According to Sarah Palin "Crosshairs are back."

Courtesy of the Queen of Slow Learners Facebook page:  

CROSSHAIRS ARE BACK 

Evil jihadists raping, enslaving, killing women; crucifying Christians; beheading anyone standing in the way of their demonic, twisted death cult... you'd think that would be the target of these liberals’ self-righteous denunciations. Instead, the Left targets women brave enough to expose the anti-women radical Islamists. Glad my daughters shoot straight.

Palin then links to a ghostwritten post on Bristol's blog, accusing a "radical left wing" site of releasing a "hit list" of conservative women so that Islamic terrorists can target them.

Now that is an extremely inflammatory charge and, as usual, completely false.

To prove the point Nancy French links to World Net Daily, which most reasonable people recognize as one of the looniest sites on the internet, and a rather over the top piece by Fox's Megyn Kelly during which she accuses a representative from this "radical left wing" site of putting conservative women on a "hate list."

Now at this point you are probably wondering which "radical left wing" site would do something so horrible.

Well the answer is that it was the Southern Poverty Law Center which I think most of us find to be fairly reasonable. And as it turns out their article "targeting" these women is also pretty reasonable and not at all as vicious and vitriolic as WND, Nancy French, and Sarah Palin would have us all believe.

The article (Which you can read here.) identifies twelve different women as being aggressively Islamaphobic, and backs that up direct quotes and examples of Muslim bashing.

Among them are Ann Coulter who said “Not all Muslims may be terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims — at least all terrorists capable of assembling a murderous plot against America.” (I guess Coulter missed that recent mass killing in South Carolina.)

Also featured is former Texas GOP chairwoman Cathie Adams who claimed that while Muslims are “extremely hospitable when you are under their roof,” as their religion requires, “Walk out of their home and you can be shot in the back.” (Are Muslims the ones shooting people in the back in America? I thought that was the police.)

And of course the article also includes famous Muslim hater Pamela Geller and describes her thusly:

Geller has a special hatred for Obama, who she says is “a third worlder and a coward” who seeks only to “appease his Muslim overlords,” “a muhammadan” who “wants jihad to win.” 

(Yes how dare SPLC point her out for saying such reasonable things, as well as organizing that "Draw Mohhamad" contest in Texas.)

There are of course nine others, each with their own hateful quotes to demonstrate why they were included in the article. (And if you read the article you will probably agree that all of them earned their inclusion.)

WND has described this as a "starter kit" for "Jihadists" but I would suggest that any Islamic terrorist worth their salt is already well aware of these particular individuals, and probably love the fact that they serve as examples which illustrate the anti-Islamic sentiment that they want Muslims to believe ALL Americans embrace.

In other words they have no intention of targeting them as they are essentially helping the cause of the Islamic terrorist. 

However returning to Palin for a minute, I was once again fascinated with her penchant for revisiting past failures in an attempt to repurpose them to serve her current needs. (Much like bringing up the "wild ride" while speaking to anti-abortion groups.)

After all, dredging up the image of her crosshairs map for this post is incredibly spiteful, and also ill advised, as it allows folks like myself to post an image like this one...

...once again reminding folks of Palin's connection to the shooting of Gabby Giffords and of course her blood libel speech in response to the media's attention to the map.

For a sane person these would simply NOT be things that they would want to draw further attention to again.

However Palin seems to have significant difficulty differentiating between bad publicity and good publicity, and seems determined to get attention by whatever means necessary.

Which makes me think that she must be ripping out what's left of her hair now that she can no longer get face time on either Fox News or TAPP, and instead must resort to saying ignorant things on Facebook and hoping that the media does not have more important things to cover that day.

By the way this has been a pretty big news day, and so far I have seen no news outlets covering this desperate cry for attention. 

Texas mayor speaks out against Pamela Gellar for provoking attack, Gellar of course claims it was not her fault.

Garland Mayor Douglas Athas

Courtesy of the Dallas News:  

Garland Mayor Douglas Athas, like many in his city, said he wished AFDI president Pamela Geller hadn’t picked Garland as the site for Sunday’s event. 

“Certainly in hindsight, we as a community would be better off if she hadn’t,” Athas said Tuesday. “Her actions put my police officers, my citizens and others at risk. Her program invited an incendiary reaction. She picked my community, which does not support in any shape, passion or form, her ideology. 

“But at the end of the day, we did our jobs,” he said. “We protected her freedoms and her life.”

One can only imagine this poor guy's frustration. 

One day he's worried about keeping the trash picked up off the streets, and dealing with petty crime crime, and the next his officers are warding off an attack from assailants aligned with a dangerous terrorist group.

But hey, it's not Pamela Gellar's fault. As she explains here courtesy of Time Magazine:  

So, why are some people blaming me? They’re saying: “Well, she provoked them! She got what she deserved!” They don’t remember, or care to remember, that as the jihadis were killing the Muhammad cartoonists in Paris, their friend and accomplice was murdering Jews in a nearby kosher supermarket. Were the Jews asking for it? Did they “bait” the jihadis? Were they “provoking” them? 

Are the Jews responsible for the Nazis? Are the Christians in the Middle East responsible for being persecuted by Muslims? 

Drawing Muhammad offends Islamic jihadists? So does being Jewish. How much accommodation of any kind should we give to murderous savagery? To kowtow to violent intimidation will only encourage more of it. 

This is a war.

Actually it's not war. It's random, often unrelated, acts of terrorism that will surely increase if people go out of their way to provoke a certain element in the Muslim community.

Now I support free speech as much as anybody, actually more than some. But what Gellar did was not in the name of free speech, what she did was to attempt to agitate a certain segment of the community so that she could prove to people that she was correct in writing terrible things about them.

Were they wrong to attack the AFDI? Yes, of course.

Was Gellar and her group wrong to place the lives of police officers at risk in order to play the victim, and garner support? Yes, of course.

You know it's kind of like the riots in Baltimore.

We all condemn the burning of police cars, and property damage, but we also have to realize that there were factors which inspired that response.

Are we at war with black people in Baltimore as well?

There is no defense for the atrocities perpetrated by terrorists happening around the world, however we can do much to demonstrate that America is a place where people of all ethnic and religious backgrounds can live in harmony.

A huge part of that might be to stop attacking Muslim countries and killing their people, and to stop our police from shooting black people in the back or severing their spinal cords.

Just a thought.

P.S. Just a note in case I did not make myself clear. Killing people because they draw a picture of your prophet is never a reasonable response. My point was that if we were not also raining down death on innocent Muslims from the skies in Pakistan and other places, perhaps there would be fewer folks willing to kill over a cartoon.

Anti-Muslim blogger Pamela Geller holds a "Draw Mohammad" contest and surprise, surprise, there's a shooting. Update!

Courtesy of The Guardian: 

Two gunmen have been killed and a security guard injured during what appears to be an attack on a contest for cartoon depictions of the prophet Muhammad in a Dallas suburb. 

The gunmen drove up to the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland shortly before 7pm on Sunday where the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) were hosting the exhibition and contest. 

According to city authorities an unarmed guard at the event was shot at before the men were engaged and killed by police. 

Authorities immediately locked down the center, evacuating the 200 participants at the event and sealing off large areas including a nearby shopping mall. 

A bomb squad was called in after reports of a possible incendiary device at the scene of the incident. Police said a “bomb container trailer” had also been deployed in which to place any suspect device. 

A police spokesman said two males had been killed and their bodies were still lying outside their car hours later.

There is still an ongoing investigation and I am sure more information will be available later. 

However what we do know is that this incident could not have worked out better for event organizer Pamela Geller.

This from Raw Story: 

“The idea we are going to bridge our freedom, our most basic inalienable right, in order to not offend savages is egregious,” Geller said. “It is outrageous. This is a war and the war is here.” 

“There’s an enemy among us,” she said. “They need to crush our freedoms, our emotions — basic freedoms. They handled this situation brilliantly.” 

Geller said about 300 attendees sang the “Star-Spangled Banner” and “God Bless America” as they were evacuated to a safe room after a suspicious backpack was found. 

“They understand the fight,” she said. “We need to stand up for freedom of speech. The idea that a cartoon, a funny cartoon – by the way, we had held the contest – the Muhammad contest. It was won by a former Muslim, that that cartoon would compel devout followers to slaughter is outrageous. It is unspeakable. It is monstrous.” 

Geller disagreed that she or her organization are controversial. “A free speech conference is not controversial,” she said. 

“Shooting people is controversial. There is a moral inversion. There’s a problem here. The American people need to stand up for the basic founding principle. The principle — it’s offensive speech, it’s the First Amendment. It’s not the Eighth or Tenth, it’s the First Amendment. Who will decide who is good or what is forbidden? The Islamic State? Muslim groups?”

Actually Geller and her group are incredibly controversial, and it could be argued that they purposefully antagonize the Muslim community in the hopes of having incidents like this occur.

Courtesy of the New York Daily News: 

She calls herself an advocate for those who have been victimized by religious extremists, but critics say that Pamela Geller and her controversial anti-Islamic groups are as hateful and extreme as those she seeks to condemn. 

And this courtesy of SPLC:

Pamela Geller is the anti-Muslim movement's most visible and flamboyant figurehead. She's relentlessly shrill and coarse in her broad-brush denunciations of Islam and makes preposterous claims, such as that President Obama is the "love child" of Malcolm X. She makes no pretense of being learned in Islamic studies, leaving the argumentative heavy lifting to her Stop Islamization of America partner Robert Spencer. Geller has mingled comfortably with European racists and fascists, spoken favorably of South African racists, defended Serbian war criminal Radovan Karadzic and denied the existence of Serbian concentration camps. She has taken a strong pro-Israel stance to the point of being sharply critical of Jewish liberals.

Though many have now forgotten Geller and her shadowy groups were also behind the creation of the poorly made film "Innocence of Muslims" that was either the cause, or the excuse, for the killings at Benghazi which the conservatives have been trying to blame on President Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Yeah Geller is certainly a nasty piece of work.

However that is no excuse for what happened here.

Killing people for disrespecting your religion, or for daring to draw a caricature of your prophet, does nothing but demonstrate an underlying insecurity ingrained within your belief system and a defensiveness that only serves to make your entire religion seem crazy.

And yes, I know all too well that hundreds of years ago Christianity was even more aggressive toward its detractors and that the rivers ran red with the blood of atheists, intellectuals, and those embracing other religions.

Update: You knew it was coming, Rush Limbaugh blames the  shooting on President Obama.

Far Right Wing bloggers barred from entering the United Kingdom. Why can't we do this?

Courtesy of The Guardian:  

Two prominent US bloggers who were due to speak at a far-right rally in Woolwich on Saturday have been banned from entering the UK, the Home Office has said. 

Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, who set up Stop Islamization of America, and run the website Jihad Watch, have been forbidden from entering the country on the grounds their presence would "not be conducive to the public good". 

The far-right English Defence League was planning a march on Saturday ending in Woolwich, south-east London, where soldier Drummer Lee Rigby was murdered last month. Geller and Spencer were both set to attend. 

A Home Office spokesman said: "We can confirm that Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer are subject to an exclusion decision … We condemn all those whose behaviours and views run counter to our shared values and will not stand for extremism in any form." 

Matthew Collins, from anti-extremism group Hope Not Hate, which campaigned for Geller and Spencer's exclusion, said the organisation was "absolutely delighted" by the decision.

Can I tell you how much I love this?

Pamela Gellar is essentially identified by SPLC as a hate group of one for her incredibly aggressive attacks on the Islamic community. And Robert Spencer runs a blog called "Jihad Watch" that is equally as objectionable.

Hmm, I wonder how Sarah Palin will respond to news that her home-girl, and fellow Islamophobe has been given the cold shoulder by the same people who refused to invite her to Margaret Thatcher's funeral?