Category Archives: Islam

Off Script

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SCENE: One morning at MNDFL Headquarters. An array of progressive Minnesota luminaries are gathered around a table. At the head sits Lieutenant Governor Peggy FLANAGAN. To her right, Ken MARTIN, chair of the DFL. The other seats are occupied by Javier MORILLO of the SEIU, Denise SPECHT of Education MInnesota, Alida MESSINGER of Alliance for a Better MInnesota, and the senior staff of Minnesotans United for All Progressive Causes, the non-profit/money-laundering operation that works with the party.

FLANAGAN: Murphy!

(Esme MURPHY enters the room): Yes, Maam?

FLANAGAN: Gimme a g*****mn Manhattan.

MURPHY: Yes, ma’am. (Murphy exits.)

FLANAGAN: OK, Ken, where’s the governor?

MARTIN (Yelling): Governor Walz?

WALZ (Enters from a closet next to the exit door). Hraaaa hraaa hraaaas hreaa One Minnesota hraaaaa hra hra hraaaaaa Best State (holds out an iPhone, takes a selfie) hraaaa hraaaa hra hra donut hraaaaaa hraaaaa…

FLANAGAN: Got it! Enough! (WALZ goes back into the closet).

FLANAGAN: We need an example of a place in the real world that is dominated by Democrats and exemplifies love and equity.

Inge “Lucky” CARROLL, a former guidance counselor at a school for monomaniacs, Inge is Head Meme-Buffer at “Minnesotans United for All Liberal Causes, raises her hand.

FLANAGAN: What?

CARROLL: Let’s have them look at Hamtramck, Michigan. It’s solid Democrat country – their Democrat congresswoman won by a sixty point margin. And the city is majority Muslim and is run by an elected Muslim city council, and they just voted…

(CARROLL squints at a site on her phone) uhhhhhhh…

On Tuesday, Hamtramck, Michigan’s city council, unanimously voted to banPride flags from being displayed on public property. Located just outside Detroit, Hamtramck is the only Muslim-majority town in the United States.

The ruling was celebrated with cheers and applause inside City Hall, where dozens of concerned residents, Muslim and Christian, had shown up to express their thoughts on the matter.

According to the Detroit Free Press, the resolution was introduced by Councilman and Mayor Pro Tem Mohammed Hassan, and applies not only to Pride flags, but also those promoting any “religious, ethnic, racial, political, or sexual orientation group.”

“Only, the American flag, and the nations’ flags that represent the international character of our City shall be flown,” Hassan stated, adding that it was imperative to “maintain and confirm the neutrality of the city of Hamtramck towards its residents.”

FLANAGAN: (Sits, dumbfounded)

(The closet door opens. Governor WALZ steps out, and wanders around the room like a Roomba)

WALZ: Hraa hra hraaa hra hraaaaa hraaaaa hra BestState hra hraaaa hra Fully Funded hra hra hraaaaaa hra hra hraaa hra…

And SCENE

Darn Those Redneck MAGA Fascists

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Parents shut down a Dearborn, Michigan school board meeting over the distribution of “woke” books:

A school-board meeting in Dearborn, Mich. was shut down earlier this week by hundreds of protesters opposing the circulation of LGBTQ books across the city’s public-school system.

Viral videos recorded by a Detroit Free Press reporter circulated on Twitter showing pandemonium breaking out at the meeting Monday night. Many of the protesters carried signs in English and Arabic: “Keep Your Dirty Books in the Closet,” “Stop Grooming Our Kids,” and “Homosexuality Big Sin,” some read.

Darn those redneck fascists with their signs in English and…

…uh, what now?

Ooof. A protected class going after a couple of protected classes. That’s gotta be awkward.

Wonder what Rashida Tlaib has to say about it?

That Brave Stance Thing

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Rep. Omar:

So, Rep. Omar – are you condemning the regime’s actions?

Because by your logic, the women of Iran are fighting against being forced to don the hijab…

…which you call “Islamophobia” when Americans say it.

Just want to be clear, here.

Minnesota’s Intellectual Titan Strikes Again

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Former Miss Iraq Sarah Idan lights up Rep. Ilhan Omar – and Muslim extremism:

“Omar does not represent me as a Muslim, (she) does not represent millions of Muslims in the Middle East. You know like in Arab countries we call her the Muslim Brotherhood,” Idan, 29, said on the podcast The Sara Carter Show on Aug. 4.

Now, do you remember when Omar was sworn in? The way she got lionized for representing the future for Muslim women in America?

Apparently Rep. Omar does not (I’m adding emphasis):

Shortly after the interview aired, Omar, 37, fired back at Idan on Twitter, saying, “Hey, I might be wrong but I don’t think you are a #MN05 resident and like that makes be [sic] not your representative.”

#IntellectualHeftAtWork

The former Miss Iraq replied, “Seriously @IlhanMN this is your intellectual come back?” She then went on to lambaste Omar as anti-American and antisemitic. In a series of follow-up tweets she accused Omar of pursuing a “Muslim Brotherhood agenda using this democracy to further YOUR & YOUR FRIENDS Islamic socialism goals of dividing & weakening our country.”

I don’t know who I want to see reading this piece more; DFLers, or the rump Xenophobe coalition in the GOP, who keep asking “where are the Muslims pushing back against the extremists?”, and ignoring when…well, Muslims push back against extremists:

On Friday, Idan also blasted Omar for using her platform as congresswoman to advocate for the freedom of Hoda Abdelmonem, a senior member of the Muslim brotherhood, but not to help women “enslaved by mandatory sharia/in jail awaiting an imminent death for speaking out against dictatorial regimes.”
Idan, who now lives in the US, called out antisemitism taught in Muslim countries and voiced support for Israel at the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, last month. She was forced to flee Iraq with her family after receiving death threats in November 2017 for taking a selfie with Miss Israel Adar Gandelsman at the Miss Universe beauty pageant.

Maybe Idan can be persuaded to come to Minnesota and run against Omar?

I doubt the DFL will have her, of course.

The Real Problem With Ilhan Omar

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Some of my conservative – and in some cases “conservative” – circle of acquaintances are exercised over Ilhan Omar’s Muslim faith. Some of the more hysterical believe she’s the vanguard of an invasion bringing “Sharia” law to the United States.

In its time, the US has withstood attacks by the greatest empire the world has ever known, by international socialism, Naziism and Communism. A seventh-century ideology that can barely feed its own people isn’t going to conquer us. And Muslims make up less than half a percent of the American population; if they manage to impose Sharia on the other 99.5% of the population, the majority will probably deserve what befalls them.

But the problem with Ilhan Omar isn’t that she’s Muslim. It’s that she’s a “progressive“:

Ilhan Omar attended a 2017 conference in Istanbul with left-wing advocates, including a pro-abortion group that calls for “abortions beyond laws and borders,” and activists who aim to “challenge patriarchal structures.”
Rolling Stone recently lauded the congresswoman, who has repeatedly made anti-Semitic comments, as “everything Trump is trying to ban.” Omar told the magazine she was afraid to leave the country in early 2017 after President Donald Trump signed an executive order restricting travel from seven Middle Eastern countries the administration identified as terrorist hotbeds.
“I had just gotten sworn in [to the Minnesota Legislature] two weeks before,” Omar said, remarking on the executive order 13769, signed on Jan. 27, 2017. “There was lots of chaos, people being stopped at the airports. I had a flight scheduled a week after to speak at a human-rights conference in Turkey. I didn’t know whether I could go.”…The conference was in Istanbul, Turkey, which was not affected by the travel ban. Nevertheless, Omar used her upcoming appearance at the International Human Rights Defenders Conference, which was organized by the local Turkish government and the British Embassy in Ankara, as a cudgel to attack the president.

“Progressivism” will destroy this country long before Islam will.

“But she’s an anti-Semite!”

So are “Progressives”. Any antisemitism that comes from her Muslim background is an intersection with her real religion, “progressivism” – not an addition.

The GOP Dumbass Bigot Caucus

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GOP precinct in Texas is working on removing a high-ranking officer…

… Because he’s Muslim :

 Republican leaders in one of the most populous counties in Texas want to remove a party vice chairman because he’s Muslim, according to emails between party leaders.

The emails delivered anonymously to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram indicate the Tarrant County GOP executive committee plans to vote Jan. 10 on whether to remove Shahid Shafi from his leadership position.

Some in the party say Shafi, a surgeon and city council member in a Fort Worth suburb, may be more loyal to Islamic law or not supportive enough of the party’s pro-Israel platform.

Shafi counters that he supports American laws and the court system, and says he has no affiliation to “any terrorist organization,” as some have alleged. Shafi, who became a U.S. citizen in 2009 and shortly after joined the Republican Party, says he supports the Second Amendment and has never promoted Sharia, or Islamic, law.

Members of the Republican Party’s burgeoning “Dumbass Bigot Caucus” would respond by claiming “every Muslim in the universe obeys every “Hadith” in the Koran to the letter, including the ones about deceiving infidels”, implying that Muslims, regardless of sector or even observance (25% of ethnic/cultural Muslims are non-observant) adhere to their holy texts absolutely, without question and all in the same way, in a way that no other faith does (or perhaps you’ve noticed how not a single Catholic gets divorced or get an abortion, no evangelicals ever root for Notre Dame, and no Jews ever, ever eat pork).

Radical Islam – Wahhabism and radical Shia – and attendant Muslim laws are a threat to western civilization – or at least to weak, fundamentally corrupt and decaying ones, like in Europe. The United States is still, despite the best efforts of progressives, a vibrant, strong, resilient nation, the kind of place people want to come to. We cannot, and will never be, defeated by an external threat – List of all by one that wants to drag humanity back to the seventh century A.D.

Progressivism, on the other hand, is a clear, present, immediate threat to this nation and everything that made it strong, vital and resilient. And this kind of bigotry drives pro-life, pro free market, pro second amendment, pro constitutional, people who happen to be Muslim straight into the arms of the progressives.

It is – I’ll be diplomatic – cripplingly shortsighted, and the kind of thing that needs to be expunged from the party.

Logic Akbar

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SCENE:   Mitch BERG is browsing for saw chains at Menards’ in the Midway, when Fudd GLUNK, vice chair of the Ramsey County chapter of “Sharia is Coming!  Sharia is Coming!”, walks around the corner.

GLUNK:  Merg!

BERG:  Er…hey, Fudd…

GLUNK:  Islam’s goal is to impose Sharia Law on all of us!

BERG:  [Looking as if he knows he’ll regreat asking] And we know this how…

GLUNK:  Because the Koran say so!

BERG:  And because Muslims, like all the the world’s major faiths, always follow their holy texts to the absolute word, in exactly the same way.

GLUNK:   Yes!

BERG: Which is why you will never, ever find a Catholic gettng divorced, a Jew eating bacon, an Evanglical protestant fornicating, or a Hindu eating beef, ever.

GLUNK:  They’re different.

BERG:  Different how?

GLUNK:  Because the Koran tells them exactly what to do.

BERG:  As opposed to the BIble, the Torah…

GLUNK:  Their goal, every last one of them, is to impose Sharia on the world.  By force if needed, by guile if possible.  They Koran allows no exceptions.

BERG:  So Muslims, unlike all the world’s faiths, are unanimously diligent in obeying their various holy texts.

GLUNK:  Yes.  The Koran says so.  There is only one Koran.

BERG:  That’s pure baked wind.  There are six major branches of Islam, and probably six dozen minor ones – they may be more fragmented even than Christianity with its 3-4 major divisions.  And one of the things they fragment over is waht “Jihad” actually means.  To radical fundamentalist Sunni like ISIS, and radical fundamentalist Shi’a like the Iranians, it means “impose Islam by all means necessary”, while Sufis are downright pacifistic, and have gotten clobbered through the centuries by their Sunni and Shi’ite neighbors for the trouble.

And pretty much any imam can tack on his own interpretation beyond that – which was why the Imam at exactly one mosque in Minneapolis decided that touching pork, not eating it, and being in the presence of dogs rather than owning and being in contact with them, was a sin, thus becoming the only Muslims in America to actually practice such beliefs.

GLUNK: Haha, Merg. The Koran says that all apostates must be killed!

BERG: And among the acts that qualify as “apostasy” in purist Islam are living in a non-theocratic country – Muslim or not – much less voting for a government, since the only non-apostatic government is the Caliph. And all those Muslim girls in our public school systems? They and their parents are all in biiiiiig Koranic trouble, since educating girls is trayf.

GLUNK: Trayf?

BERG: Never mind.

GLUNK: The Koran allows Muslims to deceive the infidel! It’s called tak…er, takk…

BERG: Taqqiya.

GLUNK: Yeah!

BERG: So every Muslim in a non-theocratic Muslim country is a sleeper agent?

GLUNK: The Koran says so!

BERG: You’re aware that the Christian churches of Europe, after decades of free fall, have finally plateaued, almost entirely from Muslims converting?

GLUNK:  They are just laying low until they get their opportunity.

BERG:  Yeah, that must be it.  Interesting fact; the first mosque in the United States was in Ross, North Dakota; the Syrian/Lebanese community that built it pretty much intermarried with the local Swedes and Germans, and is pretty much indistinguishable from the locals 120 years later – in fact, I went to high school with some of their descendants and didn’t even know about it.

If they’re sleeper agents, they’re pretty dang effective.

GLUNK:  You must be some kind of Muslim accomodationist!

BERG:  Not at all.  I’m a Christian, a conservative, and an American nationalist and exceptionalist.    I’d never convert to Islam, and I can argue articulately exactly why.    Our nation needs to accept immigrants – and insist that they assimilate.  Which is why when we get a Muslim coming to the GOP, I welcome them – because “going to a Republican party event” is as assimilatory as buying a house in Burnsville with a freaking white picket fence.

GLUNK:  You’re just a useful idiot for Sharia Law!

BERG:  About half a percent of Minnesota’s population is Muslim.  If we get Sharia imposed on us by half a percent of the population, we’ll probably deserve it.

But think about this for a moment.  Radical Islam – the Wahhabi, the Shi’ite fundies in Iran – that is most definitely a danger.

But progressivism is a danger to this country right now – and if we take every single new immigrant to this country and, via ignorant intolerance, turn them into Democrat / “progressive’ voters, we’ll be doing for our enemies what they could never do for ourselves.

GLUNK:  I suppose now you’re going to come up with some clever punchline to end this sketch?

BERG:   At this point, it’d be redundant, wouldn’t it?

And SCENE

Earthquake

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Americans who are weary of Muslim excuses ask “so when will ‘moderate Muslims’ take a stand against the radicals?”

Here you go; one of them is taking a stance against the radicals:

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman invited Egypt’s Coptic Christians to visit Saudi Arabia after a rare meeting in Cairo’s main cathedral.

Speaking to Egyptian media after the visit the head of the Egyptian church, Pope Tawadros II said: “In the name of the Coptic Orthodox church we welcome Prince Mohammed’s visit to his second country Egypt.

“Prince Mohammed spoke a lot of his affection for the Copts,” the Pope said, adding that the kingdom’s heir to the throne invited him and all Copts to visit Saudi Arabia.

The two men walked together through St Mark’s Cathedral, in what Egypt’s state news agency described as the first tour of its kind.

The visit came on the second day of the Saudi Crown Prince’s visit to Egypt – his first foreign visit since he became heir to the throne. …

He also met Egypt’s top Islamic official, Ahmad Al-Tayyeb at Al-Azhar, the foremost seat of learning in Sunni Islam.

Thomas Lifson notes in AmThinker:

Simply stated, MbS is seeking to defang Muslim extremists who seek to destroy Christianity in Arab- and Muslim-majority countries. Garnering support from the most respected source of Islamic scholarship (no doubt accompanied by the offer of funds from the Saudi treasury) is the carrot to be used in persuading Wahhabi clergy to change their preaching, with the denial of Saudi funds to recalcitrant advocates of armed jihad supplying the stick.

This is potentially huge.

So why is it getting zero reporting in the Big Media?

Blame Truimp!

American media mostly are clueless about religion and lack any understanding of the momentous changes underway in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, with the full support of the Trump administration. The fact that MbS is reputed to be close to Jared Kushner seals the deal: the mainstream media have little interest in extolling the world-historical transition underway in the nation that is pre-eminent in Sunni Islam, the Guardian of the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina, and which has been the moneybags for radical jihadists for three generations.

Bin Salman is taking a huge risk – the Wahhabi aren’t going to be happy, being cut off from all that oil money.

But if it goes right, this – and the very quiet Saudi discussions with the Israelis –  could be an epochal change the religious war in the middle east.

And if it’s tied to Trump, Big Left will deny, or scupper, it.

What’s The Fastest Way For An Obscure Republican To Get Famous Instantly?

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Republicans aren’t much for celebrity.  We don’t care much about them, and we tend not to be them.     Even among ourselves.

But if you are a Republican – and, redundant to say, obscure – there still are a few ways to become famous.

The big one?   Express any view that is grossly out of whack with society at large, to say nothing of the GOP (which, outside most metro areas, reflects “society at large” pretty completely).

For example, you could be like this fellow in Illinoiis,who is running for. Congress in the greater Chicago area:

Arthur J. Jones, 70, of Lyons, is the lone candidate on the March 20 Republican primary ticket for the seat that includes Western Springs, La Grange and parts of southwestern Chicago. Jones, a former member of the American National Socialist Workers Party, has run for political office several times in the past but has never made it past the primary stage in the 3rd District.

He may get on the ballot as a “Republican” because there’s no other GOP challenger in the Illinois’ stultifyingly blue 3rd District.  The IL GOP has been fighting against the guy for years; I have no idea what the rules are to run as any given party on a ballot in Illinois, and it’s for damn sure the Chicago Tribune isn’t going to explain them; they got their headline:  Holocaust denier likely to appear on ballot for GOP for Chicago-area congressional seat”.

And that’s all that really matters, isn’t it?

Of course, the issue strikes a bit close to home for me; last week, the chairman of the Fourth CD GOP – Republicans in Ramsey and parts of Washington county – made a posting on the district’s Facebook page that went (hold on to your hats, here)  viral – at least among people who are watching an obscure GOP official in an utterly blue district.

Or this fella in Coon Rapids who’s become perhaps the most famous caucus attendee  in Minnesota.

A thousand of us could descend on Cedar Riverside and plaster the place an inch deep in “All People Are Created Equal” flyers and it wouldn’t get a second on the news, anywhere.  And I’m tempted to try it, if only to cover an entire neighborhood in paper.

Appearances

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Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Somebody threw an improvised explosive from a moving van onto the lawn at a mosque in Minneapolis at 5:00 a.m. last Saturday.  Blew out some windows, nobody injured.  Governor Dayton is all over this ‘act of terrorism’ which is part of a massive upsurge in violence against Muslims nation-wide, all caused by Trump, no doubt.

Except . . .

Most Minnesotans couldn’t identify a mosque if they were standing in front of one.  Most Minnesotans couldn’t identify an imam if they were standing next to one, nor would they know his daily schedule to target him. Minnesota has no history of violence against Muslims (Catholics, yes; Muslims, no).  IEDs are not a weapon commonly used in Minnesota crimes.  It doesn’t feel like a Minnesota crime.

You know who could identify a mosque, uses terror as a weapon and is familiar with IEDs from the Old Country?  Muslims.  You know who blows up buildings all over the world?  Muslims. You know which Minnesota minority has contributed the most new members to Islamic terror groups?  Muslims. You know which religion has sects utterly devoted to killing each other?  Shia and Sunni Muslims.  This feels like a Muslim crime.

 

If the bombing was a real act of terror, how does the Governor know this was Minnesotans persecuting Muslims?  How does he know it’s not ordinary Islamist sectarian violence?

And what if it wasn’t a real crime at all?  The bombing was carefully timed to avoid hurting people and to do only cosmetic damage. Nobody has claimed responsibility.  There are no suspects.  What if this is another in a long string of hate crime hoaxes? You know who has the most to gain from a hate crime hoax?  I’ll give you a hint: remember the ‘flying imams’ fake hate crime at the airport and who benefitted from that?  Muslims.

The Governor insists this is an act of terrorism committed by cowardly Minnesotans.  I’ve been skeptical since day one and now, we have more evidence it may have been a publicity stunt.  Muslims are complaining Trump hasn’t dropped everything to rush to Minnesota to condemn the bombing.  “He has to come here and at least express his feelings and say this is bad.”

No, that’s precisely what Trump does NOT need to do.  Amazingly, he’s sharp enough to know it.  The press secretary got it right.  It’s a local crime, if it’s a crime at all.  There are no national security implications. There is no federal government component that is being ignored.  This is not a matter for the President.

Listen up, guys. You are not the boss of him.  You don’t get to tell him where to go and what to say.  Acting like you’re so special that the President himself is at your beck and call . . . is the attitude that got him elected in the first place.  And Muslims setting off bombs in America is the reason his ban on travel from war-torn Muslim countries ban is entirely justified.

Joe Doakes

We don’t know much about the bombing – which was nearly two weeks ago – yet.

But Joe articulated a few points that I felt, but couldn’t quite put my finger on.

“Terrorism”

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Earlier this week “Governor” Dayton declared the firebombing of a Bloomington mosque “terrorism” – notwithstanding the fact that no investigating agency has released any conclusions about motive.

Which is a little strange, given that tis’ been five days, now.

Make no mistake; there is a xenophobic minority in this state.  Eventually, one of them could – or may have – done something stupid.

But on Monday, I pointed out that if I were a betting man (and I’m not), I’d put at least a little money on the idea that the Bloomington attack was a hoax.   Too much says “contrived” to me:

  • The “firebomb” was tiny; it scorched the floor and burned some drapes.  Not that there’s such a thing as a good firebomb, but still.
  • It landed in an unoccupied room.  Now, that could have been blind happenstance.  But…
  • …the actual sanctuary of the mosque was full of people conducting morning prayers – who would, of course, be “witnesses” to this hate crime.

I could very well be wrong – but I say even money it was a hoax.

Oh, yeah – one other factor.  Nearly every other “hate crime” since November 8 has been a hoax as well.  By my unscientific but focused count, it’s not even close; among “hate crimes” that’ve gotten any publicity, it’s been overwhelmingly hoaxes.

Seems like people think being a victim includes victimizing oneself.

And there is, unfortunately, precedent; the vandalism at a Saint Cloud mosque two years ago, which was trumpeted far and wide as a sign of gathering xenophobia, turned out to be a parishioner – who, to his dubioius “credit”, turned out to be operating less from misplaced political victimology-mongering than from being, from the press report, kind of an impulsive idiot.

Which didn’t stop Minnesota’s Big Left from trying to pin that attack on, well, you and me.

Dhim And Dhimmer

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SCENE:  Mitch BERG is pumping gas at the corner Superamerica when Polly LITTELL – proprietor of the Facebook page “Makeng Minnessota GRAET AGEN” page, pulls up to the next pump. 

LITTELL:  Merg!

BERG:  Oh, hey, Pollly.  (Eyes the meter on the pump, shakes the handle in a futile effort to get it to pump faster).

LITTELL:  So a MUSLIN cop, Mohammed NOOR, murdered a white woman in South MInneapolis!   It’s terrorism!

BERG:  Er, OK – why do you say that?

LITTELL:  Because it’s in the Koran that THEY are supposed TO attack us when THEY CAN.

BERG:  OK, Polly.  So it was terrorism.

LITTELL:  Yes.  Just like they are told to do IN THE Koran.

BERG:  So this “act of terrorism” involved shooting one woman.  Not his partner.  Not every other bystander, and every cop that responded.  And then, surrendering and apparently following the standard post-shooting process that a non-Muslim, non-terrorist cop would follow.

LITTELL:   Why do you hate America?

BERG:  Naturally

(And SCENE)

The Religion Of Environmentalism And Health Insurance (UPDATE: Ooops)

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The fact that Ben Carson got mocked in the media, while Maxine Waters isn’t considered a national laughinstock, will be prime evidence when we finally have Nuremberg-style tribunals about media bias:

Image may contain: 1 person, text

And yet she’s taken seriously.

UPDATE:  Ooops.  Parody account.

I plead “long day at Grand Old Day”.

To be fair, the measure of great satire is that it could be the real thing…

More Or Lesch

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First, the good news:  Rep. Mary Franson has introduced a bill that would expose parents who subject their children to ritual genital mutilation to felony charges and potential loss of custody.  It’s currently illegal for a doctor to perform the procedure; if passed into law, Franson’s bill would spread the onus to the parents.

This is a good thing – especially if you are remotely familiar with the procedure:

Farhio Khalif of Minneapolis…described in horrific detail how she was forced as a little girl in Somalia to undergo a ritual mutilation.

Farhio Khalif, with Rep. Franson. Photo courtesy Tim Pugmire at Minnesota Public Radio.

“My legs were tied each side. My hands were tied each side. I was blindfolded, and the ritual took place and it was painful. It was so painful I think I died or maybe I passed away,” Khalif recalled. “I don’t know what happened. But I remember waking back up, and I see blood all over the place.”

And awful as that sounds, that’s really only the half of it.  The law seems like a no-brainer, doesn’t it?

[“No-brainer” joke referencing Rep. John Lesch of HD 66A deleted – if only that were the problem].   Rep.  Lesch – representative from perhaps the least politically engaged district in the state, and a candidate for Attorney General – played for the cameras by…accusing Franson of playing for the cameras:

Despite bipartisan support for the bill, some Democrats suggested that parents could already be prosecuted without a new law…Rep. John Lesch, DFL-St. Paul, raised concerns that only Republicans had signed on as co-authors of the bill. Lesch said criminal law bills have traditionally been bipartisan.

The current law, to which Lesch and Somali DFL representative Ilhan Omar referred, makes abetting female circumcision a gross misdemeanor – like throwing a rock at a train.  Like, not really that much of a crime.

Several Republicans on the committee criticized both Omar and Lesch for questioning the motives of their colleague.

“This has absolutely nothing to do with the cameras in the room, with the headlines in the paper,” Franson said. “This is about saving children’s lives.”

With Lesch, and his bid for Mayor State Senate to go to Iraq Attorney General, it’s always about the cameras.

This needs to follow him through the AG race, assuming it actually gets to the starting gate.

 

Juxtaposition

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Islam.

For 90-odd percent of its adherents, it may well be a religion of peace.

But they seem to have other attitudes that bear some examination.

For example:

This hatred of early’80’s country-pop star Judy Kay “Juice” Newton…

…is perplexing to outsiders.

Signs, Signs, Everywhere Are Signs

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Trevor Noah – who inherited “The Daily Show” from Jon Stewart – took a swipe at the restaurant in Lonsdale that had the infamous “Muslims Get Out” sign (which may have been less a matter of “hate” than “crummy editing”, by the way).

Noah (with emphasis added):

You know what’s also strange is this man genuinely thought people who go around blowing people up would be stopped by a sign? You realize you’re talking to terrorists, not vampires. They don’t need to be invited in, alright? Or maybe he’s onto something, because if you think about it, we’ve never tried that. We’ve never actually tried to repel terrorists with signs.

Sure we have.  But I digress.  Noah:

Yeah, maybe that’s all the airports need is a sign that says “No Terrorists,” yes? Yeah, and then guys are going to be walking going, “Oh, I was going to blow up the airport, but the rules are rules and they said I can’t come in. They said I can’t. They said I can’t come in.”

So, Trevor Noah: you’re saying that putting up a sign that impugns the vast, innocent majority, doesn’t actually prevent evil people from carrying out their plans, then?

According to Trevor Noah, the Mall of America might not be completely safe in perpetuity because of these signs. This could cause problems, couldn’t it?

Huh.  Let’s continue to explore this, Trevs.  Have your people call my people.

After they sweep your jaw up off the floor.