Wow. Just…wow. This story comes out of Texas, where elected officials still say things like this. (h/t: CriticalDragon):

Texas Republican To Pakistani-American Law Student: Maybe You Should Go To Afghanistan With All the Radical Muslims

(The Daily Dolt)

*Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly implied that Riddle referred to the Afghan people as “terrorists.” She referred to the Afghan people as “radical Muslims” “who want us all dead.” Our bad.

Oh, Minnesota. We know you feel bad about the fact that your state has a crazy lady representing you in Congress. And you should feel bad. Because she really is crazy. But cheer up, because today’s story is not about Michele Bachmann. As it turns out, Texas also elects crazy people to represent them:

Texas Rep. Debbie Riddle (R) took to Facebook recently to vent her absolute disgust at a newspaper article describing the sensitivity training for American soldiers in Afghanistan:

“Our soldiers do NOT need to be taught how to be sensitive to radical Muslims [Dolt ed. note: have a look at the "radical Muslims" in the photo from the newspaper article about which she is complaining]. They do not need to be worried about blowing their nose wrong or using their left hand and offending someone. . . . They should not be bothered with being sensitive to people who want us all dead! We need a true leader in the White House — a vote for Obama is a vote to destroy our country.”

Abdul Pasha, 23, a student at South Texas College of Law, then provided a link to the article in question and responded that Riddle and her followers should actually read it before making “bigoted” comments: “Go educated [sic] yourself, if yall have real guts.”

Debbie did not like this:

“Abdul, if you are so offended by our soldiers then you don’t need us or our money in Afghanistan. As an American I am greatly offended that we have had American soldiers killed by the very ones we were attempting to train and help — Afghanistan soldiers. Get a grip fellow — if you want to be an American act like one and be proud of our country and stand up for our military. If you can’t do that then go where people are sensative [sic] enough for you – I guess that would be Afghanistan – where they still live like they are in the Stone Age – but still very sensative.”

But Pasha doesn’t need to “act” like an American” — he is an American. Also, it would be a little difficult for him to move back to Afghanistan since he wasn’t born there. Pasha, who is an American citizen, was born in Pakistan and moved to Houston when he was 10 years old — which he then awesomely pointed out to Debbie and her followers [sic for typos throughout]:

I’m not offended by our soldiers. They are the most underpaid and unappreciated members of our society. With that being said, there is nothing wrong with being critical of our policies and military industrial complex. Furthermore, Im offend by yall, who are so close minded that, its your way or get the hell out of here. The amount of xenophobia is incredible! A society does NOT work that way. All this does is alienate people. I would go to Afghanistan but only if all of yall come with me and see the truth rather than relay on what Fox News feeds yall. And, I don’t have to “act” like an American. I am an American and I’m not going anywhere.

Riddle then got a little maternal on his ass, telling him that young people should not question their elders:

Abdul – I guess it is OK that the Muslims kill and torture people when they get their feelings hurt. I guess we should not have 1st Amendment rights – we might hurt your feelings. I guess we should all bow and scrape to Muslims because we don’t want to be politically incorrect. Well, I suggest that you step out of your easily offended world and appreciate those of us who pay the taxes and provide your education and your freedom. We provide benefits for you and you call us names because we are angry at the Muslim world for killing our citizens. So, be proud of your country and stand against people that murder our people. I would also advise you that it is not nice to insult those of us who are old enough to be your parents or grandparents because we have lived more life and know a little more about the real world than you do. It is called respect and you will do far better in life appreciating what others have done for you. I won’t burn a building or kill someone because you are insulting – I just consider it ignorance on your part and you will grow up someday.

It looks like Texas is going to be stuck with Riddle for some time to come. First elected to the Texas State Legislature in 2002,  in the upcoming election Riddle faces Democrat Brad Neal, whom she already defeated in 2010 with more than 70 percent of the vote.

And in case you were wondering, no, this is not Riddle’s first visit to Crazytown. Here are some souvenirs from her past vacations there:

• “Where did this idea come from that everybody deserves free education, free medical care, free whatever? It comes from Moscow, from Russia. It comes straight out of the pit of hell.“
• Riddle claimed on Anderson Cooper 360 that Middle Eastern women were coming to the United States to give birth and were then returning to their home countries to raise their babies as “little terrorists” who also had US citizenship.
• “Formal prayer has been taken out of our schools. How about this idea? Read from the book of Proverbs from the Bible. Proverbs is a book of wisdom. Proverbs is in the Holy Scriptures for Christians and Jews. As for other religions — the wisdom won’t do them any harm. This nation was built on Christian and Jewish values and the Bible was actually used in the classrooms in our early days. To toss the very foundation on which our country was built because of political correctness is wrong and we see the results in society today. I say have a reading out of Proverbs each day in our classrooms. What do you think?”

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…

The Sheepshead Bay anti-Mosque effort started around the time of the hoopla surrounding the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque.” As you can see the anti-Mosque effort is still going on:

Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn: Republican senator facing election jumps on anti-mosque bandwagon

State Sen. David Storobin has joined the hopeless fight against a mosque being built in Sheepshead Bay – a battle that’s been repeatedly quashed in the courts and has left political insiders believing that the newly minted legislator is more concerned with winning votes than helping mosque opponents.

Storobin fired off a letter to Mayor Bloomberg last week, claiming that the house of worship is thumbing its nose at city laws and threatens its neighbors’ lives. “This may pose a danger to public safety,” Storobin (R–Brighton Beach) wrote as he bashed the city for allowing work on a house of worship continue.

Yet political insiders say Storobin is using the mosque fight to strengthen his image as a right-wing conservative – something that will help him in the race for a new Midwood district peopled with conservative Orthodox Jews. “He thinks being further to the right is more helpful to him in getting elected than being for diversity is,” said political analyst Hank Sheinkopf.

Storobin’s letter discussed a variety of issues regarding the Islamic religious center, including the fact that it will accommodate between 200 to 300 people at a time while providing no parking. With prayers occurring five times a day, the mosque could see 1,500 people per day, Storobin claims.

Continue reading…

One of our favorite anti-Loons, Jon Stewart skewers Michele Bachmann’s witch-hunt against Huma Abedin:

(cross-posted from Patheos)

By Hemant Mehta 

In Louisiana, Republican Governor Bobby Jindal pushed for a voucher program that would allow state funds to be used to pay for religious schools. It’s unconstitutional, it’s a way to use taxpayer money to fund someone’s faith, and it was a bad idea to begin with.

But it passed.

Now, one of the state legislators, Rep. Valarie Hodges (R-Watson), just made a shocking discovery, though: Christianity isn’t the only religion!

Rep. Valarie Hodges, R-Watson, says she had no idea that Gov. Bobby Jindal’s overhaul of the state’s educational system might mean taxpayer support of Muslim schools.

“I actually support funding for teaching the fundamentals of America’s Founding Fathers’ religion, which is Christianity, in public schools or private schools,” the District 64 Representative said Monday.

…

“Unfortunately it will not be limited to the Founders’ religion,” Hodges said. “We need to insure that it does not open the door to fund radical Islam schools. There are a thousand Muslim schools that have sprung up recently. I do not support using public funds for teaching Islam anywhere here in Louisiana.”

Wait, we’re teaching the “Founders’ religion”? I can’t wait to see those Deistic schools popping up everywhere…

I can’t decide whether the staffers at Americans United are collectively rolling their eyes or shaking their heads in disbelief, but they’re right to suggest “We told you so”:

Where to begin? Hodges’ bigotry is perhaps only rivaled by her ignorance of constitutional and legal principles. Of course Muslim schools will qualify for funding under a voucher plan. When programs like this are set up that dole out benefits to religious schools, the government can’t play favorites. That’s basic.

…

Some legislators aren’t comfortable funding Muslim schools. What’s to be done? How about not establishing these programs in the first place? Let Muslims fund Muslim schools. Let Catholics fund Catholics ones. Let fundamentalist Protestants pay for the conservative Christian academies and so on.

Rep. Hodges made the mistake of saying out loud what most conservative Christians only say to themselves to private: When they say they want “religious freedom,” they’re only referring to their own faith. Everyone else can fend for themselves.

Message to Rep. Hodges: Your Christian privilege is showing.

Hemant Mehta is the chair of Foundation Beyond Belief and a high school math teacher in the suburbs of Chicago.

A must read. Deepa Kumar goes into quite some depth about bipartisan Islamophobia:

Islamophobia: A Bipartisan Project

by Deepa Kumar (Nation Magazine)

When the New York Times ran its story on Obama’s “kill list,” showing the president poring over names of people to potentially assassinate in drone strikes, it sparked a controversy. The content of that controversy was not over this extraordinary revelation about Obama’s use of power but rather over the leaking of state secrets, which Republicans accused him of doing to bolster his re-election campaign. Some liberal commentators (at Salon, The Nation etc.) were rightfully horrified and condemned such activity. But the Democrats—and much of the liberal establishment—remained silent.

Deep in the Times article, another shocking revelation that hasn’t received as much attention as the “kill list” is the Obama administration’s effort to erase the deaths of some innocent victims by categorizing “all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants.” This excludes them from the civilian casualties count, allowing the administration to claim that civilian casualties have been minimal. All Muslim men in “combat zones” in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen have been presumed to be terrorists, and therefore worthy of death, simply for being of “military age.”

How did we get to a place where innocent Muslim men can be killed with impunity around the world with little public outcry? The short answer is that Muslims have been long been constructed as “terrorists” upon whom righteous terror can be rained. The image of the Muslim enemy in the US is not new. While Hollywood and television play a key role in conveying that image to the public, they did not create it. The “Muslim enemy” is inextricably tied to a long history of US imperialism.

The US and the Middle East

After World War II, the United States began take control of the Middle East from France and Britain. In so doing, all forces that stood in the way of US hegemony were cast as enemies, using the language of Orientalism developed in Europe. (I discuss this in greater detail in my book, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire.)

Through much of the 1950s and ’60s, secular Arab nationalists and leftists who failed to cooperate with this US agenda were seen as stooges of the USSR or as “terrorists.” The latter image intensified with the birth of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and its use of armed struggle. The PLO was coded as “terrorist” because of the close relationship between the United States and Israel.

Following the infamous incident at the 1972 Munich Olympics in which a group of Palestinians took Israeli athletes hostage and murdered them, the Nixon administration launched “Operation Boulder,” giving law enforcement agencies carte blanche to investigate Arab immigrants and Arab American citizens in search of connections to “terrorist” activities related to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Thus, a violent act committed in Munich by a handful of Palestinians became the basis on which all Arabs were designated as “suspicious”; the process of racial profiling had begun in earnest.

The “Arab terrorist” morphed into the “Islamic terrorist” after the 1979 Iranian revolution. When US embassy personnel were taken hostage in Iran for 444 days, the crisis generated daily front-page and headline news that effectively associated Islam with terror. Ayatollah Khomeini became the personification of all things evil, and all things Muslim. The Middle East henceforth would be seen through the lens of “Islam,” a distorted construction of the religion and the people who practiced it.

Under President Jimmy Carter Iranians were targeted, but it was for Reagan to take this much further though his counter-terrorism policy. He issued a secret National Security Directive designed to create a network of agencies that would prevent “terrorists” from entering or staying in the US. One program by the Alien Border Control Committee called for mass arrests of immigrants from Iran and from Arab nations. During the first Gulf War, in 1991, the elder Bush launched a surveillance program against Arab Americans, which Bill Clinton would take to an entirely new level with the passage of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), a precursor to the PATRIOT Act, which, among other things, made it legal to deport immigrants based on secret evidence.

Post-Cold War Politics

The 1990s witnessed a decade between what professor and Middle East expert Fawaz A. Gerges refers to as the “confrontationists” and the “accomodationists” in the American foreign policy establishment. The confrontationists argued that Islamism was the new post–cold war “Other” and that the United States needed to confront and challenge this adversary in the “clash of civilizations” that was to follow. The key ideologue leading this charge was Bernard Lewis (a close associate of the neocons), who penned his views in 1990 in a now-famous essay titled “The Roots of Muslim Rage,” in which he raised the alarm about an impending “clash of civilizations.” Samuel Huntington then popularized this concept in an essay titled “The Clash of Civilizations?” in Foreign Affairs, followed by a book with the same title (minus the question mark). Huntington put forward the thesis that in the new post–cold war era, conflict would be characterized by cultural differences between various civilizations. He named about seven or eight such civilizations, arguing that the Islamic civilization was among the more dangerous threats to the West.

This view was reflected in a slew of other articles. Journalist Judith Miller argued in Foreign Affairs that US policymakers should not try to distinguish between “good” and “bad” Islamists because there was a consensus among all Islamists to defeat the West. Confrontation, rather than co-optation or dialogue, was the only way to thwart this new enemy. Daniel Pipes, Martin Indyk (who served on Bill Clinton’s National Security Council), Jeane Kirkpatrick (a one-time Democrat turned dogged cold-warrior Republican) and others added their voice to this chorus. The “clash” thesis was not a partisan position; confrontationists belong to both political parties. The difference between the accommodationists and confrontationists was not over the goal of US hegemony; it was about strategy and rhetoric. During the 1990s, the accommodationist line dominated in Washington. The Bush père and Clinton administrations sought to win over Muslim-majority countries by appealing to universal values and, under Clinton, free market policies.

Domestically, however, the hysteria against Muslims mounted during this period. The fear generated by the attempted bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 ensured that in 1995, when white right-wing Christian terrorist Timothy McVeigh bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people, Arabs and Muslims were immediately blamed. Congress passed AEDPA in 1996. In short, even before the events of 9/11, the groundwork had been laid for the legalized targeting of Muslims and Arabs.

The “War on Terror” Decade

The events of 9/11 brought this legal apparatus in line with the foreign policy establishment. Barely had the ashes settled from the Twin Towers when loud proclamations that “Islamic terrorists” represented existential threats to the United States began to echo in the public sphere. From then on, US policy was geared towards “keeping Americans safe” from Muslim “evildoers.” The “clash of civilizations” rhetoric became the ideological basis for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as domestic attacks on Muslims and Arabs.

The war on Iraq, however, did not go the way the neocons wanted it to. Instead of greeting US forces as liberators, the Iraqi people resisted and rejected US hegemony. During his second term, Bush moved away from “hard” power and toward winning “hearts and minds.” But by the end of his second term, the failing occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq—as well as an economic crisis of proportions not seen since the Great Depression—meant that it was time for a changing of the guard. Obama was voted into power by an electorate disgusted by the hubris and arrogance of the Bush regime. The ruling elites also gave him their blessing, hoping to put a friendlier face on US imperialism. The Democrats were ready to take on this role.

In January 2007, a leadership group on US-Muslim relations headed by Madeleine Albright, Richard Armitage (former deputy secretary of state under George W. Bush) and a number of academics produced a document titled “Changing Course: A New Direction for US Relations with the Muslim World.” The document, which received high praise, argued that distrust of the United States in Muslim-majority countries was the product of “policies and actions—not a clash of civilizations.” It went on to argue that to defeat “violent extremists,” military force was necessary but not sufficient, and that the United States needed to forge “diplomatic, political, economic, and cultural initiatives.” The report urged the US leadership to improve “mutual respect and understanding between Americans and Muslims,” and promote better “governance and improve civic participation” in Muslim majority countries. The report’s call to action stated that it would be vital for the next president to reflect these ideas in his/her inaugural speech and to reaffirm the United States’ “commitment to prohibit all forms of torture.”

Barack Obama has proven brilliantly effective at embodying such a posture. In one of his first speeches, in Cairo, Obama rejected the “clash of civilizations” argument, emphasizing the shared common history and aspirations of the East and West. Whereas the “clash” discourse sees the West and the world of Islam as mutually exclusive and as polar opposites, Obama emphasized “common principles.” He spoke of “civilization’s debt to Islam,” which “pav[ed] the way for Europe’s Renaissance and Enlightenment,” and acknowledged Muslims’ contributions to the development of science, medicine, navigation, architecture, calligraphy and music. This was no doubt a remarkable admission for an American president, but one that Obama clearly saw as vital to bolstering the United States’ badly damaged image in the “Muslim world.” Indeed, this speech marked a significant rhetorical shift from the Bush era; a shift to the language of liberal imperialism and liberal Islamophobia.

Read the rest…

Rep. Peter King is banking his political legacy on hearings targeting the Muslim American community and the overblown threat of “homegrown terrorism.” To say that Peter King is well known for his animus to Muslim Americans would be a gross understatement; this has been revealed numerous times not just through the hearings but also through King’s statements and writings, (such as “there are too many Mosques in the USA”).

King is continuing his foray into anti-Muslim propagandizing, this time going on Fox News and spewing the false claim that “90% of terrorist” attacks in the USA are committed by Muslims. The fear-mongering is clearly heightened by the way in which King frames his claim:

What I am very concerned about is that while the overwhelming majority of Muslims are good people, the fact is even though Muslims are 1 percent of the population, almost 90 percent of the terrorist crimes are carried out by the Muslim community. And there are not enough people in the community willing to step forward and speak out against this and cooperate with law enforcement.

Notice the hollow disclaimer at the beginning, statements about how “Muslims are good people” precede many anti-Muslim rants.

Our most popular article, All Terrorists are Muslims…Except the 94% that Aren’t went a long way in dispelling such notions; i.e. reality is far different. The graph below reproduced by Eli Clifton of Think Progress goes further in dispelling the lies brought up by Congressman Peter King:

It is unbelievably irresponsible for Rep. Peter King to nonchalantly speak in this manner, and the surreal part of all this is that he “Chairs” the House Subcommittee on Homeland Security.

Rep. Peter King’s legacy will not be one of a defender of America or the Constitution but rather more akin to the way we remember Sen. McCarthy from the 1950′s (he led a witch hunt against “Communists”). King will be remembered in history as the inheritor of the mantle of bigotry, divisiveness and sick political populist tactics.

Watch the video:

Our friend Nathan Lean recently wrote on the Islamophobia network’s efforts in Kansas.

(Nathan also has a new book out, ‘The Islamophobia Industry: How the Right Manufactures Fear of Muslims.’ Check it out!)

The Islamophobia Industry Strikes in Kansas

by Nathan Lean (Huffington Post)

Just like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, Republican Governor Sam Brownback had a feeling he was not in Kansas anymore. At least not the Kansas that he once knew. His Sunflower State was teeming with unfamiliar creatures and though not tin-men or scarecrows or wicked witches, they were nonetheless outsiders and were apparently so unsettling that a law was required to prevent their influence: They were Muslims.

Last Friday, Brownback signed a bill prohibiting local courts from relying on sharia, or Islamic law, as well as other non-U.S. laws when making decisions. The fact that such a thing had never occurred in the Midwestern wheat capital did not matter. The bill was approved in a landslide vote: 33-1 in the Senate and 120-0 in the House.

Like other similar bills in 20 states, including recently enacted laws in Arizona, Louisiana and Tennessee, the blueprint for the controversial Kansas legislation comes from a familiar and influential source: a growing right-wing network of anti-Muslim fear mongers. They are the Islamophobia industry and laws such as this are hallmark achievements in their quest to frighten the American population about a minority group they view with great suspicion and scorn.

The deluge of anti-Muslim legislation that has unnecessarily clogged the corridors of power (and the minds of otherwise rational politicians) can be traced back to David Yerushalmi, a 57-year-old Hasidic Jew with a library’s worth of controversial statements about African Americans, fellow Jews and immigrants. A shadow agent of this fear industry, Yerushalmi has worked behind the scenes since 2001 to ratchet up an image of Islam and Muslims that is heavy on sensationalism and gore and short on context and fact. It was his organization, the Society of Americans for National Existence (with the ironic acronym SANE) that once suggested that the U.S government should declare a war on the Muslim community, that Muslims should not be granted entry visas to the U.S., and that practicing Islam should be a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

The Kansas law, and the majority of the bills that were brought before state congresses, are based on a single piece of blueprint legislation crafted by Yerushalmi titled “American Laws for American Courts.” Along with former Reagan official Frank Gaffney, who is famous for suggesting that Barack Obama is a secret member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Yerushalmi marketed the plan to lawmakers throughout the country, tapping into Tea Party bases and Republican activist groups such as ACT For America that welcomed the opportunity to institutionalize discrimination in their respective states.

In drumming up support for Kansas’s ban, bloggers Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller spread the word to their online bases through “Action Alerts” that warned of “Islamic supremacists” who were “seeking to impose the Sharia on non-Muslims.” They urged their supporters to “flood [Brownback's] Twitter” and “jam his phones” with strong support for the bill.

Spencer and Geller co-founded Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA) in 2010, an American offshoot of Stop the Islamization of Europe (SIOE), a hate group that the European Union calls a “neo-Nazi organization.” They also led the protests in 2010 to the Park51 Community Center (remember the Ground Zero Mosque?) in New York City. Yerushalmi and Gaffney serve as their legal counsel. When the Kansas bill was signed, Geller reacted with her usual flamboyance: “U Da Best,” she wrote. “What a disaster defeat for Hamas-CAIR,” she added.

Supporters of the Kansas law point to the fact that it does not explicitly mention sharia and that it only refers to “foreign legal codes.” But it is clear from the people who are behind this newest manifestation of state-sanctioned Islamophobia that the statute is hardly intended to be an equal opportunity regulator. In fact, after court’s ruled last year that Oklahoma’s sharia ban violated the establishment clause of the Constitution’s First Amendment, Yerushalmi took note of the bill’s language and wiped out language that could be interpreted as targeting Muslims specifically. This growing network operates on slyness and persistence.

The Islamophobia industry is a dangerous and influential group. They have successfully attached anti-Muslim sentiment to the banner of right-wing populism and it is fast becoming identical to anti-Semitism and other such structural racisms that have the potential to spill out into the ghastly displays of violence. The Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik, for example, listed Spencer, Geller and Gaffney multiple times in the manifesto that served as a guidebook for his massacre in July 2011. This network clings to the notion that foreign is bad and that Muslims are not a natural part of America’s national fabric. They believe that they must not only be chastised and harassed but that local government’s should discriminate against them on the basis of their religion and foreign systems of order that the everyday, law-abiding, peace-loving Muslims of America don’t even follow to begin with.

There is no sharia law in Kansas. There is no sharia law anywhere in the United States. What there is, though, is a hateful band of anti-pluralists who take great joy (and make great money) in cleaving society into various fragments that war with one another. It is time to shine a bright and damning light on the Islamophobia industry.

Nathan Lean is the Editor-In-Chief of AslanMedia.com. He is the co-author of ‘Iran, Israel, and the United States’ (2010) and the author of ‘The Islamophobia Industry: How the Right Manufactures Fear of Muslims.’ Visit him online at www.nathanlean.com and follow him on Twitter at @nathanlean.

A must see documentary on AlJazeera English, dealing with the contemporary influence of Far Right Christianity on American politics. It gets really interesting from the 18:00 mark.

Fault Lines-Politics, Religion and the Tea Party

If you didn’t know by now, Hamas and Hezbollah hablan mucho Español. If you also didn’t know by now, GOP candidates like Rick Perry are retrying to combine the fear of immigrants and Mooslims taking over the country. Apparently, it is a tried and true method to win the GOP candidacy.

Rick Perry: Hamas And Hezbollah Working In Mexico

Texas Gov. Rick Perry warned viewers of CNN’s Republican debate on Tuesday that Hamas and Hezbollah were working out of Mexico. Perry’s answer came in response to a question about securing the southern border.

“We’re seeing countries start to come in and infiltrate. We know that Hamas and Hezbollah are working in Mexico as well as Iran with their ploy to come into the United States,” Perry said.

He continued: We know that Hugo Chavez… and the Iranian government has one of the largest — I think their largest embassy in the world is in Venezuela. So the idea that we need to have border security with the United States and Mexico is paramount to the entire western hemisphere.”