Deadbeat dad and Tea Party House member, Joe Walsh, at a town hall meeting last week:
“One thing I’m sure of is that there are people in this country – there is a radical strain of Islam in this country -– it’s not just over there –- trying to kill Americans every week. It is a real threat, and it is a threat that is much more at home now than it was after 9/11,” Walsh said.
Walsh went on to claim that radical Islam had found its way into the Chicago suburbs, including some that he represents.
“It’s here. It’s in Elk Grove. It’s in Addison. It’s in Elgin. It’s here,” he said.
…
“This is one thing I want my government to do is protecting us against this threat, because let’s be honest, folks, it is a threat.”
And the obligatory finish to any hate-filled Islamophobic rant.
“…it’s not a matter of if. It’s a matter of when.”
Two days later, 15 miles from where Walsh gave his speech, “when” happened. But it wasn’t the ‘when‘ Walsh had predicted.
A 51-year-old man was charged with shooting at a mosque he lives near in north suburban Morton Grove, according to authorities.
Police confiscated a “high-velocity air rifle” from the home of David Conrad, who lives just east of the mosque. He was charged with three counts of aggravated discharge of a firearm and one count of criminal damage to property, all felonies.
Coincidence? Maybe, but probably not. When you read stories like this one, you come to understand that the Republican Party really does represent the dark side. They operate on the notion that the best way to move their narrow-minded agenda forward is to appeal to people’s basic fears. Exploiting xenophobic traits in the weak and the stupid is a finely honed craft for Republicans like Walsh and Bachmann. In fact, the entire birtherism craze was created on this principle. Beware, the black guy with the strange name. He’s not one of us! Racist morons.
Tammy Duckworth, the Iraq war vet who lost both legs in a Blackhawk helicopter attack, is running a strong campaign against Walsh in Illinois District 8. Decency and honesty would be well served if she was able to extract one of the bigoted, do-nothing teabaggers from Congress.
(h/t: Think Progress)
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My cat has more intelligence then this man.
Nov. 6 can’t get here quick enough if it means getting rid of deadbeats and hate mongers like Joe Walsh.
Have you stopped for a moment to think of the consequences if Joe Walsh is right? I’m not an islamophobe and I believe that muslims have a right to their mosques but let’s not forget who attacked us on 9/11. This is all that Walsh is saying. Let’s not let our guard down now. The enemy is still plotting against us.
Is redState girl actually a Joe Walsh sockpuppet?
Hi Mario, your post re Joe Walsh is on the money – never has there been a more worthless, do-nothing, hate and fear promoter elected to Congress than Joe Walsh and the Tea Bags that accompanied him to Washington.
My one suggestion would be to put Joe Walsh’s TeaBag at the other end of the elephant picture where he belongs, lol !
redstate girl, there are some very intelligent people who could make a case for the Twin Towers collapses being an inside job. Many architects, building contractors, etc. swear that those buildings could not have dropped straight down like they did without careful planning and well placed explosives. Those looked for all the world like precision drops. Those take weeks to plan! Two airplanes crashing in on those buildings should have made them fall over sideways. Check it out sometime.
Also ask why Bush let the entire Bin Laden family leave the US via flying when all other planes were grounded and he had another Arab sheikh sitting on his porch the same time as he returned to Washington. That was the first visitor he received after security personnel. I’m not quite so ready to blame this one solely on terrorists. Also keep in mind, Bush and the Saudis go way back and many of the hijackers came from the very Wahabi version of Islam that Saudi Arabia sponsors. Wahabism is far more radical than the usual version of Islam. Too many coincidences for me. I think we need to investigate Bush and Cheney far more than people of the Islamic faith.
Remember, also, that the people killed and injured in Wisconsin were not of the Islamic faith. Sikhism is not Islamic. It is an entirely different religion and they had nothing to do with 9/11. People tend to get them mixed up with each other. Any time we act out of fear or prejudice, we usually end up making severe mistakes. If we can reach for the higher and better part of us and come from a place of love and caring and a willingness to open our minds and try to understand one another and create a caring dialogue, many of these misunderstandings could be avoided.
Also, we need to take a look at why on earth we are cutting back on mental health services when we have so many individuals in need of those very services. If the Romney/Ryan ticket wins and they cut away all the social safety net, how many more Wisconsin and Ft. Hood type shootings will we have? Not to mention Aurora, Columbine and countless more. Now more than ever, we need to expand the mental health care services and reach out to help these people before things turn ugly and they feel they have no other outlet but to create violence. Just a few thoughts on this Monday for you to consider.
Right now, I’m more afraid of crazy white men with guns then any Muslim…
…and another shooting went down in Texas a couple of hours ago. 3 dead.
Melody…please source your information..I’ve heard these allegations but haven’t read factual reporting, likely because I don’t want to believe it.
I don’t like to sound naive, but some of what you report smacks of a conspiracy theory…as much as I disagreed with the Bush Administration, I can’t accept what you report as fact without seeing it with my own eyes.
Joe Walsh likes the sound of his own voice…too bad he doesn’t LISTEN to what he’s saying. Help Tammy’s campaign if you can…every little bit helps.
@Carol, I agree with you, and although I have enjoyed many good posts from Melody, I find 9/11 trutherism a bit hard to swallow, mostly because too many people would have had to have been involved for there not to have been leaks. I am not a 100% skeptic on the matter either, but my take on it is not the same as Melody’s.
I do not believe that the Bush administration had any kind of active role in the events of the morning of 11 September 2001 (a very surreal day). Here is the gist of what I said to a friend not long after the event, and I still hold this opinion:
My own justification for this is the mention, in PNAC’s mission statement, that another Pearl Harbor event would be the catalyst for neoconservatives to assert control, promote American belligerence, stifle liberal and left-leaning programs and ensure conservative ascendancy. We also know that the Bushies ignored the famous presidential daily brief titled, “Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US“.
The words, I’m not a(n) _______-ophobe …but” usually mean “I really hate __________”. It’s no different than saying, “…but some of my best friends are ________…”. I’m not going to take the word of someone who abandons his own children. Real family values there.
How do you explain that building 7 came down 7 hours after the other towers were down and no planes flew into it and yet there were explosions within it and it came straight down too? That is something no one seems to talk about. It is eerie!
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/wtc7.html
http://www.attackonamerica.net/proofofcontrolleddemolitionatwtc.htm
http://www.houseofbush.com/the-book/house-of-bush-house-of-saud/
http://theintelhub.com/2012/05/13/bush-found-guilty-of-war-crimes/
I may not agree with everything in conspiracy world but I do think we sometimes shut down our thinking capacities and don’t ask enough questions and we sure don’t seem to respond when we need to! We also don’t like to look at what we don’t wish to see! Look at the 2010 midterms! In spite of us knowing that the Repubs didn’t have the answers to our problems….Democrats stayed home far more than should ever be excusable and we let them take over the House! Look at this year! We are struggling to get enough Dems to the polls to keep the Repubs from taking the White House and the Senate to boot! When do we learn?? Too many people have not reacted strongly enough to the Patriot Act and when Sherrod Brown put up a petition on his website for people to say they didn’t like the Citizen’s United ruling by the Supreme Court….he has only gotten 150,000 signatures! Only 150,000 people don’t like the Citizen’s United ruling and want to see it ended??? I don’t see a rush to put ballot measures out there to put a Constitutional Amendment on their ballots in every state! Where is the anger at this ruling??? Why aren’t more people doing something about it!?? I’m sorry but I just had to get all this off my chest! If our government can do a Citizen’s United thing and a Patriot Act….how many of you really have trouble believing what else they can do! Have you seen the pics of tanks at Occupy Rallies??? Tanks??? Really??? Is this how our government responds to people living out the Bill of Rights and the right of free assembly?? And you don’t think a Bushie type could ever want to blow up some buildings to start a war he wants??? Please do some serious thinking! Please! We are becoming a very different kind of nation! One I hope changes back soon! …though I sadly doubt it will happen. I didn’t used to write things like this….I used to be much more laid back….but the situation our country is in….wow!
@E.A…..thanks for the link…although I’m reluctant to rehash the whole episode…
Seems an episode, a devastatingly deadly one on 9/11, of incompetence…the attack, which came after warnings that were “ignored”?!?
then letting Bin Laden slip through their hands.
Look what laser focus produced…”demanding” adherence to the highest standards then trusting the team.
This president, for all his “lack of experience”, appears supremely suited to the job.
I don’t trust Cheney for a second but in my heart, I don’t see Bush as evil…a puppet perhaps, and undeniably “unfit” to take on the overwhelming demands of the presidency, but NOT evil.
I kinda have to side with Melody on the fact that there is evilness in the Republican Party – they seem to have an overwhelming force of influence coming from some place very powerful and organized enough to manipulate at least half the country to accept every whack idea they can come up with.
Just think, If it was Obama that ignored the warnings in 9/11 which resulted in over 3000 American dying in one day – would that Democratic President be re-elected? Bush was.
Would a Democratic Party even be considered seriously for regaining power after lying us into a war, starting yet another and establishing policies that caused massive economic crisis? Yet the Republicans are.
There is something very very wrong happening to our country and the GOP establishment and all the power and money behind them is leading us into a very dark place and what we deem to be a very gullible electorate of half a nation is letting them.
I sincerely hope they do not succeed.
Goldensun, I agree. The GOP have turned into a party of con men.
I’m interested in how they became “con men” and what we can do to “overpower” their influence…
I was reminded this morning that what we see in others that most inflames us is a reflection of ourselves. That “coincidental reminder” takes me here:
We ALL have capacity for the dark emotions…and, we’re all born with a level of empathy…I contend that “we” who attend to our compassion and empathy feel the most threatened observing the “dark side” in others because we’ve “battled” those urges, more or less successfully, in ourselves. We listen to our conscience…we feel guilt and remorse.
Some unfortunate Conservatives have compassion “beaten” out of them from an early age…literally, if you’ve read or heard the “whistle-blowers”…like Frank Schaeffer, who has first-hand experience.
Beating Babies in the Name of Jesus? The Shady World of Right-Wing …
http://www.alternet.org/…/beating_babies_in_the_name_of_jesus_the_shad...
Others are merely “indoctrinated” by repetition of those glorious words “freedom”, “individual liberty”…and have those words defined for them as the following:
“it’s your duty to perform to the best of your God-given abilities”
“if you don’t “succeed”, it’s your fault (thus you are “immoral”)
“it’s every man for himself”
“survival of the fittest”
“only the strong survive”
“real men don’t cry”
They must be in constant conflict in church, where the meek shall inherit the earth and the Ten Commandments are etched in stone.
I hope there are more of “us”, aching for a just and compassionate SOCIETY made possible by our “success” and that those whose darker side has been “promoted” will feel the pang of an unfamiliar, latent tug…or that we have the strength to “overcome”. We can’t simply rail against them…we have to define our potent, persuasively convincing vision until we are undeniable…hoping to reach the “teachable” and marginalize the numbers, power of the rest.
Sadly, they likely will never become extinct…as imperfect humans, we likely need the contrast to maintain our “better selves”.
I have some empathy for Paul Ryan…having “raised himself” to become a conflicted and confused man, standing alongside his running mate, corrupted by the power of money…one cannot believe in Ayn Rand and Jesus in the same breath.
Perhaps when they speak of “the end of times”, they mean the self-implosion of the fanatical anti-Christian Evangelicals and those who’ve been corrupted by “the almighty dollar”.
Be sure to support additional funding for mental health services…it won’t be pretty.
Stay tuned for the next interactive and defining episode, airing 11/6/12.
Carol,
There is a wonderful free online book explains how they think, and why. It was written by a retired professor of psychology, Robert Altemeyer.
John dean, referenced this book when writing “conservatives without conscience”.
There is also other writings from the professor regarding the tea party which was written in 2009 at the beginning of this “movement”.
Check it out if you like.
Theauthoritarians.com
@Sydney: Yep…it’s in my files
Nice going Mr. Blair. You can’t argue the issues so you resort to calling a person you know nothing about a bigot. Then you attack Joe Walsh on something which has nothing to do with what he said. Whatever problems he has with child support, they have no bearing on whether or not the threat of Islamic terrorism is real.
LOL redstategirl… Why do you even bother to come here, you always get shot down, hit over the head with truth and facts,,, Do you like the abuse? Do you think you will hopefully dumb everyone down if you keep at it hard enough… Heres a simple fact even you can understand,,, Under Obama’s watch, not one single terrorist attack on the USA,,, Why – because Obama has the Taliban scared and hidden… They weren’t afraid of Bush because they knew Bush wouldn’t chase them down and have them killed.