Richard Cordray, Ohio’s Democrat nominee for governor, attended a candidates’ forum Monday sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an organization that has been repeatedly tied to groups and people involved in terrorist-related activity.
The U.S. Justice Department named CAIR an unindicted co-conspirator in a high-profile 2008 terror-funding trial involving the Holy Land Foundation, a Texas-based Islamic charity that was closed down after it was found to be funneling money to Hamas.
In fact, CAIR has been dubbed by many national security hawks as the U.S. branch of Hamas, which is listed by the U.S. State Department as a designated foreign terrorist organization.
But Cordray is either ignorant of these nefarious ties or sees them as insignificant in his drive to attract the growing Muslim vote in Ohio.
The Columbus area is home to the nation’s second-largest community of Somali refugees, 99 percent of whom are Sunni Muslims who have been resettled from the perpetually civil war-torn Somali.
Cordray used his Twitter account Monday to thank the “good people at CAIR” while blasting his GOP opponent, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, for not attending the CAIR-sponsored forum at Ohio State University.
Thanks to all the good people at @CAIR_Columbus for their invitation to this great event! As in the spring, and so now again, @MikeDeWine’s absence was noticeable and disrespectful of Ohio’s diverse communities. https://t.co/NobWadkFd5
— Rich Cordray (@RichCordray) August 27, 2018
The “good people” at CAIR, meanwhile, have had a field day suing and threatening to sue private employers, police and government agencies throughout Ohio and the U.S.
Here are just a few examples of CAIR’s use of “lawfare,” or legal maneuvers to threaten, intimidate or overwhelm anyone who dares to disagree with its agenda.
- In 2013, CAIR’s Columbus chapter sued Excel Inc. on behalf of employee Yusuf Sufi, a Somali refugee who demanded time off of work for Friday afternoon prayer at his local mosque.
- In May 2016, CAIR-Ohio filed a federal discrimination lawsuit against Manpower staffing agency and Amway on behalf of a Muslim woman who failed to comply with the dress code.
- In April 2017 CAIR-Ohio reported it was representing more than 50 cases of Muslims who had been “wrongfully terminated,” for everything from refusing to comply with company dress codes to demanding special accommodations for religious-related claims.
Due to an “evolution” of the U.S. workforce fueled by mass immigration over the last couple of decades, the number of lawsuits filed by CAIR over demands for prayer breaks in the workplace has skyrocketed, especially in the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Colorado, according to an August 2017 article in Bloomberg News.
One labor attorney described an environment in which managers are walking on pins and needles for fear of being unable to meet the special accommodations demanded by their Muslim employees, many of who have CAIR on speed-dial.
Susan Gross Sholinsky, an attorney with Epstein Becker Green, told Bloomberg that “an employer should not discount the actual discussion with the employee requesting the accommodation.”
Sholinsky “suggested opening a conversation with employees to talk about anything from the reasons why they are unable to make the accommodation to alternate solutions.
“Communication is key,” Sholinksy added. “Never shut down (or take actions that appear to be shutting down) the discussion. Rather, be flexible, and endeavor to reach a solution that can work for both parties.”
Besides the legal intimidation tactics used by CAIR, there is the issue of terrorism.
Here is what the U.S. Department of Justice had to say about CAIR:
“Moreover, since its founding by Muslim Brotherhood leaders, CAIR conspired with other affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood to support terrorists.” [No. 07-4778, USA v. Benkahla, Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, p. 58]
CAIR officials have repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups. Several former CAIR officials have been charged/and or convicted of terrorism-related crimes.
Monday’s CAIR-sponsored candidates’ forum was the second such forum Cordray has attended in the last six months. DeWine has refused CAIR’s invitation to participate in both events.
Given the fact that Cordray is a veteran lawyer, he cannot claim ignorance of the terrorism cases involving CAIR officials, nor could he possibly be unaware of the fact that CAIR operatives defend Islamic terrorists at every turn, have instructed American Muslims not to cooperate with law enforcement in terrorism cases, and have a record of spewing anti-Jewish/anti-Israel hate speech, said Robert Spencer, director of the Jihad Watch project for the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
“DeWine should be the one blasting Cordray,” Spencer told The Ohio Star. “CAIR has been demonstrated by the Justice Department to have links to Hamas. Hamas is a jihad terror group. Cordray ought to be ashamed of himself, but this shows how far to the America-hating Left the Democrat base has strayed.”
