Now I know why Sharron Angle is as crazy as she is


I don’t mean to single her out, but she’s the most prominent ‘tea bagger’ Republican from west of the Mississippi who gained any national prominence….J.D. Hayworth tried as hard as he might, notwithstanding.  The tea baggers of Arizona are over the top in insanity.  They are, after Donald Rumsfeld and his cronies at the Pentagon during the Bush Administration, the worse America has to offer humanity.  Tea bagger members are steeped in racism and xenophobia, and Arizona has turned out to be the perfect breeding ground for them.  What else can account for this headline?

A local Arizona Republican Party official resigned from his post after Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot out of concern for his and his family’s safety.

Anthony Miller, a GOP district chairman and former campaign aide to Sen. John McCain, told The Arizona Republic: I don’t want to take a bullet for anyone.”

Miller, the first African American to hold the post, was recently re-elected to a one-year term as chairman of the Legislative District 20 Republicans.

He told the newspaper that verbal abuse after his election and Internet postings by Tea Party supporters had him concerned for his safety.

Now before you go off calling me crazy…….here’s what else is said about Anthony

One critic referred to him derogatorily as “McCain’s boy,” Miller said. Other language was even less ambiguous. At an event in Lake Havasu City, Ariz., Miller said someone called out, “There’s Anthony, get a rope.”

This guy is a Republican, worked for a Republican and has earned his Republican bonafides but that’s still not good enough for tea bagger/partiers?  I guess bleaching cream and the straightening comb are the only things left that Miller could do to gain acceptance.  We are in such denial…… even people who worked with Miller asked the question, ‘I’ve never understood why they had this hatred for him….’ when the answer is as clear as the skin color on Anthony Miller’s body.  Wake up America.

Angle was able to escape the scathing rhetoric of the racists in her party by acting as fringe in her statements as they…but how will Allen West, the black Republican from Florida who used violence drenched metaphors and employed people to do the same, fare?  The Republican party is being pulled increasingly towards a fringe that leads towards civil war.  I admire Miller for his service to his country and his dignity, even though I think his Party is ruined, and I wish him well, but when you hear the word Republican Party, run.  Your life might depend on it.

More Guantanamo Bay news


Proponents of Guantanamo Bay have always maintained it’s necessary to keep that base open to house the meanest of the mean; black/brown Muslim terrorists who have the ability to swim from Cuba to the mainland, fashion knives out of paper products and invade the homeland causing death and destruction.  To substantiate their claim to keep the facility eternally open, they have put forward some really astonishing claims about recidivism, which we have addressed on the pages of Miscellany101 here and here.

It appears Obama will not be able to close Guantanamo down anytime soon, nor does he appear to be up for the fight, having been effectively betrayed by members of his own party during a lame duck session after the congressional elections, and facing an ever more combative new Congress who no doubt will use this recidivism issue again to underscore their desire to keep Gitmo open.  So here’s another study which “refudiates” that claim making it the third different one to do so which really begs the question why do the supporters of the facility bother with erecting false claims and figures in the first place.

On the ninth anniversary of the first detainee’s arrival at the infamous prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a Washington think tank challenged intelligence estimates suggesting that large numbers of former detainees have taken up arms against the United States.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper claimed in December — without offering any evidence — that 13.5 percent of former Guantanamo detainees are confirmed, and an additional 11.5 percent are suspected of “reengaging” in terrorist or insurgent activities after their release.

The conservative media embraced the storyline that as many as one in four former detainees had returned to the battlefield, up sharply from the prior year.

But three scholars with the New America Foundation are out with a new report — this one backed up with data — concluding that only 6 percent of released detainees engaged or are suspected of having engaged with insurgents aimed at attacking U.S. interests. Another 2 percent engaged or are suspected of having engaged against non-U.S. targets.

It appears that America is perfectly willing to let bygones be bygones and keep the facility even though for now it serves no useful purpose.  Perhaps some hope it will house the millions of American Muslims who will be sent there after the King committee hearings?

 

More Peter King news


Sorry folks, but I have a real problem with demagoguery and Congressman Peter King, R of New York is at the center of my ire at the moment for exemplifying the untruthfulness typical of today’s politicians.  Where do you begin with him?

After the latest terror attack on America this past weekend, King has now taken the liberal side of the  crime in America argument to propose gun control legislation to limit carrying a firearm within 1000 feet of of certain high-profile government officials.  Typical big government solution and one I wouldn’t expect from a Republican member of Congress, but there was no word from King, who’s set to take over the position of the Homeland Security House committee, when gun toters like the man in the picture above were seen walking around during an Obama rally in 2009, in of all places the state of Arizona.  Everyone touted the rights of such individuals as “Chris” to carry openly the firearm of his choice even in the vicinity of a sitting US President.  As a firearm owner myself, I was somewhat mixed about this brazen display of chutzpah, but King’s pronouncement now makes me wonder whether he would consider Obama, should he be re-elected a high-profile government official worthy of having the ban imposed for him or not?  Most likely not…..since King is obliged to the ‘birther’ wing of his party for any future political aspirations.

The news that’s most upsetting about King is his intent to have hearings on the radicalization of Islam in America.  The author of this piece calls it a show trial, I couldn’t agree with him more.  Read on

It is just about certain that the new Republican House will hold hearings on the “radicalization of the American Muslim Community.” The hearings will be called by Peter King, the Republican representative from New York who is now the Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee.

This move on the part of Rep. King will reveal more about him than it will about American Muslims.

Why so? Because King’s publicly expressed prejudices will shape the hearings he will hold, thereby giving us an accurate view of where he is coming from. Simultaneously, they will only supply an inaccurate and skewed view of American Muslims.

To date, what do Peter King’s public positions look like? Here are some examples:

1. King has publicly asserted, without evidence, that most of the leaders and organizations of the American Muslim Community are dangerous radicals. They are to be judged so because, allegedly, they are purveyors of “radical Islam.”

He has made the accusation that “80 to 85% of the mosques in this country are controlled by Islamic fundamentalists.” He here conflates radicals and fundamentalists. He has even written a novel, Vale of Tears, about Muslims plotting against the United States.

2. He has asserted that mainstream American Muslims, their leaders and organizations, have “not come forward and denounce(d), officially denounce(d), officially cooperate(d) with police against extremists and terrorists.” This accusation happens to be demonstrably false.

Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minnesota, the first Muslim American elected to the House, has spent a good bit of time documenting the efforts of Muslim Americans to do just what King says they don’t do. Among other things Ellison points out that “about one third of all foiled al-Qaida related plots in the U.S. relied on support and information provided by members of the Muslim community.”

A recent attempt at such terrorism, the placing of a car bomb in Times Square, was foiled by a Senegalese Muslim immigrant.

3. When Peter King is asked about his sources of information on American Muslims he names Steve Emerson and Daniel Pipes. Emerson is one of those journalists turned self-proclaimed “experts” on security matters. He has written a number of books on “radical Islam” which, in turn, have been criticized by real Middle East experts.

Pipes is a devotee of Israel and rarely deviates from a right-wing Zionist line. Both men have been described as aggressive enemies of Muslims and Islam. It is to these sorts of people that King looks to confirm his own biases. No wonder Peter King now regards American Muslim leaders as “an enemy living amongst us.”

4. Just to round out this picture we can add that, quickly after 9/11, King became a staunch supporter of the invasion of Iraq. Having taken this stand, he never addressed the fact that Iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks, nor has he ever publicly considered the fact that American foreign policy in the Middle East did have a lot to do with that event.

King was a strong defender of George W. Bush’s policy of torture, claiming that the Bush should be given a medal for authorizing water boarding. He supports a strict application of the “USA Patriot Act.” He says that Guantanamo Bay prison should not be closed, and the proposed “mosque” near “ground zero” should not be opened.

King has all the right credentials to qualify as a demagogue and a racist demagogue at that, for all of the reasons stated in the article above.  Please read it in its entirety at the link,  ConsortiumNews.com, home of investigative reporter Robert Parry, and one of the best damned news website currently operating anywhere in the world.