It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
Two officials from the Council on American-Islamic Relations will be attending the State of the Union address Tuesday as guests of Democratic lawmakers.
Reps. Zoe Lofgren (Calif.) and Alcee Hastings (Fla.) will both be hosting representatives from CAIR chapters in their respective states, the group announced Monday.
Lofgren will be bringing Sameena Usman, a government relations coordinator in the San Francisco office, while Hastings will host Nezar Hamze, the chief operating officer of the nonprofit’s Florida branch.
The announcement comes days after Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), the first Muslim elected to Congress, challenged Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to bring a Muslim American as one of his guests to the speech.
“This is an opportunity to really drive the point home that there are no Americans who are suspect just based on their religious identity, that all Americans are welcome in the people’s house,” Ellison said in an interview with The Hill.
Demoratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) has also urged Democratic lawmakers to bring Muslims to the speech as a rebuke to what she sees is anti-Islamic language from the right.
“The rhetoric and vitriol that has been targeted at this community has been absolutely outrageous and unacceptable,” Wasserman Schultz said at a news conference according to The Sun-Sentinel.
The Investigative Project on Terrorism reported that on August 7, 2007, a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent testified at the Holy Land Foundation trial that CAIR was "listed as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood's Palestine Committee", that it had received money from the Foundation (conflicting with Nihad Awad's Congressional testimony), and that co-founders Awad and Omar Ahmad were "listed as individual members [of] the Brotherhood Palestine Committee in America."[45]
en.wikipedia.org...
originally posted by: aethertek
I'm more offended that this ignorant bigot is invited to attend.
Kim Davis to attend Obama’s final State of the Union address.
www.rawstory.com...
K~
Indeed, CAIR incites, funds, and does much more vis-à-vis terrorism: It apologizes for terrorist groups: Challenged repeatedly to denounce Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist groups, CAIR denounces the acts of violence but not their sponsors.
It is connected to Hamas: Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. and many other governments, indirectly created CAIR and the two groups remain tight.
Examples: In 1994, CAIR head Nihad Awad publicly declared his support for Hamas; the Holy Land Foundation (HLF), a Hamas front group, contributed $5,000 to CAIR; in turn, CAIR exploited the 9/11 attacks to raise money for HLF; and, this past August, demonstrators at a CAIR-sponsored rally in Florida proclaimed “We are Hamas!”
It settled a lawsuit: CAIR initiated a libel lawsuit in 2004 over five statements by a group called Anti-CAIR. But two years later, CAIR settled the suit with prejudice (meaning that it cannot be reopened), implicitly acknowledging the accuracy of Anti-CAIR’s assertions, which included:
“CAIR is a terrorist supporting front organization that is partially funded by terrorists”;
“CAIR . . . is supported by terrorist supporting individuals, groups and countries”;
“CAIR has proven links to, and was founded by, Islamic terrorists”; and
“CAIR actively supports terrorists and terrorist supporting groups and nations.”
It includes individuals accused of terrorism: At least seven board members or staff at CAIR have been arrested, denied entry to the U.S., or were indicted on or pled guilty to (or were convicted of) terrorist charges: Siraj Wahhaj, Bassem Khafagi, Randall (“Ismail”) Royer, Ghassan Elashi, Rabih Haddad, Muthanna Al-Hanooti, and Nabil Sadoun.
It is in trouble with the law: Federal prosecutors in 2007 named CAIR (along with two other Islamic organizations) as “unindicted co-conspirators and/or joint venturers” in a criminal conspiracy to support Hamas financially. In 2008, the FBI ended contacts with CAIR because of concern about its continuing terrorist ties.
The United Arab Emirates’ ministerial cabinet had listed the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as one of 83 proscribed terrorist organizations, up there with the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and ISIS.