Lawrence Person's BattleSwarm Blog

EPIC City may have turned out to be mostly (not entirely) a nothingburger, more a prosaic speculative land deal than an actual Islamic City, but it seems to have lit a fire under Greg Abbott, as he’s come out swinging against any opportunity for Jihad to take root in Texas this week.

First up: He designated CAIR and the BrandonMuslim Brotherhood as foreign terrorist organizations.

Gov. Greg Abbott has officially designated both the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Muslim Brotherhood as foreign terrorist organizations and transnational criminal organizations.

The move immediately prohibits the groups from purchasing or acquiring land in Texas and authorizes the state to take legal action to shut down their operations.

The designation is the first significant use of authority granted to the governor under Senate Bill 17, a land-security measure Abbott signed into law earlier this year.

SB 17 allows the governor, after consultation with the Department of Public Safety, to classify any foreign group or transnational criminal organization as a prohibited entity. Once designated, those organizations—and their affiliates—are barred from acquiring real property in Texas and become subject to aggressive enforcement by the attorney general.

“The Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR have long made their goals clear: to forcibly impose Sharia law and establish Islam’s ‘mastership of the world,’” said Abbott. “The actions taken by the Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR to support terrorism across the globe and subvert our laws through violence, intimidation, and harassment are unacceptable.”

The astonishing thing here is not only Abbott declaring an obvious truth loudly and clearly, but that the actual declaration goes even harder without even a single ritual bow to mealy-mouthed, politically correct wokespeak on the issue, and I’d quote great walloping bits of it if it weren’t an uncopyable PDF.

Back to Texas Scorecard.

Under SB 17, the Texas attorney general is empowered to investigate any property transactions involving prohibited entities, bring actions against land they attempt to acquire, seek court-ordered divestiture, and pursue civil penalties of up to 50 percent of the property’s market value. Courts are required to appoint receivers to sell off any land improperly purchased.

Abbott’s proclamation also designates both CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood as foreign terrorist organizations, enabling the state to pursue injunctions and penalties under Texas’ anti-gang and anti-terrorism laws.

The declaration follows years of concern from national security officials and law enforcement. CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator in United States v. Holy Land Foundation, the largest terrorism financing case in U.S. history. The FBI severed formal ties with CAIR in 2008.

Earlier this year, Republican Party of Texas leaders overwhelmingly approved a resolution denouncing CAIR as an “ideological threat,” citing its connections to Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, and individuals convicted of terrorism-related offenses.

The party warned that CAIR promotes policies “incompatible with Texas law,” works to impose Sharia-aligned standards in public institutions, and attempts to suppress constitutionally protected speech by labeling dissent as “Islamophobia.”

The governor’s action also comes amid heightened public scrutiny over Islamist influence in Texas.

You may remember CAIR from such hits as “We stole $7 million in taxpayer money” (thanks, Gavin Newsom). You may remember the Muslim Brotherhood from such hits as “Boy, we sure do have a lot of ties to the Clinton family” and “We Tried To Turn Egypt Into An Islamic Republic And All We Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt.” Both have, at the very least, played footsie with Islamic terrorists for their entire existence, as shown by the Holy land Foundation links, and CAIR seems to be a direct cash pipeline to Hamas. Both deserve the terrorist org tag.

But Abbott wasn’t finished! He also declared the State of Texas was investigating a Sharia Law Islamic Tribunal in Dallas.

ov. Greg Abbott is calling for investigations into “entities purporting to illegally enforce Sharia law in Texas.”

In a letter issued Wednesday, Abbott details entities in Collin and Dallas counties that “may be masquerading as legal ‘courts’ staffed with ‘judges’ issuing orders that purportedly carry the authority to bind individuals to Islamic codes, thereby preempting state and federal laws.”

Abbott identified the Islamic Tribunal in Dallas, which he said “purports to exercise jurisdiction over all aspects of life—even over non-ecclesiastical legal disputes—and to subject them to ‘Islamic Jurisprudence and its Shari’ah or Law.’”

The Islamic Tribunal has operated since at least 2015.

The organization’s website states that “there is no secularism or detachment from the tenets of faith and all Islamic injunctions in regards to the legal field” and that “problems within American Muslim society may range from personal and family matters such as marriage and divorce, as well as disputes among community members and those in positions of leadership.”

The website continues, “It is with this issue that Muslims here in America are obligated to find a way to solve conflicts and disputes according to the principles of Islamic Law and its legal heritage of fairness and justice in a manner that is reasonable and cost effective. These proceedings must be conducted in accordance with the law of the land; local, state and federal within the United States. Through effective mediation and arbitration, decisions can be made that are stipulated in the Shari’ah and adhering to the binding, ethical and legal code that exists within this country with the final approval of the relevant courts and judges.”

The website goes on to state that the Islamic Tribunal was “established for this purpose. The Islamic Tribunal is a unique institution of its kind in the United States of America. It is the intention of erecting this institution in order to set a precedence that will be emulated and duplicated throughout the country.”

It also adds a “general disclaimer” that it “does not provide legal advice and the Islamic Tribunal is not a law firm. None of our members are lawyers and they also do not provide legal advice.”

Abbott addressed the letter to district attorneys and sheriffs in both Dallas and Collin counties, in addition to Attorney General Ken Paxton and Texas Department of Public Safety Director Freeman Martin.

“Legal disputes in Texas must be decided based on American law rooted in the fundamental principles of American due process, not according to Sharia law dispensed in modern day star chambers,” the governor said.

Indeed.

People outside Texas may not remember it, but a few years ago, a lot of Texas conservatives thought Abbott was too much a cautious, consensus-driven squish of a Republican governor. Somewhere between the Biden border invasion and the Straus-Phalen Cabal thwarting school choice and property tax reform for the umpteenth time, Abbott seemed to morph into a real fire-breather of a conservative.

Between him and Paxton, neither are going to let jihadism take root in Texas if they have anything to say about it.