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A University Stands Up for Free Speech — and Itself More schools should follow Claremont McKenna’s lead in punishing students who shut down campus speeches. By Elliot Kaufman

Posted By on July 26th, 2017

Imagine if radical campus activists had to face the consequences of their actions. Imagine if they could no longer suppress and shut down speakers with impunity. Imagine if a college administrator grew a backbone and defended his institution from the barbarians at the gates.

We’re not there yet. But Claremont McKenna College, a prominent liberal-arts school in Southern California, is at least taking action. The school has suspended five students who led attempts to shut down a college-sponsored lecture by Heather Mac Donald, the pro-police conservative commentator, in April. Three will be suspended for a full year, while two will be suspended for a semester. Two more will be placed on conduct probation.

The students, along with many others from the Claremont colleges and outside the university, blockaded the lecture hall where Mac Donald was set to speak, forcing the event to be moved and livestreamed from a secret location. In a statement, Claremont McKenna explained that “the blockade breached institutional values of freedom of expression and assembly” and “deprived many of the opportunity to gather, hear the speaker, and engage with questions and comments.”

Claremont McKenna should be applauded, first for inviting Mac Donald to speak, and second for taking a stand in defense of the idea of the university. It could have taken the easy way out, slapping all the protest leaders on the wrists with a mandatory course or probation to put an end to the story. That’s what Middlebury College did when its students shut down an event featuring Charles Murray, the libertarian social scientist, and in the process assaulted Professor Allison Stranger, who ended up with a concussion.

In fact, nobody ever seems to get punished for preventing the free exchange of ideas on a college campus. Unwilling to anger student radicals and their defenders in the media, college administrators routinely back down. They appease the crocodile, hoping that he will be grateful for the school’s leniency and perhaps eat it last.

But appeasement has not worked. All across the country, student activists have become emboldened, trusting that they can do whatever they want, so long as they claim the moral high ground. After all, they only have to label a conservative as a “white supremacist” and they are free to take over campus and suppress her views. Their schools are too weak and fearful to stop them.

This is a sick state of affairs that should not continue. Claremont McKenna has shown that it is possible to take a stand. There is no reason why schools cannot suspend students who shut down campus speeches. Repeat offenders should be expelled. Anyone who participates in a violent protest should also be expelled. All schools should join Claremont McKenna in endorsing the University of Chicago’s Principles of Free Expression, which declare that the “University has a solemn responsibility not only to promote a lively and fearless freedom of debate and deliberation, but also to protect that freedom when others attempt to restrict it.”

If, after that, a few radicals still seek to break the rules, let them suffer the consequences of satisfying their confused consciences. The rest of the student body — the ones who don’t want to spend the year back home with their parents — will get the message: You can speak and protest all you want, but you cannot prevent someone else from speaking.

MEDIA, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

MARK STEYN ON THE WORLD AND DIVERSITY AND THE MEDIA

Posted By on July 26th, 2017

The most important determination the media make is deciding what category a story falls into. For example, NPR recently ran a report asking the following:

How Did Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever Pop Up In Spain?

Oddly enough, despite the headline, the reporter doesn’t seem that interested in answering the question. What follows is a public-health story:

The disease is a tick-borne, Ebola-like virus. Because it’s a lesser-known illness, it is often misdiagnosed. So there aren’t very good official statistics on the number of cases in many parts of the world.

It’s normally found in North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. But in 2016, two cases cropped up in Spain.

Last September, a 62-year-old man in Madrid died after being bitten by a tick while walking in the Spanish countryside. Doctors determined he had contracted Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, which causes headache, fever, nausea, bruising and bleeding. In severe cases, patients experience sharp mood swings and confusion as well as kidney deterioration or sudden liver failure.

Up to a third of patients die, usually within two weeks of contracting the disease.

Oh, my. That’s not good news for, say, all those Brit celebs who retire to the Costa. What could it be?

In a study published Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine, researchers speculate that the ticks carrying the virus sneaked into Europe by latching on to migrating birds from Morocco or imported livestock.

But migrating birds have been crossing the Mediterranean for millennia without bringing Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever with them. Go back to that sentence up above:

It’s normally found in North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. But in 2016, two cases cropped up in Spain.

Hmm. 2016. Did anything happen round about then that was different? As opposed to things that are entirely unchanged, like bird migration patterns. Why, yes! Millions of “refugees” arrived in Europe from …go on, take a wild guess: “North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia”. Could that possibly have anything to do with the appearance in Spain of a hitherto unknown disease?

Ryan Kennedy thinks so – because he writes for VDare, which is a website that focuses on immigration, so that it seems fairly obvious, if millions of people from the Third World walk unprocessed and unmonitored into First World countries, that pretty soon the First World countries will have Third World diseases. I speak as someone who, as a condition of moving to the United States, was required to be tested for tuberculosis, Aids and whatnot. But the strictures they impose on a Canadian apparently do not extend to Libyans and Gambians and Afghans.

So perhaps the migrating birds are blameless, and this public-health story is really one of migrating humans.

~Now consider a second story: A law-abiding unarmed woman makes the mistake of calling 911 and, when the responding officers arrive, they shoot her dead. The American media’s reflex instinct is that this is an out-of-control murderous police-brutality story. To be sure, it’s more helpful if the victim is black or Hispanic, but in this case she is female and an immigrant, albeit from Australia. And certainly Down Under the instinct of the press would also be to play this as an example of a country with a crazy gun culture and the bad things that happen when innocent foreigners make the mistake of going there, even to a peaceable, upscale neighborhood. Or in the shorthand of the Sydney Daily Telegraph front page:

AMERICAN NIGHTMARE

In both Oz and the US, the next stage of the story would be cherchez le cop – lots of reports of a redneck officer with a hair-trigger temper and various personal issues.

But there’s a complicating factor. It’s so complicating that The Washington Post finds itself running a 1,200-word story on the death of Justine Damond without a word about the copper who shot her – nothing about his background, record, habits, behavior. Not even his name.

Because his name is Mohamed Noor. As Tucker Carlson pointed out on Fox News the other night, the reason you know the officer’s identity is significant is because the Post went to all that trouble not to mention it.

Mr Noor was born in Somalia, and these days, aside from being home to the fictional Lake Wobegon, Minnesota is also home to the all too real Little Mogadishu – mainly thanks to generous “family reunification” from a country that keeps no reliable family records. (Last year, I had a Somali minicab driver in London who was planning to move to Minneapolis “because my brother lives there. Well, he’s not really my brother,” he added cryptically.)

If you take seriously Sir Robert Peel’s dictum that “the police are the public and the public are the police”, then, if your town turns Somali, you’re going to need some Somali policemen. And, just like Garrison Keillor’s radio tales of old Minnesota, the new Minnesota also requires its heartwarming yarns. In the deft summation of Michele Bachmann (a favorite guest on The Mark Steyn Show) Officer Noor is an “affirmative-action hire by the hijab-wearing mayor of Minneapolis”.

FOREIGN POLICY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

What’s Next With Iran? By Brandon J. Weichert

Posted By on July 26th, 2017

I’ve spent a long time arguing against the executive agreement that the Obama Administration inked with Iran in 2015. One of the earliest points of agreement that I had with President Donald Trump was over his consistent, forceful, criticism of that deal as “the worst deal” in history. Recently, however, I’ve become dismayed with the administration’s stunning (though, temporary, if you believe the White House’s recent statements) reversal on its opposition to the deal. https://amgreatness.com/2017/07/24/whats-next-iran/

President Trump last week took to the press to announce that he was re-certifying that the Iranians were, in fact, following the letter but violating of the “spirit of the deal”—whatever that means.

What’s more, this isn’t the first time the Trump Administration has reaffirmed the agreement. In April, the president took a similar action. That was an unwise move, too. It isn’t hard to see that Iran getting nuclear arms is bad for America. No “internal review,” scheduled for completion in October, should be required. It’s just common sense.

Speaking with Reuters in May, Mark Dubowitz, the chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a staunch opponent of the Iran deal, explained that the Trump program of applying sanctions while recertifying the agreement sends “a clear message to foreign banks and companies looking to do business with Iran.”

“You will be taking significant risks if you deal with a regime engaged in continued malign conduct and still covered by a web of expanding non-nuclear sanctions,” Dubowitz said.

But a “waive and slap” approach to Iran is silly—especially since Tehran continues to enrich and empower itself through business deals with sundry European states. The Trump Administration’s approach also needlessly complicates the situation in the region, confusing our allies—such as the Sunni Arab states and Israel—and sending mixed signals to our Iranian adversaries.

And the fact is, it sets a bad precedent for U.S. foreign policy in a region that is already a rat’s nest of shifting alliances, betrayals, double-dealing, and jihadism. For the last 16 years, the United States has done a fine job of destabilizing the region, pushing away its allies, and empowering its enemies.

President Trump emerged as a candidate who neither worshipped at the altar of neoconservative orthodoxy nor embraced the cause of appeasement (as the Bush and Obama Administrations had done). His election offered reason to hope America’s foreign policy in the region could be set right. And the president has made some helpful moves. Trump empowered our Sunni Arab partners who had been pushed away by the disastrous policies of both the Bush and Obama presidencies. The Trump Administration was setting the table for the Sunni Arab-Israeli alliance to contain Iran and decimate the jihadist terror networks throughout the region.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Fire Mueller By J. Robert Smith

Posted By on July 26th, 2017

Two words describe the Russian collusion accusations and investigation of President Trump: Sham and injustice. Robert Mueller, the special prosecutor, knows it. Rod Rosenstein, the Obama holdover Deputy Attorney General who appointed Mueller, knows it. Jeff Sessions, a decent man and attorney general who recused himself, knows it.

The Democrats know it. The left knows it. The mainstream media knows it. DC-owned and spine-free Republicans know it. Paul Ryan knows it.

Everybody knows it. But everyday Americans should really know this: the farce continues because powerful establishment interests are invested in destroying Donald Trump and his presidency.

That’s why the president should fire Mueller. It’s why Jeff Sessions needs to unrecuse himself. The president should shelve special prosecutions during his presidency. The law permits him to do so. Let U.S. district attorneys earn their keep.

Note “…Trump and his presidency,” not “Trump’s presidency,” because the witch-hunting and attempted railroading of the president is every bit as much about destroying the man. Trump leads a counterrevolution, a rising up of Heartland Americans — Americans everywhere with Heartland blood coursing through their veins. His leadership transcends office. He poses an existential threat to interests and people deeply invested in a worldview or ways that practically benefits them somehow. The presidency is a powerful means, to be sure, and denying its powers to Trump — somehow — is critical to reasserting the establishment’s control.

Yes, it’s that seedy. And, yes, it crosses the aisle, as they say in DC.

One’s tempted to say that the Putin-Trump collusion tinfoil hat gambit is the pinnacle of years of efforts to criminalize politics. You remember the Scooter Libby and Tom Delay railroads? But here, in the narrowest sense, there aren’t any politics to criminalize. Russian collusion is pure fiction, utter disinformation. The scheme here is to criminalize fiction; to give legal license to Mueller’s investigation based on fraudulent accusations.

There won’t be an impeachment of the president and/or prosecutions of anyone around him for colluding with the Russians. No such thing occurred. If impeachment and/or prosecutions happen, it will be for “gotcha” technicalities when under oath. That’s how the feds sandbagged Scooter Libby. Or because Mueller’s far-ranging investigations found other unrelated grounds to get Trump.

Mueller has license to fish — as in conducting a fishing expedition. Word is that Mueller will probe Trump’s business affairs and whatever else. The president is attempting to warn off Mueller. Leviathan government, with thousands of pages of obscure rules and laws to reference, can cite any of us at any time for violations of some law or regulation. This is one of the fruits of a century of “progressive” government: its tentacles reach everywhere and are strong enough to lay low any honest citizen.

Mueller intends to lay low a president, however. Trump enjoys massive grassroots followings that threaten the nation’s establishment as nothing has in recent memory.

Mueller is leading an inquisition. He’s the Grand Inquisitor. If permitted to continue his misbegotten enterprise, he will find something — anything — to hang around President Trump’s neck. He’ll protract his investigations if required. At minimum, ongoing investigations throw a monkey wrench into the president’s agenda. It helps cloud his initiatives and accomplishments publicly. It drives down his approval ratings. That gives cover to hostile and cowardly Republicans who oppose parts or all of Trump’s agenda.

The unspoken charge to Mueller is to get something on Trump. Coming up empty-handed is a nonstarter. Concluding after, say, a six-month investigation that accusations against the president and his family and associates of Russian collusion are baseless isn’t what Mueller’s establishment cohorts want. Range far, snag anything to use against Trump is the mandate. The establishment wants blood, and that’s what Mueller will aim to produce.

On Monday, in a Tweet, the president suggested:

Drain the Swamp should be changed to Drain the Sewer — it’s actually much worse than anyone ever thought, and it begins with the Fake News!

Trump is right and wrong. DC has become a sewer, but, it doesn’t begin with “Fake News.” It gives far too much credit to the MSM, which have become open propagandists for the left and Democratic Party. The latter two, in varying ways and degrees, are integral to the establishment.

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Venezuelan Misery By Herbert London

Posted By on July 26th, 2017

Winston Churchill made the telling observation that socialism can provide equality, but it is the equality of misery; while capitalism offers the inequality of prosperity and plenty. History has reinforced this belief many times and now we are living through this nightmare yet again in a place Hugo Chavez of Venezuela a called socialist paradise.

This is a dark and dangerous period with an unprecedented level of desperation. The socialists have taken an economy that was among the most successful in South America and reduced it to an unrecognizable facsimile of itself. Admittedly class distinctions are gone, just as food stuff has disappeared from grocery shelves.

The average weight of a Venezuelan has been reduced by 20 pounds. Scarcity has led to violence and the violence on the streets has been accompanied by a government crackdown.

Millions of Venezuelans have signaled their disapproval of President Nicolas Maduro, Chavez’s successor. However, despite overwhelming disapproval, Maduro is intent on consolidating his power through a constituent assembly vote and the drafting of a new Constitution, one that presumably would give him dictatorial authority.

Opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, recently released from prison and under house arrest, has been engaged in mobilizing voter opposition to Maduro’s initiative. Whether a protest movement can gain momentum remains to be seen. But tensions have soared with widespread food and medicine shortages and an inflation that doubles the price of food each week.

Most Venezuelans are persuaded Maduro’s plan to convene a constituent assembly is undemocratic, notwithstanding the government’s position that it is the basis for freedom. This is Maduro’s transparent power grab.

Recognizing the obvious, President Trump said, “ Yet their strong and courageous actions (of the Venezuelan people) continue to be ignored by a bad leader who dreams of becoming a dictator.” Trump has hinted at strong and swift economic actions, even though sanctions imposed by the U.S. in 2015 had little practical effect.

EDUCATION, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Saudi Curriculum Still Promotes Radicalization, Former Congressman Testifies

Posted By on July 26th, 2017

Saudi Arabia has made progress in ridding its school textbooks teachings hostile toward other faiths, former U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., said last week in testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade. But, more needs to be done, including more steps to ensure teachers aren’t promoting “a more radicalized version of Islam.”

Wolf expressed concern that educational material used by the Saudi government-funded Islamic Saudi Academy in Northern Virginia may have potentially been responsible for inspiring terrorism. He cited the example of Ahmed Abu Ali, a former valedictorian from the school, who is currently serving out his sentence in the supermax in Colorado for plotting to assassinate a former U.S. president.

“While it is impossible to say whether Mr. Abu Ali was directly radicalized by the textbooks used at the Islamic Saudi Academy, the use of books that promote religious discrimination and the justification of violence toward non-believers cannot be tolerated,” Wolf said.

He expressed frustration that the State Department never met with the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) to translate textbooks used at the school.

It since has closed, replaced by the King Abdullah Academy, also funded by Saudi Arabia’s government. No publicly available information is however available on textbooks taught at the new school.

During his House tenure, and since joining the Wilberforce Initiative in 2015, Wolf has been a leading voice against intolerance and incitement to violence promoted by Saudi Arabia’s government-published textbooks.

Saudi Arabia’s promotion and export of radical Wahhabism, including through its school textbooks, remains a concern. There’s a reason more researchers aren’t focused on the problem, Wolf said: “By funding top American university research centers, the Saudi government has been able to minimize the voices of those in academia who would otherwise have the best means of researching the effects of radical Wahhabism. In other countries such as Bosnia, Albania, Kosovo and Indonesia they have continued to promote radicalism.”

He urged the government to follow USCIRF recommendations to annually review Saudi education textbooks to see if passages that teach religious intolerance have been removed, and press the Saudi government to try to eliminate older versions of Saudi textbooks containing material that teaches hatred and intolerance of others.

EDUCATION, ISRAEL Comments turned off

What’s Stoking Antisemitism at SF State University? by Cinnamon Stillwell

Posted By on July 26th, 2017

At a time of rising concern about antisemitism on American college campuses, should a California state university maintain an official partnership with a Palestinian institution where hatred and violence towards Jews is encouraged? http://www.meforum.org/6826/is-san-francisco-state-university-stoking-antisemitism

Shockingly, this is happening at San Francisco State University (SFSU) — which has a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with An-Najah University, a Palestinian hotbed of antisemitism and radicalism in the West Bank.

At the Middle East Forum, we have launched a campaign to end SFSU’s MOU with Najah University. Meanwhile, the Lawfare Project is filing a lawsuit against SFSU alleging “a long and extensive history of cultivating antisemitism and overt discrimination against Jewish students.” The lawsuit names the Najah MOU and its architect — anti-Israel activist and professor Rabab Abdulhadi — as some of the reasons for the increasing antisemitism on campus (see page 56).

In her response to these claims, Abdulhadi proves their accuracy by lambasting SFSU’s Department of Jewish Studies, Hillel and the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC), while championing “terrorist university” Najah, without addressing the charges against it.

It was largely due to SFSU’s partnership with Najah that The Algemeiner placed SFSU tenth on its 2016 list of “The 40 Worst Colleges for Jewish Students.” As Algemeiner editor Dovid Efune put it: “If you can imagine for a second what it’s like to be a Jewish student on this campus and know that there is a formal agreement with an institution that has hosted terrorism . . . it’s going to leave you feeling uncomfortable.”

The Palestinian university’s reputation for promoting terrorism and antisemitism — a reflection of a wider Palestinian society steeped in hatred for Israel and Jews — is well-known. According to Matthew Levitt, director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, Najah is notorious for the “terrorist recruitment, indoctrination and radicalization of students.” Hamas describes Najah as a “greenhouse for martyrs,” while the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) notes that its student council “glorifies suicide bombings and propagandizes for jihad against Israel.”

Najah routinely holds campus events to honor “martyred” terrorists; names entire graduating classes after terrorists; allows students to celebrate the kidnapping and murder of Israelis at graduation ceremonies; permits student groups to organize exhibits and hold rallies applauding Jew-hatred and suicide bombings; lets student groups distribute literature honoring Najah students who died as “shaheeds” (terrorists); and lets faculty promulgate pro-terror and antisemitic propaganda.

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Firing Sessions Is a Terrible Idea By Bruce Walker

Posted By on July 26th, 2017

Donald Trump is a naturally polarizing figure. His bread and butter is brazen attacks on those who challenge him. As a media figure and as a business promoter, that worked well. As president, however, Trump needs to pick his fights carefully and avoid needless political bloodletting. Changing people in his administration when he feels that things have gone wrong suggests that he picked the wrong people to begin with, especially in the first six months of his administration.

In some cases, like Comey, a holdover from the Obama administration, Trump should have cleaned house right at the beginning of his term of office, when people naturally understand Trump’s need to have his own people in key positions. When Trump gets rid of people who have been his supporters and who have interviewed for the job Trump gives them in his administration, it is a different matter.

Jeff Sessions was the first senator to endorse Trump in his run for the Republican nomination. Sessions is also a man who during his political career has stood up to the Establishment and done what he has believed to be the right thing even if it was not the most politically expedient. Sessions has a reputation among the Republican caucus in the Senate as a particularly honorable and decent man. He also gave up a safe Senate seat as a member of the majority party to serve on Trump’s team.

If President Trump fires Attorney General Sessions or if Trump continues to harass Sessions with dumb tweets, then the president runs the risk of alienating honest, genuine Senate conservatives who are immune to threats from Trump but who can give him headaches and problems he cannot imagine.

Almost everything Trump does, except for executive orders, must go through the Senate – legislation, appointments, and treaties. If Trump alienates conservative Republicans in the Senate, it is hard to see how he will be able to do anything during his term as president. Why should these senators trust Trump? Why should they believe he is really conservative, particularly if he taps Rudy Giuliani as the next attorney general, a decent man on the wrong side of nearly every social issue?

When every single Republican Senate vote is vital in repealing Obamacare, why in the world would President Trump risk offending those conservative senators whose support he desperately needs? While pressure from McConnell and Trump have doubtless switched some votes, every single vote in the Senate is necessary to beginning the repeal process.

When the investigation of Trump and his family bubbles into allegations that suggest the need for congressional investigation, why would Trump go out of his way to outrage conservative senators who will be on the very committees interrogating his family and his staff? Does Trump grasp that these senators could garner rave reviews from the mainstream media by asking tough questions in these hearings?

Trump behaves as if he were the head of a corporation called the federal government and everyone were his employee subject to firing at his wish. His influence over senators in conservative states, however, is limited. (The same is true of House members from safe districts, which is to say nearly every House member.)

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The Humanitarian Hoax of Bullying: Killing America With Kindness – Hoax #5 Linda Goudsmit

Posted By on July 26th, 2017

The Humanitarian Hoax is a deliberate and deceitful tactic of presenting a destructive policy as altruistic. The humanitarian huckster presents himself as a compassionate advocate when in fact he is the disguised enemy.

Obama, the humanitarian huckster-in-chief, weakened the United States by bullying America for eight years into accepting his crippling politically correct policies as altruistic when in fact they were designed for destruction. His legacy, the Leftist Democratic Party with its “resistance” movement, is the party of the Humanitarian Hoax attempting to destroy American democracy and replace it with socialism.

The Leftist Democrat Party under Obama embraced a hypocritical anti-bullying campaign with religious fervor. Presenting himself as the agent of change to make schools safe from bullying Obama launched his anti-bullying campaign at the White House Conference on Bullying Prevention in 2011 saying:

“If there’s one goal of this conference, it’s to dispel the myth that bullying is just a harmless rite of passage or an inevitable part of growing up. It’s not. Bullying can have destructive consequences for our young people. And it’s not something we have to accept. As parents and students; teachers and communities, we can take steps that will help prevent bullying and create a climate in our schools in which all of our children can feel safe.”

Sounds great – an anti-bullying campaign designed to make schools a safe space for students. Who could object?

Obama’s popular anti-bullying campaign of kindness was expanded to engage the public and private sectors to combat bullying together. Private, non-profit, and federal commitments were made and millions of dollars were spent on the effort to stop bullying. The Humanitarian Hoax of bullying prevention was launched.

Instead of providing safety and protection for all students the bullying prevention campaign was the ideal vehicle for left-wing liberal indoctrination in the schools that promoted the Leftist intersectional agenda exclusively. Feelings were prioritized over facts and curriculums were overhauled to adhere to the Leftist tenets of political correctness, moral relativism, and historical revisionism. Student feelings were “protected” from averse ideas.

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Once Again, Linda Sarsour Hails Terrorists and Murderers by Bradley Martin

Posted By on July 26th, 2017

Jake Tapper, CNN’s chief Washington correspondent, recently slammed Linda Sarsour and other progressive leaders of the anti-Trump Women’s March for honoring a convicted cop killer — Assata Shakur.

In response, Sarsour proceeded to dismiss Tapper as a member of the “alt-right.”

Of all the possible ways to describe Tapper, “alt-right” is not one. Tapper is one of President Donald Trump’s most vocal critics. And he’s Jewish. Someone should tell Sarsour that this likely disqualifies him from membership in any white supremacist group. But Sarsour’s “resume,” Tapper’s condemnation of her, and their subsequent Twitter exchange all illustrate the extent to which Sarsour — and some of her progressive Left followers — are unhinged.

Shakur is a felon, and was convicted in 1977 for murdering a New Jersey police officer, assaulting another police officer, and committing a bank robbery. In 1979, she escaped prison and fled to Cuba. She remains on the FBI’s “Most Wanted Terrorist” list to this day.

Sarsour’s idolizing of Shakur follows on the heels of her presentation at the 54th annual convention of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), where she called on Muslims to commit jihad against the American government.

“I hope that we, when we stand up to those who oppress our [Muslim] communities, that Allah accepts from us that as a form of jihad,” Sarsour said. “That we are struggling against tyrants and rulers, not only abroad in the Middle East or on the other side of the world, but here, in these United States of America.”

In an interview soon after with the Washington Post, Sarsour was quick to clarify that her speech at ISNA was advocating solely for peaceful, nonviolent dissent, and that her call for jihad only meant the use of words. In a later op-ed for the publication, Sarsour doubled down on her claim that she was only calling for “nonviolent” jihad.

“Yeah, and the swastika is just a Tibetan good luck charm,” as the late comedian Robin Williams so eloquently put it.

Sarsour began her ISNA presentation by thanking her “favorite person” in the room, Imam Siraj Wahaj, praising him as her “mentor, motivator and encourager.” Wahaj, an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, has called for violent jihad, and for replacing the US government with an Islamic caliphate. Sarsour’s mentor has also denounced homosexuality as “a disease of this [American] society,” noting that the penalty for homosexuality under Islamic law is death.

But this doesn’t seem right. How can such a self-declared progressive like Sarsour have such a violent, homophobic bigot for a mentor? Maybe the history of ISNA can shed some light on this glaring contradiction.

Federal prosecutors have said that ISNA is part of the US Muslim Brotherhood network set up to funnel money to the terrorist group Hamas. ISNA conferences have long featured radical Islamists, antisemites, Holocaust-deniers and homophobes as keynote speakers.