On December 6, Mayor Sylvester Turner issued a proclamation in support of CAIR Texas, Houston on behalf of the city of Houston.

In the proclamation, Turner named December 9, 2018 the official CAIR Texas Houston Day.  Interestingly, the text of the proclamation appeared to be almost directly lifted from the "About Us" section of the CAIR-Texas Houston website.  In some cases, the pronouns had not even been altered, indicating that CAIR Houston, not the mayor's office, authored the document.  (For example, the proclamation states in the third paragraph, "As a leading voice for the Houston Muslim community, it [CAIR] strives to maintain the highest ethical standards in all of our future endeavors.")

Ironically, on the exact same day Turner published CAIR Houston's shameless self-promotion, an Arab newspaper was exposing CAIR Houston's upcoming banquet keynote speaker.

An article appearing in Saudi Arabia's Al-Arabiya on December 9 calls Linda Sarsour an extremist with questionable ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.  The piece also suggests that U.S. "Muslim Sisters" allied to the Brotherhood are participating in an effort to advance Islamist-supported candidates like Rashida Tlaib and Ihlan Omar through political alliances with immigrant and African-American communities.

But Sarsour's alliances might be breaking down after a December 10 exposé by Tablet magazine placed Sarsour at the center of a controversy of the reported hijacking of the Women's March by anti-Semitic activists with ties to Nations of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

Sarsour isn't the only speaker at the CAIR Houston event who's likely to be an embarrassment to Mayor Turner.

For example, fellow keynote speaker Roula Allouch, national board chair of CAIR, retweeted an opinion article by Nihad Awad on December 7, 2018, "Attacks on Marc Lamont Hill Will Only Strengthen the Solidarity between Blacks and Palestinians."

Hill was fired from his position at CNN following remarks at the United Nations, where he said justice requires "a free Palestine from the river to the sea," a slogan frequently used by groups like Hamas and other Islamist terror groups, representing the total elimination of Israel.

It's not surprising that CAIR executive director Nihad Awad would favor Hill's views, given that Awad was himself once videotaped stating, "I am in support of Hamas" at a seminar at Miami's Barry University.

Awad, who has led CAIR since its creation in 1994, was present during the infamous 1993 meeting of the Muslim Brotherhood in Philadelphia, where the creation of a media organization to support Hamas was discussed.  According to the testimony of FBI agent Lara Burns, that organization was CAIR.

The third speaker at the CAIR Banquet is CAIR Florida executive director Hassan Shibly, an affable young man who features in an Israeli documentary on Islam in the United States.  In that documentary, he is quoted as saying democracy in America benefits Islam and that in the future, "Allah willing, Islam will be victorious and [will] spread in this country" (37:25).

Shibly's Tampa CAIR office is also shown in the documentary.  On the wall hangs an enormous painting of Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, built on top of the Temple Mount.  The painting is for many Islamist Muslims considered not only a symbol of Islamic superiority over Judaism, but also a call to reconquest of the land under Al Aqsa.

The son of Syrian immigrants, Shibly has publicly defended the death penalty for apostasy.  He has also condemned homosexuality as a quick way "to earn God's wrath."  According to an article in the Middle East Forum in 2017, he has endorsed Khatme Nubuwwat (K.N.), an international network dedicated to inciting violence and hatred against Ahmadiyya Muslims, a peaceful Islamic sect targeted by Islamists.

All three keynote speakers, Sarsour, Allouch, and Shibly, have a clear history of Islamist activism that Turner may soon find to be more of a liability than an asset.  The Houston mayor seems to be banking on the public embracing these CAIR officials as fellow Democrats, but he should think twice, because some Houston voters may actually be paying attention.