Monday, March 14, 2011

Right Winger, Wrong Again - Rep. Peter King Versus the Statistics

Republican Rep. Peter King is playing to his Islamophobic base with made-up information AGAIN. 

A former terrorist sympathizer and supporter, King is proud of helping send guns and money to the highly terroristic IRA to aid them in blowing up civilians in the UK.  Apparently, so long as it is not on U.S. soil, King doesn't give a rip if he helps blow up our closest allies, on THEIR soil, or American tourists in the UK for that matter.  Mike Huckster-bee was just complaining that he didn't think Obama looked at the British the way that white, middle class, more real Americans did, because of the Mau Mau rebellion some 10 years before Obama was born... how well does Rep. King do in that regard? 

It is Rep. Peter King AND Mike Huckster-bee who are out of touch with how Americans - us REAL Americans - feel about terrorists, including those who blow up British department stores.  I would hope as we approach St. Patrick's Day, both the right, the center, and the left REMIND these men how out of step they are with the great parade of American thinking.


The pertinent data is to be found, not in King's demented right-wing extremist witch hunting; it is right here, in the Post 9/11 Terrorism Data Base as just one example of fact versus King's hate-based fear-mongering fiction numbers.  How is it that THESE people are not the featured speakers at his hearings, while other, for the most part far less knowledgable, less distinguished, but more blatantly biased speakers ARE?
The Database draws upon tracking done by the Congressional Research Service, the Heritage Foundation, the Southern Poverty Law Center, official government and court documents, and mainstream media reporting.
Among the key findings are:
•Since 9/11, only 44% of suspects publicly associated with terrorism were prosecuted under a terrorism or national security statute.

•There were 80 total plots by U.S.-originated non-Muslim perpetrators against the United States since 9/11. In comparison, there have been 45 total plots by U.S. and foreign-originated Muslim perpetrators since 9/11.

•There have been least 5 incidents of non-Muslim violent extremists possessing or attempting to possess Biological, Chemical or Radiological weapons. One of those incidents occurred since Obama’s election. No such cases involving Muslim violent extremists have been reported since 9/11.

•Evidence clearly indicates a general rise in violent extremism across ideologies. Using Obama’s election as our measurement, since November 4, 2008 there have been 45 plots by domestic non-Muslim violent extremists. By comparison, there have been 22 plots by Muslim U.S. and foreign-originated extremists. Each of these categories constitutes about 50% or more of all violent extremist cases in each dataset since 9/11.

•Yet, there is little evidence of rising ideological extremism among Muslim Americans. We use Obama’s election as the start of a timeline for measurement. We found 15 out of the 20 post-election plots (75%) involved Muslim Americans engaging in ideological extremism before the vote. Of these 20, 11 (55%) were engaged in ideological extremism since at least 2007. Only 2 out of 20 cases (10%) are individuals involved in extremist activities after Obama’s election. 3 cases (15%) remain unknown. Al-Qaeda does not appear to be making new ideological gains into the Muslim American community. Instead, the data is pointing toward greater numbers of longstanding ideological extremists turning to violence.

patriotic muslims protesting Rep. King's hearings
Muslim communities helped U.S. security officials to prevent over 4 out of every 10 Al-Qaeda plots threatening the United States since 9/11. Muslim communities helped law enforcement prevent three-quarters of all Al-Qaeda related plots threatening the U.S. since December 2009. This is an important counter-trend to the recent spike of arrests. It also highlights the importance of partnering with society through good relations and community oriented policing. (my emphasis added - DG)
I can't wait for Rep. King to make us all safer by having hearings about all those NON-Muslim terrorists who are threatening our safety.  That would include the right winger extremist militia movements, like those where arrests recently occurred in the pacific northwest, Kevin Harpham in Washington for the MILK parade attempted bombing, and Francis Schaeffer Cox, and his four buddies, in Alaska for plotting to kill a federal judge and a bunch of state troopers.

Want to take a guess at how many of King's supporters on the right share the views of those terrorists when it comes to the 2nd Amendment remedies, or sovereignty, or just plain badly ill-informed ideas about the U.S. constitution?  blowing up our allies civilian populations including one American, in the name of patriotism and freedom?  There were 2 separate bombing attacks on Harrod's Department Store in London; one in 1983, and one in 1993.  In the bombing in 1983:
Six people were killed; three passers-by (including one citizen of the United States), and three Metropolitan Police officers.
Rep. King is proud of his assistance to the IRA to do these things; I guess he doesn't care about either that dead U.S. citizen, OR the dead police either?
(Hey, anyone want to bet those Alaskan state troopers whose lives were at risk are members of a Union?)

Why is it that the right so consistently manages to be ill informed and disinformed?  Because clearly, they LIKE being lied to, or they wouldn't support it so rabidly.

No comments:

Post a Comment