Visit Minnesota Republican Attorney General candidate Doug Wardlow's campaign website or read his twitter feed, and you'll discover there's no dearth of attacks on DFL Attorney General rontest opponent Keith Ellison.
Ellison is attacked for alleged extremism related to law enforcement, environmental regulation and immigration policy. One area where Ellison isn't criticized, however, is his Muslim faith.
But if you're unfortunate enough to receive a "Dear Fellow Republican" fundraising letter--one going on and on about how Wardlow perceives Ellison as "one of the most dangerous men in America"--there's plenty of heated rhetoric including the bold-face sentence in one letter, "As a Muslim, Ellison has hung around radical Islamic groups and defends known terrorists."
A post-script in the other letter reads:
P.S. Keith Eliison doesn't share the American values you and I do. He's in bed with in bed with radicals and terrorists, hangs out with racists and anti-Semites, hates President Trump, and wants to use the Attorney General's office to force far-left policies on us.
Keith Ellison is a very dangerous man and he must be kept far away from power.
I promise to adhere to the rule of law as Attorney General. But first I must defeat Keith Ellison. Please rush back a donation of at least $35 or $50 today. Thank you so much!
Bluestem suggests that he might adhere to the rule of law starting with his own fund-raising letters. Here's a screenshot of the letter's close:
Under Minnesota campaign finance rules, campaigns must include an address in the disclaimer required to be on most campaign materials. Here's the explanation in the handbook for candidates that's online at the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board:
Here are images of the letters and the front of one envelope, which carries a zipcode from Virginia:
Wardlow Fundraising Letters upload by Sally Jo Sorensen on Scribd
How these letters came to Bluestem Prairie
A reader contacted Bluestem about the presence of the letters, which were mailed to a voter in Anoka County who is a Muslim. The recipient, who worships at the MAS Blaine Community Center (BCC), brought them to MAS MN Executive DirectorAsad Zaman, concerned about the accusations in the letters that the Moslem Society of America is "an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, a radical Islamic group that for years worked to overthrow the government of Egypt and spread its message of hate and death throughout the world."
Aside:While this assertion is an article of faith in American anti-Muslim thought, MAS states in What is MAS’ relationship with the intellectual legacies of other Islamic movements, especially the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan)?:
MAS is an independent American organization that aims to move people to strive for God-consciousness, liberty and justice and to contribute to a virtuous and just American society. MAS has no affiliation with the Ikhwan al Muslimoon (Muslim Brotherhood or the Ikhwan) or with any other international organization. . . .
As for the Muslim Brotherhood itself, YMMV. A good recent explainer is found at the Brookings Institute's Is the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization?.
Zaman, readers may remember, was cited in the MPR story, Muslim voters say they want to participate, not 'infiltrate'
Warnings from GOP legislators that Muslim voters plan to "infiltrate" Republican caucuses appear to have galvanized Muslim efforts to get out and caucus. But Muslim leaders say the rhetoric has extended well beyond the content that the two Republican representatives have shared.
It started with a Facebook post that said a "Macalester professor from Bangladesh" led a recent caucus training at a mosque. Dave Sina, chairman of the 4th Congressional District GOP, wrote that the training "encourages them to infiltrate them all, Republican, Democratic as well as Green and independent." The post went on to say that "the easiest is the Republican, because they don't show up."
[Bluestem note: Kathy Lohmer didn't share the Sina post; rather, she shared an earlier post (January 26) put up by "Alley Waterbury" as we reported in Pro-Trump activist concerned about MN precinct caucus training has inspirational backstory.
We believe that the activist was part of the Wardlow campaign in February and March. As "Alison Heruth-Woodbury", the anti-Muslim and pro-Trump activist was paid $4990.67 in February and March by the Wardlow campaign. From the September 2018 report:
The MPR story continues:
Republican Reps. Cindy Pugh of Chanhassen and Kathy Lohmer of Stillwater shared the post. Since then, the Facebook page of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota has been flooded with comments. Executive Director Asad Zaman characterized the comments as hateful and in some cases inciting violence.
"They are the responsibility of those who promoted this in this negative way, including two elected officials," Zaman said. "These are designed to provoke fear, and they have done what they were designed to do. There are people who are afraid, and so they are posting hateful comments."
Zaman passed the Wardlow letters on to a reader, along with a story that Republican Muslims asked Wardlow campaign manager Billy Grant about the documents. We spoke with Zaman about the backstory, though none of his sources were willing to go on the record.
A call yesterday to Grant by Bluestem Prairie was not returned.
Perhaps the letters indicate an affirmative answer to MinnPost's Sam Brodey's question, Has fear of Muslims gone mainstream for Minnesota Republicans?
A final note: the rhetoric in the two letters closely resembles that used by the Action4Liberty's anti-Ellison tour that we examined yesterday in Is Radical Agenda of Keith Ellison Tour another cog in MN's anti-Muslim propaganda mill?
CAIR-MN and ISAIAH, with the support of a number of organizations, including our friends at Clean Up the River Environment in Montevideo, released Minnesota's Anti-Muslim Propaganda Mill yesterday.
UPDATE 10/19: Just about the time we were polishing this post, the DFL held a press conference was held about the fundraising letters. Bluestem Prairie was not informed about this press conference, although the PDF of the letters is the same file we received Tuesday evening.
Here are tweets of news coverage of that event:
Faith leaders denounce Wardlow mailers attacking Keith Ellison https://t.co/CpATC97xOu pic.twitter.com/DQEbSCg6To
— Star Tribune (@StarTribune) October 18, 2018
Wardlow campaign mailers draw fire https://t.co/Dut4ihMFZp pic.twitter.com/8Trbql5VTb
— KARE 11 (@kare11) October 19, 2018
In the KARE report, there's this fact checking:
The mailers correctly state that the Muslim American Society paid for Ellison's pilgrimage to Mecca, but then take a leap by falsely claiming that the Muslim American Society is "an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood."
Zaman said that's a claim based on a list circulated by the United Arab Emirates, a list that the US State Department has denounced as false.
"The Muslim American Society has church status with the IRS. We do food shelves. We do children’s faith formation classes. Children come and play soccer and basketball at our gyms," Zaman said.
"We do just about everything you would encounter in the normal church except we’re Muslims."
Screengrabs: From the letters, Facebook and Wardlow's September 2018 campaign finance report.
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