Homeland Theater

NYC: real sentence in "fictitious" terror plot

Now they are openly calling some of these increasingly specious terror conspiracies "fictitious," which they certainly are. Two guys are getting sent up the river for a plot hatched by an FBI informant, which had no independent basis in reality. Can anyone explain to us why this does not constitute entrapment? Does anyone else out there grasp how far down the slippery slope we have slid towards the Orwellian concept of "thought crime"? From the New York Times, March 8:

Arrest in Elie Wiesel attack

The rad left (e.g. the ever-predictable Counterpunch) loves to hate Elie Wiesel, and actually makes some strong arguments about his double standards on human suffering. But we would trust their intentions a lot more if they weren't so intent on dismissing the reality of anti-Semitism. After his attack, Wiesel told Italy's Corriere della Sera that Jew-haters and Holocaust deniers are increasing worldwide and getting bolder: "Until today they used words; now they have switched to violence. Their numbers are growing by the day." (AP, Feb. 13). The evidence for this has been mounting for some time, whatever the morally equivocal position of Wiesel and however much Jew-haters are abetted by Israel's atrocious actions. When are supposedly "progressive" anti-Semitism-deniers going to start eating crow? From the Melbourne Herald-Sun, Feb. 18:

Native nations protest US-Canada border restrictions

From the Regina Leader-Post, Feb. 16:

A new chapter began this week in Canada's relationship with the United States with new American regulations that require passports for air passengers entering the U.S. All non-Americans need a passport to enter the U.S. and Americans require one to re-enter.

Bosnians fear backlash in Salt Lake City killings

From AP, via the Carlsbad Current Argus, Feb. 15:

Salt Lake City - Officials fear a backlash against the Bosnian community, while family friends suggested a Bosnian teen's experiences as a refugee may have fueled his deadly rampage through a mall Monday.

Arizona: students march against anti-immigrant measures

Chanting "We are students, not criminals," nearly 600 students and their supporters marched on Jan. 8 toward the University of Phoenix stadium in Glendale, Arizona, to protest a recently passed state law denying in-state tuition to out-of-status immigrants. Arizona voters approved the Proposition 300 ballot initiative last November; it requires students who cannot prove their legal immigration status to pay out-of-state tuition at state colleges and universities.

Goode-Ellison affair reveals Jewish myopia

Predictable but depressing. Given the current popularity of "dual loyalty" insinuations against American Jews (even in supposedly progressive cricles), you'd think there'd be a little Jewish outrage over essentially identical arguments being used against American Muslims. This Dec. 28 column by Jonathan Tobin from Pennsylvania's Jewish Exponent (barely) pays lip service to such concerns, but ultimately (and idiotically) cannot contain its glee that the loyalty of a Muslim congressman is being questioned:

Protests at ICE's Krome detainment center

On Dec. 8, Haitian and Jamaican detainees at Krome Service Processing Center outside Miami in Dade County, Florida, refused to leave their dormitory to protest delays in obtaining travel papers from their consulates, immigration officials said; these delays have delayed their stay in detention awaiting deportation. The protest led Michael Rozos, field office director for the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Florida office of detention and removal, to visit the Krome dormitory and speak to the detainees there on Dec. 8, accompanied by a "disturbance control team," said ICE spokesperson Barbara Gonzalez. She said team members were "dressed appropriately."

Islamophobes exploit Islamist intolerance in Tulsa imbroglio

Around it goes. One Jamal Miftah, a Pakistani immigrant in Tulsa, OK, to his great credit, sent a letter to the Tulsa World Oct. 29 entitled "Message of Islam is not jihad, fatwahs," taking Ayman al-Zawahri and other al-Qaeda leaders to task for hijacking his religion. For this (as he related to Tulsa's News 9 in a video interview) he was expelled from his local mosque, the Tulsa Islamic Center, for publicly condemning Islam (which, of course, he didn't do). The affair was picked up, with predictable glee, by the right-wing Islamophobic blog Western Resistance (yuck!)—which, of course, will only fuel the ultra-defensiveness of folks like the Tulsa Islamic Center. So a plague on all their houses. Except Jamal Miftah.

Syndicate content