MAS/ICNA "attempt late FL vote dump" Muslim ' Voting is Power' thug storms into closed election office -intimidates official

Posted: October 9, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern

A pushy Muslim activist demanded a county elections office worker accept a box of 550 applications to vote after the close of business on the last day to register in Palm Beach County, Florida.

According to a report in the Palm Beach Post, Theresa LePore attempted to close the office at 5 p.m. last Monday when a young man showed up 15 minutes after the deadline, insisting she accept a box of 550 applications on behalf of a group of Muslims determined to oust President Bush.

LePore said the applications were attached to slips of paper identifying them as having been collected by Voting Is Power, which goes by the acronym VIP and is an offshoot of the Washington-based Muslim American Society.

LePore had locked the door when the unidentified man showed up. She said she told him her office was closed, but that he could mail the forms as long as they were postmarked by midnight that night.

"He started hollering about disenfranchising people," said LePore, who took the box after he thrust it at her.

She examined some of the applications and noticed that some were incomplete and others dated in July. LePore told the man he should have turned them in on time so the potential voters could have cast ballots in the Aug. 31 primary or corrected missing information.

"Then he started saying, 'You're all alike,' or something to that effect, and 'It's better in New York,'" she said. "And I said, 'Why don't you go back to New York?' "

LePore, who said she also let a few individuals turn in single registration forms until 6 p.m., was surprised to learn that VIP's parent group is the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, an organization that has a federal 501(c)3 designation for religious non-profits. The group claims it is non-partisan, but its political action committee has formally endorsed John Kerry for president.

Florida is one of five battleground states Muslims have targeted for get-out-the-vote efforts, foundation Executive Director Mahdi Bray said Thursday. VIP recruiters in Florida registered about 7,000 new Muslim voters he hopes will go to the polls on Election Day and vote for Kerry, he said.

"This administration's policy of preemptive war has destabilized the region," Bray said Thursday. "Many of us who know the region know that this can of worms this administration has opened, this mistaken policy, will haunt the Muslim world for years to come."

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MIM: The organisation behind the attempted voter registration dump is the Muslim American Society/ Islamic Circle of North America. At a recent "activist seminar" participants were told that Muslims at a voter recruiter picnic were to reply that "suicide bombings were irrelevant " if the subject was broached by journalists .

The MAS ' activists' were advised to "convince the president of the local NAACP to speak to the mayor to obtain a Special Events permit".

MAS executive director Mahdi Bray, who was quoted in the article above stated that "Muslims have targetted" Florida for a "get out the vote effort".

Note that the MAS logo reveals their goal of a "United States of Allah".

A crescent which appears to be engulfing the whole world.

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MAS Activist Training Seminar a Success

The final seminar required the participants to be divided into three groups. Each group was assigned a different scenario. The final goal was to get publicity for the Muslim American Society (MSA) Civic Picnic where there would be a voting registration drive.

Alhumdulillah, all who attended the conference left more educated and inshAllah with more charisma to help make the Tampa Bay community better.

InshAllah more opportunities like the MAS Activist Seminar will be made available in the Tampa Bay area. Please consider getting involved within our community so that inshAllah you can help to make a difference.

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MIM: The MAS poster announcing the "activist training seminar" will show Muslims "the most effective groups to work with" ... " without comprising Islamic priniciples. "

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MIM: Another reason that Muslims give for agressive voter registration drives is that they have been "provoked" by 9/11.

Several articles on the website of the American Muslim Voice - an Islamist site disquised with a red white and blue logo printed several articles explaining that Muslims should vote because they are the real victims of 9/11.

By KAUKAB J. SMITH

BOSTON - Provoked by what they see as civil-rights violations after the terrorist attacks of 2001, U.S. Muslims are growing more politically active and sophisticated. The number of Muslim delegates to this year's Democratic National Convention has grown by 60 percent. Forty Muslim delegates, including a Maryland woman, are representing 20 states at the 2004 convention, up from 25 Muslims at the Democratic convention four years ago. http://www.amuslimvote.amuslimvoice.org/html/muslims_grow_more.html

MIM: In 2003 the American Muslim Voice held a rally in support of Muslim civil rights. One of the demonstraters held up a sign in support of Osama Awadallah. (see :http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/126)

Osama Awadallah was arrested as a material witness and is suspected of having aided the 9/11 hijackers who lived in San Diego.

According to the 9/11 report , Awadallah supported Bin Laden and distributed his fatwa's against Americans from his home. Awadallah's telephone number was found in one of the hijackers cars which had been parked at an airport on the day of the hijackings.

Awadallah, who worked at a Texaco gas station, was reported to have met a group of Muslims there and told them , " It is finally going to happen" ,as the others celebrated by giving each other high fives". http://911.gnu-designs.com/Chapter_7.html

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The Muslim American Society also promotes the canard that Muslims have been victimised since 9/11, and then ironically predicts that Muslims in America are "going to make a difference"... http://www.masnet.org/news.asp?id=351

"On the timing and need for the campaign, Bray alluded to the backlash American Muslims faced after September 11, 2001, saying, "the Muslim community must continue to remain active, we are not going to be marginalized…and we are going to make a difference in 2004 and years to come."

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MIM: Zero degrees of separation between paintball and Muslims:

The webmaster of Toledo Muslims.org and general secretary of the United Muslim Association of Toledo is none other then Mohammed Alo who is also the founder and editor of "The Paintball Times" ! http://www.toledomuslims.com/umat/execs.htm

Note that under the same poster at the top of the page, found on the Toledo Muslim website Mohammed Alo and the staff apologize for their previous election recommendation to Muslim voters which one infers was Bush. Beneath the same poster on the paintball website Alo and staff informs us that they recommended Clinton and "called two elections correctly".

http://www.paintballtimes.com/Article.asp?ID=144

"The election is right around the corner, and before you know it, people will be asking you about the issues that are important to you.

As paintball players, we are interested in finding out which issues are important to paintball players. In the 2000 presidential election, we offerred our opinion, and paintballers voted. We feel that America's 25 million paintball players made a difference. Especially, Florida's estimated 600,000 players.

Back in 1996, we ran an special article on the election in our print magazine about the election. We correctly predicted that the Midwestern states (we were not a national magazine) would overwhelimingly support Bill Clinton over Bob Dole. So we have called two elections correctly. Will our staff get this one right?

Once again, it's that time of year again where we begin by taking surveys, discussing issues and taking polls. Please join the discussion now and help us to determine who our next president will be."

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Managing Editor: Mohammed S. Alo
Mohammed has been playing paintball since 1990 and is a writer for many local newsletters and newspapers...Without his management and leadership, the Splatter would not be where it is today. ..He is also the Information Technology supervisor.

http://www.paintballtimes.com/staff.asp

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Mohammed Alo's is the registrant, technical and administrative contact for the Toldeo Muslim website which could account for why the "No, I'm Not a Terrorist " T-shirt is for sale on virtually every page of Toledo Muslims.com.

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MIM: For those who may have trouble differentiating between bullets and ballots The Muslim American Society offers a "Paintball" event intended to "separate the guns from the toys" -"the real ones from the things that just make noise".

MIM Note : The Muslim American Society which agressively seeks publicity in the guise of 'Voting is Power' grew media shy when it comes to advertisments for their paintball events. Within a day after MIM placed the poster it appears that MAS has blocked access to their website .

http://www.mastampa.org/youth/paintball/paintball.htm

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Dr. Daniel Pipes answers the question :

Islamist Paintball, Anyone? When Muhammed Aatique pleaded guilty on Sept. 23, 2003 to being part of northern Virginia jihad network, he acknowledged that the paintball games played by him and his fellow jihadists were "conducted as sort of a military training." Another member of the network, Nabil Gharbieh, told the court how Muslims regarded paintball as a form of jihad.

http://www.danielpipes.org/

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MIM: Information about MAS from their website:

The Muslim American Society/ICNA aims to "bring the call of Islam to the masses all over and reestablish Islam as a way of life ". http://www.mastampa.org/

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MiM: According to their own description, "The Muslim American Society traces it's historical roots to the all of the prophet Mohamed"... "and ... to the Islamic revivalist movement that started evolving at the turn of the twenties (sic) century ".

The Islamic revivalist movement's, main proponent was Sayyid Quytb The movement was the precursor of the Muslim Brotherhood ,part of which morphed into Al Qaeda in the 1980's. Abdullah Azzam, one of it's leaders, was Bin Laden's mentor. Yusuf Qaradawi who is presently the chief cleric of Qatar ,was also a prominent member of the MB. Qaradawi is on the board of trustees of MAS and heads their Islamic American University.

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Dr. Daniel Pipes explains the goals of 'The Brotherhood' in his article "The Islamist States of America"

"Over the last 40 years, small groups of devout Muslim men have gathered in homes in U.S. cities to pray, memorize the Koran and discuss events of the day. But they also addressed their ultimate goal, one so controversial that it is a key reason they have operated in secrecy: to create Muslim states overseas and, they hope, someday in America as well. …

Brotherhood members emphasize that they follow the laws of the nations in which they operate. They stress that they do not believe in overthrowing the U.S. government, but rather that they want as many people as possible to convert to Islam so that one day—perhaps generations from now—a majority of Americans will support a society governed by Islamic law.

This Brotherhood approach is in keeping with my observation that the greater Islamist threat to the West is not violence – flattening buildings, bombing railroad stations and nightclubs, seizing theaters and schools – but the peaceful, legal growth of power through education, the law, the media, and the political system."

http://www.danielpipes.org/article/2100

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MIM: MAS in their own words:

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Voter Registration Swamps County Office

Broward election officials chided community groups for turning in voter application forms at the last minute. Several thousand new voters won't be eligible for the Aug. 31 primary.

Ericka Bolstad

Miami Herald

Get-out-the-vote groups dropped off so many voter registration applications that the Broward elections office will be hard-pressed to get identification cards to the new voters before the Aug. 31 primary.

All summer, organizers from a Muslim group called "Voting is Power" have been sending workers door to door through low-income and minority neighborhoods of South Florida. They've signed up 3,000 new voters, whose forms they proudly dropped at the Broward Supervisor of Elections office the day the books closed on the voter roll for the primary.

The huge stack of applications forced the elections office to pay workers overtime to process them, and some new voters may not get voter ID cards before the election.

"They'll probably get there, but it's going to be very close," said Broward Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes. "They've really put our backs against the wall."

Thousands of registrations are streaming in from grass-roots voter organizations hoping to mobilize high turnout among like-minded people on Nov. 2. The organizations often hold on to the registration forms long enough to enter them in their own database. That way, they can call or visit people before the elections and urge them to vote.

ACORN, the organization supporting the statewide campaign to raise the minimum wage, dropped off 2,400 voter registration forms three days after the Aug. 2 deadline.

Those new voters won't be able to vote in the primary, Snipes said, and it's unlikely they will get voting cards until just before the Nov. 2 election.

Snipes said she appreciated the hard work put into signing up new voters, but the volume of paper was overwhelming her staff at the last minute...

"I'm very concerned that they might not get their voter registration cards," said Bret Wask, the South Florida director of the Voting is Power campaign.

The group, which is affiliated with the Muslim American Society, has a door-to-door campaign designed to get out the vote among Muslims. They're focusing on states with large Muslim populations as well as battleground states such as Florida…

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/states/florida/counties/broward_county/9386992.htm

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MIM: For Muslims, voting is another form of waging Jihad.

"... it incumbent on Muslims to "snatch away every bit of power they can" from the "infidel..."

The Islamic Urge to Vote by Amir Tahiri

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/31582.htm

October 11, 2004 --

It is a rather surprising by product of the War on Terror: For the first time, a consensus seems to be emerging among Islamic authorities worldwide that Muslims in the West should participate in democratic politics.

Before taking credit for this, President Bush might note that these authorities tend to favor votes for his opponent. But Sen. John Kerry's pleasure in that must be tempered by the awareness that those authorities favor him only because they are quite sure he will permit the undoing of Bush's work in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The emerging consensus could become a turning point for Islamic theology. It drives a hole in the cardinal concept of "association and exoneration" (al-wala'a wa al-bara'a), which means that Muslims should steer clear of non-Muslims, and associate only with fellow believers.

The consensus also challenges the classical Islamic division of the world into two parts: the House of Faith (Dar al-Iman), meaning Muslim countries, and "The House of War" (Dar al-Harb Dar), meaning countries ruled by the "infidel." The emerging view, it seems, would allow for a third category of countries to be recognized as the "House of Truce" (Dar al-Sulh), of which the United States would be one.

By declaring participation in Western elections "licit" (yajuz), Islamic theology is abandoning two traditional positions:

* Muslims, although allowed to spend time in non-Muslim lands for trade and/or missionary activity, should not settle in countries ruled by non-Muslims. Muslims owe no loyalty to a non-Muslim authority which is, by definition, an expression of "un-belief" (kufr). A Muslim is not allowed to pay taxes to an "infidel" government or fight in its army.

* Islam, while encouraging consultation and consensus, rejects lawmaking by mortals, and is opposed to any election in principle.

Both positions have been undermined by events. Almost 300 million Muslims, a quarter of the world total, now live in countries under "infidel" rule, including an estimated 6 million to 9 million in the United States.

The first fatwa (religious edict) allowing Muslims to vote in non-Islamic countries was issued at Aligarh, India, in 1947. Since then, Muslims, 16 percent of India's population, have played am active part in all elections.

For American Muslims, taking part in elections was declared "licit" at the 1999 Islamic Summit in Detroit, Mich. A year later the European Islamic Council for Fatwa and Research issued a similar fatwa. As the debate has heated up in recent months, more and more fatwas have been issued. Some theologians have gone so far as to declare that taking part in elections is not only "licit" but an "obligation" (wajib) for Muslims in non-Islamic lands.

The theologians who say taking part in elections is "licit" include the Egyptian Ali Jad al-Haq, the Lebanese Muhammad-Hussein Falallah, the Iraqi Abdul-Karim Zaydan and the Saudi Muhammad-Saleh al-Munjed.

Their argument is that, though Muslims owe no loyalty to non-Islamic states, they must be free to decide when their participation in elections serves the interests of Islam. "What matters is whether or not any action is good for Islam," says al-Munjed. "No vote should be cast unless the voter is certain that it will benefit the faith and his Muslim brethren."

Theologians insisting that voting is an "obligation" include Yussuf al-Qaradawi (an Egyptian based in Qatar), the Lebanese Faisal al-Mawlawi and the Iranian Makarem Shirazi. Their argument is that Muslims living in non-Muslims lands should regard themselves as missionaries whose task is to convert the citizenry to Islam and, in time, establish an Islamic state. Thus if taking part in elections is a means of achieving those goals, it is incumbent on Muslims to do so.

"Wherever they are, Muslims should work towards the day when humanity is united in the only true faith, which is Islam," says Qaradawi. "If taking part in elections is one way of achieving that, it is an obligation."

Some theologians claim that the Koran, which contains all possible and imaginable knowledge of the past, the present and the future, has anticipated and answered the question.

Salah al-Din Sultan, who has devoted a book to the subject, quotes verses from two of the Koran's most famous Surahs, The Cow (al-Baqarah) and The Banquet (al-Ma'edah), to show that voting should be regarded as a form of "bearing witness" (shihadah) to what a believer regards as right. A similar view is expressed by the Iranian Ayatollah Muhammad Yazdi. He sees elections as a method of "commanding the Good and combating evil," an Islamic duty.

Both recall a fatwa by Al-Izz bin-Abdul-Salam that makes it incumbent on Muslims to "snatch away every bit of power they can" from the "infidel."

British Muslims have used that fatwa to inflict defeat on candidates from Tony Blair's Labor Party in a number of recent local and by-elections. The idea is that, facing the possibility of losing the next general election as a result of Muslim votes for the opposition, Blair would be forced to abandon his alliance with the United States in the War on Terror.

One problem remains, however. It concerns the attitude of Muslims towards laws that contravene Islamic jurisprudence (shariah). Most theologians, whether they regard voting as merely "licit" or an "obligation," agree on one thing: Muslim voters should not vote for legislation that contravenes the Shariah and, if such is passed, have a duty to disregard or, when necessary, actively oppose it. "The believers should do what is good for Islam," says Shirazi. "There could be no ambiguity [about that]."

The debate has generated much excitement among American Muslims, who are reportedly registering to vote in record numbers. According to the latest polls by John Zogby, almost 60 percent of them intend to vote for Kerry.

Arab newspapers are full of editorials urging American Muslims to "throw Bush out of the White House" as a prelude to "kicking the United States out of Iraq and Afghanistan."

"We may not be able to throw the American army out of Afghanistan and Iraq," says Hassan Nasr-Allah, leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah (Party of God). "But we can throw George W. Bush out of the White House."

Muslim support for Kerry is not inspired by any love for the senator but by the perception that he would withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan , thus allowing the establishment of Islamic regimes in Baghdad and Kabul.

"Both Kerry and Bush represent corruption and tyranny," says theologian Farid al-Nasar. "Neither is acceptable to true believers. The difference is that Bush is aggressive, and Kerry is not."

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MIM: The Palm Beach Post reported on the MAS vote dump"Muslim -get- out -vote -unit pushes deadline " and related that the 'Voter is Power' thug who pushed his way into the Florida voter registration office:

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MIM: Note that Zogby polls have been documented as unreliable and that results are easily manipulated for political propaganda purposes.

"... pollster John Zogby is notorious in the polling community for being, well, a shyster. He keeps his methods an absolute secrecy, contrary to the stipulations of the major polling organizations..."

"... The Christian Science Monitor hosted a breakfast with John Zogby (the pollster) and James Zogby (president of the Arab American Institute). Low and behold, the Zogby poll is described as being run by BOTH of them, not just by the pollster, and the discussion of it on TV has involved both of them - John talking about the poll itself, then a quick tag to James who rails against U.S. foreign policy..."

http://www.hfienberg.com/kesher/2002/04/impressions-of-america-poll-zogbys.html

MIM: Although non Muslim, the Zogby brothers have close ties to Saudi Arabia and Wahabist groups which are being investigated for Al Qaeda funding . James Zogby is the director of the Arab American Institute, and his brother John Zogby heads the national polling organisation. The Zogby brothers Islamist affiliations make any poll a 'foregone conclusion' which is inadvertently revealed by the T shirt available on the Zogby website which reads " If I wanted your opinion I'd ask for it".

While Zogby cannot blatantly subvert results certain polling methods can be employed to slant results which could result in a shift of opinion caused by pollster manipulation.

It would no doubt be in the best interests of AAI ,which counts billionaire George Soros among their donors, to show polling results which make their wealthy Saudi and international benefactors believe their millions of dollars in investments in the AACI's anti Bush and pro Kerry propaganda efforts are paying dividends.

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MIM: The Foundation for Defense of Democracies carried an item labelling Zogby " a publicity agent "...for Wahabi extremism".

http://www.defenddemocracy.org/in_the_media/in_the_media_show.htm?doc_id=180206&attrib_id=7377

In 2003... " James Zogby (who is even slicker than al-Jubeir) appeared as representative of his Arab American Institute (AAI), in a joint presentation with Saleh al-Wohaiby, secretary of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY, an official arm of the Saudi government).

They announced that AAI and WAMY will "take up the cases of some 13,000 Arabs and Muslims, some of whom have been targeted by the U.S. government for possible deportation."

What is WAMY? Simply, the Saudi equivalent of the Hitler Youth: a hate-mongering, ultraextremist group preaching, among other niceties, that Shia Muslims are not real Muslims, but products of a Jewish conspiracy. It is under continuing investigation for involvement in al Qaeda funding."

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=8466

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MIM: Link to PBPost article excerpted above:

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/politics/content/local_news/epaper/2004/10/08/s1d_ELECT_1008.html

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MIM: For more on Muslim voter recruitment drives and the Islamist organisations participating see:

U.S. Muslims Form Task Force for Elections

http://www.americanmuslimvoter.net/images/special/U.S.%20Muslims%20Form%20T%20F%20%20Elections.htm

American Muslim Task Force Election Plan 2004

http://www.amaweb.org/amtelection.html

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The election poster at the top of the MIM page is from the Toledo Muslims.com website run by Mohammed Alo who is also the webmaster of The Paintball Times.com.

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