Pamela Geller Targeted in Foiled Boston Beheading Plot

At Atlas Shrugs, "CNN: Jihadi shot in Boston was planning to behead Pamela Geller," and "CNN VIDEO: Erin Burnett Attacks Pamela Geller in Wake of Boston Beheading Plot."

Pam Key of Breitbart writes:

Wednesday on CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront,” American Freedom Defense Initiative president Pamela Geller reacted to reports that the Boston terror suspect plotted to behead her and said, “This is a war.”

“This is a showdown for American freedom,” she said. “Will we stand against the savagery or bow down to them and silence ourselves?”

Geller said, “Well, they targeted me for violating Sharia blasphemy laws. They mean to kill everyone who doesn’t do their bidding and abide by their law voluntarily. This is a showdown for American freedom. Will we stand against this savagery or bow down to them and silence ourselves? It won’t end with me, no matter what happens to me or the cops. This is just the beginning. The one thing that’s being ignored that came out of Garland, Texas, is that ISIS is here. Islamic terrorism is here. now. Will the media realize what’s at stake and that their heads are next? Or will they continue to target me because they hate my message of freedom? That’s the question.”

When Brown quizzed Geller on the controversial ad she runs to counter Islamic extremists Geller said, “Of course I’m not surprised they would target me. This is a war and they seek to impose the Sharia. The ads that I’ve done across the country were in response to vicious anti-Israel, anti-Semitic ads already running. And my question to you is, do we not want to defeat jihad? i mean, what is wrong with those ads? there is nothing wrong with the cartoon. there is nothing about the cartoon that incites violence. It is within established American tradition of satire. And if America surrenders on this point, the freedom of speech is a relic of history.”

When Brown asked if Geller relished being the target she shot back, “Relish being the target? Who self-promotes to get killed?”

Also at Jihad Watch, "Boston jihadis originally planned to behead Pamela Geller."

Anti-Islam Protest in Phoenix

Bikers organized a "Draw Muhammad" protest, heh.

The local Islamists weren't please. At the Arizona Republic, "Phoenix Muslim leaders decry protest as anti-American."

Also at ABC-15 Phoenix:

'This is the second time in a week that I have answered, point-by-point, a lengthy exercise in character assassination against Pamela Geller and me written by Cathy Young, a contributing editor at Reason magazine and a longtime apologist for jihad terror...'

From Robert Spencer, at Jihad Watch, "Cathy Young is a terrible poster child for journalism."

Islamophobia: Thought Crime of the Totalitarian Future

From David Horowitz and Robert Spencer, the opening chapter to The Black Book of the American Left Volume 4: Islamo-Fascism and the War Against the Jews, at FrontPage Magazine.

And at the post:

In the aftermath of the jihadist attack in Garland, TX, leftists and Islamic supremacists are moving swiftly to blame Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer for their American Freedom Defense Initiative/Jihad Watch Muhammad Art Exhibit and Cartoon Contest for supposedly “provoking” the violent attack. Once again, advocates of free speech are being slandered while any attempts to examine the real motives of the ISIS-linked terrorists who tried to slaughter them are being labeled as unjustified and “Islamophobic.”

To combat this pernicious tactic and the toxic delusion that impoliteness about the prophet, and not planned Islamic terrorism, is somehow the cause of the attack in Garland in particular and the global jihad in general, FrontPage is running the Freedom Center’s pamphlet, Islamophobia: Thought Crime of the Totalitarian Future, written by David Horowitz and Robert Spencer.

The authors reveal how the word “Islamophobia” is used by the Muslim Brotherhood to inhibit opposition to jihad terror, and detail how the portrayal of Muslims as victims after every Jihadist attack is a carefully planned and skillfully executed program with the ultimate goal of curtailing the West’s freedom of speech and allowing the jihad to advance unimpeded.

Keep reading.

And buy the book, at Amazon, The Black Book of the American Left Volume 4: Islamo-Fascism and the War Against the Jews.

'Stay Quiet and You'll Be Okay'

From Mark Steyn:

It'll be a long time before you see "Washington Post Offers No Apology for Attacking Target of Thwarted Attack" or "AP Says It Has No Regrets After Blaming The Victim". The respectable class in the American media share the same goal as the Islamic fanatics: They want to silence Pam Geller. To be sure, they have a mild disagreement about the means to that end - although even then you get the feeling, as with Garry Trudeau and those dozens of PEN novelists' reaction to Charlie Hebdo, that the "narrative" wouldn't change very much if the jihad boys had got luckier and Pam, Geert Wilders, Robert Spencer and a dozen others were all piled up in the Garland morgue.

If the American press were not so lazy and parochial, they would understand that this was the third Islamic attack on free speech this year - first, Charlie Hebdo in Paris; second, the Lars Vilks event in Copenhagen; and now Texas. The difference in the corpse count is easily explained by a look at the video of the Paris gunmen, or the bullet holes they put in the police car. The French and Texan attackers supposedly had the same kind of weapons, although one should always treat American media reports with a high degree of skepticism when it comes to early identification of "assault weapons" and "AK47s". Nonetheless, from this reconstruction, it seems clear that the key distinction between the two attacks is that in Paris they knew how to use their guns and in Garland they didn't. So a very cool 60-year-old local cop with nothing but his service pistol advanced under fire and took down two guys whose heavier firepower managed only to put a bullet in an unarmed security guard's foot.

The Charlie Hebdo killers had received effective training overseas - as thousands of ISIS recruits with western passports are getting right now. What if the Garland gunmen had been as good as the Paris gunmen? Surely that would be a more interesting question for the somnolent American media than whether some lippy Jewess was asking for it.

A reminder of how close it came in Garland. And also a reminder that the left would have cheered the deaths of Pamela, Robert and their allies. I said exactly the same thing the other day.

More at Hot Air, "Quotes of the day."

No, There's No 'Hate Speech' Exception to the First Amendment

Leftists bitching about "hate speech" are simply attempting to shut down speech with which they disagree.

They're ghoulish reprobates and totalitarians.

See Eugen Volokh, at the Washington Post:

I keep hearing about a supposed “hate speech” exception to the First Amendment, or statements such as, “This isn’t free speech, it’s hate speech,” or “When does free speech stop and hate speech begin?” But there is no hate speech exception to the First Amendment. Hateful ideas (whatever exactly that might mean) are just as protected under the First Amendment as other ideas. One is as free to condemn Islam — or Muslims, or Jews, or blacks, or whites, or illegal aliens, or native-born citizens — as one is to condemn capitalism or Socialism or Democrats or Republicans...

Continue reading.

Perhaps the idiots at the New York Times should read the Volokh Conspiracy:

.@nytimes Hey dullards at the New York Times, there's no such thing as 'hate speech.' @nytopinion cc. @RSMcCain @Instapundit @PamelaGeller

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) May 7, 2015

'Martin Luther King picked some of the cities he went to precisely in order to provoke, and bring out the racists and show what kind of violent people they are, so the world could see what is wrong with Jim Crow...'

At Pat Dollard's, "Alan Dershowitz: 'There’s No Difference' Between Martin Luther King, Jr. and Pamela Geller."

Death Threats Against Pamela Geller

Here's more of that compassionate "love and inclusiveness" leftist hypocrites are always prattling on about. F-king murderous ghouls.

At Atlas Shrugs, "You’ve got mail!":

My emailbox is a microcosm of this terrible war on freedom. Hundreds of notes and letters in support of our work in defense of freedom, and then there are these:

Stop the Islamization of America

Buy Pamela Geller's book, Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance.

Also, Freedom or Submission: On the Dangers of Islamic Extremism & American Complacency.

I'm teaching all day. More blogging tonight.

A Rubicon Moment for Free Speech

From Amanda Foreman, at the Wall Street Journal, "Charlie Hebdo and a Rubicon Moment for Free Speech":

By awarding Charlie Hebdo the Freedom of Expression Courage prize, PEN has also shown its willingness to lead by example and from the front. That leadership is more important than ever.

If human-rights organizations, starting with PEN, fail to affirm the indivisibility of free speech, that failure will not lead to more peace and harmony in the world. It will lead to the reverse as vigilantes from all sides interpret such weakness as an invitation to impose their own order. The shootings in Copenhagen in February, and in Garland, Texas, last weekend—both involving Islamists targeting events they deemed insulting to their religion—are two examples of how some would like to see the “debate” unfold.

For those who believe in freedom of expression, the moment has come to make the choice between its defense or abandonment against a murderous movement that believes democratic values are subordinate to religious sensibilities. At the end of the evening on Tuesday, I spoke with Jean-Baptiste Thoret, Charlie Hebdo’s film critic. “There are just two options facing us all,” he said, “and we have to take a side.”

 RTWT.

Online Jihadist Who Supported #Garland Attacks Used to Work for Amnesty International.

*SMH*

At Instapundit, "MORE MORAL ROT IN THE NGO WORLD."

Pamela Geller: 'This Is a War...'

Pamela responds, at Time, "Pamela Geller: A Response to My Critics—This Is a War."



This morning Drudge linked to the New York Daily News, "ISIS threatens controversial blogger Pamela Geller in message boasting of '71 trained soldiers in 15 different states'."

And ICYMI, from Dr. Helen Smith, "Is Pam Geller the Bravest Woman in the U.S.?"

The left's anti-free speech responses have started to become literally unhinged. It's pretty bad when you hate someone's speech so much that you'd rather see them killed for it. But that's where we are with radical leftists. They'd be cheering Pamela's death had the jihadists been able to get past security to open fire on their targets. Of course, radical leftism is a murderous ideology, so no one should be surprised.

See Hot Air, "Quotes of the day."

Los Angeles Times Pushes 'Extremist' Moral Equivalence Attack on Pamela Geller in #Garland Jihad Shooting

A particularly odious comparison at today's Los Angeles Times front-page, claiming moral equivalence between Pamela Geller and the Islamic jihadists who attempted a Charlie Hebdo attack in Texas.

I tweeted the photo of the piece this morning, and here's the online article, "Texas attack refocuses attention on fine line between free speech and hate speech":

.@RSMcCain Front-page L.A. Times pushes "extremist" moral equivalence attack on @PamelaGeller. #Garland pic.twitter.com/kYA8YbKdg6

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) May 5, 2015

Pamela Geller is a 56-year-old Jewish arch-conservative from New York, a vehement critic of radical Islam who organized a provocative $10,000 cartoon contest in this placid Dallas suburb designed to caricature the prophet Muhammad.

Elton Simpson was a 30-year-old aspiring Islamic militant from Phoenix who fantasized to an FBI informant about “doing the martyrdom operations” in Somalia and was convicted in 2010 of lying to the FBI about his plans to travel to the volatile eastern African nation.

Their lives intersected Sunday in this small town in north-central Texas, an unlikely venue for a violent collision of cultures. After a Sunday evening shootout outside the contest site between police and Simpson and another man firing assault rifles, both gunmen lay dead in the street. And Geller quickly posted a defiant blog: “This is a war on free speech. ... Are we going to surrender to these monsters?”

The Texas showdown was America’s Charlie Hebdo moment, erupting just four months after gunmen shot and killed 12 people at the Paris offices of the satirical newspaper that had published cartoons of the prophet considered blasphemous by many Muslims. The Garland attack refocused public attention on the fine line between free speech and hate speech in the ideological struggle between radical Islam and the West.

The shooting unfolded just before 7 p.m. Sunday outside the Curtis Culwell Center, a public school building where about 200 people had just heard an impassioned anti-Islamic speech — “The less Islam, the better!” — by Geert Wilders, a right-wing Dutch politician. Wilders said the venue was significant: It was chosen as a defiant response to an American Muslim group that had held a “Stand With the Prophet Against Terror and Hate” conference in January in the same building.

Security had been intense, with officers from local police, SWAT teams, a bomb squad and school security, along with FBI and other federal agents waiting for trouble, and it came: The two men pulled up and opened fire but were quickly shot and killed by a Garland police officer firing his service handgun.

“He did what he was trained to do and did a very good job,” Garland police spokesman Joe Harn said. “He probably saved lives.”

Harn said of the gunmen, “Obviously, they were there to shoot people.” He said they wore some form of body armor, and police found ammunition — but no explosives — in their car.

In Phoenix on Monday, police searched Simpson’s home. A federal law enforcement source said Nadir Soofi, 34, identified as the second gunman, was Simpson’s roommate.

The cartoon contest was organized by Geller as a rallying point for cartoonists and conservatives united in their belief that verbal attacks on radical Islam are a form of free speech.

Geller has posted bus ads and billboards condemning Islam. In 2010, the same year the FBI was investigating Simpson’s vows to fight “kafirs,” or nonbelievers, Geller cofounded American Freedom Defense Initiative, also known as Stop Islamization of America. The organization, considered a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, hosted the Muhammad Art Exhibit and Cartoon contest, offering $10,000 for the best cartoon of the prophet.

“We know the risks,” Geller wrote in a blog promoting the event. “This event will require massive security.”

Police said the gunmen drove a sedan up to a police car blocking access to the conference, jumped out and opened fire with assault rifles. A school security guard was wounded in the leg...

Still more at that top link.

As Pamela always says, "truth is the new hate speech."

Actually, there's no such thing as hate speech. As the FIRE notes, "“Hate speech” is not a category of speech recognized under current constitutional law. It is merely a convenient way to pigeonhole speech that some people find offensive."

Yeah, well, Muslims and regressive leftists don't like being called out with the truth. Hence, as soon as shots rang out virtually the entire media establishment and the left's terror-enablers blamed Pamela for the attack. It's an enormous perversion of reality, but this is the nature of the war we're in. Obviously, the reporters at the Times are down with a sick moral equivalence that smears a freedom fighter who calls Islam for what it is --- a political ideology seeking to eliminate all opposition, using any means necessary, including murderous jihad. Ironically, our mass media overlords truly believe that genuninely speaking your mind, quoting the words of the jihadists themselves, and courageously standing up for your right to do it, is extremism. It is, according to the Times, exactly the same as launching an armed attack on peaceful citizens attending a political convention about drawing cartoons. It's so absurd it's to die for.

More at Memeorandum.

National Offend a Feminist Week

At the Other McCain, "Feminists Chase ‘Avengers’ Director Off Twitter, Because … Gender Theory?"

BONUS: Robert and I stood with Pamela Geller back in 2010, at the Los Angeles event to promote her book, The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America.

.@RSMcCain: Standing with @PamelaGeller. #GarlandAttack #FreeSpeech pic.twitter.com/cv4d88Y0wO

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) May 5, 2015

Free Speech or Islamofascist Suppression?

At IBD, "After Attack In Texas, Will It Be Free Speech or the Thugs' Veto?":

After a Muhammad cartoon event was attacked in Texas, the intelligentsia pointed the finger at the organizers. Let's get one thing straight: This event was not about guns, civility or Islam. It was about free speech.

Activist Pamela Geller is no stranger to saying things that horrify the politically correct. She protested the World Trade Center mosque and bought bus-sign ads describing what's really written in the Quran. Last weekend, she and writer Robert Spencer's American Freedom Defense Initiative organized a contest for the best Muhammad cartoon drawing with a $10,000 prize in Texas in response to the Islamofascist newsroom massacre of cartoonists in Paris at the French paper Charlie Hebdo earlier this year.

And to no one's surprise in a nation whose leaders consider rising Islamofascist terror groups "junior varsity" and where extremist depravities are viewed as "workplace violence" or dismissed as reactions to bad filmmaking rather than organized terror, a couple of Islamofacists from North Phoenix, Ariz., shot up the Garland, Texas, cartoon conference, wounding a security guard before an off-duty traffic cop took the pair down and saved the country from another massacre.

Since then, it's been Charlie Hebdo all over again, given the media's failure to understand that this is about the threat that radical Islam poses to free speech.

Incredibly, the left wasted no time blasting Geller and Spender, blaming them for the murderous behavior of the gunmen.

CNN's Alisyn Camerota attacked Geller as anti-Islamic, cherry-picking various news clips to make her case, despite Geller asserting that she wasn't.

"Civilized men can disagree," Geller told CNN. "Savages will kill you when they disagree."

Why she should be on the hot seat instead of the would-be attackers and their enablers is beyond us.

But the finger-pointing at Geller kept coming.

"Free speech aside, why would anyone do something as provocative as hosting a 'Muhammad drawing contest'?" tweeted New York Times' Rukmini Callimachi.

Free speech aside? From the newspaper of record?

Callimachi didn't seem to understand that the entire event — as Geller's participants repeatedly said in the pre-shooting film clips of the event posted on her blog — was explicitly about free speech, which is now under attack by Islamofascists and which can be demonstrated only by extreme means, such as cartoons.

And that's the heart of the matter. Agree with Geller or not, there can be no compromise on free speech. The attack on her event underscored the fragility of America's free speech, the basis for all of America's freedoms.

Also from Ms. EBL, "Blaming the Victims of Jihadi Terror: Leftist Media calling Pam Geller, AFDI, and Jihad Watch 'hate groups'."

#FreeSpeech Matters http://t.co/VuNE0Estco #garlandshooting #ISIS #texasattack #PamelaGeller @rsmccain @DanaTheBlaze pic.twitter.com/wBagWBGP37

— JeSuisEBL (@MsEBL) May 4, 2015

Hateful Leftists Try to Change the Subject to 'Islamophobia' After #Garland Jihad Attack

The attacks on Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer erupted immediately last night on Twitter, showing the radical left's true colors. One of these days jihadists will succeed with their own Charlie Hebdo-style attack on U.S. soil, and the left will demonize the victims for their alleged "hateful" ideas. The only hate involved is on the left, however. Depraved leftists hate anyone who challenges their ideological, politically correct shibboleths. If you speak out, you must be destroyed --- by any means necessary, it turns out.

From Jonathan Tobin, at Commentary, "After Garland, Don’t Change the Subject to Islamophobia":

Almost immediately after the news of last night’s shooting in Garland, Texas broke many in the chattering class started to blame the intended victims of the attack. The group that had sponsored a contest to draw pictures of the Prophet Muhammad and two of the controversial speakers at the event were quickly depicted as having invited violence by their willingness to offend Muslims. But whether or not you agree with Dutch politician Geert Wilders or American activist Pam Geller, the failed attempt to slaughter them or those who chose to hear their words illustrated one of their main contentions. You can offend any other religion with impunity but dare to speak rudely or even truthfully about Islamist intolerance and you’d better pay for heavy security and/or hope the police are doing their job (as, thank Heaven, they were in Texas). That, and not whether or not Wilders or Geller are right about some things or even anything, remains the only question to discuss when it comes to talk about Islamophobia.

Let’s specify that not all Muslims, especially here in the United States, are violent or intolerant. Most are hard working, decent people and deserve the same respect as any other American.

But there is a reason why humorists fear to skewer Islam or its holy book the same way they do Catholics or Mormons. You can mock Christian symbols, call it art and then expect cultural elites to lionize you and denounce those who are offended as fascists. You can stage an opera rationalizing Palestinian terrorism and the murder of Jews and be lionized as a courageous defender of artistic freedom and call those who denounce your bad taste Philistines. Write a play wittily trashing the Mormon faith and you can become immensely rich. None of those activities are particularly commendable but they are safe. But speak ill of Islam and you take your life into your hands.

Talk about Islamophobia in the United States is misleading since there is little or no evidence that the years that followed 9/11 or even now after the rise of ISIS that Muslims have suffered discrimination or violence. To the contrary, anti-Semitic attacks have always far outnumbered those despicable incidents in which Muslims were targeted. But the attempt to distract us from Muslim intolerance also misses the point.

You may say it is bad that some people are drawing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad specifically to offend Muslims who believe such drawings are forbidden. But the problem is that unlike other faiths that have learned to express outrage about those who show them disrespect without violence, a great many Muslims throughout the world still take it as a given that they are entitled to kill those who commit what they call blasphemy. The attacks on the Danish newspaper that first thought to publish Muhammad cartoons and then Charlie Hebdo illustrated this distorted principle...

Keep reading.

Police Audio: Shooting at Mohammed Cartoon Art Show in Garland, Texas

At Telegraph UK.

Plus, at Rebel Media, "Garland TX Mohammed Cartoon Contest Shooting: First report," and "Garland Texas Mohammed Cartoon Contest Shooting (Video 2)." Also, "Garland TX Mohammed Cartoon Contest Shooting (Video 3)."

Two Suspects Open Fire, Shot Dead at AFDI 'Draw Muhammad' Event in Garland, Texas

At Pamela Geller, "Multiple shootings, possible bomb at AFDI/Jihad Watch free speech event in Texas":

This is a war. This is war on free speech. What are we going to do? Are we going to surrender to these monsters?

Two men with rifles and backpacks attacked police outside our event. A cop was shot; his injuries are not life-threatening, thank Gd. Please keep him in your prayers.

The bomb squad has been called to the event site to investigate a backpack left at the event site.

Also at Jihad Watch, "Update – Multiple shootings, possible bomb at AFDI-Jihad Watch free speech event in Texas," and "“Allahu Akbar!!!!! 2 of our brothers just opened fire at the Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w) art exhibition in texas!”"

Also, "Cowardly Daily Mail blacks out Muhammad cartoons in story on shooting."

More, at the Dallas Morning News, "2 killed by police after opening fire outside Muhammad art event in Garland." (At Memeorandum.)

Now at the Other McCain, "TERROR IN TEXAS: Gunmen Attack @PamelaGeller Event in Garland UPDATED: ISIS Takes Credit? ‘May Allah Accept Us as Mujahideen’."

Pamela Geller Counters Attacks on AFDI Islamic Jew Hatred Bus Ads

At NBC News Philadelphia, via Blazing Cat Fur:

Pamela Geller in Garland, Texas

Pamela headlined a huge free speech really in the Lone Star State yesterday.

At Breitbart Texas, "PAMELA GELLER: MUSLIMS TRYING TO RESTRICT FREE SPEECH IN TEXAS."

Video of Pamela's speech, "Pamela Geller Free Speech Rally, Garland,Texas."

And at iOWNTHEWORLD REPORT, "Success In Garland, Texas":

Pamela’s site is not back and up and running. What you’re seeing online is not a 100% usable site. Pamela is most likely going to abandon it and come back bigger, better and stronger.

This move isn’t entirely due to the attack. She’s been working on a new site prior to the attack (I know this to be true because I’ve been doing some design work on it), so the timing is serendipitous.

Be sure to follow Pamela on Twitter.

Leftist haters gotta hate.