Minnesota Fifth District Rep. Keith Ellison is symbolic of the forces within the Democratic Party that line up with the Islamist enemies of the United States. Ellison, for example, has a mutally beneficial relationship with CAIR. I collected some of our reportage on Ellison's CAIR connection most recently in "Devil may CAIR."

Somehow the press hasn't gotten around to reporting Ellison's featured appearance at the annual benefit of the Greater Los Angeles Area chapter of CAIR this past November. For the record, here is an account of Ellison's November remarks:

In keeping with the theme, “Let the Conversation Begin,” Ellison had a lot of advice for his audience on how to communicate with their legislators.

“Litigate, legislate, educate our case in a righteous manner,” he advised. “Make yourselves known. The next time the California legislature has an open house, form a huge Muslim delegation and go to Sacramento. Bring your youth, your seniors and women. Get your feet wet in the legislative process in your state capital before you lobby in Washington, DC.”

The freshman congressman called for an army of Muslim lobbyists in the nation’s capital.

“Make demands,” he urged, “other lobbies do—but first know what you want. An end to torture and rendition, Federal Housing Authority financing for Muslims? We have 7,000 Muslims serving in the U.S. military and we have the right to ask for what our community needs.”

Tremendous obstacles are blocking American Muslims, he noted. When slurs are made about African Americans the blowback can be fierce, yet it is acceptable to publicly defame Muslims, he stated.

“You can stop this by putting the truth out there,” he said, citing the examples of renditioned Canadian-Syrian Maher Arar and U.S. Army Chaplain Captain James Yee, who was imprisoned for 78 days for being “too friendly” to Muslim detainees in the American prison on Cuban soil.

“The U.S. must never be associated with torture,” he declared. “It is a stain on the U.S. When it is pursued, the enemy can say how evil we are. The new attorney general Michael Mukasey should never have equivocated on torture.

“The stain deepened on the U.S. in the case of Arar who it rendered to Syria for torture. Guantanamo must close.”

A dramatic highlight of the evening was a reading from Howard Zinn’s Voices of a People’s History of the U.S. Passages included the words of Cesar Chavez, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Yuri Kochiyama and Paul Robeson. Emotions were high when the audience was asked to give a big hand to the hotel workers serving the food.

CAIR’s national executive director Nihad Awad called upon the Los Angeles Police Department to cease its program of mapping communities with a high percentage of Muslims. “We can’t allow discrimination to become official,” he emphasized. “Enlist us, but don’t blacklist us.”

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Posted by Scott at 7:20 AM  |    |