"Look, Mom! I'm in OC Weekly!"

The OC Weekly is one of those fish wraps you can pick up and browse through at the local car wash. Oh, they have some good stuff  I guess as you can read about new restaurants or bars in the area. It also features op-eds from local writers with their own points of view.

By accident, this week I found this piece by a writer named Matt Coker on little ol' me from last July.

http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2012/07/michele_bachmann_muslim_brothe.php

My first reaction was that my car must be long overdue for a trip to the corner car wash. Be that as it may, I decided it was worth a response to Matt, at least to give him an update on Muzammil Siddiqi and the Freedom Letter from Former Muslims United since Matt seems to accept Siddiqi's comment to me at Loyola Marymount last year that he had never received it, thus, how could he sign it?

As to the other points, I decided to address them here.

Here is the posting which I cross-posted on Radarsite in regards to Michele Bachmann and her letter to Keith Ellison regarding the Huma Abedin controversy.

http://radarsite.blogspot.com/2012/07/michele-bachmanns-reply-to-keith-ellison.html

Gee. I thought I was being fair to Ms Abedin. More than once I have made it clear that she may, indeed, be perfectly loyal, but that her family connections to the Muslim Brotherhood merited a complete background check before she became an aide to the secretary of State (Hillary Clinton). Thus, I defended Bachmann, whom Coker and his readers apparently detest.

Coker fails to see why Bachmann (and I) would bring up the seized Brotherhood document that was introduced in the 2007 Holy Land Foundation trial. It was to show that the Brotherhood had less than honorable intentions toward the US, and that they, indeed, had US connections including the Islamic Society of North America, formerly headed by local Imam Muzammil Siddiqi of the Islamic Center of Orange County.

Of course, I have been a frequent critic of Siddiqi, as well as his "Rusty" award from the OC Human Relations Commission, led by empty suit Rusty Kennedy.

I have often pointed out Siddiqi's connections to questionable individuals and organizations, such as the Islamic Society of North America, which he led at one point, and which is a creation of the Brotherhood. If Coker wants to make an issue of my criticisms of Siddiqi, he could stretch his employment with the OC Weekly into a lifetime of op-eds.

My purpose in deciding to respond to the article was to bring Matt up to date on Siddiqi's refusal to sign the Freedom Letter since he can no longer claim never to have received it, and, since November, he has yet to sign it. In fact, a subsequent letter was sent to Siddiqi in 2012 along with  some two hundred other Muslim leaders in America. To date, since 2009, only 2 have signed it. Significant?

And then there is my criticism of the Orange County Jewish Federation and its leader, Shalom Elcott. Here is the article that Coker takes exception to:

http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/2010/09/orange-county-jewish-federation-reacts.html

First of all, I stand by what I have said in my posts about the Federation over the years. What I objected to here was the Federation trying to pump itself up over the issue of the suspensions of the so-called Irvine 11. I also thought it was inappropriate to make public declarations until the process (including prosecution) had been completed. As a UCI teacher, I tried to withhold editorial comment myself until the students were actually convicted.

So there. Hopefully, Matt will continue to read Fousesquawk. And I will try to get my car washed more often.