The Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is enraged that among the featured speakers at CPAC this year is Scott Presler, the noted gay pro-Trump activist, even though he isn’t speaking about jihad terrorism. For CAIR, as for the Left in general, it isn’t enough that Presler isn’t speaking about the religion no one is allowed to criticize; they believe that he has criticized it in the past, and so he must be canceled forever.
“Journalist” Matthew Moyer wrote in the Orlando Weekly Thursday that “another speaker on the lineup for the conservative mega-gathering CPAC is getting some unwelcome spotlight for anti-Muslim statements and activity, and this is only scratching the surface of the extreme ideologies being trotted out at this week’s event in Orlando.”
CAIR’s Director of Government Affairs Robert S. McCaw is quoted in a demanding mood: “CPAC organizers should immediately drop anti-Muslim activist Scott Presler, who has actively worked to promote conspiracy theories about American Muslims and Islam. Presler’s reported role in supporting the January 6 insurrection is enough to disqualify him from being offered a credible speaking platform.”
That McCaw refers to the January 6 Capitol riot as an “insurrection” is an index of how dishonest he is, and the rest of the article is no better. “CAIR points out,” Moyer dutifully notes, “that Presler had been involved with ‘ACT for America’ from 2017-2018 as an organizer. The Southern Poverty Law Center has characterized that organization as ‘an anti-Muslim hate group because it pushes wild anti-Muslim conspiracy theories, denigrates American Muslims and deliberately conflates mainstream and radical Islam.’”
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This article is a textbook example of media propaganda. First, smear opposition to jihad violence and Sharia oppression as “anti-Muslim.” Invoke the discredited far-left smear propaganda organization the Southern Poverty Law Center as if it were an infallible and impartial authority on what constitutes a “hate group.” Present the SPLC’s smears without any substantiating evidence, as if they were unquestionable fact. Throw in the word “extreme,” so as to abet the growing campaign to portray all dissent from the far-left agenda as terrorism.
Identify CAIR only as a “civil rights organization,” without bothering to inform your readers that CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case — so named by the Justice Department. CAIR officials 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 (Ibrahim Hooper), have made Islamic supremacist statements, claiming that Islamic law should be imposed in the U.S. (Ahmad denies this, but the original reporter stands by her story.) CAIR chapters frequently distribute pamphlets telling Muslims not to cooperate with law enforcement. CAIR has opposed virtually every anti-terror measure that has been proposed or implemented and it has been declared a terror organization by the United Arab Emirates. CAIR’s Hussam Ayloush in 2017 called for the overthrow of the U.S. government. CAIR’s national outreach manager is an open supporter of Hamas.
Note also that Presler isn’t even set to speak about anything related to Islam or jihad. Hamas-linked CAIR and far-left organs such as Orlando Weekly, or at least its reliably fascist writer Matthew Moyer, want to hound anyone who stands against them to their deaths. If you oppose jihad terrorism, Hamas-linked CAIR won’t just come after you if you ever speak about this in a public forum. It will come after you no matter what you’re doing, and try to intimidate event organizers, in this case, CPAC, to drop you for your transgression of Sharia blasphemy provisions. If it were up to the Left and Islamic supremacists, their critics would all be unemployed and unemployable, starving to death on the streets (at best).
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A few years ago I was invited to address an education conference in California that had nothing whatsoever to do with Islam; the hate-filled fascist failed “Islamophobia” propagandist-turned-real estate agent Nathan Lean got the weak Catholic bishop Jaime Soto, under whose auspices the conference was being held, to cancel my appearance. (I spoke at the conference as scheduled, in a venue outside the bishop’s purview.)
Also a few years ago, the Washington Post discovered that the Qur’an-burning pastor Terry Jones was driving for Uber; they duly got him fired. I don’t approve of book-burning, but it is not illegal in the United States, and the idea that a man must be hounded forever and prevented from making a living for views that dissent from the Left reveals what Leftists really are.
So it has been clear for years that if you dissent from leftist orthodoxy, you must be destroyed. Not just “debunked” or “discredited” in your field, but also prevented from doing everything else, so that the only option you have is to die.
This smear of Presler is also ironic in light of the fact that when it comes to the jihad threat, CPAC, like all establishment conservative organizations, left the building years ago, barring all discussion of the actual nature and magnitude of the threat, and opting instead for comforting religion-of-peace fictions. And yet again, appeasement didn’t work.
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 21 books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is Rating America’s Presidents: An America-First Look at Who Is Best, Who Is Overrated, and Who Was An Absolute Disaster. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.
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