January 31, 2016

President Obama plans to visit a Baltimore, MD. area mosque this Wednesday, February 3rd. Fox 'News' felt the urge to trot out its 'expert' on Islamic matters, Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, who is so 'pro-Muslim' he praised Bibi Netanyahu's address to the U.S. Congress.

Depending upon who's reporting, the Islamic Center of Baltimore is either a mosque which has been plagued with threats of violence to their members or it is a mosque with extremist ties to terrorist organizations. Guess which one the right-wingers are favoring?

Conservative tabloids like the Washington Times have to go all the way back to the 1970's to find a link between an old Imam and the Muslim Brotherhood of the Sudan. Therefore, it is undoubtedly an Islamic Center doubling as a recruitment center for terrorist organizations like Hamas, Hezbollah and ISIS, never mind which groups are hardly friendly to each other. Generalizing all Muslims as suspicious helps Fox 'News' demonize the president for reaching out to any Muslim group. The Baltimore Sun reports the visit like this:

President Barack Obama will visit a mosque in Baltimore County on Wednesday amid growing concern about hostility directed toward Muslim Americans. It will be Obama's first visit to an American mosque as president.

Administration officials and academics have pointed to an increase in attacks against Muslims and Sikhs, prompting a meeting with faith leaders at the White House in December. Several of the leaders called for Obama to visit a mosque at that time, and White House officials said they were considering it.

Since Fox 'News' is the propaganda promoter of the GOP, Islam must be portrayed as a violent and dangerous faith, at all costs. Dr. Jasser happens to be the same guy whom laid blame upon the Obama Administration for the attacks in Paris in November, 2015. Of course he will find something wrong with everything the Obama Administration does with regards to forging positive ties with the Muslim-American community.

Jasser claims that the website for the Islamic Center is vague as to what it supports, but it seems as if their website is much like any community-based, religious institute. There are up to the minute Tweets regarding issues like weather and safety, which seem innocuous. There's plenty of detail regarding times of prayer and nothing about ties to any groups with suspicious motives.

The Muslim 'expert' claims that this particular mosque is very into gender apartheid and homophobia. Strange how he forgets that Fundamentalist Christian theology is also rather misogynist and homophobic, but that doesn't count. In fact, all three Abrahamic Religions have elements of homophobia and misogyny, so this is nothing exclusive to Islam. Trump supporter Franklin Graham acknowledged that the Bible is laden with homophobic and misogynist tenets and we must support them.

The three Fox friends and Jasser were still on a mission to discredit the president's motives.

DOOCY: But you say, you told one of our producers that this is just a political stunt?

JASSER: It really is, I mean, look at the time he chose to do this, right before the National Prayer Breakfast. He's using our Muslim community as a backdrop, partisan politics, to basically check the box he's with the Muslim community...

He directly asserts that this 'stunt' is just a plan which makes Republicans look bad. Apparently it matters little to Jasser that a majority of Republicans are still in favor of a ban on all Muslims entering the U.S. The obligatory blonde asks:

KOOIMAN: Dr. Jasser, do you think the president will try to get these Muslim-Americans to stand up and speak out against radical Islam and differentiate themselves?

JASSER: Not only no, but HELL NO. Because he's picking a mosque that ignores our Muslim reform movement, ignores Muslims that want to reform against theocracy, against political Islam. Go to their website, this is a very, you know, covered mosque that doesn't want to put forth an ideology of reform. I mean that's not a place that this is going to happen and historically, as I mentioned before, they are basically a radical extreme mosque and not representative of the modern Muslims in America.

The 'modern Muslims in America' in the Fox 'News' bubble, are comprised of Muslims who are pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian and pro-Republican party. Dr. Jasser always lends credence to this absurd version of a Muslim-American Utopia, like a good Fox pundit.

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