Yet Another Aspiring Apparatchik Exploits Norway's 9/11

Axel Fjeld

I just read a great article at PJ Media (formerly Pajamas Media) rebutting a European Leftist crying Islamophobe. Bruce Bawer speculates Axel Fjeld is trying to use his academic prowess to make his bones to get a job working in some form of lucrative European Leftist media.

Unfortunately for Fjeld, Bawer shows the racist-Islamophobe accusations against Counterjihad writers is based on barefaced lies.

JRH 7/29/18

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Yet Another Aspiring Apparatchik Exploits Norway's 9/11

By BRUCE BAWER

JULY 25, 2018

PJ Media

The ring-shaped sculpture made of steel which carries the engraved names of the victims of the Utoya massacre on the island of Utoya, Norway, on August 5, 2015. (Sigrid Harms/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images)

This year I was not going to write about 7/22, often known as Norway's 9/11. It is the date in 2011 on which Anders Behring Breivik bombed government buildings in Oslo, killing eight people, and then gunned down sixty-nine more, mostly kids, on the nearby island of Utøya. Famously, Breivik wrote – or rather cobbled together – a massive “manifesto” consisting mainly of material from various sources that he had cut and pasted. Most of it was critical of Islam, and it was apparently meant as a justification for his actions. But none of the people whose work he borrowed had ever called for violence, let alone violence against children.

Nevertheless, after 7/22, the Norwegian left was quick to insist on a linkage between Breivik and serious critics of Islam, and to argue, moreover, that those critics needed to be silenced in order to avoid any more such atrocities. For a while there things got pretty dicey, with prominent academics, authors, and politicians demanding strict limits on freedom of speech and stiff prison penalties for anyone violating those limits. In one op-ed after another, I saw my name, and that of other writers, dragged through the mud. I ended up writing an e-book about it, The New Quislings.

Eventually it all died down. But every now and then the whole ugly business flares up again, especially when an anniversary of 7/22 rolls around. Ambitious young ideologues who are eager to kick off a career in politics, writing, media, or the public sector have discovered that a splendid way to do so is to join the pile-on. It's easy enough to pull off: the point is not to soberly challenge the arguments made by critics of Islam, or to say any[t]hing [sic] remotely original, but to name-call – to smear them as Islamophobes, racists, and “Eurabia conspiracy theorists.” (I'll explain that last one in a minute.)

Meet Axel Fjeld. On July 25, the newspaper Bergensavisen published a long essay by the thirty-year-old, who is studying for his master's degree in philosophy. The essay was entitled “Is it possible to stop racism?” Its targets were the usual ones. For example, Hans Rustad, editor of document.no, which runs Islam-related news and commentary. Describing document.no as “Breivik's old hunting grounds” (because he, like thousands of others, used to read it), Fjeld deplores the fact that Rustad has been invited to take part in debates in mainstream media. Similarly, he complains that Fritt Ord, a free-speech foundation, awarded a stipend to the Islam critic Peder Are Nøstvold Jensen, a.k.a. Fjordman, whom Fjeld smears as a “genocide ideologist.” In the same way, recycling a years-old leftist gripe, Fjeld rebukes a certain former Aftenposten editor for having actually had a kind word to say about my 2006 book While Europe Slept.

Fjeld would have his readers believe that Rustad, Jensen, and I are all racists. He doesn't make any effort to prove that we are. In fact we are not. I am not a racist, and I have never read a remotely racist word either at document.no or in Jensen's voluminous writings. Fjeld, then, is barefaced liar. But this is how all of these people operate. We have the facts on our side. They have no good arguments for their position. So all they can do is hurl slurs. Moreover, even as they avoid representing our opinions fairly and honestly, they pretend that we have nothing reasonable to offer, and that they, in fact, are the reasonable ones. And why should reasonable people have to “debate” unreasonable people? As Fjeld puts it: “When we are tempted to debate rationally against opinions that are not based on reason, we cannot achieve anything other than to legitimize the irrational as something that is worth discussing.”

Fjeld pronounces it “unbelievable” that the likes of Rustad, Jensen, and me should be given air time or op-ed space in the mainstream Norwegian media. After all, those same media would never “waste time 'debating' people who think that the world is flat.” So why, he asks, should they welcome the voices of people who claim “that 'Muslims are invading Europe,' 'it's only Muslims who rape,' or 'dark-skinned people are on average less intelligent than light-skinned people'”? Frankly, I've never seen anybody in Norway make the ridiculous assertion that only Muslims commit rape; nor have I witnessed a Norwegian discussion of race and I.Q. (although I'm not discounting the possibility that this thoroughly legitimate question has come up at some point).

As for Muslims “invading Europe” – well, for heaven's sake, Muslims are pouring into the continent, and the consequences are grim. Deny the obvious reality all you want, but no-go zones, forced marriages, honor killings, female genital mutilation, and “grooming gangs” exist. Muslim gangs commit rapes and burn cars. Muslim women experience the same oppression in Europe that they did in the Old Country. Muslim immigrants are bankrupting welfare states, resulting in severe cuts to education, elder services, and health care. Islamic terrorism is not a fantasy. European presidents and prime ministers may continue to mouth trite nonsense about the joys of diversity, but their intelligence services are busy monitoring countless terrorist cells and working overtime to keep down the number of jihadist atrocities. Try as hard as you want to connect Breivik to Islam critics, but the fact remains that none of those critics have ever endorsed violence, while Islamic terrorists are doing exactly what the Koran tells them to.

For the likes of Fjeld, to discuss any of this honestly is to be a racist, and should be against the law. He explicitly rejects the notion of “the liberal marketplace of ideas” – the belief that it's healthy to allow the expression of all views, because in the end the strongest argument will win. His own position is that exposing people to what he labels “hate” will only make them less resistant to it. Translation: to allow cogent dissent from the dominant red-green orthodoxy is to risk toppling that orthodoxy. It's Soviet thinking, pure and simple.

Oh, about that “Eurabia conspiracy theorist” business. I don't know how many people have written books criticizing the rise of Islam in the West, but there are quite a few of us from a range of backgrounds. I assume that most, like me, started writing about the topic because they were observing changes that they found unsettling. If so many writers with such diverse histories are disturbed by the same phenomena, surely that must mean that there is, indeed, something going on out there that merits concern? Years ago, Norwegian leftists came up with a handy way to dodge this question, maintaining that we Islam critics, far from being individuals articulating our own ideas, are, instead, lockstep adherents of a conspiracy theory cooked up by Bat Ye'or, author of the 2005 book Eurabia. Never mind that many of us (myself included) started writing about Islam before we'd even heard of Bat Ye'or; if you read about us in the Norwegian papers – and this includes Fjeld's article – you will see us identified as “Eurabia writers,” lockstep adherents of the “Eurabia conspiracy theory,” the essence of which is that there is, indeed, such a thing as jihad.

Fjeld's article, in short, is a load of bunk – and an unoriginal load of bunk, at that. In The New Quislings I examined a series of articles by different writers all of whom seemed to be working from exactly the same list of talking points. That doesn't mean that Fjeld has wasted his time. On the contrary, he's put his name on the map. He's made it clear to the powers that be that he's a good soldier. He's got the party line down cold, and is willing to spit it out, every bit of it, shamelessly dishonest though it is. As long as he keeps this up, Fjeld, with a little bit of luck, will go straight from grad school into a nice, cushy job at NRK (the state-run TV network), or as a columnist for one of the taxpayer-subsidized mainstream newspapers, or as a writer-researcher at some government ministry, or as an administrator at some tony cultural institution. That's how the careers of his equally cynical predecessors have gone, anyway, once they've taken the obligatory high-profile swipe at critics of Islam: they all end up being well-paid apparatchiks. It will be interesting to see exactly which path Fjeld takes.

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John Bolton’s Appointment Rattles The Muslim Brotherhood Echo Chamber

Act for America emailed an excerpt of an article from The Federalist with the email subject line “The Muslim Brotherhood is Rattled”. The Federalist article by Ben Weingarten highlights that John Bolton’s appointment as National Security Advisor has rattled the transnational Islamic terrorist organization the Muslim Brotherhood (aka Ikhwan to many Arab speaking people) because Bolton has had the correct assessment that the terrorist network indeed should be on the State Department’s designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO).

Here is the Act for America email intro:

The left has made it their mission to smear anyone who opposes violent jihad, and cast them as "Islamophobic." Recently, former ambassador John Bolton has been the target of such attacks because of his appointment as National Security Advisor (NSA) to the President. This is not only an attempt to discredit John Bolton, it is an attempt to protect the Muslim Brotherhood from finally being designated a terrorist organization.

As patriotic American's we must stand up and not only support the appointment of Ambassador John Bolton, but also tell Congress it is time, once and for all, to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. Click here to tell your local Members of Congress enough is enough.

JRH 4/6/18

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John Bolton

John Bolton’s Appointment Rattles The Muslim Brotherhood Echo Chamber

The Trump administration ought not to concede one inch to those who wish to sideline the personnel and stifle the policies that would make its counterjihadist agenda a reality.

By Ben Weingarten

APRIL 5, 2018

The Federalist

The attacks on former ambassador John Bolton following his appointment as National Security Advisor (NSA) have inadvertently served as some of his strongest endorsements.

First there were the hysterical cries of “neocon warmonger!” This would come as news to the NSA-designate, who was never a “liberal mugged by reality” but a self-identified “Goldwater conservative” from the start; explicitly rejects the belief in democracy-building as imperative to achieving America’s national interest under democratic peace theory; and suggests, exaggerating for effect, that following the removal of Saddam Hussein, as soon as practicable he would have told the Iraqis, “You’re on your own. Here’s a copy of the Federalist papers. Good luck.”

Although the “neocon warmonger” moniker is inapt, to say the least, maybe it is not such a bad thing if our enemies buy this line. In fact, this may be part of President Trump’s strategic rationale as a dealmaker for elevating a “peace-through-strength” realist portrayed as a cantankerous cowboy to the top of the National Security Council.

Then followed another narrative: Bolton is not only a real-life Dr. Strangelove, but worse. He is actually an adroit bureaucrat—“crazy and dangerous.” Then-senator Joe Biden, a man prone to malapropism, actually put it best when, in Bolton’s retelling, Biden said of him in 2005: “My problem with you, over the years, has been, you’re too competent. I mean, I would rather you be stupid and not very effective.”

But the truly revelatory attacks concern Bolton’s positions on Islamic supremacism, which reflect an understanding that jihadists pose a mortal threat that must be countered using every element of national power. You know these attacks are meaningful partly because they have been made under cover of a smear campaign.

Opposing Jihadis Isn’t the Same as Opposing Islam

Bolton has been cast as an “Islamophobe” for the thought crime of being a counterjihadist who supports other counterjihadists. The charge of “Islamophobe” is a baseless, intellectually dishonest, and lazy slur. Although it does not deserve to be dignified with a response, it goes without saying that there is nothing to indicate Bolton harbors an irrational fear of Islam, and everything to indicate he holds the very rational belief that we must defeat Islamic supremacists who wish to subject us to their tyrannical rule or destroy us.

“Islamophobe” is being lobbed at Bolton to try and discredit him and ultimately scuttle policies he supports intended to strike at the heart of Islamic supremacism. The “tell” is that the articles raising such accusations frequently cast counterjihadist policy positions themselves as de facto evidence of Islamophobic bigotry.

As the representative par excellence of the position that America should exit the Iran deal, it should come as no surprise that the Iran deal echo chamber in exile has sprung into action in savaging the ambassador with the most outlandish of insinuations. For the Islamophobia campaign, the lesser-recognized and perhaps more insidious Muslim Brotherhood echo chamber has been activated. Bolton is on record as supporting its designation as a terrorist organization, and Brotherhood apologists and true believers cannot abide this.

Either We Work With Terrorists or We Don’t

Recall that the national security and foreign policy establishment has long held that as a “political Islamist” group, the Muslim Brotherhood ought to be treated as a legitimate diplomatic partner. The theory is that we have to choose between violent and seemingly peaceful Islamic supremacists, ignoring the fact that their differences are tactical and strategic, not ideological. They are all still Islamic supremacists.

Most infamously, the Obama administration supported the ascension of Mohamed Morsi, leader of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, to president during the Arab spring, with predictably horrific consequences in particular for the nation’s Christians that persist even in the era of the much-maligned counterjihadist Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

Such disastrously naïve policy pushes ignore that the Muslim Brotherhood is the tip of the Sunni jihadist spear. It’s the ideological fountainhead from which violent jihadist groups from Hamas to al-Qaeda and ISIS spring. The “political” element of the Muslim Brotherhood is, if anything, more pernicious precisely because its adherents do not goose-step, guns in hand, in the public square.

No, the political arm engages in political and ideological warfare, tactfully seeking to impose its will through policy and subterfuge. “Social welfare” activities provide a convenient cover for the group’s ultimate aims. As the Brotherhood put it in its 1991 Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America:

The Ikhwan [Muslim Brothers] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.

On account of the Brotherhood’s nature and activities, it has been designated as a terrorist organization from Egypt to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. A bill first introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz in 2015, calling for the U.S. secretary of state to submit a report to Congress on designating the Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization in America, lays out several other reasons the group merits this, including:

The [group’s] explicit calls for violent jihad, with the end goal of imposing Islamic law over all the world of the group’s founder and spiritual leader Hassan al-Banna, and the consistently violent Islamic supremacist content of the Brotherhood’s core membership texts

The terrorist efforts of numerous jihadist groups explicitly tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, and the efforts of individual Muslim Brotherhood members designated as terrorists by the U.S. government themselves

The litany of terrorist financing cases involving the Muslim Brotherhood, including the…Holy Land Foundation case [the largest terror financing case in U.S. history] …

Do What We Like or Get Smeared as a Bigot

On the campaign trail and in its early days the Trump administration indicated an interest in designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. But within months it shelved these plans. What happened? The Muslim Brotherhood echo chamber deployed.

The Brotherhood undertook an extensive lobbying and information operation designed to dissuade the administration’s plans, reportedly backed by millions of dollars. The U.S. foreign policy establishment quickly proliferated articles and comments in prominent mainstream publications defending the Muslim Brotherhood against charges of being a jihadist group, adding that designated it as such would be impractical and impracticable. Notably, The New York Times went so far as to print an op-ed in the Brotherhood’s defense written by Clinton Foundation-linked Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood spokesman Gehad el-Haddad.

In the midst of this flurry of articles, it leaked to the media that the CIA and State Department both produced memos against Muslim Brotherhood terrorist designation.

Concurrently, counterjihadists throughout the Trump administration were subjected to a barrage of attacks. Many would ultimately be sidelined, though some like Secretary of State-designate Mike Pompeo survived. He, like Bolton, is being attacked as an Islamophobic bigot as well.

Bolton recognized at the time that these events were not random. During a July 2017 interview he noted:

There’s been an amazing campaign. It’s always amazing to me how these stories and op-eds and lines of chatter appear simultaneously, all very well-coordinated…The argument being the Muslim Brotherhood is a complicated organization, not every part of it is devoted to the support of terrorism. Some of them do humanitarian work and so on; a declaration that the entire Brotherhood is a foreign terrorist organization would actually buttress the cause of the jihadis; so, therefore, don’t do anything.

Bolton’s riposte?

Let’s take the notion inherent in that argument as having some validity, that there are pieces of the Muslim Brotherhood that don’t qualify under the statutory definition we have of a foreign terrorist organization…My response to that is, ‘Okay, we need some careful drafting based on the evidence we have now that excludes some affiliates, some components of the Muslim Brotherhood from the designation.’ I’m prepared to live with that, of course, until we get more complete information.

This position is what really draws the ire of the Brotherhood echo chamber. CAIR, the unindicted co-conspirator in the previously mentioned largest terror financing case in U.S. history, published a press release condemning the appointment of “Islamophobe John Bolton” as NSA, citing corroborating articles from such non-biased sources as Think Progress, The Nation, Islamophobia.com, Vox, and Huffington Post.

As I have written previously, CAIR’s Muslim Brotherhood and jihadi ties are numerous and longstanding, involving not only its founders and present leaders to Hamas, but its harboring of apologists for Islamic terrorism, and alleged impeding of counterterrorism efforts.

Bolton’s endorsement of designating the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization illustrates a keen understanding of the size, scope, and nature of the Islamic supremacist threat that the national security and foreign policy establishment lacks. It is a proxy for a worldview that if followed to its logical conclusion would turn our largely futile efforts to beat back jihadists over the last 17 years on their head. This view takes Islamic supremacists at their word in their desire to impose upon us the Sharia-based, totalitarian theopolitical ideology to which they adhere. Hence the pushback.

Applying this worldview would lead to decisions antithetical to the progressive Wilsonian internationalists and political Islamists on myriad issues in the Middle East, including:

·        Treatment of Israel versus the Arabs

·        The Iran deal

·        Iran policy more broadly, including appropriate measures against its proxies in Syria and Lebanon

·        Qatar’s bellicosity

·        Turkey’s behavior under Islamic supremacist Erdogan

The Trump administration ought not to concede one inch to those who self-evidently wish to sideline the personnel and stifle the policies that would make its counterjihadist agenda a reality. This specious and slanderous smear campaign reflects all the better on the appointment of Bolton as NSA.

Photo Gage Skidmore / Flickr

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Ben Weingarten is a senior contributor at The Federalist and senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research. He is the founder and CEO of ChangeUp Media, a media consulting and production company dedicated to advancing conservative principles. You can find his work at benweingarten.com, and follow him on Twitter @bhweingarten.

Copyright © 2018 The Federalist, a wholly independent division of FDRLST Media, All Rights Reserved.

HUGE Free Speech Victory for SIOA

You do realize Left Wing Multiculturalist thinking has hampered Counterjihad writers and/or organizations to utilize proper legal protections for their brand, right? Well, that might actually be ending soon.

Simon Shiao Tam won his appellate case that will force the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to register trademarks for organizations that may have a name that a race or group of people may find offensive. In Mr. Tam’s case it was to register the trademark “Slant” as representative of his Asian-American dance rock band. A whole slew of Conservative civil rights organizations joined Mr. Tam’s suit because the outcome affected many others denied a trademark by the USPTO under a Federal Law prohibiting trademarked names to include disparaging words as defined by the government.

One of those beneficiaries of the suit won by Tam was Pamela Geller who was a bit miffed when the USPTO rejected the SIOA and AFDI registered trademark names fighting the civil rights abuses that Islam’s Sharia Law does to Western Rights and the American Constitution in particular. Below is Geller’s victory dance post celebrating the Tam decision in a Federal Circuit Court.

JRH 12/24/15 (Hat Tip: Marlene of Out Spoken Patriots Google + Group)

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HUGE Free Speech Victory for SIOA: Federal Circuit Court Reverses 70-Year “Unconstitutional”

By Pamela Geller

December 22, 2015

PamelaGeller.com – Atlas Shrugs

Longtime Atlas readers are quite familiar with our First Amendment trademark case. We have been fighting to trademark SIOA (Stop Islamization of America) but were repeatedly refused because it considered “disparaging” to Muslims. It was, in effect, an application of sharia law (‘do not criticize Islam.’)

Today we had a big victory against this fascist-style ban. The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals just reversed 70 years of holdings that said there is no First Amendment protection in trademark cases. In reversing, it held as unconstitutional the “disparaging” prohibition, citing SIOA first and frequently.

What a wonderful Christmas miracle :)

The government cannot refuse to register disparaging marks because it disapproves of the expressive messages conveyed by the marks. It cannot refuse to register marks because it concludes that such marks will be disparaging to others. The government regulation at issue amounts to viewpoint discrimination, and under the strict scrutiny review appropriate for government regulation of message or viewpoint, we conclude that the disparagement pro- scription of § 2(a) is unconstitutional.

The USPTO had rejected AFDI’s trademark application [bad link] based on the following analysis:

 “Islamisation” means converting to Islam or “to make Islamic;” and (2), “Stop” would be understood to mean that “action must be taken to cease, or put an end to, converting or making people in America conform to Islam.” Thus, the trademark, according to the “Office Action” ruling, disparaged Muslims and linked them to terrorism. (AFLC) 

 The court concludes that “Stop the Islamization of America” mark, as used by its promoters, is likely to be understood as “disparaging to a substantial composite” of Muslims, whether “Islamization” refers to conversion to Islam or to “a political movement to replace man-made laws with the religious laws of Islam.”

Now that Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has held as “unconstitutional” the disparaging prohibition we are going to move forward with getting our trademark.

government enacted this law—and defends it today— because it disapproves of the messages conveyed by disparaging marks. It is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment that the government may not penalize private speech merely because it disapproves of the message it conveys. That principle governs even when the government’s message-discriminatory penalty is less than a prohibition. 

 Courts have been slow to appreciate the expressive power of trademarks. Words—even a single word—can be powerful. Mr. Simon Shiao Tam named his band THE SLANTS to make a statement about racial and cultural issues in this country. With his band name, Mr. Tam conveys more about our society than many volumes of undisputedly protected speech. Another rejected mark, STOP THE ISLAMISATION OF AMERICA, proclaims that Islamisation is undesirable and should be stopped. Many of the marks rejected as disparaging convey hurtful speech that harms members of oft-stigmatized communi- ties. But the First Amendment protects even hurtful speech. 

 The government cannot refuse to register disparaging marks because it disapproves of the expressive messages conveyed by the marks. It cannot refuse to register marks because it concludes that such marks will be disparaging to others. The government regulation at issue amounts to viewpoint discrimination, and under the strict scrutiny review appropriate for government regulation of message or viewpoint, we conclude that the disparagement pro- scription of § 2(a) is unconstitutional. Because the gov- ernment has offered no legitimate interests justifying § 2(a), we conclude that it would also be unconstitutional under the intermediate scrutiny traditionally applied to regulation of the commercial aspects of speech. 

 This is a big case – and it won’t only affect us but the Washington Redskins, the rock band 

 Here are some of the salient pssages in the finding: 

 Importantly, every time the PTO refuses to register a mark under § 2(a), it does so because it believes the mark conveys an expressive message—a message that is dis- paraging to certain groups. STOP THE ISLAMISATION OF AMERICA is expressive. In refusing to register the mark, the Board explained that the “mark’s admonition to ‘STOP’ Islamisation in America ‘sets a negative tone and signals that Islamization is undesirable and is something that must be brought to an end in America.’” Geller, 751 F.3d at 1361. 

 We limit our holding in this case to the constitu- tionality of the § 2(a) disparagement provision. Recogniz- ing, however, that other portions of § 2 may likewise constitute government regulation of expression based on message, such as the exclusions of immoral or scandalous marks, we leave to future panels the consideration of the § 2 provisions other than the disparagement provision at issue here. To be clear, we overrule In re McGinley, 660 F.2d 481 (C.C.P.A. 1981), and other precedent insofar as they could be argued to prevent a future panel from considering the constitutionality of other portions of § 2 in light of the present decision.

A disparaging mark is a mark which “dishonors by comparison with what is inferior, slights, deprecates, degrades, or affects or injures by unjust comparison.” Geller, 751 F.3d at 1358 (alterations omitted). To deter- mine if a mark is disparaging under § 2(a), a trademark examiner of the PTO considers:

Trademark Manual of Exam. Proc. (“TMEP”) § 1203.03(b)(i) (Jan. 2015 ed.) (citing Geller, 751 F.3d at 1358). If the examiner “make[s] a prima facie showing that a substantial composite, although not necessarily a majority, of the referenced group would find the proposed mark, as used on or in connection with the relevant goods or services, to be disparaging in the context of contempo- rary attitudes,” the burden shifts to the applicant for rebuttal. Id. If the applicant fails to rebut the prima facie case of disparagement, the examiner refuses to register the mark. The Trademark Manual of Examining Procedure does not require an examiner who finds a mark disparaging to consult her supervisor or take any further steps to ensure the provision is applied fairly and consist- ently across the agency. Compare TMEP § 1203.03 (no discussion of action to take if examiner finds mark dis- paraging), with TMEP § 1203.01 (requiring examiner who finds a mark scandalous or immoral to consult his super- visor). A single examiner, with no input from her super- visor, can reject a mark as disparaging by determining that it would be disparaging to a substantial composite of the referenced group. 

 Second, the disparagement provision at issue is view- point discriminatory on its face. The PTO rejects marks under § 2(a) when it finds the marks refer to a group in a negative way, but it permits the registration of marks that refer to a group in a positive, non-disparaging man- ner. In this case the PTO refused to register Mr. Tam’s mark because it found the mark “disparaging” and “objec- tionable” to people of Asian descent. Tam, 2013 WL 5498164, at *6. But the PTO has registered marks that refer positively to people of Asian descent. See, e.g., CELEBRASIANS, ASIAN EFFICIENCY. Similarly, the PTO has prohibited the registration of marks that it found disparaged other groups. See, e.g., Pro-Football, 2015 WL 4096277 (affirming cancellation of REDSKINS); Geller, 751 F.3d 1355 (affirming rejection of STOP THE ISLAMISATION OF AMERICA); Lebanese Arak Corp., 94 U.S.P.Q.2d 1215 (refusing to register KHORAN for wine); Heeb Media, 89 U.S.P.Q.2d 1071 (refusing to register HEEB); Squaw Valley Dev. Co., 80 U.S.P.Q.2d 1264 (refusing to register SQUAW VALLEY for one class of goods, but registering it for another). Yet the government registers marks that refer to particular ethnic groups or religions in positive or neutral ways—for example, 

 NAACP, THINK ISLAM, NEW MUSLIM COOL, MORMON SAVINGS, JEWISHSTAR, and PROUD 2 B CATHOLIC. 

 Federal Circuit Court of Appeals on First Amendment Protection on Trademarks by Pamela Geller

[Blog Editor: The above link is to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals decision entitled, “Federal Circuit en banc opinion In re Simon Shao Tam rejecting 2(a) trademark disparagement”. Below is the embed from Scribd of that decision.]

In re Tam Fed Circuit en Banc Opinion by Jennifer Elgin

UPDATE: Here’s our law firm’s take:

Federal Circuit Court of Appeals Finds First Amendment Applies to Trademarks and Rules that “Disparaging” Cannot Be Used to Deny Expressive Trademarks Like “Stop Islamisation of America”

As a kind of Christmas present to liberty and the U.S. Constitution, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting en banc (the entire court), today reversed more than 30-years of jurisprudence by holding that trademark registration under the Lanham Act deserves First Amendment protection.  The import of this holding is that trademarks may no longer be rejected by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) just because the USPTO believes the mark to be disparaging.

In the case In re Tam, the federal court, which specializes in patent and trademark cases, found that the USPTO’s rejection of the musical group name “The Slants” because it disparaged Asians was unconstitutional because there was no “compelling state interest” to censure the viewpoint of the trademark owner.  As a result, Simon Tam will now be able to register his band name as a federal trademark, thus allowing him to protect the name and products and services sold using that name against encroachers and counterfeiters.

What made this decision possible was the recent litigation waged by the American Freedom Law Center (“AFLC”) on behalf of Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer to register their trademark, “Stop the Islamisation of America” (“SIOA”).  Like the Slants trademark, the USPTO rejected the SIOA trademark on the ground that it disparaged Muslims and even Islamists by suggesting they should be “stopped.”  AFLC argued the case before a three-judge panel of the Federal Circuit Court, which upheld the USPTO ruling of disparagement.

However, on the heels of the SIOA decision, by the time the Slants case found its way to the important Federal Circuit Court, the appellate judges were apparently ready to reverse their prior rulings which rejected any First Amendment arguments.  Indeed, the court’s opinion starts off referencing the USPTO’s rejection of the SIOA trademark as a rejection aimed improperly at censuring important expressive speech.  The court went on to reference SIOA, and the underlying case of In re Geller, no less than seven times.

David Yerushalmi, AFLC co-founder and Senior Counsel, noted:

“This demonstrates an important adage about good lawfare and good lawyering.  Even when you lose initially you may still ultimately prevail because good, hard-fought lawfare has a way of exposing bad law and bad judgments.  This is one of those rare instances where a federal court has emphatically and quite properly reversed itself.  You can be certain that our clients will now proudly seek federal trademark registration.”

Robert Muise, AFLC co-founder and Senior Counsel, added:

“At the end of the day, this was a complete victory for the First Amendment and an absolute defeat for political correctness.  Our SIOA trademark case paved the way for this important decision, reaffirming that hard work, determination, and some good lawyering can create a favorable sea change in the law.”

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Pamela Geller Biography

Pamela Geller is the founder, editor and publisher of Atlas Shrugs.com and President of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) and Stop Islamization of America (SIOA). She is the author of The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America, with Robert Spencer (foreword by Ambassador John Bolton) (Simon & Schuster) and Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance (WND Books). She is also a regular columnist for World Net Daily, the American Thinker, Breitbart.com and other publications.

Geller’s activism on behalf of human rights has won international notice. She is a foremost defender of the freedom of speech against attempts to force the West to accept Sharia blasphemy laws, and against Sharia self-censorship by Western media outlets. Her First Amendment lawsuits filed nationwide have rolled back attempts to limit Americans’ free speech rights and limit speech to only one political perspective, and exposed attempts to make an end-run around the First Amendment by illegitimately restricting access to public fora. Her free speech event in Garland, Texas led to the capture or killing of several murderous jihadists, smoking out terror cells, leading to an increase in the threat level to BRAVO and to the consequent arrests of jihadists in several states.

Geller has also led awareness campaigns in … READ THE REST

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Exposing Islam Not Appreciated by MSM

John R. Houk

© April 11, 2015

A Houston TX area High School teacher compiled an eight page handout for class entitled: “Economics/Government: Islam/Radical Islam (Did You Know)” Evidently the Foster High School teacher teaches in a School District in which a number of Multiculturalist Liberals and Muslims reside. Local news stations in the area ran pieces on the handout and the news was quite vindictive that a teacher would dare to go off the School District curriculum to teach the truth about the dark side of Islam. The Foster High School Principal even is quoted by the local news stations that the proper disciplinarian punishment will be executed against this rebel teacher.

One thing that is glaringly noticeable is the School District does not release the school teacher’s name. The news programs that caught this story also did not release the teacher’s name. BUT after much Google searching I discovered the area newspaper, the Houston Chronicle, has released the teacher’s name (One has to be a subscriber to read article now but here’s the cache version). This is not surprising. Even the School District did not release the name, all that any local news reporter had to do was interview the students or parents at Foster High School to discover this tidbit of information.

In my book this teacher is a hero for telling the truth. There are good reasons to bury the teacher’s name which has more to do than just privacy concerns. The proliferation of Islamic purity among Muslims have led to the persecution of truth-tellers about the dark side of Islam in Western nations:

Undoubtedly Incomplete List

TheWire.com List Compiled 3/1/13 
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Geert Wilders: Founder of the Dutch "Party for Freedom"; has been quoted as saying "I don't hate Muslims, I hate Islam."

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Somali-born Dutch activist and politician; has written that "We are at war with Islam," not just "radical Islam" and it must be defeated; married to British historian Niall Ferguson (though that's probably not related)

Morris Sadek: Egyptian-American Coptic Christian; he spread the anti-Islam video "Innocence of Muslims" that sparked violent protests in several Muslim countries.

Carsten Juste & Flemming Rose: Editor-in-chief and cultural editors at Jyllands-Posten when the paper chose to publish cartoons mocking Mohammed.

Kurt Westergaard: Cartoonist who contributed to the Jyllands-Posten controversy; his turban-as-bomb drawing became the most famous of the cartoons.

Lars Vilks: Dutch cartoonist who published his own Mohammed drawings more than a year after the Jyllands-Posten incident.

Molly Norris: American cartoonist who proposed "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" as a protest against both censorship and the idea that images of Mohtammed (sic) should be forbidden.

Stephane Charbonnier: Editor of Charlie Hedbo (sic), a French satirical magazine that has published several mocking images of Mohammed on its cover (and got its office firebombed as a result.)

Terry Jones: Florida preacher who has burned Korans in protest of Islam.

Salman Rushdie: The Satanic Verses, etc.

Editor’s Compiled List
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Theo Van Gogh: 11/2/04 Theo van Gogh -1957 to 2004. … Dutch filmmaker and journalist Theo van Gogh was slashed in the neck and shot to death in a terrorist attack by a militant Islamist in Amsterdam this morning. … Van Gogh had received death threats after making a film about spousal abuse in Islam and was supposed to be under police protection. … Theo Van Gogh also wrote a book on Islam called "Allah Weet Het Beter","Allah Knows Best," detailing the Islamisation of Europe. The book is being translated into english. Van Gogh's articles on militant Islam and Muslims warned of the mortal danger of tolerating Islamo facism (sic) in the West under a misguided policy of political correctness. (MilitantIslamMonitor.org)

Wafa Sultan: Shockingly, on U.S. soil, a citizen of this country has had to go into hiding due to threats from an organized group - radical Islamists:

Dr. Wafa Sultan has been forced to go into hiding with her family following a fatwa (religious edict) from an Islamic scholar, according to Omedia. Sultan faces the fatwa following a recent debate on Al-Jazeera in which she challenged Egyptian Islamist Talat Rheim over Dutch cartoons of Mohammed, who Muslims revere as a prophet. Sultan argued that Denmark had the right to print the cartoons. (BigPicWeblog.com – 2008)

Nonie Darwish: For thirty years, I grew up hearing similar threats from Islamic sheikhs across the Middle East. They told us, "You insult the prophet Mohammed, you die" -- as the Islamic law of Sharia requires. There are still Sharia books bought and sold in America; they clearly say: "The penalty for insulting the prophet is death, even if one repents." … (Gatestone Institute – 2012) …

The breaking news this week is that apostate author and speaker Nonie Darwish was scheduled to speak at Princeton and Columbia Universities this week (on the threat of radical Islam).

Apparently, due to pressure from Muslim groups, the Princeton group, Tigers for Israel, withdrew their invitation at the last minute claiming that they were not aware of Darwish's views on Islam.

…

As for Columbia, keep in mind, this is the same university that hosted Mahmoud Ahmadinejad not so long ago. I don't get it. Ahmadinejad can speak at Columbia, but not Darwish, a woman who lives under death threats? (FouseSquak – 2009)

Robert Spencer: Islam expert Robert Spencer gets a death threat; and another death threat; and another death threat; and yet anoth…well, you get the idea. (MikeDyess.info – 2012)

Walid Shoebat: … Walid, like so many others, joined the PLO and became indoctrinated with their goal of murdering Jews and destroying Israel.  He spent time in a Jerusalem jail.

…

Walid gave his heart to Christ, and renounced Allah, and Islam. This facilitated death threats against him and his family. In spite of personal risk, he placed himself in the hands of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and embraced his new faith and wanted to share the truth God had shown him with others. (Christians For Israel)

Pamela Geller: Atlas readers are well aware of the steady stream of threats, hate mail, and death fatwas I receive. It comes with the job; it's an occupatonal (sic) hazard. Truthtellers, beware. Of course the muslim groups and their jackbooted tools in the media ignore the calls for my demise, and when forced to address them, it's always the same thing: the extremists can't help themselves, hell, I am asking it for by exposing Islamic jihad. (PamelaGeller.com [cache link because site hacked or blocked by my Internet Provider, neither would surprise me] – 2011)

Brigitte Gabriel: Brigitte Gabriel has fearlessly faced down critics, death threats, and political correctness, and is one of the most sought-after terrorism experts in the world. They Must Be Stopped is her clarion call to action. Gabriel thoroughly addresses the historical and religious basis of terrorism, its (sic) frightening encroachment into societies around the world, and its abuses of democracy in the name of religion. (ACT! for America)

VIDEO; Brigitte Gabriel's Speech at Values Voter Summit

Published by Brigitte Gabriel

Published on Sep 29, 2014

Fjordman: Fjordman has paid the price for having the courage to stand up for what is right and true. It is incredible, that in today’s Europe, one can hardly dare to stand up ones culture and country without undergoing intense scrutiny, harassment, and sometimes even persecution from the authorities. Not to mention risking death at the hands of the Muslims hordes who those same authorities have allowed to over run (sic) the borders and flood the continent in their millions. (Dc Gazette – 2/1/15)

… Fjordman has been a pseudonym that was exposed to the public because of Breivik’s massacre. Why was a pseudonym necessary?

…  The government is the one hand. The other hand is that Islamic hatred causes the constant threat of violence and death threats by Muslims living in Europe as immigrants or as 2^nd or 3^rd generation Muslims adopting a European nation BUT demanding to live the culture of intolerant Islam.

This means even under a pseudonym Fjordman had to have bodyguards to protect his life from Muslim death threats. (NCCR – 6/14/12)

When asked who on the panel got death threats -- hands raised (Left to right, Robert Muise, Pamela Geller, Nonie Darwish, Robert Spencer, James Lafferty, Simon Deng, Darwin Jiles)

There are more but moving on.

This long yet incomplete list of people threatened with death brings me back to the disciplined Foster High School teacher from the Houston area.

It is not surprising the eight page handout story was broke to the public by a Muslim High School student who whined to their parents about the mean things reported exposing the Islam found in the Quran, Hadith and Sira. The parents duly complained to the local chapter of Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Houston:

It [i.e. CAIR-Houston] is a sub-chapter of CAIR-Texas, which was founded by Ghassan Elashi. He was later convicted for illegal transactions to Syria and Libya. He and two bothers (sic) were also convicted of financing Hamas.

Elashi’s company, InfoCom Corp, gave about $270,000 to senior Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzouk through his wife up until 2001 when the Holy Land Foundation was shut down. Marzouk’s wife also made a $250,000 investment in Elashi’s company.

…

The president of CAIR-Houston is Tarek Hussein.[⁴] In 2013, the Egyptian Al-Watan newspaper named him as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood lobby in the U.S.[⁵] (CAIR – Houston; By RYAN MAURO; Clarion Project; 2/20/14)

In case you’ve had your head in the sand since September 11, 2001; CAIR is a Radical Muslim offshoot of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood (More MB Info). The MB is quite transnational and has quite stealthily and nefariously sponsored numerous Muslim-American organizations (See Also HERE) that quite deceptively tell the public they represent a moderate version of Islam that represents an Islam is Peace mentality (And See HERE).

ALL of the Mainstream Media (MSM) reporting on the eight page handout entitled “Economics/Government: Islam/Radical Islam (Did You Know)” made Muslims a victim rather than hailing the teacher as a hero willing to go out on a limb to expose Islam. They made a point to report that the handout was not sourced BUT that he evidently got his info from the Internet from “anti-Islam websites”. So if you expose Islam’s dark side you are an anti-Islam Muslim hating racist Islamophobe. I consider myself a person who exposes Islam and yet I hold ZERO animus toward Muslims that are seriously self-deluded that Islamic holy writings (e.g. Quran, Hadith and Sira) assert any kind of peaceful nature for Islam.

My guess is Herby Woolverton might be added to any list of people threatened with death from Muslims for telling the truth but in the Muslim mind – insulted Islam, Allah and Mo.

Here are the attitude of news reporting by some television sources:

Video: CAIR-Houston Seeks Disciplinary Action for Teacher Who Promoted Anti-Muslim Hate in Class

Published by CAIRtv

Published on Apr 8, 2015

I found the video ironically at a Bare Naked Islam exposé entitled “HOUSTON: Designated Terrorist Group CAIR demands the firing of a teacher who presented the truth about Islam to the class”

VIDEO: Teacher raises ire with anti-Muslim handouts

Published by USA TODAY

Published on Apr 8, 2015

This video was found on mrctv.org entitled “Houston Teacher Under Fire for Student Handout on Radical Islam”.

VIDEO: Texas Teacher Under Fire For Radical Islam Handout in Class - Foster High School

Published by Tammy Lerner

Published on Apr 8, 2015

A teacher at Foster High School in Richmond, Texas, is accused of handing out an unapproved, eight-page handout on “radical Islam” to students. The decision has resulted in backlash from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, parents and the school district. The handout, titled, ”Islam/Radical Islam (Did You Know),” claims that “38 percent of Muslims believe people that leave the faith should be executed” and states that Islam doesn’t “tolerate” homosexuality, divorce and other behavior.

Terms like “Sharia law” and “Jihad” are defined in the handout, which claims there are “an estimated 190-300 million ‘radical Islam’ followers.” The teacher reportedly did not provide sourcing.

The eight-page handout also includes a section on “what to do” if taken hostage by radical Islamist.

One of the students in the class was reportedly Muslim and told her parents, who then contacted CAIR. The group then complained directly to officials at Foster High School.

In a statement to KHOU-TV, a spokesman for the Lamar Consolidated Independent School District said the district is “disappointed to learn one teacher made independent changes to a lesson plan, resulting in information being given that didn’t follow subject matter, or state and local curriculum plans.”

“Arbitrary curriculum decisions, which are clearly outside of the guidelines, won’t be tolerated,” the spokesman added.

The teacher will face “appropriate disciplinary measures,” but it wasn’t clear what that would be.

JRH 4/11/15

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Blog Editor: Below is the Eight Page Handout entitled “Economics/Government: Islam/Radical Islam (Did You Know)”. Here the eight pages are posted jpg photos as found on Shoebat.com April 8, 2015.

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