The conference is designed to educate Americans about the Muslim Brotherhood’s infiltration at the highest levels of the U.S. government, as well as its war on free speech: its attempt to silence and discredit those who speak up against the jihad and Sharia encroachment in the West. Emphasis will be on the international character of the jihad against the West and on how the Islamic war on free speech (and the media’s self-imposed blackout on this issue, as in the Fort Hood massacre) is part and parcel of the same jihad against the West that terrorists are pursuing by violent means.

And that’s too much for CAIR. Ibrahim Hooper, the spokesman for the unindicted co-conspirator and front for the Muslim Brotherhood CAIR (the Council on American-Islamic Relations), said, “They’re free to be anti-Muslim bigots if they like, but it’s really up to the organizers of CPAC to determine if they’re going to allow their conference to be associated with the hate-filled views of those who will be speaking.”

Why doesn’t FOX explain what CAIR is? As Robert Spencer explained at Jihad Watch:

“CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case — so named by the Justice Department. CAIR operatives have repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups. Several former CAIR officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror. CAIR’s cofounder and longtime Board chairman (Omar Ahmad), as well as its chief spokesman (Honest Ibe Hooper), have made Islamic supremacist statements. CAIR has warred against free speech in the past.”

Why doesn’t FOX read the documents from the Holy Land trial, which exposed the Muslim Brotherhood’s agenda of “eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within,” and made plain CAIR’s connection to the Brotherhood? Why does FOX cover for this subversive organization? And why do they run everything they say unchallenged while smearing me in every other paragraph?

Why am I called a bigot by a vocal anti-Semite, unchallenged?

The FOX article also makes this accusation: “organizers of the ‘Jihad’ session have been trying to stir the pot with what they call a blunt and objective discussion of Muslims’ attempts to harm the West while silencing criticism.” FOX acts as if this is just some claim we’re making. Did they try to find out if there really were any Muslim attempts to “harm the West while silencing criticism.” Spencer commented on this that the FOX reporter, Judson Berger, “probably has no idea that the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), to which Obama just sent a special envoy, has for years now spearheaded an effort at the UN to compel member states to criminalize what it calls ‘defamation of religions,’ but by which it clearly means any honest discussion of the texts and teachings of Islam that jihadists invoke to justify violence and supremacism.”

This FOX article is more proof of why this conference is so very necessary. All you have to do is utter jihad and the smear merchants and their handmaidens come out shooting.

The Islamic supremacists are trying to shut down free speech, and especially speech that reveals who they are, what they are doing, and how they are infiltrating America at senior levels of the Pentagon, the FBI, the CIA, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Homeland Security.

Lisa DePasquale of CPAC  said: “We have different perspectives among the co-sponsor events and we don’t want to censor any group from being able to invite people to attend their forums.”

Be there, folks. This event is supplying truth that you will not hear elsewhere, and on which hangs the very future of our nation. You can see from this FOX article how much powerful people don’t want you hearing the things we are going to be discussing at this conference. It will be held at the Mariott Wardman Park Hotel, the site of CPAC, on February 19, from 10AM to noon.

In the war of ideas, this is the battleground.

According to a February 5, 2007 statement from the Department of Justice, “Benkahla was convicted of making materially false statements both in his grand jury appearances in 2004, as well as to the FBI in 2004. These false statements included his denial of his involvement with an overseas jihad training camp in 1999, as well as his asserted lack of knowledge about individuals with whom he was in contact.”

If you want to fundraise for a jailed jihadist, Dar Al-Hijrah is definitely the $40-donation-for-a-halal-chicken-dinner venue of choice.  Dar Al-Hijrah’s  jihadist credentials are impeccable:

Dar Al-Hijra is the mosque where Anwar al-Awlaki was Imam  between January 2001 and April 2002.  Al-Awlaki (bio here and here) was the senior al-Qaeda recruiter and motivator for various terrorists, including three 9/11 hijackers, the accused Fort Hood shooter Major Nidal Malik Hasan, and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the suspect in the Christmas Day 2009 attempt to blow up  Northwest Airlines Flight 253.  Al-Awlaki may still be alive in Yemen, and after some concerns about his civil rights, reportedly the Obama administration now has him targeted as a terrorist.

And who can forget that earlier Dar Al-Hijra Imam from 1995-1999, Mohammed Al-Hanooti,  named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.  In 1999, when he was still Imam at Dar Al-Hijra, he testified in support of Ihab M. Ali, who had refused to testify before a grand jury investigating the 1998 United States embassy bombings.   Al-Hanooti told the federal judge that Islamic law “gives him [Ihab M. Ali] the right to abstain from giving testimony in case it hurts him or it hurts any other Muslim.”

Or the Dar Al-Hijra Islamic Studies teacher – and Dar Al Hijra Islamic Camp Counselor -  Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, convicted in 2005 of providing material support to the al-Qaeda terrorist network, and conspiracy to assassinate President Bush, now serving a life sentence.  Abu Ali was also valedictorian of his class at the Saudi Islamic Academy, the Saudi Embassy-backed 900-student school in the Washington, DC suburbs, that the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has repeatedly urged the US State Department to shut down on the grounds that it teaches religious intolerance.

Or the Dar Al-Hijra Imam between August 2003 and May 2005, the memorable Sheikh Mohammed Adam El-Sheikh, formerly a Muslim Brotherhood member and Shariah judge in the Sudan, and one of the founders of both the mosque and the Muslim American Society (MAS), who left the mosque to become the executive director of the Fiqh Council of North America.

That’s the same  Fiqh Council that on February 9, 2010 issued a legal opinion – a fatwa – against the use of full body scanners in airports for Muslims.  He’s also active in bringing Shariah law to America, as the head of the Islamic Judiciary Council of the Shari’ah Scholars’ Association of North America (SSANA).

And we cannot neglect to mention the member of Dar Al-Hijrah’s Executive Committee, Abelhaleem Hasan Abdelraziq Ashqar, convicted in November 2007 of contempt and obstruction of justice for refusal to testify before a grand jury with regard to Hamas, and sentenced to 135 months in prison.   A major Hamas operative since at least 1988,  Ashqar was accused of opening bank accounts and maintaining U.S. records for Hamas.

Nor is Dar Al-Hijrah  just your average, friendly neighborhood mosque.  In fact, their original Constitution required their Board of Directors to  include  leaders of  Muslim Brotherhood front groups who would later be identified as unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism finance trial: “the Current Secretary General of Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the Current President of Muslim Arab Youth Association (MAYA), the Current General Manager of North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), and the Current President of Muslim American Society (MAS).”  In 2005, when the current Imam Shaker Elsayed became Imam, he amended the mosque’s constitution to give precedence to the Muslim American Society, and now the mosque Board is run by the “Current President of the Muslim American Society (MAS), the Current MAS DC Area Chapter President, the Executive Director of MAS National Office.”  Elsayed had been Secretary General of the Muslim American Society before becoming Dar Al Hijrah’s imam.  The Muslim American Society was founded in 1993 as the American chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood.

It was Imam Shaker Elsayed who sent the email invitation text for the February 13, 2010 fundraiser for Sabri Benkhala:

“Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2010 20:22:48 -0700
From: legaladmin@universal-justice.net
Subject: Mark Your Calendar (2/13/10): Dinner

Dear Friends of Justice,

Assalamu Alaikum. The Universal Justice Foundation is pleased to announce that it will be hosting a fundraising dinner to support Br. Sabri Benkahla by contributing to his legal fees. The event will feature Dr. Jamal Badawi from Canada, Imam Rodwaan Saleh from Texas, and Br. Sabri’s attorney John Sheldon, Esq. and will be held at Dar Al Hijrah IslamicCenter’s Main Courtyard. Tickets are only $40 and registration will be at 5:30. The program will begin promptly at 6:00 P.M., and dinner will be served early. Please arrange to purchase tickets as soon as possible because space is limited! You may buy tickets at our website www.universal-justice.net or from Sh. Shaker at Dar Al Hijrah. If neither option is convenient, please email us at legaladmin@universal-justice.net and we will arrange your ticket sale…

May Allah reward you greatly for your efforts in serving justice!

Sincerely,

Shaker Elsayed
Founder and Chairman, UJF

Shaker Elsayed, the current Imam, and founder and Chairman of that “United Justice Foundation” fundraising organization for convicted terrorists,  is a dual citizen of Egypt and the U.S.  He stated in  a sermon at the Dar Al Hijrah in 2005, shortly after becoming Imam there and stacking the Board of Directors with Muslim American Society leaders,  that “Islam forbids you to give allegiance to those who kick you off your homeland, and to those who support those who kick you off your homeland…We do have license to respond with all force necessary to answer our attackers.”  And in the same sermon he stated, “The call to reform Islam is an alien call.”  He is also an outspoken supporter of Hamas and their objectives, including the destruction of Israel.

The Fort Hood shooter, Nidal Hassan, attended Dar Al-Hijrah periodically when he lived in the Washington, DC area, up to 2009 when he was transferred to Texas, and his now infamous powerpoint presentation, “The Koranic Worldview as it Related to Muslims in the Military” is closely in line with the 2005 preaching of the current Dar Al-Hijrah Imam, Shaker Elsayed.    See for example slide 11 in that series: “It’s getting harder and harder for Muslims in the service to morally justify being in a military that seems constantly engaged against fellow Muslims”; the examples in slide 13; or the quote that appears to track exactly with Elsayed’s 2005 sermon, on slide 49:  “Fighting to establish an Islamic State, to please God even by force, is condoned by the Islam.”

Dar Al-Hijrah has been staffed by a series of Imams who  radicalize their members – the members don’t “self-radicalize,” as Major Hasan was said to do in the negligent report on the Fort Hood Shooting put out by the Pentagon.  The U.S. intelligence community missed the warning signals from Dar Al-Hijrah’s earlier Imam Anwar al-Awlaki; they should heed the warning signals from the current Imam, Shaker Elsayed.

More on this in days to come – including which invited elected officials could be coming to dinner at Dar Al-Hijrah in April, at their gala annual fundraiser…

On November 17, 2009, a prominent Senator and five leading Members of Congress sent a letter to the IRS asking for an investigation of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) concerning their possible violation of the Lobbying Disclosure Act which limits the expenditures a non-profit can spend on lobbying  If CAIR has exceeded the limits of that law, they risk losing their non-profit status.  Other penalties may be more severe:  if the Secretary of the Senate or Clerk of the House of Representatives determines that CAIR should have registered and find “a knowing violation by a preponderance of the evidence,” CAIR could be “subject to a civil fine of not more than $200,000, depending on the extent and gravity of the violation,”  and if CAIR “knowingly and corruptly failed to comply,” they could be subject to imprisonment up to 5 years.    Our separate analysis of CAIR tax returns, compared to audio evidence recorded in 2006, reveals another potential issue for IRS investigators – more on that follows below…

The November 17 letter to the IRS was signed by Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), Ranking Member on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations for the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.    The members of Congress signing the letter also have extensive experience in intelligence, counter-terrorism and investigations:

• Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC), Deputy Whip, founder of the Congressional Anti-Terrorism Caucus, who also serves on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
• Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), who serves on the Judiciary Committee and the Armed Services Committee
• Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), who serves on the United States House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing, and Terrorism Risk Assessment
• Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ), who serves on the  Committee on Energy and Commerce and the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming
• Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), who serves on the Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs for the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

Our own investigation revealed another problem CAIR may have with the IRS.

Their most recent publicly available tax return, from 2006, reports gross receipts for their annual fundraiser that are significantly less than they announced at the event itself.  On that 2006 990 form, they reported that they had raised $89,775, but left blank (or zeroed) several key fields:

But our investigative team attended that 2006 annual CAIR event and recorded the fundraiser Master of Ceremonies, Rodwan Saleh of the Islamic Society of Greater Houston, announcing that they raised much more than $89,775 – at least $250,000, and possibly as much as $600,000 due to a matching grant.  Below is a partial transcript and the audio:

Partial Transcription:

RODWAN SALEH: We are now at $250,000. Takbir.

AUDIENCE: Allahu Akbar.

SALEH: Takbir.

AUDIENCE: Allahu Akbar.

SALEH: Now, listen carefully [unclear] requirements. There is a family, there is a family that says if we all now can put this amount of money from 250 to 300, they will match the 300. You understand what I’m saying? Now, so we need now to make sure that we get $50,000 in no time because if we can make 300 this family will put another 300 [unclear]. Did you hear me?

So here are two more questions for IRS investigators:   Did CAIR raise only $89,775 at the fundraiser and if so, what happened to the rest of the $250,000 (or $300,000 0r $600,000)?  Or did CAIR raise the larger amount, and if so, why did they report less to the IRS?

On November 3, 2009, we called CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad for comment on this apparent discrepancy.  Mr. Awad said he would look into the matter and get back to us, but so far he has failed to do so.

CAIR’s supporters include foreign businesses and members of various Middle Eastern royal families, and at the 2006 annual fundraiser in question, tables were assigned to the embassies of Malaysia, Pakistan, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and the Interests Section of Iran.   The Holy Land Foundation terrorism finance trial documents, along with numerous Arab and English news articles, show CAIR receiving foreign contributions and pledges ranging from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars.  During 2005 and 2006, CAIR had additional capital to purchase properties valued at over $10 million, as detailed in the investigative best-seller book Muslim Mafia.

Yet in 2006 their membership dues from actual Muslim Americans were only $41,383 -  one percent of their total reported revenues of over $2.7 million.

One percent from Muslim Americans’ dues.  And just $89,775 gross receipts from the annual fundraiser, partially reported to the IRS.

And 99% from…somewhere else.

Incidentally, we were able to obtain copies of the 2007 990 tax forms for fifteen CAIR chapters, and the 2008 990 tax forms for five CAIR chapters, but the CAIR national office has still not made public their 2007 and 2008 tax returns.

A key question for both the IRS and the Department of Justice: Is CAIR really an organization representing Muslim Americans, or is it representing the interests of foreign principals?

To be continued….

]]> http://biggovernment.com/fgaffney/2009/11/18/the-irs-and-cair/feed/ 492 http://biggovernment.com/amarcus/2009/11/05/big-win-in-staten-island-for-acorn-working-families-party-and-peace-action/ http://biggovernment.com/amarcus/2009/11/05/big-win-in-staten-island-for-acorn-working-families-party-and-peace-action/#comments Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:47:45 +0000 Andrew Marcus http://biggovernment.com/?p=25446 The radical left took a couple of hits on the chin yesterday, losing two significant governorships in Virgina and New Jersey. Add to this the embarrassing outing of one of their WFP endorsed RINO’s in NY-23, and this was not a banner cycle for the President Obama’s ACORN movement.

The Democratic Socialists and Marxists did score one important win in Staten Island yesterday, with the election of their WFP candidate for City Council, Debi Rose.

This is the same Debi Rose who recently exercised her 5th amendment right to avoid incriminating herself in an ACORN-WFP campaign finance related scandal.

There are two reasons this very local election is important beyond Staten Island.

1) Debi Rose’s campaign manager was a man by the name of David Jones. According to Weather Underground reporter Thomas Good, who runs a website called Antiauthoritarian.net, David Jones is a member of a group called Peace Action.

Peace Action has a working relationship with CAIR, unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy-Land Foundation trial.

Spend any amount of time on antiauthoritarian.net and you will experience the crossroads of Weather Underground style Marxism, antisemitism masked as anti-Israelism, and the Democrat Party, as seen through the lens and mind of a self proclaimed anarchist, Thomas Good.

This group of hard core Socialists, Marxists, Anarchists, and Democrats must be very pleased that they scored this win in Staten Island.

2) Debi’s race may be just for a local seat on a city council, but one only need to look to Detroit to witness the long term effect of Democratic Socialism on a local level.

All you need to do is peruse the archive of the Detroit DSA, and scan for all of the prominent members of the Democrat Party who are also prominent members of the Democratic Socialists of America. Read about their successes in passing their agenda during a period of epidemic indifference to local politics.

From their archive [emphasis in red added]:

Detroit DSA’s goal is to rid the White House of George Bush. On its face, this would seem a preposterous undertaking for such a small local as ours. Yet there are ways in which we can intelligently leverage the resources of our local to have a significant impact on the coming elections. Our strategy is to focus our efforts in carefully selected districts where the activity of a small group such as ours could both increase the anti-Bush turnout and elect a progressive local candidate.

Let’s start with the primary elections. Due to the low voter turnout for these races, primary campaigns are traditionally the elections in which small, well-organized groups can have a disproportionate impact.

Detroit is a dead city, thanks in large part to the successful efforts of the Democratic Socialists of America, and a cynically apathetic body politic.

Which DSA city or state will be next to die on the alter of Socialism? Staten Island? Chicago?

Congratulations Staten Island. That’s some city council you’re building for yourselves there.

Correction: This story has been edited. The title originally read Rhode Island. The correct city is Staten Island.

Over the next month, we will be exposing new evidence about the activities of the Council on American Islamic Relations, known as CAIR.  The evidence – and ensuing requests for formal investigations of CAIR – will be submitted to members of Congress, to the Departments of Justice and Treasury, as well as to the public here at Big Government.  To set the scene, here’s a brief “CAIR for Dummies” backgrounder  from author Paul Sperry, whose just-published best-seller Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld that’s Conspiring to Islamize America unmasks CAIR and its foreign backers:

The Council on American-Islamic Relations bills itself as a “civil-rights advocacy group,” much like the NAACP, but for Muslims

However, the FBI says that far from being a benign nonprofit, CAIR is a front group for Hamas terrorists and the radical Muslim Brotherhood in America. And the bureau recently cut off formal ties to CAIR’s national office in Washington and all 30 of its branch offices across the country.

At the same time, the Justice Department has blacklisted CAIR as an unindicted terrorist co-conspirator in the largest terror finance case in U.S. history, the Holy Land Foundation trial. It ended in convictions on all 108 counts.

Prosecutors have also connected CAIR to the Muslim Brotherhood, a worldwide jihadist movement that seeks to institutionalize Shariah law (think: Taliban) in America and the West through immigration, coercion and political infiltration.

“From its founding by Muslim Brotherhood leaders, CAIR conspired with other affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood to support terrorists,” said assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg in a court filing.

The FBI last year severed ties to CAIR, citing court evidence that its leaders were participating in an “ongoing” conspiracy to support terrorists. Democrat Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York has requested that the FBI’s anti-CAIR ban “should be government-wide policy.”

CAIR has proven ties to terrorists.

No fewer than 15 CAIR officials have been convicted or caught up in terrorism investigations since 9/11 — including its founding chairman, Omar Ahmad, and acting executive director, Nihad Awad.

And they remain under government suspicion, as a result of evidence emerging from the Holy Land terror trial.

“During that trial, evidence was introduced that demonstrated a relationship among CAIR, individual CAIR founders (including its current President Emeritus and its Executive Director) and … HAMAS,” wrote assistant FBI Director Richard Powers in an April 2009 letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

CAIR’s terror ties are not limited to Hamas and cross over to al-Qaida, and leaders of the Congressional Anti-Terrorism Caucus now believe CAIR to be a threat to national security. Last week, citing documents uncovered in “Muslim Mafia,” they called for an investigation of CAIR’s lobbying activities on the Hill.

CAIR insists it has no agenda other than protecting the rights of Muslim Americans.

However, the words of its own leaders reveal a hidden subversive agenda.

CAIR Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper: “I wouldn’t want to create the impression that I wouldn’t like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future.”

CAIR Founding Chairman Omar Ahmad: “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Quran should be the highest authority in America.”

CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad: “Muslims in America are in the best position to show Islam and to show action and to show vision, not only for a Muslim school how it should be run, but for the entire society — how it should be run. Who better can lead America than Muslims?”

Americans should also know the following about CAIR:

*    CAIR’s major funding comes from Persian Gulf sources, including Saudi Arabia.

*   CAIR leaders travel frequently to the Middle East to personally raise cash.

*   Bank wire shows Saudi royal family member transferred over a  hundred thousand dollars into CAIR’s bank account at Citibank.

*   After 9/11, the ruler of Dubai took a nearly $1 million stake in CAIR’s headquarters, just three blocks from the U.S. Capitol, and has pledged millions more.

*   ”Do not think about your contributions [to CAIR] as donations,” CAIR’s former chairman told CAIR’s UAE patrons. “Think about it from the perspective of rate of return. The investment of $50 million will give you billions of dollars in return for 50 years.”

*   CAIR is selling its service to the UAE and Saudi governments by doing their ideological and commercial bidding. Yet CAIR is not currently registered as a foreign agent, and CAIR has never disclosed its foreign funding or relationships with countries tied to 9/11 and still potentially  hostile to U.S. interests.”

Our investigative team attended the October 24 15th annual fundraiser for CAIR – and we’ll be posting on that shortly.   To be continued….

October 24 – tonight’s the big night for the 15th annual fundraiser for CAIR – the Council on American Islamic Relations, named by the Justice Department in 2007 as an unindicted terrorism finance co-conspirator because of their ties to Hamas, a terrorist organization.   This event should be of particular interest to Mr. Stuart A. Levey, Under Secretary in the Treasury Department’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence – as well as to Attorney General Eric Holder at the Department of Justice – because of the apparent support for CAIR’s 2008 annual fundraiser by the “Interests Section of Iran.”

Members of Congress should also note two matters of concern from the 2008 annual fundraiser, now that Big Government has presented documentary evidence that the “Interests Section of Iran” attended the event:

First, the attendance as keynote speaker by Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN), whose remarkable statements were recorded by our investigative team;

Second, the  letters of support in CAIR’s 2008 fundraiser’s printed program from nine members of Congress, who chose to associate themselves with CAIR – and also with the foreign supporters and attendees at the banquet, including the “Interests Section of Iran.”

Remember that by the date of the 14th annual fundraiser – November 23, 2008 -  over a year had already passed since federal prosecutors had named CAIR as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism finance trial, because of CAIR’s association with Hamas, a terrorist organization.  These nine members of Congress chose to ignore federal prosecutors’ actions.  Ironically, the next day – November 24, 2008 – the Holy Land defendants were found guilty on all 108 counts.

First: Ellison’s keynote speech.  He unfortunately chose to shift from an entirely legitimate  plea to the attendees to run for political office, to a questionable – possibly quite disturbing – challenge to target children – “to shape all those young minds” – presumably with the agenda of the event he was addressing,  an event attended and apparently supported by the “Interests Section of Iran.”

Our investigative team was forced to record Ellison’s remarks on audio, rather than video, because our earlier videos from the beginning of the banquet had already been posted to Youtube by the the time Ellison spoke and alerted CAIR that we were taping.  CAIR’s staffers were walking among the tables, looking for camcorders.  Here’s the transcript of the excerpt from Ellison’s speech:

“We need you to run for those school boards.  We need you to run for those park boards.  You know, I don’t know about your state or your city, but in the city of Minneapolis where I come from, the largest daycare provider in the city of Minneapolis is the Park Board.  Think about that.  Don’t you want to be in a position to shape all those young minds? Go run for the Park Board.”

Here’s how Congressman Keith Ellison may have wanted “to shape all those young minds”…In 2006, Ellison was exposed for his long association with the anti-semitic Nation of Islam and Louis Farrakhan, based on an investigative report published by the Weekly Standard:  “Louis Farrakhan’s First Congressman.”   And Fox News reported that Ellison’s hajj trip to Mecca was paid for by the Minnesota Muslim American Society, whose fatwa prompted Muslim taxi drivers at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport to refuse to transport passengers carrying liquor or accompanied by guide dogs.

Congress should ask Representative Ellison to  repudiate his attendance at the 2008 CAIR event, given CAIR’s status as an unindicted co-conspirator in the terrorism finance trial and the FBI’s subsequent cutting of ties; and to  repudiate his tacit approval of the attendance at his speech by the “Interests Section of Iran”; and to clarify whether his remarks about “shaping all those young minds” refer to teaching children the agendas – which he has previously espoused – of the Nation of Islam or the Muslim American Society.

But Ellison wasn’t alone in his support for the CAIR event, although he may have been the only Congressman who knew that the “Interests Section of Iran” attended the event.

Eight other members of Congress sent in letters of support, published in the 2008 CAIR program, which you can view here.

Here are a few excerpts from those letters, in the order presented in the printed program:

Lois Capps (D-CA): “extend greetings to everyone gathered for CAIR’s 14th annual banquet…I look forward to working together in the future.”

Tom Davis (R-VA) (now retired): “As you gather to share ideas, create alliance and network with one another, may you continue to foster the principles of brotherhood, equality, mutual assistance, religious tolerance, peace and justice…”

Keith Ellison (D- MN) (Ellison is the first Muslim member of Congress): “I would like to salute the work you have done over the last fourteen years defending civil rights, empowering American Muslims and enlightening Americans to a more accurate portrayal of Islam.”

Michael M. Honda (D-CA): “It is a great pleasure to extend a warm welcome to all who are gathered for the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) 14th annual banquet….CAIR has worked diligently with Members of Congress to educate and advocate…”

Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX): “The Council’s mission is vital…an essential organization…I am grateful that I have such friends…the achievements and goals of CAIR are commendable and I thank you for the contributions made to the great state of Texas and the nation…I look forward to the continued success of your efforts.”

Betty McCollum (D-MN): “Thank you for your work!”

James P. Moran (D-VA): “I wish CAIR success in the coming year in its efforts…”

Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ): “Since 2003, the Council on American Islamic Relations’ New Jersey Chapter has encouraged progressive dialogue throughout my district and throughout many New Jersey communities.  The New Jersey Chapter’s hard work does not go unrecognized by this office.  Once again, I want to offer my heartfelt congratulations…to wish you the same success in your future you have had in your past.”

Loretta Sanchez (D-CA): “I would like to thank CAIR for its exemplary achievements…”

So, to sum up: Tonight is the 15th Annual banquet for the Hamas-linked, unindicted co-conspirator in terrorism finance CAIR.  Last year at the 14th Annual event – November 23, 2008 – the “Interests Section of Iran” attended, and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) presented the keynote speech.  Ellison knew that the “Interests Section of Iran” was in attendance.  What had Iran been doing immediately before the banquet?  Here’s a partial list:

• November 6, 2008: U.S. Treasury restricts Iran’s access to the U.S. financial system, by banning certain money transfers.
• November 8, 2008: Iran sends “highlighted felicitations” from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to US president-elect, Barack Obama.
• November 12, 2008: Iran test-fires the new Sejil surface-to-surface missile it says puts Israel and Southern Europe within its sights.
• November 13, 2008: Iran bolsters ties with North Korea.
• November 22, 2008: Iran criticizes an IAEA report on Iran’s nuclear capabilities and intentions.
• November 2008:  Numerous international human rights organizations including Amnesty International and Iran Human Rights report over 300 executions in 2008 in Iran, including 28 in November.    Although most executions were by hanging, at least two people were stoned to death.  Four women were hanged at Evin Prison, and at least nine minors were executed, one in a highly publicized case in late October, 2008.

AND FINALLY…

• November 23, 2008:  CAIR hosts their 14th Annual banquet, with thanks offered to the Interests Section of Iran, featuring keynote speaker Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN).