muslim outreach.
Moreover, as recently as 2009, Khan was listed as a Board member of both Norquist's IFMI as well as CPAC's American Conservative Union (ACU).
In 2011, when much of the backgrounds of Khan and Norquist were available for public consumption, it was reported that Gaffney was the one who had been banned from CPAC while Khan and Norquist proudly attended.
The Republican Party's silence over such an egregious, two-pronged affront was not just deafening; it was a damning indictment of itself.
GEERT WILDERS
Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders launched his anti-Islam Party known as the Freedom Party (PVV) and has seen tremendous success. Formerly a member of the right wing, yet liberal VVD Party, Wilders broke away because VVD supported welcoming Turkey into the European Union (EU). With the passage of time, Wilders is vindicated on a near daily basis in that regard.
American politicians can learn much from Wilders' path. VVD's support for Turkey's ascension to the EU is indicative of Islamic influence on the Party. When Wilders formed the PVV Party, he eliminated that possibility by identifying his Party as being “anti-Islam”. In 2010, The Week reported that Wilders would be launching his Party in both the USA and the UK.
IN CONCLUSION...
As long as agents of the Muslim Brotherhood are able to successfully portray anyone who opposes them as racist, Islamophobic, or intolerant, Brotherhood apparatchiks will continue to make strides in much the same way that Nezar Hamze, Moon Khan, Suhail Khan, Grover Norquist, and Alwaleed bin Talal have made strides.
Conservatives will one day be faced with a decision. When that day comes, they will have to decide if the Republican Party can be sufficiently held accountable for identifying groups and individuals sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood. If it cannot, the birth of an anti-Islam, Tea Party will be in order.
Many of those who call us racist are anti-Semites, which makes them racist projectionists.
Walid Shoebat is a former member of the Muslim Brotherhood and author of For God or For Tyranny
Ben Barrack is a talk show host and author of the book, Unsung Davids
Well, this isn't going to help Romney when it comes to that war on women narrative the Obama campaign is going to carry into the election. Earlier this month, Jon Huntsman's daughter Abby trashed the Republican Party as being too "non-inclusive" and appeared to switch sides when former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm invited her to join the Democratic Party.
Abby Huntsman now works for the Huffington Post and appears to be a secret weapon for the Obama campaign. In fact, when it comes to the Obama campaign, Huntsman may be to the Mormon debate what Sandra Fluke is to the contraception debate. As the daughter of a Mormon (and former Mormon herself), Abby is qualified to talk about the religion and you can bet your bottom dollar the Obama campaign is going to exploit that to the utmost.
Huntsman goes after Romney over several issues:
The Mormon church's secrecy
The Mormon church's behind-the-scenes efforts to help the Romney campaign
The Mormon church's belief that the leader of the Mormon church is a prophet who gets revelations and whether Romney will follow that leader's direction or the Constitution
The Mormon church granting him permission to change his position on abortion in order to make a successful run for Governor of Massachusetts
The Mormon church and polygamy; Huntsman says Mormonism still subscribes to it.
Yes, that's far leftist Marc Lamont Hill sitting next to Huntsman.
On August 23rd, NBC interviewed Abby Huntsman for an anti-Mormon hit piece masquerading as objective journalism; it was narrated by Brian Williams:
For more insight into the Church, Williams turned to Abby Huntsman, daughter of former Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman, who left the Mormon faith after meeting her future husband, a non-Mormon. She lamented: "It's very black and white still, there's no gray area. You either are in or you're out. And you live by the Mormon doctrine or you do not."
Picking up on that theme, Williams explained: "In this modern world, some old-school rules still govern the Mormon Church, and that means no non-Mormons allowed inside their temples." He then suspiciously asked Huntsman: "I can't get into the Mormon temple. Will that ever change?...What goes on in there?"
Huntsman regretfully replied: "I hope it does. But I don't think that it will....[It] causes a lot of people to feel maybe not good enough, 'Why am I not allowed in there?' So this idea of – maybe being more accepting and moving with the times a little bit is much needed in the Church today."
As the Democrats look to step up their attacks on Romney's religion, look for former Mormon Abby Huntsman to become the go-to expert on all things Mormon.
