American jihad, CAIR, Islamofascists

MPAC’s mouthpiece has ties to OBL praise and CAIR

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The trouble with those who brand Daniel Pipes as an Islamophobe is while he provides proof of what he asserts, his accusers’ only evidence is their rhetoric. Mr. Pipes writes again today, in FrontPage magazine:

The Muslim Public Affairs Council [MPAC] and the Council on American-Islamic Relations [CAIR] each have a problem. As perhaps the most prominent and effective Islamist organizations in the United States, they have distinct stylistic and ideological characteristics but work together effectively as a one-two punch. Their problem concerns two of their most prominent staffers, Edina Lekovic of MPAC and Hussam Ayloush of CAIR.

Lekovic, who serves as MPAC’s communications director, appeared on CNBC’s Kudlow & Company with counterterrorism specialist Steven Emerson on May 23, where they discussed a Pew Research Center poll on U.S. Muslim attitudes…
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Later in the day, Emerson provided evidence of his claim at “MPAC in Denial about Radicalization of Muslim Youth?”: “…in July 1999, she is clearly listed as the Managing Editor of Al-Talib, in the upper right hand corner. This column was published almost a full year after the Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. At this point, the role of Bin-Laden in these bombings was widely and publicly known. … The masthead clearly lists Edina Lekovic as one of its two managing editors. And the text, written by “The Al-Talib staff,” contains the passage Emerson quoted: “When we hear someone refer to the great Mujahid … Osama bin Laden, as a ‘terrorist,’ we should defend our brother and refer to him as a freedom fighter.””

Edina Lekovic managing editor al Talib

al Talib text

Click on bottom image to view actual PDF of page

Such sentiments come as less than a total surprise, for Al-Talib has linked to an Al-Qaeda website, www.qoqaz.net, and is published by the branch of the Muslim Student Association at the University of California at Los Angeles. (Writing in the Middle East Quarterly, Jonathan Dowd-Gailey has called the MSA a voice “espousing Wahhabism, anti-Americanism, and anti-Semitism, agitating aggressively against U.S. Middle East policy, and expressing solidarity with militant Islamist ideologies.”)
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Emerson has a back run of Al-Talib issues. Between October 1997 and May 2002, it turns out, her name appears at least eleven other times on the masthead, in such capacities as “managing editor,” “assistant editor,” “copy editor,” “writer,” or the recipient of “special thanks.”
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The Council on American-Islamic Relations comes into the picture because that July 1999 Al-Talib masthead also conveys “special thanks” to Hussam Ayloush, long-time head of its southern California office. What now, CAIR? This information connects you too to denying bin Laden’s terrorism; do, please, explain Ayloush’s role in the July 1999 issue.

Special thanks to Hussam Ayloush

Also see: Keith Ellison’s Dangerous Liaisons by Joe Kaufman.

9/11, amnesty, War on Terror

Immigration reform includes REAL ID repeal

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The ‘Jersey Girls’ must be racing to Washington, D.C., to angrily denounce President Bush. I am reading where they want to repeal REAL ID, a key recommendation of the 9/11 Commission’s report… Wait a minute… Reading further I see it is their heroes, the Democrats led by Senator Patrick Leahy, who are trying to repeal the act.

The Heritage Foundation’s James Jay Carafano writes today in the National Review Online:

The attitude senior congressional leaders have taken towards implementation of the REAL ID Act offers a lesson for those who actually believe that this Congress can be trusted to follow through on the promises made in the immigration-reform bill that is now on the floor of the Senate. The REAL ID Act implemented one of the key recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. It requires national standards for driver’s licenses, including an assurance that any identity card used for a federal purpose (like passing through a Transportation Security Administration security checkpoint before boarding a plane) only be issued to an individual who is lawfully present in the United States. The law also prompts states to adopt best practices to provide better information protection and combat identity theft, fraud, and counterfeit trafficking in identity documents. Measures in the immigration reform brokered in the Senate even acknowledge that the REAL ID requirements are vital for restoring the credibility of identity cards and the “breeder documents” (like birth certificates) that are used to obtain them [emphasis added mine].

When Congress passed REAL ID with bipartisan support [Ed. — The Senate passed the measure by unanimous consent. The House passed it by a vote of 368 to 58], it seemed pretty clear that REAL ID was real important. And so you can imagine my surprise when I was called, on almost no notice, to testify before the full Senate Committee on the Judiciary in a hearing earlier this month titled, “Will REAL ID Actually Make Us Safer? An Examination of Privacy and Civil Liberty Concerns.” Good question. Isn’t that something Congress should have done before passing the law? Well, as it happens, they did. Both houses held hearings on the proposal. Apparently, they must have missed something. The Judiciary hearing turned into a direct frontal assault on REAL ID. Before the first question had even been asked, Senator Patrick Leahy, the committee chair, announced: “Given my own concerns, I have joined with Senators Akaka, Sununu, and Tester to introduce a bill that would repeal the driver’s license provisions of the REAL ID Act.”

Support from the administration and its allies was not much better. Only one senator from the minority showed up and didn’t ask any questions. In addition, the administration provided no witnesses and has not requested sufficient appropriations to prompt states to move forward quickly to implement REAL ID.

REAL ID is in real danger of becoming bait-and-switch legislation where Congress talks tough and then fails to deliver the resources or demonstrate the resolve to follow through.

There is every reason to expect the same response to immigration reform.

It will be mildly interesting [yawn] to see who the “Girls” blame for this one. I hope they can rip themselves away from the 9/11 “truth” movement long enough to comment.