Last Call For Treason Season

The dangerous Republican Islamophobic rhetoric continues apace, as they say.

A Republican state representative in New Hampshire on Wednesday submitted testimony to a state House committee hearing arguing that giving public assistance to Muslims amounts to treason.

State Rep. Ken Weyler submitted the testimony for a hearing on a bill he co-sponsored that would prohibit "any member of a foreign terrorist organization from receiving public assistance, medical assistance, or food stamps."

But Weyler's testimony went way farther than the bill purports to go.

"Giving public benefits to any person or family that practices Islam is aiding and abetting the enemy. That is treason," Weyler wrote in his testimony, according to a copy of the testimony submitted by Weyler and provided to TPM by the state House Democrats' office.

Weyler is one of 400 members in the expansive state House.

In his written testimony, Weyler said that all "terrorist attacks of the last twenty years have been by Muslim fanatics" and referenced the Tsarnaev brothers. He said the Boston Marathon bombers were "raised on public benefits."

"Then one of them married and put his wife on public benefits. If he had to support his family, he might have had more devotion to his job and not to bomb building and radicalizing his brother," Weyler continued in his testimony.

The lawmaker acknowledged that there are "Muslims in our community who are working hard to be economically successful."

"I do not believe that they represent a threat, but if one does not have to be responsible for what all the rest of us do to support ourselves, then ‘The Devil has work for idle hands," he added.

Weyler then launched into an argument that all Muslims are responsible for terrorism, charging that Islam is not a real religion.

"You may hear from some opposition to this bill, but I must remind you that in the Muslim religion the word ‘taqiyya’ describes how its adherents are expected to lie to non-believers to advance their cause," he said. "I say cause rather than religion because this is an ideology posing as a religion. Islam is intolerant and deceitful, and its adherents are ordered to overthrow our way of life and to replace it with ‘sharia’ law."

"Anyone who attends a mosque is expected to contribute. Ten percent of the contributions are labeled ‘zakat’ and are used to fund ‘jihad’ or religious war against us," Weyler continued in his written testimony.

Not much of a jump here from "All Muslims are traitors" to "we should probably round them all up for our own protection".  America's done it before.  We're maybe one election away from it happening again.

Exit The Randman

After finishing a disappointing fifth in the Iowa Caucuses, Rand Paul is out of the Clown Car.

Rand Paul, the libertarian-minded freshman senator who was once viewed as a formidable presidential contender, is suspending his White House bid. 

Paul discussed the matter with staff Wednesday morning and sent out a statement confirming the decision to drop out of the Republican presidential primary. 

"It's been an incredible honor to run a principled campaign for the White House," Paul said in the statement. "Today, I will end where I began, ready and willing to fight for the cause of Liberty." 

Paul, a Kentucky Republican, is expected to instead place his focus squarely on his Senate reelection bid, where he faces a wealthy Democrat, Lexington Mayor Jim Gray, who has the money to partially finance his campaign. 

Paul finished a disappointing fifth place in Monday's Iowa caucuses, registering just 4.5% of the vote despite placing a heavy emphasis on the state's college towns to bring out younger voters inspired by his libertarian-minded message. He promised that night to continue his campaign.

Paul will not make an endorsement in the GOP presidential race before next week's New Hampshire primary, his spokesman Sergio Gor told CNN. 

But sources close to Paul said a morning-after review made clear to Paul that there was not a viable path to winning the Republican nomination and that fund-raising was becoming extremely difficult.

Well, that's because despite Rand Paul's goofy-ass brand of Glibertarian Nonsense, he has all the charisma of a urinal cake.  Besides, all the dudebros ended up with Bernie, so.

Ironically, Sanders served a damn useful purpose helping to get rid of Rand.

Water Under The Bridge

Looks like the FBI is finally getting involved in Flint's water crisis as the Obama administration is bringing major resources to bear, investigating Michigan officials to see if federal laws were broken.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation said on Tuesday it was joining a criminal investigation of lead-contaminated drinking water in Flint, Michigan, exploring whether laws were broken in a crisis that has captured international attention.

Federal prosecutors in Michigan were working with an investigative team that included the FBI, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Inspector General and the EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Detroit said.

An FBI spokeswoman said the agency was determining whether federal laws were broken, but declined further comment.

Of course, a largely Republican-controlled Congress over the last several decades has made sure that criminal charges for environmental disasters are very, very tough to bring.

The ability to seek criminal charges under U.S. environmental laws is limited, according to Peter Henning, a law professor at Wayne State University in Detroit and a former federal prosecutor. Prosecutors would need to find something egregious like a knowingly false statement.

“You need something that is false to build a case,” he said.Simply failing to recognize the seriousness of the situation would not rise to that level, Henning added.

Actually poisoning the water through gross negligence or incompetence apparently isn't a criminal act when it affects tens of thousands, but lying about it or trying to cover it up is another story.  We'll see what the Feds can find in Flint.

StupidiNews!

• An explosion blew a hole in the side of a passenger jet over Somalia Tuesday, the jet landed safely but authorities believe at least one person fell through the hole and died.
• Residents of Ferguson, Missouri packed a town hall meeting to discuss the Justice Department's police reform plan in the wake of the 2014 shooting death of Michael Brown.
• The first Zika virus case has been confirmed in Texas by the CDC, likely transmitted through sexual contact after a mosquito bite.
• A new study finds around 13 million Americans have hidden a bank or credit-card account from their live-in partner, with younger Americans the most likely to do so.
• Higher-density cities offer greater upward mobility for children than larger, sprawling cities according to a new Brookings Institution report.