Michigan Dem responds to GOP charges about Muslim interns
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/10/15/art.conyers.gi.jpg caption="Michigan Dem responds to GOP charges about Muslim interns."]
WASHINGTON (CNN) – House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers is blasting charges by a group of Republican lawmakers that a Muslim activist group has planted interns on Capitol Hill in an effort to alter national security legislation.
"It shouldn't need to be said in 2009, and after the historic election of our first African-American president, but let me remind all my colleagues that patriotic Americans of all races, religions, and beliefs have the right - and the responsibility - to participate in our political process, including by volunteering to work in Congressional offices," Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, said in a Thursday statement. "Numerous Muslim-American interns have served the House ably and they deserve our appreciation and respect, not attacks on their character or patriotism."
GOP Reps. Sue Myrick of North Carolina, Paul Broun of Georgia and John Shadegg and Trent Franks of Arizona had held a press conference Wednesday highlighting an undercover investigation undertaken by conservative Chris Gaubatz, who spent several months posing as an intern at the Council on American-Islamic Relations. A book about that operation written by his father, David Gaubatz, and co-author Paul Sperry features a foreword previously penned by Myrick. That book, published by an imprint attached to conservative Web publication World Net Daily, was scheduled for release on Thursday.
In an excerpt of the foreword published by the Raleigh News & Observer, Myrick says the authors had documented evidence Muslim agents are in the country and "carrying out their subversive plan."
"America is asleep to the danger that confronts us," writes the congresswoman. "Since the 1960s there has been a concerted effort on the part of radical Islamists to infiltrate our major institutions. Front groups of terror now operate openly in our country, comprising a network of support for jihadists. …We Americans must wake up before it is too late!"
–CNN Associate Producer Martina Stewart contributed to this report.
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Sick, Sick, Sick!!! For your information Congresswoman, because the United States of America is a free country there have been all manner of "undesirables" that have either come here as immigrants or were born here who espouse all types of sickening and outrageous even dangerous views, but again, this is America and in this country as long as you are not breaking the law, you are free to think as you please, join whatever group or club that you please or volunteer for whatever government agency that you please, without being discriminated against. It is our law enforcement, intelligence and defense agencies' job to hunt down subversives, not that of second-rate wanna-be-a-detective conspiracy theorists trying to get some advertising for their book on the cheap......Next story.
Radical Islamists have been infiltrating since the 1960s!? Are they really, really bad at it? Or are these Republicans out of their minds? Which is more probable?
McCarthyism all over again. Why don't we just herd all the Muslims into camps while we're at it, and relive the Japanese hysteria of WWII?
Wow. I thought Sen. Joseph McCarthy was dead. I didn't know that he's apparently been resurrected in the body of GOP Rep Myrick. They're all around us, subverting American politics and destroying the very fabric of American society!!!
Why does the GOP think that Muslim = terrorist? Is creating division, hate and fear the only way that the GOP can pretend to stay relevant in today's global society? Ex-pres Bush already showed us how far we can get in the global economy by hating and fearing everyone, and taking unilateral positions on everything. Global loathing, and resistance to anything the US tries to do.
Disgusting racist pigs!. Thei are in both parties, But I see more Hipocrytes among republicans.
I think it is time for the GOP to get off the hate wagon. All they do is tell us who and what to be scared of. They sell fear. If they want my vote they need to began liking ALL Americans!
There you go again, GOP! fearmongering because you have nothing original to offer.
Jeez Louise...it's McCarthyism all over again.
When will the GOP get a new playbook that doesn't speak to our fears but instead to our hopes and optimism?