Last night’s Broward Republican Party meeting provided yet another regrettable example of its leadership’s dysfunctional incompetence. Nezar Hamze, the Florida Director of CAIR was slated to be read on to the BREC’s membership roll, but what ensued was an embarrassing display of bigotry that all in attendance were subjected to.
Hamze was denied membership to the BREC after the rules were intentionally changed to specifically keep Hamze from joining. Hamze has been vocal critic of Congressman Allen West, and he has stated that he would not support him in his re-election bid for Congress. BREC Chairman Richard Lee DeNapoli orchestrated the rigged chain of events by planting his operatives in crowd, each of whom had a specific task to carry out during the proceedings.
Before Hamze was to be read on to the rolls, DeNapoli entertained motions to change the rules that govern how prospective members join the local GOP. Never before has the local GOP changed these rules, and it was obvious that this strategy was employed to specifically target Hamze. DeNapoli allowed for one minute for each candidate to speak to why they wanted to join (11 candidates in all), and five minutes for any rebuttal questions. As soon as it was Hamze’s turn to speak, DeNapoli’s supporters began to chastise Hamze, and then during the rebuttal segment, DeNapoli called up on several of his supporters who attacked Hamze with questions such as “What is your religion?”
Prior to the meeting, members or guests were seen distributing an anti-Hamze document, clearly violating what DeNapoli had previously stated which required all literature handouts to be authorized by the BREC prior to distribution. So it was obvious that the fix was in, and the BREC leadership allowed for the document to be distributed- hypocrisy at it’s highest.
Hamze was denied membership by a questionable motion of voting on a secret ballot, losing 158-11. Just to reiterate, the other candidates were not put through the same type of scrutiny that Hamze was- Hamze works for CAIR-FL, and the group’s parent organization the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) was named as an unidicted co-conspirator to terrorism several years back and is alleged to have ties to the terrorist group Hamas.
At the end of the circus, Tom Lauder of RedBroward blog, a blog that lacks journalistic integrity and shills for the Charlie Crist Republicans like Richard ‘Dick’ DeNapoli, Colleen Stolberg, Mark McCarthy and others, attacked a congressional candidate by sticking his camera in the candidates’ face and disingenuously questioned her campaign efforts. Lauder literally came inches from her face- showing no class with his aggressive ambush style journalism.
Lauder wrote about the incident on both RedBroward and on RedState.com and claimed that the Shark Tanks was “Endorsing CAIR Director Memberhip in Florida GOP”. Redstate managing editor Erick Erickson took issue with this post:
“Just an Editor’s Note from Erick. I know and fully respect Javier Manjarres. He and I have together endorsed Adam Hasner for the Senate in Florida. I also know that Javier has been under sustained attack by Republicans in Broward County for exposing some rather shady shenanigans within the Broward County GOP. Because of that exposure, the local GOP has been out to get Javier. When I see user names like this and read stuff like this, the first think I think is that this is yet again another attack on Javier trying to get him back for exposing the reckless level of incompetence in Broward.
Javier does awesome work and that he’s drawing this sort of fire means he is really doing good work.
— Erick”
Thank You Erick for highlighting the fact that Lauder’s spin on this matter cannot withstand any serious scrutiny. Lauder should do his own reporting and stick to the facts rather than regurgitating news from other credible sources on the internet.
Interestingly enough, on his application, Hamze stated that I, Javier Manjarres had ‘encouraged’ him to join the BREC, when what I really did was answer his question of whether he should go through with it or not, I simply told him what the criteria was to become a member, and if he met the criteria set by the Republican Party, he or anyone else could join the BREC. Hamze’s application lacked my signature next my name that he wrote in, and he took it upon himself to explain that I did not ask him to join- Hamze was planning to join regardless of any input he received from me.
The BREC’s history of shenanigans goes back a long ways with its past support of Governor Charlie Crist and their current support of Senate candidate George LeMieux. DeNapoli has also confided in members that he “would do everything to support” Joe Kaufman in his campaign for Congress. Kaufman is the chairman of Americans Against Hate, a Pro-Israel group that has been at odds with CAIR over the past years. Kaufman spoke out against Hamze, but he unfortunately represents a one-trick political pony style of candidate whose shrill delivery fits the mold of the stereotypical extremist candidate that the Democrat Party has long tried to caricature all Republicans as.
Joe Kaufman needs to be given full credit for exposing the fact the Hamze intended to join the Republican Party ranks. Last month at the Fort Lauderdale Tea party meeting in Fort Lauderdale, Kaufman announced to the crowd of about 100 that DeNapoli had told him that Hamze was going to apply to the BREC. Upon listening to Kaufman, I took it upon myself to reach out to Hamze to ask him if it was true, and what his real motive was to join. Kudos to Joe!
Cross Posted at The Shark Tank
Join the conversation as a VIP Member