Online Journal of Politics and Foreign Affairs
In 2010, Oklahoma voters passed a referendum blocking state judges from considering Islamic or any other form of international law when rendering decisions in Oklahoma courts. Despite widespread criticism, the referendum passed by a wide margin in what was widely attributed to the same kind of hysteria over Islam that we had seen the previous [...]
Via the BBC: ‘End of virginity’ if women drive, Saudi cleric warns A report in Saudi Arabia has warned that if Saudi women were given the right to drive, it would spell the end of virginity in the country. The report was prepared for Saudi Arabia’s legislative assembly, the Shura Council, by a well-known conservative [...]
As I noted earlier this week Pamela Geller and the rest of the anti-Muslim right had themselves in frothing-mouth mode over the allegation that Butterball turkeys were Halal. Well, as MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry gets to the truth, and it turns out the only halal turkeys are the one’s sold in Muslim countries Visit msnbc.com for [...]
Ever since his rise in the polls, Herman Cain has backed away from the anti-Muslim rhetoric that earned him headline, and no small degree of support, over the summer. In a new interview, though, he seems to be back to where he left off: Herman Cain said that he believes a majority of American Muslims [...]
The Islamic Cultural Center at the site of a former Burlington Coat Factory located two blocks from the site of the World Trade Center attacks, which caused so much controversy last summer, opened today to minimal notice or protest: The so-called Ground Zero mosque, where proponents of religious freedom clashed with conservative pols and the families [...]
Just last week I wrote about the investigative work that Danger Room’s Spencer Ackerman had done in discovering the FBI’s use of bizarre anti-Muslim propaganda in some of its advanced counter-terrorism training programs. Yesterday, the FBI issued this statement: The FBI is currently conducting a comprehensive review of all training and reference materials that relate [...]
The FBI has been using some odd materials to train its counterterrorism agents.
Reacting to the news that the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” has been raised as a political issue by New York Republicans, Don Surber says the following: Unfair cry liberals. Think Progress headlined its story: “New York GOP Exploits 9/11 Anniversary, Sends Islamophobic Mailer To Voters In NY Special Election.” And then went on to proclaim: [...]
A Republican mailer in the surprisingly competitive Special Election to replace Anthony Weiner has dredged up last summer’s controversy over the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque”: New York Republicans have sent out a kitchen-sink mailer in the hotly-contested Queens congressional special election depicting a mosque superimposed over the scarred Ground Zero site on one side, and [...]
Understanding why your enemy hates you seems to be an important thing, but some people would rather believe in caricatures.
Earlier this year I noted that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie had come under fire from several conservative bloggers for appointing Sohail Mohammed, a Muslim American attorney, to a seat on the Passaic County Superior Court. Mohammed was confirmed by the state legislature and sworn into office last week, which caused the Newark Star-Ledger to [...]
Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson doesn’t think much of his fellow candidate Herman Cain’s obsession with Muslims and Sharia Law: Herman Cain’s reluctance to appoint Muslims to positions of power and concerns about Sharia law in the U.S. is ridiculous said, Gary Johnson, who’s also not impressed with the Atlanta businessman’s grasp of foreign [...]
Over the past several months, I’ve been pretty hard on Herman Cain for the comments he’s made about Muslims — including the comment that he wouldn’t hire a Muslim to work in his Administration, that he’d require them to take loyalty oaths if he did, and that he believed local communities should have the authority [...]
News that Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik was a fan of anti-Islamist sites, including Robert Spencer’s Jihad Watch and Pamela Geller’s Atlas Shrugs has opened a big can of schadenfreude.
Herman Cain was on Fox News Sunday this morning and gave perhaps the most disjointed response yet on his position on what rights Muslims should have yet: Herman Cain says voters across the country should have the right to prevent Muslims from building mosques in their communities. In an exchange on “Fox News Sunday,” the [...]
It’s been awhile since the Park51 project has been in the news, but today a New York State Judge finally dismissed a lawsuit that had been filed last year in an effort to block construction of the community center: A lawsuit seeking to halt the construction of a mosque near Ground Zero has been junked [...]
Trevor Phillips, chairman of the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission, says fundamentalist Christians are a far bigger problem than Muslims. And, no, he’s not anti-religion.
Not surprisingly, Herman Cain’s position on hiring Muslims for government positions and subjecting them to loyalty oaths became the subject of a question last night and, not unexpectedly, Cain doubled down yet again: KING: While we’re on the topic of faith and religion, the next question goes to Mr. Cain. You recently said you would [...]
Why isn’t the GOP calling out religious bigotry from one of its candidates?
Several months ago, GOP Presidential candidate Herman Cain made headlines when he said that he wouldn’t hire Muslims in his Administration because of this danger of “Sharia Law.” Yesterday on Glenn Beck’s show, Cain doubled down on that comment, saying that he’d hire Muslims, but only if they took a loyalty oath: BECK: You said [...]
Call it the legacy of Osama bin Laden: Two Muslim religious leaders who were removed from a commercial airliner in Memphis say they were told it was because the pilot refused to fly with them aboard. Masudur Rahman and Mohamed Zaghloul were supposed to travel on an 8:30 a.m. Delta flight, run by a subsidiary, [...]
Dodd Harris has already noted the more bizarre aspects of the power struggle between Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameni, but yesterday that power struggle seemed to turn more serious as it entered the mosques: The unprecedented power struggle between the two most powerful leaders in Iran deepened Friday, spilling out [...]
The American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer would apparently like to bring back the Crusades: “The only thing that will give us a shot at building a democracy in an Islamic land is a mass conversion of its people to biblical Christianity. So that means if we want to see freedom come to those darkened, benighted [...]
Sila Sahin set out to make a statement about the Muslim treatment of women by posing nude in Playboy, and got a little more than she bargained for: A Muslim actress has caused a storm by posing naked for Playboy. Sila Sahin has been branded a “whore” and a “western slut” after appearing topless on [...]
Senator Lindsey Graham spoke to National Review’s Robert Costa today about the questions that have been raised about his comments yesterday about the burning of the Koran by Florida “Pastor” Terry Jones: NRO: Some of my National Review colleagues are being pretty rough on you today. What is your response to some of the outrage [...]
Now, he wants Congress to condemn the actions of one idiot in Florida: The Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, appears to have added fuel to the violent protests in Afghanistan after calling on the US Congress to condemn a Christian preacher’s burning of the Qur’an. Karzai’s demand came despite a statement from Barack Obama denouncing the [...]
On Face The Nation today, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham said that the reaction to the Koran burning in Florida suggests that Congress should look into limiting some forms of speech (relevant question begins at 2:10 mark): “I wish we could find a way to hold people accountable. Free speech is a great idea, but [...]
The only people responsible for the murders in Afghanistan are the people who committed them, but the demagogues like Terry Jones deserve condemnation as well.
As I noted last week, Florida Pastor Terry Jones presided over a Koran burning earlier this month after promising not to do so back in September. The response across the Muslim world has been predictable, starting with a denunciation by the President of Pakistan and continuing today with deadly rioting in Afghanistan: KABUL, Afghanistan — [...]
Count on Newt Gingrich to be right on top the latest threat to America, the creation of an atheistic society dominated by radical Muslims: SAN ANTONIO — Newt Gingrich stood before thousands of evangelical churchgoers Sunday night to deliver a dire warning that nation’s Christian roots are under attack. “I have two grandchildren — Maggie [...]
Herman Cain has virtually no chance of winning the GOP Presidential nomination, but he’s done a pretty good job of picking up on the GOP’s anti-Muslim theme: KEYES: You came under a bit of controversy this week for some of the comments made about Muslims in general. Would you be comfortable appointing a Muslim, either [...]
When we last met Florida Pastor Terry Jones he had placed himself at the center of a week-long media frenzy after first threatening to burn a Koran on September 11th, 2010, and then withdrawing that threat under what can only be described as very odd circumstances. This past weekend, with far less media attention, Jones [...]
This is a pretty sad indication that the anti-Muslim bigotry on the right has resonated with a distressingly large number of people: H/T: Talking Points Memo
An Alabama legislator wants to ban the use of Islamic law in the state’s courts — just in case Muslims take over.
Apparently having nothing better to talk about in the world today, Mother Jones‘ David Corn devotes 878 words today to a weird conspiracy theory promulgated by some Israeli you’ve never heard of: [H]ere’s the mother of all right-wing conspiracy theories: Obama is scheming to bring tens of millions of Muslims—perhaps up to 100 million—from the [...]
Muslim cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi has issued a fatwa against Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi.
Last week, Michigan police thwarted what could have been a deadly attack on a Dearborn mosque: About 700 people were attending a funeral inside the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, the largest mosque in metro Detroit, when Dearborn police arrived to arrest a man in a car in the parking lot. He had driven [...]
As I’ve noted before, the latest complaint from some on the right about next month’s Conservative Political Action Conference is the claim that it is being infiltrated by people with ties to groups like the Muslim Brotherhood. Last night, Frank Gaffney, who served in the Reagan-era Defense Department before a career in the private secator, [...]
Last week, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie appointed immigration lawyer Sohail Mohammed to serve on the Passaic County Superior Court. By all accounts, Mr. Mohammed has a stellar record as an attorney and a long-standing practice in Clifton, New Jersey. In 2001, he defended several Muslim-Americans who were picked up for “suspicious” activity in the [...]
Considering the recent allegations by Frank Gaffney that it had been infiltrated by pro-Muslim factions, it is kind of ironic that this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference will include this event: An event will be held titled, “The Ground Zero Mosque: The Second Wave of the 9/11 Attacks.” The event is a movie premiere, hosted [...]
After a New Year’s Eve attack against Coptic Christian Churches in Egypt, there was some concern that this week’s celebration of Christmas by Egypt’s oldest Christian community (which follows the same calender as the Orthodox Church) would lead to more attacks. Which is why many Egyptian Muslims decided to show up at Coptic Churches last [...]
An Islamic Center that was sometimes attended by the 19 year-old arrested the other day for plotting to detonate a bomb in downtown Portland was the target of an arson attack over the weekend: CORVALLIS, ORE. – Apparent anger over a Somali-born teen’s failed effort to blow up a van filled with explosives during Portland’s [...]
Sometimes, you just can’t make stuff like this up: In Phoenix, Arizona, a new Christian church has residents fearing that it is an Islamic mosque. The Light of the World multidenominational church is being built just off of Interstate 10 and features a dome-like structure. “Since the distinctive dome shape went up, church leaders said [...]
