WASHINGTON, DC — The following is a statement issued today from Muslim Advocates Public Advocacy Director Scott Simpson calling on Cherokee Guns in Murphy, North Carolina and Allison Outdoor Advertising to take down a billboard that invites gun violence against Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib – most of whom have received credible assassination threats. Muslim Advocates is encouraging supporters to send emails to Allison Outdoor Advertising and Cherokee Guns asking them to take the billboard down immediately:

“This billboard puts the lives of these congresswomen in immediate danger and needs to be taken down right away. It labels the four women as harbingers of the apocalypse and then invites people to purchase guns ‘1 mile [ahead] on right.’

These women have already received multiple, credible death threats inspired by similar rhetoric and attacks. Someone has already been charged for an assassination threat against Congresswoman Omar where the suspect said ‘I’ll put a bullet in her fucking skull’ and the assassination attempt that wounded Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was only a few years ago.

Much of the media is irresponsibly downplaying this deeply concerning billboard as ‘mocking.’ This is not a joke and it’s not an insult. This is encouraging gun violence against elected officials.

This is also an anti-Muslim attack. The owners of Cherokee Guns have a Facebook post advertising a similar bumper sticker that is rife with disgusting anti-Muslim slurs including a reference to ‘Infidels for Trump’ and an invitation for patrons to ‘eat a piece of bacon’ to receive the sticker.

Food festivals and houses of worship are being shot up by white nationalists and this billboard invites more violence. Allison Outdoor Advertising must take the billboard down and Cherokee Guns must stop its dangerous, anti-Muslim attacks before the worst happens.”

Muslim Advocates is a national civil rights organization working in the courts, in the halls of power and in communities to halt bigotry in its tracks. We ensure that American Muslims have a seat at the table with expert representation so that all Americans may live free from hate and discrimination.

Huh. No headline.

Well, anyway, it happened, and it is a strange, Coen Brothers-esque story, and people on my Facebook page are figuring it out. Bottom line: Trump people blew up the mosque to send the Muslims a message and make them want to leave the country.

First, the basic story, from today’s Star Tribune:

Michael McWhorter, 29; Joe Morris, 22 and Michael Hari, 47, are each charged with “using an explosive device to maliciously damage and destroy” the Dar Al Farooq Islamic Center in the predawn hours of Aug. 5, 2017, using a PVC pipe bomb made by Hari.

According to charges, McWhorter admitted to joining the men on a journey to the Minnesota mosque months before aiding a failed plot last fall to bomb an Illinois clinic that performed abortions. He claimed it was Hari’s idea to target the mosque and that the men didn’t intend to kill, according to an FBI terrorism task force officer’s affidavit, “but they wanted to ‘scare (Muslims) out of the country’ … because they push their beliefs on everyone else.”

“McWhorter also said they committed the bombing mainly to ‘show them hey, you’re not welcome here, get the [expletive] out,’” the agent continued.

The three were charged Tuesday after a confidential source alerted authorities that they were responsible for both bombings and McWhorter admitted his involvement in the plot, according to authorities. Authorities described the informant as someone Hari recruited into an “organization” that he led.

Then, Naomi Kritzer discovered that Hari is a contractor who was bidding to build Trump’s Wall of Mexico.

Illinois contractor bidding to build Trump’s border wall — with a tourist draw

Michael Hari, who recently launched his own global security firm from tiny downstate Clarence, wants to build President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful wall” on the Mexican border and believes he can do it better, and for billions of dollars less, than more established contractors.

A former sheriff’s deputy who most recently ran an agricultural food safety certification business, Hari is among more than 200 vendors interested in winning the mammoth and controversial construction project.

“We would look at the wall as not just a physical barrier to immigration but also as a symbol of the American determination to defend our culture, our language, our heritage, from any outsiders,” said Hari, 46, one of a handful of Illinois applicants.

A rallying cry throughout Trump’s campaign, the proposed border wall was outlined in a Jan. 25 executive order and took shape last month with the president’s 2018 budget blueprint and a request for proposals from U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The initial application deadline was extended from Wednesday of last week to Tuesday to accommodate questions about the design process, said Carlos Diaz, a Customs and Border Protection spokesman.

Then, she discovered this:

Food safety auditor calls FSMA unconstitutional

The owner of food safety auditing company Equicert is suing the government to declare the Food Safety Modernization Act unconstitutional.

Michael Hari is also seeking an end to U.S. Department of Agriculture food safety audits.

His suit, filed Feb. 14, calls the FSMA unconstitutional because “it holds farmers liable for food safety conditions which they cannot control and have no knowledge of or responsibility for causing,” according to a news release from Hari.

The FSMA mandates training, registration and on-farm practices, and the “federal government has never before sought to regulate farming in this way,” according to the release.

The legal complaint also alleges the federal government has no constitutional authority to operate an auditing service (which competes with private companies), and Hari is owed for “unlawful activity in competition with Equicert.”

How the Trump administration responds to his claims will be a “test of how committed the new administration is to eliminating unfair and anti-business and anti-agriculture regulation and legislation,” according to the release. The FSMA was signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2011.

Hari was featured in an April 3, 2017, Chicago Tribune article featuring several companies seeking contracts for building President Donald Trump’s U.S.-Mexico border wall. His idea featured a concrete structure loosely based on the Great Wall of China with a pedestrian walkway that would be open for the public.

“We would look at the wall as not just a physical barrier to immigration but also as a symbol of the American determination to defend our culture, our language, our heritage, from any outsiders,” Hari said, according to the Tribune article.

Muslim Advocates has this statement:

Muslim Advocates Responds to Arrest of Bloomington Mosque Bombing Suspects

Washington, DC – The following is a statement from Madihha Ahussain, special counsel for anti-Muslim bigotry at Muslim Advocates, regarding the arrest of three suspects in the August 2017 bombing of Dar al-Farooq Islamic Center in Bloomington and the planned bombing of an abortion clinic. In the aftermath of the attack, the White House responded by suggesting that the bombing was staged as a “fake hate crime:”

“We are relieved that law enforcement officials have made arrests and continue to investigate this case, and we urge them to conduct a full and thorough investigation into all possible motives for this horrific incident, including bias. We hope that the people of Bloomington can rest a bit easier tonight.

However, we cannot ignore the context in which this incident occurred. Anti-Muslim rhetoric from the administration and public officials has led to an unprecedented spike in hate violence against Muslims and mosque attacks, just like this one. In fact, after the attack, the White House gave tacit cover to the perpetrators by suggesting that the bombing was staged as a ‘fake hate crime.’ When the administration fails to swiftly condemn the bombing of a house of worship and instead makes excuses for the perpetrators, it sends a clear and unmistakable statement to the nation that these bombers – whoever they are – have a friend in the White House.

We applaud the members of the Dar Al-Farooq Islamic Center for their tenacity and strength in the face of these attacks and the people of Bloomington for their unity in the face of divisive violence.”

Here’s the text.

Keith Olbermann is back.

“After years of peddling a false conspiracy theory that President Obama wasn’t born in the United States, Donald Trump — just 53 days before Election Day — now says he believes the president was born in the U.S.

“President Obama was born in the United States. Period,” Trump said at a campaign event in a ballroom in his new hotel in Washington. “Now, we want to get back to … (bla bla bla).”

That’s from NPR.

This is clearly going to hurt Donald Trump with his base. The accusation to begin with wad deplorable, after all.

That was today, a few minutes ago.

But yesterday …

Start about midway:

More here:

Anyway, I’ve seen and hear a lot of whining and bellyaching about this term, and Secretary Clinton’s statement.

But most people have only heard the statement, and not the discussion that led up to it. That, folks, is the real story. So spend two minutes and edumicate yourself:

Personally, I can’t see how one would support Trump unless one was fully deplorable, or a basket case, or both. Secretary Clinton underestimated with that 50% thumbsuck guess.