RETRACTION
The original version of this column claimed that Cory Zurowski had been “fired by City Pages for false, invented, unethical reporting.” In fact, Mr. Zurowski was not fired from City Pages and has never been accused of false, invented, or unethical reporting. Alpha News has removed those sentences from the column, deeply regrets the error, and apologizes to Mr. Zurowski.
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A curious thing happened after the FBI announced charges against three Illinois men for bombing the radical Islamist mosque in Bloomington, Dar Al-Farooq. I was taken to task by a leading Minnesota Regressive Leftist, Sally Jo Sorensen, on her blog Bluestem Prairie. Sorensen currently lives in my home state of South Dakota, where the real prairie begins.
The “Regressive Left” describes left-wing politics that paradoxically hold reactionary views because of their tolerance of illiberal principles and ideologies, particularly tolerance of Islamism, for the sake of multiculturalism and cultural relativism. Minnesota’s Democrats and media fall into this category entirely.
The Wrong Think crime I was accused of by Sorensen? Wondering in these pages, after months of the FBI steadfastly refusing to call the incident terrorism, and offering a reward, whether the terrorist generating mosque hadn’t engaged in a hoax. Sorensen claims I actually declared the bombing to be a hoax. I didn’t.
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Fake Muslim hate crimes are legion. That’s just a reality. There are reasons for this and “Fake Hate Crimes: An Islamist Weapon” crisply sets them out. Robert Spencer has a video worth viewing on the epidemic of fake “anti-Muslim hate crimes.”
Daniel Pipes destroys CAIR’s invented narrative of oppression in “CAIR’s Hate Crimes Nonsense.” In “Debunking the Myth of a Growing Trend in Muslim Victimization,” the Center for Security Policy reveals what CAIR doesn’t want you to know.
Late last year the Associated Press ran a story, dutifully carried by the Star Tribune and added to by Regressive Leftist reporter Stephen Montemayor, claiming “hate crimes” were up. There’s no standard definition for what constitutes one. Does my, historically accurate, observation that Mohammed was a butcher count as one? Could be! That’s how lame the category is and how easily the statistics are manipulated. Worse, the FBI simply collects “reports.” It does not investigate to see if any of them are hoaxes. That’s right: the FBI does not track fake hate crimes.
There’s a website that tries to keep track of all fake hate crimes, not just fake Muslim ones: Fake Hate Crimes. There’s even a fake hate hoax map. After Trump’s election, a wave of fake hate crimes were spread by an angry media. Reason Magazine debunked the notion, including a fake hate crime by an Asian student at the University of Minnesota.
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Sorensen appends to her story tweets by Wilhelm Davis, the DFL deputy communications director, that contain screenshots of Facebook comments from Republicans about the bombing. The Star Tribune’s Patrick Cooligan, disliked even (especially?) by his own media peers, included it in his “Morning Hotdish” nonsense newsletter. I saw the tweets in real time.
When it was announced that Billy Graham would lie in state in the nation’s Capitol rotunda, Davis called him “garbage” on Twitter. Laugh at those posing as your moral superiors.
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Eventually the hive mind of MPR got wind of my original Alpha News column. Laura Yuen, who likely couldn’t explain the difference between Sunni & Shia muslims, tweeted it out for denigration and to favorably contrast it to her Somali reporter colleague Mukhtar Ibrahim. His story reads like a CAIR press release although to be fair all his stories do. Relentless Islamist propaganda is all you get from this reporter. In addition to terrorist affiliated CAIR, Ibrahim also quoted terrorist affiliated MAS (Muslim American Society). He’s dishonesty incarnate.
I responded directly to Yuen, who didn’t tag me in her tweet for some reason, providing her with a link to my blog post The Islamization of Minnesota Media. I hope she read it. I have no way of knowing if she did.
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I got to thinking: did Sorensen or Yuen read my original column? I wondered because I reported there that the Imam of the radical Bloomington mosque–Waleed Idris al-Maneesey (also spelled Meneese)– preaches that Muslims have an obligation to kill and destroy the Jews. I can’t find where Sorensen or Yuen objected to this sentiment.
Have you ever seen a single Minnesota media story about Waleed Idris al-Maneesey? You have not because they don’t exist. Ask yourself why.
Instead, I’m the one who’s dragged on social media for wondering if the bombing was just the latest in a long line of Muslim hate crime hoaxes. Given the same circumstances, I’d ask the same question again. As Ryan Mauro puts it “claims about anti-Muslim hate crimes always should be taken with a grain of salt. CAIR and other Islamist groups thrive off of convincing Muslims that they are under constant assault from roving bigots and an oppressive state. Individual Muslims then feel empowered to fabricate hate crimes in order to paint themselves as victims.” The Regressive Left in Minnesota, including the media, also thrive off of the same false narrative.
What are the chances of Mukhtar Ibrahim reporting honestly on what the Imam of Dar Al Farooq teaches? Where is the rest of Minnesota media?
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I’ve written for some time now about how Minnesotans should support Muslim reformers. My decade old blog Minnesota Conservatives is a literal open book on the subject. Minnesota media coverage on the subject slavishly follows the narrative of terrorist affiliated CAIR and so, apparently, does Sorensen.
She ends her piece by quoting a Wilmer newspaper: “the Twin Cities community showed compassion and came to the aid of those who worshiped in the mosque. . . .”
In her own voice she concludes “Well, not everyone.” She means me.
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Let’s be plain about what’s going on here: the Regressive Left in Minnesota, in and out of media, are trying to silence those of us who are noticing what is going on. The only approved narrative from them will be the radical, Islamist one promoted by CAIR and echoed by them. Anything to the contrary is a threat, hence the attacks on me and my column.
Unfortunately for Minnesota’s Regressive Left, there’s simply too much other legitimate information available for them to be successful. Dar Al-Farooq is a radical Islamist mosque but will never be covered as such. Brave Muslim reformers like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Irshad Manji, Maajid Nawaz, Tarek Fatah and Raheel Raza will never be given coverage by them. To do so, as I’ve previously written, is to explode the construct that CAIR and MAS speak for all Muslims. They don’t.
The attacks by Sorensen, Davis and MPR are designed to silence us, to exact a cost for the simple act of paying attention. Someone once said that political correctness is a war on noticing.
That’s why it’s up to us not to remain silent. Silence is their goal, their current jihad. “Silence is death,” as was said in another context. But we won’t stay silent. And if the forces of the Regressive Left don’t like it, they can find another state.
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In addition to Alpha News, John Gilmore is also a contributor to The Hill. He is the founder and executive director of Minnesota Media Monitor.™ He blogs at MinnesotaConservatives.org and is on Twitter under @Shabbosgoy. He can be reached at Wbua@nycunarjfza.pbz.
John Gilmore
John Gilmore is an author, freelance writer & former opinion columnist for Alpha News. He blogs at minnesotaconservatives.org & is @Shabbosgoy on Twitter
