All is fair in love and war, it is said.
Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) was founded by Grover Norquist in 1985. Norquist’s mission was to ask politicians—especially Republican politicians—to sign a pledge that they would always oppose all tax increases. Those who refused to sign were generally defeated in Republican primaries by those who signed.
By 2012 Norquist was one of the most powerful—and hated—men in Washington. Government trusters despised him. 60 Minutes ran a story proclaiming Norquist was the secret mastermind of the Republican Party.
By 2013, the GOP’s neocon establishment targeted Norquist with rumors that Norquist was secretly a member of the Muslim Brotherhood—and that Norquist’s pledge was, unbeknownst to the signers, some kind of “sharia” pledge. This theme was repeated by CIA-linked neocons such as Glen Beck, Frank Gaffney and Daniel Pipes.
(Glen Beck’s multimillion-dollar media empire suffered a steep decline in viewership soon after Beck began pushing these themes.)
Recently, a Nevada-based writer named Denise Mraz has also picked up these apparently-CIA-derived talking points, claiming that politicians who sign the pledge to oppose tax increases are secretly or unknowingly giving “consent for Sharia Compliance.” (You can’t make this stuff up!)
The basis for the Norquist=Muslim-Brotherhood claim: the fact that Norquist married a beautiful Palestinian-American named Samah Alrayyes in 2004. (Although the pair had a Christian wedding in the Weston United Methodist Church in Weston, Massachusetts.) Norquist has also launched some libertarian-conservative outreach efforts aimed at the Muslim community.
