Tag Archives: Islamophobia

April 16, 2013 · 7:07 PM

The New York Post gets the Onion treatment

The New York Post gets the Onion treatment

Back home in New York City, I rarely read The New York Post, for the same reasons…

Salon

The news outlet spread rumors that a Saudi suspect was in custody, and the satire site is holding them accountable

The Onion’s bold attempts at humor are not always successful, but today the satire news site took a risk in the wake of a national tragedy, and hit the nail on the head. In a column satirizing the New York Post, the Onion ridiculed the Post’s poorly sourced story that disseminated virtually no new information, and instead fueled fears of Islamophobia during a period of heightened anxiety.

Under the headline “This Is A Tragedy—Does It Really Matter Exactly How Many People Died Or What Any Of The Details Are?” the Onion writes as a New York Post columnist:

Yesterday’s violent attack at the Boston Marathon has left all of us struggling to come to terms with such a senseless display of carnage. In the wake of this devastating tragedy, we at the New York Post join the nation in mourning those who were lost in this horrible event so that we may console one another and ultimately emerge from this catastrophe stronger and with a greater compassion for one another.

And so, as we attempt to begin the healing process, let us not bicker over such trivial matters as the actual death toll and what exactly happened at yesterday’s bombing. After all, is it really important, in the aftermath of an event so disastrous and sad, to pick apart the so-called information surrounding this horrific situation and find out what actually happened?

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December 20, 2012 · 11:33 AM

FL pastor Terry Jones Drowned Out In Times Square By NYC Crowd Singing ‘All You Need Is Love’

Compelled to share this…

Democratic Underground

From Huffington Post:

Anti-Islam, Quran-burning pastor Terry Jones Drowned out in Times Square

New Yorkers are famously terse, not known for patience or excessive diplomacy — and certainly not for loud public displays of love.

So when anti-Islam, Quran-burning pastor Terry Jones showed up in Times Square last year, spewing anger and sporting a T-shirt that read, “Everything I Ever Needed To Know About Islam I Learned On 9/11,” the results were certain to be dicey.

But a surprisingly touching video of that event, posted Monday by the New York Times just in time for the holiday season, shows humanity outweighs Jones’ rage.

The video, filmed on Sept. 10, 2011, but only recently published, begins predictably: Jones standing in the square, advocating intolerance and hate. Several passersby attempt to argue with him to no avail. Soon a man begins reading out loud, then singing, “All You Need Is Love,” the iconic classic by The Beatles.

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December 14, 2012 · 12:54 AM

Investigation Looks For Muslim Bias In Texas Schools, Finds Christian Bias Instead


I meant to post this yesterday, but I got sidetracked.  I’ve often wondered if Right-Wingers ever get embarrassed when they are proven to be blatantly wrong on an issue.

Then again I doubt it, their embarrassment gene is non-existent.

Think Progress

A bizarre chain email sent to district and school board officials in the Dallas area this October titled “IRVING ISD INDOCTRINATING ISLAM” inspired a recent investigation of “Islamic bias” in the district’s curriculum. Despite the outlandish claims, the district requested that an official from the organization that created the curriculum to respond. The results of a 72-page investigation done by the organization were not surprising: there’s a Christian bias in schools, not a Muslim one.

The official told the board that a bias toward Islam didn’t exist, even mentioning that “she hired a ‘very socially and fiscally conservative’ former social studies teacher who ‘watches Glenn Beck on a regular basis’ to seek out any Islamic bias in CSCOPE [the curriculum].” She “asked her to look for anything she would consider the least bit controversial.” The Dallas Morning News has the details of an investigation that mentioned “every religious reference in the CSCOPE curriculum, from kindergarten to high school”:

- Christianity got twice as much attention in the curriculum as any other religion. Islam was a distant second.

- The Red Crescent and Boston Tea Party reference mentioned in the email were nowhere in CSCOPE’s curriculum, although they may have been in the past.

- If there was any Islamic bias in CSCOPE it was “bias against radical Islam.”

This isn’t the first time Texas has debated the perceived presence of too much Islam in its school books. In 2010, the Texas Board of Education banned any books that “paint Islam in too favorable of a light.” The reasoning was head-scratching: “the resolution adopted Friday cites ‘politically-correct whitewashes of Islamic culture and stigmas on Christian civilization’ in current textbooks and warns that ‘more such discriminatory treatment of religion may occur as Middle Easterners buy into the US public school textbook oligopoly.’” A Texas based civil liberties advocate said at the time that “the members who voted for this resolution were solely interested in playing on fear and bigotry in order to pit Christians against Muslims.”

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October 20, 2012 · 5:15 PM

CIA documents back up Rice’s description of Benghazi attack

When folks on Fox News and elsewhere make accusations about President Obama and his administration and are subsequently proven wrong, I wonder if they have ever apologized to their audience for giving them misinformation. I doubt it…

America Blog

Uh oh.  Seems the Romney campaign’s ongoing  campaign to take advantage of the murder of American officials abroad is backfiring on them, again.

From David Ignatius at the Washington Post:

The Romney campaign may have misfired with its suggestion that statements by President Obama and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice about the Benghazi attack last month weren’t supported by intelligence, according to documents provided by a senior U.S. intelligence official.

“Talking points” prepared by the CIA on Sept. 15, the same day that Rice taped three television appearances, support her description of the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate as a reaction to Arab anger about an anti-Muslim video prepared in the United States. According to the CIA account, “The currently available information suggests that the demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the U.S. Consulate and subsequently its annex. There are indications that extremists participated in the violent demonstrations.”

A memo prepared by the National Counterterrorism Center on Sept. 14 illustrates the fragmentary nature of the evidence: “As time progresses, we are learning more, but we still don’t have a complete picture of what happened,” noted the analysts. “At this point, we are not aware of any actionable intelligence that this attack was planned or imminent. . . . We are very cautious about drawing any firm conclusions at this point with regard to identification and motivation of the attackers.”

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September 27, 2012 · 10:15 PM

Nakoula Basseley Nakoula Arrested

Nakoula Basseley Nakoula

An unoccupied Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department patrol car is parked across from the home, background, of Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, the man who made the film “Innocence of Muslims” that has sparked violent protests, in Cerritos, Calif., Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2012. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)

I recommend that “free speech advocates” (like myself)  read the entire article before crying foul…

The Huffington Post

A federal judge on Thursday ordered a California man behind a crudely produced anti-Islamic video that inflamed parts of the Middle East to be detained because he is a flight risk.

U.S. Central District Chief Magistrate Judge Suzanne Segal said Nakoula Basseley Nakoula should be held after officials said he violated his probation term for a 2010 check fraud conviction.

A federal prosecutor said Nakoula had eight probation violations, including lying to his probation officers and using aliases.

After his 2010 conviction, Nakoula was sentenced to 21 months in prison and was barred from using computers or the Internet for five years without approval from his probation officer.

A 14-minute trailer for the film “Innocence of Muslims” was posted on YouTube in July, leading to protests around the Middle East. The trailer depicts Muhammad as a womanizer, religious fraud and child molester.

The violence broke out Sept. 11 and has spread since, killing dozens. Nakoula, a Christian originally from Egypt, went into hiding after he was identified as the man behind the trailer.

In court Thursday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Dugdale said Nakoula was flight risk based on a “lengthy pattern of deception.”

“He has every incentive to disappear,” Dugdale said.

Nakoula, 55, was handcuffed and shackled in court.

The full story about Nakoula and the video still isn’t known.

The movie was made last year by a man who called himself Sam Bacile. After the violence erupted, a man who identified himself as Bacile called media outlets including The Associated Press, took credit for the film and said it was meant to portray the truth about Muhammad and Islam, which he called a cancer.

The next day, the AP determined there was no Bacile and linked the identity to Nakoula, a former gas station owner with a drug conviction and a history of using aliases. Federal authorities later confirmed there was no Bacile and that Nakoula was behind the movie.

Before going into hiding, Nakoula acknowledged to the AP he was involved with the film, but said he only worked on logistics and management.

A film permit listed Media for Christ, a Los Angeles-area charity run by other Egyptian Christians, as the production company. Most of the film was made at the charity’s headquarters. Steve Klein, an insurance agent in Hemet and outspoken Muslim critic, has said he was a consultant and promoter for the film.

The trailer still can be found on YouTube. The Obama administration asked Google, YouTube’s parent, to take down the video. But the company has refused, saying it did not violate its content standards.

Meanwhile, a number of actors and workers on the film have come forward to say they were tricked. They say they were hired for a film titled “Desert Warrior” and there was no mention of Islam or Muhammad in the script. Those references were dubbed in after filming was completed.

Actress Cindy Lee Garcia has sued to get the trailer taken down, saying she was duped.

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September 16, 2012 · 6:00 PM

Pamela Geller’s Blog Solicited Funds For anti-Muhammad Film

 

 

Daily Kos

[image, right: Joseph Nassralla Abdelmasih, whose nonprofit Media For Christ produced [see 1, 2, 3] the inflammatory anti-Muhammad video trailer “Innocence of the Muslims”, and anti-Islamic activist Pamela Geller, whose popular blog Atlas Shrugs published, in February 2012, a financial solicitation for an anti-Muhammad movie]

Yesterday, while compiling evidence for a report demonstrating conclusively that the 501(c)(3) nonprofit Media For Christ was the most significant force behind the production of the anti-Islamic trailer video “Innocence of the Muslims” which, after being posted on Youtube, has helped incite riots throughout the Islamic world, I came upon the following February 12, 2012 post, on the website of Atlas Shrugs – the blog of Pamela Geller, the anti-Islamic activist who cofounded the group Stop Islamization of Nations and helped incite andorganize the nationally-notorious June 6, 2010 protest against the building of a mosque in lower Manhattan (one of the speakers at the protest was Joseph Nassralla Abdelmasih, head of Media For Christ.)

Titled “A Movie about Muhammad: An Idea whose Time Has Come”, the Geller post contained a solicitation for funding for a movie about Muhammad.

Pamela Geller’s Atlas Shrugs post introduced the financial solicitation with, “Ali Sina, renowned ex-Muslim author, founder of FaithFreedom.org and SION Board member, has a brilliant idea, aplan, to educate and liberate those enslaved by the most radical and extreme ideology on the face of the earth, but he needs our help” [see footnote for background on Ali Sina, including his comparisons of Barack Obama to Hitler]. Then followed Ali Sina’s solicitation:

“A Movie about Muhammad: An Idea whose Time Has Come.…We need to get our message to the masses.

Masses watch movies. If a picture is worth a thousand words, what is the worth of a motion picture?  We need to make a motion picture about Muhammad – a biopic that reveals the details of his life…

[...]

The movie shows Muhammad’s raids, plunders, massacres, rapes, assassinations and other crimes. A small subtitle in the lower right corner of each scene will give reference to the source of the story… Truth about Muhammad is more shocking than fiction.

The world does not know Islam. What is known is a watered down and euphemized version of it that has no bases in reality. The truth is that Muhammad was a cult leader, much like Jim Jones, Shoko Asahara and Charles Manson…

The other good news is that I have been promised a substantial angel financing. I have been daydreaming about this movie for ten years. It was this promise that prompted me into action.  I put everything aside for five months, read everything I could about my protagonist, selected the most salient episodes and wrote the script.

[...]

I am not thinking of a high budget movie, but given the subject matter, it can become one of the most seen motion pictures ever. (Recall Danish cartoons?)…

I don’t think this movie will require much investment on promotion…

Just as the Internet allowed us to spread our message to millions of people, with this movie we can spread the same message to hundreds of millions. When the world discovers the truth about Muhammad, Islam’s days will be numbered…

[...]

…given the controversy and the buzz that such a movie will necessarily generate, and the fact that it is an untold and fascinating story about the most influential man in history, I can foresee a huge return on the investment.  When I know about the budget and the legalities are in place, I will give a chance to those who might be interested to invest in this project. In you have questions you can email me to faithfreedom2@gmail.com. In the subject box write Movie Investment.”

One day after his financial solicitation appeared on Geller’s blog, Ali Sina gave an interview, about his “planned Muhammad bopic”, with the European Citizen Times.

Of course this does not prove that the anti-Muhammad movie Ali Sina solicited financing for in early 2012 was the same anti-Muhammad movie that was posted on the Internet, on Youtube, in July 2012. The actual production, the filming of, footage that became “Innocence of the Muslims” occurred six months prior to Ali Sina’s solicitation for funds for an anti-Muhammad movie.

But at the very least, we know that the idea of such a movie was circulating in the closely-connected anti-Islamic activist circles that Geller, Spencer, and Abdelmasih were moving in. And we also know that Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, who had been directly connected to founder and head of Media For Christ Joseph Nasrallah Abdelmasih since mid-2010 or earlier, were publicly promoting, in early 2012, exactly the sort of anti-Muhammad movie project that Abdelmasih and his operatives would soon bring to fruition, with deadly results.

Continue reading here…

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September 13, 2012 · 8:10 PM
(KMBC)

Todd Akin – Does he not look sort of confused?

Yikes!  ”The Stupid”…it hurts my head!  Looks like Todd Akin wants another shot at making “news”.

The Raw Story

Embattled Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) on Wednesday reacted to the death of a U.S. ambassador in Libya by accusing President Barack Obama of not liking the very country he is leading.

On Tuesday, U.S. ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and at least three members of his staff had been killed during protests over a film that mocked that the Prophet Muhammad and was promoted by Terry Jones, a U.S. pastor who had previously sparked deadly riots threatening to burn Qurans.

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney on Wednesday had used the death of Stevens to score political points by accusing Obama of “sympathizing” with the enemy after the U.S. embassy in Libya released a statement condemning the anti-Muslim film.

“First of all, apologizing to all people, [to] a lot of countries who are enemies, and apologizing to them and everything,” Akin said during a campaign stop in Kansas City, according to KMBC. “You know, if we did something wrong that’s one thing, but he’s just apologizing because he didn’t like America? I think that’s the wrong thing to do.”

As The Huffington Post’s Amanda Terkel noted, the president never apologized for the United States in the statements he made about attack in Libya.

Akin, who is a member of the House Armed Services Committee, is facing calls from Republicans to drop his bid to unseat Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) after he suggested last month that women could not get pregnant from “legitimate rape.”

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July 24, 2012 · 7:23 PM

Tea Party Leader Attacks John McCain – Even Issuing What Could Be Called A Death Threat

This guy, a so-called Tea Party leader is definitely off the rails…I can only hope that more tantrums like this one will make all Americans see what freaks these people really are.

Addicting Info

Original North Phoenix Tea Party chairman Wes Harris had some very strong words about Arizona Senator John McCain this week, as reported in the Arizona Capitol Times.

For rising to the defense of Ms. Abedin, Mr. Harris said that Senator McCain was standing for “more a fascist type of organization.” He also said that Senator McCain was defending “Islamic enemies of America” for his rebuke of Representative Michele Bachmann’s comments against the State Department aide earlier this month. Harris further said “He just took Michele Bachmann over the coals on the floor of the Senate for her warning about the Muslim Brotherhood infiltrating our government. It’s just one of many things. It culminates in this latest debacle.”

The most damning piece, however is when he ended it with this:

“Go to hell, Senator, it’s time for you to take your final dirt nap.”

This new McCarthyism is beyond insane. They have taken a page right out of the old Wisconsin Senator’s playbook, crossed out “Communist” and put in “Muslim Brotherhood” and are using it verbatim. Harris even admitted that it did not matter whether any ties between Ms. Abedin and the Muslin Brotherhood existed or not. That she was Islamic was enough to disbar her from government, according to him.

Harris, a precinct committeeman in Arizona Legislative District 6, may be violating the terms of his committee membership by calling for the recall of a sitting Arizona Senator. If nothing else, it would be difficult for him to claim to be unbiased in handling future elections.

The founding founders of this nation purposefully put into the Constitution a prohibition on religion being any basis for public service. So, we end this piece, written by them, as found in the US Constitution, Article VI, paragraph 3:

no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

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January 11, 2012 · 8:53 AM

10th Circuit Court Of Appeals Declares Oklahoma’s Sharia Ban Unconstitutional

There is absolutely no possibility that Sharia Law would ever be the “dominant religion” in The United States because:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment 1 – Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression

It’s simply a strawman argument against Muslims freely practicing their religion in the United States under the guarantees of The Constitution, by those who want to discriminate against them.

Think Progress

The 10th Circuit Court Of Appeals struck down Oklahoma’s ban on Sharia law today, declaring that the Sooner State’s move violated the United States Constitution.

In November 2010, Oklahoma voters approved a ballot initiative to prevent Sharia law from being used in the state, something that even the measure’s defenders could not identify ever happening. (To learn more about what Sharia law actually is, read this brief primer.) Following Oklahoma’s lead, Sharia hysteria soon made its way to other states – including Arizona, Louisiana, and Tennessee – orchestrated by a small group of anti-Muslims misinformation experts we profiled in a report entitled Fear Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America.

Before the Oklahoma law could take effect, however, a federal judge issued an injunction blocking the measure while courts considered its constitutionality. The 10th Circuit, which includes one George W. Bush appointee, a Carter appointee, and an Obama appointee, heard oral arguments in September 2011.

Today, the 10th Circuit unanimously affirmed the lower court’s permanent injunction. In a 37-page decision, the three-judge panel agreed that Oklahoma’s Sharia ban violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause and was therefore unconstitutional. On page 32, the 10th Circuit identified the heart of the matter, that Oklahoma’s move had no basis in reality but simply singled out Muslims for discrimination.

Continue reading here…

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August 31, 2011 · 3:39 PM

‘My Fellow American’: New Online Project To Push Back On Islamophobia

So many Americans, like myself, don’t agree with the Islamophobia that’s so rampant in our country today.  We’ve been frustrated by the ineffectiveness of  small efforts like blog posts, and television pundits who publicly denounce Islamophobes, to no avail.

This project sounds promising…

Think Progress

One of the more unfortunate repercussions of the Islamophobia echo chamber is their ability to mainstream bigoted discourse towards American Muslims. As the Center for America Progress’ “Fear, Inc.” report documents, “some well-established conservative media outlets are a key part of this echo chamber, mixing coverage of alarmist threats posed by the mere existence of Muslims in America.”

This mainstreaming of hateful rhetoric gives fodder to respected community, political and civic leaders, radio talk show hosts, and Christian right preachers. Talking points that Obama is a Muslim, or that American mosques are places of stealth jihad, and other routine demonizing statements towards American Muslims have become the norm in our post 9/11 discourse on Islam in America.

But this relationship between mainstream media and the Islamophobia network is not surprising. What is more alarming is that voices of civility and sanity have not taken action to counter this reality. In an effort to push against the mainstreaming of hateful speech towards Muslims, Unity Productions Foundation has launched a new online project called “My Fellow American.” Centered on a short emotional video that juxtaposes voices of anti-Muslim hate with everyday American Muslims, it serves as a call to conscience to everyday Americans.

Watch the video:

Continue reading here…

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