Back to Basics

Open-borders bedfellows. ‏MT @mikescotto Rubio, Schumer & Norquist. Not a trio you often see standing together. pic.twitter.com/VTpusiTlfK

Gee, maybe now someone will listen.

For years, I’ve warned about the GOP’s Grover Norquist problem. Just last week, he was front and center at the Gang of 8′s amnesty press conference — despite longtime concerns expressed on this blog and by national security advocates and activists about his dangerous Islamist alliances and progressive proclivities.

Now we learn that Norquist’s convicted terrorist pal and former funder, Abdurahman Alamoudi, was the first president of the radical mosque attended by the Boston bomber brothers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev:

The mosque attended by the two brothers accused in the Boston Marathon double bombing has been associated with other terrorism suspects, has invited radical speakers to a sister mosque in Boston and is affiliated with a Muslim group that critics say nurses grievances that can lead to extremism.

Several people who attended the Islamic Society of Boston mosque in Cambridge, Mass., have been investigated for Islamic terrorism, including a conviction of the mosque’s first president, Abdulrahman Alamoudi, in connection with an assassination plot against a Saudi prince.

…• Alamoudi, who signed the articles of incorporation as the Cambridge mosque’s president, was sentenced to 23 years in federal court in Alexandria, Va., in 2004 for his role as a facilitator in what federal prosecutors called a Libyan assassination plot against then-crown prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. Abdullah is now the Saudi king.

Alamoudi, as I’ve documented repeatedly here, provided seed money to Norquist’s Muslim outreach effort during the Bush years. Flashback 2003:

Alamoudi’s arrest is part of a larger Justice Department investigation of terrorism funding focused on Saudi-backed Islamic foundations and businesses based in Herndon, Va. (Alamoudi is also responsible for founding the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council to “certify Muslim chaplains hired by the military,” including Capt. James “Youssef” Yee — charged last week with taking classified information home from Guantanamo Bay.) A so-called “moderate,” Alamoudi is on record praising the terrorist group Hezbollah and proclaiming: “We are all followers of Hamas.”

Norquist’s lobbying firm is registered as a lobbyist for Alamoudi. Alamoudi provided seed money for Norquist’s Islamic Institute, which shares space with Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform group. The institute is run by Alamoudi deputy and former AMC government relations director Khaled Saffuri. Saffuri and Norquist have worked closely with Bush senior adviser Karl Rove to give radical Muslim activists access to the White House. No doubt because of their efforts, Alamoudi was invited to a White House prayer service after the Sept. 11 attacks.

If any Democrat activist had such shady connections, conservatives would be on him like white on rice. Instead, Norquist has gotten away with smearing his critics — most notably, former Reagan official Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy, one of the most decent and patriotic Republicans I’ve had the honor of meeting — as hatemongers.

Another refresher course via Insight magazine on how Norquist tried to silence and smear his critics by playing the race card:

Norquist was Alamoudi’s most influential Washington facilitator, authorities believe, noting that Norquist reminds friend and foe alike that he is close to the president’s powerful political strategist, Karl Rove.

As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton turned over her office to Sen. John Kerry, she stated on Friday during her speech at the Council on Foreign Relations that America is at fault for the unrest in the Muslim world because of a failure to explain U.S. policies.

When a reporter questioned Clinton on why favoritism toward America by the Muslim nations during the Obama administration has been considerably lower than during the Bush administration, Clinton responded: “I take responsibility, along with our entire government and our Congress and perhaps our private sector.”

“In other words, everyone is responsible because most Americans are part of the private sector. The fact is the people in Islamic nations hate America because most of its citizens are not Muslims and the U.S. people for the most part support Israel,” said political consultant and attorney Jacob Wollinsky.

Clinton made her remarks at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington in her final address as secretary of state. She stepped down on Friday and is succeeded by Democratic Senator John Kerry.

The former-First Lady and U.S. Senator said one of the reasons is the United States has “not done a very good job in recent years reaching out in a public media way or in a culturally effective way to explain ourselves.”

But Obama’s continuous Muslim outreach effort included a variety of controversial moves, including the rewriting of the curriculum for training federal law enforcement officials in anti-terrorism by eliminating all references to Islamic terrorism or that portray Muslims negatively, according to Judicial Watch analysts in Washington, D.C., on Thursday.

Clinton claimed she had encountered many depictions on U.S. policies by media in Arab and Muslim world, which she believed are ” absolutely untrue.” “Our response has been — nobody will either believe it or we can’t possibly contest it,” Clinton said.

To change the dynamics, Clinton called for active engagement with the media in the region, including al-Jazeera, the Arab satellite television channel. Ironically, her husband’s vice president, Al Gore, recently sold his cable channel Current TV to al-Jazeera after turning down an offer by talk host and author Glenn Beck.

“You can’t be in the arena and expect there to be a change if you’re not willing to get off the bench,” she said. “And from my perspective, that’s our fault.”

The Obama administration appears to have a serious misinterpretation of the diplomatic concept known as “outreach” when it comes to the Muslim world. This brand of outreach entails recruiting Muslims into the U.S. Foreign Service, according to comments released on Wednesday by a top public-interest group that investigates and exposes government and political corruption, as well as government action taken that jeopardizes homeland security.

A part of Obama’s continuous Muslim outreach effort includes a variety of controversial moves, including the rewriting of the curriculum for training federal law enforcement officials in anti-terrorism by eliminating all references to Islamic terrorism or that portray Muslims negatively, according to Judicial Watch analysts in Washington, D.C., on Thursday.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton even signed a special order to allow the reentry of two radical Islamic academics whose terrorist ties banned them from entering the U.S., claim officials at JW.

During the course of a Judicial Watch investigation into the U.S. State Department’s activities with extremist Muslim groups, they discovered a secretive State Department campaign to add Muslims to its ranks. Investigators believe the new recruits will be deployed around the globe to help the agency fulfill its mission of promoting the country’s “international relations.”

The campaign is slated to be headed by Mark Ward, the Deputy Special Coordinator in the State Department’s Office of Middle East Transition.

Ward held a 90-minute seminar at a recent convention sponsored by two groups — Muslim American Society (MAS) and the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) — both with known ties to radical Islam.

Also, both non-profits are allegedly associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, which is known as the parent organization of Hamas and al-Qaeda. In fact, the Investigative Project on Terrorism reports that MAS was founded as the U.S. chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood which strives to indoctrinate the world with Islamic Sharia law.

“Yet there was a U.S. State Department official, side by side at a radical Islamic powwow in Chicago with a number of speakers who advocate violent jihad,” stated JW.

Among them was Kifah Mustapha, a fundraiser at terrorist organization (Holy Land Foundation) convicted of funneling millions to Hamas and Jamal Badawi, a MAS founder who praised the jihad of Gaza terrorists during a speech titled “Understanding Jihad and Martyrdom.”

The conference that Ward conducted focused on career opportunities for Muslim youth. Here is how the event was billed:

“Besides being a citizenship duty, there are benefits that Muslims can add to the American Muslim community and the global Muslim world by joining the U.S. Foreign Services. This session will shed light on the different career opportunities for Muslim youth in the U.S. Foreign Services Department. It will also clear any concerns that many people have feared about pursuing this career.”

Joining Ward at the podium during the recruitment seminar were Ayman Hammous and Oussama Jammal. Hammous is the Executive Director of the New York chapter of MAS and Jammal is the president of the Mosque Foundation, a conservative mosque in Bridgeview, Illinois that gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Holy Land Foundation and other Islamic charities accused of financing terrorism.