9/11, Political wind

Two 9/11 family members run for Congress

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One candidate lost both parents and a second lost a brother on 9/11. Now, Marc Flagg and James Ogonowski are running for United States Congress.

First, the Palm Beach Post reports:

Flagg’s parents were killed on Sept. 11, 2001, when their plane, American Airlines Flight 77, was hijacked and flown into the Pentagon. Flagg, a Navy-trained pilot, became active in aviation security issues after the terrorist attacks and this month launched a 2008 Republican congressional bid that he says will stress national-security themes. Flagg, who lives west of Boca Raton, is the only Republican to announce a candidacy for the Palm Beach-Broward District 22 seat held by freshman U.S. Rep. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton.

“Prior to 9/11 I was quite happy being just a pilot. Nine-eleven changed everything. My loss of my parents inspired me to make a change and improve aviation security. … As a congressman representing the 22nd District, I will be able to help make our country better, safer, stronger,” Flagg said Monday outside the Veterans Affairs Medical Center, where his first official event as a candidate drew one reporter.

Flagg, who now flies cargo planes for UPS, became active in pilot groups after 9/11 and in 2005 became president of a trade association called the Passenger-Cargo Security Group.
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While better-known Republicans have balked, Boca Raton GOP activist Jack Furnari says Flagg should not be counted out. “Marcus Flagg is a polished candidate with a compelling story, and he just might be the guy who can take Clay Shaw’s seat back,” Furnari said Monday.

And the Associated Press reports:

Air Force Lt. Col. James Ogonowski is the first Republican to announce his intention to run for the seat of Democrat Rep. Martin Meehan, who is leaving Congress to become chancellor of the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. Ogonowski’s brother, John, was one of 92 people killed aboard American Airlines Flight 11 from Boston to Los Angeles on Sept. 11, 2001.

He said his brother’s death played a “significant part” in his decision to run for Congress. “We lost our innocence that day,” he said. “It’s something we should never allow to happen again.”

Ogonowski, 49, plans to retire from the Air Force next month after a 28-year career. He announced his candidacy at a memorial dedicated to his brother near the house where they grew up in Dracut, in northeast Massachusetts.

Ogonowski describes himself as a fiscal conservative and social moderate.

10:21 PM EDT Update: No challengers so far for lt. col. in primary

The congressional campaign of Air Force Lt. Col. James Ogonowski, whose brother was the pilot of a plane flown into the World Trade Center in the Sept. 11 attacks, got a boost Thursday when two fellow Republicans announced they won’t run and will support him.

Lawrence Mayor Michael Sullivan and former NFL player Fred Smerlas announced they won’t enter the race for the seat being vacated by Rep. Martin Meehan, D-Mass., and said they’ll support Ogonowski, the only announced GOP candidate.

“I decided to stay full-time here in Lawrence,” Sullivan said, noting he had pledged to complete his second term as mayor. “We’re at a tremendous time where economic development is literally at an all-time high.”
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“I have faith in Jim. I believe in this guy,” Smerlas said, though he added he’s not met him in person.

If he’s unchallenged in the GOP primary, Ogonowski will be able to build and conserve funds for a showdown with the Democratic nominee. The seat has been held by a Democrat since the Nixon administration.

CAIR, Islam vs. Islamists, Islamofascists, PBS

PBS furthered Islamists’ cause with ‘The Muslim Americans’

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Screeings yesterday and today of ‘Islam vs. Islamists’ for Members of Congress and journalists alone will not undo the proganda victory PBS provided to CAIR and others who seek to silence moderate Muslims. After PBS asked Martyn Burke, the documentary’s creator, “Don’t you check into the politics of the people you work with?”, they replaced it with ‘The Muslim Americans.’ Alex Alexiev, the co-executive producer of ‘Islam vs. Islamists’, describes in detail what PBS somehow forgot to mention about many of those featured in ‘The Muslim Americans’. Here is a sampling:

Dr. Aminah McCloud … opined that America was becoming a “terrorist state like those nations we pretend to abhor.” McCloud, who serves as an “advisor” to the “Crossroads” series, committed an egregious breach of journalistic ethics and confidentiality agreements by showing a rough cut of our film to her fellow activists in the Nation of Islam, one of the subjects of our film “Islam vs. Islamists.” Despite such grievous misconduct, she is featured prominently in McNeil’s film, raising the question of whether her appointment as an arbiter of moderate Islam was entirely coincidental.

[CAIR] spokesman Ibrahim Hooper, with the narrator positively gushing over this “advocacy and civil rights” organization. Unmentioned are some uncomfortable details about CAIR’s history, such as the fact that it is the direct progeny with identical leadership (including Hooper) of the Islamic Association of Palestine, a now-defunct financier of Hamas terrorism, and that several of CAIR’s executives were sentenced to jail for terrorist activities while still in its employ.

[The] Muslim Students Association… MSA is not only extremist, but the forerunner of Islamic extremism in America, having come into being as the first radical Muslim organization in America with the help of a group of Muslim Brothers and Saudi money as far back as 1963. Virtually all well-known members of the radical Islamist networks in the United States, such as the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) and a dozen others are direct spin-offs from the MSA, by its own admission…
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[T]he Bridgeview Mosque in Chicago … was taken over by radical Wahhabi preachers and Hamas supporters in a dramatic conflict with moderate Muslims which was well-documented in a series of articles in the Chicago Tribune.

Imam Abdul Malik Ali, an African-American convert to Islam who is presented in the movie as the epitome of moderation and reason. In real life, Ali is a regular on the lecture circuit of Islamist radicals, where he is known for his vitriolic anti-Semitism and authoritative pronouncements such as “the Israelis knew about and were in control of 9/11” which “was staged to give an excuse to wage war against Muslims around the world.”

Then there is the hope of American Islam, Sheikh Hamza Yusuf, a convert running an Islamic seminary called Zaytouna in the Bay Area. Yusuf is described in fawning terms as the star of a new generation of American Muslims and a foremost modern interpreter of an “Islam rooted in the culture of America.” The film’s producers would have you believe he accomplishes this while still teaching a traditionalist form of the faith. How you can be rooted in American culture and, at the same time, believe that a rape victim must have four male witnesses to prove the crime, lest she be stoned to death for adultery, as the “traditionalist” shari’a norms require, remains unexplained.
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Last but far from least is Omid Safi, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who is given star billing and allowed to make authoritative editorial commentary throughout the documentary. This is the same gentleman who is on record with his belief that “American foreign policy is centered on dehumanizing Muslims.” More disturbingly, Safi is also one of the five WETA/PBS advisors to “Crossroads,” making him, like Dr. Aminah McCloud, both a referee and a player in the dubious games played by PBS with this series. This goes beyond a mere conflict of interest. It verges on outright corruption of the integrity of public broadcasting.

If that sampling doesn’t compel you to READ THE WHOLE THING, please check your pulse for signs of life.