Is it any surprise that Rep. Michele Presnell also co-sponsored a bill stating the North Carolina may establish a state religion?

What a sad indictment on the NC GOP:

GOP Must Repudiate NC Lawmaker Who Compared Islamic Prayer to ‘Terrorism’

(WASHINGTON, D.C., 4/10/13) – The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today called on the Republican Party to repudiate a North Carolina GOP lawmaker who compared Islamic prayer to terrorism.

In an email exchange with a constituent, North Carolina State Rep. Michele Presnell was asked whether she was “comfortable with a public prayer to Allah before a legislative meeting.” She responded: “No, I do not condone terrorism.” Presnell is also a co-sponsor of House resolution 494, which states that North Carolina may establish a state religion.

“If the Republican Party hopes to reach out to minority groups, it must clearly and forcefully repudiate such bigoted comments by its representatives,” said CAIR National Legislative Director Corey Saylor.

Saylor noted that a GOP official in California was recently reprimanded for anti-Muslim and anti-Sikh remarks.

Last December, a coalition of 11 major American Muslim organizations called on the Republican Party to reach out to Muslim voters by rejecting anti-Islam bias and discriminatory legislation.

Interfaith and solidarity groups are stronger and more numerous in the United States than hate groups, unfortunately the voices of hate tend to be louder at times, amplified by the media.

Hopefully Gohmert will pay heed to the words of the Interfaith Alliance instead of lending a deaf ear.

Interfaith Group To GOP Congressman: Stop Demonizing Islam

ThinkProgress

An interfaith group is speaking out against Rep. Louie Gohmert’s (R-TX) claim on Thursday that Americans need the Second Amendment’s protection in order to shield the nation from Sharia Law.

Speaking on a radio show called The Voice of Freedom, Gohmert insisted that “We’ve got some people who think Sharia Law should be the law of the land, forget the Constitution. But the guns are there… to make sure all of the rest of the Amendments are followed.” In response, Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, President of the Interfaith Alliance, has sent a letter to Gohmert, protesting his “continued demonization of Islam”:

I feel compelled to again remind you that the continued demonization of Islam and disenfranchisement of the American Muslim community is not only uncalled for, it is a dangerous affront to the religious freedom upon which this nation was founded and it must end. American Muslims, the overwhelming majority of whom live peaceful, law-abiding lives — just like Americans from other religious groups — should not have to live in a country where their elected officials imply that they need to be kept at bay with firearms.

Furthermore, at a time when gun violence has wracked our nation with one unimaginable tragedy after another, I would hope that elected officials such as you would stay focused on real measures to prevent future needless deaths. I would hope that you would focus your attention on measures to truly balance the Second Amendment rights you so strongly defend, rather than derailing what should be a substantive policy discussion with misguided bigotry.

Gohmert has been in trouble before with the Interfaith Alliance, having also received a letter from them during his partnership with Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) to persecute Muslim-American government officials. Gorhmert has also during his time in Congress called for hearings on the dangers of Sharia and claimed that President Obama went to war in Libya to help Al Qaeda spreadacross the Middle East.

Rev. Gaddy also included with his letter a copy of a text titled “What is the Truth About American Muslims: Questions and Answers,” produced by Interfaith Alliance and the Religious Freedom Education Project of the First Amendment Center. Congressman Gohmert’s office did not immediately respond to an e-mailed question regarding whether or not he had read over, or plans to read, the resource.

The full text of the letter can be read after the break.

February 22, 2013
The Honorable Louie Gohmert
2243 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Representative Gohmert:

I write to you with great concern over your recent comments on the radio program The Voice of Freedom regarding measures to prevent gun violence. Your implication that the Second Amendment must be strongly upheld so that Americans can arm themselves against sharia, Muslim religious law, is troubling. It is all the more troubling when I recall that just last summer the organization which I serve as president, Interfaith Alliance, alongside 41 religious and civil rights groups wrote to you in protest of your demonization of prominent American Muslim government officials and community organizations. I am disappointed to see that neither your rhetoric nor your misinformed view of Islam has changed.

I hope that you will review a resource Interfaith Alliance produced in collaboration with the Religious Freedom Education Project of the First Amendment Center entitled What is the Truth About American Muslims: Questions and Answers. I have attached a copy to this letter and in particular would call your attention to questions 19-27 which focus on the nature of sharia. These questions include, “How do American Muslims follow sharia?” and “Do American Muslims want to replace the U.S. Constitution with sharia?” This resource has also been endorsed by nearly two dozen religious, civic and civil rights groups, all united to combat ignorance and bigotry against American Muslims and protect religious freedom.

I feel compelled to again remind you that the continued demonization of Islam and disenfranchisement of the American Muslim community is not only uncalled for, it is a dangerous affront to the religious freedom upon which this nation was founded and it must end. American Muslims, the overwhelming majority of whom live peaceful, law-abiding lives — just like Americans from other religious groups — should not have to live in a country where their elected officials imply that they need to be kept at bay with firearms.

Furthermore, at a time when gun violence has wracked our nation with one unimaginable tragedy after another, I would hope that elected officials such as you would stay focused on real measures to prevent future needless deaths. I would hope that you would focus your attention on measures to truly balance the Second Amendment rights you so strongly defend, rather than derailing what should be a substantive policy discussion with misguided bigotry. No matter our disagreements, we as a nation need to be done forever with the thought that guns are a solution to our problems.

In my experience, the only people in the U.S. government who are concerned that there are those who think “sharia law ought to be the law of the land” are those who, like you, are misguidedly attempting to infringe upon the religious freedom of American Muslims to practice their faith. I hope that you will give a close look to the attached questions and answers guide and cease your demonization of a group of Americans who have the same right as you to be here and practice their faith.

Sincerely,

Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy
President
Interfaith Alliance

A good breakdown by MotherJones of how many in the GOP are retreating from the Islamophobes. While the article below paints the GOP embrace of the psychotic anti-Muslim brigades as having been done unknowingly, I do believe it had more to do with political expediency and for some, ideology.

Also, it’s shocking though welcome to see Sue Myrick take back her anti-Muslim bigotry though she needs to come out publicly and repudiate the Forward she wrote, as well as the book “Muslim Mafia” authored by David Gaubatz and Paul Sperry.

The GOP’s Anti-Muslim Wing Is In Retreat

By Tim Murphy and Adam Serwer (MotherJones)

Over the last four years, a die-hard cadre of activists and their allies in Congress have dragged the Republican Party into a fever swamp of Islamophobia and barely-concealed anti-Muslim bigotry. In their paranoid scenario, Islamic Shariah law is creeping into American courts; the Department of Justice has come under the sway of the Muslim Brotherhood; and the president’s engagement ring includes secret writing that indicates Muslim loyalties.

But after a November election that saw three of the party’s loudest voices on “creeping Shariah” defeated—and the GOP presidential nominee ignore the issue entirely—the anti-Islam movement within the Republican party may have peaked. Wary of further alienating aonce-promising conservative constituency, mainstream Republican leaders have sought, publicly and behind closed doors, to distance themselves from the loudest of the Muslim-bashers in their midst.

“They have gotten a bit of bad odor,” says GOP powerbroker Grover Norquist, who has pushed to change his party’s tone on Islam.

Randa Fahmy Hudome, a former Bush administration official, Washington lobbyist, and prominent Muslim Republican, notes: “There is a self-policing factor in the Republican Party, when some members get a little off base on some of these issues. That’s the state of play right now.”

A turning point came in July, when Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), along with four Republican colleagues, signed a letterdemanding an investigation into the Muslim Brotherhood’s supposed infiltration of the State Department. The letter singled out a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Huma Abedin. Bachmann and her colleagues, deploying tenuous evidence and guilt-by-association, charged that Abedin should not have been given a security clearance because of alleged ties to Muslim radicals.

Days later, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) had condemned Bachmann’s letter from the floor of the Senate, calling it “unwarranted and unfounded” and “scurrilous.” Speaker of the House John Boehner piled on, calling the letter “dangerous.” The chair of the House intelligence committee, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), emphasized to USA Today that though she served on his committee, Bachmann’s allegations did not have the committee’s imprimatur. Sen. Marco Rubio, the Florida senator and tea party favorite widely touted as a potential 2016 contender, publicly denounced the allegations promoted by Bachmann and her allies, like former Reagan official and longtime anti-Shariah activist Frank Gaffney.

Behind the scenes, GOPers worked to smooth over hurt feelings. Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), who in 2007 became the chamber’s first-ever Muslim member, says several Republican House members quietly approached him to apologize for the Abedin episode. Norquist, who runs the influential group Americans for Tax Reform, says that following the letter controversy, “We have heard back from a bunch of Hill staffers—’We are keeping our guy away from Gaffney and those guys, they’re crazy.’”

Gaffney has been blacklisted from the American Conservative Union, which hosts the annual CPAC confab, since 2011, after accusing Norquist and an associate, Suhail Khan, of aiding the Muslim Brotherhood. He’s also become persona non grata at the Weyrich lunches, the weekly consevative strategy sessions first initiated by the late social conservative guru Paul Weyrich. His insistence on accusing anyone who deviates from his anti-Shariah line of terrorist sympathies has put him on the outs with the Republican establishment. (Gaffney did not respond to requests for comment.)

The Abedin letter prompted the most public break the party leadership had made from the anti-Muslim fringe since George W. Bush was president. During the Bush years, a vocal anti-Islam movement on the right was kept in check by a Republican administration that went out of its way to note the distinction between the average Muslim and the extremist fringe who carried out the 9/11 attacks. (There was a political motivation, too: Bush backers credited Muslim voters with helping turn Florida red.)

But as Bush’s popularity waned during his second term and the administration grew desperate for allies wherever it could find them, the rebukes of anti-Muslim figures like Pat Robertson came to a stop. “Or if it happened,” Norquist says, “we stopped hearing about it.”

When Barack Obama took office, the dam broke. Anti-Muslim activists were on television and leading protests in the streets, spreading conspiracy theories about the president’s birth and his administration’s supposed stealth Islamist agenda. Since 2009, two-dozen statesintroduced legislation to prohibit the non-existent threat of Shariah law from state courts. Five of them passed. Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), the chairman of the House committee on homeland security, held four hearings on the alleged radicalization of the American Muslim community. Conspiracy theories about American Muslims seeking to impose Saudi-style Islamic law drove communities nationwide to attempt to block construction of mosques, and in New York, the proposed Islamic Community Center in lower Manhattan triggered anelection-year scandal in 2010.

By elevating fringe figures and their political allies into the public view, the anti-Islam movement’s success may have been its undoing. And even before the GOP establishment’s public criticism of Bachmann, there were signs that some Republicans had grown uncomfortable with the rhetoric of the Muslim-bashers.

Read the rest…

Misty water-colored memories: The August 2011 GOP debate in Ames, Iowa

Dateline: Election Day 2012

by Kelley B. Vlahos (AntiWar.com)

For the better part of two years the campaign saga has pounded the surf of our daily lives like a relentless black tide. Now, in a matter of hours, polling places at last will close, with either President Barack Obama or Mitt Romney emerging victorious at the other end, the flotsam and jetsam of the last 24 months receding quietly into memory.

For the most part, it’s a lot of detritus we want to see go. Forever. But think about it, in the morning light, the world will look a lot more dangerous than it even did two years ago. Furthermore, all we know about the candidates on foreign policy and national security is that the incumbent has no fresh ideas and the new guy, well, he was nominated from a collection of Republican circus acts who distinguished themselves by debating whether Palestinians were “invented,” how fast they could declare war on Iran, who loved Israel most, how many illegal immigrants could be sent home at once, how many more zillions they would add to the military budget, and who was more exceptionally exceptional about America’s super-duper exceptionalism.

Thanks for the memories. Really. Some of them were downright funny — in a bleak, cynical and moronic sort of way. In fact, The Republican primaries were like one step up from watching high school juniors dueling for class president promising no mystery meat and less homework. Except the red meat here was no mystery, and these paper dolls obviously don’t do homework. Hearing Rick Perry call for predator drones (for spying, really) on the Mexican border, only to be outdone by Herman Cain’s endorsement of a 2,000-mile electrified fence, was more proof than ever that we are headed for the zombie apocalypse — and woefully unready.

Think about it — as we enter the final hours of this quadrennial ritual, the Middle East is not only embroiled in war and revolution, but is sizzling on the verge of a Sunni-Shia conflagration. There are some 68,000 American troops still in Afghanistan, not to mention countless contractors and government personnel, and by all accounts (outside the desperate Pentagon spin machine), our Band Aid is barely keeping the place together. Pakistan is a tinderbox, Africa too. The Drug War is bleeding Mexico and Central America like a leech. Fiscal crisis has paralyzed Europe and no one really knows how Iran will react to the boot the U.S. has managed to plant firmly on its throat.

Yet for two years we have heard virtually nothing about how the candidates plan to approach these confounding global challenges, only a virulent blame game in which the current president is accused of apologizing and appeasing too much. By the way, nothing says “I’m sorry” like a wedding party flattened by a Hellfire missile, or incinerating a 16-year-old American boy because he has the wrong parentage. They should be pleased, but the Republicans have instead chosen to ramp up their own manic house organ in hopes that no one will notice they’re all playing the same tune.

Sadly, the only countervailing balance in this woeful ensemble was eventually dropped from the circuit, making all foreign policy and national security talk a race to inanity. Ron Paul and to some small extent, Jon Huntsman, were able to provide some semblance of clarity, calling into question the militaristic doggerel coming from such sultans of smarm as Newt “the Muslims are coming” Gingrich, and Rick “onward American soldiers” Santorum, not to mention the man running for president on the Republican Party ticket today.

“We have to stop being the policemen of the world!” Paul charged in the December 2012 GOP debate in Iowa. “We don’t need another war in Syria and we don’t need another war in Iran.”

For his part, Huntsman pushed back on the popular GOP war narrative, too. At the November 2011 debate in Washington, no doubt sick of hearing Romney’s oft-repeated declaration that he “stands with the commanders,” not the president, on how soon the U.S. should leave Afghanistan, he quipped, “at the end of the day, the President of the United States is Commander in Chief.”

“I also remember when people listened to the generals in 1967 and we heard a certain course of action in South Asia that didn’t serve our interests very well,” he added icily.

Zing! One of the most powerful comebacks in all the foreign policy debates combined, yet it died out like a match in the rain as Huntsman left the campaign in January and Paul became increasingly drowned out by the racket in the booby hatch during what is now known as the long dark winter of the Republican Primary.

And what a racket it was, some of it quite amusing and dismal at the same time. Kind of like watching one episode of “Curb your Enthusiasm” after an another, on depressants. But this was no satire, it was painfully real.

Given that it was the Obama Administration’s job to merely defend its policies and try to convince America a bag of coal is a satin purse of diamonds, it was up to the Republicans to outdo the President on even his most hawkish, interventionist policies. As we await the fate of the duopoly, let us recap some of the highlights of this garish Republican exercise, a spectacularly odious and benighted road map to today’s election:

“Is what I said historically correct? Yes. Is it factually true? Yes … Somebody ought to have the courage to tell the truth. These people are terrorists…” — Newt Gingrichduring the Dec. 11 debate in response to a question about why he called Palestinians an “invented people” who had the “chance to go to many places.”

“..Before I made a statement of that nature, I’d get on the phone to my friend, Bibi Netanyahu and say, would it help if I say this? What would you like me to do? —Mitt Romney’s response to Gingrich’s “invented people remark” during the debate.

“Well, first of all, you thank heavens that Fidel Castro has returned to his maker and will be sent to another land.” — Romney in response to a hypothetical question about Fidel Castro’s death, during the Tampa GOP Debate.

“I guess the only thing I would suggest is I don’t think that Fidel is going to meet his maker. I think he’s going to go to the other place.” — Gingrich in response to Romney’s response.

“The bottom line is the theocracy that runs Iran is the equivalent of having al Qaeda in charge of a country with huge oil reserves, gas reserves, and a nuclear weapon. That is something that no president could possibly allow to have happen under any circumstances.” — Rick Santorum in response to a question about whether the American public would support military attacks on Iranian missile sites, at the Tampa debate.

“It (electric fence) might be electrified, I’m not walking away from that, I just don’t want to offend anyone…” — Herman Cain on controversial immigration remarks, while meeting with anti-immigrant Sheriff Joe Arpaio in October 2011.

“I think the person who really has a problem with illegal immigration in the country is President Obama. It’s his uncle and his aunt who are illegal aliens who’ve been allowed to stay in this country, despite the fact that they’re illegal…I will build a double-walled fence with — with an area of security neutrality in between. I will build that, because this is what we know. This is an economics issue and a jobs issue”— Michele Bachmann in response to a question about whether a fence along the U.S.-Mexican border is necessary, at the Las Vegas GOP Debate, October 2011.

“I believe that American military superiority is the right course. President Obama says that we have people throughout the world with common interests. I just don’t agree with him. I think there are people in the world that want to oppress other people, that are evil.” — Romney during GOP foreign policy debate in Washington, Nov. 22, 2011.

“A world without U.S. leadership will be a more chaotic place, a place where we have less influence, and a place where our citizens face more dangers and fewer opportunities…. a safer world and a more prosperous America go hand-in-hand …we must renew our commitment to the idea that America is the greatest force for human freedom the world has ever seen.” — Paul Ryan, in a speech at the Alexander Hamilton Society, June 2012.

I do not view America as just one more point on the strategic map, one more power to be balanced. I believe our country is the greatest force for good the world has ever known, and that our influence is needed as much now as ever. And I am guided by one overwhelming conviction and passion: This century must be an American Century.” — Romney remarks before the Veterans of Foreign Wars, July 2012.

“Like a watchman in the night, we must remain at our post — and keep guard of the freedom that defines and ennobles us, and our friends…In an American Century, we secure peace through our strength.” — Romney at VFW.

“If I were Iran, if I were Iran—a crazed fanatic, I’d say let’s get a little fissile material to Hezbollah, have them carry it to Chicago or some other place, and then if anything goes wrong, or America starts acting up, we’ll just say, ‘Guess what? Unless you stand down, why, we’re going to let off a dirty bomb.’ I mean this is where we have—where America could be held up and blackmailed by Iran, by the mullahs, by crazy people.” — Romney, at a private fundraiser, May 17, 2012.

“They (Iran) are racing toward a nuclear weapon,” Ryan, Vice Presidential Debate,October 2012.

“I would not meet with Ahmadinejad. He should be excluded from diplomatic society. He should be indicted for the crime of incitement to genocide under Article III of the Genocide Convention,” Romney, Republican Jewish Coalition, December 2011.

“This President appears more generous to our enemies than he is to our friends. Such is the natural tendency of someone who is unsure of America’s strength — or of America’s rightful place in the world. The course of appeasement and accommodation has long been the path chosen by the weak and the timid. And history shows it is a path that nation’s choose at their own peril.” — Romney before Republican Jewish Coalition.

“I am convinced in my heart and in my mind that if the United States fails to stand with Israel, that is the end of the United States … if we reject Israel, then there is a curse that comes into play.” — Michele Bachmann, before the Republican Jewish Coalition.

“We are all George Washington now, and this is our Delaware crossing, our march on Trenton. Liberation from tyranny is ours if we are willing to fight hard enough for it. Sharia law is our tyranny. It’s not exactly here yet. But it will be. And when it is — when we are all wearing burqas and long straggly beards and hanging limply from trees for our transgressions — we’ll be sorry we had listened to the ‘secular-socialists’ running the country instead of intellectual revolutionaries like the good people here at AEI, and of course, myself.” — Gingrich before the American Enterprise Institute, August 2010.

“The idea that the Crusades and the fight of Christendom against Islam is somehow an aggression on our part is absolutely anti-historical. And that is what the perception is by the American Left who hates Christendom. … What I’m talking about is onward American soldiers. What we’re talking about are core American values” —Santorum, campaigning in South Carolina, 2011.

“I think the Democrats are actually worried he (Obama) may go to Indonesia and bow to more Muslims.” — Santorum, Fox News, May 2010.

Won’t you take me to Clown Town?

Many of us who are displeased with how foreign policy and national security have devolved over the last two administrations and throughout this campaign will have little to cheer about on Nov. 7 either way, whether it be status quo, or Clown Town. The morning after and days that follow will no doubt bring the pangs of regret: that no one was strong enough to transcend the foolishness and make a real difference, and that this is all hastening to the time where things truly fall apart.

It’s going to be Islamophobia on crack if Mitt Romney wins (thanks for all who sent in tips):

Pamela Geller, for all those who’ve forgotten is the looniest blogger ever. Everything out of her mouth competes with everything she has said in the past to be more over-the-top, racist, hateful, and Islamophobic.

Just take look at a sampling of her positions over the past three years:

Pamela Geller calls for the destruction of the Golden Dome;  Obama is a Mooslim, Jihadist, Pimp, anti-Semite who is aiding the Iranian Nuclear program;  Sharia Coke is taking over the world, it is defamation of Judaism and Christianity for Islam to include Moses and Jesus as Prophets of Islam;  Pamela Geller is a Holocaust Revisionist who claims that Hitler and the Nazis adopted Jihad;  Not only is Obama a secret Muslim, but according to Pamela Geller,  “Obama is bringing his jihad to Illinois…Obama’s treachery is breathtaking“;  Pamela Geller calls for the nuking of Mecca, Medina, and Tehran;  Pamela Geller promotes a genocidal video, Pamela Geller shows sympathy towards white supremacist;  Screenshot of Pamela Geller’s post on June 25th wherein she posted a video claiming that Muslims engage in bestiality;  Pamela Geller left speechless when called out for drawing a picture of the Prophet Muhammad with a pig’s face.

More serious than Geller posing in a pic with Mitt Romney is the insidious nature of Romney’s ties with the Islamophobia movement. Romney’s senior foreign policy adviser is none other than former Bush era UN Ambassador John Bolton.

One can only hope that in tonight’s debate the moderator questions Romney about his ties to radicals and inclusion of Islamophobes like John bolton on his staff. Gus from Little Green Footballs has compiled an incisive compilation of the ties between Bolton and Geller.:

Exhibit C: Mitt Romney Campaign Senior Foreign Policy Adviser John Bolton and Pamela Geller

About John Bolton:

John Robert Bolton (born November 20, 1948) is an American lawyer and diplomat who has served in several Republican administrations. Appointed on a recess appointment, he served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from August 2005 until December 2006. He resigned in December 2006, when the recess appointment would have otherwise ended, because he was unlikely to win senate confirmation.

John Bolton and Mitt Romney

Bolton is currently a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), frequent op-ed contributor to the Wall Street Journal and the National Review, Fox News Channel commentator, foreign policy adviser to 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney, and of counsel to the law firm Kirkland & Ellis, in their Washington D.C. office…

The reader should be reminded of the connection between Anders Breivik and Pamela Geller. There is also a connection between Anders Brevik and Robert Spencer.Tommy Robinson’s hooliganism and right-wing extremism is notorious and too extensive to cover here. You can however find many articles covering his organization, the English Defence League, which has been covered extensively at LGF including his connection to Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer.

There is no vast conspiracy at play here. However, it should be disturbing enough that the senior foreign policy adviser to Mitt Romney, John Bolton, has the ear of anti-Islam extremist, Pamela Geller. Her connection with the EDL makes this plainly obvious. This my friends is the post-modern conservative movement, where we find odious characters in the Republican big tent whose lives are intertwined; in this case from Mitt Romney to Pamela Geller; Tommy Robinson (EDL), Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller; and most importantly, the close relationship of John Bolton and Pamela Geller.

Update I: Michael Elwood reminds us that another Islamophobe, Walid Phares is also a part of the Romney’s inner circle,

John Bolton isn’t the only Islamophobe in Romney’s inner circle. His main Middle East advisor is Walid Phares:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/10/walid-phares-mitt-romney-lebanese-forces

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/10/2011102673018375864.html

These racist and religiously bigoted statements have currency with a significant number of individuals, that is why these backward candidates feel bold enough to make them. Imagine someone talking about the “Jewish Problem,” parallels would rightly be made to the Nazi era.

Hat tip goes to JD who also asks, “When did the right wing establishment start to distance themselves from these comments, was it after the ‘slavery comments’ or the ‘Muslim comments,” were they no OK with one and OK with the other?”

In any case it is good to see leading Republicans in the state condemn and distance themselves from these two.:

Ark. GOP calls candidates’ statements ‘offensive’

Gabriela Saucedo Mercer is a favorite to win the GOP primary in Arizona’s 3rd district. In the height of loony irony, Mercer herself an immigrant to the USA doesn’t want Middle Easterners to enter the country, legally or illegally. (h/t: Jawad)

Many of my latino comrades would be dismayed and embarrassed by Mercer:

by Nick R. Martin (TPMMuckraker)

Gabriela Saucedo Mercer hasn’t even won the Republican primary for Congress in Arizona yet, but she is already facing attacks from the Democratic Congressman she is hoping to unseat in November over some incendiary comments she made in the past about Middle Eastern immigrants.

In an interview with a conservative website last year, Saucedo Mercer talked in depth about her views on immigration. A Mexican immigrant herself who became a U.S. citizen, she said the issue was important because people from places other than Mexico were among those coming across the border illegally.

“That includes Chinese, Middle Easterners,” she said. “If you know Middle Easterners, a lot of them, they look Mexican or they look, you know, like a lot of people in South America, dark skin, dark hair, brown eyes. And they mix. They mix in.

“And those people, their only goal in life is to, to cause harm to the United States. So why do we want them here, either legally or illegally? When they come across the border, besides the trash that they leave behind, the drug smuggling, the killings, the beheadings. I mean, you are seeing stuff. It’s a war out there.”

Saucedo Mercer was facing fellow Republican Jaime Vasquez in Tuesday’s primary in Arizona’s 3rd congressional district, with the results due later tonight. But her supporters and opponents both clearly expect her to win.

She has been endorsed by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R), who is scheduled to attend a fundraiser for Saucedo Mercer on Sept. 12 in Tucson, Ariz. She was also facing attacks from the campaign of Rep. Raul Grijalva, the Democrat she is trying to unseat.

Read the rest…

Poll: GOP really dislikes Muslims

BY ALEX SEITZ-WALD (Salon.com)

Anyone wondering why Rep. Michele Bachmann would launch a witch hunt against Muslims or why the Republican Party would add a plank to its platform opposing Shariah law need look no further than a new poll conducted by the Arab American Institute.

The poll, released today, asked Americans for their views on various religious groups, as well as on Arabs and Arab-Americans. It also asked respondents how confident they would be that a Muslim or Arab-American holding a position of influence in government could do their job without letting “ethnic loyalty … influence their decision-making.”

The results are split sharply along partisan lines. Overall, Republican voters hold strongly negative views of Muslims, with 57 percent saying they view them unfavorably and just 26 saying they view them favorably — more than double. The numbers are similar for Arabs, whom Republican respondents view negatively by a slightly smaller margin of 26 percent, 53 to 27 percent. When asked about “Muslim Americans” and “Arab Americans,” the numbers improved slightly, with a 12 and 15 percent net unfavorable rating, respectively.

By contrast, Democrats held favorable views of these groups by margins of at least 20-35 percent in all four cases. The view of Muslims and Arabs among Democrats was still less positive than other religious groups included in the survey, however, underscoring a resilient problem of post-9/11 America. Still, Democrats gave no group a net negative rating, while Republicans gave negative ratings to Muslims, Arabs, Muslim-Americans and Arab-Americans.

Of the 13 religious or ethnic groups included in the survey, only Sikhs had anywhere close to the negative ratings of Muslims and Arabs. Among all respondents, the religious group is viewed favorably 45-24, but Republicans are split 36-35, with almost a third unfamiliar. All other religious groups had strongly favorable views by margins of up to 60 percent in the cases of Presbyterians and Jews.

On the question of Muslims and Arabs in the government, the results were similar. While about twice as many Democrats said they were confident a Muslim-American could do his or her job and that ethnic loyalty would not interfere, the results were flipped among Republicans. A slim majority of 51 percent said ethnic loyalty would trump job responsibility, while 25 percent said they were confident Muslim-Americans in government could do their jobs.

In the battle for who hates Islam more it seems the slightly less Islamophobic Diane Black has beaten the fanatical Lou Ann Zelenik:

Diane Black easily beats Lou Ann Zelenik in 6th District

U.S. Rep. Diane Black defeated rival Lou Ann Zelenik to win the Republican nomination for the 6th Congressional District in a race that could serve as a bellwether for the relationship between mainstream conservatives and tea party activists across Tennessee and the nation.

Black led Zelenik by a 2-to-1 margin with most precincts reported after a nasty campaign that one national commentator called “the craziest GOP House race of the year.”

“I am so honored to once again say thank you to the voters for giving me the confidence, giving me their confidence, to say I want to send you back to Washington to work for our Tennessee values,” Black told supporters in Hendersonville.

Zelenik conceded the race from her election night rally in Mt. Juliet shortly after 8:30 p.m.

The race was a rematch between two candidates who had fought it out for the Republican nomination two years ago, only for Black to prevail by fewer than 300 votes

Black pulled out to a sizable lead, even before results were reported from her stronghold of Sumner County, which she represented in the state legislature for 12 years until her election in 2010.

Zelenik started the race with a clear handicap. Redistricting removed fast-growing Rutherford County, where Zelenik had once served as party chair, from the 6th District. Those voters were replaced by a handful of rural counties, mainly on the Cumberland Plateau.

The race drew national attention as the depth of the animosity between Zelenik and Black became apparent. A frequent ad by the Black campaign described Zelenik, who has never held public office, as a “career politician” who had moved into the 6th District for the sole purpose of running against Black. The spot featured a moving van with Zelenik’s picture on the side.

Conservative activist Andy Miller led a $200,000 independent expenditure campaign on Zelenik’s behalf that included television spots, radio ads and push polling. Zelenik’s campaign, meanwhile, also said Black had been soft during her term on government spending and repeal of the federal health-care reform law.

Zelenik said repeatedly that Black had voted to fund “Obamacare,” a claim that the fact-checking organization PolitiFact labeled as false.

The bad blood between the two started during the 2010 Republican primary. That race ended in litigation over ads Zelenik’s side aired that accused Black of steering state government contracts to her husband’s drug testing firm, Aegis Sciences.

After that election, Zelenik continued to lay groundwork for another run. With Miller and others, Zelenik co-founded the Tennessee Freedom Coalition, a group dedicated to publicizing what they see as the impending threat of Islamic law.

A boy sells flags of Palestinian factions in the street of southern Gaza strip May 14, 2007. Credit: Reuters/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa (GAZA)

According to Global Finance, Qatar has the highest gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in the world. Does this mean the Muslim-majority nation of Qatar also has the best culture in the world? According to Mitt Romney’s “logic,” apparently it does.

On his recent trip to Israel, Romney attributed Israel’s economic success vis-à-vis the Palestinians to “cultural” superiority. Forget the lavish economic aid Israel receives and the decades-long occupation of the Palestinian territories. By all means, please forget the crippling blockade that persists in Gaza. None of this factors into Mitt Romney’s cynical calculus.

This transparent appeal to a self-congratulatory, deeply racist constituency is reminiscent of the GOP’s anti-black “Southern Strategy” of the 1960s and 70s, says Deepa Kumar. Put simply, Romney is playing the race card.

The GOP’s Muslim ‘southern strategy’

by Deepa Kumar, Mondoweiss

When Mitt Romney stated that it was Israel’s “culture” that was responsible for the country’s superior economic development he was simply recycling an argument long used to explain black poverty in the US.  African American’s were poor, it was argued, because of a “culture of poverty” and a “pathology” which leads them to have children out of wedlock or become dependent on welfare. This framework, developed a few decades ago, became a staple part of political culture with both Republicans (Reagan’s famous “welfare queens”) and Democrats (Clinton’s ending of “welfare as we know it”) using it to further their electoral campaigns.

So it’s not surprising that Romney should chose to rehash this argument in the Palestinian context—its Arab “culture” that is responsible for the economic misery that Palestinians live under, right? Occupation has nothing to do with it. What we see at work here is not only a rehashing of old Orientalist frames, but the addition of Arabs and Muslims to the “Southern strategy.”

Cultivated in the 1960s and 70s, the GOP’s “Southern Strategy” was a means by which white voters in the South could be won over by subtle appeals to anti-black racism. African American men were coded as criminals to be locked up and a new form of racial control was born. Nixon and later Goldwater exploited the fear of “lawlessness,” supposedly brought on by the civil right movements, as a way to position the GOP as “tough on crime” and to win Southern whites away from the Democratic Party. Appealing to white working class voters’ anxieties about what de-segregation would mean for them economically, the GOP also argued against welfare.

The election of Obama in 2008, and Democratic victories in Southern states like Virginia and North Carolina that year, signaled a blow to the old “Southern strategy.” Yet if Obama’s African American roots were no longer going to be as useful, his Muslim familial connections would quickly rise to prominence. Obama was “accused” during his campaign of being a “secret Muslim,” a charge that would come back again and again reaching a crescendo during the “Ground Zero mosque” controversy in 2010. 18% of the public believed that Obama was Muslim in 2010. This figure remains about the same today, but larger numbers of conservative GOP voters (34%) identify Obama as Muslim in 2012 than in 2008 (when the number was 16%).

The new GOP Southern strategy now highlights Muslims and Arabs as the key threats to national security and “law and order,” even while the old one lingers on. This strategy is not subtle in its racist appeals in the way that anti-black racism had to be in the post-civil rights era. It is much more blatant drawing upon a long history of bipartisan attacks on Arabs and Muslims.

Thus, Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass) is raising money for his reelection campaign in part by praising the endorsement of a libertarian blogger who claims Obama is Muslim. Similarly Michelle Bachmann’s accusation that Hillary Clinton’s aide Huma Abedin is a Muslim Brotherhood (MB) agent is a part of this approach. It is a means of appealing to the Republican base (about 25% of the electorate) which holds far right wing values.

For this base, Romney is not a candidate they can get excited about (as was evident in the GOP presidential primaries). When Bachmann accused Abedin of infiltrating the government on behalf of the MB she was both employing McCarthyite type fear mongering tactics and positioning the Republican party, and Romney, as a “lesser evil.” That is, if Romney is not the darling of the far right, he is certainly better than a Democratic Party infiltrated by Muslim agents (be they Obama or Abedin).

Bachmann’s attack on Abedin, and its ringing endorsement by Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and the far right wing media apparatus, demonstrated that she could corral this base and bring them along on a Romney-Bachmann ticket. When asked on CNN about her VP ambitions Bachmann coyly replied that it was not her decision to make. More recently, John Bolton (a key Romney foreign policy advisor) expressed disagreement at the push back Bachmann was facing and came to her defense….

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