It's a measure of how effective the Occupy Wall Street movement has become, that the right-wing feels compelled to attack them as having ties to Muslim extremists. More importantly, it's a barometer of just how frightened they are of losing the spotlight to real populism:

In a development that should surprise no one, some on the right-wing are accusing the Occupy Wall Street movement of having ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.“JIHAD ALERT,” the anti-“Shariah Islam” group “The United West” declares in a blog post. “‘OCCUPY ORLANDO’ or JIHAD ORLANDO?”

Tom Trento, the group’s director, explains that Occupy Orlando is a “move by a Muslim activist to take over control of ‘Occupy Orlando,’ in the ‘spirit of the Arab Spring.’” An accompanying video shows Trento attending an Occupy Orlando protest last weekend, and warning about activist Shayan Elahi, who Trento says is “associated with CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood.”

Elahi is a local Democratic activist and a Muslim civil-rights attorney who is also legal counselfor Occupy Orlando, according to My Fox Orlando.Trento writes:

Once we watched Shayan Elahi in action, running around, signing up speakers, providing direction, telling people what to do, we started to connect the dots to the stated Face Book Mission Statement of “Occupy Orlando,” which reads, “…we plan to use the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic of mass occupation to restore democracy in America.”